Photographic History of the United States Navy
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NavSource Naval History Photographic History of the United States Navy |
DESTROYER ARCHIVE |
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Size | Image Description | Contributed By |
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56k | John Ericsson, one of the 19th Century's most creative engineers and inventors, was born on 31 July 1803 in Sweden. As a youth, he joined the Swedish Army, which recognized his talents and put him to work on topographical duties. Ericsson left the Army in 1826 and moved to England, where he pursued a variety of engineering projects, among them the use of screw propellers on ships, the development of extraordinarly large guns and the creation of engines driven by hot air instead of steam. Ericsson's work attracted the attention Robert F. Stockton, an influential and progressive U.S. Navy officer, who encouraged him to relocate to the United States. During the early 1840s, the two designed a screw-propelled warship, which was commissioned in 1843 as USS Princeton, armed with heavy guns of their devising. The tragic explosion of one of these guns, and efforts to improperly assign the blame to Ericsson, led the strong-willed engineer to redirect his creativity into civilian fields, which he pursued successfully during the 1840s and 1850s. The outbreak of the American Civil War brought John Ericsson back into formal contact with the Navy, when he designed and produced USS Monitor, a revolutionary armored ship carrying her guns in a rotating turret. Monitor's successful battle with the Confederate ironclad Virginia on 9 March 1862 made Ericsson a great hero in the North. For the remainder of the conflict, he was actively involved in designing and building a large series of "Monitor"-type turret ships for the Navy. Ericsson continued his work on maritime and naval technology after the Civil War, producing ships for foreign navies and experimenting with submarines, self-propelled torpedoes and heavy ordnance. He remained active until his death in New York City on 8 March 1889. In August 1890, following a memorial service at New York, his body was placed on board the cruiser Baltimore, which carried him across the Atlantic to his native Sweden for burial. Photo #: NH 305. John Ericsson (1803-1889) photograph taken in 1862. The original print is mounted on a Carte de Visite. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. | Bill Gonyo | |
| 82k | Artist's conception of the Ericsson as she appeared in World War II by the renowned graphic illustrator John Barrett with the text written by naval author and historian Robert F. Sumrall. Their company Navy Yard Associates offers prints of most destroyers, destroyer escorts, submarines and aircraft carriers in various configurations during the ship's lifetime. The prints can be customized with ship's patches, your photograph, your bio, etc. If you decide to purchase artwork from them please indicate that you heard about their work from NavSource. | Navy Yard Associates | |
| 143k | Undated, location unknown. | Ed Zajkowski | |
| 165k | Undated, location unknown. | Ed Zajkowski | |
| 194k | June 30 1940 at Federal Shipbuilding, Kearny, NJ. | Ed Zajkowski | |
| 139k | At Federal Shipbuilding, Kearny, NJ. | Dale Hargrave | |
| 61k | Newspaper clipping reporting the commissioning at Kearny, NJ on March 13 1941. | Ron Reeves | |
| 67k | USS Ericsson (DD-440) underway in 1941. She is painted in Camouflage Measure One. Courtesy of William H. Davis, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Photo #: NH 85149. | Robert Hurst | |
| 66k | Havana, Cuba during Spring 1941. | Captain Charles Baldwin, USS Ericsson Association | |
| 52k | Halifax, Nova Scotia circa 1942. Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, Halifax, NS. | Tracy White | |
LCDR Geoffrey Ellingwood Sage Mar 13 1941 - Aug 2 1942 LCDR Clyde Marcus Jensen Aug 2 1942 - Mar 29 1943 LCDR Bernard Henree Meyer Mar 29 1943 - Dec 15 1944 LCDR Charles Alexander Baldwin Dec 15 1944 - Mar 15 1946
The contact listed, Was the contact at the time for this ship when located. If another person now is the contact, E-mail me and I will update this entry. These contacts are compiled from various sources over a long period of time and may or may not be correct. Every effort has been made to list the newest contact if more than one contact was found.
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