:USS Montana (ACR-13)

{{main|Tennessee-class cruiser}}

File:Tennessee class cruiser schematic.gif

Montana was {{convert|504|ft|6|in|m|abbr=on}} long overall and had beam of {{convert|72|ft|10|in|m}} and a draft of {{convert|25|ft|m|abbr=on}}. She displaced {{convert|14500|LT|t|lk=in}} normally and up to {{convert|15981|LT|t}} at full load.Musicant, pp. 149–150 The ship was propelled by two 4-cylinder, vertical triple-expansion engines, with steam provided by sixteen coal-fired Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers trunked into four funnels. The engines were rated at {{convert|23000|ihp|lk=in}}, which produced a top speed of {{convert|22|kn|mph km/h|lk=in}}. She had a storage capacity for up to {{convert|2000|LT|t}} of coal, which allowed her to steam for {{convert|6500|nmi|lk=in}} at a speed of {{convert|10|kn}}. She had a crew of 914 officers and men. Originally fitted with a pair of military masts, Montana had her foremast replaced with a cage mast in 1911.Friedman, p. 467Gardiner, p. 149

Montana was armed with a main battery of four 10"/40 caliber gun Mark 3-caliber Mark 3 guns in two twin gun turrets, one forward and one aft. These were supported by a secondary battery of sixteen 6"/50 caliber gun mounted in casemates, eight on each broadside. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried twenty-two 3"/50 caliber gun in single pedestal mounts either in casemates or sponsons in the hull. She also carried a variety of smaller guns, including twelve 3-pounder automatic guns and four 1-pounders. Like other contemporary armored cruisers, she was also armed with four {{convert|21|in|0}} torpedo tubes located below the waterline in her hull. Montana was protected by a combination of Krupp cemented steel and older Harvey steel. The ship's armored belt was {{convert|5|in|abbr=on|0}} thick and the maximum thickness of the armor deck was 3 in thick. The main battery turret faces were {{convert|9|in|abbr=on|0}} thick, as were the sides of the conning tower.

File:U.S.S Montana.jpg

The keel for Montana was laid down at the Newport News Drydock & Shipbuilding Co. in Newport News on 29 April 1905. Her completed hull was launched on 15 December 1906, and after fitting-out work was completed, the new cruiser was commissioned into the United States Navy on 21 July 1908. She was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia. Montana steamed out of Norfolk on 5 August for a cruise off the eastern coast of the United States that lasted until 25 January 1909.{{cite web|title=Montana (Armored Cruiser No. 13) |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/montana.html|publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command | date=30 October 2015 |access-date=12 November 2015|last=Evans|first=Mark}} On 8 October 1908 she put on a searchlight display as part of a fireworks display at Philadelphia. During the display her searchlights blinded the operator of Philadelphia Police Department steamer {{SS|Visitor||2}} that then had a slight collision with a barge that "Visitor" was going to, to help put out a fire on board caused by malfunctioning fireworks.{{cite web |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000071882796&view=1up&seq=255 |title=Annual report of the Supervising Inspector-general Steamboat-inspection Service, Year ending June 30, 1909|publisher=Penn State University | access-date=26 December 2019}} After a stop in Charleston, South Carolina, she continued south through the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Colón, Panama on 29 January. There, she joined the Special Service Squadron. This duty was interrupted twice; the first came in February, when she returned to Hampton Roads, Virginia, where she and the rest of the Atlantic Fleet greeted the Great White Fleet at the conclusion of its circumnavigation of the globe.{{cite web|url=http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2014/02/22/great-white-fleet-naval-presence-around-the-world/|title=Great White Fleet: Naval Presence Around the World|last=Kelly|first=Jason|access-date=26 January 2016|date=22 February 2014}} The second came in April, owing to instability in the Ottoman Empire following the Young Turk Revolution that threatened American interests. Montana departed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 2 April, when she was sent to the Mediterranean to protect Americans in the region. She remained there until 23 July, when she left Gibraltar, arriving in Boston on 3 August. She thereafter returned to her normal operations patrolling the eastern coast of the United States.

