Calling all Essex-class (WWII configuration) fans

[Tracy White]

Tracy, I think that the object on the linked photo (on the right side, attached to the girder) is one of the manilla rope reels, but it seems other than on the AOTS drawing.

1) Who's to say that the AOTS drawing is 100% correct?
2) It may have changed from one ship to the next, so photos of Hornet may not match with drawings of Intrepid.
3) You've got the AOTS book, you've got the photos I've posted, your guess is as good as mine at this point.

[MartinJQuinn]

Been working on the fantail after receiving some great photos of Shangri-la that I hadn't seen before.

That is outstanding! One thing I did notice, however...I believe the supports for the shafts were "Vee" shaped, not just a single strut. You can see what I mean in the attached picture:

[raser13]

thanks for all the hard work tracy! we don't expect you to come up with all the answers. you just seem to be the one that has done more of the research and tends to have all of the answers. we have just gotten complacent in knowing if we get lost you ususlly have at least the best gues. i was just wondering,since all of you know alot more of the nautical stuff than i do. if you guys would know if the ships seem to be semi semetrical,if whats on one side tends to be on the other. this is one of those things,at least in this part of the ship,i would "assume" would be repeated since everything else in this area is pretty much copied from one side to the other. i just can't find any refeance to back it up.

tracy you mention the national archives. how do you get material from them? and is there a way to find specific areas of the ships in thier records or is it prety hit and miss? how do you get in contact with them? and what have you gotten so that if we were to get info from them we are not double doing it? that way if we all get a little info and post it here we'll be able to do more faster,and not be burden on just one person.

[Tracy White]

While studying other Essex class photos, it appears that I may have closed
the wrong roller door near the starboard aft Bofors tubs. Doh. Instead of
closing off the fore-most door of the three short doors, I should have closed
off the aft-most door. Tracy, please confirm. If so, well, that'll give me
something new to fix.

Hey Steve, I missed this the first time around.... still want me to double check?

[Tracy White]

tracy you mention the national archives. how do you get material from them? and is there a way to find specific areas of the ships in thier records or is it prety hit and miss? how do you get in contact with them? and what have you gotten so that if we were to get info from them we are not double doing it? that way if we all get a little info and post it here we'll be able to do more faster,and not be burden on just one person.

You're going to have to burden someone or pay them either way. According to WikiPedia's Entry for that location:

It would take 40 people approximately 100 years to microfilm all of the records currently available at the National Archives and Records Administration division of the Leo J. Ryan Federal Building

Now, these are more than just Navy records, but it gives you a bit of an idea of the scope of holdings they have there. They don't generally have staff available to research for people, but they can answer questions. For example, before deciding to go down, I asked if they had any records for (amongst others) CV-18. The archivist in charge of their records said yes, there were some. When I got on site, I found out that it was one photo in their "Historians Office, Mare Island" files of the ship while she was still on the east coast.

Not as much help as I had hoped.

Those records were well processed; they were arranged for each ship alphabetically, but then I got into some of the general correspondence records for both Mare Island and Pearl Harbor Shipyards, and those were unprocessed; files were organized by file code, not ship, and were generally disorganized and still in their raw format as archives had got them from the Navy. There is no good way for the archivist to go through them and answer as to what they contain... it took me a day and a half just to go through one box. This was in ONE accession that totaled at least 70 boxes.

Another story I overheard is that they have at San Bruno, the Mare Island Photo department's collection of photos from the early fifties to when the shipyard closed in the 1990s. It is 114 boxes long, each box being about 18-24" deep. The only way to find a photo of a particular ship in this group is through the photographer's logs, which themselves span SIX BOXES.

You can make some great hits if you've got the time. If not, it's definitely hit and miss.

[ModelMonkey]

While studying other Essex class photos, it appears that I may have closed
the wrong roller door near the starboard aft Bofors tubs. Doh. Instead of
closing off the fore-most door of the three short doors, I should have closed
off the aft-most door. Tracy, please confirm. If so, well, that'll give me
something new to fix.

Hey Steve, I missed this the first time around.... still want me to double check?

Yes, please. I haven't yet fixed the flight deck in place so I can still fix it if needs be.

[Tracy White]

Yes, please. I haven't yet fixed the flight deck in place so I can still fix it if needs be.

Based on this and this photo as well as some photos from Ron Smith that I can't redistribute (I can give you his photo numbers if you want to order copies, but read on first) I can see that you did close up the wrong roller door. Unfortunately I can't make out the clipping room structure I usually see inboard of these quad 40mm tubs. I'll look in my departure report to see if it mentions one, but it'll take me a day or two to get to it.

[Essex]

Tracy, I think that the object on the linked photo (on the right side, attached to the girder) is one of the manilla rope reels, but it seems other than on the AOTS drawing.

