TRANSCRIBED FROM THE NEVADA COUNTY PICAYUNE FEBRUARY 27, 1919 P. 8
To The Picayune:
As I have served in our Navy over fourteen months, I will tell you what we did to win our part of the war.
When the former North German Lloyd liner Kronpring Wilhelm limped into Hampton Roads, Va. to coal and was interned, in the spring of 1915, after about eight months at sea as a German Raider, her officers and crew concluded that her work in the war was done. But they were wrong, as so many millions of their country-men were wrong in the objects for which the Central Empires fought, for the career of the good ship, which couldn’t be blamed for having been made in Germany, wasn’t half finished.
It was her destiny to live down the reputation of having been on the wrong side, and in her service as an auxiliary cruiser and transport for Uncle Sam, to more than make up her damage to the allied cause by the capture of fifteen vessels while a German raider, in carrying thousands of American soldiers to France at the same time acting as a protective convoy for other transports in defying the subs, and occasionally peppering at them with her guns.
The rechristened Kronpring Wilhelm, now the U. S. Von Steuben, which has been a guest of the Morse yard since November 10th, has proven conclusively her right to naturalization as an American of unquestioned patriotism like her great namesake Baron Von Steuben, who came over from Germany to help us in the Revolutionary War.
The Vonnie was taken over by the U. S. Navy in April 1917 and fitted out as an auxiliary in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she was commissioned on June 9, 1917, under Commander Stanford E. Moses. All through the long months in the fall of 1917 the Vonnie and her crew itching for active service at sea, were held in the Navy yard while the work of converting her into an American Naval vessel was in progress.
Many of her staterooms were torn out her furnishings were removed especially any pictures of the Kaiser and Crown Prince that were found. The main dinning salon was converted into a crew’s mess hall and a battery mounted, consisting of eight 5-inch guns, four 3-inch guns, two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and four one-pounders. We made our trial trip the last of September 1917, a short cruise of the coast and a month later started for France with troops. It was a trying voyage that first trip to France for the U-boats were cutting lively capers in those days, and a dash through the zone was not exactly a lark for a crew that was having its first experience with that sort of thing, but we arrived safely, unloaded our troops and beat it home for more. That then became our regular grind across and back across and back nine times in all, becoming rather monotonous for the crew, were it not for an occasional brush with a sub, and varied ___ trip to Balboa, Panama Canal Zone for repairs in January 1918. Xmas dinner was served while the ship lay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba enroute to the Isthimus. While we could actually swear to have seen a ___ but once there were moments of tense excitement on every trip.
General quarters, the battle drill was held every day at sea, and the officers and men at look out stations or guns went through the drill in a manner that boded ill for any U-boat that might have the temerity to pop its periscope above the waves. All was as orderly as a drill when a sailor from one of the guns rang out on the afternoon of June 18, 1918. No Vonnie man will forget that day. Captain Yates Sterling Jr., who succeeded Commander Moses, was on the bridge and to his action, the men gave credit for fooling the lurking sub, which let fly a torpedo that seemed to miss the ship by a matter of a few feet. The Vonnie was returning from France alone at the time, the sub had sunk another ship a short time before we appeared over the horizon and was lying in wait among its victim’s life boats, using them to lure on what it expected would be its second victim. Cap. Sterling not deceived, however, distinguishing between the sub and the life boats, and maneuvering the ship in a manner to dodge the torpedo. In the meanwhile our guns were not idle. They fired broadsides at the periscope. Again and again the ear splitting salvos rang out until it disappeared. Depth bombs were dropped over the stern which resulted in a mighty spout of water which we had the pleasure of seeing several German bodies and then we romped on.
March 5, 1918, while firing at a floating spar, as we had orders to take no chances but to shoot at anything that looked like a sub, a shell exploded killing two of the crew out right and wounding several others. On September 6 th, 1918, when the ship ran into a tropical hurricane, three of the crew were washed overboard and lost. Storms are awful at sea. This lasted 72 hours. We could not sleep or cook a thing to eat. Had to eat hard tack. The water got knee deep in the engine room. We could do nothing but bank the fires and ride it out. It is terrible in a fire room in time of a storm. Our lights all went out and of course some one is always getting hurt or scalded.
One morning in December 19917, the ship was about forty miles off the Nova Scotian coast when the ammunition ship and the Belgian relief vessel rammed each other in Halifax harbor, causing the explosion that wrecked the city. Had we been a few hours earlier our fate would have been that of the shell torn ships we viewed in the harbor, some of which looked as though they had stormed Helegoland or the Kiel Canal. We heard the blast distinctly and the concussion was felt. A cloud of heavy smoke was seen over the horizon, the sound of cannonading was heard, which made the ship tremble. We first thought that subs were busy or a fight was going on. We steamed up and beat it to what we thought was going to be some fun. Land came in view, the cloud of smoke now black, now with puffs of white was seen pouring up behind the low lying hills, we then realized the explosion had been on land, and when a pilot was picked up as the ship neared the harbor, first fragments of the real facts were at hand. Visible evidences of the wholesale destruction caused by the exploding ships, first the wrecked ammunition ship was every where. Part of the ship
THE NEXT FEW LINES ARE BLURRED AND UNREADABLE
were not to look on, however, we were there to aid the stricken people of Halifax and working parties were soon ashore digging in the ruins for bodies, carrying wounded to hospitals an dbringing first aid to the homeless. How well we perofmred our task of mercy was told in the censored news dispatches which praised the work of an American moral vessel and that vessel was our ship. Luck tempered with good judgement on another occasion when our ship collided in the submachine zone with another transport. Although both ships were loaded with troops, not a life was lost. There was not even a panic, for we were trained for the unexpected.
A mere incident also in the list of our exciting exploits was the transfer of nearly 2000 troops from a burning transport at sea, an all night job but we stood by and next morning was off like a greyhound for France at top speed.
For a number of voyages the Vonnie wore a distinctly camouflage, the work of ship painters. The Vonnie had a destroyer painted in black on either side. These two companions looked formidable and businesslike enough at a distance to fool any sub.
The ship boasts of a crack band of twenty-four pieces, which gave concerts twice daily while taking troops over and will undoubtedly take a part in the musical end of the celebrations that will surely be held aboard while they are enroute home. The crew is keen for sports and has a basket ball and baseball team which makes good showing. We also have singing sailors and actors which have staged many a show that was the delight of the troops and visitors. Moving pictures are shown every night.
No story of the Vonnie would be complete without mention of Bill the Goat and Tomatoes, a playful dog, who have proved themselves good sailors and are now old salts. These two are loved in spite of the fact that Bill has a ready appetite for anything that is lying loose around. In justice to Tomatoes it ought to be mentioned that Bill hasn’t really qualified as a mascot, despite his long service, for his digestion balks at cotton waste and the Vonnie black gang (what all firemen are called) declare that a Navy goat that won’t eat cotton waste isn’t there as a sea going mascot. Tomatoes, however, has learned to discriminate between uniforms and refuses to become friends with any but bluejackets. Some soldiers once tried to kidnap and succeeded in getting him ashore, but he found his way back. Shore liberty has no attraction for him.
The Von Steuben was built at Stettin, Germany in 1901. She is 663 feet long with a beam of 66 feet and a depth of 43 feet, has a gross tonnage of 15,000 tons. She has twin screws propelled by two sets of six cylinder, four stage reciprocating engines, each unit having 18,000 indicated horsepower. Her best days run was 549 knots and her fastest passage from New York to Plymoth, England, was made in 5 days, 8 hours, 28 minutes. An average of 2302 knots per hour, she usually carried about 52 officers and 1,450 men.
Yours truly,
Jesse W. Thomas,
U. S. S. Von Steuben.
NOTES: Jesse W. Thomas was born November 5, 1894. He died May 15, 1965 and is buried De Ann Cemetery, Prescott, Nevada County, Arkansas. His military tombstone lists him as S 2 U. S. Navy, World War I.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
To The Picayune:
As I have served in our Navy over fourteen months, I will tell you what we did to win our part of the war.
