The Corsair in the war zone

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Such was the “Suicide Fleet” as it was dubbed by certain pessimists who were later compelled to eat their words. Of these yachts one of the largest and fastest was the Corsair, owned by J. Pierpont Morgan, and the second of her name to fly the pennant of the American Navy in war-time. The first Corsair was renamed the Gloucester and won a well-deserved renown at Santiago in 1898, under Lieutenant Commander Richard Wainwright, who engaged two Spanish destroyers, driving one ashore and sinking the other in the most brilliant single exploit of that battle. In size and armament either destroyer was more than a match for the converted yacht, called a gunboat by courtesy, whose main battery consisted of four six-pounders. This was the kind of blue-water warfare which American sailors would have vastly preferred in 1917, ship to ship, between honorable foemen, as navies had fought in days gone by.

The contrast between the naval careers of these two Corsairs is wide and significant. The older ship had known what to expect, a certain chivalry of the sea which had never been obscured, even when men slew each other with cutlass and boarding-pike upon reddened decks. It was exemplified in the conduct of the Spanish Admiral Cervera, and reflected in the behavior of Captain “Jack” Phillip of the Texas when he shouted to his bluejackets in the moment of victory, “Don’t cheer, boys. The poor devils are dying.”

The Corsair of twenty years later was to sail against an enemy who skulked beneath the sea with malice toward all and mercy toward none, who counted women and children as fair prey in war, and whose trail was marked by the agonies of unarmed and helpless castaways adrift in open boats.

This Corsair was no fragile, fair-weather yacht whose cruises had been confined to sheltered reaches, but a powerful ship familiar with the Atlantic in all seasons. She was no longer young, as vessels go, with eighteen years of service to her credit, but the Lloyd’s surveyor rated her as staunch and sound in every respect. As a yacht the Corsair had made six voyages to Europe, while owned by the late J. Pierpont Morgan, and her shapely lines were known to mariners from the Channel ports to the Mediterranean and the Golden Horn.

A faithful ship which has long withstood the ordeals of the sea becomes something more than a mere fabric of steel and wood. She seems almost sentient, like a living thing to those who have shared her fortunes, and therein is the immemorial romance which the sea peculiarly vouchsafes. It is obvious to sailor-men that these many years of fidelity, in winter gales and summer breezes, should have endeared the Corsair to her owners, father and son.

Designed by J. Beavor Webb, the yacht was built for offshore work, although not with the expectation that she would be used as a “fourth-rate gunboat” in the Bay of Biscay for a year and a half on end. This was too much to ask of a vessel so planned and arranged, but like the men of the Navy she proved that she could do a little better than her best. Her length was three hundred and four feet, with a beam of thirty-three and a half feet, a draft of seventeen feet, and a measurement of sixteen hundred tons—noble dimensions for a pleasure craft. The unusual speed of nineteen knots was maintained, when necessary, in the war zone. Her yachting complement comprised fifty-five officers and men. With spacious decks and living quarters, the Corsair was rather comfortable than ornate.

Captain William B. Porter had been in command of her for sixteen years. He was a deep-water sailor whose youth had known a merchant marine now vanished, the stately sailing ships from ports “down east” which lifted sky sail yards to the breath of the Pacific trades or snugged down to breast the tempests of Cape Horn. He knew shipwreck and the peril and misery of an open boat adrift in Far Eastern seas. He had gone into steam, at first on the China coast, and later he became an officer in the American Line. During the Spanish War he served on the auxiliary cruiser Yale with the naval rank of lieutenant (junior grade), and was given command of the Spanish Steamer Rita which was captured as a prize and used as a transport.

When the Corsair was taken over by the Navy, it was ruled that all vessels of this class should be commanded by an officer of the regular service. Captain Porter was appointed executive officer of the yacht, which position he held until promoted to command during her second year of duty in foreign waters.

In April and May of 1917 the Corsair was overhauled and refitted as a fighting craft at the yard of the W. & A. Fletcher Company in Hoboken, the firm which had built her. The Navy is severely practical and beauty was sacrificed to utility. The bowsprit, which had added the finishing touch to the fine sheer of the deck, was ruthlessly removed. Canvas-screened platforms, or crow’s-nests, disfigured the two tall masts. The white-pine decks, whose spotlessness had been the officers’ pride, were bored for gun mountings. Teakwood panels which had covered the steel plates of the bulwarks were sent ashore for storage. Plate-glass windows were boarded up and gleaming brass-work painted to decrease visibility and save the trouble of polishing it. The quarter-deck, no longer inviting to leisure with its awnings, cushions, and wicker chairs, was measured for the track and gear of the ready depth bombs.

The hardest problem was to stow a hundred and more men below. The large dining-room forward was stripped of its fittings and filled with tiers of bunks and a few hammocks. Down the middle ran two long mess tables, bare and scrubbed. Forty-five men were taken care of in this space, and although they could not have whirled a cat around by the tail, they were no more crowded than is customary in the Navy. Twenty-four more were berthed in the forecastle. By ripping out bulkheads, room was made in the “glory hole” for some of the petty officers. The old quarters of the yacht’s officers were given over to the chief petty officers. The bluejackets overflowed into the hold and slept close to the ice machine, where they philosophically reflected that they were sure to keep cool in the event of a torpedo attack.