California (BB 44) - Naval Cruise Book

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USS CALIFORNIA CBB-449 I1vTR0DUCT101v Califomia is that state in the far-western United States which is called the Golden State, which was admitted to the Union as the 31st State on September 9, 1850. It is widely know for its great natural beauty, its highly produc- tive farms and factories, and its innovative so- cial and political ideas. California is depicted as a fabulous land of opportunity. The state has lured millions of migrants since the mid- 19th century, when gold was discovered there, and by the late 1970s jit was the nation's most populous state. The state is named after a fic- tional island of great wealth described in a novel which was published about 1500 by the Spanish writer Ordonez de Montalvo. The name was probably first applied to the south- em tip of Baja California by the Spanish ex- plorer Heman Cortes. Califomia has approximately 1,348 kilo- meters or 838 miles of coastline along its west- ern edge bordered by the majestic Pacific Ocean. Major California ports of Los Ange- les, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego give access to this vast waterway. These ports give the state an opening to the Pacific islands including Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Solomon Islands, Japan, Okinawa, and of course, Asia itself. Many of these names would become well known from their key roles which they would play in World War II. California is the nationis most populous state. It had a resident population of 29,760,021 at the time of the 1990 census, with a population growth rate of more than 25fZn during the 1980s as compared to the national growth rate of 9876. California has had a high rate of population growth ever since it became a state in 1850. In the post-World War II era, the highest growth rates of about 50'Zi occurred in the decades of 1940 to 1950 and 1950 to 1960. The people of Califomia are diverse with the majority of the inhabitants being white, but there are significant comrrrunities of minority groups. These include Asian Americans, His- panic Americans Cknown as Chicanosj, African Americans, and 242,164 American Indians tnearly lfk of the state's populationj. A reflec- tion of its people is Califomia's excellent edu- cational institutions and its rich cultural life. All of Califomia's larger cities support institutions devoted to learning and the arts. California has the most productive economy of any U.S. state. Its modem eco- nomic growth began in the second half of the 19th century, and the greatest spurt came after 1940. Agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, manufacturing, communication which includes computer technology as well as motion pic- ture entertainment, and transportation have all flourished in California. Many new innova- tions have come from Califomia where cities such as Berkeley on the San Francisco Bay have boasted their motto as being The City Where Things Happen First. Indeed many things have started in California and eventu- ally made there way across the nation and into the cities, communities, and homes ofAmeri- cans everywhere. Not only has Califomia been a pace setter for the United States but for the world because of its vast influence economi- cally and especially through the entertainment media. Califomia's economy improved greatly during World War II, as the state became a major center for building aircraft and ships. The battleship Calyfbrnia CBB-443 was the fifth, largest and most famous ship to carry that name, although not the last. The USS Calyfor- nia was christened in honor of Califomia who became the 31st state joining the Union on September 9, 1850, less than two years after the discovery of gold at Sutter's mill which brought the former Mexican territory the great ugold rushn and the forty-ninersf' These were the original 'fforty-niners not to be confused with the San Francisco Forty-niners of National Football League glory and fame. The USS Calqfornia CBB-445 was affec- tionately nicknamed The Prune Barge, and she was sometimes called the Golden State Battlewagon. She was the pride of America and fleet flagship in the years before World War II. Despite a near fatal setback at Pearl Har- bor on December 7, 1941, she was put back into service in time to help finish the Pacific con- flict, remaining at all times a worthy- symbol of the people whose spirit is exemplified in their state motto: Eureka, or 'SI Have Found It. It is only fitting that such a influential and strong state would have such a powerful battle- ship to carry her name on the high seas. This is her history. However, it is not just a story of heavy armored conning towers, anti-aircraft guns, catapults, and fantails. It is a story of her crew. The brave men and