USS Bennington (Gunboat No. 4/PG-43) was a member of the of steel-hulled, twin-screw gunboats in the United States Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the first U.S. Navy ship named in honor of the town of Bennington, Vermont, site of the Battle of Bennington in the American Revolutionary War.
The contract to build Bennington was awarded to N. F. Palmer & Co. of Philadelphia in November 1887. Her hull was subcontracted to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works which laid down Benningtons keel in June 1888. Bennington was launched in June 1890. She was just over long and abeam and displaced . She was equipped with two steam engines which were supplemented with three schooner-rigged masts. The ship's main battery consisted of six guns and was augmented by an assortment of smaller caliber guns.
After her June 1891 commissioning, Bennington was attached to the Squadron of Evolution and for its cruise to South America. The gunboat made two Mediterranean tours between 1892 and 1894, after which she was assigned to the duties in the Pacific. She sailed the Pacific coasts of North and Central America and spent time in the Hawaiian Islands to protect American interests there. On her way to support United States Army operations of the Philippine–American War, Bennington claimed Wake Island for the United States. After two years in the Philippines, she returned to the United States and was decommissioned for 18 months of repairs and refitting. After her March 1903 recommissioning, most of the next two years were spent patrolling the Pacific coasts of North and South America.
On 21 July 1905 at San Diego, California, Bennington suffered a boiler explosion, that killed 66 men and injured nearly everyone else on board. Shortly after the explosion, a tug beached the ship to prevent her from sinking. Eleven men were awarded the Medal of Honor for "extraordinary heroism" in the aftermath of the explosion. After Bennington was refloated, the damage was deemed too extensive to repair and the ship was decommissioned in September. The ship was sold for scrap in 1910, but instead served as a water barge for the Matson Line at Honolulu from 1912. In 1924, the former Bennington was scuttled off the coast of Oahu.
Design and construction The Yorktown class gunboats – unofficially considered third-class cruisers – were the product of a United States Navy design attempt to produce compact ships with good seakeeping abilities and, yet, able to carry a heavy battery. Bennington was authorized in the 1888 fiscal year, and the contract for her construction was awarded to N. F. Palmer & Co. of Chester, Pennsylvania. The hull for Bennington was subcontracted to the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works and built to the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair design. The mechanical design was patterned after the layout for her older sister ship developed by William Cramp & Sons.
Benningtons keel was laid down in June 1888, and the ship was launched on 3 June 1890, sponsored by Anne Aston, the daughter of Rear Admiral Ralph Aston, Chief Engineer of the U.S. Navy.Benham, p. 23.
Layout As built, Bennington was in length and abeam. Her steel hull had an average draft of , which was expected to give her the ability to escape from larger ships into shallow water. At the waterline was a turtleback deck of steel that formed a watertight seal over the lower spaces. The deck had a crown at the level of the waterline and curved downwards to below the waterline at the sides of the ship. Below this armored deck were twelve compartments separated by watertight bulkheads; the spaces above were equipped with watertight doors intended to be closed during battle.
Above the armored deck, Bennington had forecastle and poop decks with an open gun deck that spanned the length of the ship between them. The conning tower was located forward on the forecastle deck and was oval-shaped to deflect shot. It was outfitted with a steam-powered Ship's wheel, an engine order telegraph, and speaking tubes; it was protected by of steel armor plate.
Propulsion Bennington was powered by two triple-expansion steam engines which each drove one of the pair of , three-bladed screw propellers. The cylinders of each engine were 22, 31, and 51 inches (56, 79, and 130 cm) in diameter and had a stroke. Each engine was rated at and together were designed to move the ship at , though the ship exceeded that in her trials, topping out at .
The engines, situated in separate watertight compartments, were each fed by a pair of coal-fired boilers. Each boiler was horizontally mounted and was in diameter and in length with a total grate area of . Benningtons coal bunkers could carry up to of fuel, and were shielded from "shot and shell". At a near top-speed of 16 knots, the ship could cover in days; at the more economical speed of she could cruise over 62 days.
To supplement her steam power plant, Bennington was built with three masts that were schooner-rigged. She had a total sail area of . The steam and sail combination was expected to allow Bennington to remain at sea for months at a time during wartime.
Armament Benningtons main battery consisted of six /30 caliber Mark 3 guns,The 30 denotes the length of the gun barrels; in this case, the gun is 30 calibers, meaning that the gun is 30 times long as the diameter of its bore. with each gun weighing in excess of . Two were mounted on the forecastle deck, two on the poop deck, and the other pair amidships on the gun deck. The two guns on the gun deck were mounted above the waterline, while the other four were above. The guns fired armor-piercing projectiles with a propellant charge weighing at . At an elevation of 30.2°, the guns had a range of . Each gun was shielded with steel plating thick.
