#USS IOWA

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.

and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire

[judgemark45]

An aerial port view of the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) firing to starboard from its No. 1 Mk 7 16-inch gun turret, 1984.

[ridethecyanide]

March 18, 2001 - On this day in RSL history, A Glimpse of Hell was released on the FX Channel

[lonestarbattleship]

Views of USS WISCONSIN (BB-64) in the reserve basin at. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. USS INTREPID (CVS-11) to the left and at right is USS IOWA (BB-61). These ships are part of the Mothballed Fleet here.

Photographs recorded on April 1980.

NARA: 404793436, 404793430, 404793433, 404793439

[carbone14]

Cuirassé USS Iowa (BB-61) au large de Pearl Harbor – Hawaï – Etats-Unis – Novembre 1952

[floridaboiler]

Happy National Siblings Day! This 1954 family portrait is from a rare occasion when all four sister Iowa-class battleships were together. From front to back is USS Iowa, USS Wisconsin, USS Missouri and USS New Jersey. All the ships are now museums.

source - https://twitter.com/NavalInstitute

[celticculture]

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

USS Iowa was launched in 1942.

[floridanative]

[earthconsciousness]

[ralfmaximus]

Battleship Iowa has two of these anchors, each weighing 30,000 lbs.

From the amazing Naval Gazing site.

[lonestarbattleship]

"The battleship IOWA encountered the world's largest rubber ducky at the Port of Los Angeles during the Tall Ships Festival. The floating duck sculpture was created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman."

Photographed on January 13, 2014.

U.S. Naval Institute: link

[carbone14]

Le cuirassé USS Iowa (BB-61) bombarde les côtes nord-coréennes – Guerre de Corée – 1952

©Naval History and Heritage Command – 80-G-626016

[redarmyscreaming]

USS Iowa (BB-4) bracketed by a salvo from USS Mississippi (BB-41) during Fleet Problem I, off the Panama Canal Zone, 1923

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Happy 80th birthday to the day FDR was nearly accidentally torpedoed!

so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.

and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire