vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
"Lake Michigan's Aircraft Carriers"
By Paul M Somers
Arcadia Publishing - 2003
ISB: 978-0-07385-3208-0
"Say I have an idea, let's take a couple of luxury paddle-wheeled coal-powered cruise ships and turn them into aircraft carriers! Then we'll take a boat that was involved in the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes and turn it into a gunboat."
Oddly enough, a conversation like this did not take place in a bar nor was it a joke. The need for training carriers was very evident in the fall of 1941, several months before Pearl Harbor. Lake Michigan was a brilliant choice since the lake was within the US. This would allow the ships to be unarmored, unarmed, not require a lot of escorts, and safe from combat. The next issue was the ships themselves. They could either build new carriers (take too long and would eat up resources) or convert a couple of ships into them. The USN selected the SS Seeandbee to become the USS Wolverine (IX-64) and the SS Greater Buffalo (her and her sister being the largest side-wheeled passenger boat in the word) to become the USS Sable (IX-81). They were converted within a few months and were the last coal powered ships of the USN. So began the life of the Great Lakes Fleet
The book is 128 pages long broken out into 6 chapters and contains 160 pictures. Since this is part of Arcadia's "Images of America" line of books there are plenty of pictures! It's a short book so it can be easily read in a day. This book gives credit to a couple of ships that had a huge impact PTO.
I give it a solid 9 Paddle-Wheels
By Paul M Somers
Arcadia Publishing - 2003
ISB: 978-0-07385-3208-0
"Say I have an idea, let's take a couple of luxury paddle-wheeled coal-powered cruise ships and turn them into aircraft carriers! Then we'll take a boat that was involved in the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes and turn it into a gunboat."
Oddly enough, a conversation like this did not take place in a bar nor was it a joke. The need for training carriers was very evident in the fall of 1941, several months before Pearl Harbor. Lake Michigan was a brilliant choice since the lake was within the US. This would allow the ships to be unarmored, unarmed, not require a lot of escorts, and safe from combat. The next issue was the ships themselves. They could either build new carriers (take too long and would eat up resources) or convert a couple of ships into them. The USN selected the SS Seeandbee to become the USS Wolverine (IX-64) and the SS Greater Buffalo (her and her sister being the largest side-wheeled passenger boat in the word) to become the USS Sable (IX-81). They were converted within a few months and were the last coal powered ships of the USN. So began the life of the Great Lakes Fleet
The book is 128 pages long broken out into 6 chapters and contains 160 pictures. Since this is part of Arcadia's "Images of America" line of books there are plenty of pictures! It's a short book so it can be easily read in a day. This book gives credit to a couple of ships that had a huge impact PTO.
I give it a solid 9 Paddle-Wheels
Sound like an interesting read VB.
