There we were at NAVSCOLDIVSALV…praying we one day would be worthy of the title “Diving Officer.”

It was cold, it was wet, the MKV gear was not for the faint of heart, yet, in our (mostly) youthful exuberance, seemed to be worrying about the next meal.

Those days on the Diving Stations on the barge moored in the Anacostia River were long, beginning about 0600, ending about 1630, with a set of calisthenics on each end, and diving once, maybe twice each work days wearing a spun copper hat, and the rest of the grab to round out 198 lbs…no typo there…oh, and did I mention the Potomac had frozen over? The “playground” we were using refsed to, due to the copious amounts of entrained matter…today we would call it grossly polluted….

One day, while on momentary break for lunch, one of our hopeful number surveyed his tuna sandwich with some (but not enough) suspicion, as it had resided since just before 0600 that morning, in the locker room, which, was well heated with steam. Anyhow, Cloe decided he was hungry (the days were tough on us growing boys), so he hammered the sandwich, not giving it much thought for the environmental “issues.”

He had been tending all morning, and had yet to make his one dive…and later he did. The dives by then lasted about an hour, less if you had lots of manual dexterity and a capable mind for visualization, since no light penetrated the pollutionsilt.

“Topside, Red Diver. I think I’m gonna be sick!” came the message from 30 some feet bleow about 20 minutes into his dive.

“Red Diver, Topside. You better not puke in your helmet.”

The hand signals from the instructors let us know to heave around smartly on his umbilical and comm line, so as to get him to the ladder very soon. We got him up and on the bench, disaster, of the most smelly kind, was averted, but not before we all got a good laugh out of it and the rights to bring the subject up regularly…which we did…

Moral of the “sea story:” You know, don’t leave you mayonnaise laden sandwich sit out in the heat, even if it is cloder than the inside of your refrigerator outside.

Before you begin: Don’t forget Eagle1’s Sunday Ship History!

Today, a man I figured may have had more prominence in US Navy History than I have been exposed to: Captain Isaac Hull.

Captain Hull, I find was present at many more significant battles in our early history as a Nation than just as the Captain of the USS CONSTITUTION during the famous battle against the HMS Guerrière’s on August 19th, 1812. Born in Derby, CT on March 9, 1773, he was the son of a mariner and regularly accompanied his father to sea for local and longer distance sailings to the West Indies. HIs father died while he was young , and he was adopted by his uncle, William Hull, a veteran of many battles of the Revolutionary War.Beginning his own life at sea as a merchant sailor, Issac Hull had commanded several merchants ships during the 1790s, losing some to the French.

Earning a commission in the young Navy in 1798 as a Lieutenant, he served the US Navy for many years to come.His first assignment was aboard the USS CONSTITUTION. As a result, he would have seen action in the Western Atlantic during the Quasi-Wars with France.

In 1805, Isaac Hull was the captain of the USS ARGUS in the Squadron commanded by Commodore James Barron, stationed in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars. Here we see Lt. Issac Hull becoming part of the legendary beginnings of the US Marine Corps. The ARGUS was tasked to deliver William Eaton, an secret agent for the US, along with 8 Marines and supplies to Egypt, in a mission that would begin the US’ first land war on foreign soil. One of the Marines embarked on ARGUS was Lt Presley O’Bannon. On April 27th, 1805, after Mr. Eaton had raised an Arab and Christian Army to help get Hamet Karamali back into power in Tripoli (now Libya) and marched west to the outskirts of Derna, the USS ARGUS, accompanied by USS NAUTILUS (Lt O.H. Perry commanding) and USS HORNET, with now Master Commander Hull in command, provided naval gunfire support, while Eaton, O’Bannon and their army stormed the city from landward.

Certainly, Master Commandant Isaac Hull played a significant role in making the history we know of the Barbary Wars, as well as his later exploits as Captain of the USS CONSTITUTION. In the early days of the War of 1812, sailing from Annapolis in July after re-coppering the bottom of CONSTITUTION, Capt Hull almost lost the ship to a far superior force of an entire British Squadron, comprised of 4 frigates and a 64 gun battleship. The story of the escape from enemy forces is told in “Six Frigates” by Ian Toll, in great detail. Not having the wind to retreat, the crew put the boats in the water and used kedge anchors and the ship’s capstans to pull the ship away from the British. For three days, the becalmed warships fought for any slight advantage, yet remained out of effective gunfire range of one another. The crew of the CONSTITUTION did not rest the entire time, being needed to row, man guns, or the capstan bars to save themselves and their ship.

