Sea History 068 - Winter 1993-1994

No. 68

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

WINTER 1993-94

SEA HISTORY:

75

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

TREASURES OF THE SPONGE DIVERS The US Response to the U-boat Threat Neapolitan Port Painters with a Niche in Americana "Women of the Deep": A History of the Mermaid

TEXACO Salutes the Tall Ships • •

. and invites you to join the National Maritime Historical Society to help keep them sailing!

Join the NMHS today and Texaco will send you, absolutely free, a handsome portfolio of fourteen tall ship prints. As a member, you will also receive SEA HISTORY quarterly-and you'll be helping to keep the maritime heritage alive.

The original paintings were commissioned by Texaco and painted by the renowned artist James E. Mitchell. It's our way of saying thank you for joining the National Maritime Historical Society and supporting their good work.

Since the supply is limited, we urge you to send in your membership enrollment today.

Use the return form or call toll free 1-800-221-NMHS to enroll by credit card.

Texaco Fuel and Marine Marketing invites you to learn more about the broad range of Texaco quality products and services by completing and mailing our business reply card.

If the National Maritime Historical Society return form is missing, send your $30 membership contribution to the address below or call 800-221-NMHS for credit card enrollment.

TEXACO FUEL AND MARINEMARKETING

WORLDWIDE Texaco Inc.

National Maritime Historical Society

Fuel and Marine Marketing Dept.

2000 Westchester Avenue White Plains, NY 10650 Tel: 914-253-4000 Fax: 914-253-6002

5 John Walsh Boulevard PO Box 68 Peekskill New York 10566 Tel: 800-221-NMHS (6647)

ISSN 0146-9312

No. 68

SEA HISTORY

SEA HISTORY is published quarterly by the National Maritime Historical Society, Charles Point, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566. Second class postage paid at Peek ski II NY l 0566 and additional mailing offices. COPYRIGHT Š 1994 by the National Maritime Historical Society. Tel: 914 737-7878.

FEATURES - - T H E BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC - -

8 A Critical Supply Line As losses mounted, US leaders struggled to respond to the U-boat threat

by Peter Stanford 10 The Destroyer's Poor Relation How twenty-four British trawlers served the US Navy in early 1942

by James Reedy

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sea History, Charles Point, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.

MEMBERSHIP is invited. Plankowner $ 10,000; Benefactor $5,000; Afterguard $2,500; Spon or $ l ,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $ l 00; Contributor $50; Family $40; Regular $30; Student or Retired $ 15. All members outside the USA please add $ 10 for postage. SEA HISTORY is sent to all members. Individual copies cost $3.75 .

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14 Going Beyond the Abandoned Shipwreck Act Marine archaeology looks for ways to protect historic wrecks

by Kevin Haydon

18 Treasures of the Sponge Divers The INA fo llows Turkey's sponge divers to the wrecks of antiquity

by Donald A. Frey

OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman , Alan G. Choate; Vice Chairmen, Richardo Lopes, Edward G. Zelinsky; President, Peter Stanford; Vice President , Norma Stanford; Treasurer, Bradford Smith; Secretary , Donald Derr; Trustees, Walter R. Brown, Grove Conrad, George Lamb, George Lowery,James J. Moore, Warren Marrll, Brian A. McAlli ster,JamesJ. Moore, Ludwig K. Rubinsky, Marshall Streibert, Samuel Thompson, David B. Vietor; Chairman Emeritus, Karl Kortum OVERSEERS: CharlesF.Adams, Walter Cronkite, Townsend Hornor, George Lamb, John Lehman, Clifford D. Mallory, J. William Middendorf, II, Graham H. Phillips, John Stobart. William G. Winterer ADVISORS : Co-Cha irmen, Frank 0 . Braynard , Melbourne Smith; D.K. Abbass, Raymond Aker , George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswa ld L. Brett, David Brink, Norman J .

Brouwer, William M. Doerflin ger, Francis J. Duffy, John S. Ewald, Joseph L. Fa rr, Timoth y G. Foote, Thomas Gi llmer, Richard Goo ldAdams, Hajo Knuttel , Walter J. Handelman , Charles E. He rdendorf, Steven A. Hyman , Conrad Milster, Edward D. Muhlfe ld , William G. Muller, David E. Perkins, Richard Rath , Nancy Hughes Richardson , Timothy J. Runyan, George Salley, Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart , Albert Swanson, Shannon J. Wall , Raymond E. Wallace, Robert A. Weinstein , Thomas Wells AMERICAN SHIP TRUST: International Chairman, Karl Kortum ; Chairman , Peter Stanford; Trusrees , F. Briggs Dalzell , Wi ll iam G. Muller, Ri chard Rath , Melbourne Smi th , Edward G. Zelinsky SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford; Executive Editor, Norma Stanford; Managing Editor, Kev in Haydon; Curator/Assistant Editor, Justine Ahl strom; Accounting, Joseph Cacciola; Membership Secretary, Patricia Anstett; Membership Assistants, Erika Kurtenbach , Kim Parisi ; Advertising Assistant, Carmen McCall um ; Secretary to the President, Karen Ritell ADVERTISING: Telephone 9 14-737-7878.

WINTER 1993-94

24 Tommaso & Antonio De Simone Two Neapolitan port painters with a niche in Americana

by William P. Dunne

44 Women of the Deep A light history of the mermaid

by Anthony Piccolo

DEPARTMENTS Letters Mission Society presents American Ship Trust Award; N01mandy Convoy to Sail; A report on the 5th National Maritime Heritage Conference 17 In the Field Two new archaeological sites in American waters 4

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29 Marine Art News 30 Traffiques & Discoveries 32 Shipnotes, Seaport & Museum News 38 Reviews & Book Locker 48 Patrons

COVER: Probing with a steel wire, a diver feels beneath the sand for the curved outline of a hippopotamus tooth, part of a cargo of a Bronze Age ship that sank near Ulu Burun, Turkey , in the 14th century BC. Sponge divers have helped INA archaeologists find eight important wrecks so far . (See st01y on pages 18-22 ).

Our seafaring heritage comes alive in Sea History Sea History brings to life America 's seafaring past. It is the quarterly journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, a national non-profit membership organiza-

tion, established in 1963, that works to increase maritime awareness and educate the public in our nation 's maritime heritage.

Come aboard with us today!

To: National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566 Yes, I want to help. I understand that my contribution goes to help the work of the Society and that I'll be kept informed by receiving SEA HISTORY quarterly. Please enroll me as:

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A spirit of hard work, enterprise & cooperation sailed the tall ships of yesterday & the Liberty Ships of World War IL.. and that's what makes things move today!

BAY REFRAC1DRY 164 Wolcott Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 Tel: 718-625-3844

VINTAGE SHIP AND BOAT MODELS

DAVID AIR

MARINE ART & ARTIFACTS 8 BEACH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10013 CLOSE TO SOUTH STREET SEAPORT

212. 925. 7867 By appointment

LETTERS Make Way for Convoy HX-355! want to thank the members of the Society most heartily for your support in our efforts to get Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley's bill for the Normandy Convoy adopted by Congress. Now that we have been successful with the bill we can go full ahead on fundraising and the myriad other details necessary to make the Normandy Convoy a reality.

Our historian, Sherod Cooper, looked up the designation of the last eastbound convoy from New York. It sailed in May 1945 and was designated HX-354. I guess that makes us HX-355!

BRIAN HOPE, President Project Liberty Ship Baltimore, Maryland

We Really Had to Win This One One must question Donald A. Landauer' s assertion, in his letter in Sea History 67, that it did not matter to the outcome of World War II whether Britain was successfully invaded by Hitler or not, since we had most of Italy and all of North Africa as supply depots. What war history has the writer been reading for him to make such a statement?

It was because of the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Britain that the AJlies had both Italy and North Africa.

Before we entered the war in December 1941,Britain had, since 1939, been fighting Germany. Britain held off Hitler 's invasion attempt (Operation Sea Lion) in 1940 and, at the same time, held onto North Africa by fighting both the Italian and German armies. When we entered the war, Britain was our only supply depot in Europe, and became the main base from which the Allies drove the Axis armies from North Africa, invaded Italy and launched the D-day invasion of the European continent.

The successes of the Allies were made possible by a massive build-up of men, planes, ships, tanks, special weapons and a vast variety of equipment, to say nothing of the British forces that had been fighting Hitler all along. All this had to be shipped across the Atlantic to our European base, Britain. Hitler tried to prevent the shipments with a fierce submarine warfare. If the Battle of the 4

Atlantic had not been won, Europe would have been lost.

F. W. STEVENS San Diego, California

Armed Guardsmen Braved the Battle The supply ships and the Navy gun crew aboard the merchant ships that braved the Battle of the Atlantic in the early part of the war were the only reason supplies reached Great Britain. Air cover was non-existent and, in the early days, had planes with only a two hundred mile coverage. And a Navy pilot once told me that in the very early days they only had "dummy guns and ammunition." However, the Navy gun crew was there for the full 3000-mile journey.

We do not want to take anything away from our courageous brothers on escort vessels or those who fought in the sky but we want history to be accurate when accounting for victory in the "Battle of the Atlantic." Moreover, from 1940 to the end of the war, the US Navy Armed Guardsmen could be found in every theater of war doing the same thing as they were doing in the Atlantic.

LEO GULLAGE Lakeland, Florida

Drumbeat Tells All Readers who have a special interest in "The Battle of the Atlantic" article should read Drumbeat by Michael Gannon, a voluminous book which deals with this subject in enormous detail, researched from face-to-face meetings with a prominent U-boat commander and American and British naval officers at the time. It's as much or more shocking than the also inexcusable Pearl Harbor disaster.

Where was our navy, why didn't the Anglophobic Admiral King make use of intelligence data offered by the British, and why did we leave lights aglow all along our coast to silhouette our ships for the German submarines? Drumbeat tells it all.

JERREMS C. HART Vero Beach, Florida Further discussion of this issue can be found in "A Critical Supply Line" on pages 8-9.-ED

Finding the Longitude-Or Not Just after reading "Finding the Longitude" (SH 66)-particularly Champlain's idea that "God did not intend that man should ever be able to determine longitude at sea"-I found in Champlain 's

Treatise on Seamanship the following: "Never forget often to ascertain variations of the compass needle in all localities, that is, to know how much it varies from the meridian toward the east or west, which is useful in determining longitudes if one has observations for them ; and when you return to the same place where you took them, and find the same variation, you would know whereabouts you are, whether it be in the hemisphere of Asia or that of Peru .. . ."

Samuel Eliot Morison, translator of this passage, adds this comment: "How Champlain expected to find longitude by this means is beyond my comprehension .... It would seem that he subscribed to an erroneous theory as old as Columbus-that the lines of compass variation ran due north and south so that if you found your local variation you would know what longitude you were at."

Later in Champlain 's treatise, under the section "Divine Providence," we read: " ... man hath no certain knowledge in his voyages of longitudes . . .. " Taking these two sections, together with Morison's footnote, I think that Champlain thought (erroneously) that he could get approximate longitudes, as opposed to accurate latitudes.

JOHN KEYES Montpelier, Vermont

What About Bowditch?

In Sea History 66, the three part "Finding the Longitude" sheds light on important parts of the story of navigation.

As excellent as this three article series is, it will not be complete from an American perspective until you review the life and works of Nathaniel Bowditch.

Bowditch was a self-educated intellectual giant who has been neglected in American history. An outstanding sailormathematician, he was the author of the first edition of The American Practical Navigator, and he taught every sailor that sailed with him to navigate.

F. B. TURBERVILLE, JR. Milton, North Carolina

The Lady Has a Name In 1987 I was fortunate enough to go on a cruise of two weeks aboard the Sea Cloud-leaving Papeete to visit islands in French Polynesia. At one point we stopped at an island specifically to see this ship, remarkably preserved, which was said to have been blown ashore in a typhoon in the 1800s. I do not find her in the International Register of Historic SEAHISTORY68,WINTER 1993-1994

Ships, and would like to know more about her.

GEORGE C. BUZBY, JR. Blue Bell, Pennsylvania

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under the strong and swift push of the roaring forties at the close of the eighteenth century.

Where is this magic place? -Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, off the southeast coast of Tasmania. I share this secret with the hope that devoted readers of Sea History will not all go there at once.

JOHN M. KINGSBURY Ithaca, New York CORRIGENDA

She is the County of Roxburgh (built in I 886), wrecked on the island of Tuamotu (that' swhat she's listed under in the Register), in a storm en route from South America to Australia, on 8 February I 906.

She is one of three 4-masted full-rigged ships surviving, the other two being the Munoz Gamero, ex-County of Peebles (1875) , a hulk in Punta Arenas, Chile, and the Falls of Clyde (1878) , restored and open to the public at the Hawaii Maritime Center in Honolulu.--ED A Magic Place "Two hundred years later, modern Sydney sprawls outward from Sydney Cove. But the image of Sydney Harbor as the colonists saw it is not entirely erased," says Kevin Haydon in "Exploring Maritime Sydney" (SH 67).

True enough, but how much more fun it is to be able to place visitors in the ambience of early historic landings at a location that is barely spoiled at all, even now after more than two centuries. One of the greatest pleasures in my life is to be able to sit visitors on a hillside overlooking a wide, placid bay where Captain Cook brought the Resolution to anchor ( 1777) on his third major voyage of Pacific exploration, with William Bligh as his first mate. Here the visitors can visualize with me that historic tableau undistracted by city noise or passing traffic, with almost no sign of human habitation. Here we can wade in the same stream from which the Resolution was resupplied with fresh water by the crew, marvel at the giant kelp (Durvillea) of the southern hemisphere as the European crewmen must have done, and climb the same slopes Cook and Bligh did in seeking to talk with aboriginals and obtain provisions.

Many other famous square riggers and skippers followed Cooke's early visit to this same bay as they journeyed from European to South Pacific waters SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993- I 994

I really enjoyed Sea History 66. However, I noted the following mistakes.

On page 9, Karl Donitz is not inspecting U-boat crews in the photograph.

There are far too many sailors in one group and, also, the war badge worn by destroyer crews can clearly be seen on the left side of the peacoats of the sailors close to the camera. Donitz is obviously inspecting the crew of a destroyer. It is hard to tell by the photo whether this inspection takes place on the deck of a ship, or on land. If on a ship, the deck is far too wide for a U-boat and is more likely a destroyer. After January 1943, when Admiral Donitz became head of the entire German Navy, inspections of other ships and their crews, besides Uboats, became part of his jurisdiction.

The photograph below that is of Erich Topp, the third most successful submarine skipper of WWII. Erich Topp survived the war, retired from the West German Navy, and lives in retirement.

He is an extremely interesting person and a gentleman of honor and integrity.

On page 14, the photo shows crewmen from USS Guadalcanal aboard captured U-505 , but it was actually sailors from USS Pillsbury that first boarded and captured the sub. The guys from Guadalcanal did not board the sub until quite some time after the prize was secured.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

I'm looking forward to the next issue.

MARC J. COHEN Fort Lauderdale, Florida Jesse C. Conde writes to tell us that the schoolshipEmery Rice (not Emory Rice, as we had it) never carried the name Tuscarora, as Jim Larsen named her in his Jetter in Sea History 67. Conde, who served aboard the old schoolship when she weathered a hurricane at sea in I 932, wrote a history of the ship published in the May/June issue of The Bulletin of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Launched as USS Ranger in 1876, she

wasrenamedRockportin 1917, became Nantucket in 1918, Bay State in 1941, andEmeryRicein 1942.AsUSSRanger in the 1880s she did conduct the survey work off the west coast of Mexico reported by Jim Larsen.

QUERIES

Warren Chedister was a mate on the Liberty ship fames W. Johnson when he saw a small aircraft carrier on a Europebound convoy. "It could have been a tanker with a flightdeck. A yellow British biplane with a red, white and blue roundel took off. It was a very colorful sight against all the gray ships. It was slow and I would guess built about 1930.

Another mate told me a plane went off the bow and was run over by the ship. I do not know the convoy number. The year was possibly 1944or1945. I would appreciate learning more." Send any information to Mr. Chedister at Bay Point, PO Box 28179, Panama City FL 32411.

Chester J. Klish is seeking photographs and information on two South Sea schooners, theEvaLeeta andLeetaMay. They brought supplies to infantry and engineer units in Noumea, New Caledonia.

Send information to him at 415 Keepataw Dr., Lemont IL 60439-4354.

Peter Luaces is seeking the log of the schooner William Hunter, particularly for the voyage from Mobile AL (April 1861), toMatanzas , Cuba(endof April), then on to New York (25 May) . Contact him at 29418 Clear View Lane, Highland CA 92346.

The 1934 Norwegian fjord boat Record is now undergoing restoration.She was apparently built by Vestnes Boatyard in central Norway and first owned by Sara Vagnes of Langevag. After WWII the vessel was altered and had a new engine fitted in 1950/51 at Alesund. In 1972 Record was sold to an American, Elmer Bouchelle, of the Camden Corporation of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. He sailed her to the West Indies after refitting at Plymouth in Devon. Anyone knowing details of her history, name, owners, and where she traded in Norway and in the Caribbean can contact D. H. Iggulden at 50, Elm Avenue, Eastcote, Ruislip, Middlesex HA4 8PD, UK.

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MISSION "A Future Worthy of Their Past" Clifford D. Mallory, Jr. of Mystic Seaport Museum receives NMHS American Ship Trust Award at Annual Dinner Clifford D. Mallory, Jr., 51-year trustee and past chairman of Mystic Seaport Museum, was presented with the NMHS American Ship Trust Award at the Society's Annual Dinner at the New York Yacht Club on 19 November 1993. Previous recipients of the award have included Walter Cronkite of CBS , the late Alan Villiers of Oxford, and Karl Kortum of San Francisco.

Emil "Bus" Mosbacher, Jr., another previous recipient, was unable to attend the dinner but sent a message of greeting in which he characterized Mystic Seaport as "a beacon of quality in the world of ships today." He added: "Cliff, you have given the most important ships in America a future worthy of their past, when the Joseph Conrad rounded Cape Hom with young people in crew under the redoubtable Alan Villiers, and the L.A. Dunton beat home from the Grand Banks with a belly full of cod and rigging full of ice, and the Charles W. Morgan coursed the far reaches of the world's oceans in pursuit of the whale."

In accepting the award, Mr. Mallory stressed the importance of the "real thing" in ship restoration, citing a boatbuilding trustee of Mystic who fended off a proposal for fiberglass spars for the Charles W. Morgan by asking: "Would the Louvre restore the 'Mona Lisa ' with acrylic paint?" Added Mr. Mallory: "Thank the Lord that the Morgan is not a stage set of fiberglass."

He paid generous tribute to the NMHS, which, he said, is "doing a mammoth job." He went on to characterize Sea History as "a must for every salt water person alive; it is terrific. "

The Fall Foliage Cruisea Perfect Day on the Hudson On 24 October a full complement of NMHS members departed Peekskill 's Riverfront Green dock and steamed up river aboard the 77-year-old MN Commander for luncheon at West Point's Hotel Thayer. All things conspired in our favor: the scenery had just that perfect amount of aging with yellows, reds and greens in breathtaking blends; the weather brought blue skies, warm temperatures, and a breeze to sweep us away; and the company- I 00 NMHS members-was, in a word, excellent!

Certainly a high point of the cruise was the commentary, a lively combination of information and anecdoteshistorical and contemporary-from Lincoln Diamant, author of Chaining the Hudson , a history of Revolutionary War activity in this part of the Hudson Valley, and John Wort, one of the Commander's owners.

The Next Thirty Years This being the Society's 30th anniversary party, Chairman Alan Choate proposed a toast to those who had made the Society what it is. He then went on to outline the trustees ' concerns for the next thirty years, particularly the concern for keeping alive "the real thing" in historic ships, as Mr. Mallory had done with such resounding success at Mystic. He said that the trustees' ideas would be mailed to the whole membership for their consideration, and would contribute to a long-range plan for the Society's future , to be reviewed at the Annual Meeting next spring.

Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr., previous chairman, reported earlier in the evening on the progress of his work with the educational trips of the tug Urger on New York State canals, and introduced Kim Shevlin, manager of the project, which as NMHS President Peter Stanford remarked, had spread its wings in splendid fashion since leaving the aegis of the NMHS, under which it had been nurtured in the early years.

Among other projects discussed was the proposed building of a sailing replica of the slave ship Amistad, under the chairmanship of NMHS Trustee Warren Marr II. Revell Carr, president of Mystic Seaport Museum, enthusiastically confirmed the museum' s readiness to build the ship as plans and funding developed. So, in a forward-looking manner, the first thirty years of NMHS drew to a close.

PS

Member's lounge on the topdeck of the MIV Commander during our Fall Foliage Cruise.

In the Spring, we'll be daysailing again, this time aboard the square-rigged replica "HMS " Rose of 1776 in New York Harbor. Please join us! For details call 1-800-221 -NMHS .

BULLETIN: The Normandy Convoy Will Sail!

Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley 's ships. He announced that the American Navy League and other maritime leadbill providing funding for two World War Merchant Marine Memorial, which he ers , pledged support for thi s vital effort.

II Liberty ships and one Victory ship to heads, is campaigning for the additional "In England and Europe," said Adsteam to Nonnandy this spring to com- dollars needed for the Liberty John W. miral King, "the importance of these memorate the 50th annjversary of the D- Brown in Baltimore and the Lane Victory ships and what they did is better recogDay invasion of France (launched on 6 in San Diego. The Liberty Jeremiah nized than it is in this country, which June 1944), was adopted by the House, O' Brien, in San Francisco, will pursue an built and sai led the ships. To those on the cleared its hurdles in the Senate (as part of independent funding drive, while coordi- other side of the world, the ships reprethe Coast Guard appropriations bill) and nating closely with the other two ships. sented a life line of hope in this century 's was signed into law on 20 December.

Adm iral King thanked NMHS mem- most terrible wars." Inquiries and conAt the NMHS James Monroe Lun- bers who had weighed in in support of tributions should be sent to the taxcheon held on 5 January at the Whitehall the Bentley bill , and welcomed NMHS exempt American Merchant Mariners ' Cl ub in Lower Manhattan, Rear Admiral participation in the citizen funding ef- Memorial, Inc., 65 Broadway, NY NY Thomas King, USMS (ret.) said that pro- fort. Those present at the lunch , includ- 10006 for the Brown and Lane Victory, ceedsofthebillfromscrappingoutmoded ing Brian McAllister of McAllister or to National Liberty Ship Memorial, reserve fleet ships would come to some Brothers Towing, Richard W. Scheuing, Fort Mason Bldg. A., San Francisco, CA $750,000 for each of the three convoy president of the Empire Region of the 94123 for the Jeremiah O' Brien. PS

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SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

Special Report on the National Maritime Heritage Conferenee For f our days, 15-1 8 September 1993 , representati ves of maritime heritage groups met at the Fifth National Maritime Heritage Conference on Th ompson' s Island in Boston Harbor. The numerous presentations, lively panel discussions and conversations allowed Sea Hi story Editor Kevin Haydon and NMHS Curator/ Assistant Editor Justine Ahlstrom to get a grasp of new directions, concern s and successes of th e maritime heritage community, as summarized in the f ollowing article by Justine Ahlstrom. NMHS president Peter Stanford was also present to give a well-received talk about current trends in museum vessel interpretation.

Conference speakers and participants included: fr om the left , Steve Canright, San Francisco MNHP , Michael Naab , National Trust , Tim othy Runyan , Great lakes Historical Society (GLHS ), Peter Stanford, NMHS, Jan Copes , GLHS , Richardo Elia , Boston University , David Brink, S.A./.l., Jerry Enz/er, Dubuque River Mu seum , Peter Neill , South Street Seaport Mus eum (SSSM), Wayne Wh eeler, US lighthouse Society , Peter Vermilya, Mystic Seaport, Don Birkholz, SSSM , Rafe Parker, Sea Edu cation Association , Beth Bonds, ASTA .

National Policy a Major Conference Focus During a chilly, rainy week at the tail end of summer more than 100 participants ventured by ferry to an island in Boston Harbor to explore and shape the future of our maritime heritage. The Fifth National Maritime Heritage Conference drew a diverse group of men and women from all parts of the country and all areas of maritime interest-museums, historic vessels, lighthouses, archaeology, naval history, small craft, ski lls preservation, maritime industry and government. The conference sponsors-the National Maritime Alliance, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Servicewanted to bring individuals from disparate fields together to encourage participants to approach our maritime interests as a whole.

The primary impetus for gathering on this occasion was the introduction of the National Maritime Heritage Act of 1993. Congressman Tom Andrews of SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

Maine, who spoke at the conference on 16 September, had brought the bill to establish the Act (HR 3059) before the House of Representatives on 15 September. The Act, if passed, would provide federal funding of $5 million annually until the year 2000 for a backlog of maritime preservation needs. Conference organizers urged participants to rally their US reresentatives to support the bill. Since the conference, the bill has gained over 14 cosponsors in the House and a companion bill (S 1727) was introduced in the Senate on 19 November by Senator Bill Cohen of Maine.

Past federal funding of maritime needs has been sporadic, limited to pork barrel legislation initiated by individual Congressmen and two large allocations: $5 million in 1979 (initiated by NMHS) and $3 million for lighthouse preservation, 1988-1990. The recent closing of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Maritime Office also raises questions about how future allocations of federal money for maritime preservation will be made. The Act is designed to address

this imbalance. It should also be noted that the National Maritime Alliance has contracted with the National Trust to take on some of the functions of the disbanded Maritime Office.

In order for the new Act to be effective and allocate funding fairly, maritime preservationists from all areas would need to work together and with government officials to prioritize the needs of the community and get funding to the most endangered vessels, sites and programs. NMHS is hopeful that any system of national priorities would support active local groups making real progress in their communities irrespective of a schedule established in Washington. Prioritizing needs will clearly provide a range of active debates. Questions arose during several of the "Field Reports" to highlight areas of mutual concern.

One of the liveliest discussions of the conference came out of the report on historic vessels given by Don Birkholz, shipwright at South Street Seaport and partner in Tri-Coastal Marine. He referred to large ships as an endangered species, many of which will be lost if we cannot draw attention and funding to their plight. Several participants observed that the more visible and active replicas compete with the more evocative historic vessels in the eyes of the public and funding sources-although, in reality, federal fund s for such projects generally come from different sources.

Topics providing additional food for thought included Peter Stanford's presentation expressing NMHS 's particular concern with the realism and gritty content of interpretation. He focused on several outstanding examples of interpretations that both attract people and deliver solid educational content. Peter Neill, president of South Street Seaport Museum, led a discussion on the need for greater communication between museums and minority groups that have hi storically been excluded from traditional interpretations. Other speakers addressed the state of preservation in their fields , including education, archaeology, lighthouses, small craft, and the NationalParks. - JUSTINEAHLSTROM

For more extensive coverage of of the conference, write NMHS at PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566 for copies of the October and November issues of Sea History Gazette, or contact the National Maritime Alliance, 99 Commercial St., Bath ME 04530-2564, 207 443-4550.

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THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

A Critical Supply Line As Losses Mounted, US Leaders Struggled to Respond to the Threat

by Peter Stanford hey were built for service in home waters on the Euro- ing about. But the men waved the ship on. They said they'd make pean side of the Atlantic, these small , saucy-sheered their own way to safety ashore. They didn't want to be picked up fishing boats that made the difficult westward passage only to be sunk again by another U-boat.

As it happened, the ship survived, and so did Scheuing, who across the ocean in the early spring of 1942 to help escort shipping in American waters. They seemed dwarfed and later served in one of the Liberty ships involved in the invasion overburdened by the guns and depth charges they had been of Normandy in Northern France on D-Day, 6 June 1944. And armed with to convert them from their role of catching fish to the merchant marine survived, and the men went on shipping out fighting German submarines at the outbreak of World War II in the threatened ships, despite horrendous losses. in September 1939. And they were not alone. These 24 North The problem was seen very clearly by responsible leaders at Sea trawlers were joined by lOcorvettes, fresh from Canadian the time. In March, President Roosevelt wrote Prime Minister yards, to join the terrible battle ranging along America's East Churchill: "My Navy has been definitely slack in preparing for Coast, from Long Island and the Jersey shore south to the this submarine war off our coast." He added: "As I need not tell Carolinas and Florida. you, most naval officers have declined in the past to think in Why did the United States, the "arsenal of democracy" in terms of any vesselofless than two thousand tons." 1 In this letter the worldwide struggle to roll back the tide of totalitarian he went on to suggest that the British had also been slow to conquest which had engulfed Europe and Southeast Asia, tum recognize the full menace of the German underseas attackto its hard-pressed British ally for this improvised help? The surely a rather self-defeating argument since the Americans had answer is simple: the United States Navy was losing a battle the British example before them to learn from! off its own beaches-the battle for a vital stretch of the most On 19 June 1942 General Marshall, realizing that the failure important supply line of the entire war, the North Atlantic sea to control shipping losses could cripple America's ability to lane to Europe. deliver its military punch against Nazi Germany, the main The statistics tell the terrible story: some 2 million tons of antagonist of World War II, wrote Admiral King: "The losses by shipping sunk off the American coasts in the six-month period submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean now January-June 1942, the first six months of US involvement as threaten our entire war effort." This , he said, could "so cripple a belligerent in the war. our means of transport that we will be unable to bring sufficient But the statistics don 't tell ital I. Merchant seamen 's bodies men and planes to bear against the enemy in critical theatres to washed ashore on resort beaches, where hotel lights were kept exercise a determining influence on the war."2 blazing away to avoid hurting the tourist business, thus neatly Admiral King had already acted, and losses in July and silhouetting the ships for waiting German submarines . The succeeding months were brought down to bearable proposiorder to black out the seaside towns was not given until April , tions. A direct order from President Roosevelt, following on four months into a terrible war, by which time 190 ships had Marshall 's memo, understandably caused some distress at Adbeen sunk for a loss of over 1 million miral King 's headquarters, according "The losses by submarines off our tons. Worse was to come. to a letter sent us by John R. Norris, In the next two months, May and Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean who served on King's staff.

June, losses rocketed past 400,000 Despite ultimate success in the now threaten our entire war effort." tons a month in coastal waters, apbattle, the questions remain: could -GENERAL MARSHALL TO ADM. KtNG, J UNE 1942 proaching 600,000 tons in the whole King have acted sooner-and should American strategic area, the western he have? To those questions I feel the half of the Atlantic. answer must be "Yes." In hindsight it The young Richard Woodward is certainly clear that there were fleet Scheuing remembers, as one of his destroyers available from the beginfirst experiences at sea, sailing down ning to form the escorts which sudthe coast from Philadelphia to Gulf denly materialized in the summer of Coast po1ts in an old, coal-burning 1942. American forces, while hardsteamer. There was no convoy, and pressed in the Pacific, greatly outno escort available if there had been numbered the Japanese enemy in dea convoy. The steamer chugged along stroyers. Even after trading 50 during the day, and crept in close to overage destroyers to England the shore to anchor at night, hoping to previous year, we had an equal numavoid being sighted by one of the Uber of these old but useful vessels boats that prowled on the surface left, which could not be used in fleet under cover of darkness . actions but which were much better than slow, tubby trawlers or corvettes As they made their way down the coast, they met a party of seamen in a at fighting U-boats. coupleoflifeboats, victims of a U-boat The terrific production of Amerisinking. The skipper ordered the ship can shipyards, some newly established to come to a halt to pick the men up. It in inland cornfields, made up much of is a long-held tradition of the sea that the loss of shipping incurred in 1942, you don't leave men in lifeboats drift- Adm. King, Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces but the Allies still entered 1943 over a

T

8

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

Despite ultimate success in the battle, the questions remain: could King have acted sooner-a,nd should he have? million tons short of the shipping they had had at the beginning of that deadly year 1942. 3 Ultimately the Battle of the Atlantic was won, and the invasion of Europe, the knockout blow which the American war leaders had been striving to deliver, could be delivered at Normandy in June 1944. But before this happened, further costly losses were incurred by a failure to concentrate attention and resources on the Battle of the Atlantic.

It may be suggested that what went wrong here was a failure to understand the ultimate priority of the Atlantic supply line-a priority clearer to General Marshall throughout the war than it was to Admiral King. Marshall always knew that the punch he was building up could not be delivered if the sea arm couldn't get the troops, weapons and supplies across the ocean in good time and adequate quantity.

Beyond that was the over-arching priority of keeping the ex isting contestants, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, in the war. Neither could survive if the Battle of the Atlantic were lost. Still, the focus of Adm. King and his staff was on the Pacific war. The giant and dramatic air-sea battles with the Japanese navy obscured the scattered encounters in the Atlantic between tiny U-boats and plodding merchant ships-a war of small craft and incidents involving a few hundred men on each side. But the Battle of the Atlantic was one upon which the fate of nations and millions of people ultimately depended. ,t Notes: I The Second World War, Vol . rv, by Winston

s. Churchill (Boston, 1950), p. 200. 2 History of United States Naval Operations in World War II , Vol. I, by Samuel Eliot Morison (Boston, 1957), pp. 308309. 3 By Morison 's figures, the Allies had some 29. 7 mi Ilion gross tons available in in January 1942, 28.4 million tons in January 1943.

Each black dot represents a merchant ship loss .

Was This the Battle the Allies Could Not Afford to Lose?

In a word, yes. With few exceptions, people writing to Sea History on this question have made it clear that they agree with basic US strategy, which was to support England, and then , after the German invasion ofRussia in June 1941 , Russia, with what was termed "all aid short of war."

Ed Hayden, who has studied and written widely on the question of the failure of the United States to be ready for this attempt to cut the Allied nations' jugular, the North Atlantic, points to Max Hastings' observation: "Victory depended on the Allies ' fielding overwhelming resources." To this Hayden adds: "The Allies obtained those overwhelming resources and, in fact, the Russian army was fed through the efforts of those who sailed the convoys, fought U-boats, air attacks, pocket battleships and the cruelest North Atlantic weather in 50 years. To get thi s massive armor and firepower to the Allies and enough food through Murmansk to feed every soldier in the Russian army for the entire war, the Allies lost 2,603 merSEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993- 1994

chant ships and 30,248 merchant seamen in The Battle of the Atlantic."

Mr. Hayden, in his writings on this subject, has on occasion dealt harshly with Admiral King, as have others who saw the immense resources of the US being turned to other purposes while our people were being slaughtered on the undefended sea lanes on which the agreed strategy of World War II depended.

John R. Norris of North Carolina, who served on King's staff, and later in the Pacific, wrote to Sea History to say: "There can be no denying that we were not prepared to provide adequate escorts for shipping as well as troop movements and our carriers. This was partly because we are a democracy and just don't spend enough in peacetime to meet sudden requirements, partly because the General Board was composed of Admirals who lusted for bigger and better capital ships and just didn't give logistics and supply very high priority. In this case Admiral King, when a member of the General Board, did make an urgent request for Hamilton Class Coast Guard

cutters in 1940, but presidential approval could not be obtained. The President felt that smal l patrol boats could be obtained after the start of a war and insisted that construction of anti-submarine vessels be kept on the back burner so as not to delay the capital ship building effort."

He also notes: "There was another serious problem that King was faced with-a secret' ABC-1 Staff Agreement' which was adopted on 27 March 1941. It provided that if the United States and Japan enterthe war, the military strategy in the Pacific would be defensive and the United States would not add to its existing fleet. Although I was on King's staff at the time, I knew ofno such agreement at the time.

"On 7 July 1942 the President sent King a memo to accelerate the provision ofescorts for convoys. King was upset but replied that it was his goal to get every ship under escort and the US and Great Britain would need about 1000 sea-going escort vessels such as DEs or corvettes.

He said he would continue to do his best."

We' II look at more of Admiral King's strategy in our next issue, and wi ll cite more readers' views.

9

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

The Destroyer's Poor Relation How a Handful of Makeshift Sub-killers Came to America's Rescue in the Dark Days of 1942

by James R. Reedy, Jr. uring the late 1960s, as a young scuba diver exploring shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast, I became interested in a site called "the British trawler wreck" near Morehead City. A little research revealed her name to be HMS Senateur Duhamel. This definitely aroused my curiosity. How did a fishing vessel with an obviously French name get itself commissioned into the British Navy and wind up sunk off the American East Coast? The answers are part of an interesting story of how a squadron of converted British trawlers helped this country hold the line against Germany early in World War II. Hitler responded to America' s December 8, 1941 declaration of war with "Operation Paukenschlag" (Drum Roll), a series of attacks by Nazi U-boats against Allied shipping from Canada to the Caribbean. Paukenschlag was short-lived, but the damage it inflicted was horrendous.

As 1942 opened, American naval defenses were stretched pitifully thin. The US had only a handful of patrol vessels, few of which were outfitted for antisubmarine warfare. Patrol aircraft were almost non-existent and not equipped for offshore sub-hunting. The chances of a U-boat being detected, much less sunk, were minimal.

To make matters worse, there was no convoy system, no radio silence and no blackout. Ships ran along normal shi pping lanes, lit up like Christmas trees and talking openly abo ut routes, cargoes and positions. U-boat sk ippers, accustomed to operating against heav il y defe nded North Atlantic convoys, could not believe their good fortune.

U-123 rai sed the curtain on Paukenschlag on 13 January, when she slammed a torpedo into a British freighter off Cape Cod. Within days, the entire US East Coast became a gigantic shooting gallery. Brightly glowing coastal cities formed the backdrop; the subs simply waited offshore and fired at targets silhouetted by the lights ashore. Frugal skippers often used only one torpedo per ship; if their victim didn ' t sink immediately, the U-boat would finish him off

D

with its 88-millimeter deck gun. In the next two weeks a total of thirty-one ships were sunk off the US East Coast. It was the beginning of what German submariners called "The Happy Time."

At first, most of the carnage took place out at sea, out of sight of land.

Only occasionally did shore residents glimpse the smoke and flame from dying merchantmen. The Navy and Coast Guard fo ught back, but their ships were few and ill-equipped. More U-boatscame, and the grisly toll mounted. Oil, debris, and the bodies of merchant sailors began washing up on US beaches. February saw fifty merchantmen sunk. The total for March would be seventy-four. Paukenschlag was making itself felt.

By the end of January, US authorities knew they had a serious problem and no solution. Desperate, they turned to the only country in Europe not dominated by the Nazis. Great Britain, at war with Germany since 1939, knew quite a bit about fighting U-boats. Could the Royal Navy give us a hand?

Unfortunately, England needed every one of her destroyers and escort

vessels to protect the convoys that enabled her to stay in the war. However, she did have something the Americans could use. Early in the war, the Royal Navy had converted several coal-burning ocean trawlers for anti-submari ne warfare. Fitted out with depth charges, a rapid-fire 4-inch gun, machine guns, and some with ASDIC (a type of SONAR), these little 12-knot ships had served as escort vessels and U-boat killers while England's shipyards turned out the warships it needed. One of them was the French trawler, Senateur Duhamel. She had escaped France when the Nazis took over in 1940, and had been commandeered by the Royal Navy.

Known unofficially as "the destroyer' s poor relation," the trawlers had seen action in Norway and at Dunkirk, as well as on convoy duty. Might the Yanks be interested in the loan of a squadron of these ships, complete with experienced crews?

The British didn't have to ask twice; the 24 vessels of the Escort Force Trawler Squadron departed for America in midFebruary 1942.

Crossing the North Atlantic in midwinter is no picnic. Stormy seas pounded the little ships, making life miserable for all aboard. On the night of 7 March, a few hundred miles off Newfoundland, HMS Northern Princess di sappeared.

No explosion, no radio call, nothing. A search next morning by four of her sisters turned up no trace of the ship or her crew. The only explanation is that she

The largest of the British Escort Force Trawler Squadron sent to the US at the outbreak of Operation Drum Roll was the 900-ton HMS Senateur Duhamel, pictured here in pre-war guise (note tri-color at the stern). She was sunk in May 1942 when rammed at night while on patrol near Morehead City by USS Semmes. A dive on the wreck ofthe Duhamel is what first interested the author in the story of the British trawlers that served in US waters in 1942.

PHOTO COURTESY Of T HE STEAMSH IP HI STORJCAL SOC IETY OF AMER ICA, ALEX SHAW COLLECTION

10

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

(

•

was torpedoed and went down instantly, yet none of the other ships heard or saw anything. Northern Princess simply vanished. Five more trawlers would be lost in the next few months.

Charlie Wines , the cook aboard St. Zeno, recalls the secrecy of his departure out of Belfast. Up to this time, St. Zeno had been running out of Belfast and Londonderry convoying in the Atlantic as far as Reykjavik. "I was on late Christmas leave and expecting an extension when I received the recall-so back I went to Belfast. I was told to victual for a three-week voyage. We ammunitioned and set off, but the crew had no idea where we were off to-the old man wouldn ' ttell anybody. We found ourselves steaming into St. John's, Newfoundland."

