Sea History 113 - Winter 2005-2006

No. 113

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Winter 2005-2006

SEA HISTORÂ¥

75

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

DANGEROUS VOYAGE

A Quasi-War Spoliation Case Samuel Eliot Morison Sea History for Kids

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SEA HISTORY

No. 113

WINTER 2005-2006

CONTENTS FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE

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10 Dangerous Voyage, by Roger Tilton In Late June and into July of 1942, an eighteen-year-old Roger Tilton used his sketchbook to document his first voyage as a merchant seaman. It was a month when more commercial ships were sent to the bottom than in any other time in history. His story recalls life aboard the tanker John D. Archbold as a green hand sailing in dangerous waters.

16A French Spoliation Case: Not-Quite Justice after Never-Was War, 10

by Jock Yellott Spoliation claims from the loss ofcommercial shipping during the Quasi- Wtir with France linger on two hundred years later. A look at one unresolved case, handed down through the generations ofthe Yellott family, sheds light on maritime commerce and international relations during the confasing times of undeclared wars and questionable alliances.

26 Samuel Eliot Morison, He Stands for Things Too Important for the World to Lose, by Peter Stanford In the 20th century, Samuel Eliot Morison was our country's preeminent maritime historian. A prolific writer and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Morison was the true "Sailor-Historian. "NMHS President Emeritus Peter Stanford takes a look at the man in his times and how he changed American historiography.

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33 Maritime History on the Internet: Sharing Your Opinion with the World-Weblogs, Photoblogs, and Podcasts by Peter McCracken

Cover: "1he Old Man Comes Aboard, Norfolk" by Roger T ilton.

Original drawing, sketched aboard the tanker john D. Archbold in the summer of 1942 (See pages 10-15).

DEPARTMENTS 2

DECK LOG & LETTERS

6

NMHS:

A CAUSE IN MOTION

Sea History FOR Kms 34 MARINE ART NEWS

20

35

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

41 43 48

CALENDAR REVIEWS PATRONS

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26 SEA HISTORY (issn 0146-9312) is published quarterly by rhe National Mari rime Hisrorical Sociery, 5 John Walsh Blvd., PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566. Periodicals postage paid at Peekskill NY 10566 and add'! mailing offices.

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NATIONAL MARJTIME HISTORJCAL SOCIETY

DECK LOG Museum Boats as Artifacts: To Use or Not to Use

T

he Council of American Maritime Museums provides the personnel of our nation's maritime museums an invaluable yearly opportunity to meet colleagues and wrestle with universal concerns and issues. It also provides a unique opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the host museum.

The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, gateway to the Thousand Islands and the St. Lawrence Seaway, hosted the CAMM conference in September. The first night, attendees boarded one of the museum's three beautifully restored wooden boats, Zipper, Gadfly, and Teal, (below, left to right) and thundered down the river to Grindstone Island to experience a traditional 1,000 , Islands "shore dinner." The ~ conference allowed time to > row or sail the traditional St. ~~ Lawrence wooden skiffs and sailing skiffs. The museum ~ has long used its boats, its artifacts, on the water. This practice dictated the conference theme, which examined the use of museum boats in the water. Antique Boat Museum chief curator John Summers introduced this theme in his opening presentation. His talk was explicit and compelling, and I take the liberty to paraphrase.

It is a museum's mission to record and interpret the material culture of a society. Faced with the reality that a given institution can only preserve a limited number of artifacts, it makes hard choices every day. For a museum with boats in its collections, they must choose which vessels to restore and how they should be used. Visitors encouraged to use the boats on the water get an enhanced sense of the watercraft as part of the culture. From the smells and sounds to the feel and movement of a boat in the water, the visitor gains an unparalleled hands-on experience. I can attest to that as we rode over the night water in Gadfly.

Museums strike a balance between preserving their collections and using some of them for research and education. Material things, wooden boats especially, deteriorate with time. The Chris Craft Company told its dealers to expect a maximum service life of just six years from the double-planked bottoms of its runabouts. Though preservation itself is, in a way, an unnatural act, the Antique Boat Museum has found that using its boats requires regular maintenance, with the result that they are in better condition than if left as static exhibits.

Summers posed relevant questions: What does it mean for the Antique Boat Museum, as an institution concerned with perishable boats, to accelerate this process by keeping them in use? He explained that the museum acknowledges the transitory nature of maritime material culture, and, for them, use is the most natural course to follow. Nonetheless, conferees conceded that proper display of a tall ship is the most difficult situation. The whaleship Charles W Morgan at Mystic Seaport Museum presents an excellent example. Though she remains in the water, she is a static display. She is kept ready to go but never moves, which is the most demanding way to maintain a boat.

Museum boats that can be sailed, rowed, sculled, or towed enable the people who maintain and use them to preserve skills and knowledge, a goal as worthy as preserving artifacts. --BuRCHENAL GREEN, Executive Vice President

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NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLISHER'S CIRCLE: Perer Aron, Donald McGraw, William H. White OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman, Walter R. Brown; Vice Chairman, Richardo R. Lopes; Executive Vice President, Burchenal Green; Treasurer, Ronald L. Oswald; Secretary, Thomas F. Daly; Trustees, Pau l F. Balser, Donald M. Birney, David S. Fowler, Virginia Steele Grubb, Rodney N. Houghton, Steven W. Jon es, Richard M . Larrabee, Warren Leback, Guy E. C. Maitland, Karen Markoe, Michae 1 McKay, James ].

McNamara, Howard Slotnick, Bradford D. Smith, Philip]. Webster, William H . Wh ite; Chairmen Emeriti, Alan G. Choate, Guy E. C. Maitland, Craig A. C. Reynolds, Howard Slotnick; President Emeritus, Peter Stanford FOUNDER: Karl Kortum (1917- 1996) OVERSEERS: Chairman, RADM David C. Brown; Walter Cronkite, C live Cussler, Alan D. Hutchison, Jakob Isbra ndtse n, John Lehman, Warren Marr, II, Brian A. McAllister, John Stobart, William G. Winterer NMH S ADVISORS: Co-Chairmen, Frank 0. Braynard, Melbourne Smith; D. K. Abbass, Geo rge F. Bass, Fra ncis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Brett, RADM Jose ph F. Callo, Francis J. Duffy, John W. Ewald, T imothy Foote, W illiam Gilkerson, Thom as G illmer, Walter J. Handelman, Steven A. H yman, Hajo Knuttel, Gunn ar Lundeberg, Joseph A. Maggio, Conrad Milster, William G. Muller, David E. Perkins, Nancy Hughes Richardson, Shannon J. Wall SEA HISTORY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Chairman, T imothy ]. Runyan; No rman J. Brouwer, Robert Browning, William S. Dudley, Daniel Finamore, Kevin Foster, John 0. Jensen, Joseph F. Meany, Lisa Norling, Ca rla Rahn Phillips, Walter Rybka, Quinten Sned iker, William H. White

NMHS STAFF: Executive Director, Burchenal Green; Membership Director, Na ncy Schnaars; Director of M arketing, Steve LovassNagy; Marketing & Executive Assistant, Janet Miller; Accounting, Jill Romeo; Membership Assistant, Jane Maurice SEA HISTORY: Editor, Deirdre E. O 'Regan; Advertising Representative, Wendy Paggiotta; Sea Histo ry for Kids Editor, Myka-Lynne Sokoloff; Editor-at-Large, Peter Stanford

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

LETTERS Hungnam Evacuation of 1950 and the Military Sealift Command Your article on the contributions of the MSC is most timely (Sea H istory 11 2, Autumn 2005). In addition to deliverin g the goods, the MS C has also participated in many humanitarian operations. I served as the Staff Officer aboard SS M eredith Victory during the Korean War. Although operated by Moore-McC ormack Lines during that conflict, the ship was chartered to the N avy's Military Sea Transportati on Service (predecessor to MSC). We participated in the Inchon Landing, September 1950, where we landed elements of the 3 l st RCT, 7th Infantry Division , together with their tanks and equipment.

In D ecember 1950, we participated in the Hungnam Evacuation in North Korea, during the Chosin Reservoir Campaign.

Our rescue of 14,000 Korean refugees has been described as the greatest rescue by a single ship in history. The three-day transit to safety in South Korea sailed through enemy minefields. The officers and crew were later decorated with the Gall ant Ship Unit C itation and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation. Our captain, Leonard P. LaRue, left the sea at the end of the War and became a Benedictine monk, taking the name Brother Marinus. This successful humanitarian rescue by an MSTS ship sho uld never be forgotten .

J.

ROB ERT L U N NEY

ships to leave Hungnam , the Meredith Victory, set her course through enemy mine fields, and although having little food and water, and neither doctor nor interpreter, accomplished the three-day voyage to safety at Pusan with her hum an cargo, including several babies born en route, without loss of a single life .

11 2), say that Admi ral Villeneuve committed suicide on his return trip to Paris afte r being a prisoner in England. The facrs of the case make it obvious that Napoleon's age nts murdered him.

IRVING

c. SH ELD ON

Saunderstown, Rhode Island

I too think Napoleon had Villeneuve killed, but historians don't accept this as proven.

Since academia regularly ignores the great gap in human rights between traditional English freedoms and the paper Liberties of the French Revolution, I felt it best not to of fend them by identifjing Napoleon as a murderer. They'll be upset enough by my citing the spirit ofBritish crews, who felt they were fighting in freedom's cause, as the real force - Peter Stanford that won at Trafalgar.

Korean refagees crowd onboard SS M eredith Victory in December 1950.

The courage, resourcefuln ess, sound seamanship and teamwo rk of her mas ter, officers, and crew in successfully completing one of the greatest marine rescues in the history of the wo rld have caused the nam e of the Meredith Victory to be perpetuated as that of a Gallant Ship."

Murder at Sea? I was sorry to see Mr. Stanford, in his article, "Humani ty after Victory" (Sea H istory

Thomas Hoyne Oh, how I lo nged to get to Philadelphi a las t summer to see the exhibit of Thomas H oyne's paintings, but it was too fa r, I was too busy, and th e summer flew by too fas t.

Ir is my ho pe that this exhibit would travel across the co untry, but since it was not mentioned in the article, I am guessing that I missed my chance.

My grandfa ther had a very brief career in the fi sheries, j ust when the las t schooners were being phased o ut by the steel trawlers. H e talked abou t schoo ners th e way we mi ght talk of typewriters-

White Plains, New York

The Gallant Ship Citation Bar, A uthorized

by Public Law 398, 86TH CONGRESS, was awarded to Mr. Lunney in 1960. It reads: ''At the height of the epoch-making evacuation of Hungnam, Korea, by the U nited N ations Forces in D ecember, 1950, the Meredith Victory was requested to assist in the removal of Korean civilians trapped and threatened with death by the encircling enemy armies . Most of the military personnel had been pulled o ut, and the city was aflame from enemy gunfi re. D esp ite imminent danger of artillery and air attack, and while her escape route became mo re precarious by the ho ur, the Meredith Victory, her tanks full of jet fuel , held her position in the shell-tom harbo r until 14,000 men, women, and children had crowded into the ship. One of the las t

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

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LETTERS obsolete, inefficient pieces of equipmen t.

Thank goodness that so m any shipbuilders back then understood that practical needs could co-exist with pleasi ng fo rm and beauty. Today, if it's beautiful, chances are it doesn't pay its way.

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matter where they were. She retired from that service in 1981 and was sold to Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. -DO'R) LESTER BROWN

Roches ter, New York

S I LVA

Providence, Rhode Island

The H oyne exhibit displayed at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia was a one-time opportunity. If it surfaces in the future, Sea History will be sure to notify readers.

Sailing Yachts and Government Service The reference to the schoo ner Atlantic's service in WWII as a Coast G uard training ship (Sea History 11 2, page 38) reminded m e of the m any yach ts that were taken over by the government during the war. I served aboard USS Verna September/O ctober 194 1 as a merchant m arine trainee.

Merchant Marine trainees painting Verna's topsides at H offman Island, 1942.

(Verna, formerly the luxury schooner yacht Hussar, built for E. F H utton and Marjorie Meriweather Post, still sails today in the Caribbean in the passenger trade, renamed Mandalay. After her wartime service with the Coast Guard she was converted to a training ship for the US merchant marine, Losing her gold faucets and other luxury amenities from her yachting days. In 1953, she was purchased by Lamont-D oherty Earth Observatory and was converted once again, this time to a research vessel. In this capacity, she was the first ship to sail a million nautical miles collecting bathymetric and paleomagnetic data. Standing orders onboard Verna required the ship to stop twice daily to collect a wide range of samples, no 4

H.R. 23, "Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners ofWWII" In reference to th e letter in Sea H istory (Autumn 200 5) by C harles D ana G ibson, I wish to bring to yo ur attention certain facts which M r. Gibson fa ils to m ention.

Mr. Gibson's letter gives the impressio n that US m erchant mariners were given veteran status by an Administrative rulin g by the D epartm ent of D efense. This was done, in part, in 1977 bu t used a shorter time of service fo r mariners than fo r the US Armed Forces to qualify as veterans. M r. Gibson fails to mention, however, that merchant mariners were granted veterans status by the Veterans Enhancement Act of 1998, HR4 110, passed unanimo usly by the House of Representatives on 10 October 1998 and passed unanimously by the Senate on 21 October 1998 . It was signed into law (PL 105-368) by Pres ident Clinton on 11 N ovember 1998 . Senator Trent Lo tt was instrumental in getting this legislation passed by both houses of Congress. This law allowed merchant m ariners, whose sea time ma tched the same dates of service as those of the Armed Forces (namely, 7 December 194 1 to 3 1 D ecember 1946), to be considered ve terans. The benefits, however, were limited to burial benefits only, as compared to the liberal benefits granted to Armed Forces veterans by the G I Bill of Rights.

The US Navy gun crews aboard US merchant ships were immediately considered to be veterans at the end of World War II . We were all on the sam e ships, eating the same fo od, and going into

the sam e harm's way, and it has taken the US Government 53 years to recognize us as ve terans ofWWII (albeit with negligible benefits) . M erchant m ariners we re required to pay a fee of $30 to the D epartment of D efense, along with proof of sea time, to receive an honorable discharge certificate with a rubber-stamped statement on it indicating M erchant M arine service, issued by the US Coas t G uard.

Mr. Gi bson states in his letter that "the true and accurate story of the sacrifice and heroism of merchant m ariners and other civilian seam an are laurels enough and in no need of exaggeration." I believe merchant mariners have not received "laurels enough." Mr. G ibson, I believe, gave testimony before the Review Board of the D epartment of D efense opposing the granti ng of veterans status to mariners w ith the sam e dates of service as the Armed Forces . O f co urse, M r. G ibso n is entitled to his opinion , but when expressing them in a letter to NMHS, he sh ould bear the responsibility for stating all the fac ts, not just those which m eet with his approval.

Mr. T ilton's article in the summer issue of Sea History so ugh t to bring to the attention of readers a bill now before Congress (H. R. 23, "Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II"), which proposes to provide m onetary compensation to surviving m erchant marine veterans and their survivors.

WILLIAM 0. ScttwoEBEL Haverford, Pennsylvania Readers should no t be deflected from supporting H.R. 23, "Belated Thank Yo u to the M erchant Mariners of World War II" as a result of Charles Dana G ibson's criticism of my notice calling attention to this respected Bill (Sea History 111 , page 35) .

Th e m erit of this pro posed legislation does not hinge o n any statistical m anipulation of co mparative m ortali ty rates or on the historical record ofl egislative and administrative actions taken to address a perceived injustice. The primary issues commending continued support of H.R. 23 include: 1) oceangoing mariners of WWII sailed in harm's way, enduring a high risk of casualty; 2) fo llowing the war, they were denied ve teran status and all the benefits accruing thereto; 3) as a resul t of this neglect, SEA HISTORY I 13 , WIN TER 2005-2006

they and their spouses have been deprived of substantial long-term benefits, which would have been due them as veterans; 4) H.R. 23 is the current effort being promoted in Congress to retroactively restore recognition and provide some financial reimbursement for lost income by mariners or their surviving spouses as a result of their having been denied veteran status.

Mr. Gibson's own letter is not without errors with respect ro the two points with which he takes issue: 1) he misquotes the Bill, referring to the "Merchant Marine" of WWII rather than to the "Merchant Mariners .... " This leads him to his own form of statistical manipulation by suggesting that "total force" figures include "shoreside staff of the many private shipping companies," training programs, and other merchant marine activities-clearly not the selected population of oceangoing mariners identified in the Bill. In fact, he offers no statistics of his own to refute what he calls "an erroneous claim" on my part. Does he also challenge Rep. Bob Filner's comments to Congress, "Merchant Mariners suffered the highest casualty rate of any of

SEA HISTORY'S Guide to Maritime Programs & Cultural Sites in the New York Region

the branches of service; ... compared to the large number of men and women serving in WWII, the numbers of the Merchant Mariners were small, bur their chance of dying during service was extremely high.

