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(See
Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, K.T., G.C.B., O.M., D.S.O.
page 1227, November, 1951, Proceedings)
Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U. S. Navy (wet.).—-The recent publication of Admiral o the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hynd- °Pe’s Autobiography, A Sailor’s Odyssey, ^nd °f Professor Bolander’s excellent review U-S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Nov. 51 issue), moves me to recount something 0 oiy association with that fine gentleman, splendid seaman, and great naval leader. As e says, “We became the greatest of friends” ""and so we remain to this day.
At the time I first had the pleasure of feting him, Admiral Cunningham was already renowned for his victory at Matapan a,Jd for the brilliant and indomitable way in 'vhich, in spite of the greatest of obstacles, e had managed to retain naval control of the -astern Mediterranean. In September, 1942, a ter the command set up for the North rican Landings (Torch) had been agreed j*P°n, and just prior to his return to England r°m Washington, I encountered him at the * avy Department. I liked him at once, and was happy to assure him that he could c°unt on Task Force 34 to do its utmost to accomplish its mission.
Supreme Allied Command Mediter- ariean, under General Eisenhower, had al- tfady been established with Headquarters at e Hotel St. Georges, Algiers, when, on arch 16, 1943, I arrived to organize the Naval Forces, Northwest African Raters” (later the U. S. Eighth Fleet). In j y capacity as commander of that force, cWas. administratively, directly under 0lninch, but for operations, under the Supreme Allied Commander, via his Naval Commander, Admiral Cunningham. Although Admiral Cunningham was General Eisenhower’s senior in military rank and in age, no commander could have received more loyal and enthusiastic support from any subordinate.
In the interest of co-ordination and best efficiency, it immediately became apparent that the place for my own headquarters was in Algiers. My Chief of Staff and I were given offices at the St. Georges immediately adjacent to those of Admiral Cunningham and his Chief of Staff. There began the close association which was to continue throughout our joint service in the Mediterranean, and subsequently.
Admiral Cunningham, affectionately known in his own service as “A. B. C.,” often called himself a “dour Scot.” Scot he is, but far from being “dour.” He has a splendid sense of humor, and, unless he is greatly annoyed, a twinkle can always be found in his eye. It is true that he was held somewhat in awe by some officers of the Royal Navy, that he was intolerant of inefficiency or failure to do one’s utmost, and that he would take any risk or make any sacrifice, provided the end justified the means. But he was always prompt with a “Well done” when it had been earned, and back of all his acts was a real human understanding.
The staff of the Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean was a so-called integrated staff, in so far as the British and American Army and Air Forces were concerned. But Admiral Cunningham always felt that General Eisenhower should look to him for guidance on naval matters, and not to some more junior naval officers, of either service, who might be assigned to the joint
staff. Consequently no naval officers (other than General Eisenhower’s personal Naval Reserve aide, Commander Butcher) were assigned to the big staff. Admiral Cunningham and I each retained our own staffs, but they were in intimate contact and closely linked in planning and in all matters of common interest.
The Army and Air make-up of the big staff resulted, at times, in somewhat of a tendency to overlook the presence and importance of the U. S. Navy in the theater. But Admiral Cunningham always took steps to insure that we were included in all important matters and occasions. It was through Admiral Cunningham that I was invited to attend the daily conference of leading commanders and Supreme Staff members. And it was through Admiral Cunningham that I was included in those invited to review the victory parade in Tunis in May, 1943.
On the Fourth of July, 1943 (just two days prior to our departure for the Sicilian landing) a ceremony in honor of the Independence of the United States was held in front of the St. Georges Hotel. Detachments of all the services, British and French as well as the Americans, were paraded. General Eisenhower was flanked by his two senior admirals. At noon, after the playing of the National Anthem, a salute was fired by CinCMED’s flagship, the Maidstone, firing live A.A. ammunition to seaward over the breakwater. I counted the guns and, after the twenty-first, relaxed, only to find that the salute was continuing. Later, upon inquiry, Admiral Cunningham told me that General Eisenhower had asked for forty-eight guns, one for each state, in accordance with U. S. Army custom. He had never heard of such a salute, but said that, as far as he was concerned, “Ike” could have anything he wanted. I smiled and said that it was a good thing that he, and not I, had been asked, as I would probably have insisted on the proper naval salute.
After the successful completion of Husky, the Sicilian landing, Admiral Cunningham invited me to visit him at Malta on my way back to Algiers. This I was glad to do, as I had never visited that British possession. He not only gave me a personally conducted tour of that long-suffering and much bombed island but also entertained me at Admiralty House, the picturesque official residence of the Commander in Chief, Mediterranean, miraculously left unscathed amidst the rubble of neighboring buildings. He told me many of the stories and traditions of this interesting old house, which, in the days of the Knights Templar, had been the residence of the “Captain of the Galleys.” As we sipped our after-dinner coffee in the moonlight on the roof terrace, one could easily sense the unseen presence of the past occupants.
After our return to Algiers, Admiral Cunningham and I were honored by being made “Spahis d’Honneur de Premiere Classe” in the Seventh Regiment of Algerian Spahis. In a pleasant ceremony, we were invested with the burnoose of the regiment, a beautiful long brilliant red cloak with a white wool lining. Several years later, in London, he volunteered to walk down the Strand wearing his if I would accompany him wearing mine. I accepted the challenge, but somehow the event never came off.
Sicily was soon followed by Salerno, Sept. 9, 1943. Here, when things looked particularly tough, Admiral Cunningham was prompt to meet my request for naval gunfire reinforcements. Among these reinforcements was his old flagship, the gallant Warspite, which unfortunately received two radio-controlled, armor-piercing bomb hits in her boiler rooms, a near-mortal wound.
Owing to the serious illness of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, Admiral Cunningham was called to London in October, 1943, to assume the responsibilities of First Sea Lord. General Eisenhower staged a farewell ceremony for him at the St. Georges on October 14, which was attended by the senior officers of all services, and at which all arms of the Allied services, British, American, and French, were paraded. The respect and admiration felt for him by all was clearly evident, and he wras manifestly touched. He was still more touched early the following morning to find the same officers and the same guards waiting to see him off at the plane.
We were all sorry to see him go, but it is pleasant to record that, in his successor, Admiral Sir John D. H. Cunningham, we were
Ver>’> very, fortunate. There was no gap in the friendly and close co-operation which had been so thoroughly developed between the Royal and United States Navies.
We saw “A. B. C.” again when he passed through Algiers with the Prime Minister on ]he Renown, en route to the Cairo Conference ln November, 1943. Similarly, we met once ]nore at Malta at the end of January, 1945, Just prior to the Yalta Conference.
In August, 1945, when I arrived in London to assume my new duty as Commander, U. S. A.aval Forces, Europe, our prior close and riendly relationship was resumed.
T hrough Admiral Cunningham’s thought- ul kindness, I was present on Nov. 21, 1945, ®t his induction as a member of the House of °rds, a colorful ceremony which I shall always remember. Later, in June, 1946, I had e pleasure of being one of the guests at the uildhall when he, Field Marshal Viscount an Brooke, and Marshal of the Royal Air orce Viscount Portal received the Freedom
0 the City of London in a memorable ceremony.
In the spring of 1946, Admiral Cunning- am was awarded the United States Navy 'stinguished Service Medal. The medal was fent to Ambassador Winant for presentation, ut, owing to an illness, the Admiral was not ‘Available to receive it prior to the Ambassa- 0r s departure. Mr. Winant, realizing my 8reat personal interest, instead of passing the m?dal on to his successor, thoughtfully trans- ’mtted it to me with the request that I pre- f6]1)1' ^rst opportunity. This I did the
0 owing May, at a simple ceremony at- unded by Admiral Leahy and a few officers 0 the respective staffs. Admiral Leahy, my lef of Staff, Admiral Spencer Lewis, and I wh”-*1 Wore ^or t^e occasion the British Orders !<* had been conferred upon us, a gesture ' *ch was obviously appreciated. The occasion is one of my happiest of memories.
I he story would not be complete without tinal episode. After hauling down my for the final time afloat, on my flagship Southampton, an event which no sea- ^0lng flag officer relishes, Admiral Cunning- am understanding^ invited my wife and ztlc ^Unc^ w*th him and Lady Cunningham i 1S near'hy charming home in Bishop’s a tham. His delightful hospitality did
much to cheer me up. It is there that I continue to remember him, as so pleasantly pictured on pages 644 and 652 of his Odyssey.
The Guam Story
(See page 379, April, 1951, Proceedings)
Captain K. C. McIntosh, (S.C.), U.S.N., Ret.—I have read Lieut. Thompson’s “The Guam Story” and find it suffering from several inaccuracies, due mainly to the preconceived notions of American writers who lump Guam with the South Seas.
I do not know where Mr. Thompson got his information regarding Governor Leary’s alleged “prohibition of alcoholic beverages, especially the one prepared by the natives from the juice of the cocoanut. . . .” It is about as wrong as can be, as might have been discovered by reading Governor Leary’s actual General Orders.
G.O. No. 1 prohibited the sale of alcoholic liquors to “any one not a resident of this Island prior to August 7, 1899.” It was caused by the fact that enterprising bum- boatmen of the sort who used to follow the Fleet followed the Marines to Guam. G.O. No. 1 did not affect the Guamanians at all.
However, the enterprising bumboatmen started a correspondence business, so G.O. No. 2 followed. It forbade the importation of intoxicants except by special permit from the Governor. Permits were not issued to nonresidents looking for profit. They were issued to bona fide residents who had been in the habit of keeping wine or spirits in their houses. The only restriction was in quantity—no import was allowed which appeared destined for resale to the garrison. Each application for a permit was considered on its merits.
The same paragraph contains possibly the most serious misstatement of the many which have been made about that gallant little island, to wit: “It was reported that ranch owners plied farm laborers with the drink in order to destroy their appetites thus saving money on feeding them.” There were no large ranches in Guam. “Ranch,” even in American times, meant a family garden patch. Pre-American law of landholding approximated Napoleon’s code under the Spaniards, splitting the acreage among all heirs. Pre-Spanish real estate was awarded by the Mataos to a woman when she finally
married, and its size and fertility depended on how many children she had. She had no other title than a life interest, and she had no farm laborers other than her children.
As for “Tuba,” not “La Tuba,” it was not made from cocoanut juice, but from the sap drawn by cutting off the end of the bud at the top of the tree and tying a bucket under it. When fermented it made a sour wine averaging possibly 8 to 10 per cent alcohol, and was (probably still is) usually drunk as wine. Sometimes it was distilled by the Spaniards into brandy which approximates Hawaiian okolehau.
Tuba was never forbidden but instead it was licensed. The landowner paid a tax of one dollar per year per tree which he tapped, and on payment, the trees to be tapped were marked by a stripe of white paint around the trunk. In my time, each tiny “ranch” along the beach where the cocoanuts grow had one to five white-striped trees; and the annual revenue from tuba-making to the Island Government was in four figures. Penalty for tapping an unlicensed tree was brief imprisonment.
Imported cattle did not succumb to the heat, which seldom approaches that of, say, Kansas in midsummer. It was proved during my time that native (i.e., Spanish-imported who survived) cattle were hereditarily immune to hoof-and-mouth disease, tick-borne. To try to improve the breed, in 1911 or T2, a pedigreed bull was brought from Texas. It was feared that if an inoculated bull was brought in, ticks might bite him and spread a pestilence among native cattle; so a bull which was not immune was brought as a test. He died of tick-bite-induced fever in two weeks.
Finally, Guamanians are not “emotional Micronesians.” They are not Micronesians at all and never were. Since Governor Quiroga killed the last Guamanian male over twenty years of age in 1698 on the Island of Aguigan, the fathers of Guam’s children have been non-Chamorros in overwhelming degree. As far back as the time of Esplana and Salas, soldiers of the garrison, Spaniards, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese, were marrying Chamorro girls. Traders and whalers came to the island to recruit, not laborers but seamen, for the old-time Chamorro was an outstanding sailorman and much sought- after as a foremast hand. Many of them stayed. So the skins of the Guamanians today show no uniformity of color; but the unvarying account of Magellan, Pigafetta, Sanvitores, Santa Cruz, Cavendish, Anson— every one who saw the people of Guam as they were before being practically wiped out (from about 50,000 in 1668 to 1,936 in 1721) agree. The original Chamorros, and the mothers of the present day Guamanians were white, with red hair.
