Sea History 055 - Autumn 1990

No. 55

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

AUTUMN 1990

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

SUMMER OF 1940: Little Ships at Dunkirk COLUMBUS:

To

Sea at Last!

USNS ZEUS (T-ARC 7)

SPECIAL SHIPS FOR SPECIAL MISSIONS Military Sealift Command (MSC) crews and operates a fleet of more than 40 ships that sail the globe to support U.S. Navy fleet operations and special missions worldwide.

One of our special mission ships USNS ZEUS (TARC 7) was the first cable ship to be designed and built by the Navy. ZEUS is 513 feet in length with diesel electric power and cruises at 15 knots. ZEUS maintains the Navy's capability for laying and repairing underwater cables and related hardware. She is equipped with state-of-the-art cable handling machinery, precision navigation equipment, twin screws, and side propulsion units to accommodate the exacting maneuvers needed for cable operations. In addition, the ship undertakes acoustic, hydrographic, oceanographic, and ocean engineering surveys.

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duties are dedicated to her cable mission. ZEUS has two Chief Officers, one of whom, the Chief Officer (Cable), is responsible for cable operations while the other performs traditional First Mate responsibilities. She also has two Boatswain Mates. The cable crew consists of a Boatswain Mate and nine Able Seamen (Cable) who stand two twelve hour watches during operations. Additionally, two Deck Engineer Machinists and two Unlicensed Jr. Engineers are responsible for operating and maintaining cable equipment. Crew accommodations include single staterooms, three lounges, a gymnasium, a recreation room, and a library.

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MSC has challenging shipboard opportunities and invites interested individuals to request application information.

MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND Washington Navy Yard

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Positions are subject to requirements of the CIVMAR Drug Free Workplace Program which includes drug urinalysis screening

MSC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

ISSN 0146 -93 12

SEA HISTORY No. 55

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST AUT UMN 1990

SEA HI STORY is publi shed quarterly by the ationa l Maritime Hi sto rica l Soc iety, 132 Maple Street, Croton-on-Hudson NY I0520. Second c lass postage paid at Croto n-on- Hudson, NY 10520, and Cinc innati, O H 45 242 . USPS # 000676.

COPYR IG HT © 1990 by the Natio na l Maritime Historica l Soc iety. Te l. 9 14 27 1-2 177.

POSTMASTER : Se nd address changes to Sea Hi story, PO Box 646, 132 Maple Street, Croton NY 10520-0646.

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OFF IC ERS & TRUSTEES a re C ha irman Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr.; Vice Chairmen, Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , Alan G . Choate, James Ean ; Preside/I/ , Peter St anford; Vice Presidem , Norma Stanford ; Treasurer, Thomas Gochberg; Secre1ary, Richardo Lo pes: Trus1ees. He nry H. Anderso n, Jr. , Alan G. Choate, Thomas Gochberg, No rbert S. Hill , Jr. , Truda C. Jewett . Karl Ko rtu m. George Lamb, Richardo Lo pes. Ro bert J. Lowen. James P. Marenakos. Schuy ler M. Meyer, Jr. , Dani e l Moreland , Nancy Po uch, Ludwig K. Rubi nsky, Edmund S. Rumowicz, Frank V. Snyder, Peter Stanford . Samuel T hompson, W ill iam G . Winterer, Ed ward G. Ze linsky. Chairman Emeri1us, Karl Kort um OVERS EERS: Chairman, He nry H. Anderson.

Jr. : Charles F. Adams, Townsend Hornor, Ueorge Lamb, Cliffo rd D. Mallory, Schuy le r M. Meyer, Jr. , J. Willi am Middendorf, II , John G . Rogers, John Stobart ADVISORS: Co-Chairmen, Frank 0. Braynard , Me lbourne Sm it h: D. K. A bbass , Raymond Aker, Robert Amon, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Brett . David Brin k, Frank G. G. Carr, W il liam M. Doernin ger, John S. Ewa ld. Joseph L. Fa rr. T imothy G . Foote. Tho mas Gi llmer, Richard Goold-Adams, Wa lter J. Hande lman, Robert G. Herbert , Jr. , R. C. Je fferson, Irvi ng M. Johnson. Conrad Mi lster, Ed ward D. Muhl fe ld, W illi am G. Muller, Dav id E. Perk ins, Richard Rath . ancy Hughes Richardson, Ti mothy J. Run yan, George Sall ey , Ralph L. Snow, Edward A. Stac kpole. John Sto bart , A lbert Swanson, Shannon J. Wall , Raymond E. Wa ll ace , Robert A. We inste in, T homas We ll s, Charl es W ittho lz.

American Ship Trusl. Hon . Secrelary, Eric J. Berryman WORLD SHIP TRUST: Chairman, Wens ley Haydon-Baillie; Vice Presidenls, Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , Visco unt Ca ldecote, S ir Rex Hunt , Hammond Innes, Rt. Hon. Lord Lewi n, Rt. Hon .

Lord Shackleton; Dep . Direc/or, J. A. Forsythe; Hon. Treasurer, Michae l C. MacSw iney: Tru sTees : Eric J. Berryman, Mensun Bo und, Dr. Ne iI Cossons, Dav id Goddard, D. R. MacG regor, Alan McGowan, Michae l Parker, Arthur Prothero, Michael Stammers, Jayne T racy. Membership : £ 15 payable WST, I 29aNorth Street, Burwe ll , Cambs.

C BS OBB , England. Reg. Charity No. 2777 5 1 SEA HI STORY ST AFF: Edi/Or , Peter Stanford; Managing Edi/or, NormaStan ford ;Associa1e Edi /Or, Kev in Haydon; Adver1ising, M ichelle Shuster; Accouming, Martha Rosvall y; Membership Sec'y, Patric ia Anstett; Membership Assis., G race Zerella, Sally Dougherty; Assistanl lo Th e Presidenl, Sa lly Kurts

CONTENTS 4 4 7 9 10 I0 11 12 14 14 16 20 22 24 29 31 33 38 44

DECK LOG L ETTERS AND QUERI ES NMHS MISS ION IN C LIO ' S CAUSE: LET US SAIL TOGETHER IN 1992, Richard Monette THE SU MMER OF 1940 LITTLE SHI PS AT DUN KIRK, Peter Stanfo rd TO T HE G REAT RELI EF AND LOUD CHEERS OF THOSE ON BOARD , Christian Brann DUNKIRK REV ISITED, Bill Utl ey THE COLUMB US Q UINCENTENARY TH E SAILO RS OF T HE ERA OF DISCOV ERY, Peter Cope land REDI SCOVERI NG COL UMBUS III , Peter Stanfo rd WESTWA RD TRACES COL UMB US , Jeffrey Bolster TH E CR UISE OF TH EOOKUWA TEE, Philip Thorneycroft Tuesc her MARI NE ART: JOH N WHITE ' S SKETCHES OF TH E NEW WORLD , Norn1a Stanfo rd MARI NE ART NEWS OPERATI ON SAIL 1992: DRUZHBA BRINGS US-SOVI ET CREW BAC K TO BAS ICS , Kev in Haydon SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT AND MUSEUM NEWS REV IEWS DESSERT: WITH U-53 TO AME RICA : PART I, Thomas J. Hajewski

COYER: The 1906 T hames sailing barge Ena was one of sixteen barges which sailed to Dunkirk to resc ue troops stranded on the beaches . Eventuall y beached and abandoned at Dunkirk as the Germ an fo rces cl osed in , Ena was refloated by soldiers of the Roya l Artillery and sailed under constant enemy fire across the Engli sh Channel. Photo and tex t excerpted from Th e Lirrle Ships of Dunkirk by Chri sti an B ra nn (Collectors' Books Limited , Cirencester, G loucestershire UK); used with permi sion.

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We bring to li fe Ameri ca's seafaring pas t th ro ugh research, archaeological ex pediti ons and ship preservati on efforts. We work with museums, historians and sail tra ining groups on these efforts and report on these ac ti v iti es in o ur qu arte rl y journal Sea History. We are also the American arm of the

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Since 1980 Kendall has specialized in marine art and has a series of " Tall Ships" in print. An average of 200-250 hours each is spent on an original drawing. Other ships in the series include the " Eagle," " Sea Cloud ," " Guayas," " Dar Pomorza," " Gorch Fock II ," " Christian Radich," " Balclutha ," & " Golden Hind II." All prints are hand signed by the artist.

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DECK LOG D. K. Abbass, PhD, is one of three new members of the NMHS Advisory Council whom we welcome aboard with this issue. Currently serving as Executive Director of the Museum of Yachting in Newport, Rhode Island , she is a marine surveyor and trained anthropologist, an unlikely combination that delights us as it does all who know Kath y and her work. NMHS members will get to know Dr. Abbass better between now and 1992, since she is coordinating scholarl y aspects of the "Age of Discovery" program which NMHS is co-sponsoring with Operation Sail 1992, and other Columbus Quincentenary efforts.

W e also welcome aboard Tom Gillmer, naval architect, who teaches at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Tom designed the first Pride of Baltimore (lost at sea in 1986) and , to hi s great credit and that of the ship 's sponsors (notably Mayor- now Governor-William D. Schaefer), he also dedesigned the second Pride now sail ing Spanish waters. And we welcome naval architect Ray Wallace, of San Pedro, California, initiator and designer of the restoration of the four-masted bark M oshulu (currently in Wilming ton , De laware) and also designer of the love!y brig Lady Washington sailing out of Gray's Harbor, Washington .

About our lead story : The British yachtsmen who took their little ships to Dunkirk to save a trapped army at the beginning of that terrible summer of 1940, now fifty years ago, did more than touch the course of hi story-they helped to change it. Such things are not al ways recognized at the time, but this epochal undertaking was. In my father Alfred Stanford's watch as Commodore, the Cruising Club of America awarded their Blue Water Medal to "The British Yachtsmen at Dunkirk."

The waters they sailed were shall ow, and the trip from England to the waiting soldiers on the beaches was a short onetragically short for some. But as their voyage lengthens out in time it is clear that it will not be forgotten while free men and women speak the English lanPS guage.

4

LETTERS OpSail is 100% Devoted to Sail Commander H. F. Morin Scott as ks, in hi s letter in Sea History 54, how much of the money generated by prev iou s OpSails found its way into the support of sailing ships or sail training generally .

Let him be ass ured that the fi gure is exactl y I 00%.

In 1976, the revenues left after meeting all expenses were turned over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, enabling matching funds to be obtained.

A Maritime Department was established by the Trust to admini ster these funds.

Upon carefu l analys is, they were distributed to a substanti al number of mari time-orientated projects thro ughout the country, including the South Street Seaport. Significant additi onal multipliers were achi eved on these fund s through matching grants at the local, state, and private levels. Much of these funds were of a seed-money nature, and have developed into important on-going programs on their own in the subsequent years.

And so it can be sai d that much of the national and worldwide interest extant today in sail training and the history of our ships is directly traceable to OpSail.

OpSail has not been viewed as a producer of profits. Its management has been dedi cated to putting on an internationally significant parade of tall ships on those occasions that warrant it.

OpSail 1964, 1976, 1986, and 1992 have been and are being managed by essenti ally the same group of dedicated people, many of whom have now served for over 30 years. None have ever received renumeration of any kind.

In addition to the stimulu s given to sai l training, the signifi cance and beauty of the OpSail events has caused the worldwide fascination with the United States celebration in 1976 and the Statue of Liberty celebration in 1986. And 1992 promises to be an even more breathtaking celebration!

R OBERT

w. H UBNER

Vice-Chainnan, Operation Sail

A Badly Needed Job The story about James P. McAlli ster by Karl Kortum in Sea History 53 was outstanding, as was the article "James P .

McAllister Remembered."

It was back in the Depression days (1929) when I first met James P. McAlli ster. Another marine engineer and I, both ofus unemployed and needing a job badly , contacted Mr. James. He had a wooden tug boat named McA llister

Brothers with a Winton air injection direct reversible diesel engine that was laid up. We asked Mr.Jam es why wasn't the boat in service. He repli ed the diesel engine was out of servi ce too often.

We made a deal with Mr. James: Ifhe would put the boat in service and employ the two of us as engineers we wo uld stand watches and anytime the eng ine was out of serv ice we wo uld be off the payroll. Mr. James took us up on the offer and I don ' t recall any interrupti on of serv ice, mainly because my partner and I needed the job and sa lary badly.

Years later I often met Mr. James when I was employed as port engineer for another company that had a fl eet of diesel tugs and ships. We had many lively discuss ions about the earl y diesel engines. I adm ired thi s man very much fo r hi s fores ight into the future of diesel engi nes in ships and other types of marine craft and I shall never fo rget him .

WALTER L EANDER

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

" Wholeheartedly Approving" Who can argue with Commerce Secretary Mosbacher 's statement in "w holehearted ly" approvi ng the proposed fourmast bark Liberty, or Captain Bo lton's many cogent points in hi s article in Sea History 54 regarding "our heritage in American maritime commerce?" Captain Bolton notes that "the US Merchant Fleet, once the world 's largest" is still "considered a vital component of our national sea lift- 'The Fourth Arm of Defense."'

But practical Iy these same words have been repeated over and over at every major ship lau nch in the last two decades. Who is li steni ng?

Not the grain brokers who lobby to have US grain shipped in foreign bottoms. Not those federal agencies required by law to ship government-generated aid cargoes on US ships. And certainl y not the Chamberof American Controlled Shipping.

This group with the misleading name is made up of 48 US shipping, banking and insurance companies owning 343 tankers, cargo, and other ships of over I000 gross ton s. None of these vessels are regi stered in the US. T he purpose is to evade US taxes , restrictive regulations and crew wages.

For years the US seaman has been the ir whipping boy. The control these parent compan ies have over these fleets is ludicrous: 158 of these so-called controll ed SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

vessels are registered in Liberia which at this writing has an uncontrolled rebellion; 35 % of these "controlled" ships are registered in Panama, a country whose ships President Bush has threatened in the past to forbid entry to any US port.

Most all are crewed, stored and repaired outside of the US. The loss in US dollars, labor, wages , industry and balance of payments is enormous.

Let us hope the tall ship Liberty and attention it will attract moves the average citizen and his Congressional representative to realize that each US built and operating ship nurtures benefit to each of our 50 states. Un less this and future administrations take some positive productive action , our grand and great-grandchildren wi ll have only a rusty skeleton hulk from which to chip any historical maritime commerce heritage.

JOH

S. STEPH EN BLANK, 3RD

Hercules, California

"Through the Alley-0" As a native Mancunian, I was interested to read Ralph Freeman's article on the Manchester Ship Canal in Sea History 53. During my ch ildhood in the 1920s and 1930s there was a chant current among children that commemorated the open ing: The great big ship sai led thro' the alley-o, Thro ' the alley-o, Thro' the alley-o, The great big ship sai led thro ' the alley-o, On the last day of December.

This chant was used to accompany a street game played by the girl s. Being a mere boy, I never understood the rules of the game, which no doubt had some deep symbolism . The sense of wonder at an ocean-going ship sai ling through the houses that the words imply is genuine.

It never ceased to impress.

Two points in the otherwise excellent article need correction. The StocktonDarlington Railway was never extended to Liverpool and Manchester. Its technology was only suited to low-speed goods traffic. The Manchester-Liverpool Railway, opened in 1830, was the first hi gh-speed line for both passengers and freight, and was a quantum leap in technology. Further lines to London, Birmingham , Leeds and Sheffield were opened by 1840, using the same track system and improved rolling stock, but there was no connection to the north-east until much later, and it was via a differSEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

ent network.

Mr Freeman is quite right to draw attention to the strain that existed between Manchester and Liverpool over freight costs, but is wrong to suggest that this caused Manchester to decline. In fact Manchester's prosperity peaked during the later half of the 19th century.

Humphrey de Trafford decided to employ his fami ly lands (adjacent to the docks) to set up the largest industry park in the world, and to invite international capital into the development. This diversified Manchester into what would now be called the "sunri se" industries, and the docks primari Iy served these. George Westinghouse was the most prominent American involved, although there were many others. This was Manchester's salvation when the cotton industry began to decline, and cou ld never have happened without the cana l, as many of the enterprises relied on bulk maritime transport.

Trafford Park is now well into decli ne itself, but it and the canal did their job in a timely manner.

Both canals now seem ass ured of continued existence as leisure facilities and a new maritime museum has been opened on the Ship Canal at Ellesmere.

But the sight of one of Manchester Liners ships gliding by while the road traffic waited at the swing bridge has gone forever. Traffic snarl-ups wi ll never have the same aesthetic value.

PAUL QUINN

Stafford, England The Manchester Ship Canal stirred others to write of their experiences with this English Midlands ditch. -ED.

Insert Here!

The Donald Demers insert. What a delight, a bonus " Marine Art" artic le.

Should have written of my same reaction to the Tom Hoyne insert. "Marine Art" is exceptional-it not only depicts sea history, it is of itself sea history.

I hope that the super majority of my Sea History colleagues concur.

G. S. CUSHMAN Industry, California

Arms I contin ue to enjoy your magazine and particularly the current Co lumbus emphasis.

However, I feel that Mr. Braynard's personal opinions as to our government's arms policy have no place in or real relevance to hi s otherwise excellent article on Juan Sebastian de Elcano (S H

54, p 14 ). He is entitled to these views, of course, and I would probably enjoy argu ing with him on the subject (if he ever permits such a thing), but I feel they are inappropriate in this context. Moreover, it demonstrates a certain smallness of mind-albeit admirable singleness of purpose.

WARREN H. SIMMONS, JR. Princeton, New Jersey ERRATA

On page 33 of Sea History 54 we said: "The CCR 812 was one of the privately owned vessels conscripted during World War II as coastal patrol boats." Actually CGR 8 12 was the Boston Pilot's Association schooner Roseway, points out Michael R. Flannery of Syracuse NY. She was kept in the Pilot service during the war, run by pilots who held reserve USCG commiss ions. Roseway still sai ls as one of the Camden ME windjammers, and Mr. Flannery sailed in her in 1988.

She was built in 1925 in Essex, MA. "Even if we Swedes very much would like it to be true," writes Claes Tillaeus of Larbro, Sweden, the Pommern is not homeported in Sweden as noted by Sea History 52 on p3. She is in fact in Mariehamn, Aland , Finland.

The Trincomalee Restoration article appearing on page 37 of Sea History 54 speaks of the vessel as "Built by the Royal Navy ... to the Leda class, a heavy class designed to match the American Constitution class ... " but William M. P. Dunne of the Department of History at SUNY, Stony Brook, New York, has pointed out: 'The Macedonian, Java, and Shannon were Leda class frigates.

The Surveyor of the Admiralty, Sir William Rule designed the Leda class 38-gun frigates in 1799, well before the War of 18 12, and, by builder' s measurement, they were more than 400 tons smaller then the three American 44-gun frigates, and nearly 200 tons smaller than our 38-gun frigates, the Constellation and Congress."

The erroneous statement that the Leda class were heavy frigates designed to beat the American heavies was made by our editor on faulty information. We are gratefu l for Mr. Dunne's well-founded correction. D

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NMHS Mission

by Peter Stanford

j

This year's Annual Meeting was held at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Connecticut---one of the affi li ates with whom we maintain joint membership.

We are currently pursuing a joint project _ _ with the Museum, led by volunteer William E. Burgess, Jr., into the life and times of Amelia Prudence Hayden, who married Henry Champlin in 1814 while Henry's schooner was laid up in Essex during the British blockade of the Warof 1812, and who later bore most of their ensuing offspring at sea (see SH 36).

Brenda Milkofsky, Director of the Museum, bade us welcome. Always gracious, she really radiated good cheer this time, for just the day before, in At the Annual Meeting: from the left Christeen, Nawat III, brigantine Black Pearl.

Washington DC, she had accepted a much-coveted museum support grant succeeding the late James P. McA lli ster, Ve rdean community whose devoted from President Bush in the White House. whose office had been he ld vacant si nce efforts saved this most important schooAnd, also, the formidable William G. his untimely death in Jul y last year. ner, spoke memorably of how seafaring Winterer, proprietor of the famed Gris- Commodore Anderson was re-elected broadened hi s horizons and brought him wold Inn and Chairman of the Connecti- Vice Chairman for Historic Ships and to an understanding of the seafaring of cut River Museum Board of Trustees, Sail Training, Alan G. Choate as Vice all nations, and people of all heritages. "I had just been e lected a Trustee ofNMHS. Chairman for Plans; and James Ean Vice came to love them ," he said, summing Other trustees elected to the Board of Chairman for Marine Education. Peter up an ex perience of schooners, tankers Trustees in an uncontested but enthusi- Stanford was re-relected as President, and tugs-and of the people who sail in astic election were: Norbert S. Hill, Jr., continuing his service as paid staff chief them. "That's what keeps me going toExecutive Director of the American for NMHS, and Norma Stanford, also a day."

Indi an Science & Engineering Society staff member as Managing Editorof Sea Jay Bolton of the US Tall Ships in Boulder, Colorado; Ms. Truda C. History, was elected Vice Pres ident. Foundation spoke of the Soviet-Ameri Jewett, Public Affairs Director of the Under this arrangement, the President is can crui se aboard the tall ship Druzhba, Children's Aid Society, of New York; a trustee, who also happens to be the involving cadets from American mari and James P. Marenakos, proprietor of chief paid staff person; the Vice Presi- time academies in a working program Quester Galleries, of Stonington, Con- dent is a non-trustee staff person who with Soviet cadets (see page 31 ). And he necticut. Re-elected were Commodore nonetheless exerts authority accountable spoke of the Foundation's plan to build Henry H. Anderson, Jr., C hairman directly to the Board of Trustees. an American ship for thi s work (see SH Emeritus of the American Sail Training Richardo Lopes, President of Pfiefer 54, p 13). Ben Clarkson and Bob EldAssociation and Vice Chai rman of the Lopes, was elected Secretary, and Tho- ridge spoke of their work to save the NMHS; Karl Kortum, Chief Curator of mas J. Gochberg of New York was Christeen, the oyster sloop the NMHS the Maritime National Historic Park of elected Treasurer. helped find a home for at the ConnectiSan Francisco and Chairman Emeritus Com mittee C hairmen were then cut River Museum (see SH 53, p39). The of the NMHS; and Captain Robert J. named by Chairman Meyer as follows: Christeen, of course, was there for all Lowen, International President of the Advisory Council, Frank 0. Braynard hands to admire, a little denuded with International Organization of Masters, and Melbourne Smith; American Ship afterdeck stripped away, but sitting as Mates & Pilots, of Linthicum Heights, Trust, Henry H. Anderson, Jr. ; Awards, prettily in the water as she did a century Richard L. Rath; Development, Edmund ago in 1883, at the outset of her long, Maryland.

With the newly elected or re-elected S. Rumowicz; Plans, Alan G. Choate. hard-working life. trustees in place, the membership meetAnd to add a further dimension to this NMHS members practicall y wrote ing was thereupon adjourned, and a brief the book on sav ing hi storic ships-and experience, the late Barclay Warburton ' s pro-forma meeting of the trustees was on all the interest that cluster round them. lovely brigantine Black Pearl came up he ld for the purpose of electing officers. It' s a book they go on writing, working the river, graceful as a ballerina coming Officers are elected by trustees, and under to deepen as well as extend the message. on stage, completely distracting everyour system thi s is done at an open meet- A shining chapter was added that Satur- one ' s attention fro m the speakers. We, ing under the eyes of the membership, day in the testimony of Richard Monette and they, forgave her, however, and with the members free to ask questions of Senator Inouye ' s staff- a talk we've swarmed quite willingly across her decks of the Board of Trustees. reprinted on page 8 of thi s Sea History. to swap tall tales with Captain Robert Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr., Chairman of Joe Cardozo reported on the sailing Rustchak, who brought severa l friends the Edwin Gould Foundation for Chil- of the Ernestina , a schooner for all sea- and members in crew, along with greetdren in New York, past Vice Chairman sons if ever there was one, and Captain ings from Jakob Isbrandtsen and the for Education of the NMHS, was there- James Lopes , fatherofNMHS Secretary gang working to restore the Wavertree at upon unanimously elected Chairman, Richardo Lopes and a leader of the Cape South Street Seaport Museum in New

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SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

7

HALF MOON

Washington, North Carolina Come explo re a replica 1609 ship Henry Hudson's HALF MOON! Berthed in beautifu l Washington , North Carolina, at the intersection of Hwy . 17 and the Pamlico Rive r, the HALF MOON offers guided tours of the vessel , special events, and a shoreside museum/gift shop . Special rates for adult and school groups.

From October 19th, to November 4th , th e HALF MOON will visit the town of New Bern, N.C. on the Neuse River - come visit he r th ere if you' re in North Carolina then!

For more information , contact: Half Moon Visitor Center Haven s' Wharf • W. Main St. Washington , N .C. 27889 (919) 946 -1609 • (919) 946-2212 Tosl>Or••rH I Ou1 •rlhnh

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Yankee Clipper's Wavertree Room The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport's finest restaurants , recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Wavertree , a tall ship now berthed just outside the restaurant's multipaned windows. The dedication of the Wavertree Room goes beyond its physical proximity to its namesake, however, for the room actually once served as the office of Baker, Carver & Morrell , general agents who represented the Wavertree in the 1800s. - VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, March 1986

York, 100 miles away to the westward .

The Black Pearl and the Wavertree Gang work under the Ship Trust of New York , led by Jakob Isbrandtsen, who is Chairman E meritus of the South Street Seaport Museum .

The day's proceedings ended thus with members gathered on the decks o f the Black Pearl and the NMHS flagship Nawat Ill alongs ide . Nawat' s owner Schu yler Meyer had brought her from her home in City Island, New York , with Walter Ball ard, Karl Kortum , Richard Monette, Joe Sabe l and myself aboard.

We had a pleasant Sunday unwinding on the voyage back to New York .

*****

More is accompli shed at these convivi al get-togethers than might be supposed.

Battleship sailor Jack Les lie meets ecologist Joe Sabel, the Bostonian Al Swanson yarns with Karl Kortum of San Francisco, with whom he sailed in the Pac ifi c in World War II . And Viv Anderson of Imagination Celebration , reporting o n pl ans fo r a New York State "Scho larship at Sea" program to be conducted with NMHS in 1992, is interrupted when she call s for volunteers -by the redo ubtabl e Bernie Kl ay standin g up to lead all 120odd people in that raucous but only a llusively raunchy ditty"There's a Fire Down Below. " That's our kind of meeting !

We hope to do more of these meetings around different regions of the country, but we must walk before we run .

And if you want a more deta iled accounting of the year 's doings and plans ahead , just write in fo r the Annual Report to the Members for the Yearl 989, now in the works. D

>per 110 John Street,

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SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

IN CLIO'S CAUSE:

Let Us Sail Together in 1992

by Richard Monette

"In Clio's Cause" is a section of Sea History devoted to the cause of history as such-its hard-won learning, its values and disciplines. When Richard Monette,ayoungChippewaon the staff of the Senate Select Committee on lndianAffairs,gave this talkatthe NMHS Annual Meeting at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Connecticut, last May 19, all of us presentfelt that his words belong in this section, this issue.

The Chippewa and other Indian tribes of North America referred to this continent as 'Turtle Island ." At the geographical center of the continent, Turtle Island , lies the turtle's heart, known as Turtle Mountain. I am a member of and grew up on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation .

I have been asked to g ive the Native American perspective on Columbus and the Quincentenary, some of which may dovetai l nicely with what you are most familiar with, and some of which, as you might well imagine, may not dovetail quite so nicely.

Each day that I, and other Indians, ex it Union Station in Washington , DC, I can't help but maneuver around a magnificent statue of a man with an Indian kneeling at hi s side. The caption reads: "To the memory of Christopher Co lumbus, whose high fai th and indomitable courage gave to mankind a new world ."

Leaving alone for the moment the question into what category Indians might belong, ifnot "mankind," let me say that a significant portion of the Native population might re-word that caption just a bit, to something like this: " To the memory of Christopher Col um bu s, whose insatiable greed and incompetent seamanship gave to certain of mankind di sease, slavery , scalping and the loss of their homelands. " Somewhere between those two gross exaggerations lies a very simple concept called the truth . If there is anything, I believe, that I can tell you unequivocally, it is that all Native Americans want at least one thing to emerge from 1992the truth .

Many Indian tribes practiced two ceremonial dances, one called the Ghost Dance and the other called the Sun Dance.

The Ghost Dance is a ceremony in which one dons a ghost shirt, which makes one invi sible or which is impenetrable to the white man 's bullets, so that the Indian will withstand the onslaught of the E uropean , the buffalo will return, the Indian SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

wi ll li ve forever, and the white man will go away. The dance is one of external forces, of reaction to oppression, of revolution, of violence, of conflicting truths.

The Sun Dance is a ceremony in which one isolates the self, goes on a fast, has visions, and searches for inner knowledge. The dance is one of internal strength over external forces and of universal truths. On many reservations these ceremonies are sti ll performed in many differen t forms.

* * * * *

On my home reservation, I started high school with about 220 classmates. Fou r years later 60 of those classmates graduated with me. Seven of us went on to receive four year college degrees. One has received an advanced degree. When truth becomes a negotiable item in our educational institutions , these statistics reveal the tragedies. I firmly believe that many of those who drop out of reservation schoo ls are every bit as intelligent as I am, and probably more so. But they are the first to recognize the di shonesty and hypocri sy of the ed ucational system, and they rebel in a Ghost Dance of sorts.

The year 1992 wi 11 be a showcase of our new Age of Information, the age of high technology and micro-second communications. We now have the capacity, for the first time in hi story, to disseminate an entire history to an entire generation in one fell swoop, to remedy past indiscretions and to make the future more learned and more hopeful. Let us begin with 1492.

To the American Indian, Chri stopher Columbus and the di scovery of America has become the guidepost of American honesty, or the lack thereof, in a long line of historical events. Thi s nation 's capital is his namesake, as is one of our great rivers, the mighty Columbia, the lifeblood of many Pacific Northwest Indian tribes. Many great cities share the name.

They all deserve a history steeped in truth .

We shou ld not stop at 1492, if we attempt to redress past indiscretions. Let alone the fact that in 1492 Columbus himself never set foot on North America, nor Central or South America, for that matter. Take, for instance, the Boston Tea Party , wh ich I guess was the first step in the long demise of Boston Harbor. That the colonists were protesting "taxation without representation" may be a noble thing, but the real reason for dress ing up as Indians, which was to

drive a wedge between the grow ing coalition between the British and powerful Indian confederacies, is never taught.

And what about the Indian contributi on to the making of the US Constitution?

The li st of such se lective truths in our history books is long.

In short, let us be candid. In the 1990s the Indian tribes are at a crossroad-a real opportunity to learn America's ways while preserving theirown . America and American communities large and small must allow the Indian people, both as individual s and as tribes, to participate in their soc ieties, to integrate into their economies, in the manner and to the extent that the tribes wish to participate.

Let ou r ch ildren's textbooks be accurate and comp lete. Let us turn inward to be honest with our chi ldren at home.

Give us reason to set aside our reactionary ghost shirts and to, so to speak, Sun Dance together. Let truth be our li fe preserver and let honesty be our unsinkable raft. Let us gather up our own high faith and indom itable courage and, in 1992, let us set sai I together. o

MARINE OIL PAINTINGS OF HISTORICAL SHIPS AND HARBORS CALL OR WRITE FOR VCR TAPE ROBERT W YOUNG 411 ELLIOTT ST BEVERLY MA 01915 TEL 508-922-7469 9

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The Summer of 1940: The Little Ships at Dunkirk

by Peter Stanford The catastrophe that left the British Expeditionary Force floundering helplessly amid the sand dunes and abandoned vacation cottages of the French shore at Dunkirk was set in motion on May I 0, when Colonel General Heinz Guderian 's panzerkarnpfwagens, the tanks of the l st, 2nd and I 0th Armored Divisions, crossed from Germany into Luxemburg in a slashing attack that was to carry them straight through, ten days later, to the Engli sh Channel. The French High Command was paralyzed by the devastating pace and fury of the German attack, delivered as it was in a weak point in their lines where they had neve r dreamed the Germans would try to break through.

General Gamelin issued an urgent but not very helpful order of the day, "The flood of German tanks must be stopped!" This mightily amused Guderian' s men when they captured a copy of the order, for they knew the French and British fielded some 4,000 tanks to their 2500. And what was called for was not stopping the German spearheads, but cutting them off. The Frerich General De Gaulle tried twice to drive his tanks across the shaft of the German spear, in desperate, ill-coordinated attacks without infantry support. Britain 's Lord Gort a few days later, on May 21, launched a tank charge driving down on the salient from the north , at Arras. The British tanks hit hard enough to shake up Rommel's Seventh Panzer Divisionin response to which Guderian was ordered to pull his Tenth Panzer into reserve. The Tenth Panzer had had orders to roll upthecoastandoccupy Dunkirkwide open to attack at that point.

Further delays in the German attack were ordered to conserve tank forces and give the German Air Force a chance to wipe out the British so ldiers crowding down upon the open beaches at Dunkirk, the last point of access to the sea. But the destruction could not be fully accomplished from the air, and for a period of ten days, while the watching world held its breath, a mixed armada of light warships dashed in to pick up the men of the BEF. In their wake came coastal steamers carrying gaunt-eyed soldiers instead of their accustomed holiday crowds, accompanied by tugs, fishing vessels, motor launches, even Thames barges.

