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[FEATURE ARTICLE] Stiletto — Born in Rhode Island: First of the Mosquito Fleet

December 2, 2018 By Brian Wallin

Recently, the Naval War College temporarily made available to another facility its handsome model of a highly significant war craft, the USS Stiletto. The loan prompted this writer to share the story of its influence on modern naval warfare.

The Herreshoff brothers had already earned a reputation for small boat design and construction as well as integrating their exceptionally well-designed steam engines. When launched as a private yacht in 1885 by John and Nathaniel Herreshoff at their Bristol yard, it was clear Stiletto was built for both beauty and speed. To prove the point, the Herreshoffs brought her to New York Harbor to race the Hudson River’s fastest steamship, the 300-foot long Mary Powell.

On June 10, 1885, the little Stiletto (at 94 feet) handily beat the much larger steamer in a 30-mile run finishing two miles ahead of her competitor and averaging a speed of15 knots. She went on to repeat a similar performance the very next day in the American Yacht Club Regatta, between Larchmont, NY and New London, CT. She beat the large schooner yacht Atalanta by 40 minutes. Unfortunately, Stiletto failed to properly round the finish line buoy and was not awarded the regatta prize. But, she had gotten the attention of the U.S. Navy.

Howell torpedo on the USS Stilleto — Howell torpedo on the USS Stiletto

Around the same time, the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, RI, established in 1869 on Goat Island, had begun to engage in the development of self-propelled torpedoes. Already in use in Europe, the Navy had dragged its heels on importation of the so-called automobile torpedo. It preferred to develop a homegrown weapon. Initial experiments were not successful. However, the Navy found a winner in the Howell torpedo, the brainchild of Navy Lieutenant John Howell, who had perfected his design in 1870. The Navy now needed a vehicle to launch this new weapon and that was the Stiletto.

In 1887, the US Navy purchased Stiletto from the Herreshoffs for $25,000 and converted her to use in Newport, RI, as an experimental torpedo boat. She was officially commissioned in July of 1888 as Wooden Torpedo Boat 1 and continued in that role for nearly 25 years. She spent her entire service life at the Naval Torpedo Station. During that time, she was outfitted with bow and deck launch tubes.

She was the first vessel to launch the self-propelled Howell torpedo. Stiletto began her life as a coal-burner and was converted to oil in 1897 (but that experiment proved to be disappointing). Nevertheless, Stiletto continued to serve and was joined in 1890 by the 138-foot USS Cushing (TB-1), the first purpose-built torpedo boat (and also a Herreshoff product), quickly followed by several more such craft, each a little more sophisticated in design and performance. The Cushing was named for Civil War Lieutenant William Cushing, who sank the Confederate ironclad Albermarle using a crude spar torpedo and proving the value of such weaponry.

Stiletto was a familiar sight on Narragansett Bay. She augmented a barge-mounted test launcher used at the Torpedo Station and in the Sakonnet River. She was a tough little craft, sustaining repeated damage from storms over the years and was even sunk by accident in 1897 when her boiler was accidentally dropped through her hull during maintenance. She was raised and put back in service. In 1900, she successfully participated in major naval maneuvers simulating an attack on Newport Harbor.

Moments after firing a dummy torpedo at the “enemy” battleship Massachusetts, Stiletto’s pilot was blinded by the warship’s searchlight and the little torpedo boat rammed the pier at Fort Adams,Newport, RI. In 1908, she suffered another major accident when the Navy’s oldest serving torpedo boat was rammed by the torpedo station’s steam launch near the north end of Goat Island. Stiletto managed to make the Newport shoreline and was beached near Walnut Street before she could sink.

Stiletto never saw active duty, although her successors were involved in the Spanish-American War with the Atlantic Fleet. She was finally struck from the Navy list on January 27, 1911 and sold in July of that year to James Nolan of East Boston for scrapping. As though she hated to leave the familiar waters of Newport, Stiletto gave up the ghost on October 23, 1912 and sank at her mooring at the Newport Foundry and Machine Works.

By then, the Navy had perfected the role of the torpedo boat destroyer, making further major strides during World War I. The Howell torpedo was superseded around the turn of the century by an American licensed version of the European Whitehead device (manufactured in New York and here in Rhode Island). The little Stiletto and the early torpedo boat destroyers were quickly eclipsed by initial incarnations of what would evolve into the famed four-stackers of World War I.

