I sat there in the summer of 1965 too ignorant to be overwhelmed by what it would take to get ready for 127 days at sea (the longest voyage in the history of the Semester at Sea program).
No sooner had I been accepted into the program when the newspapers were full of the MS Seven Seas breaking down in the North Atlantic some 500 miles east of St. John’s, Newfoundland (near where the Titanic went down)!
The ship was being repositioned from Europe to the United States for the Fall of 1965 voyage (the first under Chapman College’s supervision) when there was an engine fire that left her adrift with 400 passengers and a crew of 200. It took nearly a week for the helpless ship to be rescued and towed into St. John’s — unless the damage could be repaired by October 20, there would be no “campus” for the students to board.
No ship. No program. Another false start would likely end the concept of a Semester at Sea program. It would be just a memory.
In the meantime, the Holland American line sent along a list of things that needed to get done before I would be allowed to board the ship. A passport was needed and a laundry list of vaccinations — that included Yellow Fever — would need to be dealt with before I could leave the country.
And then there was the clothing and luggage list. Two military-style footlockers would be allowed on board. One for the cabin and the other would be in storage that could be accessed at various times during the voyage.
I would need a suit for in-port visits (I’m thinking something casual to get around in and they are looking at us being formal ambassadors to each country we visit). Interesting.
But it was that requirement for a dinner jacket that really caught my attention — for the formal events that would take place on the ship. Was this a luxury cruise or a floating campus voyage? Mixed messages. After all, this was all new — if somehow got the ship repaired (and sea-worthy), and if I survived the getting-ready gauntlet, then the Spring of 1966 voyage would be just number five in the series. So they — especially Chapman College — were feeling their way in terms of traditions.
The engines on the MS Seven Seas were on their last legs. She was slow (by any standards), but she had a proud history that included a World War II Battle Star. Before being used as a floating campus for five voyages — including four that went around the world — the MS Seven Seas was a weapon of war, not a symbol of peace, understanding and goodwill.
She was launched on January 10, 1940 as the CVE-1, the first in the series of Long Island-class escort aircraft carriers, or “pocket” carriers. They had room for just 21 planes on their little decks.
She was named the USS Long Island and was assigned to Norfolk, Virginia to train pilots in landing on carriers (how ironic it is that the current academic sponsor, the University of Virginia, would just love to use Norfolk as its base of operations, but the Jones Act of 1917 prevents them from using the port for ending and launching voyages, hence the silliness of beginning the current summer Semester at Sea voyage from Halifax in Canada).
The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, sinking the battleships that were stationed there, however the carrier fleet (what there was of it) was out to sea. The Navy was not thinking in terms of the value of air power, but sea power. Battleships banging away at each other — not deadly fights between foes who would engage each other over vast distances. That thinking would change as the war unfolded.
Our carrier force in the Pacific totaled five Lexington/Hornet-class carriers at the outbreak of the war — the big boys, so to speak. However, the Lexington was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942, and the Yorktown went down at Midway on June 7. That left just the Hornet (the carrier made famous for the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April of 1942), Saratoga and Enterprise as the only aircraft carriers in the entire Pacific Ocean to take on the larger (and better trained) Japanese fleet.
After Pearl Harbor the USS Long Island was moved to California to continue to train new pilots for carrier takeoffs and landings. However, with the loss of the Lexington and Yorktown carriers, and with the Hornet temporarily out of action in Pearl Harbor to be refitted with new radar and gunnery systems, the Navy suddenly found that the Long Island’s tiny decks were needed at an island in the Solomon chain called Guadalcanal.
The Japanese had begun to build a long-range airfield on the island in May of 1942. This would be used as a staging area for air strikes on both New Zealand and Australia. With this alarm being sounded, nothing else in the Pacific was important now — the island must be taken from the Japanese at all costs before these bombing raids could begin.
A quickly drawn-up battle plan would have the Saratoga and Enterprise lead a vanguard of ships in support of Major General Alexander Vandegrift’s island assault by the 1st Marine Division. 11,000 Marines stormed ashore on August 7, 1942, and the life-and-death struggle for Guadalcanal began.
He quickly captured the Japanese airbase, which was renamed Henderson Field, but soon discovered that the two remaining carriers in the Pacific fleet — Saratoga and Enterprise — were moved well away the action after tangling with a superior Japanese naval force.
Stranded on Guadalcanal and without any air cover, Vandegrift’s Marines became sitting ducks for the daily air strikes being launched from Rabaul by the Japanese. The skies over Guadalcanal were filled with Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” heavy bombers and their fighter escorts, the legendary Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters.
The initial Japanese shock over the surprise Marine invasion had passed and by the 19th of August Vandegrift had grave concerns that he could continue to hold Henderson Field without air support in the face of an enemy that was three times his number. But the Navy had a plan!
On August 2 — five days before the Marine landing on Guadalcanal took place — the USS Long Island was dispatched from Hawaii with two squadrons of Marine fighters — a dozen Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers and 19 Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters — ten aircraft more than the Long Island was actually designed to carry.
In the pre-dawn darkness of August 20, 1942, the Long Island took up a position 200 miles to the south and east of Guadalcanal. From that point — over the horizon — she would launch all of her aircraft and then leave the area. The Marine pilots would either land at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, or, if Vandegrift could not hold the field, they were to ditch at sea with the vague hope of being rescued by allied ships in the area.
The 1st Marines held, and all 31 fighters landed on Guadalcanal. They were then named the “Cactus Air Force,” refueled and would immediately take to the air to wait the arrival of the daily onslaught of Japanese bombers and fighters. The Japanese quickly discovered that they no longer owned the skies over Guadalcanal … they had company.
The Hornet would supply additional aircraft four days later, but Vandegrift had his air cover and the Japanese — despite several major attempts to retake the island — would eventually concede defeat and retire from the area in November.
In the Fall of 1963, on the maiden voyage of the Semester at Sea program (then called The University of the Seven Seas), this former weapon of war — the USS Long Island — now the MS Seven Seas, would once again sail into Japanese waters. The last foreign port before returning to the United States was that of Yokohama, Japan.
21 years after engaging Japanese forces in the Solomons, the MS Seven Seas would arrive in Japan as the first of five floating campuses dedicated to peace, education and understanding. Literally the vision of Isaiah 2:4 had come to pass, “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
No comments:
Post a Comment