The Navy and Norfolk Come to Blows Over Illegal Drinking, 1931

The battleship USS Mississippi (BB-40) arrived at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1931 for a two-year modernization overhaul. As the ship would be laid up for an extended period of time, sailors had a bit more liberty time than normally allowed. 

USS Mississippi at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1933

Thus it came to the attention of Captain Henry Brinser, Mississippi's commanding officer, that an unusual number of the battleship's sailors were being arrested by the City of Norfolk police for patronizing illegal speakeasies. Even worse, Brinser was informed that the speakeasies had been aggressively marketing to his sailors with advertising cards. Noticing that the Norfolk police were more interested in arresting sailors than in shutting down the illegal drinking establishments, Brinser went public with the problem. Completely ignoring his own chain-of-command, Brinser informed the local papers about the situation. 

He stated he had previously been "warned about conditions existing in Norfolk adversely affecting the service of the Norfolk personnel." He also stated that within six hours of Mississippi docking in Hampton Roads, the ship's company knew where to go drinking. He further accused the Norfolk police of targeting sailors for entrapment. Though Brinser did not check with senior leadership before making such serious charges, Rear Admiral Guy Burrage, the Navy's senior shore officer for Hampton Roads, essentially agreed with the captain. He noted that the Navy, and not local police, had to shut down speakeasies located near

Walke Truxtun, city manger
 of Norfolk in 1931 and
great-grandson of

Commodore Thomas Truxtun

Naval facilities. It had been local Navy policy since 1918 that no drinking estasblishment be allowed within five miles of a Hampton Roads naval facility.

Henry Brinser, commanding

officer of Mississippi in 1931

Burrage and Brinser's accusations were serious charges that threatened the important relationship between the City of Norfolk and the region's largest employer. Since the building of the naval base in 1918, Norfolk attempted to foster the relationship more closely by placing men with Navy backgrounds in high leadership positions. A case-in-point was Walke Truxtun, the city manager at this time. He was a World War I veteran of the Navy and came from a family of senior Naval officers. His father was William Truxtun, one time commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard and veteran of the Civil War, and his great-grandfather was the legendary Commodore Thomas Truxtun.

Acting shocked and outraged by the accusations, Truxtun demanded to know from both Burrage and Brinser where they got such information. Promising a full investigation into police corruption, he noted that "only 35 sailors" were currently in Norfolk jails for Volstead Act violations. This promise was not good enough for the Navy. Burrage threatened to declare much of Norfolk "out of bounds" for sailors.

Congressman Menalcus
Lankford (R-VA)

The controversy reached the desks of senior Naval leadership in Washington. Rear Admiral John Halligan, assistant chief of naval operations, stated to reporters that there was no need for Washington to get involved and that the Department had full confidence in Burrage to do as he saw fit. Seeing that the Navy's higher-ups were not going to intervene, Congressman Menalcus Lankford (R-VA) arrived from Washington to meditate. Norfolk represented a large portion of Lankford's district and he no doubt saw local economical repercussions of a rift with the Navy.

Lankford's intervention succeeded in cooling down tempers. Truxtun agreed to investigate the alleged police corruption and end the harassment of sailors. He also agreed to a Navy demand that if Norfolk police arrested any sailor on a misdemeanor charge, they would turn the sailor over to the Navy for trial through Navy justice.

Captain William De Valin and the Party of the Year, 1925

In October 1925, the commanding officer of the Norfolk Navy Yard decided to have a Halloween party at the officers' club. He invited all of the region's senior Naval and Marine officers to attend and told them it was going to be a costume party. To make the party truly a party, he needed alcohol. Being that this was the era of Prohibition, legally obtaining such beverages was hard to do.

