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Ship Trivia Quiz

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  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Waiting for a 1/350 USS Salt Lake City....
Posted by AJB93 on Saturday, March 1, 2008 2:59 PM
Hey, just got your PM. I've been out of the loop for a while. so do I go ahead or not? Either way is fine. Sorry for the delay, life just gets in the way sometimes.
  • Member since
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  • From: Seattle, WA
Posted by Surface_Line on Saturday, March 1, 2008 6:26 PM
Please proceed, Mr AJB.
  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Waiting for a 1/350 USS Salt Lake City....
Posted by AJB93 on Sunday, March 2, 2008 12:46 PM
Alright, what was the largest American Warship scrapped overseas? This should be real easy for you guys....
  • Member since
    June 2003
  • From: Rowland Heights, California
Posted by Duke Maddog on Sunday, March 2, 2008 1:46 PM

Okay, if I'm right with this I'm in trouble. I got no Naval trivia questions to contribute. However, my answer is the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier. She was scrapped in India due to the asbestos content she carried.

 

 

  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Waiting for a 1/350 USS Salt Lake City....
Posted by AJB93 on Sunday, March 2, 2008 8:11 PM
close-sort of not Sara, she is to be preserved. But close....and it's a bit tricky to figure out too.
  • Member since
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  • From: Moorefield, WV
Posted by billydelawder on Sunday, March 2, 2008 8:22 PM
Was it the Bennington?
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  • From: Waiting for a 1/350 USS Salt Lake City....
Posted by AJB93 on Sunday, March 2, 2008 8:35 PM
Half right!
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  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Monday, March 3, 2008 12:56 PM
The USS Shangri-La (CV-38).
Jim
  • Member since
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  • From: Waiting for a 1/350 USS Salt Lake City....
Posted by AJB93 on Monday, March 3, 2008 1:06 PM
You are both right. USS Bennington and USS Shangri-La were both Essex class carriers, Bennington was scrapped in Alang India and Shangri-La in Taiwan...so, now who goes???
  • Member since
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  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Monday, March 3, 2008 1:12 PM

billydelawder Was first to answer. Let him go next.

 

Jim

Jim
  • Member since
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  • From: Moorefield, WV
Posted by billydelawder on Monday, March 3, 2008 3:13 PM
What US Warship was lost on the 3rd anniversary of the ww2 event that made it famous?
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Monday, March 3, 2008 8:33 PM
The U.S.S. Ward fired the first American shot of the Pacific war, at a Japanese midget submarine on December 7, 1941.  The Ward was sunk in the Philippines on December 7, 1944.  I read a book about the ship a year or two ago; as I recall she was hit by a kamikaze, and was so badly damaged that she had to be torpedoed.  By even more remarkable coincidence (if my memory is correct), the destroyer that fired the torpedo was commanded by the same officer who'd commanded the Ward at Pearl Harbor three years earlier.  (His initial response on getting the order to torpedo her was "I can't do this," but he relented.)

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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  • From: Moorefield, WV
Posted by billydelawder on Monday, March 3, 2008 9:05 PM
You got it, and the floor is yours!
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    January 2008
Posted by Cadet Jack on Monday, March 3, 2008 10:34 PM
Hit us with your best broadside, John!Pirate [oX)]
"SILENCE.... OR I KEEL YOU!" Jack "Stuck in the '50s" McKirgan
  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 10:45 AM
Hmmm.  Please give me a day or so to work on this one, folks.  The last question I asked, if you'll recall, almost got me shot.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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  • From: Spartanburg, SC
Posted by subfixer on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 11:38 AM
Aww, we wouldn't have shot ya, just a little keelhauling or something mild like that.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 11:41 PM

Ok, here goes.  I think it's about time for a Coast Guard question.  This one's pretty obscure, but it relates to an aspect of World War II that I think is rather interesting - and not without importance.

The 327-foot cutters of the "Treasury" class, the Spencer, Campbell, Alexander Hamilton, Taney, Ingham, and Duane, went through a number of major modifications during their long careers.  They originally were designed, back in the thirties, as long-range patrol vessels, with particular emphasis on search-and-rescue capabilities.  One of the designers' concerns was the increasing popularity of trans-oceanic air travel; finding the survivors of an airliner that had gone down at sea would be quite a challenge.  All six of those cutters originally were equipped to handle aircraft - either Grumman Ducks or Curtiss Seagulls, which were mounted rather precariously on deck aft of the superstructure and hoisted over the side by crane into the water.  [Later edit:  the Coast Guard Historian's Office website says the Campbell and Ingham "apparently never carried aircraft."  The records on that point are sketchy, and photos of the 327-footers with their aircraft embarked are rare.]

