Hampton Roads Naval Museum

By Elijah Palmer
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Many people, both Sailor and civilian, drive on Admiral Taussig Boulevard every day as the road forms the main route onto Naval Station Norfolk. It runs several miles from Little Creek Road at Wards Corner and ends several miles later on the naval base, terminating between piers 5 & 6. But like many street names, it is doubtful that more than a handful know about the man whose name is honored by the road.

Vice Admiral Joseph K. Taussig was born into a Navy family in 1877, the son of Rear Admiral Edward D. Taussig. He attended the Naval Academy at Annapolis and in 1898, while a midshipman aboard USS New York, he participated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. In 1900, Taussig also was part of one of the relief expeditions during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Most famously, as a commander in World War I, Taussig was in command of Destroyer Division 8 which comprised the first Navy ships to arrive in Europe to fight against the Germans. This event is portrayed in Bernard Gribble's notable painting, Return of the Mayflower. When asked by a British admiral when the destroyers would be ready to join the fight, Taussig replied, "We are ready now, sir."

USS Wadsworth (DD-60), flagship of Taussig's Destroyer Division 8. This ship is in the foreground of Bernard Gribble's painting.

Taussig was promoted to captain in September 1918. The chevrons on his left sleeve are service chevrons for being in combat zones. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for attacking a German U-boat. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Due to frequent spats with Franklin D. Roosevelt, both when he was assistant secretary of the Navy and as president, Taussig's promotions were delayed. In 1938, his seventh year as a rear admiral, Taussig was put in charge of the Norfolk Navy Yard and the Fifth Naval District, which included Naval Operating Base Norfolk. This would prove beneficial to both Hampton Roads and the Navy.

As the Navy prepared for war in the early 1940s, Norfolk's infrastructure was stretched, with a housing shortage being a prominent problem. This of course was due to the "boomtown" nature of the area during this time, much as the city had expanded rapidly during World War I. Admrial Taussig coordinated with Norfolk city officials to explore options to better the situation. He had the Navy build a housing development near the naval base, while Norfolk also built a neighborhood (Merrimack Park) near Chambers Field, just east of the base. Just as importantly, Taussig worked with city and federal officials to improve the roads connecting the city with the base, which led Norfolk to name the improved thoroughfare after the admiral.

Admiral Taussig Boulevard was built during the 1940s (maps and aerial photos from 1944 show it in some form) by lengthening Kersloe Road (built by 1921) which ran parallel with the Virginian Railroad line towards the base. The Kersloe road ended just south of where the main runway of today's Chambers Field is located. This stretch was extended up to connect with what was then called 99th Street, which connected Ocean View with the 99th Street Pier (near Pier 6 on the naval base today). To the west of the this new intersection was included as part of Taussig Boulevard, while to the east, 99th Street was eventually named Bellinger Boulevard.

1939 map showing Kersloe Road ending at the rail line in the middle of the picture, and the eventual route of Admiral Taussig Boulevard in red (Map from Norfolk, Virginia: Evolution of a City in Maps by Irwin M. Berent)

The boulevard quickly became the main artery into the naval base. The intersection of Admiral Taussig and Granby Street (at Wards Corner) was a bustling intersection, and for over a decade was adorned with the famous airplane, the "Turtle," which had set the world distance flight record in 1946.

The Turtle near the beginning of Admiral Taussig Blvd at Wards Corner (from Norfolk, Virginia: Evolution of a City in Maps)

The Turtle at Wards Corner. The cars in the foreground are on Granby Street, with traffic barely visible on Admiral Taussig Boulevard to the left of the plane. (photo courtesy of HRNM docent Ira R. Hanna)

The plane was removed in preparation for the 1970s expansion of most of Admiral Taussig Boulevard into the now three mile-long interstate classified as I-564 (although it retained its original name as well). This was a much needed renovation as during the 50s and 60s, the stretch of road to the naval base was known for its frequent accidents and fatalities. It did not help that there were no street lights illuminating the boulevard. The project was a success and greatly improved the base commute.

Near the ramp onto I-564 at Wards Corner today (Google streetview)

However with its heavy use and increased traffic volume, the route is now in need of further expansion. The Virginia Department of Transportation is currently conducting a project to further expand Admiral Taussig Boulevard as part of a major traffic overhaul around the naval base. While Sailors might not appreciate traffic delays stemming from this project, they should definitely be grateful for the work Admiral Taussig put forth in improving the lives of both past, current, and future Sailors.

By Katherine A. Renfrew
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Registrar

The true Craney Island has not been an island for more than 55 years. Extending into the Elizabeth River, the island became a peninsula when the U.S. Navy began filling in a branch of Craney Island Creek in 1938. Now it’s the Craney Island Fuel Terminal, the U.S. Navy’s largest fuel facility in the continental United States. It is operated by Fleet and Industrial Supply Center (FISC) Norfolk’s Fuel Department under the Navy Supply Systems Command. With 1,100 acres of above and below-ground fuel storage tanks, the terminal has extensive capabilities for fueling/defueling ships and other vessels.

Aerial view of Craney Island Fuel Depot, looking south, August 22, 1942. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1942_02 / RG 71-CB, Box 90, Folder, Craney Island Fuel Depot, Aerial View)

The images below show the years when the Navy started rehabilitating the area for use as a fuel depot. Most of the construction was done by employees of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal agency that employed millions of people to carry out public works projects.

Workers make their way along the “bicycle path” leading to the administration building, which was formerly used as a quarantine hospital, August, 3, 1938. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1938_01 / RG 71-CA, Box 311, Folder A)

Up-close view of workers repairing the quarantine quarters, August, 3, 1938. These buildings were considered the oldest on the island, dating back to before the Civil War. It was used as an infirmary and then a quarantine hospital for smallpox sufferers. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1938_02 / RG 71-CA, Box 311, Folder A)

“Reconditioned quarters," looking southwest, September 1, 1938. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1938_03 / RG 71-CA, Box 311, Folder A)

Workers grading the soil around oil tank Nos. 5 & 6 inside berm, looking east, September 1, 1938. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1938_05 / RG 71-CF, Box 1, Folder Virginia, Naval Base Norfolk.)

View showing diesel oil line from Tank No. 4 to pump house, looking east, June 7, 1939. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1939_03 / RG 71-CA, Box 311, Folder A)

General view of foam and diesel oil lines along southeast waterfront, looking southeast, May 4, 1939. (National Archives and Records Administration- Craney Island-1939_12 / RG 71-CA, Box 311, Folder A)

This brief history of the Craney Island Fuel Deport is the sixth in a series of blog posts illustrating the development of U.S. Navy facilities in Hampton Roads. Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this series represent the results of a research project seeking images of Hampton Roads naval installations at the National Archives and Records Administration. This research, performed by the Southeastern Archaeological Research, Incorporated (SEARCH), was funded by Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, as part of an ongoing effort to provide information on historic architectural resources at Navy bases in Hampton Roads. The museum is pleased to present these images for the benefit of the general public and interested historians. As far as we know, all of these images are in the public domain and none of them have been published before.

By Reece Nortum
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Piracy and Privateering, a specialized category of officially sanctioned piracy defined as "activities by armed privately-owned vessel(s) commissioned for war service by a government," presented a threat in the waters of the New World going back to the earliest days of colonization. Many of the new colonies had a large number of people turn to privateering due to the harsh times they were facing ashore, made worse after needed supply ships were either lost at sea or to attacks by foreign pirates or privateers just off shore.

Examples of pirate flags from (left) the late-18th Century, and the early 19th Century (right).

Piracy and privateering in the waters of the New World continued to be a constant danger to American shipping for two more centuries, even after the American Revolution. The threat to American merchant shipping from privateers dramatically increased after the beginning of the French Revolution, a decade-long period of political upheaval that began in 1789.

On January 2, 1794, the House of Representatives had voted to authorize building a Navy in order to meet the challenges posed by French privateers in the Caribbean and Atlantic, as well as others operating in the Mediterranean from bases in North Africa. Secretary of War Henry Knox submitted proposals to the committee outlining the design and cost of warships. To appease the strong opposition to the upcoming bill because of the high costs, with the government still in the substantial debt incurred during the Revolutionary War, the Federalist Party inserted a clause into the bill that would bring an abrupt halt to the construction if the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. A diplomatic settlement with the Barbary States in North Africa would potentially make the Mediterranean shipping lanes more secure for American merchant vessels, negating the need for a large, expensive navy. Construction of the frigates slowly continued until the 1796 announcement of the Treaty of Tripoli being signed. In accordance with the clause in the Naval Act, construction of the frigates was to be discontinued. However, President Washington requested instructions from Congress on how to proceed. Later an agreement was reached allowing Washington to complete two of the 44-gun and one of the 36-gun frigates. The three frigates nearest to completion, United States, Constellation and Constitution, were ultimately chosen, while construction was halted on the Chesapeake, Congress, and President, and some of their construction materials were sold or placed in storage.

During the presidency of John Adams (1797-1801), "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" became the rallying cry of the Federalists as Adams ordered the completion of the three frigates that had had been under construction since 1794: United States, Constellation, and Constitution.

Completing these vessels became imperative, not because of a collapse of the accord with the Barbary States, but because of a new threat to American merchant vessels posed by an erstwhile ally. French privateers were preying upon American shipping in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Congress also authorized 1,000 privateers as additional security forces for the ports and shipping channels to defend against French aggression. By May 1798, the 24 gun man-of-war USS Ganges, a former merchant vessel purchased and pressed into naval service, was guarding the coast between Long Island and Chesapeake Bay, and was later joined by USS Constellationand USSUnited States.

Congress rescinded all post-Revolutionary War peace treaties with France that were originally signed on September 3, 1783. The regime that had signed the treaties was swept away in the chaos and upheaval of the French Revolution nearly six years later, and the current French foreign minister had demanded $250,000 in gifts, and $6 million in loans. After his request was denied by President Adams, France began sending privateer ships to conduct piracy in order to get what France felt they deserved. In July 1798, USS Delawarewas patrolling the shipping lanes and captured the French privateer La Croyableoff Egg Harbor, New Jersey, as she preyed upon merchant shipping. Soon afterward, Congress authorized American warships to conduct offensive operations against French privateers. Following this order, the US Navy sent 25 ships to the Caribbean to conduct counter-piracy operations.

The so-called "Quasi-War" with France began as an effort to defeat French privateers, but ships of the rejuvenated American Navy also fought French naval vessels. In this painting by John William Schmidt, USS Constellation battles French frigate L'Insurgente in the Caribbean in February 1899. (Naval History and Heritage Command Image)

The most famous battles involved the frigate USS Constellation, a 38-gun ship commanded by Thomas Truxtun. The first of many engagements occurred on February 9, 1799, which involved the 36-gun L'Insurgente, a larger and more heavily armed vessel. Commanded by Captain Michel-Pierre Barreaut, the French frigate had plagued American shipping for years. The bold, largely unchallenged French attempted to board USS Constellation, but Truxtun was able to maneuver away and fire on L'Insurgente, leading to Captain Barreaut's surrender. Almost a year later, February 1, 1800, USS Constellation engaged the 52-gun frigate La Vengeance. Constellation pounded the French ship for five hours, but La Vengeance was able to escape under the cover of darkness that night. From New York to Havana, these long shipping lanes continued to be patrolled by American vessels until piracy was all but eliminated in this part of the world in the 1830s.


The aft 5-inch 38 caliber gun of the Liberty ship SS John W. Brown, one of only two in America that have been restored to operational condition, is seen in the foreground of this panorama taken in downtown Norfolk during her recent visit, which also includes USS Wisconsin (BB-64). Among museum ships, battleships are far more plentiful and enjoy a vastly higher profile, yet the Liberty Ships, which were much cheaper to build than battleships and disposed of for pennies on the dollar after the Second World War, had a greater role in the allied victory. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

Having made the transatlantic crossing, Liberty ships gather in Cherbourg harbor, France in July 1944. An LCT (Landing Craft, Tank) and a DUKW (the amphibious Army cargo truck popularly known as the "duck") can be seen in the foreground. (National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Curator via Flickr)

It's the time of year when our thoughts in the Tidewater turn to the heat. That sultry haze that settles over Hampton Roads that one can see while stranded on either side of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, or the shimmering mirages over the roads of Norfolk or Newport News. But if nothing else, history gives us a sense of how fortunate we are today with our air conditioning and moisture-wicking fabrics. Imagine standing watch, scanning the horizon endlessly from the gun tub of a Liberty ship under the blazing sun off the coast of North Africa or transiting the South Pacific below decks amid the soot, clatter and drone in an engineering space so hot that a few minutes of it could bring on heat exhaustion.

During the Second World War, on multiple voyages that frequently took her to and from Hampton Roads, SS John W. Brown delivered tanks and ammunition to Russia and American Soldiers sojourned aboard her on their way to the invasions of North Africa, Southern France and Italy. Some of the axis prisoners they took returned on the ship to the United States for internment. All the while, members of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard, many of whom underwent training at the Armed Guard School at Little Creek, Virginia, stood continual watches in the gun tubs distributed about her upper decks. During the landings in Southern France, they could claim the downing of an attacking German aircraft. The end of the war did not end her wartime mission as the Brown continued transporting much needed coal and grain to Europe, and bringing back hundreds of Americans on her return journeys.

A portion of the James River Reserve Fleet, photographed in 1990 by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Martin Norman. This was the end of the line for hundreds of Liberty ships that were either sold off to foreign governments, private shipping companies, or ship breakers. Many were also used as targets during live-fire exercises. (U.S. Navy Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

From 1946 to 1982, she escaped the fates that befell most of the over 2,700 Liberty ships produced during the war, serving as a floating vocational high school in New York City. For several years afterward her station was with the James River Reserve Fleet off Ft. Eustis, one of the thousands of vessels belonging to the National Defense Reserve Fleet. But before John W. Brown could be consigned to the torch, become a practice target or serve as a new artificial reef, rescue arrived in the form of an organization called Project Liberty Ship, dedicated to preserving the hybrid troop transport as a part of its mission to preserve the memory of the ships, the hundreds of thousands of merchant mariners, and the nearly 145,000 Sailors of the Armed Guard who served, fought, and sometimes died aboard them.

