USS WEST VIRGINIA BB-48 Naval Cover 1946 BATTLESHIP
It was canceled 16 Jan 1946. It was franked "Allied Nations".
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USS West Virginia (BB-48), a Colorado-class battleship, was the second United States Navy ship named in honor of the country's 35th state. She was laid down on 12 April 1920 at Newport News, Virginia, launched on 19 November 1921 and commissioned on 1 December 1923. Her first captain was Thomas J. Senn. After her shakedown and crew training were finished, she was overhauled at Hampton Roads and later ran aground in Lynnhaven Channel.
After her repairs she participated in exercises and engineering and gunnery courses, winning four medals in the latter. She participated in other fleet tactical development operations until 1939. In 1940 she was transferred to Pearl Harbor to guard against potential Japanese attack, and was sunk by six torpedoes and two bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor. On 17 May 1942, she was salvaged from the seabed by draining the water from her hull.
After repairs in Pearl Harbor, she sailed to the Puget Sound Navy Yard. There she received an extensive refit, including the replacement of her 5"/25 caliber anti-aircraft guns and single-purpose 5"/51 caliber guns with 5"/38 caliber anti-aircraft guns. She left Puget Sound in July 1944 for Leyte Gulf.
She bombarded Leyte in November 1944, becoming part of a successful American plan to destroy the portion of the Japanese fleet trying to sail through the Surigao Strait, and later attacked Iwo Jima and Okinawa. At the end of the Pacific War she entered Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender and became part of Operation Magic Carpet, making three runs to Hawaii to transport veterans home. She was deactivated on 9 January 1947 and scrapped on 24 August 1959 in Bremerton, Washington.
Contents [hide]
1 Description
2 Construction and commission
3 Interwar period
4 World War II
4.1 Pearl Harbor
4.2 Rebuild
4.3 Leyte landings
4.4 Battle of Leyte Gulf
4.5 Philippine operations
4.6 Battle of Iwo Jima
4.7 Battle of Okinawa
4.8 Japanese surrender
5 After the war
6 Awards
7 Remains
8 Legacy
9 References
9.1 Bibliography
9.2 Online sources
10 Further reading
11 External links
Description[edit]
West Virginia was 624 feet (190 m) long overall, had a beam of 97.3 ft (29.7 m) (114 ft (35 m) after her rebuild) and a draft of 30.5 ft (9.3 m). She displaced 32,100 long tons (32,600 t) as designed, and up to 33,060 long tons (33,590 t) at full load. The ship was powered by a four-shaft turbo-electric drive rated at 28,900 shaft horsepower(21,600 kW) and eight Babcock & Wilcox boilers, generating a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). She had a range of 8,000 nautical miles (9,200 mi) at 10 knots(19 km/h; 12 mph) and a crew of 1,407 officers and enlisted men when commissioned.[1]
She was armed with a main battery of eight 16"/45 caliber guns in four twin gun turrets on the centerline, two forward and two aft. The secondary battery consisted of sixteen 5"/51 caliber guns. The anti-aircraft defense consisted of four three-inch (76 mm) guns, which were soon replaced with four 5"/25 caliber guns. The secondary battery of 5"/51 caliber guns and the anti-aircraft battery of 5"/25 caliber guns were replaced with 5"/38 caliber guns. Standard for capital ships of the period, she carried two 21-inch (530 mm)torpedo tubes in deck-mounted torpedo launchers which were removed in a later overhaul.[1] A CXAM-1 Radar was installed in 1940.[2]
West Virginia 's main armored belt was 13.5 inches (343 mm) thick over the magazines and the machinery spaces, and 8 inches (203 mm) elsewhere. The main-battery gun turrets had 18-inch-thick (460 mm) faces, and the supporting barbettes had 13 inches (330 mm) of armor plating on their exposed sides. Armor 3.5 inches (89 mm) thick protected the decks, and the conning tower had 11.5-inch-thick (290 mm) sides.[1]
Construction and commission[edit]
West Virginia 's keel was laid down on 12 April 1920 at Newport News, Virginia by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. She was launched on 19 November 1921 and commissioned on 1 December 1923. Her construction was sponsored by Alice Wright Mann, daughter of prominent West Virginian Isaac T. Mann, and her firstcaptain was Thomas J. Senn.[3][4]
As she was one of the newest American super-dreadnoughts, she incorporated the latest features in naval design. Several different features from American battleships planned before the Battle of Jutland included a watertight, compartmentalized hull and the thickness of her armor.[3]
Interwar period[edit]
After her trials, shakedown and post-commission repairs, she departed Newport News for New York harbor for work purposes. After a brief amount of work at the New York Navy Yard, she departed the harbor for Hampton Roads for repairs. Along the way, she experienced steering gear troubles. When her overhaul was completed, she departed Hampton on the morning of 16 June 1924.[5][6]
At 10:10 am, while she was sailing down the center of Lynnhaven Channel, the quartermaster reported that the rudder indicator and emergency bell to the steering engine room were unresponsive. Captain Senn quickly ordered all engines stopped, but the engine-room telegraph would not respond to messages; there was no power to the engine-room or steering telegraphs.[5][6]
