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Post by gornik on Sept 21, 2014 3:52:36 GMT -6
Three bridges across the Neva River in central St. Petersburg were raised in the daytime to deliver 111-year old cruiser Aurora (well known for SAI players) to Kronshtadt dockyard for overhaul. Ship should return to its eternal mooring at the Petrograd embankment in 2016. ITAR-TASS announcementPhotos: Attachment DeletedNear Peter and Paul Fortress Attachment DeletedPassing under the Palace bridge Attachment DeletedAurora, liner and sailing ship "Mir" |
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Post by gornik on Sept 21, 2014 4:43:54 GMT -6
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Post by vonfriedman on Oct 22, 2014 3:48:16 GMT -6
Apparently also the cruiser HMS Caroline will be restored. I hope she will be ready just in time for the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. see: www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29630240Some of you would be able to draw up a complete list of other warships that took part in the Great War and that still exist? I have news of the CA Averov (it is located in Greece but it was built in Italy), the BB USS Texas, the C USS Olympia and the small british monitor M33 in Portsmouth. Other museum ships are older. In Italy, in the park of the villa of the poet Gabriele D Annunzio on the Garda Lake there is the forecastle from the bow up to the conning tower and the foremast of the RN Puglia, a small cruiser or ariete torpediniere completed in 1901. |
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Post by randomizer on Oct 22, 2014 8:14:31 GMT -6
There are more pictures of her here: Aurora in the docks
As for WW1 veterans there is also the submarine rescue ship VMF Kommuna, which served in the Great war and is still operational with the Black Sea Fleet. Rene Gregor's The Russian Fleet 1914-17 has an undated photo of her (then named Volchov) with a nest of Baltic Fleet boats including a Holland and a Lake type in addition to a pair of Bubnov's. VMF Kommuna |
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Post by steeltime on Jan 8, 2016 7:44:36 GMT -6
On a personal note: I am amazed and appalled at the amount of maritime history Britain has scrapped from the war years. It's not as though we haven't got anywhere to put them, ships that is, when looking at all the closed and redundant dock yards we now have!
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Post by vonfriedman on Jan 9, 2016 11:30:54 GMT -6
Although Britain can be criticized for some decisions in this field, such as destroying the precious man-of-war Implacable, there are other cases worthy of regret.
The Goeben/Yavuz battlecruiser could have been saved, as well as one or two warships of the Regia Marina and of the Japanese Navy.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 9, 2016 11:44:31 GMT -6
It is a shame that many ships of a past era, cannot be saved. It was a real shame when Enterprise was not saved but at least Midway and Intrepid along with Massachusetts, Texas, Alabama were saved. My dad had to watch the carrier he spent four years on, during the war destroyed by the Bikini Atoll Bomb Tests. He stated that the familiar stack of the Saratoga, was blown clean off of the ship. They tried to beach her, but she sank too fast and the waters were too hot(radiation) to get close to her. Nevada and Arkansas were also lost. That's progress, though.
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Post by steel selachian on Jan 9, 2016 16:25:14 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 9, 2016 16:28:40 GMT -6
Cost of preservation is a big negative. As far as Bikini, I guess they let the Bikini natives come back a few years ago, but I don't know about diving on those wrecks. They might still be hot, do you know? My dad said that they tried to spray water on the ships after the two blasts and go aboard to get the animal that had been used as test subjects. But they were not real successful. |
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Post by steel selachian on Jan 11, 2016 6:45:11 GMT -6
Cost of preservation is a big negative. As far as Bikini, I guess they let the Bikini natives come back a few years ago, but I don't know about diving on those wrecks. They might still be hot, do you know? My dad said that they tried to spray water on the ships after the two blasts and go aboard to get the animal that had been used as test subjects. But they were not real successful. The Bikini Atoll natives are still exiled to Kili and a few other islands in the Marshalls. There was an attempt made by about 100 of them to move back in 1972, but within a few years they started having health problems and were evacuated a second time. The nuclear tests have left a lot of contamination in the soil and groundwater, mostly cesium-137 and strontium-90 respectively. Low levels of plutonium were picked up in urine samples. The soil on the atoll is eroded coral limestone which is very poor in potassium; cesium is in the same periodic table group so the plants were vacuuming it up. To this day the vegetation is unsafe for consumption; a small research team and a handful of Bikini Islander caretakers live there but all supplies have to be brought in from the outside. As part of a means to support the community living on Kili, the Bikini Council authorized recreational diving in 1996 following a National Parks Service assessment of the wrecks. I have Daniel Lenihan's book Submerged, where he writes about the Bikini Atoll dives as well as his other work at Pearl Harbor, Truk, and the Aleutians. The now-renamed Submerged Cultural Resource Unit (evidently someone eventually objected to the "screw team" nickname) produced a number of detailed survey sketches of the wrecks as part of that assessment. Saratoga is considered the crown jewel of the lot; she's one of only three aircraft carriers accessible to scuba divers (the others being USS Oriskany off Pensacola and HMS Hermes in the Indian Ocean). As it turns out, nearly 50 years soaking in seawater did a pretty good job of making the wrecks safe from a radiological standpoint. The main concern the NPS had was due to all the unexploded ordnance stowed on the test ships; going around smacking things with a hammer is probably not a good idea. Due to the lack of human activity the fish and reefs have actually bounced back very well and it's considered one of the more pristine spots in the Pacific. Dive trips are limited to 11 divers per week, either staging from a shoreside facility or liveaboard vessel - again, all supplies must be brought in from the outside. The tab back in 2001 was $4,000 per diver for the week; that year it earned the Bikini Council $500,000. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uPi-L_FXrken.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 11, 2016 9:05:56 GMT -6
Steel:
Thanks for the detailed information and especially the drawing. After Dad passed I lost track of events. It is a shame about the people of Bikini but at least they are safe. After Test Baker and the fallout problem, the President cancelled Test Charlie which would have been another underwater explosion. The Sara's keel was snapped and they could not get to her to beach her safely. It sounds like diving on the fleet in the lagoon is a going business, I hope that you will be able to dive on her one day.