A month later, Captain Hull would show his skill as a warship skipper, soundly beating Captain Dacares of the HMS Guerrière’s, one of the ship’s that had hounded CONSTITUTION in July.

Captain Hull went from the CONSTITUTION to command the Portsmouth Navy Yard at Kittery, ME, where the construction of the USS WASHINGTON, the US Navy’s first 74 gun battle ship was begun. This, it seems, was a task fit for someone with courage and constitution for battle. from the website SeacoastNH:

When Hull arrived at the new federal yard he discovered a miniscule facility with only a few buildings, not a single guard or defensive cannon and just 18 men.

Isaac Hull was unshaken. He had done the impossible before. A year before, pursued near New Jersey by five ships from the world’s finest navy, Hull gave the British fleet the slip. Then with the American fleet outnumbered 100 ships to one, he pitted the USS CONSTITUTION dead against HMS GURRIERE outside Boston in August 1812. When the smoke cleared, the American ship had won the battle, puncturing the Royal Navy’s claim to invincibility. It was largely a morale victory, but just the boost a politically divided young country needed. His surviving ship became known as “Old Ironsides”.

Still the War of 1812 raged on. Before it was over the British would torch the new nation’s capital city of Washington. Even as Washington burned, Hull was building the USS WASHINGTON, the name eventually assigned to his 74-gun project. Despite the crude shipbuilding conditions there, Hull’s initial assessment of Portsmouth Harbor vibrated with enthusiasm. He highly approved of the government’s chosen site on 58-acre Fernald’s Island on the Maine side of the swiftly flowing Piscataqua River. Sheltered, yet close to the sea in a deepwater port, Portsmouth Yard was more convenient, he wrote, “than any Yard belonging to the United States.”

But building WASHINGTON quickly became a political land battle rivaling anything Hull had experienced at sea.
[…]

More incredible details on the effort to get the WASHINGTON built are there…read them!

Hull later was shortly on the Board of Navy Commissioners, then commanded the Boston Navy Yard, before taking the Pacific Squadron, operating in the Pacific Ocean. Following that seagoing command, he ran the Washington Navy Yard, and finally was assigned as the Mediterranean Squadron Commander. Two years after his retirement in 1841, he died on Feb 13th, 1843.

I began this post saying I wondered why this man has not been had a more prominent place in daily naval history. During my years of service, I knew of the USS HULL (DD-945), mostly because she was the test platform for the Mk 71 8″ Gun. Based on the information I have come across in the last few days, between reading “Six Frigates,” seeing a History Channel show on the Tripolean War, and finding other websites about Isaac Hull, it certainly appears he was one of the most experienced ship commanders of all the many names of the early American Naval heros, but he also managed to grasp a difficult problem of building large ships and get the job done well, despite disputes, enemy blockades and infighting.

While five Navy vessels have been named for him, none of them were “Class” ships (those who were the first of a type of ship, and therefore the others in the class would be all associated with the first on, such as the SPRUANCE Class destroyers):

• USS COMMODORE HULL – sidewheeled steam gunboat – 1862-1865
• USS HULL (DD-7) – 1902-1919. DD-7 spent most of her years in the Pacific Squadron, but moved to Norfolk, VA in 1918 and made anti-submarine patrols off the East Coast.
• USS HULL (DD-330) – CLEMSON Class DD – 1921-1930
• USS HULL (DD-350) – FARRAGUT Class DD – 1934 -1944. This ship was stationed at Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec, 1941 and fired her AA batteries, despite being moored to t Destroyer Tender for repairs, at the Japanese aircraft. She sailed to escort USS ENTERPRISE (CV-2) back into Pearl Harbor. She participated in the Guadalcanal landings, screening cruisers. In April 43, she was part of the force supporting the amphibious assault on Kiska, providing gunfire support to the landing force. Other combat actions included Wake Island, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, Truk and the famous “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” and the invasion of Guam (July 21st, 1944). This HULL was lost in one of the most tragic accidents in our Navy’s history, the loss of ships during the typhoon in the pacific that struck ADM Halsey’s battle force on 18 December, 1944. In a related post regarding the uparmoring of HMMVEES, I blogged about similar issues of the FARRAGUT Class DDs in early WWII, that contributed significantly to the loss of life in this maritime disaster. The book, “Typhoon: The Other Enemy” by C. Raymond Calhoun (who was the CO of a FARRAGUT Class DD that did survive the storm, tells an incredible story, worth reading for any seagoing professional.

