The Old Navy

by Daniel P. Mannix

  I am glad to say they did and left the lady to her own devices for the rest of the voyage.

  We had another crisis involving a lady, but it was more comic than tragic although the woman involved was prepared to have my head. She was an elderly maiden lady and what she was doing in France I can’t imagine. However, she seemed to be someone of importance, at least she obviously so regarded herself, and was given a comfortable deck cabin. Trouble developed the first night at sea. A number of soldiers seated themselves on the deck just outside her open port and, unaware that they were overheard, proceeded to recount their amorous experiences in Paris. Finally the lady could stand no more. Sticking her head out the port, she screamed, “YOU NASTY THINGS! In the morning I will report you to the captain and see that you are all severely punished!” A deep voice answered, “Pull in your ears, we’re coming to a tunnel!”

  Sure enough, in the morning she appeared at “Mast” shaking with fury and demanded that I avenge her on the miscreants who had not only offended her virgin ears but then told her to pull them in. “And you’d better do it too,” she warned. “For I have powerful friends in Congress.”

  I asked the lady if she could identify the culprits. She assured me that she had no idea who they were; it was up to me to find them. I pointed out that unfortunately our passenger list did not include Holmes, Lecoq, or Dupin. She replied that she had never heard of any of these gentlemen and what did they have to do with the matter anyhow? Assuming my most judicial aspect, I promised her I would leave no stone unturned in tracking down the villains. At intervals for the rest of the trip she kept coming to me demanding to know if I had found the transgressors and was going to have them hung at the signal yardarm. Each time I assured her that I was closing in on them. Unfortunately the scoundrels remained anonymous. However, I am sure they all came to a bad end long ago.

  Another situation that looked potentially sticky concerned an Army nurse. Nurses ranked with enlisted men but this nurse was given a room by herself and a “Mex” major found out about it. By a “Mex” major I mean that he wasn’t a regular major; he had that rank only temporarily. The major was sharing a room with another officer but now he “pulled rank” and demanded that he be given the nurse’s room.

  I asked him, “What do you expect us to do with her?”

  The major retorted, “Put her in the bunk house with the rest of the enlisted men.”

  That would have made for an interesting voyage all right. Ridiculous as it was, the major was technically right. He was entitled to better quarters than an enlisted “man”. I asked the other officers at mess if they had any suggestions but except for suggesting that the nurse and the major get married or we throw the major overboard, they could think of nothing. I had just about decided to tell the major his demand was impossible and let him report me to the War Department (as he was threatening to do) when the medical officer asked to see me.

  “Captain, I have just examined the nurse and she is very ill. So ill that she can’t possibly be moved,” he told me with a straight face.

  We shook hands and I relayed his message to the furious major. The day before we arrived at New York, we gave a dance. I was especially struck by one lively young thing who was doing the Charleston, the Bunny Hug, and the Shanghai Gesture to great applause except on the part of the major who was glowering at her.

  “Who’s that woman?” I asked the medical officer who happened to be standing near.

  “That’s the nurse,” he explained. “Just this morning she was at death’s door. Most remarkable recovery I’ve ever seen.”

  Do you wonder I preferred having a bachelor ship?

  Admittedly not all our unusual characters were women. One of my orderlies was a Texas cowboy and how he ever got into the Navy I can’t imagine. He knew as much about nautical matters as I did about running a ranch. Once after having checked the smooth log, I rang for him and said, “Orderly, take this to the Navigator’s Office.” He took the log book and started off with it. Shortly afterwards he returned, stuck his head in the cabin door and said with a puzzled expression, “Did you say the Alligator’s Office?”

  A more serious problem was the vast number of ships on the Atlantic that had been built by the Shipping Board. They had been turned out wholesale in the shortest possible time and the result was that they were constantly breaking down and sending out SOS signals. We had to stand by one such ship for several days which, of course, ruined our schedule. This was far more serious than it sounds. We were supposed to make the round trip without taking on additional fuel and frequently had just enough to get back to New York. If we continued answering SOS calls we might have to send out one ourselves. So when we cleared Brest and began hearing SOS signals we always waited a few minutes before answering, hoping somebody else was closer to the broken down ship.

