New Yorkers gazing at the brand new New Mexico-class dreadnought USS Mississippi (Battleship No. 41)as she lies at anchor in the Hudson River for the Great War victory fleet review, Christmas Eve, 1918.
Note the red flag and two stars of a Junior Rear Admiral flying from the main. Photo by Underwood & Underwood. National Archives Identifier: 45513317 Local Identifier: 165-WW-337D-7.
Under the command of CAPT William A. Moffett (USNA 1890, MoH recipient, and future “Air Admiral”), at the time of these images, she was the newest U.S. battleship in commission at the time.
“A deck view of the new MISSISSIPPI, one of the mightiest fighting ships afloat December 25, 1918.” NH 123911
Commissioned 18 December 1917, she had spent her first world war on a series of training and workups along the East Coast and did not have a chance to fire a shot in anger.
Her second world war would be a lot less tranquil.
Warship Wednesday, June 22, 2016: A hard-luck mini battlewagon
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 46708. Colorized by irootoko_jr.
Here we see the proud Mississippi-class battleship Lemnos, sometimes spelled Limnos (Greek: Θ/Κ Λήμνος) of the Royal Hellenic Navy at Constantinople, Turkey, probably in 1919. The Greek torpedo boat Dafni (completed 1913) is alongside. At the time this image was taken she had but 15 years on her oldest keel plate and another 22 years of service ahead of her.
First, let us talk about her background.
Authorized under the Naval Budget of 1903, the two-ship Mississippi-class battlewagons were the last pre-dreadnought battleships to be designed for the U.S. Navy and were a compromise design aimed at saving money while still being able to compete with the British, French, Germans and, increasingly, Japanese on a global scale.
Smaller than the 16,000-ton Connecticut-class that preceded them, the Misssip‘s were squatty 13,000-ton ships with roughly the same armament (4x 12″/45 caliber Mark 5 guns in a pair of twin turrets) but could carry more rounds per tube (71 vs the Connecticut‘ 60) and could be built for about 70 percent of the price. However, they were slower (just 17 knots compared to 18.85), and even if coal was wedged in every nook and cranny (which could lead to fire and explosions) they could only steam 5,800 nautical miles at 10 knots whereas some of the Connys could go 7,590nm.
And of course, when HMS Dreadnought was commissioned 2 December 1906, every battleship in every navy around the world was obsolete.
When meant that when the Greek battlewagon of our tale, which started off as USS Idaho (Battleship #24),Mississippi‘s sister ship, was commissioned after construction at William Cramp and Sons on 1 April 1908, she was already second-class at best.
At best.
Still, Idaho was beautiful and new and the Navy had fun showing her off to the citizens of the country in the days of the Great White Fleet.
Idaho in 1909 just after commissioning. NH 60214 Naval History and Heritage Command. Both ships of this class initially carried a pole mast above the conning tower as shown in the plans above this photo, though shortly after commissioning, both ships had lattice masts added aft, and in 1910, the forward masts were replaced with lattice masts. Also note the elegant white and buff scheme, similar to that of the Great White Fleet that she was built too late for, that she carried for just a few months.
Figurehead, USS IDAHO Caption: Photographed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 June 1909. Description: Presented by information section, O.N.I., 1927. This was soon removed in the effort to make the fleet more battle-ready, but I cannot find what happened to it. Most of these ornate crests were donated to state legislatures or kept by the Navy and used to adorn bases. Catalog #: NH 115210
Idaho (Battleship # 24) Photographed summer 1909 by Brown & Shaffer. Note how she is now wearing haze gray and her figurehead shown above is removed. Collection of Chief Quartermaster John Harold. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 101497
Idaho joined the giant international naval review that was Hudson-Fulton in New York City from 25 Sept- 9 October 1909 upon the Hudson River just after greeting the Great White Fleet at Hampton Roads upon their return to U.S. waters.
Idaho (Battleship # 24) In the Hudson River off Fort Lee, New York, 1909. Photographed by William H. Rau. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Then the 1911 Naval Review
USS IDAHO (BB-24) Off New York City, 3 October 1911, during the naval review with Grant’s Tomb visible just over her port side. Note she now has two lattice masts rather than the single aft one shown above. Catalog #: 19-N-13812 National Archives
And the 1912 Naval Review
USS Idaho (Battleship # 24) Dressed with flags during the Naval Review off New York City, October 1912. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. The number 30 is her place in the review.
In fact, in the 6.3 years of semi-active service she gave her nation, Idaho‘s only tense times were a trip right after she was commissioned to Panama where she observed the elections there and then in the summer of 1913 when she was in Mexican waters for the near-constant series of crisis during that country’s revolution and civil wars.
