Maritime history of Virginia: Shipwrecks of the Virginia coast, CSS Virginia, USS Beale, USS Texas, USS Cumberland, German submarine U-521

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 41. Chapters: Shipwrecks of the Virginia coast, CSS Virginia, USS Beale, USS Texas, USS Cumberland, German submarine U-521, USAS American Mariner, USS John W. Weeks, USS Guavina, USCGC Unimak, USS Charles F. Hughes, USS Witek, Norwegian Lady Statues, USS Gyatt, SS Marine Electric, USS Congress, CSS Florida, SS Marine Floridian, CSS Jamestown, USS Wasp, SS SeaBreeze, USS Manta, USS R-8, USS Sumpter, CSS Fredericksburg, USS Philadelphia, USS Katahdin, Oyster pirate. Excerpt: USS Beale (DD/DDE-471), a Fletcher-class destroyer, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1822-1893). Beale was laid down on 19 December 1941 at Staten Island, N.Y., by the Bethlehem Steel Co.; launched on 24 August 1942; sponsored by Miss Nancy Beale, a great-grandniece of LT Beale; and commissioned on 23 December 1942 at the New York Navy Yard, Commander Joe B. Cochran in command. Early in January 1943, Beale began shakedown training off the coast of New England. Later that month, she continued that training in the West Indies near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In mid-February, the destroyer returned north to New York for a month of post-shakedown repairs. She returned to sea on 15 March and headed back to the West Indies where she served as antisubmarine escort and plane guard for the recently commissioned aircraft carrier Essex during her shakedown training near Trinidad. Beale completed another repair period at the New York Navy Yard between 10 and 21 March and then embarked upon the long voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Steaming by way of Norfolk, Virginia, she arrived at Cristóbal in the Panama Canal Zone on 22 April and transited the canal on the 28th. The warship paused briefly at Balboa at the Pacific terminus of the canal before heading north toward the California coast that same day. She made an overni...