Enemy forces sank over 800 ships between 1941 and 1944 alone." Statistical comparisons are beside the point; what matters is that uniformed service people who never came near an enemy received veteran status, while benefits were denied oceangoing merchant mariners, many of whom had to swim for their lives.

With regards to the Seaman's Act of 1988, Rep. Filner noted, "No legislation was passed by Congress until 1988 when the Seaman's Act of 1988 finally granted them watered down GI Bill of Rights.

Some portions of the GI Bill have never been available to veterans of the merchant marine." Mr. Gibson cites the GI Bill Improvement Act of 1977 leading to administrative reclassification and veterans' status for, among others, US Oceangoing Merchant Marine of WWII. If Public Law 95-202 in 1977 had corrected the injustice cited, then why was there need

for the 1988 Seaman's Act? What about the lost benefits incurred between the end of the war in 1945 and 1977? The present Bill before Congress is only the most recent manifestation of numerous prior Bills, which have been offered to correct clearly identified injustices visited on these merchant mariners. Mr. Gibson leaves us with the impression that they have been adequately recognized and compensated. I am not embarrassed, bur proud, to have helped to bring this to the attention of your readers.

ROGER TILTON

San Diego, California

For information on the Bill and its status, visit the Library of Congress's "Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet" web site at: http://thomas.loc.gov/ or Representative Filner's web site at: www.house.gov/jilnerl and do a search for "belated thank you. " We welcome your letters!

Write to: Editor, Sea History, 7 Timberknoll Road, Pocasset, MA 02559; e-mail: editorial@seahistory.org.

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NMHS: A CAUSE IN MOTION Wfiat a ga[af Wfiat a nigfitf

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hippers and shipbuilders, historians and authors, Navy and Coast Guard, maririme museum directors and curators, sailors and lovers of the sea and its heritage gathered together on a brisk night this past October at the glorious New York Yacht Club to pay homage to the Military Sealift Command's Admiral Brewer, author Nathaniel Philbrick, and publisher Donald McGraw.

In addition, chairman emeritus Howard Slotnick presented a special Bravo Zulu award to the men and women of the United States Coast Guard. This award honors their heroic and inspirational performance, in the finest tradition of the sea services, during the storm-related disasters on the Gulf Coast this past August-September. Vice Admiral Terry Cross proudly accepted the award on behalf of these service men and women. Rear Admiral Robert Papp shared a dynamic video of the Coast Guard at work in New Orleans.

In his chairman's remarks, Walter Brown reminded guests that the National Maritime Historical Society is the single best institutional vehicle in the co untry Nathaniel Philbrick accepts the James Monroe/ to spread the word abo ut preRobert G. Albion Award for excellence in serving our maritime heritage. historiography from Bill White.

Interest in maritime topics is on the rise. This is evidenced by the number of major films and popular books with a maritime theme, which have been produced in the last few years. In addition, new replica vessels, such as Sultana and Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay, are being planned for and built across the country. Historic vessels, Coronet in Newport, RI, and Roann at Mystic Seaport, for example, are being restored.

Maritime museums are bei ng built and expanded. The sail training industry keeps growing, and tall ship regattas are (above) Captain Jim McNamara presents the flourishing. Never has Society's Distinguished Service Award to Vice the work of the NationAdmiral David Brewer, US Navy, Commander, al Maritime Historical Military Sealift Command, in recognition of his Society as our national leadership in effectively utilizing America's Mervoice been more needed chant Marine to transport equipment, foe!, supthan it is today. plies, ammunition, and troop support in war and -Burchenal Green to deliver aid in times ofdisaster.

(above) A packed house listens to the presentation of awards. Each speaker was excellent and the guests left enthralled, encouraged, and inspired. (left) Though nearly impossible to drag everyone you need away from their conversations at the same time, Dinner Chairman David Fowler was able to round up most of his committee to join him for a picture. From left: Martin Toyen, Paul Balser, Howard Slotnick, Richardo Lopes, Jakob lsbrandtsen, Brian McAllister, Clay Maitland, Peter Finnerty, James Baker, Bob Kamm, David Fowler, john McDonald, Ronald Oswald, Philip Webster, Bradford Smith, James McNamara, Richard du Moulin, and NMHS Chairman Walter Brown.

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SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

OceanBound for History: School Teachers Trade the Classroom for a Ship

by Hamilton Moore

O

ceanBound for History, a new program offered by the National M aririme Hisrorical Sociery and O cean Classroom Foundarion, and nexr year in conjunction with Mysric Seaporr Museum,

role in rhe American srory. The program educarors used Westward as a reaching plarform ro hold sessio ns abo ur rhe iniriarion experience, technology at sea, and rhe marerial culrure of rhe sailing ship.

Parricipanrs joined Westward in Rockl and, M aine, and ser sail rhe foll owing mo rning. Mos r of rhe week was spenr sailing in Penobsco r Bay with visirs ro O urward Bo und's Hurricane Island and N arhaniel W ilson's wo rking, rradirion al sail lofr in Easr Boorhbay, M aine. In addirio n ro rheir academic requiremenrs, rhe

focus o n how the seemingly-isolared m aritime hisrories that rhey discover on their voyage played an important role in the overall development of the United States.

Hamilton Moore is the Education Director fo r Ocean Classroom Foundation.

'1 got a chance to shoot the sun, climb as high as I dared in the rig, steer a 125-foot ship, and see the stars on night watch in a clear Maine sky! I found this trip very helpful in understanding life at sea and American maritime history. " -Robert Esty, The Barrie School Silver Spring, Maryland

r:-"'::'."!""":::11---~~~~,

gor underway in Augusr w irh a crew of green Ameri can hisrory reachers from across rhe counrry guided by professio nal sailing crew. With rhe goal of gerting reachers ro learn and recognize the inregral pan mari time hisrory has played in rhe hisrory of o ur nation as a whole, and thus inco rpo rate rhese ropics in their own class room curricula, rhe program immersed rhe reachers- turnedstudenrs/sailors in full operario n of rhe 125-fo o t sreel stays' ! schooner Westward.

D aily classes and discussions on a va riery of maritime copies were held underway, developed and led by Dr. G lenn Go rdini er of Mys tic Seaporr's Munso n Institute and assisted by Richard Kin g of the U nive rsiry of St Andrews, Scotland.

The 2005 OceanBound for H istory program proved a rremendous success for irs inaugural voyage. Twenry- three hisrory reachers were selecred for the week-long program, represenring both independent and public schools. Some were experienced sailors; ochers had never been on a boat. These m en and women are educarors will ing ro open rheir minds ro new aspects of American hisrory and willing ro push rhemselves physical ly in the unfamiliar wo rld of shipboard life-all fo r their students back in the class room at ho me.

Topics fo r on board seminars we re chosen ro introduce teachers ro the maririme

teachers were fully immersed in the ship's operario ns as apprentice crewm embers. They rook cricks at rhe helm , learned bas ic navigation and marlinspike seam anship, tacked, gybed, and even assisred the cook in rhe galley.

W ith rhe guidance of the program leaders, each teacher submitted a mini-curriculum focused on maritime hisrory after they rerurned home. These curricula have been collected and shared wirhin the group and added ro a database ar Ocean C lass room Foundarion. With continued successful programs in rhe coming years, rhis collecrion will grow and offer an invaluable resource ro other teachers working ro incorporate maritime hisrory into rheir curricula.

Next year's program will agai n take place aboard schooner Westward, this time sailing our of Mysric Seaport with selecred port srops relevanr ro o n board discussions of maririm e hisrory. The curriculum will

CALL FOR APPLICANTS OceanBound fo r History is open ro acrive teachers of American hisrory ar the middle and high school level. Up ro 23 teacherparticipants will be accepted through a comperitive application process. The 7day program, 7- 13 Augusr 2006, is free of charge and includes all instruction plus roo m and board . A $95 processing fee is requi red with acceprance. For more in fo rmation and ro requesr an applicarion, co nracr Ocean Classroom Fdn. , 23 Bay St. , Watch Hill, RI, 0289 1, 1-800-724-7245, e-mail :

OBITUARIES: Off to Fiddler's Green Marshall Streibert (1938-2005) Marshall Srreiberc, secretary and trustee of the National Maritime Historical Society, died of cancer on 4 August at his home in Water Mill, New York. A sofrspoken person of strongly held convictions and a wry sense of humor, his career in maritime history was launched in the early 1970s when NMHS founder Karl Kortum and I interviewed him for the job of Development Director at the Bedgling South Street Seaport Museum. A graduate of Yale University, at the time he was professional fundraiser working for charities devoted to improving the lives of inner city youth. He brought the sense of dedicated public service South Street Seaport was looking for and was hired on the spot. He soon raised funds to put our ambitious plans on a solid basis, enabling the museum to master the huge costs of acquiring three blocks of Lower Manhattan real estate in 1973 under the leadership of founding chairman Jakob Is brand tsen. After working for Operation Sail 1976, he resumed his professional work for urban charities, while he did extensive volunteer work for NMHS. As an NMHS trustee for fourteen years, his counsels, quietly offered, carried weight with all. He left this world with his devoted wife Laurel and son Nathaniel at his side, and he left it the better for what he did for the things he believed in. -Peter Stanford

Captain Lane Briggs (1932-2005) Lane Briggs died on 19 September, and the tugboat Beet in the Chesapeake Bew their Bags at half mast to spread the word and honor his memory. Captain Briggs inspired at least two generations of mariners, including his sons and grandchildren, but also hundreds of 'adoptees' influenced by his passion and commitment to seamanship, his leadership, generosity, and salty charisma. As a founder of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, Captain Briggs spearheaded the largest point-to-point schooner race in the world, raising tens of thousands of dollars for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. His enterprises and innovations were many-for decades he ran Rebel Marine Service, one of the most successful salvage companies in the Chesapeake Bay. He was best known as master of the "rugantine" Norfolk Rebel, a sail-assisted rug he built at the height of the oil crisis of the early eighties to use wind power to conserve fuel. He used Norfolk Rebel for towing, commercial fishing, salvage work, and even some cargo. In 1984 onboard Norfolk Rebel, h e circumnavigated Virginia via the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, appearing as an attraction at the New Orleans Worlds Fair. Captain Briggs was widely known in the world of schooners and tall ships. In 2001, Captain Briggs received the coveted American Sail Training Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Townsend Hornor (1927-2005) A past trustee and forever friend of NMHS, Townsend Hornor died from cancer on 11 September in his home in Ostervi lle, Massachusetts. He served in the US Naval Reserves during World War II and graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in colonial and maritime history. At Harvard he studied under and worked for Samuel Eliot Morison. Townie worked in corporate finance in New York and Boston. He was former chairman of the board of the Naval War College Foundation, Cape Cod Hospital, Sea Education Association, and the Cape & Islands United Way. He was an honorary corporation member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Bermuda Biological Station for Scientific Research. He and his late wife Elizabeth founded the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.

Townie was a passionate sailor and had a deep respect for the ocean and everything that connected to it, both in science and history as is indicated in the organizations with which he had an affiliation. To NMHS, he brought this passion for sailing and the sea and his sure touch for non-profit management to strengthen our work in education under sail-with verve, humor, and joy in the work. He was also a frequent and valued book reviewer for Sea History.

8

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

Captain Joe Ross Gerson, USMS, Ret., (1927-2005) Captain Joe Ross Gerson died on 2 August. A native of Detroit, he was placed in several foster homes as well as the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum fo llowing the death of his mother. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the United States Merchant Marine and then attended and grad uated from the New York State Maritime Academy at Fort Schuyler and Wayne State University of Deuoit. Joe Gerson often said that Fon Schuyler gave him a direction and a life he never could have imagined. He wanted to help other cadets succeed as he had and supported the Society in giving NMHS memberships to all Fort Schuyler cadets.

His distinguished export career included Platka Export and Gerson International, an automotive export management company, for which he was awarded the prestigious President's "E" Star Award for "Excellence in Export." Later, he formed the Hydrus Corporation, overseeing the work of the Valiant Foundation, established to fund philanthropic causes worldwide. In 1999 he was conferred a Doctor of Letters by the State University of New York Maritime College, which had awarded him its Alumnus of the Year Award eight years earlier. The Alumni Association awarded him its highest honor, the Order of St. Mary's Medal in 2002 . His efforts set the stage for the founding of major maritime industry museums at Fort Schuyler, Wayne State, and Tampa. He was Chairman of the Indiana Port Commission Marketing Committee and President of the Indiana International Seafarers' Center at Burns Harbor on Lake Michigan. The Gove rnor oflndiana named him a "Sagamore of the Wabash", the highest honor the State can bestow. Joe Gerson was an outspoken advocate for a strong US industrial base, fair-free trade, and a vibrant American merchant marine.

Marine Engineering + Naval Architecture Industrial Power + Environmental Solutions

+ +

PO Box 965, Essex, CT 06426 Tel: (860) 767-9061- Fax: (860) 767-1263 www.seaworthysys.com ISO 9001:2000 Washington, DC - Philadelphia, PA San Francisco, CA

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

9

I

t was June 1942, the month when more commercial shipping was sunk than any other time in history. Of course, I didn't know this at the time; I thought it would be really cool to ship out. I had heard the Siren's song that a footloose eighteen-yearold couldn't resist: "WANTED-Sailors for the Merchant Marine. No experience necessary. High pay. Immediate berths

of our money, precious documents, and proof of identity, either in life or death.

Next, I assembled my seagoing kit. Leather-faced gloves with high cuffs would be essential for handling thorny, four-inch hawsers. I developed a particular fondness for my new yellow oi lskins, complete with a broad-brimmed sou'wester hat, for the pungent aroma they imparted to every-

constant replenishment with quarts of water and quantities of electrolyte-replacing salt tablets. Soaked with sweat, black with oil, eyes red and stinging, we were like phantoms from some Kafkaesque hell. As the days wore on, the crew sloped off until only rwo of us remained to wipe down the bunker oil tanks with rags. Situated just forward of the boiler room, the heat

I had heard the Siren's song that a footloose eighteen-year-old couldn't resist:

"WANTED - Sailors for the Merchant Marine.

No experience necessary. High pay.

Immediate berths on worldwide ships. "

SIGN UP TO¡DAY.'

U.S.Maritime Service 321 CHESTNUT ST.¡ PHILADELPHIA.PA.

on worldwide ships. Apply... " etc. Daily headlines and broadcasts had been reporting the domination of Hider's wolfpacks in the Battle of the Atlantic. Shipping on our eastern seaboard had come to a virtual standstill, and the campaign in Europe was desperate for supplies. Feeling patriotic, adventuresome, and immortal, I answered The Call on a hot, steamy afternoon in Baltimore, Maryland. In no time I was hustled through the red-tape, fingerprinting, and photography required to obtain seaman's papers. With their gilded print, "Seaman's Identification - US Department of Commerce," and illustrated with the golden image of a liner steaming gallantly over the main, these papers were impressive just to look at. I proudly enshrined them in a stiff, new leather wallet. These wallets were masterpieces made with clear plastic pockets and business-like compartments, all secured by a button tab.

Chained to one's belt and stowed in a hip pocket, they were the inseparable keepers

thing else in the sea-bag.

I was eager to embark. Hurry up and wait; no ship was available. To fill the time while waiting, I signed up for what must be one of the dirtiest jobs on earthcleaning out tankers' cargo holds. After a ship has been unloaded, its ranks are steam cleaned with high-pressure nozzles in a process called "butterworthing." After the wash water has been pumped out, a gooey residue of tar, sand, and rust clings to the bottom of the tank and must be laboriously scooped o ut with a trowel. Visualize a work site at the bottom of a cavernous, gloomy space, accessible by ladder, lit only by a shaft of sunlight coming through a small hatch some thirty feet above. Add the infernal temperature and humidity of summer sun on steel plates, and you should begin to get the picture. As each bucket of sludge was hoisted up, it would swing into the ladder, showering the wretches below with oily slop. Sweat streamed off our bodies in rivulets, requiring

in these fuel spaces made the cargo tanks seem cool by comparison.

My time in purgatory finally came to an end with my assignment to a ship ready to depart. She was the Standard Oil Company's john D. Archbold, named after John D. Rockefeller's right-hand man. At the time of her launch in 1921, she was the largest tanker in the world; 572 feet long, 75 feet wide, 14,055 lbs displacement, and a speed of 10. 75 knots. The ship was under charter to the War Shipping Administration. Standard Oil had its own company union; there was no problem with my signing the Ship's Articles and joining the crew.

