US DEPARTS THE PHILIPPINES

The presence of American military bases in the Philippines was a consequence of our acquisition of that archipelago in 1898 after the Spanish-American war.  When independence was granted to the Republic of the Philippines after WWII the US retained control of her military installations under a 99-year lease starting 27 March 1947.  However, in deference to growing concerns over the US presence, under the Eisenhower administration in 1959, the 99-year term of the lease was shortened by 56 years to 16 September 1991.

In a Cold War dominated world of the 1980s, America viewed its bases in the Philippines, particularly Naval Station Subic Bay, as, “A vital link in the defense of freedom,” and in 1989 talks began on the possible renewal of the Bases Agreement.  However chief negotiators Richard L. Armitage of the US and Raul Manglapus of the Corazon Aquino administration were far apart on the terms of an extension.  Too, a growing public movement against the US presence was founded in sentiments dating from WWII, with Franklin Roosevelt’s “Europe first” war policy.  Thus, on September 10^th, 1991, the 23-member Philippine Senate rejected a final American $2 billion total aid package by a margin of four votes.  The best the pro-American Aquino government could achieve was a three-year extension to accomplish a permanent American withdrawal.

The dismantling of our Philippine bases now began in earnest.  A decision to abandon Clark AFB, that had been ravaged by the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption in June of 1991, had already been approved by US planners.  At Subic, 50,000 tons of ordnance was destroyed or removed, and 5900 servicemen, 3900 dependents and 214 pets were shipped out.  The fleet replenishment squadron VRC-50 was relocated to Guam, and the drydocks USS MACHINIST (AFDB-8), RESOURCEFUL (AFDM-5) and ADEPT (ADDL-23) were towed to other Pacific facilities.  In what was termed the “biggest yard sale in history,” 450,000 tons of material were sold at 15-cents on the dollar–the Philippine government buying up $26 million in goods.  Outside the gates of Subic, the city of Olongapo formed the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) to facilitate conversion of the massive 630,300 acre facility into an economic free-trade zone.

On 30 September 1992 Naval Station Subic Bay closed, following the other facilities at Camp John Hay, Camp Wallace, Capas Tarlac and San Miguel.  The last remaining US assets were consolidated to NAS Cubi Point.  Then on this day, COMUSNAVPHIL officially ceased to exist as RADM Thomas Mercer stepped off Cubi Point’s Alava Pier onto the brow of USS BELLEAU WOOD (LHA-3), and the last 800 US sailors and Marines departed the Republic of the Philippines.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  1 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Branigin, William.  “Philippines Sets Compromise on Closing of U.S. Naval Base:  Aquino, Senate Agree on 3-Year Withdrawal Period.”  The Washington Post, 3 October 1991, p. A-37.

Branigin, William.  “U.S. Military Ends Role in Philippines:  After 94 Years, Navy Leaves with Parade, Tears, Questions.”  The Washington Post, 24 November 1992, pp. A-1, A-17.

Burlage, John.  “The End of an Era:  Packing Up and Shipping Out at Subic Bay.”  Navy Times, 30 November 1992, pp. 12, 14.

Burlage, John.  “The Last of the Last to Say Good-Bye.”  Navy Times, 30 November 1992, pp. 14-15.

Dutcher, Roger.  “Subic Bay’s Last Days.”  Surface Warfare, September/October 1992, pp. 20-21.

Gregor, A. James and Virgilio Aganon.  The Philippine Bases:  U.S. Secuity Risk.  Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987, pp. 33-47.

Oberdorfer, Don.  “U.S. Bases Rejected in Philippines:  Cheney Says Subic Bay Facility Will be Closed if Decision Stands.”  The Washington Post, 10 September 1991, pp. A-1, A-12.

“Philippines to US: Leases on Bases Will End in ’92.”  The Washington Post, 16 May 1990, p. A-7.

Shenon, Philip.  “U.S. Will Abandon Volcano-Ravaged Air Base, Manila is Told.”  New York Times, 16 July 1991, p. A-6.

