An image of Samuel Argall is superimposed upon a portion of a map of Virginia, oriented with the north to the right, which was published in London in 1624 and labeled "Discovered and [sic]Discribed by Captain John Smith, Graven by William Hole, 1606." Argall, an expert seaman, navigator, warrior, diplomat, and administrator, was instrumental in ensuring the survival of English colonists in Virginia and preventing encroachment by competing colonial powers. (Library of Congress/ Dictionary of Canadian Biography)

By Christopher Pieczynski
Contributing Writer

Samuel Argall held many titles during his long and storied career: Captain for the Virginia Company of London, Admiral of Virginia, Admiral of New England, and Deputy Governor of Virginia. He was also bestowed with a number of very descriptive if not unflattering monikers that ranged from “legalized pirate” to “freebooter” to “unscrupulous” to “despotic.”[1] Regardless of a particular love or hate characterization, Argall’s involvement with the Virginia Colony came at a critical time in the survival of the colony and helped ensure that survival by stopping the encroachment of Virginia territory by other countries.

Argall’s versatility and value to the Virginia Company was displayed on several occasions. His first task in 1609 was to find a shorter route across the Atlantic. By sailing in a more westerly route from England, roughly along the 30^thparallel, via the Azores, Argall proved that you could significantly reduce sailing time and avoid the Spanish in the old southerly route through the Caribbean.[2] Returning to Virginia in 1610, Argall and the new Virginia governor, Thomas West, the Baron De La Warre, found the colony in dire straits and on the verge of abandonment. Argall was ordered by De La Warre to procure fish for the struggling colony and with his past knowledge of North American fishing areas proceeded to the Bay of Fundy to fill his hold. Later, while trading with the Patawomeck tribe on the Potomac River, Argall managed to entice Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan leader, onboard his ship, the Treasurer. By capturing Pocahontas in this fashion, Argall was able to use her as a bargaining chip and establish, if not enforce, peace and trade with the Powhatan tribe, displaying his resourcefulness at negotiating with the native population for food and supplies.[3]

Isle Saint Croix as depicted by Samuel de Champlain on his 1607 voyage, which was published in 1613. (Hathi Trust Digital Library)

The 1606 Charter of the Virginia Company of London claimed land rights “all along the Sea Coasts, between four and thirty Degrees of Northerly Latitude from the Equinoctial Line, and five and forty Degrees of the same Latitude.” This placed the English colony between the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine to the south and the French settlement of Quebec to the north.[4] Land rights at the time were more determined by occupation of the land than by any actual claims on paper. In 1604, prior to the British claim, the French had established a settlement along the modern Maine-New Brunswick boundary at St. Croix, later moving across the Bay of Fundy to a site along the Annapolis River called Port Royal. The “northern” Virginia colony under George Popham was established near the Kennebec River in 1607. The short-lived Popham Colony struggled and was abandoned in 1608.[5] The French settlement at Port Royal also struggled but survived and by 1610 even expanded to the area abandoned by the English at Sagadahoc.

The French settlement of Port Royal in 1605, as described by Samuel de Champlain. (Hathi Trust Digital Library)

Marc Lescarbot, one of the French settlers at Port Royal, chronicled his experience and explorations in the Acadia region in Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (1609). Translated into English in 1610, the French settlement was not initially viewed as a threat to English claims in the region – possibly expecting the French colony to fail like the Popham Colony. However, in 1611, the vessel Grace de Dieu, carrying Charles de Biencourt, the son of Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt, the founder of Port Royal, and the Jesuit missionaries Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse, was forced into the Isle of Wight (the English island, not to be confused with the county in Virginia) due to weather. Information obtained from the crew and passengers indicated the ship’s destination was Port Royal. All indications were that the French colony was not only thriving but was likely to begin an expansion beyond Acadia.[6]

Meanwhile, Argall was fulfilling his duties to the Virginia Company. While back in England, the Trinity term of the Virginia Court appointed Argall as “Admiral of Virginia” on July 11, 1612 with orders to expel the French from English claimed territory.[7] In accordance with the Charter of the Virginia Company, the Governor “shall and may, from time to time, and at all times for ever hereafter, for their several Defences, encounter, expulse, repel, and resist, as well by Sea as by Land, by all Ways and Means whatsoever, all and every such Person and Persons, as without the especial Licence of the said several Colonies and Plantations.”[8]

The action against the French may have only been one of Argall’s many missions while in Virginia – the support and survival of the colony being his first priority. His activities between departing England in August 1612 and July 1613 were all in providing for the survival of the colony and included the abduction of Pocahontas. As Argall set out on another trip to procure fish for the colony, his ship, the Treasurer, carried 14 guns, an additional “fishing” boat and a crew of 60.[9] While almost all merchant vessels at the time carried some sort of armament, the Treasurerhad more the appearance of a warship than a trading vessel.

Argall’s destination was once again the New England fishing grounds that he had charted on earlier voyages. While all indications were that Argall’s purpose was to obtain fish, he was likely keeping options open to encounter the French. In July, while approaching Penobscot Bay, the Treasurerwas approached by several native canoes. Argall learned of the presence of a French settlement near Mount Desert Island called Saint Sauveur after convincing the Indians that he was here to visit the French. One of the Indians embarked aboard the Treasurer guided Argall to Saint Sauveur, where he found a small settlement consisting of tents, the ship Jonas and a pinnace anchored in the sound, but otherwise no other defenses.[10]

Argall seized the opportunity and closed on the Jonas. Onboard the French vessel, the Jesuit missionary Gilbert Du Thet, realizing the English were about to attack, fired the cannon but with no effect. Musket fire from Argall’s crew felled Du Thet and when the English boarded the vessel they found several killed and wounded across the deck. The captain of the vessel, Rene le Coq de La Saussaye, had been ashore and had fled to the woods when the firefight began. Argall searched La Saussaye’s belongings and found his official commission to establish a settlement at Mount Desert. The crafty Argall placed the commission in his pocket and after La Sausseye was captured, demanded to see the French paperwork. Unable to produce the commission (as it was secured in Argall’s pocket), Argall declared La Sausseye and the French pirates and had their property seized.[11]

Thirty of the captives were placed into a small shallop and cast out to sea. They eventually were able to cross the bay and fall in with French trading vessels which took them back to France. Argall sailed back to Virginia with Father Biard and the remaining captives and the French vessel Jonas and the pinnace as prizes.[12]

Shortly after Argall’s arrival in Virginia with his prizes, Sir Thomas Dale, Deputy-Governor, ordered the French prisoners hung. Father Biard, as you might remember, was one of those forced into the Isle of Wight where the English gained a better understanding of the French objectives in the New World. It is likely that Biard was more than willing to divulge the locations and strength of the French settlements in the Acadia region as a means of gaining favor with the English and perhaps even avoid death. Biard, aside from his own self-preservation, also had a score to settle with Biencourt. It was Biencourt at Port Royal who viewed the Jesuits as a burden on his colony and after several disagreements with Biard, essentially banished Biard and the Jesuits to Mount Desert Island. Perhaps reluctantly, Biard offered to guide Argall to Biencourt’s settlements in Acadia.[13]

Departing in the Treasurer, with Biard as guide, and accompanied by the captured Jonas and the pinnace, Argall set out on another expedition to evict the French. Arriving again at Saint Sauveur, they removed the French crosses and replaced them with English crosses as a sign of territorial claims. Their next destination was the settlement as Saint Croix. Argall know that Biard had been to Saint Croix previously but Biard refused to provide directions. Somehow the English were able to find the settlement which had been abandoned for several years. Argall’s force removed a supply of salt that was stored there and burned all remaining structures. Realizing that Biard was likely to be obstinate in providing directions to Port Royal, Argall captured a local Indian and used him as a guide.[14]

The burning of Port Royal in 1613 as depicted in Tuttle's Popular History of the Dominion of Canada, Volume 1, published in 1877. (Hathi Trust Digital Library)

Arriving at Port Royal the English found the settlement empty – the inhabitants working the fields some distance from the village. Argall waited and when the French returned, Biencourt, the French leader of the colony, attempted to bribe Argall with trading rights. Instead, Argall ordered his 40-man landing party to plunder and burn the village.[15]

Argall retuned to Virginia in the Treasurer with livestock, grain, and other stores sorely needed in the colony. Biard proceeded to Virginia in the Jonas, perhaps destined for certain death upon his arrival. The possibility of death in Virginia may have been preferable to certain execution had he remained in Port Royal at the hands of Biencourt who viewed Biard as a traitor to France. During the transit back to Virginia a storm scattered the ships. The pinnace was never seen again and presumed sunk, Treasurer eventually made it back to Virginia where Argall provided Dale with the news of the successful expulsion of the French and the delivery of the badly needed stores. The Jonas was swept so far off course in the storm that it was easier to sail to the Azores for relief than to Virginia. The next dilemma facing Biard in the Azores was the potential of the Catholic Portuguese population turning unfavorably on his plight believing that he had betrayed their fellow Catholic French. The French were hidden in the hold of the Jonas while in Fayal and eventually the ship returned to England and Biard repatriated back to France.[16]

The controversy over Argall’s attacks started with Biard’s return to France. Biard reported the incidents to the Marchioness of Guercheville who had sponsored the settlements and claimed ownership of the vessels captured by Argall. The Marchioness demanded restitution of 100,000 livres, return of the two Jesuits still being held in Virginia, and a formal declaration of the boundaries of Virginia as the French settlements were believed (by the French) to be outside of these boundaries.[17] In answering the French accusations, the English government exerted their support for Argall and stated, in part, that de Guercheville “has no reason to complain, nor to expect any reparation, seeing that her ship forcibly entered the territory of the said colony to settle and traffic without their permission to the prejudice of treaties…”[18] The Jonas, however, was eventually returned to de Guercherville.

The next settlement in the area would be established by Scottish adventurer William Alexander, about five miles further up the Annapolis River in 1629. The Scottish colony was eventually ceded to the French under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1632. Eventually the settlement became the modern Canadian community of Annapolis Royal. Samuel Argall was later appointed deputy Governor of Virginia in 1617 and ruled the colony in the absence of the governor until 1619. He was named Admiral of New England in 1622 and was knighted that same year. Samuel Argall died at sea on January 24, 1626.[19] Argall left behind a varied and distinguished legacy but his attacks on the three French settlements marked the first time that forces under the flag of Virginia attacked another nation.

[1]Seymour V. Connor, “Sir Samuel Argall: A Biographical Sketch,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 59, No. 2 (April 1951), 162.

[2]Ibid., 163.

[3] Samuel Argall to Nicholas Hawes, June 1613, in Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrims, Vol. XIX (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906), 90-95.

[4] Charter of the Virginia Company of London, 1606, American Historical Documents, 1000–1904, Vol. XLIII. The Harvard Classics (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14), 51.

[5] Banks, Charles Edwards, “New documents Relating to the Popham Expedition, 1607,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October 1929 (Worcester, MA: Davis Press, 1930).

[6] Father Pierre Biard to Rev. Christopher Balthazar, June 10, 1611, in Alexander Brown, ed., The Genesis of the United States, Vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897), 475-76.

[7] Brown, Alexander, The First Republic in America(Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898), 178.

[8]Charter, American Historical Documents, 57.

[9]Argall to Hawes, Purchas his Pilgrims, 90-95.

[10]“Biard’s Relation,” in Genesis, Vol. II, 710-11.

[11] Ibid., 713.

[12] Ibid., 715.

[13] Ibid., 717.

[14] Ibid., 718.

[15] Ibid., 719.

[16] Ibid., 720-21.

[17] H. de Montmorency, Admiral of France to King James, October 18, 1613, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, W. Noel Sainsbury, ed. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860), 15.

[18]Answer to the Complaints presented to the King by the Sieur de Buisseaux, French Ambassador, at the Court of his Majesty, 1614, Calendar of State Papers, W. Noel Sainsbury, ed. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1893), 53.

[19]“Argall Biographical Sketch,” 174.

Christopher Pieczynski served for 24 years as a surface warfare officer in the United States Navy. He is currently an adjunct professor of history at Tidewater Community College and university of Maryland University College. He specializes in the War of 1812 and naval history under sail.

Engines of Rebellion: Confederate Ironclads and Steam Engineering in the Civil War

By Saxon T. Bisbee (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2018)

Reviewed by Joseph Miechle
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Saxon Bisbee has done a thorough and outstanding job of relating the histories behind the construction of 27 Confederate ironclads in his recent monograph, “Engines of Rebellion: Confederate Ironclads and Steam Engineering in the American Civil War.” Mr. Bisbee has combed through archival holdings scattered across the United States in order to compile a fascinating understanding of how the new Confederate States aggressively pursued an ironclad construction program. The book not only draws upon original plans, drawings, journals and previous secondary sources, but also more recent archeological discoveries to produce perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of Confederate ironclad engineering to date. While extremely insightful to those interested in the micro-histories of Civil War engineering, this book may not appeal to the average reader due to the inherent complexities of engineering. It is important to note that this book acknowledges that the Confederacy had some ironclads constructed for them outside the country but deliberately does not include them in discussion.

Plans for the Richmond-class ironclad CSS Savannah as redrawn by Robert Holcombe in 1978, which appear on page 89 of the book. CSS Richmond, launched in an incomplete state from Gosport Navy Yard (today known as Norfolk Naval Shipyard) on May 6, 1862, was the only other Confederate ironclad besides the more famous CSS Virginia (converted from the remains of the USS Merrimack) to emerge from the shipyard on the Elizabeth River opposite the City of Norfolk, and was the first of six of the class completed at various locations under Confederate control. (Engines of Rebellion)

The well-supported argument of the book is that despite steam engineering being a relatively new technology, lack of major manufacturing facilities in the south, and starting with no navy at all to begin with, the Confederate ironclad construction program was relatively successful. The ships utilized mostly existing machinery, yet they spurred advancements in propulsion and design for years afterward. The book is not only an exhaustive study on the design and procurement of the machinery of the Confederate ironclads but also draws on some rare primary accounts of Confederate engineers and shipbuilders. The book provides ample insight to the difficulties they faced in adapting under-powered engines for use on ships substantially different than they were originally designed for.

Plan drawing, including the inboard profile, decks and two hull cross sections, inscribed at the top, "180 Ft. Iron Clad Gun Boat. As Altered July 6th 1863 ... Wm. A. Graves," which appears on page 134 of the book. This plan may represent CSS Virginia II, which was built in Richmond, Virginia, and participated with the other James River Squadron ironclads CSS Richmond and CSS Fredericksburg in the Battle of Trent's Reach. The original is plan # 81-12-2E in Record Group 19 at the U.S. National Archives. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

There are only a couple of very slight criticisms about this book. As previously mentioned the very nature of writing a book on engineering requires a vocabulary all its own. This makes the book somewhat difficult for a reader with no background in the field to fully appreciate. To be fair, though, a fine glossary has been provided near the end of the book that the lay reader can refer to as necessary. The only other possibly negative aspect of this book is in regards to illustrations. A book about engineering would benefit greatly from numerous detailed illustrations. This book does include a fair amount of illustrations, some previously unpublished, yet presents them in such a small scale it is difficult to comprehend them or really appreciate their intricacies

Although the machinery for the wooden gunboat CSS Chattahoochee was smashed and its hull set afire when Columbus, Georgia was captured by U.S. Army troops in April 1865, this photo taken in Columbus approximately 100 years later (which appears on page 12 of the book) showed that its two horizontal direct-acting engines, which each turned one screw on the opposite side of each cylinder head, survived as a rare example of Civil War steam technology. (Courtesy of the Confederate Salvage Association, Inc./Naval History and Heritage Command image)

If you have ever wondered how the ironclad ships of the Confederacy were constructed and powered, this book will prove to be a phenomenal resource to the serious scholar of the Civil War Navy or those interested in 19th century steam engineering. For the lay reader, while a bit overwhelming, the book still tells the story from construction to disposition of all of the Confederate ironclads that were constructed in the Confederate States. The appendix itself is a fine quick glance resource for understanding the “bare bones” of Confederate Ironclad steam machinery, as well as serving as a great list of the ships by various groupings. As previously mentioned, the glossary certainly helped this reader understand the content, and the notes and bibliography are helpful and complete as well. This book would make a fine addition to a reader’s library.

This bust by sculptor J. Kendetagi Orsolya currently displayed in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum gallery depicts Vice Admiral Francois Joseph Paul du Bar, Compte de Grasse, an imposing man who stood six feet, two inches tall, yet he was "six feet six inches on days of battle," according to one comrade. (Photo by M.C. Farrington/ Bust Courtesy of the Old Coast Guard Station Museum, Virginia Beach)

By A.J. Orlikoff
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

On September 17, 1781, a group of military commanders boarded the Queen Charlotte, a captured British prize, in Hampton, Virginia. The party was made of an assortment of individuals, whose names are likely familiar to even those with only elementary knowledge of the Revolutionary War: Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Harrison, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Foremost in the group was the commander-in-chief of the Franco-American forces in Virginia, General George Washington. This esteemed party was on their way to meet with a man who, in their minds, warranted just as much esteem. The Queen Charlotte reached its destination around noon, the French flagship Ville de Paris, and the party was welcomed by a 13-gun salute, one for each American colony. As Washington crossed the quarterdeck of the ship, the man he had come to conference with, wrote Washington’s adopted son George Washington Parke Custis, “…flew to embrace him, imprinting the French salute upon each cheek. Hugging him in his arms he exclaimed, ‘My dear little general.’” Upon hearing the towering Washington referred to as little, almost everyone close enough to hear burst into laughter, with Knox laughing “…until his fat sides shook again.” Admiral François Joseph Paul Comte de Grasse, who at 6’2 stood eye to eye with the American, greeted Washington for the first time with a joke.

