USS SASSACUS vs. NUTFIELD

Blockade running was a complicated pursuit even for the most skilled of seamen.  European goods were shipped to staging points in Bermuda, the Bahamas, or the Caribbean.  Here, smaller, sleek, fast ships would load for the dash into Southern ports.  Runners would skirt Union blockaders as best they could, then run close inshore where their shallow draft proved an advantage.  Only the luckiest threaded the thin line between uncharted shoals and dogged blockaders.  The paddle-wheel steamer Wild Dayrell for example, ran aground the night of 31 January 1864 at New Topsail Inlet, North Carolina, where she was discovered the following day by LCDR Francis A. Roe in USS SASSACUS.  Roe worked in vain until the 3^rd trying to free the steamer but ultimately had to burn her.

By 0700 this day SASSACUS had returned to her station on the Bermuda Line when she sighted another suspicious vessel about 12 miles to the northwest.  Roe fired his boilers and set his 205-foot, double-ender sidewheel gunboat in hot pursuit.  Through the morning, SASSACUS sustained 12.5-13 knots, enough to steadily gain on the blockade runner.  This was obviously noted aboard the pursued vessel, for through his spyglass Roe observed cargo being thrown overboard to lighten ship.  Around noon SASSACUS had closed within range of her forward 100-pounder.  Union shells began splashing around the still fleeing runner.  Tellingly, she turned sharply toward shore to duck into shallower water.

Perhaps accidently, perhaps not, the mystery ship ran aground at New Inlet, North Carolina.  Her crew set her aflame and fled to the lifeboats, leaving her engines running.  As SASSACUS pulled to within musket range one of the lifeboats capsized, spilling rebel crewmen.  Roe lowered a boat but was only able to save the blockade runner’s purser.  From him he learned the vessel was the brand-new iron-hulled steamer Nutfield, making her first run from Bermuda.  She measured 750 tons burden and carried munitions, Enfield rifles, a battery of eight Whitworth rifled cannon, quinine, assorted merchandise and a quantity of pig lead to be recast into musket balls.  The cannon and the lead had been the cargo Roe observed being thrown overboard.

Recognizing Nutfield to be one of the newest and best steamers off the Thames ways, Roe worked through the night to free the runner.  But alas she was too fast to be re-floated.  Roe off-loaded the Enfield rifles, the quinine, and several compasses, then set her afire.  USS FLORIDA shortly arrived, and together they pummeled the stranded runner with gunfire.  Finally, convinced the steamer was completely wrecked, SASSACUS departed about 1900 the evening of the 5^th.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-12, IV-15.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 350.

“Report of Commander Crosby, U.S. Navy, Commanding U.S.S. Florida.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 460-61.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Roe, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Sassacus.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 459-60.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  SASSACUS survived the war, seeing subsequent duty in North Carolina’s sounds against the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle.  She participated in the siege of Fort Fisher and patrolled the Chesapeake in April 1865 in search of conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.  She was sold in 1868.  Sassacus remembers a great sachem of the Pequot tribe of Massachusetts in the early 1600s.  He endured the rebellion of the Mohegans, a subjugated tribe, who eventually defeated Sassacus with the help of the English and Narragansett Indian allies in what is known today as the Pequot War.  Sassacus fled to Iroquois lands near present-day Long Island, New York, but there was betrayed and killed by the Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederation.

The wreck of Wild Dayrell was surveyed in 2006 by Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc., as a North Carolina cultural resource.  She lies in Rich Inlet, about 20 miles north of Fort Fisher.  The wreck of Nutfield has not been surveyed to this writer’s knowledge.

Pig lead is lead in ingot form.  Molten lead is smelted from lead ore, galena.  A channel conducts the molten lead from the smelting furnace and into multiple side channels coming off perpendicularly, all in the same direction.   As such, the side channels resemble piglets suckling from a sow.

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Zumwalt-Class Destroyers

          The Gulf War of 1990-91 saw the last deployment of our vaunted WWII-era battleships—in naval gunfire support for ground operations ashore.  By then, the cost of maintaining our battleship fleet had become prohibitive.  Yet Congress was keen to revive the gunfire support role with a new class of battleship equivalents.

