eLOOKOUT Photo by SadowJki "To a young first-tripper, going to sea can be a lonely, difficult way THE SEAMEN's CHURCH INSTITUTE OF NEw YoRK is a to earn a living . ..." shore center for merchant seamen who are between ships in this great port. The largest organization of its kind in the world, the Institute compines the services of a modern hotel with a wide range of educational, medical, religious and recreational facilities needed by a profes- sion that cannot share fully the important advantages of home and community life. The Kid The Institute is partially self-supporting, the nature of its work requiring assistance from the public to provide the personal and social services that distinguish it from EGEND claims that dirty weather will a waterfront boarding house and give the Institute its real plague seamen who neglect to leave value for seamen of all nations and all faiths who are L away from home in New York. money ashore with their sweethearts. Shift- A tribute to the service it has performed during the A ing ship tO another berth my first morning past century is its growth from a floating chapel in 1844 to the thirteen-story building aboard the Robinson, I was convinced that at 25 South Street known to merchant seamen the world around. the gang not only owed money, but had borrowed and defaulted sizeable amounts. Chilling winds, sleet and rain lashed New York's fog-bound harbor. The ship wasn't ~179 fully crewed, and only three of us- a sea- soned able seaman, myself and a young'un on the unshaven side of 20- were aft on the fantail to let go the mooring lines. '7h~ "Two men and a boy" managed tO pull in the five stiff hawsers and fake them out on deck. Handicapped by the weather, we also I e~~'li 1 had tO spell and watch The Kid, shoving VOL. XL VIII No. 8 AUGUST, 1957 him out of the bights of fast-running lines, keeping his eager hands away from the Copyright 1957 by the capstan hauling and winding the hawsers. Underway, we rook a break, ducking SEAMEN'S CHURCH INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK into shelter. The Kid srood at a distance, 25 South Street, New York 4, N.Y. BOwling Green 9-2710 timid and bewildered. CLARENCE G. MICHALIS "First trip, huh, Kid?" the AB asked. President "Yeah," he faltered. "I didn't think it'd REV. RAYMOND S. HALL, D.D. TOM BAAB Director Editor be this complicated." THOMAS ROBERTS FAYE HAMMEL We smiled and the AB said, "You'll Secretary and Treasurer Associate Editor catch on. It just takes a little time." Published Monthly $1.00 yearly lOc a copy Encouraged, The Kid joined us and asked about the work. His education began Gifts to the Institute of $5.00 and over include a year's subscription with that first question. Many more ques- Entered aJ ucond clan matter, July 8, 1925 at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879 tions would have to be answered and assimilated before he sprouted salt on his wings. And as long as he kept inquiring, someone would be glad tO pass on knowl- edge. THE COVER: In the cool of a Florida evening, crewmen from a merchant sh!P The Robinson was a Victory ship carry- take lifeboat practice, perhaps remembering these words from the seamanshiP ing military supplies anywhere in the manual by Capt. Felix Riesenberg: "No matter how important a man at sea ~?Y world the ship was routed by the Depart- consider himself, unless he is fundamentally worthy the sea will some day. find h 1m ment of Defense. Built for work, not show out." Beginning on page one of this issue, Tad Sadowski's "The Kid" descnbe~ oW and comfort, a freighter like her uses and why the shellbacks watch over a new hand. The cover photo is by Max unn. nearly every foot of deck space for the loading and discharging of cargo. Block and tackle, cleats, padeyes, ballast blocks and rigging are placed where they will be saloon mess was another citation com- his first examination and passing this, add most useful to the ship-and their nautical mending the Robinson for the prevention Lifeboatman to his ordinary seaman's en- advantages can be the downfall of a sailor of accidents at sea. The Robinson was a dorsement. Aloud, he wondered about the who, stumbling tO the bow to relieve the clean ship and a safe ship. necessary qualifications to sit for a license. lookout, or dodging angry waters pouring To a young first-tripper, going tO sea The Kid had gained confidence. over the ship's side or ... can be a lonely, difficult way to earn a liv- Homeward bound we relaxed. We felt The Coast Guard files are filled with ac- ing, and the deck gang sensed their new our protege would become a sailor. One cident reports on merchant seamen. ordinary seaman would require help. We trip doesn't produce sea legs, but his will- The Kid had a happy ship for learning looked at him, seeing ourselves back to a ingness to ask questions, to study, to do the ropes. Owned by the Navy and civilian- time when we first filled a man's job, our the job over