Forgotten Sub Reexamined
On 19 June 1941, USS O-9 (SS-70) left New London, Connecticut, with two other O-class boats for tests off the Isle of Shoals. After the two other boats had completed their tests, at 0738 on 20 June, O-9 dove to conduct deep submergence tests. The 23-year-old submarine never surfaced. Something had happened that caused the boat to exceed its crush depth, slightly more than 400 feet.
What that something was that caused the loss of the sub and her 34-man crew has never been determined.
O-9 was operating in the same area, about 15 miles off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where two years previously the USS Squalus (SS-192) was lost, but 33 of her crewmen were saved through a remarkable undersea rescue. Because O-9 was in more than 400 feet of water, twice the depth where Squalus sank, rescue was not an option although vessels on station, including USS 0-6 (SS-67), USS O-10 (SS- 71), USS Triton (SS-201), and USS Falcon (ASR-2), did what they could. Divers dove for two days and to record depths before salvage operations were cancelled as being too risky. The boat was declared a total loss as of 20 June.
In April the Naval Historical Center (NHC) received the official report from a September 2004 survey that could shed light on the loss of the submarine. Coordinated with the NHC, the survey was undertaken by the National Undersea Research Center (NURC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the History Channel Series, Deep Sea Detectives.
The wreck was examined over three days using a NURC research vessel and remotely operated vehicle. The Research Center’s staff and crew were able to confirm the exact position of O- 9. The submarine is at an upright angle at an average depth of 409 feet and remains virtually intact despite the decades it has spent on the New London seabed.
“This was the first photographic survey of the wreck site,” said NOAA’s Rick Yorczyk, project manager, “and the images confirmed it was the USS 0-9.” The researchers noted that the conning tower was draped with fishing gear but in good shape, as was the bow area. None of the submarine’s escape hatches appeared to be open.
“Aft of the conning tower the vessel had collapsed,” said Yorczyk, “but it did not appear to be the result of an explosion or collision. There is some closure in the sense that the lost crewmembers have been found, but in the end, why the submarine sank remains a mystery.”
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor just six months after the sinking, the tragedy was almost forgotten. The precise location of 0-9 had remained unknown until 20 September 1997, when retired Navy captain and diver Glen Reem persuaded Klein Associates, a sonar designer and supplier, to run a sonar search to locate the sub, reopening interest in the 0-9 mystery.
Victory Sail on Display
The only surviving sail from the Battle of Trafalgar is on display to the public in Portsmouth, England, as part of the celebrations of this year’s bicentennial of the battle. The Duke of Edinburgh toured Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard and officially opened the sail exhibition on 11 March. The exhibit will remain open until 30 October 2005.
Aside from HMS Victory herself, the fore topsail is recognized as the largest single artifact from the battle. With an area of 3,618 square feet, it was the second largest sail on board Victory and would have been one of the main targets for French and Spanish guns as Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship approached the enemy line. While some 90 rounds of shot perforated the sail, it suffered further damage at the hands of 19th-century souvenir hunters.
In addition to its importance in naval history, it is of further historical significance as a hand-manufactured object of the time. The sail is 80 feet long at the base, 54 feet at the head and 54 feet in depth. Weighing an estimated 370 kilograms (approximately 814 pounds), it took about 1,200 man-hours for the experienced sailmakers of Chatham to make it in 1803.
The sail remained on HMS Victory until the ship returned for repairs after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1806. It was returned to the Chatham sail loft and had an obscure 85-year history. It was displayed at an exhibition in 1891 and then on board Victory for the centenary of Trafalgar in 1905. The sail was rediscovered in 1960 at the Royal Navy Barracks-HMS Victory, now HMS Nelson, covered by gym mats. It was returned to Victory for display in 1962, and then brought ashore in 1993 when it was found to be rapidly deteriorating and in urgent need of conservation.
The sail was mapped, photographed and preservation begun at the Carpet Conservation Workshop in Salisbury before it was displayed to the public at the “International Festival of the Sea” in Portsmouth in 1998.
Since that time, the sail has been cleaned with a unique dry process and undergone further conservation. The precious artifact is now kept in environmentally controlled conditions in Storehouse 10, within the Historic Dockyard.
Long Missing Dewey Medal Recovered
Nearly two decades ago, retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer George Hubbard was browsing through the stalls of a Washington, D.C., flea market when the inveterate collector of Admiral George Dewey memorabilia discovered his holy grail—the Peace Jubilee Medal.
The medal was commissioned by President William McKinley to honor Dewey for his stunning victory over the Spanish fleet in the Philippines during the Spanish- American War of 1898. It was to have been awarded to the admiral on 25 October 1899 at the massive Peace Jubilee held in Philadelphia to celebrate the end of the war. Inexplicably, the medal was never awarded.
Its location was unknown, or at least its significance unrecognized, until Hubbard, of Waterloo, Iowa, made his discovery. Hubbard, who died in mid-May, purchased the medal for more than $3,000.
It was Hubbard’s wish that the Navy take ownership of the medal aboard Dewey’s flagship from the battle, the USS Olympia (C-6). On 1 May 2005, the 107th anniversary of the Battle of Manila Bay, The Navy Museum accepted the long lost medal from Hubbard’s representative aboard the Olympia, now a museum ship in Philadelphia.
Before dawn on 1 May 1898, Commodore George Dewey’s flagship led seven U.S. Navy cruisers and gunboats into Manila Bay. By 8 a.m. that morning, his Asiatic Squadron had destroyed virtually the entire Spanish naval force in the Philippines. Damage to the American ships was negligible, with their crews suffering no fatalities and few injuries.
“The acquisition of this medal closes the chain of events celebrating Dewey’s spectacular victory at Manila Bay,” said Dr. Edward Furgol, curator of the U.S. Navy Museum. “We already have his official medals, sword and uniform.”
The medal is in the custody of the Navy Museum where it is being processed for display with other significant medals.
Brooklyn Navy Yard Rediscovers Its Past
Daniella Romano had no clue what she was getting into when she was hired out of college as the archivist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard a year ago. Then she got her first glimpse of the “archives” at the historic site where the USS Monitor was commissioned and the battleships Arizona and Missouri were built.
“They had two rooms here that contained roughly 2,200 cubic feet of rolled- up plans that had been left behind by the Navy,” she said. Blueprints and other documents were crammed into a heating-ventilation space and storage closet in a building erected in 1942 as a mess hall.
“Some of them were ruined by being exposed to water,” she said. “They’ve become very brittle,” some so much so that Romano has been afraid to unroll them before they can be treated by a professional conservator.
While executives of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., the quasi-public entity that manages what is now an industrial park owned by New York City, have an interest in history, Elliot Matz, the chief operating officer, hired Romano more for practical reasons.
“Elliot recognized that with all the development that’s going on in the yard there would be a lot of information here that would be valuable,” Romano said in her office with tables full of folders containing blueprints. “There are no records, so we can dig in an area and not know what’s underground. Now we’re finding out.”
While corporate executives hired Romano for development reasons, the history bug has bitten them, and they are even buying yard items such as paychecks from the 1840s, on eBay for future display.
Besides planning to restore documents if grants can be obtained, the corporation is considering restoring one of the historic buildings as a place to explain the yard’s history and exhibit some of the documents.
Romano’s office is in the same three- story brick building where the documents had been stored. But the larger space has better climate control, as well as providing her a view of the Manhattan skyline and the Williamsburgh Bridge.
“We have just under 33,000 drawings,” Romano said. “I don’t think it’s even 10% of the drawings that were created here.” The rest are kept by the National Archives at a site in Lower Manhattan.
“Every time they replaced a light bulb, they had a drawing to show them how to do it,” quipped David Lowin, the corporation’s vice president for planning and development. “Now that we have them somewhat organized, whenever we have a capital project, one of the first things we do is to come to Daniella and say ‘Do you have drawings of this building that we want to work on?”’
What the Navy and National Archives left behind are mostly architectural drawings for yard buildings. But there are some plans for ship construction work. “We do have a drawing of the U.S.S. Maine in 1890 just prior to its launching,” Romano said, referring to the battleship that blew up in Havana Harbor. The drawing, on waxed linen, is about eight feet long and three feet wide. It was used for construction of the ship’s armor belt.
“We’ve got a good number of plans from World War I,” she said. One dated 1914 shows how to construct platforms for funeral services. “It wasn’t very busy here during the ’20s so we don’t have much from that era. In the late ’30s through World War II, the number of plans explodes.”
The oldest document unearthed so far dates back to 1858 and is a design for a monument erected at the yard to honor sailors and Marines who died during the Battle for the Barrier Forts in Canton, China, in 1856 during the Opium Wars.
So far, she explained, “I’ve gone through and unrolled all the rolls that I can; some are too fragile, and I’ll have to wait for conservators.”
Romano has separated the documents by material and subject, so now all blueprints or drawings on waxed linen paper are together in archival-quality storage sleeves. When she unrolls a set of plans, Romano said, “I feel a pretty direct connection to the people that were here.”
Lowin said that as yard executives work on a development plan to build more industrial buildings, they are talking to community groups. “One of the things that always comes up is the fascination with the place,” he said.
The corporation is trying to satisfy that curiosity. It is thinking of restoring an old building, possibly a gatehouse that dates back to the 1890s, as a small visitor center with a few displays and some documents.
In the meantime, the corporation is talking to local museums and historical organizations about finding a more appropriate permanent home for the documents. Another possibility is housing them in another old Navy Yard building that would be restored or in a proposed new centralized services building.
While these decisions are pondered, Romano keeps looking for pieces of the yard’s past. “There’s so much out there in people’s attics,” she said. “I’d love to get my hands on it.”
Bill Bleyer
A Legacy Discovered On the Internet
After an existence of nearly 90 years and virtual anonymity, Coast Guard aviation is presented to the world through the volunteer efforts of the non-profit Coast Guard Aviation Association, formerly known as The Ancient Order of Pterodactyls.
The “Pteros” began in 1977 when former Coast Guard aviators Andrew Wall, George F. Thometz, Marion ‘Gus’ Shrode, and Norman L. Horton informally organized “to actively contribute to the enlargement and perpetuation of the history of Coast Guard Aviation and the recognition thereof, both internally and in areas external to the service.” Today, there are more than 900 members.
The lack of information about Coast Guard aviation in public forums is attributed to the solitary nature of the service’s missions. While modem media, such as the inclusion of small video cameras in aircraft, has increased the exposure of Coast Guard aviation in recent years, there is still little documentary material available from before the mid-1980s.
The public’s interest in popular events, such as the book and movie The Perfect Storm, has prompted an increased interest in the history of the service. The Ptero’s fill the void with volunteers following the lead of retired Commander Gilbert “Gib” Brown and establishing an expansive internet presence.
Primary sources were mined for documents and photographs. The volunteers combed file cabinets in offices across the country and sought out individuals for copies of official paperwork, photos, and manuals.
Because of active bush beating, the website’s “Roll of Valor” contains nearly 350 recipients’ names for honors.
To compile the list, where no official files existed, the group sent solicitation announcements on the Web, through e-mail, and word of mouth. They asked that those who had received such honors to forward copies of their awards. The committee has yet to contact all the living recipients and are doing yeoman’s work trying to fill the gaps among the deceased. Due to their tenacity, volunteers are uncovering many recipients otherwise relegated to permanent obscurity.
The list generated to date is still far from complete but represents a greater acknowledgement of those having served with honors than no record at all.
The research efforts led to a providential find of rare film footage of some of the first helicopter tests. The committee acquired several cans of World War II—vintage film that have been digitized, saving priceless documentation from its eventual decay.
Another discovery, a personal archive consisting of two cardboard boxes of accounts, correspondence, and news clippings, was a record of the development of the naval helicopter.
While not a discovery, until recently, the pilot of the Navy’s famous NC-4—the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic in 1919—was not acknowledged for his role in Coast Guard aviation. Commander Elmer F. “Archie” Stone was Coast Guard aviator Number 1. He spent nearly a decade from World War I through 1925 working for the Navy on aviation engineering projects. He was the Navy’s chief seaplane test pilot and later helped design aircraft launching and recovery machinery for aircraft carriers.
Confirmation of the Coast Guard aviation website’s success is reflected in number of visitors and the significant increase in published information over the first ten- months of existence. Soon after launch in February 2004, the site had fewer than a thousand visits to its then-1,329 pages. Brown, with contributions from the committee and other submissions, built the site five-fold to 6653 pages and the number of visitors climbed steadily, nearly doubling by December.
The Web address is: http://uscgaviation history.aoptero.org.