The USN Mothball Fleet - Storing up for a rainy day
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2021
- Today we look at the development of the USN's reserve fleets from the navies inception through the start of the Korean War.
Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/Forgotten-Fleet-Mothball-Daniel-Madsen/dp/1557505438
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
Why is it not pinned than?
Edit: re loaded page it is now pinned.
In this current decade, is the USN now going up or going down, funding wise? Seems to be a trend to me when im watching this mothballing topic video
How is it that the US Navy can preserve their ships so well and at such relatively low cost that so many museum ships have such a hard time doing it?
I understand that in the case of museum ships you likely have more people going in and out but a nice revolving door or just entirely closing of sections of the ship that people will normally not come should be quite doable i think, am i missing something here?
Great video as always Drach! Are there any “famous” ships still in the US mothball fleet? Are there still any world war 2 or Korean War veterans in the reserve fleet as of 2021?
(Alternate question title: are there any “not so ordinary” ships still in ordinary?)
I have read a in german literature that the function of the triple 28cm (11 Inch) turrets of the of the Deutschland- and Scharnhorst- Class were one of the best kept military secrets of the Wehrmacht. This implies to me that they were functioning i a somewhat special manner. Could you specify what made those Turrets special in comparison to any other Battle ship grade gun?
I grew near the Suisun Bay Mothball fleet---back in the 70's there were rows and rows of warships.....was in my boat watching as they brought in USS Iowa 20 years ago....all gone now. Used to anchor right off the Iowa to fish and just stare in amazement.....got up the nerve to accidently drift close enough to touch the hull once :)
Sounds sexy.
I grew up in Benicia and loved starting out at the Suisun Bay Mothball Fleet to look at USS Iowa.
Jeff Lantz......... I was hoping to see Suisun Bay Mothball fleet. My former U.S. Navy ship, USS FOX (DLG-33) was at Suisun before it was decommissioned and dismantled. Spent nine months on FOX in Vietnam 1968-1969.
that was a sight to see,,,,
,,, all those ships ,,,,
dern ,, if only i had taken more pics!
Accidentally on purpose?
I had the dubious honor of being "in charge" of the mothballed fleet in Philly when the government shut down for 3 weeks at the end of '95 when they sent all the civilians home. And by "in charge", I mean I'd be the guy they pointed fingers at if any of the ships started burning, exploding, sinking or being disagreeable. As a retired CPO, I still think I shoulda gotten a command pin or something for having my neck on the block like that... :) Though it was kinda neat having Des Moines as my personal flagship.
I was on the reserve destroyer USS Holder and while in drydock in Philly in 75 me and another hull tech got to go over to the USS Sullivan's, (now in Buffalo, NY) engine room to forage parts for our ship. It was not in mothballs but lined up with many other ships. And while I was on the USS Anchorage in 74 in either Sasebo or Iwakuni Japan, I remember all the WW2 LST's lined up in mothball in the harbor. Wish I'd got a picture of that.
I was stationed on a USNS sea going salvage / tug boat back in the early 2000s. We did a number of tow jobs along the East coast with mothball ships. What surprised me the most is how badly the outside of these ships was deteriorating. Having spent three years on a ship forward deployed I knew from personal experience how much effort went into corrosion prevention. There is never a work day that grinders and needle guns aren't on use on a ship somewhere. To think any of these ships would be taken out of mothball and put back to service is just crazy to me. It would take months of dry dock time to get them back to a point where they were operational and safe to use.
On a side note, I have actually stepped foot on the USS Forrestal. Arguably the most haunted ship in the United States Navy. (Look up its history if you want to know why.) I forget which mothball fleet that ship was in at the time. Or if it is even still in mothball. But you couldn't pay me enough money to spend the night on that ship and then shut off the lights. Hell to the naw.
@@superdave8248 Scrapped in 2015
I certainly hope there were no "dodgy boiler" incidents on your watch!!
The Des Moines? The biggest US heavy cruiser class?
Right off the bat you give the reason that the United States Coast Guard is the US's oldest continuously serving sea service! Kudos!
Me: how cute. Without the masts, they look like hotels.
French navy: *Furiously takes le notes*
Or prison barges.
How many rooms do you want? We have as many as we do portholes, minus a dozen or so, our boss likes throwing spyglasses out in frustration
Yamato: crying in the corner.
In an alternate timeline, they continued this trend and eventually created the first hive city.
Cartmann, Drach previously did a video entitled "when hotels go to war" referencing the Frogs. Watch it and enjoy a chuckle.
As someone who has had to remove Cosmoline from old Russian rifles the thought of having to remove it from an entire ship causes me melancholy that I thought hitherto impossible.
I've literally had to bake surplus Mosin's to loosen the concrete cosmoline. Amazingly the wife was not happy about the oven...
@@darrellsmith4204 It had to be done.
Some sacrifices just have to be made the Mosins came out fine though right?
It must be hard to boil a ship like a lobster and where are you going to get that much gasoline.
First, xylene is great for that. Second, my buddy can tell the date and country of origin by the smell texture and color of the cosmoline it’s kind of amazing. 3rd, my grandfather would talk about how in the pacific they would coat the 20mm guns in the stuff and as they fired the heat would make it liquify and the gunners would get absolutely covered in the stuff.