was the right apprenticeship. manned, the USNS Lt. ]. E. Robinson had, first time away from home, and inwardly Out of the corner of our eyes we still several years in succession, been cited as a we smiled a wry, wise smile, resolving to watched to see he endangered none of the Smart Ship, an honor given to very few guide him around a few sharp corners we gang, for only experience can make a safe ships in the Military Sea Transportation had encountered. worker, and even shellbacks with years of fleet and the U.S. Navy. To obtain this Crossing the pond is seldom a smooth horizon chasing have to be on guard award, a vessel must pass a thorough in- ride, and on this voyage at the height of against the sea, the ship and themselves. spection from bow co stern, from the the winter storm season, the Robinson had Because smart seamanship is a continu- Photo by SadowJki bridge to the double bottoms, by a team of to fight her way through the North At- ing, advancing process. The Kid's long, "He marked off his calendar to the day he would hawk-eyed inspectors who evaluate the lantic's fury. The work went on, weather slow climb up the ship's ladder from the have sea time enough to take his first examination, and passing this, add Lifeboatman to his ordinary knowledge and practice of seamanship by or no, and The Kid was expected to pull fo'c's'le to the bridge would have to be 11 the ship's upkeep and appearance. Hang- his weight. He made the mistakes all first- cautious, sane steps. A snugger berth top- seaman's endorsement. ing beside the Smart Ship plaque in the trippers do, and a few he could claim sole side would give him greater knowledge of patent to, but there was always someone the interdependence he shared with his as Master he would be responsible for mil- "The work went on, weather or no, and the Kid was nearby to point out his errors. Usually, be- shipmates. If he learned his lessons well, lions of dollars worth of ship, cargo and, expected to pull his weight." Photo by SadowJki fore work started, an older hand explained The Kid would one-day have another ship most important, the well-being of men ...... the job, showing him the easiest, safest to sail as a first-tripper. On that voyage sailing with him on the waters that cover methods. the crew would call him the Old Man, and this globe. - TAD SADOWSKI Always the emphasis was on safety. Again and again he was cautioned, "One hand for the ship, one hand for yourself." There are more dangerous trades than seafaring, but only for a brief pause of Do you have a friend who is interested in the ships and men of time. At sea, all hands live within the the merchant marine? reach of danger 24 hours a day. The ship has wind, water and weather to contend with, and yesterday was miles to the wake Enclosed is $1. Please send a one-year LOOKOUT and a different Nature's brew prevailed. subscription to: I The metal and machinery aboard ship are as fickle as the men who tend them. The Coast Guard files are filled with casualty reports on ships now berthed in Fiddler's Green. Daily, The Kid gained new knowledge. During coffee-time and off-watch we showed him how the everyday tasks fitted into the larger pattern of seamanship. At night on lookout his mate asked eJemen- Your name: tary questions' on 'seamanship, add" mg Kew"d ones the next night. On his own, The 1 saw the ship's training officer and bo:- rowed manuals for study. Pride burst : him the first time he rook a trick at the Mail to Editor, THE LOOKOUT, 25 South Street, New York 4, N.Y. wheel. He marked off his calendar to eke . hrotae day he would have sea tJme enoug

2 3 In the Twenties, he left the West Coast man was later to be known to T-Bone as The Funeral of for good. He worked the Gulf and Eastern Dr. Raymond S. Hall, director of the Sea- ports, meanwhile joining the union move- men's Church Institute of New York. T-Bone McBride ment with a vengeance. Like Jack London, Even during his last three years as an whose social theories he had imbibed, T- invalid, T-Bone was not strictly· our of Bone was a rank individualist, yet was commission. On one of her visits to Sea- drawn by the sweet hope of establishing a view Hospital, Mrs. Gladys Kadish of the -BONE McBRIDE was born skinny; he more cooperative society. His black eyes Personal Service Bureau found him with Tlived skinny, and when he came to die snapped angrily when he denied that union- his fists clenched. It seems that in order to a few weeks ago, after 70 years of salt air ism and communism were the same. In the curb his gregariousness, which spread too and three years of TB, there wasn't much lobby at 25 South Street, he chided the much excitement in the wards, T-Bone left. He turned his wrinkled face to the Seamen's Church Institute for its attempt had been demobilized; they had taken his chaplain at his bedside and said, "I guess at neutrality on the union issue, for not be- wheelchair. we better take care of the last