To the editor:

155 years ago today a four-hour sea battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (Merrimac) ended the more the 3,000 year reign of wooden-ship navies of the world.

That brief battle made obsolete the greatest and most powerful and expensive navy in the world, the ruler of the high seas, the renowned English Fleet of Queen Victoria.

The Monitor-Merrimac battle did save the USS Minnesota from a watery grave that day while the revolving turret on the Monitor changed sea warfare forever. No longer was a ship’s direction or position important in choosing a target for its guns

Many naval historians claim that the invention of the Monitor’s turret was an even greater advance in naval warfare than the iron-cladding of wooden ships that fought this battle in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Denny Warta

New Ulm