Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: welty@lewis.crd.ge.com (richard welty) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: [Re: U.S.S. Wisconsin] Message-ID: <1990Aug15.031854.25344@cbnews.att.com> Date: 15 Aug 90 03:18:54 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 35 Approved: military@att.att.com From: richard welty In <1990Aug12.214307.2153@cbnews.att.com>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes >I dimly recall that Wisconsin was mothballed in a damaged state after >a collision (?), and recommissioning her would require major repairs. >This would explain her being left to last. Wisconsin was involved in an accident in 1956, when she ramed the DD Eaton in a heavy fog. The bow from the incomplete (in fact, never completed) Kentucky was used in repairs; Wisconsin was returned to service in less than two months. she was mothballed a little less than two years later (March 1958) in good condition. there was an incident with the Missouri which was blown out of proportion during the recommissioning arguments; much misinformation was published in many, many places. in 1949, Missouri ran aground due to severe boneheadedness on the part of her new captain. it took considerable effort, and more than a month, to get her off of Thimble Shoals. it took about a week after that to complete repairs, but Missouri was in perfectly good condition afterwards. i bring this up, because during the controversy over recommissioning, many `experts' claimed that the Missouri was mothballed in poor condition; that her keel was broken; that there was a limitation placed on her upper speed after the Thimble Shoals incident, and so forth. All of this was untrue, all of it was eaten up by the press, and it is possible that this is what Henry remembers. richard (welty@lewis.crd.ge.com) -- ``Join the Navy and see Thimble Shoals''