“Some Thoughts on Naval History”
(See J. Valle, pp. 5-6, Winter 1990 Naval History)
Dr. Mark Peattie, Professor of Japanese History, University of Massachusetts at Boston, and Associate in Research, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University—I write to you to lend my support to the comments on Naval History expressed by Dr. James E. Valle in the In Contact section of the winter 1990 issue of your journal. I should like, from my own perspective, to extend one or two comments made by Dr. Valle.
Dr. Valle usefully suggests that Naval History concentrate on topics of greater importance, perhaps built around specific themes. This is an admirable proposal that could be realized in two different ways. One would be to build a single issue around a specific theme. The other would be to have a specific that ran over a number of issues, but was expressed in a single article on that theme in each issue. The latter approach is perhaps best exemplified by a recent decision taken by the editorial staff of Military History Quarterly. Starting with the spring 1990 issue, which contains a piece on the Great Wall of China, MHQ is planning to include in a number of future issues at least one article per issue on the subject of military walls in different periods in history. This is an exciting idea that will sustain readers’ interest from issue to issue.
There are a number of other ways in which the Military History Quarterly might be an excellent model to follow. In that journal, the editor’s comments to the reader on the first page are always insightful and thought-provoking. Occasionally, the editor draws special attention to a major work in the field that has just been published. More importantly, the articles are nearly always of real significance to the field and are often revisionist in approach, a character that usually induces or provokes lively and intelligent response in the readers’ section of the journal. And, lastly, a large portion of the articles are written by front-rank military historians or by persons who are at the cutting edge of the profession.
I believe Naval History could use the same approach to the great enhancement of the quality and reputation of the journal. Why not try some articles on the major naval battles or naval technology of World War II? How about a piece on the rise of Holland as a naval power? Did the Japanese oxygen torpedo actually live up to the awesome reputation that postwar naval historians have given it? Why not ask an established historian of Ming China to write a piece on the naval expeditions of Admiral Chen-ho, who could have turned the Indian Ocean into a Chinese lake?
How exciting and richly satisfying it would be to see Naval History include pieces by established naval historians, like William Braisted and Peter Padfield, or by those just beginning to make their names in the field, like Jon Sumida at the University of Maryland who has some fascinating things to say on the development of naval gunnery and on the interrelationship between finance and naval development. As Dr. Valle suggested, moreover, many of us who are working on book projects for the Naval Institute Press would probably also be delighted to share with the readers of Naval History some preliminary views of our findings.
In fairness to your editorial staff, Naval History has recently included a number of articles that make a serious contribution to the study of its title subject, among which I include Gary Weir’s fine piece on “Tirpitz and Technology” in the winter issue. My suggestion is that in the long run naval history and Naval History are better served by featuring articles that inform or provoke the mind rather than those which merely indulge in reminiscence or nostalgia.
I enjoy Naval History and will continue my subscription, in any event. But with how much more excitement would I await each new issue if it really had something important to say!
Paul V. Hanninen—Dr. Valle admits to being “. . . biased in favor of an academic, professional approach to naval history at the expense of the earnest and well-meaning crowd. ...” In other words, he wants to modify the publication to appeal to the elite few who study naval history as a profession. Well, sir, I am a member of the earnest and well- meaning crowd. Although I majored in history in college and hold a master’s degree, I consider myself a layman. I enjoy reading history—especially naval history—as a diversion and not as chore.
Dr. Valle made another comment that irked the hell out of me: The “subjects covered are trivial. ...” I was a plankowner and served in the USS Daly (DD-519) for nearly two years during World War II. What better surprise could I have had than to turn to page two in this issue and read about “The Fightin’est Marine,” Gunnery Sergeant Daniel J. Daly, USMC, after whom my ship was named. Trivial indeed! These are the pieces that make this magazine so reachable for us non-elitists.
Lieutenant Commander Millard F. Krik U.S. Navy (Retired)—Let us organizeto repel boarders!
With all due respect to Dr. Valle’s professional concerns about changing the thrust of Naval History to suit his criteria, let the members of the professional naval history community originate their own publication and not change ours!
William T. O’Neill, Jr.—I agree with some of Dr. Valle’s arguments, but disagree with others.
In particular, I disagree with his comments on the use of reminiscences, and his comments on pieces written by junior officers. Naval History was started to complement Proceedings. Both magazines are vehicles to advance ideas. Dr. Valle’s criticism of the efforts of these authors does a disservice to them and to himself. It appears that Dr. Valle thinks only professional historians should write for Naval History. However, the events that historians research and publish are but the sum of the personal stories of the units, ships, and men who served in them.
The junior authors do their research on their own time; they often lack access to the research resources of professional historians. I am sure they welcome constructive criticism of their work.
Naval History should solicit articles from prominent naval historians. With the 50th anniversary of World War II upon us, I look forward to seeing many new works on the naval aspects of the war. Dr. Valle’s suggestion of a theme for each issue would be too rigid a format. I enjoy the wide sweep of articles in Naval History.
Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U.S. Navy (Retired)—I was taught that we should study history in order to learn from the past, and I believe that one of the best ways to get people interested in something is to get them involved. What better way to appreciate history than to pick a particular aspect of it, do research, and then put the results into as coherent a product as possible? When writing for “their” journals, historians, like intelligence officers, all too often write to impress their peers with their scholarship in digging out an obscure point and have no regard for those readers who should be the beneficiaries of their effort. Nonprofessional historians do what they do through enthusiasm alone.
“Good” history is written by people, with or without advanced degrees, who research thoroughly; write or speak clearly, succinctly, and with style; and who make their critical observations based on balanced analysis of known material. A doctorate no more guarantees a good historian than graduation from the Naval Academy automatically guarantees a good naval officer. In each case, the individual merely has received a beginner’s set of tools. What happens after that depends upon the individual’s dedication, application, and willingness to continue learning his profession.
Theoretically, more “good” history should come from the professionals in academia, because they have had the formal training and their workplaces usually give them time, support, and a mandate to write history—indeed, “publish or perish.” But therein often lies weakness among professional historians. Driven to publish, they move from one historical event or period—or whatever—to the next, trying to reduce their workload somewhat by selecting a new topic not far removed from the old, so that some portion of the material previously researched can be recycled. They press on with rarely a look back at their earlier efforts, at times hoping that no one spots any gaffes they don’t wish to acknowledge.
The nonprofessional historian, on the other hand, usually is driven by an interest in one particular subject or facet of a subject, and works to gather facts and expand personal knowledge of that area— before, during, and after any publication, which is the icing on the cake. This amateur is always eager to find a new piece of the puzzle. It may be that the nonprofessional historian has had some related personal experience and professional expertise or training that provides special insight and sensitivity when gathering and evaluating documentary evidence and making assessments. These experiences have come about precisely because the individual has not spent a working lifetime being a historian.
Professor Valle denigrates the “reminiscences of former officers” and the “pieces researched by active duty junior officers,” categorizing their subjects as “trivial.” He wants articles addressing the “mainstream of naval history,” which he fails to define. Whatever his mainstream, it is composed of a myriad of minor activities that have, for one reason or another, become focused at a particular place and moment in time.
Professor Valle’s proposal is dead wrong. The Naval Institute is a professional society for the sea services, open to interested parties outside the profession, as well. Instead of looking down on our “nonprofessional” efforts at historical research and writing, Professor Valle ought to do as we do: research and write papers, submit them, and hope they are thought good enough to be published for those who share our interests. Who knows? Someone may respond to one of his articles with new information or from a different perspective, and all will benefit. Keep Naval History as it is. There are plenty of journals of history extant to keep the “publish or die” crowd happy.
“Australia’s Stake in America’s Civil War’’
(See R. Kennet, B.L. Fuqua, and C.S. Fuqua, pp. 50-54, Spring 1989; J.R. Wadleigh, p. 4, Fall 1989 Naval History)
Captain David R. Owen, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—Rear Admiral Wadleigh states that the USS Waddell (DDG- 24) “has the distinction of being the only ship named for an alumnus of our Naval Academy who was also an officer in the Confederate Navy.” That is correct, and I learned long ago that a naval officer does not advance his career by trying to top an admiral, but here goes anyway-
James Waddell was an 1847 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and later a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. By coincidence, the Waddell's sister ship, the USS Buchanan (DDG-14) was named after a former Confederate admiral who was the first superintendent of the Naval Academy, Franklin Buchanan of Maryland. Admiral Buchanan was superintendent when Lieutenant Waddell was a midshipman. Both “went South” in 1861. In 1864, Waddell was in command of the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah, but Buchanan’s career had become spectacular.
He was the commanding officer of the CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack) in the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862, sinking the USS Cumberland and capturing the USS Congress, in which his brother was an officer. Seriously wounded in this action, he missed the great battle the next day with the USS Monitor.
After he recovered, Admiral Buchanan commanded the small Confederate fleet defending Mobile Bay, where he fought Admiral David G. Farragut gallantly but unsuccessfully. He was wounded again and was twice captured and imprisoned. After the war, he served as president of what is now the University of Maryland. Thus, Admiral Buchanan headed the two
principal public institutions of higher learning in the state of Maryland.
“The Baler Incident”
(See W. H. Standley, pp. 56-57, Winter 1989 Naval History)
Christian de Saint Hubert, Belgian Ambassador to Brazil—In the article. Admiral Standley, who was an ensign at the time, gives an eyewitness account of the gallant attempt by the officers and men of the USS Yorktown (PG-1) to rescue a small Spanish garrison that had been holding out for a number of months against Filipino insurgents at Baler, on the east coast of Luzon. The events took place in April 1899, at a time when U.S. forces in the Philippines were fighting the same insurgents. The story is based on the correspondence, documents, and dictated autobiography of Admiral William Harrison Standley, U.S. Navy (Retired), and was compiled by his granddaughter, Marion Wincote Elliott.
I would like to add some background information to the article and to place the siege at Baler in the general context of the Spanish-American War and of the Filipino Insurrection, which both preceded and followed it.
In August 1896 the Tagalogs of Luzon under Emilio Aguinaldo rose against Spanish rule. The Spanish authorities were in a difficult position. They had few European troops at their disposal, and no one knew how far the native troops could be trusted. Reinforcements were soon on their way from Spain, but the demands of Cuba (where an insurrection had broken out in 1895) had already depleted the Iberian peninsula of its better fighting forces.
Reinforcements brought the strength of the Spanish Army in the Philippines to 28,000 men, augmented by a few regiments of loyal native troops. Numerous small battles were fought against the insurgents who were repeatedly defeated, only to reappear in other places.
A new Spanish commander in chief arrived early in 1897, but before he could make much headway against the insurgents, affairs in Cuba became so serious that the Spanish government cabled him to say that it urgently desired peace in the Philippines. He accordingly suspended operations and opened negotiations with Emilio Aguinaldo, the revolutionary leader. These led to the pact of Biac-na-bató (December 1897), by which Aguinaldo and his chief followers agreed to retire to Hong Kong.
After the beginning of the Spanish- American War and the Battle of Cavite (1 May 1898), Aguinaldo and his friends returned to the Philippines in a U.S. transport and, with the approval of Admiral George Dewey, they were supplied with arms. The insurgents renewed their operations against Spanish forces, which were already fully occupied fighting the United States. By 13 August 1898, when Manila fell to U.S. forces, the insurgents controlled large areas in Luzon as well as part of the Visayas.
The stage was now set for the next act: the U.S. phase of the Filipino insurrection, which did not come to an end until April 1902.
In October 1897, Spanish forces at Baler, a small town on the east coast of Luzon, were besieged for the first time. They were relieved by a landing party of sailors and Marines from the Manila and the Cebu, two naval transports.
The second siege began on 1 July 1898, when the insurgents closed in on a small Spanish garrison: 50 infantrymen led by Captain Enrique Las Morenas and Lieutenant Saturnino Martin Cerezo. The Spanish troops retired to the church, which was the strongest building in Baler, and the siege began.
For 337 days the small force gallantly resisted all the insurgents’ efforts to storm the church and to force a surrender. Lack of food and medicine was a serious problem from the beginning. At times, the garrison also suffered from thirst.
Captain Las Morenas died in December 1898 and command passed to Lieutenant Cerezo. According to Antonio M. Molina, a Filipino historian, 3,000 insurgents were involved in the siege.
Under flags of truce, the insurgents informed the besieged garrison that the Treaty of Paris (signed on 10 December 1898) had put an end to the Spanish- American War, but the Spanish defenders did not believe it. The order to evacuate Baler, sent from Manila by General de Los Rios in February 1898 was also discounted. Lieutenant Cerezo agreed to surrender only after he read—in the social column of a Madrid newspaper lent by the besiegers—about the marriage of a friend of his to a girl he also knew. The insurgents could have invented the peace treaty and the order to evacuate, but they could hardly have faked that bit of news!
Guerrilla warfare is generally cruel and devoid of the gestures that do, at times, render classical warfare more humane. Baler is an exception to the rule. When Lieutenant Cerezo and the 31 survivors of the siege marched out of the church on 2 June 1899, the insurgents received them with all the honors of war. Further, a few
days later, Aguinaldo, who styled himself President of the Philippines, published a decree which stated that, since the small garrison, in spite of its isolation, had so long and so steadfastly defended its flag, they were not to be treated as enemies but as friends. The Filipino forces were ordered to facilitate their return to Manila, whence they would be evacuated to Spain.
The siege at Baler is only a minor incident in a war that was fought long ago and far away. This incident is, however, notable for the gallantry shown by the besieged Spaniards and by the Americans who tried in vain to rescue them. It is also notable for the humanity with which the Filipinos treated their erstwhile enemies.
“Savannah’s Ships of the Sea Museum”
(See C. J. Gamer, pp. 77-78, Fall 1989 Naval History)
Captain Robert B. Connelly, U.S. Navy (Retired)—The Museum Report mentioned the statue of The Waving Girl and that no one knows if her sailor sweetheart ever returned from the sea.
It so happened that I heard a lecture by Felix De Weldon, sculptor of The Waving Girl, shortly before I received my copy of the issue. Mr. DeWeldon has sculpted many other notable statues, including the Iwo Jima Memorial. In his lecture, he gave some additional detail about The Waving Girl.
As a result of the extensive publicity in seaports around the world before the statue’s unveiling, a 93-year-old Danish sea captain wrote a letter confessing that he was the fiance of The Waving Girl. Apparently, his shipping firm never sent him back to Savannah and he regretted not returning. Because he could not attend the unveiling, he sent a $25.00 money order for roses to be laid at the feet of the statue.
DeWeldon also said that his initial model of the statue had bare feet, as if she had quickly run out to wave. But the good ladies of Savannah objected, saying that a proper southern lady of the time would never go outside barefooted. So The Waving Girl is now properly shod.
“When Courage Was Not Enough”
(See R. G. Graves, pp. 36-41, Spring 1989; T. G. Martin, p. 2, Summer 1989; C. H. Amme, pp. 7-8, Fall 1989 Naval History)
Edward B. Doremus—I would like to add an epilogue to the Graves article.
After the battle with the Shannon on 1 June 1813, the Chesapeake was towed to Halifax, taken into the Royal Navy, and repaired. Back in England, the frigate’s lines were taken off and drawn by admiralty draftsmen and may be seen today in the admiralty files.
Following a tour of duty as a prison ship in Devon, the Chesapeake was broken up sometime around 1820, with her material—some of it—going into new house construction in Portsmouth. The better part, including the heavy deck beams, went into the construction of a water-powered gristmill ten miles to the east in Wickam. The Chesapeake, as the saying goes, had swallowed her anchor.
On a recent visit to the United Kingdom, my wife and I heard of the Chesapeake Mill from Christopher Wadding- ton, owner of a marina near Portsmouth, on the Solent. He kindly drove us to Wickam, where we found J. Bruce Tappenden, owner and operator of the Chesapeake Mill.
For almost 170 years, the mill has ground grain while powered by the brook that flows astern—supplemented with an electric motor during dry spells. Inside, in full view and supporting the three floors, are huge joists, once the Chesapeake's deck beams.
The Portsmouth houses were lost to Nazi bombers in World War II, but the mill lives and works on, now designated a historic landmark protected by the British Town and Country Planning Act.
A luckier frigate of the 1812 War, the Constitution (IX-21) is still in full commission at the old Boston Navy Yard, though little if any of her is original, she having been rebuilt five times. Conversely, Chesapeake, as a ship, lives in memory with her well-seasoned bones in daily action in a foreign land.
“In Profile—Howard I. Chapelle”
(See P. H. Spectre, pp. 59-61, Winter 1990 Naval History)
W. M. P. Dunne, Department of History, State University of New York at Stony Brook—This letter will express my admiration for your objective editorial policy. Peter H. Spectre’s profile of Howard I. Chapelle is an excellent example of Naval History's recognition of the adversaries of the subject as well as its supporters. Mr. Chapelle was certainly no friend of the United States Navy. Although his principal interest in life was maritime history, part of the motivation behind Chapelle’s antipathy toward naval history lay with his publisher, W. W. Norton. In 1948, Chapelle proposed a book on American fishing schooners, a subject dear to his heart. But Norton turned him down, presumably because of strong reader interest in things military during the postwar period. They insisted that he produce a book on the history of the U.S. Navy, and he did—with a vengeance.
His allegations against the naval hierarchy are wide ranging in the completed work. The History of the American Sailing Navy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949). This is especially the case concerning his theory of an under-the-table Navy Department rebuilding policy and the doubt he cast upon the origins of the frigate Constellation that is afloat in Baltimore today.
In addition to these diatribes about the early leadership of the Navy, his poorly researched “overgunning theory,” and the alterations he made to primary source drafts, there are more than 400 documentable errors in the text. For a detailed commentary in support of these statements, please see my American Neptune article (winter 1989 issue) on Chapelle’s abilities as a naval historian. Although not included in my article, the following is a direct quote contained in a 1974 letter from Chapelle to John Gardner of Mystic Seaport Museum: “Criticism of the reconstructions made by Charlie [Charles G. Davis] are rather unfair. In those days we were not well set up for research— sources were unknown and ‘faking’ research material was permissible. You had to do it to get anything done, to some extent at least. I think marine research began in England in the 20’s and in the USA in the 30’s.”
The above letter was central to the paper I gave on Chapelle at the Ninth Southern New England Maritime History Symposium at Mystic Seaport last November.
“New Life for a Liberty”
(See T.A. Dietz, pp 54-58, Winter 1990 Naval History)
“Jeremiah O’Brien: A Ship That Wouldn’t Quit”
(See L. Dirksen, pp. 76-77, Winter 1990 Naval History)
Andrew J. Horn, Sr.—The two articles bring to mind the question: “Who were Jeremiah O’Brien and John W. Brown?” I can elaborate on Jeremiah O’Brien, who was a captain in the American Navy during the Revolutionary War. He was born in 1744 and died in 1818 at the age of 74, although his gravestone in Machias, Maine, says he was 79 years of age when he died. He was a native of Scarborough, Maine.
He won wide renown for his naval exploits, capturing many war prizes, and defeated and captured the first British armed vessel in a naval engagement in 1775.
Many years later a congressional committee was considering a proposal to appropriate money for a monument to honor O’Brien. It had the support of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Knights of Columbus. However, further testimony before the committee revealed that the captain was a member of the Masonic Fraternity and the proposal lost support. The then-Secretary of the Navy, and former governor of Maine considered that the proposal merited the Navy’s support and through his influence a torpedo boat named for Jeremiah O’Brien was launched on 24 September 1900.
Now, who can tell us about John W. Brown?
Captain Robert Kuchem, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—The winter Naval History missed a fine opportunity to recall the U.S. Navy’s use of Liberty ships in the 1950s and 1960s to extend the distant-early-warning (DEW) line radar barrier.
I was commissioned in February, 1962, and immediately sent to Naval Air j Station Glynco, Georgia, for combat information center (CIC) and air intercept control training. My classmates and I had envisioned destroyer or cruiser duty, so we were disappointed to find that our final duty destinations were on board radar picket ships of Radar Squadrons One and Two, homeported at Treasure Island, California, and Davisville, Rhode Island, respectively.
Our ships, with vigilant-sounding names such as the Interdictor (AGR-13) and Skywatcher (AGR-3) were recommissioned EC2-S-C1 Liberty ships, modified for radar picket duty. Displacing 3,600 tons and measuring 441 feet overall, they were large, slow, underpowered vessels with more space on board than we sometimes knew how to use. Like all the others, my ship, the Interpreter (AGR-14) had original propulsion equipment consisting of two Babcock & Wilcox boilers and a triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine, all fitted into a single engine room. The three huge reciprocating piston rods, sloshing in open baths of emulsified oil for lubrication, were definitely from another era. There were no reduction gears, and shaft speed was controlled primarily by the main steam valve.
Someone in our wardroom had read that World War II Liberty ships were hastily built in only five or six weeks, and sometimes we wished they had taken longer. Normal cruising speed was four knots, and top speed was about 11 knots—with a wind from astern and going downhill. In heavy weather, you learned to keep her bow into the seas and avoid coming about unless it was absolutely necessary. In a quartering sea, when the stem lifted far out of the water, the hugs screw imparted a torque to the entire ship that made all the deck plates screech and gave us more reason to wonder about her seaworthiness. During one particularly bad North Pacific winter storm, massive waves coming over the bow smashed into the superstructure 200 feet aft with such force that the ship shuddered and seemed to stop with each impact. The engine order telegraph was set at all-ahead-flank for three days, after which our navigator calculated we had traveled 60 miles backwards.
I was first assigned as communications officer and later as CIC officer. In my 18 months on board, we had no on-line cryptographic systems, and I seemed to spend most of my time in my collateral duty as crypto officer, hand-deciphering messages of dubious importance. However, we did have some of the first single-sideband transceivers plus an IBM 086 card punch in our very commodious CIC. These were gifts to us from the U.S. Air Force, since we were under operational control of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) based in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. To junior officers who still had dreams of destroyer duty, being controlled by Air Force types burrowed into a mountainside seemed yet another affront.
Our primary air-search radar was quite powerful for its time, with a five-mega- watt output and a 40-foot-wide bedspring antenna that dwarfed even a Liberty hull. The radar was effective, and I believe we were able to scan a radius of as much as 250 nautical miles. We also had a height- finding radar, with one banana-shaped rocking antenna. We were under strict orders not to light off the air-search radars within 100 miles of San Francisco Bay, because one time our equipment tests, in the course of maintenance repairs, disrupted all of the bay area’s television-station transmissions for two hours.
In comparison with standard Liberty ships, the antennae dominated the exterior appearance. On AGRs, the World War II forward gun tub was removed, and a 3-inch/50 caliber gun was mounted aft. The cargo-handling booms were gone, but the king posts and forward hatch covers remained. Aft of the after king posts, a structure was built to house the aerographers and their equipment for frequent launching of radiosondes. They also used an early-model radio facsimile transceiver to send and receive weather maps.
We also had a schedule of pickets that kept us within a 30-mile circle for three to four weeks at a time. There were five picket areas, all of them about 800-1,000 miles west of North America and ranging from the Gulf of Alaska southward to about the latitude of central California. All hands were conscientious about the nature of our mission. Morale was generally good, and I believe that every one of my radarmen was determined never to allow the Soviets to penetrate our airspace undetected.
When we located air contacts we determined their position, course, altitude, and speed. The data were then keypunched onto an IBM card, and the card data was read into a device for transmission to the Air Force at NORAD. If a decision had ever been made to send interceptors out to stop the penetrator, we were supposed to control the aircraft to their targets. But I was never once able to practice with an Air Force interceptor, because they were never willing to come out far enough over the water to reach our picket areas.
Fortunately, we never detected any Soviet aircraft, but some Pan American pilots on transpacific routes were aware of our presence and used to contact us on ultra-high-frequency circuits. They would put a stewardess on the radio; and toward the end of a long midwatch, those conversations would supercharge morale, making us anxious to steam back to San Francisco. Several times on Christmas Eve, a Bay Area radio station contacted us to deliver news reports on unidentified radar contacts originating near the North Pole and headed southward across the DEW line toward the homes of good little boys and girls.
Our picket stations were lonely places, far away from the usual great circle routes, where we never once saw another naval ship and only very rarely a merchant. One night when we were on the far northern picket area, we encountered a flotilla of surface radar contacts that we closed to investigate. It was a moonless night, so we approached the contact that presented the biggest radar blip and pulled to a safe distance abreast of her. You can imagine our surprise when, at about 0200, we illuminated her Soviet colors with our searchlight. Our visitors turned out to be a Soviet whaling fleet, with a mother ship and a dozen or more smaller vessels equipped with harpoons. At first light, we saw a string of dead whales floating along a line several miles long. Each whale had been inflated to keep it afloat, and a tall lance with a pennant attached was impaled into each carcass to keep it within sight.
Keeping busy never was a problem. There were always rusting decks to be chipped, old equipment to be fixed, and paperwork to be done. The two forward holds had been converted into a basketball court (a risky sport in certain sea states), weight-lifting spaces, woodworking shop, and hobby center. In good weather, we also learned to fish. The boatswain rigged a half-dozen steel rods extended from the gunwales on each side of the ship. Trolling lines were hung from each, and the lookouts were under firm orders to keep a watch for the schools of albacore that can often be seen in North Pacific waters. Returning to Treasure Island with a hundred or more frozen alba- core became our unofficial mission, and each ship in the squadron would fly an “Albacore” flag with a number on it showing how many were caught. It was our way of hoisting a broom to the yardarm.
While on picket station, we, the officers of the deck, were allowed to take the ship anywhere we wanted, so long as we kept within the 30-mile circle. If the weather was good, we watched for Japanese glass fishing balls or logs, and then we practiced rubber-docking the Liberty alongside the flotsam. Through daily use, we became skilled at Loran and celestial navigation; and in those stormy areas, we had to learn how to read the weather. All in all, it was really not bad training for a junior officer. When many of us finally were transferred back to the “regular” fleet, we may have lacked station-keeping skills, but we had become better mariners in ways that our new shipmates sometimes never matched.
The AGRs were phased out of service by the mid-1960s. The barrier patrols and the efforts to extend the DEW line were soon dusty footnotes in U.S.-Soviet history, and AGRs were just one more ship type that could no longer be found in Jane’s Fighting Ships. But every time I pass the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, a Liberty museum ship in San Francisco Bay, I glance out toward Treasure Island and remember the AGR in which I received my first experiences at sea.
Jay E. Wright—The article on the Liberty ship John W. Brown brought back a memory. In December 1943,1 was a passenger on board the Liberty ship Celeno (AK-76), which also had been converted to a troopship and carried close to 800 people.
Troops slept between decks, fore and aft. Our quarters were in the forward hold, with about 400 berths of canvas laced to pipe frames and slung from four- inch pipe uprights. The bunks were five high without enough room between them for the unfortunate occupants to raise their knees. Passageways between the rows would have been wide enough had it not been for our seabags slung from the uprights. Obviously, we lived out of our seabags.
