Hampton Roads Naval Museum, Norfolk, Virginia

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum is one of ten museums operated by the US Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command.  Although located within the building housing the Nauticus maritime-themed museum and science centre in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, admission to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum is free.  Permanent exhibits in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum chart the history of the US Navy in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, from the Revolutionary War era to the Cold War.  Originally opened on 31 August 1979 in one of the former pavilions of the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, the museum relocated to the Nauticus building when it opened on the Norfolk waterfront in 1994.

Photos taken 4 April 2018

The entrance to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum.

Visitors are greeted with an exhibit dedicated to the 5 September 1781 Battle of the Virginia Capes, also known as the Battle of the Chesapeake. This battle, between a British fleet of 19 ships under Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves and a French fleet of 24 ships under the Comte de Grasse ended in a decisive French victory with profound strategic implications: Graves's defeat ensured that British land forces under Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis, besieged at Yorktown, Virginia, could not be reinforced or evacuated by the Royal Navy. Lord Cornwallis's subsequent surrender to French and American Revolutionary forces at Yorktown on 19 October 1781 paved the way for the eventual recognition of United States independence by King George III in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ship model in the display case is of the 104-gun Ville de Paris, the flagship of the Comte de Grasse at the Battle of the Virginia Capes, which held the centre of the French line.

An 18-pounder naval cannon, cast in Britain by Walkers and Company in 1798. The US Navy purchased such guns for its ships from British manufacturers beginning in that year. Such 'long guns' formed the main armament on smaller ships and the secondary armament for larger American warships. The designation '18-pounder' refers to the weight of the cannonball fired by the gun; the actual gun weighs 4,700 pounds. The portrait behind the cannon is of Commodore Stephen Decatur, who distinguished himself in battles against the Barbary Pirates and in the War of 1812 and inspired the fledgling US Navy. Decatur later died in a duel with Captain James Barron in 1820.

From the gallery devoted to the naval battles of the American Revolutionary War and War of 1812, visitors move into the gallery devoted to the Civil War period (1861-1865).

A display on the Anaconda Plan, Union General George McClellan's strategy of blockading the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and mounting a military expedition to seize the Mississippi River and the South's railway hubs and waterways in a bid to economically strangle the Confederate States. The Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the command responsible for enforcing the Anaconda Plan on the east coast, was established at Norfolk in May 1861 and comprised a fleet of 22 obsolete sailing vessels, side-wheelers, large propeller-driven frigates, and gunboats.

A model of of the USS Pennsylvania, authorised by Congress in 1816 but not completed until 1837. The Pennsylvania was the largest sailing warship ever built by the US Navy, fitted to carry up to 136 guns. The ship made only one voyage in its career, from Delaware Bay to Norfolk via Chesapeake Bay, to have its bottom coppered at the Norfolk Navy Yard. Used as an accommodation vessel at Norfolk, the USS Pennsylvania was deliberately burned on 20 April 1861 to prevent it falling into Confederate hands during the Civil War.

A display case filled with artefacts from the Battle of Hampton Roads, 8-9 March 1862. This was the world famous first battle between ironclad ships, the Union's USS Monitor and the Confederacy's CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack). Also on display are items recovered from the wreck of the USS Cumberland, sunk by the CSS Virginia, and scale models of both the Cumberland and the USS Merrimack prior to its conversion into an ironclad by the Confederacy.

Scale models of the CSS Virginia (left) and the USS Monitor (right). The battle arose from the Confederacy's desperate need to break the Union's naval blockade of the Atlantic coast, which had cut off Virginia's industrial cities of Richmond and Norfolk from international trade. The epic battle between these two warships in Hampton Roads ended indecisively on 9 March 1862, but the emergence of ironclad warships revolutionised naval construction thereafter. The CSS Virginia was later blown up by the Confederacy on 11 May 1862 to prevent its capture by Union forces and the USS Monitor foundered at sea and sank on 31 December 1862 with the loss of 16 men.

