Naval History - April 2011

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N AVA L H I S T O RY • A P R I L 2 0 1 1 1

18 The Sumter ConundrumBy Craig L. SymondsFor newly elected President Abraham Lincoln, Fort Sumter was more than just a military problem—it was a political tightrope-walk.

26 The Navy’s Evolutionary WarBy Craig L. SymondsThe coastal and riverine challenges of the Civil War spawned technological innovation and a futuristic-looking U.S. Fleet.

36 Lincoln’s ‘Father Neptune’By Craig L. SymondsBrusque, widely disliked, oddly bewigged, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was nonetheless the right man for a tough job.

40 Suggestions for Further Civil War ReadingBy Craig L. SymondsA selection of essentials for the Civil War navalist’s library.

Special Center Spread Naval Power’s Broad Reach During the Civil War.

42 Cold War Duty in the Black Sea FleetBy Vladimir MandelA Ukrainian sailor remembers shipboard propagandists, a friendly U.S. enemy, and everyday life in the Soviet navy.

50 A Cup O’ JoeBy Captain Raymond J. Brown, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)From the wardroom to the boiler room, the Sea Services percolate along on the strength of that most beloved ship’s staple: good, hot coffee.

54 ‘An Appalling Calamity’By Noah Andre TrudeauIn the teeth of the Great Samoan Typhoon of 1889, a standoff between the German and U.S. navies suddenly didn’t matter.

60 The Sailor Who ‘Torpedoed’ a TrainBy Carl LaVOThe target: a Japanese supply train. The weapon: an innovative U.S. submariner.

April 2011 I Volume 25 I Number 2

U.S. Naval Institute I www.usni.org

COVER: An unidentified U.S. Navy Sailor poses for the camera in this photograph from the Liljenquist Family Collection, a treasure trove of more than 700 rare Civil War images donated to the Library of Congress in 2010.

26

4 On Our Scope

6 Looking Back

8 In Contact

10 Naval History News

12 Flight Line

14 Historic Aircraft

66 Historic Fleets

76 Book Reviews

80 Museum Report

DEPARTMENTS

2 U N I T E D S TAT E S N AVA L I N S T I T U T E

ContributorsCaptain Raymond J. Brown is a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer who has commanded at sea and is both a USCG cutterman and a U.S. Navy surface warfare officer. An award-winning essayist, he has contributed to Proceedings magazine and to national cable news networks. He currently is an all-hazards consultant, working principally in transportation.

Carl LaVO, a frequent Naval History contributor, is the author of The Galloping Ghost: The Extraordinary Life of Submarine Legend Eugene Fluckey (Naval Institute Press, 2007). He’s currently completing work on a biography of Vice Admiral Allan R. McCann, who pioneered the submarine rescue chamber that saved the lives of 33 men trapped in the sunken USS Squalus (SS-192) in 1939.

Vladimir Mandel served twice in the Soviet Union’s Black Sea Fleet, first as a seaman with a radio rating in 1966. He later (1969–72) was a connection and observation lieutenant in the destroyer Komsomolets Ukrainy. He holds a degree in physics from Odessa State University and is vice director of the Physical Scientific and Research Institute in Odessa, Ukraine.

Craig L. Symonds is professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy and the author or editor of 25 books on Civil War and naval history. His book Lincoln and his Admirals (Oxford University Press, 2008) won the Barondess Prize, the Laney Prize, the Lyman Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Book Award, and the 2009 Lincoln Prize.

Noah Andre Trudeau is the author of numerous books about the Civil War, including, most recently, Robert E. Lee: Lessons in Leadership (Palgrave, 2009) and Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea (HarperCollins, 2008). His previous Naval History articles include “A Naval Tragedy’s Chain of Errors” (February 2010) about the 1923 Honda Point disaster.

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On Our Scope

Naval History has been fortunate to have top historians contribute to its biannual “fold-out” issues, and this one, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, is no exception. Craig L. Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy and an award-winning

authority on the conflict’s naval battles, personalities, and strategies, is the author of our special section’s three feature articles.

Dr. Symonds starts at the beginning—examining in “The Sumter Conundrum” newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to dispatch a naval expedition to resup-ply besieged Fort Sumter without touching off a war. In “The Navy’s Evolutionary War,” he takes a broad look at the U.S. Navy’s critical, albeit supporting, role in the conflict and how the service was able to harness new technologies and ship designs to blockade the Confederacy, capture its ports, and conquer the South’s Western river strongholds.

Gideon Welles was often lampooned during the war for his eccentricities, including his mismatched brown wig and white beard, but Dr. Symonds argues in “Lincoln’s ‘Father

Neptune’” that the Secretary of the Navy proved to be a skilled administrator during an era of mas-sive naval expansion. Finally, for those wanting to learn even more, Dr. Symonds offers advice in “Suggestions for Further Civil War Reading.”

While the outcome of the war was ultimately decided on land, all too often its naval aspects are reduced to several ship duels. Our gate-fold, “Naval Power’s Broad Reach,” depicts the expansive and innovative roles played by the Union and Confederate navies. Chief credit for this bonus feature goes to design director Kelly Erlinger and graphic artists James Caiella and Karen Erlinger.

Beginning with “The Sumter Conundrum,” a recurring character in our gatefold package—and one of the war’s greatest naval heroes—is an officer who later exerted a paternal influence on the U.S. Naval Institute. Outspoken, ambitious David Dixon Porter rose meteorically through the officers’ ranks during the Civil War—from lieutenant in 1861 to the Navy’s sixth-most senior admiral in ’65.

Along the way he served on blockade duty, chased the commerce raider CSS Sumter, led naval forces on the Mississippi, and helped conquer Fort

Fisher. Porter was also the war’s foremost naval practitioner of jointness, working effi-ciently with professional Army officers including Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman—but displaying little patience for political generals such as Benjamin Butler and Nathaniel Banks.

An innovative commander, Porter relied on iron and steam to patrol Confederate waters and subdue enemy strongpoints. But, ironically, during a three-month period in 1869 when he was the de facto chief of the Navy Department, he oversaw the service’s regression to reliance on sail power. The next year Porter succeeded his foster-brother, David Glasgow Farragut, in the largely ceremonial position of Admiral of the Navy.

Despite being the service’s highest ranking officer, Admiral Porter had little power to halt the Navy’s slide into the “dark ages” of the 1870s. But according to historian Charles Oscar Paullin, he “vigorously and insistently declared the country’s need of a new navy.” And when a group of naval officers also concerned about the direction of the Sea Service met in 1873 to form the Naval Institute “for the advancement of pro-fessional and scientific knowledge of the Navy,” the venerable admiral agreed to serve as the organization’s first president.

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remain in the Navy, Coye had to resort to deception about her feelings. As a com-manding officer, she saw the hypocrisy of kicking gay subordinates out of the Navy. She chose to retire in 1980, sooner than planned, so she could be herself.

In 2005 I interviewed Admiral Charles Larson, who saw much change during his 44 years on active duty. Drawing a con-trast with the history of racial integration,

he predicted, “someday gays will be accepted in the military, but I think that’s one issue that society will have to be ahead of the military.”

He added a personal perspective: “Probably about in 1984–85, our oldest daughter Sigrid . . . confided in [my wife] Sally that she was gay. She asked Sally if she would tell me. Sally said, ‘No, that’s something you’ve got

to tell your dad yourself.’ I think Sigrid was concerned about how I, as a military officer, might accept that. But she came and told me, and I told her that made no difference to me—that she was my daughter, and I loved her. . . .

“After I got the news, Sally said that if I had not accepted Sigrid, that she would have had trouble

continuing to live with me. . . . I got a real test, because I had no warning. It came to me, and I had to make a deci-sion right there. There was no decision to make; it was an instinctive reaction that she had my support.”

An individual’s sexuality is but one of many factors that make a person who he or she is. Congress has decided that it should no longer be a yes-or-no charac-teristic that defines the ability to serve. One of the important values in all the services is honor. The nation asks its men and women to serve with integrity, and the recent change in the law will make that possible for many who have been excluded up to now.

By Paul Stillwell

The End of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Looking Back

Shortly be fo re Chr i s tmas , President Barack Obama signed into law a repeal of the contro-versial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

policy that prohibited gay and lesbian personnel from serving openly in the U.S. armed services. It’s an important milestone in the nation’s military history and a symbol of changing attitudes on the part of the populace as a whole.

In 2001 our youngest son, Jim, told my wife, Karen, and me that he is gay. Since that time we have watched that evolu-tion of society through his eyes as well as our own.

I recall many years ago hearing a rhetorical ques-tion posed by my father, who was an outspoken lib-eral on the subject of racial justice but not on sexual matters. He asked, “Why would anyone want to go to bed with another guy when there are so many good-looking gals available?” My own thinking at the time was similar to his. When Dad died in 2004 at the age of 92, the minister who spoke at his funeral made a point of saying that my father had come to embrace his church’s open accep-tance of gays and lesbians.

My attitude had changed by then as well. When I served on active duty in the 1960s, at Officer Candidate School and on board ships, there were jokes about “queers,” “homos,” and worse. In many cases the speakers prob-ably intended no malice, but the effect depends on one’s viewpoint. Jim has told us of the derision he has experienced per-sonally, which brings the hurt home.

Because attitudes cannot be legislated, the change in the law is likely to run into problems as the Department of Defense and individual services develop plans and implement new policies. The law of unintended consequences will probably rear its head, and there may be delays. It was more than 20 years from the time President Harry Truman ordered the racial desegregation of the armed services

in 1948 until Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, as CNO in the early 1970s, directed proac-tive steps toward equal opportunity.

People whom I respect opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Some based their objections on religious beliefs. Marine Commandant James Amos tes-tified to Congress against the change. Amos argued that it would be disrup-tive to introduce openly gay status dur-ing wartime. At the same time, he and the other service chiefs pledged that they would carry out the change in policy if directed by Congress.

One of the telling statements on the subject came during testimony from Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said, “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

That point was illustrated in the novel My Navy Too (Cedar Hollow Press, 1997). Retired Commander Beth Coye, whose father was a decorated World War II sub-marine skipper, wrote much of the book. She spent 21 years in the Navy, and her book, though fiction, is based on her expe-riences as a serving officer and lesbian. To

ABOVE: U.S. NAVy (CHAD J. MCNEELEy); INSET: U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen told a Senate panel he was against a policy that forced service men and women, such as Commander Beth Coye (inset) to “lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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In ContactThe Olympia Then and Now

Thomas S. Wyman

In “‘Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight’” (February, pp. 32–37), Lieutenant Commander Thomas Cutler graphically recounts the decisive role of the Olympia and her crew in the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay. In doing so, he makes a compelling case for saving this “Matriarch of the Fleet.” She is a historical vessel that recalls the time when coal was supplanting sail. Fire control was a manual operation. This reminder of times past offers a compelling overview of how far naval design has evolved over the last century. It should not be lost to future generations.

The author mentions only in passing the cruiser’s last assignment in return-ing the body of the Unknown Soldier to his homeland some 90 years ago follow-ing World War I. This was a ceremonial voyage under the command of Captain Henry Lake Wyman that captured the nation’s attention. The homeward voyage of the Olympia, with the Unknown’s cas-ket lashed to an upper deck, had its tense moments when the vessel encountered gale-force winds and heavy seas in the mid-

Atlantic and began to roll alarmingly. The ship’s last assignment was completed as the Navy formally transferred the casket to the Army on 9 November 1921 at the Washington Navy Yard. Two days later, after an emotionally charged ceremony, the Unknown Soldier was laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery. (See “Known But to God,” December 1996, pp. 45–48, by this writer.)

This final assignment of the Olympia and its importance in the consciousness of the nation is an additional compelling reason to assure that this historic vessel is preserved. The ship is an integral part of American history.

Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U. S. Navy (Retired)

I attended the recent Maritime Heritage Conference as an observer and heard speaker after speaker bemoan the problems of getting funds with which to maintain their ships. None of them offered any solu-tions to the problem. In private conversa-tions around the conference area, how-ever, could be heard such questions posed as “Are there too many preserved ships?” and “Would it be useful to establish a set

of nationally recognized standards against which ship-preservation projects could be measured with the aim of discouraging impractical schemes?”

I attended the session concerned with the Olympia, perhaps the session that gar-nered the greatest interest, but the end result again was only a series of hopeful aspirations.

Lieutenant Commander Cutler’s enthu-siastic article about the Olympia and the Battle of Manila Bay echoed the enthu-siasms of a century ago, when journalists superhyped everything about the Spanish-American War. But I wonder if, today, many consider it less passionately and in so doing make the Olympia’s importance a harder “sell.” The war, after all, was a lopsided affair in which a bullying United States beat up on a decrepit Spain and gained itself a cheap empire in the pro-cess. And how many think it “iconic” and “glorious” that an overpowering American naval force shot up an essentially anchored foe, pausing at one point and feeding the crews, and suffering only six WIA in the battle? A tough sell, indeed, when com-pared with other U.S. naval actions before and since.

Recollecting a Civil War Hero

Major Norman T. Hatch, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)

I was greatly surprised and pleased to read in the December issue about John Bickford of Gloucester, Maine, serving as a young man on board the Kearsarge in the Civil War (“‘I Didn’t Feel Excited a Mite,’” pp. 36–41). I first met him when I was about five years old and he was the owner of Bickford’s Float on Rocky Neck in East Gloucester. He was known by the nickname “Bunch” and was extremely kind to the youngsters who hung around the float doing minor jobs or getting sailing instruction. Bunch owned, among other craft, several ten-foot cat boats that he used for the latter purpose. I was large for my age and hung out with the older boys whenever possible, but Bunch saw through my efforts and didn’t put me in one of the cat boats.

To the best of my knowledge, Bunch never told the youngsters of his exploits on board the Kearsarge. Therefore, one

COURTESY OF MAJOR NORMAN T. HATCH, USMC (RET)

Long after John Bickford earned the Medal of Honor for actions during the Kearsarge’s Civil War duel with the Alabama, reader Norman Hatch knew him as the kindly gentleman who ran this boat float in East Gloucester, Maine. Later, Hatch also experienced combat, as a Marine cameraman in the Pacific war.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

N AVA L H I S T O RY • A p R I L 2 0 1 1 9

In Contact continued on page 68

day in the pentagon when I was preparing to invite the audiovisual media in to view a new exhibit extolling all of the Medal of Honor winners, I was greatly surprised to come across Bunch’s name among the names of the medal’s recipients. To read the excellent article by Norman C.

Delaney outlining Bunch’s heroics at sea in those perilous times put the frosting on the cake.

I have enclosed a color print of a painting by Emile Gruppe of Bickford’s Float. Gruppe was considered the finest seascape artist of his time and documented much of Gloucester’s fishing fleet.

El Dorado Canyon Reflections and Insights

Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Congratulations to Naval History and to Lieutenant Commander Stanik for his article “America’s First Strike Against Terrorism” (February, pp. 24–31), reminding us all of a very important event from 25 years ago: the retaliatory strike against Moammar Gadhafi. El Dorado Canyon was a signal event, the first blow in what would become the War on Terror, and the beginning of a shift from the Cold War focus on the Soviets to other missions for the Sixth Fleet. By and large the author gives a clear description of the events and what led up to them, but he gives the U.S. Air Force far too much credit. It invited itself in, and it wasn’t needed, except in the context of interservice politics.

The aircraft carriers deployed to the Mediterranean had more than enough assets and firepower to carry out the mission. Yet capable A-7s and F/A-18s were relegated to support missions so the F-111s from Royal Air Force Station Lakenheath could play. At this late date it’s difficult to pinpoint the source of the demand for the Air Force to play, but all signs point to its influence on the Commander-in-Chief Europe staff. No matter where the idea originated, Air Force participation was approved, and to their credit, crews at Lakenheath geared up. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of them on hand, so the operation had to be delayed several days while needed aircraft and crews flew from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Once started, the 1,600-mile flight from the U.K. to the scene of action had to be supported by numerous refuelings, AWACs, and command-ship logistics. Worse, some of the crews had never before flown together as a team. Some scholars believe that may have been the root cause of the fly-into-the water loss of one of the F-111s off the coast of Tripoli. Meanwhile, except for A-6 Intruders, capable and well-trained carrier-based Navy and Marine crews and their A-7s and F/A-18s either sat on the deck or bored holes in the sky waiting for the Air Force to coast out and start on that return 1,600-mile trek.

Time and again the value of joint oper-ations has been shown, but it’s almost always when more numbers are needed or

one service has a needed capability the other does not have. Joint operations for purely political reasons is costly and never makes sense. Operation El Dorado Canyon was an example of such nonsense. One would hope the record would be corrected.

Editor’s note: Vice Admiral Dunn was commander Naval Air Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet at the time of El Dorado Canyon.

Gary Hudson

While reading “America’s First Strike Against Terrorism,” the phrase the “United States’ first war against international ter-rorism” brought to mind the actions taken from September 1983 through February 1984, when several U.S. Navy combatants fired into Druse and Syrian positions in the hills east of Beirut. Targets were command bunkers and artillery, rocket, mortar, and antiaircraft batteries, which had fired into and around Beirut, at U. S. Marines ashore and at two U.S. Navy F-14s. Retaliation by A-6 and A-7 aircraft resulted in the loss of an A-6 and an A-7. Ships responding to various attacks included the battleship New Jersey (BB-62), carriers Independence (CV-62) and John F. Kennedy (CV-67), and destroyers Caron (DD-970) and Tattnall (DDG-19).

An interesting aspect of these bombard-ments was that some of the 16-inch firing was rather inaccurate. Investigation deter-mined the cause was faulty ammunition; no 16-inch ammunition had been manufac-tured for 30 years. Some analysts consid-ered that the resultant collateral damage may have contributed to the downgrading of U.S. influence in the Middle East.

Frederick C. Leiner

I read with interest “America’s First Strike Against Terrorism,” a well-written account of the retaliatory strike against Libya. Commander Stanik makes only a brief reference to the fact that “few allies would support the mission,” but the map of the “F-111Fs’ Long Round-Trip” shows the effect of their unwillingness to sup-port the United States; when France, Italy, and Spain forbade American warplanes to overfly their territories, the F-111s had to fly a circuitous route of double the dis-tance, complicating the mission. In light

of the more recent contributions of many nations in the ongoing struggle against terrorism, this lack of cooperation by our NATO allies—except for the British, who allowed F-111s to fly from an RAF base—is noteworthy. At “crunch time,” the United States had little international support.

But our allies did not merely stay on the sidelines. Two years ago, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam disclosed that in April 1986, Bettino Craxi, then the Italian prime minister, warned Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that the United States would bomb his country two days later (“Italy Warned Libya of Bombing, Saved Qaddafi’s Life,” Bloomberg News, 30 October 2008). According to the Bloomberg account, Giulio Andreotti, who was Italy’s foreign minister in April 1986, and Margherita Boniver, then the foreign affairs chief of Craxi’s Socialist party, both confirmed that the disclosure occurred. The U.S. strike targeted Libyan military sites, and at least 36 Libyans died in the raids, including Gadhafi’s adopted daugh-ter, although Gadhafi survived an attack on his compound at Bab al Aziziya.

Andreotti called the U.S. strike on Libya in 1986 “an uncalled-for initiative, an error in international affairs,” and Boniver boast-ed that Craxi had not only denied U.S. air-craft permission to use Italian airspace, but also “used all the channels available to him to warn the colonel [Gadhafi].”

Guns and Ships at the ‘Canal’

George S. Mihalik

I enjoyed James Hornfischer’s arti-cle “The Washington Wins the Draw” (February, pp. 38–47) very much and look forward to reading his book, Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal. On page 42 there is a reference to the first naval officer to take fire from 16-inch guns. This did not occur in this battle, but in the May 1941 Bismark action during which the German battleship’s captain, Admiral Günther Lütjens, took 16-inch gunfire from HMS Rodney. Also, the USS Massachusetts (BB-59) fired her 16-inch guns against the Vichy French squad-ron of Admiral François Michelier on 8 November 1941 at Casablanca.


Shipwreck Yields Possible Blackbeard Blade

Archaeologists working on a shipwreck off the North Carolina coast announced in January that they may have discovered a truly iconic relic of pirate lore: the sword of Blackbeard.

The sword—or rather, its fragmented remains, including a gilded hilt and pommel and parts of the broken, encrusted blade—comes from a wreck site presumed to be that of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s flagship, which ran aground in 1718 and was found in 1996. A North Carolina Office of State Archaeology team has been researching the wreckage for more than a decade.

Arguably the most notorious pirate in history, Edward “Blackbeard” Teach (or Thatch) captured the 104-foot, 300-ton French slaver La Concorde off Martinique in November 1717. Releasing the enslaved Africans and the French crew on the Grenadine island of Bequia (after liberating the Frenchmen from the gold they carried), Blackbeard and company made La Concorde their own. With her armament beefed up to 40 guns and her decks now trod by a pirate crew of 150, the redubbed Queen Anne’s Revenge set forth on an eventful seven-month piracy rampage with the swaggering, fearsome-looking Blackbeard in command.

The pirates plundered ships from St. Vincent to Antigua, and in April 1718 they appeared off Honduras, where they captured

Naval History News

Olympia Update: Beleaguered Ship West Coast–Bound?

N.C. DEpARTMENT OF CULTURAL RESOURCES (WENDy WELSH)

The sword of a sea-rogue? This gilded hilt and blade remnants were discovered amid the wreckage of what’s believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

the Jamaican sloop Adventure and added her to their motley flotilla. In May 1718, Blackbeard pulled off his most audacious piratical ploy ever, blockading the entire port of Charleston, South Carolina, and in a week’s time picking off eight or nine prizes sailing in and out of the harbor. A few days later, both the Queen Anne’s Revenge and Adventure ran aground off Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina—evidently a deliberate move by Blackbeard to strand the bulk of his crew and make off with a select few (and the loot). Before the year was out, Blackbeard himself would be dead, felled by five musketball wounds and more than 20 sword cuts in a battle off Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, on 22 November 1718.

The private firm Intersal discovered what is believed to be the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge in 1996. State-coordinated research efforts subsequently got under way. To date, tens of thousands of artifacts have been recovered from the site, including the recently announced sword find.

According to researchers, the weapon appears to be of French or English origin and may have been an ornamental addition to a well-to-do gentleman’s outfit. The sword’s ornateness has led some to make a stab of a guess that it was just the sort of prize item that a larger-than-life pirate captain such as Blackbeard, who characteristically bedecked himself with multiple pistols and blades at any one time, would claim for his own.

maintenance, repair, preservation, and restoration over the years. But another $10 million is required to restore the hull and deck, and possibly as much as $20 million is required for a complete restoration.

Unfortunately, the museum announced in February 2010 that it is not able to raise the money needed to dredge the penn’s Landing Marina, transport the Olympia to dry dock, and finance the repairs necessary to ensure she will remain afloat. Her fate grew more uncertain with talk last spring of sinking her and turning her into an artifical reef in the waters off Cape May, New Jersey.

While various concerned groups endeavored to raise funds to save the ship, Independence Seaport was slated to close the Olympia to visitors for good last November. But the organization gave the ship a six-month “stay of execution,” with limited visitation hours during the time extension.

In a new development in the ongoing effort to stave off the demise of the historic U.S. warship Olympia, a San Francisco–area group announced in January that it was launching a campaign to relocate the vessel from its current philadelphia berth to San pablo Bay.

The world’s oldest floating steel warship and the sole surviving naval vessel of the Spanish-American War, the Olympia served as Commodore George Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay. Her last official naval mission was to carry the body of the Unknown Soldier from France to the United States in 1921. The Olympia is steeped in history—but her recent history has been all about the struggle to survive.

The aging cruiser, a National Historic Landmark, is in need of substantial and costly hull repairs to prevent her from sinking. Independence Seaport Museum in philadelphia, the Olympia’s home since 1995, has spent in excess of $5.3 million on


Naval History News continued on page 72

Still, the Olympia remains in limbo and needs to find a new home—or maybe she needs to return to her original home. Enter the San Francisco contingent: the Navy Yard Association of Mare Island. The former naval-shipyard workers at the heart of the effort seek to bring the troubled ship back to her place of origin. She was built at San Francisco’s Union Iron Works, launched in 1892, and then docked at Mare Island for outfitting. She returned to the same yard a number of times for repairs, and it was from there that, on 25 August 1895, she set a course for the Far East and her eventual rendezvous with history at the 1 May 1898 Battle of Manila Bay.

The Mare Island group now joins others seeking raise the requisite funds to save the Olympia. At press time, Independence Seaport was slated to issue a bid request in February to organizations seeking to acquire the ship.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMAND

The troubled Olympia may have a new lease on life, as a San Francisco–based group is hoping to bring the historic warship back to the place of her birth.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Tirpitz

Patrick J. Kelly

and the Imperial German Navy

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before America’s entry into the war formed the First Yale Unit and financed their own flight training in preparation for service in the U.S. Navy. Thus, hundreds got

to experience Ensign Wayne Duffett’s feeling of taking to the

skies: “About three days ago I had my first flight. . . . Where the big sensation comes is when you go ‘over the hump’ [start to descend]. All of a sudden you pitch down and the first thing you know you are once more gliding over the water. Oh, it is the greatest sensation you can imagine.” Duffett would successfully

receive his coveted wings of gold and head overseas, joining others serving “Over There.”

Arriving on foreign shores, U.S. naval aviation personnel served alongside British, French, and Italian aviators experienced in the ways of air warfare after months of fighting over the Western and Italian fronts. Similarly, the aircraft they flew—Sopwiths, Spads, Nieuports, Capronis—were true combat types, in contrast to the training aircraft to which the early American naval aviators were accustomed back in the States. Foreign instructors trained the newly arrived Yanks, and in some cases the

Factory, to spur production by turning out designs of other manufacturers.

By war’s end the Navy’s aircraft inventory numbered 2,107 heavier-than-air types and 15 blimps; the outstanding designs included Curtiss flying boats, which would serve into the mid-1920s, and the DeHavilland DH-4, which flew raids over Belgium with the Northern Bombing Group. Those planes operated from scores of coastal air stations in France, Italy, and the British Isles, as well as locales such as North Island in San Diego

Bay; Key West, Florida; and Hampton Roads, Virginia—stateside installations destined to play important roles in naval aviation for decades to come.

