Top 10 Ships that Should Have Been Saved as Museums

hi i'm ryan samanski curator for battleship new jersey museum and memorial today our video is on the top 10 ships that i believe should have been preserved as museums uh so what are my criteria for this first off uh these are my opinions as an individual they're not the museum's opinions they're not anybody else's opinions these are the ships that i think should have been saved and they're all ships which had a chance of being saved so many of these uh there was a they were proposed to be turned into museums and for a number of reasons it fell through uh just a reminder i'm here in the united states where we have the most museum ships of anywhere in the world the bulk of the ships on my list are american but i would love to hear from you guys i know we've got a global audience out there which ships do you believe should have been saved as museums i really want to see your lists down in the comments section down below all right so starting out in the number 10 spot and i should say this list i'm specifically naming individual ships i'm going to make another video that'll probably come up in another week or two where i talk about the top 10 types of ships that should be saved so for example i believe great britain should have saved a battleship i'm going to talk about that in a future video um this one is specifically i am naming my top 10. and in the number 10 spot i have uss alden alden was a four stack destroyer i absolutely adore the four pipers i think they're gorgeous ships i think they are one of the most uniquely american types of ships ever built these ships were built during world war one to help with the first u-boat menace they served throughout the inner war period as the bulk of the us navy's scouting and screening destroyer force and then uh at the very end of their life cycles they served throughout uh world war ii in all theaters a number of them met grizzly ends a number of them were converted into other jobs aviation tenders or anti-aircraft ships or mine sweepers or mine layers and it was a large group of ships over 250 of them spread around a couple of different classes and so i believe that the united states should have preserved a representative member of this class i picked alden on a whim she was one of the ships that survived the war and she was still more or less in her original configuration which is uh why i picked her i'm not sold on alden as the representative for stacker maybe you guys have a different four piper that you would have liked to have seen let us know in the comment section down below but she's she's my representative here alden was scrapped in 1945 and there was no movement to specifically save her as a museum in 1945 there were no museumships in the world however president roosevelt had always wanted to create a national museum of the us navy in washington dc and his plan always included saving five ships he wanted the cruiser olympia which was still around as a museum ship he wanted uss constitution uss constellation which both survived as museum ships uss hartford that's going to come up later on this list and uh a four stack destroyer to show the more modern wars the ship was in so that would cover vessels from the war of 1812 and the barbary wars the civil war the spanish-american war world war one uh and world war ii all in one museum the major naval wars of this country with representative ships throughout when he died this plan was still in the works he had a foundation set up to run it ships like the cruiser olympia went into dry dock to be prepared for this museum uss hartford was moved from where she had been stored as a hawk to dc for inclusion in this museum but when he died the i won't say that the idea died with him because people still push for this type of museum but the impetus for doing it immediately ended and here we are 80 years later still without such a national museum a number of people mention on here that they think it would be great if we grouped all of the museum ships into one museum i think that's terrible there are a couple of multi-ship museums that are operating successfully but i would never take all of the museum ships or even a large number of museum ships and put them in one place people who are in two ships are going to go and see a ship whether it's one vessel or two vessels or 10 vessels people who aren't in the ships are not going to come to the museum because there are 10 ships as opposed to one so for the same number of visitors you have multiple ships to take care of as opposed to a single one the key to roosevelt's museum idea was that it was probably going to be supported by the federal government and by the u.s navy and maybe with government funding a museum like this could be successful without government funding there's no way that you could group ships that old together in one place and expect to be able to preserve them long term number nine the battleship uss washington washington was uh built just before world war ii or just before the united states entered world war ii she fought um she fought the japanese battleship kirishima during the naval battle of guadalcanal and sunk her and then she served throughout the rest of world war ii shortly after the war along with most of the other battleships she was decommissioned she was scrapped in 1961. by 1961 different states had formed commissions to save their respective battleships texas had been saved in 1948 and right around that same 1961 time frame north carolina alabama and massachusetts all managed to save their ships washington was not saved south dakota was not saved indiana was not saved parts from south dakota were salvaged she could very easily be on this list in place of washington but we do have two south dakota class ships already we do also have the other north carolina class battleship north carolina herself which is why washington is in the number nine slot at the uh near the bottom of the list here but she was a historically significant ship unfortunately scrapped at the very very beginning of the concept of a modern museum ship number eight uss barb museum ships are not necessarily preserved because they're the most historically significant vessels i'm giving you a list of 10 uh historically significant vessels here but the ones that are saved aren't necessarily important often times we find reasons to make them important for example the submarine torsk in baltimore that i worked on for a period of time she sank the last japanese vessels of world war ii is that enough of a reason to preserve a vessel arguably no um how did she get preserved she happened to be being