My watch section shared a compartment furnished with half a dozen tiered bunks. When I entered, I was greeted by one of the most memorable characters of my life. "Blackie" was of medium build, with a friendly, bright smile that blazed across his swarthy face like Douglas Fairbanks in a pirate movie. He welcomed me

SS john D. Archbold

to know about shipboard routines, shipmates, meals, women, politics, and even vaster subjects about which he seemed to have an unlimited store of knowledge.

What made him cosmically unique, however, was his reconstruction of the English language. Two words were rarely ever spoken together without the interjection of a certain four-letter word (!#&*), which, in his usage, became noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, connective, or punctuation mark. Thus, "We!#&* better !#&* eat!#&* now before we !#&* have to !#&* go on !#&* watch." When four letters were insufficient, he would creatively add prefixes or suffixes to further expand this one word vocabulary. Thus "!#&*ing" or "mega!#&*" and sim ilar constructs could be heard enriching his personal lexicon. My new shipmate's overuse of this

once-useful profanity reduced it to an everyday term, years before Mario Savio and Ali McGraw introduced it on campus and into movies, completing its socialization and reducing it to meaninglessness.

One by one the other crewmen drifted in, absorbed in their own thoughts. They accepted me as they would another seagull on a buoy, just another denizen of the marine environment. We were all called on deck to cast off, and my crisp new gloves were immediately broken in by the punishing dock lines.

The sun was setting out, leaving Baltimore to dissolve in the sweltering haze astern. The ship resonated with the syncopated throb of the engines and the rhythmic thrash of the partiallysubmerged propellers. We were underway, glad to be off the dock and wondering what

Roger Tilton packed a sketch book and pencils among the precious few items he couldfit in his seabagfor his first voyage as a merchant seaman.

The sketches presented throughout this article were drawn by the author between 25 June and 11July1942 onboard SS John D. Archbold.

lay ahead . Sometim e later in the night, a shadowy figure with a flashligh t ro used us, "Time to go o n watch! " On deck, the starfilled night and cool breeze were a welco me relief from the oppress ive heat of the days befo re in po rt. Wo rki ng our way fo rward on the catwalk, the bow watch rook up its srarion on the fo' c'slehead with the C hesapeake Bay spread out before and a thin slive r of low-lying land far off to port. U p fo rward, the sounds of the engines we re mu ted, giving way to the soft m urmu r of the bow wave curling off as tern . W hen our watch was relieved, sleep came easily.

M orning fo und us quietly at anchor.

Emerging on deck we were asto unded to see a vas t armada of ships surro unding us in every direction . Ir suddenly becam e clear why there had been such a long wait for a ship in Baltimore. 111ey had all been gathered to form one of the firs t convoys o n the east coast. For months, Ge rman submarines, ab le to reach speeds of 1520 kn o ts o n the surface and 6-8 knots submerged, had steadily in creased their kill rates from a daily average of 10,000 to ns in January 1942 to 20-25,000 to ns

by M ay-June. Ir had become suicidal fo r any shi p to venture alone along our eastern seaboard. (For some time rransAdantic convoys had been shepherding su pplies to G reat Britain and Russia. Several of the crew on our ship had been on these runs, and some had suffered the freezing Arctic waters as a res ult ofU -Boar action.) From now on, coasrwise shipping wo uld enjoy the protectio n of aircraft and wa rships as they traveled in convoys. We had been collected together at H amp ton Roads, waiting to venture out in to the submarine-infested Atlantic. We were each issued black

suits, developed to increase chances of survival in the frigid waters of the M urmansk run.

In addition to flotatio n, these outfits were equipped with flashlights, whistles, and other gadgets to help attract attention in the water. Resolutely dorky, they seemed

O f The Submarine" approached. U-Boats preferred dusk-to-daw n operati ons, when ships could be silhouetted against a moonlit sky o r careless lights ashore. Under the protection of o ur escort, we fel t relatively safe, but the di rigible was soon left behind.

We began to hea r th e resounding thud of

out of place in the warm waters we wo uld encounter and naturally became obj ects of cri tique, awe, and toleratio n.

On a sunny, clear mo rni ng we were ordered to weigh anchor and take our positio n in the convoy. As we sallied fo rth from C hesapeake Bay in to the Atlanti c Ocean, we we re m et by patrol craft, Catalina flying boats, and a dirigible, all watching fo r the telltale dark shapes of sub ma rines against the light sea floor. We gambled that a wa ry U-Boat skipper wo uld not risk exposure in broad dayligh t. Nonetheless, as we headed south the sun began to sink and "The Time

depth charges echoing in our emp ty holds as the patrol craft began to attack a Ge rman wolfpack, which had been waiting for us off the mouth of the C hesapeake.

The co nvoy steamed south, passing fro m one search zo ne to the next, our Navy gun crew always alert. We hugged the shallow waters close to shore, steaming through occasional rain squalls. These squalls could drench one end of the ship while the other was still bas king in the sun. Watch du ties included standing tricks at the helm . Steering this mo nster floating oil tank from the p ilothouse high amidships proved m ore

"The Convoy Brood" by AdolfDehn, Watercolor, 1943 A component of convoy escorts, the Navy's dirigibles escorted convoys near the US coast. From 1942 to 1944, airship military personnel grew from 430 to 12, 400. Between 1942 and 1945, Goodyear built 154 airships for the US Navy.

They also served as organization centers for the convoys to direct ship movements. Hovering above the shipping lanes, airship crews could spot the dark shapes of submarines contrasted against the sea floor in the bright of day.

of a challenge than I had anticipated. I'd been advised to pay close attention to the first signs of straying off course, then immediately counteract it with a compensating turn of the wheel. Minutes could elapse before the ship would show evidence of a shift in its rudder. By then, the ship might already be comm itted to a wild swing in the wrong direction . This could only be forestalled by initiating a countercorrection at what one hoped would be the propitious moment. Blackie had his own way of scolding the errant leviathan into behaving. The rest of us, lacking his experience and powers of persuasion, had to bear the ignominy of carving highly visible "S" curves in our track, praying that the watch officer wouldn't notice.

At the day's end, as The Time Of The Submarine approached, the off-dury watch would collect on the fantail to mull over topics large and small, survival at sea being among the more imperative: "This ain't li ke the Murmansk run. We couldn't see nothing-no planes, DEs, nothing. Then BOOM!- we takes a fish right in the rudder- " "You mean, like, right here, where

we're sitting?" "You bet your sweet ass it was. All's we could do was carve circles, round and around. The only good thing about it was the sub-he never could get us lined up again for another shot!" Sooner or later the conversation would work aro und to an examination of our present predicament, "Ir's hotter than hell down there in the compartment." "Yeal1, I'm sleeping on deck." "But what about the rain? Can't sleep in the rain!" "Hell!, just put

land. Fire amidships, so some of the guys took off over the rail, some even afire. The ship kept on a-go ing for another mile. We got a boat over and went back looking for the guys who'd jumped. Never did find 'em." Blackie summed it all up: "The!#&* moral is !#&*ing stay with the !#&*ing ship as !#&*ing long as !#&*ing possible! " To which everyone nodded, Amen. "Well,

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on rubber-ducky thatyour way you'll be all setsuitwhen you're blown overboard." "Not me!

I'm sticking with one a them oldfashioned cork preservers." ''Are you nuts? You jump overboard with one of them things on, they come up under your chin and knock you out cold ." "Nothing. You're better off with nothing on. That way you can dive down and swim away under the burning oil! " "Ha ha ha! We ain't picked up any oil yet." "No? So, we're empty. What d'ya think then? Empty holds blow up like KA-blooey!" "We was hit off Scot-

Commissioned in 1943, U-995 is a Type VII submarine, the largest class constructed by Germany during the war. In World Wtlr fl U-Boats sank approximately 2, 778 ships, with nearly 90% of that number sunk in the Atlantic. 1 One of two surviving U-Boats, U-995 is on display in Laboe, Germany, supported in a concrete cradle on shore.

Closer to home, U-505 is on display at the Museum ofScience and Industry in Chicago.

1 'U-995: Wtlr at Sea" by Eric Dietrich Berryman, PhD; Historic Naval Ships Association We>b Site: www.hnsa.org.

you guys can bullshit all night. Me? I'm turning in below. Screw the torpedoes!"

We steamed on, never far from land (the skipper planned to beach the ship in the event we were hit). The coast of Florida dragged by "500 miles long and rwo feet high." Always, the aircraft and escort ships were somewhere in sight. Nonetheless, the convoy disbanded when we reached Key West. Thereafter, individual ships were to proceed on their own ro destinations in Africa, South America, or wesrward to the southern United States. We arrived as night fell, so the skipper opted to anchor and wait for full daylight before continuing.

This meant we would spend the night over a minefield set to discourage U-Boat predators. The fantail sleep experts had a field day discussing the dubiously "safe" aspects of sleeping over tons of submerged TNT versus taking our chances with enemy submarines. Our anchor clattered out, and an uncharacteristic silence fell over the ship as the engineers secured the steam plant. The pilothouse was kept dark and quiet, except for the occasional chatter of radio traffic filtering out of the wireless room. Some of the other ships from the convoy appeared to be continuing on alone rather than lose time at anchor off Key West. The night wore on uneventfully. Sudden ly, during midwatch, the radio screamed to life with a frantic SOS from one of the first impatient ships that continued wesrward through the night. Even as a rescue effort was being mounted, within a half hour, rwo more vessels broadcasted SOS's-ships traveling in the same direction we would follow just a few hours later.

For the remainder of the night, all ears were glued to the reports of fires, sinkings, and urgent rescue efforts. Well after first light, we weighed anchor and headed west, alone. The old hands who had been critical of our skipper's decision to risk the ship by anchoring in a minefield now stayed quiet. Blackie, in his characteristic way, marveled at the skipper's prescience in picking the minefield as the lesser of t-wo evils, one of which we still had to confront.

With a blazing sun and glassy, clear water, no submarine would risk detection while search and rescue craft might still be roam-

ing about. By ten o'clock in the morning, we encountered the first of three broad oil slicks marking the graves of last night's victims. The rescuers were long gone, but the iridescent sea was still littered with a melange of crates, bedding, ship's gear, and lifejackets. The usually vocal crew fell strangely silent in the face of this sobering evidence. Well before rwilight, the Old Man saw to it that we were safely tucked into the harbor at Mobile, Alabama. From that day forward, we traveled only during the hours of high daylight, creeping along the shore in as shallow water as our draft permitted. The next day we ducked into the mouth of the Mississippi River, south of New Orleans. Finally, wearrived at Corpus Christi, Texas, our destination. After tugboats maneuvered us to the loading dock, the captain ordered the engines all-stop, and we prepared to take on oil. Our skipper, Frans G. M . Anderson, had, through his prudence, outwitted the U-Boat commanders

(left) United States tanker Byro n T. Benso n burns after being torpedoed by U-552 on 5 April 1942.

German submariners called 1942 "the happy time."

U-boats sank more than 600 Allied ships in the first nine months of that year, nearly one quarter of the total shipping sunk by U-boats during the entire war.

SS john D. Archbold would continue on througho ut the war, ferrying oil to G lasgow, Scodand, and Thames Haven, England. When the war ended in Europe, she picked up cargoes in C ura<;:ao and Venezuela and carried them by way of the Panama Canal to the far reaches of the Pacific war zone. On her return trips, with her tanks carefully cleaned, she wo uld load fresh wate r at Gatun Lake, Panama Canal, and carry it ro thirsty C ura<;:ao.

By the time the war ended in 1945, SS Archbold had transported seventy total cargoes, comprising 9 ,99 1,513 barrels. In 1949 she was sold into Panamanian Registry, and, since then, I've lost track of her.

My voyage ended on 11July 1942, when I was discharged in Corpus C hristi. Th ough I transferred into the Navy, I have never forgotten Blacki e and the other merchant

mariners who unremarkably risked their lives at sea during World War II. Some people may have overlooked their service; others have eulogized the character of their generation, as though it were som ething unique and remarkable.

I believe these stoic old shellbacks would never co nsider what they did in the least bit noteworthy. In their after-chow ruminations on the fantails of thei r ships, they wo uld probably not think it a topic worthy of discussio n. J,

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Roger Tilton served as an Ordinary Seaman in the US Merchant Marine between 25 June and 11July1942. He then transferred to the Navy, where he servedfrom 1943-46, Lt. (jg) USNR. A graduate of Stanford University, he also earned an MA from Columbia University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. He has been a motion picture producer/director for fifty years and currently serves as a member of the sailing crew of the 1863 barque Sta r of India, owned by the San Diego Maritime Museum.

Not-Quite justice After Never-ITTis ITTir: A French Spoliation Case from the Quasi-War

by Jock Yellott hen Captain Jeremiah Yellott died in Baltimore in 1805, his last will and testament bequeathed to his heirs several unresolved claims arising out of French privateering.

Following the fate of one of Yellott's captured vessels, the schooner Mary, offers a glimpse of the complexities of the QuasiWar with France and the ensuing litigation, which lasted well over a century.

The Quasi-War was, in part, French retribution for American ingratitude. The new United States owed its independence largely to French financial and military support, particularly the arrival at the crucial moment of the French fleet off Yorktown. In 1778, during the Revolutionary War, and again immediately afterward in 1782, the United States had signed treaties guaranteeing France increased trade, protection of their colonial possessions, and safe transit for their vessels. Only a decade later, we began to renege.

Instead, we took up again with their perennial adversaries-the English. By the 1790s our lucrative cotton and tobacco trades had returned to their customary channels, with the French largely excluded.

We did nothing to discourage British depredations upon French colonial possessions (which then included Santo Domingo, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, Deseada, Marie-Galante, Grenada in the West Indies, a colony on the mainland at Cayenne, and the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland). English privateers, preying on French shipping, were welcome in American ports. John Jay's Treaty of 1794, promising cordial relations with Great Britain, was the last straw for France.

In the mid- l 790s French privateers began cruising under letters of marque and reprisal. Though the letters of marque were theoretically valid only against their English enemy, the French started to seize neutral American vessels as well. The increasingly effective British blockade of French ports on the continent and in the Caribbean made American cargoes of foodstuffs particularly tempting. For these reasons, and as a rebuke and warning, the French government found it expedient to look the other way as their privateers swarmed against American shipping.

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16

Without a formal declaration of war, however, French prize courts resorted to mendacity to maintain the pretense of comporting with international law. US Secretary of State T imothy Pickering reported to Congress in June 1797 that the "monstrous abuse of judicial proceedings," included "frauds, and falsehoods, as well as flimsy and shameless pretexts." The French aurhorities often condemned vessels be-

tempted sailors with bribes "to swear falsely" that they carried English cargo, and if "bribes were refused and threats despised ... endeavor[ed] to accomplish the object

by TORTURE" [emphasis in original].

The French tortured Captain Martin of the Baltimore schooner Cincinnatus for three hours with thumbscrews to extract a confession that his vessel carried English contraband. He successfully resisted, and

"Watercolor ofthe American ship Betsey ofPhiladelphia. The scene depicts Betsey, under the command of Captain j. Risbrough, being attacked by seven French privateers in 1797 Note: this is not the same Betsey mentioned in this article. There are records ofat least a dozen different vessels named ''Betsey" having been captured in this time period. Clearly, it was not an uncommon scene in the shipping lanes ofthe Atlantic and Caribbean. artist unknown.

cause of imaginary defects in ship's papers, bills oflading, or "the want of or informality in a cenified list of passengers and crew" (called a role d'equipage). Other US records assert the thin excuses included: "the ship's compass showed an English brand, or the cooking utensils were of English manufacture," or "the American flag carried only 14 stars instead of 15 ."

In Guadeloupe, where judges took shares in prizes-so the result was never in doubt-Secretary Pickering reported that American sailors were routinely "beaten, insulted and cruelly imprisoned," stripped of money and clothing, and held incommunicado to prevent their appearance in court to mount a defense. The French

"the marks of the torturing screws will go with him to his grave." 1he French treated Captain William Burgess, master of the schooner Juno, "like a dog," starved and abused him to such an extem that he finally died (H. Doc. 362, 60th Congress, 1st Session).

Several cases were filed in Claims Court regarding neutral ships forfeited because an American vessel allegedly carried enemy crew. In the case of the schooner Conrad, Joseph Osborn, Master, the Claims Court noted that a gentleman named "Comad Eiselen, supercargo and one of the owners of the said vessel, according to his own avowel, is a native of Germany, and carried with him no proof of SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

"It is difficult to ascertain now which of the two belligerents, the British foe or the French friend, made Curacr~w smart most." his naturalization as an American citizen."

The French prize court ignored the register onboard that documented that Eiselen was a US citizen and one of the owners of the vessel; they condemned the vessel. In the case of the schooners Nancy and Vandeput, the owner was originally a subject of Great Bri tain, and "no evidence of his naturalization was produced before the prize court," so the French condemned both vessels.

