A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy

by Thomas J. Cutler

  In 1812, a new threat arose when Britain challenged the sovereignty of the new nation, and the United States again went to war for its independence and its honor. At the time, Britain’s Royal Navy was unquestionably the most powerful one in the world; the fledgling U.S. Navy did not seem to have any chance against so formidable a force. Even though a fleet engagement between the two navies was out of the question, that did not stop courageous American Sailors from engaging the British in ship-to-ship actions—and winning! A series of victories—USS Essex captured HMS Alert, frigate Constitution defeated the British frigate Guerrière, and USS Wasp took HMS Frolic—stunned the British public and drove up insurance rates at Lloyd’s of London. The next victory belonged to USS United States; she not only defeated the frigate HMS Macedonian but also actually brought her back to New York City to ultimately serve in the American Navy. The capture of a British warship created a huge sensation, raising American spirits at a time when the war was not going well on other fronts.

  Such a celebrated beginning seemed to promise a glorious career for the ship bearing the name of her country. But her luck changed. Never again would she fight a major battle. No more would she be the subject of newspaper headlines and the talk of the social circuit. She was destined for an ignominious end.

  After the damage from her glorious battle had been repaired, United States left New York to rejoin the war, accompanied by USS Hornet and her former adversary—HMS Macedonian—who had also been repaired and was now christened USS Macedonian. Within a week, however, the three ships were chased into New London, Connecticut, by a powerful British squadron, and there they were forced to remain until the end of the war.

  The frigate USS United States battling the British frigate HMS Macedonian. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

  A chance to get back into action seemed imminent when America declared war on Algiers in February 1815 and United States was assigned to a squadron preparing to head for the Mediterranean to fight the so-called Barbary pirates of North Africa. But United States was in a state of bad repair from her long stay in New London under blockade, and she was unable to leave with the rest of the squadron. When she at last got to the Mediterranean, she remained there until 1819 but never participated in anything other than patrols. While her presence in North African waters was important, it was a bit of an inglorious comedown for the famous frigate that had once prevailed against the Royal Navy.

  In the years that followed, United States would go into and out of service, periodically deploying to various parts of the world, participating in antislavery patrols, but never doing anything like the action of her early days. Herman Melville—later the renowned author of Moby Dick and other classic novels—sailed in her for a time. Whether it was more a reflection of him or the ship he served in is a matter of conjecture, but he had little of a positive nature to report when he chronicled his experiences in White-Jacket.

  From 1849 until 1861, United States rotted away in Norfolk, Virginia, and might well have ended her days that way except for the outbreak of the American Civil War. On 20 April 1861, the Navy Yard at Norfolk was captured by Confederate troops. Before leaving the yard, Union Sailors burned the ships that could not be gotten under way. But they failed to torch United States, believing it unnecessary to destroy the decayed relic. The Confederates, pressed for vessels in any kind of condition, repaired the ship and commissioned her CSS United States. “Confederate States Ship United States” seemed a bit odd to many, so she was often referred to as CSS Confederate States. Beyond her seaworthy days, she nonetheless was fitted out with a deck battery of nineteen guns for harbor defense and served as a receiving ship for newly reporting Sailors of the rebel navy.

  In this role, she served her new owners well, but when the Confederates were forced to abandon the Navy Yard in May 1862, they decided to sink her in the middle of the Elizabeth River to form an obstruction to oncoming Union vessels. Surprisingly, the old girl did not give up without a fight. The ancient timbers of the frigate were found to be so strong and well preserved that the men trying to scuttle her ruined a whole box of axes in the attempt. Ultimately, they had to bore through her hull from inside before she would settle to the muddy bottom of the river.

  Once Norfolk was again under Federal control, she was raised and towed to the Navy Yard. There she remained until December 1865, when the Bureau of Construction and Repair’s earlier order—that she be broken up and her wood sold—was at last carried out.

  It was a sad ending for a ship whose beginnings had been so promising. It was also somehow unsettling for a ship with so important a name to have gone the way she had. But no one seemed to have given much thought to the matter at the time and for a long time after.

  Then, on 25 September 1920, the keel was laid for a new Lexington-class battle cruiser in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and the new ship was given the name United States. It seemed for a while that the old meaningful name was to be resurrected, and hopefully the glorious heritage of her predecessor would pass on to this new powerful ship now under construction.

  But it was not to be. World politics intervened, and on 8 February 1922, with the ship barely 12 percent complete, construction was halted in compliance with the Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armaments. This treaty had been signed by the United States and other world naval powers in an attempt at arms limitation with the hope of preventing future war. The unfinished hulk of the would-be United States was sold for scrap in October of the following year. (Ironically, the treaty also ultimately ended up as a meaningless scrap of paper when some years later the world’s greatest sea war was fought on all the seven seas.)

  In the spring of 1949 the keel was laid for another United States. This one was to be a “super carrier,” designed to meet the challenges of the developing superpower confrontation with the Soviet Union by her ability to launch long-range aircraft equipped with atomic weapons.