From a handful of personnel in 1911 grew a robust force that by 1918 numbered in the thousands, including mechanics, gunners, and some yeomanettes, the first women to serve in naval aviation. Once the almost exclusive domain of graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy, the ranks of aviators expanded during wartime to consist primarily of members of the Naval Reserve Flying Corps. Its core was a collection of Ivy Leaguers who even

Flight Line By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum

The Great War Catalyst

Naval aviation’s early development occurred largely insulated from the cataclysmic events that

swept across Europe in 1914. While a handful of naval personnel in the United States experimented with and evaluated the Navy’s small collection of flying machines, half a world away nations were building sizeable aerial armadas and the press of combat was triggering dramatic technological and tactical developments in air warfare. That changed when America entered World War I. The ensuing 19 months brought unimaginable expansion in U.S.

naval aviation, providing a foundation for a more prominent postwar place in the Fleet.

Navy aviators claimed the distinction of being the first American combatants to land in France, when members of the First Aeronautic Detachment went ashore on 5 June 1917. But perhaps the most important naval aviation developments in World War I came far away from the front, with the building of the infrastructure to fight a world war. The Navy placed production contracts for aircraft on a scale never before seen and even established its own manufacturing plant, the Naval Aircraft

ALL PHOTOS: U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE

American-built Curtiss HS pusher flying boats were based at 10 of the 16 U.S. naval air stations in France. Left: After shipment from America, HSs are reassembled at NAS Brest. Right: Navy pilots pose in front of their HS-1s at NAS Tréguier in Brittany.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


afforded naval officers to witness the advancements of naval aviation in Europe. Two innovations in particular—the aircraft-carrying ships operated by the British and the long-range German Zeppelins that executed strategic bombing attacks on Great Britain—were to have a far-reaching impact on postwar operations in the U.S. Navy.

naval aviators were assigned to foreign squadrons. Among them was Lieutenant David S. Ingalls, Naval Aviator No. 85, who became the U.S. Navy’s only fighter ace of World War I while flying with a squadron of Britain’s Royal Air Force. Ensign Charles Hammann earned the Medal of Honor for rescuing a fellow aviator shot down by Austrian fighters, and did so flying an Italian seaplane fighter from Naval Air Station porto Corsini, Italy.

U.S. Navy and Marine fliers constituted the front ranks of the Northern Bombing Group, which was organized by the Department of the Navy for the purpose of attacking German U-boat support facilities and other military installations in Belgium. The unit eventually boasted day and night wings. Smaller efforts led up to the bombing group’s first raid in force on 14 October 1918, against a German-held railroad junction. The war’s end came before plans to carry out an around-the-clock bombing campaign could be executed.

To be expected, given its early inventory of seaplanes, was U.S. naval aviation’s wide-ranging effort in antisubmarine warfare. The 43 air stations in operation by war’s end, more than three-quarters of them on foreign soil, were primarily devoted to seaplane operations. The daily routine of many naval aviators consisted of long-range patrols over wide expanses of ocean in search of U-boats. On 25 March 1918, Ensign John F. McNamara, flying out of Royal Naval Air Station portland, England, became the first naval aviator to attack a German submarine while on patrol. He and his fellow airmen on both sides of the Atlantic logged some 3 million nautical miles in their war against the enemy’s undersea menace.

An important byproduct of front-line experiences was the opportunity

Leathernecks of the 1st Marine Aviation Force gather near their DeHavilland DH-4 bombers. The only U.S.-built land plane to see action in the war, the DH-4 arrived in the skies over Europe during the last months of the conflict.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Sailors service an H-16 flying boat at NAS Queenstown, Ireland. In addition to HSs, the large twin-engine H-16s flew antisubmarine patrols. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

From the Naval Institute Photo Archive

During 2011 these and other photographs tracing the

history of U.S. naval flight can be viewed at www.usni.

org. Follow the Naval Aviation Centennial links. Slideshows

change monthly.

David S. Ingalls, who left Yale University to serve as a naval aviator, became the Navy’s first fighter ace while flying a Sopwith Camel with No. 213 Squadron, Royal Air Force.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


Historic Aircraft By Norman PolmarAuthor, SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT OF THE U.S. FLEET

Flying Camels

During World War I U.S. naval aviators in Europe flew almost exclusively foreign-built aircraft, among them the

Sopwith F.1 Camel. The Camel was one of the most successful fighters of the war, being flown by the British Army’s Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) as well as the U.S. Army and Navy.1 The biplane was fast, maneuverable, and reliable. British avia-tion historian Kenneth Munson wrote: “Controversy over whether the Sopwith Camel or the [German] Fokker D.VII was the finest fighter aircraft of World War I will probably always persist; but the

Camel is undisputed champion in terms of enemy aircraft destroyed, its tally—during only sixteen months of operations—being 1,294 victories.”2

Developed from the earlier—and very successful—Sopwith Pup, the Camel had a conventional biplane appearance. A variety of engines powered the prototypes and early production aircraft, with ratings up to 150 horsepower. The aircraft’s short nose and stocky fuselage featured a “hump” forward of the cockpit that partially housed the aircraft’s twin Vickers .303-caliber machine guns, synchronized to fire through the two-blade propeller. The hump undoubtedly led to the Camel moniker, initially an informal label that was later made official.

The first Camel was completed on 22 December 1916, and the RFC and RNAS began receiving production aircraft in

mid-1917. It was an immediate success as a fighter, scout, close air support, and bomber aircraft. In addition to the twin Vickers (with up to 600 rounds of ammunition), the Camel could carry four 24-pound bombs or two 40-pound phosphorous bombs. Alternatively, a 112-pound high-explosive bomb could be carried aloft.

But it was as a fighter that the Camel achieved renown, with a single victory making it world famous. On 21 April 1918, the famed German fighter ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen—the “Red Baron”—was killed when his Fokker Dr.I was shot down by a Camel piloted by Captain Roy Brown of No. 209 Squadron, Royal Air Force.3 Victories

were chalked up at a rapid rate by Camel pilots, with aerial kills being scored over England (German bombers and Zeppelins), France, Italy, the Aegean, Macedonia, and Russia.

Among those Camel victories were six—five aircraft and one balloon—garnered by U.S. Navy Lieutenant David S. Ingalls while flying with the No. 213 Squadron, RAF. He was the only U.S. Navy fighter ace of World War I.

The Royal Navy flew the F.1 but sponsored the 2F.1—often called the “Ship’s Camel”—specifically for

shipboard use. This may have been the first aircraft developed for that role. The 2F.1 variant had only one hump-mounted Vickers .303 machine gun, to the left of the centerline, and featured a Lewis .303 machine gun fitted above the upper wing (with a 47- or 97-round magazine). For shipboard use, it had a shorter wingspan and a two-piece fuselage, joined behind the cockpit so it could be broken down for stowage. An extra fuel tank took the place of the right-side hump gun.

On the morning of 19 July 1918, the pioneer British carrier Furious, in company with a force of light cruisers and destroyers, launched two flights of 2F.1

Camels against the Zeppelin sheds

at Tondern, Germany. The first flight of three aircraft bombed one of the large airship sheds. Of the four aircraft in the second flight, one went down at sea when its engine failed, another crashed shortly after takeoff, and the third made a forced landing in neutral Den mark. The fourth plane made it to Tondern and destroyed another Zeppelin shed with its bombs. Each of the

destroyed sheds had con tained an airship; the Zeppelins L.54 and L.60 thus fell victim to carrier air strikes.

Only one plane from each flight was able to return to the Furious, and they had to come down in the water alongside because of problems with the landing procedure on the ship’s abbreviated landing deck. As a result of the losses, the Admiralty decided against further carrier strikes from the Furious.

The effect of the raid on the Germans was considerable. Airship historian Douglas Robinson wrote: “Until the

Sopwith F.1 CamelType: Fighter/Fighter-bomber

Length: 18 feet, 9 inches

Wingspan: 28 feet

Engine: various, 130-horsepower Clerget (typical)

Maximum Speed: 113 mph

Armament: Two .303-caliber Vickers machine guns

Crew: Pilot

Entered Service: June 1917

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

J. M. CAIELLA

Aircraft A5658 was one of four ex-U.S. Army Camel F.1s transferred to the Navy along with two 2F.1s. The aircraft depicted was flown by Lieutenant Commander Edward O. McDonnell when he made the first flight from an American battleship in March 1919.• • • • • • • • • • • • •


The plane fell into the water in front of the onrushing barge, which slammed into the airplane, pushing it and the pilot underwater. Luckily, Samson escaped from the wrecked plane and was plucked from the water, wet and frustrated but otherwise all right.

The flight deck was modified so it would be horizontal when the barge was pulled at high speeds, another guide was constructed to keep the tail of the airplane up and straight for the first four feet of its run, and wheels replaced the skids. On 31 July, Flight-Sub-Lieutenant Stuart Culley successfully took off from a slightly longer, 58-foot barge.

Then, on 11 August in the North Sea, Lieutenant Culley launched from a towed barge against the Zeppelin L.53. As the Camel climbed above 14,000 feet its controls got sluggish; at 17,000 feet the engine coughed. After gaining another 1,000 feet of altitude, Culley broke through a layer of clouds and found himself in bright sunshine some 200 feet below the German airship. But his plane would go no higher.

pulling back on the control stick, Culley literally hung the Camel on its propeller until the plane was aimed straight at the airship. He then trig gered the plane’s two machine guns. The Vickers jammed after seven rounds were fired; the Lewis fired a double drum of incendiary bullets into the Zeppelin. Bursts of flame shot from the L.53, and moments later its charred metal frame dropped into

Armistice the [German] Naval Airship Division lived in constant fear of a similar attack on one of the other bases . . . because of its exposed position, Tondern was maintained on a standby basis as an emergency landing ground only.”4

Subsequently, 2F.1 Camels were launched at sea from another platform. It was Royal Navy practice for ships to tow to sea floatplanes that, when a Zeppelin was sighted, would be cut loose to take off and climb to attack. But floatplanes were too slow to intercept Zeppelins. RAF Colonel Charles R. Samson, who had been the first Royal Navy pilot to solo, proposed using a destroyer to tow a fighter to sea on a barge. When the warship reached full speed at more than 30 knots, the fighter—fitted with skids for landing gear—would take off with a deck run of just a few feet.

A barge was fitted with a “flight deck” and a device to lock the plane in place until the pilot had run its engine to maxi mum power. Colonel Samson had troughs built onto the deck to mate with the skids on the aircraft to guide the fighter in rough water. A 2F.1 was loaded on the modified barge and a destroyer towed the 40-foot “carrier” to sea. As the destroyer picked up speed, Samson climbed into the Camel’s cockpit. A crewman—tethered to the barge with a line so he would not be blown overboard—turned the plane’s propeller and the engine started at once. After Samson had warmed up the engine,

a signalman on the barge flagged the destroyer and the sleek ship held steady at 31 knots. Samson opened his throttle, and the Camel tugged at its restraining wire. He pulled the release toggle and the cable holding back the plane came loose. A moment later the plane was airborne . . . or almost so.

The biplane started to leave the deck and then faltered. The skids apparently left their troughs and fouled a crossbar.

U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTe pHOTO ARCHIVe

On 31 July 1918, the Royal Navy’s second attempt to launch a Camel from a destroyer-towed barge proved successful. The fighter is seen just as it lifts off. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTe pHOTO ARCHIVe

Seven Camels launched from HMS Furious on 19 July 1918 flew the first carrier-borne strike against an enemy. They destroyed the Zeppelins L.54 and L.60 in their sheds at Tondern.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


three flights were made from each ship during the maneuvers. After taking off the planes landed ashore.

Six additional U.S. battleships were fitted with turret platforms and takeoffs were made by British- built Camels and several other American and foreign aircraft. The last U.S. Navy flights from battleship gun turrets were recorded in August 1920 when the Navy ended its experimentation with that form of shipboard avia tion.

Led by Sopwith, several British firms produced Camels during World War I, with a total of 5,490 being built. There was one purely “American” Camel: The late cartoonist Charles Schulz could magically (and

artistically) transform Snoopy’s doghouse into a Camel fighter for millions of newspaper readers of his comic strip.

The Camel’s career was relatively brief, with the last combat flights probably flown by Poles against the Russians in 1920. The success and popularity of the aircraft was summed up by one anonymous wit who declared: “It became so famous that the Arabs named an animal after it.”6

1. Four U.S. Army Air Service aero squadrons—the 17th, 41st, 148th, and 185th—used the Camel. The aircraft is described in great detail in H. F. King, Sopwith Aircraft 1912–1920 (London: Putnam, 1980), pp. 146–178.2. Kenneth Munson, Aircraft of World War I (Lon-don: Ian Allan, 1967), p. 108.3. The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were merged on 1 April 1918 to form the independent Royal Air Force. Claims for the down-ing of von Richtofen’s aircraft are many and include an unknown infantry rifleman of the Australian 51st Battalion and Sgt C. B. Popkin, a Vickers gunner with the 24th Machine Gun Company, 4th (Australian) Division. 4. Douglas H. Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat: A History of the German Naval Airship Division, 1912–1918 (Henley-on-Thames: G. T. Foulis, 1962), p. 321.5. Capt. S. W. Roskill, RN, “The Destruction of Zeppelin L.53,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceed-ings (August 1960), p. 78. Culley’s Camel—serial N6812—subsequently was placed in the Imperial War Museum, London.6. King, Sopwith Aircraft 1912–1920, p. 178.

Norman Polmar is a columnist for Proceedings and Naval History magazines. Among his 50 published books is the two-volume Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events (Potomac Books, 2006, 2008).

to the United States (given numbers A5658, A5659, A5729, A5730) and two 2F.1 models (A5721, A5722).

Platforms were erected over a 14-inch gun turret of the U.S. battleship Texas (later BB-35) while the ship was in England in November 1918; later a platform was added atop another turret at the New York Navy Yard. The first takeoffs from the Texas were not made, however, until fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean the fol lowing spring with two Camels, a Hanriot HD-2, and a Sopwith 1½-Strutter assigned to the ship. The first flight was made by Lieutenant Commander Edward O. McDonnell in a Camel on 10 March 1919, while the ship was at anchor in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A similar platform was erected on the battleship Mississippi (later BB-41), and she operated a Hanriot HD.1. In all,

the sea. Only one man escaped, having bailed out from 19,000 feet, possibly a record for the time.

But now the young British pilot had problems. As Cul ley’s guns stopped firing the Camel fell into a stall, dropping 2,000 feet before he regained control. With his fuel almost gone and the British task force nowhere to be seen, Culley headed toward the Dutch coast. In the distance several fishing boats appeared, and he decided to put down near them. As he approached, the “fishing boats” seemed to grow in size until he realized his mistake. They were destroyers! And, there were cruisers. It was the task force that had taken him to sea. Culley brought his plane down on the water and was picked up. A derrick salvaged the fighter.

British naval historian S. W. Roskill wrote of the destruction of the L.53: “So ended an undertaking which Culley himself called ‘an excellent example of cooperation between the Royal Navy and the very new-born Royal Air Force.’ But . . . it has also a wider significance in terms of history, for it was almost certainly one of the very first instances of a successful air interception by a ship-borne fighter aircraft.”5

The British also experimented with launching Camels from temporary platforms atop gun turrets on battleships and cruisers. This scheme caught on with the U.S. Navy and after the war six ex-U.S. Army Camels were transferred to the Navy: four F.1 aircraft brought back


Shrouded in tarps, a Camel is mounted at the end of its platform atop a fore turret of the USS Texas (later BB-35) in 1919, most likely around the time of its first launch in March.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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ConundrumOn his first day in office, President Abraham Lincoln faced one of his most vexing problems: Should he dispatch a naval expedition to resupply the besieged garrison at Fort Sumter, or simply withdraw the force?

BY CRAIG L. SYMONDS

The

ConundrumSumter


One hundred and fifty years ago, the United States faced the greatest crisis in its history. Following Abraham Lincoln’s election as President on 6 November 1860, seven states declared their seces-

sion from the Union and laid claim to all U.S. govern-ment property within their territories. Public attention had fallen on one particular Federal possession: the not-yet-finished masonry-and-brick fort in the middle of Charleston Harbor that had been named for “the Caro-lina Gamecock,” General Thomas Sumter, a hero of the American Revolution. The simple fact that Fort Sumter was on an island necessarily meant that almost any solu-tion to the growing crisis would involve the U.S. Navy.

Lincoln did not seek or expect a military solution. He had no intention of forcing the issue, believing as he did that the majority of Southerners retained some latent loyalty to the old flag and that they had simply been swept up by the emotion of the moment. He hoped that a period of quiet resolve would bring most of them to their senses and allow a national reunification without the shedding of blood. Time, he hoped, would be the great healer.1

But time was exactly what Lincoln did not have. On his first full day in office, 5 March 1861, he read a letter from Major Robert Anderson, the commanding officer of Fort Sumter’s small garrison. In that letter, Anderson informed the new President that he was running out of food for his garrison and their dependents, which included fami-lies plus a number of construction workers. Worse, from Lincoln’s point of view, Anderson wrote that it would require 20,000 well-trained troops to mount the kind of campaign required to bring him the needed supplies. It was an undisguised plea to withdraw him and his garrison from their untenable and dangerous situation.

Only the day before, in his inaugural address, Lin-coln had pledged to the country that he would “hold, occupy, and possess” all Federal property within the se-ceded states. To withdraw Anderson and his garrison from Sumter now would mean beginning his administra-tion with a violation of that pledge.

The Situation at Sumter

Even if one granted the legitimacy of secession—which Lincoln did not—the ownership of Fort Sumter was ambiguous. It had been authorized by Congress, paid for with Federal tax dollars, and built by the U.S. Army

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

During the Fort Sumter crisis, President Abraham Lincoln, pictured at left in a photo taken in the spring of 1861, sought for the United States to avoid being perceived as the aggressor. The Confederacy assumed that role when it eventually bombarded the fort.


Corps of Engineers on a man-made island constructed of granite blocks shipped to Charleston from New England. To be sure, the fort itself was in South Carolina waters, but South Carolina had no more to do with its financing or construction than any other state. Yet somehow during the lame-duck period of James Buchanan’s failed presidency, it had become the touchstone in the argument over South Carolina’s sovereignty and therefore of secession itself. That public attention made it a symbol of both Lincoln’s effort to confirm the permanence of the Union, and the Southern effort to assert its independence.

There were actually three Federal forts in Charleston Harbor: Sumter; old Castle Pinckney, watched over by a single ordnance sergeant; and Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, which was the home of the installations’ small U.S. garrison. When South Carolina Governor William Henry Gist pledged he would make no effort to occupy the three forts if the Federal government promised it would not

strengthen or reinforce them, President Buchanan accepted the arrangement, though at the time no one questioned exactly what it meant to “strengthen” the forts.

Buchanan’s pro-Southern Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, who later became a Confederate general (though a very bad one), handpicked Anderson for the command of the Charleston forts mainly because the officer was a Kentuckian and a slaveholder (or at least his wife was a slaveholder—the slaves were in her name) and because he was a consummate professional who would follow orders. But Anderson believed that part of being a professional soldier was displaying responsibility down as well as obedi-ence up and that he owed it to his men to ensure their safety. So long as he remained in Fort Moultrie, the 8 of-ficers, 61 men, and 13 musicians of his command were entirely dependent for their security on the forbearance of

the South Carolina militia. Anderson and his men were, in effect, hostages in their own fort. And so, despite Bu-chanan’s agreement, Anderson resolved to move his garri-son from the untenable Fort Moultrie to the more isolated, though still unfinished, Fort Sumter. He did so secretly on the night on 26 December, six days after South Carolina formally declared its separation from the Union.

South Carolina authorities felt betrayed and insisted that Anderson’s clandestine move was a violation of their agree-ment. It was not quite a “reinforcement” of the garrison, for there were no additional U.S. Soldiers in Charleston Har-bor after the move, but unquestionably the redeployment did “strengthen” Anderson’s position, for his men were no longer directly under the gaze—and the effective control—of local authorities. Southerners accused Buchanan of bad faith and demanded he order Anderson back to Moultrie. In the meantime, South Carolina troops occupied the aban-doned fort as well as Castle Pinckney.

For once Buchanan stiffened. He had agreed not to send reinforcements to Charleston, and he hadn’t. Buchanan noted that Anderson commanded all three of the Charleston forts and that he had simply moved his command from one to another, which was entirely within his authority.

First Shots Fired

Apparently rather liking the feeling of standing up for the government he pu-tatively headed, Buchanan decided that he would next send Anderson reinforce-ments and supplies. In January 1861, he dispatched the chartered and unarmed ci-vilian steamer Star of the West with 200 Soldiers plus a cargo of food and medi-cal supplies to Charleston Harbor. The South Carolinians opened fire on her

on 9 January, the first shots being fired from a battery on Morris Island that was manned by cadets from The Citadel. They could easily have been the first shots of a civil war, but after several rounds flew past his ship and one caused minor damage, the Star of the West’s civilian skipper turned back. Reverting to more characteristic be-havior, Buchanan chose to ignore the fact that the U.S. flag had been fired on.

The event highlighted Anderson’s precarious position. With his heavy guns now mounted in Fort Sumter, he could have covered the Star of the West’s approach with counterbattery fire. But he knew if he did so, it would start a war—though with whom it is not clear, for the Confederacy did not yet exist. He had watched from the ramparts of the fort as shot after shot was fired at the Star of the West, which was flying not one but two American

10

Miles

James Island

Ashley River

Fort Moultrie

Fort Sumter

Cummings Point

Star of theWest Battery

Fort Johnson

CastlePinckney

MountPleasant

Charleston

Sullivan’s Island

CooperRiver

MountPleasant

Battery

Charleston Harbor12 April 1861

Confederate BatteryK. ERLINGER


flags. The major was on the verge of ordering supporting fire when the side-wheel steamer turned around.

An angry Anderson demanded an explanation from the Charleston authorities for why the U.S. flag had been insulted. The ensuing exchange of letters resulted in a new agreement in which both sides pledged not to upset the status quo. And so Charleston Harbor slipped into a tense armistice that lasted six weeks, from mid-January until Lin-coln’s inauguration. During that period, Anderson sent regular updates to Washington—the U.S. mail and the telegraph were still working. If those reports were read at all, they had no influence on policy, for Buchanan was determined to do noth-ing to rock the boat before he left office.

Lincoln Seeks Opinions

Those were the circumstances on 5 March when Lincoln read the latest of Anderson’s status reports—carefully numbered no. 58—in which he reported that his garrison was about to be starved out of its position and that it would take 20,000 men to relieve him.

Lincoln first turned to the 74-year-old Gen-eral of the Army, Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott. Scott told him that ships could not get into Charleston Harbor past all the batteries that the Rebels had erected and that capturing the batteries would require the 20,000 men Anderson had asked for as well as several months of siege work. That was more time than Anderson, or for that matter Lincoln, had.

The next place Lincoln went for advice was his Cabinet. The assembled members expressed shock and surprise; until that moment, the pre-cariousness of Anderson’s position was not widely known or fully understood. Most of Lincoln’s ad-visers instinctively declared that Anderson must be sustained. After all, if the secessionists were successful in driving the American flag from na-tional forts, the government might as well acqui-esce to a divided country. Lincoln had invited Scott to the meeting, and the general patiently instructed them about the military realities that made a successful relief expedition to Fort Sumter impossible.

postmaster General Montgomery Blair, who was a West point graduate, was especially adamant that Sumter must be held, and he subsequently introduced Lincoln to his brother-in-law, Gustavus V. Fox, who had an idea about how to do it. Fox had served as a naval officer for 15 years, left the Navy in 1853 to command mail steamers, and was now a private citizen. He suggested that New York City

tugboats, loaded with both supplies and reinforcements and escorted by warships, could run into Charleston Harbor at night and deposit their cargo on Fort Sumter’s tiny wharf. It would be virtually impossible, Fox insisted, for secessionist batteries some three-quarters of a mile away, to hit such small, fast-moving targets.2

Lincoln saw some drawbacks to the scheme. First of all, sending a naval expedition into Charleston Harbor would almost certainly be perceived by secessionists as an aggres-sive act. Lincoln had promised in his inaugural address that “The government will not assail you. You can have no

LIBRARY OF CONGReSS

The Fort Sumter standoff was front-page news in early 1861. This profile of Sumter commander Major Robert Anderson noted that “a less able or more impressible officer would, beyond the possibility of a doubt, have involved our country in a bloody fratricidal war.”• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.” Perhaps sensing the President’s wariness, Blair suggested that at least Lincoln could send Fox to Charleston to talk with Major Anderson and assess the situation. Always willing to ob-tain more information, Lincoln agreed, though he made no commitment and was still leaning toward evacuation when he bade Fox farewell.3

Leaving Washington on 19 March, Fox traveled south by train through Virginia and the Carolinas, arriving in Charleston on the 21st. There, he met with South Caro-lina’s new governor, Francis Pickens, who agreed to let him go out to Fort Sumter and talk with Anderson if Fox as-sured him that his visit was for peaceful purposes. With perhaps a qualm or two, Fox agreed.

Murky View from the Fort

Rowed out to Sumter after nightfall, Fox was able to give Anderson the good news that the government had granted him two brevet promotions—from major to colonel—in rec-ognition of his stalwart resistance. But the news did not lift the fort commander’s gloomy outlook, for Anderson contin-ued to believe that any naval expedition to resupply him was doomed. As he and Fox stood on the ramparts of Fort Sum-ter in the darkness, Anderson pointed out the silhouettes of new fortifications the Southerners had erected on every side.

Fox, however, looked at the harbor defenses with different eyes and continued to believe that the batteries posed little threat to a small, fast-moving target at night. For him, the clincher came when the boat that had brought him out to Fort Sumter returned two hours later to ferry him back. Fox could hear the creak of the oarlocks, but the boat remained virtually invisible from the fort’s small pier “until she almost touched the landing.” If a small boat could not be seen from Sumter at 20 feet, how could it be seen from Fort Moultrie at three-quarters of a mile? Fox returned to Washington on 24 March more convinced than ever that “he could reinforce the garrison with men, and supply it with provisions.”4

Fox’s information, as well as news from others who re-ported that there was no apparent latent Unionism in the state, led Lincoln to consider a rescue mission to Fort Sum-ter more seriously, but what finally changed his mind was a disturbing memorandum from Scott, who proposed that the government should evacuate both Sumter and Fort Pickens off Pensacola, Florida. The gratuitous advice was well outside Scott’s authority as commanding general, for it was based on a political judgment, not on military cir-cumstances. Still, its contents gave Lincoln “a cold shock.” Indeed, Scott’s recommendation was nearly as distressing as the letter Lincoln had received from Anderson three weeks before. The public might eventually come to understand the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military necessity, but Pickens was not under any immediate threat. To surrender both forts would signal a deliberate policy of accommoda-

tion, the same policy that had been pursued by Lincoln’s discredited predecessor.5

After a sleepless night, the President decided sometime on the morning of 28 March that he would hold both Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter, which meant that in addition to sending reinforcements to Pickens, he would have to authorize a naval expedition to provision Sumter as well. By then, however, time was running out. Anderson had already reported that he could hold out only until 15 April. Lincoln wanted the Sumter expedition to move by 6 April.

