On this Naval and Maritime Continuation Page 1:

    On the succeding Naval and Maritime Continuation Page 2:

Now, on 16 Feb 03, I heard from a grandson of John Hogel, who died on the ship; his body never recovered.  Hogel's son was only two when his father died.  The grandson is seeking any information about his grandfather while aboard the ship and hopes to speak with any remining crewmates about March 19.  Are there any reunions held by the survivors of the CV-13?  Can anyone help, please?

BIG NEWS! - AP advised 29 Apr 01 that there was a Union soldier's I.D. tag (Ezra Chamberlin, who fell in 1863 at the battle of Ft. Wagner in Charleston harbor) next to the skull of one of the Hunley crewmen; there is a grave for Ezra Chamberlin in Killingly, Connecticut and speculation as to how the tag got in the Hunley is rife!

* - I recall that there is (or was) an earlier unsuccessful Hunley in the central park (Jackson Square?) in New Orleans, across the park from the Cabildo and across the street from the cathedral, when I first visited the Crescent City ca. 1946 and then moved under an arcade across from the park (the northwest corner?) ca. 1980.  I imagine she is the Hunley-predecessor 1862 Pioneer, now at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans.

A friend once assured me that at mean low tide, as a child (ca. 1920), he could see the remains of an early Holland sub on the bottom of Fort Pond Bay or thereabouts on Long Island.

When the Thresher went down, she was equipped with pneumatic filter manifolds from Pall Corporation's Aircraft Porous Media subsidiary, where I was then Manager of Support Services; the real story may have been that when she was put into Emergency Blow-Down, the wet air going through the differential pressure valves in our manifolds simply expanded and froze solid, plugging the blow-down systems!  The Navy/Electric Boat specs just might have been inadequate and we may well have designed a system that couldn't work in actual practice through no fault of our own!

And speaking of subs, a RR buddy sent me a URL 16 Mar 00 for an ad for a Soviet 300' Juliett-class cruise-missile sub, U-484 (1964, K-81, later B-81, hull no. 522), billed as the world's largest diesel sub (I believe them).  She's in Florida as a tourist attraction, no less; my, how times have changed!

Here's a fabulous compilation of stories and pictures of the U-boats, Icelander Guğmundur Helgason's uboat.net.   (07 Jan 05)

RELICS - Redivivus

One of the most surprising steel relics afloat (other than the newer battleship Texas, BB-35, in Galveston) is the battle cruiser Olympia at Philadelphia's Penn's Landing, in the Independence Seaport Museum.  Built in 1892, she was one of our first steel warships, is the only relic of the Great White Fleet which sailed around the world in 1898{?}, and was Dewey's flagship at the battle of Manila Bay, when he gave the famous command, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley", and his footprints at that moment are placed in bronze on the deck.  Then, in 1921, her last major service was to bring home the Unknown Soldier from France.  Her 8" main guns may be real (or not) and I understand that her turrets are reproductions, 5" open gun mounts having been mounted in WWI or II.  Still, she's handsomely restored and an incredible survivor (how she escaped the scrap drives escapes me).

I took this picture of her in Philly ca. 1998:

(Photo by SB,III ca. 1998 missing - must reshoot!)

(Photo by SB,III - Model by ???)

There's also the Alabama, BB-60, off I-10 in Mobile.

(Image retouched from Alabama brochure)

This came from the Dinosaur Research Program, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.  Drumheller, Alberta, eh?  Pity; don't think I'll be stopping by any too soon (sitting here high on the Harbor Hill Moraine on Long Island).

PT Boats - also at Battleship Cove is Newberry Hall, the home of the fabulous PT Boat Museum and Library, maintained by PT Boats, Inc., "a non-profit organization established by veterans of WWII PT service to preserve the history of Patrol Torpedo Boats, their shore bases and tenders ships, and the men who manned them."  The Museum has over 4,000 square feet "devoted to 43 commissioned squadrons, some 80 bases and 19 tender ships, including two completely restored P.T. boats."  "P.T. Boats, Inc. also publishes a fifty page magazine twice a year."

Sorry, I missed the USS Salem (CA 139) at the U. S. Naval & Shipbuilding Museum in Quincy, Massachusetts.  A refurbished old 1:500 Comet Authenticast (see also below) ID model of "baby"-sister ship USS Northampton (CLC-1), will be placed on permanent display inside an acrylic box in the "U.S. Navy Cruiser Sailors Memorial Room" on the Salem.

The "Big J", BB-62 New Jersey, headed for New Jersey at long last on 13 Sep 99 (only one day late from the scheduled departure date)!  She's moored now on the Delaware; I saw her there ca. Jan 02 from the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden (and me with no camera!) where she's moored directy south of the Aquarium, across from the Olympia in Philadelphia.

Speaking of mighty naval vessels, the SS UNITED STATES (Michael Alexander's site) was a "naval" vessel as was on the rolls of the Reserve Fleet as a troop carrier, sitting magnificent and mothballed far south of the Olympia in Philadelphia.  I wonder if her top speed was ever declassified?  Two other great "Big U" sites are Martin Berend's SS UNITED STATES and Rich April's AMERICA'S FLAGSHIP sites, with lots of fabulous photos.  The Big "U" is 990 feet long and a towering 17 stories high in a hundred foot wide hull; the worlds most powerful ocean liner.  She was privately owned and for sale at $30,000,000.

