USS PATAPSCO

The Rebel-controlled guns of Forts Sumter, Moultrie, and Johnson straddling the entrance to Charleston harbor anchored the Confederate defenses in the late Civil War.  The mouth of the harbor and the entrance channel were obstructed with log booms, pilings, and “torpedoes” (underwater mines).  The Civil War saw the first effective use of fixed underwater mines, and Union warships off Charleston had learned a healthy respect for torpedoes.  Working parties in rowboats regularly dragged the approaches to Charleston with grappling hooks to find and remove these “infernal devices.”  Because these parties worked within range of Confederates on Morris and Sullivan’s Islands, a Union gunboat was usually detailed to provide cover.  Such was the ironclad monitor PATAPSCO’s duty after sunset this evening.

As the rowboats worked 100-200 yards off her beams, PATAPSCO occupied the channel, drifting seaward with the ebbing tide, then steaming back up to the Lehigh buoy.  Her commanding officer, LCDR Stephen P. Quackenbush, and about 40 sailors were out on the monitor’s deck, directing the boats sweeping for torpedoes.  The XO, LT William T. Sampson, conned the monitor from atop the rotating turret.  This night there was no pestering fire from the shore and three times, PATAPSCO drifted lazily down the channel with the tide.  Three times she turned and steamed back up.  But as she made her third return about 2010 hours, a sudden, sharp explosion rocked her port bow.  The cloud of steam and a geyser of seawater immediately alerted Sampson that he had struck a torpedo.  He had no time to react.  Within 15 seconds the forward deck flooded, and in another 30 seconds the monitor rested on the bottom of the 50-foot-deep channel.  Curiously, Sampson only got his feet wet, for when all motion stopped the top of the turret was only ankle-deep.  He simply stepped into the rescuing launch.  Quackenbush and 42 sailors on deck were fished from the water, but the crewmen below decks were not so lucky.  Civil War monitors did not have escape hatches.  To protect against boarders, such ships were built with only one or two hatches leading below deck.  As a result, only two sailors from below were able to scramble to safety.  Sixty-four men, including the Assistant Surgeon Samuel H. Peltz, the surgeon’s steward; the sick nurse; most of the engineers, firemen, and coal heavers; the paymaster; and all the cooks were trapped and died.

Visitors to modern Fort Moultrie National Historical Park on Sullivan’s Island will notice an obelisk commemorating the Union sailors lost with PATAPSCO.  In fact, the monitor still lies today where she sank on this date, having since been partially salvaged, then blasted flat to clear the channel.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. V-16.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Quackenbush, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 175-76.

“Report of Lieutenant Sampson, U.S. Navy, executive officer of the U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 176-78.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy,” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 171-75.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of proceedings of a court of enquiry,” dtd. 29 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 178-80.

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. 81.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This sinking marked the fourth loss of a monitor during the war, the second to torpedoes.  It prompted both tactical and strategic changes to the Union’s campaign against Charleston.  From this date, only tugboats and launches were used to protect sweepers clearing Charleston’s channels, and the strategy for the joint Army/Navy assault on Charleston was altered.  The point of attack was shifted northward, away from Charleston Harbor, to the less protected waters of Bull’s Bay about 10 miles up the coast.

PATAPSCO’s executive officer, William T. Sampson, is of course better remembered for his action as the senior in command of US Navy forces off Santiago, Cuba, three decades later in the Spanish-American War.  He is one of several Navy veterans of the Civil War who remained on Active Duty to fight in that latter conflict.

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                       CDR TUNIS CRAVEN, HERO OF MOBILE BAY

To a boy from Portsmouth, NH, the life of the sea seemed natural, thus, when Tunis Augustus MacDonough Craven was appointed a Midshipman on 2 February 1829, no one was surprised.  He distinguished himself during the Mexican War as a Lieutenant under CDR Thomas O. Selfridge aboard DALE, 16, leading shore parties that routed Mexican troops and captured cannon at Muleje, Loreta, and Cochori in Baja and Sonora.  The Civil War found Craven skippering TECUMSEH, a single-turret ironclad monitor, a class of warship well respected by both Civil War navies.  She carried two 15″ Dahlgren smooth-bores, capable of hurling a 440-pound steel bolt that could rip enemy armor.  Her iron hull befitted her advanced construction; she was designed to engage the best the enemy could produce.  RADM David G. Farragut appreciated the value of monitors and placed four in the van of his attack on the Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama.  These could resist shot from Forts Morgan and Gaines guarding the bay’s entrance channel, while simultaneously engaging the ironclad ram CSS TENNESSEE, a clear threat to Farragut’s wooden-hulled steam frigates.

In the mist this morning, TECUMSEH led the 18-ship Union squadron into Mobile Bay.  At 0700, she opened with two rounds at Fort Morgan, after which she noticed TENNESSEE sliding toward the oncoming Union line.  CDR Craven ordered the helm to port, bringing his monitor onto a ramming course for TENNESSEE.  This carried the monitor inboard of the buoy marking a Confederate torpedo (mine) field.  Closer and closer Craven glided, until just 100 yards from the Confederate, a tremendous explosion suddenly bashed TECUMSEH’s keel.  Catastrophic flooding plunged her bows immediately, lifting her screw completely out of the water.  Inside, panicked men scrambled for daylight.

Craven dove for the only escape, a small hatch behind the pilothouse.  He and the pilot, John Collins, reached the ladder simultaneously, at which point Craven graciously stepped back, stating, “After you, pilot.”  His civility allowed Collins to escape, but sealed Craven’s fate with that of 92 other crewmen, for in only 25 seconds TECUMSEH rolled completely.

