HONORABLY DISCHARGED
Of the old crew, the crew which had sailed with Pershing’s First
Expeditionary Force, only two officers and eighteen men watched the
frowning headlands of Brittany sink into the sea as the _Corsair_
turned her bow to follow the long trail that led to the twin lights
of Navesink and the skyline of New York. A day at the Azores for
coal and she laid a course for Bermuda and another brief call before
straightening out for the last stretch of the journey. On May 28th she
steamed into her home port after an absence just a little short of two
years. There was no uproarious welcome when the gray _Corsair_ slipped
through the Narrows and sought a berth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The
war had ended more than half a year earlier. It was already an old
story, but the ship had done her duty and was content with this.
A few days later she ceased to be enrolled in the United States Navy.
There was no ceremonious formality and the documents in the case were
exceedingly brief, but they signified the end of a story which had
added a worthy page to the annals of American manhood. “Ships are all
right. It is the men in them,” said one of Joseph Conrad’s wise old
mariners. This was true of the _Corsair_ and the other yachts of the
Breton Patrol. And so the Navy Department spoke the last word in this
concise order:
_Headquarters of the Third Naval
District, Brooklyn, New York_
_June 6, 1919_
From: Officer in Charge, Material Department.
To: Commanding Officer U.S.S. Corsair, S.P. 159.
Subject: Orders.
Proceed to W. & A. Fletcher Shipyard, Hoboken, N.J., June 9, 1919.
Place the vessel out of commission in accordance with orders enclosed
herewith, and deliver the vessel to representative of the owner, Mr.
J. P. Morgan. Have enclosed receipts in duplicate signed and return to
this office.
(Signed) C. L. ARNOLD,
_Captain, U.S.N._
(Enclosure.) The U.S.S. _Corsair_ is hereby placed out of commission,
June 9th, 1919.
Her owner surmised that the _Corsair_ had been run to death and worn
out in the Bay of Biscay, that she was to be regarded rather as a
relic than a yacht; but in this Mr. Morgan was happily disappointed.
The staunch ship was still fit to be overhauled and made ready for
the peaceful and leisurely service of other days. In her old berth at
Fletcher’s Yard she swarmed with artisans instead of bluejackets, and
they found many things to be done besides restoring the furniture,
fittings, partitions, and so on.
[Illustration:
_Copyright, 1899, by C. E. Bolles, Brooklyn_
THE CORSAIR WHEN IN COMMISSION AS A YACHT BEFORE THE WAR]
A stalwart man may tumble down three flights of stairs and escape
without a broken neck, but he is bound to be considerably shaken
up. This was painfully the case with a yacht which had been kept going
month in and month out, the fires drawn from under her boilers only
when she positively declined to make steam enough and was in a mood to
protest against such unfair treatment. That December hurricane had been
a bruising, almost fatal experience, and the repairs made at Lisbon
could not be called final.
As a ship, however, the _Corsair_ had strongly survived the ordeal,
and soon she began to resume the semblance of a shapely, sea-going
yacht. The graceful bowsprit was restored to the clipper stem, the deck
cleared of gun mountings, and the overhang was no longer cluttered
with the gear of the depth bombs. Chief Engineer Hutchison returned
to his own engine-room, and there was clangor and clatter as gangs of
mechanics repaired, replaced, and tuned up machinery which had been
driven to the limit of endurance.
The _Corsair’s_ steaming record in foreign service had amounted to
49,983.6 miles from June, 1917, to December, 1918, when she ceased
cruising to spend her time in English ports and at Queenstown. The
distance, by months, was as follows:
1917:
June 3244.4 miles
July 3358.7
August 3441.5
September 3343.7
October 2994.4
November 3045.6
December 557.1 (Engine counter disabled in hurricane)
1918:
January 880.9 miles (at Lisbon)
February 2635.8
March 2519
April 1279.3
May 3554.5
June 3823.8[7]
July 3609.8[7]
August 4300[7]
September 4027[7]
October 1155.7 (Repairs)
November 1030.4
December 1182
On July 31st, less than two months after being placed out of
commission as a naval vessel, the _Corsair_ hoisted the Commodore’s
flag of the New York Yacht Club. Trim and immaculate, she proceeded
to her anchorage at Glen Cove, to await cruising orders. There were
differences, however, and the _Corsair_ was not the same as of old.
Freshly painted, the hue of her funnel and hull was the gray of the
Navy. For a season, at least, the glistening black of her hull was not
to be restored. It seemed more fitting, somehow, that in this way she
should recall her long service in helping guard the road to France.
Upon her funnel were two service chevrons. The regulations awarded a
stripe for the first three months overseas and another for a full year
thereafter, until the date of the armistice. The decks were scraped and
holystoned and spotless, but where the guns had been there were wooden
plugs to mark the half-circles of the mounts, and the pine planking
was scarred where cases of shells had been dragged to be ready for the
swift team-work of the agile gun crews. These, too, were marks of honor
which it seemed a pity to obliterate. They signified that the _Corsair_
was something more than a yacht.
Another memento and reminder, to be highly regarded by the ship’s
company of those stirring days, is a letter from the Commander-in-Chief
of the United States Naval Forces in European Waters, who desired that
his “well done” should be included in this record. It is placed here by
way of “good-bye and fare-ye-well,” as the old chantey sang it. Admiral
Sims writes as follows:
_Naval War College
Newport, Rhode Island_
_1 December, 1919_
MY DEAR MR. PAINE:
To undertake to write the complete story of any one ship of the
American Navy and its experiences in the war zone seems to me a task
very well worth while. Needless to say, the work of the yachts and
their personnel on the coast of France was splendid, and I am only too
glad to have an opportunity to express my appreciation of them.
Because of the shortage of vessels suitable for convoy and escort
duty, and the gravely urgent circumstances, the yachts were sent
across with little time for preparation or training and with few
officers and men of the Regular Navy in their complements. They were
an emergency flotilla, but I felt confident that they would quickly
adapt themselves to the arduous conditions of their service in
European waters.
What did surprise me was that they were able to weather a winter in
the Bay of Biscay and to stay at sea with the convoys when yachts were
presumed to be tucked in harbor. This was greatly to the credit of the
courage, seamanship, and hardihood of the men who served in them. It
was conspicuously true of the _Corsair’s_ encounter with the December
hurricane in which she almost foundered, but succeeded in making port
at Lisbon. A similar spirit was shown when this vessel stood by the
disabled steamer _Dagfin_ and towed her three hundred miles through an
area in which enemy submarines were operating.
With a steaming record of 50,000 miles on foreign service, with the
unusual number of fourteen enlisted men appointed as commissioned
officers, and with repeated commendations from the Force Commander in
France, such a yacht served with honor to the flag and the Navy and
deserves the verdict of “Well Done, _Corsair_.”
Very sincerely yours
WM. S. SIMS
_Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy_
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Keystone View Co., N. Y._
ADMIRAL WILLIAM S. SIMS, COMMANDING THE U.S. NAVAL FORCES IN EUROPEAN
WATERS]
The yacht will always be tenanted with brave memories. And I am sure
that to her owner and to Captain Porter, as long as she shall float,
the _Corsair_ will seem to have caught and held in the fabric of her
somewhat of the spirit of those high-hearted young Americans who
manned and sailed and fought her in the war zone. For a ship which has
faithfully withstood the manifold ordeals of the sea becomes something
more than a mere artifice of wood and steel. She seems almost
sentient, like a living thing to those who have shared her fortunes,
and therein is the immemorial romance of blue water.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Mileage for this month greater than any of the yachts or smaller
destroyers.