ORANGES

Research into the historical events surrounding the bombing of the U.S.S. Panay, December 12, 1937 on the Yangtze River near Nanking, China

This document was emailed by: San Diego County Library via
infoweb5.newsbank.com
NewsBank InfoWeb
The San Diego Union-Tribune
May 5, 1990
A Chinese river brings them back
ByJohn Gaines; Staff Writer
Section: LOCAL
Edition: 4,2,3,5,6
Page: B-2:5,6B-1:2,3,4
Estimated Printed Pages: 2
----

Well, I had to transfer weblogs 1 & 2.... no, in fact the whole site, to disk and then to zip disk, and now I can use it on Cassandra's computer which has a zip drive which Paulina didn't (my grand nephew named his computer "Paulina"...)

If I remember right, if I keep the files inside a folder, and the jpgs inside a folder inside that one, I should be okay. The logs are all text.

A keyord search "weblog" with Yahoo will bring up samples of weblogs. There's all sorts. Without knowing it, that's what I was making online on GEnie from about 1986 to 1992. I have those on floppies, and will refurbish them, and set them behind the picts in my site, like the Panay Weblog is behind the Panay picts.

My first posts about the Panay date from back then and are on those floppies, which I'll have to browse through to give a kinda ancient beginnings to all this...

For awhile there I could find old GEnie postings, even the introduction page about how to subscribe. Like a "ghost" site, a crewless ship still sailing about.

This morning five of the emails to myself from the library database (ElectricLibrary, NewsBank) arrived. I emailed about 25, so I dont know where the rest went.

Last year I read a story about where emails go, how they can get lost, in the New Yorker. There's a big cube in a secret place that has all the ulrs.

The library database has InfoTrak, ElectricLibrary, NewsBank. NewsBank had the San Diego Union Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.

Right now it's hard to figure which way to head out here with Webog 3 with so many things from the library on my disks and desk. Today I went back and copied to floppy, and printed out a couple things.

I guess that's where to start, see if that disc of downloads from the databases has anything on it!

Well, that's frustrating, the disk isn't formated it tells me, so what the library computer put on it, is likely lost, if it was ever there!

When I was in NewsBank, I'd get a screen, and then I could make a text screen, and save that to disk, it seemed. In all other modes there was no menu item to save to disk under File--no File menu ever in ElectricLibrary. They're pay per view, sorta.

A 1917 graduate of the Naval Academy with a graduate degree in naval architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fowler was on tour in Shanghai in the mid-1920s when he designed and built the famous gunboat Panay, later sunk by the Japanese before World War II.
Los Angeles Times December 13, 1993

That's where I left off Weblog 2...so let's see if I can upload this and get squared away...

He later became commanding officer of the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, supervising the building of the Kaiser fleet of cargo ships that helped produce seagoing superiority over the Axis powers. He retired in 1948 but was called back to active duty during the Korean War and then later was named civilian director of the Federal Supply Management Agency. In 1954, Walt Disney hired him to direct much of the construction at Disneyland, which was to open a year later. He had direct involvement in the construction of the Mark Twain and Columbia, sailing vessels that carried park-goers around the extensive waterways of the amusement attraction. Disney, who became a close friend, referred to the dry dock that the ships utilized as "Joe's Ditch."

Well, what I can do is design my site like the Park. Use a hub, and a waterfall (the Jungle Basin drains into the Rivers of America, and then is pumped back up).

Earthquake Magoon: it's one of the China Pilot's nicknames, taken I gather from Lil' Abner character. And he's a character! I first found his story in China Pilot, Flying with Chennault and Chiang by Felix Smith.

When doing the NewsBank, ElectricLibrary searches I found story about his bones being returned (search: chennault), and the "annoyance" of his brother with the CIA. Earthquake got shot down air dropping supplies to the French at Dien Ben Phu. In China Pilot his bones end up in a Laotian Buddhist shrine--he may prefer that! I dont know if the bones make it back, story said they were going after them.

Felix Smith's book is okay, and should be read right after one reads Chennault's Way of the Fighter.

