USS Oregon (BB-3)
USS Oregon was the third and final member of the of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the United States Navy in the 1890s. The three ships were built as part of a modernization program aimed at strengthening the American fleet to prepare for a possible conflict with a European navy. Designed for short-range operations in defense of the United States, the three Indiana-class ships had a low freeboard and carried a main battery of four guns in a pair of gun turrets. Oregon and her sister ships were the first modern battleships built for the United States, though they suffered from significant stability and seakeeping problems owing to their small size and insufficient freeboard.
After entering service in 1896, Oregon briefly served with the Pacific Squadron before being transferred to the East Coast of the United States as tensions with Spain over Cuba grew in early 1898. She completed a journey around South America in the span of 66 days, arriving shortly after the start of the Spanish–American War. She thereafter took part in the blockade of Santiago de Cuba, which culminated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, where Oregon contributed to the destruction of the Spanish squadron in Cuba. After the war, Oregon was deployed to the Asiatic Squadron, serving during the Philippine–American War and the Boxer Rebellion in Qing China. The ship returned to the United States in 1906, when she was decommissioned and placed in reserve for the next five years, during which she was modernized.
Reactivated in 1911, Oregon spent the next several years cruising off the West Coast of the United States, frequently going in and out of service. During the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918, she escorted a convoy for the Siberian expedition. The ship was decommissioned in 1919 and allocated the hull number BB-3 the following year. Efforts by naval enthusiasts in the early 1920s led the Navy to loan Oregon to her namesake state for use as a museum ship. After the start of World War II, the Navy decided in late 1942 to scrap the ship for the war effort, but after work began the Navy requested the ship's return for use as an ammunition hulk for the upcoming invasion of Guam in 1944. She remained off the island through the mid-1950s before being sold for scrap in 1956 and broken up in Japan.
Design
In the late 1880s, the United States Navy's senior commanders began to plan for the possibility of a conflict with a European naval power, eventually coming to the conclusion that a force of both short- and long-range battleships would be necessary to defend the country. Congress agreed to begin modernizing the Navy and authorized three small vessels—the ironclad battleship and the armored cruisers and. Three further ships, the, were authorized in 1890; these were to be the first installment of short-range battleships to meet the Navy's plans. The ships proved to be disappointments in service, as they were badly overweight upon completion, their low freeboard hampered operations at sea, and they handled poorly. They were nevertheless the first modern battleships for the American fleet.Oregon was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship was powered by two-shaft triple-expansion steam engines rated at and four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, generating a top speed of. She had a cruising radius of at a speed of. As built, she was fitted with a heavy military mast, this was later supplemented by a stern cage mast in 1910–1911. She had a crew of 32 officers and 441 enlisted men, which increased to a total of 586-636 officers and enlisted.
The ship was armed with a main battery of four /35 caliber guns in two twin gun turrets on the centerline, one forward and aft. The secondary battery consisted of eight /35 cal. guns, which were placed in four twin wing turrets. These were supported by a battery of six /40 cal. guns in a casemate battery amidships. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried twenty 6-pounder guns and six 1-pounder guns in individual mounts. As was standard for capital ships of the period, Oregon carried American 18 inch torpedo| torpedo tubes in above-water mounts, though the number is unclear. According to Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships and the US Navy's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, she was fitted with six tubes, though the naval historian Norman Friedman states she was ordered with seven but completed with five.
Oregons main armored belt was thick over the magazines and the machinery spaces and was reduced to at the bow and stern. The main battery gun turrets had thick sides, and the supporting barbettes had the same thickness of armor plate on their exposed sides. The 8 in turrets had 6 in of armor plating and the casemate battery had. The conning tower had thick sides.
Service history
Congress authorized three Indiana-class battleships on 30 June 1890, and in the authorization, specified that one of the ships was to be built on the West Coast of the United States. Therefore, after the first two vessels— and —were awarded to William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia, the contract for the third was given to Union Iron Works in San Francisco. Her keel was laid down on 19 November 1891 and her completed hull was launched on 26 October 1893. After completing fitting-out, she was commissioned into the fleet on 15 July 1896. She then completed sea trials as part of the Pacific Squadron, where she served for the next year.On 15 February 1898, the armored cruiser Maine exploded in Havana, Cuba during a period of rising tensions between the United States and Spain, which possessed Cuba as part of its colonial empire. Oregon, which was in dry dock at the time, was refloated the next day and placed under the command of Captain Charles Edgar Clark. Initial reports blamed a Spanish naval mine, and as the threat of war between the two countries grew, Oregon was ordered to steam to the East Coast of the United States to strengthen the North Atlantic Squadron. She steamed south to San Francisco, California to load ammunition on 9 March, departing ten days later for the long voyage around South America, a distance of some. Oregon reached Callao, Peru on 4 April, where she took on a fresh load of coal before continuing on the journey.
