APA project

[Fliger747]

Thanks Hank!

I have some photos of Missouri's stbd fwd ladder on the bulkhead aft of the wardroom. What is clever about these is the ability of the stair treads to rotate to maintain a nominal horizontal orientation when deployed at varying heights. The "sled" (aka bottom landing) was stowed on the bulkhead just aft of the barbette for turret two. One item I noticed for Randall was that she used chain rails rather than a hard rail as on the BB's and Okie City. Perhaps a little less pomp and circumstance in the "Alligator" Navy. When deployed dockside, wheels were attached at the bottom to allow for tidal and loading movement.

So (1) change type of railing (2) make side beams into a channel shape. I have to go back to the film to see if I can deduce what type of bail was used to support the lower end and how this was rigged at the top. The lightweight chain setup used on Okie City is a good candidate. I haven't seen evidence of the gear welded to the hull side, so far. More likely a socket and davit.

Fun stuff! Tom

[Fliger747]

Slowly acquiring more information. Screening the movie "Away All Boats" almost frame by frame revealed a triangular frame attached to the side of the hull just below the main deck to be rigged to support the lower end of the ladder. Hopefully I can find a frame or two showing the lower platform and supports as deployed.

[DrPR]

Hank,

Notice the circular platform at deck level in the BB-61 photo. That is what the OK City had in the 1960s. The accommodation ladder could be rotated out from the side of the hull to serve as a brow. However, it would not have been left rigged along the side. One good typhoon and it would be gone!

The original CLG conversion on the OK City had the forward accommodation ladder stowed along the side but that didn't last long. It was moved to a stowage position on the side of the forward superstructure.

We had two portable davits for the accommodation ladder, one forward and one aft of the upper platform. Originally the davit sockets were welded to the external face of the hull plating. By the late 1960s the sockets had been recessed into the deck at the outboard edge.

I don't know for certain why the external sockets were removed, but my guess is that they were occasionally being lost in high seas. We had several cut-pipe drain covers that were welded to the hull ripped off entirely (except for a bit of weld material) in typhoons. One of our destroyers lost a large winch that was ripped off the fantail in a typhoon. It left a huge hole in the deck and the rudder equipment room flooded, leaving the ship without rudder control. They had to try to steer with the engines only.

Phil

[Fliger747]

Pretty amazing the force of a seaway in a storm! The snooping I did today found examples on Randall of a upper platform with a pivot. The ladder was supported at two places by bridles and chains, much like on Okie City. The bottom platform was a fairly small grating which could be positioned along the bottom segment of the rail because of the great possible variation in the freeboard. There was a triangular rig attached to the shell plating similar to Okie's. I need to work out the details. The bottom landing was small and had posts slid into sockets at the edges and connected by chains at the top. A very casual arrangement not corresponding to modern OSHA standards.... Perhaps some bumper boards were used at one time like Okie's, but the short film clip showed only a hemp bumper on the end of a line from the main deck. The APA's were very high freeboard ships so probably had less issues with gear coming adrift.

Tom

[Fliger747]

Today did some tedious painting of deck blue on top of 5" mounts on Alaska and Missouri and printed a further version of the Accommodation Ladder. Made sides into channels, flexible rail tops and a pivot structure at the top landing. have made some further mods since them but not printed yet, added some extension of the steps below the platform and ad hoc safety rail.

[Iceman 29]

Nice gangway!

[Fliger747]

Thanks Pascal!

Good huff and puff with that brandy cask over your shoulder! I just printed and am drying I hope the final version with an extension below the landing and a couple of flimsy removable chain rails added. I may convert this drawing into a 1:192 version, disassembled for deck stowage on Alaska and Missouri.

Cheers: Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom,

Your accommodation ldr. looks great! Excellent job!! You've really got "The Knack" for this stuff. I think this item broken down into parts would be excellent for the stowed version.

Hank

[Fliger747]

Thanks Hank: The one on Missouri has the steps laid flat like closing Venetian Blinds, the one stored along the bulwarks of the APA are stowed bottom side out and it's not apparent if the stair treads are articulated not. I will most likely only have one ladder deployed and have the starboard side stowed. It is apparent that the original midships position was in the way of deploying the boats in the Whelan davits there and there was no room for side buoys etc, the fwd well deck at least had a little room.

Cheers: Tom

[Fliger747]

Question for our many knowledgable personnel: When did USN adopt ribbon boards adorning bridge wings? I made one for (modern) Missouri, adopting it from a photo I took on board. I made one for Hank Strubb to reflect Stoddard during one of he Viet Nam deployments. During WWII there were of course markings for aircraft, subs, marks and whatnot, but any ribbon boards?

Tom

[Fliger747]

Today I printed an additional LCVP for my next project. I found a few accommodation ladder photos, none with any consistency! There is one that is useful that shows the starboard ladder stowed outside the bulwark and shows the rounded pivoting upper platform well. The bails supporting the ladder have spreaders that look like nothing so much as coat hangers. So I made a few of those to try out. Some APA's had ladders that were probably supported by removable davits on the boat deck, others have small davits on the main deck passage way attached between the bulwark and the deck above. These seem convenient and I am designing a couple of these to try out. I found one photo with a triangular support similar to the Okie City one.