SS John W. Brown, shown in 2012 at her home port of Baltimore, Maryland, opposite Ft. McHenry. (MKelly/ Wikimedia Commons)

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill authorizing the transfer of SS John W. Brown from the U.S. Government to Project Liberty Ship, and she was moved from the reserve fleet down to a Norfolk shipyard, where volunteers spent hundreds of hours restoring her to original condition, even reinstalling many of the same types of guns used by the armed guards. She now resides in Baltimore, where she was launched on Labor Day, September 7, 1942, from Fairfield Shipyard, a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, approximately 41 days after her keel was laid. Additional outfitting took approximately another month before she was ready to serve. At the time, Liberty ships typically cost $1.7 million to produce.

Typical layout of a multi-purpose Liberty ship. (National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph Curator via Flickr)

Originally designed for transporting cargo only, SS John W. Brown was one of the many Liberty ships converted to transport passengers; American troops as well as enemy prisoners of war. Many of the converted passenger liners dedicated to the task of transporting personnel were simply too large to deliver troops to where they were needed as the allied tide swept the Axis powers back throughout North Africa and the Mediterranean, so the US Army’s Chief of Transportation made the call to convert many of the Liberty Ships to "Limited Capacity Troopships." Approximately 40% of the allied troops that embarked from Hampton Roads during the war, 202,247 from June 1943 to May 1944 alone, were transported on the modified Liberty Ships. John W. Brown alone is believed to have carried 10,000 military personnel from both sides during the war.

The cylinder head of SS John W. Brown covers a 76 inch-wide piston the largest in its triple-expansion engine. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

Her engineering section amidships is dominated by two gigantic boilers providing steam at 200 pounds per-square-inch that is used for the steering gear, the cargo winches, and even the ship’s whistle. But what the steam is mostly used for is its engine. Its cylinder head towers nearly 25 feet over the engineering space main deck, giving the visitor the feeling of being shut up under the hood of a gigantic delivery truck sitting at idle.

Hal Raper, a retired Navy dental officer and engineering volunteer for the Brown, explains the operation of the triple-expanding engine on the upper deck of the engineering space. The cylinder head can be seen behind him to the left. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

In a standard internal combustion engine, a fuel-air mixture is delivered to individual cylinders that are equal in size and that co-equally drive the crankshaft they are connected to through coordinated, electronically-timed explosions, which push the pistons inside the cylinders and the rods that connect them with the crankshaft downward. What remains of the fuel-air mixture after combustion is quickly removed via exhaust valves, whereupon more fuel and air is drawn into the cylinders by the pistons and the whole process starts again. By comparison, the massive pistons within the condensing, triple-expansion engine aboard John Brown, typical of those aboard liberty ships, aren’t directly propelled by combustion at all.

In a direct-acting, condensing engine, steam heated by the boilers enters the first 24-inch cylinder at 200 psi and pushes a piston within it downward, allowing the rapidly expanding and cooling steam through a valve into a second 36-inch cylinder, pushing the second piston downward and allowing the steam through another valve into a third, 76-inch cylinder. At 76 RPM, it can produce 2,500 shaft horsepower and propel the ship at around 11 knots.

Robert Mullarky prepares to light SS John W. Brown's port boiler. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

Although they were designed with the latest mass-production techniques in mind, Liberty ships were not designed with modern means of propulsion. Robert Mullarky, a professional marine engineer from Baltimore acting as John W. Brown's chief engineer during the visit to Norfolk, explained that the design of the propulsion system was antiquated, even by 1940s standards. "The basic design goes back to the 1880s-1890s,"explained Mullarky. In 1942, the U.S. Maritime Commission chose an 1879 design based on a British "powered scow," that became the mass-produced British Ocean class and the American Liberty ships. The design had a proven track record on the Atlantic Ocean, and the cargo vessels could be made economically, using a wide range of production methods and shipyards.

Mullarky said that ambient temperatures in the engineering spaces are kept tolerable while underway by giant forced draft fans on the engine room floor, which draw in air through the ventilators sticking out above the main deck like giant horns. The air is vital for maintaining combustion within the boilers, which while underway are hot enough inside to melt steel. The inrush of air also helps regulate the engine room's ambient temperature, but the seawater temperature outside the skin of the ship is also an important factor, which at the time of their visit was in the low 60s Fahrenheit. Setting aside the constant threat of a torpedo attack, the lower water temperatures of a wartime run to the North Atlantic would make the experience for the engineers fairly tolerable. Ambient water temperatures in the South Pacific during the war, however, were known to get into the upper 80s. Under those circumstances, Mullarky said, the temperature within the engineering spaces could reach 120 degrees.

Hundreds of new chief petty officer selectees from around the region converged on the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in downtown Norfolk before dawn on August 15 to begin the 16th annual CPO Heritage Days. The three-day event, hosted at Nauticus and aboard the battleship Wisconsin (BB-64), gives prospective chiefs the opportunity to learn more about their history, their heritage, and what their new roles and responsibilities in fulfilling the Navy's mission will be.

Led by a serving chief petty officer, CPO selectees are led as a unit from their muster point at Town Point Park before dawn. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

One of the chief petty officers leading the event gives instructions to the assembled selectees before moving from Town Point Park to the battleship Wisconsin. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Several hundred chief petty officer selectees as well as the current chief petty officers guiding them line up in front of the national maritime center Nauticus (also home to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum), waiting to board the museum ship USS Wisconsin (BB-64). (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

In front of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, chief petty officer selectees for fiscal year 2017 await word to board USS Wisconsin (BB-64) to begin their training as the chief petty officer leading them looks on. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Led by chief petty officers from regional Navy commands, CPO selectees approach the museum ship USS Wisconsin (BB-64), where the instructional portion of their day is to begin. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Wearing the type of uniform a chief petty officer would have worn in a battleship's engineering spaces during World War II, Hampton Roads Naval Museum Volunteer Coordinator Tom Dandes, who is also a retired senior chief boiler technician, shares the story of the selfless dedication shown by Chief Water Tender Peter Tomich during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, for which Tomich was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Although the instruction took place in the battleship Wisconsin's CPO Mess, the high temperatures below decks added a visceral touch. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

On the fantail of the museum ship USS Wisconsin (BB-64), chief petty officer selectees are given instructions before transitioning from the classroom portion of the day's CPO Heritage Days events that were held aboard the battleship, moving down the aft gangway to the adjoining museum Nauticus, where the competitions between commands would begin. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Bearing the guidon used by the chief petty officer selectees of his command, a selectee departs the museum ship Wisconsin (BB-64) after attending the classroom portion of the day's CPO Heritage Days events aboard the battleship. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

A chief petty officer selectee "presents the colors" of the Norfolk-based cruiser Vella Gulf (CG-72) to a Hampton Roads Naval Museum panel composed of Deputy Education Director Laura Orr, Exhibits Specialist Don Darcy, museum volunteer (and retired senior chief) April Maletz, and Volunteer Coordinator Tom Dandes. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

On Monday, August 15, 2016, Hampton Roads Naval Museum Deputy Education Director Laura Orr helps a panel of judges from the museum evaluate the unit "colors" of a group of chief petty officer selectees as an audience of current chief petty officers observes the proceedings. CPO Heritage Days continues through August 17. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM) Director Elizabeth A. Poulliot. (Photograph by Diana Gordon)

By Joseph Judge
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Curator

Mrs. Elizabeth A. Poulliot – Becky – is closing a career in which she has faithfully served the United States Navy and the people of our region here at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. Her oversight of this invaluable community institution has been a decades-long example of public service.

Becky with MGEN Dennis Murphy, former Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Naval Historical Foundation. “General Murphy we are going to need a lot of money for this Nauticus move. I’m serious as a heart attack.”

Becky was hired by the Commander of the Norfolk Naval Base in 1989. As a Naval Base staff officer gleefully told me, referring to her previous employment with another branch of the service, “We stole her from the Army!”

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum at that time was ten years old. It was located in an historic building on the Naval Station – the former Pennsylvania state pavilion, a replica of Independence Hall. Its mission, according to the Atlantic Fleet Commander, was to “to publicize and enhance the Navy’s image not only in Tidewater but, through tourism, nationwide.”

A young staff in front of the Pennsylvania House just prior to moving downtown. The three civilians, Becky, the author and Ofelia Elbo, were joined by LTJG Rob Haas, assigned to the staff by Commander Naval Base. LT Hass was one a large group of military personnel working under Becky in a variety of tasks over the years.

Becky arrived in Norfolk to find not an example of a big museum with a nationwide profile but instead a small museum with a permanent staff of three. She was immediately given two important charges: to professionalize the museum’s basic operations in accordance with American Association of Museum standards, and to prepare the museum for a possible move to the new maritime center called “Nauticus” that the City of Norfolk was planning for the downtown waterfront.

She also brought her own style to the museum, which I witnessed when I called her one day to ask about a job. “How are things going?” Answer: “Great! The staff ordered pizza for lunch!” Those were the years of self-catered Christmas parties in the PA House. One memorable year we left a tray of Christmas spinach hors d'oeuvres in the oven and found them in February. That was the same kitchen with a small table at which the staff would gather for lunch and discuss the burning issues of the day, and eat the spicy food of the day. It was there we learned to reply not “Yes ma’am” but rather “Yes miss” to the director. “I’m not old enough to be called ma’am and I don’t like to hear it.” Aye aye.

Meanwhile, the operative word for the museum’s relocation was “possible” as negotiations for the future kicked into high gear. Moving a museum – forging a new relationship with a brand-new and controversial civilian entity- were daunting tasks, especially with a small staff. However, as FDR said, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. And Becky was a skilled sailor.

Becky immediately directed the staff to organize the museum’s collection for the new and expanded exhibits for Nauticus. She instituted the museum’s first automated collections management system and tackled the underwhelming storage facility(including rousting out sleeping naval personnel from that building), a former liquor store known in the alpha-numeric jargon of the base as G-29C. Great improvements were made in all important areas of museum management. She also fought pigeons in the clock tower and cleaned a chandelier.

In March, 1994, the Navy and the City of Norfolk reached a basic agreement on moving the Hampton Roads Naval Museum to Nauticus. This agreement was complex and Becky spent months representing the interests of the Navy and the taxpayers. She carried out this duty day after day through four years of serious negotiations. Memorably, she carried on while awaiting the birth of a daughter, while fighting a termite invasion, while moving, while enduring losses of loved ones, and while educating and re-educating new arrivals to the chain of command, as is the Navy way.

Things were different downtown, at first. Some of the museum staff made a break for it one Harborfest. Becky to the author: “Have you seen what’s going on out there?” This was one of the many assignments/questions over the years, including the command to run after and stop US Senator John Warner.

The result was the first Department of Defense museum to relocate to a non-federal facility. This move was a model for the entire Department of Defense museum system and the terms of the agreement have saved taxpayers millions of dollars since 1994. The “new” Hampton Roads Naval Museum opened on June 1, 1994.

The move to Nauticus required a first-class museum education program to compliment the museum’s increases in size and importance. Becky recruited the first volunteer corps, the source of deep friendships and much joy in the years to come. The museum began offering professional programs and tours for children and adults. Over time the museum educators travelled to every school system in Hampton Roads. Additionally, the museum has welcomed important speakers on the history of the Navy. Some of the more important individuals who have spoken to the community under the museum’s banner include: John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy; James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy; Dr. Harold Langley, Curator Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution and Dr. James McPherson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. There were many others, including one who stood before the audience and intoned, “Now what do you want me to say?” As Becky told us all over the years, it’s good to laugh.

Becky worked for many different commands and leaders. Here she is with her ideal model of a boss. Admiral Jake Tobin, Admiral Tim Zeimer and CDR Jeremy Gillespie were close seconds.

The museum, now settled within the Nauticus building, also continued its series of successful temporary exhibits. Some of the more important included an exhibit on Lord Nelson, borrowed from the Royal Navy Museum; “Without Us They Don’t Fly: NADEP” (the Aircraft Maintenance Facility in Norfolk); “The Sailor’s Best Friend: Animals and the US Navy”; and “Cuba Libre: The Spanish American War.”

By 1998 Becky had successfully accomplished the two tasks that the Navy had asked of her in 1989. Before she could rest on her laurels, however, another assignment appeared. In November of that year the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet resolved to move the inactive battleship USS Wisconsin next door to Nauticus and to open it under Hampton Roads Naval Museum auspices as a tourist attraction. The museum was charged with managing the ship – in essence, its largest artifact.

Becky again directed her staff in a herculean task: the production of an interpretive plan for a battleship, including a tour route, volunteer assignments; exhibits; military ceremony policies and a host of other important and pressing issues. When the ship arrived in her new layberth on December 7, 2000, she was poised to be the most successful tourist attraction in the state of Virginia. Indeed in 2001 over 400,000 people walked the teak decks of the ship in only nine months. Her staff now required a military/civilian watchbill with over 22 names.

Her true happiness in work was in the people around her, like long-time volunteer and Board member Hunt Lewis. “I can’t come to that meeting, I’m eating lunch with the volunteers today.”

Years of hard work were recognized in December, 2008, when HRNM was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the 4th Navy museum, and the second museum Southside to earn this accomplishment (the first being the Chrysler Museum of Art.) Accreditation is the gold standard for museum excellence in the United States.

In the midst of the accreditation process and managing a battleship, Becky shepherded the museum through a re-alignment in which all Navy museums were placed under the Naval Historical Center (later the Naval History and Heritage Command). She was thus in a position to assist the Navy’s national historical programs. Another change occurred in December 2009, when the Navy donated the Wisconsin to the City of Norfolk. HRNM continues to offer military ceremonies on the ship as a benefit to the region’s active duty Sailors.