          Technology answered with the development of the Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) a 155 mm munition whose range was extended to 100 NM with rocket assist and fin guidance.  The round could only be fired from the Advanced Gun System (AGS), a Navy-only project.  As a platform, the Navy proposed a new destroyer for whom the AGS would form her main armament.   This “DD-21” design incorporated stealth technology with “tumbledown” surfaces above the waterline that deflect radar signals away from the vessel.  These were the largest destroyers in naval history at 610 feet, fifty feet longer than a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.    A 32-ship series was planned, with the keel of the class leader, USS ZUMWALT (DDG-1000) laid on 17 November 2011 at General Dynamic’s Iron Works in Bath, Maine. 

          But costs skyrocketed.  Lockheed Martin’s 2004 estimate for the per-round cost of the LRLQP munition was $35,000.  But by 2016 that per-round cost had risen to $800,000-$1 million. (the cost of a cruise missile).  The expense of the initial 2000-round procurement program mushroomed.  By November 2016 cost-overruns killed the LRLAP munitions program.  And the destroyer herself was equally plagued.  By 2008, the $3.3 billion cost of each DD-21 destroyer had risen to $4.24 billion.  And an extra $9.6 billion had to be pumped into the program for research and development.  Three hulls had been authorized by that date. 

In the interim, a new threat emerged.  Anti-ship missiles in the possession of non-state terrorists like Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen would place the Zumwalts in peril   Such threats were more effectively countered with advanced Arleigh Burke AAW designs.  Then in early 2009 the per-unit cost of the Zumwalts rose to $6.0 billion, triggering a Congressionally mandated re-certification of the entire program.  At this, Secretary of Defense Robert Gatres announced the DDG-1000 program would be capped at the three ships then under construction.  Future resources would be re-directed to the Arleigh Burke program.

Construction proceeded on the three destroyers then building, the AGS being replaced with hypersonic missiles.  USS ZUMWALT (DDG-1000) was commissioned on 15 October 2016, and on this date the second destroyer, USS MICHEAL MONSOOR (DDG-1001) entered service, both with our Pacific fleet.  The third destroyer, USS LYNDON B. JOHNSON (DDG-1002) is scheduled to enter service in 2027.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  4 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“155 mm/62 (6.1″) Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS)”  Naval Weapons website.  AT:http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_61-62_ags.php,  retrieved 30 June 2022

Eckstein, Megan (4 December 2017). “New Requirements for DDG-1000 Focus on Surface Strike”. USNI News. U.S. Naval Institute. Archived from the original on 4 March 2018. retrieved 2 March 2018.

Kasper, Joakim (20 September 2015). “About the Zumwalt Destroyer”. AeroWeb. Archived from the original on 22 October 2015. retrieved 25 October 2015.

LaGrone, Sam. “Navy Planning on Not Buying More LRLAP Rounds for Zumwalt Class.”  USNI, 16 November 2016.  AT:https://news.usni.org/2016/11/07/navy-planning-not-buying-lrlap-rounds, retrieved 29 November 2025.

Larter, David B. “The US Navy’s last stealth destroyer is in the water.”  Defense News, 10 Dec 2018, AT: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/12/10/the-us-navys-last-stealth-destroyer-is-in-the-water/, retrieved 28 November 2025.

Lundquist, Edward. “The Navy’s Battlewagon of the 21st Century”. Marinelink.com. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. retrieved 5 April 2019

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  By 2016, the Advanced Gun System (AGS) had already been installed on the three Zumwalts then building.  The cancellation of the munitions program rendered these guns useless.  They were removed and replaced with hypersonic missile launchers.

Traditionally, destroyers are named for naval heroes.  ZUMWALT remembers Vietnam-era CNO ADM Elmo Zumwalt.  MONSOOR is named for MA2 Michael Monsoor, a Medal of Honoree and Navy SEAL from the Iraq War in 2006.  JOHNSON, of course, remembers our former Navy officer and 36^th Commander-in-Chief.

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                                    THE BLOCKADE OF FLORIDA

Seminole Indians, angered over President Andrew Jackson’s plan for their relocation to the Oklahoma Indian Territory, rose up on 28 December 1835 and attacked a column of Army troops under MAJ Francis L. Dade south of Tampa, Florida.  Only three of Dade’s 110 men escaped the massacre.  The Second Seminole War was thus ignited, the only Indian war in which our Navy played a significant role.

Whether or not arms and ammunition were being run to the Seminoles by the Spanish from Cuba, as Floridian officials continuously insisted, is arguable.  But on this day, in response to Florida Governor John H. Eaton’s persistence, Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson ordered a blockade of the southern coast of Florida.  The job fell to the West Indies Squadron, but Commodore Alexander J. Dallas had only five ships as his disposal–the venerable 38-gun frigate CONSTELLATION, the sloops-of-war ST. LOUIS, 20, WARREN, 20, and VANDALIA, 18, and the schooner GRAMPUS, 12. 

To our 1830s Navy, maritime blockade was an unknown mission.  Since her foundational years our Navy had served only two missions: the Federalist task of guerre de course by lone-ranging independent ships; and the Jeffersonian reservation of the Navy for harbor and inshore defense.  The frame of mind necessary to manage an offensive blockade didn’t exist among Naval officers, Commodore Dallas in particular.  In this Seminole War there were no enemy cruisers to attack, merchantmen to intercept, or fleets to engage.  Dallas’ strategic orientation did not suit the tasking.  Furthermore, possessed of only deep draft warships, blue-water cruising was his only viable course–and gun running to Florida could have been more easily done with shallow-draft skiffs and barges working up through the Keys.  As a result, this blockade of Florida wasn’t our most shining accomplishment.

Dallas also found his attentions distracted by competing priorities.  New England merchants were ranting over losses to Haitian pirates.  Texas was striking for independence from Mexico, and the simultaneous Creek War in Georgia demanded Marine Corps support.  But most damning, our Navy never believed that arms were being run to the Seminoles in the first place.  Dallas would find it impossible to prioritize a mission he judged unnecessary from the outset.

Not surprisingly, no filibustering captures were made off Florida during the 1836-42 blockade, though it was maintained continuously throughout the Seminole uprising.  Our greatest contribution to the conflict turned out to be a “mosquito fleet” of shallow-draft riverine craft that took the fight to the enemy in Florida’s wetlands.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Buker, George E.  Swamp Sailors:  Riverine Warfare in the Everglades, 1835-1842.  Gainesville, FL: Univ. Presses of Florida, 1975, pp. 1-5, 34-35, 47-48.  Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 171.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 130.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 244.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 107.

Mahon, John K.  History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842.  Gainesville, FL: Univ. of Florida Press, 1985, pp. 121, 171, 220.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 40.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Second Seminole War is an example of how not to run a joint operation.  Throughout the conflict the Army continued to believe the Indians were being supplied from Cuba and could not fathom why the Navy didn’t prevent such.  The Navy thought the opposite, and until the advent of the “mosquito fleet” in 1840, there was very little coordination between Army and Navy operations.

ST. LOUIS was to have an exceptionally long career for a wooden sloop.  She was built by the Navy, for the Navy, at the Washington Navy Yard in 1828 and initially served as the flagship for Dallas’ West Indies Squadron.  She was transferred to the Pacific Squadron in 1839.  After showing our American flag for the first time in San Francisco Bay, she transferred to Singapore with our East Indies Squadron.  Again a flagship, she was re-assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron in 1852.  She served twice with the African Squadron, suppressing slave trading in the pre-Civil War years, then patrolled with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during that latter momentous conflict.  From 1866-94 she was laid up at Philadelphia as a receiving ship and training ship for the Pennsylvania Naval Militia.  In 1894 she was formally loaned to the state Militia and in 1904 her name was changed to USS KEYSTONE STATE in deference to that organization.  She was finally stricken from the Naval Vessels Register on 6 August 1906 and sold for scrap.  Her 78-year career, marked by multiple re-fits, spanned four wars and allowed the training of countless naval personnel.

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                                                 USS PATAPSCO

The Rebel-controlled guns of Forts Sumter, Moultrie, and Johnson straddling the entrance to Charleston harbor anchored the Confederate defenses in the late Civil War.  The mouth of the harbor and the entrance channel were obstructed with log booms, pilings, and “torpedoes” (underwater mines).  The Civil War saw the first effective use of fixed underwater mines, and Union warships off Charleston had learned a healthy respect for torpedoes.  Working parties in rowboats regularly dragged the approaches to Charleston with grappling hooks to find and remove these “infernal devices.”  Because these parties worked within range of Confederates on Morris and Sullivan’s Islands, a Union gunboat was usually detailed to provide cover.  Such was the ironclad monitor PATAPSCO’s duty after sunset this evening.

