Ship Trivia Quiz

Surface_Line wrote:

Memphis was commanded by the father of Edward Beach, CO of Triton.

Rick 

Correct regarding the San Jacinto, - and an interesting point indeed.  (I certainly can't think of another American warship named after a battle between two foreign powers.)

But (at least from the U.S. standpoint) Texas became a state of the Union in December, 1845, when Congress voted to accept its state constitution.  (That, according to the U.S. Constitution, is the key moment in the achievement of statehood.)  That was in the last days of the Tyler administration; Polk, who had already won the election of 1844, was waiting to be inaugurated when Texas became a state.  (One plank of Polk's platform had been "the re-annexation of Texas.")  The Mexican government, always resentful of Texas's bid for independence, had announced that it would regard a U.S. takeover of Texas as an act of war, and refused to recognize the American annexation.  One of my professors in grad school described the Mexican-American War (1846-48) as "a case of two adolescent countries playing chicken with each other."

Thanks Dr. Tilley.

And for a bit more trivia... Bush's carrier, USS San Jacinto, has what I believe may be the unique distinction of being named for a battle fought by two foreign powers.

The Texan victory at San Jacinto saved the Texas Republic in 1836 as an independent country. Try as she did for the subsequent decade, Texas did not become part of the United States until after the Mexican War. There were even negotiations over her becoming a protectorate of England in the 1840s, one of the driving forces leading to the Mexican War. The last thing the southern states wanted was a British colony (meaning fugitive slave asylum) next door. England had outlawed slavery.   

Well, that one tripped me up.  I did remember that both Ford and Bush had served on board Independence-class carriers, but I couldn't think of a third president - a Democrat - who had any association with them.  (I did a Google search for Lyndon Johnson's navy service record, thinking he might be the culprit, but no luck.)  I should have thought of FDR.

Nice one, Schoonerbum.

More trivia....

Pierce was present at the Battle of Monterrey (spelled with two Rs) in northern Mexico, fought by the US Army in September of 1846. 

CVL-26 was named after a different "Battle" of Monterey, the siezure of Monterey, in Alta California by the US Navy, almost three months before the Army's assault on the other Monterrey. (The California Monterey is spelled with one R - in spite of some misinformation on some internet sites, the spelling shown on 18th century Spanish charts showing the California city has always used one R).

It wasn't much of a battle. Not a shot was fired, but the Navy's seizure of Alta California's Capitol, Monterey was the most siginifcant action of the Mexican War. The territory associated with Mexican California extended well beyond the borders of the modern state. With Monterey's capture, the United States bridged the gap between Texas and the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific.

The territory claimed through the capture of Monterey included the modern states of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. The war and its territorial issues were settled with Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Claims to Oregon and Washington were disputed by the British and were settled later under a separate treaty.

I'll concede this one to Mr. Delawder. 

The Independence Class (CVLs 22-30), Gerald Ford (Assistant Navigation Officer, USS Monterey, CVL 26) and George Bush (pilot, VT-51, USS San Jacinto, CVL 30) are correct answers, but Franklin Pierce lived about a hundred years too early to have a personal association.

The third President was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The conversion of Cleveland Class light cruisers to fast escort carriers was FDR's brainchild, proposed in mid 1941.

The Navy was opposed to the idea; experts worried that the hulls of the Cleveland Class would not be provide stable aircraft launch and recovery platforms, would provide limited aircraft storage and maintenance facilitities and would have poor seakeeping characteristics.

But FDR persisted and CL to CV conversions were authorized after the Pearl Harbor attack, beginning with CL-59, USS Amsterdam, to be redesignated CV-22 USS Independence. In 1943, the Independence Class vessels were reclassified as CVLs. Although some of the Navy's concerns proved to be valid, the CVLs were generally considered to be a successfull class.

As Alumni72 noted, Bush was shot down, and 1970's comedians had a field day with Ford's unfortunate tendency to fall down.

Due to his polio, FDR spent most of his time in office, sitting down.

Mr. Delawder, you are up next.

Where does the "down" phrase come in, though?

 Bush was shot down.

Pierce was brought down by a fever/dysentery/malaria for a good portion of the war with Mexico.

Ford?  I guess he just fell down.

I think it could be the Independence Class Carriers:

Ford and George HW Bush (Republicans) Served on the Monterey

Franklin Pierce( Democrat) Served as an Army officer during The Mexican War Battle of Monterey. 

hmmm.... the answers to this appear to be more obscure than I thought.

Hint#3

Descriptive statements could be made about each of these three Presidents ending with the word "down". (different statement for each) 

Hint #4

Each President's association was not necessarily during his term in office.

Hint#2

To answer Dr. Tilley's questions...  they were US Navy warships... and each President's relationship was direct and personal, not indirectly through their administrations.

I was pretty sure that I had covered the uniqueness of my question... I had eliminated the President Lines ships and stated 'warship'.. I didn't consider Coast Guard vessels as being warships.

It's amazing what bubbles to the top in these things. 

Hmmmm....The three presidents must be Coolidge, Hoover, and FDR.  Assuming the association with the ships in question had something to do with their construction and/or launching (which, I guess, isn't a safe assumption), they must not be battleships; no single battleship class's construction stretched over all three of those administrations.  And carriers are out; the first class of carriers that had more than two ships in it was the Yorktown class, all three of which were built during the Roosevelt administration.  My guess is that we're talking about one of the "treaty cruiser" classes.

Or....The question didn't say "U.S. Navy"; it just said "warship."  If I remember correctly, the 165-foot (B) class of Coast Guard cutters were built during the Coolidge and Hoover administrations (largely to chase rumrunners during Prohibition), and one of them served for a while as FDR's personal yacht.