It has been said by the writer David Brooks that life is a process of commitment making. And further said that character is defined by deep connections that hold you up in times of challenge and push you toward the good. Becky made commitments to the Navy and the people of Hampton Roads. She built connections among many groups to the benefit of all. Museums are her calling, and while her retirement is a loss for HRNM, her legacy is on view every day at the museum. That is quite the journey from a young lady with a staff of three in 1989.

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”– Jeremiah 29:11

USS Tennessee, after the installation of a cage mast and before her renaming as USS Memphis in May 1916. (Detroit Publishing Company Collection/ Library of Congress)

By all accounts, the morning of Tuesday, August 29, 1916 was uneventful for the roughly 1,000 men assigned to the armored cruiser Memphis (CA-10) as they went about their normal duties while anchored in roughly 45 feet of water half a mile off Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. According to the deck log of the gunboat Castine (PG-6), anchored nearby, the day opened with blue skies, light winds, and barometer readings hovering around 30 inches.

That afternoon, however, swells began coming in from the south and Captain Edward Latimer Beach, commanding officer of the Memphis, ordered that preparations be made for leaving the harbor. Only two of her 16 boilers were lighted at the time the order was passed, so the expected time for getting underway would have been approximately 4:35 pm. By 4:20, however, waves were breaking completely over the decks of the 502 foot-long vessel, water began pouring through her ventilators into the engineering spaces, and she began dragging her anchor as ever larger waves drove her inexorably closer to the rocky shore. At 4:23, her keel began striking bottom in the troughs of waves that at their peak reached between 70 and 80 feet high.

Huge waves dwarf the 212 foot-long gunboat Castine as she makes her escape from Santo Domingo. From the album of Francis Sargent, courtesy of Cmdr. John Condon, 1986. (Naval History and Heritage Command Image via Navsource)

As the largest of the waves swept over the cruiser, seawater began pouring directly down her four funnels, 70 feet above her waterline. The boilers that had been lit began exploding, filling the engineering spaces with deadly steam just as seawater rapidly poured in from the ventilation tubes above and welled up from the crumpled bottom of the ship below. Chief Machinist’s Mate George W. Rudd died at his post in the cruiser’s port engine room, while Lieutenant (later rear admiral upper-half) Claud A. Jones and Machinist Charles Willey were also awarded the nation’s highest honor for their heroic actions that day. During all this, a motor launch that had been dispatched from Memphis to the port to pick up crew members who had finished playing a baseball game ashore was also swept away. All aboard were lost, among the 43 Sailors lost that day. Over 200 were injured. Despite suffering heavy damage, the gunboat Castine had managed to get underway just after 4 pm.

USS Memphis (CA-10) on the rocks at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She lost more than three-dozen crewmen as she was driven ashore by a succession of huge waves and was battered beyond reasonable prospect of repair. Left where she lay, the wreck of USS Memphis was sold in 1922, but was not actually broken up until 1938. (Naval History and Heritage Command image via Flickr)

Then and now, many descriptions of the event still describe a tsunami as being what wrecked USS Memphis that day. This is in large part due to the efforts of Captain Edward L. Beach, Jr., the celebrated author of Run Silent, Run Deep, one of the best-selling memoirs of World War II. His book about the loss of the Memphis, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the catastrophe in 1966, made it abundantly clear that his father could not have affected the outcome of the loss for which he was court martialed. Beach’s book and other articles he wrote about the event not only kept the memory of the ship’s loss and the sacrifices and heroics of her crew alive, but it kept that memory framed in a specific way.

In 1993, he wrote in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings:

On the afternoon of 29 August 1916 she was riding quietly at anchor in Santo Domingo Harbor in the Dominican Republic. Some of her crew were ashore playing baseball, and a motor launch had just been sent to the recreation field to return them to the ship. At that moment, somewhere on the floor of the Caribbean Sea, there occurred a far-distant earthquake. Without the slightest warning, a tsunami rose abruptly from the peaceful sea. Heavy rollers began heading shoreward.

Later in the same article, Beach added:

The loss of his ship and 43 members of his crew was intensely personal to Dad. He had simply been unable to get up enough steam to get out of Santo Domingo Harbor. A week earlier, when a tropical storm blew up, he had got extra boilers on the line, and the ship under way, in 45 minutes—excellent time from a standing start for a coal-burning warship. But on 29 August he did not have 45 minutes; nor was it a tropical storm.

Following this line of reasoning, the court of inquiry that convened in September 1916 should have arrived at the conclusion that Capt. Beach could have not foreseen this calamity and could not have ordered measures that could have saved the 14,000-ton vessel. Instead, he was convicted at a general court martial in December of, among other things, being “culpably inefficient in the performance of his duty,” and was sentenced to lose 20 places in the captains’ seniority list. Despite this, the prevailing sense among the higher echelons of the Navy Department's leadership must have been that the loss of the Memphis and the deaths of 43 Sailors was something that could not have been prevented, because Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels overruled the sentence handed down by the tribunal, reducing Beach’s place in line for flag rank to only five places behind where he had been before the incident.

Then, as now, earthquakes were pretty common in the Caribbean, and assuming that one had caused the loss of the Memphis and heavy damage to the Castine would have been reasonable in the immediate wake of the incident. Nevertheless, the court of inquiry considered this as only one in a range of possible sources for the devastating waves, including tropical storms. A report on a devastating 1918 earthquake and tsunami in Puerto Rico given by the United States Earthquake Investigation Commission to the House of Representatives in 1919 divulged that monitors in Puerto Rico recorded earthquakes originating in the vicinity of Santo Domingo on April 24 and November 29, 1916, but none during August. Moreover, seismic monitors in Puerto Rico recorded nothing across the Caribbean between August 11 and October 2 of that year.

Despite sources that continue to suggest that an earthquake caused the waves that destroyed the Memphis, the past is not set in stone, and researchers have come forward since that time to make a persuasive case that the confluence of two passing hurricanes created a series of rogue waves that battered the southern coastline of Hispaniola and doomed USS Memphis. House Resolution 306, passed on June 15, 2015 in preparation for the centennial of the ship's loss, listed its cause as "a highly unusual 75-foot wave event that threw the ship upon the shore of Santo Domingo, resulting in its total destruction…"

Aside from the tragedy itself, which most accounts cast as a 90-minute catastrophe emerging literally from out of the blue, why were the Memphis and Castine at Santo Domingo on that fateful afternoon to begin with? As it turns out, they were ordered to the Dominican Republic on a mission deeply intertwined in a man-made political storm a decade in the making. With a lead time stretching over months, if not years, the destructive waves of armed conflict breaking out across the country during the summer of 1916 were nearly as unanticipated as the massive waves that broke upon the country’s southern shore the afternoon of August 29.

The public jubilation over the short, successful Spanish-American War in 1898 had by 1902 muted considerably, particularly in the wake of the Philippine insurrection against American rule. As a result, an anti-imperialist coalition in Congress virtually ensured that President Theodore Roosevelt would never secure sufficient support for the establishment of more “protectorates” such as Cuba and Panama, which were bound by treaty obligations to be protected by the United States from internal and external threats. Nevertheless, European powers were threatening to mount punitive expeditions against other countries in close proximity to America that had defaulted on loans.

The Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-03, during which British and German warships blockaded the country, resulting in a showdown with the American fleet, prompted Roosevelt to establish his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which dictated that the United States would act as an “international police power” in the event that European powers once again threatened military intervention to extract concessions over outstanding debt. Seeking to preserve American hegemony over the hemisphere, Roosevelt undertook a novel approach that would accomplish his political objectives without running afoul of the Congress. The Dominican Republic became the Roosevelt Administration’s first big test case.

In her book Financial Missionaries to the World (2003), Emily S. Rosenberg wrote, “The Dominican model became the first major effort to forge the kind of partnership that would continue to be at the heart of dollar diplomacy: a triangular relationship among financial advisors wishing to practice their new profession of fiscal rehabilitation of foreign countries; investment bankers seeking higher interest rates in foreign markets; and activist governmental officials eager to assert international influence.”

From 1904 to 1907, diplomats worked with bankers and financial advisors, mainly bureaucrats with experience in colonial administration, to forge an agreement of administrative supervision over the Dominican economy, primarily through control over customs collection, in exchange for American loans. Although the rationale for such an arrangement was explicitly nonmilitary in nature, Commander Albert C. Dillingham (who as a rear admiral would take on the task of establishing Naval Station Norfolk in 1917) also served as a prominent liaison between Secretary of State John Hay and the Dominican government as an agreement began to take shape.

Despite objections from senators who chafed at President Roosevelt’s unilateral declaration of a “fiscal protectorate” in the Dominican Republic, the Roosevelt and Taft administrations declared victory and plunged headlong into establishing similar contractual arrangements with Nicaragua, Haiti, and Liberia. American investment banks, with the support of the American government, were dealing with bankrupt nations the way they had once dealt with failing businesses. The shortcomings of this approach, however, invariably committed the U.S. Military to stabilizing the situation, sooner or later.

As the customs receivership in the Dominican Republic matured, the relationship between the American and Dominican governments under the administration of Woodrow Wilson began to resemble an older colonial model. “President Roosevelt entered the Dominican relationship with the idea that a receivership would prevent, not be a prelude to, military involvement there,” wrote Rosenberg. “If the receivership was threatened by debt or disorder, so much prestige was at stake that policymakers had little choice but to bite off more and more of the country’s sovereignty, intervening in ever broader ways to address the problems.” This erosion of the Dominican government’s sovereignty to American advisors, investment bankers and government officials eroded the legitimacy of President Ramon Caceres’ administration in the minds of many Dominicans. After his assassination in November 1911, years of political instability followed, and, as would also happen in Haiti and Nicaragua, U.S. Marines were brought in to reestablish order, and, ultimately, new governments, with the support of vessels such as USS Memphis and Castine.

USS Memphis, sent to the Dominican Republic to help quell a political storm far away from the government officials and investment bankers who helped create it, and wrecked by waves generated by hurricanes far over the horizon, was not only one of the largest commissioned vessels our Navy ever lost to natural causes. For decades, her forlorn, battered hull remained a fixture of Santo Domingo’s oceanfront, a dramatic symbol of the American intervention in the Dominican Republic, outlasting the era of the American foreign policy approach that sent her there.

A sunset view of Santo Domingo taken in 1924. (Republica Dominicana via Flickr)

By Katherine A. Renfrew
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Registrar

After months of design and construction delays, funding issues, inclement weather and labor problems, the Government Piers and Great Arch at the Jamestown Exposition finally opened to the public on September 14, 1907, scarcely 16 days and two months shy of the closing of the exposition. According to The Official Blue Book of the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, 1907, the Government Piers and Great Arch were “the most important single contribution which the United States Government made to the Jamestown Exposition…It was a magnificent gift and added wonderfully to the beauty of the exposition.” Since it was located in front of Raleigh Square, it was one of the principal landscaping features at the exposition. However, it was an eyesore for most of the exposition which had officially opened on April 26, 1907.

Visitors to the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 could buy postcards featuring idealized versions of the exposition grounds at Sewells Point, such as the Great Arch and Government Pier shown here, to send to their friends and loved ones. The actual scenes they would have encountered, however, were quite different. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

The Great Arch over the entrance to the Government Piers as it appeared during the Jamestown Exposition of 1907. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1907_02 /RG 71-CA, Box 324, Folder C)

The government appropriated $400,000 for the project in June of 1906 with another $65,000 approved for additional dredging the following February. The plans were not submitted by the Exposition’s Board of Design until September of 1906. The contractor, Scofield Company of Philadelphia, began construction sometime in December of the same year.

Funds for the project were contingent on an agreement between the Jamestown Exposition Company and the government. The company agreed to operate, manage and illuminate the piers at their own expense; and allow any craft that was part of the navy or foreign navy to participate in the celebration and have free access to the basin and piers.

Measuring 150 between the two sides at the water line and a maximum height of 30 above mean high water, the arch was a “veritable triumph of engineering skill." The structure was built exclusively of reinforced concrete; and was secured by two hundred and twenty piles driven in the abutment on either side. Pergolas, colonnades and kiosks enhanced its appearance. One of the towers housed a wireless telegraph station which was operated by the government. The most outstanding feature was the view. When standing at the top of the arch, one “not only [had] the best view of the exposition, but an excellent picture of the surrounding territory."

The Great Arch offered a picturesque location to hold celebrations. The most notable was held by the Japanese delegation on Japan Day, October 2, 1907. That evening Harry Tucker, President of the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, welcomed the Japanese. In return, Vice-Consul-General, S. Suzuki and T. Fukushima of Tokio[sic] Academy gave speeches followed by the “Feast of Lanterns” and “Water Carnival." Both were striking displays. Three thousand people carried lighted lanterns across the arch; and boats decorated with lanterns hovered under and around the arch in the basin.

The Seaplanes and their runways were part of the official “Lagoon” area, October 29, and December 30, 1918. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_12 & _5 / RG 71-CA, Box 324, Folder B & Box 313, Folder C)

Sadly, the arch fell into disrepair after the exposition closed; and was never restored to its former grandeur. In 1917, when the U.S. Navy purchased the property, the basin, piers and arch officially became the “Lagoon” unit where the Navy’s boat crews and seaplanes operated. The “Arch Look-Out Station” tower and telegraph poles were maintained on top of the arch.

Aerial view of the arch several years after the U.S. Navy moved in. All the decorative details were removed from the arch and replaced with signal towers. The buildings on the left and right of the piers were used for seaplane hangars, May, 5, 1919. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1919_01 / RG 71-CA, Box 312, Folder A)

Up-close image of the arch showing Building 17, the “Arch Lookout Station” in the Lagoon unit, May 2, 1922. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1922_01 / RG 71-CA, Box 312, Folder C)

By 1928, the Great Arch had ceased to be of any use to the Navy. Largely ignored and unmaintained, the arch became rubble, practically falling into the basin. Original Naval Operating Base maps reveal that the arch was removed sometime between June 1943 and 1944. The Great Arch was no more.