The Miracle of Dunkirk was underway.

By June4, 368,628 troops were lifted out of France, under a hail of German bombs, machine-gunning from the air, 10

and artillery fire from German tanks turned loose at last to overcome lastditch resistance and seize the town .

Nearly a quarter of a million of these were British-soldiers vitally needed then to defend England against invasion.

France was driven out of the war. Of 693 British ships involved in the evacuation (code-named Operation Dynamo) , 226 were sunk, including six precious destroyers. The British Army had been terribly mauled, losing its gun s, tanks and transport. But not the men! And those men in the corning months were to be the only army in the world holding the battle line against Hitler's armies. 0

D etroyers and fast steamers ca m e in alongside the Dunkirk mole to take aboard Below, a defeated army awaits its fat e. Only the weary , hungry men of Lord Gort' s cut-off small craft could get in to pluck these men off army. In some cases the ove1jlow piled into the beach--and 170 were lost in the attempt. small craji nestled alongside.

But they saved 98,780 men!

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"To the Great Relief and Loud Cheers of Those on Board"

by Christian Brann Nowadays few sailing boats-leave alone commercial vessels with cargoes of 150 tons or more- would be considered safe without a powerful engine. At the time of Dunkirk all but a few of the barges that went over managed quite well on sails alone.

Pudge was an exception and her auxiliary engine, rarely used, saved her life as well as that of her crew and the soldiers on board.

War records show that thePudge was requisitioned on May ,,, 29, 1940 while she was in Tilbury docks waiting to load for g Ipswich under command of Bill Watson, one of the senior ~ captains of the London and Rochester Trading Company who was an o ld-time sai lor and wore gold earrings. j When they got to Dover the naval officer in command 8 asked for eight orten volunteers from among the skippers and § their mates but so many of them were ready to go that it was it necessary to draw lots.

Three of the barges-Thyra, lady Roseberry and Pudgewere taken in tow by the steel-hulled tug St Fagan. To keep them together, save fuel and increase speed, they were towed across to Dunkirk and they reached the beaches under cover of darkness. There the three barges were cast off from the tug.

The lady Roseberry was ordered to proceed in-shore to pick up troops. She had navigated ahead of the Sr Fagan , just astern of the tug, when there was an explosion as the St Fagen struck a mine. Pudge was lifted bodily out of the water, but in the words of her skipper, "she came down the right way up." When the smoke and dust had settled, the Sr Fagan , lady Roseberry and Doris were no more. St Fagan had a crew of twenty-five and only six survived the explosion. Pudge immediately launched her tender and picked up a large number of survivors, both from the tug and from other barges. In all she is thought to have taken on about three hundred men before the skipper and mate decided it was time to head back to Dover.

E. G. Fryer, a fifteen year-old boy/cook serving on the Tanga recalls how they made three journeys across the Channel during those fateful days and retrieved 1,300 troops from Dunkirk. On the second occasion of returning to England they encountered the sai ling barge Pudge and at first thought her deserted. When they went in closer to investigate, they found that she had 300 troops in the hold and took her in tow to the great relief and loud cheers of those on board. Three hours later they arrived safely in Ramsgate.

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Thames Sailing Barge Pudge.

'Pudge was lifted bodily out of the water,

but in the words of her skipper, "she came down the right way up."'

Beached and abandoned. Barbara Jean , stranded amidst Bren carriers; a fate which Pudge escaped. , .:: A G 1.11~.,

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Motor Yacht Hanorapicks up a tow.

Pudge spent the rest of her war service on the C lyde in Scotland, together with other barges from the London and Rochester Trading Company: Cabby, Mary May , Alderman and Knowles. There they acted as lighters and transports for military stores and as mail boats to the Cunarders Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth which were working as transatlantic troop ships.

After the war Pudge returned to her work with the London and Rochester trading company (now called Crescent Shipping) and in 1968 when she was finally retired and sold to the Thames Barge Sailing Club, they re-rigged her faithfully in accordance with her original design, with advice from professional barge skippers. D Excerpted with permission from Christian Brann' s new book The Little Ships of Dunkirk published by Collectors' Books Limited,

Cirencester, Gloucestershire , United Kingdom. Available through Sea History Press. PO Box 646, Croton-on-Hudson , NY 10520for $47.50 ppd (see Peter Spectre's review in "Reviews," p38) .

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

11

Dunkirk Revisited After 50 Years, Sundowner Returns to Dunkirk

By Bill Utley To the casual observer, there is little evidence of the destruction visited on Dunkirk during the summer of 1940. The beaches, which fifty years ago were crowded with over 350,000 men and the debris of war, are now clean and barren. The harbor is busy with commerce and pleasure craft. Holiday makers relax on the beach, or windsurf, giving little thought to the events that occurred here before most were born.

For the men standing on the Dunkirk beaches fifty years ago, the only options appeared to be death or capture. Exhausted, bleeding, out of food and ammunition, an army awaited its end. And then the miracle--evacuation. The planners hoped to save no more than 40,000 men. They saved over 330,000. To perform this feat required heavy sacrifices on the part of the Royal Navy and the French Navy, and by the requisitioned fleet of Little Ships that plied the shallow waters off the beaches denied the larger warships.

The Little Ships are old now, veterans of a war known to most people only from history books or Hollywood fiction.

But some people have chosen not to forget and, in tribute, have taken to heart these unique veterans, these Little Ships of Dunkirk.

Fifty years is a long time for a man, and even longer for a wooden boat. It is a wonder that so many Little Ships have survived. And now those that are able have gathered in Dover.

Under the auspices of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships they sai l on a pilgrimage to Dunkirk, to honor the men and sh ips that took part in the evacuation, and those that never came home. As the fleet of Little Ships prepares to sail, His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, conducts the review. Seventythree ships, everything from Thames barges to yachts and open boats little bigger than rowboats, are bedecked with flags to take the royal salute.

Most of the ships were manned by Royal Navy or merchant service personnel. The motor yacht Sundowner, however, was skippered by her owner, the retired merchant marine officer, Charles Herbert Lightoller. Senior surviving officer of the Titanic, Lightoller was one of the true heroes of the disaster, and as a Commander in the Royal Navy in WW I, had earned a DFC for ramming a German submarine. He was 66 years old when he took Sundowner to Dunkirk, accompanied by his son, Roger, and a young merchant seaman named GerFlotilla on the Thames, 1940. ald Ashcroft. Bombed and strafed during the trip, Sundowner managed to rescue the five-man crew of another sinking Little Ship,

Sundowner in the Bassin du Commerce, Dunkirk, May 26, 1990.

take aboard 120 troops on a boat designed to sleep 8, and bring all safely back to Ramsgate.

Fifty years later, Sundowner, saved from the breakers and owned now by the East Kent Maritime Trust, Ramsgate, joins the fleet of Little Ships as it sail s to Dunkirk. She is again in command of a Lightoller-Commander Timothy Lightoller, Royal Navy- and among her crew is a sixty-eight year old retired merchant seaman, Gerald Ashcroft.

For six days this reunion of Little Ships and the veterans that they saved continues in England and France. Old memories return , and with them, emotions long buried. For most of the veterans and the Little Ships themselves , this is the first time they have been in Dunkirk since the evacuation. Beneath the fanfare , there runs a deeper emotion of remembrance-a sadness for friends lost and youth destroyed. It is impossible not to share the emotions of these men, or to feel their affection for these Little Ships. Old men 's eyes fill with tears as they remember, and younger men turn away to hide their own.

On Sunday, May 27 , the Little Ships, escorted by HMS Alacrity, sail out of Dunkirk harbor for a memorial off the evacuation beaches. As Sundowner sail s past the East Mole, where the major portion of the evacuation took place, Gerald Ashcroft points out the spot where Sundowner tied up alongside the destroyer HMS Worcester and took aboard 120 soldiers. Fifty years later, the gap in the mole caused by German bombs is still evident.

On Monday, May 28 , the Little Ships depart Dunkirk in convoy for Rams gate. It is a pleasant day, with a calm sea. To the casual observer, it could be a yacht club on a day sail. It is difficult to picture these same fragile craft on the sea fifty years ago. Then they sailed through water covered with oil , debris and bodies, navigating around sunken ships. Bombs, shells, and machine gun bullets kept them constant company. The waters are peaceful this day, as befits the graveyard of tens of thousands of men and hundreds of ships.

Just as they did in 1940, the Little Ships return to Ramsgate harbor, crowds lining The remains of a Little Ship on the beach at Dunkirk, May the quayside. But now there are 26 , 1990. In the distance is the East Mole. bands and cheers , and a grateful crowd of medalled veterans. It is 1990. The crowds slowly drift away, but the veterans linger. A bond has formed between man and ship that has become a very personal thing. Gerald Ashcroft stays on board Sundowner one more J J. ~ night, reluctant to part with an old friend . D A

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13

COLUMBUS REDISCOVERED:

The Sailors of the Era of Discovery

By Peter Copeland

sharecropper, for whom life aboard ship was an acceptable alternati ve to the drudgery and poverty of life as hore. The seafarer of the day was usuall y illiterate, as were the great majority of people in general.

Geoffrey Chaucer, in the fo urteenth centu ry, described a "shipman" in the Canterbury Tales, a subject of jest to hi s fellow pil grims because of hi s rough and home ly attire, hi s awkwardness on horseback, hi s weatherbeaten complex ion and hi s seafaring speech. Yet he was a jov ial companion fo rthe pil grims and "certainl y he was a good fe lawe."

An excellent description of a medieval seafa rer is contai ned in the twelfth century Life of St. Godric: " He was vigorous and strenuous in mind, who le of limb and strong in body ... in labor he was strenuous and assiduous above a ll men; and when by chance hi s bodil y strength proved insuffi cient, he compassed hi s ends with great ease by the skill which hi s dail y labors had given. He knew, from the as pect of the sea and sky, how to foretell fa ir or foul weather. " Some as pects of the medieval seaman are seen in a mora lity play g iven in the City of London in 1415 by the G uild of Shipwri ghts. The subject is Noah bu ilding the ark. The seamen we re portrayed as di stinctly d iffere nt fro m the shore fo lk.

The ir humo r is ro ugh and boisterous and they show contempt fo r the soft and she ltered life of the landsmen. T he sail ors speak using the "quaint express ions of their profess ion," and di spl ay di stincti ve manners, customs, dress and language.

Shipboard accommodations were extremely primi tive. The captain and sailing mas ter probably had small cabins, each with barely enough room for a narrow bunk and sea chest.

Other offi cers slept on mattresses under the quarterdeck forward of the helmsman. When not in use, the mattresses were

rolled up and lashed along the bulwarks. The sailors and boys slept between watches anywhere they could find a space- in fair weather along the open deck, otherwise under the forecastle head, wrapped in their rough rug gowns.

When weather permitted, a hot meal was prepared in a firebox brought up from below and set up on the open deck.

Thi s was usually done before noon so that the watch off duty could eat before turning to, and the watch on deck could eat afterward . No cook was carried-this duty probably fell to one of the ship 's boys. The officers ate aft, their food prepared by the captain's servant on a table set up on the quarterdeck.

The sailors, meanwhile, gathered around their smoking firebox with their bowls ready for stew or soup. Sprawled or seated about the deck they " pull out their knives of different shapes made to kill hogs or skin lambs or for cutting bags, and then grab in their hands the poor bones and peel them clean of their sinews and meat ... [and] leave them clean as ivory," as Eugenio Salazar noted in hi s account of a voyage from Spain to the West lndies in 1573.

Columbus's list of stores to be carried on a long voyage was : good biscuit seasoned and not old, flour salted at the time of milling, wine, salt meat, oil, vinegar, cheese, chick peas, lentil s, beans , salt fish, honey , rice, almonds and raisins. He also included fishing tackle as a necessary addition; fresh fi sh would be a most welcome supplement to ship's rations.

The sailors of that era, like the sailors of today, clothed themselves as they could . There was no spec ial issue of clothing to seamen, except in special circumstance (red clothing was issued to crew members aboard a Spanish man-of-war when there was a member of the royal household aboard).

Most sailors wore a loose-fitting blouse with hood , made of coarse linen or even old sail cloth. Over the blouse, he might wear a short sleeveless overgarment like a vest, slit at the sides and laced at the neck. The most common headgear was a red stocking cap-Columbus gave several of these as gifts to the Native Americans he encountered. Aboard ship in fair weather, the seaman went barefoot, often clad only in wide-bottomed, knee-length drawers. rn cold weather hi s legs might be protected by long hose of unbleached grey wool.

The foul-weather garment of the Spanish sailor has been described as a brown cloth robe or overcoat, tied at the waist with a belt or a bit of hemp line. This was the sea gown worn by mariners all over western Europe-their distinctive garment which identified them as seafarers. Officers wore cloaks, jackets or doublets of cloth laced down the front, hose and a variety of hats or caps, all in brighter colors than the rough , simple clothing of the sa ilors. At his belt, an officer wore a dagger, ratherthan a sailor's work knife. And at sea, Columbus is reported to have customarily worn a brown sea gown.

The sai lors stood watches, four hours on duty and four hours off. [n off hours, they attended to personal chores and diverted themselves with story-telling, checkers, dice and music-singing and playing what instruments they had .

The passage of time at sea was marked and recorded with the turning each half hour of the sand glass, which was done by an apprentice seaman . The end of each four-hour watch was marked by a chant calling out the sailors of the next watch.

Ceremony and formality marked the passage of each watch.

For the mostly illiterate sailors, the spoken word was their only means of communication and the chanted ritual s were comforting . At daybreak the youngest boy of the watch sang or chanted a prayer, concluding, " Blessed be the light of day , and SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

He who sends the night away." At sundown, the crew was called to even ing prayers. The apprentices led the sailors in prayer, chanting the Pater Noster, Ave Maria and Credo, after which all hands sang the Salve Regina.

Felix Fabri, a traveller of 1480 describes a nighttime tradition: "When the wind is quite fair and not too strong, all is still save only he who watches the compass and he who holds the handle of the tiller, for these, by way of returning thanks for a voyage and good luck, continually greet the breeze, praise God, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, one answering the other, and they are never silent so long as the wind is fair. Anyone on board who hears this chant of theirs would fall asleep. "

* * * * *

Despite the rigors of shipboard life and the perils of the sea, there was one feature of the sailor's life that, perhaps more than any other, attracted men to it: the lure of money. The peasant fa1mer of the fifteenth century seldom saw hard money in his hand . What hi s family could not grow, weave or craft themselves was usually obtained through barter. For a young man growing up in this environment, the idea ofregular wages paid in hard money was most attractive.

It is worth noting that, despite their misgivings and complaints about the length of the voyage and the living conditions aboard the crowded and cluttered little ships, the sailors of Columbus remained obedient and the Admiral recorded no problems requiring di scipline or punishment during the course of the voyage. D

Mr. Copeland is a veteran of twelve years in the fo' c' sles of merchant ships. He witnessed the liberation of the Philippines as a galley boy aboard a T-2 tanker in 1944.

15

REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS III: The Navigator

by Peter Stanford On May 22, 1492, Columbus arri ved in the Atlantic port of Palos de la Frontera, fresh from the royal court in Granada. He was no w armed with the necessary orders to acqui re and outfit the ships he needed for hi s long-pl anned voyage westward into the ocean whose far side no one had reached from Spain, though rumors and myths abounded. Palos, a small seaport on the Rio Tinto, nearthe Portuguese border, was of course where Columbus had come as hore in Spain seven years earlier, seeking the support which Thei r Catholic Majesties had now given him.

What had moved them at last? The plan of the voyage and its author had been rejected by Portugal, the leading maritime nati on of the day, and by Queen Isabe lla's own learned counse ll ors in conclave assembled.

It was a poetic, not practical decis ion. Now that the Castil ian horsemen had reached the edge of the land in their long push southward against the Moors, and there was no more of Iberian Spain to conquer, it was as if the horsemen took wing and jumped off to reach new lands over the sea ... and once more, to conquer them for Chri stendom. Results not at all fa nciful were to spring fro m thi s decision to make a great westward voyage. In the next hundred years a whole ocean hitherto un known to Euro peans, the Pac ific wo uld be crossed regularl y

by Spani sh ships, and, on its fa r side a large cl uster of islands, the Phil ippines , wo uld be named fo r a Spani sh king. T he great ocean itself became known as " the Spani sh lake."