When the former North German Lloyd liner Kronpring Wilhelm limped into Hampton Roads, Va. to coal and was interned, in the spring of 1915, after about eight months at sea as a German Raider, her officers and crew concluded that her work in the war was done. But they were wrong, as so many millions of their country-men were wrong in the objects for which the Central Empires fought, for the career of the good ship, which couldn’t be blamed for having been made in Germany, wasn’t half finished.
It was her destiny to live down the reputation of having been on the wrong side, and in her service as an auxiliary cruiser and transport for Uncle Sam, to more than make up her damage to the allied cause by the capture of fifteen vessels while a German raider, in carrying thousands of American soldiers to France at the same time acting as a protective convoy for other transports in defying the subs, and occasionally peppering at them with her guns.
The rechristened Kronpring Wilhelm, now the U. S. Von Steuben, which has been a guest of the Morse yard since November 10th, has proven conclusively her right to naturalization as an American of unquestioned patriotism like her great namesake Baron Von Steuben, who came over from Germany to help us in the Revolutionary War.
The Vonnie was taken over by the U. S. Navy in April 1917 and fitted out as an auxiliary in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she was commissioned on June 9, 1917, under Commander Stanford E. Moses. All through the long months in the fall of 1917 the Vonnie and her crew itching for active service at sea, were held in the Navy yard while the work of converting her into an American Naval vessel was in progress.
Many of her staterooms were torn out her furnishings were removed especially any pictures of the Kaiser and Crown Prince that were found. The main dinning salon was converted into a crew’s mess hall and a battery mounted, consisting of eight 5-inch guns, four 3-inch guns, two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and four one-pounders. We made our trial trip the last of September 1917, a short cruise of the coast and a month later started for France with troops. It was a trying voyage that first trip to France for the U-boats were cutting lively capers in those days, and a dash through the zone was not exactly a lark for a crew that was having its first experience with that sort of thing, but we arrived safely, unloaded our troops and beat it home for more. That then became our regular grind across and back across and back nine times in all, becoming rather monotonous for the crew, were it not for an occasional brush with a sub, and varied ___ trip to Balboa, Panama Canal Zone for repairs in January 1918. Xmas dinner was served while the ship lay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba enroute to the Isthimus. While we could actually swear to have seen a ___ but once there were moments of tense excitement on every trip.
General quarters, the battle drill was held every day at sea, and the officers and men at look out stations or guns went through the drill in a manner that boded ill for any U-boat that might have the temerity to pop its periscope above the waves. All was as orderly as a drill when a sailor from one of the guns rang out on the afternoon of June 18, 1918. No Vonnie man will forget that day. Captain Yates Sterling Jr., who succeeded Commander Moses, was on the bridge and to his action, the men gave credit for fooling the lurking sub, which let fly a torpedo that seemed to miss the ship by a matter of a few feet. The Vonnie was returning from France alone at the time, the sub had sunk another ship a short time before we appeared over the horizon and was lying in wait among its victim’s life boats, using them to lure on what it expected would be its second victim. Cap. Sterling not deceived, however, distinguishing between the sub and the life boats, and maneuvering the ship in a manner to dodge the torpedo. In the meanwhile our guns were not idle. They fired broadsides at the periscope. Again and again the ear splitting salvos rang out until it disappeared. Depth bombs were dropped over the stern which resulted in a mighty spout of water which we had the pleasure of seeing several German bodies and then we romped on.
March 5, 1918, while firing at a floating spar, as we had orders to take no chances but to shoot at anything that looked like a sub, a shell exploded killing two of the crew out right and wounding several others. On September 6 th, 1918, when the ship ran into a tropical hurricane, three of the crew were washed overboard and lost. Storms are awful at sea. This lasted 72 hours. We could not sleep or cook a thing to eat. Had to eat hard tack. The water got knee deep in the engine room. We could do nothing but bank the fires and ride it out. It is terrible in a fire room in time of a storm. Our lights all went out and of course some one is always getting hurt or scalded.