One beautiful moonlit night near Cape Race the off-duty watch of HMS Northern Dawn were jolted awake by a sickening crash. Thinking "Torpedo!," they rushed on deck, only to look out over an immense field of pack ice. Northern Dawn had hit a submerged "growler" that was grinding against her hull. The ice cracked their ASDICdome and forced the ship into Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, for repairs. Several of the trawlers were damaged and all of them spent their first weeks in the US refitting in New York.

The Americans did their best to make the trawler crews welcome, but often displayed what the British saw as an amazing naivete. As HMS St. Zeno tied up to a Boston wharf, a friendly Yankee voice called out asking where they were from .

AdeckhandonSt.Zeno 's fo 'c'sleshouted: "From England! " "How did you get here?" asked the voice.

After a momentary pause came the exasperated reply, "By bloody taxi! How the hell do you think?"

By early April most of the Escort Force ships were on patrol out of naval bases along the East Coast. Still manned

by British and Canadian crews, they were under temporary US Navy command. Thatdidn 't botherthe trawlermen one little bit.

Imagine the feelings of a British seaman, enduring the seas of a freezing North Atlantic winter, faced with the probability of escort duty on the Murmansk run, suddenly finding himselfbasking in warm spring sunshine off the Carolinas with the prospect of shore leave in Charleston or Wilmington. With typical British understatement, one trawlerman recalled it as "quite a pleasSEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

The fleet's mid-winter Atlantic passage was a difficult one. HMS Northern Princess simply vanished, presumed torpedoed, and others suffered damage. HMS Northern Dawn is shown here up a slipway at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia , after she hit a submerged growler while negotiating an Atlantic icepack. Northern Dawn was one of the f ew trawlers equipped with ASDIC, rh e underwarer defection device the US Navy called SONAR.

ant change."

The trawlers were immediately assigned as escorts in the newly instituted convoy system. Coastal convoy ships moved primarily in daylight, hugging the shore, the escort vessels keeping visual and listening watch for prowling subs.

Anti-submarine aircraft, which were becoming ever more numerous, were also on guard. The escorts took no chances.

Anything that might be a sub was thoroughly hammered with depth charges.

Sinkings dropped off dramatically and the Germans were forced to change tactics.

Shallow water was taboo for U-boats.

Even in 100 feet they could often be seen from the air. In less than 200 feet they had nowhere to hide when attacked.

Nonetheless, if they wanted targets, they had to come in close. The subs quickly developed their own system.

During daylight, they lay quietly on the bottom offshore, resting their crews and conserving fuel. Surfacing with the darkness, they cruised to within a few miles of the coastline, seeking out stragglers and those few foolhardy captains who refused the protection of convoys.

At night the merchantmen usually lay up in protected anchorages behind minefields and submarine nets, while their escorts patrolled offshore. The ports of Charleston , South Carolina, Wilmington and Morehead City, North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia, were all links in the chain of safe anchorages.

They also served as resupply bases forthe

HMS Welland on patrol offthe North Carolina coast.

11

The trawlers didfar more than just endure the tedium of convoy and patrol. They rescued survivors oftorpedoed ships, bringing hundreds ofmen and women ashore , and they assisted the salvage of wounded vessels. The torpedoed Esso Baton Rouge is seen here from HMS Northern Dawn which stood by to provide ASDIC protection during salvage operations.

trawlers and liberty ports for their crews.

Action was never a scarce commodity for the Escort Force. On 29 April HMS Lady Elsa , shepherding the Russian tanker Ashkabad around Cape Lookout Shoals, spotted a surfaced U-boat.

Lady Elsa got off a round from her deck gun, but not before the sub had put a torpedo intoAshkabad' s stem. Lady Elsa rescued the Russian crew and took them into Morehead City; the still floating tanker remained anchored with only her stem underwater. Next day, unaware that the ship was salvageable, a party from HMS Hertfordshire boarded and relieved her of usable stores and navigational equipment. (They returned most of it later). Finally, USS Semmes and HMS St. Zeno, also unaware that the freighter could be saved, sank her with gunfire. The Russians were furious.

Operating in close proximity to other ships, often in bad weather and limited visibility, accidents were inevitable. On 11 April off Georgetown, South Carolina, HMS St. Cathan and the Dutch freighter Hebe collided so violently that both went down. Five months later HMS Pentland Firth met a similar fate when she was accidentally rammed by the minesweeper USS Chaffinch (AM-81) just a few miles off New York City.

Patrolling at night under darkened ship conditions was no less hazardous, especially since only one of the trawlers was radar-equipped. Here my questions as to the fate of HMS Senateur Duhamel found their answer. In the wee hours of 6 May, near Morehead City, the destroyer USS Semmes accidently rammed and sank her. There were no casualties, 12

but a British seaman named Woods was found on Semmes' foredeck, thrown there by the force of the collision.

In June, HMS Kingston Ceylonite hit a mine and sank while patrolling off Norfolk, Virginia. Several of her crew were killed and wounded.

The best remembered loss of an Escort Force vessel occurred on the night of 11 May , when U-558 torpedoed HMS Bedfordshire off Cape Lookout, North Carolina. U-boat records show that the British ship went down almost instantly.

Bedfordshire's fate was a mystery until the 14th, when the bodies of Sub-lieutenant Thomas Cunningham and Telegraphist Stanley Craig drifted ashore near the Outer Banks village ofOcracoke. A week later two more bodies washed up. Today they still rest at Ocracoke, four welltended graves in a tiny plot of ground known simply as "the British Cemetery."

The trawlers did far more than just endure the tedium of convoy and patrol.

Unexpected changes in routine were common, and the crews never knew just what each day might bring. They rescued survivors of torpedoed ships, bringing hundreds of men and women ashore to safety and medical aid. They assisted in the salvage of wounded vessels like Es so Baton Rouge andHarry F. Sinclair, which had managed to stay afloat despite the efforts of the Nazis. The rugged little ships helped many a damaged merchantman get safely into port.

There were ironic incidents as well.

On 3 July, HMS Le Tiger was part of the escort for BA 2, a 41-ship convoy from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Early in the day she picked up 31 survivors

from the brand new Liberty ship SS Alexander Macomb , torpedoed by U215. Twenty-five more men were rescued by HMCS Regina. En route to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Le Tiger detected, attacked and sank a U-boat off Nantucket Island. The sub turned out to be U-215, whose victims were still aboard the trawler.

Offshore diving operations also afforded a break from routine. On 13 April, the destroyer USS Roper made history by registering America's first official submarine kill when she sank U-85 off Nags Head, North Carolina. HMS Bedfordshire spent several days mounting anti-submarine guard while US Navy divers worked to reach her. After the US Coast Guard cutter Icarus sank U-352 off Cape Lookout on 9 May, HMS Northern Duke and Northern Dawn stood watch while divers from the tug USS Umpquah attempted to recover the sub's log books and decoding machine.

(Months later, patrolling the same area, HMS Stella Polaris picked up a distinct submarine contact. Attacking immediately, she smashed the target with depth charges until oil and debris floated to the surface. A doubly unlucky U-boat it turned out; Stella Polaris had blasted U352 for a second time.)

Personal diaries were not a luxury allowed to Escort Force crewmen. However, memories of their stay in America are as sharp as they are varied. "Deck awnings and flying fish." The excitement and adrenalin high of an all-out attack on a U-boat. "Dolphins and tropical evenings." Liberty jaunts to Dave ' s Tavern on Granby Street in Norfolk.

From the tension and horror of the war to pleasant recollections of time ashore it was, in the words of one trawlerman, "a pretty exciting 8-9 months. " As 1942drew to a close, US shipyards had begun turning out patrol craft in record numbers. Speedy new "sub-chasers" began to hunt and harry the undersea raiders. As the need for their presence decreased, the hardy little trawlers that had helped save America's bacon filled their bunkers with coal, cast off their moorings for the last time, and headed back across "The Pond" to resume their fight, this time protecting the convoy routes around the Cape of Good Hope. !, James Reedy is an underwater consultant living inMoreheadCity,NorthCarolina. He has been researching the British trawler squadron for several years.

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13

MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY:

Going Beyond the Abandoned Shipwreck Act

by Kevin Haydon In the world of archaeology, the question of what constitutes proper excavation, documentation and exhibition of artifacts has long been a hotbed of debate and legal battles. In marine archaeology, the usual antagonists face-off: the archaeology profession and treasure hunters. And there are other interests: the museum community, which still dabbles occasionally in tainted artifacts; sport divers, who seek trophies or relics for sale; and insurance companies acting for the vessels' dead owners. Each draws its strength from malleable notions of what the public good is and what constitutes individual rights and fairownership. How, then, goes the battle?

The archaeological profession leads in the defense of the public heritage in shipwrecks and its main resort has been legislation. This has been a catch-up

"because shipwrecks have only been accessible in the lastfew decades, the legal and preservation community is only now addressing the issues. There is a wt to be thrashed out." exercise. Legal protection ofland-based archaeological sites in the US is well established, but, in the words of Paul Johnston, Curator of Maritime History at the Smithsonian Institution, "because shipwrecks have only been accessible in the last few decades, the legal and preservation community is only now addressing the issues. There is alot to be thrashed out."

The first fruit of this labor is the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1988-a landmark ruling designed to bring the situation under control, at least in the US. It took all abandoned shipwrecks out of the hands of ship salvors and looters and gave ownership to the states, who, through the intercession of the individual State Historic Preservation Officer, could protect historically significant wrecks. For state preservation officials in the inland states, the Act was passed just in time. The 1988 drought revealed dozens of wrecks previously concealed by the course of the powerful inland rivers . Scrambling to prevent wholesale looting, the surprised officials, to whom shipwrecks were unfamiliar phenomena, used the provisions 14

of the new act to protect vessel remains.

In the past, questions of ownership where ships were abandoned were settled under the Admiralty Law of Finds in Federal Court. The Abandoned Shipwreck Act has been useful thus far, but part of the legal "thrashing-out" process will be determining the new Act's constitutionality vis-a-v is Admiralty Law. The case most likely to do this is the State of Illinois vs. Harry Zych, a dispute over ownership of the steamer Seabird which appears headed for the Supreme Court.

Further protection has been provided historic wrecks by federal authorities who have used the provisions of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979) to intercept scavengers who melted down brass from the Civil War wrecks of the CSS Florida and the USS Cumberland, and then brazenly advertised the origin of their manufactured brass belts-they were fined in Maryland courts this past fall. In addition, the US Navy, using the 1979 Act, has also pressed legal claims over artifacts-such as the bell of the Civil War raider Alabama.

Even in cases where salvors have attained clear title to wrecks (where Admiralty Law of Salvage applies), some states have laws that provide substantial protection to hi storic sites. Peter Pelkofer, senior counsel to the State Lands Commission of California, notes a trend among state enforcement agencies to make it increasingly difficult for would-be salvors to work within state waters. They are often required, under state law and the provisions of the National Historic Protection Act (1966), to undertake what are often prohibitively expensive archaeological surveys of sites before and during excavation.

For many, state supervision through the offices of a professional archaeologist may seem a perfectly adequate check on salvors' activities. But from the point of view of the archaeology community, especially in the maritime arena, the law lags behind the profession 's own ethical standards. Even if salvage is sanctioned by the state, professional archaeologists engage in such lucrative projects at the risk of being ostracized by their colleagues.

Richardo Elia, Director of the Office of Public Archaeology at Boston University, characterizes the ethics of col-

laboration with treasure hunters as a "Faustian bargain." "Is archaeological participation a necessary compromise, an imperfect but real -world sol ution that will ensure that archaeologists maintain at least some measure of control over salvage projects," asks Elia, "or, does the archaeological collaboration lend a specious legitimacy to commercial salvage, one that increases the commercial value of recovered artifacts and contributes to the eventual destruction of data when artifacts are sold-off?"

The professional archaeological community comes down resoundingly on the side of the latter view. At issue are deep concerns about accurate recording of the artifacts in-situ, a painstaking process that provides context for artifacts, and one that treasure salvors generally have no time for. Futhermore, even if done well , such recording is ultimately of little account because the artifacts will be dispersed into private hands, a situation that archaeologists decry as effectively pre-empting any further study of the artifacts as a group.

And these efforts do not address the most vulnerable shipwrecks: those in international waters. Treasure hunters, well-equipped with rapidly-advancing underwater technologies, are ready to locate and descend upon wrecks with or without archaeologists. The archaeological community is busy composing strategies to protect against this threat, but there are no easy answers. At archaeologists' urging the International Congress of Maritime Museums recently adopted new standards requiring member museums to not knowingly acquire or exhibit artifacts which have been "illegally salvaged or removed from commercially exploited archaeological or historic sites."

In addition, there are efforts underway to

"ls archaeological participation a necessary compromise ... or, does the archaeological collaboration lend a specious legitimacy to commercial salvage .. ." ask courts to extend protection at least to the limits of territorial waters. The US extended its territorial waters fornational security reasons from 3 to 12 miles by Presidential proclamation in 1988. The proclamation does not provide protection for underwater heritage sites up to the Continued on page 16

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

The Vulnerability of Wrecks in International Waters --ll letter from George Bass

,,

Fourteen years ago you asked me if I'd write a letter to Sea been suggestions by modern governments that artifacts raised in History about shipwreck protection. I answered in one sitting, the open sea should be returned to the land of "cultural origin," turning part of the letter into a short story called "The Men which is total nonsense. If a cargo of Greek bronze statues were Who Stole the Stars." Well, that little story proved to be about to be located and salvaged outside any territorial waters, is there the most popular thing I ever wrote, having been reprinted in anyone in the world who could say with certainty if these statues several magazines in several languages. were made in what is today Greece rather than in southern Italy Now you ask ifl might comment on the vulnerability of or on the coast of Asia Minor, which is today Turkey? There wrecks in international waters, and wrecks in the were major Greek cities in all these places in hitherto unplumbed depths of the ocean floor. So classical times. Not even laboratory identification here I go again, with what will be totally unexof the sources of the metals used in the castings pected suggestions from the author of "The Men would be helpful, for raw metals were widely Who Stole the Stars." traded.

Ownership of truly ancient shipwrecks in My surprising suggestion is that since no international waters cannot be determined. I'm not modern nation could possibly make a legal claim talking about 19th- and 20th-century ships where to most ancient shipwrecks in international owners and insurers can be determined by law. I'm waters, those wrecks and their contents simply talking about the Bronze Age shipwreck found off belong to humanity.

Cape Gelidonya in Turkey in 1960. I concluded, in George F. Bass So let us return to the beginnings of modern my publication of the site, that the ship had been archaeology, when museums sent out archaeWhy should not the a Canaanite merchantman carrying a cargo of ologists to what were then exotic lands to bring copper from Cyprus. More than a quarter of a Metropolitan Museum of back antiquities. That is now considered century later, my conclusions are still being Arl or the Louvre or the unacceptable behavior, for each country wishes to own and protect all the antiquities on its land debated, with some scholars, using the same British Museum--0r or in its waters. evidence, insisting that the ship was Mycenaean even a private collecGreek or Cypriot.

But if ownership of a wreck in international Luckily, the shipwreck lay in Turkish tor-sponsor an under- waters cannot be determined, why should not the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre waters, so all of the antiquities belong to Turwater excavation, with key, as do all antiquities found on Turkish soil. or the British Museum or the Getty Museumthe understanding that or even a private collector-sponsor an But if the wreck had been in international waall of the material underwater excavation, with the understanding ters, should its artifacts have gone to modem Syria or Lebanon or Israel, where the belongs to that museum that all of the material belongs to that museum Canaanites lived during the Bronze Age? or collection? That would insure that all of or collection?

And what if my conclusions were wrong? the finds would be kept together for display Could a judge and/or jury have decided if my critics were and study; thank goodness all of the materials from the right, meaning that the finds belonged to modem Greece .. . wrecks we have excavated during the past 33 years in Turkey or to Cyprus? Five countries might all have claimed the wreck, are kept together in one museum, for each year we find new with almost no possibility of the original nationality ever ways of learning about the past through their re-analysis and being determined, even by the best minds in archaeology. study.

The medieval ship with cargo of Islamic glass and To keep standards of excavation high, and to protect wrecks from being pillaged by salvors who might destroy pottery we later excavated at Sen;:e Limani, Turkey, presents the same problem. After 15 years of detective work by some of wrecks by digging violently into hulls only for those items with sales value, which would then be scattered to all comers of the the leading authorities in the world, we are concluding that the globe, international law could prevent the import into any ship last sailed from the Black Sea or the Sea of Marmara with Bulgar merchants on its way to a port near Caesarea in Israel to country of antiquities salvaged by unscrupulous groups. take on its last cargo. It is doubtful, however, that we will ever International law might also allow excavation rights to be given know the "flag" of the ship. If this seemingly Byzantine wreck to those who locate an ancient wreck, to prevent pirates from appearing on the scene with later claims. had been in international waters, should its finds have gone to None of this is quite as simple as it sounds, but I do modern Bulgaria?

Roman wrecks are the same, for Romans built ships in suggest that this is the right track. Work at great depth is not only Italy, but France and Spain and North Africa and Asia expensive. But museums which pay millions for a single work of ancient art should be able to afford the price of excavating an Minor and on the Syro-Palestinian coast .. . and still farther afield. One might determine the origin of the ship's last cargo, entire cargo of art works. Does anyone have a better answer?

GEORGE F. BASS but to what modern country should that cargo go if raised Archaeological Director, outside any country's waters?

Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) This example presents the problem for all ancient Bodrum, Turkey wrecks that might be found in international waters. There have SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

15

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new limit, but it could be given the force of law, says Elia.

A further strategy reported by Elia would be the development of an international agreement whereby submerged cultural sites in international waters may come under greater protection from individual nations. This initiative is being spearheaded by the International Law Association's Cultural Heritage Committee, which recently drafted an International Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Heritage. The Committee recommends that nations establish cultural heritage zones beyond territorial waters by dovetailing the concern for the protection of cultural sites with existing economic zones provided by the Law of the Sea Convention of 1982. This international convention provides governments contiguous zones to 24 miles, economic zones to 200 miles, and further privileges.

For passage, the new convention would have to be adopted by an agency like UNESCO. Admittedly, such action might take a long time.

The position of the National Mari-

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16

time Historical Society has always been that it is better to leave historic wrecks and their artifacts where they are and wait until the resources and funds needed to do the right thing are made available to responsible excavators, i.e. museums or other public institutions. This position echoes the thoughts of respected archaeologist George Bass, founder of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, who wonders if museums that pay millions for a single work of ancient art shouldn 't be able to afford the price of excavating an entire cargo of art works .

But, in the short term, the arrival of new technology that can plumb the ocean depths poses the same difficulty the invention of SCUBA did many years ago when its use led to the pillaging of many historic wrecks found in the shallows of the Mediterranean (virtually none remain today). This specter begs again the question: Can there be-should there besome middle ground between antagonists that will prevent the excavation and dispersion of these sites without trace?

At a marine archaeology debate cosponsored by NMHS and held at the Explorers Club in New York in Febru-

ary 1990, representatives of both sides acknowledged the impossibility of barring all recreational and commercial access to underwater wrecks and the probability that absolute protection for all wrecks could lead to effective protection for none. Barry Clifford , the marine salvor involved in the state-approved excavation of the pirate ship Whydah on Cape Cod, conceded that there were wrecks in the world that should be "untouchable" and suggested the establishment of a code that would identify " untouchable" wrecks, as well as those wrecks that could be excavated with archaeological supervision (although the artifacts would remain the property of the salvor, at least the context would be recorded). A third category of wreck could also be identified- those that lack significant historical context or value, making them free of salvage restrictions. Of course, any initiative like this runs headlong into concerns about the breakingup of the artifact collection-which proves to be the real sticking point for the archaeological community.

A very creditable effort was made by the deep-ocean recovery company Columbus Discovery Group during its recovery of the wreck and artifacts of the Central America, which foundered 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina in 1857. Some thousands of feet of video were shot by remote submersible and all artifacts were copiously catalogued and photographed. No professional archaeologist was employed on this project, but considerable academic and scientific resources were mustered. Care over the conservation of artifacts led to breakthough developments in freeze drying methods by the Ohio State University 's Department of Textiles and Clothing. In adqition, the Group's adjunct science program allowed scientists throughout the country to study deep-ocean life forms never seen before-a dozen new forms have been identified to date. The group has also sponsored exhibitions of images and preserved artifacts, one of these a popular summer exhibit at the Columbus Art Museum.

