Photographs, 1920 to Today
The Normandie arriving in New York. The Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor. The surrender on the deck of the Missouri. The sailor’s kiss in Times Square, the last hours of the Andrea Doria, and the first images of the Titanic on the seabed. A century of ships held in one frame.
This chapter of Ships in Paintings holds 83 works. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. See all 1,331 works on one page.
Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.
This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.
When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.
Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here
The works
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
River boats on the Seine Unnamed
[Boats and Washerwomen on the Banks of the Seine, Paris], 1926
Photographer André Kertész (1894 to 1985)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gilman Collection, 2005.100.915)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Kertész moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family, and his then unorthodox camera angles made his early work slow to find recognition. This small print of 1926, under eight by eleven centimetres, belongs to his first years in the city. Its descriptive title records the working river: boats on the Seine and the washerwomen along its banks. The boats are not heroes here but part of the everyday life of the river, and that is the quiet charm of Kertész's early Paris.
The vessels Unnamed working boats on the Seine in Paris in the 1920s.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
A sailing boat on the Spree near Berlin Unnamed
Climbing the Mast, 1928
Photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895 to 1946)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2004.275)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Moholy-Nagy, the Bauhaus professor who coined the term New Vision, pointed his camera straight up the rigging of a sailing boat on the Spree near Berlin. The Metropolitan Museum calls it a prime example of that new vision: a small hand-held camera, a free-wheeling spirit and a viewpoint that turns the usual rules of perspective upside down. The deck vanishes and the boat becomes a web of lines against the sky, and a small boat was all he needed to show the dynamism of the modern world.
“This exciting and unexpected view up the rigging of a sailboat, made on the Spree River near Berlin”
The vessels The boat is an unnamed small sailing boat on the Spree River near Berlin, of the kind used for recreation on the city's rivers and lakes.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Juan Sebastián de Elcano Named ship
Ship Juan Sebastián Elcano with Passengers on Deck, 1928 to 1933
Photographer Walker Evans (1903 to 1975)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walker Evans Archive (1994.251.1034)
Medium Film negative
Among the early negatives of Walker Evans, made between 1928 and 1933, are views of the Spanish Navy's training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano with passengers crowding her deck. She was then new, built at Cádiz in 1927. Here the young photographer turned his camera on a four-masted ship and the crowd aboard her. The ship he found is still the Spanish Navy's training ship, the sailing vessel that has sailed farther than any other.
The real ship Built in 1927 at Cádiz by Echevarrieta y Larrinaga to a hull design by C. E. Nicholson of Camper and Nicholsons, the 113-metre steel four-masted topsail barquentine is the Spanish Navy's training ship, the third-largest tall ship in the world and the sailing vessel that has sailed the farthest, more than 2,000,000 nautical miles.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Majestic Named ship
Upper Deck, c. 1928
Photographer Charles Sheeler (1883 to 1965)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.155)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Sheeler was presumably commissioned in 1928 to photograph the liner Majestic, though, as the Metropolitan Museum notes, the details remain unclear. He did not show the ship whole. Instead he focused on her motors, ventilator stacks and exhaust fans, symbols of her mechanical power, using the vantage point to stress geometry and repetition. The liner becomes a machine for living in Le Corbusier's phrase, seen with the cool eye of a Precisionist. The next year he used the photograph as the basis for his painting of the same name.
“A year later, Sheeler would use the photograph as the basis for a painting of the same name.”
The real ship Launched in 1914 as the Hamburg America liner Bismarck, she was finished by her German builders after the war, handed over as reparations and became the White Star flagship Majestic, the largest ship in the world until Normandie. She later served the Royal Navy as the training ship HMS Caledonia, caught fire and sank in 1939, and was raised and scrapped in 1943.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Grace Harwar Named ship
Photographs aboard the Full-Rigged Ship Grace Harwar, 1929
Photographer Alan Villiers (1903 to 1982)
Medium Gelatin silver prints
Villiers shipped aboard Grace Harwar in 1929 for the voyage from Australia to Ireland round Cape Horn because he wanted to record the great sailing ships before it was too late. Grace Harwar, more than forty years old, was one of the last full-riggers in the trade, and a wharf labourer warned him not to sail in her. His friend Ronald Walker was lost on the voyage, which took 138 days. Villiers filmed it and took photographs, a record of the last days of full-rigged working ships.
“Don't ship out in her! She's a killer.”
The real ship A full-rigged ship more than forty years old in 1929, Grace Harwar was one of the last square-riggers in the Australian grain trade and sailed from Australia to Ireland round Cape Horn that year with Villiers in her crew.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Bremen Named ship
The Bremen at Bremerhaven, 1930
Photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904 to 1971)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1987.1100.443)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Bourke-White, whose corporate work led her to Fortune magazine, found the German record-breaker at her home port. Her pencil inscription on the back of the print calls her the North German Lloyd Line's ship in for refitting at her home port. Bremen was a national symbol, low and streamlined, holder of the Blue Riband, and Bourke-White photographed her as she photographed dams and factories, as a monument of the machine age.
“The North German Lloyd Line's Cruise Ship in for Refitting at her home port”
The real ship Launched in 1928 for Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen and her sister Europa were the most advanced high-speed liners of their day and sparked an international competition for fast, luxurious ships; Bremen held the Blue Riband. She was set alight by a 14-year-old crew member at her Bremerhaven dock on 16 March 1941 and completely gutted.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Morro Castle Named ship
The Burning of the SS Morro Castle at Sea, 8 September 1934
Photographer International News Photos, Inc.
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington, Prints and Photographs Division (cph.3b15302)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The press photographs of Morro Castle burning off the New Jersey coast showed Americans a liner turned into a furnace, hours from New York on her way home from Havana. A fire found in a storage locker at 2.50 in the morning spread through the ship; the decks grew too hot to stand on and passengers were forced to leap into heavy swells. In all, 137 passengers and crew were lost. When the burning hull drifted ashore at Asbury Park, so close to the boardwalk that people could wade out and touch it, the wreck itself became a spectacle.
The real ship Built for the Ward Line under the Merchant Marine Act of 1928 for the New York to Havana service, Morro Castle caught fire on 8 September 1934 and drifted ashore at Asbury Park. Her hulk was towed away in March 1935 and scrapped at Baltimore.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: International News Photos, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Normandie Named ship
The SS Normandie Arriving in New York Harbor on Her Maiden Voyage, 1935 to 1936
Photographer Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc.
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington, Prints and Photographs Division (cph.3b36522)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Seen from the air as she comes into New York harbour, Normandie steams among ferries and tugs with the Statue of Liberty behind her, her three funnels trailing smoke. She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat, crossing the Atlantic in a record 4.14 days, and 50,000 people saw her off at Le Havre on her maiden voyage. An aerial view suits her: from above, the long hull and the slanting, clipper-like bow designed by Vladimir Yourkevitch read like a drawing.
The real ship Built at Saint-Nazaire for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Normandie entered service in 1935 and made 139 westbound crossings from Le Havre to New York. Seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette, she caught fire and capsized at Pier 88 in 1942 and was scrapped in 1946.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Herzogin Cecilie Named ship
The Herzogin Cecilie on the Rocks, South Devon, 1936
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (H2009.45/753)
Medium Photograph
Herzogin Cecilie won the grain race from Australia four times in eleven voyages between 1926 and 1936. On 25 April 1936, making for Ipswich, she grounded on the Ham Stone and drifted onto the cliffs of Bolt Head on the south Devon coast. The photograph looks out from a rocky cove, surf breaking over the stones in the foreground, to the white-hulled four-masted barque held fast offshore, her yards still crossed on every mast. A racing windjammer has been brought to a standstill on an English shore.
The real ship Herzogin Cecilie was built by Rickmers at Bremerhaven and launched on 22 April 1902 for Norddeutscher Lloyd, later sailing under the French and Finnish flags. After the stranding she was refloated and towed in June 1936 to Starehole Bay, where she capsized and sank on 18 January 1939; her remains lie in 7 metres of water.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Illinois (BB-7) Named ship
U.S.S. Illinois, West 135th Street Pier, Manhattan, 2 July 1937
Photographer Berenice Abbott (1898 to 1991)
Where to see it New York Public Library, Changing New York (CNY 252)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Three men sit on the pier in front of an old battleship that no longer goes to sea. Illinois had sailed round the world with the Great White Fleet, and by the time Abbott photographed her she was a floating armoury for the New York Naval Militia, moored at West 135th Street. Abbott's documentary eye treats her as a building among buildings, with the highway and the city behind: a warship with a timber house built over her hull, turned into part of the Manhattan waterfront.