Cases of imprisonment and abuse were not uncommon. The Claims Court, however, refused to award dam ages for personal injuries and limited itself only to property dam age for vessels and cargoes. M as ters of seized vessels were imprisoned primarily to deny them the opportuni ty to appear before the tribunal in their own defense. In some examples, crew were taken off their vessel and put on a slower boat, so when they finally arrived, long after the prize crew, the court had already adjudicated the condemnation. In a report by the US Representative in France, (later Secretary of State) Timothy Pickering, he complained that captured American vessels were being tried in prize courts "on the most frivolous and shameful pretenses."

As French privateers began to take a serious toll on American commerce, Congress authorized the creation of a navy.

Captain Jeremiah Yellott, a prominent Baltimore merchant who had made his fo rtune as a privateer during the American Revolution, was asked to serve as a

"Timothy Pickering, 1745-1829" by Charles Willson Peale. Pickering repeatedly warned Congress that French p rivateering and prize court proceedings amounted to legalized piracy and would, if unchecked, destroy all US international commerce.

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

Dr. Johan Hartog, in Curafao: From Colonial Dependence to Autonomy, l 968 .

US Naval Agent in Baltimore. H e supervised the construction of the fri gate Constellation (and wo uld later oversee the building of the successful naval schooners Experiment and Enterprize) . Even as USS Constellation put to sea, Congress still was hoping to preserve a fo rmal neutrality to keep our yo ung nation out of European squabbles.

Like the French , we never actually declared war. This period of desultory half-measures became known as the Quasi-War, and both Captain Yellott's naval and commercial vessels would soon be caught in the thick of it.

Secretary of State James M adison submitted this fo rmal complaint to Batavian Republic representative Roger Gerard van Polanen, 30 June 1802: "Sir: The ship Mary, belonging to Mr. Jeremi-

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In Baltimore, nearly 1,800 nautical miles from Curarao, Jeremiah Yellott was hardly in a p osition to communicate with his captain or the tribunal regarding the f ate ofhis vessel.

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ah Yellott ofBaltimore, whereofIsaac Phillips was master, was, with a very valuable cargo, captured on the 4th of February 1800 by French privateers & carried into Curafao. As the ship was bound from Batavia, a D utch port, to Baltimore, a neutral port, restitution was due .... " Due, yes, but not forthcoming. The Batavian Republic was a shortlived revolutionary government, which had taken over the Netherlands in 1795 .

At the time, Holland and France were at war, but after French forces arrived (not so much invaded as simply arrived; they were welcomed by cheering crowds and celebrations), the Dutch had changed sides.

The consequence was chaos, flux, and upheaval, especially in the governments of far-flung Dutch colonies like Curai;:ao, then a bleak, nearly waterless island about thirty miles offshore of Venezuela, but one which possessed the largest natural harbor in that part of the wo rld. Officially, the Baravians were French allies, bur, in reality, they were adversaries. While France occupied the Netherlands in Europe, in the Caribbean theater, they began using Curai;:ao's harbor in Willemstad as a naval port. As a result, English ships blockaded the island, as they were still at war with France. Curai;:ao owed its precarious economic existence to shi pping, which French privateers and the English blockade threat-

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ened. The French put an armed contingent on the island and installed Johan Rudolf Lauffer, a French sympathizer, as Director of C urai;:ao's governing Council.

Into this m aelstrom of clashing factions, a prize crew from the French privateer Renommee sailed the captured Baltimore schooner M ary, with Jeremiah Yellott's cargo of 600,000 pounds of coffee and some indigo, on 4 February 1800.

To protect their commerce with the Americans, the gove rnment of the Batavian Republic had passed a law in 1798 , the Proclamation of the Intermediate Executive Power, rendering captors of any neutral vessel bound from one Dutch port to ano ther liable fo r res titution and a fine.

Mary had been bound from a Dutch port to Baltimore, carrying a cargo of coffee from Java which then also belonged to the Dutch. Mary's captain, Isaac Phillips, argued that the law applied, and M ary should be released immediately and a penalty paid fo r her detention.

Almost simultaneously, a battered French frigate made port at C urai;:ao's harbor, further ro iling the already troubled waters. This was La Vengeance under Captain Citizen F. M . Pitot, limping in with her spars in splinters after her brutal enco unter with USS Constellation under Thomas Truxto n. Three days before Mary 17

They begged him to chase out the was brought into Curas;ao, Trux"ferocious gang of robbers layton sighted La Vengeance off Guaing siege to us." La Vengeance was deloupe. The chase and exchange T fo rced to rnrn and flee to northof fire that ensued conti nued ward. Underway, she encountered into a second night, and after His Majesty's 44-gun Seine. After the moon set, only the sporadic savage fighting, the British ship flash of can nons illuminated the (' l"R .\ \ .\ 0, triumphed over the larger fiftycombatants' hulls. At least twice gun frigate and brought her into La Vengeance struck her colors, Bermuda "in a very wretched but the Americans never saw her surrender through the smoke and situation, and so [was] the British ~ ----ship." darkness, and they continued to Curafao, 1776 The rumors of rapprochement touch off their cannons. Nonetheless, the French succeeded in shooting ing French/American rapprochement, the proved true. A treaty between the United away the standing rigging that supported Council deemed it prudent simply to hold States and France, exchanged at Paris in Constellation's towering duee-foot-thick the proceeds and wait to see which way the July 1801 and ratified by the Senate the following December, signified the end of the mainmast; suddenly it cracked and fell political wind would blow.

This left the privateers bereft of prize Quasi-War. In the treaty, the US released overboard, carrying her topmen with it.

The two barely maneuverable vessels drift- money and La Vengeance unrepaired. Soon all claims against France for spoliations ed apart in the darkness. Truxton assumed the French lost patience with their recal- committed against American citizens. The La Vengeance fou ndered. In fact, she drift- citrant ally. Resolved to seize what they 1801 treaty extinguished Captain Yellott's ed far enough away that when a favorab le deemed was theirs, a French squadron claim against the French but resurrected it breeze sprung up, she managed to escape. of privateers out of Guadeloupe invaded as an obligation against the US Treasury.

Captain Yellott and his partners Robert Crippled and barely afloat, with much of Curas;ao. M usket fire echoed in Curas;ao's her crew wounded or dead, La Vengeance streets, and French artillery pounded the Oliver and Hugh Thompson succeeded in villages. obtaining indemnities from a fund created limped into C uras;ao's harbor.

In the nick of time, a British man- under another subsequent treaty-ThomThere, the Baravian Republic's shipyards refused to accept drafts drawn against of-war, Neriede, appeared on the horizon. as Jefferson's 1803 Louisiana Purchase. A the French government for the ship's des- Hoping for better treatment from the US commissio n awarded restitution for perately needed repairs. Nonetheless, the English enemy than from their French French seizures at St. Domingue from the Curas;ao Council realized they needed to "friends," Curas;ao's Council sent a mes- vessels Ariel, Elizabeth, Betsey, and Ceres. get rid of the heavily-armed menace of La sage of capirnlation to Captain Watkins. Yellort's spoliation claim for Mary at C uraVengeance, given the uncertainty of whethWatercolor by Irwin John Bevan. Co nstellation and La Vengeance, 2 February 1800. er the French were friend, foe, or somehow both . Where would the refitting money come from? They cast covetous eyes toward some captured American vessels, including Mary, bobbing at her mooring.

Although Curas;ao Council Director Lauffer disingenuously protested that the law forbade it, the Council ordered Mary and her cargo sold. They put off Mary's outraged Captain Phillips with a promise to contact the Hague and ask whether the protective law applied. "They pretend not to understand it," scoffed an American diplomat in his report to Secretary of State James Madison. The island authorities promised to hold the proceeds until a decision arrived from Holland.

Needless to say, the money was never remitted to its rightful owner. Soon the Curas;ao Council had second thoughts abo ut releasing it to the importuning French as well. With rumors circulating of a pend18

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

<;:ao would remain unsatisfied. So it came to pass that when he died in 1805 , his las t wi ll and testam ent bequeathed the claim to his family, destined to become a very long-lived lawsuit.

T ime after tim e throughout the nineteenth century, French spoliation claimants, including clamoring widows, orphans, doubtfully- related cousins, brothers-inlaw, insurance company underwriters and get-rich-quickers who bought assigned interests, submitted memorials to Congress seeking private bills to pay them off. The m ain instigator was a former sailor and scion of a Baltimore merchant family named Jam es H . Causren. He traveled from ciry to ciry, solici ting prominent fami lies to retain him as a claims representative on contingent fee (i n 1836 the poet Edgar Allan Poe asked Causren to collect on a Revolutio nary War loan voucher inherited through Poe's aunt by marriage). Causren's printed circular advertised that one spoliation case at "one hundred fourteen thousand dollars wo uld, at six percent compound interest annually, have produced in the intervening sixry-five years, a sum exceeding fi ve millio n." Tenacious and indefati gable, thro ughout most of his life Causten would pursue claims arising from the American Revolution, the Quasi-WarTreary of 1801 , rhe Lo uisiana Purchase of 1803, rhe War of 18 12, rhe Spanish cession of Florida in 18 19, and another French Treary of 183 1.

Causren organized a convention of claiman ts in N ew York Ciry in 1845, and their concerted lobbying persuaded Congress ro pass a bill authorizing paym ent, bur in 1846 President Polk vetoed it. Ten yea rs later they managed to persuade Congress to pass another bill, bur President Pierce vetoed this one in 1855 . Still again, rhe lobbyists pushed for rheir boondoggle bill, and fin ally President Chester Arthur signed it.

In 1886- more than eighry years after rhe ini tial French captures-claimants finall y go r their day in US Claims Court. The resulting lirigarions, collectively known as rhe French Spoliation Cases, toge ther with some Native American tribal land disputes, are contenders for rhe distinction of being the most long-lived lawsuits in US history.

The C laims Court was still sifting through complaints about French priva teering fro m the 1790s as late as 191 2.

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

The age of the cases naturally presented problems of proof. Wars and hurricanes dispersed colonial island records; a French court clerk destroyed reams of critical files when, never dreaming of indemnities claims, he sold them to a grocer as waste paper. Litigants more often than not came away emp ry-handed . Even when they won, they did nor win much. The Claim s Court refused to award rhe exponentially- multiplied compound inreresr which had so enthralled James Causten . Worse, a quirk of the law made rhe court's decisions only advisory. Successful litigants had to beseech Congress for special appropriations to pay them. O verall, of an estimated $20 mi ll io n in American shipping losses during rhe Quasi-War with France, by 1915 rhe judges and Congress had awarded o nly $3 million to latter-day claimants.

Too little, too late fo r Causten. H e died in 1874, twelve years before the court convened on the first of the cases he labored a lifetime to bring to the bar. Thirry-fo ur years later, another lawsuit made it all the way to the US Supreme Court regarding who was entirled to Causren's contingent fees. Earle v. Myers, 207 US 244 (1 907) was a laws uit about defun ct lawsuits between lawyers for dead lawyers. The argument was whether a contract to lobby Congress was an enterprise so reprehensible, so inherenrly corrupt, as to be unenforceable.

The Supreme Court confirmed lower court

John Davis, Chief j udge of the new!.yestablished US Claims Court in 1886, wrote the seminal op inion allowing heirs of claimants to recover French spoliation indemnities, ninety years after the fact.

Congressman Daniel Webster collaborated with lobbyist James Causten on sp oliation claims.

Webster, in his cap acity as a private lawyer, took a 5% fee, though he disclaimed any financial interest as a legislator in the outcome of Causten's cases.

rulings rhar awarded Causten's heirs legitimate legal fees but disallowed fees for influ ence peddling.

To return to the schooner Mary and what final ly becam e of her-as it happens, some of Captain Yellorr's collateral descendants discovered how to turn to legal advantage the complexities of the situation in rhe Quasi-War. Maryland lawyer and state Senator Coleman Yellott and his brother and law partner Washington Yellott realized that the 1801 rreary with France had released only claims against the French privateers. There was no such release against the Durch authorities who improperly ordered M ary's condemnation.

In 1829 the lawyers filed an action against the Netherlands. They prevailed, winning damages of $62,692, though it seems to have been a futile exercise. The restored Durch sovereign's ministers refused to acknowledge liabiliry for any misdeed of the short-lived Baravian Republic. This was long before the advent of twentieth-century inrernarional conventions affording procedures for a private litigant to enforce a judgment against a foreign power. The question of restitution for rhe loss of M ary and her cargo in 1800 lingers on, caught and preserved, perhaps, forever in the dessicaring interstices of international law.

Jock Yellott is a former maritime lawyer, now a writer and art collector. H e welcomes inquires about the French spoliation cases and can be reached at311 East M arket St., Charlottesville, VA 22902 .

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Se!l!!story Beacons of Light With contributions by Stephanie Allen

U.S. Lighthouse Service The U.S. Lighthouse Service was the first organization charged with the protection of the United States coastline. Before the colonies had even become a country, lighthouses protected ships from hazardous shores. The Lighthouse Service, along with four other federal agencies, formed what we know today as the U.S. Coast Guard.

)~~~re in the World ... was the world's first lighthouse? "

The Lightnouse at Alexandria

The tradition of lighthouse keeping began centuries ago. The lighthouse at Alexandria in Egypt was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . Built in the third century BC, the lighthouse sat at the important meeting point of the u Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea, where it protected sailors entering the thriving port.

Explorers in the tenth century AD described the lighthouse, so we know today what it looked like. According to some sources, the lighthouse was the tallest building in the world when it was built. Historians and archaeologists estimate that the structure was approximately forty stories high.

Sostrates of Knidos designed the lighthouse. It was built on the island of Pharos, which soon lent its name to the building. The Pharos lighthouse used a system of mirrors and fire to reflect the warning light far out into the sea.

The lighthouse was in operation for hundreds of years. Earthquakes in the 1300s likely damaged the structure. It finally collapsed into the sea around 1326.

In 1994 a team of nautical archaeologists located several large blocks of stone on the seabed of the harbor. Some of the blocks came from buildings that were even older than the lighthouse. Scientists believe that these materials were recycled for use when the lighthouse was built.

The Lonel~ Lite of a Lighthouse Keeper A missing light at a dangerous point along the shore could mean a shipwreck and the death of many sailors and passengers. The role of lighthouse keepers was to make sure the warning beacon kept shining brightly through dark, stormy hours .

The journals of lighthouse keepers reveal how the keepers spent their days. Keeping the light lit was only one of many important jobs. Keepers also had to keep the lenses and other parts of the light meticulously clean . Every day they polished metal and cleaned the lighthouse windows inside-and sometimes even outside!

Keepers followed directions in their instruction books to the letter and kept thorough notes. Journal entries show that many lighthouse keepers were lonely in their work, although not all of them lived alone. Some lighthouse keepers were married and had children living with them. Others had assistants to help them keep the light burning through the dark nights .

Though lighthouse keeping was sometimes lonely and often tedious work, it was a good job. Those who kept the lights were provided with a place to live and wholesome food. Most keepers stayed on the job for many years . Some transferred to other lighthouses or received promotions.

Today most U. S. lighthouses are no longer in use to keep sailors safe. Still , they are a beautiful addition to the coastal landscape. Many are open to the public. If you are lucky enough to visit one, imagine what it would have been like to live there , keeping the 0 light burning.

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Keepers used tools like these in their daily chores. The apron was worn to protect the keeper's clothing from oil or soot.

Fresnel Lens Ancient lighthouses used fires to signal distant seafarers . Colonial lighthouses used oil lamps. In 1822, a Frenchman named Augustin Fresnel (FRAY NEL) invented a lens that could be seen 18 to 20 miles out at sea. The lens focused the light from an oil lamp to shine as brightly as 80,000 candles!

The United States began using the Fresnel lens in the 1850s.

The Christmas Tree Ships of Lake Michigan L egend has it that if rats abandon a ship, so should you. When rumo~ spread that rats were leaving Rouse Simmons, perhaps the crew should have followed that advice.

The 125-foot schooner left Chicago one autumn day in 1912, headed for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The plan was to load a cargo of Christmas trees and carry them across Lake Michigan .

The ship never reached its destination.

Captain Herman Schuenemann and his brother August were among several captains who used aging wooden schooners like Rouse Simmons for this purpose. Instead of selling his trees to stores that resold them to the public, Herman sold directly to customers on the dock. His ship sat dockside, draped in electric lights. It bore a banner that ~ead "The Christmas Tree Schooner. My Prices are the Lowest." Schuenemann gave many of his trees to needy families: .

August died in 1893 when his ship S. Thal sank. The entire crew was lost.

Losing his brother didn't stop Herma.n from continuing the tradition of the Christmas tree ships, however.

In 1910, Herman leased the old schooner Rouse Simmons.

