Three Legendary American Battleships

 I shamelessly snagged this from "SOFREP"  I have been working the Overtime and my off time is limited compared to normal.

Battleships were not just some boats amidst the vast ocean. During conflicts, they were the stronghold of the soldiers who were fighting alongside and onboard these ships.

In the United States, particularly in the US Navy, the construction of its first-ever battleship happened in 1892 with the making of USS Texas, although the first battleship under that designation was the USS Indiana. By the 20th century, the US Navy made the United States the world’s fifth strongest power at sea which rose from its 12th rank in 1870. Also, no American battleship has been lost at sea, although there were four that sank during the Pearl Harbor attack. The last decommissioned battleship for the US Navy was in 1992. With that, let’s have a look at some of the legendary ships that the US built:

The USS Texas

USS Texas, photochrom print c. 1898 (Wikipedia)

As mentioned above, the USS Texas was the first battleship of the United States, just before the USS Maine. In the Spring of 1898, the USS Maine (ACR-1) was destroyed by an explosion after losing a war in Havana Harbor. The United States, at that moment, declared war on Spain. USS Texas was one of the ships sent against the Spanish in the Atlantic Ocean. Together with one other ship, Texas destroyed the Spanish fort located at Cayo del Tore in a span of 75 minutes. The Spanish ships tried to run the American blockade, but Texas worked and attacked four of their ships simultaneously, inflicting heavy damages on each of them and giving them no choice but to run on the ground. After that, USS Texas also assisted against the rest of the Spanish fleet. This helped towards the end of the war.

USS Iowa (BB-61) in WWII, Korean War, and the Persian Gulf War

The USS Iowa entered the scene of World War II in 1943 when she carried President Franklin Roosevelt across the Atlantic to North Algeria to attend a conference with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. This battleship class comprising Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Missouri were “Post Treaty” ships made after the restrictions of the Washington Naval Conference treaty were discarded when Japan attacked the U.S. in December 1942.  These were the fastest battleships ever built and arguably the most lethal in terms of their armaments and targeting systems.  The record for the biggest battleships ever built belongs to the Japanese, who built the Yamato and Musashi in secret and in violation of the treaty terms. Size is not everything and if you want to read how the Iowa class ships probably would have trounced the Yamato class battleships in a fight, you can read that here.

USS Iowa 1952. (Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

During the Korean War, Iowa was decommissioned into the US Navy reserve fleets known as the “mothball fleet” after becoming involved in raids conducted on the North Korean coast. She was reactivated in 1984 and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets as part of the 600-ship Navy plan.

In the Gulf war, USS Iowa was part of Operation Earnest Will. She set sail across the Suez Canal and towards the Persian Gulf, which was one of the battlefields of the Gulf War. She carried a number of Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles and escorted oil tankers of Kuwaiti towards the international waters.

She was decommissioned in 1990 and is now a museum ship that can be visited in Los Angeles, California.  It is a testament to the utility and quality of this battleship class that they enjoyed a service lifespan of almost half a century.

USS Jersey (BB-16) The Original

The USS New Jersey (BB-16) in camouflage coat. (DoD/Navy Dept. (War Dept.), Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

USS Jersey (B-16) was part of the Second Occupation of Cuba, as well as the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. At the end of 1907, she joined the Great White Fleet and sailed more than 50,000 miles around the world in 1909. She then spent the next five years training officers in gunnery. In 1914, USS Jersey took part in the occupation of Veracruz within the gates of the Mexican Revolution. In World War I, she was considered obsolete and unsuited to take on more modern battleships and was utilized as a training ship and then transported American soldiers back when the war ceased. USS Jersey was decommissioned in 1920.

She was then slated to be used as a target in aerial bombing practice, which was a very new thing.  Aircraft dropped a variety of bombs on her ranging from 600 lbs up to 2,000 lbs.  The battleship considered too old for combat surprised everyone when she absorbed four 600 lb bombs, a hit from a 1,000 lb bomb, and numerous near misses to crack her hull before she finally sank.

 

My son found my copy of "Inside the 3rd Reich" by Albert Speer and read it, impressive for a 9 year old boy I should say.  I remember reading my Dad's copy when I was 12.  It was an eyeopener and it explained how a 2nd rate street hustler named Adolph Hitler was able to ensnare an entire generation of Germans  I later purchased "Spandau" for my collection.
     What prompted this post was that my son was asking a lot of questions about the prison and i told him that I didn't know what happened after the last prisoner was released.  I figured that I would surf around.  Google and Wiki are good things;)

Spandau Prison

Coordinates: 52°31′16″N 13°11′07″E

Spandau Prison in 1951.

