Editing Ship Pages

A Ship page contains information for a given ship. It is divided into four separate sections:

1. Ship Name and Designation History
2. Naval Covers
3. Postmarks
4. Other Information

 
This is the most complicated page in the Museum so take your time. Use the 'Show Preview' button frequently to verify everything is coming together as you expect.

Change only those sections where you want to add information and leave the others as-is. For example, if you only want to add covers but not postmarks, then update the 'Naval Covers' section and leave 'Postmarks' alone. Don't update a section if you don't have any information for it.
 
Typically, new ship pages are created by the Museum staff. If a page does not exist for the ship you want to add covers/postmarks for, ask the Curator to create it for you. When the staff creates a new ship page, they copy and paste the template (see Ship Page Template) and update the 'Ship Name and Designation History' section at a minimum. They may also add data to the 'Other Information' section if desired.

An optional section, 'Additional Naming History Sources', may also be added after 'Other Information' if deemed appropriate but this is usually rare.

 

How to update the "Ship Name and Designation History" section

 
In this section we attempt to list the complete set of names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime (aka incarnations), in chronological order, starting with the earliest (oldest) and ending with the latest (most recent). Typically the Museum staff will fill in this section so you do not need to worry it. Just leave it as-is. If you have information that affects this section, please contact the Curator.

For the record, each entry uses the following template:

<li>'''[A]''' [B] [C]</li>

Where:

'''

(Three single quote marks) appear before and after the [A] section of the template and cause the letters within [A] to be shown in bold letters.

[A]

This section contains the ship's name and/or designation.
Before the ship's name there may be a prefix code such as 'USS' used by the U.S. Navy or 'HMS' used by the British Navy.
You may find different prefixes used by various sources but we use a more limited set of prefixes, or none at all.
See Ship Prefix List for the full list currently used by the Museum.

[B]

This section is optional and is used if that incarnation of the ship was owned by some entity other than the U.S. Navy (ie a foreign navy, commercial service, etc). If included, the text is enclosed in parenthesis.
Examples are: (British Naval Service); (Commercial Service); (Private Yacht).
This section is also used to help identify U.S. Navy ships if just a name exists without any designation. For example: (Receiving Ship); (Screw Sloop of War); (Training Ship).
For a full list of values currently in use, see Ship Owner and Function Labels.

Note about early ship labels: In histories, you may come across examples such as USS GENESEE which has an incarnation identified as "Fleet Tug No. 55" and USS YALE which has an incarnation identified as "Auxiliary Cruiser". The NCM treats these cases differently. For USS GENESEE, although "Fleet Tug No. 55" is not an official designation, it is accompanied by a number (55) and thus we include it in section [A] so that it is displayed in bold text. For USS YALE, there is no number accompanying "Auxiliary Cruiser" so we include it in section [B] as a simple label that is not displayed in bold text.

[C]

This section is optional and is used to provide alternative spellings for the ship name. Sometimes a ship's name uses letters/characters other than the standard Latin alphabet A-Z. This is particularly evident with ship names for Asian countries.
In this case, use standard Latin alphabet characters in section [A] and then provide the alternative spelling in section [C] using the following format: (alt: xxx)

For example, USS WADSWORTH DD-516 has an incarnation as ZERSTÖRER with the West German Naval Service. In section [A] we use ZERSTORER and then provide the native spelling in section [C] as (alt: ZERSTÖRER).
USS WADSWORTH also has an incarnation as ΝΈΑΡΧΟΣ with the Greek Naval Service. In section [A] we use NEARKHOS and then provide the native spelling in section [C] as (alt: ΝΈΑΡΧΟΣ).

Another example is LST-805 which has an incarnation as 中111 with China Merchants Group. In section [A] we use ZHONG 111 and then provide alternate spellings in section [C] as (alt: 中111 / 中111 / ZHŌNG 111 / ZHONG 111 / CHUNG 111 / CHUNG 111).

With this example, we also provide the following explanatory note at the end:
[Note on transliteration of Chinese glyphs to English (roman/latin) letters:
In the main section of Ship Name and Designation History, we provide the ship names in both a romanized alphabet and Chinese glyphs.
The primary name (ie, ZHONG 111) is given in separated Pinyin without diacritics. In the "(alt: xxx)" section, additional forms are provided:
(alt: 中111 / 中111 / ZHŌNG 111 / ZHONG 111 / CHUNG 111 / CHUNG 111)
(Traditional Chinese glyphs / Simplified Chinese glyphs / separated Pinyin with diacritics / concatenated Pinyin without diacritics / separated Wade-Giles / concatenated Wade-Giles)
Alas, you can find any of these versions (and others) used by sources - which makes text searches rather painful.]

