Show tha j H w ft s A V ri arp Y s issig iss jg L tt j axt itaf 1 1 n T j i t y i ft 1 l cwm aish T years ago george dewey stood on the bridge ot the famous olympia and won the battle of manila bay william T sampson from the bridge of jhb armored cruiser new york directed the operations before santiago and the pennant of scott schley fluttered from the mast head of the beautiful three tun meled armored cruiser brooklyn the world acclaimed the corn manders of the squadrons of which these vessels were the flag ehlis while all america joined in one grand hurrah for a navy that was admittedly one of the best on the seven seas the american navy Is still among the best but the ships that were fought by dewey and by sampson and by schley are no longer figured in the line up that makes the great fleet under corn mand of rear admiral badger one of the most powerful fighting organizations the world has ever seen every one of the famous ships of 1898 Is today officially admitted to be obsolete and all of them put together would not be as powerful as Is the giant wyoming or the arkan sas or the florida or the utah any one of which would be a match tor all the ships that fought under dewey and sampson combined if such a test should be made just a year ago the then secretary of the navy george von L meyer publicly called attention to the fact that the american navy had more than its fall quota of battleships whose day in tho first bad passed and the places of which w aulo ave to be taken by more modern ships ot the wyoming and floridi classes if the united states was to retain its position as the world s second naval power the other day the observe alon of the ex naval secretary was recalled by a naval officer in new york who took pencil and pad and going bick fifteen and twenty and twenty five years figured out just what the obsolete ships now adorning the naval lists originally cost the united states government it was so ridiculously easy the computation of that total value of famous ships that are ready to die a naval death of old age the result was astounding and when at last the navy man wiped his brow and announced the result of that little mathematical teat of his he had proved that the value ot those ships some of them still less than a dozen years old reached the stupendous total of more than or to be exact of this fleet that was it is inter esting and in a way sad to note that it includes the saratoga the name given sampsons Samp sons old flag ship new york when her name was taken so that it could be given to the mighty super dread naught new york now nearing completion in the navy yard in brooklyn Sch leya flagship the brooklyn the olympia la from the bridge of which dewey uttered his famous order to captain galdi ley you may fire when ready gradley the iowa that was bob evans ship in 1898 the indiana and the massachusetts sister ships which won fame and glory before santiago and the oregon which won the plaudits pl audits ot an admer ing world by her great run around the horn and which in her old age will probably be given the honor of being the first american war vessel to pass through the panama canal in april of next year then of course there was the old texas the ship that was commanded by the beloved captain ptiip the vessel from the deck of which he his prayer of thanksgiving to god when battle was ended and the spanish ya v II 11 1 v je e had met their doom the same ship from which philip ordered his men not to cheer when the vizcaya the cristobal colon the maria the esa the flower of squadron were burn ing and sinking down into the grave to which the deadly shots of sampson s gunners had consigned them but the old texas which like the new york was renamed so that the name of the lone star state might adorn that of the new new york s sister has long since met her fate hipped riddled and torn by the shells of the newer and mare modern ships to prove the marksmanship of whose men the texas was destroyed the hulk of that old ship a sister of the maine that went down in havana harbor and which going down hastened the conflict with spain still halt floats in chesapeake bay just enough of her left to provide another marksman ship test for some mighty ot the fleet under admiral badger As went the old texas so will go some of the other ships of the fleet that Is obsolete already the indiana Is mentioned as the next martyr ship for the atlantic fleet and after her the massa chu and then the iowa and perhaps within a year or two the kearsarge and the kentucky the alabama the illinois and the wisconsin all of them beyond all question or doubt now of the obsolete type of fighting craft but lets call the roll of the obsolete fleet and the flagships shall lead off just as they did at manila and at santiago 1 the cruiser olympia flagship of dewey at manila 2 the armored cruiser saratoga flagship of sampson at santiago 3 the armored cruiser brooklyn flagship of schley at santiago 4 the battleship oregon clarks immortal around the horn ship 5 the battleship iowa fighting bob evans last command as a caption C the battleship texas already gone jack philips old ship 7 the battleship massachusetts another fa santiago memory 8 the battleship indiana sister ship of the oregon and massachusetts and like them one of santiago s famous contenders 9 the battleship kearsarge first of posed turret ships 10 the battleship conr ky sister ship of the kearsarge 11 the battleship illinois one of the around the world voyage ships 12 the battleship alabama also of the fleet that went around the under evang and thomas and sperry 13 the battleship with the ala bama and illinois the only battleships of the navy whose twin funnels are arranged in parallel fash ion one to the port and the other to the starboard 14 the battleship maine built in memory of the martyr ship of and yet a ship that Is already obsolete andaas been missing from the atlantic fleet for several years 15 the battleship missouri another around the world voyager 16 the battleship ohio still in the atlantic fleet but elated to leave in the near future never to return 17 the commerce destroyer columbia so long missing in the news of the navy that a genera alon has grown up that knows her not and she was of the flying squadron of 1898 18 the commerce destroyer minneapolis a speed record breaking cruiser of the late nineties a sister of the columbia and like her of tha flying squadron ot 1898 19 the monitor 20 the monitor 21 the monitor 22 the monitor cheyenne formerly the wyoming 23 the monitor ozark formerly the arkansas 24 the monitor tonopah To formerly the nevada 25 the monitor tallahassee formerly tha florida 26 the puritan 27 the monitor terror 28 the monitor monterey 29 the protected cruiser st louis 30 the protected cruiser charleston 31 the protected cruiser milwaukee 32 the protected cruiser newark 33 the protected cruiser chicago 34 the protected cruiser cincinnati 35 the protected cruiser raleigh lana ship at manila 36 twenty eight torpedo boats twenty years ago this fleet of sixty three ships would have been a match for any naval organization then afloat with the exception of the fleet ot great britain today all the vessels in it could not last halt an hour in a battle with the five dread that constitute the great first slon of the united atlantic fleet and this mighty t at naval has beens cost the united states government more than and the oldest among them not including the old monitors Is not yet twenty five years old the battleships in it to build and equip cost the government 64 and the cruisers mon igors and torpedo craft raise the total to the what will become of these some are now in reserve and there they will stay until their end Is decided upon will that end be the target range or the auction block and the junk pile or will they be permitted to rust away in navy yards nominally as units in reserve fleets but in reality as useless reminders V a nav that in its day was great but which wang to marvelous progress in naval construction has reached quickly but surely that state of obsolete ness from which there can bo no comeback come back the oregon and the olympia will probably be retained tor generations to come as glorious re minders to americans of future ears of the navy that won immortality in the brief conflict that wiped spain off the map of the western world and which added to american territory an island empire in the far east and won tor this country for the first time a full tree recognition by all the nations ot the world of the right to be numbered among those powers whose mission and influence is world wide in the lineup line up of the has been fleet it will be noted that there Is included the entire fourth division of the great fleet that circumnavigated circum navigated the globe in 1907 and 1908 this division was made up of the alabama the flagship of sperry when he began the voyage as a division corn mander the kentucky the kearsarge and the illinois in that fleet three of the vessels of the third are now also listed among the obsolete fighters the ships in question being the ohio the missouri and the maine all sister ships and in day held up to the world as em bodying all that was best in the construction and equipment of modern men of war of the battleship class the atlantic fleet when it sailed out of hampton roads in december 1907 was made up of sixteen first class battleships and a look at the makeup make up of the organization shows that in a p of less thin six years seven or lacking ono of exactly half of those famous ships have been relegated into the reserve the first stepping stone that leads to junk pile and oblivion |