bit. I want ing quicker to see the wheat among the Although he was generous to a fault, my funeral at the Doghouse. Have me chaff of communist agitators infiltrating T-Bone had a certain starch in his man- cremated. Throw my ashes into the sea." the waterfront. It was during this time that ner. His kindness was stiffened with irony, Chaplain Laundrie of the Protestant T-Bone, like other old-timers, adopted the his generosity with quips. Seamen tend to ill Episcopal Mission Society had known T- nickname "Doghouse," used with a grin stay away from funerals in proportion to Bone for three shriveling years at Seaview in referring tO the Institute, the anchor their fear of crying, and when eight bells Hospital, long enough to know that the point for most sailors in New York. Com- was sounded for T-Bone, his pals at the man who was dying was a thin man, but munists making a well defined effort ro Institute respected his aversion to bald Photo by Clem Kalisher not a small man. A brother in Long Beach, win the waterfront first used the term in sentiment in the best way they could. As California who wrote to authorize the The late T-Bone McBride . their mimeographed "Doghouse News," they heard the slow call of eight, many cremation verified the stories the chaplain In 1906, he happened to be in port when which daily attacked the Institute as a thought their thoughts and commended had heard about McBride. earthquake and fire ravished San Francisco. tool of "capitalist oppression." him to God without entering the Chapel T-Bone had grown up along the docks Drawn by ~he novelty of finding such ex· In 1937, the war' in Spain promised of Our Saviour, where Chaplain Laundrie, of San Francisco Bay, among the sailing citement at home, he opened an eating more excitement, so T-Bone went in on assisted by the Institute's Chaplain St. ships and tramp steamers. The sealing, place with his brother Jim six days later the side of the Loyalists with the Inter- John, conducted the service. Among the salmon and whaling fleets tied up within a right in the ruins. But when the rubble national Brigade. When his cause col- Institute staff members present was his mile of his house along the Oakland estu· was cleared away, it was all very ordinary, lapsed in Madrid, T-Bone returned to help good friend, Mrs. Kadish. ary, and by the time he was ten, T-Bone- so T-Bone went down to the sea again. his own country in the big war against Beside the casket was an anchor-shaped called Alfred by his mother and "Skinny" In 1915, a letter came from the State fascism that was shaping up. By Pearl wreath from his only surviving brothers, by everyone else, including his six brothers Department saying that Alfred W . Me· Harbor time, he had satisfied the FBI that Marion and Crescent, who had not seen -had almost a bosun's knowledge of these Bride had been interned in Sweden. His despite his service in the Canadian army T-Bone since 1923. And from a hospital ships and their men. By fifteen, he had ship had been captured and sunk by the and in Spain, he was still an American wardmate, there was a spray of red roses been to the North Pacific and to the Germans, who in the chivalrous manner citizen, so as the first bombs fell, he was with the inscription, "Home is the sailor, Arctic. of World War I, had landed the crew in a back in the merchant marine with his home from the sea." During the days of the Klondike gold neutral country. Chivalry notwithstanding, hundred pounds of fight. Yet T-Bone did not really seek to be rush, when he was still a kid, T-Bone T-Bone came storming back within a In 1943, a "tin fish" knocked his ship home from the sea or apart from the jumped ship in Alaska along with half of month and tried to enlist in the U.S. Army. out of a convoy, and the thinly padded world, but asked to have his ashes re- his shipmates to head for the diggings. He Told that he was too skinny to cut the 60-year-old T-Bone was fractured from turned to the deep, where the ocean could came back a year later, having gained some mustard, T-Bone hopped a ship to Canada end to end - ankle, hip and skull. Two symbolize for all time the restless energy frost-bitten toes and the friendship of an- and joined the war for two years as _a months later he was back in business, with which he had covered the globe. other adventurer, Jack London. The friend- medic with Canada's Princess Pat Reg1· writing home that his ankle still bothered ship lasted until London died in 1916. ment. him some. Before he was twenty, T-Bone had spun With Germany cut down, T-Bone re· Before the war was done, T-Bone had much of the world under his thin legs as turned home to the West Coast, sailing seen service in both oceans. One of his a mess boy on steamers. His brother Cres- now as a cook and baker, which helped ~ast Atlantic voyages was on a ship bring- cent recalls, "AI always arranged to get confirm his nickname. He was first called JOg G.I.s home. Among