Benningtons secondary battery consisted of four 6-pounder () guns, and four 1-pounder () guns. Both were based on designs of the French arms company Hotchkiss. According to a 1902 Bureau of Ordnance publication, an armor-piercing round fired from a 6-pounder gun could penetrate of armor at a distance of .
Early career USS Bennington (Gunboat No. 4) was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 20 June 1891 under the command of Commander Royal B. Bradford. As one of the first steel-hulled gunboats of the "New Navy", Bennington was assigned to the Squadron of Evolution, a unit made up entirely of "New Navy" ships that was established to test and perfect tactics and doctrine developed at the Naval War College. In addition to operating as the first tactical fleet of the U.S. Navy, the squadron performed the secondary mission of cruising to foreign ports to demonstrate to the world the types of modern ships the United States was capable of building. In that latter role, Bennington and the rest of the squadron departed New York on 19 November 1891 for the unit's cruise to Brazil.
On 5 May 1892, Bennington was transferred to the South Atlantic Squadron and cruised South American waters until 19 July. Setting out from Bahia, Brazil, the gunboat visited Spanish and Italian ports during the 400th anniversary celebration of Columbus' voyage to the western hemisphere. She concluded the European portion of those festivities on 18 February 1893 when she departed Cádiz, with a replica of Columbus's caravel Pinta in tow for Cuba. After stops in the Canary Islands, the Netherlands West Indies, and Havana, the gunboat arrived back in the United States at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 26 March.
Following participation in the 1893 International Naval Review at Hampton Roads, Bennington moved north for operations along the coast of New England before beginning preparations for foreign service. To this end, she entered the New York Navy Yard on 24 May and remained there until 6 August. The ship departed New York on the 6th and arrived in Lisbon on the 18th. She cruised the Mediterranean, visiting various ports along its shores, for the next six months. In February 1894, orders arrived sending her to the Pacific. On the 18th, the gunboat transited the Strait of Gibraltar and headed back across the Atlantic. After steaming around Cape Horn and stopping at several Latin American ports, the warship finally arrived at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 30 April.
Pacific Duty Bennington served in the Pacific for a little more than four years. For the most part, her duty consisted of cruising along the west coast protecting American interests in Latin America during the numerous political upheavals that occurred at that time in Central and South America. In addition, she made two extended cruises to the Hawaiian Islands. The first came after a group of pro-royalists attempted in January 1895 to stage a countercoup against the provisional government of the islands. Bennington departed Mare Island on 28 May, arrived at Honolulu on 5 June, and spent the next nine months protecting American interests in the islands. On 5 March 1896, she departed Honolulu, bound for San Francisco where she arrived on 16 March. The following day, the warship entered the Mare Island Navy Yard for five months of repairs.
On 8 August, she resumed cruises along the west coast. That employment lasted a year and a week. On 14 August 1897, Bennington headed back to Hawaii. She arrived in Lahaina Roads on 27 September and reached Honolulu on the 30th. Except for a six-day cruise back to Lahaina in March 1898, the gunboat remained at Honolulu for just over nine months.
At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Bennington was in Hawaiian waters. After spending the first two months of the war in the Hawaiian Islands, she departed Honolulu on 16 June and steamed to the west coast of the United States. The warship arrived in San Francisco on 26 June and patrolled the California coast for the remainder of hostilities. On 18 September, Bennington stood out of San Francisco on her way ultimately to the Philippines. She arrived in Hawaii on 27 September and devoted a little over three months to operations in nearby waters. On 7 January 1899, she resumed her voyage west. Ten days out of Honolulu, she stopped at Wake Island. There Commander Edward D. Taussig, Benningtons commander, under direct orders from President William McKinley claimed the atoll for the United States, despite protests from Germany (which considered the island group a part of its claim of the Marshall Islands). Wake eventually became an important link in the Honolulu–Manila trans-Pacific cable.Dyal, pp. 39, 342. Bennington later made a stop at San Luis d'Apra, Guam, from 23 January to 15 February where Commander (later Rear Admiral) Taussig accepted the relinquishment of Guam from her Spanish colonial governor. Taussig briefly served as the first naval governor of Guam and established a native ruling council, before continuing on to Manila where Bennington arrived on 22 February.
Philippine–American War For a little more than two years after her February 1899 arrival, Bennington served in the Philippine Islands in support of the Army's campaigns during the Philippine–American War. For the most part, her service in the islands consisted of patrol and escort duty – preventing rebel movement and stopping the importation of arms, as well as seeing American troops and supplies safely between the islands. Occasionally, Bennington did see action. On 10 September, she shelled a fort near Legaspi on the southeastern coast of Luzon. Two days later, she captured and destroyed the insurgent vessel Parao. Between 7 and 9 November, the warship supported an Army landing at San Fabian on the shores of Lingayen Gulf in northwestern Luzon. The gunboat began a four-month assignment as station ship at Cebu on 26 November and concluded that duty on 19 March 1900.