U.S. Naval Academy During World War I
The United States Naval Academy was completely torn down and rebuilt between 1899 and 1908. Its facilities were only nine years old when the Congress declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The new academy had been launched by the United States Navy having become the most popular organization in the nation for its victories at Manila Bay in the Philippines and at Santiago in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The nation had become a world power which required a powerful Navy in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
During the first decade of the 20th century, too, the arms race leading to World War I, particularly between Great Britain and Germany, drove naval improvements in the U.S. as well for bigger and better ships carrying bigger and better guns. The largest were called dreadnaughts and later battleships. The Great White Fleet of mostly battleships sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, departed as among the most modern Navies in the world; and, when it returned fourteen months later it was completely obsolete. It was already being replaced with super dreadnaughts which were under construction.
To operate the new battleships in their earliest times it took at least 40 officers and a crew of 500; and, by World War I they needed 60 officers and crews of 1,100. Congress authorized an increase in Midshipmen at the Naval Academy in 1903, but it took four years to realize the goal. Between 1903 and 1907, Naval Academy classes were graduated early to help fill the need for officers. Up until 1912, after graduation Midshipmen had to serve in the fleet two years before they were commissioned as officers. In 1912, it was decided to graduate and commission on the same day – hence the tradition of the famous hat toss at graduation and hence the speeding up the availability of officers.
When World War I started in Europe in August 1914, the Naval Academy had two months earlier graduated 154 Navy Ensigns and Marine Corps 2nd Lieutenants on June 5, who had listened to President Woodrow Wilson and to Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels speak at the ceremony held in the armory (later Dahlgren Hall). In 1914, the Brigade of Midshipmen had been reorganized into a Regiment of four battalions of three companies each. The Regiment remained until after World War II when it returned to being called the Brigade of Midshipmen. In early 1916, the U.S. Congress, planning ahead, authorized an increase in the Regiment of Midshipmen from 1,094 to 1,746. It soon voted to increase warship strength by ten battleships, sixteen cruisers, five destroyers and assorted auxiliary vessels to be built over the next three years.
The following spring at the Academy, just before the United States entered the war, 182 graduates of the Class of 1917 were graduated early on March 29, 1917, following a speech by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. In comparison, soon after the war ended, the Class of 1920 produced 461 new officers graduated a year early on June 6, 1919, with Secretary Daniels featured speaker again. He, by the way, holds the record for speaking at the most Naval Academy graduations – eight times.
A Naval Academy 1880 graduate, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, then President, Navy War College, was sent to England in civilian disguise in March 1917. When Sims arrived in London he was briefed by British naval and government leaders. He discovered how desperate the situation had become for the Allies. Because of the effectiveness of German submarines in sinking merchant ships attempting to reach Great Britain, there were only a few months of food and vital supplies for the English to survive. The situation worsened on a daily-bases. The Germans at the front in France were also gaining the upper hand; and, with the withdrawal of Russia from the war, Germany could now bring much more manpower to the western front. The United States would have to act quickly, grow its military and naval strength, and send its manpower and supporting supplies some 3,000 miles across an enemy infested ocean.
On March 4, 1917, the U.S. Congress authorized the U.S. Naval Academy to reduce its four-year program to graduating and to commissioning new Navy and Marine Corps officers in three years. The Class of 1917 was graduated on March 29, in the armory, without a Color Parade. The Class of 1918 was graduated three months later on June 28, in the same armory with the same speaker, Secretary Daniels. The curriculum was reduced to three years by eliminating the second class or junior year. Some of the studies taught in third class or sophomore year were moved to fourth class or plebe/freshman year; and some second year studies were moved to third class year and some to first class or senior year. Back then all Midshipmen took the same courses. There were no electives or majors as today.
The Naval Reserve Act of 1916, resulted in reserve officer education at the Naval Academy beginning in July 1917. The first class numbered 200, attending a ten week course. Additional classes were extended to sixteen weeks. By the end of the war some 2,300 reserve officers had graduated. The officer corps of the entire Navy rose from 4,293 in 1916 to 32,474 by November 1918.
Because Reserve Officer students were occupying space in Bancroft Hall in the summer of 1917, some of the incoming Plebe class, 744 strong; and, as large as the rest of the Regiment, was housed across the yard near Gate 8 in the Marine Barracks, today known as Halligan Hall. At the Naval Academy not only did the student body grow some 300% during World War I, the staff and faculty kept pace. In 1914, there were 151 officers and civilian professors managing and teaching; and, in academic year 1918-19, there were 271.