The modus operandi of the Columbus Discovery Group is laudable and it poses some questions worth askingcan responsible recovery by private interests serve the public good, or, is private ownership of the collection, no matter how public-spirited, wholly undesirable? And, is there some middle ground all sides can w0rk toward? ,t SEA HISTORY 68 , WINTER 1993-1994

IN THE FIELD: Two New Archaeological Sites in American Waters 18th-Century Shipyard in Maryland aRare Find

"

Florida State unde1water archaeologist Roger Smith holds in his hand a J6th-century wooden carving of a galleon, discovered among some carpenter's debris in the bilge of the ÂŁmanual Point Wreck.

Well Preserved Spanish Galleon Found In Pensacola Bay Excavation of a 16th-century colonial Spanish wreck found in late 1992 in Pensacola Bay continued this past summer, revealing more clues to the wreck ' s age and identity. The wreck is larger than previously suspected, and is definitely the oldest found in Florida waters. The Emanual Point Shipwreck was discovered during a survey and inventory of Pensacola Bay wrecks being carried out by underwater archaeologists from the Florida Division of Historical Resources . The site is in one of four areas in the bay thought by historians to be the landing place of the first Spanish attempt to colonize Florida

by Tristan de Luna in 1559.

Test excavations have so far focused on the central portion of the hull. "It 's not unlike exploratory surgery," says Florida State Underwater archaeologist Dr. Roger Smith.

"We have been looking at the pelvis of the ship's skeleton, where the main mast was socketed into the spine, or keel, of the vessel, and where the central ribs, or frames, determined the maximum width of the hull." Among the items found trapped in the sediment are portions of a sailor's shoes and pieces of ceramic containers which have been found elsewhere on Spanish sites dating between 1490 and 1570.

The Pensacola wreck is one of only eight 16th-century Spanish shipwreck sites found in the Americas. One is in Labrador, three are in Texas waters, and the others are off Cuba, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands . "This is one of three that are currently being excavated," says Smith, "the other two are in Bahamas and Cuba (See Sea History 64, page 36), but they are not as well preserved as the Pensacola Wreck." What baffles Smith is what a vessel so large is doing in Pensacola Bay. The vessel is the size of a galleon. Is it part of the ill-fated fleet of Tristan de Luna? "So far it looks like a good candidate," says Smith, "but there are probably other similar wrecks in this part of Pensacola Bay that we need to look at as well."

State archaeologists and the University ofWestFlorida have agreed to participate in a five-year research project to investigate the shipwreck, and to develop a marine archaeology program at the university, the fust within the state university system.

(Florida Department of State, Bureau of Archaeological Research, R.A. Gray Building, Tallahassee FL 32399) KH SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

Artifacts recently recovered from the site of Stewart Shipyard on Maryland's West River are helping Maryland archaeologist Bruce Thompson reconstruct life and work in an 18thcentury American shipyard. One of these pieces is a "dogshore," a 5-ft V-shaped oak structure taken from the crutch of a tree, a critical structure used in launching vessels. The Stewart Shipyard dogshore is believed to be the only extant example of the device. Also uncovered at the site were two ground launching ways, a 30-meter stone wharf bed, a scaffold debris pile and several underwater artifact concentrations.

Thompson believes the shipyard, which has been excavated over the last two and a half years by the Maryland Maritime Archaeology Program and the Archaeology Society of Maryland (see "Shipnotes," SH 67), represents the remains of one of the most significant technological achievements of the 18th-century- shipbuilding-and is calling for the site's protection. Because shipbuilding incorporates many facets of society's scientific advancement (i .e., drafting, design, carpentry and metallurgy), Thompson feels it offers a unique opportunity to add to our knowledge of the technological evolution of the 18th-century, as well as the everyday social and mercantile advancements of the period.

The site ' s significance also lies in its rarity. Several 19thcentury shipyards are recorded, but only a few 18th-century yards have been found in the US , and none of these, says Thompson, are as intact or cover as long a period as the Stewart Shipyard. "Most of what has been written is about Royal shipyards in England. Here we are getting a view of the 18th-century we couldn't get anywhere else," says Thompson, who feels the site is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that would aid the site's protection, preservation and study. Stephen Stewart is thought to have built at least 30 vessels, ranging from small 20-ton coastal schooners to 560-ton ocean going ships, along the West River headwaters between 1753 and 1783. Future study will be aided by the existence of over 600 citations of the shipyard in public records during the period 1750-91 and discussions are beginning on forming a foundation to manage the site and provide opportunities for study by graduate students and doctoral candidates. (Office of Archaeology, Division of Historical and Cultural Programs, 100 Community place, Crownsville MD 21032-2023) KH This model, on display at The Mariners ' Museum , illustrates the workings of a colonial shipyard. The Stewart Shipyard is expected to provide furth er insight.

17

Probing with a steel wire, an archaeologist feels beneath the sand for the curved outline of a hippopotamus tooth, part of the cargo of a Bronze Age ship that sank near Ulu Burun, Turkey, in the 14th century BC . Sponge divers have helped archaeologists find eight important wrecks so far.

Treasures of the

Sponge Divers Twenty Years Later, the I NA Still Follows Turkey's Sponge Divers to the Wrecks of Antiquity

by Donald A. Frey

eter Throckmorton pricked up hi s ears when Turkish sponge diver Kemal Aras described the slabs of corroded copper he had found on the seabed off Cape Gelidonya in southern Turkey. Aras wanted to blast them free with dynamite, then sell them for scrap.

But Throckmorton, an American freelance journalist, knew that copper did not deteriorate very quickly in the sea.

Could Aras's find, he wondered , be the cargo of some ancient sea trader that had foundered off the Turki sh coast?

A year passed before Throckmorton, then working as a guide on a diving

P

18

expedition, was able to find his own way to Cape Gelidonya to search for the site Aras had described. On the last day of diving, he located the mound of copper slabs. They were clearly ancient ingots, with the characteristic "ox -hide" shape.

In the same area he found the corroded remnants of what proved to be half a dozen Bronze Age tools, indicating that a wealth not only of artifacts but of untapped information lay here beneath the sea.

Excited, Throckmorton returned to the United States and told hi s story to John Houston, then head of the Council

of Underwater Archaeology. Houston in turn contacted Professor Rodney Young of the Classics Department at the University of Pennsylvania, vastly experienced in Turkish archaeology. Was there anyone there who wanted to investigate thi s find? Eventually a young archaeology student named George Bass offered to take on the task. Bass had no diving experience, and he barely had time for basic training in the local YMCA pool before leaving for Turkey , where he would eventually dive to 110 feet.

Bass and Throckmorton feared that if they waited too long, the sponge divers SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

In their quest for sponges, Turkish divers have covered the entire length of the Turkish coast.

Each year, collectively, they spend more than 10,000 man-hours searching the seabed. would go back and dynamite the ingot mound for the metal.

But Bass did have experience excavating on land, and when he saw the Gelidonya site he knew precisely what he wanted to do. He rejected the idea of simply bringing this unique collection of Bronze Age materials to the surface. fl

Among the finds on the Bronze Age wreck at Ulu Burun , was a gold signet ring bearing the name of Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

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Bass, like Throckmorton, wanted to excavate the site to dry-land archaeological standards, recording exactly where every artifact was found, even though diving time would be extremely limited.

After many hardships and frustrations, he achieved his objectives: for the first time ever, a submerged shipwreck was methodicaJly excavated in its entirety.

Bass did not stop with the Gelidonya excavation. Kemal Aras had told him of another site, a huge mound of amphoras at Yassi Ada, near Bodrum, the spongediving center on Turkey's western coast,

What had started as sponge divers' stories told over cups of Turkish coffee led to the founding of the Institute where Aras lived. The results of the archaeologists' preliminary survey were startling: they found a seventh-century Byzantine wreck sitting on top of a fourth-century Roman vessel. What had started as sponge divers' stories told over cups of Turkish coffee led to the founding, in 1973, of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), at first at the University of Pennsylvania, then at Texas A&M University , with overseas headquarters at Bodrum , ancient Halicamassus. Since then, the Institute has explored shipwrecks all over the world-eight of them in Turkish waters , aJI discovered by Turkish sponge divers.

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

"Long experience has taught us," Bass wrote in 1987, "that the best sources of information about ancient shipwrecks in Turkey are the divers on Turkey's sponge boats. For search purposes the divers are far more valuable than the most sophisticated sonar and magnetometers in existence." In their quest for sponges, Turkish divers have covered the entire length of the Turkish coast. Each year, collectively, they spend more than 10,000 man-hours searching the seabed.

During the winter, my Turkish colleagues and I give slide-illustrated lectures in the divers' villages to teach them what to look for in the way of ancient wrecks. As a result, we have come to know the sponge divers well and have close friend ships with many of the sponge-boat crews. We share a special communal feeling because we are all divers, sharing the same risks , feeling the same fears and triumphs. They often visit our excavation sites to share a meal-and information about possible wrecks in other areas.

Most of the leads we obtain seem to come sketched on scraps of paper or on the backs of used envelopes, but we have learned to check out almost every report, because the odds are far better than diving at random. Our interest peaks if the diver says that, in the fall , he will take us back to the site and dive with us.

The Aegean is a small sea only if you 're not looking for a few specific square meters of it, and even the best sketch of coastal landmarks is not nearly as good as having at your side the man who's been there, to put you right on the spot where he remembers seeing something.

Even so, finding that spot again is another matter. Many are the times we have jumped into the sea and descended to where the rocks meet the sandy bottom, lured by a promise that if we swim about 100 meters we will come upon a wreck. And many are the times we've found nothing.

Even a month-long survey of an area might not produce one "real wreck"our term for a site that our Institute might someday want to excavate. The word "wreck," used alone, means a location where a ship and its cargo met their end, but which-because the site is on a rocky slope, or in shallow water where it was broken up by wave action--does not warrant excavation. By contrast, a "real wreck" is buried deep in the sand, with only the top of its cargo visible. If we are lucky, most of the hull

is covered, and may have survived the insatiable appetite of the wood-boring teredo worms.

In general, Turkish sponge divers are sincere, hard-working people who give us information out of a genuine desire to be helpful. But they are also practical men and often have good reason not to help us. They see broken pottery on almost every dive, but most of them ignore it, since sponges are their livelihood and each minute on the seabed is prec ious. We have let it be known that we will pay for directions to wrecks which we feel are important, but the money we can afford to Jay out is little more than the divers can earn in a few good days of work.

Diving twice a day for a total bottom time of perhaps one hour, a good diver will raise I to 2 kilograms (2 to 4.5 pounds) of sponges, though he must give half to the captain of the boat. In recent years, sponges have been at a premi um, because a blight has killed most of the crop; the price per-kilo is $8.00 ($3.65 a pound). In a three- to four-month season, a good diver will earn about $3000--more than he could hope to make in a year as a land laborer.

Many divers with whom we talk have sold the odd amphora-a two-handled clay jar used to carry cargo--to a passing foreign yacht, or, in the words of one The sponge boat Sanli ( "Lucky") in Kekova harbor.

jars while diving there ship's million-plus pieces of scrap glass. in 1966. The sponge In a special exhibit hall built in divers know how to Bodrum 's crusader castle, visitors can take simple but reli- now see rare evidence oflife aboard ship able visual sightings in the 11th century, including shipto relocate the chance wright's tools, tableware, weapons, a find of an uncharted grooming kit, fishing equipment and reef covered with pieces from a chess set.

But the single most important artifact sponges, so it took Ilik only a few minutes to is the ship itself. Pressed into the sand by find the jars he had the cargo, about 17 per cent of the ship seen seven years be- survived. Timbers of the 50-foot vessel fore. But although the were excavated, soaked for six years, first marine archaeologists in fresh water and then in a special waterfound artifacts dating soluble synthetic wax to preserve them. from l 600BC, they Six more years were needed to assemble were unable to find them. Whatemerged is the earliest known even the smallest frag- example of frame-first ship construction ment of wood from the techniques- methods still being used in ship. This suggests the Bodrum shipyards. that the ship capsized, In the early years of the INA's work, spilling its cargo, but the sponge divers knew of many wrecks , may not have sunk in and their reports were as varied as "a that location. mountain of amphoras," "a huge jar big Our next find , how- enough to swim in," and, in 1982, "metal ever, was a "real biscuits with ears." The latter report, wreck"-a nautical from a young diver named Mehmet time capsule. Not only Cakir, led to INA 's most significant was most of the vessel's discovery so far. Cakir's captain recogcargo of glass intact, nized the description as that of a Bronze but also galleyware, the crew's personal possesHe surfaced with a rainbow sions, tools for repairof brightly-colored shards in ingtheship,andenough his hands. "There's glass of the ship itself to reA diver excavates copper ingots, still stacked as they were in the construct its lines and everywhere," he reported. ship's hold. Each ingot has been individually tagged to record its add to the history of exact location. nautical architecture.

Age copper ingot from a drawing I had The story of the circulated among the sponge boats. The sponge diver, "raised 30 amphoras in a "glass wreck" goes back to 1973 , when discovery was reported to Turkey's single day and sent them off in a truck to Mehmet Askin, a retired Turkish sponge Museum of Underwater Archaeology in Izmir." When lucky enough to come diver, guided members of the INA to Bodrum, and divers from the museum across them, they have melted the lead Serce Limani, a remote anchorage on a and INA quickly converged on the site. stocks of Roman anchors to make diving peninsula in southwest Turkey that juts They confirmed the existence of a wreck weights. But in the last 20 years, Turkey into the Aegean Sea. Ytiksel has taken strong measures to protect its Egdemir, the Turkish archaeologi- Among the millions ofshards in the Serce limani wreck underwater heritage: in most areas, sport cal commissioner assigned to the was glass in molded designs and brilliant colors. diving is forbidden or strictly controlled, expedition, went down to see what and sponge boats are constant! y watched was there. He surfaced with a rainby coast-guard patrols. Harsh penalties bow of brightly-colored shards in are imposed if even a single amphora is his hands. "There 's glass everydiscovered on board. where," he reported.

The unique cargo of the ship, The years that followed the founding of the INA saw Bass and his team of which sank in Serce Limani around marine archaeologists, scientists and 1025 AD, included 80 whole glass technicians excavate the Roman and objects and three tons of raw glass Byzantine shipwrecks at Yassi Ada, fol- and broken vessels destined for a lowed by a Bronze Age wreck at Seytan glass factory, probably located Deresi in the Gulf of Gokova. The INA somewhere near the Black Sea. was led to the Bronze Age wreck by During 10 years of painstaking Cumhur Ilik, another sponge fisherman work, researchers assembled more from Bodrum, who had found two large than 300 whole vessels from the 20

SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

'

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The report by a young sponge diver of "a metal biscuit with ears" led to INA's most significant discovery so far, the Bronze Age wreck at Ulu Burun. and estimated its date as the 14th or 13th century BC. This ship brought Bass full circle, back to the Bronze Age after more than two decades excavating ships from other periods. The site lies in 160to200feetof

another member of his team is waiting to ciples behind this technology are not take over his equipment. new, but the hardware has come a long The divers do not use scuba tanks. way in thirty years. In 1963, a Turkish Their equipment consists of flippers , sponge dragger, Mehmet Im bat, netted a mask and a breathing regulator that's statue of an African youth outside the connected to the boat's low-pressure Bay of Yalikavak , two hours from compressor by a long hose. A Bodrum. Two years later, Bass spent the sponge boat usually has only one summer searching the same area with an regulator. Deep, long dives with underwater video camera towed behind little decompression dramatically a small fishing boat. Finding nothing, he increase the possibility of the returned with a team of specialists from bends, the painful and often crip- the Scripps Institute of Technology, who pling sickness which strikes divers brought with them a side-scanning sowho go too deep or stay too long nar. The sonar "fish" transmitted highwithout slowly decompressing in frequency sound pulses across the seashallow water before resurfacing. bed and then listened for the echoes No one fully understands the from any protruding object. In only two bends, which can strike one diver days, they located an acoustic target in who rigidly follows the US Navy 288 feet of water that might be a mound decompression tables and "for- of amphoras. In 1991, we returned to give" another who routinely ex- investigate the target with a submarine. ceeds them ... until one day when Although it is clearly a massive amINA ' s 20-meter research vessel Virazon--originally he too is hit. phora mound, no statues are visible and a US Army T-boat.

Before the water at Ulu Burun, near the town of sponge blight struck, A stone ship's anchor begins to rise to the swface at Ulu Burun.

Kas, on Turkey's south coast. With a there were at least cargo of over 300 copper ingots , raw twenty boats working glass, ivory, exotic woods and resins, the Turkish coast. Of and the chance find of a gold scarab the hundred-odd divers, bearing the name of Queen Nefertiti , the at least one was usually Ulu Burun wreck has become one of the paralyzed or killed each most important archaeological finds of year. How many more this century. Yet after nine seasons of suffered only painful excavation, now under the direction of warning symptoms, we Bass's student, Cemal Pulak, the nation- do not know. Most of ality of the ship remains a mystery. the serious cases would In recent years, the large fleets of come to our research sponge boats operating off the Turkish vessel, Virazon , for coast have dwindled, and divers ' reports treatment, or take an 11are thinning out, in part due to the blight hour taxi ride to the which attacked the sponges a few years Turkish Navy decomago. Sponge fishing is rough and haz- pression chamber in ardous work, and tourism is luring the Istanbul. But the others captains to more lucrative and less dan- often attempted their gerous day charters. own cure by going back When they do go out, usually five or underwater to a shalsix divers will live together for up to four lower depth , then months on one 25-foot sponge boat, slowly resurfacing over sleeping on deck at night among fuel a period of many hours. tanks and the fishy-smelling catch, and Sometimes they were diving three or four times each day to cured, sometimes they depths and exposures which the rest of made their symptoms the diving world would never consider. worse.

Commercial divers, for instance, are not The sponge divers permitted to dive deeper than 165 feet who remain may be the without a diving bell. But the shallower last of their breed. Forsponge beds have been picked nearly tunate! y, remote-sensclean, and the Turkish diver must go ing technology is ofdeeper, often to 200 and even 230 feet, fering an increasingly to find enough sponges to make his work attractive alternative in worthwhile. Before resurfacing, he takes the search for producalmost no time for decompression, since tive sites. The prinSEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

precisely to it. And instead of trying to manipulate a video camera hanging at the end of a 45meter (150-foot) pendulum of cable, expeditions can employ "remote operated vehicles" that can be controlled from the relative comfort of Artist Netia Piercy will record the design on the Mycenaean a ship 's cabin with drinking cup, or kylix, she exmaines with Robin Piercy, George a simple joystick, Bass and Claude Duthuit. and can carry a without a metal-detector survey of this colortelevision camera anywhere within deep site, the question of whether other the range of the connecting cable. statues lie buried in the mound will But, still, the most attractive areas for remain unanswered . searchers come from the sponge divers ' Earlier, in 1971, with a grant from the reports-wrecks that we could not loUS National Science Foundation, Bass cate because they were somewhere out had been able to buy a Klein sidescan in the sand, far from the rock-sand intersonar. At that time I was teaching phys- face, with no trail to lead us back to ics at Robert College in Istanbul, and them . We have heard reports of six huge was excited by his offer to head a "high- jars standing proudly on the bottom, and tech" search for new wreck sites. But of yet another mountain of amphorasafter a month at sea, staring at sonar "enough to fill two trucks." In the Izmir printouts, I was discouraged at how dif- Museum, there is a wonderful statue of ficult it was to separate shipwreck an athlete that sponge draggers raised anomalies from other background sig- from just 150 feet of water. Is there an nals-to tell wrecks from rocks. Some- entire cargo of bronze statues out there? times a dark spot on the paper promised We won't know until we look. .:t a target that we could never relocate, while other times we spent a whole Donald A. Frey, vice president of INA , morning homing in on what proved to be works to adapt technology to the needs a rock. In the meantime, from sponge- of the Institute' s archaeologists. He has diver leads, we located several good lived in Bodrumfor the last 17 years, wrecks with only a few dives. I was a with his Danish wife Suzanne and their high-tech man, but I surrendered to com- daughter Kristen . This article was first mon sense. We should gather as much printed in Aramco World last year. information as possible from the sponge divers, we decided, and inspect everything they could show us . Then , and only then, should we turn back to hightech remote sensing.

Now we have come full circle: the sponge divers' leads are few, while hightech remote sensing has made impressive improvements. INA director Martin Wilcox , the inventor of the ultrasound medical scanner, recently completed the design of a new sonar which works with a PC computer, providing a multi-colored acoustic map of the seabed. Its higher acoustic frequency also means improved resolution, to the point of being able to distinguish the shapes of individual amphoras. Meanwhile, satellite navigational systems allow us to record the exact location of each anomaly to within a few meters·, and later return

22

INA in the Field . ..

