GOODBYE TO ROOSEY

While serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the 1920s, Franklin Roosevelt asked for the establishment of a naval base on eastern Puerto Rico.  He even suggested it be named after his cousin, former President Theodore Roosevelt.  It was not until 1940, however, when German U-boats began menacing our allies’ shipping in the Caribbean, that prudence dictated the US Navy secure a presence on Puerto Rico.  Thus in 1943, Naval Operations Base Roosevelt Roads was completed, the 8600-acre tract encompassed the old Army Fort Bundy, as well as a substantial portion of nearby Vieques Island.  As a center for WWII patrols, it proved invaluable, but in the decade after the war activity at the base nearly ceased.  Then Cold War tensions and technological advances brought the development of the guided missile.  Suddenly the Puerto Rican base, in particular, the Vieques Island section, became attractive as a site for missile testing and weapons training.  As a venue for integrated naval gunnery, aviation ordnance, and amphibious assault training, Vieques was unique in the Atlantic basin.  Roosey Roads soon became the expected first port of call for battle groups deploying to the Atlantic.

The central portion of Vieques Island remained in civilian hands however, despite proposals in 1947 and again during the Kennedy Administration to relocate approximately 8000 Puerto Rican inhabitants to St. Croix.  Ultimately this situation would prove the base’s undoing.  For despite decades of safety, on 19 April 1999, two errant 500# bombs from a USMC fighter impacted close to an observation tower, killing civilian guard David Sanes Rodriguez and wounding four others.  A public outcry ensued that eventually cited a broad range of perils from weapons accidents to environmental damage to toxicity from depleted Uranium rounds.  Protesters, some of whom were noted politicians and Hollywood actors, repeatedly breached the perimeter, halting ongoing training.  No amount of President Clinton’s intervention could slake the passions of the protesters, and in 2001 President George W. Bush decided the Navy would leave Vieques altogether.  The western portion of the island was quickly surrendered, and on 1 May 2003 those remaining lands on eastern Vieques still under Navy control were transferred to the Department of the Interior.

In an era of constrained budgets and “right sizing,” the Roosevelt Roads base without Vieques was superfluous.  On 30 September 2003 President Bush signed the 2004 Defense Appropriations Act that included provisions for the closure of Naval Station Roosevelt Roads.  Only a small Naval Activity Puerto Rico remains to mark the Navy’s 60-year presence in the Caribbean.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  6 APR 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Associated Press.  “Anti-Navy Protesters Detained on Vieques.”  Washington Post, 2 October 2000, p. A2.

“Chronology of Vieques Fight against the Navy since April 1999.”  AT:  www.vieques-island.com/board/navy/chrono.html, 18 January 2004.

“Division of Territories and Island Possessions.”  AT:  www.vieques-island.com/board/navy/memostcroix.html, 18 January 2004.

“History of the Navy in Vieques.”  AT:  www.vieques-island.com/ board/navy, 18 January 2004.

James, Ian. (Associated Press).  “Navy Base Closing Changes Landscape for Puerto Ricans.”  Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 11 January 2004, p. A-9.

“Kennedy, Muñoz Marin and Vieques.”  AT:  www.vieques-island.com/ board/navy/kennedy.html, 18 January 2004.

Oral History.  CAPT Charles O. Barker, MC/USN, Executive Officer Naval Hospital Roosevelt Roads, August 2001-February 2004, 22 January 2004.

“Roosevelt Roads History and Facts.”  AT: www.navstarr.navy.mil/ Homepage/roosevelt_roads_history_and_fact.htm, 18 January 2004.

“Vieques Cheers Navy Pullout.”  Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 1 May 2003, p. A-12.

Zuniga, Ricardo.  “Navy Shuts Down its Main Puerto Rico Base.”  Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 2 April 2004, p. A-3.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Serially designated the Atlantic Fleet Guided Missile Training Center, the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Center, then finally Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in 1957, the tenant Naval Hospital Roosevelt Roads decommissioned 13 February 2004 and locked her doors permanently 12 March.  The Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers the 3100-acre former Navy tract on eastern Vieques as a National Wildlife Refuge. 

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                       EL PIRATA COFRESI

Following the War of 1812, our Navy’s missions shifted to those of policing the slave trade off West Africa and combating piracy in the Caribbean.  By 1825, our West India Squadron had nearly completed this latter mission.  The wanton plundering of American merchant ships and the brutal murders of crewmen had largely been contained.  Only a few hold-outs remained, including the dreaded El Pirata (Roberto) Cofresi, known simply as “Cofrecinas,” who operated out of Spanish Puerto Rico.  When LT John D. Sloat of the 12-gun topsail schooner USS GRAMPUS in St. Thomas, learned that Cofrecinas had taken several vessels near Foxardo (modern Fajardo), Puerto Rico, and was employing two sloops in further piracy, Sloat set sail on 1 March 1825.  Accompanying GRAMPUS were two smaller sloops obtained from the governor of St. Thomas, who also wanted Cofrecinas’ reign of terror ended.  Reaching Ponce on March 3^rd, Sloat’s sailors spied a sloop fitting the pirate description slipping to sea to the eastward.  Sloat dispatched LT Garret J. Pendergrast with 23 men and two officers in one of the sloops in pursuit.  At 1500 on the 4^th Pendergrast reached Boca del Infierno, in which harbor they fell upon the suspicious sloop.  Pendergrast opened fire, and for 45 minutes a heated exchange ensued.  American gunnery proved accurate, the pirates beached their wrecked sloop and ran for the jungle.  Two fell dead on the shore, but eleven escaped into the forest.

Fortuitously, Spanish authorities were waiting in the jungle, and the pirates were captured, five of whom were wounded.  Both Americans and Spanish were heartened to find one of the captives to be none other than Cofrecinas, himself!  The pirate sloop was found to be armed with a 4-pounder gun and various muskets, cutlasses and knives.  Pendergrast was able to re-float her and take her into our Navy’s service as a tender.  His actions were praised by the Spanish governor of Puerto Rico, Don Miguel de la Torres–laud that was remarkable in that Torres had not heretofore been particularly cooperative with US anti-piracy efforts.

On April 4^th Sloat returned to St. Thomas and there learned the fate of the eleven captured pirates.  Found guilty at a quick trial, they were promptly executed by firing squad.  When asked if he wanted to be blindfolded for his execution, Cofrecinas declined stating he had murdered 300-400 by his own hand and had certainly learned how to die properly by now.  From the confessions of these pirates, 28 others were captured, tried, and executed.  Their bodies were beheaded, quartered, and sent to all the corners of the island by the Spanish authorities.  Following this, piracy along the Puerto Rican coast came to a halt almost completely.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 MAR 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Allen, Gardner W.,  Our Navy and the West Indian Pirates.  Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1929, pp. 82-84.

Earle, Peter.  The Pirate Wars.  New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2003, p. 246.

Naval Register for the Year 1822.  AT: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/usn/1822/navreg1822.html, retrieved 4 April 2013.

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. 38.

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