As the rowboats worked 100-200 yards off her beams, PATAPSCO occupied the channel, drifting seaward with the ebbing tide, then steaming back up to the Lehigh buoy.  Her commanding officer, LCDR Stephen P. Quackenbush, and about 40 sailors were out on the monitor’s deck, directing the boats sweeping for torpedoes.  The XO, LT William T. Sampson, conned the monitor from atop the rotating turret.  This night there was no pestering fire from the shore and three times, PATAPSCO drifted lazily down the channel with the tide.  Three times she turned and steamed back up.  But as she made her third return about 2010 hours, a sudden, sharp explosion rocked her port bow.  The cloud of steam and a geyser of seawater immediately alerted Sampson that he had struck a torpedo.  He had no time to react.  Within 15 seconds the forward deck flooded, and in another 30 seconds the monitor rested on the bottom of the 50-foot-deep channel.  Curiously, Sampson only got his feet wet, for when all motion stopped the top of the turret was only ankle-deep.  He simply stepped into the rescuing launch.  Quackenbush and 42 sailors on deck were fished from the water, but the crewmen below decks were not so lucky.  Civil War monitors did not have escape hatches.  To protect against boarders, such ships were built with only one or two hatches leading below deck.  As a result, only two sailors from below were able to scramble to safety.  Sixty-four men, including the Assistant Surgeon Samuel H. Peltz, the surgeon’s steward; the sick nurse; most of the engineers, firemen, and coal heavers; the paymaster; and all the cooks were trapped and died.

Visitors to modern Fort Moultrie National Historical Park on Sullivan’s Island will notice an obelisk commemorating the Union sailors lost with PATAPSCO.  In fact, the monitor still lies today where she sank on this date, having since been partially salvaged, then blasted flat to clear the channel.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. V-16.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Quackenbush, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 175-76.

“Report of Lieutenant Sampson, U.S. Navy, executive officer of the U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 176-78.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy,” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 171-75.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of proceedings of a court of enquiry,” dtd. 29 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 178-80.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 81.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This sinking marked the fourth loss of a monitor during the war, the second to torpedoes.  It prompted both tactical and strategic changes to the Union’s campaign against Charleston.  From this date, only tugboats and launches were used to protect sweepers clearing Charleston’s channels, and the strategy for the joint Army/Navy assault on Charleston was altered.  The point of attack was shifted northward, away from Charleston Harbor, to the less protected waters of Bull’s Bay about 10 miles up the coast.

PATAPSCO’s executive officer, William T. Sampson, is of course better remembered for his action as the senior in command of US Navy forces off Santiago, Cuba, three decades later in the Spanish-American War.  He is one of several Navy veterans of the Civil War who remained on Active Duty to fight in that latter conflict.

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                                                      USS LYNX

In modern times, the unexplained disappearance of a vessel at sea would raise much interest, concern, news coverage, and even sensationalist speculation.  Witness the loss of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in 2014.  In the 19^th century, however, losses due to act of God were a known risk of oceanic enterprise. 

When President James Madison received from Congress a declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812, he found the US Navy woefully inadequate to the task.  Part of the subsequent build-up for that war included the creation two squadrons that could raid British shipping.  A contract was let to Mr. James Owner of Georgetown, DC, for the construction of a Baltimore Clipper-rigged schooner of 150 tons displacement and six guns.  Construction delays prevented her completion prior to the summer of 1815, six months after the end of the fighting.  Nevertheless, on 3 July 1815 she was commissioned into our Navy as USS LYNX, manned with 50 crewmen, and sent with Commodore William Bainbridge’s nine-ship squadron to the Mediterranean to police Barbary piracy.

Here, LYNX arrived too late for combat again.  Bainbridge took over command of our Mediterranean Squadron, and LYNX remained in the area for a year, showing the flag to insure Barbary peace.  Upon her return to the United States, her new skipper LT George W. Storer surveyed the northeastern coast, until piracy, that had started before the turn of the century. surfaced again along our Gulf coast.  LYNX was sent south to address this.

By 1819 LYNX had yet a new captain, LT John R. Madison, and experienced her first brush with combat.  On 24 October she overhauled and engaged two pirate schooners and two smaller boats loaded with booty off Louisiana.  LYNX departed subsequently for the coast of Texas, then part of Mexico.  Here, in Galveston Bay, she captured another pirate boat also loaded with stolen booty.

