I follow the Naval History Blog, and recently they posted this story - April 11, 1900: The First Submarine of the Navy, USS Holland (SS-1). "....This article was written by Captain Frank T. Cable as The Submarine Torpedo Boat Holland: First Submarine to Become a Part of the United States Navy for the February 1943 issue of Proceedings magazine. ...."
Great article! Interesting comment from Clara Barton: ".... On one of these trips we had Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, on board as a guest. Perhaps she was the first woman to venture in a submarine. We ran the Holland for several miles on the surface, then submerged her and Miss Barton to a depth of 15 feet on a run of 2 miles. Holland explained to her the boat’s mechanism, particularly the operation and effect of the torpedo. If he looked for congratulations on his ingenuity, he did not get them. On the contrary, she expressed her great surprise that any American citizen should be guilty of inventing such a deadly instrument of war. Holland, with his usual Irish good nature, assured her that to take life was not the purpose of the boat, but rather the contrary. He believed that if all the nations of the world were equipped with submarines there would be no war. The World War proved that he erred...."
Perhaps, that's the comment John Holland made to Clara Barton, but I doubt he was sincere when he made it! Earlier protypes of Holland's submarine were called the Fenian Ram. It was built with financial support from the Fenian Brotherhood (an organization that conducted terrorist raids into Canada). From the start the Fenian Ram was intended as a weapon that would sink British Shipping.
Today John Holland's Fenian Ram is in the Patterson Museum. William Maloney has a great series of photographs of the Ram. btw - He also has excellent photos of the USS Slater.
No comments:
Post a Comment