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Post by steel selachian on Jan 14, 2016 21:11:18 GMT -6
Steel: Thanks for the detailed information and especially the drawing. After Dad passed I lost track of events. It is a shame about the people of Bikini but at least they are safe. After Test Baker and the fallout problem, the President cancelled Test Charlie which would have been another underwater explosion. The Sara's keel was snapped and they could not get to her to beach her safely. It sounds like diving on the fleet in the lagoon is a going business, I hope that you will be able to dive on her one day. Test Baker was a real mess, but there were a further 21 nuclear tests conducted at Bikini. Three of the 26 islands in the atoll were completely obliterated in the later tests. The one that was responsible for the worst of the contamination was the Castle Bravo test in 1954; the 5-megaton design "ran away" to 15 megatons and became the worst accidental radiological contamination incident in US history. It utterly vaporized the island it was on and to this day there's nothing but a sand-filled crater on the seabed there. Several other islands in the Marshalls had to be evacuated and fallout was detected as far away as Europe. In addition to the Saratoga, the battleships Nagato and Arkansas are accessible along with the light cruiser Sakawa, two subs, two destroyers, two attack transports, and a number of landing craft. www.bikiniatoll.com/divetour1.html - linked in here is a short piece by a former naval aviator who served on the Saratoga and got the chance to dive on her while in his 70s. |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 15, 2016 8:23:23 GMT -6
Steel: Thanks for the detailed information and especially the drawing. After Dad passed I lost track of events. It is a shame about the people of Bikini but at least they are safe. After Test Baker and the fallout problem, the President cancelled Test Charlie which would have been another underwater explosion. The Sara's keel was snapped and they could not get to her to beach her safely. It sounds like diving on the fleet in the lagoon is a going business, I hope that you will be able to dive on her one day. Test Baker was a real mess, but there were a further 21 nuclear tests conducted at Bikini. Three of the 26 islands in the atoll were completely obliterated in the later tests. The one that was responsible for the worst of the contamination was the Castle Bravo test in 1954; the 5-megaton design "ran away" to 15 megatons and became the worst accidental radiological contamination incident in US history. It utterly vaporized the island it was on and to this day there's nothing but a sand-filled crater on the seabed there. Several other islands in the Marshalls had to be evacuated and fallout was detected as far away as Europe. In addition to the Saratoga, the battleships Nagato and Arkansas are accessible along with the light cruiser Sakawa, two subs, two destroyers, two attack transports, and a number of landing craft. www.bikiniatoll.com/divetour1.html - linked in here is a short piece by a former naval aviator who served on the Saratoga and got the chance to dive on her while in his 70s. Test Baker results were far more than was predicted especially after Test Able and I believe that's why it was always considered a mess. It did prove the point that an underwater explosion was the most effective method. Have you seen the photo of Test Baker explosion and mushroom cloud? It has the caption " A tree grows in Bikini". The black spot on the right side is the USS Arkansas. Thanks for all the information. www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/aug/06/travelnews.nuclearindustry.environment |
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Post by steel selachian on Jan 17, 2016 18:32:34 GMT -6
The effects of the underwater blast can be seen on the sketch of the Saratoga - the starboard side of the hull is dished in from the blast and the aft third of the flight deck was crushed from the water falling down atop it. One of the first divers to examine the wreck in 1989 commented "it looked like Godzilla stomped on the flight deck." Arkansas lies upside down on the bottom, with everything above the main deck level either buried or obliterated.  I found this photo while I was looking at the Wikipedia article for Operation Crossroads; this was a surgeonfish caught near the test site on August 10 that was left on photographic film overnight. It was so "hot" that it took its own x-ray; the outline is from plutonium being deposited in the scales and the bright spot is the fish's last meal of contaminated algae. Col. Stafford Warren, the Army physician in charge of radiation safety for the Crossroads tests, showed this photo to Admiral Blandy and it was the final straw that caused cleanup efforts to be halted.  |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 17, 2016 19:54:53 GMT -6
I have the picture of the fish in my book, Operation Crossroads on Page 216. There are two other photos of algae glowing the same way. I can see why they decided enough was enough.
I venture to say that many vets probably don't like to see the ships they served on treated in such a manner. However, testing, IMO, was vital to understand the effect of a nuclear blast. Arkansas really got pounded, I can understand why she is so bad, Saratoga was hit hard also, like you said, with the downpour of water. Interesting.
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