The value of section [C] comes into play when searching for a ship via its name. You can search either via its true name or its latinized name.
 
When done, the incarnations listed in the "Ship Name and Designation History" section should look something like this: (from USS WADSWORTH DD-516)

<li>'''USS WADSWORTH DD-516'''</li>
Commissioned March 16 1943 - Decommissioned April 18 1946<br/><br/>
<li>'''Z-3''' (West German Naval Service)</li>
Transferred to West Germany October 6 1959 and renamed<br/>
Struck from Naval Register October 1 1974<br/><br/>
<li>'''ZERSTORER 3 D-172''' (West German Naval Service) (alt: ZERSTÖRER)</li>
Name and designation changed (date unknown)<br/>
“Zestörer” is German for ‘destroyer’<br/><br/>
<li>'''NEARKHOS''' (Greek Naval Service) (alt: ΝΈΑΡΧΟΣ)</li>
Transferred to Greece October 30 1980 and renamed<br/><br/>
Struck by Greece 1991

Which is displayed as: (bold letters not shown)

USS WADSWORTH DD-516
Commissioned March 16 1943 - Decommissioned April 18 1946

Z-3 (West German Naval Service)
Transferred to West Germany October 6 1959 and renamed
Struck from Naval Register October 1 1974

ZERSTORER 3 D-172 (West German Naval Service) (alt: ZERSTÖRER)
Name and designation changed (date unknown)
“Zestörer” is German for ‘destroyer’

NEARKHOS (Greek Naval Service) (alt: ΝΈΑΡΧΟΣ)
Transferred to Greece October 30 1980 and renamed

Struck by Greece 1991 

 

Where Do We Get Our History Data?

We have several primary sources for history data but there are two that are always at the top of the list:

1. NavSource
2. Wikipedia

In most cases, one or both of the above sources has a page for a given U.S. Navy ship and both appear to be actively updated. One caveat: they do not always agree!
Of note, Wikipedia pages for ships frequently have a text section as well as an info box. The data displayed in the info box frequently comes from either NavSource or DANFS. However, the text section occasionally has data and dates that conflict with the data in the info box so pay attention!

The progenitor of U.S. Naval history data is the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (aka DANFS). Much information you find on the internet originated from this source.

Formerly published in print by the Naval Historical Center (NHC) as bound hardcover volumes, it was later transcribed by volunteers and made available at the Hazegray website. In 2008 the NHC was re-designated as the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) which then developed its own online version of DANFS through a combination of optical character recognition (OCR) and hand transcription. [Note: most of the preceeding paragraph is from the Wikipedia entry for DANFS.]

I'm not sure if any Hazegray entries have been updated at all since their original transcription and the NCM does not use this site as a primary source.

The NHHC DANFS site can have extensive text on a ship's history but it is not as up-to-date as NavSource or Wikipedia and frequently focuses solely on the ship's history while in the U.S. Navy. It appears to provide very little if any information for a ship's history outside U.S. Navy service. As such, we rarely use this as a primary source but may use it a secondary source when trying to resolve disputes between the primary sources.

We have a good list of additional primary sources we turn to when NavSource and Wikipedia seem to come up a little short.

1. Shipscribe
Frequently has richer history data than either NavSource or Wikipedia.
2. Lloyd's Register of Shipping
Excellent for tracking the history of ships in commercial (merchant) service.
3. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (alternative source)
4. Lloyd's Register of Yachts online
5. Lloyd's Casualty Returns
The Casualty Returns, or Wreck Returns as they are sometimes referred to, record the total losses of vessels worldwide within incremental periods.
6. Merchant Vessels of the United States
Limited to U.S. registered merchant ships but a good alternate source to Lloyd's.
7. History of the Naval Overseas Transportation Service in World War I
8. Shipbuildinghistory.com
Construction records of U.S. and Canadian shipbuilders and boatbuilders
9. U.S. Navy Vessel Register
10. World War II U.S. Navy Vessels in Private Hands

Beyond the sources listed above, a search on the ship's name will frequently provided multiple pages. Be wary. Many pages are just copy and paste of the primary sources listed above. In fairness, we do the same! But there are some cases where we go the extra mile to dig up and/or correct history data and we also point out conflicts between the primary sources when we encounter them.