Pilots see things from above, so I've sought out pilot's accounts. Finding the "Proceedings" with Okumiya's account will give the aerial view of the Panay. (finally learned to spell aerial!).

The story in National Geographic about Nanking (Jan?'38) has aerial photographs which gave me first glimpse of how the heck 400 million Chinese lived (an endless panorama of very small farms). I've been to Chunking now with Smith, and Paylen, Chennault, Give me back my rivers and hills...

Monty Python's Michael Paylen goes to Chunking in his tour around the Pacific Rim. I want see that again.

Other night was story of China's steam trains on PBS. Old footage of Japan taking Manchuria.

Chennault as a pilot saw Nanking from above, and the Panay crew saw it when they left, and again when they came back passed it--that's in Perry's The Panay Incident.

In the ElectricLibray searches I found review of Iris Chang--not of her book, but of her giving one of her talks. She mentioned that the gunboats were required to give weekly accounts.

Did she find these in her research!!?? In one on those National Archive boxes? I guess...(Who knows, maybe someday I'll get to query Mr. Taylor.) Most of her descriptions, eyewitness accounts, come from the civilians in the Safety Zone.

The gunboats' stories had to find their way to Admiral Yarnell on the Augusta. I found a couple in San Diego Union Tribune stories about the Yangtze Patrol re-unnions. Too grim to quote here.

Everyone was gathering intelligence, so there must be tons of stuff somewhere...

I dont know if there has been censorship, or just a cultural bias that what happened in China just isn't that important. One has to really "drill down" to find anything.

On December 12, 1937, in a 60-mile stretch of river far up the Yangtze, Japanese shore batteries and military aircraft bombed and fired on a British merchant ship, four British gunboats, and a U.S. gunboat from Yarnell's small fleet.

Aleready reports were coming from China of appalling Japanese atrocities in the city of Nankng. That was where the British merchant ships had been bombed, and Panay had been only 30 miles or so further upstream.

on February 9, 1938, Admiral Yarnell had a lunchtime visitor--George Fitch, an American born in China and perfectly fluent in Chinese. In his diary, Yarnell noted how Fitch told him what had begun in Nanking on December 14, 1937:

The reports of atrocities were not exaggerated, but on the other hand were understated. ... ... ...

To Shining Sea A History of the United States Navy 1775-1991, Stephen Howarth, Random House

George Fitch left by the "hell" gate in Nanking's wall. An early National Geographic has China story of his, 1936 or so...

The "reports of atrocities" would have come in part from the gunboat crews: from the crew of the Panay when they were brought aboard the Augusta, and later as the remaining gunboats continued patrolling.

Military atache Joseph Stillwell, and assistant atache at Nanking, Captain Roberts (who was aboard the Panay when it sank) were in China to study the Japanese.

The real nuts and bolts of the Panay events are in their accounts: Yarnell, Chennault, Roberts, Stillwell, and of course all the crewmen and soldiers beneath them that reported what they saw. Log books, "weekly reports", secret stuff!

Every morning President Roosevelt read a "newspaper" created from intelligence reports. Presidents still do this.

Eventually what some of the Panay crew saw would be reported to the War Crimes trial after the war--the evidence that imprisoned Hashimoto, the Japanese officer in charge of the "artillary" and "military aircraft".

I think the Military Tribunal is the source of the "sixty miles"--both Bergamini and here, Howarth, have that. Howarth's "map" is a little confusing. I suspect the "map" in the written up Military Tribunal account will be...unique.

It's been a little like setting side by side 15th century maps of the world. "there be monsters..."

And of course the British had all this information too. Today I found one book on a Bibliofind search that tells the British events. Oh, but it's too expensive!! But I'll keep looking. I haven't got a single British thing except the London Times, and Illustrated Times. I'll get around to the "British Version".

I've grabbed off a lot of books from Bibliofind. Even have one on order--Icenhower's(?) Panay Incident.

To Shining Sea is a good book. I got it for 2 bucks in the Friends of Library book store. I've been "keywording" it, taking my own advise!!