Idaho did embark mids and naval militia on training cruises, wave the flag in Europe, and even sail as far up the Mississippi River as Vicksburg– possibly the last battleship to do so.
Still, in a move to make way for newer, larger dreadnought-style vessels, Asst. Scty of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to put enough pressure on to get rid of low-mileage Idaho and her sister Mississippi by selling them to Greece amid the growing crisis in Europe that would bloom into World War I– making them the largest warships the Hellenic Navy ever operated.
The Greek battle line at the time consisted of the Italian-made Pisa-class armored cruiser Georgios Averof(10,200-tons/4×9.2-inch guns) and their elderly French-built ironclads: Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara– which were exceptionally small at just 5,300-tons, lightly armed (3x 10-inch guns) and slow (16 knots).
In a capital move, Greece paid $12,535,275 for the two American battleships– their full building cost.
The mighty Lemnos!
So in effect, the U.S. got a refund on the vessels when they transferred on 30 July 1914. Further, the funds were used to construct the New Mexico-class super-dreadnought, Idaho (BB-42), which at the time was unfunded by Congress.
Class leader Mississippi was renamed Kilkis after the crucial battle of the Second Balkan War, while Idaho became Limnos in honor of a victorious naval battle over the Turkish Navy during the First Balkan War.
Can you tell who Greece’s main rival was at the time?
Cruiser Averoff outboard with Kilkis (ex-Mississippi) who has a very dark new scheme and Lemnos (ex-Idaho)
Greece’s World War I record was spotty and the French disarmed the two battleships in 1916 just to be on the safe side, reducing their crews and impounding their shells, breechblocks, rangefinders, and torpedoes. However, after a change of government, the Greeks were allowed to rearm and nominally served in the Aegean in the last months of 1918– keeping an eye on the Turks.
Battleship Kilkis in Piraeus port, 1918. Note the poor children in the foreground. Greece spent huge funds they did not have on new military equipment to fight the Turks. Photo via Bernard Flament
Greek pre-dreadnought battleship Kilkis (former USS Mississippi), Grand Harbour, Malta 1917.
Kilkis (EX USS Mississippi) – 1917 Colourised by Postales Navales
After the end of the war, Lemnos penetrated the Straits with the Allies and remained in and out of the Black and Marma Seas supporting Allied Intervention Forces in South Russia and the general occupation effort in rapidly imploding Turkey.
Speaking of which, both ships became very active once Greece and Turkey went to war in May 1919 and remained that way for the next three years.
Lemnos (Greek battleship) Firing a salute to U.S. Navy Admiral Mark L. Bristol, at Smyrna, Turkey, 15 September 1919. Lemnos is flying the U.S. and Greek flags at the foremast peak and the Italian flag at the mainmast peak. A British D-class light cruiser is in the right distance, also with the Italian flag at the mainmast peak. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Lemnos Dressed with flags at Smyrna, Turkey, in 1919, possibly on 15 September. She is flying the Greek flag at the foremast peak and the Italian flag at the mainmast peak. Photographed by Wayne. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 46707
The two battleships helped in the occupation and then evacuation of Smyrna in the disaster following the Greek collapse and their skippers cast their lot with the uprising by the Greek army and navy against the government in Athens in Sept 1922 that effected regime change by forcing the unpopular King Constantine I to abdicate and leave the country, with a military junta ruling the country until early 1924, shortly before the Greek monarchy was abolished and the Second Hellenic Republic established.
After 1932, Lemnos landed most of her guns, turrets and even a good bit of her armor plate, which were utilized as coastal defense batteries around island straits and choke points in Greek waters for another couple of decades (more on this below). She remained afloat with her likewise mothballed but still armed sistership, being utilized for barracks, receiving and depot duties until World War II.
When the Germans busted through Greece in April 1941, both ships were found at anchor in shallow water at Salamis near Athens by Luftwaffe Ju-87 Stukas and were plastered.
German footage of Lemnos foreground and Kilkis background under attack 23 April
Photo #: NH 77440 Greek battleships Kilkis and Lemnos sunk in the basin of the Greek naval base at Salamis after they were hit by German air attacks on 23 April 1941. Seen from the harbor pier following the arrival of the German army. Kilkis, the former USS Mississippi (Battleship # 23), is in the foreground. Lemnos, ex-USS Idaho (Battleship # 24), is in the distance, with her guns removed. Franz Selinger, via the U.S. Naval Institute, provided the photograph and some caption information. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Battleship Kilkis sunk German aerial photo. Note she still has her guns. Those on Idaho/Lemnos were removed before the war for use ashore.
Both ships remained on the bottom and they were broken up after the war.
