Toyandgadgetguy

She was originally launched as The California back in 1907 and was a United States Navy Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser. Thanks to an act of Congress, where state’s names would become reserved for battleships, she became known as the USS San Diego. A proud ship, she served as part of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet”, where she became the flagship of the Pacific fleet.

The San Diego was a tremendous warship measuring 503'11" in length and 69'77" in width. Think about that for a moment… it would be taller than a 50 story building if you could stand it up on end. Now imagine the 50 story building being pushed through the water by it’s two twin props at 25mph. Armaments consisted of 18 three inch guns, 14 six inch guns both mounted in side turrets, four eight inch guns and two 18 inch torpedo tubes. This was one tough warship.

On July 18th, 1917 the San Diego was ordered to escort ships through the dangerous North Atlantic. For one year, she held a perfect record, not having lost a single escort ship, even with the enemy submarine traffic there. July 19th, 1918… the very next year… she was on her way to New York from Portsmouth, following a zig-zagging evasion pattern along the south coast of Long Island when there was an explosion about halfway down the left side of the ship. Captain and crew immediately thought it to be a torpedo. It was just after 11:00am when the explosion took place. Waters were calm, with a visibility of about 6 miles, and it was originally thought that the explosion was the result of an enemy torpedo. It was Captain Harley H. Christy’s first assumption.

The captain sounded the alarm for submarine defensive positions, as was the standard, and crews took up battle stations. It was then that it was discovered that the result of the explosion was a large hole in the port side of the ship well below the waterline. Water was now rushing in quickly, and there was a problem with one of the bulkhead doors. The frame of the door, which helped to keep two compartments separated, had been warped by the breach in the hull of the ship. Since the door could no longer be properly closed, the ship lost it’s watertight integrity. Instead of one compartment filling with water… there were two. With two compartments rapidly filling with water, the mighty ship began to list to it’s side. As the ship began to list to one side, one of it’s gun ports dipped below the water line and increased the speed in which the ship took on water. Both engines were dead. The radio was out. Two more explosions ripped through the ship. Captain Christy ordered his gunnery officer to take a crew ashore to summon rescue vessels. The gunnery officer arrived in Point ‘O Woods in approximately two hours and rescue vessels were immediately dispatched.

However, it had taken less than 30 minutes for the USS San Diego to sink, and help wouldn’t arrive in time to save the ship. It sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in some 110 feet of water, about 10 miles south of the Fire Island Inlet. The ship is completely inverted and sits upside down on the ocean floor with some 60 feet of water above it. The Navy decided not to raise or demolish the wreck.

Some time later, the US Navy had gotten reports that there was an enemy submarine laying mines up and down the US east coast. They put their air service on alert, and a patrol spotted what they thought was a submarine laying on the bottom of the ocean in 100 feet of water. They bombed it, finding out later that they were bombing the wreckage of the USS San Diego. What’s interesting to me is that the Naval Air Patrol base was based out of my home town of Bay Shore. I’ve often heard of this base, but have yet to figure out it’s location.

Now, there is much debate and speculation as to what the explosion was that caused the sinking of this great ship. Even the crew disagreed about how it happened. Some say it was a torpedo, others say it was a German mine, and others say it was the boiler exploding for the second time. It’s tough to say, as the boiler had exploded once prior, on the west coast, and the German Sub U-156 had been laying mines along the south shore of Long Island in that time frame. There was also one other possibility. In 1999, some Russian reports of the interrogation of a German spy in 1945, explained how the German spy had arranged to have explosives planted in the boiler room of the San Diego. Experts seem to stick with the story that it was a mine from U-156, and the Navy’s findings seem to be in agreement.

I would have thought that divers could have been able to tell at some point if the explosion went inward or outward…


http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...go+berg&hl=en#
http://books.google.com/books?id=7O1...0Shore&f=false
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...619C946996D6CF
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...BE668383609EDE