| Show battleships in danger the almost serious d on jan 7 involving of ir battles aps will greatly disturb tt e an er can peo pie ane of the more modern battleships of the eight that make up the battleship sai adion of fie borth at it itic fleet one of the finest in the world vere in an ordinary er ro t ne er aga ast wind and cje the line of battle sh ps as thrown into confusion by one shin running agro md and it required tre greatest exertion to prevent fie des ruction of the beai sarga the kenti and the manama As it s the kearse ge was r in aground to present 1 sion w ali the s banded luied end the all the tard s p n line criche into the kentuck all the eess except tre kent id were ab e to rio aeed to hamp 0 reads t tie sq lad ron wis criar el aa laly in gett ng sut ot abw lor 1 arlor as it wo id have been in ord nary naval en ga gement the disaster will the more discuss on in naval eclea be cause each one of the battle ships in evolved had a ane record for iness as well as for fighting evalu alons the kearsarge the kentucky and the alabama had come victor ious aiom the severest tests in long voyages and in all sorts of weather the kearsarge and the kentucky had just left the dry doci at the new york navy yard after sight cepahs the illinois had been thoroughly overhauled at the boston navy yard all the vessels of the battleship squadron including the missouri and the indiana were in splendid condi lion or a cruise the indiana re modeled in the last two years has just been put in commission to tal e the place of the massachusetts which commission for repair in fact the north atlantic fleet in eluding the four new armored cru s ers was neer in better condition or effective work the vessels ex capt the coast squadron were to pio aeed to culebra for the winter md beuvers and yet at the very begin ning of this active campaign the very flower of the fleet narrowly escaped disaster in getting out of a home har bor it seems clear that the navigators were not at fault it is officially re ported that the vesse s were proceed ing inthe regulation formation tol lowing the flagship in line at a dis tance of 1 feet but if the dis tance interval is not great enough to permit a battleship to maneuver in safety why should it have been main talked in this case or in any othera the sinking of the battleship vie atoria b the battle ship camperdown Camper down june 22 aroused the blitsh naval department to the folly of fol lowing literally routine or standing orders under all circumstances the british mediterranean fleet was ma neutering off tripoli the victoria the flagship of vice admiral tryon was leading one column of the fleet and the camperdown Camper down the flagship of rear admiral markham was leading the other the order was for the columns at a signal to reverse sailing direction turn inward each sh p to follow its leader at a distance of 3 feet in making the turn the ram of the cam struck the victoria at an ang e of eighty degrees on the star board bow about twenty feet forward of the turret and the victoria went down with vice admiral tryon and and men the court martial that ed the dasas er held that the maneu ver was dangerous and expressed re gret that rear markham had not disobeyed the order the car crying out of which seemed to him tain to result disastrously the camperdown Camper down episode resulted in several important changes in brit ish naval routine it is possible that the recent mix up in our battleship squadron may result in changes in our own naval routine anese three battless batt lesh ps figured in a remarkable naval ace dent in new york bay ja 7 the kentucky which ran aground and was rammed by the alabama is in the p at the upper left the alabama is in the upper r at the lower left is the kearsarge Kear sage wh ch also ran aground the d agram in the lower r shows how the ace dents occurred it is drawn from a descar pt on furn shed by rear admiral dav s |