Clark decided to skip the scheduled coaling stop in Valparaíso, Chile, electing to proceed to the Strait of Magellan directly, which the ship reached on 16 April. A severe storm complicated her passage through the hazardous waters and she was forced to drop anchor overnight to avoid running aground, but she reached Punta Arenas, Chile, the next morning. There, she joined the gunboat, which was also en route to join the North Atlantic Squadron. After both ships replenished their coal stocks there, they got underway for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 21 April; false rumors of a Spanish torpedo boat in the area kept the ships' gun crews at their stations. The ships reached Rio de Janeiro on 30 April, where they learned of the state of war between the United States and Spain. They departed on 4 May, stopped briefly in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and then coaled in Barbados on 18 May. Oregon arrived in Jupiter, Florida on 24 May, where she met other elements of the North Atlantic Squadron. In the course of the voyage, which lasted sixty-six days, Oregon had traveled some. One long term result of this trip, which had received extensive press coverage, was public pressure for the construction of a Panama Canal to shorten future trans-oceanic repositionings.
Spanish–American War
Oregon sailed to Key West on 26 May, where she joined the rest of the North Atlantic Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. By that time, the Flying Squadron, under Commodore Winfield Scott Schley's command, had located the Spanish squadron that had sailed to Cuba at the start of the war and had blockaded it in Santiago de Cuba. The Spanish squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete and consisted of the armored cruisers,, and and the destroyers and. Oregon arrived off that port on 1 June, and over the course of the month, took part in bombardments of Spanish positions around the city and helped to maintain the blockade.At 08:45 on 3 July, Cervera sortied with his flag aboard Infanta Maria Teresa, followed by Cristóbal Colón, Vizcaya and Almirante Oquendo, with the two destroyers bringing up the rear. The Spaniards cleared the roadstead at 09:35; luckily for the Spanish, New York—Sampson's flagship—was out of position at the time and Massachusetts was replenishing her coal at Guantánamo Bay. Lookouts aboard the armored cruiser spotted Cervera approaching and fired one of her guns to warn the other American ships, which quickly ordered their crews to general quarters and initiated the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. As the Spanish ships attempted to break out to the west, Cervera charged at Brooklyn with Infanta Maria Teresa to delay the American pursuit and give his other ships time to escape. The Spanish coastal batteries also contributed their fire in the first stage of the battle but had little effect.
Oregon took the lead in the ensuing chase as she was the only large American ship which had good steam pressure when the battle began. The cruiser Brooklyn had uncoupled two of her four engines, but could still achieve and was right behind her. Heavy American gunfire had set Infanta Maria Theresa on fire, and, fearing a magazine explosion, Cervara ordered her run aground at 10:25. Almirante Oquendos captain issued similar instructions five minutes later, as his ship, too, was burning badly. Vizcaya was also forced ashore shortly thereafter, striking her colors to surrender at 10:36. Meanwhile, the two Spanish destroyers had also been badly damaged by the American battleships; Indiana had nearly cut Plutón in half with a 13-inch shell, forcing her to run aground, where she exploded. And Furor had been savaged by Oregons, s, and Indianas secondary batteries, leading her crew to surrender to the gunboat.
Only Cristóbal Colón, which had a lead at that point, was still running westward. Oregon and Texas followed Brooklyn as they chased Cristóbal Colón; the Americans slowly caught up to the fleeing Spanish cruiser and engaged her at long range. Cristóbal Colón, which had not been fitted with her main armament before being sent to Cuba, could not return fire, and her commander realized his hopeless position. At 13:20, he turned to shore and struck his flag, indicating his surrender, and the crew scuttled the ship. Oregon was not hit in the action, owing in large part to the poor quality of Spanish shooting. With the destruction of Cervera's squadron and American successes in Cuba and the Philippines, Spain sued for peace on 17 July, and the war ended on 12 August with the Treaty of Paris.