• USS HULL (DD-945) – 1958-1983. This HULL made six deployments to Vietnam, conducting gunfire support, search and rescue, and carrier escort duties. In 1974 and 1975, she was the test platform for the 8″/55cal gun mount, originally envisioned for the SPRUANCE Class Destroyers main battery. While I only heard sea stories of the testing as a junior officer, it seemed the MK68 Gunfire control system was not well suited for the task, thereby degrading the accuracy of the firings. Rumor had it that the Chief Gunner’s mate would apply some “Kentucy Windage” to the firing equation and became a pretty good shot, but the fact that the electronics weren’t up to the task ruled out his personal corrections. Additionally, the forecastle structure had it’s limitations, since the ship hadn’t been designed for such weights on the gun roller path. Once more, rumor had it accuracy suffered. Net result: The program was canceled and the SPRUANCEs went to sea with 5″ guns, which, ironically, were also designed to be light weight, in order to be installed aboard the PF-109/FFG-7 class frigates as the main gun.

To wrap up, it seems odd that we have never elevated Isaac Hull to greater visibility, given his earned reputation as a superior sailor, captain, leader and shipbuilder. I think it is a disgrace that a single DDG-51 could not have been found to honor his history, yet we can manage to name them after living admirals, who’s greatest contribution to the Navy was to manage to get AEGIS installed on many ships. It used to be you had to be dead to have a ship named for you. In the past decades, that trend has obviously changed. At least we will soon see the USS JASON DUNHAM at sea.

I know…everyone is busy (except you retired folk), but today, like the rest of the week will be busy getting orders back for Labor Day to the customers.

I’ll point you elsewhere to feed your need to read:

If you’re not already a fan of the weekly series of “Flight Deck Friday” and you love aviation history, SteelJaw Scribe takes an every 7 day journey down this path in a Naval way. This week, the Navy’s first jet!

CDR Salamander, that mysterious active duty officer provides glimpses of exceptional devotions to duty in naval history in his long running “Fullbore Friday” series, most times the subject being on the US, sometimes engaging stories of navies of other nations. This week: USS Harry Lee (AP-17/APA-10). So what’s an auxiliary got to do with showing some guts? Click here and find out.

I’m off to work, all the while considering how the Navy is turning into a sea going Air Force with such grand adventures as this (damn touchy feely types!) and, how the body count rises, yet we can’t seem to deploy weapons that might cut it down…oh, yeah, on both sides of the equation, for fear of a bad report on CNN to the world, full of ridiculous assertions as discussed here (damn lawyers!).

Now all we need is more “lifer” (and I do mean that in a derogatory way) Congresscritters to pretend they are the President, safely behind the fact they are not the one who has to not only make incredibly complex decisions, but will be the one to shoulder forever, even beyond the grave, the responsibility for such judgment to make the news day complete. Those after the psychologists who tell us what went wrong at VT by not treating our adult offspring like they have no brains and are to be herded about like cattle from now on because of one incident and how the rest of the world needs to know what they are thinking at all times.

Ever notice how there is lots of stress at military schools (show in news, movies and TV shows regularly) and no records (that I know of) mass murder by someone who couldn’t take taking the classes and because people made them feel picked on? Solution: Expand high school and college military schools to grow some adults for the future…and that will be tomorrow’s topic.

Post yer trackbacks here!

Not so much of a “sea story” today as a “war story” to put my context on some recent news….

The dispatch from the 5 NCOs in the 82nd Airborne Division was illuminating, but not necessarily in a complimentary light. The President and many other Government reports say the Surge is bringing results. The NCOs say they see daily problems. So, who’s telling the truth?

Both, I submit and here’s a little personal experience that leads me to this conclusion: I first became a pin cushion for the medics in 1962, in order to move overseas to Okinawa. Off my father packed us up for a two year adventure to see the world. We first lived just west of MCAS Futema, with a few families of Army sargents living next on the same street of a few concrete block houses. Thus began my “indoc” into military life. I played in the sugar cane fields and around the large above ground tombs, occasionally finding artifacts and ordnance left over from a massive conflict not quite 20 years past. We moved about a year later to live on Fort Buckner, housed amongst the Green Berets, the pride of John F, Kennedy.

