1.
USS Ranger (CV-61)
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The seventh USS Ranger was one of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Although all four ships of the class were completed with angled decks, commissioned in 1957, she served extensively in the Pacific, especially the Vietnam War, for which she earned 13 battle stars. Near the end of her career, she served in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Ranger appeared on television in The Six Million Dollar Man and Baa Baa Black Sheep, and in the films Top Gun, Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, and was stored at Bremerton, Washington until March 2015. She is currently being scrapped in Brownsville, Ranger was the first American aircraft carrier to be laid down as an angled-deck ship. She was laid down 2 August 1954 by Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, launched 29 September 1956, sponsored by Mrs. Arthur Radford and commissioned at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard 10 August 1957, Captain Charles T. Atlantic Fleet on 3 October 1957, just prior to sailing on 4 October for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for shakedown, she received the men and planes of Attack Squadron 85. She conducted air operations, individual ship exercises, and final acceptance trials along the eastern seaboard and she then departed Norfolk, Virginia, with 200 Naval Reserve officer candidates for a two-month cruise that took the carrier around Cape Horn. She arrived at her new homeport, Naval Air Station Alameda, Alameda, California, on 20 August, the carrier spent the remainder of 1958 in pilot qualification training for Air Group 14 and fleet exercises along the California coast. Air operations off Okinawa were followed by maneuvers with SEATO naval units out of Subic Bay, a special weapons warfare exercise and a patrol along the southern seaboard of Japan followed. During this first WestPac deployment, Ranger launched more than 7,000 sorties in support of 7th Fleet operations and she returned to San Francisco Bay 27 July. During the next 6 months, Ranger was kept in a state of readiness through participation in exercises. With Carrier Air Group 9 embarked, she departed Alameda on 6 February 1960 for a second WestPac deployment, from 11 August 1961 through 8 March 1962, Ranger deployed to the Far East a third time. The next seven months were filled with intensive training along the seaboard in preparation for operations in Southeast Asia. Ranger departed Alameda on 9 November for brief operations off Hawaii, thence proceeded, via Okinawa and she steamed to the South China Sea 1 May 1963 to support possible Laotian operations. When the political situation in Laos relaxed 4 May, she resumed her operations schedule with the 7th Fleet, arriving at Alameda from the Far East 14 June 1963, she underwent overhaul in the San Francisco Naval Shipyard 7 August 1963 through 10 February 1964. Refresher training out of Alameda commenced 25 March, interrupted by a cruise to Hawaii from 19 June to 10 July. Ranger again sailed for the Far East on 6 August 1964 and this deployment came on the heels of the Gulf of Tonkin incident
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Terminal Island
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Terminal Island is a largely artificial island located in Los Angeles County, California, between the neighborhood of San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles, and the city of Long Beach. Terminal Island is roughly split between the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, land use on the island is entirely industrial and port-related, as well as the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island. The island was originally called Isla Raza de Buena Gente and later Rattlesnake Island and it was renamed Terminal Island in 1891. The site chosen for the new plant was on a barren mudflat known as Rattlesnake Island, construction of Plant No.1 began in 1910. In 1930, the Ford Motor Company built a facility called Long Beach Assembly, the factory remained until 1958 when manufacturing operations were moved inland to Pico Rivera. In 1927, a facility, Allen Field, was established on Terminal Island. The Naval Reserve established a center at the field and later took complete control. In 1941 the Long Beach Naval Station became located adjacent to the airfield, in 1942 the Naval Reserve Training Facility was transferred, and a year later NAB San Pedros status was downgraded to a Naval Air Station. Reeves Field as a Naval Air Station was disestablished in 1947, a large industrial facility now covers the site of the former Naval Air Station. The island was home to about 3,500 first- and second-generation Japanese Americans prior to World War II in a known as East San Pedro or Fish Island. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, all of the adult Issei males on Terminal Island were incarcerated by the FBI on February 9,1942. Immediately after the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19,1942 and they were subsequently sent to internment camps, and the entire neighborhood was razed. The Japanese community on Terminal Island was the first to be evacuated and interned en masse, because of the relative geographical isolation of the island, the citizens developed their own culture and even their own dialect. After World War II, the Terminal Islanders settled elsewhere, in 1971, they formed the Terminal Islanders Club, which has organized various events for its members. In 2002, the surviving second-generation citizens set up a memorial on Terminal Island to honor their parents, during World War II, Terminal Island was an important center for defense industries, especially shipbuilding. It was also, therefore, one of the first places where African Americans tried to effect their integration into defense-related work on the West Coast. In 1946, Howard Hughes moved his monstrous Spruce Goose airplane from his plant in Culver City to Terminal Island in preparation for its test flight, in its first and only flight, it took off from the island on November 2,1947. Preservation of vacant buildings earned the island a spot on the top 11 sites on the National Trust for Historic Preservations 2012 Most Endangered Historic Places List, in mid-2013, the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a preservation plan
4.