The Campbell was one of the most famous in the class, largely because of her work as a convoy escort in the North Atlantic (her airplane-handling gear [if she ever had it] having long since been replaced by an additional 5" gun).  Earlier in the war, though, she made a rather significant, if somewhat indirect and unpublicized, contribution to American aviation.  

The question:  what was that contribution? 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 10:34 AM
The Campbell departed on her first weather observation cruise on 18 March 1940. Each cutter embarked meteorologists from the Weather Bureau who made observations with radiosondes and balloons, and the cutter provided Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boats--"Yankee Clipper," "Dixie Clipper," and "American Clipper"--with weather and position reports and transmitted radio signals to allow the planes to take accurate bearings.
Jim
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 11:35 AM

Well, we have an interesting situation here.  Runkel's answer isn't the one I had in mind - but, in view of the fact that WWII was indeed in progress in March 1940, and the event in question did constitute a contribution to American aviation, I guess the answer has to be considered correct.

A suggestion:  let's wait a day or two and see if somebody comes up with the answer I was thinking of.  If so, we can declare a tie and invite both answerers to ask the next two questions.  (Come to think of it - that approach invites some complications, doesn't it?  Maybe we should say, whichever of the two winners comes up with a question first, gets to ask it?)  If, on the other hand, nobody comes up with the answer I originally had in mind, we'll declare runkel the undisputed winner.  Is that fair?

Suggestions for other solutions are, of course, welcome.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 1:16 PM
Fine by me, now I will look some more.
Jim
  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Friday, March 7, 2008 9:10 AM

Additionally, the Campbell landed a 3-inch gun and an assortment of smaller weapons at Ivigtut, the location of the important cryolite mine, and 14 Coast Guard volunteers, including three of the Campbell's crew, who had accepted discharges to become the nucleus of a civilian armed guard at the mine. 

One well-directed shot from the deck gun of a German submarine or a clever act of sabotage by one of the workmen could have seriously damaged the cryolite mine at Ivigtut, might have perhaps put it out of operation and thereby disrupted the Canadian aluminum industry, on which Allied aircraft production was heavily dependent.

Jim
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Friday, March 7, 2008 12:30 PM

Runkel got it - twice!

The aviation connection is that cryolite was (and I gather still is) a vital component in the process of obtaining and refining aluminum.  There are (or were, as of 1940) only two known deposits of the stuff in the world.  One is in the depths of Siberia; the other is in southern Greenland.  The steady flow of cryolite from the mine in Greenland made the wartime expansion of the American and Canadian aircraft industries possible.

The fighting in Greenland is a little-known aspect of the war, but not without significance or interest.  I learned that story about the Campbell and the cryolite when I was working on a little article about it for the CG Historian's Office some years back.  In case anybody's interested, the Historian's Office later put the article online:  http://www.uscg.mil/history/h_greenld.html

Small disclaimer:  I had nothing to do with the photos and captions - and some typos sneaked in somewhere between my computer and the CG website.

Runkel - you're up.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Friday, March 7, 2008 12:57 PM

Thank you jtilley. Anyone looking for some reading on Campbell check this out. My favorite was Sinbad.

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/Campbell_WPG_32.html

 The next question should be quick. What was the first U S warship to visit Danang?

Jim
  • Member since
    February 2016
Posted by alumni72 on Friday, March 7, 2008 1:54 PM
Was it the USS Susquehanna?
  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Friday, March 7, 2008 2:08 PM
It was 5 years before USS Susquehanna was built.
Jim
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Saturday, March 8, 2008 2:19 AM

The USS Constitution under 'Mad Jack' Percival (also the victor of the "Battle of Honolulu") fired the first American shots at Vietnamese forces in Da Nang harbor in 1845!

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

  • Member since
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  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Saturday, March 8, 2008 12:39 PM
schoonerbumm, your up now.
Jim
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Sunday, March 9, 2008 10:49 AM

OK, back to ship and personality associations.... This time I'll add model kits to the category.

AMT-ERTL made a plastic kit of the Starship Enterprise from the original TV show which featured Leonard Nimoy as science officer Mr. Spock. 

Who was the historical prototype for Mr. Spock?  What other plastic kit is associated with this historical personage?

 

 

 

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Monday, March 10, 2008 2:20 PM

This is going slow, so I guess Peter Pan and the Jolly Roger. All I have are the pointy ear's. 

Jim
  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Monday, March 10, 2008 3:06 PM

oh well... hint #1

Shatner's character was also based on another person on the same vessel at the same time. 

 

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

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