Sicam, Paulynn.  “Pressure Mounts to End Bases Pact.”  Christian Science Monitor, 14 May 1990, p. 3.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  For centuries before the appearance of Europeans, the Philippine islands were economically exploited by Asian powers, largely China.  Magellan claimed the islands in March 1526 for his Spanish King Philip.  For three hundred years Spain dominated the islands, setting up the famous Manila-Mexico trade.  Once a year a gold and treasure laden galleon would leave Manila taking a northerly route through the Pacific.  After a voyage of many months, they would make landfall at Cape Mendicino in California, and from there hug the coast to Acapulco.  The islands remained under Spanish domination until 1898, when CAPT George Dewey defeated the Spanish Fleet in a decisive naval action in Manila Bay.  Along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam, the Philippines was ceded to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American war.

The only remaining official US presence in the Philippines is the American Memorial Cemetery outside Manila in which 17,206 American servicement killed in WWII and 36,279 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose remains have never been found are memorialized.

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                               LIONS, CUBS, AND NAS CUBI POINT

WWII’s clouds were gathering in the late 1930s, and it was increasingly recognized that existing naval bases along our Atlantic and Pacific seaboards would be inadequate to fully support operations thousands of miles distant in Europe or Asia.  Thus, the Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDOCKS) began a project to develop advanced operational support bases that could be quickly deployed in distant theaters.  To launch this effort, a conference was convened on 23 January 1942 to address the CNO’s concerns that, “…immediate steps be taken to assemble materials and equipment required for four main advanced bases and twelve secondary advanced bases.”  The two forms of advanced bases were codenamed “LIONs” and “CUBs.”  LIONS 1-4 would provide logistic and personnel support for a major fleet group including specific repair capability for submarines, aircraft, and surface ships comparable to services provided with ARs, ADs, and ASs, as well as support for 210 aircraft.  Twelve secondary bases, CUBs 1-12, operated under the guidance of a LION and were exclusively afloat.  They served a task force unit, supporting 4100 sailors and Marines and providing logistics for ships and 105 aircraft.  The 3000 Navy personnel assigned to a CUB included supply and medical staff.  CUBs were moved across the Pacific as the war progressed.  It is not known how the codenames “LION” and “CUB” were derived.

By October 1944 the LION and CUB concept was in full swing.  That same month US forces began retaking the Philippine Islands from Japanese occupation.  Subic Bay, on the island of Luzon, had been a US Navy base before the war, and, after its recapture, it was rapidly revitalized.  BuDOCK’s CUB One was moved there to support the anticipated operations on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and ultimately the Japanese home islands.  CUB One was positioned afloat, off the quiet fishing village of Banicain, on the jungled point of land opposite the Subic Bay docks.  The area soon became “CUB 1 Point” to Americans.  As the war ended and Naval Station Subic Bay expanded in the years following, the need for a CUB was obviated by more permanent facilities ashore.

Then in 1950, the Korean Conflict necessitated the construction of an airfield in the Philippines.  In an effort that harkened of the Panama Canal’s construction, Mobile Construction Battalions 2, 3, 5, 9, and 11, bulldozed a mountain ridge, backfilling a portion of the bay to create a 10,000-foot runway.  Construction took nearly four years, during which time sailors began shortening “CUB 1 Point” to “Cubi Point.”  On 25 July 1956, NAS Cubi Point was commissioned.  The NAS remaining active until, at Philippine request, our Navy vacated the base in November 1992.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  30 JUL 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

United States Naval Administration in World War II, Chapter VI, Advanced Base Units LIONS, CUBS, and ACORNS.  AT: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Admin-Hist/021-AdvancedBases/AdvanceBases-6.html, retrieved 28 May 2022.

Site visit and Personal History, CAPT James Bloom, Ret.  Naval Station Subic Bay and NAS Cubi Point, October 1988-October 1990.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The LION and CUB concept was further expanded as the war progressed to include advanced shore-based facilities, codenamed “OAKs” and “ACORNs.”

Airfield construction at Cubi Point necessitated the plowing under of the village of Banicain, whose residents were relocated to the town of Olongapo.  The site of the former village now lies under 45 feet of backfill.

The Cubi Point O-Club was perhaps the most popular in the Pacific during the Vietnam era.  In fact, when the base closed in 1992, the Cubi Point O-Club was disassembled, brought home, and reconstructed in its exact floor plan at the NAS Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum.

Urban legend holds that the name “Cubi Point” is an acronym for “Construction Unit Battalion 1,” the unit supposedly responsible for the airfield’s creation.  However, as above, MCB-1 did not participate in the effort.

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                                 BIRTH OF THE NAVAL ACADEMY

In spite of calls from such notables as John Paul Jones, our early Navy resisted establishing a shoreside teaching academy in favor of hands-on midshipman training under actual operating conditions at sea.  In 1799, Alexander Hamilton proposed a joint Army-Navy “fundamental school” at West Point, however when the US Military Academy was established in 1802 naval science was not in the curriculum.  Alternatively in that year, President Adams’ new Naval Regulations called for chaplains to perform the additional duty of seagoing “schoolmasters.”  The training of a chaplain hardly qualified him to teach such subjects as navigation or mathematics, and “Professors of Mathematics,” paid a lieutenant’s salary, had to be commissioned to augment midshipman training afloat.  Later, in 1838, an eight-month cram school for officers was established in a wing of the Naval Asylum (retired sailors home) in Philadelphia.  But these measures fell short of providing US Naval officers a theoretical and basic science background.

Two factors in the early 1840s accentuated the need for a naval academy and illustrated the shortcomings of the established training system: the developing complexity of steam technology; and a well publicized and tragic near mutiny aboard the brig SOMERS by a malcontent midshipman.  Renewed calls for a shoreside naval training school fell happily on the ears of President Polk’s newly appointed Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft.

But Bancroft had only $60,000 budgeted for “instruction,” and to approach Congress for more would risk re-opening the basic debate on whether or not to establish an academy.  The inspired Bancroft then learned from Secretary of War William L. Marcy, whose son was a Passed Midshipman assisting at the Naval Asylum, that the Army wanted to unload Ft. Severn, an installation near Annapolis that had outlived its value as a military outpost.  Encouraged, after Congress adjourned for the summer Bancroft gleaned the best professors from the Naval Asylum and placed them all in “awaiting orders” status.  This status, normally used for officers in transit between ships, temporarily suspended the member’s salary.  With Secretary Marcy briefly out of Washington as well, oversight of the War Department defaulted to Bancroft, who quietly (and without cost) transferred Ft. Severn to the Navy.  Using the suspended salary money he structured the skeletal elements of the US Naval Academy, which officially opened this day, Superintendent CDR Franklin Buchanan presiding.  Up and running when Congress re-convened, the establishment debate was rendered moot.  And shortly Bancroft secured an appropriation to flesh out the Academy staff and return its professors to active pay status.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Lovette, Leland P.  School of the Sea:  The Annapolis Tradition in American Life.  New York, NY: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1941, pp. 48-55.

Potter, E.B. and Chester W. Nimitz.  Sea Power:  A Naval History.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1960, p. 228.

Sweetman, Jack.  The U.S. Naval Academy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1979, pp. 3-17.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The respect credited Franklin Buchanan at this stage of his career is evident in his selection as the first Superintendent of the Academy.  But with the outbreak of the Civil War 16 years later, Buchanan resigned his commission believing his native Maryland would secede with the other southern states.  But Maryland voted to remain in the Union, and Buchanan attempted, unsuccessfully, to retrieve his commission.  He then joined the Confederate States Navy, eventually rising to its most senior officer rank.  He commanded CSS VIRGINIA in the first battle of ironclads in Hampton Roads in March 1862.  Despite his southern leanings, Buchanan was not a slave owner.  He was the son of a Baltimore physician, and his maternal grandfather had signed the Declaration of Independence.  Three US Navy destroyers honor Buchanan, DD-131, DD-484, and DDG-14.

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                                         NAZI POWs IN AMERICA

On this day, German POWs Wolfgang Kurzer and Karl Tomola quietly slipped away from the camp at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, and headed north.  They crossed the Canadian border where they found employment washing dishes or working on farms.  Within several months they were ready to try for Germany and in November re-crossed the border at Rouses Point, New York.  They wended their way to New York City, either by luck or design having chosen one of only two US ports open to neutral shipping (New York and Philadelphia).  Here they attempted to ship aboard a neutral freighter as deck seamen, but their accents and their lack of proper credentials not only waylaid their plans but probably tipped the local authorities.  They were found a short time later stowed away in 55-gallon drums aboard the Spanish freighter Castilla Ampudia with a two-week supply of food and ten pounds of chocolate.