The US Navy has not forgotten how to fool Congress into thinking that they are just modifying existing equipment. The F-18E/F Super Hornet is the F-18C/D cockpit forward attached to a entirely new airframe that sort of looks like the original.
Yep, it looks like the original so long as you don't have an original F/A-18 nearby to compare. Or an F-15 Eagle nearby to see that the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is actually *bigger.* Fortunately F-15 Eagles aren't common sights on aircraft carriers.
Not to mention the Zumwalt class "destroyer" which displaces 16,000 tons and has 6" guns. A cruiser by any measure. But that deception didn't work, because congress canned it for cost overruns anyway.
@@simonoconnor7759 In fairness, I think they pulled an even bigger fast one on Congress by getting them to unwittingly authorize a technology demonstrator, something they’ve never wanted to allow.
@@jamesharding3459 actually, if you look at recent history, the Zumwalts are a repeat of the Seawolf-class, just without the Cold War ending to stop the production run.
@@TheTrueAdept Seawolf wasnt just a technology demonstrator, it was the final word in nuclear attack sub design. The zumwalt is questionably comperable in impact.
13.20 I like the way they pulled a fast one on Congress by quietly using money allocated for maintenance to effectively build new ships. But didn't the Royal Navy do something like this in the 1950s when they spent quite a few years modernising HMS Victorious? At the end of the modernisation she was effectively a new carrier. The modernisation reputedly cost more than it would have to build a new carrier, but the politicians would never have sanctioned that.
Didn't because it cost so much it blocked a couple other carriers getting modernized because Parliament caught on?
@@tremor3258 I couldn't really say it is generally accepted that in the 1950s they got the county class missile armed cruisers past Parliament by calling them destroyers. This was regardless of the fact they were twice the size of any destroyer built up till then.
There was a story in the Navy that the designers actually described them as cruisers but the admiral overseeing the program crossed out cruiser on all the documents and drawings and substituted "destroyer".
I can't really blame them in the 1950s every politician knew cruisers as gun armed ships were obsolete. The fact that they were missile armed would make no impression on them so just calling them cruisers would be enough for them to cancel when they needed cuts.
I also read the invincible class light carriers were described as "through deck cruisers" to get them past Parliament. This was fortunate in the light of the Falklands. So the game goes on.
@@freebeerfordworkers Sounds like what the Japanese navy is doing today: building carriers capable of operating F-35s and calling them "helicopter destroyers".
Politics ruins everything, and politicians in peacetime are usually a greedy lot bent on ensuring that an adequate portion of the pork is distributed to their districts.
@@forcea1454 I would not disagree. I was just repeating what I read in several places at the time, that a senior officer crossed out cruiser and substituted destroyer on the paperwork. But don't ask me which places.
Storing warships for a rainy day? Cloudy, with a chance of 16inch AP shells?
And scattered Shiites...
That's some heavy rain.
hale sail
🙈🤪🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😈
Afaik only Iowa's had guns that big
"Dodgy boiler" -sounds like some very British slang word insult.
I refer you to the song 'VD Boiler' by Johnny Moped.
Or maybe a punk band.
I think I dated her, the usual, 3am and any old boiler will do
Dodgy associated with pressurized steam is some bad news.
@@PadraigTomas
Nothing in this thread disagrees.
As a child, I remember seeing the USS Shangri La in mothball at anchor, in or near Norfolk, Virginia.
Shangri La was tied up in Philadelphia for many years until they towed down the Delaware River and sold her for scrap. My dad served aboard her and watched them tow her away from the New Jersey side of the river. He wasn't happy.
my good friend served on her during the Vietnam war...Yankee Station....the ole number 38
The fact that they decided to name a ship Shangri La is telling. When you reach a certain number of hulls you have to get creative
@@simonfrederiksen104 It was based on a smart remark by FDR IIRC.
@@RCAvhstape
My remark was meant as a joke, but you're right.
One flattop broke the mold when it came to carrier names, its origins not the annals of naval history, but by the pen of a British novelist and the subterfuge of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On April 18, 1942, 16 Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchell medium bombers under the command of Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV 8) to attack the Japanese Home Islands, a highly secret and unconventional operation that provided American morale a much-needed boost.
When asked by the press about the location from which the bombers launched, Roosevelt replied “Shangri-La” in reference to a mythical Himalayan kingdom created by James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon published in 1933, the same year Roosevelt took office.
The ship from which the Doolittle Raiders actually launched continued in service until October 1942, when she was sunk at the Battle of Santa Cruz. Honoring her service, the Navy christened a new carrier Hornet (CV 12), which was placed in commission in November 1943.
Subsequently, on Feb. 24, 1944, Mrs. Doolittle slammed a bottle of champagne against the hull of another flattop at the Norfolk Navy Yard, christening her Shangri-La. On Sept. 15, 1944, with work having been completed, the carrier was commissioned and headed to the Pacific, spending much of 1945 steaming with the Pacific Fleet in the final campaigns against Japan.
Ironically, she launched planes to attack Tokyo, just as the Doolittle Raiders had done, and joined other U.S. Navy ships entering Tokyo Bay for the surrender ending World War II.
Thank you for defining the term "laid up in ordinary". I have seen the phrase many times in histories and fiction, but never eally knew what it meant.