Mounting the expedition at all proved almost too much for the young administration. Lincoln wanted Fox to com-mand it, though he was no longer a naval officer, which caused some confusion. Moreover, gathering the naval forces needed for both Sumter and Pickens betrayed both a lack of clear channels of communication and a lack of coordination between government departments.

The Powhatan’s Conflicting Orders

On 1 April, Secretary of State William H. Seward showed up in Lincoln’s office with two middle-grade offi-cers: Army Captain Montgomery Meigs and Navy Lieuten-ant David Dixon Porter. They had a plan, Seward told the President, to make certain of the security of Fort Pickens. All that was needed was to dispatch the Navy steamer Powhatan—recently returned to New York from Vera Cruz and decommissioned prior to undergoing repairs—to escort a steamer loaded with a battalion of Soldiers down to the fort. Lincoln wondered if Seward had cleared the idea with Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Seward assured him that he would “make it right with Mr. Welles.” Thereupon, Lincoln gave permission for Porter to write out orders for the President’s signature. They instructed the commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Captain Andrew Hull Foote, to prepare the Powhatan for sea for an undisclosed mission, and to replace her commander, Captain Samuel Mercer, with Porter. To keep the expedition secret from Southern spies, Porter wrote into Foote’s orders that “under no cir-cumstances” was he to “communicate to the Navy Depart-ment the fact that she is fitting out.”6

But despite his promise, Seward did not “make it right” with Welles, nor did Seward know that Welles had al-ready planned to use the Powhatan for Fox’s expedition to Fort Sumter. Worse, Foote’s orders forbade the captain even to tell Welles that he was sending one of the na-tion’s few available steam warships off on a secret mission. Foote found that more than a little awkward, but because the order pledging him to secrecy was signed by the Presi-dent himself, he perforce obeyed. As a result of all this, in the first week of April, Seward and Welles each planned a secret naval mission—one to Fort Pickens, one to Fort Sumter—each expedition spearheaded by the same ship, and neither secretary was aware of the plans of the other.7


Not until 5 April—the day before the expedition for Fort Sumter was to depart—did anyone begin to realize what had happened. That morning, Welles telegraphed Captain Mercer his orders to take the Powhatan to Charleston where he was to rendezvous with Fox on 11 April. Meigs com-plained to Seward by telegraph that Welles was “interfering” with porter’s command of the Powhatan, and Seward went to Welles to straighten him out. The Navy Secretary was at first baffled and then angered. porter had no command, he insisted. Mercer was in command of the Powhatan, and he was under orders for Charleston. Not so, Seward declared. He claimed that the Powhatan was porter’s command and she was going to pensacola. Characteristically, Welles became excited, and no doubt raised his voice. He demanded they go to the White House and talk to Lincoln.8

Though it was near mid-night, Lincoln was still at his desk. He listened to both men and at first sided with Seward, declaring that the Powhatan was not among those ships intended for the Sumter expedition. Welles knew better. He rushed off to get copies of the orders, and after Lincoln read them, he agreed that Welles was correct. The Powhatan was to go to Charleston. The president ordered Seward to telegram porter in New York and tell him so.9

But Seward did not send the telegram until late the next morning, and when he did, all it said was that por-ter was “to give up the Pow-hatan to Captain Mercer.” It was signed “SEWARD,” but porter had different orders in his pocket that were signed by the president. “This is an unpleasant position to be in,” the lieutenant told Foote. In the end porter decided that Lincoln’s orders took precedence. “I received my orders from the president and shall proceed and execute them,” he declared. Then he steamed out of New York Harbor and headed off toward pensacola.10

Crisis Comes to a Head

Nor was that the end of the confusion. Lincoln’s decision to relieve Fort Sumter put Seward in an awkward diplomatic position, because the Secretary of State had taken it on him-self to promise Southern representatives that the government would make no attempt to reinforce Sumter without ad-

equate notice. He now told Lincoln that the administration must live up to that pledge. Welles argued that Seward had no right to make such a pledge on behalf of the government and the government had no obligation to live up to it. After all, he pointed out, a key element of Fox’s expedition was stealth. To notify the secessionists that an expedition was en route jeopardized its potential for success and put Fox and all those who sailed with him in increased peril.

Seward insisted, however, and, typically, Lincoln settled on a kind of compromise. He would send a notification to Governor pickens, but only after the expedition had sailed. The note Lincoln sent stated that if local authorities did not resist the resupply effort, the government would not land any reinforcements, but if they did resist, then both supplies and reinforcements would be landed.11

It is impossible to know what Lincoln expected such a message to accomplish. Many have argued that it was a de-liberate ploy to compel the Rebel leaders to assume the bur-den of making a decision. According to this view, letting the secessionists know that the expedition was en route forced them into a provocative act that cast the Union as the vic-tim. And, indeed, that is what finally happened. But Lincoln may have had more modest expectations. At the very least, the message would absolve him of making a treacherous as-sault on South Carolina—of being the aggressor, as he said in his inaugural address. It was always possible that local authorities might acquiesce in the sending of supplies, which would prolong the crisis and allow more time for all sides to find a peaceful solution. To be sure, it might also provoke


As the crisis heightened in early April, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered that the side-wheel frigate powhatan accompany a relief expedition to Sumter, while Secretary of State William H. Seward persuaded President Lincoln allow the warship to escort a relief mission to Fort Pickens, off Pensacola, Florida.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


the secessionists to act, and in acting, assume the burden of starting hostilities. But Lincoln could not count on that, and for the most part he was feeling his way during this crisis.

On 9 April, Fox headed south on the chartered steamer Baltic that carried most of the supplies. Two tugs from New York were supposed to rendezvous with him off Charleston

and carry the supplies to the fort, but though the Baltic arrived at the rendezvous at 0300 on 12 April, the tugs never made it. Bad weather had thwarted them off New Jersey and the Carolina Capes and forced the boats to turn back. Nor was the Powhatan there, for Porter was taking her down to Fort Pickens. Two other U.S. Navy warships did arrive—the Pawnee (see “Historic Fleets,” p. 66) and Pocahontas—but without the tugs, nobody was quite sure what to do next. While Fox and the two Navy captains discussed their options, they heard the distant sound of cannon fire echoing out of Charleston Harbor.

The note Lincoln had addressed to Governor Pickens had arrived in Charleston on 8 April. By then the seven states that had seceded from the Union had organized themselves into the Confederacy and appointed Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard as the area commander for Charleston. Pickens therefore passed Lincoln’s note to Beauregard, who in turn passed it on to the Confederate government in Montgomery, Alabama. In the end, therefore, it was Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s Provisional President, who decided how to re-spond. He concluded that allowing Fort Sumter to be resup-

plied would violate the Confederacy’s claim to sovereignty. More afraid of looking weak than he was of starting a war, Davis ordered Beauregard to demand Anderson’s surrender. If that demand were refused, the general was to reduce the fort by gunfire. The first shot was fired just minutes after Fox, in the Baltic, reached the rendezvous ten miles offshore.

That initial shot galvanized both sections. Political divi-sions in the North instantly dissolved, and Northerners ral-lied around their new President and the war to save the Union. The effect was just as powerful in the South, and for a time it appeared that Davis’ decision had provided the boost the na-scent nation needed to solidify its cause. On the other hand, it is hard to resist the conclusion that if the Confederate Presi-dent had simply protested Lin-coln’s resupply effort in an angry note, labeled it as a violation of his inauguration pledge, and let the crisis play itself out, it would have bought the Confed-eracy more time, cast Lincoln in the aggressor’s role, and won sympathy abroad. Taking that course would have made it very difficult, if not impossible, for Lincoln to initiate a subsequent

war to save the Union without being, in fact, the aggressor. Davis’ was, in short, a catastrophically bad decision.

1. The central argument of this essay is adapted from Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), Chapter 1. 2. Ibid., p. 11. 3. Lincoln’s inaugural is in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 261. 4. Symonds, Lincoln and his Admirals, p. 13. 5. The “cold shock” quotation comes from the diary of Montgomery Meigs, “General M. C. Meigs on the Conduct of the Civil War,” American Historical Re-view (January 1921), 26:300. 6. Meigs to Seward, 1 April 1861, Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress; David Dixon Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, (New York: Appleton, 1885), pp. 13–15. 7. Lincoln to Foote, 1 April 1861, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922) (hereinafter cited as ORN), ser. 1, vol. 4, pp. 108–9. 8. Welles to Mercer, Rowan, and Gillis, 5 April 1861, ORN, ser. 1, vol. 4, pp. 235–6; Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, ed. by Howard K. Beale (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960), undated entry, vol. 1, p. 24. 9. Gideon Welles, Diary, vol. 1, p. 24. 10. Seward to Porter, 6 April 1861, ORN, ser. 1, vol. 4, p. 112; Porter to Foote, ibid., pp. 111–12. 11. Gideon Welles, “Facts in Relation to the Reinforcement of Fort Pickens in the Spring of 1861,” Galaxy (January 1871), in Welles, Civil War and Reconstruc-tion, Selected Essays (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1959), p. 50.

AMERICAN ANTIqUARIAN SOCIETY, WORCESTER, MA/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY INTERNATIONAL

The Union relief expedition to Sumter misfired when bad weather turned back tugboats that were to ferry the supplies to the fort. However, Lincoln’s announcement to the besiegers that he planned to resupply the garrison led Confederate President Jefferson Davis to decide to force the fort’s surrender, and Southern guns opened fire in the early hours of 12 April. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


By Craig L. SymondS

The

Evolutionary WarNavy’s


The Civil War was essentially a land war. The Union won it because the Northern public proved willing to sustain the Lincoln admin-istration through four long years of bloodshed and sacrifice, and the Confederacy lost it be-

cause it could not match Union superiority in manpower and industrial production. Still, naval forces on both sides, but especially on the Union side, affected the trajectory of the conflict, and very likely helped determine its length. Moreover, because the war took place during a time of dramatic changes in technology, it marked a milestone in the character of naval warfare itself.

Even before the war began, wooden sailing ships firing solid shot from iron guns were giving way to steam-pow-ered, propeller-driven iron warships firing explosive shells from much larger rifled guns. The best known example of this revolution during the conflict was the famous duel be-tween the ironclads Virginia and Monitor on 9 March 1862 in Hampton Roads, Virginia, but the battle the day before was the real watershed, marking as it did the supremacy of iron over wood. On 8 March, the Confederate Virginia (for-merly the Union screw frigate Merrimack) sank two wooden U.S. warships in a single day, inflicting on the Navy its worst defeat from its founding in 1775 until 7 December 1941. Wooden warships did not become obsolete, nor did the armored warship become the new universal standard, but the Battles of Hampton Roads unleashed the genie of technology. The changes were manifested in other ways as well, including a shift in the presumed balance of relative power between ships and forts.

As the weaker naval power, the Confederacy was quicker to embrace many of the new innovations, including mines, David boats (essentially early pT boats), and even an opera-tional submarine, the H. L. Hunley, which sank the Union screw sloop Housatonic off Charleston on 17 February 1864. But the South could not produce such novel weapons in the kind of numbers needed to change the balance of sea power, and from the beginning, the Confederacy all but conceded control of the sea to its foe.

That put the U.S. Navy in the unfamiliar role of being the dominant naval power. In both the American Revolution and the War of 1812, the smaller U.S. Navy had neces-sarily avoided fleet engagements with its powerful enemy and relied instead on attacking British commercial shipping, a strategy known by its French name as guerre de course. The British had countered by attempting to blockade the

During the Civil War, the U.S. Navy harnessed revolutionary technologies and designs—and pioneered extensive joint operations with the Army—along the Confederacy’s shores and on its rivers.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

BEVERLEY R. ROBINSON COLLECTION, U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY MUSEUM

Three City-class gunboats bombard Fort Henry on 6 February 1862 as a Rebel shot bursts the smaller Essex’s boiler. Innovative City-class ironclads—all seven built within three months and commissioned in January 1862—would become the backbone of the Union effort to secure Western rivers.


American coast both to interfere with trade and to prevent potential commerce raiders from getting to sea in the first place. In effect, the superior navy employed a blockade, and the weaker naval power turned to commerce raiding. That is also what happened in the Civil War; the Union Navy employed a blockade, and the Confederates turned to a guerre de course. In addition to the blockade, the U.S. Navy played a critical role on the Western rivers and conducted a determined, though only partially successful, pursuit of Confederate commerce raiders.

Initial Blockade Problems

President Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of a blockade on 19 April 1861, only four days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, was the administration’s first important stra-tegic decision, and from the very start there were two huge problems to be overcome.

The first was legal. A declaration of a blockade was an act of war, and Lincoln’s pronouncement therefore seemed to grant belligerent status to the Confederacy. For his part, the President insisted that the Confederacy had no legal standing—as far as he was concerned the conflict was simply a rebellion against the government. Consequently, a blockade declaration that seemed to acknowledge the Confederacy was something of an embarrassment. Lincoln and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, tried to get around the implications of a formal blockade by announc-ing that domestic unrest in some of its Southern ports re-quired the closing of them to commerce.

This transparent subterfuge did not work, however, be-cause the European powers recognized a blockade when they saw one. Besides, merely closing certain ports would not have allowed Union warships to patrol for blockade violators beyond the immediate coastline. In the end, the Union government had to accept the term “blockade” along with whatever it might imply about the legal status of the Confederacy.1

Lincoln’s declaration was one factor that led to the Brit-ish decision to grant belligerency status (though not for-mal recognition) to the Confederacy. Initially, the United States saw that as a danger. In fact, the decision worked to the Union advantage since it meant that warships and privateers from both sides were barred from using British ports as bases. Though the British would stretch the mean-ing of neutrality to the near-breaking point during the war, Confederate commerce raiders remained barred from bring-ing their prizes into British ports—including those in the West Indies—a circumstance that severely limited their effectiveness.

The second problem with the blockade declaration was that according to international law, neutral powers did not have to respect a blockade unless the blockading power es-tablished a naval presence off every port that was declared to

be under blockade. You could not simply say that a coast was blockaded, you actually had to do it. And that was a problem for the Union because the Confederacy claimed a coastline of some 3,550 miles that was pierced by 189 harbors, inlets, and navigable river mouths. Clearly the Union Navy’s few score warships could not be physically present off all of those places at once. Indeed, at most of those ports and harbors a single ship would be wholly inadequate; at some of them it would require more than a dozen ships even to make a pretense of an “effective force.” Consequently, in spite of the fact that it was already greatly superior to its foe, the U.S. Navy’s first order of business was to expand exponentially to 5, 10, even 15 times its prewar strength.

Most of the new ships were converted merchantmen. Sometimes all it took to turn a steam merchant ship into a man-of-war was strengthening the decks enough to en-able them to sustain the weight of the naval ordnance and constructing a magazine below the water line. Those con-versions took place at various Northern naval yards. During the course of the war, men working 12-hour shifts at the Brooklyn Navy Yard successfully refitted some 190 ships. In one exceptional case, workers transformed the merchant steamer Monticello into a warship in less than 24 hours.2

Seizing a Base of Operations

The North’s ability to mobilize so many ships so quickly was a measure of its industrial and maritime supremacy over the South, but maintaining that force off a hostile coast for four years was equally challenging. Since all but a very few of the ships were steam powered—and therefore coal burn-ing—keeping them on the blockade necessitated seizing and holding a number of bases along that coast where they could be refueled and resupplied. One of the first recom-mendations of the Blockade Strategy Board, established by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles at the beginning of the war, was to secure two coaling stations along the South Atlantic coast. Initially, the board recommended Bull’s Bay, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, but after further consideration, the initial target was shifted to Port Royal, South Carolina.

Port Royal became the objective for two reasons. First was its location between Charleston and Savannah, which would afford blockading squadrons at both those cities a convenient base. A second factor was Port Royal’s ge-ography. Not only was it an enormous roadstead, large enough to accommodate the entire Union Navy, but also its swampy marshes separated the offshore islands from the mainland and protected occupying Union forces from a counterattack by the Rebel army.

Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont, who had chaired the Strategy Board, commanded the fleet that would con-duct this first major operation against the enemy shore. He led a huge armada—75 ships in all—the largest naval force


ever assembled under the American flag. En route to the target, a terrible storm off Cape Hatteras scattered the fleet all over the ocean—a few of the transports fetched up on the coast of Ireland. Over the next several days, however, most of the ships came in, one by one, and at 0900 on 7 November 1861, Du pont led his warship squadron into port Royal Sound.

Up to that point, conventional wisdom was that guns in forts were superior to guns in ships. After all, ships were made of wood, and forts were usually constructed of stone. Forts often had bigger guns and an un-limited supply of ammunition. Finally and decisively, forts did not sink. As the New York Tribune had declared dur-ing the Fort Sumter crisis, “ships are no match for land batteries.”3

But those assumptions did not take into consideration recent dramatic changes in naval technology. Du pont’s wooden steamers, led by the frigate Wabash, could remain in motion while firing; they could maneuver independent of the wind; and their new and much larger naval guns were more than a match for anything the Confederates had in either Fort Walker or Fort Beauregard, the two works guarding port Royal. Moreover, the forts were not masonry structures, like Fort Sumter in Charleston. They were log-and-dirt for-tresses thrown up just a few months ear-lier and armed with mostly older, smaller artillery pieces.

Du pont attacked the larger of them, Fort Walker, first. When the Union ships opened fire, the navigator on board the Wabash remembered that “the air over the fort was filled with clouds of sand, splinters, and fragments of gun carriages and timbers.” After three passes, the Federal gunners had disabled most of the fort’s guns, and the defend-ers were down to only 500 pounds of powder. Accepting the inevitable, the garrison struck its flag and abandoned the fort, as did Beauregard’s defenders, leaving the road-stead in the hands of the Union. Du pont’s destruction of Fort Walker demonstrated that a squadron of modern steam warships was more than a match for such defenses.4

The Federal victory at port Royal had several important consequences. psychologically, the news was extremely welcome in the North, which was still burdened by the incubus of the defeat at Bull Run that summer. Strategi-cally, it provided the South Atlantic Blockading Squad-

ron with the base it needed to maintain the blockades of Charleston and Savannah. For the rest of the war, only Hampton Roads surpassed port Royal in importance as a Union naval base on the enemy coast. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the North could have maintained its blockade of the South Atlantic coast at all without possession of port Royal. The Union blockading fleet also relied on Key West, Florida, and Ship Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, as supply bases for the other squadrons.

The successful seizure of port Royal also affected Confed-erate strategy. One interested observer of the engagement was General Robert E. Lee, then acting as Confederate president Jefferson Davis’ military adviser. Sent to South Carolina to observe and report on coastal defense efforts, Lee concluded that the superiority of the Union Navy, its ability to move quickly from place to place, and the impact of its heavy guns meant that the South simply could not defend its coast everywhere. It would have to choose a handful of specific

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In late 1861, Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont became the war’s first great U.S. naval hero for capturing Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, a key base for Union ships enforcing the blockade of the Confederacy’s South Atlantic ports. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


sites that could be defended, and let the rest go by default. From then on, the Confederacy energetically defended only a half dozen key ports: Galveston, Texas; New Orleans, Loui-siana; Mobile, Alabama; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Wilmington, North Carolina. Most of the rest of the Confederate coast was subsequently occupied by Union forces that were supplied and maintained by sea because of Union naval superiority.

Assessing the Blockade’s Effectiveness

Southern supply bases greatly simplified the U.S. Navy’s job, but maintaining the blockade remained a challenging

and often thankless task. The general pattern of trade was for conventional cargo vessels from Europe to bring their goods to a neutral port such as St. George in Bermuda, Nassau in the Bahamas, or Havana, Cuba. There the car-goes were off-loaded into low, fast blockade runners. The

vessels, almost always unarmed, then attempted to run into a blockaded port, usually at night. Blacked out and painted a dark gray, they sought to dash past Union war-ships without being sighted, or if they were spotted, to outrun their pursuers. Those that made it into port would later attempt to dash out to sea, usually loaded with cot-ton or other exports.

Given the difficulty of spotting or catching them, it is not surprising that most of the ships that tried to run the block-ade did so successfully. A more important factor, however, was that relatively few ships tried it. In the last full year of peace, some 20,000 ships entered or left Southern ports, but

during the war, that number dropped to only 2,000 ships per year. Even more telling, cotton exports from the South dropped from just under 3 million bales a year before the war to just over 50,000 in the first year of the conflict—less than 2 percent of the prewar total.5

Was the U.s. Navy Ready foR WaR iN 1861?By Craig L. Symonds

Virtually every general history of the Civil War emphasizes how unprepared for

war the United States was in 1861. If these books mention the Navy at all, they report that it was in more or less the same situation. After all, in 1861 the U.S. Navy had only 90 vessels listed on its Register of Ships, fewer than half of which (42) were capable of active service, and most of those were on distant stations from Brazil to China. Soon after he was inaugurated, President Abraham Lincoln asked his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon

Welles, what kind of naval force could be made available in case of war, and Welles named only 12 ships that could “at once” be put into service. Clearly that was not a Navy that was prepared to command the South’s coastline, impose an impervious blockade, pursue Confederate commerce raiders, fight on the Western rivers, and do all the other jobs it would be assigned in the forthcoming struggle.

On the other hand, the catalog of inadequacy overlooks the fact that the

Civil War marked the culmination of an era of technological innovation that had a dramatic impact on the character of naval warfare. These innovations included the screw propeller, more efficient steam engines, rifled and banded naval guns, and exploding ordnance, among others. To employ the new technologies, the United States had authorized and built from the keel up no fewer than 24 major new combatants in the decade before the outbreak of war. It was the country’s

NAVAL HISTOry & HErITAGE COMMAND

Painted gray, fast-steaming blockade runners such as the Vance, shown at Nassau, the Bahamas, in 1863, were difficult for Union warships to spot and then catch at night. After making more than 20 runs through the blockade, the Vance’s luck ran out on 10 September 1864 when she was captured off Wilmington, North Carolina. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


A precise calculation of just how much the Union blockade hurt the Confederacy is elusive. On the one hand, the South was able to import the essential matériel it needed to sustain its economy and war effort—includ-ing 400,000 rifles, 3 million pounds of lead, and more than 2.2 million pounds of saltpeter for manufacturing gunpowder. Historian Stephen Wise is undoubtedly cor-rect in concluding that “without blockade running the nation’s military would have been without proper supplies of arms, bullets, and powder.”6

On the other hand, the blockade had a cumulative eroding effect on the Southern economy and contributed to inflation and war weariness within both the civilian population and the Army, thereby undermining the Con-federate war effort. As historian William H. Roberts put it, if the blockade was “never airtight” it “was constricting enough that the South was constantly gasping for eco-nomic breath.” It is likely that the Union would have won the war even without the blockade, as long as the Northern population sustained the Lincoln administra-tion, but almost as surely the war would have lasted longer and been more costly. So it is possible to argue that the blockade probably saved many thousands of lives.7

Advantages, Disadvantages on the Western Rivers

After the blockade, the most impor-tant assignment for the Union Navy was on the rivers in the Western theater—the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. Significantly, while the rivers in the East nearly all ran horizontally (as viewed on a map) and thus acted as barriers to any Union advance, rivers in the West mostly flowed vertically, either north to

south like the Mississippi, or south to north like the Ten-nessee and the Cumberland. As a result, the latter served as potential avenues for Union advances. Both sides knew that whoever commanded the Western rivers had a tre-mendous strategic advantage.

As in the saltwater war, the Union had the benefit of possessing an industrial base that allowed it to produce more and better warships for use in the river war. Even before the transformation of the Merrimack into the Virginia or the construction of the Monitor, salvage expert James Buchanan Eads of St. Louis built a flotilla of small river gunboats that were armor plated and powerfully armed yet still capable of maneuvering in relatively shallow water. Major General Wil-liam Tecumseh Sherman is said to have remarked admiringly that they could navigate in a heavy dew.

The South, too, attempted an ironclad-building program for the Western rivers and laid down two big ironclads at New Orleans and two more at Memphis. In the end, however, the Confederacy’s inferior industrial base and the rapid conquest of both of those Southern cites derailed the effort. Only one of the four ironclads was ever completed (the CSS Arkansas), and for the most part, the South had to depend on shore fortifications to try to prevent Union

largest peacetime naval expansion since the Naval Act of 1816. Because of that, though the 1861 Navy was relatively small, it contained a disproportionate number of new, up-to-date warships that gave it an insurmountable superiority over its Southern foe.

The first ships of this dramatic expansion were five Merrimack-class screw (that is, propeller-driven) frigates, all named for American rivers and therefore sometimes called River-class frigates. (The others were the Wabash, Minnesota, Roanoke, and Colorado. Included in this same authorization was a sixth frigate, the Niagara, which was somewhat differently designed, being longer

with sharper lines and having fewer guns.) Superficially, at least, they looked very much like sailing frigates of an earlier age. Nevertheless, they were steam-powered and

propeller-driven and boasted an impressive armament consisting entirely of shell guns. When the Merrimack visited English ports in 1856-57, her powerful battery so impressed

WABASH LeAViNg NeW YoRk foR the SeAt of WAR, BY EdWARd MORAN, NAVY ART COLLECTION, NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMANd

the Merrimack-class screw frigate Wabash leaves New York harbor on 30 May 1861 for duty as flagship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Although the U.S. Navy needed to expand enormously to meet the demands of war, the presence in the fleet of modern warships such as the Wabash gave it a solid core to build around.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


armies from using the axes of the rivers as avenues of ad-vance. They initially erected a defense line—the so-called “long Kentucky line”—from Island Number Ten on the Mississippi to the Cumberland Gap, more or less approxi-mating the Tennessee-Kentucky border. The ensuing Union campaign to break this line pitted Union ironclad warships backed by land forces against Confederate fortifications.

One problem the Union had in executing its campaign was that there was no existing protocol for joint operations in the 19th century—no Department of Defense or Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was simply no such thing as a Joint Command in either the North or the South. The ability of generals and admirals to work effectively together depended entirely on the willingness of the commanders to cooper-ate. After some confusion in the early months of war, what emerged was an arrangement in which the Union Army retained strategic control of operations within the Western theater, and U.S. Navy officers exercised tactical command of their ships and squadrons. Even then, however, it became clear that the key to Union success on the Western rivers was the willingness of Army and Navy officers to work together, because neither could give orders to the other.

