USS Salt Lake City - The Swayback Maru
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- Опубликовано: 13 дек 2023
- The USS Salt Lake City (CA 25) saw considerable action throughout the Pacific theater during the 2nd world war. She was named in honor of the state capital of Utah and was the 2nd member of the Pensacola class to be built. Nicknamed the Swayback Maru, as well as Old Swayback, Salt Lake City survived the Pacific War, earning 11 battle stars along the way for her service. She then survived 2 atomic bomb blasts before ultimately meeting her end at the hands of her fellow surface combatants as a target ship in 1948. She was tough and defiant, helping to hold the line early in the war when there wasn’t much else the US Navy had to throw at the Japanese juggernaut. She had a great career by any measure and kept her men alive.
#unitedstatesnavy #pacificwar #navalhistory #worldwar2 #usnavy #pensacola #worldofwarships #cruiser
“3 destroyers rushed the Japanese formation…” I swear the more I hear about destroyer captains the more it seems they had some of the biggest balls of all the captains.
Absolutely! Look up the _USS Johnston_ and _HMS Saumarez,_ or the Battle of Tassafaronga for some other great examples.
edit: and the Battle of the Surigao Strait as well.
Breaks my heart that she is at the bottom of the ocean and not a museum ship!
Also, I *love* the "razzle dazzle" camo!
The Salt Lake City's captain at the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, Bertram Rodgers, was allowed to guide the battle tactical maneuvers by Adm McMorris in light cruiser Richmond so he could more effectively use his 8" guns and his "salvo chasing" greatly limited Japanese hits.
Not too bad considering Capt., later Vice Adm., Rodgers had spent much of his early navy career earning his aviators wings as an officer in its lighter than air (derigible) fleet!
You can still see the ship's bell of the USS Salt Lake City in the ROTC building on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The ship's bell for battleship USS Utah can be seen at the Utah State capitol, a few miles away.
She is a main theme in one of John Wayne's movie's. Where it starts with him being her captain then serving as admiral aboard her later in the war.
In Harm's Way, great movie!
@TheValorVault wasn't the ship in Harms way a North Carolina class😊
The cruiser used in the movie was the USS Saint Paul, a Baltimore class heavy cruiser.
@@richardhaddock5660 the movie was filmed in '64 and Washington unfortunately had already been scrapped and as a life long resident of Wilmington, NC I have never heard of that movie being film here aboard North Carolina nor is there any documentation of it. As mentioned below, the Saint Paul was used, as was the Boston and several WW2 era destroyers.
@@tonywlaschin7842 Correct, but I think what kellyschram meant was that the St. Paul was supposed to be the SLC. There's a scene about mid-way through the movie when Kirk Douglas' character says something about being back on the "Ol' Swayback".
Very good, concise history of a true warrior.
Thank you!
The armor of the Pensacola class was similar to that of the Northampton class. The Portland and New Orleans class were a bit more heavily armored. All the USN's Treaty cruisers had 8x 5"/25 guns as a secondary battery, especially for AA use. What hurt the Treaty cruisers in use was significantly under-estimating the IJN and its torpedoes and doctrine that emphasized flexibility, which worked poorly when task groups were scratch forces of ships that had not operated together. USN interwar training had emphasized fleet-level action, while IJN training had included cruiser and destroyer night actions to attrite the enemy fleet. Action in the Solomons was more like what the IJN had trained for.
Just like the navy to treat a ship with such disrespect that serve this country with honor and distinction it breaks my heart
Not so difficult to see why. All of the prewar cruisers (especially the 8 inch gun ships) were some combination of worn out/obsolete/marginally stable/vulnerable to torpedo damage.
While at the same time, we are mothballing brand new ships, scrapping others that are 75% complete. The two "Alaska" class were practically brand new (and another was close to commissioning). And on top of that, the Worcester and Des Moines class cruisers, with 6 inch and 8 inch RF guns are on the way.
The reality is that the only way one of them was to be "preserved", was it had to be a ship named for a large, rich, coastal city, with enough money, population, and community interest to make it happen.
Just completing this train of thought.......the ships that fall into this criteria:
USS San Francisco........although the locals, being who they are, would probably fought the effort
USS New Orleans.......although their track record with USS Cabot does not fill one with optimism.
USS Portland.........
USS Brooklyn........meets the criteria. A plus is that it was built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
USS Boise. No reason to include it, other than the fact that it saw more combat in WWII than any other US cruiser. One would have hoped in the 1945-1980 period that SOMEONE would have recognized this.
