I’ve been highlighting single images from The Commons, but all three of the warships below seemed to belong together. One was a New York-class battleship, another was built in New York and the third visited New York, so that’s part of the commonality here. All of the photos in this collection are from the Bain News Service, were scanned from glass plate negatives, and have no attributed photographer.
There was a period where the military power, and the extendability of that power was directly tied to one’s naval tonnage. These machines were the apex of the industrial era, symbols of man’s increasing power to create and invent. Whole networks of coaling stations were set up around the world to keep them traveling and moving, an early neo-colonialism of resources, as the concept of the global superpower came to define true political power in the 20th Century.
Above: Launching of Texas. The USS Texas is a New York-class battleship that saw service in both World War I and II. She served primarily as a convoy escort in both wars, but at the end of WWII she saw service shelling the beaches of Normandy before transferring half way around the world to make use of her guns at the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, before being decommissioned in 1946.
It’s worth noting that the Texas was both the first battleship to be equipped with anti-aircraft guns, launch aircraft and to mount radar. In a previous post I made brief mention of the transition from naval power to naval-based air power in WWII, a trend predicted and prepared for by both Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. So the Texas is a part of that revolution in the application of force. She was also the first battleship to become a museum ship - you can visit her in Houston any time you like.
Above: Fei Hung. Coming across this photo was mysterious. Obviously this ship bears a Chinese name, but where was it being built when this was taken? Google quickly answered my question. The Fei Hung was one of three training cruisers ordered by China in 1910. The first was delivered in 1911, but the 1912 Chinese Revolution intervened, and the Fei Hung was never delivered to China. It was built at New York Shipbuilding and in 1914 she was sold to Greece and re-christened Helle. After being sold to Greece though, she was captured by the french and served under the French Flag in WWI from 1916-1917. She was returned to Greece after the war. In 1926-28 she was completely refitted as a cruiser-minelayer, and on August 15, 1940 Helle was torpedoed by an Italian submarine.
Above: MOLTKE on Hudson River 6/12. The SMS Moltke has the unique honor of being the first and only German warship to ever visit the United States. It toured the East Coast for two weeks in 1912, before returning to Germany. Christened in 1911, she served Germany in WWI, and was scuttled, and then later raised and scrapped following the war.
In the 19th Century, Germany revolutionized the command structure of their armies, with the concept of the General Staff. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, for whom this ship is named, served as the chief of the General Staff from 1857-1888. He was a sharp, post-Clauzwitzian thinker, in an era when military commanders were nearly monomaniacal in their faith in planning and control over the battlefield, he was the first modern commander to truly understand the fluidity and chaos of combat. Rather than contain something that could not be contained and controlled, he sought to understand that chaos and then to develop an organizational structure that could adapt to and take advantage of it. So the post-modern, 4th generational warfare that armies and non-armies engage in today has much of its roots in Moltke’s thinking and the thinking of those who have followed in his footsteps.
Technorati Tags: Library of Congress, Flickr, The Commons, warships, SMS Moltke, Moltke, USS Texas, Fei Hung, Helle, battleships, capital ships, photography, naval history