them, according From a Coast Guard vessel back to his home port at least once a year, T-Bone while serving as a second cook o~ to a letter written to his brother Crescent, standing off Ambrose light· and the day he arrived with his seabag over the revenue cutter Bear in 1901. It was hiS he met an Episcopal paratroop chaplain ship, the In stitute's Chap- by the name of Hall. "In the few days we lain St. John fulfills the last his shoulder was always a happy day. He custom whenever asked what was for wish of T-Bone McBride, always brought something back for his breakfast or any other meal to answer un· Were on board ship together," wrote T- "Throw my ashes into the mom and his kid brothers." hesitatingly, "T-bone steak." Bone, "he taught Christianity to me." This sea." 4 The Wotl~f Ships

DOG EAT DOG ber 31, 1956, the Upited States had only powered merchant fleet, attended by scores THAT 'OLE DEBIL SUN 37 tankers of 1,254,000 deadweight tons of shipping officials and Government nu- An attempt to tap the riches of the sea on the ways or on order, while the United clear and maritime experts. The $42,500,- A ship that was reported to have sunk by extracting protein from sea plants is Kingdom had 169 ships of 4,246,800 tons, 000 ship, whose keel will be laid next and burned off the South African coast ar- being made by British biologists, accord- Japan had 147 vessels of 5,286,700 tons, spring, will serve as a floating laboratory rived safely at East London harbor last ing to a report by the N ew Y ark Times. and Sweden had 129 ships of 3,391 ,800 to demonstrate the feasibility of atomic month, the victim of nothing more blazing This new project, which consists of tons. power for commercial ships. According to than a sunset. growing microscopic sea plants in the lab- Maritime Administrator Clarence G. The 13,000-ton British liner City of oratories, is a development of the idea of Morse, she will lead "three lives; first there Exeter was reported by scores of eyewit- fertilizing small isolated areas of sea water will be tests and trials in American waters. nesses in the coastal resort town of Mar- SUEZ QUIZ with chemical additives. These experi- We then contemplate overseas voyages garet to have been seen offshore, ablaze ments, which have also been carried on at which will introduce the ship throughout from stem to stern. Rescue parties of ships the Woods Hole Marine Station in Mas- At the request of the Suez Canal Users the world. Finally we hope to see the ship and planes were alerted, but found no sachusetts, produced such a tremendous Association, the American Merchant Mar- in regular commercial service." wreckage. growth of the phytoplankton plants that ine Institute is making a survey to de- It was explained later that the optical the crop was able to be extracted in bulk, termine the efficiency of the present opera- illusion of a ship in flames had been pro- dried and processed as a source of protein tion of Suez by the Egyptian government. duced by the gold-pink rays of the sunset, SEAWAY SUBSIDY in powder form. The Institute is circulating a question- magnified by haze. W archers on shore But- you really can't win. It was also naireamong the principal American steam- were sure the ship had sunk when the discovered that the minute animals of the ship companies whose ships transit Suez. In a move to proteGt the Port of New liner vanished into the haze. sea, the zooplankton, which feed on phy- Besides requesting the ship's name, owner, York from "under-cutting" by the St. toplankton, also increased at practically the date of transit through the canal, draft and Lawrence Seaway, a group of civic and same rate and reduced the size of the direction of voyage, the questionnaire asks trade associations in New York and New potential crop. for information on such topics as efficient Jersey are banding together to oppose convoy through the canal, any forms of threatened subsidy of the waterway, sched- PASSENGER'S PARADISE discrimination, unusual difficulties due to uled to open to deep-water shipping in canal authority, opinion on the competence 1959. In most cases, three's a crowd, but on a U. S. TANKER FLEET SINKS of Suez pilots, etc. Although the law now requires that the recent crossing of the lle de France, it was In a letter accompanying the question- Seaway be operated on a self-sustaining hardly a quorum. The 45,000-ton luxury Unless the present downward trend is naire, Mr. Casey commented: "It is clearly basis, the New York-New Jersey Commit- liner, which can accommodate 1300 pas- checked, the United States will forfeit her in the interest of American ship-owners tee for a Self Supporting Seaway believes sengers, arrived in New York one day last position of leadership in the world's tanker that Suez Canal operations be maintained that future users of the Seaway are trying month with only three. fleet by 1961, according to an analysis just at a high level of efficiency." to establish the principle of non-compen- The three, two women and one man, made public by the statistical research satory tolls. Unless these tolls are high were the only ones who had applied for division of the Sun Oil Company. enough to make the Seaway pay its own passage when the lle was hurriedly rushed Although still the leading flag of reg- w~y, says the New York group, New York back into service after being held up in istry, the United States represented only TURNING POINT Wtll lose a considerable amount of its Le Havre by a strike of French marine 18.9 per cent of the world's tank ship commerce to the new water route. engineers. carrying capacity at the close of 1956. A The nuclear age for merchant shipping The committee hopes to enlist the sup- On board, they had the run of the ship, year ago, the figure was 20.8 per cent; at in the United States will begin in 196?, bore of other ports which will be affected were invited to dinner at the captain's the close of World War II, it was 59.8 when a sleek, modernistic passenger shtp Y competition from the St. Lawrence Sea- table every night, and lived mostly in first- per cent. begins to sail the oceans. She will be the :ay an~ make its influence nationwide. It class accommodations, making exploratory Closest contenders for the number one nation's first atomic-powered merchant Smphastzed that it does not oppose the trips to the vast, empty spaces of cabin and spot are the United Kingdom, with 16.1 ship, and she is expected to steam 350,000 si~~wa~, but merely opposes efforts to sub- tourist class. One of the passengers, Mrs. per cent of the world's carrying capacity miles, or for three-and-a-half years, on one D JZe It. "Should we fail," said James W . Ramon Pascual of the Bronx remarked; at the end of 1956, Norway with 15.0 per charge of nuclear fuel. Paa:ahy,_ head of the committee, "the tax- "I never dreamed in my wildest dream cent, Liberia with 14.1 and Panama, 7.6. . Plans for the ship were announced la~~ bt r Wtll be the fall guy and Midwestern that I'd have a 45 ,000-ton yacht with 800 A reversal of the current trend seems m July to a symposium on the Gover th:tne~s ~nd foreign shipping lines will be crewmen from the captain down waiting llf.llikely, the report stated. As of Decem- ment's program to develop a nuclear- princtpal beneficiaries." to cater to my wishes." 6 7 est days of navigation mariners must have America, James Rumsey of Virginia ex- dreamed of an automatic vessel that would perimented unsuccessfully on a boat driven free them from the caprices of wind and by a stream of water forced through the tide. But ro the early sailors, such a device, stern by a steam pump. More successful being contrary to the laws of God and was the moody, brilliant Connecticut yankee, John Fitch, who, with no knowl- 01an, must surely be magic, something as- sociated with the realms of darkness. edge of W acts' steam engine, developed Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, becalmed both a steam engine and a steamboat. In and dying of thirst, sees with horror "a the summer of 1790 his boat steamed on ship that comes onward without wind and schedule between Burlington, N.]., Tren- tide; " it is the vessel belonging ro Death tOn and Philadelphia, traveling 2,000 to and his mate. In sea lore, countless ghost 3,000 miles at the rate of about eight miles ships are seen sailing in the face of tempest an hour. Yet bad luck hounded the man; and tide. a year later his steamboat lay rotting in a The early developments that were one cove on the Delaware and he, a misunder- day to make an automatic boat possible stood and maligned genius, died soon after were shrouded in magic, roo. The canny by his own hand. Two years later, Rhode Reprodttced from PictOrial Hisrory of American Ships Islanders gaped at a steamboat propelled A. S. Barnes & Co. N . Y . priests of ancient Alexandria used a very by side paddles, moving back and forth The North River Steamboat, 1807, a financial success. primitive type of steam engine, rigged up under the altar where burnt offerings were like a duck's feet, the brain-child of one made, tO open temple doors which the Elijah Ormsbee. And two years after that, "angry" gods had kept shut. This awe- Samuel Morey managed to go from Hart- Mr. Fulton's Ingenious Steamboat inspiring device contained all the elements ford to New York City in a stern-wheeler of the earliest practical steam engines at the rate of five miles an hour. UST 150 years ago this month, a small boat" is, of course, known to every school- which, however, had ro w·ait 1600 years to Robert Fulton, at this time, was not group of curious and cynical New child who has read about the Clermont's be built. particularly interested in steamboats. He JYorkers gathered at a wharf on the North trip up the Hudson, hissing, sputtering, The failure of wind and water-propelled had been living in Europe, made friends River tO witness what later generations