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History

The Sicilian Expedition: Lessons from an Ancient Disaster

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By Austin McLaughlin

The world’s preeminent naval power launched a vast armada west to secure distant allies from a threatening rival. It underestimated the enemy’s resolve. The rival rallied, repelled the invaders, and left the naval power reeling—its fleet shattered, alliances frayed, and homeland stunned.

This isn’t a U.S.-China clash in the Taiwan Strait, but Athens’ 415 BC Sicilian Expedition–a misstep that doomed it to Spartan domination. Losing over 100 warships and 5,000 troops, Athens’ strategic blunder marked the tipping point of the 431-404 BC Peloponnesian War.1

Today, the U.S. can learn from Athens’ failure–intelligence gaps and tactical errors–as a strategic warning to a rising China, sidestepping a modern parallel.

Introduction – Alcibiades’ and Nicias’ Leadership Preludes Disaster

Pericles’ death in 429 BC left lesser men at the helm of the ancient world’s naval hegemon: the cunning general Alcibiades and the cautious statesman Nicias. Alcibiades drove Athens’ reckless Sicilian gamble, but Nicias spearheaded its destruction. The two willfully ended a six-year peace guaranteed by the 421 BC Peace of Nicias.2

Athens aimed to subdue Sicily for “glory and tribute,” eyeing a base for future incursions against Carthage and Mediterranean Africa.3 Alcibiades sold his plan to a willing assembly infected with “Alcibiades syndrome,” a toxic combination of capability and egotism.4 His charm convinced the assembly to deploy 60 ships. Upstaged by his junior, Nicias opposed this front far from Sparta, insisting Athens could win only by doubling the size of its force in a quixotic attempt to dissuade decisionmakers.5 Nicias’ bluster unintentionally worked – the assembly “far from being scared, eagerly agreed,” mustering 5,100 hoplites aboard 134 triremes and organizing command between Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus.

Alcibiades was slated to spearhead the armada, but the Affair of the Herms in June 415 BC forced his recall–busts of Hermes, symbols of Athenian patriotism, were defaced across Athens and Alcibiades became the chief suspect. Rather than stand trial, he defected to Sparta and advised stationing the general Gylippus in Syracuse to meet the expedition.6

Nicias now headed an expedition he once opposed. Athens, intertwined with its leaders, leapt from foolhardy confidence to trepidation. While personality differences do not presage inferior performance–as exemplified by Admirals Halsey and Spruance in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War–they can alter intelligence assessments and operational planning. Alcibiades’ arrogance engendered overconfidence in the assembly’s assessment of Sicilian affairs and capability, while Nicias’ indecisiveness led to the fleet’s rotting in Syracuse’s harbor and his force’s routing ashore.7

Intelligence Gaps – Hermocrates of Syracuse Outplays Athens’ Assessments

Syracusan general Hermocrates believed Athens was using specious alliances to aggravate existing hostilities and wear out Sicily’s defenses until they could “one day come with a larger armament and seek to bring all of [Sicily] into subjection.”8 In accord with Hermocrates’ argument, Sicily united at the 424 BC Congress of Gela and issued a doctrine of self-determination. In Athens, Sicily had a common enemy.

In 415 BC, Athens misjudged Sicily’s unity, assuming its cities, divided along Ionian and Dorian lines, would not resist en masse. The 416 BC call for aid from Segesta, a Hellenized city, against Selinus, a Dorian city, likely bolstered this belief – Athens expected support from Sicilian Ionians as Greek diaspora and their sympathizers. Athens thus justified the invasion under a pretense of protecting the island’s Ionians from Dorians, concentrated in Syracuse. However, the city state’s assessment of Sicily was overly simplistic, relying on a notion of shared heritage to overcome any local rivalries. Worse, Athens underestimated Sicily’s wariness of Athenian expansionism.

Athens was oblivious to Sicily’s own security assessments. In 415 BC, the Syracusan assembly held debates on whether the Athenians were coming to invade. The prescient Hermocrates claimed “a large Athenian force was sailing on the pretext of helping allies,” but intended to subjugate them.9 He foresaw the invasion, warning of Athens’ intent to subjugate Sicily under the guise of aid. To prepare, Hermocrates advised sending envoys across Sicily, Italy, and Carthage for aid, as well as to Sparta and Corinth to instigate a distracting conflict on Attica. He further urged a forward offensive: an open water attack near the Iapygian peninsula (modern day Apulia) to intercept a weary Athenian armada.

Hermocrates heard of Nicias’ fabled uncertainty, that the “‘most experienced of the Athenian generals’ was reluctant to make the expedition and might seize on evidence of resistance to abandon the project.” Despite public efforts to adhere to the “officially limited purposes” of the expedition, Sicily aptly assessed Athens’ intent.10

Athens had a limited understanding of the Syracusan order of battle. Encountering by fortune no fleet in the harbor, Athens was unprepared for an army at parity with its own.11 During the First Battle of Syracuse, the defenders’ front line was twice the weight of Athens’: sixteen-deep to Athens’ eight-deep phalanxes.12 Most importantly, Syracuse’s cavalry numbered approximately 1,500 to Athens’ 30.

Athenian intelligence gaps on Sicily’s unity, grasp of their true intent, and order of battle set up the expedition for failure. The astute leader Hermocrates had preempted the worst of Athenian aggression through shrewd argumentation and decision making. In the war for information dominance, Syracuse knew its adversary far better than Athens.

Tactical Errors – Nicias Squanders Opportunities and Misapplies Forces

Athens’ defeat in the First and Second Battles of Syracuse stemmed from critical errors: assuming Syracuse’s surrender, neglecting cavalry, and failing to counter Spartan head-on trireme ramming.

At Syracuse, the Athenian general Lamachus envisioned a decision tree with three major branches of action.13 Most optimistically, he hoped to intimidate Syracuse into surrendering without fighting. Failing surrender, Lamachus would challenge Syracuse’s forces to battle outside the city’s walls. And if they refused to fight, he would stage an amphibious landing in the outlying farms, pinning Syracusans and establishing supply lines to feed and quarter his own troops. This last option, Lamachus hoped, would impress Sicilian cities and win their allegiance.

From Catana to the south, Nicias staged the First Battle of Syracuse. Hoplites from Argives pierced Syracuse’s left phalanx while Athens split the center. A thunderstorm caused inexperienced Syracusans to break ranks and flee, fearful of the bad omen. But Athens could not capitalize on victory: with just 30 cavalrymen, Athens could not pursue its helpless enemy.

Nicias clung to Lamachus’s fantasy of winning without fighting. With winter approaching, he sailed back to Catana, making no effort to request cavalry reinforcements. Historian Donald Kagan posits this was “more a failure of purpose than of judgment, that it resulted, at least in part, from his original disinclination for the expedition, from his hope that it would never be necessary to fight at all.”14 Plutarch affirmed Nicias’ delay after victory “destroyed the opportunity for action… in getting up the nerve to act, he was hesitant and timid.”15

For two years, Athens’ army made no progress sieging Syracuse. Its fleet languished, “rotting in the stagnant waters of the harbor, their crews inactive for over a year, had passed their peak of readiness.”16 Spartan ships fortified with stray-beams attacked the ill-prepared Athenian triremes head on, preventing the Athenians from ramming broadside, their preferred method. Covering their decks with animal hides, the Spartans repulsed Athenian grappling hooks. Deprived of room to maneuver, Sparta trapped Athens’ fleet in the harbor, driving oarsmen to beachheads where inland forces routed them on arrival.

Rather than escape and fearing he would be “put to death on a disgraceful charge,” Nicias heeded superstition surrounding a lunar eclipse and delayed withdrawal. Syracuse and Sparta exploited this opportunity to finish the trapped fleet. With no ships on which to return, Nicias and his men fled to Catana and were routed by cavalry. With survivors enslaved, the Second Battle of Syracuse came to a disastrous end.

