Farragut’s Press NEWSLETTER OF THE MARE ISLAND MUSEUM, 1100 Railroad Ave, Vallejo CA 94592
Mare Island Historic Park
If Not Razor Blades, then What?
Mare Island Naval Shipyard built seventeen nuclear submarines. The first to be commissioned was the USS Sargo in 1958 and the last was the USS Drum which was commissioned in 1972. The first to be decommissioned and struck was the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 1981 after twenty years of service and the last was the USS Kamehameha which was converted to a fast attack in 1992 and not struck until 2002. She was in service for 35 years. So what happens to a nuclear sub after she is no longer in service? Are they sold to other countries? Does she float for years in a mothball fleet such as the one at Suisun Bay near Benicia? In the “olden days” before nuclear power the stock phrase was that they were cut up and made into razor blades with the added, “Perhaps you shaved with one of those blades this morning!” But can you do that with nuclear submarines? No, it cannot be done and thus was created a whole new process to safely handle all the problems related to all nuclear vessels. The Navy has a program called the Ship/Submarine Recycling Program (SRP) which is used to dispose of all nuclear vessels and is done at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton, WA and only there. The first step, which can be done other than at
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Bremerton, is to remove the fuel and that is usually done within a year of decommissioning. Until the fuel is removed the boat is the USS (Name of the boat/ship.) Once the fuel is removed it becomes (Name of the boat/ship) without the USS. Defueling 1 2 can be done at five repair yards on the West Coast. Reusable equipment is removed at the same time as the defueling and catalogued for future use. Then the hulls are towed to Bremeton. The nuclear fuel is shipped by the Dept. of Energy by railroad to the Naval Reactor Facility at the Idaho National Reactor Laboratory (INL)near Idaho Falls, ID, where the spent fuel is stored in special canisters. Presently there is no use for this fuel. Technology for disposing of this fuel is expected to be found by the middle of the 21st Century. At Bremerton the salvage work begins on the submarine hull. Missile compartments have to be dismantled according to the SALT Treaty (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) If the cutting cannot be done immediately the hull is prepared for waterborne storage so that watertight integrity is good for fifteen years. When the cutting begins, the sub is usually cut into three or four sections – the aft section, the nuclear reactor compartment, the missile compartment if there is one and the forward section. The nuclear reactor compartment is of the most concern. It is removed
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ex-USS Patrick Henry, SSBN 599 ex-USS Snook, SSN 592 ex-USS George Washington, SSBN598 ex-USS Scamp, SSN 588 ex-USS Robert E. Lee, SSBN 601 ex-USS Thomas Jefferson, SSBN 618 ex-USS Theodore Roosevelt, SSBN 600 ex-USS Dace, SSN 607 ex-USS John Adams, SSBN 620 ex-USS Abraham Lincoln, SSBN 602 ex-USS Barb, SSN 596 ex-USS Ethen Allen, SSBN 608 ex-USS Thomas A. Edison, SSBN 610 ex-USS Pollack, SSN 603 ex-USS G.P. Lipscombe, SSBN 685 ex-USS James Monroe, SSBN 622 ex-USS Skipjack, SSN 585 ex-USS Nathen Hale, SSBN 623 ex-USS Plunger, SSB 595 ex-USS Shark, SSN 591 ex-USS Lafayette, SSBN 616 ex-USS Sam Houston, SSN 609 ex-USS Jack, SSN 605 ex-USS Haddo, SSN 604 ex-USS Tinosa, SSN 606 ex-USS Guardfish, SSN 612 ex-USS Permit, SSN 594 ex-USS Queenfish, SSN 651 ex-USS Ulysses S. Grant, SSBN 631 ex-USS John Marshall, SSN 611 ex-USS George C. Marshall, SSBN 654 ex-USS Flasher, SSN 613 ex-USS Guitarro, SSN 665 ex-USS Alexander Hamilton, SSBN 617 ex-USS George Washington Carver, SSBN 656 ex-USS Tecumseh, SSBN 628 ex-USS Halibut, SSN 587 ex-USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659 ex-USS Henry L. Stimson, SSBN 655 ex-USS Daniel Boone, SSBN 629 ex-USS Greenling, SSN 614 ex-USS John C. Calhoun, SSBN 630 ex-USS Casimir Pulasky, SSBN 633 ex-USS Skate, SSN 578 ex-USS Sargo, SSN 583 ex-USS Francis Scott Key, SSBN 657 ex-USS Sturgeon, SSN 637 ex-USS Benjamin Franklin, SSBN 640 ex-USS Swordfish, SSN 579 ex-USS Seadragon, SSN 584 ex-USS Stonewall Jackson, SSBN 634 ex-USS Simon Bolivar, SSBN 641 ex-USS Hammerhead, SSN 663 ex-USS Mariano G. Vallejo, SSBN 658 ex-USS Tullibee, SSN 597 ex-USS Lewis & Clark, SSBN 644 ex-USS Pargo, SSN 650 ex-USS Seahorse, SSN 669 ex-USS Gurnard, SSN 662 ex-USS Flying Fish, SSN 673 ex-USS Gato, SSN 615 E ex-USS Puffer, SSN 652 67. ex-USS Henry Clay, SSBN 625 ex-USS Seawolf, SSN 575 ex-USS Baton Rouge, SSN 689 68. ex-USS James Madison, SSBN 627 69. ex-USS Finback, SSN 670 ex-USS Bergall, SSN 667 70. ex-USS Spadefish, SSN 668 ex-USS Whale, SSN 638