From our association in these neighborhoods, and the concentrated presence of the military, I began to absorb the first person history of the war in Vietnam. Being in 3rd and 4th grades, I wasn’t much of a newspaper reader or news watcher, so the information came in listening to the adult discussions.

Back home we went for a few years, then off to Guam for 8th through 11th grades (67-71). More massive exposure to the military, this time the Navy and Air Force, with some Marines and Coast Guardsmen sprinkled in. BY now I had pretty much set my life study path on warfare and modern history, and, with the war in Vietnam being larger, I heard more, plus I watched the news and read the papers and news periodicals now. In Boy Scouts, and on sports teams, I had military men as leaders and coaches. I listened to their “war stories.” Being overseas in a large concentration of military bases also brought me “Stars and Stripes” newspapers.

The net result of this is I grew up in the middle of first person accounts of the conditions in Vietnam, from the Special Forces A_Teams, to the Marine who had a three crossbow bolts go past the tree trunk he was sitting against, all the while thinking more mosquitoes were swarming, until he turned to look. Add to that the DoD press of the “Stars and Stripes” generally putting a detailed, yet rosy face on the war, and ladled on top, the stateside media that seemed to tell a story much different than what I was getting from my “other sources.”

Were any of these sources not telling the truth? For the most part, they all told it as they saw it, albeit through the filters they each put on it.  No one author or story teller had access to the “big picture,” even if they claimed to.  Those filters, by default, cause even the most detailed oriented writer to miss the mark.  I believe most people actually comprehend this concept, they just don’t acknowledge it often when they voice their opinions.

My long term reaction? For several decades, I voraciously read all things on Vietnam I could come across. There are many stories and it’s not that they don’t match up, but they tell stories as varied as the direct, uniformed troop combat in I Corps, to the SEALs skulking about in the night among the Viet Cong controlled villages in the Mekong Delta.  To this day, it’s almost like three separate conflicts to me, due to this multi-facted exposure.

The NCOs provide a valuable first person view of the villages they walk, but they do not see all of the story, nor does any one else, yet all of the reports, in this war from bloggers, from bloggers become published authors, to guys with digital video cameras becoming movie producers, and then, those “standard” reporting sources. One day, when we have the time, and the dust has settled and tempers cooled by decades of reflection, we will have a better chance to see what really is happening now, as word of mouth and first person stories at the top, middle and lower levels come forth.

It would be foolish, as I’m sure many with military experience, and those with historical perspectives, to base the overall progress of the war on the reports of 5 well spoken non-commissioned officers, but we would also be foolish to not make significant note of the problems they face daily, indicating there is more good work to be done.

“You men are young, I have lived the major part of my life and I am willing to go.”

Commander George Rentz, USN, Chaplain CorpsHe served in two wars of his country, WWI and WWII. He has the distinction, albeit one wouldn’t necessarily ask for, of being the only Navy Chaplain in WWII to be awarded the Navy Cross.Born in 1882, he graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and became a Presbyterian minister before the US became engaged in WWI. Entering the service as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, he was assigned for duty with the 11th Marine Division and served in France. Remaining in the Navy after WWI, he rose through the officer ranks, attaining the rank of Commander in 1924.Serving on a variety of ships during the peacetime before WWII, he transfered from the USS AGUSTA to USS HOUSTON (CA-30) in 1940 when HOUSTON relieved AUGUSTA as the Asiatic Fleet’s Flagship.When the war began, the Asiatic Fleet was cut off from support from the States and left, along with other Allied Australian, British and Dutch vessels, with no substantial air power in support, to fend for themselves. During the several battles with the Japanese forces, Chaplain Rentz fearlessly walked the decks topside, providing verbal encouragement to the gun crews.At the Battle of Sunda Strait, As HMAS PERTH and USS HOUSTON made a run for the open Indian Ocean and found themselves right in the middle of a Japanese amphibious assault, CDR Rentz died. He survived the sinking of the HOUSTON, but gave his place on a spare seaplane float and his life jacket to others of the crew, as they awaited their fate in the Java Sea at night. For this act of selflessness, CDR Geoge S. Rentz, USN was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

The story of this series of events, and the fate of those of the USS HOUSTON’s crew who did survive is well told in Jmaes Hornfischer’s second book, “Ship of Ghosts:”

“Ship of Ghosts” tells the story of the history of the USS HOUSTON (CA-30)I found this poem at MaritimeQuest written for CDR Rentz:

COMMANDER GEORGE S. RENTZ – Chaplain, USS HOUSTON

A man of cloth, he chose to be,
among the men who followed the sea.
Dedicated to our crew – with infinite care,
he tended and wounded with earnest prayer.