Wreck of the Greek battleship Kilkis being refloated, with Averof alongside her in Salamis port, 1949, via George Kapadoukakis
Salamis Naval base, 1949. Averof and the sunken hulk of battleship Kilkis being raised. Photo by George Stasinopoulos
But what of the guns we mentioned above?
The twin 12 inch (305mm) turrets from the Lemnos were installed in the 1930s at Cape Tourlos (37.767069, 23.554406) on the island of Aegina where they helped to defend the approaches to the port of Athens.
Captured by the Germans in 1941, they were manned by Marineartillerieabteilung 603 (MKB Ägina-Nord) until October 1944 and– along with the 19 152mm guns manned by the Italians on the island of Leros– helped proved the basis for the fictional “Guns of Navarone” by the Scottish writer Alistair MacLean, though in the book they were described as 280mm railway guns.
The emplacements (sans guns) appear to be still visible on Google Earth. Idaho‘s 8″ and 7″ guns were likewise scattered and, knowing the Germans, may have been relocated anywhere in Festung Europa.
While some of Idaho’s guns and armor may be somewhere in a forgotten coastal defense battery long since left to ruin, items left in the States from these briefly-used ships are slim.
The silver service and ship’s figurehead shield from the Mississippi are in downtown Jackson at the Magnolia State’s Capitol.
Idaho‘s Tiffany & Co. presentation silver service, seen below in a 1912 photo, went on to serve on the Greek-funded USS Idaho BB-42 and was turned over to her namesake state in 1942 to prevent it from being lost during WWII. It had been paid for by a $7,500 allocation by the legislature in Boise and presented by Gov. Hawley to BB-24 some four years after she was commissioned.
I can only assume it is somewhere in Boise, hopefully on display.
Displacement: 13,000 long tons (13,200 metric tons); 14,500 full load
Length: 382 ft. (116 m)
Beam: 77 ft. (23 m)
Draft: 24.7 ft. (7.5 m)
Speed: 17 kn (20 mph; 31 km/h)
Range: 1,900 nm at 10 knots with standard 600t coal bunkerage. When overloaded with 1,800 tons could make 5,800
Complement: 34 officers and 710 enlisted in U.S. service. Unknown in Hellenic service.
Armament: (As commissioned, largely disarmed 1932)
4 × 12 in (305 mm)/45 caliber Mark 5 guns (2×2)
8 × 8 in (203 mm)/45 caliber guns (4×2)
8 × 7 in (180 mm)/45 caliber Mark 2 guns
12 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 caliber guns
2 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 7–9 in (178–229 mm)
Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
Turret (mains) 8–12 in (203–305 mm)
Turret (secondary): 7 in (178 mm)
Conning tower: 9 in (229 mm)
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With the commissioning of the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise, the world’s largest and fastest super-carrier, able to remain at sea as long as she had food for her crew and jet fuel for her birds, the U.S. Navy needed a group of fast escorts able to keep up with this ship and the follow-on 1970s era Nimitz class of CVNs.
In 1961, to match the Enterprise, the Navy had exactly one nuclear-powered cruiser, the huge 721-foot long, 15,500-ton USS Long Beach (CGN-9) and one nuclear-powered destroyer, the 9100-ton USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25). These three ships formed the all-nuclear-powered Task Force 1 and in 1964 circumnavigated the globe without refueling– going around the world in sixty-five days as part of Operation Sea Orbit.
Operation Sea Orbit: On 31 July 1964, USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) (bottom), USS Long Beach (CGN-9) (center) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) (top) formed “Task Force One,” the first nuclear-powered task force, and sailed 26,540 nmi (49,190 km) around the world in 65 days. Accomplished without a single refueling or replenishment, “Operation Sea Orbit” demonstrated the capability of nuclear-powered surface ships.
Well in the meantime one more nuclear destroyer, the 8500-ton (the smallest U.S. Naval nuclear powered surface combatant ever built) USS Truxtun (DLGN-35) commissioned in 1967 and two follow-on nuclear cruisers USS California (CGN-36) and USS South Carolina (CGN-37) were birthed out in the 70s.
This led to one final class of cruisers, the magnificent 11,600-ton Virginias (Virgina, Texas and Missississpi) who were completed by 1980. This, along with the re-designation of Bainbridge and Truxton to cruisers, gave the Navy a grand total of 9 nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers, or one per each nuclear powered carrier in the Navy by December 1995 when their 9th atomic flattop, USS John C Stennis (CVN-74), was commissioned.
The entire Virginia and California classes CGN
The entire Virginia and California classes CGN, part duex. So cool I had to give it to you from two angles.
