Jack of Harts

Wilmington, North Carolina had long been home to various Coast Guard cutters, usually named Diligence, long before the Second Great Depression began. The last of them had departed for Florida decades before due to the changing nature of the Coast Guard’s mission, but when that ship was retired, Wilmington purchased her and brought her home again. They kept her seaworthy, took her out on celebrity cruises, and generally treated her as the city’s most welcome guest and attraction. Then the Second Great Depression began, and North Carolina realized it required a navy of its own. They had very little to work with. They were no longer blessed with major United States naval bases, but they did have multiple Navy and Coast Guard reserve stations, filled with naval reservists looking for a what to serve their State. And they had Diligence. That was how a 210 foot retired Coast Guard cutter became the flagship of a major American State Navy. She did not serve in that capacity for long. They acquired better ships in time. But she was the first flagship of the North Carolina Navy, and Wilmington does not let anybody walk by her dock without telling them of that fact.

The USS Iwo Jima was homeported as part of the Mayport reserve when the Second Great Depression began. She was an old amphibious assault ship the size of a World War II carrier that had long since been placed on the reserve roster, and had not set sail in years. Florida was quick to “recruit” the crew to their cause. Technically, the recruitment had happened long before when they made certain that the entire reserve crew was composed of native Floridians. Florida had put similar thought into securing a Marine fighter unit capable of flying off the Iwo Jima, so when it came time for Florida to cast off the surly bonds of an abusive Federal government, they were more than ready to patrol their own coastlines. Various destroyers and frigates escorted her at all times, and when Florida eventually joined the Confederation of Dixie, the Iwo Jima proved to be a powerful addition to the Confederation Navy.

Norfolk remained the largest and most capable naval base in the world when the Second Great Depression began. That left it in a unique position when the Convention of States reorganized the Federal government. Most of the United States Navy’s larger ships maintained their loyalty to the new Federal government, but the Norfolk yards and harbor had split for Virginia. The Navy needed a home port, and Norfolk was still the best place for that. And Norfolk needed ships to maintain or it would have to shut down much of its capacity. They came to an agreeable compromise in the end. The Commonwealth of Virginia agreed to lease much of Norfolk to the United States Navy for a small yearly fee, and that relationship remained in practice throughout the centuries that followed. Its importance waned after the construction of Yosemite Yards, but the story was not over. When Yosemite fell, the Navy returned to Norfolk in force, and it became one of the arsenals of freedom that sent ships out again and again to face the Shang and their allies.