USS Juneau (CL-52)
_-_19-N-28143.jpg) The USS Juneau (CL-52) in New York Harbor, February 1942 |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Keel laying | May 27, 1940 |
| Launch | October 15, 1941 |
| 1. Period of service |
.svg){kind=small}
|
| Commissioning | February 14, 1942 |
| Whereabouts | ago on November 13, 1942 Guadalcanal dropped |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement | |
| length |
164.9 m |
| width |
15.85 m |
| Draft |
4.8 m |
| crew |
623 |
| drive |
4 boilers, 2 steam turbines , 2 shafts , 76,000 hp |
| speed |
32.5 kn |
| Range |
8,500 nm at 15 kn |
| Armament |
|
The USS Juneau CL-52 or CL (AA) -52 was an anti-aircraft cruiser of the United States Navy during World War II . The ship belonged to the Atlanta class and was built by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. in Kearny, New Jersey . The Juneau was badly damaged in the naval battle of Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942 and sunk by a Japanese submarine later in the day.
Formally it was a light cruiser, hence the official designation as CL (cruiser, light). The ship was set up especially for air defense, but ultimately a multi-purpose cruiser, as the torpedo armament (against surface ships) and the depth charge equipment (against submarines) shows. Only after the war were the remaining ships of the class, which then no longer carried such additional armament, were designated as pure anti -aircraft cruisers with the designation CL (AA). For the USS Juneau I CL-52 , which was lost in the war, only the designation CL-52 is actually correct, contrary to what is stated in the literature .
technology
The cruiser had a standard water displacement of 6,000 ts (ship tons of 1,016 kg), and a planned operational displacement of 7,600 ts. The length on the waterline was 530 feet for a total of 541 feet, the width 53 feet and the draft 32 feet and 6 1/2 inches. The ship was designed for a crew of 673 men, but the war strength was up to 697 men. It was propelled by two turbines with a construction output of 75,000 wPS (test drive output 78,985 wPS for the sister ship Atlanta CL-51) on two shafts with three-blade propellers (15 feet 9 inches in diameter). This enabled a speed of 32.5 kn (test drive: 33.67 kn). In contemporary literature, however, the unrealistic value of 40 kn was rumored. The sea endurance should be 8,500 nm at 15 kn, but was not achieved (actually 7,530 nm at 15 kn and 5,630 nm at 20 kn).
The main armament consisted of 16 guns of the caliber 5 inch L / 38 in eight twin turrets, which were designed as fast-firing multi-purpose weapons for anti-aircraft and anti-naval missions. However, there were only two Mk.37 master encoders for them. The high number of tubes was therefore ultimately ineffective and was reduced to 12 tubes in six twin towers from the second series of the class (so-called Oakland class) in favor of a reinforced light flak. In addition, USS Juneau I carried eight torpedo tubes of the caliber 21 inches in two lateral quadruple sets and light flak (most recently four 1.1-inch quadruples and eight 20-mm single mounts) and depth charges. When it was put into service, only three 1.1-inch quadruplets were on board, the fourth (on the Schanz ) was added in March 1942.
Originally, only SC-1 on the foremast was on board as search radar (in addition to the Mk.4 fire control radars on the two Mk.37 fire control devices). However, the antenna of this combined sea and air search system was moved to the main mast as early as March, and in June 1942, the USS Juneau I was one of the first cruisers of the US Navy to receive the new, much more accurate SG sea search radar on the foremast platform .
The side armor was 3 3/4 inches, and the deck was only covered with 1 1/4 inches. Given the small size of the ship type, stronger protective devices could not be implemented.
The ship was finished with a one-color coat of paint according to "Measure 3" and then, in its short period of use, was given two different camouflage patterns according to "Measure 12 mod" (so-called "splotch pattern"). The first (from February 1942) was very difficult and not recognizable from a great distance, the second (from June 1942) was much larger.
history
Its first in command was Captain Lyman K. Swenson. The cruiser was used in the Pacific War. It was sunk on November 13, 1942 in the sea battle of Guadalcanal ( Solomon Islands ). After the cruiser was damaged by a Japanese destroyer torpedo in the night battle, in which the sister ship USS Atlanta CL-51 had also been sunk, the USS Juneau received further torpedo hits from the Japanese submarine I at around 11 a.m. local time in the morning -26 , which caused a violent detonation. The forward ammunition chambers exploded and the ship sank within a minute. 683 men of their crew were killed, in the end there were only ten survivors. More than 100 crew members escaped the inferno, but the unit led by Captain Hoover on the cruiser USS Helena CL-50 did not allow a rescue operation out of concern for its own safety and only requested help via an airplane. The news did not reach Admiral Halsey's headquarters and so it so happened that only a handful of sailors survived. Six were picked up by a flying boat, three made their own way to a nearby island, and another survivor was picked up even later by the USS Ballard . Hoover was relieved of his command for his failure not to have at least deployed life-saving appliances and controlled the transmission of the message.
The Juneau was served by the five Sullivan brothers who had volunteered for the Navy and none of whom survived. George Sullivan was the only one who was recovered on a life raft, but later drowned or was killed by a shark attack when he got into the water at night. As a result, the Sole Survivor Policy was brought into being. The US Navy named a Fletcher-class destroyer, the USS The Sullivans (DD-537) in 1943 , and an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer , the USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) , after the brothers in 1995 . A new half-sister ship from the Atlanta class, the CL (AA) 119, was named USS Juneau (II) .
The USS Juneau I received four "battle stars" for its brief war service.
wreck
The wreck of the USS Juneau was discovered on March 17, 2018 by an expedition of the entrepreneur and hobby researcher Paul Allen on the Petrel at a depth of 4000 meters in the Pacific. The fuselage broke into two large pieces.
literature
To technology
- Rod Dickson: USS Juneau CL (AA) 52 . The Floating Drydock Press, Kresgeville 1993, ISBN 0-944055-04-4
- Norman Friedman: US Cruisers . Arms & Armor Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85368-651-3
About history
- Robert Ballard: Sunk in the Pacific - Guadalcanal Ship Cemetery . Ullstein, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-550-06834-4
- Samuel Eliot Morison : The Struggle for Guadalcanal (History of US Naval Operations in WWII, Vol. V) . Little, Brown and Co., Boston 1949, reprinted many times
Web links
- history.navy.mil: USS Juneau (Engl.)
- navsource.org: USS Juneau (Engl.)
- hazegray.org: USS Juneau (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ^ Eleanor Ainge Roy: "USS Juneau, warship that sank with 600 aboard, discovered 4km down in Pacific" The Guardian of March 20, 2018
.svg){kind=small}