USS Savannah (CL-42)
_off_the_Philadelphia_Naval_Shipyard_on_5_September_1944_(NH_97955).jpg) The Savannah (September 1944)
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The USS Savannah (ID: CL-42) was a light cruiser of the United States Navy , who in World War II was used. The ship belonged to the Brooklyn class consisting of a total of seven units and was put into service as the third ship of this class. The cruiser was named after the city of Savannah in the US state of Georgia . It was the fourth ship in the history of the United States Navy to be baptized with this name . The Savannah was on 31 May 1934 on the yard of the New York Shipbuilding Association in Camden (US state of New Jersey down) to Kiel and running on May 8, 1937 by stack. The final equipment took place at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard , where the cruiser was also put into service on March 10, 1938. The ship's first in command was Captain Robert C. Griffin.
Technology, modifications and special features
After the damage it suffered at Salerno, the Savannah underwent several modifications as part of the necessary repairs, so the cruiser (as the first ship of its class) received torpedo bulges , which widened the hull by 1.17 m on both sides, so that the overall width from September 1944 Was 21.16 m. In addition, the individually positioned 12.7 cm Mark 11 L / 25 cannons were replaced by eight 12.7 cm Mark 12 L / 38 cannons in four twin turret shields, with two of these twin turrets standing on both sides of the ship. The light anti-aircraft defense system, which temporarily consisted of twelve Mark 1 2.8 cm rapid-fire cannons and eight 12.7 mm machine guns (1942), was replaced and replaced by 28 4.0 cm anti-aircraft guns and 20 2.0 mm anti-aircraft guns. cm flak replaced. The extensive retrofitting resulted in the number of crew members (in the state of peace there were about 870 men on board) at the end of 1944 to 1,363 seamen and gunners. This number is also given in the adjacent information block.
Operations in the prewar period
After being commissioned, the cruiser was first subjected to test drives off Cuba , Haiti and the east coast of the United States between April and July 1938 . In September 1938, the Savannah moved from Philadelphia to Portsmouth in order to be able to protect or evacuate American nationals in the event of war outbreak in Europe , which was feared in connection with the so-called Sudeten crisis . After the crisis had been resolved under the Munich Agreement , the cruiser returned to the United States in mid-October 1938.
After winter maneuvers in the Caribbean , the Savannah , meanwhile detached to the 8th Cruiser Squadron of the US Pacific Fleet , moved in the early summer of 1939 from the Norfolk naval base to San Diego , California , crossing the Panama Canal on June 1st .
Operations in World War II
When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, the Savannah was in Long Beach . Ordered to Pearl Harbor in the spring of 1940 , the cruiser remained with the American Pacific Fleet until May 1941, with Captain Andrew Carl Bennett being a new commander on board in August 1940. In early June 1941, the Savannah moved again through the Panama Canal and was used in the Atlantic until September 1941 as part of the American neutrality patrols. Among other things, the Savannah operated here at times together with the aircraft carrier USS Wasp , the light cruiser USS Philadelphia and several destroyers between Trinidad , Bermuda and Newfoundland . Here, the cruiser participated in August 1941, as part of the US Task Group (TG) 2.6, at the unsuccessful search for a presumably mistakenly southeast of Halifax reported the German heavy cruiser the Admiral Hipper class . It is unclear which ship this could have been; A false report could also have been the cause of the search, as none of the German cruisers of this class that were operational at the time were in that region.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the associated entry of the United States into World War II, the Savannah was in New York . The cruiser spent most of the following six months in the Caribbean , where she, together with the aircraft carrier USS Ranger and three destroyers, monitored the Vichy-French naval forces in Guadeloupe and Martinique .
1942: Operation Torch
After a new captain came on board with Captain Leon S. Fiske in June 1942 , after a major overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard , the Savannah was involved in the preparations for the Allied invasion of North Africa from August 1942 and completed maneuvers in the Chesapeake Bay .
On October 24, 1942, the Savannah , which together with the battleship USS Texas , the two escort carriers USS Chenango and USS Sangamon and nine destroyers formed Task Group 34.8 ( Northern Attack Group ), left the Norfolk naval base and set course for French Morocco . The Northern Attack Group's landing unit consisted of eight large transporters with around 9,000 soldiers and 65 tanks on board.
On the morning of November 8, 1942, the landing of the troops began as part of Operation Goalpost (a sub-operation of the Torch company ) near Mehedia - Port Lyautey . The Savannah provided fire support and destroyed two French 13.86 cm guns with direct hits , which were positioned near the Kasbah of Port Lyautey. In addition, the cruiser's aircraft dropped bombs on the roads leading out of the city and on troop gatherings. Water bombs were also dropped, the detonators of which had been modified so that they detonated on impact and not at a certain water pressure. After the end of the fighting and a ceasefire negotiated on November 11, the Savannah was ordered back to the United States on November 15, where it underwent a four-week overhaul in Norfolk.
1942/1943: Search for German blockade breakers in the South Atlantic
At the end of 1942, the Savannah moved to Recife and from there, together and in an overlapping operation with the escort carrier USS Santee and several destroyers, took on patrol services in the South Atlantic for three months ( South Atlantic Patrol ), primarily looking for Germans coming from Asia Blockade breakers were at the center of activities. During this time, in February 1943, Captain Robert W. Carey, a new commander came on board.
