Calling all USS North Carolina BB-55 & USS Washington BB-56 fans

[propmeup1]

Correct, Emergency Diesel Generator.

[66misos]

Does anybody know, please, what do mean these signal flags at North Carolina?
https://www.battleshipnc.com/wp-content ... n-Shot.jpg
I tried to decode it, IMHO I found 1945, 1995 and BB55. But the rest?
Thank you in advance.

[Jon C Ryckert]

The third from the left is the ships radio call sign November, India, Bravo, Kilo.

[81542]

Reading vertically from outboard to inboard on the starboard yardarm:

1. ILMC (All flags)
2. BB55 (This is two Flag Bravos followed by two No 5 pennants)
3. NIBK (All flags)

Reading vertically from outboard to inboard on the port yardarm

1. VJDAY (All flags)
2. 1945 (All numeral pennants)
3. 1995 (All numeral pennants)

The significance appears to be predominantly American; which I am not, however, I think that this answers your question.

81542

[66misos]

Thank you both.

[SeanF]

Photos clearly indicate that both sisters were missing a lot of parts when they were commissioned, so we'll call this an "as completed" or maybe an "as intended" question:
The prescribed standard USN battleship package of the time seems to have been four 1.1" quad mounts and eight .50 cal water-cooled mounts. Not that they all received their quads in a timely manner (as the Dec. 7 lineup can attest), but the intended locations of all these quads is pretty obvious on all the ships.
On the other hand, there was no shortage of .50s, and as far as I can tell every ship that was supposed to have a certain quantity of them did, in fact, receive them. But they also tended to migrate around a bit on any given ship from one refit to the next - even before the wartime additions start in earnest.
I scanned through this entire thread over the last couple days and see there's been a lot of discussion about the light gun positions at almost all phases of the North Carolinas' WWII service, with many dubious periods and lots of photo interpretation, and definitive drawings often lacking. But in this case, I hope there might be a definitive answer to a question I don't see asked anywhere: What were the intended positions of the .50 cal water-cooled guns at completion? I assume there would be eight of them and they'd be somewhere up in the superstructure, but nothing strikes me as obvious - no birdbath tub on top of a spotting top, for example. Has anyone seen a deck plan with the as-intended positions of the .50 cals?

- Sean F.

[maxim]

Here, some photos (458 in total) of USS North Carolina in Wilmington:


USS North Carolina in Wilmington, part 1



USS North Carolina in Wilmington, part 2

[BB62vet]

Maxim - Thanks for posting the very nice photos of my state's Showboat!!! I'll take some time to go over them - you must have had a nice visit aboard in spite of the cloudy weather.

Sean F - Re. the placement of small (.50 cal MG) AA batteries upon completion:

You've obviously not seen the main deck layout of the ship "as built", so I've PM'd you regarding this plan. They show (2) .50 cal mounts on each side of the fwd. main deck (just in front of the fwd. deck house) and (4) .50 cal mounts on each side of the after main deck on either side of Turret 3, parallel to the after deckhouse bulkhead. The .50 cal MG's were installed in 1941 and remained until being replaced with 20mm AA mounts in 1942 (Tech. Ref. #1, R.S. Shoker). She had a total of (26) .50 cal batteries as of June '42. All were removed by Nov. '42. As for the upper levels having those batteries, a plan of the ship from Feb. '42 shows the location of the (26) .50 cal. batteries (pg. 43, Tech. Ref. #1).

Hank