Sea History 071 - Autumn 1994

No. 71

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

AUTUMN 1994

THE ART, LITERATURE, ADVENTURE, LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA

·,

Ian Marshall's Marine Watercolors THE FIGHT OFF SAMAR THE AMISTAD 'S LEGACY OF LIBERTY A SHIP FOR THE CAPE HORN ROAD

ISSN 0146-93 12

No . 71

SEA HISTORY FEATURES

SEA HISTORY is published quarterly by the National Maritime Historical Society, 5 John Walsh Boulevard, PO Box 68. Peekskill Y 10566. Second class postage paid al Peekskill Y I0566 and additional mailing offices. COPYR IGHT © 1994 by the ational Mari ti me Hi stori ca l Society. Tel: 9I4 737-7878.

10 The Cape Horn Road Part II : How the Sails of the Square-rigged Ship Got Th eir Names

by Peter Stanford

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sea History, 5 John Walsh Boulevard. PO Box 68 , Peekskill NY 10566.

14 The Battle off Samar The Leyte Gu(f battle that was not supposed to happen

by Robert Nicolosi

MEMBERSH IP is invi ted. Plankowner $ 10.000; Benefactor $5,000; Afterguard $2,500; Sponsor $ 1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $ I00; Contributor $50; Fami ly $40; Regular $30; Student or Retired $ 15. Al l members outside the USA please add$ JOfor postage. SEA HI STO RY is sent to all members. Individua l copi es cost $3.75.

20 The Amistad Incident A mutiny aboard the sla ve schooner Arn istad spurs the legal struggle for emancipation

by Warren Marr , If 24 The Marine Watercolors of Ian Marshall The watercolorist's work reveals an architect's attention to detail and an historian's sense of moment

by Kevin Haydon

OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman. Alan G. Choate; Vice Chairmen. Richardo Lopes. Edward G. Zelinsky; President, Peter Stanford; Vice President, orma Stanford; Treasurer, Bradford Smi th ; Secretary , Donald Derr: Tmstees, Walter R. Brown, W. Grove Conrad. George Lowery. Warren Marr Il , Brian A. McAllister. James J. Moore, Douglas Muster. ancy Pouch. Craig A . C. Reynolds.

Richard W. Scheuing, Marshall Streibert. David B. Vietor, Jea n Wort; Chairman E111eri111s , Karl Kort um OVERSEERS: Charles F. Adams, Walter Cronkite.

Townsend Hornor, George Lamb, John Lehman , Schuy ler M. Meyer,Jr.,J. Wi ll iam Middendorf, II , Graham H. Phillips, John Stobart , Wi lli am G. Winterer ADV ISORS: Co-Chairmen , Frank 0. Braynard , Melbourne Sm ith; D.K. Abbass , Raymond Aker, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswa ld L. Brett , David Brink. orman J. Brouwer. Wil li am M. Doerflinger. Franci s J. Duffy , John S. Ewa ld, Joseph L. Farr, Timoth y G. Foote, Thomas Gi llm er, Ri chard Goo ld-Adams , Walter J. Handelman . Charl es E. Herdendorf. Steven A. Hyma n. Hajo Knutte l. Conrad Milster, Edward D. Muh lfe ld , William G. Muller. David E. Perkin s, Ri chard Rath , Nancy Hughes Richard son, Timoth y J . Run ya n, George Sa ll ey, Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart. Albert Swanso n, Shannon J. Wall. Raymo nd E. Wallace. Robert A. We in stein , Thom as Wells AMER ICAN S HIP TRUST: International Chairman, Karl Ko11um; Chairman , Peter Stanford; Tmstees, F. Briggs Da lze ll , William G. Mu ller, Richard Rath. Melbourne Sm ith , Edward G. Zelin sky SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford; Exerntive Editor, onna St anford ; Managing Editor. Kev in Haydon; Assistanr Ediror, Justine Ahlstrom; Accounting. Joseph Caccio la; Membership Secrerary. Patricia Ansten; Membership Assisranrs. Erika Kurte nbach , Kim Pari si; Adverrising Assisranr, Carmen McCa ll um: Secrerary ro rhe Presidenr. Karen Rite ll ADVERTIS ING: Telephone 800 22 1- MHS .

AUTUMN 1994

30 Nelson: Man and Myth Of a hero's death was born an awareness of the vital importance of sea power

by Rear Admiral Joseph F. Callo, USNR

DEPARTMENTS Deck Log & Letters 6 NMHS Mission 28 Marine Art News 33 Traffiques & Discoveries 4

35 Shipnotes, Sea port & Museum News 42 Reviews 48 Patrons

COVER: "HMS Renown and USS New York, Grassy Bay, Bermuda, 1898," by Ian Marshall. After the US f leet destroyed a Spanish squadron at the Battle of Santiago Bay, Cuba , on 3 July 1898, it stopped at Bermuda on its return to New York, at the invitation of Admiral John "Jackie" Fisher. In the left distance is the armored cruiser USS New York. In the foreground is the Britishflagship Renown, showing a col01ful array offla gs. From her main truck flies her recognition signal (code letter GYKN) and below that: "Welcome to the Un ited States Navy ."

Our seafaring heritage comes alive in Sea History SEA HISTORY brings to life America 's seafaring past. It is the quarte rl y j o urna l of the ationa l Maritime Hi s to rica l Society, a na ti ona l non -profit m e mbers hip o rgani za-

ti o n , establi s hed in 1963, that works to inc rease maritime aware ness and ed ucate the publi c in o ur na ti o n ' s m a ritime he ritage.

Come aboard with us today!

To: National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566 Yes, I want to he lp. I understand that my contribution goes to he lp the work of the Society and that I' ll be kept in fo1111ed by receiving SEA HISTORY q ua11erly. Please enroll me as:

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Daylight served throughout the war and sailed in many gruelling North Atlantic convoys. She rejoined Mobil 's fleet and resumed peacetime service in 1945, a war-weary, but unscathed , veteran.

Remembering those who served Between 1939 and 1945, gallant manners of our merchant marine and allied merchant navies, sailing ships such as the Daylight, braved devastating odds to maintain crucial supply lines , keep allied forces advancing , and hasten the end of World War

11.

They will be remembere

M@bil

DECK LOG In this Sea History we turn to the Pacific side of World War II, for reasons well noted by our Overseer Townie Hornor in the leading letter. Our story is the Battle off Samar. This action called forth the best the US Navy had to give, as Japanese heavy ships came down unexpectedly on American light forces.

We also considerthe magically evocative art of Ian Marshall, painting warships that maintained the peace in a world very different from our own . And Admiral Joe Callo offers a perspective on Admiral Nelson 's essential contribution to history-even in our own time.

Then, we continue our story of the Cape Homers-the ships and their people that carried their business in great waters around that toughest corner of the ocean world. Many threads draw together to arrive at the ship, the rig and the crews for the Cape Horn road, and even things that happened in remote times and distant places are vital to the story.

An important service of NMHS is to report significant new developments in our field . A project of unique significance is the Amistad project, discussed on pages 20-23 by NMHS trustee Warren Marr, II, a longtime leader in thi s effort to build and sai l a replica of the slave sh ip that became a ship of freedom.

To share in this project, send $25 to Amistad Affiliates , 831 Sherry Drive, Valley Cottage NY 10989. You' ll be helping to write a new chapter in a story that should never be forgotten.

A Report to the Owners The National Maritime Historical Society is a membership organization, devoted to people's interest in the seafaring heritage . It works to serve its members' purposes and it is supported by their contributions. We report on current progress on page 6. We invite your comments.

PETER STANFORD

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LETTERS A Message for Now and the Future D-Day was an obvious hook for WWII celebrations, and it seems that the media has done its usual job of excess with characteristic verve! The message at issue is not rewarming the choir, which is fun but boring to the vast majority who were not in the choir, but rather presenting the history of what our nation ac hieved in WWII in a manner that projects a positive message for the present and future .

I am not sure just what the most useful part of that message is . Surely bravery, team spirit, self sacrifice, ingenuity are there. The me-first spirit is not. The pulling together of all our national resources may be part of it. We won the war in the Atlantic in the shipyards that built merchant tonnage and escorts and in the aircraft factories that built the long-range planes that provided air coverage across the entire Atlantic. We won the war in the Pacific in the shipyards that built the fleet, and also the submarines Darter and Tang and Wahoo and the rest. And our debt to the people who drove the ships and planes, that of course must stand forever, particularly our debt to those who did not return .

In a very real way , the torpedo planes of VTB-8-which, although all were lost, brought the Japanese combat air patrol down to the surface and allowed the high level SBDs (dive bombers) in for their very successful strike-were the heroes of Midway, the decisive carrier battle that halted the Japanese advance.

TOWNSEND HORNOR Osterville, Massachusetts

The RCN: "We'll Get Our Own" "A Critical Supply Line" in Sea History 68 does not mention the serious impact which U-boat attacks on western Atlantic ocean traffic had on Canada-at war since 10 September 1939, and whose eastern ports, principally Halifax , were the assembly points for convoys crossing to the United Kingdom.

Imported oil was critical to both the economy and the cross-Atlantic convoy operations. The eastern refineriesMontreal and Dartmouth (Halifax)depended on crude imported by tanker from Texas , Colombia, and Venezuela.

When, on 16 April 1942, Admiral King ordered all tankers to be held in port, the Canadian Oil Controller prohibited his tankers from sailing. This stopped the sinkings, but oil stocks in

Atlantic Canada dwindled to a meager 45,000 tons by the end of April-threatening all naval operations.

At this point the Chief of the (Canadian) Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Percy Nelles, RCN, took unilateral action to get needed oil. Although the USN had prohibited tanker sa ilings , Admiral Nelles (later quoted by his staff officers as saying, "To hell with that, we ' ll get our own. ") on 28 April ordered two RCN destroyers to proceed immediately to US and Caribbean ports to escort Canadian and Norwegian tankers to Halifax.

On 1 May the Canadian Oil Controller ordered that the few tankers he had left would only sai l under naval escort; this compelled the Royal Canadian Navy to provide escorts for regularly scheduled coastal convoys. The RCN transferred four corvettes from mid-ocean escort groups for this duty .

These Canadian oil convoys continued until August 1942 when the USN finally estab li shed a comprehensive coastal convoy system . Four, and later six, RCN corvettes provided escorts for the Canadian oil convoys. The sinking of U-94 by HMCS Oakville on 27 August marked the climax of the campaign for the RCN. Mounting U-boat losses soon forced Admiral Donitz to move his boats back to the North Atlantic.

In all the RCN escorted 14 convoys, including 76 tankers, between Halifax and the West Indies without the loss of a single ship.

ARTHUR B. HARRIS Troy, Michigan

An Eerie Feeling While reading "A View from the Bow Torpedo Room" (Sea History 67) , I had a familiar feeling abo ut its author, Otto Giese.

In the early 1970s, when I was doing chartering at Stolt-Nielsen, I was approached by a business friend from Alcoa Steamship Co. with a manuscript written by Otto Giese, which chronicled his I ife as a youth in Germany up through his service as a junior officer on the old North German Lloyd passenger liner SS Columbus. He had the negatives of photographs Mr. Giese took during the scuttling of that vessel after she was caught north of Cape Hatteras by a British destroyer in 1939. I made some prints of them and found Mr. Giese' s photographs of the Columbus si mply spectacular. I remember watching each print emerge from the developer and having an eerie, SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

almost mystical feeling , as if I had been there myself and was reliving the experience, years later.

STEPHEN H. BUSCH Norwalk, Connecticut

From Over the Hungaria Restaurant The article "Building the Normandy Beachhead," by James E. Vaile (Sea History 69), inspired me to bring to your attention a small but dedicated group of men who, under Commander Charles Frederick Goodeve, were respon sible for designing and developing a number of the vital elements that helped put fighting men ashore under fire on D-Day. The Department of Miscellaneous Weapon Development (DMWD), sometimes called the Wheezers and Dodgers, never seems to get any credit for the amazing projects they worked on. Long before D-Day, they got the detail s of the Swiss Oerlikon 20mm cannon and made it available to the Allies. The USN made great use of thi s gun , sometimes fitting as many as 100 to a ship. They designed and developed the Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon which helped turn the tide against the U-boats. They worked on all manner of rocket weapons, flame throwers, anti-a ircraft weapons and even developed the degaussing technique that saved hundreds of ships from magnetic mines. From their offices in rooms over the old Hungaria restaurant in Lower Regent Street in London, these scientists, engineers and inventors traveled all over, testing and modifying their infernal machines.

Cdr. Goodeve discovered an amazing inventor living in a bomb-damaged wing of the Grosvenor Hotel in London.

This man , Ronald Hamilton, had improvised a 200-foot-long testing tank along a coITidor of the hotel, made from lino floor covering. On its waters Hamilton had developed rolling dynamic buoyancy. This invention became the "Swiss Ro ll " floating wood and canvas roadway which got laden vehicles ashore in Normandy until the girder bridge floating road was installed about D-Day + 12.

TheBombardon wave suppression floating breakwaters which cut wave heights by 90% came from DMWD, as did the Rocket Landing Craft that swamped beaches with explosives and the spec ial di ving suits used by Royal Navy frogmen when searching by hand the 20 million square feet of Cherbourg harbor.

Thousands of men owed their Ii ves to the cladding of Plastic Protective Plating, SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

fitted round the bridges of their ships, protecting crews from splinters and cannon fire.

Dozens more inventions could be mentioned. The most detailed hi story of the weapons , tri als and the human efforts involved, can be fo und in Gerald Pawle 's The Secret War. JOH N BATCHELOR Dorset, England

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The Cape Horn Road Thank you so very much for your "Cape Horn Road " in Sea History 70. A wonderful account and a great read setting forth so many aspects of that part of the world .

Like you, I couldn ' t cross the bar for the last time without passing South of the Horn. Having never made it during my many years at sea with the Merchant Marine and the US Navy, I finally cruised past on the deck of MN Royal Viking Sun. Although I must report a west to east passage with moderate wind and sea, I still experienced, as you so well put it, a sense "of the ships and their people who had gone before ... of what they achieved there, against such odds." I found it to be a very moving experience.

CAPT. GLEN R. CHEEK, USN (RET) Merritt Island, Florida

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Errata

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The caption for the photograph of Wa vertree on page 11 of SH 70, implies that it was taken in 1970. It wasn ' t. The ship arrived in South Street in 1970, but the photograph was taken in 1993.

In Sea History 70, the photograph of trainees furlin g a sail aloft (p. 21) was taken on the mainyard of the frigate Rose, not the main topsail yard, and the caption for the Buttersworth painting of the clipper Eagle (p. 24) incorrectly says she is under lower topsail s; actually, it ' s double-reefed topsails. These enors, plus the mi sspelling of the Chincha Islands (p. 21) were caught by us too late to correct. Andrew J. Nesdall, of Waban, Massachusetts, spotted them and suggested we should have a nitpicker on staff-to which wecanonlysay"Amen. " Three further egregious errors spotted by readers: The US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point is in Nassau County, not Queens as we had it (in the errata section! ); New Brunswick's seaport city is Saint John , not St. Johns (p.

33); and the nautical mile is of course 6080 feet, not 6020 as we had it in "The Cape Horn Road ."

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NMHS MISSION:

How We Lost the Kaiulani-and What We've Been Doing About It!

by Peter Stanford

The Kaiulani, launched in 1899, was the last American ship to carry cargo under sail around Cape Horn. NMHS was founded in 1963 to save her.

After I had introduced myself I -asked the man facing me across his desk why he had done me the honor of summoning me to meet him. I had been expecting to meet one of his deputies.

"Mr. Stanford," he said, "I just wanted to meet the damned fool who ever thought we 'd approve this loan."

But the loan was authorized by a special Act of Congress, I was asked to lead the Society in 1970. But they were an active said. Morgan Guaranty was standing by to issue the money as lot, involved in projects ranging from the publication of John soon as the Maritime Admini stration approved the form of the Lyman's historic newsletter Log Chips (still issued occasionally loan. That just wasn ' t go ing to happen, said Andrew Gibson , by NMHS volunteer Nonnan Brouwertoday), to sav ing the bark Chairman of the Maritime Administration. He went on to Elissa of 1877 from the scrappers in Greece, to delivering the ex pl ain that the Ship Mortgage Program was set up to guaran- classic four-master Falls of Clyde (1878) to Hawaii.

This gang had been of enormous help to me in my work at tee loans to build new ships for the US Merchant Marine, not to drag an old hulk from some godforsaken corner of the world the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. In fact, that 's how I first got to know them, by their helpful volunteer to be set up as an historical curiosity in the US. And that was effectively that. Chainnan Gibson was wrong, contributions to our local proj ect.

The Society had begun to pursue special projects in that of course, in at least two important ways: First, what the Congress adopts should be carried out when it is signed into spirit before the loss of Kaiulani, founding the Counc il of law- as our bill had been. Second, the Kaiulani was not just a American Maritime Museums in 1972 to improve communicuriosity, she had important work to do, eas ily the most im por- cation within the field, and starting to publi sh Sea History in tant since she had been launched into the ice-fi lled Kennebec the same year to encourage wider interest in the fi e ld . from Sewall 's yard at Bath, Maine, seventy-one years earlier.

Don ' t Give Up the Ship!

She was to be a museum ship, educating Americans yo ung and old in how we built a nation from the sea and what it was As the recent National Maritime Alliance confe rence in Boslike along the way. Moored in the Potomac, she would remind ton in Septem berthi s year emphasized, our heritage in hi storic Was hington lawmakers in their marble c ity, of the high hopes ships is wasting away, and several important ships are in and hard work of previous generations, and her tall masts actual peril today.

The tide of public interest we work to bring into being now would challenge the city with the sense of a wider world, older must fl oat not the Kaiulani, but all our ships. It is our task to put and , in some ways , wiser than the one we know today .

A few years later another Maritime Commi ss ion Chairman, real citizen fo rce behind the cause. Then it will be clear when we go to government that we mean what we He len Bentley, conceived the idea of a say. We will shoulderthe burden- but we National Bicentennial Fleet, to tour the need government to play its role in supnati on's seacoasts and major lakes and rivers in 1976. She enthusiastically empo1t of the public purposes we serve. We braced th e plan to have a restored are working now on plans for a national effort, which we have given an hi storic Kaiulani lead the parade. But thi s noble name: "Don 't Give Up the Ship." idea was rejected by the admini stration , and in 1974 the axe fell : the Kaiulani To this needed national effort we bring was scrapped where she lay in Manila one great asset: our NMHS membership.