"Big U" fans were shocked to learn of the death on 19 Feb 2002 of Edward Cantor (Cantor Affiliated Interests), the ship's owner and patron; Mr. Cantor died suddenly after suffering a massive heart attack.

BIG NEWS! - Mike Alexander advised that Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) announced on 14 Apr 03 it has purchased the S/S United States and intends to convert the vessel to a state-of-the-art, modern cruise ship and to add her to NCL's planned US-flagged fleet.

I was in Philadelphia 03 May 03 and took a lot of 35m shots of Olympia and New Jersey, Mosholu, and the Big U; c'mon back soon.

Driving down (southbound) from Connecticut on the afternoon of 29 Mar 01, along the lower reaches of the Hutchinson "River" on the parkway of that name, under lowering skies, I was astonished to see a square-rigger tied up across the creek from the gas station just north of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge; coverage has been moved to

MAHOGANY SPEEDBOATS - Raceabouts, Sportabouts, and the like

The original "Miss America" was built by Chris(topher Columbus) Smith and his sons in Algonac, Michigan, before they turned to pleasure boats by starting a little company that would come to be called Chris-Craft.

Gar Wood was actually a man named Garfield Wood, who made a name for himself in boating by building and racing to victory (with his mechanic, Orlin Johnson) a series of high-speed power boats known as the "Miss America" series.   In their day, they were every bit as famous, or far more so, than Guy Lombardo's "Tempos". He won and held the prestigious British Harmsworth Trophy from 1920 through 1933 and, in 1930, in "Miss America X", he set a new world's record of 102 miles per hour, using four supercharged Packard engines producing 6,400 horsepower.

From these boats, Smith, Wood, Penn Yan, and others developed lines of personal pleasure craft based on these racers.  Produced ca. 1920 through the 1940s, they were elegant and powerful, but what struck me then (the WWII era and on), and sticks with me now, were the open cockpit speedsters known as runabouts or sportabouts.

Some sites with great coverage of beautiful mahogany boats in top condition include the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, the New Hampshire Antique and Classic Boat Museum inn Wolfeboro, and Mark (sabre_fan)'s.

"Woofleboro" on Lake Winnepesaukee was home to some of the world's finest woodies; a friend has B&W photos of a series of triples owned by her family and they were only a few of many on the lake.  I note an adventure with a similar triple on Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks.

Comet Authenticast Ship Models

(07 Jul 03 photo by and © 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
(Note - no reference to Authenticast; no subject image in logo)

(Logos from 1945 Catalog)

You should also see the ships portion of Mike's Tanks for more on these models.   (30 Dec 04)

* - I do remember, now, that one of my ships had a third (#3) forward three- or four-gun turret that faced aft and I also think the elegant Brit was a Dido class (a light cruiser).  Help (I gave away my Jane's)!  Maybe I had four ships?

A similar 1:1200 Navy ID set from the associated South Salem Studios is now on my Authenticast/Comet continuation page 2.

Intermuddle Transportation - Funny story about the port of Elizabeth (NJ) - ca. 1970 I sent an oversized load for the USAF from Long Island to meet a freighter at the port of Elizabeth, labeled for Port Elizabeth.  The trucker erroneously took the Manhattan Bridge and jammed.  By the time he reduced tire pressure to lower the load, removed a valve at the top of the device, and continued, it was already late and getting dark.  Then I got an unhappy call from him; he was at Port Elizabeth, NJ, and "Buddy, you couldn't float a canoe in THIS river!"  Seems there actually is a hamlet called Port Elizabeth down on a rivulet running into the Chesapeake!  Happily, the freighter captain was willing to wait until the trucker drove all the way north to the Port OF Elizabeth.

This is decidely strange - here's another yarn I could swear I'd already put up:

My paternal grandmother was born on 15 February, the day the battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor, and then so was I (born on the 15th, NOT blown up!).  My older daughter was born on 07 December, the day of infamy (need I say more?) and when her first child (my granddaughter) was due, I wrote the Dept. of Defense warning that all naval units be put on full alert.  Happily, she came along on 02 Oct and nothing nautically untoward seems to have occurred on that date (or am I wrong?).

{And THIS required that I post this second (continuation) page; if you didn't already see it, please visit my main Naval and Maritime page - overload!}

A correspondent wrote 03 Feb 03 anent the Drake (on the main and Ordnance pages) to tell me that not only the Drake, but also the Basilisk, Bombard, Culverin, Minion, Saker, Passavolante, and Serpentine are all covered in a new book on "Naval Guns - 500 Years of Ship and Coastal Artillery" by Hans Mehl, published by the Naval Institute.  Now, I know it makes me sound like a smart-ass know-it-all (which is certainly true) but the only one that's new to me is the Passavolante; guess I'll have to do some digging.

Here's a puzzler for you - who remembers who put out a 25 cent balsa wood kit of the USS Panay gunboat, right after the Japanese sank the prototype (on the Yangtze near Wuhu in Anwhei province in China on 12 Dec 1937)?

THUMBS UP!

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S. Berliner, III

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