During World War I the Naval Academy was led by Captain Edward W. Eberle, the 24th Superintendent, who assumed duty on September 20, 1915. His Commandants of Midshipmen were Captain Louis M. Nulton, NA ’89, later a Superintendent; and Captain William H. Standley, NA ’95, later Chief of Naval Operations. Local native Peter H. Magruder was Secretary, the ranking civilian position in the yard. Officers on the faculty included later noted World War II leaders Lieutenants William F. Halsey, Jr., Frank Jack Fletcher, Isaac C. Kidd, and Lieutenant Ted Ellyson [naval aviator number one]. The civilian faculty included Professors Paul J. Dashiel, William O. Stevens, Allan F. Westcott, Royal S. Pease, Charles L. Lewis, and Carlos V. Cusacks. The Paymaster was Samuel Bryan. A veteran of the Civil War, Julian M. Spencer NA 1861, who had gone south and served in the Confederate States Navy, was Assistant Librarian. Captain Thomas W. Kinkaid, NA 1880, commanded the Engineering Experimental Station across the Severn River.
The increases in Midshipmen and faculty caused a requirement for more dormitory rooms, classrooms, and laboratories. Temporary quarters were quickly constructed between Stribling Walk and the Severn River to house the reservists. Members of the Classes of 1920 and 1921 were housed in the Marine Barracks near Gate 8; and plans were made for two, huge new wings for Bancroft Hall to house 2,200. Fifth and sixth wings, still the largest of all the wings, were not completed, however, until the war was over. Construction was also begun on a new Navigation and Seamanship Department, Luce Hall, and a new Marine Engineering building, Griffin Hall, attached to Isherwood Hall.
Shortly after Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, President Woodrow Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany and alerted the armed forces to stand-by and be ready. On April 6, the United States Congress declared war on Germany. On April 17, Captain Eberle immediately closed the yard to the public and cancelled sports events and hops [dances]. He hired additional watchmen and armed them with pistols. A six-pounder gun was added to the seawall and a search light added on the deck of the station ship Reina Mercedes. Courses were continued on schedule.
Using authority granted by the Naval Coastal Defense Reserve Act of 1916, Navy Secretary Daniels seized upon the use of the word “persons”, instead of men, and authorized the enlistment of women into the Navy for the first time in March 1917. Yeomanette Anna Ridout Tilghman, a native of Annapolis, was enlisted by the Commandant, 5th Naval District, Baltimore, for service in the Superintendent’s office on May 2, 1917. She was followed by additional women in uniform.
Even before the late June accelerated graduation of the Class of 1918, Midshipmen in the three lower classes had been sent to Norfolk for summer practice cruises. Instead of an array of impressive ships coming up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis to pick up the Midshipmen, they were sent by rail to a vast number of battleships in the Atlantic Fleet at Norfolk to train. They returned on August 22, to prepare for a new academic year. In 1917 and 1918, the first terms were begun on the last Monday in September instead of October 1 which had been the routine date to start first semester for generations.
In August 1917, the Navy Department gave Captain Eberle authority to restore a limited season of athletics for the fall term. Navy football had a 7 to 1 season; but, it regretted not being able to play Army because Army had beat them the previous four years in a row. There were no Army-Navy games in 1917 or 1918. It was a very lop-sided season with Navy team scoring 443 points while its eight opponents had a cumulated total of 23. Navy beat Western Reserve 95 to 0; and, in its only loss it was skunked by West Virginia 0 to 7. The following year, 1918, Navy football only played five games, four against Navy Training Station teams. In its only collegiate game, it beat Ursinus College 127 to 0, the highest football score Navy ever amassed in a single game. It came close the following year, 1919, by beating Colby College 121 to 0.
In 1914, the year the war started Bill V, also known as Satan, a wooly white goat with horns became the mascot. During the football season of 1916, he was relieved by Bill VI, who served through the rest of the war. The Navy had used a goat mascot since it won the first Army-Navy game at West Point in 1890.
Bandmaster Charles A. Zimmermann, who had served since 1884 as the leader of the Naval Academy Band, died in June 1916, having among the largest funerals ever in the history of Annapolis. He was replaced by his assistant Adolph Torovsky, who continued the custom of composing a new piece of music dedicated to each graduating class. The Naval Academy Band continued to be popular in the city. On October 24, 1917, Liberty Day was held in Annapolis to promote the second Liberty Bond drive. The Naval Academy Band opened the festivities at which Superintendent, Captain Eberle, informed the public that 1,442 Midshipmen had purchased $107,350 worth of Liberty Bonds and he urged the citizens of Annapolis to equal their support of the nation.
Upper class Midshipmen continued to enjoy some liberty in the city of Annapolis, although in those days there was much less than today. There were no such vacations as Christmas leave or spring break in March. In town the Midshipmen frequented Moore’s Corner Shop at Maryland Avenue and Prince George Street for sandwiches, soda water, ice cream and Whitman’s and Martha Washington’s old fashion homemade candies. Ice cream and confectionaries were popular, too, at the Mandris Brothers, 164-166 Main Street.
Newspapers, books, stationary, postcards, cigarettes, cigars, and Eastman’s Kodak cameras could be purchased at Charles G. Feldmeyer’s, 56 Maryland Avenue. William H. Bellis, since 1853, at the top of Main Street, Welch the Tailor on State Circle, and Lemmert’s on Maryland Avenue were good for naval uniforms and alterations. Carvel Hall between Prince and King George Streets and the Hotel Maryland at the top of Main Street had popular grill rooms and lodgings for families and guests. Annapolis Banking and Trust and Farmer’s Bank faced Church Circle. Silent movies were seen at the Republic Theater in the middle of Main Street.
During the period two movies had scenes which were shot at the Naval Academy. Parts of the motion picture The Hero of Submarine D2, starring Charles Richman, James Morrison, and Anders Randolph, a story of a Lieutenant Commander at the Naval Academy, who foiled a foreign plot to destroy the U.S. Fleet were filmed at the Academy in 1916. The movie Madame Spy, starring Jack Mulhall, Donna Drew, and Wadsworth Harris, was filmed in the yard. It was about a Midshipman who redeemed himself by kidnapping a German baroness and impersonating her to prevent military plans falling into enemy hands.
On March 5, 1918, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who was a teetotaler from North Carolina, signed General Order 373 by which no alcoholic beverages could be sold within five miles of eight Navy and Marine Corps training facilities; and, one of those was the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. Three years prior to the 18th Amendment putting prohibition into effect for the nation on February 1, 1920, Annapolis went dry at precisely 4:00 p.m., March 16, 1918. And it was the day before St. Patrick’s Day. My Irish father would have rebelled.
At the time Annapolis had thirty-five liquor licenses at saloons, restaurants, and hotels, which were earning the city $10,000 annually. In November 1916, Annapolis had voted 1,075 to 6ll to keep wet. It would vote 83 percent in favor of the 21st Amendment that repealed prohibition in 1933. Not only was bar room business lost in town by Daniel’s action, building contractors for the next two years had more business outside the five-mile limit because of this Navy general order.
While the Midshipmen were completing their 1918 summer practice cruise, news arrived that Europe was suffering an influenza pandemic. It became known as the Spanish flu, killing worldwide more than fifty million people, including some seven hundred thousand in the United States. By September, as the Midshipmen were returning to Annapolis, the War Department warned it was spreading to the United States with returning troops. Captain Eberle imposed a quarantine on September 26, as there were already a few cases in the yard. Of the 2,118 Midshipmen, at least 1,100 of them contracted the flu, or 52%, nearly twice the national rate. Unlike most flu viruses which are more easily contracted by the young and the old, the Spanish flu hit the sixteen to forty year old population worse; and the mortality rate was 2.5%, twenty-five times higher than more normal flu viruses.
Ten Midshipmen died. Midshipman 3/C William A. McDuffie, NA ’20, was the first on October 3, 1918; followed by Midshipman Elihu C. Grace 4/C, on October 4; and Midshipman 1/C Harry S. Lotta, on October 5. In Annapolis public and private schools were closed indefinitely, the hospital was closed to all visitors, and church services were cancelled. The Mayor closed the movie theater and asked residents to avoid using their telephones because of the shortage of operators and their need in emergencies. Taylor’s and Hopping Funeral homes processed 130 bodies in October and shipped 29. One church had 45 funerals. Classes were continued at the Naval Academy, but all other assemblies including Chapel services were cancelled. Besides the ten Midshipman eighteen members of the staff and faculty perished.
It is surprising during the height of the crisis, on October 10, the Naval Academy’s birthday, a visit was made by Sir Eric C. Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty of Great Britain. By October 26, 1918, the cases of flu had abated, the quarantine was lifted, and the first football game was played against the Newport Naval Training Station team. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the school and the Superintendent held a reception.
Monday, November 11th, Armistice Day, caused great jubilation. Classes and drill were cancelled at the Academy and the upper classes were given town liberty to celebrate. The war in Europe had officially ended on the eleventh day of the eleventh month and at the eleventh hour (Paris time).
Among the Midshipmen educated during the war were a future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arthur W. Radford; two future Chiefs of Naval Operations, William M. Fechteler and Robert B. Carney; three future Superintendents, C. Turner Joy, James Holloway, Jr., and Walter F. Boone; and future Admirals Forrest Sherman, Jerauld Wright, and Joseph “Jocko” Clark.
Alumni serving in primary leadership roles in World War I included: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William S. Benson NA ’77; Major General George Barnett ’81, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps; Admiral Henry T. Mayo, ‘76 Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic; Admiral William B. Capterton, ’75, Commander-in- Chief Pacific; Admiral Albert Gleaves ‘77, Commander Cruiser and Transport Force; Admiral Henry B. Wilson ’81, Commander, Naval Forces, France; Major General John A. Lejeune ’88; Commanding, 2nd Infantry Division with of Army and Marine Corps soldiers; Rear Admiral Ralph Earle ’96, Chief Bureau of Ordnance; Rear Admiral David W. Taylor ’85, Chief Bureau of Construction and Repair; and Rear Admiral Robert S. Griffin ’78, Chief Bureau of Engineering.
