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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RADM CHARLES HENRY DAVIS

          Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Civil War Western Gunboat Flotilla supporting US Army operations in the upper Mississippi River, was in poor health.  He had been struck in this foot with shrapnel in February at the battle of Fort Donelson—a wound which festered and was now giving him considerable pain.  Of late, he was developing episodes of fever and prostration that were hampering his ability to command.  In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles dated this day, he recommended CAPT Charles H. Davis as his successor should his health warrant his relief.  Foote left the squadron on 9 May to recuperate back east, appointing Davis as temporary commodore of the flotilla.  The next day, the flotilla suffered an embarrassing defeat at Plum Point Bend off Fort Pillow, Tennessee, at the hands of Confederate gunboat/rams.

          Charles Henry Davis was a respected senior officer in his day.  Though not a combat veteran, his work in mathematics, navigation, marine science, and astronomy had earned him acclaim.  As flotilla commander he quickly rebounded from Plum Point Bend, staging a one-sided victory over the same Confederate gunboat/rams at Memphis on June 6^th.  He next moved his 12-ship ironclad/timberclad flotilla to Milliken’s Bend just north of Vicksburg.  While awaiting LTGEN Ulysses S. Grant’s actions, Davis conducted reconnaissance forays in the White River of Arkansas and Mississippi’s Yazoo River on 5-8 August and 16-27 August respectively.

          But as the summer of 1862 wore on, an outbreak of malaria gripped the Vicksburg area.  To protect his crews from the “bad air,” Davis moved the flotilla 150 miles north to Helena, Arkansas.  Back in Washington, Union leaders cared little about malaria and saw Davis’ action as timidity.  Welles already thought Davis more a scholar than an aggressive, fighting commander.  Davis was relieved on 12 October and appointed, instead, as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation.  He was promoted to RADM a few months later, on 7 February 1863.

          Back in Washington, Davis’ remarkable scientific work continued.  After the war he became the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory and served with the Lighthouse Board.  Off duty, Davis was an original founder of our present-day National Academy of Sciences.  Davis continues to be honorably remembered by our Navy with USS DAVIS (TB-12, DD-65, DD-295) and the oceanographic research vessel CHARLES H. DAVIS (AGOR-5).  As well, a sea anemone native to the Canadian Maritimes, Rhodactis davisii, is named to honor his contributions to Marine Science.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History  22 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 41-43.

Davis, Charles Henry, Jr.  The Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral, 1807-1877.  New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1899.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 244-45.

Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 63.

Stewart, Charles wW  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, pp, 85-86.

Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 395.

ADDITIONAL NTOES:  Charles Davis was largely self-taught.  He had studied mathematics at Harvard College from 1821-23, but left before finishing after his appointment to the Naval Academy.  Harvard recognized Davis with an honorary Bachelor of Arts degree in 1841 and an honorary Legum Doctor degree (LL.D.) in 1868.  Davis died on Active Duty on 18 February 1877 and is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He was 70 years old.

          Davis was replaced in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla by RADM David Dixon Porter.  The Western Gunbpat Flotilla shortly transferred to the US Navy as the Mississippi Squadron.

          Andrew Foote’s medical issue may well have been chronic osteomyelitis with periodic breakouts of sepsis.  He would live only into the next year, succumbing to one such episode in 1863.

          USS CHARLES H. DAVIS operated with the US Navy from 1962-70, when she was loaned to the New Zealand Navy.  She served there until 1998 while still being carried on our books as T-AGOR-5. She was stricken from our NVR in 1998 and sunk as an artificial reef off New Zealand the following year.

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                               “INDIA” 3/2’S STAND AT HUSAYBAH

The Marines of Company India, 3^rd Battalion, 2^nd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2, had been posted to Camp Gannon, near secluded Husaybah, on Iraq’s border with Syria.  There they became accustomed to occasional incoming mortar rounds.  But four rounds impacting a ten-yard square this morning signaled something unusual.  More heavy mortar fire screamed in, and three rocket propelled grenades (RPG) hit the combat operations center.

Amid the confusion a white dump truck rumbled up the dirt road toward the Camp’s entrance.  An RPG round simultaneously knocked LCPL’s Joseph Lampe and Roger Leyton to the floor of the forward guard bunker.  LCPL Joshua Butler in the next checkpoint watched the dump truck roll past Lampe’s bunker and toward his own.  He opened with 30 rounds of his M249 automatic weapon, peppering the cab of the dump truck and causing it to veer off the road.  It careened into an obstruction 40 yards from Butler’s position and erupted into a fireball.  The force of that blast knocked Butler against the wall and shrapnel smashed the goggles strapped to his helmet.  Stunned, Butler regained his feet in time to hear a second vehicle bouncing up the road.  A red firetruck punched through the smoke and now bore down on Butler’s position.  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” Bulter thought as he triggered his weapon.  LCPL Charles Young from a nearby position fired grenades which only bracketed the charging firetruck.  Butler could see two occupants’ faces wrapped in black cloth as he opened with this 5.56 mm rounds.  Thirty, then sixty rounds had no effect.  Not before 150 rounds did the truck veer off the road and explode 30 yards from Butler’s bunker.  In an instant Camp Gannon was engulfed in a giant concussion; windows shattered, doors were blown free, Marines were thrown from their bunks, and pieces of firetruck rained onto the compound.

Butler regained his senses in time to see Lampe and Leyton’s forward bunker under assault from several directions.  First SGT Donald Brazeal tumbled into the bunker a second later with two AT-4 anti-tank missiles.  The enemy had set up a strong point behind a wall 300 yards from the Camp, and Brazeal’s missiles cleanly took out the wall.  Now about 100 panicked school children ran from a building a block away.  The attacking insurgents used them as human shields, and the Marines had to check fire several times to avoid hitting innocent children.

After what seemed hours of intense fighting HM2 Jessie Beddia had treated only three casualties; all blast concussions, none were severe.  It was later discovered the firetruck had a bulletproof windshield and its occupants wore surplus American flak jackets.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”  15 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Friel, Lucien.  “Attack at Husaybah:  ‘India,’ 3/2’s Stand Against Insurgency.”  Leatherneck, Vol 88 (7), July 2005, pp. 28-29.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  In retrospect, it is surmised that in this highly organized attack, the dump truck was intended to crash the main gate, clearing a path for the firetruck into the heart of Camp Gannon.  The vehicular IED’s were to be followed with the ground assault that stalled behind the wall.  Young’s grenades and Butler’s fire probably thwarted what would otherwise have been a deadly attack.

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                                          THE DOMINO THEORY

In March 1938, (then) LCOL Dwight D. Eisenhower watched Hitler convince the Austrians to join an Anschluss (alliance) with Nazi Germany.  Seven months later Hitler annexed the Sudetenland (eastern Czechoslovakia).  The whole of Czechoslovakia fell in March 1939.  Poland was invaded six months later, triggering WWII.  The year of 1940 saw the consecutive falls of Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway, France, Romania, and Hungary.  All this transpired while the other Axis power, Italy, took Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Egypt then invaded Greece.  The result, by the time the United States entered the war, was that much of Europe languished under dictatorial fascism.

After WWII, concern over Russian Communism in eastern Europe prompted the influential American diplomat George Kennan to coin the term “containment” to describe the need to limit the spread of world Communism.  Americans tended to view Communism as a monolithic threat to democracy, made no less dire with the subsequent Communist revolutions that divided China and Korea.  And in 1954, during the Viet Minh’s siege of French forces at Dien Bien Phu, a Communist takeover of French Indochina (Vietnam) seemed imminent.

No doubt reminiscent of the sequential fall of nations in Europe before the war, now our 34^th President, Dwight Eisenhower, called for US backing of the French in Indochina.  In a press conference this day he justified the effort stating, “You have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the ‘falling domino’ principle…You have a row of dominos set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty that will go over very quickly.”  He implied that should the Communists take Indochina, next to fall would be Burma, Thailand, Malaya, and Indonesia, extending perhaps even to a Communist takeover in Japan!  The French did ultimately lose Indochina, while Eisenhower’s “domino theory” came to drive our involvement in Vietnam, and our foreign policy in general, for the next two decades.

Today the domino theory is suspected by some to have been an anxious exaggeration.  As was shown after the US embarrassment in Vietnam, and subsequent Communist pushes in Laos, Malaya, the Philippines, Indonesia, and several African and Central American nations, Communism proved to be non-monolithic.  Russian, Chinese, and other versions of Communism are disparate, even competitive at times.  A world takeover by “monolithic” Communism seems a delusion today as competition between versions of Communism limit its spread.  Indeed, the rise of Communism in third-world nations was likely driven more by local desires to improve economic depression than by an overarching plot for world domination.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.  “The President’s News Conference, April 7, 1954.”  The American Presidency Project website.  AT: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10202, retrieved 23 February 2018.

Kennan, George.  “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”  Foreign Affairs, 01 July 1947, AT: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct, retrieved 23 February 2018.

Leeson, Peter T. and Andrea M. Dean.  “The Democratic Domino Theory: An Empirical Investigation.”  AT: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00385.x/abstract:jsessionid=28BD26109195D99094FN7E9732F8861E.f03t02, retrieved 23 February 2018.

Ward, Geoffrey C. and Ken Burns.  The Vietnam War: An Intimate History.  New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017, p. 27.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The word fascism comes from the Roman fasces,

a type of battle axe.  The fasces became the symbol of the Roman Republic, much like the eagle is a symbol of the United States.  Modern fascism got its start in WWI-era Italy with a (failed) political movement to recreate the former Roman Empire.

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                                 ADMIRAL MOFFETT AND AKRON

RADM William A. Moffett was one of our most energetic and determined Naval aviators, whose particular interest was the rigid-framed lighter-than-air (LTA) ship.  Moffett faced an uphill battle however, as zeppelins were widely thought to be large, slow targets despite their value as long-range scouts.  No less, the zeppelin disasters of that era had convinced many of their fundamentally unsafe design.  But persistence was a Moffett virtue–persistence sufficient to sustain the LTA program through the 1920s.  In fact, his crowning achievements were our last two zeppelins, the 785-foot sister-ships AKRON (ZRS-4) and MACON (ZRS-5).  Construction of AKRON began in 1929; Moffett, himself drove the “golden rivet” into the ship’s main ring.  She was commissioned on Navy Day (October 27^th) 1931.

AKRON, like her predecessors, soon demonstrated the pitfalls inherent in the zeppelin design–her large rigid frame was unforgiving of sudden wind shears, making her tricky to handle in all but the lightest airs.  To be sure, wind-related damage sidelined the airship on several occasions.  But a more serious accident occurred on 11 May 1932, when AKRON was attempting to moor at US Army Camp Kearny, California (present day MCAS Miramar).  Here the hot California sun combined with nearly empty fuel tanks to make the ship too light.  When she threatened to swing vertically, her nose cable had to be cut suddenly, and three sailors were swept into the air gripping the line.  ACM3 Robert H. Edsall and SA Nigel M. Henton fell to their deaths, and the third, SA C.M. Cowart, hung on for an hour until he could be hauled aboard to safety.

The following year on the evening of 3 April 1933, AKRON departed NAS Lakehurst, NJ, to patrol the New England coast and calibrate signals from newly installed radio direction-finding stations.  According to his frequent custom RADM Moffett was aboard, as was CDR Fred T. Berry, the CO of Lakehurst.  Shortly they encountered heavy weather which worsened as they continued north.  Then sometime around 0030 AKRON was struck by a severe down draft that sent the airship on a tailspin into the Atlantic.  The German steamer Phoebus saw the lights of the craft as she fell, but a five-hour search saved only three, including AKRON’s XO, LCDR Henry V. Wiley.

AKRON’s toll was undoubtedly higher because dirigibles generally did not carry life-vests.  Indeed the 72 lost made this the worst air disaster of its day.  Moreover, the death of the dynamic Moffett signaled the end of the LTA program.  The airfield at NAS Sunnyvale (Onizuka Air Force Station) was named Moffett Field in his honor.  Two giant, hemi-tubular zeppelin hangars could be seen there until 2010.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  7 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Archbold, Rick.  Hindenburg: An Illustrated History.  New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc., 1994, pp. 124-29.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1991, pp. 103-05.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 548-52.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Zeppelins differ from blimps, balloons, and other dirigibles in that they have a rigid internal skeleton of wood or metal.  It was precisely this inflexible frame that made them so vulnerable to wind shear.  The name “zeppelin” derives, of course, from Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), the German-born inventor of the rigid-framed airship.