USS Philadelphia
USS Savannah.............good combat record, especially off Sicily and Salerno. First (?) ship struck by a guided weapon.
USS San Diego........meets criteria, plus a "Navy town". Tons of local resources for restoration and maintenance. It would have been OJT for the locals before taking on the USS Midway. (Although I wish they could have expended that effort for the USS Bunker Hill instead)
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Apparently you’re not a US Navy veteran. Each ship gets the same awards that the crew gets. no two ships of the same class operate the same. Every ship has its own personality. It’s own little quirks. To treat a veteran like this is disgraceful. A ship is a veteran.
@@Kyfordman1989 "A ship is a veteran"
Hate to tell you this, but 99% of the country doesn't agree. Sixty years ago and now.
If we attempted to save even half of the Navy's combatants as museums/memorials, we'd be chest deep in rusting hulks. Would any of the current ships be on display, were it not for public subsidies of some kind or other?
Ideally, you will have a commission/committee like the USAF does, that earmarks specific aircraft for museums/preservation (Mig Killers, aircraft flown on missions where one or more of the crew was awarded the MOH, Air Force Cross, or DFC, or some other "historic" reason, like the C-141 that flew the PoWs out of Hanoi)
Arguing about what should have happened is a waste of time. What people should be thinking about are ships still in existence, preferably not modified beyond recognition.
My dream / within reality list?
- Perry-class frigate. Ideally, an operational one. I'm thinking one at "Navy Pier" or somewhere adjacent in Chicago. Or Milwaukee.
- A "688 class" attack submarine (but reality suggests that is a dream only)
Nicely done, and great graphics, too! Thank you for sharing your research, scripting, images, narration, and editing.
In particular thank you for including details of the Battle of the Komandorski Islands; that encounter usually only gets a mere mention.
I was hoping you would have mentioned how she got that nickname.
I've always held a soft spot for these pre-war cruisers.
Tons of flaws, most of which were driven by naval treaty decisions.
As 1942 progressed, the prewar cruisers found themselves thrown into the meat grinder of the Guadalcanal campaign. Their assignment followed a pattern.......as the carriers were sunk or sent back to the US to fix damage, their screen cruisers became available for battle off Guadalcanal
beastmode
Always playing the WOWS , World of Warships
I enjoyed it very much. I still wonder why the nickname was assigned?
Thank you. From everything that I've read, war correspondent Robert Casey nicknamed her that in his dispatches home simply because he wasn't allowed to use her real name, as was standard practice during wartime. How he came up with the Swayback Maru is anybody's guess. Maru is Japanese for “ship” and I believe she was already referred to as "Old Swayback" by that point, so I think he just derived it from those 2 names.
Thank you!
My Japanese friend says that in terms of ships "Maru" means "fat" and/or "contentedly happy." During WWII almost all merchant ships had "Maru" in their names. They were the breadwinners.
In Harm's Way was the name of the movie.
No Way for a Lady to die
Agree, My Grandfather served aboard her and always refered to her as "HIS LADY". He told me many stories about her usually with a far away look in his eyes as if he was reliving it. Most had him smiling, stories about the battle of komondorskies and of standing in frigid chest deep water pounding caulk and their own uniforms into holes to stop the incoming waters left him looking exhausted. But one of the few times in my life I saw him Deeply and openly Grieve, was when he told how, after everything she done to serv her country and men. How coldly they gunned her down, murdering her, as if she were nothing but a target. Then he smiled and said But she was so tough it took hours and EVERYTHING our new navy had to sink her. They better be glad she couldnt fight back
better than dying in a scrap yard in my opinion.
Better than being scrapped, yes? She served the USN until the last.
Boa noite,vc poderia contar a estória do Cruzador Leve ST Louis, que depois da guerra foi vendido ao Brasil, abraço
And, like the USS Nevada, her toughness was her downfall as the US Navy treated them both, and many other to a watery grave. I never have understood why those atomic bomb tests were important to anyone but the top level navy brass asses. Might have served a better purpose had they been on board some of the target ships when the bombs went off.
those tests were important because nuclear weapons were new. No one really knew what would happen if nuclear bombs were used in a tactical scenario. So they had to test them on Naval vessels.
Many of the ships that were selected for the tests were older ships that no longer were front line vessels in the Navy.
This was also before the idea of preserving ships for posterity really took off. USS Texas was really the first ship to start that trend in 1947.