USS Tennessee (ACR-10)

Tennessee was laid down by the Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 20 June 1903,[1] launched on 3 December 1904, sponsored by Ms. Annie K. Frazier (daughter of Governor James B. Frazier of Tennessee and later the foundress of the Society of Sponsors of the United States Navy), and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 17 July 1906, Captain Albert Gleaves Berry in command.[2]

The new armored cruiser departed Hampton Roads on 8 November 1906 as escort for Louisiana in which President Theodore Roosevelt had embarked for a cruise to Panama to check on the progress of work constructing the Panama Canal. After a brief visit to Puerto Rico on the return voyage, the warships arrived back at Hampton Roads on 26 November.[2]

Following a yard period for repairs, Tennessee left Hampton Roads on 16 April 1907 for the Jamestown Exposition, held from 7 to 11 June 1907, to commemorate the tricentennial of the founding of the first English settlement in America.[2]

On 14 June, Tennessee sailed for Europe in company with Washington and reached Royan, France on the 23rd for duty with the Special Service Squadron. She returned home in August but departed Hampton Roads on 12 October for the Pacific, where she became flagship for the second division of the Pacific Fleet.[2]

Tennessee then patrolled off the California coast until 24 August 1908 but suffered a boiler tube explosion on 5 June, which killed seven men, while steaming at full speed. The explosion occurred just after the rear admiral in charge of the squadron had visited on a tour of inspection; had the explosion taken place a few minutes earlier, he might have been among the casualties. Since the ship's 16 boilers were sub-divided into separate watertight compartments, the rest of the engineering section was not affected.[3] Once repairs had been made and her tour had ended, Tennessee sailed for Samoa, arriving at Pago Pago on 23 September to resume service with the Pacific Fleet. On 15 May 1910, she arrived at Bahía Blanca to represent the United States at the centenary celebration of the independence of Argentina. On 8 November, the armored cruiser departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and proceeded to Charleston, South Carolina, to embark President William Howard Taft for a round trip voyage to Panama to inspect further progress on the canal. She returned to Hampton Roads on 22 November and then engaged in battle practice off the Virginia coast into February 1911. Following a Mardi Gras visit to New Orleans and a visit to New York City early in March, the ship steamed to Cuban waters for two months of operations out of Guantanamo Bay.[2]

Placed in reserve at the Portsmouth Navy Yard on 15 June 1911, she remained on the east coast for 18 months before departing Philadelphia on 12 November 1912 for the Mediterranean. Arriving off Smyrna (now İzmir), Turkey on 1 December, she remained there protecting American citizens and property during the First Balkan War until 3 May 1913, when she headed home. After reaching Hampton Roads on the 23rd, Tennessee operated on the East Coast until entering the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia on 23 October. On 2 May 1914, she became receiving ship at the New York Navy Yard.[2]

On 4 November, Tennessee arrived in Beirut, what was then Syria, to protect the Christian population there in case of attack by Syrian Muslims.

On 6 August, Tennessee sailed from New York for duty in Europe through the first half of 1915 supporting the American Relief Expedition by carrying gold bullion and other resources to assist in the extraction of American refugees from war-ravaged Europe. In August, she transported the 1st Regiment, Marine Expeditionary Force, and the Marine Artillery Battalion to Haiti. From 28 January-24 February 1916, the cruiser served as flagship of a cruiser squadron off Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In March, she embarked a group of dignitaries at Hampton Roads for a two-month, round trip cruise to Montevideo, Uruguay.[2]

On 25 May 1916, Tennessee was renamed Memphis, honoring the city of Memphis, Tennessee, so that the name "Tennessee" could be reassigned to the new battleship Tennessee (BB-43).[2]

In July 1916, under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach, Sr., the ship got underway for the Caribbean arriving at Santo Domingo on 23 July for peace-keeping patrol off the rebellion-torn Dominican Republic.[2]

Memphis was at anchor .5 nmi (0.58 mi; 930 m) off a rocky beach in 45 ft (14 m) of water in the harbor of Santo Domingo on the afternoon of 29 August 1916 with two of her 16 boilers operating in case she needed to get underway; the gunboat Castine also was anchored in the harbor. Shortly after 12:00, Memphis began to roll heavily and Captain Beach observed an unexpected heavy swell developing. Memphis and Castine both made preparations to leave the harbor and began to raise steam; Memphis expected to be able to get underway at about 16:35.