Today we have not 300 but 12,200 memBay . The Navy brought home her fo rebers and the count is growing as I write. foo t and other skeletal remains.

In retrospect we realized we had reOur members are unusuall y potent in this work, because they share the gener1ied too much on high-level government ous outlook of the founders and they lift promi ses and had not developed enough their eyes beyond whatever important citizen interest. Indeed, hardl y anyone specific proj ect they are in , to see the knew about the project or that it had failed . We resolved to reach out more whole horizon of the heritage we serve. widely to generate public interest in hi s- The tug Mathilda (1899) is swung ashore in This is work we do effectively, because tori c ships. And we realized that we had Kingston , New York , gift of NMHS Chair- we as a Society were born to it. just one asset to work with- the mem- man James P. McAllister to the Hudson That 's why building up our memberRiver Maritim e Museum--itself established ship base is the most important work bership of NMHS. There were just 300 members when I a few years earlier by an NMHS committee. before us now.

1

6

SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

NMHS MISSION:

In the Field

1994 Maritime Heritage Bill Passes House and Senate As we go to press with this issue of Sea History, word comes of the passage of the National Maritime Heritage Bill, HR 3059. The Act authorizes a matching grant program for maritime heritage projects with proceeds from the scrapping of surplus ships in the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

The bill, campaigned for by the National Maritime Alliance (NMA), faced considerable obstacles as it made its way through the various Congressional subcommittees. According to NMA director David Brink, funds will be divided one quarter to heritage projects, three quarters to the Maritime Administration and to the maritime academies. At this time, it is unclear what the doUar figure will be and when funds will be available.

The bill is a first attempt to have Congress redress a previous lack of support for maritime heritage preservation. The last Congressional appropriation, introduced by the National Maritime Historical Society, made $5 million available for maritime preservation in 1979. These funds were critical to the successful preservation of impo1tant maritime properties. NMHS President Peter Stanford has underlined the need for new appropriations: "In recent conferences and hallway discussions, one hears serious concern that the historic ship establishment is threatened by inadequate finances. This can and must be turned around."

KH

National Trust Affirms its Role in Maritime Preservation Speaking to participants at the recent National Maritime Heritage Conference in Boston, Peter Brink, National Trust Vice President for Programs, Information and Services, affirmed the Trust's desire to work with the maritime heritage community to preserve endangered resources. The Trust closed its maritime office in 1993 , but Brink applauded the partnership with the National Maritime Alliance that has formed since. This past year, the Trust provided grants to the NMA and legal assistance with the National Maritime Heritage Act. Brink, a veteran of the Galveston seapmt restoration, expressed the belief that "ce1tain types of maiitime projects can lift community preservation efforts to a new level" and acknowledged the advocacy and outreach effo1ts of the National Maritime Historical Society.

KH SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

1994 List of Endangered Maritime Resources Announced In an effort to inform the American public abo ut the critical state of numerous maritime resources and artifacts across the country, the National Maritime Alliance has announced its 1994 List of Endangered Maritime Resources. The Alliance formed a special Endangered Maritime Resources Committee, headed by Eric Speth of the Jamestown Settlement, to review nominations for the list. The committee, which includes NMHS president Peter Stanford, announced the li st at the 6th Annual National Maritime Heritage Conference in Boston, 14-17 September.

SS WilliamG.Mather- builtin 1925 in River Rouge, Michigan.

This is one of the few remaining Great Lakes bulk cargo vessels.

Her present owners, theGreatLakes Historical Society in Cleveland , Ohio, are threatened by the loss of the vessel 's berth and have few prospects for another berth large enough for the 60 1-foot vessel.

The Great Lakes Historical Society, keepers of the bulk Old Barge Cafe- the last sur- cargo carrier William G. Mather, shown here, are viving example of a floating oyster threatened with the loss of berthing space for the vessel. shucking house. The vessel was originally used by an oyster dealer on the New York City waterfront and most recently was used as a restaurant. Her present owners are looking for a site where the barge can be preserved, maintained and interpreted for the public.

USS Constellation- built in 1855 at the Norfolk Navy Yard. Constellation is the last sai ling warship built for the United States Navy. The vessel's fabric is greatly deteriorated, creating a serious hog in her keel and a loss of fastening integrity. Her present owners, the US Navy, have entrusted the vessel to the USF Constellation Foundation, Inc. in Baltimore who are in the process of raising funds and public awareness for a preservation campaign.

Schooner C.A. Thayer- built in Fairhaven, California. This is one of three remai ning West Coast three-masted coastal trading schooners and it has been the venue of an extremely successfu l children's overnight education program. The vessel has severe frame and hull deterioration. The present owner, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, is attempting to raise the estimated $6 .7 million needed to restore the vessel.

Tankmaster No.1 (formerly known as Beth Tank Ship No . 2, New York , and Catawissa)built in 1897 in Wilmington, Delaware. This is one of the few remaining ocean-going steam tugs that towed strings of coal barges along the US East Coast. The present owner, the NY Thruway Authority, is seeking a new owner for the vessel.

Tug Luna- built in 1930, in Solomons , Maryland. Designed by John G. Alden, Luna was the first diesel-electric-powered tugboat built for commercial towing. Her present owners, the Metropolitan District Commission of Boston, is planning to scuttle the vessel. The Luna Preservation Society is attempting to retrieve the tug from the MDC and ra ise the funds necessary to restore her.

SS Wapama (formerly known as Tongass)-built in 1915 in St. Helens, Oregon. The last surviving wooden stean1 schooner, she is so badly stricken with wood rot th at she sits on a steel barge. The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park needs an estimated $1 million just to stabilize her.

SS Nobska (formerly known as the Nantucket)-bui lt in 1925 in Bath, Maine. She operated as the New Bedford/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket ferry until 1973 and is one of the few remaining steam-powered coastal passenger ships in the country. Her hull plates, particularly her stern quarters, are in very poor condition. Her owner, the New England Steamship Foundation, is hoping to stabilize her, locate a su itable drydock and raise money for her restoration. She is currently located at Indian Point Park in Providence, Rhode Island.

Sankaty Head Lighthouse---constructed in 1850 on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

This lighthouse is one of the oldest towers in the nation. Cliff erosion threatens to drop the tower into the sea unless it is moved further inland. The present owner, the US Coast Guard, is attempti ng to create public awareness and a source of funding to relocate the tower.

Nauset Light Station---constructed in 1877 in Chatham as the North Lighthouse. It was moved to Eastham, Massachusetts, in 1923 and was set 500 feet from the bank. Erosion has reduced the cliff, and the tower now sits only 54 feet from the edge. The present owners, the US Coast Guard, and the Nauset Light Preservation Society are attempting to raise funds to relocate the tower. .t

7

~REMEMBERING ...

At last, an encompassing tribute honoring the brave men and women who have served our country in the United States Merchant Marine.

The tribute "In Peace and War" is a beautiful arrangement of skillfully drawn pen and ink illustrati ons of five significant monuments dedi cated to the Merchant Marine nationwide.

Added to thi s unique work of art is the 1946 U.S. Postage Stamp iss ued in honor of the MerchantMarine, in a mint block of four .

The art is impressed on heavy, fin e printing paper, image size 10" x 14" . This two-color print comes ready to hang, under glass with a doubl e mat, juniper green and white, in a go ld-edged walnut frame l 81' x 22".

Signed by the Artist "IN PEACE AND WAR" in Limited E dition

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The Cape Horn Road Part II: How the Sails of the Square-rigged Ship Got Their Names

cross the watery avtry to learn something of the vessel's working career on enu e of th e E as t the ir waterfro nt, I gradually Riv er , a pellu cid

by Peter Stanford noticed that they did not call morning sky gleamed above the hou ses of Brookl yn her ponton, or barge, as they Heights. I had lived there till ca lled other hulks, but el age thirteen, and I cherished gran velero-the great sailthe look of the roofto ps ing shi p. She spoke coheretched against that sky, as ently to them, all right! perhaps primitive man cherAnd she and her breed ished the landmarks of his speak to others today. Once, home territory, where every waking earl y one morning in old tree, every spring, every San Francisco, I went to visit notable feature was presided the Cape Horner Balclutha on the waterfro nt there-a over by a tutelary spirit.

From the far side of the river, ship similar (but differe nt, a dazzling path of molten reader, different!) to the Wasilver flowed out between vertree. The early morning the hull s of the great sailing sunlight gilded her spars and ships in South Street, Pewavered in watery patterns king a nd Wavertree, as on the curved grey-painted This classic portrait of the Wavertree in her prime was taken though the local god had plating of her bows, rising in the 1890s in San Francisco by T. H. Wi lton's Elite Studio.

Photo: courtesy San Francisco Maritime Nat' l Historical Park. spilled it out to show what from the sa lt water that he could do when he was clu cked and mu r mu red feeling generous. tree, and kno w why we so desire to see around it. As I stood with my head thrown A frowning Jakob lsbrandtsen ap- her re-rigged. back, tracing those fire- ti pped lances of peared, hurrying down Pier 15 to turn The fact is that these old ships have her yards and mast trucks aspiring to a the corner and head past me to some immense appeal, not just to Jakob and limitlessly prom ising heaven, !felt someitem he' d left behind in hi s car. me, but to people of every imaginable one pass by. It was a young mother wheel"God, what a morning!" I sai d. Jakob walk of life, including scholars, offi ce ing a wicker pran1 with a very young child paused in hi s headlong progress and workers, millionaires, school children, inside. She turned around after a bit and looked at me suspiciously. "It 's beauti - and dock wallopers. wheeled it back across the disused railfu l," I ex plained, sweeping my arm toPart of the reason fo r thi s fasc ination road tracks and asphalt of the wate1fro nt. ward the ri ver. Jako b turned to look at may be that an oceangoing sailing ship is A little embarrassed to approach her as a the li ght fl ooding upon us between the a depository of an amazing variety of stranger, I asked her what she was doing ships and said very seriously: "All morn- inherited ideas and practices. Her design there. "Walking my child," was her spirings are beautiful , Peter. " is an amalgam of things that worked at ited rep Iy. I looked at the warehouse buildSo began another day's work on the sea, arrived at largely by shedding those ings, the wide sweep of the deserted ship. For what had drawn us to the city that didn ' t. This goes fo r the arching Embarcadero, and then at the yo ung waterfront at that early hour of a Satur- bows, the sweeping sheer and the slightly woman standing against the gaunt, chalday morning was, of co urse, the work on crowned deck, the raised poop deck aft lenging shape of the ship, under the farthe ship Wavertree, which we scratched and the neatly tucked-up stern . And this seeing gaze of the white-robed wooden and scraped away at, while dreaming of extends to a tho usand detail s, like the fig urehead borne by theBalclutha. "It's a the money needed to see her full y re- he ight of the topmasts compared to the good place to be," she concluded, smilstored. And , of course, where we were lowermasts, and the fac t that fore mast, ing. "Don't you think so?" wasn ' t just anywhere; it was the Street mainmast and mi zzen are each made up I di d think so. That you ng person she of Ships, as South Street was known of three separate pieces; lower, topmast was wheeling up and down over the around the world , until the ships de- and topgallant, with royal mast and sky- ro ugh tarred roadway was being brought parted, a half century before. I am not sail pole separately named but integrated up in a way to soak in , fro m the very going to debate with you whether it as one piece of wood with the tall taper- outset of his own life's course, the chalmade any sense to bring back the great ing topgallant. lenge and the beauty of a high endeavor hulk of the Wavertree, object of our These things make up a whole that a pursued by peop le before his time, who attenti ons; thi s was a matter of primor- sa il or can recognize fro m a mile away . helped build the worl d he will inheri t. dial instinct with us and with the people Even when shorn of the top hamper that How fa r back do those efforts go, we had enlisted in the project under the makes her a sailing ship, serving out her beyond these surviving Cape Horn sailrecrui ting slogan: " Dirty work, long post-sailing ship days as a sand barge in ing shi ps? And what was the sailing the refu se-cluttered, stygian estuary of about-w hy did people make thi s huge hours, no pay."

I have invited you thus far into thi s the Ri achuela in Buenos Aires, the extended effort that brought mank ind act of restoration, reader, so that you can Wavertree kept her fo rm and wholeness, ultim ately to Cape Horn and that built join in the learning to be got out of a her integrity. When I went to visit her the Cape Horner, the ul timate sea chari ot, Cape Ho rn sailing ship like the Waver- there and spoke to waterfront people to to make the voyage?

A

10

SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

Learning from Royals and Gallants The quest for the truth of the Cape Horn sailing ship might well begin with the naming of the Wavertree's masts: starting at the bow , the fore, main and mi zzen; then each mast reaches skyward in three sections. In the case of her mainmast, the stout iron lower mast reaches 69 feet above the deck, and its wooden topmast, 52 feet long, which, with needed overlap at the doubl ing, reaches 37 feet 6 inches farther up; and finall y the topgallant (not yet stepped as these words are written) will reach 60 fee t 6 inches above thatso that its truck is 166 fee t above the deck, or abo ut 16 stories high. When Wavertree was launched in 1885, she was rigged for a skysail , so the skysail pole is included in her tapering, slender topgall antmast. And the hi story of the development of the Cape Horn sailing ship is recited in the naming of those masts and the sail s they carry.

The topmost sail , in thi s case the skysail , was obviously added last in the evolution of the full-fledged sailing ship.

It sounds like a word from the prac tica l 1800s, tipping its hat not to royalty or ga llantry, but to a natural phenomenon, the sky. And indeed we find thi s sail blooming on American ships as the 1800s open, Americans having every reason to cram on all the sail a ship would carry, as against the Engli sh, Dutch and others sailing in regul ated trades, principa ll y to the ir own colonies, with less need to push so hard .

The littl e bri g Pilgrim, which Richard Henry Dana sailed in around Cape Hom in 1834, set skysail s atop her spindl y masts. There is something to reachMainmast Mizzen

tracingoutthecourseof common speech, notes a handbook a generation earlier in 1794, making mention of "sky-scrapers," triangular sails set above the royals (the hi ghest squaresail s then regul arl y carried) to get a scrap more canvas atop everything.

The royal, the next sa il down, was defined in 1769 by Falconer as "A name given to the highest sail . . . in any ship."

And so it was in Falconer's day. But thi s had been true for over a century, fo r back in Stuart times the great ship Sovereign of the Seas (launched 1637) carri ed royals on three masts, and it ' s clear from contemporary pictures that the royal yard was a standing yard , that is, carried in place aloft under normal conditions, not just sent up when occas ion called fo r it.

These same pictures confirm , by the way, that the upper sail s were stored by be ing gathered into the capacious "tops," big walled platforms on the masts. The days of men laying out on the upper yards to stow sail came later in the century , as yards grew longer and footropes were added to them so the men had a secure footing-well, more or less secure-to stand on as they reached over the yard to gather in and furl the sail.

In the laterdaysof sail , skysail s tended to be done away with as sai ling ships carried c heape r cargoes, with ever smaller crews, and the royal resumed undi sputed sway as the topmost sail.

The Wavertree lost her skysai l early on, as an economy meas ure, and the great steel carriers of the 1900s were des igned from the beginning with royals as the topmost sail.

The nex t sa il below the royal is the topgallant (pro no un ced t' gallant), a swas hbuckling Renaissance name fo r a sail that began to Foremast come into use in earl y Tudor t im es a nd th a t ma y b e glimpsed sometimes in the ~---'<--- Fore Topgallant Mast pi ctures of th e ships that fo ught in the Armada campaign of 1588, particularly the loftier, more windward-going Engli sh ships. "Gallant" then meant something extra, something over the top, as it still does in some senses. The 0 ED

ing up high, under such conditions, since the wind tends to die out firs t along the water, while zephyrs may still be caught fa rther aloft.

By mid-century, the big Ameri can Ca li fo rni a cl ippers were carrying standing skysa il s as a matter of course, as did the ir successors, the burdensome down easters , which after the Ci vil War continued to carry cargo from East Coast ports, mainl y New York, aro und Cape Hom to San Francisco, Portl and and Seattle, a trade that petered o ut a little before World War I. As noted earlier, these ships with skysails drew the seaman' s eye. And di stinctions were made; a ship carrying a skysail yard onl y on the mainmast was known as a " main skysail yarder," while the proud lofty ship with three was called a " three skysa il yarder." These somewhat cumbersome phrases may not come trippingly off yo ur ton g ue, but th ey did off seamen's-these were common ways to characterize a down easter.

The first use of the name "skysaiI" cited by the Oxford English Dictionary, whi ch does a marvelous job survey ing the first appearance of words in the language and their evolving meanings in the common usage, notes the seaex perienced noveli st Frederick Marryat hav ing one of his characters say: "I set and took in every sail , from a sky-sail to a try-sail. " He means he went through the changes from be ing in full bl oom to be ing snugged do wn, the trysai l being a customary heavy weather sail , and the skysail the rare topmost fl ower that bl oom s onl y in gentle breezes in fa ir weather. That remark was written in 1829. The OED , faithful to its charge of

The Wave rtree' s sister Mil verton, whose sail plan is shown here, sports the main skysail the Wavertree was built to can y.

Both ships were denuded of this lo.fry kite to economize on labor.

SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

11

THE CAPE HORN ROAD, PART II finds a narrative of 1599 of early voyages to the Levant reporting that a ship "made away with all the say le they had, drabblings and topgalands, " the "drabbli ngs" being lengths of canvas added to the lower edge of bonnets, which in turn are laced to the foot of a sail to increase its area, and "topgalands" being the loftiest sail that they, or probably anyone at that time, carried. Something over the top, indeed!

Curiously enough, the Naval Accounts of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, for 1497, a full century earlier, record "a toppe maste above the mayne Toppe maste," and not just a mast (it might have carried only a flag), but also "A sayle to the same," and eight shrouds, a considerable number, to hold against the pull of a considerable sail. By 1514, in the inventory of the great ship of Henry VIIl, the Henri Grace a Dieu, launched in June that year, we find a "Toppe Galant apon the foretapmast," and the same thing for the main topmast-so by then the sail that surprisingly appears in an inventory seventeen years earlier had got its presentday name.

