The USS New Mexico BB-40 Association will be having our annual Reunion October 3-6, 2013 at the Embassy Suites-St. Louis Airport hotel. We always welcome anyone interested in "The Queen" or her men. Anyone interested in the Association or our Reunion, please email me at aspie_pride@yahoo.com. Along with the crewmen themselves, we have several widows, and 2nd/3rd generation Queen's Own attending these reunions.
I am a few year's late.lol.My Grandfather raised me like a son,his ship was USS Trenton,and his Brother Anthony Carpenetti, was lost on the New Mexico in 45'...5 brothers served,2 lost..All Navy but 1..Leo was lost helping 1st Marines in Okinawa,he was Army,..I would of love to attended.Im in Penna but maybe sometime I will check into it.Happy 2019...
Will there be a reunion in the future in 2020. My father was Loren H. Pickel he was a chief petty Officer and he was aboard this ship. My sister and I are trying to find more details of our fathers service in the Navy. He was in 11 years and 11 months.
My Grandfather was chief machinist on new Mexico in WW1. Before they fired the new big guns the first time he warned the captain that the structure around the guns was too light and would be blown away from the concussion. Of course the caption didn't listen and several sailors were killed from the collapse of the structures. The new Mexico escorted President Wilson to France at end of war. In a bad storm the anchor pin came loose and they were about to lose it. He went over the side reinstalling the pin in the storm receiving a medal for doing so.
From what I understand the use of turbo-electric drive was because reduction gearboxes were still being developed, prior ships had direct drive with the turbines which was very inefficient, propellers like to turn slow while turbines like to turn fast. Once reduction gearboxes were reliable it replaced TE drive in all new ships.
Reduction gears are NOT cheap by a long shot. They are one of the most expensive items on the ship. So expensive the Navy doesn't own them they lease them. When a ship is decommissioned the reduction gears continue to live on in other ships. My first ship was the Kitty Hawk, I don't remember how old the reduction gears were just being told they were OLD. They also had the largest locks on them I've ever seen, almost novelty like, big enough if giants were real it's what they would use on thier locker. On the very, very rare occasion they get opened up you have an armed sentry right next to it. If you have to enter it you don a "poopy" suit, apparently even a hair getting down into it would cause problems.
I have seen late-war photographs of Idaho with the dual-purpose 5"/38 cal. twin turret 4 per side. And numerous quad 40mm Bofors. Much as they did to Nevada, California, Tennessee, & West Virginia. She was the only one of the three of this class to receive this arrangement. This was the first I saw with 5 single 5"/38 cal. per side. It looked odd, but neat. Of the pre-war Battleships, these were my favorite class. The Tennessee class were improved New Mexico's. The Colorado's were pretty much the same hull, with paired 16" 45 cal. guns, rather than the trio of 14" 50 cal. in 4 turrets. The cancelled South Dakota class of the 1920's would've been MUCH LARGER, with 16"/50 cal. guns, 3 per turret, in 4 turrets! With 6" secondary's, & a speed of 23+ knots. The WNT killed them before they were built. My Great Uncle went into the Navy in the Spring of 1941. He was assigned to Idaho. But when his transport reached Hawaii in early June, Idaho had been transfered to the Atlantic. She left Hawaii 4 day's before he arrived. (He was in transit from San Deigo, Idaho was heading for the Panama Canal.) So he was reassigned to the USS San Francisco (CA-38), & served on her for the duration of the War. With Lexington in the cancelled attack on Rabaul in Feb. '42. With Wasp when she was lost in Sept. '42, TWO Surface battles at Guadalcanal in Oct. & Nov. '42. He rarely spoke of these event's. Once, when pressed about the 13 Nov. '42 battle, all he said was, "ALL my friends got killed." Thanks for this informative video. I enjoyed it.
Hey, fantastic 2 paragraphs, thank you, could read on and on :) Just checking the November battle, and over 1,300 US dead, San Francisco heavily damaged, both captain and admiral killed, all of which you'd know very well. What role did your g.uncle play for the San Francisco? Please tell me anything you think.
IMO, THE best looking of all BBs (Pennsylvanias and Tennessees included, of course!), but turrets just improve on that. There is a multiple-sided semi-schematic Pict of Pennsylvania with secondaries in turrets. Beautiful, but can find no mention of this upgrade. Casement guns were one of the major flaws in MANY BBs in many navies.
