After losing all of her accompanying ships, she sailed into the private bathtub of the most powerful Naval Power in the world at the time, Spain's Gold Rich Empire on the West Coast of South America, and single handedly looted and plundered without letup, before sailing back to Merry old England and the Queen!
Possibly the most successful solo Raider in all of History!
"When I was a toddler in Europe, my U.S. Diplomat parents relocated a number of times. Ultimately though, my nanny and I would always find them." - Stefdragon
She had class. All there is to it. Labored on LONG after many of her day were gone.
Not to mention that in Avalon Hill's "War At Sea" (the very first war game I ever played much of...30 years ago...) she always seemed to kick butt for me.
Ahh ... the battleship Warspite. She fought bravely at Jutland vs. German battleships in WWI. Many years later, in WWII she hit the Italian Battleship Giulio Cesare at 24, 600 yards with a 15 inch shell. During the evacuation of Crete she was hit by a divebomber. She was repaired in the U.S. and present during the invasion of Italy where she was hit by two bombs. During the D-day invasion, she hit a mine but still performed her bombardment duties without a flaw. She served on until the end of the war, and ran aground on her way to be scrapped. A true "Battleship"!
The Royal Navy always seems to have the best names for warships; Trafalgar, Ark Royal, Invincible, Warspite, Trenchant, Illustrious, Iron Duke, Valiant, etcetera, any others pop to mind...
My favorite is the first ship i served on. She was a ship with pride and a lot of first. She was the first Nuclear Powered Surface Warship, beating out the USS Enterprise by one month. She was the first warship commissioned without guns, although 2 5"38 were later added as was CIWS. She was the first ship with a Phased Array computer controlled Air Defense System. She was the first ship to Circumnavigate the globe without refueling. She was the first to shoot down a supersonic aircraft with a Surface to Air Missile (TALOS).
She was the last true cruiser in the U.S. Inventory weighing in at 17,400 tons (Ticonderoga CG's are around 11,000 tons). She had steal plates below the maindeck and a partial maindeck with wood planking. Two luxuries that disappeared soon after she was commissioned. She wasn't pretty with classic lines. In fact she was top heavy and tended to exaggerate rolls. She was originally to be commissioned with the hull number CG(N)-160 but was actually commissioned as CGN-9. She was the gap between the gun navy of WW II and the modern missile equipped navy of today. She was the USS LONGBEACH
The fact that she was commissioned the same year I was born didn't hurt either.
Ask General Eisenhower if he wants me to give it back. -General George S. Patton when being told of a message that he was not to take Mesina, Sicily.
The Longbeach was truly a revolutionary design. Though I wouldn't want to be anywhere in that superstructure when the missiles/shells started flying. Luckily they didn't.
My favorite USN warship from that time would be the USS Leahy though.
Peux Ce Que Veux
in den vereinigten staaten hergestellt
My first ship as I stated earlier was the Longbeach and she will always be my favorite, but I also served on a Leahy class. The USS Dale (CG-19). After NTU (New Threat Upgrade) they became ships with great AAW capabilities, the only problem is that by this time the hulls and propulsion plants were reaching a mid life crisis stage. Yea, it felt good when we got to show the new "Aegis" boats that they held nothing over on the tried and true. We could and often did outrange them utilizing our SM-2 ER birds. The new CG's were limited to the MR birds due to magazine design.
Those were the days:D
Just a little self history: USS Longbeach(CGN-9), USS Deyo(DD-989), USS Elmer Montgomery(FF-1082), USS Dale(CG-19), USS Monterey(CG-61). Also I did two years in Guantanamo Bay at Fleet Training Group and rode just about everthing in the Atlantic Fleet, from the USS Theodore Roosevelt(CVN-71), USS Iowa(BB-61) to the USS Sphinx (ARL-34) and everything in between. That was a great tour of duty!!!!!
Ask General Eisenhower if he wants me to give it back. -General George S. Patton when being told of a message that he was not to take Mesina, Sicily.
When I was a kid I saw pictures of the Enterprise and Longbeach steaming side by side with those big slab sided superstructures for the SPS33 radar ... they looked invincible! I tried to build a plastic model of the big "E" but I screwed up all the aircraft and lost them in my schoolyard ... I still love that picture though!