Key Early Victories

The first trial came at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, in his first important operation, and Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote combined to break through a key position in the long Kentucky line. Foote’s ironclad gunboat flotilla carried Grant’s troops to a point just above Fort Henry, and then took the fort under fire from the river as Grant’s Soldiers advanced overland. As it happened, the Confederate commander at Henry, Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, recognized the vulnerability of his position and evacuated his infantry, choosing to defend the fort with his artillery alone. In the ensuing gun duel, Foote’s

four ironclads overwhelmed the fortress’ batteries, and Fort Henry capitulated before Grant’s men could arrive. Foote’s gunboats then steamed past the fort, seven miles upriver to destroy the railroad bridge over the Tennessee River, thereby cutting a crucial east-west link for the Confederacy. That compelled two Confederate armies to evacuate not only all of Kentucky, but most of Tennessee as well.

If the Navy won the honors at Fort Henry, the Army had its turn at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, only a day’s march east of Henry and the linchpin of Con-federate defenses in the West. There, Foote’s gunboats proved far less formidable, because Donelson was situated on higher ground and its defenders could fire their artillery down into the vessels on the river with plunging fire. This time it was Grant’s army that compelled the surrender of the Rebel fort, on 16 February 1862.

Army-Navy cooperation proved more efficient in the Union campaign against Island Number Ten on the Mis-sissippi River in April. The island, so named because it was the tenth island in numbered sequence from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, was the site of the prin-cipal Confederate defense of the Mississippi. Protected by an impassable marshland to the east and the river itself to the west, the fort was secure from a conventional overland attack except from the south. Union forces could assail the Rebel defenses only if the Navy could somehow get past the Confederate fortifications on the island to escort Union troops across the river.

On 4 April, Commander Henry Walke, captain of the ironclad Carondelet, volunteered to run his ship past the enemy batteries. Foote was skeptical but gave his permis-sion. Despite a harrowing journey, Walke made it, and his example inspired a second run by the Pittsburg two nights later. The two gunboats then escorted the army of Major General John Pope across the river to the Confederate

the British that they began planning a new class of steam warships of their own.

Southerners complained that the Merrimacks were so large (they drew more than 23 feet) they were unable to operate in shallow Southern ports. In 1856, therefore, President Franklin Pierce’s Navy Secretary, James C. Dobbin, went back to Congress to urge the construction of another new class of warships: smaller, shallower-draft steam sloops, and the first U.S. Navy warships to have twin screws. The ships were named for American cities. The first and the namesake of the class was the Hartford, which during the Civil War became famous as the flagship of David Glasgow Farragut. (The others were the Richmond, Brooklyn, Pensacola,

and Lancaster.) Launched in 1858, the Hartford drew only 18 feet of water, which allowed her and her sister ships to enter most Southern ports where the bigger Merrimacks could not go. This pleased Southerners, though once the war started they were less pleased. During the conflict, the Hartford, as well as the Richmond and Brooklyn, would steam up the Mississippi to Vicksburg and fight her way into Mobile Bay.

The same year the Hartford was launched, Congress appropriated money for yet a third type of new steam warships. The first of these screw steamers, the Mohican, was launched only a year later, in 1859. (The others were the Pawnee, Wyoming, Iroquois, Dacotah, Seminole, and

Narragansett.) Though these smaller ships also carried masts and spars, their sail pattern was much reduced, and they were the first warships in American history to be classified as genuine steam warships rather than auxiliary steamers.

Thus it was that between 1854 and 1859—that is, between the Kansas-Nebraska Act and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry—the U.S. Congress authorized funds for three new classes of steam-powered, propeller-driven warships, as well as a handful of others—24 altogether. These timely appropriations enlarged and modernized the U.S. Navy so that it can be fairly argued that the service was better prepared for war in 1861 than for any previous war.


rear to achieve a nearly bloodless victory. It was a model of effective joint operations. Neither the Army nor the Navy working alone could have pulled it off, but working together they made it look easy.

From the Crescent City to Vicksburg

That same month, 500 miles to the south as the river flows, Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut ran his ocean-going warships past the forts on the lower Mississippi that protected the city of New Orleans. Farragut’s feat was par-ticularly significant because the Rebel fortifications were not quickly erected dirt-and-log forts, like those at port Royal or Island Number Ten, but large masonry structures; between them, Fort Jackson (on the western bank) and Fort St. philip (on the east-ern side) boasted a total of 128 heavy guns. Neverthe-less, on 24 April Farragut’s wooden oceangoing warships steamed through an open-ing cut in a log-and-chain boom across the Mississippi and took the forts under fire. Fourteen of the vessels successfully ran the gauntlet against the river’s current, and easily dispatched the small squadron of Confeder-ate warships that came out to contest their passage, Far-ragut proceeded up to New Orleans, anchored off Jack-son Square, and demanded the city’s surrender. New Orleans was the largest city and most important seaport in the Confederacy, and its fall so early in the war was a tremendous blow to Southern hopes.

With command of the lower Mississippi, Farragut steamed upriver past Baton Rouge to Vicksburg. But he could not capture the city. As Farragut’s foster-brother Commander David Dixon porter archly noted, ships “cannot crawl up hills 300 feet high.” As at Island Number Ten, the key to eventual Union success at Vicksburg was the cooperation of Union Army and Navy commanders. Fortuitously, the triumvirate of Grant, Sherman, and porter, who took com-mand of the Mississippi Squadron of gunboats in September 1862, proved to be a model of cooperation, especially when contrasted with the confusion and disagreement that char-acterized the Confederate high command in the West.

In April 1863, when Grant asked porter to run his squadron past the Vicksburg batteries, the naval officer agreed to do it.

He did not have to; Grant could not order it. But porter’s gunboats nevertheless steamed through heavy Confederate gunfire on 16 April and subsequently escorted Grant’s army across the river. After a harrowing march into Mississippi, several battles, and a 47-day siege, Vicksburg fell on 4 July. Once again, Grant could not have done it without the Navy, nor could porter have had done it without Grant. It was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Cooperation proved essential, too, in the Union effort to close down the last of the important Confederate ports along the Atlantic coast: Charleston, Mobile, and Wilm-ington. At each of these places a joint effort was essential to Union success, though cooperation was more evident at

some venues than others. Bickering between Union Army and Navy commanders at Charleston continued throughout a siege that lasted more than two years, and in the end, the city fell only when it was threatened by Sherman’s army marching north from Savannah in February 1865.

The Union assault on Mobile, Alabama, was also a joint operation, though the city was effectively neutralized as a haven for blockade runners when Farragut damned the torpedoes and ran past Fort Morgan into Mobile Bay on 5 August 1864. In December 1864, the first joint Union assault on Fort Fisher, which guarded the port of Wilming-ton, North Carolina, failed in large part because of mistrust between the Union Army and Navy commanders, Major General Benjamin Butler and now–Rear Admiral porter. However, a second attempt in January 1865, with Major General Alfred H. Terry replacing Butler, proved successful.

LIBRARY OF CONGReSS

Sailors and stevedores on Baton Rouge’s riverfront wait to coal Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s sea-going warships, at anchor in the background. Farragut took his fleet up the Mississippi past Vicksburg before it helped subdue the Confederacy’s last bastion on the river, Port Hudson, Louisiana. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


War on the High Seas

The third element of the Union naval effort in the Civil War was its pursuit of Confederate commerce raiders such as the Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah. Initially, Jefferson Davis sought to attack Yankee merchant shipping by issuing letters of marque to Southern privateers. But the experi-ment was short-lived simply because the combination of the Union blockade and the British declaration of neutrality eliminated most ports where prizes could be sent for adjudi-cation and condemnation. Without the opportunity to make a profit, the whole raison d’être for privateering disappeared.

Consequently, commerce raiding was left to Confederate Navy warships that were built or purchased in England and manned by international crews. The most successful of these was the Alabama, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes.

Over the course of two years (July 1862–June 1864) Semmes and the Alabama captured and burned no fewer than 64 Union merchant ships and sank one Union warship, the Hatteras. Northern merchants were horrified by the success of these “pirates,” as they were called in the Northern press. The New York Chamber of Commerce pressed Welles to establish convoys to protect American shipping. Convoys might well have worked, but the concept was unpopular with professional Navy men, and Navy Secretary Welles rejected the idea. He could not inaugurate a convoy system without weakening the blockade, which he considered more important. Instead, he sent out fast, heavily armed ships to try to hunt down the raiders, a strategy that mostly proved frustrating and ineffectual. Nevertheless, Union warships did capture or destroy two of the most notorious raiders in 1864.

One was the Alabama. In a classic ship-to-ship duel on 19 June, the Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John Winslow, sank the raider off Cherbourg, France. In October the Wa-chusett, under Commander Napoleon Collins, captured the Florida in the neutral port of Bahia, Brazil. The sinking of the Alabama triggered unalloyed celebration in the North, but the seizure of the Florida caused some embarrassment. Col-lins had flagrantly attacked the Florida in a neutral port, and for that he was subsequently found guilty at a court-martial and sentenced to be dismissed from the Navy. Months later, however, after tempers had cooled and the war had ended, he was quietly restored to duty.

The last of the Rebel raiders was Commander James I. Waddell’s CSS Shenandoah. After savaging the North’s Pa-cific whaling fleet in the spring and summer of 1865, Wad-

dell learned that the war had ended in May. Fearing reprisal for the captures he had made after that, he directed the Shenandoah back to England, where her flag was hauled down in November 1865, the last Confederate surrender of the war.

The Union did not win the Civil War because of its naval superiority, but it was an im-portant element in the victory. The blockade created shortages and hardship within the Con-federacy and effectively cut off the nascent nation from the rest of the world. The Navy was a full partner in the stra-tegically important victories in the Western theater that split the Confederacy nearly in half. For all their success, the hand-

ful of Rebel commerce raiders could not threaten Union naval superiority or change the war’s outcome. In the end, despite such innovations as ironclads, mines, and even a submarine, the South simply found itself overmatched at sea.

1. Craig L. Symonds, The Civil War at Sea (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009), p. 34. 2. Craig L. Symonds, “The Economics of Civil War: Money, Manufacturing, and Commerce,” in Harold Holzer, ed., Lincoln and New York (New York: New-York Historical Society, 2009), p. 87. 3. “Can Fort Sumter be Taken?” New York Tribune, reprinted in Washington Con-stitution, 14 January 1861. 4. John D. Hayes, “The Battle of Port Royal, S.C. from the Journal of John Sanford Barnes, October 8 to November 9, 1861,” The New-York Historical Society Quarterly (October 1961), 45:379. 5. Symonds, The Civil War at Sea, pp. 54–57. 6. Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running in the Civil War (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), p. 226. 7. William H. Roberts, Now for the Contest: Coastal and Oceanic Naval Operations in the Civil War (Lincoln, NE: 2004), p. 164; Symonds, The Civil War at Sea, p. 58.

SHENANDOAH SuRReNdeRS, BY E.D. WALkER, WWW.EDWALkERMARINE.COM

The CSS Shenandoah, last of the Rebel commerce raiders, returns to Liverpool, england, to sur-render. Although they bouyed Southern morale, Confederate cruisers could not challenge the u.S. Navy’s superiority at sea and failed to seriously damage Northern maritime commerce.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


LINCOLN’S‘Father Neptune’

BY CRAIG L. SYMONDS



Gideon Welles was an important political figure in Connecticut, serving as postmaster of Hartford and editor of the Hartford Times and Hartford Evening Press. But President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Secretary

of the Navy primarily because of political geography. In those days it was considered essential that each region of the country be represented in the Cabinet, and Lincoln selected Welles as the New England representative over Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts, who was the other contender. As a consolation prize, Banks was appointed a major general, though he subsequently proved to be a very disappointing one.

Welles’ appointment was not universally popular. When the New York political operative Thurlow Weed learned of it, he told the President that if he really wanted “an attractive figure-head, to be adorned with an elaborate wig and luxuri-ant whiskers,” he could easily “transfer it from the prow of a ship to the entrance of the Navy Department” and it would prove “quite as serviceable” as Welles. Lincoln deflected the mean-spirited taunt by replying, “Oh, wooden midshipmen answer very well in novels, but we must have a live secretary of the navy.” Similarly, when the 40-year Navy veteran Cap-tain Samuel Francis Du Pont learned of Welles’ appointment, he wrote to a fellow officer that the best thing he could say about the new Secretary was that when Welles had served as the chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, he had “made a remarkable contract for cheese.”1

Over the years, those kinds of flippant assessments have encouraged historians to dismiss Welles as a cartoonish character—a voluble, sputtering, quick-tempered arriviste who was little more than a figurehead at the Navy Depart-ment, where the important decisions were supposedly made by the assistant secretary, former naval officer Gustavus V. Fox. Such a conclusion is both misleading and unfair to Welles. In fact, he was earnest, candid, hard-working, loyal, and remarkably successful in managing the greatest naval expansion in the nation’s history until World War II. In

testimony to that, Welles was one of only two men, Secretary of State William H. Seward being the other, to hold his Cabinet position throughout Lincoln’s presidency and into the Johnson administration.

The origins of the negative appraisals of Welles’ tenure as Navy Secretary are easy

to identify. For one thing, he looked eccentric. As Weed noted, he had “luxuriant whiskers”—a full, bushy white beard that no doubt contributed to Lincoln’s nickname for him, “Father Neptune,” and he wore an elaborate shoul-der-length wig. Welles had purchased it some years earlier when he first began to lose his hair. At that time his beard was still brown and only slightly tinged with gray, and he bought a wig to match. When his whiskers turned to white, his Yankee thrift apparently prevented him from buying a new wig, so that by the time he became Secretary of the Navy, the difference between the lustrous brown hair and snow white beard was jarring. Moreover, when at his desk, Welles had a tendency to push the wig back on his head as he worked, and on other occasions it rested crookedly on his head, which gave him a comical look. Those who found Welles too blunt or insufficiently cooperative seized on such details to portray him as a clown.

In addition, Welles not only spoke his mind freely, he did so without much regard for the popular view of the day or the personal feelings of others. There was little nuance in Welles’ worldview: On most issues he saw things as either manifestly right or utterly wrong, and he did not spare those who either were wrong (in his view) or attempted to tempo-rize. He found the dithering Major General Henry W. Hal-leck and the hesitant Major General George B. McClellan contemptible, and he said so. His judgmental attitude earned him many enemies, but it also won him the gratitude of the President, who appreciated Welles’ candor and counted on his Secretary of the Navy to be honest and straightforward, even if Lincoln did not always accept his views.

For both his eccentricity and his candor, Welles was often a target of opposition newspapers. During the Civil War, newspapers made no pretense of being neutral report-ers of events, and instead openly championed one politi-cal party or the other. In New York City the Democratic paper was the New York Herald. Editor James Gordon Ben-nett routinely attacked the Lincoln administration on the grounds of perceived inefficiencies, particularly targeting Welles’ Navy Department. Every time a Rebel ship made it through the blockade or a Confederate commerce raider seized a Union merchantman, Bennett trumpeted it as an-other failure of Welles’ Navy Department. During the ram-page by the CSS Alabama in 1863, Bennett wrote that her success as a commerce raider was evidence of “the neglect, the carelessness, the incompetency, and the utter imbecility of the Navy Department.” By humiliating Welles, Bennett

Noted for his eccentricities and blunt judgments, Gideon Welles proved to be a surprisingly adept chief administrator of the Navy during the Civil War.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Although his mismatched wig and beard helped make him the subject of snickers, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was a savvy power broker who had more experience in naval matters when he came into office than any of his predecessors. During the Mexican War he had served as chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing.


hoped to embarrass the Lincoln administration and pro-mote the interests of New York Democrats.2

All those circumstances contributed to a historical view of Gideon Welles that emphasizes his ec-centricity and undervalues his contributions to

victory, even though those contributions were many and substantive. Despite unprecedented difficulties, Welles played a central, even a crucial, role in virtually every aspect of the naval war. He supervised the expansion of the Navy from 42 warships in 1861 to 671 ships by 1865; he authorized and organized the strategic planning for the deployment of that armada; he was an early and consis-tent advocate of innovation, especially the acquisition of armored warships; and he oversaw the promotion (and dismissal) of key Navy leaders. In each of these roles he remained his uncompromising, blunt self and was conse-quently a target for critics, but in each case he faced down the criticism and emerged justified.

Welles’ first great task was to enlarge the Navy. Despite the two dozen steam warships that had been built in the last decade before the war, Lincoln’s blockade declaration on 19 April 1861 meant that the prewar Navy would have to be hugely expanded. To accomplish that, Welles im-mediately did three things: order home all the ships on distant station patrol; authorize the construction of 23 new steam warships (the original 90-day wonders), doing so

without congressional approval in the hope that Congress would approve his decision after the fact, which it did; and begin a program to purchase merchant ships and convert them into men-of-war. The latter proved, by far, to be the Union Navy’s most prolific source of new war-ships, and in the end, 418 of the Navy’s 671 combatants were converted merchantmen.

The man Welles selected as the Navy’s purchasing agent for the ships was his brother-in-law George D. Morgan, who had carte blanche to buy whatever vessels he believed suitable, and to pocket generally a 2½-percent commission for every ship he bought. Naturally, the arrange-ment provoked sharp criticism about nepotism and peculation in the opposition newspapers, es-pecially Bennett’s New York Her-ald. The chairman of the Senate

Naval Affairs Committee, John P. Hale, insisted it was simple graft and corruption, and announced congressional hearings.

Hale’s motive was political: He was angered that Welles had not granted enough government contracts to Hale’s friends and political allies, and he hoped to secure Welles’ dismissal. His plan was derailed when he could not turn up any actual examples of fraud or corruption. Morgan bought some 89 ships for the government at a cost of $3.5 million, a bargain at an average of $40,000 per vessel. Morgan thereby earned commissions of some $70,000, a huge sum in 1861. Embarrassed by that and by the public outcry, Morgan of-fered to return all the money, but Welles would not hear of it. Characteristically, his view was that a contract was a contract and Morgan was entitled to every penny.3

Welles also established the first naval strategy board in American history. Aware that establishing a blockade meant more than simply sending warships one at a time down to anchor off one or another Southern harbor, the Navy Sec-retary called together a panel of experts headed by Captain Du Pont, with instructions to establish organizing principles for the blockade and the management of the saltwater war. The report of the committee led to the creation of the four blockading squadrons; the seizure of Port Royal, South Caro-lina, in November 1861; and eventually the establishment of a Union foothold all along the Rebel coast.4

Welles actively promoted the Navy’s first ironclads. Only a few months into the war, it had become evident


A cartoon in the 31 August 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly depicts Welles as Rip Van Winkle. While the Secretary sleeps and a U.S. Navy tub lolls in the background, blockade runners make off with loads of cotton and cigars.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


that the Confederates in Norfolk were converting the for-mer U.S. steam frigate Merrimack into an iron-armored battery. Though veteran officers tended to be skeptical of the dangers posed by such a warship, Welles decided it was essential to develop a counterweapon. He asked Congress for an appropriation of $1.5 million for the construction of three experimental ironclad warships, and issued a call for proposals. By the end of the summer, a score of designs had been submitted to the Ironclad Board, composed of three officers. The officers themselves, all very senior Navy cap-tains, tended to favor the proposals that looked most like the ships they already knew and understood. But with Lin-coln’s support, Welles ensured that one of the designs selected was John Ericsson’s for the ves-sel that eventually became the Monitor.

After the Monitor’s success against the Virginia in Hamp-ton Roads on 9 March 1862, Welles became an enthusiastic champion of ironclads, and es-pecially ironclads of the Monitor type, characterized by a rotating turret. Indeed, Welles’ commit-ment to those ugly ducklings of the naval war very likely led the Union to overlook alter-nate designs that might have proved equally successful or even better. That blind spot led him to reject the assessment of Du pont, then commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, that “monitors” were not a kind of magic bullet that would allow him to steam triumphantly into Charleston Harbor and put the city under his guns.

Thanks to Welles, we know as much as we do about the inner workings of the Lincoln Cabinet. Throughout his years as head of the Navy Depart-

ment, he kept a careful record of each day’s events. He was even more candid in his private diary than he was in his public conversation, and since the publication of the diary 50 years ago, it has provided historians with a rich supply of insider observations about Lincoln, his Cabinet, and the generals and admirals who ran the war. Welles did not suffer fools of any rank, and he wrote scathingly about his Cabinet rivals (especially Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton), Army generals (especially Halleck and McClellan), and, of course, the senior officers of the Navy.

He did not, however, criticize Lincoln, whose only weak-ness, Welles believed, was that he was too tenderhearted to protect himself from the many charlatans who tried to take advantage of his generosity and compassion. Welles cast himself in the role of Lincoln’s protector against such “schemers,” a group that, in Welles’ view, included both Seward and Stanton. Of the former, Welles wrote that the Secretary of State was “assuming, presuming, meddlesome, and uncertain,” that he had “no great original conceptions of right, nor systematic ideas of administration,” and that he was “a trickster” who sought to take advantage of Lin-coln’s “wonderful kindness of heart.”5

For all his eccentricities, including his mismatched wig, blunt and judgmental assertions, and unapologetic standard for promotion and recognition, Welles proved to be a re-sponsible and reliable administrator whose contributions to Union victory are often underappreciated.

1. Thurlow Weed, The Life of Thurlow Weed (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1883), vol. 1, p. 611; Du pont to Samuel Mercer, 13 March 1861, in Samuel Francis Du Pont: A Selection from his Civil War Letters, edited by John D. Hayes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University press, 1969), vol. 1, pp. 42–43. The best biography of Welles is John Niven, Gideon Welles: Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy (New York: Oxford University press, 1973). 2. The New York Herald, 9 October 1863. 3. Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and his Admirals (New York: Oxford University press, 2008), pp. 57–59; Craig L. Symonds, The Civil War at Sea (Santa Barbara, CA: praeger, 2009), p. 35. 4. Kevin Weddle, Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: the Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia press, 2005), pp. 106–24; Stephen R. Taaffe, Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute press, 2009), pp. 225–29. 5. Gideon Welles, The Diary of Gideon Welles, ed. by Howard K. Beale (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960), entry of 16 September 1863, vol. 1, pp. 134–35. See also Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Seward (New York: Sheldon, 1874).

U.S. SENATE COLLECTION

In a painting of President Abraham Lincoln presenting the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet, Welles sits to the President’s immediate left, across the table from administration rival Secretary of State William H. Seward. A second Welles opponent, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, sits to Lincoln’s right.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


Suggestions for Further Civil War Reading By Craig L. Symonds

After decades of neglect, the naval aspects of the Civil War are at last

getting a lot of serious attention from his-torians. In addition to old standards such as Virgil Carrington Jones’ three-volume The Civil War at Sea (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960–62), published 50 years ago during the centennial of the war, there are a number of newer works that focus on the naval war. These include Ivan Musicant’s Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War (HarperCollins, 1995), and Spencer Tucker’s Blue & Gray Nav i e s : The Civ i l War Afloat (Naval Institute Press, 2006). A recent shorter his-tory is my own book T h e C i v i l Wa r a t Sea (Praeger, 2009). Lincoln’s role in the naval war is covered in my 2008 book Lincoln and his Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, The U.S. Navy, and the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2008), which won the 2009 Lincoln Prize.

Stephen R. Taaffe investigates the Union high command and its manage-ment of the Navy in Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership during the Civil War (Naval Institute Press, 2009), and Michael Bennett studies the lower deck in his book Union Jacks: Yankee

Sailors in the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). The best general history of the Confederate Navy is by Raimondo Luraghi: A History of the Confederate Navy (Naval Institute Press, 1996).

The war’s role as a technological water-shed has not been overlooked. For Union ironclads see William H. Roberts,

Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), and for Confederate ironclads see William N. Still Jr., Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads (Vanderbilt University Press, 1971; reprinted University of South Carolina Press, 1995). The best book on the role of the submarine H. L. Hunley is Tom Chaffin’s The H. L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy (Hill & Wang, 2008).

For the blockade, Robert Browning covers the history of the Union effort in two books: From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War (University of Alabama Press, 1993), and Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War

(Brassey’s, 2002). Stephen A. Wise covers the Southern s ide of the story in Li fe l ine o f the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (University of South Carolina Press, 1988).

For the war on t h e We s t e r n r i v -ers, the best general study is still John D. Mil l igan, Gunboats Down the Mississippi (Naval Institute Press,

1949, reprint 1990). But see also the spe-cialized campaign studies by B. Franklin Cooling—Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland (University of Tennessee Press, 1987)—and Chester Hearn—The Capture of New Orleans, 1862 (Louisiana State University Press, 1995). The best one-volume study of the Vicksburg campaign is by Michael Ballard: Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

ironclads see William H. Roberts,

in Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil Warof South Carolina Press, 1988).

t h e We s t e r n r i v -ers, the best general study is still John D. Mil l igan, Down the Mississippi

Waters: The Naval History of the Civil

(HarperCollins, 1995), and Spencer

Blue & Gray Nav i e s : The Civ i l

(Naval Institute Press, 2006). A recent shorter his-tory is my own book T h e C i v i l Wa r a t

(Praeger, 2009). Lincoln’s role in the

Cavity


My service in the Soviet navy came about neither by choice nor chance, for during the Cold War, con-scription was a rite of passage, of sorts, for every able-bodied male in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. At age 19 all were required to regis-

ter for—and eventually undergo—some form of military training. It started while one yet was in school; active-duty service came later. There were variations in the service programs, but in general one could expect to serve two to three years in the military.

Thus there were no enlistees among the navy’s sea-men; everyone was a conscript. After completing his service as a conscript—what Americans would call a draftee—a young man could, if deemed qualified, sign a contract to remain in the navy as a (noncommissioned) petty officer or as a midshipman, the equivalent of an ensign in the U.S. Navy. Thereafter he

would move up the promotion ladder based on growth in professional competence. The standard career for such individuals was 25 years.

In that era the Soviet navy had two types of officers. One group was the contract careerists, those who chose to make the naval service their life’s work. The other was made up of reservists. The majority in the latter group were young men with some level of higher education. After mili-tary training and usually some advanced coursework they’d be demobilized—with the caveat that as reserv-ists they would be recalled to active duty as their talents were required.

I fell into the second category. In my adolescence and young adulthood—the 1960s—the Cold War came in waves. I was caught up in one of those waves in


By Vladimir mandel

A conscript naval officer looks back on his service in a bygone era— a revealing portrait of everyday life in a Soviet destroyer.


next day, in time for the flag-raising ceremony. Factoring in travel time and the hope for a decent night’s sleep, very little time was left to spend with family or friends. Addi-tionally, at many bases living conditions ashore were very

difficult because of a chronic shortage of apartments.