In the painting “Washington Visits the French Fleet,” artist Percy Moran captured the moment the Comte de Grasse and Washington first met on the quarterdeck of the Ville de Paris. Washington and de Grasse quickly became friends who had immense respect and affection for one another. The two corresponded regularly until De Grasse’s death in 1788. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The Comte de Grasse is not widely recognized as a major hero of the Revolutionary War by scholars and enthusiasts of the conflict alike. However, de Grasse’s accomplishments in his naval career and as a fleet commander during the Revolutionary War stand as a testament to his skill, dedication, and personal bravery. His victory over the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake Capes (also known as the Battle of the Capes) stands as one of the most important and consequential naval battles in the history of the world as it directly led to British defeat at Yorktown and the subsequent independence of the United States of America. Highly regarded by his friends and enemies alike, de Grasse played a vital role in the establishment of American independence and his career, life, and military service in the Revolution stand as an often overlooked yet compelling chapter of naval history.

De Grasse’s path to serving in America’s War for Independence was paved in privilege as he was born to a wealthy and storied French noble family in 1722. De Grasse benefited from a superb education, learning from the Jesuits, serving as a page for the Knights of Malta, and ultimately joining the Marine Royale as an ensign when he turned 18. De Grasse climbed the ranks, fighting skillfully in several wars against the British in the mid-18th century. Although he was regarded as a brave, honorable, and talented officer, his naval career advanced unremarkably until his promotion to commodore in 1778 and the entrance of France as an American ally in the Revolution.

This painting depicts the grand harbor of Malta with several ships of The Order of St. John. Founded in the mid-12th century, the Order of St. John was the first chivalric order to adopt an official navy. Originally known as the Knights Hospitaller, the Order eventually moved to Malta in the 14th century. With their elite ships and crews, the Maltese Navy was the scourge of their enemies in the Mediterranean. The Comte de Grasse received an excellent naval education from the Order of St. John and he remained a member until he joined the Order of St. Louis later in life. (Wikimedia Commons)

De Grasse distinguished himself in several battles off of France and in the Caribbean from 1778 to 1780 as a ship, squadron, and fleet commander. The Marine Royale, contrary to how they had fared in prior naval wars with Britain, fought the Royal Navy to a standstill. In January 1781, de Grasse was recuperating from an illness in France when he was summoned to the court of King Louis XVI. He was personally escorted to the king by Queen Marie Antoinette who offered the tall and handsome naval commander her arm as they walked through the palace. De Grasse was well-liked by the King and Queen and he was given the vital Caribbean fleet command and promoted to Rear Admiral. Thus, de Grasse sailed for the Caribbean on March 22 with 20 ships of line with his flag flying from the first rate 104 gun Ville De Paris, one of the largest and most powerful ships in the world. It would be up to De Grasse on how to best use French naval might in North America.

The French fleet arrived in the Caribbean on April 28 and was immediately met in battle by a powerful British force under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, whose conduct during the Battle of the Capes a few months later proved to be decisive. De Grasse successfully protected a merchant convoy while simultaneously defeating Hood at The Battle of Fort Royal. De Grasse spent the next few months maneuvering, resupplying, and engaging British forces in the Caribbean. However, de Grasse possessed a keen strategic mind and knew that his true objective was to use his fleet in conjunction with the Franco-American forces in North America.

After coordinating with the allied commanders Washington, Lafayette, and Rochambeau, de Grasse decided to sortie into the Chesapeake Bay in order to isolate British General Charles Cornwallis’ large army in Virginia. On September 5, 1781, de Grasse defeated the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake Capes. The Royal Navy was ultimately forced to retreat as they were outnumbered and their ships were deemed too damaged to reengage. As a result, Cornwallis’ forces were vulnerable to an overwhelming concentration of Franco-American forces. On September 28, the united Franco-American army besieged Yorktown and, after the British redoubts were stormed and their position shelled, Cornwallis was forced to surrender on October 19.

This rare map stylistically depicts the effective blockade of the Chesapeake Bay by the French fleet commanded by the Comte de Grasse. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Word of the victory at Yorktown spread fast and de Grasse was effusively praised by many key parties. Washington wrote Congress on October 19 complimenting de Grasse, stating, “I wish it in my Power to express to Congress how much I feel myself indebted to the Count De Grasse and the officers of the French fleet…for the distinguished Aid and Support which have been afforded by them.” On October 20, Washington personally thanked de Grasse for his role in the victory at Yorktown, writing, “…in the name of America, for the glorious event for which she indebted to you…the surrender of York…the honor of which belongs to your excellency.”

Congress, upon receiving news of the victory, passed a resolution officially thanking de Grasse, “…for his display of skill and bravery in attacking and defeating the British fleet…and for his zeal and alacrity in rendering…the most effective and distinguished aid and support to the allied army in Virginia.” The gratitude de Grasse received for his victory at Yorktown was deserving and he relished another opportunity to engage the British, declaring to Washington, “I wish that they (British) would choose to crown our happiness by affording me the means of inspiring them with the respect which they ought to feel for a victorious fleet.” De Grasse would get his chance.

Charles Wilson Peale captured the quiet confidence and martial zeal of George Washington in this 1782 painting of him at Yorktown. Commissioned by a French officer who served with Washington at Yorktown, this portrait depicts Washington as the military commander he was. Washington was well liked by even the most austere of the French and he maintained several friendships over the years of his life with the French military officers he served with, including the Comte de Grasse. (National Portrait Gallery)

De Grasse, having promised to aid the Spanish in the Caribbean against the British before leaving for Virginia, departed the Chesapeake Bay on November 4. Washington wrote de Grasse on November 5, expressing regret he could not bid him farewell in person writing, “I entreat your Excellency to accept my ardent vows for the speedy and perfect establishment of your health and the sentiments of sincere friendship.” Though the two remained friends throughout their lives, they never met again.

Arriving safely at Fort Royal on November 26, de Grasse immediately planned and prepared for military operations against British targets in the Caribbean. The grand prize, in the eyes of the Franco-Spanish forces, was British-held Jamaica. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, regarded Jamaican sugar exports, which made up 20% of all British import revenue, as a vital interest and as a result the defense of Jamaica was prioritized. If de Grasse could take Jamaica, it would be a death blow to the British economy.

This 1784 painting of the Battle of St. Kitts by Nicholas Pocock helps illustrate the brilliant tactical mind of Admiral Hood. De Grasse was out maneuvered by Hood who circled behind the French, seizing their anchorage. This painting depicts Hood’s ships, on the left, repelling an attack by de Grasse’s fleet. Hood’s tactical maneuver at St. Kitts received high praise from both his peers in the Admiralty and subsequent historians, yet Hood’s brilliance was ultimately rendered meaningless as de Grasse nevertheless took St. Kitts. (Wikimedia Commons)

By January, 1782, de Grasse’s fleet, numbering 26 ships of the line, was ready to conduct offensive operations against the British. De Grasse decided that the first blow of his 1782 offensive would be struck at the British-held island of St. Kitts while he awaited reinforcements for the grand assault on Jamaica. On January 11, de Grasse landed an invasion force on St. Kitts and thousands of French troops laid siege to the fortified British position on Brimstone Hill. On January 25, Admiral Hood, who had fought de Grasse several times the previous year, counter-attacked de Grasse’s 26 ships with his smaller fleet of 22. Hood executed the most brilliant tactical maneuver of his naval career at The Battle of St. Kitts when he lured de Grasse away from the island and then seized his anchorage. De Grasse, with Hood between his fleet and the besieging French forces, furiously assaulted the British held anchorage on January 26. The engagement was indecisive, with both fleets suffering approximately 300 casualties, and de Grasse was forced to retreat and blockade the St. Kitts anchorage.

Although de Grasse’s old enemy Hood had brilliantly maneuvered his smaller force, his tactical victory over him was for naught as he was unable to stop the French invasion on the island. The French took St. Kitts on February 12 and Hood was forced to retreat. De Grasse had taken St. Kitts but it would not be the last time he had to face Admiral Hood. The final reckoning between de Grasse and the Royal Navy would occur months later at Saint’s Passage.

About this time each year we like to roll out a nautical ghost story or some other tale broaching the supernatural. There are few left, however, that have not been brought forth over and over so many times from multiple sources until there is hardly a person alive with an interest in the subject who has not heard about nor read them. With this in mind I am dusting off an old story that I have only repeated to a few people over the years. While not a believer in such things myself, I will grant that the unexplainable can sometimes happen. One such event reportedly happened to a fellow Sailor on a working party I was assigned to aboard the aircraft carrier Forrestal (CV 59) some years back.

Originally photographed in 2011 by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Nicholas A. Groesch aboard USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) in the Western Pacific Ocean, this working party passing along chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) kits, with an extra ghostly member inserted, serves as a convenient illustration for this Halloween-themed article. (Photo illustration by M.C. Farrington)

During the entirety of the history of the U.S. Navy, ships have never been entirely self-sufficient. While the dismal and dirty drudgery of loading coal disappeared a century ago with the ascendance of fuel oil-fired boilers and, later, gas turbines and nuclear reactors, the basic staples required by those manning war vessels the world over have not changed. Sooner or later, provisions must be taken aboard, whether from a pier or underway. Today, the Navy has logistics specialists to oversee the efficient procurement and management of those provisions, but there has never been enough of them on any ship to take these supplies onboard by themselves. Taking on essential supplies that all hands use has always been an all-hands effort, disproportionately allotted to lower-ranking Sailors, of which I was one aboard Forrestal.

On the Forrestal, there were few mechanical conveyors to bring frozen packages down into the refrigerated “reefers” below. Most of a large shipment of food and other consumables would be taken down into the hold using only Sailor power. Four or five decks down into the neither regions of the carrier, wax-coated cardboard packages, taken from palletized cargo hoisted onto the hangar bay during underway replenishment, were passed from hand to hand for what seemed like endless hours, down a vertical access trunk plunging straight to the refrigerated reefers of the hold. As one might expect, the spaces at the bottom were cold, dark, and a little slippery after the humid air of the North Arabian Sea reached them.

During most of the working parties I was assigned to, there wasn’t much talking. At least, it wasn’t the kind of talking that would pass for polite conversation. Every so often, however, the pace would let up as an empty pallet up in the hangar bay was moved aside and a new one staged. During the few minutes of respite, the Sailors of the working party could sit down, stretch, or even talk. The topic of conversation one particular day was an entity called “George,” the existence of which had been recently confirmed to the news media by the ship’s public affairs office.

The Sailor working closest to me claimed that he had an experience with George. He had been working with one other man at the bottom of a vertical access trunk that terminated at two reefer spaces. They had just finished filling up one reefer and had just opened the hatch leading into another empty one. One new problem that developed was that they could not get the lights in the space to turn on, but a much worse problem quickly became apparent. Despite having to traverse a further 25 feet to place the boxes along the opposite bulkhead of the newly-opened space, the petty officer overseeing the work above had refused to send down any more men to bridge the gap. The man at the end of the chain would have to quickly run each new box across the reefer from the entrance after receiving it from the second-to-last man (the teller of the tale) at the bottom of the trunk.

Meanwhile, a box continued to come down about every five seconds.

U.S. Navy Damage Controlman Fireman Josh Steiger hands a frozen goods package to Electrician's Mate 3rd Class Joseph Spangenberg in a storage freezer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) at sea in an undisclosed location Sept. 23, 2010. The material condition of the freezer, not to mention the food being stored within, appears to be of markedly higher quality aboard this Nimitz-class carrier than it was for the author doing similar work aboard USS Forrestal. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Tyler Caswell/Released)

Despite the new challenges they were facing, the Sailor at the doorway tried to keep up with the pace. After handing off the first box to the Sailor inside the darkened space, he pivoted upward to catch the next box being handed down from above, but he was shocked when a pair of hands emerged from the pitch-black doorway and grabbed it from his hands when he pivoted downward again. After the following box dropped into his hands, he pivoted back down to the Sailor who was again back in the doorway and asked him, “How’d you do that?” as he handed over the box.

“How’d I do what?” the man replied breathlessly.

“How did you get back here so fast?”

“I got back just now.”

“No, you grabbed the last box just a few seconds ago and now you’re back again.”

“No I didn’t. I just got back.”

Meanwhile, more boxes were coming down the access trunk unabated, so the two had to put their argument on hold, yet neither of them were able to keep the pace after that, nor were they ever able to sort out just what had happened.

Neither could I, after hearing the tale that day down at the bottom of a similar trunk near a similarly dank, dark reefer space. But there’s one thing I did know.

“George is supposed to be an officer; a ‘khaki,’ right?”

“That’s what I heard,” replied the Sailor.

“Then it can’t be George,” I said, “because no khaki, living or dead, would ever come pitch in all the way down here.”

The virtually undetectable weapons that almost destroyed a Landing Ship, Tank (LST) of the Mobile Riverine Force?

You're looking at them.

(Photograph captured from the Viet Cong in 1971 by Australian forces/ Australian War Memorial)

Historians of the Vietnam War have recognized the nature of riverine warfare during the war in Vietnam as comparable to that experienced by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. The vessels of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam faced the same sorts of threats that Navy gunboats on the Mississippi or the James River faced more than a century earlier. Aside from larger mass-produced Soviet and Chinese mines that teams of Viet Cong (VC) sapper-swimmers deployed in larger waterways such as Soirap River–the maritime lifeline to Saigon–small man-portable improvised explosive devices, mines and satchel charges carried by enemy Viet Cong sappers were the bane of the MRF in smaller rivers across South Vietnam, particularly in the Mekong Delta.

Former Acting Director of Naval History Edward J. Marolda wrote that this picture of River Assault Division 91 monitors taken in the Mekong Delta in 1968 was evocative of "Civil War combat on the Mississippi." (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

In 1966, intelligence estimates indicated that about half of the population of the Delta were under VC control. In the two years since then, the Viet Cong’s hold over the area, home to approximately 40 percent of South Vietnam's population, was markedly degraded by the MRF. The late summer and early fall had been very successful, with a longstanding VC stronghold in the U-Minh Forest 48 miles southwest of Can Tho falling to them in August. Yet the enemy turned out to be far more elusive than originally expected thanks to their reliance on stealth and their light footprint compared to the Americans and their Vietnamese allies.

Not only were smaller fiberglass-hulled river patrol boats (PBRs) and armored support patrol boats (ASPBs) vulnerable to small “limpet” mines borne by the enemy sappers, American Sailors found that even the larger vessels used as bases for the MRF, also known as Task Force 117, were highly susceptible to attack, the most deadly of which occurred fifty years ago.

Similar in size, displacement and role as USS Westchester County (LST 1167) during the war, USS Vernon County (LST 1161, foreground) serves somewhere in the Mekong Delta with other large vessels of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), including self-propelled barracks ships (APBs) and a large barracks barge. Vernon County was a tempting target for VC sapper-swimmers due to its role as a floating warehouse, carrying 600 tons of ammunition as well as fuel. All of the LST's gun mounts were manned during nighttime hours, and six sentries stood watch over the pontoons moored alongside. (National Archives and Records Administration)

It was 0322 on November 1, 1968, and all was quiet for the 132-man crew aboard the Landing Ship, Tank Westchester County (LST 1167), along with 175 Soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division's 3rd Battalion, 34th Artillery Brigade who were billeted aboard, off-duty Sailors of Navy River Assault Division 111, as well as Vietnamese military personnel operating with the Americans. Known as the “Wesco” to those who served aboard the LST, Westchester County had operated out of Hampton Roads for the first four years of her service career, but ten years after departing Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek for a new homeport in Yokosuka, Japan, Wesco was attached to Task Force 117, Mobile Riverine Group ALPHA (responsible for the Eastern Mekong Delta) and was on its fifth combat deployment to Vietnam, serving as a base on the My Tho River, 40 miles north of Vung Tau.

USS Westchester County (LST 1167) photographed in Naha, Okinawa, by USS Washoe County (LST 1165) crew member Rich Krebs in 1966. (NavSource Online)

The ship wasn’t just a place to tie up and sleep. Wesco was crammed with 350 tons of ordnance and fuel as part of a self-sufficient floating base that included the command ship Benewah, itself a converted LST, along with the repair ship Askari, two barracks barges, and salvage vessel. Atop the ship were five Army UH-1 Iroquois “Hueys,” fueled up and ready to dust off at a moment’s notice. Along Wesco’s entire tank deck, just above the waterline, were more than 10,000 105mm and 155mm shells, thousands of rounds of 20mm ammunition, stacked boxes of C-4 plastic explosive, Claymore antipersonnel mines, white phosphorous ammunition and a variety of flares.

Tied along Wesco’s 384-foot-long hull were three large ammunition and fuel barges called “ammis,” separated from the hull by a large teak log “camel.” Tied up to the ammis were approximately 25 armored river monitors, ASPBs, and armored transports (ATCs) of the river assault division.

The B-40 rocket (also known as the RPG-2, as popular as the RPG-7 is to the Taliban in Afghanistan today) was a weapon of choice for VC attackers while the vessels of the division were on patrol, but a countermeasure in the form of bar armor (which can be seen today on some Stryker armored vehicles) was helping defeat the shaped charges of the B-40. Far harder to detect and defeat, even at the heart of the floating base complex, was the stealthiest yet most primitive weapon used against them: VC sapper-swimmers, most wearing only briefs, breathing through small snorkels, and armed with only limpet mines, many of them improvised.

Two Viet Cong control-type mines discovered by a Mobile Riverine Force patrol. Undated. (Commander T.L. Sinclair/ Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Picket boats wound their way around and through the group of ships, their crews randomly dropping concussion grenades into the water in an attempt to thwart the swimmers, yet at least two got through, setting off a pair of mines estimated to have contained between 150 and 500 pounds of explosive each at the ship’s weakest point, just below the waterline between Westchester County’s hull and the extremely vulnerable aluminum-hulled ammi pontoon barges.

