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JL he cruiser Olympia floats today on the Philadelphia waterfront as the sole surviving naval relic of the Spanish- American War and of the revived American Steel Navy that marked the emergence of the United States as a world power around the turn of the 20th century. Authorized in 1888 as cruiser number 6, the Olympia was over six years in the building. Her contract was awarded to the Union Iron Works of San Francisco as part of a congressionally- mandated effort to establish a complete domestic capability for warship construction. It was a time when the Navy faced serious problems in the procurement of heavy steel armor plate and gun forgings in addition to the usual difficulties in obtaining machinery and naval equipment on the West Coast.
The Olympia’s keel was not laid until 17 June 1891. Erection of the hull proceeded rapidly, and she was ready for launching on 5 November 1892 with Miss Ann Belle Dickie, the daughter of a shipyard official, performing the honorary christening. However, further construction and fitting out lagged after this milestone, and the cruiser was not commissioned until CaptainJ. J. Read ordered her colors hoisted on 5 February 1895.
The Olympia was built to an original U. S. design, unlike that of any other cruiser built anywhere in the world,
before or since. During the Nineties, the mission and characteristics of the cruiser as a warship type were undergoing rapid transition, with the emergence of two main variations. The protected cruiser was a ship of moderate dimensions with large numbers of medium-caliber, rapid-fire guns usually mounted singly on the weather deck and in lower deck sponsons, and a curved protective deck of armor plate over the ship’s vitals just above the waterline. A heavier and more powerful type, the armored cruiser, was characterized by a main battery of 8-inch or 10-inch guns, usually mounted in turrets or armored gun houses, a high- powered propulsion plant with three or four towering funnels, and a belt of side armor in addition to the protective deck. Although the Olympia was a protected cruiser, she incorporated some of the features of the armored type. She had an overall length of 344 feet and a breadth of 53 feet, a normal displacement of 5,870 tons, and a mean draft of 21 Vi feet, all of which placed her toward the upper end of the protected cruiser spectrum. Two 9,000-horsepower vertical inverted triple-expansion engines driven with steam from six Scotch boilers, four double-ended and two single-ended, gave her a top speed of 21.7 knots, which was remarkably high for that day. With a nod toward diehard tradition, she also carried a seldom- used two-masted schooner auxiliary sail rig. Her bunkers held coal sufficient for over 6,000 miles of cruising.
Admiral Dewey said, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley. ” Captain Gndley was ready and so, too, were the Olympia's guns.
For armament the Olympia carried tour 8-inch / 35 caliber breech-loading rifles in two turrets on the main deck forward and aft, ten 5-inch/40 caliber rapid-fire guns mounted singly in casemates in a twelve-sided citadel amidships on the main deck, 14 6-pounder quick-firing rifles in small sponsons on the second deck and shielded open mounts in the superstructure, six
In three years, 1899 to 1902, that transpired between the photograph, above, and that on the facing page, the Olympia underwent a badly needed overhaul and was downgraded from Dewey's flagship to the flagship of the Caribbean Division of the North Atlantic Squadron.
masts, and six 18-inch Whitehead torpedo tubes mounted above water.
Her protective deck was 4 3A inches thick on the slopes and 2 inches on the flats. This was an exceptionally heavy and well-protected battery for a protected cruiser, and one particularly designed for her intended role as flagship of the Asiatic Squadron. Her straight-sided cylindrical turrets, a legacy from the old
Civil War monitors designed byjohn Ericsson, soon gave her a dated appearance when other ships were armed with the balanced high-elevation turret with the flat sloping faceplate and overhanging gun house. The Olympia carried a crew of 33 officers and 395 enlisted men, and she was fitted with commodious quarters for a flag officer and his staff. However, lest the admiral and ship’s captain forget the cruiser’s warlike purpose, 5-inch guns were mounted in each of their staterooms.
As far as the fleet was concerned, the Olympia was a prime command, especially in the Asiatic Squadron to which she was immediately assigned. Her peaceful cruising days were soon numbered with the arrival of Commodore George Dewey. Shortly after he joined the ship, telegraphed instructions came from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to whip the fleet into shape for impending war with Spain. Dewey carried out his instructions with great energy and brilliance, and on
1 May 1898 led a heterogeneous column
of cruisers and gunboats into Manila Bay, calmly gave Captain Charles V. Gridlcy the order to "fire when you are ready," and became the foremost hero of the war.
Badly in need of overhaul after her Asiatic tour, the Olympia 'nis returned to the United States for a triumphal reception followed by a general refit between 1899 and 1902. When recommissioned, she was assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron as flagship of the small Caribbean Division. For the next four years, she showed the flag at Panama. Tangiers, Smyrna, and the Dominican Republic before becoming the summer cruise ship for the Naval Academy at Annapolis and finally, in i o 12. a humble barracks ship at Charleston, South Carolina.