When Schuenemann took command of Rouse Simmons, it was no longer in good repair.

The schooner, built in 1868, was originally designed to carry lumber. It was one of many schooners used for this purpose along the heavily wooded Great Lakes.

The weather began to turn as the ship loaded Christmas trees for the 1912 season. Fearing that bad weather would prevent another trip, the captain decided to take on extra trees. Christmas trees 22

were piled 15 feet high on deck and filled the hold below. It may have held 5,000 trees.

As the ship headed for Chicago, it ran into a snowy gale. The ship was last seen on 23 November 1912. Sailors have reported seeing the ghost of a .ship, with tattered sails and icy decks, flying a distress pennant. .

In 1971, a scuba diver named Keith Bellrichard was using sonar to search for another wreck in the area. Instead, he found the remains of Rouse Simmons. The ship lies 180 feet below the icy Great Lakes waters. The cold has helped to preserve the ship and its cargo. Skeletons of ~hristmas trees still filled the hull. Other items that have been found include a message in a bottle and Captain Schuenemann 's wallet.

SEA HISTORY 11 3, WINTER 2005-2006

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1 Ship captained by August 2 Name of ancient lighthouse 4 Inventor of lens used in 11 many lighthouses 5 State where Upper Peninsula is found (abbrev.)

6 Ship captained by Herman 9 City of ancient lighthouse 10 Abandon this when rats flee 11 What a lighthouse keeper wears to stay clean 12 Designer of ancient lighthouse

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Down 1 Brothers who sold Christmas trees directly from ship to public 3 Word spelled with the first letters of the Great Lakes ' names 7 Device used to magnify light in ancient lighthouse 8 River that ends at Mediterranean 10 Mediterranean body of water

Sea History for Kids is sponsored by the Layout and Design by Domenico Petrillo

SEA HISTORY 11 3, WINTER 2005 -2006

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Samuel Eliot Morison: He Stood for Things Too Important for the World to Lose

by Perer Sranford

At the beginning of World War II, President Roosevelt appointed Samuel Eliot Morison as the nation's official historian of naval operations during that war. His only restriction was to safeguard information that would endanger national security. In this capacity he served on eleven different ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific. The result of his work is a unique "shooting history'' of sixteen extraordinary volumes-the only work of its kind created to date. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning author, a Trumbull Professor of American History Emeritus at Harvard University, and a Retired Rear Admiral in the United States Naval Reserve.

Admiral Morison died on 15 May 1976 in Boston. The credo borne on his gravestone, at his request, reads, "Dream dreams, then write them - aye, but live them first." h en I firsr mer Sam Morison, he was ensconced wirh Mary Otis, America entered the war. Immediately after the athis grear fri end Lincoln Colcord in rhe cabin of his tack on Pearl Harbor, Mo rison wrote to President Roosevelt and 45-foor kerch Mary Otis. Anchored in a cove on rhe suggesred rhat the Navy support the preparation of its official coasr of Maine, rhis was a part of rhe world he loved and cel- history in the war, as it was happening. Naturally, he volunteered ebrared for irs deep rides, whi ch produced a bounry in clam s and his services and both Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy agreed . A few months later, (May a diurnal change in scenery. The 1942) Morison found himself a Maine coast contrasted sharply wirh anorher shore he knew well, Lieutenant Co mmander in the rhe Medirerranean coast, with its US Naval Reserve, with access to all official records and permission tideless, unchanging scene. That to go anywhere, provided he safewas a scene he prized for other guard matters of national securiry. reasons, stemming from his vi tal interest in the ideas and progress of Moriso n's reputation as an experienced sailor preceded him, and he Western civilization. The year was was welcomed on almost a dozen 1941 , and World War II was raging across the Atlantic, a war America ships by the end of the war. As the official historian of the US Navy in was not yet engaged in, but in World War II, he fulfilled this task which we all knew our country had in fifceen volumes, each full of the a viral stake. indefi nable, but very real, feeling of At age fo urteen, I was en"being there." This stemmed from thralled by the stories Sam and Linc his resolve to be in the front line of exchanged with my fa ther, who had rowed over from our cutter Vision things he wrote abo ut and to report them in true and lively detail. to board Mary Otis. I was struck by The qualiry of Morison's work Sam's srraightforward way of speakowed much to this resolve and also ing and by his penerrarin g glan ce and equally charmed by Linc's to his deep respect for ships and seamen of all eras, under all Bagsrwinkling eye and roguish look. echoing at times the cadences of I had no idea then that Colcord the wild-haired, convention-defyhad been born in the after cabin of ing poet Walt Whitman. For it was a Down Easter off Cape Horn in Samuel Eliot Morison's ketch Mary Otis was used to serve Whitman's works that were read rhe height of a raging gale or that as the Nina in the Harvard Columbus Expedition. aloud in the evenings in the oldMorison revered him as ''rhe Sage of Searsport." I was in awe of Morison because I had read, nay fas hioned Morison household ar 44 Brimmer Street in Boston, devoured, his Maritime History ofMassachusetts. I had no idea that where Morison was born in 1887. He was living there at his dearh his Mary Otis had played rhe role of Columbus's Nina in an ex- in 1976, full of years and achievement. His firsr published wo rk, pedition organized by Morison just rwo years earlier. That voyage on his ancestor Harrison Gray Otis, was based on letters sto red retraced, under sail, the courses Columbus sailed in opening rhe in its attic.

After graduation from Harvarrd and a year at the Sorbonne Americas to the world, a voyage that led to Admiral of the Ocean Sea-rhe definitive life of Columbus. in Paris, Morison secured his docto1rate in history and took up the Six months after that m emorable visi r in the snug cabin of life of a Harvard professor, a life off privilege but not great wealrh

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HISTOR~Y

113 , WINTER 2005-2006

in those days. When America entered World War I, he enlisted as an Army private. When he returned from France, he resumed a life of marriage, children, and summer sailing.

Then he was asked to write a history of his native Massachusetts. He decided to make chis a m aritime history. Much had been

that drove the clippers. Colcord, for his part, said simply of these ships: "They stood for things the world cannot afford to lose."

In The Maritime History of Massachusetts, Morison recognized chat people's dreams and aspirations are vital elements of

I

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"Never, in these United States, has the brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as the clipper ship. " -Samuel Eliot Morison written on farm ing and politics, but to him the sea was where the action was. Writing The Maritime History ofMassachusetts was for Morison pure joy, and he sang sea chanteys, accompanied by his wife Bessie on the piano, when inspiration ran dry. Of course, there were maritime sites to be visited-naturally, under sai l!

The Maritime History of Massachusetts (at least in its hard copy edition) includes a marvelous collection of old pictures, showing Morison's deep immersion in publications of an earlier day. These portraits from the past convey the values of their era, and a sense of the reality of times before our own. His language and descriptions of scenes he knew so well get you, the reader, right into it. A visitor's sketch of Nantucket in 18 10 catches a topsail sloop approaching the harbor, close-hauled against the southwest wind. Morison tells us she's the ferry from Cape Cod, and we learn that the clapboarded houses we see are replacing the shingled homes of colonial times and how the whole community centers on the harbor. Even the cows at rhe water's edge have come "to browse and take in the scene of maritime activity!"

The trade that sustains all this is founded on the "smoky glare of whalers' try-works ... never absent from the vast spaces of the Pacific." The stretch from ships half a wo rld away to the harbor on a sandbar that sent out the ships is pure Morison, as are the touches that light up the whole stage. He can be a bit portentous, but we can forgive this when we finally get to read his famous tribute to the American clipper ship at the end of his story.

"Never, in these United States, has the brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as the clipper ship. In her, the long-suppressed artistic impulse ofa practical, hard-worked race burst into flower. The Flying C loud was our Rheims, the Sovereign of the Seas our Parthenon, the Lightning our Amiens; but they were monuments carved from snow. For a brief moment oftime they flashed their splendor around the world, then disappeared with the sudden completeness of the wild pigeon.

One by one they sailed out of Boston, to return no more.

A tragic or mysterious end was the privilege of many ships favored by the gods. Others, with lofty rig cut down to cautious dimensions, with glistening decks and topsides scarred and neglected, limped about the seas under foreign flags, like faded beauties forced upon the street.

The master builders, reluctant to raise barnyard fowls where once they reared eagles, dropped offone by one. " Morison learned much from his friend Arthur H. C lark, ship captain and aurhor of the classic Clipper Ship Era. It was from him and from Lincoln Colcord chat he learned the pride and passion

SEA HISTORY 11 3, WINTER 2005 -2006

Samuel Eliot Morison at the helm ofhis beloved yawl, Emily Marshall, named for his mother. their story. W hat people did about these dreams depended largely on economics. This work, and all that followed, he based on strong, deeply-researched economic foundations. The result was a new way of looking at the development of Massachusetts and the United Srates itself, revealing a scene where settlers looked to seafari ng to sustain their precarious hold on existence. Independence brought economic hardship to all ranks of society, as the former colonies were shut out of much British empire trade.

This situation was remedied by Yankees who opened new trades outside the British system, as far afield as Ch ina, under a policy of "Try all pons."

Morison reveled in this scuff, the "life-scuff'' of a people seeking their own identity and viable society. Like his contemporary J. M . Key nes, he rejected the notion of economics as "the dismal science," seeing it instead as the underpinning of the arts, a just society, and all that makes civi lized life. He deplored scholarship that contented itself with parroting the current wisdom rather

27

the 142-foor barquentine Capitana playthan diggi ng to get at the facts of work, commerce, and capital, as well as raking ing the role of Santa Maria . This kind of into acco unt how people live, talk, ear, methodology used to research and write history was unheard of at rhe rime and drink and comport themselves.

Buoyed by rhe success of The Mariopened a whole new chap ter in American historiography. time History ofMassachusetts, Morison acAble to read Larin, Spanish, Italcepted a three-year professo rship at Oxian, and French sources in their original ford University from 1922-25. Next cam e forms and assid uous in seeking them The Oxford History of the United States in our, Morison estab lished the purposes, 1927. In 1930, the epochal Growth ofthe events, and outcomes of Co lumbus's American Republic followed. Written in partnership with Henry Steele Commagvoyages in terms that all the rumble over the quintecentenary of the 1492 voyage er, this work rook up the development of rhe ideas that shaped America. Here yo u did nothing to shake. He recognized and find great issues treated in a seam anlike celebrated native Taino culture. H e revealed rhe de pths in the interactions of manner within an oceanic perspective.

The British parliamentarian Edm und both the local caciques with Columbus Burke is cited extensively in the Ameriand the co nquistador Spanish with the indigenous population that had escaped can Republic because Morison believed he stood for the liberal values which gave prior histo rians and escapes too many birth to American independence. These today. While clearly an admirer of Covalues inspired the parliamentary forces, lumbus's feats, Morison also recognized which finally prevailed in granting American independence, rath- and acknowledged the seeds of evil in some of Columbus's ideas. er than opt to continue a wrongheaded war to a grisly end. In His knowledge of ship construction and his skills as a marihis discussion of the framing of the US Constitution, Morison ner, with thousands of sea miles in his wake, made his assessment repeatedly affirmed Benjamin Franklin's centrist, moderate views, of the ships and navigational techniques of the day-notably Codevoted to the welfare of rhe common man. He explained how lumbus's highly accurate dead reckoning-that much more valuslavery was tolerated to avoid splitting the republic into two sepa- able. Above all, his realistic grasp of day-to-day life afloat in these rate American nations, which would (above) Morison chartered the 142-ft. barquentine Capirana to sail in Columbus's tracks have ended all hope of achieving the across the Atlantic as part of the Harvard Columbus Expedition; continental nation that the young (below) Morison, in the foreground on the left, and his crew onboard Capitana. republic ultimately became. Of Samuel Adams and others who withdrew their support from the Consti tution, we learn from Morison that they "abstained largely from wou nded vani ty, since some of their pet projects were not adopted." No punches pulled there, certainly, or in rhe characterization of George Mason's abstention because he "looked down his nose at George Washington as an upstart surveyor."

A 300-year history of Harvard University fo llowed on this great work, and, in celebration of its completio n, Morison went to sea. Seeking to gain a more intimate knowledge of Columb us's fo ur voyages across the Atlantic, Morison decided he could only accomplish this perspective by sailing in Columbus's track. The Harvard Columbus Expedition got underway with Morison's own Mary Otis serving as Nina and

28

SEA HISTOR~Y 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

small ships, sailing to fulfill the ancient prophecy of breaking the chains of oceanic ignorance, were, in a word, superb. They make as enlightening reading today as when they were first published.

Samuel Eliot Morison's last volume of the official naval history was released in 1962. These fifteen volumes were then reprised in one volume, The Two-Ocean Ular. Fortunately for history, in this tome, Morison gave a fuller picture of the pre-war naval situation, as seen in a world char believed in what Morison called "peace by incantation ."

He summarized Japanese superiority at the war's outbreak by noting chat rhey had developed a "dose-range nocturnal 'hugger-mugger' clinch, making abundant use of torpedoes"-an elegant summary of a complex series of technical and doctrinal developments. He authoritatively dismissed revisionist theories of a conspiracy by Roosevelt to provoke the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On one of rhe most controversial decisions in American and world history, he asserted that at the end of the war, without the use of the rwo atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan, "they would have fought to the last man, inflicting far, far greater losses and injuries than chose inflicted by the atomic bombs."

After Morison's death, a Smithsonian exhibition asserted that Japan was genuinely seeking peace when the bombs fell. 1his claim was supported by Peter Jennings in a broadcast with complaisant PhDs and in ads signed by leading historians. Among other gross errors in this effort was the claim that General Marshall opposed using the bombs . His biographer had to write the newspapers saying the obvious: Marshall questioned dropping the bomb, bur he concluded it must be used to avoid horrendous American and Japanese casualti es. Speaking in Morison's absence, let m e point our char the "peace" that Japan offered was a warrior's truce, telling the US and its British allies, in effect: "OK, you've won this round. We'll give you back Inda-China, the Philippines, and the Durch East Indies," bur, there was never any idea of with-

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

In 1942, Samuel Eliot Morison was made a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserve as he embarked on a mission to research naval operations in WWII. H e retired as a Rear Admiral.

drawing from occupied China or restoring freedom to Manchuria, Korea, or Formosa (today's Taiwan). The Japanese offer was clearly part of a strategy in which invading Japan would be made so costly to the US through kamikaze planes and torpedo boats, backed by trained soldiers ready to die for their emperor, that the Americans wo uld turn from the war in revulsion, take what they had left and go home. 1he samurai logic is impeccable, bur the underlying assumptions were dead wrong. The US would never have abandoned the war before liberating Japanese conquests, therefore, it wo uld have co ntinued with the dire effects General Marshall foresaw.

Use of atomic bombs wi ll and should be debated so long as these weapons exist; but in the historical community at least, one would hope rhe debate would be based on facts, rather than fantasies bred by ideological concerns. We can find agreed facts to work with by following the genero us outlook Morison espoused, one which recognizes opposing views-what we might call an oceanic perspective. In this perspective, quarrels ashore are seen in an embracing overview. Under char regimen, the history professors who bought into the Japanese "peace" offer would have felt obliged to dig beyond the irenic label and relate the words of the offer to Bushido principles and the demonstrated behavior of those who made the offer-can char be too much to ask of historiography today?

Morison produced other works while the grand panorama of the war at sea was streaming from his pen (he wrote in

29

longhand!), among them a Pulitzer-winning biography of John Paul Jones. These by-blows, covering a range of copies as wide as his far-ranging interests, probably helped him keep a fresh grip on the tremendous subject he had in hand, so its ending rings out as clear and true as its beginning.

One more great work lay before Sam Morison as he entered his eighties, a work on what may be counted as the Big Bang that opened the modern era. This was the epochal European Discovery ofA merica. Volume I, The Northern Voyages, opens felicicously with a chapter titled "The Mysterious Ocean." True co his calling, he cold us that the scory must start with "the heritage of classical antiquity, which is basic co all European westward ventures."

With this, we are launched inco a voyage which draws on all of Morison's own traffics and discoveries ro weave what is one of the great productions of sea literature, fir ro rank with The Odyssey or MobyDick.

When the first volume appeared in 1971, it seemed it would stand alone. It opened a whole great experience of mankind-doing this in language that flowed naturally, unfalteringly true, co the scattered, fragmentary records on which it was based and co Morison's own app reciation of the sea, the ships, and peoples venturing on its trackless expanse. Who else could sort fact from fantasy in the undoubtedly real voyages of St. Brendan and fit them into the patterns of early westward voyaging? Who else could find what was real in the fantastic realm ofNorembega-or, for that matter, open the inner workings of Elizabeth's court as England embarked on the incredible achievements of the age of Shakespeare? Morison did these things with deceptive ease of manner, all in the cone of the conversation I remembered in Mary Otis's cabin.