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Fate of the reactor cores of decommissioned nuclear submarines. http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08600.htm
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75. ex-USS Sunfish, SSN 649 ex-USS George Bancroft, SSBN 643 76. ex-USS Grayling, SSN 646 77. ex-USS Pintado, SSN 672
ex-USS Tunny, SSN 682 ex-USS Archerfish, SSN 678 ex-USS Woodrow Wilson, SSBN 624
Farragut’s Press ONLY at Bremerton and the cutting technology involves the use of torches, hand held saws, pipe cutters and grinders. Once they are cut out they are loaded on barges and transported along the West Coast and the Columbia River to DOE’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Hanford, WA. The last stage of the journey is on multiple wheel high capacity trailers. At Hanford they are placed in a specific trench for indefinite storage. The expectation is that it will take at least 600 years before the first pinholes of the lead container will erupt and several thousand years before leakage of the radioactivity is probable. Until 1991 the forward and aft sections were rejoined and placed in floating storage. In 1959 the USS Seawolf had a new reactor installed and the old one was scuttled about 120 miles east of Delaware in the Atlantic at a depth of 2,700 meters. By 1993 ocean disposal of nuclear waste was banned and two years later the U.S. Navy began shallow land burial of nuclear compartments. One of the costliest operations in nuclear submarine disposal is the removal of PCBs which are considered hazardous material by both the EPA and the Coast Guard, thus no ocean disposal. All hazardous toxic wastes are now removed from the remaining sections and scrap metals are sold to private companies unless they are used by the government. Recycling of nuclear submarines is not profitable. The cost of recycling a nuclear submarine costs $25 -50 million dollars, but does provide some cost relief with the sale of scrap. Consider, however, that the nuclear sub marines need to be refueled only every ten years at present and the core in submarines will last 30-40 years.
The book also has the account of George Read, the pay inspector, who was aboard the Saginaw when she sank in the Pacific as she stopped at an atoll to see if there were any shipwrecked sailors on shore. Read’s version was previously published in 1912, so one can compare the two different versions of events. After the Saginaw ran into trouble, five of her sailors volunteered to seek help in the captain’s gig. One of the sailors, William Halford, was not only a Vallejo resident, but was also awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts to get help to save his fellow crewmen. His sword is on exhibit in the museum. Join us for an enlightening discussion and purchase a book, with the author’s signature, for your reading pleasure!
History is Not Absolute
Soon after the beginning of Farragut’s Press an article about Rosie the Riveter was written (www.issuu.com/mareislandnavalshipyard 9/2012) In it was explained that the model for the Rockwell painting was his neighbor, Mary Doyle, who was a telephone operator and quite petite. The more famous poster, the girl with the red polka dot bandanna, was done by J. Howard Miller and his model was Geraldine Doyle who worked in an aircraft plant in Michigan. That was the accepted story until relatively recently.
Book Signing: 14 April 2018!!!
On Saturday, 14 April 2018 from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. Cornelia Bagg Srey will be in the museum to discuss her book The Wreck of the Saginaw, the account left by her Captain, Montgomery Sicard and to sign copies. Sicard was a cousin of Srey’s great grandfather and the captain of the ship when she was lost in October 1870. In a report, thought to be written because it was required by naval authorities, Sicard gives his versions of the events of the sinking and what occurred immediately after. His version has never been previously published.
