USS Olympia

[jon_norstog]

I went back to Philadelphia last weekend to meet old friends (and make some new ones), just four days but I made them count. I walked Germantown Avenue from Chestnut Hill down to the flats of North Philly and got a real good sense of how the Battle of Germantown went down. If Washington had pulled it off, the war would have been over right there in 1777. And you can walk by the house where the field hospital was, and the churchyards where the dead are buried.

I also got down to the waterfront where the museum ships are tied up, Including the USS Olympia. The old girl looks good, although I understand she is rotting away below the water line. In the old days the USN veterans used to keep her in close to operational condition, especially the engineering spaces. They are all gone now. She was a very comfortable ship, lots or teak woodwork and wide main deck galleries with a couple windows instead of ports. Here are a few pictures ..


USS_olympia (1).jpg USS_olympia (6).jpg

Here you can see the barbettes for the 5" guns. I'm not sure if the glassed-in barbette was original or if it was a later addition. The flag commander's quarters may have been aft, and it would have been nice to go out and look through a picture window ..

USS_olympia (2).jpg USS_olympia (3).jpg


jn

[Roadkingtrax]

I follow them on Facebook, the Olympia museum staff.

Is it settled in mud or floating I wonder? Pictures are nice.

[jon_norstog]

And across the river, tied up in Camden, the USS New Jersey


USS_new_jerdey.jpg


Just down the river, on the PA side, was where Joshua Humphries' shipyard was, where he built the USS United States, the first of the six frigates authorized by Congress in 1794.

jn

[barretcreek]

Jon,
Is Moshulu still there? She's a Finnish iron hulled bark used as a restaurant.

[bdm]

Thank You for posting the pictures

[jon_norstog]

Jon,
Is Moshulu still there? She's a Finnish iron hulled bark used as a restaurant.

Mosholu IS still there. She had iron (or steel) spars as well which you can see in the background of the Olympia's stern. That ship will never sail again. They laid a deck for the restaurant in her hold and cut big windows in her sides. Her loaded water line is marked by a stripe of pitting. Midship those windows are entirely below that line.

Used to be a schooner there as well - Gazala Primera. She was a wooden schooner or brigantine, Portugal built. She sailed away and is now seen at gatherings of tall ships.

jn

[Vern Humphrey]

I toured the USS Olympia in 1969, on leave from my second tour in Viet Nam. In those days, there was a rifle rack on the bridge filled with pristine Krag Jorgensen rifles, and the platform for the coffin of the Unknow Soldier was still in place.

[clintonhater]

The old girl looks good, although I understand she is rotting away below the water line.

Unforgivable negligence that she wasn't put into a dry dock many decades ago; as if it was unknown that salt water destroys iron. But of course if the Navy had had its way, she'd have shared the fate of the Oregon, & many others.

[Clark Howard]

If you walked from the center city to the river alone, you are lucky to be alive. Regards, Clark

[Fred]

Wow, that old Dreadnaut is really Neat! I told my wife that I thought it’d be a neat thing if we won the big lottery and could then buy the U.S.S. Olympia along with the U.S.S. Texas.
Fix them up and put them together somewhere with other such ships and boats from that era.
Yea, if pigs had wings...
Here’s an etched window of the U.S.S. Olympia in our door between the library and the sun room of our 113 year old house. There used to be a company in Omaha that sold such glass.
I’ll bet that there aren’t many of these still around now.

image.jpg

[Vern Humphrey]

Just a nitpick -- the Olympia and Texas are not Dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts follow the design of the original HMS Dreadnaught in 1906. Dreadnaughts have a main battery of very large guns (usually 12" or larger) mounted in turrets on the centerline of the ship.

[blackhawknj]

The Texas (1914) is a dreadnought, the earlier USS Texas (1892) was a pre-dreadnought similar to the USS Maine. HMS Dreadnaught and several of the ships that followed her had wing turrets, USS South Carolina was the first to have superfiring turrets, before then they thought the blast from the top turret would be too much for the crew of the bottom one.

[Vern Humphrey]

The Texas (1914) is a dreadnought, the earlier USS Texas (1892) was a pre-dreadnought similar to the USS Maine. HMS Dreadnaught and several of the ships that followed her had wing turrets, USS South Carolina was the first to have superfiring turrets, before then they thought the blast from the top turret would be too much for the crew of the bottom one.

Ah -- I was thinking of the earlier Texas, which I have visited. She participated in the Spanish American War -- much too early for a dreadnaught.

[Fred]

Lol. Well, Dreadnaught or not, I’d like to be able to see each totally restored

[Vern Humphrey]

So would I -- but I'm afraid it's not in the cards.