This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
The NC-4 Flight
(See page 292, March, 1953, Proceedings)
Rear Admiral Donald Royce, U. S. Navy, Ret.—I found the article by the late Admiral Craven most interesting. While the reference to the NC-4 flight was rather brief, the chart and data on the print caught my attention. There seemed to be something of a concerted effort to give credit for the first Trans-Atlantic air crossing toAlcock and Brown who made the trip from Newfoundland to Ireland about one month after the crossing by the NC-4. The New York Times made similar references in one of their anniversary editions a few years ago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in their publication Life in America did the same thing; in fact, I have noted that error in various publications and have frequently taken exception to them but with little—if any—satisfaction. The United States Navy Department expended a lot of money and energy in the NC crossing, and it seems too bad to see the credit for the successful crossing go astray. It should not be forgotten that it was quite an accomplishment to get those big boats off the water with their 28,000 pounds and then to wrangle ’em across the Atlantic! Those planes had a maximum of 1600 horsepower -—less than in one engine of a modern four- engined transport—and their propellers were wooden with the pitch permanent!
Mrs. O’Neill’s Son, Johnny
Captain G. A. Smith, U. S. Navy (Ret.)
•—Details of this anecdote were given me by my old destroyer captain, Lt. Cdr. W. P. Cronan, U. S. Navy, the best friend a young ensign and an old sailor ever had, and by Lt.
Cdr. R. K. Madill, U. S. Navy, once a friend of Johnny O’Neill’s. Both of these grand officers have passed on, but the strength of their smiles and voice lingers on as if they had spoken but an hour ago. Mrs. O’Neill’s “son Johnny” was an outstanding Chief Boatswain, U. S. Navy. He was an unusually fine dancer and always welcome and popular on the old Keith’s circuit and could be depended on to steal the show on such occasions as he performed; he was a remarkable penman, he could, without lifting pen from paper, create a scene such as the eagle, flag, or ship at sea. He was an outstanding seaman and very quick and experienced.
Once upon a time in the old Navy (names may be in error, but facts are correct) the Fleet was at anchor and the week’s work finished, and it was time to celebrate. The signal was hoisted for all good sailors to repair on board the Kansas. These officers were the type that liked to enjoy their brothers’ company and not be in a hurry about it. There was plenty of convivial action and the great storytellers would, like as not, be Plug, Jugy, Frankie, Bill, Zip, etc. There were one or two Marine officers who could be depended upon to tell of strategic retreats via the fire escape or a breath-taking pursuit along the seawall near the Kash-Bah. Several young ensigns would be summoned to play the guitar and mandolin and their position, as far as participation was concerned, was similar to “the adopted stepchild sitting way aft.”
As the guests gathered, the conversation was light, distracted and general, but when the deep-water men and two-bottle guests arrived, the proper meter of the event gained control. First, there was a rehash of the blunders that had been made during the immediate past. Next, tribute to one or more fine
examples of seamanship displayed during tight circumstances. Next—hair-raising
events and boa constrictors on the China station. Next—a criticism of the general decrepitude, inefficiency and shortcomings of one or more higher officers whom the storyteller had at one time or another locked horns with, or about some serious incident where the senior and junior had not seen “eye to eye” with the junior not seeing anything. Towards the last, when the regular ships’ boats had long since been secured, and there was a light fog on the water, the topic turned to great feats of seamanship. The one that broke up the session was the following: The Captain of the Ohio had preempted the rostrum. He announced in no uncertain terms, “I have the best Boatswain in the Navy and I challenge anyone to duplicate his performance, and to prove it I will assign him a task. The Boatswain, Weckstrom of the Ohio, reported. His Captain ordered, “Boatswain, I want you to unshackle the spare or standby anchor, move it by boat to the stern and secure it ready for letting go in one hour.” Boatswain Weckstrom replied, “Aye, aye, Sir—How many fathoms of chain?”This was loudly applauded by the meeting as a right smart bit of seamanship—could it be equalled?
The Captain of the Kansas took up the challenge with more than ordinary fire and announced, “My Boatswain, ‘Mrs. O’Neill’s son Johnny’ can do a harder task in less time —Send for Johnny!”; when Johnny reported a few minutes later his Captain ordered— “Boatswain, I want you to dismantle the smoke stack, lay it down on the deck and secure it and I will give you forty-five minutes.” “Mrs. O’Neill’s son Johnny” replied— “Aye, aye, Sir, which end forward?”
Hobson’s Choice
(Editor’s Note: This editorial from the I Vail Street Journal, May 14, 1952, is reprinted by special permission of that newspaper.)
One night past some thirty thousand tons of ships went hurtling at each other through the darkness. When they had met, two thousand tons of ship and a hundred and seventy- six men lay at the bottom of the sea in a far off place.
Now comes the cruel business of accountability. Those who were there, those who are
left from those who were there, must answer how it happened and whose was the error that made it happen.
It is a cruel business because it was no wish of destruction that killed this ship and its hundred and seventy-six men; the accountability lies with good men who erred in judgment under stress so great that it is almost its own excuse. Cruel, because no matter how deep the probe, it cannot change the dead, because it cannot probe deeper than remorse.
And it seems more cruel still, because all around us in other places we see the plea accepted that what is done is done beyond discussion, and that for good men in their human errors there should be afterwards no accountability.
We are told it is all to no avail to review so late the courses that led to the crash of Pearl Harbor; to debate the courses set at Yalta and Potsdam; to inquire how it is that one war won leaves us only with wreckage and with two worlds still hurtling at each other through the darkness. To inquire into these things, now, we are reminded, will not change the dead in Schofield Barracks or on Heartbreak Ridge, nor will it change the dying that will come after from the wrong courses.
We are told, too, how slanderous it is to probe into the doings of a Captain now dead who cannot answer for himself, to hold him responsible for what he did when he was old and tired and when he did what he did under terrible stresses and from the best of intentions. How useless to debate the wrong courses of his successor, caught up in a storm not of his own devising. How fqtile to talk of what is past when the pressing question is how to keep from sinking.
Everywhere else we are told how inhuman it is to submit men to the ordeal of answering for themselves. To haul them before committees and badger them with questions as to where they were and what they were doing while the ship of state careened from one course to another.
This probing into the sea seems more merciless because almost everywhere else we have abandoned accountability. What is done is done and why torture men with asking them afterwards, why?
Whom do we hold answerable for the sufferance of dishonesty in government, for the reckless waste of public moneys, for the incompetence that wrecks the currency, for the blunders that killed and still kill many times a hundred and seventy-six men in Korea? We can bring to bar the dishonest men, yes. But we are told men should no longer be held accountable for what they do as well as for what they intend. To err is not only human, it absolves responsibility.
Everywhere, that is, except on the sea. On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both goes accountability.
This accountability is not for the intentions but for the deed. The captain of a ship, like the captain of a state, is given honor and privileges and trust beyond other men. But let him set the wrong course, let him touch ground, let him bring disaster to his ship or to his men, and he must answer for what he has done. No matter what, he cannot escape.
No one knows yet what happened on the sea after that crash in the night. But nine men left the bridge of the sinking ship and went into the darkness. Eight men came back to tell what happened there. The ninth, whatever happened, will not answer now because he has already answered for his accountability.
It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But the choice is that or an end to responsibility and finally, as the cruel sea has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do.
And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts.
Our First “Sick-Bay” on Shore: Yokohama, Japan, 1872
Commander Louis J. Gulliver, U. S. Navy (Ret.).—The cover page of the Naval Institute Proceedings for May, 1953, is the more interesting if one conjectures:—“Wonder what hospital facilities were nearby for our Marine casualties in hand to hand combat against the fanatical Chinese Boxers at the gates of Pekin in 1900.”
Thanks very largely to urgent requests made in 1867 by Rear Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, commanding the U. S. Navy ships in Far Eastern waters, the Navy Department authorized a U. S. Naval hospital on the Bluff of Yokohama to the end that sick officers and men in the ships could be better cared for on shore. There was no anticipation then that the humble little hospital later would be filled to overflowing by sick and wounded Marines from the Pekin fighting, plus personnel of the allied fighters from the warships who joined up with the Americans.
This first hospital was built and the land for it was leased in the first instance from money in the slush fund of the U. S. Naval Squadron. It was poor in all respects, and small,—with a common ward for officers and men whose number was likely under a total of twenty-five.