Only 21 escaped.  So terrifying was the spectacle of her demise that BROOKLYN, leading the main squadron, backed down in the channel fearing the same fate.  With his line now breaking and exposed to fire from the shore, a frustrated Farragut yelled to CAPT Percival Drayton of the flagship HARTFORD, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”  HARTFORD passed to port of BROOKLYN, leading the squadron through the rest of the mines that Farragut correctly gambled were waterlogged from lengthy immersion.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 AUG 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  GPO, Washington, DC, p. 78, 1981.

Fowler, William M., Jr.  Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War.  Avon Books, New York, NY, p. 240-41, 1990.

Hoehling, A.A.  Damn the Torpedoes!  Naval Incidents of the Civil War.  John F. Blair Pub., Winston-Salem, NC, p. 113, 1989.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

As is usually the case with famous quotes, there is today some argument about the actual content of the exchange between Craven and Collins.  According to A.A. Hoehling, Craven was already partway up the ladder when Collins grabbed his leg and said, “Let me get out first, captain, for God’s sake; I have five little children!”, to which Craven stepped back saying “Go on, sir.”  Indeed, the monitors of those days were floating coffins in an emergency.  The sole egress route was a one-at-a-time hatch near the pilothouse.  (Miraculously, two or three additional sailors were able to squeeze through TECUMSEH’s tiny gun ports).  As TECUMSEH rolled there was stone silence aboard the Confederate TENNESSEE.  These sailors recognized they might very well suffer an identical fate, in fact, they were at that moment over the same torpedo field.

Some have commented that the Civil War was our last major conflict in which the opposing sides openly shared a measure of compassion for each other.  Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding ashore, observed TECUMSEH’s demise with the comment, “The event was the most startling and tragic loss of the day.”

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                                      LAST CALL FROM GRUNION

On 30 June 1942, LCDR Mannert L. Abele conned the new Gato-class submarine USS GRUNION (SS-216) out of Pearl Harbor on her first war patrol.  WWII was seven months old, and the first glimmers of success in the Pacific had been recorded weeks earlier at the battles of Coral Sea and Midway.  Efforts to reverse Japanese gains were beginning, in particular, their annoying presence on American soil in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  GRUNION was to patrol in that area, assigned to the sea lanes north of enemy-held Kiska Island.  Her first action came on 15 July when she fired three torpedoes unsuccessfully at a destroyer and was depth-charged for her efforts.  Later that same day Abele’s crew battled three sub chasers, this time sinking Ch. 25 and Ch. 27 and damaging the third.  She prowled the area for the next two weeks despite increasing Japanese wariness.  On this day, GRUNION reported heavy anti-submarine activity at the approaches to Kiska Harbor, receiving a recall to Dutch Harbor as well.  When nothing further was seen or heard from her thereafter, on 5 October GRUNION was officially listed as overdue and presumed lost.

Her demise remained a mystery, for Japanese records failed to report any sinking around the time of GRUNION’s disappearance.  Then in March 1963 a sailor claiming to have been the superintendent aboard the 8572-ton freighter Kano Maru came forward with the story that on 31 July 1942, the day after GRUNION’s last report, the freighter was steaming in heavy fog off Kiska.  Suddenly two torpedoes streaked toward her, one missing and the other penetrating without exploding aft of her starboard engine room.  Her machinery flooded and her generator and radio were knocked out.  Japanese merchant sailors sprang to their 8cm gun and began firing at a periscope wake to starboard.  Another torpedo passed harmlessly under the keel, followed by three more, two of which struck but again failed to detonate.  Kano Maru’s attacker then broke the surface to port in an apparent attempt to employ her deck gun.  A lucky shot from the Japanese gun riddled her conning tower just as her main deck went dry.  Then a tall spout of water erupted near the submarine, and she slipped beneath the waves.

If the above account truly describes GRUNION’s loss, modern navalists doubt that a single hit to her “sail” would have sunk the boat.  It is theorized that one of her own errant torpedoes may have circled back to strike GRUNION, a dangerous defect of early WWII torpedoes.  In any case, her 70 crewmen remain unaccounted for.  LCDR Abele was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, and before the end of WWII he was further commemorated with the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS MANNERT L. ABELE (DD-733). 

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  5 AUG 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 170.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 222.

Holmes, Harry.  The Last Patrol.  Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1994, pp. 24-25.

Morison, Samuel Eliot.  History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol VII  Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1951, pp. 7, 12.

“Search for the USS Grunion.”  AT: http://ussgrunion.com/blog/2006/ 09/22/whitefish-engineer-returns-from-stormy-bering-sea-with-tale-of-discovery/, 5 October 2006.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  As illustrated above, the Mark 41 torpedo that was in use early in WWII was notoriously defective.  It often deviated from its set depth, and the fusing mechanism failed when the torpedo made a directly perpendicular hit (the desired attack angle).  Modern torpedoes do not arm until they have traveled a prescribed distance to prevent disaster if a torpedo accidentally circles back to its launch point.

In the years since WWII, surviving relatives of LCDR Abele conducted an intensive search for GRUNION.  After months of privately funded, open-ocean searching with towed side-scanning sonar, in August 2006 they announced the discovery of a hard target appearing to be the wreckage of a WWII submarine 2700 feet down off Kiska, just north of McArthur Reef.  This location supports the story of the Japanese sailor from 1963.  The identity of GRUNION’s wreck was confirmed by the Navy in October 2008.  Her 70 crewmen remain aboard.

USS MANNERT L. ABELE was also lost in WWII, falling victim to kamikazes off Okinawa 12 April 1945.

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