Nicias “had let slip the time to action.” He was “slow and wanted assurance to engage,” misusing assets available to him while hoping to win the fight without fighting. Unlike Nicias, the U.S. Navy must use its forces as intended.

Two Lessons for the U.S. Navy Today

During the Peloponnesian War, Athens reignited a great power conflict rather than maintain an uneasy peace, sacrificing sea control because war was seen as foregone. It is incumbent now that the U.S. must not succumb to this same fate–looking back on the Sicilian Expedition reveals two major lessons for U.S. naval intelligence and operations today.

For naval intelligence, assess intent separately from capability. Athens misread Sicily’s will to fight despite a smaller, nominally divided force, predisposing itself to rash action. Athens’ superficial view of Sicilian politics and overreliance on shared values with partners missed Hermocrates’ machinations toward Sicilian unity. Further, despite an initial naval overmatch, Athens grossly underestimated Syracuse’s capabilities on land.

Taiwan’s political divisions today, particularly with the Kuomintang’s status quo orientation, cannot be mistaken for a lack of willingness to fight should an invasion occur. Russia recently repeated this mistake in Ukraine, possibly causing China to delay forceful reunification with Taiwan in the near term. Analysis in the years ahead must focus on changes in tactics, techniques, and procedures as indicators for intent, like shadowing or pressurization behavior and amphibious rehearsals, rather than fleet size and capability. U.S. naval intelligence should emulate Sicily, not Athens, to gauge aspirations hidden behind Chinese posturing.

For naval operators, use forces as they were intended. During the siege of Syracuse, Athens’ navy was misused operationally and tactically. Operationally, its triremes were intended for fast maneuvering in the littorals, not blockading ports in an exposed forward position. Tactically, their concentration in Syracuse’s harbor deprived the triremes freedom of maneuver and thus their preferred method of assault: broadside ramming. Applying the perspective of Jomini, Athens had “invert[ed] the natural order” of its arms.17 The trireme fleet distributed across the Mediterranean Sea, then the global commons, led to Athens’ naval preeminence. Concentrating the force immediately outside Syracuse misapplied this purpose-built utility.

Similarly, U.S. Navy platforms equipped for maritime cooperation and green-water engagement like the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) are not best-suited for sea denial and blue-water conflict. Ideal application of the LCS, for example, might be as a presence multiplier further from conflict zones. In the last few decades, mission creep led U.S. service branches to extend their capabilities beyond their original purposes. Corrective efforts like the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, adjusting “from inland to littoral, and from non-state actor to peer competitor,” are the vanguard.18 The U.S. Navy must also direct present resources around their intended mission.

A Strategic Warning… for China

Themistocles, father of Athenian seapower, stated “he who commands the sea has command of everything.”19 In a generation, the arrogance of Alcibiades and the indecision of Nicias destroyed Athens’ fleet and Themistocles’ legacy. Beyond major losses in ships and manpower, Athens lost prestige and morale. In disbelief, the city’s archons and general assembly branded news of their defeat “false intelligence” and discredited or tortured those who spread word of it.20 But they could not stop the internal revolts and Spartan-Persian alliance, eager to “overthrow Athenian seapower in the Aegean,” to follow.21

In 2015, Xi Jinping dismissed the Thucydides Trap, stating there was “no such thing… [but]  should major countries time and time again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.”22 With the Thuycidean dynamic at play, rather than imitate Athens’ reckless abandon, the U.S. must purposefully send its Navy forward to maintain maritime superiority without allowing heightened operational tempo and requirements to reduce readiness. China must engage transparently about its regional ambitions without needlessly antagonizing our nation or its partners throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Athens and Sparta serve as parables for the U.S. and China. While Athens offers lessons to the U.S. as a historic precursor, ultimately it was a foolhardy rising power that collapsed following a disastrous invasion of an island hundreds of miles offshore. Perhaps while the Taiwan Strait is no Ionian Sea and technological advances have long rendered triremes obsolete, this strategic warning is more relevant to China. Sparta, a status quo power like the U.S., simply had to await its adversary’s fatal misjudgment to invade Sicily–the rest is history.

Lieutenant Austin McLaughlin is currently assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He previously served as intelligence officer for Destroyer Squadron 1 aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in San Diego, California. Before naval service, he was a presidential writer at the White House. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University in 2018.

Notes

1. Strauss, Barry S., and Josiah Ober. The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists. St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pp. 61.
2. Strauss and Ober, pp. 66.
3. Strauss and Ober, pp. 60.
4. Strauss and Ober, pp. 51.
5. Strauss and Ober, pp. 61.
6. Strauss and Ober, pp. 63-65.
7. Potter, E.B. “Halsey and Spruance: A Study in Contrasts.” U.S. Naval Institute. April 2016.
8. Thucydides, A History of the Peloponnesian War, 4.58-65.
9. Kagan, Donald. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 220.
10. Kagan, pp. 245.
11. Thucydides, 6.52.
12. Kagan, pp. 235.
13. Kagan, pp. 211-216.
14. Kagan, pp. 252.
15. Plutarch, 16.8.
16. Strauss and Ober, pp. 63-65.
17. Jomini, Antoine-Henri. The Art of War. Translated by G.H. Mendell and W.P. Craighill. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1862.
18. Berger, David H. Force Design 2030. Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps. March 2020.
19. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, X, 8. c. 391.
20. Plutarch, Life of Nicias. c. 75. 30.2.
21. Strauss and Ober, pp. 65.
22. Allison, Graham. “The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed to War?” The Atlantic. September 24, 2015.

Featured Image: Artist rendering of the Sicily Expedition (Courtesy of War History Online)

History

Pitfalls in Political Warship Designs

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By Steve Wills

“When leaders design warships the results are often mixed.”

Leaders throughout history, going back at least to the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, have commissioned the building of great fleets for national security purposes. Henry 8th and Elizabeth 1 created fleets for the defense of England. George Washington authorized the first Continental navy units, and Abraham Lincoln spearheaded the acceptance of armored warships for the United States navy to help defeat Confederate ironclads like CSS Virginia. Teddy Roosevelt was a fan of larger and larger battleships, and he dispatched the Great White Fleet on its global deterrence mission. More recently, President Franklin Roosevelt began the rebuilding of the U.S. navy ahead of World War 2, and President Ronald Reagan’s 600 ship navy in the 1980’s helped to deter conflict with the Soviet Union and bring the Cold War to a close. On the other hand, rulers personally designing their nation’s warships have seen mixed outcomes. Swedish King Gustavus Adophus’ decision to add additional armament to the ship of the line Vasa arguably contributed to that ship’s accidental sinking on its maiden voyage in 1628. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was an enthusiastic navalist, but his individual ship designs, often at odds with the laws of physics, were the bane of his naval chief Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Joseph Stalin was very much a landsman but delighted in suggesting design elements for the Soviet navy’s Stalingrad class battlecruisers that were hated by Soviet naval leadership. Even Great Britain’s Lord Louis Mountbatten’s attempts to design a warship, in his case a gigantic aircraft carrier made of ice, met with less than ideal results.

History suggests that leaders should direct the missions and construction program for fleets but save the concepts and designs of individual warships to their navies.

“Next to God the navy is the most important for the success of the country.”

Swedish King Gustavus Aldophus was a revolutionary monarch who greatly expanded the scope and power of the Swedish kingdom over his twenty-plus year reign. He greatly improved his nation’s military and political organization and was one of the military leaders most admired by Napoleon for his campaigns in the bloodbath of the European Thirty Years War, a conflict that ultimately took his life in 1632.

Among his many skills, Gustavus Adolphus was a believer in the power of mobile, effective artillery as a battle-winning tool. The Swedish Navy he inherited featured mostly medium-sized and smaller warships that often relied on the boarding and capture of opponent naval vessels with guns being secondary to combat efforts. The Swedish King however needed to keep open supply lines across the Baltic Sea in order to preserve communication throughout his kingdom and demanded a larger and more capable class of warships to support that mission. That meant a modern warship with standardized cannon mounted on at least two gundecks in order to deliver reliable firepower. The King personally chose the twenty-four pound Swedish army demi-gun developed as a lightweight, mobile weapon for sieges as Vasa’s primary armament.

Vasa had begun construction in 1626, but there had been delays in fitting her armament of over fifty and ultimately sixty four guns, of which the bulk were the 24 pound weapons. Gustavus Adolphus was angry at the delays in the outfitting of his new vessel to the point where he sent one of his personal artillery masters Erik Jonnson back from the battlefields of Poland to get the Vasa’s armament fitting back on schedule. The King reportedly visited the ship in January 1628, but most of his exhortations in a steady stream of letters to the builder came from abroad, but all of them demanded that Vasa needed to go to sea immediately in support of protecting sea lines of communication in the Baltic.

Figure 1: Gustavus Adolpus’ Flawed Flagship Vasa, now raised and displayed in a Stockholm museum.

When Vasa was ready to embark on her first voyage in the spring of 1628, she was a dangerously unstable vessel, despite compromises in her armament. Gustavus Adolphus ordered seventy two of the 24 pound guns for the ship, and it was decided the ship would carry fifty six such weapons, but ultimately only forty eight of the weapons were mounted, but on the two full gun decks the King desired. Dutch naval architects that designed the ship had already opted for a relatively shallow hold for the ship that did not adequately support the weight of two gun decks above. The addition of the twenty-four pound weapons may have made the ship’s capsizing on her first voyage on 10 August 1628 inevitable. Gustavus Adolphus was furious at the loss of his prized ship, and immediately made plans to salvage her expensive, standardized artillery. He ordered a court to investigate the ship’s loss demanded, “In no uncertain terms that the guilty parties be punished.”

The Captain of Vasa Söfring Hansson, who survived the disaster, assured investigators that all was in order and that the crew was not intoxicated at the time of Vasa’s departure from Stockholm. Much of the blame was ultimately assigned to the Dutch naval architects who designed the hull. Gustavus Adophus once said, “Next to God the navy is the most important for the success of the country,” but he had signed off on all of the ship’s specifications. One of the builders suggested that only God knew the reason for the loss of the ship, but the King had hurried construction and demanded the heavier armament, and as one of the builders Hein Jacoksson stated before the inquiry court, “His Majesty had approved these measurements. The number of guns on board was also as specified in the contract.”

“Stag and Homunculus Dead”

German Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz’s attempts to build a powerful German fleet in the first decade of the 20th century were both aided and hobbled by the enthusiasm of Germany’s ruler Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Kaiser was an enthusiastic navalist and often appeared in the uniforms of not only his own navy, but also those for which he was but an “honorary” flag officer. Unfortunately for Tirpitz, the Kaiser not only advocated for his navy, but also wanted a hand in the design of individual ships. Responding to a report that stated that longer-range naval gunnery was making the mission of torpedo boats more challenging, the Kaiser designed his own high speed, heavily armored “torpedo battleship.” Such suggestions were common from the ruler and Tirpitz noted in his memoirs that his team set to work to assess “the impossible,” noting that the Kaiser’s design was unworkable as the ship’s vast torpedo armament (all tubes were underwater,) combined with heavy armor left no space for required engineering space.

Tirpitz’s team nicknamed the unfortunate creation “the Homunculus.” The admiral journeyed to the Kaiser’s hunting lodge where the ruler was on yet another vacation and presented the facts to his leader. Wilhelm gracefully decamped from his naval designer role for the moment, and Tirpitz breathed a sigh of relief. Afterward he was invited to join the Kaiser’s hunting expedition. He later reported to his staff, “stag and Homunculus dead.” So ended that particular imperial effort at warship design.

“You possibly do not know what you need,” which means battleships!

Joseph Stalin was not much of a “navalist” until later in his rule of the Soviet Union, but when he did so, it was with the same, single-minded, ruthless determination with which he pursued other endeavors. Stalin ordered a large, ocean-going fleet in the late 1930’s that was in general a balanced fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Salin’s reasoning for building this first ocean-going fleet remain obscure, but “Under Stalin’s direct inspiration and involvement, plans for creating a huge ocean-going navy—bolshoi okeanskii flot—took shape,” and continued even into the beginning of World War 2. The dire necessity to repel invading German forces from the Motherland commanded that Soviet resources be used elsewhere rather than in an ocean-going battleship navy. Once the war ended, however, Stalin resumed his push for a large, ocean-going battleship fleet, even when he senior naval leaders preferred to build aircraft carriers as the new 20th century capital ship. Stalin became personally involved in the primary, postwar capital ship design, labeled the Stalingrad class battlecruiser. Stalin specifically demanded high speed for the class, and an armament of nine twelve inch guns to ensure the Stalingrad’s could outrange any British or American cruiser guns. Soviet admirals who got in his way suffered his wrath and the Soviet leader dismissed Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov in early January 1947 for such opposition.

Upon Stalin’s death in 1953 the Stalingrad’s were almost immediately cancelled by his successor Nikita Krushchev. The incomplete hull of Stalingrad was launched; used as a floating target for anti-ship missiles, it was scrapped around 1962. Stalin’s naval leaders had pleaded with the dictator even before World War 2 for more submarines and smaller warships, especially in the confined waters of the Black Sea. Stalin was a man of few words and famously replied to his admirals in 1936, “you possibly do not know what you need,” which for many historians suggests Stalin was fully in support of big-gunned warships above all others.

“To hell with Habakkuk!”

Finally, there was the case of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Habakkuk pykrete aircraft carrier. Mountbatten had been a Royal Navy signals expert before World War 2 and liked to tinker with naval technology. He persuaded British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill to take an interest in a giant, 2000 foot long super carrier made of an ice and wood pulp combination known as pykrete. Mountbatten dramatically presented the power of pykrete to Churchill and other senior leaders at the 1943 Quebec Conference. Two blocks of material, one of normal ice and one of the pykrete mixture were wheeled into the conference room. Mountbatten dramatically removed a pistol from his jacket and proposed to demonstrate the armor like properties of pykrete. He first fired a shot into the ice block which immediately shattered. His second shot at the pykrete bounced off the target, and ricocheted around the room, almost hitting U.S. Admiral Ernie King or British Field Marshal Alan Brooke (the accounts of the incident vary.) It was not an auspicious start to the project, and it was later cancelled as the introduction of much smaller and numerous escort carriers solved the problem of lack of airpower in Arctic seas. A small test ship 1/50 the size of the giant carrier was built and operated on a lake in Canada with some success over the winter but melted and sank with the spring thaw.

Field Marshall Lord Alan Brooke perhaps best summed up the challenges of Mountbatten’s ice carrier when he told the admiral at the Quebec conference, “To Hell with Habakkuk! We are about to have the most difficult time with our American friends and shall not have time for your ice carriers.” As it turned out, there was thankfully no time or funding for this particular fantasy fleet.

“I’m Not Into this Detail Stuff, I’m More Concepty”

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is perhaps best known for his attempts to “transform” the military to meet new and unconventional threats such as seen on 9/11 and other cases in the last twenty five years. These extended to the Navy as well and have sadly come to be represented by the very truncated DDG-1000 (now Zumwalt class destroyer, and the littoral combat ship LCS.) Rumsfeld had been a naval reservist aviator, and had as he said in his memoir, “a healthy respect for the men and women in unform,” but that, “my role as Secretary of Defense was different.” This involved high level leadership and not a focus on details unless immediately the task at hand. Rumsfeld could be very detail-oriented, as he proved when ordering the cancellation of the troubled Army 155mm mobile artillery Crusader vehicle in May 2002.

This detail focus did not extend to the Navy’s DDG-1000 and Littoral Combat Ship programs that evoked well Rumsfeld’s desire to transform the military into a lighter and more agile institution. Both vessels packed excessive amounts of “transformational” equipment, and organizational change into just one generational change in warship. Both types had many new, and as it turned out immature equipment, that began to fail operational testing and other measures of effectiveness. These repeated test failures in propulsion and combat systems, as well as within the vital LCS mission packages excessively delayed both programs which in turn dramatically raised their costs. In effect, each of these programs overloaded the already byzantine defense acquisition and test and evaluation system, but repeated systemic delays that made both ship types, especially the DDG-1000, unaffordable as designed.

Mr. Rumsfeld had left office when these problems became more glaringly apparent, and while he was not directly responsible, and was buys engaged in the “War on Terror,” and later invasion of Afghanistan, but he or his immediate subordinates should have perhaps checked back more on the progress of these transformational efforts. In a 2002 Washington Post on operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that included his recollections of detailed plans for attacks on terrorists there, Rumsfeld stated, “I’m not into this detail stuff. I’m more Concepty.” Perhaps in the case of LCS and DDG-1000’s immature Rumsfeld should have been more engaged in the details.

“All I can say is what the girl said when she put her foot in the stocking. It strikes me there’s something in it”

One of the few political leaders who were perhaps responsible for a questionable, and certainly “transformative” but later successful warship design was Abraham Lincoln. The President had heard of the construction of a rebel “monster ship” from the burned remains of the scuttled frigate USS Merrimac in Norfolk, Va, and authorized an immediate response, stating, “”one or more ironclad steamers or floating batteries, and to select a proper and competent board to inquire into and report in regard to a measure so important.” Swedish-born designer John Ericsson planned to submit the revolutionary Monitor design to this U.S. Navy board Lincoln authorized, but the Navy was not fan of the hot-headed Swedish innovator, who had designed a revolutionary screw propellor for the USS Princeton, but was blamed for the disastrous explosions of one of the ship’s guns on trials. Despite his unpopularity, Ericsson persisted in sending his design to the Ironclad board. While Navy officers were dismissive, President Lincoln was intrigued by the design and Monitor was included in the trio of ironclad warships authorized by Congress from a field of seventeen overall entries. Monitor was essentially built by a startup company with dozens of new patents, but was completed before the others and enroute to Hampton Rhodes when CSS Virginia’s 8 March 1862 massacre of Union wooden ships Cumberland and Congress.

Fearing the ex-Merrimac/CSS Virginia might attack Washington DC from the Potomac River, in the wake of the Hampton Roads disaster, some of Lincoln’s cabinet feared the worst, but of course Monitor arrived on time and in an indecisive battle on 9 March 1862 prevented the Confederate ironclad from damaging or destroying other wooden ships. Lincoln toured the Hampton Roads area after the battle, and even inspected Monitor in person, and received briefings from her officers on the battle with the Virginia. While Lincoln played a key role in getting the revolutionary USS Monitor constructed and was a fan of the turreted vessels throughout the war, he was not deep in the details of its construction. When seeing the ship’s design, however he did remark, “All I can say is what the girl said when she put her foot in the stocking. It strikes me there’s something in it” Like Rumsfeld, Lincoln was later too busy fighting a war to really get into the design of successor monitors, notably the failed Casco class shallow draft monitors, that like LCS 140 years later tried to accomplish too many transformational changes (shallow draft, armored turret, better speed,) in a limited hull form.

In retrospect, even the most resolute navalist leader should be advised from advocating for specific types of ships and should never descend into the details of their construction unless perhaps scholastically trained to do so, and in the part of being a good manager. Gustavus Adolphus was a land forces commander who got carried away with loading artillery onto Vasa’s already unstable hull. Kaiser Wilhem fancied himself an expert in everything but was at least willing to give way on some of his more outrageous naval designs. Joseph Stalin’s naval motives remain unclear, but he was always in favor of bigger as better, regardless of cost. Admiral Mountbatten was a visionary in many fields, but his Habakkuk giant carrier was probably an expensive bridge too far, and it was logically discarded. Donald Rumsfeld had a clear concept of transforming the military for new threats but never transformed the acquisition and test and evaluation system to support his vision or checked back enough to evaluate the initial fruits of his call to action.

Abraham Lincoln perhaps best represents how senior leaders can enable dramatic naval advances without getting too deep in the details. Lincoln also followed through in checking up on the first of the class in monitor vessels, something that modern presidents and Navy Secretaries might do as well. President Trump’s Great Golden Fleet of guided missile battleships and other ships may yet sail but his administration should likely leave the details to the Navy to work through, in spite of the service’s mixed record of warship design over the past two decades. History suggests leaders should save their exhortations for missions and not design minutia. These leaders should however check back frequently on the progress of their visions as they take form in steel, weapons and the people that crew them.

This maxim would certainly apply to the navy’s new frigate. In the years after his retirement, World War 2 admiral Raymond Spruance was having a routine checkup in a California-area medical center when he encountered an infirm woman in the waiting room with him. Spruance, who never minced words looked the woman over critically and said, “You’ve had a stroke, haven’t you?” The woman angrily replied, “I’ve had two strokes.” Spruance, who was not know for humor replied, “Three strokes and you’re out.” Like the woman in Spruance’s waiting room, the United States has now has two strikes/strokes on building a small surface combatant (LCS and the cancelled Constellation class frigate program.) Each might have been saved had leaders better monitored their progress. Exhortations for new ship concepts can pay dividends, but deep dives into details perhaps limits the leader’s ability to step back and logically evaluate the ship’s potential for success or failure. As President Ronald Reagan famously stated, “Trust but verify,” a maxim for checking shipbuilding as well as Soviets.

Dr. Steven Wills currently serves as a Navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. He is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. After retiring from the Navy in 2010, he completed a master’s and a Ph.D. in History with a concentration on Military History at Ohio University, graduating in 2017. He is the author of Strategy Shelved: The Collapse of Cold War Naval Strategic Planning, published by Naval Institute Press in July 2021 and, with former Navy Secretary John Lehman, Where are the Carriers? U.S. National Strategy and the Choices Ahead, published by Foreign Policy Research Institute in August 2021. Wills also holds a master’s in National Security Studies from the U.S. Naval War College and a bachelor’s in History from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Featured Image: Retired Captain Dudley W. Knox presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the final volume of an edited collection official naval records relating to U.S. Navy strategy and operations during the undeclared War with France between 1798 and 1801. Cimsec.org

History

The Story of William Garrison Payne, The U.S. Navy’s first Black Commissioned Officer

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By Reuben Keith Green

The hidden story of the U.S. Navy’s first Black commissioned officer spans five decades, three continents, two world wars, two wives from different countries, and one hell of a journey for an Indiana farm boy. For mutual convenience, both he and the United States Navy pretended that he wasn’t Black. This story had almost been erased from history until the determined efforts of one of his extended relatives, Jeff Giltz of Hobart, Indiana, brought it to light.1

From before World War I until after World War II, leaders in the U. S. government and Navy would make decisions affecting the composition of enlisted ranks for more than a century and that still echo in officer demographics today. Memories of maelstroms past reverberate in today’s discussions regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), affirmative action in the military academies, meritocracy over so-called “DEI Hires,” who is and is not Black, and in renaming – or not – bases and ships that honor relics of America’s discriminatory and exclusionary past. Before Doris “Dorie” Miller received the Navy Cross for his actions on December 7th, 1941, and long before the Navy commissioned the Golden Thirteen in 1945, Lieutenant (junior grade) William Lloyd Garrison Payne was awarded the Navy Cross for the hazardous duty of commanding the submarine chaser USS SC-83 in 1918. While his Navy Cross citation is sparse, the hazards of hunting submarines from a 110-foot wooden ship were considerable. His personal and professional history, still emerging though it may be, reveals much about the nation and Navy he served and deserves to be revealed in full. Understanding the racial and political climate during which he received his commission is crucial to understanding the importance of his place in Navy history.

Fig. 1: USS SC 83 underway. Lieutenant (junior grade) Payne was awarded the Navy Cross for his service as commanding officer. (Photo credit: National WWI Museum collection 2012.98, via subchaser.org.)

Quietly Breaking Barriers

William Lloyd Garrison Payne was born on Christmas day in 1881 to a White Indiana woman and a Black man, and completed forty years of military service by 1940 – before volunteering for more service in World War II. Garrison Payne’s virtual anonymity, despite his groundbreaking status as the first Black naval officer and a Navy Cross recipient, stemmed from pervasive racial discrimination, manifested in political and public opposition (notably by white supremacist politicians like James K. Varner and John C. Stennis), and internal resistance within the Navy. His long anonymity exemplifies a failure to learn from the past.2

Fig. 02. Ensign Payne (seated), in command of USS SC-83. (Photo credit: subchasers.org.)

Garrison Payne, or W.G. Payne, served in or commanded several vessels and had multiple shore assignments during his five-decade career. His officer assignments include commanding the aforementioned USS SC-83 and serving aboard the minesweeper USS Teal (AD-23), the collier USS Neptune (AC-8), submarine chasers Eagle 19 and Eagle 31, which he may have also commanded, and troop ship USS Zeppelin. He had a lengthy record as a Chief Boatswain’s Mate (Chief Bos’n).

Fig. 03: 1917 North Carolina Service Card, thirty-three year-old Chief Boatswain’s Mate Garrison Payne was discharged from the Navy and immediately “Appointed Officer” (Commissioned) on 15 December 1917 while assigned to the USS Neptune (AC-8) at Naval Base, Plymouth, England. (Credit: Public record in the public domain.)

After his commissioning in Plymouth, he presumably stayed in England and later took command of the USS SC-83 after she transited from New London, Connecticut to Plymouth, England in May 1918.

Garrison Payne took Rosa Manning, a widow with a young daughter, as his first wife in 1916. The 1910 North Carolina Census records indicate that she was the daughter of Sami and Annie Hall, both listed as Black in the census records. Later census records list Rosa Payne as White, and using her mother’s maiden name (Manning), as she did on their 1916 marriage license. His race was also indicated as White on the license, and his parents listed as Jackson Payne and Ruth Myers (Payne), his maternal grandparents.

Fig. 04: Garrison Payne and an unidentified woman, possibly his second wife Mary Margaret Payne, presumably taken in the latter 1920s, location unknown. Courtesy of Jeff Giltz.

In the photo above, Payne, wearing the rank of lieutenant, stands beside an unidentified Black woman, who may be his wife. He brought back Mary Margaret Duffy from duty in Plymouth, England on the USS Zeppelin, a troop transport, in 1919, listing her on ship documents as his wife. He used various first names and initials to apparently help obscure his identity.

Jeff Giltz of Hobart, Indiana is the great grandson of Gertrude “Gertie” Giltz, Garrison’s half-sister by the same mother, Mary Alice Payne. She was unmarried at the time of his birth in 1881. Her father, Jack Payne was the son of a Robert Henley Payne, who traveled first from Virginia to Kentucky, and then settled in Indiana, may have been mixed race. During the U.S. Census, census takers wrote down the race of household occupants as described by the head of the household. Many light-skinned Blacks thereby entered into White society by “turning White” during a census year. It is unknown when Garrison made his “transition” from Black or “Mulatto” to White.

None of Garrison’s half-siblings, who were born to his mother after she married Lemuel Ball, share his dark complexion. When she married, Garrison was sent to live nearby with his uncle, William C. Payne, whose wife was of mixed race. In the 1900 Census, Garrison is listed as a servant in his uncle’s household, not his nephew.

Taken together – Garrison Payne’s dark skin, the fact that the identity of his father was never publicly revealed and that he was born out of wedlock with no birth certificate issued, that he was named for a famous White Boston abolitionist and newspaper publisher,3 that his White mother gave him her last name instead of his father’s, that he was sent away after his mother married, and the oral history of his family – all point to the likelihood that Garrison Payne was Black.

In the turn of the century Navy, individuals were sometimes identified as “dark” or “dark complexion” with no racial category assigned. Payne self-identified as White on both of his known marriage licenses. According to Jeff Giltz, there are many references to Garrison Payne in online genealogy, military records and newspaper sites, but none appear on the Navy Historical and Heritage Command (NHHC) website. His military service likely began in 1900.

Rolling Back Racial Progress during Modernization

In his 1978 book Manning the Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 1898-1940, former U.S. Naval Academy Associate Professor Frederick S. Harrod discusses several of the policies enacted during that period that helped shaped today’s Navy.4 He describes how the famously progressive Secretary of the Navy (1913-1919) Josephus Daniels, otherwise notorious for banning alcohol from ships, brought Jim Crow policies to a previously partially integrated Navy (enlisted ranks only) and banned the first term enlistment of Negro personnel in 1919, a ban that would last until 1933. No official announcement of the unofficial ban was made, but Prof. Harrod asserts that it was instituted by an internal Navy Memorandum from Commander Randall Jacobs, who later issued the Guide to Command of Negro Personnel, NAVPERS-15092, in 1945. President Woodrow Wilson and Daniels were both staunch segregationists and White supremacists. The Navy became more rather than less racially restrictive during the Progressive Era because of the lasting effects of both Secretary Daniels and President Wilson.

The number of Negro personnel dropped from a high of 5,668 in June of 1919 – 2.26% of the total enlisted force – to 411 in June of 1933, a total of 0.55% of the total force of 81,120 enlisted men. Most of the Black sailors were in the Stewards Branch, and most were low ranking with no authority over White sailors, despite their many years of service and experience. Those very few “old salts” outside that branch, like Payne, were difficult to assign, as the Navy did not want them supervising White sailors, despite their expertise and seniority.

Following his temporary promotion to the commissioned officer ranks – rising as far as lieutenant on 01 July 1919 – Garrison Payne was eventually reverted to Chief Bos’n, until he was given an honorific, or “tombstone”, promotion to the permanent grade of lieutenant in June of 1940, just before his retirement. Payne died on 14 October 1952 in a Naval Hospital in San Diego California, and was interred in nearby Fort Rosacrans National Cemetery on 20 October 1952, in Section P, Plot P 0 2765 – not in the Officer’s Sections A or B, despite being identified as a lieutenant on his headstone. Garrison Payne’s hometown newspaper’s death notice indicates that he was the grandson of Jack Payne, with no mention of his parents. A handwritten notation on his Internment Control Form indicates that he enlisted on 31 March 1943, making him a veteran of both world wars, as also reflected on his headstone. His service in World War II – as a volunteer 62-year-old retiree – deserves further investigation.

Fig. 05: Garrison Payne’s final resting place, in Section P, Plot P 0 2765 of Fort Rosacrans National Cemetery. Courtesy of U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Veteran’s Legacy Memorial.

The Navy reluctantly commissioned the Golden Thirteen in 1945 only because of political pressure from the White House and from civil rights organizations like the NAACP, led by Walter F. White, the light-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed Atlanta Georgia native who embraced his Black heritage. Unlike Walter White, though, Garrison Payne likely hid his mixed-race heritage to protect his life, his family, and his career. When he married Mary Margaret Duffy in 1937, at the age of 54, he travelled more than 170 miles from San Diego, California to Yuma, Arizona to do so. Why? His new wife, Mary Margaret Duffy, was 37, and an immigrant from Ireland. He had previously listed her as his wife when he transported her to America in 1919. Are there records of this marriage overseas? Would that interracial marriage have been recognized, given that interracial marriage would remain illegal in both states for years to come? On their marriage certificate, as with Payne’s first marriage certificate, both spouses are listed as White.

The Navy’s Circular Letter 48-46, dated 27 February 1946, officially lifted “all restrictions governing the types of assignments for which Negro naval personnel are eligible.” Despite that edict, and President Truman’s Executive Order desegregating the armed forces in 1948, it would be decades before the Navy’s officer ranks would include more than fifty Blacks.

The stories of several early Black chief petty officers are missing from the Navy’s Historical and Heritage Command’s website, though it does include the story of a contemporary of Payne’s, Chief Boatswain’s Mate John Henry “Dick” Turpin, a Black man. That Payne, a commissioned officer, is absent and unrecognized can be attributed to at least five possible reasons.

The first is that the Navy didn’t know of his existence, significance, or accomplishments. Table 5 in Professor Harrods’s book is titled “The Color of the Enlisted Forces, 1906 – 1940,” and is compiled from the Annual Reports of the Chief of Navigation for those years, with eleven different racial categories, including “other.” Where Garrison Payne fell in those figures during his enlisted service is uncertain, but he was present in the Navy for each of those year’s reports.

The second is that Payne had no direct survivors to tell his story, and no one may have asked him to tell it. He and his first wife Rosa likely divorced sometime after the death of their only child. It is unknown if his Irish-born wife Mary Margaret produced any children by Garrison.

The third reason could be that the Navy may have kept his story quiet for his own protection, and that of the Woodrow Wilson administration and the Indiana political leadership. Garrison Payne was commissioned by the same President Woodrow Wilson who screened the movie Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915, re-segregated the federal government offices in Washington DC, refused to publicly condemn the racial violence and lynching during the “Red Summer” of 1919, and whose Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, was one of the masterminds behind the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection, which violently overthrew an elected integrated government in Wilmington, North Carolina. Acknowledging Payne as a decorated and successful Black naval officer would have been an embarrassment to Wilson, Daniels, and undercut their political and racist agendas.

Black veterans were specifically targeted after both world wars, by both civilians and military personnel, to reassert White supremacy. Payne was from Indiana, where the Ku Klux Klan was revived in 1915, and became a very powerful organization in the 1920’s. Such organizations may have sought out and harassed Payne and his family, had they known that this Black Indiana farm boy, born to a White mother, had not only received a commission in the U.S. Navy but had commanded White men in combat.

The fourth reason is that the Navy may have wanted to hide his racial identity. His record of accomplishment as a Navy Cross recipient and ship’s C.O. would have undermined the widespread belief that Black men could not perform successfully as leaders, much less decorated military officers. He was not commissioned as part of some social experiment or social engineering, but because the Navy needed experienced, reliable men to man a rapidly-expanding fleet and train inexperienced crews. Garrison Payne did just that, during years of dangerous duty at sea.

The fifth reason may be that Payne recognized the benefits of passing for White to his life and career, which may have compelled him to do so. He was raised in a largely white society, by white-appearing relatives. Had he not successfully “passed,” he likely would not have been commissioned.

Regardless of the reasons in the past, it is now time to herald the brave naval service of Garrison Payne. The Navy Historical and Heritage Command, the Smithsonian Institution, the Indiana Historical Society, the Hampton Roads Navy Museum, and others should work together to bring his amazing story out of the shadows.

Why Garrison Payne’s Story Matters

For years, many Black naval officers have searched in vain for stories of their heroic forebearers. Actions taken by politicians regarding nominations to military academies for much of the 20th century helped ensure that Black military officers remained a rarity, particularly those hailing from Southern states.5 The life story of Lieutenant Garrison Payne needs to be thoroughly documented and publicized because representation matters. On a personal note, knowing of his story while I was serving as one of the few Black officers in the Navy would have inspired me immensely. Garrison Payne served as likely the only Black officer in the Navy for his entire career. He showed what was possible. Heralding his trailblazing career can only positively impact the discussions about the future composition of the U.S. Navy’s officer corps as it inspires generations of sailors. Historians and researchers should continue the work of archival research to gain a fuller understanding of his story and significance. My hope is that veteran’s organizations and national institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution begin the effort to flesh out the story of Lieutenant Garrison Payne.

Reuben Keith Green, Lieutenant Commander, USN (ret) served 22 years in the Atlantic Fleet (1975-1997). After nine years in the enlisted ranks as a Mineman, Yeoman, and Equal Opportunity Program Specialist, he graduated from Officer Candidate School in 1984 and then served four consecutive sea tours. Both a steam and gas turbine qualified engineer officer of the watch (EOOW), he served as a Tactical Action Officer (TAO) in the Persian Gulf, and as executive officer in a Navy hydrofoil, USS Gemini (PHM-6). He holds a Master’s degree from Webster University in Human Resources Development, and is the author of Black Officer, White Navy – A Memoir, recently published by University Press of Kentucky.

Endnotes

1. Except as otherwise cited, research in this article is based on documents in the author’s possession and oral history interviews with Mr. Jeff Giltz.

2. War and Race: The Black Officer in the American Military. 1915-1941, 1981, Gerald W. Patton, Greenwood Press

3. All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery, 2008, Henry Mayer, W. W. Norton and Company

4. Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 1899-1940, 1978, Frederick S. Harrod, Greenwood Press.

5. The Tragedy of the Lost Generation, Proceedings, August 2024, VOL 150/8/1458, John P. Cordle, Reuben Keith Green, U.S. Naval Institute.

Featured Image: SC 83 underway, steaming under a bridge. (Photo via Subchaser.org)

History

Name a Virginia-Class Submarine for Medal of Honor Recipient Henry Breault

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By Ryan C. Walker

Introduction

On October 28, 1923, as USS O-5 was beginning its transit through the Panama Canal to participate in fleet exercises, it collided with the United Fruit Company’s Abangarez, sinking in less than a minute.¹ Most of the crew managed to escape, but one sailor made a fateful decision that saved the life of his shipmate. That sailor’s Medal of Honor Citation reads:

“For heroism and devotion to duty while serving on board the U.S. submarine O-5 at the time of the sinking of that vessel. On the morning of 28 October 1923, the O-5 collided with the steamship Abangarez and sank in less than a minute. When the collision occurred, Breault was in the torpedo room. Upon reaching the hatch, he saw that the boat was rapidly sinking. Instead of jumping overboard to save his own life, he returned to the torpedo room to the rescue of a shipmate who he knew was trapped in the boat, closing the torpedo room hatch on himself. Breault and Brown remained trapped in this compartment until rescued by the salvage party 31 hours later.”²

Eight submariners have been awarded the Medal of Honor while serving aboard submarines, but only one was an enlisted man. He happened to be the first as well: Torpedoman’s Mate First Class (TM1, he received the award as a TM2) Henry Breault.

After receiving his award, Breault continued to serve despite failing health, only ending his service when he passed on to Eternal Patrol due to congestive heart failure two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor – December 5, 1941. He rests in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Putnam, CT, but lives on as a submariner folk hero. There has never been a naval vessel named to honor Breault. Naming a Virginia-Class submarine after Breault would not only honor his extraordinary courage but serve as a lasting reminder of the values that continue to guide submariners today.

“Letter of Commendation,” from The National Archives (US), St. Louis, Persons of Exceptional Prominence, Series: Record Group 24 Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel 1798 – 2007 Official Military Personnel Files, 1885 – 1998, Official Military Personnel File for Henry Breault 145766579.

The Rescue

The Canal community’s efforts to rescue USS O-5 are described by Julius Grigore Jr. in two articles published in the Military Engineer (1969) and Proceedings (1972). They stand as the comprehensive accounts of the collision and rescue, though some inaccuracies remain, such as the number of attempts to raise the vessel and reported date of Breault’s Medal of Honor award ceremony (Grigore reported April 4, 1924, likely the date Breault returned to Coco Solo).³

According to Grigore’s account, when reports of the collision and sinking arrived, divers mobilized to locate O-5 and determine if there were any survivors. Through knocks against the hull, Breault and Brown were able to signal their location in the torpedo room. While they were thankfully in shallow water, once they had made contact, their active role ended; they had to wait for 31 hours with no food or water and only a flashlight as the Panama Canal community made efforts to rescue them.

At that time, no formal procedure existed for rescue from a disabled submarine resting seven fathoms deep other than to escape via the torpedo tubes, an evolution which had only been attempted with divers in controlled environments close to the surface.4 Further, due to interlocks, one individual would have had to remain behind to open the torpedo tube. Assessing their options, Breault and Brown made the fateful decision that either both of them or neither of them would escape their refuge.

Commander, Submarine Base Coco Solo, Amon Bronson assumed command of the rescue operation and requested the heaviest lift capacity crane barges, Hercules and Ajax from the Panama Canal. Both crane barges were on the other end of the canal and in a twist of fate, unable to immediately respond due to a landslide at the Gaillard Cut that occurred at nearly the same time as the collision: the vessels needed to wait for the rubble to be cleared, and the first rescue attempt began 13 hours after the collision.

Upon his arrival, civilian diver Sheppard Shreaves would relieve USN divers and spend nearly 24 hours clearing debris and mud, and attaching the lifting hook to the disabled O-5. He would receive the Congressional Gold Lifesaving Medal and a gold watch gifted by submariners for his efforts. Three lift attempts failed, but on the fourth attempt, the O-5 was raised to the surface and Breault and Brown were able to exit via the torpedo room hatch.5

Submarine O-5, 1923. (Library of Congress photograph)

While Grigore asserts that Brown fainted from prostration upon rescue, it is more likely that it was actually Breault, who was inflicted with Caisson Disease, colloquially known as the bends. As a result, the primary account of the rescue did not belong to Breault, but to Brown. Brown “seemed no worse for wear” and he was in a lucid enough state to retell their story.6 Brown states that he was resting before his watch when he felt the crash from the Abangarez. Alerted by Breault, “We both went into the torpedo room, closing the door behind us. The boat sank in thirty seconds, settling in forty feet of water at an angle of 70 degrees to starboard.” Finding themselves trapped in a compartment with 12 inches of water, holding fast to a ladder with only a flashlight for illumination, Brown recalled that “the first hour was the hardest”:

“Breault and I separated to pound on each of the boat’s sides. In this way, the rescuers would know that were two of us. Breault played a kind of tune with his hammer, indicating to the diver that we were in good shape and cheerful. Neither of us knew Morse Code. We had no food or water, and only a flashlight. We were confident we could stay alive for forty-eight hours.”

The pair’s patience was rewarded once they heard the activity of the Panama Canal community working to affect their rescue.7 While being treated, Breault estimated that the compartment pressure was between 25 and 50 pounds but the medical professionals treating Breault disputed these numbers, deciding they were unlikely, but agreed that the two men had been subjected to high pressure in the compartment for an extended period.8

When asked why he stayed on-board instead of jumping for safety, Breault stated simply, ‘I wanted to stay and help, if I could.”9 Surprisingly, this appears to be the extent of what Breault shared after his rescue as no official statements were recorded in his Official Military Personnel File on the subject and only one letter was identified as being from him. The letter is available today thanks to its publication in the New York Times:

“Just a line to let you know that I am still alive. You have no doubt read about the sinking of the submarine. We were down there for hours and had no food. There was water in the lead tanks, but we did not dare to use it because it had been there for months and we were afraid of lead poisoning. I sure was a sick boy but am well now. I have been out helping to raise the submarine. She is all right except the central control room where she was struck. The craft will soon be in condition again. But some of the crew will never go down in a submarine again. Fortunately it did not bother me at all.”10

At the time, the story was well reported, but public sentiment and interest was best captured by Omaha’s Sunday Bee on November 4, 1923:

“Simple enough, when told in words, but tremendously important when calmly viewed. It is the real glory of the service, for it was not done in presence of the embattled foeman, but as a routine act when danger and death threatened in an unexpected form. Henry Breault’s name goes down with other heroes who have brought honor to themselves and pride to Americans.”11

October 29, 1923 – The USS O-5 is raised by the Panama Canal crane Ajax during salvage and rescue operations. Two men who were trapped in engine room are shown shortly after rescue. One is in the white T-shirt being helped off deck. The other is kneeling on deck holding a wire stay. They are Lawrence T. Brown, chief electrician’s mate, and Henry Breault, torpedoman second class. The Captain of the Panama Canal launch Rodman reaches out to pull Torpedoman Second Class Henry Breault on board as others rush to assist Chief Lawrence T. Brown. Breault and Brown of the submarine O-5 had been trapped for 31 hours. (Photo by Panama Canal Review via Wikimedia Commons)

Remembering Breault a Century Later

Barring reports following the event and Grigore’s research, Breault remained largely forgotten until the early 1990s, when several submariners uncovered research conducted by the Aspinock Historical Society in Putnam, CT, and the Submarine Force Library and Museum (SFLM) in Groton, CT. The SFLM did not have an exhibit for Breault in its Medal of Honor section, and he was included only after Curator Stephen Finnegan discovered Grigore’s two articles in the 1990s.12

Jim Christley built on this research and introduced it to the submarine force, leading to renewed interest by the USN that began to culminate by the turn of the millennium. A new pier was named for Breault in Pearl Harbor, HI, on June 18, 1999 and on May 19, 2001, a memorial was dedicated at Naval Station New London’s Wilkinson Hall in Groton, CT.13 Breault’s hometown of Putnam, CT also dedicated a footbridge in his memory on 11 November 2003, ensuring Breault would never be forgotten.14

Over time, these efforts have contributed to Breault’s growing status as submarine folk hero. On March 8, 2024, the centennial anniversary of Breault’s award, a Basic Enlisted Submarine School class named in Breault’s honor graduated on that same day, where he was remembered as 96 aspiring submariners moved on to their next commands, with guest speakers including representatives from CT’s federal legislature and RADM (ret.) Arnie Lotring, who gave a speech honoring Breault. On March 15, 2024, the Honorable Vermont State Representative Michael Morgan invited local submariners to read House Concurrent Resolution 167 on the Vermont House floor recognizing Breault and the submarine service.15 The final tribute to offer as his this centennial year passes, could only be to name a Virginia-Class submarine the USS Henry Breault.

Why the USS Henry Breault

Virginia-class submarines were intended to be named after states, a legacy carried on from the Ohio-class. Recently, deviations from this tradition have come under scrutiny as recent vessel names have transitioned from states to fish (Tang, Wahoo, Barb, and Silversides), cities (San Francisco and Miami), and even regions (Long Island). As a Congressional Research Report noted in 2024:

“Until 2020, Virginia (SSN-774) class attack submarines were named largely for states, but the most recent eight have been named for four earlier U.S. Navy attack submarines, a former Secretary of the Navy, an island, and two cities, suggesting that there is no longer a clear naming rule for the class”

As there is no longer a hard rule that guides the naming convention, it is an ideal time to ask, why not include a Medal of Honor recipient? John Warner, Hyman G. Rickover, and John H. Dalton either have Virginia-Class submarines named after them or will. Before that, Jimmy Carter, Mendel Rivers, Henry M. Jackson, the ’41 for Freedom’ and so many other dignitaries have been honored as submarine namesakes. Breault’s impact on the submariner community alone, notwithstanding his heroism, warrants his consideration – naming a boat in his honor will aid in recruitment and retention efforts, connect communities (old friends and new) to the submarine force, and remind sailors of their heritage.

