Artifact of the Month: Holiday Menu Cards

 By Diana Gordon
Hampton Roads Naval Museum Educator

The museum's Artifact of the Month display features holiday menus and cards from a variety of ships from the first half of the 20th century. Among those currently on display are menus from the USS Agamemnon (ID 3304), USS Augusta (CA-31), and USS Wisconsin (BB 64). 

The USS Agamemnon was originally called the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II, a German passenger ship, and was seized by the United States during World War I. There was a need for transport ships when the US entered the war so the vessel was used to transport soldiers over to Europe. When the armistice was signed, Agamemnon carried the troops back to Hampton Roads throughout 1919.

The Christmas menu from USS Agamemnon is from 1918, when the ship was readying in Brest, France, to transport soldiers back to the US. The menu cover features traditional holiday motifs: a snowy view, the green holly, and chiming bells, all motifs that would have reminded the crew of home while they enjoyed their Christmas dinner. 

Also on display is a 1931 Christmas menu from USS Augusta, which was used as a presidential flagship at times. Similar to the USS Agamemnon menu card, it displays the traditional holiday motifs--a snowy mountainside with the quiet city below, the blooming holly, and red and green bells.

The display also features several menu cards from USS Wisconsin during different years of the ship's service. One in particular is from Christmas Day in 1951, when the battleship was involved in fire support missions during the Korean War. This card features a non-traditional holiday picture: USS Wisconsin is featured steaming ahead, as Santa Claus (colored in red) descends from a hovering helicopter above. This menu is different as it does not feature motifs of peace and reminders of home, but of humorous times aboard the ship. In addition to the comic cover, the menu presents a list of all the different courses served during the Christmas meal, including Virginia ham, snowflake potatoes, and mincemeat pie.

Stop on by and see the rest of the holiday collection!

USS Augusta (CA-31) in Shanghai, 1937

This image from the 1938 Horrors of War trading card series shows a highly stylized depiction of a tragic event that occurred aboard the Newport News-built light cruiser USS Augusta (CL/CA-31) on August 20, 1937.  A Chinese anti-aircraft shell fell onto the deck amid a group of sailors, killing one and wounding several others. As the flagship of the Asiatic fleet, USS Augusta had put in at Shanghai to observe the Sino-Japanese hostilities and to protect American interests there. The cruiser had sailed to Shanghai a few days after Chinese and Japanese forces started to battle for control of the city near the middle of August. 

Fighting was confused as there were neutral elements in the city (particularly the International Settlement). A few days prior to the errant shell, some Chinese planes had dropped bombs near Augusta, but they exploded harmlessly in the water. Another trading card shows sailors from Augusta helping American refugees flee to a civilian ship that would take them away from Shanghai. The small boat they were on was apparently peppered with shrapnel from bombing attacks on nearby Japanese warships.

The light cruiser stayed on station in Shanghai for several months, observing the fighting, sending intelligence reports to Washington on the Japanese navy, and protecting American interests. Augusta would still be moored there in December, 1937 when survivors of the USS Panay incident spent Christmas on the ship. For more on the Panay, check back for our next blog post. 

USS Augusta (CA 31) and the Atlantic Charter, 1941

One of the valuable items in the museum’s World War II exhibit is the aft steering wheel from USS Augusta (CA 31), shown above. On August 14, 1941, this cruiser witnessed one of the most famous summits of the 20^th century, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter at Argentia, Newfoundland.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill at
the Atlantic Conference, where they signed the Atlantic Charter on August
14, 1941. Left to right: General George S. Marshall, USA; President Roosevelt
(seated); Prime Minister Churchill (seated); Admiral Ernest J. King, USN;
Admiral Harold Stark, USN. (National Archives photograph.)

The complexities of the war situation (in which America was still officially neutral) persuaded Churchill and FDR that the time had come to meet.  In August 1941 the two men set out secretly on naval vessels and rendezvoused, along with their staffs, at the new American naval base at Argentia. The President embarked on the Augusta on August 5 in Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts, transferring to the cruiser from the Presidential yacht Potomac at 0617. For security purposes, the President's flag remained on Potomac in New England waters. A Secret Serviceman, approximating the President in size and affecting the Chief Executive's mannerisms when visible from a distance, played a starring role in the drama. Press releases issued daily from Potomac led all who read them to believe that FDR was really embarked in his yacht on a pleasure cruise.

As for the meeting with Churchill, the most important result was the linking of Britain and America in a moral partnership to defeat the Axis powers and seek political freedom for all people in the postwar world. One participant said that the meeting “gave meaning to the conflict between civilization and arrogant, brute challenge.”

USS Augusta (CA 31) and USS McDougall (DD 358) at Argentia, August 1941.
Seen from HMS Prince of Wales. Note the American and British sailors
mustering together. (NHHC photograph collection.)

As for the Augusta, the heavy cruiser (built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. and launched on February 1, 1930) went on to distinguished service during Operation Torch and the Normandy Invasion. The sturdy veteran, a one-time flagship of the Asiatic Fleet, hosted President Roosevelt again after the Yalta Conference in 1945 and President Truman en route to the Potsdam Conference that same year.

(This blog post was written by HRNM Curator Joe Judge.)

Happy Holidays from USS Augusta (CA-31) and Pittsburgh (ACR-4)

This holiday greeting card comes from the Norfolk-based heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31). Built by Newport News Shipbuilding, Augusta was a well-balanced warship that served as a squadron and fleet flagship for most of her career. She was assigned duty as flagship for Commander, Scouting Force, Vice Admiral Arthur L. Willard, on 21 May 1931. During the summer of 1931, she operated with the other warships of Scouting Force carrying out tactical exercises off the New England coast. In August 1931, she was reclassified a heavy cruiser, CA-31. In September, Augusta moved south to Chesapeake Bay, where she joined her colleagues in their normal fall gunnery drills. That employment lasted until mid-November when the cruisers disbanded and retired to their respective home yards. Augusta entered the Norfolk Navy Yard at that time. At the beginning of 1932, she and the other cruisers of the Scouting Force reassembled in Hampton Roads, whence they departed on 8 January on their way to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Augusta conducted training evolutions with the Scouting Force in the vicinity of Guantanamo Bay until 18 February, when the force headed for the Panama Canal on its way to the eastern Pacific to participate in Fleet Problem XIII. She arrived in San Pedro, Calif., on 7 March but returned to sea three days later to execute the fleet problem. During the maneuvers, Augusta and her colleagues in Scouting Force squared off against Battle Force in defense of three simulated "atolls" located at widely separated points on the west coast. The exercises afforded the Fleet training in strategic scouting and an opportunity to practice defending and attacking a convoy.

The second card is from the Newport News Shipbuilding-built armored cruiser USS Pittsburgh (ex-Pennsylvania) (ACR-4). We are not sure when the card was produced, but the ship was renamed Pittsburgh in 1912 to make room for the giant battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38). Our best guess for this card is between 1917 (when she conducted war patrols) and 1922 (when she served as flagship of the U.S. Navy's European Squadron).