Ship Trivia Quiz

Thanks. Here's a quickie that should not last long!

Going on from my earlier question, which unique USN ship was fitted with three 15-inch guns?

Rick

Ahoy RickF,

This ship was Dnyamite!

I believe you refer to the cruiser USS Vesuvius.    It's main battery consited of three 15 inch dynamite guns designed by Edmund Zalinski.  The guns were used in action to bombard Satiago, Cuba in 1898 and got a good report by Admiral Sampson. 

Tom S.

The projectiles were indeed moved by compressed air.  The pressure was adjusted to control the range.

The design was an attempt to launch a large amount of explosives without setting it off in the process.  Range was a problem and one model was able to propel a quarter ton of dynamite four miles, however, the Vesuvius range was reported to be about a mile and a half.  The biggest drawback to the design was that the ship itself had to be aimed at the target because the guns were built into the longitudinal axis of the hull.

Tom S.

Didn't think that one would last long!

Apparently the pneumatic dynamite gun's best feature was its psychological effect - since the enemy didn't hear it fire, the resulting surprise arrival of a 15-inch shell did not improve their morale!

Over to you again, Tom.

In the summer of 1941, the US Secretary of State, in friendly negotiations with the Soviet Union, was able to borrow a "specialty" ship from the USSR for one year.

QUESTION:   What was the name of the borrowed ship and what class of American naval vessels was the result?

Hmmmmm....no bites yet.......I think I'll give a hint:

When the US Secretary of State asked to borrow the ship, he was asking on behalf of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Gotta be some connection there somewhere.

Tom S.

Time for another hint.....?

From among the class of ships that resulted from the loan, three of them were loaned to the Soviet Union under lend lease and were returned in the early '50s.

jtilley,

Even without the name of the ship in question, which was Leonid Krasin, I'm going to give you an OK on this question.

The Leonid Krassin was a purposely designed ice breaker built in Britain in 1916-1917 and launched under the name Svyatogor.  It had a long and interesting career.  When it was loaned to the US in 1941, it was in pretty poor condition, the survey of the ship found thousands of loose rivets, however, Congress appropriated $500,000 for it.  Before the deal to lease/purchase the ship was closed, the Germans invaded Russia and the Russians took the ship back for immediate war duty.  The ship was in regular service up through 1972 and made it's last voyage among Northern European ports in 1990.

The Leonid Krasin is a member of the International Historic Naval Ships Association and is now a floating icebreaker museum in St Petersburg.

As a result of the survey, many of it's features were built into the American Wind class icebreakers which served with the Russian, American, and Canadian navies in WWII and beyond.

jtilley, you've got the next question.

Tom S.

In view of jtilley's reluctance to provide a question, I'll declare the floor open to any interested party to provide the next question.

Tom S.

jtilley wrote:

Thanks, eaglecentral.  I'm in full agreement; my poor old haflzeimer's-afflicted brain hasn't been able to come up with a decent (or indecent) question.  Please consider the floor open.

Hey! What's up with that, Professor?? !!  I'll bet your students would appreciate your halfzeimer's brain at test time, but you are an honored member of an elite (except for me) forum here. C'mon now, just a half hearted question... we won't laugh.

Well, ok; here goes.  This is a movie-related question - the sort that calls for "connecting" movies by way of actors who starred in them.

What's the connection between two movies that featured (arguably) the most famous warship sinking in American history and (just about unarguably) the most famous merchant ship sinking in anybody's history? 

Well guys, I guess we asked for this one, didn't we? The next time our good professor answers a question correctly and is reluctant to ask a follow-up, we might not want to pressure him so hard or we'll end up with a LuLu like this one! 

I am supposing that John is referring to the Arizona and Titanic. (Maybe the Maine and Lusitania?)

Yes, it's a good one!

My first thoughts were Maine and Titanic too, but if there are any feature films about the Maine, I've been unable to find them. Does it make a "cameo appearance" in another Spanish-American War film? "Message to Garcia", maybe?

Rick

Arizona seems the obvious answer for the warship, but when he specified "merchant ship" I immediately thought of the Exxon Valdez.  About as many movies about that ship as of the Maine, though.

For the Arizona, for some reason best known to the demons inside my head I focused on Pearl Harbor rather than Tora Tora Tora.  I never thought I would laud the qualities of TTT over another movie, but it has Pearl Harbor beat hands-down.  But try as I might, I couldn't find any connections.

Is there a movie, perhaps, about the Edmund Fitzgerald?

Guess it's time to spill the beans.