USS Henry Breault will Support Recruitment and Retention

In an era where the USN is struggling with recruitment and retention, the publicity generated by naming a submarine after an enlisted Medal of Honor recipient would be significant. It would demonstrate that the USN understands the sacrifices that the enlisted corps has made and will to protect freedom and democracy around the world. The USN’s recruitment goal in FY24 was 40,600 new recruits, an increase from the previous fiscal year “despite two years of missing its aim for new sailors,” for a total of 40,978 new active-duty recruits enlisted.16 This is good news, but those recruits do not immediately address unfilled at-sea billets, which in May 2024 number nearly 18,000.17

Naming a submarine in honor of the only enlisted submariner to receive the Medal of Honor would emphasize the contributions of the enlisted corps of the submarine force and potentially inspire more men and women to enlist. The publicity generated would positively influence public perceptions of the role of enlisted submariners and similarly enhance the prestige of the undersea warfare community as the naming of a Ford-class aircraft carrier for Petty Officer Third-Class Doris Miller has achieved for the aviation and surface communities.

“NH 86982 Torpedoman Second Class Henry Breault, USN.” (Naval History and Heritage Command, Digitized Picture of Navy Times)

“Fish Don’t Vote”

Allegorically, Hyman G. Rickover once shared at a dinner party that submarines were named after locations rather than fish because “fish don’t vote.”18 This has often driven their naming to be connected to locations, but deviating from this tradition would in this case serve to amplify the vessel’s connection to many communities across the nation, as Breault has significant local ties in several states. He was born in Putnam, CT, but moved to White Plains, NY in his childhood. He enlisted from Vermont, offering an address in Grand Isle, VT. When he was active-duty, Breault spent time in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in CA, and referred to Marysville, WA, as “home” in official paperwork. When he passed, he was stationed in Newport, RI, where he also attended recruit training and “A” school. Breault’s service emphasizes the contribution these states have made to the success of the submarine force and if connected, would allow several major regions in the US to benefit from the namesake. It would remind many that building submarines is a nation-wide effort that we must support and maintain.

The Essential Duty of the Submariner: Ship, Shipmate, Self

When I was active-duty, the first man that came to mind when I heard the line in the Sailor’s Creed, “I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.”, was Henry Breault. Breault received the Medal of Honor for attempting to save the ship and when he realized nothing more could be done, doing everything he could to save a shipmate. He saved the life of at least one of his shipmates (Lawrence Brown), and likely purchased time for another (Charles Butler) to escape. Breault’s willingness to “cast all personal safety aside” as described by his commanding officer, Harrison Avery, represents the expectation of every enlisted submariner today.19

The USN must take every opportunity it can to reconnect its sailors and the American public to its mission and values, and a USS Henry Breault would certainly become such an embodiment. Breault represents not only the fighting spirit of the navy, but the trust we place in our shipmates. Even during routine evolutions or transits, we could be called to perform unbelievable heroic tasks: because we trust all we serve alongside.

March 8, 1924 – Henry Breault receiving the Medal of Honor from President Calvin Coolidge. (Library of Congress photo)

Conclusion

USS Henry Breault has the potential to be a unifying force for the USN and the nation, as recognized by the nearly 1,600 people who signed the petition to name a submarine in his honor, and local leaders in numerous communities such as Putnam, CT have signaled their intent to support the submarine. History was made when the USS Doris Miller, was announced, named in honor of Doris, “Dorie” Miller, and in Breault, the submariner community finds an opportunity to name a submarine in honor of one of its own.

The USS Henry Breault would connect sailors to their heritage, recognize the efforts of several states to the submarine force, and aid in recruiting and retention efforts. In a time when sailors are so needed, let us remind them that we remember why.

Sign the petition here.

Ryan C Walker served as a submariner in the USN from 2014-2019. After being honorably discharged, he worked in the defense industry while attending Southern New Hampshire University and University of Portsmouth, receiving in the former his BA in History and in the latter his MA in Naval History. Ryan is a PhD candidate at Portsmouth and has published several articles and chapters in edited collections on American submariners, American Naval-Capital towns, and British Private-Men-of-War. His first book, The Silent Service’s First Hero, was released this year and is a microhistorical investigation into the life and times of Henry Breault.

Endnotes

[1]. Julius Grigore, Jr., ‘The Luck of the Submarine O-5’, The Military Engineer, 61, No. 402

[2]. Congressional Medal of Honor, “Henry Breault,” https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/henry-breault.

[3]. Julius Grigore, Jr., ‘The Luck of the Submarine O-5’, The Military Engineer, 61, No. 402

(1969), 267-69; Julius Grigore, Jr., “The O-5 is Down!,” (February 1972), Proceedings, 98, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1972/february/o-5-down.

[4]. ‘How to Escape from a Sunken Submarine’, Scientific American, 102, No. 23 (1910), 460.

[5]. Grigore, “The Luck of the Submarine,” 268-69; Grigore, “The O-5 is Down,” Website Reprint.

[6]. “They Stared at the Clock,” Newspaper Clipping, SFLM.

[7]. Grigore, “The Luck of the Submarine,” 268-69; Grigore, “The O-5 is Down,” Website Reprint.

[8]. Jones, “Medical History Sheet,” OMPF, 452.

[9]. “They Stared at the Clock for 15 Hours,” United Press Associations, October 31, 1923, Newspaper Clipping, SFLM.

[10]. “They Stared at the Clock,” Newspaper Clipping, SFLM.

[11]. The Sunday Bee, (Omaha), November 4, 1923, Page 8.

[12]. Interview with Stephen Finnegan and Wendy Gulley, September, 8 2021.

[13]. Robert A. Hamilton, “Memorial Honors Enlisted Hero,” The Day, (New London) 19 May 2001, Newspaper, Submarine Force Library and Museum, Submarine Archives, Biography Collection, Medal of Honor, Breault Collection.

[14]. James E. Ratte Jr, “Speech Given During TM1 Henry Breault Bridge Dedication, 11 November 2003,” Speech Transcript, Submarine Force Library and Museum, Submarine Archives, Biography Collection, Medal of Honor, Breault Collection.

[15]. Congressional Research Service, “Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress,” https://news.usni.org/2024/07/19/report-to-congress-on-u-s-navy-ship-names-23

[16]. Heather Mongilio, “Navy, Marines Exceed Fiscal Year 2024 Recruiting, Retention Goals,” USNI News, October 1, 2024, https://news.usni.org/2024/10/01/navy-marine-exceed-fiscal-year-2024-recruiting-retention-goals.

[17]. Jared Serbu, “Navy grapples with at-sea shortages as recruiting lags,” Federal News Network, May 20, 2024, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/navy/2024/05/navy-grapples-with-at-sea-shortages-as-recruiting-lags/.

[18]. John F. O’Connell, “FISH DON’T VOTE,” The Submarine Review (October 2023): Website Reprint, https://archive.navalsubleague.org/2003/fish-dont-vote

[19]. H. Avery, BREAULT, Henry, TM2c (210-83-03), Recommendation for Navy Cross, Coco Solo, 19 November 1923, RBNP, Official Military Personnel File for Henry Breault.

Featured Image: Henry Breault, March 8, 1924, Library of Congress Photograph, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016836978/