One minor inaccuracy—the first friars to minister to the Island were Jesuits until in 1767, all Jesuits were expelled from Spanish dominions. In 1769 Augustinians arrived and remained until Governor Leary’s time. The Augustinians did not mingle in politics in Spanish times, though on some points the Governor may have consulted them. Governor Leary’s Proclamation did not cause the break with them, but his G.O. No. 5 did. The cost of a nuptial mass had risen to a point were few people could afford to be formally married; and Capt. Leary was horrified to find that while family life was normally domestic and permanent, only about ten per cent of the “married” couples in Guam had been through any sort of wedlock ceremony. So—G.O. No. 5 established marriage by the Civil Registrar (license fee eventually 25 cents) and ordered that all common-law couples be married at once. The Friars not only protested, they preached disobedience. The Governor then wrote to the Papal Secretary, stating conditions as he had found them, what he had tried to do to remedy the “immorality,” and added that the Augustin Friars were defying his authority. The Pope at once recalled the Augustinians and sent Capuchins instead, who ministered with conspicuous success and in harmony with every American administration up to the Japanese conquest.
Aside from these points—and Mr. Thompson is not to blame for believing what he was told by the many experts who have spent two months in the “South Sea Islands” and lump them all together—I enjoyed the article. If he is really interested in Guam’s history, he can perhaps find a copy of a little paper-bound book called The Island of Guam formerly used in the public sdhools. The in-
formation therein is as true as many years of research (on the part of Leonard Cox, C-E.C., TJ.S.N. [1906-1908], Capt. E. J. Dorn [1908-1909], and I for the ensuing two years and a half) could make it. Since writing that pamphlet, I kept on digging. If he wants still more, I will be glad to answer letters.
The Blue Flash
Rear Admiral N. M. Kindell, U. S. R’avy (Ret.).—“Glimpse you ere the green ray, count the morrow a fine day.”
T he Officer-of-the-Deck said, “Flash on the horizon. Ahead.” He said it to no one in Particular but loud enough for everyone to near. The Navigator was on the bridge, and the Gun Control Officer, and the Captain, as well as the Assistant OOD and the watch at the signal station, the talkers and the quartermasters. Quite a crowd for a small steel bridge and it was crowded and more )Vere coming. Sunset General Quarters had fust sounded on the carrier U.S.S. Independence and there was a full hour to go " hile the gold edges came off the clouds and the purple shadow of the Earth began to creep Up the eastern sky. It would, we u°Ped, be a good black night off Okinawa.
Set the pelorus about where you caught that flash” and “What did it look like?” said the Captain. The OOD walked to the port j^Peater and turned its small telescope to a faring almost dead ahead. “Sir,” he said, R was like from an explosion, or maybe a ^archlight. Blue, and bright.” The Gun Control Officer spoke up “Shall I report it to Rowdy?” he said. Rowdy was the official tUckname for the Task Group Commander 0ver on the Yorktown.
. The Captain looked through the pelorus Slght and moved it back and forth through a small arc. He noted the upper works of a screening destroyer a couple of degrees to P°rt and another somewhat more to star- (°ard. Three cruisers were also up ahead Don’t report,” said the Captain, “If it was ?yer the horizon the screen will report it.” . e also saw that the bearing was just about
the lightest part of the glow left on the °rizon by the departed sun. He had been °°king through the shade glass of that same
telescope at a fine row of seven sunspots not ten minutes before.
And that, after thirty years at sea, was the first I had heard of THE FLASH. No one I talked to had heard of it either except one ex-merchant mariner who said he thought he remembered Capt. Smith, of a vessel whose name I’ve forgotten, mentioning something of the sort.