Of course, there also were the normal problems of shipboard life. Some crewmen were not of high caliber—undisciplined,

recalcitrant, or otherwise unfit for military service. The real-

life conditions in a ship were quite a contrast with the romantic dreams that many young men had had about the illustrious, glorious life of a naval officer. Young careerist officers, realizing that there was no way out, and that this would be their life for the next 25 years, became appre-hensive about the future, and often depressed. The only way to be discharged—aside from medical reasons—was to do something truly infamous, a course of action that most found morally unacceptable. All such troubles could be multiplied of course, if a ship’s first lieutenant (execu-tive officer) was draconian in his leadership. In short, the atmosphere and conditions were not good—in some cases leading to alcoholism among officers.

For reservists the situation was different. After three years of service, generally, we could return to civilian life and pur-sue civilian careers. We felt that essentially we were civilians, not military men. “Three-years-and-out” was not a guaran-tee, however. It was not unheard of for a reservist to be kept on active duty for 25 years, just like a careerist. Indeed, while I was on active duty rumors surfaced that my year-group of reservists would be ordered to serve for 25 years. So I remem-ber particularly well the moment in 1972, when Admiral Nikolay Nikolayevich Amelko—on board and participating in an informal wardroom conversation—remarked, “Well, this year we will say goodbye to Lieutenant Mandel, as his service term ends soon.” I had learned straight from the ad-miral himself that the rumors were not true; my reservist


1966, when, after university graduation, I started my navy service as a conscript in the Black Sea Fleet. It was but a 12-month tour, which included some specialized training. Then I was designated a reserve officer and demobilized. A

civilian again, I went to work in a research institute, but I was recalled to active duty in August 1969. I was 28. I served as a lieutenant (junior grade), and then lieutenant, until August 1972.

Divergent Paths for Officers

The life of a career Soviet naval officer often was tough—all the more so when he was stationed at a re-mote base. The normal shortcomings of shipboard life were made worse through so-called “organizing” or “disciplin-

ary” periods—special drills ordered by senior officers. It was the considered opinion of most that the only purpose such exercises served was exhausting everyone, including the upper echelon. Shore leave was limited, part of a general policy of keeping young officers on board as much as pos-sible. It commenced at 2200 hours and expired at 0800 the

The Soviet destroyer Komsomolets Ukrainy, in which the author served from 1969 to 1972. She was the first of the Kashin-class destroyers, which were powered by gas-turbine engines and armed with guns, missiles, and torpedoes. The author recalls her as being very seaworthy, but cramped, noisy, and plagued by vibration.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

The author (left), a lieutenant in the Soviet navy, on the deck of his ship, the Komsomolets Ukrainy, as she cruises alongside the USS W. S. Sims (DE-1059) in the Mediterranean Sea in 1972. So-called “battle duty” for ships of the Black Sea Fleet at the time mostly entailed attempts to detect U.S. Navy submarines and tracking the activity of U.S. carriers in the region.


group would be allowed to leave the service on schedule!

Rebuilding the Soviet Navy

Regardless of our status, regular or reservist, the Cold War decades of the 1960s and 1970s kept us busy. Previous reductions in the force levels through-out the Soviet military had been made in an atmosphere of political turmoil—not well thought out and frequently in an unreasonable manner. A large number of distinguished and experi-enced personnel had been thrown out of military life. Many aircraft and ships were decommissioned and destroyed. Military training institutions were closed, their young graduates discharged from active duty. Many military cadets became students in civil institutions.

Following Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s “ballistic missile bluff” during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Soviet leadership became determined to establish more realistic requirements for the armed forces in preparation for a new phase of the Cold War. The time had come to turn over a new leaf. The need for corrective measures was understood. A national effort to upgrade the armed forces was launched.

That was not the first large-scale buildup in the history of the Soviet navy. In the late 1930s many new ships were built and commissioned in a short period preceding World War II. The navy recruited skippers from the merchant fleet. My father, in fact, was drafted from the merchant service for military duty in 1941 and commanded a mine-

sweeper during the siege of Sevastopol in 1941-42.The heroes of that era included Alexander Ivanov-

ich Marinesko, the submariner who torpedoed the Wilhelm Gustloff, and Nikolai Alexandrovich Lunin, who attacked the Tirpitz. They are still well remem-bered, along with the likes of Aleksey Mikhailovich Matayasevich, a captain renowned for his polar ex-ploits, later the commander of the submarine Lembit.

But the effort to upgrade the armed services in the 1960s was complicated by a lack of manpower, a de-mographic legacy of World War II. Additionally, there was an acute shortage of noncommissioned and middle-rank commissioned officers, a direct result of Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s mid-1950s cancellation of benefits for sergeants and petty officers who had signed on for

contract service.The personnel shortages forced a lowering of standards.

Thus it was not uncommon for personnel in the lower ranks to have criminal histories or be ill-educated. Inci-dents of maltreatment and extreme hazing in the ranks rose. The image of the armed forces suffered. More tangible evidence of the problem manifested itself in incidents such as the loss of the destroyer Otvajny. She burned and sank in 1974 in an accident attributed to crew incompetence.

Life in a Black Sea Fleet Destroyer

The government had begun taking remedial steps prior to the Otvajny disaster, however. One was the organiza-tion of schools for petty officers—the “chief technicians.” The schools produced high-quality personnel in almost all the military specialties. The second significant step of


Captain Valery Grishanov, the commanding officer of the Komsomolets Ukrainy, instructs his crew before deployment in February 1970. Although he was the son of a high-ranking admiral in the Soviet navy, Grishanov never assumed the airs of the privileged or received any special favors or treatment, the author says.


the government was the calling up of reserve officers. The maximum age for those call-ups was 28, and so by a mat-ter of months I was still eligible in 1969. I was assigned to the Komsomolets Ukrainy. She was the first ship of the new Kashin-class destroyers, serving with the Black Sea Fleet.

The Kashins were equipped with artillery, missiles, tor-pedoes, sonar, and ASW weapons that were excellent. The gas-turbine engines provided reliable performance and maneuverability. The ship was very seaworthy, ascending waves well and having smooth and moderate pitching, con-trolled by retractable stabilizers. In a violent storm in the North Atlantic the inclination never exceeded 46 degrees.

Living conditions, however, were another story. She was somewhat cramped and vibrated noticeably. A high level of noise from gas turbines was constant. The mess area was able to serve only about two-thirds of the crew simultane-ously. That area doubled as a meeting room and theater. Commissioned officers and warrant officers had separate messes. The officers’ wardroom was ruled by the first lieu-tenant, while the warrant officers’ wardroom was led by the chief boatswain of the ship.

Medical care, however, was of high quality and under the direction of Lieutenant Eugeny Chikin. He was a very talented surgeon and on numerous occasions conducted serious surgeries while at sea, using the wardroom as an op-erating room. Chikin later became a chief surgeon of the Black Sea Fleet and in the 1990s he performed a sensational surgery, successfully saving the life of an officer whose head had nearly been severed in an auto accident.

A great deal of attention on board was given to physical fitness and sports. No special day or holiday

passed without a traditional naval competition—usually a tug-of-war, with the winning team tradi-tionally being awarded a huge pie. There also were fleet sailing contests. The crewmen of the Komso-molets Ukrainy’s boat—a six-oared yawl—kept it in perfect order. For a considerable period they held the Grand Prize of the Fleet.

Not all the Black Sea Fleet ships were “brand new” like ours. Some were veterans of World War II, with impressive records. Most had been modern-ized in the 1950s and 1960s. One such ship was the

gun cruiser Slava (formerly the Molotov) commissioned in 1941. She was one of six “semi-heavy” gun cruisers of the Soviet navy, armed with a battery of nine 7.1-inch (180-mm) guns. Those ships should have been designated heavy cruisers because the gun bores exceeded six inches. How-ever, in the Soviet navy they were considered light cruisers.

The Slava had her own special story. She was torpedoed in 1942 by German He-111 torpedo-bombers or possibly Italian torpedo boats—it was never determined definitively. In the engagement, she lost her stern, which was hastily replaced with a stern from an incomplete Chapayev-class cruiser, the Frunze. The Frunze, of course, had different hull lines. Attaching the new stern to the damaged ship created some visible “steps,” both on the deck and in the hull-plating of the Slava. It was quite obvious where the transplanted foreign stern section met the hull of the dam-aged cruiser, and a matter of some curiosity for those en-countering those strange steps for the first time.

Manning a Man-of-War

The call-up of reserve officers for fleet service filled the vacancies of navigators, communication officers, specialists in electronics, and weapon systems—mostly artillery. Typically a young officer coming on board had a month to learn the ship.

N AVA L H I S T O RY • A P R I L 2 0 1 145

Soviet navy crews traditionally celebrated Army and Navy Day with tug-of-war contests. Right: The KGB officer of the Komsomolets Ukrainy (left) serves as a judge for a competition involving the ship’s officers. Of the political team on board the ship, the author says, the KGB man was the only one possessing the qualities of a good officer.


During that time he would thoroughly study all compartments, systems, and equipment. He had to learn the tactical and technical data relating to the operation of the ship. He had to examine all systems, rules, and manuals associated with dam-age control. He had to become familiar with the ship’s service schedules as well as the duties of a watch-stander. Only then, after passing all the prescribed tests—a tough procedure—was

he assigned to watch-standing duties. The ship’s officers gener-ally were keenly interested in successful and timely examina-tions for a young officer. They supported and helped him; his success meant an addition of another man to the duty roster.

Personnel were assigned positions according to their abili-ties, health, and education. The best men—whether officers or noncommissioned—were routinely sent to the communi-cation, navigation, or radio divisions. Weapons systems re-lied on the services of career technicians—contract warrant officers and chief petty officers. (Our missile-systems expert was Midshipman Tikhon Bagryantsev, whose son was, at the time, a student at Sevastopol Higher Naval School. The son eventually rose to the rank of captain. Sadly, he was the senior officer in the submarine Kursk when she sank in the Barents Sea in 2000. In the Soviet navy as elsewhere, sons often followed in the steps of their fathers.) Great atten-tion was paid to the tactical training of the officers. It was directly supervised by the commanding officer and included exercises in navigation as well as the study of operations and characteristics of U.S. and NATO ships.

In 1969-71 our ship was commanded by Valery Grishanov, the eldest son of a very high-ranking admiral, the head of the Main Political Administration of the Soviet navy. De-spite his father’s status, Captain Grishanov never received

special benefits or privileges. He endured all the “hardships and deprivations of military service” as the Soviet military oath required. He knew the needs and interests of all of the sailors and officers in his ship and was very dedicated and helpful as members of the crew prepared for exams. But he ran a tight ship in every respect. He subsequently rose to admiral and served as deputy commander of the Soviet navy.

He died too young in 1996.Relations between the

officers on the ship were healthy, and in general a spirit of friendship, humor,

and goodwill prevailed. At meetings and “debriefings,” which usually took place be-fore dinner, those guilty of

some dereliction or mishap received their fair share of proper admonishment from the commanding officer or first lieuten-ant. Then, relieved and cheerfully enthusiastic, all joined the common dinner. In the wardroom there was a piano and we often watched movies. Dominoes, chess, and backgammon also were popular in our spare time, but card games met with disapproval and could be played only in secret.

The crew was essentially international, in a way, coming from all the corners of the Soviet Union. I had under my supervision Sailors from Lithuania to Vladivostok and from Severodvinsk to Yerevan. Only men possessing a secondary education could serve in my division (Connection and Ob-servation). Being conscripts, they had spent almost a year in a special training unit before stepping aboard the ship. Their crewmates jokingly called them “the sailors’ aristocracy.” Overall the ship embarked 27 officers and approximately 250 crew, making a total of 275-280 souls on board.

Battle Duty: Tracking the Enemy

In the 1960s the Soviet navy initiated a series of ex-tended, long-range deployments—generally called “Battle Duty.” The purpose was to show the flag and “ensure the state interests of the USSR” around the globe. The Fifth


Fishing in the Mediterranean provided diversion and entertainment for officers and crew alike. The author (left) and his comrades, including the ship’s captain (center), show off their catch in 1971. Observing quietly at far right is the ever-watchful KGB officer.


Operational Squadron was formed in the Mediterranean comprising ships from the Black Sea, Baltic, and Northern Soviet fleets, exchanging places as required to maintain constant battle duty in the Mediterranean.

For ships’ crews, those deployment periods were the best periods of service, despite being quite lengthy. In 1972, for example, our ship once went without a port call for four months, creating some uncomfortable conditions. How-ever, it was always a pleasure to leave the main base in Sevastopol with its senior officers and traditionally stern commandant. We did not miss the tedious duties and for-malities associated with shore stations. Service at sea with the watch–break–watch routine went much faster. Every-body was kept occupied with something real and necessary.

U.S. ships fared better than we did. They could use the ports in Greece, Italy, and other NATO countries while we were quite limited in that aspect. Our ships were always on the move or anchored in the open sea, close to land. Consequently, there were limited opportunities for neces-sary repairs and routine maintenance. The crews became tired. Shortages of fresh water occurred because of the lack of power for desalinization plants. Crews could bathe only when their ships rendezvoused with a large tanker for re-fueling and receiving fresh water.

Weapon systems, on the other hand, always were kept ready and properly maintained. Every ship, while on de-ployment and cruising alone, also maintained around-the-clock contact with headquarters in Moscow. For although showing the Soviet flag ostensibly was our mission, in ac-tuality we were, of course, attempting to detect and track

America’s nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines. They were considered the top strategic menace.

The aircraft carrier groups of the U.S. Navy and its NATO allies were likewise regarded as serious threats, and tracking them was a high priority as well. We knew that their aircraft could carry and deliver nuclear weapons. An important part of tracking a carrier, then, was to count all aircraft launched and returned to her flight deck. If there was a discrepancy in the number of those launched vs. those that returned, we had a problem. Once, when we were tracking the USS Forrestal (CVA-59) I believe, we “lost” two A-4s that had launched, but by our count did not return. That caused much concern. We later learned that the A-4s had landed at a NATO airbase in Italy. Even so, some in our crew received reprimands.

Foes, but Not Unfriendly

Naturally, as mariners any ship held strong interest for us, particularly American vessels. When Soviet and U.S. ships met at sea and cruised side by side, the commanders of the U.S. ships often attempted to establish some form of com-munication with our commanding officers. Usually, however, the latter would cautiously retreat into the conning tower and remain silent. Meanwhile, the crews in the two ships enjoyed exchanging greetings and photographing each other. In those spontaneous efforts at friendly contact, the U.S. Sailors be-haved in a much more free and relaxed manner than ours—who would be tense, looking over their shoulders to be sure they were not earning the disapproval of the political officers.

That wariness was perhaps warranted. After all, those fellows on the other ship were the enemy. Despite that, I am comfortable in saying that our officers and crew never expressed hate or hostility. Yes, we followed orders in a professional manner, but did so without animosity—in part, I think, because of the era. That was a time when many

people remembered their experiences in World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Germany and Japan. The cordial inter-navy rela-tions at the time are best illustrated anecdotally.

Two amusing incidents occurred while we were tracking the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42). One came on the first day of May—the official Labor Day holiday in the Soviet Union. We were at anchor near the Roosevelt in Italy when unexpectedly she weighed anchor and headed out of the harbor. Naturally, we had no choice


Midshipman Tikhon Bagryantsev, a missile-systems expert, on the quarterdeck of the Komsomolets Ukrainy circa 1970. His son Vladimir was still in school at the time of this photo, but over the years rose to the rank of captain. Tragically, he went down with his submarine, the Kursk, when she sank in the Barents Sea in 2000.


but to follow. As we did, we received a signal from the Roosevelt: “Congratulations for the holiday. We apologize for having to interrupt your vacation!”

On another occasion the big carrier sent us this signal: “Today at 2200, your duty will be changed and you will be ordered to proceed home. We have been pleased to cruise together with you. Happy sailing!” A change in duty came as news to us, but it was rather cheerfully welcomed. We then contacted our headquarters seeking confirmation. In response we got only silence. But then, precisely at 2200, we received new orders from headquarters: We were to hand off our sur-veillance of the Roosevelt to another ship and return home!

I also recall fondly how we met the flagship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet—the cruiser USS Springfield (CLG-7) carrying the flag of Vice Admiral Gerald Miller. As our ships cruised side by side, we rendered a flag greeting, our crew lining the railing on the upper deck. Our bugler played a signal and our commanding officer and the other officers gave a hand salute. The Springfield responded with a semaphore message from Admiral Miller: “Thank you for the greeting! It is always nice to see a sailor who is serving well!”

Two political developments also were at work at the time and no doubt facilitated that atmosphere of friendly rivalry. For one, it was the era of détente in Soviet-U.S. relations. President Richard Nixon had visited Moscow and tensions had eased considerably. On the other hand, in roughly the same span of time Moscow’s relationship with China had become increasingly strained. Starting as early as 1968, in fact, political officers had been ordered to focus their political propaganda on the Chinese. And in turn we had then begun seeing a decline in anti-American propaganda.

Pervasive Propaganda and Politics

Incredible as it may seem to some Westerners, the time and effort the Soviet navy devoted to ensuring maritime security was nearly matched by its emphasis on political indoctrination of ships’ crews. Marxist-Leninist “priest-craft”—particularly the mindless task of note-taking on Lenin’s works—often prevailed over professional military training. The former was conducted by political officers from different agencies who sometimes viewed each other jealously and consequently did not work well together.

Three such officers were in our ship. They represented three distinct levels of the Navy’s political structure: the Main Politi-cal Administration, the Political Department of the Fleet, and the Political Department of the Division of Ships. Each of the officers carried an important-sounding title, but essentially their shared task was conducting political and ideological indoctrina-tion of the crew. A fourth political officer on board—from a special department called Osobiy Otdel—was taken more seri-ously. He was a senior operative from the navy’s branch of the KGB—the Soviet Union’s state security apparatus.

For some reason those of us in the navy—especially ship crews—were subjected to less ideological indoctrination than most Soviet military personnel. Even so, the politi-cal officers were unpopular, for they produced unnecessary paperwork and harassed the crew with boring, time-wasting activities: political discussions, the study of Lenin, and per-haps most annoying, specially prepared propaganda from the media—rudimentary Marxist ideology that generally was poorly written and intellectually insulting to any rea-sonably educated man. In the eyes of officers and crew those political fellows had little authority, and merited an equal amount of respect. The KGB officer, on the other hand, concerned himself mainly with treason. That elicited some ironic and suspicious attitudes among the crew, but interestingly, in his general qualities as an officer he dif-fered favorably from his political-indoctrination comrades.

The main task of the political officers was to reveal and de-bunk the evil nature of imperialism and its “atrocious fangs.” Almost all world events were reviewed and presented in that light, especially the contemporary war in Vietnam. However, the “yakking parrots” were not only recognized exactly for what they were by a generally well-educated and aware crew, the political officers at times clumsily undermined their own efforts. One such instance occurred as our ship transited the Black Sea Strait. No one was allowed on the weather decks. The Deputy Commander for Political Affairs then stationed himself on the quarterdeck, armed with a pistol and a grenade—in case some crewman tried to escape to the West by jumping overboard!

* * * * * * * * * *Looking back I realize more than ever the one key dif-

ference between my service—that of a reserve—and that of the career officers. For me and other reservists there were hardships, yes, but there were special events that forged fond memories of military service in a great ship. For the career officers, however, such events became almost part of a routine. They faced a long term of service, with all of its attendant difficulties, problems, decisions, concerns, and repetitive events. They served under arduous condi-tions for extended periods. As my former first lieutenant frequently comments today, it is difficult to persuade most retired career officers to talk about their years of service, for now they are simply tired. They prefer to forget the past, which is understandable. They served the Soviet Union honorably, and in most cases it just wore them out.

Many years have passed since the day my comrades and I left the deck of the Komsomolets Ukrainy. Time has dimmed many of the unpleasant memories of my naval service—things that created irritation, frustration, and disapproval. But the good memories and fond recollections—camaraderie, being involved in something important, and making a contribution to society—are brighter and more vivid than ever. Such is the remarkable power of the human mind and spirit.


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The Tot of Rum—and How It Disappeared

Coffee, however, was not always the most popular drink among American Sailors. The favorite had first been hard spirits and beer. The early U.S. Navy, like every other navy worthy of the name, had been modeled on Britain’s Royal Navy. And of course that meant the daily tot of grog—rum diluted with water. The British kept that tradition until 1970, when it was determined that sophisticated electronics were not well-attended by individuals with a Pusser’s Rum buzz.

Rum, then, was an important staple of the U.S. Navy for much of its existence. Captains were afforded great discretion in its distribution, and on occasion Kentucky bourbon was employed. Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, assuming the office in 1801, substituted American-made sour mash for the West Indies rum, and found that Yankee Sailors favored it. But in 1862, during the Civil War, hard-liquor rations were discontinued. Two years later, General Order No. 29 put restrictions on beer, ale, and wine; they could be brought aboard only with the captain’s permission. A later regulation allowed officers to form their own wine messes, however, so while it is not known precisely how permissive captains may have been, generally, in allowing drinking privileges to the crew, wine for officers at mealtime remained a customary and daily part of shipboard routine.

That all abruptly changed in 1914, during President Woodrow Wilson’s administration. His Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels—a teetotaler—issued General Order No. 99, banning alcoholic beverages from all naval property, effectively abolishing even the sacred officers’ wine mess. It was hardly a popular change, even with John Q. Public. The New York Tribune depicted Daniels, in cartoons, as “Admiral of the USS Grapejuice Pinafore.” A verse of an old Navy song, “The Armored Cruiser Squadron,” was parodied thusly:

Josephus Daniels is a goose,If he thinks he can induceUs to drink his damn grape juiceIn the Armored Cruiser Squadron.

As one might expect, such cultural upheaval also spawned numerous legends and tales, the authenticity of which is often difficult to confirm. For example, perhaps because Daniels’ name was for some time so closely associated with grape juice, a widely repeated anecdote has it that after instituting his ban, the Secretary substituted grape juice in the wine messes—an action that lives on today in the form of the Navy’s omnipresent “bug juice.” Most of the sentiments applied to General Order No. 99 are lost to

memory, however, and that is probably a good thing—given Sailors’ capacity to get at the ribald heart of things.

Yet another such link to Daniels persists in Navy lore. The popular American slang for coffee—“a cup of Joe”—is held to be an apt and direct association to the abstemious gentleman

Coffee is a way of life for the American Sailor. No other food or drink comes close to ap-proximating its role in shipboard life. It is the one constant—24/7/365.

Certainly there are many special memories of sustenance in the Navy and Coast Guard psyche—bean soup, steel beach barbecues, pizza at seaward Happy Hour (mostly a Coast Guard tradition), Z-burgers, chipped beef on toast (though SOS, as it is known, actually has Army ori-gins), and holiday dinners.1 But by and large those are special occasions. Coffee, on the other hand, is truly a daily ritual.

The Continental Congress declared coffee to be Amer-ica’s national drink in the wake of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when the Sons of Liberty dumped English tea imports into Boston Harbor. That protest—of both excessive taxes and a government-engineered monopoly on the tea trade for the British East India Company—had actually been spawned in a coffeehouse. Thus has coffee been prominent in the national identity since before there was a nation.

Any reading of American military history, on land or sea, from the time of the Revolution forward, indicates that coffee has been at all times a supply necessity, invariably listed with the staples of flour, salt, and beef. Character-istically, Commodore George Dewey’s flag captain in the Olympia at Manila Bay—Captain Charles Gridley—in his official report of the engagement on 1 May 1898, wrote in the fourth sentence, amid other descriptions of final battle preparations and approach to contact, “At 4 A.M. of May 1 coffee was served out to officers and men.” For he had to be prepared when Dewey uttered his famous phrase: “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” Coffee was part of that readiness.

Not surprisingly, references to coffee are prominent in the literature of the sea. The Victorian novels of R. M. Bal-lantyne and G. A. Henty own a good many references to it. Roughly a century later, Captain Sam Lombard-Hobson noted in his 1983 World War II memoir, A Sailor’s War, there was nothing like strong coffee, “black as ink and hot as hell,” to keep the watch watchful on cold nights in the North Atlantic. Coffee was and is important to operational readiness—physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.

memory, however, and that is probably a good thing—given Sailors’ capacity to get at the ribald heart of things.

popular American slang for coffee—“a cup of Joe”—is held to be an apt and direct association to the abstemious gentleman

numerous legends and tales, the authenticity of which is

readiness—physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.readiness—physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.

often difficult to confirm. For example, perhaps because Daniels’ name was for some time so closely associated with grape juice, a widely repeated anecdote has it that after

often difficult to confirm. For example, perhaps because Daniels’ name was for some time so closely associated with grape juice, a widely repeated anecdote has it that after

readiness—physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.

ALL PHOTOS: U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE

Sailors on the signal bridge of the cruiser USS Minneapolis (CA-36) take a break for a morning ritual—a hot cup of coffee—in August 1937. The staple of shipboard life is important, the author contends, to operational readiness—physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.



who unwittingly had a hand in ushering in a new and even greater drinking obsession. Regardless of that story’s verac-ity, there can be no denying that while coffee had long been an integral aspect of life in commissioned ships, the banishment of alcohol made it an essential ritual. Coffee replaced the daily rum tot (or the mealtime wine) with numerous caffeine tots—all the day long.

Coffee, Coffee, Everywhere

Coffee has long been a democratic drink. Indeed, Eng-land’s King Charles II called coffeehouses “seminaries of sedition.”2 The U.S. Navy—and the American military in general—seems always to have owned fewer inherent class distinctions than foreign counterparts. In World War II it was not uncommon for Allied sailors to comment on the easier relationship between officers and enlisted men of the American armed forces than in their own services. Coffee had a hand in that.

Prior to the Civil War–era elimination of liquor rations and Secretary Daniels’ 1914 ban on all alcohol, the tools of relaxation were beer, rum, or bourbon for the lower deck and wine for the officers. After 1914, it was—democratically—cof-fee for all hands. An arbitrary distinction had been cast aside.

American Sailors, ever quick to espy and exploit an opportunity to make a hard life of hard lying a bit easier, made coffee messes afloat as prominent and omnipresent as a Sailor’s knives, word passed over the 1MC, and errant OODs being chewed out on the bridge wing by the Old Man. By the time of World War II, there were coffeepots on

the bridge, in the engine room, in CIC, in the boiler room, in the ship’s office, in the supply office, in the armory, and in the machine shop. Probably in other places, too.

In the vast buildup following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy quickly established its own coffee-roasting plants in Oakland, California, and Brooklyn, New York. Another was later established in Hawaii. The wartime Navy took coffee quite seriously. Shortly after Pearl Har-bor, most of Hawaii’s kona crop was purchased by the U.S. Navy, in one of those cases where a young officer was told to just get the job done and damn the lesser consequences.

