USS Chattanooga (CL-18)
1903 Denver-class cruiser
USS Chattanooga (C-16/PG-30/CL-18) was a Denver-class protected cruiser in the United States Navy during World War I. She was the second Navy ship named for the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Construction
Chattanooga was one of six Denver-class protected cruisers ordered for the US Navy on 14 December 1899. She was laid down at the Crescent Shipyard of Elizabethport, New Jersey on 29 March 1900, and launched on 7 March 1903. Construction was much slower than contracted (the contracted completion date was 14 June 1902), and when the shipbuilding trust that owned the Crescent Shipyard, the US Government cancelled the contract and took possession of the part-completed ship, which was moved to the New York Navy Yard for finishing in October 1903.
Chattanooga was commissioned on 11 October 1904. After sea trials in January 1905, during which she reached a speed of 16.65 knots (30.84 km/h; 19.16 mph) in a four-hour trial, she reported to the Atlantic Fleet.
Service history
Pre-war service
Chattanooga's first cruise following shakedown was to the Caribbean, from which she returned to New York City to join the squadron which cleared for Cherbourg, France 18 June 1905. At Cherbourg, USS Brooklyn (CA-3) received on board the body of John Paul Jones, which the squadron brought home to the United States Naval Academy, arriving at Annapolis 23 July. Through the remainder of the year, Chattanooga aided in training men of the Maine and Massachusetts Naval Militia, and cruised briefly in the Caribbean. On 28 December she cleared San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the Suez Canal and duty in the Pacific.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Chattanooga (CL-18)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.