When this writer was a second class-man Naval Academy in 1882, our light artillery drills were conducted by an unusually handsome, well built, and forceful officer, who was an instructor in the Department of Ordnance and Gunnery. In the classroom he earnestly endeavored to impart information and although extremely dignified, he was always kind and courteous. He was one of the most imperturbable officers I ever knew. When conducting one of our fire drills, he was drenched by a stream from an ill-directed hose but merely shook himself and carried on.
His knowledge of ordnance and gunnery went far beyond our backward equipment, and he was a rarity among officers of his time as an excellent and diversified linguist. He had no peculiarities to which we could attach a nickname. We could only stand in awe of him as a “savvy man.”
Such was Lieutenant Theodorus Bailey Meyers Mason, Class of 1868.
Three of his classmates were also instructors at the Academy at that time. Knowing their families well, I was a frequent visitor at their quarters and in conversations got snatches of his background which I have since been able to fill out.
Lieutenant Mason deplored our antique howitzers and our “sponge, load and shift breeching” great guns. Frequently he declared he wanted to get a European assignment or even take leave at his own expense to study modern ordnance and equipment.
Upon graduation he had been ordered to the Flagship Guerriere, South Atlantic Station, and almost immediately displayed his impulsive bravery by a heroic rescue of two drowning sailors in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, for which he received a letter of thanks from our Secretary of the Navy, the gold medal of the New York Benevolent and Life Saving Institute, and was decorated with the Order of the Rose by the Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil.
Mason was commissioned an ensign in 1869 upon the arrival of the Guerriere in New York and was, at his own request, ordered to the U.S.S. Franklin, flagship of the European Station. This cruise in Europe opened his' eyes to our deplorable backwardness in naval construction and armaments and our almost total lack of information about them. Getting an urge to try to do something about it, he obtained leave at the end of the cruise to visit European naval establishments at his own expense. This leave was too brief, however, for him to cover much ground, being cut short by orders to the Navy Hydrographic Office with additional duty as aide to the Secretary of the Navy, the latter probably being paramount in order to have his linguistic ability and European contacts closely available in the Secretary’s office.
When again due for sea duty he wished to return to his European field of study, but war between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia was brewing. The Secretary wanted a good observer in that area and ordered him to the Flagship Pensacola, South Pacific Station.
Soon after he reported, an insurrection on the Isthmus of Panama broke out and he was given a platoon of artillery, probably brass howitzers, in a landing party to protect American interests. Shortly afterward he again showed his intrepid bravery. In the harbor of Callao, Peru, he led a fire and rescue party on board an Italian bark enveloped in flames and succeeded in rescuing her crew. For this he received the Italian Navy Medal from the King of Italy.
Mason closely followed the war between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia and wrote a comprehensive report on it, which was promptly published by the War Department Office of Home Intelligence. This brought him in contact with that institution and suggested to his mind that the Navy should have a similar office of wider scope.
Mason’s assignment to the Naval Academy followed (in the Department of Ordnanceand Gunnery, in 1877), where he became more deeply disgusted with our backwardness in ordnance as he held artillery drills with brass howitzers and observed the Nelsonian great gun drills on the Santee, and at the end of that assignment he obtained leave of absence to travel in Europe accredited to the various embassies and legations to study naval progress.
In France he was presented to President Marshal MacMahon, who invited him to be one of his aides during the Exposition of 1878, and was made a life member of the French Society of Civil Engineers and life fellow of the French Geographic Society.
He returned to the United States loaded with reports and urged that we assign naval attachés to our embassies and legations all over the world to collect naval intelligence and that a section be established in the Office of the Secretary where these reports could be filed for classification and professional use. He took this idea up with Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler, who read his reports on his European tour. Chandler proved receptive. In June, 1882, Mason was ordered to organize an Office of Naval Intelligence and to take charge of it as our first Chief Intelligence Officer. While on this duty he was detailed as guide and interpreter to the first Korean Embassy to this country and later served as an aide to General Sheridan in the dedication of the Washington Monument, then an unfinished shaft.
When in 1885 the Prestan Insurrection broke out on the Isthmus of Panama, this writer, then on his postgraduate cruise in the flagship Tennessee, was placed in command of a platoon of howitzers with an occupational force at Matachin, half way across the Isthmus. The Insurrection seemed to be getting beyond the capacity of our landing parties, however, and an expeditionary force was despatched from the United States as a reinforcement. Mason was attached to it with an additional platoon of artillery for Matachin. As I briefed him on the situation when he arrived, he laid his hand on one of my guns with a shake of his head. I could almost hear him say:
“Still the brass howitzers.”
“How is the O.N.I. getting along?” one of us asked him.
He laughed and said:
“They started me with a cubby hole for an office, a part time stenographer, and a stack of filing cases, but we gradually gained space and personnel. Raymond Rodgers relieved me and he is a go-getter, so I’m sure the Office has come to stay.”
The insurrection was finally suppressed by Colombia, and Mason obtained a year’s leave to return to Europe and indoctrinate our naval attachés in the O.N.I.’s purpose and their integration into it.
Mason’s participation in our landing parties at Panama and again at Aspinwall made him realize their haphazard character and utter inefficiency if attempted against an enemy-defended beach. He drew up a plan for a tactically balanced landing force which was submitted to the Navy Department and published in the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings. Although debated controversially for several years, it was the genesis of our successful amphibious operations in World War II.
Mason’s incessant urging for a modern navy and armament was at last bearing fruit. Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney called him home to aid him in the building of four modern war vessels. He was continued in this duty by Whitney’s successor, B. F. Tracy. Almost single-handed he had pulled the Navy out of the doldrums, but his health was seriously failing. He retired in 1894 as a commander and died five years later at the age of fifty-one survived by a widow but no children. He had lived to see us fight a foreign war and win two great naval engagements with modern ships and armament. His life’s mission had been accomplished.
His widow, a sister of Rear Admiral T. S. Phelps, Jr., had a Tiffany memorial window placed in the Naval Academy Chapel in his memory. This window was reinstalled in the present chapel, where it is now surrounded by those of Admirals Porter, Farragut, and Sampson. In it is a figure appropriately depicting a militant crusader.
I had been so intrigued by Mason’s work and personality that at the end of my first commissioned cruise I wrote to Lieutenant Rodgers asking for duty in the Office of Naval Intelligence and my letter crossed one from him asking me if I would accept such an assignment. I found Lieutenant Rodgers in a roomy office with a permanent stenographer, and beyond it a long, wide room, its walls lined high with filing cases. Through its center were three large, flat topped desks occupied by Lieutenant Frederic Singer, in charge of new construction, Lieutenant C. E. Fox, in charge of modern ordnance, and Lieutenant W. H. H. Southerland, in charge of auxiliaries and personnel. To one side was the desk of a very busy filing clerk. My assignment was in another roomy office across the corridor in which I found Passed Assistant Engineer C. W. Rae, in charge of engineering branches, and Ensign J. B. Bernadou, linguist and translator in my department, who was concerned with torpedo boats and torpedoes.
A marine officer was added to the staff a little later and Lieutenant Rodgers was succeeded by a Commander.
I soon found that a complete hookup had been established between the Office and our naval attachés abroad and that even our foreign consulates were being integrated.
Beyond question Theodorus Bailey Meyers Mason should have a niche among the founding fathers of our modern navy long with Luce and Mahan.