“Exhuming the Constellation”
(See D. Wegner, pp. 24-30, June 2003 Naval History)
“Constellation: Oldest Warship”
(See G. Footner, pp. 39-41, October 2002; E. Aho, pp. 8, 18, February 2003; B. Hubinger, pp. 8, 16, N. Plummer, p. 16, April 2003 Naval History)
Geoffrey Footner
Dana Wegner makes several attempts in his article to undermine the veracity of my book, USS Constellation; From Frigate to Sloop of War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002). His apparent goal is to damage my professional reputation by associating my research with alleged forged documents in the holdings of various archives. “At several critical junctures,” he writes, “Frigate to Sloop resorts to documentation found in poisoned sources and where no original versions can be found.” This sly accusation, upon which he builds recklessly ad nauseam, reeks of harmful innuendo. His frequent references to faked documents, which he hunts down in ever- expanding numbers, appear designed to create doubt among readers by inciting them to distrust the evidence presented in my book. He defames me as he attempts to tarnish my professional reputation.
Mr. Wegner’s efforts to link my work to forged documents are clumsy, because the supposedly “poisoned” sources I am accused of using come from the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Naval Historical Center. These famous depositories, he has declared, are contaminated and therefore subject to denunciation by him. It boggles the mind if you consider what he attempts to do: to stifle profound criticism of his faulty research as he extends his list of alleged “faked” documents, which becomes his response to new evidence that undermines his conclusions in his report, Fouled Anchors, The Constellation Question Answered (Bethesda, MD; David Taylor Research Center, 1991), and other articles on the subject of the Constellation’s age.
The central thesis of Mr. Wegner’s 1991 report is that the Constellation, moored in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, was built anew in 1853-54- Hidden under all the muckraking and multiple distortions of my text in his article is his perceptible retraction of his “new ship Constellation in 1854” dogma, which he replaces with an admission that the U. S. Navy rebuilt the frigate Constellation in 1853. His revised conclusion is somewhat similar to the one developed in Chapter 8 of my book. He explains that she is a rebuild (as defined by the Royal Navy in the 18th century), hut for sure, he writes, the Constellation was rebuilt between 1853 and 1855 (see page 28 of his article, column 2).
When reminded that Howard Chapelle’s discredited substitute ship theory is a rerun of the Royal Navy definition of rebuilding that Mr. Wegner disassociated himself with on page 66 of his 1991 report, he moves on again, closer and closer to my position. During a talk on board the Constellation this past 30 April, in answer to a specific question concerning his fluid position, Mr. Wegner responded that the Constellation is one of several U.S. Navy ships legally rebuilt. During this public symposium, he conceded that his original conclusion (that is, the Constellation today is the second Constellation, a sloop-of-war built in 1854) has been amended to conform almost exactly to my conclusion: that the 1797 ship was modernized and modified in 1853-1854 into a razeed sloop-of-war. The archival documents that confirm my conclusions are cited in Chapter 8 of my book and are unpolluted documents beyond the reach of Mr. Wegner’s poisoned pen, though some of them are copies, tapes, or in printed books.
Mr. Wegner mentions three specific fake archival specimens in detail in the article: > He informs readers incorrectly when he writes, “The book’s supporting evidence of hull form change is a table of [1828-29] offsets.” The only reference to the 1828-29 offsets in the text of my book concerns a list of artifacts transmitted from Boston to Baltimore with the ship in 1955; most items on the list are thought to have been lost or stolen. Mr. Wegner accuses me of using a fake document. The copy I have, which came from the original custodian of the Constellation, The Flag House Association, is signed by Neil H. Swanson (for the Constellation Commission of Maryland) and Leonard I. Cushing (for the Boston Naval Shipyard). The list itself has no importance or relevance to the 1829 rebuild described in Chapter 6 of my book, but is only another sad relic of the ship’s mishandled past. If Mr. Wegner believes he can prove it is a fake, that is fine. The point made here is that I make absolutely no use of the list to prove anything whatsoever other than that I have a copy of it.