In some cases, personal blogs or specialized websites provide good information about a given ship or class of ships. It helps their credibility if they provide photos and/or references.

Finally, there are cases where we just don't have good history data for a ship and there are cases where there is not enough information to resolve conflicts between sources. We'll just have to wait and see if they get resolved in the future.

 

How to update the "Naval Covers" section

 
This section contains links to pages that display covers associated with the ship. "Associated" means that the cover either has a postmark from the ship, a cachet mentioning the ship, or killer bar text mentioning the ship. In the case of the cachet or killer bar text, the cover can be postmarked on some other ship or location.
 
Since a ship can have many covers associated with it, the covers may be split among many pages. That way, a page wont have so many images that it takes forever to load. Typically you will only need to create the first link and page. The Museum Staff will add new pages when they notice that a given page is getting too big.
 
To add the first link and covers page, follow these four steps:
 
Step 1: On the ship's page, click the [edit] link at the far right of the "Naval Covers" section title. This will bring up the page editor showing the page code for just the Naval Covers section.
 
Step 2: Look for the line

<li>[[SHIP_NAME_Covers_Page_1 | Covers Page 1]]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(DATE RANGE)</li>

and change the values for SHIP_NAME and DATE RANGE as described below.
 
"SHIP_NAME" is the name of the ship and should have the form: "<Ship Name>_<Designation>_<Hull Number>". For example, the ship name for USS ALLEN M. SUMNER DD-692 is ALLEN_M_SUMNER_DD_692.
 
"DATE RANGE" is the range of dates for covers on that page. The date range should be expressed in the form: YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD. If you will only be adding one cover, then just use that one date (YYYY-MM-DD) or you could just put the year (YYYY).
 
Once you've made all the modifications, you will end up with a line that looks something like this (continuing the USS Allen M. Sumner example from above):

<li>[[ALLEN_M_SUMNER_DD_692_Covers_Page_1 | Covers Page 1]]
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(1931-10-03 to 1933-04-01)</li>

Step 3: Preview and then save the page if it looks ok.
 
Go to the bottom of the outer page (the one that contains the edit window) and click on the "Show preview" button. You should see the link you just created but it will be in red to signify that no page exists yet for that link. This is how it is supposed to look at this stage.
 
If you need to make some corrections, hit the browser Back button (or back arrow) to go back to the page with the edit window.
 
Once everything looks ok, go to the very bottom of the page again and add some descriptive text in the text box next to "Summary". Something like "added ship cover page 1" would be ok. Finally, click the "Save page" button. The page is now saved.
 
Step 4: Create the Ship Cover page using the new link.
 
Once the page is saved you will return to the Ship page and see the new ship cover page link in red. Click on the red link and you will be taken to the ship cover page in edit mode. Note that the edit window is empty. You need to copy the Ship Cover Page template from the Ship Cover Page Template help page, paste it into the edit window, and modify as needed (follow the instructions on the template page).

 

How to update the "Postmarks" section

 
This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. Postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage. A postmark MUST NOT be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. In other words, do NOT list a postmark unless you have an image to back it up.
 
There are four main steps you need to do to add a new postmark entry to the page. The first is to edit the Postmarks section. Second is to copy the template lines and paste them the right place. Third is to modify the template lines with information relevant for your new entry. Finally, preview and then save the page if it looks ok.
 
Step 1: On the ship's page, click the [edit] link at the far right of the "Postmarks" section title. This will bring up the page editor showing the page code for just the Postmarks section.
 
Step 2: Copy the text that is inside this box (the box just below with the border made out of blue dashes).

<!-- ============== -->
<!-- POSTMARK ENTRY -->
<!-- ============== -->
<br/>&nbsp;<br/>
<table width="95%" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="center" valign="center" width="140">
POSTMARK TYPE
</td><td align="center" valign="center" width="100">
POSTMARK DATE
</td><td align="center" width="350">
THUMBNAIL LINK TO<br/>CLOSE-UP IMAGE
</td><td align="center" width="100">
THUMBNAIL LINK TO<br/>FULL COVER IMAGE
</td></tr></table>
NOTE
<!-- === End of Postmark Entry === -->

Now find the existing postmark entry that the new postmark entry should follow. Add a blank line after that existing entry's <!-- === End of Postmark Entry === --> line and paste the template lines on it.
 
