Constellation Visits Annapolis
On 26 October 2004, the former U.S. Navy 22-gun sloop-of-war Constellation arrived at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for a seven-day visit. Launched in 1854, the Constellation has been in Baltimore since 1955 as a museum ship. It was the first time since she arrived there that she had left the city’s historic Inner Harbor.
Towed by tugs from Baltimore, the Constellation was open for public visiting and several sepecial receptions were held on board her. The sloop is marking the 150th anniversary of her launch and her service to the Naval Academy. In five days, 11,228 people came aboard to see the ship and learn about her history and the duties of her crew.
Commissioned in 1855, the Constellation saw active service with the Mediterranean and African squadrons for ten years. In 1871, she was assigned to the Naval Academy for use as a midshipmen’s summer cruise training ship. Future Navy admirals and Marine Corps generals such as William D. Leahy, William S. Sims, and John A. Lejeune trained on board her. In 1893, she was replaced by a more modern ship.
During the Constellation’s visit to the academy, several professors and instructors held classes on board, renewing her duties as a school ship after a 111-year hiatus.
After a successful visit, the Constellation returned safely to her berth at the Inner Harbor on 1 November.
John Barnard
Tony Bennett Donates Watercolor of Ironclad Clash
On 1 September 2004, world-famous recording artist—and painter—Tony Bennett donated his recently completed watercolor of the famous Civil War battle between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia to The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. With more than 250 people looking on, Bennett and museum President and CEO John B. Hightower unveiled the painting and accepted it officially into The Mariners’ Museum’s permanent collection.
“In three years, this painting will go into the new $30-million USS Monitor Center—a 63,500-square-foot addition to the museum that will be devoted to the stories of the Civil War ironclads,” Hightower announced during the ceremony. “Tony, you may have left your heart in San Francisco, but we’re thrilled that you left your art in Newport News.”
Bennett painted his own rendition of the 9 March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads in support of the new center; the museum broke ground on its construction on 24 October.
Bennett, best known for his singing career spanning six decades that produced scores of albums, began formal training as a young art student at the School of Industrial Arts (now known as the School of Art and Design) in Manhattan and continued his studies over the years with private studios and teachers. A self-proclaimed “museum freak,” he visits museums and galleries all over the world, especially during his extensive concert tours. Seven of Bennett’s paintings have been published as museum- quality fine-art original lithographs. One of his works soon will grace the cover of the forthcoming new edition of the collection Lincoln on Democracy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), coedited by former New York Governor Mario Cuomo.
Memorial Will Honor Vietnam Sailors
On 21 May 2005, a new memorial, the Vietnam Unit Memorial Monument Wall, will be dedicated in Coronado, California, to honor the efforts of those who died while in the naval services during the Vietnam War.
The effort to create the Vietnam Unit Memorial Monument Wall began in 1993. It has been built at the Naval Amphibious Base at Coronado using private donations and volunteer labor of veterans of the Vietnam War and the support of organizations such as the Gamewardens of Vietnam Association, the Swift Boat Sailors Association, and the Mobile Riverine Force Association. The site was approved by Commander, Navy Region Southwest, in June 1999, and dedicated in November 2000. Since that time, concrete pads have been prepared for the three boats representing the “Brown Water Navy” in Vietnam: a PBR (patrol boat, river), a PCF (patrol boat, fast), and a CCB (command control boat). The memorial wall also has been built.
Twenty-six stainless steel plates, attached to the wall, will be etched with the name, rank, hometown, unit assigned, and date of death for the 2,564 Navy and Coast Guard sailors who died in Vietnam from 1960 to 1975.
Financial assistance still is needed to complete the memorial. Donations will purchase the memorial plaques that will contain the citations of the Medal of Honor and Navy Cross recipients and the names of those who were killed in action or missing in action, listed by their assigned unit. The funds also will purchase each sailor’s state, territory, or country flags as indicated by his home of record. All donations are fully tax- deductible. Visit the memorial’s Web site at www.vummf.org, or write to Vietnam Unit Memorial Monument Fund, P.O. Box 181172, Coronado, CA 92178-1172.
Bounty Headed for the Heartland
The Mississippi River and its tributaries have seen plenty of riverboats, towboats and barges, but probably not a square-rigged tall ship since the Civil War. And even then, Rear Admiral David Farragut never took his fleet to Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, or Tulsa.
Those are among the destinations that a modern tall ship, HMS Bounty, is planning to visit on several summers of going where no tall ship has gone before.
The captain of the Greenport, Long Island-based vessel, Captain Robin Wal- bridge, is planning to sail the vessel up the Mississippi River and its tributaries beginning in spring 2006. He is stitching together a midwest and western itinerary for the 180-foot replica made for the 1962 Marlon Brando film Mutiny On The Bounty that will last two or three summers.
“You have to think outside of the box,” commented Robert Hansen, the Long Island businessman who bought the ship four years ago.
Maneuvering a vessel with 115-foot masts up rivers in the middle of the continent definitely qualifies as out of the box.
To navigate the shallow waterways, the Bounty, which has a draft of 12 feet, will be buoyed by floats attached to the hull. And her topmasts will have to be removed to slip her under bridges and power lines.
“This is taking it to a new level,” said Peter Mello, executive director of the American Sail Training Association, which organizes tail-ship events. “It’s a pretty exciting project.”
Officials in some of the potential ports of call agree.
“Tulsans will welcome the Bounty with open arms,” Mayor Bill LaFortune said. “The arrival of the tall ship will create quite a stir and let the world know that Tulsa is accessible via the Arkansas River.” The Bounty will have to travel 440 miles on the Arkansas and White rivers to get from the Mississippi to Tulsa.
Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce President Todd Klingel said,
“I think there would be great interest in seeing one of the tall ships in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tall ships came into Duluth years ago and people still talk about it.”
Towns in seven states bordering the Mississippi already have inquired about becoming ports of call. Walbridge has been contemplating such a trip for a decade.
“In the early ‘90s,” he said, “I was in Duluth, Minnesota, as a mate on the HMS Rose and I talked to a family from Idaho and another family from Wyoming that had driven all the way to Duluth because they thought this was the only chance that their kids would get to see a tall ship. Ever since then, it’s been my dream to take the ship to places like Tulsa, Oklahoma, where kids have never seen a tall ship.”
The captain has given a lot of thought to the logistics. “The Corps of Engineers will only guarantee 9 feet of water on the Mississippi and we draw about 12,” Walbridge said, “so there’s a little problem there. It means we physically have to lift the boat up with a flotation device so it only draws 8 1/2 feet of water because if it’s a dry summer, I’m sure there won’t be 9 feet of water.”
Adding floats to the hull of a sailing vessel to reduce her draft is not a new concept. Captains of whaling ships trying to cross sandbars blocking harbors used to connect “camels,” or wooden floats, to the sides of the hull to raise them.
“The other logistical problem is clearance,” Walbridge said. Because of low bridges and power lines crossing the rivers, the Bounty can be no higher than 25 feet above the water, so her top masts will have to be removed and stored on deck until the ship arrives at her destinations.
As a warmup for Walbridge’s great adventure, last year and this past summer the Bounty traveled around the Great Lakes, where tall ships are rare but not unprecedented.
“In the Great Lakes, people will stand on line for four or five hours to get on the boat; it’s unbelievable,” said Hansen, who ultimately hopes to sail the ship to Tahiti and Pitcairn Island, where the original Bounty’s crew under Captain William Bligh mutinied and settled after burning the vessel, respectively.
“We’ve had people coming from Kentucky and Tennessee just to see a tall ship, so I figured why not take the tall ship to them,” Walbridge added.
Bill Bleyer
New Photos Added to Archive
Over the past several months, the Naval Institute Photo Archive staff and volunteers have been busy scanning two new collections for the Institute’s Web site photo page. More than 1,000 images from the “individual” collection of 40,000 prints of famous (and not-so-fa- mous) personalities from all walks of life have been scanned for viewing online and purchase. In addition, as part of ongoing efforts to commemorate the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf (23-26 October 1944), a photographic retrospective has been posted on the Internet, complete with detailed captions to assist readers in recalling this greatest sea battle of all time. Soon, more ship images will be added to the online collection and work will begin on a special Internet collection devoted to the Battle of Iwo Jima.
These and other photos are available as prints through the Naval Institute Photo Archive. Call 1-800-233-8764, visit www.navalinstitute.org, or contact [email protected].
Cannon Removed from Monitor’s Turret
On 9 September 2004, the two 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbore cannon from the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor were carefully removed from the vessel’s gun turret. Conservators from The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, teamed with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and riggers from Northrop Grumman Newport News to lift and move the cannon, each weighing 17,000 pounds, into individual tanks where they will spend the next five years undergoing conservation to remove corrosive salts.
“With the cannons removed from the turret, the public will now be able to see what, until now, only the researchers have seen up close,” said John Broadwater, manager for NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.
The cannon now are in individual conservation tanks undergoing an electrolytic reduction conservation process to reduce their corrosion and remove chlorides from the iron. “This is a historic step in the overall conservation of USS Monitor artifacts at The Mariners’ Museum,” said museum President and CEO, John Hightower.
On 31 December 1862 the Monitor sank in turbulent waters off the coast of North Carolina, less than nine months after her famous duel with the Virginia at Hampton Roads. Almost 100 years later, scientists discovered the wreck, which became the nation’s first national marine sanctuary in 1975. In 1987, NOAA designated The Mariners’ Museum as the repository for all artifacts and archives from the Monitor. Since then, The Mariners’ Museum has received more than 1,500 artifacts from the vessel, including the steam engine in 2001 and the revolving gun turret in 2002.
“The removal of these artifacts was particularly exacting due to the confined quarters inside the turret and the fragility of the cannons’ surface, which have engravings commemorating the Monitor’s battle with the CSS Virginia," said The Mariners’ Museum’s lead conservator Curtiss Peterson. “With the cannons removed, we can now turn our attention to the turret itself.”
The museum’s USS Monitor Center will be the permanent repository for the artifacts and all other materials related to the history of the Civil War ironclad. The center is scheduled to open on 9 March 2007. For more information about the USS Monitor Center, visit www.monitorcenter.org.
Hunt for Alligator Intensifies
The second conference dedicated to the hunt for the Alligator—the U.S. Navy’s first submarine—convened at Nauticus in Norfolk, Virginia, on 30 October 2004. A welcome by Richard Conti, director of Nauticus, was followed by short opening remarks by Navy Rear Admiral Jay Cohen, Chief of Naval Research, who related the story of how he first became aware of the Alligator and described the technological, educational, and historical importance of the hunt.
Dan Basta, director of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Sanctuary Program described the value of the Alligator hunt as a means to involve students in the sciences. The Alligator is a “compelling hook” with which to interest students in science, he argued, as well as to interest the public in the oceans. Finding the vessel is a significant challenge, but people often need “great challenges to do great things,” concluded Basta. Given the small size of the Alligator, her probable resting place near the edge of the continental shelf, and the limitations of existing technology, finding her will be a tremendous achievement.
Navy Rear Admiral Jay DeLoach, Deputy Commander, Submarine Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, gave an overview of submarine development during the civil war, comparing submarine technology at that time with some of the most recent technological advances in today’s submarine force. This was followed by a panel discussion on “pushing the envelope” of technology. Members of the panel provided an overview of current undersea archaeological technology, the capabilities of deep sea salvage techniques, the promise of autonomous underwater vehicles for deep sea search, and a description of underwater mapping techniques.
During the conference, attendees were invited to tour the Office of Naval Research’s 108-foot “Afloat Lab” (YP-679), which was docked nearby. This is the vessel that was used for the most recent expedition that searched for the Alligator in August 2004. Producer David Clark previewed a few minutes of his forthcoming documentary on the hunt for the Alligator, which will be aired in the fourth quarter of 2005 on Discovery Channel’s Science Channel series, Secrets of the Deep. The audience then was introduced to members of the Eakins family, descendants of the Alligator’s last commander, who had come from as far away as California to take part. Samuel Eakins’ great, great-grandson Jeffrey Malone spoke on behalf of the family and described how, despite being told over the years that they must be wrong, they were happy to see fact catching up with family lore.
Another panel discussion described the August expedition from Ocracoke, North Carolina, its methods, and the information gleaned from that research, as well as new techniques for conserving artifacts.
The final panel presentation dealt with construction and deployment of the Alligator. Commander Wayne Horn, senior undersea medical officer at the Naval Submarine Medical Laboratory, delivered a detailed analysis of the potential of inventor Brutus DeVilleroi’s air scrubbing system—while the volume of air inside the vessel itself would have limited the endurance of the crew to about 35 minutes, the purifying mechanism might have been capable of ex- tending dive time to several hours. Modelmakers Tim Smalley and David Merri- man described their work in constructing the 1/7 and 1/12 scale re-creations of the Alligator Junior (the sub first evaluated by the Navy in 1861) and the Alligator (the final version now somewhere off Cape Hatteras). Both versions will appear in Clark’s documentary. Finally, historian and artist Jim Christley left participants with a long list of research that still needs to be done.
Chuck Veit
Ex-Kamikaze Pilots Remember Comrades
A small group of surviving Imperial Japanese Navy pilots gathered in late October 2004 to pay their respects at the spot where their comrades took off on the first kamikaze mission exactly 60 years before from a barren airfield north of Manila in the Philippines.
That event—and the later expansion of the kamikaze tactic—has been written into popular history as the product of irrational self-sacrifice grounded in an extreme interpretation of the samurai code and the wartime belief that the Japanese Emperor was a living god. By the way the surviving kamikaze pilots tell it, however, their prime motivation was a simple desperation to protect the people they loved from coming to harm in a war that was rapidly deteriorating into defeat.
Local historian and artist Daniel Dizon witnessed the departure of the original pilots on their missions as a boy of 14. He says most of them “acted like they were going on a picnic.” Dizon has been key in creating a number of memorials in the area, the most recent being a statue of a pilot at the Mabala- cat East airfield peace memorial, which was unveiled on 25 October. “How can you forget something like that? They were brave—it’s difficult to describe,” he says.
After losing a long series of successive battles across the Pacific, Japanese commanders recognized by October 1944 that it was only a matter of time before the Allies would invade the main islands of Japan itself. Senior Japanese Navy air commanders decided there was no alternative but to create a special forces unit to crash dive planes into enemy ships. These units came to be known as the kamikaze, named after a divine wind that supposedly saved Japan from Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281.
“Not one person went because they thought they wanted to die,” says Toy- otaro Nakajima, a special forces pilot who survived the war. “It was an order— help your country. Your country being the family that you loved, your brothers and sisters, friends, your hometown—-to protect these things from the enemy.”
The statue, which was paid for primarily through local historical groups and tourism organizations to acknowledge that Mabalacat is the birthplace of the kamikaze, is one of a number of memorials dotted around the area just north of the former U.S. Air Force base at Clark Field. Kamikaze pilots who survived the war because they were forced to abandon their missions because of engine problems or poor weather have visited the area for years to salute fallen comrades as well as to count their blessings.
One of the pilots at the memorial who saw the unveiling of the statue, Tsukasa Abe, now 77, says “I am extremely grateful that the local people have erected this statue for us. ... I am grateful that relations haven’t been ruined despite what the Japanese did [in the Philippines].” Abe dodged what would have been his fate by just a few hours—his scheduled kamikaze mission was for the afternoon of 15 August 1945, the day the Emperor of Japan broadcast to the nation that Japan must “endure the unendurable” and accept defeat.
According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Report on the Pacific War, the Japanese flew 2,550 kamikaze missions from October 1944 to the end of the Okinawa campaign in June 1945. The success rate of attacks grew steadily worse toward the end of the war as older planes and less-experienced pilots were used, and as U.S. defenses improved. The target hit rate for kamikaze missions is said to have averaged around one in five planes.
Other former kamikaze pilots agree that most special forces pilots were thinking primarily about their families when they left on their one-way missions. Shigemitsu Saito, a veteran pilot who was designated kamikaze but whose number never was called to fly a suicide mission, says the schoolboy comic book image of the Emperor-worshipping kamikaze pilot bears little relation to reality. “The Emperor never really came into it—that’s just something the newspapers made up. I doubt anyone actually went to his death shouting ‘Banzai for the Emperor!’” he laughs. Though the initial units were asked directly to volunteer for such missions by superiors, later kamikaze were recruited from regular ranks by questionnaire and then designated as special forces pilots by an order from central command. Because pilots knew their chances of surviving the war were slim to begin with, the prevailing climate of thought was that any chance their death would not be wasted ought to be taken.
Although the use of the kamikaze tactic did not change the final outcome of the war, there is some evidence those pilots who flew to their deaths were indirectly able to protect their families from harm. Because of the threat posed by the kamikaze attacks to Allied forces, more than 2,000 B-29 sorties that were to have attacked civilian and industrial targets in mainland Japanese cities were diverted to strike kamikaze air fields on the southern island of Kyushu.