The wreck of Memphis at Santo Domingo on 29 August 1916.

Conditions in the harbor had deteriorated badly by 15:45, when Memphis sighted an approaching 75 ft (23 m) wave of yellow water stretching along the entire horizon. By 16:00, the wave was closer, had turned ochre in color, and had reached about 100 ft (30 m) in height; at the same time, Memphis was rolling 45°, so heavily that large amounts of water cascaded into the ship via her gun ports and water even was entering the ship via ventilators 50 ft (15 m) above the waterline. By 16:25, water began to enter the ship via her funnels, 70 ft (21 m) above the waterline, putting out the fires in her boilers and preventing her from raising enough steam to get underway. She began to strike the rocky harbor bottom at 16:40, damaging her propellers just as she was raising enough steam to begin moving, and her engines lost steam pressure.

At about this time, the giant wave Memphis had seen approaching over the past hour arrived; she rolled into a deep trough and was struck immediately by what proved to be three very large waves in rapid succession, the highest of them estimated by the crew to have been 70 ft (21 m) in height, completely swamping her except for her highest points, and washing crewmen overboard. The waves rolled her heavily, caused her to strike the harbor bottom, then pushed her to the beach .5 nmi (0.58 mi; 0.93 km) away. By 17:00, she had been driven under cliffs along the coast of the harbor and was resting on the harbor bottom. She was battered into a complete wreck in 90 minutes. Castine, meanwhile, managed to reach safer waters by getting underway and putting to sea through the large waves, although damaged by them and at times in danger of capsizing.[4]

Memphis's casualties numbered 43 men dead or missing – 10 of them washed overboard by the waves or killed by steam as the ship's powerplant broke up, another 25 lost as they returned from shore leave in the ship's motor launch and were caught in the harbor by the huge breakers, and eight more lost in three boats wrecked after dark as they attempted to reach shore[5] – and 204 badly injured. Due to their heroic actions during this incident, Chief Machinist's Mate George William Rud, Lieutenant Claud Ashton Jones, and Machinist Charles H. Willey were awarded the Medal of Honor.

• 
  George Rud
• 
  Claud Jones
• 
  Charles H. Willey

Wreck of Memphis after being stripped of essentials, 1922

Although Memphis came to rest upright and appeared relatively undamaged above the waterline, it was apparent as early as the day after the disaster that she was not worth repairing; she was outdated by 1916, she had suffered the destruction of her propulsion plant and severe distortion of her hull structure, and her bottom had been driven in. Accordingly, the United States Department of the Navy assigned the crew of the battleship New Hampshire, or the wrecking vessel Henlopen, to strip her of her guns, supplies, and equipment for use on other ships. New Hampshire's crew left Memphis without her guns, with much of her topside gear missing, and with her gun turrets rotated off the centerline.[11][12]

Memphis's ship's bell was presented to a local church as a gesture of thanks to citizens of Santo Domingo who had helped to rescue the ship's crew.[11]

Memphis was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 17 December 1917 and sold to the A. H. Radetsky Iron and Metal Company of Denver, Colorado, on 17 January 1922 for scrapping for the sum of $3,000 (US$ 80,700 in 2023). Scrapped on site, her wreck proved difficult to dismantle, and the last of it did not disappear from the Santo Domingo shoreline until 1938.[11]

Her bronze bow scrollwork, removed approximately 1909, is on display on a concrete mockup of her bow in Nashville, Tennessee's Centennial Park.[13]

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

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• USS Tennessee (Armored Cruiser # 10), 1906–1916. Renamed Memphis in May 1916