“PEACEMAKER” DISASTER

A series of advancements were made in naval gunnery in the decades before the Civil War.  The commonly used material for gun construction at the time was wrought iron, being cheaper and more readily available than the alternative–brass.  Wrought iron is weaker than brass, and as projectiles became larger, the gas pressures necessary to propel these missiles eventually exceeded the failure threshold of iron.  The result would be the bursting of the gun tube, raking the vicinity with deadly metal shards.  The tighter fitting shells of rifled guns further accentuated this problem.  For these reasons, our Navy preferred smooth-bore cannon firing solid spherical shot.  Such guns were effective and safe against wooden ships of the day. 

Nevertheless, improvements in warship construction spurred naval innovators to develop smooth-bore guns firing larger, more powerful rounds.  Independently, CAPT Robert F. Stockton, later famous for his actions in southern California during the Mexican War, and John Ericsson, who would later design the ironclad MONITOR, developed smooth-bore cannon that fired massive 12-inch projectiles.  Ericsson’s gun employed a reinforcing band of wrought iron that was pounded around the breech while still red-hot.  As this band cooled and contracted, it even more tightly reinforced the breech.  However, Ericsson’s design, the “Oregon Gun,” cracked on its first test firing and further development was abandoned.

Stockton’s design presented an awesome appearance, engendering a nickname of the “Peacemaker.”  With much fanfare, Stockton paraded his new weapon this Leap Day.  President John Tyler and notable Congressional and Cabinet officials were invited to witness a demonstration of the “Peacemaker’s” firepower aboard the Navy’s innovative first screw steamer, USS PRINCETON.  All embarked at Annapolis intending to cruise down the Severn River and begin the test.  The first and second firings were, indeed, impressive.  But CAPT Stockton had failed to properly account for the weakness inherent in wrought iron.  Suddenly, on its third firing, the gun burst!  The effect was devastating.  Seventeen persons standing to the right of the gun were hit with flying debris.  Eight were killed instantly, including the Secretary of State (and former the Secretary of the Navy) Abel P. Upshur; Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer; the father of President Tyler’s fiancée, COL David Gardiner; and Chief of the Bureau of Construction, CAPT Beverley Kennon.  Stockton himself sustained minor burns.  Luckily President John Tyler escaped injury!  In the wake of this “Peacemaker” disaster, the Navy halted further development of wrought iron guns.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  7 MAR 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Beach, Edward L.  The United States Navy:  200 Years.  New York, NY: Henry Holt Co., 1986, pp. 203-16.

Blackman, Anne.  “The Fatal Cruise of the Princeton.”  Naval History, Vol 19 (5), October 2005, pp. 37-41.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 383.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, p. 187.

Miller, Nathan.  The U.S. Navy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: American Heritage and USNI Press, 1977, pp. 124-25.

Potter, E.B.  Sea Power: A Naval History, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1981, p 119.

Tucker, Spencer.  Arming the Fleet:  U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 155-57.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Gilmer had been in office only 10 days.  He remains the Secretary of the Navy with the shortest tenure.

A prototype of Ericsson’s “Oregon Gun” survives, mounted aboard the US Naval Academy outside Dahlgren Hall. 

A good example of wrought iron rifled technology is mounted outside the Command suite of Naval Medical Center San Diego–a 30# Parrott rifle from the revenue cutter Shubrick.  Like Ericsson’s, this design employed an extra strengthening band around the breech.  In the case of Parrott’s gun, the reinforcing band was sufficient to prevent rupture of the breech, however the energy was transmitted further along the barrel, and Parrott rifles had a disagreeable propensity for blowing off their own muzzles!

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                                              5 NOVEMBER 1923

                                    AIRPLANE ON A SUBMARINE

Several 20^th century navies experimented with the deployment of aircraft from a submarine, but the Japanese are perhaps the best remembered.  They successfully operated combat aircraft from their I-class submarines–famously launching a floatplane off our Oregon coast in 1942.  Their partially disassembled planes were stored in large, waterproof tanks bolted to the sub’s deck.  The sub would surface, the floatplane would be withdrawn from its hangar, assembled, and catapulted into the air.  The two-seat monoplane could be recovered after landing on the water near the boat.  The Japanese employed this concept to drop incendiary bombs on Oregon’s forests on 9 September 1942 in an attempt to start fires that would alarm the American public and potentially burn large tracts along our coast.  Our US Navy had experimented with the concept of aircraft aboard submarines as well, decades before.

Recognizing that cruising submarines could only spot targets on their visual horizon, our Navy attempted to marry the seaplane to the submarine after World War I.  Existing biplane designs of the 1920s were too large, and one prominent aircraft manufacturer of that day, the Glenn L. Martin Company, was consulted.  They developed a downsized single-seat biplane floatplane designated the MS-1.  With a range of 200 miles and a top speed of 100 MPH, her 18-foot fuselage and 18-foot wingspan could be disassembled to fit into an 8-foot cylindrical “hangar” abaft of a sub’s conning tower.  Six unarmed MS-1s were built–strictly for scouting as their short wingspan and 60 HP engine could not provide the lift to carry bombs, guns, or extra personnel.  The MS-1 enjoyed its first flight off Lake Erie early in 1923.  The Navy then selected S-1 (SS-105) that had been commissioned in June 1920.  (The S-class were simply designated alpha-numerically).  On 2 January 1923 S-1 was reassigned as the only boat in Submarine Division 0, a group specifically designated for aircraft experimentation.

By November 1923 the MS-1 had proven a workable scout plane, and S-1 had been fitted with the appropriate hangar.  On this day a collapsed MS-1 was packed into S-1’s deck hangar.  While the boat lay in Hampton Roads, aviation rates from the carrier USS LANGLEY (CV-1) under LCDR V.C. Griffin pulled the scout plane from its hangar.  LT P.M. Rhea flooded his submarine down until the seaplane floated free and took off, accomplishing the first successful launch of a plane from an American submarine.  S-1 continued to develop submarine-launched aviation technology, achieving the first complete cycle of surfacing, assembly, launch, retrieval, disassembly, and submergence on 28 July 1926.  But only a short time later in that same year the project was cancelled!

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  8-9 NOV 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 240.

Department of the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare).  United States Naval Aviation 1910-1980.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, p. 56.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 177.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The average biplane bomber or torpedo plane of that day had a wingspan of 50-60 feet and engines producing several hundred horsepower.

S-1 was returned to operational duties following this project and remained in service until April 1942, when she was loaned to the Royal Navy.  The British returned the sub in late 1944, by then grossly outdated.  She was ultimately sold for scrap 20 July 1945, two weeks before the Hiroshima bombing.

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                                            27-28 OCTOBER 1855

                                      USS DECATUR vs. The Indians

The Oregon Treaty with England in 1846 deeded that portion of British Columbia south of the 49^th parallel to the United States–the area that would become our States of Washington and Oregon. Settlers who had been trickling into the area for decades, began appearing in greater numbers.  Those who came by sea settled in the fertile valleys of the rivers draining into Puget Sound.  Here, in a scenario that would be repeated many times in the American West, the intrusion of the white man stirred some Native Americans to violence.  In fact, it was just such escalating tensions that sent the sloop-of-war DECATUR, 16, to investigate the Northwest Territory in 1855.  DECATUR was then patrolling under CAPT Guert Gansevoort with the US Navy’s Pacific Squadron.  She entered the Straits of San Juan de Fuca on July 19^th, but finding things quiet after several weeks of surveying, she turned toward San Francisco for re-provisioning.

In her absence, on September 27^th, hostile Indians attacked and burned the cabin of a settler named A.L. Porter in the White River Valley near Tacoma.  Though Porter escaped by sleeping in the nearby woods, he and his frightened neighbors hurried north to Seattle, in whose harbor DECATUR shortly dropped anchor.

Friendly Indians began filtering into that town bearing warning of an all-out attack in the very near future.  Preparations commenced immediately.  Food and water enough for a lengthy siege were stocked in the blockhouses protecting the town.  Gansevoort took the women and children aboard DECATUR and to aide in the town’s defense, landed a Dahlgren howitzer.  This was positioned behind the henhouse of a Mr. Plummer (near modern-day Fifth and Jackson Streets) to command the approaches from a hill overlooking the town.

On the night of October 27^th the Indians struck more cabins further inland.  War whoops could be heard from the hills above Seattle, and musket shots from the trees peppered the town.  Gansevoort landed Marines and bluejackets to bolster the townsmen, then loosed DECATUR’s guns at the hill overlooking town.  When Indians next appeared at the edge of the timber, crewmen serving the howitzer opened with langrage that proved more than that for which the attackers had bargained.  The staunch defense put up by the townsmen and the sailors and Marines of DECATUR turned back the first wave.  Heavy fighting continued through the next day, finally ending when the outgunned Indians parleyed for peace.  DECATUR lingered until a formal treaty was signed in January.  Except for the 2^nd Seminole War two decades earlier, the incident represents one of the rare encounters of our Navy with hostile Indians.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  3 NOV 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Brandt, John H.  “The Navy as an Indian Fighter”.  Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, Vol 56 (8), August 1930, p. 691.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 249.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 56.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  A decade earlier, in the 1844 Presidential election, the Democratic Party adopted the slogan, “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” reflecting the desire in some circles that the northern border of the Oregon Territory be 54⁰ 40′.  Though this more northern boundary was never adopted, to the northern plains Indians the 49^th parallel came to be known as the “Medicine Line,” as US cavalry would not pursue beyond it.

The Dahlgren howitzer mentioned above is the same type of gun as that displayed in the central courtyard of Naval Medical Center San Diego.  Made of brass, it was lighter and more easily wrestled about than conventional iron guns of pre-Civil War era.  Dahlgren designed the gun to be mounted on a carriage for shipboard use, or mounted on a limber (two-wheeled carriage) for use ashore.  In addition, most launches and small boats were constructed to accept a Dahlgren howitzer in a bow-mounted position.  The weapon was commonly used as an anti-personnel device, being loaded with grapeshot or canister.  Langrage is ordnance usually fired to shred sails consisting often of scrap iron, nails, and other debris loaded into a case.

CAPT Gansevoort went on to serve in the Civil War Union Navy, commanding the triple-turreted ironclad USS Roanoke.  Unfortunately, Roanoke proved top-heavy in rough seas, and her hull was too weak to stand the firing of her guns.  Gansevoort retired in 1867 and died 18 months later.  He is remembered with the WWII Benson-class destroyer GANSEVOORT (DD-608).

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