Using the voice tube from the bridge to main control, Senn ordered full power on the port engine and stopped the starboard. The crew tried to steer the ship with her engines and keep her in the channel and, when this failed, to keep her away from the edge of the channel. Their efforts were fruitless; the ship lost headway due to engine failure, and she ran aground on the soft mud bottom. In its investigation of the grounding, the court of inquiry found that "inaccurate and misleading navigational data" had been supplied to the ship; the chart legend indicated greater channel width than actually existed, and Senn and the navigator were exonerated. After she was repaired, West Virginia became the battle-fleet flagship on 30 October 1924.[6][7] The ship won the American Defense Society's American Defense Cup and the Spokane Cup, presented by the city's Chamber of Commerce in recognition of her excellence in short-range firing, in addition to Battle Efficiency Pennants in 1925, 1927, 1932 and 1935.[6][8]
During this period she underwent a cycle of training, maintenance and readiness exercises, participating in engineering and gunnery competitions and the annual fleet problems. In the latter, the fleet would be divided into opposing sides; a strategic or tactical situation would be implemented, with the lessons learned becoming part of a doctrine later tested in combat. As part of Fleet Problem V in 1925, she participated in an "attack" on theHawaiian Islands to test it's coastal defenses. The year after, she participated with the Battle fleet in a voyage to Australia and New Zealand. In later exercises, she sailed from Hawaii to first the Caribbean and then the Atlantic. She also made a voyage from Alaska to Panama.[6][9] In Fleet Problem XI, she and Tennessee accidentally fired several rounds at the Saratoga, mistaking her for the Lexington.[10]
She received performance-enhancing modifications, including the replacement of her original 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft battery with 5-inch (130 mm)/25 calibler guns; the addition of platforms for half-inch (12.7 mm) machine guns at the foremast and maintop, and the addition of catapults to her quarterdeck, aft and number-three (high) turret. West Virginia was one of 14 ships to receive early RCA CXAM-1 radar.[2] During the late 1930s it became evident that it was only a matter of time before the United States became involved in another large-scale war, and the fleet was dispatched to the Pacific in the spring of 1939 and stationed in Hawaii in 1940 after Fleet Problem XXI as a Japanese deterrent.[6][11]
During 1941 West Virginia carried out intensive training from Pearl Harbor as part of a number of task forces and groups around Hawaii, with an unusually tense period beginning in late November and continuing into December. Training was usually followed by in-port upkeep along southeastern Ford Island.[2][6][11]
World War II[edit]
Pearl Harbor[edit]
Dark smoke billows from the ship after the Pearl Harbor attack while a man is rescued from the water by sailors in a small boat
Sailors in a motor launch rescue a man overboard alongside the burningWest Virginia during, or shortly after, the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, West Virginia was moored outboard from Tennessee at berth F-6 with 40 ft (12 m) of water beneath her keel. Shortly before 8:00 am, Japanese planes from a six-carrier task force began an attack on Pearl Harbor. Six Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedoes struck the port side of West Virginia. One hit the steering gear, dislodging the rudder. At least three struck below the armor belt, with one or more striking the belt itself (requiring the replacement of seven armor plates).[12] One or two torpedoes exploded on the armored second deck after entering the listing ship through holes made by previous torpedoes. One torpedo failed to detonate, and was recovered and disarmed by shipyard explosive technicians. The torpedo attack made two large holes, extending from frames 43 to 52 and 62 to 97.[13][14]
West Virginia was also damaged by two Type 99 No. 80 Mk 5 bombs made from 16 in (410 mm) armor-piercing naval shells fitted with aerial fins. The first was found, unexploded, in debris on the second deck after hitting the foretop and penetrating the superstructure deck. The second hit farther aft, destroying a Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane on the upper catapult of turret three. The impact knocked a second floatplane upside down to the main deck below, spilling gasoline (which ignited) from its fuel tanks. The second bomb (also a dud) penetrated the 4-inch (100 mm) turret roof, destroying one of the turret's two guns, as burning fuel from the overturned aircraft injured turret personnel and damaged the remaining gun. West Virginia was eventually engulfed by an oil-fed conflagration, begun by the burning Arizona and sustained with fuel leaking from both ships.[15]
Port-side torpedo damage caused rapid compartment flooding; prompt counter-flooding by four damage-control parties under the command of J.S. Harper and early closure of all water-tight doors and hatches ordered by Harper's assistant, Archie P. Kelley, prevented the ship from capsizing. Water damage ruined much of the ship's communications gear, including its battle-phone batteries. An experimental sound-powered telephone circuit connecting the central station with the damage-control parties, tested during the previous summer's damage-control drills, remained operative but was unused. Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, unaware that Harper and Kelly had begun damage-control efforts, ordered Lieutenant C.V. Ricketts to begin counter-flooding the starboard compartments. Ricketts, delayed at his battle station and AA-gun batteries, arrived to find 30 to 40 starboard compartments already flooded. In his report, Ricketts wrote that he witnessed the flooding of one compartment. He then ordered all remaining starboard compartments flooded and returned to the bridge to help move the captain, mortally wounded by shrapnel. Harper's report on the counter-flooding of "all available voids", as directed, indicated that Ricketts' assistance had been unnecessary.[16]
