California (BB 44) - Naval Cruise Book

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FROM THE GRIZZLY BEAR - ON BOARD THE USS CALIFORNIA , DPLCEMBER 20, 1921 lN0te.' The Grizzly Bear was the daily newsletter producer! by the crew on board the .shipj DOES RQMANCE EXIST IN THE NEW NAVY? HA newcomer in the service remarked in our hearing recently that there is no more ro- mance in the U.S. Navy. We take issue with that hasty statement. There is romance in the U.S. Navy to- dayg not, perhaps, the romance of days gone by, but the new romance of a more compli- cated time to which we have not yet adj usted ourselvesg The romance of speed and power and modern miracle, the romance of disput- ing the skies with the petrel, the albatross and the sea gullg the romance of disputing the depths of the sea with the life that lies below. f'Man makes his own romance: the op- portunities are all around him and in infinitely greater riches today than in any other time in history. This is the age of steel and electricity in the U.S. Navy, as in the old days it was the age of wood and sail. The motive power still skies, only it is Electra that is enthroned in- stead of Boreas. But Neptune still rules the waves as he ruled them when Jason sailed from Iolcus in Thessaly, or when the galleys of Venice went forth to war upon the Landlocked Sea, or when Spain sent her galleons across unknown waters to carry the Cross and Sword to heathen peoples- to bring back blood-stained cargoes of gold and silks and precious stones. '4Wood is a kindlier fabric than cold steel- or so we think who have not yet adjusted our- selvesg and we miss the sails our youth ro- mantically conceived as the motive power for ships. A man may have served on a sailing ship, but he is so constituted that his traditions die hard, and somehow as his battleship glides effortlessly along he looks aloft for the spread of snowy canvas that should be there, but is not, and never will be again. Adjustment will come, howeverg in fact, it is on the way, and will be fully here as soon as we fit ourselves to the new era. There are many little things in the U.S. Navy to help, the least of which are the old traditions that still cling to even the latest type of superdreadnaught. Here and there throughout the ship there are quaintly named ujim-hick- eys and one hears odd phrases that recall days when the fighting ships of our U.S. Navy were making imperishable history. f'They have almost obliterated the memory of sails on a battleship by the mechanics of the fighting-mastf you would need a lively imagi- nation to rig a suit of sails on that lattice work! But they call it a mast.,' And while no frigate or corvette ever sported a smokestack, we yet cling to the old Hgun ports. 4'When the admiral comes aboard ltis side boys that line up to do him honor, although the boys are long past the age of marbles and their tooties are no longer bare as they used to be when Captain John Paul Jones came aboard his good ship Bon Homme Richard and a bos'n still pipes him over the side. We may quench a thirst at one of the new- fangled bubblejet affairs that modern hygiene says are better than the old battered panniken, but we still go to the 'fscuttlebuttv for a drink. And if we get a tummy ache from unwise in- dulgence in an up-to-date battleship chow of cucumber salad washed down with lemonade and topped off with ice cream Cshades of the ,salt-horse kegj it is to the sick bayv that we carry our groans. NA while back some official busy-body who never used bil ge-water for a chaser after a beaker of alky, nor ever had tar rubbed in his hair, tried to have the U.S. Navy Hmodemizew its time-honored nomenclature by changing, for instance Htopsidel' to Hupstairsj, but he got properly squelched. Hang on to the old names. They are links to the great past. The shades of John Paul Jones and Farragut still make their rounds of ships of the U.S. Navy Calthough they must miss the van- tage of the old poop deckj, if it be true that folks come back to visit again scenes and things they loved in the flesh, and so long as the shades of those beloved heroes of our U.S. Navy would the quarter-deck, be sure the U.S. Navy will have its romance. 4'All we need to get in touch with the new romance is the spirit. This has nothing to do with wood or steel, nothing to do with sails or turbines, but it has to do with men. They say the old breed is dying out- that the men of today are not like the men of yesterday, but in the essentials this is not true. If one thinks that U.S. Navy men today are flabbier of fibre and less able to Hstand the gaff' than the salty breed of other days, he must have slept through the exalted and heroic deeds of our U.S. Navy dur- ing the late war. The men of today have a different view- point form that which the men of the past had, they are the product of far different conditions than those which obtained in the days of John Paul Jones and Farragut. In all the essentials of red-blooded manhood the men of today are as strong and fine as the mighty men of old, What is needed is that they play the game hard as it was played in the old days, and that they take the same pride in their craft of man-ol-wars-men. f'Machinery in the LIS. Navy today does much of the work that of old was done with muscle- and thereinlies the danger. Flabbj. muscles mean flabby souls. A Navy is not a thing of wood and sail, not a thing of steel and juice, but a might mechanism fabricated of men. -Ed Gallahern THE CALIFORNIA l' I dreamt I saw thy awful form Athwart the horrid ranks of war. I saw thee plunge into the storm And blast its hideous clouds ajar. I heard thy dreadful thunder roar, Thy lightning shocks of shot and shellg While all the land shrieked red with gore. And all the seas yawned down to Hell. Almighty Guardian of our fate! Great God, whose goodness we pursue! Preserve the fortunes of our State And grant my dream may not come true! Give us the work for social zeal. Which prospers fair and happy life, And from mad strife sustain our vveal! The world has had enough of strife. Sail, Calpfornial Sail and be Defender of our blessed landf Protect our rights on every sea And prove our worth to every strand! Sail for the coming Golden Age. When love shall reign and war shall cease: And let thy frightful powers of rage Expire in universal Peace! -Albert Rupp, the slzzpycml poet. The Griggly Bear . December 20. l92l as K'omnzzuzic'r1rim1.v group lf'S,X' 'r Q' 5 X .. -X it 'T-stiff . , . C zlrlr mm it t7lll'ft'N'X' of lolm llfri'lzt'll l

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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.

