On paper, the Alaska-class cruisers seemed to make sense — fast and sleek hulls Englishman Sir John Fisher, who became First mounting large rapid-fire guns that could counter Germany’s pocket battleships. Lord of the Admiralty in the years prior to World But despite their promise, these cruisers never lived up War I. Fisher’s mind had to expectations BY SERGE P. WARNER given rise to the first real battleship — HMS Dreadnought of 1910 — just four-years before the outbreak the Great War. The remarkable Sir John also conceived destroyers and cruisers. One drawback of battleships was their speed. Battleships had to carry heavy ordnance and armor plate but the engineering powerplants had not yet been designed to move all that weight through the ocean at high speed. Cruisers, on the other hand, were fast although Sir John believed that speed was akin to lightly armored. The armor plate. A fast ship was harder to hit. Equip mission of cruisers in a speedy ship with battleship-sized guns and those days was many your probes might be able to inflict substantial damage on the enemy ships before the foe got the battle cruiser’s range. So, Sir John provided the working definition of a battle cruiser — a fast, lightly armored vessel with guns the size of those found on contemporary battleships.

hey were among the handsomest ships to come out of the war effort Tbut they served a scant two-years and then were mothballed at Bayonne, New Jersey. They steamed with the 3rd and 5th Fleets during the Pacific War but after that global conflict they could not seem to make the varsity team and 17-years out of their until 1 March 1959 builder’s yards, they were scrapped. when she was stricken and ordered scrapped. faceted: They screened large ships, fought alone, For all his achievement, Sir John had the wrong The Alaskas were to have been part of a six- The United States Navy called them “Large or in company with other vessels. They were idea on battle cruisers. What he created was a ship ship class, which were named after territorial Cruisers” with the hull designator of CB. Years commerce raiders and most of all they were scouts that could dish it out, but simply could not take it. possessions of the United States: The first two, earlier, the Lexington and Saratoga were laid or probes, seeking out the enemy’s battleships The Battle of Jutland should have sealed the Alaska and Guam, were completed in 1944. The down as CBs — battle cruisers in the aftermath and, having found them, signal their whereabouts fate of the battle cruiser. Most ships lost in that third unit, Hawaii, was laid up of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Those to a presumably nearby fleet of battleships. Those action were battle cruisers. The cruisers did after the war in an incomplete two ships were completed as aircraft carriers — lumbering leviathans would then engage the state. Hawaii was 82% CV-2 and CV-3 respectively (see related article enemy force in a struggle for command of the sea. complete and kept with the elsewhere in this issue). The cruisers having accomplished their scouting This intriguing view shows the USS Alaska (CB-1) with the USS Missouri (BB-63) at the Norfolk Naval Yard — giving a Atlantic Reserve Fleet at The concept of the battle cruiser goals were then supposed to retire and let the great comparison of the sizes and hull shapes between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originated in the fertile mind of battleships slug it out. cruiser and battleship. 30 SEA CLASSICS/November 2018 seaclassicsnow.com 31