Thirteen graduates were killed in action in World War I, mostly on ships sunk by German U Boats, and in major land battles such as Belleau Wood, too. Among the heroes of the war were Commander Joseph Taussig, NA 1899, who led the first American warships into European waters on May 4, 1917. When asked by British Admiral Lewis Bayly when he would be ready for action. Taussig’s famous reply was “we are ready now, sir!” Lieutenant Edourd V.M. Izac, NA 1915, was captured by German submarine U 90 on May 21, 1918, when the ship he was serving aboard was sunk. Taken to Germany aboard U 90 he memorized critical information about the U boat; and, then after one unsuccessful attempt to escape by jumping off a moving train, he did escape to Switzerland. By the time he got to London, however, his information was not of much use as the war was winding down. He did become the only alumnus awarded the Medal of Honor for World War I.
During the war there were other Navy activities in Annapolis, too. The U.S. Naval Experimental Station, established in 1903, across the Severn River continued to operate. The harsh winter of 1911-12 had caused the first Naval Air Station, the aerodrome at Greenbury Point, to move to Pensacola, Florida, completely by the spring of 1914. The Naval Academy’s dairy herd, caused by a problem with typhoid in 1910, which had been temporarily kept on what became the baseball field and then at Greenbury Point was moved to the old Hammond Manor Estate in Gambrills in 1914, and it became known as the U.S. Naval Academy Dairy Farm. The WB&A railroad made it possible to transport the milk and other dairy products from Gambrills into Annapolis and even into the Academy itself on what became known as “the milk train”.
During the war the Navy Post Graduate School course had been suspended; but, in 1919, it was re-established with Captain Ernest J. King at its head in the old Marine Barracks, later Halligan Hall, where it would remain until 1951. In 1918, the Navy Radio Transmitter Facility was established on Greenbury Point providing communications with Europe and Navy ships at sea. Many area iron workers were employed in building the huge new 4,500 feet antenna towers for this facility which went into service in September 1918. It remained in use until replaced by satellites in the early 1990s.
Like all American wars downsizing the Army and Navy took precedence in the postwar years. A new Superintendent, Captain Archibald H. Scales, relieved Captain Edward W. Eberle on February 12, 1919. Eberle would go on to become the only former USNA Supe to become Chief of Naval Operations, serving from 1923 to 1927. Scales oversaw the graduation on the three-year cycle of the Class of 1920, 461 new officers, the largest class in the history of the Academy up to that time. The Class of 1921 would be graduated in two sections with the top half of the class, 286, doing three years and graduated on June 3, 1920; and the bottom half, 280, doing four years and graduated on June 2, 1921. The school had returned to its normal schedule for academic year 1920-21. Unbeknownst, all of this would be repeated in another twenty years for World War II.
Following World War I, the Naval Academy became more of a tourist attraction, particularly as more and more people bought automobiles and easily began traveling distances. Little booklets and brochures about the Academy’s history and buildings were produced. Another result of the war itself was the postwar visits of the distinguished European leaders during the war. Among the visitors in the fall of 1919 were Albert I, King of Belgium; Cardinal Desire Joseph Mercier, noted philosopher; and General Robert Nivelle, commander in the Battle of Verdun. On November 19, 1919, Edward, Prince of Wales, paid respects for his father, King George V of Great Britain. He was escorted to the Naval Academy by Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels and Assistant Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On January 6, 1920, Admiral John R. Jellicoe, commander, British Grand Fleet, in the Battle of Jutland paid his respects in Annapolis. And later in the year Marshall Ferdinand Foch of France, Supreme Allied Commander during the war; General Armando Diaz, World War I Italian Army; and Sir David Beatty, First Earl of the North Sea and First Sea Lord, reviewed parades.
“The war to end all wars” had many dramatic impacts on the U.S. Naval Academy and its usual routine. It had established a method for graduating Midshipmen in an accelerated, three-year academic program and a curriculum for educating naval reserve officers which would be used again for World War II. The Regiment of Midshipmen had been increased 300 percent and there had been a major increase in faculty and staff. Permanent additions were made to the yard to accommodate these increases with an expanded dormitory and new classrooms and laboratories. Lastly, the Spanish flu had taught the administration and medical staff how to handle a pandemic for which fortunately knowledge has since not been necessary. Armistice Day, November 11, now Veterans Day, remains as a national holiday.
(Reference exhibition at USNA Museum on WWI and some of its contents.)