Volume II , The Southern Voyages, came out in 1974 with an even more complex and far-ranging scory centered on the three greatest navigacors of hiscory-Columbus, Magellan and Drake.

And behold, this Drake is deeper in character and granted a wider license co achievement than the Drake of The Northern Voyages. In this fresh cut, the second volume, if anything, cops the first-and

suitably, since it breaks out of the Atlantic co embrace the whole world. An article on just these two volumes would open a wonderful discussion, full of discoveries virtually unknown in today's American academia. For Morison, recognizing the darkness in man's soul, always turned coward the light.

I met Sam Morison again when I rashly applied to him for a letter co support my application co King's College, Cambridge, in 1949. He pointed out that since I had taken none of his courses while at Harvard, he couldn't sign such a letter (I had published articles on naval hiscory, but si nce I was pursuing literature, I had not taken courses in naval hiscory). Over the years it dawned on me what I had missed. Though he crossed the bar nearly three decades ago, his life's work remains for those who also missed the chance co learn from him in person. Many of his books are still in print, and though many other hiscorians have revisited some of the same topics, many of his analyses remain valid. Even with the limitations of writing the hisco ry of the naval operations of World War II as it was happening (some information was classified at the time), those volumes are still required reading for any student of that co nflict. Perhaps his greatest contribution was making his scholarly works readable co a general audience, not just academia. When a book with a title like The Maritime History of Massachusetts makes good reading for academics and the general citizenry alike, then the historian has truly done his job.

Sam Morison accomplished this through solid research, personal experience with his subject, formidab le writing skills, and a sense of humor. Let his methods be a model for hiscorians coday, and let his works continue co engage anyone fortunate enough co grab his book off the shelf.

Note: Just before his death in 1976, Morison finished a lively sampler of his work, Sailor Historian, which includes a splendid appreciation ofhis life by Walter Muir Whitehill. I commend it co all!

Peter Stanford is President Emeritus of the National Maritime Historical Society and Sea Hiscorys Editor-at-Large.

The Works of Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976) • The Life and Letters ofHarrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848 (1913) • The Oxford History ofthe United States (1927) • The Growth of the American Republic (with Henry Steele Commager) (1930) • Builders of the Bay Colony (1930) • Three Centuries ofH arvard: 1636-1936(Harvard University Press, 1936) • Admiral ofthe Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (1942) • History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (1947- 1962) • OfPlymouth Plantation, 1620- 1647 (1952) • john Paul Jones: A Sailors Biography (1959) • The Story ofMount Desert Island ( 1960) • The Two-Ocean War (1963) • The European Discovery ofAmerica: The Northern Voyages ( 197 1) • Samuel De Champlain: Father ofNew France (1972) • The European Discovery ofAmerica: The Southern Voyages (197 4) • A Concise History ofthe American Republic (with Henry Steele Commager and William E. Leuchtenberg) (1976)

30

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SEA HISTORY 11 .3 , WINTER 2005-2006

MARITIME HISTORY ON THE INTERNET

Sharing Your Opinion With The World: Weblogs, Photoblogs, & Podcasts

by Peter McCracken

hink you have som ething to say? The res t of the world apparently does, and the simplicity of 'biogs' allows them to share their thoughts w ith everyone. Biogs-short for "web logs," or online personal jo urnals-have exploded over the past few years.

Some estimates suggest there are now well over three million biogs, but that's a misleading number: nobody reads the vas t m ajority of them, and only several tho usand have significant readership. The ones that do, however, can have a great deal of influence, and in most cases have developed a critical mass of content and readers that assures atte ntion to item s reported there.

Biogs are as variable as individuals. People write about whatever they want, and they say whatever they want, as well-occasionally getting them selves fired as a result. Biogs are probably most prominent in politics and technology, but they appear in nearly every field. In the watery world, however, there are surprisingly few biogs. Kelly Drake, a librarian at Mys ti c Seapo rt, recently started a nice blog on m aritime heritage issues called "Maritime Compass," at http://maritimecompass.blogspot. com. Anyone can submit items to post; everyone who reads her blog will then be able to read what she has included. Lincoln Paine, a Maine-based maritime historian (and a former editor of Sea H istory) , has a m aritime history blog at http://maritimehistory.blogspot.com , bur like many biogs it's short on content: its most recent posting was from May 2005 . Hopefully, m ore will be added soon .

A downside of biogs is that you need to go to the site to see each new posting. "Blog readers" solve this problem, however.

Several free readers exist, including http://www.bloglines.com and http://www.feedreader.com. In each case, you create a free acco unt and define which biogs you want the reader to track, using a format called "RSS ". (Just look for the little o range "RSS" or "XML" butto n on the page you want to track.) You're then notified, via various methods, when a new posting is added to the blog you're tracking.

T

Google recently introduced Google Blog Search, at http:// blogsearch.google.com. Google owns blogger.com and blogspot. com, so it certainly has interest in the area. You can, however, search more than just the sites Google owns. Because it's a brand-new service, the Google service only searches feeds from about June 2005 or so.

Biogs are not limited to text. Web sites such as www.flickr. com and www.photoblogs.org provide space fo r individuals to post their photos. At fli ckr.com, disparate images are gro uped together through the terms people use when describing their photos. Rea!Travel, at http://www.realtravel.com, hosts travelers' photos and trip journals. Another site, http://www.panoviews. com, shows a variety of 360° QuickT ime images of classic yachts, cargo ships, and cruise ships, usually in Genoa, Italy, harbor. Podcas ts are audio postings; they're sort of like an individual's personal radio show, posted to the internet for anyone to download and enj oy. Podcasts can be found at http://www.podcastalley.com, http://audio.weblogs.com, and http://www.ipodder.org.

There's no limit to what can be posted on these sites, and over time, we can expect to see more and more maritime co ntent, providing many more voices. These resources dram atically simplify the process fo r folks who want to post their opinions online, and as long as they can be found, they'll be wo rth exploring. ,t

Peter McCracken is the director of electronic content management and co-founder of Serials Solutions Inc. (www.serialssolutions.com) out of Seattle, Washington. H e holds a Masters of Library Science .from the University of N orth Carolina at Chapel H iff and a Masters in M aritime History .from East Carolina University. H e created and maintains two web sites: M aritime History on the Internet at www.ils.unc.edu/maritimelhome and Index to Sh ips in Books at www.shipindex.org.

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MARINE ART NEWS The Freer Gallery of Arr in Washington DC has opened an exhibit of twenty-three James McNeil! Whistler small paintings. The exhibition remains open indefinitely. Though best known for his large oil porrrairs and moody night landscapes, expatriate American artist James McNeil! Whistler painted few large oils on canvas after 1879. Instead, he focused his efforts on small works in a wide variety of media; few of these have been exhibited by major museums. Of the estimated 140 small oil paintings on wood panel rhar he produced after 1879, most measure no more rhan nine inches in length or height. Described by one collector as "superficially, the size of your hand, Grey and Silver: Mist-Lifeboat but, artistically, as a large as a continent," several of the most beautiful are

by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) only three by five inches in size. Whistler worked, briefly, for the drawings division of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey before moving to Europe permanently in 1855. Among the works on view are sea and village scenes painted during Whistler's visits to the coastal villages of Sr. Ives in Cornwall and Lyme Regis in Dorset and to Yorkshire in northern England. (Freer Gallery of Arr, Smithsonian Institution, POB 37012, MRC 707, Washington, DC 20013; Ph 202 6334880; e-mail: asiainfo@asia.si.edu; web sire: www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions). -Freer Gallery After six weeks of voting, the British public chose The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up, 1838 by J.M.W Turner (left) as the winner of "The Greatest Painting in Britain." In July, the BBC Radio 4 Today program, in partnership with the National Gallery, launched a poll ro find rhe greatest painting in Britain. The goal was more to stimulate a national debate about painting and the great art of Great Britain than to declare a winner. Considering that 118,877 people voted, it appears that both goals were met easily. The Fighting Temereire garnered 31,892 votes (26.8% of the total). The painting depicts rhe last journey of Temeraire, a famous warship from the Barde of Trafalgar. She was sold by the Royal Navy in 1838 and was rowed up the Thames from Sheerness in Kent ro a ship-breaker's yard in Rorherhirhe, South London. The painting is on exhibit at rhe National Gallery in London. Web sire: www.narionalgallery.org.uk In anticipation of a major exhibit (to open in April 2006), the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park is conducting a major search to find the lost artwork of William A. Coulter. They are asking collectors around the world ro help locate missing Coulter paintings and illustrations. The artist created more than 1,000 oil paintings and 5,000 illustrations between 1869 to 1936. Fires destroyed much of his legacy, and roughly two-thirds of his work is unaccounted for. The exhibit, tided "WA. Coulter: A Master's Brush With The Sea," will open on the centennial of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, 18 April 2006, staged in rhe SFMNHP Visitor Center near Fishermen's Wharf. Coulter went ro sea at age thirteen and sailed for seven years before moving ashore in Bark Kaiulani entering San Francisco Bay around 1909.

San Francisco, finding work as a sail maker. In his spare rime he

by William A. Coulter (1849-1936) sketched and painted the ships he had come to know so well and chronicled rhe full range of shipping in the Bay. He had his first exhibition in San Francisco in 1874, when he was 25, and his last in 1934, when he was 85. Coulrer's ren-foor-long earthquake painting, San Francisco Fire, 1906, painted on a window shade pulled from rhe rubble by the artist, will highlight the opening.

The exhibition will be the largest and most complete retrospective of Coulrer's work ever attempted; many works will be exhibited for the first rime "WA. Coulter: A Master's Brush With The Sea," is being organized by rhe W.A. Coulter Exhibition Committee of the Paul and Linda Kahn Foundation in partnership with the SFMNHP. If you have or know the whereabouts of a Coulter painting, please contact the Paul & Linda Kahn Foundation, 2430 Pacific Ave. , San Francisco, CA 94115-1238; Ph 415 346.0643; e-mail: lmkahn@mindspring.com. -Joseph Ditler

34

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

AsIDP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

~

SS Lane Victory, a fully operational World War II cargo ship, is preparing for her 14th year of cruises off Catalina Island. The ship carries full wartime armament, which was made complete in 2002 with a pre-fab forward gun rub to replace the original that had been removed after the war. Each cruise remembers a

specific ship and its crew of civilian Merchant Marine and US Naval Armed Guard lost at sea in wartime. Onboard are rwo museums: one displays more than thirty models of merchant ships of the WWII era; the other displays the large triple-expansion engine used in the movie, The Sand Pebbles. Lane Victory is a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. (SS Lane Victory, PO Box 629, San Pedro, CA 90733; Ph. 310 519-9545; e-mail: sslanevicrory@juno.com; www.lanevictory.org) . . . Looking to get more maritime history taught in your schoolsi' The Columbia River Maritime Museum offers their "Museum in a Trunk" to teachers to use in their classrooms. Five different themed trunks, loaded with maritime material culture, are available for classroom use, loaned for one-month periods.

Themes are: "Captain's Gray's Sea Chest", "Lighthouses," "Many Distant Lands," which studies the cultures that shaped the Pacific Northwest, "Buoys, Bearings and Beacons," and "Storm Warning! " (1792 Maritime Dr. , Astoria, OR 97103; Education Director: Ph. 503 325-2323; e-mail: ellerbroek@crmm.org; www.crmm.org).

Many other maritime museums offer similar materials for schools. The Erie Maritime Museum lends out a packed seabag, for example. Call your local maritime museum's education department and ask what materials they might have available. (Erie Maritime Museum, 150 East From Street., Suire 100, Erie, PA. 16507; Ph. 814 4522744 ext. 214., www.brigniagara.org) ...

The Great Lakes Historical Society has SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

SPUN YARN announced a proposal to build a new maritime museum on the Black River in the Port of Lorain Resort in Ohio. The new museum will feature a mix of cutting edge technology and artifacts. The new 40,000+ sq. fr. museum will replace the Society's current facility in Vermilion, Ohio. The new museum will also have docking space for tall ships and other touring maritime attractions. They plan to raise the needed funds over the next five years. (Great Lakes Historical Society, Inland Seas Maritime Museum, 480 Main Sr., POB 435, Vermilion, Ohio 44089; email: glhs l@inlandseas.org; www.inlandseas.org) • • • Persons with a current Maryland drivers license and a vehicle registered in the state can buy the new Calvert Marine Museum license plates.

Funds from plate sales will go towards the preservation of the Cove Point Lighthouse. Cove Point Lighthouse was

CO U RTESY CA LVERT M AR INE MUSEUM

built in 1828. In 1857 a fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed with a weight driven rotation mechanism, and in 1928 the light was converted from kerosene to electricity. In 1969 its air-powered horn was replaced with an electric diaphone signal that could be heard for a distance of rwo

Cove Point Lighthouse

miles. By August 1986, Cove Point Lighthouse was officially automated. The new equipment included a fog detector to turn on the horn when visibility dropped below three miles, a lamp-changer in the lantern to change burned out lamps, and a computer to monitor everything-all controlled from Baltimore. Plates are available for $45 and can be ordered by mailing or

faxing the form , which you can download from their web sire. Send the form to: Calvert Marine Museum, c/o Lee Ann Wright - License Plate, POB 97, Solomons, MD 20688; Ph. 410 326-2042 ext. 17; POB 97, Solomons, MD 20688; e-mail: mccormmj @co.cal.md.us; www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/auction) ... A lot has been happening with the National Lighthouse Museum project on Staten Island over the past year. In January, Jerry Roberts left his position as Vice President in charge of exhibits at the Intrepid Sea Air & Space Museum in New York City to rake the helm at the NLM . Committing his efforts to turning the fare of the project around, he brought with him the New York Harbor Tugboat Challenge, which he had created in 1992. The event has become a major Labor Day weekend tradition; this year it was held under the NLM banner for the first time. Sixteen rugs participated, and over $25,000 was raised for Hurricane Katrina relief. Meanwhile the museum's historic Nantucket Lightship, LV-112, in Oyster Bay, Long Island, is undergoing renovations and was opened to the public as part of this year's Oyster Festival. Eventually, the museum hopes to operate the ship as a seagoing educational outreach vessel, bringing maritime heritage and lighthouse history to ports up and down the eastern seaboard. The NLM chose what was once the nation's largest lighthouse depot, supplying much of the east coast with lenses, training, research, and development, for the proposed museum in 1987 through a national competition. The big news is that NYC's Economic Development Corp. has released an RFP for developers to submit plans to use part of the ten-acre sire to support the museum. Income generated from the private use of portions of it will support the public use of the rest of the site, as represented by the national lighthouse museum. Funding problems have plagued the project, bur with new leadership the effort is moving forward. (www.lighrhousemuseum. org) . . • The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race went on this year, despite the passing of its founder, Captain Lane Briggs, in September (see his obituary, page 8). This year, his famous 'rugantine' Norfolk Rebel sailed under the command 35

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To place your classified ad at $ 1.60 per word, mail your complete message along with payment, to Sea History, Advertising Desk, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.

36

race from Fells Point in Baltimore Harbor to Olde Portsmouth, VA. (The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, POB 8176, Norfolk, VA 23503; www.schoonerrace.org) . . . After 19 years at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, President John R. Valliant has left to take on the role of president of the Grayce B. Kerr Fund, a private foundation that supports education and cultural activities on the Eastern Shore, Maryland.

Valliant was named director of the CBMM in March 1988. Accomplishments in his tenure include the development of the Center for Chesapeake Studies, the "Oystering on the Chesapeake" and "At Play on

..--Im!!!~--------.

the Bay" exhibits and numerous educational programs. A successful capital campaign, completed in 2001, raised more than $18 million. The museum has formed a transition team and retained a professional executive recruiter to hire a replacement. They hope to have a new president in place within the next six months. In 1997, Valliant was presented a Governor's Citation for his work with the Maryland Heritage Museums, and in 1999, he was presented the Small Museum Association Award. â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ . This summer the new Coast Guard Heritage Museum opened its doors on Cape Cod. When the Trayser Museum in Barnstable, MA, permanently closed in spring 2004, some of its members and other local citizens raised money to re-open the museum as the Coast Guard Heritage Museum. Exhibits feature the predecesso rs of the service up to the modern-day USCG. Some items are on loan from US Life-Saving Service Association.

