Donald M. Bishop ’67
Alum Contributor
Early on April 28, 1918, the SS Oransa, a British cargo steamer carrying nitrates, sugar and 110 passengers, was off the coast of Wales, nearing Liverpool with other ships in convoy HN62. In bright moonlight the ship was attacked by U-91, a German submarine prowling the Irish Sea. Ten minutes after the torpedo struck, the vessel sank.
Aboard the Oransa were 57 Americans employed by the YMCA; among them was Rev. Philip Cook of Trinity’s Class of 1898. Thanks to swift action by the ship’s captain and sailors, all but three of the crew and passengers took to lifeboats and survived. Cook would go on to accompany the 77th Infantry Division in the war’s final offensives.
This one story tells a central problem in the First World War. Thanks to an extraordinary mobilization, there were millions of American soldiers bound for Europe and the Western Front. But first, they had to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Although transatlantic travel had become routine, the seas became a theatre of war. Vessels that carried American troops and materials to Europe were targets of the German submarine fleet – the U-boats.
Most soldiers bound for the war in Europe funneled through two ports – 1.2 million through New York and nearly 300,000 from Newport News. Every American soldier, many seeing an ocean for the first time, recalled the crossing – the ship (old or new, small or large), the weather, seasickness, confinement for long hours below decks, exercise, and lifeboat drills.
By 1917, Germany had 140 U-boats in its fleet, and they had sunk 30 percent of the world’s merchant ships. Two hundred American ships were sunk during the war, ten off the coast of North Carolina. Protecting the convoys fell to the U.S. Navy, working closely with the Royal Navy. And many Trinity alumni were on the high seas.
Carrying Troops and Cargo
Seaman James P. Townsend ’10 sailed through the U-boats on the USS Powhatan (ID-3013), a troop transport. During its transatlantic voyages, it carried 15,274 troops to France, and afterwards, the ship returned 11,803 to the U.S. The Plattsburg was a leased commercial passenger liner, formerly the SS New York. Ensign Philip Edgar Aldrich ’18 was an Ensign on the vessel, carrying troops to Europe and then bringing them home.
Giles Deshon Randall ’08 was a paymaster aboard a Navy freighter, the USS Middlesex. He was commended by the Secretary of the Navy for saving the life of an electrician, R. C. Hammer. Paymaster Randall jumped overboard and rescued him from drowning.
In another theater, Ensign Lowell T. “Puck” Lyon ‘16 served on the USS Saturn, a Navy transport serving the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Between late 1918 and mid-1919, the Saturn made a voyage to Vladivostok, Russia – occupied by the Whites in Russia’s civil war and by allied troops, including an American Expeditionary Force in Siberia. It carried coal, supplies and a team that built a naval radio station there.
Protecting the Convoys
The first member of his class to enlist in the Navy for the war, Victor Francis Fortunado De Nezzo ’16, was a seaman on three vessels, spending 13 months in French waters. The USS Emeline (SP-175), a converted yacht armed with 3-inch guns, escorted vessels sailing between England and France. The crew rescued many survivors of German submarine attacks.
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) James M. Hays ’18 served on destroyers – USS Downes (DD-45) and USS Ammen (DD-35). Based in Queenstown, Ireland, they escorted convoys and patrolled for and attacked German U-boats. Elliott Lee Ward ‘13 served on the USS Waters (DD-115), escorting convoys sailing to the British Isles and the Azores.
Ensign Elliot Fielding Pettigrew ’12 sailed on the armored cruiser USS South Dakota (CA-9), escorting convoys.
Submarine Chasers
Between 1917 and 1919, U.S. shipyards built 442 Submarine Chasers for the Navy. These vessels were 119 feet in length, had a speed of 17 knots and mounted one 3-inch gun, two .30 caliber machine guns and a depth charge projector.
Two Trinity men served on the U.S. Submarine Chaser 119 out of Newport News — Ensign Cyril B. Judge ’10 and William Goodrich Rankin ’18. These boats incorporated then-top secret technologies for detecting U-boats.
Quartermaster Third Class Lester Hubbard Church ’20 sailed on U.S. Submarine Chaser 166 based in Nantucket. While the vessel was undergoing repairs in New London, sadly, he contracted influenza and died of pneumonia on Sept. 26, 1918.
During the war, Robert Preston Withington ’13 advanced from Seaman to Ensign. He too was engaged in anti-submarine patrols, specifically out of Newport, RI.
The North Sea Mine Barrage
A strategic American initiative to throttle the movement of U-boats into the Atlantic was laying a North Sea Mine Barrage between Scotland and Norway. The design of a new American-made Mark VI mine was optimized to sink U-boats, and the U.S. Navy gathered a small fleet of minelayers in Scotland.
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Sibley Mark Miller ’96 had served in the Navy during the war with Spain. When he re-joined the Navy in the First World War, he was part of the campaign to lay the mines in the rough waters of the North Sea. After the armistice, clearing the mines was just as large an operation.
Norway was neutral, and the U-boats could evade the mine barrage if they hugged the Norwegian coast. After commissioning, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Robert Cairns Hayden ’93 was sent to London as an aide to Rear Admiral Nathan C. Twining. There, he was “instrumental in furthering pro-Ally propaganda in the Scandinavian countries in order to overcome pro-German tendencies.”
Samuel Richard Fuller, Jr. ‘00 was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy’s Supply Corps. The baseball team’s captain at Trinity, William Elijah L’Heureux ’18 served in the Submarine Service at New London, CT, as a Pharmacist’s Mate. The Class of 1919’s salutatorian and future president of Aetna Life Insurance, Henry Samuel Beers, attained the rank of Chief Quartermaster in an aviation billet.
Basil Leighton Steel ’10 joined the Navy as an Apprentice Seaman in late 1917, was promoted by examination to First Class Yeoman, and commissioned as an Ensign in the Supply Corps in 1918. He was a paymaster in Cardiff, Wales, a shipping port for coal that was also the site of a U.S. Naval Hospital. He contracted influenza and died on Oct. 8, 1918.
Many of those who enlisted in the Navy as seamen, by examination and performance, became officers. A relatively small number of Trinity alumni –76 – served in the Navy, but they played roles in all of the Navy’s major World War I campaigns.
This article is the fifth part of an ongoing series, with new installments releasing on Sundays. For part four, click here. For part six, click here.
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