thedrifter
06-09-07, 05:05 PM
Battleship, sub to share more than a name
By Don Worthington - The Fayetteville Observer via AP
Posted : Saturday Jun 9, 2007 12:29:56 EDT
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — More than 65 years of naval heritage is set to transfer in a simple ceremony next spring.
Hands that were young when they enlisted in the Navy to fight World War II will raise flags on the Battleship North Carolina.
After the flags ruffle in the breeze, the hands will carefully fold the flags.
The flags will be passed to young hands — sailors of the 21st century Navy — who will raise them over the USS North Carolina, America’s latest attack submarine.
If all goes as planned, the transfer will take place April 12 along the Cape Fear River in Wilmington during the submarine’s commissioning.
The ceremony will mark the transfer of a rich history that has accompanied the name North Carolina to the newest vessel that bears it.
World War II sailors and other veterans decided a new generation of North Carolina crewmen needed to know their ship’s heritage.
Early in its construction, “we gave them a book on the history of the battleship North Carolina,” said Dick Kanning, a Sanford resident who served on subs from 1961 to 1981.
“We wanted them to carry on that tradition,” he said.
The veterans have worked for three years to make that happen. They invited sailors from the sub to events in North Carolina and traveled to Newport News, Va., to watch the sub’s construction.
For some of the new submariners, the heritage hits home. Six are natives of North Carolina.
“When you hear people speak about the USS North Carolina, you have to step up to the plate,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Carl Lattimore, a 32-year-old from Ellenboro in Rutherford County and a 15-year Navy veteran.
“You think about the history books. What you do, what you say, falls into those pages.”
Mark Hoel, a 22-year-old machinists’ mate 3rd class, was raised in a military family at Camp Lejeune Marine base. His father, Fred, was a Marine master gunnery sergeant.
Hoel remembers visiting the battleship as a child and, most recently, while on leave.
“The battleship? That’s old school,” said Hoel, who works in the submarine’s state-of-the-art torpedo room.
Yet when the battleship North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941, it represented what was state of the art at the time.
In fact, every ship that has carried the North Carolina name has been either a trendsetter or history maker.
The three-masted USS North Carolina, called a ship of the line, was the finest in naval architecture when it was launched in 1824.
An ironclad slated to bear the name North Carolina would have outclassed most of the North’s navy in the Civil War had it not been seized by the British government during construction.
In 1915, the armored cruiser North Carolina became the first U.S. ship to launch an airplane from a catapult while under way.
The battleship North Carolina, now moored in the mud on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, was the prototype World War II battleship.
The ship was designed to slug it out with other surface ships.
“Everything on a battleship is big and heavy,” said Capt. David R. Scheu, the 63-year-old executive director of the North Carolina Battleship Commission.
Scheu served in the Navy for 24 years, including a two-year tour on the battleship New Jersey in the 1980s as its operations officer.
Scheu knows firsthand the power of a battleship’s 16-inch guns.
“They can send a shell 22 miles at a speed of half a mile a second,” said Scheu. “It clears any area the size of a football field and leaves a pool at the 50-yard line.
“It sounds like a train in flight.”
The battleship North Carolina spent most of its time in World War II steaming within 1,500 yards of aircraft carriers, protecting them from attacks.
“The North Carolina wrote the doctrine for anti-aircraft defense,” Scheu said.
The key to the North Carolina’s defense was its combat information center, where sailors used analog computers to aim the ship’s guns.
Radar ranges were plugged into the computer. Other data included the ship’s course and speed, wind and current information, even the conditions of the ship’s guns. No other navy had such a sophisticated system in World War II, Scheu said.
The same concept, albeit with digital computers and fiber optics, is used on the new submarine. Now they call it the CAC — the control and attack center.
There’s a major change in the control center from previous submarines. No longer does the captain shout “up periscope,” flip down handles and spin around, scanning the surface.
The USS North Carolina has a photonics mast with cameras replacing the traditional optical periscope.
“The technology,” said Mark Davis, captain of the USS North Carolina, “jumps ahead of previous platforms.”
Day or night, “we can do every mission from that one mast,” Davis said.
The North Carolina is the fourth in the Virginia class of submarines. The keel was laid May 22, 2004, and the christening was April 21 in Newport News.
The Virginia-class submarines are being built by Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics-Electric Boats. Each company has a long heritage of building Navy ships and submarines.
Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. (now Northrop Grumman) built the 1908 armored cruiser North Carolina.
Electric Boats built the first submarine for the Navy in 1900, 74 boats during World War II, and the first nuclear-power submarine, the Nautilus, in 1954.
The latest USS North Carolina has been in the water since May 5.
“Now that she is in the water, she feels like a submarine,” said Chief Yeoman Marty Noe, a 39-year old from Madison-Mayodan in Rockingham County. “You feel like coming to work.”
As chief yeoman, Noe is responsible for personnel and administration of the ship.
Because it is a new boat, “we’re doing things from the ground up,” he said. “We’re learning to beg, borrow and steal the best procedures from others.”
For Davis, the challenge is building a boat and building a crew.
“To see a group of 134 sailors come together is the ultimate reward,” Davis said. “The leadership has an impact on their lives.”
The boat that Davis and other crew members built carries physical reminders of its heritage.
During the April christening, the crew performed a stepping-the-mast ceremony that dates to the days of sailing ships.
Before the mast was placed, the crew put coins at its base. The lore: in the event of a shipwreck, the sailors have money for passage home.
A North Carolina quarter and coins representing the battleship and submarine were used for the submarine’s stepping-the-mast ceremony. They were placed in a piece of teak decking from the battleship.
“The teak was in Tokyo harbor when the Japanese surrendered,” said Norwood Bryan, a Fayetteville automotive dealer and chairman of the battleship commission. The North Carolina was part of the fleet that included the battleship USS Missouri, where the surrender was signed.
Each member of the submarine crew at the time of commissioning — called plankholders — will get a piece of original battleship teak. Sections of the teak are also being installed as decking within the submarine.
A final piece of history involves a 122-piece silver serving set.
The state of North Carolina had the silver made for the 1908 armored cruiser. The captain used the silver during ceremonies when visiting foreign ports. When the cruiser was decommissioned in 1920, the silver set was returned to the governor. When the battleship was commissioned in 1941, the silver returned to sea. The battleship commission plans to send several pieces to the submarine.
“We call this physical legacy transfer,” Scheu said. “You don’t often get the opportunity to transfer history.”
At the submarine’s christening ceremony, Vice Admiral John Donnelly, commander of Allied Submarine Command, predicted the USS North Carolina would be “powerful, graceful and quiet. At top speed, the sub will make less noise than most of our submarines do at 5 knots. Her firepower, stealth and agility are tailored perfectly to meet the maritime challenges of the future.”
It is, notes Machinists’ Mate 2nd Class David Reich, a 23-year-old from Greensboro, the same mission previous North Carolinas have performed through the ages.
“The only difference,” Reich said, “is we hide while we work.”
Ellie
By Don Worthington - The Fayetteville Observer via AP
Posted : Saturday Jun 9, 2007 12:29:56 EDT
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — More than 65 years of naval heritage is set to transfer in a simple ceremony next spring.
Hands that were young when they enlisted in the Navy to fight World War II will raise flags on the Battleship North Carolina.
After the flags ruffle in the breeze, the hands will carefully fold the flags.
The flags will be passed to young hands — sailors of the 21st century Navy — who will raise them over the USS North Carolina, America’s latest attack submarine.
If all goes as planned, the transfer will take place April 12 along the Cape Fear River in Wilmington during the submarine’s commissioning.
The ceremony will mark the transfer of a rich history that has accompanied the name North Carolina to the newest vessel that bears it.
World War II sailors and other veterans decided a new generation of North Carolina crewmen needed to know their ship’s heritage.
Early in its construction, “we gave them a book on the history of the battleship North Carolina,” said Dick Kanning, a Sanford resident who served on subs from 1961 to 1981.
“We wanted them to carry on that tradition,” he said.
The veterans have worked for three years to make that happen. They invited sailors from the sub to events in North Carolina and traveled to Newport News, Va., to watch the sub’s construction.
For some of the new submariners, the heritage hits home. Six are natives of North Carolina.
“When you hear people speak about the USS North Carolina, you have to step up to the plate,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Carl Lattimore, a 32-year-old from Ellenboro in Rutherford County and a 15-year Navy veteran.
“You think about the history books. What you do, what you say, falls into those pages.”
Mark Hoel, a 22-year-old machinists’ mate 3rd class, was raised in a military family at Camp Lejeune Marine base. His father, Fred, was a Marine master gunnery sergeant.
Hoel remembers visiting the battleship as a child and, most recently, while on leave.
“The battleship? That’s old school,” said Hoel, who works in the submarine’s state-of-the-art torpedo room.
Yet when the battleship North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941, it represented what was state of the art at the time.
In fact, every ship that has carried the North Carolina name has been either a trendsetter or history maker.
The three-masted USS North Carolina, called a ship of the line, was the finest in naval architecture when it was launched in 1824.
An ironclad slated to bear the name North Carolina would have outclassed most of the North’s navy in the Civil War had it not been seized by the British government during construction.
In 1915, the armored cruiser North Carolina became the first U.S. ship to launch an airplane from a catapult while under way.
The battleship North Carolina, now moored in the mud on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, was the prototype World War II battleship.
The ship was designed to slug it out with other surface ships.
“Everything on a battleship is big and heavy,” said Capt. David R. Scheu, the 63-year-old executive director of the North Carolina Battleship Commission.
Scheu served in the Navy for 24 years, including a two-year tour on the battleship New Jersey in the 1980s as its operations officer.
Scheu knows firsthand the power of a battleship’s 16-inch guns.
“They can send a shell 22 miles at a speed of half a mile a second,” said Scheu. “It clears any area the size of a football field and leaves a pool at the 50-yard line.
“It sounds like a train in flight.”
The battleship North Carolina spent most of its time in World War II steaming within 1,500 yards of aircraft carriers, protecting them from attacks.
“The North Carolina wrote the doctrine for anti-aircraft defense,” Scheu said.
The key to the North Carolina’s defense was its combat information center, where sailors used analog computers to aim the ship’s guns.
Radar ranges were plugged into the computer. Other data included the ship’s course and speed, wind and current information, even the conditions of the ship’s guns. No other navy had such a sophisticated system in World War II, Scheu said.
The same concept, albeit with digital computers and fiber optics, is used on the new submarine. Now they call it the CAC — the control and attack center.
There’s a major change in the control center from previous submarines. No longer does the captain shout “up periscope,” flip down handles and spin around, scanning the surface.
The USS North Carolina has a photonics mast with cameras replacing the traditional optical periscope.
“The technology,” said Mark Davis, captain of the USS North Carolina, “jumps ahead of previous platforms.”
Day or night, “we can do every mission from that one mast,” Davis said.
The North Carolina is the fourth in the Virginia class of submarines. The keel was laid May 22, 2004, and the christening was April 21 in Newport News.
The Virginia-class submarines are being built by Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics-Electric Boats. Each company has a long heritage of building Navy ships and submarines.
Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. (now Northrop Grumman) built the 1908 armored cruiser North Carolina.
Electric Boats built the first submarine for the Navy in 1900, 74 boats during World War II, and the first nuclear-power submarine, the Nautilus, in 1954.
The latest USS North Carolina has been in the water since May 5.
“Now that she is in the water, she feels like a submarine,” said Chief Yeoman Marty Noe, a 39-year old from Madison-Mayodan in Rockingham County. “You feel like coming to work.”
As chief yeoman, Noe is responsible for personnel and administration of the ship.
Because it is a new boat, “we’re doing things from the ground up,” he said. “We’re learning to beg, borrow and steal the best procedures from others.”
For Davis, the challenge is building a boat and building a crew.
“To see a group of 134 sailors come together is the ultimate reward,” Davis said. “The leadership has an impact on their lives.”
The boat that Davis and other crew members built carries physical reminders of its heritage.
During the April christening, the crew performed a stepping-the-mast ceremony that dates to the days of sailing ships.
Before the mast was placed, the crew put coins at its base. The lore: in the event of a shipwreck, the sailors have money for passage home.
A North Carolina quarter and coins representing the battleship and submarine were used for the submarine’s stepping-the-mast ceremony. They were placed in a piece of teak decking from the battleship.
“The teak was in Tokyo harbor when the Japanese surrendered,” said Norwood Bryan, a Fayetteville automotive dealer and chairman of the battleship commission. The North Carolina was part of the fleet that included the battleship USS Missouri, where the surrender was signed.
Each member of the submarine crew at the time of commissioning — called plankholders — will get a piece of original battleship teak. Sections of the teak are also being installed as decking within the submarine.
A final piece of history involves a 122-piece silver serving set.
The state of North Carolina had the silver made for the 1908 armored cruiser. The captain used the silver during ceremonies when visiting foreign ports. When the cruiser was decommissioned in 1920, the silver set was returned to the governor. When the battleship was commissioned in 1941, the silver returned to sea. The battleship commission plans to send several pieces to the submarine.
“We call this physical legacy transfer,” Scheu said. “You don’t often get the opportunity to transfer history.”
At the submarine’s christening ceremony, Vice Admiral John Donnelly, commander of Allied Submarine Command, predicted the USS North Carolina would be “powerful, graceful and quiet. At top speed, the sub will make less noise than most of our submarines do at 5 knots. Her firepower, stealth and agility are tailored perfectly to meet the maritime challenges of the future.”
It is, notes Machinists’ Mate 2nd Class David Reich, a 23-year-old from Greensboro, the same mission previous North Carolinas have performed through the ages.
“The only difference,” Reich said, “is we hide while we work.”
Ellie