The real ship Laid down at Newport News in 1897 and commissioned in 1901, Illinois served with the European Squadron and the North Atlantic Fleet and circled the globe with the Great White Fleet in 1907 to 1909. Converted to a floating armoury in 1924 and renamed Prairie State in 1941, she was sold for scrap in 1956.
Sources digitalcollections.nypl.org · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Berenice Abbott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Normandie Named ship
Normandie, North River, Manhattan, from Pier 88, French Line, Manhattan, 14 September 1938
Photographer Berenice Abbott (1898 to 1991)
Where to see it New York Public Library, Changing New York (CNY L18)
Medium Gelatin silver print
For her Changing New York project Abbott took a bird's-eye view from Pier 88: a crowded dock in the corner, the whole length of Normandie in the North River, a tug at her side and the Palisades beyond. It is the liner as a piece of the city, as much part of the West Side as the piers themselves. Less than four years later, at this same pier, Normandie would burn and capsize, which gives Abbott's calm documentary view a weight she could not have intended.
The real ship Normandie entered service in 1935 from Le Havre and was interned in New York in September 1939. Seized by the United States and renamed Lafayette, she caught fire at Pier 88 in 1942 during conversion to a troopship, capsized, and was scrapped in 1946.
Sources digitalcollections.nypl.org · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Berenice Abbott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Admiral Graf Spee Named ship
The German Battleship Admiral Graf Spee in Flames after Being Scuttled off Montevideo, 17 December 1939
Photographer Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (A 3)
Medium Gelatin silver print
After the Battle of the River Plate, Captain Hans Langsdorff, convinced by false reports that superior British forces were gathering, took his ship into the outer roadstead off Montevideo with only forty other men aboard and scuttled her. A crowd of 20,000 watched. When the charges fired at 20.55 the exploding ammunition sent jets of flame high into the air, and the photograph catches the ship burning in the estuary, her tower mast rising from the smoke: a raider ended by her own crew.
The real ship Laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft, Wilhelmshaven, in October 1932 and completed by January 1936, Admiral Graf Spee carried six 28 cm guns and was deployed to the South Atlantic before the outbreak of war in 1939. Scuttled on 17 December 1939, she was partly broken up where she lay.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Vanquisher (D54) Named ship
Dunkirk 1940: British Troops Boarding the Destroyer HMS Vanquisher from the Mole, May 1940
Photographer British official photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 1153)
Medium Gelatin silver print
At low tide on the Mole at Dunkirk, British soldiers climb down scaling ladders onto the deck of the destroyer Vanquisher. The harbour's protective mole became an unexpected heart of the evacuation, where 39 Royal Navy destroyers among others came alongside to take off troops. The photograph has none of the heroics of the little ships legend; it shows the patient, dangerous work of loading men onto a warship, soldiers crowded on her deck beneath the davits.
The real ship Built by John Brown at Clydebank and commissioned in October 1917, Vanquisher was fitted to carry mines and served in both world wars. She was sold for scrap in 1947 and arrived at the breakers at Charlestown, Fife, in October 1948.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: British official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Lancastria Named ship
The Sinking of the Cunard Liner Lancastria off St Nazaire, 17 June 1940
Photographer Frank Clements (volunteer storeman aboard HMS Highlander)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 3325)
Medium Photograph
Lancastria was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial while evacuating British nationals and troops from France, loaded far beyond her capacity. Hit by bombs from German aircraft, she sank within twenty minutes. All the photographs of the sinking were taken by Frank Clements, a volunteer storeman aboard the destroyer Highlander, who was exempt from the rules against cameras. Here, from Highlander's deck beside a slung boat, the overturned liner lies low on the horizon. Estimates of the dead run from about 4,000 to 7,000: the largest loss of life from a single ship in British maritime history.
The real ship She was launched in 1920 as Tyrrhenia by William Beardmore and Company for the Anchor Line, a Cunard subsidiary, and later sailed as Lancastria. As a troopship she took part in the evacuation of troops from Norway in April 1940 before her loss off St Nazaire on 17 June 1940.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Queen Elizabeth, RMS Queen Mary and SS Normandie Named ship
The Three Largest Ships in the World, New York, 1940
Photographer Unknown photographer (photographic postcard)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Mitchell Library
Medium Photomechanical postcard
Once only, in 1940, the three largest ships in the world lay together in New York: the brand-new Queen Elizabeth, which had entered service that March as a troopship, the Queen Mary, and the French Normandie, interned there since September 1939. The picture was sold as a postcard, a souvenir of an extraordinary meeting. The plan was for all three to become troopships. It is also a farewell: Normandie caught fire at her pier and never sailed again.
The real ship Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger liner ever built for a record 56 years, entered service in March 1940 as a troopship. Normandie, interned in New York since 1939, caught fire and capsized at Pier 88 in February 1942.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, where the original is kept. Photo: Geoff Barker, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Barham Named ship
HMS Barham Explodes, Eastern Mediterranean, 25 November 1941
Photographer Pathé News cameraman aboard HMS Valiant (film still, official photograph)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (FLM 1984)
Medium Film still
On 25 November 1941 three of four torpedoes from U-331 struck Barham amidships so closely together that they threw up a single column of water. She capsized to port, and about four minutes after she was torpedoed a magazine explosion sank her. The sinking was filmed by a Pathé News cameraman aboard Valiant, and this official still shows the moment of the explosion, a vast cloud over the hull. In all, 862 officers and men were killed, and Captain Geoffrey Cooke went down with his ship. To conceal the loss, the Admiralty censored all news of it for weeks.
The real ship Barham, one of five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, was built by John Brown at Clydebank, laid down on 24 February 1913 and launched on 31 December 1914. She fought at Jutland and in the Second World War served at Dakar, Cape Matapan and Crete before U-331 sank her off the Egyptian coast on 25 November 1941; Hotspur and Nizam rescued the survivors.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Pathé News cameraman aboard HMS Valiant, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Bismarck Named ship
Battleship Bismarck Firing at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941
Photographer Lagemann, Kriegsmarine propaganda company photographer
Where to see it Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (Bild 146-1968-015-25)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Credited to a propaganda company photographer named Lagemann, this frame shows Bismarck firing salvo after salvo in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, where she and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen met HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. A shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her after magazines, and Hood exploded and sank within three minutes with all but three of her crew. The picture carries the double weight of that morning: a German success that set off the pursuit in which Bismarck herself was sunk three days later.
The real ship Laid down at Blohm and Voss, Hamburg, in July 1936, launched in February 1939 and commissioned in August 1940, Bismarck made one offensive sortie, Operation Rheinübung, in May 1941. After the sinking of Hood she was crippled by a torpedo from a Swordfish of HMS Ark Royal and sunk on 27 May 1941.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, where the original is kept. Photo: Holger Weinandt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales (53) Named ship
Church Service on the After Deck of HMS Prince of Wales, Placentia Bay, 10 August 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 67209)
Medium Gelatin silver print
In Placentia Bay, Roosevelt and Churchill sat side by side at a church service on the after deck of Prince of Wales, with Admirals King, Stark and Pound and Generals Marshall and Dill standing behind them, days before the two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter. The battleship had carried Churchill across the Atlantic to the secret conference. The photograph carries a sorrow no one aboard could see: four months later Prince of Wales was sunk off Malaya by Japanese aircraft.
The real ship Built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, Prince of Wales fought Bismarck in the Denmark Strait in May 1941 and carried Churchill to the Atlantic Conference in August. She was sunk with HMS Repulse by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941, the first capital ships sunk solely by air power on the open sea.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Express Named ship
The Crew of HMS Prince of Wales Abandoning Ship to the Destroyer Express, 10 December 1941
Photographer Lieutenant Commander Cartwright, Royal Navy
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 2675)
Medium Photograph
After torpedo attacks by Japanese aircraft, the destroyer Express came alongside the listing Prince of Wales to take off the wounded and non-fighting crew, and the photograph catches the moment: men crowd the battleship's tilted side and scramble down onto the destroyer's deck, one caught mid-leap. Moments later the list suddenly increased and Express had to withdraw. Prince of Wales sank stern first at 13.18, and 327 of her complement of 1,612 were lost.
The real ship Prince of Wales was sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea; she sank at 13.18, just as RAAF Buffalo fighters arrived over the battle. Her bell was removed from the wreck in 2002 and is displayed at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Lieutenant Commander Cartwright, Royal Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Hood Named ship
HMS Hood Going into Action against Bismarck: the Last Photograph of Hood, 24 May 1941
Photographer Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Prince of Wales (unidentified)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 50190)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Taken from the new battleship Prince of Wales as the two ships went into action against Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, this is the last photograph ever taken of HMS Hood. She is seen far ahead in a grey sea, framed by the barrels of Prince of Wales's guns. For twenty years she had been the largest warship in the world, known as the Mighty Hood. Within minutes a shell from Bismarck struck near her after magazines, and she sank in three minutes; only three of her crew survived. The picture holds the last moment before.