1) Who's to say that the AOTS drawing is 100% correct?
2) It may have changed from one ship to the next, so photos of Hornet may not match with drawings of Intrepid.
3) You've got the AOTS book, you've got the photos I've posted, your guess is as good as mine at this point.

I mean that the marked part (I don't know the correct name of this "object") is missing, see the attached picture of AOTS drawing D2. All of the top-view drawings in AOTS and Raven's book (Essex, Lexington) show it as a "circle" (i.e. the "object" is there), and on the side-view drawings (Essex, Randolph) can be see this part of the manilla rope reel as well.

I know that there are errors on the AOTS drawings, I have found some...

[Tracy White]

Well, it's a reel of some kind; I couldn't tell you what it's for. You could also do it the way that it is shown in the photo I.E. covered, as they would generally keep the reels covered in heavy weather or when not in use.

[Capt652]

Martin wrote: One thing I did notice, however...I believe the supports for the shafts were "Vee" shaped, not just a single strut.

I agree. Another example of shortcuts that Trumpy did, But that is what scratch building is all about right? I will make that correction before I'm finished. Here is a photo from a different angle to show the bracing;

Capt652

[Essex]

From the page 10:

I had a chance to spend several hours aboard the Yorktown at Patriots Point last week. One of things that still intrigued me was "what did they do with those dividers between door sections" when they opened the doors on the hangar deck.

Well, it appears that they simply slid them off to the side after the doors were raised. Here are two pictues that show the rail mechanism for one of the door units. I think the dividers would have slid to the left on the overhead rail.

Yeah, looking at those pictures it looks to me like they fold up fore and aft instead of inward.

Tracy, what do you think about the I-beam on the attached photo, upper right? It's maybe one of the dividers...

[Tracy White]

Could be, I don't know for sure.

[MartinJQuinn]

Notice the guys legs hanging down in the upper left hand corner of the picture?

[Capt652]

Hi All!

In reference to the picture showing that HellCat on the hanger deck cat...I watched the 'Men of the Fighting Lady' this past weekend on TCM and in that picture there is a clip of an Avenger being shot out the port side. What a rush that must have been for the men on board that plane! The Avenger is quite a large aircraft, to push/pull it quick enough to attain flight speed is a marvel in such a short distance. How did that hanger deck cat compare in length to the flight deck cats?

Capt652

[Tracy White]

It was shorter, and pilots hated it. You went from dark to light, with a high cross wind instantly, on a ship that rolled much more than it pitched, much closer to the water. I have a friend whose father was on Essex and Wasp during the war flying Avengers and he spoke of that.

[raser13]

hey guys, i know that there was some one here that was looking for a different view of the little tri-angle shaped structures that went around the ladder in the forward elevator shaft. the only one that was shown was from hangerdeck level.i found this image from the flight deck down. it's a little obscure since you have to look through wreckage, but here you go.




i also found a few images on novasorce that answered my question as to weather the howser reels and the manilla rope reel were repeated on the starboard side as they were on the port side of the ground tackle area. in short they are. here's links to the much magnified and circled photos.(WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE BIGGER IMAGES FOR CLARITY IF YOU HAVE DIAL UP MAY TAKE A WHILE TO LOAD!)


http://www.myrtsweb.com/upload/raser13/ ... ticoda.jpg

this one is of the tico, but should still apply to the intrepid.

http://www.myrtsweb.com/upload/raser13/ ... sereel.jpg

this one the hornet

http://www.myrtsweb.com/upload/raser13/ ... sereel.jpg

this one is of the hancock cv19. was she an essex?



also you guys have been talking about the prop shafts being a "v" shape instead of a single rod. here's a better angle to show the contact points on the hull

[Tracy White]

this one is of the hancock cv19. was she an essex?

Yeah, Long Hull.

[gtb -red]

XOLLENT Steve!!

[Essex]

I have some new questions...

1) Both Trumpeter and Dragon show on their models two paravanes on the main deck's stern area. I think it is wrong, isn't it?

2) There is an 5" twin loading machine (AOTS drawing A8/1, #29 or see the photo 80 on the following link) on the same area. Are they two practice loading machines on a separate mounts or have a common one? Is it the same machine as in the Fletcher-class AOTS "The Sullivans" on drawing G9?

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... epair.html

3) There are some gasoline filling stations in the hangar (#3 on AOTS drawings A8/1 + A8/2). Are these stations same as on the flight deck catwalk, but placed in a locker? I think the gasoline pipes outside the hull connected to this stations.

[Tracy White]

Photo 80 on the Forward repair document shows the practice loader... there is a better copy in the "Handling after" document recently posted. That is the only picture of this area that I have. I also have not seen any clear pictures of any of the hangar deck refueling areas.