However, as soon as this parity was achieved, it was gone. Truxton, in fact, had struck on Sept 11, 1995, even before Stennis commissioned, while Long Beach had likewise done so on May Day of that year. Bainbridge lasted a minute longer, being struck and decommissioned on 13 September 1996. The four Virginias, newest of the fleet, were all decommissioned by 1998– tragically less than twenty years old at the time and among the most effective anti-air ships in the world. California and South Carolina went hand in hand down the tunnel in 1999 as sister-ships should, the end of an era.
All were disposed of through recycling although some parts, such as the main mast from the Mississippi, are preserved. I visited the “Big Miss” on her last port call, in Pascagoula, just before she was deactivated in 1996 and her crew were somber. After all, its not often that you scrap an 18-year old battlecruiser.
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, May 22
Mississippi as a brand new battleship in WWI complete with lattice masts and disruptive anti-U boat camouflage
Here we see the New Mexico class battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) in about 1918. The Mighty Miss had a career much longer than most other WWI-era battleships and gave good service for over forty years.
Laid down just a few months after the start of WWI in Europe, she was commissioned 18 December 1917 some eight months after the entry of the US into the Great War. Built as a oil-fired ship (most other warships of the era were coal burners), her WWI career was spent largely in US waters, a fleet in being along the US East Coast should the High Seas Fleet of Kaiser Wilhelm ever make a sortie to New York. In 1931 she was overhauled and modernized, spending almost all of the time period from 1919-1941 in the Pacific.
(Notice the much lower masts and more streamlined look. She was one of the most modern battleships of WWI, but sadly was pushing obsolescence by 1940)
She would have been at Pearl Harbor more than likely alongside her sisters New Mexico and Idaho, but all three ships were sent to the Atlantic in June 1941 to help enforce the neutrality patrol against Nazi U-Boats. Once the Japanese struck in the Pacific however, Mississippi and her sisters were sent racing back to the Pacific. For the first several months of the war she protected convoys up and down the West Coast as California braced for invasion. In 1943 she helped protect the landings in the Aleutian Islands. After conducting shore bombardments in Peleiu, Makin Island, Kwajalein, and others, she found herself in the last Battleship vs Battleship action– the Battle of Suriago Strait. There, Mississippi herself fired the final salvo in history by a battleship against other warships– contributing to the sinking of Japanese battleship Yamashiro.
(Again with the camouflage. During WWII her armament of anti-aircraft guns steadily increased)
More shore bombardments in the Philippines and Okinawa took place before she witnessed the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay, winning a total of eight battle stars. In 1946, while most of the rest of the pre-1938 US battleships were laid up and/or scrapped, Mississippi was reclassified from BB-41 to AG-128 (auxiliary, gunnery training/guided missile ship) and spent the next decade as a platform for development of surface to air and surface to surface missiles. For this her rear turrets were removed to give a platform of missile launchers. Without her, the RIM-2 Terrier and Petrel missiles would never have been adopted.
Mississippi firing Terrier missiles in 1955. This hybrid missile/gun arrangement was a wet-dream for battleship advocates for the next fifty years. When the Iowa class were eventually recommissioned in the early 1980s, they were given 16 harpoon anti-ship missiles and 32 Tomahawk cruise missiles in place of a few of the 5-inch twin mounts, but never a large SAM complement as envisioned earlier.
Stricken in 1956, at the time she was the last pre-WWII battleship in active service with the US Navy. Of the 12 WWII era US dreadnoughts, only three of the Iowa class were on active duty when Mississippi was decommissioned. The other 9 much newer North Carolina, SoDak, Alaska, and Iowa-class battleships and battle cruisers all being laid up in red lead row as members of the mothball fleet. Within a few years all of these except the Iowas would be pulled from mothballs and sent either to live the rest of their lives as museum ships, or broken up.
Mississippi herself was scrapped without ceremony at the end of 1956, just shy of her 40th birthday. Today knick knacks of the ship sail beneath the sea with the modern Virgina-class submarine USS Mississippi, after being carried for a while by a large nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser of the same name while her bell and silver set are on display in her home state. Specs
Displacement: 32,000 long tons (32,500 t)
Length: 624 ft (190 m)
Beam: 97.4 ft (29.7 m)
Draft: 30 ft (9.1 m)
Speed: 21 kn (24 mph; 39 km/h)
Complement: 55 officers, 1,026 enlisted
Armament: (1917)
12 × 14 in (360 mm) guns,
14 × 5 in (130 mm)/51 cal guns
4 × 3 in (76 mm) guns, and
2 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
Barbettes: 13 in (330 mm)
Turret face: 18 in (457 mm)
Turret sides: 9–10 in (229–254 mm)
Turret top: 5 in (127 mm)
Turret rear 9 in (229 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 3.5 in (89 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
