Countdown to Kickoff II: The Final 24 Days

[kingofnerf]

"TNT" from ACDC's third studio album High Voltage

 

[Blitzkrieg]

3rd Division  (Audie Murphy's old unit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Prometheus (AR-3)

USS Prometheus (AR-3) was a repair ship that served the United States Navy during World War I and World War II. Named after Greek mythology figure Prometheus, she was originally laid down as a collier on 18 October 1907 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California; launched on 5 December 1908; and commissioned 15 January 1910 as USS Ontario (Fleet Collier No. 2).

Service history

1910–1924

Ontario served with a merchant complement until she decommissioned on 7 April 1913 to undergo conversion to a repair ship. After conversion, she recommissioned 23 December 1914 as USS Prometheus (Repair Ship No. 2). After a cruise to Alaskan waters in 1915, she was assigned to duty with the Atlantic Fleet, 16 May 1916 operating out of Norfolk, Virginia and bound for Bermuda, remaining there until 29 January 1918.

While at Bermuda she was ordered to join the Naval forces at Brest, France to provide repair services, and she did a commendable job until she sailed on 16 January 1919 for New York City. Upon arrival at New York she was assigned to Battleship Force 1 for duty in conjunction with the upkeep of vessels engaged in overseas transportation of troops. She was classified as AR-3 on 17 July 1920.

Prometheus sailed from New York on 1 September 1920 with orders to tow the USS Connecticut (BB-18), disabled at Cuba, to Philadelphia. For her performance in this assignment she was commended by the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet. Prometheus made additional cruises to Cuba in 1921 and 1923 while operating with the Atlantic Fleet. Prometheus transferred to the west coast early in 1923, arriving at San Pedro, California on 17 April. She operated along the Pacific coast as far north as Washington, until she decommissioned on 4 October 1924 at Bremerton.

1942–1946

Prometheus recommissioned on 15 May 1942 at the Bremerton Navy Yard and following shakedown, she sailed from San Francisco, California on 9 August for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where she took in tow the drydock ARD–2 and proceeded to Noumea, New Caledonia. She rendered repair services from the largest warship, the USS South Dakota (BB-57), to the smallest amphibious craft, which were beginning to figure so prominently in the island-hopping campaign towards the Japanese home islands.

Prometheus repairs a battleship and two destroyers. (below)

The U.S. Navy battleship USS South Dakota (BB-57) and two destroyers alongside Prometheus for repairs, probably at Noumea, New Caledonia, in November 1942. The inboard destroyer, with the distorted bow, is probably USS Mahan (DD-364), which was damaged in a collision with South Dakota at the close of the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 27 October 1942. South Dakota received damage in both that battle and in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 15 November 1942. The other destroyer may be USS Lamson (DD-367).

Her only breaks, from a steady demand of hard work from her crew, came on infrequent trips to Sydney, Australia. Following the push westward across the Pacific, Prometheus moved in the Spring of 1944 from San Francisco to Tulagi, and after a month’s stay there, where she catered primarily to escort carriers, she went to Florida Island and then in September to Manus. She received orders on 25 September to proceed to Kossol Passage, Palau Islands where she came under enemy fire for the first time from a Japanese midget sub. She opened fire with her 3"/50 caliber deck gun and sank the sub. She and her crew suffered no damage.

Prometheus departed Kossol on 21 January 1945 and moved to the now famous Ulithi anchorage to help ready the Fleet for the Iwo Jima campaign and the Okinawa strikes. By 19 February she had moved again to San Pedro Bay, Leyte to ready ships for the take-over invasion of Okinawa. Though her main responsibility was to repair ships and craft of the Amphibious Force, she gained wide acclaim for the excellence of repairs and alterations made to the USS Texas (BB-35) and USS Colorado (BB-45) in the Philippines.

War's end found the old repair ship at Guiuan, Samar in the process of commissioning the cargo ship Justin, formerly the SS Gus Darnell, which required bomb damage repair and alterations to fit her for Navy service during the occupation period ahead. Prometheus continued her rigorous schedule at Okinawa and Hong Kong during the Asian occupation, returning to San Francisco at the year’s end. At San Francisco she performed decommissioning work on vessels sent there for disposal until she, herself, decommissioned on 1 July 1946.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Prometheus_(AR-3)

Sa-lute!

