In spring 1939, the USS San Francisco (CA-38) was anchored at Long Beach, California. The San Francisco was the flagship of Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander Cruiser Division 7. 1 had just purchased a Kodak folding camera, one of the newest sensations of the camera industry at that time. I was a seaman signalman, standing a watch on the signal bridge one afternoon, looking for something interesting to shoot. The word was passed for the side boys to lay to the quarterdeck on the double; Admiral Kimmel was about to leave the ship. The six side boys, the officer of the deck, the boatswain's mate, and senior officer on board took their positions at the gangway. As the Admiral approached the gangway, the boatswain's mate piped the proper call, and all came to a snappy salute. The Admiral returned the salute, and then with the traditional hesitation at the top of the gangway, he faced aft and saluted the colors flying at the stern of the ship. That's when I snapped the picture with my camera.
Of the ten or so pictures from the roll, the one showing the Admiral being piped ashore was exceptional. At that time, I subscribed to the popular Navy magazine Our Navy. Each month, a picture of a Navy activity or event was printed on the cover. I thought my picture of the Admiral was far superior to any I had seen on the cover, so I sent a duplicate of the picture to the magazine. I pasted the original in my photo album.
Perhaps because of the extended operation of the San Francisco over the next six months, I stopped receiving Our Navy, and never knew what happened to the picture. With subsequent transfers to five destroyers, and two wars, the fate of the picture faded from my mind. After retirement in 1972, however, I would occasionally go through my several photo albums. When I came across this picture, I always wondered if Our Navy ever had published it.
In the early 1980s, when I went to Honolulu on a vacation, I visited the Navy Exchange at Pearl Harbor to purchase a few things. On a bookshelf was the 1980 edition of Naval Ceremonies, Customs, and Traditions by Vice Admiral William Mack, published by the Naval Institute Press. I once had a copy of an earlier edition and either misplaced or lost it, so I purchased this new one. While waiting at the checkout counter, I flipped through the pages to get a glimpse of the contents. The picture on page 169 jumped out and hit me right in the eyes. It was my long lost picture! Under it was the caption "Admiral Kimmel is piped aboard the USS San Francisco." (He actually was being piped ashore, but there is no difference—at the moment of his salute to the colors—between being piped ashore or aboard.)
I wrote to Admiral Mack and told him the story about the picture. He responded that Our Navy had folded after World War 11, and donated all its pictures to the U.S. Naval Institute. In writing the section "Tending the Side," he needed a picture portraying the ceremony. In looking over the pictures at the Naval Institute, he thought my picture was the best of all. It had been printed in Our Navy on an inside page of its First of July 1940 issue. Under it is the caption, "AN OLD NAVY CUSTOM: Rear Admiral H. E. Kimmel being piped over the side, USS California [BB-44]." Well, they got the Admiral going ashore all right, but it was from the wrong ship.
After all these years, it was nice to find out what happened to the picture. It was pleasant to know that it not only was printed (though belatedly) in Our Navy, but it ended up in the Naval Institute's popular Navy reference manual, vividly portraying "an old navy custom."
Captain Colan served in the San Francisco from 1936-39. During World War II, he served in the J. Fred Talbot (DD-156) and the David W. Taylor (DD-551).