NAVY YARD AND MALL RATS

MAY 31, 2012      Anchors away, today.  Off to the Navy Yard and the National Museum of the U.S. Navy to reconnect with my inner tar.  Even if you aren’t ex-Nav, this place has some interesting stuff.  It’s the only museum to portray the entire history of the Navy.  The Yard itself has quite a history, being the oldest shore facility of the Navy.  It was the scene of many scientific developments. Robert Fulton conducted research and testing on his clockwork torpedo during the War of 1812. In 1822, Commodore John Rodgers built the country's first marine railway for the overhaul of large vessels. John A. Dahlgren developed his bottle-shaped cannon that became the mainstay of naval ordnance before the Civil War. In 1898, David W. Taylor developed a ship model testing basin, which was used by the Navy and private shipbuilders to test the effect of water on new hull designs. The first shipboard aircraft catapult was tested in the Anacostia River in 1912, and a wind tunnel was completed at the Yard in 1916. The giant gears for the Panama Canal locks were cast at the Yard.  The Museum itself is located in the former Breach Mechanism Shop of the Gun Factory.

On a Thursday morning, we virtually had the place to ourselves.  Maybe having to pass through gate security (this is still an active base) and wander about to locate the right building have something to do with it. 

Three things I found particularly interesting were the deep submersible “Trieste,” a copy of the German WWII code machine, “Enigma,” and a nail made by Paul Revere and used in the construction of the USS Constitution.

Trieste was first launched in 1953 near Naples, Italy, by its Swiss designer, Auguste Piccard. After several years of operations in the Mediterranean, she was purchased by the Navy and transported to San Diego. In 1959 she was transported to the Mariana Islands for a series of deep-submergence operations into the Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean, part of the Mariana Trench. It has a 50-foot hull, 12 feet in diameter, and is filled with gasoline (lighter than water) to make it buoyant.  Into the thing went Piccard and Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh.  They were in a sphere attached to the bottom of the hull, that white globe you see in the picture.

The nearly 7-mile descent took 4 hours and 48 minutes.  The pressure down there was 16,883 pounds per square inch (more than a thousand times greater than the pressure at sea level), yet they still saw marine life.  In 1963, Trieste went to the Atlantic Ocean to search for the lost submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593). She was taken out of service soon after completing that mission and went to the Museum.

The Enigma machine enabled its operator to type a message, then ‘scramble’ it using a letter substitution system, generated by variable rotors and an electric circuit. To decode the message, the recipient needed to know the exact settings of the wheels. The Germans, convinced their Enigma messages were unbreakable, used the machine for battlefield, naval, and diplomatic communications.

Although the experts at Bletchley, England, first succeeded in reading German code during the 1940 Norwegian campaign, their work only began to pay off meaningfully in 1941, when they were able to gather evidence of the planned invasion of Greece.

From 1941 onwards, Bletchley’s experts focused upon breaking the codes used by German U-boats in the Atlantic. In March 1941, when the German armed trawler ‘Krebs’ was captured off Norway complete with Enigma machines and codebooks, the German naval Enigma code could finally be read. The Allies could now discover where U-boats were hunting and direct their own ships away from danger.

The German Navy, rightly suspicious that their code had been cracked, introduced a fourth wheel into the device, multiplying the possible settings by twenty six. The British finally broke this code that they called ‘Shark’ in December 1942.

Loyal readers (or the hopelessly lost) will recall that in 2010 we saw another Enigma machine (in terrible condition) during our trip to the Outer Banks and the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum.

Mom would have liked our visit to the Navy Museum, being a former WAVE during WWII stationed at Jacksonville NAS, Florida.  There were some nice displays about WAVE life.  I suspect the pay wasn’t all that bad for the early ‘40s.  Anchors away, Mom. 

There were dozens of ship models on display, enough to make any hobbyist’s heart go aflutter.  Loni, however, remained calm.  This is the USS Leyte, CVA 32, an Essex-class WWII carrier.  When I was transitioning back from the Tonkin Gulf in 1969, I hitched a ride back to Subic on a sister ship, the “Bonny Dick” (Bonne Homme Richard, CVA 31).  It was, as I remember, incredibly cramped and a far cry from the larger Connie and the Hawk on which I had been stationed.

Outside the Museum is berthed the USS Barry, a Cold War-era destroyer that is open for touring.  Ever the old salts, we went aboard.  A pretty complete self-guided tour of nearly all sections of the ship.  That’s the captain’s sea cabin at lower left.  Not much, but pretty luxurious for a smaller ship.

Done with our tour, we had lunch at the very good cafeteria there.  Afterwards, we decided to walk the Mall, or what we could see of it during it’s revamping.  We saw the usual suspects,

and some stuff that was new to us.  We decided to walk around the tidal basin to get to the Jefferson Memorial.  On the way we ran into one we hadn’t visited before, the FDR memorial.  This was really quite good.  It stretches over 100 yards or so of paths and displays, including a lot of bronze statues.  Not as lifelike as those soldiers above, but interesting in their own right.  It makes for a great stroll.  The men in coats represent a Depression bread line.  Fala looks a bit poofy to me.  The water feature would be a draw during the hot summer months.

I think the Jefferson Memorial is my favorite of the various monuments.  I like the light play through the columns, and his writings etched in the walls.  Gosh.  Warning: political rant!  Do you think Scalia and the other “original intent” diviners ever stood here and read Jefferson’s words about a living Constitution?  Do ya?  OK, rant over.  That didn’t hurt, did it?

This was a long day, but one of the best.  Washington truly is beautiful, and best enjoyed just before the Summer hordes arrive.  Like I said, we almost had the place to ourselves.