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In 2011 Naomi Parker Fraley and her sister went to a reunion of female war workers at the Rosie the Riveter/ World War II Home Front National Park in Richmond, CA. Upon entering was the large “We Can Do It” poster painted by Miller. The poster was
Farragut’s Press never meant for public display, it was to discourage absenteeism and strikes among the women who worked at the Westinghouse plant and was displayed for less than three weeks. Accompanying the poster at the museum was a black and white photo of a woman working at a lathe (it was actually another type of machine) and the woman was identified as Geraldine Doyle. Fraley could not believe it! She knew the photo was of her when she worked at the Alameda Naval Air Station during the war. She wrote to the National Park Service and in their reply they asked Fraley to help in determining the “true identity of the woman in the photograph.” Fraley was not happy that her identity was in dispute, but it was not her complaint which changed history. In 2010 a scholar, Dr. James J. Kimble of Seton Hall University, started on a search to determine the person who was actually in the photograph and spent hours on the internet, in books and newspapers and researching old photographs. He found many copies of the photo but none were captioned with the name of the person at the machine.
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Rosie the Riveter (the famous poster image) and “Rosie the Riveter” (March 24, 1942, Ms. Naomi Parker operating machinery at the Alameda Naval Air Station.
and the photo had been taken and published in 1942. The picture had also appeared in the newspaper in Pittsburgh where Miller lived. All of this makes it very possible that Miller had seen and used the poster as his inspiration, but it is inconclusive. Naomi Parker Fraley died in January 2018 at the age of 96.
Visitors
During the December to February quarter Mare Island Museum had visitors from eighteen states and five foreign countries. These included Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Foreigners who visited came from Canada, France, Japan, the Philippines and Portugal.
Mrs. Naomi Parker Fraley in front of Rosie (left, from Toronto Star) and Dr. James J. Kimbel of Seton Hall (right, Seton Hall University, www.shu.edu)
Finally he found an old photo from a photo dealer and it was captioned with the phrase, “Pretty Naomi Parker looks like she might catch her nose in the turret lathe she is operating.” It also had a date “March 24, 1942” and a location, ”Alameda.” Dr. Kimble contacted Fraley and her sister and visited them in 2015. Mrs. Fraley showed him the old newspaper photo she had kept since 1942 which was exactly the same image.. One question was still unanswered. Was the photo the inspiration for Miller’s poster? Miller was dead, had no heirs and his papers said nothing about the poster. A friend said he preferred to work with live models. However,the poster was displayed in February 1943
No December Newsletter??
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Since March 2011 when we began printing Farragut’s Press we have used Google Mail to send out the newsletter. For the first newsletter we had about 150 names on our email list. Since then our email list has grown to about 3200 names. Typically we had the people who received the newsletter grouped in batches of about 450 since we were allowed to send 500 messages per day. Each time we sent out a newsletter we would receive a few as undeliverable which we wrote off as people changing providers or the address no longer in use. And so it went until November 2017.
Farragut’s Press Whaleboat Race
At that time we sent out notices about the Christmas concert to everyone on our mailing list. Seemed to be working well and then suddenly we were getting 100s of undeliverable messages back. In December when we tried to send out the newsletter the first two batches of 450+ were delivered and then we started to get back, literally, hundreds of non-deliverable messages. We tried setting up a new email account and that was unsuccessful as well. We were unable to get any information from Google and were told it is a free service so they do not have a typical service line to answer questions or resolve problems. The thought, suggested by many more “into” computers was that we simply had too large a list and perhaps, too many duplicate addresses. So we began to look for another group, probably paid, as the newsletter is a major portion of our advertising. One name was suggested by many, Mailchimp, but to this day in mid-February we have been unable to get an answer as to exact cost. Several people have been volunteered to help us get it set up, but none has actually shown up to do the work. Our hope is to get the newsletter out as normal in early March and if possible we will attach both the December and March newsletters. If that is not possible you can access the December and/or/ the March newsletter at http://www.issuu.com/mareislandnavalshipyard. We apologize for the inconvenience and no one is more interested in resolving this problem than those of us involved
Preserving the history of Mare Island
Mare Island Museum Hours
Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Every Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Closed Sundays
Tel: (707) 557-4646 Shipyard tours by appointment, please call: (707) 664-4746 or (707) 280-5742