Spandau Prison was a prison situated in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. In history, Spandau Prison succeeded as a prison to the Renaissance-era Spandau Citadel where Frederick II of Prussia had held captive the magistrates of the Prussian Kammergericht and the Spandau jail, where Carl Schurz had freed his friend Gottfried Kinkel in the aftermath of the 1848 German revolution.^[1] The magistrates and Kinkel were held captive as Festungsgefangene (fortress prisoners), being privileged in detainment condition

The prison was built in 1876. It initially served as a military detention center. From 1919 it was also used for civilian inmates. It held up to 600 inmates at that time.
In the aftermath of the Reichstag Fire of 1933, opponents of Hitler and journalists such as Egon Kisch and Carl von Ossietzky were held there in so-called protective custody. Spandau Prison became a sort of predecessor of the Nazi concentration camps. While it was formally operated by the Prussian Ministry of Justice, the Gestapo tortured and abused its inmates, as Egon Erwin Kisch recalls in his memories of Spandau Prison. By the end of 1933 the first Nazi concentration camps had been erected (at Dachau, Osthofen, Oranienburg, Sonnenburg, Lichtenburg and the marshland camps around Esterwegen); all remaining prisoners who had been held in so-called protective custody in state prisons were transferred to these concentration camps.
After World War II it was operated by the Four-Power Authorities to house the Nazi war criminals sentenced to imprisonment at the Nuremberg Trials.
Only seven prisoners were finally imprisoned there. Arriving from Nuremberg on 18 July 1947, they were:

Prisoner	Prisoner Number	Sentence	Released
Karl Dönitz	4	10 Years	30 Sep 1956
Konstantin von Neurath	3	15 years	Nov 1954 (released early)
Baldur von Schirach	1	20 years	30 Sep 1966
Albert Speer	5	20 years	30 Sep 1966
Erich Raeder	2	Life	26 Sep 1955 (released early)
Walter Funk	6	Life	16 May 1957 (released early)
Rudolf Hess	7	Life	Died 17 Aug 1987 in prison

Of the seven, only four fully served their sentences; the remaining three, Neurath, Raeder, and Funk, having been released earlier due to ill health. Between 1966 and 1987, Rudolf Hess was the only inmate in Spandau Prison. His only companion was the warden, Eugene K. Bird, who became a close friend. Bird wrote a book about Hess's imprisonment entitled The Loneliest Man in the World.
Spandau was one of only two Four-Power organizations to continue to operate after the breakdown of the Allied Control Council; the other being the Berlin Air Safety Center. The four occupying powers of Berlin would alternate control of the prison on a monthly basis, each having the responsibility for a total of three months out of the year. Observing the Four-Power flags that flew at the Allied Control Authority building could determine who controlled the prison.
The prison was demolished in 1987, largely to prevent it from becoming a Neo-Nazi shrine, after the death of its final remaining prisoner, Rudolf Hess, who had been the prison's sole occupant after the release of Speer and von Schirach in 1966. To further ensure its erasure, the site was made into a parking facility and a NAAFI shopping center, named The Britannia Centre Spandau and nicknamed Hessco's after a British supermarket chain of a similar name. All materials from the demolished prison were ground to powder and dispersed in the North Sea or buried at the former RAF Gatow airbase.
As of 2006, a Kaiser's Supermarket, ALDI, and a Media Markt consumer electronics store occupied the former prison grounds. In late 2008, Media Markt left the main shopping complex. The space lies now abandoned. In 2011 the new owner, a development company applied for permission to demolish the cinema complex of the Britannia Centre, which is used by ALDI. The contracts for both, the cinema complex and the shopping complex, with Kaiser's, were terminated.

    

Location

The compound was located on Wilhelmstraße in the district of Spandau.

Map

Pre Occupation Forces History

The prison was built in 1876. It initially served as a military detention center. From 1919 it was also used for civilian inmates. It held up to 600 inmates at that time.

Occupation Forces History

On July 18, 1947 seven Nazi war criminals were brought to the Spandau Prison. They were sentenced at the Nürnberg Trials. Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder faced life sentences. Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach faced a 20 year sentence while Konstantin von Neurath had to serve 15 and Karl Dönitz 10 years in the prison.
Dönitz, Speer, and Schirach served their full sentences. Neurath, Raeder and Funk were released earlier due to their ill health.
From 1966 on Rudolf Hess remained the only prisoner at the Spandau Prison. The four powers took turns in guarding the prison. Despite the tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviets the guard duty at the Spandau Prison was never interrupted.
The guarding platoon, made up by 37 soldiers and one officer, changed monthly with a change of the guard ceremony in front of the prison:

FR	UK	US	SU
February	January	April	March
June	May	August	July
October	September	December	November

The sentries were manning six towers arround the prison.
Since the prison was located next to Smuts Barracks which housed the Berlin Armoured Squadron the Soviets were able to take a close look at the activities in the barracks.
The prison was funded by the Federal republic of Germany through the occupation budget and the budget of the justice department in West Berlin. According to a newspaper article the costs from 1970 until 1983 were about 20 million DM.
Until his death Germany and the Western Allies tried to release Hess for humanitarian reasons but the Soviets would not agree.
On August 17, 1987 Hess comitted suicide. However some people do not believe that he comitted suicide but have a controversial theory of the British SAS killing Hess.
The US guard detail which served at the prison during August was pulled out and British guards took over the compound.
In order to prevent the prison becoming a memorial for Neo-Nazis the prison was torn down in 1987. The rubble was spread in the North Sea.
A new NAAFI shopping centre was built on the former prison grounds.

Post Occupation Forces History

The shopping centre was turned over to German authorities in 1994.

Images

This picture was taken the morning after Hess died. The barriers were put up to keep sympathisers away