(3353 Main St., Barnstable, MA 02630; Ph. 508 362-8521) ... The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston this fall hosted an outdoor installation that not only illustrated the principles of sailing, but also

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defined it as art. The winner of the 1992 America's Cup in San Diego, America3, and the Italian yacht she beat, IL Moro Di Venezia, appeared to be "sailing on land" through the concept designed and executed by Rodger Martin Yacht Design (RMYD) of Newpo rt, RI. RMYD was also part of the America3 design team in 1991-92 when she won the Cup. The boats, as they were perched, could sustain winds up to 96 knots (as required to meet building codes) . At 124-feet high, nearly twice as tall as the museum, the boats were displayed as if racing with America3 in the lead. . . . Librarians at the Beinecke Library at Yale University discovered that a reputable antiquities dealer had sliced a rare map out of a 17th-century book with an X-Acto knife blade. In August, E. Forbes Smiley III was charged with larceny in the first degree and has pleaded not guilty. The FBI has asked librarians and curators across the country to check

their collections for m1ss111g maps. The New York and Boston Public Libraries have discovered missing maps, but no charges in those cases have been made.

Mr. Smiley had been buying and selling rare North American maps and adases for more than a decade. 1he map from Yale was valued at $150,000, and it has been reported that he was caught with a number of other stolen maps in his briefcase valued at $700,000 .. .. Ir's not just rare maps that can fetch high prices on the auction block; in July, a whaling logbook sold for $8,05 0 at Eldred's Auction Gallery in East Dennis, MA. Journals and logs, especially those with artwork, are popular on the folk art circuit and this particular logbook has pages full of whale stamps showing the oi l each whale yielded. Robert C. Eldred, president of the auction gallery, reported that another logbook with approximately 100 illustrations and paintings sold in Hyannis for more

than $ 100,000 a few years ago. . . . The Naval Historical Center announced in October that it is joining the Ocean Technology Foundation in spearheading an expedition in the summer of 2006 to search for the remains of American Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones's ship Bonhomme Richard.

Other project collabora tors include the University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographi c Center, the College of Exploration, and English Herirage, which advises the British government on the histo ric environment. For the full story, visit http:// www. n ews. n avy. mil I searc h/di sp lay. asp?story_id=20420 .â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘ . This summer a 60-year-old mystery was solved when a research lab identified, with certainty, the sailor who kissed the nurse in Times Square on VJ Day. In one of Life magazi ne's most fa mous photographs, George Mendonsa, of Middletown, Rhode Island,

Back from a NOAA National Ma rine Sanctuaries research cruise in the Pacific, NMHS member Robert V Schwemmer sent us this spectacular photograph ofJoh n Brooks filming the bow of USS Macaw. USS Macaw was a 250-ft. naval ship with heavy lifting and deep sea diving capabilities. In February 1944, the crew was attempting the rescue ofthe submarine Flier near Midway's main channel in foul weather. Macaw ran aground and slipped off into deeper water as she attempted to lift part of the sub. The crew abandoned ship, and the vessel was a total loss. Led by Dr. Hans Van Tilburg, the research cruise spent a month assessing the submerged cultural resources ofthe Northwest Hawaiian Islands Coral ReefEco-System Reserve. Robert Schwemmer is the West Coast Regional Maritime Heritage Program Coordinator for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in Santa Barbara, California.

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

37

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT AND MUSEUM NEWS

"VJ Day" by Alfred Eisenstaedt was celebrating the news that Japan had surrendered and the war was over. He grabbed a passing nurse on the street and planted a kiss, immortalized by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. Despite numerous claims by other former sailors, who were reportedly kissing random nurses all about Times Square that day, the Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab in Cambridge, MA, used its cutting-edge 3D face scanning technology to review the photo and has determined rhat Mendonsa was indeed the culprit. The photo appeared in Life and has since become the most published photograph that ever appeared in the magazine. MERLs new technology uses more than 100 photographic images taken of a person's head and face to create a 3dimensional computer image and reduce in age their features. In 1995, the US Postal Service created a stamp with the VJ Day kiss photo as part of a series marking the 50rh anniversary of the end of the war. . . . The American Sail Training Association awarded it's 2005 Annual Sail Training Awards at the 33rd Annual Conference on November 4th. The ASTA Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Capt. David V.V. Wood, USCG (Rec.) of Newport, RI. Capt.

Wood had a celebrated 30-year career in the USCG . As the Commanding Officer of the USCG training barque Eagle, he sailed her to Leningrad in 1989, celebrated the Coast Guard's Bicentennial during 1989-90 in all ten of the original Revenue Cutter ports, and represented the US in

38

the Columbus Quincentenary Regatta in 1992. Following his retirement from active duty, Capt. Wood became a director of ASTA and was its Chairman from 1998-2001. He was a Trustee of the International Sail Training Association from 1999-2002. He is currently Director of Maritime Education and Training at the Northeast Maritime Institute in Fairhaven, MA. Tabor Academy of Marion, MA, brought home the Sail Training Program of the Year Award for the Orientation at Sea Program onboard SSV Tabor Boy. The Sail Trainer of the Year Award went to Captain Tim Pyron of Toronto Brigantine, Inc. of Canada, and the Education Program of the Year Award went to Bayshore Discovery Project, Bivalve, NJ. The American Sail Training Association, founded in 1973 in Newport, RI, is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage character building through sail training, promote sail training to the North American public, and support education under sail. . . . The San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park (SFMNHP) is in the beginnings of a major two-year restoration of the massive lumber schooner C.A. Thayer. Recently, its web site (www.nps.gov/ safr/local/thayrest.html) has been updated with two cameras, one each in the

bow and stern, to allow internet users to view a full 360 degrees of the ship as she is being restored. Users can rotate the frame with the mouse on their computers.

The web site also provides a five-minute video of shipyard workers discussing the project. Visitors to the Park can track the progress of the restoration with regularly updated exhibits and panels. The main objective of the project is to restore rhe ship's structural integrity. The majority of the ship's frames are original to her 1895 con-

..

CA. Thayer

struction, and most have rotted down ro the waterline. They plan to replace up to 80% of the schooner's wooden structure.

9.3 million dollars has been appropriated for the project; the master contract was awarded to Bay Ship and Yacht Corporation of Alameda, CA. C.A. Thayer sailed as

C.A. Thayer- this 1988 National Park Service (HABS HAER) photograph was taken looking aft, down the starboard side down below. The new cameras onboard Thayer

today show this view, plus a fall 360-degrees, via the internet.

SEA HISTORY l J 3, WINTER 2005-2006

a lumber schooner from 1895 to 1912.

After suffering heavy damage in a storm, she retired from hauling lumber and then worked in the fisheries. Like many sailing vessels, she was purchased and used by the military in World War II. The Army removed her masts and used her as an ammunition barge. She returned to fishing after the war. When she returned from her final voyage in 1950, she was the last commercial sailing ship operating on the west coast. The state of California purchased her in 1957; she was repaired and refitted and opened to the public in 1963. The National Park Service assumed ownership of the schooner in 1978, and she was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1984. (SFMNHP, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA 94123; Ph. 4 15 4475000; www.nps.gov/safr) • . • The MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA, offers free admission on the third Sunday of each month; this includes the Hart Nautical Gallery, which is always free to the public.

(55 Massachusetts Ave., MIT Bldg 5, Cambridge, MA 02139) ... The Mariners' Museum's USS Monitor Center project in Newport News, VA, has received a $1 million donation from the Segerstrom family of California. This gift is the largest committed by a family outside of Hampton Roads since Archer Huntington established the original endowment for the Museum in 1932. Currently under construction , the 63,500 sq. fr. USS Monitor Center will open in March 2007. (100 Museum Dr., Newport News, VA 23606; Ph. 757 596-2222; www.mariner.org) ...

The Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, ME, has decided to begin construction of the full-sized sculpture of the schooner Wyoming in phases. Only half-way through their fundraising effort, the museum plans to start construction of Phase I, which will include the bow and jibboom and th e stern section. More of the ship will be built as funds become available. In the meantime, the educational goal of the project will begin; with the bow and stern in their respective locations across the lawn of the museum grounds, visitors will most assuredly get a perspective of the ship's massive size. (243 Washington St., Bath, ME 045 30; www.mainemaritimemuseum.org)

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CONFERENCES

•"Life on the Edge,'' Society for Historical Archaeology annual conference, 11-1 5 January in Sacremento , CA. (e-mail: sha2006@archaeocommons.o rg; www.sha.org) •17th Annual Symposium on Maritime Archaeology and History of Hawai'i and the Pacific, 18-20 February 2006, H apuna Beach Prince Hotel, Big Island, H awai'i. Conference Theme: "Our Voyaging Ancestors," (MAHHI, POB 8807, Honolulu, HI 9683 0; www.mahhi.org; email: finney@mahhi.org) •The Classic Yacht Symposium, H erreshoff Marine Museum and The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 31 March-2 April 2006 (HMM, PO B 450, One Burnside St., Bristol, RI 02809; Ph. 401 253-5000; www.herreshoff.org) •International Log Boat Symposium, 68 April 2006 at the N orth Carolina Maritime Museum . Presented by the Council of American Maritime Museums and the Museum Small Craft Association .

CALL FOR PAPERS Abstracts not to exceed 200 words, deadline 17 February (submit abstracts to: Paul Fontenoy, Curator of Maritime Research, NCM M, 3 15 Front St., Beaufort, NC 28 516; Ph. 252 728-73 17; e-mail paul. fontenoy@ncmail.net) •99th Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians and the 28th Annual Meeting of the National Council on Public History will be held jointly at the Hilton Washington H otel in Washington, D C, 19-22 April 2006 (www.oah.org/ meetings/2006/) •Making Waves in the Mediterranean, Mediterranean Maritime History Network, 4-7 May 2006, M essina, Taormina, Sicily. Covers Mediterranean maritime history since the 13th century.

(MMH N Coordinator, Dr. Carmel Vassallo, Mediterranean Institute, U niversity of Malta, Msida M SD 06 Malta; e-mail: carmel.vassallo@um .edu.mt; http:! /home. um.edu.mt/m edinst/mmhn) FESTIVALS, EvENTS, LECTURES, ETC.

•10th Anniversary Moby Dick Marathon, 3-4 January at the New Bedford W haling Museum . Starting at 4 bells in the 1st dog watch (6 PM .), light whale-

ship fare, including grog and cider, will be served (and coffee!) throughout the event. Come and leave at any time-las ts approximately 25 hours. (NBWM, 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedfo rd, MA 02740; Ph. 508 997-0046; www.whalingmuseum.org) •San Francisco Ocean Film Festival, 14- 15 January. Cowell Theater, Fort Mason, San Francisco (POB 475668, San Francisco, CA 94 147; Ph. 4 15 3 10-5259; e-mail: info@oceanfilmfest. org; www. oceanfilmfest.org) •"Submarines at the North Pole," a lecture by VADM John N icholson, 5 February, at the Maritime M useum of San D iego (MMSD, 1492 North H arbor Dr., San Diego, CA 92101 ; Ph. 6 19 234-9 153 ext. 101 ; e-mail: info@sdmaritime.org; www.sdmaritime.org)

•Roanoke Island 1862-A Civil War Living History Weekend, 18-1 9 February, at the Roanoke Island Festival Park, Outdoor Pavilion. Event will commemorate the l 44th Anniversary of the Battle of Roanoke Island with re-enactors of Union and Confederate soldiers, Civil War-era sailors and civilians (Ph. 252 475- 1500; www.roanokeisland.com) •Lantern Light Tours, Thurdays - Sundays in December at Mys tic Seaport Museum; also Pirate Week, 18-26 February. Storytelling, games, crafts. (75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, CT 06355; Ph. 860 572-0711 ; www.mysticseaport.org) •Driftwood Sculptures, 2 December - 8 January. Coos Bay, O R. Create your own wooden sculptures out at the beach using pieces of driftwood; Coos Art Museum will display them in their Uno E. Richter Atrium. (235 Anderson Ave, Coos Bay, Oregon 97420; Ph. 541 267-3901 ; e-mail: info@coosart.org; www.coosart.org)

•Exhibition and sale of eight paintings of tugboats and steamships by Don Mathiesen, '62, displayed at the US Merchant Marine M useum until the end of December. (USMMM, 300 Steamboat Rd., Kings Point, NY 11024; Ph. 516 773-5515; e-mail: museum@usmma. edu; www. usmma.edu/ about/Museum/ •The Spirit of Sailing, an exhibition of Michael Kahn's photography, onboard Star of India at the Ma ri time Museum of San Diego, th ro ugh 3 January; also Reflections on the Water, photographs

by Bob Grieser, onboard Berkeley through 3 April (1 492 North H arbor Dr., San Diego, CA 92 101 ; Ph. 6 19 234-91 53; e-mail: info @sdmaritime.org; www.sdmaritime.org) •Winslow Homer in the National Gallery, on the Nati onal Mall between Third and Seventh Streets at Co nstitution Avenue, N W, Washington DC; through 20 February 200 6 (Ph. 202 737-4215 , (TDD) 202 842-6 176; www. nga.gov) •African Americans in the Coast Guard, 31 January - 5 March 2006. Highlighting the crews of the Cape H enry, VA, and Pea Island, NC, Life-Saving and Coas t Guard Stations at The O ld Coast Guard Station (24th Street & Boardwalk, Virginia Beach, VA 23451 ; Ph. 757 422-15 87; www.oldcoastguardstation.org) •Nantucket's Greatest Generation: Photos of WW7I Servicemen from the William W. Coffin Collection, through Memorial Day 2006 (Nantucket Historical Association, 7 Fair Street, POB 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554 •Women in the Fisheries: A Contemporary View, th ro ugh June 2006 at the Maine Maritime M useum (243 Washingto n St., Bath, M E 04530; Ph. 207 44313 16; www.mainemaritimemuseum.org) •Painting Summer in New England, 22 April - 4 September 2006, at the Peabody Essex Museum . (PEM, East India Square, Salem, MA 01 970; Ph. 978 745-9500, 866 745- 1876, and fo r the hearing impaired 978 740-3649; www/pem.org) • The Art of the Boat: Photographs from the Rosenfeld Collection, now until October 2006, Mystic Seaport Museum. (75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, CT 06355; Ph: 860 572-071 1; www.mysticseaport.org)

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Reviews Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail by Daniel Vickers with Vince Walsh (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2005, 352pp, appen, illus, notes, index, ISBN 0-300-10067-1; $35hc) Young Men and the Sea, by Daniel Vickers and Vince Walsh, may be the finest single volume about American mariners during the age of sail yet written. Focusing on Salem, Massachusetts, the book explores American seafaring life in a typical port town from the rise of colonial shipping through the decades leading up to the Civil War. Based on more than a decade of graduate student research projects directed by Vickers, the book marshals an impressive array of evidence about the life course of thousands of individual sailors during the colonial and early national periods.

At the book's core is a question fundamenD:miel Vickers •rm \'1~· tal in maritime history and literature: Why did young men go to sea? For the young men of Salem and similar maritime communities, the collective answer, according to Vickers, is clear. These young men went to sea, not in search of adventure, but because in a maritime town it was simply what you did. Vickers's conclusion that it was the normal yo ung man who went to sea is an important corrective to the romantic images conveyed by 19th-century sailor-authors such as Cooper, Dana, and Melville and the equally colorful and culturally exceptional sailors described by 20th-century historians from Samuel Eliot Morrison to Marcus Rediker.

By reconstructing the lives of mariners from two distinct periods, Vickers illustrates both the continuities and patterns of change that characterized New England in the age of sail. Sailing during the colonial period offered more opportunity for advancement than during the early national period. Nonetheless, advancement and basic survival were far from guaranteed. Death from accidents, violence, or disease claimed nearly one third of all sailors. Opportunities •

for upward mobility and relative wages declined over time, especially when compared with opportunities ashore. Fewer and fewer made the jump from forecastle to quarterdeck. The one constant was the danger inherent in seafaring and the frequency of death among mariners.

Vickers provides a fascinating treatment of the origin and evolution of Salem as a port city. By following mariners up the pier to shoreside work and households, the book contributes to a growing literature that is erasing the hard cultural lines separating maritime life on land from that at sea. Ultimately, what may distinguish Young Men and the Sea from the vast run of sea histories is the exquisite assembling, linking, and careful analysis of many types of historical evidence. While it offers profound insights into the nature of the American maritime world w.~u• during the age of sail, the book is also a model of proper historical methodology. It should become a staple in social and maritime history graduate seminars for decades to come.

Beautifully written, the book is also an excellent read for any educated person interested in America's maritime past.

JOHN ODIN JENSEN Wakefield, Rhode Island

SEA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History by Craig L. Symonds (Oxford University Press, NY, 2005, 378pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 019-517145-4; $30hc) Craig Symonds's Decision At Sea examines the turning points, not just in maritime or naval history, but American, and even world history. Despite the subtitle, there are actually six battles discussed in the book, but Symonds correctly placed the first in the preface to avoid confusion because no American ships were involved in it. The "Battle of the Capes" (as in Capes Henry and Charles at the mouth of the Chesapeake) between British ships and the Caribbean Squadron under Admiral de

Grasse of the French navy proved as pivotal as the later battles studied in this book. With de Grasse denying the support of Cornwallis's army at Yorktown, it is clear that the British general had little choice but to surrender in 1781, thus ensuring American independence.

