LTJG WEEDON OSBORNE

The US entry into World War I prompted Chicago dentist Weedon Osborne to seek a commission in the Navy Dental Corps, which he received 8 May 1917.  He reported for duty 26 March 1918 with the 2^nd Battalion, 6^th Marine Regiment, 96^th Company.  This day found the 2/6 Marines entrenched on the battlefields of France before Belleau Wood.

By noon, this day was already the bloodiest in USMC history.  Hundreds of leathernecks had stepped off that morning in the direction of the German high ground at Hill 142 and Belleau Wood.  Their advance across a mile of open field had been raked by machine guns, and units supporting their flanks had lagged.  CPT Donald F. Duncan’s 96^th Company gained the edge of Belleau Wood and there became a reserve behind a US Army unit.  But the collapse of the American right flank allowed the Germans to occupy the town of Bouresches.  The 2/6 Marines were ordered to take that town, the 96^th Company in the lead.

The 96^th advanced across Triangle Farm via a ravine, but the staccato reports from German guns would not be denied.  Casualties mounted.  On the left, LT Bowling’s platoon was soon leaderless.  LT Lockhart’s platoon on the right had an easier time of it and forged ahead of the line of advance.  At this, smartly mustachioed CPT Duncan, in his pressed uniform, swagger stick, and straight-stemmed pipe, walked calmly out across the battlefield in the direction of Lockhart’s platoon.  Accompanied by First Sergeant Sissler, the two seemed oblivious to the hailstorm of German bullets.  Issuing orders and smiling all the while, Duncan halted Lockhart’s men, then moved the rest of the company into an organized line just 600 yards from the Germans.   In an instant a Maxim round caught Duncan in the stomach.  SGT Al Sheridan called for medical, and LTJG Osborne and an unnamed Corpsman came running.  Osborne had made several trips to ferry wounded Marines that afternoon, but this potential loss of the charismatic company commander would be a blow to the unit.  Osborne, Sheridan, and the Corpsman carried the gasping Duncan to shelter in a small clump of trees.  Just as he was being made comfortable an 8-inch shell screamed in.  The deafening explosion, dust, and smoke settled to reveal Osborne, the Corpsman, and Duncan lying dead.

For “extraordinary heroism under fire” in attempting to rescue his company commander and others this bloody day, LTJG Osborne was awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross.  He is buried today in the Aisne-Marne American National Cemetery near the spot where he died.  Rue (street) Weedon Osborne in the town of Bouresches remembers his sacrifice, as does the US Navy Clemson-class destroyer OSBORNE (DD-295).

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  12 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Asprey, Robert B.  At Belleau Wood.  Denton, TX: Univ. North Texas Press, 1996, pp. 171-85.

Site visit.  Aisne-Marne American National Cemetery, Belleau, France, March 2002.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  When this battle started Osborne’s dental equipment had not yet arrived in France.  He had taken to assisting, nevertheless, adopting the role of a Hospital Corpsmen.

          CPT Donald F. Duncan was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, and Distinguished Service Medal for his actions this day.

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                                WORLD WAR I AT OUR DOORSTEP

The bright sun and calm seas off Delaware’s coast this morning belied the sinister intent with which U-151 cruised the surface.  Germany and the US had been at war for a year, and U-151 had entered US waters with orders to lay mines in major American roadsteads.  On May 22^nd she had surfaced in the Chesapeake Bay and laid over 50 floating mines at its entrance.  While working on deck to do so, her crewmen had watched the lights of Virginia Beach and had listened to weather forecasts, sports news, and stock quotes from an Arlington radio station.  She then coursed north to the Delaware Bay, destroying the freighters SS Hattie Dunn, Hauppage, and Edna along the way.  More mines were laid inside Cape May, after which U-151 then shaped a course for New York City.  There the sub had dragged a cutting bar back and forth across the entrance to the harbor, severing two transatlantic telephone cables.

This day found U-151 prowling for unwary freighters off our coast.  Commercial ships of sail still operated in 1918, and a sail on the horizon turned out to be the merchant schooner Isabel B. Wiley, outbound from Philadelphia.  A shot across her bows halted the surprised schooner, but as her crew was coming to grips with a German submarine in US waters, another form appeared on the horizon.  U-151’s skipper, Korvettenkapitän Henrich von Nostitz und Jänckendorf, instructed Wiley to heave to and sped off after the steamer Winneconne.  The unarmed steamer’s crew had heard rumors of a U-boat in the area and once halted, accepted a prize crew.  Winneconne was conned back to Wiley, who had, curiously, stood by dutifully into the wind.  Both ships were destroyed with TNT.