The Institute of Nautical Archaeology is currently involved with the following projects: Bahrain • underwater survey of the Bahrain island group Bulgaria • underwater survey of the Bulgarian Black Sea coastline Egypt • excavation of 12 Early Dynastic boats dating to circa 3000-2700 BC •underwater survey of the Red Sea coast at Wadi Hammamat Holland• excavation of a mid 16thcentury pram from the Zuiderzee Israel • excavation of a shipwreck in the southern bay at Dor • underwater survey of the Sea of Galilee Kenya • excavation of the late 17thcentury Portuguese frigate Santo Antonio de Tanna at Mombasa Turkey • excavation of an 11thcentury merchant ship at Serce Limani • excavation of a late 14th- or early 13th-century BC merchant ship at Ulu Burun •underwater survey of a 5thcentury ship at Yalikavak • annual underwater surveys of the Turkish coast Jamaica • excavation of the 17thcentury submerged town of Port Royal USA • excavation of a mid 1 Bthcentury coastal sloop in Georgia • underwater survey of the 19th-century sidewheel ship Champlain in Vermont • excavation of an early 19thcentury horse ferry in Vermont •underwater survey of Mount Independence , a Revolutionary War Period earthwork in Vermont • underwater survey of the 19th-century schooner Water Witch in Vermont Individual memberships to INA , which include a quarterly newsletter, are available by sending a $25 check to INA , PO Drawer HG , College Station TX 77841-5137.

A Turkish sponge diving boat underway.

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

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MARINE ART

Tommaso & Antonio De Simone: A Neapolitan Niche in Americana

by William P. Dunne s an historian of 19th-century maritime lore and wooden boat naval architecture, I approached the world of fine art with great trepidation.

The USF Constellation Foundation in Baltimore, keepers of the hi storic warship, soon to celebrate its 200th birthday, asked my advice relative to the controversy surrounding the chronological and geographic origins of the ship, a debate that has flared with varying degrees of intensity since the mid- l 940s.

The present incarnation of Constellation is best illustrated in an oil painting executed by a Neapolitan ship portraitist. My task relative to this work of art was to examine the quality of the artist's rendering of the ship's architectural details to establish their accuracy. The painting is signed "T [illegible, but possibly Tom.] De Simone 1856," a time when Constellation made her first Mediterranean cruise after an extensive conversion from a frigate to a modernized mid-19th-century sailing sloop of war.

The saga of De Simone Americana begins much earlier than 1856. It has origins in Tripoli, North Africa, principal harbor and capital of the nation of the

A

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same name (modem Libya), the oldest foreign power enemy of the United States.

Our frrst war with Muammar Qadaffi 's domain lasted from 1801 through 1805.

Later, between 1821and1824,afternearly a score of peaceful years, the US naval ship Ontario, which, like Constellation

"The appearance of several De Simone paintings in the marketplace is not an unusual or rare event. They frequently appear for sale ... but the information offered concerning them is often erroneous ... " had been built at Baltimore, served a lengthy Mediterranean patrol, during which time she called at Tripoli. Her skipper was Wolcott Chauncey of Connecticut, but her young fourth lieutenant, New Yorker Charles Heyer Bell, is the focus of our interest.

Lieutenant Bell, while in charge of

one of Ontario's boats, had just pulled away from the town's stone quay when an uproarious commotion echoed across the harbor. A young European man raced down to the waterfront and burst out on the quay hotly pursed by an angry Arab throng. Seeing the man's plight, Bell quickly reversed his cutter's course and swept her along the quayside close enough for the fellow to leap to safety and escape his onrushing pursuers.

Later, Ontario delivered her passenger home. He proved to be Tommaso De Simone, a native of Naples.

Three decades passed before the Neapolitan artist and his American savior met again. By that time Charles Bell had risen to the rank of captain and been given command of the USS Constellation, while Tommaso De Simone had become an established port painter.

When Bell brought his ship into the Bay of Naples for an extended courtesy call, he located the artist, and in gratitude for his long ago rescue, Tommaso executed several portraits of Constellation for him.

Four of the Bell paintings came onto the American market during 1978. At that time a descendant of another naval SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

At left, a Tommaso De Simone painting of US steam frigate Trenton, circa 1879-1881 , setting unknown, oil on canvas , 17112" by 26". Held by the US Naval Academy Museum, at Annapolis, Maryland.

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A painting by Antonio De Simone of the American auxiliary steam yacht Atalanta, owned by railroad magnate Jay Gould 1887, gouache on paperboard, 17" by 27" . Held

by Lyndhurst, a National Trust property at Tarrytown , New York .

officer repeated some particulars given to her by Bell's granddaughter: "The four ship paintings are by Tommaso De Simone, Neapolitan port painter, active c. 1850 to 1880s and are considered to be particularly good ones. This provenance from Miss Alice Smith of Bassett Hall, the granddaughter of Admiral Bell ....

Miss Bell gave the paintings to my uncle, Stephen Decatur Mayo, both because of their personal friendship, and because Admiral Bell served under Stephen Decatur in the Macedonian in 1815."

The appearance of several De Simone paintings in the marketplace is not an unusual or rare event. They frequently appear for sale in American auction catalogues and dealer advertisements, but the information offered concerning them is often erroneous, and it is not difficult to understand why. A reading of avail-

able United States and international secondary source publications, intended to illustrate the De Simone family of artists, instead paints a sparse and misleading picture of them.

A comparative analysis of De Simone work in either original or photographic form confirms that at least two De Simones practiced in the 19th century: Tommaso (1840-1888), believed to be the father, and Antonio (1873-1914), presumed to be the son. Subject to confirmation from the Biblioteca della Societa Napoletana di Storia Patria in Naples, a genealogical institution that only reluctantly responds to overseas inquiries, I have estimated the life-spans of the De Simones as follows: Tommaso, circa 1805-1888; and Antonio, circa 1850-1920. Regrettably for posterity, they worked concurrently during the

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1870s and 1880s, a fundamental factor in the biographical confusion that surrounds them.

In an attempt to establish a sound method of differentiation, I have traced seventy paintings by Tommaso and eighty by Antonio, a total that certainly represents no more than the "tip of the iceberg" of their total handiwork. This sampling has proven that it is not difficult to differentiate between father and son, providing the person addressing the problem is not stymied by the dreaded "statistical universe of one" (in this case one painting), the unfortunately typical situation in which a dealer or auctioneer usually finds himself.

Tommaso De Simone worked only in oil on canvas; therefore if a painting is a water color, it is not his. Tommaso 's images are finer in a photographic sense,

"The architectural properties of the Baltimore Foundation's Constellation painting have proven so accurate that they can be used as a guide to restoration of the ship."

The US sloop of war Constellation, 1856, at anchor in the Bay of Naples , oil on canvas, 18" by 26" , by Tommaso De Simone .Held by the USF Constellation Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland.

SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

25

American auxiliary steam yacht Wacouta, ex-Eleanor, 1905, underway on a stormy sea, gouache, 18" by 2S3/s", by Antonio De Simone. held by Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut.

than his son's. His hull shapes have a fullness and flexibility, and his rigging a wealth of detail, that Antonio's simpler and stiffer images lack. The majority of his works that depict a vessel entering, leaving, or at anchor in the Bay of Naples have small rowing bows in the vicinity of the subject ship. These small vessels are often manned by three or four Neapolitan fishermen , with one man in the stem using a casting net. Previous to 1859, Tommaso characteristically signed his paintings with either "Tom." or "Tommaso" preceding his surname, but during that year, with only rare exceptions, he discontinued the use of his Christian name. Thereafter he typically signed his paintings in the lower right comer with "De Simone [year]."

When a painting is found without "De Simone," but with the year, the suggestion is that this was originally one of a pair of paintings of the same vessel executed at the same time.

The architectural properties of the Baltimore Foundation's Constellation painting have proven so accurate that they can be used as a guide to restoration of the ship. Indeed, Tommaso's skillful execution can be regarded as definitive from a naval architectural point of view, not the least because he devoted a major portion of his work to painting warships.

Additionally, from an artistic purview his Constellation painting is a richly executed piece, on par with the standing of a ship that is such an integral part of our national heritage.

Antonio De Simone worked in watercolor variants, chiefly but not limited to gouache. He frequently received com-

26

enance for one of their creations. No sooner had I begun to read up on the person l believed to be the singular Signor De Simone, than I realized I had stepped into a proverbial "can of worms."

In an Antiques article written a quartercentury ago, Jean Meissonnier asserted rather simplistically, "De Simone was active in Naples," giving us one artist in the proper port. To illustrate the man's work, Meissonnier used a painting identified as the French steamship Savoie of Marseilles arriving in the GulfofNaples in 1866, but the date is in error. John Laird of Birkenhead, England, built the shipastheChristobalColonin 1854and missions for two images of the same she sailed under that name until 1876. vessel: one entering, leaving, or riding at She then became Savoie of Marseilles anchor in the Bay of Naples, typically until 1890, when she briefly entered the with Mt. Vesuvius in the background, Italian registry as Savoia of Genoa. The and the other of the same vessel batter- medium is watercolor which, combined ing its way through a stormy sea. It has with the history of the ship's name, and been told that Antonio could produce the quality of the painting, clearly idenboth paintings in a single day, one in the tifies Antonio De Simone as the artist, although Meissonnier does not grace him with a first name.

"My search for data on the A review of available reference maDe Simones exposed the terial exposes the source for so much of the confusion surrounding the De problems faced by an art Simones. Denys Brook-Hart in his 1974 dealer attempting to estabdictionary, British 19th Century Marine lish a provenance for one of Painting, strayed from the bounds of his title with the admission: "At the risk of their creations." cheating a little, I feel inclined to mention the names ofL. Roberto, Tomaso di morning, and one after lunch , sipping Simone and the Edouard Adams father espresso at mid-morning and mid-after- and son (non-Britons all)." Concerning noon to keep his adrenalin flowing. Un- De Simone, he added: "Also a prolific like his father, who was fascinated with gouache painter, although a number of warships, Antonio spent much of his time his oils have been seen, was di Simone, painting the international high society (fl.1870-1900). " It is through this attriyachts that visited the Bay of Naples. In bution of both oil and gouache to a De many of his renderings he colors the sea, Simone that Brook-Hart has misled his rather than the sky, a brilliant cerulean readers-it introduces the concept that blue. His 1887 gouache ofrailway baron the De Simones worked in both media, Jay Gould' s Atalanta, which continues when in fact neither one did. Tommaso to hang at Lyndhurst (now a National was an oil painter; Antonio a watercolTrust property), is an outstanding ex- orist. Brook-Hart continued: " This ample of this feature. Antonio.custom- artist's pictures frequently show vessels arily included the name of the subject off Naples or with Mount Vesuvius in vessel in the lower right comer of his the background; the style is accurate and paintings, and occasionally used the two precise, usually with rather blue seas .... digit form of the year with his signature. These paintings could be bought for a My search for data on the De Sim ones song until quite recently but now, like exposed the problems faced by an art everything else, they fetch what is called dealer attempting to establish a prov- ' money."' While the latter comment is SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

US sloop of war Macedonian, I 860 [ setting unknown], oil on canvasl3 1/2" by 19" , by Tommaso De Simone. Held by the US Na val Academy Museum, Annapolis, Maryland.

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true, with a few exceptions the appreciation of the De Simones' paintings does not appear to have exceeded that of the marketplace in general.

E. H. H. Archibald's 1980 Dictionary of Sea Painters correctly identifies two De Simones, but indexes th e m as " Simones," and chronologically flipflops the careers ofTommaso and Antonio by leading off with "Simone, A. de, the best known of a family of Neapolitan ship portraitists working in the second half of the 19th century. He also painted some battle pieces, such as the Bombardment of Alexandria." With that remark Archibald incorrectly attributes Tommaso' s battle scenes of Lissa ( 1867) and Alexandria (1882) to Antonio. He then reiterates and reinforces BrookHart's mistake by stating that "he [Antonio] worked in oils and watercolours."

To Tommaso, whose work is arguably more importantthan his son's, Archibald devotes the rather niggardly paragraph: "Simone, Tommaso de, one of the family of Neapolitan ship portraitists and marine painters working in the second half of the 19th century."

When Mystic Seaport Mu seum 's Dottie Brewington of beloved memory, publi shed her dictionary of marine artists in 1982, she querulously dealt with the possibility of two De Simones by citing: "Simone, A. or Tomaso de," leaving the possibility that there may only have been one. She inadvertently indexed them under 'S' rather than ' D ', probably led down that erroneous course by either Archibald 's or Brook-Hart's dictionary.

In all fairness to Brook-Ha rt , Archibald, and Brewington, it must be recognized that the compilation of their dictionaries required them to sift through a uni verse of hundreds of artists. Among their lesser-known subjects, sparse data leads to short and many times incorrect entries. The value of these reference works, however, is in the information, right or wrong, they do contain, and their readers should consider such data as a research starting point rather than a ne plus ultra of biographical fact. Again, being gifted with the opportunity of viewing a body of their works, on all the paintings I have examined to date by the De Simones, where their family name apSEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

pears, it is presented as "De Simone," not DeSimone, deSimone, diSimone, di Simone, nor a bare "Simone."

Among the 19th- and early 20th-century ship portraitists who practiced in Italian seaport cities, the De Simones of Naples rate at the top level with perhaps Rafaelle Corsini (Smyrna, c. 1830-80, watercolor, gouache, and oil); Gaetano D 'Esposito (Malta & Bologna, c.18811895, watercolor); Giovanni Luzzo (Venice , c.1850-1877, watercolor); Luigi Renault (Livorno, c.1858-1880, watercolor); and Luigi Roberto (Naples, c. 1874-1891, oil and watercolor) .

A. J. Peluso, writing in 1982 and driven by a most justifiable ltalianAmerican ethnic agenda, suggests a possible provenance for the 19th-century De Simones' creativity: "In an earlier time, the Neapolitan family of De Simone boasted sculptors, a battle painter, a miniaturist, and a painter of religious subjects.By the 19th century there would be a painter of porcelain and majolica, a painter of faience, and more than one s hip portrait painter." James W .

Cheevers, Curator of the US Naval Academy Museum , adds an interesting genealogical possibility by identifying a Vincenzo de Simone, an artist born in Naples in 1845, who may have been another son of Tommaso De Simone.

Regarding thi s poss ibility, some paintings have been found by other researchers bearing the signature "De Simone Figlio." The only example that has come to hand at the time of writing appears on the 1873 painting of Prinds Oscar held by the Bergens Sj0farts-muse um , Norsk Sj0farthi stori sk Forskningsfond, Bergen, Norway. In this case

circumstantial evidence points to Antonio. The use of 'figli s' or 'figlio ' suggests a recognition of his novitiate. Believed to be in his first year of professional painting (I have found no paintings by Antonio predating 1873), he signs himself as the son of his renowned father.

Another interesting anomaly that tends to support the concept of a second De Simone son occurred as the result of viewing four 1895 gouache paintings of the American steam yacht Margarita owned by the Drexel family. There are two renditions of her in the collection of Mystic Seaport Museum, and Peter Sherwin of New York 's Hanover Square Gallery has sold two others. All four have "S.Y. Margarita" in the lower left panel and are signed "De Simone" in the lower right.

And there the similarity ends.

The Mystic paintings are so much richer in arti stic style and finer in naval architectural detail that it is difficult to imagine them coming from the same brush, yet Tommaso had passed away by the time they were painted. A possible solution to this puzzle is another, lesser-talented De Simone, with the most like ly ca ndidate being Cheever's "Vincenzo De Simone."

Given the vast array of De Simone works executed for American clients, and the plethora of others that have found their way into American homes and institutions, Tommaso and Antonio De Simone of Naples should be recognized for their contributions to Americana. .:t Maritime historian Bill Dunne teaches at Long Island University at Southampton, New York, and has written extensively for many maritime periodicals.

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68, WINTER 1993-94

MARINE ART NEWS

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3 1/i Inches for $100,000: Mystic Sells Ship Model for World Record Price A miniature ship model , measuring just over 3 1/2 inches long, was sold in late August for a record price of$100,000 by Mystic Seaport Gallery in Mystic, Connecticut. Model maker Lloyd McCaffrey of Petaluma, California, took a year and a half to complete the one-inch-equalto-64-feet scale model of HMS Prince of 1670, a one hundred-gun ship-ofthe-line. McCaffrey brought 25 years of experience as a miniature ship modeler to the task, which involved such intricate work as fastening planking with wooden pegs to individual frames and creating exquisite carvings of boxwood for the figurehead and stem, each measuring a quarter of an inch or less.

The artist made several trips to mari time museums in England to gather information for the project, calling it "a real thrill to work with this old material.

It makes hi story live again for me, and I enjoyed creating a small intricate object that embodies the strength and glory of national power."

Gallery director Russell Jini shian described the model as "one of the finest miniature creations of any era; on the level of a Faberge egg," and its sale as "a significant moment in the hi story of ship model collecting, which has been popular for centuries with distingui shed collectors from Peter the Great to JFK. " New Book, Exhibit by Watercolorist Ian Marshall The paintings and sketches from the recently released second book by watercolorist Ian Marshall are now on display in The Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard. It is the second time that Marshall has exhibited at the museum , the first time being at the publication of hi s earlier book, Armored Ships, two years ago. For Ironclads and Paddlers, Marshall has produced an evocative series of watercolors, with equally compelling text, depicting that head-spinning period of naval transition in the mid-19th century when the wooden manof-war gave way to the innovations of iron-cladding, gunnery and screw propul sion. The series lays some retroactive groundwork for the art reproduced in Armored Ships, which picks up the subject from the late-19th century .

One of the most pleas ing aspects of Marshall ' s work is his choice of historic moments or coincidences in the lives of these vessels, scenes often framed in SEAHISTORY68,WINTER 1993-1994

"HMS Prince of 1670," by Lloyd McCaffrey. A miniature model that took professiona l modeller Lloyd M cCaffrey one and a half years to build.

some unique element of port architecture. John Max tone-Graham, who wrote the foreword for the second book and rev iewed the first for The New York Times Book Review, describes Marshall 's art as "scrupulously accurate, and executed with just the kind of heroic grandeur that the subject demands." Both books are available through NMHS by calling 1-800-22 1-NMHS. -

K EVIN H AYDON

Exhibitions • 5 October-March, Ironclads and Paddlers, an exhibition of watercolors by Ian Marshall that were used by the artist to illustrate hi s new book of the same title. The Navy Museum, Washington Navy Yard, 901 M Street Southeast, Washington DC 20374; 202 433-4882.

• 2 January- IO April , Contemporary

Marine Art, featuring over 100 painting s, s hipmodel s, sc ulpture s and scrimshaw from 75 of the world's best painters. Mystic Maritime Gallery, Mystic CT 06355-6001 ; 203 572-8524.

•Through mid-April, Coming to Light: the Luminist Marine Paintings of George Curtis (1816-1891), features 38 works by a seldom seen contemporary of Fitz Hugh Lane. Peabody & Essex Museum , East India Square, Salem MA 01970; 508 745-1876.

• 14 April-10 August, Ship, Sea and Sky: The Art of James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894), a centennial retrospective exhibition of 60 paintings by the New York-based painter which includes 50 paintings and 10 prints. South Street Seaport Museum , 207 Front Street, New York NY 10038; 212 669-9400.

"HMS Renown and USS New York, Grassy Bay , B ermuda, 1898," by Ian Marshall.

After the American defeat of the Spanish squadron at the Battle ofSantiago Bay, Cuba , Admiral "Ja ckie" Fisher invited the US fl eet to visit Bermuda on its way back to New York. In the center is the Britishflagship HMS Renown and,at left, the armored cruiser USS New York . To the right of Renown can be seen the floating dock Bermuda, the landward fortifications ofIreland Island, the stone-built East Storehouse and the cliff top Commissioner's House.

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Traffiques & Discoveries

We all hit on odd bits of things that challenge or delight us in the experience of seafaring, and in its literature. So why not share such things on a page in Sea History ?

And the title? Well, some400 years ago Richard Hakluyt , seeing what was taking place in his world as the newly evolved ocean sailing ship was coursing the seas in Elizabethan times , published a compendium of the English achievements in this realm under the title The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation .... What a wonderful, rolling title.full of the sonority of the sea and sense of distant lands beyond it! I wonder: how many people besides myself, as a young person coming on these magic words.felt drawn to cross wide oceans, even to adventure out into the ocean of time that brought us here?

A Business in Great Waters Much of the magic resides in that word "traffiques," surely-and, as it turns out, with good reason. It did not appear in the title of the first edition ofHakluyt's work, published in 1589, and no one seems to know why it arose in the second edition, published in 1598-99. It was a relatively new word in English, meaning transport by sea directly between distant and di stinct communities-in other words, a business in great waters.

The first use in English found in the Oxford English Dictionary is a reference, made in a work published in 1506, to two Venetian galleys in the harbor of Candio, in Crete, which, the author notes , are "called the galys ofTraffygo." The OED goes on to note that the word "arose in the commerce of the Mediterranean," and the earliest uses the lexicographers have found are "trafficare" and "traffico" in the Pisan Breve dell' ondine del mare, in 1325.

Well, there you have it-in the crepuscular fading of the High Middle Ages , or the pre-dawn light of the Renaissance, treading, as it were, across the dew-spangled lawns of an unawakened world-the ocean-going ship! Her arrival heralded in that PETER STANFORD, The Cape Horn Road word "traffic."

Completing the Picture This evocative photo, which might have been taken in 1607 when English ships arrived in the James River in Virginia, was in fact taken last summer, at Jamestown Settlement. The Discovery, in the background, a noble vessel that actually crossed the Atlantic, and the Susan Constant, in the foreground, launched in 1992 and gallantly sailed these days in Chesapeake waters, represent a quantum change from the previous ship replicas built for the 350th anniversary of the settlement in 1957. Those early replicas were for show only, and sadly deficient in seafaring style and seamanly detail.

And to complete the scene, last summer, Powhatan Indians in the Native American village now incorporated in the Settlement built an 18-ft canoe by traditional bum-and-scrape methods. This canoe, paddled

by Henry Bond and Hank Moseley, is of course what catches one 's eye-and one's spirit. The Powhatan presence is vital, as it was 387 years ago, when Powhatans saved the colonists from starvation. Let us celebrate the two salt-water cultures, with the native role a living part of the experience, as it was in history. Huzzah , say we!

The Struggle for Coherence For the oral history component of a recent exhibition developed at the Royal Naval Museum to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of "Operation Pedestal-The Santa Marija Convoy," I interviewed 26 participants of the convoy and the siege of Malta. What these interviewees remember after fifty years would seem to suggest that the effects of war on people are almost always permanent ....

What is quite apparent from the interviews is that when people return from battle the impulse is to repress memories of the experience.Yet the memories will not die; they re-emerge vividly, even after fifty years. For the individual, however, the nature of his or her narrative appears constantly to shift. There is not "A Story" but a series of stories, depending on the time the account is given, the needs of the narrator at the time of telling, the approach of the interviewer, and the depth of the reflection. This does not mean that one story is "truer" or more hi storically accurate than another.

Rather, all the accounts are pieces of the reality of the experience to which the narrators struggled to give shape and coherence in their narratives.

CHRIS How ARD BAILEY The Mariner's Mirror19: 4(Nov. 1993)

Sailorizing Skills Alive Aboard the Schooner Adventure!

Don Birkholz, shipwright at the South Street Seaport Museum, sailing aboard the Museum 's newly restored schooner Lettie G. Howard at the start of the Gloucester Schooner Race, thought the hometown Adventure crew were stalling for advantage when they asked for and got a 15-minute start delay. But he was full of admiration for the crew of the 68-year-old fishing schooner when he found out the delay was caused by the need to repair a rip in the vessel's aging mainsail, which tore at the throat while being hoisted. The Adventure crew got it down on the deck and demonstrated some old-time sailorizing skills to patch the four-foot tear in time for ,;_~ the new start. Six to eight people could be seen down on their hands and knees _;_:: working feverishly, and when their hands got tired of pushing the heavy needles '-~._ through the canvas, another crew member jumped in. Hats off to a well-trained and determined crew and skipper!

30

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SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS Western Rivers Flood; Damage Historic Vessels Flooding in the Midwest had disastrous consequences for on-going preservation efforts and maritime museums on the inland rivers. Jerry Enzler, director of the Dubuque River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa, reports that the 162-ft steam stemwheel towboat George M . Verity, which is home to the Keokuk River Museum, suffered flooding in her bow compartments. Repairs to the vessel and its museum areas will prevent the museum's reopening until mid-1994. In Kansas City, the 277-ft sidewheel steam dredge William Mitchell got away from her mooring, hit three bridges, sheared off a smokestack and suffered extensive damage to her second deck. Her owners, the Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department, and supporters are making efforts to save the vessel. And, in St. Louis, Missouri, the WWII Admirable-class minesweeper USS Inaugural was swept away from her berth at the Gateway Arch and sank. Her owners, St. Louis Concessions, plan to raise and restore her.

As a result of the damage sustained and income lost during the flooding, Enzler predicts that a number of small museums may not reopen. Enzler estimates a 60% loss in income for the July and August period for his own museum . (DRM, 2nd Street, Ice Harbor, Dubuque IA 52001; 319 557-9545).

Captain Cook's Endeavour Launched in Freemantle, Australia In early December, a full-size replica of James Cook 's vessel of discovery , Endeavour, slipped down greased ways into Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour.

The launch marked the final phase in a six-year, stop-and-go building project to be completed in early 1994. The 11 Oft, 550-ton wooden ship has been built by the HM Bark Endeavour Foundation to the same specifications as the original ship using the original information on Cook's vessel held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

Fred Walker, the museum 's chief naval architect, who assisted in the construction, described Endeavour as "the most authentic replica ship in the world. It is not a theme park object-it will become a seagoing artifact."

After seatrial s, Endeavour will make her maiden voyage from Freemantle to Sydney in the spring. Following this, the replica will visit Australian ci ties before 32

Essex Begins "Save Our Shipyard" Campaign Essex, Massachusetts, is a town whose history is inextricably linked with shipbuilding, and for many years the Essex community has cherished the site of the A. D. Story Shipyard. Now it has the opportunity to save it. From the Story yard alone, some 424 vessels were launched between 1872 and 1932. Mystic Seaport's L.A. Dunton and South Street Seaport's Lettie G. Howard are among the Essex-built vessels afloat today , and only three years ago, the schooner Evelina Goulart was returned to Essex to become a land-based exhibit for the Essex Shipbuilding Museum .

The Shipbuilding Museum closed on the Story property on 15 December and has embarked on a major "Save Our Shipyard" fundraising campaign for the full purchase price of $350,000 plus an additional $150,000 in set-up funds. An anonymous matching grant of $150,000 has jump-started the campaign.

While the Museum ' s move to save the shipyard will help preserve the unique identity shipbuilding has given Essex, museum administrator Diane Stockton also sees the Museum playing an important regional role that links with nearby maritime museums that concentrate on maritime history, trade and fisheries.

"It is important that we continue to tell the shipbuilding and design story," says Stockton.

"We want to keep that open-air, hands-on approach." In addition to The largest vessel built at the A. D. St01y shipyard in Essex MA , providing an archive of the three-masted schooner Warwick, at her launching in 1891 . plans and models , the museum will also expand its shipbuilding skills programs at the new site. (Essex Shipbuilding Museum, Main Street, Essex MA 01929) sailing to Britain and berthing at the National Maritime Museum.

Getting Around the Ships The 1877 Gulf Coast schooner Governor Stone is thriving once again in her home waters. She is the last of thousands of Gulf Coast schooners used in the gulf fishing and freight trades. Kristin Anderson, of the Apalachicola Maritime Museum, informs us that a substantial gift from a private foundation will allow the The Governor Stone under sail near Biloxi

museum to complete restoration of the Stone and plans are now afoot to hire staff and develop sail training programs aboard. Recently licensed to carry 23 passengers, the Stone and her volunteer crew have been providing excursion trips on the Apalachicola River and Bay. (AMM, PO Box 625, Apalachicola FL 32329; 904 658-8708) The effort to save the barkentine Regina Maris is at a crucial point.

Buoyed by strong support from excrewmembers and local residents, the Greenport, Long Island-based Save the Regina Maris, Ltd. is now seeking funds for the $100,000 repair of a 1000-ton marine railway in Greenport. The rail will beRegina's home during her planned five-year restoration.

In Traverse City, Michigan, restoration of the Revolutionary War-era replica sloop Welcome is underway. Welcome was built by the Mackinac State Historic Park and launched in 1982.

When the burden of maintenance beSEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

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came too much for the Park, it looked around for somebody to take the ship over. The400 voluntee r members of the Maritime Heritage Alliance, who have recently completed construction of the 55-ft, 19th-century cargo schooner replica Madeline, are well into a complete rebu il d of the sloop. (MHA , PO Box 1108, Traverse City MI 49685) Tall ship photographer Thad Koza, of Newport, Rhode Island, reports the addition of three traditionally-rigged vessels to the European tal I sh ip fleet. The vessels are a collaboration between West Gennan naval architect Detlev Loll and wellknown Polish architect Zygmunt Choren, and all are conversions. They are the Jules Verne , a 246-ft barkentine, the Fridtjof Nansen , a 170-ft topsail schooner, and the Roald Amundsen, a 105-ft brig.

Civil War Wreck Looters Sentenced After a long and careful prosecution, the four suspects originally associated with the looting of the wrecks of the CSS Florida and the USS Cumberland four years ago have pied guilty to charges and two have been sentenced. The two dealers involved were sentenced on misdemeanor charges which include a $500 fine and $750 restitution fee each. However, the federal court judge waived sentencing of the two watermen who pied guilty to felony counts of actually stealing the artifacts. They claimed to have had no knowledge of what they were doing. The Confederate Naval Historical Society, which was instrumental in bringing the action against the looters, expressed surprise at the Court's leniency, but noted that a second offense by the watermen will lead to instant jail sentences. (CNHS, 710 Ocran Road, White Stone VA 22578)

Ships Look for Crews for Great Lakes '94 For the second year, the Great Lakes will be a popular destination for US sail training vessels. But ships need crews to reach port. The New Jersey-based replica Half Moon is looking for volunteers to join Dutch crew members for a passage through the Erie Canal and on to Chicago (Half Moon Visitors Center, Liberty State Park, Jersey City NJ 07305). "HMS" Rose is seeking a square rig-experienced Master and/or Chief Mate in addition to deckhands and Able Seamen (HMS Rose Foundation, One Bostwick Avenue, Bridgeport CT 06605). The brig Niagara, operating SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-94

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Ultimately, a sailor must have hi s vessel; in the case of well-known historic ship master Daniel Moreland, it must also be the ultimate vessel. In May, Moreland and a cadre of friends traveled to the small island ofKarm!lly, Norway, to take possesion of Do/mar, formerly the North Sea steam trawler Picton Castle, which also served as a mineswe~per in WWII. The steel-hulled vessel measures 299 gross tons, 142-ft overall, and, in Moreland 's opinion, "is an excellent seagoing ship, and will make an outstanding bark." Moreland plans to make a deep-sea sailing vessel out of Do/mar.

In June, she underwent a major hull and engine overhaul at the Thomsen and Thomsen Shipyard in Marstal, Denmark, and then departed for Ipswich, England.

Moreland will shortly press on from Ipswich to New York before departing for Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, where he plans to set up the Windward Isles Rigging School, taking on apprentice riggers to join his crew and rig the Do/mar into a

Dolrnar in Karm¢y,N01way, before refitting.

lofty bark. (Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company, 5 Old Field Place, Rowayton CT 06853; 203 838-7894)

Defense Department Fleet Plan Alarms Merchant Marine Congressional maritime leaders believe a "quiet revolution" is going on behind closed doors in the Defense Department that, according to Tony Beargie, writing in American Shipper, would all but kill the national security justification for maintaining a US-flag merchant fleet.

In late-July, the Navy announced over $1 billion in contracts to two US shipyards to convert five former Danish Maersk Line containerships into roll-on/roll-off vessels. The purchase is an exception to the long-standing policy of commercial sealift under which the Navy relies on US-flag ships to transport cargo to support military missions.

Beargie writes that the new tone of the DOD portends trouble for current efforts to forge a new national maritime program. The article claims the DOD

The 127-year-old sail steamship Hansteen steamed again for the first time in 43 years on Trondheimsfjord late this summer.Built in 1866 of wrought iron by Ny lands Verksted in Oslo , Hansteen is 102 feet in length, has a 125hpsteam engine and a schooner rig that carries 7 sails.

She retains 80 per cent of her original steel hull and wooden interior. Resto- Hansteen steaming the Trondheimsfjord in August. ration was spearheaded by veteran ship restorer Olaf Engvig, who describes Hansteen as the world's only operating steam vessel remaining from the sail and steam era of the mid-19th century. She is currently operated out of Trondheim on day cruises for up to 100 passengers and can accommodate 12 overnight. (OlafEngvig, 2145 Franklin #1, San Francisco CA 94109) SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-94

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procurement program could cost US taxpayers some $6 billion, whereas the proposed maritime revitalization program would cost $1.9 to $2.5 billion.

Montauk Point Lighthouse Relief When the MontaukPoint Lighthouse was constructed in 1797, it was 300 feet from the edge of the cliff; today it stands only 55 feet from the edge. According to a recently completed federal study, the lighthouse could be protected for 50 years if the Army Corps of Engineers spends $10 million to place rip-rap around the Point to protect the eroding cliffs. The plan, if funded, calls for construction of 770 feet of new seawall to be erected flanking the Point. The project has so far received strong support from Representative George Hochbrueckner and Senator Patrick Moynihan of New York.

Small Craft Receive Large Attention The Museum Small Craft Association recently celebrated publication of Boats: A Manual/or Their Documentation. The manual, many years in preparation, is a guide to r~commended practices for vessel recording, and one of a number of projects undertaken by MSCA to record and preserve the nation's heritage in small craft. The group has also supported the establishment of a database called the Union List ofMuse um C ollections which contains information and regular updates on 1,400 boats" in the collections of 18 museums. Mystic Seaport Museum maintains the database.

The MSCA is an excellen\ source for information on small craft nationwide and individuals can join the organization by sending $15 to MSCA, c/o Columbia River Maritime Museum, 1792 Marine Drive, Astoria OR 97103 .

Underwater News In July, the NOAA launched its first major expedition since 1987 to the sunken ironclad Monitor in 230 feet of water off Cape Hatteras. The goal of the investigation, which was directed by Monitor National Marine Sanctuary Manager John Broadwater and employed the use of a Johnson-SE-Link submersible, is to assess the stabilization, archaeological and research needs of the vessel. As a pilot project for hull stabilization, divers pumped sand from the periphery of the site to shore up the site and relieve stresses. If successful, the entire area beneath the hull could be filled with sand to support the hull.

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MARINE ARTISTS! American Society of Marine Artists is a national organization formed to promote marine art. Join us if you're interested in ships, shore or sea. Your opportunity for: national exhibitions, educational exchange, informative newsletter & social gatherings. We support, share and have fun!

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(MNMS, PO Box 147 , Rescue VA 23424) A Manila galleon, the San Diego, has been found in 178 feet of water off Fortune Island in the Philippines by a Frenchman. Recoveries are being made in conjunction with the National Museum of the Philippines. Some 28,000 items, including Ming Dynasty porcelain, Japanese swords and European astrolabes, have been catalogued from the site.

The wreck of the Spanish ship El Cazador, lost in 1784, was discovered in late August by fishermen 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana in 300 feet of water. The ship's manifest lists 450,000 Mexican pesos picked up in Vera Cruz and bound for Spanish territory in Louisiana. The fishing vessel owner, David Horan of Alabama, has hired the salvage company Marex International of Memphis to make recoveries from the site.

Museum News The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, is the beneficiary of £750,000 from the estate of the late hotelier and restaurateur Leopold Muller.

The funds will be used to build a new education complex. The Leopold Muller Education Centre will house classrooms and seminar rooms with modem audiovisual equipment for the 70,000 schoolchildren welcomed by the museum's Education Department each year. (NMM, Greenwich, London SElO 9NF) The South Street Seaport's major winter exhibit "Twelve Ties to Tradition: Model Making in New York City," examines in detail the creative processes, motivations and influences involved in this traditional art form. the exhibit, funded by a $200,000 grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, is open to the public through 6 March, 1994. It will also travel to museums across the country. (SSSM, 207 Front Street, New York NY I 0038) The Michigan Maritime Museum has expanded its space for collections storage and curation into a former South Haven lighthouse keeper's residence.

The two-story building, which has been well-maintained, was built in the early 1870s, abandoned by the US Coast Guard in 1990 and subsequently leased by the City of South Haven. The city has sublet the property to the museum for a minimum of four years. (MMM, PO Box 534, South Haven MI 49090)

INVENI PORTAM

Capt. Russell Kneeland (1933-1993) Russ Kneeland, who built and sailed the 86-ft schooner Kaiulani , to honor the memory of the Bath-built bark of I 899 which NMHS was founded to save, died last August in Hawaii on the first leg of a South Pacific voyage_ An appreciation of his indomitable character, written by his friend Joseph Ditler of San Diego, may be found in Sea History Gazette, November 1993.

Edouard A. Stackpole (1903-1993) Eddie Stackpole, island historian of Nantucket, was a gentle, warm-hearted, brilliantly successful man-successful as few people are privileged to be, in conveying his life interests and enthusiasms to others. When I last saw him a few years ago in his native Nantucket, he was full of the connection between his sea-girt plot of sand and the distant island of Pitcairn in the South Pacific, where the Bounty mutineers ended up.

My earliest meeting with him was a good 60 years earlier, when my father sailed his Nova Scotia schooner Tom Cod into Nantucket, and Ed Stackpole, then about 30, already a respected historian and author of children's adventure stories-You Fight for Treasure and the rest, a whole series it was, of young Americans seeking distant horizons in the early days of the Republic--came out to go for an afternoon ' s sail with us.

I seem to remember his lanky appearance, his awkward but very real enthusiasm even from that distant summer of 1933 or '34. He was not the kind of person you forget-and he loved telling stories to children.

Between these two meetings lay a life full of accomplishment, but never at the cost of family, a wide arch of friends, and his enduring interest in encouraging young minds and spirits.

A descendant of whalers , he took quiet pride in his family lineage_ From 1924 to 1951 he worked for the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror , as a reporter and then associate editor. In 1951 he went to work for Carl Cutler as curator of Mystic Seaport, a position he held for fifteen years. Returning to Nantucket, he went on to serve as director of the Peter Foulger Museum, 1969-1986. He remained actively involved in affairs maritime, always eager to help a visitor get his bearings in island history, and, SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

WOODEN SHIP MODELS

as an Advisor of NMHS, passionately committed to new outreach efforts in historic education. When he died on 2 September last year, he had published 28 books or learned monographs, and though he never went to college he received honorary degrees from both Yale and the University of Massachusetts. He leaves his wife, two daughters, three sons, 22 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. His son Renny A. Stackpole carries on a proud tradition as director of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Maine.

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Nashua , NH 03063 - Tel. (603) 882-8711 Fax (603) 883-5560

-PETER STANFORD

C harles W. Wittholz (1918-1992) Charles Wittholz died a year ago last fall after a prolonged bout with the cancer that had laid his body low , but not his spirit, which remained buoyant to the end. A naval architect with grand feeling for history, and a straightforward esthetic in his boats, he designed such classic vessels as the well-known brigantine Young America. His fiberglass replica of the sloop Providence, John Paul Jones 's first command, looks as if she had materialized out of a Revolutionary War print, but has proved herself a great sea boat in extensive ocean sailing. Mystic Seaport Museum so valued his work that the museum has taken hi s papers into their permanent collection on yachting.

Charlie came to the NMHS as an early trustee, and as restoration architect of the bark Kaiulani which the Society worked to save in its first decade of existence. In typical blunt fashion, Charlie would not give up on this project, even as it came to pieces. When word was received that scrapping of the ship had begun, he flew to Manila Bay, planted an American flag on the rusty, partly demolished ruin, and planted himself in a pup tent on the beach to watch over what was left of the vessel.

With Kaiulani gone, Charlie played a somewhat less active role in NMHS affairs. He remained an honorary trustee until his death, and was always available for a consultation by phone or to offer encouragement when the Society hit rough patches. His attitude toward life was reflected in hi s boats-four-square, quintessentially honest, and touched with unself-conscious grace. He leaves his wife, Estelle, one daughter and a son, and a warm spot in the memories of his friends .