Interesting how the Korean war proved the Navy's reserve system worked and how the Army's didn't (since they didn't have one) and how they had to raid war memorials to get enough Shermans to reactivate
To be fair, you can build a tank from scratch faster than a ship and for a lot cheaper.
Not that the Army didn't learn the lesson or that it wasn't a mistake but at least it wasn't the Air Force or Navy.
To be more fair, the Army didn't want to disarm itself like it did after WW2, but President Harry Truman had a long history, going back to his days as a frugal artilleryman, of not trusting the US Army to spend money well, so he aggressively used his position as Commander-in-Chief to make the Army prove that it was only paying for necessities, not extravagances.
However, Truman had some logic to his apparent madness. The US Navy, as noted in the video, was not denied the money to maintain the largest fleet in the world. Why? Because Truman, like many, was expecting the next great war to play out like the World Wars had: the US Navy would keep the USA itself safe while the necessary armies were raised to finish the war. Instead of paying a fortune to keep a largish army with modern weapons for wars that may never happen, constantly replacing obsolete equipment, why not just raise 10,000,000 men with the latest weapons newly-made when no enemy can reach your shores without getting past the US Navy first?
What that plan didn't account for was a small war too big for a few battalions of Marines to handle happening on the wrong side of the globe from where the US Army had all its active heavy weapons. Thus, much of the "Korean Crisis" had to do with the desire to not strip the US armies in Germany of their tanks and artillery, because it was possible that the Soviet Union might invade Germany. Also, we must note the poor leadership of the Army in Japan meant those US troops were far less well-trained and armed than they should have been. THe Japanese just didn't seem threatening enough to justify keeping the tanks.
So if you really look at it, the US Army in 1950 did quite well. Yes, poorly-trained troops without heavy weapons hastily pulled from Japan were really scared for the first few weeks, but then they quickly turned the tides of war against the North Koreans. Yes, some people panicked back home and yanked tanks off monuments to send them to Korea, but the war was already turned in America's favor before they arrived in significant numbers. Even before Inchon, the North Koreans were running out of weapons and men as America's airpower and growing artillery park grew overwhelming. Only the arrival of hundreds-of-thousands of Chinese troops kept the war going, and by that point, the USA was sending new-made tanks and dropping more bombs than it had at times during WW2.
So long story short, the US Army was not as bad off as it looks. A lot of the apparent problems were not with the lack of weapons, it was with the placement of those weapons. This is why we developed the grand system of magazines that we still have today, with thousands of guns and hundreds of tanks just sitting in warehouses all over the world so we only need to ship the crews to them.
@@genericpersonx333 then had the Clintons peace dividend and bush#2 had no weopons no ammo no equipment
@@demonprinces17 tbf, Reagan reactivated too many hulls just to have a paper navy of extremely obsolete hulls requiring a decade or more of upgrading just to get them to modern standards instead of spending that money on the ships the navy needed for the future.
@@AsbestosMuffins and defeated the Russians and made america #1 after Carter and post veitnam drawdowns
I was a member of the decommissioning crew for 2 USN ships- USS Henry B Wilson and USS Barbey. Although the basic procedures were the same for both ships, there were some differences due to what the Navy planned to do with them. The Wilson was used as a target ship, while the Barbey was sold to a foreign navy. Oddly enough, we did far more to the Wilson in cleaning her up than we did for the Barbey. The EPA had to inspect the ship and certify that it could be sunk without being an environmental hazard.
Not at all surprised. Haven't you ever sold something to someone else before? Any issues are now their problem!
And that's where we got second hand car salesmen.
Thank you for that bit of history. I bet that you could go into length about cleaning the Wilson, here, and many would appreciate it since it is so pertinent to Drach's video.
"Henry B. Wilson was decommissioned on 2 October 1989, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 26 January 1990 and sold for scrap on 15 April 1994. The scrap contract was terminated on 23 March 1999 and the ship was resold on 6 April 2002. She was re-acquired and sunk as a target ship 15 August 2003."
@@alexsis1778 Ownership of asbestos, PCBs and similar hazmat can no longer be transferred. If you're stuck with it, your only option is to have it stored in an APPROVED hazardous waste facility. You continue to retain ownership and responsibility in perpetuity. You can no longer get rid of it by selling it to someone else.
Reserve vessels that are sold for scrap must be remediated of all hazmat before they can be exported. This typically happens in Brownsville, TX.
Why is that odd? It would be odd if it was the other way around
In the mid 1960s, I was part of a crew that reactivated a Fletcher class destroyer to be sold to Turkey. The ship had been in reserve since 1946, or about 20 years. The interior was much like it had been in 1946. Outside there was a lot of light rust and some deeper rust in decks where water had collected. Some ships still in reserve had much more rust. The navy didn't do any rust maintenance I could see on ships smaller than cruisers. In 1970 I saw several troop transports scrapped. On the outside, it was difficult to find paint. Everything was rust.
The zoomed-out, black and white pictures of all those ships stacked together brings to mind those plastic model sheets that you have to pull all the pieces off of before you use them.
Which just brings to mind the idea of Yamamoto's "Waking the Giant" quote with an American giant just ripping Clemson and Wickes destroyers off of a disposable plastic sheet.
Or popping the destroyers into a giant magazine with a giant thumb and firing them at Japan like rifle rounds.
@@RCAvhstape I think that was a 1942 cartoon by Warner Bros....