By early 1820, LYNX was operating out of St. Mary’s on Georgia’s Atlantic coast, from whence she received orders to Kingston, Jamaica.  Piracy had become rampant in the Caribbean, as newly independent former Spanish colonies such as Venezuela and Colombia commissioned privateers against Spanish shipping.  These privateers too often placed profit above patriotism and attacked ships of any nation.  American traders were falling victim, and LYNX was to be part of our Navy’s efforts against this affront.

On this day LYNX disappeared over the horizon, heading south.  Neither she nor Madison nor any of her crew were ever seen again.  The mythical Bermuda Triangle notwithstanding, a search by USS Nonsuch, 14, turned up nothing.  Months later some unidentifiable wreckage was found on Craysons Reef, off Florida, that is believed today to have been the remains of USS Lynx.  In the days before accurate weather forecasting, losses at sea were not uncommon.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  15 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 48.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 172-73.

Silverstone, Paul H.  The Sailing Navy, 1775-1854.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2001, p. 55.

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                                   THEODORE EDSON CHANDLER

Theodore Edson Chandler was born at Annapolis on 26 December 1894 into a distinguished Navy family.  His father, the future RADM Lloyd H. Chandler, attended the Naval Academy at the time.  Young Chandler followed in his father’s footsteps, entering the Naval Academy in 1911.  After a combat tour on the WWI destroyer CONNER (DD-72) he assumed the position of executive officer aboard the newly launched destroyer CHANDLER (DD-206).  That ship had been named in honor of Chandler’s late grandfather, William Eaton Chandler, President Chester Arthur’s Secretary of the Navy.  Theodore served between the Wars aboard several battleships and destroyers, even aspiring to a brief tour with the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

In the months before the still neutral US entered WWII, (now) CAPT T.E. Chandler commanded OMAHA (CL-4) in the Atlantic Fleet’s Neutrality Patrol.  One task in this employ was to enforce international laws governing ships of combatant nations who might call on American ports.  In the wee hours of 6 November 1941 OMAHA came across a curiously darkened ship out of Philadelphia showing the name Willmoto.  A suspicious Chandler stopped the freighter, who proved in truth to be the German blockade runner Odenwald, illegally running rubber to the Weimar Republic.  “Willmoto” was taken into custody.  Soon-to-be-changed Navy regs required that Chandler supervise her sale at public auction, the last instance in our Navy’s history when a warship’s crew shared “prize money.”  Chandler was promoted to RADM in May of 1943 and transferred to the Pacific in October 1944.  He served under VADM Jesse B. Oldendorf as commander BatDiv 2 during the battle of Leyte Gulf and the liberation of the Philippines.

Then at 1730 on 6 January 1945 a Japanese kamikaze crashed the starboard bridge of USS LOUISVILLE (CA-28), flagship of Commander PacFlt Cruiser Division 4, RADM T.E. Chandler, operating in the Lingayen Gulf in support of the Allied invasion of Luzon.  Chandler was thrown to the deck and doused with flaming gasoline.  Heedless of his severe burns however, he pitched in with his enlisted rates, manhandling fire hoses and supervising damage control.  He patiently waited for medical aid, allowing those more seriously injured to be attended.  Only when he had been satisfied that the needs his sailors had been met did he allow himself to be treated.  But by then the effects of his pulmonary burns were too severe to reverse.  He died this following day.  For his gallant sacrifice he is a recipient of the Navy Cross.  The WWII Gearing-class destroyer THEODORE E. CHANDLER (DD-717) bore his name, as does our former Kidd-class guided missile destroyer DDG-996.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 127-28.

 Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 13  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1959, pp. xii, 109.

Theodore E. Chandler

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                                            CROSSING THE LINE

On 29 December 1907, after their first coaling stop in Trinidad, the Atlantic Battleship Fleet, nicknamed “the Great White Fleet,” weighed anchor and headed south on their epic world cruise.  Five days later off Macapa, Brazil, they made their first of what would be four crossings of the Equator.  According to longstanding custom, each ship was duly visited by King Neptune and his court.  Aboard each the uninitiated polliwogs atoned for such sins as knowing more about haystacks than about seaweed in a traditional ceremony, which today adheres to anti-hazing regulations.