Fortunately for party goers, one officer in Hampton Roads oversaw the largest supply of legal alcohol in the area, Captain William De Valin, commanding officer of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital. The Volstead Act, the Federal law that officially made the transportation, production, and possession of alcohol a crime, provided for two exceptions: religious use (i.e. wine for Holy Communion) and medicinal purposes. Although the American Medical Association denounced the use of alcohol as a valid treatment option, the medical community had long used whiskey and other hard liquors as antiseptics and analgesics. During Prohibition, patients seeking hard liquor for such purposes had to get a special prescription. Much of Dr. De Valin's supply came from seized contraband found on Navy ships that had attempted to bootleg whiskey and champagne into NOB Norfolk from the West Indies. Once the trial of the accused bootleggers was over, Naval authorities often transferred the booze over to the Hospital.

Since this was a costume party, the commanding officer of the Navy Yard's Marines, Colonel Henry Davis, came dressed as Sunbonnet Sue, a popular quilting pattern and children's book character. De Valin came dressed as a Scottish bagpiper and, more importantly, brought with him several pints of whiskey and champagne.

All of the guests partook of the liquor and, by all accounts, the party was a huge success. After a few drinks, Davis and De Valin entertained the guests with their best rendition of Scottish highland dances. One person, however, thought De Valin was having too much fun. Commander Robert Heiner, De Valin's executive officer, believed his boss to be out of control. After the party was over, he filed charges against De Valin.

One of the costumes depicted Sunbonnet
Sue, a popular children's book and quilting
pattern. 

Heiner accused De Valin not only of being drunk, but of using the Hospital's supply of liquor improperly and groping women at the party. He also charged that De Valin was so drunk that he attempted to put pajamas on a horse. When the accusation reached the desk of Secretary of the Navy Curtis Wilbur, this former chief justice of the California Supreme Court was not pleased. While denying that he was on a crusade to completely rid the Navy of all liquor, Wilbur nonetheless was not happy with constant reports of bootlegging and misuse of liquor by the Navy's Medical Corps. He personally ordered an investigation into the party and De Valin's actions. Enough evidence was discovered and the Secretary ordered a formal court-martial for May 1926.

Ironically, though it was well-known that every officer at the party drank, none of them were charged with violating the Volstead Act. Indeed, the Navy only accused De Valin of misuse of the Hospital liquor supply and actions unbecoming an officer. The charge of dressing up the horse was never brought up (De Valin later claimed to a newspaper reporter, however, that he was simply fixing the bandages on the horse's legs).

The trial brought up all the embarrassing events of that fateful night: the booze, the wild costumes, the dancing, and the alleged groping. Heiner testified that this party was not the first time his commanding officer raided the Hospital's liquor cabinet. He claimed that De Valin would also take some during hunting trips in the Virginia countryside. Colonel Davis and Commander Charles Blakely, commanding officer of the battleship USS Texas (BB-35), came to De Valin's defense. They both claimed that De Valin was not drunk and, while he danced with several women, he never touched them improperly. Of course, upon cross examination, Commander Blakely did admit that he personally advised De Valin that his actions were questionable and that he should leave the party.

The panel cleared De Valin of the more serious charges of conduct unbecoming an officer, but it did find him guilty of misusing the Hospital's liquor supply. For that, the court punished him by demoting him down several ranks on the promotion list. Sensing also that Heiner and De Valin had serious personal issues with each other, Wilbur transferred De Valin to the Naval hospital in Philadelphia.

Bootlegging Whiskey at NOB Norfolk, 1925

USS Beaufort tied up at NOB Hampton Roads shortly after being raided by base Marines looking for illegal liquor,  1925.  Beaufort made several runs between Norfolk and the West Indies to provide supplies to Atlantic Fleet warships conducting combat exercises in the Caribbean Sea. 

The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect on January 17, 1920, prohibiting the sale, transport, or manufacturing of "intoxicating liquors" in the United States. With the passage of this amendment, Americans began to bootleg illegal liquor into the United States. Indeed, even the U.S. Navy was not immune to such lawbreaking.

Rear Admiral Roger Welles, commanding
officer of Naval Operating Base Hampton
Roads in 1925.