Retired Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Fred Siegel, whose “Fred’s Place” Web site unites Coast Guardsmen with one another and links up with the wider armed forces com-munity via www.military.com, has remarked on the fact that so many sea stories seem to include coffee. One scribe on the site wrote, typically: “For any sailor, coffee is a holy substance blessed by King Neptune himself and gifted with the power

The U.S. Navy—and the American military in the bridge, in the engine room, in CIC, in the boiler room,

Coffee has long been a democratic drink. Indeed, Eng-

who unwittingly had a hand in ushering in a new and even

Coffeepots and coffee cups are ubiquitous in Navy life and can be found just about anywhere in any and every ship. Left: Radioman 3rd Class J. E. Eicher kept his cup handy while at work in 1948 in the USS Valley Forge (CV-45). Below: Sea Service chiefs, according to the author, always have the best coffee. In this October 1956 photo, Navy chiefs in the USS Radford (DDE-446) relax in their quarters with some reading, cigarettes, and—what else?—coffee.


to jumpstart any watch-stander to a level of alertness that ensures success. While engines run on diesel, I’m convinced that some boatswain’s mates run only on coffee.”

In the End, What's Not to Like?

But it is not just the ubiquity of coffee around ships, and its stimulus to watchfulness, that create its lore and welcome place among Sailors. Consider the following:

• For a young officer to be invited into the chiefs’ mess for coffee is a genuine mark of approval.

• Asked into the cabin—and then offered coffee—means that nothing bad is about to happen to you.• One’s own coffee mug in the wardroom is a sign of belonging.• The quality of the coffee is always an opportunity for safe conversation.• Amid a long and difficult evolution at sea, the serving of coffee is a testa-ment to the seriousness of the endeavor, and the need for continued strength. When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.• When a guest comes aboard and just cannot abide the strength of ship-board coffee, it really is funny, providing a healthy feeling of superiority. As Nicholas Monsarrat put it, “Sailors ought to be running the world.”3

• Your hand around a hot mug on a cold and wet day is one of life’s quiet joys.• When you are not sure which mission to tackle next, getting a “cuppa”

gives you time to think. Even the XO won’t begrudge you that. Usually.

• The chiefs will always have the best coffee (as well as the best of everything else). That is why they are chiefs. And, of course, they don’t have the disparity of age and experience that a wardroom has.

No matter how rotten the seaward day (or night) may have been, coffee is a solace. George MacDonald Fra-

ser wrote, quite accurately, “That’s the hell-ish thing about shipboard life—there is

nowhere to hide your carcass or your nature.”4

But there is always a cup o’ Joe.

1. “Z-burger” is a service-academy term for lunchtime hamburgers—a meal said to have a guaranteed sleeping-pill effect for afternoon classes. Its origin is the Coast Guard Acad-emy, but it has made its way elsewhere—in-cluding some restaurants in the South and Pacific Northwest. 2. In 1675 Charles II attempted to shut down England’s coffeehouses, fearing they could spawn revolutionary activi-ties. But the public outcry forced him

to rescind the order two days before it was to take effect.

3. Nicholas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1956). Monsarrat served as executive officer to Captain Sam Lombard-Hobson, aforemen-tioned author of A Sailor’s War.4. George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels in 1914 banned alcohol from Navy ships—medicinal use excepted—inviting the scorn of naval officers, enlisted men, and even the general public.

When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.

to jumpstart any watch-stander to a level of alertness that ensures success. While engines run on diesel, I’m convinced that some boatswain’s mates

• Asked into the cabin—and then offered coffee—means that nothing bad is about to happen to you.• One’s own coffee mug in the wardroom is a sign of belonging.• The quality of the coffee is always an opportunity for safe conversation.• Amid a long and difficult evolution at sea, the serving of coffee is a testa-ment to the seriousness of the endeavor, and the need for continued strength. When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.

to jumpstart any watch-stander to a level of alertness that ensures success.

• Asked into the cabin—and then offered coffee—means that nothing bad is about to happen to you.• One’s own coffee mug in the wardroom is a sign of belonging.• The quality of the coffee is always an opportunity for safe conversation.• Amid a long and difficult evolution at sea, the serving of coffee is a testa-ment to the seriousness of the endeavor, and the need for continued strength. When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.• When a guest comes aboard and just cannot abide the strength of ship-board coffee, it really is funny, providing a healthy feeling of superiority. As Nicholas Monsarrat put it, “Sailors ought to be running the world.”• Your hand around a hot mug on a cold and wet day is one of life’s quiet joys.• When you are not sure which mission to tackle next, getting a “cuppa”

gives you time to think. Even the XO won’t begrudge you that.

• The chiefs will always have the best coffee (as well as the best of everything else). That is why they are chiefs. And, of course, they don’t have the disparity of age and experience



nowhere to hide your carcass or your




3. Nicholas Monsarrat, SeaPenguin, 1956). Monsarrat served as executive officer to Captain Sam Lombard-Hobson, aforemen-tioned author of 4. George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the MarchAlfred A. Knopf, 2005).

When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.


When that evolution has been completed, coffee is the celebratory drink.• When a guest comes aboard and just cannot abide the strength of ship-board coffee, it really is funny, providing a healthy feeling of superiority. As Nicholas Monsarrat put it, “Sailors ought to be running the world.”• Your hand around a hot mug on a cold and wet day is one of life’s quiet joys.• When you are not sure which mission to tackle next, getting a “cuppa”

gives you time to think. Even the XO won’t begrudge you that. Usually.

• The chiefs will always have the best coffee (as well as the best of everything else). That is why they are chiefs. And, of course, they don’t have the disparity of age and experience that a wardroom has.



nowhere to hide your carcass or your nature.”4




Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels in 1914 banned alcohol from Navy ships—medicinal use excepted—inviting the scorn of naval officers, enlisted men, and even the general public.





O n or about 13 March 1889, at a location in the Pacific roughly 10° south latitude and 165° west longitude, the beast was born. No one had charted its growth from a swirl of winds to a tropical depression and then into

a tropical storm. At each stage it grew in size and acquired more components of misery: towering cumulus and nimbus clouds, increasingly steady strong winds, lengthening bursts of torrential rains, and a tightening clockwise spiral. As it expanded from a tropical storm into a full-fledged typhoon, it was moving on a southwesterly course, headed directly

Appalling


Trouble brewing between Western powers in the Pacific was sidelined by a fateful interruption—the Great Samoan Typhoon of 1889.

By Noah aNdre Trudeau

toward a volcanic archipelago known as the Samoan Is-lands—and contact with a second simmering storm that was entirely of human making.

Two major powers were in a tense standoff regarding which one would shape the future course of the Samoan Islands. The crisis had its origins in the transformation of the world’s navies from sail to steam. Steam engines required lots of coal, and the Pacific’s vastness meant that no warship could carry enough to cover its distances, so hitherto inconsequential islands along the principal travel lanes suddenly became much prized as refueling stations.

‘An

Calamity’


restricted space underscored a litany of dangers for craft caught there in a storm.

Apia was located on the northern side of the island of Upolu, inside a fully exposed V-shaped bay that faced almost directly north. A barrier reef stretched across the harbor’s mouth with just a single opening three cables (720 yards) wide per-mitting entrance. Much of the harbor had been fashioned by freshwater outflow from the Mulivai and Vaisingano rivers, which descended from the south. The harbor floor was all coral, but over the years the rivers had deposited enough silt to allow for marine growth and sufficient traction for ship anchors. The river flow interacted with the ocean movement to create strong and unpredictable cur-rents throughout the harbor, which was ringed by shelves and nearly continuous reefs. Only a short stretch of sandy beach at the mouth of the Vaisin-gano interrupted the sharp-edged perimeter.

For a ship captain, the best defense in case of bad weather was to be somewhere else.

When March Winds Blow

The opening months of 1889 had not been with-out their usual share of storms, the heaviest com-ing on 13–14 February. That tempest had caused the Eber to sideswipe a reef, bending her propeller shaft, causing the loss of several knots in speed. February’s intensity seemed to satisfy everyone that the storm season was winding down. As Admiral Kimberly recollected, “The local pilots and other old residents on shore, supposed the backbone of the season’s bad weather had been broken.”1 A cop-pery red sunset was seen on 12 March. It began to rain on 13 March, the precipitation continuing into the next day with frequent squalls and a gener-ally falling barometer.

The weather had worsened on the morning of 15 March to the point that the warships began to batten down. Upper hampers were struck, leaving only topgallants. Lower yards were eased down to the deck. Any loose equipment was firmly lashed or moved under cover. Anchors where checked. Engines were warmed up. For each commander, a moment of truth arrived that day when the decision had to be made whether to meet the weather in the harbor or retreat into open water. Kimberly later enumerated his reasons for staying. The most anyone was expecting was heavy rains, and a run out to sea would have consumed much hard-to-replace coal. The admiral was confident that with kedge anchors deployed and the steam engines operating to relieve strain on the chains, they could weather the storm.

Imperial Germany and the United States now vied for influence over the islands, while Great Britain was a most interested third-party observer.

Pacific Power Politics

The two powers meddled with the Samoan rul-ing system, headed by a king selected by a major-ity of the island chain’s five provincial leaders. By 1889 the Germans enjoyed direct control through their candidate, Tamasese, while the United States supported an exiled rival, Laupepa, and worked be-hind the scenes to influence events. The Germans backed their claimant with force. Beginning in mid-August 1887, they stationed warships in the small harbor serving the island chain’s administra-tive center, Apia. Tensions between the two Sa-moan sides erupted into something akin to a civil war, with the resistance coalescing around a leader named Mataafa. By March 1889, Germany and the United States each had three warships anchored in Apia Harbor. Relations were icily formal, although several incidents came perilously close to igniting a wider conflict.

The German ships present in Apia Harbor were all sail/steam hybrids: the iron/wood composite gunboat Adler, the iron-hulled gunboat Eber, and, most powerful of the three, the 12-gunner Olga, a 2,424-ton corvette.

The biggest American warship on station was also the most recent arrival, the 3,900-ton wooden-hulled cruiser Trenton, mounting 15 guns and serv-ing as the flagship for Rear Admiral Lewis Ashfield Kimberly, commanding the U.S. naval force on pa-cific Station. Next down in size was the 2,033-ton screw sloop Vandalia. The 1,375-ton sloop Nipsic rounded out the U.S. presence. The final major player on the scene was the British observation vessel HMS Calliope, a 2,770-ton iron- and steel-sheathed cruiser armed with 16 guns. Also in Apia Harbor were at least nine merchant vessels, mak-ing things extremely tight in the small anchorage. In the opinion of the Calliope’s Captain Henry Coey Kane, no more than four major ships should have been anchored in it at any one time. The

N AVA L H I S

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

ALL IMAGES: NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMAND

March 1889: German and U.S. warships warily watched each other in the cramped confines of Apia Harbor, Samoa—until a typhoon swooped down and curtailed the course of human events. With her rudder smashed and her canvas in tatters, the cruiser Trenton, the largest U.S. Navy vessel present, dragged along the reefs in a desperate struggle to survive.


National pride also played a part. No captain wanted to be the first to scurry his flag out of the harbor, and even late in the morning of 15 March, with the weather continuing to deteriorate, no warship budged from the anchorage. The one saving grace was that so far the wind had come from the south.

All that began to change after 1400. It was about then, a scientist later reckoned, that the eye of the tempest was located just north of Apia Harbor. The barometer dipped to an ominous and record-setting 29.07. There was a sullen calm under a leaden sky that made everyone hold their breath. By now the local weather prophets had changed their tune. “The old timers,” wrote the American consul from his office in the town, “expect a hurricane during the night.”2 The storm again began to increase in in-tensity. Rain fell in blinding sheets, and the wind made a dramatic shift. It was roaring in from the north; any vessel still hoping to clear the cramped harbor would have to battle powerful headwinds and waves. By sunset the combination of frothy spray, rain, and darkness had reduced visibility to virtually nil. The seven warships, crammed so tightly into the limited space, began yawing wildly at the end of their iron tethers.

For a brief period around midnight the barometer began rising and everyone thought the crisis was ending. It was a cruel trick of nature. What was happening was a rare but not unknown phenomenon called recurvature. The typhoon was being pushed back by powerful upper-level winds that forced the weather system to retrace its steps. From the evidence in hand it would also seem that the tempest further intensified during this period. The storm’s greatest energy was now being funneled directly into the unprotected bay.

Hell in a Harbor

The wind was unrelenting; according to Admiral Kim-berly, “for nearly 24 hours, the gale was a hurricane.”3 Great waves surged into the anchorage where they encountered ricocheting currents from all quarters of the tight harbor, made even worse by the blasting discharge from the two rivers, suddenly hugely swollen by the rain deluging the island’s interior. The powerful river flow began scouring the bottom of the bay. The warship crews fighting for their lives counted on their anchors to see them through the storm, but now the overloaded rivers had ground the sea

bed down to the hard coral, leaving little for the anchors to grip. Soon the vessels

began dragging about the anchorage, dangerous to themselves and others.

It is a testament to the skill and de-termination of their crews that the warships survived until the morning of 16 March before they began to succumb. The first was the Eber, al-ready crippled by previous damage to her propeller shaft. Starting around 0800, catastrophe piled on catastro-

phe. A series of mountainous waves pushed the ship onto the inner basin

reefs bordering the harbor’s western side, and the weakened propeller finally gave

way. For just a few seconds, the craft ground along the coral edge before crash-diving, taking with her the captain and 72 of his crew. The four survi-vors who struggled weakly toward the shore found themselves plucked from certain death by strong Samoan arms. These were some of Mataafa’s men, who had come down from the

hills to exploit the chaos caused by the storm but instead followed their humanitarian impulses.

Next to go was the Nipsic, which had had more than her share of ill luck. Caught in the powerful harbor currents near the mouth of the Vaisingano, the ship had been propelled about the anchorage, overrunning and sinking a merchant schooner around dawn. Shortly after that, she was speared on her port side by the Olga, also fighting for her life. Besides having a section of her side crushed in, the Nipsic lost her smokestack, allowing a torrent of seawater to engulf her criti-cally important boilers. Adding insult to injury, the toppled 3,000-pound stack began rolling across the deck, piling on the terror that gripped the Nipsic’s crew. A few brave men continued to fight for the ship. When the drenched coal refused to burn, Captain Dennis W. Mullan remembered he had barrels of salt pork in the hold and ordered their con-tents fed into the boiler furnaces—a desperate improvisation that bought a few more hours of life to the vessel.

Perhaps a half hour after the Eber met her fate, another series of heavy waves and the loss of a critical anchor left Mullan with no choice but to try to beach the Nipsic. Somehow in the cauldron of wave, rain, wind, and lurch-ing ships, the determined captain conned his ship onto a patch of sand near the mouth of the Vaisingano. Several panicked men drowned as they jumped or were swept into the tumultuous waters; a few more perished in efforts to get a lifeline onto the shore where some of Mataafa’s men were waiting to help. Finally, with the assistance of a Samoan

National pride also played a part. No captain wanted to be the first to scurry his flag out of the harbor, and even late in the morning of 15 March, with the weather continuing to deteriorate, no warship budged from the anchorage.

later reckoned, that the eye of the tempest was located just north of Apia Harbor. The barometer dipped to an ominous and record-setting 29.07. There was a sullen calm under a leaden sky that made everyone hold their breath. By now the local weather prophets

bed down to the hard coral, leaving little for the anchors to grip. Soon the vessels

began dragging about the anchorage, dangerous to themselves and others.

termination of their crews that the warships survived until the morning of 16 March before they began to succumb. The first was the ready crippled by previous damage to her propeller shaft. Starting around 0800, catastrophe piled on catastro-

phe. A series of mountainous waves pushed the ship onto the inner basin

reefs bordering the harbor’s western side, and the weakened propeller finally gave

way. For just a few seconds, the craft ground along the coral edge before crash-diving, taking with her the captain Rear Admiral Louis Ashfield Kimberly,

commanding U.S. Pacific naval forces, was an eyewitness to the cataclysmic weather event that wreaked havoc on the ships of two powerful navies.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


human chain that heroically pushed out into the turbulent bay, the line was established and survivors began coming on shore. Once safe, many of the Nipsic’s exhausted and demoralized crew put distance between themselves and the hellish harbor. Not only did they show no interest in help-ing their mates still struggling on board the Trenton and Vandalia, but a few uncovered liquor stocks in town and promptly got roaring drunk.

The Olga already had been an unwilling collaborator in the demise of the Nipsic, and she performed a similar service for the Adler. After surviving several close calls and a long night of barely avoiding the reef, the Adler was just pulling free from a scrape with the coral by virtue of training, discipline, courage, and hastily repaired steering tackle, only to see the Olga loom up out of the dark. She struck, splintering the Adler’s bowsprit before slough-ing off for a short dis-tance. Contrary winds and currents made the Adler’s beaching attempt impossible. With her last anchor cut loose, a powerful swell lifted the Adler onto the western reef, cracking her keel and rolling her on her side, but leaving the bow facing the shore. About 20 men were lost in the foaming brine while the remainder lashed themselves to whatever seemed secure. They were drenched, cold, and miserable, and some would bear the psychological scars of their experience for the rest of their lives, but they were alive.

Crashing Waves and Desperate Gambles

The ordeal of the Vandalia was the worst suffered by the American warships on station. Shortly after midnight the underpowered ship began shifting position, dragging perilously close to HMS Calliope. Being near the harbor entrance exposed the Vandalia to powerful waves, and an especially destructive one smashed into the ship just after daylight, violently slamming Captain Cornelius M. Schoonmaker around in his cabin. When the badly in-jured officer came out on deck, another sudden lurch of the vessel caused him to strike his head, requiring that he be carried below.

Command passed to Lieutenant James Carlin, who soon had a major problem. The Vandalia and Calliope had shifted about so that the English cruiser was poised to puncture the American’s port side. Again and again the iron ship seemed sure to strike, yet just as often the surging seas pulled her away. The luck of the Vandalia ran out shortly after 0730 on 16 March as another wave brought the two ships hard together. For the next 90 minutes the Vandalia’s sturdy con-struction and desperate damage control kept her afloat. It was during this period that Schoonmaker reappeared, pale but determined. The ship was now veering broadside to the waves, the roiling maelstrom making it nearly impossible for men to work on deck. Not long after 1030 the decision was reached to beach the Vandalia.

For a moment it seemed as if the desperate gamble would pay off, but once the Vandalia came abreast of the Vaisin-gano River, the powerfully swirling currents twisted the ship so that she was again broadside to the fierce elements. She crashed against the lower western reef. At the com-mand to abandon ship, weary crewmen fought their way onto the deck only to face peril in any attempt to essay the 40 or 50 yards to shore. Fifteen-foot waves began break-ing up the Vandalia, whose debris, Lieutenant Carlin later wrote, was “going over us as if shot out of a cannon. A bump from this was death.”4 A great wave flooded the ship’s entire length, and Schoonmaker was gone. The crew’s last chance for survival was to clamber into the rigging and be lashed by the howling winds, a desperate act that promised only to prolong their suffering.

The German warship Adler survived a night of hell only to be crashed into by another German vessel in the morning. A swell subsequently hurled the Adler onto a reef, cracking her keel and leaving her on her side.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


Blessed with the newest and most powerful engines in the anchorage, HMS Calliope still fought a failing battle trying to hold position. After unintentionally spearing the Vandalia, the Calliope was nearly rammed by a careening Olga. Between the reef and the other two struggling vessels, Captain Kane’s ship was pinned in a deadly box. It was, he said afterward, “the most ticklish position I was ever in.”5 As he saw it, the only chance was to use the powerful engines to haul out of the harbor. Orders were given to rev them up to maximum and then, with the ship’s stern just 20 feet from the deadly reef, the anchor cables were cut.

Even with the boiler gauges red-lined, the Calliope made barely one knot of headway. The last obstacle to her freedom was the massive Trenton, as helpless as any of the smaller ships. Expertly timing his move with the heaving seas and the abrupt lurches of the unpredictable Trenton, Kane conned the Calliope under the American’s looming stern and around it. Fighting to maintain passageway, the officers and men of the Calliope heard an unexpected sound mingled with the keening winds. It was cheering. Even as they were fighting for their lives, the Trenton’s Sailors paused long enough to sa-lute the courage of their English compatriots. Captain Kane could barely register the honor before the fight went on. In the storm’s darkness and spray, he could barely see ahead. After finding the narrow entrance by compass and nerve, he drove the ship out of the harbor, though he wouldn’t realize it until the next day. The Calliope’s engines ran at full power for more than ten hours and never faltered.

Struggle and Salvation

Just two warships remained afloat in Apia Harbor as the Calliope clawed her way out, but one would soon be on the beach. After punching into the port side of the Nipsic, coming close to doing the same thing to the Calliope, then becoming fatally entangled with the Trenton later in the afternoon, the Olga finally ended up grounded on the soft mud of the eastern bay, her stern to the wind.

The fight of the Trenton was made far more difficult by a serious design flaw. Most vessels’ bow ports for the anchor chain and docking hawsers led to the open gun deck, but the Trenton’s hawseholes vented internally, into the forward berth area. In heavy seas the lower section could count on a wetting; now, with her bow pointed into the teeth of a typhoon, the influx was overwhelming the pumps. Frantic efforts were made to stopper the flood, but they were never enough. The added weight drove the bow down and by 1000 the water around the boilers was waist-deep.

Countless acts of heroism took place as the Yankee Blue-jackets fought to keep the critical sails in place to maintain the Trenton’s position to the wind, an especially difficult task once the ship’s rudder had been smashed. The men only paused in their efforts long enough to cheer the Calliope as the valiant ship fought her way to freedom. Despite every-

one’s efforts, wind and sea power began to tell, and the great Trenton, originally anchored near the harbor’s mouth, was steadily driven deeper into the bay. With all canvas in tat-ters, crewmen were ordered into the mizzen rigging to form a human sail in a last-ditch effort to keep the ship’s head into the wind. Precious time was bought by a quirk in topography; the western interior reef fell away to the southwest, so as the Trenton was pushed along its coral perimeter, her hull found enough open space to continue the struggle to survive.

Then came the entanglement with the Olga. In clear-ing that, the Trenton got caught in the Vaisingano current, which drove her hard toward the coral shelf, putting her on a collision course with the already stricken Vandalia, her surviving crew clinging desperately to the rigging. A widely syndicated newspaper account at the time reported that the Trenton’s band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” to buck up less fortunate comrades—a notion later scoffed at by Trenton survivors. “Why, man, it was as much as a man could do to keep from being thrown about by the sea and the motion of the vessel,” said a boatswain’s mate. “He did well if he held on to himself, without thinking of such a thing as holding on to a musical instrument and playing it into the bargain.”6

Now the storm swung the Trenton’s stern tightly into the Vandalia’s side. A series of lines were quickly heaved from the flagship. Even better, the storm pushed the Trenton nearly parallel to the Vandalia and just 40 feet apart. For a few precious and desperate minutes, many of the Van-dalia’s crew climbed, swung, or hauled themselves aboard the Trenton. As unexpectedly as it was offered, this last chance was gone. “Soon after [the survivors crossed over] we struck the Vandalia with violence,” Admiral Kimberly later reported, “and her main and mizzen masts went by the board.”7 In a dramatic turnabout, the hulk of the Vandalia became an unmoving anchor point for the Trenton. The flagship’s larger size now provided limited protection to her crew and those lucky ones from the Vandalia who made the dangerous transfer. As long as the Trenton’s hull held together it offered refuge to the weary Sailors.

Then, finally, early on the morning of 17 March, the storm began to abate. The winds died away completely by 0500, though the harbor waters still churned. With the help of Samoan muscle, lines were made fast to the shore and the slow process of transferring Sailors to the land began. The effort soon spread to all ships in the harbor, American or German, though Teutonic suspicions of Sa-moan intentions limited the aid they received.

Foreign Domination Forestalled

The next days were a blur of activity as the injured were tended and efforts made to restore the wrecked vessels. Na-tional pride dictated that each country would repair one of its own. For the Americans it would be the Nipsic, for the Germans, the Olga. On 19 March, the Calliope returned


to Apia Harbor, her brave crewmen astonished at the destruction they had avoided. Besides the demolished war-ships, none of the merchant vessels had survived, though most of their crews had been sent ashore before the storm broke. The next day, with the Calliope’s help, one of Kimberly’s officers connected with an Auckland-bound steamer and a work-ing telegraph to the United States. By 30 March the story of the disaster was filling columns in U.S. newspapers.

Back in Apia Harbor, German and American work on ship repairs paused only for the sad duties of burial as bod-ies were found and identified, includ-ing that of the unfortunate Captain Schoonmaker. On 2 April the Olga, in company with a passing German passen-ger steamer, set off for Sydney. Fifteen days later the Nipsic weighed anchor and reached Auckland, though not without scary moments when some of the patchwork failed to hold up in the open sea. In the final tally, 86 German sailors perished in the storm and 60 Americans, for a total of 146 military lives lost. Added to that were one Samoan Samaritan and two merchant sea-men. In the harbor itself, most of the hulks were completely dismantled, while pieces of the Adler lingered for many years, a poignant reminder at low tide of the life-and-death drama that had played out in its usually placid waters. A stone me-morial outside Apia remembers the German casualties, while a Mare Island Navy Yard tablet notes the Americans lost.

At first it seemed that affairs in the Samoan Islands were to pick up where they had left off before the typhoon in-tervened. However, its awesome violence took much of the starch out of the foreign warriors. Kimberly managed to arrange for a truce while higher powers gathered in distant Berlin. It was decided that the islands would remain free of foreign domination. Laupepa was placed on the throne, Mataafa professed himself a loyal subject, and Tamasese was allowed to retire from public view. Ten years later, the three powers reconsidered their positions and reinserted themselves into Samoan affairs. By the Tripartite Conven-tion of 1899 Germany assumed control of the islands lying west of 171° latitude, and the Americans claimed oversight of those east of that line.

The three surviving ships met varied fates. The Olga lasted until 1908 when she was scrapped, while the Nipsic was decommissioned in 1890 and spent several years as a stationary barracks/prison before passing into private hands as a barge. A bit more glory awaited the heroic HMS Cal-liope, which took part in Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Review of the Fleet at Spithead in 1897. After reassign-

ment to various service duties, the ship lost her name for 16 years and then regained it for 22 more before being scrapped in 1953. Afterward, her helm was presented as a gift to the government of Western Samoa, which subse-quently passed it along to a New Zealand museum.

