did you realize that in the state of california there is a battleship graveyard looming off
the coast you see the united states navy has a long history of fielding vessels with hundreds
serving throughout its long history however not all of these ships are currently in service
as the years go by ships become obsolete and the cost of keeping them in fighting form
becomes too expensive for their performance most of these ships stay in the reserve fleets
either in the naval and active ship maintenance facilities
three of which are in the country however there are other reserve fleet locations
one of which is in susan bay near san francisco and today we will discover its mysterious stories
just rotting out on the water i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
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below click it to buy the wallet and now let's get back to california's battleship graveyard
to start off let's talk about what exactly this fleet is an anchorage of the national defense
reserve fleet or ndrf suzanne bay is one of eight original fleet sites unlike a naval inactive ship
maintenance facility these ships are primarily cargo and tanker ships though there are some very
notable exceptions we will go into later well there were originally eight ndrfs as the navy
scrapped recycled and all around disposed of most of the ships the locations closed as the vessels
faded away so susan bay is one of only three remaining ndrfs and this reserve fleet was once
far more extensive while susan bay once hosted nearly 60 ships as the navy thinned their reserve
fleet to lighten up resources that number dropped to a measly six but many of the stories of these
lost vessels are simply fascinating so let's start with the oldest ship in the bay today the uss
apl24 may not have a particularly fashionable name but she dates all the way back to world war ii
as a quick aside we will include hall classifications when introducing these vessels the
letters indicate what kind of ship it is and the numbers identify an individual ship within a class
in this case apl means non-self-propelled barracks ship and 24 is her code an apl two class barrack
ship apl 24 was laid down on july the 24th 1944 in stockton california and launched on september
the 26th 1944 being a non-self-propelled vessel she did not have any means of
maneuvering herself so you might ask what exactly is the point of launching a ship that can't move
well barracks ships are used primarily as temporary housing for sailors whose ships
remain uninhabitable mainly due to damage apl 24 was initially supposed to serve on the east coast
presumably to shelter sailors who had lost their ships in the naval battles of europe she entered
service on july the 24th 1945 but remained on the west coast beyond world war ii the navy took it to
san diego on december the 14th housing soldiers as their repairs from world war ii continued to
be finished we should probably take a moment to note that the conditions aboard these barracks
ships were not optimal even by sailor standards as the navy constructed most of these kinds of
barracks ships from 1944 to 1946 conditions were rarely even tolerable being very claustrophobic
and packed with dangerous materials such as lead paint and asbestos and perhaps in light
of these poor conditions the ship was placed out of service by january the 15th 1947 with the rest
of the ships in her class following suit on march the 24th and june the 30th of the very same year
her time in the reserve fleet took her from long beach to san diego pearl harbor and ultimately
the susan bay reserve fleet being struck from the naval vessel registry on april the 1st
1962 another ship that remains in the susan bay reserve fleet is the ss green mountain state acs-9
like apl 24 she does not have a direct role in battle being a keystone state class crane ship
designed to load cargo onto herself or other ships for example when aiding an offshore construction
she was laid down on december the 2nd 1963 and initially had a different name and class
as a maritime administration type hall her function at the time was to oversee national
shipping boating issues and laws within the united states as maritime borders launched on august the
20th 1964 she entered service with the united states maritime administration on march the 26th
1965. under the moore mccormack lines a series of companies operating shipping lines she served the
shipping lines for years gaining extensions to better carry cargo in 1975 changing hands
once more in 1983 to the united states lines she earned a new name the ss america altar when u.s
lines ceased operations in 1986 the maritime administration reacquired her a year later
placing her in the national defense reserve fleet she remained in reserve for six years after which
she underwent refitting into a crane ship as she remains to this very day with this new change came
yet another name upon completion in march the 15th 1992 the ss green mountain state named for vermont
the state of the same title birthed at birmington washington the navy assigned her to maritime
pre-positioning ship squadron 3 as a part of the ready reserve force maintained in a five-day
readiness status if something were to occur where she was needed to enter action she would be fully
ready to sail the seas in less than a week however that action would never come the navy reassigned
her to the national defense reserve fleet on july the 28th 2006 eventually taking her to the sousan
bay fleet where she remains in reserve awaiting to assist in logistical support should the need
arise now this next vessel is very fascinating and unusual but we need to set the framework for you