Shards of the disintegrated teak camel, steel, and aluminum shot out in all directions, yet much of the force of the simultaneous explosions was channeled upward, sending the entire LST reeling and almost flipping one of the ammi barges completely over. The survivors in the devastated second and fourth deck berthing areas woke up to a grim reality–ammunition was scattered everywhere and the air hung heavy with vaporized diesel fuel, threatening a secondary explosion much more devastating than the first. River water poured into the ten-foot-wide holes made by the mines, threatening to capsize Westchester County.

Wesco’s commander, Lieutenant Commander John Branin, was grappling with several competing problems. Thrown onto the deck by the initial explosion, he called for general quarters to be sounded, only to find that many of the more senior petty officers; the ones whose leadership was vitally needed to run the LST’s battle stations, had been in the berthing area nearest the blasts. He quickly ascertained that the explosions were not part of some larger, coordinated attack and diverted his attention towards correcting the list. Fortunately, LSTs were designed with enhanced ballasting capabilities, capable of sinking and refloating the LST in order to take on and disgorge armored vehicles in a littoral environment. If Branin could selectively purge the right voids on the starboard side, he could stem the list and save the ship.

Just then, Petty Officer 2nd Class Rick Russell made contact with the bridge via sound-powered phone. Miraculously, the detonations had spared the forward ballast tanks and the electric pumps seemed to be operational. Wesco’s damage control officer guided Russell though the process of pumping water out of the forward tanks on the starboard side, and the ship slowly began to right itself.

In all, 18 American Sailors, five American Soldiers, one Vietnamese sailor and one Vietnamese army Tiger Scout were killed, plus a further 27 were wounded. Two of the Army choppers on its flight deck were also destroyed. While Wesco was saved from capsizing, several other existential threats remained. Cutting torches could not be used to free the Soldiers and Sailors still trapped in the berthing compartments. In fact, any spark could still destroy the rest of the vessel as well as the River Assault Division boats still afloat. Standard damage control implements had to be used to free the wounded recover the fallen until the ship was thoroughly ventilated.

Several days after the attack, Wesco still maintained a pronounced list and the true amount of damage had yet to be ascertained, so Lt. Cmdr. Branin reluctantly beached the LST on November 4 in order to complete damage assessments and affect necessary repairs. Working around the clock, Wesco’s crew along with that of the repair ship Askari and a team set from Naval Support Activity Dong Tam built a cofferdam around Wesco’s starboard side to expose the entire damaged area for necessary repairs.

Just ten days later, Westchester County was on its way back to Yokosuka and, ultimately, back to the United States for extensive repairs. Wesco completed more deployments to Vietnam in support of Operations Market Time and End Sweep before being decommissioned on August 30, 1973.

The ship that nearly met its end in Vietnam 50 years ago served the Turkish navy for another three decades before being decommissioned for the last time in 2004, succumbing to at least two Hellfire and one Sea Sparrow missile during a training exercise on May 30, 2014.

On November 16, 1943, the accidental detonation of 104,000 pounds of Torpex (equivalent to over 150,000 pounds of TNT) destroyed two adjoining buildings at Naval Mine Depot Yorktown (now known as Naval Weapons Station Yorktown) leaving two craters, each more than 20 feet deep and over 150 feet wide. The explosion shattered glass windows for miles around and could be heard as far away as Richmond, Virginia. Although the blast was almost 17 times more powerful than a similar accident that occurred at Naval Air Station Norfolk less than two months earlier that killed 30 and injured approximately 400, six mine depot workers died in the immediate vicinity of the blast and a seventh was killed in another building nearby, while six others were injured. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file photo)

By Gordon Calhoun
Museum Operations Division Historian, Naval History and Heritage Command

Early in the morning of November 16, 1943, Captain Richard Kirkpatrick was shaken out of a deep sleep by a very large explosion. The retired naval officer, recently recalled to active duty as the commanding officer of Naval Mine Depot Yorktown, later reported that he gazed out his bedroom window in the direction of the explosion. He got dressed quickly, expecting a phone call any second. When none came, he dialed up the base operator and asked what just happened. Kirkpatrick was informed that one of the ordnance production plants had just exploded.

He rushed to the scene in his car to find his security chief, a Marine lieutenant colonel, and his executive officer coordinating hundreds of Sailors and Marines in fire and rescue operations. Two ships tied up at the Depot’s ammunition loading piers, the minelayers USS Salem (CM-11) and Weehawken (CM-12) rushed hospital corpsmen to the scene. Satisfied that the immediate situation was in good hands, Kirkpatrick proceeded to the blast area where he saw only a few brush fires, but a tremendous amount of debris and unexploded ordnance thrown everywhere.

An aerial photograph taken November 16, 1943, looking northwest, shows the explosion site at the northern end of the Plant No. 2, or "P-2" complex near the northern border of the mine depot, situated slightly east of Felgates Creek, which bisects the northern side of the reservation. Although the loading building directly to the south of the explosion site and warehouses to the north across Main Road sustained damage, it was limited by a high earthen berm that surrounded the Finishing Building, which was largely vaporized in the blast. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

When the sun came up, the picture became somewhat more clear. Rescue workers and security personnel saw two craters, each 25 feet deep and 150 feet across. Nothing remained of the building, or the trucks and the railroad flat cars parked nearby. All six men working in the building at the time, five African-Americans and one white supervisor, were killed.

A seventh person, a civilian foreman named James Seawell, was going over the night’s work assignments with his men in another building when the explosion threw him against the wall. A refrigerator then landed on his head. He died the next day, leaving behind a wife and two daughters.

James B. Seawell, the seventh victim. (Courtesy of Charlotte V. Wallace)

The building destroyed was one of four that constituted the Plant No.2, or “P-2” complex, which until recently had been the only facility in America that produced the British-designed explosive known as Torpex. The three main areas of the complex, one for the preparation of the warhead cases and measuring the Torpex ingredients, one for the melting, mixing, and loading of the explosive mixture, and an area for cooling the completed ordnance, were separated by at least 50 yards and high earthen berms. Components were transferred from one area to the next via conveyor belt.

Officially named the Finishing Building, but also known as the “cooling building,” the site of the explosion was the last stop for aerial depth bombs, torpedo warheads, and mines that had been loaded with Torpex in the nearby Loading Building, where petty officers from the Yorktown Mine School had poured the hot liquid explosive mixture into shell casings. The ordnance was then allowed to cool down at the Finishing Building into a more solid state over a period of several hours. Workers then moved the live ordnance from the Finishing Building on to rail flat cars or trucks and then shipped it off to the fleet.

At the time of the explosion, there was 64,000 pounds of loaded Torpex ordnance inside the building, 21,000 pounds of live Mark 13 Mines on the flat cars, and 18,000 pounds of torpedo warheads and mines on trucks. In all, about 104,000 pounds of Torpex, or the equivalent of 150,000 pounds of TNT, blew the Finishing Building to bits.

Connected to the Finishing Building was another building that served a similar purpose. Here, workers received and stored TNT purchased from the U.S. Army, which was one of three ingredients used to make Torpex. Investigators concluded early on that this was the reason for two separate craters at the blast site. The first crater was the Finishing Building and the second crater was the TNT storage area.

Looking southeast, the obliterated Finishing Building site appears on the other side of Main Road (crossing the center of the image) behind thousands of stacked sea mine and depth bomb casings, many of which have been knocked askew by the force of the explosion. Some of the large storage warehouses in the area, many of which contained explosive ingredients and even finished ordnance awaiting transport, also sustained damage. Had the building not been surrounded by a large earthen berm, the damage could have been much worse. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

The damage could have been much worse, but basic safety measures kept the explosion limited to a confined area. Specifically, most of the ordnance plants and warehouses had tall barriers of sand and dirt on at least three sides. As a result, most of the force of the explosion went harmlessly upwards. The placement of the Depot in a secluded place along the York River in 1918 was done just in case of such of an emergency.

Despite the precautions taken against an accidental explosion, there were serious concerns that this incident had not been accidental. Just two months before, a massive explosion at Naval Air Station Norfolk killed more than 30 Sailors and injured nearly 400. There was a tremendous amount of anxiety that German spies or submarines were active in the area. Within 12 hours of the explosion, the Bureau of Ordnance opened an investigation and convened a court of inquiry.

The Bureau of Ordnance assembled a board of three officers, Captain James G. Ware, Captain Allan W. Ashbrook, and Commander Ashton B. Smith, with Lieutenant Wayne Brooks as judge advocate and lead investigator. The board pursued two major avenues of inquiry. The first was the production and nature of Torpex, attempting to determine if one of the bombs spontaneously exploded. The second dealt with the men who handled the explosives and whether or not they were handling it safely.

Investigating a Top Secret Explosive

A diagram shows the design of the Mark 18 torpedo warhead, which was filled with 660 pounds of Torpex at the Yorktown Mine Depot. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Capt. Kirkpatrick and his chief engineer led off the testimony by briefing the panel on the Depot’s mission of ordnance production and details of its Torpex manufacturing process. Investigators quickly focused on the latter. Kirkpatrick testified that after the British handed over the formula for Torpex to the United States in 1942, the Bureau of Ordnance selected Yorktown to be the first for domestic manufacturing. A new plant was up and running by spring of 1943 and within days, mines, bombs, and torpedoes loaded with explosives were being shipped out to the fleet.

Initially, engineers believed that 500,000 pounds of live ordnance a month was the maximum amount that could be safely manufactured. Within a few weeks, however, the demand for Torpex from the Navy and the U.S. Army Air Corps (Torpex was used in bombs for the 8th Army Air Force’s campaign over Germany) was so high that the facility was producing and shipping out more than four times that amount a month. Kirkpatrick and his staff believed this was too dangerous and cut back production to 1,400,000 pounds a month.

One of the pictures from the inquiry shows Mark 19 torpedo warheads on a loading dock at one of the buildings at the mine depot. Although it might appear as though they were moved around by hand trucks, the warheads were actually moved via harnesses attached to overhead monorails. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Even with the lower production levels, live ordnance was piling up in the warehouses. Ordnance recently loaded with hot, liquid Torpex had to be stored somewhere in order to cool off. There was no special place for this stage of production. As a result, 105,000 pounds of live ordnance was stored within the P-2 complex and not a separate area. The court asked Kirkpatrick why this was the case, and he replied that there simply was not room anywhere else, nor was there time to build a new storage facility. It would be the first of many times throughout that since the demand for Torpex was so high and was considered such a critical tool for Allied war success, the production of the explosive was rushed. More direct complaints along these same lines came from the Depot’s ordnance production officer who testified that the machine used to make Torpex was flawed. He stated that the Depot’s machines came straight from Britain and were operated under the assumption that they were safe.

The court then turned its attention to the safety of Torpex itself and received conflicting answers. Kirkpatrick and others acknowledged that Torpex was somewhat more unstable than other explosives. The witnesses also stated that they were aware that leaking gas caused by Torpex production possibly caused the Naval Air Station Norfolk explosion (which was later determined not to be the case) and had taken all necessary steps to monitor gas leaks.

A civilian chemist from the Bureau of Ordnance later testified that Torpex passed accepted safety tests, namely an “anvil” test. In this test the explosive was dropped from a certain height on to a hard surface to see what would happen. However, the Depot’s chief chemist, Lieutenant N.H. Bullard, testified that “[Torpex] was an explosive, the research upon which is still in the process of being developed.” Bullard went on to state that he was never fully briefed about the detailed properties of Torpex. His knowledge of the explosive amounted to some papers from British scientists that gave a general overview and a few briefings. There was some research that showed that Torpex was more heat sensitive than other explosives, but not much else was known.

None of those interviewed pointed fingers directly at each other, but many veiled accusations were made. All of the Depot’s senior staff had Navy lawyers at the hearing who were allowed to cross-examine witnesses as needed. On a number of occasions, the officers’ lawyers made sure that their clients were not being implicated. For example, when a third class petty officer stated that he had heard that P-2’s workers frequently dropped live ordnance, the executive officer’s lawyer got him to admit he had never actually seen a piece of ordnance dropped.

Given the number of Navy careers possibly in jeopardy because of the incident and to avoid any conflict of interest issues, the court called on the U.S. Army’s Chief of Ordnance to provide a more neutral assessment of the damage. The Army sent Captain Charles Ford from the Ordnance Department’s Safety and Security Branch to examine the blast site and testify.

Ford first stated that there was “mute evidence” to support his opinions. The explosion was so powerful and in such a concentrated area that items like the remains of the building, the rail cars, human remains, or shell casings had literally been obliterated. Having stated that, he believed that the first of four separate explosions occurred inside the building. The first explosion led in quick succession to a series of three more. When asked for his opinion on how the explosion happened, he stated that “rough handling” by P-2’s workers “could have been a cause.” Ford added, that like the Depot’s ordnance officer, he was not sufficiently informed about the properties of Torpex and its sensitivity to being dropped or the effect of extreme temperatures.

Investigating the Workforce

Having found the evidence on the safety of Torpex inconclusive, the Court turned its attention to P-2’s workers to determine if “rough handling” of the ordnance was indeed the reason.

A photo taken at Naval Mine Depot Yorktown sometime in 1945 apparently shows vats used in the mixing of liquefied explosive ingredients as well as the pouring of the mixed ingredients into bomb casings. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Like many industrial activities in the United States during World War II, the Yorktown Mine Depot grew exponentially to meet the war’s demands. From a civilian workforce of 1,182 in December 1941, by November 1943 the Depot employed more than 2,300 civilian workers, including about 600 women and 500 African-American men. Working alongside them were about 900 active duty Sailors.

Although a few of the senior officers testified that they were of the opinion that some of the civilian workers, particularly the ones involved in manual labor, were not the most educated or qualified, they did not believe any were incompetent or reckless.

Commander Leon J. Manees, the Depot’s executive officer and safety officer, testified that the workforce was adequately briefed on safety regulations. The workers were subject to eleven different safety memos that covered everything from how to handle live ordnance to the dangers of smoking around live ordnance. Safety officers often asked random questions to test their knowledge. The Depot’s ordnance officer stated, “Personally, I have not seen any cases of unsafe handling of Torpex. I think that most people who handle it, treat it with the greatest respect.”

A few witnesses testified that they believed the Depot could have been safer. Two railroad engineers, for example, stated that when they worked on civilian railroads, hazardous cargo was handled with more care and more gently. A few other witnesses testified that they had heard that the P-2 workforce handled cargo recklessly, but admitted that they never personally witnessed it.

The court moved on from safety procedures to focus on the six men who were working in P-2. The work team in consisted of five African-American laborers supervised by a Caucasian named Jay Remie. Remie’s supervisor testified that he had hand picked this group out of a pool of several hundred workers, and had never had to correct any of them for safety violations. He stated that he had personally known all of the laborers since they were young boys.

Several witnesses were in agreement when they testified that the laborers were standing around two Mark 13 mines awaiting moving instructions, while Remie was in the warehouse’s office making a phone call. The call was made about twenty minutes after midnight. Seven minutes later, P-2 exploded.

One witness stated that Remie had called to ask where to move a mine. Others, however, were not so sure. The lack of any known safety violations and the lack of any hard evidence that Torpex was unsafe led some to believe that the timing of Remie’s phone call and the explosion was not a coincidence. The Depot’s judge advocate and Captain Kirkpatrick’s lawyer in particular believed that Remie’s activities were suspicious and strongly believed that Remie received the signal to set off the explosion as an act of sabotage. Not only did they believe that Remie blew up P-2 intentionally, the two lawyers were of the opinion that Remie escaped and was still alive.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Volume 14, Issue 3 (2010) of The Daybook, the journal of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. Special thanks to Mr. Doug Johnson, former Naval Weapons Station Yorktown Industrial Engineering head, for clarifying some details about Plant No. 2. Gordon Calhoun was editor of The Daybook from 1995 to 2014.

Was It Sabotage? The G-Men Weigh In

(Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By Gordon Calhoun
Museum Operations Division Historian, Naval History and Heritage Command

On the fifth day of the official inquiry into the explosion at Naval Mine Depot Yorktown, Captain James G. Ware of the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) closed the proceedings to the public to discuss the new hypothesis that the incident might not have been an accident. Five officers from the Fifth Naval District’s intelligence office arrived and were briefed. Later in the day, Special Agents John Kissner and Fred Coote of the F.B.I.’s Norfolk field office arrived and were also briefed. The court then formally requested that the F.B.I. investigate Remie as a possible Nazi agent. The F.B.I.’s Norfolk office was one of the Bureau’s newest. Stood up in 1940, agents were specifically tasked with assisting Hampton Roads base commanders with internal security and counter sabotage operations.

The area at Naval Mine Depot Yorktown's Plant No. 2 area where the near-simultaneous explosions took place on November 16, 1943. Note that two distinct craters can be seen; one made by the initial explosion of Torpex within the Finishing or "cooling" Building, and the other by an adjoining TNT storage area that exploded as a result of the Torpex explosion. Although it was also surrounded by a high earthen berm, the building where the Torpex was originally mixed and added to the mines (middle of photograph) before they were transferred to the Finishing Building was heavily damaged. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

The FBI agents discovered that Remie was a child born out of wedlock, had dropped out of high school, then entered the U.S. Army during World War I, later receiving an honorable discharge as a second lieutenant. After the war, he worked in his native Tennessee as a phone operator at a soldier’s home, before moving to Virginia to work at Newport News Shipbuilding and then at the Mine Depot.