In the early to mid-1920s, transport ships of the Atlantic Fleet made several runs between the West Indies and Hampton Roads to provide supplies to warships conducting exercises in the Caribbean. Rear Admiral Roger Welles, commanding officer of Naval Operating Base Hampton Roads (present-day Naval Station Norfolk) received an anonymous tip that one of the transport vessels returning to Norfolk, USS Beaufort, was carrying several hundred gallons of whiskey on board. When Beaufort pulled into NOB, Welles immediately ordered his Marine detachment to storm the ship and search the vessel.

The tip turned out to be true, as the Marines found forty cases of whiskey in various places on the ship, including the officers' staterooms. The Marine raid was not fast enough, however, as Sailors got some of the whiskey off the ship. Upon learning this, Welles ordered the entire base placed on lockdown. The Marines searched all cars leaving the base and tapped every phone line. The Marines took all of the whiskey seized from the ship and the extra searches to the basement of the base's administration building and placed it under armed guard.

Rumors flew around the base regarding Admiral Welles' knowledge of the contraband. Officers and sailors told the Washington Post that there was a squealer somewhere, trying to curry favor with the higher ranks. Some stated that it was not a fellow Navy man, but a civilian woman. The newspaper dismissed these rumors and the alleged snitch was never found.

As a result of the incriminating alcoholic evidence, Welles had all of Beaufort's officers placed under house arrest and confined to the base's barracks. This was not the first time Marines caught the Beaufort carrying illegal liquor. In an earlier case, they found thirty cases of whiskey on board. However, no one was charged and the whiskey was turned over to the Portsmouth Naval Hospital for "medicinal" purposes (which was legal under the Volstead Act).

When investigators finished their preliminary work, the Navy charged Beaufort's commanding officer, Commander David Fuller; his executive officer, Lieutenant William Hatch; Lieutenant Roland Hill, three chief petty officers, and one junior petty officer for trafficking the whiskey. In their defense, the officers claimed that a search for contraband was conducted. However, the prosecution noted that the Marines found some of the whiskey in the officers' staterooms. To that charge, Lieutenant Hatch stated that he asked his fellow officers about having any liquor and it was "a custom of the Navy to accept the word of an officer."

In the end, the court-martial board convicted four men-Lieutenants Hill and Hatch, the ship's chief pay clerk, and a machinist petty officer. It found them all guilty of violating the Volstead Act and for having liquor aboard a U.S. Naval vessel, which was a crime long before Prohibition. The Navy had been "dry" since 1914, when Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels issued Order Number 99. The Navy punished the officers by demoting them on the seniority list for promotion (effectively ending their careers) and fined the two enlisted sailors each $40 a month for ten months (almost half their pay).

Old Ironsides Visits Norfolk-1931

This is a 1931 photograph of the legendary frigate USS Constitution in the Elizabeth River.  "Old Ironsides" docked in Norfolk for one week in September.  She berthed at the "Old Indian Wharf," near the Berkley Bridge.  She then sailed to Yorktown for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown.The last time Constitution docked in Norfolk was in 1838 when Commodore Jesse Elliot brought the ship and several dozen Arabian horses, cattle, donkeys, and antiquities home from a Mediterranean cruise. 

The 1931 call was part of a national "thank you" tour.   Because Congress was unwilling to appropriate public funds to restore Constitution in the 1920s (it was in the process of gutting the Navy as a whole), the Navy solicited private donations.  Through  a series of creative funding raising methods done across the United States, $600,000 was raised.

Norfolk Mayor Jeff E. Robertson (at right) pretends (we think) to

give a sample of grog to Norfolk City Attorney John Sebrell, while

on board Constitution.  It looks like the picture was taken in jest,

 as Prohibition was still in effect.

Fundraisers still fell short of their goals, though.  Congress eventually decided to appropriate an additional $300,000 to make up the difference. To thank the American public for its financial and political support of Constitution, Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams arranged for a three-year, coast-to-coast tour for the frigate.  More pictures of Constitution's visit to Norfolk can be found at the Norfolk Public Library's website.