Seventy-Five Years Ago: The Depot that Supported D-Day

A group of Landing Craft, Vehicle (LCVs) maneuver in the Chesapeake Bay off Camp Bradford, Little Creek, Virginia, in 1943.  (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

By M.C. Farrington
HRNM Historian
As the world prepares to focus once again on the beaches of Normandy and recognize the men who gave their lives to cross them on June 6, 1944 to free France from German occupation on D-Day, it's worth mentioning the simple but brilliantly conceived landing craft, commonly known as Higgins boats, that got them from their hulking transport vessels to those beaches.

Not to be forgotten as well are those who trained their operators and maintained the myriad types of landing craft that ultimately paved the way back to Europe.  Much of the training and maintenance that paid dividends during Operation Neptune (the littoral phase of Operation Overlord), as well as earlier operations in North Africa and Europe occurred all over Hampton Roads. 

Dozens of Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVPs) under construction at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1943. More than 23,000 LCVPs were made at numerous shipyards across the nation during the war, but just two major depots were established by the Navy to refurbish them, one just a couple of miles away from the shipyard. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

The first and most numerous of what became over a dozen varieties of Higgins boat, known as the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) entered U.S. naval service in June 1941 after the first nine of them rolling into Norfolk aboard rail cars from Andrew Jackson Higgins' factory in New Orleans.  The LCVP was originally made from Higgins' Eureka boat, a favorite of Prohibition-era smugglers as well as their Coast Guard adversaries, modified with innovations rooted in Japanese designs noted by Marine Corps Lieutenant Victor "Brute" Krulak while he was stationed in China a couple of years before.

This illustration by combat artist Mitchell Jamieson depicts the old wooden barque Marsala, anchored off Little Creek in Chesapeake bay, which was the first ship used by the new Amphibious Training Command to instruct Soldiers and Sailors in boarding and debarking transport vessels. Many of the trainees pictured would go on to participate in the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Sicily and Southern Italy the following year, and, ultimately, France in 1944.  (Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection)   

From North Carolina's Outer Banks to the Ocean View section of Norfolk to Naval Amphibious Training Base Solomons, Maryland, halfway up the Chesapeake Bay, hundreds more LCVPs and their larger cousins, the Landing Craft, Mechanized (LCMs), Landing Craft, Vehicle (LCVs) and a dozen other variants would perform rough duty loading and landing trainees over and over on beaches throughout the Mid-Atlantic for the duration of the war.  After endlessly bobbing and banging against the transport vessels to load personnel and pounded by the surf disgorging them on local beaches, it became readily apparent that specialized facilities were needed to keep the boats, constructed from five-eighths inch plywood, from falling apart. 

The Naval Landing Force Equipment Depot in Norfolk, one of only two established during the war (the other being in Berkeley, California), began before the war as a small activity known as the Base Material Office on the Naval Operating Base (now known as Naval Station Norfolk) with a staff consisting of eight officers and 271 enlisted personnel.

This 1923 map of Norfolk showing sections of the city south of the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River shows the neighborhood of Newton Park, home to Ford's Norfolk Assembly Plant for over eight decades, except when the facility served as a Naval Landing Craft Equipment Depot during World War II. Norfolk Naval Shipyard in nearby Portsmouth and its St. Helena Annex across the Elizabeth River's Southern Branch can clearly be seen east of the facility. (Courtesy of the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

By June 1942, 738 personnel maintained a pool of 397 new landing craft in their modest five-acre stowage yard and had 32 under repair. They were also training operators who would accompany the landing craft to their new commands.  The hundreds of landing craft converging upon Hampton Roads and the thousands of personnel needed to operate them were overwhelming the small facility, but help arrived in the person of  Henry Ford's son, Edsel, who sold his sprawling vehicle assembly plant along the south bank of the Elizabeth River's Eastern Branch to the Navy for $2 million on September 8, 1942.   

The first Model T to be produced at the brand new assembly plant in Norfolk is pictured with an assortment of local Norfolk city officials, bankers, and businessmen on April 20, 1925. The car was bought by the city and driven off the assembly line by Mayor Seth Tyler. The plant quickly became the largest non-maritime employer in the city. (The Virginian-Pilot Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

The Ford Motor Company invested in a major expansion of infrastructure at their Norfolk plant during the 1930s. The nearly-completed pier seen here in 1938 was designed to offload components and load completed vehicles directly onto ships on the Elizabeth River, but it also proved ideal for loading and unloading landing craft from military vessels in the river during the war.(The Virginian-Pilot Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

Sailors quickly emptied out the three small buildings and stowage yard they maintained at NOB in October and moved 20 miles south into a main building measuring roughly 300 feet by 1,400 feet containing office spaces, a large galley, mess halls, and recreation areas in the southern end, and storerooms, repair shops, classrooms, paint booths on the north end, where as many as 25 railroad cars could be loaded or unloaded under its roof at one time.  The facility was equipped with a practically new 400-foot pier and was surrounded by 65 acres of stowage.  By March 1943, Naval Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet was finally ready to maintain and refurbish the many thousands of landing craft required to prosecute the war in North Africa and Europe. 

