USS Monadnock (BM-3)
 The Monadnock in the Pacific
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The USS Monadnock , the second ship of that name in the US Navy , was an iron monitor , one of four Amphitrite- class ships . The ship served in the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Construction and technical data
On June 23, 1874, the American Secretary of the Navy, George M. Robeson, gave the order to convert and rebuild the old Monadnock monitor , which was basically a pretext for building a new ship using material from the old ship to be demolished. The order went to Phineas Burgess and the Continental Iron Works he founded in Vallejo (California) for this purpose . The construction suffered from numerous delays, partly because the financing was not secured, partly because the requirements were changed several times, and the ship was not launched until September 19, 1883 . The shipyard had since been forced into bankruptcy due to late payments by the Navy , and the Navy took possession of the hull immediately after it was launched and towed it to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard near Vallejo. There the armament and final equipment took place, which in turn took an incredibly long time. It was not until February 20, 1896, that Captain George W. Sumner was able to put the Monadnock into service.
The almost 80 m long and 16.9 m wide ship displaced 4,054 tons with a draft of 4.42 m . Its main armament consisted of four 25 cm cannons in two turrets , one each fore and aft. There were also two 10 cm cannons, two 6 pounders, two 3 pounders and two 1 pounders.
Mission history
The Monadnock initially served with the Pacific Squadron along the US west coast. After the Spanish-American War broke out on April 25, 1898, she was ordered to reinforce the US Asia Squadron of Commodore George Dewey in the Philippines . She left San Francisco on June 23, 1898 , reached Hawaii in the first week of July, arrived in Manila Bay on August 16, and then participated in the blockade of the Spanish forces in the Mariveles - Manila - Cavite area .
On February 10, 1899, during the Philippine-American War , the Monadnock and the protected cruiser Charleston bombarded the Philippine positions for three hours before the start of the Battle of Caloocan north of Manila. Until December 1899, the Monadnock carried out another blockade service in Manila Bay , interrupted by occasional trips to Hong Kong .
,_starboard_side,_in_Chinese_waters,_ca._1901_-_NARA_-_513018.jpg)
She went to Hong Kong again on December 26, 1899, and for the next five years cruised off the Chinese coast and on Chinese rivers, particularly the Yangtze , to safeguard American interests. From January 27 to October 7, 1901, she was on station almost continuously at the mouth of the Yangtze River to protect the foreign colony in Shanghai . She then performed the same task three more times: from December 6, 1902 to April 8, 1903, from September 18, 1903 to March 10, 1904, and from April 8, 1904 to November 28, 1904.
It was not until February 3, 1905, that the Monadnock returned to Cavite in Manila Bay. Apart from two short trips to Hong Kong, she served in the Philippines for the next five years, based in Olongapo on Subic Bay , until she was decommissioned in Cavite on March 10, 1909.
On April 20, 1911, the ship was put back into service in the reserve and again stationed in Olongapo, then taken back into active service in Cavite on January 31, 1912. For seven years she then drove as a target tug for submarines .
On March 24, 1919, she was finally decommissioned. On July 17, 1920, the ship was given the number BM-3 ; on July 1, 1921, this was changed to IX-17 . The ship was removed from the naval register on February 2, 1923 , and the hull was sold for demolition in Asia on August 24, 1923.
Footnotes
- ↑ Continental Iron Works, Vallejo CA, at shipbuildinghistory.com ( Memento from April 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ NavSource Online: Battleship Photo Archive: M-3 / BM-3 / IX-17 USS Monadnock
- ↑ NavSource Online: Battleship Photo Archive: M-3 / BM-3 / IX-17 USS Monadnock