women who built, served, and serviced her as they braved storm tossed seas and terrifying battles. All in all the USS Calyfornia is a large piece of floating steel lifeless on her own. But, the people, the crew gave her life and gave her a significant place in history. NAVAL VESSELS AND BATTLESHIPS The word naval which comes from the Latin nave, ship,', originally had no intrinsic military connotation. A naval architect, for example, is still simply a designer of ships without reference to their types or uses. Nev- ertheless, in modern English, a naval vessel operated by uniformed personnel. This dis- tinction, which excludes privately owned war- ships while encompassing unarmed vessels operating under governmentally sanctioned military authority, is a relatively recent one. In the period before the rise of the modern Navy, the term naval vessel was roughly syn- onymous with warship. A navy consists of the ships, crew members, and related person- nel and equipment maintained by a country for purposes of war. EARLY NAVAL DEVELQPMENT In the Western world navies originated with Athens, whose fleet blocked an invasion by the Persian king Xerxes I at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. Rome employed its navy to help destroy Carthage during the Punic Wars C264-146 BCD. More than a century later, at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, a Roman fleet defeated that of Mark Antony, ensuring the dominance of Octavian and laterAugustus. For a thousand years after the fall of Rome, Euro- pean nations displayed little interest in main- taining navies. The threat of Turkish expan- sion into the western Mediterranean finally forced Spain and the Italian state to forge a fleet that checked the Turks at the Battle of Lepano in 1571. In the following century, Portugal, Spain, Holland, and Britain acquired or consolidated overseas empires, the protection of which re- quired navies. The Spanish Armada challenged England for dominance of the Atlantic in 15 88. and Spain's defeat contributed to the emerg- ing importance of Britain's Royal Navy. The British victory over the Dutch in the Anglo- Dutch Wars in 1652 through 1674 established Britain as the leading sea power of the world. The only serious contender to Britain was France, a rival repeatedly beaten during the Seven Years' War in 1756 through 1763. the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792 through 1802, and the Napoleonic Wars in 1803 through 1815. -.1-. .- tn-, .-Q. -v 1 '. U Ap au. -.. 1. 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-.--v . lg ,-y v w iii W W EQ, 'N 'M We tg 7,, il . v., 'UQ ,, .4-H! 'Q -f , ,Q ,Af assi... California Marines On a hikefrom San Pedro, CA to Redondo, CA. 1922. fCourtesy of C.J. Lee.l On October 21, 1805, at Cape Trafalgar off the Spanish coast, Admiral Horatio Nelson decisively defeated the French fleet of Admi- ral Pierre de Villeneuve. Nelson's victory eliminated France as a major naval power. For almost 100 years Great Britain remained the world's foremost sea power, commanding vir- tually every ocean on the globe. Not until the rise of the German navy under Emperor Will- iam II ruling from 1888 through 1918 did a serious rival to British maritime preeminence appear. N INETEENTH- C ENTUR Y TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION During the Pax Britannica of 1815 through 1914, the navies of the Western powers and Japan underwent a fundamental technological transformation. In the mid-19th century, Eu- ropean navies began to experiment with steam propulsion, rifled breech-loading cannons, tur- rets, and protective armor plating. The experi- mentation followed a general pattem whereby after one nation had developed a bigger gun, a rival nation would develop heavier armor plat- ing, and a third would build faster ships. By 1890, when the German emperor initiated Germany's serious bid for naval greatness, the sail-driven, wooden, broadside-firing man-of- war that had been the mainstay of major Euro- pean navies since the 1600s had been replaced by the steam-driven, heavily armored, heavily gunned, turreted BATTLESHIP. A decade later, in 1902, the German threat to Britain's maritime predominance was so great that Brit- ain was forced to concentrate many ofits capi- tal ships in home waters. To offset this reduc- tion in overseas naval strength, Britain signed an alliance with Japan in 1902 and effected a diplomatic rapprochement with the United States from 1898 through 1902. U . S . DEVELOPMENT The 19th-century American naval experi- ence differed markedly from that of Europe. The American Revolution had bequeathed a strategic heritage of commerce raiding and coastal defense, as distinguished from the fleet engagements between large capital ships char- acteristic of British and, to a lesser extent, French