doing this, I hope she will further reflect on, and at least revise to forbearance and tolerance , her views on the NMHS 's endeavours. Her criticism may indeed be valid, but I suggest that we-amateurs , enthusiasts, dilettantes, buffs , romantics and lovers of nautical matters-need her professionalism as much as she may require a forum for an untutored audience eager to absorb but a portion of her maritime knowledge. Our complementary visions-be they seaport museums, ship preservation or a nautically erudite generation-will be achieved only if we accomodate and work together with those who share with us their version of that vision. LEON KAPLAN College Point, New York I believe Dr. Withheld is suffering from an advanced case of PhDitis . I like SEA HISTORY as it is and look forward eagerly to every issue . The journal is well written, well illustrated and well balanced. I would h¡ate to see it become a professional history journal with the typical turgid writing, multitudinous subscripts, superscripts, brackets, footnotes and dreary details of unfascinating subjectsminutiae, l suppose, is the term . JOHN GORDON SCHMIDT Sherwood Forest, Maryland It Means a Lot to Us, Too I was both surprised and pleased to see the advertisment of the New York Council of the Navy League of the United States in the Spring SEA HISTORY , featuring an early Naval Aviation recruiting poster. The poster was designed by my father, Frank Simpson , Jr. , when he was Aviation Aide , Western Division , in about 1920-21 . (You can see his initials in the lower left comer of the picture of the plane .) l had no idea that there were any copies still in existence other than the ones I have . The original painting for the poster hangs in my office. My father was Naval Aviator No. 53 and was the first Californian to earn his Navy wings. An article in the Spring 1984 issue of California History gives more information about him. I'd be most interested in knowing where you found the poster. My father would have been very pleased to see his poster being used in a Navy League ad celebrating the 75th anniversary of Naval Aviation . Navy flying meant a lot to him . FRANK SIMPSON , III Los Angeles , California
We are very glad to run this kind of advertising , and this kind of letter shows why. The poster in question hangs in a SEA HISTORY , AUTUMN 1986
dim-lit upper hallway in the New York Yacht Club in New York City . We and the Navy League are looking for a few more good posters for this series!-Eo.
Floreat Coriolanus! ''The Last Days of the Coriolanus'' (SEA HISTORY 39) by Fred T. Comee gave me a sharp nostalgic twinge. Coriolanus, of all vessels , was and I suppose still remains the object of my affection since first I saw her in Boston in 1932 . I spent a lot of time and effort tracing her distinguished early career as a jute clipper and her final dismal years as a Brava packet, not to mention her many years under the German and Norwegian flags in between . I collected photographs of her by the score, including incidentally all the pictures shown in Mr. Comee 's fine story, the negatives of which were lent to me by Norman Matson more than fifty years ago. I gathered reminiscences of some who had sailed in her but, interestingly enough, had few of the details of her final voyages so well reported by Mr. Comee . Frankly, I never expected to read in 1986 anything ~ didn't already know about Coriolanus and it was a thrill to do so. My thanks to Mr. Comee! Clarence Rogers , who bought what was left of her in 1932 , becarr.e a good friend and we remained so as long as he lived. He was a travel agent by profession and had a heart-breaking , impractical dream for Coriolanus during the depths of the Great Depression which sadly led to the shipbreakers. However he didn't exactly sell. her to the breakers; she was seized by the Bath Iron Works for the long unpaid cost of towage from Boston and probably also the value of several years' wharfage at Bath. While she was there I had the pure pleasure of measuring everything I could get at for the late Harold Underhill of Glasgow with whom I collaborated in the development of a set of accurate model-maker's plan of the old beauty . A few years ago I gave my extensive collection of Coriolanus photos and other memorabilia to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich where it may be seen today embellished by the addition of a splendid rigged model of the vessel. But perhaps the finest model of Coriolanus is the '14in-scale model built by Michael Costagliola which may be seen at the Whaling Museum of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society in New Bedford. CHARLES S. MORGAN former Chairman of the Board Maine Maritime Museum ' 'There is no one I would rather have pleased with my story than Charles S.
Reported lost in the great gale that hit Algoa Bay , South Africa, on the night of September 5 , 1902 , the Coriolanus (high and dry at left) lived to sail again. Lying damaged at a Boston wha1f in 1921 after being seized for smuggling liquor, the aging beauty had a rocky road ahead, until she went to the scrapyard fifteen years later. But she li ves on in the memories of sailormen including Charles Morgan , who sends us these portraits from his collection on the ship .
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