Long Beach, California
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Long Beach is the 36th most populous city in the United States and the 7th most populous in California. It is located on the Pacific Coast of the United States, as of 2010, its population was 462,257. Long Beach is the second largest city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the Port of Long Beach is the second busiest container port in the United States and is among the worlds largest shipping ports. The city also maintains a progressively declining oil industry with minor wells located both directly beneath the city as well as offshore, manufacturing sectors include those in aircraft, automotive parts, electronic equipment, audiovisual equipment, petrochemicals, precision metals and home furnishings. Long Beach lies in the corner of Los Angeles County. Downtown Long Beach is approximately 22 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles, indigenous people have lived in coastal Southern California for over 10,000 years, and several successive cultures have inhabited the present-day area of Long Beach. By the 16th-century arrival of Spanish explorers, the dominant group were the Tongva people and they had at least three major settlements within the present-day city. Tevaaxaanga was a settlement near the Los Angeles River, while Ahwaanga and Povuunga were coastal villages. Along with other Tongva villages, they were forced to relocate in the century due to missionization, political change. In 1784 the Spanish Empires King Carlos III granted Rancho Los Nietos to Spanish soldier Manuel Nieto, the Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos were divided from this territory. The boundary between the two ran through the center of Signal Hill on a southwest to northeast diagonal. A portion of western Long Beach was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro and its boundaries were in dispute for years, due to flooding changing the Los Angeles River boundary, between the ranchos of Juan Jose Dominguez and Manuel Nieto. In 1843 Jonathan Temple bought Rancho Los Cerritos, having arrived in California in 1827 from New England and he built what is now known as the Los Cerritos Ranch House, a still-standing adobe which is a National Historic Landmark. Temple created a cattle ranch and prospered, becoming the wealthiest man in Los Angeles County. Both Temple and his house played important local roles in the Mexican–American War. On an island in the San Pedro Bay, Mormon pioneers made an attempt to establish a colony. Two years previous Flint, Bixby & Co had also purchased along with Northern California associate James Irvine, to manage Rancho Los Cerritos, the company selected Lewellyns brother Jotham Bixby, the Father of Long Beach. Three years later Bixby bought into the property and would form the Bixby Land Company
5.
San Pedro, Los Angeles
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San Pedro is a community within the city of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909, the Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located within San Pedro. The district has grown from being dominated by the industry to become primarily a working class community within the city of Los Angeles. The site, at the end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The peninsula, including all of San Pedro, was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieleño Native American people for thousands of years, in other areas of the Los Angeles Basin archeological sites date back 8, 000–15,000 years. The Tongva believe they have been here since the beginning of time, once called the lords of the ocean, due to their mastery of oceangoing canoes, many Tongva villages covered the coastline. Their first contact with Europeans in 1542 with João Cabrilho, the Portuguese explorer who also was the first to write of them, chowigna and Suangna were two Tongva settlements of many in the peninsula area, which was also a departure point for their rancherias on the Channel Islands. Legend has it that the Native Americans blessed the land of Palos Verdes, the Tongva called the San Pedro area Chaaw. San Pedro was named for St. Peter of Alexandria, a bishop in Alexandria. His feast day is November 24 on the ecclesiastical calendar of Spain. Santa Catalina Island, named after Catherine of Alexandria, was claimed for the Spanish Empire the next day, on her feast day, in 1602–1603, Sebastián Vizcaíno officially surveyed and mapped the California coastline, including San Pedro Bay, for New Spain. The anglicized pronunciation, popularized by the English-speaking people of Midwestern America, is san-PEE-dro, european settlement began in 1769 as part of an effort to populate California, although trade restrictions encouraged more smuggling than regular business. Rancho San Pedro is the site of the first Spanish land grant in Alta California, the land was granted in 1784 by King Carlos III to Juan Jose Dominguez, a retired Spanish soldier who came to California with the Gaspar de Portolà expedition. When New Spain won its independence from the Spanish Empire and Alta California became part of Mexico, the restrictions were lifted. In 1888, the War Department took control of a tract of land next to the bay and this became Fort MacArthur in 1914 and was a coastal defense site for many years. Woodrow Wilson transferred 200 United States Navy ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1919 when tension arose between the United States and Japan over the fate of China. San Diego Bay was considered too shallow for the largest ships, local availability of fuel oil minimized transportation costs, and consistently good weather allowed frequent gunnery exercises off the nearby Channel Islands of California. The heavy cruisers of the Scouting Force were transferred from the Atlantic to San Pedro in response to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, by 1934,14 battleships, two aircraft carriers,14 cruisers, and 16 support ships were based at San Pedro
6.