to understand why it came into existence to say that tensions ran high between the united states
and the soviet union would be quite literally the understatement of the century at even the
slightest chance for one to get an edge over the other either of the two super powers would jump
immediately one such chance arose in 1968 when the soviet submarine k-129 sank around 1 600 miles
northwest of hawaii this submarine was unique sporting cutting-edge soviet submarine technology
but most notably an ssn5 serb missile this weapon had a ballistic range of 750 to 900 nautical miles
and disturbingly a one megaton nuclear bomb warhead the soviet submarine sank on march
the 8th 1968 which the soviet navy did not notice at first after around two months of radio silence
the soviet navy dispatched a large number of naval aircraft searching for the vulnerable vessel
but to no avail and the united states eager to get their hands on some secret soviet technology
kept an eye on the situation by march the 8th the united states air force picked up
some sonic recordings of a detonation of some kind around 1 500 nautical miles northwest of
hawaii and it was this that allowed them to acquire the longitude and latitude coordinates
of the explosion's origin deep sea reconnaissance followed almost immediately and the u.s navy found
their mark taking over 20 000 photographs of the sunken nuclear submarine when these images
reached the desk of president nixon and national security adviser henry kissinger they approved
the mission known as project azorin to recover the soviet submarine before the ussr eventually knew
they found it this was to be the most difficult deep-sea salvage operation in history the soviet
submarine laid at 17 000 feet beneath the surface and the deepest salvage operation at that time
was at about 245 feet not to mention that was a satellite bucket that weighed only a few hundred
pounds this submarine weighed 2 000 tons requiring some seriously specialized equipment or in other
words the glomer explorer a drill ship platform purpose built for this task alone constructed at
the sunship building and dry dock she took her maiden voyage on june the 21st 1974 and this
coast-to-coast journey would be a long one as she was too wide to fit through the panama canal
this was a necessary measure though as any lesser vessel would capsize upon lifting the soviet k-129
and hence she began her voyage around the south american continent and arriving at her destination
on july the 4th of 1974 and the complexity of this ship went far beyond its functions
you see the soviet union would easily detect a ship as large as the glomer explorer and they
would certainly not take kindly to the united states taking a nuclear submarine of theirs
off the ocean floor as a result the cia developed a cover story that she had been purpose built to
extract manganese molds from the ocean floor her so-called extraction operation received a several
day delay due to fall weather but eventually began the extraction or so it appeared as the glomer
explorer lowered her collection apparatus to the submarine the soviet warship kasma arrived on the
chasma was a helicopter ready to board the glomer explorer and seize her should she try anything
suspicious a soviet naval tug later joined the monitoring force now under watch the glomeru team
continued the operation they stacked boxes on her deck to prevent the helicopter from landing safely
but if any stray debris from the submarine floated to the surface it would have been plainly obvious
what the crew was doing so on august the 4th when the submarine was around 6 700 feet below
the surface the team noticed that the majority of the sub had broken off and only about a third of
it was secured by the claw however the remaining two thirds did not service much to the team's
relief then finally on the same day that nixon resigned the office of the presidency the glomer
explorer secured the k-129's remains in its pool without incident the crew found several important
documents which were immediately confiscated by the cia and of course the corpses of a handful of
the 98 seamen who perished in the sub's explosion the bodies only had three recognizable identities
but regardless all were buried at sea with full honors the glomer explorer returned
to the mainland united states and while the cia wanted the rest of the submarine protests from the
soviet ambassador prompted by a press leak quashed these plans the recovered section secured two of
the submarine's nuclear torpedoes so the operation met part of the cia's original goal the u.s navy
acquired the glomer explorer in september of 1976 placing her in the susan bay fleet but at a safe
distance from the other ships trace radiation made her unsafe to keep near the others well the refit
for a general purpose drill placed her back in service for several decades on various leases
she eventually met her fate in april of 2015 when her very own transocean ltd decided to scrap her
this california fleet is amazing it proves that a vessel does not need to be a fighting ship to be
of historic significance and the uss hoga yt-146 is a prime example of this laid down on july the
25th 1940 and commissioned on may the 22nd 1941 she was a simple woman-class district harbor tug
this talk would have likely remained unremarkable if not for her location on december the 7th 1941
when the japanese bombed pearl harbor the uss hoga was present she did not fight but within
10 minutes of the first bombs she jumped into action rescuing sailors thrown into the water
fighting off fires and pulling ships away from target locations she pulled the uss vestal away
from the burning uss arizona saving the repair ship from meeting a similar fate to the martyred
