Gibbs and His United States
Commander Louis D. Chirillo, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Regarding Paul Stillwell’s description of William Francis Gibbs in the February issue (“Looking Back,” p. 6), early in 1956 I was assigned planning responsibilities in Boston Naval Shipyard for ship construction and conversions. The yard was then building the first of a class of amphibious ships, the Suffolk County (LST-1176). As part of my indoctrination I visited the design firm Gibbs & Cox, which was then located near Manhattan’s Downtown Athletic Club. After presenting the design status, the project manager led me to the drafting room for the purpose of introducing me to the drafting supervisors. Upon entering, I instantly acquired a Dickensian perspective of an establishment in 19th-century England.
The slanted drawing tables were organized in rows. The draftsmen were working while sitting on high stools or standing. Mr. Gibbs was busy writing at a desk on a three-foot-high platform behind them! Simply by turning around he had an excellent view of the Hudson River. Alongside his desk was a tripod-mounted telescope presumably for watching passing ships, but some swore that he also used it for monitoring drawing progress.
I had entered from the opposite end of the room, and the supervisors gathered around. Mr. Gibbs descended from his aerie and walked the length of the room just to meet me. After some conversation about my status, per his inquiry I told him where my predecessor was assigned. As Mr. Gibbs walked back to his roost I remember thinking that I had expected a curmudgeon; instead, he was indeed gracious.
Afterward in a hallway, a story was told to me about Mr. Gibbs’ edict that there would be no wood in the SS United States. Apparently the burning of the USS Lafayette (former SS Normandie) in 1942, which he may have seen from his building, had made a profound impression. According to a few Gibbs & Cox supervisors, their material lists for outfitting the United States had to be personally approved by Mr. Gibbs. Thus, the outfit designers conceived and contributed to a pool. The money would go to the first one who proposed something made of wood that their boss had to approve. The winner, I was told, was the outfit detailer who specified the butchers’ chopping blocks. But before Mr. Gibbs yielded, they said, he caused a fruitless search for blocks made from a nonflammable material. Thus stung, he specified that the wood must be impregnated with a fire retardant and then announced that there would be no more exceptions.
Soon afterward another detail designer proposed a conventional grand piano. Mr. Gibbs refused to approve the material list and personally wrote to a noted piano manufacturer. He asked if a piano could be made from a nonflammable material, a plastic perhaps. To the delight of the Gibbs & Cox outfit designers, the manufacturer’s written reply tersely advised, “Yes we could, but the piano would sound like hell!”
Captain James A. Barber, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I always enjoy Paul Stillwell’s “Looking Back” column. I particularly enjoyed the one in the February issue because it touched on one of my own memories.
In the 1950s the Navy would assemble a midshipman training task group, and both U.S. Naval Academy and NROTC mids would be assigned to ships in the task group for their summer cruises. For my third-class cruise in the summer of 1952, I was assigned to the USS Furse (DDR-882) and embarked in Norfolk. For the first leg of the North Atlantic cruise I was assigned to stand watches in CIC. Several days into the cruise I was on the surface plot, responsible for tracking all surface radar contacts and calculating their course, speed, and closest point of approach.
An hour or so into the watch, I began tracking a large contact overhauling the task group from astern. I reported that I calculated the contact making 39 knots. This caused a great deal of merriment as this was obviously impossible, because it was several knots faster than the best of the proud warships in our task group. There were several unflattering comments on the inability of NROTC midshipmen to handle a simple surface plot. I was promptly relieved of my duty by one of the ship’s radarmen.
After several minutes of tracking, the radarman reported that he held the contact at 40 knots. It was the SS United States on her maiden voyage, on which she set the Blue Riband Atlantic crossing record.
Government vs. E.B. Subs
Chief Engineman (Submarine Service) Ronald Baptista, U.S. Navy (Retired)
After reading “Top Sub Shop” by Rodney Watterson (February, pp. 50–55), I would like to offer the following: I wholeheartedly agree that Portsmouth is a great shipyard and produced many fine submarines. We called them, as well as those built at Mare Island, California, “Government Boats.” I served in Electric Boat submarines (“E.B.s”) as well as one Government Boat before moving into nuclear.
There were two major differences between the Governments and the E.B.s. One was that the Governments were powered by Fairbanks Morse 12-cylinder opposed-piston 8-1/8 diesel engines, while the E.B.s were powered by General Motors 16-267s. We had a saying in the engineering departments: “An O.P. [Fairbanks] would make a ‘watch stander’ out of you, whereas a Jimmy [G.M.] would make a mechanic out of you.” How true. Yep, those earsplitting, clanking, rattling, cylinder liner–cracking, nonstop oil-leaking Jimmies would do just that!
The other major difference was that the Government Boats had the after-battery compartment ladder on the inboard side of the hatch, whereas the E.B.s had the ladder on the outboard. No telling how many personnel suffered serious injuries when falling down the “smooth side” after being transferred from a Government to an E.B.
Also, unless I am mistaken, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is located in Kittery, Maine, across the bridge from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Protecting Wreck Sites
Deborah Wyttenbach
Regarding the “Naval History News” article “Hellcat Discovered off Florida Coast” (February, p. 11), not all World War II underwater graves are protected under the Sunken Military Craft Act. My grandfather’s tanker, Cities Service Empire, was torpedoed by U-128 on 22 February 1942 off Bethel Shoals, Florida. Despite the fact that 14 men (members of the Merchant Marine, Naval Reserve, and Naval Armed Guards) were killed, the tanker is not protected. As a result, this important World War II grave has been scavenged by wreck divers since 2001.
It took until 1988 for World War II Merchant Marine seamen to be officially recognized as veterans. The fact that the graves of those who died at sea between 7 December 1941 and 30 April 1942 are still not protected just adds insult to injury. The men of the Merchant Marine are sadly World War II’s forgotten heroes.
Editor’s note: Ms. Wyttenback’s grandfather, Captain William F. Jerman Jr., was one of the men lost when the Cities Service Empire was torpedoed. The wrecks of most U.S. merchant ships sunk during World War II are protected because the vessels were property of the War Shipping Administration. But those sunk prior to 30 April 1942, before the administration acquired ships, were not federal property and haven’t received legal protection.
Royal-U.S. Navy Cooperation
Theodore Kuhlmeier
I thoroughly enjoyed David Hobbs’ article “The Royal Navy’s Pacific Strike Force” (February, pp. 24–32), but I think he downplays Admiral Ernest King’s “reluctance” (to use a polite word) to have British participation in the war against Japan. It is interesting to note that Admiral King was not the only one to be less than eager to have British or Commonwealth ships in the Pacific war. As Max Hastings writes in Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (Knopf, 2008), the Canadian government announced that after the war against Germany was over, only those Canadians who chose to serve against Japan need do so. More than 600 of the approximate 700-man crew of the light cruiser HMCS Uganda voted to go home and were, with difficulty, persuaded to stay until a replacement ship arrived.
Robert F. Abbott
I read in “The Royal Navy’s Pacific Strike Force” about the British Pacific Fleet’s use of U.S. signal codes, and U.S. ships operating as part of the Royal Navy Home Fleet using British codes. In part of June and July 1942, the USS Rowan (DD-405) and other destroyers of DesRon 8 operated with the British Home Fleet between Scapa Flow and Iceland and helped escort Convoy PQ 17. We had British signalmen and radiomen on board, and the U.S. Navy ships did use the British navy signal codes. The Royal Navy used their own distinctive signal flags, not the international alphabet flags. The decoding was so labor-intensive that on board the Rowan, even the CPOs helped decode radio messages.
British Carrier Innovations
Captain George P. Sotos, U.S. Navy (Retired)
When operating in the Mediterranean with the 6th Fleet in 1954, my ship, the USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD-708), was assigned to act as plane guard for a British carrier while our planes tested a new British carrier-landing system.
Trailing behind the carrier, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Instead of the usual height variations and wobbling during their landing approaches, our planes, following what the LSO called “The Meatball,” descended and landed one after the other, almost as though they were on an elevator. It was a show stopper!
Yes, our planes were testing the new British Mirror Landing System that Norman Polmar mentioned in “A Litany of British Carrier Developments” on page 33 of the February issue. I knew immediately that I was witnessing a major change in the way planes landed on carriers.
Commander Terry J. McKearney, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Norman Polmar mentions British innovation in the employment of smaller carriers (“A Litany of British Carrier Developments”). The true innovation at the foundation of this advancement is the “ski jump” bow ramp for launching fixed-wing tactical aircraft. This creative bit of aerodynamic trickery, purportedly the thesis project for a Royal Navy commander, allowed the Royal Navy to deploy tactical jet aircraft from relatively small carriers without catapult launching systems. The U.S. Navy tested the concept in the late 1970s and early ’80s with our Harriers and even FA-18s. Because the addition of the ski jump would have cost our big-deck amphibs precious helo spots, we never embraced the concept for our U.S. Marine Corps Harriers.
The significance of the ski jump as a carrier advancement continues. Great Britain had intended to equip its new carrier class with conventional takeoff-and-landing aircraft, requiring development of a catapult launch system as well as recovery system. This decision was revoked last year in favor of a ski jump configuration with the new vertical and/or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) F-35. The trend toward the use of the ski jump continues with other navies—Australians, Spanish, Thais, Indians—all opting for V/STOL tactical aircraft and helicopter air wings. Most significantly, the Chinese navy has managed to take the rusting ex-Russian Kuznetsov carrier, destined for service as a floating casino, and within three years transform her into an operational carrier flying a domestically produced tactical fighter. The simple genius of the ski jump has aided this rapid advancement, and the legacy of this clever idea is expanded sea-based tactical aviation for navies that would otherwise find such a capability cost prohibitive.