The sails are pictured in the contemporary Anthony Roll-little handkerchiefs that couldn 't have done much work but certainly added to the ship's toplofty appearance. The topgallants shown in the Annada pictures three quarters of a century later are bigger and plainly functional, with the huge lower sails shown earlier in the century reduced in size in what is becoming the fully articulated square rig our eye is accustomed to.

By the Wavertree ' s time the topgallant sai l (called by most sailors a "t'gallant," a "t' gans ' I" or just"gans ' I,") had achieved great size. Alan Villiers, who had sailed in the sim ilar British ship Bellands, didn't li ke the Wavertree's "huge, man-murdering topgallants ," fully forty feet tall. Other ships of the Wavertree's era had come to spl it these big sails into upper and lowertopgallants, the lower being equivalent to a full topgallant with three reefs tucked in, whi le the upper topgallant yard was lowered to sit just above the lower, where the men could stow it far more easily than they could stow or reef the big full sail. In th is, as in other details of her design and finish, the Wavertree was an anachronism when she was launched; she did not adopt the split topgallant with its extra expense and weight, despite its laborsaving capabil ity. Neither, for that mat12

ter, did the big wooden Yankee down easters, but their topgallants tended to be shallower and more controllable, the extra area being more than made up in rather big royals and, quite often, standing skysails above that.

In the last three centuries of the sail ing ship, the topsails were the main engine of the ship. Set below the topgallant and above the lowest sai ls (known as "the courses"), the topsail s were also the last sails to be taken in in stormy weather, being oddly enough eas ier to control and less dangerous to work than the courses.

This was because they were held at four corners, whereas the courses below them trimmed loosely through sheaves (call ed chesstrees) set in the bulwarks. Split topsails made it easy to come down to the lower topsails, long, narrow bands of canvas held rigidly in place high above the seas crashing across the decks of a ship hard pressed in Cape Horn weather.

Double topsai ls, introduced in the mid- l 850s, rapidly became nearly universal in merchant sail ing fleets . Some of the later clipper ships and all their successors, the down easters, had them, as did the Wavertree. The first clipper to try double topsails was McKay's giant Great Republic. They appear in heroriginal rig of 1853 (at that point they were experimental and of an odd pattern not used again). The need for split topsails cries aloud to any sailor who looks at the gigantic si ngle topsails carried by the great clippers of the 1850s, which reached and began to exceed the 2,000ton mark-quite a size for a wooden ship. The double topsail reduced the need for large, increasi ngly hard-to-fi nd and, in American sh ips at least, ever more costly crews. The McKay clipper Sovereign of the Seas , for instance, carried 108 in crew on her maiden voyage in 1853 (of which more later-it turned out she needed every one of them to perform one of the most stunning feats of seamanship ever carried out under the American flag), whi le the simi lar-s ized American down easter A.J. Fuller, built on ly 25 years later, made do with 28.

The topsail was not, however, born as the workhorse sail aboard the squarerigged ship, but as a fair-weather sail set above the single course that ships started out with. To judge by the evidence of stone carvings and old coins, topsails were not unknown in the ancient world, particularly aboard big Roman grain carriers that plied their trade peacefully through the Mediterranean when Ro-

man armies controlled all the shores of what they cal led the Middle Sea. Through the centuries since Rome, whenever a skipper wanted to fly a kite (seamen's term for a light, fair weather sail) above his heavy working mainsail, he did so-calling it, naturally, a "topsail."

In Shakespeare's time-and we know his awareness of technology and the common use of technical words-the topsail and even the mast that carries it was still optional, not permanently fixed in the ship 's wardrobe. This was clearly true even though, as we've seen, the largest warships had been carrying topgallants above their topsail s for at least a hundred years. Shakespeare has the master of the deep water ship wrecked in The Tempest order hi s ship hove-to in these words: Down with the top-Mast: yare, lower, lower, bring her to Try with Maine-course.

Bless the conservatism of sailors who hang onto words that fit active concepts rather than confusing things by changing them! Every word in this sentence makes perfect sense today except the word yare (and even that would be known to viewers of the 1950s film Philadelphia Story, in which Katherine Hepburn uses this hopelessly anachronistic word to demonstrate her nautical credentials).

Yare meant "quickly." It has been replaced by the sailorly word smartly, both words carrying a connotation of alertness as well as speed, and not just blind haste. The antonym handsomely, which means "deliberately, gently" is still in use, or at least was in the gaffri ggers of this century , where one used this word when lowering the heavy , swinging gaff, a real man-killer when let go on the run.

What Shakespeare's shipmaster is doing is lowering the topmast itself, to reduce windage, as the ship stops running along with the storm and is brought head to wind or "to try" (whence the still current word "trysail," for a small, very strong triangular sail set to keep the ship's head up in such conditions-remember Marryat's captain going from the extreme of skysails to the opposite extreme oftrysails). Further, repeating a word is used to denote speed as well as emphasis, so after saying "yare" the skipper says "lower, lower"-he wants the topmast down with nci time wasted, so he can bring her head up to lie-to under the main course alone. 1To be continued.

SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

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The Battle off Samar The Leyte Gulf battle that was not supposed to happen

by Robert Nicolosi

ifty years ago, a titanic struggle took place in the watersoffthePhilippine Archipelago between the naval forces of the United States and the EmpireofJapan. In many respects, the Battle of Leyte Gu lf is unique in the annals of naval hi story. It was, for exampl e, the largest sea battl e of all time in terms of the number of ships (282) and men (190,000) involved, and the vast area (nearl y 500,000 miles) over which it was fought. Actuall y, it was not one battle but four, connected by the same contrasting objectives of the two belli gerents.

Leyte Gu lf was also the last battle between battleship fl eets, bringing to an end a long naval warfare tradition . And it was the last battle to witness the very ultimate in surface warfare fleet tactics, "the crossi ng of the T." Finall y, it marked the end of the Japanese Navy's fleetoffensive capability. At the same time, it introduced into the conflict a new and devastating tactic, the Kamikaze, the crash-di ve sui cide pl ane attack.

A new ex hibit at the Naval War College Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of

F

thi s epic struggle. It is the second exhibit of its kind on the Second World War to be featured by the museum recently-a Battle of the Atlantic ex hibit celebrating the beginning of the Allied victory over the German U-boats in 1943 opened last summer and continued through the fa ll.

Whi le the current exhibit ex plains the Battle of Leyte Gu If in to to, the particular focus is on the so-called "Fight Off Sa mar" of 25 October 1944, a running fi ght of two and a half hours durati on between a small US task unit of li ghtl y armed escort carri ers with destroyer/destroyer escort screen and a superior Japanese fl eet of battl eships, crui sers and destroyer squadron s. It was a truly remarka ble engagement, one that, from both the American and Japanese perspecti ves, was not supposed to happen.

But when it did, it taxed to the limits the ingenuity, endurance and commitment to duty of the officers and men of Task Un it 77.4.3, or Taffy 3, as it was more popularly known .

The Battle of Leyte Gulf The Battle of Leyte G ulf resu lted from

The invasion of the Philippines. Wat erborn e.forces massed in Leyte Gulf head.for the beach on 20 October 1944. This immense throng was Kurita 's goal, which he never reached.

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the Japanese response to the American invasion of the Philippines on 20 October 1944, on the northeast coast ofLeyte Island. The Japanese sought to undo the invas ion with a pincer movement of powerful nava l surface forces from north and south. Since, however, American naval forces in the area, consisting of the Third Fleet under Admiral William F. Hal sey and warships of the Seventh Fleet under Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid , were overwhelmingly supe1ior to anyth ing that the Japanese could muster, an essenti al part of the Japanese strategy, the ir SHO (Vi ctory) Plan , was to decoy a large portion of these forces , namely the Third Fl eet, away from the Gulf area.

The Japanese plan in its entirety involved coordinated land-based air, army and naval assaults. Since, however, the number of their planes had been severely reduced by massive attacks on airfields by US carrier planes, the Japanese army air force wo uld not be able to effectively fulfill its mission. The Japanese arm y on Leyte wo uld also be restricted by repeated aerial bombing and by the momentum of the in vasion troops, but its offensive operations were actuall y timed to the naval assau lt on the American beachheads, whenever that shou ld occur.

The naval portion of the SHO plan call ed fo r three separate fl eets to attack from the north , south and center of the Philippines. The No rthern Force, including four largely empty carri ers and comma nded by Vice Admira l Ji sa buro Ozawa, was to sail as a decoy from the Japanese main islands to a point approximately three hundred mil es northwest of Luzo n, from which it was to entice the Third Fleet to attack. The Southern Force was itse lf divided into two parts and co mmanded by Vi ce Admirals Shoji Nishimura and Ki yo hide Shima. They ori ginated at different bases, but were expected to unite in Surigao Strait just south of the Leyte landing.

The Center Force, under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, was the most powerful SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

Leyte Gulf was the largest sea battle of all time .... it was also the last battle between battleship fleets, bringing to an end a long naval warfare tradition. with a total of thirty-two warships including five battleships. Two of the battleships, the Yamato and the Mus as hi, were the largest warships in the world and carried 18.1-inch guns. The force originated at Lingga Roads off Singapore and was to penetrate the center of the Philippines, transit San Bernardino Strait into the Pacific and then proceed south along the coast of Samar Island to Leyte Gulf.

The plan went into effect on 17 October when it became obvious to the Japanese High Command that Leyte was to be the invasion si te. The movements of so many enemy warships attracted the attention of the US Navy and counter measures were taken that ultimately frustrated any hope of a simultaneous attack on the Leyte beachheads. On 23 October Kurita lost three cruisers to submarine attacks off Palawan Island. The next day he was hit by planes from Task Force 38 of Halsey's Third Fleet, resulting in further loss and a general retirement-at least for a short while. Later, in the dark hours of 24/25 October, the first part of the Southern Force under Nishimura was annihilated in Surigao Strait by Seventh Fleet surface ships commanded by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf. The second pait under Shima, which arrived on the scene later, took some hard knocks as well before retreating back down the Strait.

The pincer movement had failed, but not the SHO plan per se, for the element of deception had worked perfectly.

Halsey discovered Ozawa' s Northern Force of seventeen ships late on 24 October and hastily took off in pursuit with the entire Third Fleet, a total of sixtyfi ve ships. Laterthe same evening, Kurita, who had changed course back to the east after Task Force 38 planes had departed, transited San Bernardino Strait unopposed, much to hi s surprise.

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reconnaissance and preponderance of ships and planes, could be surprised by a superior enemy surface force? A grave mistake had been made, whether at the highest levels of planning or at the fleet command level, and a crisis situation had developed off the coast of Samar Island.

Escort catTiers were not expected to engage in fleet surface actions. The Taffies were stationed off Leyte Gulf to provide air support for land operations, and to conduct anti-submarine patrols.

Most of the armaments on the carriers were antipersonnel bombs and depth charges. Armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes were in short supply. Yet Taffy 3 was the only thing blocking Kurita 's

clear sailing to the Leyte beachhead.

When the Japanese opened fire, Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague, commander of Taffy 3, succinctly noted: "it did not appear that any of our ships could survive another five minutes."

A David and Goliath Contest With the first shell splashes, Rear Admiral Sprague altered Taffy 3' s course away from the advancing enemy at flank speed, ordered carriers to launch all their planes as quickly as possible, ordered screen ships and carriers to make smoke and sent off general calls for help to the other task units and to Vice Admiral Kinkaid .

At 0716, as the shell splashes were getting closer, the American ships entered a providential rain squall in which most of the planes (each carrier had approximately 18 Wildcat fighters and 12 Avenger bomber-torpedo planes) were flown off, and the course was altered again to open the distance from the enemy even further. By 0730 when Taffy 3 came out of the squall, over a hundred planes were airborne and attacking the cruisers and battleships with an assortment of weapons including rockets, depth charges, and JOO and 500-lb anti-personnel bombs. By 0800 they were joined by planes from Taffy 2 which were more adequately fueled and armed with armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes.

The air attacks were conducted with unmistakable courage, as attested to by Japanese crewmen interviewed after the war. The pilots took great risks in their bombing and strafing attacks, and when their bullets and bombs were spent, made

At the start ofthe Battle of!Samar, USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73) and two destroyer escorts make a smoke screen, which was used to conceal the fleeing carriers and the destroyer counterattack.

The Surprise off Samar A few minutes before 7 AM the next morning, while steaming south off Samar, Kurita came into contact with Taffy 3, the northernmost task unit of Seventh Fleet escort carrier Task Group 77.4. Surprise was complete on both sides as they struggled to make certain identification. This did not last long, for at 0659 the battleship Yamato opened fire on the carriers with its 18.1-inch guns at a range of 29,000 yards.

How was it possible that the US Navy, with all of its sophisticated surveillance equipment, network communications, air SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

15

A grave mistake had been made ... a crisis situation had developed off the coast of Samar Island.

Disaster strikes the escort cardry runs that obliged the enrier Gambier Bay as Japan ese emy to take evasive action. battleships and cruisers get her But despite these heroic efrange and start pumping shells forts , the van cruisers closed into the helpless CVE. Wounded, on Taffy 3, and Rear Admiral shefalls behind the fleeing Taffy Sprague called upon his screen force. The CVEs were built on unarmored, slow-moving merof seven destroyers and dechant ship hulls as an emerstroyer escorts to attack with gency wa rtime measure to gel torpedoes and 5-inch guns. in.ore fighter planes afloat to The three Fletcher c lass decover convoys and Landing stroyers carried ten torpedoes forces against bomber attack. and five guns. The destroyer At far right, the stricken ship, dead in the water, is abandoned escorts carried three torpedoes by her crew. and two guns.

The torpedo attacks began abo ut the time Taffy 3 entered the rain guns silenced. Destroyer Heermann and squall , and by the end of the battle all but destroyer esco11s Dennis, Raymond and one of the US destroyer escorts had fired John C. Butler a lso interjected themselves their complement of torpedoes, and all between the car1iers and the advancing had fired most of their 5-inch shel ls. One enemy ships firing their guns rapidly and Japanese heavy cruiser was taken out of accurately while talcing hits from 6", 8" action and others were damaged in these and 14" armor-piercing shells that passed attacks, and the battleships Yamato and right through their thin plating without Nagato were forced to "comb" the torpe- exploding. does away from the carriers.

It was a David and Goliath contest.

The screen ships also closed the enemy The gallant "small boys," as the screen in order to draw their fire away from the ships were called affectionately by the carriers and onto themselves, and they carrier men , zigzagged through and peppered the big warships with their 5- around the carrier formation, making inch she ll s. For this they took hard blows smoke and intermittently dashing out to in return . Destroyers Johnston and Hoel penetrate deeply among the oncoming and destroyer escmt Samuel B. Roberts enemy ships firing whatever they had, each went down in a blizzard of shell s in dodging shell splashes and then, if they the midst of the enemy fleet, but only after were still able, headed back to continue all their torpedoes had been foed and their to shield the carriers with their smoke.

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There was gallantry, too, on the carriers, which a little after 0800 began to take hits from enemy ships on three quarters . They responded with their stern 5-inch guns. Some registered severa l hits on light and heavy cruisers that had closed to less than 15,000 yards. It is difficult not to grin when reading of the dry, Admiral Dewey-styled command of the captain of the Kitkun Bay to his one gunnery officer: "Mr. Kuhn , the enemy is now within range. You may fire the 5-inch at will." Enemy shell s severe I y damaged carriers Fans haw Bay and Kalinin Bay, but the greatest punishment was taken by Gambier Bay, which eventually sank at about 0900.

About the time that Gambier Bay was slipping beneath the waves, Kurita in his flagship Yamato ordered a withdrawal.

Ironica lly , the order came as heavy cruisers Haguro and Tone were about to turn the flank of Taffy 3 and occupy a position from which they could do the greatest da1nage. Yaniato was far in the rear of the Japanese fleet, and Kurita had lost control over the attack. Exhausted by two days of fighting and the interminable air attacks, and confused by new reports of more enemy ships in the distance, he opted to retire.

Although the crews of the remaining Taffy 3 ships breathed sighs of relief at the enemy's astonishing retreat, their trial was by no 111cans over. At 1030 the first Kan1ikaze suicide planes roared overhead, and crash dives were made on the Kitkun Bay, Kalinin Bay and St. Lo, the last of which sustained severe damage and subsequently sank. The oneway bombers had made their first appearance ever over Taffy 1, the southernn1ost task unit, whi le Taffy 3 was stru ggling to get away from Kurita. Two Taffy 1 carriers, the Santee and Suwanee were badly damaged in the attack.

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formed on 20 October, the day of the Leyte in vas ion. Its purpose was to neutrali ze US nava l air power. The results of the first attacks on the Tas k Group 77.4 carriers five days later were a strong inducement to expand operations. However, whereas there were more than enough volunteers, there were very few planes left. In the three months that the Philippines campaign contin ued, those few planes wou ld, for the most part, be used for the purpose, with notable results. Over 60 US ships were crashed with appalling loss in human life . It was an omen of things to come. By the end of the war in August 1945, the Kamikaze were responsible for sinking 34 US ships

and damag ing 288 others.

The trial of the surviving ships of Taffy 3 fin all y came to an end after the suicide attacks in the late morning of 25 October. However, the trial of crew members who had abandoned the sinking ships contin ued fo r some time longer.

Vessels were sent to the area in which the battle was fought to search for survivors almost immediately after the battle, but without positive results. Strong currents in the area had taken the survivors fifty mi Jes from the battle site, and it was not until the nightof26 October that they were di scovered . By that time they had spent over forty hours in the water, harassed by hungry sharks and ever fearful

of be ing fou nd by a merciless enemy.

How Could It Have Happened?

What terribl e mi stake was made that all owed Kurita to appearoffSamar? The question has been considered many times over by naval hi storians and in the literature on the battle. A simple answer is that the fa ult lay with the divided US command structure. Admiral Halsey was responsible to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander Central Pacific. Vice Admiral Kinkaid was under General Douglas MacArthur, Commander Southeast Pacific. While there was cooperation between the Third and the Seventh Fleets in the Leyte operation, there was no ultimate

At 1030 the first Kamikaze suicide planes roared overhead . ...

