ussseattle

unrep hard work being on a working party

the reason the Washington is crossed out is this ship was originally the Washington. On 9 November 1916, Washington was renamed Seattle (retaining her classification as Armored Cruiser No. 11). She was simultaneously taken out of reserve and recommissioned for duty as flagship of the Destroyer Force. She was probably renamed as the was a Battleship planned named Washington which was later scrapped under the 1922 Naval treaty. her long story is here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Washington_(ACR-11)

What are the things attached to the gun barrels with leather straps? Would they stay in place when the gun was fired?

I don't think those are leather, I think they are metal claps, they seem to be holding a mirror for the gun layers or sight setters. the rear "rings" are part of the barrel. Here is a very detailed description of how the guns are manufactured www.bobhenneman.info/HeavyGun.htm

The super hi-res version of this image and the others in the Seattle series show stitching on the straps. Metal clamps probably would have damaged the surface of the guns (and they loved these things too much to damage them). I thought the barrels were built up with telescoped sections at first, too, but the other images show they're one piece from end to end. The shadows of the straps play tricks on us. This image shows the shadows being cast on the opposite side of the straps. Every strap can also be followed to a fitting somewhere on the barrel.

Very interesting picture and the commentaries do let us know what exactly is going on, thank you all.

isn't it "court martial?"

Thanks for the information! We’ll look into it.

A Kangaroo Court in this context is an informal or mock court usually performed by your peers for infractions. For example, if you are on a sports team and forget a piece of equipment the kangaroo court may punish you by making you buy a round of beers. It is generally considered a form of hazing. In the picture I can speculate that perhaps the young sailor showed up late for muster and is being publicly ridiculed. Maybe he will be punished by swabbing the deck. Based on body language, smiles of the audience, and informality this is clearly not a real Court Martial.

If it were real, he'd have to walk the plank . . . .

I once witnessed a pretty unpleasant 'Kangaroo Courts Martial' when a young sailor who was very dirty and did'nt wash as much as he should was dealt with by his peers. He was stripped, thrown into a bath of freezing cold water, the bath then having every bit of rubbish that could be found thrown into it and he was then scrubbed with long handled deck scubbers till he bled. It did the trick, that chap just about lived in the showers for a long time after that. One of the first things I learnt in the navy was this... "Cleanliness comes next to Godliness, and if you can't be Godly then by God you can be clean!" Any old Navy man will recognise that this is not a sailors yarn.