starboard propeller; twelve crewmen we re ki lled and fifteen injured . T he commander offloaded 80 of his crew onto a sister escort and with th e remainin g eighteen fo ught the fire and flooding, jettiso ned ammunition , secured depth charge racks, and cleared th e fo uled propeller. They got Shaw underway at 11 knots for Portla nd Bill , E ngland, 40 mi les north, steerin g with the engines, and with the after 4" gu n and torpedo tubes manned and ready. Fourteen men who had been in the cur-off bow section swam away when it sank and we re picked up by another escort. One of these, a 20-year-o ld quartermas ter first class, USNR, became my father. CAPT.DAVIDE.SWAN, USNR(Ret) Jackso nville, Florida " Bayly's Navy" Rear Admiral Langenberg's excellent article on the Queenstown Naval Command (SH99) has done a great service in bringing attention to the close relationship spawned between the Royal Navy and the US Navy in Wo rld War I, which continues today. To add just a bit to RADM Langenberg's article, readers should know that when the Queen stow n Association disba nded in 1960, the survi ving members voted to turn over the o rganization 's papers and funds to the Naval Historical Foundation. Using the papers, the Foundation published in 1980 retired V ice Admiral Walter S. Delany' s mo nograph "Bayly' s Navy" (co pies are still available for purchase). In 1998 , the Fou ndation donated the Queenstown Association Papers to the Library of Congress, where rhey are accessible to researchers in rhe Manuscript Division. CAPTA! CHARLES T. CREEKMA , USN (RET), Executive Director Naval Historical Foundation Washington D C
Circle Line XI Forever It was nice to read in Sea H istory 99 abo ut the fireboat j ohn J H arvey's participation in the evacuation and firefighting efforrs fo llowing the World Trade Center tragedy. The H arvey was not the only historic vessel to assist in the aftermath, however. Another 70-year-old vessel-not a museum ship, but a merchant vessel that earns her keep in regular commercial service-carried 575 passengers at a rime across the Hudson. M/V Circle Line XI, launched in JanuSEA HISTORY 100, SPRING 2002
C ircle Line XI on the job in 1983 (a bove), and her engine switchboard (Courtesy Brian Bailey)
ary of 1932, is one of the few engin eroo mcontrolled vessels left in the US fla g fleet. Originally USCG cutter Calypso (WPC 104), she was also a co mmiss io ned naval vessel (AG 35) and served as support ship for the presidential yacht Potomac fo r a while until she was returned to rhe Coast G uard in late 1941. After carrying o ut antisubmarine warfare during Wo rld War II, she was put in mothball s from 1947 to 1955, then sold as government surplus. C ircle Line eventually bought her, and her superstructure was rebuilt as a twindeck passenger vessel; she started taking to urs aro und Manhattan in 1958. Now, at the venerable age of70, she still makes daily sightseeing trips aro und Manhattan and New York harbor during the tourist season. On 11 September, she made continuous
trips from Pier 83 to a New Jersey marina, carryin g thousands of people to safety. W hat makes her unique is that sh e is still running on her original Winton-model 158-6 direct drive diesels. For the past 22 seasons, I have been answering bells on those engines, which in my opinio n are far superior to anything built today. And yes, I like the old D C generators and openfrontswitchboard with those beautiful copper knife swi tches. By running the engines myself, I feel like a real marine engineer, and not a m echanic si tting in an air-co ndi tion ed co ntrol roo m watching ga uges as deck officers control the machinery from the bridge. And my vessel's engines use less fuel than our repowered vessels. Yo u can put all the computer control yo u want on modern engines, but there is simply no way to beat the fuel efficiency of low-speed , large-bo re, direct-drive, fo ur-stroke des ign. For more information and pi ctures, see o ur web sire at http :// members.aol. com / wpcl04. B RIAN BAJLEY
New Yo rk, New Yo rk
Visible Far at Sea Peter Stanford 's article, "H eralds of the Morning, " o n the World Trade Center (SH99) brought to mind an excerpt from my log from 28 September 1983: "0732 Fire Island buoy. We held her off dead downwind for the New Jersey sh o re. T here was a big grou ndswell from the south east and as th e breeze cam e up towards 20 knots
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