The real ship Begun by John Brown at Clydebank in 1916 and redesigned after Jutland, Hood was commissioned in 1920 and remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years. She was sunk in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Prince of Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Named ship
Japanese Aerial Photograph of the High Level Bombing Attack on Prince of Wales and Repulse, 10 December 1941
Photographer Imperial Japanese Navy airman (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 60566)
Medium Aerial photograph
Taken from a Japanese aircraft during the first high-level bombing attack on 10 December 1941, the picture looks straight down on the two British capital ships. Repulse, near the bottom, has just been hit by one bomb and near-missed by several more, the splashes blooming white around her, while Prince of Wales, near the top, trails a long plume of smoke as she turns. They are seen from the kind of aircraft that was about to sink them both off the coast of Malaya. Japanese writing in the corner records that the Navy Ministry authorised its reproduction.
The real ship The modern battleship Prince of Wales and the First World War-era battlecruiser Repulse arrived at Singapore on 2 December 1941. Both were sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea about 70 miles east of Kuantan, with the loss of 840 sailors.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Imperial Japanese Navy airman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Yamato Named ship
Japanese Battleship Yamato Running Trials, 1941
Photographer Hasuya Hirohata (Imperial Japanese Navy)
Where to see it Yamato Museum, Kure (PG061427); Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 73092)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Built in extreme secrecy, with a canopy erected over part of the dry dock to screen her from view, Yamato was photographed running machinery trials off the Bungo Strait on 20 October 1941, seven weeks before Pearl Harbor. The picture shows her in profile at speed, spray breaking at the bow, the towering superstructure and main turrets standing out against a grey sky. She and her sister Musashi were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever built, and here she is seen before any enemy had set eyes on her.
The real ship Laid down at Kure Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1937, launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned in December 1941, a week after Pearl Harbor, Yamato carried nine 46 cm guns, the largest ever mounted on a warship. She was sunk by American carrier aircraft on 7 April 1945 on a one-way mission to Okinawa.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Hasuya Hirohata, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Patrick Henry Named ship
The Launching of SS Patrick Henry on Liberty Fleet Day, 27 September 1941
Photographer US Maritime Commission photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Museum of the United States Navy, Washington (Lot 3452 6)
Medium Photograph
Liberty ships began life with a poor public image, so 27 September 1941 was named Liberty Fleet Day and the first fourteen of them were launched that day. The first was Patrick Henry at Baltimore, launched by President Roosevelt, who cited Patrick Henry's speech of 1775 and said the new ships would bring liberty to Europe, which gave the class its name. The photograph looks over a crowd in hats down the empty ways between the steel scaffolding to the ship, dressed with bunting, already afloat. It marks the start of the whole Liberty programme.
“Less than five months from keel-laying to launching ceremony was the record set by SS Patrick Henry.”
The real ship Patrick Henry was built at the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore and was the first Liberty ship launched. The standard design was chosen to be built in existing yards in minimum time, with prefabricated sections and welding in place of riveting wherever possible.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Maritime Commission photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Ark Royal (91) Named ship
HMS Legion Alongside the Listing HMS Ark Royal, 13 November 1941
Photographer Lieutenant S. J. Beadell, Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London
Medium Gelatin silver print
Torpedoed by the German submarine U-81 off Gibraltar on 13 November 1941, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal took on a heavy list, and the destroyer Legion moved alongside to take off her crew. Beadell's photograph shows the two ships pressed together, men lining the edge of the carrier's canted flight deck above the destroyer. It is a photograph of rescue as much as of loss: the destroyer stays close to take off the men, and the carrier they are leaving sank the following day.
The real ship HMS Ark Royal, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, was torpedoed by U-81 off Gibraltar on 13 November 1941 while the destroyer Legion stood by to take off survivors; she sank the following day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Lieutenant S. J. Beadell, Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor (USS Nevada, Arizona with Vestal, Tennessee with West Virginia, Maryland with Oklahoma, Neosho and California) Named ship
Photograph Taken from a Japanese Aircraft during the Torpedo Attack on Battleship Row, 7 December 1941
Photographer Japanese Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 50931); reproduced by authorisation of the Japanese Navy Ministry
Medium Gelatin silver print
This is the attack seen from the attacker's side, at about eight in the morning: a photograph taken from a Japanese aircraft looking down on the battleships moored in pairs along Battleship Row. Torpedo drop splashes and running tracks cross the water, and ripples and spreading oil already mark West Virginia, Oklahoma and California, the first two listing to port. Nevada lies at the end of the line with her flag raised at the stern. Japanese writing in the corner states that the image was reproduced by authorisation of the Navy Ministry.
The real ship The US Pacific Fleet had been based at Pearl Harbor since 1940. On 7 December 1941 all eight battleships present were damaged and four were sunk; all but Arizona and Utah were later refloated, and six returned to service during the war.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Japanese Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Shaw (DD-373) Named ship
USS Shaw Exploding, Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.543.2); negative 80-G-16871, National Archives
Medium Gelatin silver print
Shaw was sitting in a floating dry dock at Pearl Harbor, receiving adjustments to her depth-charge gear, when she was hit three times. Fires spread, the order to abandon ship was given, and shortly after 09.30 her forward magazine exploded. The photograph of that fireball, taken across the water with a palm frond overhead, became one of the best-known images of the attack. What follows the picture is remarkable: the destroyer was repaired, given a new bow at San Francisco, and served in the Pacific to the end of the war, earning eleven battle stars.
The real ship A Mahan-class destroyer laid down at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1934 and commissioned in 1936, Shaw was repaired after Pearl Harbor with a new bow, served in the Pacific through the rest of the war, was decommissioned in October 1945 and sold for scrap in July 1946.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS West Virginia (BB-48) Named ship
A Small Boat Rescues a Seaman from the Burning USS West Virginia, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it US Navy, Office of Public Relations; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
In the foreground West Virginia burns after the torpedoes of Pearl Harbor, two men still in her superstructure, while a small boat rescues a seaman from the water; Tennessee lies behind her. The photograph turns the catastrophe into a human-scale act of courage. The battleship herself sank in the shallow harbour, but she was refloated and rebuilt, and she returned to lead the American line of battle at Surigao Strait.
The real ship Laid down in 1920 and commissioned in 1923, the fourth battleship of the Colorado class carried eight 16-inch guns. Sunk at Pearl Harbor, she was refloated, extensively rebuilt through 1943 and into 1944, and returned for the Philippines campaign, leading the American line of battle at Surigao Strait.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Arizona (BB-39) Named ship
The USS Arizona Burning after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (NARA 195617)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photograph shows Arizona after an armour-piercing bomb detonated a magazine, sinking her at her berth with the loss of 1,177 officers and men. The supporting structure of her forward tripod mast has collapsed and the hull rests on the harbour bottom, burning. It is less a picture of a ship than of a grave: unlike many of the ships hit that morning, Arizona was never repaired, and she still lies in Pearl Harbor beneath the memorial built across her remains.
The real ship The second and last ship of the Pennsylvania class, commissioned in 1916, Arizona escorted President Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference and joined the Pacific Fleet in 1921. Sunk on 7 December 1941, her wreck lies beneath the USS Arizona Memorial.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Ohio Named ship
The Arrival of the Ohio at Malta, Operation Pedestal, 15 August 1942
Photographer Royal Navy official photographer (credited on the IWM record to John Alfred Hampton and Lt J. E. Russell)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (A 11261)
Medium Photograph
The American-built tanker Ohio carried fuel for besieged Malta in Operation Pedestal, and she was torpedoed and attacked from the air until she could barely stay afloat. She was brought in anyway, and this official photograph, taken from a warship with a gun barrel in the foreground, shows her on 15 August 1942 with destroyers alongside, moving slowly through the minefield outside Grand Harbour. It was the festival of Santa Marija; crowds on the ramparts cheered and a brass band on the mole played Rule Britannia. Malta still remembers her as the saviour of the island.
The real ship Ohio was launched on 20 April 1940 by the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Chester, Pennsylvania, for The Texas Company. She reached Malta so badly damaged that she had to be effectively scuttled to offload her cargo and never sailed again; her two halves were later sunk off the island.
