SOMEONE HAD TO BE FIRST

The seaplane was essential to our Navy and Marine Corps in the earliest days of military aviation.  With the aircraft carrier years away from reality, planes operating from ships at sea needed to be hoisted overboard to take-off and land on the water.  It was not uncommon for the more popular land-based planes to be fitted with floats or skids for such duty.  But these floats added extra weight and drag and decreased performance.  So much so that a stall in a seaplane always resulted in an unrecoverable spin and the loss of both the pilot and plane.

The Curtiss N-9 (and a knock-off built by Burgess) was the seaplane version of the famous JN-4 “Jenny” in which so many early military pilots had learned to fly.  Fitted with a large midline float, and smaller wingtip floats for balance on the water, the N-9 was a familiar biplane trainer at the newly established Naval Aeronautic Station in Pensacola.  Here 1^st LT Francis T. Evans, USMC, had come to do his part to advance Marine Corps aviation.  He listened to the debates over whether a seaplane could perform the aerobatics necessary to dogfight in combat, and he bravely set out this day to prove it once and for all.

Out over Pensacola Bay at 3500 feet he pushed the nose over into a dive to gain enough speed to go “over the top” in a loop.  The 100 HP Curtiss OXX-6 engine strained as Evans pulled the stick back and the nose pitched up.  Slowly the biplane clawed its way to a vertical attitude.  But before it reached the top, the aircraft stalled, fell over backward, and plunged headlong, spiraling toward the water.  Resisting the temptation to counter-steer with the stick (which has no effect in a spin), Evans instead threw the stick forward and used the rudder to steady the biplane.  In doing so he converted a terminal spin to a dive and pulled out well above the surface–the first time in history a seaplane had recovered from a spin!  He then climbed back up and tried a loop again.  Several times he tried, stalling, spinning, and recovering each time until he had finally gauged the right dive length and speed that took the N-9 up and over the loop in controlled flight.  On his last attempt his boxy N-9 glided through the loop in a manner that would have been the envy of any barnstormer.  And just to make sure his new technique was witnessed, upon his return to the base he repeated the loop over the hangars.  Evans’ techniques were quickly incorporated into flight training at the station. 

By risking his own life, Evans had solved a major shortcoming of seaplanes.  However it was not until thirty years later in 1936 that Evans was recognized for his achievement, receiving then the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  18 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Condon, John P.  U.S. Marine Corps Aviation.  Washington, DC: GPO, p. 5.

“Curtiss N-9H.”  Smithsonian Air and Space Museum website.  www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/curtiss_n9H.htm, 19 March 2006.

Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare).  United States Naval Aviation 1910-1980.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 24.

“History of Marine Corps Aviation, The Early Years.”  Ace Pilots website, www.acepilots.com/usmc/hist1.html, 19 March 2006.

Larkins, William T.  U.S. Navy Aircraft 1921-1941, U.S. Marine Corps Aircraft 1914-1959.  Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub. Ltd., 1995, p. 2.

Mersky, Peter B.  U.S. Marine Corps Aviation:  1912 to the Present, 3rd ed.  Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1997, pp. 5-6.

Taylor, Michael J.H.  Jane’s American Fighting Aircraft of the 20th Century.  New York, NY: Mallard Press, 1991, p. 115.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  A spin is a precipitous nose-down fall to the ground in which the aircraft spirals around one wingtip.  The natural reaction of many novice pilots is to counter-steer with the ailerons, though in a spin airflow across the wing is disorganized and ailerons are ineffective.  Evans reasoned that the rudder could be used to slow the spin, in a similar manner to that used by land-based pilots.  Though the extra drag created by the floats makes this maneuver less efficient, it is nevertheless effective.

To accommodate the weight of the floats the wingspan of the N-9 had to be increased 10 feet over that of the “Jenny.”  The fuselage had to be lengthened and larger tail surfaces added.  Used primarily as a trainer, the Navy purchased 560 N-9‘s starting in 1917, some of whom were fitted with stronger 150 HP Hispano-Suiza engines (the N-9H) for use as bombers during WWI.  The N-9 remained in service with the Navy until 1926.  Only one example of an N-9 survives today, restored by the Naval Air Engineering Laboratory in 1966 and transferred to the Smithsonian Institution.

The post Someone Had to Be First appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                    USS SANTEE

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post USS SANTEE appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                               SAN DIEGO LOST

Almost as our ten Pennsylvania and Tennessee-class armored cruisers entered service at the turn of the 20^th century they were rendered obsolete by advances in technology and dreadnaught design.  By the entry of the US into WWI in 1917, our armored cruisers were no longer being detailed to front-line missions.  For example, USS CALIFORNIA (ACR-6), newly renamed SAN DIEGO to allow the former name to be given to the battleship BB-13, was shepherding merchant ships from eastern seaboard ports to the convoy assembly points in Nova Scotia.

This morning found SAN DIEGO steaming alone south of Long Island, headed for New York City.  She was zig-zagging in calm seas with good visibility.  But at 1123, the morning routine was interrupted when a violent explosion lifted her port quarter.  Seawater flooded through a large hole blown in her port side just aft of amidships.  Two secondary explosions signaled the bursting of her port boiler and the detonation of a magazine.  Sailors clamored to their GQ stations–all eyes searching the seas for a periscope.  Guns opened on anything even remotely resembling a feather wake.

CAPT Harley H. Christy ordered the starboard engine full ahead even as a list to port rapidly developed.  He turned in the direction Fire Island Beach in the hope that the settling cruiser could reach shallow water.  All her guns were in action, firing at any wisp upon the surface.  Assuming they had been torpedoed by a lurking German U-boat, her port gunners fired until their stations went awash.  On the starboard side the firing ended when the advancing list pointed the guns skyward.  Men stayed at their posts until the starboard engine flooded, and CAPT Christy became convinced the ship would founder.  Christy himself was the last to leave, working his way from the bridge to the boat deck, then over the side to the exposed docking keel.  He jumped the last eight feet to the water to the cheers of his crew in the boats, who broke out singing The Star Spangled Banner.  SAN DIEGO rolled and sank.  All but six of her crewmen were rescued.

SAN DIEGO was the only major US warship lost to combat in WWI.  A survey of her wreck by hardhat divers in the days that followed reported her capsized on the bottom with severe hull damage.  A salvage effort by the Navy was not attempted.  Though the men on the scene were convinced she had been torpedoed, the exact nature of her demise was never determined.  The controversy persists today, however German records indicate she was most likely the victim of a floating mine laid by U-156.  Her wreck remains a popular sport diving site today.

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Albert, George J.  “The U.S.S. San Diego and the California Naval Militia.”  AT: http://www.militarymuseum.org/usssandiego.html, 7 June 2007.

Berg, Daniel.  “The USS San Diego Shipwreck.”  AT:  http://www.aquaexplorers.com/sandiego.com, 7 June 2007.

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

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Though most of SAN DIEGO’s sailors were picked up by other ships in the area, four lifeboats full of sailors managed to row the 8 miles to shore, three landing at Bellport, and one at the Lone Hill Coast Guard Station.

          Though The Star Spangled Banner was often used for official occasions and ceremonies from as early as the 19^th century, it was not officially adopted by Congress as our National Anthem until 1931.

The post SAN DIEGO Lost appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                        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.

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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.

The post The Virgin Islands appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                            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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                                          VANISHING COLLIERS

The steam engine revolutionized naval architecture by freeing sea travel from slavery to the wind.  But steam engines require a source of heat to make steam, and for decades around the turn of the 20^th century that heat was generated by burning coal.  The job of supplying coal to the far-flung ships of the US Navy fell to a special flotilla of cargo ships, the colliers.  We had 24 such colliers in commission at the outbreak of WWI.  All bore the names of Greek and Roman mythological figures associated with the sea.  Twelve of these colliers were general cargo ships simply employed to carry coal, and twelve were purpose-built, having specific coal handling and coal safety equipment.  USS PROTEUS (AC-9) and NEREUS (AC-10) were sisters in this latter group, both commissioned into service in 1913.  With the US entry into World War I in 1917, both carried coal and supplies to US Navy ships in European waters.  Then, as part of post-WWI downsizing, NEREUS and PROTEUS were decommissioned in 1922 and 1924 respectively.  Both lay quietly in reserve in the James River ghost fleet.

It was during WWI that another of the Navy’s purpose-built colliers, USS CYCLOPS, touched at Barbados on a return voyage from Rio de Janeiro, where she had coaled British warships to the thanks of our State Department.  Upon departing Barbados, CYCLOPS was lost without a trace in what would later become the infamous “Bermuda Triangle.”

In the 1920s, our Navy began the conversion from coal to more efficient oil-burning boilers.  We found we no longer needed the once-busy colliers by the late 1930s.  On this date, both NEREUS and PROTEUS were struck from the Naval Vessels Register and sold to Saguenay Terminals, Ltd., a Canadian shipping firm based in Ottawa.  Saguenay retained their US names and converted these ships to carry bauxite (aluminum ore).  Proteus departed St. Thomas in the Caribbean on 23 November 1941 fully loaded, followed just over two weeks later by the similarly laden Nereus.  Neither ship was ever seen again.

Their course would have taken them through the same area in which CYCLOPS had been lost three decades earlier.  Contemporary presumptions held that both had fallen to sabotage or to German U-boats then active in the Atlantic.  However, records captured after the war indicate no U-boat attacks were made in this area at this time.  Such news might engender Bermuda Triangle fanaticism however the most plausible theory suggests that nearly twenty years in mothballs allowed acid corrosion from coal dust to weaken the colliers’ frames.  This predisposed the freighters to catastrophic hull collapse in rough seas.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  12 DEC 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy.  “World War I Era Colliers–Organized by Type.”  Naval Historical Center on-line.  AT: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/onlinelibrary/photos/usnshtp/ac/w1ac-1.htm, retrieved 21 April 2012.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 226.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, pp. 45, 394.

Grover, David H.  “Strange Mystery of the Vanished Sister Ships.”  Sea Classics, Vol 39 (11), November 2006, pp. 18-24, 46-47.

Naval Museum of Manitoba.  “Canadian WWII Merchant Ship Losses.”  AT: http://www.naval-museum.mb.ca/merch/mership.htm, retrieved 21 April 2012.

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                                      ENS ALBERT STURTEVANT

In the early months of 1917 the United States was still officially neutral in the three-year-old World War that gripped most of Europe.  But attacks by German U-boats on American merchant ships were continuing.  All over our nation, patriotic young Americans signed up for military service in the war whose inevitability could be foretold.  Albert D. Sturtevant proved no exception when he and 28 of his Philips Academy alumni enlisted as the 1^st Yale Unit.  Sturtevant was sent to the Naval Aeronautical School in Pensacola, and while there the US entered WWI on April 6^th.  Three weeks later, on 1 May 1917, Sturtevant earned his wings as a naval aviator.

ENS Sturtevant reported to Felixstowe, England, in October.  American pilots were augmenting British squadrons flying escort across the North Sea for Holland-bound supply ships.  The Ensign flew the H-12 flying boat, one of our early operational seaplanes.  The H-12 was a Glenn Curtiss design, a large, twin-engine biplane with a boat-shaped hull suspended from the lower wing.  The hull projected forward as an open cockpit in which the pilot, navigator, and forward gunner sat.  A second open seat behind the wing accommodated the rear gunner.  Thirty caliber Lewis machine guns, both on Scarff swivel rings, protected the aircraft as she scouted for U-boats ahead of merchant ships.  By 1918, Felixstowe’s pilots were flying the more powerful “B” version of the H-12, nicknamed the “Large America.”

On this day, Sturtevant and a second H-12 took off on an escort mission.  His three enlisted gunners and spotters were C.C. Purdy, A.H. Stephenson, and S.J. Hollidge.  But today’s mission proved different than all the others to date.  Today the H-12s were jumped by five Hansa-Brandenburg W.29 mono-wing floatplane fighters.  Sturtevant’s wingman recognized the unfavorable odds and dove to escape, allowing the nimble fighters to concentrate on Sturtevant’s lumbering H-12.  The Lewis guns sprang to life; .30 caliber bullets ripped the air.  One, then a second attacking enemy spun away trailing smoke.  Though outgunned, the H-12 initially held her own.  But as the running fight approached the Belgian coast, a flight of German land-based fighters joined the attack.  Now outnumbered 16:1, enemy bullets began to take their toll.  When last seen by American eyes, Sturtevant’s crippled H-12 was spiraling toward the North Sea.  There were no survivors.

For his service on behalf of his nation, Sturtevant was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.  The WWII Clemson-class destroyer STURTEVANT (DD-240) and the Edsall-class destroyer escort of the same name, DE-239, both remember this naval aviation hero.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  22 FEB 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Aircraft of the AEF, Curtiss H-12 Flying Boat.”  AT: www.worldwar1.com/dbc/curth12.htm, 19 January 2007.

“Albert D. Sturtevant.”  AT: www.sturtevant.org.uk/aviator1.html, 19 January 2007.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 662.

Sterner, Doug.  “Full Text Citations for Award of the Navy Cross to Members of the U.S. Navy, World War I.”  AT: http:// www.homeofheros.com/valor/1_citations/01_wwi-nc/ nc_02_ww1_navy-avn.html, 22 January 2007.

Taylor, Michael J.H.  Jane’s American Fighting Aircraft of the 20th Century.  New York, NY: Mallard Press, 1991, p. 104.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The US supplied a series of biplane flying boats to the British during the war.  The initial version, the Curtiss H-4, was nicknamed the “America” boat.  With the advent of the improved H-12, the British took to calling the H-4 the “Small America” and the H-12 “Large America,” in deference to the latter’s 96-foot wingspan (roughly 2/3 the width of a football field).  The British further modified the H-4 and the H-12, producing their own versions, the F.1 and F.2A, respectively, both nicknamed “Felixstowe.”

During WWI the Navy Cross was our third highest award behind the Medal of Honor and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.  Congressional action in 1942 reversed the order of precedence of the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Medal to bring Navy awards in line with the Army’s.  Sturtevant is one of 120 US Naval Aviators to be awarded the Navy Cross in WWI.  The full citation for Sturtevant’s award reads:

“The Navy Cross is awarded to Ensign Albert D. Sturtevant, U.S. Navy, for distinguished and heroic service as an aviator attached to the Royal Air Force station at Felixstowe, England, making a great many offensive patrol flights over the North Sea and was shot down when engaged gallantly in combat with a number of enemy planes.”

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                                          FIRST US SHOT OF WWI

The US stood by in the summer of 1914 when Serbia, Austro-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain were plunged into WWI.  For nearly the next three years we held ourselves neutral, and as such, were bound by the Hague Convention of 1906.  Under this agreement, ships of combatant nations are permitted to call on neutral seaports but only for non-military purposes and only for visits of less than 24 hours.  Vessels and their crews violating these guidelines were to be interned by the neutral nation until the end of hostilities.  During the first years of WWI, several German ships tarried in US ports long enough to become interned.  When America did eventually enter the war against Germany, most of these were commandeered by the US Navy.

Such might have been the fate of the German steamer, SMS CORMORAN, who spent the Fall of 1914 avoiding internment in the south Pacific waters between the Marshalls, Carolines and other islands then held by Germany.  But by 14 December 1914 empty coal bunkers forced CORMORAN into Apra Harbor, Guam.  Unable to clear the port in 24 hours, her captain accepted internment.  She remained anchored in the harbor with her crew on board for two and a half years, until this morning of 7 April 1917 (April 6th in CONUS), the day the US declared war on Germany.

The Navy stores ship USS SUPPLY happened to be standing at Apra this morning, and following the American war declaration, her skipper, CDR William A. Hall, was dispatched with a 32-man prize crew to seize CORMORAN.  Hall had been instructed to follow behind the governor’s aide, who had boarded CORMORAN earlier under a flag of truce.  But unbeknownst to Hall, the German captain was refusing to surrender his ship and had disembarked his crew in a launch to escape.  Hall’s boatmen spotted the German crew rowing across the harbor, and USMC CPL Michael B. Chickie was ordered to fire a shot across their bows, the first American shot of WWI.  This was ignored, more shots were fired, and finally the launch hove to.

As Hall was thus occupied, explosions could be heard echoing across the water.  Rather than surrender CORMORAN to American hands, crewman still aboard had used the diversion to detonate pre-positioned scuttling charges.  The steamer settled to the bottom taking with her seven crewmen who preferred death.  The surviving Germans spent the war in a POW camp in Utah.

CORMORAN remains today where she settled in 1917, having become a popular destination for local scuba divers.  By curious circumstance, she now rests directly beneath a second wreck, the Japanese freighter, Tokai Maru, the victim of the US submarine SNAPPER (SS-185) in August 1943.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  12 APR 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Visitors to Naval Station Guam today will notice a large jetty providing seaward protection for Apra Harbor.  This breakwater is a post-WWII addition, and prior to its construction Apra Bay was much more open to the sea.  In August 1943, while Guam was in Japanese hands, the coal freighter Tokai Maru arrived in Apra and anchored at a spot judged by her captain to be convenient.  Local Guamanian men were formed into forced labor parties to begin relieving her cargo.  Meanwhile, unseen to seaward, the US submarine Snapper arrived to scout the Japanese anchorage.  In carrying out her observations, SAPPER recognized a clear shot could be made against the anchored freighter.  She sent a torpedo into Tokai Maru then turned back to sea.  The Chamorran laborers (one of whom this writer had the pleasure of meeting in 1992) dove for safety and swam ashore.  Tokai Maru settled where she was anchored, ironically the same spot a German captain had selected 30 years earlier to anchor his steamer to take on coal.  The two ships now lie one atop the other.

Another well-known example of a successful internment, in WWII, was that of the famous French luxury passenger liner Normandie, interned in New York harbor in 1940 and later seized by the US Navy.  She was commissioned d our Navy as USS Lafayette (APV-53) on 12 December 1941, but caught fire and sank at the dock prior to entering actual service

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