“Exploring Naval History in Washington”
(See J. E. Dumene, pp. 46-49, May/June 1998 Naval History)
Roderick S. Speer
I appreciated Ms. Dumene’s article, but I would add one notable and beautiful statue/memorial that she did not mention—that of the naval giant, Swedish- American John Ericsson, which stands at Ohio Drive near the Lincoln Memorial. Ericsson (1803-89) designed the first practicable screw propeller; the first metalhulled, screw-propelled warship (USS Princeton); the first revolving gun turret (the Monitor of Civil War fame, which he designed and built); and a wide variety of other maritime inventions.
James E. Campbell
I must agree that Ms. Dumene named a lot of sites, But she failed to mention two of the most recent memorials to be found in Washington—the Women in Uniform Memorial located at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and the Korean War Memorial opposite the Vietnam Memorial. Standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial looking out across the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument, the Vietnam Memorial is to the left of pool and the Korean War Memorial is to the right. Ms. Dumene noted that the Vietnam Memorial is the most visited memorial in Washington, but failed to mention either the length of the conflict or the number of veterans who served. Comparing the ten-year Vietnam War to three-year Korean War, it is no wonder that the Vietnam Memorial gets so many more visitors. There are, however, many of us Korean War vets still around—proud to have answered the call to serve our country—but a little surprised Ms. Dumene missed the Korean Memorial.
“Through the Eyes of a Boy”
(See P. Stillwell, p. 4, May/June 1998 Naval History)
Frank E. Weingart
Paul Stillwell’s article brought me fond memories of attending grade school in Charleston, Oregon, during World War II. At that time, some Oregon schools participated in a war bond and stamp drive that awarded a small piece of wood (2x 1 1/2 x 5/8 inches) cut from the battleship Oregon to each student purchasing $1.00 worth of stamps. (I earned $2.00 by recycling beer and soft drink bottles for 2y each and purchased 2 pieces of the ship.)
On the blocks of wood were stamped the words:
ORIGINAL WOOD
BATTLESHIP
OREGON
1896-1942
I remember thinking the blocks were “neat” at the time but with the progression of time, they are indeed a memento, albeit small, of history and are displayed on a bookshelf in my den.
“Windfalls of War”
(See H. D. Lagley, pp. 27-31, May/June 1998 Naval History)
Captain Joseph R. Carmichael, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
Harold D. Langley stated that the Spanish-American War played a role in halting monetary awards to Navy personnel.
Not quite.
As late as the end of World War II there was still some opportunity under Navy Regulations for officers to receive monetary compensations for providing a commercial service to organizations or individuals.
My copy of U.S. Navy Regulations, 1920, Reprinted 1938, with all changes up to and including No. 19, in Chapter 1, Page 30, Article 86 reads:
When gold, silver, or jewels shall be placed on board any ship for freight or safe keeping, as provided by the Articles for the Government of the Navy, the commanding officer shall sign bills of lading for the amount and be responsible for same.
The usual percentage shall be divided as follows: One fourth to the commander in chief, one half to the commanding officer of the ship, one fourth deposited in the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts.
To entitle the commander in chief to receive any part of the amount, he must have signified to the commanding officer of the ship, in writing, his readiness to unite with him in the responsibility for the care of the treasure or other valuables. When a commander in chief does not participate in a division, two thirds shall inure to the commanding officer of the ship and the remainder shall be deposited into the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts.
This wonderful article was in effect during all of World War II.
In the early 1940s, I enjoyed a brief period in which we anticipated profiting from Article 86. Serving in the Clemson (AVP-4), a 1,200-ton World War I destroyer patrolling off the French Island of Martinique, we had reason to believe for a time that we would be ordered to carry off 400 tons of French gold brought to Martinique by the French aircraft carrier, the Beam, when she escaped from France. We officers already had calculated the captain’s share of this windfall, and we were sure that he would do the right thing and share it with his junior officers.
This was great food for wardroom conversation until some practical bureaucrat called the Navy’s attention to the fact that if we took 400 tons of gold onboard we would have to jettison the main engines to remain afloat. It did seem a shame. Later the Beam attempted to sortie and escape the Navy’s surveillance. Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, sent this message to the U.S. counsul in Martinique. “Tell Admiral Robert to turn back the Bearn or I will capture or sink that ship.”
The Beam did turn back, with or without the gold—I never knew.
“Late Vietnam: Loyalty to Whom?”
(See K. Hagan, pp. 24-29, March/April 1998 Naval History)
Sergeant Dominick Golio, U.S. Army National Guard
There is one final occurrence of the Vietnam tragedy that was not mentioned by the panel at Cantigny. It was the decision by then-President Jimmy Carter to grant amnesty to the draft evaders. This must rank as the worst decision made in the last half of the 20th century.
Every person goes though life and makes decisions along the way. We must make choices at each of life’s crossroads. In most instances, we must live with the consequences of our decisions. Young men of my generation had a hard choice: join the ser- vice/get drafted, or run to Canada and avoid the war.
Our government forgave those who made a tough—but wrong—decision, in the name of healing the country. That’s nice, but about 56,000 young people didn’t have that luxury. They had to live—and die—with their decision.
I joined the U.S. Marine Corps not for the money or education benefits, but because I loved my country and wanted to serve in what I believed to be the best service we had. I believed that we were fighting in Vietnam to set other men free. I believe that still.
The way I see it, our country is reaping what it sowed. The soldiers didn’t lose the war. The politicians, the brass, and a large portion of the American people did. We were betrayed by our government, by our people, and by our country. The antiwar crowd won. Jane Fonda is still a celebrity, respected and loved. Draft evaders have been elected to the highest offices in the nation. The news media and Hollywood have rewritten history to make the United States the bad guy.
Granting amnesty to draft evaders set a precedent. It means that no American has to fight an undeclared war ever again. How can we blame anyone for running away during a national emergency, or after it is over, not welcome them home? That would make an interesting panel discussion.
Major Patrick S. Foley, U.S. Air Force Reserve
I was enjoying Dr. Hagan’s article right up till the end when my enjoyment turned to outrage. Yes, Johnson and McNamara are the primary villains in the American tragedy that was the Vietnam War. But to say that the commanding officers, from the Joint Chiefs to the numbered Air Force and corps commanders, all the way down to the squadron and battalion commanders, should not have resigned in protest over the conduct of the war because it is not part of the “American tradition,” then to go further and state they did not resign out of “loyalty” to their men, is an insult to every man who died there. The only loyalty these commanders were displaying was to their own careers. The fact remains that although some officers might not have liked it, they were more than willing to send good men off to die—knowing that their deaths would accomplish nothing—rather than ending or even risk damaging their own careers. More than just passing along their orders, history shows that most officers zealously enforced them and all the absurd rules of engagement that came with them—not because it would win the war, but to preserve their own careers.
To compare resigning in protest to a coup is absurd. Yes, we took an oath to uphold the Constitution, but in no way does that oath prohibit an officer from resigning his commission over sending his men out to die for some imbecilic, egomaniacal politician and his think-tank number- cruncher. Resigning is the one honorable choice.
General George S. Patton said something on the order of “Everyone talks about loyalty from the bottom up, but loyalty from the top down is far more important, yet far less prevalent.” It was almost nonexistent in Vietnam and, from my experience, remains so today. To excuse these men from responsibility is a lie and a perversion of history. To try to wrap them in some kind of honor or patriotism for what they did, or more important—did not do— is enough to make one vomit!
“Unsinkable Archie Gibbs”
(See J. E. Wise, pp. 43-46, March/April 1998 Naval History)
Commander Albert D. Wood, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired), Master Mariner
The “Unsinkable Archie Gibbs” must have been sunk by the same submarine that sank the merchant ship on which my good friend Arthur Wilder served as a young mate. When Wilder was thrown into the water many yards from the life boat, the German U-boat picked him up and took him to the life boat. The U-boat skipper apologized for being in such a hurry but told the life boat occupants he had to go meet a “Matson Ship” that was on her way.
Arthur Wilder was no stranger to sinkings. In the famous PQ-17, he and his twin brother both survived sinkings. Al Wilder watched his twin being attacked in the morning. In the afternoon Arthur watched Al being sunk. Both were picked up by the same designated rescue craft and together they arrived in Murmansk.
There just wasn’t any more dangerous wartime billet in 1942 than to be shipping out of New York or Boston.
“Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved”
(See R. L. Langenheim, p. 50, January/February 1998 Naval History)
Commander Edward Peary Stafford, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I was saddened and disappointed to read in my favorite naval publication another gratuitous and baseless denigration of my grandfather, Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary.
Despite its ponderous length and multiple pages of annotations, the Bryce book reviewed by Commander Langenheim is far from being the “definitive work on Peary and Cook.” Ignored or disregarded are the seven full-scale investigations of Peary’s discovery of the Pole conducted by congressional committees and a variety of eminent geographical societies and navigational and mathematical experts since 1909, all of which verified Peary’s account and confirmed his accomplishment.
The most recent of those investigations, conducted by the Navigation Foundation headed up by the late Rear Admiral Tom Davies, included a photogrammetric analysis of the shadows cast by Peary’s party at the Pole. This process combines the length of the shadows, the horizon, the focal length of the camera, the date and the approximate time from several photographs to derive an approximate position at which the pictures were taken, and amounts to mathematical proof. One photograph used in this analysis included the sun itself and the horizon, greatly simplifying the process and increasing the accuracy of the result. The photographs, taken together, showed they had been taken within about ten miles of the Pole.
The author appears to have based most of his discussion of Peary on recent publications by dedicated Peary detractors. As a result, every statement concerning Peary in Professor Langenheim’s review is prov- ably false.
►Peary reserved publication rights to himself solely because publications and lectures for most of his career were his main source of financing for his expeditions. Nevertheless, when his black assistant Matt Henson violated the signed agreement, Peary not only forgave the transgression but wrote a foreword for the book and, without telling Henson, sent the publisher $500 for advertising.
►In the field Peary always shared food and accommodations equally with his men, black, white, and Eskimo. How could he have done otherwise? Special pemmican or raw dog? A special snow-block igloo? He can perhaps be forgiven, as expedition leader, for claiming a cabin on his arctic ships and taking along some snacks from home.
►“Deplorable interpersonal relationships” were the rare exception to the general affection and respect with which Peary was always regarded by his men. Read Rear Admiral Donald B. MacMillan, whose frostbitten feet Peary warmed on his bare stomach. Talk to the Smith Sound Eskimos who called the explorer “Pearyoksoah”— the great Peary—and who respected him for never asking a man to do something that he himself was wary of doing. The four hunters who went to the Pole were well aware of the risks involved, but took those risks willingly out of respect for Peary and confidence, from long experience, in his leadership.
►The most absurd statement in the review is that Peary “ruthlessly exploited the Eskimos but learned little from them.” Peary reached the Pole primarily because he learned the Eskimo way of life, their clothing, their dog sled transport, their hunting techniques, and used them throughout. He always rewarded his Eskimo assistants for their time and hardships with knives, rifles and ammunition, sewing needles for the women, and even whaleboats for hunting. When they worked with him during the summer hunting season, he used his own men and equipment to acquire the meat they would need for the winter. It is generally considered that the relatively advanced technology Peary provided saved the Smith Sound Eskimos, who were fewer in numbers with each census, from extinction.
►Peary was bitterly hostile and resentful of Cook for his cynical attempt to deprive him of the prize for which he had sacrificed a lifetime, but he persecuted no one, certainly not Roald Amundsen, who believed firmly in Peary’s lifelong reputation for absolute integrity. When questioned about Peary’s discovery of the Pole, Amundsen replied, “I know Peary reached the Pole. The reason I know is that I know Peary.”
One of the factors that enabled the “controversy” to continue for so long is the fact that the North Pole lies near the center of the frozen Arctic Ocean where no physical evidence of human presence can be left—unlike the South Pole where the remains of Amundsen’s camp was incontrovertible proof of his accomplishment.
But, Peary did leave something near the Pole. At the start of the journey back to land, five miles south of the Pole, Peary, who was a scientist as well as an explorer, attempted a sounding through a hole chopped in the ice. But the steel wire broke because of a kink from a previous use, and about 6,000 feet of wire went to the bottom along with a heavy iron weight at the end and a clamshell device for taking bottom samples. It is still there, some 2,000 fathoms down on the floor of the sea. And one day when the technology used to locate the Titanic and other deepwater wrecks has advanced sufficiently, that wire and that weight will be located and retrieved.
It will be then, and not with the publication of this “definitive work” that the polar controversy will be resolved.
“Museum Launches Drive to Save U-505”
(See P. M. Callaghan, pp. 55-56, January/February 1998 Naval History)
Lieutenant Colonel Charles A. Jones, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
I enjoyed the February 1998 Naval History, particularly the interview of Ernest Borgnine.
I also appreciated the article on the deterioration of U-505, the German U-boat captured in 1944 and now on display in Chicago. The article omitted an important aspect of the capture, however: the leader of the boarding party, Lieutenant (junior grade) Albert David of the USS Pillsbury (DE-133), received the Medal of Honor for his role in the capture.
“A Short Life”
(See N. Polmar, pp. 54, September/October 1997 Naval History)
Jan Tegler
In his history of the Grumman F8F Bearcat Mr. Polmar made a slight confusing error. He refers to the 3 kilometer speed record set by Darryl Greenameyer in his unlimited air racer, the F8F-2 “Conquest I” in 1969 and the speed record set by John Penney in Lyle Shelton’s unlimited racer, another F8F-2, “Rare Bear” in 1996. These are, in fact, two different types of speed records.
The record I believe Mr. Polmar meant to cite is the absolute World Propeller-Driven Speed Record. This was broken by Greenameyer in August 1969 at Edwards Air Force Base over a 3-kilometer straight- line course at 483.041 mph. He eclipsed the mark set in 1939 by Luftwaffe pilot, Fritz Wendell, in a one-of-a-kind Messer- schmidt BF-209V-1 at 469.220 mph. German propaganda claimed that Wendell’s record was achieved in an Me-109, but the BF-209V was a completely separate aircraft, purpose-built for the attempt.
The record set by John Penney in 1996 is not an absolute speed record. Rather, it is the current Qualifying Record on the 9.128-mile oval race course at the Reno National Championship Air Races. Hence the confusion. However, the same aircraft does in fact hold the current Absolute World Propeller-Driven Speed Record. Lyle Shelton flew “Rare Bear” over a 3-km course at Las Vegas, Nevada, on 21 August 1989 to the new record of 528.329
mph breaking the previous record set by Steve Hinton in 1979 in the modified RB- 51, “The Red Baron,” at 499.018 mph.
Nevertheless, a Navy Bearcat still holds the world speed record for propeller-driven aircraft!
“What Really Sank the Maine?”
(See T. B. Allen, pp. 30-39, March/April 1998; I.S. Hansen, pp. 8-16, May/June 1998 Naval History)
Dana Wegner
I was one of the historians on Admiral Rickover’s team. In 1975, we determined that the USS Maine was destroyed by a tragic accident, and we have not changed our minds.
The Advanced Marine Enterprises report commissioned by National Geographic and summarized in the March/April issue of Naval History advances that, “A mine could have caused the explosions; but how would that mine have been placed, and why?” Plagued by technical errors, and without answering the question how, this superficial and misguided study only has muddied the waters. It has provided eager but technically unqualified journalists an opportunity to claim that there remains an “unsolved riddle” about what happened to the ship. During the summer of 1997 several consultants advised National Geographic that the report contained fatal factual, historical, and engineering errors.
The study does not consider several important engineering features deliberately designed into the Maine in order to reduce the likelihood that a magazine would explode if the ship struck a mine. The ship’s magazines were not occupied by the large open piles of granular black powder apparently hypothesized by the report. By 1898 the U.S. Navy had more than a century’s experience in the safe handling and storage of gunpowder in peacetime and in combat. The brown prismatic powder on board the Maine was a familiar material, known for its slow-burning characteristics. Charges for her 6- and 10-inch guns were formed from hard, molded, cakes (“prisms”) of powder stacked and then secured in tight muslin bags. The bagged charges were cushioned with wood shavings and placed in stout, individual waterproof copper tanks. The copper tanks were stowed horizontally on wooden racks with no tank contacting another. The wooden racks were built to absorb the shock from weapon hits. The ship had a double bottom with extensive transverse and longitudinal stiffening and a three-foot void. The efficacy of these safety features is amply demonstrated by the fact that, despite the apparent magnitude of the explosion, only 14% to 28% of the contents of the forward magazines blew up. Then, as now, U.S. warships were designed with safety in mind.
Three days after the Maine exploded, the Navy’s leading ordnance expert, Professor Philip R. Alger, warned in a newspaper interview that no external mine explosion had been known to cause an internal magazine explosion, and that more likely causes should be investigated [full quote provided on page 32]. Alger’s views were never heard by the public again, and though his textbooks still line the shelves of libraries, the technical study he voluntarily wrote about the Maine was reportedly suppressed, and no copies ever have been found. Later, Rear Admiral George W. Melville, Chief Engineer of the Navy, wrote that he did not believe a mine had sunk the ship. Naval ships, he said, had hit rocks, wharves, piers, and each other; yet the magazines had never exploded. In the Civil War, gun powder mines had sunk or damaged more than 50 ships without blowing up magazines. During World Wars I and II many ships were lost from the effects of high-explosive mines. The USS Halligan (DD-584), lost in 1945, was the only example we could find where a mine probably detonated a magazine.
Since 1911 it has been universally agreed that the wreckage did not reveal any damage characteristic of high-explosive trauma. This accurate observation eliminates a host of more believable methods of sinking the Maine, including attack by a self-propelled torpedo or a limpet mine attached by a swimmer. Here begins the morass of improbabilities associated with the mine theory.
Because no evidence exists of high-ex- plosive use, gunpowder remains the only “low” explosive. A relatively small area of a single strake of outer bottom plating was found rolled gently inward. This, mine theorists claim, is the single piece of evidence indicating that a black-powder mine exploded outside the ship. On the Maine, one of four damaged bottom plates was gently bent inward first, and then the bend miraculously survived, unaltered, in the center of the explosion of five to ten tons of propellant powder which followed. In order to continue the mine theory, one must allow for that miracle to have happened. We know that the energy of black-powder explosions decreases rapidly with distance underwater and that only a charge in near contact with the hull of the Maine could have breached the bottom. Hypothetically, about 100 pounds of fine-grained black rifle powder, or its equivalent, would have been needed.
In 1898 a variety of gun powders was available. Large quantities of rifle powder were probably difficult to accumulate in an era of metallic cartridges. But why use black powder at all? All modem nations, including Spain, had workable high-ex- plosive mines in their inventories. Mines could be purchased internationally. To improvise a mine in 1898, one could purchase over the counter an array of superior, compact, high explosives such as dynamite, nitroglycerin, and a score of patent formulations. Each of these materials would have been superior in power, smaller in size, and much more reliable than gunpowder. If these products were not sold publicly in Cuba, they were in the United States, and they might have been smuggled in.
With the advent of gun cotton in 1846, by the end of the Civil War, black-powder mines were destined to become obsolete. By 1898 black-powder mining was dead technology. Demonstrated by the travails of the Confederate Torpedo Bureau during the Civil War, successful black-powder mines were not easy to build. Relatively few of the hundreds of underwater mines planted by the Confederates actually worked. Detonators were tricky. They required machined parts and uncommon chemicals. If the mine were planted before the Maine arrived, the case would have to remain entirely waterproof for a minimum of 22 days at a depth of 22 feet. Wooden cases were known to become waterlogged and leak after seven days. The case could be neither too strong, which would limit the force of the explosion, nor too light. A waterproof fuze would require skilled construction techniques and perhaps an internal electrical battery. The notion of anyone simply improvising a workable mine from loose black powder and a wooden cask or glass demijohn is preposterous. Making and planting a single black-powder mine which might successfully destroy a battleship would have required considerable know-how and more than a little good luck.
What type of mine might have been used? In Havana, the Maine was at high alert and was specially watchful for unidentified small-boat intrusion and suspicious behavior near the ship. Scuba had not been invented, and it is unlikely a hard- hat diver could operate at any distance from his air pump or ascend from the bottom to reach a hull floating above. This would suggest that the only suitable mine would have been a submerged, buoyant, mine anchored to the bottom. The entire rig—charge, case, mooring chain, and anchor would have weighed at least 300 pounds. It would have required a boat and a number of men to install.
So that leaves the idea that the Maine’s berth was mined before her arrival. No U.S. warship had called in Havana for years. At 1000 on 24 January 1898, the U.S. State Department first informed Spain that one would visit Havana soon. The Maine received her orders at 2100 that same day. We know that she arrived so suddenly the following morning that the Havana police, the pilot, the harbor master, and even the U.S. consul were surprised. Less than 24 hours had elapsed since Spain had been notified. It is unlikely that anyone could mobilize a mining effort on such short notice and then plant a device only a few hundred yards from several foreign warships and U.S. steamers.
The Maine anchored at a buoy, which marked a one-point moor, around which the ship rotated 360 degrees according to wind and tide. Where would the mine be dropped? Probably few people outside the U.S. Navy had knowledge of exactly where the Maine's magazines were located, especially in relation to the coal bunkers that protected them. Nevertheless, how could one predict the length of cable the crew would choose to bend to the moor? How deep should the mine be planted? At Cavite during the war in 1898, the Spanish ineptly dropped their mines in water so deep that they were found 80 feet below the keels of the U.S. ships. Supposing that the Maine’s draft (22.5 feet) was known, how could one predict how deep into the soft bottom mud the mine anchor would sink? By 1911 the mud around the Maine was about 30 feet deep. Had the hypothetical mine been more than a few inches from the ship’s skin, it could not have breached her hull. A breech above the turn of the bilge only would have flooded coal bunkers.
How would the mine have been activated? Despite the fact that several of the Maine’s officers believed the ship had been sunk by a contact mine, a mechanical, contact-fuzed, mine would have been foolhardy. That type might have been struck by other ships or fishermen before the Maine arrived. Most losses suffered by the Confederate Navy were because of its own contact mines. And is it likely that, in more than three weeks at anchor, the Maine never had swung across her final heading until she exploded? So that leaves an observational mine electrically activated from shore. This triangulation-type set-up required from 1,500 to 12,000 feet of insulated electrical wire stretched across the harbor bottom, linking the mine with two people located in two different towns, each person having a clear line of sight with the dark ship on a dark night. A source of electrical power strong enough to surmount the resistance of thousands of feet of wire would have been necessary. In 1898, Spanish troops at Cavite had planted high-explosive observational mines but did not have any wire to activate them.
Though not conclusive proof, the U.S. Navy investigation of 1898, the Spanish investigation of 1898, and the Navy Board of Inspection and Survey’s near-archaeological study of the dewatered wreck failed to locate any remains from a mine casing, fuze, moor, anchor, or wires. Perpetrators were never sought nor found. Considering all the technical difficulties, the chances of successfully mining the Maine are so minuscule as to be absurd.
Captain Roy C. Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The April Naval History reports on research and analysis made by Advanced Marine Enterprises (AME) and its conclusion that the explosion of the Maine’s forward magazines could have been caused either by spontaneous combustion in the surrounding coal bunker or by an external mine. Largely based on the inward bending of some bottom plates, the basic reason for the original (1898) and second (1911) Navy board decisions that an external mine was the cause, AME concluded that a mine was the more likely possibility.
My Grandfather, Captain Philip R. Alger, U.S. Navy, Professor of Mathematics Corps, who was regarded as one of the leading ordnance experts in the Navy, was interviewed on the front page of The Washington Evening Star of 18 February 1898 immediately after the sinking in Havana. From family stories I knew that his interview had put him forever in Theodore Roosevelt’s black book. He said “We know that no torpedo such as is known to modern warfare can of itself cause an explosion of the character of that on board the Maine. We know of no instance where the explosion of a torpedo or mine under a ship’s bottom has exploded the magazine within. It has simply tom a great hole in the side or bottom through which water entered and in consequence of which the ship sank. Magazine explosions, on the contrary, produce effects exactly similar to the effects of the explosion on board the Maine. When it comes to seeking the cause of the explosion of the Maine’s magazine, we should naturally look, not for the improbably or unusual causes, but those against which we have had no guard in the past. The most common of these is fires in the bunkers. Many of our ships have been in danger various times from this cause and not long ago a fire in the Cincinnati’s bunkers actually set fire to fittings, wooden boxes, etc., within the magazine and, had it not been discovered at the time it was, it would doubtless have resulted in a catastrophe aboard that ship similar to the one on board the Maine. I shall again emphasize the fact that no torpedo exploded without the ship has ever produced, or, according to our knowledge, can it produce an explosion of a magazine within.”
There was the practical view, based on knowledge of the capabilities of weapons and on the fact of similar spontaneous combustion bunker fires aboard ships. The AME study, on the other hand, admits that it is very largely based on assumptions of all kinds, many shown impractical and modified during the research, leading to tests of computer-generated models in theoretical research facilities. AME concludes that the sinking resulted from a magazine explosion which could have been caused either by an adjoining coal bunker fire or an external mine. Because it could not account for some bottom plates being bent inward other than by assumptions of effects, AME’s finale was that a mine was the more likely of the two possible causes. Mr. Allen’s background summary also notes that “Some experts, including Rickover researcher Hanson and respected analysts in AME itself do not accept” that conclusion.
At any rate, I will settle any day for an answer based on current knowledge, especially when its possibility is confirmed by the later researchers, rather than one done today with modem high-tech computer capabilities but still dependent upon assumptions for basic input data.
‘Don’t Publish This Letter’
Toward the end of the “What Really Sank the Maine?” segment of the U.S. Naval Institute’s 124th Annual Meeting and Eighth Annapolis Seminar, U.S. Naval Academy Museum Curator James Cheevers arose from the audience and handed what he said could be “new evidence" to moderator Thomas Allen. Following is a letter written by John J. Blandin, an officer on board the Maine during the explosion. The original will be donated in July by the Blandin family to the Naval Academy Museum.
SS City of Washington
Havana, Cuba 1898 February 16
My darling,
You have read of our wreck, and I suppose Dr. Greer has informed you that I am all right. I was on watch when the explosion took place. A more complete and sudden wreck one can’t imagine. All of us left alive climbed onto the poop, and then looked around to see if anything could be done. We pulled out the wounded where we could. The wreck sunk and rested on the bottom, and was soon burning fiercely. When the Captain saw that nothing more could be done, he gave the order to abandonship. We had two boats left that would float, and the Spanish man-of- war sent 5 boats, the steamer Washington sent 2 boats, and we got all who were alive into them, 80 men and officers were saved, out of 340.
So we lost 260 men, or near that. About half of those saved are badly injured, and some will die. We all went to the American Steamship “City of Washington”, of the Ward Line, and were treated with every courtesy. I have just learned that we are to go to Key West this afternoon, and suppose I will get home soon.
Two officers were lost, Jenkins and Merritt, both good friends of mine and fine fellows.
As for myself, I am uninjured. I lost everything except the clothes I have on. Tell Jack that I had a letter to him finished, but it was lost in the wreck.
Thank God, my darling that my life was spared again. Lots of love to my darlings from your own.
Jack
No one can tell what caused the explosion. I don’t believe the Spanish had anything to do with it.
Jack
Don’t publish this letter.