AKRON and MACON were not the largest zeppelins ever built.  The infamous Hindenburg that crashed and burned at Lakehurst, New Jersey, was 804 feet long.  Navy LTAs were inflated with Helium, making them considerably safer than German zeppelins of the day that were borne aloft on bladders filled with highly flammable Hydrogen gas.

Onizuka Air Force Station closed on 30 September 2010, the structures thereon were razed, and the land was turned over to the Veterans Administration and the City of Sunnyvale.

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                                           THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

World War I had been tearing Europe apart since the summer of 1914.  Here, we struggled to stay neutral, despite the sinkings of American merchant ships carrying cargoes to the Allies.  To most Americans, WWI was 5000 miles away, too distant to raise concern, especially with the vast Atlantic Ocean insulating us.  That is, until events brought the war nearer in early 1917…

The German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann, recognizing that the Central Powers needed help to win the war, sent a telegram to the German ambassador to the United States, Johann von Bernsdorff, instructing him to pass it to the German ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt.  The message promised the return to Mexico of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (lost in the 1840s war with the US) if Mexico entered the war for the Central Powers.  The Western Union telegram was intercepted by British intelligence and passed to American authorities.  Our public was outraged.  Despite our neutrality, the war was moving closer to our shores!

To complicate matters, Japan was rumored to be building a naval base on Cedros Island, off Mexican Baja California.  Though Japan was aligned with the Allies, the plan smacked of the further dragging of our Western Hemisphere into the war.  These rumors turned out to be just that, but a more serious concern over Denmark simultaneously gripped President Woodrow Wilson.

The small, neutral nation of Denmark lay immediately north of Germany, within easy reach of Kaiser Willhelm II.  Germany might easily overrun Denmark, allowing her overseas possessions of Greenland, Iceland, and the Danish Virgin Islands to come under the control of the Central Powers.  Then, Germany announced on 31 January, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.  Would the Danish Virgin Islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. Johns become a Caribbean U-boat base?  Such would threaten our Panama Canal, opened in August 1914, and our operations in two major oceans.  A German presence in the Caribbean had to be prevented.

The Wilson administration approached the Danish government with an offer to purchase the Danish Virgin Islands.  The offer was accepted, on 17 January 1917, the Danish Virgin Islands were transferred to the United States for $25 million in gold.  Administration of the islands was assigned to the Navy Department, and on 29 March two companies of US Marines landed on St. Thomas to establish a garrison and begin construction of shore batteries and harbor defenses.  Then on this day RADM James H. Oliver formally took possession, becoming the islands’ first governor.  The timing was fortuitous, for in less than a week, on 6 April 1917, the US declared war on the Central Powers.

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, pp. 223, 224.

Neiberg, Michael S.  The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America.  New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2016, pp. 92-93.

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                                                  USS HALLIGAN

The bloody and bitter fight for Iwo Jima had barely begun to quiet before the next target on the relentless march toward Japan was determined–Okinawa.  Here the Marines expected yet another tenacious fight to the death by entrenched defenders loyal to their Emperor.  D-Day was set for April 1^st, and the last weeks of March saw the pre-invasion bombardment of the Okinawa landing zones.  Accompanying this “softening-up” force was the Fletcher-class destroyer HALLIGAN (DD-584).  A veteran of the campaigns for the Marshalls, Saipan, the Philippines, and Iwo Jima, her skipper, LCDR Edward T. Grace, had been allowed only a few days to refit in Ulithi before getting underway for Okinawa.  This morning found HALLIGAN patrolling between Okinawa and Kerama Retto, protecting minesweepers who were preparing an area known to be heavily mined.