We know from the few records that the construction was of “perishable materials, constantly calling for repairs only a year after being built.” It is believable that the surgical instruments at commissioning had to be borrowed from the ships’ sickbays and that the patients had to sleep on canvas cots of shipboard manufacture. The first pharmacy of the hospital was supplied from the ships. Nothing is known as to the Naval Surgeons on the staff nor whether the nurses were Japanese girls or hospital stewards loaned by the ships. •
It is worthy of note that the U. S. Navy was the first of all the naval powers then in northern Asiatic waters to act on the need for a naval hospital close to the center of naval affairs in that locality. Not until 1900 was the naval hospital at Cavite built and commissioned.
The land for the “title deed” for the Yokohama U. S. Naval Hospital was obtained at a monthly rent of slightly more than $19.00 per month, payable to the Chikenji of Kana- gawa, beginning in June, 1867, for “an official purpose,” but not until 1871 was this purpose approved by the Chikenki for use of “an hospital for the U. S. Navy from October 25th. 1871.” It appears that the deal was consummated through the U. S. Minister to Japan, “His Excellency, C. E. DeLong.”
The Navy Department medical officers seem to have regarded the hospital as something likely to be abandoned fairly soon and likewise as a structure that would not be required for more than a very few personnel. Thus we find (sort of penny wise and pound- foolish) that the Surgeon General was reporting that $10,000 was needed the first year for repairs as well as completion and extension.
It seems to have been the impact of the Boxer Rebellion that caused Medicine and Surgery to ask Congress for $25,000 for constructing a new hospital, and more land, adjoining, was leased. This was in 1903. The new hospital was two stories in height, states the record, and was built to withstand earthquakes. The original hospital buildings were then “much deteriated.” The normal capacity of the new hospital was eighty ward patients, and rooms for nine sick officers.
With the military occupation of the Philippines and the consequent shift of the naval squadrons to Manila Bay, the hospital at Yokohama received fewer patients and came to be “a sanatorium for those debilitated by tropical duty and for the occasional naval personnel needful of treatment when the ships visited northern ports in summer.” Cost of upkeep increased and there were recommendations to put the hospital out of commission. Such proposals were never approved “probably because of objection by the Department of State which wished the hospital retained for diplomatic reasons.”
Man proposes but God disposes,—the earthquake and fire of September 1, 1923, caused the total destruction of the hospital. Seven months later, the decision was made not to rebuild, and it was placed out of commission on March 10, 1924. This decision had the automatic effect of canceling the original lease of the two lots of land, Nos. 99 and 112, on which the first hospital had been built. It been stipulated in the lease that “the title deed will be annulled if the lots are to be used for other than a United States hospital.”
There was, however, a third lot, No. 98, which had been acquired for the new and enlarged hospital in 1903. As of the destruction and the decision not to rebuild, this remaining lot was transferred to the U. S. Consul General at Yokohama for disposal.
The Fleet Survey Ship
(See page 869, August, 1953, Proceedings)
Lieutenant (JG) M. J. Pollak, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired).—In commenting on this article, I would like to correct a minor error. The Sumner (AGS 5) did not suffer any battle damage at Iwo Jima. The one hit scored on her consisted of a dud, fired from the beach, which ricocheted off a stanchion on the main deck, killed one man and fell over the side. The Sumner's sounding boats also escaped unscathed, although occasionally subjected to small arms fire while working close inshore. The damage and wear they suffered resulted from the extremely rugged conditions under which they were surveying and wire dragging.
Regarding the vulnerability of the fleet survey ships, those of us serving on the Sumner were less concerned about her lack of speed—a few more knots would hardly have made much difference—than about her lack of watertight integrity. She was considered strictly a one-hit ship. Her few watertight bulkheads had been pierced in so many places since her first commissioning in 1913 that no one seriously expected them to hold.
In his discussion of the present survey fleet of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Commander Gibson mentions the Pathfinder, Hydrographer and one AVP type. I am surprised that he omits the Explorer, a slightly smaller and older sistership of the Pathfinder, from his list of major units. It is my understanding that she is based on a west coast port and carrying her share of the survey work along out Pacific coastline.
