A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy (46 page)

With the close of the Spanish-American War, the United States acquired the Philippine Islands, long torn by strife. Military action was necessary to
bring stability to the troubled area. Landing parties of Sailors and Marines went ashore at various points to quell disturbances and maintain order. Naval ships supported Army operations with gunfire, provided mobility to deploy forces rapidly, and patrolled the waters of the archipelago to prevent supplies reaching the insurgents.

The United States had maintained an American naval presence in East Asian waters from 1835, protecting lives and property during the many unrests that shook Imperial China. Chinese dissidents—called “Boxers” by outsiders, from their self-proclaimed name of “Righteous Society of Heavenly Fists”—revolted in the spring of 1900, and in June they surrounded the foreign legations in Peking (present-day Beijing) and began a two-month siege. An international relief force, including U.S. Sailors and Marines, slowly fought its way inland to rescue the beleaguered legations. USS
Newark
and USS
Monocacy
landed Marines and Bluejackets to help reclaim the walled city of Tientsin from the Boxers and to provide logistic support to the multinational force fighting to relieve Peking. By late August the uprising was spent and the siege was lifted.

In response to internal upheaval and European threats of intervention relating to international debts, the U.S. Navy was called upon to help establish political and economic stability in Latin America during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Stars

One silver star represents the five campaigns in Latin America during the early decades of the twentieth century.

 

1. Cuban pacification campaign (1906–09).
Following the elections of 1906, a revolution broke out in Cuba. Sailors and Marines from the cruiser
Denver
went ashore to help restore order in the capital city of Havana in September. A large contingent of Marines was subsequently landed at various locations in Cuba to protect Americans there and to help maintain order. Marines remained there until 1909.

2. First Nicaraguan campaign (1912).
After several previous interventions, Sailors and Marines landed in Nicaragua to assist the government, which was besieged by rebel forces. American forces disarmed the rebels surrounding the government at Granada, defeated another rebel force at Coyotope, and recaptured the rebel-held city of Leon, effectively ending the revolution.

3. Mexican service campaign (1914).
U.S. warships stationed off the coast to protect Americans in Mexico during a revolution ultimately landed a force of Sailors and Marines at Veracruz to prevent a German arms shipment from being off-loaded. A naval brigade fought defenders there to capture the city. Fifty-five Medals of Honor were awarded to Sailors and Marines as a result of that action, the largest number ever awarded for a single engagement.

4. Haitian campaign (1915, 1919–20).
Revolutionary chaos in Haiti in 1915 led to U.S. intervention. After several engagements with various forces, U.S. Sailors and Marines were able to quell the fighting and establish a U.S. occupation of the country that would continue for several years. Rebellious forces plunged the country into chaos again in 1919, causing U.S. forces there to fight numerous actions until order was restored in 1920.

5. Dominican campaign (1916).
U.S. Sailors and Marines fought a series of actions in the Dominican Republic to restore order there.

Recognizing the dependence of Great Britain on ocean communications, Germany launched an intense submarine campaign to bring the British to terms, and they very nearly succeeded. Indiscriminate attacks on American ships, with accompanying loss of life, led the United States into war.

After America entered the war, the outcome hinged upon a steady flow of troops and supplies across the ocean to the battlefields of France. A vast convoy system of merchant ships, destroyers, and cruisers went into operation
and dramatically reduced ship losses. Naval aircraft flying from European bases aided in the antisubmarine effort, including the bombing of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Large U.S. Navy minelayers laid some sixty thousand mines in the great North Sea mine barrier designed to deny German submarines access to the open sea.

Various craft were mobilized in opposition to U-boats, which had deployed to the U.S. Atlantic coast. Escorted by destroyers, the Cruiser Transportation Force and the Naval Overseas Transportation Service participated in carrying more than two million Soldiers and 6.5 million tons of cargo to Europe.

Not one American Soldier on his way to France was lost to submarine action. A division of U.S. battleships joined the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea to contain the German High Seas Fleet and thus prevent its contesting the control of the sea. In the Mediterranean, U.S. subchasers distinguished themselves in protecting Allied ships from submarine attack. And U.S. naval elements fought ashore in France when 14-inch guns, mounted on railroad cars and served by seaman gunners, effectively bombarded enemy concentrations at long range.

In the final analysis, control of the sea approaches to Europe made victory possible.

Stars

One silver star represents the five operations in World War I.

 

1. Atlantic convoy operations.
The U.S. Navy Cruiser and Transport Force moved nearly a million Soldiers across the submarine-infested Atlantic without a single loss of life as a result of enemy action. Convoys continued resupply operations throughout the war, losing merely 8 ships out of 450 by war's end.

2. Western Atlantic operations.
While many naval assets were committed to trans-Atlantic convoys and combat operations in European waters, other American naval vessels (many of them subchasers and other small antisubmarine units) and aircraft (including dirigibles) carried out U.S. coastal patrols and convoy escort operations between New York and Norfolk, Virginia. The destroyer
Jouett
and six subchasers were also formed into an on-call “naval hunt squadron” operating out of Norfolk.

3. Operations in northern European waters.
U.S. battleships, destroyers, subchasers, minesweepers, tenders, armed yachts, and others conducted various operations in northern European waters, including attacking
German U-boats, supplementing the British Grand Fleet, and escorting local convoys.

4. Mediterranean operations.
American ships provided vital protection of the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, and subchasers organized into a submarine hunting group nicknamed “the splinter fleet” conducted antisubmarine operations in the Mediterranean itself.

5. Operations on the European continent.
Large-caliber naval guns were mounted onto railway cars and deployed to France to take part in combat operations on the Western Front; naval aviators joined the battle in the skies over Europe, conducting both fighter and attack missions in this emerging form of warfare; and naval vessels participated in landing operations, including the insertion of troops at Murmansk after Russia fell to the Communist revolution and dropped out of the war.