Random Photos - Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Charleston Gate, 1943

These were recent scans from Seattle NARA - the Charleston Access Gate at PSNS in 1943. The gate is currently here, but I don't know if this is the same location as it was in 1943, or if it was moved in or out.

The below photo was captioned "Machine gun nest protecting Charleston Gate," on the back, and there's really not enough information to locate the exact position at this point. It does not look like terribly exciting duty, but I would imagine there were a lot of sailors and Marines who enjoyed the shore duty stateside over being sent forward in the Pacific for a year or two, if not longer.

These were out of a group of records on "Passive Defense" for the shipyard, which were the same source as the Passive Defense Handbook, posted earlier.

I guess I've had some success

Came across this Wikipedia entry tonight for the first time and had a chuckle when checking out the references - 17 of 23 point back to camouflage documents I've posted. As far as wikipedia entries goes, it's not bad. I sorta object to the color swatches they added, but I understand why they did.

PT Boat Videos

While chasing down some leads I came across some videos of PT boat Operations on the NARA website and thought I'd edit them down a bit (there was non-PT footage in some). Below are some clips of base and on-board operations that might be useful to modelers.

BB-37 Oklahoma Torpedo Defense System, Pt II

Some more work done to visualize the effects that nine torpedo hits had on battleship Oklahoma's hull. This is the second sheet colorized, using a slightly different color palette for clarity. Green is air-filled voids, red is oil filled, and blue (only two) is water. These voids were designed to absorb most of the force of a torpedo explosion, but would lose most of their effectiveness after the first hit.

The below side-view shows the added torpedo blister and the armor belt. Note that this is from the Booklet of General Plans and is reversed to show her port side, which explains why the text is backwards. As you can see, the first two hits were below the armored belt. A similar hit on Nevada punched through the dry blister voids and ripped in to the two fuel-oil filled voids inboard of that with enough force that the main bulkhead protecting the innards was then dished in roughly two feet and the compartments began to flood.

As you can see, the hits were fairly bunched up, and the armor belt took a beating. The plates where hits three, five, and seven occurred did not come back up with the ship, although whether they were blown free or pulled free when she was rolled upright is not known.

USS Oklahoma Torpedo Defense System, Pt I

I've been working on understanding the death of Oklahoma better so I can explain it to others, and I thought a good visualization of her Torpedo Defense System might help. This is the lower three levels of the ship, below the armor belt. Red is oil (fuel oil, diesel, etc.), blue is water (feed water mostly) and the medium blue are empty voids (air).

This is downsized from the original - not meant to be the final posting, just showing the start of a new project.

More fun than counting individual oil bunkers, anyway....

Even the Anchor Chains!

Came across these in OPA while doing some digging; SS Matilda Weems in 1918 in a freshly applied dazzle scheme. Note that on the starboard side, even the anchor chains follow the pattern!

Source: 
NARA Atlanta, RG 181 "Department of the Navy. Sixth Naval District. Office of the Aide for Information. (ca. 1916 - ca. 1920)
http://research.archives.gov/description/2681794 

Had a wee bit of excitement during my last archives visit

Not something you really want to see in a building full of rare paper....