Bill Obitz, who was just a few feet from where a kamikaze plane hit the USS Missouri (BB-63) on 11 April 1945, says sailors were scared of kamikaze because “you knew when they came in that you were either going to shoot them down or they were going to dive into the ship.”
The bomb failed to explode on the attack he saw, but Obitz says the dedication evident as the pilot lined up his single-man plane on the final run toward the battleship was fearsome. It was the fact that “you knew that he wouldn’t turn back.” Some have suggested the Japanese kamikaze were an inspiration for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon three years ago, but the remaining pilots unanimously disavow any comparison to modern terrorists. They say that unlike the 11 September attacks, their targets were strictly military. “Nobody was chasing after death or trying to commit suicide—we did it because we had a duty to protect our country. To me, there’s a major difference," says Nakajima.
Bennett Richardson and Fumiko Hattori
Research Continues into Earhart’s Disappearance
A reconnaissance visit to the island of Nikumaroro in the central Pacific in July 2003 by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has yielded new clues to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937. Another visit to the island is planned for 2005, focusing on additional archaeological research.
An earlier visit to the now uninhabited island by biologists of the New England Aquarium suggested that an intact aircraft landing wheel was present in the main lagoon channel. When TIGHAR’s researchers arrived, however, they discovered a devastating tropical storm had removed almost all of the beach sand on the leeward side of the island and had significantly affected the near-shore vegetation. Several attempts to find the reported landing wheel failed, and it was concluded the wheel had been removed by storm surge.
While disappointed, the team made an extensive survey of the storm’s damage to the island, measured tidal information, and recovered aircraft parts from the site of the island’s defunct colonial village.
Since 1989, TIGHAR has re-examined the evidence for an island landing by Earhart, and has visited Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island) seven times. Each visit has produced more clues suggesting that she landed and survived for a time on the island. Complicating the investigations is the presence of a prominent shipwreck (the SS Norwich City), habitation by Gilbert and Ellice Island colonists from 1938 through 1963, and the presence of a LORAN station on the island during World War II. Various pieces of aircraft skin and interior components have been collected on the island, and are undergoing evaluation as to their origin.
TIGHAR has uncovered documentation that a skull, a number of cranial bones, and a sextant box were found early in the colonization period, and were transported to British colonial headquarters in Fiji, as they were thought to be the remains of Earhart. Forensic evaluation by the British in 1940 concluded otherwise, but more recent analysis by modern-day forensic anthropologists suggests a possible match to Earhart.
The site where the bones were found was described somewhat ambiguously by previous researchers, but TIGHAR believes it has located the site on the windward side of the island. Detailed archeological investigations in 2001 located a large hole (now filled in) thought to be where, according to British documents, the skull was buried by the colonists after its discovery and later exhumed. Detailed examination of the area revealed evidence of cooking fires and clusters of giant clam valves. The clamshells were opened in a manner uncharacteristic for Pacific Islanders, and more suggestive of American or European methods. TIGHAR has inferred that a Western castaway used this site for a short period of time. The reconnaissance trip in 2003 re-examined this site and found substantial overgrowth of vegetation.
Detailed observations of the hydrography of tide/lagoon interactions also were made, making it possible to better understand how objects may have been transported from the reef flat onto the island and into the lagoon. Some of the aircraft objects recovered appear to have been brought onto the island by storm events, but most have been found in the abandoned village. Some of the aircraft parts are known to come from World War II aircraft, probably salvaged from wrecks on Canton and Sydney Islands and brought to Nikumaroro.
During the 2003 reconnaissance, additional artifacts were recovered, including two objects that appear to be aircraft dados, similar to one found in 1989. Dados are lightweight metal panels used on the cabin walls of some aircraft. The dados found on the island bear a remarkable resemblance to Electra dados, but there exists little documentation of their design in the original drawings by Lockheed. Examination of surviving Electras has been disappointing, as nearly all aircraft have been extensively restored, and original dados have been replaced. To address this problem, TIGHAR sent archeological teams to three crash sites of Electras in Idaho, Alaska, and New Zealand. Dados were found, and comparisons with Nikumaroro’s artifacts are on going.
While TIGHAR does not believe Earhart’s plane crashed on landing at Nikumaroro, the plane inevitably was broken up by storm surge, and the failure of various pieces may resemble those of a crash impact. For more information, visit www.tighar.org.
Randy Jacobson