The coincidence of the sunset and the reported flash induced a vague “hunch” and I resolved to watch the next sun out of sight. With Okinawa just starting and General Quarters sounding most anytime day or night, but always an hour before sunrise and at sunset, it looked like there would be many opportunities to do that. It was a good prediction, for, on to the War’s end, into the troop carrying Magic Carpet operation and finally to the end of the Independence under the Bikini bomb, I put in well over fifteen months looking, far oftener for, than at, the BLUE FLASH. And, latterly, trying to catch it on color film.
Now, what is this thing that no one you happen to be with has seen or heard of, but which is as old as the Ocean and probably has been obscurely mentioned in thousands of old papers and argued over in forecastles and cabins for centuries? At its best it is a button of electric blue that sits on the horizon at the spot just vacated by the last red speck of the sun. It’s plenty bright, as the OOD said, “like a searchlight.”
It’s been reported as green, which might be expected if enough moisture and dust cuts down the blue. A recent news dispatch reports that two ladies connected with the University of Washington have good color pictures, taken in Hawaii of the green. Without looking it up I can tell you what you need if you want to take pictures. A long focus camera, a telescope lens, fine grained film of 35 mm. or larger should do the trick. A normal exposure, say one-fiftieth at f.8 would be enough. As I found out by trying, a 16 mm. with outdated film isn’t good enough. But, as in cooking rabbit, the real trick is in first catching the rabbit. ■
Coming back to that April day off Okinawa, the next sunset was behind a cloud, the next after that a ship came across the sun and cut off the spark, if any. But in a week
or less I was able to get the last of the sun right in my 7X binoculars for a fine clear sight of a blue button that sat on the line like a bright bead and snapped out like a spark. From then on for the rest of the summer of 1945, it appeared many times, and it became commonplace to those of us who frequented the bridge. And I began to observe something else. “Good” conditions started of course with an unobstructed sky, horizon clear and sharp. If the sun got down to within one diameter of the line and still was quite yellow, that meant that the air behind the horizon was clear too and conditions were very good. This was especially true if the sun’s surface as viewed through glasses had a “boiling” appearance. When things were like that, a little blue fillet showed at each end of the line which the water cut across the sun. As the sun sank, the blue spots followed the sun’s rim, receding to the maximum diameter and then approaching each other as the last half of the sun disappeared. Just as the thin red rim of the sun sank, the two sparks joined and it was this instantaneous doubling of the intensity of the blue light that makes the appearance of a flash.
After the Tokyo surrender I began trying to catch this thing on film and immediately found out why it isn’t more widely known. In the first place, only on very, very, good days does the joining of the sparks bring the intensity up to a point visible to the naked eye. Day after day the sun went down behind clouds or sank in black haze or just turned red and sank without a sign of our friend THE FLASH. West Coast sailors know how the sun there often just fades in a clear sky and goes out long before reaching a horizon. The Tropics are also no good, too much moisture. Near the Aleutians, it’s fog. I got a good many feet of pretty sunsets and, between Midway and Iwo, a few fair frames of the spark.
Is there a scientific explanation? For me it lies in the interaction of two effects. Refraction, or bending, of light is least at the red end of the spectrum and increases through yellow and green to the blue end. And, dust and moisture interfere more with blue light and less with green, yellow and red. Suppose, in imagination, we exaggerate effects. Suppose blue was bent a whole lot more than red, and imagine that the visible spectrum, or rainbow, was not continuous but had fairly broad bands of invisible light separating red from yellow, yellow from green and green from blue. Then as the sun neared its setting it would slowly slide off one disk after another until it had separated into four suns. The red one would sink first, followed in order by the yellow, green and blue. On hazy days only the red one would get through to our eyes. Actually, of course, these suns are not separated that much, only the edges show and they blend into each other. The red strikes through better than all the rest and its brightness blots out the other colors. But, just for an instant, when the red is cut off, the blue’s still showing above the waves and we get the BLUE FLASH.
The next time you are near Agrihan or north of there to Japan, or even up on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and a cold front has swept off the dust and left a sparkle in the air—take a look.
