AdBlock Detected

It looks like you're using an ad-blocker!

Our team work realy hard to produce quality content on this website and we noticed you have ad-blocking enabled.

Escort Carrier USS Card CVE-11

USS Card ACV-11 underway in February 1943

Escort Carrier USS Card CVE-11

The USS Card (CVE-11) was launched as AVG 11 on February 21, 1942 by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation under a Maritime Commission contract. She was was reclassified as ACV-11 on August 20, 1942 and commissioned on November 8, 1942 with Captain J.B. Sykes in command.

Card’s first operational sortie in late May 1943 was an aircraft ferrying trip from New York to Casablanca in French Morocco. Card then made the return voyage to Norfolk arriving on June 5, 1943. Ten days later she was reclassified as Escort Carrier Card (CVE-11). She became one of the first of fourteen US CVEs around which US anti-submarine hunter killer groups would be centered. During her participation in the Battle of the Atlantic, Card and her escorts sank 11 German U-boats.

After the war, she was reclassified as a helicopter escort carrier CVHE-11, 12 June 1955; a utility carrier CVU-11, 1 July 1958; and an aviation transport AKV-40, 7 May 1959.

In 1964, while operating as an aircraft ferry, Card was sunk with explosives planted by two Viet Cong commandos in the Harbor of Saigon, South Vietnam. She was refloated 17 days later and returned to service after extensive repairs.

Card was placed in reserve, on 10 March 1970, was sold for scrapping on 14 May 1971.

Photographs of USS Card CVE-11

World War Two

Post World War Two

Aircraft Operations

Grumman TBF Avenger

US Navy Battleship USS Oregon BB-3

USS Oregon seen off a west coast port between 1913 and 1916.

US Pre-Dreadnought Battleship USS Oregon BB-3

USS Oregon (BB-3) was a pre-dreadnought Indiana-class battleship of the United States Navy. Commissioned on July 15, 1896, at San Francisco, California she initially served with the Pacific Squadron. However, with tensions rising with Spain, following the explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbour, Cuba, she was ordered to the East coast. Arriving shortly before the start of the Spanish–American War she took part in the blockade of Santiago de Cuba, which culminated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, where Oregon contributed to the destruction of the Spanish squadron in Cuba.

After the war, Oregon was deployed to the Asiatic Squadron, serving during the Philippine–American War and the Boxer Rebellion in Qing China. The ship returned to the United States in 1906 when she was decommissioned and placed in reserve for the next five years during which she was modernized. Reactivated in 1911, Oregon spent the next several years cruising off the West Coast of the United States frequently going in and out of service. During World War I she served as a training ship for naval cadets and as a convoy escort.

Oregon became a museum ship in her name-sake state in the early 1920s. In 1942, it was decided to scrap the ship for the war effort, but the navy changed its mind and converted her to an ammunition hulk (IX-22) for the invasion of Guam in 1944. Following the war she was sold for scrap in 1956.

Photographs of USS Oregon BB-3

General Photographs

USS Oregon in Dry Dock

As IX-22 During World War Two

Being Scrapped

USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300)

USS Prinz Eugen IX_300 anchored in Bikini Lagoon on 14 June 1946

Heavy Cruiser USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300)

Prinz Eugen was an Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser that served with Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down in April 1936, launched in August 1938, and entered service after the outbreak of war, in August 1940.

Prinz Eugen saw action during Operation Rheinübung, an attempted breakout into the Atlantic Ocean with the battleship Bismarck in May 1941. The two ships destroyed the British battlecruiser HMS Hood and moderately damaged the battleship HMS Prince of Wales in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Prinz Eugen was detached from Bismarck during the operation to raid Allied merchant shipping, but this was cut short due to engine troubles. After putting into occupied France and undergoing repairs, the ship participated in Operation Cerberus, a daring daylight dash through the English Channel back to Germany. In February 1942, Prinz Eugen was deployed to Norway, although her time stationed there was curtailed when she was torpedoed by the British submarine Trident days after arriving in Norwegian waters. The torpedo severely damaged the ship’s stern, which necessitated repairs in Germany. Upon returning to active service, the ship spent several months training officer cadets in the Baltic before serving as artillery support for the retreating German Army on the Eastern Front.

After the war, Prinz Eugen was given over to the U.S. Navy and briefly became USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300). She survived both two atomic bomb blasts at Bikini Atoll in 1946, with only a broken main mast to show for it. Prinz Eugen survived the blasts, but she became frightfully radioactive.

After the tests, Prinz Eugen was towed to Kwajalein Atoll where she ultimately capsized and sank in December 1946. The wreck remains partially visible above the water approximately two miles northwest of Bucholz Army Airfield, on the edge of Enubuj.

Photographs of Prinz Eugen under German control can be found here.

Photographs of USS Prinz Eugen IX-300 Under US Control

Photographs While Undergoing Assessment

Photographs While Being Used During the Atomic Bomb Trials