Naval History News

‘Command and Control’ at WWII Symposium

More than 200 attendees gathered for the 32nd annual Admiral Nimitz Foundation and National Museum of the Pacific War symposium, “Victory in the Pacific: The Impact of Command and Control,” at the University of Texas at San Antonio on 21 September. The event offered an immersive exploration of command and control during the Pacific war that highlighted the wide range of command styles employed by Pacific war leaders and their successes and failures. Several dozen UTSA students were among those in attendance. Speakers (pictured left to right) were Pacific war historian Richard B. Frank; Admiral Nimitz Foundation President and CEO General Michael W. Hagee, USMC (Ret.); Dr. Branden Little, associate history professor at Weber State University; naval tactics and doctrine expert Trent Hone; former commander-in-chief of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force retired Vice Admiral Yoji Koda; naval strategist Dr. Sam J. Tangredi; and Jim Zobel, archivist at the MacArthur Memorial.

Anniversaries in Focus: The Battle of Coronel

The first of November marks the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Coronel, the World War I sea fight that set the stage for the subsequent fate of the German Navy in the Pacific. The outbreak of war in July 1914 had found Germany’s East Asia Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee, spread out across the Pacific among its network of island colonies and coaling stations. Recognizing that this cruiser force had the ability, in the words of one Australian newspaper, “to dash from cover to harry and destroy [Allied] commerce” throughout the Pacific, the British Admiralty ordered the Fourth Cruiser Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Christopher Craddock, to hunt down the German raiders.

On 1 November 1914, the odds heavily against them, Craddock’s four obsolete and lightly armored ships steamed out of Coronel Harbor to meet Spee’s full force. Silhouetted against the setting sun, the British squadron was destroyed by withering fire from Spee’s five superior cruisers. Though two ships would escape, the armored cruisers HMS Good Hope and Monmouth were lost with all hands, including Admiral Craddock, in the Royal Navy’s first defeat since the Battle of Lake Champlain in September 1814.

Spee’s victory was short-lived. A reinforced British squadron off the Falkland Islands found him on 8 December. He was killed, along with his two sons and the majority of his men, and his battle force was all but annihilated—and with it, Imperial Germany’s ambitions in the Pacific.

Midway Museum Gets a (Hollywood) Devastator

Excitement (or is it trepidation?) has been mounting for the much-anticipated new Hollywood blockbuster Midway, opening this November—and for the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, the movie has yielded a new addition: a to-scale replica of a TBD Devastator torpedo bomber.

“It’s the only Devastator on display in the world,” Walt Loftus, Air Wing Director at the museum, told San Diego’s KGTV. “All the rest of them are at the bottom of the ocean.”

The replica aircraft, acquired from Lionsgate after filming was completed, arrived at the floating museum in September, and volunteers began the process of assembling the parts. It is made of “big square tubing with foam,” Loftus said. “But it’s the actual size that the Devastator was.”

The Devastator will hang in the museum’s theater area, offering visitors a rare glimpse of a famous aircraft otherwise lost to history

Midway stars Woody Harrelson, Luke Evans, and Nick Jonas in a big-budget retelling of the epic 1942 battle, previously given cinematic treatment in the infamously anachronism-laden and hackneyed 1976 movie starring Charlton Heston. Will they give America’s Trafalgar the treatment it deserves this time? Fingers are crossed.

Navy Lab Conserves Artifacts for Vietnam Exhibit

The Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) Conservation Branch has been conserving a group of artifacts for a new Vietnam War exhibit at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. “The Ten-Thousand Day War at Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam” showcases the U.S. Navy’s involvement in Vietnam from 1950 to 1975.

NHHC has provided never-before-seen artifacts from its collection in support of the exhibit. The centerpiece is a 25-foot-long sampan, a Vietnamese watercraft that river patrol forces captured in 1968 while she was transporting ammunition to the Viet Cong near Saigon. 

Conservation Branch head David Krop noted that the sampan has been a part of the NHHC collection for decades, and that the process to preserve such an artifact is complex.  

“From a conservation standpoint, before we started anything, we wanted to document everything as it is so we knew what condition it was in,” said Krop. “One of our primary concerns was the five decades of grime, dirt, dust, and debris accumulated on the sampan.”

Krop added that another challenge conservators faced is the material used to make the sampan watertight. Over time, the planks started to separate, causing the packing material to fall out. Krop and his team had to determine how to clean and stabilize the sampan without causing any further deterioration, particularly during transport to Norfolk.

“This is vital information to have for the historical record as it helps us determine how to treat these artifacts safely,” said Krop. “If we misidentify material and try to apply a certain chemical, we could potentially destroy that material.  We cannot make good decisions on conservation processes if we do know what it is we are working with or trying to do.”

Other pieces conserved for the exhibit include two paddles from the sampan and name plaques for the USS Mattaponi (AO-41) and Enterprise (CVN-65). Customized cleaning and preservation agents had to be created to safely halt deterioration without changing the artifact from its original state.

During the three-year exhibit, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum aims to educate visitors about the pivotal role played by the U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War. 

John Pentangelo, director of the museum, said he hopes the artifacts will appeal not only to sailors and veterans but to the public as well. The goal of the exhibit, which in addition to the collection items also features multimedia presentations and interactive components, is to “encourage family learning, thoughtful discourse, and recognition for the sacrifices of over 1.8 million sailors who served during the conflict.”

—Mass Communication Specialist Second Class Mutis A. Capizzi, NHHC