and belching forth great clouds of smoke pumps to keep ever-deepening iron-min- with liberal thinkers like Robert Owen would note as one of the great events of and sparks which made some farm-folk of ing shafts free of water necessitated the and Samuel Taylqr Coleridge, and become maritime hisrory. However, there was little the Hudson valley think the day of judge- invention in 17th-century Europe of a obsessed with a vision- world peace. He indication on that day of August 17, 1807, ment was at hand. And those same school- fountain engine, a type of steam pump also thought he had discovered the means that anything world-shaking was about tO books, with their marvelous capacity for which could do only one thing- raise of achieving it- the destruction of all 1111!1! take place. There was a new boat about to over-simplification, have given us the name liquids. A host of inventors set to work on navies by his invention, the submarine. make a trial run, to be sure, but there were of Robert Fulton as the inventor of the other steam devices and in the 18th cen- Fulton offered a protOtype of today's subs no city officials or glad-banders about, no steamboat, with the implication that be- tury two great milestones were reached. to both Napoleon and his arch rival, Pitt bottles of champagne smashed, speeches fore the voyage of the Clermont there were In 1705, John Newcomen patented the of England, but neither accepted it. Un- made or harbor craft shouting welcome in no steamboats, and that afterwards, the first engine capable of transforming the daunted, Fulton looked for a way to make the manner of such rituals today. Only one steamboat, like Venus rising full-blown o~t ~roperties of steam directly into mechan- New York newspaper had seen fit to write of the water, was here to stay. While thiS Ical motion and in 1776, James Watts In addition to the Clermont, Fulton developed steam ferries that did business on the Hudson and East rivers. up the event that was about tO take place. bit of popular history is popular, it is not synthesized all the developments made be- Reprodttced from PictOrial Hisrory of American Ships The American Citizen for August 17, quite historical. Fulton's boat, which was f~re him and added an important one of A. S. Barnes & Co. N . Y . 1807 reported: "Mr. Fulton's ingenious not even called the Clermont, but the h1s own. His brilliant stroke of installing steamboat, invented with a view to the North River Steamboat, was not the most a separate condenser to replace the in- navigation of the Mississippi from New mechanically perfect vessel built up to th~t effic_ient jet spray cooling system of the Orleans upward, sails today from North time· it was much slower than a boat bUJ t ~arher steam engines permitted the cylin- River, near State's Prison to Albany. The by one' John Fitch 17 years before, an.d _no t er to remain hot while the condenser velocity of the steamboat is calculated at 4 one of its component parts was ongwa 1 could be kept relatively cool, and thus miles an hour. It is said it will make a with FultOn. How then, has Robert Fulton created an engine that was powerful progress of 2 against the current of the come down in the American legend as the enough to drive boats. At that date, Rob- Mississippi, and if so, it will certainly be inventor of the steamboat? en Fulron had not even been born. a very valuable acquisition to the com- To answer that question fully, we hake h The era of steamboat invention was at merce of the western states." to take the steamboat story pretty far bac · t}~d . In France, in England and in the That the crowd came to scoff and stayed The idea of a mechanical boat was ce:- fitted States men worked on various . h ear1 1- f to cheer at Mr. Fulton's "ingenious steam- tainly not new with Fulton; smce t e antastic and not-so-fantastic schemes. In s 9 some money quickly so that he could spend At the Institute, Milton Brownell, firemon- more rime perfecting his submarine and watertender, exchanges boxing memories with Lou Nova, of heavyweight fame. While serv- working on a canal scheme he also had in ing in the Army at Scofield Barracks, Hawaii, mind. He decided to tinker with the Brownell boxed in the "smokers" as a steamboat. welterweight. With the backing of his wealthy patron Robert Livingston, Fulton ordered a steam engine and boiler from England and set to Fiddler Dauer and pianist Bloke, of Bloke and work in 1806 to build The North River Bloke, rip through a duet during a recent show for seamen in the Janet Roper Clubroom. Steamboat at an East River shipyard. Long and narrow- 150 feet by thirteen feet- with a freeboard of less than four feet, she carried two sails fore and aft of her smoke- stack. None of the parts of the boat were original with Fulton, but although he has been criticized for borrowing ideas from In the Evening other inventors, in this lay his unique gift. The driving mechanism of Fulton's first successful