USS Corsair

“ Every shovel and basket of coal meant steam to shove the old boat nearer home. [Pg 287] That homeward-bound pennant trailed jubilantly from the masthead, a silk streamer of red, white, and blue, one hundred and eighty feet long, into whose folds had been fondly stitched the desires, the yearnings, the anticipations of every man in the ship. Only a few of them had stood, with bared heads, on the Corsair’s deck when she had been formally commissioned as a fourth-rate gunboat of the United States Navy in May of 1917, and the bright ensign had whipped in the breeze. ”

“ They ate in the forward house on deck and the library served as an office, with gun supports extending from the wide divans to the deck above. The rough-and-ready transformation must have seemed almost brutal to those of the crew who, for many years, had striven for perfection of detail in maintaining the Corsair as a yacht. As a fighting [Pg 10] ship the gleaming black of the hull and the mahogany houses were covered with sombre gray paint. ”

“ As the American flagship, the Corsair tarried there through part of April before sailing to Southend to execute similar orders and duties. England was green and blooming with the loveliness of its rare springtime, and the men of the lonely American yacht were more than ever absorbed in thoughts of flying that homeward-bound pennant. ”

“ It was the supreme test for the Corsair, a yacht which was, after all, handicapped for such a struggle. Officers and men prepared her to face it as best they could, but she could not be “battened down” like the rugged ship that is built to tramp the world. The deck-houses, contrived for comfort and convenience, presented an expanse of large windows and mahogany walls and were exposed to the battering of the seas. There was no passageway below to connect the fore and after parts of the yacht. ”

“ The Corsair’s crew had been hoping to visit England and the opportunity came, but not precisely as they might have wished it. The yacht was ordered to proceed to Devonport on September 13th to load a cargo of depth charges for the other naval vessels on the French coast. It was something like asking a man to make a railway journey from New York to Boston with a stick of dynamite in every pocket of his clothes. ”

“ For lack of destroyers it was the business of the yachts to take the big ships out after they had discharged their troops or supplies. Having parted company with the Celtic at Fourteen West and wished her good luck, the Corsair hastened back for coal and further orders, which were to cruise [Pg 77] in the regular patrol area. The American steamer Carolyn was expected, inbound and running alone, and the Corsair searched a waste of waters until the magic of the radio found the unseen ship and whispered to her this comforting message:
I am thirty miles west of you. ”

“ A straight wing would have needed a dangerously high landing gear to provide clearance for such a large propeller. Originally designed for carrier use, the 2,000-horsepower, 400-mile-an-hour Corsair was adopted for land-based operations by the United States Marine Corps. Marine Corps aviators used the Corsair with deadly effect against the Japs from Guadalcanal on. Navy pilots flew the Corsair as a night-fighter to put a stop to the Jap’s habit of bombing our Pacific airfields at night. ”

“ The Corsair stood out to sea with the transports and the escort in the morning of June 14th after a thick fog had delayed the departure for several hours. As finally selected, the ship’s company consisted of 130 officers and enlisted men. The shifting fortunes of war were to scatter most of them to other ships and stations during the long exile overseas, and when the battered yacht came home, only Commander Porter and Lieutenant McGuire and eighteen of the crew of this first muster roll were left on board. ”

“ Corsair took position on [Pg 85] starboard bow. The El Occidente was rapidly gaining position. Proceeded about five miles and El Occidente turned out of formation and slowed down. I then ordered Montanan to reduce speed until convoy had caught up and then proceeded with the Corsair to El Occidente. Found out that this steamer had sighted the ship’s boat of the S.S. Malda with four dead men in it and had stopped to investigate. I ordered her to rejoin immediately and cause no further delay, and also to stop using her signal searchlight as evening twilight had come on. ”

“ The escort of the fast convoy, fourteen knots, was in charge of Commander Kittinger and comprised the Corsair with the three destroyers, Warrington, Roe, and Monaghan, which had been added to the flotilla. The slow convoy escort, twelve knots, was under the orders of Lieutenant Commander Slayton in the Reid, who had with him the Flusser, Lamson, Smith, and Preston. The whole destroyer force then available was therefore employed on this cruise, with the Corsair as the only yacht. ”

“ The American Army had begun to move overseas in a swelling tide of khaki and the transports came faster and faster. No sooner had the Corsair seen the last of one group than another was waiting. On September 28th she left port to seek contact with the store-ships City of Atlanta, Willehad, Artemus, and Florence Luckenbach, and a British destroyer which was the senior vessel of the escort. Having found them, the subsequent proceedings were such as sprinkled gray hairs on the heads of the commander and the officers of the Corsair. The War Diary records it in this summary fashion:
September 29th. ”

“ And so the Corsair came to France and rested in the quaint old port of Saint-Nazaire while her men beheld the troops of Pershing’s First Division stream down the gangways and receive a welcome thrilling beyond words, the cheers and outstretched hands, the laughter and the tears of a people who hailed these tall, careless fighting men as crusaders come to succor them. ”

“ Rumors on this ship spread like wildfire. First we are to be a flagship and then a dispatch boat and then to patrol the English Channel until nobody knows anything. There goes the boatswain’s whistle which means turn to.
May 11th. Spent the entire day at the Armory getting clothes. The only decent thing about Navy red-tape is the cheap price which we pay for stuff. We stood in line just seven hours. The Corsair now looks like a real battleship. The paint is all on, also the gun mountings. ”

“ It was later reported in Brest that another ship had picked up the Malda’s boat in passing and had discovered that the bodies of the English sailors were riddled with bullets from a machine gun, presumably after they had abandoned their steamer.
The Corsair kept on her way and had no trouble in finding her convoy of four vessels with which she started for Saint-Nazaire at thirteen knots. Off Belle Isle, the Montanan developed a fit of hysterics and opened fire on an imaginary flock of submarines which turned out to be blackfish in a sportive mood. ”

“ They were the guests of the Corsair from Royan to the great American aviation base at Pauillac, and their enthusiastic approval of the work of the Navy in the war was pleasant for the crew of the Corsair to hear. Their report, later submitted to the Secretary of the Navy, contained this non-partisan opinion, signed by Republican and Democratic members alike:
The committee visited and inspected the United States naval activities at Bordeaux, Moutchic, Pauillac, Rochefort, La Rochelle, La Pallice, Fromentine, Paimbœuf, Saint-Nazaire, Montoir, Le Croisic, L’Orient, Île Tudy, and Brest. ”

“ Captain Porter was appointed executive officer of the yacht, which position he held until promoted to command during her second year of duty in foreign waters.
In April and May of 1917 the Corsair was overhauled and refitted as a fighting craft at the yard of the W. & A. Fletcher Company in Hoboken, the firm which had built her. The Navy is severely practical and beauty was sacrificed to utility. The bowsprit, which had added the finishing touch to the fine sheer of the deck, was ruthlessly removed. ”

“ Man has contrived many cunningly ingenious structures, but none of them nobler than a staunch and well-found ship. The Corsair was a shell of thin steel plates, but every line and curve and hollow [Pg 153] of them had been influenced by the experiences of centuries of warfare with the sea. A good ship is, in a way, the heritage from unnumbered builders who, patiently, intelligently, wrought in wood by rule of thumb to fashion the frames and timbers and planking of frigates and barks and stately clippers long since vanished. ”

“ Some of the aspirants preferred to study while in the ship and try to pass the tests, a little afraid that if detached for Annapolis they might not be sent back to the war zone.
It was inspiring to find the ship’s officers anxious to assist these ambitions. The Corsair became more or less of a nautical school. Earnest young men were to be found frowning over problems and text-books instead of playing cards at the mess tables or reading old magazines. ”

“ By way of precaution the Corsair’s crew scampered to general quarters, because nothing could be taken for granted in war-time. Bearing down, the yacht hovered close to a sea-worn, dingy Norwegian tramp which wallowed inert and wore an air of profound discouragement. The sailors of the Dagfin flourished their caps and yelled with delight. It was obvious that they yearned to be [Pg 243] plucked out of the submarine zone after six days and nights of exposure as a stationary target to any U-boat which might wander that way. Fritz was too unsportsmanlike to hesitate to shoot at a sitting bird. ”

“ On a run one night in March (to La Pallice) after leaving a Verdon convoy, the Corsair and Aphrodite ran into a pretty stiff blow. We were doing about fourteen knots or better with the wind and sea a little on the port bow. A good-sized sea slapped into the port side forward, by the petty officers’ quarters, smashing in one of the deadlights of that compartment. The crash was tremendous. Everybody asleep down there woke up with visions of the ship torpedoed, and out of the hatch they boiled on the jump, mostly arrayed in the costume which Nature provides for sailors. ”

“ The life begins to agree with me.
It may be noted that in these extracts from the day’s routine of several weeks of active duty, the Corsair was engaged in patrolling a certain definite area of ocean and in escorting single ships through her block, like a policeman on a beat, or in saving mariners and vessels in distress. ”

“ The escort comprised the Corsair, [Pg 102] phrodite, and the Kanawha, which replaced the Wakiva after this smaller yacht had returned to port because of leaky rivets in the main boiler. With the circumstances as they were, no better protection could have been given this small convoy of three transports. The Queenstown destroyers were employed in guarding the laden ships inward bound, meeting them far offshore, but the American Patrol Force in France had to take them to sea again as best it could, with the yachts and whatever aid the French Navy was able to offer. ”

“ We are not even allowed to tell our families when or where we sail. All the dope is that we are going abroad soon. I visited the Noma and the Harvard to-night, but they can’t compare with the Corsair. We also looked over some of the battleships and destroyers. Eleven of them left for France to-day. We now get home leave once a week. I washed some clothes to-day. They were in awful shape. We loaded ten tons more of provisions. Also got shot in the arm for typhoid and was vaccinated. I am all in to-night.
May 18th. To-day has been more like the real Navy. ”

“ Most of the youthful landsmen, convinced that the yacht was going to the bottom, were frightened out of a year’s growth and not in the least ashamed to admit it. If they said their prayers, it was to be counted in their favor. The professional seafarers had their own misgivings, but with the stubborn, unreasonable confidence of their kind, they somehow expected to pull her through, believing in the ship as long as she was able to float. This was particularly true of Lieutenant Commander Porter, who had lived with the Corsair for so many years that she was almost a part of himself. ”

“ Brest Harbor was a familiar panorama to the few men aboard the Corsair who had shared the toil and excitement of those early months of patrol work offshore, almost a year before. Now, however, the transports were crammed with troops homeward bound, and there was no more convoying the “empty buckets” out of Saint-Nazaire and Bordeaux and Quiberon Bay, nor was there any chance of a brush with the persistent U-boat which had been dubbed “Penmarch Pete.” ”

“ The “Y gun,” or twin mortar, was also invented to hurl these metal kegs a considerable distance from the ship. Such were the perfected tactics learned from experience, which would surely have doomed the U-boat to extinction if the armistice had not intervened. The Corsair was fitted out in this manner later in her service, but she blithely sailed for the war zone with her four small guns and a few “Sperry pills” and could [Pg 42] have felt no more pride in her task if she had been a first-class battleship. ”

“ You see, the Corsair and the Aphrodite were the first American war vessels to patrol the Bay of Biscay; consequently we are old-timers here and are looked up to by the others as being well versed in this game. The hard service is the best thing that could have happened to us. Being in a war without actually serving on the firing line would drive me looney, but as things have turned out I have the most wonderful opportunity to exercise all my mechanical ingenuity and experience and they have more than stood me in good stead. ”