A Lost Wager
George J. Hill
I would add a footnote to the excellent article by Captain Thomas Beall (“Anson’s Voyage”). The author mentions that, in the difficult passage of Anson’s fleet around Cape Horn, three ships were lost, one of which was the 28-gun HMS Wager. Incidentally, the harrowing story of the wreck of the Wager has now been retold by David Grann in The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Doubleday, 2023). The book is being developed as a film production by Martin Scorsese.
One of the survivors was Midshipman John Byron, brother of the fifth Lord Byron. The young man was 16 years old at the time the Wager sailed from London. He stayed in the naval service and rose to the rank of vice admiral. He was the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron (the seventh Lord Byron).
The career of Midshipman Byron followed the path that was created by Samuel Pepys, as described by Philip Allan in this same issue (“Inventing Officer Training,” pp. 12–13). As Grann writes, young Byron had “left the elite Westminster School and volunteered for the Navy . . . partly because his older brother, William, had inherited the family estate.”
The Mayor of Wonsan . . .
Captain Michael A. Lilly, USN (Ret.)
I loved Edward J. Marolda’s article on Wonsan (“The Siege of Wonsan”). My father, P. A. “Tony” Lilly, while commanding officer of the USS Uhlmann (DD-687), was the senior CO in charge of the siege. He would get intelligence from pilots or spotters ashore to hit certain targets. He put four or five spotters ashore on an inshore island to improve their accuracy. They sank a number of floating mines with rifle fire.
At one point, shore batteries took the Uhlmann under fire. One enemy shell carried away a radio antenna on the Uhlmann. He had one espionage mission, putting three or four South Koreans ashore near Hungnam in North Korea. Later, he was able to retrieve only one, who was injured.
Tony was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat “V,” which stated, in part, “Commander Lilly directed the operations of the forces under his command with exceptional skill and foresight and was largely instrumental in the success achieved by his units in inflicting extensive damage upon the enemy. When the Uhlmann was taken under fire by hostile shore batteries, he displayed outstanding seamanship in maneuvering his vessel and employed the firepower of his ship with maximum effectiveness against the enemy positions.” He was given a key on a silver plaque naming him “Mayor of Wonsan.”
. . . and the Wonsan War Dance
Winn B. Frank
My commanding officer and I (the executive officer) were having an informal chat during some off-time at the Military Sea Transportation Service office in Pusan, South Korea. As the chat continued, the CO began to describe his experiences on board a destroyer that had participated in the Siege of Wonsan. He told of the fast entrances, exits, and radical maneuvers within the harbor to avoid being hit by North Korean shore batteries. He said the ship’s crew referred to this maneuvering as the “Wonsan War Dance.” Also, he noted the complete silence of the shore batteries whenever a battleship appeared.
To Sink a Sub that Sank a Battleship
Captain Dan Ryan, USMC (Ret.)
I am an avid reader of Naval History and noticed Thomas Wildenberg’s great article about the sinking of the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Kongo by the USS Sealion (SS-315), the only sub in the U.S. Navy to have done so (“To Sink a Battleship”). I have fond memories of the Sealion, having been on board her in 1968 with my Marines of 2d Recon Battalion out of Key West, Florida.
Several years later, I was in the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum at Pearl Harbor and made an inquiry about whatever happened to her and where she was. To my utter surprise, I was informed that she herself had been sunk by the U.S. Navy for target practice.
Having fond memories of my times on board the Sealion and being aware of her unique history, I was amazed and astounded and at a loss to understand why a naval vessel of such historical significance would not have been preserved and saved from such an ignominious fate.
A Future President Amid the Perils of Night Patrol
Edward Furey
To Thomas Cutler’s comments on John F. Kennedy’s handling of PT-109 (“JFK and PT-109: A Sailor’s Assessment”), I would underscore the author’s points further with the following: The PT boats in the Solomons routinely minimized wakes at night because of air attacks. Japanese Rufe floatplanes, a seaplane version of the Zero, patrolled at night and found unwary PTs by tracking their phosphorescent wakes (well described by Cutler) and attacking out of the darkness—usually without warning, because the boat’s own engine noise also muffled the plane’s engine.
Correction: In the August issue, on page 38, first column, last paragraph, “October 1942” should read “November 1942.”