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In our last episode, we discussed the sinking of the USS Scorpion. The focus of the first episode was the facts of the case. In this second half of our story, we will spend time on some of the theories that have been put forth to explain the sinking of Scorpion, which occurred on May 22nd, 1968.
The loss of the USS Scorpion occurred between two momentous events in US history: the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4th, 1968 and the assassination of Presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 5th. As a result, coverage of the loss of Scorpion quickly moved from the front page of most American newspapers. This was in stark contrast to the loss of the USS Thresher in 1963, which occurred during a comparatively quiet time in the nation. This may have been to the Pentagon's liking, because even a cursory investigation of the time line of the last cruise of Scorpion would have led to a discussion of the boat's last set of orders, something that was classified at the time.
Originally, Scorpion was due to arrive at Naval Station Norfolk at 9:30AM, May 24th. However, after she left the Mediterranean and was on her way home, she received a message from COMSUBLANT, the Navy abbreviation for Commander Submarines Atlantic, ordering her to divert to a location southwest of the Canary Islands, were a group of Soviet Navy warships were operating. This would push back Scorpion's homecoming to May 27th. In his book 'Scorpion Down', author Ed Offley states that these orders, the last Scorpion would ever receive, were sent on May 16th.
Initially, the Navy stated that the search for Scorpion began on May 27th, the day she failed to arrive back at Norfolk. Years later, documents released by the Department of the Defense showed that at least one ship, the USS Josephus Daniels, put to sea on May 18th to search for Scorpion. The same group of documents show that some time between May 18th and May 22nd, Scorpion sent a message stating that she was being followed by a Soviet submarine and could not evade the Russian boat. These two facts taken together tell us that the Navy knew as early as May 18th that Scorpion was potentially in trouble, although she did supposedly transmit her position as late as May 21st. Regardless, it is clear that the Navy knew of the loss of Scorpion at least six days before May 27th.
According to Offley, this omission on the part of the Navy was intentional for one reason: the top admirals in the Pentagon suspected that Scorpion had been sunk by a Soviet warship. Years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, some retired Russian admirals claimed that this was, in fact, the case. They stated that Scorpion was attacked as retaliation for the loss of the K-129, a Soviet diesel submarine which sank off the north coast of Hawaii in early 1968. Soviet naval leaders believed the K-129 had been sunk by a group of US destroyers while they were attempting to force the sub to surface. Sinking the USS Scorpion was seen as a means of evening the score without starting World War III.
A board of inquiry concluded in 1969 that Scorpion was destroyed by a torpedo, likely one of her own. This conclusion was later rejected in favor of a hardware failure, a more generic assumption. There is actually evidence that Scorpion was not a healthy sub at the time of her deployment in February, 1968. Her recent overhaul had been rushed and was done at the naval base in Charleston, SC which at that time had never done an overhaul and a re-fueling on a nuclear-powered submarine. But the wreck found off the Azores gave no clear indication of anything other than a large explosion.
Many other theories exist as to what happened to the USS Scorpion, including the idea that US Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, a Soviet spy who was not caught until 1986, gave Moscow enough detailed information about secret submarine communications that the Russians knew exactly where the Scorpion was most of the time, allowing them to hunt her with ease. It is not known if the information Walker gave the Soviets beginning in 1967 was being used in early 1968, but it is certainly possible.
We will never know what happened in the Atlantic Ocean 400 miles from the Azores in May, 1968. If the USS Scorpion was deliberately attacked by the Soviet Navy, then the cover-up necessary to keep such a fact hidden for more than 40 years is nearly unprecedented in American history. If some hardware failure caused her sinking, then those responsible for her lack of readiness were never brought to task. Either way, an injustice was done.
99 men died on board the USS Scorpion. It is my belief that their families have never been told the truth. For a nation that honors those who died in service to their country, this is unacceptable.
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Mystery of the Scorpion Part One, May 22, 1968
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As you know, Monday, May 25th is Memorial Day in the United States, a day set aside for us to honor those who have died while serving our nation in the military. The holiday began as Decoration Day in Waterloo, New York in 1866. A Decoration Day of sorts occurred in Charleston, South Carolina in May 1865 at the site of a former Confederate prison camp, but Waterloo is given most of the credit for creating the day as we now know it. The village was home to General John Murray, who in turn was a friend of General John Logan, the head of a veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan pushed for a national observance on May 30th, a date on which no battles took place during the Civil War. The day was originally intended to honor those who died during that conflict, but was soon extended to include those who had paid the ultimate price in all the nation’s wars. The term Decoration Day was used because cemeteries were generally adorned with flags and flowers to honor the fallen. Although the name Memorial Day first appeared in print in 1882, it did not come into common use until the time of the Second World War.
