Lake remained in Russia for seven months, to oversee the start of construction. The five additional boats, however, were not completed before the war ended in a humiliating defeat for his hosts. The Protector was dispatched to the harbor at Vladivostok and although Lake claimed its presence helped deter a planned Japanese attack, it appeared to have had little impact.
Lake’s stay in what Senator Beveridge had characterized as a “Christian nation” was an education. He had brought with him his wife and three children to “the most profligate society in recent history.” He and his family were constantly exposed to excesses that would spark a revolution little more than a decade later. “Grand dukes did not hesitate to flaunt their mistresses before the public. So far as we could observe the public did not care. They appeared with their women at the theaters as nonchalantly as though they were wives. The public seemed to feel that four grand dukes plus four loose women in Worth gowns and Cartier tiaras made a box at the opera practically perfect. If there was a hint of criticism I never caught it.”11 Of course, the reason Lake did not see that hint of criticism was that he dealt almost exclusively with the aristocracy.
But the extent of profligacy at the Russian court was not Lake’s only surprise. He was soon joined by an unexpected and almost certainly unwelcome guest. The Russians, it seemed, had acquired the Fulton as well.
Rumors had been circulating since April that Russia had put in orders for Holland submarines. That month, American newspapers had picked up the following item. “A naval correspondent writes to the London Globe: ‘I learn that the Russian government has ordered twelve new submarine boats to be built with the utmost dispatch. All are to be of the improved Holland type. Six are being constructed by the Electric Boat Company in America and six are being built in Russian dock yards from designs and specifications supplied by the inventors and patentees. Special arrangements are being made to convey these new submarines overland to the Far East. They are intended to reinforce the Baltic squadron, which, it is expected, will leave in July for the theater of war. There can be no question that, provided the new vessels can be delivered in efficient condition at Russian naval ports in the Pacific, they must exercise a powerful influence on the naval situation.’”12
In the final stages of preparing the Fulton for sea trials, Electric Boat, while not issuing an outright denial that a deal had been made with the Russians, did note that it was plain to see that the company was not building an additional six boats at New Suffolk. Rumors from a conflict halfway around the world appeared and were disabused regularly, such as the assertion from an unnamed “retired naval officer,” that Russian battleships had been sunk by Japanese submarines. That wild speculation persisted was fortunate for Electric Boat, because they had indeed already sold the Fulton to Russia, as well as six other submarines, which the company was building more or less in secret in California.
Publicly, Frank Cable busied himself preparing the Fulton for the inspection board. Out of sight of either reporters or government officials, however, he was formulating arrangements to immediately afterward ship the Fulton to Russia from New Suffolk. “Our first plan was to place her openly on the deck of a tramp steamer for transport direct to Kronstadt,” but after the press reported that the Protector had been shipped to a belligerent, ostensibly Japan, “we decided not to take the risk.”13
After the trials were done, newspapers had reported on Fulton’s impressive return voyage to New Suffolk. What they did not report was that Cable had rushed home not to impress the navy, but to rendezvous with the freighter that would ship the boat overseas. However, before Cable and his fellow conspirators could consider having Fulton towed out to sea, where their transport awaited them, there were formalities to be observed. “An initial difficulty to surmount was obtaining clearance papers. It was necessary to get them from the nearest point of departure (in this case Sag Harbor), and for our purpose, before the vessel was actually loaded.” Any sight of the cargo on the deck might “arouse the custom’s official’s suspicions [and] our clearance papers refused.” Cable had the freighter’s captain ferried ashore, where the officials in Sag Harbor, perplexed at “probably the first vessel which had applied for clearance papers from that port in thirty years,” scrambled about to find the proper forms. Eventually, the paperwork was completed and, while “no one in the town knew that anything unusual was afoot,” the Fulton was towed out to Gardiners Bay in the dead of night.
Loading the submarine on the deck of the steamer took “hours of labor in the dark, only an occasional lantern, used when absolutely necessary, betraying our presence.” Suddenly, “what seemed to be flame erupting from the funnels of a destroyer lit the darkness some miles distant, the craft evidently headed in our direction. We feared our lantern had exposed our nefarious operations, and instantly came visions of heavy fines and imprisonment.” But the destroyer veered off and, at 3:30 A.M., the eighty-ton Fulton was loaded on board and the freighter “headed out to sea beyond the three mile limit, where safety lay.” It was not until four days later that “the suspicion dawned on the customs officials at Sag Harbor that they had cleared a contraband cargo.”
Like Lake, Cable had removed the battery array that powered the vessel underwater. In this case, though, both boat and batteries reached Kronstadt in roughly ten days time. When Cable arrived there to train the Russian crew, he noticed the Protector in a neighboring berth. Unlike Lake, Cable did not get to Moscow; in fact he rarely left the naval base where the training was taking place. He did, however, get to meet the Tsar when the Russian monarch came to inspect the Fulton (which had been renamed Madam) the day before Cable’s departure.
Like the Protector, the Fulton had no difficulty satisfying Russian naval officers in sea tests, and, also as with the Lake boat, it was dispatched on Siberian Railway for Vladivostok, where it languished, never seeing action. Neither boat was ever heard from again. The five boats shipped by Electric Boat to Russia from California also arrived too late to be employed in what turned out to be only an eighteen-month-long war.
