I need info on the mothball fleet in 1941.

[OpanaPointer]

I can find all kinds of references to the active ships, but not the ones in mothballs. My google-fu is weak today. I need to know what kinds of ships, and the number of each type, in mothballs. Locations of lay-up nice, but not required.

TIA.

[Sid Guttridge]

Just to clarify, whose mothball fleet? The USA, presumably?

Sid

[OpanaPointer]

Just to clarify, whose mothball fleet? The USA, presumably?

Sid

Yeah, left that out because nobody else had much of one at the time that I know of.

[OpanaPointer]

Found it: http://www.fleetorganization.com/1939decom.html

[Hoist40]

Good list for 1939, I doubt if there is a seperate list online for 1941. I checked some of the ships listed and it appears that by 1941 most were back in commission, including the 50 DD which went to Britain. A few were so old as to be only used as receiving ships and some were scrapped.

Looks like that by the end of 1941 and even earlier they had scrapped the bottom of the barrel of reserve ships. Even the USS Allen DD-66 which was the last of the Sampson Class and built prior to the US joining WW1 and listed as a "Destroyer, Second Line" was in commission and serving at Pearl Harbor where it fired the first shots of the war at a Japanese mini sub

[OpanaPointer]

That was the Worden, Lt. Cmdr. Outerbridge in command.

[USS ALASKA]

Very interesting list - cool to see which ships were brought back like Oregon.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

[Hoist40]

That was the Worden, Lt. Cmdr. Outerbridge in command.

We are both wrong but you are closer so you win

It was the USS Ward, DD139 with Lt. Cmdr. Outerbridge

USS Worden (DD-352) was also at Pearl and shot down an aircraft and dropped depth charges but was not the first

[OpanaPointer]

Yeah, my bad. The next Worden was a sistership to one of my commands.

But I got Outerbridge right.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Opanapointer,

The only other significant Navy with ships laid up was Chile. It was the third largest fleet in the Pacific, but the country had been, according to the League of Nations, the hardest hit of all by the Great Depression and so had to lay up vessels. The British tried to buy all its destroyers in 1939 and the USA considered buying up its battleship as well following Pearl Harbour, but the Chileans discourraged the approaches as they did mot trust the Argentines.The US proposition was less practicable as all the Chilean vessels were British-built.

I guess that, if they were considering acquiring the Chilean Navy, the US had already mobilized most of its mothballed vessels by the end of 1941.

The Chileans themselves put some of their own mothballed destroyers back into service for deployment at Punta Arenas.

Cheers,

Sid.

[OpanaPointer]

Never heard of that before. Thanks!