Maritime lore holds that crossing the Equator provides one the opportunity to be introduced to the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep–provided one is properly expunged of any landlubber attributes.  Toward that end King Neptune’s henchman, Davy Jones, appears the evening before the ship approaches the Equator to announce that the ship must heave to for an audience on the morrow with the King.  In the hours that follow, the polliwogs among the crew endure good-natured “cleansing” at the hands of the shellbacks.  King Neptune appears the following morn in his royal splendor, accompanied by an entourage that includes Davy Jones, Queen Amphitrite, and perhaps the Royal Chaplain, Royal Doctor, Royal Dentist, Royal Barber, the Devil, and one or more Royal Babies.  Acquiescent skippers, respecting the august ruler, dutifully welcome him aboard.  The polliwogs are now summoned before the King, who, of course, finds them unclean and orders the appropriate expurgating rituals.  These may include ministrations by the members of the Royal party, appeals to various Gods of the Sea, dosing with Truth Serum, and other purifying practices.

As maritime traditions go, the observance of an initiation ritual upon crossing the Equator is old indeed.  It probably began soon after the spherical nature of the globe was established.  European navigators from the 1500s, such as Magellan and Jean Parmentier, record such rituals.  The first US Naval vessel to cross the line was the frigate ESSEX, 32, during the War of 1812.  Her skipper, CAPT David Porter, did not log the details of his crossing ceremony while enroute to harass British shipping in the Pacific.

In 1989 complaints of sexual harassment arising from such a ceremony aboard the Merchant Marine training ship Golden Bear prompted the National Maritime Administration to examine the notorious vigor with which parts of the ritual were conducted.  In a similar vein such ceremonies aboard US Navy vessels today are well controlled to insure the safety of all participants while preserving the flavor of the rite.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  8 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Mack, William P. and Royal W. Connell.  Naval Ceremonies, Customs and Traditions, 5^th ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1980, pp. 184-87.

Oral history, CAPT James Bloom, converted to Shellback aboard USS DIXON (AS-37), November 1995.

Reckner, James R.  Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1988, p. 32.

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                                                    USS SANTEE

Even before the United States entered WWI, our Navy was assisting the British in combating Kaiser Wilhelm II’s U-boats.  This effort intensified after US entry in June 1917.  At the time, targets for the U-boats were so plentiful in the waters around Britain that U-boats had to return to port not for fuel or provisions, but for more torpedoes!  Indeed, U-boat skippers learned to save precious torpedoes by surfacing and attacking defenseless freighters with their deck gun.  An Allied counter measure was the Q-ship–a merchant freighter armed with hidden guns.  The Q-ship would cruise about, baiting a U-boat to surface, then unmask her guns to duel the enemy.  Our Navy toyed with the Q-ship concept as well, in both World Wars.

On 27 November 1917 the Royal Navy Q-ship HMS ARVONIAN was transferred to our Navy, “for war purposes.”  CDR David C. Hanrahan was placed in command of a crew drawn from other US warships in the theater.  As combat was assured, her crew included Medical Officer LT James P. Compton and Assistant Surgeon Thomas L. Sutton.  ARVONIAN was impressively armed with three 4″ guns, three 12-pounders, two .30 caliber machine guns and four 18″ torpedo tubes.  She fitted-out in Devonport, England, and on 18 December was commissioned as USS SANTEE,, after the river of central South Carolina.  The absence of an assigned hull number indicates the ad hoc nature of her service in American hands.  On this day she cruised south of Kinsale, Ireland.

At 2045, a lookout spotted the wake of an incoming torpedo!  Kapitänleutnant Victor Dieckmann in U-61 had sent the underwater missile at the innocent-looking freighter.  It struck to port, abaft of the engine room.  Electric power blinked, then SANTEE went dead in the water.  Hanrahan ordered his crew to battle stations and dispatched the “panic party,”–men who took to the boats in a ruse they hoped would entice the German skipper to the surface.  Indeed, Hanrahan later wrote that the boatmen exited in, fine panicy [sic] style.”  Meanwhile SANTEE’s concealed gun crews waited.

Moments ticked by.  Damage control temporarily stemmed the flooding but could not re-fire the engines.  Lookouts aloft strained to see into the darkening horizon but detected nothing.  Two and a half glasses slipped by.  No U-boat appeared.  Dieckmann had slinked away, whether he knew it or not, dodging a bullet!