A closer view of the USS Merrimack, one of a new generation of six steam-powered, propeller-driven frigates built by the US Navy. Merrimack displaced 3,200 tons and measured 275 feet long and 38.5 feet wide, with a top speed of 12 knots (22.2 km/h) and armament consisting of 14 8-inch guns, two 10-inch guns, and 24 9-inch guns. The ship was commissioned on 20 February 1856. During the American Civil War, Merrimack was stationed in Norfolk and was burned to the waterline by retreating Union forces on 20 April 1861. In need of ships, the Confederacy raised and rebuilt Merrimack as an ironclad with the new name of CSS Virginia.

A cannonball from the CSS Virginia, as well as the ship's bell.

An exhibit on the Union Army's attempts to take the Confederate city of Richmond, Virginia. The display notes Union General Ulysses S. Grant's use of combined Army-Navy operations in 1864, which saw General Benjamin F. Butler ordered to support Grant's operations by opening a 'back door' to Richmond by using the James River as a supply line in an attempt to take the Richmond-Petersburg railroad line. Although Butler's uninspired leadership resulted in the failure to take Richmond via a back door, Butler did manage to establish a large supply depot at City Point, Virginia, which supported Grant's army throughout the campaign.

A cutaway model of the CSS Richmond, an ironclad gunboat which served with the Confederate Navy's James River Squadron protecting Richmond, Virginia above Drewry's Bluff. This squadron kept Union Navy ships behind defensive obstructions at Trent's Reach on the James River; however, on 23 January 1865, the squadron was ordered to attack the Union supply centre at City Point, Virginia and was repulsed by shore batteries and the river monitor USS Onondaga. The CSS Richmond was destroyed by Confederate forces on 3 April 1865 to prevent its capture by the Union.

A gallery devoted to the Confederate commerce raider CSS Florida. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum is the official repository of the remains of two Civil War warships, the CSS Florida and the USS Cumberland.

The CSS Florida was secretly built in Liverpool, UK for the Confederate Navy. To deceive Union ships, Florida had collapsible funnels to hide the fact that it was steam-powered, and a propeller that could be lifted up and into the hull when the ship was cruising under sail.

The CSS Florida attacked and sank 36 Union merchant ships between January 1863 and her capture by the USS Wachusett in the harbour of Bahia, Brazil on 7 October 1864. Despite protests from Brazil that Wachusett had violated its territorial waters to capture CSS Florida, the Confederate raider was towed to Hampton Roads as a prize of war. Although enduring a controllable leak for several days, on 28 November 1864 CSS Florida sank under mysterious circumstances, thereby preventing her delivery to Brazil in satisfaction of a court order or her return to the Confederacy. One of Florida's former captains, J.N. Maffitt, accused the US Navy of deliberately sinking the ship.

A gallery devoted to the US Navy's evolution between 1865 and 1914, a period marked first by post-Civil War decline and deterioration and then, from 1881, a technological leap forward through the introduction of steel-hulled battleships and cruisers. The long, black object in the cradle seen in the centre of the photo is a torpedo from the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya, sunk by the armoured cruiser USS Brooklyn on 3 July 1898 in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, the decisive naval battle of the Spanish-American War.

A model of the USS Nashville (PG-7), a gunboat built in Newport News, Virginia and commissioned into the US Navy on 19 August 1897. During the Spanish-American War, Nashville captured four Spanish vessels between April and July 1898 and assisted in cutting the undersea telegraph cable offshore of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The ship later saw service in the Philippines, China, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean, as well as in the Great Lakes as a naval reserve training vessel. Five years of patrols in the West Indies and Central America followed from 1912. During the First World War, Nashville served as a convoy escort in the Mediterranean, after which it returned to Charleston, South Carolina and decommissioned on 21 October 1918.