That’s what I thought the thumbnail was, a bunch of plastic ship models still on their sprues
And today, China can produce 10X as many ships as the USA did at its height of WWII and 100X greater than the USA can produce today or Europe and USA/Europe thinks they will still be the worlds dominant super power.... Just putting things in perspective
@@w8stral Statements like these always beg the question of what that even means. 10X as many ships means about as much as 10X as many vehicles when comparing cars to uranium-armored main battle tanks. A supercontainer ship is a lot easier to build than a nuclear submarine or a fleet carrier.
I also like the idea that the US (or EU) *can't* build 1% of China's shipbuilding program.
I had a chance to go aboard Missouri, in 1985, when the ship was being prepared for towing to Long Beach CA. for reactivation. Closed since 1955, we found Plan of the Day sheets taped to bulkheads dated 1955 and they were as fresh as when posted. The galleys were rust free too. The only signs of long closure were some patches of peeling paint due to dryness. After photographing the departure of the ship for Long Beach, I followed it down to become part of the recommissioning crew. I appreciate the care that was taken to keep my battleship in such fine condition. To quote Margaret Truman who spoke at the recommisioning banquet in San Francisco, "Take care of my baby." We did with pleasure.
Very cool story.
I was so excited to see the Missouri right after you "escorted" her to Long Beach before she left for her much deserved rest-- one of the most incredible experiences of my life, to be followed up when I went into the Navy myself in 1992 & after boot camp & my training for being a non-deeignated airman then reported to Supply Dept on the base on Coronado Island in San Diego. They "Salts" thought it would be funny to send me on docking parties when our aircraft carriers were coming in after their trips out to sea- docked the Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Ranger, Independence, & the Nimitz right before it was decommissioned! It was absolutely fantastic & just as exciting as seeing the lovely Missouri!!! To put the cherry on top, my oldest boy has been in for @15yrs now, sonar tech,has been on several notable submarines & is now teaching at submarines school at Point Loma in San Diego- getting ready to test to wear those khakis & be a chief petty officer:) so grateful & proud to have been a tiny part of our proud navy's history!
I was aboard the USS THACH FFG-43 when our C.O. came over the 1MC. He told our crew that they were towing the USS Missouri. She would be crossing our bow. It seemed really erry because it was somewhat foggy. The ship just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Still remember that after all these years.
Back in 1984, I was working on an ocean going tug USNS Powhaton T-ATF 166 and had the opportunity to spend much time on some vessels towed out of mothballs and used as targets. One ship had been laid up since 1946 and had books, magazines and love letters from that time. There was cosmoline on on everything in those ships, the sink valves were disassembled and greased too. I have a nice porthole and some other artifacts from those days, it was sad to see perfectly sealed time capsules with new machinery, being sunk as targets.
SINKEX actually gave us some useful info on how designs withstood battle damage.
I loved the mention of the point system. I was one of the points that got my father home from the US Navy ahead of so many others. I'm not sure but it had to be the autumn of 1945.
I screenshot comments and stories like this, they are really heartwarming and nice to read years later when you’ve forgotten a lot
@@taterater1052 You could write a book like that. Instead of letter from something name it comments to the future. Lotta people say never forget and then repeat history. Maybe instead of a book make it a RUclips series.
So, would you call the reactivation of the Red Lead fleet a Red Lead Redemption?
Everyone on the ground! He's coming in low.
Well played sir!
One of the better puns I've seen lately, and it doesn't rely on a bunch of stupid fake dialog.
👏...👏...👏
Ah, Red Lead, some of the hardest shit to get off the human body without taking a few layers of skin with it. From experience.
I used to go check out the mothball fleet in San Diego when I was a teenager in the 70's...was pretty cool over a mile of ships sitting side by side...
I had a similar experience seeing the mothballed ships at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in the '70s.
We used to take Sunday drives and watch them unload the tuna seiners, I remember going home to Chula Vista and seeing this massive fleet.
Back when America was able to do amazing things. I miss 1970's America so much. Sniff Sniff ....
@@1981menso my uncle was 1st mate on one of the tuna boats...yep it was cool stuff..
I grew up inSD. I’ve always loved WWII naval history. Every weekend I’d pester my dad to take me to see whichever navy ship had an “open house” for visitors. I also Remember looking over the SanDiego mothball fleet in ca. 1970 (I was probably about 10).I distinctly recall a row of escort carriers. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
How could you get this so wrong? The USN Mothball Fleet exists to keep Mothra away.
Gojira approves this post.
@Daniel Large It's turtled up in a hidden corner of the world
So THAT is why it always attacks the other side of the planet!
No, they're filled with mothballs, to keep the navy's brass' uniforms in their closets, moth free. An ordering mistake, signed off by a general while he was getting a blowjob, caused the ordering of 10 million gross cases of the stuff, instead of 10 boxes.
@@d.e.b.b5788 Oh c'mon! No Army General could ever get it up for a Navy expenditure.
My father, a naval aviator, was part of the recommissioning crew of the USS Kula Gulf, CVE108, an escort carrier at the start of the Korean War. One of the things he told me later was the mistake they made in having the seamen scrape the whole ship down and start out with new paint. Their paint job didn't hold up well. They discovered is was preferable to attack peeling paint but anything that was staying put was kept as a base and simply painted over.