Unmindful of danger as the bombs rained down,
this man of god was always found.
Beside the dying and those terrible nights,
bringing strength and courage – and final rites.

Thrown into the sea on the fateful night,
he watched our battered Houston sink from sight.
Seeking a raft in the light of a flare,
he knows that god had answered his prayer.

A sailor at his side clinging to the raft,
was wounded’ and strength was ebbing fast.
Having no life belt to keep afloat,
his chance of survival was indeed remote.

Without a thought for self, but he careful haste,
the chaplain fitted his life belt to the sailors waist.
The hours passed, and come dawn,
the sailor was safe, but the chaplain was gone.

He had followed the law of the apostles Creed,
his life the price of a noble dead.
He went to his lord with no regret,
our fighting chaplain we’ll never forget.

May his soul rest in peace – forever and ever, amen.

With reverence and affection,

Lloyd V. Willey
11-21-78

One ship has been named to honor the heroism of CDR Rentz, the USS RENTZ (FFG-43).

Built in Todd Shipyard in Seattle, WA, she commissioned on 6/30/1984. Assigned to the Pacific Fleet, RENTZ participated in EARNEST WILL convoy operations in the Persian Gulf, and, quite notably, was one for the group of US warships to visit China in 1986. From the RENTZ’s Wikipedia entry:

On November 5, 1986, Rentz was part of an historic visit to Qingdao (Tsing Tao; 青岛) China—the first US Naval visit to China since 1949. Rentz was accompanied by two other ships, the Reeves (DLG-24) and Oldendorf (DD-972). The visit was officially hosted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). (“After 37-year absence, U.S. vessels visit China,” New York Times Nov. 6, 1986, Sec. A, p. 3)

If you like this type of history, make sure to backpedal a day and catch the Blogging Sea Lawyer, Eagle1, with his “Sunday Ship History” series. This week he talks about BRINGING THE HEAT, BABY!”

Some readers may well know of DICNAVAB (“Dictionary of Naval Abbreviations”), but, while chasing links on the sitemeter, I found DICNAVSlang.

enjoy yourselves…and be educated in the ways of the “Fleet.”

Sighted! 7 of them at once, all together!

And…some driven by boredom fun from the surrogate Wayne and Garth of VQ-2:

embedded by Embedded Video

Warning: Some “non-diversity sensitive” wording may be involved in this video….

Today will not be devoted to some hero who had a ship named after them, but rather to a particularly American tree that made a difference in our early history. Yesterday, I posted about the famed battle between the USS CONSTITUTION under Captain Issac Hull and the HMS Guerrière commanded by Captain James Dacres. That 25 minute battle, resulting in an astonishing one sided victory for the American Navy was, in part, due to the foresight of the US Navy’s first shipwright, Joshua Humphreys (who’s story led off this series of Monday postings).

Quercus virginiana, better known as “Live Oak,” was a specific ingredient in the building of our first six warships.

Angel Oak, John’s Island, SC. Photo Credit: © Cedric Baele

The tree, which is a live oak, Quercus virginiana, a species prevalent in the sea islands of South Carolina, is 65 feet high and has a circumference of 25 feet. While its height may not be impressive, the shaded area covered by its foliage extends over 17,000 square feet, making it a delightful place to catch some shade in the summer months.

One of its largest limbs is 89 feet long, with a circumference of 11.5 feet.
[…]

Why this type of wood for our ships? According to the research of Ian Toll, author of “Six Frigates,” it has to do with it’s strength, resistance to salt water, weight per cubic foot up to 75lbs, among other fine qualities:

Humphreys was exacting in his specifications. The beams and decks would be made of Carolina Pine, he wrote, and the planks of red ceder. But most important,-here he was both explicit and insistent-key pieces of the frame, including the futocks, knight heads, hawse pieces, bow timbers, stanchions, knees, transoms, and breasthooks, must be made of live oak.