The book is clearly written, sufficiently detailed, and well illustrated. The battles Symonds examines in detail include Perry's victory on Lake Erie (1813), the Battle of Hampton Roads (Monitor and Virginia, 1862) , the Battle of Manila Bay (1898), the Battle of Midway (1942), and, surprisingly, at least to me, Operation Praying Mantis (Persian Gulf, 1988). Each battle marked a significant change in either American policy or style of warfare. Similarities exist between each, which Symonds expresses succinctly and provides cohesiveness to the book as a whole. American policies, world situations, characters' backgrounds, and political ramifications are clearly explained.

I cannot imagine any person with a love of American history who would not thoroughly enjoy this splendid book; I will certainly keep it on my bookshelf for future reference.

WILLIAM

H. WHITE

Rumson, New Jersey

Ironclad: The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor by Paul Clancy (McGraw-Hill, NY, 2005, 245pp, photos, notes, index, ISBN: 0-07-143132-2; $24.95hc) Paul Clancy has melded two fascinating tales in his new book-the life of USS Monitor and the operation to salvage her most significant feature, the rotating turret that allowed her to train her guns in any direction without having to change course.

Clancy alternates between the stories, chapter by chapter. He describes the brief career and loss of Monitor and reports of the stupendously difficult task of raising her remains from the sea floor. Clancy uses first person accounts to portray life aboard ship, and his report on the salvage operation is

43

REVIEWS based on personal observations and extensive interviews with key players. Tension created by the sometimes conflicting goals of salvage operations and archaeological preservation only added to the formidable challenges posed by weather, sea conditions, fiscal constraints, and the personalities of the leaders on both sides.

Ironclad is smoothly written and soliclly documented. Ir is worth reading for its insights on the ship's battle with Virginia, for its record of the daunting challenges involved with recovering an archaeological gem from 240 feet beneath the ocean's surface, and for its epilogue describing the ongoing effort to identify the remains of two Monitor crewmen whose skeletons were recovered with the turret.

CAPTAIN HAL SUTPHEN Kilmarnock, Virginia

historic cruise and, through extensive research, has given additional dimensions to Count von Luckner. Anyone worth his salt will enjoy this incredible but true yarn of sea, adventure, escape, and heroism-a tribute to a remarkable man.

Trno HoLTKAMP West Simsbury, Connecticut

The Cruise of the Sea Eagle: The Amazing True Story Of Imperial Germany's Gentleman Pirate by Blaine Pardoe (Lyons Press, Gui lford, CT, 273pp, photos, photos, notes, appen, sources, index, ISBN 1-59228-694-1; $22.95hc).

In 1916 the German navy picked Count Felix von Luckner to command an unusual raider-a four-masted sailing vessel! Disguised as a Norwegian ship, Seeadler (Sea Eagle) passed through the British blockade into the Atlantic. Von Luckner captured and sank a number of ships, but he brought the crews onboard his own ship as prisoners and treated them with respect. Eventually, the British caught on afte r he sent his prisoners to Rio via a captured ship. Pursued by British warships, vo n Luckner doubled Cape Horn and escaped into the Pacific. Here, Seeadler ended up on the rocks of an atoll, leaving both the German crew and their captives stranded. The irrepressible von Luckner sailed 2,500 miles toward Fiji in a open boat with a handful of his officers, but when they tried to seize a ship, the British captured him and sent him to a prison in New Zealand. From there he escaped, was caught, escaped again, and was caught again.

As a young boy in Germany, I read von Luckner's Sea Devil: Adventures .from My Life and could not put it down. Blaine Pardoe has re-created the suspense of this

44

A British Eyewitness at the Battle ofNew Orleans: The Memoir ofRoyal Navy Admiral Robert Aitchison, 1808-1827 Edited by Gene A. Smith (The Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, 2004, 160pp, maps, illus, color plates, biblio , index, ISBN 0-917860-50-0, $ 15.95 pb) Considering the disastrous outcome of the Battle of New Orleans (from the British viewpoint, that is) and the death therein of many potential writers, Robert Aitchison's words echo in a very small library dedicated to the subject. Taking into account that forty years passed before Aitchison penned the recollections of his experience and that he was a marginal witness, at best, editor Gene Smith nonetheless recognized the val ue of bringing his retrospective to our attention.

Aitchison joined the service on his thirteen th birthday and was "taken" aboard a vessel and entered as a volunteer (later midshipman). He did his best to see action and distinguish himself. In January 1815, as the Barde of New Orleans loomed, he wrote, "I was very unhappy at my chance of not getting up with the troops, but I

succeeded by hook or by crook, by being sent in charge of the Captain of the Fleet's gig ... with his valet & shoe brush." The day of the assault, he helped ferry Banking troops across the Mississippi. The battle, he stated, "was a disastrous affair from begi nning to end."

Not long after the British gave up their attempt to take New Orleans, Aitchison was unexpectedly called before a board "to undergo [his] examination" for Lieutenant. The midshipman revealed his chagrin and nervousness; his requisite papers and logs were in a sea chest somewhere. "In the confusion and amidst all the dirt & dust I was obliged to seek out mine to clean myself and dress myself for this serious affair. I got away logs, certificates, and all in a high state of perspiration, my face, I imagine, covered with sand .... " This is the memoir at its best. Battles and personages are backdrops for a young subaltern copi ng with the ebb and Bow of history and life events.

Aitchison's career would take him throughout tlle Mediterranean, Caribbean, and along the coast of North America. He participated in two major engagem ents: the Battle of New Orleans and the 1816 Battle of Algiers. Like many other officers, he was "on the beach" without ass ignment on half pay between conflicts (surviving more on fam ily wealth than on his own income), bur connections worked in his favor toward reassignment and advancement. He achieved the rank of Admiral as an Admiralty Office honorary postretirement promotion.

Gene Smith has done a masterful job introducing and concluding A.itchison's words, and his voluminous footnotes help illuminate a fascinating period in history.

PETER SORENSEN Old Mystic, Connecticut

Hitler's Admira/,s by George Henry Bennett and Roy Bennett (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2004. 249pp, index, ISBN 1-59114-061-7; $32.95) A British Admiralty mission arrived in Germany in May 1945 to interview selected captive German admirals . Initially tasked to interrogate senior officers, collect derails of technical developments and equipment, and make inquiries concern ing possible war crimes, the mission had to lower its expectations when the German

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

admirals proved uncooperative. They did manage to get the admirals to write individual essays examining Germ an naval policy from 1933 onward. Those essays are published in this book exactly as they were written in 1945 and 1946. Divided in to thirteen chapters ranging from the PreWar period and ending with postwar conclusions and ve rdicts, nine admirals provided a unique view of Hitler's navy. The fa ther and son team of Roy and George Bennett provided ed itori al clarification fo r th e essays and references in each.

1his wo rk is a specific history of these individual admiral's participation in the war and their strongly-held views of how German naval policy and decision-m aki ng influenced the course of WWII at sea. While these fi rst-hand perspectives shed ligh t on Germany's naval warfare, as a written work, yo u'll need a real desire to learn these perspectives to plow thro ugh the writing.

HAROLD

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Songquest: Ihe j ournals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton edited by Joe Grimm (Wayne State University Press, D etroit, M I, 2005, 272pp, illus, index, biblio, gloss, ISBN 0-8143-3234-x; $27.95pb) A crowd gathered along the Toron to waterfront in June 1934 to witness the execution of the Great Lakes schooner Lyman Davis. Packed with flammables and set ablaze, the sixty-year old vessel burned brightly. Later rhe burned-our hull was towed to deep water and dynami ted . W irh her passed one of rhe las t floating icons of co mmercial sail on America's inland seas.

Across rhe region, rhe last generation of men who served under sail on the lakes was also rapidly aging-most were already gone. Fortunately, a folklorist nam ed Ivan Walto n had developed an almost pathological imeresr in tracking and capturing the music and lore of Grear Lal<:es sailors.

In rhe summers of 1932, 1934, and 1938, Walton traversed rhe region looking for sailing men who remembered the song and traditions of long ago. Songquest is a lovingly-edi ted transcription of his journals.

Although prepared as the companion piece to Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors (2002), Songquest stands on its own as one of the most important com riburions S EA HISTORY 113, WINTER 2005-2006

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46

to Great Lakes historical scholarship to appear in many years.

The value for the regional musicologist is obvious-but of equal or greater significance was that Walton also indirectly functioned as an oral historian and cultural anthropologist as he sought out his songs and collected data on a wide range of topics. With the recent increase in scholarly interest in Great Lakes maritime history, this is a particularly timely publication. While we are developing an impressive knowledge of historic Great Lakes ship technology and shipping economics, the culture of the region's maritime people remains elusive and misinterpretation rampanr. Walton's journal provides hard data that current and future scholars should mine profitably for years to come.

For those interested in the formation of a distinct Great Lakes maritime culture, Songquest is a gold mine. In it we glimpse an era when salt and freshwater sailors intermingled on the ships of America's busiest commercial waterway. This book should be on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in the Great Lakes or in the cultural history of American seafaring.

JoHN ODIN JENSEN

Wakefield, Rhode Island

FICTIO N The Chains of A lbion (Book Two of the Reluctant Adventures of Lieutenant Martin Jerrold, by Edwin Thomas (Thomas Dunne Books, Sr. Martin's Press, NY, 2005, ISBN 0-312-32513-4; $24.95hc) The bulk of naval fiction set during the Napoleonic era tends to be predictable. A larger-than-life British hero, a ship, and a cast of supporting characters trounce the enemy within (smugglers, war profiteers, and government agents) and the enemy without (usually the French). Action ashore, frequently involving the humorous evils of domesticity, gives way to the real action at sea-tacking across enemy bows or luffing to cross his stern before the invariable cry of "boarders away" echoes to the mastheads. Next it's butchery below, 'rween, and above decks until the hero, through some measure of good fortune, emerges scarred and victorious to mourn the dead, inspire the living, and squander

his prize money while awaiting tlle sequel.

Author Edwin Thomas takes a different tack with his chronicles of Lieutenant Marrin Jerrold. Jerrold is typical of naval officers of the era: educated men of genteel rearing, driven as children into a way oflife that they never learned to love. Promoted through favoritism, some were forced from the navy due to incompetence. For others, gambling, inebriation, lust, or even cowardice brought censure or death. A few of those lackluster souls survived and even prospered, supported by luck and competent subordinates, or better yet by gaining one of many naval appointments ashore.

Unfortunately for Thomas's reluctant lieutenant, his luck is generally bad and those souls around him seldom have his best interests at heart.

Jerrold begins The Chains of Albion in command of a prison hulk anchored in the Medway, a reward he earned by breaking a smuggling ring in the previous volume. For a man who values glory not a whit, it is a p lum assignment-safe and easy; but when a French prisoner escapes, Jerrold must recapture him or lose his ship. The chase takes the reader from the Medway through the crowded streets of London and across the English countryside to Brighton. Along the way, Jerrold is plagued by Admiralty, Horse Guards, politicians, the minions of Napoleon, ladies of dubious morals, and, most dangerous of all, the British Post Office. Naturally, there is a ship or rwo somewhere at the end, a broadside, and "boarders away." After all, hero or anti-hero, this is a naval yarn.

That is as much as can be revealed without giving away too much of the plot.

Edwin Thomas is one of the most promising young writers of any genre that I have stumbled across in some time. His research is excellent, his characterizations have the ring of accuracy, and his writing style is superb (you need not be an experienced sailor or have a naval lexicon handy to read his book-certainly a change from most naval fiction). I look forward to the tllird volume in this series, Treason's River (due in April 2006), and t1ruly hope to see Martin Jerrold drink, wenclh, and stumble his way to the rank of Adm1iral across the coming years.

WADE G. DUDLEY Greenville, North Carolina

SEA HlSTOR~Y 113, WINTER 2005-2006

Out-of-Print few years ago I was putting a syllabus together for a literature course I sometimes teach onboard ship for a college semester at sea. I usually collect a list of classic favorites along with some uncelebrated, yet equally worthy, works. Despite how trite some classics might be to seagoing and armchair sailors alike, the students I reach are usually as green as they get. I cringe at the thought of som eo ne asking my former students if they know of this poem or that tale, ones that "everybody" should know, and having them respond with a blank stare.

So it went that I proceeded to order John Masefield's Salt ~ter Poems and Ballads, originally published in 1912. Lo and behold, it is out of print and has been for a long time! "I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky ... ," (or is it, "I must go down to the seas again"? Despite arguments to the contrary, my three used copies, at least, show the former).

Of course, "Sea Fever" is printed in coundess other books on poetry of the sea, but how is it char the English poet laureate's most famous book of sea poems is unavailable? Yes, I know copies abound in used bookstores, that's why I have three myself-one to keep pristine, one to leave around

A

OWNER'S STATEME NT Sta temen t fi led 9/29/0 5 required by t he Ace of Aug. 12, 1970, Sec. 3685, Title 39, US Cod e: Sea History is published quarterly at 5 John Wa lsh Blvd., Peekski ll NY 10566; min imum subscri ptio n p rice is $ 17.5 0. Publisher and ed itor- in-chi ef: None; Ed itor is Deirdre E. O'Regan; owner is ar iona l Maritime Historical Society, a nonp ro fit co rporatio n; all a re loca ted ar 5 John Wa lsh Blvd., Pee kskill NY 10566. D ur in g th e 12 months preced ing October 2005 th e average num ber of (A) co pies printed each issue was 25, 11 O; (B) paid a nd / or requesced circul ati o n was: ( 1) outside coun ty mail subscriptio ns 7,48 1; (2) in-county subscri ptions O; (3) sales rhrou gh dealers, ca rriers, cou nter sales, other no n-US PS paid d istrib ut io n 45 1; (4) oche r classes mailed ch ro ugh USPS 309; (C) total paid and/o r requested ci rcu lation was 8,24 1; (D) free d istribution by mail , sa mpl es, co mplim enta ry and oche r 15, 174; (E) free distribu tion o uts ide the mai ls 1,075; (F) total free distributi o n was 16,249; (G) tota l distribution 24,490; (H ) copies not discr ibuced 62 1; (I) coral [of 15G a nd H J 25, 111 ; (J) Pe rce n rnge paid a nd /o r requested c irc u lation 33.8% . The ac tual numbers fo r th e sin gle iss ue precedin g Ocrober 2005 a re: (A) cora l number printed 24,826; (B) paid and/or requ es ted circul ati on was : ( 1) outside-co unty mail subsc ription s 7,23 l ; (2) in-county subscription s O; (3) sa les thro ugh dealers, carri ers, co unccr sa les, o cher no n-USPS paid distribution 458; (4) o che r classes mailed t hrou gh US PS 275; (C) co ra l paid a nd /o r requested circulat io n was 7,980; (0) free distribution by mail, sa mpl es, co mplim entary and o cher 15,700; (E) free distribution o utside che mails 9 00; (F) coral free distribution was 16,600; (G) total di srribuci o n 24,580; ( H ) copies not distributed 246; (I) tota l [of 15G and H J 25 ,539; (J) Perce ntage paid a nd /o r requested circul atio n 32.5%. I certify rhar the above statements are co rrect and co mpl ete. (signed) Burchenal Gree n , Execut ive D irecco r, Na ti onal Mar it ime Hisco ri cal Sociery.

SEA HISTORY 11 3, WINTE R 2005-2006

rhe house, and one to take to sea where real salt water spray John Masefield stains the pages and the occasional cockroach lays her eggs in the glue of the binding (if yo u sail on a wooden ship in the Caribbean, they are somewhat hard to avoid). Like the treasured B side of some old vinyl 45, it's the other poems within its covers that I cherish most. " 'Bill, he's dead,' was all they said; 'he's dead, 'n' there he lies.' ..." -ah, one of my favorites. For those of you who can't stand co hear "Sea Fever" one more time, Masefield's ocher verses contain salt-saturated dialect in his yarns and the harsh realities of rhe unromanticized side of seafaring.

"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." All I ask is for some publisher to recognize chat there must be a marker for this fine classic.

What's yo ur favorite our-of-print maritime book? Lee us know which ride grieves you because yo u can't believe it isn't available and why. (Send your choice to: editorial@seahistory. org or to Editor, Sea History, 7 Timberknoll Rd., Pocasse t, MA 02559) -Deirdre O'Regan

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48

SEA HISTORY 113 , WINTER 2005-2006

MONTAGUE DAWSON "The Tea Clipper SHUN LEE"

Important Marine Art Exhibition In New York City, January 6·28, 2006 The Union League Club 38 East 37th Street, New York, NY Announcing Quester Gallery's 11th Annual Marine Art Exhibition and Sale at the Union League Club Gallery.

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