Hanrahan now radioed for tugs while STERRET (DD-27) and CUMMINGS (DD-44) picked up the boat parties.  No sailors were lost in this, SANTEE’s only combat action with our Navy.  Her short service ended after repairs.  She was returned to the Admiralty for the remainder of the war, operating from Gibraltar as HMS BENDISH.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  3 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1991, p. 414.

Helgason, Guömundur.  “Ships Hit during WWI: Q-Ship SANTEE.”  U-boat.net website.  AT: http://uboat.net/wwi/ships_hit/5437.hmtl, retrieved 16 March 2018.

“Victor Dieckmann.”  U-boat.net website.  AT: http://uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/51.html, retrieved 16 March 2018.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  ARVONIAN ultimately served in two world wars with three nations.  After changing hands multiple times between wars, she ended up in Latvia as SS Spidola.  She fell into German hands with Hitler’s July 1941 invasion of the Baltic States and carried freight for the Nazis throughout WWII. 

Dieckmann was one of the more successful U-boat “aces” of WWI.  His two commands, UB-27 and U-61 totaled 43 Allied ships sunk, 11 damaged, one captured, and included USS CASSIN (DD-43) (damaged), the British Q-ship HMS WARNER (sunk), and the French Q-ship HMS JEANNE et GENEVIEVE (damaged).  He is twice the recipient of the Iron Cross.

          Time can be kept at sea using sandglasses, also known as clepsammia (“thief of sand”).  Nautical sandglasses came in three denominations, 4 hours (duration of a watch), 30 minutes, and 28 seconds (for measuring ship speed).  Two and a half glasses equals 75 minutes.

          SANTEE above was the second of three US warships to bear this name.  The first was a Civil War sail frigate.  The last was an escort carrier from WWII.

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                                    MONAGHAN vs. THE TEMPEST

The Pacific war was a long one for USS MONAGHAN (DD-354).  She was the ready destroyer at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941 and was just getting underway to investigate a report of a submarine off the entrance to the harbor when all hell broke loose.  She went on to fight at the Coral Sea, Midway, and in the Aleutians.  December 1944 found her screening carriers of the 3^rd Fleet for airstrikes against the Japanese in the Philippines.  December 17^th had been designated for refueling at sea, however rough seas postponed that evolution for a day.

But through the night the weather only worsened.  Water Tender 2^nd Class Joseph C. McCrane didn’t get much sleep and around 0630 the 18^th arose to find MONAGHAN in the throes of a severe typhoon.  She rode better than did her sisters with less fuel, MONAGHAN still had 76% of her capacity on board.  But by 0800 that mattered little–even the carriers had abandoned station-keeping and were fending for themselves.  The destroyer was rolling frighteningly, and McCrane and WT3c Les Bryan were sent to ballast the empty aft fuel tanks.  They struggled to keep their footing and labored even harder to accomplish their task.  Upon finishing, they took shelter with a growing group of shipmates in the aft 5″ gun turret.

But the rolls only got worse.  After seven or eight rolls onto her beam ends, MONAGHAN’s sailors in the gun turret recognized how untenable was their shelter!  They began to pile out onto the deck, Gunner’s Mate Joe Guio standing just outside the hatch in disregard of his own safety, to help his shipmates.  Loose gear crashed about, and cracks started to rip the overheads from the bulkheads below decks.  Electric power failed, then steerage.  And just at this moment the group of sailors was swept overboard.  Someone had the sense to throw a liferaft at the dozen or so flailing in the water.

The scene shifted to the liferaft, where nine made it aboard and clung for dear life.  Several hours later a half-naked, shivering Guio drifted by the raft and was pulled aboard.  McCrane cradled Guio to keep him warm through the night.  The next morning Guio awoke, thanked his shipmates for hauling him to safety, then curled up in the bottom of the raft.  Half an hour later he was dead.  Hypothermia claimed two more in the days that followed.  Another went mad, insisting he saw an island and disappearing overboard.  At one point an onion drifted by the famished sailors.  But an 8-foot shark circling nearby discouraged any recovery.  The only survivors from MONAGHAN were the six in this liferaft, rescued this day by BROWN (DD-546) (along with 13 from HULL (DD-350) who also foundered in this typhoon).  The exact time and details of MONAGHAN’s demise will never be known.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  27 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 412-14.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIII  The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindinao, the Visayas.  Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA, 1959, pp. 71-77.