As part of the patrols in the South Atlantic, the Savannah , together with the destroyer USS Eberle , succeeded on March 10, 1943, west-northwest of St. Helena, in capturing the German blockade breaker Karin (7,322 GRT) from Singapore . However, the freighter's crew sank the Karin themselves with explosive charges before it could be captured. The exploding bombs killed accidentally, eleven American sailors of the destroyer Eberle recently deposed and only minutes before the explosions in a boat alongside the Karin -down boarding party . The 72-man crew of the German ship was later completely rescued by the Savannah . Withdrawn from the South Atlantic Patrol at the end of March 1943 , after a four-week major overhaul at the New York Naval Shipyard , the Savannah was relocated to the Mediterranean in May 1943 .
July 1943: Operation Husky
In July 1943, the Savannah belonged to the American Task Force (TF) 81 (Rear Admiral John L. Hall ) and provided fire support against land targets as part of the Allied landing on Sicily . The cruiser successfully shelled German and Italian positions around Gela on July 10 . However, three of the four Savannah aircraft that had ascended to observe the artillery fire were also shot down by German Bf 109 fighters that day . Further bombardment missions followed between July 11 and 13, including against targets near Butera , with several Italian artillery batteries being destroyed. Until the beginning of August 1943, the Savannah provided sporadic fire support in the context of the Allied Sicily operation, the last time in the area around Palermo on 4th / 5th. August 1943, where the cruiser gave air security.
September 1943: Glide bomb hit off Salerno
From September 9, 1943, the Savannah , again as part of Task Force 81, was used as a bombardment and security ship during the Allied landing in the Bay of Salerno . On the first day of the invasion alone, the cruiser carried out nine bombardment missions and was able to destroy a German railway gun in the hinterland. On September 11th, however, there were heavy German air strikes on the landing fleet. The German Air Force used, among other things, Dornier Do 217 K-2 combat aircraft , which were equipped with new types of FX-1400 glide bombs .
On the morning of September 11th, a single Do 217 of Kampfgeschwader 100 attacked Savannah, about two nautical miles from the coast, with an FX-1400. It avoided the fire of the flak and hit the ceiling of the main artillery tower C (directly in front of the command bridge) at 9.44 a.m. The 1560 kilogram bomb penetrated the tower ceiling and three decks below and exploded deep inside the ship, near the ammunition chamber. The consequences were devastating: the force of the explosion tore open the hull on the port side and near the keel , collapsed the on-board power supply and extinguished all boiler fires, so that the cruiser was immobilized in the water after a few minutes. Water quickly penetrated through the holes in the hull and flooded the hull over a length of 46 m, which meant luck in misfortune, since the ammunition rooms threatened by fire were flooded so quickly. The entire crew of the destroyed tower C and around 120 seamen in the adjacent rooms were killed in the attack. The bomb hit claimed a total of 197 dead and 15 wounded. While only a circular hole about 80 cm in diameter could be seen in the ceiling of Tower C, the devastation inside was terrible. An American caption from November 1943, which commented on the damage to the tower ceiling recorded in an official photo of the US Navy, read: "A round, clean hole marks the point of entry of a Nazi bomb on the cruiser Savannah. Inside, all was chaos, smoke, blood, and death. " The damage inside was so extensive that four seamen who were locked in a watertight compartment could only be freed after 60 hours.
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After about eight hours, the firefighting and leak control squads, supported by two tugs and two destroyers, had the fires contained and the water ingress under control. At 5:57 p.m. the Savannah was able to move on its own again and, accompanied by the two tugs, set course for Malta , where it arrived almost 30 hours later.
1944/45: Used as a school and transport ship
The bomb hit off Salerno ended the Savannah's war effort . After an emergency repair in Malta that lasted until December 1943 and a subsequent relocation of the ship to the United States, where the final repairs were carried out at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard , the cruiser was not put back into service until September 1944 and then as a training ship off the American one East coast used.
In January 1945, the Savannah temporarily transported American President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his trip to the Yalta Conference . After the end of the Second World War, the cruiser was also involved in the troop return mission Operation Magic Carpet in November 1945 , during which the ship transported around 1,400 US soldiers from Le Havre to the United States between November 20 and 28 . In December 1945 around 900 American soldiers were repatriated from Europe on another voyage.
Whereabouts
While several of her sister ships were sold to foreign navies after the Second World War, this could not be realized with the Savannah due to the damage suffered at Salerno (although these had been repaired). As a result, the cruiser was finally decommissioned and placed in reserves on February 3, 1947 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The Savannah remained in the reserve for around twelve years before it was struck off the ship register on March 1, 1959. Sold to Bethlehem Steel on January 25, 1966 , the Savannah was scrapped from February 1966.
Awards
The Savannah was awarded three Battle Stars for its service in World War II .
literature
- Mike J. Whitley: Cruiser in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates . Stuttgart 1997, pp. 287-291.
- Stefan Terzibaschitsch : Cruisers of the US Navy 1922–1962 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988.
- Michael Wala (Ed.): Society and Diplomacy in the Transatlantic Context (= USA Studies. Volume 11). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, p. 212 f.
Web links
- The Savannah at navsource.org (English)
- The Savannah at history.navy.mil (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ Michael Wala (Ed.): Society and Diplomacy in the Transatlantic Context (= USA Studies. Volume 11). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, p. 212 f.
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/4108-bilder/scheinprinz.htm
- ↑ Mike J. Whitley: Cruisers in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates . Stuttgart 1997, p. 290 f.
- ^ Whitley: Cruisers in World War II , p. 291.
- ↑ http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/042/04042.htm