►He also mentions the so-called mizzenmast survey sketch. I neither used that sketch in my book nor do I attach its origin to the Constellation in any way, as Mr. Wegner claims. The sketch used in my book is an illustration of a typical elliptical stern assembly drawn and signed by my draftsman. It is his sketch and used as a generic illustration of a stern of elliptical design. I make no claim about it other than that it is an illustration of that type of stern developed about 1820 and installed in the Constellation during her 1828-29 rebuild. Out of courtesy to the original draftsman, whoever he was, we credited an archival copy as a source of our illustration.
►And finally, Mr. Wegner mentions the drawing of the Constellation's half midsection, signed by Francis Grice in 1839. Mr. Wegner claims this “probable fake” is linked to the sketch above, but there is no linkage whatsoever in my book other than that they are mentioned in the same chapter. While only a copy of this drawing survives in the Constellation’s archives at the Naval Historical Center, the signature of Master Shipbuilder Grice was authenticated. It is interesting that Mr. Wegner claims he has come up with “recently recognized evidence” that the drawing is “a probable fake,” though he does not share that information with us. I think this episode provides Naval History readers with stark evidence of how Mr. Wegner handles facts, fakes, and ethics.
When considering just what took place at Gosport Navy Yard in Virginia in 1853, one must look to the Naval Historical Center for guidance when a ship’s official history is questioned. I have been informed that after consideration of the evidence accumulated concerning the Constellation’s history, no changes are contemplated in the record of her rebuild in 1853, specifically: “Laid up in ordinary at Norfolk from 1845 through 1853, she [the Constellation] was found to be greatly in need of extensive repair. Thus, in 1854, she was brought into the yard and in keeping with the needs of the time, modified into a 22-gun sloop of war.”
I asked the Naval Historical Center to provide me with the official history of the new (second) Constellation, reported by Howard Chapelle and Dana Wegner to have been built new in 1853-1854 and commissioned as a new sloop-of-war in 1855. I was informed that there are no plans to compile and publish a history of a “new” or “second” Constellation. She never existed!
The ship moored in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is the original frigate Constellation, redesigned, modified, and rebuilt in 1812, 1828-29, and 1838-40, then dismantled and rebuilt once again in 1853-1854. In 1855, she was commissioned as a sloop-of-war. Today’s Constellation is connected by her strong physical and documentary provenance with the 1797 ship, and is, therefore, the oldest surviving U.S. Navy vessel.
Frank Pierce Young
In Mr. Wegner’s careful reasoning and many citations supporting the David Taylor Research Center’s 1991 conclusion that the present Constellation in Baltimore is not the original ship of that name, he touches almost in passing on two matters of subtle and often overlooked but very pertinent interest: similarities in British and U.S. shipbuilding, and the meaning of the slippery term “rebuild.”
Long ago I spent three years researching in the files and shelves of the Royal Naval Historical Branch, and kept coming across that word—which plainly had multifarious meanings depending on the context. Underlying the confusion is the fact that the modem bureaucratic habit of using precisely definitive labels, terms, and acronyms did not exist in the mid-19th century—in Great Britain or the United States. Shipyard management was much simpler then, and one word—rebuild— often covered it all. Eventually, I concluded there were four distinct kinds of rebuild.
Type one is when a ship has some cracked timbering and woodworm here and there, and coppering, sails, and rigging need replacement. She gets all this plus fresh paint, but there are no changes whatever. She simply is given a wholesale repair and maintenance job. In type two, the ship gets all the usual fix ups, but also a rudder improvement, her sternwalk is removed along with excess hangover of stern cabin windows, some hopeful alterations are made to mast slopes and rig, and, now both fixed and upgraded, she is off to another commission. In type three, the decision is made to replace the ship with an exact duplicate of the same good name. The old plans are pulled out and a brand- new ship is constructed, launched, and commissioned. In type four, a new-style ship with all the latest improvements is constructed. The old ship is scrapped, any timbering, spars, and parts of any likely future use are set aside for recycling, and a couple of years later a new ship is apparent nearby. Though probably containing some recycled parts from the original (and perhaps some others), she is quite different. Upon launching the ship is christened with the name of the previous ship. The term “rebuild” was used at various times to describe all four of these types of what today we would divide into maintenance, repair, or new construction.
After rebuilds of types one and perhaps a bit of two for the Constellation, a half- century later came a type four. I first saw her in Baltimore in the early 1970s, and always wondered how anyone possibly could not recognize the many radical design differences between the “Atlantic Racehorse” of 1797 and the ardent claims for what I could see. I took a lot of flak for saying so, too.
“Salty Talk”
(See T. Martin, p. 55, June 2003 Naval History)
Captain S. E. Lusk, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Commander Martin attributes the phrase “once in a blue moon” to sailors’ observations of the moon after the Krakatoa eruption of 1883. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “blue moon,” a phrase “usually intended to imply a long time,” was in use as early as 1821. Meteorologists and astronomers now define a blue moon as the second full moon in a calendar season with four full moons, while the Maine Farmer’s Almanac said a blue moon was the third full moon in a season with four full moons, but these are modem usages too recent to be the origin of the phrase.
“Winning the War with Don Winslow of the Navy”
(See E. Rosenberg, pp. 46-49, June 2003 Naval History)
William C. Andersen
I am a bit confused by this article. Growing up as a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I used to see short movies about Don Winslow of the Coast Guard. In the movies I saw, the same actor as mentioned in your article, Don Terry, played Winslow. There were 13 episodes, and we waited breathlessly for each Saturday morning to figure out how Don was going to get out of the predicaments in which he found himself. Many years later I mentioned these shows to my wife and she surprised me with a two- tape video set of the shows. The box states clearly, “Don Winslow of the Coast Guard,” and he is shown on the cover with a Coast Guard officer’s cover. Were there two different sets, one with Don in the Navy and the other with Don in the Coast Guard?
W. R. Wells II
Just as World War II began to get into swing Don Winslow joined the Coast Guard. His 1943 exploits turned to “homeland security” rather than chasing German U-boats, but his primary foil “Scorpion” survived and began assisting cunning Japanese saboteurs. Don Winslow of the Coast Guard had a slightly more humanitarian tone, as befitted the service’s better- known public image. Instead of strangling Scorpion, as was done in the last episode of his Navy series, Don captures him. It should be noted that Winslow, fictional or not, was the first naval officer to hold commissions in both the Navy and Coast Guard (or Revenue Cutter Service) since 1832, when the practice was outlawed. The evident demotion of Winslow from commander in the Navy to lieutenant in the Coast Guard illustrates the high caliber of Coast Guard officers, who as lieutenants, could and did do the jobs of Navy commanders.
The current era’s equivalent of Don Winslow is television’s Commander Harmond Rabb of JAG. This aviator-turned- lawyer encounters extra difficulties each week. Like Winslow, perhaps in the off season Rabb will join the Coast Guard's JAG Corps to continue to fight the world’s Scorpions-—and keep up his flight quals—all, of course, as a lieutenant.
“Historic Fleets”
(See A. D. Baker, p. 12, April 2003 Naval History)
A. D. Baker
Retired Coast Guard Reserve Commander Douglas Jordan has written to correct several errors in my column about the Big Horn (AO-45/WAO-124/IX-207). Using his father’s service records and notes, and photos taken during his father’s tenure as commanding officer of the ship from January 1944 until her decommissioning in 1946, Commander Jordan points out several things. The ship had a single propeller instead of the two I had listed, and as a Q-ship her armament included two 4-inch/50 guns hidden behind quick-release plating on the bridge deck abaft the pilothouse and a possible two additional mounts behind plating within the lengthened forecastle structure, in addition to the 4-inch mount in plain sight at the stern. Commander Jordan provided several photos of the bridge guns being exercised and also one showing a pattern of antisubmarine projectiles being launched from a Hedgehog spigot mortar beneath a sliding hatch on the forecastle. Other corrections are that the Big Horn operated primarily from Argentia, Newfoundland, as a Q-ship and called only once at Halifax, and that she was decommissioned on 6 May 1946 at Orange, Texas, not at New Orleans. My sincere thanks to Commander Jordan for the new and corrected information. Details of the Big Horn’s armament as a Q-ship long had been something of a mystery, and several details still need to be cleared up, such as whether she also carried depth charge racks and launchers—as did the other Atlantic Fleet Q-ships.
Olaf Engvig
Your article on the Big Horn also mentions the U.S. merchant ship City of Flint, which made headlines around the world in fall 1939 and became a prelude to the German occupation of Norway in April 1940. It is not correct, however, that Captain Joseph Gainard convinced the Germans to release his ship after she “was captured in Norwegian waters.” The City of Flint was captured by the pocket battleship Deutschland in mid-Atlantic, and Captain Gainard was a prisoner on his own ship. Only after the ship had been under escort in Norwegian territorial waters by neutral Royal Norwegian Navy forces and violated international law did an armed unit of some 30 Norwegians board the ship in the middle of the night, seizing the German prize captain and his 20-man prize crew without a single shot being fired. The Germans were taken off the ship and detained at Kongsvinger. The Royal Norwegian Navy then handed the ship back to Captain Gainard.
“Charleston Museum to Focus on British Siege”
(See “Naval History News," pp. 50-51, June 2003 Naval History)
Mike Fitzpatrick
This news story states that the loss of 6,000 Americans at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780 was “the worst surrender of American forces until the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in 1942.” How can this statement be reconciled with the surrender of more than 12,500 Federal soldiers, 13,000 small arms, and 47 pieces of artillery at Harpers Ferry on 15 September 1862 during the Civil War? I’ve always understood that to be the largest capitulation of United States troops before the Japanese takeover at Bataan and Corregidor.
“The Final Run”
(See C. LaVO, pp. 42-45, June 2003 Naval History)
Lee Gaillard
This article deftly condenses the mysteriously linked lives of the twin subs Sculpin (SS-191) and Squalus/Sailfish (SS- 192). There is, however, a long-neglected “Twilight Zone” aspect to the history of these two subs (launched sequentially three weeks apart) and their crews. Following the fatal, chess-like duel between the Sculpin and the Japanese destroyer Yam- agumo, LaVO describes the incredible irony of how the crew of the U.S. submarine that had located and helped save her sister sub after a diving accident had her own survivors from the Yamagumo duel (being transported as prisoners of war in the light carrier Chuyo) torpedoed by the very sub she had saved four years earlier.
Interestingly, the two Japanese carriers carrying the Sculpin’s survivors were themselves identical sister ships, launched sequentially five months apart at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki shipyard in 1939 as the passenger liners Nitta Maru and Yawata Maru. And just as the salvaged Squalus was reborn and renamed Sailfish, so were these liners renamed Chuyo and Unyo after their conversion in 1942 as aircraft carriers.
There also is, I discovered, poetic justice. When the Sailfish sank the Chuyo, she unwittingly sank the ship that, in her incarnation as the luxury liner Nitta Maru, had delivered master Japanese spy Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa (alias Tadashi Morimura) to Hawaii in early 1941. According to Robert B. Stinnett in Day of Deceit (New York: Free Press, 2000), it was Morimura who “was able to supply Admiral [Isoroku] Yamamoto with highly accurate bombing charts of Pearl Harbor and other U.S. Army and Navy targets in Oahu.”
“Historic Aircraft”
(See N. Polmar, pp. 14-15, April 2003 Naval History)
Captain Tom Pinard, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
I read with interest Norman Polmar’s article on the AT-6/SNJ. My father, Clifford D. Pinard, established Hawthorne Aircraft Industries after World War II, specializing in the AT-6, Stearmans, and for a while the “Bamboo Bomber,” the Twin Cessna used to train navigators during the war. I grew up in that business and as a young teenager helped after school and during summer vacation to get out an order of 24 completely rebuilt T-6s for the Egyptian Air Force. This was in 1953 and followed completed orders for rebuilt Stear- mans for the Taiwan and Bolivian Air Forces. The T-6 order resulted in my dad building a separate assembly building, with fuselages on dollies moving down the line until mating with the center sections and then outside for the engine “hanging.” They then were run up before being towed to the Northrop side of Hawthorne Airport where Jack Northrop had given up part of his tie-down area for my dad to finish assembly, test fly, and then dismantle the planes for shipment to Egypt. Carefully listed as trainers, I can remember representatives of the Egyptian government at the shop, determining how they would modify the honking T-6s for combat. I also remember the Egyptian cigarettes, with their gold wrapped mouthpieces.
