Ship Photo of the Day

[Randy Daytona]

The first US carrier built from the keel up was USS Ranger CV-4. Deemed less capable, she nevertheless provided service in the Atlantic rather than the Pacific during WW2.


USS Ranger underway at sea, 1930s


Ranger (bottom), Lexington (middle), and Saratoga off Honolulu, 8 April 1936


Aircraft on Rangers deck during Operation Torch

 

[Randy Daytona]

MH-1A Sturgis ( Mobile High Power Reactor Number 1A,) was a repurposed Liberty ship (SS Charles H Cugle) that became a floating nuclear power plant. Towed to its destination in Panama, its nuclear reactor provided 10 MW of electricity to The Panama Canal from 1968 to 1976.



SS Charles H. Cugle after conversion to nuclear barge Sturgis

SS Charles H. Cugle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Randy Daytona]

Continuing with ships being used as power stations, USS Wiseman DE-667 was a Buckley class destroyer escort. Commissioned in 1944, she completed a number of convoy escort tours before heading to Charleston for conversion into a floating electric station.

USS Wiseman arrived in Manilla on 23 March 1945 and began supplying the city with both electric power and purified water for nearly 6 months before returning home.

Sent to the reserve fleet, upon the beginning of hostilities in Korea, the CNO recommended that Wiseman be "reactivated at the earliest practicable [time] for distant duty including use as Electric Power Supply Ship." ending up being deployed to Pusan.


11 January 1945: Charleston, S.C. - USS Wiseman (DE 667) shown departing the Charleston Navy Yard enroute to the Pacific. She had been in the Yard since early December of '44 being converted into a floating power station. You can see her canvas covered cable reels just forward of the aft 40 mm gun mount.


1946: The United States Navy Buckley class destroyer escort USS Wiseman (DE 667) as converted to a floating power station. The big cable reels are in the torpedo tube position, but the bridge has not been modified. The quad 40 mm director aft has been shifted to a new pylon-like platform in order to clear the height of the cable reels. Note all guns and depth charges covered.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Further research revealed that the 12,000 HP turboelectric drive of the Buckley class destroyer escort proved to be a good match for generating electricity ashore. 7 ships of the class were converted to electric power ships: 5 ships in the US Navy and 2 transferred to the Royal Navy.

Here is RMS Hotham K-583 which after service in WW2 was modified and sent to Singapore in 1945 to supply power ashore, and after returning to the UK was then sent to Malta to again operate as a power station.


HMS Hotham in February 1944, photographed by an aircraft operating from Royal Naval Air Station HMS Osprey, Dunoon, Scotland.


Hotham at Malta, July 1948, as a floating power station; all guns have been removed and ports cut in the hull forward and aft. Power points in No.'s 3 & 4 Oerlikon positions and aft of the funnel.