alternatehistory.com

This could be fun as an alternate history, but there is a possibility it may actually be the real history:
I believe the United States may have hidden a Battleship in plane eyesight from early in 1942 until after the battle of Midway. My suspicion began in the late 1980s and I regret that I have not saved every bit of information I found, but I may try to re-create it for a book I now want badly to write and I so wish I had taken written statements from so many old men that are no longer with us.
My ex-wife and I had just visited the memorial in Wilmington, NC. I am from North Carolina and had many times before but this time we saw several interesting things. First was a picture, in the main hall where guests board the ship, that showed BB-55 returning to the United States carrying five extra battle flags. The caption was something like, we do not know why the ship is flying five extra battle flags because typically one is awarded for every month she is away at war in foreign waters. There must have been some special significance that was not recorded at the time. Near the end of the tour I was fascinated by a photo of the ship from “early in 1941” where there was a dark stripe painted on the guns, across the ends of the guns, around the turrets, and even along the superstructure and deck. The caption read that it was an unauthorized camouflage scheme apparently painted by the crew for unknown reasons, but some sailors from the time said it was to make the ship look smaller like a cruiser.
When we got back to Atlanta we went to see my father in law who was dying of emphysema in the VA hospital. I was wearing a tee shirt I bought in the gift shop. As soon as he saw it he said, I was on that ship in the spring of 1942.” I said, “You were in the Army in the Pacific and that ship did not go there until the summer of 1942.” (He was in the Philippines when the war started and stayed in until after it was over in 1945.) He responded that he was an artillery gunnery officer and radar operator and they were going to get new radar to target their artillery and the only place there was any of the equipment to train on was that ship so he was sent there for a while to learn how to use it. Then he blew my mind, he told me they had painted the ship with a dark stripe all the way around to make it look like a cruiser because they did not want the Japanese to know they had a battleship. He described the photo I had seen perfectly. He went on to tell a wonderful story that may be no more than a good story but I will relate it because it is what has sparked my thirty year interest in unraveling what I now to believe to have happened. He said one morning, in the wee hours, they were called to general quarters because two Japanese cruisers had been spotted on radar about twenty miles out. He said all morning they would turn into the Japanese ships and crank the ship up to about 28 knots and run hard at them, then turn like they were dodging submarines and drop the speed to 21 knots. They were doing this because they looked like a cruiser and they knew the Japanese knew we did not have a battleship that fast. He said by late morning the gunnery officers were begging the captain to let them fire but he refused. Finally by early afternoon the gunnery officer reported that on the next pass they would be in range of the 8” Japanese guns. The captain gave the order to fire and twenty minutes later they were running for the horizon at flank speed while the two Japanese ships sank.
A couple of years later I went back to the memorial and very noticeably she was and to my knowledge is not carrying two combat markings for sinking the Japanese cruisers. I thought to myself, well, if they were hiding her there would not be but as soon as I got on board I went to the crew roster to find his name. It was not there so I laughed at myself and said, “Great story old man, you got me.” Near the end of the tour each of the different year alumni associations had a room with pictures, bulletin boards, and memorabilia. At the very top of the 1942 bulletin board was his name, the Army guy that was assigned to the ship that had been lost to the Association! I was completely overwhelmed. Apparently he was not on the Navy crew roster because he was Army. I went back through looking for more information and the things I had seen before but the displays had changed so that was all I found that trip.
I kept my eyes and ears open for more information, pictures, anything, but I was not after the Holy Grail yet. Then I was given a book written by the gunnery officer of the USS Washington, BB-56. It was a log he had kept during the entire life of the Washington starting before she was commissioned. My mind was blown again, and I paraphrase from memory, she would sail out of her port in Philadelphia and make a speed run to the north Atlantic and have gunnery practice with the British. As soon as she was out of site of the British she would paint out the 56, replace it with a 55, paint out Washington, and replace it with North Carolina, then make a speed run to the Caribbean and have gunnery practice with the Dutch, then a speed run to New York, North Carolina’s port, for a day or so, then back out, repaint, and back into Philadelphia. They did this all through the winter and Spring of 1942! Now my interest was piqued! I got to looking and there were other documented cases of the US Navy during that time using the same deception to make it look like we had more ships in more places than we did.
Much later I found a series of declassified documents that indicated the Atlantic was charged with engaging the Terpitz if she ever came west of Nova Scotia. The admiral asked with what and was told Washington and North Carolina no matter what shape they were in and even if civilian construction crews were on board. The last in the series, dated October 14, 1941. In it the order was given for Washington, North Carolina, and Yorktown to engage Terpitz with long range gun fire and aircraft and impose the battleships between the Terpitz and “convoy.” On further study I found the Terpitz did indeed run from North Carolina and Washington. Another piece of the puzzle, not because of Japan but because of Germany there needed to be an illusion of two battleships in the Atlantic. Japan’s battleships never engaged until the war was basically over, but Germany used hers and her battle cruisers to great advantage in the Atlantic.
I said a book because I can go on and on and on, but for now I am going to give just a few highlights from Midway. North Carolina sailed into Pearl Harbor either on the 10th or 11th of June, 1942, reports differ. I searched medical logs of the return and found that the Navy surgeons met the North Carolina returning from Midway, before she made it into the harbor, to remove some of the worst wounded in the battle of Midway! I met a naval historian that has been studying the Japanese accounts. I can’t really because I do not read Japanese but he was very matter of fact that they knew it was there because they had engaged her at night more than once in the previous five months and got their butts whipped by radar targeted 16” rifles. He claims the final order to withdraw form Midway was disputed and argued with by junior officers and finally the explanation was given, we are not going to engage the American battleship at night. i.e. The night engagement between our carriers and their battleships and cruisers they would seem to have wanted was ruled out because the night time game changer was radar targeted 16” rifles.
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