Montana departed Hampton Roads on 8 April 1910, bound for South America for the Argentina Centennial. She steamed in company with her sister ship {{USS|North Carolina|ACR-12|2}}, eventually reaching Maldonado, Uruguay, where the two cruisers met their sister {{USS|Tennessee|ACR-10|2}} and the armored cruiser {{USS|South Dakota|ACR-9|2}}, which had steamed down independently. The four ships then continued on to Bahía Blanca, Argentina, for the centennial celebrations.{{cite web|last=Evans|first=Mark|title=Tennessee (Armored Cruiser No. 10) iv |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/t/tennessee-armored-cruiser-no-10-iv.html|publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command | date=8 June 2015 |access-date=11 November 2015}} The ship left Argentina on 30 June and arrived back in Hampton Roads on 22 July. After resuming her normal peacetime routine for the following three months, Montana was tasked with escorting President William Howard Taft aboard Tennessee for a trip to Panama. The two ships departed Charleston on 10 November for the visit, which lasted a week. On 26 July 1911, Montana was transferred to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and she began an overhaul at the Portsmouth Navy Yard that lasted until 11 November 1912. During the overhaul, a cage mast was installed in place of her original fore military mast.

File:USS Montana ACR13 LOC 15885.jpg

After returning to service in late 1912, Montana made another trip to the eastern Mediterranean, departing in December. Montana again joined Tennessee for the patrol, which was ordered in response to the Balkan Wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan League, which again threatened American interests in the region. The ships operated under the command of Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight.Page & Page, p. 421 During the trip, which lasted until June 1913, she made stops in Beirut, İskenderun, and Mersin. After returning to the United States, the ship resumed her peacetime routine of training cruises off the American east coast, as well as cruises to Mexico, Cuba, and Haiti, over the following year. During this period, on 23 January 1914, Montana was in Haiti when Michel Oreste abdicated from the presidency. Montana and the German protected cruiser {{SMS|Vineta|1897|6}} landed marines in Port-au-Prince to prevent rioting in the capital.Colby, p. 332 Later that year, for a few days between 28 April[http://www.naval-history.net/OWShips-WW1-05-HMS_Essex.htm Royal Navy Log Books of the World War 1 Era - HMS ESSEX] and early May, Montana took part in the United States occupation of Veracruz, where the ship's commander, Louis McCoy Nulton, led a landing party in the city during the occupation.{{cite news|title = Annapolis Ex-Head Dies - Admiral Louis M. Nulton, Led Naval Academy 1925-28| newspaper=The New York Times |agency = Associated Press| date = 11 November 1954| url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20C10FF3955117A93C0A8178AD95F408585F9}} Montana also carried the remains on the seventeen sailors and marines who had been killed in the fighting back to New York City, arriving on 10 May. There, the Navy held a ceremony attended by President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels.{{cite news|title=Vera Cruz Dead Here on Warship|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/05/11/100314498.pdf|newspaper=The New York Times|date=11 May 1914|access-date=6 May 2016}}

File:USS Montana in dazzle camouflage.tif]]

After the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917, Montana initially was tasked with transporting men and materiel in the York River area, along with conducting training exercises. On 17 July, she was assigned to the Cruiser and Transport Force; she spent the majority of 1917 and 1918 escorting convoys from Hampton Roads, New York City, and Halifax, Nova Scotia to France. These operations included a troopship convoy of four transports—{{SS|Finland||2}}, {{USS|Henderson|AP-1|2}}, {{USAT|Antilles||2}}, and {{USAT|San Jacinto||2}}—carrying part of the American Expeditionary Forces on 6 August 1917.Crowell & Wilson, p. 603 In early 1918, she was briefly used as a training ship for naval cadets from the United States Naval Academy in the Chesapeake Bay. A troopship convoy followed in June 1918 in company with the cruisers {{USS|South Dakota|ACR-9|2}} and {{USS|Huntington|CA-5|2}} and the destroyers {{USS|Gregory|DD-82|2}} and {{USS|Fairfax|DD-93|2}}, protecting the Italian steamers {{SS|Re d'Italia||2}}, {{SS|Caserta||2}}, and {{SS| Duca d'Aosta||2}}, the French {{SS|Patria||2}}, and American transports Pocahontas and Susquehanna.Crowell & Wilson, p. 611