But at thi s point in time, Spa in was not the country to make long voyages, Portugal was. T he seaport town of Palos was opportunely situated on the Portuguese frontier. It shared the art of building and sailing carave ls and had until recentl y been engaged in the long-haul trade with Africa. Portugal had proved a tough porcupine for Spa in to swallow , and the attempt to do so had been g iven up by the time of Ferdinand and Isabell a. Indeed , to secure safety fo r the ir shipping in the face of the stro ng war fl eets of Portuga l, based between the south and north Atl antic coasts of Spain , the Spani sh monarchs had agreed to keep Spani sh shi ps out of the African trade. So the ships of Palos no longer went that way, except to visit their colonies in the Canary Islands, a few hundred miles out out sea off the bul ge of West Afri ca.

It is a temptati on of course to read great thi ngs into small events, because the great things did happen along later. But in the case of Columbus, the mythmak ing power was with him at the time. He did not know about the Pac ific Ocean or the Americas, nor did hi s fo ur voyages te ll him anything except that he had fo und a new continent where none had been supposed to li e; but he knew that something great, some great destin y fo r Spain and fo r the re lig ion the Spani sh monarchs served was overseas. T hi s was an indwe lling conviction of hi s; and he profoundl y be lieved that great destiny to be immanent in the world ... and he, Colum bus, was there to rea li ze the truth , to be the Chri st-bearer, as hi s name, Chri sto pher denoted. It was thi s power of conviction undo ubtably that turned the Queen's mind and bent the King's to support hi s venture.

A recent biographer, G ianno Granzotto, takes this view of Columbus as a poet, even a prophet, speak ing to something in the Spani sh soul. Granzotto's view is one that makes practical sense out of the otherwise mysterious and unlike ly roya l sponsorship of Co lumbus' s voyage. Granzotto gi ves us thi s picture of Columbus as he came as hore to begin hi s long effort to sec ure that vital sponsorship, as a man whose mind was "swimming with ideas."

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" He had acc umul ated a great store of experience, adventure, refl ection , research and read ing whi ch formed a kind of labyrinth of fa ncy in which he risked getting lost. For years and years he had done nothing but fantasize. But now he had gauged the ocean , he had sailed itfarand wide. His mind was no longer filled with onl y illusions. Hehad experienceddirectphysical contact with the objects of hi s fan cy."

Columbus had worked as a mapmaker in Portugal , and he was fasc inated to the point of obsess ion with the actual shape of the world and the strange lands on it to the eastward. What a visionary thing to reach those lands by sailing westward! One mi sses, I think , a most important thing about Columbus if one thinks he viewed this course in purely mechanical terms. He was a voyager in search of the meanings of the world , as we ll as its physical configuration.

Granzotto gives us a further picture of Columbu s as he was after hi s "years of great angui sh," as he called hi s years seeking spon sorship for his voyage. Hi s angui sh was tempered by hi s stubborn hope, and Granzotto fee ls he learned something by hanging onto that hope through difficult times: " He was a very restless man by nature. But he knew how to be patient, and in the end thi s was the key to hi s victory, which was in a sense a triumph over himself as well. He felt it was hi s mi ssion not onl y to explore and di scover, but to own things, to conquer, and possess."

There was a dark side to Co lumbus's vi sion , as the native peoples he came across in the America's were to learn. He was not alone in thi s in hi s time, no r would he be in ours. And there was a dark side to the Queen's vi sion as we ll. Columbus ' s later bi ographers are unanimou s in noting that one reason he sailed from the little port of Palos was th at the great ports were jammed with shipping taking the Jews out of Spain into exile.

Hav ing dri ven out the Moors, the Catholic monarchs decided to complete the " purification" of the kingdom by driving out the Jews. Thi s was not a racia l but a reli gious matter- it was acceptable to be Jewi sh, but onl y if you abandoned your re ligion and converted to Chri stianity. Indeed, one of the men who sailed with Co lumbus, Lui s de Torres, a converso (converted Jew) went on Columbus's voyage as interpreterHebrew was thought to be the mother tongue of all langu age.

Columbu s himself makes no mention of the terrible scenes taking place in the Spani sh seaports as he made ready to leave.

And one wonders if there were not other reasons than the overcrowding of other ports, to bring him back to Palos to mount the ex pedition. There the monarchs had a c la im on two ships to be taken up at the ir pleasure, as compensation for some past infractio n of the rul es, perhaps a cargo too many smuggled in from Afri ca. And the fri ars of the Franciscan Monastery of La Rabida, Co lumbus's good fri ends, were learned men and we ll connected at the court. Considering the religiou s contex t in whi ch the voyage was to be carried o ut, it is not fa r-fetched to see the monas tery as a kind of sponsor of the voyage. In any event, the effort, gathering up three ships and ninety men and o utfitting them with food and other supplies for a year, wo uld sure ly be a bless ing to the local economy, as it had been shut off, for some years now, from the Afri can trade.

On May 23, the day after Columbus's arri val in Palos , hi s letter of authority was read o ut in the Church of St. George.

The church still stands today, though the bend in the ri ver that bro ught ships practicall y to its doorstep has long ago been fill ed in . Two locall y owned carave ls, picked up according to SEA HISTO RY 55 , AUTUMN 1990

Gets to Sea at Last the monarchs ' order, were a burden on the merchants of the town. But the men who worked on the ships and sailed them were paid by the royal treasury , which must have cheered people up more than a bit. Columbus chartered a third ship, the burdensome nao Santa Maria , which is now thought to have been about 100 tons and perhaps 77-ft long. She was in port on a voyage from Galicia in northern Spain, with her owner Juan de la Cosa aboard as master. He would sai l in her as master in Columbus's voyage. One of the caravels, a lithe and able vessel of some 55 tons, perhaps 67-ft long, was also sai led by 0 l&ia~~ her owner, Juan Nino, from whom she got the nickname she ~ was universall y known by, Nina. Her proper name was Santa ยง Clara, after the patron saint of the nearby port of Moguer, ~ ~~~~~ where she was built. Columbus ' s great biographer Samuel ~ El iot Morison notes that Ni1ia was Columbus ' s favorite ship, i :: and may have carried him as much as 25,000 salt-water miles, Almost five hundred years later, a new Pinta (foreground) in the three voyages he was to make in her. And Juan Nino, he and Santa Maria make sail in the Saltes River. notes, became Columbus's favorite shipmate. At least three Ninos went on this first voyage, Juan ' s younger brother Per- Columbus fai led to make what the Pinzon family regarded as alonso, aged about 24, sai ling as pilot with Columbus in the suitable acknow ledgement. " Santa Maria (he was to go on to do some distinguished And there, one feels , is the nub of it: local and familial pride voyaging of his own, later). Another brother, Francisco, aged aroused when the hometown hero is snubbed. Martin Alonso ' s abo ut 19, an apprentice on this voyage, became Nina's pilot on death immediately after hi s return from the voyage undoubtathe second, and was with Columbus on hi s fourth and final bly heaped fuel on this smoldering fire. voyage to the Americas . "In these Ninos," says Morison , "one Martin Alonso appears to have been a good seaman, despite recognizes that competent and loyal type of seaman and flouting hi s superior ' s orders on the voyage. His younger officer whose work is essential to the success of any voyage; brother Vicente Yafiez Pinzon, captain of the Nina (above her men who never," he adds , " lay claim to more than their just sailing master/owner Juan Nino), was first-class as a seaman desserts, or talk against their captain behind his back." and went on to di scover the Amazon River in South America Martin Alonso Pinzon who became master of the second on an independent voyage in 1499-1500. And, growls Moricaravel, the Pinta, was a more difficult case. A native of Palos, son, Vicente Yafiez, " unlike hi s brother, obeyed orders." his memory is honored in the town today- he may be said to And what of the crews to sail the ships under these proud reflect pride in the local seafaring tradition , whose followers officers? Because three of the 90 men embarked had to be seem to have shown some resentment that the venture was sprung out of jail, the story has gotten around that Columbus under command of the proud if not arrogant Genoese Colum- sailed with the sweepings of the seaport town. Not so. Of the bus. The men of Genoa were all over Spain and Portugal; their three "jailbirds," one had been locked up for killing a man in merchants gathered in enclaves in the big cities. And in a brawl , and the other two for conspiring to help their friend Columbus 's case, he brought with him court connections and escape. They were not jailbirds in any useful sense of the word, his self-taught book learning, which he did evidently not hide and they went on to successfu l careers at sea. For the most part these were hometown crews, with the addition of the continunder a bushel. He was not an easy man to get along with .

And Martin Alonso had had ambitions of his own. Evi- gent that had come down from Galicia in the Santa Maria, and dently he had dreamed of a Westward voyage despite the four foreigners: a Portuguese and three men from the Italian fai lures of the Portuguese navigators who had tried punching peninsula-from Genoa, Calabria and Venice. out to the westward against the prevailing west winds. In * * * * * evidence given at the hearings over Columbus ' estate, which Fitting out for an ocean voyage is always time-consuming dragged on for decades after his death , members of the Pinzon beyond belief, and even with comparatively simple, modern fam ily testified that Martin Alonso had traveled to Rome and sailing vessels it is filled with a myriad of very particular, exthere uncovered an account of a voyage made by the legendary acting details which have to be perfectl y met or workable subQueen of Sheba to Japan- a voyage made to the westward. stitutes found . In Columbus's day, all the materials used had The claim was made that he had told Columbus of this nowhere near the tensile strength or toughness of modem documentary evidence of the feasibility of hi s voyage and Co- fittings, cordage and fabric . Each ship had to be a self-conlumbus had used it to secure the support of the Spani sh tained community including all the skill s and tools required to forge iron fittings, replace worn rigging, and sew new sai lsmonarchs.

Such testimony was encouraged by the royal authority in as well as defending itse lf in case of hostile encounter, and the hearings, called pleitos, for the crown was working to feeding, clothing and maintaining itself in reasonable health reduce the claims of the Columbus heirs. Nevertheless , Mori- and sty le. Style was particularl y important, indeed. There were son feel s there was a substratum of truth in the Pinzon story. hymns to open and close the day, and morning prayers and Probably Pinzon had heard of a mythical westward voyage, other ceremonies, some of which are observed in the Spanish and this led him to adopt and support Columbus ' s case. And Navy today.

In a facetio us account of shipboard life on a trans-Atlantic unquestionably hi s local standing helped Columbus. Morison notes: "No doubt his example and influence were useful in passage to Santo Domingo in 1573 , written by a government recruiting men , but his conduct on the voyage was such that functionary named Eugenio de Salazar to entertain a friend , SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

17

Left, making sail on the new Nina, Summer 1990.

the observance of set ritual comes through as an underlying force that holds things together and makes things work. "I was fascinated watching this city and the activities of the people in it, and astonished to hear the marine language they used," he observes at one point, "wh ich I did not understand any more than the priestly dialect of the Brahm in s." Of relations between the pilot, " lieutenant of the wind," and the crew, he observes " I have not seen a gentleman so well served nor have I seen knaves who serve so well to merit their wages as ¡sailors."

Ritual marked Columbus 's depa1ture.

In the pre-dawn darkness of August 3, Columbus received communion, presumably at St. George's, and so dedi cated to hi s sav ior was rowed out to the looming bulk of the ship he would sa il into immortality- the unexceptional Atlantic workhorse Santa Maria. Accident had chosen hertoconnecttheO ld World to the New and open a new awareness of the ocean world to mankind everywhere.

But to Columbus, surely, in thi s moment of setting out on the sea trail westward, none of what was happening was accidental but rather providential.

And in Palos it was no accident that Columbus was where he was and was headed where he planned to go--660 miles to the south and west (clear of the Atlantic westerlies that had frustrated the daring Portuguese in their first-class ships), to where the steady winds blow fair for the outbounding voyager, in a

18

windbelt that became famo us in later centuries as the Northeast Trades.

Nor were the Santa Maria, still less her fast-sailing carave l consorts, really accidental upon the scene. These were the first generation of ships that could ride the Trades gloriously , and battle their way home through winter North Atlantic storms. Columbus c learl y knew these things about hi s ships, as he knew where the winds blew that they would need to make their voyage.

Aboard the ships, anchors were weighed at about quarter to five on the cairn bright morning of August 3, heavy yards hoisted aloft, and sai l unloosed . If we are to believe our madcap travel writer Salazar (as in thi s instance I feel we can), an older seaman would step forward to lead a song as chanteyrnana song that might begin (as one did in Sa lazar's ship): " Hoi st 'er up! God , keep us, who are your servants. We want to serve the faith well , to maintain the Christian faith and to confound the pagan Mohammedans and Saracens .. ." ending more raucous ly: " Long live love for the young man who makes merry!"

The fleet stood downriver on the ebb tide, and using the lon g oars called sweeps, the heavily laden hulls were rowed along so that they could be steered-as they could not be if they drifted helplessly along with the current.

One may picture another kind of music in thi s slow process, the creak of wooden oars against the bearers in the bulwarks, and doubtless someone calling out or singing the cadence aboard each ship.

This too, was ritual, if you will, effective in the physical realm as the religious ritual was in another realm . A lthough to Columbus and his sailors, these realms were intertwined and united in ways they tend not to be for us in the late 1900s. Still it 's a plain damn fool who doesn ' t know that a clean conscience and a merry heart puts more ergs into the water at the business end of a sweep-and moves the boat along.

After about half an hour, about the time of sunrise, the fleet would have passed La Rabida Monastery and heard the friars chanting the office for prime, which Columbus had often shared in

as hore. It is difficult not to believe with Morison that the ships shared in this observance.

The fleet then came into the River Saltes and floated on down through sandy shores to the sea. At e ight in the morning they crossed the bar at the river mouth and came into the open sea. There they meta "strong sea breeze," blowing probably a little south of west, so that the best course they cou ld steer was south , making on ly four knots-in other words jammed hard on the wind and making slow going of it. At sunset land was still in sight on their left hand. But during the night the wind veered round to the north and at some point in the dark hours, when Co lumbus felt he had enough offing from the shore, he ordered the course set south and by west, for Africa and the Canaries. D

A Note on the Sources: The quotations from Gianna Granzotto' s work are from his Christopher Columbus (University ofOklahoma Press, Norman and London, 1987)- a perceptive appreciation ofthe Discoverer's life and work. Samuel Eliot Morison speaks to us in lively but authoritative fashion in his biography Adm iral of the Ocean Sea and in the European Discovery of America; The Southern Voyages (0.lford University Press , London, New York, etc., 1974). Salazar's words came to us from Carla Rahn Phillips in her "Life at Sea in the Sixteenth Century," James Ford Bell Lectures, No. 24 (University of Minn esota, 1987).

In this contemporary woodcut at right, a nao of Santa Maria's era rolls along with a fair wind.

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

~xaco is proud to sponsor the rediscovery of the New World. the SOOth anniversary of Columbus's historic voyage draws near, we at Texaco eagerly await the mid-1991 trans-Atlantic crossing and SO-city Western Hemisphere tour of the Nifia, Pinta and Santa Marfa.

mitment to the same ideals personified by Columbus: leadership, determination and vision.

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Columbus's spirit of discovery is alive at Texaco today.

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Westward Traces Columbus A Documentary Crew Re-Traces Columbus's First Voyage Through the "Indies"

by Jeffrey Bolster

Sea Edu cation Association schooner Westward.

January 12, 1990 "Richard, our Chief Mate, is making observations with the bronze astrolabe and wooden quadrant. Albert, Jessica , and I are mapping the low Bahamian island as it slides by, much as Columbus might ha ve done. We use nothing but the ship' s compass and a pencil, eye-balling Westward ' s speed to measure distance.

The ship is running free , forecourse pulling like a train , mainsail wung-out.

It' s glorious sailing, and we' re in the wake of Columbus!"

My sea journal begins only a little less ex huberantl y than Columbus ' s, kept498 years earlier in the same waters .

The Admiral wrote a sple ndidly compelling log of that hi storic first European voyage through the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti , and the Dominican Republic. Now we were using it to re-trace hi s route. Hi s enthusiasm was contagio us.

Everyone on board had been bitten by the Columbus bug-seamen, hi storians, archeologists, scientists and the television documentary crew.

Aboard Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria Columbus and his men made hi story.

Their courage and Christian convictions, their overpowering greed, their eco logical exchange-alI changed the cou rse of the world . Aboard Westward we were to make hi story in a different sense-to shape it, to fas hion it, to interpret it for millions of people in a National Public Television documentary series . T he executive producer, Zvi Dor-Ner, intuitively knew that the authenticity he sought could only be achieved by filming from a ship under sail. If Columbus 20

sailed in 1492 for God , gold, and glory, we sailed a similartrack in 1990 with the more modest mission of teaching our contemporaries a hi story of di scovery .