So where does one get this wood? Along the coasts of the US, from Virginia to eastern Texas. What type of coast line does this mean? Swamps….mud that sucks leg into the ankle or knee when it’s nice and wet. Mosquitoes, and all sorts of others vermin that make men deathly ill in the living conditions of the late 1700’s. But, as we know, it made it’s way into the ships.

“Moulds,” that were actually full sized models of the finished pieces were laid out at the building yard from light wooden battens. These models were taken into the swamps to determine which trees would yield a match to each model.

Getting these trees became an monumental task. First to strike out in August 1794 to the coast of Georgia was a Boston shipwright named John T. Morgan. His hopes were to then be assigned as one of the master constructors. All support would have to come the camp by sea and soon, no wood was collected and most of the party was disabled with disease, most likely malaria. Soon, no amount of money could entice the workers, of the original 90 from New England, who had not died to remain.

in late October, Captain John Barry proceeded to Georgia to assess the situation. He found the camp inhabited by sick men. He sent for reinforcements. Slaves from the local area were used to help clear a road to the best timber and work commenced. The trunks and branches were floated and/or drug from the swamps by teams of oxen and did eventually get to Philadelphia, albeit 6 months late for the work schedule.

While this wood is an excellent material for ships at sea, it is not what ship’s caprenters like to see hauled into the building yards. From “Six Frigates:”

BUt the shipyard workers also dreaded the extra work it took to cut, shape and manipulate live oak, and they rolled their eyes whenever a new load of raw timber sections was brought into the yard. A nail driven into it was nearly impossible to extract. Axes bounced off it and saws moved back and forth across it again and again, making little or no discernable progress. Nothing took the shaprness out of a ship carpenter’s tools as quickly as well seasoned live oak.

So, there is a salute to another American resource, this time a natural and not human one, that earned the USS CONSTITUTION the nickname “Old Ironsides.”

I had often wondered about this, as I was homeported in Charleston in September 1989 when Hurricane Hugo devastated the area. I recall there were a number of large live oaks that the storm toppled, mostly due to the wet ground, that no longer afforded a secure hold for the roots. The comments in the news reports were the salvaged limbs and trunks would be useful in maintaining old sailing ships, the complete significance I did not understand until reading “Six Frigates,” and finding the story of the decisions and the effort to get this type of wood for ship construction.

On this date 195 years ago, a historical naval battle took place, which spawned a legendary nickname for one of the first warships built in the course of our nation’s history: “Old Ironsides.”

Painting by Michael Corne Captain Issac Hull, commanding USS CONSTITUTION, would take on the British Frigate HMS Guerrière (44 guns), commanded by 28 year old, but experienced, Captain James Dacres, in a short and furious engagement in the vicinity of 41° 42’N 55°48’W, approximately 750 miles East of Boston.The CONSTITUTION’s crew sighted sails at 2PM and the ships closed for the deadly engagement. Shortly before 6PM, at the CONSTITUTION closed within gun range of the British ship, the HMS Guerrière began firing some long range shots. Captain Hull held fire, even after having taken a hit in a gun port at 6PM.When the CONSTITUTION was broadside to the HMS Guerrière at a distance of about 75 yards, First Lieutenant Morris asked “Shall we fire now?” At 6:05PM, Captain Hull replied to LT Morris with “Yes, sir, you may now fire.”

Double shotted loads spoke in a single thunderous voice from the side of CONSTITUTION, and the entire structure of the ship shook from the blast, and the crew gave a triple cheer that was clearly heard aboard HMS Guerrière. The result of this fire discipline? When the smoke cleared, the HMS Guerrière’s mizzenmast had ruptured just above the main deck and falling into the sea and the mainyards were shot away, taking the sails, too. The American sailors gave another triple cheer.

It was in this interval, when an American sailor saw a British 18lb cannon ball bounce off the Ship’s side and said “her sides are made of iron!” The nickname for the USS CONSTITUTION was born.