Samar marked rhe first appearance of/he Kamika~e suicide plane. At righl, a Japanese Zeke makes a dive on escort carrierWhite Plains. This picture was taken momenls before impact.

Al far rig/11, the esco rt carrier St. Lois engulfed in flames after a direcr hil from a Kamikaze.

SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

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Leyte Gulf marked the end of the Japanese Navy'sfleet offensive capability point of responsibility-so that Halsey could take his entire force from Philippine waters and attack Ozawa in the north on his own volition, which, of course, is exactly what he did. The situation was made much worse, however, because in doing so Halsey misled Kinkaid and others into believing that some of his force, Battleship Task Group 34 under Admiral Lee, was still guarding San Bernardino Strait.

It is quite possible to view the Taffy 3 losses as the better alternative to that of a more traumatic, and more devastating, scenario in which the Japanese battleships and cruisers enter Leyte Gulf and smash the supply ships and the tremendous concentration of supplies and equipment on the beaches. Conceivably this could have happened in conjunction with the planned army counterattack against the American invasion troops. Certainly it would have been supported from the air and US air cover would have been less in evidence, as a result of Kamikaze attacks on US escort carriers.

Was there anything with which to contest Kurita in Leyte Gulf if he managed to get that far? Perhaps Oldendorf's battleships and cruisers thathad smashed the Southern Force the night before could have performed the task. Indeed, on learning of the fight off Samar, Vice Admiral Kinkaid issued orders to Oldendo1f to move his ships to a position adjacent to the landing site and await the appearance of Kurita. But where was Oldendorf?

Actually, his cruisers were far down Surigao Strait pursuing Shima' s ships, and available sources do not make clear the exact location of his battleships. In appeals for help made to Halsey, Kinkaid noted that the big ships were short of ammunition, but the records indicate that while there was a shortage of armorpiercing shells, there were enough of other kinds to fight a battle, especially a desperate one. To some, Kinkaid ' s statements suggest that perhaps Oldendorf's battleships were also in Surigao Strait and not able to get in position in time.

Taffy 3 losses, then, were not in vain.

The Taffy defense slowed the forward progress of the Japanese ships, knocking out four heavy cruisers in the process , and in the final analysis, by its tough posture, it persuaded Kurita to withdraw. Rear Admiral Sprague identified precisely the components of his command's success in his action report by noting: "The failure ... of the enemy main body and encircling light forces to

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Taffy 3 commander Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague, right, receiving the Navy Cross from Rear Admiral Calvin T. Durgin, aboard USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70) on 15March1945.

completely wipe out all vessels of this Task Unit can be attributed to our successful smoke screen, our torpedo counterattack, continuous harassment of enemy by bomb, torpedo, and strafing air attacks, timely maneuvers, and the definite partiality of Almighty God. " Of course Sprague and his men did not do it entirely by themselves. Planes from the other Taffies, particularly Taffy 2 located fifty miles to the southeast, contributed mightily, and there were the mistakes made by Kurita in the disposition of his fleet, as well as the poor marksmanship of his gunners, and the serious communications problems among his ships and with the other forces of the SHO plan.

In reviewing the American side of the battle, one is struck by the fact that the desperate situation of the command neiOne of the 1200 survivors of USS Gambier Bay (CVE-730), USS Hoel (DD-533), USS Johnston ( DD-5570and USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) rescued during the days following the battle.

ther evoked panic nor a diminution in the performance of the officers and men. Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, Captain of the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, one of the ships lost in the battle, noted as much in his battle report: The crew were informed over the loudspeaker system at the beginning of the action of the CO' s estimate of the situation: i.e. , a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected, during which time we would do what damage we could. In thefaceofthisknowledge the men zealously manned their stations ... and fought and worked with such calmness, courage, and efficiency that no higher honor could be conceived than to command such a group.

An End to Japanese Naval Power Overall, the Battle of Leyte Gulf ended Japan ' s standing as a naval power and, therefore, was a great American victory.

Had Kurita's Center Force managed to get beyond Samar Island and into Leyte Gulf on 25 October, it is highly unlikely that the outcome would have changed.

However, the victory would hardly have been as great, for almost certainly the cost in lives and materials as well as in morale would have been high.

That this did not happen was largely a consequence of the vigorous and effective response of the Taffies. In assessing this response, the distinguished naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison expressed the sentiments of his fellow citizens when he noted: "The Battle off Samar had no com peer. The story of that action, with its dramatic surprise, the quick thinking and resolute decisions of Clifton Sprague, the little screening vessels feeling for each other through the rain and smoke and , courting annihilation, making individual attacks on battleships and heavy cruisers; naval aviators making dry runs on enemy ships to divert gun fire from their own; the defiant humor and indomitable courage of bluejackets caught in the 'ultimate of desperate circumstances' wi II make the fight of the 'Taffies' with Kurita'sCenterForce forever memorable, forever glorious." !,

Mr. Nicolosi is the Director of the Naval War College Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. Themuseum'sexhibit "The Battle of Leyte Gulf" will be open through 28 November. For hours, call the museum at 401 841-4052.

SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

is surmounted by a handsome fish-shaped finial, richly embellished in 24 karat gold.

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The National Maritime Historical Society C/o The Franklin Mint Franklin Center, PA 19091-0001 Please enter my order for The Cuttv Sark Anniversarv Maritime Hourglass.

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The Amistad Incident A Mutiny Aboard the Slave Schooner Amistad Spurs the Legal Struggle for Emancipation

by Warren Marr, II

ear the northern borders of Sierra Leo ne, several African s (employed by a Portu guese slave trader) s 1ipped from the woods and overpowered Cinque as he cultivated hi s crops. They forced him to hike several days through the immense stands of tropi cal trees and lush undergrowth to a sprawling stockade at the river's delta, not fa r from the Atlantic Ocean.

They shoved him into the compound , where somebody cut his bonds and left him standing, bewildered, among a herd of men and women whom he had never seen. One thing about the capti ves was immediately apparent: they had been chosen because of their youth and physical pe1fection . This was the human merchandi se of one of the few remaining slave traders who, in 1839, was still successful in outwitting the British slave patrol.

Cinque watched for a chance to escape. There was certainl y no adva ntage in taking desperate chances; he must not be caught and killed. He wanted to escape so that he could return to Mani , in the Kaw-Mendi territory, to provide fo r his wife and ch ildren. He wanted also to use the knowledge he had acquired at Poro , the house of initi ation where he had become learned in all the laws of hi s peopl e. Cinque wanted to fulfill hi s role as an hereditary ruler of Kaw-Mendi.

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No Escape But escape did not come. Cinque's ankl es were chained to a queue of other capti ves who were taken by a longboat to the Portuguese slave ship Tefora, which lay at anchor offshore. As he rode the crests, Cinque saw several longboats capsize and the ir passengers drown because the chains prevented their sw imming.

Aboard the Tefora, chained queues of men and women were ranged along the deck where a crewman drew hi s sword and slas hed the lo inc loths from the ir bodi es. A powerful jet of sea water washed away the mud of the stockade.

Ashamedoftheirenforced nudity, they 20

were herded below to the slavehold, and forced to lie-men, women and childrenbody against body, fo r the next three months, with Little oppo1tunity to exercise.

C inque, the ari stocrat, resented his captivity and abhorred the acc umulation of filth no Mendi would have permitted in the sty of hi s livestock. He wo ndered why the Great One permitted such inhumanity and how he, Cinque, would escape it and find hi s way home.

Finally, after docking at Havana, the Africans were herded to Mi sericordia, the barracoon or outdoor showroom in which they would be displayed and sold at prices determined by their health and strength.

Bathed , o il e d a nd dre sse d at Mi sericordia, forty-nine African adults and three girl s between the ages of seven and nine were so ld to two Cubans, Jose Rufz and Pedro Montes, who did not think it was necessary to chain them on board their ship, the Amistad, for a short coastal voyage to the eastern end of the island . The oversight was to prove the undoing of the C ubans.

In Mendi , which the Spanish crew could not understand, Cinque admonished hi s fellow captives that thi s was a time for concerted planning and acti on, not for wasteful emotion. He called for a council and, in so doing, became headman of a floatin g vill age. In the session, Cinque proposed killing the crew and taki ng the vessel. The others agreed, and the proposal was soon put into action .

Taking command, Cinque pointed the Amistad into the rising sun- the directi on from which he knew they had come from Africa. By threats and signs, he made Rufz and Montes take the wheel.

But at night, when C inque was unable to chart his direction, the Spaniards veered north in the hope of striking shore in slave territory along the southeastern seaboard of the United States.

For two mon ths, the Amistad (whi ch means "friendship" in Spani sh) sailed east by day, north by ni ght. Fi nally on Sunday, 25 August 1839, her sail s tat-

tered from mi shandling and her passengers suffering from hunger and thirst, she s ig hted land and anchored off Montauk Point, at the east end of Long Island Sound.

It was here that ava ri ce on the part of two retired sea captain s and two officers fro m the US Coast Survey brig Washington combined w ith fear on the part of the loca l gentry to cause theAmistad and its crew to be take n into custody. The Africans were hard to subdue despite the ir near ex haustion from thirst and in sufficient foo d. An un stable quietcame on ly when C inque-s ilent and proudwas lashed to the mas t.

The Amistad was then taken to New Haven, where AndrewT. Judson, United States judge for the Di stri ct of Connecticut, accepted the charge of murder and piracy brought against the Africans by Rufz and Montes. He also heard the c laim of sa lvage made by the officers of the survey ship .

Committed to Jail Word of the capture, imprisonment and arraignment spread quickl y. The newspapers were full of the story. Editors argued pro and con as to the guilt of the captives.

Lewi s Tappan , in hi s Hanove r Square warehou se in New York, read the story in The Sun. Although hi s business was suffering because of hi s association with the aboliti oni sts, Tappan turned hi s affairs over to his brother Arthur and offered hi s influence and money for the defense of the Amistad Africans.

Professor Josiah Willard Gibbs of Yal e Divinity School , an expert in languages, scoured the local port for an African who wou ld know Mendi and found one-John Ferry-who was to serve as tra nslato r during the trial in the lower courts.

When C inque appeared as spokesman for the Africans, the eloquence, power and sincerity of hi s presentation, and the fo rce of his eyes as he looked into the faces of the court and the spectators SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

Taking command, Cinque p ointed the Amistad into the rising sun- the direction f rom which they >- . had co1ne f rom Af rica . iJ 0 But at night, the Spaniards "'< '=' veered north in the hop e ~ of striking shore in slave >z 0 territory. f--

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were such as to eliminate the need for a translator. No one knew Mendi, but everyone understood Cinque.

After the arraignment, RufzandMontes, concerned about their cl aim to the Afri cans and to theAmistad, hastened to enlist the aid of the Spani sh consul. Eventually their story reached the Court of Spain, and the Queen began exerting pressure on President Martin Van Buren.

Meanwhile, W. S. Holabird, US Attorney fo r the Di stri ct of Connecticut, suggested that Secretary of State John Forsythe issue instructions fo r the disposition of the case. Holabird also wrote to US Attorney General Feli x Grundy, complaining that the abolitionists had created great excitement over the Africans and the ir Lrial and had retained an army of lawyers. He asked for Grundy's opinion and instruction.

The next day the Spanish consul called and, citing the Treaty of 1795, demanded : That the Amistad be immediately delivered up to her owner, together with every article fo und on board at the time of her capture, with out payment being exacted fo r salvage; that it be declared that no tribunal in the United States had the right to institute proceedings .

In return , he pro mised that Spain would return to the United States all slaves escaping to Cuba.

Hastily, Holabird again wrote to Forsyth, who in a few days replied that the case was covered by the Treaty of 1795.

He also admonished Holabird not to permit an y proceedings which would pl ace vessel, cargo or slaves beyond the control of the Federal Executive.

Holabird showed the letter to fri ends and word of it leaked out to the aboli tionists. A storm of protest arose. In Boston , John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States, attacked the Admini stration for attempting to apply pressure on the courts.

The Afri cans had only obeyed the dictates of self-defense and had liberated themselves from illegal restraint, SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUM N 1994

This contemporary painting of Ami stad offCulloden Point, Long Island in 1839 shows, at right, the Africans bartering with local residents before the arrival of USS Washington, app roaching on the left. Opposite page, Joseph Cinque, leader of the Africans, in a contempora ry portrait.

claimed their lawyers. They asked President Van Buren to submit the question fo r adjudi cati on to the tribunals of the land in order that it not be decided in the recesses of the cabinet.

The immediate hearings were held simultaneously in two courts: in the circuit court and the di strict court.

The circuit court trial eliminated the possibility that the Africans would be tried in Connecticut fo r murder.

In di strict court, Judge Judson ruled that the Afri cans were freeborn and had been kidnapped into slavery, since the African slave trade, though not slavery itself, was illegal. They should be delivered to the Pres ident of the U nited States, to be tra nsported back to Africa . This was un acceptable to the fri ends of the Afri cans who feared Van Buren would turn them over to the Spanish. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Wanted: A Lawyer of Stature Who could they find to present the case before the Supreme Court? Tappan and his colleagues wanted a lawyer of stature, fo r the court at the time included several pro-slavery justices. They decided to ask John Quincy Adams in Boston, then 73, even though he had not argued a case before the court in 30 years.

Adams was sy mpathetic but reluctant, because of hi s age, health and the di stance from Washington. But he finall y agreed.

"Justice," said Adams in his address to the court, "as defined in the Institutes of Justini an, nearly two thousand years ago, and as it is felt and understood by all who

understand human ri ghts, is the constant and perpetual will to secure to everyone his own rights." He lamented that it was necessary for him to "arraign before this court and before the ci vilized world the course of the Administration in this case," and that the entire proceedings of the United States from the beginning were "wrongful. " A week later, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the di stri ct and circuit courts except in regard to the Africans. It reversed the decision to put them at the President's di sposal , in stead decl aring them immedi ately free.

It remained now fo r the "Friends of the Arnistad" to rai se money to charter the bark Gentleman, to outfit her and to transpo1t the 35 Africans who were still alive to Sierra Leone. The Mendi Mission was established and, in 1846, its sponsors formalized their organization as the American Missionary Association.

Cinque remained at the mi ssion only a very short time. He was eager to return to hi s vill age of Mani and find his wife and children. They were dead-killed by undetermined marauders-and the vill age wiped out.

Cinque was inconsolable, but he could not leave the area. In spite of hi s grief, he began to build an empire in pl ace of the one that had been taken from him. He eventu all y became one of the principal rulers of hi s peopl e.

In 1879, as an old man, he made the hazardous trip back to the mi ss ion and, after announcing that he had come to die, he passed on. Of him , it may be said that hi s truth goes marching on. .t 21

The Long, Low, Black, Mystery Schooner ''Something Like a Pirate," announced a New York Globe headline on an August morning of 1839.

The pilot boat Blossom, on Wednesday last off the Woodlands, fell in with a Baltimore-built schooner of about 150 tons, painted black with a white streak, two gilded stars on her stern, having on board apparently 25 or 30 men , all blacks, who requested something to eat and drink. The Blossom supplied them with water and bread. The next day took them in tow, when they attempted to board the pilot boat, which, to escape, cut the hawser. There were no persons on board that could speak English , and they appeared well supplied with cutlasses, but what their intentions were could not be understood.

So began a series of encounters between a suspicious schooner, later to be identified as the Amistad, and coastal shipping that would hold thrall over Northeastern coastal communities throughout the month of August 1839.

The Globe story aroused a lively interest. The public was not accustomed to any such excitement as a shipload of black men with cutlasses. Pirates were a thing of the past in North Atlantic waters and slavers never ventured into coastal waters, for the slave trade had been outlawed since 1808.

The newspapers made much of the mysterious schooner, long, low and black, that continued to make Flying Dutchman-like appearances along the coast. Several ships reported having seen her in the distance, a strange apparition with tattered sails, a green bottom , no flag , and no apparent destination.

On 20 August, the schooner Emmaline out of New Bedford returned to port with a similar tale to that of the Blossom. She had sighted the stranger off Barnegat Bay and had come alongside her. The captain counted 25 nearly naked black men on the deck. Some of these indicated by signs that they needed food and drinking water.

The Emmaline took the schooner in tow, but, when the black men armed themselves with sugar-cane knives and cutlasses, cast her off again. The blacks apparently feared they would again be enslaved and were about to attempt capture the Emmaline. Shortly thereafter, seven of the anned blacks came alongside asking for water. The captain told them to go back and get their papers. They did not return . The next morning the Emmaline was still in sight of the black schooner when it fired three guns in her direction.

Her captain hastily changed course.

According to the Hartford Courant, the people of Greenport, Sag Harbor and New London were, by this time , becoming anxious. Some captains dared not leave port, for fear they would be trapped

by the "pirate."

A cry went up for the capture of the mystery ship. In New York, the Collector of the Port dispatched a cutter to look for her and wrote his counterpart in Boston, suggesting he do the same. Even the steam frigate Fulton-the only steam vessel in the US Navy-was pressed into service, but without success.

Aboard theAmistad, Cinque was getting desperate. On 24 August the badly weather-beaten schooner anchored, as it had done a number of times before, off Culloden Point, on the eastern end of Long Island, between Gardiners Bay and Montauk Point. Cinque, the leader of the Africans, intended to set men ashore with the captain's gold to buy supplies to make a final attempt to reach Africa. The following day , wandering from one isolated dwelling to another, the landing party secured scant provisions but did frighten many local residents .

On 26 August, Cinque himself went ashore and encountered two sea captains from Sag Harbor. The captains professed interest in finding provisions in return for Cinque's gold, but hid their interest in the ship, which they plotted to capture and turn in for salvage. While negotiations were underway, sails appeared on the horizon, those of the USS Washington.

Finally, with the seizure of the boat and the Africans , the saga of the mystery schooner came to an end.