The agents discovered that Remie was a real life Stanley Kowalski. He was a loner. He had a temper and liked to argue and lecture others about what was wrong with the world. He also liked to brag about his latest business scheme that would make him rich. At one point in his life, he expressed interest in joining the Industrial Workers of the World, a Socialist political front whose members had been accused of sabotage in World War I. He liked to read, particularly works on political theory and practice.

While working at Newport News, someone from Berlin sent him the book The Case for Germany by Arthur P. Laurie. Published in 1939, this book attempted to show that Nazi Germany was a peaceful, modern state, ready to take its place in the civilized world and not the war mongering, hate-filled empire that it had been made out to be.

An unidentified informant told the FBI that he saw Remie in possession of $3,000 in cash and showed it off to people. Considering that Remie only made $1.10 an hour, this was an enormous amount of money. All local banks from Williamsburg to Hampton were alerted to be on the lookout for a large deposit of money. But over and over again, witnesses in both Tennessee and Virginia told the agents that while Remie liked to fuss about what was wrong with the world, he never expressed any sympathy or love for the Nazis or any other extremist organization. They believed Remie to be a completely loyal, hardworking citizen who excessively exercised his First Amendment rights.

In their final report, Agents Kissner and Coote concluded the same. In their opinion, there was no reason to believe that Remie was a Nazi agent or was ever a threat to national security. They also believed that Remie was truly dead. There was no reason to believe that he had somehow miraculously escaped the mammoth explosion.

The Court’s Findings

After seven days of testimony and investigation, the court closed the hearing. It concluded that the Depot’s command staff had taken all necessary safety and security measures. The workforce had been properly trained and there were a sufficient number of Marines keeping a close watch over the Depot’s activities. It concluded that all brush fires were caused by the explosion and not intentionally set.

Mark 19 torpedo warheads are moved from a storage warehouse using rail flat cars on Naval Mine Depot Yorktown's extensive line of railroad tracks. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

The court did make several points about the ordnance itself. A series of radiographic images of mine cases showed that the mine cases had serious cracks in the welds. Also, rail flat cars loaded with ordnance and parked next to P-2, should not have been left there.

As for Torpex, the court highly recommended further study. It noted that no chemical analysis were made of the Torpex produced at the Depot, neither did the Bureau of Ordnance mandate tests. It concluded that “no clue as to the cause of the explosion has been brought out by this investigation” and “no offenses were committed and that no blame is attached to any personnel.”

Despite the investigation’s admitted shortcomings, and despite the FBI’s report, the investigators still managed to conclude, “It is the opinion of this court that due to the United States being in a state of war, the potential presence of enemy saboteurs is indicated and the possibly of sabotage being the cause of the explosion cannot be overlooked. The absence of an explanation for the explosion based upon spontaneous combustion or chemical disintegration, accentuates the possibility of sabotage being the cause of the explosion.” In other words, despite all the evidence, the court went with the sabotage hypothesis put forward by the judge advocate and Kirkpatrick’s lawyer.

The Court is Overruled

Workers at the site of the explosion at Naval Mine Depot Yorktown remove debris from the site where the equivalent of 150,000 pounds of TNT detonated within a building at the Plant No.2 facility where torpedo warheads, aerial depth bombs and mines were stored to cool down and stabilize after having molten Torpex explosive added to them. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

When the findings reached the Bureau of Ordnance offices in Washington, D.C., the Bureau came to a much different conclusion. About seven months after the explosion, BuOrd investigators believed it was an accident after all. Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance Vice Admiral George Hussey wrote a secret memo to Fleet Admiral Ernest King concluding, “…this explosion resulted from an aircraft mine or similar explosive container being accidentally dropped or bumped against a hard and fairly sharp surface during handling.”

The memo stated that Torpex’s sensitivity was not necessarily to blame. Similar accidents occurred with bombs made only with TNT. The deciding factor in all these accidents was the fact that the bomb hit the ground at a very sharp angle, causing the explosive to detonate.

The memo confirmed that despite its inherent danger, naval ordnance depots and arsenals were too integral to the fleet’s success to slow down.

Editor's Note: According to a 1992 Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board report, three of the eight most deadly ordnance plant incidents of World War II, of which the explosion at Yorktown was not destructive enough to be on, involved Torpex and happened after both of the Torpex incidents that took place in Hampton Roads. These included incidents in April and September 1944 at Naval Ammunition Depot Hastings, Nebraska, which killed a combined total of 18 and injured 63, as well as an incident in December 1944 at Naval Ammunition Depot McAlester, Oklahoma, which killed 11 workers. "Due to a number of explosions of this nature," wrote its author, Edward P. Moran, "the U.S. Navy no longer uses Torpex."

This article originally appeared in Volume 14, Issue 3 (2010) of The Daybook, the journal of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. Special thanks to Mr. Doug Johnson, former Naval Weapons Station Yorktown Industrial Engineering head, for clarifying some details about Plant No. 2. Gordon Calhoun was editor of The Daybook from 1995 to 2014.

Standing on the battleship HMS King George V on the morning of November 21, 1918, artist R.C. Kimmel made a watercolor the American ships of the British Grand Fleet’s Sixth Battle Squadron (known as Battleship Division Nine of the Atlantic Fleet before joining the Grand Fleet just shy of a year earlier). The lead ship is USS New York (BB 34), commanded by E.L. Beach. Following are the battleship Wyoming (BB 32), commanded by Captain H.H. Christy; USS Florida (BB-30), commanded by Captain M.M. Taylor; USS Arkansas (BB 33), commanded by Captain L.R. de Steiuger; and the battleship Texas (BB 35), commanded by Captain Victor Blue. The squadron remained under the overall command of U.S. Navy Admiral Hugh Rodman during its service with the Grand Fleet, which was enjoying one of the greatest days in its history. The German High Seas Fleet had finally come out one last time to face the Royal Navy; not to fight, but to surrender.

Although the title of this watercolor is “The German Fleet Enters Scapa Flow, 21 November 1918,” the artist R.C. Kimmel probably recorded this scene as the Germans met the Grand Fleet off the Isle of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth, off the coast of Scotland. After the German ships made anchor there and were inspected, they later made their way north to Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Along the left-hand side of the image are the words “6th B.S. [Battle Squadron, made up of Battleship Division Nine of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet]” and “5th B.S.” Along the right-hand side are the first three German ships of the High Seas Fleet, all battle-scarred veterans of the Battle of Jutland, coming in to surrender; SMS Seydlitz, Moltke, and Derfflinger, being led by light cruiser HMS Cardiff. Heading in the opposite direction from the main fleet columns is the British scout cruiser Blanche. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

The American battleships were located right in the middle of the British Grand Fleet Northern Line, which was comprised of a column of 19 battleships, five battlecruisers, two cruisers, and 13 light cruisers. Six miles to the south was the British Grand Fleet Southern Line, consisting of 14 battleships, four battlecruisers, one aircraft carrier, one cruiser, and 12 light cruisers. Between them was a column of 71 German warships under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter in his flagship Friederich der Grosse. The German column was led by the light cruiser HMS Cardiff, which a correspondent for The Times of London described as being like watching “a school of leviathans led by a minnow.”

While American destroyers began operating with the British fleet in May 1917, the reluctance of American admirals to disperse their battleships among the British fleet resulted in a delay in their deployment until a more satisfactory arrangement could be made. Battleship Division Nine, commanded by Admiral Hugh Rodman, arrived on December 7, 1917, and quickly began operating as the Sixth Squadron of the British Grand Fleet. In this painting by the celebrated Bernard Gribble, who also created the most well-known painting of the American destroyer squadron's arrival in May, USS New York (BB 34) leads the arriving ships, along with Wyoming (BB 32), Florida (BB 30), and Delaware (BB 28). Cheering their arrival is the crew of HMS Queen Elizabeth, commanded by Admiral David Beatty. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

British accounts of what the Admiralty dubbed “Operation ZZ” neglected to mention the presence of American battleships looming large over the subdued yet awesome sight. The Royal Navy obviously regarded the victory that day as theirs, but it was the United States Navy that made it possible. After all, American destroyers had played a key role in stemming the U-boat menace that threatened Great Britain’s food supplies. American know-how and production capability had created superior sea mines in numbers great enough to close off the North Sea to German U-boats. The battleships of the Sixth Battle Squadron had acted as a screen for the minelaying vessels that summer and early autumn. And of course, nearly half of the over two million members of the American Expeditionary Force had been brought to Europe on vessels of the U.S. Navy’s Cruiser and Transport Force.

The image on the left is a painting by artist Adolph Berens of Wilhelm II, who loved to be seen in the uniform of a Grossadmiral (grand admiral). Of him, historian Gregor Dallas wrote, “The Kaiser looked upon the Navy as a personal possession–unlike the Army–and any tinkering with is by the Reichstag, by the government, or even by the generals would raise his imperial ire. This had given the Navy a degree of independence in Germany that not even the Army enjoyed.” The image on the right is a postcard in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection that was sent from New York to Oklahoma during the war depicting how many outside Germany saw the Kaiser. Note that President Woodrow Wilson is depicted as being the thumb among the "fingers of fate" tightening around the German monarch. (Murwik Naval School, Germany/ Wikimedia Commons)

In some ways, Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II had begun the war the way wars began when kings ruled over the continent centuries before. Yet Operation ZZ was a thoroughly modern way to end it; not with sacking, burning, despoliation and subjugation. It was relatively bloodless, the outcome of the formalized cessation of hostilities mandated by an agreement by the loser to deliver the means to continue the war into the victor’s hands; an agreement worked out between the diplomatic corps of the Allies and the Central Powers.

If German officers such as Grossdmiral Reinhard Scheer, chief of the German Admiralty staff, had their way, however, the naval war would not have ended with the fleets coming together in such a clear, carefully choreographed way. Because Germany’s government was effectively under military control, high-ranking Kaiserliche Marine officers had a freer hand than their entente enemies. If Scheer’s plans to end the war his way had come to pass, the High Seas Fleet would have attacked during the middle of armistice negotiations. There was only one thing the admiral had not taken into account: His sailors would have none of it.

Reinhard Scheer (The European Library/ Wikimedia Commons)

One month before the German High Seas Fleet surrender, Chancellor Prince Max von Baden accepted terms from President Woodrow Wilson as a precondition for concluding an armistice which included ceasing U-boat attacks upon passenger ships, and they were recalled to home waters. Scheer, head of the Seekriegsleitung, merely saw this as an opportunity to utilize them to augment the High Seas Fleet in a decisive blow against the Grand Fleet. Without informing Kaiser Wilhelm or Chancellor von Baden, he transmitted a battle plan via his chief of staff to Adm. Franz Hipper, commander of the High Seas Fleet. As commander of the fleet over two years before, Scheer had led the charge against the British during the Battle of Jutland and dealt more blows to the British than he received in return. He and most of his ships had also escaped afterward to fight another day, yet the memory of that tactical victory had long faded since as the blockade of Germany continued under the guns of the numerically superior Grand Fleet.

Adm. Hipper had also drafted his own plans to sortie and attack upon British supply lines. His chief of staff, Rear Adm. Adolf Von Trotha, described its rationale: “As to a battle for the honor of the fleet in this war, even if it were a death battle, it would be the foundation for a new German fleet of the future if our people were not altogether defeated; such a fleet would be out of the question in the event of a dishonorable peace.”

Although Jutland had been almost exclusively a warship-to-warship engagement without air or subsurface elements, Scheer planned to employ seven Zeppelins for reconnaissance and approximately 25 U-boats to help even the odds. The operation, dubbed Flottenvorstoss, was scheduled to begin on October 30. Although unwitting of the German plans and unprepared for an attack made during armistice negotiations, many of the British naval officers would also have preferred a climactic battle to settle the naval war decisively, once and for all. Who among them didn’t want to become his generation’s Nelson?

“Would [a German attack] have really mattered by this date?” asked historian Paul G. Halpern rhetorically. “The American army was now in France in great numbers. The convoys were moving vast quantities of supplies with relative safety to the British Isles and France. The German army was in full retreat. What if traffic in the southern North Sea and Dover Strait was temporarily disrupted, or a few British or American warships were lost? The tide would not have turned,” he concluded, “and the German sailors would have lost their lives in vain.”

This fact was not lost on the German sailors who would be tasked with carrying out Hipper’s orders, which many regarded as a “death cruise.” Instead of sortieing to mount a decisive Mahanian attack to regain its honor and relieve pressure on the beleaguered German army, the High Seas Fleet, hobbled as it was both by the fevers of influenza as well as revolutionary fervor, was dispersed to separate ports, where the physical maladies and political unreast spread. On November 9, Sheer broke the news to the Kaiser that the navy could no longer be relied upon, to which the man known as the Supreme War Lord reportedly replied, “I have no longer a Navy,” which were the last words the admiral ever heard from his emperor, who abdicated the same day. Two days after that, the armistice was signed. Ten days after that, the three great columns constituting the greatest gathering of capital ships in world history converged near the Island of Inchkeith off the coast of Scotland. As the sun went down that day, the Imperial German ensigns of the defeated fleet were lowered for the last time, under Royal Navy orders not to be raised again. The German warships later proceeded north to Scapa Flow, where they were to remain until a final peace treaty was worked out.

This painting made by Charles Pears in 1919 depicts several German warships at anchor in the Firth of Forth at sunset, possibly on November 21, 1918, only about nine hours after the scene R.C. Kimmel depicted. (Imperial War Museum)

At a naval review held in honor of the men of Battleship Division 9 the following month, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels remarked, “Sea power once again has demonstrated its primacy in making land victories possible. While the American dreadnoughts, an important part of the world’s strongest armada, were not given the opportunity to win a great sea victory, they did more: The cooperated in receiving the surrendered German fleet, which capitulated to the superior force of the allied fleets, and they will be received at home with all the honors given to valiant victors.”

In a 1967 painting by artist Larry Zabel entitled Rung Sunset, an UH-1B Iroquois of the Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3 "Seawolves" banks over the Rung Sat Special Zone, a vast and treacherous mangrove swamp southeast of Saigon, after making a firing pass against Viet Cong guerrillas. in the distance, another "Huey" gunship from the squadron is making its run. (Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection)

By Zachary Smyers
HRNM Educator

During the Vietnam War, the Navy devised Operation Game Warden. This was the Navy’s plan to deny Viet Cong forces, which were dedicated to overthrowing the U.S.-allied government in South Vietnam, the use of local waterways to move personnel and supplies throughout the region. Due to the considerable amount of rivers in the Mekong Delta, Operation Game Warden proved to be a challenging task for the Navy. The rivers and waterways typically had a tremendous amount of boat traffic and it wasn’t always easy to identify friend from foe. The Navy’s plan involved the use of river patrol boats, or PBRs, which would typically operate on the rivers in groups of two, boarding and searching local sampans and junks for enemy weapons and supplies. While this task could become tedious, often times it could also become quite deadly, resulting in intense firefights. The PBRs had the advantage though of being able to call in immediate air support from the Navy Seawolves.

A HAL-3 gunship comes in for a landing aboard USS Garrett County (LST-786) anchored on the Co Chien River and serving as a patrol craft tender for the River Patrol Force. Although the LST's flight deck could accommodate two choppers, only one could turn its main rotor at a time. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Using UH-1B “Hueys” acquired from the Army, the Navy formed Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 3, the Seawolves. The Seawolves were an all-volunteer squadron and the first pilots and aircrewmen deployed to Vietnam on July 1, 1966. Operating from a landing ship, tank (LST) which served as a “mother ship,” the Seawolves were always on call to provide support in their Hueys.

Equipped with two 2.75-inch seven-tube rocket pods and four flex-mounted M-60C machine guns facing forward, not to mention door gunners capable of training their own swivel-mounted M-60s in virtually every other direction, this UH-1B Iroquois flying low over PBRs on the Cho Gao Canal in the Mekong Delta in April 1968 gave riverine units in South Vietnam an invaluable multi-dimensional defense against ambushes and other nastier surprises they might encounter. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The Seawolves’ Hueys were set up in the gunship configuration, carrying a variety of weapons which included 14 2.75-inch rockets, two M-60 machine guns (which were hand-held and operated by the air crewman from the door area), four M-60 machine guns known as “flex guns,” M-2 .50 caliber machine guns (also operated by aircrewmen) and two 7.62 mm mini-guns. The most common load out for the UH-1B was carrying the rockets in pods with one mini-gun mounted on the left and one mounted on the right which were fired from the cockpit. Set up in this configuration, the UH-1B proved to be a vital air asset to the Navy forces working on the rivers which included Navy SEALs.

The co-pilot of a UH-1B keeps a close watch over a PBR traveling ahead. If a threat presents itself, at a moment's notice he can swing the XM-60 reflex sight mounted on the windshield frame ahead of him down to the right in order to aim the Huey's four M-60C machine guns, which are capable of turning 80 degrees horizontally, 10 degrees upward and 85 degrees downward, hurling over 500 7.62 mm rounds a minute. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The Seawolves’ first major combat action in Vietnam took place on October 31, 1966. Two PBRs discovered a fleet of sampans (more than 80 vessels) that were trying to move a Viet Cong unit that was the size of a battalion from one riverbank to the other along the Thon river. The two PBRs came under intense fire from both sides of the riverbank. The PBRs retreated and called for immediate air support. The Seawolves arrived on station 15 minutes later, and with their first rocket and gun pass, completely destroyed a sampan. The second pass destroyed another sampan and the enemy forces began to retreat. By 2100 hours the battle was over and the Seawolves claimed the destruction of 16 junks and sampans as well as damaging 7 additional vessels. The Seawolves helped turn the tide of the battle and prevent the crossing of the Viet Cong battalion.