Captain Hull maneuvers his vessel into position, providing the Marine sharpshooters the opportunity to fire at the confused British crew, then a second, close range broadside was loosed with the same fury against the enemy. The ships closed and became entangled, and boarding parties was called for. Stern chasers and bow guns were employed at close range, and the CONSTITUTION’s main batteries could still fire into the HMS Guerrière. The heaving and plunging of the heavy seas finally tore the ship’s loose from each other.

The HMS Guerrière was dismasted and most of her officer’s out of action, dead or wounded. Captain Dacres struck his colors at 6:30PM.

In 25 minutes, the US Navy won a victory, aided and abetted by the foresight of Joshua Humphreys. How? That will be the subject of tomorrow’s Monday Maritime Matters post.

This account was derived from the book “Six Frigates” by Ian Toll. The details of the battle covered there are presented in far greater detail.

In the mean time, the Historical Naval Ships Association site for the USS CONSTITUTION is here. Points of interest there include that the below poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes kept her from the scrap yards in 1830, and the money of school children collected in 1927 restored her to her 1812 condition.

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; —
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

Another website found while researching this material was The Captain’s Clerk, a site set up as “an archive specifically created to contain historically accurate stories and other information on that fabled frigate, the USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”).”

Come back tomorrow to read how another field of my academic background is put to use to tell more of this story!

So, last Wednesday, there I had been, dangling over the deck of the USS JOHN KING (DDG-3), with the possibility of being bait for the helo pilots to go fishing, but it ended well…They caught no sharks, and I got on deck with nothing more than some sea spray from the rotor wash getting me wet.

So, safely aboard, but still merely an Ensign and not yet qualified as a Surface Warfare Officer, I was to be an exercise observer for the KING’s missile shot. I was taken to the bridge and introduced to the Captain, then taken to Combat Information Center (CIC), from where I would observe the operation, in order to fill out the form and determine the grade to assign.

USS JOHN KING (DDG-3) was equipped with the TARTAR Guided Missile Fire Control System (GMFCS), using the AN/SPS-37 Air Search and AN/SPG-51C Fire Control RADARs and the Standard medium range missile. One of the SPG-51’s was fitted with a boresight black and white TV camera, so operators could validate targets.

So, armed with my checklist from FXP-3, the Fleet’s exercise publication, I found a free spot in the forward end of CIC from where I could observe the crew’s communications and coordination during the shot. I recall it was one of those almost cloudless days. A drone was to be the target, most likely a BQM-74 jet powered one, simulating an inbound aircraft. If you recall from my last discussion, I mentioned that the KING had a characteristic movement in those seas, where the roll and pitch were not distinct, but a combination move, which made it feel as thought one was riding a corkscrew. In all my years of riding ships, it was a unique form of reaction to the seas.

So, I sat, in the darkened room, where information was received, evaluated and disseminated, while many of the crew engaged in what was acceptable behavior back then, they were smoking in an inner space. Not only did the smoke hang visibly next to the overhead, the air conditioning wasn’t particularly effective, either. Dark, hot, smoky, corkscrewing through the Atlantic Ocean we went, enroute our INCHOP date at the Strait of Gibraltar. The drone was in the air, and once located on the search RADAR, the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) directed the Weapons Coordinator to engage the target. The missile fire control console operator synced his system to the search RADAR track and the AN/SPG-51 slewed to starboard, and the TV monitor conveyed this view to those of us trapped inside the skin of the ship.

This was the second and last time I almost got sea sick. My body told me, as I sat facing aft, that I was roll-pitching in time with a ship headed east. The TV picture now showed the horizon moving, not as a tilting left and right vista, but up and down. Within moments, my body was telling me the visual and the other sensory data wasn’t jiving and it wanted to do something about it. I began taking frequent, and thankfully short walks to the bridge wings, which certainly was in concert with my observer duties for the exercise, as I awaited the target to get within the firing envelope of the missile. I managed to stave off my body’s desires and did not embarrass myself by puking in the CIC of the KING.

In time, the shot went off, I collected the appropriate data, as required by the exercise sheet, and was soon repeating the helo transfer, back to USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2), where I would draft the grading letter for my CO’s signature. On the return trip, the rescue hoist of the H-46 worked as designed, and I experienced no more visions of getting dunked into the prop wash of the twin screws of the KING.

And in case you are curious, the USS JOHN KING (DDG-3) was able to engage the “hostile” and received a passing score for her periodic demonstration of her mission area of Anti-Air Warfare (AAW).