By 1928, Building 17 had been removed and the arch had all but completely fallen in the water. Both pictures show the deterioration of the arch, February, 10, 1928. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1928_01 & _02 / RG 71-CA, Box 312, Folder C)

Aerial view of the base showing the arch, May 13, 1941. (National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1941_03 / RG 71-CA, Box 312, Folder A)

This brief history of the Great Arch is the seventh in a series of blogs illustrating the development of Naval Station Norfolk. Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this series represent the results of a research project seeking images of Hampton Roads naval installations at the National Archives and Records Administration. This research, performed by the Southeastern Archaeological Research, Incorporated (SEARCH) was funded by Commander Navy Region Mid-Atlantic as part of an ongoing effort to provide information on historic architectural resources at navy bases in Hampton Roads. The museum is pleased to present these images for the benefit of the general public and interested historians. As far as we know, all of these images are in the public domain and none of them have been published before.

By Joseph Miechle
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

While researching arms and armament of the United States Navy we happened across a peculiar statement, “The Navy model Colt revolver was made for the Navy, and thus so named.” Being the ever-skeptical students of history that we are, we felt this needed some examination. Indeed, the Model 1851 Colt revolver bears an elaborate engraving on the cylinder of a naval engagement. With limited exception, by the time of the American Civil War, all Colt’s patent revolvers bore some type of cylinder engraving. It would be reasonable to assume that the naval scene engraved upon the “Navy” model was done in homage to the U.S. Navy and the pistols produced for their use. However this is not the case!

Early advertisement for Colt’s revolving pistols. The cylinder scenes were used to discourage counterfeit production--A real fear in the 1800s. The center scene is for the “Navy” sized pistols. (Image courtesy True West Magazine)

Upon closer inspection one will notice that in addition to the W.L. Ormsby naval engraving it bears the inscription, “Engaged 16th May, 1843.” This struck us as a bit unusual as we could not remember anything of significance happening in the US Navy on this date. A bit of leg work at the library was in order, but we have now uncovered the inspiration for the battle scene. The Battle of Campeche was fought on this date between the Mexican Navy and the Texas Navy.

The Colt Navy cylinder engraving would have looked like this, had the cylinder been flattened out.

The Battle of Campeche accomplished very little. It was fought between the formidable Mexican Navy who sailed with two, state of the art, ironclad steamers and various other fighting ships and the fledgling Texas Navy and their Yucatan supporters using all wooden ships of lesser tonnage. Both sides suffered a number of casualties, but no ships were lost and nothing was gained. It is of note though that this battle remains perhaps the only one fought between ironclads and wooden ships that did not end poorly for the former. Why would this battle have meant so much to Sam Colt to inspire him to have it engraved on so many of his pistols? It turns out Colt had sold many of his early model revolvers to the Texas Republic and they were proudly carried into battle by both land and naval forces. The purchase kept Colt’s company financially afloat during its early days. Edwin Moore, commander of the Texas Navy, wrote Sam Colt to personally express his appreciation:

Commodore Edwin Moore in a Texas Navy uniform.

The confidence that your arms gave the officers and men under my command when off Campeche in 1843 and opposed to a vastly superior force is almost incredible. I would not sail if I could possibly avoid it without your repeating arms and I would have no other.
– from a letter by Commodore Edwin Moore to Sam Colt

It would appear that the purchase of Colt’s revolvers at such a critical time, and the very much-appreciated compliment about its performance in battle, might have inspired Colt to commission the engraving with this nautical battle scene on many of his revolvers. However this is only speculation as we could find no evidence from the company as such. Now with the Navy scene firmly engraved on most of Colt’s revolvers it seems it would be safe to say the “Navy” moniker has evolved from this distinction. It may be of note that the original designation for these pistols was that of the “Ranger” model. Interestingly enough, the naval engraving also carried over to the larger “Army” pistols produced a few years later. Soldiers and sailors on both sides of the Civil War would go bravely into battle with the confidence that their Colt revolver would see them through, perhaps inspired by the Texas Navy at Campeche.

The model 1851 Colt Navy shown in the picture has had the naval scene on the cylinder mostly worn away over time. The weapon was commonly used by both land and naval forces on both sides during the American Civil War and saw extensive use overseas as well.

For further reading on the Sam Colt and Colt revolvers please see The Story of Colt’s Revolver; The Biography of Col. Sam Colt, by William B. Edwards.

On September 20, 2016, visitors to National Maritime Center Nauticus get an advance look at a portion of the new Naval Aviation Depot (NADEP) Norfolk exhibit, "Without Us, They Don't Fly" just outside the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM). The completed exhibit, featuring many of the NADEP artifacts maintained by HRNM, opens September 22. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

On September 25, 1996, the largest employer in Hampton Roads officially closed its doors. The Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) had voted on June 26, 1993, to close Naval Aviation Depot, Norfolk. It became one of 32 major closure and realignment recommendations submitted to President Bill Clinton on July 1. That September, the commission’s recommendations became law, and NADEP Norfolk was tasked with closing within three years.

This would prove to be a formidable task on many different levels. NADEP Norfolk had in one form or another served the Navy’s aviation community since 17 mechanics belonging to Naval Air Detachment Curtiss Field in Newport News first arrived at the newly-established Naval Operating Base at Sewells Point in October, 1917. Over the next seven decades, through two world wars as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the facility had grown to employ 4,300 civilian mechanics, engineers, and support staff. By 1976, the facility covered 174 acres and included 175 buildings. From the 1970s to the 1990s, its workers restored or repaired F-8 Crusaders, A-6 Intruders and F-14 Tomcats, among other aircraft.

The one war that NADEP Norfolk could not survive without, however, was the Cold War. The general conception among Pentagon analysts that the dissolution of the Soviet Union rendered many of our military installations unnecessary spawned five different BRAC rounds over a 17-year period, resulting in the closing of more than 350 military installations.

Two of the three commanding officers who led NADEP through a process that they called “Closing with Class” during that three-year period, Capt. Bruce Pieper, USN (Ret.) and Capt. Ted Morandi, USN (Ret.), will be speaking during a special event at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum being held at 6 pm on Thursday, September 22. Dr. William Whitehurst, who as a member of Congress also had a front-row seat to the decommissioning process, will also be speaking.

For almost 80 years, the mechanics and engineers of the Naval Aviation Depot kept naval aviators flying with confidence. Workers here set the standards for aircraft overhaul and repair, aircraft modification, and the manufacture of aeronautical parts. In 1917, NADEP originated as the Construction and Repair Department of a military detachment at the Norfolk Navy Operating Base. Its first mission was supporting seaplane and dirigible operations during World War I. The facility became the Assembly and Repair Department in 1922. Among other duties, the Sailors constructed unassembled aircraft received from manufacturers. The first civilians, 50 workers from the Norfolk Navy Yard, arrived in 1930.

A functional diagram of the Construction and Repair Department of Naval Air Station Norfolk during the 1940s. (HRNM Collection)

During World War II, the department grew to over 8,000 workers operating seven days a week. In an average month they would process over 300 aircraft, 400 engines, 500 propeller blades, 8,000 instruments, and more than 11,000 accessories. In 1948, the facility was renamed the Overhaul and Repair (O and R) Department and received the Navy’s first jet aircraft for repair.

As the Korean War heated up in the early-1950s, the Engine Overhaul Division became the Navy’s largest. It performed production prototyping for aircraft modernization, manufactured aircraft parts, and accomplished large emergency repairs.

In 1961, during the Cold War, O and R became the East Coast repair center for the infrared, heat-seeking AIM-9 “Sidewinder” air-to-air missile. To help with military readiness, the workers supported “Operation Compression” with the motto, “Back to the Fleet in 23 Work Days.”

A-6 Intruders undergo depot-level maintenance at Naval Aviation Depot, Norfolk during the 1980s. (HRNM Collection)

In 1967, O and R became the Naval Air Rework Facility (NARF) Norfolk. During the Vietnam War, NARF kept the A-6 Intruders, F-8 Crusaders, P-2 Neptunes, and P-3 Orions in top shape. Unfortunately, the first A-6 reworked by NARF was lost in combat. Its crew is commemorated on the A-6 displayed at Ely Park near Gate Four on Naval Station Norfolk.

NARF’s first chance to work on an F-14 Tomcat came in 1973 when NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, delivered a damaged Tomcat by barge. By 1980, NARF was the designated overhaul point for the F-14 Tomcat, the A-6 Intruder, and the EA6-B Prowler.

Naval Air Station Norfolk's Naval Air Rework Facility (NARF) during the mid-1980s. (HRNM Collection)

By 1980, with 4,200 employees, NARF was the largest employer in Norfolk. In addition to onsite work, NARF sent field modification teams to aircraft carriers in every ocean and to sites in North Africa, Europe, Scandinavia, and the Far East. The Naval Air Systems Command also sent NARF’s industrial engineers to installations stateside and to foreign countries to assist in modernization.

In 1987, NARF became Naval Aviation Depot (NADEP), Norfolk. NADEP’s workers, skilled in over 80 trades, became known for award-winning excellence. Among their many accolades were the U.S. Senate Productivity Award, the Secretary of Defense Productivity Excellence Award, and the Action Plus Excellence Award for Quality and Productivity.

During the 1991 Gulf War, many NADEP workers served in the conflict with their reserve military units. At home, they completed 85 Sidewinder missiles in six weeks. Meanwhile the Depot’s voyage repair “Tiger Teams” worked around the clock on aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf to keep catapult and arresting gear running.

In 1992, NADEP opened its 90,000 square-foot Materials and Standards laboratory, the most modern and complete engineering laboratory on the East Coast. The lab is now part of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center.

After the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to decommission NADEP Norfolk, the employees set about “Closing with Class.” They continued to win awards and completed the F-14D(R) conversion program. In January 1996, they rolled out the first F-14 to complete the F-14 A/B Upgrade Program. This was the first acquisition and design program totally accomplished by Navy field activities.

Although NADEP Norfolk officially decommissioned on September 25, 1996, its legacy has lived on. Its former personnel have continued using their talents at other Navy facilities, and some of the aircraft once maintained by NADEP, such as the EA6-B Prowler, continued to take to the skies until 2015.

Speakers for the September 22 Event:

Dr. George William Whitehurst is a professor and retired politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from the state of Virginia. He began his career as a professor at the Norfolk campus of the College of William and Mary, which became Old Dominion College in 1962. After serving as Dean of Students from 1963–1968, Whitehurst left academia for a nineteen-year stay in Congress. Upon retiring from politics, he returned to what was by then Old Dominion University, where he currently holds the chair of Kaufman Lecturer in Public Affairs.

Capt. Bruce Pieper, USN (Ret.) was the Commanding Officer of Naval Aviation Depot Norfolk from 1992-1994. He was responsible for the maintenance, overhaul and repair of F-14, A-6 and EA-6 aircraft and associated components. Capt. Pieper was also commanding officer of the Naval Plant Representative Office-LTV (Dallas, TX) responsible for all DOD procurement for aircraft, missiles, and avionics equipment and repair.

Capt. Ted Morandi, USN (Ret.) was Naval Aviation Depot Norfolk’s last Commanding Officer from 1995-1996. He presided over the BRAC closure by leading the command in placing or offering retirement for 4000 of the 4300 NADEP employees. In addition to finishing all industrial work 98 buildings were transferred with associated equipment.

By Reece Nortum
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Certainly you've heard the expression (or a variation of) "You're in the limelight." Did you know that there was such a thing? In 1825, Michael Faraday, the famous English chemist and physicist, demonstrated that if an oxygen-hydrogen flame were directed against a piece of quicklime, the heated lime produced a brilliant yellowish light.

Once refined, these chemical lamps used super-heated balls of lime, or calcium oxide, to create an incandescent glow. The lights, known as limelight or calcium lights, began appearing in lighthouses and theaters during in the 1830s.

The idea of using the lights to turn night into day occurred to Union commanders in July 1863, as they contemplated operations on Morris Island, located at the outer reaches of Charleston Harbor. Union forces, most notably the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment (the famous African-American unit depicted in the 1989 film Glory), had sustained heavy casualties that month attempting to capture Fort Wagner (also known as Battery Wagner) on Morris Island. Early on, Brigadier General Quincy Gillmore and Rear Admiral John Dahlgren hoped the lights would illuminate targets at night or give their own engineers greater visibility while constructing the works. The lights proved less than perfect for these ideas. But with the siege lines closing on Fort Wagner in late August, Union forces turned on the calcium lights again. This time, the intent was to place the Confederates directly in the limelight.

A night raid upon Fort Wagner (also known as Battery Wager) supported by calcium lights.

In addition to focusing on Battery Wagner, the calcium lights also illuminated the ironclads anchored offshore and to aid detection of spar torpedo craft. Against Battery Wagner, the desired effect of the brilliant light was to hinder operations. Any movement on the parapets, or even openings in bunkers to fire, was visible from Union lines. Not only did this hinder defensive fire, but also repairs to the battery. In reaction, Confederates attempted to extinguish the lights with long range artillery fire. In the early morning hours of Sept. 6, Major Edward Manigault, commanding artillery at Legare’s Point on James Island further inland, directed fires from Battery Haskell on the calcium light. Neither Union nor Confederate accounts indicate Manigault’s gunners met with any success. Gillmore’s engineers were the first to adapt the calcium light for combat, allowing them to illuminate their artillery target while simultaneously blinding Confederate gunners and riflemen.

During the siege of Charleston, the Union Navy also focused “limelights” on Fort Sumter while they pummeled it into rubble. In a dispatch to Captain Stephen Rowan, commanding USS New Ironsides, Rear Adm. Dahlgren wrote from Morris Island, “I have just received your signal dispatch in reference to the use of my calcium light on the New Ironsides. I placed at your disposal with great pleasure, and have little doubt that it will aid you in keeping the torpedo vessel.”