Los Angeles International Airport
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It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually. LAX is in the southwestern Los Angeles area along the Pacific Ocean between the neighborhood of Westchester to its north and the city of El Segundo to its immediate south. It is owned and operated by Los Angeles World Airports, an agency of the government of Los Angeles, formerly known as the Department of Airports. In 2015, LAX handled 74,936,256 passengers, the airport holds the claim for the worlds busiest origin and destination airport, and has for many years. To wit, relative to airports, many more travelers begin or end their trips in Los Angeles than use it as a connection. The airport also was the third busiest by aircraft movements. It is also the airport to rank among the top five U. S. airports for both passenger and cargo traffic. It is also notable for being one of the few U. S. airports with four parallel runways, LAX serves as a hub for Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Virgin America. The airport serves as a city for Allegiant Air, Air New Zealand, Qantas, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines. LAX serves as either a hub or focus city for more Mainline US Carriers than any airport in the Country and is the only airport that all three legacy carriers have designated a hub. As the largest international airport on the U. S, West Coast, LAX is a major gateway to and from Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania. With its deep connections to Asia and Latin America in particular, in 1928, the Los Angeles City Council selected 640 acres in the southern part of Westchester for a new airport. The fields of wheat, barley and lima beans were converted into dirt landing strips without any terminal buildings and it was named Mines Field for William W. Mines, the real estate agent who arranged the deal. 1, was erected in 1929 and is in the National Register of Historic Places, Mines Field opened as the airport of Los Angeles in 1930 and the city purchased it to be a municipal airfield in 1937. The name became Los Angeles Airport in 1941 and Los Angeles International Airport in 1949, in the 1930s the main airline airports were Burbank Airport in Burbank and the Grand Central Airport in Glendale. Mines Field did not extend west of Sepulveda Boulevard, Sepulveda was rerouted circa 1950 to loop around the west ends of the extended east–west runways, which by November 1950 were 6,000 feet long. A tunnel was completed in 1953 allowing Sepulveda Boulevard to revert to straight, for the next few years the two runways were 8,500 feet long. Before the 1930s, existing airports used a two-letter abbreviation based on the stations at the airports
7.
Dry dock
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A dry dock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships, boats, the use of dry docks in China goes at least as far back the 10th century A. D. The upper works included several decks with cabins and saloons. After many years, their hulls decayed and needed repairs, so in the Hsi-Ning reign period a palace official Huang Huai-Hsin suggested a plan. A large basin was excavated at the end of the Chin-ming Lake capable of containing the dragon ships. Then so that the quickly filled with water, after which the ships were towed in above the beams. The the water was pumped out by wheels so that the ships rested quite in the air, when the repairs were complete, the water was let in again, so that the ships were afloat once more. The first English and oldest surviving dry dock still in use was commissioned by Henry VII of England at HMNB Portsmouth in 1495 and this dry dock currently holds the worlds oldest commissioned warship, HMS Victory. Possibly the earliest description of a floating dock comes from a small Italian book printed in Venice in 1560, called Descrittione dellartifitiosa machina. In the booklet, an unknown author asks for the privilege of using a new method for the salvaging of a ship and then proceeds to describe. The included woodcut shows a ship flanked by two large floating trestles, forming a roof above the vessel, the ship is pulled in an upright position by a number of ropes attached to the superstructure. The Alfredo da Silva Dry Dock, of the Lisnave Dockyards in Almada, Portugal, was the largest in the world until 2000, harland and Wolff Heavy Industries in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the site of a large dry dock 556 by 93 metres. The massive cranes are named after the Biblical figures Samson and Goliath, Goliath stands 96 m tall, while Samson is taller at 106 m. The Saint-Nazaires Chantiers de lAtlantique owns one of the biggest in the world,1,200 by 60 metres, the largest graving dock of the Mediterranean as of 2009 is at the Hellenic Shipyards S. A. The largest roofed dry dock is at the German Meyer Werft Shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, it is 504 m long,125 m wide, Dry Dock 12 at Newport News Shipbuilding is 662 by 76 metres the largest dry dock in the USA. The largest floating-dock in North America named The Vigorous and it is operated Vigor Industries in Portland, OR, in the Swan Island industrial area along the Willamette River. The keel blocks as well as the block are placed on the floor of the dock in accordance with the docking plan of the ship. Routine use of dry docks is for the graving i. e. the cleaning, removal of barnacles and rust, some fine-tuning of the ships position can be done by divers while there is still some water left to manoeuvre it about
8.
