Maritime Museum of San Diego – Part II

1 Newsletter Volume 43, Number 5, May 2016 Contacts Work in Progress President: Don Dressel (909) 949-6931 April 20, 2016 E-Mail: [email protected] Reporter: Dave Yotter Vice President: Bill Schultheis (714) 366-7602 The meeting began with an excellent PowerPoint E-Mail: [email protected] slide presentation given by Randy Biddle, principally on Secretary: Paul Payne the methods of research and the building of a ship (310) 544-1461 model based on the book for model makers by Gene Treasurer: Larry Van Es Johnson. Many of the SMA members enjoyed this (714) 936-0389 presentation very much with lots of questions for E-Mail: [email protected] Randy, who provided all the answers. There was a Editor, Don Dressel minor problem with the projector, but the situation was (909) 949-6931 quickly resolved. 908 W. 22nd Street The second aspect of this evenings meeting was Upland, CA 91784-1229 the fact that there were MANY modern models on E-mail: [email protected] display brought in by a number of SMA members, the Web Manager: Doug Tolbert: number, for the first time, exceeding the number of (949) 644-5416 sailing ship models. Web Site www.shipmodelersassociation.org USS Porter (DD-356) – Don Dressel Meeting – Wed. May 18, 7 PM, Red Don brought in a resin cast kit model by Blue Cross Building, 1207 N. Lemon, Navy of the USS Porter (DD-356) in 1/350 scale. The kit Fullerton, CA. 92832 was purchased a built a number of years ago. As with most resin kits, there was a LOT of cleanup and sanding Officers meeting –Wed., June 1, required, with many “holes” and other imperfections 2016, 7 PM, Bob Beech’s house, cleaned up prior to painting. It was a “break” from 130 Clove Pl. Brea, CA. 92821 – building wooden sailing ship models but was a lot of (714) 529-1481. fun to build. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the USS Porter was the lead ship in her class of destroyers in the United States Navy. She was the third Navy ship named for Commodore David Porter and his son, Admiral David Dixon Porter. 2 She was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden in New Jersey on 18 December 1933, launched on 12 December 1935 by Miss Carlile Patterson Porter and commissioned at Philadelphia on 27 August 1936, Commander Forrest B. Royal in command. After shakedown in waters off Northern Europe, Porter visited St. John’s, Newfoundland, for ceremonies in honor of the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937 and was at the Washington Navy Yard during the Boy Scout Jamboree, June-July 1937. Then reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, she transited the Panama Canal and arrived at San Francisco, California 5 August 1937. She operated continuously with the Pacific Fleet until the outbreak of World War II, homeported at San Diego, California. On 5 December 1941, Porter got underway from Pearl Harbor, escaping the Japanese attack by two days. She patrolled with cruisers and destroyers in Hawaiian waters before steaming in convoy 25 March 1942 for the west coast. She operated off the west coast with Task Force 1 (TF1) for the next 4 months. Returning to Pearl Harbor in mid-August, she trained in Hawaiian waters until 16 October when she sortied with TF 16 and headed for the Solomon Islands. On 26 October 1942, TF 16 exchanged air attacks with strong Japanese forces northeast of Guadalcanal in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. During the ensuing action, Porter was torpedoed, and, after the crew had abandoned ship, was sunk by gunfire from Shaw (DD-373). Authorities differ as to the source of the torpedo which sank Porter. Author Eric Hammel states she was sunk by a single torpedo, part of a three-torpedo spread fired from Japanese Submarine I-21. However, author Richard B. Frank states that Japanese records don’t support this, and that, more likely, an errant torpedo from a ditching U.S. TBF Avenger hit Porter and caused the fatal damage. Her name was struck from the Navy List 2 November 1942. Porter earned one battle star for World War II service. Her general characteristics were: Displacement: 1,850 tons; Length: 381 feet (116 m); Beam: 36 feet, 2 inches (11.02 m); Draft: 10 feet, 5 inches (3.18 m); propulsion: 50,000 shp; Speed: 35 knots; Complement: 194; Armament c. 1942: 1 X Mk33 Gun Fire Control System; 8 X 5”/38cal SP (4 x 2); 2 X 40mm AA; 6 X 20mm AA; 2 X Depth Charge stern racks. Battle of Jutland (from Wikipedia) The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought by the British Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellico, against the Imperial German Navy’s High Seas Fleet under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer during the First World War. The battle was fought from 31 May to 1 June 1916 in the North Sea, near the coast 3 of Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war. It