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Lexington (CV-2)

USS Lexington (CV-2), nicknamed "Lady Lex", was an early aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy. She was the lead ship of the Lexington class; her only sister ship, Saratoga, was commissioned a month earlier. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which essentially terminated all new battleship and battlecruiser construction. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career.

Lexington and Saratoga were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these included successfully staged surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ship's turbo-electric propulsion system allowed her to supplement the electrical supply of Tacoma, Washington, during a drought in late 1929 to early 1930. She also delivered medical personnel and relief supplies to Managua, Nicaragua, after an earthquake in 1931.

Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. Her mission was cancelled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later. After a few days, she was sent to create a diversion from the force en route to relieve the besieged Wake Island garrison by attacking Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands. The island surrendered before the relief force got close enough, and the mission was cancelled.

A planned attack on Wake Island in January 1942 had to be cancelled when a submarine sank the oiler required to supply the fuel for the return trip. Lexington was sent to the Coral Sea the following month to block any Japanese advances into the area. The ship was spotted by Japanese search aircraft while approaching Rabaul, New Britain, but her aircraft shot down most of the Japanese bombers that attacked her. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March.

Lexington was quickly refitted in Pearl Harbor at the end of the month and rendezvoused with Yorktown in the Coral Sea in early May. A few days later the Japanese began Operation Mo, the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the two American carriers attempted to stop the invasion forces. They sank the light aircraft carrier Shōhō on 7 May during the Battle of the Coral Sea, but did not encounter the main Japanese force of the carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku until the next day.

Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown badly damaged Shōkaku, but the Japanese aircraft crippled Lexington. A mixture of air and aviation gasoline in her improperly drained aircraft fueling trunk lines (which ran from the keel tanks to her hangar deck) ignited, causing a series of explosions and fires that could not be controlled. Lexington was scuttled by an American destroyer during the evening of 8 May to prevent her capture.

The wreck of Lexington was located on 4 March 2018 by R/V Petrel, which was part of an expedition funded by Paul Allen. The ship is about 430 nautical miles (800 km) off the northeastern coast of Australia in the Coral Sea.

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) firing her 55 caliber eight-inch guns, in 1928. (below)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_(CV-2)

The Lady Lex.

 

[kingofnerf]

Rusty Wallace

 

[kingofnerf]

Brad Keselowski

 

[kingofnerf]

Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden

 

[kingofnerf]

This is a replica at the NASCAR Hall of Fame of the 1963 Pontiac Catalina that Roger Penske drove to victory for car owner Ray Nichels in the NASCAR Riverside 250 race on May 16, 1963. This was one of 52 wins in his driving career from 1958 to 1964.

The Captain.

 

[Swayin]

The Northrup Grumman B-2 spirit also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low observable stealth technology designed for penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses. Designed during the Cold War, it is a flying wing design with a crew of two.[1][3] The bomber is subsonic and can deploy both conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty 500-pound class (230 kg) Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400-pound (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.

Development started under the "Advanced Technology Bomber" (ATB) project during the Carter administration; its expected performance was one of the President's reasons for the cancellation of the Mach 2 capable B-1A bomber. The ATB project continued during the Reagan administration, but worries about delays in its introduction led to the reinstatement of the B-1 program. Program costs rose throughout development. Designed and manufactured by Northrop, later Northrop Grumman, the cost of each aircraft averaged US$737 million (in 1997 dollars).[4] Total procurement costs averaged $929 million per aircraft, which includes spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support.[4] The total program cost, which included development, engineering and testing, averaged $2.13 billion per aircraft in 1997.[4]

Because of its considerable capital and operating costs, the project was controversial in the U.S. Congress. The winding-down of the Cold War in the latter portion of the 1980s dramatically reduced the need for the aircraft, which was designed with the intention of penetrating Soviet airspace and attacking high-value targets. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Congress slashed plans to purchase 132 bombers to 21. In 2008, a B-2 was destroyed in a crash shortly after takeoff, though the crew ejected safely.[5] As of 2018, twenty B-2s are in service with the United States Air Force, which plans to operate them until 2032, when the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is to replace it.[6]