In 1968, the US Congress moved Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May. This created a three-day weekend, something that critics of the change point to as one of the reasons the holiday seems to be losing its meaning to so many Americans.
The past 60 years have seen the general public in the United States become increasingly distant from the military. Even with combat taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan as I write this, many Americans personally know no one serving in the military. Our armed forces are smaller as a percentage of the population than they have been since the end of the Revolutionary War and a draft has not existed for 36 years. Yet the ultimate sacrifice is made almost every day by men and women from every walk of American life whose names will only be remembered by those who loved them. While we can disagree about the merits of any war, those who give their lives during it do so for us and for generations not yet born.
In addition to the Americans who have died in service to our nation over the past 233 years, I ask that you also remember those from around the world who have given all while fighting with us. Most of the nations of Europe and many other countries from around the globe have sacrificed not just to protect their own interests, but to ensure the continuance of our way of life. To them and their fallen go the thanks of a grateful nation. Have a thoughtful and thankful Memorial Day.
I do my best to not ever diverge from known facts when discussing historical events. But the story we revisit tonight, that of the sinking of the USS Scorpion, still contains much in the way of speculation. Since I first podcast about the lost submarine in 2006, I have read two books and many magazine and newspaper articles which cast significant doubt on the official story of the warship's loss. Tonight's episode will concentrate on the known facts of the incident; the next episode will enter into what I call informed conjecture. Let's get started.
Today in 1968, the USS Scorpion, an American nuclear-powered attack submarine, sank in the Atlantic Ocean 400 miles southwest of the Azores. This was the second time the US Navy had lost a nuclear-powered submarine; the first had been the USS Thresher in 1963. Even though more than 40 years have passed since the disaster, unanswered questions about the sinking still abound.
Scorpion was a Skipjack-class attack submarine. At 252 feet in length and 3500 tons displacement, she was small compared to the boats that would come after her. But what she lacked in size she more than made up for in speed; though the Navy claimed her top speed was close to 30 knots, she was capable of much more. Her teardrop-shaped hull was new to submarine design when she was laid down in 1958 and when she was commissioned in 1960, she had no equals in the foreign navies of the world.
Scorpion’s last deployment began on February 15, 1968. She operated with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea until May, when she was ordered home. On May 21st, Scorpion was reported to be 50 miles south of the Azores. After an initial delay, the families of the crewmen were told to expect the sub at 1PM on May 27th at Pier 22 on Norfolk Naval Station.
It was overcast and raining as the families of the crew of Scorpion waited for her return on that Monday. As the 1PM arrival time came and went with no word from the submarine, some of those waiting grew nervous. The older, more experienced family members comforted those for whom this was the first homecoming. There were many things that could delay the arrival of a navy warship: weather, mechanical problems, or a last-minute change of orders. The captain of a sub tender moored next to Pier 22 gave the family members permission to board his ship so they could wait for Scorpion in drier conditions. After several hours of waiting, naval station officials told the worried families to go home and wait for further news. They did not have to wait long: that evening, phones began ringing all over the Norfolk area, telling the next-of-kin of the crew of the USS Scorpion that the ship had been placed in a missing status. Those family members who lived outside the immediate area received telegrams. Soon, all three of the television networks were carrying the same story---the USS Scorpion was not where she was supposed to be.
The search operation that followed was one of the largest ever conducted by the United States Navy. Even though no wreckage was found, it was clear by the first week of June that Scorpion was never coming home again. On the fifth of that month, she and her crew were declared “presumed lost.” On June 30th, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register.
It was not until the end of October that the remains of Scorpion were found. She was 400 miles southwest of the Azores in more than 10,000 feet of water. The deep-diving research bathysphere Trieste was sent to the scene to photograph the wreckage in an effort to determine what caused the sinking. The sub was in two main pieces with the sail and other debris littered on the sea floor nearby. The ship’s nuclear reactor was, and still is, intact.
The Navy concluded that the Scorpion was most likely sunk by one of her own torpedoes. At that time, the primary conventional torpedo carried by US subs was the Mk 37. This class of torpedo was discovered to contain potentially faulty batteries that could overheat and cause a detonation of the torpedo’s warhead. It is also possible that one of the torpedoes inadvertently went live in its tube. The normal course of action for the crew would have been to fire the torpedo, which could have been fatal if the torpedo was armed, because it would have looked for the nearest target---Scorpion herself.
The US Navy still monitors the area around the Scorpion for signs of increased radioactivity. In addition to a nuclear reactor, the Scorpion also carried two Mark 45 torpedoes tipped with nuclear warheads. These are presumed to still be in the torpedo room and corroded to the point of being insoluble.