The 1934 movie "Here Comes the Navy," starring the 34-year-old James Cagney, was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, but apparently faded from most movie enthusiasts' memories pretty quickly.  It doesn't even get listed in most "TV movies" books; so far as I know it hasn't been released on either VHS or DVD.  But it has shown up a couple of times in recent years on the Turner Classic Movies cable network - usually late at night or very early in the morning. 

Much of the movie was shot on board the U.S.S. Arizona.  There are quite a few interesting on board scenes - including one in which, with all the officers wearing their dress uniforms, swords, and fore-and-aft hats, Cagney gets presented with a medal.  There's also a memorable explosion inside a 14" turret.  (Paul Stillwell, in his book about the Arizona, suggests that those scenes may have been shot inside a studio mockup of the turret interior - but if so the moviemakers were mighty careful to get it right.) 

The plot (such as it is) revolves around a rivalry between Cagney, a young, swaggering sailor, and Pat O'Brian, who plays an older, relatively straight-laced chief petty officer.  In the grand finale, the two of them jump out of the airship Macon (which crashed a year after the movie was released), and are saved by one parachute.

The two male leads are also involved in a love triangle, the hypotenuse of which is the 24-year-old Gloria Stuart.  Sixty-three years later, she played the old lady with the diamond in "Titanic."

Here's the Wikipedia entry for "Here Comes the Navy":  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_Navy

Definitely worth staying up late the next time TCM shows it.

Schoonerbum's answer wasn't the one I had in mind, but I guess it meets the criteria.  I therefore suggest that we award Schoonerbum the next question.

I found myself thinking I was having great ideas - I moved out from the Tora Tora Tora/Pearl Harbor core to In Harm's Way and even 1941.  And I tried replacing Titanic with Poseidon Adventure.  I didn't find any matches, but I did find that David Warner was in 2 different Titanic movies - Titanic and SOS Titanic; I found a link between the movies Titanic and Tombstone; and ultimately that whoever lists the all the bit players on IMDB.com has WAY too much time on their hands.

I've wanted to watch Here Comes the Navy for years, but when it was on last, we did have TiVo but also had a new TV that didn't get along with TiVo, so I missed out yet again.   It's not available on DVD, but you can go to TCM.com and cast a vote for it - they track the votes by email address, so if you have more than one you can vote more than once.

Ok, for you Royal Navy aficionados....

What is the connection between a New Zealand dog dinner (yes, a tasty, canine main course), Captain Cook (the main course at another dinner?) and Copenhagen (no, not the smokeless tobacco)?

Alan,

I've a famous name that connects Captain Cook and the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), but can't make the New Zealand culinary connection.  Am I on the right lines?

Rick

sounds like you are barking up the right tree...

Well, my first thought was William Bligh, who sailed with Cook and commanded HMS Glatton at Copenhagen but, as I said above, I couldn't connect the dog.

Looking deeper I came up with Edward Riou, who served on both Resolution and Discovery during Cook's last expedition, ending up as a midshipman

During the voyage Riou acquired a native dog at Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand. The dog apparently bit several of Riou's colleagues so when Riou was ashore one day the dog was given a mock trial, found guilty, killed and cooked. This was referred to as the "Trial of the Cannibal Dog".

In 1799, he was given command of HMS Amazon, a new 5th rate of 38 guns. The Amazon joined the Baltic Fleet in 1801 and took part in the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801.  During the battle, Riou was severely wounded in the head by a splinter and then killed when a cannon-ball cut him in two.

Rick

Rick has found the correct connections.

Though Nelson only knew Riou by his reputation before the Copenhagen operation, Riou greatly impressed the Admiral during their short association. He performed flawlessly in marking the channels approaching the city and Nelson included the frigate captain in his planning sessions, along with Admirals and Commodores.

Riou became the victim of other officer's screwups during the battle, ending up facing shore batteries in a frigate. When Hyde Parker lost his nerve and ordered a withdrawal, Riou had no choice to comply, unlike Nelson, who could afford to turn a "blind eye". In order to withdraw, Riou's vessels had to cease fire, which lifted their protective cloak of smoke, and turn their sterns to batteries that had not been suppressed. Riou was cut in half by a cannon ball and Amazon's crew suffered horrendous casualties.

If events at Copenhagen had gone to plan, it might have been "kiss me Riou"....

For those interested in more, check out:

http://www.angelfire.com/trek/guardian/ 

and an excellent book by Dudley Pope, The Great Gamble, Nelson at Copenhagen.

The dog story, and undertones, can be found in Anne Salmond's book, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog, The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook's Encounters in the South Seas"

Rick, the floor is yours.