@@hazchemel ; He worked on the Scout planes. (Aviation Ordinanceman). He's the guy that put the 100lb bombs on the Kingfishers for their anti-sub patrols. (I know this from a photo of him in uniform, and you can see the patch on his arm with the AO emblem. My Grandmother, his sister, told me about the scout planes. That much he did tell her.) His battle station was in the ship's hanger; part of a damage control team. Unfortunately, one of Hiei's (or Kirishima's) 14" high explosive shells hit in this area, and casualties were heavy. My Uncle was wounded in his left arm. (I saw the scars one summer when he wore a short sleeved shirt.) Most of the guys with him were killed. It was pretty gruesome. There is a detailed account. I cannot remember which book it's in. It's either.... _Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea_ by Eric Hammel Or... _Neptune's Inferno_ by James Hornfischer (I think it the first one, but it's been many years since I read them.) My Great Uncle is _not_ mentioned by name in these books. He was contacted by Hammel, but refused to talk about it. He wouldn't talk about the war with anyone. I know now he had survivor's guilt the rest of his life. He died in the Fall of 1996.
My dad served on the New Mexico. He primarily played football for 4 years. He was also the barber, , but football was his main job. He was discharged in August before December 7, 1941. In 1938, the NM team was the Pacific Fleet Champions. They not only played other ships, , but they also played University of Washington, Cal State San Diego and other west coast college teams. He was on board when they were at Bremerton, Long Beach and Hawaii, I know he had a good time in the Navy. Seaman First Class Major Ray. (. ( probably the only MAJOR in the navy)
Few Americans, then or now, even knew these ships existed. The mistaken belief spread that the 'entire US fleet' or "whole Pacific fleet' had been 'sunk' at Pearl Harbor. In truth only seven capital ships - Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada, California, West Virginia, and Tennessee, were there. USS Utah was there but no longer a battleship had been disarmed under the Washington Naval Treaty; she was an aerial target ship. Other battleships were either in West Coast ports or repair yards [Bremerton, WA] or doing Atlantic convoy duty.
The New Mexico, Mississippi, and Idaho were in Iceland when pearl harbor was attacked and they headed towards the Pacific after it happened. Idk about the Mississippi or New Mexico but the Idaho was in Tokyo harbor when the treaty was signed aboard the Missouri.
The Iowa class was only modernized with Harpoon anti ship and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They wanted to install the 8 pack sea sparrow launchers but they turned out to be to fragile for the main gun blast. So no anti aircraft missiles -which is what he meant. H & T are surface to surface types.
Bravo Zulu to Mr. Bill McComber (sp), 102 years old, [ last i heard from family 2 months ago ]. Can't believe he saw Tarawa, and later, the Kamikaze plane that almost took out Admiral Spruance. Salt of The Earth, Mr. McComber. God Bless you.
The Mississippi suffered a turret explosion(actually two of them), not a magazine explosion. A magazine explosion would most likely have destroyed the ship.
Have you ever imagined what something like that would sound like? I imagine it being similar to a tanks ammo rack erupting with that jet of fire shooting out. It's loud when a tank does it so a warship suffering similar would make thunder seem quiet.
The presenter mentions one of the advantages of turbo-electric drive being that it is much quicker and easier to switch propulsive power from ahead to astern. That is theoretically true, but not necessarily in practice. Although I have never sailed on a turbo-electric ship, I have sailed on a number of diesel-electric ships. It is extremely inadvisable to switch power abruptly from ahead to astern, as the presenter suggests. So doing would inflict an amperage overload on the drive motors which would either trip the drive motors out, or possibly even burn out the armatures. I have seen both occur when power was applied to the drive motors too abruptly.
My first ship was the Kitty Hawk and going into reverse was an evolution to be sure. You have to slow the massive shaft down, enough to completely stop it. Once stopped you locked the shaft, engaged reverse then unlocked the shafts 280,000 horsepower however will rapidly bring you to say stop. I'm still very certain the type the author talks about and the type you discuss were a hell of a lot quicker to do all that. None of it however can come close to going into reverse than my second ship, USS O'Kane DDG-77. The Burkes have CPP Controlable Pitch Propellers. You want to stop, very simply adjust the blade angle. We would stop so fast we would do what's called a hard crash back and if you're out on the fantail when this happens you better move quick otherwise you'll get soaked by the wave of water quickly created on the stern.
...then someone figure out that you have similar redundancy to turbo-electric with main steam cross-connection. The maneuvering advantages were of little benefit. Turning is helped by twin rudders in most later ships.
I don’t mean to be a dick, but two of your pronunciations are making me crazy! “Forecastle” is pronounced folk-syl and “tertiary” is tir-she-ary. Great job with the videos! Tons of work to put all of them together in a logical fashion!
@Kistler ClipzIt's ok, we all need help with English spelling, and pronunciation. It used to be formally taught, but we're too busy now drawing posters at school.
good man, and not a negative nellie. As you know, English spelling and pronunciation being as it is, we just have to take a best guess at it, and hope somebody can kindly correct it, like me saying fak-ard for facade, and Greek names from fables - like Purse -a-fone, and He-kate, Hayds, etc hahaha