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree there.  I think the answer is one of the cruiser classes.

Hint #1

Two Republicans and one Democrat... and no, Ike wasn't one of them. 

I'd guess that Eisenhower comes into the equation somewhere.

I am fairly sure that this not the answer that schoonerbum is looking for as it only refers to two presidents. The Northampton cruisers Houston, Augusta and the modified Northampton class cruiser Indianapolis (officially a Portland class) all carried presidential parties during their career with the Augusta carrying two. But, as there were only two US presidents serving during WWII, I am probably missing the question.

Well, the first possibility that comes to mind is the Iowa class.  The Iowa herself took FDR to and from Casablanca in 1943; as I recall, the special bathtub that was built for him is still on board the ship.  And the Missouri was christened by Truman's daughter, Margaret.  But I can't think of any more-or-less direct presidential connections for the New Jersey or the Wisconsin.  (President Rhee of S. Korea paid a visit to the Wisconsin in 1952, but Schoonerbum specified American presidents.)

Something tells me I'm barking up the wrong tree here.

Thank you Subfixer, as they say "You are a scholar and a gentleman".  

Sticking to the "three wise men" category, here we go....

A class of American warship from the Second World War had direct associations with three American Presidents.

What was the class?

Who were the Presidents? and

What were their connections? 

jtilley wrote:

Subfixer, you got it.  I believe Subfixer has earned the privilege of asking the next question.

I believe that I shall defer the next question to schoonerbum as he got two thirds of the question without the generous hint that allowed me to get Bancroft.

(by the way, the photo of the submarine surfacing on the hill at the Bancroft Gate at Kings Bay Sub base is of the actual George Bancroft)

Subfixer, you got it. 

Bancroft taught history (at least briefly) at Harvard, though he later became more intensely interested in secondary education reform.  He published a multi-volume textbook on the history of the U.S. that was used for many years in university courses all over the country.  Later he went into politics, and became Secretary of the Navy during the Harrison/Tyler administration.  In that capacity he was instrumental, in the wake of the notorious "mutiny" on board the brig Somers, in talking the War Department into transferring Ft. Severn, at Annapolis, over to the Navy and turning it into the U.S. Naval Academy.

The first U.S.S. Bancroft was a small, steel-hulled "gunboat" that was, in fact, designed specifically as a gunnery training vessel for the midshipmen at Annapolis.  As the school got bigger it outgrew the ship, and she was transferred to the Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the Coast Guard) to serve in a similar capacity.  Other ships named after Bancroft have included a destroyer, a patrol frigate, and, most recently, a Benjamin Franklin-class ballistic submarine. 

Alfred Thayer Mahan, of course, was the namesake for a class of destroyers.  Samuel Eliot Morison had an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate named after him.  (NAVSOURCE has a nice picture of her escorting the Constitution on one of the latter's annual "turnaround cruises" in Boston Harbor."  Now there's a good idea for a 1/700 diorama - using the excellent Skywave/Pit Road Perry-class frigate and the Skytrex cast metal Constitution.)  The Samuel Eliot Morison eventually was transferred to the Turkish Navy.  (I wonder how many people caught the irony:  Morison won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of John Paul Jones - who also wound up his career in the naval service of Turkey.)

I believe Subfixer has earned the privilege of asking the next question.

George Bancroft?? I've been passing by this little gate guard on the way to work (Kings Bay Submarine Base, Georgia)for the past couple of weeks and it rung a bell.

Old George founded the US Naval Academy.

Understandable mistake, Subfixer.  "Chairs" in academic departments frequently get named after people who never actually occupied them.  (Often they're named after people who gave the university money.)

The distinction between "honest" and "honest-to-goodness" is indeed worth making.  I have the impression, though, that the individual in question actually did have a reputation for integrity.

Hint:  he taught (albeit briefly) at the same institution as one of the gents who've already been correctly named.

jtilley wrote:

The name I'm looking for is that of a genuine, honest-to-goodness historian.

"honest"?Anyway, this is from wikipedia, Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History:

In May 1948, the President of the Naval War College Admiral Raymond Spruance recommended a plan to establish a civilian professorship of maritime history at the Naval War College. Approved by Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan (Navy) on 29 December 1948, the post was not filled "for lack of funds" until 1951, when Thomas C. Mendenhall of Yale University was appointed to the position. In 1953, Secretary of the Navy Robert Bernard Anderson named the chair in honor of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, recognizing King's great personal interest in maritime history. The Ernest J. King chair was named and first filled during the tenure of Professor Clarence H. Haring. At that point, there was only one other named academic chair in the United States for the field of maritime history, that held by the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs established at Harvard University in 1948. The Naval War College's first permanent long-term civilian faculty member came in 1966 and its larger civilian faculty began in 1972. Between 1951 and 1973, the King Chair was regularly held as a one-year visiting appointment. It became a permanent faculty appointment in 1974.

This is where I got my erroneous answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_J._King_Professor_of_Maritime_History

I guess I stuck my neck out dangerously far with this one, in that several folks have brought up names that I'm not absolutely certain don't qualify.  But to my knowledge neither Wilkes nor Bowditch ever taught history.  Wilkes's interests leaned toward the sciences, and Bowditch's toward navigation.

The name I'm looking for is that of a genuine, honest-to-goodness historian. 

Morison and Mahan are right.  I don't think any of the others mentioned ever taught history - though I guess it's possible.  (The definitions of academic fields that we take for granted today are fairly recent.)

Nobody's gotten the third one yet.  Hint:  several ships have been named after him.

Then there were Admirals Dewey (DD-349 & DLG-14) and Gleaves (DD-423), both Commander Generals of the Naval Order. Gleaves in particular was a noted lecturer and author.

Do they have to be listed faculty to count?