USNI - RevuAIR

How does one correct a primary source?

By fStop Fitzgerald | 30 August 2023

It happens. Not often, but it does occur. A trusted primary source of information has a verifiable glaring error.

How does one go about correcting it?

In writing my most recent column for Naval History about the USS Iowa (Battleship No. 4), I naturally searched for photographs. One of my favorite sites for pre-World War I imagery is the Library of Congress. Among their many collections are the glass images from the Detroit Photographic Company.

If you are not familiar with Detroit Photographic images, a quick Google search will get you to a myriad of photographs all from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The quality, because most are from large glass plates, is generally phenomenal, and the detail is exquisite. The subjects span the gamut of American history. Check out your old home town to see what it looked like during that period. Or railroads. Architecture. Shipping. Commerce. Farming. Literally anything you can think of, the photographers of the Detroit Photographic Company have it.

I found an interesting image for my search, LC-D4-13000 det 4a08494. It is titled, “League Island Navy Yard, U.S.S. Iowa and monitors, Philadelphia ca. 1900.”

I am always a sucker for monitor photographs and the thumbnail looked interesting with the bright white and buff colors of the battleship contrasting with drab gray of the monitors.

http://vintagegoodness.com/my-favorite-vintage-finds-from-2015/ But . . .

While the photograph did not disappoint. It is beautifully detailed, well composed, everything a photographer could want. Except the subject is wrong.

The battleship is not Iowa, but Indiana (Battleship No. 1).

This is not me saying so on a whim, but from basic knowledge.

The Iowa was built as the first American sea-going battleship with blue-water operations taking the fore. Three battleships (not including the second-class Texas and Maine, a long Navy procurement story) had been built before Iowa—the Indiana class, which included Indiana (Battleship No. 1), Massachusetts (Battleship No. 2), and Oregon (Battleship No. 3).

The primary difference between No. 1/2/3 and No. 4 was the Iowa had a forecastle deck that stretched back to the aft secondary 8-inch gun turrets. This added deck made the Iowa much more blue-water friendly than the very wet Indianas.

Some other physical notes of differences include the location of the forward secondary turrets farther aft, behind the fore funnel on the Iowa and also a deck lower at the same level with the fore main turret. Compare the drawings with the photograph.

Cropping in tight on the bow of the battleship shows only one row of deadlights, not two as one should see with the Iowa. This lone row is a hallmark of the Indiana class.

For the record: only one other class of U.S. pre-dreadnought battleships was constructed without a forecastle deck. It was the the Kearsarge class, which included Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) and Kentucky (Battleship No. 6). However, neither of these could ever be confused with any other class because of the unique arrangement of their fore and aft turrets.

This is the aft turret of Kearsarge. Note the stacked main and secondary armament in circular turrets atop each other. The two could not rotate independently. Also note there is no similarity with the Indiana class or Iowa, for that matter.

Given that we now know the class of the so-called Iowa in the questionable photograph is actually an Indiana, which of the three—Indiana, Massachusetts, or Oregon—is it?

In their as-built condition, each ship carried a unique bow decoration (not called a figurehead, but a “bow decoration”).

This is the decoration on the mystery ship. While hard to “read,” the center escutcheon appears to feature a left-looking portrait.

This is Battleship No. 1’s bow decoration. Note the escutcheon contains a left-facing portrait.

Battleship No. 2’s decoration is very similar to Indiana‘s but features an eagle.

There is no mistaking Battleship No. 3 Oregon‘s shield for any other.

And to totally rule out Iowa from the discussion, here is Battleship No. 4’s decoration. One additional note in comparing the four bow views is the distance between the ornamentation and the bow torpedo tube. In the Indianas, the tube is almost part of the decoration, while Iowa‘s is far removed.

how to buy Lurasidone online Conclusion

Based on the bow ornament, the mystery ship can only reasonably be Indiana or Massachusetts as much of their ornamentation matches. Iowa and Oregon are impossibilities. While I could say that there is more relief shown in portrait of Indiana than the eagle of Massachusetts, and that the mystery photograph appears to show stark relief. That does not make it certain that the ship is Indiana.

I find certainty in the ship’s boats.

Note in both the mystery photograph and a verified photograph of Indiana, the ship’s boats are marked with a capital “I.” Perhaps this is what convinced the caption writer a century and a quarter ago.

To the point of all this…

I cannot be the first person to have made this identification in 125 years. Where are the others? Certainly someone let the Library of Congress know. Why is there not an annotation for this on the link to the images? I appreciate that archivists are bound to the information they are given and Detroit Photographic engraved this on the plate. But isn’t it also within an archivist’s purview as a historian to set the record straight? Especially when there is compelling evidence?

I will try to contact the Library of Congress and let them know about the issue. Don’t hold your breath, I’m not holding mine.

Curtiss N-9H

By fStop Fitzgerald | 27 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

BuNo A-2453

This Burgess Company-built Curtiss N-9H was powered by a 150-hp Hispano-Suiza engine and thus received the H suffix. It was received by the Navy on 24 June 1918 and flew only 74 hours and 25 minutes before being stricken from the Navy List on 12 February 1919. Its “body” was broken in two behind the rear seat after a crash at Miami, Florida, on 5 February during a “fast landing.”