The USS Scorpion sank during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War, a time when every act by the United States or the Soviet Union was viewed with deep suspicion by the other side. The US submarine fleet was very effective in both gathering information about the Soviet Navy as well as keeping that force off-balance. What is clear now, despite the US Navy’s initial public theories, is that the Soviet Union could very well have played a role in the loss of Scorpion and the 99 men serving aboard her.
That role, if indeed there was one, will be discussed in the next episode of this podcast.
As you know, Monday, May 25th is Memorial Day in the United States, a day set aside for us to honor those who have died while serving our nation in the military. The holiday began as Decoration Day in Waterloo, New York in 1866. A Decoration Day of sorts occurred in Charleston, South Carolina in May 1865 at the site of a former Confederate prison camp, but Waterloo is given most of the credit for creating the day as we now know it. The village was home to General John Murray, who in turn was a friend of General John Logan, the head of a veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan pushed for a national observance on May 30th, a date on which no battles took place during the Civil War. The day was originally intended to honor those who died during that conflict, but was soon extended to include those who had paid the ultimate price in all the nation’s wars. The term Decoration Day was used because cemeteries were generally adorned with flags and flowers to honor the fallen. Although the name Memorial Day first appeared in print in 1882, it did not come into common use until the time of the Second World War.
In 1968, the US Congress moved Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May. This created a three-day weekend, something that critics of the change point to as one of the reasons the holiday seems to be losing its meaning to so many Americans.
The past 60 years have seen the general public in the United States become increasingly distant from the military. Even with combat taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan as I write this, many Americans personally know no one serving in the military. Our armed forces are smaller as a percentage of the population than they have been since the end of the Revolutionary War and a draft has not existed for 36 years. Yet the ultimate sacrifice is made almost every day by men and women from every walk of American life whose names will only be remembered by those who loved them. While we can disagree about the merits of any war, those who give their lives during it do so for us and for generations not yet born.
In addition to the Americans who have died in service to our nation over the past 233 years, I ask that you also remember those from around the world who have given all while fighting with us. Most of the nations of Europe and many other countries from around the globe have sacrificed not just to protect their own interests, but to ensure the continuance of our way of life. To them and their fallen go the thanks of a grateful nation. Have a thoughtful and thankful Memorial Day.
I do my best to not ever diverge from known facts when discussing historical events. But the story we revisit tonight, that of the sinking of the USS Scorpion, still contains much in the way of speculation. Since I first podcast about the lost submarine in 2006, I have read two books and many magazine and newspaper articles which cast significant doubt on the official story of the warship's loss. Tonight's episode will concentrate on the known facts of the incident; the next episode will enter into what I call informed conjecture. Let's get started.
Today in 1968, the USS Scorpion, an American nuclear-powered attack submarine, sank in the Atlantic Ocean 400 miles southwest of the Azores. This was the second time the US Navy had lost a nuclear-powered submarine; the first had been the USS Thresher in 1963. Even though more than 40 years have passed since the disaster, unanswered questions about the sinking still abound.
Scorpion was a Skipjack-class attack submarine. At 252 feet in length and 3500 tons displacement, she was small compared to the boats that would come after her. But what she lacked in size she more than made up for in speed; though the Navy claimed her top speed was close to 30 knots, she was capable of much more. Her teardrop-shaped hull was new to submarine design when she was laid down in 1958 and when she was commissioned in 1960, she had no equals in the foreign navies of the world.
Scorpion’s last deployment began on February 15, 1968. She operated with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea until May, when she was ordered home. On May 21st, Scorpion was reported to be 50 miles south of the Azores. After an initial delay, the families of the crewmen were told to expect the sub at 1PM on May 27th at Pier 22 on Norfolk Naval Station.
It was overcast and raining as the families of the crew of Scorpion waited for her return on that Monday. As the 1PM arrival time came and went with no word from the submarine, some of those waiting grew nervous. The older, more experienced family members comforted those for whom this was the first homecoming. There were many things that could delay the arrival of a navy warship: weather, mechanical problems, or a last-minute change of orders. The captain of a sub tender moored next to Pier 22 gave the family members permission to board his ship so they could wait for Scorpion in drier conditions. After several hours of waiting, naval station officials told the worried families to go home and wait for further news. They did not have to wait long: that evening, phones began ringing all over the Norfolk area, telling the next-of-kin of the crew of the USS Scorpion that the ship had been placed in a missing status. Those family members who lived outside the immediate area received telegrams. Soon, all three of the television networks were carrying the same story---the USS Scorpion was not where she was supposed to be.