Assigned to the river patrol force and flying from USS Belle Grove (LSD 2), Seawolf 26 fires a 2.75 mm rocket dislodging a sampan from a river bank in the Rung Sat Special Zone during operation Jackstay. The blast stripped the sampan of its camouflage and it was sunk by subsequent rocket and machine gun runs, April 1966. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The Seawolves served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1972. They logged over 120,000 combat missions flying in Vietnam as well as Cambodia. Personnel within the unit were awarded the following: five Navy Crosses, 31 Silver Stars, two Legion of Merit Medals, 219 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 156 Purple Hearts, 101 Bronze Stars, 142 Vietnam Gallantry Crosses, 439 Navy Commendation Medals, 228 Navy Achievement Medals, six Presidential Unit Citations, and two Navy Meritorious Unit Commendations. During their time in Vietnam, 44 members of the Seawolves were killed in action.

A retired UH-1B with HA(L) 4 "Helwingres" markings at Ely Memorial Park near Gate Four of Naval Station Norfolk. (M.C. Farrington)

HA(L)-3 was decommissioned in 1972. However, the success of the squadron in Vietnam lead to the creation of Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 4 at Naval Air Station Norfolk and Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 5 at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California, in 1976. These two units would over time evolve into Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 (HSC-84) the “Red Wolves,” and Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 78, the “Blue Hawks.” Both squadrons would see combat during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The UH-1B static display helicopter at Ely Park represents those that flew with that squadron, as well as those that flew with HA(L) 3 before it, Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 4, Helicopter Combat Support Special Squadron 4 (HCS-4) and, finally, Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 (HSC-84), which was disestablished on March 19, 2016. (M.C. Farrington)

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum blog commonly features stories about the great battles and campaigns our Navy's ships and personnel have participated in and what roles they played within them. Ships and Sailors play a vital role in making war, but they also play a less-heralded yet no less important role in diplomacy. In light of the death last night of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, it is an appropriate time to mention a brief visit he made to the aircraft carrier Forrestal (CV 59) off Malta on December 1, 1989, to express his appreciation for the Navy's support the day before his first meeting as president with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.

Although the carrier played no direct role in the history-making meeting, which was supposed to take place between Soviet and American cruisers, Forrestal was there to lend support or provide overwhelming force as needed. Her aircraft also provided airborne early warning and guarded against allowing any unauthorized aircraft close to the area of the summit. Before arriving at his ultimate destination, the Norfolk-based guided missile cruiser Belknap (CG 26), which was floating around 400 yards from the Soviet guided missile cruiser Slava in Marsaxlokk Bay, the former naval aviator spent about three hours touring around Forrestal, eating lunch with the crew in the enlisted mess, watching flight operations, as well as opining about the importance of the summit in a speech made to the crew made in the aircraft carrier's hangar bay.

Near the carrier-controlled approach radar platform aboard USS Forrestal (CV 59), President George H.W. Bush reacts to Sailors and members of the international press calling out from above him near the Pilot Aid Landing Television (PLAT) camera station aboard the aircraft carrier on December 1, 1989. Showing him around for the flight operations segment of his three-hour tour is the commander of Carrier Air Wing Six, Captain Fields Richardson. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

To understand how important the Malta Summit and those like it were, one must see it within the context of the times. Throughout the decade, the specter of nuclear war was a staple in Western popular culture. Television shows such as The Day After (1983), Threads (1984) and feature films such as The Terminator (1984) underscored the fatalistic undertones of the day. That sense of fatalism also extended behind the Iron Curtain (possibly intensified by President Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire"speech on March 8, 1983), which arguably contributed to the September 1, 1983 shootdown of Korean Air Lines flight 007 by a Soviet fighter over the Sea of Japan and the tactical nuclear strike the Soviets came within a hair's breadth of launching against NATO forces participating in Exercise Able Archer in Europe that November; the second most serious incident of its kind after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Because of the unexpectedly rough weather, neither the Soviet nor American warships turned out to be stable enough to hold the Malta Summit, so the talks were moved to the Soviet cruise liner Maxim Gorky. While House photographer David Valdez captured the proceedings between General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (far left) and President George H.W. Bush (far right). (National Archives and Records Administration)

President Ronald Reagan subsequently launched the initiative to reach out to Premier Gorbachev, whose courage and fortitude, not to mention his popularization of the word glasnost (openness), brought the two superpowers back from the brink. The openings made by their meeting in Reykjavik in 1986, plus others held in Washington, Moscow, and New York over the following three years, resulted in the conditions that facilitated Gorbachev's summit with President Bush in Malta. Yet the frenetic changes overtaking the streets of Germany and Eastern Europe in late-1989 were beginning to overshadow the comparatively sedate high-level discussions taking place in the Mediterranean, which NBC veteran Tom Brokaw quipped were "already being described as the seasick summit."

Only three weeks before Bush's visit to the Forrestal, on live TV, East German Politburo spokesman Guenter Schabowski responded to a reporter's question as to when the checkpoints between his country and West Germany would be opened, and he simply replied, "...this is immediately, without delay." Spontaneously, citizens of East and West Berlin came together and began whacking away at the infamous Berlin Wall with pick axes, hammers, and anything else they could find in a cathartic cacophony.

President Bush brought a piece of that wall with him on his visit to the Forrestal; literally a piece of the peace he was helping foster on that short visit 29 years ago.

The launching invitation for USS Wisconsin. (Robert M. Cieri via Navsource.org)

"Remember Pearl Harbor" is a common refrain on December 7, and remembrances of that tragic day reverberate at this time each year. While the need to remember those who perished and the lessons that have been learned since then is beyond question, let the fact not be lost among the yearly recitations that the national leadership had not been asleep at the wheel. Throughout the decade prior to the attack, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, supported by staunch allies in Congress such as John C. Stennis, had produced the road map and the funding that would deliver final victory over the perpetrators of the Pearl Harbor attacks. American industry was equally up to the task to follow the roadmap and judiciously use those funds to produce warships superior to those of the Axis, as exemplified by the launch of USS Wisconsin (BB 64) into the Delaware River on December 7, 1943.

USS Wisconsin (BB-64) being prepared for launching on December 4, 1943. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

It had been exactly two years since a surprise attack almost neutralized the American battleships of the Pacific theater, but thanks to the foresightedness of America's leadership and the nation's unmatched economic power, the last of the four Iowa-class battleships, the most capable produced by any nation, was launched that day from Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, the same yard that had produced the Iowa-class battleship New Jersey (BB 62).

Mrs. Madge Goodland, sponsor of the battleship Wisconsin and wife of Wisconsin governor Walter S. Goodland, christens the vessel. (Dale Hargrave via Navsource.org)

Over 40,000 tons of steel shaped for speed slides down the ways at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on December 7, 1943. (Scott Koen via Navsource .org)

After having commissioned no new battleships in over a decade and a half, America was late to rearm after the naval treaties forged in the wake of World War I began unraveling during the early-1930s, but the designs that took shape were unquestionably among the best. Begun in 1937 and launched in June 1940, the battleship North Carolina (BB 55) marked the emergence of 10 fast battleships, among three separate classes, that were built before and during the Second World War, with Wisconsin being the last, completed in a record-breaking 39 months. She would be commissioned on April 16, 1944.

Wisconsin floats free after

The final two battleships of the Iowa class, USS Illinois (BB 65), being built at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and USS Kentucky (BB 66), at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, were never completed, yet Kentucky, which was complete enough to launch in 1950, came in handy after Wisconsin's bow was severely damaged in a collision in May 1956, after which Kentucky's bow was grafted onto Wisconsin.

Seen here on January 20, 2001, USS Wisconsin (BB 64) moved into her current berth in downtown Norfolk on December 7, 2000 after nearly $10 million in preparatory costs. After the completion of her permanent pierside support structures such as her main gangway (center of photo, seen here under construction) leading from the adjacent Nauticus building, the decommissioned battleship opened to the public on April 16, 2001. (Gunner's Mate 1st Class Thomas J. Lowney/ Defense Visual Information Archive)

The days of the battleship are long gone, but their legacy is far from forgotten. Wisconsin, last of a proud class of warships, home to generations of Sailors and a veteran of some of the U.S. Navy's fiercest fleet actions from World War II to the Gulf War, arrived at her current home on the Norfolk, Virginia waterfront on Pearl Harbor Day 2000, and today draws visitors year-round to Nauticus, the National Maritime Center, which is also home to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum.

Editors Preface:As the Navy-Marine Corps team mourned the loss of five Marines during a peacetime exercise off Japan last week, capping five years of rising aviation mishaps, we however must acknowledge that military aviation has been dangerous, whether in wartime or peacetime, virtually since it began. One hundred years ago, an armistice signed over a month earlier was in effect and the Great War was over, yet the operational tempo at Naval Air Station Hampton Roads was nowhere near slowing down. The following post by Hampton Roads Naval Museum senor docent Hunt Lewis takes a look at a tragic incident that took the lives of two airmen just across Willoughby Bay from the air station (later known as NAS Norfolk) while their seaplane was returning from a nonmilitary mission this week in 1918.

Sailors mill around the wreck of a Curtiss H-12 seaplane which crashed into the Willoughby Club at Willoughby Spit, across Willoughby Bay from Naval Air Station Hampton Roads about a half-mile to the south. The spit separates Willoughby Bay to the south from Chesapeake Bay to the north. A postcard sold by the Albertype Company that year showed the same aircraft near the seaplane ramp at NAS Hampton Roads as it would have appeared between missions. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By J. Huntington Lewis
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer

I was trying to establish the exact location of Little Bay Beach (1907-1928), the first “colored” beach resort in the Hampton Roads area, which was located on land that became part of Naval Air Station Norfolk during its expansion during the 1930s, when I noticed a photograph of seaplane that crashed into the Willoughby Club near the 7th Street Station on December 13, 1918. Newspapers in the following days revealed that the Curtis H-12 seaplane was one of six returning from an aeronautical performance for the Southern Commercial Congress’ annual meeting in Baltimore when it lost its way. Aircraft maneuvers there included the falling leaf, tail slide, and spinning nose dive; all highly dangerous feats for the twin-engined, wood and canvas bi-winged seaplanes.

This Curtiss H-12 (Bureau Number 767) operating out of NAS Hampton Roads on November 24, 1918, sports nose art featuring a Navy goat, which has been the U.S. Naval Academy's mascot since 1893. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Having never heard of the Southern Commercial Congress and wondering why the Navy would put on a show for their annual meeting, I found that the Congress was established to promote business opportunities in the “New South,” and had annual meetings between 1898 and 1922 in various cities attended by high level officials of the states, the Federal Government and from foreign nations. For the 1918 meeting in Baltimore, the Navy not only sent aircraft, but sent the battleships Iowa, Indiana, and Massachusetts, seven destroyers, and lesser craft. But I also discovered that the 1916 Congress was held here in Norfolk.

Aviation personnel at Naval Air Station Hampton Roads pose for a group portrait in front of Curtiss H-12 and H-16 seaplanes sometime during 1918 or 1919. It is possible, though by no means definitive, that Ens. Roland Palmedo is the sixth man from the left, bottom row. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Returning to Naval Air Station Hampton Roads from Baltimore, Aircraft 770 piloted by Ensign Roland Palmedo, USNRF (Naval Aviator 188), encountered fog over Hampton Roads and landed in the waters between the roadstead and Chesapeake Bay to get his bearings to the station. Taking off once again, he did not gain enough altitude to clear Willoughby Spit and clipped the roof of the club. Palmedo fractured his , his copilot David Thomas was slightly injured, and two of the crewmen, radio operator Thomas V. Jones and machninst's mate Liewellyn W. Alexander, were killed.

In researching the pilot, I found that his son, Philip E. Palmedo, had written a biography of his father entitled Roland Palmedo, A Life of Adventure and Enterprise. The author graciously sent me a copy of the biography.

Ens. Roland Palmedo. (U.S. Militaria Forum)

Roland served briefly with the Dover Patrol in World War I and was injured in a crash which led his return to the United States after his recovery. He flew under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Bellinger, NAS Norfolk’s first commanding officer. In his book, Phillip Palmedo wrote that “under the circumstances of the crash (On Willoughby Spit), a court martial was required, but the navy had no regulations related to aircraft. The best the prosecuting navy lawyer could to was to criticize Roland for not stationing a sailor at the bow of his vessel, as required on vessel in heavy weather.”

The biography on Roland Palmedo also mentioned that he carried airmail, which interested me. Postal histories state that Army pilots carried the first air mail beginning May 15, 1918, but Bruce Linder’s book Tidewater’s Navy contains the passage, “on 16 November 1918, regular air mail service between Hampton Roads and Naval Air Station Anacostia became an important new mission for the naval air station. Every day one plane flew each way.” The Navy for a time had its own air mail service which never became part of the U.S. Postal Service, and that is why it is not mentioned in postal histories.

The Army-Navy Register and Defense Times reported that Lemuel Phillips Padgett, chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, who had heard that sometimes only one letter was carried, asked Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels: “is there any regular mail service maintained by their Navy” Mr. Daniels replied “that the duty of carrying the mail was incidental to the operation of aircraft, and was in connection with naval aerial operations. He said it was very advantageous to have an important air station near at hand to the department, and the trips were made by aviators from Anacostia, to Hampton Roads and other naval air stations, but the matter of carrying mail on those trips was incidental to the more important duty of operating and developing naval aircraft.”

After leaving the Navy, Palmedo bought a Stearman biplane and used it to fly to various ski locations long before they became popular with vacationers. (Philip Palmedo)

After the war, Roland Palmedo went into investment banking, winding up at Lehman Brothers where he was instrumental in the financial foundations of several major airlines, serving on the boards of Pan-American and Trans World Airways (TWA). He continued to fly in his own plane, but it is in the world of skiing that he made his greatest impact. He discovered Mt. Mansfield where the ski resort Stowe is now located, founded of the National Ski Patrol, and was instrumental in creating the Women’s Ski Team for the 1936 Olympics. Always dedicated to amateur athletics, he designed the emblem for the Amateur Ski Club of New York. He created the Mad River Glen Ski Area when he found Stowe was becoming too commercial.

He rejoined the Navy in WWII, first serving as Flag Aid to Vice Admiral Bellinger, who was by then Commander Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet. Author Ashley Guy Hope wrote “The bon vivant aide to flying Admiral ‘Pat’ Bellinger, Roland Palmedo, deciding the half-dozen admiral's aides in the vicinity should band together, founded the ‘Husbands Afloat, Wives Ashore Aides' Benevolent and Protective Association,’ complete with a set of bylaws.” Roland then served as administrative officer for Carrier Air Group 88 on the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV 10) during the closing months of the war.

A portrait of Roland Palmedo in his element. (Mad River Glenn)

More than 58 years after his near-fatal crash on Willoughby spit and after a long, successful career in finance, guiding the founding of commercial aviation companies that made taking to the skies a staple of American middle class life and founding ski resorts and organizations that made taking to the slopes a staple of American middle class recreation, Roland Palmedo died just before his 82nd birthday on March 15, 1977.

The Battle of the Saintes, 12 April 1782, 6:30 pm by Thomas Luny (1759-1837), depicting the moment the colors were struck on Admiral Compte de Grasse's flagship, Ville de Paris, from which de Grasse had achieved victory over the British during the Battle of the Capes in September 1781 and at St. Kitts in the Leeward Islands in February 1782. Neither victory over the Royal Navy was as decisive for the French admiral as his defeat.

A Reckoning at Saint's Passage
By A.J. Orlikoff
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

After his capture of St. Kitts, Admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, resupplied his forces at Fort Royal on the island of Martinique and waited for reinforcements from France for the assault on Jamaica. While de Grasse was gathering his forces for the hammer blow on Jamaica, the British were organizing as well. On February 19, Admiral George Rodney joined Admiral Samuel Hood at Barbados with 12 ships of the line. Rodney, having fought de Grasse with Hood the prior year yet forced to cede command due to his health problems, was positioned to finally defeat this troublesome bete niore.

"A Prospect of Fort Royale upon the Island of Martinique" shows different parts of the fort (today known as Fort Saint Louis) such as the barracks, the magazine and the royal governor's residence. The strategic citadel, still home to an active naval base today, was key in defending the island from the British after its establishment as a French colony in 1635. (The British Library)

Key locations are highlighted in this detail from an index map made in 1771 by Thomas Jefferys for "The West-India atlas, or, A compendious description of the West-Indies : illustrated with forty correct charts and maps, taken from actual surveys : together with an historical account of the several countries and islands which compose that part of the world, their discovery, situation, extent, boundaries, product, trade, inhabitants, strength, government, religion, &c.,"printed for Robert Sayer and John Bennett in February 1775. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)

Despite some setbacks, de Grasse sailed out of Fort Royal on April 9 with 35 ships of the line escorting a convoy of over 100 cargo ships. They were bound for Saint Domingue to rendezvous with 15,000 Spanish troops earmarked for the conquest of Jamaica. Rodney, upon learning of de Grasse’s departure, immediately sortied out of Barbados with 36 ships of the line to stop the concentration of French and Spanish forces. In addition to their slight numerical superiority, the British ships were much improved over how they had been at the Battle of the Capes, with each British ship copper bottomed and equipped with carronades.

