USS California (ACR-6)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 USS San Diego, formerly USS California |
|
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS California (1907-1914) USS San Diego (1914-1918) |
| Laid down: | 7 May 1902 |
| Launched: | 28 April 1904 |
| Commissioned: | 1 August 1907 |
| Struck: | Sunk 1918, suspected to be by a U-boat |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 30 August 1930 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Pennsylvania-class cruiser |
| Displacement: | 13,680 tons |
| Length: | 504 ft (154 m) |
| Beam: | 69 ft 6 in (21.2 m) |
| Draft: | 26 ft 1 in (8.0 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 × vertical, inverted, triple expansion engines 23,000 ihp 2 screws |
| Speed: | 22 knots (25 mph; 41 km/h) |
| Complement: | 830 |
| Armament: | • 4 × 8 in (200 mm)/40 caliber • 14 × 6 in (150 mm)/50 • 18 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 • 12 × 3 pounders • 2 × 1 pounders • 2 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes |
The second USS California (ACR-6), also referred to as "Armored Cruiser 6", and later renamed San Diego, was a United States Navy Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser.
She was launched 28 April 1904 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California, sponsored by Miss Florence Pardee (daughter of California governor George C. Pardee), and commissioned 1 August 1907, Captain V. L. Cottman in command.
Joining the 2nd Division, Pacific Fleet, California took part in the Naval Review at San Francisco in May 1908 for the Secretary of the Navy. Aside from a cruise to Hawaii and Samoa in the fall of 1909, the cruiser operated along the west coast, sharpening her readiness through training exercises and drills, until December 1911, when she sailed for Honolulu, and in March 1912 continued westward for duty on the Asiatic Station. After this service representing American power and prestige in the Far East, she returned home in August 1912, and was ordered to Corinto, Nicaragua, then embroiled in internal political disturbance. Here she protected American lives and property, then resumed her operations along the west coast; she cruised off California, and kept a watchful eye on Mexico, at that time also suffering political disturbance.
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[edit] Controversy
During that time in Mexico, she was involved in an international incident in which two of her crew were shot and killed.
"On 9 April 1913, a liberty party from the U. S. S. California, including Corrie, went ashore at Guaymas. A number of the men visited saloons and came under the influence of intoxicating liquor. They caused some disorder in the streets, and Cipriano Lucero interfered. He wore no uniform, but his capacity of policeman was known at any rate to some of the seamen. A struggle broke out between Corrie and Cipriano Lucero, the latter trying to take from Corrie a beer bottle which he had in his possession. During the struggle a number of beer bottles were thrown in the direction of the fighters by some of the seamen. At least one of those bottles hit Cipriano Lucero but without doing him any serious harm. Another bottle hit Corrie, who staggered back and was seized by the right arm by a member of the ship's patrol just reaching the scene of the disorder. Cipriano Lucero then drew his revolver and shot Corrie, and as some of the seamen and one Schlenther, belonging to the ship's patrol, attempted to disarm Lucero, the latter fired another shot which instantly killed one Klesow, master-at-arms, United States Navy, who was trying to push back sailors, from the scene of the fighting."
[edit] Conversion to USS San Diego
California was renamed San Diego on 1 September 1914, and served as flagship for Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, intermittently until a boiler explosion put her in Mare Island Navy Yard in reduced commission through the summer of 1915. San Diego returned to duty as flagship through 12 February 1917, when she went into reserve status until the opening of World War I. Placed in full commission 7 April, the cruiser operated as flagship for Commander, Patrol Force Pacific Fleet, until 18 July, when she was ordered to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Reaching Hampton Roads 4 August, she joined Cruiser Division 2, and later broke the flag of Commander, Cruiser Force, Atlantic, which she flew until 19 September.
San Diego's essential mission was the escort of convoys through the first dangerous leg of their passages to Europe. Based on Tompkinsville, New York, and Halifax, Nova Scotia , she operated in the weather-torn, submarine-infested North Atlantic safely convoying all of her charges to the ocean escort.
[edit] Loss
Early on 19 July 1918 the San Diego left the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard bound for New York where she was to meet and escort a convoy bound for France. Her captain, Harley H. Christy, ordered a zigzag course at a speed of 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph). Visibility was reported as being from 6 mi (9.7 km) - 8 mi (13 km). In his report to a Board of Inquiry on the cruiser's loss, Christy stated that all lookouts, gun watches, and fire control parties were at their appointed stations and on full alert, and that all necessary orders to safeguard the watertight integrity of the ship in dangerous waters had been given and were being carried out.[1]
At 11:05 the next day, 19 July, the San Diego was steaming northeast of the Fire Island Lightship when an explosion occurred on the cruiser's port side adjacent to the port engine room and well below the waterline. The bulkhead at the site of the explosion was warped so that the watertight hatch between the engineroom and No. 8 fireroom could not be shut, and both compartments immediately flooded. Captain Christy assumed that the ship had been torpedoed and immediately sounded submarine defense quarters and ordered all guns to open fire on anything resembling a periscope. He called for full speed ahead on both engines and hard right rudder, but was told that both engines were out of commission and that the machinery compartments were rapidly flooding. The ship had taken on a 9 degree list and water began pouring in through one of the 6-inch gun ports, flooding the gun deck.[1]
Informed that the ship's radio was not working, Christy despatched the gunnery officer to the mainland with a boat crew to summon rescue vessels.