“A Hanging Offense"
(See J. Valle, pp. 57-60, June 2003 Naval History)
Thomas R. Davis
Upon reading James Valle’s review of Buckner Melton’s A Hanging Offense, I scurried to find some old letters that were my father’s and unread for many years. One recounted the commuting of three sailors of the Pacific Squadron who were sentenced to death by a Navy general court- martial for an undisclosed offense (but not murder). Commodore Jones, Commander- in-Chief of the Pacific Squadron, signed the letter, dated 23 October 1849, on the Savannah off San Francisco. By commuting the death sentences of the three, described by Commodore Jones as justly convicted by the court, he showed a compassion and mercy that can speak to us today and touched my Christian heart. I have not a clue regarding the background of the incident nor the context of the trial, and I would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on this little piece of naval history. It stands in sharp contrast to the hangings on the Somers off the coast of Africa in fall 1842.
“Historic Aircraft"
(See N. Polmar, pp. 14-15, June 2003 Naval History)
Gene Hicks
Norman Polmar’s article on the NC-4 states that a crew of five under the command of Lieutenant Commander Albert C. Read crossed the Atlantic in May 1919, reaching Plymouth, England, on the 31st. I have a copy of the eighth edition of The Coast Guardsman’s Manual (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), and in the appendix it mentions that Coast Guard Lieutenant Elmer Stone piloted the NC- 4 across the Atlantic. Which one is right?
Editor’s Note: Both accounts are right; Stone teas pilot of the NC-4, and Read was commander. The full crew was Lieutenant E. F. Stone, U.S. Coast Guard (pilot); Chief Machinist’s Mate (Air) E. S. Rhoades, U.S. Navy (engineer); Lieutenant W. K. Hinton, U.S. Naval Reserve Force (pilot); Ensign H. C. Rodd, U.S. Naval Reserve Force (radio operator); Lieutenant J. L. Breese, U.S. Naval Reserve Force (reserve engineer); Lieutenant Commander A. C. Read, U.S. Navy (commanding officer and navigator). Stone, known as “Coast Guard Aviator No. 1,” teas one of two Coastguardsmen who were the first in their service to receive flight training in 1916. In the early 1920s Stone teas assigned to the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics as a test pilot and did some of the early testing of arresting gear for the first aircraft carriers.
“A Rudyard Kipling Sea Story"
(See F. Hoyt, pp. 25-29, April 2003 Naval History)
James D. Ferguson
Just a note to correct the claim in Mr. Hoyt’s article that officers “sometimes” participated in coaling ships. In the Royal Navy at least, this truly was an “all hands” evolution that (apart from the Royal Marine band, if embarked) embraced every rank and rating from the executive officer downward. It should be noted that although gentlemen of the cloth notionally were excluded, the best kind of chaplain joined in by at least carrying large quantities of tea around the upper deck. Imagine if you will a capital ship returning to a fleet base such as Scapa Flow in the depths of a near-Arctic Scottish winter following several exhausting days at sea. After anchoring, all hands shifted into “coal ship” rig, with the collier coming alongside and the ship being boarded by literally hundreds of men wearing rag-tag and bobtail outfits kept for the task. The men began shoveling coal into sacks, which were hoisted on board the warship where yet more ragged hordes harrowed them to the bunker lids for tipping and trimming. The related clouds of coal dust penetrated every nook and cranny, khamsin-like in intensity, and it continued for hours and in all weathers—as only in the most extreme conditions would the collier be unable to berth. The all-time world record for this exercise reportedly was set by the 700- strong complement of the dreadnought HMS Superb (her executive officer was Commander—later Admiral of the Fleet and World War II First Sea Lord—Dudley Pound) in 1911 or 1912, when no fewer than 1,300 tons of best Welsh steam coal were “mandraulically” taken on board in only four hours.