The legacy of the Stiletto, however, eventually emerged in the famed PT boats of WW II. A little smaller than Stiletto (at 78 and 80 feet), they were familiar sights as their crews trained on the Bay from their base in Melville). Considerably faster and better armed than their ancestor, they carried on her tradition as fast attack torpedo boats. The many classes of Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts ably demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology pioneered before the turn of the 20^th century by the speedy little Stiletto.

Fish torpedo at the Naval War College Museum

At the Naval War College Museum, the only surviving example of the Navy’s original and unsuccessful automobile torpedo, known as the Fish, sits beside one of only three existing examples of the Howell. The handsome model of the Stiletto is displayed with other examples of torpedo delivery vessels as part of the overall story of the evolution of undersea weaponry that began here in 1869. Although the Torpedo Station ceased operations in 1950, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Newport, RI, adjacent to Naval Station Newport continues to advance underwater weaponry and technology.

If you visit the Naval War College Museum (and it is well worth the trip), my fellow docents and I will gladly share in greater detail the development of undersea warfare pioneered right here in Narragansett Bay.

[FEATURE ARTICLE] 11-11-11: One Hundred Years Ago in Providence, RI

November 4, 2018 By Brian Wallin

The Great War had raged in Europe since 1914. President Woodrow Wilson, following the will of the majority of Americans, had valiantly sought to keep the United States neutral. But, Great Britain was a staunch ally of this country and there was a desire to help but not to become embroiled in the bitter battles themselves. However, the German blockade and unrestricted submarine warfare (declared by the Germans in February of 1915) continued to erode America’s fragile neutrality. During that year, the Germans sank a U.S. flagged ship. Without warning, they torpedoed the liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 including 128 Americans. The Kaiser ordered a cessation of unrestricted submarine warfare, but in January of 1917, it resumed. The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Germany. Following the sinking of another American ship, on April 2, 1917, and the appearance of the Zimmerman telegram (in which the German government purportedly tried to get Mexico on its side with the promise of regaining territory lost to the U.S.), Wilson reluctantly asked for a declaration of war. Congress did so on April 6. And so, America stepped into the conflict, in Wilson’s words, “to make the world safe for democracy”.

The American Army numbered about 100,000 (with another 112,000 National Guardsmen) and was not ready for combat. When the first 14,000 troops arrived in Europe, they were initially placed under Allied command. But, the involvement of this country bolstered the Allied cause and the bloody stalemate of nearly four years began to turn against the Germans. American troops, under the leadership of General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing soon proved themselves on the battlefield, well supported by their country’s massive manufacturing might.

Finally, on November 11, 1918, an armistice was declared and the war was over. By then, more than two million American soldiers had served in Western Europe. Fifty thousand of them would never return home.

Rhode Island had begun to feel the effect of the conflict in Europe even before America entered the war. In March of 1917, military guards manned all the state’s principal bridges. Four divisions of Naval Reserves had left for training in Boston. Activities at the state’s coast defense forts and at the Navy base at Newport, RI, intensified and a small naval patrol station on Block Island. A full year prior, in 1916, Providence was the scene of a massive Preparedness Day parade with more than 54,000 people marching through the capitol city. Even cut short by rain, the parade outdid one held earlier in Boston that drew only 38,000. The Ocean State was ever patriotic.

War fever even infected the local news media. In 1915, the then editor of the Providence Journal, John R. Rathom, began to publish outrageous stories suggesting German sabotage (the source of his information later turned out to be a British propaganda effort). Rathom went so far as to say that his newspaper’s own sources were unearthing sabotage plans. Eventually, the U.S. Justice Department cracked down and called a halt to Rathom’s fanciful reports.

The state’s factories also geared up for war, as they would again just two decades later. Rhode Island began turning out everything from uniforms to horseshoes, small warships, aircraft, rubber products, and bayonets. By June of 1917, just two months after war was declared, more than 53,000 patriotic Rhode Islanders had enlisted in the military with more to come. War bond sales skyrocketed. Volunteers enrolled in the Red Cross and the state militia for homeland duty. Victory gardens appeared everywhere and supplemented an anticipated national food shortage.