He spent most of the war on the Kula Gulf, patrolling the North Atlantic, weeks on (and weeks off) out of Norfolk, Virginia, looking for Soviet ships. He flew F4U Corsairs, and launched and recovered them as Catapult and Arresting Gear Officer.
My own very first memories, starting at age 3 1/2, are going out to his ship when it was in port and he was duty officer. My mother, older brother and I would ride a small launch out, climb up the long stairway up the side of the ship and have dinner with him. Clark (three years older) and I were free to wander about and explore. The sills of the watertight doors were a major barrier for my small stature, and I always emerged from our forays greased up.
As a teenager in the 70s, I was in the Sea Scouts. Our ship was a 65ft converted ice breaker we bought from the navy for a dollar. Complete with radar. Granted it was obsolete but it worked for our use. Slept 12 in the crews quarters and 4 officer's quarters forward. The skipper and executive officer had quarters on the quarter deck just aft of the bridge. Was fitted with two 970hp diesel engines.
In our downtime we would take the quarter boat over to the mothboll fleet And " tour " the old ships and B class subs. There was a Dolfin class boomer there for a short time. That was a daunting boat. Even then I was aware of the power it possessed.
The preservation of the Mothball fleet in the long run would turn out to be crucial for the US Navy. If the ships had been scrapped, then there would have not been so many cruisers to convert into missile cruisers, destroyers to be turned into FRAM ASW ships, and submarines to be turned into improved, long-duration, sonar-equipped GUPPY subs
Don't forget "museum" ship USS Missouri that was recommissioned in '91 for the first gulf war. Had the British royal navy copied this then HMS Vanguard would probably still exist as a massive missile battleship. It seems only the US navy understand that even a ship from the 40s can be refit and modernized.
@@Searly255 THAT IS WHY THEY WERE CALLED BATTLE WAGONS
@@Searly255 there is such a thing as metal fatigue. Given enough time, the hull itself deteriorates on atomic level, and loosing its atomic bonds. This is effectively negated by building a vessel hull from titanium, or modern composites. But that's relatively modern technology. In other words, USS Missouri was beyond recovery, by the time it was reactivated, and its fate sealed.
@@theflame5919 I recall the Iowas were decommissioned primarily because of the sheer cost of replacing the boilers, which would warrant a deep refit since you are literally going quite deep into a ship, yanking out its heart, installing a new set, and putting the stuff you took out back where it was supposed to be.
If you're going to do that, you'd effectively be rebuilding the ship. Which would cost about as much as a new ship.
Very well done, sir. As a 21 year veteran of the US Navy I very much appreciate the effort and time you put into documenting the history of forces afloat.
Thank you for your service.
24 here. Remember the Philadelphia Naval fleet in the 60/70s.
The "repair work" actually leading to a new vessel reminds me of the shenanigans the Royal Navy was pulling off in the 17th and early 18th centuries; it's why you get ships like HMS Prince with such long service lives, despite having actually effectively separate iterations.
Stuck up
Ah, the US Congress. For most of it's existence, the US Navy's worst enemy. sm
Now it's every American's worst enemy.
Same can be said for the Royal Navy (and Royal Australian Navy). I once heard someone say that the only enemy Anglo-Saxon armed forces cannot vanquish are their own governments.
I though the navy’s worst enemy was the bureau of ordnance?
As philosoraptor once said, con-gress is the opposite of pro-gress
@@ThraceVega You're thinking of white supremacists
Back when the Iowa was still in Suisun bay reserve fleet I went with my uncle and a bunch of other vets to go visit it. A bunch of the vets pulled some bits of paint from the hull of the ship as keepsakes (the fate of the ship hadn’t been decided yet) and he gave me one. I still have that piece of paint to this day.
My father took me to see the Missouri in reserve at Bremerton around '66. Even as a kid, was kinda disappointed that we couldn't go inside at all. Didn't get any piece of it, though.
I had a friend i served in the USN with back in 86-89.
He became a MCPO before retirement.
He managed to get me a small 6x6 in piece of her teak foredeck before she was moved to Alameda for refit to Long Beach as a museum.
I still have it displayed with my other enlisted momentos.
In 1967, after having been drafted, I was sent to the US Army's Transportation School at Ft Eustis, VA on the James River. There I received training on operating LCM8 and LCU landing craft as well as tug boats up to 105'. Just outside of the channel from Ft Eustis there were a large number of reserve ships in the river - many being Victory cargo ships.
Later, during 1968, I was at the munitions port near Sattahip Thailand. Almost all of the ships that came into the port carrying munitions were Victory ships that had been brought back to operational status.
I've been on the "Big Wisky" . It's an amazing sight to turn a corner while driving through Norfolk and come face to face with the bow of this Battleship... It's moored about 20 meters from a major city street. You can tour parts of it as a museum. Very cool sight.
I went to the US for that ship especially. Best two days of my life. A lovely museum and great people there!
I remember seeing a quote attributed to a British crew on one of the "50" (the destroyer for bases DDs WERE fully supplied before handing over, which meant they had a LOT of creature comforts that were darn scarce in Britain by then).
"I know we've smoked all their Camels. But, if we gave them a thousand Players, do you think the Yanks would take this bloody sieve back?"
