Historic Maritime Rings of the Finest Quality
USS Dunlap (DD-384)
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by Mike Carroll
undergraduate cadets, K-12 STEM programming, and community outreach within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and beyond. These three pillars will ensure the ship’s legacy as a vital educational asset. “The Ernestina-Morrissey will deliver valuable lessons for MMA cadets, students of all ages, and people in our communities who want to understand more about our seafaring culture,” said Rear Admiral Francis X. McDonald, USMS, Massachusetts Maritime Academy president. The vessel has been based out of
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EXPERIENCE HISTORY ABOARD OUR NATIONAL LANDMARK SCHOONERS
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locate the living descendants of the ship’s namesake, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Robert H. Dunlap, but after several months of searching provided no leads, he donated the 80-pound bell to the NHHC, inspired by the story of another ship’s bell he’d seen on the History Channel series American Pickers. Mace presented the bell to the Public Affairs Office for Naval Air Facility El Centro, which crated and shipped the artifact to the NHHC. Built by United Dry Docks in Staten Island and commissioned in 1937, USS Dunlap served in the Pacific during WWII, participating in carrier raids on Japanese positions, the Battle of Vela Gulf, and the Leyte Islands. Her deck was the site of the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the Bonin Islands. She was decommissioned at the end of 1945 and sold for scrapping in December 1947. Her bell was sent on loan to Brown University; it is unclear how the bell found its way to a yard sale in California. General Dunlap, who served in the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion, as well as other conflicts, died attempting to rescue a woman caught under a collapsed wall in a landslide in France. (www.history.navy.mil) … Massachusetts Maritime Academy is preparing for two new additions to its fleet, including the historic 1894 schooner Ernestina-Morrissey. The vessel is currently in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where she has been undergoing a full restoration since 2015 by the shipwrights at Bristol Marine Shipyard. The restoration is on track for an autumn 2021 completion, when she will make her way to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, to start the next chapter in her long and storied life. As the new official steward of the ErnestinaMorrissey, MMA will focus its use of the historic schooner in three areas, including sail training and leadership training for
Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey’s foc’s’ le bunks and settees beginning to take shape. nearby New Bedford since she was repatriated in 1982, a gift from the people of the Republic of Cape Verde. By the terms of legislation signed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker in July 2020, control of the ship transferred from the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation to MMA, with provisions to maintain a presence in New Bedford at no cost for (continued on page 51)
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