USS Remembrance

"USS Remembrance" was a fictional ship in the Timeline-191 alternate history books written by Harry Turtledove.

Its name is derived from the remembrance of the humiliating defeat which the US in this timeliene suffered in 1881, a memory cultivated in the following decades in hope and expectation of revenge upon the Confederates as well as upon the British and Canadians.

The "Remembrance" was commissioned immediately after the Great War, built on the hull of an uncompleted 'ocean monitor' (a project that was cancelled by the War Department). The ship was state of the art with good weapons and a complement of three dozen fighter planes. In 1920–21 she aided the Irish government in putting down a British-backed uprising in Ulster, demonstrating to the world what aircraft carriers were capable of. During the 1920s under Socialist President Upton Sinclair, the "Remembrance" languished in Boston Navy Yard before being sent to the Pacific in 1928.

Thereafter the ship played a more important role in naval history. She was nearly sunk in 1932 by a Japanese submarine while patrolling the Canadian coastline against Japanese smugglers. This incident and Japan's covert support for Canadian rebels touched off the Pacific War between the United States and Japan. During the conflict "Remembrance" participated in the first naval battles where neither side's ships saw one another. After the war's uneventful end in 1934 she was transferred to the Atlantic, where "Remembrance" was outfitted with wireless-ranging (a.k.a. Y-range) gear in 1940 (the equivalent of radar).

When the Confederate States declared war on June 22, 1941 by bombing Philadelphia, the "Remembrance" was ordered to launch an airstrike at Charleston. Despite sustaining considerable damage from CS aircraft, the ship managed to pull it off, retiring to US-controlled Bermuda for repairs. However, this success was overshadowed when HMS "Ark Royal" managed to lure the carriers "Remembrance" and "Sandwich Islands" away from Bermuda, allowing a joint C.S./British task force to take the strategically important island.

When it became clear that the Bahamas would fall too, the "Remembrance" was ordered to the Pacific to face Japan, the sole US Navy carrier in that ocean. On December 7, 1941 she was ordered to aid Midway Island and, despite sinking one Japanese carrier and damaging another, was struck twice on the bow by Japanese bombs, then hit once more in the stern near the ship's gasoline stores. In spite of the heroic efforts of her damage-control parties, the resulting fires led to the ship's sinking. "Remembrance"'s loss ensured Midway's fall to Japan, and forced the US Navy to restrict its operations under land-based aircover.

Its commander, Captain Stein and its damage control officer Lieutenant Commander Pottinger are among many confirmed killed when the "Remembrance" was lost. Its first officer Commander Cressy and a damage control officer Lieutenant Sam Carsten survived as well as some other crewmen.

References

ee also

*List of fictional ships