Gertrude Bray of Providence had gone overseas as a YMCA volunteer to support the troops. She left her factory job in Pawtucket, RI, to serve as a canteen worker in France. According to one news story, Bray and two other YMCA workers were cited for bravery during the Battle of St. Mihiel in September of 1918, when they cooked 10,000 donuts a day while the fighting went on close to their encampment. Women were chaperoned when they went to the front lines, which Bray did, to deliver food to the troops. At one point her chaperone, a Mr. Haley, told a reporter, “nothing raised the morale of the men to see that one of their own girls wasn’t afraid to come to their position”. Haley then hustled the donut girls back to their camp since an artillery barrage was expected momentarily.

Among the young men who enthusiastically responded to the call to service was a Brown University student, Wheaton Vaughn. While overseas, he corresponded with one of his professors, H.E. Walters, and the letters have been preserved in the Brown University Library. In one dated February 15, 1918, he enclosed a picture and told his teacher that he expected to be at the front shortly. “I’ll do my best to send some part of the Kaiser back to you for use in the (biology) lab”, he quipped. On June 16, he apologized for a delay in writing as “I have been so busy tending to such business as dodging shells and putting on gas masks…We have been lucky so far that’s all, I guess, but probably someday we will get ours, but here’s hoping.” Vaughn went on to tell his professor that so far only one man in his unit had been killed and another slightly wounded. Sadly, Vaughn’s own luck ran out in the last moments of the war. He died of wounds on November 18, 1918, two hours after the armistice was signed. The Armistice had actually been announced at 5:00 am Paris time, but military commanders on both sides, at a loss as to exactly when to cease firing, continued to fight until the “eleventh hour”. More men on both sides died needlessly in those six hours.

And so, the war officially ended at 11:00am, Paris time, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was 3:00am in Providence and church bells rang and whistles began to blow. Students from the schools on the East Side gathered and marched down College Hill to join the cheering crowds in Exchange Place (now Kennedy Plaza). Bunting bedecked automobiles sped through downtown. Brown’s military and naval units, joined civilians in celebrating. Brown Professor Walters, in notes preserved in the University Library recalled, “Westminster was no longer a one-way street. It was an every which way….I remember finding myself downtown with a cowbell in the midst of the downtown mob…all insane”. The celebrations continued. The war was over!

The troops would make their way home in the coming months. But 612 Rhode Islanders would not. Their sacrifices would be honored as years passed by town memorials, at Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and American Legion posts bearing their names and in stories handed down through the generations. In Providence, a handsome memorial honors lost in the war. The monument was moved in 1984 from its original location during the city’s Renaissance. It was reassembled and installed in 1996 in Memorial Park at College and South Main Streets. It includes the words, “By this memorial, the City of Providence commemorates the loyal courage and fidelity of all her citizens who served in the World War whose high example still summons us to love and serve our country.”

Armistice Day, of course, is now known as Veterans Day (and in England, as Remembrance Day). It is a time to pause and remember those who responded to the call, not just in World War I, but also in all wars. Joining the rest of the nation, the Rhode Island World War One Centennial Commission, ably led by North Kingstown’s Matthew McCoy, has coordinated a yearlong observance around the state.

On November 11, Rhode Islanders will join in a nationwide observance “Bells of Peace”. At exactly 11:00 am, bells will toll in churches and other sites. They will ring 21 times at five-second internals as a traditional symbol honoring those fallen in the war. No bell? You can download a smartphone app to be used privately or with a public address system. Visit www.ww1cc.org/bells for details. East Greenwich, RI, will join towns across the state and country in holding parades and laying wreaths at their respective World War I memorials. The East Greenwich event will be held Sunday, November 11, at 1:00pm (in event of rain a memorial will be observed in the Swift Gym).

World War I Memorial in front of Town Hall in East Greenwich, RI.

Eight and a half million died fighting the war. As many as 12 or 13 million civilians perished. In his classic 1929 novel recounting the horrors of World War One, Erich Maria Remarque cites the impact of the war from the German perspective, “The war has ruined us for everything.” Sadly, the “war to end all wars” was not. Almost as soon as the guns fell silent in Europe, the seeds of a new conflict were sown. Just twenty-one years later, in September of 1939, war broke out again.

The Varnum Memorial Armory Museum contains a growing collection of artifacts from the Great War. Take an opportunity to view them and to recall those who served and those impacted by the conflict. Our mission as Varnum Continentals is keep the flame of patriotism brightly lit and to ensure that future generations remember the sacrifices of those who have passed before us to preserve and protect our treasured freedoms.