The search operation that followed was one of the largest ever conducted by the United States Navy. Even though no wreckage was found, it was clear by the first week of June that Scorpion was never coming home again. On the fifth of that month, she and her crew were declared “presumed lost.” On June 30th, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register.
It was not until the end of October that the remains of Scorpion were found. She was 400 miles southwest of the Azores in more than 10,000 feet of water. The deep-diving research bathysphere Trieste was sent to the scene to photograph the wreckage in an effort to determine what caused the sinking. The sub was in two main pieces with the sail and other debris littered on the sea floor nearby. The ship’s nuclear reactor was, and still is, intact.
The Navy concluded that the Scorpion was most likely sunk by one of her own torpedoes. At that time, the primary conventional torpedo carried by US subs was the Mk 37. This class of torpedo was discovered to contain potentially faulty batteries that could overheat and cause a detonation of the torpedo’s warhead. It is also possible that one of the torpedoes inadvertently went live in its tube. The normal course of action for the crew would have been to fire the torpedo, which could have been fatal if the torpedo was armed, because it would have looked for the nearest target---Scorpion herself.
The US Navy still monitors the area around the Scorpion for signs of increased radioactivity. In addition to a nuclear reactor, the Scorpion also carried two Mark 45 torpedoes tipped with nuclear warheads. These are presumed to still be in the torpedo room and corroded to the point of being insoluble.
The USS Scorpion sank during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War, a time when every act by the United States or the Soviet Union was viewed with deep suspicion by the other side. The US submarine fleet was very effective in both gathering information about the Soviet Navy as well as keeping that force off-balance. What is clear now, despite the US Navy’s initial public theories, is that the Soviet Union could very well have played a role in the loss of Scorpion and the 99 men serving aboard her.
That role, if indeed there was one, will be discussed in the next episode of this podcast.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Blue Jeans Patented, May 20, 1873
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Today in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a United States patent for jeans with copper rivets. Since that day more than 135 years ago, blue jeans have gone from being sturdy pants made for the working man to a fashion statement worn casually all over the world. The progression of the denim trouser is a story of ingenuity and the ability of one small item to grow into a symbol of Western culture.
The word “jeans” comes to us from the French phrase meaning the ‘blue of Genoa’. The material from which jeans are made, denim, was developed independently in France and in India. Naval forces all over the world adopted the tough trousers, including the Genoese Navy in Italy as early as the 16th century. Sailors from the Dhunga area of India wore denim trousers as their work uniforms; those types of pants came to be known as dungarees. That term survives today in the navies of the United States and other nations.
Over the years, denim trousers traveled from ship to shore. A German-born immigrant named Levi Strauss made his way to San Francisco in 1853, eager to expand his dry goods business into the Gold Rush areas of California. He soon met Jacob Davis, a Latvian-born tailor who bought canvas-type materials, including denim, from Strauss for various applications. Soon, however, he was making pants out of the stuff to replace the cotton trousers that miners found nearly useless under heavy use. As tough as the canvas and denim were, they still ripped in particular places, like the pockets.
Davis had used rivets before on items like harnesses, but it wasn’t until 1871 that he first used them on his denim trousers. The story goes that he came up with the idea when a lady approached him to buy some denim to mend the rips her husband managed to make in his pants. Davis solved the woman’s problem by using rivets on the weak areas of the trousers. Thus, the trousers that would one day be called jeans were born.
Davis knew he had a virtual gold mine on his hands, but he worried about other people capitalizing on his innovation. Lacking the money at the time to file a patent on his invention, he approached Levi Strauss, the man who had supplied him with his raw materials for years. Strauss saw the brilliance in Davis’ design and agreed to enter into a partnership. On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted United States patent #139121 for using copper rivets to reinforce the pockets and other stress areas of denim work pants.
Levi Strauss soon left the dry goods business and began making denim jeans full time under the business name of Levi Strauss & Co. Jacob Davis became a partner with the company and worked as the company’s production manager until his death in 1908, although he sold his interest in the patent in 1907.
Levi Strauss died in 1902. Since he had no children, the business was left to his four nephews, who oversaw explosive growth in the company despite setbacks such as the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
After the Second World War, blue jeans went from being work clothes to being casual clothes worn by young men and women. They became the symbol of the American counter-culture during the 1960’s and left such a strong impression that some people who lived through that era will not wear jeans to this day. By the 1970’s, blue jeans became acceptable casual wear for people of all ages, hippies or no. Today, the average North American owns seven pairs of jeans, although whether all those pairs fit or can be worn in public is a matter of some debate.
