20
WBM march 2011
Taft on a tour of the Panama Canal
construction in 1909, making history
with the catapult launch of a Curtiss
flying boat in 1915 and providing a
U.S. presence across the globe during
and after World War I.
But the cruiser was renamed the
USS Charlotte in 1920 — so the name
USS North Carolina could be given to
a new planned battleship — and was
later decommissioned.
The silver went into Navy storage
in Virginia in 1920, with plans to
transfer it to the new B-52 battleship.
However, construction for the
ship ended due to post-World War I
treaty limitations, says Kim Robinson
Sincox, Battleship museum services
director.
But the silver’s journey did not
end in storage. A timeline from the
museum and old newspaper reports
show it later spent years in the custody
of the Daughters of the American
Revolution in North Carolina, on
board the USS Raleigh and at the
Governor’s Mansion.
Then, in 1941, another USS North
Carolina became its home — the B-
55 battleship that is now the floating
museum.
“It became an honorary continuity
of history,” Bragg says.
1941-1965
North Carolina’s silver work of art
continued to make an impression,
including during the Battleship North
Carolina’s commissioning.
Archived at the museum, a 1961
letter written by W.Y. Preyer to a
Greensboro Committee chairman of
the USS North Carolina Battleship
Commission described the silver during
the 1941 commissioning that Gov.
J. Melville Broughton attended in
New York. The approximately 122-
piece set must have appeared larger
than life, as pictured by Preyer.
“The commissioning of a large ship
during time of war was most impressive.
The Governor had brought
up from Raleigh the very large and
handsome silver service — over 500
pieces…”