World War I submarine chaser docked at Henderson riverfront in 1923
A sleek craft that had helped protect American convoys from German submarines during World War I visited Henderson and Evansville a century ago.
The initial plan, according to The Gleaner of May 24, 1923, was that Henderson was to observe Memorial Day with a flotilla of three submarine chasers.
“The swift little boats were frequently in the headlines during the war when German undersea craft were preying upon Allied shipping.”
Their home port as of 1923 was St. Louis and Lt. Thomas A. Nicholson, son of local coal operator J.L. Nicholson, was to be in command. U.S. Sen. A.O. Stanley of Henderson had sent a request for the tour to Edwin Denby, secretary of the Navy at that time, who was born in Evansville Feb. 18, 1870, “where his late father, Charles Denby, was long conspicuous for public service.”
Edwin Denby, by the way, didn’t last much longer as Navy secretary. In 1924 he resigned in disgrace because of the Teapot Dome Scandal. Many of you may vaguely recall that term from your high school history classes.
It was the biggest scandal in American government until Watergate came along. When it began, Denby controlled the Navy’s petroleum reserves known as Teapot Dome near Midway, Wyoming, as well as other reserves in Kern County, California. Teapot Dome took its name from a distinctive rock formation.
President Warren G. Harding transferred control of those reserves in 1921 from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Interior Secretary Albert Bacon Fall went down in history as the first cabinet secretary to go to prison. The second was Attorney General John N. Mitchell during the Watergate scandal.
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Fall wasn’t able to persuade Denby to turn over control of the reserves until 1922. Fall then granted a non-competitive lease of Teapot Dome to oil man Harry F. Sinclair. Similar leases transferred control of the California oil fields to Edward L. Doheny.
The non-competitive leases, which were very favorable to the oil men, were perfectly legal. What got Fall into trouble was his newfound wealth; once the indefatigable Sen. Thomas Walsh of Montana started following the money there was no stopping him. What tripped Fall up were the secret bribes Sinclair and Doheny had paid.
Get this: In 1929 Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe from Doheny that in 1930 Doheny was acquitted of paying. Sinclair didn’t help matters when his firm foreclosed on Fall for a $100,000 no-interest loan. Sinclair also spent a little time behind bars.
By the way, the Teapot Dome Scandal prompted legislation that gives Congress the power to take a peek at any American’s income tax returns. It also resulted in a Supreme Court case that established the ability of Congress to compel testimony.
I’m sorry. I’m getting far afield from submarine chasers, aren’t I?
The flotilla of three sub chasers didn’t make it here in time for Memorial Day. In fact, only one of them did, and that wasn’t until the night of June 3, 1923.
So, just what was a sub chaser? According to a 2016 blog by the National Archives, they were authorized in 1916 after the Navy recognized a need for something for something “heavy enough for weather at sea, yet nimble enough for antisubmarine maneuvers. The result was the 110 foot submarine chaser.”
Big shipyards were tied up with orders for larger ships, so the sub chasers were made of wood in smaller commercial shipyards.
According to the archives of www.subchaser.org the frame and floors were of white oak, the planking was yellow pine, while the deck planking was Oregon pine. The boats were powered by three 220 horsepower motors. Top speed was around 18 mph.
Armament included a 3-inch deck gun, a depth charge launcher, and machine guns.
The subchaser.org site says they were normally manned by two officers and about 22 crewmen. The sub chaser that tied up at Henderson had five officers and a crew of 22. All were Navy reservists.
The Gleaner of June 3, the day the boat was expected, said it was to tie up at one of the railroad bridge piers “because of no wharf here.” It’s unclear whether that happened or whether it tied up to the wharf boat.
The Gleaner of June 5 reported that after the boat had arrived “hundreds of citizens” went to take a look at it. It had operated in the Mediterranean during the war, one of about 300 that saw duty during World War I.
The Gleaner of June 6 reported the boat was planning to leave about 8:30 a.m. for Evansville, which was the northernmost point of its Ohio River tour. It planned to stay one day there before heading downstream and would stop here again on the way down.
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“That the slender, waspish craft could be so effective in ridding the sea of the dangerous submarine requires a stretch of the imagination to one who has never been in the sub zone,” The Gleaner reported. “But all veterans of the world war are loud in their praise and ascribe to them a major part of the credit for convoying safe through the territory infested by the lurking sub the many huge transports bearing to Europe the American contribution to the war.”
The sub chasers of World War I were so successful in hunting German submarines that the design was upgraded and saw service, mostly by the Coast Guard, during World War II.
75 YEARS AGO
Leonard Willett of Henderson received a reply from F. Seitz of Wallendorf, Germany, thanking him for a jar of beans he had sent a month earlier, according to a reprint of the letter in The Gleaner of May 29, 1948.
Seitz’s wife and their three teenage sons had been forced from their home in Augsburg by Allied bombing. Seitz had enlisted in the German army Aug. 27, 1939, and was captured by the Russians in 1945.
“Some months ago I returned from Russia and therefore I am still in a rather bad condition as for my health and bodily strength.
“You scarcely can imagine how glad we were at your gift, the conserved beans. It meant a dinner for all of us, and we enjoyed them ever so much.
“Opening the glass, we found your address and read the words expressing the wish to know who got your gift. That is why I wrote to you. We are all grateful to you. God bless you for this.”
50 YEARS AGO
A.G. Pritchett, who had been a magistrate on Henderson Fiscal Court for 12 years, won the Democratic primary for county judge, which meant he was assured the seat, according to The Gleaner of May 30, 1973.
He beat Glenn Johnson by more than 2,000 votes and carried 23 of the county’s 29 precincts. He stepped down from that job in 1984 after he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. He held that position until he died of stroke in mid-2003.
In the sheriff’s race – which state law limited to two terms at that time – Deputy J.T. Southard defeated the closest of his three opponents by more than 2,000 votes.
All other county-wide races saw the incumbents re-elected. They included County Clerk Mildred Howard, Jailer Arnold “Steamboat” Ligon, and County Attorney David Thomason, who had been appointed to the job after Ulvester Walker resigned to become commonwealth attorney.
25 YEARS AGO
The two firms mining coal in Henderson County agreed to merge, according to The Gleaner of June 2, 1998.
Peabody Group announced it had signed a letter of intent to sell its award-winning Patriot Coal Co. subsidiary and undeveloped coal reserves in Western Kentucky to Centennial Resources Inc.
In exchange, Peabody was to receive an undisclosed amount of cash as well as a minority interest in Centennial.
At that time Patriot Coal operated two mines in Henderson County, the Freedom underground mine and the Patriot strip mine, both east of Niagara. Centennial, meanwhile, operated a strip mine near Hebbardsville.
“The merger would create a company with some 550 workers, more than 400 million tons of coal reserves and the capacity to produce more than 7 million tons of coal annually,” the story said.
“Actual shipments from the two companies during the last fiscal year totaled 5.2 million tons, including 1.5 million tons by Patriot and 3.7 million tons by Centennial.”
Both firms took over mining operations that had been started by other companies. Pyramid Mining Co. received the first strip mining permit ever issued by Henderson County allowing the county's first modern surface mine to open in 1988. However, Green Coal Co. also began the process that year and opened a mine that produced coal before Pyramid did. Centennial took over the Green Coal operation after it went bankrupt.
Henderson County currently has no functioning coal mines.
Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.
This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: World War I submarine chaser docked at Henderson riverfront in 1923
