Lingering Question Answered
Dewey W. Lambdin
In response to the article in the February 2011 issue regarding the 26 May 1954 explosion and fire on board the USS Bennington (CVA-20) (“Fire Down Below!” pp. 58–63), my father, Lieutenant Dewey W. Lambdin, was the aircraft carrier’s administrative officer at the time and was one of the many fatalities.
When he was first assigned to the Bennington, I remember that we drove down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to put his footlocker and gear aboard, and we stood for the longest time on the pier near the starboard bow, just looking up at her. I was eager to go aboard and get a tour, but my father seemed reluctant, as if she were a “hoodoo” ship.
He was later on leave with us in East Tennessee but was called back at short notice, and with bad airline connections and bad weather, missed her sailing and had to be flown out to the ship. He was scheduled to leave her in July and hoped to do a “sundowner” last few years in Washington, D.C., to complete 30 years’ service.
The ensign who escorted his casket to East Tennessee and directed the honor guard told my mother at the time that no one was sure what caused the disaster. But speculation ran toward one of the hydraulic valves leaking and the heavier-than-air fumes settling low to the decks below, where someone might have lit a cigarette, despite the smoking lamp being out.
After all this time, I am glad to know the actual cause, and I am sure that all the families of my father’s late shipmates are as well.
The ‘Eyes’ of U.S. Surface Ships
Commander James L. Barrett, U.S. Navy (Retired)
While reading James Hornfischer’s excellent article, “The Washington Wins the Draw (February, pp. 38–47), the photo of the SG radar brought back many memories. This fine piece of equipment was installed in nearly all U.S. World War II ships from destroyers on up beginning in early 1942. For its time, it was a superb surface-search radar. As a former radarman, I spent hundreds of hours sitting in front of it.
It was a two-handed operation, the left for range, and the right for bearing. Range was determined from the “A” scope on the left and a mechanical counter below showing the range in yards. Bearing was determined by stopping the antenna and cranking the antenna to the target, then cranking the range step on the “A” scope to the target blip. It was soon determined that stopping the antenna rotation was a dead giveaway to the target that it had been detected. This was circumvented by taking a range and bearing on the fly, which was not as accurate. Radar repeaters with “B” scopes were added later on, and stopping the antenna was no longer necessary.
This radar was later upgraded to the SG-1b, and the only notable difference was that the row of calibration knobs at the bottom had a cover to prevent accidental movement. The SG-1b remained the primary surface-search radar into the early 1950s. My last experience with the SG-1b was on my Korean War–period CVE.
Air Force’s Libyan Strike Role
Lieutenant Commander Joseph T. Stanik, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I thank Vice Admiral Dunn for his insightful and well-argued letter (“El Dorado Canyon Reflections and Insights,” April, p. 9), but I wish to offer two clarifying points. First, the U.S. Air Force did not “invite itself” to participate in Operation El Dorado Canyon. Within hours of the Libyan-supported terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports, which took place on 27 December 1985 and killed five Americans, the Pentagon issued warning orders to several commands, including the Air Force’s 48th Tactical Fighter Wing (48 TFW), based in Lakenheath, U.K., and Battle Force Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, to initiate contingency planning for a joint strike against Libyan targets. Joint planning would continue uninterrupted for the next 3½ months.
Second, whereas the Air Force was involved in Libya mission-planning from the very start, it did insist on a significantly larger role in the operation in the final days leading up to the raid. Following the Libyan-sponsored bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on 5 April 1986, an attack that killed two American Soldiers, President Ronald Reagan ordered the armed forces to deliver a devastating blow against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. To achieve that objective, two squadrons of carrier-based A-6Es and 18 Air Force F-111Fs—not six as 48 TFW staff officers had originally planned—would hit five targets in Libya.
I support Admiral Dunn’s assertion that crucial decisions governing the Air Force role in El Dorado Canyon were made at the highest echelons of U.S. command in Europe, but those decisions included the size of the strike package and the controversial decision to send nine F-111Fs against Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli, not the Air Force’s original involvement in the mission.