-KEVIN HAYDON

On the Design of the Amistad Fortunately, the temporary registry for the Amistad issued by the Collector of Customs at New London, Connecticut, on the 2nd of January 1841, has beenfound. The vessel was ordered sold by the US District Court and was purchased by George Howland of Newport, Rhode Island. The schooner is believed/\ to have been built in Baltimore, Maryland, in the early 1830s and came under Spanish ownership when engaged in transport- ~ + ing slaves out of Havana. ~ Contemporary accounts describe Amistad as being black with a white stripe, having a gilt eagle head, and two gilt stars on her transom. A contemporary painting in the New Haven Colony Historical Society (shown on page 21) depicts her as a clipper schooner with the appropriate rake to 22

her two masts, a square topsail and topgallant on the foremast, and two jibs outboard of the staysail. The temporary register confirms the eagle head and masts and gives her length as 64 feet, beam 19 feet 9 inches, and the depth in hold as 6 feet 2 A inches. These dimensions give ~~ her a Custom House measure·~-!:.J!..TA'2.., ment of 70 and 46195 tons. A modern measurement of her _ internal space would be closer to 60 gross tons, a ton being reckoned as JOO cubic feet.

Schooners of this size and description were common in the illicit trades at that time and her characteristics can be expanded with reasonable accuracy as an example of this type of sailing craft.

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-MELBOURNE SMITH

Annapolis, Maryland SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

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Few people realize the global span of ew schooner Amis tad will sail to the philanthropic effort the Amistad incarry the story of the old!

Confirmation came in mid-June cident put into motion. when theConnecticutStateBondingCommission approved a grant of $168,610 to Amistad's Message to the World Mystic Seaport Museum to develop plans It was 1846, four years after the Amistad to design, build and display a replica of the Africans reached Sierra Leone, when ship and to begin development of an edu- Lewis Tappan and his Friends of the cational program to broadcast the dra- Amistad met in Albany, New York, with matic history of the vessel and its positive several other small groups to fonn the effect on human relations nationwide. This American Missionary Association pioneering project will be carried out as a (AMA). The fast responsibility of the joint effort between Mystic Seaport and new body was the operation of the Mendi the Connecticut Afro-American Histo1i- Mission in Sierra Leone which had been established at the time of the return of the cal Society in New Haven.

For me, the news of a possibleAmistad Amistad Africans. Rapidly after that, the rebuild comes as a very satisfying con- AMA wenton to establish numerous other clusion to a series of events that began just two or three months before the Parade of Tall Ships in Operation Sail '76. At that time, Michael Clement came to my office while I was editor of the NAACP' sCrisismagazine. There would be no ship in that grand parade representing the contributions of African-Americans in United States maritime history, he said, suggesting that we might find a schooner to represent the Amistad. Since I was very familiar with the Amistad story, I readily agreed to join him in an effort to find a suitable ship and the money needed to charter such a vessel.

Sketch by Melbourne Smith

A Beginning: OpSail '76 Our search led us to the Western Union.

We arranged for the ship, temporarily renamed the Amistad, to enter Long Island Sound from the eastern end and to stop at several Connecticut seaports including New London, New Haven, B1idgepo1tand Flushing, New York, before reaching South Street Seaport in Manhattan. At each stop, the Amistad was open to the public and hundreds of people visited her.

To celebrate the New York landing, an invitational dinner was held aboard the Robert Fulton, then moored at South Street, with John Quincy Adams, a direct descendant of the forn1er president and senior vice president of John Hancock Insurance Company, as guest of honor.

As theAmistadfollowed the tall ships uptheHudsonRiverto the George Washington Bridge, I vowed that someday a replica of the Amistad would physically represent her part in American history as well as represent the amazing educational and human relations saga which began with the original ship in 1839.

SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

missions in Siam, the Sandwich Islands, Canada, China, Jamaica and elsewhere, building what became a veritable mission empire. Around the world, the AMA sought to project Christianity and to educate. At home, it fought the institution of slavery.

Then came the Civil War. The AMA relinquished its mission empire and began to found schools for freedmen and any whites who would attend. More than 500 primary and secondary schools were started across the South. Around the turn of the century, the AMA deeded all these schools to their respective communities in undoubtedly the most massive giveaway this country had ever seen. The schools were absorbed into a growing public school system.

Because the AMA di sbelieved a prevailing attitude that former slaves were mentally incapable of learning beyond an eighth grade level, it founded the beginnings of ten colleges, all of which are well-known, functioning institutions today. Meanwhile the AMA provided

strong assi stance to a number of other minorities including the founding , in 1914, of Ryer Memorial Hospital, a teaching facility in eastern Puerto Rico. In 1966, the Amistad Research Center was incorporated as an archive to preserve records of the AMA and to acquire additional collections of original historical documents. Today the Center has well over ten million historical documents.

A Ship To Teach the Minority Side of American History All of this is the legacy of the Amistad Incident of 1839. There is much to be treasured in it. For this reason , in March 1989, I helped to incorporate Amistad Affiliates, Inc. to build and campaign a new Amistad; to equip her as a floating museum with artifacts and copies of original historical documents primarily fromtheAmistadResearchCenter located at Tulane University in New Orleans; to engage a crew of inner-city youth; and to sai I her from one port to another teaching the minority side of American history.

The Affiliates contracted with naval architect Melbourne Smith to produce preliminary design drawings of the schooner. Working from historical records, Smith, the designer of such exceptional historic replicas as the Pride of Baltimore and the Niagara, arrived at the general plan shown.

The recently-announced State of Connecticut development grant is a dramatic step forward. With the Connecticut AfroAmerican Historical Society as project manager, and Mystic Seaport Museum as shipbuilder, work now begins to fashion a new ship and a new educational program.

The ship' s const:ruction is phase one of a long-range program. Afterthe estimated $2 million in construction costs has been guaranteed, monies must be sought to create a suitable exhibit, to hire a crew and to cover the cost of operation. Amistad Affiliates will spread the word and help with funding , while continuing to develop the historic message.

In Spanish, the word "amistad" means "friendship." When the new Amistad sails , she will indeed be a symbol of friendship and of good human relations.

WARREN MARR, II

President Amistad Affiliates, Inc. 23

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"USS Olympia, Hong Kong, J898." Commodore George Dewey's flagship, the protected cruiser USS Olympia, was at Hong Kong in February 1898 at the outbreak of the SpanishAmerican War. She is seen moored off the Royal Navy dockyard-the graceful Victorian buildings to the right. Note the massive sheerlegs on the quay used for hoisting. Olympia survives today as a museum ship on the Philadelphia wate1front.

The Marine Watercolors of

Ian Marshall An architect's attention to detail and an historian's sense of moment inform Ian Marshall's watercolors.

by Kevin Haydon

24

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eturn to the age of iron and steam, imperial navies and gunboat diplomacy, and you may find that marine artist Ian Marshall has been there before you, with both a painter's brush and an author's pen. An architect and latter-day marine watercolorist, Marshall has over the last ten years produced an extensive suite of paintings depicting a subject of personal fascination-the period of prolific change in naval design that began with the early ironclads, continued through the ascendancy of the armored ship and ended with the demise of "big gun" supremacy. Images of iron and steam sailing ships, dreadnoughts , and other early 20th century battleships all share a place in thjs colorful painter's panoply, which is the basis for Marshall's three richly detailed books: Ironclads and Paddlers (1993), Armored Ships (1990), and British Capital Ships (1987).

At 61 years of age, and after 30 years of international practice as an architect, Scottish-born Marshall is happily settled on beautiful Mt. Desert Island, Maine.

While his oceanfront home may be distant from naval activity of any sort, the steady traffic of Maine fishing boats, windjammers and pleasure boats in and out of nearby Southwest Harbor is a form of inspiration. A special treat, the 1994 WoodenBoat Show, held upharbor

thi s year, was a "feast" enjoyed by Marshall from the aesthetic distance of deckchairs-a sketch pad at the ready.

Marshall 's interest in ships and the sea was vested by an upbringing in Dunfermline, near Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth. "We were close to Rosyth, the principal Royal Navy base and dockyard on the east coast of Britain," explains Marshall. "I watched warships cornjng and going during World War II and went aboard some of them. And I had relatives in the Navy. A cousin, Captain RoynonJones RN, who had been navigating officer in Beatty 's flagship HMS Lion at the battles of the Dagger Bank and Jutland, was Marine Superintendent of the Forth Conservancy (roughly the equivalent of the US Coast Guard). " Many of Marshall 's paintings have the poignant and often charged atmosphere of an historic moment. "I am intrigued by history ," he says, "particularly the political or strategic significance behind the presence of a certain ship in a certain place at a certain time, and especiall y events within the lifetime of parents and grandparents, about which one could hear contemporary personal accounts and visuali ze the circumstances.

I remember seeing the wreck of the German cruiser SMS Konigsberg which was sunk in the Rufiji River in Tanzania in SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

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"Some capital ships were always to be seen at Malta ... glimpsed at the end of city streets or basking in the sun, like sea-monsters, below the public gardens." -James Morris 1915 , and one of her 4.1 " gu ns which is mounted as a trophy at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya. I heard my father's account of the effect of the bombardment of Madras and of the attack on shipping at Penang by the German cruiser SMS Emden in 1914, and a lively dispute by First World War veterans of Jellicoe ' s battle tactics versus those of Beatty at the Battle of Jutland , and their critici sm of Admiralty directives and the inaction of admirals during the Goeben affair in 1914."

Hi s career as an architect provided opportunities to travel and to visit many seaports. It was in Malta, in 1968, that the urge to paint individual ships in specific geographical and historic settings first moved him. "I was absolutely captivated by the place," he says. "It' s an extraordinarily dramatic spot and a marvelous subject for painting. The harbor has a m ost amazing setting in the midstofan old c ity.

You can be walking the streets of the c ity, tum a corner, and qui te suddenl y see a huge, deepwater vessel impossibly close.

I thought what fun it would be to try to find other places where one could have seen ships in context. That's what sparked it."

As a watercolori st, Marshall has superb skill s, hi s was hes and colo rs are appli ed with confident, fluid ease and yet they never compromi se hi s lines.

On the left, "Iron Duke, Malta, 1924, " showing Jellicoe'sflagship al the Battle ofJutland, eight years later. On the right, "HMS Devastatio n, Malta, J875," frames a restful image of the ship through the ancient fo rtifications of the Knights of St. John. Devastati on was a seminal ship design of the ironclad era .

Marshall himself characterizes watercolor as a "fleeting medium ." "In oi l or acrylic one gets very easily led into making a completely fa ithful , if sometimes dull , representation of reality, whereas water co lor is not a medium you can completely control." But thi s, Marshall believes, is a quality to be taken advantage of. "It lends itself to capturing the ephemeral , chang ing effects of weather, sea and sky . On the water one often gets glimpses of things, salient impress ions.

One has not time to see every porthole, rivet or strand of ri gg ing on a vessel. " Interesting details abound in Marshall ' s paintings, none-the-less, and they are often unexpectedly colorful-"battleship gray" not being universal on warships until the eve of World War I. And, as an author, Marshall is a diligent guide to the hi storyoftheseships, the roles they played, and their technical details-from fightin g top to torpedo bli ster.

The painter' s current interest is trying to evoke some of the drama of the story of the Passage to the East. 'The dimensions of the sea-trade between Europe and Indi a, the East Indies, China and Japan ," ex pl ain s Marshall , "had great bearing on the conduct of the I 9th-century world economy . The personality of the ships, the variety of the ports and the character of life on board were very different from anything one can now experience."

Exotic loca les, beautiful ships and good hi story are what we can expect in Marshall ' s nex t installments.

Jan Marshall 's two most recent books, publish ed by Ho we ll Press in Charlottesville, Virginia, are available fromNMHSby calling 1 800221-NMHS.

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"HMS Rodney, Portsmouth, J944. " Rodn ey and her sister ship Nelson were built from J922 lo 1927 to a design that incorporated lessons from wartime experience, particularly evident is the high freeboard. Rodney is shown here just casting off from South Railway Jetty in Portsmouth Dockyard, with the masts of Nelson 's Victory visible on the right.

"USS Louisiana, Suez 1909. " Louisiana enters the southern end ofthe Suez Canal. Loui siana was one of sixteen coal-burning battleships that sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, in December 1907, on a world tour. The fleet became known by the press as President Theodore Roosevelt 's "Great White Fleet."

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If art encompasses the generation of a certa in rapport between arti st and c li e ntele, then nostalg ia can be regarded as a possible common source of in spiratio n.

B ut one does not need to be confined to the reco llecti on of direct experi ence. It is poss ibl e to evo ke-and enj oy-the spirit of an era whi ch came to an end before one's lifet ime.

For some years I have been interested in the idea of trying to recapture the fl avo r of the not-so-di stant past, of the peopl e, the places and the shi ps of the wo rld in which one's parents and grandparents moved.

W hen attempting to portray events in , let us say, the 18th century, the imagery is likely to become cluttered by fa ncy dress and archaic modes of speech and behavior. But the Battle of Dogger Bank, the Boer W ar and the Boxer Rebelli on took place in c ircumstances that were not so remote from our own.

Peopl e spoke, dressed and behaved in ways which we find not unnatural. Bes ides, we have photograph s fro m these times which can suppl y, as it were, an acrid whiff of coal smoke .

(How many readers rememberthe exciting smell emitted from a coa l-fired bo iler ming led with steam a nd warm engine o il ?)

We are not obli ged to rely fo r info rmati o n on a contemporary artist' s idea li zed conception of the event.

So it is not hi storic ships that hold my interest, or delving into arch ives to establi sh the appearance of a certain seaport in a spec ific year. It is all the circumstances that I wo uld like to know abo ut, and the political significance behind the presence of thi s shi p, in thi s locati on, and on thi s parti cul ar date .

I' m always on the lookout for a ship and a port which will

exemplify the period and might help to dramatize its personali ty.

Vi suall y, not all ships are equall y attracti ve or interesting, and there are not so many pl aces aro und the wo rld where a big ship could be seen close to the shore in recogni zabl e surroundings. One looks for a di stinctive vessel, one whi ch embodi es so me technological innovati on or which represents a phase in the evoluti on of design. One looks fo r a pl ace where she could have been seen in her day in the contex t of some famili ar topographical feature.

For ships, the references are extensive. Seamanship call s fo r attention to detail. One mu st be sure to get right the mooring arrangements, the ri gg ing of awnings over the quarterdeck and the handling and storage of ship 's boats. Naval signal codes al one compri se a considerabl e fi eld of study.

Wars hips were constantl y being modified and brought upto-date; care mu st be exercised that their appearance matches the chosen date for the picture.

It is less easy to find pictures of places. Contemporary and recent photographs are not diffi cult to find , but it takes time to di g out appropriate old photograph s of harbors, bridges and canals. I have found family photograph albums to be useful , a lso charts and illustrated books whi ch may have nothing to do with the subject of shipping.

As fo r the choice of occasion, individual ships sometimes exerted influence on world events. The mutinous battleship Potemkin steaming into Odessa, and then out to sea again to confront the whole of the loyal Black Sea Fleet in 1905 or the little German gunboat Panther standing off the Moroccan port of Agadir in 1911 which very nearl y precipitated war between France and Gem1any; each of these has been made the subject of a painting. But I have painted many less obviously dramatic occasions when the presence of a ship can be seen to have had historic significance.

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MARINE ART NEWS The Mariners' Presents Antonio Jacobsen How many pai ntings mighta marine artist do in his career? What would you say to 6,000? As staggering as that sum may seem, that is the estimate Marine rs' Museum curator Harold S. Sniffen places on the work of Antonio Jacobsen (1850192 1). Of these, a remarkable 3,300 Jacobsen ship portraits are known to exist today, and the largest repository of them is the museum in Newpo1t News, Virgini a.

On 24 Octobe r, Mariners' w ill o pe n a re trospective of the Danish-American painte r's work, narrow ing the exhibition down to 80 works g leaned from its own co llecti on and those of o the r instituti ons and individuals. According to Sniffen, the ex hibition will hig hlight di vers ity: "Jacobsen is best known for his paintings of steamers and tugs," says Sniffen. " But we believe this exhibition will change that stereotype ."

Ship Model Masterpieces Reappear at Addison

Up from the basement afte r a long internment, the ship model collection of the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts , is enjoy ing the fu sed light and airiness of the institution 's marbled main galleries. On display for the first time in 12 years are 24 fin ely crafted models comm issioned as a series in the 1920s and built by such noted artisans as Capt. H. Percy Ashley, R. C. Anderson, Walter A. Simonds, Bernard Hait, Walter C. Leavitt and Frederick W. Snow.

In her description of" l /4" Scale: Models of American Sailing Ships," Susan C. Faxton, Gallery Associate Director and Curator, points out that every Addison Gallery exhibitio n, as a depaitment of Phillips Academy, has a central education component. In this case, the unifo1mity of scale provides this benefit. It allows viewers to perceive the relative size of the actual ships-a useful guide to understanding the evolution of fo ur centuries of the American sai ling ship.

The coll ection begins with the Santa Maria , and includes theMayflower, the Half Moon, the Clermont, the racing yacht America and the Gloucester fishing schooner Columbia. And it comes with an added bonus: the walls of the exhibition galleries ai·e adorned with Addison 's finest seaAntonio Jacobsen's "Xenia, 1899, " oil on canvas, 22" by36" scapes, including three Wins low Ho mers: Eight Jacobsen documented thousands of Bells; Kissing the Moon ; and the West sail and steam vessels that frequ ented Wind. (Addi son Gallery of American Alt, New York Harbor between 1873 and Phillips Academy, Andover MA 01810) 19 19. The acc uracy and, I'm sure, the availa bility ofJacobsen 's paintings have Art Notes made him o ne of the better known and "There is no correct way to look at a marine painting, just as there is no single most favored artists among collectors.

An inte resting aspect of the exhibit is way to do so." With these words, HaiTy the incorporatio n of pages from the J. Nelson, Jr. , president and founder of arti st's sketchbooks. They reveal his the Ventu ra County Maritime Museum elaborate method of using scale m arks to introduces the subject of marine art to depic t the proportions of a ship . V isitors vis itors. Nelson has written three short will be able to compare some of hi s monographs for this purpose, and they sketches with the finished work. are full of insights and perspectives on "Antonio Jacobsen's Painted Ships what to look fo r in m arine art. While on Painted Oceans" is on display thro ugh designed fo rthe beginner, "How to Look 19 Fe bruary 1995 , and a handsome hard- at a Marine Painting," "Marine Art as a cover com pan ion book of the same name Subject" and "How to Look at Ship is avai lable fo r $75 . (The Mariners' Mu- Models " may also be of interest to more seum , 100 Museum Drive, Newport experie nced viewers, and certainly to those who have struggled to convey the News VA 23606; 804 596-2222) 28

Walter A. Simonds 's model of Ann McKim

conventions and qualities of marine art to others. The m onographs are avail ab le byw ritingthemuseumat2731 S. V ictoria Avenue, Oxnard CA 93035.

Fully deserving of the honor, Hulls and Hulks in the Tide of Time, the 269page biography of New Yo rk marinea1tist John Noble (1913-1983) by Erin Urban, has won first prize in the American Association of Museums' 1994 Museum Publica tion Design Competiti on. T his beautiful book re presents over ten years of research by U rban who is executive director of the John A . Noble Co llectio n in Staten Island , New York. The hardcover book is offered by NMHS for $75; call l 800 22 1-NM HS. -KEVIN H AYDON

Exhibitions • 13 September to 5 December, Ship, Sea and Sky: The Marine Art of James Edward Buttersworth at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem MA; and from January through April 1995, at the Terra Museum of American Alt, Chicago IL. • 14 Novembe r-April 1995, Masters of Marine Watercolor Painting, feat uring Klaus Hoie and Lou Bonamarte, at Mystic Maritime Gallery , Mystic CT; 203 572-8524.

• 5 October-29 Januaiy, Steamship Posters of the Stephen Barrett Chase Collection at the Ellis Islai1d ln1migration Museum in New York Hai·bor. Feattu-es early ocean liner posters given to the Steainship Hist01ical Society of Ai11erica by the late illustrator.

(SHSA , 64 Broad Reach , Suite 511 , Weymouth MA 0219 1; 617 33 1-8 189) • 6 October-9 December, Ships of State: Salutingthe GreatTransatlanticOcean Liners, featuring photographs, models, draw in gs and objects from the Ocean Liner Museum, at PaineWebber Art GalJery, New York NY; 2 12 7 13-2885 .

• 24 October to I 9 Febrnaiy 1995, Antonio Jacobsen 's Painted Ships on Painted Oceans , at The Mariners' Museum, 100 Muse um Dri ve, Newport News VA. SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

TWO SPECTACULAR LIMITED EDITION PRINTS

by marine artist William G. Muller "Evening on the Hudson, 1862" A Hudson River sloop rides the tide upriver through Haverstraw Bay, while the sidewheeler Daniel Drew heads south beneath Hook Mountain.

In a limited edition of 850 signed and numbered prints at $130. 00 Image size: 153/4'' x 28" Sheet size: 21 1/4" x 33" Printed on 100 lb. acid -free stock.

"Poughkeepsie Landing,1910" Looking north up the Hudson River toward the fa med Poughkeeps ie Railroad Bridge, the Day Line steamer Robert Fu lton prepares to make her landing at the busy Poughkeepsie, N .Y. waterfront during the grand era of steamboat travel on the river.

An exclusive limited ed ition of just 500 signed and numbered prints at $ 150. 00 Image size: 18 1/z" x 28" Sheet size: 24" x 33" Printed on 100 lb. acid-free stock.

~~:!~:~~NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY 5 John Walsh Blvd., PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566-0068 For credit card orders phone 914-737-7878 Artist's proofs and remarqued prints also available. Please inquire.

Please add $12.50 for sh ipping & handling. New York State residents add your local sales tax.

Nelson: Man and Myth

by Joseph F. Callo

H

oratio Nelson- the name has a special aura. But what lies behind the mythology that has been spun around the man? Was he the hero he has been made out to be-or just lu cky? Was hi s affai r with E mm a Ham ilton one of the great romances of modern times-or simply a self-ind ulgent, emotional extravagance? Are there lessons to be learned from the man who was described by one writer as " Superman with Everyman 's weaknesses"?

There was nothjng of the epic in Nelson 's birth and early childhood. He was born in 1758 at Burnham Thorpe, in No1folk, close to the coast of England.

The modem Nelson biographer Tom Pocock described rus childhood SUffOundings: "When northerly gales blow from the sea, the beech trees above Burnham Thorpe heel and roll like masts. When the wind drops, the munnur of surf can be heard from the Norfolk shore."

In thi s setting, exploring the harbors and inlets that were so close to hi s home, elson began his yo uthful educati on as a sailor-one who acquired not only technical knowledge, but developed the instincts that elevate seamanship from ski II to rut.

Nelson was the sixth of eleven children. Hi s father was the parson of Burnham Thorpe and he maintained a strong relationship with hi s son right th.rough Nelson 's adulthood. Nelson 's earl y religious environment became the foundation of a lifelong, frequently expressed belief in God 's will.

Thi s was never more ev ident than when he wrote in the great cabin of hi s flagship Victory, on 2 1 October 1805, a few hours before his death in the Battle of Trafal gar: " May the Great God whom I worship grant to my Country , and fo r the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory ; and may no mi sconduct in any one tarni sh it; and may humanity after Vi ctory be the predominant fea ture in the British Fleet. For myself, individuall y, Icommitmy li fe to Him who made me, and may Hi s blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country fa ithfully. To Him I res ign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend ."

Nelson ' s mother had an important influence on hi s life, although she died

30

gives us insight into both Nelson' s earl y years and the tough nature of hi s chosen profess ion . "What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak , that he, above all the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea?" hi s uncle asked. He then added: "But let him come and the first time we go into action a cannonball may knock off his head and provide for him at once."

Nelson went on to become an exceptionally proficient seaman and a uniquely successful naval commander. Hi s action at the Battle of St. Vincent in 1797when he departed fro m hi s orders in order to turn the tide of the conflict~ was a definin g moment in a career stud~ ded with brave and unexpected deci~ sions. Not content with taking the lead in 2 break ing the Spanish line and so forcing ~ the battl e to a successful conclusion, he UJ ;g personall y led the boarding party that ::; captured the Spanish two-decker San ~ Nicolas and crossed her deck to capture 3< the three-decker San Josef This unpre~ cedented deed was instantl y memorial~UJ ized in the fl eet as "Nelson ' s Patent ;::: Bridge for boarding First-Rates." >B eca u se he was so successfu l , "'UJfNelson's actions, particularly his tac30 tics, have been analyzed inten sively by u Portrait of Nelson by Heinrich Fuger painted naval experts. Much has been made of his aggress iveness , a key element in what not long before Nelson's death at age 47. were arg uabl y his three most famous when he was only nine years old . When victories: The Nile in 1798, Copenhagen he described his relationship with her in in 180 1 and Trafalgar in 1805.

Receiving perhaps less attention was his later years, it was in tender terms. It was cleat¡ that her death left an emotional his affectio n for those who served under gap that surely contributed to his sensi- him . At a time when sailors were routive nature-and, presumably, to his later tinely beaten with the cat-o ' -nine-tail s response to the strong personality of his while lashed to a hatch grating, Nelson ' s regard fo r hi s sailors was widely noted paramour, Emma Ham ilton.

At twelve, Nelson went to sea to begin by hi s brother officers and apprec iated a career in a brutal and hru¡sh profession. by his me n. Although he was by no And although he was not physically strong, means considered a lax disciplinarian , he compensated with a mental toughness those who sailed and fo ught wi th him that overcame his inherent physical weak- recogni zed that he had a genuine regard nesses, as well as the handicaps inflicted fo r them . The result was a unique relalater in battles at Calvi, where he lost the tionshi p, one that created unusual loysight of his right eye, and Tenerife, where alty and fi erce com bat performance. Both of these factors were major contri butors he lost his right at111.

As with many yo ung men of hi s time, to Nelson 's victories.

The poet Robert Southey noted in hi s fami ly infl uence had a lot to do with hjs opportunity for a nava l career. Nelson 's earl y b iography , The Life of Nelson: uncle, Maurice Suckling, a well-con- "Neveff was any commander more benected senior capta in in the British Navy, loved. '" He expl ained: "He governed men was asked to accept Nelson as a midship- by thei ir reason and their affections: they man aboard hi s ship. Suckling' s response knew tthat he was incapable of caprice or

Nelson's popularity during his lifetime, and his heroic status after Trafalgar, helped build public understanding of the importance of sea power in the longer term.

SEA1 HISTORY71, AUTUMN 1994

ers of the importance of sea power, as they are remembrances of a unique naval commander. And that is an historical reality that surely transcends mythology.

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But to understand how Nelson ' s popularity and heroic status gave rise to >- " a tradition and legend which was to be "'"' of priceless service to England," as the ~ -, g distinguished British historian Arthur Bryant put it, one returns to his essential "Point Your Gun. " Sailors and Royal Marines aim their gun on board HMS Victory at the height of the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October J805. British gunnery under Nelson was far humanity. In an often brutal and always demanding service, it was that sympathy faster and more accurate than the French and Spanish. with his men that led his crews to mourn his death as news of it spread through the Crews mourned his death as news of it spread through fleet after the overwhelming victory of the fleet. As one veteran put it in a letter home: "Chaps Trafalgar. As one veteran put it in a letter home: "Chaps that fought like the Devil, that fought like the Devil, sit down and cry like a wench. " sit down and cry like a wench."

And Bryant, writing more than a centyranny; and they obeyed him with alac- popularity. Perhaps Nelson himself did. tury and a half after Nelson 's death, sucrity and joy, because he possessed their Although his letters and journals do not cinctly defines what was perhaps Nelson ' s confidence as well as their love." dwell on the subject, he did seem to greatest gift, beyond his brilliance and The high emotionalcontentofNelson 's understand the point. For example, in a daring: "He reminded the Navy that, whatpersonality was also a factor in his love for letter to Earl St. Vincent he wrote of how ever the bonds of authority , leadership Emma Hamilton. Despite an apparently he had agonized over a major decision, was not a mere matter of transmitting stable, if somewhat fretful , marriage to "for we know, from experience, that orders but of evoking the will to serve."

Fannie Nesbit-whom he had met and more depends upon opinion than the acts married in Nevis when she was a young themselves .... " JosephF. Callo, Rear Admiral USNR, is widow-Nelson defied social convention Observations like those suggest that a well-known publicist and advocate on and moral restraints to pursue a very pub- Nelson sensed the larger impact of his naval affairs. military victories. And perhaps that can lic relationship with Emma.

Their romance was triggered after lead modern observers to understand the Emma had nursed Nelson back to health significance of his long-term impact on THE NATIONAL MARITIME in Naples , where she held forth as the the general public and body politic. While HISTORICAL SOCIETY wife of William Hamilton , Britain's Napoleon was having his way on the presents ambassador to the Court ofNaples. Once Continent, it was Nelson ' s brilliance, begun , Nelson pursued the relationship and the relentless sea-keeping and ferowith the same wholeheartedness he took cious combat performance of the Royal into battle. At times , it cost him in terms Navy , that kept Napoleon from closing of his reputation and his career. But his grip on the Western world.

Explore the Seafaring Nelson ' s popularity during his lifewhen the crises came, the Admiralty and Legacy of South Britain Whitehall put aside all other consider- time, and his heroic status after Trafalgar, 1O Days of maritime travel including ations and called upon the best naval helped build public understanding of the London , Plymouth , Exeter, Weymouth commander they had. imp01tance of sea power in the longer and Portsmouth-March 16-25, 1995 Although Nelson ' s biographers all term-no mean feat in light of the fickleFor information contact: recognize his tremendous popularity with ness of public opinion and the body poliLord Addison Travel the British general public of his time- tic. To this day, the statue of Nelson at PO Box 3307, Peterborough NH 03458 as a hero , he was a nonpareil-few seem Trafalgar Square and the beautifully reTel: (800) 326-0170 to recognize the full importance of that stored HMS Victory are as much remind0

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"The Lesson These Men Teach Us All"

A social historian of the Royal Navy notes (in a book reviewed on page 46 of this Sea History), the surprising insight of the Times of London, in commenting on the generosity of the ship's company of HM destroyer Carysfort taking up a collection for the benefit of the family of a shipmate lost at sea in November 1957. The average voluntary contribution from these ill-paid men was ÂŁ36 (then $100.80), Leading to this salute from the Times:

Above, a stone mosaic of a lighthouse, symbol of light and truth, in Saint Thomas Church in New York City. Below, a 4' by 2' sculptured image ofa weatherbeaten. seafarer on the Bush Building in New York City.

This collective and individual act of generosity was not causeless and fortuitou s. Its origin lay in the kind of men there were and are, the life they lead, the outlook which they share, the virtues which are instilled into them which they learn swiftly-and unstintingly put into practi ce. If men acquire the habit of be ing di sciplined, generous and un selfish ... and in their every day concerns are capab le in a moment of crisis of pulling out that extra effort, whether of heroism or comradely kindness ... that is the lesson these men teach us all.

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Should History Be Popularized?

The popular historian, novelist, poet and playwright Shelby Foote-famed for his commentary on the PBS series The Civil Wartalked recently with Naval History (September/October 1994) about the writing of history.

This illuminating exchange comes from that interview: Naval History: How can we make history more popular in the classroom?

Shelby Foote: You know, I'm not interested in popularity, bei ng popul ar, or even selling a lot of books. I li ke to do it, but that's not why I write. I'm trying to understand the damned thing and make other people understand it. Calling it popular makes it sound as though I did something to hi story to make it more palatable. I never want to do that.

What I want to do is te ll as forceful a story as I know how, as true as I know how to make it. There's nothing popular abo ut it in conception. lf it turns mt to be popular, fine . .t SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 994

"Making the Hard to See More Visible" Photographer Gregory Thorp of New Haven, Connecticut, often finds that hi s subject matter is above people's heads. There is nothing elitist about it, but he does have to climb to some lofty pl aces to find it. Thorp has a special talent for recording ornamental art, frequently fo und in church interi ors and on commercial building exteri ors. In hi s prospecting, Thorp has found some excepti onal pieces with nautical motifs in glass, stone and wood . Pictured above are just two of hi s images.

Thorp has a simpl e philosoph y about his art: "My vocati on is to make the hard to see more visi ble-more appreciable." It certainl y isn't difficult to appreciate the beauty and powerful symboli sm in these images-now that they have been brought down to our level. The photographer is currently looking for support to do a photographic survey of an Ep isco pal c hurc h in Gloucester, Massachusetts , that he describes as " loaded with ornamental art. " (Gregory Thorp, 155 Wooster Street, New Haven CT 06511) .t 33

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SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS Coronet First Project of Yacht Restoration School in Newport The restoration of the last of the great schooner yachts of the last century , the Co ronet, will be the centerpiece proj ect of a newly established Intern ation a l Yacht Restoration Schoo l (IYRS) in Newport, Rhode Island. The IYRS will be located on Lee's Wharf in New port.

The group plans to collect, restore, and utilize a fl eet of class ic yachts to teach seamanship, nav igation , sailing, boat handling and maintenance skills.

The Coronet, built 1885 and currentl y homeported in Gloucester, Massachusetts, has fo l lowers who have long hoped for thi s kind of major effort to save he r.

The 178-foot overall , 27-foot beam vesse l, built in 1885 for Rufus T. Bush, won the I 887 Tran s-atlantic race against Dauntless and has completed two roundthe-world voyages. In 1895 , Coronet

Coronet under sail by artist John Mecray

was the vehicle for the first American/ Japanese sc ientific expedition to stud y a total eclipse of the sun in Japan and , from 1905 onwards, Coronet was an instru ment of mi ssionary work aro und the world . She will make her permane nt move toNewportnext summer.The fiveyear restoration will beg in in the fa ll of 1995 . At that time, the IYRS antic ipates enrolling its first apprentices. (IYRS, 28 Church Street, Newport RI 02840; 401 849-3060) Maine Lighthouses May Be Given Up by Coast Guard In an initi ati ve that may set the trend for the preservation of US lighthou ses, a non-profit Maine group has proposed a pl an that would transfer the titl es of 33 Ma ine li ghthouses, reports the Lighthouse Digest. Although the deal mu st be approved by Congress, the Digest reports that US Senator George Mitchell has endorsed the plan and wishes to ex pedite the transfer. Under the Maine Lights Plan, the Island Institute wou ld receive title to the lighthou ses, retain three them selves, and then transfer title to the remaining li ghthouses to local non-profit groups or local communiti es.

SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

Floating Chapels Begin Seamen's Church Mission New York harbor 's premiere seamen 's benefi cial organization for seamen, the Seamen's Church In stitute, thi s year marked its 160th anniversary and the 150th ann iversary of its most nove l form of mini stry , the floatin g chapel.

Founded in 1834 as the Young Men's Church Mi ss ionary Society with 42charter members drawn from Epi scopal parishes in Manhattan , Brooklyn and Staten Island, the Society was quick to direct its efforts toward improving the treatment of merchant seamen entering New York Port.

In those days, such concern was wellfounded. The port 's dingy, vio lent waterfront was a pl ace where thieves, crimps and boardinghouse keepers often conspired to plunder or shanghai defenseless seamen. To confront these conditions , the Society literally brought the church to the seamen by building and mooring floatin g chapels throughout New York harbor.

The first floatin g chapel, Church of Our Sav iour, was built in 1844 by Charles M. Simonson on a 76x36-foot deck across two boats of 80 tons each, ten feet apart. it was moored at the foot of Pike Street. A second and third were built later and they became objects of cons iderabl e public attention. In fact, during their heyday, the ""'"'"' ""'c" '' '"' SAv1011uOR "'"" fl oating ch urches were so popular with the The first f loating chapel, launched in J844 publi c that the Institute had to reserve pews for the severa l hundred seamen who came to worship at each service. The last of the chapels was closed in 1910.

Over the years, w ith fo undat ion and marine industry support, the Seamen 's Church Institute has become a leading advocate of seamen's rights and offers a wide range of services to the 250,000 seafarers that enter the port every year. From its headquarters at Water Street in New York C ity, SCI provides counseling, legal aid , maritime education and safety training. It currently fi e lds four port chaplains actively engaged in ship visitation. It al so operates an International Seafarer's Center providing hos pitality and soc ial services to active and retired seafarers.

Looking to the future on the waterfront, SCI has plans to acquire what could be termed a modern-day interpretation of the floatin g chapel, a mobile unit that chapla ins can use to bring more services to vessels on the New Jersey coast, Staten Island and Brooklyn . (SCI, 24 1 Water Street, New York NY 1003 8) KH

If no one is found to take over any of these, the Island In stitute wou ld keep the property. If the Institute could not maintain the property, they in turn wo uld g ive it to the General Services Administration to dispose of.

Jay Hyland, Pres ident of the Lighthouse Preservation Society , hailed the plan as giving non-profits more fl ex ibility than the old Coast Guard leasing arrangement. T he Coast Guard would continue to maintain an easement to the actual towers to maintain them as active aids to navigation .

Constellation Not the Draw It Used to Be The Constellation is fa lling on hard times.

Not only has her deteri orating condition prompted her li sting on the National

Trust's" 11 Most Endangered List," but tourists are findin g other places to visit and spend the ir money. According to the Associated Press, paid adult admissions sank to 3,375 thi s past May , a reduction of 62% from the 8,9 14 who vis ited her in May last year. The decline is attributed in part to the removal of the Constellation's masts and rigging in March , due to winter damage, decay and safety concerns.

In response to the lost income, the USF Constellation Foundation was forced to lay off the ship 's fo ur remaining full-time carpenters and riggers, themselves the remnant of a seven-member crew thathad maintained the 14 1-year-old sloop-of-war.

The layoffs should pose no immediate threat to the structu re of the ship, say Foundation official s, who are working on 35

SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS Schooner Ernestina Ready for Her Second Century The Ernestina's hundredth year has been a good one. The legendary schooner, one of the last of the old Essex-built fishing schooners, began the year strengthened by a sixweekhaulout. She had bul warks, stanPHOTO: WALTR AUD BERGER COLI chions, covering boards, sheer planking, and chain plates fo r the fo remast shrouds rebuilt. Still, she lacked a fo remast- but this was her year. By June, a 137-ft white pine fo und in the western Massachusetts hills had been felled and hand-tooled into shape. On 7 July, her new mast was stepped, prompting Ca pt. G reg S wansey, Schoo ne r Ernestina Commi ss ion Executive Director, to declare her "ready for another hundred."

The Ernestina's tum of fo rtune is a result of renewed interest in the Idled since 1992, the Ernestina sailed again this state-ow ned vesse l. T he 11 2-ft, summer. She is pictured here moored next to the fo rmer Cape Verde packet ship and 1926 schooner Adventure in Gloucester MA. arcti c exploration vessel was idled in early 1992, but recent state grants and reawakened civic interest in her homeport of New Bedfo rd have assured her new operational status. She emerges from her rebuild with Coast Guard certification as both a Sailing School Vessel and "S ubchapter T" passenger-ca1Tying vessel. This provides fo r expanded programing possibilities, says Swansey, who is working with the State Depattment ofEducation to put in place educational programs for students and teachers for 1995. A variety of day sail s and multi-day saii s out of the po1ts of New Bedfo rd, Quincy, Gloucester, and Providence, Rhode Island, will also be offered the general public. For information contact Schooner Ernestina Commission, New Bedford State Pier, PO Box 20 10, New Bedford MA 02741; 508 992-4900.

KH a restoration plan and financing strategy fo r presentation to the Navy, which still owns the vessel. (USF Constellation, Constellation Dock, Baltimore MD 21202; 4 10 539-1797) The Alvin Clark is No More When the Alvin Clark rose to the smface of Lake Michigan in 1969, 105 years after sinking to the bottom in a storm off Chain bers Island, she was amazingly intact. The 105-ft, 218-ton vessel, launched into a different world in 1846, had slept upright for many years in the cold lake water, and seemed in neai·ly perfect shape. The Clark A lvin C lar k not long after her 1969 salvage

was an opportun ity to preserve a fascinating piece of Great Lakes maritime history-but she is no more. Her salvor, Frank Hoffman, a diver and marina owner, envisaged a major tourist attraction. But there was no effort to conserve the ship and exposure to the atmosphere reduced her to a rotting hulk.

The new owners of Hoffman 's marina recentl y broke up and hauled away her remains. To maritime preservationists, her trag ic loss once again underscores the need to pl ace valuable underwater artifac ts, in this rai·e case a whole shi p, in the public trust. If a non-profit maritime group with resources had been given possession of the vessel at the very fi rst, and not offered her soJTy remains in her last years, the Clark mi ght have had a fig hting chance.

Getting Around the Ships T ime is running out fo r the 1930 Boston tug Luna but preservationists are not giving up the fig ht to save her. When the Metropolitan District Commission announced plans to scuttle her earl y this year, the Luna Preservation Society, Inc. redoubl ed their effo rt and, with the assistance of the National Trust for His-

36

toric Preservation's ortheast Reg ional Office and the ational Maritime Alli ance, placed her in a Boston drydock.

Despite her sad appearance after years of n eglect, marine surveys have determined the wooden tug to be structurally sound. The Luna received worldwide attention at her launching because she was the first diesel-electric tug des igned for a commercial towing company. LPS would like Lo restore her to seaworthy condition , but their appeals to the MDC to forego her scrapping have yet to win her reprieve. (National Mai·itime Alliance, 99 Commercial Street, Bath ME 04530; 207 443-4550) The Gloucester schooner Adventure received the official plaque that accompanies her National Landmark designation on 3 September, highlighting the forward-moving restoration of the 1926built fi shing schooner. Gloucester Adventure, Inc. initiated her restoration in 1988 and recently completed a port side rebuild and is now raising funds for a $150,000 starboai·d restoration. (Gloucester Adventure, PO Box 1306, Gloucester MA 01931-1306; 508 281 -8079) The 78 -ft passenger vessel Principia steamed her way to Philadelphia in October to take her new berth at the Penn 's Landin g Bas in area. The 1928 Ted Geary-designed motor yacht will be used by the Philadelphia Maritime Museum fo r c rui ses, functi ons, and educational tours. The museum pl ans an "Historic Ship Zone" at Penn ' s Landing and is curre ntl y negotiatin g with the USC Olympi a Foundati on to take over manageme nt of the USC Olympia and the WWII Submarine Becuna. "Our goal is to see that Philadelphia features its historic vessels to best advantage, like San Francisco and New York," says mu seum president John Carter.

The Battleship New Jersey Historical Museum Society rep01ts that there is movement in Hawaii to bring the battleship Missouri there as a wai· memorial. It is proposed to site theshipat Pearl Harbor, thus displ aying two dramatic symbols there: the sunken battleship Arizona, mai·king the US entry into WWil, and the "Mighty Mo," scene of the Japanese surre nd e r cere mo ny. The word from Breme1ton, WA, where the Missouri is berthed , is that the community is reluctant to give up the tourist-attracting vessel.

The Bluenose is rev isited-againand so is an old way of financing sailing vessels. According to WoodenBoatmagazine , a new private company, the Blue-

SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

nose Pride Seafaring Cooperative, Ltd., has been established in Nova Scotia to build a reproduction of the legendary racing-fishing schooner. Stock in the schooner will be publicly offered using the traditional 64-share fo1mula. The vessel is to be built at Covey Island Boatworks along the lines of the earlier, but now deteriorating, reproduction, Bluenose II. Despite predictions that Bluenose II will never sail again, the Province ofN ova Scotia hasn't completely given up on her as its sailing ambassador. Estimates for a complete rebuild of the 1963 -built vessel exceed $ 1 million, but the provinciallysanctioned Schooner Bluenose Foundation is contemplating a limited restoration. It is also considering building a third Bluenose. (BPSC, 3 Queen Street, Bridgewater NS B4V lPl )

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World War II Troop Ship Still in Active Service Comm issioned for the first time during World War II, USNS Range Sentinel celebrated its 50th anni versary on 29 September at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Navy Port near Orl ando.

As part of the anniversary fes tivities, the public was invited to tour the vessel which began its serv ice as the troop ship USS Sherburne in September 1944. It made two troop transports before the war ended and was present in Tokyo Bay at the time of the Japanese surrender.

Decommiss ioned in 1947, Sherburne was converted by the US Navy and put back into servi ce as a range miss il e instrumentation ship in 1971 operated by Military Seali ft Command . (MSC, 90 1 M St. SE, Washington DC 20398-5540)

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Tugboats Take the Challenge At lPM on 11 September, a herd of stampeding tugs vying fo r honors in the Second Annual Intrepid Tugboat Challenge thundered down the Hudson River to a trul y spectacul ar finish at the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum . It was a neck-and-neck struggle watched by several hundred people from as hore and won by a mere five feet by the Brooks McA llister (1986, 4,300HP) over the Kosnac tug Gotham ( 195 1, l ,800HP). Third place was taken by the Maryland which was not even scheduled to participate . She was coming PHOTO: BETSY HAGGERTY up the ri ver to pi ck up a barge as part of her regular work-aday schedul e when she saw the race gathering and decided to join in . Follow ing the first three were the independent Terror, the C&R tug Tilly, and, last but not least, the Coast Guard tug Wire .

The race was fo llowed by a Tugs lin e up at the 79th Street Boat Basin at the beginning nose-to-nose pu shing cha!- of the Intrepid Tugboat Challenge. lenge issued by the Gotham and answered by Terror (1943 , 1800HP). Surro unded by observing vessels, the two tugs revved up and locked horns in a detennined battle of horse-power which was at last resolved as the Gotham began to slowly but surely muscle the Terror astern .

Other events included a line throw ing contest won by the crew of the Tilly, the tug " beauty contest" won by Brooks, and the "tin y-tug" troph y going to the venerable Wire. The day's top honor, the "Elizabeth Cup," went to Capt. Roy Olson of the Gotham who was retiring that day after 50 years a board tugs. The event is organized by the museum to celebrate the mighty tugs and hard working crews which keep our - JERRY ROBERTS ports active.

Milwaukee Schooner Project Forges Ahead Milwaukee has a new maritime heritage group that is moving swiftly to accomplish its major goal, the building of a full size replica 19th-century Great Lakes schooneron Milwaukee's lake front. Plans forthe 130-ft, three-masted schooner have been drawn up by naval architect Timothy Graul. Construction materials have also been accumulating on the group 's new Milwaukee Mari time Center property, the first being a generous donation of six 75foot white pine timbers by Menominee Tribal Enterprises, cut from the tribal reservation near Neopit, Wisconsin . The schooner will be built under US Coast Guard inspection and be certified fo r approximately 50 passengers. (MLS, 500

orth Harbor Drive, Mi lwaukee WI 53201-0291 ; 414 276-5664)

Tall Ship Race off East Coast in 1995 Several of South America's nava l training ships, such as Venezuela ' s Simon Boli var, Colombia 's Guayas, Mex ico's Cuauhtemoc and Uru guay 's Capitan Miranda , are ex pected to go head-tohead with the USCG bark Eagle in a Tall Ship Race from Norfolk, Vi rgini a, to Montauk Point off the East end of Long Island in late June 1995. The event, organized by Ameri cas' Sai l, a Long Island group including MHS stalwarts Frank Braynard and Peter Stanford as trustees, will be held in conjunction with the l995SpeciaJOlympics WorldGames in New Haven, Connecticut. The Eagle will then lead a parade of ships that will include the full -rigged ship Rose, the barkentine Gaze/a and the brigantine Black Pearl into New Haven harbor on 2 Jul y. (America's Sail , PO Box 462, Oyster Bay NY 11 77 1; 516 922-0979)

C&O Canal Corridor Plans Forming In C umberland , Maryland , a unique public-private partnership has begun to take fonm along a three-mi le stretch of the Potomac Ri ver. The goa l is to reclaim SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

and restore the western terminus of the C&O Canal, a 185-mile canal completed in 1850 which represented Maryland's attempt to leap the Appalachians and command western emigration and trade.

Local, state and federal agencies are working together to develop a "Canal Place" corridor running alongside the old C&O Canal, which currently lies buried under a massive flood control project installed during the 1940s and 1950s. The development will draw on a rich collection of historical, cultural and natural resources and represents one of the State of Maryland's first efforts to create a "heritage area" that will become a regional touri st attraction.

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SEPTEMBER 14, 1994-DECEMBER 5, 1994

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Charles F. Sayle, Jr. (1908-1994) His great friend, the local historian and clamdigger Paul Morris, called from Nantucket Island early this year with the news: Charlie had slipped his cable, his long voyage from Cleveland, Ohio, had ended after a stroke in Nantucket, his home for the past 39 years. It was there that I first met him, in 1966, when he rowed out with Ed Stackpole to meet Norma and me aboard our schooner, in for a visit to discuss plans for a new museum in New York. The world, indeed, had beaten a path to the small house he kept with his wife Mickey, with questions maritime or just to share a good yam.

After a brief stint in steamers, Charlie sailed in the Gloucester fi shing fleet in the 1920s, and when that sailing trade ended , signed up with Zeb Tilton aboard the coaster Alice S. Wentworth. Everywhere he went in those years he listened to stories, and took notes and photographs of the ships, their gear and their people.

In his later years Charlie's work was bu ilding ship models and delicate carvings of whales. He consorted with the Wharf Rats of the waterfront as well as visiting scholars like Howard Chapelle, and was a valued contributor to the Nautical Research ] ournal and to these pages.

Erik A. A. Ronnberg of the Nautical Research Guild paid tribute to the special quality of his work in these words: "It was his astute eye for beauty, whether in nature or a fishing schooner, which when coupled with mastery of his craft, made his work immediately recognizable for its great artistry ." He would have been well pleased to hear that, but he knew how we all admired hi s work and loved his good spirit, anyway. PS SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

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Weymouth, UK, to Corunna, Spain and Oporto, Portugal, to St.-Malo, France The first two overall places in the two races held by the Sail Training Association of the UK were divided between such different types of vessels as Duet (a small gaff yawl of 1912 vintage) , Ocean Venture (a fairly new staysai l schooner) , Henryk Rutkowski (a fifty-year-old brigantine) and Oskard (a modern Bemrndan cutter).

Entries have stood up to the test of time since the first race in 1956, when it was generally thought that it wou ld be the last occasion on which such a number of big PHOTO: TH AD KOZA square riggers would be seen under sai I together. In that year there were four big square riggers and two large schooners. This year Class A consisted of eleven square riggers and two schooners. Class B and C brought the fleet total to over 60 sai l!

For the first race, winds were light and did not faSailing ships head out of Weymouth at the beginning of the vor the square riggers (es- 1994 Tall Ships Races. pecially the large ones) so thatRoyalist-a l 10-ton brig-onJy gained 30th place overall to lead Class A. Duet, the eighty-year-old yawl , was placed first overall on handicap and was followed by about half the yacht fleet. Kruzenshtern (ex-Padua) , the four-masted bark built in 1926, led the large vessels into 39th place.

The German schooner Johan Smidt led the four-strong entry in Class B while Duet, Oskard and Grenada were the winners in the three divisions of Class C. The cook of the brig Astrid (built 191 8) was awarded the butcher's cleaver for being the most important man on the ship which spent the longest time at sea.

The fleet spent a few days in Corunna and then had a "Cruise-in-Company" to Oporto with many inter-ship crew exchanges before racing from there back to St.Malo in the English Channel.

In this second race the Polish brigantine Henryk Rutkowski was overall winner on corrected time with her captain-Janusz Zbierajewski-gaining the Captain 's Prize and the big Polish full-rigged ship Dar Mlodziezy (12th place) leading in the rest of Class A. The Sail Training Association 's two topsail schooners--Sir Winston Churchill and Malcolm Miller-gained l st and 2nd places in Class B which , sadly, only consisted of three vessels.

Morning Star ofRevelation, Ocean Venture and Corsaro 11 took first places in the three divisions of Class C and the cook of the brigantine Spirit ofWinestead took the well deserved cook's prize.

Contrary to many yachtsmen's views, it is interesting to observe that even in these conditions of mainJy light contrary winds the big schooners-Creoula and Eendracht II-did not fare well against the square riggers, large or smalI. Creoula finished last of the fleet and Eendracht II was so far behind that she had to give up so that she could -MORIN SCOTT motor in to take part in the shore festivities .

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• l October-31 December, The Explorers, examines the the British, French, Spanish and Russian explorers that reached the Pacific Northwest. (Vancouver Maritime Museum, 1905 Ogden Ave., Vancouver BC V6J 1A3) • 10 February-29 June 1995 Hampton Roads at War: The Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, a 50th anniversary photography exhibit. (The Mariners ' Museum, lOOMuseumDrive,Newport News VA 23606)

• 15 October-22 March 1995 Nantucket and the China Trade, examines the history of trade between China and northeastern ports. (South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front Street, New York NY 10038) • 19 November through September 1995, Rhythm of the Oars: Stories of Rowing in America, tells the story of the American rowing traditon. (Mystic Seaport Museum, 75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic CT 06355) SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

THE MARINERS' MUSEUM America's premier maritime museum in Newport News, Virginia, announces the publication of

Antonio Jacobsen's Painted Ships on Painted Oceans

by Harold S. Sniffen, curator emeritus, The Mariners' Museum

This lavishly illustrated 180-page biography features more than 120 ship portraits, most reprcx:luced in full color. The text examines Jacobsen's achievements as both artist and historian. $75

Also available: Antonio Jacobsen-The Checklist. The definitive compilation of known Jacobsen works. First published in 1984, now available with an addenda of more than 800 new entries. 350 pp. plus addenda. $15.

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A History of Working Watercraft of the Western Wor ld , 2nd edition, by Thomas C. Gillmer, illustrated by William Gilkerson (International Marine, Camden ME, 1994, 276pp, drwgs, photos, plans, index; $29.95hc) Seaman-artist and naval architect Tom Gillmer has produced a masterwork in this new, greatl y expanded edition of his classic Working Watercraft of 1972. His story of the evolution of the traditional small craft still to be found in harbors, fjords, rias and open beaches from Norway to Africa, and from the Aegean Sea to the Chesapeake and San Francisco Bays begins, appropriately, with an appreciation of the frescoes uncovered forty years ago in the ancient city of Akrotiri on the isle ofThera, or modern Santorini.

In the firstedition of this study Gillmer expressed surprise that these boats had been dated to the entombment of the city in volcanic ash around 1500BC. He felt that an earlier date between 1600 and l 800BC made more sense, judging by the design of the vessels so clearly shown in such ex uberant detail. And behold, more recent findings have unequivocally placed the date of the entombment at I 700BC, squarely in the middle of Gillmer's hypothes ized range! He does not mention th is confirming change, but this rev iewer noticed it because the Theran civ ilization is a particular interest of min e-for th e same reasons Gillmer chose it as the starting point for hi s book. He fee ls that Akrotiri provides the earliest ev idence of what we might term a Western c ulture.

The theme of the work is the origin and persistence of boatbui lding practices that accompanied and contributed to the development of Western civilizations. But that's a rather dry way of characteri zing the fecund variety and creative energy to be found in boats ranging from the Cheops funeral boat of 2600BC, built to the southern tradition of a sturdy shell made up of heavy edgefas hioned planks, to the Viking ships of 800- lOOOAD, which depended for their strength on long planks split (not sawn) from the tree and faste ned by thong to light internal frami ng secured to a strong but slightl y flexible keel.

In his exploration of small craft beginning in the 1930s, Gillmer has found survival of old Norse design concepts and construction techniques in the light and able faerings still used in Norway, and the sturdier Yorkshire coble, a beach boat deriving from the Scandinavian in-

cursions over a thousand years ago. He find s dugout canoes still active in Africa, and indeed in the Caribbean and Oceania, and he finds the next step up, a boat made of several logs with planked sides, still sailing in the Chesapeake, where Europeans adapted Native American craft for their own uses. And he fo llows carefully Michael Katzev's building and sai ling of the Kyrenia II , replica of a Greek vessel of the 300s BC. Richard Steffy's wonderful work in modeling ancient craft fro m scattered timbers receives full recognition, as does the leadership role of George Bass in establishing the modern science of marine archaeology.

The reader shares in the author's joy in discovery and recognition of enduring themes and practices, and ab undant illustration enables one to see what the author sees, whether expressed in William Gilkerson 's elegant reconstruction of the Thera boats, copious photographs of surviving types, or the author's onthe-spot sketches and carefu l plans.

"A sailor cannot be content with a poorly performin g boat," obse rv es Gillmer at the outset of hi s ex ploration.

"The desire to reach that farthest point of land to windward is strong enough to urge continuous refi nement. " With a sailor's eye and arti st's sensitivity, Gillmer recaptures fo r us in this book a vital tradition of the West. PS An Officer of the Blue: Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne, South Sea Explorer, 1724-1772, by Edward Du yker (Uni versity of Melbourne Press, Australia, 1994, 17 9pp , illu s, map s, ap pen, ind ex; $39.95 hc) Avail able from ISBS , Inc. , 5804 NE Hassalo St., Portland OR 972 13-3644.

The thirty-seve n-year career of Marion D ufresne, one of the important though neglected French maritime explorers of the 18th century, was as remarkable as it was varied. Hi s ex ploits encompass early success as a corsair, a daring rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie fol lowing the Prince's disastrous attempt to restore the Jacobite monarchy in England and Scotland, command of merchant and nava l ships, participation in a number of engageme nts, includin g Quiberon Bay ( 1759), trading voyages to Frenich India, raids on enemy merchantmren and, finally, unawareofCook 's di scoveiries on hi s first voyage, the discovery 1of the most westerly islands of the Indii an Ocean and the west coast of SEA fHISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

Tasmania. He also exp lored the North Island of New Zealand where in 1772 he met his death at the hands of the Maori , with whom he had first established a frie ndly relationship, but who he unwittingly offended by vio lating a number of tabus.

The author, an Australian who has written extensively on the French and Dutch ex plorers of Australasia, extensively researched hi s subject in France (i nclud ing the largely untapped archives of the ports of Saint-Malo, Nantes, Brest, La Roche lle and Lorient), Great Britain, South Africa and New Zealand . He reveals an accompli shed mariner who can rightfu 11 y take his place among that period's better known French explorers, such as La Perouse, d 'Entrecastreux and de Surv ille.

This lucidl y written vo lume will be of particular interestto students of the mari time expl oration of Australi a and New Zealand, but it will also appeal to those who wish to fi ll a significant gap in the ir know ledge of French maritime hi story and fo r the light it sheds on the intense 18th-century Anglo-French naval rivalry in the lengthy quest for political and imperi al supremacy.

FREEMAN M. TOVELL Victoria, British Co lumb ia We, the Navigator s: T he Ancient Art ofLa ndfinding in the Pacific, 2nd ed ition, by Dr. David Lewis (Uni vers ity of Hawaii Press, Honolulu HI, 1994, 442pp, illus, appen, notes, gloss, biblio, index; $24.95pb) Orthodox Western nav igators have long been interested in the extraordinary ability of Micronesians , Polynesians and Melanesians to find the ir way across the very considerable di stances of the Pacifi c Ocean to reach mere specks of land .

Un til recently , the techniques of the Island Nav igators had not been examined systematicall y and the consistency of their success tended to be discounted .

Dr. Lew is's perception of those Nav igators led him to the beli ef that if chance played a part, it was small and that methodical research into their techniques would not only be instructive but a lso prove the point.

Dr. Lewis is a silver meda lli st of the Royal Institute of Navigation, a considerable navigator with a life long interest in the Pacific. His first problem was to find islanders trained as Nav igators. He did so but onl y just in time, for techno logy has overtaken the craft. The last SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994

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generation of Navigators were dying and their culture was oral ; they are now gone.

Hi s research , backed by the Australian National University, included years of sailing in his own boat and in local vessels under the instruction of Island Navigators, using the ir techniques without reference to Western systems.

The findings are fascinating and instructive. The Navigator learned by heart the direction of target islands from hi s own pos ition in relation to stars as they progressed through the night and the seasons. The simplest example is to know which star at its max imum elevation is at the zenith of a particular island. More complex is to know which star is on the course of the target island at any particular time and which star will replace it as night progresses . He a lso learned the reciprocal information . To do that for a course between two points is a serious task and for a multiplicity of targets, formidable . Allied to that skill was the practice of etak, which enable the Navigator to vi sualize hi s position by considering the changing relationship between himse lf, an imag ined point abeam of hi s course and a point at infinity-a star or a success ion of stars-involving a complex orientation concept alien to Western navigation di sciplines.

Some techniques re late more closely to pilotage than nav igation and remain pertinent to small boat sailors who may lose their navigation aids and find themselves in condition s similar to those of the Island Navigators. These are such matters as wave curves, bird flights and cloud indicators, besides the curious phenomenon of long distance phosphorescence initi ated by the rollers raised in the trade winds hitting reefs and visible-if you know what you are looking for-up to seventy miles downwind in the line of the island.

The book demonstrates convincingly that the success of the Island Navigators was due to skill and not chance. It al so makes pl ain the very considerable intellectual effort needed to develop and practice their star navigation system . This second edition, which has been ably arranged by Sir Derek Oulton to the lay reader's advantage, also gave Dr. Lewis the opportunity to add new material to his thesi s.

Osw ALO H. R OBINSO Director Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation Suffolk, England SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994

Fine Fre•h Food Three Meal:! a Day Seven Day• a Week 0 n the Harbor

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High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt, by Royce Shingleton (University of South Carolina Press, Columbia SC, 1994, 160pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index; $27.95hc) This short biography of one of the Confederate Navy's finest officers attempts to define what kind of man was John N. Maffitt. Ship's captain, expert navigator, coast surveyor, blockade runner and commanding officer of the CSS Florida, Maffitt was all of these in add ition to being highly intelligent, witty, brave and bold, and irresistibly charming.

Shingleton charts the course of this man 's career from his ch ildhood and early ed ucation through his midshipman apprenticeship in the US Navy before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

Maffitt, like many of his fellow officers, made the difficult deci sion to resign from the US Navy and seek employment with the nascent Confederate States Navy.

The last two-thirds of this biography traces his career as captain of the blockade runner Florida and lesser commands towards the end of the war.

Shingleton has written a sympathetic biography of one of the South's most successful and highly competent naval officers. Lesser known, perhaps, than Raphael Semmes of Alabama fame, yet in many respects his equal, Maffitt receives excellent treatment in this long overdue biography. Excellent notes, bibliographic documentation and illustrations make it a pleasure to read and a good starting point for studying why, in the words of Maffitt himself, "the grand mistake of the South was neglecting her navy ."

HAROLD N. BOYER Butte, Montana Phantom Islands of the Atlantic, by Donald S. Johnson (Goose Lane Editions, Fredericton , New Brunswick, Canada, 1994, 232pp, illus, maps, notes , biblio, index; $17.95pb) Available from General Distribution Services, 30 Les mill Rd., Don Mills ON M3B 2T6 Canada.

Hy-Brazil , Antillia, St. Brendan 's Isle-these are island names to conjure with , for landlubber and old salt alike.

The quest of these mystic islands is recorded with authority and verve in Don Johnson 's Phantom Islands of the Atlantic. That quest played an important role in mankind 's gradual opening of the unknown Atlantic, the notorious Sea of Darkness where terrors and wmders SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN :994

abounded in sailor's stories.

In tracing the change from the geography of legend to the geography of reality, Johnson explores the geographic philosophy and knowledge of the Greeks, Romans, Muslims and early Christians before delving into the Age of Discovery. Through the course of the book, he clarifies and amplifies contemporary maps, demonstrating how the patterns of history changed over the centuries, and investigates the state of the scientific and technological knowledge of seamen and cartographers.

Johnson, who has plied the Atlantic under sai l extensively, tells the story with a sure touch, recognizing the importance of myth and fantasy in opening the ocean world, as well as geographic reality . His book is a wonderful read, a saga in itself, resonant with the ideas and changing world picture of the navigators who challenged the stormy Atlantic Ocean, and deeply informed by the realities ofnavigation under sail.

PS How Navies Fight: The U.S. Navy and Its Allies, by Frank Uhlig, Jr. (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1993, 470pp, maps, biblio, index; $34.95hb) Frank Uhlig's unique credentialseditor emeritus of the Naval War College Review, former senior editor at the US Naval Institute, and founding editor of the annual Naval Review-are extraordinarily suited to the complex task he undertakes in this book. Uhlig uses this broad foundation to address and analyze 215 years of American Naval history. How Navies Fight is the first English language full-length exploration of the nature of naval warfare to appear in several decades .

The author has shrew di y avoided technical terminology to produce a volume which flows fluently and clearly in lay terms, covering operational analysis, strategic and tactical goals, and the successes or failures that resulted from each war opportunity from the American Revolution to Desert Storm. The compression of information is effective, the conclusions are clear and concise and the straightforward prose makes for an interesting, as well as an informative, book.

If there is anything approaching a shortcoming in this work, it lies in errors of fact in Uhlig 's operational analysis of the wooden sailing navy ; yet these errors do not disrupt the sound conclusions he draws from each occasion. While his overview of Continental Navy opera-

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tions is concise and correct, later confli cts have some minor problems. For example: The Island of Hispan iol a was part French (St. Domingue) and part Spanish (Santo Domingo) during the Quasi-war with France , a nd thu s Constitution 's cutting out of the privateer Sandwich from Porta Plata, a Spanish harbor, caused considerable diplomatic problems between the US and Spa in .

How Navies Fight presents well-balanced accounts , analyses and conclusions for the Mexican War, the Civi l War, and the Spanish-American War. Writing w ith confidence, the author moves into the far more complex multinational aspects of World War I. The only caveat here is that he fail s to cred it Wil son 's 1916 battleship-building program, which not only underwrote the United States 's growing role as a lead ing international sea power, but a lso establi shed a position of diplom atic strength at the postwar Washington Armaments Conferences in the earl y 1920s.

Uhlig, who ma intains a live ly pace throughout hi s text, rams hi s throttles to the firewall with hi s 183-page section on World War II. It is a superb effort and reflects the know ledge ga ined from the author's own service at sea, combined with the ro le of seagoing observer he enjoyed during hi s years at Annapoli s.

The closing sections on Korea, Vietnam , the Levantine War, the Falklands War, and the Persian Gulf conflict are equall y conv incing.

A fina l chapter, " How Navies Fight, and Why," offers a construct that so many authors of simil ar books fail to provide. Given the analyses and conclusion s in the preced ing pages, thi s section shapes the entire 215 -year mosaic into a clear and conv incing picture. This volume should become a standard reference work for all types of nava l hi storians.

(716) 593-3169

Long Island University Southampton , New York The Royal Navy: An Illustrated Social History, 1870-1982, by John Wells (Royal Naval Museum , Portsmouth UK , 1994, 306pp, illus, notes, biblio, index; $40hb) This carefull y researched book presents in live ly fashion, often in the words of the ship 's people themselves, the ways of life and work in what was , in the pa lm y days of Queen Victori a, the world 's most powerful navy and potent

peacekeeping force . It tracks changing conditions afloat and ashore through decades of unparalle led social reform and technological upheaval and the strains of the two world wars of thi s century , whose outcome depended on the Roya l Navy 's successfu l battle to secure the North Atlantic lifeline. I t ends appropriately with the experience of the Falklands War of 1982, in which thi s venerable institution showed that despite Britain 's eclipse as a major world power, her men cou ld still drive Her Majesty's Ships with skill and spirit, though failing some tests of the new techno logy.

The a uthor does full justice to the condition s of someti mes unnecessary hardship and maltreatment of the sailor, but he does not fa ll into the too-common trap of thinking of the British sa ilor as victi m. Victim , Jack Tar most certainl y was not, as hi s robust spirit, fierce independence of outlook and commitment to ship and shipmates testify in thi s book, in which Captain We ll s conveys the spirit as well as the material conditions of the floatin g world that is one of HM ships of war.

PS A tellinf!. citation ji-om this book is off ered on page 33 of this Sea History.

The Spanish Treasure Fleets, by Timothy R. W a lton (Pineapple Press, Inc. , PO Drawer 16008, South s id e Station , Sarasota FL 34239, 1994, 256pp, photos, maps, appen , glossary, notes, index; $24.95) Walton is a CIA analyst, a US avy veteran , and a hi storian with a PhD. He does an admirable job of painting, with a broad brush, the hi story of the flow of gold and silver from the New World to Spain. The analysis is parti cularly good on the economics of the production and transport of precious metal s and the economic re perc uss ions on Spain and Europe, colonial policy , naval technology and strategy, and international re lations and riva lries. The book is divided into six chapte rs: Conquest, 1492- 1544; Consolidation , 1545 - 1579; Ascendancy, 1580- 1620; Decli ne, 162 1-1715; Recovery, l 716- 1790; and Red iscovery , 1791present.

As a summary of the subject, this book may be adeq uate, but 1 cannot recommend it for the serious scholar.

Two exampl es of serious lacunae illustrate 1the point. On pages 4-5 in discussing g;a lleys the author fai ls to cite John Guilrmartin 's (1980) excellent stud y, and SEA HISTORY 71 , AUTUMN 1994

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mistakenly says that 15th-century shipboard guns were usually made of cast iron w hen he sho uld have said wrought iron. More serious is the fa ilure to mention the 1766 flota losses, inc luding the Nuevo Constante that was excavated in the 1980s in Louisiana first by treas ure hunters and subsequently by arc haeolo g ists.

In the final chapter the author does a fair but superficial job of summarizing the raging conflict between archaeolo gists and the historic preservation community on one hand and commercial treasure salvors on the other.

Walton points out that the Real Eight Company, one of the first groups to recover treasure from a fleet of Spanish treasure wrecks, went bankrupt in the early 1970s. He says that Bob Marx, the quintessential treasure wreck researcher and finder, " ruefully acknow ledges that most of the profits from his treasure hunting expeditions" have been eaten up in expenses " a nd he only makes real money through hi s books o n the subject." But Walton fails to note that it is therefore a hideous waste to a ll ow o ur c ultural patrimony to be destroyed by treasure hunters.

The scientific archaeo log ical approach yields the story of the people and the ships, not just a group of objects largely stripped of their meaning w he n they were picked up from the bottom without recording their context. For an in-depth discuss ion of the problems with commercial treasure salvage, I recommend the late Peter Throckmorton' s " The World's Worst Investment: The economics of treasure hunting with real life comparisons" in Underwater Archaeol-

ogy Proceedings from the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference (Tucson AZ, 1990).

J.

BARTO ARNOLD, III

State Marine Archeolog ist Texas Historical Commission

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S tatement fil ed 10/6/94 required by the Act of Aug. 12, 1970, Sec. 3685, Title 39, US Code: Sea History is published quarterly at 5 John Wa lsh Blvd., Peekskill NY 10566; minimum subscription price is $ 15. Pub li sher and edi to r is Peter Stanford; managing edi tor is Kevin Haydon: owner is Nat ional Maritime Historical Society, a non-profit corporation: all are located at 5 John Walsh Blvd .. Peekskill NY 10566. During the 12 months preceding October 1994 the average number of (A) copies printed each issue was 49.035; (8) paid and/or requested ci rcula1ion was (I) sold through dea lers, carri ers and cou nter sales 3,566; (2) mail sub· sc riplions 11 ,037; (C) 101al paid and/or requeslcd ci rcu lation was 14,603; (D) free dis1ribution, samples, complimentary copies were 33,9 17; (E) tota l distribution was 48,520; (F) copi es not di stri buted (I) office use467; (2) ret urn from news agents 48; (G) total= 49.035. The actual numbers for the single issue preceding October 1994 are (A) Iota! number printed 49,834; (8) paid ci rculation was ( I) sa les through dea lers, carriers and counter sa les 2,079; (2) ma il subscri ptions 11 ,6 13; (C) tolal paid and/or requested ci rc ulat ion 13,692; (D) free di stribut ion, samples, com· plime ntary copies were 35,778; (E) total distri bution was 49,470; (F) copi es not di stributed were ( I) offi ce use 284; (2) return from news agents 80; (G) total = 49,834. I certify th at the above siatcmc nts arc correct and com plete. (s igned) Peter Stanford, Pres., Nat ional Maritime Hi storical Society.

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