[FEATURE ARTICLE] Revisiting Rhode Island’s Top-Secret Ear on the World

October 1, 2018 By Brian Wallin

The story of one of Rhode Island’s best-kept World War II wartime secrets is briefly recounted in our book “World War Two Rhode Island” (The History Press; 2017). The material was drawn from a story written for these pages back in 2016. Now and then, I’ve been asked for more details about this tale, so here they are.

FCC's Radio Intelligence Division top secret radio monitoring facility in Scituate, RI. — ***FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division top secret radio monitoring facility in Scituate, RI.***

On Darby Road in Scituate, RI, near the top of the seventh highest point in the state (732 feet above sea level) is the site of what was once one of the nation’s best kept secrets during World War II: the Chopmist Hill Monitoring Station. In March of 1941, the Federal Communications Commission’s Radio Intelligence Division (RID) set up a network of thirteen top-secret radio monitoring facilities designed to eavesdrop on German and Japanese radio traffic.

A top agent in the RID was a Bostonian by the name of Thomas B. Cave. He not only discovered the Rhode Island site. He went on to command the monitoring station right through the end of the war. His initial assignment had been to set up a connection with an existing direction-finding facility in Bar Harbor, Maine (similar sites were being established along the Eastern seaboard prior to America’s entry into the war). While traveling around New England, Cave came upon a 183-acre farm atop Chopmist Hill owned by William Suddard. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the location could do a lot more than help triangulate a radio signal.

By an odd coincidence of terrain and atmospheric conditions, this particular property turned out to be the most effective of the RID’s national network of stations. A team of 40 radio operator technicians quickly arrived to set up shop in the 14-room farmhouse atop Chopmist Hill (Suddard and his family obligingly leased their home and property to the government and moved out for the duration).

Narragansett Electric Company linemen were called in to set up scores of utility poles and string some 85,000 feet of antenna wire (about 16 miles worth). Periodically over the next few years, they would be recalled to move some of the poles, sometimes by only a few feet. This wasn’t easy since the poles were sunk deep into the ground to keep them below the tree line for security purposes. The linesmen were never told why they were performing the tasks. Narragansett Electric crewman Charlie Weinert said after the war,

“If I had known what was going on I would have dug the poles all the way to Cairo!”

The long wire antennas and other types of receiving antennae were connected to the farmhouse where technicians set up six rooms full of sensitive radio receivers and transmitters. A pair of outbuildings housed two sensitive direction finders. Chopmist Hill was in business.

The farmland and buildings were surrounded by barbed wire and powerful security lights. An emergency generator provided backup power. Staff lived in bunkhouses on site. Armed guards patrolled the area. A warning sign on the approach road read, “ In the event of an enemy attack on Rhode Island, this highway will be closed to all save military vehicles”. Local residents figured something was up, but they had no idea what. Actually, the technicians themselves were not fully aware of the ultimate use of their activities and the material they collected (although they probably had a good idea once America entered the war and the scope and amount of information steadily grew).

Working in shifts 24/7, the technicians monitored signals broadcast in the clear and also copied down encrypted messages. All information was relayed by Teletype to Washington DC for appropriate action, often immediately on receipt.

As soon as the equipment was tuned up, operators were able to listen in on transmissions by German spies in North Africa and South America and exchanges between German headquarters and military units in Europe and North Africa. Once the location of the spies’ signals was identified, they would be rounded up and, in many cases, turned to counterespionage purposes. American intelligence agents’ transmissions were also monitored and, if it was discovered the enemy was on to them, they could be warned.

The Chopmist Hill equipment was so sensitive and the location so ideally situated that the technicians could pick up low-power radio signals between General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps tanks and relay critical troop movement information to the British. The Rhode Island station personnel also monitored weather reports that were key to enemy activities. Access to local weather information assisted the British and later, U.S. Army Air Forces in setting up bombing missions. German strategic and diplomatic transmissions were broadcast on frequencies that could not be picked up by the British, but did bounce through the atmosphere across the Atlantic to Scituate. These were also relayed to the British before and then after the U.S. entered the war.