  This time internal politics intervened. Just five days after her keel-laying, work was terminated at the order of the secretary of defense, who had decided that aircraft carriers were no longer needed because U.S. Air Force bombers alone were capable of fighting the Soviet Union should war come. This tipped off a major battle between the two services, provoking Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan to resign in protest and causing what has come to be known as the “revolt of the admirals,” when senior officers in the Navy put their careers on the line to express their serious concerns before Congress. It was not a happy time for the nation or its defense establishment. Chief of Naval Operations Louis Denfield was relieved of his command as a result of the “revolt,” and the war of words between the Navy and Air Force continued for some time. The debate was finally ended when North Korea invaded South Korea, and U.S. aircraft carriers played a vital role in holding off the enemy onslaught until more forces could arrive to launch a successful counterstrike at Inchon.

  An artist’s sketch of what was supposed to be the “super carrier” USS United States. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

  All of this started when the name United States was once again assigned to a Navy ship! Talk of a jinx began to circulate.

  These superstitious rumblings had not yet quieted when again, in November 1993, another United States was laid down. This one was to be an even bigger, more capable ship—a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. But fourteen months after construction was begun, the decision was made to rename the ship USS Harry S. Truman, to honor the thirty-third president of the United States. While few debated the wisdom of naming a ship after the commander in chief who had first gone to war against Communism—and there was nothing sinister or deliberate in thwarting plans for another United States—for those who subscribe to such things, it was not a great leap to imagine that a jinx was at work.

  To this day, there has never been another ship in the U.S. Navy named USS United States. Blaming a jinx may not be logical, but it certainly seems to fit this situation.

  There is nothing new here. Fa
r from it. Among the most prevalent legends of the sea is the idea of a jinxed or cursed ship, a vessel that is destined for bad luck, either by chance or from some supernatural cause. Tales from the biblical story of Jonah to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” reinforce the idea in our culture. Some Sailors of the day tried to explain the disappearance of Cyclops as the inevitable outcome for a “jinxed ship,” pointing out that the ship had experienced other problems, including an accident in which a Sailor had been killed by the ship’s propellers. More modern Sailors point to an imagined Kennedy-family jinx as the cause behind the Kennedy-Belknap collision.

  In fact, seasoned Sailors know better. They know that jinxes can be explained in two ways. First is the luck factor. One does not have to be very old and wise to realize that life is not always fair and equitable. As the saying goes, “Bad things happen to good people”; likewise, bad things can happen to good ships. Despite her great reputation, USS Watertight might be caught in an unpredicted storm and lose her search radar antenna—even though the shipyard did a flawless job of installing it and the ship’s electronics technicians were meticulous about maintaining it.

  Bad things also can happen to “bad” ships. The other factor that contributes to the jinx idea is almost as difficult to measure or quantify in any scientific way, yet “salty” Sailors will swear by it. The “personality factor” of ships has much to do with how they are perceived by others and something to do with how much good or bad “luck” comes their way. Any experienced teacher will insist that different classes have different “personalities.” “My ten o’clock class is reserved and studious, while the one at eleven-thirty has more discipline problems but is also livelier during class discussions.”

  Just as classrooms full of students take on composite personalities, so do ships. The word on the waterfront might be that USS Watertight is a “cando” ship, always ready to carry out any assigned mission speedily and efficiently, while USS Neversink is always a “little behind the power curve.” These “personalities”—actually reflections of leadership, morale, and other factors—have a lot more to do with what happens to a ship than does anything supernatural. Neversink is more likely to run aground or lose a man overboard than is Watertight because the latter is better run, with a well-trained crew and better leaders who keep morale high.

  While jinxes are no more real than are bogeymen and hobgoblins, there is something in our nature that makes the possibility of such things attractive. Most likely it is the need for explanations and order. There is something more satisfying in knowing there is a reason—however unscientific—for an occurrence or series of occurrences than in having to accept that it is just random, meaningless coincidence, beyond any laws or control.

  As long as strange but true things continue to occur, however, there will be legends and myths, whispers of jinxes, and tales of the supernatural. In truth, it is not altogether surprising in light of one final factor. Anyone who has been to sea and peered into its mysterious depths cannot help but wonder what lies below. Any Sailor who has watched the changing moods of the sea, or seen the dancing stars of luminescence in a ship’s wake, or heard the ominous wail of the wind in a squall, will be tempted to think of powers beyond those of simple physics. The Sailor’s realm is a hauntingly beautiful and sometimes ominous place to live and work and dream and wonder.

  Lucky Bag

  10

  Maintaining good order, discipline, and cleanliness aboard ship has been a high priority in the U.S. Navy from its earliest days. One method for achieving these things was the tradition of the “lucky bag.” As the tradition goes, any personal items left out in the berthing compartment (“gear adrift”) were confiscated by the master at arms and placed in a special bag. These items were later auctioned off—the funds used for the general welfare of the crew—thereby making those Sailors fortunate enough to obtain new items for relatively little money “lucky.”