A model of the protected cruiser USS Chicago, one of the US Navy's first four steel ships and the largest of the original three cruisers authorised by Congress for the 'New Navy' in 1883. Commissioned on 17 April 1889, USS Chicago measured 342 feet 2 inches long, 48 feet 3 inches wide, with a displacement of 4,600 tons (as built) and armament comprising a mix of 8-inch, 6-inch, 5-inch, 6-pounder, 3-pounder, and 1-pounder guns. Over the course of her career, the ship served in European and Mediterranean waters, as well as along the east and west coasts of North and South America and in the Caribbean. During the First World War, Chicago served as flagship of Commander, Submarine Force, Atlantic from April 1917, and in 1919 transferred to the Pacific. She decommissioned on 30 September 1923 and, renamed Alton, foundered while under tow from Honolulu to San Francisco on 8 July 1936.

A model of the USS Maine (ACR-1), an armoured cruiser of 6,789 tons commissioned into the US Navy on 17 September 1895. Despatched to Havana, Cuba to protect American interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, Maine was anchored in Havana harbour on the night of 15 February 1898 when, at 9:40pm, she exploded without warning, killing 258 of her 374 crew. The sinking of the Maine directly contributed to the American declaration of war against Spain in April 1898, with the rallying cry 'Remember the Maine!' being used by proponents to galvanise American public support for war.

A display on the US Navy's Flying Squadron, based at Norfolk during the 1898 Spanish-American War to protect the US east coast from possible Spanish attack. Eventually, the Flying Squadron joined the rest of the US fleet for the decisively successful attack on the Spanish fleet off Cuba in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, 3 July 1898. This display contains a model of the USS Winslow (Torpedo Boat No. 5) and the ship's bell from the USS Nashville (PG-7), as well as prints depicting scenes from naval operations of the Spanish-American War.

Visitors move into the gallery dedicated to the World Wars. The large black object in the centre of the photo is a Mark VI mine, a new type of underwater mine that was effective at great depths and easy to construct. The mine's steel sphere held 300 pounds of TNT, detonated by an electrical relay on the mine casing, which was attached in turn to a copper cable suspended from a small float. When a submarine or other steel ship touched the cable, an electric charge detonated the mine.

A model of the destroyer USS Truxtun (DD-14), commissioned on 11 September 1902. Displacing 440 tons, the ship was 259 feet 6 inches long, possessed a top speed of 29.6 knots (54.8 km/h), and was armed with two 3-inch guns, six 6-pounder guns, and two 18-inch torpedo tubes. During the First World War, Truxtun undertook convoy escort and patrol duties out of Brest, France, unsuccessfully attacking a suspected German U-boat on 18 May 1918. USS Truxtun was decommissioned on 18 July 1919 and later sold to commercial owners for conversion to a fruit-carrying merchant vessel.

A model of USS Subchaser 136, built in response to the threat of German U-boats operating off the US Eastern Seaboard in the First World War. A total of 440 subchasers were built for the US Navy during the war, with Subchaser 136 being one of 21 such vessels built by Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

A print of 'Return of the Mayflower' by Bernard F. Gribble, depicting Norfolk-based destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 8 arriving off the coast of Ireland on the morning of 4 May 1917. Destroyer Squadron 8 was the first US Navy unit to arrive in Europe following the US declaration of war against Germany.

A display on the Great Depression, the interwar isolationism of the United States, the slump in naval construction, and the consequent decline in naval activity in the Hampton Roads region. The 1922 Washington Naval Limitations Treaty, which placed a 10-year halt on capital ship construction, led to work on the battleships North Carolina and Iowa (being built, respectively, in Norfolk and Newport News) being halted. Despite the rise of American isolationist sentiment and the financial constraints imposed by the Great Depression, the US Navy still managed to refit six battleships in 1924 and maintained a nucleus of skilled workers at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The large ship's wheel shown in the photo belonged to the Colorado-class battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48), the last battleship constructed in the United States before the outbreak of the Second World War. West Virginia was built at Newport News and commissioned on 1 December 1923; it was badly damaged by Japanese planes in the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941.

