Page 8. MAINE COASTAL NEWS August 2014 UNITED STATES NAVY NEWS
Naval History and Heritage Receives Artifacts from CSS Alabama By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tim Comerford, Naval History and Heritage Command, Communication and Outreach Division
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Naval History and Heritage Command’s (NHHC) Under- water Archeology Branch (UAB) received more than 30 conserved artifacts from the sunken confederate ship, CSS Alabama, to add to the command’s collection, June 23. The artifacts, consisting of two wooden boxes, a partial gunstock, a copper alloy bolt, pieces of wood from cannons, ropes, leather and cloth, came from Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston, South Carolina.
The two wooden boxes, delivered in good condition, excited NHHC’s UAB team. They contained additional historic treasures - two pieces of ordnance that have been rendered inert. Scientists spent years preparing the artifacts for exhibit. “It was recovered as one piece - the top actually lifts off and you still have the shell actually inside,” said Kate Morrand, NHHC Underwater Archeology Conservator, of the wooden box containing the cannon ball. “It’s a pretty complex piece and it has taken sev- eral years to treat it completely. They look the same as when they were recovered.” Experts do not know why the shells were placed inside the boxes. “A lot of the research that we have done shows that ammunition that has been mass produced was usually all packed together,” Morrand said. “But, for whatever reason, this one was on its own.”
While these artifacts represent a large portion of the objects recovered, there are more.
“There are two or three more pieces that are still under treatment,” Morrand
explained. “But, the majority of the artifacts have been stabilized and are here on loan. We have several hundred pieces from that site alone.”
These artifacts will help the scientists interpret the site of ship.
“First we are going to study them and how they relate to the ship, to each other and the rest of the collection. Then we are hoping to put them on display,” Morrand said. “They are beautiful artifacts.” CSS Alabama, built by John Laird Sons and Company of Liverpool, England, was commissioned on August 24, 1862. Its mis- sion was to wreak havoc on Union warships and Union-backed merchant ships, which it did for nearly two years.
On June 14, 1864, after 22 months of
near-constant sailing, Alabama arrived in Cherbourg, France and requested permis- sion to dock for a maintenance overhaul. After hearing CSS Alabama was near-
by, sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge, which had been pursuing the raider, headed to Cherbourg and a few days later, began pa- trolling just outside of the harbor. On June 19, still waiting for permission to dock for repairs, Alabama sailed out of Cherbourg to engage Kearsarge. Approximately one hour after fi ring the fi rst shot, Alabama had been reduced to a sinking hulk.
The ship was rediscovered, 120 years after its loss, off the coast of Cherbourg by the French Navy and was later confi rmed to be the CSS Alabama. Since 1993, an American and French team of archaeologists have been at site of the sunken ship removing at-risk artifacts and studying the conditions of the ship.
Navy Looks to Biofuels to Sail the Great Green Fleet in 2016
By Mark Matsunaga, U.S. Pacifi c Fleet Public Affairs
Just Released
Adventures and History from Downeast Maine By Arthur S. Woodward, Beals Island
Lobster Smacks, Lobsters, Lobster Boats, Beals “Lobster Island”
Adventures and History from Downeast Maine...
Great Stories About: Lobster Smacks Old Jonesporters Early Lobster Boat Racing A Truck Driver's Recollection Towing the Beals Bridge Views from the Pilothouse Buying Lobsters and Coastal Sea Stories And much, much more.
$20.00
Plus $3.00 for shipping and handling To order write: Maine Coastal News,
By Arthur S. Woodward
P. O. Box 710, Winterport, ME 04496 or call (207) 223-8846
KUSTOM STEEL
PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- Ships and aircraft in the next Rim of the Pacifi c (RIMPAC) Exercise could be running on biofuels, and they won’t even need to know it, according to speakers at an Alternative Fuels Overview briefi ng for RIMPAC 2014 participants. The briefi ng drew over 40 offi cers and
offi cials from seven nations - Australia, Brunei, Chile, Colombia, Japan, Mexico and the United States.
Joelle Simonpietri, U.S. Pacifi c Com-
mand’s operational manager for energy and contingency basing, spelled out the need to develop alternative fuels in order to reduce a major driver of confl ict. This is especially true in the Pacifi c, which has the world’s largest energy demand and lowest fossil energy resources; where the “tyranny of distance” is most acute, and everything must travel long distances. She also noted that only a handful of the 36 nations in the Indo-Asia-Pacifi c region are petroleum ex- porters.