Parkin, Robert Sinclair.  Blood on the Sea:  American Destroyers Lost in World War II.  New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 274-79.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Destroyer Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 449-50.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  FADM Nimitz said this storm, “…represented a more crippling blow to the 3^rd Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action.”

Turreted guns are not secured to the deck by anything other than their massive weight.  As such, should the destroyer capsize, the turrets would simply fall out of their cradles and sink like rocks, carrying anyone inside to Davy Jones.

MONAGHAN remembers ENS John R. Monaghan, a Spanish-American War veteran who was killed in a Samoan uprising in 1899 while trying to rescue his stricken Commanding Officer.  USS BROWN remembers George Brown, an Able Seaman who died aboard USS INTREPID during that ship’s daring raid in Tripoli Harbor in the Barbary Wars of 1804.  HULL, of course, remembers Commodore Isaac Hull, commander of USS CONSTITUTION during her engagement with HMS GUERRIER in 1812.

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USS ALBANY COLLISION

          The catastrophic collision of the container ship Dali with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on 26 March 2024 is by no means the only time such an event has occurred.  Indeed, on this date 50 years ago a US Navy cruiser was involved in a similar accident at Yorktown, Virginia.

          The Yorktown Naval Weapons Station lies on a navigable section of the York River about 14 miles above Yorktown, Virginia.  When this facility was originally commissioned in 1918, navigation up the York River was unencumbered.  But in 1952 the State of Virginia built the George P. Coleman Bridge to carry Route 17 across the York River between Gloucester Point and Yorktown.  To allow the passage of traffic, the bridge was constructed with a central pillar supporting the middle of a 1000-foot span.  This span could pivot 90°, creating port and starboard channels for the passage of ships.  Each channel was an ample 450 feet wide.  All was well until this Saturday afternoon, when the guided missile cruiser USS ALBANY (CG-10) attempted to reach the fuel pier at WPNSTA Yorktown.

As ALBANY approached the bridge, appropriate signals were exchanged between the ship and the bridge operator.   The bridgeman powered up the motors that began to swing the central span.  But as ALBANY neared, the bridge operator recognized that the warship’s speed was too great.  She would reach the bridge before the span had fully opened.  The crew aboard the cruiser reached the same conclusion at nearly the same time, and her engines were reversed “full astern” in an instant.  The bridgeman reversed his motor too, closing the span, hoping to create a few more feet of space in which the cruiser could stop.  It didn’t work.

With the screech of twisting metal, the superstructure of the cruiser collided with the bridge span.  Electrical cables and limit switches on the bridge were torn loose.  Pinions on the circular rack gear were sheared off and the bridge’s central span was pushed 35° in the wrong direction.  Repairs to ALBANY would tie her up for the next five months.

The Commission on Ship Bridge Collisions, in their investigation, called the accident near-catastrophic.  Had the cruiser been moving only slightly faster, the Coleman bridge likely would have collapsed.  The next closest York River crossing for motorists was 32 miles north at West Point, Virginia, creating a 65-mile, 90-minute detour while repairs to the Coleman Bridge were affected.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  20 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

National Academies Press.  Ship Collisions with Bridges: The Nature of the Accidents, Their Prevention, and Mitigation.  Chapter 6, p, 24, 1983. At: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27742/chapter/6, retrieved 24 March 2025

Oral History, CAPT James Bloom, USN, a witness to the event.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Sailors from this day will remember Nick’s Seafood Pavilion, a restaurant located under the Coleman Bridge in Yorktown.  Owned by Nick and Mary Mathews, Greek immigrants who loved America, his restaurant was a favorite of celebrities such as John Wayne, Randy Travis, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred McMurry, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.  Since 1944, as US Navy ships passed the restaurant, Nick could often be seen waving an American flag from the civilian dock.  Mary Mathews was chosen to be the sponsor of USS YORKTOWN (CG-48) at the warship’s launch in 1983.  Nick unexpectedly died on the way to the christening ceremony.  Nick Mathews is remembered today by the many South Vietnamese refugees he sponsored in the 1970s and for his generous donation of the Yorktown Visitor’s Center.  Nick’s Seafood Pavilion was severely damaged in Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and was demolished.  A boutique mall stands on the spot today.

          George Preston Coleman (1870-1948) was the head of the Virginia Highway Commission from 1913-1922 and was elected mayor of Williamsburg, Virginia, in the following years.

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