Our compartment was forward of the foremast and poorly lit. Sanitary accommodations were two steel deckhouses about 8 by 12 feet long, welded to the deck. The port side box contained two metal troughs running fore and aft with salt water running through them. One was smaller and used as a urinal and the other was wider with boards across for sitting. The starboard box contained saltwater showers.
The between decks compartment aft was divided in half, the forward part had been made into a compartment for passengers who were officers. They had hospital-style bunks with real innerspring mattresses, linoleum on the deck, and ample lighting. I suspect they had their own head; at least I never saw an officer using the one on deck.
Between decks aft of the passenger officers was the galley and mess hall. This served all the passengers, fore and aft. Feeding was broken into two meals a day with four sittings (or, in this case, standings). Our mess tables were chest high, and loitering over coffee was not encouraged. Galley personnel were not ship’s company but taken from the passengers. Our group had its own cooks and bakers, and I assume most of the other passenger groups did, as well.
For safety’s sake, as our leading chief carefully explained, passengers would be allowed on deck for only an hour and a half each day, starting at noon. The remainder of the time, except to visit the head or chow call, we were to stay below in our compartments. This was to keep the decks clear for movement of the crew in case of emergency. Some of us felt that all we needed were banks of oars protruding from the hull to put us back in the days of the Romans.
The ship’s armament consisted of two 40-mm. gun tubs on each side and what I assumed to be three-inch gun positions at the bow and stem. The ship’s company formed skeleton gun crews, augmented I by passengers standing gun watches. To circumvent the restriction to quarters, I broke my long-standing personal rule and volunteered. I was assigned to the “bridge-aye” watch. My post was the flying bridge above the bridge deck. It had a wheel, engine telegraph and speaking tubes, and a binnacle. The 40-mm-tubs were always manned and reported directly to me by phone and I reported to the talker on the bridge. I enjoyed the freedom and isolation I felt as “bridge- aye” and, in addition, I was no longer restricted to quarters. I took advantage of my run of the ship, but I was circumspect about it. I also used my privilege to sneak into the crew’s quarters and take freshwater showers.
When we sailed from Port Hueneme, California, we were in a convoy with three other Liberty ships and a destroyer escort. Near Fiji we broke down; scuttlebutt said it was a shaft bearing, and our convoy sailed off and left us. Twenty hours later we got under way, and collective sighs of relief were heard all over the ship.
About 30 days after leaving California we dropped anchor in the lagoon of Mbanika, an island in the Russells group. Landing craft came alongside, and we boarded them by climbing down cargo nets slung over the side. As we pulled toward shore we looked back at the Celeno with mixed feelings. She brought us here safely, but it wasn’t the South Pacific cruise that most of us had dreamed about.
“Battleship Floatplanes”
(See J. M. Elliott, pp. 37-40, Winter 1990 Naval History)
W. R. Broocke—The photo of the J2F brought back many fond memories. It was the first airplane I flew during my first squadron assignment after I finished flight school in December 1941, and it was probably the noisiest airplane in the world on its takeoff run. I can’t account for its hideous bellow, unless there was some kind of resonance or echo from the float that extended several feet ahead of the propeller or from the huge broadside of its fuselage. The propeller alone could not possibly account for more than a fraction of the noise.
We were using the aircraft for antisubmarine patrol around Pearl Harbor in early 1942, and to be on station at first light, we had to take off while it was still dark. Our takeoff path took us directly over the house of the naval air station commander. After several months, in which every morning a dozen or so J2Fs in succession shook his shingles, the commander came out with an order intended to relieve the situation.
To cut down on the noise as we passed his house, we were directed to reduce power as soon as possible after takeoff. We did not take kindly to the idea.
What we did, then, was reduce power just before we got to his house. This made our altitude even lower than before, and when we were overhead, we shoved on full power. This surge created a deafening roar that was even louder than during a normal takeoff and was even closer to his roof. We didn’t do it on every dawn patrol, and, so far as I know, nobody ever got caught.