With approaching U. S. involvement in World War I, the Olympia was brought out of retirement, rearmed with
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53 feet, 0ys inches 21 feet, 6 inches 5,870 tons
4 8-inch, 35-caliber breech-loading rifles 10 5-inch, 40-caliber rapid-fire guns 14 6-pounders; 6 1-pounders; 4 Gatlings 6 18-inch, Whitehead above-surface tubes 434 inches (slopes); 2 inches (flats) two-masted schooner twin-screw, vertical triple-expansion 21.69 knots; 17,313 indicated horsepower 33 officers; 395 enlisted men
USS Olympia Cruiser No. 6
Built by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, Cal.
Authorized 7 September 1888.
Commissioned 5 February 1895.
Reclassified CA-15 17 July 1920.
Reclassified CL-15 8 August 1921.
Reclassified IX-40 June 1931, and thereafter maintained as a naval relic.
Released to Cruiser Olympia Association 11 September 1957.
Restored and maintained as a naval shrine and museum at Philadelphia.
old caliber guns in place of her
nixed battery, and assigned to j„trtd duty off New York. Injanuary So ^ a shoal in Long Island
^ Und and had to go into drydock for a ,or rePahs, during which she was farmed with ten new 5-inch/31 er guns. After more patrol duty in e North Atlantic, she was sent in 1918 to Murmansk, Russia, as part of the Allied anti-Bolshevik intervention force. At war’s end she was shifted to the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Black Seas to help stabilize the turbulent aftermath of the war in those areas. Her last major mission was to transport the remains of America’s “unknown soldier” from Le Havre,
France, to Arlington National Cemetary for burial in 1921. After one final midshipmen’s cruise, she was decommissioned for the last time at Philadelphia on 1 September 1922.
For the next two decades, the Olympia lay at the Philadelphia Navy Yard being slowly consumed by moth and rust. At first, visitors were allowed to wander
about her decks, and vandalism and souvenir hunting took their toll. Finally she became too decrepit and unsafe for visiting and lay forgotten at a deserted berth, ignored even by the caretakers of the mothballed reserve fleet. One by one, her contemporaries of the old White Fleet went to the boneyard until only the Oregon and the Olympia were left. The famous battleship Oregon had been taken in hand by her namesake state in 1925 and ensconced as a visitor’s attraction in Portland, while the Olympia remained all but abandoned. In
1931, she was reclassified as a miscellaneous relic, IX 40.
With the outbreak of World War II, obsolete warships became prime targets for the nation’s scrap drives. Governor Charles A. Sprague of Oregon patriotically offered his state’s battleship for service, but the War Production Board pressed urgently for her hull as scrap metal. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a naval history buff himself, reluctantly acquiesced in this letter of 26 October 1942 to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox: ‘ 'Dear Colonel Knox:
It is with great reluctance that I authorize the Navy Department to turn the U.S.S. OREGON over to the War Production Board for reduction to scrap metal.
‘ ‘It is my understanding that the Department will take immediate action toward the preservation of the U.S.S. OLYMPIA as a naval relic of the Span- ish-American War period.
Sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt'
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0, US-S t*lc Oregon traded for the tu Pla’ many ways, it was an unfor- vje^te transaction from the historical point because the Olympia was in alterCj s^aPe and had also been much pj /C ^rom her original condition. jnortUnately, Roosevelt’s understand- was not honored by the Navy th ^artment> future administrations, or lie .°n®ress' The Olympia continued to th V\U^out maintenance or upkeep at Na ?Serte<^ cnd °f the Philadelphia a Shipyard until 1954, when the th j .ret^Ueste<f and Congress authorized cal jSP°s*t*on °f all the Navy’s histori- not e 'CS excePt the Constitution. Those 0r1 ta^en over by private patriotic ganizations would be summarily ScraPped.
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of h°r t^IC nCXt t^rec years, committees cj . Ist°rically-minded Philadelphia pj 2ens under the leadership of Dr.
Learned and Francis D. fut°r‘0Us labored to raise sufficient pjn s t0 meet the Navy’s requirements. P a 'V the Keystone Dry Dock and Ship $ 1^'omPany offered to make jm 8’®00 worth of repairs without Se^"ediate repayment, and on 11 tember 1957, title to the Olympia was delivered to the Cruiser Olympia Association with Captain Edmund A. Crenshaw, U. S. Navy (Retired) as custodian. Unhappily, the shipyard soon ran into financial difficulties. The repair job was a rather slapdash affair mostly consisting of the application of paint over rusted plates and corroded machinery, and a considerable portion of the port engine disappeared in the process. Ultimately the company went bankrupt, and its creditors sued the Olympia's owners for the unpaid repair work. Fortunately a sympathetic judge reportedly told the creditors that he would throw the Olympia into bankruptcy when he did the same for Independence Hall and forced a compromise settlement of the claims. A new Cruiser Olympia Association was formed in 1964 with CasperJ. Knight, Jr. as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and the slow task of paying off debts and restoring the ship to acceptable condition was started. Although the Olympia has now been declared a National Historical Monument, no government funds have been provided to assist in her preservation after her disposal by the Navy.