Throughout the course of WWII, Axis prisoners of war were confined in 686 POW area camps and branches across the United States.  Upwards of 420,000 POWs were being held on American soil by 1945.  Good treatment and ample recreational pursuits reduced the desire to escape.  Indeed, the massive size of our country and the oceans to the east and west gave little hope of reaching Germany.  Yet all POWs are bound by a code of conduct obligating them to attempt escape.  Many tried, though news of such was usually suppressed for fear of public panic.  Most found themselves unprepared for the language and culture they encountered, and most were caught within a day or two.  POWs on the lam often sought the perceived safety of Mexico or Canada, traveling at night or in rail cars and avoiding the local populace.  A few occasionally managed to remain at large for some time in this manner. 

As an example of how escaped Germans often suffered from unfamiliarity with American ways, witness the case of a trio of Germans, one of whom had been a submariner aboard U-162.  They walked away from a work detail at Camp Crossville in eastern Tennessee.  After several days of hiding in the backwoods, the trio stopped beside a mountain cabin for a drink from the pump.  Their libations were interrupted by a cantankerous old crone who told them in no uncertain terms to “git!”  Unfamiliar with mountain ways, the three were unmoved–at which the old granny drew a bead and shot one of them dead.  The deputy sheriff soon arrived and informed the old lady to her horror that she had shot an escaped German prisoner.  The penitent granny confessed she never would have pulled the trigger had she known they were Germans.  “What in thunder did you think you were aiming at?” the sheriff asked.

“Why, I reckon’d they wuz Yankees!”

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  16 JUL 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Krammer, Arnold.  Nazi Prisoners of War in America.  Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1991, pp. 114-46.

Moore, John Hammond.  The Faustball Tunnel:  German POWs in America and Their Great Escape.  New York, NY: Random House, 1978, p. 64-65.

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                                                NAS SIGONELLA

After World War II, Americans found it impossible to return to the isolation from European events we had enjoyed since our Revolution.  The vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans no longer presented obstacles to an attacker, and the new political climate in Europe demanded our attention.  England, our strong ally, faced economic ruin and the disintegration of her far-flung empire, an empire that had afforded us access to distant bases–effectively an “early warning system” for world turmoil.  Secondly, the late 1940s brought the emergence of Russian Communism.  Lacking a warm-water port, the Russian’s had long eyed the Mediterranean, and the early 1950s brought a need to surveil Russian Navy activities in that sea.  The central Mediterranean chokepoint at Sicily/Malta became strategic.  Initially, our P-2 “Neptune” patrols operated out of space borrowed from the British Hal Far airhead on Malta.  From here our P-2s could monitor all traffic moving between the eastern and western Mediterranean.  But crowding at Hal Far and the advent of Maltese independence in the mid-1950s spurred US interests in an alternative basing site.

NATO undertook discussions with the Italian government that resulted in an agreement on 25 June 1957 to apportion the site of a former WWII Luftwaffe auxiliary airstrip on Sicily.  Men and equipment began transferring from Hal Far within the week, and the first aircraft, a USMC R4QD, arrived on August 8^th.  Two years of construction on the runway and support facilities allowed the commissioning of the new Naval Air Facility (NAF) Sigonella on this date.  The base was divided into two locations from the beginning.  NAF 1 sheltered barracks, MWR, and personnel support activities.  Seven miles to the west, NAF 2 held the runway and flight line.  The dispensary on NAF 1 opened in October 1959 (site of the modern family service center) and was staffed with a GMO, a flight surgeon, a dentist, two nurses, and 15 Corpsmen.  The modern 3-story Naval Hospital on NAS 1 was opened on the site of the former Rocky Hollow Golf Course, and is named for William J. Anthony, Jr., the first child born in that facility on 30 January 1993.  NH Sigonella today administers our clinics in Bahrain and Crete.