We picked up the Spanish explorers ' track at San Salvador, the island man y authorities believe to be Columbus ' s New World landfall. Captain Wallace Stark dropped anchor in the lee of Cockburn Town , and shore parties boarded inflatabl es to land on the beach. Near a rock formation , poss ibly the one Columbus described as "a quarry of stones shaped very fair for church edifices or other royal works," the cameras rolled while the ship 's company disc ussed the landfall controversy .

Our stay was short, much shorter than the Admiral's. We had only to film one sequence of the documentary. He had to ex plore, to try to learn the langauge of the people he found on the island they called G uanahani , and to marve l at the fa ntasy unfolding before him .

Westward headed south , with Rum Cay (poss ibly Columbus's Santa Mari a de la Conception) to leeward. We anchored again off Crooked Island (poss ibly the fourth island that Co lumbu s ex plored), and then bore away southwest for Cuba. No Indian canoe could have made the cross ing that night. Easterlies registering Force F ive on the Beaufort scale turned the cobalt blue sea into a frenzy of white foam , and our normall y dry decks were covered in spray. Some of the less seasoned members of the exped ition found their enthusiasm tempered by the age-old malady of sea-voyagers.

If the Americas were not a New World for us, Cuba at least was . Sealed off as it has been for thirty years, C uba remains an eni gma to most Americans. Yet here we were, smoki ng cigars , talking politics with Cubans, choking on the ex hau st of East German cars, and travelling into the interior as had Columbu s' s envoys to local ch iefs . Our voyage in 1990 did not replicate Columbu s' s wo nders, but it had its own-as all voyages shou ld.

Gibara, our first Cuban port call , is where Co lumbus initi ally saw " men and women , carrying a charred , ho I low wood in their hands and herbs to smoke in thi s wood." Had Columbus filled hi s ships with this tobacco, instead of some of the pseudo-aloes and psuedo- rhubarbs that he found , he might have started a profitable trade, and hooked Ferdinand and

Isabell a on nicotine.

Columbus named thi s place Rio de Mares; and tried to establish its latitude with hi s quadrant. We carried afifteenthcentury style quadrant aboard Westward, and we too observed the Pole Star from Gibara, interrupted only by the sweeping strobe li ght of the Cuban Guarda Costas. They understandably paid close attention to these Americans anchored offshore. But for the strobe light, it was a perfect opportunity to compare observations by astrolabe, quadrant, and modern sextant. They were remarkably close.

Our voyage continued to the east, to more C uban ports, and to Haiti . Every inch we fought the buffeting trade winds Columbus had to wait-out, or tack against. We had the edge, with a diesel auxiliary engine.

Despite the diesel, and despite West ward' s staunch steel hull- more evocative of a sea-kindly North Sea pilot boat than Columbus's burthensome Santa.Maria, or hi s nimble caravels Pinta and Nina-we felt linked to the fifteenthcentury Iberi an marineros who preceeded us.

We shared the tropical dawn, pink and azure before the glaring whiteness of day in full-swing ; we shared the slap of waves on the hull, and the constant almost imperceptible motion which to a seaman signifies that his hull is afloat, and alive in her e lement. W e shared the gear failures, the dangerof stranding, the separate-ness from those who stayed at home. We shared a common knowledge of seafaring under sail.

In Haiti we sailed into Acul Bay, a place worthy of the prai se Columbus lavi shed on it. " I have been sailing the seas for 23 years," he wrote , "and I have seen all the East and West (as it is called in go ing to the north, which is England), and I have travelled through Guinea, but in all those regions harbors as perfect as these will never be found." Acul Bay is breathtak ing. Its shores are lush and green, its harbor deep, its surrounding mountains prec ipitous. With no town , no crui se ship facilities, no marina, it is access ible only to enterpri sing yachtsmen. The Arawaks recognized its beauty and productivity . Five hundred years ago Columbu s noti ced , " the area is inhabited with many people."

We had bare ly set back on the anchor in a mangrove-fringed cove, when a fl eet SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

Harbor ofBaracoa , Cuba, with Westward anchored in the middle. Columbus wrote, "/ placed a large cross in some rocks at the entrance to this harbor, which I have named Puerto Santo. " Nineteenth-century American schooners maintained an extensive trade with Baracoa.

of Haitain fi shing boats surro unded us.

Some of the rafts these men fish from today resemble those built by the Arawaks Columbus encountered. The Arawaks are gone, extinct: victims of European warfare, disease, and enslavement.

The Haitians we saw are descendents of Africans enslaved to replace the dying Indians. Haitians are the poorest people in the western world, victims of longstanding international ostrac ization , internal corruption, and frightful overpopulation and erosion.

Eastward past Cape Haiti an, near where Columbus lost hi s flagship on Christmas Eve, and into the waters of the Dominican Republic we sa il ed. He continued east toward Samana, and took hi s departure with the two remaining ships for Spain. We put in at Puerta Plata, where the expedition wo uld end, and all butthe ship 's crew fly home to the States.

Our voyage had been a splendid shortterm success. A group of ex perts assembled aboard ship to pool the ir kno wledge of Columbus, and hi s world . They did not pretend to have answers to unsolvable question s, such as defi nitively identifying Columbus's landfall island .

But they raised questions, prodding te levision audiences to rediscover the Di scoverer for themselves.

Inevitabl y, as the voyage unfolded, different dimensions of the Columbian past tempered our initial enthusiasm.

Whether thi s voyage's public educational mi ssion is a success in the long run waits to be seen. Columbus, we all kno w, opened the door to a new world. Let's not forget that as doors let in light, they also cast shadows.

Re-sailing the route of the Discovery made us reali ze that with the quincentenary it is time fo r a sli ghtly different hi sSEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

ORIGINAL

ANTIQUE MAPS & SEA CHARTS U.S. & WORLDWIDE "Some of the rafts these menfishfrom today res emble th ose built by th e Arawaks Columbus encountered. "

tory of Columbus and the Age of Discovery. As we approach the twenty-first century, we need a history less Eurocentric, and more ecologica l; one less oriented to progress than it is to change; one balanc ing the Admiral 's ex huberance and the Indians ' ann ihil ation .

Voyagers know that the sea connects all things. Sea hi story can too. D

A licensed master mariner, and former master of Westward , Jeff Bolster is now completing a Ph.D . in History at Johns Hopkins Un iversity. He led the shipboard seminar on Columbus and the Caribbean during this voyage.

A variety of sea-going programs are offered aboard the two ships operated by SE.A., PO Box 6, Woods Hole, MA 02543 .

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The Cruise of

By Philip Thorneycroft Teuscher Philip Teuscher is a professional sailor who has contributed to Sea History on such diverse subjects as the steamboats of Istanbul, kerosene lighthouses in the Bahamas, and Caribbean sailing craft. In addition to being a writer/photographer, he produced, wrote and directed the fifty-minute documentary Last of the Karaphuna about the island Carib of Dominica. His last project, "The Last Drift," an oral history of Connecticut's last sailors, the natural-growth oystermen, was funded by a grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council. Captain Teuscher was the I989 recipient of the NMHS James Monroe A ward for his contribution to the cause of maritime history.

Today, a Carib Canoe builder uses tools of steel, instead of stone. But his hands are guided by knowledge handed from generation to generation in an oral tradition whose origins began in the rainfo rests of South America. Here, a hollowed gommer log is shaped fo r the lower hull, just prior to being widened.

The Northeast Trades whi stled through the narrow chan nels between the mountainous Windward Islands, roiling the sea to a tumbling process ion of whitecaps. Flying fi sh, wings fluttering, glided across a trough, skittering from wavelet to wavelet.

The beakhead of a canoe rode up on a cresting wave, then slid , quartering the curl of the swell , across the trough and up the shoulder of the next sea. Sixty paddlers, their torsos bending together, drove the vessel over the crest. Just before she disappeared, her pointed stern pitched up and and the steering oarsman was momentarily silhouetted against the Caribbean sky . " Ookuwatee! " cried the paddlers, " the sea is rough! "

* * * * *

Boulders are placed in a wedge shaped pile amidships and water is added to sojien the wood. This gradually widens the logfor increased beam. Fires are also lit parallel to each side of the hollowed log , which speeds up the process. In the background is the rugged windward Dominican coast.

Thi s vignette may have been witnessed from the swaying poop of a Spani sh caravel almost five hundred years ago. Columbus and other seaborne adventurers marvelled at the size, speed, diversity and sea-keeping characteristics of native vessels that they observed in the Bahamian and Caribbean archipelagoes.

Today , one surviving canoe type graces these waters where sixteenth century seamen chronicled many. This "kanaua" is built by the Karaphuna of Domin ica. (See SH 27 , p 47.) The Karaphuna are the only remaining su rvi vors of the native peoples who lived in the Caribbean before the arrival of the Europeans. The Taino, Arawak and Ciboney, who al so inhabited the Caribbean area, were all but eliminated by di sease, warfare or assimilation by the 1600s.

The kanaua once ferried the Karaphunas ' warrior ancestors on the rainforest rivers of South America and on to migratory raiding voyages of conquest up the Antillian chain of islands .

Now , the canoes are used for fi shing, transport and smuggling .

For almost five centuri es the Karaphuna, from whose language our words canoe, hammock, Caribbean and cannibal are derived , have strugg led to maintain their cu ltural and ethnic identity. The former threat of extinction by arms has been replaced by economic and political pressures that threaten the same fate. Today, a remnant three thousand Karaphuna farm and fi sh off a small reservation on the northeast corner of Dominica, an island of the Windward group.

In conjunction with the 1992 Quincentenary , a group plans to build a Karaphuna war canoe and to launch it on a voyage for participation in the hemi spheric celebrations slated for 1992. Thi s project is called "The Crui se of the Ookuwatee,"

At leji , the Ocean Star exemplifies the refi'ned aesthetic of a Carib canoe' s f orward section. Th e "beak" is the lower hull. For additional freeboard, a sawn plank is attached to the lower hull, and the resulting seam is delineated with a white stripe. When canoes are stored , palm fronds are placed inside to trap moisture and keep the hulls from drying out and splitting.

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

the Ookuwatee ,

which in Karaphuna means " the sea is rough ." The group 's principal s are: Hillary B. Frederick, ex-Chief of the Carib Nation and member of the House of Assembly, Dominican parliament; Professor Arthur Einhorn , anthropologist, writer and teacher; and myself as mariner and filmmaker.

The Ookuwatee project proposal is divided into a number of segments, each building upon the preceding: • Promulgation of the Ookuwatee project, its goals and its relevance to the saga of Native Americans after the advent of the European in the Western Hemisphere.

• Funding and organization of human and material resources and supporting elements.

• Construction of an authentic Karaphuna war canoe on Dominica by contemporary Carib canoe builders.

• Selection and training of a crew of paddlers from the communities ofCaribs from Dominica, St. Vincent and Beli ze. Research and collection of authentic food stores and anci ll ary materials to be used on the voyage.

• Canoe voyage commencing from Dominica and islandhopping up the chain of the Lesser Antilles via Puerto Rico and the island of Hispaniola and , perhaps, onward to the Bahamas. The canoe and her crew wi ll participate in celebratory and c ultural activities slated for her ports of call.

• The recording, by visua l med ia, of the entire project and its activities. Disposition of canoe, anc illary gear and gifts to appropriate repositories for future research purposes.

Promu lgation of visual record via the media and educational outlets.

In add iti on to commemorating the surviva l of the Karaphuna and their maritime primacy in the pre-Columbian Caribbees, the project wo uld draw attenti on to the continued plight of Indi an peoples throughout the Americas. It is to be hoped that by participating in the Quincentenary, which commemorates an event that was both an anathema yet undeniably significant to Native Americans, the Karaphuna, and by association their fellow Nati ve Americans , wi ll achieve recognition for their contri butions-agricultu ral, culinary , artistic, lingui stic and governmental-to the societies of the New World . D

Readers interested in assisting the Ookuwatee canoe project should contact Captain Teuscher at J02 Kettle Creek Road, Weston CT06883 , USA. Tel: 212 580-2983 . A 50-minutefilm documentary , a full printed proposal, a short film proposal and other background material are a vailable .

Th e canoe planned f or the proj ect (below) will be larger than the small canoes commonly built f or fishing; 60 f eet in length for the dugout lower hull , 63 fe el finished. It will be built lo a traditional design using lraditional me/hods , such as lashings to secure !he upper boards, the interiorframes and !he lh warts. Al rig hi is a design f or a traditional Carib paddle.

Bo11oms are patched with gommer sap, road tar andf/allened metal containers. This patching is an ongoing chore, as the canoes are regularly dragged over rocky shorelines.

Rowing stem -first , fish ermen catch !he right wa ve to beach their can oe on the rock-strewn shore.

John White's Sketches of the New World

by Norma Stanford

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John White' s detailed , varied and live ly sketches of life in the Carolinas in 1585 give us a close- in look at the Al gonquin culture nearl y a century after Columbus's first voyage of di scovery . For generations, Europeans had recorded American Indi ans as oddities, or gave them European attributes quite alien to the ir existing cultures . Jo hn White's wo rk comes c lose to a direct, unbi ased view of what he saw.

Whi te was born in England probabl y betwee n 1540 and 155 0 and was a member of the Painters and Staine rs Company. In May 1577, he sa iled in Martin Frobi sher's ex pedition to America in search of a northwest passage to Asia and brought back sketches of the lands they explored and the life they found there. In 1585 , he accompanied S ir Richard G renvi lle on hi s voyage to establi sh a colony in what is now North Carolina. W hi te 's assignment was to visually record every aspect of life the voyagers encountered. He was accompanied in thi s tas k by Thomas Harriot, a scienti st and mathematic ian , whose jo b it was to bring bac k a written record of what they observed. The ir findin gs were publi shed in 1590 in Harriot's A Brief and True Report of the Ne w Found Land ofVirginia, with John White's draw ings converted into engravings by Theodor de Bry. White returned to thi s area in 1587 as governor of the ill -fated colony establi shed on Roanoke Island. Hi s daughter, Eleanor White Dare, was the mother of Virg ini a Dare, the first child of Eng li sh settl ers to be born in the New World.

Both daughter and granddaughter va nished a long with the rest of the co loni sts at Roanoke.

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* * * * *

Unfo rtunately, few of White ' s draw ings survive. Some were cast overboard by sailors during rough weather as White was embarking on a return trip to England in 1587 to seek relief fo r the Roanoke settl ement. O thers, which he left behind (Cont inued on p. 27.)

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This map of 1585 is remarkably accurate when compared to a modern map of !he Nor!h Caro/ina coasl. Th omas Harriol was a !rained surveyor as well as ma1hema1ician , and John While was a carlographer. Th eir join! efforl lefl us a reliable record of !he lands !hey explored and !he life !hey encoun/erecl. This map shows Roanoke Island (in red) and !he surrounding Algonquin villages in !he Pamlico Sound/Cape Hatteras area

SEA HI STO RY 55 , AUTUMN 1990

This composite drawing il1ustra tes several of the Algonquins' fishin g methods . At left is a hastily sketched weir or fish trap.

Later engravings, no doubt done under the direction of Thomas Harriot, show a succession of roun d enclosures of diminishing size (per Harriot' s description he/ow) instead ofthe simple box enclosure shown here.

The fire in the canoe shows a method used at night to atlract fish to the canoe.

Indeed, Columbus and his men first saw lights on the water at nig ht as they approached theirfirst landfa ll. Below is Mr. Harrior' s text , which accompanied Theodo r de 81y' s engraving of this dra wing.

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Their manner of fishynge in Virginia.

They have likewise a notabl e way to catche fi she in their rivers , for whearas they lacke both yron and stee le, they faste unto the ir reeds or longe rodds the hollow tayle of a certa ine fi she like to a sea crabb in steede of a poynte, wehrwith by nighte or day they stricke fi shes and take them opp into their boates. They also know how to use the prickles and pricks of other fi shes. They also make weares, with settinge opp reedes or twigges in the water, which they soe plant one within another, that they growe still narrower, and narrower, as appeareth by this figure. Ther was never seene amonge us soe cunning a way to take fi sh withall , wherof sundrie sortes as they fownde in the rivers unlike unto ours, which are also of a verye good taste . Dowbtless yt is a pleasant sighte to see the people , somtymes wadinge, and goinge somtymes sailinge in those rivers, wh ich are shollowe and not deepe, free from all care of heapinge opp riches for their posterite, content with their state, and livinge frendlye together of those thinges which god of his bountye hath given unto them, yet without givinge hym any thanks according to hi s desarte.

SEA HISTORY SS , AUTUMN 1990

2S

Lintrium conficiendorum ratio.

