seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Keel


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USS Nathanael Greene Runs Aground in the Irish Sea

USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636), a James Madison-class fleet ballistic missile submarine, runs aground in the Irish Sea on March 13, 1986, suffering severe damage to her rudder and ballast tanks. She is the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for Major General Nathanael Greene (1746–1786), who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Nathanael Greene‘s keel is laid down on May 21, 1962, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The construction of the ship is supervised by Commander Lawrence Dennis Ballou. She is launched on May 12, 1964, sponsored by Mrs. Neander W. Wade, a descendant of Nathanael Greene, and commissioned on December 19, 1964, with Commander Robert E. Crispin in command of the Blue Crew and Commander William M. Cossaboom in command of the Gold Crew.

Nathanael Greene departs Portsmouth for shakedown on December 30, 1964, with her Gold Crew embarked. It is relieved on February 1, 1965, by the Blue Crew. Her shakedown period is followed by repairs and alterations at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, after which the submarine, with her Blue Crew embarked, departs the shipyard for ballistic missile loading and her initial Polaris missile deterrent patrol.

In 1970-71 Nathanael Greene is refueled and receives its conversion to launch Poseidon missiles at Newport News Shipbuilding. Following Yard period and shakedown, she proceeds to Cape Canaveral for a test missile launch. In March 1972, she departs for her first deterrent patrol following conversion ending up in Holy Loch, Scotland.

On January 29, 1970, while making a surface run into port in thick fog, Nathanael Greene runs aground in about sixteen feet of water. She is refloated after about seven hours.

On August 11, 1984, Nathanael Greene loses her propeller in the Irish Sea. While proceeding back to Holy Loch at about 3 knots using her secondary propulsion motor, a transit of about 5 or 6 days, she is redirected to Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde at Faslane as the U.S. dry dock in Holy Loch is fully committed and unavailable, while Admiralty Floating Dock No. 60 at Faslane is available. While in the Faslane dry dock, a fire occurs in one of the dock’s enclosed machinery spaces on August 18, 1984. The fire is quickly extinguished and does not affect the Nathanael Greene. While in dry dock, it is established that the main shaft had broken with the loss of about a third of its length along with the propeller. Repairs are completed in about twelve days and the Nathanael Green is undocked on September 3, 1984.

On March 13, 1986, Nathanael Greene runs aground in the Irish Sea, suffering severe damage to her rudder and ballast tanks. Her grounding is a serious accident involving a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. She is deactivated while still in commission in May 1987. Her early deactivation is decided both as a result of the damage sustained in the accident as well as in accordance with the limitations set by the SALT II Treaty.

Nathanael Greene is decommissioned on December 15, 1986, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) on January 31, 1987. Her removal from service allows the United States to comply easily with the ballistic missile limits of the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty.

Nathanael Greene enters the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (SRP), the process that the United States Navy uses to dispose of decommissioned nuclear vessels, at Bremerton, Washington, on September 1, 1998. Her scrapping is completed on October 20, 2000.

Nathanael Greene‘s sail has been restored and is now on display in Port Canaveral, Florida, as a memorial to the original 41 for Freedom fleet ballistic missile submarines.

(Pictured: USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN-636), probably during her sea trials off New England in the mid-1960s.)


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Commissioning of the Second USS The Sullivans

The United States Navy commissions USS The Sullivans (DDG-68), an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided-missile destroyer, on April 19, 1997. She is the second ship to be named for the five Sullivan brothers who perished on the USS Juneau (CL-52) when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. This is the greatest military loss by any one American family during World War II. The Sullivans are descendants of Irish immigrants.

The first ship named for the brothers is the Fletcher-class destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD-537), now a museum ship in Buffalo, New York.

The contract to build USS The Sullivans is awarded to Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine on April 8, 1992 and her keel is laid down on July 27, 1994. She is launched on August 12, 1995 and sponsored by Kelly Ann Sullivan Loughren, granddaughter of Albert Sullivan. The ship is commissioned on April 19, 1997, with Commander Gerard D. Roncolato in command. Upon her commissioning, the ship is given the motto that is thought to have been spoken by the brothers when asked to separate during World War II, “We Stick Together.”