U-151 left US waters in July having avoided the US Navy.  Her first such contact occurred on her return to Germany when she spotted a familiar silhouette, the former Norddeutsche Lloyd liner Kronprinz Wilhelm, then serving the US Navy as the troop transport USS VON STEUBEN (SP-3017).  A torpedo attack missed.

None of the seven German U-boats that operated off the American coast from May through October 1918 were originally built to be combatants.  Rather they were designed as submersible blockade runners, a novel innovation of the German Merchant Marine.  They smuggled sorely needed supplies from America to Germany past the British blockade.  U-151 had started her career as the merchant sub SS Oldendorf.  But after the US entered WWI and the Kaiser’s ships were no longer welcome in US ports, the German Merchant Marine converted the “U-cruisers” for military use.  The seven are credited with sinking 44 American freighters totaling 110,000 tons.  And a mine, probably sown by U-156, sank the only US Navy capital ship to be lost in WWI, the armored cruiser USS SAN DIEGO (ACR-6).

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  6 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Harding, Stephen.  Great Liners at War.  Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1997, p. 45.

Scheck, William.  “Under the British Blockade:  The Cruise of the Deutschland,”  Sea Classics, Vol 28 (9), September 1995, pp. 58-63, 67-69.

Tarrant, V.E.  The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 70-71.

Thomas, Lowell.  Raiders of the Deep.  New York, NY: Award Books, 1964, pp. 254-93.

van der Vat, Dan.  Stealth at Sea:  The History of the Submarine.  New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994, pp. 105-06, 119.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The story of Germany’s unarmed merchant subs is an interesting twist of naval history.  WWI occurred at the dawn of the age of submarines, and this was only one of several novel German experiments into methods of U-boat deployment.  The most famous of these merchant subs was SS Deutschland, who made two successful cargo voyages between the US and Germany in 1916-17.  When sailing as unarmed merchantmen these “U-cruisers” were not commissioned into the Kaiser’s Imperial Navy and of course flew the German Tricolor (black, white and red vertical bars) rather than the Kaiser’s Eagle war ensign.

The fact that the Germans used submarines to mine the Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York waterways in both WWI and WWII was not widely publicized.  The fact that several American ships were destroyed by these mines continues to be poorly appreciated today.

The post WWI at the Doorstep appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                               STATION “HYPO”

Next week will mark the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway, one of the most significant events in our Navy’s history.  Many are aware that ADM Chester W. Nimitz was aided in this victory by fleet intelligence, who had broken the Japanese naval code, JN-25.  The man responsible was LCDR Joseph Rochefort of the Naval Intelligence facility at Pearl Harbor, codenamed “Station Hypo.”

In the months that followed the December 7^th attack, Rochefort and his cadre of industrious cryptographers poured over volumes of intercepted Japanese code.  To assist, they employed a new, top-secret high-speed data processing technology (primitive IBM punchcard computers).  By the first week in May Rochefort, who was himself fluent in Japanese, began to notice frequently recurring phrases such as, “expedite,” “fueling at sea,” and “current scheduled operation.”  He correctly reasoned these were pieces of battle orders initiating Yamamoto’s long expected “crushing blow” against the Americans.  But where would that blow fall?

It was known that JN-25 used two-letter designations for locations, and Rochefort noticed recurring references to location “AF.”  To the dismay of Naval Intelligence back in Washington, DC, he deduced that “AF” referred to Midway.  In a flurry of heated messages however, Washington failed to see why “AF” might not be Australia, the Panama Canal, or possibly Hawaii.  Nimitz found himself caught in the middle.  Rochefort then hatched an ingenious scheme to trick the enemy into revealing “AF.”  He asked the garrison on Midway to broadcast an uncoded radio message indicating that their freshwater evaporator was not operational.  As Rochefort suspected subsequent Japanese message traffic included a reference to “AF” being short on fresh water.  With additional work, by this date in late May Nimitz knew the complete Japanese Midway plan.

Even during the battle itself, Nimitz was kept informed by Station Hypo.  Rochefort intercepted and decoded messages from VADM Nagumo about the fatal bombing and fires on the carriers AKAGI, KAGA, and SORYU.  Nimitz knew when HIRYU was fatally hit the following day and later heard Yamamoto call off the attack.  Clearly the work of Rochefort and Station Hypo had been invaluable, and Nimitz recommended him for the Distinguished Service Medal.

But the outspoken LCDR Rochefort had by then made enemies in Washington.  Not only was his award disapproved, but Rochefort was transferred to sea duty in command of the floating drydock ABSD-2, where he remained for the duration of the war.  Fortunately, Rochefort’s monumental work has not gone permanently unrewarded.  In 1985, following his death, Rochefort was finally awarded his Distinguished Service Medal by President Reagan.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  2 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Blair, Clay, Jr.  Silent Victory:  The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, Vol 1.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975, pp. 236-39.

Potter, Anthony R., (prod.).  “Station Hypo”.  Spies Video Series, Columbia House Company, 1992.

Prados, John.  Combined Fleet Decoded:  The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II.  New York, NY: Random House, 1995, pp. 314-35.

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                           “CHARLIE’s AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE”

The Rung Sat is a 400-square mile mangrove swamp between Saigon and the Vietnamese coastline.  Four major rivers course through the otherwise impassable area, including the Long Tau shipping channel leading to Saigon.  The swamp was home to no one before the Vietnam war.  However, refugees took up residence during the 1960s on house boats or stilted huts.  The Viet Cong also frequented the area earning it the reputation as the “forest of assassins.”  Here they set shore-detonated mines and ambushed shipping traffic with recoilless rifles and rocket launchers.  So much activity plagued the area that the US Army launched Operation “Lexington” between 21 May and 9 June 1966.  In conjunction, our Navy launched Operation “Jackstay” to stop enemy riverine activity.

On the sinuous Song Dinh Ba River, LT Alex Balian watched the shore closely this day from PCF-41 as dusk approached.  The “old man” of the crew, BM2 Raleigh Godley, with his forty-ish years of experience, steadied the helm.  Above the pilothouse EN3 Charles Barham scanned the shore with binoculars beside twin .50 caliber machine guns.  It was a hot and muggy evening.

Using a common nickname for the VC, the LT warned, “Charlie’s around here somewhere,” just as a 57mm recoilless rifle round struck the fast patrol craft and the world exploded for RM2 Robert L. Keim.  The Radioman staggered to the pilothouse from the edge of the gunboat to which he had been blown.  The instrument panel and BM2 Godley at the wheel were gone.  Out of control, PCF gathered speed as Godley may have shoved the throttle forward in a dying effort to save PCF-41.  Balian reached the aft steering station as SN Ralph Powers and GMG3 Glenn Greene readied the 81mm mortar.  Then the patrol boat suddenly lurched and ran fast aground beneath the overhanging jungle canopy.  As everyone regained their feet Balian called, “We can hold them off until one of the other boats comes up here.”  But there was no help coming.  The thick jungle and sharp turns of the river shielded the sound of the attack from others.

When the Viet Cong reached PCF-41 the crew was ready.  Bullets and shells whizzed, and after emptying the ammo locker, Balian ordered everyone into the water.  The remaining crew piled into a life raft; the tide and current were in their favor.  Crocodiles, snakes, and voices of enemy guerrillas now kept their attention as they drifted.  To avoid detection the men slid into the water, holding onto the raft and enduring the stinging of jellyfish.  When they heard an engine in the distance Balian lifted his rifle into the air.  The radar shadow was sighted by a nearby PCF and the crew was rescued.

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Calaunan, Jun.  “A Navy Jury Friday Convicted Capt. Alexander Balian.”  UPI Archives, 24 February 1989.  AT: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/02/24/A-Navy-jury-Friday-convicted-Capt-Alexander-Balian-of/9782604299600/, retrieved 3 May 2025.

Schreadley, Richard L.  From the Rivers to the Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1992, pp. 279.

“22 May 1966 Sinking of PCF-41.” Swiftboats website.  AT: http://swiftboats.net/stories/pcf41.htm.  Retrieved 15 April 2014.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  LT Balian was awarded the Silver Star for his actions in combating the VC and in saving his crew.  He remained in the Navy, eventually rising to the rank of CAPT.  However, his career was dealt a fatal blow when he was convicted of dereliction of duty at a court martial in February 1989.  In command of USS DUBUQUE (LPD-8) in June of the previous year, en route to the Persian Gulf, Balian had failed to rescue Vietnamese refugees adrift in the South China Sea in an unseaworthy boat.  Twenty-eight refugees had already died prior to DUBUQUE’s encounter, and though Balian passed a week’s worth of food and water to the refugees, 30 more succumbed before the boat drifted 300 additional miles to the Philippines.  The 52 refugees who survived did so by resorting to cannibalism.

Godley’s body was ultimately recovered.  He is remembered today on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.

The post “Charlie’s Around Here Somewhere” appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                PERSISTENCE…

At 1400 on 13 May 1944, CDR George C. Wright of DESRON 21 was ordered to take USS GLEAVES (DD-423), NIELDS (DD-616) and MACOMB (DD-458) out of Oran, Algeria, to search for a submarine that had torpedoed two freighters in Convoy GUS-39.  The sub was being held underwater by two British destroyers, but by the time the Americans reached the spot, the contact had been lost.  The effort was part of Operation “Monstrous,” an appropriately named effort to employ overwhelming force to counter a frustrating run of convoy losses in the western Mediterranean.

During that night, MV G.S. Walden and SS Fort Fidler were torpedoed and damaged 85 miles to the northeast.  ELLYSON (DD-454), RODMAN (DD-456), HAMBLETON (DD-455) and EMMONS (DD-457) were augmented to the fight, also out of Oran, under CAPT Adelbert F. Converse of DESRON 10.  When they arrived on scene HILARY P. JONES (DD-427) and two DEs were already searching.  JONES damaged the sub with depth charges, but she escaped.  Shortly a search plane radioed a contact 30 miles to the west.  The (now) eight destroyers rushed to the area, only to receive another airplane contact well to the north.  It was dark by now.  Signal flares guided Converse’s flotilla and rewarded them with a sonar contact.  They attacked, and the following morning, May 15^th, a ten-mile diesel oil slick revealed the sub had been hurt.

For two more days the destroyers combed the area near Cape Santa Pola, but without any luck.  Unknown to them, all these contacts were the same sub, U-616!

Then at 2226 on May 16^th a British Wellington bomber caught a U-boat on the surface about 35 miles from the destroyers, moving away fast.  Converse charged to the area, and at 2356 MACOMB’s radar picked up a surface contact at 4600 yards.  Her spotlight silhouetted a conning tower and Macomb got off six 5″ rounds before the sub went under.  The sonars pinged!  Contacts were made, and depth charges splashed.  Through the night the ritual went on.  Again, it was U-616, but she was damaged, flooding, batteries low, air bad, and with little hope of escape.  At 0807 this morning she could take no more.  She surfaced to allow her crew to abandon ship and was immediately brought under 5″ gunfire.  Fifty-three of her 54 crewmen made it out before U-616 sank.  Oberleutnant zur See Seigfried Koitschka ordered her rigged for demolition, and minutes after she disappeared below the waves a muffled boom told her fate.  Only one crewman was lost.  The tireless hunt for U-616 had stretched over 90 hours from the time DESRON 21 sortied from Oran.  They had been chasing U-616 the whole time.  It was the longest, most persistent prosecution of a submarine during the entire war.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  22 MAY 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, p. 186.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol X  The Atlantic Battle Won.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1956, pp. 257-59.

Roscoe, Theodore.  United States Destroyer Operations in World War II.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1953, pp. 371-73.

Wynn, Kenneth.  U-Boat Operations of the Second World War  Vol 2: Career Histories, U511-UIT25.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 84-85.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Neither G.S. Walden nor Fort Fidler (both British) was lost in the above attack.  U-616 was on her 9^th war patrol at the time operating with the 29^th U-boat Flotilla.  Across her career she is also credited with sinking two warships, the British landing craft HMS LCT-553 and USS BUCK (DD-420) both off Salerno, Italy, in October 1943.  Seigfried Koitschka was held in an Allied POW camp until June 1946.  During his captivity he was promoted to Kapitänleutnant and awarded the Knights Cross.

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                                 ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP

The years between the World Wars saw the development of lighter-than-air zeppelins and blimps, initially useful in the civilian common carrier industry by virtue of their sustained cruising capabilities.  These same cruising and loitering potentials made blimps ideal for anti-submarine patrols off our coasts during WWII, and our Navy employed several classes of blimps for that purpose.  But these blimps often found themselves handy for a variety of other tasks.

K-67 was one such blimp operating out of Moffett Field near San Francisco.  Japanese submarines rarely visited our west coast, and K-67’s patrols with Squadron ZP-31 were often boring.  Her crew welcomed the occasional odd mission, as happened after her arrival in July 1943.  A man suspected of dodging his draft board was thought to be working on a fishing boat, out of reach of shore authorities.  K-67 was sent to locate that fishing boat at sea, which she did.  Her crew dropped messages wrapped around oranges, and the gentleman in question was corralled!