disposed of at the time that the city of baltimore was looking to create waterfront attractions and so the city was able to acquire her and it's great that she was preserved there's something like 18 world war ii fleet type submarines preserved and maybe half of them are historically significant i'd argue that only two or three of them are really historically significant if i had to pick 18 world war ii era submarines to save in the united states i would maybe pick three off of the list that were actually saved the one that wasn't saved that's on the top of my list here is uss barb now barb is pretty low on my list in the number eight slot because so many other fleet type submarines exist but she's the most historically significant i feel that was lost she was admiral flucky's boat uh and she had i believe the fourth highest tonnage of kills for american submarines of course tang with the highest tonnage of uh ships sunk was lost herself during the war and so could not be preserved barb wasn't scrapped until 1972 when the museum concept had the museum ship concept had proven viable in this country and a number of museum ships were operating successfully following world war ii when barb was decommissioned she was given to italy and italy operated her for a couple of years and then in the 1970s sold her for a hundred thousand dollars for scrap and admiral flucky famously said that had he and his crew known that the ship was being sold for scrap they would have been able to raise the hundred thousand dollars to go and save her and turn her into a museum ship and that has been successfully done by a number of museum groups they've gone over to uh foreign countries that were still operating american ships even into relatively recent times and were able to acquire them and bring them back uss slater is perhaps the biggest example of that although an lst was brought over under similar circumstances and is is operating very effectively so i have no doubts that had flucky known his boat was being scrapped he could have garnered the support to open her as a museum uh and she would have been successful and vastly significant in the number seven position i have the battleship uss oregon mckinley's bulldog served during the spanish-american war and was famously able to run from the west coast of the united states all the way around south america because we didn't have a panama canal yet and join the atlantic fleet by sailing through the caribbean and meeting up with the rest of the u.s navy she could have easily been destroyed in detail by spanish forces in the caribbean if she had been caught and she made that run at ridiculously high speeds for an old tub of a ship that was steam powered by men shoveling coal into boilers so the fact that her black gang the soot covered stokers were able to maintain a high speed all the way around the american continent to get her uh to join the rest of the fleet is really significant their training their their experience in doing that caused oregon to be the fastest of the american battleships during the battle of santiago on july 3rd 1898 when the spanish cruiser squadron fled santiago so only the american armored cruisers and oregon were able to chase them down effectively and damage them enough that the rest of the american fleet could catch them and so oregon was a hugely famous and popular ship in her day in 1922 the washington naval treaty would have caused her to be scrapped along with all of the other american pre-dreadnought battleships and there are no pre-dreadnought battleships left in the united states there's only one left in the world the japanese battleship mikasa and so by 19 in 1922 washington naval treaty says she needs to be demilitarized for most american battleships that means scrapping however a clause in the treaty says that if you disable engineering you disable the guns you disable armor plating functionally the ship is no longer a battleship you can maintain her and the us navy did this with a couple of other pre-dreadnoughts however in 1925 they determined that oregon was the most historically significant of them and they loaned her to the state of oregon to be operated as a museum so really that makes oregon the first steel hauled warship museum in this country possibly in the world in 1942 the us government retracted the loan because they thought the vessel would be more useful as scrap metal so they took her on december 7th 1942 the very day that battleship new jersey was launched and they started to scrap her about halfway through the process after the superstructure and the guns and everything above the main deck had been removed they got the idea that hey we're about to invade guam we could probably use this hawk as a breakwater you mean sinker in the harbor or maybe as an ammunition storage ship and so they towed her to guam but what was left of her and they left her there until 1956. at one point a typhoon caused her to break her moorings and run 500 nautical miles away before a massive sea and air search was able to locate her and drag her back and then in 1956 she was towed to japan and scrapped uh and that's a common feature of many of the ships on my list uh is they refuse to die and uh when they are finally sold for scrap i believe uh unwarranted they run away and they put up a fight and so oregon put up her fight but eventually in 1956 was scrapped in japan in my number six spot i have the battle cruiser yavas or sultan salim yavis or gobin yavez was not scrapped until 1973. she served in the turkish navy through world war one and world war ii and as a member of the nato fleet during the cold war there are some great pictures out there of her tied up side by side with battleship mizora post world war ii when the united states used missouri to take the turkish ambassador back to istanbul yavis started life as the imperial german battle cruiser gobin and quite famously early in world war one she was isolated from germany and rather than fleeing for home ran for turkey and the germans traded her for turkey in exchange for turkey entering the war or i guess at that point the ottoman empire in exchange for them entering the war on the side of the central powers so by giving up a battleship that they would have otherwise lost uh battle cruiser that they would have otherwise lost they bring another major power into the war on their side a great exchange and and turkey the ottoman empire continues to run gobin with a joint german and turkish crew throughout the war she is basically the most powerful warship in the black fleet for her entire career she's not decommissioned until 1954 in 1965 the turkish government offers her to the west germans to turn her into a museum ship at that point she's the only imperial german ship of any consequence left anywhere in the world the last member of the high seas fleet the last battle cruiser and the only dreadnought type ship left anywhere in the world besides the battleship texas which is already successfully operating as a museum at this point the west germans turn the turks down they hold her for about another decade and then scrap her and so this ship she's historically significant sure but in terms of her design and development is massively significant so losing this last uh connection to battle cruisers the high seas fleet world war one and the dreadnought era was a true loss to mankind number five uss hartford hartford was a wooden hall steam-powered frigate she served as admiral farragut's flagship during the battle of mobile bay and was on her decks well tied up in her rigging that admiral farragut famously says damned the torpedoes full speed ahead and runs his fleet into mobile bay to engage confederate ironclads and shore batteries and eventually is able to take the bay hartford was preserved like many wooden hauled ships in the years after the civil war and used as a floating barrackship a storeship aware warehouse ship in a number of places throughout the country uh and was one of those most significant ships still in existence that roosevelt earmarked for inclusion in his national museum of the us navy so she was taken to dc and she was left there and she sat there from the late 40s until 1956 when the lack of attention and maintenance caused her to sink at her moorings which point she possibly could have been raised and preserved however she was broken up and scrapped instead during the time that hartford languished constitution had gone through two major restoration efforts which famously restored the ship and preserved her allowing her to be left and constellation had been towed to baltimore to be opened as a museum so constellation is another civil war era wooden hall vessel which was preserved under similar circumstances so hartford could very well have been salvaged and had she been salvaged she could still very well be in existence today number four uss cabot cabot was an independence class light carrier she served throughout world war ii in both the atlantic and the pacific and in the post-war years she was given to spain as uh spanish navy's only aircraft carrier delgado when the spanish navy decommissioned her 1989 she was given to a u.s organization which had formed to turn her into a museum this happens in 1990 she's towed to new orleans and she languishes there for a decade while this organization tries to get their stuff together because she was donated from spain and not from the navy they had much less strict guidelines for acquiring the vessel and they didn't have a good financial plan in place around 2000 after uh a decade of no work being done and no money being raised to pay for her birthing fees she was cut up for scrap and by 2001 she ceased to exist she would have been the only example of light or escort carriers of which we built over a hundred during world war ii and so her loss is a massive loss to that period of history there are five aircraft carrier museums in this country that are all operating perfectly fine so there's no reason to believe that she wouldn't have been able to she would have been moored on the gulf coast which has traditionally been a pretty favorable place for museum ships to be however the organization running her just couldn't get their stuff together the ship was scrapped uh major parts of the ship including the entire island were salvaged and went to other museums the island the museum that the island was taken to went defunct and closed and the island was eventually scrapped so unfortunately cabot was unlucky as a museum ship and her loss and her organization's inability to get their stuff together gives other legitimate museum ships a bad name and their incompetence destroyed our maritime history in my number three spot i have another ship arguably lost to incompetence that is hms implacable formerly the friendship du gaye truen which uh check if you actually speak french tell me the right way to pronounce that in the comment section down below she was a 74 gun ship of the line which was sunk by the royal navy in nineteen forty nine dugay truan had been built around uh 1800 she served throughout the napoleonic wars uh she was one of only a handful of friendships to survive the battle of trafalgar in french colors although she was captured within a month and then she served in the royal navy all the way up until 1949. she would have been the only example of the 74 gun ship of the line left in the world today which was the real workhorse of the napoleonic wars only hms victory was an older museumship than her in the united kingdom so this vessel was hugely significant for um this major period of global conflict following world war ii with post-war austerity measures great britain began to get rid of a lot of the ships in its fleet including recently built ships but also going back to the older uh sailing vessels that were still being used as store ships and warehouse is basically the same thing that hartford was kept around for in the united states and they offered her back to france so that the french could turn her into a museum well unfortunately france was in no better condition than great britain in the post-war years and they turned them down so the british a british and french flag on hms implacable towed her into the english channel set scuttling charges and sunk her and this happened recently enough that there are photographs of them doing this by the time that they do this texas is already operating as a museum ship and so she could have been saved unfortunately in the united kingdom which uh has arguably more naval tradition than in the united than in the united states there are uh far fewer ships preserved and a far smaller percentage of ships preserved in my number two spot hms war spite war spite has perhaps the greatest name ever given to a battleship she served throughout world war one where she was heavily damaged during the battle of jutland throughout world war ii where she fought in basically all theaters of conflict the mediterranean the atlantic the indian ocean she was hit by a guided missile for christ's sake like she she served from basically uh the dreadnought era into the age of missiles and she was decommissioned after world war ii like many of the other pre-war battleships around the world in 1947 she was scrapped alongside all of her other dreadnought sister ships in the united kingdom however warspite throughout her career was able to earn 15 battle honors the the british equivalent of the american battle stars making her i believe the most decorated vessel in royal navy history and so arguably if you were going to save any royal navy battleship and it's a crime that none of them were saved she would have been the one to keep war spike did not go down without a fight on her way being towed to the scrappers she parted uh her toe line and ran aground after tremendous effort trying to raise the ship she ran aground again in the effort to raise the ship she badly damaged at least two of the salvage vessels and she had to be partially dismantled in place before finally being scrapped and she remains the largest salvage operation ever conducted in the united kingdom this ship said to have had a mind of her own in combat often her steering failed famously at jutland she veered out of the line of battle uh to take fire off of the british armored cruiser squadron that was being shot to pieces and suffered a lot of damage in that way at other times during her career she also suffered steering casualties which caused her to veer out of the line of battle into positions that helped her save other ships or proved advantageous to the british and she always got away she took damage for sure but she always got away uh during the battle of norvik she obliterated a german destroyer squadron like i said in the mediterranean she takes a cruise missile hit a guided glide bomb but she she takes a very modern hit that she was never designed to she provided gunfire support during the invasion of normandy how this ship was saved i will never know and now in the number one spot you guys have probably guessed it uss enterprise cv6 the big e is perhaps the most historically significant ship in the u.s navy she earned 20 battle stars the only ship to ever earn more than battleship new jersey she was basically the only carrier in the pacific for large parts of world war ii she participated in the doolittle raid on japan she was one of halsey's flagships she fought throughout the guadalcanal campaign her squadrons were instrumental to the american victory at midway uh her her list of battle honors goes on and on i cannot name all the battle she was in from from memory she was in so many of them this ship took hit after hit after hit and was repaired and thrown back into the fight only to take more hits and during this time sister carriers like lexington yorktown hornet and wasp all succumbed while she took similar levels of punishment but always got back into the fight she was not scrapped until 1958 and as early as 1946 the state of new york was working with the navy to take this ship as a museum ship they had admiral halsey's support and they still weren't able to garner enough uh support to make it happen so by 1949 that that plan had fallen out and again 1958 she is finally scrapped unfortunately the u.s navy had a number of much more modern carriers and so they were looking to get rid of her fast if she had been held in the reserve fleet like a number of the more modern battleships she would have probably fared better because she was being gotten rid of at the very very beginning of museum ships and so we didn't know how to operate museum ships yet they weren't able to garner enough support uh and perhaps the most historically significant vessel in the entire navy was lost so that just uh further proves that we don't choose to preserve the most historically significant vessels as museums we we choose the ones that resonate with us we choose the ones that are available at the time or we don't choose we reach out and say hey we want a museum ship to revitalize the failing economy in x city or y city and you end up with the ship you can get pretty famously recently the city of mayport florida has been trying to get a museum ship and they've bounced at one point i think they were looking for an aircraft carrier uh they've tried to get more modern chips they tried to get uss atoms and now they're trying to get the uss orlick uh they're just trying to get whichever ship they can uh in this case orlick is massively historically significant and has already operated as a museum ship but they aren't necessarily trying to get the best one they're trying to get whatever's available and that's the case with most museum ships should all four iowa class battleships be preserved arguably no only one of them is enough of an example but all four iowas were around and available in the heyday of museumship acquisition and so they have all been preserved should they have been preserved when the standard type battleships that survived the attack on pearl harbor were scrapped maybe not were south dakota and washington more historically significant than uh the iowas or north carolina or the surviving south dakotas arguably they were and yet they were not the ones that were able to garner support to be saved so i really want to see you guys's list of top 10 vessels to be saved down the comment section again i'm going to make another video in the next couple of weeks that is the top 10 types of ships i would like to see an example of preserved which will be more nebulous i won't be naming specific ships like warspite i will be saying hey i wish we had saved any british battleship i don't care if it was vanguard with no historical significance or dreadnought which exemplifies an entire type an entire revolution-enabled design so for this video make your comments pretty specific on the names of ships which ship do would i have liked to have seen that i didn't include on this list the american large cruiser uss alaska that's my honorable mention she's not historically significant to make this list but darn it she's purdy battleship new jersey receives operating support from the new jersey department of state we also receive support from a number of other organizational and individual sponsors including viewers like you there's a link in the description for ways you can donate your support has allowed us to go from making one video a week to making five videos a week so remember to like share and subscribe so that you're notified when we put out more content thanks for watching

Channel: Battleship New Jersey

Views: 162,352

Rating: 4.9160466 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: KV6fS46l584

Length: 33min 29sec (2009 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/IronGearGaming]

On top of my head, id sure saved Enterprise, and those two axis capital ship left. (The one who was with bismark when hood lost the hood.) and that jap one who was in hiding. And the dreadnought