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.4 ,g 3'- it it Q1 if Il lil! I' it U :ig all-M We -amz 1. .V 1? -it rw! 19 -EFA E i Wall' ti-H ' .eff 9 il F' Y - x -fix g ar iw A 5' Q we , f, f .-- X ts r ff' - vs. Wx x X Si.. X fg x f,ff, r -,jf Sass? X W :Ng ts, x ss . js.: Q - ,f ffm USS California leading a battleship division in maneuvers ojfSan Diego, 23 October 1926. Overhead is a Douglas torpedo plane. lCourtesy ofHarold Bean.l At the close of World War ll, the U.S. Navy was incomparably the world'S strongest. Britain's Royal Navy, while still a major force, did not have the economic and industrial foun- dation ofthe U.S. Navy. Gradually, as its em- pire broke up, Great Britain reduced its over- seas naval operations. THE NUCLEAR AGE The U.S. Navy's only serious rival was the U.S. Air Force. Air Force lobbyists argued that future wars would be won with nuclear bombs, a strategy in which the U.S. Navy had no role because nuclear bombs were at that time too large and heavy to be carried by carrier- based aircraft. The U.S. Navy between 1947 and 1950 countered with plans for esupercamersr but was unsuccessful. NA VAL VESSELS There were six naval vessels to honor the State of California. They were the screw-sloop, the annored cruiser, the large converted steam yacht, the small converted steam yacht, the battleship, and the nuclear guided missile cruiser. The symbol of naval warfare from the turn of the century until World War ll was the dreadnought BATTLESHIP, named for HMS Dreadnought, the first of its kind, launched in 1906. This type of battleship, with a turret- mounted main battery consisting of a limited number of the largest guns that could be mounted and dispensing with secondary arma- ment, dominated naval warfare until the sub- marine and the aircraft carrier reached matu- rity. Battleships grew steadily in size and power, and sophisticated fire-control systems with optical ranging and electrical control were adopted, battleships continued to look much like the HMS Dreadnought, however, until they were retired in the 1950s. The battleship, an armored fighting ship of the largest and most powerful class, emerged in the 1870s as a separate and distinct class. lt could defeat anything else afloat, and it domi- nated naval warfare for seven decades until World War ll, during which the biggest battle- ships of all were built. lt name is derived from the line-of-battle ship in the time of sailing vessels, when ships went into combat in a line- ahead tcolumnl formation. The battleship was developed in the mid- 19th century when armor was applied to the hulls of warships- a step taken in response to the introduction of the shell-firing cannon. De- signers experimented with various armament and protection methods. At first, mixed arma- ment was use. French battleships, in particu- lar, resembled weird floating castles from which turreted guns of all sizes jutted out in every direction. Early battleship design cul- minated after 1900 in the creation of the dreadnought battleship. On the dreadnought, major secondary annament was dispensed with to make room for larger guns. It carried a uni- form main battery of the largest guns that could be mounted. Battleship strength was considered a ma- jor component of national power, and nations expended enormous efforts to build the most powerful vessels possible. The result was con- tinuous development. Larger and faster battle- ships were built, with improved armor protec- tion and increased offensive power. The gen- eral trend was toward larger guns, fewer in number and mounted in larger turrets. Design- ers sought the greatest destructive power while conserving weight. The British ship HMS Dreadnought, which put to sea in 1906, displaced some 22,000 tons at full load, had a speed of 21 knots, and mounted ten 12-inch guns in five turrets. The British Queen Elizabeth class, launched in World War I, displaced some 33,000 tons at full load, could make about 25 knots, and mounted eight 15-inch guns in four turrets. De- velopment reached its peak in World War II with the American Iowa class and Yamatos. The USS Iowa, fully loaded, displaced some 56,000 tons, mounted nine 16-inch guns, and could make 33 knots. Yamato, although slower with a maximum speed of 27 knots, displaced nearly 73,000 tons, making it the largest battle- ship ever built. The USS Calzfornia QBB-443 displaced 32,600 Cnormall or 35,190 tons Cfull loadj with a best trial run of 21.46 knots and a main ar- mament- her reason for being- consisting of a dozen separately sleeved 14-inchl50 caliber 81.7-ton guns mounted in superfiring triple turrets, two forward and two aft. All U.S. Navy battleships were decommis- sioned in 1958 as the development of long- range missiles threatened even the most pow- erful ships. The USS New Jersey returned to service briefly during the Vietnam War as a specialized land-bombardment vessel. ln 1981, Congress appropriated funds for recommis- sioning of the USS New Jersey and three other battleships as part of a general naval buildup. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the USS Wisconsin and the USS Missouri were used to shell hardened targets in Kuwait, firing cruise missiles as well as guns. The USS New Jersey was decommissioned in 1991, and both the USS Missouri and the USS Vldsconsin were decom- missioned in 1992 as a result of a reduction in military budgets. The USS Iowa had been de- commissioned in 1990 following an explosion in one of her gun turrets. This ended an era of battleship history which included the distin- guished service of the USS Calhfornia CBB-445. ln their period of dominance, battleship fleets were screened by squadrons of armored cruisers and unarmored destroyers. The cruis- ers of the two World Wars were essentially small, fast battleships with lighter armor and guns and assumed an antisubmarine role equal in importance to their function of screening the main fleet. Aircraft carriers, used tentatively in World War 1, became major capital ships in World War ll, deploying powerful squadrons of dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters. Car- riers dominated fleet actions in the Pacific and were also important elsewhere. Today, carrier-