Copper-bottomed hulls and carronades were two of the most advanced and powerful forms of naval technology in the 1780s. This 1968 painting by Aiden Lassel Ripley depicts the recoppering of the USS Constitution. Copper bottomed hulls retarded the growth of marine life on the hulls of ships, allowing for greater speed as less marine growth weighed down the ship as it moved through the water. The above photograph shows a reproduction 68-lb carronade on the deck of HMS Victory. Carronades were short-barreled smoothbore cannons placed by the Royal Navy on the decks and in the forecastles of ships. Carronades tremendously upgraded the firepower of Royal Navy ships, giving them a decisive advantage at close range over the Marine Royale. These two cutting edge naval technologies gave the Royal Navy critical advantages over their French competitors in the Caribbean. (USS Constitution Museum/ Wikimedia Commons)

On April 9, de Grasse was surprised to see British ships rapidly closing with the French fleet off of Saint’s Passage between Dominica and Guadeloupe. With their copper bottoms, the Royal Navy had the advantage of speed and de Grasse was forced to deploy his fleet to foil the British attack. Hood, who had been given command of the eight ships of the British vanguard, aggressively attacked the French fleet. De Grasse responded well, reversing his line and pounding Hood’s isolated van division with accurate fire. De Grasse had a chance to further punish Hood’s isolated ships yet he decided to pull back to protect the French convoy.

This detail from “Caribbee Island, Virgin Islands, and Isle of Porto Rico” from The West-India atlas shows the relative location of “Les Saintes” in relation to the islands of Dominca and Guadeloupe. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)

The opposing fleets jockeyed for position and wind over the next two days, with de Grasse trying to catch a favorable wind to bear convoy and fleet safely through Saint’s Passage. On April 11, a strong wind allowed the French to make for Saint’s Passage and the British pursued them. De Grasse’s fleet looked as if it would make it through the passage yet two French ships, Zélé and Magnanime, lagged behind and were vulnerable to capture by Rodney. In order to save the two stragglers, de Grasse reversed his line and was resolved to fight the Royal Navy in a decisive engagement.

The pomp and confidence of Admiral George Brydges Rodney, the British commander at the Battle of the Saintes, was captured in this 1792 painting by Joshua Reynolds. Rodney was the Admiralty’s initial choice to lead the Royal Navy in the Caribbean and he engaged French forces there several times during the Revolutionary War. Regarded as tactical genius, Rodney was an aggressive, strict, and capable naval commander. He would have led British forces at the Battle of the Capes if not for his health problems forcing a convalescence of several months. Rejuvenated after months of recovery, Rodney was back in command and ready to avenge the Royal Navy’s defeats at the hands of de Grasse.

The Battle of the Saintes, also known as the Battle of Saint’s Passage, began on the morning of April 12. De Grasse’s plan was to engage the larger British fleet at close range, inflict as much damage as possible, and then turn about his line to make for Saint’s Passage. The 30 available ships of the French fleet exchanged murderous fire with the 36 ships of the Royal Navy as the two lines passed each other at pistol shot range. The French were performing well until, to de Grasse’s dismay, gaps appeared in the French line due to the slower speed of many French ships. De Grasse, aware of the imminent danger to his entire fleet, rapidly signaled his flag commanders, the Comte de Vaudreuil and Bougainville, to correct the mistake by slowing their ships. Both commanders, when questioned after the battle, said that the maneuver de Grasse ordered was impossible. De Grasse, in his own memoir, retorted that regardless of what his commanders thought, “…the glance of the Admiral ought to be sufficient to prove to the fleet the possibility of a maneuver when ordered.”

This map illustrates the three main phases of the Battle of the Saintes. The critical breakthrough phase was caused by inconsistencies in the speed of French ships likely caused by marine growth, exacerbated by the lack of copper bottoms, slowing some of the French ships. The inconsistent speeds of the French ships caused gaps to appear in the French line that Rodney was able to exploit.(Wikimedia Commons)

Regardless of the practicability of de Grasse’s orders, the gaps in the French line proved to be catastrophic. Rodney was sucking on a lemon as he paced the decks of his flagship Formidable when his flag captain, Sir Charles Douglas, noticed the gap in the French lines. Douglas advised that Rodney lead his line through the gaps in the French line, essentially cutting de Grasse’s fleet in half. Rodney agreed and the Formidable, followed by Namur, Canada, Repulse, and others, pierced the French line. Other ships of the British line followed suit and by 10 am the French fleet was cut into pieces. Portions of the French fleet were raked on three sides by British fire, yet de Grasse, holding fast aboard the mighty Ville de Paris, refused to give up. He continued to signal Vaudreuil and Bougainville to form up the free portions of the fleet to swing back and counterattack the British fleet surrounding the French center. To de Grasse’s continued dismay and anger, Vaudreuil and Bougainville refused to respond to his signals. De Grasse’s commanders had abandoned him to his fate.

Lieutenant William Elliot depicted the critical moment of the Battle of the Saintes where Rodney’s flagship Formidable, in the center, pierced the French line of battle. Elliot, who served in the Royal Navy, captured the chaotic nature of the engagement which highlights the degree of difficulty of pulling off such a maneuver. (Wikimedia Commons)

De Grasse’s finest hour was arguably at the climax of his great defeat at the Battle of the Saintes. Cut off, surrounded, and without hope of victory de Grasse fought back like a cornered lion and he lived up to his reputation as his men often said that he was, “Six feet tall on ordinary days and six foot six on days of battle.” Ville de Paris was one of the most powerful ships in the world, with 104 guns and a crew of 1,300 men, yet all of her might was for naught as she was circled and raked by dozens of British ships like a pack of wolves taking down a stag. De Grasse moved across the decks from station to station, helping direct fire and encouraging his men to keep fighting. The decks and passageways of the Ville de Paris were turned into a charnel house as ship after ship of the Royal Navy fired full broadsides into the flagship at close range, receiving 80 broadsides from the 98-gun Formidable alone. The French, inspired by de Grasse, refused to yield. Only after the Ville de Paris had exhausted all of her ammunition did de Grasse surrender, declaring that his silver should be melted down to make cannon shot so they could continue fighting. At 6:30 PM, De Grasse ordered the colors of Ville de Paris struck and the battle was over.

The Battle of the Saintes was a crushing victory for the Royal Navy. The British captured four French ships, including Ville de Paris, and they scattered the surviving French ships, making an invasion of Jamaica well-nigh impossible. The French casualties were immense, with over 5,000 men captured and 3,000 estimated to be killed or wounded. On Ville de Paris alone, over 400 were killed and 700 wounded out of a crew of 1,300. British casualties were comparatively light, with 246 killed and 816 wounded, with moderate damage sustained by some of their ships.

Thomas Whitcombe illustrated the last stand of the proud Ville de Paris as she fought a final duel with Admiral Hood’s flagship Barfleur. Hood relished the opportunity to directly battle with de Grasse and with his typical braggadocio stated, “I concluded the Count De Grasse had a mind to be my prisoner as an old acquaintance...and therefore met his wishes by looking towards him…when I opened so heavy a fire against him that in ten minutes he struck.” Hood had finally beaten his “acquaintance” de Grasse. (Wikimedia Commons)

Adm. Hood, who from Barfleur had raked Ville de Paris with fire, boarded the defeated flagship around 7 pm to accept de Grasse’s surrender. He boarded with a party of officers who were stunned by the carnage they saw on the Ville de Paris. Captain Lord Cranston, who had come on behalf of Rodney to accept de Grasse’s sword, relayed to the author Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, “At every step he took he said he was over his buckles in blood, the carnage having been prodigious…On the quarter-deck only De Grasse himself remained standing.” Similar scenes played out on the other captured French ships, with witnesses astonished at the scale of the carnage and the hundreds of sharks feeding on the dead and wounded.

This period engraving depicts a fictionalized surrender of Admiral de Grasse’s sword to Admiral Rodney. De Grasse did surrender his sword to Rodney but he did so indirectly through Rodney’s subordinate, Captain Cranston. Though fictionalized, the symbolic importance of sword surrendering to the victorious commander was nevertheless a poignant moment. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

After his arrival in Great Britain in August, de Grasse was treated well by his captors with Rodney, Hood, and the other British officers hosting a feast in his honor where they toasted to his family’s health, Lady Rodney, and the men wounded in battle. After he arrived in London as a prisoner of war, de Grasse gained celebrity status as he dined and conversed with lords, nobles, and King George III. He even sat for a portrait and had a popular miniature made of him. De Grasse unfortunately drew the intense ire of the French ladies when it was heard in France that he was immensely popular with the aristocratic women of Britain. After only ten days as a captive in the land of his gracious enemies, de Grasse embarked from England on a ship bound for home on August 12, 1782.

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, Gen. George Washington and de Grasse exchanged congratulatory letters, with de Grasse writing, “Permit me, my dear General, to offer you my congratulations…I beg you to be persuaded how earnestly I wish to renew that friendship we found amidst the scenes of war…I felicitate myself for my success in fighting for a cause so just.” Washington replied, “The friendship, which I had the Happiness to contract with you…has never been abated in my mind…should I ever have the happiness of meeting you again…you may be assured I should place the Event among the most fortunate Circumstances of my Life.”

This 1783 etching of De Grasse appeared in London Magazine and was just one of many depictions of de Grasse made in England after his stay in London. De Grasse was treated like a modern day celebrity in Britain while he was kept under guard in the Royal Hotel in London. De Grasse politely declined to occupy lodgings in the Palace of St. James and King George III declared that the Crown would pay for any expenses the admiral or his officers accrued while in England. His sword was returned to him personally by the king and the English nobles who met with him were consistently impressed with him, with one noble writing, “Comte De Grasse is polished without approaching to the effeminacy of the French. He is manly, open, and generous in his countenance and inspires a familiar attachment in those with whom he converses.” Ironically, de Grasse was treated with more reverence and respect by the English then he would be by his own countrymen for the remainder of his life.(HR83-002-001, Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

De Grasse was officially exonerated of any wrong doing at the Battle of the Saintes at a court of inquiry conducted by the French crown. However, the admiral became highly unpopular in France due to his perceived failure and he retired in disgrace to his estate in Tilly. It was an ignominious end for one who had served his country faithfully for his entire life. De Grasse asked for nothing from any government in his retirement save to request the U.S. Congress for four cannons captured at Yorktown that had been promised to him by Washington. Though melancholic and depressed in his retirement due to his fall from grace, de Grasse displayed these cannons at Tilly with immense pride and satisfaction. He died suddenly only a few years later on January 14, 1788. Though somewhat forgotten in France, the loss of de Grasse was mourned in the United States and especially by his old friend Washington.

The Comte de Grasse was a gallant, intelligent, talented, passionate, and faithful naval commander who served France with honor until the very end. With the eye of history on him, he defeated the British at the Battle of the Capes and brought the Royal Navy to the brink of defeat in the Caribbean. Without de Grasse, there is a good chance the American Patriots and their French allies ashore might have been defeated. Yet, despite his manifest importance, he is a largely overlooked and unsung hero of the Revolutionary War.

Congress passed a resolution only five days after the Franco-American victory at Yorktown which ordered the creation of a monument to commemorate the great victory. Although it would take the United States over 100 years, the Yorktown Victory Monument was erected in 1884. In their original resolution, Congress ordered that three individuals were to be mentioned by name in the monument’s inscription: George Washington, the Comte de Rochambeau, and the Comte De Grasse. Today, De Grasse’s name is engraved into a monument dedicated to the victory of liberty over tyranny. It stands as a solemn reminder of the eternal bonds of fellowship between the people of France and the United States. (Wikimedia Commons)

Individuals interested in the Revolutionary War should consider the words of de Grasse when he wrote Washington a farewell letter on November 4, 1781, as he departed for operations in the Caribbean, stating, “Allow me, therefore, to have the honor to take my leave of Your Excellency, and to request you to reserve me a place in your memory. I consider myself infinitely happy to have been of some service to the United States, but I should regard it as an advantage at least as precious…that I carried away with me your esteem and friendship.” As Washington did, Americans should remember Admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, as a hero of the Revolution deserving of a place in their memory.

On January 5, 1946, the United States Navy commissioned a heavy cruiser into its fleet. It was unusual enough that, until about seven months before, it had belonged to an enemy in a fight to the death with the United States and its allies. A number of captured British, Spanish, and German vessels had been inducted into American service in over a century-and-a-half of the Navy's existence, but there were other factors that made this vessel one-of-a-kind. It was the only German cruiser to be commissioned as an American warship, USS Prinz Eugen (IX 300). Naval History magazine contributing editor J.M. Caiella wrote in 2017 that Prinz Eugen was “the Kriegsmarine’s largest, most modern, and most famous remaining warship” at the end of the war. Despite this, he added that it was “perhaps its most unwanted.”Perhaps the most unique detail about this formerly feared warship, however, was that it was perhaps the only one that was ever awarded to the Navy on the basis of lots drawn from the hat of its first (and only) American commander.

A closeup view of a compass within a binnacle from the WWII German cruiser Prinz Eugen, part of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM) collection. (M.C. Farrington)

German cruiser, Prinz Eugen, circa 1941. Halftone image from Division of Naval Intelligence, Identification and Characteristics Section, June 1943. (Library of Congress)

USS Prinz Eugen was originally commissioned into the Kreigsmarine in Kiel, Germany, as KMS Prinz Eugen on August 1, 1940. It was the second of three Hipper-class heavy cruisers to see action during World War II, and the only one to emerge intact afterward. Despite its potential lethality, Germany's surface navy was beleaguered by its enemies virtually from the very beginning of the war, so it was a miracle that Prinz Eugen even survived its first major combat operation in late May 1941, Operation Rheinübung. Along with the larger battleship Bismarck, which was commissioned less than a month after Prinz Eugen, the two warships ventured out into the open Atlantic for a commerce raiding mission. The two raiders were supposed to avoid peer-to-peer battles and seek out merchant shipping, but all that changed when they encountered the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood. With her 8-inch guns, Prinz Eugen landed some of the first hits on Hood on the morning of May 24 before Bismarck famously landed the coup de grace with its 18-inch guns, blowing the battlecruiser apart and leaving only three survivors out of a crew of 1,417.

Photographed from the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, the battleship Bismarck floats in a Norwegian fjord on May 21, 1941, shortly before the two warships departed for their ill-fated Atlantic sortie.
(Naval History and Heritage Command image)

While Bismarck sustained mortal damage from British carrier-based aircraft only two days later before being finished off by battleships and destroyers, Prinz Eugen made it back to occupied France unscathed, yet without making a single kill. Other than making a daring escape in February 1942 back to German home waters via the English Channel with the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen's options became quite limited after a torpedo hit off Norway forced heavy repairs to its stern. Even worse, most of its support vessels had by that time been sunk by the British. After the German High Seas Fleet itself was decommissioned on Adolf Hitler's orders a year later, Prinz Eugen was redesignated a training vessel. Other than the occasional shore bombardment, the remainder of its war record consisted mostly of troop transport and other support duties in the Baltic.

KMS Prinz Eugen in a floating drydock in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, probably in May 1945. Note that the main bridge shutters are closed and the main optical rangefinder above it and the cruiser's FuMO 26 large radar array are facing starboard. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

After Hitler's suicide in April 1945 and his replacement by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz for the brief twilight of that murderous regime, the new Reich President's orders to Captain Hans Juergen Reinicke aboard Prinz Eugen, at the time laid upin Copenhagen, were to replace the national ensign with the white flag of surrender and await the arrival of the allies.

A photograph of Prinz Eugen's forward superstructure tower is annotated with radar and other antenna designations by one of the many specialists who pored over the ship after its surrender. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

In the fleet staff information central room of cruiser Prinz Eugen, this radar search receiver combination used the four "Sumatra" antennas atop the forward superstructure. The four plugs on the bulkhead are for switching antennas. Note the chronometer, or clock, on the bulkhead at the upper left.
(Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Among the victorious allies, who were vying for the spoils scattered among the ruins of the Third Reich and competing to shape the postwar destiny of the devastated nation, the Soviet naval representatives to the Potsdam Conference that summer were most interested in gaining control of the cruiser, which was officially surrendered to the British on May 22, 1945. Although American representatives were not terribly interested in taking it in, Prinz Eugen was the most prominent vessel left in the German naval arsenal, it possessed thoroughly modern engineering and instrumentation, and it was still in reasonably good condition, so it behooved American officers like Captain Arthur H. Graubart to deny them the prize.

On October 19, the members of the Tripartite Naval Commission divided the Kreigsmarine's remaining surface vessels into three lists. Captain Graubart proposed writing each list onto a note card, placing them in his hat, and allowing the Soviets to draw first. Surprisingly, the Soviet representative agreed. While Graubart held his upturned hat above his head, a Soviet admiral drew out a card, but it did not contain Prinz Eugen. Instead, the Soviets had drawn the older light cruiser Nurnberg, which they renamed Admiral Makarov and placed in commission as the flagship of the Soviet 8th Fleet.

U.S. Navy Captain A.H. Graubart and Captain Hans Jürgen Reinicke walk on deck of he former German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, officially USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300), off the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Pennsylvania. Prinz Eugen had a crew of 8 officers and 85 enlisted men of the U.S. Navy supervising 27 officers and 547 enlisted men of the former German Kriegsmarine for tests. Reinicke was the commander of the German crew. (All Hands magazine, March 1946 via Wikimedia Commons)

Capt. Graubart lobbied for and ultimately gained command of Prinz Eugen, yet he still had to maintain the cooperation of its former skipper, Capt. Reinicke, as well as much of the German crew. Without their compliance, the long journey ahead would have been nearly impossible. Leading an overwhelmingly German crew, as well as its erstwhile captain, Graubart left Germany aboard Prinz Eugen on January 13, 1946. After circumnavigating half the globe, during which everything deemed to be of scientific and technical value was scavenged from the vessel at stops in Philadelphia and San Diego, the last of its German crew was released. Although its remaining American skeleton crew had trouble maintaining its boilers, Prinz Eugen ultimately arrived in Hawaii on May 19, after which it was towed to Bikini Atoll.