Then on this date K-67 was tapped for a rescue mission.  A Navy F6F Hellcat had crashed at sea, and a PBY Catalina sent to rescue her pilot landed hard in the heavy swells and split her seams.  The PBY quickly flooded down enough to prevent her ever getting airborne again.  Working in concert with K-59, K-67 was sent to locate the downed flyers near San Nicholas Island off Southern California.  Once overhead the crew of the PBY could be seen clinging to their half-sunken Catalina, but the pilot of the F6F floated face-down in the waves, apparently swimming weakly.  K-67’s pilot, ENS John Hoag, vectored nearby ships to the scene, then dove dangerously low to only 20 feet off the waves.  He dropped an automatically inflating life raft that landed within 15 feet of the F6F pilot, who made no effort to gain the raft.  In a desperate attempt to save the drowning pilot, ARM1c J.A. Sosnowski suspended himself on a rope 10 feet below the blimp’s gondola.  He had nearly reached the victim when a large wave knocked him away.  Soaked, but still clinging to the line, Sosnowski was towed through the water by Hoag, who skillfully maneuvered the blimp to bring the First Class safely within reach of the PBY.  Before any further rescue attempts were made, the crew of the PBY determined the pilot had drowned.

USS McFARLAND (DD-237) arrived in the next 30 minutes.  She recovered all the personnel and sank the flooded PBY with gunfire.  McFARLAND, herself, had an interesting history.  Commissioned DD-237 after WWI, she was converted to seaplane tender AVD-14 in 1940.  She was re-converted to DD-237 on 1 December 1943 and operated out of San Diego in carrier pilot training duties.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  16 MAY 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. 299-300.

Shock, James R.  U.S. Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship.  Edgewater, FL: Atlantis Pub., 2001, p. 119.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  McFARLAND remembers, Captain of the Forecastle John McFarland, a Union sailor in the Civil War.  McFarland was in sickbay on 5 August 1864 when his ship, USS HARTFORD, led RADM Farragut’s squadron into Mobile Bay.  McFarland left his sickbed to man the wheel of HARTFORD as Farragut “damned the torpedoes” and charged ahead.  McFarland was awarded the Medal of Honor.

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                                       PINE TREE NAVAL ENSIGN

Samuel Thompson was a Brunswick (modern Maine) tavern owner appointed to command the Brunswick Militia in 1774.  The seeds of revolution were starting to sprout in New England in 1774, and Thompson was ordered by the Continental Congress to boycott all British goods.  His resolve was tested on 2 March 1775, when the sloop John and Mary arrived in Falmouth (modern Portland, Maine) having carried a shipment of spars, line, and rigging across the Atlantic.  The shipment was bound to Thomas Coulson, a Falmouth Loyalist and shipbuilder.  Thompson acted, halting the off-loading of the cargo and demanding the ship leave Falmouth harbor.  Coulson negotiated that the ship be allowed, at least, to make repairs after her trans-Atlantic crossing.  And while those repairs were proceeding, Coulson quietly sent word to the British in Boston.

HMS CANCEAUX was dispatched from Boston under command of LT Henry Mowat, RN.  She arrived in Falmouth on March 29, turning the tables in favor of His Majesty.  CANCEAUX was an 80-foot sloop built for charting and hydrographic surveying, but she mounted eight 1/2-pounders and six larger guns.  She had been used as a warship in situations calling only for moderate force.  Under her protective guns Coulson resumed the lightering of the naval stores.  Then word reached Falmouth of the Revolution’s start the previous month at the battles of Lexington and Concord outside Boston.

The news prompted Thompson.  Fifty patriot militiamen had arrived in Falmouth by then, each with a sprig of spruce tucked in his hat for identification.  A plan began to form for a small boat mass attack on CANCEAUX as more militia collected in town.  Indeed, their growing boat flotilla was led by one bearing a spruce tree with its bottom branches removed as an ensign tied to the transom.  By early May, nearly 600 patriot militia had gathered, whose goal was to capture His Majesty’s warship.