In September 1918, Montana took part in another troopship convoy to France with the battleship {{USS|Georgia|BB-15|2}}, the armored cruiser {{USS|North Carolina|ACR-12|2}}, and the destroyer {{USS|Rathburne|DD-113|2}}.Jones, p. 118 The convoy consisted of the transports {{USS|Princess Matoika|ID-2290|2}}, {{USS|President Grant|ID-3014|2}}, {{USS|Mongolia|ID-1615|2}}, Rijndam, Wilhelmina, British steamer Ascanius.Crowell & Wilson, pp. 559, 617 The following month she joined the battleship {{USS|Nebraska|BB-14|2}} to escort twelve British merchant ships bound for Liverpool.Jones, p. 120 Following the Allied victory in November 1918, Montana was sent to France to begin the process of transporting American soldiers back from Europe. These operations were interrupted in March 1919, when on 5 March Montana departed New York in company with the passenger ship {{SS|George Washington}}, which was carrying Wilson back to France for the conclusion of the peace treaty negotiations.{{cite web|title=United States Navy and World War I: 1914–1922|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-navy-world-war-i-redirect.html|publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command | date=28 November 2016|access-date=29 November 2016|last=Blazich|first=Frank A. Jr.}} By July 1919, she had made six round trips between France and the United States, carrying a total of some 8,800 American soldiers.

After the conclusion of the repatriation effort, Montana was transferred to the west coast of the United States. She arrived in the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Seattle on 16 August, where she remained until 2 February 1921, when she was decommissioned. During this period of inactivity, she was renamed Missoula on 7 June 1920 so her original name could be used for one of the planned South Dakota-class battleships, and she reclassified with the hull number CA-13. Though decommissioned in 1921, the ship remained in the Navy's inventory until 15 July 1930, when she was formally stricken from the naval register, according to the terms of the London Naval Treaty, which placed aggregate tonnage limits on the cruiser fleets of the signatory countries. She was sold to John Irwin Jr. on 29 September and was eventually broken up in 1935.

{{Reflist|20em}}

• {{cite book | editor-last=Colby | editor-first=Frank Moore | title=The New International Year Book | publisher=Dodd, Mead & Company | location=New York | year=1915 | oclc=977563414 }}
• {{cite book | last = Crowell | first = Benedict | author-link = Benedict Crowell |author2=Robert Forrest Wilson | title = The Road to France: The Transportation of Troops and Military Supplies, 1917–1918 | url = https://archive.org/details/roadtofrancetra04wilsgoog | series = How America Went to War: An Account From Official Sources of the Nation's War Activities, 1917–1920 | location = New Haven | publisher = Yale University Press | year = 1921 | oclc = 18696066 }}
• {{cite book | last=Friedman | first=Norman | title=US Cruisers: An Illustrated History | location=Annapolis | publisher=Naval Institute Press | year=1984 | isbn=978-0-87021-715-9 }}
• {{cite book | editor-last=Gardiner | editor-first=Robert | title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905 | year=1979 | location=London | publisher=Conway Maritime Press | isbn=978-0-85177-133-5 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/conwaysallworlds0000unse_l2e2}}
• {{cite book | last=Jones | first=Jerry W. | title=U.S. Battleship Operations in World War I | location=Annapolis | publisher=Naval Institute Press | year=1998 | isbn=978-1-55750-411-1 }}
• {{cite book | last=Musicant | first=Ivan | title=U.S. Armored Cruisers: A Design and Operational History | location=Annapolis | publisher=Naval Institute Press | year=1985 | isbn=978-0-87021-714-2 }}
• {{cite journal | editor-last1 = Page | editor1-first = Walter Hines | editor-last2 = Page | editor-first2 = Arthur Wilson | title = The War Chiefs of the Navy | journal = The World's Work: A History of Our Time | volume = XXX | date = August 1915 | publisher = Doubleday, Page & Company |pages = 409–427 | oclc = 1017147195 }}

• {{cite book | last = Alden | first = John D. | title = American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet | location = Annapolis | publisher = Naval Institute Press | year = 1989 | isbn = 978-0-87021-248-2 }}
• {{cite book | title = Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I | editor-last = Moore | editor-first = John E. | publisher = Studio Editions | location = London | year = 1990 | isbn = 978-1-85170-378-4 }}

{{Commons category}}

• {{navsource|04/acr13/acr13|USS Montana (ACR-13)}}

{{Tennessee class cruisers}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montana (ACR-13)}}

Category:Tennessee-class cruisers

Category:Ships built in Newport News, Virginia

Category:1906 ships

Category:World War I cruisers of the United States