Some sociologists studying the fall of the Soviet Union attribute a desire for Western goods and freedoms to the appearance of blue jeans on the streets of Moscow. The jeans were very expensive and only available on the black market, but to own a pair was to have status in what was supposed to be a classless society. This glimpse at Western culture was, perhaps, one of the first cracks in the dam of Communism in Eastern Europe.
Today in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a United States patent for jeans with copper rivets. Since that day more than 135 years ago, blue jeans have gone from being sturdy pants made for the working man to a fashion statement worn casually all over the world. The progression of the denim trouser is a story of ingenuity and the ability of one small item to grow into a symbol of Western culture.
The word “jeans” comes to us from the French phrase meaning the ‘blue of Genoa’. The material from which jeans are made, denim, was developed independently in France and in India. Naval forces all over the world adopted the tough trousers, including the Genoese Navy in Italy as early as the 16th century. Sailors from the Dhunga area of India wore denim trousers as their work uniforms; those types of pants came to be known as dungarees. That term survives today in the navies of the United States and other nations.
Over the years, denim trousers traveled from ship to shore. A German-born immigrant named Levi Strauss made his way to San Francisco in 1853, eager to expand his dry goods business into the Gold Rush areas of California. He soon met Jacob Davis, a Latvian-born tailor who bought canvas-type materials, including denim, from Strauss for various applications. Soon, however, he was making pants out of the stuff to replace the cotton trousers that miners found nearly useless under heavy use. As tough as the canvas and denim were, they still ripped in particular places, like the pockets.
Davis had used rivets before on items like harnesses, but it wasn’t until 1871 that he first used them on his denim trousers. The story goes that he came up with the idea when a lady approached him to buy some denim to mend the rips her husband managed to make in his pants. Davis solved the woman’s problem by using rivets on the weak areas of the trousers. Thus, the trousers that would one day be called jeans were born.
Davis knew he had a virtual gold mine on his hands, but he worried about other people capitalizing on his innovation. Lacking the money at the time to file a patent on his invention, he approached Levi Strauss, the man who had supplied him with his raw materials for years. Strauss saw the brilliance in Davis’ design and agreed to enter into a partnership. On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted United States patent #139121 for using copper rivets to reinforce the pockets and other stress areas of denim work pants.
Levi Strauss soon left the dry goods business and began making denim jeans full time under the business name of Levi Strauss & Co. Jacob Davis became a partner with the company and worked as the company’s production manager until his death in 1908, although he sold his interest in the patent in 1907.
Levi Strauss died in 1902. Since he had no children, the business was left to his four nephews, who oversaw explosive growth in the company despite setbacks such as the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
After the Second World War, blue jeans went from being work clothes to being casual clothes worn by young men and women. They became the symbol of the American counter-culture during the 1960’s and left such a strong impression that some people who lived through that era will not wear jeans to this day. By the 1970’s, blue jeans became acceptable casual wear for people of all ages, hippies or no. Today, the average North American owns seven pairs of jeans, although whether all those pairs fit or can be worn in public is a matter of some debate.
Some sociologists studying the fall of the Soviet Union attribute a desire for Western goods and freedoms to the appearance of blue jeans on the streets of Moscow. The jeans were very expensive and only available on the black market, but to own a pair was to have status in what was supposed to be a classless society. This glimpse at Western culture was, perhaps, one of the first cracks in the dam of Communism in Eastern Europe.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Queen Victoria Makes A "Neutrality Proclamation", May 13, 1861
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Today in 1861, Queen Victoria of Britain issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the Confederate States of America as having belligerent rights. While this proclamation was not a formal recognition of the breakaway states, it was indicative of the edgy foreign policy Great Britain and other nations, such as France, practiced during the early days of the US Civil War.
The War Between the States began in April, 1861. The nation was essentially split in half, but the two halves were vastly different. The northern states had a larger population and an exponentially larger industrial base. The southern states’ economy was centered around agriculture, mainly cotton, a fact that would become critical to the Confederacy’s attempts to gain international recognition. The south had one critical advantage over the north: military leadership. While the Union Army suffered from a glut of overly-cautious peacetime officers early in the war, the Confederacy had officers, both in the general and lower ranks, who were decisive and thorough tacticians who eager to prove their mettle on the battlefield. This, too, would play a hand in how Great Britain and other European nations viewed the civil war playing out on the other side of the Atlantic.