About ten minutes after the explosion, the cruiser began to sink. Orders were given to lower the liferafts and boats. Captain Christy held off giving the order to abandon ship until he was certain that the San Diego was going to capsize, when the crew abandoned the vessel in a disciplined and orderly manner. Christy was the last man to leave the ship. She had sunk in 28 minutes with the loss of six lives, the only major warship lost by the United States in World War I. Two men were killed instantly when the explosion occurred, a crewman who had been oiling the port propeller shaft was never seen again, a man was killed by one of the smokestacks breaking loose as the ship capsized, one was killed when a liferaft fell on his head, and the sixth was trapped inside the crow's nest and drowned.[2]
Meanwhile, the gunnery officer had reached shore at Point O' Woods, New York after a 2 hour trip, and vessels were at once sent to the scene.
The Navy Department was informed that a German minelaying submarine was operating off the east coast of the US and the US Naval Air Service was put on alert. Aircraft of the First Yale Unit, based at Bay Shore, Long Island, attacked what they thought was a submerged submarine lying on the seabed in around 100 ft (30 m) and dropped several bombs; it turned out to be the San Diego.
[edit] Cause
Captain Christy was of the opinion, following the sinking, that the San Diego had been sunk by a torpedo. However, there was no evidence of a U-boat in the area at the time, and no wake of a torpedo was seen by the lookouts. While it was reported that five or six mines had been found in the area, the idea that she had struck a mine was also considered unlikely as it was thought that a mine would have been more likely to detonate at the bow or the forward part of the ship.[3] It was subsequently reported that experienced merchant officers believed that a mine was the probable cause, due to the violence of the explosion and the rapidity with which the ship sank.[4]
In August, the Naval Court of Inquiry appointed to investigate the loss of the cruiser concluded that the San Diego had been sunk by a mine, mentioning that six contact mines had been located by naval forces in the vicinity of the spot where she had sunk.[5]
German submarine U-156 had earlier laid a number of mines along the south shore of Long Island[6], and the sinking of the San Diego was attributed to her.[2][7]
[edit] Wreck
The wreck presently lies in 33 m (110 ft) of water, with the highest parts just 20 m (66 ft) below the surface, and as a result is one of the most popular shipwrecks in the US for scuba diving. Unfortunately the wreck lies inverted (upside-down) and has decayed over the last century. The wreck has claimed the lives of more divers over the years than the number of crew killed in its sinking, but this has not diminished its popularity. Nicknamed the "Lobster Hotel" for the abundance of lobsters living there, it is also a home to many kinds of fish. The wreck lies at N40° 33' 00.36", W073° 00' 28.39", approximately 13.5 miles due south of the intersection of Route 112 and Montauk Highway in Patchogue.
The wreck is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Feuer, A. B.. The U.S. Navy in World War I: Combat at Sea and in the Air. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 103-106. ISBN 0275962121.
- ^ a b Bleyer, Bill. "The Sinking of the San Diego". Newsday. http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs710a,0,6633406.story.
- ^ "SAN DIEGO'S LOSS STILL UNEXPLAINED", New York Times, 20 July 1918, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=980CE2DB143EE433A25752C2A9619C946996D6CF
- ^ "SAN DIEGO'S CREW DIFFER AS TO SINKING", New York Times, 21 July 1918, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E02E1DB143EE433A25752C2A9619C946996D6CF
- ^ "DECIDE MINE SANK CRUISER SAN DIEGO", New York Times, 6 August 1918, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C02E5DB1739E13ABC4E53DFBE668383609EDE
- ^ Feuer, p. 103
- ^ Messimer, Dwight R. (2002). Verschollen: World War I U-boat Losses. Naval Institute Press. p. 124. ISBN 155750475X.
[edit] References
- Alden, John D. American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989. ISBN 0870212486
- Friedman, Norman. U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1984. ISBN 0870217186
- Musicant, Ivan. U.S. Armored Cruisers: A Design and Operational History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1985. ISBN 0870217143
- United Nations. Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 1929. Volume IV pp. 416–417.
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
[edit] External links
- history.navy.mil: USS California / San Diego
- Navy photographs of California (ACR-6)
- navsource.org: USS California / San Diego
- hazegray.org: USS California / San Diego
- USS San Diego Shipwreck Expo site
- Catalogue of ship's and crew's libraries of the U.S.S. California (1905)
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40°32′15″N 73°2′13.92″W / 40.5375°N 73.0372°WCoordinates: 40°32′15″N 73°2′13.92″W / 40.5375°N 73.0372°W
