Langsdale Link
Contents:
THE BELL OF THE BALTIMORE LANDS AT LANGSDALE
 |
The great bronze bell that has stood at the center of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center lobby for the last 20 years was transferred to the Langsdale Library’s main floor last semester. The naval bell, which served the USS Maryland 1903 and then the USS Baltimore (1942) was moved as part of the expansion of the Venable Baetjer Howard Moot Court Room which will open this March.
The bell now anchors the northeast corner of Langsdale’s main floor and can be seen through the glass from both Maryland Avenue. and Oliver Sreet. It joins the much smaller bell of the USS Dixie of 1898 which anchors the southeast corner, and the naval prints along the wall of the auditorium which depict contemporary ships of the Maryland and the Dixie. Also along the auditorium wall are four abstract nautical prints by LeRoy Neiman inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
The ship’s bell of the World War II cruiser Baltimore arrived at UB in the spring of 1984 after a career that took it from President Teddy Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” through two world wars, on cruises with American Olympians and a president, and on visits of state to honor an emperor and a queen. It is naval practice to place artifacts of retired vessels in the places for which those vessels were named and, in 1984, U.S. Sen. Charles Mac Mathias and Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaeffer found a home for the USS Baltimore bell at the University of Baltimore.
On one side the bell is engraved with “USS Maryland, 1903." The armored cruiser Maryland (ACR-8) was launched Sept. 12, 1903 from Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. at Newport News, Va. After training exercises with the Atlantic fleet, the ship joined the Pacific fleet in 1906, where its duties included participation in a survey of the Alaska coast and the transportation of Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox to the 1912 State Funeral of Japanese Emperor Meiji. In early 1914, before the United States entered the First World War, the Maryland was assigned to patrol the coast of Mexico after U.S. citizens were killed by forces of insurgent Gen. Pancho Villa (an exercise in which the USS Dixie also took part).
The USS Maryland
In 1916 the Navy decided to name a battleship Maryland and in preparation for this, the cruiser Maryland was renamed Frederick for the Maryland county of that name. As the USS Frederick, the cruiser returned to the Atlantic, where it spent the Great War escorting convoys through U-Boat- infested waters. A last duty on the Atlantic was the delivery of the U.S. Olympic team to Antwerp, Belgium, in July 1920. The cruiser then returned to the Pacific and was decommissioned in 1922.
Twenty years later, on July 28, 1942, a new heavy cruiser, the USS Baltimore (CA-68) was launched from Bethlehem Steel’s shipyard in Fore River, Mass. The new cruiser was given the bell, still bearing the name of the USS Maryland. Commissioned April 15, 1943, the heavy cruiser immediately departed for the Pacific and took part in the invasion of the Makin Islands in November. The following year, the Baltimore took part in 11 separate actions in the Pacific Theater.
 |
| Gen. Douglas MacArthur, President Franklin Roosevelt and Adm. Chester Nimitz aboard the USS Baltimore, July 26, 1944. [US National Archives] |
In July and August 1944, the USS Baltimore had the honor of
conveying President Franklin Roosevelt and the presidential party to Hawaii
and Alaska. The cruiser returned to the war zone that fall and took part
in the attacks on Luzon, Formosa, the China coast, Okinawa, Honshu Island
and Iwo Jima in 1945. The Baltimore was awarded nine battle stars
for World War II combat operations.
 |
Leaving the Pacific in 1951, the cruiser joined the Atlantic Fleet and,
in June 1953, represented the United States in Britain’s Coronation
Naval Review in Spithead, England. In 1955, the Baltimore returned
to the Pacific Fleet and was decommissioned in 1956.
Further information and photographic links on the career of the USS Baltimore can be found on the U.S. Naval Historical Center’s Web site at www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-b/ca68.htm .