The USS Tennessee (ACR-10), also referred to as "Armored Cruiser No. 10", and later renamed Memphis, was a United States Navy armored cruiser, the lead ship of her class.

Construction and commissioning

Tennessee was laid down by the Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 20 June 1903, launched on 3 December 1904, sponsored by Annie K. Frazier (daughter of Governor James B. Frazier of Tennessee and later the foundress of the Society of Sponsors of the United States Navy), and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 17 July 1906, Captain Albert Gleaves Berry in command.

Operational career

The new armored cruiser departed Hampton Roads on 8 November 1906 as escort for in which President Theodore Roosevelt had embarked for a cruise to Panama to check on the progress of work constructing the Panama Canal. After a brief visit to Puerto Rico on the return voyage, the warships arrived back at Hampton Roads on 26 November. Once repairs had been made and her tour had ended, Tennessee sailed for Samoa, arriving at Pago Pago on 23 September to resume service with the Pacific Fleet. On 15 May 1910, she arrived at Bahía Blanca to represent the United States at the centenary celebration of the independence of Argentina.

On 8 November 1910, the armored cruiser departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and proceeded to Charleston, South Carolina, to embark President William Howard Taft for a round trip voyage to Panama to inspect further progress on the canal. She returned to Hampton Roads on 22 November and then engaged in battle practice off the Virginia coast into February 1911. Following a Mardi Gras visit to New Orleans and a visit to New York City early in March, the ship steamed to Cuban waters for two months of operations out of Guantanamo Bay. – and 204 badly injured. Due to their heroic actions during this incident, Chief Machinist's Mate George William Rud, Lieutenant Claud Ashton Jones, and Machinist Charles H. Willey were awarded the Medal of Honor.

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File:Rud1adj.jpg|George Rud

File:Jones CA NHC 48727.jpg|Claud Jones

File:Charles H Willey.jpg|Charles H. Willey

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Alternative explanations for the wreck

In his 1966 account of the incident, The Wreck of the Memphis, Captain Beachs son, Edward L. Beach Jr., ascribed her loss to an unexpected tsunami exceeding in height, and this explanation has been carried forward by most sources discussing her loss. More recent research, however, has called this explanation into question. No record of any seismic event in the Caribbean on 29 August 1916 that could have triggered a tsunami has been found, and the rate of advance of the large wave Memphis reported – about an hour to cross the distance from the horizon to the ship – matches that of a wind-generated ocean wave (possibly a rogue wave); a tsunami, in contrast, would have covered the distance in only a few minutes. The periods of the three large waves that struck Memphis also are characteristic of large wind-generated waves rather than tsunamis.

A likely source for such large, wind-generated waves in Santo Domingo Harbor on 29 August 1916 does exist, in that three hurricanes active in the Caribbean between 12 August and 2 September 1916 passed westward just to the south. Waves generated from these storms could well have combined to create a large wave like those that struck and wrecked Memphis. Such a circumstance appears to explain the loss of the ship better than the tsunami theory. Oceanographer Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis in particular published an extensively detailed rebuttal demonstrating that a tsunami could not have caused the foundering of Memphis, but that the last of the three hurricanes, category 1 Hurricane Eight, likely did, creating a wave that reached a breaker height of as it approached Memphis. This swamped the cruiser, anchored in only of water, and would have done so even had the ship been at full maneuvering power. Pararas-Carayannis concluded that had Memphis been anchored in of water, she would have ridden out the swells, including the killer wave.

Salvage efforts

thumb|Wreck of Memphis after being stripped of essentials, 1922

Although Memphis came to rest upright and appeared relatively undamaged above the waterline, it was apparent as early as the day after the disaster that she was not worth repairing; she was outdated by 1916, she had suffered the destruction of her propulsion plant and severe distortion of her hull structure, and her bottom had been driven in. Accordingly, the United States Department of the Navy assigned the crew of the battleship , or the wrecking vessel Henlopen, to strip her of her guns, supplies, and equipment for use on other ships. New Hampshires crew left Memphis without her guns, with much of her topside gear missing, and with her gun turrets rotated off the centerline.

Memphiss ship's bell was presented to a local church as a gesture of thanks to citizens of Santo Domingo who had helped to rescue the ship's crew.

Notes

Sources

  • Author not listed, "The Tennessee Accident." In "Service Items," The Navy (Washington DC: Navy Publishing Company), June 1908. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
  • Alden, John D. American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989.
  • Beach, Edward L., Jr. The Wreck of the Memphis. New York, New York: Holt, Rinear, and Wiston, 1966. Naval Institute Press Classics of Naval Literature 1998 re-print
  • Friedman, Norman. U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1984.
  • Musicant, Ivan. U.S. Armored Cruisers: A Design and Operational History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1985.
  • Smith, Craig B. Extreme Waves. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2006. .

References

  • USS Tennessee (Armored Cruiser # 10), 1906–1916. Renamed Memphis in May 1916