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I RA eflin V1Rc1N1 A cymbas fabricandi ratio: namcumferreuinfirumenti:taut a!iu nojlrujimifi/;;u.r careant,eas tam en parare norunt_,nos1rt5 non miniu commodd4¡ ad naui. !,andum quo lubet perflumina & adpi.fcandum. Prim um arbore aliqua crajja & alta def'(C-'-,;, ~; , leCfa'.pro cymbie quamparare rvolunt magnitudine, ignem circa eius radices famma tel~~ lure m ambttu(iruunt ex arborum mufco bene reficcato C,.'7" lzgm C1:1[ults pautatmu tgnem_, exc it antes ,neflam ma dltiu.r afcendat & arboris !ongitudinem minuat. P iene adufla & ruinam minante arbore,nou14m.fuflitant ignem,qt.-temflagrarejim4nt donec ar6orfjonte cadat. ~ dujtis deinde arboris f ajligio (5' ramis rut truncus ius1am longitudinem_, retineat., tignis tr~efuer(is (uprafurcas pofit is im:ponunt,ea altitudine rut commode la6orare pofent,tunc cortice conchis qutbufdam_, adempto, integriorem__, trunci partem_, pro cymbie inferiore parteferuant, in altera parte ignem(ecundum trunci longitudinem., flruunt,prieterquam extremis,quod(atis aduftumil!is rvidetur,rtjlinCfo igne cochisfcabunt,& nouofufcitato igne denuo adurunt,atque ita d,eincepsperg14nt,fubinde rvrentes & (cabentes, do nee cymba necejfariurn aLueumnatfafit.Sic 'IJominiJPiritusrudt6us homini6usfaggerit rativnem qua res irifaum rvfumnecejfarias corificere queant.

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This page, reproduced from Harriot's A brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, illustrates the methods used by the Algonquians to fell trees, to shape and hollow them. Unfortunately, John White's original drawing of this scene has been lost . Theodor de Bry' s engraved version, above, shows all the wood neatly and impossibly squared off as if cut by a saw, and the Algonquins have taken on European features .

26

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

at Roanoke at that time, were lost or destroyed when the colony mysteriously di sappeared. Still others, used to make engrav ings for the publi shed version of Harriot's account, have simply vanished over the years.

White 's work, executed in pencil and watercolor, has a clear, gentle quality .

He seems to appreciate what he observes, rather than dramati ze it or force a message on the scene before him . Hi s style fits well with Harriot's carefully detailed observations, bring ing back to li fe the vanished ways of a people "free from a ll care of heaping up ri ches for the ir posterity, content with their state, and li ving friendly together. ... " D

Below,John White ' s portrait ofan Algonquin noted: "The manner of their attire and painting themselves when they go to the ir general hunting or at their solemn feasts."

The tail is probably thatofapuma. Men wore their hair long and knotted at the back, except fo r a strip down the middle of the head which was cut short and stood upright. â&#x20AC;˘

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This drawing of the village of Secoton reveals a well-ordered way of life. About two hundred people lived here in about twelve lodges, each housing an. extended family a/fifteen to twenty people. This is also a composite picture, showing the villagers engaged in. many acti vities all at once.

Of note are the staggered plantings of maize. Th e little hut on stilts in the upper field shelters a villager, possibly a boy , whose job is to keep blackbirds , raccoons and other wildlife away ji"om the ripening corn.Alsoofnote is the building at lower left,a burial house which held the mumm(fled bodies of the village chiefs and a four-fool carved human figure of religious significance.

This scene is reproduced in Harriot's book in much more detail, showing plots of sunflowers, pumpkins and tobacco .

SEA HISTORY 55 , AUTUMN 1990

27

Measure time the way George Washington did ... with this fine precision timepiece.

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Begin by setting the suspension ring to the local latitude.

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Finally, turn the entire dial tmtil sunlight coming through the pinhole in the index is focused on the hour ring.

THE NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESENTS THE UNIVERSAL RING DIAL

The Father of Our Country always treasured the precisely calibrated timepiece g iven to him by his close friend the Marqui s de Lafayette.

It was the Universal Ring Dial, the fine instrument preferred by the wealthy and powerful for over 150 years.

Now this precision timepiece is re-created in etched solid

brass to inaug urate the official collection of the National Maritime Historical Society .

Pi ck it up . Turn the d ial until sunlight coming throug h the pinhole focuses on the hour ri ng. And experience how Washington must have felt as he measured each dramati c moment in the birth of our nation .

Every numeral and letter- as well as the acanthus leaf desig n - is deeply etched into the imported brass . Priced at $90. Available only from The Franklin Mint.

THE UNIVERSAL RING DIAL ati onal Maritime Hi scorica l Soc iety C/o The Franklin Mine· Franklin Center, Pennsylvania 1909 l Please handcraft The Universal Ring Dial in prec ision-etched solid brass express ly for me. And bill me in 4 monthly insca llmencs of $22 . 50* each , beginning pr ior co shipment. The hard wood base, instruct ions for use and hi stor ical reference wi ll be prov ided at no additi onal charge. *Plu1!!/) J((lft sales tax and a onMimechargeo/SJ. for1hippi11g(//ul ht111dling.

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8101809'8 the Midwest's Premier Marine Art Gallery Call Ted Gardner (513) 891-5531 The Cleveland Main Light flashes a friendly welcome, on a summer evening 55 years ago welcoming the Goodtime on her return from Cedar Point. "Port of Cleveland" is Iowa native Michael Blaser's first Great Lakes painting. After six years of depicting the inland waterways and steamboats of the Mi ssissippi, Monogahala, and Ohio rivers, painting the Great Lakes is tonic to Blaser:" . .. a secret desire of mine ever since I worked my way through college at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. " The steamers Joliet and William J. Mather are shown middle and right of the painting, respectively. The 1925 Mather , the only surviving example of a straight deck bulk and iron one carrier left on the Lakes, is now being meticulous ly restored by the Great Lakes Hi storical Society in Vermilion, Ohio, and print sales of "Port of Cleveland," will benefit this sterling effort. They may be ordered signed and numbered, orremarqued, signed and numbered , from the Society at 480 Main Street, Vermilion OH 44089; 216 967-3467. For information about Blaser' s other prints contact Waterway Fine Arts , PO Box 915, Bettendorf IA 52722; 800 383-0669.

Exhibitions September 23-December 30 1990, Mirror of Empire: Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century, an international exhibition of 140 works of art including paintings , prints, drawing s, globes , maps and sea atlases. At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts , 2400Third A venue South, Minnneapolis MN 55404.

November 1-December 1990, American Society of Marine Artists Northeast Region Marine Art Exhibition, SEA HISTORY 55 , AUTUMN 1990

featuring approximately 35 paintings by ASMA members at the American Merchant Marine Mu seum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, Long Island NY 1 1024.

November l 7-December3 l , 1990, Four Distinguished Artists, a co llection of 15 new pieces each from John Atwater, William Davis, Richard Loud and Lloyd McCaffery at Mystic Maritime Gallery , Mystic CT 06355.

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OPERATION SAIL 1992:

Druzhba Brings US-Soviet Crew "Back to the Basics"

By Kevin Haydon The sun brightening off her flanks, on August 14 the Soviet Merchant Marine training vessel Druzhba eased into Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, the pier itself resonating to the sounds of Russian march tunes-"Cavalry of the Steppes" and 'The Russian Circus March ." Swelling the numbers of the midshipman band and reception comm ittee for officers and crew of the Druzhba is an excited midday lunch crowd of wellwishers. The first Russian training vessel to visit the East Coast in 14 years, Druzhba is also the first vessel to host a joint USSR-US Merchant Marine cadet sail.

Leaving Odessa on June 10 with forty-one US merchant cadets and instructors , 32 men and 9 women, and 72 cadets of the Odessa Maritime Academy, the Druzhba voyaged 6,500 miles to reach Baltimore on August 5-the most significant part of her mission accomplished.

Building on the success of the first trans-Atlantic "SovietAmerican Sail" aboard schooner Te Vega in 1989, the 1990 sail of the Druzhba amplified its predecessor's mission to advance international goodwill and understanding between the youth of both countries. "The ship isn ' t designed to haul cargo," said Duane Bennett, a senior at the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point NY, " it 's designed to haul students. The lesson we learned is friendship . The Soviet cadets would give you the shirt off their back if you asked them ." Among the Soviet cadets were Yura, 22 years of age, and Sergei 23, both in their fourth year of study at the Odessa Academy , and two of only six Odessa cadets with prior experience on square-riggers. Their favorite country nowAmerica. Pulling theDruzhba's 245 lines (145 countingjoint lines) hand-in-hand with US cadets was, in their words, an " unforgettable experience." The joint sail was an experience to be remembered not only by cadets, however. Over one hundred families hosted the Soviet cadets during port stops along the Eastern seaboard, and an estimated 200,000 people toured the vessel.

Built in the Gdansk in 1987 , the Druzhba is the newest addition to the Soviet Union's tall ship fleet and a true greyhound of the sea. Designed specifically for merchant marine training, she is the fifth in a series of training ships built at the Polish yard si nce 1983. At 365-ft she is almost as long as the venerable cargo queen-turned-training vessel Kru zenshtern (ex-German Padua , built 1926), but at 2,360 gross tons she is much sleeker. It could be asked why a vessel like the Druzhba still ex ists and why over 100 American and Soviet cadets should train on her now that shipping operates by motor, not by sai l? Admiral Paul L. Krinsky, Superintendent of the US Merchant Marine Academy, asserts that sail experience, " brings you back to the basics. It brings you back to natural forces." It provides a sea sense that isn ' t got aboard large merchant ships virtually impervious to the weather.

It was recogn iti on of thi s need that inspired the Directorof the US Tall Ship Foundation , Jay Bolton, to help Massachusetts-based Deepwater Alliance Director Capt. Stephen Wedlock put together "Soviet-American Sai l 1990." They were able to parlay a small private venture aboard the Te Vega in 1989 into a professional educational experience for American merchant marine cadets. Under the leadership of Soviet merchant officers, the American Director of Education, Captain Richard T . Shannon (a former Sailing Master of the USCG Eagle), other US Merchant Academy instructors, and four NOAA officers from the US Department of Commerce, the American cadets received an education that has rarely before SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

Above, US and Soviet cadels mingle aft of th e new Soviet merchant marine training s hip , th e Dru z hba , as s he makes her way to New York 's South Sireet Seaport onAugust 14.

The Druzhba shows her sail approaching Manhattan.A flourish we will see again at Op Sail 1992 in the companyofher Soviet sisterships.

been afforded American merchant cadets.

For Captain Bolton, this was the second part of Druzhba's mission-to provide quality education and draw attention to this nation 's need for a fully-rigged merchant marine training sh ip. The US merchant marine academies currently do not have a vessel of this type and the US Tall Ship Foundation is planning to build it. The TS Liberty will be a 3,000-gross ton, 350-ft, four-masted , bark rigged , diesel/sail-powered ship accommodating approximately 160 cadets built, says Captain Bolton, " to maintain the maritime commercial heritage of the United States and to address the critical needs of sea service schools." (See SH 54, pl3.)

In the meantime, the US Tall Ship Foundation and Deepwater Alliance have further joint US-Soviet sails planned.

Merchant marine cadets will voyage again in 1991 , this time on the Soviet training ship Mir . And when will we see the Druzhba boasting sail in New York harbor again? Operation Sai l,July4, 1992, of course! This time in the company of many of her Soviet sisters. D 31

Thanking all our hosts in New York City, Elizabeth, Stamfo rd , Kingston, Albany, New Rochelle, Fairfield , Milford, and Fall River fo r a great summer of '89.

Now pl anning an exc iting 1990 schedule.

The new Coast Guard Certified"HMS" Rose , largest operational wooden sailing ship in the world , embarks on educational voyages. Diverse programs range from grade school age through executive development workshops for business and industry.

I

For information write or call:

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SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS PETER THROCKMORTON

(1929-1990)

Sailor, scholar, archaeologist and shipsaver, NMHS Advisor Peter Throckmorton died unexpectantly at his Maine saltwater farm on June 5. For the celebration of his life, his colleague, Dr. George Bass, sent a message from Texas: "From the Mediterranean to the Falkland Islands , Peter's vision led to the first true underwater archaeology ."

Throckmorton was a citizen of the world 's oceans. With his Greek schooner Stormie Seas as a base , he brought the precision of terrestrial archaeology underwater with the exploration of Mediterranean wrecks from 1300 BC and 2500 B<;:. He rescued a 40-ft section of the "downeaster" St . Mary from a Falkland beach for the Maine State Museum. He looked for John PaulJones's Bonhomme Richard in the North Sea, and the bark Elissa sails proudly out of Galveston because he began her salvation by dickering for her in Greek, one of his seven languages. He was a teacher and author of several books , his last The Sea Remembers, published in England as History from the Sea. He was the author of much original work in Sea History. A book on the Stormie Seas , undertaken at the urging of his friend Peter Stanford, was unfinished at his death, but it is hoped that this remarkable work may be completed from his notes and letters .

Throckmorton ' s legacy is not just his own successful projects but the many of us whom he generously encouraged , adv ised, taught, and occasionally cussed out, as we embarked on our own .

NICOLAS DEA N

Edgecomb, Maine SCOTT NICOLL

(1902-1990)

Scott Nicoll , engineer and raconteur extraordinaire, slipped his moorings for the last time on September 8. Born of Scottish parents in Hamakoapokai on Maui, Hawaii, he learned to play guitar and to work the donkey engines on sugar plantations. He later graduated from MIT with a Masters degree in engineering.

He served as Chief Engineer in the restoration of the steam side paddlewheel tug Epple/on Hall and was with her on the initial segment of her voyage from England to San Francisco, 1969-1970 (see SH 8). Until recently Scotty could be seen bounding about the Bay in his 16-ft steam boatMikhala. An avid tinkerer, he saw to the overhau I of the donkey engine at Hyde Street Pier and he found joy in SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

serving as docent for the black gang a board the Liberty ship J eremiah O' Brien.

WILLIAM E. BURG ESS, JR. San Francisco

CLASSIC YACHT

Cunard's 150 Years

SHIP MOOE LS

At an 1885 luncheon celebrating Etruria's launch , Cunard Line's 14th ship, Stevenson Blackwood, secretary of the General Post Office, proudly announced that between 1840 and 1884, "the Cunard Line has carried 17 ,000,000 letters without the loss of a single bag." An impressive record for Samuel Cunard ' s " tin kettles." Thinking about the Cunard Line is thinking about the biggest name in Atlantic steamer history. Images of the majestic and immortal liners Lusitania , Mauritania, Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeths embarking or disembarking their thousands of passengers follow on . But the marvel that began it al l is that a provincial , Nova Scotia native, withstanding stiff competition from Britain's own , could in 1840 walk off with the most prized Admiralty mail contract-for the transatlantic service.

The British government, for national defense reasons, held out the subsidized mail contracts as incentives to foster the growth of steamship service. The first awarded for the Liverpool to Dublin service, the second for the Southampton to Portugal service and the third for Cunard ' s, and the world ' s, first transceanic service. In this way the Admiralty gave a measure of financial security to the pioneer steamship companies-a hedge against the obvious hazards of early steamer transit. It also gave Britain the most immediate access to the Empire and the rest of the world. The incentive was the same for other steamship companies, like the Pacific and Orient Line, that would later reach further into the colonies. It is a testimony to Samuel Cunard's temerity and political acumen that he outmaneuvred his competition in 1840 and substantial! y outperformed them through diligence and determination in the years to come.

Today , 150 years after RMS Britannia took that first mail , the evergreen Queen Elizabeth 2 is the last North Atlantic liner-what Cunard started, Cunard will finish .

KH

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SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS performed flawlessly during its seatrials in mid-July and was commissioned Flagship of Pennyslvania August 18 in Erie.

Internationally renowned shipbuilderand designer Melbourne Smith was reported as being pleased with the superior performance of the ship. He told the Erie Morning News "It went very smooth and the crew performed very well." The vessel c ut through the choppy lake waters at an impressive 11 knots in I 0 to IS knot winds. The Niagara is the vessel on which Perry claimed the victory of his flotilla of nine vessels over the six British warships near Put-In-Bay, Ohio, in western Lake Erie, September I 0, 1813.

The famed "Perry Luck," that spared him and his brother as the only unwounded officers on the original flagship Lawrence during the battle, seems to have manifested itself again in the commission's restoration work. As the sea trials were taking place concern was being expressed about plans to shelter the vessel during the harsh winter months.

Just the day before the commissioning however, the Erie Port Authority announced its purchase of the 20 year-old Litton sh ipbuilding facility for use by the Niagara. Not surprisingly, Commission spokesperson Sue Cohen describes the 7 million cubic foot facility replete with a 1200-ft drydock as " perfect for us." The current plan calls for demolishing up to a third of the building and conversion of the adjacent 60,000-sqft building into a museum .

