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10
Where We Were
November 1919—Upwards of 600 Smiths have graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy, but only Roy Campbell Smith (Class of 1878) was followed there by a namesake son, grandson, and great-grandson, all of whom became Proceedings authors. Captain Roy I, having completed a tour as governor of Guam in February ot this year, recalls what it was like for an active duty naval officer to administer "The Economic Development of Guam” for almost three years.
Guam’s economy was ripe for development when Roy was ordered there in 1916, to find the island’s 15,000 population fighting a losing battle against rats and iguanas, as it had since America took over from Spain in 1898. Roy threw money at the problem. He offered a bounty of two cents a head for rats and a dime for every lizard gizzard. Over the next 20 months it cost Uncle Sam $43,674.71 to buy a greener, cleaner Guam as Roy’s campaign netted 1.78 million rats and 51,516 iguanas.
The article makes no mention of the Navy Cross Roy brought back from Guam—not for his pest-control efforts, but for his forcible internment of the German warship Kormoran at the outbreak of World War 1.
November 1939—In “Alaska—The Top of the Axis," Chief Boatswain M. A. Ransom joins former longshoreman Jack London and former bank clerk Robert W. Service on the short list of unlikely authors who fell under the spell of the “North Country." In his fifth Proceedings article, the veteran Coast Guard enlisted man urges Americans to stop plundering and start populating our last territorial frontier. If we don’t, he bluntly warns, Japan will—because Alaska and the Aleutians are just as much a target of Japanese expansion as the Philippines and the Hawaiian Islands.
If Ransom, writing two years before Pearl Harbor, could foresee all this, why couldn't the rest of his countrymen? The Proceedings reader, for one, was getting mixed signals. In this same issue, a Professional Note quotes the Chicago Tribune's myopic view of Japan’s new “policy of conciliation and of friendship for the United States. . . “So long as Japan remains on its side of the Pacific and the United States on its own, the two lands are separated by a wide spread of protective ocean, useful for trade but a deterrent to war. . . If we refrain from intervention in Asia, Japan will refrain from hostility to America.”
November 1959—The elasticity of the English language can be seen in “The Navy Sails the Inland Seas’’ and two unrelated anecdotes. As the “Queen of Canada,” Elizabeth II nautically and nicely responds to the signal from the commander of the U. S. Navy’s Task Force 47, who represents his country at the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in June, 1959. She replies: “I send you my best congratulations for the fine display of United States and Canadian ships thrown up in Lake St. Louis. . .”
When the thrown-up ships dispersed, the USS Oglethorpe (AKA-100), led the procession through the Seaway. To do so, she took on board a veteran “Laker” pilot who asked her helmsman “See the haystack there to the north of Peggy’s barn? Well, keep it open to the north 'til we are abreast of the outhouse, then we’ll haul northwest. . . Give me a little left rudder. . .
We’ll stay on this course ’till the haystack can be seen through both the north and the south barn doors. . .”
Halfway around the world, as the USS Walke (DD-723) patrolled the Formosa Straits she passed a Chinese tug that blinked a friendly “WHERE YOU GO?” and she replied “NORTH.” Several hours later, the Walke was ordered to return to port, and again came in sight of the tug, which blinked “WHERE YOU GO NOW?” and was told “SOUTH.” Shortly afterward, a new radio message cancelled the order, sending the Walke north once again. As she overtook the tug for the third time, she received another flashing- light message, which the signalman seemed reluctant to pass on to the CO. Finally, he asked, “What did he say this time?”
“Captain—he said “YOU NO NO WHERE YOU GO!”
Clay Barrow
San Diego for this year’s conference- mark your calendars for the 1991 eve
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