  This practice, of course, led to a varied assortment of unrelated items in the bag. Together, as representations of the personal lives of the Sailors who once owned them, these items might tell something about a ship’s crew. Here, too, in this chapter are a variety of items unrelated except that they are all parts of the heritage of the U.S. Navy. Together, they tell some important and interesting things about this Navy.

  They Also Serve

  It was several minutes past midnight on 15 July 1967. A quarter moon had earlier slipped behind heavy clouds gathering over the South China Sea. The resulting darkness was welcomed by the crew of trawler number 459, making their way along the coast of South Vietnam near Cape Batangan; the darker it was, the less chance they would be spotted by American or South Vietnamese coastal patrol units. The Communist vessel was laden with ninety tons of arms, ammunition, and various other supplies, enough to keep a Vietcong regiment going for several months.

  What these infiltrators did not know was that the destroyer escort USS Wilhoite had been lurking just beyond the horizon, keeping track of the North Vietnamese trawler by radar ever since a Navy P-2 aircraft had discovered her four days earlier. Because the trawler had no radar of her own, her master had no way of knowing that he was being stalked.

  Trawler 459 had been moving up and down the South Vietnamese coast for days, carefully staying out in international waters, waiting for the right moment to run to shore undetected. Her crew had placed fishing nets on her decks to disguise her real purpose.

  Unaware of her stalker and under the cover of the darkness, the trawler made her move, turning toward the shore and heading for the mouth of the Sa Ky River. At first, all was quiet, and the Communist infiltrators must have been feeling optimistic. Their hopes were soon shattered, however, when out of the shadows emerged the ominous shapes of several vessels of varying size. The Americans had sprung a trap. A Swift boat, the patrol gunboat USS Gallup, and the Coast Guard cutter Point Orient joined Wilhoite. All were elements assigned to the Coastal Surveillance Force (dubbed “Operation Market Time”).

  Illumination flares suddenly glared out of the darkness, bathing the sea in a ghostly light, and a loudspeaker blared out a call for the intruder to heave to and surrender. But the trawler maintained course and speed in a desperate run for the shore. Two of the U.S. vessels opened fire, sending hyphenated tracers across the Communist ship’s bow. This warning too was ignored. The on-scene commander gave the order to engage, and six .50-caliber machine guns, two mortars, and a 3-inch/50-caliber gun opened fire on the North Vietnamese trawler. The intruder returned fire with her 12.7-mm deck guns and a 57-mm recoilless rifle. The fight was on.

  The trawler was soon taking the worst of it. The incessant fire of the American vessels chewed mercilessly at her hull and superstructure. When two helicopter gunships arrived, the enemy’s fate was sealed. Soon, fires raged from stem to stern on the hapless ship.

  U.S. Navy Swift boats were an important element of Operation Market Time during the Vietnam War. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

  The trawler ran aground near the mouth of the Sa Ky River and continued to burn throughout the night, the flames reflecting off the clouds of the tropical night sky in an eerie pyrotechnic dance. In the morning, when the Americans were able to board the enemy ship, they were amazed to find that several tons of ammunition had not ignited and were still intact.

  It had been a successful operation by any standard. By waiting until the enemy vessel had moved into the territorial waters of South Vietnam, the Americans had adapted to the restrictions placed upon them by international law. By remaining over the horizon while stalking the enemy, the U.S. Sailors had put their technological advantage to good tactical use. By ferociously engaging the intruder when the time came, they ensured that the mission was successfully accomplished and that important supplies would not be delivered to enemy units ashore.

  But there was another—less glamorous, but no less important—aspect to this story. In an article published in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Pr
oceedings magazine in September 1968, the commander of the operation, Charles Stephan, described what happened and gave appropriate credit to the warriors who fought the battle and prevailed. He also noted that maintaining the Market Time barrier against other possible infiltrators was extremely important. In that light, he added: “But a special word of praise is in order for the Pledge [a U.S. minesweeper on patrol nearby] and those Swift boats that patrolled within eye and earshot of the action, and, overcoming with exemplary discipline, an almost irrepressible urge to join the battle, maintained the integrity of their patrols. They also serve.”

  Commander Stephan’s words illustrate an easily overlooked aspect of the U.S. Navy’s heritage. This book and many others focus a great deal of attention on heroism in battle and exemplary performance in stressful situations. While this is appropriate—the Navy exists to be ready for those moments when defending the nation requires extraordinary feats—it does not properly acknowledge that many Sailors, through no fault of their own, are never confronted with those extraordinary situations that we love to read about. Yet without those who day in and day out do the ordinary, there would be no extraordinary to celebrate.

  As Commander Stephan pointed out, they also serve who maintain uneventful patrols when, not far away, a major battle is raging. They also serve who run the oilers and the ammunition ships all over the world to keep the warships supplied with what they need. They also serve who fly the CODs out to the carriers, delivering mail from home and aircraft maintenance parts. They also serve who provide medical care, cook meals, repair showers, keep pay records, update software, swab decks, lay down fixes, build runways in jungles, gather intelligence, man lecterns, lubricate machinery, splice lines, prepare correspondence, contribute to charity events, drive vehicles ashore, and steer the ship at sea.