Frank Cable would nonetheless soon be training submarine crews of another nation in Asia. Demonstrating equality, if not neutrality, Electric Boat had sold submarines to the Japanese as well as to the Russians. But there would be competition in Tokyo as well. This time, however, it would not be from boats built by Simon Lake, but rather from boats built by John Holland himself.
_____________
*Flint would later represent the Wright brothers as their European agent.
†That Lake had been a no-show at the sea trials, and had sold his boat to a combatant in violation of American neutrality, did not prevent him from writing a furious five-page letter of protest to the navy secretary when the inspection board issued a report stating that the Fulton was the only boat to meet the navy’s criteria. Lake demanded that the report be withdrawn “unless it was first modified by striking out all references to the Protector.” Lake’s reasoning was that “since the Protector has never had the trial or comparison contemplated by law, it is not the subject of partial and misleading comparison with the Fulton, nor can the Fulton be compared to it.” The report was not altered.
CHAPTER 25
HOLLAND WITHOUT HOLLAND
Holland, now sixty-three, had become a bystander. To ensure that he could not be a threat to the commercial colossus they wished to use his invention to create, Rice and Frost took every opportunity, be it in congressional testimony, public pronouncements, or private communications, to portray him as a doddering old fool whose memory and perhaps reason was failing him.
In 1904, Holland’s five-year agreement with Electric Boat expired. On March 28, he sent Rice a terse note:
Dear Mr. Rice,
As my contract with company expires on the 31st, and as it is proper that I should then withdraw from my directorship, I beg to offer my resignation. The success of your company can never be as great as what I ardently desire for it.
Yours, very sincerely,
&n
bsp; John P. Holland.
In fact, there was nothing at all sincere in Holland’s good wishes. He had used the free time that Rice and Frost had forced on him to map out a larger, much faster, far more efficient submarine. Free from encumbrances—or so he thought—he drew up plans for the new design. Holland estimated his boat could make twenty-two knots on the surface and a stunning twenty-six submerged, which would make it faster than a battleship, whose top speed was sixteen knots.
Holland had willing allies in this new venture. Charles Creecy had left Electric Boat in 1903, also after disputes with Rice and Frost, and Lewis Nixon was prepared to offer his yard for construction if Holland could get funding. Creecy approached American naval officials, who authorized testing of a scale model of Holland’s design in a tank at the Washington Navy Yard. The results were “encouraging,” but Holland’s request to meet with a special naval board was denied. The officers who had observed the test and examined the blueprints did not doubt Holland’s numbers but were convinced that such speeds, especially underwater, would wreck the boat.1 Nor were there any further tank tests authorized for the scale model. While there is no direct evidence that Electric Boat interests were working to quash any attempt to sell the navy the new design, it would be quite out of character if they were not.
Holland, as had Electric Boat, then looked overseas. He did not have to look far. Japan had been interested in Holland submarines since 1898, when a senior naval officer had discussed the military potential of the Holland with the inventor, and another naval officer had been a passenger during a trial run in the New York Narrows. They had closely followed Holland’s progress from that point on and, in secret, had purchased the five Adder-class Hollands from Electric Boat. Also in secret, they purchased plans for Holland’s new high-speed model through Takata and Company of New York.
As part of the deal, Takata agreed to fund the construction of two vessels at a Massachusetts shipyard. Both vessels were laid down in November 1904. Once completed, they were dismantled, sent across the United States by rail, and then shipped from California to Tokyo for reassembly. Two senior American engineers, former employees of the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, crossed the Pacific as well, to supervise construction and help train the Japanese.
The five submarines that Electric Boat had sold to Japan were also shipped in parts, although they had been fabricated in San Diego. As he had for the tsar’s navy, Frank Cable was assigned to supervise construction and train crews to sail submarines for the emperor. He sailed from San Francisco in April 1905 on a “vessel laden with war munitions.” Cable’s appearance had caused the San Francisco newspapers to speculate on what seemed to be yet another violation of American neutrality. Leaving the freighter on which he and the engineers were passengers to continue on without them, “We abated suspicions by stopping at Honolulu, apparently as tourists in search of diversion.” A few days later, they embarked on another vessel “also loaded with contraband,” and, taking a circuitous route to avoid any sea lane where Russian warships might be encountered, eventually reached Yokohama on May 30, 1905. Cable was met by a group of Japanese officers eager to be the first to employ submarines in a genuine war situation.2
Just two days earlier, however, the main Russian fleet had been virtually annihilated in the Tsushima Strait. While Russia still retained a large number of warships, the battle ended any chance of a Russian victory. A humiliated Tsar Nicholas II sent emissaries to sympathetic nations, including the United States, hoping they might broker decent peace terms.
The Japanese, however, were in no hurry to end a conflict that they were so decisively winning, so submarine training proceeded. By the end of July, the Japanese crew Cable had trained was ready for official trials. “Unlike our experience with the Russian Navy Department, to say nothing of our own, there was no delay. In war, Japan’s watchword was dispatch.”3 Within a week, the trials had been completed, the boat accepted, and a four-day maiden voyage undertaken by an all-Japanese crew. When the boat returned, it was fitted with torpedoes and readied for war. Before it could sail, however, an armistice was declared, brokered by Theodore Roosevelt, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He would have received a far different reception in Japan, however. For promoting terms that many in Japan saw as far too lenient to Russia—the tsar would pay no indemnities—America had become wildly unpopular. There were anti-American riots, American property was destroyed, and churches burned. Cable was forced to remain in his hotel for days, while the army was called out to quell the disturbances.
Afterward, Cable, now always under escort, began to train a crew for the second submarine. As before, he was impressed with the Japanese work ethic, their devotion to duty, and the speed with which they mastered complex processes. While engaged with the second crew, Cable heard that another boat was being prepared and another crew trained at the Kawasaki works in Kobe. This boat, it was rumored, was faster, more powerful, and more efficient than the Adder-class Hollands.
When he learned that his competition was also a Holland design, he requested permission to examine this new boat. Suddenly, the culture that he had praised for its eschewal of bureaucracy was awash in it. “I was anxious to see these boats, but, despite my acquaintance with Lieutenant Ide, the Japanese officer in charge of the work for his government, red tape barred me from the Kobe Yard.” Cable did learn that “the boats were duly launched and put into commission,” although not until after the war had officially ended on September 5, 1905.*
The Japanese did not buy any more submarines from Holland, however, and Electric Boat was determined that no one else would either. In May 1905, Holland incorporated the John P. Holland Submarine Boat Company in Newark, New Jersey, capitalized at $1 million. The sale to Japan had not been made public, so Holland could not initially attract investment capital. That would change, he was convinced, when he sold his new high-speed boat in Europe. But Holland had no more luck selling in Europe than Lake or Rice, and his problems were exacerbated by uncertainty among European firms as to whether any feature of his new submarine infringed on Electric Boat Company patents.
Rice and Frost made certain that all doubt was resolved. Holland later asserted in a February 1906 letter to Chairman Foss of the naval affairs committee, that he was about “to start to work” on a prototype of his high-speed submarine for the American market, “when the Electric Boat Company filed a suit against me in the Court of Chancery of New Jersey, applying for an injunction, and claiming substantially that I had agreed to assign to them all my inventions and patents during the term of my natural life.” An additional suit was filed “against me personally, alleging a verbal contract never to compete with the Electric Boat Company, was commenced in the New Jersey Court of Chancery.”4
Not only would Holland be denied the use of his patents—it seemed he would not even have the use of his name. “Suit Over Holland’s Name,” the New York Times reported, which sought to “enjoin the recently incorporated John P. Holland Submarine Company from using the name of the inventor as a part of its corporate title. It will be instituted by the Holland Torpedo Boat Company of New York in the equity branch of United States Circuit Court. The complaining corporation alleges that it secured, on December 13, 1890, the exclusive right to use the name John. P. Holland.”5
Holland denied ever entering into any verbal agreements with either Isaac Rice or E. B. Frost. “My contract with the Electric Boat Company to act as their engineer, and to give them my patents and inventions, was for the five years during which I acted as engineer, and no longer, and expired April 1, 1904.” Holland added, “These suits have had the effect of frightening off the capital that I had enlisted, and I have not as yet been able to get the capital to build my new boat, by reason of these suits. The only object of these suits was to prevent me from building a boat and going into competition before the Navy Department with the submarine boats now being built by the Electric Boat Company under my old patents.”6
He f
ound it ludicrous that anyone could take the lawsuit seriously.
The Electric Boat Company makes the allegation in their last bill of complaint that by threatening to discharge me from their employ and break their contract with me and stop my salary, that I agreed to a contract which prevents me from using my brains and inventive talent in building submarine boats for the balance of my life. This allegation is absolutely false. . . . This alleged agreement was not reduced to writing; the only evidence the Court has is the sworn statement of Mr. Rice; and when the fact is considered that Mr. Rice, formerly a professor of law at Columbia University, and having the assistance of Mr. Frost, also a lawyer, failed to have such an important agreement reduced to writing and signed by me, the whole proposition appears ridiculous and silly.
But whether the court agreed or not was beside the point. (The suits were eventually thrown out.) The aim, as Holland had correctly asserted, was to frighten away capital. The letter to Foss had closed with a plaintive appeal. “I am a poor man, while the Electric Boat Company has among its principal stockholders three or four millionaires, including August Belmont, Isaac L. Rice, and others. The capital stock of that company is ten million dollars. They have deprived me, by their flimsy lawsuit, from getting capital to build a boat under my new inventions and patents, and are now asking Congress to pass a law which will prevent the Navy Department from adopting my new plans and inventions, even should the entire department consider that they are far superior in every way to the plans now being used by that department.”
Holland’s plea to Congress was ignored. On December 4, 1906, the John P. Holland Submarine Boat Company was declared bankrupt. Although liabilities on that date were less than four hundred dollars, “there was no cash on hand to meet them.”7
Going Deep Page 31