Step 3: Now, you need to change some of the values in the template text you just pasted.
 
First you need to find the following line in the template text you just pasted:
 
"POSTMARK TYPE"
 
and replace it with the postmark classification. See the page on the Locy System for help in classifying postmarks.
 
Next, find the "DATE FROM" and "DATE TO" lines and replace them with the usage date range for this postmark. Date ranges should be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and NOT from any other source. If there is only one example of the postmark in the Museum, then just set the FROM date and leave the TO date as a question mark. Dates should have the format: YYYY-MM-DD
 
Finally, find the following line:
 
THUMBNAIL LINK TO<br/>FULL COVER IMAGE
 
You need to replace this line with an image link to the front of the cover (the side with the postmark). An image link looks like:
 
[[Image:IMAGE_NAME|thumb|center|100px]]
 
but you need to replace "IMAGE_NAME" with a name that uniquely identifies the image. For example, if your Museum userid is Xyzzy and the cover is postmarked on the battleship Pennsylvania BB-38 on Oct 12, 1934, then IMAGE_NAME should look something like this:
 
Xyzzy_Pennsylvania_BB38_19341012_1_Front.jpg
 
When you put it all together, the entire line will end up looking something like:
 
[[Image:Xyzzy_Pennsylvania_BB38_19341012_1_Front.jpg|thumb|center|100px]]
 
That's the minimum you need to do for step 3. However, there are two other values that you can set if you want to.
 
a) Postmark closeup image: This is a closeup image of the postmark. This is optional but if you want to do it, then you need to replace the
 
THUMBNAIL LINK TO<br/>CLOSE-UP IMAGE
 
line with an image link:
 
[[Image:IMAGE_NAME|thumb|center|250px]]
 
b) Notes: Finally, if you have anything special you want to say about the postmark, replace the "NOTES" line with your comments.
 
This is the end of step 3. Here is an example of an entry with the postmark, date range, and front image link filled in.

<!-- ============== -->
<!-- POSTMARK ENTRY -->
<!-- ============== -->
<br/>&nbsp;<br/>
<table width="95%" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="center" valign="center" width="140">
3s (AC-TBT)
</td><td align="center" valign="center" width="100">
1933-10-12
<br/>to<br/>
1935-05-10
</td><td align="center" width="250">
THUMBNAIL LINK TO<br/>CLOSE-UP IMAGE
</td><td align="center" width="100">
[[Image:Xyzzy_Pennsylvania_BB38_19341012_1_Front.jpg|thumb|center|100px]]
</td></tr></table>
NOTES
<!-- === End of Postmark Entry === -->

 

How to update the "Other Information" section

 
This section lists any other information that might be relevant to this ship. If you have information about the ship that you feel is valuable, add it here.
 
Step 1: On the ship's page, click the [edit] link at the far right of the "Other Information" section title. This will bring up the page editor showing the page code for just the Other Information section.
 
Step 2: If no Other Information has been added for this ship yet, you will see the following line:
 
This section lists any other information that might be relevant to this ship.
 
Erase this line and leave it blank. Go to step 4.
 
Step 3: If one or more Other Information entries already exists, find the last one and add a blank line after it.
 
Step 4: Copy the following template. Each distinct piece of information uses this template.

<br/>&nbsp;<br/>
INFORMATION

Step 5: Paste the template on the blank line you created in either Step 3 or Step 4.
 
Step 6: In the template lines you just pasted, replace "INFORMATION" with the information you want to provide. If you want to do something beyond just plain text, contact the Curator for help.
 
Step 7: Preview and then save the page if it looks ok.
 
Go to the bottom of the outer page (the one that contains the edit window) and click on the "Show preview" button. You should see the link you just created but it will be in red to signify that no page exists yet for that link. This is how it is supposed to look at this stage.
 
If you need to make some corrections, hit the browser Back button (or back arrow) to go back to the page with the edit window.
 
Once everything looks ok, go to the very bottom of the page again and add some descriptive text in the text box next to "Summary". Something like "added ship cover page 1" would be ok. Finally, click the "Save page" button. The page is now saved.
 
Finally...
 
If you have questions or run into trouble, contact the Curator for help. You can always Cancel an editing session using the "Cancel" link just to the right of the "Show changes" button at the bottom of the editor screen. For general editing help, see the article on How To Edit Pages.

 

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