***Map noting the location of the secret radio monitoring station.***

Unexpected signal anomalies also enabled the Chopmist Hill technicians to pick up Japanese transmissions from the Pacific. Then FCC Commissioner George Sterling, in an interview conducted long after the war was over, said he was surprised that the US was caught unaware by the Attack at Pearl Harbor. He told a reporter that for several months before December 7, 1941, the Scituate monitoring station was routinely intercepting Japanese military transmissions that indicated some action was pending (U.S. cryptanalysts had already broken key Japanese codes). In 1944 and into the following year, the Chopmist Hill station helped defeat Japanese attempts to bomb the U.S. mainland with TNT-laden hot-air balloons. The devices, called Fu-Go (or “fire balloon” in Japanese), were equipped with small radio transmitters to help the Japanese keep track of their progress. Scituate picked up these low-power signals thousands of miles away, relayed the information to Washington DC and U.S. fighter planes were dispatched to shoot the balloons down (a few managed to reach the US but their existence was kept a deep secret by the government).

At one time, Chopmist Hill even helped save the famed Queen Mary from being sunk with more than 10,000 troops aboard. The ship was in Brazil, about to sail for Australia. German spies in Rio de Janeiro had discovered the ship’s sailing schedule and route around Cape Horn and radioed the information to Nazi headquarters. German U-boats were ordered to sink the liner at all costs. But, thanks to the Scituate monitoring station, the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy sent last minute secret course changes to the Queen Mary and she arrived safely in the Pacific with her precious cargo of fighting men.

The head of the German Navy’s U-boat service, Admiral Karl Doenitz, thinking his transmissions were secure, kept up continuous radio contact with his submarines throughout the war, unaware that even with the sophisticated Enigma encryption machines, his electronic mail was being read.

In yet another incident that demonstrated the unusual sensitivity of the monitoring facilities, receivers picked up a signal from a remote transmitter near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. It turned out to be a nearby Russian station and the location, at first thought to be a Japanese facility, was saved from a U.S. air attack.

***Topographic map of Chopmist Hill site***

Chopmist Hill technicians also assisted in air-sea rescue missions, using direction finders to zero in on downed aircraft around the world. Among those saved were 22 wounded soldiers whose plane went down in Labrador, as well as popular entertainer Kay Francis whose plane crashed in Florida while returning from a USO tour in Europe.

It does seem a little hard to believe that a spot in Rhode Island could play such a vital role. Army officials were especially skeptical and so FCC Commissioner Sterling guaranteed them his technicians could pinpoint the location of any transmission within 15 minutes. The Army set up a test, sending a signal from inside the Pentagon. Seven minutes after their message was sent, Scituate reported receipt and location.

In November of 1945, after the existence of the station had been revealed, the government allowed Thomas Cave to be interviewed by the Providence Journal. He told the reporter “virtually all the wartime messages sent by German spies in the U.S. were intercepted in Scituate”. After the war, Cave and a few other technicians stayed on to continue monitoring activities, this time focusing on illegal domestic radio transmissions.

There’s one more twist to this story. And that revolves around the interesting fact that Chopmist Hill was briefly considered for the site of the headquarters of the United Nations. In January of 1946, a team of inspectors visited Scituate, RI. The UN had agreed to set up shop in the United States. Scituate town councilman and local forest ranger George Matteson convinced the UN inspectors to pay a visit. They were especially impressed with the fact that Scituate could serve as a unique worldwide communications hub. There was enough available land to build the anticipated facilities for the headquarters. It was within easy access to air transportation and a relatively small number of people would have to be relocated. Governor (later Senator) John O. Pastore met with the inspection team and pressed the case for Rhode Island. But, alas, the state didn’t stay long in the running. New York City was chosen after John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave the UN $8.5 million to enable them to purchase their ultimate location along Manhattan’s East River.

So, Chopmist Hill quietly returned to its pre-war bucolic existence. The FCC stayed until 1950. The State of Rhode Island then took over the property and used it as the state’s Civil Defense headquarters for the next fifteen years or so. Eventually, the property reverted to private ownership. Small traces of the station remain to this day, with stumps of the utility poles still visible. The former Suddard farmhouse on Darby Road is an attractive private residence behind its original stone wall. There are few, if any, visible clues to the secrets that it once held. The area is surrounded by new homes, equipped with modern electronic devices that were only imagined when those World War II radio technicians conducted their clandestine activities.

There could still be a few more secrets yet to be revealed. As it happens, not all of the activities of Chopmist Hill have been made public. Some classified documents about the FCC monitoring station program will not be released until 2049.