Next: The Navy League, The Nye Report, Rear Admiral Mahan, "Warhogs", Chang and the Silkworm, Squaring off with the British, the other Nye report, and a few pokes at the oil monsters...the Black Dragons.

"British merchants ship..ships..." hmmph. I've been pondering "equivocate" for like three weeks...

The new stealth warship, a prototype, called the Sea Shadow, is a catamaran. Actually, I think it hydroplanes as well. One of its stealth features are the sloped sides which make it look like the Virginia of the Confederate Navy in the Civil War-- the Virginia was the famous Merrimack that fought the Monitor.

I mention the similarity in profile not because my idea for a new aircraft carrier will have sloped sides!! I mention it because I’ve been reading early history of the Navy and have thought about the old ships, and came across the Demologos, the first steam warship designed by Fulton. It was a catamaran.

The CSS Virginia was made from the hulk of the USS Merrimack. The Merrimack had been burned by the retreating Union, but only to just above the waterline. The Confederacy re-floated it, thought about it, listened to an innovator who wanted to make an ironclad, and decided to build a kind of tent of iron plate along it’s entire length. It was desperate times for the South; at the Civil War's start, they had no Navy, and latched onto this ship design. It worked of course, very well, but was neutralized by the North’s ironclad Monitor.

Fulton’s Demologos was a steam driven catamaran with paddle wheels in the middle to protect them from shells—paddle wheels are delicate things…somewhat like the Bismark's rudder.

It would be interesting to see a modern warship catamaran with paddle wheels!! Double ended they could go forward or backward like the Demologos. Steaming ahead at 25 knots it could deploy a brake, a sea anchor parachute (hang on to the table settings) and reverse itself --winching in on the line to the sea anchor parachute like the Constitution crabbing ahead with its anchor would speed things along in this reverse.

But the simple idea here is to lay a flight deck across the two hulls. You know, I may have seen this in Popular Mechanics or somewhere; it’s a pretty obvious daydream. I keyword searched “catamaran warship, carrier, aircraft carrier”, and didn’t get much…

And double decks of course immediately come to mind. The top deck for landing, the lower for take offs. (I DID see this in a magazine, but where….???) Heck, why not a third for staging.

A ship like this would have ruled the Pacific in WW2. Why didn’t anyone build one!!?? Fulton’s Demologos was in everyone’s history books. (Paddle wheels in the middle would have brought the whole engine room above waterline—the fate of many trapped crewmen in sinking ships avoided with escape possible to the sides.). (Oh, honeycombing the flight decks would make them light, and the ship unsinkable—the hulls might sink but the whole contraption would rest like a raft on the water if that occurred.)

The reason is likely custom. It was the custom to build single hull ships, just as it was a custom to design battle groups around battleships before WW2. That changed of course...

Presently the custom is single hulls-- single hulled aircraft carriers. The inertia of customs is well documented…

So, make a small prototype, lash a couple, or three, or four, double hulled compartmentalized nearly unsinkable inflammable super tankers together, and… there you are.

Oh, and the aircraft should be small light things, even prop driven, even bi-wings, and with small but up-to-date-smart ordinance loads—agile, light, easy to fly, easy to dodge enemy smart ordinance, easy to bail out of, and inexpensive to replace. A thousand on board. Like bees with one sting. Very quick on and off the three, why not four, flight trampoline decks of….USS Demologos.

What a nightmare for the Japanese switching from torpedoes to bombs back to torpedoes during Midway!!!

Sigh, and what a nightmare one small nuke would be nowadays, and endeth, I imagine, many a pipe dream…

Another draw back I saw on Real TV. A frieghter was trying to rescue a wooden fishing boat, and tied it along near it's side. The high seas bumped the fishing boat against the iron hull, and it broke up and sank.

The two hulls would present flexibility problems--high seas will roll under a single hull okay, but I dont know about what they'd do to large, very large, catamaran. Maybe they'd be steadier, if flexible even kinda comfortable like the Kon Tiki raft.

And..., in 1927 on the Yangtze a double ended, double hulled catamaran, paddle wheeled in the middle, shallow draft, gunboat, would have been a marvel. Maybe it could have gotten through the gorges.