On April 26, 1997, USS The Sullivans departs New York City for Norfolk, Virginia, where, after arriving on April 27, the crew completes underway replenishment qualifications with USS Platte (AO-186). The warship then sails for Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 29 and arrives in her new homeport on May 2. After completing two days of gunnery trials in mid-May, USS The Sullivans embarks upon her shakedown deployment to the West Indies on May 27.

Members of al-Qaeda attempt an attack on USS The Sullivans while in port at Aden, Yemen on January 3, 2000 as a part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The plan is to load a boat full of explosives and detonate it near USS The Sullivans; however the boat is so overladen that it sinks. Later, al-Qaeda attempts the same type of attack a second time, successfully bombing USS Cole (DDG-67) on October 12, 2000.

While underway and sailing for Composite Unit Training Exercise 01-2 USS The Sullivans receives word of the September 11 attacks. USS The Sullivans, as part of the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) Battle Group, takes part in Operation Noble Eagle. The destroyer provides air-space security along the mid-Atlantic seaboard.

In February 2002 USS The Sullivans deploys with the USS John F. Kennedy carrier battle group to the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

On September 14, 2020, it is announced that USS The Sullivans will be part of HMS Queen Elizabeth‘s Task Group for the GROUPEX and Joint Warrior exercises. On January 19, 2021, a declaration confirms that USS The Sullivans will form part of the escort for HMS Queen Elizabeth during her first active deployment as part of the UK Carrier Strike Group in 2021.

(Photo: U.S. Navy photo of USS The Sullivans on the Mediterranean Sea in July 2002 by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Jim Hampshire)


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RMS Titanic Strikes Iceberg in North Atlantic

titanic-strikes-icebergJust before midnight on April 14, 1912 in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic, the world’s largest ship, fails to divert its course from an iceberg, ruptures five compartments along its starboard side, and begins to sink. The liner, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, sinks at 2:20 AM on the morning of April 15, 1912.

RMS Titanic, the largest ship afloat at the time it enters service on April 2, 1912, is the second of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, and is built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

RMS Titanic‘s maiden voyage, commanded by 62-year-old Captain Edward John Smith, begins shortly after noon on April 10, 1912 when she leaves Southampton on the first leg of her journey to New York City. A few hours later she reaches Cherbourg, France, where she takes on passengers. Her next port of call is Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, which she reaches around midday on April 11. After taking on more passengers and stores, RMS Titanic departs in the afternoon with an estimated 2,224 people on board.

RMS Titanic receives six warnings of sea ice on April 14 but is traveling near her maximum speed when her lookouts sight the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffers a glancing blow that buckles her starboard side and opens five of her sixteen compartments to the sea. RMS Titanic has been designed to stay afloat with four of her forward compartments flooded but not more, and the crew soon realises that the ship is going to sink. They use distress flares and wireless radio messages to attract help as the passengers are put into lifeboats. However, in accordance with existing practice, RMS Titanic‘s lifeboat system is designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold everyone on board simultaneously. With the ship sinking quickly and help still hours away, there is no safe refuge for many of the passengers and crew. Compounding this, poor management of the evacuation means many boats are launched before they are totally full.

At about 2:15 AM, RMS Titanic‘s angle in the water begins to increase rapidly as water pours into previously unflooded parts of the ship through deck hatches. Her suddenly increasing angle causes a giant wave to wash along the ship from the forward end of the boat deck, sweeping many people into the sea. RMS Titanic‘s stern lifts high into the air as the ship tilts down in the water, reaching an angle of 30–45 degrees. After another minute, the ship’s lights flicker once and then permanently go out, plunging RMS Titanic into darkness. Shortly after the lights go out, the ship splits apart at one of the weakest points in the structure, the area of the engine room hatch. The submerged bow likely remains attached to the stern by the keel for a short time, pulling the stern to a high angle before separating and leaving the stern to float for a few minutes longer. The forward part of the stern floods very rapidly, causing it to tilt and then settle briefly before sinking.

RMS Titanic sinks with over a thousand passengers and crew still on board. Almost all those who jump or fall into the water die from hypothermia within minutes. RMS Carpathia arrives on the scene about 90 minutes after the sinking and has rescued the last of the survivors by 9:15 AM on April 15, some nine and a half hours after the collision with the iceberg.

The death toll has been put at 1,513, including many Irish, although the number of casualties remains somewhat unclear due to a number of factors, including confusion over the passenger list, which includes some names of people who cancelled their trip at the last minute, and the fact that several passengers traveled under aliases for various reasons and were double-counted on the casualty lists.

