Sacred Vessels
Sacred Vessels
The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy
Robert L. O'Connell
To my mother and father, Dorothea O'Connell and Robert J. O'Connell
First published 1991 by Westview Press
Published 2019 by Routledge
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Copyright 1991 by by Robert L. O'Connell
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O'Connell, Robert L.
Sacred vessels: the cult of the battleship and the rise the
U.S. Navy / Robert L. O'Connell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-1116-0 (HC)
1. Sea-powerUnited StatesHistory20th century.
2. BattleshipsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 3. United
States NavyHistory20th century. 4. BattleshipsHistory20th
century. 5. Naval history, Modern20th century. I. Title.
VA50.036 1991
359'.03'09730904dc20 91-24527 CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28653-8 (hbk)
"The psychology of the Navy Department... frequently seemed to retire from the realm of logic into a dim religious world in which Neptune was God, Mahan his prophet, and the United States Navy the only true church."
Henry L. Stimson
"It's almost idolatry for me to feel this way about a piece of metal."
Former crew member speaking of the USS Wisconsin on NBC's Today Show , June 10, 1991
| Americas dreadnoughts, ca. 1936 |
America's dreadnoughts , ca. 1936.
Writing critically about something you have come to regard with affection must provoke mixed emotions. As I learned more and more about the modern battleships shortcomings, I found myself, like so many before me, falling under its spell. I have traveled hundreds of miles to visit these wonderful ships, reverently preserved like a necklace of talismans around our nations coasts. I have stood in awe under the great guns, wondering what it must have been like to hear them fire. Perhaps it is true that their sound and fury signified very little in terms of actual destructive power. But most people thought they did, and that was and still is important. Besides, for the most part, we were proud of those ships. Now we live in a time of weapons so terrible that we must actually hide thembeneath the ground and below the surface of the sea. But, like battleships, they keep the peace precisely because of what others think they can do. All things being equal, who would not prefer the dreadnoughts?
Few books are written quickly, or without help. This one took a very long time and received much assistance from colleagues, friends, and family. First in line for thanks is Joe Kett, who poked this thing along from masters thesis, to doctoral dissertation, and finally ... into print. I owe Joe a lot. Peter Kracht, my editor, literally dragged the manuscript out of my bedroom closet, breathed life into it, and set me on my way revising and expanding. Truly, there would be no Sacred Vessels without him. I will probably never write as well as John Casey or Norman Graebner, but I want to thank them for providing me with encouragement and personal standards of excellence.
We are all busy, and frequently middle-aged and farsighted. Thus reading even the best-typed manuscriptsmine wasn'tconstitutes a true act of kindness. With this in mind I want to thank Peter Karsten, Dennis Evans, Alex Roland, Elting Morison, Whittle Johnston, Gordon Bowen, Carl Brandt, and William McNeillall of whom, at one point or another, waded through my collected thoughts on battleships and provided valuable guidance.
The research for this book was done mostly at the Library of Congress and the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia. The excellent staffs of both institutions were extremely helpful and generous with their time. I also want to thank the staffs of the Operational Archives of the U.S. Navy's Naval History Division, the Library of the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. National Archives. I am additionally very grateful for the meticulous editing of Marian Safran and the skilled coordination of Beverly LeSuer, Senior Project Editor at Westview Press, and her replacement (Bev has moved on to law school), Michelle Starika. Thanks also go to Stephen Eitelman at the Foreign Science and Technology Center, who provided computer support for my index.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Benjie, and my daughters, Jessica and Lucy, for their love and generosity in giving me the time to write. They are far more important to me than any book.
Robert L. O'Connell
Introduction: A Fatal Vision
I
One day in the spring of 1921 a battleship recently surrendered to the American Navy by the vanquished German High Seas Fleet swung placidly at anchor in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Several smaller craft soon arrived on the scene and took stations around the great warship. Aboard those latecomers were a number of important observers, including the civilian head of the Navy Department, a former secretary of war, several influential senators and representatives, a large body of admirals and other high-ranking officers, and numerous members of the press. All attention was focused on the German dreadnought, stolid and defiant, bristling with guns, aesthetically the very epitome of belligerence. Squatting there in the water, it must have seemed to most of the gathered dignitaries virtually invulnerable.
This quiet scene was soon interrupted by the buzzing of airplanes. As the squadron appeared over the horizon and drew closer, it was revealed to be made up of a number of frail biplanes, looking and sounding a bit like a swarm of flying insects. Presently, the aircraft gathered above the dreadnought and one by one dove down to drop bombs upon it. At first these sorties must have seemed no more menacing than mosquitoes attacking a rhinoceros. But soon the battleship was revealed to have suffered heavilyher superstructure was in shambles and the stern of the ship was almost entirely submerged. Relentlessly the planes continued the assault, their bombs throwing huge spumes of water and assorted chunks of dreadnought high into the air. Finally, after two particularly ferocious hits, the great ship stood nearly straight up in the water and then slipped quickly beneath the waves.
Among most of the observers, reactions ranged from shocked silence to scarcely concealed glee. But in one quarter the response was considerably more demonstrative. Aboard the USS Henderson a group of admirals gathered on the deck were reliably reported to have wept openly for the martyred Teutonic dreadnoughta remarkable reaction considering that the United States had been at war with Germany just two and a half years before. Certainly it was true that these officers had staked a considerable portion of their professional prestige on the battleship's ability to survive this airborne assault. Yet these were men trained practically from adolescence to maintain an iron grip over their emotions in the face of adversityto carry on with friends of a lifetime lying dead at their feet. Consequently, it seems probable that something more was involved there than simply a public demonstration of bad judgment. The destruction of this ship must have cut very deep into the naval soul.