USS Prinz Eugen (IX 300) awaits its fate as a target ship for Operation Crossroads in July 1946. Along with two of its main guns and a host of other usable equipment, its main rangefinder above the main bridge appears to have been removed an a U.S. Army radar truck has been lashed in its place. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

As it was after the German defeat in World War I, Navy scientists and engineers would gain knowledge from studying German vessels surrendered to the allies. And, as it was for the German ships acquired by the United States after that war, Prinz Eugen's primary mission after becoming part of the United States fleet would involve unparalleled destruction; not upon other vessels, but upon Prinz Eugen itself.

The position of Prinz Eugen is shown about 1,200 yards from the detonation point on this chart of vessels arrayed for the first atomic bomb test at Bikini on July 1, 1946, known as Able Day, when a "Fat Man" bomb similar to the one dropped on Nagasaki was detonated about 500 feet above the battleship Nevada. The cruiser received only superficial damage. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)
The aptly-named Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946 was a theretofore unparalleled demonstration of national might. Similar but far grander than the tests Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell conducted using aerial bombs off the Outer Banks of North Carolina nearly a quarter-century before, a huge flotilla of American and captured enemy warships, many of them less than a decade old, was subjected to a class of weapon that promised to propel American power to heights undreamt of by earlier proponents of air power.

On July 25, known as Baker Day, a second atomic device was detonated about 90 feet below the surface of the lagoon. Prinz Eugen was approximately 2,000 yards away and stayed afloat, but it developed minor flooding in in both the steering and engineering compartments. Because of the amount of radioactive contamination the ship sustained, basic repairs could not be made and it capsized and sank five months later. (National Archives and Records Administration)

Despite being subjected to two separate atomic blasts during the tests in July 1946, USS Prinz Eugen proved her mettle by staying afloat with only minor flooding. After the tests, Prinz Eugen was towed to Kwajelin Atoll over 200 miles away, but the radioactive condition of the ship made repairs too risky. The leaks continued until, on December 22, the cruiser capsized just 200 yards offshore. Today its two propellers (minus one that was removed in 1978 for a memorial back in Germany) are easily visible during low tide.

The Military Sealift Command's USNS Salvor (T-ARS 52) and the commercial oil tanker Humber are positioned above the hulk of the Prinz Eugen during an operation spearheaded by Navy Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 1 to recover fuel oil from the wrecked cruiser just off Carlson Islet, Kwajalein Atoll. (U.S. Navy photo by LeighAnn Ferrari)

For decades, potential leakage of another kind from Prinz Eugen has been a major concern, particularly after the area was transferred to the Republic of Marshall Islands in 1986, but during the fall of 2018, a Navy-led salvage operation successfully removed 229,000 gallons of bunker oil from the hulk.

A chronometer from Prinz Eugen is the only artifact in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM) collection from the vessel that is currently on public display. (M.C. Farrington)

Although almost nothing remains of the once-feared cruiser, a number of huge and heavy items, including its bell and a fire control rangefinder, were removed from the ship and incorporated into the Naval History and Heritage Command collection decades ago following their inspection by the U.S. Naval Technical Mission in Europe and other inspection teams at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and in San Diego. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum's (HRNM) collection of artifacts from the vessel was not among those items, and most are decidedly more delicate. They were saved by an American naval officer when he took them off the ship before the two atomic bomb blasts pummeled the vessel, rendering anything left untouchable. What makes them significant is their condition. A modern Sailor worth his or her salt could probably navigate with the gear today.

Today, visitors can see a chronometer, or clock, from Prinz Eugen in the Battle of the Atlantic section of the HRNM gallery, but the remaining items, from lighting fixtures to dinner and serving plates with silverware to an Azmuth Circle and a binnacle containing a compass that is still in working order, remain at a separate storage location on Naval Station Norfolk away from public view.

An azmuth circle in closed position from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen. (M.C. Farrington)

An azmuth circle in open position from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen. (M.C. Farrington)

Detail of an azmuth circle from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen. (M.C. Farrington)

Binnacle from from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen, closed. (M.C. Farrington)

Binnacle from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen with hinged lid opened to show compass. (M.C. Farrington)

Binnacle from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen with top cover removed to show compass. (M.C. Farrington)

One of two navigation lamps from KMS/USS Prinz Eugen in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection. (M.C. Farrington)

Firefighting drills are one of the most routine yet important activities conducted aboard aircraft carriers, one of the most dangerous working environments in the world. Here, Aviation Electrician's Mate Airman Cedric Sims, left, receives training from U.S. Navy Aviation Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Jeremy Troutman on proper fire fighting nozzle handling techniques during a drill aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) on Nov. 12, 2005. (Photographer's Mate Airman Apprentice Brandon Morris/ Defense Visual Information Archive)

USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) appears along the waterfront at Naval Station Norfolk sometime after its commissioning at Newport news shipbuilding in 1961 and before its homeport change to Naval Air Station Alameda, California, in 1965. At the time of its commissioning, Enterprise was the largest ship in the world. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Aircraft carriers are often thought of as the most powerful type of vessel in the Navy’s arsenal, yet they have long been among the most vulnerable. Standoff missiles and submarine torpedoes have been a cause of concern for many decades, but new long-range precision strike weapons such as hypersonic glide vehicles fielded by America’s adversaries are a significant cause for concern. Their potential for anti-access/area denial erodes the matchless advantage of flexible presence that an aircraft carrier affords within what is widely known as the “global commons.”

Black smoke rises from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) in the aftermath of a fire that occurred while she was underway conducting air operations near Hawaii (USA) on January 14, 1969. Some of the subsequent 18 explosions were 500-lb. bombs cooking off in multiples, leaving 20-foot holes in the armored flight deck. Losses totalled 28 dead, 343 wounded, and 15 aircraft destroyed. (National Museum of Naval Aviation, Pensacola, Florida, via Wikimedia Commons)

Damage control teams fight to bring a fire under control on the flight deck of USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) on the morning of January 14, 1969. (Photographer's Mate 3rd Class S.A. Osterbauer/ National Archives and Records Administration via National Museum of the U.S. Navy/ flickr)

Despite the proliferation of technically advanced weapons that experts believe portend frightening scenarios for, among other precious strategic assets, our carrier strike groups, the greatest threat carrier Sailors face today is the same type of threat they faced 50 years ago this week aboard the carrier USS Enterprise (CVAN 65): Accidents.

Commander Nicholas J. Smith, III, maintenance officer and air-to-air ftest pilot for Air Development Squadron VX-4, steadies a mini-rocket as an Aviation Ordnance Airman loads other Zunis on a U.S. Navy F4D Skyray on September 28, 1959. During the following decade, the rockets would figure into two of the worst flight deck fires in the United States Navy's history. (National Museum of the U.S. Navy via flickr)

As it was then, and as it is today, it doesn’t take much to bring a carrier’s combat operations to a catastrophic halt. At approximately 8:19 am on the morning of January 14, 1969, during training operations southwest of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the 15-pound warhead of an unguided Zuni rocket nestled in a pod under the wing of a F-4 Phantom fighter detonated after it was exposed to hot exhaust gasses emanating from a gas turbine starter unit mounted at the rear of a flight deck tractor.

Clouds of black smoke rise from USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) on the morning of January 14, 1969. The fire broke out as the ship was conducting air operations 75 miles south of Pearl Harbor. Part of the destroyer Rodgers (DD 876) can barely be seen above the smoke attempting to fight the fire alongside. (Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Lawrence T. Henderson/ National Archives and Records Administration via National Museum of the U.S. Navy/ flickr)

As happened during a similar fire aboard USS Forrestal (CVA 59) during combat operations off Vietnam in July 1967, also touched off by a Zuni rocket, the explosion spread burning aviation fuel across the flight deck, causing more ordnance to detonate. Three more Zuni rocket warhaads detonated in the first few minutes, followed by multiple Mk 82 500-pound bombs, variants of which are still deployed aboard carriers today, including three on the same wing pylon that detonated all at once, were powerful enough to breach Enterprise’s armored flight deck, spreading the burning fuel, and the devastation, to decks below as well as the carrier’s cavernous hangar bay.

As the flight deck fire is brought under control, USS Rogers (DD 876) remains on station, aiding crewmen of USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) as they fight the fire. The fire broke out as the ship was conducting air operations 75 miles south of Pearl Harbor on January 14, 1969. The nuclear-powered cruiser Bainbridge (CGN 25) can also be seen coming to the carrier's aid. (Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Patrick J. Ryan, National Archives and Records Administration via National Museum of the U.S. Navy/ flickr)

Crewmen of USS Enterprise (CVAN 65) continue to douse fires still smouldering on the after flight deck. While the remains of several aircraft, including F-4 Phantoms and an A-7 Corsair II can clearly be seen, only one wing is left of a fully-fueled KA-3 Skywarrior that was located on the far port side of the deck. (Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Lawrence T. Henderson/ National Archives and Records Administration via National Museum of the U.S. Navy/ flickr)

The conflagration was brought under control within 45 minutes and was completely out roughly four hours later, but 27 Sailors died and 314 were injured. Fifteen aircraft were also destroyed. As a result of the accident, Enterprise had to undergo 51 days of repairs at a cost of over $125 million. Even so, the quick thinking of the carrier's captain and crew as well of those of accompanying vessels limited the damage, and Enterprise was still able to complete its next regularly scheduled deployment off Vietnam, one of six it would successfully complete during the Vietnam War.

Large holes along the aft port quarter of Enterprise's flight deck among the partial remains of aircraft can easily be seen as mop-up operations continue. As a testament to the resiliency of the carrier and its crew, Enterprise still made its scheduled deployment. Afterward, Enterprise returned to Newport News Shipbuilding for an overhaul. (Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Stanley C. Wyckoff/ National Archives and Records Administration via National Museum of the U.S. Navy/ flickr)

Enterprise was officially deactivated in December 2012, decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Registry in 2017, its defueling was completed the following year, and the deactiviation process was completed in April 2018. Those sharp-eyed enough can catch a glimpse of its superstructure heading south through Newport News on I-664 near the southern end of the massive shipyard where it was built, Newport News Shipbuilding.

On June 20, 2013, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) departs Naval Station Norfolk for Newport News Shipbuilding. Enterprise will be dismantled at the shipyard prior to the scheduled commissioning of the next aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN 80). (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Scott Barnes via Wikimedia Commons)

Sometime within the next decade a new Enterprise (CVN 80) will leave the same shipyard for another half-century or more of service. Although the new ship will feature new damage control capabilities that will mitigate risks to the crew in the event of an accident, no technological innovation can eliminate them. For the untold thousands of Sailors who will serve aboard it, many of whom haven’t even been born yet, the same vigilance, bravery, and capacity for self-sacrifice will doubtless be required of them as for those who served aboard every ship before it that bore the name Enterprise.

The Best of Don Winslow of the Navy

Edited by Craig Yoe (Annapolis, Dead Reckoning, 2018)

Reviewed by M.C. Farrington

One of the many laudable goals historians pursue is resurrecting heroes of history from the depths of obscurity so that they may be appreciated by a new generation. By reprinting the zany exploits of naval intelligence officer Don Winslow, Dead Reckoning, the new graphic novel imprint of the Naval Institute Press, has made a case about the merits of bringing fictional naval heroes of the past to the attention of today’s readers as well.

Don Winslow of the Navy started as a newspaper serial in 1934, helped along by future Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News. During its two-decade run, Winslow’s adventures could also be read in young adult novels, heard in syndicated radio programs and seen in movie serials (with the star of the latter actually joining the Navy and rising to lieutenant commander during the war). During the character's heyday, thousands of boys signed up to be a members of "Don Winslow's Squadron of Peace," using his official code book to decipher messages broadcast during his radio program.

The comic book series from whence this collection was based debuted in February 1943. Captain Marvel, who ruled the comic book world long before Superman, personally introduced his legions of fans to Cmdr. Winslow.
Needless to say, Don Winslow did not spring from the mind of Elmer Davis or the War Writers Board. Winslow was fully formed well before the war, the brainchild of a real naval reserve intelligence officer named Frank V. Martinek, who was chairman of publicity for the Navy League of the United States before dreaming up Winslow.

"Strangely enough, Winslow, the hero in my strip, follows closely in my own footsteps," quipped Martinek, who claimed to have worked for the FBI during the 1920s. "Of course, I have to develop slight variations of my own experiences because Winslow must always be in the thick of drama while I occasionally had a rest from running spies to earth or checking fingerprint clues."

Winslow and his trusty sidekick, Lt. Red Pennington's primary nemeses both before and after the war tended to be stock international villains; a Fu Manchu-type character called The Scorpion, then a felonious femme fatale named Singapore Sal.

During the war years, the plot lines followed pretty conventional detective story tropes as Winslow and Pennington matched wits with diabolical Nazi agents trying to steal battleships and underworld thugs attempting to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge at the behest of their Japanese masters, with diversionary stories set on Mount Everest and Antarctic exploration thrown in for good measure.

Although over two decades would pass before the term “jump the shark” came into common currency, Don Winslow of the Navy began to lose its own way in ever more bizarre ways after the end of the Second World War, as stock Axis heavies gave way to giant multi-colored cannibalistic Amazon warriors and Venusians.

Comic book heroes have undergone somewhat of a revolution in the last quarter-century, as the demographics of their protagonists have become more inclusive and their flaws and foibles more reflective of those living in the real world, even as their godlike powers have grown ever more estranged from reality. Those familiar with this progression might regard Don Winslow as somewhat primitive. Or, to use a phrase I heard at a museum conference a few months ago, he might even be dismissed as "male, pale, and stale."

Despite his square-jawed appearance, unrelenting earnestness and the absence of any quirks or vices to speak of, Winslow should not be dismissed out of hand. This "ace of naval intelligence" was fighting a secret war against transnational cabals long before James Bond was a twinkle in Ian Fleming’s eye. His only powers seemed to be great deductive ability and a powerful right cross, yet Cmdr. Winslow was beating up bad guys the old fashioned way with his sidekick Red several years before Batman and Robin, and the bizarre banter between arch-enemies Winslow and Sal is definitely reminiscent of the scenes filmed decades later between Adam West and Julie Numar.

The long-forgotten Cmdr. Don Winslow might or might not have inspired the creation of some of the most enduring characters of twentieth century fiction, yet his creator Frank Martinek made no bones about the fact that he wanted to inspire young people to join the Navy to experience adventures of their own. Although it is unclear just how many youngsters sought this kind of adventurous life due to Lt. Cmdr. Martinek's opus, The Best of Don Winslow of the Navy is an interesting slice of popular culture, emblematic of who represented the ideal American fighting man on paper at a time when millions of his very real flesh-and-blood compatriots were called upon to endure less-exotic and more dangerous adventures during a conflict that changed the course of history.

Many of the artifacts in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection are significant objects from the life of a service member; fragments of a larger, less exceptional whole that has long vanished. Veterans typically save a few exceptional souvenirs of service: Tokens of appreciation or totems signifying accomplishment. Because of this, such items are fairly common today. A veteran typically saves items of this nature to show children or grandchildren, who in turn occasionally show it to us. Because of the ubiquity of such items we are frequently forced to turn down donations because of our own storage restrictions. Meanwhile, the mundane ephemera of service life is consequently consigned to the flames.

It's not every day that we come across the material legacy of a veteran who saved virtually all of his uniform items and much of his training materials, particularly one who served as long ago as Richard Louis Krauss, who enlisted in the United States Navy on March 22, 1918, and was honorably discharged on January 27, 1919. What makes his collection even rarer was that he was among the first to enter the community of naval aviation at Naval Aeronautic Station Hampton Roads, which later became Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia. Another thing that makes Mr. Krauss' collection unusual is that he apparently didn't talk about his service with his children nor share any details about all the items that he had squirreled away into a nondescript trunk.

"As a child I had never seen these items," said the youngest of his four children, Janet Lambert. "The World War Two generation didn't talk about their experiences, and nether did he."

"Everything was in his Navy trunk," said Martha Smith, who inherited it from her father, Krauss' only son. "I opened it and said, 'Hey, this is a treasure chest!'"

She then contacted our museum.

The side of a briefcase that belonged to Aviation Quartermaster 1st Class Richard L. Krauss was specially painted with the original bull's eye used on the fuselages of American naval aircraft during World War I. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Another view of Quartermaster (Aviation) 1st Class Richard Krauss' specially monogrammed briefcase. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

The youngest of eight children whose mother passed away while he was still a teenager, Richard Krauss, along with his older brother Matthew, left Louisville for the Navy after being raised by an older sister.

Krauss wasn't necessarily a hoarder nor did a sense of nostalgia seem to inspire him. He did not keep every ticket stub or piece of ephemera from his naval service; just everything a Sailor might be expected to use again if called upon. Once he returned to Louisville, Kentucky, at the end of his short enlistment, the result of an unexpectedly short war, he kept the clothing from his seabag and the voluminous notes from his aviation training as though he might need them again at any moment, and they stayed that way for the next century.

This Quartermaster (Aviation) second class rating badge is one of the century-old items in the collection in mint condition and is in far better shape than the service dress and undress white example in the Naval History and Heritage Command Headquarters Artifact Collection. Krauss probably did not have time to sew it on because he advanced to first class so quickly. The rate of Quartermaster (Aviation) came into being in 1918, and was disestablished in 1921. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Richard L. Krauss'"flat hat" cover and one of his winter blue trousers, still rolled as they would have been for inspection. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Both Lambert and her niece Martha Smith used the same word when asked to describe him:

"Meticulous."

Two photos from the collection (from left) show a jovial Mr. Krauss near his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, presumably before entering the Navy, and later while working at the mess hall of Naval Training Center (NTS) Hampton Roads (later NTS Norfolk, which closed in 1943) during recruit training in 1918. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Looking much more serious later in his recruit training, Krauss stands with his bed roll and seabag, seemingly ready for inspection. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Quartermaster (Aviation) 2nd Class Richard L. Krauss appears second row, second from right (under the "X") with the rest of his aviation detachment at NAS Hampton Roads. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

During his training at NAS Hampton Roads, Krauss filled a large ledger full of notes pertaining to his responsibilities as an aviation quartermaster, which included the rigging, maintenance, and inspection of a variety of aircraft. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

The location is not given, but this Curtiss N-9, surrounded my Sailors wearing aviation gear of the time (some of it civilian clothing appropriated for the purpose) was photographed on January 22, 1919. (National Archives and Records Administration via Naval History and Heritage Command)

About five months before Krauss enlisted, naval aviation was established in Hampton Roads when the very first naval aviators, mechanics, and other support staff relocated from the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station, a school founded in 1915 by Glenn Curtiss in nearby Newport News to train aviators from the east coast and Canada, to the newly opened Naval Operating Base Hampton Roads, which was officially opened on the former Jamestown Exposition grounds at Sewells Point on October 12, 1917. In this photograph taken exactly two weeks later, we see a seaplane ramp being built on the spot formerly known as "Discovery Landing," which had welcomed such dignitaries such as President Theodore Roosevelt during the exposition ten years before. At its edge is a Curtiss R-6 floatplane, seemingly throttling up for takeoff, while another R-6, a naval variant of the venerable JN-4 "Jenny," stands by at far left. The clock tower in the background is part of the Pennsylvania House, an exposition building that still stands today on Naval Station Norfolk. (SEARCH Project image, National Archives and Records Administration)

The whites in Krauss' seabag aren't exactly pristine, but after a century of not being washed (with most still rolled up and tied in the manner proscribed at the time), they're arguably not that bad. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

One of Krauss' dress or undress blue trousers shows the way uniform items were typically rolled and tied. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Several seemingly nonstandard articles of clothing are in the collection, indicative that Krauss probably spent some time up in the air aboard the aircraft he was assigned to maintain and provision. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Another article of clothing probably particular to the aviation community during World War I is this wool vest, probably worn underneath his uniform while airborne. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Mr. Krauss even retained his heavy woolen socks, but it unclear whether he was issued this clothing or whether he procured them for his own use elsewhere. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Krauss saved everything, right down to his skivvies. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Krauss' Victory Medal citation he received over a year after leaving the Navy. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

(Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Richard Krauss' WWI Victory Medal. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

Although he was reportedly reticent with his children concerning his wartime service, Krauss did maintain a connection with fellow veterans as a member of the American Legion. (Richard L. Krauss Collection, Hampton Roads Naval Museum)

"He was always extremely well-dressed," said Lambert, "even in his retirement."

"A white shirt is always what he wore. We tried to buy him plaid. Something to keep him warm. But he wouldn't have it. We called him 'the hard-headed German.'"

Krauss died just shy of his 97th birthday in April, 1993, long retired after 43 years working for the Citizens Fidelity Bank and Trust Company in Louisville.

"He had everything in order for his passing with notes for all of us," added Lambert. "How to do this. How to do that."

"To be that organized," said Lambert, "is something that we could all take lessons from."

A Review of Nathaniel Philbrick'sIn the Hurricane's Eye

Viking, 2018, 366 Pages

By A.J. Orlikoff
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

Nathaniel Philbrick, in In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, provides a remarkable and important reinterpretation of the fateful Yorktown campaign which ultimately delivered the United States independence from Great Britain. Monographs regarding the military history of the American Revolution are many, yet few help crystallize these heavily studied events in a new light in the way Philbrick does. Philbrick contributes a re-conceptualization of the Revolution as both a conflict between powerful European states and a war upon which the contour and outcome of was highly dependent on the war at sea. Consequently, Philbrick argues that it was the French and their naval power which were the ultimate arbiters of American independence. Indeed, Philbrick writes clearly and soberly of “…the bitter truth… that by the summer of 1781, the American Revolution had failed.” In doing so, Philbrick explicitly and tacitly argues for a reinterpretation of the American Revolution as primarily a French victory with the Americans, “…a fly on the back of the elephant.” However, Philbrick argues that the man who understood this most was none other than George Washington and that his understanding of the importance of French naval strength facilitated the victory at Yorktown.

The cover of In the Hurricane's Eye is a modified version of a painting hanging in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum gallery. The Navy Art Collection/ Naval History and Heritage Command receives due credit for this use of this image on the dust jacket, yet the original painting’s presence at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum was left out of the credits. (Amazon.com)

In the Hurricane’s Eye is a branching military overview of the Yorktown campaign punctuated by a focus on important and influential individuals. Many readers will recognize names such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold, Charles Cornwallis, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Alexander Hamilton, yet many often overlooked individuals such as Spanish diplomat Francisco Saaverda and American General Nathaniel Greene receive due credit for their accomplishments. Notable events in relation to the development of the Yorktown campaign are covered in a detailed and clear chronological narrative. These events culminate with the Battle of the Chesapeake Capes and the Siege of Yorktown, where all the moving parts in the complex web of Philbrick’s narrative succinctly converge.

Philbrick’s work triumphantly succeeds in a number of important ways. In the Hurricane’s Eye stands as an excellent example of journalistic scholarship. Though the author chooses not to utilize citation, Philbrick draws from an impressive array of sources to construct the story of the Yorktown campaign. The author’s extensive and detailed notes on sources stand as a credit to Philbrick’s scholarship. Philbrick also writes with a journalistic flair that is sometimes hard to find in well-researched historical scholarship. This eminent and impressive aspect of Philbrick’s work makes the In the Hurricane’s Eye equally accessible to both serious historical researchers and casual readers, something more historians should strive to achieve.

This engraving by Berthet currently on display in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum gallery depicts Yorktown as having palm trees and gently sloping mountains in the distance. (Photo by M.C. Farrington/ Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation)

In the Hurricane’s Eye is not without some fault. Philbrick’s effusive praise for George Washington breaks with traditional scholarship regarding the planning for the Battle of Yorktown, arguing that Washington’s fixation on New York as an avenue for attack was appropriate given what he knew despite both French senior commanders, The Comte de Grasse and the Comte de Rochambeau, favoring an attack in the Chesapeake Bay. Philbrick excuses Washington’s beliefs as the correct course of action despite Washington eventually being persuaded by the French to abandon his plan. Though Philbrick is right to commend Washington’s overall strategic acumen, Philbrick stretches this conclusion to cover what many historians argue are Washington’s mistakes. In addition, Philbrick credits Washington as a military genius due to him wanting to achieve naval supremacy over the British when that was an obvious course to every senior military commander in theater.

"Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," an engraving by Hinshalwood on display in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum's gallery, gives the French, at left, equal prominence with the Americans on the right as the British, hats doffed, approach on foot in the center to surrender. (Photo by M.C. Farrington)

Philbrick also notably criticizes the Comte de Grasse. Though some of Philbrick’s criticisms of the French naval commander have merit, such as Philbrick’s assertion that De Grasse poorly organized his fleet when they sortied out of the Chesapeake Bay to attack the British, Philbrick departs from standard accounts and argues that De Grasse was a poor naval commander who was too aggressive and impetuous. For example, the author fails to mention that the reason De Grasse rapidly moved to engage the British fleet off the Chesapeake Capes was due to the expected arrival of De Barras’ much smaller squadron, which De Grasse believed would be annihilated by the larger British fleet at will if he didn’t deploy his forces. This lack of context casts de Grasse as far more aggressive and foolish than he was. Furthermore, this lack of context in articulating de Grasse’s action or lack thereof continues throughout the narrative, such as when Philbrick fails to mention that de Grasse’s defeat at the Battle of the Saintes was caused by two subordinate officers who disobeyed his direct orders. The overly effusive praise for Washington and overly harsh criticism of De Grasse deprive In the Hurricane’s Eye of a consistently measured interpretative voice.

Overall, Philbrick’s In the Hurricane’s Eye is a triumph of contemporary and sober historical scholarship. Philbrick’s work is among the rare historical monographs that resonates at multiple levels. It’s persuasive without being revisionist, scholarly without being moribund, and illuminating without being excessive. Philbrick’s interpretation of the importance of the French, particularly their navy, as among the most important factors leading to American victory are necessary to understanding the true story of American independence. Thus, In the Hurricane’s Eye should be considered an essential read for both Revolutionary War scholars and anyone interested in the campaign which won the United States’ independence.

Editor's Note: The Hampton Roads Naval Museum possesses several of the works of illustrator Joe Hinds, who passed away on April 22, 2012. He got his start in the profession after enlisting in the United States Marine Corps in 1965, drawing mechanized vehicles and small arms for training manuals. A keen observer, Hinds also gave descriptive treatment to his human subjects as well. He drafted the following passage in South Vietnam after watching an after-action briefing for river patrol boat (PBR) crewmen in 1969, which to our knowledge has never been published.

They go out night after night, these men. Out to meet an enemy wise in the ways of war on rivers and canals. Most of them are afraid. Most of them are superb.

Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Earnest McGowan sits in the gun tub of the twin .50-caliber gun mount on a new Mark II river patrol boat (PBR) on January 13, 1968. Many of these newer PBRs saw action during the Tet Offensive. On the Mark II, the ".50s" are electronically fired and sit low on the deck. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Their job? Stop the VC from moving along and across the waterways, which have been his for a lifetime. How? With glass boats, with guns, with air support–with guts. Who are these men who man this PBR tonight? A year ago the Boat Captain was a Boatswain’s Mate on a cruiser. The Engineer was a Machinist Mate on a Carrier. The other two were in high school.

Who are they now? They are River Rats.

Engineman 3rd Class Ronald Bartamel takes aim with his M-60 aboard PBR 374. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The two-boat patrol leaves the fragile security of its base an hour or so before darkness. They leave literally in glass boats armed with twin 5O cal machine guns, two M60s and maybe a mortar. In addition, they carry with them the one indispensable ingredient they know will bring them back alive–trust. Trust in their weapons. Trust in their air support. Trust in their Officer Patrol Captain. But most of all, trust in each other, for there is no place to hide in a 31-foot fiberglass boat. Each man must stand his ground and protect his shipmate with his weapon and, if it comes to that, with his life.

Soon after leaving their base they ate some "River Stew" which had been cooked on the small unauthorized stove most boats have tucked away somewhere. Now, however, they are approaching their objective: A position on a canal near where intelligence reports indicate that the VC are crossing as part of a weapons infiltration route into Can Tho. Guns are checked. Flack jackets double-checked and a casual wave given to the Patrol Officer in the "Cover Boat" as it moves toward its position a little farther down the canal.

They are alone. As darkness comes the boat engines are cut and the PBR slides silently into position on the bank of the canal. Every one is alert. If "Charlie" knew you were coming...... . But you are in. Perimeter security is set using Claymores and GSIDs[Ground-Emplaced Seismic Intrusion Detectors]. Now comes the waiting, the night noises, the fight against those most persistent enemies; boredom and mosquitoes.

It is black! There is no moon. The kind of night "Charlie" likes to move. Someone knocks over a canteen. The boat Captain curses. It doesn't seem possible but it seems to be getting darker and the mosquitoes are getting bolder. The boat engineer, now manning an M60, figures it must be near midnight when watches will be set and one or two of the boat crew will try to catch some fitful sleep. (No snorers allowed out here!) Unbelievably, his watch tells him it is only 2100. Mosquitoes get bolder. Eyes get heavier.

River Boat 117 Under Attack at Night, an acrylic by John Steel, 1966. (Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection)

The kid up forward says be hears a noise on the beach. The Boat Captain asks what it is. "How the f--- do I know," comes the succinct reply. Eyes are strained. Ears are turned to try to put a name to the noise. Now they all hear it. Just as reported, it is a "noise,” nondescript and frightening. A man? A sapper? A pig? The aft gunner realizes that he has been holding his breath and be is sure the explosive exhale can be heard in Hanoi. After notifying the Cover Boat by a whispered radio message, the Boat Captain takes his M-79, clicks off the safety and puts both rounds on the "noise.” A grunt, and the noise stops.

A few caustic comments about "chalking up another VC water buffalo" are answered with appropriate obscenities. My God, it is only 2210!! Time drags. It gets darker, if that is possible. Finally it is midnight and two men stretch out on the engine cover for some fitful rest.

About a click up the canal a fierce firelight breaks out. The light snap of the M-60 is backed up by the heavier, ever more comforting bark of the 50 cal. From the banks come the staccato sound of an AK-47 and the white streak of a B-40. The Boat Captain nervously fingers the engine starter buttons, ready to render aid. But none is requested, for soon the Sea Wolves are overhead. Their long, teeth-grinding gun and rocket runs bring the firefight to an abrupt halt. Suddenly the night is again filled with silence, darkness and mosquitoes.

In his painting Looking for Trouble, artist R.G. Smith depicts two OV-10A Broncos from Light Attack Squadron (VAL) 4 on the prowl for targets. (Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection)

Just as the watch changes at 0200, the familiar, comforting sound of the Black Ponies is heard. Looking up, their recognition lights are clearly visible. You relax–just a little. They will be overhead for awhile. You know it. "Charlie" knows it. He doesn't like the "Ponies". You love them.

Unbelievably the eastern sky seems a shade lighter. Everyone is awake now. All eyes and ears again straining. Inexorably the sky lightens but with the light comes the rain. At least it keeps the mosquitoes down.

Covered by the 50 cals, two men carefully go out to retrieve the perimeter security devices. Just as they pass an area that had not been completely defoliated, one yells and jumps back. Every man dives for his weapon. But the men holler back that all is clear and wave for the Boat Captain. When he arrives he finds last night's “Noise”: A small man wearing only shorts, a green shirt and flip-flops is lying in the mud. In his hand clenched in death he still holds his only weapon: a Chinese grenade. A radio report is made and soon the Patrol officer is on scene and the squadron commander and some Army Intel types are on the way. The boat is told to return to base.

Engineman 3rd Class Harold Butler works on the diesel engine of PBR 037 between patrols. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

The rain stops. The knowledge of how close death was keeps chatter to minimum on the way “home”. Upon arrival at their base, reports are made, the crew debriefed and a good breakfast is eaten. Then the dog-tired men---return to their boat to clean weapons, maintain engines and generally clean up. By mid-morning the work is done, the sun is hot and it is time for a cold beer before catching some sleep. The patrol briefing is at 1700. For these men will go out on to the waterways again and again and again until their year is up, or until they don't hear the "noise”.

A Mark Two PBR makes a high-speed run along the Long Tau River, the main shipping channel from Saigon to the sea. The water jet propulsion system delivers a speed of up to 30 knots and a draft of 9 inches, giving great maneuverability on the shallow rivers. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Where do we get–"such men!"

Between missions, a Seawolf crew member loads rockets aboard an unnamed LST. (National Archives and Records Administration)

The Seawolves’ Hueys were set up in the gunship configuration, carrying a variety of weapons which included 14 2.75-inch rockets, two M-60 machine guns (which were hand-held and operated by the aircrewman from the door area), four M-60 machine guns known as “flex guns,” M-2 .50 caliber machine guns (also operated by aircrewmen) and two 7.62 mm mini-guns. The most common load out for the UH-1B was carrying the rockets in pods with one mini-gun mounted on the left and one mounted on the right which were fired from the cockpit. Set up in this configuration, the UH-1B proved to be a vital air asset to the Navy forces working on the rivers which included Navy SEALs.

Assigned to the river patrol force and flying from USS Belle Grove (LSD 2), Seawolf 26 fires a 2.75 mm rocket dislodging a sampan from a river bank in the Rung Sat Special Zone during operation Jackstay. The blast stripped the sampan of its camouflage and it was sunk by subsequent rocket and machine gun runs in April 1966. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

A retired UH-1B with HA(L)-4 "Helwingres" markings at Ely Memorial Park near Gate Four of Naval Station Norfolk. (M.C. Farrington)

HA(L)-3 was decommissioned in 1972. However, the success of the squadron in Vietnam lead to the creation of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 4 at Naval Air Station Norfolk and Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 5 at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California, in 1976.

The UH-1B static display helicopter at Ely Park represents those that flew with Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 4, those that flew with HA(L)-3 before it, those that followed in Helicopter Combat Support Special Squadron 4 (HCS-4) afterward, and, finally, Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 (HSC-84), which was disestablished on March 19, 2016. (M.C. Farrington)

The Military Exploits of Samuel Argall, Admiral of Virginia

In the Offing: Secrets of Confederate Steam Power

Le Célèbre Comte de Grasse, Part I: The American Revolution's Unsung Naval Hero

Thirty Years Ago: A Ghost in the Working Party?

Fifty Years Ago: A Simple and Deadly Tactic almost Fells the "Wesco"

Seventy-Five Years Ago: Torpex Strikes Again, Part 1

Seventy-Five Years Ago: Torpex Strikes Again, Part 2

One Century Ago: What Victory Looks Like

Seawolves, Red Wolves, and Blue Hawks, Oh My!: Deadly Airborne Animals Born over Vietnam

29 Years Ago: A Visit from the Commander-in-Chief

75 Years Ago: America's Last Battleship is Launched

One Century Ago: The Willoughby Spit Crash

The American Revolution's Unsung Naval Hero, Part II: The British Get Even

This detail from “Caribbee Island, Virgin Islands, and Isle of Porto Rico” from The West-India atlas shows the relative location of “Les Saintes” in relation to the islands of Dominca and Guadeloupe. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)

The Navy's "Most Unwanted" Ship and the Instruments that Escaped its Fate

Fifty Years Ago: The Enterprise Inferno

In the Offing: A Forgotten Fictional Hero's Return

One Century Ago: Quartermaster 1st Class (Aviation) R.L. Krauss Leaves the Navy but Saves Everything

In The Offing: Washington's Coup de Grace a la Francaise

"Such Men": A Vignette of Vietnam

Deadly Airborne Animals Born over Vietnam