The President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was counting on British and possibly French support. Britain was dependent on southern cotton for her textile industry, a fact which Davis believed would lead to diplomatic recognition. Once Britain recognized the Confederacy as a free and separate nation, other European powers would follow. Davis hoped this would lead to a British-mediated end to the war, the result of which would be the permanent seperation of the northern and southern United States. More remote was the possibility of British military intervention on the side of the Confederacy. This would all but guarantee a battlefield victory and leave Jefferson Davis free to name his terms for peace.
The Union, led by new President Abraham Lincoln, was hoping to persuade Europe to not recognize the breakaway states. Great Britain was seen as being at the center of this attempt, since she seemingly had the most to gain from forming a relationship with the Confederacy. Lincoln, however, had an advantage in that the relationship between Britain and the United States had reached a sort of high point in the years leading up to the war. The British recognized the legitimacy of the Northern blockade of the South early on in the war, a move that frustrated Jefferson Davis' government. However, the proclamation was more than a little self-serving. As the world's leading naval power, Great Britain used the power of the blockade often and demanded that neutral nations not interfere. Thus, London could not fail to recognize the Union blockade in the same manner.
After the beginning of hostilities in the spring of 1861, the British public and government seemed to back away from the pre-war good feelings that had developed between London and Washington. In fact, one event almost ruined the relationship entirely. In November, 1861, the warship USS San Jacinto fired two shots across the bow of the Trent, a British mail steamer. The Trent had just left the Cuban port of Havana headed for home. On board were two Confederate commissioners tasked to represent their cause in England and France. It was a commonly held belief during the 19th century that any neutral merchant ship could be stopped in international waters and searched by a warring nation’s navy if the neutral ship was thought to be carrying the enemy nation’s dispatches. The captain of the San Jacinto, Charles Wilkes, reasoned that the two Confederate commissioners were, at least in some way, dispatches from his nation’s enemy. The two Confederates were taken off the Trent, arrested aboard the San Jacinto and taken to a Union prison in Boston. The northern public, hungry for a victory at that early stage of the war, was elated.
The reaction in Britain was, to put it mildly, less positive. The Royal Navy began provisioning a fleet to sail for the Atlantic seaboard and 11,000 troops were dispatched to Canada. A communique was sent to President Lincoln demanding the release of the two Confederates and an apology. Lincoln, believing that one war at a time was enough for any nation, ordered the two men released and apologized for the incident.
Could the United States and Great Britain have really come to blows in the fall of 1861? It was certainly possible, but unlikely. The British were concerned with their far-flung empire and the trouble the US Navy, a formidable force, could cause in remote areas not easily reinforced by the Crown. More importantly, during the decade of the 1860’s, the United States provided nearly half the wheat and corn Britain imported every year. If the US stopped exporting that grain, it would have been all but impossible to make up the deficit from other nations.
As late as the summer of 1862, there were still those in London who believed something could be gained by mediating an end of the war so as to ensure in independent South that would continue to sell cotton on the world market at cheap prices. But mediation meant recognizing the Confederacy, a move that, once again, could drive the Union to declare war on the British Empire.
Three things occurred between the summer of 1862 and the summer of 1863 which all but ended British support of the Confederacy. First was the Battle of Antietam in September, 1862. While the battle was inconclusive from a tactical standpoint, it ended the southern invasion of Maryland and showed that, sooner or later, superior Union numbers and industry, if lead effectively, would end the rebellion.
Second was the failure of the Confederacy to dominate the cotton market in Europe. By early 1863, England and France had replaced their southern cotton imports with cotton from other countries. In the eyes of Europe, the Confederacy simply stopped being an important economic entity.
Finally, there was the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1st, 1863. It stated, in part, that any slave held in a state that was in rebellion was considered free. While it did little at the time to actually free anyone, the Proclamation changed the war from being just about maintaining the union of states to also being about a larger cause, that of human freedom and the end of forced bondage. By this time, slavery was outlawed in all of Western Europe. What nation would now stand in the way of President Lincoln when he stood for such a noble goal?
Even though the Civil War would continue for another two years, by 1863 it was clear that European (and specifically British) recognition of the Confederacy was an impossibility. Without notice and support from the European powers, it was only a matter of time until the rebellion by the southern states ended in defeat.
Today in 1861, Queen Victoria of Britain issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the Confederate States of America as having belligerent rights. While this proclamation was not a formal recognition of the breakaway states, it was indicative of the edgy foreign policy Great Britain and other nations, such as France, practiced during the early days of the US Civil War.
The War Between the States began in April, 1861. The nation was essentially split in half, but the two halves were vastly different. The northern states had a larger population and an exponentially larger industrial base. The southern states’ economy was centered around agriculture, mainly cotton, a fact that would become critical to the Confederacy’s attempts to gain international recognition. The south had one critical advantage over the north: military leadership. While the Union Army suffered from a glut of overly-cautious peacetime officers early in the war, the Confederacy had officers, both in the general and lower ranks, who were decisive and thorough tacticians who eager to prove their mettle on the battlefield. This, too, would play a hand in how Great Britain and other European nations viewed the civil war playing out on the other side of the Atlantic.
The President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was counting on British and possibly French support. Britain was dependent on southern cotton for her textile industry, a fact which Davis believed would lead to diplomatic recognition. Once Britain recognized the Confederacy as a free and separate nation, other European powers would follow. Davis hoped this would lead to a British-mediated end to the war, the result of which would be the permanent seperation of the northern and southern United States. More remote was the possibility of British military intervention on the side of the Confederacy. This would all but guarantee a battlefield victory and leave Jefferson Davis free to name his terms for peace.
The Union, led by new President Abraham Lincoln, was hoping to persuade Europe to not recognize the breakaway states. Great Britain was seen as being at the center of this attempt, since she seemingly had the most to gain from forming a relationship with the Confederacy. Lincoln, however, had an advantage in that the relationship between Britain and the United States had reached a sort of high point in the years leading up to the war. The British recognized the legitimacy of the Northern blockade of the South early on in the war, a move that frustrated Jefferson Davis' government. However, the proclamation was more than a little self-serving. As the world's leading naval power, Great Britain used the power of the blockade often and demanded that neutral nations not interfere. Thus, London could not fail to recognize the Union blockade in the same manner.
After the beginning of hostilities in the spring of 1861, the British public and government seemed to back away from the pre-war good feelings that had developed between London and Washington. In fact, one event almost ruined the relationship entirely. In November, 1861, the warship USS San Jacinto fired two shots across the bow of the Trent, a British mail steamer. The Trent had just left the Cuban port of Havana headed for home. On board were two Confederate commissioners tasked to represent their cause in England and France. It was a commonly held belief during the 19th century that any neutral merchant ship could be stopped in international waters and searched by a warring nation’s navy if the neutral ship was thought to be carrying the enemy nation’s dispatches. The captain of the San Jacinto, Charles Wilkes, reasoned that the two Confederate commissioners were, at least in some way, dispatches from his nation’s enemy. The two Confederates were taken off the Trent, arrested aboard the San Jacinto and taken to a Union prison in Boston. The northern public, hungry for a victory at that early stage of the war, was elated.
The reaction in Britain was, to put it mildly, less positive. The Royal Navy began provisioning a fleet to sail for the Atlantic seaboard and 11,000 troops were dispatched to Canada. A communique was sent to President Lincoln demanding the release of the two Confederates and an apology. Lincoln, believing that one war at a time was enough for any nation, ordered the two men released and apologized for the incident.
Could the United States and Great Britain have really come to blows in the fall of 1861? It was certainly possible, but unlikely. The British were concerned with their far-flung empire and the trouble the US Navy, a formidable force, could cause in remote areas not easily reinforced by the Crown. More importantly, during the decade of the 1860’s, the United States provided nearly half the wheat and corn Britain imported every year. If the US stopped exporting that grain, it would have been all but impossible to make up the deficit from other nations.
As late as the summer of 1862, there were still those in London who believed something could be gained by mediating an end of the war so as to ensure in independent South that would continue to sell cotton on the world market at cheap prices. But mediation meant recognizing the Confederacy, a move that, once again, could drive the Union to declare war on the British Empire.
Three things occurred between the summer of 1862 and the summer of 1863 which all but ended British support of the Confederacy. First was the Battle of Antietam in September, 1862. While the battle was inconclusive from a tactical standpoint, it ended the southern invasion of Maryland and showed that, sooner or later, superior Union numbers and industry, if lead effectively, would end the rebellion.
Second was the failure of the Confederacy to dominate the cotton market in Europe. By early 1863, England and France had replaced their southern cotton imports with cotton from other countries. In the eyes of Europe, the Confederacy simply stopped being an important economic entity.
Finally, there was the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1st, 1863. It stated, in part, that any slave held in a state that was in rebellion was considered free. While it did little at the time to actually free anyone, the Proclamation changed the war from being just about maintaining the union of states to also being about a larger cause, that of human freedom and the end of forced bondage. By this time, slavery was outlawed in all of Western Europe. What nation would now stand in the way of President Lincoln when he stood for such a noble goal?
Even though the Civil War would continue for another two years, by 1863 it was clear that European (and specifically British) recognition of the Confederacy was an impossibility. Without notice and support from the European powers, it was only a matter of time until the rebellion by the southern states ended in defeat.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
'In Flanders Fields' Written, May 3, 1915
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Today in 1915, the poem “In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian soldier and physician John McCrae. Written in the French rondeau style, the fifteen line, three stanza poem is still easily recognized by the general public in Europe and North America more than eighty years after its first publication.