But events overtook the plan on May 9 when Mowat came ashore to arrange church services for his crew.  He was fallen upon and captured.  CANCEAUX’s 1^st LT fired two blank charges in the direction of the town and threatened an actual bombardment if Mowat was not released.  Though the British were vastly outnumbered, cooler heads did prevail.  Mowat was released, and CANCEAUX and the stores ship weighed anchor and departed on 15 May.  The Patriot militia, frustrated at missing a fight, loosed their venom by ransacking the homes of Coulson and another loyalist, Sheriff Tyng.

A spruce tree as a naval ensign is thought to have inspired the Pine Tree Flag used in several forms during the Revolution.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  12 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Colonel Samuel Thompson to the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.” dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 244.

“Falmouth Customs Officers to Commissioners of the Customs.” dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 245.

“Jedidiah Preble to Massachusetts Provincial Congress.”  dtd. 14 May 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 327-29.

“Journal of His Majesty’s Ship Canceaux, Henry Mowat, Commanding.” dtd. 15 May 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, p. 333.

Leamon, James.  Revolution Downeast: The American Revolution in Maine.  Amhearst, MA: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1993, pp. 60-67.

“Lieutenant Henry Mowat, R.N., to Edward Parry.”  dtd. 29 April 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 244-45.

“Minutes of the Committee of Inspection of Falmouth, Maine Province,” dtd. 10 Apr 1775. IN: Clark, William Bell, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 1  1774-1775.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1964, pp. 174-75.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Mowat would exact his revenge that same year.  Under orders to bombard coastal towns thought to be aiding the rebels, Mowat returned to Falmouth in mid-October and burned most of the town to the ground.  He commanded British forces at the disastrous Patriot defeat at Penobscot Bay in 1779.  He rose to the rank of CAPT in the Royal Navy and died of natural causes while on deployment in 1798.

Thompson was promoted to BGEN of the Cumberland County Militia the following year.  He survived the war and went on to serve in public office for the State of Massachusetts.  He was a major benefactor of Bowdoin College.

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                                              MARIEL BOATLIFT

The Cuban economy took a nosedive in the 1970s.  Housing shortages and joblessness fueled popular dissent, yet Fidel Castro’s harsh restrictions on emigration appeared to condemn Cubans to a life of struggle.  Faced with possible civil unrest in the late 1970s, Castro loosened his grip.  In January 1979 he released several political prisoners and allowed Cuban exiles in foreign lands to visit relatives in Cuba.  Then in April 1980, Castro declared the port of Mariel 25 miles west of Havana to be “open.”

Overnight, hundreds of local watercraft, many unseaworthy, began shipping aboard refugees.  Hundreds more boats departed Miami bound for Mariel as a boatlift of those fleeing Communist Cuba developed.  US Coast Guard District 7 was quickly overwhelmed as scores of overloaded and questionably sound boats ran out of fuel or broke down in the seas between the island and Florida.  President Jimmy Carter called up 900 Coast Guard Reservists, but even these, coupled with re-deployed Guardsmen from other Atlantic areas, could not keep up with the struggles at sea.  Typical was the ocean-going tug Dr. Daniels, intercepted on this day by USCG CAPE GULL (WPB-95304).  She had been chartered by Cuban-Americans to transport relatives, but at Mariel, Cuban authorities ordered her (over)loaded with 447 of those immediately available.  Dr. Daniels had lifesaving equipment for about 150.

The US Navy responded as well on 5 May.  USS SAIPAN (LHA-2) and BOULDER (LST-1190), augmented by P-3 Orion patrol aircraft from NAS Jacksonville, joined the rescue now dubbed Operation “Freedom Flotilla.”  When civilian aircraft interfered with operation, the FAA declared a flight restriction over southern Florida, with F-4 Phantoms from VMFA-312 at MCAS Beaufort flying enforcement.  The 1^st Battalion, 8^th Marines, 2^nd MarDiv went ashore at Key West to help process the refugees.  The Orange Bowl stadium and decommissioned Cold War missile defense sites were converted to hold refugees.

Among the 125,000 Cubans and detained Canadians who reached Florida were Pulitzer Prize winning writer Mirta Ojito, opera singer Elizabeth Caballero and TV actor Rene Lavan.  Then Castro, seeing an opportunity, began emptying Havana’s jails and mental hospitals.  This now ramped up a requirement for intensified screening–complicating an already chaotic scene.  An estimated 1000+ violent criminals entered Florida, including arsonist and mass-murder Julio Gonzalez and convicted murderer and gang leader Luis Felipe.  The exodus lasted until Castro re-closed Mariel that autumn.  In a testament to American seapower, only 27 refugees died at sea from the more than 1700 boats of the Mariel Boatlift.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Lazelere, Alex.  The 1980 Cuban Boatlift.  Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press, 1988.