Around 1830 this day, FN1c Eddie S. Strine stood in the chow line aboard the destroyer-minesweeper AARON WARD (DM-34) steaming a couple miles starboard of HALLIGAN.  Out the port passageway hatch he watched the strong silhouette of the destroyer calmly coursing in shoal water three miles southeast of Maye Shima.  Then suddenly a silent flash enveloped the destroyer, and a massive column of black smoke mushroomed from HALLIGAN.  Seconds later the concussion struck WARD and sent her sailors to General Quarters.

HALLIGAN was wrenched in two in the explosion, only a handful of sailors forward of the bridge escaped in the seconds it took for the bow section to flood and sink.  LCDR Grace and all but two of the wardroom officers were killed instantly.  ENS R.L. Gardner, who happened to be in the after 5″ gun mount, leapt back to his feet uninjured, and quickly ran forward.  Recognizing himself to be the only officer left aboard, he began organizing fire-fighting, damage control, and rescue operations.  The explosion had detonated the forward magazines and nothing forward of the No. 1 stack remained.  PC-1128 and LSM-194 pulled alongside to assist, but it soon became apparent that there was little left to save.  Gardner ordered the remaining crew to abandon ship and made one last sweep through the spaces.  Luckily one sailor was found still alive below decks, pinned under wreckage.  A handy torch quickly freed the man.  In all, 153 sailors perished with HALLIGAN, most instantly when the Japanese mine detonated beneath the destroyer’skeel.  She was the first US warship lost in the Okinawa campaign, without having fired a shot in her own defense.

HALLIGAN’s after section drifted 12 miles before running aground on the Okinawan shore.  Her rusting hulk remained aground until 1958, when it was donated to the Okinawans for scrap.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  31 MAR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 216-17.

Lott, Arnold S.  Brave Ship Brave Men.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1964, p. 139.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol XIV  Victory in the Pacific.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1960, pp. 115-16.

Parkin, Robert Sinclair.  Blood on the Sea:  American Destroyers Lost in World War II.  New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1995, pp. 285-87.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  HALLIGAN was named for RADM John HALLIGAN, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and WWI, who later served as Chief of the Bureau of Engineering, Assistant CNO, and Commander of the 13^th Naval District.

Sailors feared mines as much as any other casualty, as ships striking mines were often doomed.  Sailors tread lightly on the decks in mine-infested waters, as a detonation would throw the decks up so violently that one would often suffer the fracture of both legs and be thrown overboard.

LCDR Edward Thomas Grace was awarded the Sliver Star for his actions this day.

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                                            THE YEOMANETTES

By the Spring of 1917 the “Great War” had been raging in Europe for several years and a yet neutral America was being drawn ever closer to the fray.  Noting the gathering war clouds, Congress had approved President Wilson’s request for a “Navy second to none,” appropriating an unprecedented $500 million.  The legislation authorized the new construction of 26 battleships and cruisers, 50 destroyers and 83 other vessels.  From his office in downtown Washington DC, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels eyed the build-up and wondered from where the crews for all these new ships would come.

Army regulations clearly specified that only “male persons” could be enlisted, but the 1916 Navy Act (possibly through clerical omission) simply stated that “all persons” could be enlisted as necessary to meet the Navy’s needs.  Just who originated the idea of recruiting women is still debated, but Daniels jumped at the possibility of solving a major manpower crisis.  Eschewing contemporary social morays, on this date he exploited the loophole and authorized the US Navy to begin enlisting women into the rates of Electrician (radio), Yeoman, and other stateside non-combat assignments.  Officially tagged the Naval Reserve Yeoman (F) program, it was our Armed Forces’ first recognition of the contribution women could make in any role other than nursing.  Two days later, on 21 March, YN(F) Loretta Perfectus Walsh became our first “Yeomanette.”

America entered WWI before three weeks had passed. The slogan “free a man for the front” drove women to enlist for service as clerks, draftsmen, fingerprinters, translators, messengers, attendants, and camouflage designers among other duties.  One group manufacturing munitions in Newport, RI, was complemented on their efficiency.  Where 175 men had previously produced 5000 primers a week, 340 women now produced 55,000 units–the six-fold increase attributed by Daniels to the women’s ability and devotion.  Even after working hours Yeomanettes often pulled extra duty promoting war bonds or staffing recreational facilities.  On 12 August 1918, just three months before the armistice, a Marine Corps equally pressed for combat manpower followed suit by opening enlistment to similar duty for women “Marinettes.”

Throughout World War I, nearly 12,000 women honorably served the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.  Upon their mustering-out, Josephus Daniels paid an endearing, if inadvertently misspoken tribute, “We will never forget you.  As we embrace you in uniform today, we will embrace you without a uniform tomorrow”.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26 MAR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Ebbert, Jean and Marie-Beth Hall.  Crossed Currents:  Navy Women from WWI to Tailhook.  New York, NY: Brassey’s (US), 1993, pp. 3-21.

Holm, Jeanne.  Women in the Military:  An Unfinished Revolution.  Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1992, pp. 9-10.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 307-08.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, p. 135.

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                               EASTPORT BEFORE FORT DE RUSSY

The year 1863 had seen a turn in the Civil War in favor of the Union.  A Confederate foray into the north had been reversed at Gettysburg and the last Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg had fallen.  With the Mississippi now in Union hands attention turned to Confederate activities west of the river in Louisiana and Arkansas.  Here the Red River provided the main thoroughfare for cotton and other supplies shipping eastward.  As the spring rains swelled the Red River in 1864, combined Union Naval and ground forces planned an assault.

Their first obstacle was Fort de Russy, named for its builder, Confederate Army engineer COL Lewis G. de Russy.  This fort lay 45 miles up the river from the mouth at the Mississippi, a course over which the Red River forms a northward-projecting loop into northeastern Louisiana.  Fort de Russy lay on the western leg of that loop.  Union troops under BGENs Andrew Jackson Smith and Joseph Mower would land on the eastern leg of the loop at Simmesport and march the 28 miles across the bottom of the loop along what is modern Louisiana State Route 1.  They would envelope the rear of the fort while the ironclad warships of RADM David Dixon Porter would proceed up the Red River to support the assault.  On the morning of March 13^th Porter’s transports began disembarking 10,000 Union troops at Simmesport while the ironclad USS EASTPORT under LCDR Seth L. Phelps, along with NEOSHO, LAFAYETTE, CHOCTAW, OSAGE, OZARK, FORT HINDMAN and CRICKET were sent upriver.  Ahead of the main gunboat force, they were to remove obstructions eight miles below the fort.  Their progress was slowed by LAFAYETTE and CHOCTAW, whose long keels plagued negotiation of the channel.

The obstructions proved formidable.  Arriving on this day Phelps found a row of pilings driven into the river bottom across the channel, braced against a second tier of shorter pilings.  Ties and iron plates bridged each piling creating an impassable, anchored “wall.”  Sunken logs blocked access to the downstream side, and from above, trees had been cut and floated down the river to jam up the pilings.  Phelps’ sailors attached tow lines to the pilings, axes swung, and several of the gunboats repeatedly rammed the obstruction.  For several hours they labored, finally breaking a passage open around 1600.  OSAGE, FORT HINDMAN and CRICKET followed EASTPORT the final miles to Fort de Russy.  Here they found Union troops already engaged.

The battle proved one-sided.  The Confederate defender, MGEN John G. Walker, had marched 5000 rebels out to stall the advancing Federals, and most of these escaped to fight another day.  The 300 garrisoned in the fort surrendered after only a brief engagement.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  19 MAR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-31-32.

Porter, David D.  The Naval History of the Civil War.  Mineola, NY: Dover Pub., 1886, pp. 495-97.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy, regarding combined movement up the river and capture of Fort de Russy by forces under Brigadier-General Smith, U.S. Army, March 14, 1864.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 26, Naval Forces on Western Waters from March 1 to December 31, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 24-27.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of Lieutenant Commander Phelps, U.S. Navy, regarding removal of obstructions and capture of Fort De Russy.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 26, Naval Forces on Western Waters from March 1 to December 31, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 29-31.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Among the guns captured at Fort de Russy were three Naval guns, two 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores formerly in service on USS NDIANOLA and USS HARRIET LANE (both lost earlier in the war) and a 32-pounder cast in the 1820s.

EASTPORT was originally a rebel ironclad, started by the Confederates in the upper Tennessee River in 1862, but captured on the ways by Union forces.

John George Walker, above, was a seasoned and able combat commander.  He had served with the US Army before the Civil War in the Mexican and Apache Wars.  During the Rebellion he saw action in the Peninsular Campaign, at Antietam, and at Vicksburg before commanding in the Trans-Mississippi.  He fled to Mexico after the war but eventually returned to the United States, serving as consul to Bogota in the post-war years.  His narrative history of the Confederacy west of the Mississippi is still in print today.

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“…TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI”

The Bey of Tripoli in 1795, Hamet Karamanli, was overthrown by his younger brother Yusuf.  Hamet sought exile in Egypt where he remained for the next ten years.  During this time the Barbary States, including Tripoli, continually harassed merchant shipping in the Mediterranean, exacting protection money and tribute from many nations transiting the area for commercial trade.  US merchantmen were among those who fell victim to these extortions.

In 1801, the outspoken US Consul in Tunis, William Eaton, advocated pressuring Bey Yusuf by allying ourselves with his exiled brother.  Four years later, after being appointed “Navy Agent to the Barbary States,” Eaton put his plan into action.  Eaton encouraged Hamet to form a motley army of a hundred Arabs, 67 “Christian adventurers” (Greek mercenaries), and 200-odd camel drivers.  This force was led by Eaton and an 8-Marine detachment from the brig ARGUS, 16, commanded by 1^st LT Presley N. O’Bannon.  On this date, Eaton, O’Bannon, Hamet and his army set out from Alexandria.  Their 600-mile trek across the North African desert, during which they fought not only inhospitable conditions but also Hamet’s continuing suggestions to call the whole thing off, ended at Derna on the Tripolitan coast.  Seven weeks later on April 26^th, with gunfire support from ARGUS, the schooner NAUTILUS, 12, and the sloop HORNET, 10, they assaulted the city.  The next day they reached the Derna fortifications where they turned the guns on the fleeing defenders.  LT O’Bannon raised the American flag–the first American ensign to be hoisted over an enemy fort outside the Western Hemisphere.  Despite several spirited counter attacks the Marines held the fort.  When news of the ferocity and determination of the US Marines reached Bey Yusuf, he capitulated.

By May negotiations with Yusuf were opened.  On 3 June a treaty was arranged under which peace was restored, the US evacuated Derna, and $60,000 was paid for the release of CAPT William Bainbridge and the crew of the ill-fated frigate PHILADELPHIA, who had been held captive since PHILADELPHIA ran aground in October of 1803.  In turn Tripoli agreed not to exact future tribute from American shipping.

The familiar phrase above from The Marine’s Hymn was first sung by our Marines in 1847 at the close of the Mexican War.  The tune is that of an old Spanish folk song and was used as a melody in the French comic opera Genevieve de Brabant by Jacques Offenbach.  The reference in the Hymn to the “Halls of Montezuma” remembers the assault on Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in 1847.  “The shores of Tripoli” recalls the efforts of the US Marines against the Tripolitan Bey, which began 220 years ago today.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 14 MAR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret

Heinl, Robert Debs, Jr.  Soldiers of the Sea:  The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1962.  Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1991, pp. 14-16.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 44-45.

Simmons, Edwin H.  The United States Marines, 1775-1975.  New York, NY: Viking Press, 1976, pp. 16-17.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Two of O’Bannon’s Marines died and another was injured in this action.

Following this victory O’Bannon acquired an Arab Mameluke scimitar, reportedly gifted to him in gratitude by Bey Hamet.  That blade became the pattern for the distinctive Mameluke sword currently authorized for Marine Corps officers.  Indeed, this was nearly the only reward O’Bannon received.  Upon returning to his native Virginia, he was awarded another sword by that State, but the Thomas Jefferson administration in Washington failed to recognize his achievement in any form.  After neither brevet nor promotion was forthcoming in the subsequent two years, a disgusted O’Bannon left the Corps, abandoning civilization altogether for the Kentucky frontier.

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