U.S. Navy of 1915

[thunderw21]

Amazing 'lost' footage of the U.S. Navy of 1915. Check out those submarines and the battlewagon!
Amazingly clear footage, looks like it was filmed yesterday.

http://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/u-s-navy-documentary-1915

Everyone in that video is gone now.

 

[Slim Portly]

Great find! Do they still teach sailors how to splice line?

A couple of seconds looped at 7:45 would make an excellent animated gif.

 

[HepKitty]

very nice find :eusa_clap I even shared it on fb

 

[Geesie]

Great find! Do they still teach sailors how to splice line?

Boatswain Mates, sure.

 

[DanielJones]

The one Battleship looked almost line the USS Olympia. Great footage!

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Fletch]

Some more about U.S. E-class subs

These were really the days of the "pigboats" - so called because they were about the dirtiest service in the Navy. They ran on diesel oil, which got everywhere and on everything and everyone, and sanitary facilities were beyond primitive (mostly drums of seawater for washing and empty ones for heads).

In addition, there were no airtight closures between compartments. The potential danger is apparent in a story on the linked page, when E-2 (shown in the film) ran aground on a dive in 1919. The hull was breached, air compressors in the torpedo room burst, and the boat turned into a pressure cooker.

E-2, commissioned 1912, decommissioned 1922

 

[CopperNY]

Great find! Do they still teach sailors how to splice line?

A couple of seconds looped at 7:45 would make an excellent animated gif.

very cool.

and, one of my students was a gunner's mate and knows zero about knots.

 

[Fletch]

Yet more about E-2

E-2 spent two years at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a test bed for battery equipment. In January, 1916, an explosion during testing of a new type Edison battery killed 4 crewmen. Representing E-2's skipper and crew at the board of inquiry was a young engineering officer - Lieut. Chester Nimitz.

 

[Big Man]

I hope someone here may be able to identify this ship. I found this photo in my great uncle Briscoe Brown's things. Given the context of the other pictures that were together with this one, I suspect the photo was taken in the 1920's. There was another picture in his things of an aircraft carrier with biplanes on the deck (I'll have to scan that one next).

Any thoughts on this ship? What kind? What age?

 

[Treetopflyer]

Awesome film footage! That is the Navy that all current sailors want to be in.

 

[Big Man]

Here are a couple more old photos that my great uncle Briscoe took. I believe these are more recent than the one I posted earlier. My guess would be early 1930's. Anyone have a clue as to the identity of these two ships? Am I right in guessing the photos are early 1930's?

 

[Treetopflyer]

My guess on the carrier is the USS Lexington CV-6 and by the look of the planes on the deck, I would say late 20's early 30's time frame.

 

[thunderw21]

Great White Fleet, San Francisco, 1908.

 

[DeaconKC]

Big Man, I think you have a Connecticut class battleship there. Turret, funnels and rebuilt with cage masts. http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/us_navy_pages/uss_louisiana_bb19.htm

 

[DeaconKC]

Okay, posts overlapping, the Connecticut class is for your first photo. The carrier could be either Lexington or Saratoga, they were sister ships. I think the second battleship is a Colorado class.

 

[dhermann1]

Great film! I just finished a great book, "Theodore Rex", by Edmund Morris, a bio of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. The fleet of 1915 owed a lot to TR's building program. Interesting they they mention Josephus Daniels, too. He was Wilson's Secretary of the Navy. During his tenure he had a rambunctious, callow, and often downright insubordinate under secretary by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who he remained nonetheless very fond of.
These ships seem so big and strong, but when compared to capital ships of a generation later, they are amazingly small.

 

[HoundstoothLuke]

Some more about U.S. E-class subs

These were really the days of the "pigboats" - so called because they were about the dirtiest service in the Navy. They ran on diesel oil, which got everywhere and on everything and everyone, and sanitary facilities were beyond primitive (mostly drums of seawater for washing and empty ones for heads).

So of course, the Navy decided to use white uniforms.

 

[Big Man]

Okay, posts overlapping, the Connecticut class is for your first photo. The carrier could be either Lexington or Saratoga, they were sister ships. I think the second battleship is a Colorado class.

Thanks for the information. When I looked up the two classes of ships, I found that all the Connecticut class ships were decommissioned and scrapped by 1924. Therefore, my great uncle's photo of the older ship had to have been taken prior to that time. I know he was in The Great War, and that he went overseas on a transport (can't remember the name right now, but it started with a Z). He had a picture of that ship, so possibly the picture of the Connecticut class ship was taken at the same time (1917).

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Here are a couple more old photos that my great uncle Briscoe took. I believe these are more recent than the one I posted earlier. My guess would be early 1930's. Anyone have a clue as to the identity of these two ships? Am I right in guessing the photos are early 1930's?

That's the Saratoga -- she had the stripe on her island superstructure to distinguish her from her sister the Lexington.

 

[Big Man]

That's the Saratoga -- she had the stripe on her island superstructure to distinguish her from her sister the Lexington.

Thanks for identifying the ship. Would you venture a guess as to the possible date this old photo may have been taken? As my great uncle (who took the picture) lived in Napa, CA, my guess is that it was taken in San Francisco. I believe my great uncle took the picture of the carrier and the battleship at the same time, as they were side by side in his photo album.