The events in Apia Harbor were still fresh on the mind of president Benjamin Harrison in his State of the Union Message in early December 1889. Terming the incident an “appalling calamity,” the president went on to praise the U.S. Sailors for what they had accomplished. “It is most gratify-ing,” he wrote, “to state that the credit of the American Navy for seamanship, courage, and generosity was magnificently sustained in the storm-beaten harbor of Apia.”8

1. Louis Ashfield Kimberly, Samoan Hurricane (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Foundation, 1965), quoted from online version at www.history.navy.mil/library/online/samoan.htm.2. Edwin p. Hoyt, The Typhoon that Stopped a War (New York: David McKay Company, 1968), p. 58.3. Everett Hayden, “The Samoan Hurricane of March, 1889,” U.S. Naval Insti-tute Proceedings, vol. 17, no. 2 (1891), p. 286.4. James William Carlin, Letter of 26 March 1889, Naval Historical Foundation papers (Library of Congress Manuscript Collection).5. Graham Wilson, “Glory for the Squadron: HMS Calliope in the Great Hur-ricane at Samoa 1889,” Journal of the Australian Naval Institute, May/July 1996, p. 52.6. The New York Times, 3 July 1889.7. Report of Rear Admiral L.A. Kimberly in Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy (1889); quoted from online version at www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq102-3.htm.8. Benjamin Harrison (3 December 1889), http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/101.html.

Other sources: John Alexander Clinton Gray, Amerika Samoa (Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval In-stitute, 1960).Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, Halsey’s Typhoon (New York: Grove press, 2007).Harrie Webster, “A personal Narrative of the Wreck of the ‘Vandalia’ at Samoa, March 16, 1889,” The United Service (October 1894).

After the storm, newspaper reporters and Navy men gathered on the island to pay their respects at the grave of Captain Cornelius M. Schoonmaker, commander of the Vandalia, who died in the Great Samoan Typhoon along with 148 others.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


‘Now, there’s a target I would like to blow up.”

In the closing months of World War II, Commander Eugene Fluckey saw a familiar scene through the peri-

scope: trains running up and down the remote eastern coast of Japan’s Karafuto Prefecture. As skipper of the USS Barb (SS-220) on patrol in the Okhotsk Sea, Fluckey watched the feathery stream of locomotive smoke against the mountains, trains no doubt loaded with troops and supplies to thwart an American invasion. But how could the Barb stop them?

Fluckey’s comment about wanting to blow up the target perked the ears of Chief of the Boat Paul Golden “Swish” Saunders. He had some ideas. At a plotting table the cap-tain unrolled a topographic map of the province showing the rail lines. Perhaps Barb Sailors in rubber boats could go ashore, plant explosives under the tracks, then detonate one of the sub’s scuttling charges under a moving train. Imagine, offered Saunders, the crew of a submarine “sink-ing” a train. The skipper smiled: “Well, let’s get on with it.”

The obvious choice for the mission was the COB him-self, a wiry 26-year-old Virginian who had earned his moniker quivering like a pointer dog as he “swished” back and forth directing the firepower of the Barb in surface gun action and rocket launches that were to revolutionize submarine warfare. Swish also had the rare distinction of

By Carl LaVO

An enlisted man with a thirst for action and a will to win, ‘Swish’ Saunders helped revolutionize how submarines could be used in war.

Sailor Who‘Torpedoed’Train

The

a

being on board the same submarine through 12 arduous war patrols—five in pursuit of German shipping in the Atlantic off Europe and seven against Japan in the Pacific. Most crewmen rotated to other subs after four or five patrols. Not Swish. Described by a fellow submariner as “a real salty Sailor, almost a character out of a paperback novel,” he possessed unflappable will to engage the enemy.

Would the plan to destroy a train work? Saunders was confident in his abilities from a long career in surface ships and submarines. But he was mindful of what could go

NATIONAL ArCHIVES

Paul Golden “Swish” Saunders brought a winning combination of guts and ingenuity to a fight; a shipmate compared him to “a character out of a paperback novel.” Swish was destined to become one of the Navy’s most decorated enlisted men.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


wrong—as it had during the Barb’s first war patrol, almost three years earlier.

Operation Torch

In support of the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch, the Barb was deployed in October to deliver scouts in rubber boats off the coast of Algiers. The commandos and the subs in Torch were outfit-ted with infrared beacons to mark the way to beachheads at Fedhala, Mehedia, Safi, and Algiers.

As a gunner’s mate in the Barb, Saunders was eager to be part of the action. Growing up in the backwater of Singing Glen in western Virginia in the 1930s, he yearned to be in the military as war overtook Europe. At 17, he tried to enlist in the French Foreign Legion but was too young. So he enlisted in the Navy and served in the USS Raleigh (CL-7), Sampson (DD-394), and McCook (DD-252), gaining experience at sea from Iceland to South America to the south of France. Lured by the additional danger and mystery of submarine duty, Saunders quali-fied in the coastal-defense sub R-4 (SS-81) and was on board the new fleet boat Barb at her commissioning in 1942. World War II was in full bore, and Operation Torch promised to put the Gato-class submarine and her gunner’s mate right in the middle of it.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as intended. Navigational problems and language differences beset the

invasion force and led to confusion. The Barb launched her five scouts to proceed to a bell buoy off the Safi dock. Because of inaccurate charts, the scouts had to paddle much farther than anticipated and got caught in a crossfire be-tween arriving Allied destroyers and shore batteries. The ships quickly secured the anchorage, however, and rescued the scouts unharmed.

For the next several months the Barb operated out of Scotland, conducting war patrols against blockade runners in the Bay of Biscay, where she sank a presumed Ger-man tanker. During the boat’s fifth patrol in the North Atlantic, Saunders came to the attention of the execu-tive officer, Lieutenant Commander Everett H. Steinmetz, after he told the then-chief of the boat to break in a new manifold operator (the enlisted man who controlled the dive). A day later, as the sub raced ahead on four main engines, lookouts spotted an enemy periscope and sounded the diving alarm. Normally, high-speed dives left less room for error and required practice. Steinmetz and the COB, realizing the new man was on the manifold, blanched. “The Chief of the Boat and I hit the control room from opposite directions,” Steinmetz recalled. “The trainee had executed his portion of the dive flawlessly. I qualified him then and there! I mention this because every man that made a patrol in Barb had the trainee as a shipmate. He was Swish Saunders.”

Dynamic Duo

After five unremarkable war patrols off Europe, the Barb moved to the pacific, where her first two patrols brought few successes. That abruptly changed when Eu-gene Fluckey, 33, the boat’s prospective commanding of-ficer, became skipper and picked Saunders to be his chief of the boat. At first the gunnery chief demurred: “Not me, Captain, no way. All the men are my friends. As chief of the boat I’d have to tell them off and discipline them. How could I do that?”

“Swish, I don’t want a bastard, I want a leader,” the skip-per later recalled saying. “We don’t drive men on board the Barb. We lead them. From my experience with bastards,


The intrepid Saunders was well-paired with his skipper in the Barb, Commander Eugene Fluckey, a kindred spirit when it came to taking the battle to the enemy. Above: Fluckey stands alongside the Barb’s fairwater after receiving the Navy Cross in December 1944. By war’s end he would garner the Medal of Honor, four Navy Crosses, and an unmatched sunken-tonnage total for World War II sub captains.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


they achieve about equal results. But there’s one big dif-ference. When you lead men, they ship over and want to stay with you.”

Saunders worried about making a mistake as COB. “So you goof,” said Fluckey. “Don’t hide it or cover up. Do your best to correct your mistakes and don’t be afraid to ask for help from anyone from top to bottom. You’ll find people are complimented when you ask for help. In submarines we hang our rates on the gangway when we come aboard. It’s what you can do that counts with me.”

The deal was struck. “Swish never viewed himself as anything but an enlisted

man, even though he was COB,” according to Neal Sever, the boat’s signalman. “I never saw him pull rank on any of us, nor did I ever hear any of us bitch about Swish. He was pleasant and treated us as his equal.”

But that wasn’t to say he was a pushover. According to Barb Torpedo and Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Max Dun-can: “Swish was all business on his watches and positions such as chief of the watch on the hyudraulic manifold or gun/rocket launcher captain. He dealt with people with a velvet glove. It was the glove when needed but always calm and deliberate.”

Swish retained his camaraderie with the men, kidded around with them, and “drank his share of grog” with them on liberty, as Sever put it. But first and foremost on Saun-ders’ mind was fighting the enemy and manning the guns. When it came to that, the Barb’s skipper and the chief of the boat made a dynamic duo. “The combination of Commander Eugene B. Fluckey and ‘Swish’ Saunders was like electricity,” said one shipmate. “They were both of the same mold. ‘Attack and Destroy’ was their motto.” That lethal combination quickly made the Barb one of the most successful submarines sent against Japan.

Action in the Pacific

In the boat’s first four patrols under Fluckey, she sank the escort carrier Unyo, the frigate Gorkuko, and nu-merous other vessels. The Barb also rescued Australian and British prisoners of war shipwrecked for days and near death in the South China Sea. Saunders and others took turns diving into typhoon-roiled waters to pull 14 survivors aboard.

On the boat’s 11th war patrol off the east coast of China in January 1945, Fluckey discovered secluded Namkwan Harbor, where 30 or more Japanese ships were at anchor. The skipper decided to gamble by taking the sub into the shallow harbor after midnight for a surprise surface attack. Amid confusion over where the attack was coming from, the sub would dash for open seas through uncharted waters to safety 20 miles offshore. As Fluckey put it in an address to his crew, “OK, it is now time to take one of our well-known calculated risks.”

Saunders later described the scene, recalling it from his control-room vantage as the Barb inched past three roving destroyers: “We creep in. You can’t hear a thing but the fathometer pinging, and she says six fathoms. We could almost get out and walk. Everybody’s heart is doing flip-flops. The pickles are all set.”

Two minutes later, Fluckey gave the order to fire four torpedoes from the boat’s bow tubes, then brought the sub around to fire the “fish” in the four stern tubes. Eight tor-pedoes raced ahead. The harbor erupted in exploding ships and fireballs and return gunfire directed at phantom air-craft. No one could believe a sub had attacked; the harbor was too shallow. The Barb, meanwhile, raced for safety at 23 knots while using radar to plot a zig-zag course through a fleet of Chinese junks, all the while pursued by a destroyer lobbing shells at the retreating submarine. The ship gave up after a 30-minute chase. Noted Fluckey in his patrol log: “The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast crossed the 20-fathom curve with a sigh. Never realized how much water that was before. However, life begins at forty (fath-oms). Kept going.”

For the boat’s daring, the crew earned a Presidential Unit Citation and Fluckey the nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor.

For her 12th and last war patrol, the Barb was deployed from Pearl Harbor to the north coast of Japan. Fluckey’s or-ders were “to raise a rumpus” by attacking shipping wherever it was found. But attacking enemy vessels wasn’t the only thing the skipper contemplated. He was intent on proving that a submarine could be used to fire what he called “bal-listic missiles.” Before casting off, he requisitioned 72 five-inch spin-stabilized rockets, each tipped with ten pounds of explosives. A simple rocket launcher was bolted to the forward gun mount and could be raised to a 45-degree angle to simultaneously fire a dozen four-foot-long MK10 rockets, each of which had a range of nearly three miles.

The skipper got his chance to make history on the night of 22 June 1945, as the sub slid unnoticed into the harbor of Shari, a city of 20,000 on the coast of Hokkaido. At Fluckey’s signal, Swish and the gunnery crew unstrapped the rocket launcher, raised it to the desired angle, and ran an electrical line to a firing switch in the conning tower. On the bridge above, the skipper flipped his polar-ized goggles to their darkest setting and barked the order, “Rockets away!” An explosion of blue-white flame lit the deck. A dozen rockets lifted off and disappeared into the night sky. A minute later, several buildings in a factory district burst into flames. It was the first such rocket attack in submarine history.

The Barb made good her escape and raced for the west-ern side of the Okhotsk Sea off Karafuto, where both the skipper and the COB relished a fresh opportunity to wreak havoc—by blowing up a train.


Attack of the ‘Land Torpedo’

The captain convened a meeting in the wardroom. Eight men were chosen to undertake the mission and divided into two teams, one each for the sub’s two inflatable rubber boats. Lieutenant Bill Walker, the Barb’s engineering officer and group leader, would lead one boat, Swish Saunders the other. All were selected for their communications and Boy Scout skills. In case they couldn’t make it back to the submarine, Fluckey wanted them to have a fighting chance to live off the land. He had them practice bird whistles as a means of signaling each other in the dark.

Saunders and Bill Hatfield, the boat’s third-class electri-cian’s mate, fashioned a 55-pound bomb out of a scuttling charge that they wired to three dry-cell batteries and placed in an empty pickle can. Saunders christened the device a “land torpedo.” Since it was agreed the team could not wait around to set off the bomb, Hatfield, who had worked on a railroad, devised a micro-switch detonator bolted to a wooden wedge to be snugged up tight under the rails. He knew the massive weight of a locomotive would exert enough downward pressure to trigger the switch.

On the moonless night of 23 July, Fluckey gave the go-ahead. With the sub surfaced 950 yards from the beach, the teams set out. The commandos—Walker, Saunders, Hatfield (the only married man), signalman Sever, motor machinist Jim Richard, ship’s cook Larry Newland, auxil-iary man John Markuson, and torpedoman Edward Klingle-smith—were well equipped. They carried red-lens flash-lights, watches, knives, D-rations, inflatable life jackets, cigarette lighters, a signal gun, binoculars, electrical wire, the demolition charge, carbines, tommy guns, and hand grenades. The skipper emphasized the sub would wait no more than three hours—just 15 minutes before the first glimmer of dawn, when the boat would be exposed.

“Boys,” the skipper said, “if you get stuck, head for Siberia 130 miles north. Follow the mountain ranges. Good luck.”

Dangerous Work in the Dark

The teams used compass bearings in the ink-black night to reach the beach. Leaving two men to guard the boats, the six others sprinted between two homes, stumbled through two drainage ditches, thickets, and across a high-way to reach the railroad. Three split off along the tracks on guard duty. Three others—Walker, Saunders, and Hat-field—bent to the task of hollowing out stone from under the rails for the explosive.

Before too long they heard someone running toward them. Hatfield picked up his weapon.

“Take it easy!” whispered Swish. “At this time of night there’s no one running up this track except a scared Ameri-can.”

It was one of their sentries, reporting a guard shack down the line with someone sleeping inside. Moments later, a locomotive came rumbling out of the dark. The men hit the ground, lying motionless alongside the track as the train passed, its engineer hanging out of the cab, looking down.

With renewed urgency, Hatfield connected the charge to the switch detonator. All six then dashed for the boats and paddled furiously toward the Barb. They were halfway to the sub when they heard the sound of a northbound train. On the sub’s bridge, Fluckey grabbed a megaphone. “paddle like the devil!” he yelled. “We’re leaving!”

Seconds later, the bomb went off, throwing wreckage 200 feet into the air. Cars piled into one another and lurched off the tracks in a screeching mass of twisted, rolling metal.

Silhouetted in the fireworks, the jubilant saboteurs reached the Barb and went below as the sub disappeared into the depths.


The Barb saw service in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, completed 12 war patrols, and boasted a remarkably successful career. She came through it all without a single casualty.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


Over the next few nights, the Barb moved up the coast and launched her remaining 30 rockets at the factory town of Shiritori, destroying Japan’s largest paper factory. Enam-ored of the sub’s utility attacking beach targets, Swish used the boat’s 5-inch deck gun to obliterate a leather-tanning factory that made pilot uniforms, and later directed the boat’s gunnery to set a shipyard afire. Additional action all around the rim of the Okhotsk destroyed many small craft and medium-sized ships to conclude one of the most audacious submarine patrols of World War II.

On 2 August 1945 the Barb returned to Midway Atoll, where the Navy awarded Fluckey a fourth Navy Cross. The skipper noted his submarine had endured an estimated 400 shells, bombs, and depth charges and some very narrow escapes in her last five patrols. But the boat had come through it all without a single casualty.

In a final accounting, the Navy credited Fluckey with sinking 17 ships totaling 94,409 tons—number 1 in ton-nage sunk among all American sub captains in the war.

An Undying Spirit of Adventure

The Navy honored Swish Saunders as one of the service’s most decorated enlisted men. His awards included two Sil-ver Stars, one Bronze Star, a Presidential Unit Citation, a Navy Unit commendation, a Letter of Commendation with Ribbon in recognition of his heroic actions in com-

bat during the World War II, the Submarine Combat pin, the Victory Medal, the American Theater Medal, and the Philppine Liberation Medal.

After the war, Saunders remained in the forefront of submarine missile development. He became chief of the boat in the Cusk (SS-348), which experimented with Ger-man Loon rockets. As COB in the Carbonero (SS-337), he helped develop the Regulus launch system. By the early 1960s, he was COB in the Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), where he helped perfect Polaris missile launches. It was the

ultimate realization of a dream that Swish and Gene Fluckey shared as pioneers in that last patrol of the Barb.

Saunders’ spirit of adventure lived on after his retirement in 1962. He began a professional auto-racing career in California and Mexico, and earned his pi-lot’s license. When landing at the wrong airport, he famously quipped, “A malfunction of the depth gauge caused a miscalcu-lation of the depth and sank one aircraft.”

His wartime exploits and those of the Barb live on. A few years ago, the head of the Navy SEALs was asked why there were always eight men in a SEAL team rather than six or ten or a dozen. The admiral replied that the Barb had used an eight-man team for the first assault landing on the Japanese home islands. “It worked,” he said, “so eight is the number!”

Looking back on his naval career prior to his death in August 2003, Saunders described his many adventures as the product of his youth. His own welfare was secondary to helping win the war against Germany and Japan and making the Silent Service indomitable in defense of the United States. As he put it regarding the dangers he faced in the war, “I was a lot younger in those days.”

Sources:Captain Max Duncan, USN (Ret.), interview with the author.San Francisco Chapter, U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II, “Simon Sez,” Polaris, April 1969, p 15.Paul G. Saunders biographical sketch, Sharkhunters International, www.shark-hunters.com/EPSaunders.htm.Paul G. Saunders obituary, United States Submarine Veterans Inc., 8 August 2003, www.nautilusbase.us/Patrol.html.Captain Everett H. Steinmetz, USN (Ret.), “USS Barb (SS-220) and Subron 50,” Polaris, June 1998, www.subvetpaul.com/SAGA_6_98.htm.

NAVAL HISTORy & HERITAGE COMMAND

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Historic Fleets

The wooden steam sloop Pawnee pounded toward the South Carolina coast through heavy seas and gale-force winds in

the early hours of 12 April 1861. The weather and darkness made it difficult to distinguish landmarks, but the warship’s commanding officer, 52-year-old Commander Stephen C. Rowan, recorded his arrival “as near the position assigned me as the badness of the weather would allow me to judge.” Once in position off Charleston Harbor, Rowan ordered his men to quarters and the guns loaded with shell.

The packet steamer Baltic drew near in the storm, bringing with her “Captain”

Gustavus Vasa Fox, who was eager to set his brainchild—the relief of Fort Sumter—into motion. (See story, p. 18.)The Pawnee’s captain, however, when told of Fox’s intent to proceed apace with the mission, said his orders required him to await the arrival of the sidewheel steamer Powhatan. (Unbeknownst to either man, the latter had been ordered elsewhere.)

Then, in reply to Fox’s invitation to stand in toward the bar, Rowan responded firmly that he “was not going in there and inaugurate civil war.”

Commander Rowan, a native of Ireland, was a seasoned seaman, having won appointment as a midshipman in

By Robert J. Cressman

Eyewitness to the Fall of Fort Sumter

1826. His ship, however, was a relatively new addition to the Navy. Laid down in October 1858 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Pawnee slid down the launching ways on 8 October 1859. Miss Grace Tyler christened the ship with a bottle of claret broken on the figurehead of “a great Pawnee chief.” She was commissioned at her building yard, Commander Henry J. Hartstene in command.

Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey had recommended ten steamers of “light draft, great speed and heavy guns” in his annual report of 1857. Congress authorized eight—seven screw sloops and one sidewheeler—on 12 June 1858. Of

the sloops, four were to draw 13 feet, three were to draw 10. John Willis Griffiths received a government appointment to design the largest of the three ships ordered to the latter specification. The 49-year-old son of a New York shipwright and an innovative naval architect in his own right, Griffiths designed a screw steamer of greater length and beam than her near-sisters, which, when fully outfitted, drew less than the 10-foot draft specified. People identified the Pawnee so closely with her designer that some referred to her as “the Griffiths ship.”

The Pawnee’s main battery consisted of four XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and

eight IX-inch Dahlgrens. The former were iron guns, each weighing 15,700 pounds that could hurl a 136-pound shell nearly a mile (1,712 yards) with a 15-pound charge, and 1,975 yards with a 20-pound charge. An experienced crew could fire one round every 1.74 minutes for an hour; over a three-hour span the time increased to 2.86 minutes per round. In a real emergency, a good crew could fire a round every 1.33 minutes. The IX-inchers, also of iron, each weighed 9,000 pounds and could hurl a 72.5-pound projectile 1,740 yards, or 75-pound shrapnel 1,690 yards, in both cases using a 10-pound charge.

The Philadelphia firm of Reaney and Neafie, under the supervision of Chief Engineer William W. W. Wood and R. H. Lang, constructed the Pawnee’s engines. A pair of horizontal direct-acting cylinders, measuring 65 inches in diameter by a 36-inch stroke, drove a 7-foot-3-inch master gear wheel, asymmetrically installed just off the centerline to port, which in turn drove two smaller pinions 2 feet, 11 inches in diameter. Unlike the other steamers in the 1858 budget, which had single screws, her propulsion plant drove twin four-bladed screws, each 9 feet in diameter. She could make 10 knots top speed. Given the heavy battery and the weight of the engines needed to drive two screws, Griffiths designed the ship with a concave hull form.

The Pawnee sailed on 14 September 1860 for the Gulf of Mexico, with Flag Officer George J. Pendergrast embarked. Arriving off Vera Cruz, Mexico, on 15 October, she operated with the Home Squadron for less than two months, returning to Philadelphia shortly before Christmas of 1860 to be placed “in ordinary”—a noncommissioned status—soon after her arrival. But she was recommissioned on 31 December, Lieutenant Samuel Marcy in command.

Amid growing tensions between North and South, Rowan relieved Marcy on 18 January 1861. By that time four slave states had seceded from the Union; three more were to follow suit within a fortnight. Although married to a Virginian and fond of the South, Rowan stood firmly loyal to the Union.

The political crisis worsened, and within a few weeks Fox, a former naval

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

A view, looking aft, from the Pawnee’s forecastle, where a bewhiskered old salt poses with the ship’s single 100-pounder Parrott rifle circa 1863-64. The starboard battery of four IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores can be seen in the background. Awnings shade her deck, and crewmen can be seen sitting amidships.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


Ultimately, the Sumter force that Fox had wanted to resupply ended up being embarked in the Baltic on 15 April. The badly battered fort had been surrendered to Confederate forces and duly occupied. As the flag that had flown over Sumter’s ramparts snapped in the wind from the Baltic’s main truck that afternoon, the Pawnee’s men joined in three hearty cheers for the Stars and Stripes.

But the war was not over for the Pawnee, which went on to see considerable service during the conflict. She retained her eight IX-inch Dahlgrens

for the rest of the war. By 5 May 1863 she also mounted a 100-pounder Parrott r i f le—capable of firing solid shot and l o n g s h e l l s — a n d a 50-pounder Dahlgren. For a brief period in 1864, she mounted four additional IX-inchers. Soon after hosti l it ies ended, the P a w n e e c a r r i e d o n e light 12-pounder and a 24-pounder howitzer.

Naval historian K. Jack Bauer praised the Pawnee as “a notable sea boat,” but contended that “her

machinery [had been] poorly built.” Eventually, the excessive cost attendant to repairs of her engines prompted their removal in 1869-70. The Pawnee served as a floating store- and hospital-ship until July 1874, then a receiving ship, and ended her days as a store-ship at Port Royal, South Carolina. There, on 3 May 1884, she was sold to M. H. Gregory of Great Neck, New York, for $6,011.

officer, commander of merchantmen, and manufacturer, was presenting a plan to Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott in Washington, D.C., for the relief of Fort Sumter. Fox chose the Pawnee for inclusion, reasoning that she was “the only available steam vessel of war north of the Gulf of Mexico . . . [with] heavy guns.” He had also noted that “As a steamer she seems to be a failure, but she may be got ready for this emergency; at least she is, unfortunately our only resource.”

The Pawnee sailed from Washington on the morning of 6 April 1861, reaching Norfolk the next day to take on the supplies made ready for her. After his Bluejackets had stowed them, Rowan planned to sail at daylight on 9 April, but a heavy gale, blowing since the previous Sunday, delayed departure until the following morning.

Now, two days later, he and Fox’s little flotilla were off Charleston. The Baltic , carrying the Sumter-bound supplies, and accompanied by the revenue cutter Harriet Lane, began

standing toward the h a r b o r e n t r a n c e . Rowan ordered hi s ship’s launch and one of the cutters “readied and armed for the purpose.”

Only then did those in the relief squadron hear cannon fire and

realize that the fort was under attack (as it had been for a time) and the war Rowan had not wanted to inaugurate had, in fact, begun. As the Baltic stood out, Captain

Fox noted the Pawnee standing in. Rowan hailed Fox, saying that if he could get a pilot, he would take his ship in and share the fate of his Army brethren. As the guns bombarding Sumter thundered in the distance, Fox went on board the Pawnee and convinced Rowan that “the Government did not expect any such gallant sacrifice” of sharing whatever awaited the Army.

Pawnee-class wooden-hull steam sloop-of-war, second rateDisplacement 1,533 tons

Length 233 feet (overall)

Beam 47 feet

Draft 11 feet (mean)

Armament (1860) Four XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores

Eight IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbores

Complement 151 officers and men and Marines

J. M. CAIELLA

The steam-powered Pawnee was launched in October 1859 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. She was built at a cost of $457,151.12.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

J. M. CAIELLA

THE STEAM NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES, BY FRANK M. BENNETT

This cutaway elevation of the Pawnee shows her asymmetrically mounted master wheel (c) and her unusual concave hull.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •


In Contact continued from page 9

Robert Stern

Regarding James Hornfischer’s article, I believe a few clarifying comments would be useful.

While it adds to the drama to state that neither the Washington (BB-56) nor South Dakota (BB-57) “was put through the usual round of sea trials prior to deployment,” this is not in fact the case. The South Dakota, the newer of the two, had put in two months of shakedown between the beginning of June 1942 and the end of July, and had a three-week-long post-shakedown yard period before departing for the South Pacific. The Washington, which had been in commis-sion since May 1941, had spent the period between March and July 1942 operating with the Royal Navy from Scapa Flow and Hvalfjordur.