I also illustrate aircraft for Norman Polmar’s long-running column, Historic Aircraft, in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Naval History magazine. Depending upon the subject (primarily how much information is available) and time constraints, I will create it in 2D software with a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, or 3D using Strata Design working from Illustrator lines.

This first blog entry on the aircraft I’ve done was published in the October 2018 issue of Naval History. This is its link: https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2018/october/historic-aircraft-floatplane-trainer

I found some rather nice drawings for source images in the February/March 1966 issue of Air Progress drawn by Bob Parks.

While there is adequate information to make a 3D version of the drawings, deadlines on other projects turned this into a 2D drawing.

Because I like to do specific aircraft that have something of a history or story behind them I research serial numbers (known in the Navy as Bureau Numbers or BuNo). My primary source for BuNos is the U.S. Navy’s official reference United States Naval Aviation 1910–2010, a book that I happened to edit. Very few were printed and they are virtually impossible to come by, however, the excellent news is that the book is available FREE in pdf form to anyone.

It is a large book, two volumes, the first is the chronology of Navy aviation, the second consists of data, including BuNos. Because it is so large, the files are broken down into easily downloaded bits. You can find the master link at this address: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/publications/publications-by-subject/naval-aviation-1910-2010.html

An alternative—and extremely worthwhile and accurate—site is Joe Baugher’s aviation site. I have it bookmarked because I use it so often and it has yet to fail me.

From there I looked for the Navy’s Aircraft Record cards. Short of doing research at the Naval History and Heritage Command archives, they have a fair number of early cards, filed as Aircraft History cards. Sadly, because of lack of resources and time, only aircraft A-52 to A-3999 cards are available online. Gladly, this was good enough for me.

It was going to be hard to pick a particular N-9H, virtually all had the same story—crashed, damaged, or otherwise lost during training. I settled on BuNo A-2453 manufactured by the Burgess Company of Marblehead, Massachusetts, in June 1918. It existed for barely nine months before being written off at Miami in February 1919.

The record card states: “Body broken in two back of rear seat. Radiator damaged beyond repair. Bottom sucked off of pontoon. Plane sank and nosed over after making a fast landing. Tail was broken off in righting the plane to tow it in.” It only had 74 hours and 25 minutes of flying time.

I’m Back: the Making Sausage Redux (1)

By fStop Fitzgerald | 20 January 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

I haven’t posted in all of 2018. A lot has happened, but now that I have allegedly retired, I’m going to try to be more religious about posting.

Let’s see if we can do something with current projects.

Richard Latture, Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. Naval Institute‘s Naval History magazine, is working on a project to be printed in conjunction with the release of a new Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound, about destroyer combat in the North Atlantic during World War II. The film uses the destroyer Kidd (DD-661), which is on display in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as part of the setting. Although Fletcher-class destroyers served almost exclusively in the Pacific, there are no extant examples of the Gleaves and Benson classes, which would be representative of the Atlantic destroyers.

Image result for USS kidd

Former USS Kidd (DD-661) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

My assignment was to do a cutaway drawing of the Kidd. This is by far my most intense project. First thing is I knew it would not be 100 percent. That goes completely against the way I want to work, but it is a reality. That is simply a given when a deadline is staring you in the face along with little details such as time and money. The goal is to get the important parts right and live with representations or approximations for those that aren’t. Bottom line: it is not a photograph.

In starting a project, I collect as many base drawings as possible. This is, sadly, where the first compromises enter the project. Drawings simply do not match up. I have a fairly extensive collection of books to rely on for the initial search. I know which authors to trust and how much Kentucky windage needs to be used on other authors’ work. (One, whom shall not be named, has a great reputation for plans and models, but his plan view lines do not link with his profiles and sections. Where did he got that rep?) I check their sources, if available, for additional information.

Less than a tenth of my collection.

I also have a decent collection of drawings that I’ve obtained from various sources primarily the National Archives and the Library of Congress. I was fortunate in this instance to trip over a collection of several hundred drawings on microfilm of the Fletcher-class. However, another caveat creeps in.

Fletchers were built at 11 different yards. And they were not identical. The plans I found were from the Bath Iron Works in Maine. Kidd was built by Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Kearny, New Jersey. I know the two sets of plans are not identical. I just don’t know what is different and where.

Even though I have these great drawings, they provide another three caveats.

1. Bath built at least three, and possibly four, different sets of Fletchers, known today as “flights.” There are detail differences between each. Assuming the same for Federal, which flight would match most closely to Kidd?

2. Even within these set of Bath drawings, the profiles, sections, and plan views do not match among flights for general outlines. I assume this is because of the microfilming process.

3. Many of the drawings needed to be combined; i.e., there were multiple frames of one drawing. Again, in linking these, there were dimensional differences and adjacent images would not be 100 percent in alignment.

The first three images need to be combined to form one complete drawing.

So, just in selecting whcih drawings tomwork from forces a number of decisions to be made, each of them getting the result farther from what is accurate.

Bottom line: I am not building a destroyer.