  A nuisance — and on one occasion more than a nuisance — in Brest was that we were required to take on a French pilot before entering the harbor. We soon found these men weren’t pilots at all but local fishermen. In other words, it was a racket whereby we were forced to pay for the privilege of returning our soldiers to the United States. Ignorant as these men were, it is difficult to ignore the suggestions of a pilot who supposedly knows his home waters better than you do.

  One evening we were entering Brest Harbor at the time President Wilson was in Paris attending the Peace Conference. His ship, the George Washington, was in Brest and just ahead of her was the great liner the Leviathan, moored to a buoy. The tide was flooding strongly, carrying us in with it. I felt that we were going in too fast and spoke to the pilot about it; he intimated that he knew what he was about and I, weakly, hesitated before interfering with him. Then, before we realized it, we found ourselves broadside to the bow of the Leviathan and rapidly drifting down on her. I shoved the pilot out of the way, put the wheel hard-a-starboard, rang up emergency speed on the starboard engine and backed full speed on the port engine. Simultaneously I heard Lieutenant Pearson on duty amidships sing out, “Stand clear of the port side!” There was a terrific crash as we slid past the Leviathan. We hadn’t hit her but we did hit her buoy. As soon as we had room for swinging we let go an anchor. The pilot, with a series of shrugs, disclaimed all responsibility.

  We waited anxiously for the sun to come up so we could see what damage had been done. As soon as there was light, we leveled our glasses on the bows of the Leviathan. Everything seemed to be all right and her anchor chain, securing her to the buoy, was intact. Then, getting a shore range behind her, we saw that both she and the buoy were slowly drifting astern and coming down on the George Washington. We commenced signaling frantically and it seemed an age before the Leviathan answered. We signaled, “Look at your buoy”. Somebody ran up on their forecastle, saw that the mooring chain was intact, and signaled back, “Everything O.K.”. We signaled again, “You are adrift”. Finally they woke up to the fact that they were coming down on the George Washington and their buoy was adrift. They let go an anchor and checked her drift but a cargo barge alongside the Washington was smashed.

  Thereafter no French pilot ever came on board my ship. I paid the pilotage fees — I was forced to — and found that that was all they wanted.

  All told we brought home 50,000 American soldiers without the loss of a life. There were nearly 6,000 people on board during the western passage and, while we had a lot of boats, life rafts, and so on, we didn’t have nearly enough to accommodate everybody. Besides, these people were not seamen, many of them had never seen the ocean before being inducted into the Army (like one of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders who while en route to Cuba, lost his hat overboard and exclaimed, “Ma hat jest blew into the creek!”) and I had no idea how they would behave in an emergency at sea. I was constantly haunted by the possibility of a bad accident with heavy loss of life. One of my worst moments occurred off Fire Island during a dense fog with the forecastle invisible from the bridge and
whistles blowing all around us. A collision seemed inevitable and I was waiting for the shock when I got the following message from New York, “Understand you have the 29th New York Division on board. Be sure to arrive promptly on time as a great celebration has been prepared.” That was one order I did not obey.

  The Grant was put out of commission in 1921, and I was assigned to shore duty in New York City. I was designated, “Legal Officer, Headquarters Third Naval District.” I knew nothing of law and frankly cared less, but I was glad of the opportunity to be reunited with my wife and children for I now had a little daughter. We took an apartment on Park Avenue and I entered into my new duties. It is said that a naval officer must be prepared to do anything, anywhere and at any time, so I might as well be a lawyer and a judge as anything else.