The builder's plaque from the USS Ranger (CV-4), the first ship of the US Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier. Built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company and commissioned on 4 June 1934, Ranger spent the Second World War based in the Atlantic, where she first served in President Roosevelt's 'Neutrality Patrol' from 1939 and later supported the landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) in November 1942 and air attacks against German shipping off Norway (Operation Leader) in October 1943. The ship's small size compared to later classes of wartime US carriers meant that Ranger was less versatile than larger carriers with larger embarked air wings. As such, Ranger was decommissioned on 18 October 1946 and sold for scrap in 1947.

A display about the massive influx into the Hampton Roads region of new naval recruits during the Second World War, including the lively nightlife enjoyed by sailors on shore leave in Norfolk.

A gallery devoted to the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic gallery is dominated by a large diorama depicting the capture of the German submarine U-505 by the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury (DE-133) and the escort carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) on 4 June 1944, 150 miles off the coast of Cape Blanco, French West Africa. This was the first U-boat captured intact by the US Navy, and contained a wealth of intelligence information, including an Enigma coding machine and its current code books. The capture of U-505 was kept secret and only publicly acknowledged after the war.

A closer view of the diorama depicting the capture of U-505. The USS Pillsbury was an Edsall-class destroyer escort of 1,590 ton fully loaded, measuring 306 feet long. The Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Guadalcanal measured 512 feet long, displacing 7,800 tons. U-505 was a Type IXC submarine, displacing 1,232 tons submerged. Guadalcanal and Pillsbury were assisted in the capture of U-505 by other vessels, boarding parties, and aircraft from Task Group 22.3.

Displays tell the story of the rapid and enormous growth of the naval shipbuilding industry and US Navy infrastructure in the Hampton Roads area, including at the Norfolk and Newport News shipyards. At its peak in February 1943, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard employed 43,000 people and repaired and overhauled 6,850 US and Allied ships. The efficiency of the shipyard was demonstrated in the construction of the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Shubrick (DD-639), which was completed in only 61 days. The large bell seen in the photo is from the USS Alabama (BB-60), a South Dakota-class battleship commissioned on 16 August 1942 and decommissioned on 9 January 1947 after service in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. USS Alabama has been preserved as a museum ship at Mobile, Alabama since 1965.

A model of USS Alabama (BB-60) sits under a quote from America's best known naval theorist and strategist, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), author of the influential book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.

A display on the massive Second World War expansion of Newport News Shipbuilding, which became the national leader in aircraft carrier production, building nine Essex-class carriers and the larger carrier USS Midway during the war. In addition, the Newport News shipyard also completed eight light cruisers and various landing craft, as well as numerous wartime vessel conversions, work that employed over 31,000 people in 1943. Builder's plaques from the Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Houston (CL-81) and the South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB-58) are included in the display.

A display on notable Cold War conflicts involving Norfolk-based units of the US Navy, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The porthole mounted on the display (centre right) comes from the carrier USS Essex (CV-9), flagship of Task Force Alpha, a special anti-submarine warfare squadron. As noted in the display, in April 1961 Task Force Alpha departed Norfolk for Cuba, being ordered to burn the ships' American flags and paint over the ships' names. Additionally, and while en route to Cuba, USS Essex received a combat-loaded air wing of unmarked A-4 Skyhawk aircraft to support the Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles.

A model of the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Norfolk (SSN-714). USS Norfolk was the 27th Los Angeles-class boat constructed for the US Navy and was built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company between August 1979 and October 1981. Commissioned on 21 May 1983, USS Norfolk was decommissioned on 11 December 2014 after 31 years, 6 months, and 10 days of service.

A model of the Spruance-class destroyer USS Stump (DD-978), built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi and commissioned into the US Navy on 19 August 1978. The 529 foot long, 8,040 ton ship was the 16th Spruance-class destroyer built and carried a crew of 19 officers and 315 enlisted personnel. The ship was armed with two 5-inch guns, two 20mm Phalanx close-in weapons systems, anti-submarine rockets, Seasparrow, Harpoon, Tomahawk, and RIM-116 missiles, and Mark 32 torpedoes, as well as two MH-60 Seahawk helicopters. USS Stump was decommissioned on 22 October 2004 and later sunk as a target off the coast of North Carolina on 7 June 2006.