MAY 2013 NEWSLETTER (Also available online at www.wardroomclub.org) MEETING DATE: WEDNESDAY – 15 MAY 2013 (Please note: The Third Wednesday of the month) LOCATION: Coast Guard Base Boston 427 Commercial Street Boston, MA – The Function Hall TIME: Social Hour from 1800 Dinner at 1900 PRICE: Members, Guests and Prospective Members of the Class of 2014 - $45.00 Walk-ins - $50.00 SPEAKER: CAPT Steven M. Benke, USN CO – NROTC Boston Consortium “Career Paths for our New Officers” ENTRÉE: Roast Beef – Family Style, by Talk-of-the-Town Caterers MESSAGES FROM THE PRESIDENT This past month of April, the 134 attendees were indeed fortunate to hear Lt Gen Tad Oelstrom, USAF (Ret) Director of the National Security Program - JFK School of Government Harvard University. He was remarkably on point with his timely discussions of the benefits of international military social and educational interactions such as those provided at Harvard. The General also demonstrated great flexibility in adjusting his schedule to speak to us a month early. You see, he was to be our May speaker, but our April speaker, RADM Christenson, President of the Naval War College had a scheduling conflict, deferred his appearance to May just before newsletter release and the United States Air Force came to our rescue. This brings me to this month’s speaker…again supposed to be RADM Christenson, but this time sequestration has reared its ugly head. In order for any Flag officer to appear at a gathering during this period of financial Kabuki Dancing, permission from those in the Pentagon must be obtained. The admiral’s public affairs officer called me on 29 April to notify me permission for the Flag to attend our event was denied. Even if we had provided free transportation to the Admiral, he was not allowed to appear. Fortunately, having just completed our New Member Welcome Aboard last week, we called on the services of one of our new inductees, CAPT Steven Benke, USN, the Professor of Naval Science and Commanding Officer of the NROTC Consortium here in Boston. He will present an update on the NROTC program and the local units housed at BU and MIT. Additionally, he will invite some of his graduating Midshipmen to address us on life as a Mid, but more importantly on the career paths they will soon embark upon following commissioning later in May. CAPT Robert D. Holland, USN (Ret), President 8 Raymond Avenue Shrewsbury, MA 01545 E-Mail: [email protected] Home Phone: 508/842-0575 Cell Phone: 901/240-3008 Daytime Phone: 617/589-1256 NOTES FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT This is a message to the members of the Class of 2013 – Hearty congratulations to those who have fully joined the Wardroom Club! For those who have yet to pay their 2013 dues and entrance fee, your Wardroom Club membership will not be a reality until these two issues have been addressed. Dues and entrance fees must be sent to our Assistant Treasurer, listed immediately below: Charles “Chuck” Hyland, Assistant Treasurer 63 Potter Pond Lexington, MA 02421-8243 E-Mail: [email protected] 781-863-1676 Once these two fees have been paid, members of the Class of 2013 shall be encouraged to obtain the club necktie, which can be obtained at the check-in table during the evening of our regular monthly meeting. As the month of May brings to a close our seasonal round of meetings, I wish all Wardroom Club members a safe summer season. We look forward to seeing you back at the club in October for our 2013- 2014 season. Jules B. Selden, Vice-President 23 Hemlock Drive Norwell, MA 02061 E-Mail: [email protected] Cell Phone: 617/645-4197 Daytime Phone: 781/987-1219 CLUB NOTES FROM YOUR NEWSLETTER EDITOR – Your newsletter editor offers you an apology for the very brief newsletter that was issued during April. With a partial equipment failure at the time we were ready to go to press, we had to revert back to the old-fashioned way of pulling an abbreviated newsletter together on a last-minute basis. Moving on - - - as it is for each edition of the monthly newsletter, we offer you the opportunity to contribute to your newsletter. To do so, you are not required to be a “wordsmith” - - - Just send us whatever you may have and we’ll find a way to work it into the following issue, or the issue of your choosing. Submission deadlines are normally on the last Tuesday of the month preceding the next monthly meeting. Contacting me is fairly easy; I can either be reached at my e-mail address listed below - - or you may call me on my IPhone, also listed below. One way or the other, I am certain we can make whatever you may have, work very well. As it is always the case within