  My offices were in the old ferry building at South and Whitehall streets, extending out over the water and commanding a fine view New York Harbor. I had been on several court martials but, as I soon learned, civilian courts are something else again. Lawyers and judges seem to regard naval officers who are involved in legal work as their natural enemies. My first experience with this was when I was called to appear as a witness for a young sailor who had become involved in some trouble. Dumas speaks of “lawyers who delight in humiliating soldiers” and I found myself, in full uniform with my combat ribbons, being screamed at by a civilian judge while a crowd of court hangers-on listened with grinning faces. I had to stand there and take his abuse. To have done anything else would have hurt the unfortunate young sailor who had trusted me.

  To one used to the cut-and-dried, undramatic methods of a military court, the conduct of civilian lawyers came as a surprise. I remember one case we investigated which involved pilfering in a big government establishment employing hundreds of civilians. One of the accused, represented by a “real lawyer”, not a naval officer, was a middle-aged woman with a face that looked as though it had worn out five bodies and a jaw like the ram on a Roman trireme. Her lawyer rose to address the court. Taking out his handkerchief, he buried his face in it. Then, overcoming his emotions, he said in a low, moaning voice, “Look, gentlemen, at this sweet-faced young girl!” For a moment we thought he was trying to “run” us. Then we realized this was merely his regular technique.

  We were not brought into contact with many lawyers as most of our cases involved naval personnel only, and Navy men almost always depend on their officers to see that they have a square deal. However, we did learn to guard against a certain type of lawyer who, by making objections, taking exceptions, and delaying the proceedings at every point, attempts to irritate the court until it commits some error in the proceedings. Then the entire case has to be thrown out when it arrives at the JAG Office in Washington, the court is reprimanded, and the culprit goes free.

  Occasionally, possibly by mistake, the Naval Department behaves like a human being. A member of the crew of a battleship wrote the department a letter in which he said, “this ship is a madhouse and our captain a Dutch son-of-a-bitch.” The letter was forwarded to us with the notation, “You need only investigate the first charge.”

  We heard of another case, although I cannot vouch for it, where a man was tried for calling the executive officer of his ship “An old Portugee son-of-a-bitch.” The court found the specifications “Proved except the word ‘Portugee’ for which the court substitutes the word ‘Greek!’ ”

  Even regular seamen did not always show us the respect due to our exalted rank and judicial presence. We were trying a very bibulous Irish sailor and he was asked the standard question, “Do you object to being tried by any member here present?” The Irishman replied frankly, “I object to the whole lot of yez.” His objection was overruled.

  Even though my opinions of the New York judges and lawyers were in general not of the highest, I did have a greatly increased admiration for the Police Department, especially the uniformed men. My duties naturally brought me in frequent contact with them and they impressed me as doing a difficult job extremely well. I acquired several friends among the force and this later turned out fortunate for a young Puerto Rican who spoke no English and had been arrested for “making indecent advances” to a young woman in a motion picture theater. In such cases, the word of the woman is usually automatically accepted and the man, helpless, alone in a strange land and unable to speak the language, was thrown into prison. Pictures of both the man and the woman happened to cross my table and I didn’t think the frightened young fellow looked like the type that paws strange women. I showed the pictures to my assistant Haughey, who was a born and bred New Yorker and had worked in a number of government jobs over the years. He took one look at the woman’s picture and said, “Why, Captain, I know her. She used to have a job here and accused everybody in the district, from the commandant to the office cat, of trying to seduce her.” The affair wasn’t our business but we looked up the lady’s case history and took it down to Police Headquarters. After examining it, they released the young Puerto Rican in our custody. We had all we could do to keep him from kissing us.

  I have said that naval personnel usually depended on their officers for help rather than the civilian authorities. One case did come up before our board when I, at least, was prepared to be much harder on the transgressors than the civilians. The Navy was running a line of transports to the West Indies, and we discovered, to our incredulous amazement, that certain “Mex” officers on these ships were smuggling in liquor, not to drink, not to give to their friends, but to sell. This was during Prohibition and large sums could be made in this way.