Cheers: Tom

[DrPR]

Tom,

I looked through photos of the USS New Jersey BB-62 on Navsource and the earliest example of the ribbon boards that I found was in April 1952. None of the WWII ships I looked at had ribbon boards, but most of them were fairly new ships and didn't have any ribbons.

I don't think the "Navy" ever adopted ribbon boards officially. My guess is that they were "vanity plates" that the ships' crews concocted. Hank asked me about them a few days ago and I couldn't fond anything on the official Navy web sites.

There were a lot of unofficial things the crews did to dress up the ships. Some ships painted the chain pipe covers or the tops of the wildcats red on the port side and green on the starboard. We put shark teeth on our trainer missiles and had a large 7th Fleet logo on the superstructure. Some ships had crossed anchors painted on top of the bitts, "nose art" on the gun mounts or directors, etc.

Phil

[Fliger747]

Thanks Phil!

Hank and I discussed ribbon boards a bit as he wanted me to see if I could print (photo) some for Stoddard mid Viet Nam when she had two battle stars. The reference I found as to the size was from a commercial company which offered them with various methods of attachment from brackets, bolting and magnets. I was just curious as certainly they were there during the mid 60's but I don't recall seeing photos of them during the war period. One reason might be that the "official" events classifying campaigns and eligibility for "battle stars" probably weren't arrived at during the lifespans of many of the ships involved!

Any division office might covet the award of the "E" for say gunnery or engineering. When did these come on the scene? I remember a story about a junior Rickover restricting heat to the crew and fresh water to better his engineering stats. This might have been in the 30's?

Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom, Phil -

From what I'm seeing in my collection of FLETCHER class DD's - the ribbon boards show up in 1953/54, but not photos from 1952 and prior. My earliest STODDARD photo w/ribbon board is dated 1955. So as Phil states, this was more than likely a local (fleet as opposed to Navy-wide) decision. As to when the Navy "E" began showing up as visible artwork I have no idea, however a few DD photos from 1953 do show white "E" adorning the side of the navigation bridge. There were E's for Engineering, Weapons, Fire Control, and Battle Efficiency - each in a different color. I know the Engineering "E" was painted on the stack, while gunnery "E"'s graced the gun mount. NEW JERSEY was awarded the Battle Efficiency "E" (white) in 1968 and that was painted on the sides of the Nav. Bridge. I "think" that the subsequent awards were a similar colored chevron below the "E". We (enlisted) were authorized to wear the "E" on the right arm of our dress uniform jumper. I guess research into all this would be interesting - however, it MAY have already been done as one of my books out in the shop is a U.S.N. insignia & patch reference book and maybe I need to dust it off and see what it has to say.

Hank

[Fliger747]

Unlike the USAAF, USN of WWII wasn't much for allowing individual aircraft decoration. An exception was David McCampbell who had The name of his "gal" on the plane, but being the leading Navy Ace and CAG I guess he could get away with it.

As to accommodation ladders, I think I'll do the stbd side as stowed though really it's pretty much a matter of completely re doing the unit. It would be unusual (my guess) to have both sides deployed at once, perhaps an exception being sending crews for "liberty" on Mog Mog.

The logistics pipeline to the Pacific was pretty amazing when one thinks about it, how many tankers had to ply the waters, continuously, to keep the fleet at sea, sometimes for months. I know Alaska once steamed for 58 days continuously. At one point Grumman was doing a magnificent job cranking out airplanes, but not spare parts. Need some new tires for your F6F? Push it overboard and get a new one? Navy actually had them shut down the production line for a bit to get spare parts! The Jeep carriers were very useful for ferrying replacement aircraft. I wonder how the pipeline worked for LCVP's, an opposed landing might go through a fair proportion of the ships boats.

Stay Warm! Tom

[Fliger747]

Current Accommodation ladder progress. The coat hanger bails hook into padeyes on the rails. Currently working out the davit arrangement (printing) for the ladder support. Starboard side will be (currently) a stowed ladder.

I also printed a 1:192 version of the stowed ladder to adorn Alaska's fantail where it was stored on deck under the turret three barrels.

Tom

[Fliger747]

Phil:

Just a thought about the external davit sockets? Perhaps under certain conditions they created a lot of spray topside?

Tom

[cordite]

That is really impressive work

[Fliger747]

Thank you Bob!

I'm working on davits and rigging, this looks to be fiddly PITA (Not the animal rights organization...). Maybe the first try will work, perhaps not? Certainly some of the members here have been both encouraging and even better providers of much useful information. During a long project, one (hopefully) learns a lot both about the particular project, but also technique.

Best wishes to all! Tom

[DrPR]

Tom,

I would think the external davits might generate spray in high seas. However, they were mounted just below the top of the hull sides, and if waves were high enough to reach them (20-25 feet or 8 meters) the bow would also be plunging into the waves and throwing up a lot of spray. Any extra spray from the davit sockets probably wouldn't be noticed.

Phil