CA -- San Diego -- Maritime Museum of San Diego -- Berkeley:
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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
SDMMBE_070724_020.JPG: Ferryboat "Berkeley":
The steam ferryboat "Berkeley" was the first successful west coast-built and operated ferry to be driven by a screw propeller as opposed to side-wheels. Built by the famous Union Iron Works of San Francisco in 1898, the ferry operated until 1958 as part of the San Francisco Bay Ferry System. The "Berkeley" is the oldest steel-hulled ferry on the west coast and the earliest double-ended ferryboat to survive with her original historic fabric intact. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the "Berkeley" assisted in evacuating refugees to Oakland.
California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1031
SDMMBE_070724_042.JPG: American Naval Actions: Mexican War:
The American naval campaign along the West Coast of Mexico during the Mexican War of 1846-47 was one of the blockade and amphibious attack. Mexican forces there were sparse and the Mexican Navy near nonexistent. American strategy was to employ naval and marine forces to destroy commerce and occupy Pacific ports to support the more direct campaigns against Mexican national forces centered in central Mexico and along her Gulf Coast. Nearly every Mexican port city in Baja California was occupied by American naval forces.
The naval campaign along the West Coast put San Diego on the map for the first time as a U.S. Navy base, as the Navy used San Diego Bay as a convenient and central location for its primary logistics base. During the war, American frigates and sloops-of-war used their command of the seas to advantage to outflank Mexican opposition and to attack and overcome Mexican West Coast ports. The ship modeled in this display, Cyane, was a key contributor to U.S. Navy success, with victories in Baja California and at Guaymas and Mazatlan. Her operations along the West Coast between 1846 and 1847 are indicated on the chart behind the model.
When the Mexican War began, Major John C. Fremont of the United States Topographical Corps headed the only American land force available to campaign in California. His 160-man unit of irregulars (including Delaware Indians and scout Kit Carson) had been in California surveying wagon routes across the Sierra Nevada mountains and throughout Northern California, but were pressed into action almost immediately to exert American control of the state. They were ferried to San Diego by Cyane in July 1846, where they helped garrison the town and then marched northward with other American army forces to battle Mexican forces near Los Angeles.
SDMMBE_070724_069.JPG: USS Bennington:
The worst peacetime disaster in the U.S. Navy's history occurred in San Diego Bay on July 21, 1905. At 10:33am, the city was rocked by explosions from the harbor. The gunboat Bennington's boilers had blown, killing sixty-five of her crew and injuring eighty-five more. Eleven Medals of Honor were later awarded for rescue work in this tragedy.
The Bennington (PG-4) was launched in 1890 and commissioned in 1891. She was armed with six 6-inch rifled guns and a mixture of smaller weapons including Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns. Much of the vessel's career was spent on patrol along the coasts of Central and South America.
The exceptional model displayed here represents nearly 2,000 hours of work. An example of the detail involved is the construction of the 6-inch guns, each containing fifty individually machined pieces.
SDMMBE_070724_072.JPG: USS Monterey:
Built in 1891, as the new American steel navy entered its infancy, the USS Monterey was among the last of the old style monitors. With her mixed battery of 12" and 10" guns, she retained the dubious seakeeping qualities of her predecessors, an unfortunately circumstance for her role of protecting the long and rugged U.S. west coast. During this time, she was an occasional visitor to San Diego. Sent to the Philippines during the war with Spain, Monterey remained their nineteen years.
Combining armor protection, minimal exposure, and wide traverse for a small number of powerful guns, the monitor type was a revolutionary ship that enjoyed fantastic success in the contested rivers, bays, and sounds of the American South during the Civil War. However, well before the Monterey returned from the Philippines, rapid advances in naval technology had rendered her obsolete.
SDMMBE_070724_075.JPG: USS Monterey
SDMMBE_070724_084.JPG: USS Porter
32nd Street Naval Station:
From the time of World War I to the present, destroyers and frigates have been the most ubiquitous symbols of the navy in San Diego. The Naval Station at 32nd Street rose in place primarily as a repair and operating base for these classes of warship, and many of the navy's facilities around San Diego Bay reflected the need to support ships such as the USS Porter (DD-356). Porter was homeported in San Diego from 1937-1940....
SDMMBE_070724_089.JPG: USS Jupiter (AC-3), then USS Langley (CV-1):
America's first aircraft carrier began her career as the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3) April 7, 1913 and a year and a half later became the first naval vessel to pass through the Panama Canal. As a collier, the Jupiter saw her first wartime duty in support to the Atlantic fleet in 1917-1918. In response to rapid developments in naval aviation during the recent war, in January 1919 Congress authorized the conversion of the ship to handle aircraft from a full flight deck. The USS Jupiter entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in early 1920 and emerged two years later as the USS Langley (CV-1), soon known familiarly as "The Covered Wagon" because of her striking appearance.
The USS Langley (CV-1) was home ported in San Diego beginning November 29, 1924.