Describing a night action is always dif-ficult, and describing one in which several of the participants were sunk even more so, but a little clarification of the order in which events happened among the four van destroyers would help. In particular, it would be difficult to explain how the explosion of the Preston’s fire rooms, which

occurred a few minutes before she rolled over at 2337, could have rained oil and debris on the Benham after she was tor-pedoed in the bow at 2338. It is possible that the clocks on the Benham and Preston were not set identically or that after-the-fact reporting might misstate the timing of events by a few minutes.

Still, the only way the debris and oil from “Preston ahead” could fall on the Benham, which had been ahead of the Preston in line, is to note, as Hornfischer did not, that the Benham turned back briefly toward the sinking Preston. Some sources say this was done to aid the Preston, others that it was done to escape concen-trated gunfire. But regardless, the Benham’s CO found his ship rapidly losing speed and increasingly difficult to control and decided to turn back again, away from the Preston and from the Japanese.

‘The Kid’s’ War Service

Lieutenant Commander Robert L. Bratman, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)

In Paul Stillwell’s “Looking Back” (“A Night at the Ballpark,” February, p. 6), he states that Jerry Coleman was a Marine Corps pilot and “the only major-league player who fought in combat in

both World War II and the Korean War.” Wrong! Try Ted Williams, who also flew in combat in both World War II and Korea as a Marine Corps pilot. There are prob-ably others, but Williams, for obvious rea-sons, stands out.

Mr. Stillwell responds:

Ted Williams joined the Boston Red Sox in 1939 and began a spectacular baseball career. In 1941 he compiled a batting aver-age of .406; no player has had an aver-age that high in the succeeding 70 years. At the time he was classified 3-A in draft status because he provided sole support for his mother. When World War II came in late 1941, he was reclassified as 1-A, fit to be drafted. Williams protested and regained his previous status. But public opinion was against him, so the stubborn Williams enlist-ed in the Navy in May 1942 and entered the V-5 flight-training program.

He earned his wings as a naval aviator and a commission in the Marine Corps Reserve in May 1944. The exceptional eyesight that served him so well as a hitter in baseball also made him very capable as an aerial gunner. After he was commissioned he served as a flight instructor at

In Contact continued on page 70

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the Pensacola Naval Air Station. In the sum-mer of 1945 he received operational training in the F4U Corsair fighter.

Had the war lasted longer than it did, Williams probably would have gotten into combat because he received orders for duty overseas. Instead, the Japanese ceased hos-tilities in August 1945 and formally surren-dered the following month. Williams left active duty in early 1946, rejoined the Red Sox, and played in that year’s World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. During the Korean War a few years later, Williams was recalled to active duty and served as an F9F Panther pilot in combat. In February 1953 he barely escaped being killed in a crash landing after his air-craft was damaged as a result of being hit over North Korea. He left active duty in July 1953 and rejoined the Red Sox, for whom he played until 1960.

McCampbell’s Famous Nephew

Captain James E. Wise Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired)

Concerning “Hellcat Ace in a Day—Twice!” (February, pp. 18–23), Captain McCampbel l is a major player in the “Wayne Morris” chapter of Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America’s Sea Service, which I coauthored with Anne Rehi l l (Nava l Institute Press, 1997). The following is based on an excerpt from the chapter.

During World War II, one Hollywood star not only got into the action but became an air ace: Bert DeWayne Morris J r. , popular ly known as Wayne Morris. He flew Hellcats off the USS Essex (CV-9) as a member of “Fighting Fifteen.” Following flight train-ing and receiving his wings, Morris was initially assigned as a flight instructor at NAS Hutchinson, Kansas. Determined to see action, he requested assignment to a fighter squadron. His request got him transferred to Jacksonville, Florida, not for fighter duty but for PBY training. He hand delivered a second request to the Bureau of Naval Personnel, again request-ing assignment to a fighter squadron, and with a little help from his wife’s uncle—

David McCampbell—he was transferred to VF-15.

Morris was credited with downing seven Japanese aircraft and survived the war. Three of the Hellcats he flew had to be pushed over the side because they were too shot up to be of further use. On release from the Navy in 1945, he resumed his film career, appearing in sev-eral movies and on television in the late 1940s and early ’50s.

In 1959 the USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-11) pulled into Oakland, California, where the ship’s skipper, then-Captain David McCampbell, invited Bert and other ex-squadron mates to come aboard for a short cruise and breakfast. After eating a hearty meal, Morris climbed five lad-ders to the bridge, where he collapsed and died. His remains now rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

Editor’s note: In his U.S. Naval Institute oral history, McCampbell recalled that there were few good movies in the Essex’s wardroom for officers to watch during down time:

Captain McCampbell: I remember we got ahold of one movie, a Wayne Morris movie, Kid Galahad, and they must have shown that six or eight times.Paul Stillwell: Since he was on board.Captain McCampbell: Yes. [Laughter] He got real fed up with that. He told the exec that he’d had enough of seeing his own movie: “Please get something else.”

COURTESY OF CAPTAIN JAMES E. WISE JR., USN (RET)

During World War II, then–Commander David McCampbell (left) had his movie-star relative, Lieutenant Bert “Wayne” Morris (right), transferred to his fighter squadron. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Naval History News continued from page 11

Seeking the Revenge of PerryNew England divers announced in

January that they have discovered what they believe is the shipwreck of the U.S. Navy schooner Revenge, which sank off the Rhode Island coast in 1811. Her skipper? A young lieutenant named Oliver Hazard Perry, who soon moved on to bigger and better things.

While en route from Newport, Rhode Island, to New London, Connecticut, the Revenge hit a reef in a storm, ran aground, and was abandoned. Perry was absolved of responsibility in the

ensuing court of inquiry (the pilot took the blame). After a leave of absence, Perry returned to service and assumed command of the U.S. naval force on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. On 10 September 1813, he earned his place in the pantheon of American naval heroes with his “Don’t give up the ship” victory at the Battle of Lake Erie.

As the divers who made the recent shipwreck discovery mused when making their announcement, the wreck of the Revenge in a sense altered the course of naval history by altering the career trajectory of Perry, indirectly setting the

AP

A cannon may mark the spot where Oliver Hazard Perry’s ship went down: New England divers say they have located the wreck of the Revenge.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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stage for his Lake Erie billet and his date with destiny.

One of the divers, Charles Buffum, said he had been fascinated with stories of the Revenge wreck since childhood. He and his fellow ship-hunters actually first knew they were onto something in 2005, when they located a cannon; since then they have found four more cannon, an anchor, and enough other artifacts that they are now “99 percent sure” that this is the Revenge site. A true “smoking gun” identifier, such as a ship’s bell, has yet to turn up, however. Meanwhile, the discoverers have notified Naval History & Heritage Command of the find.

Naval Air Station Pensacola on 20 January kicked off a year’s worth of celebrations in honor of the centennial of naval aviation. The event featured the fly-by of a vintage-painted T-39 Saberliner and speeches to mark the opening of 2011 festivities.

Rear Admira l Joseph Ki lkenny, Commander, Naval Education and

Training Command, addressed a crowd of more than 500 people: “In this year of 2011, we absolutely know how aviation positively impacts our maritime forces, and is essential to the defense of our republic.

“That was not always the case. In 1901 Rear Admiral George Melville wrote in the North American Review that neither the dirigible airship nor the powered flying machine would ever prove of any use commercially, let alone in warfare. Rear Admiral Melville called flight ‘wholly unwarranted if not absurd.’ Well, nobody ever said making admiral gives you wisdom.”

Other speakers at the event included C a p t a i n C h r i s t o p h e r P l u m m e r, commanding officer of NAS Pensacola, and Florida Governor Rick Scott.

The Navy o f f i c i a l l y da te s the beginning of its aviation element to 8 May 1911, when the service’s first aircraft were requisitioned. Marine


Corps aviation dates its birth to 22 May 1912, when First Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham reported for duty as the first Marine Corps aviator.

The 20 January date for Pensacola’s kickoff was selected to coincide with the arrival of the team who would develop the first training program and base. As Captain Plummer noted in his address to the crowd, “Today marks the exact day 97 years ago—20 January 1914—in the spot where Lieutenant John H. Towers and Lieutenant Commander Henry C. Mustin landed in Pensacola.”

Towers was the officer-in-charge of an aviation unit from the U.S. Naval Academy, consisting of nine officers and 23 Sailors who arrived on board the battleship Mississippi and cargo ship Orion to set up a Navy flying school at Pensacola.

“This cadre of naval officers and Sailors erected what became known as the cradle of naval aviation,” said Plummer. “The rest is history.”

A Call for Cold War PapersThe John A. Adams Center at the Virginia

Military Institute has announced that, for the seventh year, it will award prizes for the best unpublished papers dealing with the U.S. military in the Cold War era (1945–91).

Any aspect of the Cold War military is eligible subject matter, with papers on war planning, operations, intelligence, logistics, and mobilization especially welcome. Essays that relate the Korean and Southeast Asian conflicts to the larger Cold War are also open for consideration.

The first-place prizes are a plaque and a cash award of $2,000; second place garners $1,000 and a plaque; third place will receive $500 and a plaque.

Entries should be tendered to the Adams Center at VMI by 31 July. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word and limited to a maximum of 25 pages of double-spaced text (exclusive of documentation and bibliography).

Over the summer, a panel of judges will examine all papers. The Adams Center will announce the winners in the fall. Award-winning entries will be considered for publication by the Journal of Military History. In addition, the Adams Center will post select papers on its Web site, pending authors’ permissions.

Submissions and questions should be directed to: Director, John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis, c/o Deneise P. Shafer, Department of History, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA 24450; [email protected]; 540/464-7447/7338; fax 540/464-7246.

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Book Reviews Passport Not Required: U.S. Volunteers in the Royal Navy, 1939-1941

Eric Dietrich-Berryman, Charlotte Hammond, and R. E. White. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010. 186 pp. Illus. Index. $27.95.

Reviewed by John HattendorfAll Americans who have visited the

famous Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, England, during the past 70 years will probably have noticed the intriguing floor stone with the inscription, “15 June 1941. On this day came three citizens of the United States of America, the first of their countrymen to become Sea Officers of the Royal Navy.” The three authors of Passport Not Required have long been enticed by the unanswered questions that the inscribed stone has posed: Who were these officers? Were there others? How did they manage to do this? What became of them?

For most naval historians, the story of the Americans who volunteered to serve as officers in the Royal Navy at the out-break of World War II has been known only through the single account that one of them, Alex Cherry, published in 1951 titled, Yankee, R.N. This new slim volume provides further valuable infor-mation about this fascinating episode in Anglo-American cooperation during that war.

The authors show that there were 22 American citizens commissioned in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) during the period of American neutrality in the first phase of the war. The June 1941 date on the Greenwich stone mere-ly indicates when three of them came to Greenwich for training. The first of those who joined the RNVR was William Taylor, who was commissioned on 14 September 1939; the last of the group was Peter Morison, commissioned on 10 November 1941.

The Americans’ personalities, back-grounds, experiences in the Royal Navy, and subsequent careers were as diverse as those of any group of naval volunteers. The one who went furthest in the U.S. Navy on his return was Draper Kaufman, who subsequently became famous for organizing the first U.S. naval under-

water demolition team that became the forerunner of present-day SEAL teams and eventually became a rear admiral in 1960. Peter Morison was the only son of the famous Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

John Parker, one of the three com-memorated on the Greenwich stone, was commissioned 7 June 1941. Parker was quickly assigned to serve in HMS Broadwater (H-81), originally the American-built Clemson-class flush-deck four-piper USS Mason (DD-191) that had been transferred to the Royal Navy in the Destroyers for Bases Agreement in 1940. On 17 October 1941, U-101 sank the Broadwater 400 miles south of Iceland while she was guarding an American convoy. Among those who lost their lives was Parker, the first American citizen to die in combat as a British naval officer.

The authors also relate the sub-sequent commemoration of these Americans through a supplemen-tary memorial, which was dedicat-ed at Greenwich in October 2001 to record the names of all 22 Americans and a memorial to the Broadwater in Chichester Cathedral.

This useful work is a welcome con-tribution to the literature on Anglo-American naval cooperation that serves both as an excellent supplement to Cherry’s classic 1951 account, as well as a

remembrance of all the men who volun-teered for this unusual service.

Dr. Hattendorf is Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, chairman of the Maritime History Department, and director of the Naval War College Museum at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Beyond: A Mud Marine’s Memoir of the Pacific Island War

William W. Rogal. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010. 214 pp. Illus. Bib. Index. $29.95.

Reviewed by Richard FrankIf I were asked to identify a model

combat memoir, this would be it. William W. Rogal has a great story, and he tells it deftly. He shrewdly incorporates other sources for essential background to his personal experiences. He is ever mindful of his comrades, often detailing the exact circumstances of wounds and deaths. Finally, he comprehends that it is far bet-ter to leave the reader wishing for more than to leave him looking ahead to see how much more there is left to read.

As did so many Marines of that era, Rogal grew up during the Depression in humble circumstances. Contemporary adventure stories stoked a lust for travel that he thought pointed him to the Navy in 1940, with no thought of the coming war. But a friend redirected him into the Marine Corps with the bit of misinforma-tion that the Marines on ships “boss the Sailors around.”

He warmly recalls his “all busi-ness” Parris Island boot camp instruc-tors. Initial duty with the 5th Marines morphed into service in Merritt “Red Mike” Edson’s embryonic raider bat-talion. He then found himself among a detachment sent from Edson to help establish Evans Carlson’s raider battalion. Carlson and Rogal instantly achieved a mutual dislike. Hence, Rogal swiftly found himself in the newly forming A Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marines.

Now-corporal Rogal took charge of a Browning automatic rifle squad as his regiment loaded out for what proved to be Guadalcanal. Here Rogal airs a major


motivation for his memoirs: a well-found-ed conviction that the Guadalcanal con-tribution of 2d Marines rarely gets its due. Yet even as his outfit’s champion, he is ever careful with the facts of both his and his regiment’s actual experiences.

In smooth prose, Rogal candidly nar-rates the relatively peripheral role his starving battalion played on Florida and Tulagi islands prior to permanent transfer to Guadalcanal in November 1942. While his combat experiences are amply riveting in themselves, his narra-tive affords a thoughtful study on com-bat psychology and particularly combat leadership. He identifies the overarching aspiration of his comrades as “survival with honor.” It was the “with honor” that fueled the engine of effectiveness. His saddest day of service occurred when his first platoon leader proved a coward.

In his initial encounter with face-to-face combat, he killed five Japanese. This evokes no shame or sorrow, but likewise no sense of elation or victory. As his unit’s roll dwindled alarmingly from com-bat losses and disease, Rogal found his assignments increasing in responsibility, but he acknowledges that “[a]s a troop leader I felt obligated to exhibit uncon-cern and a savoir-faire I certainly didn’t feel.” He earned his highest personal decoration, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, by rescuing a pilot from the sea. As to this, he confesses, “I have always been apathetic about it, for Marines get paid to kill people, not save them.”

There followed a period of recupera-tion in New Zealand before Tarawa. Rogal, now a platoon sergeant, was wounded on the harrowing run into

the beach in an LVT (landing vehicle tracked) where one man was decapitat-ed by a Japanese shell. On that famous beachhead replete with chaos he did his best at least to get his small command moving beyond the breakwater to engage the enemy.

After a protracted hospitalization, Rogal returned to his unit. He narrates the campaigns on Saipan and Tinian in roughly the same space he gives Tarawa. Just as he sensed his relative luck was running out (he was wounded again on Saipan), Rogal benefited from the pol-icy of returning men with two years of overseas service to the States. There he trained new Marines for combat and mar-ried the wonderful woman he met before shipping out to the Pacific. The service memoirs conclude with his postwar tour in China. After discharge, he went on to secure an undergraduate and law degree and worked for decades as a lawyer.

Anyone who has read many personal accounts of World War II service will find this one truly outstanding, not just in its intrinsic interest but also in the care and craft of the author.

Mr. Frank is the author of the award-winning Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (Random House, 1990) and Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1999). He was a consultant for the HBO miniseries “The Pacific” and is working on a trilogy about the Asian-Pacific War from 1937 to 1945.

Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812-1815

Stephen Budiansky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 422 pp. Maps. Illus. Bib. Index. $35.

Reviewed by Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Stephen Budiansky’s book is on the leading edge of what undoubtedly will be a wave of works about the War of 1812. His opus may not be forgotten in the crowd, for he has taken an unusual approach: Sea battles are not its focus. Instead, he traces the course of the war through the politics and strategies of each side and the impact of events on them, as well as the logistical and financial prob-lems, the changing public attitudes, and the personalities of those involved. The actual combat is a sideshow.

Opening with a brief review of the com-bat origin of the U.S. Navy during the First Barbary War, the author takes up the British perception of America as a crude,

embryonic nation with little to recom-mend it and certainly unworthy of respect, and contrasts it with the young nation still finding its way but with the revolution-ary fires still smoldering. The two views inevitably cause tensions and incidents, particularly as Britain is in a life-and-death struggle with France and will go to almost any length to ensure victory. And so the course is set for confrontation over “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights.”

Britain began the war with the hope of bringing it to an end through diplo-macy. The United States began with the expectation of gaining Canada. Both sides were mistaken. Not surprisingly, the British turned to a strategy of blockade, with which they had had so much suc-cess against France. The coastline to be blockaded and its distance from home bases made that almost impossible and required much greater resources than had been anticipated. For the Americans, the incompetency of their generals aside, the unwelcome truth was that the Canadians weren’t interested in leaving the empire. Budiansky paints a number of interesting portraits of the reactions of political and military leaders on both sides and their responses to the realities of the situation.

When the author turns to actual opera-tions his treatment becomes sketchy, per-haps betraying a lack of understanding of the details of ship duels. With regard to the opening U.S. victory of the war over HMS Guerriere, he has chosen to repeat the story that appeared in most newspa-pers of the time, one that may have been “good press” but bears little relation to history. In retelling the Battle of Lake Erie,


forces in supporting the army and the vital consequence of controlling inland waterways for transportation and logis-tics. Naval forces proved critical in the amphibious landings at Shanghai. The book offers additional lessons on how Japan’s unclear strategy and inability to focus resources toward ending the war dragged the military deeper into a quag-mire from which it could not emerge.

The Battle for China is a ground- and air-centric study from which it is dif-ficult to extract naval lessons. Japan’s ability to attain sea control between its main islands and the Chinese coast gave it great advantages in maneuver-ability and sustainment. In addition to controlling the major islands of Formosa (Taiwan) and Hainan, Japan seized every major seaport in China. Early in the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy initi-ated its 4th Fleet to maintain China Sea lines of communication and deny vital maritime logistics to the KMT. Because China could not oppose Japan with any significant sea denial, the authors may have chosen to avoid the subject of sea power. The Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), however, has not forgot-ten the naval lessons of the war, in which its coastline and waterways became the highways for imperial aggression.

My only major criticism of The Battle for China stems from the inadequacy of its maps. Those unfamiliar with Chinese, Japanese, and Burmese geography will find the places described difficult to locate. For instance, the prominent prov-ince of Chahar in Inner Mongolia is not named on any of the 14 maps—even on the map of the Battle of Pingxingguan Pass, which took place in Chahar. The Burmese map shows fewer than half of the important locations discussed in the readings and no indication of the Burma Road, for which the forces were fighting.

While I am not certain that Chinese or Japanese audiences will gravitate to this English work, and despite its targeting a small niche of Sino-Japanese War history enthusiasts in North America and Europe, nevertheless I cannot praise the editors enough for their effort in publishing this important book. The Battle for China is a rare treasure that will likely renew inter-est in this underdeveloped field. For those interested in the Pacific war or greater insight into modern Chinese history, I highly recommend it.

Major Burrell is author of the award-winning The Ghosts of Iwo Jima (Texas A&M Press, 2006) and a former history instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy.

the American brig Lawrence is said to have been fighting on both sides simultane-ously, when she actually faced two foes on the same side. About half of the battles are ignored. And at no time is the point made that, among the American captains, none had fought a sea battle before.

This is an easy book to read and so may gain a wide audience. Unfortunately, the author treats the facts rather cava-lierly—as when he states the Royal Navy outnumbered the U.S. Navy 100 to 1—and so the phrase, “a good read” must be viewed with caution in terms of its being an authoritative text.

Commander Martin is a Golden Life member of the Naval Institute, the author of the prize-winning A Most Fortunate Ship (Naval Institute Press, 1997), and the 1997 Naval History Author of the Year.

The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945

Edited by Mark Peattie, Edward Drea, and Hans Van De Ven. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. 614 pp. Maps. Illus. Index. Notes. $65

Reviewed by Major Robert S. Burrell, U.S. Marine Corps

The title of this book implies a degree of ambiguity concerning those who fought over the territorial integrity and cultural identity of China. The interplay of impe-rial Japan, nationalist Chinese, commu-nist Chinese, Great Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, France, and the United States from 1937 through 1945 creates a challenging labyrinth to navigate with accuracy and objectivity. Consequently, the editors have avoided attempting to define the facts of the matter and instead have offered essays from the perspectives of scholars from China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States.

Editors Mark Peattie, research fellow at the Hoover Institution; Edward Drea, former chief of the Research and Analysis Division of the U.S. Army Center of Military History; and Hans Van De Ven, professor of modern Chinese history at Cambridge University, are leading authori-ties on the Pacific war. The volume’s 17 other contributors range from unknown doctoral candidates to historian heavy-weights such as Ronald Spector. Despite this diversity, the result is a text firmly grounded in analyses of events from the perspective of military affairs.

The book is organized in six parts: an overview; opposing armies organization,

training and equipment; initial hostili-ties (1937–38); a stalemate in strategies (1938–42); the Burma and Ichigo cam-paigns (1943–45); and conclusions. One innovative theme is the attention given to the challenges facing Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist party Kuomintang (KMT). While not excusing its failures, the authors provide context for under-standing the KMT’s weak position in an agrarian society with undeveloped state organization facing a growing commu-nist insurgency, tepid Allied support, and a vicious campaign of destruction car-ried out by an industrialized opponent. The deprivations the Chinese endured and the sacrifices they made over seven long years of some of the most brutal warfare in history does much to explain the KMT’s precarious situation at war’s end. Spector provides excellent context to these essays, placing the scholarship within the framework of the Pacific war, World War II, and the history of warfare.

The book provides important insights into the Imperial Japanese Army. At a tactical and operational level, the Sino-Japanese War validates Japan’s empha-sis on offensive tactics to overcome the numeric superiority of its opponents—suc-cessful in this case against the Chinese rather than the Soviets, for whom it had prepared. Although in most cases materi-ally superior to the Chinese, Japan’s ability to keep them off balance through limited offensives was perhaps the primary fac-tor in surmounting overwhelming odds in manpower.

The book also emphasizes the impor-tance of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s operations in central China, particularly the considerable efforts of its naval air

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tigers, and other beasts drawn from the same fantastic menagerie of pious belief.

Another Garuda figurehead, this one off the bow of the barge HTMS Rattanakosin, is displayed at the Royal Thai Navy Museum in Samut Prakan, but relatively few tourists get there, either. This museum is south of the capital, across from the grounds of the Royal Thai Naval Academy (admission free; telephone 02 394 1997; open 0830–1530 daily, except public and national holidays).

The easiest way to reach Bangkok’s Royal Barges Museum is to rent a long-tailed boat from any convenient place on a canal. Like many things in Thailand, both rental and taxi fare are negotiable.

Andrew Jampoler thanks David Thomas of Wanna Tours, Chiangmai, Thailand, for assistance. His fourth Naval Institute Press book is Horrible Shipwreck, published in 2010.

Museum Report

T he letters exchanged in 1861–62 between Mongkut, king of Siam, and President Abraham Lincoln are among the most curious in

the White House files. Mongkut’s offer to ship breeding pairs of elephants, highly valued beasts of many uses in his kingdom, arrived in the United States in February 1861. A year later, Lincoln took a moment away from the Civil War to reply:

I appreciate most highly Your Majesty’s tender of good offices in forwarding to this Government a stock from which a supply of elephants might be raised on our own soil. This Government would not hesitate to avail itself of so generous an offer if the object were one which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the United States. Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant, and steam on land, as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of transportation in internal commerce. (Dwight Young, Letters to the Oval Office).

Although this diplomatic footnote isn’t well known, many Americans are familiar with Mongkut, if only as his majesty was first portrayed by Yul Brynner on Broadway in The King and I (1951)—a picture of the sovereign and his kingdom that today most Thais find patronizing and deeply offensive.

A better idea of the sophistication and grandeur of the Thai royal house comes from a tour of the precinct of the royal palace in Bangkok, a fabulous, glittering assembly of roughly 40 buildings behind more than a mile of crenellated walls. With this splendid site as a distraction, relatively few tourists make it across the Chao Phraya River to the Royal Barges Museum near the Phra Pinklao Bridge.

That’s too bad. The barges are beautiful, and more impressive than the generally smaller Ottoman sultans’ caiques displayed in Istanbul. Eight are intact, carved from great teak trunks, with gilded figureheads from the Hindu pantheon. Parts of several other barges are also on display. All are housed in an aircraft-hangar-like exhibit

Splendor of Gods and Kings in Thailand

By Andrew C. A. Jampoler

hall enclosing the dock. The Thai barges once constituted the king’s navy, a show of royal power afloat in a riverine nation.

Sadly, the kingdom’s antique barges were destroyed or damaged during World War II. The largest of the eight on display, the king’s own hundred-year-old Subanahongsa, lies grandly behind a gilded figurehead of a swan-like hamsa, the mythical fanged, glaring bird associated with the Hindu god Brahma, the creator. The figurehead is meant to suggest the king’s wisdom and grace. Afloat, the Subanahongsa is manned by a crew of 63, including 52 paddlers in red livery and seven pink-coated “chanters.” Two helmsmen steer.

More imposing still is the ferocious, seven-headed serpent figurehead on the second-ranked and only slightly smaller barge, the Anantanagaraj. This carving is of a naga, one of a semi-divine race from under the sea.

Two among the smaller (30–40 paddlers) and newer escort barges that accompany the king’s vessel feature a carving of Garuda, the fierce, snake-eating half-man, half-eagle important in Hindu and Buddhist mythology who is often associated with Vishnu, the preserver. Both figures straddle a dummy bow chaser gun. Lesser barges exhibit crowned monkeys,

Royal Barges Museum Open daily 0900-1700 Arun Amarin RoadBangkok Noi Bangkok 10700 Tel: 02 424 0004 Admission 100 Thai baht (about $3)

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

At one time constituting the king’s navy, the royal Thai barges were a stunning, gilded display of power in the riverine nation. The largest, Subanahongsa (fanged-bird figurehead, second from right), carried the royal family.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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