While the US Navy was generous handing over the ships fully stored that was about the only good thing that could be said for them. It was a hard-nosed political deal and effectively removed British naval presence in the West Indies. it was one of Churchill's ideas and he always thought he was a great Adml but when it was put to the Cabinet you could say they were a bit taken aback.
They were never designed for Ocean escort work and it was said they would roll on wet grass. When one of them renamed Campbeltown was used as a floating bomb in the raid on St Nazaire many in the Navy thought it was the best possible use for them.
@@freebeerfordworkers It was a bit more cunning than that, congress was opposed to any loans (or especially lend-lease) to Britain reasoning that despite Britain's protests that they were almost broke they had many corporations and territories that they could sell to the United States. Congress wanted to use the war for force them to sell their western hemisphere territories to the US. The destroyers for bases deal placated congress and opened them up to new financing options.
Though, in hindsight, given that British just gave all these territories independence after the war anyway, it would have probably been better had Congress forced Britain to sell them them the US.
A good compromise is one that leaves both parties equally dissatisfied.
@@freebeerfordworkers It was the corvettes that were said to roll on wet grass, but those WW1 destroyers were narrow-gutted and certainly unsuitable for escort work. Most of them had half their boilers taken out to create extra bunkerage, since they didn't need the speed, and the beam guns landed to reduce top-hamper and allow for more depth-charges.
Were WW1 ships 20 years mothballed
I really enjoy your thoughtful, well made and well narrated films!
I live near one of the reserve fleet anchorages so this'll be neat.
This is why funding for USN and the DOD in general is sooooooo convoluted. The push and pull between the services and congress.
and it only gets worse once defense lobbyists get involved.
@@MrChickennugget360 I think you have it there. As an outsider (I'm English). It seems the huge amount of money that's thrown around by lobbyists really do cause you huge problems (and wastage).
Interest groups have an impact here. But nothing like you chaps have. And they have to sell their stories using the media and public relations. If they just throw money around, our media tends to quickly destroy politicians who take said money.
It probably helps we don't just have 2 parties as well. Interest groups can't latch onto a party and know they have a 50% chance of getting what they want.
Not to mention we don't have a president that belongs to a party who can also be "bought"
@William Mulvaney its not even a matter of bribing the media. they are already bought and paid for or otherwise in the service of various special interests, ideologies or agendas.
@@MrChickennugget360 at this point the two parties are just the opposing pawns of the same conglomerate
@William Mulvaney such a shame. I know you guys had a rough start with the indians and the slavery and racism and suchlike. But you really did try democracy didn't you.
I wonder if being such a wealthy nation corrupted (much like power in general)
An excellent video and educational lesson for Navy history Buffs like me
Very interesting discussion! My mum grew up near one of the rivers where the reserve ships were kept in New England, and talked about biking down to see them from time to time!
could you possibly do a short continuation about the various heavy cruisers and light cruiser that were taken out of reserve and converted in guided missile cruisers
That would go past the timeline Drach typically features.
@@jamesjarrait2231 he has done a video on post war Essex uses and the Iowa’s post war service so it is possible
@@crazylemonz1957 only as a brief wrap up of those classes. Much as he did for vanguard.
I dare say he has enough content to go through anyway 🤣
@@AdamMGTF true lol
true that but it would still be cool
Absolutely fascinating history of "mothballing" the USN. Top work Drach!
You forgot the Zincs! Lots and lots of zinc tabs that were mounted to the hulls to act as sacrificial anodes so that the hull and coatings didn't deteriorate too quickly.
People still do that for buried tanks (like propane tanks and diesel tanks)
@@hithere7382 particularly when the soil doesn't quite have a neutral pH. But it is done a lot on ships, zinc tabs are very useful when a structure spends most of its time floating in salt water.
@@adamdubin1276 We use anode bags not tabs on the tanks. Same idea just a little more convenient to change except it's cooler by the water.
On the US west coast, a large mothball fleet was parked in the estuary just upstream (on the huge Sacramento River Delta) of the San Francisco Bay (Suisun Bay). In recent years, it's been largely dismantled by the USN because some of the ships were leaking oil and fuel, flaking lead paint, and most all were horribly obsolete. I used to drive by, then later fly over, that fleet many times. Watched it slowly shrink as ships were removed and disposed of.
Ahh, the US Reserve Fleet, the second largest navy on earth.
The US navy is the second largest navy in the world.
@@justaguynamedmax8207 its quite a bit more complicated today than even 50 years ago. every now and then a presidential candidate prattles on about a 300,400,500 ship navy but even regan wasting cash to reactivate every floating hull in the 80s couldn't make an effective force
@@justaguynamedmax8207 Depends upon if you count by number of "vessels" or gross tonnage displacement of vessels. China and North Koreas Navy are mostly small craft, so they're more of a coast guard then navy.
@@justaguynamedmax8207 By numbers, the RN in the 1800’s would be the largest in earth. But no one’s saying it’s relevant.
@@justaguynamedmax8207 By number of ships sure, but over double the tonnage of China. Having lots of corvettes, subchasers, and gunboats does not make a navy stronger than another that operates larger warships.
At first I thought the thumbnail pic was plastic ship models on a runner)
I have had the great pleasure of watching most of your presentations over the last 6 months since I found you on line. What amazes me is not so much the information / research you have gotten but more the actual photo's ! I never knew so many existed. Of course the information is also first rate, but having the visual references as well is the icing on the cake. As an old Navy man (USN 75 to 85) BZ to you.