SDMMBE_070724_092.JPG: USS Langley (CV-1)
Langley was in every way a pioneer in carrier technique, including the use of tail hooks and arresting wires. Originally, the aircraft's tail hook was hung between its main wheels, sometimes causing the landing plane to "nose over" upon contact. Arresting wires were gravity tensioned by sandbags hung from the flight deck support structures, an arrangement that tended to throw the plane backwards after coming to its initial stop. Many lessons learned in the Langley were incorporated into the massive carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) of 1927. By the commissioning of a fourth carrier, Ranger, in 1934, Langley had come to the technical limit of her usefulness as a fleet carrier.
SDMMBE_070724_095.JPG: USS Langley (CV-1)
In her third and last incarnation, Langley (AV-3) became a seaplane tender and aircraft ferry. On February 22, 1942, while transporting Army P-40s to Java, the "Covered Wagon" was attacked by nine Japanese bombers. Struck by at least five bombs and immobilized, Langley was sunk by friendly gunfire to prevent her capture.
SDMMBE_070724_099.JPG: USS Langley (CV-1)
SDMMBE_070724_103.JPG: USS Baloo
SDMMBE_070724_113.JPG: Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) "Swift Boat"
SDMMBE_070724_117.JPG: Patrol Boat Riverine (PBR)
SDMMBE_070724_125.JPG: Cruiser Augusta (CA-34)
SDMMBE_070724_214.JPG: Boilers
SDMMBE_070724_229.JPG: Boiler Construction:
The number four boiler has been cut away so that you can see the construction of the firebox. As you look inside,on the right you will see three of four oil burners which sprayed preheated fuel into the firebox at relatively high pressure (175 pounds), where it was ignited. The heat then passed up through and transferred to the many tubes filled with water (you can see the first of many rows overhead). From outside and in front of the boiler, you can see the many handholes with four tubes behind each *nearly 400 in all). Those tubes congregate in the steam drum (top). The steam drum is where vapor and water separate. The steam enters the main steam line to travel to the main or auxiliary engines. Excess combustion gases exited the boiler via the uptakes (smoke stack).
Less than 40% of the energy in the fuel actually reached as far as the propeller, even less when equipped with scotch boilers. It is no wonder. Virtually all marine power plants are now either diesel or gas turbine. Nuclear power plants work nearly the same as this plant (steam turbine instead of reciprocating engines) except the source of heat is a controlled nuclear reaction instead of an oil fire.
SDMMBE_070724_280.JPG: In 1901, the original of this cast gravestone was found on Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. The stone carries the initials JRC, and is believed to be the marker of Cabrillo's grave.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Berkeley (ferryboat)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Berkeley was one of several ferryboats of the Southern Pacific Railroad that operated on San Francisco Bay between the Oakland Pier and the San Francisco Ferry Building for sixty years. Built in 1898 by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, she served after the 1906 earthquake, ferrying refugees across the bay to Oakland.
The Berkeley was in regular service from 1898 to the spring of 1958, when she was taken out of service for repairs. She never returned to service as Southern Pacific decided to end all ferry service on July 29, 1958. The Berkeley was put up for sale, and was purchased by the Golden Gate Fishing Company to be used as a whaling processing facility. Before it was put to this use, however, it was sold to ferryboat enthusiast and businessman Bill Conover. Conover had the Berkeley docked in Sausalito, a small town on the Bay in Marin County and converted it into a gift shop called "Trade Fair". However, the Berkeley was not well-maintained in its gift shop incarnation and 12 years of serious deterioration took a toll. In 1973, she was sold to the Maritime Museum of San Diego. She was towed out of San Francisco Bay by tug on May 31, 1973 arriving 3 days later in San Diego where she was subsequently restored. She currently serves as the main "building" of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
The Berkeley was notable for having been the first propeller-driven ferry on the west coast. At the time of its launching on October 18, 1898, it became the largest commuter ferryboat in the United States with a 1700 passenger capacity. It was also remarkable for being one of the earliest ferries to be powered by a triple-expansion steam engine.
The Berkeley was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990 and California State Historical Landmark No. 1031 in 2000.
Trivia:
* Actor and Sausalito resident Sterling Hayden rented one of the pilot houses of the Berkeley as an office while he ...More...
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[Museums (History)]
2007 photos: Equipment this year: I used the Fuji S9000 almost exclusively except for the period when it broke and I had to send it back for repairs. In August, I bought a Canon Rebel Xti, my first digital SLR (vs regular digital) which I tried as well but I wasn't that excited by it.
Trips this year: Two weeks down south (including Graceland, Shiloh, VIcksburg, and New Orleans), a week at a time share in Costa Rica over my 50th birthday, a week off for a family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with sidetrips to Dayton, Springfield, and Madison), a week in San Diego for the Comic-Con with a side trip to Michigan for two family reunions, a drive up to Niagara Falls, a couple of weekend jaunts including the Civil War Preservation Trust Grand Review in Vicksburg, and a December journey to three state capitols (Richmond, Raleigh, and Columbia). I saw sites in 18 states and 3 other countries this year -- the first year I'd been to more than two other countries since we lived in Venezuela when I was a little toddler.
Ego strokes: A photo that I took at the National Archives was used as the author photo on the book jacket for David A. Nichols' "A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution." I became a volunteer photographer at both Sixth and I Historic Synagogue and the Civil War Preservation Trust (later renamed "Civil War Trust")..
Number of photos taken this year: 225,000.
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