USS Kearsarge (BB-5)

As flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron,[15] Kearsarge sailed along the Atlantic seaboard and the Caribbean Sea.[16] In May 1901 Captain Bowman H. McCalla assumed command of Kearsarge,[17] although by May 1902 the ship was being commanded by Captain Joseph Newton Hemphill.[18] Reassigned as flagship of the European Squadron, she sailed from Sandy Hook on 3 June 1903, on her way to Kiel, Germany.[19] She was visited by Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany on 25 June,[20] and by the Prince of Wales – who would later become King George V of the United Kingdom – on 13 July.[21]

Kearsarge returned to Bar Harbor, Maine, on 26 July,[22] and resumed her position as flagship.[23] On 1 December the ship sailed from New York for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where she was present as the United States took formal possession of the Guantanamo Naval Reservation on 10 December.[24][25] On 26 March 1904 Captain Raymond P. Rodgers assumed command of the ship.[26] Following maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea,[16] Kearsarge left with the North Atlantic Squadron for Lisbon, Portugal, where she met King Carlos I of Portugal on 11 June 1904.[27] Independence Day was celebrated in Phaleron Bay, Greece, with King George I of Greece and his son and daughter-in-law, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg.[16] The squadron visited Corfu,[28] Trieste,[28] and Fiume[29] before returning to Newport, Rhode Island, on 29 August 1904.[16]

On 31 March 1905, Maine replaced Kearsarge as flagship of the North Atlantic Fleet,[30] although she remained with the fleet.[16] Captain Herbert Winslow took command of the ship during December.[31] On 13 April 1906, while participating in an exercise off Cape Cruz, Cuba, the gunpowder in a 13-inch gun ignited accidentally, killing two officers and eight men.[32][33]

Kearsarge during the cruise of the Great White Fleet

Attached to the Fourth Division of the Second Squadron,[34] and under command of Captain Hamilton Hutchins,[35] she sailed on 16 December 1907 with the Great White Fleet.[36] The fleet left from Hampton Roads,[36] passed by Trinidad and Rio de Janeiro,[37] and then passed through the Straits of Magellan.[38] From there she passed by the west coast of South America, visiting Punta Arenas[39] and Valparaíso, Chile,[40] Callao, Peru,[41] and Magdalena Bay, Mexico.[42] The fleet reached San Diego on 14 April 1908[43] and moved on to San Francisco on 6 May.[44] Two months later the warships sailed for Honolulu, Hawaii,[45] and from there to Auckland, New Zealand, arriving 9 August.[46] The fleet made Sydney, Australia, on 20 August, and after a week sailed for Melbourne.[47]

Kearsarge departed Albany, Western Australia, on 18 September for ports in the Philippine Islands, Japan, China, and Ceylon before transiting the Suez Canal.[48] The fleet split at Port Said, with Kearsarge leaving on 10 January 1909 for Malta, and arriving in Algiers on 24 January, before reforming with the fleet at Gibraltar on 1 February. She returned to Hampton Roads on 22 February, and was inspected by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.[49]

Kearsarge off Boston in October 1916, following her modernization

As with most of the Great White Fleet ships, Kearsarge was modernized on her return.[50] She was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 4 September 1909,[4] and the modernization was completed in 1911, at a cost of US$675,000.[51] The ship received cage masts, new water-tube boilers, and another four 5-inch guns. The 1-pounder guns were removed, as were sixteen of the 6-pounders.[7] She was recommissioned on 23 June 1915,[4] and operated along the Atlantic coast. On 17 September she left Philadelphia to land a detachment of US Marines at Veracruz, Mexico, remaining there from 28 September 1915 to 5 January 1916.[16] She then carried the Marines to New Orleans, Louisiana,[16] before joining the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia on 4 February.[4] Until the United States joined World War I, she trained naval militia from Massachusetts and Maine. During the war she was used to train Armed Guard crews and naval engineers during cruises along the Atlantic seaboard.[16] On 18 August 1918 Kearsarge rescued 26 survivors of the Norwegian barque Nordhav which had been sunk by U-117, bringing them to Boston.[52]

Kearsarge as Crane Ship No. 1

Between 29 May and 29 August 1919, Kearsarge trained United States Naval Academy midshipmen in the Caribbean. Kearsarge sailed from Annapolis, Maryland to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she decommissioned on either 10 May[16][53][54] or 18 May 1920.[10][9]

Kearsarge was converted into a crane ship, and was given hull classification symbol IX-16 on 17 July 1920,[55] but it was changed to AB-1 on 5 August.[53][lower-alpha 1] Her turrets, superstructure, and armor were removed, and were replaced by a large revolving crane with a lifting capacity of 250 tons (230 tonnes), as well as 10-foot (3.0 m) blisters, which improved her stability.[56] The crane ship was utilized often over the next 20 years, including the raising of USS Squalus in 1939.[54]

On 6 November 1941, Kearsarge was renamed Crane Ship No. 1, allowing her name to be given to Hornet (CV-12), and later to Kearsarge (CV-33).[54] She continued her service, however, handling guns, turrets, armor, and other heavy lifts for vessels such as Indiana,[57] Alabama, Savannah, Chicago, and Pennsylvania.[4]

She was transferred to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in 1945, where she participated in the construction of Hornet and Boxer and the re-construction of Saratoga.[16] One of her last projects was performing heavy lifts during the reassembly of another crane vessel, YD-171 (ex-Schwimmkran nr. 1) on Terminal Island.[58] In 1948 she left the West Coast for the Boston Naval Shipyard.[59] On 22 June 1955 her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, and she was sold for scrap on 9 August.[35]

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