Fossil fuel price volatility has meant that “in several of the past 10 years, the U.S. Department of Defense has had to do signifi cant budget machinations,” Simon- pietri said. Development of alternative fuels closer to operations shortens and diversifi es supply lines. It can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and foster “good neighbor” cooperation among nations.
Simonpietri said Department of De-
fense Alternative Fuel Policy requires that replacement fuels must be “drop-in” fuels and meet existing fuel specifi cations. The biofuels must utilize existing transportation and distribution infrastructure and require no modifi cations to weapons platforms. Moreover, these alternative fuels must be cost-competitive with petroleum fuel and have lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions that are no worse than conventional fuels while also complying with existing pro- curement, energy, health and safety laws and regulations. Biofuels can be made from a variety of feedstocks, including crop residues, woody biomass, dedicated energy crops, vegetable oils, animal fats, and algae. Simonpietri also made the important point that biofuel production must complement rather than compete with food crops. The “drop-in biofuel” the Defense Department wants is not the same as the familiar ethanol and biodiesel -- fi rst- and
second-generation biofuels -- that are used in cars and trucks. What the Defense Depart- ment is pursuing is third-generation biofuel “drop-in” replacements for diesel and jet fu- els that are used in aircraft and ships. These biofuels are much more advanced, have far less oxygen than ethanol and biodiesel, and contain the same energy density as their petroleum-based counterparts. Chris Tindal, director for operational
energy in the Offi ce of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, said that in RIMPAC 2012 the Navy successfully demonstrated the Great Green Fleet, oper- ating a carrier strike group’s surface ships and aircraft with a biofuel blend without incident. In fact, the Great Green Fleet 2012 demonstration was a signifi cant milestone of the Navy’s testing and certifi cation program for “drop-in” biofuels derived from used cooking oils and algae. The next milestone, Tindal said, is 2016, when the Navy intends to “sail the Great Green Fleet 2016.”
Rather than one group of ships, he said, the Navy plans for biofuels to comprise up to 50 percent of the fuel used by deploying ships and aircraft throughout the fl eet in calendar year 2016. Procurement has al- ready begun for advanced drop-in biofuels. Selection of platforms and locations for the 2016 effort will happen later. However, biofuel use in the Navy will not end at the conclusion of 2016 after the sailing of the Great Green Fleet, as “it will mark the start of the Navy’s ‘New Normal,’” Tindal said. Leading up to that milestone, the Navy has already issued solicitations for opera- tional quantities of alternative fuel in the Western U.S. and Western Pacifi c. Alterna- tive fuels could be purchased and distributed through Navy oilers as early as January 2015. He and Simonpietri stressed that in order to be accepted for Defense Department use, biofuels or biofuel blends must be virtu- ally indistinguishable from their fossil fuel equivalents. Because of that, participants in RIMPAC 2016 could very well be operating on biofuels without needing to be aware of it.
Tindal and Simonpietri encouraged the foreign members of the audience to facil- itate government cooperation, and offered to share U.S. test and certifi cation data for alternative fuels. They also encouraged the offi cers to consider future possibilities where their nation could both supply fuel to the U.S. Department of Defense and produce it for their own military and aviation use. RIMPAC is a multinational maritime exercise that takes place in and around the Hawaiian islands and Southern California. Twenty-two nations, 49 ships, six subma- rines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in the biennial exercise from June 26 - Aug. 1. The world’s largest international mari- time exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps foster and sustain cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security in the world’s oceans. RIMPAC 2014 is the 24th exercise in the series that began in 1971.
Anzio Crew Provides Critical Commu- nity Assistance
Looking to have metal work done at a reasonable cost? Welding a specialty!
Also marina slips with lots of parking and storage available. Call: (207) 991-1953
South Main Street, Brewer, Maine 04412
By Lt. Cmdr. Kristine Garland, Navy Offi ce of Community Outreach
EASTPORT, Maine (NNS) -- Crew mem- bers of the Ticonderoga-class guided-mis- sile cruiser USS Anzio (CG 68) provided critical community aid during the ship’s port visit here, helping to extinguish a house fi re July 5.
Continued on Page 22.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32