One of Sigonella’s moments in the spotlight came in October 1985 when Palestinian terrorists captured the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro.  The Egyptian airliner used for their escape to Tunisia was intercepted by US warplanes and forced down at NAS Sigonella, where the terrorists were taken into Italian custody.  Over the years the base has quietly executed the Navy’s mission in the Mediterranean, today supporting both 6^th Fleet and Southwest Asia operations.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 JUN 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“History.” NAS Sigonella website.  AT: https://www.cinc.navy.mil/ Sigonella/AboutCNIC/History/index.htm, retrieved 14 March 2009.

Site visit, NAS Sigonella, July 2008-July 2010.

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, pp. 252-53.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The abandoned concrete structure visible just beyond the perimeter fence from Naval Hospital Sigonella is the remnant base of a WWII German radar array.  To their credit, the Sicilians have preserved many German bunkers and structures from the WWII occupation.

The British granted Maltese independence on 21 September 1964.  The former Hal Far air base has been taken over by industrial concerns, however the scars of the runways can still be seen on Google Earth as a “V” formation at the extreme southeastern tip of the island.

Construction of the modern Naval Hospital Sigonella began after our brushes with Libyan strongman COL Omar Khadafi and the suspicion that Libya might be developing nuclear weapons.  As a result, NH Sigonella is the only Navy Medicine facility hardened against a nuclear blast.

The R4Q was the USMC designation for the C-119 “Packet” (Fairchild Aircraft).  Its distinctive box tail and generous carrying capacity earned it the nickname “flying boxcar.”  Later versions were flown into the 1960s.

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                       FORT JEFFERSON–GIBRALTAR OF THE GULF

Sixty-eight miles west of Key West, Florida, lies a cluster of small islands named for the turtles early sailors harvested there.  The Dry Tortugas were notable in the 19^th century because they lay athwart the main passage for ships rounding Florida into the Gulf of Mexico.  With our purchase of Florida from Spain in 1821, the strategic location of these islands attracted the eye of US Army coastal defense planners.  By 1846, the Corps of Engineers had begun construction of a massive hexagonal fortification on Garden Key.  This “Gibraltar of the Gulf” was to have walls 45 feet high housing three decks of guns.  The enclosed grounds would have supported a thousand-man garrison.  The walls of Fort Jefferson, as it was named, were completed in 1862, and by virtue of its remoteness, the fort remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War.  Its guns were never fired in anger, in fact the largely forgotten fort is best known today for having served as a federal prison.  The still unfinished construction was halted in 1875, and for 20 years the military abandoned Fort Jefferson to use as a quarantine station.

But as hostilities with Spain loomed in 1898, renewed interest stirred in Fort Jefferson.  Indeed, it was the only installation between Norfolk and Texas with a natural channel deep enough to accommodate the battleships of the day.  Our Navy began further dredging in the spring of 1898, and construction commenced on two large coaling docks.  The fort serviced deep draft battleships throughout the Spanish-American War as an auxiliary to the Key West Naval Station.  Modern charts bear remembrances of this era of Naval occupation.  “Iowa Rock” and “Texas Rock” mark spots where at least two turn-of-the-century battleships ran afoul.

So successful was the coaling operation at Fort Jefferson, that the Navy purchased the installation outright in 1900.  For the next eight years the Fort was garrisoned by a small contingent of US Marines, for whom the remote posting must have seemed as much a punishment.  In 1908 however, the coaling operations and an unfinished seawater distillation plant were removed to Guantanamo Bay.  Navy interest revived briefly in WWI and again in WWII, when Fort Jefferson was occupied as a base for seaplanes conducting anti-U-boat patrols.

On 4 January 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt set aside the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson as a National Park Service installation, by whose hands the property is now administered.  Fort Jefferson is one of our most remote and least visited National Park sites; access can only be gained via boat service out of Key West.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  20 MAY 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Bethel, Rodman.  A Slumbering Giant of the Past:  Fort Jefferson, U.S.A. in the Dry Tortugas.  Hialeah, FL: W.L. Litho, 1979.

Site visit, Fort Jefferson and Dry Tortugas National Par, August 1995.

USS Tortuga (LSD-46) website.  www.spear.navy.mil/ships/lsd46/ seal.htm, retrieved 22 June 1999.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Fort Jefferson is best known for having served as a federal prison, both during the Civil War for Confederate POWs and in the post-Civil War period.  Its most famous inmate by far was Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, the physician convicted as a co-conspirator with John Wilkes Booth in the Lincoln assassination after it was discovered that Mudd had set Booth’s broken fibula the morning following the Ford’s Theatre shooting.  Controversy persists today as to whether Mudd actually conspired or was simply a country doctor awakened by an unknown patient at his door.  Regardless, Mudd was pardoned in 1869 by President Andrew Johnson after Mudd worked tirelessly to minister to fellow prisoners during a yellow fever outbreak in 1867.

Today the remains of Navy occupation are still visible.  The pilings for the north and south coal docks remain, as does the concrete flooring for the eight large coal storage bunkers.

The ship’s seal of our modern Whidbey Island-class amphibious assault ship TORTUGA (LSD-46) bears a configuration representing  Fort Jefferson, as well as two Parrott rifles, representing the Civil War-era guns of this fort.

The Dry Tortugas were named by Juan Ponce de Leon when he stopped there in 1513 to harvest 160 turtles for food.  They are “dry” because they lack surface fresh water.

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                                        BATTLE OF CUZCO WELL

On this morning, LCOL Robert W. Huntington dispatched CPT George Fielding Elliott with two rifle companies and 50 Cuban scouts on a 6-mile circuitous march along the shore to the Cuzco Well.  They were spotted by the Spanish, and a foot race ensued to the high ground overlooking the Spanish plantation house.  Elliott’s Marines reached the hilltop first and forced the Spanish away with rifle and machine gun fire.  The enemy retreated to the shelter of their plantation house, where the Marines rained down small arms fire at a range of 1000 yards.  Meanwhile, another Marine platoon on outpost duty heard the firing and approached on their own initiative to the head of the valley opposite Elliott.  The Spanish were now caught low in the valley in a crossfire!  The gunboat USS DOLPHIN opened fire with her 4″ guns and 3-pounders, but unable to see her target, her shells were so erratic several struck the Marines.  For a time, the Marines ducked in their position on the hill to dodge DOLPHIN’s gunfire, until SGT John H. Quick crafted a makeshift signal flag from his blue polka dot bandanna and ran back to the crest.  With his back to the enemy, and sky-lined by the terrain, he and PVT John Fitzgerald began signaling DOLPHIN.  On three occasions over the next four hours, Quick braved enemy fire to correctly spot the gunboat’s fire.

In an afternoon of sharp fighting the Spanish were routed with an estimated 160 casualties.  The heavily outnumbered Marines had sustained only three losses to combat and 20 heat casualties.  Four allied Cuban scouts were hit as well.  The Spanish camp was burned, 18 were captured, and the well was dynamited.  Attacks on Huntington’s Guantanamo foothold ended.

The subsequent destruction of Cervera’s squadron and the capture of Santiago de Cuba in July obviated the need for the Guantanamo station.  The Marines were withdrawn on 5 August. Indeed, compared to later fighting, the battle of Cuzco was but a skirmish.  However, an American public hungry for news of the first ground action gobbled-up the story after imbedded newspaper correspondents painted this action as heroic.  One story, in particular, was widely published–that of Stephen Crane, whose name was well known as the author of the popular 1895 novel Red Badge of Courage.  SGT Quick and Fitzgerald received the Medal of Honor, and Huntington’s Battalion was paraded to public acclaim in Washington, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Omaha.

The Marines would return shortly.  The 1903 Platt Amendment, negotiated during our post-war occupation, guaranteed Cuban independence and negotiated the lease of Guantanamo Bay that continues today.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  19 JUN 22

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, p. 116.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 131-33.

Moskin, J. Robert.  The U.S. Marine Corps Story, 3^rd ed.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1992, pp. 89-90.

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. 98.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, pp. 606, 615.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The beach near the Cuzco Well became part of the US Naval base and served as a recreational area.  It is located near the modern Camp X-Ray detention facility.

George F. Elliott rose to the rank of MGEN and served from 1908-1910 as Commandant of the Marine Corps.  Two WWII troop transports, USS GEORGE F. ELLIOTT (AP-13, AP-105) remember him.  John Quick rose to the rank of SGTMAJ and later received the Navy Cross for heroic actions in WWI at Belleau Wood.  The Gleaves-class destroyer QUICK (DD-490) honors him.  Trivia buffs will note that our Navy did have a ship commissioned with the name JOHN FITZGERALD, however this did not recognize PVT John Fitzgerald above.  Rather, she was a British trawler purchased by our Navy in WWI for U-boat patrols with her British name retained.  Likewise, our armored cruiser WEST VIRGINIA (ACR-5) was renamed HUNTINGTON in 1916 so her original name could be given to BB-48.  But in this case her name honors West Virginia’s second largest city.