Dahlgren made the following request to his superiors in Washington D.C. on April 6, 1864:

SIR: I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your communication enclosing a suggestion made to the Department that small steams with a calcium light would increase the security of our vessels against the rebel torpedo boats. A calcium light is always kept in operation on board the Ironsides, unless there be a good moonlight, I intended also to mount one on each monitor; the trial was made on one of them [New Ironsides, at the battles at Charleston Harbor], but not continued, because the commanding officer thought it a disadvantage. After a close observation of the one in use, I think it probable that the small angle at which the rays the water detracts from its efficiency. Small steamers are always kept in motion in advance of the picket monitors. As many as six have been on duty in a single night, besides a number of picket boats, making it exceedingly difficult for any object on the water to escape them unnoticed; which is confirmed by the fact that the efforts of the rebels were directed against the Housatonic, which was out in the open sea, while the monitors were inside the bar, within range of the rebel batteries and infinitely of more consequence. If any of the torpedo boats should elude the pickets, they would be stopped by nettings in the vicinity of the ironclads. There is no remedy for the outside cruisers except to be kept constantly underway, and I should pursue the same course inside with the monitors, but it is impossible at night in channels lined with dangerous shoals and heavy batteries. With an increased number of steam tugs and some torpedo boats like those of the rebels, added to the measures already taken, I should feel no apprehension whatever from this base style of rebel warfare.

With his requests' approval, this new technology was sent to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for use in the North and South Atlantic Blockade Squadrons. Additional requests came flowing in, after great success was reported in stopping Confederate blockade runners. The order came viathe North Atlantic Blockading Squadron flagship USS Malvern that five locomotive lights were to be brought and attached to the bow and sterns of several ironclads within the Hampton Roads area in 1864. During 1864 and 1865, the Navy ordered 300 calcium lights to be installed as standard issue aboard all ironclads built in the area.

These calcium floodlights were later used as searchlights to spot Confederate warships and blockade runners. In early 1865, a Union light even helped detect a Confederate ironclad fleet as it tried to move along the James River under cover of darkness. A Southern officer later noted that a planned sneak attack was made impossible in part because of the Union’s “powerful calcium light.”

Equipped with calcium lights, the Union Navy was able to continue, even on the darkest nights, the bombardment of Fort Sumter and Battery Wagner, ushering in a decades-long period in which the “Spotlight” was an important and well-used tool for peacetime, and war, aboard naval vessels.

Two-thousand-sixteen has been a year of dramatic change with regards to the naval uniform. Not a single seabag of any current member of the United States Navy will emerge untouched by the profound changes that have been mandated through the Navy Uniform Matters Office.

Although the decade-long saga of the controversial blue-and-gray camouflage Navy Working Uniform has entered its final chapter and the same Navy headgear is now worn by both male and female personnel, the latest change might prove to be the most profound. A tiny part of the standard enlisted dress uniform is to be eliminated after almost 150 years, and this will literally change the way Sailors view their occupations.

Detail of an illustration by H. Charles McBarron, Jr., from the collections of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, showing a Boatswain's Mate 1st Class dress uniform, behind typical officer uniforms of 1898. Aside from the elimination of port (left sleeve) and starboard (right sleeve) positioning of rating badges in 1949, the appearance of the rating badge itself remained fairly constant from 1886 until 2016. By comparison, nothing resembling officers' service and full dress uniforms such as those shown here is worn by today's naval officers.

In contrast to the rather ostentatious gold trimmings symbolizing prestige or power on officers' uniforms that have come and gone over the last 241 years, the more modest specialty mark of the enlisted uniform has been a ubiquitous symbol of Navy professionalism since the first eight types were authorized in December 1866.

Emerging with the "New Navy" of the 1880s, the position of the roughly one square-inch occupational symbols between the eagle (commonly called a "crow") and the chevrons of the petty officer rating badges first authorized in 1886 has remained essentially unchanged since America's emergence as a world-class naval power.

This rating badge of a Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class, circa-1898, the oldest one of its kind in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, can be seen in the museum's Steel Navy gallery. The specialty mark is the crossed-anchors symbol at the center of the badge. The image has not been "flipped." The eagle atop the rating badge faced either right or left depending upon which sleeve it was worn. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Long before the advent of the Steel Navy, Sailors in certain specialized shipboard occupations began embroidering their own specialty marks to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crew. A woodcut in the Naval Magazine of November 1836, for example, shows a Boatswain's Mate with crossed anchors on his jacket sleeve.

Nestled within another illustration by H. Charles McBarron, Jr. from 1966, we can see roughly what the enlisted specialty mark of a Boatswain's Mate looked like during the 1830s. Although no regulations specified the wearing of such occupational symbols at the time, the specialty marks Sailors had been putting on their own uniforms for years were ultimately incorporated into regulations drafted in 1866.

Although a general sleeve insignia for petty officers was authorized in 1841, the uniform regulations of December 1, 1866 introduced eight specialty marks for petty officers. The ever more sophisticated naval vessels coming into the fleet over first few decades that followed, particularly during the 1880s, necessitated further division of labor. With it came more specialty marks, including those for the rank of Chief Petty Officer, established in 1893. Five years later, there were 15 specialty marks for enlisted personnel.

A World War I-era Chief Storekeeper rating badge. The job specialty itself, along with its specialty mark, was merged into the Logistics Specialist rate in 2010. (Jim Leuci Collection)

Over the twentieth century, hundreds of different ratings emerged with new technologies and missions, then disappeared or merged into other rates as those technologies and missions receded. At the time the decision was made in September 2016 to replace Navy ratings with an alphanumeric Navy Occupational Specialty code (with no corresponding specialty mark), 57 distinct specialty marks remained.

A closeup of a Master Chief Boatswain's Mate rating badge from the late-1950s. (Jim Leuci Collection)

Although specialty marks might not completely disappear, it appears that they will never symbolize the jobs that U.S. Navy Sailors do in the same way that they have for the last 150 years. Nevertheless, you can trust that the Hampton Roads Naval Museum and the other museums under the Naval History and Heritage Command will preserve these small yet profound symbols of professionalism in our collections as long as the Sailors of today have a job to accomplish.

Each new Navy birthday brings with it a sense of accomplishment and pride in that this great institution has stood the watch and fulfilled its duty around the world for another year. To commemorate this accomplishment, thousands of current and former members of the naval service, as well as their friends and loved ones, will adorn themselves in their finest for the annual Navy Ball. Most members of the armed services who attend will wear their respective services' mess dress uniform, usually worn only for "black tie" events.

With each new birthday, however, some old things pass away, and the fanciest Navy uniform has not escaped unscathed. Amidst the truly historic Navy personnel news of late we have this item concerning the demise of a relatively obscure uniform item. As of October 1, 2016, in accordance with Article 3501.86 of Navy Uniform Regulations, the Navy Tiara is no longer authorized for uniform wear.

The Navy tiara of Captain Ruth Moeller, USN (Ret), part of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection. (HRNM-2015.008.003.001. Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

This H. Charles McBarron Jr. illustration of the service dress mess (also called dinner dress blue jacket) uniforms of 1967 shows the Navy tiara as it would have been worn by a female Navy lieutenant, junior grade. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Collection)

The uniform change was mandated last year, along with the elimination of boat cloaks for male officers and chief petty officers and navy blue capes for females. Both were worn for most of the twentieth century, although the navy blue cape, like the tiara, was part of the dress mess ensemble.

By Katherine A. Renfrew
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Registrar

This aerial photograph of USS Electrician, a landmark building once located near the headquarters buildings of Naval Operating Base Hampton Roads (now Naval Station Norfolk), gives a sense of the scale of the wooden training mock-up. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Collection)

What might seem archaic today was actually cutting edge in the early 1900s. USS Electrician, a building designed to have the appearance and all the electrical features of a modern battleship, represented a very modern method for training sailors nearly a century ago. Offering classroom and hands-on training, the students were able to simulate the same routine they would have on a real ship. Measuring 235 feet long with a 38-foot “beam,” the ship was a ¾-scale model of a Pennsylvania-class battleship; and became an iconic feature of Naval Operating Base Hampton Roads (now Naval Station Norfolk).

Although appearing at first glance like the plans for a seagoing warship, the unusual number of portholes and exterior hatches called for on these blueprints for USS Electrician, as well as the absence of anything below the waterline, are an indicator that these are not the plans for a ship at all. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Collection)

USS Electrician is highlighted in red on this 1920 map of Naval Operating Base Hampton Roads (now Naval Station Norfolk), where it once loomed over the northeast corner of the base parade ground, which is now a parking lot. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Collection)

This interior photo of USS Electrician shows the immersive classroom environment prospective Electrician's Mates (after the rating name was changed from "Electrician" in 1921) encountered inside the simulated battleship. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

The ship was furnished with all the intricate equipment of a modern battleship, with the exception of radio apparatus and live ordnance. It contained three decks with lecture and reading rooms; and living accommodations for 160 men. Some of the features of the ship included an electrically operated three-gun turret, gun rammers and ammunition hoist; an operating boat crane, deck winch and electrical anchor; and a completely equipped fire control system with conning tower, substations and spotters’ positions.

The following images of USS Electrician reveal the many phases of its construction from 1918 to 1922:

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_20)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_21)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_22)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_14)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_24)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_28)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_15)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_29)

(National Archives and Records Administration, NSNorfolk-1918_63)

This brief history of USS Electrician is the eighth in a series of blogs illustrating the development of Naval Station Norfolk. Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this series represent the results of a research project seeking images of Hampton Roads naval installations at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). This research, performed by the Southeastern Archaeological Research, Incorporated (SEARCH) was funded by Commander Navy Region Mid-Atlantic as part of an ongoing effort to provide information on historic architectural resources at navy bases in Hampton Roads. The museum is pleased to present these images for the benefit of the general public and interested historians. As far as we know, all of these images are in the public domain and none of the NARA images have been published before.

By Matthew Krogh
Contributing Writer

Reenactors portraying Royal Navy sailors from HMS Otter maneuver into position on the Hampton River before staging a simulated attack upon Virginia Militia reenactors during a Battle of Hampton commemoration held in October 2015. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

Although the Royal Navy reigned supreme throughout the eighteenth century, its effectiveness in Hampton Roads under John Murray, Earl of Dunmore (known as Lord Dunmore), was altered when Virginians proved they had a strong desire to defend themselves in the burgeoning American struggle for independence.

Throughout the Revolution, the Royal Navy pillaged, attacked, or blockaded Chesapeake Bay, brushing aside state navies and American ships. The Royal Navy consistently outnumbered the Continental Navy in number of ships, men, cannon, and munitions. Why then did the navy under Lord Dunmore suffer defeat when it struck Hampton during the first major skirmish in Virginia in October 1775? This is the story of the first amphibious campaign in the South during the American Revolution and the tale of the last royal governor of Virginia’s leadership on land and sea.

John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore, by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
circa 1764. (Google Art Project)

Lord Dunmore precipitated the assault on Hampton Roads in an attempt to quell the growing rebellion in his midst. After four years as governor, a war against the Indians, and several diplomatic fiascos, belligerent patriots chased him from his York County home, Porto Bello, in June 1775. Taking refuge aboard HMS Fowey, Dunmore sailed down the James River to Hampton Roads. Just as Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina had done the year before, Dunmore began operating from sea from behind England’s “wooden walls.” However, Dunmore had a trump card to play that had been unavailable to Governor Martin. Andrew Sprowle, a fellow Scotsman, owned the Gosport shipyard (present day Norfolk Naval Shipyard) in Portsmouth on the Elizabeth River, which could provide aid to Dunmore’s forces. Therefore, Lord Dunmore set up a de facto capital in the shipyard where, according to the Virginia Gazette, he issued “out his decrees, as Darius did of old.” The shipyard’s munitions, supplies and dry docks provided the governor with a significant advantage over Virginians who sought to banish his vessels from Hampton Roads. Control of this roadstead, the northernmost harbor in America that did not freeze in the winter, gave the Royal Navy a safe haven from which it would be able to plan operations in the North Atlantic.

From Gosport, Dunmore conducted governmental affairs and assembled ships and troops to fight the disgruntled colonials in the lower Chesapeake region. When the opportunity arose, he intended to attack Virginia’s forces and destroy them. Dunmore’s chance to fully engage the patriots came after a hurricane struck Hampton Roads in early September. The hurricane put HMS Mercury under Captain John MacCartney on its broadside in front of Norfolk, where an article in Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette urged Virginians to seize the opportunity and burn the ship, calling her “the terror of Norfolk and a refuge to our slaves.” A British ship’s tender (dinghy) named the Liberty also blew ashore during the storm, forcing the captain of the HMS Otter, Matthew Squire, and a runaway slave to leave the dingy in Hampton and make their way via canoe to the Otter. When colonials found the Liberty, they seized its supplies and burned it to the waterline in retaliation for British seizures of food, supplies, and livestock.

Conditions were right for confrontation, and a furious Captain Squire demanded restitution. Hampton’s town fathers responded that they would gladly return the captured goods if Squire returned all runaway slaves. Dunmore wrote of the situation, stating, “[T]heir Port is now blocked up and we have taken two of their Boats and shall not permit a Vessel to pass or repass till they return the Stores.” Meanwhile, Colonel William Woodford issued orders on October 24 for the 2nd Virginia Regiment to march from Williamsburg to stop the expected British attack. Captain Squire determined to thump the cheeky Americans and sailed up the Hampton River with six vessels on October 25.