[FEATURE ARTICLE] World War I Hits Cape Cod: The U-156 Attack on Orleans in 1918

June 3, 2018 By Brian Wallin

We’ve shared a few World War I stories on these pages as we mark the 100^th anniversary of the end of the conflict. This month, we look at the first time a foreign power fired on American territory since the Siege of Fort Texas in 1846. Such action would not be repeated until the terrorist attacks of September 11.

It was 10:30 on a quiet and warm Sunday morning, July 21, 1918 when residents of the Cape Cod town of Orleans suddenly found the war on their doorsteps. A German long-range U-boat, the SM U-156, surfaced and attacked the tugboat Perth Amboy and the string of four barges she was towing south along the outer edge of Cape Cod. The tug was headed to the Chesapeake Bay on the ocean route, rather than the recently opened Cape Cod Canal (perhaps to save the cost of transit through the new waterway). The 15-hundred ton, 213-foot long U-156 opened fire with its two 5.9 inch and 3-5 inch deck guns (eventually, the sub’s crew would fire nearly 150 shells against their helpless target). The U-156 had already caused havoc along the Northeast coast, having sunk a Norwegian steamship off Long Island and laid a minefield southeast of Fire Island, New York that likely resulted in the sinking of the Navy cruiser USS San Diego a few days before the Orleans event.

The first shells overshot the tug and barges and slammed onto the shore and marshland at Nauset Beach (more strikes followed during the course of the attack). The sub’s gunners eventually found their mark and a projectile smashed into the wheelhouse of the Perth Amboy, seriously wounding one crewman. A large crowd soon gathered on the shore to watch the spectacle. Three barges were quickly sunk, but the fourth proved more difficult to send to the bottom. One eyewitness said it was like watching an arcade shooting gallery. Although damaged by some twenty shells, the steel-hulled Perth Amboy remained afloat. In fact, she would one day return to haunt the Germans (more about that later in the story).

Sixteen men, twelve women, and four children aboard the tug and barges quickly took to lifeboats and began rowing three miles to shore as the Germans continued to fire. Members of the Orleans-based Coast Guard Station 40 swung into action, launching a surfboat to assist survivors.

Lifeboat station captain, Robert Pierce, and his crew. — Robert Pierce and his crew.

Simultaneously, the lifeboat station captain, Robert Pierce, contacted the nearby Chatham Naval Air Station for help. The locals and summer visitors continued to watch the spectacle from the beach or the porches of oceanfront cottages (apparently, no one was particularly worried about being hit by gunfire as the Germans’ aim wasn’t very accurate). One enterprising resident, a local doctor, even called the Boston Globe and provided a blow-by-blow account to the city desk.

As the lifeboat station crew reached the tug’s captain, James Tapley, who had flown a white flag from the tugboat in hopes of stopping the attack, called on them that all were safely off the tug and barges. Coastguardsman William Moore climbed into a survivors’ lifeboat to administer first aid to helmsman John Bogovich who had suffered a major wound to his arm and shoulder (a Boston doctor later noted that Moore’s efforts had saved the man’s arm). Several other survivors had also received minor injuries. All the survivors reached shore safely, either at Orleans or Nauset Beach just to the north.

Aircraft from the naval air station had been aloft that morning, searching for a Navy dirigible that had been reported missing (it later turned up safely). Located about seven miles from Orleans, the base, in operation for only a few months, was charged with patrolling the area for German submarines. Chatham NAS executive officer, Lt.(jg) Elijah Williams could hear gunfire. It was confirmed moments later when the alert arrived from Orleans.

Williams ordered Ensign Eric Lingard and two crewmen into a Curtis HS-1L seaplane. They arrived over the scene in just a few minutes. Over the noise of the plane’s engine, Lingard called to bombardier Chief Special Mechanic Edward Howard to drop a 100-pound bomb on the submarine. The bomb refused to release from its wing rack. So intent was the sub’s crew on their attack, they didn’t notice the plane until it was almost on them. They scrambled to clear the deck as the Curtis came around for another try. A second attempt to release the bomb failed. At that, bombardier Howard managed to climb out of his position in the plane’s nose, grab onto a strut of the bottom wing and wrench the bomb loose. Down it fell, and hit the sub without a sound. It was a dud. Several of the sub’s crewmen remained on deck to take a few shots at the Navy plane.

It was now a few minutes after 11:00am. A second aircraft, an R-9 seaplane piloted by Chatham base commander Captain Philip Eaton, arrived on the scene. He zeroed in on the U-156, and dropped a bomb, only to see it fail to explode. Another dud! Eaton was so angry he threw a wrench out of the cockpit at the submarine. By now, the Germans had had enough and dove beneath the surface, escaping safety and ending the attack.