“Mariel Boatlift”  Global Security website.  AT: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/mariel-boatlift.htm, retrieved 16 October 2015.

“Mariel Boatlift.” US Nook Website.  AT: http://usnook.com/ english/politics/history/diplomacy/2013/0924/61491.html, retrieved 16 October 2015.

“Mariel Boatlift, 1980.”  USCG History Center.  AT: http:// www.uscg.mil/history/articles/uscg_mariel_history_1980.asp, retrieved 16 October 2015.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This was one in a series of humanitarian operations in the Caribbean and Central America in the latter 20^th century in which the Navy and Marine Corps participated.  VMFA-312 and the 8^th Marines received the Humanitarian Service Medal for their actions in this operation.

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                                INTERCEPTING THE SUGAR FLEET

In the earliest days of our nation, the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress was not hesitant to give tactical direction to our naval forces afloat.  On this day, the Committee instructed that an American squadron rendezvous off the Bahamian island of Abacoa on 25 July, with the intent of intercepting the annual “sugar fleet.”  Each year more than 100 sail carried a Caribbean sugar bounty to England and, according to the Committee, usually departed Jamaica the last week of July.  USS RANDOLPH, 32, ANDREW DORIA, 14, SURPRIZE, 12, and COLUMBUS, 24, were detailed to the mission.

The Marine Committee’s quite prescriptive resolution directed the senior officer at Abacoa to assume command, work out signals, and arrange patrols.  The squadron was to set out in the direction of Havana, the presumed path of the Jamaica fleet.  While anticipating contact they were to practice signals, exercise the guns, and safeguard the health of the crews by taking, “infinite pains on board every Ship to sweeten the Air, and keep not only the ship clean but the Men so in their Cloathing [sic] and Persons.”  The squadron was to send what captured ships they could to Georgia or the Carolinas and burn the rest.  The captains were reassured that the British usually sent convoy escorts that had long been on station and were foul and due for overhaul.  The resolution concluded with a statement prescient for its day, “The Navy is in its infancy and a few brilliant strokes in this Era would give it a credit and importance that would induce seamen from all parts to seek the employ for nothing is more evident than that America has the means and must in time become the first Maritime power in the world.”

COLUMBUS, SURPRIZE and ANDREW DIRIA never cleared port.  CAPT Nicholas Biddle aboard RANDOLPH opened his sealed orders on 10 July as instructed, but that date found RANDOLPH in Charleston for repairs rather than cruising off Hispaniola as expected.  Biddle did put to sea promptly, but a lightning strike during a storm split his mainmast and forced him back to port.

The grand rendezvous never occurred–indeed fate had already condemned the enterprise.  On 28 April, the day before the Committee’s resolution, the Charleston Gazette of the State of South-Carolina ran the news that 176 sail were to leave Jamaica on or about 1 May, richly laden with sugar, rum, cotton, coffee and a quantity of Carolina indigo.  It seems that had the American squadron been able to execute their orders, the larger than expected sugar fleet would have passed already.  We can only hope that the failure of this endeavor on several counts did not impede the US Navy on her ascent to primacy!

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  4 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Continental Marine Committee to Captain Nicholas Biddle,” letter dtd. 28 April 1777.  IN:  Morgan, William James, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 8  1777.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1980, p. 471.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1991, p. 294.

Gazette of the State of South-Carolina, excerpt dtd. 28 April 1777.  IN:  Morgan, William James, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 8  1777.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1980, p. 460-61.

Miller, Nathan.  Sea of Glory:  A Naval History of the American Revolution.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1974, pp. 226-27.

“Resolutions of the Continental Marine Committee, 29 April 1777.”  IN:  Morgan, William James, (ed.), Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Naval Documents of the American Revolution Vol 8  1777.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1980, p. 468-70.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The reason the departure of the Jamaica fleet was newsworthy in Charleston was the mention of Carolina indigo in British hands.  In that day rice, lumber, and indigo (used for making dyes) were the major exports of the southern colonies, and this particular shipment had been sold in the French West Indies and there acquired subsequently by the British.  The intelligence reported by the Charleston newspaper was specific even as to the names of the “sugar fleet’s” five Royal Navy escorts:  HMS MAIDSTONE, 26, WICHELSEA, 26, BADGER, 16, PORCUPINE, 14, and RACEHORSE, 10. 

The Continental Navy frigate RANDOLPH was named for the patriot Peyton Randolph, a Virginia lawyer who served as the King’s Attorney for Virginia and Speaker of the House of Burgesses prior to the Revolution.  He became devoted to the cause of American liberty, protesting the Stamp Act in 1764 and serving as the President of the First Continental Congress in 1774.  He died unexpectedly of “apoplexy” (stroke) 22 October 1775.

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                                            THE LOSS OF PETREL

To bolster Union naval forces patrolling the Mississippi in the Civil War, our Navy purchased a total of 63 existing sternwheel and sidewheel riverboats.  Protection was added to their upper works in the form of thick wooden bulwarks overlain with a metal skin.  They mounted heavy guns on the first deck and lighter howitzers on the upper decks.  “Tinclads” as they came to be known exercised patrol, reconnaissance, and gunboat missions along the Mississippi.  One such “tinclad,” USS PETREL, the former riverboat Duchess, operated from February to April 1864 in the Yazoo River of Mississippi.  On April 21^st, 1864, PETREL and her sister tinclad PAIRIE BIRD started upriver escorting the Army transport Freestone.  They were to retake Yazoo City, which had been abandoned by Union troops in February.  PETREL ranged ahead and came abreast of Yazoo City well in advance of the others.  Here she engaged a group of rebels firing from the hills.  As the river was insufficiently wide to turn, Acting Master Thomas McElroy ran upriver past the battery.  The following morning found PETREL against the bank with her crew ashore, collecting rails to stack against the boilers.

Suddenly the gunboat came under fire from a force of enemy infantry with two 12-pounder Parrott rifles.  “Minnie” balls and shot screamed through the air, some piercing completely through PETREL.  McElroy beat his crew to quarters, but found that the position of his boat against the bank prevented his heavy guns from being brought to bear.  The Yankees defended with muskets while McElroy attempted to back down into the stream.  But an enemy shot cut the tinclad’s steam lines; followed by another that struck the magazine and cut off the legs of Gunner’s Mate Charles Seitz.  Enemy sharpshooters began picking off the Union crewmen through the gun ports.  Several of the officers “behaved badly,” falling back out of fear.  Disabled and unable to counter-fire, McElroy decided to burn his vessel.  But just as Asst. Engineer Arthur M. Phillips was setting the gunboat ablaze, another rebel shot raked the stern and burst the boilers, bathing the ship in steam.  The steam doused the fires, and many of McElroy’s officers and crew jumped ashore and ran.  Only the pilot, Kimball Ware, and an enlisted sailor, Quartermaster John H. Nibbe, stayed to assist McElroy in defending PETREL’s flag.  Nibbe helped get the wounded ashore, then all three re-fired the gunboat by spreading coals from the boiler across the deck.

The Confederates surrounded and captured the three brave sailors.  The fires were again extinguished long enough for the rebels to strip every gun and salvageable store.  PETREL was then burned to prevent her re-capture.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. IV-46.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 276.

McElroy, Thomas.  Report of loss of Petrel.  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Series I-Volume 26:  Naval Forces on Western Waters (March 1, 1864-December 21, 1864).  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 248-49.

Porter, David D.  The Naval History of the Civil War.  Mineola, NY: Dover Pub., 1886, pp. 560-61.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 165, 176.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, p. 859.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  PETREL was taken with her flag still flying.  Quartermaster John H. Nibbe was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions this day (officers were not eligible at the time).  RADM David Dixon Porter berated PETREL’s remaining officers and crew for their apparent cowardice.

Union “tinclads” also had an enclosed pilothouse constructed on the upper-most deck.  This feature easily identifies such craft in period photographs that survive today.  Our modern system of hull numbering was not adopted until the 1920s, however each of the 63 tinclads had a number painted boldly on the outside of her pilot house.  PETREL was tinclad number 5, and PRAIRIE BIRD was number 11.

The rank of “Master” has an interesting history as well.  Early in the 1800s our Navy had four commissioned officer ranks–Sailing Master, Lieutenant, Master Commandant and Captain.  The Master Commandant rank was changed to “Commander” in 1837, the same year the lowest rank was shortened simply to “Master.”  During the Civil War, to accommodate an expanded force structure, on 16 July 1862 the new ranks of RADM and Commodore were created as Flag ranks above Captain; LCDR was inserted below Commander; and Ensign was inserted below Master.  In 1883 “Masters” became “Lieutenants Junior Grade,” which they remain today!

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