In regular operation for only two months, the Naval Landing Force Equipment Depot, made from the former Ford assembly plant in the Newton Park section of South Norfolk, was packed with hundreds of landing craft in various states of repair on May 4, 1943. (National Archives and Records Administration image, Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)   

By October 1943, the depot, which boasted a staff of 1,117 enlisted men led by 70 officers, had repaired or overhauled over 10,000 landing craft, with thousands left to go.  After D-Day, however, the work load eased as more and more landing craft were transferred to the Pacific.  

The Naval Landing Force Equipment Depot at the height of its activity in October 1943.  At the time, 103 landing craft were under repair in the quarter-mile-long assembly building and 1,463 boats (many of which can be seen in the photograph) were available for issue at the sprawling 65-acre stowage yard.  (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)   

The need for such a large depot on the East Coast evaporated after the war, so the Ford Motor Corporation scooped the facility back up from the Navy on February 25, 1946, for $1.6 million–$400,000 less that it had sold it to the Navy for for less than four years earlier.  Nearly that much had to be invested into the empty facility to begin cranking out vehicles again, which it did in August.  The assembly plant continued to produce vehicles of all types, from sedans to trucks to school bus chassis, for decades until the last F-150 rolled off the assembly line there in April 2007. 

The empty interior of the mammoth Navy Landing Force Equipment Depot is shown on January 22, 1946, just before the Ford Motor Company reacquired it on February 25 for $1.6 million, $400,000 less than the company had sold it for in 1942. The company then invested $1.5 million to resume full production of cars, trucks, and school bus chassis later that year. (The Virginian-Pilot Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

On August 7, 1946, the first Ford truck to roll off the assembly line since reacquiring the facility from the Navy is driven by Acting City Manager Henry H. George (left) and Norfolk Mayor James W. Reed. The last of the Ford trucks made in Norfolk, an F-150, would roll off the assembly line in 2007. (The Virginian-Pilot Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

A Fifty-Year Wound

By Captain Alexander G. Monroe, USNR (Ret)
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer

William L.McGonagle (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

On June 11, 1968, in Leutze Park at the Washington Navy Yard, Secretary of the Navy Paul R. Ignatius and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, chief of naval operations, awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Captain William L. McGonagle, commanding officer of USS Liberty (AGTR 5), for performance above and beyond the call of duty on June 8, 1967, when that ill-fated ship was attacked without warning by air and surface craft of the Israel Defense Forces.(1) The travail of that ship and her crew resulted from actions that have never, in the view of many of those who were on board, been truthfully explained by the attackers. However, the medal and many others earned as the result of that confrontation on the high seas are talismans of brave and selfless acts by a host of officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. Navy.


The Humble Origins of a Spy Ship

SS Simmons Victory in New York, 1947. (World Ship Society via navsource.org)

Liberty began her life as SS Simmons Victory, a Victory-class cargo ship built during the Second World War by the Oregon Shipbuilding Company of Portland, Oregon and named for Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. Completed about two months after being laid down, she was delivered to the War Shipping Administration on May 4th, 1945, and performed strategic lift operations under charter to the Pacific Far East Line, to include delivering ammunition from Port Chicago, California to Leyte for the impending invasion of Japan. Japan’s surrender in August obviated the necessity for this operation, and she returned the ammunition to Port Chicago. During the Korean War, she carried out similar duties.  Simmons Victory was withdrawn from service in 1958 and placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Olympia, Washington.

Acquired by the Navy in February 1963, Simmons Valley was converted to a “miscellaneous auxiliary ship,” and commissioned as USS Liberty on December 30, 1964, at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.  She steamed to Norfolk in early 1965 for installation of equipment that would enable her crew to conduct communications surveillance and processing operations for the National Security Agency.  Liberty was assigned to Service Squadron Eight, and following shakedown at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay began deployment to the west coast of Africa to participate in the Navy’s program of research and development in communications. 

