$25.00 CAD
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Photo postcard with view over Queenstown (Cobh) from destroyer USS Paulding in harbor. Nice view of St. Colman’s Cathedral.
Assuming this photo taken from the USS Paulding, other cards from same lot have similar writing.
Writing on photo and on negative
Light toning/staining on back.
(Red text is an electronic watermark that is not physically part of the photo for sale)
USS Paulding was the lead ship of Paulding-class destroyers in the United States Navy.
Paulding was laid down by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath in Maine on 24 July 1909, launched on 12 April 1910 by Miss Emma Paulding and commissioned on 29 September 1910, Lieutenant Commander Yates Stirling, Jr. in command. She was the first American destroyer to be solely fueled by oil.
Assigned to the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet, Paulding operated primarily off the east coast until after the United States entered World War I. On 21 May (1917), she got underway for the United Kingdom, arriving at Queenstown, Ireland to escort convoys and protect them from German U-boats. On that duty throughout the war, she returned to the United States after the Armistice.
During the First World War, Queenstown was a naval base for British and American destroyers operating against the U-boats that preyed upon Allied merchant shipping. Q-ships (heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks) were called Q-ships precisely because many were, in fact, fitted out in Queenstown. The first division of American destroyers arrived in May 1917, and the sailors who served on those vessels were the first American servicemen to see combat duty in the war. When that first convoy arrived in port after enduring a rough passage in what were little more than open boats, its members were met by a crowd of sailors and townspeople, thankful for their anticipated help towards stopping the U-boats that were blockading western Europe. Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, commander of the Coast of Ireland station, met the senior American officer, Commander Joseph Taussig, at the dock and inquired as to how soon the weatherbeaten American ships could be put to use. "We're ready now, sir!" was the widely quoted answer from the American.
WIKIPEDIA