Maybe I could promte the idea to the Canadians...I read today they're looking for a ship....and we just had a side by side goof of our own...it's free...just keep the name Demologos.

Ah, well, if I had typed in searchword "trimaran aircraft carrier" I would have gone right to it!!

The designers have of course thought of a multihull carrier but, you know, having come to it on my own I'm thinking, I've thought to make a web page just for my Demologos!

It took three days of fiddling with the searchwords. I started really getting things with "furure catamaran, future catamaran ship, future ship". Spelling catamaran correct helped too, though a wrong spelling can bring up sites--try Yosimite!

How to present them!!??? Just the way I dragged them off, the quotes and sites I mean, has a kind of story to it...but it would be too long to go through. Oh, what the heck, it's just digital space--no trees getting cut down!

The web site sources of the quotes is at the end of each. Long lines indicate a break between sites, or in the quote itself. I'll highligh in red curios!

Overlooked by all, that jumble of steel, but for the people in a six-story brick cube a few railroad-carved blocks away. In that building's air-conditioned hush, necktied engineers polish their plans for the warship that the steel -- and tens of thousands of tons more -- will become.

Unrecognizable now, slabs and sections will join with uncountable others to create CVN-76, the Ronald Reagan, the ninth in the Navy's Nimitz class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

. ``In my mind, you have to bring three things to the next aircraft carrier,'' said retired Navy Rear Adm. Raynor A.K. Taylor, the innovation center's manager. ``You have to cut the cost. You have to boost the sortie rate, bomb delivery rate, turnover rate -- they're all the same thing.

Water jets are modeled after the massive power turbines used in the hydroelectric industry. In turbines, flowing water drives a generator. In water jets, the process is reversed: a separate engine spins the turbine blades to produce powerful streams of water that propel the ship. Water jets are ideal for high-velocity cruising because, unlike propellers, their efficiency actually increases with speed. Also, cavitation does not occur at high velocity, because the pressure underneath the boat is sufficient to force water up into the jets and prevent air bubbles from forming on the propulsor blades.

Plunging into the realm of higher power is not worth much if the new technology only pushes traditional ships deeper into the water. So engineers are busy testing three alternative hull designs that, like modern aircraft wings, reduce drag sufficiently to benefit from jets. Some shipbuilders hope to enlarge catamarans, also known as multihulls, which have worked well ferrying cars and passengers in sheltered waters, operating at speed-length ratios around 2.5. These craft are in some ways the seaborne equivalent of the "flying wing," which, by virtue of its smaller surface area and lower weight, experiences less drag than any other hull form.

Multihulls consist of two or more narrow hulls spanned by decks. The twin hulls provide increased stability, but they are also liable to split apart--particularly in the rough seas of the open ocean. And the limited buoyancy of their slim hulls means that these vessels must be light, a requirement that only further compromises their strength. For these reasons, it is unclear as yet whether multihulls can carry heavy cargo in high seas.

Navy planners already have encouraged engineers to think "out-of-the-box" in order to create the innovative ideas needed to achieve goals envisioned for the CVX. An October 1997 "CVX Flexibility" report, issued by the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC), concluded that the CVX must be mobile, flexible, durable, and capable of delivering a wide variety of potent weapons. The NRAC report also endorses the three primary goals of the Navy's CVX Mission Needs Statement: maintain the core capabilities of naval aviation; improve the affordability of the nation's carrier force; and incorporate in the CVX a flexible architecture for change in order to facilitate the seamless integration of new systems now under development (as well as those not even in the conceptual stage).

Proceeding was some of the first set of sites I found with "catamaran aircraft carrier". I altered to "catamaran warship" and found that Australia has been renting one to ferry troops and supplies (East Timor mess). This is interesing, as I found a quarrel about car ferrys in Canada, letters to editors sort of thing, and one of the Canadians had served with the Australians, so he brought this up. And too, just in the news, is the story of Canadians seizing a supply ship that refused to return their tanks and things they'd shipped from Bosnia. This is a "Panay Incident".

