Old Navy

[Brian James]

Surrendered U-Boats pictured at Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 29th 1919...Type UB III UB-88......Type UC III Minelayer UC-97......Type UE II Long Range Minelayer U-117.

[Brian James]

Lead Boat, USS Porpoise pictured off Philadelphia Navy Yard on July 20th 1944.

[Brian James]

Installing a 12inch/45 calibre gun barrel in a Battleship gun turret This is probably Turret # 3 of either Delaware (Battleship # 28) or North Dakota (Battleship # 29), c1909-1910.

[Brian James]

Early days at Norfolk Navy Yard.

[Brian James]

Norfolk Navy Yard......November 6th 1915.

[Brian James]

USAT George Washington pictured in Dry Dock No 3 at Norfolk Navy Yard on February 2nd 1927. She was an ocean liner built at AG Vulcan Stettin Shipyards in 1908 for the Bremen-based North German Lloyd and was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. The ship was also known as USS George Washington (ID-3018) and USAT George Washington in service of the United States Navy and United States Army, respectively, during World War I. In the interwar period, she reverted to her original name of SS George Washington. During World War II, the ship was known as both USAT George Washington and, briefly, as USS Catlin (AP-19), in a short, second stint in the U.S. Navy. When George Washington was launched in 1908, she was the largest German-built steamship and the third-largest ship in the world. George Washington was built to emphasize comfort over speed and was sumptuously appointed in her first-class passenger areas. The ship could carry a total of 2,900 passengers, and made her maiden voyage in January 1909 to New York. In June 1911, George Washington was the largest ship to participate in the Coronation Fleet Review by the United Kingdom's newly crowned king, George V...At the outbreak of World War I, George Washington was interned by the then-neutral United States, until that country entered into the conflict in April 1917. George Washington was seized by the United States and taken over for use as a troop transport by the U.S. Navy. Commissioned as USS George Washington (ID-3018), she sailed with her first load of American troops in December 1917...In total, she carried 48,000 passengers to France, and returned 34,000 to the United States after the Armistice. George Washington also carried U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to France twice for the Paris Peace Conference. George Washington was decommissioned in 1920 and handed over the United States Shipping Board (USSB), who reconditioned her for passenger service. SS George Washington sailed in transatlantic passenger service for both the United States Mail Steamship Company (one voyage) and United States Lines for ten years, before she was laid up in the Patuxent River in Maryland in 1931.
During World War II, the ship was re-commissioned by the U.S. Navy as USS Catlin (AP-19) for about six months and was operated by the British under Lend-Lease, but her old coal-fired engines were too slow for effective combat use. After conversion to oil-fired boilers, the ship was chartered to the U.S. Army as USAT George Washington and sailed around the world in 1943 in trooping duties. The ship sailed in regular service to the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean from 1944 to 1947, and was laid up in Baltimore after ending her Army service. A fire in January 1951 damaged the ship severely, and she was sold for scrapping the following month.

[Brian James]

Fleet workhorses....Liberty Ships line the Boston Docks in 1943.

[Brian James]

Coastal Defense Ram Monitor USS Katahdin pictured fitting out at Bath Iron Works, Maine c1894....The inspiration behind Katahdin was Rear Admiral Daniel Ammen, an advocate of a Coastal Defense Navy. Ammen was impressed by the British Torpedo Ram HMS Polyphemus. Unlike Polyphemus, which was primarily a Torpedo Boat, with ramming a secondary function, the American design was for a pure ram, with no torpedoes carried,though she did carry four 6 pounder rifled Hotchkiss guns.
Katahdin's design was a new departure in naval architecture, built to ride extremely low in the water with her bow awash while under way. Her hull embodied several new features later used in early Submarines. A similar design was the whaleback freighters of the Great Lakes which went into production in 1887. Katahdin was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on July 9th 1909 and designated 'Ballistic Experimental Target 'A'. Katahdin was sunk by gunfire at Rappahannock Spit, Virginia, that September.

[Brian James]

Keel Laid for the ill fated Armoured Cruiser USS Maine at Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York on October 17th 1888.

[Brian James]

Torpedo Boat No 32, USS Stockton pictured fitting out at William R. Trigg & Company Shipbuilding Yards at Richmond, Virginia on June 30th 1900.