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
Nautical Decor and Antiques SEAFARER, LTD. Route 9, Oceanville, NJ 08231 j,. ..--Visit our 3,000 j{jj_ --2 ¡ ~: sq. ft. store or v send $3 for brochure 609-652-9491 4
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