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Image: Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lexington (CV-2) Named ship
Crew Abandons USS Lexington, Battle of the Coral Sea, 8 May 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola (NNAM.2001.205.069)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Hit by Japanese torpedoes and bombs at the Coral Sea, Lexington burned as gasoline vapour from cracked tanks set off explosions below, and in the afternoon the order was given to abandon ship, with a destroyer alongside taking on survivors. The photograph shows the carrier smoking, men still gathered on her flight deck. Lady Lex, one of the navy's first aircraft carriers, was scuttled by an American destroyer that evening to prevent her capture.
The real ship Laid down by Fore River at Quincy in 1921 as a battlecruiser and converted to a carrier under the Washington Treaty, Lexington entered service in 1928. Scuttled on 8 May 1942, her wreck was found by RV Petrel in March 2018.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Hiryū Named ship
The Japanese Aircraft Carrier Hiryu Adrift and Burning, 5 June 1942
Photographer Kiyoshi Oniwa, Imperial Japanese Navy special service ensign
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 73065)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Shortly after sunrise on the day after the carrier battle at Midway, an aircraft from the carrier Hōshō found Hiryū still afloat, and its crew photographed her burning, her flight deck torn out by the dive bombers of Yorktown and Enterprise. Hiryū had launched the strikes that crippled Yorktown the day before. Seen from above, a carrier without her aircraft is only a burning hull, and this Japanese photograph records the end of the last of the four carriers lost at Midway.
The real ship Built to a modified Sōryū design, Hiryū supported the invasion of French Indochina, took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the raid on Darwin and the Indian Ocean Raid, and was crippled by American dive bombers at Midway on 4 June 1942. She was scuttled the following day.
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Image: Kiyoshi Oniwa, Imperial Japanese Navy special service ensign, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Yorktown (CV-5) Named ship
Japanese Torpedo Bombers Fly Past USS Yorktown, Battle of Midway, 4 June 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer aboard USS Pensacola (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-32241)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from the cruiser Pensacola during the mid-afternoon attack at Midway, two torpedo bombers from Hiryū race past Yorktown having dropped their torpedoes, the sky dotted with heavy anti-aircraft fire and a destroyer, probably Morris, just beyond the carrier's bow. The attackers fly almost at wave height. Three of the four Japanese carriers were already burning wrecks; Yorktown was hit that afternoon and was sunk two days later by a submarine's torpedoes.
The real ship Commissioned in 1937, Yorktown was the lead ship of the three-ship Yorktown class. At Midway on 4 June 1942 she was struck by aircraft from Hiryū; on 6 June she was hit by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine and sank the next day.
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Image: US Navy photographer aboard USS Pensacola, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lafayette (AP-53), formerly SS Normandie Named ship
Lafayette (formerly Normandie) after Catching Fire in New York Harbor, 9 February 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photographs of the burning liner at Pier 88 record the end of the most celebrated ship of the 1930s. While she was being converted into a troopship, fire broke out aboard; fireboats poured water on the blaze, she developed a dangerous list to port, and she finally capsized onto her port side and came to rest half-submerged on the bottom of the Hudson. Smoke rising over her funnels in the middle of Manhattan made the loss public in the most visible way possible, a great ship dying in full view of the city that had welcomed her.
The real ship Built at Saint-Nazaire and in service from 1935 as flagship of the French Line, Normandie was seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette. After the fire of February 1942 she was salvaged at great expense and righted in 1943, but restoration was judged too costly and she was scrapped in October 1946.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lafayette, formerly SS Normandie Named ship
Normandie Capsized, New York, 1942
Photographer Unknown photographer (photographic postcard)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (PXE 722/2782)
Medium Photographic postcard
After the fire, the most celebrated liner of the age lay on her side in the Hudson at Pier 88, the water poured in to fight the flames having rolled her over. This photograph, printed as a postcard, shows the capsized hull beside the French Line pier with the towers of Manhattan behind, a measure of how much she had belonged to the city. Her salvage took until August 1943, when she was righted, and she never sailed again.
The real ship Normandie, the French Line flagship from 1935, was seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette. She caught fire during conversion to a troopship in February 1942, capsized onto her port side, was salvaged at great expense and was scrapped in October 1946.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USCGC Spencer and U-175 Named ship
Depth Charge Exploding near U-175, Seen from the Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, 17 April 1943
Photographer Jack January, US Coast Guard photographer
Where to see it US Coast Guard; US National Archives
Medium Photograph
Some 500 nautical miles west-south-west of Ireland, on 17 April 1943, the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Spencer watched from the stern as a depth charge exploded near U-175, and the photographer Jack January caught the eruption of water, with the ships of the convoy spread along the horizon. Spencer's depth charges ruptured the U-boat's pressure hull and forced her to the surface, where her captain signalled surrender. It is the Battle of the Atlantic in a single frame, the hunter and the hunted invisible to each other until the sea itself explodes.
The real ship U-175 was built by AG Weser at Bremen and made three war patrols, sinking ten merchant ships of 40,619 gross register tons. Spencer sank her on 17 April 1943; of her 54 crew, 13 were killed and the rest were picked up by Spencer and Duane.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Jack January, US Coast Guard photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lexington (CV-16) Named ship
Getting Set for the Big Strike on Kwajalein, U.S.S. Lexington, 1943
Photographer Edward Steichen (1879 to 1973)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1987.1100.496)
Medium Gelatin silver print
A pencil note on the back of this print records that it is an infrared photograph made on USS Lexington during the Gilbert and Marshall operations. The title places it before the carrier's strike on Kwajalein in December 1943, when her aircraft were readied for the raid. Steichen, directing the Navy's aviation photographers in his sixties, chose infrared film for a working scene of preparation, a technical experiment carried to sea. It is the quiet before a raid, recorded by a photographer still experimenting at sea.
The real ship Commissioned in February 1943, Lexington raided Kwajalein on 4 December 1943 after the Gilbert Islands operation, led the Fast Carrier Task Force across the Pacific as Admiral Mitscher's flagship, and is preserved today at Corpus Christi, Texas.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Schenectady Named ship
The Tanker Schenectady Broken in Two at Her Fitting Out Dock, January 1943
Photographer Unknown photographer
Source US Government photograph
Medium Gelatin silver print
One cold January day at Portland, Oregon, just back from sea trials and moored at the fitting dock in calm weather, the new tanker Schenectady cracked almost in half with a noise heard at least a mile away. She jack-knifed on her intact bottom plating, her middle rising clear of the water. Later research pointed to brittle fracture in low-grade steel, which became highly brittle in cold weather. The photograph is a warning from the shipyards that were building ships faster than ever before.
The real ship The first tanker built by Kaiser's Swan Island Shipyard in Portland, Oregon, laid down on 1 July 1942 and completed on 31 December 1942. After the fracture of 16 January 1943 she was repaired and returned to service.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Landing craft off Leyte Unnamed
General MacArthur Wades Ashore at Leyte, 20 October 1944
Photographer Gaetano Faillace (1904 to 1991), US Army Signal Corps
Where to see it US Army Signal Corps; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
MacArthur had watched the landings from the light cruiser Nashville and came in that afternoon; when his craft grounded in knee-deep water and the beachmaster had no landing craft to spare, he waded ashore. Faillace, his personal photographer, caught the moment. It has often been claimed that the picture was posed, a claim disputed by William J. Dunn, who was there. The landing craft behind the wading officers is the ship of this photograph, the boat behind a general's return to the Philippines.
The vessels Landing craft carried men from the transports to the Leyte beaches on 20 October 1944, when the US Sixth Army landed to begin the liberation of the Philippines, MacArthur watching from the light cruiser USS Nashville.
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Image: Gaetano Faillace, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Blockships of a Normandy Gooseberry Unnamed
A Gooseberry: Sunken Ships Forming Part of a Mulberry Harbour, June 1944
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington
Medium Photograph
Before the concrete caissons were all in place, old ships were sailed across the Channel and deliberately sunk in line off the Normandy beaches, their hulls forming sheltered water known as gooseberries. Off Omaha alone fifteen went down, among them the old British battleship Centurion. This US Navy photograph looks along one such line from the water: a gun on a bow in the foreground, then scarred hulls and upperworks standing out of the sea, an American flag still flying. These are ships sent to France to be sunk on purpose.
The vessels The blockships, codenamed corncobs, were obsolete merchant ships and warships scuttled to form breakwaters called gooseberries: ten off Utah, fifteen off Omaha including HMS Centurion, and sixteen off Gold.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · Naval History and Heritage Command
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
LCVP (Higgins boat) from USS Samuel Chase Named ship
Into the Jaws of Death, 6 June 1944
Photographer Robert F. Sargent, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Coast Guard
Where to see it US Coast Guard Historian's Office and National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
Taken at 7.40 in the morning from inside a Higgins boat, the photograph looks past the Coast Guard crew as soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division wade through waist-deep water towards the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach. The landing craft had left USS Samuel Chase about ten miles out at around 5.30, waves breaking over its square bow and drenching the men inside. The boat itself is the frame of the picture: its open bow gives onto the beach like a door.