  To a man with my silly old-fashioned ideas and service background this was not merely serious, it was appalling. And it was being done by men wearing the same uniform I did; the uniform that I had been obliged to serve four years and pass countless exams before I earned the right to wear.

  The local prohibition agent wasn’t a bad fellow. He called at my office and said, “Now, Captain, I don’t want to be too hard on you Navy fellows.” In other words he was putting me in the same category as the whisky smugglers. I bowed ironically and thanked him for his forbearance but the irony was lost on him. I regret to say that when we staged a surprise inspection of the ships, the “officers” involved had evidently been tipped off ahead of time because we found only a few bottles which they had put in a supposedly secure place. Even so, we stopped the traffic and as for the men involved, well, it was with considerable satisfaction that we “wound up their little ball of yarn”.

  One constant source of trouble we had was with “land sharks” who would sell sailors some expensive article on the “installment plan”. Many enlisted men are just kids and are easily victimized. I cannot believe that any honest merchant would persuade a twenty-year-old boy to buy a diamond ring and obligate him to pay heavy installments out of his pay for an indefinite number of years in the future. Once the sailor was at sea, the “land shark” no longer had any hold on him so the “shark” would then demand that we withhold the sum he claimed was owing him from the seaman’s pay. When we received such a communication we would reply, “This office is not a collection agency.” We had to do this so often that we began to get letters starting out, “We KNOW you are not a collection agency but. . . .” I am afraid that I never had any sympathy with these people.

  Part of our duties was to attend official parties. Most of these were bores but I remember one which was delightful. Ancient Rome could have done no more. On arrival we were ushered into a private suite where there was an enormous punch bowl and half a dozen private bars, all this during Prohibition. The banquet hall featured a long table for the Brass Hats with other tables perpendicular to it. During a long and very elaborate dinner, a different wine was served with each course, stars from the various Broadway shows did their skits, and a particularly charming ballet of pretty girls danced up and down between the tables.

  The next morning I went into the commandant’s office with some p
apers and he asked me, “Did you go to that affair last night?” I replied, “Yes, sir” and was about to add, “Wasn’t it GREAT?” when the commandant continued, “Simply disgusting! A lot of drunken men and those horrible naked women dancing around between the tables!” I hurriedly swallowed my words and erasing the cheerful expression from my face muttered, “Horrible! Horrible!”

  This was the height of the pacifist craze. The League of Nations was to make wars impossible. All armed forces would be demolished. The resulting saving in taxes would be used to benefit the poor and needy. The climax of this business was the Disarmament Conference that was held in Washington. The foreign delegates to the conference landed in New York and somebody in Washington, presumably with a sardonic sense of humor, arranged for the naval officers stationed in the city to escort them to their hotels. It reminded me of the old nursery rhyme, “Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed.”

  My group of delegates came from a certain European country, a very little one, that had no navy. They were insulted at being met by a naval officer in uniform (we were ordered to wear our uniforms). The chief of the delegation, a little fat man, informed me that he was “a man of peace” and I “no better than a hired assassin”. I called a taxi to take them to their hotel and the chief delegate got into a terrific row with the taxi driver over where he was to put his suitcase. As a dove of peace he was the most bellicose person I’ve ever met.

  Great capital was made of the fact that this conference was to be run by civilians only; we Navy men were ordered to be present but were to keep quiet. As we had no power I don’t know what good it did to force us to be present except to humiliate us. The United States delegation to the conference was indeed composed entirely of civilians but this was hardly true of the other groups. I saw the Japanese delegation arrive and instantly recognized an admiral I had met in Tokyo, although he was in civilian clothes with an unfamiliar bowler hat perched on his bullet head. The delegation of another country arrived. They also were in civilian clothes but I immediately recognized one of them; he had been a military attaché with our Army during the Santiago Campaign. Meanwhile crowds were cheering these people, eager to put the fate of the United States in their hands.