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Each year in the first week of October the Vallejo Waterfront festival is held in the city just across the river from Mare Island. One of the highlights of the festival is the Whaleboat Regatta. What is a whaleboat you ask? The technical term for this style of boat is a monomoy. It is a relatively wide and heavy (2000 pounds) boat for stability and it is narrow and pointed at both ends which allows it to move forward or backward equally well. This style of boat was first used in whaling, thus the name, but they are also used as safety boats on all types of marine vessels and for transporting crews on warships. They also find use for recreational purposes and in competitive racing in the San Francisco Bay area and off the coast of Massachusetts. At the Vallejo Waterfront Festival the whaleboats have eight rowers and a coxswain provided by the Straits of Mare Island Rowing Association (SOMIRA.) On Saturday the teams are divided into divisions such as hospitality, neighborhood, public safety, etc. The races begin at the dock in front of Vic’s Wheelhouse and last about six minutes – approximately sixty strokes up the river, turn at a buoy and another, long sixty strokes back. Heats are run with two or three boats to a division, with two regular runs, switching lanes to offset the influence of the tides, and then a final “drag” race if necessary to break a tie. Strategy includes knowing when to move in or out of the current and you can be disqualified if you touch another boat’s oars. So why all this information about whaleboats and races? During the waterfront festival, the Mare Island Brewing Co. entered the competition. On the first day they raced against the Sardine Can, the only other team in the hospitality division. They lost the first race, won the second and the subsequent drag race, winning the hospitality trophy. On Sunday there were nine boats to compete for the coveted Warriors’ Cup sponsored by Congressman Mike Thompson. Mare Island Brewing Co. lost their first race because they failed to clear the buoy on their turn, but they came back and dominated the second thus setting up a drag race final for the trophy. Their opponents were SEIU Bangin’ Oars and Alstom Train Repair. The race resulted in a photo finish, perhaps two inches between the brewery and SEIU at the finish line. After waiting anxiously for quite a time
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converted the missile hangars into space for 60 troops and several SEAL Swimmer Delivery Vehicles as well as a decompression chamber. Their objective was to rescue two airman held in North Vietnam. The mission was unsuccessful and it was the last time the Navy attempted to rescue hostages. In 1986 the Grayback was stripped down to an empty hull and painted a bright pumpkin orange. She was towed out of Subic Bay in the Philippines and sunk in the South China Sea for target practice.. Why orange?? This was the color required by Philippine regulations for vessels sunk off the coast of their nation. She was sunk by US ships as part of Harpoonex ’86 and the Battleship Battle Group associated with the USS New Jersey (BB-62). No fuss, no muss, she simply went to the bottom! -*
for a review of the photo finish, Mare Island Brewing Co. was declared the winner. The splendid prize was $1500.00 and the opportunity to choose which organization would receive the money. The museum has had a long, productive association with the brewery and Mare Island Brewing Co. chose Mare Island Museum as their beneficiary. You might remember it was the brewery which sponsored the showing of the film, The USS Indianapolis: The Legacy at the museum from which we received half the proceeds. In turn the museum often provides historical information, photos and loans artifacts to the brewery. We are most grateful for the support of Mare Island Brewing Co. and its owners, Kent Fortner and Ryan Gibbons, and look forward to a continued relationship with them and the brewery. And if you happen to someday sip a brew named after Murphy the Pig, know that it was information they got from the Mare Island Museum!!
A Different Kind of Graveyard
One of the most unusual looking boats built at Mare Island was the USS Grayback (SS/SSG/LPSS-574) which started life here designed as a fast attack submarine, and was already under construction when the Navy decided she would be redesigned to launch REGULUS guided missiles. So MINSY workers cut her in half and added a new fifty foot section of hull as well as a missile hangar to the foredeck which made her one of the strangest looking subs ever built. When finished she was the largest diesel sub ever launched and was the largest in underwater displacement. She was also the first purpose built missile-firing sub and launched her first missile in 1958. One writer called her “the sub with a thousand-mile punch.” He went on to describe the action -“A steel door will open its bulbous snout and a vicious , bullet like missile with razor stubs for wings will slide out and elevate. Instantly, the missile’s jet engine will begin to screech ripping yards of foam from the sea surface.” However by this time, the Polaris missile was the new weapon of choice and the outdated Grayback was decommissioned in 1964. A few years later the Navy decided it needed a submarine personnel carrier. Back to Mare Island went Grayback. This time we lengthened her sail, added two auxiliary tanks, 12 feet in length, to the forward end of her engine room and
Target USS Grayback, this time, painted to stand out
Museum Library Recognized