Kriegsmarine
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The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire and the inter-war Reichsmarine, the Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches—along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe —of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s, Kriegsmarine ships were deployed to the waters around Spain during the Spanish Civil War, under the guise of enforcing non-intervention, but in reality supporting the Franco side of the war. In January 1939 Plan Z was ordered, calling for naval parity with the Royal Navy by 1944, however, when World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favour of building submarines and prioritizing land and air forces. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine was Adolf Hitler, who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine, the Kriegsmarines most famous ships were the U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. However, the adoption of convoy escorts, especially in the Atlantic, after the Second World War, the Kriegsmarines remaining ships were divided up amongst the Allied powers and were used for various purposes including minesweeping. Adolf Hitler was the Commander-in-Chief of all German armed forces, including the Kriegsmarine and his authority was exercised through the Oberkommando der Marine, or OKM, with a Commander-in-Chief, a Chief of Naval General Staff and a Chief of Naval Operations. The first Commander-in-Chief of the OKM was Erich Raeder who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichsmarine when it was renamed and reorganized in 1935, Raeder held the post until falling out with Hitler after the German failure in the Battle of the Barents Sea. He was replaced by Karl Dönitz on 30 January 1943 who held the command until he was appointed President of Germany upon Hitlers suicide in April 1945, hans-Georg von Friedeburg was then Commander-in-Chief of the OKM for the short period of time until Germany surrendered in May 1945. Subordinate to these were regional, squadron and temporary flotilla commands, regional commands covered significant naval regions and were themselves sub-divided, as necessary. They were commanded by a Generaladmiral or an Admiral, there was a Marineoberkommando for the Baltic Fleet, Nord, Nordsee, Norwegen, Ost/Ostsee, Süd and West. The Kriegsmarine used a form of encoding called Gradnetzmeldeverfahren to denote regions on a map, each squadron also had a command structure with its own Flag Officer. The commands were Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, Submarines, Torpedo Boats, Minesweepers, Reconnaissance Forces, Naval Security Forces, Big Guns and Hand Guns, major naval operations were commanded by a Flottenchef. The Flottenchef controlled a flotilla and organized its actions during the operation, the commands were, by their nature, temporary. As a result the German surface fleet was plagued by design flaws throughout the war, military aircraft were also banned, so Germany could have no naval aviation. Under the treaty Germany could only build new ships to replace old ones, All the ships allowed and personnel were taken over from the Kaiserliche Marine, renamed Reichsmarine. From the outset, Germany worked to circumvent the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The launching of the first pocket battleship, Deutschland in 1931 was a step in the formation of a modern German fleet, modern destroyers and light cruisers were also built
9.
USS Missouri (BB-63)
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USS Missouri is a United States Navy Iowa-class battleship and was the third ship of the U. S. Navy to be named after of the U. S. state of Missouri. Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the United States and was best remembered as the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II, Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. In the Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, in 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor. Missouri was one of the Iowa-class fast battleship designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. She was laid down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 6 January 1941, launched on 29 January 1944, the ship was the third of the Iowa class, but the fourth and final Iowa-class ship commissioned by the U. S. Navy. The ship was christened at her launching by Mary Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry S. Truman, Missouris main battery consisted of nine 16 in /50 cal Mark 7 guns, which could fire 2,700 lb armor-piercing shells some 20 mi. Her secondary battery consisted of twenty 5 in /38 cal guns in twin turrets, Missouri was the last U. S. battleship to be completed. Wisconsin, the highest-numbered U. S. battleship built, was completed before Missouri and she stood out of San Francisco Bay on 14 December and arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 24 December 1944. She departed Hawaii on 2 January 1945 and arrived in Ulithi, there she was temporary headquarters ship for Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher. Missouri then steamed with the carriers to Iwo Jima where her main guns provided direct, after TF58 returned to Ulithi on 5 March, Missouri was assigned to the Yorktown carrier task group. On 14 March, Missouri departed Ulithi in the screen of the fast carriers, during strikes against targets along the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan beginning on 18 March, Missouri shot down four Japanese aircraft. Raids against airfields and naval bases near the Inland Sea and southwestern Honshū continued, Missouri rejoined the screen of the carriers as Marine and Army units stormed the shores of Okinawa on the morning of 1 April. An attack by Japanese forces was repulsed successfully, on 11 April, a low-flying kamikaze Zero, although fired upon, crashed on Missouris starboard side, just below her main deck level. The starboard wing of the plane was thrown far forward, starting a fire at 5 in Gun Mount No.3. The battleship suffered only superficial damage, and the fire was quickly under control. The remains of the pilot were recovered on board the ship just aft of one of the 40 mm gun tubs, the following day he was buried at sea with military honors. About 23,05 on 17 April, Missouri detected an enemy submarine 12 mi from her formation and her report set off a hunter-killer operation by the light carrier Bataan and four destroyers, which sank the Japanese submarine I-56. Missouri was detached from the task force off Okinawa on 5 May