Having participated in the Allied Intervention at Murmansk, Russia, in 1918, the Olympia warmed her old bones in the Adriatic port of Spalato (now Split) in 1919 and, two years later, she transported America's "Unknown Soldier" home from France. That ceremonial chore done, a 1926 photograph, facing page, shows her decommissioned, languishing in neglect, at the deserted end of Philadelphia Navy Yard, easy prey for vandals and souvenir hunters.
Over the years, devoted workers, mostly volunteers, have gradually restored sections of the cruiser to something of their original condition. Sea Explorer units, Naval Reserve groups, technical school students, and naval history buffs have all done their bit. Machinery manufacturers, clubs, and individual philanthropists have underwritten the restoration of specific compartments. A former pantry has been refitted with modern communication equipment as a civil defense mobiliza-
In 1957, following ceremonies turning her over to the Cruiser Olympia Association, she was photographed en route to the Keystone Dry Dock and Ship Repair Company for repairs. Today, most of her visitors do not know that her 8-inch guns, facing page, are not real. To the tourists and buffs, the youngsters of all ages, Olympia will ever be ready to respond when, up on her flying bridge, the graying commodore quietly informs his captain, “You may fire when you are ready, Grid ley. ” tion station, while the old warrant officers’ wardroom has been refurbished for special group meetings. To a visitor who had first seen the Olympia as an unwanted Navy derelict in 1949, and later in the early stages of her rehabilitation under private hands, the progress seemed remarkable. The flag officer’s quarters and much of the wardroom country have been largely restored, and their hand-fitted woodwork uncovered from multiple layers of paint. A number of the original furnishings have been recovered, repaired, and reinstalled. On a recent weekend, a dozen or more volunteers were cheerfully working away while managerjoseph Gladen and the ship’s permanent staff of four oversaw the activities of the visitors who trooped through the open areas, down into the starboard engine room, and around the topsides. One enthusiast was lovingly burnishing the breech mechanism of a 5-inch gun, another was scraping grease and corrosion from the ship’s ancient icemaking plant, and a couple of Sea Explorers were disassembling and cleaning an old 6-pounder. Below decks, in areas still closed to visitors, teams chipped away at the rust in compartments that had been unused for 45 years, traced and repaired electrical circuits, and tinkered with fascinating machinery from a bygone age.
Although much progress has been made, far more remains to be done to reclaim this fine ship from the ravages of decades of Navy neglect. Her 85-year- old steel hull, although never drydocked within the memory of its present custodians, is as tight as a drum and seemingly immune to the corrosive powers of
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Wemeta* and pipe. Until recently, the CQv1 cr ^ecks, which the Navy had ori fe w'th a layer of cement after the
k*' ^*an*cs ^e8an to rot ar>d (ju . ’ Werc a major source of leakage
be • ra’nstorrns> but these have now Wat1- °Ver^a‘^ w'tb a multi-layered th • rDro°f c°mp°sition. Since leaving shifnaVa* Sh'Pyard’ ship has been vertC<^ t^lree different piers, none tUny s‘lt'sfactory. A particularly unfor- alo UC.Consecluencc of its last location the^t S'^C ^*cr ' * ’ a*most directly under hea en*am*n ftsnklin Bridge, was a br Sf>atter'n8 °f blue paint when the ea | 8e WaS ®‘ven a bicentennial coat lcr this year. According to the
I have been replaced by remarkably
uine-looking facsimiles made of
s*'eet meral or,j ,
Olympia % caretakers, the blue paint cannot be removed from the new composition deck without special treatment, and they have taken steps to rectify the spotty appearance.
But, hopefully, better days lie ahead. Earlier this summer, the Olympia was moved for the last time to a fine berth in the new Penn’s Landing historical area, where she has been joined by the submarine Becuna (SS-319), sailing ship Moshulu, and other mementos of Philadelphia’s maritime past. Here, if sufficient funds can be obtained, future generations will be able to stand in Commodore Dewey’s footprints on the flying bridge of his flagship, look down over her bristling guns and massive ground tackle, and relive the stirring events of naval history created by the cruiser Olympia and her gallant crew.