The real ship USS Samuel Chase, launched in 1941 at Ingalls, Pascagoula, as African Meteor, was a Coast Guard-manned attack transport that took part in the landings at Algiers, Sicily, Salerno, Normandy and southern France, and was sold for scrap in 1973.
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Image: Robert F. Sargent, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Coast Guard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS LST-532, LST-262, LST-310, LST-533 and LST-524 Named ship
Landing Ships Putting Cargo Ashore at Low Tide, Normandy, c. 9 June 1944
Photographer US Coast Guard photographer (photo 26-G-2517)
Where to see it US National Archives (26-G-2517)
Medium Photograph
In the first days of the invasion the tank landing ships ran up onto the Normandy sand and, at low tide, put their cargo straight ashore. This Coast Guard photograph shows a line of them grounded on the beach, barrage balloons riding overhead against air attack, and an Army half-track convoy forming up on the sand below, with more ships crowding the anchorage beyond. It shows the other side of the invasion: the steady flow of vehicles and supplies across the beaches.
The real ship Tank landing ships were built to run onto a beach and unload vehicles directly through bow doors. Those identifiable here include LST-532 at the centre, with LST-262, LST-310, LST-533 and LST-524.
Sources Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Coast Guard photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mulberry B harbour at Arromanches Named ship
The Mulberry Artificial Harbour off Arromanches, September 1944
Photographer Sergeant Harrison, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (BU 1024)
Medium Aerial oblique photograph
Seen from the air in September 1944, three months after D-Day, the Mulberry harbour off Arromanches is a whole port built in pieces and towed across the Channel. Long floating roadways run out from the beach to pier heads crowded with ships, while breakwaters of sunken ships and concrete caissons curve round the anchorage and landing craft wait offshore. The harbour was built so that armoured vehicles and heavy guns could be landed. The photograph shows the invasion as a feat of engineering as much as of arms.
The real ship Two Mulberry harbours were built for Normandy: Mulberry A off Omaha, devastated by the storm that began on 19 June 1944, and Mulberry B off Gold Beach at Arromanches, which remained in use. Its remains are still visible from the beaches at Arromanches.
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Image: Sergeant Harrison, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Admiral Nimitz Signs the Japanese Surrender Document aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Source US Navy photograph (reproduced in the USS Bennington 1944 to 1945 cruise book)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The Second World War ended on the deck of a battleship. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay close to where Commodore Perry's ships had lain ninety-two years earlier, and the flag Perry had flown in 1853 was brought aboard to be displayed at the ceremony. In this photograph Fleet Admiral Nimitz signs the surrender document at a small table, sailors crowded on the superstructure above and the Japanese delegation looking on. The ship was chosen as a stage, and she has stayed one ever since as a museum.
The real ship Completed in 1944, Missouri entered Tokyo Bay on 29 August 1945; poor weather delayed the ceremony until 2 September. She later served in Korea, was reactivated in 1984, and is preserved as a museum ship.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Franklin (CV-13) Named ship
Attack on the Carrier USS Franklin, 19 March 1945
Photographer Albert Bullock, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Navy
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-273880)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Launching strikes against the Japanese mainland, Franklin was hit by two bombs from a single dive bomber, and the fires that followed made her the most heavily damaged American carrier to survive the war. Bullock took this photograph from the cruiser Santa Fe, which had come alongside to help fight the fires and rescue the crew: the carrier lies dead in the water with a 13-degree list, and her crew can be seen clearly on the flight deck. Her captain refused to scuttle her while many men were still alive below, and she was brought home.
The real ship Commissioned in January 1944, Franklin earned four battle stars. After the attack of 19 March 1945, in which 807 of her crew were lost, she returned to the United States for repair, was decommissioned in 1947 and never again saw active service.
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Image: Albert Bullock, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) Named ship
USS Bunker Hill Hit by Two Kamikazes in 30 Seconds, off Kyushu, 11 May 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
Off Kyushu on 11 May 1945, in the last months of the Okinawa campaign, Bunker Hill was struck by two kamikazes in quick succession. The photograph, made on her own flight deck, shows dense smoke boiling up behind the island while men run across the deck. It records the price of the last months of the Pacific war: 396 men killed or missing and 264 wounded, the second heaviest losses suffered by any carrier to survive the war. The carrier lived on, and after the war she carried servicemen home from the Pacific.
The real ship One of 24 Essex-class carriers, commissioned in May 1943, Bunker Hill fought from the Gilberts to Okinawa and received the Presidential Unit Citation. After the war she served as a troop transport bringing Americans home and was decommissioned in 1947.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Tirpitz Named ship
The Capsized Battleship Tirpitz at Håkøya, near Tromsø, 22 March 1945
Photographer No. 544 Squadron RAF reconnaissance crew (Squadron Leader F. L. Dodd and Pilot Officer A. Hill)
Source Royal Air Force reconnaissance photograph, No. 544 Squadron
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from a low-flying reconnaissance Mosquito four months after her sinking, Tirpitz lies bottom up in the fjord near the isle of Håkøya, attended by salvage vessels, with snow on the shore. The heaviest battleship ever built by a European navy had spent her war in Norway, a fleet in being meant to tie down British naval forces. The image of her upturned hull is the quiet end of the German battleship.
The real ship Laid down at Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and commissioned in February 1941, Tirpitz, sister of Bismarck, was based in Norway to threaten the Arctic convoys and tie down British forces. Already damaged, she was sunk by Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons RAF on 12 November 1944 in Operation Catechism.
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Image: No. 544 Squadron RAF reconnaissance crew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) and the Allied fleet in Tokyo Bay Named ship
Carrier Planes Fly over the Fleet in Tokyo Bay during the Surrender Ceremonies, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it US National Archives (80-G-421130)
Medium Photograph
During the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay, US Navy carrier planes flew in formation over the assembled American and British fleets: Avengers, Hellcats, Helldivers and Corsairs filling the sky in wave after wave. The photograph puts Missouri, where the ceremony took place, at the lower left, small beneath the aircraft, with the light cruiser Detroit in the right distance. It is a picture of sea and air power staged as a full stop to the war in the Pacific.
The real ship Missouri hosted the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay; the ceremony ended with a flypast of over 800 US military aircraft.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Yamato Named ship
Japanese Battleship Yamato under Attack in the East China Sea, 7 April 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-313714)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from the attacking American carrier aircraft north of Okinawa, Yamato lies far off on a dark sea, down at the bow and moving slowly after repeated air attacks, while nearer the camera a destroyer, probably Fuyuzuki, fires her guns. It is the final picture of the battleship age: the heaviest gunnery ship ever built, sent on a one-way mission to beach herself at Okinawa and sunk from the air. Most of her crew were lost with her, and the photograph is best read in that silence.
The real ship Commissioned in December 1941, Yamato was flagship of the Combined Fleet through 1942 and at Midway, fired her main guns at enemy surface targets only once, in October 1944 off Samar, and was sunk by carrier-based bombers and torpedo bombers on 7 April 1945.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Kamikaze Attack on USS Missouri, 11 April 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (Len Schmidt or Harold Campbell)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photograph freezes a Japanese Zero an instant before it strikes the battleship's side off Okinawa, while the crew of a quadruple 40 mm mount fire in the foreground. The aircraft hit below the main deck; the burning fuel was quickly put out and there were no casualties aboard. The image shows the whole encounter in a single frame: the gunners, the steel side of the ship and the attacking plane. Missouri stayed on station, and months later the war would end on her deck.
The real ship Completed in 1944, Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the United States. She fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, hosted the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, served in Korea, was reactivated in 1984 and is now a museum ship.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Mamoru Shigemitsu Signs the Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri, 2 September 1945
Photographer Lieutenant Stephen E. Korpanty, US Army Signal Corps
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (SC 213700)
Medium Photograph
On the deck of an American battleship in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of his government, assisted by Toshikazu Kase of the Foreign Ministry, while Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland watches from the opposite side of the table and ranks of Allied officers stand behind. The Second World War ended not in a palace or a railway carriage but at sea. On Missouri that day was the same flag Commodore Perry had flown in 1853 on his first expedition to Japan.