your monthly newsletter, we announce the date of the coming meeting up front. They are noted well in advance and are generally held on the third Wednesday of each month, October through the following May. With this edition of your Wardroom Club newsletter, we wish you the very best for the coming summer months and look forward to seeing you at our 16 October 2013 meeting. Happy summer, everyone! David W. Graham, Newsletter Editor E-Mail: [email protected] IPhone: 617/335-2198 (with voice-mail) NOTABLE MAY DATES AND EVENTS – (Please note: This is a series that is contributed to your newsletter each month by Past Wardroom Club President CAPT Harry H. Weinberg, SC, USN, Ret - - for which your editor is extremely grateful) On 2 May, we honor the greatest victory in the War-on-Terrorism. This is the first anniversary of Navy SEALs killing al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin-Laden. He is now known as Osama been-History. During the month of May some 70 years after-the-fact, Australia still celebrates the Battle of the Coral Sea. Coral Sea was our first direct battle with Japan, following Pearl Harbor, that checked the Empire’s aggression. This battle thwarted Japan’s attempt to invade Port Moresby in New Guinea, which if successful, would have put Japan in a position to attack Australia and the supporting sea lanes by air. While we lost the carrier Yorktown, Japan had one carrier, Shaho, sunk and a severely limited the air squadron from their other carrier. These two carriers were not to be available for the Midway attack. Thus, the beginning-of-the-end for Japan started with the strategic victory in the Battle of Coral Sea. This battle was the first Naval battle where opponents didn’t see each other from the surface due to their distances. This month is also the birthday of the Navy Nurse Corps. Congratulate our Navy Nurse members. Also we celebrate the birthday of Naval Aviation. May 1945 saw the end of WW-II in Europe. During the same month, planning for the invasion of Japan was also completed. It was in May of 1965 that the US took decisive military action in the Dominican Republic to prevent a potential leftist government from allying with Cuba. The eventual rewards for us in Boston were Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz, to name just a few. Year Date Event 1775 10 Fort Ticonderoga in NY captured by Ethan Allen. 1780 04 Congress adopts first Navy Seal - - - not to be confused with Navy SEALs. 1801 14 Tripoli declares war against the United States. 1844 20 USS Constitution sets sail from New York on an around-the-world cruise. 1871 30 US squadron sails to forge treaty with the “Hermit Kingdom” of Korea. 1898 01 RADM Dewey’s squadron destroys the Spanish squadron in Manila Bay. 1898 12 US ships bombard San Juan, Puerto Rico. (The next year The Wardroom Club founded.) 1900 31 50 Marines and 10 Sailors arrive in Peking, China during Boxer Rebellion. (A good account of this event can be seen in the 1963 movie “55 Days in Peking” starring Charlton Heston.) 1908 13 Navy Nurse Corps established. Happy 104th birthday, Navy Nurses everywhere!!! 1911 08 Navy orders first airplane, a Curtis A-1. Birthday of Naval Aviation. 1916 06 First Ship-to-Shore telephone voice conversation. SECNAV Josephus Daniels receives call. 1917 28 First underway fuelling. USS Maumee fuels six DDs. LCDR Chester Nimitz is ship’s XO and her Chief Engineer, 1918 24 Sailors from USS Olympia of Manila Bay fame, seize Murmansk, Russia. 1919 31 US Navy’s NC-4s Transatlantic flight ends in Plymouth Harbour, England. 1934 08 USS Constitution completes tour of principal US ports. 1939 23 USS Squalus fails to surface off Portsmouth, NH; 26 die and 33 rescued. (Read Peter Maas’ book “The Terrible Hours” for full heroic story) 1940 10 Winston Churchill becomes Britain’s Prime Minister thus changing a possible negative outcome of World War II. 1940 26 Evacuation of British forces begins from Dunkirk 1941 27 British sink the German Battleship Bismarck to the bottom of the sea. 1942 04 Battle of the Coral Sea begins. 1942 06 Corregidor falls. 1943 11 US forces land on Attu, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. 1943 13 Bureau of Navigation renamed Bureau of Personnel. 1943 28 USS Runner lost with her entire crew between Midway and Japan. 1944 06 USS Buckley (DE-51) rams and sinks German sub U-66. 1945 02 HA1/c Robert Busch earns MOH charging Japanese position on Okinawa. 1945 08 V-E Day. Germans surrender unconditionally. 1945 25 “Operation Olympic” approved for invasion of Japan homeland on 1 Nov. 1956 20 US drops first hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll.