A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy

by Thomas J. Cutler

  Inside CIC, Tom Ross felt the bulkheads rattle as the Harpoon roared down the ship’s starboard side, close aboard. It was a moment he was not likely ever to forget.

  Brewer was most relieved when he saw the missile plunge into the sea astern of the ship, hitting just fifty to seventy-five yards from Wainwright. As Palmer later wrote, “In a literal sense, Wainwright had ‘dodged a bullet.’”

  With the roar of the missile still echoing in CIC, rapid but disciplined orders and reports filled the air: “Whiskey, this is Alfa Whiskey. Red and free!”

  “Fire SWC!”

  “Birds affirm.”

  “Birds away on hostile track 1077.”

  Again, the bulkheads rattled as several surface-to-surface missiles left Wainwright’s rails in retaliation. The other ships in SAG Charlie—frigates Simpson and Bagley—opened fire as well.

  Ross heard the air tracker’s radio crackle with a report from a helicopter that the first missile had reached Joshan and “blew the top right off.” The Americans were shooting better that day than were the Iranians. Several more missiles found their marks and Joshan was, in Ross’s words, “turned into metal composite and sank.”

  Wainwright’s trial by fire was not yet over, however. A number of Iranian aircraft had sortied from bases on the southern Iranian coast, and one of them was headed straight for the American cruiser. Like Joshan, this aircraft ignored all warnings. Again, missiles ran out on Wainwright’s rails, and again she opened fire. One of the missiles damaged the Iranian fighter, which quickly turned heel and ran back to the safety of its base in Bandar Abbas. This was the first time in history that an American warship had simultaneously engaged both surface and air targets with missiles.

  The action continued on into the day, with other SAGs and U.S. aircraft engaging designated targets, repelling Iranian attacks, and retaliating with devastating effect. When the sun finally set on the Persian Gulf, half of Iran’s operational navy had been destroyed.

  When the battle had subsided and Wainwright was steaming out of the area, Chief Warrant Officer Fischman decided that, under the circumstances, it would be all right to break one of the rules; he announced that the smoking lamp was lighted on the bridge. He and the other smokers immediately began to light up, and he noted that several of the nonsmokers were joining in too. Just as eight cigarette lighters fired up, Captain Chandler emerged from CIC and, looking at his officer of the deck, asked what was going on. Fischman replied, “Well, Captain, since you’ve been filling my pilothouse with smoke from the missile rails, I figured the smoking lamp was lit.” Chandler smiled at Fischman and countered: “First of all, this is not your pilothouse, it’s mine. I just let you play out here for a few hours. And second, the lamp goes out unless someone can run me out a cigar.” One quickly appeared from somewhere in CIC.

  From his ringside seat in CIC, Tom Ross had seen his ship and his shipmates in action, and he later summed up the action well when he said it was “the best feeling I ever had in my life . . . and the job that everyone in combat did that day was an awesome testament of just how bad ass our ship was under that kind of pressure. I would go to war any day with those guys anytime!” He also added proudly, “If you mess with the Bull, you’ll get the horns.”

  Memories of that day had momentarily distracted Richard Molck from the unfolding drama at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the footsteps he had heard earlier turned out to be those of a Sailor coming to tell him that he and Reynolds would have to leave the ship. In light of the terrorist attacks, the shipyard was being closed down for security reasons and all “civilians” would have to depart the area.

  Before they departed, Molck took one more look around. Standing there in the dark cavern of the after steering compartment, inside the steel skin of the once potent warship, he suddenly felt reassured. He sensed that, despite the devastating news of passenger airliners serving as the guided missiles of a fanatical enemy against the American homeland, the nation would survive these attacks just as Wainwright had survived those attacks in 1988, when he and his shipmates had gone to war with the Iranian navy in the confines of the Persian Gulf. Then and now, the nation’s honor had been challenged and, now as well as then, it would be the enemies of the United States who ultimately would pay the price. Bull’s horns or eagle’s talons, it didn’t matter: Americans don’t run from a fight.

  Praying Mantis

  The sinking of the Joshan had been just one part of a larger sea battle that took place on that day in April 1988—the first U.S. Navy surface battle since World War II—at a time when U.S. forces rarely were permitted to engage in combat operations. It had come about for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the matter of honor.

  In recent times, combat in the Middle East has become an all too frequent occurrence for American Sailors. But during the many years of the Cold War, the United States was legitimately concerned about the terrible destruction that would come about if the use of force led to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Because both superpowers had vested interests in many parts of the world, including the Middle East, American statesmen and military commanders had been very reluctant to risk combat operations in any of those hot spots for fear they might have disastrous consequences. Many U.S. Sailors spent an entire career making arduous deployments under the constant threat of all-out war, yet never hearing a shot fired in anger.

  But in 1988, economic considerations centering largely on oil and a growing realization that the United States could no longer afford to remain politically disengaged in the Middle East brought about a new level of involvement there. When, during the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians began attacking oil tankers and other vessels in the Persian Gulf as a means of putting economic pressure on their enemies, the United States made the bold decision to place many of these vessels under U.S. protection.

  The Iranians responded by sowing mines in the Persian Gulf, and on 14 April 1988 USS Samuel B. Roberts struck one of those mines and nearly sank. The explosion ripped a seven-hundred-square-foot hole in the frigate, injured ten of her crew, and nearly broke her in two. Only an extraordinary damage control effort by the crew saved her.

  It could be argued that responding militarily to this attack on a U.S. Navy ship would accomplish little in either a political or a strategic sense. It also could be argued (and was) that responding by force of arms would be risky in light of the world situation. But there was no question that the nation’s honor had been injured, and not to respond ran other risks, not the least of which was a virtual invitation for future attacks on U.S. warships and installations. Within a very short time, President Ronald Reagan ordered the U.S. Middle East commander to take appropriate retaliatory action.

  Just four days after Roberts had been hit, three SAGs, consisting of three ships each and supported by a carrier battle group in the nearby Arabian Sea, headed into battle in an operation code-named Praying Mantis. Two of the SAGs, designated Bravo and Charlie, first destroyed two Iranian offshore oil platforms in the Persian Gulf that the Iranians had been using as outposts in support of their attacks on merchant ships. When the Iranian navy counterattacked, the Joshan was not the only vessel dispatched to the bottom. As part of SAG Delta, the frigate Jack Williams directed a group of A-6 Intruders from the carrier battle group onto a group of attacking vessels, including five high-speed, Swedish-built Boghammars. Loaded with Rockeye cluster bombs, the attack aircraft sank one of the Boghammars, causing the others to retreat into port.

  As the day wore on, two Iranian frigates—Sahand and Sabalan—joined the battle. After Sahand fired on U.S. aircraft, they and the destroyer USS Joseph Strauss retaliated with a barrage that included three Harpoons, four Skipper infrared homing rockets, and several laser-guided bombs. A number of the weapons struck home, and Sahand was left a flaming wreck that later sank. Sabalan too had fired on U.S. aircraft and paid the price by receiving a 500-pound laser-guided bomb that penetrated her superstructure amidships and left her dead in the water
.

  The Iranian frigate Sahand burns in the Persian Gulf after an attack by U.S. Navy aircraft in retaliation for the mining attack on USS Samuel B. Roberts. Naval Historical Center

  In one day of sea combat, American ships and aircraft had soundly thrashed the Iranian navy, and U.S. honor had been upheld by force of arms in a time when cold war was the watchword of the day. Nations rarely go to war for the sake of honor alone. Yet a nation’s credibility is closely tied to its honor, so there comes a time when the use of force becomes a necessity if that nation is to maintain its stature on the world stage. Even the threat of a widened war takes second place to the need to defend the nation’s honor.

  Brave Yankee Boys

  Operation Praying Mantis was not the first time that the U.S. Navy had been called upon to defend national honor. And it was not the first time such defense had been undertaken in the face of significant risk.

  One of the earliest challenges to the honor of the United States of America came in 1797, barely ten years after the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia. Although France had come to the aid of the Americans during the American Revolution, relations between the two nations soured in the years following. When the United States signed a treaty with England—France’s longtime enemy—the French began to seize American ships on the high seas. The new nation’s Navy was very weak, and the idea of taking on the powerful French navy seemed to be a very bad idea. So President John Adams sent a delegation on a peace mission to France. The French foreign minister refused to meet with the members of the delegation, and, even worse, some go-betweens suggested that the Americans must first pay a bribe before the minister would see them. In dispatches back to the United States, the three primary go-betweens were not mentioned by name but were instead referred to as simply X, Y, and Z.

  When word spread in the United States about the insulting treatment the American delegation received, many were outraged and demanded an appropriate response to this serious insult to our national honor. Much of the American anger was summed up by the legendary slogan, “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” With no army to speak of, and because much of the trouble had begun with French seizure of U.S. ships, Congress ordered the Navy to take action, authorizing it to “subdue, seize, and take any armed French vessel.” This was a tall order for a tiny fleet facing the second largest in the world. But the Americans had taken on the most powerful army and navy in the world just a few years before and had won their independence, so they did not shrink from this challenge, despite formidable odds. Because Congress did not go so far as to formally declare war on France, what followed has become known as the “Quasi-War with France.”

  U.S. frigate Constellation, a key player in the so-called Quasi-War with France. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

  On 9 February 1799, USS Constellation was cruising in Caribbean waters when a lookout reported an unidentified ship just over the horizon. Captain Thomas Truxtun ordered his ship to come about, then went below to record in his log: “At noon saw a sail standing to westward, gave chase. I take her for a ship of war.”

  The pursuit continued for about an hour, with Constellation gaining on the other vessel. As they drew closer, it became apparent that the other ship was a heavily armed frigate. A lesser captain with a lesser crew might have decided to look for an easier conquest to carry out Congress’s edict to “subdue, seize, and take any armed French vessel” in this “Quasi-War,” but Truxtun was not lacking in courage, and he knew that Constellation’s crew was well trained and ready for a fight.

  When the two ships were close enough to exchange signals, Truxtun attempted to learn her identity. The other ship ran up an American flag but would not reply to any of Truxtun’s coded signals. It was looking fairly certain that this was a Frenchman. In fact, the men of Constellation would later learn that she was l’Insurgente, a French frigate that had earlier taken part in the capture of USS Retaliation. This was truly shaping up as a matter of honor.

  A naval ballad of the day titled “Brave Yankee Boys” recorded this incident in a number of verses, the first of which began

  ’Twas on the 9th of February at Monserat we lay,

  And there we spied the L’Insurgente at the break of day.

  We raised the orange and blue,

  To see if they our signal knew,

  The Constellation and the crew

  Of our brave Yankee boys.

  Truxtun again recorded in his log that he “had no doubts respecting the chase being a French frigate.” On his orders, a young Marine drummer began to beat to quarters and all hands took up their stations and prepared the ship for battle. A young seaman named Neal Harvey was assigned to a gun crew in Third Lieutenant Andrew Sterett’s division, one of several divisions that manned the cast-iron cannons that fired 24-pound balls and made up a major part of Constellation’s firepower. Not wanting to displease Lieutenant Sterett, Harvey raced to his station at the first rattle of the drum, pausing just long enough to let several Sailors cross his path as they took to the ratlines and climbed up to their stations among the ship’s sails. By the time Harvey arrived at his station, other members of the gun crew had already opened the gun port and were releasing the 24-pounder from the lashings that held it securely in place. This was no time for carelessness. The gun weighed close to three tons; should the crew lose control of it on the rolling ship, disaster would quickly follow. Still today, we refer to someone who is dangerously out of control as a “loose cannon.”

  Once the gun was unlashed, Harvey and the others maneuvered it away from the gun port into its recoil position, removed the tompion from the gun’s muzzle, and quickly loaded the weapon. Then, hauling on the tackles at each side, they rolled the massive gun forward until its muzzle protruded from the open port.

  Elsewhere in the ship, Sailors were busy putting out the galley fires, removing furniture from the captain’s cabin and striking it below, opening scuttles to the magazine and shot locker, laying out the surgeon’s dreaded instruments, and sanding down the decks for better traction. Young boys called powder monkeys ran back and forth from the gun decks to the powder magazines, the two best quartermasters manned the helm, carpenters made ready their stocks of plugs and oakum in case shot holes in the hull had to be repaired, and Marines armed with muskets positioned themselves in the rigging and at the rails.

  Two hours into the chase, a serious squall arose, and within minutes the two ships had a common enemy in the gale-force winds. Constellation fared better, having let go her sheets and braces in time to avoid serious damage, but the French frigate lost her mainmast to a violent gust.

  As the squall subsided, Constellation continued to close, and within another hour she was ranging up on the French ship’s lee quarter. All this time, Neal Harvey and the others waited at their guns for the battle to begin. It was nerve-wracking business, being unable to go anywhere, with little to think about except the coming battle. Some of the men tried several times to make conversation on idle topics, but soon silence would settle in again and someone would peer out the gun port to see how much they had gained on the other ship.

  Then all hands were called to quarters while we pursued the chase,

  With well primed guns, our tompions out, and well spliced the main brace.

  Then soon to France we did draw nigh,

  Compelled to fight, they were, or fly,

  These words were passed: “Conquer or Die,”

  My brave Yankee boys.

  When they were close enough to see the faces of their counterparts peering out the other ship’s gun ports, the men at last heard the long-awaited order, and a great roar echoed across the sea as the 24-pounders fired at the French frigate less than one hundred yards away. The heavy balls crashed through the enemy’s side and careened across her deck, inflicting great damage to men and material.

  Almost immediately, the enemy answered Constellation’s broadside with one of her own, and suddenly wood splinters were flying about
like snowflakes in a winter flurry. There was a tearing sound and then a loud crash as a boom fell to the deck, trailing a tangle of lines. Shouted orders mingled with angry curses. In the midst of all of this noise and crashing violence, Harvey and his fellow Sailors continued to service their gun to keep it firing.

  Confirming Newton’s law of action and reaction, the propelling explosions deep in the cannon’s cast-iron bore caused the three-ton monster to leap backward in recoil, barely stopped by the hawserlike breeching slung across its rear. With the wind in their faces, a great cloud of choking smoke blew back on the crew, momentarily blinding them. Harvey was aware of a strange, metallic taste in his mouth as he breathed in the foul gunpowder vapors.

  Moving as fast as they possibly could, the gun crew prepared the cannon for another shot. With a moistened sponge on the end of a pike, one man swabbed out the inside of the gun, removing residue and dousing any sparks that might be lingering there. The loader then placed the flannel cartridge bag full of gunpowder into the muzzle, and another man shoved it to the far end of the bore with a long rammer. A wad of scrap fibers followed; then came the 24-pound ball. Another wad was rammed in to prevent the ball from rolling back out should the ship’s motion in the seaway tip the muzzle downward. Through the touch hole in the top of the barrel near the breech, the gun captain pricked the cartridge with a long needle-like spike, and loose gunpowder was then poured into the touchhole from a funnel-shaped horn. With its truck wheels squeaking loudly under the ponderous weight, the cannon was hauled out so its muzzle again pointed through the gun port at the enemy across the narrow stretch of water. Within seconds, Lieutenant Sterett barked the order to fire, and once again there was a great thunderclap as a tongue of flame emerged from the cannon’s mouth.