was the third fleet action between steel battleships, following the smaller but more decisive battles of the Yellow Sea (1904) and Tsushima (1905) during the Russo-Japanese War. By Grandiose – Won work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia,org/w/indedx.php?curid=23511058 Germany’s High Seas Fleet’s intention was to lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the German naval force was insufficient to openly engage the entire British fleet. This formed part of a larger strategy to break the British blockade of Germany and to allow German mercantile shipping to operate. Meanwhile, Great Britain’s Royal Navy pursued a strategy to engage and destroy the High Seas Fleet, or keep the German force contained and away from Britain’s own shipping lanes. 4 The German plan was to use Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper’s fast scouting group of five modern battlecruisers to lure Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battlecruiser squadrons into the path of the main German fleet. Submarines were stationed in advance across the likely routes of the British ships. However, the British learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was likely, so on 30 May Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty, passing over the locations of the German submarine picket lines while they were unprepared. The German plan had been delayed, causing further problems for their submariners, which had reached the limit of their endurance at sea. On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty encountered Hipper’s battlecruiser force long before the Germans had expected. In a running battle, Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Beatty sighted the larger force and turned back towards the British main fleet, he had lost two battlecruisers from a force of six battlecruisers and four battleships, against the five ships commanded by Hipper. The battleships, commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas, were the last to turn and formed a rearguard as Beatty withdrew; now drawing the German fleet in pursuit towards the main British positions. Between 18:30, when the sun was lowering on the western horizon, back-lighting the German forces, and nightfall at about 20:30, the two fleets – totaling 250 ships between them –directly engaged twice. Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk, with great loss of life. After sunset, and throughout the night, Jellicoe maneuvered to cut the Germans off from their base, hoping to continue the battle the next morning, but under the cover of darkness Scheer broke through the British light forces forming the rearguard of the Grand Fleet and returned to port. Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more ships and twice as many sailors, and the British press criticized the Grand Fleet’s failure to force a decisive outcome, but Scheer’s plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet also failed. The German’s “fleet in being” continued to pose a threat, requiring the British to keep their battleships concentrated in the North Sea, but the battle confirmed the German policy of avoiding all fleet-to-fleet contact. At the end of the year, after further unsuccessful attempts to reduce the Royal Navy’s numerical advantage, the German Navy turned its efforts and resources to unrestricted submarine warfare and the destruction of Allied and neutral shipping which by April 1917 triggered the United States of America’s declaration of war on Germany. Subsequent reviews commissioned by the Royal Navy generated strong disagreement between supporters of Jellicoe and Beatty concerning the two admirals’ performance in the battle. Debate over their performance and the significance of the battle continues to this day. The group consisting of David Okamura, Mark Deliduka and Bob Zmuda are preparing models for a fleet operation to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Jutland that is to be held aboard the USS Iowa (BB-61) at the USS Iowa Museum, located at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. We should have more specific information about the battle reenactment over the Memorial Day weekend at the May meeting. WW1 Battleships and Battlecruisers – Bob Zmuda Bob brought in several models of WW1 Battleships and Battlecruisers in scales of 1:1200 and 1:1250. These were built from kits by Navis, Superior, Authenticast and Comit. The models include the battleship HMS Dreadnought, the dreadnought battleship HMS Iron Duke, the battlecruiser HMS Invincible, the pre- dreadnought battleship Deutschland, the Queen Elizabeth class battleship HMS Warspite, the battleship SMS Ostfriesland, the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger and the (WWII) battleship HMS Vanguard.

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