YSMB- USS Maryland (BB-46) Mystery Cache

USS Maryland (BB-46), also known as "Old Mary" or "Fighting Mary" to her crewmates, was a Colorado-class battleship. She was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of Maryland

Characteristics: Class: Colorado
Type: Battleship
Nicknames: “Old Mary”, “Fighting Mary”, or “The Free State Battle Wagon”
Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia
Laid Down: 24 Apr 1917
Launched: 20 Mar 1920
Commissioned: 21 Jul 1921
Decommissioned: 3 Apr 1947
Length: 624’
Beam: 97’ 6”
Displacement: 33,100 Tons
Draft: 30’ 6”
Speed: 21 Knots
Crew: 1,080 Officers and Enlisted
Armament: 8 16” (410mm) 45 cal Guns, 12 5” 51 cal Guns, 4 3” 50 cal Guns, 2 21” Torpedo Tubes.
Fate: Sold for scrap on 8 Jul 1959
Awards: Seven Battles Stars for WWII

USS Maryland began her service upon her commission by the Navy in July 1921. For the next couple of decades, the ship worked in operations developing and maintaining naval combat readiness. She also took a few noted voyages during this time. The first was to Brazil in 1922 for their centennial celebration. The second was to Australia and New Zealand in 1925. Finally, she escorted President-Elect Hoover to Latin American in 1928. In 1940, the ship reported to a new home base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

She is most notable for her service in World War II. She was present on Battleship Row during the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and was lightly damaged by Japanese bombs. Returning to duty in 1942, she saw service in the Pacific War. She aided in the invasions of Midway, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, Tarawa, and Kwajalein. During the pre-invasion work at Saipan in June 1944, a Japanese torpedo caused minor damages. By September, she was back for action at the Palaus. She also participated in the invasions of Leyte and Okinawa. During that time, enemy fire struck her twice more. Her final repairs kept her out of action until the end of the War. The Navy decommissioned her in April 1947 and sold her for scrap in 1959.

The bell of the Battleship Maryland has been preserved on the State House grounds in Annapolis. Speaking of Bells: Unlike civil clock bells, the strikes of the bell do not accord to the number of the hour. Instead, there are eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch. In the age of sailing, watches were timed with a 30-minute hourglass. Bells would be struck every time the glass was turned, and in a pattern of pairs for easier counting, with any odd bells at the end of the sequence.

At midnight on New Year's Eve sixteen bells would be struck – eight bells for the old year and eight bells for the new.

Most of the crew of a ship is be divided up into between two and four groups of watches. Each watch takes its turn with the essential activities of manning the helm, navigating, and keeping a lookout. "Eight bells" can also be a way of saying that a sailor's watch is over, for instance, in his or her obituary, as a nautical euphemism for "finished".

According to seafaring legend, the ship's cooks and boatswain's mates had a duty arrangement to give the cooks more sleep. The boatswain's mates, who worked 24 hours a day on watches, would build the fire in the stove, so the cook could get up a little later and the fire would be already going so he could begin preparing breakfast. In return, between meals, the cooks would shine the bell, which was traditionally the boatswain's mates' responsibility.

It is a naval tradition to baptize children using the ship's bell as a baptismal font and to engrave the names of the children on the bell afterwards.

In order to solve this puzzle you have to know ship time by many strikes of the bell.