During the attack's first wave and the counter-flooding overseen by Harper, executive officer Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter abandoned ship by jumping off the starboard quarterdeck. Harper was then notified by an officer on the conning tower that the captain was dying, the executive officer had abandoned ship and Harper (as third in command) was now the commanding officer. After confirming that all starboard compartments were flooded, Harper went to the conning tower. Countermanding the captain's dying order for all hands to abandon ship, he ordered repair parties to fight fires fore and aft. Fire hoses from the Tennessee were passed to the West Virginia; crews fought fires near turret three and elsewhere on the ship until about 2:00 pm, when Harper ordered the remaining crew to abandon ship.[17]
With a patch over the damaged area of her hull the battleship was pumped out, refloated on May 17, 1942 and docked in Drydock Number One on 9 June. This enabled a more detailed damage assessment, indicating six (not five) torpedo hits.[18][19]
During repairs, workers found the bodies of 66 West Virginia sailors who were trapped below when the ship sank.[20][18] Several were lying atop steam pipes, in the only remaining air bubble of flooded areas. Three were found in a storeroom compartment, where they had survived for a time on emergency rations and fresh water from a battle station;[20] a calendar indicated that they were alive through December 23.[21] Although the remaining crew and shipyard workers were confronted with a monumental task because of the damage to her port side, West Virginia sailed from Pearl Harbor on May 7, 1943 to Bremerton, Washington and a complete rebuild at the Puget Sound Navy Yard.[18]
Rebuild[edit]
The hyperboloid cage masts supporting the three-tier fire-control tops, the two funnels, the open-mount 5"/25 caliber guns and the casemates with the single-purpose 5"/51 caliber guns were replaced by a single funnel and dual-purpose 5"/38 caliber guns. On the decks, 40 mm Bofors and 20 mm Oerlikon batteries were added.[6][18] Although the two-ocean naval policy dictated a beam limit of 108 feet (33 m) for U.S. battleships to traverse the Panama Canal, when the Tennessee, California and West Virginia were rebuilt their beams were widened to 114 feet (35 m) feet, effectively limiting its service to the Pacific theater.[6][18] After her rebuild, her appearance differed from her sister ship, USS Maryland, after her rebuild, she was now very similar to Tennessee and California, except for her twin-gun main battery turrets.[6][18]
By early July, West Virginia had been fully modernized, she sailed to Port Townsend, Washington, finishing trials on 12 July. She returned to Puget Sound for final repairs, before heading for her post-modernization shakedown atSan Pedro, California.[6][18]
She completed her shakedown and departed for Pearl Harbor on 14 September.[18] She was escorted by two destroyers and arrived there on 23 September. She then sailed for Manus Island, being joined by the fleet carrierUSS Hancock (CV-19). Twelve days later, when she arrived in Seeadler Harbor she became part of Battleship Division 4. Another two days later, she became the flagship of Battleship Division 4 after Admiral Theodore Ruddockmoved his flagship from the Maryland to the West Virginia.[6][22]
Leyte landings[edit]
The ship at sea
West Virginia in July 1944
Participating in the invasion of the Philippines, West Virginia sailed as part of Task Group 77.2 (TG 77.2) under Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf. On 18 October the battle line enteredLeyte Gulf, with West Virginia behind California. At 4:45 pm, California launched a naval mine with her paravane; West Virginia avoided it, and it was destroyed a few moments later by gunfire from a destroyer in the screen.[6][23][24]
The next day West Virginia steamed to her assigned station in San Pedro Bay at 7:00 am to stand by and bombard shore targets in Tacloban, Leyte's capital. Retiring to sea that evening, the battleship and her consorts returned the next morning to attack Japanese installations in the Tacloban area.[6][23] Her gunners fired 278 16-inch (410 mm) and 1,586 5-inch (130 mm) shells, silencing the Japanese artillery and supporting the underwater demolition teams (UDTs) preparing the beaches for the 20 October assault. During the assault, Japanese planes flew over the landing area; West Virginia fired at those within range, but did not down any.[6][25]
On 21 October, as she sailed to her support position for the landing troops, the battleship touched the seabottom and sustained slight damaged three of her four propellers. Vibration from the damaged blades limited sustained speeds to 16 kn (18 mph; 30 km/h), or 18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h) in emergencies. For the next two days, she continued providing anti-aircraft fire for the invasion troops. She was situated close to the beachhead during the day and retreating seaward at night.[6][26]