Give the C.S. Navy Its Due
Bob Dowd
I read your April 2011 edition of Naval History, including the three Civil War features (“The Sumter Conundrum,” pp. 18–24; “The Navy’s Evolutionary War,” pp. 26–34; and “Lincoln’s ‘Father Neptune,’” pp. 36–39). I am a retired civil servant from New York City and moved to Greenville, South Carolina, in 1985. I have never served in the U.S. Navy, but I have always been interested in naval history. In the course of my studies of Southern history I have read many books, such as Confederate Navy Chief Stephen R. Mallory, The Most Perfect Cruiser, Last Flag Down, Memoirs of Service Afloat, and others.
The accomplishments of the Confederate Navy are staggering based on the fact that it was one-ninth the size of the Union Navy and had a small fleet of improvised vessels. Both the Alabama and the Shenandoah were built in Britain and used as commerce raiders to destroy Union shipping. Their successes were overwhelming. Both of these Confederate ships traveled the high seas for long periods unmolested by the Union Navy.
Jefferson Davis named Stephen R. Mallory Secretary of the Confederate Navy because of his experience as an attorney handling many shipwreck cases and as a U.S. senator working to improve the U.S. Navy. As Navy Secretary, he was successful with limited resources.
U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, labeled “Father Neptune” in your most recent edition, was not as brilliant as your article portrays him. The success of the Union Navy can be directly attributed to its overwhelming number of ships, weapons, and personnel. I have enjoyed your magazine; however, bias is always evident when considering the history of the South.
‘Big Mamie’ at Casablanca
Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Paul H. Sayles, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
I read with interest the February 2011 issue. However, I did note one item that should be clarified in the “Museum Report” about the battleship Massachusetts (p. 72) by Equipment Operator Chief Peter Magoon, U.S. Navy (Retired).
The Massachusetts’ gunfire at Casablanca didn’t sink the French battleship Jean Bart, rather it damaged her. The Jean Bart was subsequently damaged by aircraft from the carrier USS Ranger (CV-4), which forced her to be intentionally grounded. The Jean Bart remained in her damaged state in Casablanca until she was returned to France in 1945. The battleship was repaired and recommissioned in the French navy, serving until she was decommissioned in 1961; she was scrapped in 1969.
This is not to take away from the Massachusetts’ contribution to the Jean Bart being eliminated as a functional ship. Her action was one of a series that ultimately removed the threat of a Vichy French capital ship at Casablanca.
Good Ol’ Joe
Michael M. Sinclair
Reading Captain Raymond Brown’s article “A Cup O’ Joe” (April, pp. 50–53) brought to mind an incident about 55 years ago on board our 165-foot patrol boat, the Nemesis (WPC-111). We had just had a change of command and our new commanding officer came up to the bridge about midnight. We were starting on our Campeche Patrol, which the Coast Guard had established in the gulfs of Mexico and Campeche. I was a radarman standing the quartermaster of the watch. The new CO asked, “Would you bring me up a cup of coffee, please.” I thought to myself, he is really not going to like our coffee, which generally has been simmering since about 1800 hours. I brought him his coffee and promptly stepped back a couple of paces.
He took one swallow and threw the cup and all over the side. He then ordered me to wake the cook and have him report to the bridge. I did so, and the captain ordered him to make a fresh pot of coffee and from then on to leave fresh coffee after supper and bags of coffee out so the bosun of the watch could make a fresh pot at every watch change. That was a real hit with the crew, I might add.
Captain Richard Culbertson, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Regarding “A Cup O’ Joe,” in the 1950s and ’60s, the Navy also had a coffee-roasting plant in Norfolk along Taussig Boulevard between the naval air station and operating base main gates. When roasting was in progress, which was almost continuously, the aroma along Taussig was heavenly and sometimes better than the final brewed product. Some Norfolk 7/24 units having personnel on ComRats (commuted rations) got a weekly allowance of roasted grounds from the general mess—so many ounces per man. And tins of Navy roasted coffee were once available at the commissaries. Maxwell House and Chase & Sanborn could never match the Navy grounds.
As an old VR pilot, I also remember the many-times-reheated coffee we got toward the end of an eight- or ten-hour flight. It was guaranteed to keep you awake in the cockpit on the midnight-to-dawn legs. I’m sure it matched “boiler-room brew”!