Fulton was interested in results, nor orig- steamboat is shown by this model in the Smithsonian inality. Another steamboat inventor with Institution. Last month, when Alice and Sydney still one more original flash of genius was Dauer's "Musical Merrymakers" came to precisely what was not needed; what was that would work every time. In contrast to the Janet Roper Club to present one of necessary was someone who could synthe- John Fitch, who had worked on a hit-or- their frequent programs of entertainment size the already-existing knowledge about miss basis and who produced a successful to seamen at the Institute, they brought steamboat navigation and produce a boat boat once but probably never could have with them ex-boxer turned comedian Lou done it again, Fulton paid close attention Nova. Dubbed as "The Gentleman of Wit," Nova polished off "Casey at the Bat" and Three steamboat designs by John Fitch, top to bottom: to measurement and proportions, learned a skill, his Indian war canoe, his successful 1790 croft. from his errors, and was able to perfect the humorously reviewed several incidents of his life as a boxer. Reproduced from Famous Americao Ships design of his steamboats as he continued Haflings Pt

10 11 EVERY NEW DAWN

Alan Villiers, who, as everybody knows a slave-driving buccaneer, and many others by now, is a pretty good sailor, again proves of that ilk. At night and every night, himself to be just as competent a writer in Life-worn and weary and sore, his new book, Wild Ocean, McGraw Hill, Followers of naval histOry will be inter- $5.00. Subtitled "The North Atlantic and ested in three recently-published books. I feel like a grounded seaman The Men Who Sailed It," this is not just The first is Samuel Eliot Morison's The Hugging a prodigal shore, another re-hash of the North Atlantic Invasion of France and Germany 1944- srory, but a Villier's-eye view of the whole 45, Little Brown, $6.50. This is Volume A prosy old seaman, tired historical saga of that wildest and most XI of Admiral Morison's exhaustive and Of water and watery lore, dramatic of oceans. Since Villiers has scholarly series, "History of United States sailed the Atlantic probably as much as Naval Operations in World War II." Content to have done with plowing any man living, in all sorts of vessels, from The ocean forevermore ... a full-rigged ship in which he followed the Another type of naval history, this time path of Columbus to the Queen Elizabeth, not of any particular phase of naval ex- But every new dawn evokes from a fishing dory to an aircraft carrier, ploits, but of the whole U.S. Navy itself, is he is well able to salt this history of the the book Fletcher Pratt completed just a A thousand imperative grails; Atlantic with tales of his own adventures few days before his death, The Compact And every new day brings wind on the same waters. There is nothing very History of the U.S. Navy, Hawthorn Book, new in this book, but it is a remarkably $4.95. Probably the best single-volume To fill my crumpled-up sails; skillful blending of hisrory, geography, ad- work on such a vast subject, it is a highly And tide enough to set free venture and sea srory that does full justice readable outline of the Navy's hisrory, to its challenging subject. from the days of the privateers and their My foundered heart to the gales. sailors without uniforms to the days of the A-subs and their crews of highly-skilled Turning to the warmer waters of the technicians. The book is illustrated with Pacific and James Michener's and A. Grove excellent drawings by the late Louis Silvia Margolis Day's Rascals in Paradise, Random House, Priscilla. $4.75, we find another fascinating set of Reprinted by pennission adventurers. These men, unlike the heroes Ghost Ship of the Confedera cy, Ed- of the New Y ork Times of the North Atlantic- Columbus, the ward Boykin, Funk & Wagnalls, $4.95, Pilgrims, the JamestOwn settlers- were also recounts an important aspect of Amer- not interested in finding new worlds for ican naval history- the time when it w~s their fellow men; they were out for power also swept from the seas by CaptaJD and profit for themselves. This gallery of Raphael Semmes and his ship Alabama. rascals and rogues includes some of the The most brilliant naval mind of the Con- greatest scoundrels in history, all of whom federacy, Semmes set a record for cx~­ merce destruction never since equalle b ~ set upon the fabled islands of the Pacific 0 in their quest for glory. Ranging from surface raider, aerial squadron or U-d ~r 1595 to 1953, the book tells the fascinat- ace: 69 Yankee ships captured, burned ro ing stories of such people as Coxinga, the sunk - a feat that not only threatene but drive the Union flag from the seas en Chinese-Japanese pirate who became a . . h. d r betwe god, Captain Bligh, a murderous lady ex- almost preClpttated a t .tr . wa plorer, a psycopathic Nantucket whaleman, the United States and Bntam. 12