FOXARDO AFFAIR (cont.)

So often in history, the similar actions of separate individuals are interpreted quite differently in light of the background circumstances.  In 1818, GEN Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida with US forces, capturing a Spanish fort and executing local citizens for inciting the Seminole Indians to cross-border raids into Georgia.  His actions were lauded by a thankful American administration at the time.  However, six years later the actions of Commodore David Porter at Foxardo, Spanish Puerto Rico, were not seen by US officials in an equally accepting vein.  Indeed, by 1824 US-Spanish relations were delicate.  Spain had recently been forced to sell Florida to the United States under what they perceived to be a threat of war, and Spanish ships were being pirated on the high seas by American mercenaries claiming to be privateers for the newly declared (former Spanish) nations of Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico.  In December 1824, Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard expressed his strong disapproval of Porter’s “extraordinary transactions at Foxardo.”  Southard recalled Porter, replacing him in January 1825 as Commodore of the West India Squadron with CAPT Lewis Warrington.  Porter, not a man of temperate disposition, was livid again.

A Court of Inquiry was convened, chaired by CAPT Isaac Chauncey, to review the events at Foxardo as well as Porter’s overall command of the Squadron.  They found that though Porter’s summary command was effectual, his actions at Foxardo warranted a Court Martial.  This was convened in July 1825 with CAPT James Barron as president.

Porter’s defense rested on a clause from his original orders of 1 February 1823 outlining the purpose of his command to be, “repressing piracy and affording effectual protection to the citizens and commerce of the United States.”  Public opinion largely favored Porter, an established naval hero for his stellar service in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.  Nevertheless, the politically sensitive Court Martial found that his actions at Foxardo exceeded the authority of this orders and recommended a six-month suspension from duty (with pay).  Porter’s protests and appeals went for naught, and the bitter and disgruntled Captain resigned his commission in protest the following year.

Porter emigrated to Mexico where he became Commander-in-Chief of the Mexican Navy from 1826-29.  He returned to the United States but never again served with our Navy.  He acted instead, as US minister to the Barbary States under President Andrew Jackson’s tenure.  He died in 1843, still bitter over his treatment in this Foxardo affair. 

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Allen, Gardner W.,  Our Navy and the West Indian Pirates.  Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1929, pp. 66-72.

Miller, Nathan.  The U.S. Navy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: American Heritage and USNI Press, 1977, p. 111.

Pratt, Fletcher.  The Compact History of the United States Navy, 3rd ed.  New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967, pp. 106-07.

Reynolds, Clark G.  Famous American Admirals.  New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978, pp. 254-55.

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, 2001, p. 38.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Puerto Rico remained a Spanish possession until the Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War of 1898 ceded the island to the United States.

The subsequent US Navy warships PORTER (TB-6, DD-59, DD-356, DD-800, DDG-78); CHAUNCEY (DD-3, DD-296, DD-667) and WARRINGTON (DD-30, DD-383, DD-843) all remember individuals above.

The post Foxardo Affair (cont.) appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                              FOXARDO AFFAIR

With a splash, the anchor of USS BEAGLE hit the water of Foxardo harbor (modern Fajardo), Spanish Puerto Rico.  The 3-gun US Navy schooner and her commander, LT Charles T. Platt, were in search of stolen property.  Several days earlier Mr. Stephen Cabot of Cabot, Bailey & Co., an American business operating in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, had reported the theft of $5000 worth of goods from their storehouse.  Those goods were thought to have been smuggled to Foxardo, a town on the eastern end of Puerto Rico where pirates enjoyed an active market for plundered goods.  Platt and Midshipman Robert Ritchie went ashore the following day, 27 October, to confer with the Captain of the Port and the local Alcalde, Francisco Caro, seeking redress.  Reasoning they would appear less threatening, Platt declined to wear his uniform.

Those ashore were immediately suspicious of civilian-clad sailors claiming to be officers in the American Navy.  After all, the sacking of coastal towns by pirates was not uncommon in the West Indies of this day.  Outwardly, both the Port Captain and Alcalde Caro were cordial and feigned sympathy for Platt’s mission.  But Platt’s subsequent breakfast in a local pub was cut short by an urgent call to the Alcalde’s office.  Here Platt was summarily arrested!  His protests went unheeded, though he was permitted to send to the ship for his uniform and a copy of his officer’s commission.  These were dismissed as forgeries, and Platt and Ritchie were thrown into jail as suspected pirates themselves!  Platt was later allowed to send to the ship for a copy of his orders from West India Squadron Commodore CAPT David Porter, which were received by local officials in a better light.  The two were released to BEAGLE after several hours confinement.  Platt immediately got underway for squadron headquarters in St. Thomas.

Porter was livid on 12 November when he learned of the incident.  The next day, in JOHN ADAMS, 28, BEAGLE, and GRAMPUS, 3, he anchored opposite a shore battery in Foxardo harbor.  BEAGLE positioned herself to cover a beach proposed as a landing site.  Porter then led 200 officers, bluejackets, and Marines ashore.  LT Cornelius K. Stribling was sent ahead to demand the Alcalde’s attention, and without hesitating further Porter stepped off toward the town.  Two gun batteries along the way were assaulted, their defenders running in panic.  Four Spanish 18-pounders were spiked.  Porter moved his landing force within 200 yards of the town gate where he came face-to-face with a hastily assembled mob of 70 militia and armed townspeople.  Tension gripped the scene until LT Stribling appeared under a white flag, with Caro.  During three hours of talks Porter demanded an apology, promising that otherwise, “the total destruction of Foxhardo will be the certain and immediate consequence.”  This prompted Spanish contrition, which Porter accepted.

Continued tomorrow…

Allen, Gardner W.,  Our Navy and the West Indian Pirates.  Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1929, pp. 66-72.

Miller, Nathan.  The U.S. Navy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: American Heritage and USNI Press, 1977, p. 111.

Pratt, Fletcher.  The Compact History of the United States Navy, 3rd ed.  New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967, pp. 106-07.

Reynolds, Clark G.  Famous American Admirals.  New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978, pp. 254-55.

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, 2001, p. 38.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  To this day, the wearing of the uniform of the day is required when executing all official duties of the United States Navy.

Charles T. Platt had fought in the War of 1812 at the battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, being wounded at the latter.  He served on Active Duty until 1855 when he transferred to the inactive list.  CDR Platt died 12 December 1860 as the clouds of the Civil War were gathering.  Cornelius Stribling was also a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.  During the Civil War he commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard and the East Gulf Blockading Squadron from 1864 until the surrender.  RADM Stribling died 17 January 1880.  USS STRIBLING (DD-96, DD-867) remember Mr. Stribling.

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                                      GERMAN RAIDER ATLANTIS

Recognizing at the outset of WWII that the Kriegsmarine had not the strength to match the Royal Navy’s warfleet, Hilter’s maritime strategy concentrated on guerre de course, interrupting the flow of merchant ships carrying the necessities of life to the island nation.  His U-boats performed such yeoman service in this regard that they overshadowed the efforts of Germany’s auxiliary cruisers and surface raiders.  These latter were converted freighters that mounted concealed heavy guns behind an innocent outward appearance.  One of the most successful was ATLANTIS (Schiff #16), who escaped to sea through the British blockade in March 1940.

This morning found ATLANTIS cruising the eastern Indian Ocean, deceptively rigged and painted as a Norwegian freighter.  At dawn, she found herself on a converging course with the British Blue Funnel Lines freighter Automedon, who was outbound from Liverpool to Far Eastern ports.  By this time in the war, British merchant captains had become wary of any ship that approached on the high seas, and Automedon immediately altered course.  At this, ATLANTIS charged and unmasked her guns.  The freighter’s panicked radio calls were quickly squelched with a barrage of 6″ shells to her bridge and radio shack.  Heavily outgunned, Automedon hove to and awaited the German boarding party.

Kapitänleutnant (equivalent to LT) Ulrich Mohr stepped aboard the freighter to find the deck running with blood.  ATLANTIS’ first shells had killed Automedon’s master and most of her officers.  Her cargo proved worth the effort as she was carrying an assortment of crated airplanes, autos, uniforms, medicines, supplies, cigarettes, and 550 cases of whiskey.  More importantly, the sudden demise of her officers had prevented the destruction of Automedon’s papers.  The Germans struck gold.  Automedon’s safe yielded invaluable Admiralty sailing instructions and copies of three Merchant Naval Codes, fleet cipher tables, top secret high-level correspondence, and the plans for the British defense of Singapore!  After commandeering her whiskey, cigarettes, and fresh vegetables, Automedon was scuttled.

CAPT Bernhard Rogge dispatched the captured documents with his most trusted officer to Axis ally Japan on the captured tanker Ole Jacob.  Korvettenkapitän (LCDR) Paul Kamenz arrived in Kobe on December 6^th, and in Tokyo, shared the documents with Tojo’s planners.  Rather than risk a seaborne transit through the British blockade, he journeyed to Vladivostok, then overland through Moscow on the Trans-Siberian railway.  In Berlin, his captured documents were as well received as Rogge anticipated.

Follow the further story of ATLANTIS on 22 NOV

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Frank, Wolfgang and Bernhard Rogge.  The German Raider Atlantis.  New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1956, pp. 84-88.

Hoyt, Edwin P.  Raider 16.  New York, NY: World Publishing, 1970, pp. 129-39.

Matthews, Alan.  “S.S. Automedon:  The Ship that Doomed a Colony.”  AT: http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/automedon.html, retrieved 22 November 2009.

Rusbidger, James.  “The Sinking of the ‘Automedon’ and the Capture of the ‘Nankin:’  New Light on Two Intelligence Disasters in World War II.”  Encounter magazine, May 1985, AT: http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/SUBM/SUBM.003.0034.pdf, retrieved 22 November 2009.

Slavick, Joseph P.  The Cruise of the German Raider Atlantis.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2003.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The British have still not come to grips with this embarrassing intelligence coup.  Though Automedon’s documents were found in the German Foreign Ministry archives in Berlin at the end of the war, London refuses to publicly acknowledge the gravity of this security breach.  In 1983, when Margaret Thatcher was asked by historians to look into the Automedon affair, she stalled for seven months before stating it would be “improper” to release any details.

In light of the fact that the captured documents above were shared with the Japanese, it is interesting to recall the details of the fall of Singapore.  The “Gibraltar of the Pacific” fell to the Japanese in March 1942 after mediocre, some said trifling, resistance.  It seems the British defensive plan anticipated a seaborne assault, but the Japanese surprised the defenders by attacking from landward through the jungles of the Malay peninsula.  In fact, after the fall of Singapore the Emperor of Japan gifted Rogge in April 1943 with an exclusive katana Samurai sword.  Only two other individuals have been similarly honored–Erwin Rommel and Herman Goering.

The survivors of Automedon were placed aboard the German blockade runner Storstad and landed in Bordeaux, France, on 5 February 1942.  Here they were herded aboard trains bound for POW camps near Munich (sub-camps of Dachau).  While en route across France Automedon’s 4^th Engineer, Samuel Harper, jumped from the train.  He located friendly Frenchmen who secreted him for several weeks, shifting him to Marseille.  He was smuggled across the Pyrenees, but on 13 April he was captured by Germans in Spain.  As Spain was not part of the Axis, the British successfully negotiated his release on 29 May 1942, and two days later he arrived in Gibraltar.

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                                              MV SAN DEMETRIO

The Eagle Oil and Shipping Company operated in England from 1912-59 moving petroleum products between Mexico, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom.  Each of their tankers was given the Spanish name of a Christian saint.  MV San Demetrio was an 8070-ton tanker launched in 1938.  In October 1940 she shipped a cargo of 11,200 tons of aviation gasoline in Aruba and headed to Halifax, where she was to join 38 other freighters in British-bound Convoy HX-84, shepherded by HMS JERVIS BAY, an armed merchant cruiser.  By the eighth day at sea the convoy was halfway to Avondale, England.

The sky this day was overcast with only a ribbon of light on the horizon as the afternoon watch finished.  Lookouts spotted the masthead of a ship to port just as the sound of gunfire boomed across the moderate swell.  The German pocket battleship ADMIRAL VON SCHEER climbed over the horizon firing her 11″ guns.  JERVIS BAY turned to, making a suicidal charge.  She was burning from stem to stern before her seven 6″ guns were within range.  The gallant former liner sacrificed herself with the loss of Acting CAPT Edward S.F. Fegen and 189 crewmen, but she bought time for the convoy to scatter.  Fegen would later receive the Victoria Cross. 

Scheer now turned her guns on the convoy.  SS Beaverford, Fresno City, Trewellard, Maiden, and Kenbane Head all went down–Beaverford after engaging the attacker herself to buy more time.  San Demetrio was hit three times and caught fire.  A gasoline tanker ablaze is a potential disaster, and most are abandoned.  Such was the case when Captain George Waite, O.B.E., signaled “finished with engines” from the bridge telegraph–the signal to San Demetrio’s enginemen to abandon ship.  Sixteen crewmen led by 2^nd Officer Arthur C. Hawkins clamored into the starboard lifeboat and lowered to the roiling, gasoline-coated sea below.  The skipper and 22 others slipped away in another boat, but the two boats quickly lost contact.  Capt. Waite’s fears proved true, San Demetrio’s amidships tanks exploded like a giant Roman candle.

The starboard lifeboat drifted through the next day, sighting, but failing to attract, a passing ship.  On the second day another ship was seen on the horizon, emitting a column of black smoke.  It turned out to be San Demetrio, who burned but had not sunk.  Taking their chances, the men reboarded and revived the engines and fire mains.  Slowly they stemmed the fires.  Down by the bows, Hawkins set a course for Ireland, navigating by dead reckoning and the occasional glimpse of the sun.  Miraculously, on 16 November San Demetrio dropped anchor off Glasgow, her original destination.  Her tattered Red Ensign still waved, set a half mast for engineman John Boyle who had finally succumbed to his injuries near Ireland.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 NOV 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Brock, Paul.  “Am Engaging Enemy…Believed to be Admiral Scheer.”  Sea Classics, Vol 55 (4), April 2022, pp. 8-16.

Jesse, F. Tennyson.  The Saga of San Demetrio.  London, England: H.M. Stationery Office, 1943, (reprint by Pratt Press, 2007).

Warsailors.com website.  “Convoy HX-84-Page 2: Report of an Interview with Mr. Charles Pollard, Chief Engineer, and Mr. Arthur C. Hawkins, 2^nd Officer of M.V. San Demetrio.” dtd. 20 November 1940, AT: http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/hx84page2.html, retrieved 25 July 2024.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Three San Demetrio crewmen were killed in the initial attack and four more died of injuries after abandoning ship.  The men in Captain Waite’s lifeboat were rescued by a passing freighter and taken to Newfoundland.  Because San Demetrio had been abandoned at sea, the 15 crewmen who brought her safely to port were entitled to salvage compensation to the tune of £2000 for some.  Arthur Hawkins received the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) for his heroism in recovering and salving the tanker.

San Demetrio was repaired and returned to service.  She was torpedoed by U-404 and sank off Virginia on 17 March 1942.

Captain Waite had received his O.B.E. after the Eagle Company tanker San Alberto was torpedoed and broke in half in December 1939.  Days later, he and several crewmen reboarded the still-floating after section of the tanker, revived her boilers, but were unable to make headway, backwards, toward England.

In 1943 the story of San Demetrio was made into a movie, “San Demetrio London,” starring Walter Fitzgerald and Arthur Young.

An armed merchant cruiser was a former civilian freighter or ocean liner acquired by the Navy, armed usually with 8-inch guns or smaller, and detailed to escort duties.  Such would have been no match for a German pocket battleship.

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                                      GLENN’S SHUTTLE MISSION

At 19 minutes after 1400 this afternoon, Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center roared to life with the lift-off of the space shuttle Discovery (OV-103).  COL Curtis L. Brown, Jr., commanded Mission STS-95 with his Air Force buddy COL Steven W. Lindsey piloting.  The other military astronaut aboard was destined in the next 30 minutes to become the oldest man in space to date, 77-year-old Payload Specialist COL (Ret) John H. Glenn, Jr., USMC.  On October 15^th, and for several months after today’s shuttle flight, the main causeway at the Space Center in Florida had been temporarily re-named “John Glenn Parkway.”

A USMC fighter pilot in WWII and Korea, by 1998 John Glenn was a national hero.  His Mercury 6 space mission of February 1962 was the first in which an American orbited the Earth.  His capsule for that flight, Friendship 7, was on display at the Smithsonian Museum on the Mall in Washington, DC.  Since retiring from the astronaut program in 1964, Glenn had followed a new career in public service, becoming a 6-term Senator for the State of Ohio. 

Glenn’s duties for this shuttle mission were to study the parallels in physiology between human aging and space flight.  For years, NASA and the National Institute for Aging had collaborated on research into human aging, after it was noted how similarly spaceflight and aging effect the human body.  In a designed laboratory in the shuttle’s payload bay, Glenn worked on the nine-day mission to document changes in balance, perception, immune response, metabolism, bone and muscle density, blood flow, and sleep associated with weightlessness.  Glenn’s return to space 36 years after his first flight was the longest time between missions for any human.  Personal attributes beyond his age, such as intelligence and physical fitness, made him the ideal candidate to study the space effects of aging.  Meanwhile, his fellow astronauts deployed the SPARTAN 201 satellite for two days of free fight to study solar wind, then recaptured it.  Hardware that would be used on a later Hubble Telescope maintenance flight was readied.

Discovery orbited 134 times, a far cry for Glenn’s three orbits of his Mercury mission.  As they had done for his initial space flight in 1962, the Australian towns of Perth and Rockingham, in darkness during Glenn’s 1962 mission, turned on all their public and private lights, a salute to Glenn.  Another first for the mission was the presence of Payload Specialist Pedro Duque, the first Spaniard in space, representing the European Space Agency.  They all touched down safely at the Kennedy Space Center at noon on November 9^th, Glenn becoming one of the few astronauts to experience both a splash down and a touch down.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  5 NOV 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret

Glenn, John with Nick Taylor.  John Glenn:  A Memoir.  New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1999.

“John Glenn Returns to Space.”  NASA Glenn Research Center, NASA website.  AT: http://www.nasa.gov/ centers/glenn/about/ bios/shuttle_mission.html, retrieved 24 January 2013.

“STS-95.”  NASA website.  AT: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ shuttle/archives/sts-95/, retrieved 24 January 2013.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  On her 39 missions, the space shuttle Discovery amassed nearly 366 days in space.  She is currently preserved at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Institution in Chantilly, Virginia.

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                                    MEDILL’S WILD-WEST CHASE

Acting RADM David Dixon Porter decried enemy guerrilla actions along the Mississippi during the Civil War.  From Mississippi Squadron headquarters in Cairo, Illinois, he wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that commercial river traffic was taking fire and steamboats risked being forced ashore.  Worse, Porter wrote, “…I am convinced that large quantities of goods were intentionally landed for the use of the rebels…”  To Porter’s way of thinking, “The war would never end this way…” 

Earlier, when Confederate sympathizers were noted plundering the steamer Hazel Dell, Porter sent LCDR LeRoy Fitch with four light-draft gunboats to Caseyville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, to intervene.  Fitch’s men discovered the lightering operation and captured 33 guerrillas.  Porter ordered their personal property garnished at ten times the value of Hazel Dell’s cargo.  On October 19^th, guerrillas fired on the mail steamer Gladiator.  In reprisal, Porter sent LCDR Richard W. Meade in USS LOUISVILLE and the transport Meteor with 300 soldiers of the 11^th Indiana to Bledsoe’s Landing and Hamblin’s Landing, Arkansas.  Both towns were razed to the ground when it was learned they had sheltered the offenders.

On this date, Porter sent the gunboat BARON DE KALB to Hopefield, Arkansas, where a band of rebels was harassing Union sympathizers of that town.  CAPT John A. Winslow sent a party of 25 to investigate, under the command of Carpenter Robert H. Medill.  No roughnecks appeared, but ten Confederate Army scouts were spotted.  Medill’s men gave chase on foot, but the mounted rebels sped off into the countryside.  Undaunted, Medill ran to the local livery and impressed horses into immediate service.  All of his party who could be mounted galloped off in pursuit.  Across the Arkansas flood plain the horses raced.  The dust of the escaping Confederates could be seen ahead, with the Yankees slowly gaining.  Soon they closed within rifle range, and shots erupted in both directions.  A running gun battle reminiscent of the wild west ranged over the next miles.  Horses well lathered, Medill closed further.  After a nine-mile race, a few “shots across the bow” brought the rebels to heel.  Confederate Army Captain Russell and a LT Brown in company with eight soldiers were taken prisoner.  The otherwise thrilling episode was only marred by two accidental casualties.  While embarking his prisoners aboard the Union tugboat Spiteful, a musket discharged, killing the tug’s engineer, Joseph Chaplain, and wounding the engineer’s mate Archy Palmer. 

Porter’s ruthless campaign was, “…the only way of putting a stop to guerrilla warfare, and though the method is stringent, officers are instructed to put it down at all hazards.”

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  31 OCT 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. II-103, II-104.

Goodspeed, M. Hill.  U.S. Navy:  A Complete History. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Foundation, 2003, p. 199.

letter of RADM D.D. Porter to Gideon Welles, dtd. 27 October 1862.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters from April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1910, pp. 451-52.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  USS BATON DE KALB was a Cairo-class casemated gunboat, 175 feet in length with an encased stern paddlewheel and 13 guns.  She was named for John Baron de Kalb, of Huttendorf, Bavaria, who accompanied Lafayette to America during the Revolutionary War and assisted the Continental Army.  John Baron de Kalb was mortally wounded at the battle of Camden, New Jersey, on 16 August 1780.  USS BARON DE KALB did not survive the Civil War, falling victim to a Confederate mine in the Yazoo River on 13 July 1863.

          John A. Winalow is better remembered for an action later in the war when he commanded USS KEARSARGE in her famous duel with CSS ALABAMA off Cherbourg, France.  Winslow survived the war and was advanced to the rank of RADM in 1870.  Three US Navy warships remember Mr. Winslow, TB-5, DD-53, and DD-359.

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                           DREXLER AND CHOLISTER OF TRENTON

The light cruiser USS TRENTON (CL-11) was commissioned in April of 1924, one of the last of ten Omaha-class vessels authorized during WWI.  The principal difference between light and heavy cruisers of that day was not their displacement, rather the size of the guns.  Heavy cruisers mounted 8-inch guns, TRENTON mounted 6-inch guns–twenty of them (six mounted in five forward-firing turrets, six in stern turrets, and eight amidships).  TRENTON’s shakedown cruise to the Mediterranean was interrupted in August 1924 with news that the American Vice Consul to Persia, Robert Imbrie, had died.  TRENTON was diverted to Bushire, Persia (modern Bushehr, Iran), via the Suez Canal, where she received the Consul’s remains on August 25^th.  After exchanging gun salutes with Persian shore batteries, she departed that same day.  A month later she arrived at the Washington Navy Yard where she conveyed the diplomat’s remains to his final rest.

TRENTON began drills off the coast of Virginia this afternoon, commencing gunnery practice around 1500.  In the twin 6-inch mount on the cruiser’s forecastle, turret officer ENS Henry Clay Drexler mentored his nineteen-man gun crew through firing and reloading procedures.  One ever-present risk in such work was the possibility that residual cinders from a previous round might prematurely ignite charges rammed behind the next round.  The results were often disastrous, and crews were regularly drilled in dealing with such accidents.  Then shortly after 1535 the unthinkable happened.  A bagged powder charge for the port tube ignited prematurely as it was being loaded.  Flames and hot gasses engulfed the interior of the turret, killing three men instantly.  As the others reeled from the smoke and flame, Drexler and BM1 George R. Cholister lunged simultaneously for an unaffected charge still sitting exposed on the starboard gun’s ramming tray.  Drexler grabbed the powder bag and tried to pull it into an immersion bath beside the gun.  He was a split-second too late.  The charge cooked-off in his hands killing him instantly.  The interior of the turret was again bathed in hot gasses and flame.  Cholister, who had not quite reached the starboard charge, fell unconscious and lay mortally burned until the fires subsided.  He and nine others died the following day.  The six remaining gun crewmen survived their severe burns and inhalation injuries.

Both Drexler and Cholister were awarded the Medal of Honor for the selfless sacrifices this day.  The Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer DREXLER (DD-741) and the Drexler Manor Bachelor Officers Quarters on the present day JAB Little Creek in Norfolk are named in Drexler’s honor.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  25 OCT 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 300.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 266.

Moore, John.  Jane’s American Fighting Ships of the 20th Century.  New York, NY: Modern Publishing, 1995, pp. 108-10.

Site visit, Drexler Manor BOQ, JAB Little Creek, VA, 17 October 2001.

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. 490, 491.

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                                        THE TRUE BLUE SALOON

Frictions between the President of Chile, José Manuel Balmaceda, and the Chilean Congress erupted into civil war in January 1890.  US sympathies leaned weakly toward Balmaceda, but in the main, President Benjamin Harrison was most interested in preventing European powers (particularly England) from exploiting the struggle for their own gains.  Toward this end, Harrison dispatched the protected cruisers CHARLESTON (C-2), BALTIMORE (C-3), and SAN FRANCISCO (C-5) to patrol the Chilean coast.  The insurgents won the initial battles, forcing the weakened Balmaceda government to seek refuge in the American consulate in Valparaiso.  The consulate then became such an object of local anger that on 28 August 1891 a guard of Marines under CAPT William S. Muse had to be landed.  Then in October of 1891, the incumbent government collapsed after Balmaceda committed suicide.  Tensions momentarily eased in the city, and CDR Winfield Scott Schley, whose cruiser BALTIMORE had been standing in the harbor for months, seized the opportunity to send his thirsty sailors on liberty.

In retrospect, Schley’s decision was regrettable as mobs of victorious insurgents with long memories still roamed Valparaiso’s streets.  Neither did Schley organize the customary precaution of a shore patrol.  Nevertheless, on the night of 16 October a liberty party from the BALTIMORE located a likely watering-hole called the True Blue Saloon.  In short order they were hunted down by an anti-American mob who still recalled the US support of their deposed former president.  A brawl ensued in which local police “looked the other way” as Boatswain’s Mate C.W. Riggins and another sailor were beaten to death and sixteen others injured.  The Chilean foreign minister complicated matters with some disparaging remarks about the incident, prompting President Harrison to demand reparations and an official apology.  The new Chilean president, Jorge Montt, was oblivious to US concerns and ignored the request.

In the ensuing months, anti-Chilean factions in America pressed Harrison for a military solution.  By January the absence of any reply had piqued Harrison’s anger.  He ordered Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Tracy to pre-position American warships, and on the 27^th of January requested a war declaration from Congress.  Impressed with the apparent American resolve, five days later the Montt government agreed to pay a $75,000 indemnity to the families of the two slain sailors.  A war with Chile had been narrowly averted.  (One factor that temporarily cooled the crisis was the surprised realization on the part of US planners that the Chilean Navy was materially stronger than our own, having purchased several British-built cruisers during Chile’s recent war with Peru). 

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Coletta, Paolo E.  American Secretaries of the Navy  Vol 1 1775-1913.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1980, p. 420.

Howarth, Stephen.  To Shining Sea:  A History of the United States Navy  1775-1991.  New York, NY: Random House, 1991, p. 241.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 365-68.

Miller, Nathan.  The U.S. Navy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: American Heritage and USNI Press, 1977, p. 203.

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. 100.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This was not Winfield Scott Schley’s only questionable decision.  He later became embroiled in an embarrassing public controversy with RADM William Sampson, his senior at the Battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898.  Schley’s alleged cowardice and confusing ship movements during that battle became the point of argument between the officers, a shameful public fight that ultimately required the intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt.

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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.

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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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                        CYANE AT GUYAMAS

On this afternoon of the Mexican War, CDR Samuel F. Du Pont brought the 20-gun sloop USS Cyane into the seaside harbor of Guyamas on the Sonoran mainland of western Mexico.  His and other US Navy ships patrolled these villages enforcing a blockade of Mexico, indeed, the Sonoran region and California Sur (modern Baja) were primary targets of that blockade.  Only five vessels lay in the harbor, a Peruvian and an Ecuadorian neutrals, and three Mexican-flagged ships–the commercial brig Condor, and two former gunboats, Anahuac and Sonorense, both aground in stages of disassembly.  Du Pont was surprised to discover 500 militia troops ashore, armed with half-dozen field pieces and cannon landed from the gunboats–a force disproportionate to the importance of the town.  It seems a Mexican captain Du Pont had chased from La Paz weeks before had reached Guyamas warning of Du Pont’s approach.

 The following morning, Du Pont sent word to the local commandante that the Mexican vessels and any munitions of war were to be surrendered.  He refused, prompting a threat from Du Pont to bombard the town at 1000 October 7^th, allowing time for women, children, and personal property to be removed to safety.  That morning a deputation of local merchants approached Cyane in a small boat stating the time had been insufficient to clear the village.  Du Pont agreed only to an hour’s extension, not wishing to give the commandante more time to prepare.  As the boatload of locals returned to shore the Mexican flag was seen rising over the derelict gunboats, who soon erupted in flames.  The Mexicans were performing an act Du Pont had intended to do himself!

But Condor remained at anchor very near the dock, within a pistol shot of the militia position.  By 1130 no response had been forthcoming, and Cyane opened, concentrating her fire on the militia position.  Simultaneously two cutters from Cyane carried 45 men led by LT George W. Harrison, LT Higgins, Midshipmen Crabbe and Lewis, and boatswain Collins.  These closed the Mexican brig while shot and shell screamed alow and aloft in both directions.  A steel cable and anchor were cut, and the brig was set ablaze.  Harrison’s party then towed the burning brig away from the town, through a hail of whistling bullets.  Miraculously no one was hit!  Du Pont kept up a vigorous cannonade until the brig had been towed to a distant cove where she burned to the waterline.  Du Pont lingered in Guyamas despite Mexican reinforcements in the form of 400 troops from nearby Hermosilia and 300 mounted Yucca Indians.  No further fighting ensued, and Du Pont departed October 9^th having enforced the blockade and cemented a personal reputation for bold and forceful action.

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Du Pont, Samuel F.  Extracts from Private Journal-Letters of Captain S.F. Du Pont of the Cyane during the War with Mexico, 1846-48 (reprint).  Wilmington, DE: Ferris Brothers, 1885, pp. 61-70.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 47.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  By the outbreak of the Civil War Samuel F. Du Pont was an experienced and respected senior US Naval officer.  He commanded the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from September 1861 to July 1863.  He was in the original group of officers promoted to RADM when that rank was authorized in 1862.  Du Pont Circle in Washington, DC, is named in his honor as are the former warships USS Du Pont (TB-7, DD-152, DD-941).

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