The real ship Missouri was the US Navy battleship chosen as the stage for the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay, attended by representatives of the Allied powers; Shigemitsu signed first for Japan at 9.04 in the morning.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Lieutenant Stephen E. Korpanty, US Army Signal Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Queen Mary Named ship
The Queen Mary Arrives in New York Harbor with Thousands of US Troops from Europe, 20 June 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-GK-5645)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Six weeks after victory in Europe the Queen Mary came up the Hudson still in her light grey war paint, packed with American soldiers coming home, seen here from near Weehawken with Manhattan behind. Her wartime colour and speed had earned her the name Grey Ghost, and on one voyage in 1943 she carried more than 16,600 people, a record that still stands; now she was bringing them back. It is a homecoming photograph without a single face in focus: the joy is in the crowded decks and the ship itself.
The real ship Cunard's Queen Mary sailed the North Atlantic from 1936 to 1967, served as a troopship in the Second World War and set the record for the most people carried on one vessel. Refitted for passenger service in 1946 to 1947, she is now a hotel, museum and convention space at Long Beach, California.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Representatives of the Empire of Japan on Board USS Missouri, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Army Signal Corps photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (USA C-2719); Army Signal Corps Collection, US National Archives
Medium Photograph
Eleven men in three rows stand on the deck of the battleship to surrender an empire: Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu in his top hat and General Yoshijirō Umezu in front, and behind them three representatives each of the Foreign Ministry, the Army and the Navy. For one morning in Tokyo Bay the deck of Missouri was where the Second World War ended, with around 250 other Allied vessels gathered in the bay. The power of the photograph is its stillness, a formal group portrait made on a warship.
The real ship Missouri, an Iowa-class battleship completed in 1944 and the last battleship commissioned by the United States, anchored in Tokyo Bay on 29 August 1945; the Japanese representatives signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard her on 2 September 1945, around 9 am Tokyo time.
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Image: US Army Signal Corps photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Enterprise (CV-6) Named ship
Returning Veterans Fill the Hangar Deck of USS Enterprise during a Magic Carpet Voyage, September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-495657)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The hangar deck that had held the aircraft of the most decorated American ship of the Second World War is filled with rows of cots and men going home. Enterprise sailed to Pearl Harbor in late August 1945 and returned to the United States with some 1,141 servicemen due for discharge, including hospital patients and former prisoners of war. It is the homecoming side of a carrier's life: the ship that had fought from Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf turned into a ferry of relief.
The real ship Launched in 1936, Enterprise was the only Yorktown-class carrier to survive the war. She took part in more major actions against Japan than any other American ship, from Pearl Harbor and Midway to Leyte Gulf, and earned 20 battle stars. After the surrender she carried servicemen home in Operation Magic Carpet, from the Pacific and then from Europe.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Saratoga (CV-3) Named ship
USS Saratoga as a Troop Transport in Operation Magic Carpet, c. September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Source Published in All Hands magazine, US Navy, October 1945
Medium Gelatin silver print
After the surrender, the veteran carrier Saratoga was turned into a troop transport for the long voyages home from the Pacific, and this photograph from above shows her flight deck black with men. By the end of her Magic Carpet service she had brought home 29,204 Pacific War veterans, more than any other single ship. It is a homecoming at the scale of a whole navy: one of the service's first carriers, torpedoed twice in the war, spending her last months at sea bringing people back.
The real ship Designed as a battlecruiser and converted to a carrier under the Washington Treaty, Saratoga entered service in 1928. She was torpedoed twice, fought in the Guadalcanal campaign and at the Eastern Solomons, raided Rabaul, served with the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, and was one of three prewar fleet carriers to serve throughout the war. In 1946 she was a target in the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Target fleet at Bikini (including the battleship Nagato and the cruiser Prinz Eugen) Named ship
Operation Crossroads, Baker Test, Bikini Atoll, 25 July 1946
Photographer US Army Photographic Signal Corps / Joint Task Force One
Source US Army Photographic Signal Corps; Defense Threat Reduction Agency
Medium Gelatin silver print
A 21-kiloton nuclear weapon was detonated 27 metres beneath a lagoon full of anchored warships, and the photograph shows the vertical column of water and the vast condensation cloud rising above the target fleet, the ships tiny at its foot. Among the 95 target ships were American warships and three surrendered Axis ships, the Japanese battleship Nagato and cruiser Sakawa and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen. Radioactive spray contaminated the fleet so badly that only nine target ships could be scrapped rather than scuttled.
The real ship Operation Crossroads assembled a fleet of 95 target ships in Bikini Lagoon, including the surrendered Axis ships Nagato, Sakawa and Prinz Eugen. After the Baker test only nine target ships could be scrapped rather than scuttled.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Army Photographic Signal Corps / Joint Task Force One, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Exodus 1947 (formerly President Warfield) Named ship
The Exodus 1947 Arriving at Haifa, July 1947
Photographer British Admiralty photographer (unidentified)
Source British Admiralty photograph, reproduced in Steam Packets on the Chesapeake (1961)
Medium Gelatin silver print
A small bay steamer built to carry passengers between Baltimore and Norfolk arrives at Haifa carrying 4,515 Jewish migrants, most of them Holocaust survivors, after being boarded by the Royal Navy in international waters. Her upper decks are packed with people. The photograph shows the ship at the heart of one of the defining stories of 1947: at Haifa ships were waiting to take her passengers back to refugee camps in Europe.
The real ship Built by Pusey and Jones at Wilmington, Delaware, launched in 1927 and completed in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, she served in the Second World War as a British barracks and training ship and as USS President Warfield off Omaha Beach before being renamed Exodus 1947 for Aliyah Bet.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: British Admiralty photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Kon-Tiki Named ship
Expedition Kon-Tiki 1947: Across the Pacific
Photographer Unknown photographer; postcard published by Mittet
Where to see it National Library of Norway, Oslo (blds_05860)
Medium Photograph published as a postcard (colourised)
Thor Heyerdahl and five companions built Kon-Tiki from balsa logs and other native materials in Peru and left Callao on 28 April 1947. After 101 days and 6,900 kilometres they reached the atoll of Raroia on 7 August, and all six survived. This postcard, published in 1947, shows the raft alone on the open Pacific, her big square sail and a smaller sail set, a crewman at the steering oar. A documentary of the voyage won an Academy Award. Heyerdahl's theory of Polynesian settlement has been rejected by later research; the voyage itself remains a feat of seamanship.
The real ship Kon-Tiki was a raft of balsa logs named after the Inca god Viracocha, built in Peru for the 1947 voyage. The original raft is displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Nasjonalbiblioteket from Norway, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Pamir Named ship
Pamir at the Entrance to the English Channel, c. October 1949
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it National Library of Australia, Canberra (nla.pic-vn3257373)
Medium Photograph
Pamir loaded Australian grain at Port Victoria and sailed for Falmouth on a passage of 128 days, and on 11 July 1949 she became the last windjammer to carry a commercial load around Cape Horn. The photograph shows her under full sail at sea, every square sail and staysail drawing on her four masts, a white wave at her bow. It holds the end of the great age of deep-sea trade under sail. Eight years later Pamir herself was lost in Hurricane Carrie, with only six survivors.
The real ship Pamir was built by Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and launched on 29 July 1905 for F. Laeisz, one of their Flying P Liners, and sailed over her life under the German, Italian, Finnish and New Zealand flags. Serving as a German training ship, she capsized in Hurricane Carrie on 21 September 1957; only six were rescued.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Mauretania (1938) Named ship
The Deck of the Mauretania with Passengers and Life Preserver Ring, 1952
Photographer Robert Frank (1924 to 2019)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1991.1140)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Six years before The Americans made him famous, the Swiss-born Robert Frank photographed passengers on the deck of the liner Mauretania beside a life preserver ring. It is the liner seen not as a monument but as a place where people wait, between two worlds. Frank's loose, intimate way of looking already shows here, and the white life ring is the only formal note in a picture about travellers in transit.
The real ship Launched at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, on 28 July 1938 and completed in May 1939, the second Mauretania was one of the first ships built for the newly formed Cunard White Star company. She sailed until 1965 and was broken up in 1965 to 1966.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS United States Named ship
SS United States Making 35 Knots across the Atlantic, 1952
Photographer Unknown photographer (Arnold Kludas archive)
Where to see it Arnold Kludas archive; reproduced in Kludas, Record Breakers of the North Atlantic (2000)
Medium Aerial photograph
Seen from the air at speed, the United States drives a white bow wave and a long wake across the Atlantic, the liner doing exactly what she was built for. On her maiden voyage in July 1952 she crossed eastbound in three days, ten hours and 40 minutes at an average of 35.59 knots, beating Queen Mary's record by more than ten hours, and she took the Blue Riband in both directions. No liner has beaten her westbound record. By the mid-1960s jet flights across the Atlantic were emptying her cabins.