The U-156 wasn’t done yet. Capable of a range of as much as 25-thousand miles at minimum speed, the sub headed north to Nova Scotia, where it attacked and sank a number of American fishing boats and a tanker. It also captured a Canadian fishing trawler, manned and armed the vessel and used it to sink seven more fishing boats before finally heading back to Germany. But, it never returned to its base. Its captain, Richard Feldt, five other officers and sixty crewmen were lost around the end of September when the submarine is believed to have struck a mine in the Northern Barrage minefield off Great Britain.

Map of the attack off of Orleans, MA, in 1918.

Most of the German long-range submarine activity had been centered off the coast off North Carolina (a favorite hunting ground of U-boats in World War II as well). Three of the six large cruiser/minelayer class boats targeted merchant vessels in the well –traveled sea-lanes. U-151 sank four Allied ships between June 5 and 9, 1918 (the first coastal raid by an enemy warship since the War of 1812). Between August 4 and 6, the U-140 sent four other ships to the bottom including the Diamond Shoals lightship. In a touch of irony, the lightship had originally been stationed off Nantucket and was witness to the 1916 sinking of five enemy merchant ships by the U-53 whose visit to Newport (before America entered the war) we have shared on these pages. U-117 laid a minefield north of Cape Hatteras sinking the British tanker Mirlo. Of course, these few incidents were far out distanced by the havoc wrought along the Atlantic coast by U-boats in World War II.

So, a couple of notes to finish out our tale: Fortunately, there were no fatalities in the attack. All the injured were successfully treated at Boston hospitals. Although the Navy did manage to drive the submarine away, the barges were lost along with their cargo. But, the tugboat survived. The Perth Amboy was repaired and returned to service. She was sold in 1936 to the well known Moran Towing Company in New York where she was renamed the Mary Moran. In 1941, she was transferred to the U.S. Maritime Commission and sent to Europe where she participated in the war effort until she sank in 1945 after colliding with a tanker in the English Channel. In 1920, the Chatham Naval Air Station was closed as part of the post-war military cutbacks. Today, the site is occupied by high-end homes. A small plaque at the end of Strong Island Road commemorates the existence of the station along with some crumbling remains of concrete foundations here and there.

For many years, there has been speculation about why the U-156 was so far north of the favored hunting grounds of the other cruiser/minelayer boats. Planting a minefield off New York was, of course, worthwhile. But was there another part of the mission?

In 1898, the Compagnic Francaise Le Cables Telegraphiques, which had been operating a transatlantic cable since 1879 from Canada to France, placed into service a cable running from Orleans to Brest, France. Messages could be sent directly from the U.S. to France without having to travel via Newfoundland. When America entered the war, a unit of Marines was sent to guard the shorefront cable station. The July 21^st incident led many people to speculate that the Germans’ real target was the station and that the tug and its barges just happened to blunder into the attack. Since the U-156 never returned to its base, no one lived to tell the tale or to confirm that there was cable-cutting equipment aboard. However, new historical research now suggests that the cable station was the target all along.

New public historic marker commemorating the 1918 attack off of Orleans, MA.

Local organizations are set to observe the centennial in a big way. A new public historic marker commemorating the event has been erected, replacing a wooden marker that stood on private property. The Orleans Historical Society is planning several events in July. Jack Krim, author “Attack on Orleans” and Paul Hodos author of “The Kaiser’s Lost Kreuzer” will present lectures on the attack. Hodos has conducted extensive research that supports the cable station attack theory.

Visit www.orleanshistoricalsociety.org or www.historicorleans.org for lecture details and more information on a planned display about the attack. The Chatham Historical Society and several other organizations are also involved in planning events surrounding the centennial. So, if your plans call for a trip to Cape Cod around the middle of July, you might like to take a trip back in history to learn about those exciting few moments when World War II came quite literally to the shores of America.

[FEATURE ARTICLE] Rhode Island’s Albert Martin, A Hero of the Alamo

May 12, 2018 By Brian Wallin

Three years ago, we shared this story about Albert Martin at the Alamo with you in Varnum News. Now, there is a new piece of information that may have come about as a result of Rhode Island calling the attention of our friends in Texas to an error in their memorial to the fallen heroes of the Alamo. The update is at the end of this article.

