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In early March of 1941, as a senior lieutenant, I was commanding officer of the cutter Calypso in Baltimore.[1]
One Saturday night my wife and 1 were at a dance at the Maryland Yacht Club. At about 11 o’clock, someone came up and said I was wanted on the telephone. I was told that Commander Carl Abel, who was captain of the port of Baltimore, was in the hospital, seriously ill. His assistant, a chief warrant officer, did not have available to him any of the codes and ciphers. There were several messages to the captain of the port that had not been acknowledged, and could not be, because he was in a coma in the hospital. The safe containing the codes and ciphers could not be opened immediately by anybody else. So he, the chief of staff, would have to paraphrase the contents of the various messages over the telephone.
The first was to place a watch as soon as practicable on all Italian vessels in the harbor, and to be prepared to go on board and seize them at a moment’s notice, careful to prevent sabotage. As a final caution, I was to allow absolutely no publicity. In plain language, I was told to assume duty as captain of the port of Baltimore. It was then 12 o’clock at night. The possible time given for the seizure was the next morning at nine.
I had available 35 or 36 men from my own crew on the Calypso immobilized because her main engines were torn down; a tug with a crew of nine or ten men; a 125-footer with about 18 men; a 75-footer with seven or eight men. And I had the job of taking over two Italian freighters, each with a crew of 35 or 36 men, in the harbor.
Throughout the United States, there were probably a dozen Italian ships, maybe three or four German ships, and other foreign vessels in U. S. ports. It turned out that a plan had been developed by the Italian naval attache in Washington to sabotage all the Italian ships, which had been interned to all intents and purposes if not, as yet, by law. The Italians didn’t dare go to sea, because the British would sink them.
Under the Espionage Act, we were forbidden to damage a vessel.
I was told that for additional manpower I could call on the training station in the Coast Guard yard at nearby Curtis Bay, Maryland. So I did call, and received a promise of a platoon of troops with one or two petty officers and a couple of warrant officers to help me on the following morning.
I stayed up all night making arrangements. My wife had been at the dance with me, of course, and I didn’t want to let her go home alone. So I brought her on board and had her turn in in my bunk, violating, of course, every regulation the Coast Guard ever had about women on board ship overnight. (We had a live-in maid for babysitting, so we could leave the children.)
The following morning at seven o’clock, the detail reported from the Coast Guard yard, and my own people were ready. I had the tug Calumet (WYT-86) for transportation to the ships at anchor.
I was particularly worried about sabotage, the opening of sea valves and so forth, to sink the ships. I had two engineers available, both chief warrant machinists. To each of them I assigned the job of immediately locating the sea valves on the ships, with guards, to make sure the valves weren’t open. 1 broke up the rest of the party. Then I received orders from Washington to seize the vessels.
About that time, the enterprising young waterfront reporter from The Baltimore Sun arrived on the scene and asked what we were doing. It was Sunday morning, and I told him we were holding landing force drill. He laughed in my face, saying it wasn’t usual to hold landing force drill on the dock at that time on Sunday morning. He had a tip that we were going to seize the Italian ships.
I’d been told, first of all, to allow no publicity. Secondly, the Italians were to have absolutely no warning until we actually walked on board. I was in the proverbial dilemma as to what to do with this reporter. I finally decided that if he was with me on the tug, he could not spread the word. I also knew if I didn’t take him with me, the entire operation would be on the radio within 20 minutes. So I approached him with a proposition. I said, “All right. I’d like you to come along. Yes, we’re going to seize the Italian ships. I’ll let you come along, provided you stay on the Calumet. And everything you watch will be from the bridge of the Calumet." I was worried about a civilian getting hurt should there be a fight. I said, “And lay off the use of my name in this.” He agreed to that, and we went out. I still didn’t know what was going to happen to me for directly violating an order.
We went aboard at nine o’clock. Immediately our people spread out, some to the engine room, some to the bridge, and so forth. I sought out the masters, whom I had already met in my previous tour as temporary captain of the port. We had been on a rather friendly basis; we even had dinner once on board the ship. I explained why we were there. It wasn’t until 24 hours later that I learned the ships had been badly sabotaged. One of their crew had fired a boiler dry and melted it completely down. A number of valves had been smashed by sledge hammers, and the anchor engine on one of them was wrecked. One stupid group had even hacksawed through the propeller shaft, which was easily repaired.
One of my instructions was to take the Italians ashore immediately. We had each man get his personal gear together (clothing, shaving gear, and all that sort of thing), and we were able to get them to the Coast Guard yard early in the forenoon. Nobody, including myself, had given a thought as to where these people were going to be stowed. They couldn’t be turned loose. The immigration laws of the United States wouldn’t have permitted it. Here we had some 70-odd foreign seamen with no place to eat or sleep, and I had personal responsibility for them. Then the doctor in charge of the quarantine station came in. He had a couple of empty barracks which could be used. He couldn’t feed them, but they could sleep in the barracks. Captain LeRoy Reinburg, the commandant at Curtis Bay training station, agreed that for a day he could feed them. A day and a half later, the U. S. marshal took them off my hands and put them in local jails.
Late Sunday afternoon, having been
154
Proceedings / December 19*®
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up all night and just about completing the job, I was looking forward to some rest. Instead, I received a radio message directing me to dial a certain number in Washington immediately. It turned out to be the number of the Coast Guard Commandant, Rear Admiral Russell Waesche. When I identified myself, he gave me my next instructions—-to take custody of all the Danish ships in the port of Baltimore.
Above is an edited excerpt from the Naval Institute oral history of the late Captain Capron. It was taken from portions of two inten'iews conducted on behalf of the Institute by Peter Spectre on 30 November and 6 December 1969. The transcript of the eight interviews covering Capron’s entire career comprises 379 pages and is available for research at the Naval Institute and the Naval Historical Center in Washington. To obtain a catalog listing the more than 130 individual volumes of oral history in the Naval Institute collection, please send $2.00 to Director of Oral History,
U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland 21402.
The peaceful Port of Baltimore in 1941 was a long way from the Battle of the Atlantic then underway, but then-Lieutenant Capron was nonetheless ordered to seize Italian ships interned there before their crews could sabotage them.
Proceedings / December 1985
[1]The 165-foot, 357-ton Calypso was a sister ship of the presidential yacht Potomac (AC-25). The Calypso herself was a commissioned Navy vessel (AG-35) from 17 May 1941 until returned to the Coast Guard on 20 January 1942.