The real ship United States was designed by William Francis Gibbs and built at Newport News between 1950 and 1951, the largest ocean liner constructed entirely in the United States, and could be converted into a troopship if needed. She was withdrawn from service in November 1969.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Liberté (formerly Europa) Named ship
110 Views and Studies of and from La Liberté Ocean Liner, Related to the Architectural Forum Portfolio Ship Shapes and Shadows, 1956 to 1958
Photographer Walker Evans (1903 to 1975)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walker Evans Archive (1994.253.647.1 to .19)
Medium Film negatives
Late in his career Evans made 110 views and studies of and from the French liner Liberté, related to a portfolio for Architectural Forum titled Ship Shapes and Shadows and published in October 1958. The great documentary photographer of American streets turned to the ship's forms, as the portfolio's title says, her shapes and the shadows they throw. The ship itself carried history: a German record-breaker awarded to France after the war to replace the lost Normandie.
The real ship Launched in 1928 as Europa for Norddeutscher Lloyd, sister of Bremen and like her a Blue Riband holder, she was awarded to the French Line as a war prize, refitted at Le Havre and renamed Liberté. She was the French Line's premier ship until 1961, was laid up in 1962 and scrapped at La Spezia in 1963.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Andrea Doria Named ship
Sinking of the Andrea Doria, 26 July 1956
Photographer Harry A. Trask (1928 to 2002)
Source Published in newspapers and in Life magazine; Pulitzer Prize for Photography 1957
Medium Gelatin silver print
Flying over the Atlantic off Nantucket in a light aeroplane with a 4x5 Speed Graphic, Trask photographed the Italian Line's Andrea Doria sinking the morning after she collided with Stockholm in thick fog. The picture that won the Pulitzer Prize, the second in his sequence, was taken from a height of 75 feet, nine minutes before she sank. It is a picture of a great liner's last minutes, and also of a rescue: 1,660 of the 1,706 people aboard had been saved.
The real ship Launched on 16 June 1951 and home-ported at Genoa, Andrea Doria began her maiden voyage in January 1953 as the largest, fastest and supposedly safest of Italy's ships. Struck by Stockholm on 25 July 1956, she capsized and sank the next morning; 46 people died as a direct result of the collision.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mayflower II Named ship
The Replica Mayflower II in the Atlantic Ocean, 1957
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), Antwerp
Medium Gelatin silver print
In 1957 a replica of the Pilgrims' ship, built at Brixham in Devon with solid oak timbers and tarred hemp rigging, crossed the Atlantic under the command of the sailing ship veteran and photographer Alan Villiers. This photograph from the collections of the MAS in Antwerp shows her masts, yards and bowsprit against a pale sky, a vision of 1620 made real. She reached Plymouth, Massachusetts on 13 June, and New York gave Villiers and his crew a ticker tape parade.
The real ship Built at the Upham Shipyard in Brixham in 1955 to 1956, a collaboration between Warwick Charlton and Plimoth Plantation, Mayflower II crossed the Atlantic in 1957 under Alan Villiers. She was listed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Vasa Named ship
Vasa Breaks the Surface, 24 April 1961, 09.03
Photographer Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet), Stockholm
Where to see it Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet), Stockholm
Medium Colour photograph
At three minutes past nine on 24 April 1961, the Swedish warship Vasa broke the surface of Stockholm harbour for the first time in 333 years, and the photograph catches the first worn timbers rising into the light. Press from all over the world, television cameras and invited guests on barges waited for the moment. She had sunk about 1,300 metres into her maiden voyage in August 1628. The picture shows a ship from the reign of Gustavus Adolphus coming back into the world.
The real ship Built on the orders of King Gustavus Adolphus, Vasa sank on her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961, housed in the temporary Wasavarvet until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Great Britain Named ship
The Hulk of SS Great Britain on the Pontoon Mulus III, 1970
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it Private collection (published on Flickr, 2019)
Medium Photograph
Great Britain spent her last working years in the Falkland Islands as a storage hulk and in 1937 was towed to Sparrow Cove and scuttled. In 1970, paid for by Sir Jack Hayward, she was raised onto the submersible pontoon Mulus III and towed home, reaching Barry Docks on 22 June before going on to the Bristol dry dock where she had been built 127 years earlier. The photograph shows the rusted, mastless hull riding high on the pontoon, a tug at the left. It is a picture of a return from the dead.
The real ship Great Britain was launched at Bristol on 19 July 1843. After service as an emigrant ship to Australia and later as a cargo carrier, she was a storage hulk in the Falklands until scuttled in 1937; returned to Bristol in 1970, she is a museum ship in Bristol Harbour on the National Historic Fleet register.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Midway (CV-41) Named ship
Major Buang Lands His Cessna O-1 on USS Midway, 29 April 1975
Photographer US Navy photographer aboard USS Midway (unidentified)
Source US Navy; published in Naval Aviation News, July 1975
Medium Photograph
During the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975, the pilot of a South Vietnamese Cessna O-1 circled the carrier Midway and dropped a note on her deck asking for the helicopters to be moved so that he could land; he had his wife and five children aboard. Captain L. C. Chambers ordered the landing area cleared, and an estimated ten million dollars' worth of Huey helicopters were pushed overboard into the South China Sea. Major Buang bounced once, touched down and taxied to a halt with room to spare, the first fixed-wing pilot of his air force ever to land on a carrier.
“Can you move these helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway”
The real ship Midway was among the US Navy ships that received evacuees during Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975. Major Buang's Cessna O-1 Bird Dog is displayed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer aboard USS Midway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Amerigo Vespucci Named ship
Amerigo Vespucci at the Parade of Sail, New York Harbor, Bicentennial, July 1976
Photographer Harley D. Nygren (1924 to 2019)
Where to see it NOAA Photo Library, America's Coastlines Collection (corp2248)
Medium Photograph
For the United States Bicentennial in July 1976, tall ships from around the world sailed in parade through New York harbour, and the NOAA photographer Harley Nygren recorded the Italian Navy's Amerigo Vespucci among them. She moves through a crowd of small craft under square sails and staysails, her crew manning the yards and her hull painted in black and white bands. Her design drew on the 74-gun ships of the line of the late eighteenth century, and amid the modern harbour she is a floating memory of the age of sail.
The real ship Amerigo Vespucci was built at Castellammare di Stabia and launched on 22 February 1931, to a design inspired by late eighteenth-century 74-gun ships of the line. Based at La Spezia, she remains in service as the Italian Navy's training ship, carrying 26 sails on three steel masts.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Harley D. Nygren, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Amoco Cadiz Named ship
Amoco Cadiz Grounding and Oil Spill, Brittany, March 1978
Photographer NOAA photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Response and Restoration
Medium Colour photograph
On 16 March 1978 the tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, two kilometres off the coast of Brittany, and in the following days split in three and sank. NOAA's photograph of the sinking tanker shows her deck awash with waves breaking over the hull. The spill was the largest of its kind at the time, and the ship broken on the rocks became the image of that disaster for the Breton coast.
The real ship Owned by Amoco, Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks on 16 March 1978, split in three and sank, releasing about 220,880 tonnes of oil according to NOAA.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: NOAA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mary Rose Named ship
The Raising of the Mary Rose, 11 October 1982
Photographer Mary Rose Trust photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Mary Rose Trust, Portsmouth
Medium Photograph
Henry VIII's warship sank in the Solent on 19 July 1545 during an action against a French fleet, and her hull lay hidden until winter storms began to uncover it in 1971. After years of excavation her surviving timbers were fixed in a cradle beneath a steel lifting frame, and on 11 October 1982, watched by the Prince of Wales and spectators in boats, the first timbers broke the surface at 9.03 in the morning. The photograph shows the dark hull at last clear of the water in its yellow cradle. At one point a corner of the frame slipped more than a metre and came close to crushing part of the hull.
The real ship Mary Rose was launched in July 1511 and served for 34 years in several wars, being substantially rebuilt in 1536. She sank on 19 July 1545; her hull and many artefacts, raised by the Mary Rose Trust, are preserved at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Iowa (BB-61) Named ship
USS Iowa Fires a Full Broadside near Vieques Island, 1 July 1984
Photographer PHAN J. Alan Elliott, US Navy
Source US Department of Defense (Defense Visual Information)
Medium Colour photograph
During a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, Iowa fired a full broadside of her nine 16-inch and six 5-inch guns, and the photograph, taken from above, shows the result: great clouds of flame and smoke from the barrels, rings of concussion pressed into the sea, and the 16-inch barrels caught at different stages of recoil. Taken in the year she was reactivated, it shows a battleship of the Second World War brought back into service in the 1980s.