Some Backstory on Albert Martin… Rhode Island Native

One of the most famous documents in American history, “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” was written by Lt. Col. William B. Travis as a plea for reinforcements to defend the Alamo against Mexican forces during the Texas Revolution in 1836. Intimately connected with the letter is Albert Martin, born in 1808 in Providence, RI.

Martin’s two grandfathers fought in the American Revolution and his fervent support of liberty was not surprising. After attending Norwich University in Vermont, he followed his father and brothers to Tennessee and later to New Orleans, eventually settling his family in Gonzales, Texas, in 1835. He opened a general store affiliated with the family business: Martin, Coffin & Company.

The Texas Revolution broke out in 1835. Albert was involved in the defense of Gonzales (about 70 miles from the Alamo) and in Bexar (the original name of San Antonio) where he was wounded. On February 23, 1836, a Mexican army numbering some 1500 laid siege to Texans holding the Alamo. Martin, a Captain in the Texas Rangers, returned from Gonzales and was immediately sent by Col. Travis to meet an aide of Mexican General Santa Anna’s, who refused to see him. The following day, Col. Travis entrusted Martin to deliver an open letter to San Felipe de Austin containing a plea for reinforcements. Texans today revere this stirring language as their version of the Declaration of Independence:

TO THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS & ALL AMERICANS IN THE WORLD: Fellow citizens and compatriots – I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna – I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken – I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch – The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country – Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis Lt. Col. Comdt

P.S. The Lord is on our side – When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn – We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

Martin’s Postscripts to the Travis Letter

Martin rode through the night back to Gonzales and handed the letter to colleague Lancelot Smithers. On the way, Martin added two personal postscripts. He wrote of his fear that the Mexican army had already launched their attack on the fort and added, “Hurry on all the men you can in haste.” The second is hard to read since the letter has frayed along a fold. But, it appears to convey that the Texans were “determined to do or die.”

Smithers penned his own postscript to the letter and carried it on to Austin, TX. The letter was widely published, but it took some time for a large force to be assembled. Back in Gonzales, a small relief force of 32 men set out for the Alamo. Against his father’s wishes, Martin went with them and on March 1 made it back into the fortress. Five days later, Albert was among the 188 men killed in the Battle of the Alamo. In April 1836, an American army under General Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.

The Fate of Albert Martin

Martin’s body was never recovered. It was likely among those burned by the Mexicans who then scattered the ashes of the Alamo defenders. The original Travis letter survived and is now in the Texas State Library in Austin, where a copy is on public display.

In July of 1836, Martin’s obituary was published in the New Orleans True American newspaper. It reads, in part:

Among those who fell in the storming of the Alamo was Albert Martin, a native of Providence, Rhode Island and recently a citizen of this city … He had left the fortress and returned to his residence. In reply to the passionate entreaties of his father, who besought him not to rush into certain destruction, he said ‘this is no time for such considerations. I have passed my word to Colonel Travers, that I would return, nor can I forfeit a pledge thus giv- en.’ Thus died Albert Martin, a not unapt illustration of New England heroism. He has left a family, and perhaps a Nation to lament his loss and he had bequeathed to that family an example of heroic and high-minded chivalry which can never be forgotten.

In 2002, Albert Martin was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. On the Martin family plot in Providence’s North Burial Ground, there is a cenotaph memorializing Albert.

A Newer, More-Interesting Ending…

Corrected "Heroes of the Alamo" sign — Corrected “Heroes of the Alamo” sign

Now, here is the new ending to our story. Although a pamphlet distributed at the Alamo stated Martin was a Rhode Island native, a plaque at the memorial said he was from Tennessee (where the family had lived for a while before coming to Texas). Officials at the shrine had for a long time declined to correct the plaque since, in their view, “there are errors all over the place here and we cannot change them all.” Recently, my fellow historian, Christian McBurney, visited the Alamo was pleased to find that at long last the error has been corrected after complaints by Rhode Islanders. Albert Martin can now really rest in peace, formally recognized as a son of the Ocean State.

Postscript on the US Model 1816 Musket

The Varnum Memorial Armory Museum collection includes a US Model 1816, .69 caliber musket manufactured at the Springfield Armory in 1833 and several others made at the Federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry. This type would have been used by Texans at the Alamo and by the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. More 1816 models (675,000) were made than any other flintlock in U.S. history. Many were converted to percussion caps in the period leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

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