The disaster causes widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of the three passenger classes during the evacuation. Subsequent inquiries recommend sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which still governs maritime safety today.


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Sinking of the HMS Wasp

hms-waspHMS Wasp, a composite screw Banterer-class gunboat of the Royal Navy, is wrecked off Tory Island, County Donegal on September 22, 1884 with the loss of 52 lives. There are six survivors.

The Banterer class is designed by Nathaniel Barnaby, the Admiralty Director of Naval Construction. The keel of the HMS Wasp is laid at Barrow Iron Shipbuilding as yard number 71 and she is launched on October 5, 1880. She is commissioned on December 1, 1881 and is rigged with three masts, making her a barquentine-rigged vessel.

On her final voyage, HMS Wasp, under the command of Lieutenant J.D. Nicholls, is sailing from Westport, County Mayo, in the West of Ireland, to Moville in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ulster, to pick up a party of police, bailiffs and court officials. These are to be transported to Inishtrahull, an island off Malin Head, to carry out evictions for non-payment of rents. Ironically, the ship had delivered urgently needed supplies of seed potatoes to the same islanders the previous year.

In the early morning of September 22, 1884, HMS Wasp is near Tory Island. The weather is cloudy with occasional squalls and rain showers. The commanding officer and most of the crew are in their bunks. The lieutenant navigating the ship is relatively unfamiliar with the area in which the ship is sailing. At 3:55 AM HMS Wasp runs aground on a reef. The initial shock breaks the hull of the ship and she begins to rapidly fill with water. The commander orders the ship’s boats lowered but HMS Wasp hits the reefs again, sinking so quickly that the boats cannot be launched. HMS Wasp sinks within fifteen minutes. Six crewmen manage to cling to one of the gunboat’s spars and they wash ashore on Tory Island and are found by islanders. The other 52 crew aboard drown.

A court martial is held for the survivors. The finding is that the cause of the wreck was a lack of care taken with the vessel’s navigation, but the survivors are all exonerated. The wreck is sold to the Cornish Salvage Co. in November 1910.


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The Hull of the RMS Titanic is Launched

titanic-launch-at-belfast-1911The hull of the RMS Titanic, is launched at 12:15 PM on May 31, 1911 at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the presence of Lord William Pirrie, J. Pierpoint Morgan, J. Bruce Ismay and 100,000 onlookers. Twenty-two tons of soap and tallow are spread on the slipway to lubricate the ship’s passage into the River Lagan. In keeping with the White Star Line‘s traditional policy, the ship is not formally named or christened with champagne. The ship is towed to a fitting-out berth where, over the course of the next year, her engines, funnels and superstructure are installed and her interior is fitted out.

The construction of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic take place virtually in parallel. The sheer size of the RMS Titanic and her sister ships pose a major engineering challenge for Harland and Wolff. No shipbuilder has ever before attempted to construct vessels this size. RMS Titanic‘s keel is laid down on March 31, 1909. The 2,000 hull plates are single pieces of rolled steel plate, mostly up to 6 feet wide and 30 feet long and weigh between 2.5 and 3 tons.

Some of the last items to be fitted on RMS Titanic before the ship’s launch are her two side anchors and one centre anchor. The anchors themselves are a challenge to make with the centre anchor being the largest ever forged by hand and weighing nearly 16 tons. Twenty Clydesdale draught horses are needed to haul the centre anchor by wagon from the N. Hingley & Sons Ltd. forge shop in Netherton, near Dudley, United Kingdom to the Dudley railway station two miles away. From there it is shipped by rail to Fleetwood in Lancashire before being loaded aboard a ship and sent to Belfast.

The work of constructing the ships is difficult and dangerous. For the 15,000 men who work at Harland and Wolff at the time, safety precautions are rudimentary at best. Much of the work is dangerous and is carried out without any safety equipment like hard hats or hand guards on machinery. As a result, deaths and injuries are to be expected. During RMS Titanic‘s construction, 246 injuries are recorded, 28 of them “severe,” such as arms severed by machines or legs crushed under falling pieces of steel. Six people die on the ship herself while she is being constructed and fitted out, and another two die in the shipyard workshops and sheds. Just before the launch a worker is killed when a piece of wood falls on him.

(Pictured: Launch of the hull of the RMS Titanic with an unfinished superstructure in 1911)