John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada in November, 1872. He had recurring problems with asthma in his younger years, but that did not stop him from pursuing higher education and a career in the military. He was also an occasional poet. By the time of the Second Boer War in 1899, McCrae was both an experienced doctor and artillery officer. Since Canada was a Dominion of the British Empire, McCrae found himself serving with the British Expeditionary Force sent to South Africa. Upon his return home in 1902, he became a professor of pathology at the University of Vermont.
The First World War began in 1914 and McCrae, now 41, found himself once again on the battlefield, this time as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery with the command of a field hospital. It was here during the Second Battle of Ypres in May, 1915 that McCrae learned of (or may have witnessed) the death of his friend and former student, 22 year-old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer. After presiding over Helmer's funeral, McCrae wrote a short poem in his notebook and then, not satisfied with it, ripped it out and threw it away. An observant fellow officer retrieved the notebook page and submitted it for publication in the British magazine Punch, which printed the poem anonymously on December 8th, 1915. However, the magazine's index listed McCrae as the author.
“In Flanders Fields” became instantly popular and is arguably the most culturally important poem to emerge from the First World War period. McCrae was amused with his sudden rise to fame, but it did not change his work as both a soldier and a healer. He did not, however, have much time to contemplate how his discarded poem might change his life. On January 28th, 1918, while commanding Number 3 Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne, France, Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae died of pneumonia at the age of 45. He was buried with full honors at Wimereux Cemetery, not far from his last command. A collection of McCrae's poems, many of them written before the war, were published soon after his death.
Some recitations of “In Flanders Fields” omit the third stanza because of what critics have called its pro-war stance versus the more sacrificial tone of the first two stanzas. But in remembering what has come before, I believe it is important to remember not just the words or events, but the personalities behind them. John McCrae was a patriot and soldier as well as a doctor; he once noted in a letter that “all the... doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men “. This was the man behind “In Flanders Fields”. With this in mind, here is the poem in its entirety:
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields...
Today, a First World War museum called In Flanders Fields exists in Ypres, Belgium near the site where McCrae first mourned for his lost friend so many years ago.
Today in 1915, the poem “In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian soldier and physician John McCrae. Written in the French rondeau style, the fifteen line, three stanza poem is still easily recognized by the general public in Europe and North America more than eighty years after its first publication.
John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada in November, 1872. He had recurring problems with asthma in his younger years, but that did not stop him from pursuing higher education and a career in the military. He was also an occasional poet. By the time of the Second Boer War in 1899, McCrae was both an experienced doctor and artillery officer. Since Canada was a Dominion of the British Empire, McCrae found himself serving with the British Expeditionary Force sent to South Africa. Upon his return home in 1902, he became a professor of pathology at the University of Vermont.
The First World War began in 1914 and McCrae, now 41, found himself once again on the battlefield, this time as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery with the command of a field hospital. It was here during the Second Battle of Ypres in May, 1915 that McCrae learned of (or may have witnessed) the death of his friend and former student, 22 year-old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer. After presiding over Helmer's funeral, McCrae wrote a short poem in his notebook and then, not satisfied with it, ripped it out and threw it away. An observant fellow officer retrieved the notebook page and submitted it for publication in the British magazine Punch, which printed the poem anonymously on December 8th, 1915. However, the magazine's index listed McCrae as the author.
“In Flanders Fields” became instantly popular and is arguably the most culturally important poem to emerge from the First World War period. McCrae was amused with his sudden rise to fame, but it did not change his work as both a soldier and a healer. He did not, however, have much time to contemplate how his discarded poem might change his life. On January 28th, 1918, while commanding Number 3 Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne, France, Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae died of pneumonia at the age of 45. He was buried with full honors at Wimereux Cemetery, not far from his last command. A collection of McCrae's poems, many of them written before the war, were published soon after his death.
Some recitations of “In Flanders Fields” omit the third stanza because of what critics have called its pro-war stance versus the more sacrificial tone of the first two stanzas. But in remembering what has come before, I believe it is important to remember not just the words or events, but the personalities behind them. John McCrae was a patriot and soldier as well as a doctor; he once noted in a letter that “all the... doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men “. This was the man behind “In Flanders Fields”. With this in mind, here is the poem in its entirety:
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields...
Today, a First World War museum called In Flanders Fields exists in Ypres, Belgium near the site where McCrae first mourned for his lost friend so many years ago.
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