Based upon Dunmore’s previous sorties in the Elizabeth River, this promised to be yet another feather in his cap. Throughout autumn, his shore parties had taken numerous cannon and munitions, captured soldiers, and pillaged settlements. He had met little resistance thus far and expected more of the same as his designs became more ambitious. On October 5, he wrote to Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the colonies, requesting the chance to act decisively. “My Lord do I see every hour His Majesty's Enemies puting [sic] themselves in the best posture of defence [sic] possible, without having it in my power to give them the least interruption, and I give your Lordship leave to judge if this is not to the greatest degree gauling [sic], when certain too that a very small force well applied now would not only effectually frustrate all their Schemes for the present, but soon reduce the whole of his Southern part of His Majesty's Continent to a proper State of Submission.”

The next day, Congress passed a resolution to seize anyone presenting a threat or danger to America’s liberties. Dunmore was singled out by Samuel Chase of Maryland, who stated, “I don’t think the Resolution goes far enough. Ld. Dunmore has been many Months committing Hostilities vs. Virginia, and has extended his Piracies [sic] to Maryland. I wish he had been seized, by the Colony months ago. Have they ships or men?” Virginian Richard Henry Lee wrote, “I wish Congress would advise Virginia and Maryland to raise a force by sea to destroy Lord Dunmore's power. He is fond of his bottle, and may be taken by land, but ought to be taken at all events.”

This portion of a French map from 1781 shows the general locations of Hampton, officially established in 1610, and the remains of Fort George, which started construction in 1728 on the site of Fort Algernon, which had been established in 1609 to protect the approaches to Jamestown. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)

In 1775, Hampton was a small settlement at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula down the Elizabeth River and across the James River from Norfolk. It was comprised of a few hundred souls, three windmills, some dwellings and wharves, and several creeks leading to the James River. Beyond the town on Old Point Comfort stood Fort George, an undefended masonry structure built in 1728. A 1749 hurricane laid waste to it, leaving only a few buildings. The Royal Navy would not have directed its energies towards Hampton had it not been for the chain of events that unfolded. Indeed, British ships were generally moored in Norfolk or Portsmouth, both of which were more significant due to their large populations, shipyards, and deep harbors.

Reenactors representing Virginia militia members defending Hampton, Virginia, fire a volley at the invading British during commemorations held in October 2015. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

As Captain Squire’s small flotilla approached the Hampton River, a barricade of sunken ships at the river’s mouth stopped it from closing with the town. The British exchanged fire with local militia under Captain George Nicholas and Captain George Lyne. Unable to land under the hail of fire during the day, the British succeeded in landing a shore party and burning a dwelling on Cooper’s plantation at the mouth of the river as darkness set in. Later, Squire managed to land some men to raid homes on Mill Creek. That evening, Squire's men dismantled the colonial barricade, allowing his vessels to enter.

The next morning dawned brightly as sporadic gunfire erupted. By then Colonel Woodford had arrived with his riflemen. The landing party expected a frontal assault on its position and prepared to meet it with cold steel and hot lead. In previous engagements, Virginia forces had fled into the woods when faced with superior troops. Instead, Woodford’s riflemen took cover behind buildings and on wharves and began picking off targets. The outnumbered Virginians poured a steady fire on HMS Otter and the rest of the befuddled fleet. They pushed back the marines, and silenced the ships’ gun crews. The humiliating defeat was too much for Captain Squire and he ordered a full withdrawal by day’s end. In the chaos that ensued, two British transports ran aground. The rebels captured ten crewmen from Otter’s tender, the Hawk, and killed its coxswain. The Virginians suffered no deaths and Hampton was saved from Dunmore’s assault.

The skirmish in Hampton, however trivial, served as a harsh realization for the British who rarely expected such a lopsided loss. Strategically, Lord Dunmore failed to realize that he was attacking an entire town over a burned out jolly boat, and some sailcloth. Dunmore could easily have sent additional vessels and supplies from Gosport, thereby avoiding conflict. Moreover, these goods were worth far less than the devotion of the population, many of whom were still loyalists. Would all those loyalists remain sympathetic after Dunmore indiscriminately attacked their homes and hearths?

Tactically, the Royal Navy floundered at Hampton. Dunmore’s vessels struggled to navigate the Hampton River and Mill Creek, despite the fact that the royal governor actively recruited slaves and loyalists to serve as pilots through the waterways. Unlike the Elizabeth River, the Hampton River was also narrow enough to block with a few sunken vessels. This intelligence failure could easily have been averted had Captain Squire sent a ship’s tender to investigate prior to the attack. This roadblock led to the lack of a greater naval presence at the beginning of the skirmish. At that time, British ships remained at the river’s mouth, depriving advancing land forces of much needed artillery support.

Furthermore, the Royal Navy did not serve in the same support role as at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Massachusetts on June 17, 1775. At Hampton, the navy was the only force involved and its firepower was severely limited. For example, Kingfisher and Otter both had 14 cannons and their crews were wary of exposing themselves to the riflemen’s withering fire. The gun crews were also bested because their vessels had already sent marines ashore thereby nullifying the protection they could have provided as sharpshooters. This decision resulted in only a few wayward shots being fired at the town’s defenders. Squire also did not take note of the tides, which resulted in the loss of two vessels, along with their pilots and crews.

From a pier in downtown Hampton, Virginia, a reenactor portraying a
Virginia militiaman takes a shot at an approaching vessel representing
one of Lord Dunmore's ships during commemorations held in October
2015. (Photograph by M.C. Farrington)

The Battle of Hampton marked the first time riflemen had been on hand to stop Dunmore’s continual marauding. Woodford’s riflemen, who had not yet seen action, put up strong resistance against the British marines and sailors who expected the colonists to flee or fight in the open, neither of which occurred. Captain Squire received a written message soon after the battle from Woodford’s riflemen. It read “The . . . soldiers of Hampton desire their compliments to captain Squire and his squadron, and wish to know how they approve the reception they met with . . .” Meanwhile, Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette claimed, “Lord Dunmore may now see he has not cowards to deal with.”

Editor's note: Matthew Krogh is a reenactor with HM Sloop Otter

Marine Archaeologist Dr. John Broadwater looks out over the James River from the tip of Willoughby Spit, where one or more ship hulks lie just off the beach, extending towards the eastbound lanes of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel at the upper right, which carry traffic from across the river in Hampton, seen in the far distance. (Photograph courtesy Bill Utley)

No matter where you go in the world, you are rarely far from relics of history. While underwater archaeologists from the Naval History and Heritage Command travel the globe in search of discoveries that not only clear up old mysteries but also redefine our understanding of naval history, Hampton Roads is the kind of place where untold discoveries await just below the surface.

Case in point: The Hampton Roads Naval Museum's singular collection of Civil War artifacts from the sloop-of-war Cumberland and the Confederate raider Florida. Both wrecks lie within a half-mile of one another at shallow depths in the James River.

For this week's post we turn our attention to something lying just beneath the surface to the east of those two wrecks, at the tip of the narrow tendril of sand between Sewells Point and the Ocean View section of Norfolk known as Willoughby Spit. Overlooked by most commuters passing nearby on the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) southeast from the Virginia Peninsula, a dark form lapped at by the waters of Chesapeake Bay has been shrouded in mystery for decades. Generations of local residents have passed along the apocryphal tale that the jumble of dark metal mostly obscured by sand is that of a German U-Boat that tried unsuccessfully to make it into the roadstead during World War II, only to become fatally trapped in steel antisubmarine netting.

HRNM Curator Joe Judge cleared up the mystery for readers of the Bay Journal in 2010 when he identified the shallow hull as the remains of the torpedo boat USS Stringham, which was decommissioned in 1913 and sold to a private company a decade later. But when you consider what the torpedo boat actually looked like, it is not difficult to imagine why she would have been mistaken for a submarine for all these years.

Painted a dark green, the torpedo boat USS Stringham, photographed in 1907 during the Jamestown Exposition, contrasted sharply with the USS Maine (BB-10) in the background. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Although not a submersible, Stringham and other torpedo boats like her were built during the same era of technological transition that was taking place in navies around the world near the turn of the last century. The submarine was invented around the same time simply as a submersible form of torpedo boat, while vessels like USS Stringham were employed to do the same thing on the surface. These fast, lightly-armed boats would close in for the kill with their torpedoes and withdraw before the huge, sluggish pre-dreadnought battleships of the time could react. By contrast, early submarines made up for lack of speed with stealth.

It stands to reason that the first torpedo boat commissioned by United States Navy in 1890 would be named after the daring Lt. William B. Cushing, who used a steam launch equipped with a fixed spar torpedo to sink the Confederate ironclad Albemarle in October 1864. The invention of the screw-driven torpedo during the 1880s paralleled the development of small, fast, inexpensive boats to carry them, making them a cost-effective way for navies to neutralize much larger, more expensive capital ships in the way Cushing did.

USS Cushing (TB-1) was not only the first of a new class of warship for the Navy, but it also inaugurated a new way of naming vessels for figures who played key roles in American naval history. Torpedo Boat 19 was named for Flag Officer Silas Horton Stringham, the commander of the newly-established North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads after the outbreak of the American Civil War. Although his long service to the United States Navy began during the War of 1812 and he was a captain during the Mexican-American War, his status as a key figure in naval history, particularly in Hampton Roads, was cemented after the outbreak of the Civil War, after many other long-serving naval officers resigned to join the Confederacy.

Silas Stringham, who first saw combat during the War of 1812 as a teenage midshipman, is shown here after his promotion to rear admiral in 1862. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Aboard his flagship USS Minnesota (where William B. Cushing was working as an acting master's mate), Stringham entered Hampton Roads in May 1861 and quickly began rounding up blockade runners. Three months later he commanded a joint Army-Navy expedition, along with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, against Confederate forts Hatteras and Clark guarding Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. Stringham later accepted the sword of Confederate Commodore Samuel Barron after he and nearly 700 other prisoners were taken into custody on August 29. Stringham was relieved by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough aboard Minnesota on September 23, 1861, less than six months before the Battle of Hampton Roads.

Sponsored by Edna Stringham Creighton, granddaughter of Rear Adm. Stringham, and commissioned on June 10, 1899, USS Stringham performed a number of operational duties up and down the eastern seaboard, including Hampton Roads, including as a host for the nation's news media, until succumbing to that fate that befalls all warships great and small: obsolescence. Only the very elect of historic ships escape the fate of torpedo boats like Stringham, which was built too late to have earned a mention in history during the Spanish-American War.

Well before World War I, this type of vessel was outmoded by a new class of ship, the "Torpedo-Boat Destroyer," which was designed specifically to protect capital ships from torpedo boats. This was later shortened to "destroyer" (DD). It just so happens that the last Spruance-class destroyer was also named in honor of the man whose daring, unconventional attack changed naval warfare. USS Cushing (DD-985), the fifth ship named for the legendary naval officer, was decommissioned in 2005. The Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt-class multirole guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) continue to serve an important role in protecting the larger ships of strike groups today.

Decommissioned on November 21, 1913, Stringham was stored at Norfolk Navy Yard for nearly a decade until she was sold to the E.L. Hurst company in May 1923 for the sum of $256.76. After being purchased, however, she somehow came to came to rest in the shallow water at the tip of Willoughby Spit instead of being broken up at a shipyard in North Carolina. What remains to be sorted out is just how and why this happened.

This undated aerial photo looking east taken sometime after the ex-USS Stringham (TB-19) came to rest just off the tip of Sewells Point, presumably in the early-1920s, but before the construction of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) during the mid-1950s, shows the hull of the torpedo boat just offshore, with what might be a barge alongside. Whether this is evidence of an effort to re-float the hull or to fill it with concrete as part of an effort to limit beach erosion remains to be established. (Courtesy the Ocean View Station Museum)

Over the decades, the mystery of how and why the ex-torpedo boat came to rest off Willoughby Spit receded back into the mire, replaced by a legend about a lost German submarine, but new technology has reignited the mystery. Dr. John Broadwater, after a four-decade career as a marine archaeologist, including postings as chief scientist of the USS Monitor expedition and serving as senior underwater archaeologist at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, has brought us evidence that might force a reassessment of our assumptions about the former Navy torpedo boat.

This enhanced satellite image shows the presumed remains of the former torpedo boat USS Stringham, along with a submerged barge, plus a second, larger, unidentified vessel which extends roughly to the north, completely under the eastbound lanes of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT). (Courtesy John Broadwater)

Recent satellite imagery has shown the unmistakable outline of a second, larger hull behind the former USS Stringham. If accurate, this means that perhaps the torpedo boat was not accidentally lost after all, but was perhaps put there deliberately as a part of a concerted effort to stave off beach erosion. There could even be yet another, as yet unknown story here waiting to be uncovered. Only further research and exploration will solve this mystery. Meanwhile, we are reaching out to you, our readers, in an effort to gather any other evidence you might possess as to the identity of the second vessel, or any other details or clues you might know of.

As new technologies have recently revealed famous lost shipwrecks such as the WWII-era aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL-22), new mysteries have also emerged right here in Hampton Roads, even in the shallows under the bridge thousands of today's Sailors take to Naval Station Norfolk every morning. Please stay tuned as we continue to search for clues, and in the meantime, please chime in!

Considering that November is National U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier Month, we at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum would be remiss if we did not mention our area's most important early contribution to naval aviation history as the site of Eugene Ely's epochal flight on the afternoon of November 14, 1910, from a hastily-built wooden platform atop the foredeck of the scout cruiser Birmingham (CS-2).

At approximately 3:17 pm on November 14, 1910, Curtiss Exhibition Company pilot Eugene Ely leaves the scout cruiser Birmingham (CS-2). Note that she is still at anchor, awaiting more favorable weather. Birmingham was accompanied by the torpedo boat destroyers Roe (seen in the background) and Terry (presumably where this iconic photograph was taken from), as well as the torpedo boats Bailey and Stringham. (Eugene B. Ely Scrapbook, Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Today, Naval Station Norfolk features Ely Park, a place dedicated not only to preserving the name of the young Iowan many believe to have been the "first naval aviator," but to the memory of the planes and pilots that flew from the former naval air station there, as well as Ely Hall, where generations of naval aviators have called home at one time or another.