The B-2 is capable of all-altitude attack missions up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m), with a range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (6,900 mi; 11,000 km) on internal fuel and over 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) with one midair refueling. It entered service in 1997 as the second aircraft designed to have advanced stealth technology after the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft. Though designed originally as primarily a nuclear bomber, the B-2 was first used in combat dropping conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It later served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

 

[Swayin]

The M2 Medium Tank, officially Medium Tank, M2, was a United States Army medium tank that was first produced in 1939 by the Rock Island Arsenal, just prior to the commencement of the Second World War in Europe.[2] Production was 18 M2 tanks, and 94 slightly improved M2A1 tanks, for a total of 112. Events in Western Europe rapidly demonstrated that the M2 was obsolete, and it was never used overseas in combat; it was, however, used for training purposes throughout the war.

The M2's features included an unusually large number of machine guns, bullet deflector plates, and sloped armor on the hull front (glacis plate). The main armament was a 37 mm (1.5 in) gun, with 32 mm (1.3 in) armor; the M2A1 had a 51 mm (2.0 in) gun mantlet. Some features of the M2 series, especially the suspension and powertrain, provided the basis for later, important U.S. tank designs including the M3 Lee, M4 Sherman and other armored fighting vehicles.

 

[kingofnerf]

Grumman S-2 Tracker

The Grumman S-2 Tracker (S2F prior to 1962) was the first purpose-built, single airframe anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft to enter service with the United States Navy. Designed and initially built by Grumman, the Tracker was of conventional design — propeller-driven with twin radial engines, a high wing that could be folded for storage on aircraft carriers, and tricycle undercarriage.

The type was exported to a number of navies around the world. Introduced in 1952, the Tracker and its E-1 Tracer derivative saw service in the U.S. Navy until the mid-1970s, and its C-1 Trader derivative until the mid-1980s, with a few aircraft remaining in service with other air arms into the 21st century. Argentina and Brazil are the last countries to still use the Tracker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_S-2_Tracker

The S2F was affectionately known "The Stoof" to those who flew on it.

 

[kingofnerf]

"Beautiful Girls" from Van Halen II

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Melville (AD-2)

World War I

Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Melville reported to Newport, in January 1916. On 11 May 1917, a month after the United States entered World War I, the destroyer tender got underway for Queenstown, Ireland, arriving on the 22nd. She carried out repair and support operations and served as flagship for Vice Admiral William Sims, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in European waters, from 10 September-4 January 1919.

Melville departed Southampton, England, on 7 January 1919 with troops embarked for the east coast, arriving at New York on the 26th. She then operated at Newport and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba until 30 April, when she departed Tompkinsville, N.Y., for the Azores. There she prepared flying boat NC-4 for the final leg of her long transatlantic journey from New York to Europe and embarked crippled NC-3 for return to the east coast, reaching New York on 10 June.

World War II

With the threat of American involvement in World War II, Melville steamed from the Caribbean for the east coast in November 1940. She arrived at Norfolk on 9 December for operations with the Patrol Force, U.S. Fleet, and was transferred back to the Atlantic Fleet on 1 February 1941. Following intensive training at Guantanamo Bay and Culebra, Puerto Rico, and three weeks of supply duties at Casco Bay, Maine, Melville continued on to Bermuda by 16 September to service neutrality patrol ships until returning to Norfolk on 28 November.

Melville got underway on 12 January 1942 for Europe, reaching Derry, Northern Ireland on 31 January to begin tending escort ships of Allied convoys crossing the submarine infested Atlantic. In the next two years, she also based at Hvalfjörður, Iceland; Recife, Brazil; and Rosneath naval base in Scotland, as well as Newport and Casco Bay, while continuing support services for warships ranging from battleships to landing craft and minesweepers.