The foregoing was written three years or more before I was able, through the kindness of Dr. T. S. Jacobsen of the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, to obtain a couple of references and to find these references and others at the library of the Naval Observatory. The phenomenon of THE FLASH has indeed been observed and from ancient times, conditions being particularly favorable for it in Egypt. A famous French author described, in 1882, its most usual appearance as follows: “It is not a red ray which strikes your eye, it is a green ray, but a most marvelous green. A green which no painter can draw from his palet; a green of Nature, yet never found in vegetation and never found among the colors of the most translucent of oceans. It is a green of Paradise! No perhaps about it, that green is the veritable green of Hope.”
It has been widely observed and extensively written about, the reference alone listing no less than 178 other references. An interesting pattern recurs over and over in the accounts; i.e. it is seen for the first time by accident in the company of others who have never seen nor heard of it before. Capriciousness is a characteristic. Under the most favorable circumstances it may refuse
lo appear. Then again it may show up through murk and cloud. The color is so variable that, among others, it has acquired the names of green flash, blue ray, green ray, green light at sunset, green spot, emerald drop, ray au vert, soliel des matelots, punto 'erde, griiner Strahl, blaugriines Flamchen and, seldom, red flash.
The phenomenon of the BLUE (or 1jREEN) FLASH is spectacular, famous, mysterious, controversial and, therefore, altogether the most interesting of the minor s°lar spectacles that Naval personnel have opportunities to see.
The following references are those most easy to obtain in general libraries: Weather roverbs and Paradoxes by W. J. Humphries; villard J. Fisher’s article, “Low Sun Phenomena—-The Green Flash,” in Popular stronomy, 1921; Jules Verne’s novel, Le ay°n Vert; Red Rowans, a novel by Mrs. • A. Steele; and Physics of the Air by W. J. Tfumphries.
Hoisting Propellers
(See page 539, May, 1951, Proceedings and page 991, September, 1951, Proceedings)
(Editor’s Note. The writer of this comment is a SJaduate of the Massachusetts Nautical Training Ship, Uprise.)
■Mr. Frank J. Brown, Willcox, Ari- 2°Na.—I refer to Mr. John Good’s question lrithe May, 1951, Proceedings, as to information relative to any Federal ship with a oisting propeller rig.
The old frigate Wabash, which was serving as a receiving ship in the Charlestown Navy ard in 1893, had such an arrangement, here were also other ships similarly Quipped during that period of transition r°m sail to full steam.
I know that our training ship Enterprise ad a huge clutch in her shaft alley which oottld be pulled out allowing the propellor to Urn freely when we were under sail. It made ,°r difflcult steering when there was any 'hfl of a sea on. I remember my trick at the heel when we were in the Bay of Biscay. When we were on our summer cruise in
1893, a party of us cadets were taken on a tour of inspection of Laird’s Shipyard on the Mersey near Liverpool, England, and we saw the model and plans of the Confederate raider Alabama; also the British battleship Mars was under construction on the stocks at the time.
Afterwards, in visiting Cherbourg, France, we passed the spot where the battle took place between \htKearsargea.nd the Alabama. Lieutenant Brainard, who was on the Kear- sarge when she was lost off the coast of South America, was on our ship afterwards.
Referring to the Horatio Hornblower stories, there really was a ship H.M.S. Indefatigable. She was moored in the River Mersey; had been a battleship in her day and was then (1893) used as a training ship for boys, orphans, or waifs. They had a brass band and visited the Enterprise and entertained us with a band concert. Our pilot bread or hard tack they thought was cake compared with theirs.
The Education of Bowditch
Mr. Vincent J. Dowdell, Jr., Beverly, Mass.—The capture of a British merchantman off the coast of England during the Revolution had more influence on the youth of Nathaniel Bowditch than any other single event of the War for Independence. In September 1780, the Pilgrim, a Yankee privateer out of Beverly (Mass.), took the English vessel Mars. Among the loot was the valuable philosophical library of Dr. Richard Kirwan, an eminent Irish scholar. The books, brought back to -Beverly, were auctioned and bought by a group of the educated men of the community, who pooled their money to found the Philosophical Library Company. Bowditch, though not a shareholder until several years later was, in 1791, granted permission to use the mathematical and philosophical books and there laid the foundation of his great career. It should be said for the founders of the library that after peace was established, they offered to pay Dr. Kirwan for his library and he generously refused saying his books could not be put to better use.
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