Comments by "COL BEAUSABRE" (@colbeausabre8842) on "USS Florida - Guide 119" video.

  1. I think you are referring to Peter Tomich. "Five years before World War I began, Peter Tomich (Tonic) immigrated to the United States. When war broke out he enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served until January 13, 1919. He received U.S. Citizenship and, ten days after his Army enlistment expired, joined the Navy. He had no known relatives so when the destroyer named in his honor was commissioned in 1943, it was decided to award his Medal to the ship itself. The award was presented on January 4, 1944 by Rear Admiral Monroe Kelly. In 1946 the U.S.S. Tomich was mothballed. In 1947, Governor Herbert B. Maw of Utah proclaimed Peter Tomich an honorary citizen of that State, and guardianship of his Medal was granted to Utah. In 1989 the Navy built the Senior Enlisted Academy in Newport, RI and named the building TOMICH HALL. The facility is a combination of academy, dormitory and museum. Chief Tomich's Medal of Honor was displayed there until 2006 when surviving family were identified and his Medal of Honor was presented to them" "By 1941, he had become a chief watertender on board the training and target ship USS Utah.[On December 7, 1941, while the ship lay in Pearl Harbor, moored off Ford Island, she was torpedoed during Japan's raid on Pearl Harbor. Tomich was on duty in a boiler room. As Utah began to capsize, he remained below, securing the boilers and making certain that other men escaped, and so lost his life. For his "distinguished conduct and extraordinary courage" at that time, he posthumously received the Medal of Honor. His Medal of Honor was on display at the Navy's Senior Enlisted Academy (Tomich Hall). Later, the decoration was presented to Tomich's family on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in the southern Adriatic city of Split in Croatia, on 18 May 2006, sixty-four years after US President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded it to him
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  2.  @hellhound47bravo3  I have heard that the turbine builders couldn't meet USN specifications and made no attempt to design/develop anything that did. The builders thought that would force the Navy to accept less than what they wanted. The USN decided two can play at this game and ordered reciprocating engines for the New York and Texas to prove "the customer is always right"
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  3. DRACK-IN-EE-FEL
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  4. Torpedoes were expensive and supposed to be used as "sniper" weapons. Case in point, no British destroyers mounted more than 2 tubes (2X1) until the L class of 1914, when it became 4 (2X2) The idea of firing a spread was not adopted until 1916 or so and it wasn't until the W class of 1918 that 6 tubes (2X3) were adopted. Plus torpedo tubes were weak points in the armor and hull
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  5.  @brigdonbishop3095  Here is a picture of the USS Florida with rangefinders on Number Two, Three and Four Turrets. http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013004a.jpg
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