In addition to the fact that he was a civilian pilot working for Glenn H. Curtiss' aerial exhibition team, it is not widely known how close Ely came to being beaten by another member of this team. Lesser known still is that, had it not been for the oldest enemy to aircraft everywhere, known today as foreign object debris (also known as foreign object damage, or FOD), the United States Navy in all likelihood would never have been able to claim this aviation milestone as its own.

The Hamburg-America Line steamship Pennsylvania nearly became the first vessel to launch a fixed-wing aircraft at sea, but lost out to the scout cruiser Birmingham. Even today she is occasionally confused with the second vessel that Eugene Ely flew from, the armored cruiser Pennsylvania (CA-4). (Library of Congress)

Although Ely's flight was the first made from a United States Navy warship, it was in fact the third attempt the Curtiss team had made during November 1910. The last one had been made only two days before Ely, from a similar platform built over the stern of the German passenger liner Pennsylvania. The first had been scheduled for November 5 on yet another ship of the Hamburg-America Line, SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria. Although it received the "official sanction" of Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock as a test of the applicability of airplanes to deliver mail from civilian vessels, its military implications were no secret. John Alexander Douglas McCurdy, the designated aviator for the flight, said as much to a reporter earlier that month at Sewells Point, Virginia, as he headlined Norfolk's first airshow at what is now Naval Station Norfolk.

"In speaking of the proposed flight," wrote the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch reporter on November 2, "Mr. McCurdy said it would combine the aeroplane with the navy, by showing that an airship can be launched from the deck of a warship while the vessel is in motion."

J.A.D. McCurdy, son of the personal secretary to Alexander Graham Bell (an important associate of Glenn Curtiss), was hand-picked by Curtiss to become the first man to fly an airplane from a vessel at sea. Bad weather and scheduling conflicts kept the 25 year-old Canadian from achieving this aviation milestone. (George Grantham Bain Collection, the Library of Congress)

A violent nor'easter clobbered Norfolk on November 3 and put a stop to the airshow, which began two days before, wrecking McCurdy's aircraft at the old Jamestown Exhibition grounds and severely damaging the plane of his costar, James Cairn "Bud" Mars. As the massive storm moved up the eastern seaboard, the planes of the Curtiss team flyers participating in a meet at Halethorpe, near Baltimore, including Eugene Ely's, were also wrecked. Meanwhile, McCurdy's date with destiny aboard Kaiserin Auguste Victoria was dashed by the storm as well.

Captain Washington Irving Chambers (Naval History and Heritage Command Image)

The failed ocean launch attempt and a three-day postponement of the Halethorpe meet created an opportunity for Captain Washington Irving Chambers, the Navy's first representative for aviation matters. While Ely awaited a replacement plane, Chambers reached out to the young aviator, having formed a positive opinion of him after meeting him two months before. The two then approached Navy Secretary George von Lengerke Meyer in a bid to get the Navy into the competition. This would no longer be a race simply for prize money and fame, but a feat to capture international prestige for the nation. Meyer was nonplussed until John Barry Ryan, the wealthy, self-styled "commodore" of his own aerial militia, the United States Aeronautical Reserve, offered to finance the experiment. All the Navy had to do was provide a ship. After checking with President William Howard Taft, Meyer directed Assistant Navy Secretary Beekman Winthrop to find a suitable vessel.

John Barry Ryan (Library of Congress)

The news that Chambers, with “Commodore” Ryan’s financial backing, would construct a launch platform aboard a ship at Norfolk Naval Shipyard forced Curtiss to move up the second air mail attempt from November 24, when a sister ship to Kaiserin Auguste Victoria would have been available. On November 7, Curtiss announced that a second attempt from a German liner would be made on Saturday, November 12, from the liner Pennsylvania after leaving Hoboken, New Jersey, on a regularly-scheduled transatlantic voyage.

"Nothing but a gale will prevent the flight," Curtiss told a correspondent for the Washington Post, yet this would be a more difficult attempt for a number of reasons. Not only was SS Pennsylvania significantly smaller and slower than Kaiserin, but her design only allowed construction of the 85-foot launch platform on her stern. This meant that the liner would have to throw her engines into reverse eight miles east of Fire Island in order to make 10 knots into a headwind, enabling McCurdy to make a safe launch and follow a 50-mile route along the coast of Long Island back to Governors Island, to claim a prize that was, incidentally, offered by John Barry Ryan.

USS Birmingham as outfitted with a platform over her foredeck at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, with the Hudson Flyer almost in position for launch. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Collection)

Assistant Secretary Winthrop ordered USS Birmingham to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for conversion on November 9, and the stage was set to see which faction of the Curtiss aviation team would complete the first flight of a heavier-than-air craft from a ship. German carpenters in Hoboken and their American competitors in Norfolk worked nonstop to complete their platforms and load their respective aircraft.

SS Pennsylvania's stern platform, with a Curtiss pusher aircraft being assembled (George Grantham Bain Collection, the Library of Congress)

By the morning of November 12, it seemed as though the McCurdy faction would win. Curtiss had overseen the final preparations himself and supervised the loading of one of his new planes from crates shipped directly from the factory in Hammondsport, New York. Meanwhile, Ely would have to make do with the plane Mars used for the Norfolk air show, Curtiss' venerable Hudson Flyer. It had been mended after the nor'easter and used again by Mars on November 11 in an attempt to race a horse at the Jamestown Jockey Club track, which he barely won.

Mars had left the racetrack that afternoon for Hoboken after an urgent call from Curtiss. McCurdy had crashed his plane a few hours earlier in heavy winds during an aviation meet in in Charlotte, North Carolina. Although not seriously hurt, McCurdy would never be able to make it to Hoboken in time. Mars, once the understudy, now had his chance to make history.

James Cairn "Bud" Mars. (George Grantham Bain Collection, the Library of Congress)

Although the 34 year-old Mars was not Curtiss' first choice to make the history-making flight, he had spent far more time in the aviation field than Ely, McCurdy, and Curtiss put together. He had first dazzled crowds some 15 years before as a parachutist, and had even made some of the first known attempts to fly an amphibious aircraft, with a Navy torpedo boat's help, during the Jamestown Exposition in 1907.

Originally scheduled to sail for Hamburg at 2 pm, Pennsylvania's departure time was moved up to noon to allow time to conduct the experiment. If the weather was favorable, blue signal flags with white crosses would fly from the dome of the Pulitzer Building and several other prominent buildings in New York City. If all went well, a white flag with a red ball in the center would be hoisted. Mars would land and deliver his "aeroplane mail" at around 4 pm, making aviation history, and winning Ryan's $500 prize.

It was a blue flag day and everything seemed to be in order. Fifteen minutes before departure time, the mechanics lashed the aircraft to the deck and tried the engine, which worked smoothly. Ten minutes later, and five minutes before departure, with Mars at the controls and his wife Marie and Glenn Curtis looking on, the engine was test-started one more time. A New York Times reporter recorded what happened next:

“Directly the propeller started [and] a sharp click was heard, and two pieces of wood flew off at a tangent with great force, striking on of the sailors standing near on the knee.” “Curtiss stopped the engine at once and discovered that a piece had been broken from the lower part of one of the propeller blades, and that the bamboo lead for the rudder lines on the starboard side of the airship had been smashed. A piece of rubber tubing had been left on one of the lower planes, Mr. Curtiss said, and the suction when the motor was started drew it into the propeller. On its way the rubber tube struck the bamboo tube that acted as a rubber lead and broke it off. The breaking of the steering gear put it out of the question to try the flight, Mars said.

“’I should have only got a ducking if I failed to rise with the machine,’ he said, ‘and that did not alarm me very much. I would have been quite willing to go to Europe on the Pennsylvania and try the flight on my return.’”

“The airship was taken down quickly in sections from its lofty perch and and sent to the pier, and the gay bunting with which the shil was decorated from truck to keel was hauled down. It was 1 o’clock, an hour after the scheduled sailing hour, when Capt. Russ, commander of the Pennsylvania, started his ship on her eastward voyage, with the aviation platform towering high above her stern. The carpenters were to demolish it when she got to sea.”

It had been a devastating day for someone who had endured several weeks of disappointment that fall, but a Washington Post correspondent suggested that the luckless Bud Mars’ “luck might have been worse, bad as it was.” “White squalls and black squalls played tag with each other across the lower harbor all afternoon,” he wrote after observing the attempt, “and as the sun went down the the wind rose to 50 miles per hour.”

The following day, the naval tug Alice came up the Elizabeth River from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard to the large commercial pier at Pine Beach, and a detachment of Sailors retrieved the Hudson Flyer from the Jamestown Jockey Club track. It was brought back to the yard and hoisted aboard USS Birmingham, where the following afternoon at approximately 3:17 pm, Eugene Ely would ride it down the platform, bounce off the waters off Old Point Comfort, and into naval history.

By Katherine A. Renfrew
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Registrar

World War II spurred the growth and development of many U.S. Naval installations around the country. One such base was the Cheatham Annex Supply Center (CAX), a small facility located approximately 35 miles northwest of Norfolk on the York River, York County, Virginia. Construction began in August 1942 on more than 3,000 acres, and was commissioned in June 1943. The facility supported the Naval Supply Depot in Norfolk. It provided bulk storage which included storage of gasoline, diesel, and other fuels. CAX was also an assembly location for items to be shipped abroad.

After the war, CAX continued to operate as a supply depot. During the 1970s and early 1980s, portions of the facilities’ land were transferred or sold to other government agencies: York County for use as a park; the National Park Service which enhanced the Colonial National Historical Park; and the “fuel farm” to the Virginia Department of Emergency Services. The annex was cut down to half of its original size.

More than 50 percent of the land was undeveloped which included lakes and marsh. It was, therefore, the perfect location to serve as a recreational complex for the Navy’s military and civilian personnel. In 1978, the Navy officially designated Cheatham Annex as the Hampton Roads Recreational Complex.

In October of 1998, CAX merged with the adjacent Naval Weapons Station Yorktown. Today, Cheatham Annex and the Station continue to provide valuable and critical support to the Navy.

The following images show a few examples of the development of Cheatham Annex in 1943.

Aerial view of the supply base under construction, the land was formerly the town of Penniman, Virginia, January 1, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_01 (RG 71-CB, Box 89)

Aerial view of the construction of the oil storage tanks, part of the “tank farm” located at Cheatham Annex. Eventually, 23 underground tanks were installed, most with a 50,000-barrel capacity, for the storage of fuel, February 19, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_13 (RG 71-CB, Box 90)

View of the supply pier on the York River at Cheatham Annex. The workers are preparing to pour concrete in one of the oil tanks, March 23, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_08 (RG 71-CB, Box 90)

Image depicts an aerial view of the construction of the supply pier at Cheatham Annex. The pier was “2,850 feet long by 28 feet wide, with an L-head at the extreme outboard end, 1,215 feet long by 42 feet wide, parallel to the river channel," March 25, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_09 (RG 71-CB, Box 90)

Rear side view of the Marine barracks, March 25, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_05 (RG 71-CB, Box 89)

Constructing the brig and cells for the barracks, June 6, 1943.

National Archives and Records Administration
CheathamAnnex-1943_07 (RG 71-CB, Box 89)

This brief history of Cheatham Annex is the ninth in a series of blogs illustrating the development of Naval Station Norfolk and other installations in Hampton Roads. Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this series represent the results of a research project seeking images of Hampton Roads naval installations at the National Archives and Records Administration. This research, performed by the Southeastern Archaeological Research, Incorporated (SEARCH) was funded by Commander Navy Region Mid-Atlantic as part of an ongoing effort to provide information on historic architectural resources at navy bases in Hampton Roads. The museum is pleased to present these images for the benefit of the general public and interested historians. As far as we know, all of these images are in the public domain and none of them have been published before.

Each year the first week of December is one in which the mass media dutifully reminds the American public of the infamous Japanese attack upon American military facilities on the island of Oahu and the over 2,000 Americans who perished on December 7, 1941. One way to do that is to broadcast documentaries and movies about it. One of them, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), has for generations taught the public about the attack. In an iconic scene near the end of the movie, the architect of the successful attack, Admiral Isoruoku Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura), ruefully opines afterward, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."

Note that this message from the office of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox that reached Naval Air Station Norfolk on the afternoon of December 7, 1941, is devoid of details. It gets straight to the point, merely instructing all recipients to "EXECUTE WPL FORTY SIX (Also known as War Plan Rainbow Five) AGAINST JAPAN." War Plan Rainbow Five, a highly detailed set of instructions on how to respond to a specific attack scenario in a particular geographic area, had been promulgated to the fleet by Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark on May 26, 1941. On November 27, he issued a "war warning" to all American naval forces in the Pacific to "[e]xecute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46." (Courtesy the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

The apocryphal line says less about what Yamamoto really said aboard the Japanese battleship Nagato in December 1941 and more about the beliefs of some Hollywood producers and writers nearly three decades later. With this in mind it seems that they believed that Americans collectively refused to get involved in the war until after American territory was attacked. But was America really so "America First" in 1941? Some academics and reporters seem to think so, 75 years on. A recent Florida State University news release called the attacks “a brutal salvo that forced the United States into the fray of World War II,” and a national security writer for US News and World Report recently wrote of the attack's significance: “Pearl Harbor was supposed to serve as a lesson that American popular disapproval for going to war should not have allowed its government to fail in preparing for one.”

