Ship launchings and commissionings at the Charlestown Navy Yard

Most ships launched and commissioned at the Charlestown Navy Yard were destroyers. This is the launch of the USS CHARRETTE in 1942. Boston National Historical Park (BNHP) BOSTS 10677-1.

A typical Navy ship’s life begins with two ceremonies, launching and commissioning. At the Charlestown Navy Yard the Commandant presided, often with Navy personnel, guests, shipyard workers and the public, and Boston newspapers frequently covered them. Bands played, other ships sounded bells, whistles or horns, sailors fired cannons and honor guards paraded. The public came to many ceremonies, except in World War II, when the Navy closed the Yard to the public for security. Most began at the Commandant’s House, where the Commandant and his wife served coffee to officials and guests. Over the Yard’s 174-year history a ceremony usually drew two to five thousand people.

The launching

A ship was ready to launch when workers had finished most of it. When the Yard opened in 1800 the Navy already had a launching ritual based on centuries of European tradition, beginning with an invocation by a chaplain. The christening came with the launch: historically a woman or young girl, the ship’s “sponsor,” smashed a bottle of wine on the hull and said, “I christen thee” plus the ship’s name. Workers then released the ship.

• In the 1860s Miss Emma Hartt, whose father, grandfather and uncle all worked in the Yard, took part in a record three christenings.
• In WWII the Yard’s workers gave sponsors an inscribed keepsake, such as a diamond wristwatch or a silver bowl.
• Early sponsors used mostly wine; from the 1880s Navy officials chose bottled champagne exclusively.
• Yard officials gave every woman who christened a ship 24 roses, which were part of the ritual.

The Secretary of the Navy supervised naming. In the Yard’s first century, ships often took the names of states, cities and places, such as the USS Vermont, Hartford and Plymouth, and some had Native American place names, such as the Merrimack, Wachusett and Narragansett. In 1897 Theodore Roosevelt, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, started naming destroyers for notable Navy, Marine and Coast Guard personnel. From the 1930s, when the Yard specialized in destroyers, most ships carried such names, and some christenings were bittersweet because the sponsor was honoring a loved one killed in battle. In WWII ships were built so fast that some were launched in pairs, with launch and commissioning combined, and the large service ships called LSTs carried numbers instead of names; the honor of christening them went to outstanding women employees.

The commissioning

A commissioning is more of a military event: the ship goes on active duty and its crew gets a military assignment. Before the Civil War commissionings were informal, and a captain and crew simply sailed away as the Commandant said farewell. Later they became ceremonial, with speeches by officers and sometimes politicians, a crew in full dress and a long commissioning pennant. A ship overhauled by Yard workers could be re-commissioned. Only after a shakedown cruise was a new ship ready.

The commissioning of the USS SUFFOLK COUNTY in 1957, a supply ship and the last major ship built in the Yard. BNHP, BOSTS 14331.

Over 600 ships were commissioned in the Yard, about a third of them built there. The rest came from private yards, mostly Fore River in Quincy and Bath Iron Works in Maine, and some were outfitted at Charlestown and commissioned there. Most commissionings came in the WWII years, 1939–1945.

Congressman John F. Kennedy, a Navy veteran of WWII, took part in the commissioning of the USS CONY in 1949. BNHP, BOSTS 10799x.

Unusual ceremonies

• In 1814 the Commandant ordered special guards around the USS Independence on launch day, fearing a British attack in the War of 1812.
• During the Civil War, Navy officials commissioned about 45 civilian ships after converting them to military use.
• In 1943 workers launched 26 warships for the British Navy under Lend-Lease; the British commissioned them in Britain.
• From 1950 to 1957 about 45 ceremonies transferred U.S. Navy ships to allied countries.

The USS SPRINGFIELD, with Terrier missiles, was recommissioned in 1960. BNHP, BOSTS 14290-3.

Legacy

Yard workers built, repaired or updated over 6,000 vessels, and most repaired ships got no ceremony. None of the ships launched or commissioned there is still in service, since a Navy ship’s useful life is about forty years and the Yard closed in 1974. Some current ships carry names that began there: USS Vermont (2020), Hartford (1994), Tortuga (1990) and Bainbridge (2005).

Sources

• National Park Service, Boston National Historical Park, “Ship Ceremonies in the Charlestown Navy Yard” (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ship-ceremonies-cny.htm); rewritten in hubnx's own words. Pictures of private individuals and two sketch images are left out.