KH

Bill Cosby to Launch Slave Ship Rebuild What could be more ironic than a ship called La Amistad (the Spanish word for "The Friendship") carry ing S3 Africans to intended slavery in Cuba? Well, after a series of events, the ship and its passengers ended up in Montauk , Long Island NY, where charges of murder and piracy were lodged against the Africans. Four sovereign governments were involved and two American Presidents opposed each other one-to-one. John Quincy Adams argued the first Civil Rights case to reach the US Supreme Courton behalf of the Africans in 1841. New Yorkbased Amistad Affil iates now plans to build a replica of the hi storic Baltimore schooner to serve as an educational facility. As Chairman of Amistad Affiliates, Bill Cosby is launching the campaign to build the vessel. It will be equipped with historical documentation and artifacts primarily from the Amistad Research Center, located on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleansthe nation 's largest repository for original historical documentation on black Americans. NMHS President Peter Stanford is a member of the honorary committee to build the replica. (Am istad Affiliates , Inc., 826 Sherry Drive, Valley Cottage NY 10989; 914 268-8832)

Sail Amsterdam 1990 One million spectators each day for five days is a lot of people anywhere at the same time. NMHS member Bob Freidman thought Amsterdam may have sunk an inch or two under the burden of Sail Amsterdam festival goers, August 9-14. They were there to see the 17 Class A sailing vessels and assortment of more than 1000 vessels taking part in the port festival. Although less than a clear day, the parade of sa il in Amsterdam harbor on August 9 went " without a hitch ," reports Mr. Freidman. The large sailing vessels prese nt in c luded Sarges II , Libertad, Alexander Von Humb olt, Esmeralda , Captain Miranda , Lord Nelson , Iskra , Sedov and Oceana .

Launched with its paint still wet and towed at the front of the parade was Amsterdam//, the superb replica built by the Dutch East India company of their 1748 merchantshipAmsterdam (see story in SH SO, p38). The six-day festival was

The American Sail Training Association 's first "Safety at Sea Rally" at Norfolk VA in June attracted over I 00 cadets to participate in the exercises.

Present were the Gaze/a, New Way, Bill of Rights, and Patricia Divine among others. ASTA's first West Coast meeting was also held earlier this year and further meetings are scheduled regularly at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum .

Of major interest to sail training groups will be the Association 's 18th Annual Conference entitled " Keeping Afloat," November IS-16, and Second Annual Safety-at-Sea Seminar, November 1718, at Norfolk VA. The conference features presentations and workshops by educators, trainers, captains and public officials in the field. For registration information contact ASTA, PO Box 14S9,NewportRI02840;40 1846- 1775.

Congratulations also to AST A on the p:-oduction of its new Directory of Sail

34

filled with events from Dragonboatraces to Band C Class races and a mini-parade for smaller vessels.

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SHIPWRECKS OF NEW JERSEY, by Gary Gentlle.

Gives history and exact location (LORAN) of many of New Jersey's shipwrecks. 168 pages, 42 photos. Paperback. $14.95 ISBN 0-9616399-2-X $2. 00 shipping one book; .50 each for each additional. Ct res, add 8% sales tax:.

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SHIP NOTES Training Ships and Programs. The most complete illustrated li sting of sai l training vessels and organizations, it can be ordered by check or charge for $16.00 slow post or $ 17 .50 fast post from Sea Hi story Press, PO Box 646, Croton-onHudson , NY I 0520.

The new historic vessels standards guide, The Secretary of the Interior' s Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation Projects with Guidelines for Applying the Standards, which addresses the longstanding need for uniform standards for hi stori c vessel projects, is a major contribution to the ongoing National Maritime Initiative. The document was developed by Michael Naab, Maritime Director of the National Trust for Hi storic Preservation and provides a framework for responsible preservation practice that recognizes the unique problems of historic preservation in a maritime context. The National Maritime Initiative was created under a request from congress to the National Park Service in 1984 and is directed by James P. Delgado, Maritime Director for the National Park Service. For more information or copies of the document contact National Maritime Initiative, History Division (418), National Park Service, PO Box 37127, Washington DC 200 13-7127.

Windjammers from; Maine, Boston, Mystic CT, Greenport & NYC New York, Caribbean, Galapagos Islands and South Pacific Build lasting memories sailing a tall ship. Take a turn at the wheel, lend a hand with the sails, make new friends, enjoy hearty meals, relax and rest. One day to two week sailing adventures. Write or call today!

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Filming of the one hour documentary "The Brigantine Black Pearl" began thi s summer. A Schumann-O'Brien Production and NMHS supported project, the film will familiarize viewers with the colorful history of Black Pearl, the founding vessel of the American Sail Training Association . If fundin g is achieved, a second part to the documentary will record Black Pearl's participation in the trans-Atlantic Grand Regatta Columbus ' 92. Currently in the hands of the Ship Trust of New York , she serves as ambassador for the restoration of the Wavertree at South Street Seaport, New York. Any support for the project, including photographs, footage or anecdotes of the Black Pearl, is welcomed.

Contact Lisa Schumann, 330 W.56 Street Apt 61 , New York NY 10019. D

Stay abreast of maritime heritage news and events. Subscribe to the bi-monthly newsletter Sea History Gazette, Box 646, 132 Maple Street, Croton-onHudson NY 10520-0646-26 issues yearly; $25 to NMHS members, $35 to others.

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The Mary Rose Visit the exhibition of King Henry VIII's warship and thousands of objects, recovered from the sea after 437 years and now on display every day except Christmas Day. Enjoy the film shows and wander around the Heritage Area in Britain's premier Naval Base in Portsmouth, England.

Your assistance is needed to preserve the priceless treasure of the Mary Rose and her contents for future generations. For information write to: Maurice G. Hardy C.B.E., President, Society for the Archaeological Study of the Mary Rose, Inc., c/o Pall Corporation, 2200 Northern Boulevard, East Hills, N.Y. 11548, U.S.A. Or to: The Mary Rose Trust, H.M. Naval Base, Portsmouth, POI 3LX, ENGLAND. A superb Limited Edition of 500 signed prints "The Warship Mary Rose Leaving Portsmouth Harbour - Summer 1545" by William H. Bishop.

Priced at £150 each plus postage, or mounted and framed, total size 441h" x 341h" at £275 each plus postage. Order form with details and full colour brochure from the Mary Rose Trust, address as above.

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

37

REVIEWS The Little Ships of Dunkirk, by Christi an Brann (Collectors' Books Limited, Bradley Lodge, Kemble, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, 1989, 240pp, illus, indexes; available in the US from NMHS , $47.50ppd) Through the long time the story will be told; Long centuries of prai se on Engli sh lips, Of courage godlike and of hearts of go ld , Off Dunquerque beaches in the little ships.

-from ''To the Seamen,"

by John Masefield In the last weeks of May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force, which a little over half a year before had embarked for Europe at the outsetofWorld War II, had been pushed back in defeat to the port of Dunkirk, France, on the Dover Strait.

The victorious Germans threatened three sides, and the sea on the fourth. Close to half a million men, including portions of the French army, were caught in what appeared to be an inescapable trap.

On May 26, though no formal plan had been drawn up, the British Admiralty in London launc hed Operation Dynamo to rescue as much of the BEF as they could. Vice Admiral Ramsey, who was in charge of the operations, expected at best a two-day window of opportunity before the Germans overran the perimeter. Given the shortage of destroyers and troop transports, and the bombed-out condition of the Dunkirk harbor faci lities, they wou ld be lucky to save 45,000 men .

As things turned out, two unexpected factors saved the bulk of the BEF. First, the Germans, who were far ahead of their supply lines, let up on their offensive, g iving the British until June 5 to get their men off the beaches. Second, the Royal Navy di scovered they could step up the pace of the evacuation if they embarked the soldiers directly from the beaches rather than only from the mol e itself. But the waters were shallow for a considerable distance off, and there weren't enough small craft to ferry the soldiers out to the deep-draft rescue ships lying offshore. What to do?

Within hours the call went out to the owners of small craft on the east coast of England. Fishing drifters and trawlers, tugboats, Thames barges, motorboats, sailing yachts, canal boats, excursion steamers, RNLI lifeboats. Anything that 38

could float, anything that could cross the Dover Strait, was begged, borrowed, or commandeered and sent over to Dunkirk.

Some were taken over by Royal Navy sailors and officers; others were manned by their civilian owners and crews.

Nobody argued about charter rates or liability insurance or who was going to pay for the gas . A fleet of approximately 700 small craft made the crossing and participated in the evacuation. Close to 350,000 soldiers of the BEF and French army were rescued, a good part ferried from the beach and thou sands transported directly across the strait, despite the sometimes foul weather, by this extemporaneous fleet.

Approximately I 00 of the "Little Ships" were lost during Operation Dynamo. They were wrecked on the beaches or lost at sea in stormy weather; they were bombed, strafed, and shot up by shore batteries. But most of the fleet survived what has come to be seen as Britain 's victory in defeat, and 50 years later several hundred are sti ll aro und .

The Little Ships of Dunkirk was pub1ished to celebrate the 50th an niversary of Operation Dynamo. A project of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, it is a "then-and-now" look at the vessels owned by the members. It includes the technica l particulars of each Little Ship, a capsule hi story of its role at Dunkirk, its hi story since 1940, and photographs showing ho w the vessels appea red before and during wartime, and now. The book is not great literature, but it is in places, stirring drama. And for boat lovers it is evidence of one of the principles of maritime preservation: that pride in a boat's accompli shments as much as pride in the boat itse lf is one of the guarantees of the boat 's longterm survival.

PETER H. SPECTRE A contributing editor to WoodenBoat

magazine, Mr. Spectre kindly granted permission to excerpt this review ji"om a larger review in WoodenBoat 94.

Dunkirk; The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler, Norman Gelb (William Morrow & Co., New York, 1989, 352pp, illus, index, $22.95 hb) This engrossing narrative very nearly li ves up to the ambitious claim of its s ubtitle, for the author has chosen to seek out the origins of World War II, the emergence of the lead ing protagoni sts of what might be ca lled Part I of the war (which may be said to have ended with

Dunkirk), and the unfolding catastrophe that landed the British Expeditionary Force almost out of gas, ammunition and food, and almost beyond hope on the Dunkirk beaches in May 1940. All this he accomplishes in brisk narrative sty le and with considerable authority.

Even veterans of the war often do not have a clear picture of what was going on, and Norman Gelb has done history and us a very real service by developing in lively, sometimes fascinating detail the terror, horror and confusion of the overwhelming military defeat that led up to the miracle of Dunkirk. He has to deal very selectively with the abundant material, but in this reviewer's opinion he has mastered that material with insight into the movement of men 's minds and machines , and an eye for the telling detail. The German General Heinz Guderian has written a brilliant account of the campaign from his perspective as its principal executor, and Britain's Winston Churchill (who was, incidentally, a first-class military historian as well as an inspired though occasionally nutty war leader) has written with superb feeling of the British side-indeed he articulated it at the time in some of the most memorable prose in our language.

But Gelb, I feel, alone of participants and students of the campaign gives proper weight to Lord Gort's tank charge at Arras, citing thi s as the compelling reason for the halt order given the Tenth Panzer Division which could have motored into Dunkirk admiring the seas ide scenery out of open hatches (thus foreclosing the evacuation) if it had not been ordered into reserve by a shook-up German High Command. Erwin Rommel , the General whose Seventh Panzer Division was hit by the British charge, showed other incidents (and more than incidents) of panicky overreaction toward the end of the war, though thi s flaw did not come to light in hi s brilliant campaigns in the Western Desert a year later, which earned him fame as the Desert Fox. Now if Manstein or Balck had had command of the afflicted German division ... Gelb does not pursue thi s question, but bully for him for bringi ng it out.

The account of Operation Dynamo itself moves forward in a well-documented context of what was going on with the Allied armies and ministries , though one can always think of scenes one wow ld have added. For the human side, in tlhe boats and indeed in the water, nothing one feels will ever match Walter SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

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Statement filed 10-8-90 required by the Act of Aug. 12, 1970, Sec. 3685, Title 39, US Code: Sea History is published quarterly at 132 Maple St., Croton NY 10520; minimum subscri~tion price is$15. Publisher and editor is Peter Stanford; managing editor is Norma Stanford; owner is National Maritime Historical Society, a non-profit corporation; all are located at 132 Maple St., Croton NY 10520. During the 12 months preceding October 1990 the average numbers of: A) copies printed each issue was 49,668; B) paid circulation was 1) sold through dealers, carriers and counter sales 765; 2) mail subscriptions 10,620; C) total paid circulation was 11 ,385; 0) free distribution, samples, complimentary copies were 32,559; E) total distribution was 43,962; F) cop ies not distributed were I) office use 5,705; 2) return from news agents O; G) total=49,668. The actual numbers for the single issue preceding October 1989 are: A) total number printed 56,258; B) paid circulation was 1) sales through dealers, carriers and counter sales683; 2) mail subscriptionsl0,477; C) total paid circulation 11, 160; 0) free distribution, samples, comp limentary copies were 41,088; E) total distribution was 52,248; F) copies not distributed were 1) office use 4,010; 2)return from news agents 0; G) total=56,258. I certify that the above statements are correct and complete. (signed) Norma Stanford, VP, National Maritime Historical Societ_y.

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REVIEWS Lord's The Miracle of Dunkirk (Viking, 1982-see Sea History 27 , p41). But to this classic Norman Gelb has now added a fast-paced, balanced, eminently readable and worthwhile account of how the miracle came about, and what it meant to the winning of World War II. PS Unsung Sailors, The Naval Armed Guard in World War II, by Justin F. Gleichauf (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1990, 432pp, illus; $29.95hb) Unsung Sailors is appropriately titled .

More than 144,000 Americans served in the Naval Armed Guard in World War II, and nearly 2,000 of them lost their lives along with 6,000 merchant marine shipmates. Yet in hi s 1986 comprehensive history, The United States Navy ...

200 Years, Captain Edward L. Beach, USN (Ret), runs 564 pages in length without a single reference to the Armed Guard of either World War. Unsung indeed.

Although author Gleichauf did not begin writing professionally until his 70th birthday , he has done a remarkably thorough job of researching hi s subject over a period of five years. He attended a number of national and regional reunions of Armed Guard veterans, interviewing and corresponding with over I 00 men and obtaining first-person accounts of experiences in all theaters of war.

The depth and breadth of the book 's historical coverage is revealed in the titles of various chapters: The Great War (1914-1918), The Road to War (19391941), Naval Armed Guard Organization and Training, The Ships They Sailed, Gallant Ships, Gallant Men (nine vessels were officially cited as "Gallant Ships"), The Convoys, The Sea Raiders, Other Hazards (such as collisions in convoys, fires aboard ships at sea, ill nesses and injuries with no doctors or medics aboard ), Relation s with the Merchant Marine, The Murmansk Run to Northern Russia, the PQ-17 Di saster (the worst convoy catastrophe of the War) , The Battle of the Atlantic, The Mediterranean , The Pacific, Japanese Submarine Warfare and Atrocities (this may make "Remember Pearl Harbor" a patriotic American slogan again), and, finally , an epilogue on poss ible future maritime wars .

Many Armed Guard officers and men were awarded medals and citations for heroic deeds. There were 5 Navy Crosses, 2 Legions of Merit, 75 Silver Stars, 54 40

Bronze Stars, 24 Navy and Marine Corps Medals, over 8,000 individual citations, and over 56,000 combat and engagement stars. Seven AG officers were awarded the honor of having US Navy ships named after them, all posthumously.

Yet one of the most heroic feats was not performed by an Armed Guardsman but by a member of the US merchant marine. Cadet Edwin O ' Hara was serving on a training cruise aboard Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins, which in September 1942, while sai ling independentl y in the South Atlantic, had the grim fate of being intercepted by two German sea raiders--Stierand Tannen/els. Both were armed with batteries, modern 5.9-inch guns , whileStephenHopkinscarriedone 4-inch World War I vintage plus smaller armament.

Nevertheless, when Stephen Hopkins was ordered to halt, Captain Paul Buck turned his ship to bring its stern gun to bear on the enemy. Ensign Kenneth Willett, AG Commander, and hi s small gun crew opened fire , with volunteer Cadet O ' Hara assisting in ammunition loading. It was a hopeless engagement from the start, and the Navy crew was soon wiped out by a bursting German shell . Cadet 0 ' Hara took over the gun by himself, firing five remaining rounds and scoring several hits on Stier at the waterline. The battle ended with the s inking of both Stier a nd Stephen Hopkins.

LCDR HAROLD J. McCORMICK USNR(Ret) Mr. McCormick, a World War II Armed Guard officer, recounted the sinking of the Liberty Ship he was aboard in Sea Hi story 35.

