USS Olympia Model

"You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."
- Commodore Dewey to Captain Gridley just before the Battle of Manila Bay

For the 240th birthday of the U.S. Navy, here is a model of its oldest surviving steel-hulled warship: USS Olympia (C-6).  This cruiser was commissioned in 1895, and was used during the Spanish-American War by Commodore George Dewey, whose Pacific fleet defeated Spain in the Battle of Manila Bay.  Used as a training ship in World War I and part of the anti-Communist intervention in the Russian Civil War, it was decommissioned in 1922.  USS Olympia is on display in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where its owners are trying to raise the funding to repair its corrosion and keep it afloat.  This model was exhibited half a world away at the Shizuoka Hobby Show in Shizuoka, Japan.