-

PETER STANFORD

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REVIEWS The Fighting Captain: Frederick John Walker RN and the Battle of the Atlantic, by Alan Bum (Pen & Sword Books, Ltd., 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2BR, UK, 1993, 224pp, illus, biblio, appen, index, gloss, ref, notes; ÂŁ17 .95 + ÂŁ2.50 foreign s&h) Why should the Admiralty have said in a 1950communique, "Captain Walker, more than any other, won the Battle of the Atlantic"? This book gives the answer in his record of sinking 20 U-boats, 8 more "when his ships went into sink after his death" (July 1944), and in the first six months of his group's formation an average rate of one U-boat every two weeks. Further, not a single man was lost and not a single Allied merchant ship sunk due to enemy action enjoying the protection of the Second Support Group under Walker' s command. He was meticulous about rescuing and treating survivors, friend and foe alike. After one sinking, "Doc Fraser operated for ... fourteen hours to save all but one of the Germans picked up by Starling."

He achieved these results by a combination of technical competence (he perfected the innovative "creeping" attack), leadership and good fortune, while under the threat of Gnats, glider bombs, and other Boche deviltry.

When in November 1941 he assumed command of HMS Stork and the 36th Escort Group, we had already lost over 2,000 merchant ships totaling 5 million tons, and the number of operational Uboats had nearly doubled . Walker took his ships to sea and set about developing group tactics, aimed to build an empathy among his commanding officers, enabling them to act on theirown initiative in any circumstances without the need for long-winded instruction. By contrast, the Donitz principle of centralization became a major factor in the initial containment and final defeat of the Uboat offensive. On his first encounter with the enemy, Walker's escort group sankfourU-boats in five days. Word got around, it could be done. Again and again Walker and his band of brothers showed the way , and this book describes how. At last he had hi s chance to prove his long-held belief that offensive use of an air/sea striking force gave the best chance of doing maximum damage to U-boats while providing maximum protection to convoys.

The passage of convoy HG 76, in December 1941 , defined the shape of the convoy escorts which in 1943 would 38

begin to drive the U-boats inexorably away from the trade routes of the Atlantic. "Each convoy needed a close escort, a support group in the deep field , an aircraft carrier and aircraft to keep the U-boats submerged and drive off the German shadowers."

Walker's dedication and determination show in hi s Group Operational Instruction from Starling: "Our job is to kill, and all officers must develop the spirit of vicious offensive. No matter how many convoys we shepherd through in safety, we shall have failed unless we can slaughter U-boats. All energies must be bent to this end."

His modesty showed, too, when at the height of his acclaim he said in a public speech, "Please don ' t call me the 'Ace U-boat killer.' That formidable character is a Thousand British Tars."

On I April 1944, this reviewer was a midshipman outward bound across the North Sea in the battleship Duke ofYork.

Our captain broadcast that Captain Walker in Starling had sunk a U-boat while escorting a convoy 200 miles ahead.

We knew we were in safe hands!

Yet three months later, those hands were to be forever stilled. Captain J. F. Walker, CB, DSO (and three bars), RN, died sudden Iy whi le enjoying a few days' shore leave at 0200 on 9 July 1944.

He was awarded total loyalty by all his men. One of his quartermasters who steered both hi s ships today spends all hi s working hours running the unique Captain Walker's Old Boys Association that still keeps his memory alive by monthly meetings and an annual reunion.

MICHAEL BADHAM

The Wine-Dark Sea, by Patrick O 'Brian (W.W. Norton, New York NY, 1993 , 26lpp; $22hb) The sea, with its so litude , its unforgiving ferocity and its romantic lore, has produced some of our greatest literature. It has attracted the talented and the adventurous, commingled with the less admirable and mi sfit, packaged them in vessels that transport them to episodes of catastrophe, beauty and terror, punctuated with long periods in which to reflect and absorb. It has produced a new classic in Mr. O ' Brian's epic series about the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars.

For the past 20 years or so thi s series has been savored by a small but addicted company of naval persons, academics and others devoted to the sea. Now, to

the horror of his cult-followers, Mr. O 'Brian, at age 78, and 48 years after his first novel, is becoming a superstar.

Rarely has literary fame been so long deferred and so well-deserved.

The newest in the series, The WineDark Sea, has the most interesting geography yet. It begins in the mysteriously boiling sea near a volcanic island in the Southwest Pacific, proceeds off the coast of Chile and includes an adventurous trek across the high Andes, with a narrative equal to the best travel literature.

Back aboard ship, the pair play their violin and cello duets (Aubrey has an Amati violin and Maturin a Guarneri cello) into the ice of the great Southern Ocean, where they are nearly grabbed by an American fri gate.

Despite the new fame, the AubreyMaturin series is not, happily, for everyone. To derive its fullest joys, the reader needs the intellectual and cultural curiosity ofMaturin himself. Mr. O 'Brian transports the reader into Georgian England.

But the passage must be earned by mastering the lingo not only of "the wooden world" of Nelson 's navy, but the boudoirs, law courts and drawing rooms of Napoleonic Europe. Such terms as wuther, wharfinger, scuttlebut, turves,jolly-boat, slimedraught, knipperdolling, teapoy, stoat, nullifidian, mobcap, mangel-wurzel, groat, glebe, laudanum, fag, farrier, fenians , euchre, drover, curricle, crofter, burdock, calomei, bombazine, benefice, barouche, bark and ague lace every page like so much scrimshaw. I personally keep copies of The O>.ford Companion to Ships and the Sea and the recently published What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool close at hand when reading Mr. O'Brian.

The Wine-Dark Sea is full of exciting sea battles, drawn from years of research

by Mr. O ' Brian in the Royal Navy Archives at Greenwich. But there is far more here than , say, C. S. Forester's Hornblower series or Alexander Kent 's books. Not only in literary craftsmanship, but in the mastery of complex relationships, deep philosophical conflict and intensity of passion , he is unmatched. The subtlety of his personalities and the gaudy parade of characters are used to explore war, anthropology, engineering, botany, medicine and metaphysics and yet weave all this complexity into a grand and continuing flow of life.

The Wine-Dark Sea ends with Jack and Stephen homeward bound. We can SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

REVIEWS anticipate with much pleasure that the voyage will doubtless be far from uneventful.

AMAZING INVENTORY!!!

J:lt

JOHN LEHMAN

Mr. Lehman, NMHS Overseer, was Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. This review is excerpted from The Wall Street Journal.

Archeology of the Frobisher Voyages, edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Jacqueline S. Olin (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1993, 238pp, illus, gloss, biblio, index; $45hb) Martin Frobisher's voyages of discovery in the New World (1576-1578) have remained an enigmatic anomaly in North Atlantic exploration history. While published journals of some of the participants are available, interpreting the archival information has always been a problem. Where did they actually make camp and explore in the New World?

Who were the people they met? What was the ore that they thought contained gold and which instigated the last costly expedition? What were the "Frobisher" artifacts brought to the United States and Great Britain from Canada in later years? Were the iron blooms really Elizabethan English, or were they Norse from even earlier voyages?

Fitzhugh and Olin try to answer these questions, describe the recent expeditions sent to Frobisher Bay to gather more information, and present the latest analyses and interpretations in a volume which is a series of fourteen articles by historians, archaeologists, and other scientists working on various aspects of the project.

The book begins with four chapters on the history of the Frobisher expeditions, the English written records, the American Indian oral traditions about the early English, and later explorers who returned with "Frobisher relics." In the second section, the authors describe more recent archaeological expeditions by the Smithsonian Institution to Kodlunarn Island and neighboring land and an analysis of recovered ceramics.

The third section is a description of, and conclusions from, the dating and chemical analyses conducted on the artifacts, especially the mysterious iron blooms.

In the last chapter, Fitzhugh interprets the information gathered from the preceding studies, draws some interesting conclusions, and poses some important questions still unanswered. He argues for more research, especially field SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

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40

research in Frobisher Bay, to try to solve some of the nagging puzzles about the voyages. He does not state what important clues might be found and just how researchers will try todiscoverthoseclues.

The various authors use a mixture of lay and profess ional writing so that avocational readers can understand the questions addressed by each author, as well as the general discuss ions and conclusions. Profess ional archaeologists, historians and geologists will also find much more in-depth material in their own field, while possibly having to rely on the authors' conscious efforts to communicate in other fields. Illustrations in the manuscript consist of almost 200 maps, photographs, and drawings which give an understanding of the area, the islands, and the artifacts of studies.

I have two problems with this otherwise excellent publication . Most of the chapters are written as articles, as if they were to be presented alone, and occasionally one reads the same information in several chapters. Although this is always a problem when several authors are involved, it would have been good if Fitzhugh and Olin had attacked each chapter with more editorial deletion marks.

The second problem is with the illustrations of artifacts. Artifact collections, such as the ceramics, are illustrated with photographs instead of drawings. Although the photographic reproduction in the volume is very good, details that archaeologi sts look for are normally communicated with stylized drawings.

Therefore many detail s about the collection are not communicated to the professional reader.

However, these two problems are only detractions from a well written and organized presentation of the current knowledge and studies on the Frobisher New World voyages. When finished, the reader will want to tum to the library to read more about the hi storical account of the journeys, Frobisher's earlier life, and his later adventures, including his controversial part in defending England from the Spanish Armada.

DR. W A RREN RIESS

Darling Marine Center University of Maine The Ship T hat Stood Still: The Californian and Her Mysterious Role in the Titanic Disaster, by Leslie Reade (W.W. Norton & Co., New York and London , 1993, 384pp, illus, appen, index , biblio; $30hb) Intensive research

into all the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Titanic , the personali ties aboard the Titanic and the Californian, and navigational and communications realities that came into play on the night of 14 April 191 2, coupled with elegant prose, resulted in this highly readable drama and highly conclusive evaluation of the decades-old mystery surrounding the Californian's fa ilure to respond to the Titanic.

JA Historic Naval Ships Visitors Guide, prod uced by the Historic Nava l Ships Assoc iati on of North America in cooperation with the National Park Service, printed by the US Naval In stitute, Annapo lis MD, 1993, 54pp, illu s, so urces; $5pb) From the 1797 USS Constitution to the 1958 USS Edson, USS Growler and USS Turner J oy, more than 50 orth American naval vessels have been preserved as museum s and memori als.

Thi s guide lists, by state, those you can vis it in the US and Canada. Each entry prov ides detai ls of the vessels' ori g ins and launching, its dimension s and armament, current location, a bri ef hi story of the vesse l and , for most, a photograph or two.

JA Men of the Sea, by Captain Robert Carl (Captain Robert Carl, Emmaus PA, 1992, 272pp; $ 10.95pb + $3s&h-Available from Carol Laudenslager, 14 North Fourth St., Emmaus PA 18049) The author, who has traveled the seas on a sailing ship, a coal-burning freighter, a tanker, passenger ships and a nuclear ship, offers us the world of the merchant marine as he knew it, to stir the imagination and inspire renewed interest in America 's maritime heritage. The first six chapters are fictional accounts of sailors in strange ports encountering mysterious ships, curses, women and adventures. Part II contains nine chapters of life at sea-a collection of vignettes detailing the relations between officers, men and their ships, brutal conditions on board and quieter moments, nautical mysteries and hi storical events based on research and the author's varied experiences.

JA Cross Currents: Baymen, Yachtsmen and Long Island Waters, 1830s-1990s,

by Elly Shodell (Port Washington Public Library, One Library Dr., Port Washington NY I 1050, 1993, 72pp, illus, notes, biblio; $12.95 + $1.50s&h) This volume illustrates the transformation of SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-94

Signed lithograph from painting by Long Island Sound, from the center of a flourishing oystering and clamming industry, through the influx of a wealthy yachting population to today's playground for yacht clubs, speed boats, and recreational fishing and hunting. Although each segment of the book, based on a traveling exhibit, is briefly introduced, contemporary photographs, passages from oral histories, quotations from local newspapers and bits of memorabilia are allowed to stand alone.

JA The Hunt for HMS De Braak: Legend and Legacy, by Donald G. Shomette (Carolina Academic Press, Durham NC, 1993, 457pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index; $29.95hc) The search for, discovery and mangled recovery of the 18th-century HMS De Braak in Delaware Bay was the cause celebre that led to the enactment of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987. A mediocre vessel with an undistinguished record, the De Braak became a legend, her wreck supposedly the repository of a fortune in captured Spanish gold, silver and jewels. The author draws us into the tale, recounting what is known of her true history, the legend's hold on sal vors and the American imagination, the devastating retrieval of artifacts that decimated the De Braak's true historical treasure, legal battling over the proceedings, archaeologists' Herculean efforts to documentas much historical data as possible, and the path of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act through Congress in the midst of the controversy.

JA "Going Bananas": 100 Years of American Fruit Ships in the Caribbean, by Mark H. Goldberg (American Merchant Marine Museum Foundation, Kings Point NY, 1993, 616pp, illus, appen, biblio; $24.95pb + $2.50s&hA vailable through North American Maritime Books, 8131 Race Point, #201, Huntington Beach CA 92646) In this third installment of Goldberg's American Merchant Marine History series, we are introduced to the lucrative and, yes, romantic commerce in Caribbean fruit, coffee and cane that arose soon after the end of the Civil War. The volume contains highly detailed accounts of most of the American (and many non-American) passenger cargo companies and ships crossing the Caribbean in that trade-and many of those not included here are promised in future volumes of the series.

JA SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-94

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THE BOOK LOCKER Old Ironsides: The Rise, Decline, and Resurrection of the USS Constitution,

by Thomas C. Gillmer, illustrated by William Gilkerson (International Marine, Blue Ridge Summit PA, 1993, 224pp, 95 illus, appen, index; $24.95hc) Attention shipwatchers and lookouts along the coasts of our literary landscape waiting for their ship to come in! The grand old frigate Constitution is brought to full , glowing life in a new book by the distinguished naval architect Tom Gillmer. Called, appropriately, Old Ironsides , this is surely the most important book ever to appear on the actual structure of America's most important ship--and, shipwatchers, it is an exciting read, illumined by historic paintings and photographs, and positively lit up by William Gilkerson 's lively renderings of the ship's career and battles.

Thomas C. Gillmer, commissioned by the US Navy to survey the Constitution and make recommendations on the restoration she is now going through, has done the maritime world an enormous favor by opening his deliberations to the public in an engaging account of how the ship came to be, how she fared in her long career, and how she should be restored. She was, he says, more the product of honest old Joshua Humphreys, to whom he dedicates the book, than of Josiah Fox or others who thundered onto the scene to take credit as the ship won her famous victories over the British Guerriere, the Cyane and Levant-both at once-and the]ava.

"Her fine lines and graceful sheer, her lightly scrolled and upturned head, the classic quarter galleries and restrained carvings gracing her I 8th-century transom stern-all flowed together flawlessly in this magnificent creature of the sea," Gillmer notes at the outset of his book. And it is to thjs beautifully balanced, classically molded shape that he wishes to see her restored as far as possible. Anyone who has compared the lumpish recent look of the ship with the paintings made of her early in her career, must applaud this decision, and the thorough way Gillmer documents it.

Gillmer's broad-gauge approach to the challenge of restoring a national icon adds enormously to the interest of his book. Designers, politicians, captains, the experiences of seafaring, the qualities of different killds of wood, all play their part in Gillmer's account, along with the recurring idea, broadening finally into a national conviction, that this ship must go on voyaging through time, to deliver to future generations the message of the young American Republic she and her captains and crews so gallantly defended.

Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus,

by Roger C. Smith (Oxford University Press, New York NY, 1993, 325pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index; $35hc) Roger C. Smith's long-awaited Vanguard of Empire, a book on what we have learned from archaeology, old records and pictures of the actual design and nature of the ships of the early age of exploration, is a rewarding and substantial contribution to the literature, and one that makes engaging reading.

Information from five archaeological sites (where until recently there were literally none), and from textual sources is carefully coordinated, and is used to show the original language of some key bits of testimony. This last scholarly point disabused me of my half-formed notion that the extra lateen sail recorded in the Nina ' s second voyage to the Americas was not set on a fourth mast, but was merely a storm sail (for so I had thought)-1 learned that it was described as "contra mesana" (what the English would call "bonaventure mizzen") instead of just plain "mesana," like the sail preceding it in the inventory, and this clinched the case for a fourth mast on the Nifza, for me.

The book is strong on discussion of sources, and the chapter on the literature of the period is alone worth the price of the whole book. It is weaker and more hesitant in drawing conclusions from archaeological findings-admittedly no simple task. It is weakest in what might be called experiential archaeology, or the practicalities of navigation under sail. In no carping spirit let me note that I found multiple errors in Appendix A, "Nautical Terms." For example, the "tack" of a sail is defined as "the side of a square sail." This is worse than useless when you come to understand that "tack" denotes the lower weather comer of a squaresail and the leading lower comer SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

of a fore-and-aft sail.

With all its limitations, burkings of design questions, and erroneous observations at the experiential end of the spectrum of evidence we have on these old ships, this is a fine, solid, thoughtful work; the best we have on the subject or are likely to have for some time to come. Mr. Smith is to be commended for his resolute searching out of primary sources of information, and even the conservatism which makes him draw back from some (to this reader) obvious conclusions about ship design and performance, also saves his work from the taint of romanticism and jumped-up conclusions which has obscured real understanding of the ships of Columbus's era for centuries now.

And again, it is a good read; that, to me, shows the author is alive and sensitive to his subject on which we look forward to learning more from Mr. Smith.

Die Kogge von Bremen, Band I: Bauteile und Bauablauf (The Hanse Cog of Bremen, Vol. I: Structural Members and Construction Process),

by Werner Lahn (Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, Bremerhaven, and Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg, Germany, 1993, 250pp, illus, appen, plus boxed collection of37 reconstruction drawings and German-English glossary; DM 378) in German with English summaries for each chapter.

Due mainly to an amazing discovery of 1962, we know quite a bit now about the formidable cogs that dominated North European coastal trade in late Medieval times, before the ocean-going ship of the Age of Discovery. In the spring of 1380 the Weser River rose in flood. Its raging torrent swept away the hull of a not-quite-finished 80-ton cog from its building site on the Bremen waterfront, burying it in mud a few kilometers downstream. Nearly 600 years later, in October 1962, engineers dredging the river stumbled across its stout oaken hull-with results described in Die Kogge von Bremen. Published by the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven, this book sets forth in fascinating detail what has been learned of the design and construction of the vessel we had hitherto known only by its name "cog," and by stylized renditions in various town seals and coinage.

The cog was the ubiquitous workaday freighter of the Hanseatic League, during three centuries of Hanse dominance of SEA HISTORY 68, WINTER 1993- I 994

North European sea trade, from the midllOOs to the mid-1400s, when the type fell out of use, superseded by the more lissome hulk, as the Hanse themselves were to be superseded by a more open and variegated trading system with the dawning of the modern era 500 years ago.

The importance of the discovery is reflected in the studies it has generated, including the building and active sailing of two full-size replicas to learn the capabilities and limitations of the type.

And revived interest in the cog has turned up at least one accurate contemporary model. As Detlev Ellmers points out in an informative introduction to this work, churches, town halls and houses of the later Middle Ages had survived in many of the Hanse cities. "But no inhabitant of the 20th century," he notes, "had yet been confronted with a true cog, the merchant ship which accompanied and contributed to the growing fame and fortune of the Hanseatic League from 1159 on."

For anyone with any feeling for ships, this volume is an eye-opener, and, more than that, it opens a vanished world of ship design theory and construction in a critical era in the development of the modem sailing ships and international economy that has taken shape in the wake of its sailing.

"Shaky Ships": The Formal Richness of Chinese Shipbuilding, edited by Wim Johnson (Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum Antwerpen , Steenplein 1, 2000 Antwerpen 1, Belgium, 1993, 120pp, illus, biblio, gloss; Bfr 700) A wonderfully rich and provocative book from the National Maritime Museum of Antwerp sheds a broad, steady light on the mysteries of Chinese ship design and navigation, which for centuries were to Westerners like the other side of the moon-in that it was there, but it was unknown. The title of the work, which takes the form of a catalogue raisonee of the extensive Chinese ship model collections of the museum, is "Shaky Ships": The Formal Richness of Chinese Shipbuilding. As

the editors explained in a letter responding to my query, by "shaky" they meant awkward, unfamiliar, perhaps rickety-as Chinese ships do look to Western eyes. (As indeed they looked to me until I saw these marvelously adaptive craft navigating the shallows of the Huang Ho, and on one memorable occasion, hove to like gulls with their heads under their wing, weathering a bad blow in the cold, whitetoothed combers of the North Pacific.)

The focus of the work is on models prepared by the imperial Chinese government in the years immediately before 1900 for exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair. The discussion of the models is fascinating, and the accompanying essays on Chinese navigation, notably on the great voyages of the eunuch Zheng He from 1405 to 1422, are authoritative and illuminating, though tending too much (perhaps understandably) to the "gee whiz" school of description.