Splendor Sailed the Sound; The New Haven Railroad & the Fall Ri ver Line, George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin (Potential s Group, Inc., San Mateo CA, and Mid-States Associates, Tucson AZ, 1989, 384p, illus; $55.00hb) For anyone interested in the hi story of American coastal steamships, this book is an absolute essential. Although the title suggests that the book presents only the hi story of the steamers of the New England Steamship Company, the marine subsidiary of the New Haven Railroad , it in fact covers a great deal more than that. It does indeed cover the various lines controlled by the New Haven Railroad, but in includes hi stories of most of the other important Long

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SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

REVIEWS Island Sound lines as well.

The Lines are covered separately, with a very thorough chapter devoted to each: the Bridgeport Line, the New Haven Line, and so forth. The premier service of New Haven New England Steamship Company, of course, was the great Fall River Line, whose steamers from its first sailing in 1847 to its last ninety years later, were the finest and most elegant and most beautiful of all American overnight boats.

Although this Line has been treated in many other studies, the authors manage to give us a fresh approach , much interesting new material, and a great many excellent photographs, many of which have never appeared before in print. From the first that one opens the flyleaf and finds a fascinating photograph of steamers Plymouth and City of Fall River, to the final flyleaf, with its full broadside of the beautiful Puritan (with William Webb'sProvidence in the background), the photographs in this book , of the Fall River steamers and many unexpected photographs of other Sound steamers, do not fail to be exciting. One minor problem, however, is that some of the photographs, especially towards the end of the book, have been printed too densely, giving them an overall gray cast. These photos are nonetheless legible.

The authors have done a great deal of original research and have presented us with a considerable amount of new and interesting material. There are some errors, but none that matter. But one will not understand the value and pleasure this book offers until one has bathed in it for many delightful hours.

WILLI A M G. MULLER Mr. Muller, is a founder and Fellow of the American Society of Marine A rtists and an advisor of NMHS. Tuning the Rig, Harvey Ox horn (Harper & Row, New York 1990, 320pp, maps, illus; $22.95hb) This splendid book is a must for those about to embark on their first sai l training experience-and also for those who knew the late Dr. George Nichols, founder of Ocean Research and Education Society (ORES) and captain of its research vessel , the barkentine Regina Maris .

While many neophytes or trainees have written about their initiation under sail and the character-building metamorphosis that they underwent, Harvey SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

Ox horn, as a teacher, writer and philosopher, approaches the subject in a more mature and self-analytical way than most.

The narrative of this journey to the Arctic develops the characters of all the players in totality as the rigors and challenge of the voyage force them into a unique team . The closing pages present the unwritten "code of service" that has evolved aboard the ship.

A rewarding feature of Ox horn 's log

is hi s ability to put in language comprehensible to the layman the marine biol ogy activities and to provide capsules of the hi story of the regions in the northern seas discovered by the Norsemen.

H ENRY H. ANDERSON , Jr. Commodore Anderson, a Vice Chairman of NMHS, and Chairman Emeritus of the American Sail Training Association , sails his sloop Blue Shadow in Labrador each summer.

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Originally published in 1941, Howay's brilliantly annotated volume contains four firsthand accounts of life on board the Columbia Rediviva, including John Boit's description ofRobert Gray's entry into the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792. Historians and scholars have long regarded this work as an invaluable resource on the fur trade and maritime exploration in the Pacific Northwest and will treasure this handsome new edition.

Juan Perez on the Northwest Coast: Six Documents ofHis Expedition in 1774, TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY HERBERTK. BEALS $24.95

The controversy surrounding the 1774 voyage ofJuan Perez to tl1e Northwest Coast of North America has been thoroughly annotated by author and translator Herbert K. Beals. The failure of tl1e Santiago to reach the sixtieth parallel or make a landing on the Northwest Coast is weighed against Perez's fame as tl1e first European to ply the waters off the Pacific Northwest.

These six documents, translated from the Spanish, allow the reader an opportunity to judge the scale of Perez's achievements, or shortcomings, on that 1774 voyage.

The Last Temperate Coast: Maritime Exploration of Northwest America, 1542-1794, MAP: HERBERT K. BEALS $20.00 Maritime historian Beals has defined and charted thirteen of the most important early sea explorations along the Northwest Coast. These voyages in search of knowledge about the "Last Temperate Coast" spanned a period of more than 250 years. Also included are inset maps-fifteen in all- that show individual routes of the explorers and the gradual decrease of terra incognita.

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An audacious voyage to intimidate neutral America before she entered World War I:

With U-53 to America: Part I

by Thomas

J. Hajewski

The campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany fact that it would not need to be refueled , was of paramount in World War I was by and large the most singular reason for importance in the Admiralstab's planning-something which America's decision to enter the conflict against the Central would greatly heighten the psychological effect of the mi ssion Powers. There were, to be sure, other more subtle and complex on the Americans. Additional tanks could be installed which reasons precipitating President Wilson's declaration of war wo uld more than double the boat 's normal fuel-oil carrying caagainst Germany in April 1917. Yet America's moralistic at- pacity. At the same time drinking water for the crew could be titude initially toward what was happening in Europe found its augmented by filling the torpedo tubes, normally flooded with most concrete expression in reactions by its citizens and states- seawater before firing , with fresh water. Such modifications men to the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania on May 7, would res ult in an additiona l 7,000 liters of fresh water for both 1915, by the German submarine U-20. And business leaders drinking and washing. The diesel engines wou ld be of the here knew that if Germany were to continue its "rape of the sea tried-and-tested Augsburg-N urnberg type, machines which lanes," as one New York paper called it, America's lucrative had already demonstrated their reliance and durability when trade with the Allies in war materiel and a host of other goods installed in earlier U-boat model s.

For the mission a U-boat built by the Krupp-Germania would be abruptly halted.

On at least two occasions, lives of American passengers Works in Kiel was selected, U-53 . The boat was brand new, had been lost when U-boats torpedoed the British liner Arabic having been launched in early February, 1916. Her empty in the summer of 1915, and again in early 1916 when the cross- weight was 715 tons, speed 17 .1 knots on the surface, 9.1 knots Channel steamship Sussex was hit. At thi s point relations submerged. Main armament consisted of two bow and two between the US and Germany were strained to the maximum, stern torpedo tubes, with a total complement of eight to ten and America threatened to sever diplomatic ties with the torpedoes ; on deck , two 8.8 centimeter cannon , with two German government unless the latter promi sed that vessels lighter gunsmounted on the conning tower. would no longer be sunk without warning and that provision The crew of 36 officers and men served under Kapiwould be made for the safety of passengers and crew. tanleutnant Hans Rose, a 3 1-year old veteran in the Kai ser's The question of unrestricted U-boat warfare had also be- Imperial Marine. Having already taken her on six wartime opcome the subject of some controversy within the highest erations, both captain and crew knew their vessel well. circles in Germany as well. The creator of the German The crew were led to believe that the modifications to their Hochseeflotte (High Seas Fleet), Admiral von Tirpitz, re- submarine were being made in preparation for an extended signed in a fit of anger over the submarine issue in March 1916, Mediterranean sortie. Only after they were at sea were they and both Hindenburg and Ludendorff became staunch advo- informed of their actual destination . On September 17, U-53 cates of the risky policy of sinking "any and all ships sighted , quietly slipped her moorings at the Heligoland submarine base regardless of nationality," when both began to realize the and proceeded on a northerly heading through the North Sea. negative consequences of the long-term Allied blockade of She was accompanied only by German Naval Zeppe lin L- I 7.

German-controlled North Sea ports. After two hard years of By midday, however, the airship was forced to break off its brutal conflict the German General Staff had few illusions as escort due to stonny weather. The heavy waves along with the to what course the war might take. excess weight of the U-boat slowed its operational speed on Against this scenario an event occured in late August 1916, diesels considerab ly. the results of which sparked intense interest within the German Captain Rose 's orders for the mission read as fo llows: 1. After the arrival of the supply submarine Bremen , exAdmiralstab (Naval Staff) and found strong support from the Kaiser himself. A large supply submarine, the Deutsch/and, pected on September 15 at New London, Engl ish warships had just returned from the first cruise ever to still-neutral will most likely be guarding the eastern approaches to Long America by a German U-boat. Its captain reported that Engli sh Island Sound. Attack any of these units operating ouside cruisers lay just outside US territorial waters in an attempt to US territorial waters. intercept and destroy the unarmed German vessel, whose 2. After carrying out the above mi ssion , proceed to Newarrival in the US had been publicly announced in the Ameriport, Rhode Island , where you wi ll allow American naval can press. The Germans effectively eluded these pursuers and officers to board your vessel. You are then to leave Newport managed the recrossing of the Atlantic without further inciimmediately thereafter. Reprovi sioning of any kind is to be dent. Could a similar voyage be undertaken again, this time avoided if at all possible. using an armed conventional submarine (which was only a 3. If no enemy units are encountered, proceed to Newport third the size of the supply U-boat), with the purpose of as instructed in (2) above.

4. After ( I) and (2) have been carried out or in case either demonstrating to the Americans how vulnerable they would be to U-boat attack in the event of war with Germany? of these must be aborted, proceed with the interception and The mission would be especially effective if the round trip inspection of merchant shipping without undue risk to your from Europe to the US cou ld be carried out without taking on boat. fuel or provi sions from an American port. Also, the abundance of ship traffic carrying war materiel to Britain or her allies, Additional orders were issued to Rose orally , requesting contraband in German eyes, off the American East Coast that he not make hi s presence known to the Americans before would provide an amp le supply of targets for U-boat torpe- October 5. U-53 's appearance off New England was to coindoes. If the plan succeeded the United States might be intimi- cide with the advance of German troops into Rumania, planned dated into retaining its neutrality. for the beginning of October, to demonstrate that Germany The mission called for the equipping of one of the latest could interdict merchant shipping across the Atlan ti c whi le model U-boats with adequate fuel storage for the 8,000 nauti- striking deep into Eastern Europe. cal mile round-trip. The self-sufficiency of the vessel and the The Atlantic crossing was an extremely stormy one, as high 44

SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990

"On October 7, 1916, U-53 dropped anchor ... in the midst of a US destroyer squadron."

\:'--;:;;:::::-=--.__- ~- /

¡/

winds and 30-ft waves continua ll y threatened to abort the mi ssion . However, the Shetlands were passed on September 20 and U-53 was able to continue westward.

Despite minor storm damage and the accidental opening of an exhaust port during a dive, which flood ed one of the engine compartments, the boat reached the Newfoundland coast early on October 2 amidst a brilliant di splay of the northern lights.

Early on October 6, U-53 found herself off the New England coast. An earlier wireless message had informed Rose of the unfortunate sinking of the supply Uboat Bremen by the Allies, the bait in the trap which would lure British warships within range of the German 's torpedoes. Consequently, another supply submarine bearing the same name was di spatched immediately. Rose made the dec ision not to await the second Bremen's arrival, but to proceed as per hi s orders directly to Newport, Rhode Island , since no enemy German submarine U-53 at Newport RI, with officers.and crew posed on conning warships had been sighted thus far. U-53 anchored in 23 tower. She subsequently attacked Allied sluppmg off the US East Coast. meters of water and awaited first light. At dawn the boat and left him momentarily confused. After taking his leave, surfaced and proceeded on diesels toward the American har- Rose was directed to Admiral G leaves, commanding officerof bor, already well within US territorial waters. Soon the Ger- the cruiser Birmingham, who received theGerman with a good man lookouts observed a periscope. An American submarine deal more friendliness and courtesy , inquiring about all the slow ly surfaced nearby and hove to. As the two boats came detail s of the Atlantic crossi ng, the construction of the German within hailing di stance, Rose called to the Americans with his boat, and old friends he knew in the German Navy. After a megaphone: "Greetings to my American comrades. I will short yet pleasant conversation, Rose returned to his submafollow in yo ur wake!" With an "O.K.!" the American com- rine, only to find a large number of American officers being mander proceeded into Newport harbor, fo llowed closely by shown the vessel by hi s crew. After a few minutes a group of the German vessel. On October7, 191 6, U-53 dropped anchor naval wives joined their husbands on deck; this seemed to be in the American port in the midst of a US destroyer squadron . the signal for an even larger influx of Newport residents to Rose immed iately went ashore to pay his respects to the board U-53 . Soon her decks and compartments were filled base commander, who identified himself as Admiral Knight. with exc ited curiosity seekers. At the height of this confusion The 15-minute meeting between the two officers was a rather Admiral Gleaves, his wife and young daughter decided to uncomfortable one, as the American seemed ill-at-ease about repay Rose's earlier visit and made their appearance alongside the fact that an armed German vessel had just put into hi s the U-boat. The German captain graciously invited them to his faci lity unannounced, yet, at the same time, requested nothing cabin where he entertained them with champagne and cake. from him: no fue l, food , water or repairs. The German had , it Shortly thereafter an officer brought Rose a message from seemed, mere ly dropped in for a goodwill visit! Considering Admiral Knight to the effect that the "submarine tour" would events taking place just outside US territorial waters between have to be interrupted and all Americans must leave the English vessels and German U-boats, the sudden appearance German vessel at once because of the harbor quarantine law. of Rose and hi s submarine had caught the admiral off guard Since the senior naval physician at Newport had him self just Visitors come aboard U-53 at Newpo rt RI, October 7, 1916. US cruiser Birmingham, left the submari ne and had said nothing in the background right, will herself be hunting U-boats in just six months. about any quarantine, Rose took this to i - ,( mean that specific orders had most likely arrived from Washington regarding hi s unexpected visit. Rather than risk internment, he decided to leave Newport immediately. After little more than two and a half hours in America, with the first part of hi s mission concl uded, U-53 weighed anchor and headed out to sea, its departure excited ly accompanied by friendly waves, shouts, whistles and horn blasts from the Americans. Now Ka pi tanleutnant Rose was abo ut to carry out the second , more bellicose phase of Uâ&#x20AC;˘I 53 's orders. . .. to be continued.

A professor of German at Edinboro University ofPennyslvania, Mr. Hajewski has published numerous articles on military-related topics .

45

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SEA HIISTORY 55 , AUTUMN 1990

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MODEL

SUCCESS STORY' "The Maritime Prepositioning Ship program is a model success story, and I couldn't be more pleased . MPS is on schedule and proving to be an extremely valuable strategic asset."

- General PX . Kelley Commandant U.S. Marine Corps

* *

DISTRICT 2 MARINE ENGINEERS BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION -ASSOCIATED MARITIME OFFICERS AFFILIATED WITH THE AFL-CIO MARITIME TRADES DEPARTMENT 650 FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN, N.Y 11232 (718) 965-6700

*

RAYMOND T. McKAY PRESIDENT

JOHN F. BRADY EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Outbound from San Francisco Bay, the PRESIDENT TRUMAN makes its way to ports of call in the Far East. It was th e first of five ClO-class vessels built by American President Lines and is crewed by MM&P Licensed Deck Officers.

This is MM&P Country.

Oakland, California: This is the West Coast export port for American President Lines and its new ClO-class vessels. The PRESIDENT TRUMAN was the first of five such "postPanamax" vessels constructed for American President Lines using new and highly-efficient technology. The PRESIDENT TRUMAN and her sisterships, PRESIDENT ADAMS , PRESIDENT JACKSON, PRESIDENT KENNEDY and PRESIDENT POLK, are crewed by Masters, Mates & Pilots Licensed Deck Officers, as are all APL vessels.

With a beam of 129 feet , these Cl Os exceed the limitations of the Panama Canal and are designed specifically for trans-Pacific container shipping service. At 903 feet , LOA, they are longer than three football fields , tower 20 stories above the water and displace 7 7,000 metric tons, yet the 57 ,000 horsepower engine on these ships gives them a service speed of 24 knots. The PRESIDENT TRUMAN and her sisterships incorporate the latest in navigational and operational technology, including computerized vessel management systems and the latest Automatic Radar Plotting Aids (ARPA).

MM&P Licensed Deck Officers on the C 1 Os and all other American President Lines' ships train and sharpen their skills at MITAGS , the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies, located in Linthicum Heights, MD. Convenient to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. , MITAGS is the most advanced maritime training school in the world. Adding to its already full range of shipboard training courses, MITAGS developed its own ARPA course, setting another industry standard. The MITAGS ARPA course was the first in the nation to receive U.S . Coast Guard approval.

MITAGS is the result of a close collaboration between the MM&P and the U.S.-flag shipping companies in their joint Maritime Advancement, Training , Education and Safety (MATES) program.

ROBERT J. LOWEN

F. ELWOOD KYSER

International President

International Secretary-Treasurer

International Organization of

Masters, Mates & Pilots 700 Maritime Boulevard, Linthicum Heights, MD 21 090 • Tel : (301) 850-8700 •Cable: BRIDGEDECK, Washington, DC• Telex : 750831