I had opportunity to visit the reserve fleet at Bremerton, WA while I was stationed there (during the cold war). It amazed me how many vessels were being kept from WWII, and how well kept they were. Thanks for doing this video. It sure brought back memories for this old man.
A random late-night click on a 43 minute long video thumbnail that held my interest and taught me significantly more than I knew about the USN fleets. I've watched plenty of popular war movies, yet had not considered that there were so many ships active at the same time... and to see the amazing photos of them gathered together is very cool.
Thank You for sharing your knowledge.
Being a truck driver here in America. I've seen both Philadelphia and Maire River mothball fleets. I've seen the USS Salem in Philadelphia navel yard before becoming a museum ship
What a fantastic amount of information easy to understand and listen to! That's rare and I'm subscribing.
The photos of the “ship of the line” wing used as a building is the USS Vermont.
Laid down in 1818, not commissioned until 1862 but was outdated by then.
Was in place in the NY Naval Yard as a ”stores and receiving ship” from 1864 until 1901 when she was struck off the navy list.
Very diligent and informative handling of this topic.
Funny how I was just about to search for videos on the mothball fleet, and find this on my feed, perfectly timed to suit my interests. Good timing, great content!
One of us
One of us
One of us
If u put on ur aluminum foil hat goggle won't be able to do that to you. 😳
Very well done. You just got yourself a new subscriber with the quality of this presentation.
How have I missed your channel before today!? I love history, especially military history. This was such a great video! I never knew tyat our naval fleet reserves had such a sad but very interesting history.
This was a very interesting video subject. The depths of insight into putting (U.S.) naval warships into "mothballs" was not only intriguing and informative, but, as Drachinifel always does, entertainingly, or better yet, humorously explained so that land-lovers could more easily understand. ... As is, at one point, I had this image of groups of massive warships covered by multiple igloos. 😄⛄🚢⚓
38:20 The USS Sproston DD-577 sitting proudly in mothballs. During WW2, my father manned one of the 5 inch guns, from the shakedown cruise until the end of the war. Lot's of action.
Always wondered about this subject, thanks for the upload.
Sitting on the beach with a new episode of my favorite navy expert, this vacation has been the greatest
Thank you, Drachinifel.
My great uncle was a gunners mate on the Missouri in Korea. By his account she was a pretty great ship despite her age.
Thank you for the naval history lesson.
I Truely enjoyed your presentation.
Excellent ! Very interesting. Back in the 1950’s I used to catch a glimpse of US Mothball Fleet in Banica Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area.
When I was a kid the Mothball Fleet was still docked side by side in Orange Texas. By about 1982 or so all had been removed, but I suspect there were about 100 big ships and lots of smaller ones. Very cool to see them up close and I recall the guns being very impressive.
I never knew a video about ship preservation would be this interesting, thanks, Drach!
An excellent article. Very comprehensive and well written, worthy of prime time TV.
Of all the research material and documentaries I have read or watched of the New Guinea campaign, this is by far the best. Congratulations on a great documentary.
Used to do a lot of fishing around martinez/carquinez
I've seen the old fleet shrink a lot over the years.
Had a great. Great ? Uncle that sailed with the great white fleet.
One nice momentous that's been passed down is a 70mm
Photo of part of the fleet in a Chinese harbor lined up with a large French warship interesting how at the harbor entrance were a couple Chinese gun boats anchored with their bows/guns pointed towards the "colonial" warships. A sort of protest per the uncles notes.
That would be a great picture to see!
Please get a notated* copy of the photo to school master Drach.
*who where what and when.
Regarding the Four Stackers given to the British, It's was actually a sampling of destroyers handed over, not just hulls pulled from reserve. Some were practically unused and freshly overhauled. Some had seen 20 years of continuous service in the Asiatic fleet. Some had been taken out and put back into reserve two or three times. Most spent another 3-6 months in British yards getting boilers removed and hedgehogs and AA guns installed regardless. Some lasted in Soviet service into the 1950s.
Nice one indeed Drach! I now know a lot more about the USN Mothball Fleet than I did previously! Thanks Mate! Much obliged indeed!
Excellent, informative, interesting and of the usual high standards, many thanks.
I lived in No. Cal and worked at SFO when I left the USAF...The mothball fleet in person is amazing...
I don’t know, exactly recent. When I was a boy in the ‘50’s there was a big mothball fleet in Glen cove Springs, F! Mostly destroyers and destroyer escorts. This was right down the St. John’s River from a big USN base at Mayport, FL. They were still there all the way through the 1950’s and I always enjoyed looking at them when we went that way. I guess there were close to 100 ships stored there.
Nice vid. Thanks for the history and overview of this subject.
Awesome video as always. I still remember the old transports (Liberty ships) moored side by side in St. Andrews Bay (Panama City, Fla.) when I was a kid in the 1960s. I didn't realize that desiccant dehumidifiers had been around for as long as that. There are more efficient ways to employ the same principle in one machine without having to change out the silica gel. A wheel packed with silica rotates within the unit taking in the moist air in the top, expelling the dry air, then rotating to the bottom where the silica is dried by a blower with that moist air sent out via a duct outside the contained area, and then rolls the wheel back to the top where the process continues. This method works over a wider range of temperatures than most modern dehumidifiers which are LGRs (low grain refrigeration models). Cheers!