USS Liberty (AGTR 5) at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia, in October 1966. USS Waldron (DD 699) is tied up astern of Liberty. (Courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia. Ted Stone Collection. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

Liberty’s operations, and those of other technical research ships such as USS Banner (AGER 1), USS Pueblo (AGER 2), and USS Palm Beach (AGER 3), have retained a somewhat murky, mysterious character, though the role of the National Security Agency as an eavesdropping organization has more recently become publically known. The ships chosen for these missions were older, nondescript cargo vessels of uncertain pedigree that could be easily converted and equipped with costly electronic communications surveillance equipment. Publicly available information shows that, prior to her fateful voyage to the vicinity of the Sinai Peninsula, Liberty made three deployments to the West Coast of Africa between the Canary Islands and the Cape of Good Hope as “a floating research and development ship.”(2)

Into Harm's Way

Liberty’s third deployment was interrupted by orders received during the morning watch on May 24th, 1967 at Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where the ship’s crew was enjoying a liberty port. The ship was ordered to proceed over 3,000 miles at best speed to Rota, Spain. There, she was to take on additional personnel and equipment for sensitive assignments in connection with worsening tensions between the United Arab Republic (present-day Egypt) and the State of Israel. Following an eight-day voyage, Liberty entered Rota, took on stores, equipment, additional linguists and technical personnel, and departed for the Eastern Mediterranean on June 2, 1967. 

Officers and enlisted personnel on board the ship and those in supervisory positions expressed misgivings about the impending mission.  Perhaps it was best expressed by Chief Petty Officer Raymond Linn, who was to retire at the end of June after 30 years’ service. He opined that it was foolhardy to send an unarmed ship, a spy ship, into such a potential maelstrom. Chief Linn proved all too prescient, as he would become one of 34 crewmen who would die in the attack. Others at higher levels expressed uncertainty, and Cdr. McGonagle made a request for a destroyer type escort.  The request was denied for, among other reasons, the ship had every right to be where she was and was clearly identifiable as a United States Ship. Finally, it was assumed that the ship could withdraw from danger if need be.

The intensity of hostilities during what would become known the Six Day War was such that those higher up in the chain of command modified operational orders, not simply for USS Liberty, but for all Sixth Fleet ships. In summary, new orders stipulated that areas might be modified based on “the local situation” and that the Sixth Fleet Commander was to be advised by flash message of “any threatening actions to you or diversions from schedule necessitated by external threat.” These messages, and those restricting a closest point of approach to 20 (and later, 100) miles from the hostile coast, did not reach Liberty. 

Prior to reaching the operating area, Cdr. McGonagle had met with Lt. Cmdr. Dave Lewis, Liberty’s Research Department director, to confirm that it was absolutely necessary to be as close to the Gaza Strip as set forward in orders to execute the mission.  McGonagle had also instituted a “modified” weapons condition three steaming watch that placed ammunition and extra personnel at the forward .50 caliber gun mounts.

A painting of USS Liberty, Oil on Silk; Artist Unknown; C. 1967. (Gift of Ms. Cindy McGonagle,  Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Liberty arrived off the city of El Arish, about 30 miles west of the Gaza Strip on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula, just after midnight on June 8th, 1967.  There, a tale of bravery, perseverance and sacrifice, unique in the annals of the U.S. Navy, would play out.  By late morning she had been overflown by multiple aircraft, both ungainly “flying boxcar” Noratlas 2501 types, and fighter bombers.  One of the boxcars reportedly had Star of David markings. It was, in the words of one of the officers of the deck, Ens. John Scott, a beautiful day, and the American flag was clearly visible. All crewmembers later queried agreed that the flag was clearly visible prior to and during the attack. Some members of the crew even sunbathed on deck before a General Quarters drill was held at 1300 that afternoon.

About one hour later, a savage air attack began and in the words of then-Lieutenant George Golden, Liberty’s chief engineer, “all hell broke loose.” Repeated strafing by Mirage III fighters and Mystere fighter-bombers left the bridge in shambles, with the navigator dead, the executive officer mortally wounded, and the officer of the deck and the commanding officer severely wounded. The ship’s bridge area was in flames from burning napalm, and the superstructure was repeatedly penetrated by rocket fire.  Years later, Golden recounted that three flags, including a large "holiday ensign," were raised and shot away.(3)  A shipyard survey later tabulated 821 holes made in Liberty’s hull, deck, and superstructure.

Cdr. William McGonagle is seen here in his cabin aboard USS Liberty on June 11, 1967, three days after an Israeli attack crippled his ship. A hole from one of the hundreds of rounds that penetrated the ship can be seen just to McGonagle's left.  (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

During the initial attack, the forward .50 caliber machine gun positions were destroyed and the crews killed. Communications antennae were destroyed, and the ship was quickly rendered defenseless and mute. The air assault was followed by a surface engagement in which three Israeli torpedo boats rapidly closed in and launched torpedoes, one of which made a 40-foot gash, starboard side amidships, flooding the Research Department spaces and killing all inside. 

