By James Heinz
My previous story about the bell of the USS WISCONSIN being on display in front of the Wauwatosa, Wis., Fire Department told how proposals to move the bell to the War Memorial on Milwaukee’s lakefront were rejected by Wauwatosa officials. This is the story of another memorial to a forgotten ship that actually is at the War Memorial, as well as other artifacts that have gone missing.
WMHS files show that the St. Louis class protected cruiser USS MILWAUKEE was launched September 10, 1904, in San Francisco, Cal. Her sponsor was Janet Mitchell, the sister of Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, for whom our major airport is named.
Our files also show that she was the second of five U.S. Navy ships named USS MILWAUKEE. She displaced 10,839 tons on a hull that was 426 feet long, 66 feet wide and drew 22 feet of water. She had 12 boilers that fed 2 triple expansion steam engines that drove two propellers at a top speed of 25 mph.
USS MILWAUKEE #2 was armed with 14 six inch (152mm) guns and eight 3 inch (76mm) guns. She was protected by 4 inches of side belt armor with 5 inches of armor on her conning tower.
She performed the routine duties of the peacetime Navy until 1916 when she was converted to a tender, or mother ship, for destroyers and submarines. And that is what led to her doom.
On January 13, 1918, while under the command of a lowly lieutenant, the ship ran aground parallel to the beach at Samoa Beach, California, while attempting to pull off one of her submarines that had stranded on the beach. Her crew of 438 men then had to suffer one of the greatest humiliations ever suffered by the U.S. Navy.
They had to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.
While the Navy usually looks down on the “puddle pirates” of the junior service, in this case the Navy crewmen had to be brought ashore by surfboat, no doubt to the sound of a lot of smirking and snickering on the part of the Coast Guard. It was like the Fire Department being rescued by the Boy Scouts.
The ship could not be pulled off the beach and was sold for scrap where she was. The same civilian marine salvagers who had advised against the salvage attempt in the first place built a pier out to her and cut her up for scrap.
And now the news media got involved.
The Milwaukee Press Club had played a leading role in getting a ship named for Milwaukee. They swung into action again by asking the Navy to donate the bell from USS MILWAUKEE #2 to her namesake city, something that required an Act of Congress. In 1922, the bell was delivered to the president of the Milwaukee Press Club.
The bell currently is on display in a stairwell at the Milwaukee War Memorial Center. But the bell is not the only artifact from USS MILWAUKEE #2 that was salvaged.
In 1908, the City of Milwaukee had presented to the Navy an elaborate silver dinner service to be used aboard USS MILWAUKEE #2 for ceremonial occasions. The silver service was later transferred to USS MILWAUKEE #3 until that ship was scrapped. Then it was eventually transferred to the aircraft carrier USS INTREPID, which still exists in New York harbor as a museum ship.
But another artifact of USS MILWAUKEE #2 was once in her namesake city and has gone missing. In WMHS files there is a letter from the U.S. Navy dated June 22, 1948, addressed to “Dear Carl,” which starts with the words “Now that you are a sea-farin’ man…”
No, this is not a letter to legendary former WMHS president and recreational sailor Carl Eisenberg. It is a letter to Milwaukee mayor Carl Zeidler, who had recently joined the U.S. Navy and would die at sea in action in World War II.
The letter states that between 1900 and 1905 fifteen crates were apparently addressed to “Major, Milwaukee, Puget Sound” were delivered to the city of Milwaukee containing the prow ornament of USS MILWAUKEE #2 and stored in “the Third Ward Yard.” The prow ornament was a remnant of the figureheads that sailing ships used to carry on their bows.
This is odd because the photo shown in this story of the USS MILWAUKEE #2 taken between 1906 and 1908 clearly shows that it has an elaborate prow ornament. The only possible explanation is that the Navy delivered the prow ornament to the city of Milwaukee by mistake, the city retained it, and the Navy then placed another prow ornament on the ship.
The letter states that the crates containing the prow ornament had been opened, the ornament mounted on the fence at the Third Ward Yard, photographed, and a copy of the photo enclosed. The letter describes the ornament as 32 feet long, 9 feet high, between 5 and 9 inches thick, and weighing between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds. The files of WMHS reveal that the letter is true, since a photo in the file showed the prow ornament in all its glory displayed on what must have been the Third Ward Yard fence.
The letter goes on to say that the City of Milwaukee had recently contacted the Secretary of the Navy about an item that the City had been holding on to for 37 years, apparently because the city thought the ornament would somehow help the war effort. SecNav was supposedly interested, but because the Navy warehouses were currently full of supplies for World War II, Sec/Nav asked that the City retain the crates until the war was over.
Whatever happened to the prow ornament is unknown. If you know what happened, please let us know.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
Photos:
Bell of the USS MILWAUKEE photo by James Heinz
USS MILWAUKEE launched 1904 courtesy of Wikipedia
USS MILWAUKEE on the Samoa Beach in California courtesy of Wikipedia
Plaque of the Milwaukee Press Club photo by James Heinz
Bell of the USS MILWAUKEE at the War Memorial Center photo by James Heinz
Ornamental prow of the USS MILWAUKEE at Milwaukee’s Third Ward Yard. Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
