PERSISTENCE…

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

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

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

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

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  22 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 186.

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

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

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

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

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                                 ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP

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

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

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

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

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  16 MAY 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 299-300.

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

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

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                                       PINE TREE NAVAL ENSIGN

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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                                              MARIEL BOATLIFT

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

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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                                INTERCEPTING THE SUGAR FLEET

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

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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                                            THE LOSS OF PETREL

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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