Pacific ships

The books and the labels

Terms.

What the words under the photographs mean, and the books the pages cite.

Australian War Memorial

The Australian official collection. A credit such as P03703.007 is their catalog number. The wartime photographs used here are public domain. The date in the credit is the date of the sitting.

Class drawings

The side views on the class pages are drawn for this site. A drawing is the shape of the class. It is not a photograph of one hull, and it is not a builder’s plan. When a ship has no photograph of her own, the card says what the picture is.

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships

The Navy’s histories of its ships, cited on these pages as DANFS. It names the hull, the captains the Navy chose to print, and what the ship did. It is a compiled history. A deck log is the ship’s own book, and this is a different record. When another list names a different captain or a different day, the page keeps both.

Flag, not her captain

The admiral’s flag was in the ship. Another officer had the ship. The command line says “Flag, not her captain” for that admiral. “Division flag, not her captain” is the same case for a division commander whose flag was in a destroyer. He was aboard. The captain had the hull.

Japanese Naval Officers Pictorial Who’s Who

On 15 May 1944 the District Intelligence Office of the Fourteenth Naval District, at Pearl Harbor, compiled a book of Japanese naval officers from newspaper photographs and the captions printed with them. It is a U.S. Navy document. A face taken from it is the man the caption names, at the rank and date the caption prints. The sitting is the year on the caption.

Lucky Bag

The yearbook of the United States Naval Academy. Each class published one. The face in it is the midshipman in his class year, often long before the war. The credit names the class and, when the book prints it, the page. An old class book is public domain.

NavSource Naval History, a compiled index of ships and photographs. A commanding-officer date taken from it is that compilation. A deck log would be the ship’s own book. The page says when a date comes from that list. When DANFS names another man, both names stay.

The Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy, printed by the Navy. It lists the officers, their ranks, and their file numbers. The name in the Register is the name the Navy was using that year.

Office of Naval Intelligence

Recognition sheets of classes, including ONI 41-42. A sheet is a drawing of the class. When no photograph of the hull was found, the page uses the class sheet and says the drawing is the class.

Photograph numbers

NH is a Naval History and Heritage Command catalog number. NH 51576 is one print. 80-G is the National Archives series of Navy still pictures. 80-G-704582 is one of those. 19-N is a Bureau of Ships number. The number is the catalog number. The date is written out when the print has one. These are Navy photographs, and they are public domain. An official Marine Corps portrait is the same kind of service photograph.

Public domain

A photograph on this site is one a navy, the Marine Corps, or the Naval Academy made in the course of the work, or one whose copyright has run out. The credit names the office and the number. A picture that cannot be tied to a source of that kind is left off, and the face stays a pair of initials.