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Three newly published books have recognized Mare Island Museum library as contributing information used in the publication of the book. The first to notify us was Major Brian Finch who translated A Faithful Record of the Lisbon Maru Incident from Chinese into English. Having served in the British military with one of the survivors of the incident, Finch has had a lifelong interest in the event. In 1942 the Lisbon Maru was a Japanese freighter carrying British POWs from Hong Kong to Japan when it was sunk by an American submarine off the coast of China. Ordinary Chinese fisherman, already impoverished by the war, jumped into their boats and rescued as many of the drowning POWs as they could. Still 828 died and their remains are still on the floor of the sea off the Chinese coast. The submarine which sank the Lisbon Maru, not knowing that it held POWs, was the USS Grouper and the museum library was able to provide the author with a photo and
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information about the Grouper. The second publication in which the library provided information was for a book entitled “The Wreck of the Saginaw, the account left by her captain, Montgomery Sicard” written by Cornelia Bagg Srey and Pyara Bagg Sandhu. The author, Cornelia Bagg Srey found among her family’s treasures a handwritten document dated 1858 and the only notation on it was a name, Montgomery Sicard who was the author and the cousin of her great grandfather as well as the captain of the USS Saginaw when it sank. The Saginaw was the first ship launched at MINSY and was lost at Kure Atoll, then called Ocean Island, 29 October 1870. Since the Saginaw was built at MINSy there was a collection of material available to the author. Few people are aware that the only times the Rose Bowl had non-college football teams were in 1918 and 1919 when the Mare Island Marines played in both games. The third book in which the library is cited is entitled Fields of Friendly Strife which is the stories of the Mare Island marines and their opponents who played in those games while training to go to Europe for WW I. Written by Tim Brown, the final chapter tracks the men after the war and several who had influence on the development of the NFL. John Beckett who was the captain of the 1917 Rose Bowl Champions from Oregon and the 1918 Mare Island Marines Rose Bowl champions is the only player to captain two different winning teams in the Rose Bowl. He also rose to the rank of brigadier general in the USMC and coached football at many bases during his long military career. Brown found much information on the Rose Bowl and
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even a picture of the 1918 and 1919 teams which he had never seen before. He was also was provided a tour of the Marine area at Mare Island. We expect to have copies of both the Saginaw story and the Rose Bowl book in the museum gift shop and they can both be ordered from Amazon.com. Interested in knowing more about Mare Island’s history – here is one good place to start. These searches, and many others as well, would not be possible without the work of five very faithful and efficient volunteers – Rick Evans, Lew Halloran, Jeri Lagoria, Diana Lina and Ken Phillippi, most of whom volunteer at least two days a week in the library. With their efforts the library is now well enough organized that we can find what people are looking for. Recently we had a request for information on a Norwegian ship, Gjoa, which visited Mare Island in the early 1900s. We not only had a file, but pictures as well!!
Did You Know?
According to Herb Caen, the well-known columnist from the San Francisco Chronicle, the reason they used Christian Bros. champagne to christen the USS Andrew Jackson, a Mare Island nuclear sub, is that Christian Bros makes a special thin glass bottle just for launchings (if the bottle fails to break it is not only embarrassing but also considered bad luck) This will explain why the superb '55 Moet-Chandon Dry Imperial belonging to Pierre Basdevant, France's Consul General in San Francisco, was not used. According to Caen the French champagne was instead kept for future a future special occasion use. 7 Perhaps an admiral’s dinner?
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Coming Events MIHPF Board Meeting
26 March, 2018 10:00 A.M., MI Museum POC: Ken Wright, (707) 557-4646
Corporate Members of Mare Island Museum
Saginaw Book Signing
We like to thank the following corporate members for supporting the mission of the Mare Island Museum:
14 April, 2018 1:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M., MI Museum
Alstom Association of Marine Underwriters Brayton Purcell LLP CS Marine Constructors Inc. Davillier-Sloam Factory_OS, Inc. Lennar Mare Island Mare Island Brewing Co. Mare Island Dry Dock, LLC Nautilus Data Technologies Navy Yard Association Society of Historical Architects Touro University United Site Services Weston Solutions
MIHPF Board Meeting
28 May, 2018 10:00 A.M., MI Museum POC: Ken Wright, (707) 557-4646
Reunion Code 950
9 Sept, 2018 11:00 A.M. – 2:00 P.M., MI Museum POC: Tom Watson, (707) 507-5259
Reunion Shop 31
29 Sept, 2018 11:00 A.M. – 2:00 P.M., MI Museum POC: Sam Shoults, (707) 255-9402
Design Reunion
6 Nov, 2018 10:00 A.M. – 2:00 P.M., MI Museum POC: Jim Holland, (707) 224-8593
Thank You!
For further information on any of these events contact the museum at mihp46@att.net or call (707) 557-4646
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