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                                CAPTURE OF GUANTANAMO BAY

Much of the Spanish-American War was fought in Cuba, where American intervention hoped to end oppression of local Cubans by their Spanish overlords.  Spain answered with a squadron of four cruisers and three destroyers from the Cape Verde Islands on 29 April.  These feared warships, under the command of ADM Pascual Cervera y Topete, deeply troubled American planners who were doubly concerned at not knowing Cervera’s intended target.  Would they reinforce Havana, or attack the US marshalling base in Key West, Florida, or worse, bombard our Atlantic seaboard?  RADM William T. Sampson was dispatched with a strong flotilla of modern American battleships and cruisers to Cuban waters.  His scouts finally located Cervera’s ships in the protected harbor at Santiago de Cuba, on the southeastern shore of the island.  Visual inspection of this harbor was blocked by hills at its mouth, but by this date Sampson had positioned his battleships outside the harbor entrance and had blocked the main exit channel with the scuttled collier USS MERRIMAC.  But Sampson’s ships, powerful as they were, burned coal.  The nearest coaling station was off the tip of Florida at Fort Jefferson, a two-day round trip.  Consequently, Sampson looked to establish a coaling station 40 miles to the east of Santiago de Cuba at a harbor called Guantanamo Bay.

The 1^st Marine Battalion, then training in Key West, was ordered to take Guantanamo Bay.  On June 7^th, CDR Bowman H. MaCalla in the cruiser MARBLEHEAD (C-11) and the auxiliary cruisers YANKEE and ST. LOUIS entered Guantanamo Bay.  Two days of maneuvers and gunfire from the battleship OREGON (BB-3) routed Spanish defenders from a blockhouse on a hill at Fisherman’s Point, silenced a battery at Caimanera, and chased the gunboat SANDOVAL into the upper harbor.  The 633 men and 21 officers of the 1^st Battalion–“Huntington’s Battalion” after their commander, USMC LCOL Robert W. Huntington–landed this day at Fisherman’s Point from the transport PANTHER.  They were the first American forces ashore in Cuba, establishing Camp McCalla near the deserted Spanish blockhouse.  PVTs William Dumphy and James McColgan became the first US ground casualties of the war while standing picket duty.

But over their first three evenings ashore, Huntington’s Marines came under vicious counterattack by a growing number of Spanish.  The battalion medical officer, Assistant Surgeon John Blair Gibbs, was struck in the head and killed on the 11^th.  To protect his supply lines and reduce exposure to such attacks, Huntington moved his Marines closer to the beach.  Huntington then learned from a Cuban guerrilla that the Spanish force numbering about 500 was garrisoned two miles distant in a plantation house near their only source of drinking water, a well at Cuzco beach.  If that well could be destroyed, the Spanish would be forced to evacuate.

Continued 14 June…

The Abrogation of the Platt Amendment, May 29, 1934.  IN: Commager, Henry Steele.  Documents of American History, Vol II, 7^th ed.  New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963, pp. 291-92.

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

Hull, R.R.  “Signal Encounter at Guantanamo.”  Naval History, Vol 12 (3), June 1998, pp. 18-23.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton.  A History of the United States Navy from 1775 to 1901, Vol III.  New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1901, pp. 337-41.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 131-34.

Murphy, M.E.  The History of Guantanamo Bay, on-line ed.  www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/history.html, 23 May 2003.

The Platt Amendment to the Army Appropriations Bill of March 2, 1901.  IN: Commager, Henry Steele.  Documents of American History, Vol II, 7^th ed.  New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963, pp. 28-29.

Site visit, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 19-22 May 2003.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, pp. 606, 615.

Young, James Rankin.  Spanish American War and Battles in the Philippines.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 86-94.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Today the area of Fisherman’s Point and MaCalla Hill is the site of the leeward ferry landing of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

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