Ship Index

Selected Maritime Links

A Few Chosen For Content and Additional Links
Listed Alphabetically

Specialized Hydrographic & Oceanographic Site Links are on another page.

Another Merchant Marine Page: Worth visiting, if for no other reason than to solve "I went to sea for the first time, on this ship, the Great Lakes ore carrier Shenango, sixteen months before Japan attacked the United States, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and four months before I was born...." Check "Who Am I." [Note: Seems a bit slow in loading.]

Freight Detective Maritime History Center -- "From the Law Offices of Contryman and McDaniel -- The Logistics - Customs Broker Attorneys": One might not think a page sponsored by a law office would be of such general interest. It is for several reasons. It is mainly a set of links to a good selection of the usual nautical sites. The unusual aspect is its linkage to issues of modern commercial maritime issues and coverage in The Cargo Letter. Among those are modern piracy under Vessel Loss Dispatches, a real threat in many areas. The page also has one of the more comprehensive listings of live cameras, many covering ports and shipping.

Haze Gray & Underway: Large site with much information. Home of "Selected entries from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the US Navy's official publication of warship histories." This is the only extensive on-line version of DANFS that I know of.

HyperWar: "A Hypertext History of the Second World War" that is a major on-line asset. Coverage of political and all services background and history. Navy section is only a little piece and still extensive. HyperWar istself is a part of at the University of North Carolina's "ibiblio, the public's library" project. The ibiblio organization, formerly MetaLab, has an increasing collection of historical and other material on-line. Another of particular interest to people researching ships and Navy matters is World War II Resources.

Interactive Marine Observations from NOAA, Tallahassee, Florida has been "officially deactivated." Many of its useful funcions live on at a National Data Buoy Center page that also has some new graphing functions of interest. I sometimes like to take a look at the weather out there. I remember a question about roughness and echogram noise concerning "why would you go to sea in that?" when I mentioned 10 foot swell and 5 foot seas. I answered: "It is always like that." A look here can give a sample. A buoy south of the Aleutians will often show real "nice" NORPAC conditions. The open ocean Southeastern stations are particularly interesting in hurricanes; for example: 41002 at "12:00 PM EDT, Sat, May 01, 1999 ( 27 min. ago)" shows "Air Temperature: 67.8 ° F; Sea Level Pressure: 29.69 in; Pressure Tendency: 0.01 in; Sustained Wind: E (100°) at 23 kt; Gust: 29 kt; Estimated Wind at 10 meters (32 feet): 24 kt'; Estimated Wind at 20 meters (64 feet): 25 kt; Sea Surface Temperature: 69.3 ° F; Wave Height: 13.5 ft; Dominant Wave Period: 9 sec." The previous 24 hour record is available on the page and historical data is linked.

Lighthouse Getaway: Don't know about everyone else, but even though my navigation doing deep ocean surveys was generally by "cutting edge" electronics, well out in advance of the ordinary, and I liked to watch land slip away -- there was this thing about seeing a light. After 20 or more days at sea the sweep of a light was nice. This site has lots. Even if I was so pleased by "running on rails" with GPS during my last surveys (while having mixed feelings about the near total obsolescence of my skill at deciphering things like LORAN-C at 1:10,000 scale at 2,000 miles) I'm a bit hesitant to dismiss fixed aids such as the lights. I like backup and check systems at critical points.

Lighthouses Around the World, An interesting site that has gotten rid of its beautiful, but system choking, rippling reflections to load more quickly. The most interesting feature: Like to have a final resting place out here? Sounds kind of nice. There is a sub page that has links to lots of lights. To jump to a page covering Europe, Africa & elsewhere click here. Something about the bleak, grim aspect of "Lighthouse at the isle of Borkum" is particularly interesting or even romantic -- the austere old sentinel guarding a dangerous coast.

Maritime History Information on the Internet: Maritime links by concentrating on historic ships and . A place to begin extensive web crawling in the subject. Good starting point for Museums.

Naval Historical Center: "Mission: To enhance the Navy's effectiveness by preserving, analyzing and interpreting its hard-earned experience and history for the Navy and the American people." Well worth a visit on the web or in person. Located in the historic Washington Navy Yard. The central repository for Navy history. Extensive links to maritime and military history web sites under "Naval History-related Web Sites."

Naval Oceanographic Office: My old digs. Lots of information and a really great library. The Matthew Fontaine Maury Oceanographic Library is a real treasure. It had, and I hope still has, things like captured Nazi U-boat sediment map books -- right up into U.S. ports. Done with German precision, they were still authoritative and the best available in some areas. The on-line catalog (WebCat) is useful in getting titles, even if you don't plan to visit Mississippi. The library contains books I've found no where else. A particularly interesting report on the value of the historic data is here that contains a photo that makes me a bit "homesick."

NavSource: "The Largest US Navy Warship Photo Collection On The Internet" is a part of the NavSource site. The photo collection is in the form of ship's information page with a brief background and a link to Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) when available. I use NavSource as a first choice for ship information. I'd also ask anyone visiting here to help that collection grow if they have ship photos for ships not already covered.

Vessel Register: "The Naval Vessel Register contains information on ships and service craft that comprise the official inventory of the US Navy from the time of vessel authorization through its life cycle and disposal. It also includes ships that have been stricken but not disposed. Ships and service craft disposed of prior to 1987 are currently not included, however the data is gradually being added along with other updates." From "Ships" you can select either classes or individual names.

United States Naval & Shipbuilding Museum and USS Salem (CA 139) online. Former home of the Navy pages on Haze Gray & Underway now concentrates on the museum and USS Salem.

U.S. Merchant Marine covering "U.S. Maritime Service, Army Transport Service, Navy Transport Service, Military Sea Transportation Service, and Military Sealift Command" with articles, ship lists and other items of interest to mariners and those interested in maritime history or ships. Many links.

U.S. Naval Institute: Publications and photos with some samples on-line. Proceedings (not on-line) is the foremost publication on Naval thinking with frequent articles on history and always had a reputation for independent views. The Naval Institute Press is a major book publisher in the field and offers many books. [Note: Unfortunately, I find the web site has lots of pretty graphics and "jazz" and a little short on substance (As a former member for 20+ years I find that surprising! Substance was a strong point.). It does give an overview and contact information.]

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Copyright © 1998, 2001 by Ramon Jackson

Permission is given for noncommercial use and distribution of the text and my photographs, provided copyright and this notice are maintained. If used in a web site concerning these ships I would appreciate notification, if for no other reason than to perhaps link to the site. All commercial rights to my photographs and text are reserved. Any photographs taken by others and used with their permission are so noted and their permission must be obtained for use.

E-mail me by clicking on name above, I welcome individual mail on subjects covered, but have a very low tolerance for UCE/SPAM.