On 1 May 1944, Melville sailed from Rosneath for Portland, England to begin the massive task of preparing the Allied minesweepers and landing craft for the Normandy Landings of 6 June. For the next year, she was busy maintaining and repairing landing craft for the Allied push toward Germany.

The destroyer tender was at Portland when Germany surrendered on 7 May 1945. Melville continued her support duties, now servicing the amphibious craft for final operations in the Pacific theater.

On 7 July, Melville steamed for New York arriving the 20th to ready for assignment to the central Pacific. After Japan capitulated on 15 August, she sailed on 1 October for Jacksonville, Florida, where she assisted in the inactivation of escort ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Melville_(AD-2)

Another unsung workhorse of the Fleet. 

Sa-lute!

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Charles F. Adams (DDG-2).  Formerly DD-52.

USS Charles F. Adams (DD-952/DDG-2), named for Charles Francis Adams III (Secretary of the Navy from 1929 to 1933), was the lead ship of her class of guided missile destroyers of the United States Navy.

History

The ship was laid down by the Bath Iron Works at Bath, Maine, on 16 June 1958, launched on 8 September 1959 by Mrs. R. Homans, sister of Mr. Adams, commissioned on 10 September 1960, and stationed in its homeport of Charleston, South Carolina.

Intended as a follow-on to the Forrest Sherman-class destroyers, the ship was originally designated as DD-952. Outwardly similar to the Forrest Sherman-class, Charles F. Adams was the first U.S. Navy ship designed from the keel up to launch anti-aircraft missiles. To reflect the increased capabilities of the ship and to distinguish her from previous destroyer designs, Charles F. Adams was re-designated DDG-2 prior to the ship's launching.

Following commissioning, Charles F. Adams took part in recovery operations for Walter M. Schirra's Mercury 8 mission. While engaged in this operation the Cuban Missile Crisis developed and Charles F. Adams moved to the Caribbean Sea as part of the quarantine forces around the island of Cuba. In July 1969, Charles F. Adams left her homeport of Charleston and relocated to Mayport, Florida.

Decommission

Charles F. Adams was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 August 1990 and is being held for donation at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania. The Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum attempted to acquire the ship as a museum and memorial to be located in Bay City, Michigan; however, the cost of preparing the ship for movement through the Saint Lawrence Seaway proved too expensive and the project was abandoned.

Present use

Charles F. Adams remained at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on Donation Hold status until 2020. She was considered for preservation by the Adams Class Veteran's Association and the Jacksonville Historic Naval Ship Association (JHNSA) in Jacksonville, Florida. An application was delivered 31 March 2008.

In October 2010, the Jacksonville City Council supported efforts to bring the ship to that city as a museum. The preservation effort will require approximately $300,000 to tow the ship to Jacksonville, $3 million for repairs and restoration of the vessel, and $5 million to construct a pier to moor it. As of late 2013, the preservation groups had raised about $1.4 million. 

On 27 August 2014 the Jacksonville City Council approved a lease of city-owned riverfront property to the JHNSA and authorized the Downtown Investment Authority to manage the project. The groups expected to have the ship moored downtown on the St. Johns River by the end of 2015. Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan's proposal to develop the riverfront includes a location for the ship. In December 2018 plans to bring Charles F. Adams to Jacksonville were abandoned in the light of continued reluctance of the Navy to release the ship; the JHNSA believed that the Navy preferred demolition.

In September 2020, the Charles F. Adams left Philadelphia Navy Yard under tow, bound for Brownsville, Texas, where she will be scrapped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Charles_F._Adams

I remember reading online of Jacksonville's efforts to bring the Adams down there back in 2010.  They were sincere enough, but it sounds like maybe she wasn't that obsolete and the Navy thought it best to scrap her instead letting the whole world see all of her.

 

[kingofnerf]

"It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)" from ACDC's second studio album T.N.T.

 

[kingofnerf]

"Make Me Smile" and "25 or 6 to 4" from Chicago's self-titled second studio album Chicago (also known as Chicago II).

 

[kingofnerf]

"Don't Look Back" from Boston's second studio album of the same name.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

2nd Division

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Infantry_Division_(United_States)