Far more interesting than ever imagined!
I was stationed at Philadelphia Atlantic Reserve Fleet 1961-62. We had in storage
(as described herein) the Iowa, Tarawa CVA 40 and many destroyers. I would estimate 150 ships.
In addition to the prep work described, we used a series of electrical devices placed around the hull to create a magnetic field.
This was presumed to limit deterioration of the outer hull. Security teams were placed in strategic locations throughout the working day to stand watch. Teams of electricians serviced the mag field devices and massive dehumidifiers on each ship.
The Rosevelt presidential yacht was among the group. For a young sailor, it was a real adventure to see all this naval history in one place.
This is so good! Love these deep dives!
I was born at the Newport News shipyard .A few miles upriver near Fort Eustis they used to have many ships rafted across most of the James River.
Reserve ships make wonderful spare parts supermarkets. Snipes on the USS Chicago (CG-11) had a grand old time looting the USS Toledo and USS Los Angeles prior to deployments.
One or more lube oil purifiers on my boat in the 2000's were from a destroyer from WW2. Some equipment is universal and bulletproof.
And USS Long Beach raided USS Chicago in 1983 in Bremerton…😎
I love the amount of research and detail you put into these, it gives me even more appreciation for the few ships that are still around as museums. I was kind of hoping you would get around to how a ship transitions from reserve to museum ship though. :)
Have you tried looking at the Battleship New Jersey channel? It's a museum ship and a number of the videos address what goes in to running one.
In the 60s my mother took us to what I think was the Philadelphia Naval Yard and we were able to go aboard several of the moth balled ships. Very Sad all those ships laid up. Great video Drach
Wow that was very interesting. I had no idea about all that. Thanks for sharing that information!!
at the end of WWII, US had 98 carriers (not "two dozens"), light and heavy. what to do with all that, was the question
He said 2 dozen Essex class. The US built 160 carriers during the war. Most of these were small carriers. CVE's, many used to form hunter killer groups in the Atlantic.
@@karlhumes6110 98, for real were operational in August 1945. only three had sunk.
Ooooh, always wanted to know how the reserve fleets work
I lived in Davis while my wife attended UC Davis Vet school in the 1980's. Her parents lived in Pleasant Grove and we drove by those ships practically every other weekend. I was always curious about their history, now I know. Thank you for this in depth video presentation.
Awesome video! This is something I had never heard of before, but I found it super interesting!
When I was a kid we’d pull our 17 foot boat in between the ships of the James River Reserve Fleet and fish there. There were huge spot and croaker there. Was scary seeing that the only thing separating the ships was a single 30 foot tall inflatable fender very eerie to hearing noises in the hulls.
I used to live in the Bay Area. Every time I drove over the Benicia bridge I'd look down at the reserve fleet in Suisun Bay near Mare Island and wondered just how much longer those ships could be maintained.
My first duty station out of bootcamp in 1962 was the mothball fleet at Rough & Ready Island, Stockton, CA. It was later moved to Suisun Bay, CA.
Well done! Completely and utterly enjoyable!
The name for the "grease" that you're referring to is Cosmoline.
The funny thing is the US Army had (at least when I was stationed at Fort Monroe, VA through 1987) a huge mothballed fleet of ships (including troop transport ships) docked in the James River near Fort Eustis (The Army's Transportation Corps headquarters). At the time, the US Army had more naval vessels than the US Navy and more aircraft than the US Air Force.
That was a very informative video. Thanks for putting it together, so much info I have watched it twice, so far..
I grew up in Green Cove Springs and hearing stories about the mothball fleet that had been over at the port, is what helped get me interested in naval history. Most of the what was mothballed there was the smaller ships. Things like destroyer escorts and LSTs. More of which ended sinking in the Florida Keys when they were being towed to Texas for scrapping in the late 60s.
I have seen the remnants of the dehumidification system deep in BB35 USS Texas.
Reminds me of a story from an old cartoon mag, " Weird War ", about the mothball fleet in Sausalito, California - near Frisco. These two old naval vets were fishing off one of the hulks,talking about the days when they served and one starts getting a flashback about an incident were he neglected or betrayed his fellow crewmen in some way and caused several deaths. Anyways, hooks a big fish which pulls him over, drags him under into the hull to join his long-dead companions. Weird ? Indeed. True ? Probably not but it makes for a good campfire-story.
Nice, always wanted to know more about this!
This has been absolutely incredible! Navy veteran here w son teaching at submarine school in San Diego & carrying on the fine, fine Navy traditions!!! I've never heard this stuff & really enjoyed watching & learning, will definitely be sending the link to my boy so he can share w his shipmates as well!!! Thank you over & over, will totally be subscribing & watching!!!!
I remember seeing the Reserve fleet moored near Wilmington when my family was driving to Florida for vacation. They were moored near the Delaware bridge (I think?). If my memory is correct, many of them were supply vessels. Given the advent of container ships and roll-on/roll-off ship, I wonder if they kept them around or what happened to them.
Gone.
Dad worked on these "four stackers" for the RN.He didnt go into details but he did say they needed good deal of work.
No better video to fall asleep to. Voice over is so soothing. Thank you.