The irregular, sometimes asymmetrical shapes used in Chinese ship design contribute to the feelings of awkwardness that led the editors to the title "shaky ships." These shapes, unfamiliar to Western eyes, may indeed reflect a different picture of the universe, and a different adaptation to its challenges, than the Western cultures are accustomed to. But the whole of any ship design includes not just the physical shapes, as envisaged by the designer, but how they are used by the sailor. The late Stanley Gerr, a scholar and UN translator who had sailed in Yankee coasting schooners and in the full-rigged ship Tusitala under James Barker, once told me of the happy but ultimately unproductive hours he had spent with a friend on the Connecticut River, trying to work the long-stemmed sculling oar, the yuloh, as the Chinese boatmen work it. He never quite succeeded. When he told me this my jaw dropped. I had noticed the crooked oar in China, and watched for hours, on more than one occasion, as elderly Chinese women worked it, not for fun, but driving awkward-looking sampans, heavily laden, upriver over turbulent waters, with that same crazy oar.

Immersion in this wonderful volume will make many readers think, as it did me, that the true "shakiness" (or craziness) is not in the Eastern ships but in Western eyes.

-PETER STANFORD

43

Women of the Deep A Light History of the Mermaid

by Anthony Piccolo

U

nder the strain of voyaging, sailors through the ages have seen in the ocean the embodiment of their deepest desires and fears. On early maps the figure of the enchanting mermaid shared space with the hideous monsters and fearsome beasts who lay in wait for the explorers of unknown waters. The woman who lures men to their death has a rich life in the annals of sea history .

Where and how does the myth begin?

And why and how does it persist into our own time?

Columbus reported that he saw three mermaids on hi s first voyage to the Americas. On January 4, 1493, according to Purchas, the admiral observed in his log that the female forms "rose high out of the sea, but were not as beautiful as they are represented. " The creatures were probably dolphins or manatees, but Columbus, like other mariners of his day, was ready to see new marvels in every latitude. His mind was conditioned by medieval illustrations, fables , travelers ' accounts, and astrological prophecies about unseen territories far beyond the familiar coastlines of Europe.

The historian Arciniegas points out that Columbus's favorite book was Cardinal Pierre D 'Ailly 's Imago Mundi, a preposterous description of the unknown world by an early 15th-century "new age" philosopher. If, as D ' Ailly claimed, the lands of the "other hemisphere" were inhabited by giants, pygmies, dog-faced savages and Amazons, the seas around these lands could very likely teem with seductive creatures, half woman, half fish .

Cardinal D ' Ailly's book and the fantastic published narratives of Mandeville, "Prester John," Marco Polo and others were imaginative stimuli for early mermaid sightings among privileged explorers who could read. But for the vast majority of illiterate sailors, there were only superstition and the wild rumors that always circulated in the ports of Europe. The acute physical and emotional deprivation of the early sea voyage, added to these, could easily trigger fantasies and mutinous hallucinations, as some of the ships' logs confirm.

As far back as the first century AD, Pliny the Elder was convinced of the existence of mermaids or "Nereides," with bodies "rough and scaled all over."

But the full image, the classic form of the creature, was provided by the influential 5th-century Bestiary, of Physiologus. This treatise on animals and their natures was published and circulated throughout the world in many translations until 1724. In Physiologus, the mermaid is "a beast of the sea wonderfully shapen as a maid from the navel upward and a fish from the navel downward, and this beast is glad and merry in tempest, and sad and heavy in fair weather." The odd contrariety of her nature suggests a dark side developed and elaborated later by Christian writ-

ers, especially clerics.

By the middle of the 13th century, the mermaid was fully defined, physically and spiritually, in the annal s and theological encyclopaedias of Christian monks and scribes. One of these works, De Propietatibus Rerum, by Bartholomew Angel icus, made the mermaid a lethal seductress. Mermaids charmed seamen through sweet music. "But the truth is that they are strong whores," who lead men "to poverty and to mischief. " Typically, a mermaid lulled a crew to sleep, kidnapped a sailor, and took him to "a dry place" for sex. If he refused, "then she slayeth him and eateth his flesh ."

It is not surprising that priests and clerics were involved not only in the moral monitoring of mermaids but also

At left, an etching of the merman and mermaid of the Nil e, from the Hi stori a Monstrorum of Aldrovandi, 1599. Shown above is a more "scientific" inte1pretation, engraved in 1793 to illustrate a serious volume of natural history.

44

SEA HIISTORY 68, WINTER 1993-1994

The powder-horn scrimshaw at left shows the portrait of a mermaid as a British soldier serving at Stony Hill , Jamaica, in the 1820s, saw her in a Jamaican lagoon. From the collection of Ivor Noel Hume.

in many of the famous sightings, interpretations, and, ultimately , in the conversions of mermaids to Christianity.

The welfare of the mermaid soul was an issue of some controversy during and afterthe Middle Ages, and as early as the 6th century a mermaid caught off the northeast coast of Ireland was baptized, educated, and given the name " Saint Murgen" on some religious calendars.

The Church, of course, was always quick to appropriate and to modify pagan myths and beliefs to its own advantage among the folk. The mermaid could be useful as a fi gure of virtue or a figure of sin. A Carmelite monk, John Gerbrandus, recorded that in 1403 "a wyld woman" was washed through a broken dike in the Netherlands and was found by some milkmaids fl ailing her tail in the mud of a nearby embankment. Clothed and fed, she learned to spin wool with her webbed fingers. She was eventually take n to Haarlem, where she learned "to worship the cross" and to live, in speechless piety, for 15 years. The episode was verified by John Swan in hisSpeculumMundi( l 635).

Reli gion joined scientific inquiry in the account of seven mermaids caught in fi shnets off the coast of Ceylon in 1560.

A team of Jesuits and a physician named Bosquez, aide to the Viceroy of Goa, performed autopsies and publi shed their findin gs in the annual Relations of The Society of Jesus. They concluded that mermaids are anatomically and spiritually identical to humans.

The creatures were probably dugongs, Asian relatives of the American manatee; they had been spotted in the Indian Ocean as early as the 4th century ec by the Greek adventurer Megasthenes. But by 1560, human cultural ideas about mermaids were routinely confused with perceptions of common marine mammals.

From thi s intellectual climate the re emerged, in 1599, the freaki sh and sumptuously illustrated H istoria M onstrorum ,

by Ulysses Aldrovandi of Bologna. Thi s comprehensive catalogue of the animal SEAHISTORY68,WINTER 1993- 1994

world includes mermaids among the many other known "monsters," and in one famous illu stration features a merman and his mate reportedly observed embracing for two hours by a civil magistrate in the Nile Delta. Among the foremost zoologists of the Renaissance, Aldrovandi was essentially a collectorof curious reports. His work, viewed today, is a learned and grotesque compendium of organized ignorance. But how does it compare to first-hand ship-board sightings of these phenomena by wellknown explorers of the period?

In 1608, the English navigator Henry Hudson was skirting the polar ice off the arctic coast of Russia in his second attempt to find a northeast route to the spice markets of China. Near the coast of Nova Zembla, Hudson made his log entry of 15 June: This morning, one of our companie looking over board saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up , and by that time shee was close to the ship' s side, looking earnestly upon the men: a little after, a Sea came and overturned her: From the Na vill upward, her backe and breasts were like a woman's . .. her body as big as one of us; her skin very white; and long haire hanging down behinde, of colour blacke; in her going down they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of

a P orposse, and speckled like a M acrell.

The adduced emotion lends Hudson 's account a touch of poignancy. But couldn ' t this be a walrus? A seal? Not likely, according to the eminent Victorian biologist, P. H. Gosse, who declared in the l 860's that the mermaid might well be a new zoological species. Gosse commented that Hudson's cold-water mariners were too well-acquainted with seals and walruses to mistake them for anything else than "some form of being as yet unrecognized." In his Romance of Natural History (1861), Gosse was also enthusiastic over reports of "a unicorn" in Africa. " and the possibility of"a great anthropoid ape" in South America.

Six years after Hudson ' s voyage, another Engli sh captain, John Smith, spotted a mermaid in the Caribbean, "swimming about with all possible grace." At first he thought it was a woman , the upper part of her body being perfectly human . She had " large eyes , rather too round , a finely shaped nose (a little too short), wel I-formed ears, rather too long, and her long green hair imparted to her an original character by no means unattractive." Smith confessed that he had "already begun to experience the first effects of love," when the creature rolled suddenly, revealing that "from below the waist the woman gave way to the fi sh."

Throughout the centuries, however,

A mermaid on an early 18th-century delftware plate, pictured with the traditional comb and mirror. Photo courtesy of Garry Atkins.

45

~1UGHll1l<VAtf

MUSEUM & GARDENS l ~rutr of 8r~dwa.y &l)d ~or~.(ffl,

'1nder t.bo Mana«ement ofJllr. P. T· Barnum.

to Japan in the 1850 's, Andrew Steinmetz discovered that fishermen there made these curios, in a kind of cottage industry, from the corpses of monkeys and large fish.

Returning seamen, overtime, brought many of these bogus mermaids home as souvenirs; some found their way into the museums of Europe. In The Magic Zoo, Peter Costello notes that such a specimen was given to the respected marine biologist, Alistair Hardy, by a family whicb had owned and cherished it for generations. An X-ray of the corpse disclosed to Hardy the wires which held together the two halves. The British Museum acquired the tiny mermaid for its 1961 exhibition of famous fakes and frauds.

Combined with the pressures of travel, toil, isolation and the will to believe, the legend of the mermaid has distorted the perceptions of humans for hundreds of years. The certainty of people who saw her in the past acquires, in retrospect, an amusing quaintness; but it differs little, basically, from the certainty felt by contemporary witnesses to the movements of flying saucers and the monster of Loch Ness. Like many creatures of the imagination, the mermaid, in a harmless way, exemplifies the paradox that things unseen provide humanity with its most compelling visions. J,

the most impressive mermaid data was WO~Dl!lR OF TH£ WORLDll FOR O~"-l Wt:t::K MOBE!ll provided by the clergy. Christian missionaries in Africa were deeply con~---- - ......, ...

Nomrrous .PMrone J cerned when they discovered, in 1700, "'"'-·.

Wond!~"l!!..I!"clty J that native Angolans were catching mer;;J-UniurNI Onire t 4 maids and eating them. The discovery ~~...!:.::::....-~~ - · RE.U. raised a nagging theological question: since mermaids are at least half-human, :.::.~~..:..:..:....~ should acts of cannibalism against them NATURAL! TS Aod Sc~nli6Cl Ptt>Oftl be punishable by the Church? .,__ ........,_..,. ..................""'

In an episode that stirred great intelEXTRAORDINARY CREATION ....... lectual excitement in Europe, Dutch sailors caught a "sea wyf' off the coast of Borneo and kept herfor nearly a week in a large vat. This was the famous "Mermaid of Arriboine," five feet long, who from time to time " uttered little cries like those of a mouse." Her excrement, ex- A P. T. Barnum poster of 1842 . amined in the vat after she died, was found to resemble that ofa kitten. Deeply eyes blue, the mouth and lips of a natural touched by this creature 's picture in a form."In 1811,afarmernamedM' Isaac book, the Russian Czar, Peter the Great, saw a mermaid, " with very hollow eyes," traveled incognito to Amsterdam in 1717 near a cliff in Kintyre. The creature to ask the book's publisher for verifica- stroked and washed its breast and dextion of the facts surrounding the terously combed back its wind-blown mermaid 's captivity. hair; its fan-shaped tail , meanwhile, was The desire to find an authentic mer- " in tremulous motion." maid extended unabated into the "Age of But a much more celebrated episode Reason" and numerous European publi- occurred in 1830 on the small island of cations featured accounts of sightings and Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. A contact with the creatures. In 1739, for farmwoman cutting seaweed on the example, The Scots Magazine carried a shore, was startled to see a few feet from report that the crew of the ship Halifax, her the fish-like form of " a woman in short on rations in the East Indies, had miniature" happily turning somersaults. caught and eaten several mermaids. Upon Several men failed to capture the creaarriving in London, the sailors described ture as she splashed away, but a boy how, when taken, the creatures moaned struck her in the back with a rock. Days "with great sensibility." The flesh, the later, the mermaid 's dead body washed men said, tasted like veal. ashore. The dainty corpse attracted a By the close of the 18th century, the large crowd. A careful examination was achievements of Newton , Priestley , performed and documented by local ofWatt, Owen, and numerous other theo- ficials. Everyone agreed that this was a rists and scientists of the "Age of Rea- mermaid and therefore partly human. son" would seem to foreshadow a loss of As a result, there was a complete burial interest in mermaids. But far from wan- in a shroud and a coffin made by order of ing in this period, the romance of the sea the chief magistrate of the island. stimulated new heights of enthusiasm The detailed examination of "The for mermaids in people of all classes. As Mermaid of Benbecula" was published Benwell and Waugh note in Sea En- solemnly in 1900 by the distinguished chantress, belief in the mermaid sub- Gaelic scholar, Alexander Carmichael. sided, but interest in her continued and It reveal s that the upper part of the creaeven increased in the 19th century, where ture was "about the size of a well-fed she remained a fascinating and enig- child of three or four years of age, with matic phenomenon. an abnormally developed breast. The Perhaps because of the comparatively hair was long, dark and glossy, while the high rate ofliteracy in Scotland, sightings skin was white, soft, and tender. The there are especially detailed and factual. lower part of the body was like a salmon, In 1797, a Caithness schoolmaster, Wil - but without the scales. " liam Munro, saw a mermaid sitting on a Throughout the 19th century, on both rock proudly combing her shoulder- sides of the Atlantic, numerous fake length hair. The forehead was round , mermaids were exhibited, including the "the face plump, the cheeks ruddy, the one owned by P. T. Barnum. On a visit

Further Reading Mermaids are treated comprehensively in Sea Enchantress: The Tale of the Mermaid and Her Kin , by Gwen Benwell and Arthur Waugh (New York, 1965) . 1 am also indebted to Peter Costello, The Magic Zoo (New York, 1979) . Foran exhaustive study ofmammalian controversies in general, see Bernard Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea Serpents (New York, 1968). For Columbus, seeG.Arciniegas [op . cit.] (New York,1986), and "Columbus his first Voyage ... " in Purchas Hi s Pilgrimes (London, 1625).

Purchas includes "Divers Voyages and Northern Discoveries of Henry Hudson" ; see also, Llewelyn Powys, Henry Hudson (New York , 1928) . For the Bestiary of Physiologus, see T. H. White' s rendering, The Book of Beasts (London, 1954). References to o ther sources not cited in this note are from e ither Benwell and Waugh or from Costello.

46

SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994

·----

MERMAID! Ofher

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Dr. Anthony Piccolo is a professor of English on the f acuity ofManhattanville College in Purchase, New York .

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C APT. EDWARD SKANTA

M A RSHALL STREIBERT

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M ICHAEL J . RYAN

M EIGHER

HARRY OAKES

C A PT. CLAUDE D. PHILLIPS

CAPT. P AUL R US HKIND

G EORGE SIMPSON

R OBERT G. STONE,

S. CHRISTOPHER

R OBERT B. O ' BRIEN,

MARCOS JoHN P SARROS

GABRIEL R OSENFELD

CHARLES D. SIFERD

CDR VICTOR B . STEVEN,

CLYTIE M EAD

N EW Y ORK YACHT C LUB

MRS. GODWIN J. PELISSERO

AURA-LEE E. PIITENGER, PHD

SANDY H OOK PILOTS, NY/NJ MR.

WILLI AM H. McGEE

MICHAEL M URRO

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DONE. SANDERS

GEORGE R. SLUKER,

DANI EL R . SUKIS

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BRUCE SWEDIEN

EDMUND B . THORNTON FOUNDATION CARL W . TIM PSO , JR . J AMES D. T URNER A LFRED T YLER, II R AYMOND E . W ALLACE R AYNER W EIR CAPT. JoHN W ESTREM LoRD WHITE OF H ULL, KBE R. E . WI LCOX E . ANDREW WI LDE, JR. CAPT. RI CHARD G. WILEY JAMES H . Y OCUM

GIANT HEAVY DUTY

BOAT & TRUCK TARPAULINS SHIP MODELS-POND MODELS bought, repaired & sold POND MODELS OUR SPECIALTY Signal Cannons, Barometers and Telescopes bought & sold.

GULFSTREAM MODELS Box 761 , W. Falmouth, MA 02574 305-344-7007

BILL CORKHILL OVER 4,000 NAUTICAL BOOKS Send Wants List • No Catalog 21 Country Club Rd. Groton CT 06340 Tel: (203) 445-0883

Russian Ship Chronometers Now available for $1 ,395.00. Hand made, new, two year guarantee.

Dimas Trading : 1260 Huntington Dr. , Suite 107, S. Pasadena, CA 91030.

Phone 1-800-280-0680

12X16 .•.. $12 16X20 ..•. $19 18X24 .... $26

18X32 ...• $33 20X30 ...• $36 26X40 .... $58

A s a part of an advertising test, North American Tarp Mfg. will send any of the above size tarps lo anyone who re ads and responds to this test before the next 30 days. Each giant heavy duty tarpau lin is constructed of extra tough, 100% waterproof, high density fabric and has nylon reinforced, roped, double-locked stitched hems, electronically welded seams. with 4 (1/2 dia. ) metal grommets every 3 feet all around and reinforced triangular corner patches so it ca n be roped down and secured extra tight. Spec~ically designed for heavy duty uses on trucks carrying heavy duty bulk and pallet riding materials, tractors, extra heavy machinery, awnings, tent s, sports equipment, grain, hay, tools or any equipment for industrial or private use, kept outdoors in hot or sub freezing weather. Each tarpaulin is accompanied with a LIFETIME guarantee that it must pertorm 100% or it will be repl aced free . LIMIT (10) any size tarp per address. Add $7 handling and crating for each tarpau lin requested. Send appropriate sum together with your name and address to: Dept. T 1664 North American Tarp Mfg 7095 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 761 Los Angeles CA 90028. Or for fastest service from any part of the country:

CALL FREE 7 Days a Week , 24 Hours a Day

1-800-374-2030 DEPT. T 1649 llAVI

TOUI

CllDll

C AtD

11.lDl

VISA

I M C.

STOBART Sea Heritage Foundation

Has most of John's rare seldom seen prints incl:

Mystic Seaport Moonlight 3outh Street (o ld & new) Maiden Lane Cinncinnatti Natchez Savannah Vicar of Bray JM White Natchez Under the Hill He111y Hyde The Flying Cloud & others: & the current prints We ship by UPS. If you are not 100 % satisfied we return our mone intantl without hassle.

Call (718) 343-9575/(800)247-3262 for brochure of the newest prints.

Support the Normandy Convoy of 1994!

The greatest fleet of ships ever assembled came need your support to make this historic trip, to help to the beaches of Normandy in Northern France remind the world of the price of freedom-and that on 6 June 1944 to land the Allied armies that went on the American spirit that helped win World War II is to liberate Europe from Nazi domination. still alive today!

To commemorate this supreme event of World The Empire Region of the Navy League of the War II, a convoy of three US merchant ships, United States stands foursquare behind the Norveterans of World War II, will steam across the mandy Convoy. And as one who was Mate on the ocean to appear off the beaches where young SS William N. Pendleton, a Liberty ship at the Americans stormed ashore 50 years ago. The Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944 to land Amerithree ships are manned by volunteers who main- cans under the searing fire of Nazi guns, I urge all tain them as memorials to the merchant mariners who care for American ideals and history to supof the war, who suffered a higher casualty rate port the Normandy Convoy in the same generous than the uniformed services in the battle to keep spirit that these ships are sailed with today-to honor the wartime sea lanes open. our yesterdays and affirm our resolve for the future.

The Liberty ships Jeremiah O'Brien of San RICHARD w. SCHEUING, President Francisco and John W. Brown of Baltimore, and Empire Region the Victory ship Lane Victory of Los Angeles Navy League of the United States CONTRIBUTIONS: For the John W. Brown and Lane Victory, send your check to: American Merchant Mariners' Memorial, Inc. 65 Broadway, New York NY 10006 For the Jeremiah O'Brien, send your check to: National Liberty Ship Memorial Fort Mason Building A, San Francisco CA 94123.

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MODEL SUCCESS STORY' "The Maritime Prepositioning Sh ip 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

AMERICAN

* MARITIME

*

OFFICERS

AFFILIATED WITH THE AFL-CIO MARITIME TRADES DEPARTMENT 650 FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN, N.Y. 11232 (718) 965-6700

*

MICHAEL McKAY PRESIDENT

JOHN F. BRADY EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT