Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Will your ship be able to do this?

In comments on different thread, Sid sent on this from the USS Pittsburgh.



Here is the background story. Great ship. She did all this in her first six months.
..she passed through the Panama Canal in January 1945 to join the war against Japan. Pittsburgh's first combat operation took place in mid-February, when she screened aircraft carriers during strikes on the Japanese home islands.

During the next month she supported the invasion of Iwo Jima and took part in additional raids on Japan. On 19 and 20 March 1945 the cruiser towed the badly damaged carrier Franklin to help get that ship away from the threat of further enemy action. Pittsburgh's next task was as a carrier escort during the extended campaign to seize Okinawa. This work began in late March 1945 and continued into June.

On 4 June the fleet encountered a typhoon and, on the following day, while she was fighting high winds and powerful waves, Pittsburgh's bow broke off in front of her forward eight-inch gun turret. In a remarkable feat of seamanship and damage control the ship rode out the storm and steamed to Guam, where she received temporary repairs.
Now, that was a ship that had no problem filling in the white space on FITREPS and EVALS.

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