strategy. When the United States was pitted against a stronger power, as in the Quasi- War with France in 1798 through 1800 and the War of 1812, commerce raiding proved the most effective strategy. The U.S. Navy also scored impressive successes in single-ship ac- tions between frigates, fast ships mounting about 50 guns. Only when facing a decidedly inferior power did the United States employ the British policy of attacking the enemy's fleet and blockading, bombarding, and invading a hostile coast. The United States was able to fight in this British fashion during the Mexi- can War of 1846 through 1848, the Civil War in 1861 through 1865, and the Spanish-Ameri- can War in 1898. By the time of the Spanish-American War the United States had developed a new navyw composed of steam-driven, steel-hulled cruis- ers and battleships. U.S. naval captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, lobbying for a naval policy modeled on the British example, published his first books on sea power in 1890 and 1892. These books were widely read throughout the world,.and they helped insure international adoption of a strategy of capital-ship engage- ments, followed, if necessary, by amphibious landings. Commerce raiding in its modern guise- that is, by means of submarines- never achieved great popularity among the 20th-century naval strategists of the United States, Great Britain, Germany, or Japan. WORLD WAR I By the period of World War I, the United States had adopted the strategy and technol- ogy of the leading European naval powers. Whereas in the 19th century the United States had spread its thin allotment of frigates around the world in small squadrons designed to pro- tect overseas Americans and their commerce in periods of peace, the Navy in the early 20th century concentrated its battleships and their supporting cruisers and destroyers in an Atlan- tic battle fleet. The Panama Canal was be- gun in 1904 largely to insure unfettered move- ment of the fleet to the Pacific to protect the West Coast, Hawaii, or the Philippines from an enemy- envisioned always to be Japan. This battle fleet, however, saw little significant action in World War I. The most important tasks proved to be the convoying of merchant ships threatened by German U-boats. Destroy- ers, the most effective escorts of convoys, de- termined the outcome of the naval struggle in the Atlantic. The great duel between the Brit- ish and German battle fleets at Jutland in 1916 had little impact on the course of the war. After World War I the leading naval pow- ers reverted to the prewar pattern and launched a costly shipbuilding race. When the U.S. Congress proved reluctant to appropriate funds for a naval arms race, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes convened the Washington Con- ference in 1921 to 1922 to curtail the contest. Hughes managed to secure an agreement limit- ing the tonnage and construction of capital ships- generally defined as battleships- by the major navies of the world. The U.S. Navy was given parity with the Royal Navy of Great Britain. Japan ranked next as a world naval power, and France and Italy fell far behind. In the 1920s and 1930s several unsuccess- ful attempts were made to extend the tonnage limits to smaller ships such as cruisers, destroy- ers, and submarines. In 1935, Germany began full-scale rearmament, and the next year Ja- pan renounced the Washington treaty. A new naval race began, focused once again on the battleship. WORLD WAR II U.S. Naval strategy in World War II was determined by the Japanese naval air attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, l941g most of the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were destroyed or severely damaged, including the USS Calnfornia CBB-445. Aircraft carriers, previously considered valuable mainly as scouts for battleships, now emerged as warships in their own right. The Pacific Fleet's carriers, which had been at sea during the Japanese attack, survived as the backbone of American Naval power in the Pa- cific. The Pacific war became a combination of engagements between aircraft carriers, as at Midway in June, 1942, and amphibious as- saults, the latter beginning at Guadalcanal from August, 1942 through February, 1943, and cul- minating with Iwo Jima in February through March, 1945 and Okinawa in April through June, 1945. The last two invasions were prepa- rations for a final assault upon the Japanese home islands, an attack rendered unnecessary by Japanls capitulation following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the Atlantic, Allied naval strategy in- volved the convoying of merchant ships threat- ened by German submarines and amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France. No significant engagements took place between capital ships.