Amid the massive, sudden destruction, the well-trained crew responded with instinctive professionalism and consummate bravery. Lt. Richard Kiepfer, the ship’s doctor, rescued those wounded from exposed decks at great risk to himself.  Helmsman Francis Brown remained at his post, despite heavy shelling, until he was killed by a projectile that struck him from behind. Executive Officer (XO) Phillip Armstrong was fatally injured by strafing as he jettisoned 50-gallon gasoline drums from the bridge. Everywhere crewmen performed gallantly, to include those initially temporarily overcome by fear. Dr. Kiepfer, though wounded himself, operated in a vain attempt to save Gary Blanchard, a young seaman from Kansas.

During the initial attack, radiomen were able to send a distress message which was received on board the carrier Saratoga (CVA 60) using jury rigged equipment, but the signal was jammed intermittently. Rescue ships and aircraft did not reach the ship during the long and perilous night. Cdr. McGonagle, fortified by black coffee and assisted by relays of underway officers of the deck, remained on the bridge guiding the ship at night by observing Polaris, for the gyrocompass had been rendered useless. Ens. John Scott, Damage Control Assistant, personally surveyed the ship, monitored damage reports from his subordinates and supervised shoring of the bulkheads of the research space to prevent its collapse.

USS Liberty (AGTR 5) receives assistance from units for the Sixth Fleet after she was attacked by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967.  An Sh-3 helicopter hovers near her bow. (U.S. Navy photograph via Wikimedia Commons) 

USS Davis (DD 937), flagship for Commander, Destroyer Squadron Twelve (COMDESRONTWELVE), received message traffic suggesting that the Liberty had been attacked, and the ship responded to emergency orders of Commander Sixth Fleet that she proceeded at top speed, in company with USS Massey (DD 778), to the stricken ship some 500 miles away. At first light on June 9, the destroyers found, according to Lt. (later Rear Admiral) Paul Tobin, a powerless ship covered with marks of battle damage, scorch marks, and a ten degree starboard list. "The reality of the situation struck home as we climbed aboard and looked at the faces of the men," wrote Lt. Hubert Strachwitz of the Davis in a letter to his wife. “No Hollywood makeup man nor actor could ever produce those faces," he went on.  "There were sunken eyes, bristly, dirty faces dark bloodstains, ripped clothes covered with oil and charcoal. There were no hysterics, no crying, no cursing—just tired bodies trying to do necessary jobs."(4)

The major evolutions required were providing medical care for the wounded, removing the dead, restoring power and stability to the ship, so that the ship could reach a safe port. Capt. Harold Leahy, COMDESRON TWELVE, came aboard and climbed to the shattered bridge where the commodore gently offered to take command of the Liberty. After consulting with Dr. Kiepfer and Dr. Peter Flynn, a general surgeon airlifted to Massey from USS America (CVA 66), he chose not to with the understanding that the captain lay below to rest. Kiepfer opined then as he did later to the board of inquiry, that Capt. McGonagle was a key ingredient—a rock upon which the rest of the men supported themselves—in the survival of the Liberty. In so doing, he had earned the right to bring her safely into port. Lt. Tobin and Lt. Cmdr. William Pettyjohn, COMDESRONTWELVE chief of staff, came on board to give temporary assistance to the engineering force and assume the duties of executive officer.

Cdr. McGonagle points out damage inflicted on Liberty's superstructure during the Israeli attack off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967. The photograph was taken on June 16, two days after arriving at Valletta, Malta, for repairs. (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

The next pressing task was to restore power and stability to the ship. Lt. Tobin and Lt. Cmdr. Pettyjohn, together with the Liberty’s crew, augmented by engineering and damage control rates, began the daunting task. Later, Tobin observed that it was good to work with the crew, for they had detailed knowledge of the layout of the darkened ship and its equipment.  He also recalled that they were infused with new energy by their newly arrived comrades.(5)

By careful study of data at hand, such as the liquid loading diagram, it was determined that the list could be corrected, and the transfer of remaining fuel to port tanks was successful. Concurrently, the propulsion plant was surveyed and electric power was gradually restored after a diesel generator was started and wiring repaired. The ship was determined to be as seaworthy as possible and it was shown that, although there was much freestanding water throughout the ship, there was sufficient righting arm to enable it to recover from rolls in heavy weather.  It was thought that the keel was intact.(6)

At Valletta, Malta, after arriving there for repair of damages received when she was attacked by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967. She arrived at Malta on June 14, 1967. Note torpedo hole in her side, forward of the superstructure. Photographed by Photographer's Mate1st Class J.J. Kelly, USN. (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

After critical systems were restored and Liberty no longer seemed in danger of sinking, the decision was made to raise steam and make the transit to Malta, 1,000 miles away.  Lt. Cmdr. Pettyjohn, acting as temporary XO, established regular steaming watches and a regular underway routine. As time elapsed, the ship’s operating systems, such as her gyroscopic compass and fire and flushing water, were restored. The restoration of lighting and ventilation had earlier brought about an improvement in morale and wellbeing. Liberty was accompanied by the ocean going tug USS Papago (ATF 160) whose crew recovered bodies that had drifted though the torpedo hole as well as classified materials. Except for one unnerving night, when the ship encountered heavy weather 150 miles from Malta, the transit was uneventful. Forward bulkheads in the vicinity of the flooded spaces warped and panted. The contents of the adjacent compartments were removed and jettisoned and additional shoring placed. The weather moderated, and on June 14, with Cdr. McGonagle on the bridge at the conn, the ship entered Grand Harbor, Valetta, Malta, with Fort Ricasoli on the port beam.

USS Liberty arrives at Valletta, Malta, after arriving on June 14, 1967, for repair of damages received when she was attacked by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula six days before. Photographed by Photographer's Mate1st Class J.J. Kelly, USN. (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

Liberty spent the mid-summer of 1967 dry docked in Malta, where the remains of those who died in the Research Department spaces were removed, and a board of inquiry under Rear Admiral Isaac S. Kidd, Jr., was convened.  A new permanent XO, Lt. Cmdr. Donald L. Burson, formerly the operations officer in USS Aucilla (AO 56), a Norfolk-based fleet oiler, arrived to replace Lt. Cmdr. Philip Armstrong, who had been killed in the attack.(7)  It was a period for recollection of the ordeal, decompression and relaxation, as well as poignant tasks such as writing to the survivors of those lost, undertaken in an instinctively kind, gentle way by the skipper, assisted by Ens. Patrick O’Malley. The chief engineer, Lt. George Golden, remembered that when he and the skipper went to a party, the captain expressed some reluctance to leave, and when he did return to his room, “wept.”(8)  Liberty left Valetta in company with Papago and arrived at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek on July 29, 1967.

William McGonagle, as noted, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on June 11, 1968, after his promotion to captain. The newspaper account of the ceremony noted that after Navy Secretary Ignatius placed the award around his neck, McGonagle “wept.”(9)  Three days later, he travelled to Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where Liberty was moored, pending a decision about her future. He conferred various awards, such as silver stars and the bronze star, to surviving crew members for heroism under fire. Others had already left the command. The magnitude of the crew’s bravery is evinced by the sheer number of personal awards given after Liberty’s return: one medal of honor, two navy crosses, 11 silver stars, nine navy commendation medals, and 204 purple hearts among a crew of 294.(10)

Liberty’s final act occurred on June 28, 1968, when she was decommissioned. Under clear skies, Lt. Cmdr. Burson, who had relieved Capt. McGonagle, gave brief remarks and Capt. Charles J. Beers, commander of the Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility, read the inactivation orders, the colors were lowered, and the 83 remaining crew members left the ship. (11)

Demise of Surface Intelligence Collection

The decommissioning occurred about five months after the capture of the USS Pueblo (AGER 2) while conducting a similar intelligence gathering mission off the North Korean coast. The crew was interned under brutal conditions for nearly a year. Two such episodes so close together impaired the prestige and standing of the United States and exposed brave crews to death and extended torture. The court of inquiry on the Pueblo incident, in contrast to the Liberty board of inquiry conducted by Rear Adm. Kidd, conducted lengthy deliberations and uncovered defects in program execution, such as lack of a plan to assist the ship in the case of unanticipated emergency. The most telling flaw was the assumption that ships engaged in such sensitive operations in international waters were immune from interference. The abrupt collapse of that assumption led Navy Secretary John Chafee to set aside the recommended court martial for the Pueblo’s commanding officer and punishments for those higher in the chain of command. The AGTR and AGER programs were eliminated, and Lt. Cmdr. Burson went from being the last commanding officer of USS Liberty to also being the last commanding officer of USS Palm Beach (AGER 3), which was stricken from the Navy Register on December 1, 1969

