page_title: Kearsarge-class battleship
section_title: USS Kearsarge (BB-5)
hierarchical_section_title: Kearsarge-class battleship / Service histories / USS Kearsarge (BB-5)
caption_attribution_description: Passing through the Gaillard Cut, while transiting the Panama Canal during the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH52037.
context_page_description: The Kearsarge-class was a group of two pre-dreadnought battleships built for the United States Navy in the 1890s. The two ships—USS Kearsarge and USS Kentucky—represented a compromise between two preceding battleship designs, the low-freeboard Indiana class and the high-freeboard USS Iowa, though their design also incorporated several improvements. Their primary advances over earlier designs consisted of new quick-firing guns and improved armor protection, but their most novel feature was their two-story gun turrets that consisted of a secondary 8-inch gun turret fixed to the top of their primary 13-inch turrets. The ships suffered from a number of problems, however, including a tertiary battery mounted too low in the hull and poorly-designed turrets, though the latter were attempted again with the Virginia class in the early 1900s, also with negative results.
  Kearsarge served as the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron after entering service, while Kentucky was initially sent to East Asia. In 1904, Kearsarge was temporarily transferred to the European Squadron, also serving as its flagship.
context_section_description: Kearsarge was laid down on 30 June 1896. She was launched on 24 March 1898 and was commissioned on 20 February 1900. From 1900 to 1905, Kearsarge served as flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron, except for a short period in 1904 when she was reassigned as flagship of the European Squadron. In 1905, the battleship Maine replaced Kearsarge as flagship of the North Atlantic Fleet, although she remained with the fleet. In April, the ship suffered an explosion in her forward 13-inch turret that killed ten of its crew; Isadore Nordstrom and George Breeman both received the Medal of Honor, the former for rescuing several badly wounded men and the latter for preventing the fire from reaching the propellant magazines.
  In 1907, the Great White Fleet was ordered by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to circle the world as a demonstration of the might of the United States Navy. Kearsarge was attached to the Fourth Division of the Second Squadron. The fleet left from Hampton Roads on 16 December 1907, circled South America, passed through San Francisco, and arrived at Hawaii. From there they sailed to New Zealand and Australia, visited the Philippine Islands, Japan, China, and Ceylon before transiting the Suez Canal. The fleet split at Port Said to visit various ports, with Kearsarge leaving for Malta and Algiers, before reforming with the rest of the fleet at Gibraltar. The ships arrived back in Hampton Roads on 22 February 1908.
  Between 1909 and 1911, Kearsarge was modernized at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and thereafter was placed in reserve. She was recommissioned on 23 June 1915 and operated along the Atlantic coast for the next two years as a training ship for naval militia from Massachusetts and Maine. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, she was used to train armed guard crews and naval engineers during cruises along the Atlantic seaboard. Following the end of the war, she continued training duties until being decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on either 10 May or 18 May 1920.
  Kearsarge was converted into a crane ship, and was given hull classification symbol IX-16 on 17 July 1920, but it was changed to AB-1 on 5 August. Her turrets, superstructure, and armor were removed, and were replaced by a large revolving crane with a lifting capacity of 250 long tons (254 t), as well as 10-foot (3 m) blisters, which improved her stability. The crane ship was used often over the next 20 years, including the raising of USS Squalus in 1939. On 6 November 1941, Kearsarge was renamed Crane Ship No. 1, allowing her name to be given to the aircraft carrier that was eventually renamed Hornet, and later to the carrier Kearsarge. She continued her service, however, handling guns, turrets, armor, and other heavy lifts for vessels such as the battleships Indiana, Alabama, and  Pennsylvania and the cruisers Savannah and Chicago. She was transferred to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in 1945, where she participated in the construction of Hornet, the carrier Boxer, and the re-construction of the carrier Saratoga. In 1948, she left the West Coast for the Boston Naval Shipyard. On 22 June 1955, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, and she was sold for scrap on 9 August.
caption: Kearsarge as Crane Ship No. 1 passing through the Panama Canal
exif: {}