While I agree with Commander Gibson on the need to re-examine the mission of the Navy’s survey fleet in case of future hostilities, I strongly disagree with his suggestion for the conversion of APD’s into standard fleet survey ships. Earlier in the article he pointed out the inadequate size of the former Coast and Geodetic Survey ships, taken over by the Navy during World War II, and praises the acquisition of the much larger Maury and Tanner as the answer to the various shortcomings of the wartime survey fleet. And yet, he now advocates as a future survey ship—one equipped to “make surveys and wire drag in the invasion approaches, compile and print the charts. .
—a class of ship of no greater tonnage than the Pathfinder but far less well designed for the job. It seems to me that an APD, with its relatively shallow draft and its lively disposition in a seaway, is a poor choice for carrying heavy and bulky wire drag boats (heavier than LCVP’s which are not suited for wire dragging) and as a seagoing drafting and printing establishment.
If I have misunderstood Commander Gibson, and the correct inference was that the APD conversions were to replace the wartime PCS’s, then I am still forced to disagree with him. For that type of mission, in which the survey ship itself does much of the hydrography, an APD is too large and not sufficiently expendable. If the PCS type was too small and slow for the work, a ship of the 185 ft. or 220 ft. minesweeper classes might make a more appropriate substitute.
What Is a Rope?
LeGrand H. Hardy, M.D., New York City.—As a mountain youth—coming down to sea level some 40 years ago, I was perplexed, then entranced, by the salty lingo of the old dogs who were still in sail. The enchantment has not diminished with the years.
In the mountains we usually called a rope a rope although in special circumstances it could be fashioned into a trace, a halter, a bridle, a rein or a hackamore. Add lariat and riata and you1 have seven instances in which a rope is not a rope.
But at sea, Heaven help the landlubber! He is surrounded by a thousand peculiarly named ropes but nary a “rope.” Fairly assiduous research has uncovered only seven so-named. I wonder how many of the Annapolis Class of 1953, could enumerate them. Sheets, stays and braces, guys, halyards and lifts, vangs, painters and hawsers, lines, lanyards and bends—yet, where are the “ropes”?
Quietly fishing in the Boca Grande Pass, under the shadow of Gasparilla, I tried my question on an old salt from Boston. He knew and came up with the enclosed poem which might be worthy of publication in the Proceedings. His name is Thorvald S. Ross, and he deserves much credit. Together we considered but dropped four other possibilities: bucket rope, tail rope, yard rope and monkey rope. Do they belong?
SEVEN ROPES By Thorvald S. Ross
In taproom, when the wind was wailing,
Old bo’s’ns yarned of serve and splice,
Of wagers won by mighty sailing,
Of whip and warp, of trim and trice.
No more are clippers trade-wind driven;
We scarce remember, save in rhymes,
The names their rigging lines were given—■
Long lingo of hard-bitten times.
A maze of flax and coir and cotton,
Of ramie, bark, vine, hemp and jute,
The very twists and lays forgotten,
Since steel and nylon won repute.
We class their halyards, sheets and braces,
Their lifts and lanyards, vangs and guys,
As ropes that led to many places And sinewed spars in multi-plies.
But take a full-rigged ship, from master Down to the boy, they knew each one,
And how to haul or pay it faster Or reeve or snub or let it run.
Yet “ropes” as such they had hut seven In all that lexicon of lines,
That cobweb spun from deck to heaven,
Which Knight in Seamanship defines:
“Man rope,” on gangway to the landing;
“Foot rope,” the beckets under yard,
To furl and reef for risky standing!
They held their swabs in light regard!
The “top rope” swayed topm’st for staying; The “bolt rope” edged the cloth for roach;
The “bell rope” was for watch and praying; The “wheel rope” whirled to save a broach.
There was one more, and it no piker,
I’d like to’ve been it if I could.
The “back rope” of the dolphin striker—
That tough and trusty stick of wood.
From sheer of bow past bobstay bending,
It held the jib boom to its search For new horizons, never ending,
And foiled the sea at plunge or lurch.
It’s gone the way of all its brothers,
It did its job, not best or worst,
But on the voyage with all the others It led the rest and did it first.