battleship she also assisted the damaged uss ogallala a minesweeper and the battleship uss
nevada preventing the sinking hulk from blocking the channel in light of all this admiral chester
a nimitz bestowed a commendation on her and her crew in recognition for her heroic actions
however her work in the pacific theater was not complete she assisted in clearing debris and
salvage of lost and damaged vessels throughout the entire war on top of her task of helping ships in
and out of their births after the war's conclusion the hoga entered service to the city of oakland
california as a fire boat in this service she gained a new name the city of oakland named for
the city she protected for nearly 50 years after receiving firefighting modifications she served as
a tour boat for president jimmy carter's tour of the port of oakland on july the 3rd 1980. on june
the 30th 1989 she gained the status of a national landmark and actually returned to the navy in 1994
however they struck her from their registry a year later from there she entered the susan bay reserve
fleet but eventually went to little rock arkansas on november the 23rd 2015 becoming a permanent
static display at their inland maritime museum now unlike the rest of the ships discussed today
our final is most certainly a warship the uss iowa bb-61 was the last lead ship of any united
states battleship class laid down on june the 27th 1940 launched on august the 27th 1942 and
commissioned on february the 22nd 1943. one of her first missions was to counter the threat of german
battleship terpeats which supposedly was operating in the norwegian waters her next mission of note
saw her take president franklin d roosevelt to casablanca as his first part of the journey to the
tehran conference in november she took him back to the united states after a conference as well
she was the only american battleship to serve in the atlantic theater of the second world war
after these operations she took to the pacific theater as the flagship of battleship division
seven she served in the marshall islands the caroline islands new guinea and the battle of
the philippine sea in the battle of the philippine sea she repelled four enormous air raids from the
last of japan's carriers in their center force destroying most of their remaining carrier-based
aircraft the iowa sister ship the uss new jersey which we have discussed in a previous video
about abandoned battleships was also heavily involved in the battle of the philippine sea
she continued with many operations in the pacific theater serving until the secession of hostilities
on august the 15th 1945 she entered tokyo bay with occupation forces on august the 29th and
served as admiral william f halsley's flagship for the surrender ceremony on september the 2nd
when douglas macarthur accepted the japanese surrender marking the end of the largest war
in human history she returned to the united states on october the 15th 1945 but would actually find
her way back to japan in january of the following year to be the flagship of the fifth fleet after
bouncing around the west coast for several more years on naval reserve the navy decommissioned
her on march the 24th 1949 however when the active fleet expanded due to communist activity in korea
she re-entered the navy on august the 25th 1951 in combat operations in the korean war she bombarded
enemy targets and aided ground troops after the korean war she took part in a major
nato naval exercise known as operation mariner following that she operated around the virginia
cape area acting as a flagship of the rear admiral r.e libby from there she continued serving around
the atlantic and the mediterranean and took part in another significant nato exercise strike back
the navy decommissioned her once again on february the 24th 1958 entering the atlantic reserve fleet
in philadelphia and as he did with her sister shipped to new jersey president ronald reagan
personally reactivated her in 1982 pursuing his goal of a 600 ship navy during this reactivation
period she set the record for the longest range 16-inch shell ever fired at 23.4 nautical miles
though with the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 the united states did not need such a large
navy and so the uss iowa was decommissioned one final time on october the 26th 1990
after nearly 20 years of service initially she remained in the naval station newport but in march
of 2001 she began a journey to the susan bay under tow arriving on april the 21st 2001. she entered
the reserve fleet but the navy struck her from the registry in march of 2006. the uss iowa remained
in the susan bay until november of 2011 when she traveled undertale one last time to the port
of richmond for rehabilitation and then to los angeles becoming an open exhibit at the battleship
expo iowa earned nine battle stars throughout her career and has quite the reputation some
called her the world's greatest naval ship due to the speed strength flexibility and durability
that allowed her to keep up with changes in technology for nearly 50 years of active service
the susan bay reserve fleet now only consists of six ships the rest have been repurposed turned
into museums or scrapped well the government could theoretically lift these ships from their current
status the us navy likely has more ships ready for action that are newer and more capable than
these older models and while some are more notable than others one can still look at this mysterious
reserve fleet with appreciation and awe at what they've done for the nation so keep their stories
alive by sharing this video and subscribing to its history this is ryan socash signing off