The real ship Laid down at the New York Naval Shipyard in 1940 and commissioned in February 1943, Iowa carried President Roosevelt to Mers El Kébir on his way to the Tehran conference and served in the Pacific and in Korea. Reactivated in 1984 and decommissioned for the last time in 1990, she is now a museum ship at Los Angeles.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: PHAN J. Alan Elliott, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
First Images of the Wreck of the Titanic, Transmitted by Argo, 1 to 2 September 1985
Photographer Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and IFREMER expedition (Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel)
Source Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Medium Video and still images
After a week of fruitless searching, at 12.48 in the morning on 1 September 1985, pieces of debris began to appear on the screens aboard the research vessel Knorr. One of them was a boiler identical to those shown in pictures from 1911. The next day Argo sent back the first pictures of Titanic since she sank 73 years before, and the discovery made headlines around the world. A grainy shape on a monitor turned a legend back into a ship.
The real ship Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage. Her wreck lies at about 3,800 metres, some 600 kilometres south-south-east of Newfoundland, in two main pieces about 600 metres apart, and is protected by a UNESCO convention.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
Titanic's Bow and Grand Staircase, Photographed from Alvin and Jason Jr., July 1986
Photographer Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition led by Robert Ballard
Source Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Medium Photographs
In July 1986 Ballard returned aboard Atlantis II, and the submersible Alvin carried people down to Titanic for the first time. The small remotely operated vehicle Jason Jr. descended the ruined Grand Staircase as far as B Deck and photographed remarkably well-preserved interiors, with chandeliers still hanging from the ceilings. These pictures of the bow and the rooms within gave the world its lasting image of the wreck: not a pile of scrap but a ship, asleep in the dark.
The real ship The bow section of Titanic remains recognisable with many preserved interiors despite damage from striking the sea floor; the stern is heavily damaged. The debris field holds hundreds of thousands of objects.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Exxon Valdez Named ship
Exxon Valdez Aground in Prince William Sound, March 1989
Photographer NOAA photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Response and Restoration
Medium Colour photograph
Just after midnight on 24 March 1989 the tanker Exxon Valdez ran onto Bligh Reef, and within six hours some 10.9 million gallons of crude oil had spilled into Prince William Sound. The photographs of the stranded ship, in a remote place reachable only by helicopter, plane or boat, turned one tanker into the emblem of a new environmental age. Afterwards single-hulled tankers were phased out, and it was hearing about that danger that first sent the photographer Edward Burtynsky to the shipbreaking beaches of Asia.
The real ship Built by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego and delivered to Exxon on 16 December 1986, the 301-metre single-hulled tanker was repaired after the spill, renamed several times, and finally beached for scrapping at Alang, India, on 2 August 2012 as Oriental Nicety.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · edwardburtynsky.com
Image: NOAA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Vlora Named ship
The Vlora in the Port of Bari, Crowded with Albanian Migrants, 8 August 1991
Photographer Luca Turi
Medium Photograph
The Vlora was under repair at Durrës after a voyage from Cuba when, on 7 August 1991, thousands of Albanians fleeing economic collapse and political turmoil boarded her. Captain Halim Milaqi decided to sail the overcrowded ship for Italy, running on her backup motors, and after Brindisi she was directed to Bari. Luca Turi's photograph of her at the Bari quay shows a ship turned into a crowd, people packed on every deck and covering the mole beside her. Between 10,000 and more than 20,000 people were aboard, and in 2015 images of the scene were misused as fake news.
The real ship Vlora was built in 1960 at Ancona as the Ilice and sold in 1961 to a Sino-Albanian shipping company, sailing from Durrës under the Albanian flag. She was deregistered in 1996 and scrapped at Aliağa in Turkey.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Tankers and cargo ships being dismantled on the beaches at Chittagong Unnamed
Shipbreaking, Chittagong, Bangladesh (series), 2000 to 2001
Photographer Edward Burtynsky (born 1955)
Where to see it Studio of Edward Burtynsky, Toronto (prints in many public collections)
Medium Chromogenic colour prints
Burtynsky's large colour photographs show the hulls of retired tankers on the shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh. He said the idea came about four years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, when he heard a radio programme about the danger of single-hulled ships and wondered where these massive vessels would be taken apart; it would be, he said, a study of humanity and the skill it takes to dismantle them. His studio writes that the photographs appear as images of the end of time.
“I looked upon the shipbreaking as the ultimate in recycling, in this case of the largest vessels ever made.”
The vessels The Chittagong ship-breaking yard lies along the 18-kilometre Sitakunda coastal strip north-west of Chittagong and handles about a fifth of the world's shipbreaking.
Sources edwardburtynsky.com · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the ship-breaking beaches of Chittagong. Photo: Ctg4Rahat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Deepwater Horizon and platform supply vessels Named ship
Platform Supply Vessels Battle the Fire on Deepwater Horizon, April 2010
Photographer US Coast Guard helicopter crew (unidentified)
Source US Coast Guard
Medium Digital photograph
Anchor handling tugs and platform supply vessels turn their water cannon on the burning Deepwater Horizon while the Coast Guard searches for missing crew. The blowout of 20 April 2010 killed eleven workers and led to the largest accidental marine oil spill of all time. In the photograph a ball of flame and a column of black smoke rise over the rig, and the small red and blue ships arcing water into the fire give the disaster its scale, and a picture of disaster its stubborn courage.
The real ship Deepwater Horizon was a semi-submersible drilling unit owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect, about 64 kilometres south-east of the Louisiana coast. There were 126 people aboard when she exploded; the Coast Guard responded with cutters, helicopters and a rescue plane.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Coast Guard helicopter crew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Costa Concordia Named ship
Costa Concordia Capsized off Isola del Giglio, 14 January 2012
Photographer Rvongher
Medium Digital photograph
The cruise ship lies heeled far over off Isola del Giglio, a wall of white decks tipped towards the sea, seen past the red harbour light and a row of her own orange lifeboats moored in the port. On 13 January 2012 she had deviated from her planned route for a sail-by salute, struck a rock formation on the sea floor, listed and partially sank on an underwater ledge. Thirty-two people died. Her captain, who left the ship with passengers still aboard, was later convicted of manslaughter. Her empty lifeboats in the foreground say the rest.
The real ship After the disaster Costa Concordia was righted by parbuckling in September 2013, refloated with sponsons and towed to Genoa in July 2014, where her scrapping was completed in July 2017.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Ever Given Named ship
The Ever Given Stuck in the Suez Canal, Seen from the International Space Station, 27 March 2021
Photographer Crew of the International Space Station (NASA Johnson Space Center)
Where to see it NASA Johnson Space Center, Earth Observations (ISS064-E-48480)
Medium Digital photograph from orbit
From orbit a ship 400 metres long is a sliver, yet this one had blocked one of the world's great trade routes. On the morning of 23 March 2021, caught in a sandstorm with winds above 40 knots, Ever Given ran aground and wedged across the Suez Canal with her bow and stern stuck on opposite banks. An astronaut's photograph of 27 March shows her lying diagonally in the thin blue line of the canal, tugs at her stern, desert on one side and green fields on the other. For six days nothing could pass.
The real ship Ever Given is a container ship 400 metres long, of 20,000 TEU and about 224,000 tons. She was freed on 29 March 2021 after a salvage operation managed by Smit International, a Boskalis subsidiary, for the Suez Canal Authority.
Sources eol.jsc.nasa.gov · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Crew of the International Space Station, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
The Stern of Endurance on the Floor of the Weddell Sea, March 2022
Photographer Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic (Endurance22 expedition)
Source Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Medium Digital photograph
Nearly 107 years after she sank, Shackleton's Endurance was found 3,008 metres down in the Weddell Sea by the Endurance22 expedition, working from the South African polar ship Agulhas II. The image of her stern, with the name ENDURANCE arced directly below the taffrail above the polestar emblem, felt like a message across a century. The wreck is upright and intact, and the expedition's director of exploration called it the finest wooden shipwreck he had ever seen.
“This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact”
The real ship Designed by Ole Aanderud Larsen and built at the Framnæs shipyard, Sandefjord, Norway, the three-masted barquentine carried Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914 and sank in the Weddell Sea on 21 November 1915 after being trapped in the ice. Her wreck, found in March 2022, is a protected historic site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty System.
Sources endurance22.org · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Stanley, Falkland Islands. Photo: HaSt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Explore Ships in Paintings by chapter
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