USS Massachusetts - Guide 095

It’s always nice to have a video end with the battleship being saved instead of “she was later broken up in 1948”

The Massachusetts' sister USS Alabama is known as the "Lucky A" for having none of her crew killed in action.

My father served on the Massachusetts when she was in the Pacific. I heard many stories of his days on the Big Mamie! He is now 95 years of age.

I slept inside Big Mammy when I was 12 years old. That experience is probably what started my love for naval history.

I got drunk on the deck of this ship for my 21st birthday. Looking out into the harbor leaning on the 16in guns drinking one of my first legal drinks ever was a pretty amazing experience. I've also done some restoration work for the ship. I've actually made parts in the ships machine shop on the original lathes. Slept there overnight as a boy scout when I was a kid.

My father serviced on the USS Massachusetts from it's shake down cruise until the end of the war. He served on three different ships during his time in the Navy, the other two the USS Colorado and the USS Walton, but the Massachusetts was his favorite, and one he spoke about most. I did have the fortune of visiting the USS Massachusetts there at Battleship Cove.

The South Dakota is my favorite battleship class. Absolutely beautiful in their no-nonsense simplicity giving them a sort of raw elegance.

The North Carolinas, South Dakotas and Iowas are so beautiful and fit well together like if they are just half sisters instead of full on different classes! I love modern US battleships

I made it a point to visit this ship when I lived in Boston. Coming over the hill and seeing the superstructure above the surrounding town was impressive. She's one of the best museum ships I've ever seen; my tour was self guided, and my only regret was that I only had about 5 hours to explore. I could easily spend a week in that ship.

Notes on the US Navy AP fuze problem: The Mark 21 Base Detonating Fuze (note spelling) was designed to be highly resistant to the extremely high forces involved with penetrating thick face-hardened armor at angle up to 40 degrees (which acceptance tests showed the projectile could do) -- this was the most extreme testing regime of any AP rounds ever made. To achieve this, the Mark 19 base fuze design used in the new High Capacity rounds (without or, later with the largest HC shells, with a short 0.01-second delay) was heavily modified to cause the firing-pin-initiated primer explosion in the fuze, in addition to setting off the total 0.033-second delay, to physically jam the black powder delay element and post-delay detonator and its TNT-filled connecting tubes to the two tetryl boosters -- one on each side of the end of the fuze body -- into a "am firing" locked position that could not be reversed by impact forces from any direction. The jamming locked the elements into one compact, solid, damage-resistant mass that would require the total crushing of the fuze to inactivate during the delay interval. However, this new locking system had tight tolerances inside the the fuze, much higher than any previous US or foreign base fuze. Explosive "D" (ammonium picrate) is chemically reactive with several metals including steel, requiring that the cavity surface, the inner face of the base plug, and the outside of the base fuze be thickly coated in lacquer. Unfortunately, this did not make the fuze air-tight and over time fumes from the Explosive :D: could leak into the fuze and put a very thin layer of corrosion on the internal parts. After 6 months or so, this corrosion got thick enough to mess up the motion of the locking system's moving parts of many of the fuzes and this resulted in duds or reduced-power booster action that resulted in the extremely insensitive Explosive "D" being merely set on fire (deflagrating) or exploding in a "low explosive" (black powder, for example) manner. The various duds and other not-acceptable results of this MASSACHSETTS/JEAN BART engagement episode were documented and fuzes dismantled and studied and the corrosion problem was found a few months later. Note that this fuze was used in ALL US Navy AP shells 6" and up during WWII, so finding a solution was critical.. To fix it, the fuze had to be made airtight and, by early 1943 it was found that the new Bakelite plastic could be coated over the surface of the fuze projecting inside the cavity and this sealed the fuze from the fumes, ending the problem. This is how US Navy bureaus are supposed to operate...

My dad would have liked your summary, I think. He served on Big Mamie during Operation Torch.

I have the pleasure of living just outside of Fall River, Massachusetts which is the home of battleship cove. And have had The joy of not only being able to tour this beautiful ship, but I also get to see her just about everyday heading to and from work.

I've been in that ship as a kid. Running around through it seemed to take forever. It was huge.

3:55 holy shit you can actually see the giant 16” shells.... imagine... this photo was taken far behind the actual ship, yet the shells are still huge at that distance

Love all ships in her class. But mostly love the USA attitude to as guns, "how many aa guns you want on her?" "All of them:

Battleship Cove...been there, done that...lots...wicked awesome place, check it out!!

The SoDaks have always been my favourite battleship class. Perhaps because I built several models of both the Alabama and Massachusetts when I was a kid, but probably more because of something about their particular lines that appeals to me. I've had a chance to visit the Alabama in Mobile Bay and it was quite an experience touring that grand lady of war.

I've been to Battleship Cove countless dozens of times and was there twice last year.

The time travel joke was hilarious. Keep up the great work Drach

My father worked on building this ship at Fore River. He finished law school in 1940 but went to work at Fore River because it paid better than being a law clerk. We visited the ship in 1974 and he was able to lead me on quite a tour of the engineering spaces, etc. pointing out details of installations, both precision and routine. I visited the ship again in 1992 when a student at NWC and found that more areas had been opened. Battleship Cove is a great place to visit.