Incat produces a variety of high-speed ferries in two unique hull designs. The first, a wave-piercing catamaran designed to operate on all seas, including those which are rough and unpredictable, holds the Hales Trophy for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a passenger vessel. A 96m wave-piercing catamaran has recently been introduced, which is capable of carrying 600 passengers and crew plus significant amounts of cargo, at a loaded speed of 40.7 knots. Designs have been developed for wave-piercing vessels up to an overall length of 120m and a deadweight capacity up to 1,250 tonnes at a speed of 51 knots.

The second type is the K class catamaran which is designed for service speeds of around 50 knots on more sheltered routes. Both designs can incorporate a combination of passengers, vehicles and freight to suit particular operating environments and are proven in service.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) recently chartered an 86m wave-piercing catamaran from Incat for a two-year period. The vessel is stationed in Darwin and operated as a fast troop carrier for up to 500 personnel during the East Timor crisis in 1999. Interest from the Pentagon in Australian fast-ship technology has been apparent for some time and the RAN's decision may open up the possibility of a joint research program with the US Navy.

THURSDAY MARCH 16
comments: Re: fastcat ferry fiasco
During my mission to East Timor, The Australian Navy had a troop/cargo carrier that looked like a catamaran/space aged military ship called the "Jervis Bay". The ship was used to transport daily approximately 500 personnel and all their equipment to and from Darwin Australia and East Timor Indonesia. Using this vessel saved several hours than any other supply ship. When I saw the ship I mentioned to my buddies our new ferries look like it. "Maybe some day we could have the resources." Here's my "off the cuff" idea.. If the fast cat was given to the Canadian navy to be modified to their specifications (such as a defense system / beds, engines etc.) The army/navy would have a carrier to be used during any future conflict that could arise. Including coastal surveillance, Fishery Patrols, drug interdiction and immigration control of our waters. The fast cat certainly is bigger and it would keep the ship builders (if they are contracted to do it) employed a little longer.

First, the military must partner with commercial industry to leverage state-of-the-art technology, such as HSS, for military use to meet these aggressive demands. To achieve rapid strategic deployment, the Department of Defense continues to investigate several commercial HSS application vessels for possible future military deployment. For example, the Danish high speed ferry Cat-Link V set an Atlantic crossing speed record on 20 July 1998 of two days, 20 hours and nine minutes at an average speed of 40 knots, the first Atlantic crossing in under three days. HSS technology is an expanding market that is gaining visibility and popularity in the United States. Our ultimate objective is to determine whether existing and emerging HSS technologies have a viable military application that can solve future strategic mobility and logistic problems.

Just what is it that makes HSS so special? Well, the FY98 evaluation vessel (the INCAT 046 CAT) was designed and built by INCAT Inc., of Australia. It is a combined passenger/vehicle high-speed ferry originally designed for commercial freight/passenger service across the Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania, the longest non-stop open-sea fast ferry route in the world (227 miles). With a surface piercing catamaran hull of 91 meters long and a beam of 23 meters, the CAT is capable of cruising at 43 knots (50 mph) with a rated load of 900 passengers and 240 privately owned vehicles. The ship’s transom-mounted waterjet propulsors are driven by four 9,500 horsepower diesel engines. By using vectored thrust from her propulsors, it is capable of precise maneuvering and docking without using tugboats. In addition, it demonstrated the capability of performing a "crashback" (i.e., coming to a dead stop) from 46 knots in just a third of a mile. This is amazing for a vessel of this size, especially compared to a modern aircraft carrier that requires approximately 2 miles to stop. With these credentials, the CAT was sure to warrant a closer look, especially with respect to the dynamic loads that such a vessel could impose on its cargo.

Mr. Owen Spivey is a 1981 engineering graduate of North Carolina State University. He worked at Newport News Shipbuilding for eleven years where he was responsible for testing submarine and aircraft carrier reactor plants. He came to MTMCTEA in 1992 where he has applied his practical shipbuilding and operation knowledge to the challenge of global military deployment and transportation. His e-mail address is: [email protected].

Eggleton said the Canadian and American companies involved in the contract dispute will have to resolve the issue in court.

"Being held hostage by these companies is not acceptable," he said. "There was no confidence that short of taking control of that ship we would have any control of our equipment."

The freighter was carrying five tanks, 200 of Canada's 2,000 armored vehicles, and 390 crates packed with rifles, ammunition, and communications equipment. Three Canadian soldiers are also on board to guard the cargo.

The freighter had been stationed in international waters about 140 miles off Newfoundland since Monday night.

The freighter's owner, Annapolis, Md.,-based Third Ocean Marine Navigation Company, was hired by a Montreal-based company, Andromeda, which had in turn been contracted by the military to bring back the military supplies used by Canadian peacekeepers in Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

But Third Ocean has refused to deliver the cargo, demanding payment it says it is owed. The Canadian government and the shippers had been negotiating a settlement since early last month.

Peter Margan, head of Third Ocean, who says Andromeda owes him $288,000, said that late Wednesday the military had given him an ultimatum to accept an offer of $90,000 or face being boarded.

Prior to the boarding, Margan said Thursday that "there are negotiations going on, but there's no update just yet."

The Katie had been scheduled to transport the shipment from Thessaloniki, Greece, to a port near Montreal by mid-July. But the ship was delayed reaching Greece, increasing costs of the voyage.

Canada routinely charters foreign transport for its military equipment overseas. The Navy has no transports equipped to carry heavy armor and the Air Force's C-130 Hercules transports are limited to about 20 tons of cargo.

"trimaran aircraft carrier" goes right to the HMS Triton. I copied out whole web pages, as there are nice pictures, even the Triton prototype, it's just a little thing, but, I gather, is out doing trials right now. Scientific American has comprehensive web page. And the Navy League talks about CVX, the name for what will come after CVNX. In a little bit, I'll get talking about the Navy League. But last, a quote from Africa...

The ferry on the Oubangui River was a remarkable example of backyard engineering using materials that had already served one or two lifetimes somewhere else. Three separate hulls, each resembling a giant row boat, were held together by large sheets of steel lying across their beams. At the rear of the center hull stood the pilot house. You really had to see it to believe what people can do with a pile of rusty metal and greasy chains. In a vague way it resembled a tiny aircraft carrier on a trimaran hull.

----The ferry on the Oubangui River was a remarkable example of backyard engineering using materials that had already served a lifetime somewhere else. Three separate hulls, each resembling a giant row boat, were held together by large sheets of steel lying across their beams. At the rear of the center hull stood the pilot house. You really had to see it to believe what legally-irresponsible people can do with a pile of rusty metal and greasy chains. In a vague way it resembled a tiny aircraft carrier sitting sideways on a trimaran hull.

Quote attributed to Admiral Halsey as he viewed the wreckage in Pearl Harbor when Task Force 8 returned the night after the attack.

Hiroshima was a surprise attack too. Oh, sure, we dropped leaflets, and fire bombing of Tokyo forewarned everyone, but no one outside of New Mexico knew what the atomic bomb would do. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been "reserved' for atomic bombing--no conventional attacks had fallen on these cities while every other industrial city target had been hit. The scientists wanted to see what would happen. It was "premeditated", "dastardly", and a surprise attack, self similar in proportion to Panay and Pearl Harbor, not in scale, but in kind.

The only possible difference, and an important one-- it was justified, not as an act of vengence, or vindictiveness, or even to win the war and save lives by avoiding invasion of Japan; these motives many had--it simply stopped the war.

And since, the atom bombs have held in check warfare somewhat--not unlike the alien robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Every thought we have is a "this is like" thought. That's how we perceive, by comparison. If "A" is like "B", and "C" is like "B", then "A" is like "C".

Oh, I'm in front of the bored class here...just 30,000 showed up to commemorate the day with a minute of silent prayer.

"Who bombed Hiroshima? Was it the President? The Pilot? The Bombadeer? The Emperor of Japan?

Two days ago was the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. I dont think that second atomic bombing was justified.

To get back, and leave off with Demologos...oh wait...two days ago too they brought up the CSS H. L. Hunley, another old ship I contemplated! This was maybe the first true submarine. I was reading about it while Cassandra was telling me about how we bought Canada--a "what -if" plot in a Clive Cussler novel-- her favorites of late.

I started telling her about the Hunley, how the newspaper story said they just found it, and how that didn't match with what I just read in To Shining Sea--the Hunley was found when the harbor was cleared just after the Civil War. They couldn't have just found it, if it had been "found" way back then. So I dont know what the deal is--but Clive Cussler might. He sponsered the search and recovery, and is in a quarrel with another fellow who says he found it!

"Back in 1914, the Navy Leaue of the United States wrote a famous prescription. If "Kings, Oligarchs, Race Antipathies, Unfair Competition, Land Grabbing, Injustice and Sin" were abolished, and if "The Rule of the People, A Satisfactory World Tribunal, Justice, Charity, and A Changed Human Nature" were established, then there would be peace on Earth. If not, then, "Ad interim: Maintain A Strong Navy."

The Navy League was started up in 1902. To this day they promote projects for the Navy. It's a civilian group, and may, it seems, have conterparts in other nations--somewhat like the boyscouts.

In "To Shining Sea" I was impressed how close the Navy and Government are--usually brought together, or apart, by funding issues. The history of the US can be told well by following the history of the Navy.

Did the Navy League promote the building of the six new river gunboats in 1927? Who did that?

This report came out in the thirties. It was a report to congress about war profiteering. The reaction of congress and the public cut off funds to the Navy.

Admiral Mahan taught and wrote books about naval strategy. In To Shining Sea it's said he wrote and taught in a manner to provoke innovative thinking in his pupils.

"Warhogs" is a book and term about modern war profiteering. They'd all be right at home on "Hog Island", an immense pork barrell naval venture of the 1920-30's era.

Before her Nanking book Chang wrote one about the Silkworm, China's cruise missile.. This is curious stuff, and I'll save Chang and add her to the China Dolls--the Soong Sisters and Anna Chennault! There a movie tomorrow in San Diego about the Soong Sisters!!

Sometimes, it appears, it's a toss up about who we go to war against. There was a color coded plan for war with the British too.

And To Shining Sea explains the twists and turns of the War of 1812. It was the British, but it could just have easily been the French. And the "quasi-war" just before with the French I dont understand at all--they'd just helped us win the Revolutionary War. Only the machinations of the Warlords of Atlantis can explain it...

The "other Nye report" is mixed up with the Cox Report, a recent rant about technology leaking to China, in which Cox liberally quotes from Chang's book about the silkworm--which reminds me of Buchannon going off on Chennault and the Flying Tigers! A site of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is pretty good--keyword "nye report".

That's a good name for the oil compaines, isn't it? It's borrowed too from the infamous Japanese Black Dragon secret society. One site said the USS New Jersey was nicknamed The Black Dragon. One route to drill down here takes you past my black fish dragon. Someday I'll post how I made that--it's a story.

All these could be weblogs in and of themselves...but sometimes you find things just all jambed together like gold nuggets in a stream bed.

During Frankling D. Roosevelt's first administration and the first two years of his second (1937-39), progress in national defense was substantial but slow. A five-day week law, designed to spread employment, made construction lag. Nor did our foreign policy substantially change. What the Japanes called the "China Incident" of 7 July 1937 inaugurated their invasion of China proper, in the course of which they sank United States River Gunboat Panay without producing a noticeable dent on the American people's determination to avoid war.

The widely publicized report of a committee headed by Senator Gerald Nye, in 1934, "proved" by innuendo that bankers and munitions makers ('merchants of death") had got America into World War I, and Congress responded to the public opinion thereby created by passing a series of neutrality acts. These renounced most of the neutral rights for which we had fought England in 1812 and Germany in 1917. Sale or transport of munitions to belligerent was forbidden (1935), loans to belligerants were prohibited (1936); these were applied to the civil war in Spain, but sale of munitions was permitted on a "cash and carry" basis (1937). And the President was authorized to prohibit American ships from entering "danger zones" so as to prevent "incidents" (1939).

Ah well, next: Socony Hill of Nanking and the Kiangnan- Dock, Arsenal- Mint of Shanghai...

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