Tending the Varyag’s Wounded
Robert C. Smith, Archivist, United States Navy Memorial Foundation
In the February issue under “Naval History News,” your “Historic Ship’s Flag Returns Home to Russia” item (p. 11) notes that “The surviving crewmen [of the cruiser Varyag], rescued by French and English ships observing the battle, were hailed as heroes in Russia.” The gunboat USS Vicksburg was also present at the Battle of Chemulpo Bay. Serving on board her, Shirley Downing recorded his impressions of the battle and its aftermath in a journal that is now with the Navy Department Library.
He first details what could be seen from inside the harbor of the battle raging outside it. He then chronicles the efforts of the Vicksburg’s medical staff and crew to provide aid to the many wounded on board the Varyag after she returned, badly damaged and in sinking condition. This is important to him because he takes significant umbrage at reports circulated, as he believed, by officers of the French ship Pascal “that the Vicksburg refused to give help in any way to the Varyag.”
He describes in detail what the ship’s doctor and hospital apprentice found and did and the subsequent dispatch of two more boats to assist in the abandonment of the Varyag. They were appalled by the primitive medical facilities available on board the Russian ship, as he notes, “Why should a first class ship . . . belonging to a Christian nation, put out to engage an enemy in action, and not be supplied with necessary medical appliances, for the wounded.” However, they rendered all the assistance they could in the finest tradition of the U.S. Navy.
Oldest Floating Steel Ship?
Captain Carl Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Tom Cutler’s article on the Olympia (“‘Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,’” February, pp. 32–37) highlights that ship’s storied past and murky future. It’s hard to imagine anyone who has walked her decks not having strong feelings about her.
In his first paragraph, Mr. Cutler states that the Olympia is the “world’s oldest floating steel warship.” I’m not sure if HMS Warrior in Portsmouth (U.K.) Dockyard, a ship with a benign history and that has been lovingly—if liberally—restored, qualifies as an older floating steel warship. On the other hand, I’m quite certain that the Huáscar, veteran of savage combat during the War of the Pacific (1879–84) and hallowed shrine to the navies of Chile and Peru, beats the Olympia for longevity. The Huáscar is still afloat at Talcahuano, Chile. A stroll through her spaces evokes the same stirrings of legendary naval combat that visiting the Olympia does.
I’ll be delighted to be set straight if wrong.
More on Eagle Facing
Captain Thomas Bailey Hagen, Supply Corps, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
I read with interest Australian Roy Scrivener’s inquiry and your answer in February’s “In Contact” (“Conflicting Facings,” p. 9) regarding the opposite facings of eagles on the cap devices of Admiral William F. Halsey and Rear Admiral Robert Carney. When I saw the same photo in the article “Missouri Endgame” (August, pp. 32–40), I smiled to myself that Halsey was wearing a pre–World War II cap device and remembered what my grandfather told me as a child during the war about the change from left to right.
While the “logical” reason may very well have been heraldic, as suggested by the Naval History and Heritage Command, I remember the reason as political. A left-facing eagle on the official seal of the United States would be to the same side as the eagle’s talons holding the arrows of war; whereas, the right talons hold the olive branches of peace. Obviously, at that perilous time just before World War II, we wanted to be portrayed as a peace-loving nation. It was my understanding that President Franklin Roosevelt himself had ordered the change, but I have no way of knowing the truth of that.
The heraldic explanation given by the Naval History and Heritage Command that the right side (dexter) is the honor side and the left side (sinester) is the dishonor side fits well with the war-and-peace explanation given to me by my grandfather, Lieutenant Commander Frank J. Bailey, U.S. Naval Reserve (Captain, New York Naval Militia), 1874–1961.
Corrections: Our apologies for several errors that slipped into the April “In Contact” during editing. Admiral Günther Lütjens (“Guns and Ships at the ‘Canal,’” p. 9) was commander of the fleet that included the Bismarck, not the ship herself, and the action off Casablanca occurred on 8 November 1942. John Bickford (“Recollections of a Civil War Hero,” p. 8) lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and his boat float was located in the Bay State’s East Gloucester.