For Many, a Catastrophe without Closure

The end of the Liberty’s short career as a “spy ship” and the denouement of much of the Navy’s surface intelligence gathering activities came about two years after the attack. In its wake, uncertainty and residual bitterness remained among former Liberty crewmembers, including Capt. McGonagle, those who conducted the investigation, and former high-ranking government officials such as Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The attack was savage and repeated against key defensive and ship control/communications spaces and facilities. Liberty was much larger than the SS Quseir, the Egyptian livestock carrier for which the Israeli government concluded she had been mistaken. The question remains, why would such assets have been used against a livestock ship? The best summation of the attack was perhaps made by retired Rear Adm. Paul Tobin, who played a key role in steaming the ship to Malta.  He pointed out that the Israeli attack was made against a ship that was in international waters, was freshly painted, had large, clearly painted hull beading and was adorned with sophisticated antennae. To Tobin, it was unbelievable that unsupervised pilots made repeated attacks on a defenseless ship.(12)  It must be the governing evaluation until and unless the government of the State of Israel makes a truthful disclosure of the facts, as Capt. McGonagle requested in an excellent oral history conducted by former Naval History and Heritage Command historian Tim Frank, two years before McGonagle’s death in 1999.

A privately-produced button in the collection of the Naval History
and Heritage Command. (Courtesy of Richard K. Smith, 1978)

The attack on the ship and her brave crew and its residuals may have one overriding meaning. It is, as a Norfolk Virginian-Pilot editorial page writer opined in July, 1967, that “the arrival here today of the USS Liberty is a sobering reminder to this Navy community that no ship that clears this port is assured of returning with her hull intact and all her crewmen alive and uninjured….”(13)

Notes:

1. “Liberty Skipper Gets Medal of Honor,” New York Times, June 12, 1968, 4.
2. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Liberty III (AGTR 5), 1964-1970 
3. Descriptions of the attack and its aftermath were in part taken from a tape recording of an oral presentation by Lt. Cmdr. George Golden, USN (Ret.) to an audience at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. The tape was found and the contents abstracted by the author.
4. James Scott, Attack on the Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2009), 127.
5. The order and priority of tasks that had to be accomplished are set forward in a thorough professional note written by then-Cdr. Paul Tobin, USN. This note was contained in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings in December, 1978. Rear. Adm. Tobin shared further details with the author in a telephone interview on April 6, 2017.
6. Telephone interview with Rear Adm. Paul Tobin by the author, April 6, 2017. 
7. In an e-mail to the author Cdr. Burson noted that his tour was a “learning experience.”
8. See Note 3.
9. See Note 1. 
10. “Retiring ‘Liberty,’ But Mostly Her Men, Honored,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, June 15, 1968, 7.
11. "'Liberty' Flag Lowered," Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, June 29, 1968, 13. 
12. The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Spy Ship, Book Review by Rear Adm. Paul Tobin, USN (Ret), U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 2002. 
13. “Welcome Liberty,” editorial, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, July 29, 1967, 8.

About the author: Captain Alexander "Sandy" Monroe, a retired surface warfare officer, is the author of official histories on U.S. Atlantic Command counternarcotic operational assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies and the treatment of Haitian asylum seekers at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was also dispatched to the Arabian Gulf on assignment for the director of naval history during Operation Earnest Will.

Editor's note: This and every HRNM blog post by a contributing writer reflects the opinions and core beliefs of the writer and should not be construed as representing the official policies or opinions of the museum, the Department of the Navy, or the United States Government.

Before the Pearl Harbor Attack, the "Sleeping Giant" was Actually Hard at Work in Hampton Roads

Each year the first week of December is one in which the mass media dutifully reminds the American public of the infamous Japanese attack upon American military facilities on the island of Oahu and the over 2,000 Americans who perished on December 7, 1941.  One way to do that is to broadcast documentaries and feature films about it.  One of them, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), has for generations taught the public about the attack.  In an iconic scene near the end of the movie, the architect of the successful attack, Admiral Isoruoku Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura), ruefully opines afterward, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."

Note that this message that reached Naval Air Station Norfolk on the afternoon of December 7, 1941, is devoid of details.  It gets straight to the point, merely instructing all recipients to "EXECUTE WPL FORTY SIX (Also known as War Plan Rainbow Five) AGAINST JAPAN."  War Plan Rainbow Five, a highly detailed set of instructions on how to respond to a specific attack scenario in a particular geographic area, had been promulgated to the fleet by Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark on May 26, 1941.  On November 27, Stark issued a "war warning" to all American naval forces in the Pacific to "[e]xecute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46." A young naval officer from Tennessee named William B. Wingo was Officer of the Day (OOD) when this message reached NAS Norfolk.  He served another two decades in the Navy, active and reserve, while making Norfolk his home for another half-century.  He died in 1994.  (Courtesy the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library)

The apocryphal line says less about what Yamamoto really said aboard the Japanese battleship Nagato in December 1941 and more about the beliefs of some Hollywood producers and writers nearly three decades later.  With this in mind it seems that they believed that Americans collectively refused to get involved in the war until after American territory was attacked.   But was America really so "America First" in 1941?  Some academics and reporters seem to think so, 75 years on.  A recent Florida State University news release called the attacks “a brutal salvo that forced the United States into the fray of World War II,” and a national security writer for US News and World Report recently wrote of the attack's significance: “Pearl Harbor was supposed to serve as a lesson that American popular disapproval for going to war should not have allowed its government to fail in preparing for one.”

This widely held assumption about prewar American ill-preparedness ignores abundant evidence that thousands if not millions of Americans had been actively preparing the nation for a war that presidents from Theodore Roosevelt onward to his cousin Franklin knew the nation had to be ready for. And ready, the nation was. You would be hard pressed to find a better example of this prewar preparation than in Hampton Roads, where by mid-1941, one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the nation was already at war.  In fact, local shipyard workers and Sailors had been preparing since President Herbert Hoover ordered a significant part of the Atlantic Squadron transferred from Norfolk to the Pacific in 1931 during his administration’s Asia pivot to counter Japanese expansionism. 

Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1941 was bustling with activity, just as it had been for several years, with the battleship Alabama (BB-60) under construction and several other battleships, including USS New York (BB-34), undergoing modernization. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

The shift of so many ships from Norfolk had hit the local economy pretty hard at first, just as the Great Depression was entering its darkest days.  Rents and the cost of living dropped over 20 percent over the next few years, yet by 1935, they started to rise again, thanks to shipyard and construction  jobs springing up in the defense sector.  Because of the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Vinson-Trammell Act during the decade preceding the Pearl Harbor attack, not to mention the Naval Act of 1938, Norfolk Navy Yard and what is now Newport News Shipbuilding spent the decade making up for the warship tonnage lost as a result of Hoover’s Asia pivot, hiring many thousands in the process.  Norfolk Navy Yard built nine destroyers during the 1930s as its workforce expanded to 7,625 by September 1, 1939, when World War II actually began in Europe.  By 1940, 1,000 employees were being added to the shipyard’s rolls every month.  Newport News Shipyard increased from 6,500 workers in 1935 to more than 10,000 in 1940. 

Still being painted before her first war deployment, USS Indiana (BB-58) is shown here in September 1942 off Old Point Comfort, with Fort Monroe and the Chamberlin Hotel in the background. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Throughout 1941, the naval expansion was bearing fruit. On February 1, after an 18-year hiatus, the United States Atlantic Fleet was resurrected as a command under Admiral Ernest King. By mid-March, King commanded 159 ships.  By October 20, when the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV-8), built at Newport News Shipbuilding, was commissioned under the command of Capt. Marc A. "Pete" Mitscher, the Atlantic Fleet had more than doubled, to 355 ships.  The battleship Indiana (BB-58) was launched in Newport News on November 21, while her sister ship Alabama (BB-60) was only a few months away from launching in Norfolk when news of the Pearl Harbor attack broke over local radio at a little after 2 pm on December 7.  

This aerial photograph of Sewells Point shows the nearly complete landing field at Naval Air Station Norfolk on May 13, 1941, located on 1,041 acres of newly-acquired land between Mason Creek at lower right and the rapidly disappearing Boush Creek (spelled “Bush” on some older maps) in the middle of the photograph, which once separated the new runways from the original Naval Operating Base area and older Chambers Field runways in the background. Newport News can be seen on the horizon. Boush Creek would completely disappear during subsequent construction and the mouth of Mason Creek would be covered by the rapidly expanding air station. The project was spearheaded by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News, which was awarded on June 29, 1940, the largest construction contract in Norfolk’s history up to that time, ultimately totaling almost $75 million. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

As seen from the control tower at Naval Air Station Norfolk (which was still under construction at the time) on May 28, 1941, the first aircraft touches down on the new landing field being built by the Virginia Engineering Corporation of Newport News.  (Hampton Roads Naval Museum Photograph)

During 1940 and 1941, the Naval Operating Base at Sewells Point was virtually doubling in size with the acquisition of land for a new South Annex. Naval Air Station Norfolk had also added about 1,500 acres of runways to the east of the base in the past year and a half, absorbing even Norfolk's old commercial airport. Between 1938 and 1941, NAS Norfolk had already provided aircrews, material, maintenance, training and repair capability for two carriers built in Newport News during the 1930s, Ranger (CV-4), and Yorktown (CV-5), as well as the aircraft carrier Wasp (CV-7).
 
Among the six battle-weary British warships that paid call in Hampton Roads for vital repairs during the summer of 1941, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious had arrived for repairs and structural modifications at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on May 12, so British pilots from Illustrious and a sister ship, HMS Formidable, which arrived August 25, were likely some of the first to benefit from the major expansion of the air station’s runways and hangars, as well as its aircraft testing and repair facilities, that were completed that summer. Royal Navy Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived to take command of Illustrious at a ceremony at the yard on August 28, 1941. Norfolk was only one of the locations Lord Mountbatten visited on his speaking tour across the America, professing his belief to the consternation of some senior American military leaders that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to surprise attack. Both carriers left the area for Europe, reinvigorated and ready for battle, shortly after the official American entry into the war.

In addition to the major expansion of existing naval facilities in the area, new bases which still serve the fleet today came into being during the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack.  Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek had been commissioned on September 2, and Anti-Aircraft training and Test Center, Dam Neck, was completed on November 29, 1941.  Within months, work would also begin on another new facility, Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, which would train members of some of the Navy's first Mobile Construction Battalions, known later as Seabees.

More ships, planes, shore stations and runways meant that more Sailors were needed in a hurry, and recruits were being brought to Hampton Roads in exponentially larger numbers. By 1940, the traditional areas of downtown Norfolk open to Sailors could no longer hold them. The downtown Norfolk YMCA, for example, recorded 213,000 more Sailors entering its doors than it had just a year earlier. In addition to the hordes of single Sailors, Rear Adm. Joseph K. Taussig, who as commandant of the Fifth Naval District led the effort to prepare Naval Operating Base Norfolk for the Second World War, estimated that there were 7,500 married Navy personnel with over 22,000 dependents in the area, not accounting for those who wanted also to bring their families to the area but could not for want of housing.  In response he and Rear Adm. Ben Moreel, head of the Bureau of Yards and Docks (and later the founder of the Seabees), launched the first Navy efforts to construct housing for its own enlisted members on a large scale.

Although the evidence is clear that preparations for war were in full swing by late-1941, it would be no exaggeration to say that, at least for the United States Navy, an undeclared war with Germany had already begun. German U-boats were prowling off the east coast, dodging the neutrality patrols that had been instituted under the order of President Roosevelt in 1939. The destroyer Greer (DD-145) had narrowly missed being torpedoed in September 1941 after chasing a German submarine with the help of British planes. In response, Roosevelt had issued “shoot on sight” orders for all US vessels on patrol. He then ordered that destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet relieve their British counterparts on convoy escort duty to Iceland, escalating the potential for armed hostilities between American destroyers of the new Support Force and German submarines. On October 17, seven Sailors were killed when the Norfolk-based destroyer Kearny (DD-432) sustained a torpedo hit, and on the 31st, USS Reuben James (DD-245) sank into the frigid waters off Iceland after a torpedo attack, taking 115 of her crew with her. Although actual declarations of war would be voted upon by Congress against Japan and the other Axis powers about seven weeks later, it is safe to say that Hampton Roads was already playing the role it would play throughout the war for months, if not years, beforehand.
 
December 7 is a time to remember those who lost their lives in America’s far-flung Pacific outposts after one of the worst tactical intelligence failures in American history, yet should we not also bring to remembrance those who paved the path to victory, and paid the ultimate price, before that fateful morning? Their hard work and sacrifice made it possible to bomb Tokyo a little over four months later and strategically turn the tide of the war only two months after that (something Adm. Yamamoto actually predicted could happen), and place victorious American troops firmly in control of the Japanese home islands less then four years later. Improvement in intelligence collection and analysis deservedly receives credit for the victory at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor, but without the "giant" building, modernization, and expansion programs begun years before the Pearl Harbor attack, much of which were carried out in Hampton Roads, that intelligence would not have been actionable.

Pier side scene taken from USS Ranger (CV-4) at Naval Operating Base Norfolk on September 20, 1941, showing a Grumman J2F-5 "Duck" being hoisted from the pier. Note spare SOC-1 floats (foreground); Grumman F4F -3s in background. Ship at upper right is USS WYOMING (AG-17); unidentified AO is at near right. Also note family members on pier (lower right) and civilian trucks at various points on the pier. Although the largest carrier in the Atlantic Fleet, because of her size and capability, Ranger never joined the fight against Japan. (Naval History and Heritage Command Image)