This widely held assumption about prewar American ill-preparedness ignores abundant evidence that thousands if not millions of Americans had been actively preparing the nation for a war that presidents from Theodore Roosevelt onward to his cousin Franklin knew the nation had to be ready for. And ready, the nation was. You would be hard pressed to find a better example of this prewar preparation than in Hampton Roads, where by mid-1941, one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the nation was already at war. In fact, local shipyard workers and Sailors had been preparing since President Herbert Hoover ordered a significant part of the Atlantic Squadron transferred from Norfolk to the Pacific in 1931 during his administration’s Asia pivot to counter Japanese expansionism.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1941 was bustling with activity, just as it had been for several years, with the battleship Alabama (BB-60) under construction and several other battleships, including USS New York (BB-34), undergoing modernization. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

The shift of so many ships from Norfolk had hit the local economy pretty hard at first, just as the Great Depression was entering its darkest days. Rents and the cost of living dropped over 20 percent over the next few years, yet by 1935, they started to rise again, thanks to shipyard and construction jobs springing up in the defense sector. Because of the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Vinson-Trammell Act during the decade preceding the Pearl Harbor attack, not to mention the Naval Act of 1938, Norfolk Navy Yard and what is now Newport News Shipbuilding spent the decade making up for the warship tonnage lost as a result of Hoover’s Asia pivot, hiring many thousands in the process. Norfolk Navy Yard built nine destroyers during the 1930s as its workforce expanded to 7,625 by September 1, 1939, when World War II actually began in Europe. By 1940, 1,000 employees were being added to the shipyard’s rolls every month. Newport News Shipyard increased from 6,500 workers in 1935 to more than 10,000 in 1940.

Still being painted before her first war deployment, USS Indiana (BB-58) is shown here in September 1942 off Old Point Comfort, with Fort Monroe and the Chamberlin Hotel in the background. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Throughout 1941, the naval expansion was bearing fruit. On February 1, after an 18-year hiatus, the United States Atlantic Fleet was resurrected as a command under Admiral Ernest King. By mid-March, King commanded 159 ships. By October 20, when the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV-8), built at Newport News Shipbuilding, was commissioned under the command of Capt. Marc A. "Pete" Mitscher, the Atlantic Fleet had more than doubled, to 355 ships. The battleship Indiana (BB-58) was launched in Newport News on November 21, while her sister ship Alabama (BB-60) was only a few months away from launching in Norfolk when news of the Pearl Harbor attack broke over local radio at a little after 2 pm on December 7.

This aerial photograph of Sewells Point shows the nearly complete landing field at Naval Air Station Norfolk on May 13, 1941, located on 1,041 acres of newly-acquired land between Mason Creek at lower right and the rapidly disappearing Boush Creek (spelled “Bush” on some older maps) in the middle of the photograph, which once separated the new runways from the original Naval Operating Base area and older Chambers Field runways in the background. Newport News can be seen on the horizon. Boush Creek would completely disappear during subsequent construction and the mouth of Mason Creek would be covered by the rapidly expanding air station. The project was spearheaded by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News, which was awarded on June 29, 1940, the largest construction contract in Norfolk’s history up to that time, ultimately totaling almost $75 million. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

As seen from the control tower at Naval Air Station Norfolk (which was still under construction at the time) on May 28, 1941, the first aircraft touches down on the new landing field being built by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

During 1940 and 1941, the Naval Operating Base at Sewells Point was virtually doubling in size with the acquisition of land for a new South Annex. Naval Air Station Norfolk had also added about 1,500 acres of runways to the east of the base in the past year and a half, absorbing even Norfolk's old commercial airport. Between 1938 and 1941, NAS Norfolk had already provided aircrews, material, maintenance, training and repair capability for two carriers built in Newport News during the 1930s, Ranger (CV-4), and Yorktown (CV-5), as well as the aircraft carrier Wasp (CV-7).

Among the six battle-weary British warships that paid call in Hampton Roads for vital repairs during the summer of 1941, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious had arrived for repairs and structural modifications at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on May 12, so British pilots from Illustrious and a sister ship, HMS Formidable, which arrived August 25, were likely some of the first to benefit from the major expansion of the air station’s runways and hangars, as well as its aircraft testing and repair facilities, that were completed that summer. Royal Navy Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived to take command of Illustrious at a ceremony at the yard on August 28, 1941. Norfolk was only one of the locations Lord Mountbatten visited on his speaking tour across the America, professing his belief to the consternation of some senior American military leaders that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to surprise attack. Both carriers left the area for Europe, reinvigorated and ready for battle, shortly after the official American entry into the war.

In addition to the major expansion of existing naval facilities in the area, new bases which still serve the fleet today came into being during the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek had been commissioned on September 2, and Anti-Aircraft training and Test Center, Dam Neck, was completed on November 29, 1941. Within months, work would also begin on another new facility, Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, which would train members of some of the Navy's first Mobile Construction Battalions, known later as Seabees.

More ships, planes, shore stations and runways meant that more Sailors were needed in a hurry, and recruits were being brought to Hampton Roads in exponentially larger numbers. By 1940, the traditional areas of downtown Norfolk open to Sailors could no longer hold them. The downtown Norfolk YMCA, for example, recorded 213,000 more Sailors entering its doors than it had just a year earlier. In addition to the hordes of single Sailors, Rear Adm. Joseph K. Taussig, who as commandant of the Fifth Naval District led the effort to prepare Naval Operating Base Norfolk for the Second World War, estimated that there were 7,500 married Navy personnel with over 22,000 dependents in the area, not accounting for those who wanted also to bring their families to the area but could not for want of housing. In response he and Rear Adm. Ben Moreel, head of the Bureau of Yards and Docks (and later the founder of the Seabees), launched the first Navy efforts to construct housing for its own enlisted members on a large scale.

Although the evidence is clear that preparations for war were in full swing by late-1941, it would be no exaggeration to say that, at least for the United States Navy, an undeclared war with Germany had already begun. German U-boats were prowling off the east coast, dodging the neutrality patrols that had been instituted under the order of President Roosevelt in 1939. The destroyer Greer (DD-145) had narrowly missed being torpedoed in September 1941 after chasing a German submarine with the help of British planes. In response, Roosevelt had issued “shoot on sight” orders for all US vessels on patrol. He then ordered that destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet relieve their British counterparts on convoy escort duty to Iceland, escalating the potential for armed hostilities between American destroyers of the new Support Force and German submarines. On October 17, seven Sailors were killed when the Norfolk-based destroyer Kearny (DD-432) sustained a torpedo hit, and on the 31st, USS Reuben James (DD-245) sank into the frigid waters off Iceland after a torpedo attack, taking 115 of her crew with her. Although actual declarations of war would be voted upon by Congress against Japan and the other Axis powers about seven weeks later, it is safe to say that Hampton Roads was already playing the role it would play throughout the war for months, if not years, beforehand.

December 7 is a time to remember those who lost their lives in America’s far-flung Pacific outposts after one of the worst tactical intelligence failures in American history, yet should we not also bring to remembrance those who paved the path to victory, and paid the ultimate price, before that fateful morning? Their hard work and sacrifice made it possible to bomb Tokyo a little over four months later and strategically turn the tide of the war only two months after that (something Adm. Yamamoto actually predicted could happen), and place victorious American troops firmly in control of the Japanese home islands less then four years later. Improvement in intelligence collection and analysis deservedly receives credit for the victory at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor, but without the "giant" building, modernization, and expansion programs begun years before the Pearl Harbor attack, much of which were carried out in Hampton Roads, that intelligence would not have been actionable.

Pier side scene taken from USS Ranger (CV-4) at Naval Operating Base Norfolk on September 20, 1941, showing a Grumman J2F-5 "Duck" being hoisted from the pier. Note spare SOC-1 floats (foreground); Grumman F4F -3s in background. Ship at upper right is USS WYOMING (AG-17); unidentified AO is at near right. Also note family members on pier (lower right) and civilian trucks at various points on the pier. Although the largest carrier in the Atlantic Fleet, because of her size and capability, Ranger never joined the fight against Japan. (Naval History and Heritage Command Image)

By Reece Nortum
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Brig. Gen. Jefferson Davis shoots Maj. Gen. William Nelson. (archivesofamericanhistory.typepad.com)

On September 29, 1862, in the lobby of the fashionable Galt Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, the huge, black-bearded Major General William "Bull" Nelson, in the blue and gold uniform of a commanding officer in the United States Army, was shot at point-blank range by a fellow officer, Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis. The six-foot, four-inch, 300 plus pound Nelson died less than an hour later. General Davis was never punished, or even put on trial for committing this horrendous act. The explanation for such an astounding event takes us deep into the seldom explored military-political complexities of the Civil War.

The killing of this Union general created a large amount of controversy and opinions surrounding this story. Multiple versions from third party sources have been heard. Many believed at the time that the local newspaper had been making erroneous reports, creating a public outcry. The Jefferson Circuit Court in Louisville indicted Davis on the 27th of October, 1862, for the "manslaughter" of Nelson. Davis later paid $5,000 bail, and the case was heard from time to time until May 24, 1864 when it was removed from the docket. Nothing was heard or spoken again. The general consensus was that the federal government had swept it under the rug in order to protect Davis. But before you go to the end, we have to start from the beginning.

William "Bull" Nelson. (findagrave.com)

Kentucky-born William Nelson was an unlikely candidate to become a major general, since most of his career was spent sailing the open seas with the Navy. He was appointed as a midshipman at the age of 15, and served with distinction during the Mexican War aboard the ship of the line Delaware. Many unofficial reports state that USS Delaware was one of hardest ships to work on due to its harsh leadership and high standards. Nelson later served on the USS Raritan, one of the last sailing frigates of the United States Navy, which eventually ended its career in Norfolk in 1849. From Nelson's naval experience, he received a sword for heroism and proficiency. His "quarterdeck style" of giving orders troubled many people because of its crude and pervasive nature. In 1846, Nelson joined the first class to attend the newly established Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. When the Civil War started, the 38-year-old Nelson was the senior lieutenant in the Navy. His brother, Thomas C. Nelson, was a close friend of fellow Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln, who had appointed Thomas ambassador to Chile in April 1861. The second day after the inauguration of Lincoln, Lt. Nelson walked into the Executive Mansion and expressed his allegiance to the Union. As a Kentuckian, Nelson could sympathize with the Confederates, and Lincoln knew that and that he also needed a strong supporter in that region. Lincoln sent Lt. Nelson to Kentucky with one order: do everything in his power to keep the state in the Union. Nelson acquired extensive information on the situation and reported his findings to Washington DC. He was promoted to brigadier general in the US Army.

USS Delaware within Dry Dock No. 1 at Gosport (now Norfolk Naval Shipyard) in 1833. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Jefferson C. Davis (Wikipedia)

The events leading up to Davis' shooting of Nelson showcase the influences of both personality and the culture of honor that was prevalent in 19th century America. Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis had been sick and exhausted from the Civil War, and knowing the major concerns of the political issues in Kentucky. Davis quickly offered his help after an R&R trip back to his home state of Indiana. Davis was sent to work under Brig. Gen. Nelson in Kentucky by order from Major General William S. Rosecrans of the Mississippi, US Army Command. After Davis had been there for a day or two on duty, Nelson called him to headquarters, and Nelson asked: "Well, Davis, how you are getting along with your command?" and several other questions about his unit sizes, positions, and unit numbers under his command. Davis continued to reply noncommittally, "I don't know."

Nelson became angry and said that he should know these things, and that he was disappointed in him. Nelson stated in a commanding voice, "I selected you for this duty because you are an officer of the Regular Army, but I find I made a mistake." Davis remarked, in a cool, deliberate manner, "General Nelson, I am not a regular soldier, and I demand the treatment due to me as a general.""I demand from you the courtesy due to my Rank." Nelson thundered back, "I will treat you as you deserve, you have disappointed me, and you have been unfaithful to the trust which I reposed in you. I shall relieve you at once.""You are relieved from duty here, and you will proceed to Cincinnati and report to Major General Wright." Nelson turned toward the Adjutant General and said, "Captain, if General Davis does not leave the city by nine o'clock to-night, give instructions to the Provost-Marshal to see that he shall be put across the Ohio." Davis withdrew and reported in Cincinnati to Maj. Gen. Wright, who assigned him to command the units in Covington and Newport, Kentucky. A few days after, General Buell reached Louisville and superseded Nelson in command, and Wright, then ordered Davis to return to Louisville and report to General Buell, against Wright's order.

The murder of William Nelson made headlines across the country, (Wikimedia Commons)

Davis appeared at the Galt House in Louisville, the headquarters at that time of both Buell and Nelson. On the morning of September 29, 1862, when Nelson entered the grand hall office of the hotel, he saw Davis at the front desk speaking to the hotel clerk. Nelson went to the hotel's office and asked Silas F. Miller, the proprietor of the hotel, if Gen. Buell had his breakfast yet. Then he turned, leaned his back against the counter and saw Davis quickly walking his way, demanding an apology for insulting him at their last meeting, and saying he must have satisfaction. Nelson told him abruptly to go away. Saying, "Go away you dammed puppy, I don't want anything to do with you!" Davis had taken a visitor card from a box on the counter and crumpled it into a ball, which, upon hearing the insulting words, he flipped into Nelson's face. Instantly Nelson, with the back of his hand, slapped Davis in the face and then walked away toward his room. After the slap, Davis turned to Thomas W. Gibson and requested a pistol, which he received. In the meantime, Nelson had passed from the office hall into the corridor which led to his room. Davis reached the doorway from the office, pistol in hand. They were face to face and about a yard apart. Nelson was entirely unarmed. Davis then fired a shot at Nelson while on the stairs. Nelson stumbled to the top and died less than an hour afterwards. Davis, though greatly agitated, showed no signs of rage, and was placed in formal military custody by Major James B. Fry, at that time Buell's Chief of Staff.

The grave of Maj.Gen. William Nelson as it appears today. (findagrave.com)

General Buell regarded Davis' action not only as a high crime, but as a gross violation of military discipline. He felt that the case called for prompt and immediate action. He could not administer proper judgment and ruling. A major campaign was to start in two days. A new commander was found for Nelson's unit, and the Army marched the second day after his death. Buell could not spare the officers necessary for a proper court-martial. The pressures of war subverted justice in this case. Even in a society where honor was held high and duels occasionally still happened, most viewed this occasion as murder. Some believed the Army covered up the incident.

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