One morning in December 19917, the ship was about forty miles off the Nova Scotian coast when the ammunition ship and the Belgian relief vessel rammed each other in Halifax harbor, causing the explosion that wrecked the city. Had we been a few hours earlier our fate would have been that of the shell torn ships we viewed in the harbor, some of which looked as though they had stormed Helegoland or the Kiel Canal. We heard the blast distinctly and the concussion was felt. A cloud of heavy smoke was seen over the horizon, the sound of cannonading was heard, which made the ship tremble. We first thought that subs were busy or a fight was going on. We steamed up and beat it to what we thought was going to be some fun. Land came in view, the cloud of smoke now black, now with puffs of white was seen pouring up behind the low lying hills, we then realized the explosion had been on land, and when a pilot was picked up as the ship neared the harbor, first fragments of the real facts were at hand. Visible evidences of the wholesale destruction caused by the exploding ships, first the wrecked ammunition ship was every where. Part of the ship
THE NEXT FEW LINES ARE BLURRED AND UNREADABLE
were not to look on, however, we were there to aid the stricken people of Halifax and working parties were soon ashore digging in the ruins for bodies, carrying wounded to hospitals an dbringing first aid to the homeless. How well we perofmred our task of mercy was told in the censored news dispatches which praised the work of an American moral vessel and that vessel was our ship. Luck tempered with good judgement on another occasion when our ship collided in the submachine zone with another transport. Although both ships were loaded with troops, not a life was lost. There was not even a panic, for we were trained for the unexpected.
A mere incident also in the list of our exciting exploits was the transfer of nearly 2000 troops from a burning transport at sea, an all night job but we stood by and next morning was off like a greyhound for France at top speed.
For a number of voyages the Vonnie wore a distinctly camouflage, the work of ship painters. The Vonnie had a destroyer painted in black on either side. These two companions looked formidable and businesslike enough at a distance to fool any sub.
The ship boasts of a crack band of twenty-four pieces, which gave concerts twice daily while taking troops over and will undoubtedly take a part in the musical end of the celebrations that will surely be held aboard while they are enroute home. The crew is keen for sports and has a basket ball and baseball team which makes good showing. We also have singing sailors and actors which have staged many a show that was the delight of the troops and visitors. Moving pictures are shown every night.
No story of the Vonnie would be complete without mention of Bill the Goat and Tomatoes, a playful dog, who have proved themselves good sailors and are now old salts. These two are loved in spite of the fact that Bill has a ready appetite for anything that is lying loose around. In justice to Tomatoes it ought to be mentioned that Bill hasn’t really qualified as a mascot, despite his long service, for his digestion balks at cotton waste and the Vonnie black gang (what all firemen are called) declare that a Navy goat that won’t eat cotton waste isn’t there as a sea going mascot. Tomatoes, however, has learned to discriminate between uniforms and refuses to become friends with any but bluejackets. Some soldiers once tried to kidnap and succeeded in getting him ashore, but he found his way back. Shore liberty has no attraction for him.
The Von Steuben was built at Stettin, Germany in 1901. She is 663 feet long with a beam of 66 feet and a depth of 43 feet, has a gross tonnage of 15,000 tons. She has twin screws propelled by two sets of six cylinder, four stage reciprocating engines, each unit having 18,000 indicated horsepower. Her best days run was 549 knots and her fastest passage from New York to Plymoth, England, was made in 5 days, 8 hours, 28 minutes. An average of 2302 knots per hour, she usually carried about 52 officers and 1,450 men.
Yours truly,
Jesse W. Thomas,
U. S. S. Von Steuben.
NOTES: Jesse W. Thomas was born November 5, 1894. He died May 15, 1965 and is buried De Ann Cemetery, Prescott, Nevada County, Arkansas. His military tombstone lists him as S 2 U. S. Navy, World War I.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT