Thunder and Lightning (PART II)

[miletus12]

Resuming from 1892. The first half of this timeline is located in this old thread.



Some items of notice:

1. Bradley Fiske works on more than aiming devices. Apparently, he has been assigned the problems of naval gunnery and torpedo tactics.

2. Doctor Irene Tesla will have to devise a new mechanical hand for one Ludwig Obry, who was shipped to the United States aboard the SES Milwaukee. Apparently he lost one, along with his luggage, bodyguards and passport?



3. Do you think Elmer Sperry will solve the Obry gear?




4. Do you think the Viennese police will solve the Ludwig Obry disappearance?

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Working on that infernal engine's infernal control problem...

Pioneering Torpedoman

By John Swinfield

April 2022 Naval History Magazine Volume 36, Number 2



Many inventors had tried to achieve a working self-propelled torpedo, but Robert Whitehead (1823–1905) and Giovanni Luppis (1813–75) would make the most promising advances. The former was an English marine engineer, and the latter had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy.





While his son John looks at the camera, Robert Whitehead stares down at one of his battered test torpedoes at Fiume. Within a few years, navies around the globe would be purchasing his torpedoes, which were powered by compressed air. Credit: Public Domain

Whitehead’s father owned a cotton-bleaching business, and his grandfather was active in the Lancashire cotton industry when steam was beginning to galvanize the industry. Whitehead was apprenticed to a Manchester engineering company when he was 16. He was keen to see the world and subsequently worked in France as a marine engineer and in Italy as an adviser on the engineering needed for land drainage and silk weaving.

After moving to Trieste, he worked to refine and adapt marine steam engines. In 1856, he became the chief engineer of a company that built engines for Austro-Hungarian Navy warships in the empire’s Adriatic coastal town of Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia).



From a family active in the cotton business, Whitehead began developing a self-propelled torpedo after partnering with Giovanni Luppis, who had invented a primitive shore-launched torpedo. Credit: Public Domain

After moving to Trieste, he worked to refine and adapt marine steam engines. In 1856, he became the chief engineer of a company that built engines for Austro-Hungarian Navy warships in the empire’s Adriatic coastal town of Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia).

Eight years later, he began his association with Luppis, who had been trying to develop waterborne weapons. His inventions included an embryonic floating torpedo powered by a clockwork motor and packed with explosives. But it was unreliable and—hardly surprising—hazardous. The Luppis device inspired Whitehead to try to perfect a driverless underwater missile that would detonate on impact. It had to be practical, portable, and safe for use by its handlers. In 1866, he produced the Luppis-Whitehead torpedo, propelled by compressed air and fired from a tube. But it would not run at a constant depth, a problem he solved by adding a hydrostatic pendulum, the secrets of which he guarded for years.



The Mk 3 Whitehead torpedo is fired from a dock at the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station at Goat Island, Rhode Island, in 1894. Two years earlier, the Navy had contracted with the E. W. Bliss Company for the purchase of Whitehead torpedoes. The Mk 3 featured an Obry gyroscopic steering device. Credit: Naval History and Heritage Command

The torpedo was a success and later adopted by sea services around the globe, including the Royal Navy. Having signed a contract with Luppis that gave him the rights on future sales, Whitehead became wealthy. Luppis, from an aristocratic family that had made money in shipping, died at age 62 in Milan, regretful, some said bitter, that he had signed away his rights. Now largely forgotten in the tides of history, he did not die entirely unrecognized. Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Franz Josef had bestowed on him the somewhat bizarre title of Baron von Rammer six years before his death.

In tracking the development of the torpedo, it would be remiss not to acknowledge endeavors in France, which at one stage led to pioneering submarine development, and in Britain, at the torpedo and mine school at the Royal Navy’s illustrious HMS Vernon. In the United States, the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station, established at Goat Island, Newport, Rhode Island, in 1869, also made a substantial contribution to torpedo development.

But the Whitehead torpedo was regarded as the most advanced, and by 1880, more than 1,400 of them had been sold to navies around the world. In 1891, Whitehead started the Whitehead Torpedo Factory at Wyke Regis, in southern Dorset, England, and opened negotiations with the E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn, New York, to produce torpedoes for the U.S. Navy.

Eliphalet Williams Bliss (1836–1903) is one of many noteworthy figures in early submarine and torpedo history. Growing up on a farm in Otsego County, New York, he showed a strong and early bent toward engineering. He started out at the famed Parker Gun Factory in Connecticut, noted for precision engineering and craftsmanship. He later established the E. W. Bliss Company, specializing in machining and metal production; some of its metal products were exported to Yorkshire, England, for use in the wool industry, while others were used in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. His company grew into a sizeable operation with some 1,800 employees.

In 1892, an agreement was signed in which the U.S. Navy would buy 100 Whitehead torpedoes from Bliss. The Navy, in effect, was giving its endorsement to the Whitehead torpedo. Bliss and other companies later would hugely benefit from torpedo and other armament contracts for the Spanish-American War of 1898, as well as for World Wars I and II.



Myriad experiments were undertaken at HMS Vernon and Goat Island with different torpedo propulsion methods—electrical, chemical, and rocket firing—being tried. Bliss, meanwhile, conducted torpedo experiments in Peconic Bay, New York. But torpedo testing was always perilous. In one incident, a rogue torpedo shot through the hull of a small craft; mercifully, it had no occupants. Fifteen people attached to the Goat Island Torpedo Station would be killed in two 1918 explosions.

Though Whitehead’s torpedo was judged the best available, it was still flawed, as directional control remained a problem. Sometimes it worked; on other occasions torpedoes went rogue. A U.S. naval officer, John Adams Howell (1840–1918), is credited with developing a self-steering torpedo; its 128-pound flywheel, spun to 10,000 rpm before launch, creating gyroscopic properties for guidance. The U.S. Navy had ordered 50 of the torpedoes in 1889.

Inventor and former Austrian naval officer Ludwig Obry’s 1895 gyroscope could detect any deviation from a torpedo’s intended path and signal necessary changes to its rudders. Whitehead, always open to innovation and improvement, employed Obry’s innovations in his torpedoes before later using one of Howell’s designs.

Though the torpedo would herald mayhem, transforming the submarine into a predator that would change the course of maritime conflict, the Whitehead story also offers a pleasant aside.

Robert Whitehead’s daughter Agathe married a young Austro-Hungarian Navy officer, Kapitanleutnant Georg von Trapp. They had met in 1908, when he was at Fiume studying torpedoes and submarines. In World War I, he commanded submarines U-5 and U-14, but his naval career came to an abrupt end when defeated Austria had to surrender her coastal provinces to Yugoslavia and Italy. His life took another calamitous turn when Agathe died in 1922. Georg engaged a governess, Maria Augusta, to help raise the children. He later married her, and she bore him several children. Among other things, Maria taught the children to sing. Out of tragedy would spring joy.

It was not long before the musical talents of the family brought global fame as the Trapp Family Singers. Their story became the basis of the Hollywood blockbuster movie The Sound of Music.

In this alternate timeline, the USN has turned away from compressed air and aligned itseelf with the chemical storage battery and extension cord electric powered torpedoes. We shall see if their faith in this propulsion path is warranted.

They still used Whitehead's depth control methods and the Uhlan gear.

[miletus12]

Pascual Cervera y Topete

More real history about this future opponent to ACME in this timeline.

General:
Admiral Cervera, a leadling figure in the Spanish navy for many years, was chosen to command the Spanish naval squadron ordered to Cuba. The squadron was destroyed at the naval battle of Santiago. Cervera knew the attempt was doomed from the start.

Biography:

Pascual Cervera was born 18 February, 1839, in Medina Sidonia, within the province of Cadiz, in southern Spain. His father was an Officer in the Spanish Army and had fought against the troops of Napoleon during the French invasion of Spain.

When he was only 13 years old, he entered the Naval College. During his first voyage to Havana, he was commissioned as midshipman first class, in 1858. At the age of 21, he became a Lieutenant junior-grade.

Later on he was sent to the Philippines, where he was under the command of Admiral Mendez Nu¤ez (hero of Callao naval combat). He fought against the Moors and nearly lost his life during the assault of Fort Pagalugan.During this combat action, the first in which he took part, he caught the flag carried by one of the enemy. He was promoted to Lieutenant based on his meritorious performance during the war.

He continued in the Philippines, doing hydrographic work, constructing the charts of hundreds of islands of the archipelago. Many of those charts were of great importance to navigators sailing those waters right up until the end of the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1865 he returned to the Iberian Peninsula (homeland) and was married.

Several years passed, during which political instability in Spain reached unexpected levels. In 1868, Queen Isabel II was overthrown and the First Republic inaugurated, bringing with it several problems and disorders, which appeared one after the other.

Cervera had to carry out assignments of higher responsibilities not commensurate with his rank for several years. He also had to face, at risk to his own life, some situations like the Cantonal Rebellion in Murcia. Later, he was again sent to the Philippines and placed in command of the schooner "Circe". Cervera was also given other assignments, such as Commanding Officer of Corvette "Santa Lucia", where he again saw action in many military operations,especially at Mindanao, where his performance was again meritorious.

In 1876 he was appointed Governor of Jolo. The hard and difficult living conditions there caused him to contract malaria, from which he nearly died.Nevertheless, he did not resign from his obligations (duties) although he had recieved permission to do so, as it was his belief that military orders needed to be carried out, even to the point of sacrificing one's own life.



When he returned back to Spain, Prime Minister Canovas del Castillo called him to come to Madrid to participate in conferences designed to obtain an accurate idea about Cervera in 1886, as Captain presiding the commission in charge of construction of the Pelayothe situation in the Philippines. By that time, the monarchy had been restored in the person of Prince Alfonso XII, the republican era andone-year regency of Amadeo I of Savoy having terminated.

Canovas requested that Cervera accept a post in Madrid at the Naval Ministry. However, the Admiral was not happy being in Madrid, as he really found his vocation was on board ship, as a man of the sea.

Cervera's family and personal life was characterized by a deep sense of austerity in all his acts. During his staying in Madrid, all members of the family used to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning at which time he would help his sons with their studies until 0900 hours, when he left for his office and the children to school.

In the evenings he again helped his sons, explaining their lessons, and after having dinner, he read professional books or went out for a walk until 10:00 PM, when he finally would go for a rest.

His interests or hobbies were always related to his family. He liked to listen to music, but it was only on the occasion of King Alfonso XII's wedding to Dona Maria de las Mercedes de Orleans that he permitted the "excess" of going to the theater in the evening of 23 January, 1878. Such was his character in this regard that he even tried to be optimistic about the many privations his short military wages caused him to suffer, to which he became accustomed.

He commented to a friend of his, a fellow naval officer, that instead of complaining about being able to afford the theater only once a week, he should feel grateful that his country permit him to go to the theater every week. This attitude in his personal lifestyle had a clear reflection in his public work throughout his life.

He was given command of the corvette "Ferrolana" in mid-1879, a schoolship for Photo dedicated to the students of the Industrial School of Chattanooga.midshipmen. At the end of 1880, he was transferred, and until 1882, served in the Maritime Command of the Cartagena harbor.



From 1885 to 1890, he presided the 'Comision Contructora' (Shipbuilding Commission) of the battleship "Pelayo", and later became her first Commanding Officer. In this post, he had to fight very hard against the slow bureaucratic procedures that constantly imposed delays in the launching and delivery of the ship to the Navy.

Regent Queen Maria Cristina, mother of the young Alfonso XIII, called him personally to serve in the 'Corte' as her Naval Adjutant. It was May 3rd, 1891. At the end of the next year, he was commissioned Captain first-class (Commodore) and was named Technical and Administrative Director of the Nervion Shipyards, contracted to carry out the final construction of the three cruisers of the "Vizcaya" class, the namesake, the "Oquendo", and the "Maria Teresa". It was the personal desire of the Queen for Cervera to be given this important assignment.

During those days, he was requested by the leader of the Liberal party, Sr. Moret, to become the Secretary of the Navy when the Conservative party administration failed. Cervera, who disliked political assignments very much, answered Mr. Moret with evasives and arguments like "...it is not convenient for any Government to have me as a Minister... as a modest naval officer I think I could be of more value, commanding fleets, naval Departments or any other post that has no political character...", but they insisted in spite of all. Prime Minister, D. Praxedes Mateo Sagasta, told the Queen that he had no "top Minister" (for the Navy), and she pointed out Cervera, her former Adjutant, insinuating that he should be given an order "under the weight of her royal wish", so that loyal Cervera would not offer any resistance. Cervera felt very annoyed when he was appointed to such a high charge, because he foresaw all the thorny conflicts he was about to deal with in an atmosphere so apart from the military world that he so well knew and loved. Even so, after reaching Madrid, it took to him two more days before deciding whether to accept the charge or not. He finally accepted, with one unique condition: that the administration would not reduce the Naval budget by even one single cent, for which he received the promise and word of honor from the Prime Minister to that end. In this way, Cervera, who by that time was Rear Admiral,became Secretary of the Navy (Ministro de Marina) at that lower flag rank, when the practice was to appoint Admirals of higher seniority to that post.

The promises of the Prime Minister notwithstanding, the naval budget for the fiscal year 1893-1894 was altered and lowered by nearly two million pesetas.Cervera, who had previously reduced his budget to a minimum, could not acceptsuch a change and he immediately submitted his resignation to the Government,not only once, but up to three times.

Cervera's "political" life lasted only 3 months. His free and independent character did not permit him to continue carrying out a function for what, according to his own words, "I have not been trained", aside from the fact that he understood the mistaken Government policies could only lead the nation into bankruptcy.

In September 1893, he was appointed Chief of the Naval Commission in London. It was very interesting work professionally, as it meant learning the newest and most advanced techniques of naval construction. While there, during the second half of 1895, the war started in Cuba.

PRELIMINARIES OF THE WAR.-

Independentist cuban leaders Gomez and Maceo were constantly harassing the Spanish Army with their guerilla forces on the island, receiving constant support from the United States, who had already shown interest in buying the Cuban colony from Spain for 100 million pesos. Spain rejected the offer and opted for the war, albeit knowing that it was doomed to failure.

To suppress the rebellion in Cuba, the Government sent General Weyler in 1896 to Havana, to impose a rigorous, if not repressive policy. Leader Maceo lost his life in December 7 of that same year, and the U.S. press, with Pulitzer and Hearst leading the sector, exaggerated the cruelties committed by the Spaniards led by Weyler, who was nicknamed "The Butcher". All of this darkened more and more the social and politic panorama, although in Spain there were two sides to the Cuban issue. The official Spain, that knew pretty well that in case of conflict with the United States, there was not the slightest chance for a victory, and on the other hand, the real Spain, living quietly and not admitting the facts, trusting in a sure victory. While the press in the United States distorted the news in a manner that helped win the war, the Spanish press did the samein a manner that contributed to its loss.

Assassination of Canovas del Castillo, and subsequent changes in the Government thereafter completely changed the course of events that followed. General Weyler was replaced by General Ramon Blanco in October, 1897. Blanco offered autonomy to Cuba, but it was too late, as the Cubans were now determined to obtain their independence.

Such was the state in the colonies, the Philippines being the other crucial point, where problems were also reaching a high tension point. Cervera observed these events with sadness and concern, as he had clearly seen that they had no solution, especially if the conflict with the United States resulted in war. So sure was he about the situation that he had already written a prophetic letter to his cousin, Juan Spottorno, jurist auditor officer in the Naval Department of Cartagena, whose contents (text), closed and sealed in presence of witnesses, constitutes his "military testament". Given the importance of theletter, some of the paragraphs are reproduced here.

"Dear Juan. It seems that the conflict (war) with the United States is being reconsidered, or at least delayed; but it can revive unexpectedly, and every day I am more and more confident in the idea that it would be a great national calamity...Since we don't have practically any fleet, wherever we send it, the fleet must be composed of all the ships together, because dividing them (in groups) would be in my opinion the greatest of all errors; but it would also be a mistake to send it to the Antilles, leaving our coasts and the Philippines archipelago defenseless......I'll be patient and will perform my duty, but with the bitterness of knowing that my sacrifice is in vain ......If our small fleet were well equipped with all that is necessary, and over-all well trained, we could try something......When nations are disorganized, their Governments (that are simply the result of such disorganization), are disorganized too, and when a logical disaster is to come, they don't want to be the real cause; to the contrary,rather, the cry is always "TREASON !", and they look for a poor victim to blame for faults committed by others......I entrust you with great confidence about all that is written here; but at the same time, I ask you not to destroy this letter, keeping it safe, in case that one day it might be convenient for my opinions of today to be known."

Although Cervera was steadfast in his convictions, the Deposito de Guerra issued during those days a pamphlet entitled "Military and Naval Power of the United States in 1896" based on data that had been recorded in 1891 by Spain's Military Attache, without taking into consideration the tremendous effort made by the United States between 1892 and 1896. In said booklet, the author fantasized about the American Government abandonment of its Army, the weakness of the Navy, and the deficiencies noted in the defense of US ports, encouraging Spain in some of the paragraphs to sail and capture the Florida Keys to obtain the Gulf of Mexico, and finally, it described how easy it would be to enter the Mississippi with the 'powerful' Spanish fleet and capture New Orleans...

In October 20th 1897, the Government named Cervera Commanding Officer of the Fleet. In view of the events, he then remembered the words of the letter written to his cousin one year and seven months earlier: "...and they will look for a poor victim to blame for faults committed by others !".

He immediately planned a program of naval exercises in Santa Pola to train the crews, because the so-called "escuadra de instrucci¢n" (training squadron) had not done one single combat exercise since 1884, during the issue concerning the Carolines and the threat of war with Germany.

Bad policies carried out by the Government, as well as the lack of foresight, created a large variety of complex and serious deficiencies in the fleet at a moment in which there was no time left to correct all that was wrong. Cervera had to face not only the problems caused by the lack of crew training, but a lack of resources as well, some of them of enormous importance, as was the case of the battleship "Col¢n", that sailed to war without her main guns.

The naval exercises ended with over half of the events programmed by the Admiral uncompleted because the Secretary of the Navy did not provide any funds whatsoever. Furthermore, Cervera was advised "not to spend too much, not to burn coal, and save shots." The heavy artillery of his ships was not fully operational because of the lack of security of the locks of the 14 c/m guns, and the ammunition cases were of very poor quality; some to the degree that they could not be placed inside the guns. He was only authorized to fire TWO shots for each heavy gun. While all of this was taking place, the American fleet was intensively getting ready for the war.

In spite of such a tense situation, the U.S. battleship "Maine"entered Havana harbor the 25th of January, 1898, on a courtesy visit and Spain reciprocated dispatching the "Vizcaya" to New York that same day, without any preparations. Admiral Cervera went to say goodbye to all the crew, saying the following words to the Commanding Officer: "The mission you are carrying out is a mission of peace, and you will perform it well, just the same as any other being given to you. I am sorry I cannot go with you, but soon we will meet again."

The Secretary of the Navy, Sr. Bermejo, and Cervera maintained a very intense correspondence, referring always to the state of the fleet and the need to curb any further delays in arming and fitting the ships, in order to be ready for any declaration of war. In these documents, Cervera exposed with great clarity and harshness, the large difference existing between the two naval forces of both nations, and he always received evasive responses or delays from the Spanish authorities. He never wanted to hide those things that the press did not mention, that is, that the sacrifice (of war) would be useless under such circumstances, but nonetheless, above all, if he were kept on at his current appointment, he would carry out his duty.

In February 15th 1898, the battleship "Maine" suffered a violent explosion while moored in Havana harbor, provoking her sinking. The "Vizcaya" was two days out from New York when this happened. In these brief biographic notes, the investigation that followed the sinking of the "Maine" will not be described, except to say that in the eyes of the American public, this event caused a tremendous impact, followed weeks later by the cry, "Remember the Maine !", which served as perfect pretext to place the nation on a war footing with Spain, given that her forces were considered to have been material authors of that 'act of sabotage'. Only with the passing of the years, and through a third investigating commission, led by Admiral Rickover (USN), it has been determined from hull damage that the explosion aboard the USS "Maine" was caused by a coal bunker fire INSIDE the vessel. The U.S. Government did not accept the presence of Spanish observers in the first two investigating commissions, determining that the explosion was produced OUTSIDE the hull. At the time, Spanish authorities reported not having seen any dead fish in the harbor, and the Spanish commission determined that the explosion was internal, probably initiated at the coal bunkers, in agreement with Admiral Rickover's later thesis [editor's note - the cause of the explosion has never been fully explained].

In the first days of April, the situation could be no longer delayed in the Spanish fleet. Cervera requested permission to go to Madrid to see the Secretary of the Navy and prepare updated operations orders (plan of campaign). The Secretary sent Cervera a telegram, in which amazingly, he said that "In this moment of international crisis, nothing precise can be determined"... Cervera thought all in the Government had gone mad. He received the order to leave with the fleet, sailing to Cape Verde Island, where precise instructions and plans of the Government were to be waiting for him on his arrival. It was by then April 8th. When he arrived at Cape Verde, he did not get the awaited instructions. Instead, he was simply requested to embark all the coal he could, food and stores, and proceed to Puerto Rico or any other port in the Antilles, and to cooperate with its maritime defenses.

On departing for the Antilles he had no precise instructions as we see, and he was fully convinced of the futility of the sacrifice and the disaster that was inevitable. The state of his ships was highly deficient, as he had advised months earlier, and he was also deceived, as he was advised that the Joint Staff of Admirals in Madrid had determined unanimously that departing for the Antilles was mandatory when the real truth was that the vote was not unanimous, but just a simple majority, as there were some dissenting voices. Cervera and his crews were now completely abandoned, facing a devastating fate; only his patriotism and integrity made him obey the received order, although not without bitterness.

The transit from Cape Verde to Martinique island, and from there to Curazao, just prior to their arrival at Santiago de Cuba, was filled with incidents, calamities and shortages, because he could not find the logistic support and coal promised by Madrid in those ports when he left Cape Verde. The decision to continue into Santiago was founded mainly on the belief that this port was free of blockade by US ships, as they were reported to be off Puerto Rico; and besides, he supposed he would get the necessary logistic support he so badly needed. The fleet entered Santiago on 19 May, 1898. At the end of the war, there were some discussions and critiques from certain sectors about why Cervera decided to continue into Santiago instead of picking another place. Here is what military writer Capt. Mahan (USN) wrote concerning this situation:

"Cervera's decision of sailing to Santiago was correct, and assuming he could have selected any other port, even Havana itself, that would have made things easier for the American ships to concentrate their forces, giving us in such a case the most favorable position we could ever have dreamt, not only because we could have blocked all of the enemy vessels, but because at the same time we could have defended in the best way our strategic naval base in Key West".

From 19 May to 3 July 1898, the time in which the naval combat took place, the Spanish fleet collaborated with the Army, defending Santiago and there was an intense exchange of signals between Santiago, Havana and Madrid about how to proceed, in view of the development of military operations ashore and the naval blockade by the fleet of Admiral Sampson. Cervera was subordinate to General Blanco, who assumed command responsibility for all Spanish military forces in Cuba. He received from Blanco the order to proceed for the open sea.

Details describing precise events taking place during this short period of time, as well as the stories concerning heroic actions of war that occurred, will not be dicussed here, to avoid lengthening these lines. It is interesting however to remember that the decision of the Admiral to leave for combat in daylight resulted from his concern for the safety of his ships, given the the nearly total impossibility of a night sortee, a maneuver not recommended by Santiago pilots (who knew the harbor well), and the fact that there were always two American warships present, with their signal lamps lighting the mouth of the harbor.

The Americans tried to contain Cervera's fleet by provoking the sinking of the steamer "Merrimac", loading the ship with coal, and surrounding her with a belt of explosives, to be blown up at the correct moment. There were seven volunteers for this heroic and dangerous mission. Lieutenant J.G. Hobson and six men. The ship was seen by the coastal sentries, and gunfire started immediately from the Punta Gorda Battery, while in the meantime, two torpedoes were fired from the torpedo-boats, provoking the sinking of the vessel without detonation of the attached jars. The entrance to Santiago harbor was not successfully blocked, as the ship was sunk near Smith Cay. Lt. Hobson and his men were captured as prisoners of war and treated by Cervera with such a degree of humanity and chivalry that, on ending the war, there was a signed memorial presented to the Admiral by members of the United States Senate and other Societies and individuals in recognition of this fact,complementing him on his outstanding conduct in the treatment of the "Merrimac" Captain and crew. Lt.Hobson himself for several years thereafter maintained a friendly correspondence with the old Admiral, whom he admired and respected as a consequence of his conduct.

On the 2nd of July, eve of the definitive naval combat, Cervera sent ashore a big closed sealed package containing all official documents, letters and telegrams between himself and the Government. He left those documents in the hands of the Archbishop of Santiago, who, under oath, obliged himself to keep them safely and send them later, either to the Admiral if he survived the combat, or to his relatives in case he died.

At 9 AM the 3rd of July, the order to depart was given. The order of line for leaving the harbor was, in first place, the flagship "Infanta Mar¡a Teresa", followed by "Vizcaya", "Colon", "Oquendo" and then the smaller ships, such as the torpedo-boats and destroyers.

Surrounding the the exit of the harbor, at about 8 or 9 thousand meters of distance, were the American ships "Indiana", "New York", "Oregon","Iowa", "Texas", and"Brooklyn". Admiral Sampson was away, near Siboney, in a meeting with General Shafter.

Silence on board the ships of Cervera while leaving port was impressive. The flagship Commanding Officer, Capt. Concas, relates those moments with these emotive words:

"We had just turned the Diamante, with a deathly hush on board and ashore. Solemn moments, capable of raising the pulse of the most tempered heart. Outside of the combat casement (tower), in which I did not want to enter, to give my crew example, because if I fell there was still the Admiral for command, I requested his permission to open fire. Poor Spain! I then said to the Admiral, and he answered me significantly with his head, meaning hehad done all that was possible to avoid it and his conscience was clean".

The US fleet was more modern and its firepower much more devastating than the older design Spanish warships.
Cervera realised that if he proceeded to the open sea, he would lose all of his men and ships. Undaunted, he decided to face the US Fleet and sail out to sea in daytime hours. He used his flagship "Infanta Mar¡a Teresa" to directly engage the closest American ship and presumably provide an aside conflict that might allow the other ships to escape.

At the end of the combat 4 hours later, the Spanish fleet was totally destroyed. There were 474 men dead and all survivors were made prisoners. The Americans only suffered 1 man dead and two wounded.

When the Spaniards were picked up from the sea and nearby beaches, the ones from the flagship were transferred to the "Gloucester", and from there, Admiral Cervera and his Staff officers were taken to the "Iowa". Her Commanding Officer, Capt. Evans, relates the event with the following words:

"Admiral Cervera was tranferred from the "Gloucester" to my ship. When he stepped on the main deck he was received with all honors according to his rank by my whole Staff. The crew of the "Iowa" together with the ones from"Gloucester" broke into a "hurrah!" when the Spanish Admiral saluted theAmerican officers. Although the hero put his feet on the deck of the "Iowa"without any insignia, everybody realized that each molecule in the body of Cervera constituted an Admiral by itself."

(This gallant description by Capt. Evans clearly described the fact that Cervera and his men were almost without uniform after the battle.). When Evans shook the hand of Cervera, he pronounced these words literally:

"Sir, you are a hero. You have done the most sublime feat ever recorded in the history of the Navy".

The prisoners were taken to several points along the East coast of the United States. Cervera was at Annapolis and from his arrival, he started to receive tokens of sympathy from the American people that so gallantly recognized his chivalry and did not forget the exquisite treatment he dispensed to Lt. Hobson and men on occassion of the "Merrimac" sinking. Altough he was imprisoned, a better word would have been 'detained' and he indeed became somewhat of a celebrity. Many school children in the United States wrote to him concerning the battle at Santiago de Cuba and requested his autograph.

Also businesses wrote to the Admiral during his stay at Annapolis. In fact, a clothier -Burk & Co- sent the Admiral a light-weight civilian suit so that he would be comfortable during the summer heat in Maryland. Included with the suit was a letter to Admiral Cervera commending his treatment of Lt. Hobson and his crew at Santiago. Admiral Cervera thanked Burk & Co and kindly returned the summer suit. He received many visits. There were some days in which he had to shake hands more than 2,000 times per a letter to one of his relatives in Spain.

In August 20th, Admiral Mac Nair, Director of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, handled Cervera a letter from the U.S. Government, offering freedom for him and his officers under the condition of not bearing arms for the duration of the war. Cervera refused to accept the offer, because, as he informed Mac Nair, the military ordnances in Spain define as derelict and punish the acceptance of freedom under oath not to bear arms while at war, and therefore they could not accept. Eleven days later, the American Government granted unconditional freedom to all prisoners.

Cervera returned to Spain with all survivors of the fleet in September 1898. Things were not seen in Spain with the same sympathy as in The United States because, due to the press intoxication, and the distortion of the truth about the news of the war, they were looking for responsibilities for the disaster, pretending to find guilt among persons and groups that carried out their duty with loyalty and honor. The welcome to Cervera by the Secretary of the Navy could not have been more cold:

"I'm very sorry for all that has happened, General. I suppose that you will have lost all in the shipwreck"."You are right- answered Cervera- I have lost everything except my honor".

Cervera was not immune to the situation and had even had to bear the initiation of a lawsuit against him and his officers, which, due to the exact knowledge of facts related concerning the event, and popular clamor, and the voices arising from the exterior, was finally dismissed and Admiral Cervera's honor restored.

The publication of his "Collection of documents", that he so farsightedly had put in the hands of the Archbishop of Santiago, elevated the popular respect for the Admiral up to an unexpected degree. This respect for Cervera grew even larger within the American society. There were many cases proving such sympathy, without any distinction of age, sex or credence. Furthermore, a type of pink flower design was artificially produced, named 'Cervera's pink' or 'Admiral's pink' that had yellow color with the edges of the petals in red, simulating the Spanish colors. The name became well known in the flower markets of New York. The Industrial School of the county of Hamilton, Tenn, named him honor member of the Academia de Castellano (Castellan Academy). To this Center, the Admiral dedicated a letter and a photograph, where he wrote the leiv motif of his whole life: A society in which everyone fulfills his duty would be happy.

He did not accept any valuable presents or offers made to him. One of these was the possibility to tour the United States, giving lectures for no less than 20,000 US dollars. He argued that as a Spanish military officer, he hated the idea of going abroad, explaining the errors and mistakes of his country.

In February, 1901 he was commissioned as Vice-admiral and in December of 1902, he was assigned as Chief of The Navy Central Staff. In May 1903, King Alfonso XIII named him life Senator of the Kingdom.

With his health in a delicate state, he was once again assigned to a new post. This time as Commanding Officer of the Maritime Department of Ferrol. It was 1906, and he stayed there until the end of May of the next year. He retired to his home in Puerto Real in southern Spain, where he spent the last months of his life, and died there on 3 April, 1909, providing an example of dignity and grace to everyone surrounding him.

His mortal remains are actually buried at the Panteen de Marinos Ilustres in San Fernando, a Navy mausoleum for illustrious Navy men.

Well, men are romantics about their "honorable" opponents, Women are not so charitable, being "realists" about such things. To Elizabeth Goss Davenport Tesla, the new Spanish Minister of the Marine, was a possible obstacle to her plans for the canals and for the future progress she intended of and for the Republic. She was most unsympathetic to Admiral Cervera's point of view about Spanish rights, honor and his attempts to secure the means to uphold those rights and that honor. She had not forgotten nor forgiven the SES Minneapolis Incident, either.

[lordroel]

Jul 6, 2025 23:12:20 GMT miletus12 said:

Resuming from 1892.



Some items of notice:

1. Bradley Fiske works on more than aiming devices. Apparently, he has been assigned the problems of naval gunnery and torpedo tactics.

2. Doctor Irene Tesla will have to devise a new mechanical hand for one Ludwig Obry, who was shipped to the United States aboard the SES Milwaukee. Apparently he lost one, along with his luggage, bodyguards and passport?



3. Do you think Elmer Sperry will solve the Obry gear?




4. Do you think the Viennese police will solve the Ludwig Obry disappearance?

==========================================================================

Working on that infernal engine's infernal control problem...

Pioneering Torpedoman

By John Swinfield

April 2022 Naval History Magazine Volume 36, Number 2



Many inventors had tried to achieve a working self-propelled torpedo, but Robert Whitehead (1823–1905) and Giovanni Luppis (1813–75) would make the most promising advances. The former was an English marine engineer, and the latter had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy.





While his son John looks at the camera, Robert Whitehead stares down at one of his battered test torpedoes at Fiume. Within a few years, navies around the globe would be purchasing his torpedoes, which were powered by compressed air. Credit: Public Domain

Whitehead’s father owned a cotton-bleaching business, and his grandfather was active in the Lancashire cotton industry when steam was beginning to galvanize the industry. Whitehead was apprenticed to a Manchester engineering company when he was 16. He was keen to see the world and subsequently worked in France as a marine engineer and in Italy as an adviser on the engineering needed for land drainage and silk weaving.

After moving to Trieste, he worked to refine and adapt marine steam engines. In 1856, he became the chief engineer of a company that built engines for Austro-Hungarian Navy warships in the empire’s Adriatic coastal town of Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia).



From a family active in the cotton business, Whitehead began developing a self-propelled torpedo after partnering with Giovanni Luppis, who had invented a primitive shore-launched torpedo. Credit: Public Domain

After moving to Trieste, he worked to refine and adapt marine steam engines. In 1856, he became the chief engineer of a company that built engines for Austro-Hungarian Navy warships in the empire’s Adriatic coastal town of Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia).

Eight years later, he began his association with Luppis, who had been trying to develop waterborne weapons. His inventions included an embryonic floating torpedo powered by a clockwork motor and packed with explosives. But it was unreliable and—hardly surprising—hazardous. The Luppis device inspired Whitehead to try to perfect a driverless underwater missile that would detonate on impact. It had to be practical, portable, and safe for use by its handlers. In 1866, he produced the Luppis-Whitehead torpedo, propelled by compressed air and fired from a tube. But it would not run at a constant depth, a problem he solved by adding a hydrostatic pendulum, the secrets of which he guarded for years.



The Mk 3 Whitehead torpedo is fired from a dock at the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station at Goat Island, Rhode Island, in 1894. Two years earlier, the Navy had contracted with the E. W. Bliss Company for the purchase of Whitehead torpedoes. The Mk 3 featured an Obry gyroscopic steering device. Credit: Naval History and Heritage Command

The torpedo was a success and later adopted by sea services around the globe, including the Royal Navy. Having signed a contract with Luppis that gave him the rights on future sales, Whitehead became wealthy. Luppis, from an aristocratic family that had made money in shipping, died at age 62 in Milan, regretful, some said bitter, that he had signed away his rights. Now largely forgotten in the tides of history, he did not die entirely unrecognized. Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Franz Josef had bestowed on him the somewhat bizarre title of Baron von Rammer six years before his death.

In tracking the development of the torpedo, it would be remiss not to acknowledge endeavors in France, which at one stage led to pioneering submarine development, and in Britain, at the torpedo and mine school at the Royal Navy’s illustrious HMS Vernon. In the United States, the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station, established at Goat Island, Newport, Rhode Island, in 1869, also made a substantial contribution to torpedo development.

But the Whitehead torpedo was regarded as the most advanced, and by 1880, more than 1,400 of them had been sold to navies around the world. In 1891, Whitehead started the Whitehead Torpedo Factory at Wyke Regis, in southern Dorset, England, and opened negotiations with the E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn, New York, to produce torpedoes for the U.S. Navy.

Eliphalet Williams Bliss (1836–1903) is one of many noteworthy figures in early submarine and torpedo history. Growing up on a farm in Otsego County, New York, he showed a strong and early bent toward engineering. He started out at the famed Parker Gun Factory in Connecticut, noted for precision engineering and craftsmanship. He later established the E. W. Bliss Company, specializing in machining and metal production; some of its metal products were exported to Yorkshire, England, for use in the wool industry, while others were used in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. His company grew into a sizeable operation with some 1,800 employees.

In 1892, an agreement was signed in which the U.S. Navy would buy 100 Whitehead torpedoes from Bliss. The Navy, in effect, was giving its endorsement to the Whitehead torpedo. Bliss and other companies later would hugely benefit from torpedo and other armament contracts for the Spanish-American War of 1898, as well as for World Wars I and II.



Myriad experiments were undertaken at HMS Vernon and Goat Island with different torpedo propulsion methods—electrical, chemical, and rocket firing—being tried. Bliss, meanwhile, conducted torpedo experiments in Peconic Bay, New York. But torpedo testing was always perilous. In one incident, a rogue torpedo shot through the hull of a small craft; mercifully, it had no occupants. Fifteen people attached to the Goat Island Torpedo Station would be killed in two 1918 explosions.

Though Whitehead’s torpedo was judged the best available, it was still flawed, as directional control remained a problem. Sometimes it worked; on other occasions torpedoes went rogue. A U.S. naval officer, John Adams Howell (1840–1918), is credited with developing a self-steering torpedo; its 128-pound flywheel, spun to 10,000 rpm before launch, creating gyroscopic properties for guidance. The U.S. Navy had ordered 50 of the torpedoes in 1889.

Inventor and former Austrian naval officer Ludwig Obry’s 1895 gyroscope could detect any deviation from a torpedo’s intended path and signal necessary changes to its rudders. Whitehead, always open to innovation and improvement, employed Obry’s innovations in his torpedoes before later using one of Howell’s designs.

Though the torpedo would herald mayhem, transforming the submarine into a predator that would change the course of maritime conflict, the Whitehead story also offers a pleasant aside.

Robert Whitehead’s daughter Agathe married a young Austro-Hungarian Navy officer, Kapitanleutnant Georg von Trapp. They had met in 1908, when he was at Fiume studying torpedoes and submarines. In World War I, he commanded submarines U-5 and U-14, but his naval career came to an abrupt end when defeated Austria had to surrender her coastal provinces to Yugoslavia and Italy. His life took another calamitous turn when Agathe died in 1922. Georg engaged a governess, Maria Augusta, to help raise the children. He later married her, and she bore him several children. Among other things, Maria taught the children to sing. Out of tragedy would spring joy.

It was not long before the musical talents of the family brought global fame as the Trapp Family Singers. Their story became the basis of the Hollywood blockbuster movie The Sound of Music.

In this alternate timeline, the USN has turned away from compressed air and aligned itseelf with the chemical storage battery and extension cord electric powered torpedoes. We shall see if their faith in this propulsion path is warranted.

They still used Whitehead's depth control methods and the Uhlan gear.

Could you add the link to the previous thread, makes it easier for readers.

Also a bit more text would be better, the majority of this post consist of photos.

[miletus12]

Jul 7, 2025 2:56:26 GMT lordroel said:

Jul 6, 2025 23:12:20 GMT miletus12 said:

Resuming from 1892.



Some items of notice:

1. Bradley Fiske works on more than aiming devices. Apparently, he has been assigned the problems of naval gunnery and torpedo tactics.

2. Doctor Irene Tesla will have to devise a new mechanical hand for one Ludwig Obry, who was shipped to the United States aboard the SES Milwaukee. Apparently he lost one, along with his luggage, bodyguards and passport?



3. Do you think Elmer Sperry will solve the Obry gear?




4. Do you think the Viennese police will solve the Ludwig Obry disappearance?

==========================================================================

Working on that infernal engine's infernal control problem...

In this alternate timeline, the USN has turned away from compressed air and aligned itself with the chemical storage battery and extension cord electric powered torpedoes. We shall see if their faith in this propulsion path is warranted.

They still used Whitehead's depth control methods and the Uhlan gear.

Could you add the link to the previous thread, makes it easier for readers.

Also a bit more text would be better, the majority of this post consist of photos.

    More story and less picture will follow. Two years is a long gap. I have to rebuild the story from memory.

[lordroel]

Jul 7, 2025 3:58:43 GMT miletus12 said:

Jul 7, 2025 2:56:26 GMT lordroel said:

Could you add the link to the previous thread, makes it easier for readers.

Also a bit more text would be better, the majority of this post consist of photos.

    More story and less picture will follow. Two years is a long gap. I have to rebuild the story from memory.

Okay, i will wait and see.

[miletus12]

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Letter:

Date of 25 April 1892
From: The Minister of the Marine
To: The First Minister of our August Regent, Queen Christina

HONORED SIR:

His excellency the chief of staff of the ministry sent me, with the confidential letter of the 19th instant, two reports and two statements relative to studies our Ministry has made with a view to a possible war with the United States. A careful examination of these documents, followed by profound reflection, has suggested to me the following considerations, which I respectfully submit to your excellency:

ALPHA; If we compare the Navy of the United States with our own, counting only modern vessels capable of active service, taking the data in reference to the Americans as published in the December number of the Revista General de Marina and in our general statistics of the navy, we find that the United States have the following ships available to them:

DATE........................12/92
BATTLESHIP.....................0
ARMORED CRUISER..........0
PROTECTED CRUISER.......8
TORPEDO RAM.................8
TORPEDO BOATS..............1
STEEL GUNBOATS.............7
AUXILIARIES#.................1
SCREW STEAMER.............9
SCREW SLOOPS...............8
WOOD GUNBOATS............5
SAILING VESSELS............3
STEEL NAVY...................24
WOOD NAVY..................26
TOTAL ACTIVE...............50

Against this we have, following the same classification

DATE........................12/92
BATTLESHIP.....................3
ARMORED CRUISER..........0
PROTECTED CRUISER.......7
TORPEDO RAM.................0
TORPEDO BOATS..............4
STEEL GUNBOATS...........10
AUXILIARIES#.................2
SCREW STEAMER.............5
SCREW SLOOPS...............4
WOOD GUNBOATS..........10
SAILING VESSELS............7
STEEL NAVY...................24
WOOD NAVY...................28
TOTAL ACTIVE................52

BETA; From this cursory and superficial listing, it would seem that we are of a match with the prospective foe, but as I will now illustrate:

The total American vessels good for all kinds of operations comprise 56,445 tons, against our 56,644 tons, or something like equivalence. In speed our battleships are superior to theirs for they have none, but not to their cruisers. In other vessels' classes, their speed is superior to ours. Comparing the artillery, and admitting that it is possible to fire every ten minutes the number of shots stated in the respective reports, and that only one-half of the pieces of less than 7.87 inch are fired, and supposing that the efficiency of each shot of the calibers 12.6, 11.8, 11, 9.84,7.87, 6.3, 5.9, 5.5, 4.7, 3.94, 2.95, 2.24, 1.65, and 1.45 inches represented by the figures 328, 270, 220, 156, 80, 41, 33, 27, 17, 10, 4, 2, and 1 which are the hundredths of the cubes of the numbers representing their calibers expressed in inches; we find that the artillery power of the American fleet is represented by 23,000, and that of ours by 29,000; or the Americans, as of this date have four fifths of our artillery. Again, this seems to suggest we have the advantage in any such naval war as might be contemplated at the present time.

However, I must remind his excellency that the Americans have embarked on a publicly announced build program which will in the next five years result in the following changes to their present condition:

DATE......................12/92.....12/93.....12/94.....12/95.....12/96.....12/97
BATTLESHIP...................0............1...........2............3...........4............5
ARMORED CRUISER........0............1...........2............3...........4............5
PROTECTED CRUISER......8..........12.........16..........24..........28..........32
TORPEDO RAM................8...........8...........8............8............8...........8
TORPEDO BOATS.............1...........4...........8..........12..........16..........20
STEEL GUNBOATS............7...........8.........10..........12..........16..........18
AUXILIARIES#.................1...........2..........3............4............5............6
SCREW STEAMER.............9...........8..........7............6............5............4
SCREW SLOOPS...............8...........8..........7............6............5............4
WOOD GUNBOATS............5...........4..........3............2............1............0
SAILING VESSELS............3...........2..........1............1............1.............1
STEEL NAVY...................24.........34........46...........62..........76...........88
WOOD NAVY...................26.........24........21..........19..........17...........15
TOTAL ACTIVE................50.........58........67...........81.........93..........103

We have no resources available to us to match that tripling of their current power.

Now, to carry out any serious operations in a maritime war, the first thing necessary is to secure control of the sea, which can only be done by defeating the enemy's fleet, or rendering them powerless by blockading them in their military ports. Can we do this with the United States at all in her waters? It is evident to me that we can not. And even if God should grant us a great victory, against what may be reasonably expected, where and how would we repair the damages we sustained in that combat? Undoubtedly the port of repair would be Havana, but with what resources? I am not aware of the resources existing there, but judging by this department at Cadiz, our main naval bastion, where there is absolutely nothing of all that we may need, it is to be logically assumed that the same parlous condition exists everywhere in our overseas ports, and that the immediate consequences of the first great naval battle would be the enforced inaction of the greater part of our fleet for the rest of the campaign, whatever might be the result of that great combat at the present time. In that circumstance, the enemy would repair her damaged ships inside the safety of her fine rivers, aided by her powerful industries and enormous resources. She would also turn her energies to build more ships to assail us, as we await her returned fleet's assault upon us, as we lay in port immobilized, due to the lack of necessities.

GAMMA; This lack of industries and stores on our part renders it impossible to carry on an offensive campaign, which has been the subject of the two reports which his excellency the chief of staff has been kind enough to send me. These two reports constitute, in my judgment, a very thorough study of the operations considered, but the principal foundation for such operations is lacking, namely, the control of the sea, a prime necessity to their undertaking. For this reason they do not seem practicable to me, at ant rate not unless we may count upon alliances which will make our naval forces at least equal to those potential forces of the United States, to attempt by a decisive blow the attainment of such control.

If the control of the sea remains in the hands of our adversaries, they will immediately make themselves masters of any unfortified ports which they may want in the island of Cuba, counting, as they do, on the insurgents, and will use it as a base of operations against us. The transportation of our troops to Cuba would be most difficult and the success very doubtful, and the insurrection, without the check of our army, which would gradually give way, and with the aid of the Americans, would rapidly increase and become formidable.

These reflections are very sad; but I believe it to be my unavoidable duty to set aside all personal considerations and loyally to represent to my country the resources which I believe to exist, so that, without illusions, it may weigh the considerations for and against, and then, through the Government of His Majesty, which is the country's legitimate organ, it may pronounce its decision. I am sure that this decision will find in all of us energetic, loyal, and decided executors, for we have but one motto: The fulfillment of duty."

Yours, etc.,
PA8CUAL CERVERA,
CADIZ, April 25, 1892.
His Excellency the MINISTER OF MARINE.

================================================

LETTERs:

From: Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary
Navy Department
17th Street NW, Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia
11 June 1892

To: Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla care of
The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston
(Letter is to be conveyed by armed courier and placed in the hands of Doctor Irene Tesla.)

Madam:

Please destroy this letter after the armed courier has placed it in your hand. Please place your written response in his hand after you have read this letter. He will return your answer to me. B. Tracy.)

I enclose a piece of intercepted correspondence, which our agents forwarded to this department about a week ago.

First, we had no idea that the Spanish government contemplated any sort of hostilities with us. We certainly are not in the mood to plot any war against them, no matter how our "yellow press" may agitate for it. Our current military condition and posture militates against any such stupid notions.

Second, to complete the picture of what we expect over the next five years, I want to correct the Spanish assessment of us, and give you our assessment of where they will be:

DATE......................12/92.....12/93.....12/94.....12/95.....12/96.....12/97
BATTLESHIP...................0............1...........2............3...........5............6
ARMORED CRUISER........0............1...........2............3...........4............6
PROTECTED CRUISER......8..........10.........12..........14..........16..........18
TORPEDO RAM................8...........8...........8............8............8...........8
TORPEDO BOATS.............1...........4...........8..........12..........16..........24
STEEL GUNBOATS............7...........8.........10..........12..........14..........16
AUXILIARIES#.................1...........2..........3............4............5............6
SCREW STEAMER.............9...........8..........6............4............2............0
SCREW SLOOPS...............8...........8..........7............6............2............0
WOOD GUNBOATS............5...........4..........3............2............1............0
SAILING VESSELS............3...........2..........1............1............1.............1
STEEL NAVY...................24.........32........42...........52..........65...........78
WOOD NAVY...................26.........24........20..........17..........11.............7
TOTAL ACTIVE................50.........56........62...........69.........76............85

For the Spaniards we expect:

DATE........................12/92.....12/93.....12/94.....12/95.....12/96.....12/97
BATTLESHIP.....................3............3...........3...........3............3...........3
ARMORED CRUISER..........0............1...........2...........4............4...........7
PROTECTED CRUISER.......7.............9.........11..........13..........15.........17
TORPEDO RAM.................0............0...........0............0............0..........0
TORPEDO BOATS..............4............8..........12..........16..........24........28
STEEL GUNBOATS...........10...........12.........14..........16..........18........20
AUXILIARIES#.................2.............2...........2............2...........2..........2
SCREW STEAMER.............5.............5...........5............5...........5..........5
SCREW SLOOPS...............4.............4...........4............4...........4..........4
WOOD GUNBOATS..........10...........12.........14...........16.........18.........20
SAILING VESSELS............7.............6...........5............4...........3...........2
STEEL NAVY...................24...........33.........42...........52.........64.........72
WOOD NAVY...................28...........29........30...........31..........32.........33
TOTAL ACTIVE................52...........62........72...........83..........96........105

Now this summary, on paper, puts the lie to the claims of inferiority the author made in the letter we intercepted, but I assure you that the assessment the author of that letter made, about command of the sea, and the ability to exercise it, is accurate, insofar as he understands naval theory. What I would like from you, as one of our leading technologists, is what do you make of this screed? What should we do; that is what do you recommend for us in the short term and in the long term to adjust to the threat that Spain now portends for us?

Your servant:
Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tesla Experimental Laboratories;
625 Boylston Street, Boston
14 June 1892

Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary (Letter to be hand delivered to the addressee.)
Navy Department
17th Street NW, Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia

Mister Tracy:

After I consulted with an expert friend of mine as to the known technical means and material of the Spanish Armada, and based on what I know we can do, I have the following observations and recommendations:

a. we have no proper naval ports or bases worthy of the name in the Gulf of Mexico. We should build several, one at Mobile Bay and one at Pensacola; and one at New Orleans and Galveston/Houston. Anchorages should be prepared at Tampa and Saint Petersburg (See charts.)



b. our planned warships, building, are expeditionary in design, with large cruising radii; but we should begin to build a fleet of colliers and supply ships in case we need to carry the war forward into enemy waters. No matter that our ships can cross the Atlantic and return on one fuel load, they still must be refueled weekly to operate at all under steam and weigh.
c. adding to the remarks in b. , we should assay whether or not we can design and build specialist ships that can follow our war fleets to repair battle damage and or maintain them, as to normal wear and tear, away from our home ports, The British and the French have a global system of bases where their fleets can make port and make such repairs away from their home countries' naval bases. We have no such luxury. Our overseas fleets must depend on the kindness of neutrals and contract such maintenance and repair at the sufferance and market rates charged by such neutrals. It is a question of logistics which is a weakness we cannot tolerate in the present dangerous world in which we live.
d. Spanish weapons, or "effectors" as I call them, are French, British and German in design origins. The Spanish copy French and British guns. They buy mainly German torpedoes. You should seek out persons of expert authority to advise you specifically on these effectors, but in general I am told that Spanish artillery is mostly of the brown powder propellant generation with the exception of French rapid fire guns, which the Spanish aim to purchase for their new construction. Those use "poudre blanche" or nitro-cellulose based "white powders" in origin as propellants. We have yet to develop an equivalent. If the Spanish obtain white powder propellant for their artillery across the board, we will be overmatched, bore size for bore size, in class of gun as to muzzle velocity, flatness of trajectory, and total kinetic energy delivered at point of impact. That major disparity is your greatest immediate concern. It should take priority over all other material matters for the immediate and distant futures. As to torpedoes, I am not concerned overmuch. I have personally examined a Schwartzkopff. It is not materially different from the Whitehead to which it is a copy, detail for detail. Of our torpedoes, the Howell Mark 1 is roughly equivalent in performance. The Mark 2 and Mark 3 are distinctly superior as to range and accuracy. As to naval mines, the great Civil War killer of our ships, I cannot but advise that you consult Hunter Davidson, the rotten Confederate traitor, who employed those machines against us. You will find that traitor currently serving with the Argentine Navy as their "torpedo expert". If you need to talk to him in person, I can arrange it... with distinct pleasure.
e. As to our warship build program. I am perhaps more familiar with it, than you may be aware, being a joint owner of the Union Iron Works, which currently builds the battleship for the Navy on the West Coast. I can tell you, that if we have any sense in the naval matters, we should perhaps accelerate our battleship and armored cruiser programs and lay off the investment in protected cruisers for the immediate moment. We can "buy" protected cruisers (Elswicks) from the British, who will sell and build them for anybody. What we cannot buy, right now, is the number of armored heavy ships under construction by the Europeans, who will not sell to us, what they cheerfully sell to the South Americans (Argentina, Brazil and Chile most notably.). We should actually make it a matter of our policy to keep a watch on the warship markets and see if we can "acquire" by third party means such warships as may become available, when their original purchasers default on payments. If for no other reason, we would see in steel what the Europeans can do, and what we need to do, to best them. It also keeps such material out of the hands of potential enemies, such as Spain and the South American nations I mentioned.

Your comrade in these matters of interest;
Doctor Irene Tesla DME
TTL

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

47 1st Street
Boston, Massachusetts
16 June 1892

Elias Mathew Vashon for
The Bashon Law Firm PLLC
1634 K Street NW Ste 300,
Washington, DC

Instructions: deliver into Mister Elias Matthew Vashon's hand, watch him read it, destroy it and then report back to me verbally his reply.

Elias;

I need you to arrange the acquisition of a package from Argentina to the United States. It is an "object of interest". It is to be handled as circumstances require, but "useful" and able to "function as required" is absolutely essential.

Irene.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Elias Mathew Vashon for
The Bashon Law Firm PLLC
1634 K Street NW Ste 300,
Washington, DC
22 June 1892

To: Doctor Irene Tesla
47 1st Street
Boston, Massachusetts

Instructions: deliver into Doctor Irene Tesla's hand, watch him read it, destroy it and then report back to me verbally her reply.

Irene:

The package has been located and bagged. It should be arriving soon aboard the SES Newark at Boston. I presume you want to see it?

Elias.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

47 1st Street
Boston, Massachusetts
12 July 1892

Elias Mathew Vashon for
The Bashon Law Firm PLLC
1634 K Street NW Ste 300,
Washington, DC.

Instructions: deliver into Mister Elias Matthew Vashon's hand, watch him read it, destroy it and then report back to me verbally his reply.

Elias;

The package arrived damaged. Sent it forward, as received, to the actual intended recipient. In lieu of the first item, we need another package of similar attributes and characteristics. The courier will give you verbal instructions with regards. Trust me, this item will be a lot harder to acquire than the first one. Try and have the shippers package it more carefully, will you?

Irene.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary
Navy Department
17th Street NW, Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia
27 July 1892

To: Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla care of
The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston
(Letter is to be conveyed by armed courier and placed in the hands of Doctor Irene Tesla.)

Dear Doctor Tesla:

Your comments, as regards our last correspondence, have provoked much discussion within this office. We tend to agree with most of your ideas, observations and comments, but it took your letter to expose the major key salient points that we had somehow obscured in our day to day minutia of details-oriented operations.

Your first package will be of use to us in about six weeks. After we get what we need, we intend to recycle it. We await the second package with some interest, trepidation, and alarm. Are you sure that it will not be missed?

B. Tracy

[miletus12]

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You will recollect, reader, that The Wild Bunch, held up the Continental Number twenty-two, the four-six-four passenger train from Seattle to Boston, at the town stop of Caspar, Wyoming, on and or about the last week of February 1892? Well; it turns out that Mister Elmer Sperry never successfully made the twenty-five-mile mule ride to Glenrock, Wyoming to meet the train that Irene Tesla sent there to fetch him. He went missing around the 4th of March 1892 and has not been heard or seen from for three months. If someone guessed that Elmer had been kidnapped by a gang operating in the area, that would be a solid guess, based on what else has gone wrong in Wyoming at the present time...

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LETTER:

C/O United States Post Office / General Delivery
24 Beacon Street, Boston, MA
11 July 1892

Doctor Norman Oswald Bates DP
C/O The Athenaeum
107 Pall Mall
London, United Kingdom

My dear Norman:

I have enclosed a map and a photo.





Now I must tell you a story. It involves three chaps, called in the American penny dreadfuls, variously The Three Guardsmen^1 or The Three Huntsmen, and a certain scalawag, named William Frederick Cody^2. B-troop of the 6th Cavalry has been saddled with these yahoos^3 as advisors to aid our us in our hunt for a missing inventor, Elmer Sperry. You have read me write of that madcap woman in Boston, Massachusetts^3? Mister Sperry is one of hers, much as I am one of hers. I really have no idea why this man is so important that the Americans throw so many resources into recovering the wretch. I say that if the man cannot follow a stage coach trail for twenty-five miles from Caspar to Glenrock parallel to a railroad track and gets himself lost in the Big Horn Mountains, then his departure from the Human line of common descent might be a good thing. Apparently, there is some sort of kidnap and a ramson demand which has become entangled with the fool. We are to go fetch him out of a place called The Hole In The Wall, kill or capture the hooligans who have him and cover ourselves with glory in the doing, according to "Buffalo Bill". Yes, Norman, somehow that crass knave is also one of the Boston Madwoman's proteges.^4

The gist of the tale in progress is that we will venture into the Big Horn Mountains, camp out and run around a bit to make noise, beating the bushes to scamper the prey before us. The hooligans we seek, will run short of funds or food and then we will stake out some bait for those fools, much as we did for all those circus animals we rounded up a while back. The errant outlaws, being men of low cunning and intelligence, will of course fall for the ruse. We will put them all in cages and ship them off Fort Smith, Arkansas to be legally hanged, if we do not pot shoot them here. That is our current sketchy plan in its broadest outline. I do not venture much hope for Mister Sperry's chances as we carry it out, but then he should have stuck to the trail and not gotten himself snatched in the first place. i will let you know how it turns out in my next letter.

Your Servant and colleague;
Brandon Croyden Wycliffe, ESQ. OM FRS

^1Three Guardsmen

Three Guardsmen Of Fort Smith



The Three Guardsmen were three U.S. marshals based in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) who became famous for their effort to track down the Doolin Gang, also known as the Wild Bunch, in Oklahoma in the early 1890s. When the three accomplished lawmen teamed up in 1891, they spent the next five years pursuing the group, finally capturing gang leader Bill Doolin in January 1896, only to have him escape from the Guthrie Federal Prison less than six months later. They tracked him down again, but refusing to surrender, Doolin was killed in a shootout on August 25, 1896.

The leader of the Three Guardsmen was Henry Andrew “Heck” Thomas, who was born in 1850 in Athens, Georgia. Thomas was joined by Christian Madsen, who was born in Schleswig, Denmark, on February 25, 1851, but came to the United States in 1875. The third member of the trio was William Matthew “Pete” Tilghman Jr., who was born at Fort Dodge, Iowa, on July 4, 1854. Their personal stories and lives before the joining the U.S. Marshals Service are largely unknown and were later overshadowed by their legends.

As members of the U.S. Marshals Service beginning in the 1880s, Thomas, Tilghman, and Madsen were charged with trying to bring order to the ever more populous frontier. They came into regular contact with each other, sometimes in passing, sometimes working on the same effort, including Thomas and Madsen teaming up in the ultimately successful effort to bring down the notorious Dalton Gang.

By the time they formally came together in the early 1890s, charged with the pursuit of the Doolin gang by U.S. marshal Evett Dumas Nix, who served under the jurisdiction of Judge Isaac Parker, they represented a formidable array of experienced frontier talent. As they set out in the summer of 1891, each had his strengths—Thomas was the best shot, Tilghman the best tracker, and Madsen the organizer who kept them on track.

After a lengthy campaign pursuing the marauding gang, the Three Guardsmen (a name later given to them by one of the gangs they pursued), armed with new information, planned to surprise the Wild Bunch in Ingals, Oklahoma, where it was holed up. However, the new district U.S. marshal halted their plan, believing a larger contingent was needed. The ultimate encounter in September 1893, a clash that became known as the Battle of Ingals, saw three deputies and two civilians killed, but only one outlaw was wounded and captured. After that failed effort, Thomas, Tilghman, and Madsen were relieved of all other responsibilities and assigned the pursuit of the Doolin gang full time. They again followed the gang as it robbed trains and banks in Kansas, the Indian Territory, and Texas.

Finally, they arrested Doolin in January 1896, when Tilghman, dressed like a preacher, with his gun under his jacket, arrested him at a spa in Eureka Springs (Carroll County), where he had gone for treatment of his arthritic foot. However, Doolin escaped from prison, and the chase began again. Finally, in August 1896, believing that Doolin would seek to meet his wife at her father’s house in Lawson, Oklahoma, they waited, and on August 25, Doolin appeared. The marshals called for his surrender, but he responded with gunfire. In the ensuing battle, Bill Doolin was shot dead by Heck Thomas.

From there, each of the Three Guardsmen went his own way. Thomas retired as a marshal in 1905, becoming chief of police in Lawton, Oklahoma, a post he held until his death in 1912. Tilghman retired in 1910 and served for a time in the Oklahoma State Senate; while serving as town marshal of Cromwell, Oklahoma, he was murdered in 1924 by a corrupt prohibition agent. Chris Madsen retired in 1905 and died in 1944.

For additional information:
“Heck Thomas—Tough Law in Indian Territory.” Old West Legends. www.legendsofamerica.com/we-heckthomas.html (accessed May 17, 2017).

Marcou, Dan. “Police History: Henry Andrew ‘Heck’ Thomas, Man-Hunter Extraordinaire.” PoliceOne.com. www.policeone.com/police-heroes/articles/6562548-Police-History-Henry-Andrew-Heck-Thomas-man-hunter-extraordinaire/ (accessed May 17, 2017).

Samuelson, Nancy B. Shoot from the Lip: The Lives, Legends & Lies of the Three Guardsmen of Oklahoma & U.S. Marshal Nix. Eastford, CT: Shooting Star Press, 1998.

“The Three Guardsmen.” Shakey Pete’s Shooting Shack, April 20, 2011. shakeypete.blogspot.com/2011/04/three-guardsmen.html (accessed May 17, 2017).

William H. Pruden III
Ravenscroft School

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^ 2 Town Founder and Irrigation Tycoon: The Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows

Town Founder and Irrigation Tycoon: The Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows

ROBERT E. BONNER SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2015

William F. Cody, famous across two continents as Buffalo Bill, leader of the great Wild West show, was flush with cash and bursting with self-confidence when he embarked on his Wyoming life in 1894, promising to build an irrigated empire along the Shoshone River that would be larger than any such enterprise the West had ever seen. In 1916, broke and ill, he slipped out of Wyoming to die the following year in his sister’s home in Denver, still famous and widely mourned, but not the figure he set out to become 22 years earlier. Cody’s life in Wyoming left a wide trail, however, and it was not all downhill.



In this photo, taken about 1912, Bill Cody has dressed himself as a capitalist, not a Wild West showman. Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

By the early 1890s it was 20 years since Cody had begun the transformation from scout, to dime-novel hero to full-time showman. By 1894 the Wild West show had toured widely in North America and toured Europe four times, performing twice before Queen Victoria, selling millions of tickets and making Cody a wealthy man.

His extraordinary success with his show at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago marked the peak of his career as a showman. Now he wanted to make a mark outside the show arena, something that would earn him the enduring respect of wealthy men in the East.

It was water that brought Buffalo Bill into northern Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin. Businessmen George Beck and Horace Alger of Sheridan had purchased a water right to irrigate a large tract along the south side of the Shoshone River where it flows out of the Absaroka Mountains, a hundred miles west of Sheridan. Cody met them in Sheridan in 1893, and they were pleased to bring his name and resources into their project. After Beck and State Engineer Elwood Mead surveyed the land in 1894, and Mead’s report described it as a project that could not fail, they formed the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company and began digging the Cody Canal in 1895.

Saga of the Shoshone Irrigation Company

From the beginning, the saga of that company, reorganized and renamed Shoshone Irrigation Company in 1896, was a kind of soap opera. Cody knew little or nothing about irrigation or construction, but as company president he tried to micromanage the whole enterprise from his railroad car while he toured America with the Wild West.

As for Beck, he had never undertaken to manage a project this complex. He often found balancing the demands for performance from company directors against the need to conserve scarce funds next to impossible, and chose to say or do nothing rather than get into fights. The land through which they were digging the canal was extraordinarily difficult: In some places it was like cemented gravel, at others it was so sandy the banks would not hold, and they literally had to build a canal of wooden planking above the ground.

Bill Cody had big plans to attract colonies of settlers, all of which fell through. Eastern investors stopped supplying needed capital; only Cody’s willingness to pay far more than his fair share kept the ditch project going at all. By 1897, some water had begun flowing to Cody’s little namesake town they had set up the year before, and the following year they had attracted some more farmers. Violent storms in the summer of 1898 wrecked the canal, however, and led its directors to try to sell out for $150,000, roughly the amount they had put into it. There were no buyers.

Development of water resources in the West was never easy. Westerners argued from 1890 on that only irrigation systems could do the job, and the federal government had to take the lead. The Carey Act of 1894, named after Wyoming U.S. Senator Joseph Carey, was a first attempt. States were each to be given a million acres of public land, and they would contract with private developers to build the water systems.



A long flume on the Cody Canal around Red Bluffs under construction, ca. 1896. George T. Beck papers, American Heritage Center.

The Cody Canal was one of the first Carey Act projects in the nation. Watching Carey Act failures all across the West, irrigation advocates realized free land was not enough: The cost of building good irrigation systems was still too great for private resources. Federal intervention would be needed—on a scale beyond anything the government had been willing to consider. In 1902, Congress passed the National Reclamation Act, putting federal money directly into water development for the first time, and the U. S. Reclamation Service was formed to do the job.

When the Burlington Railroad completed its spur line to the town of Cody in 1901, settlement picked up. That was a mixed blessing, however, in that more settlers meant more demand on the canal. The irrigation company’s contract with the state under the Carey Act expired that same year. The directors applied for an extension, but the new state engineer—Elwood Mead having moved on to federal employment—inspected the canal and found it was only half built, and the constructed portion was not reliable. He required them to spend another $43,000 extending and rebuilding the ditch, and two years later his successor returned and required a further $20,000.

The business of the canal was taken over by George Bleistein, a printing magnate and Shoshone Irrigation Company director from Buffalo, N.Y., leaving both Beck and Cody out of it. Company officials found the money and did the work, but it was not enough to keep a group of farmers from taking them to court for failure to provide water. All 26 lawsuits were settled in favor of the plaintiffs, wiping away all possibility of the canal investors recovering their money.

The canal was turned over to the settlers in 1907, and when the cloud of litigation dispersed, the settlers had to sell $95,000 of bonds to raise the money needed to make it irrigate even 12,000 acres reliably. The Shoshone Irrigation Company had spent $282,000 by the end of 1905 to build a canal that could not do its job, and had taken in only $82,000 in water sales to settlers. It was a sorry excuse for an irrigation empire.

The U.S. Reclamation Service

But the Cody Canal was the smaller part of Buffalo Bill’s imperial ambitions. In 1897, amid the chaos and bickering along the Cody Canal, Cody convinced his Wild West partner, Nate Salsbury, to join him in a second irrigation venture.

This one was to carry water to 120,000 acres on the north side of the river, extending more than 25 miles east from Cody. They got their plans approved and the state water right issued in May 1899. Cody and Salsbury knew they would have to raise great sums of money to accomplish this; Buffalo Bill pronounced himself ready to raise a million dollars! That he would take this on at a time when the Cody Canal seemed to be falling apart shows a measure of his ambition and his self-delusion. The partners actually did little real work on this venture.

Capitalists with the kind of money Cody was looking for were not impressed with the chances of this kind of project. When the federal government finally moved decisively into western water development in 1902, officials in the new U.S. Reclamation Service immediately expressed interest in the Cody-Salsbury plan. They wanted to acquire Buffalo Bill’s water right.

The Burlington Railroad, which had built the line to Cody in 1901, wanted to see a federal project on that land; they had no confidence that Cody’s private plans could succeed. Cody temporized throughout 1903, but in early 1904 he finally agreed to relinquish his water right to the Reclamation Service. As a result, the federal government immediately appropriated $2,250,000 to build the Shoshone Project.

They built what was then the highest concrete arch dam in the world in the canyon west of Cody, creating a reservoir of 465,000 acre-feet of water that irrigated 93,000 acres centered on the new town of Powell, 25 miles northeast of Cody. In 1946, on what would have been his hundredth birthday, the dam and the lake were renamed for Buffalo Bill. This honor acknowledged Cody’s vision, while omitting mention of his rather feckless career as an irrigation developer.

Cody’s namesake town

Bill Cody had been better at building a town than an irrigation project. After a stuttering start, with competing layouts two miles apart, the Shoshone Irrigation Company laid out the town of Cody in the spring of 1896. Cody was interested in every detail of the new town: getting a proper hotel built, making sure the streets were wide, recommending that liquor license fees be set high enough to keep the rough trade away.



Bill Cody sends Texas millionaire Charley Gates and friends off on a hunting trip in one of Cody's steam-powered cars, ca. 1913. Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

When they formed the Cody Townsite Company to sell lots, Cody watched it closely. When the Burlington finally came to the deciding point on building into the town, Bill Cody argued in his correspondence constantly and forcefully for the construction. He warned his partners in the townsite company to accommodate the interests of the railroad as expressed through its development arm, the Lincoln Land Company, or risk losing everything they had invested.

The arrival of the Burlington in the fall of 1901 guaranteed that Cody would be a viable town, but it meant that the irrigation company partners had to cede half the income from town lots to the Lincoln Land Company. Buffalo Bill always took credit for getting the railroad to the town. This was clearly overstating the case—the Burlington had good corporate reasons without regard to Bill Cody—but what else would one expect from one of the greatest promoters of his or any other time.

Buffalo Bill owned the livery stable, the blacksmith shop, the newspaper and several ranches around town. He started a company to mine coal outside of town and drilled oil wells. As many as half of the 500 or so people who lived and worked in Cody in 1899 were dependent upon him, and many more applied to him for occasional charity, with which he was famously generous. After the railroad came in, he decided to more than double his financial commitment to the town by building the Irma Hotel—named for his daughter.

Opened with a grand reception Nov. 18, 1902, the Irma—an imposing stone structure in a town of wooden buildings—probably cost him $80,000. No less a judge than the great painter Frederic Remington pronounced it as good a hotel as any in the West. In 1903, a local writer estimated that Cody had poured more than $216,000 into his namesake town. As he fell deeply into debt mining for gold in Arizona, his financial commitment to the town dwindled; he even mortgaged his hotel and his home ranch in that decade and later deeded them to his wife, Louisa, to keep them from being sold by creditors.

But his personal commitment to Cody never wavered. When he returned to Wyoming after the summers of Wild West shows, he always gave a big party at the Irma, when he would speak of his optimism for Cody’s future. No other little town in the West could boast of a cheerleader to compare with Buffalo Bill.



Buffalo Bill smiles late in his life in this portrait for a tourist brochure, 1915. Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

The Irma, “Buffalo Bill’s Hotel in the Rockies,” became the centerpiece of his vision for Cody and the country around it. Cody and Beck marked out a wagon road west from Cody up the North Fork of the Shoshone River to the eastern edge of Yellowstone Park. He built Pahaska Tepee, a hunting lodge, just outside the park, at the end of that road, and the Wapiti Inn halfway between Cody and Pahaska; these became part of the infrastructure of Yellowstone Park tourism, a new industry that the town and the railroad could advertise. He bought a fleet of steam-driven automobiles to carry tourists up and back and lobbied hard in Washington to have a road built from the center of Yellowstone to a new east entrance.

Cody had worked from his very first years in Wyoming to connect his town with the metropolitan East. He organized hunting parties west of Cody in the high Absaroka Mountains every fall when he returned to Wyoming. At first he was hoping to get wealthy men to invest, but later he was more generally determined to make Cody famous among the elite of eastern cities, especially New York.

He joined the Camp-Fire Club in New York, where he could rub shoulders with men who lived to hunt; a few years after he joined the club Cody created an affiliate chapter, one of only four outside of New York. Some Cody men started selling their services as guides and outfitters for eastern hunters, and others began to offer accommodations to tourists who wanted to live on ranches. Cody himself advertised his home ranch, the TE, as a dude ranch in the summer of 1916.

Taken altogether, his creation—for it was nothing less—of the tourist industry in Wyoming was a reverse image of his Wild West show. The Wild West set out to bring the West to the arenas of the East, but the tourist industry grew by bringing more and more Easterners to the West. Cody’s own personality and reputation made for a seamless transition, and to this day the engines of tourism in Wyoming run in no small part on images and memories of Buffalo Bill.

Judged by the standard he set for himself when he came to Wyoming, he must have felt himself something of a failure. He was never marked out by talent or experience to succeed in the irrigation business; there were, in fact, very few notable successes in that line of work anywhere in the West. But everything he had done as a showman led easily and naturally to success in tourism. His townsmen followed where he led, and Cody became a town where the tourist dollar sustains life. Buffalo Bill did not earn great wealth from his tourism ventures, but nearly a century after his death he smiles genially down from large billboards along highways across five states. He literally looms larger than life over the corner of Wyoming that calls itself “Cody Country.”

RESOURCES

Bonner, Robert E. William F. Cody’s Wyoming Empire; The Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

Cook, Jeannie, et al. Buffalo Bill’s Town in the Rockies; a Pictorial History of Cody, Wyoming. Virginia Beach, Va.: The Donning Company, 1996.

Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill’s America; William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Illustrations

The photos of Bill Cody the capitalist, Cody with the carload of hunters and the late tourist-promotion portrait are all from the collections of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyo., catalog numbers P.69.119, P.6.281and P.6.145, respectively. Used with permission and thanks.

The 1896 photo of the flume on the Cody Canal is from the George T. Beck papers, Box 31, folder 12, at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. Used with permission and thanks.

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^3 Irene Goss Davenport Tesla of course.

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^4 In this timeline, "Buffalo Bill" Cody's irrigation project is a sub-part of the electrification and gentrification of the Powder River and Big Horn River basins and that whole country in between famous for George Armstrong Custer's Big Mistake and John Schofield's Colossal Blunder. *See Map.



   

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Context explanations:

Back a few months ago, before Mister Doctor Masdea bollixed up the Pre-Commissioning Unit, USS Massachusetts, and before Irene went on her long delayed European vacation, Irene paid the USS Oregon PCU in the San Francisco yard, that she just happened to own. She had her own ideas on what made a ship work, whether for peace or war. 

That is her notional plan for a "hybrid ship" she had the Union Iron works prepare for "Argentina" ostensibly in response to Chile's inquiries about armored cruisers prepared for them by the UK and Italy.
 
Category Specification: Plans for a PCU (Argentina is the customer? They cannot afford it.).
Displacement 15,000 metric tons (standard)
Length (overall) ~450 ft (137.2 m)
Beam ~68 ft (20.7 m)
Draft ~26 ft (7.9 m)
Hull Form Fine entry, rounded midsections, extended forecastle; bilge keels installed
Propulsion coal-fired Nicolaus / Davenport boilers → 4 Curtis-type turbines → electric dynamos → twin electric motors
Installed Power ~18,000 shp (electric)
Speed (max) ~18 knots
Range ~5,500 nmi @ 10 knots
Complement ~520 officers and men

Armament Configuration:
Mount Type Weapons
Main Battery w3 x 2 × 12-inch (30.5 cm actual)/40-cal guns in 2 gun turrets: 1 forward and 2 aft (non-super-firing, in-centerline)
Secondary Battery 2 x 2 × 8-inch (20.5 cm actual)/40-cal guns in 2 wing turrets.  
Tertiary Battery 8 × 5-inch (12.5 cm actual)/50-cal QF guns in deck casemates
Fire Control Single control top (forward), telephones, voice tube backupss and mechanical sighting systems
Torpedo Tubes omitted by design as Irene does not think these dangerous devices have anyplace on her "ocean-going monitor".

Protection:
Section Thickness/Type
Main Belt Armor 13.5–14 in (34.3 cm to 35.5 cm actual) (Harvey face-hardened, central citadel coverage)
Barbettes & Turrets 12–13 in (30.5 cm to 33.0 cm actual) (heavily armored, with shell-proof hoods)
Deck Armor 2.5–3 in (6.4 cm to 7.5 cm actual) layered (main + splinter protection overlay)
Conning Tower 10 in, (25.5 cm actual) octagonal armored with direct access to turret telephones and voice tubes as well as the "director/navigation/signal platform". 

That sure looks like the future USS Kearsarge to me and probably is based off the IOWA pattern.

Doctrinal and Structural Notes:

No Super-firing Turrets: In line with 1890s emergent U.S. naval doctrine; concerns over blast effects and center-of-gravity stability make super-firing turret designs inappropriate. Not even Irene is willing to push her naval architects that far... yet.

Twin Aft Main Turrets: Accommodates chaser fire capability during withdrawal and avoids bow-heaviness associated with forward-turret concentration.

Single Mast Configuration: One forward mast only; rear pole mast deleted to reduce topweight and roll-inducing pendulum effect.

Crew Safety & Deck Arrangement: Tertiary battery mounted low, sited below main battery blast arcs; broad deck space amidships for handling and ventilation cowls.

Seakeeping: Irene hull elongated the length to beam to draft ratios for better wave dispersion. The bilge-keels mitigate the roll tendency. The GM is enhanced by reduced topweight with the reduced minimalist superstructure. The one control mast and conning tower for navigation is to reduce target silhouette. Irene integrates the rudimentary Fiske designed centralized fire control system available. Spotlights and the infrared talk between ship signal lamps and detectors are in that same mast. It gets crowded up there. 

Miletus12

[miletus12]

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Diary of Lieutenant William Fritch 10 July 1892:



Buffalo Bill says he knows this country. In a pig's eye. I did a personal horse ride along that shield wall of an escarpment that runs south to north to the west of our base-camp at Kaycee. As I map it out; we have three routes into the plateau to Ten Sleep, where the Wild Bunch presumably hold Mister Sperry. Small bands of sharpshooters could hold off two entire regiments at the South Fork and North Fork branches of the Powder River, so those two routes seem nullified. The third route, into the plateau, is via Crazy Woman Canyon. We could go north up to Buffalo and make an attempt into crossing at Clear Creek, which is the most sensible course, but that would be a 300 kilometer circular jaunt across country that kills horses and maims men. I "think" the gangsters do not believe anyone is crazy enough to try Crazy Woman Canyon. We make it through there, and it is a straight funnel shot down Ten Sleep Canyon straight at them. They might get word of our movement from their friends in Kaycee, but I think I have a plan to mask our intent. I let it be known that we were in this place to put down the rebellions and civil disorders in Johnson County. The lynching of Cattle Kate of three years past, has given us more than enough national newspaper coverage to justify B Troop's presence as a patrolling gendarmery force to restore civil order on this east side of the Big Horn Mountains. Our movement north to ostensibly to Buffalo, will be what the Wild Bunch would expect as part of that presence, so they likely will post their blocking party at Clear Creek Pass to thwart us, just in case, that is if they do not believe the Johnson County War ruse.    

That will split the baby for me. I will delegate one half of us to go north and wipe out the Clear Creek Pass reception committee from their back-sides while I sashay the rest of us down to Ten Sleep. If all goes well, we will have Mister Sperry back and on his way inside of ten days. We will hang the Wild Bunch promptly ex-judicio locally, or those of them that we can take alive. I do not intend a 1,400 kilometer train-ride to Fort Smith, Arkansas, babysitting those outlaws, and then wait another six months to testify before Judge Parker, when I can drum-head them on the spot. All I need is Mister Sperry as the witness to his own kidnapping. I can easily provide the one steer needed with the wrong brand on it for the cattle rustling charge. Two capital felonies in Wyoming, and I can hang anybody.

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Approach route to and the settlement of Ten Sleep, Wyoming

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Letter:

United States Postal Service
115 Pine St,
Ten Sleep, WY
20 July 1892

Doctor Irene Tesla; care of
The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston.

My dear Doctor Irene Tesla;

I am alive and well. I think I should report to you that the miracle of this unfortunate episode is that the electric gyrocompass is still remarkably intact. I have enclosed a photo of the unit's current condition after Lieutenant Fritch recovered it from the Double Bar T Ranch bunkhouse.





There was some gun-play around the device. A bullet creased the north face of the box which encloses the compass. You will see the shallow gouge, where the bullet ricocheted and missed me as I wrestled to take it from the thief who stole it from me in the first place. Fortunately, that bandit, who had recovered the device from where he hid it, to make off with it, was also between the trooper and the device, so the pistol round which hit the device had to pass through that bandit, whose body decelerated the bullet. Thus, the case was not penetrated and the compass inside it, still functions as designed. We will have to make a new case of course to neutralize the Earth's magnetic field influence on the gyrocompass as to its "point", but that is a matter of a few weeks, instead of my starting from scratch to build it anew.

I am reliably told that the bandit, Elzy Lay, is guaranteed not to make it. Whether he will die of his wound or some other way of departure from this Earth, Lieutenant Fritch has pointedly not informed me.^1 I have, out of respect, for the legal niceties, refused to pursue that matter. Curiosity sometimes must be restricted for the Good of the Republic.

As to the matter of my rescue, I must say, that I was trussed up in an upstairs bedroom of the main house on the ranch where I was kept. I was blindfolded, so I could not see what transpired prior to the break-in of the room and my rescue by some crazed Englishman wearing buckskins. He self-identified himself as a Mister Brandon Croyden Wycliffe, ESQ. OM. FRS. I swear he rattled off his full titles, said he was attached to the 6th Cavalry as a martial specialist advisor, and proclaimed himself to be your personal agent charged with my rescue. I, of course, gave no credence to any of his boasting. I feel I am justified in stating that he has as much to do with my rescue as "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who made the same claims in your name. I, actually credit, insofar as I can reliably reconstruct the bandits' confessed accounts of how they were taken, Lieutenant William Fritch, a Mister Tom Horn, and Corporal Adam Frey with my rescue, since they were the three who shot it out with and put to flight, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The three men, so named, stayed behind to secure the ranch house. I can tell you that what remains of the Wild Bunch has fled deeper into western Wyoming, with the Three Guardians in close pursuit as followers. As Lieutenant Fritch tells me, his orders are to make sure I return safely to Boston with the device. That is his reason for not taking up the pursuit of those brigands, himself. I am not sure that I agree with this policy decision, since our country would be much better off with all of the Wild Bunch under the ground instead of above it. But it is, what it is. I am on my way back with the device.

Written from the Double Bar T Ranch this 20 July 1892.

Your Servant;
Elmer Sperry

PS. Lieutenant Fritch hanged the former owner of the Double Bar T ranch, Mister Oswald Cobbler, for rustling one of your ostriches. You now own the ranch.


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^1 Lay died of natural causes with his boots on. Specifically, he fell to his death at the end of a rope.

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[miletus12]

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Mulinu'u Point (Note the USNRA observatory and laboratory station?) Photo taken from the Light Tower platform. Author

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25 July 1892

1. Location: 13°49'60'' S 171°46' W. We anchored at 1438 the ship's local time advanced from GMT 1338 to advance 1 day.
2. Navigation aids noted upon transit of Apia harbor mouth: Two light stations: Mulinu'u Point and Commerce Business Transfer Point. Port entry made by telemeter ranging and Timed Light Signal.
3. Atmosphere mostly clear with no haze. Clouds 50%. Visibility to horizon reported by telemeter watch is 24,000 meters. Water choppy with 1 meter waves. This makes entry under power essential. Danger area is harbor west.
4. Engine plant at 15%. Watts on demand; 15kW standby; if needed. Condition X-ray set with Yoke authorized to OOD at discretion.
5. Signals of our arrival lamp flashed at local port authority, co-located Congress House. Port master's response was immediate, as expected. This is our port, after all. A boat to be dispatched to Apia townhouse (Grey's Hotel) and Master present notified of our arrival as per regulations.
6. Upon self berthing dropped two anchors and drag line as per regulations. The harbor is weather exposed to the north. Three point attachment to land pilings and harbor bottom is required. Set the deck crew to cleaning our weather deck, the stack scrubbers and de-sooting the sneeze box. Will request time in to dry-dock to debarnacle if the dock is available and local labor can be obtained for that purpose. Number Three estimates, maintenance and hull cleaning, will require one full week.
7. Current heading: 170 degrees off magnetic north. Deviation estimated 11 degrees. Vector: general south heading at 0 m/s. Aft current drift from north is tidal at west to east at 3 m/s. Sea anchors, two, set astern to maintain static berth heading.
8. Typhoon drills scheduled daily upon port arrival.
9. Set relaxed side-rail watch. With no square heads present, we can assume Peace One.
10. The Three Stooges will go ashore with the landing party to transmit our reports to date at the telegraph station located at Congress House. It will be a relief to be able to trust our own cable lines back to San Francisco. 
11. No other ships present at this time.



Notes: We are here a week late due to the necessity to maneuver through Typhoon Charles. Mission orders, which are standard for us in a friendly US port, are to repair and maintain the ship, transmit our reports to San Francisco by secured telegraph cable lines, and perform such other duties as tasks deferred; due to circumstances as are needed. We had to use 1882 Bu-Nav charts to enter this place. Those charts need serious updates, since the charts do not cover any of the improvements made since the 1889 disaster. At the present time, our most pressing needs are to dry-dock and debarnacle the hull, and to obtain coal. We used our last bunker reserve to outrun Typhoon Charles. We ride high in empty ballast, We had no problems at all with self entry into Apia Harbor, thankfully. So far, there has been no meet and greet party, which I find unusual. If I have any qualms, at the present, it would that abnormal omission in the routine courtesies of the port of call. In the past; that usually has been the prelude to difficulties and miscommunication, like we had at Pearl in Oahu.

Signed

Captain Elliot Washburn.

===================================================

Letter by Cable: To be hand-delivered as doubled envelope sealed orders;

From: Montgomery Sicard for;
Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary
Navy Department
17th Street NW, Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia
27 July 1892

To: Commanding Officer: USS Charleston; Captain Elliott Washburn
Routed Through: United States Post Office
10 Togafu'afu'a Rd
Apia, Samoa

Sir:

Upon receipt of these orders, your tasks are as follows;

a. You shall make all necessary repairs and fulfill all ship's bill items as you are able to accomplish with the assets at hand and with all the resources the port can furnish you. The Port Master, "Captain" (honorific) Elijah Hammersmith, has received his separate orders to aid and assist you in all matters you request, which are covered below in your tasks.

b. Your tasks, as enumerated, are:

1. To install one auxiliary dynamo for additional electrical demand-draw power.
2. To install one infrared talk between ships, photo-phone.
3. To install one Tesla Device.
4. To visit the following ports in the "good will visit port-calls list" in the order as listed.
> Jakarta
> Belawan
> Dumai
> Cirebon
> Gresik
> Talag Duku
> Teluk Bayur
> Pontianak
> Dagupan
> Suba
> Manila
5. Each port visit shall be treated as "a show the flag" presence. With regard to the Dutch-controlled ports; the standing orders of your assess, chart and enable use by US shipping survey should not encounter difficulties, as the United Provinces and the United States are currently on "good" terms as mutual neutrals in respect to each other's affairs ongoing. All efforts should be made to cultivate local contacts and friendships to facilitate both nations' mutual and coincident aligned interests versus "hostile European states".^1
6. With regard to the Spanish controlled ports, the current situation is "Peace 3".^2 Tensions are high between His Catholic Majesty's government and ours. Take such local ship's security self-defense measures as necessary to not incite war, but do not assume that hostile action may not break out at any moment. As pursuant to your overall mission orders, conduct the survey as you are best able with serruptition.

Montgomery Sicard for;
Benjamin F. Tracy; Navy Secretary

------------------------------------------------------------------------

^1 In order: the hostile European States are: Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Russia, France, Portugal, and Japan which of course is not a European state.
2. Peace to War. American state of readiness.
> Peace One: conditions are good; no events are foreseen that will lead to war.
> Peace Two: conditions are fair; there are issues with one or several nations, but negotiations should resolve those issues.
> Peace Three: conditions are poor; there is at least one major unresolved issue with a foreign nation that resists a negotiated settlement, but negotiations are still likely to resolve it.
> War Four: conditons are critical; negotiations go on between disputing parties, but no resolution is likely by diplomacy. Hostilities could happen at any moment.
> War Five: Open hostilities. Shoot upon contact.

[miletus12]

Edoardo Masdea (Robot translation.).

MASDEA, Eduardo.

Marco Gemignani
– Born in Naples on 23 July 1849 to Giuliano and Clorinda Bozoni, he was admitted on 8 August 1849. 1859 to attend the local R. Naval Academy. After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, M. continued his formation in the same institute. He became an officer in the Italian Royal Navy and embarked on the sailing corvettes "Euridice" and "Valoroso" to participate in the training campaigns from 1861 to 1864. On Dec. 1. In 1864 he was appointed midshipman in the General Staff Corps, but later decided to transfer to the Naval Engineer Corps and, therefore, on 1 Dec. In 1865 he became a student engineer at the application school of Castellammare di Stabia. On 1 May 1869 he was appointed sub-engineer 3rd class and soon became one of B. Brin's most trusted collaborators.

After embarking on the propeller steamer "Vittorio Emanuele" from 14 July to 27 Oct. In 1873, under the direction of Brin, M. took part in the design of the revolutionary fast battleships "Italia" and "Lepanto", both laid down in 1876. From 16 August to 18 Oct. In 1878 he served on the propeller transport "Conte di Cavour" and from 1 November of the same year until 26 June 1879 he was again assigned to the "Vittorio Emanuele". He was then commissioned to work on the design of the battleships "Re Umberto", "Sardegna" and "Sicilia" (whose construction began between 1884 and 1885), which represented the natural evolution of the "Italia" and the "Lepanto".

Brin, who again became Minister of the Navy in 1884, in order to take into account the changed national needs following the impulse given to the Italian colonial and commercial expansion in Africa, the Far East and South America, decided to strengthen the armed force by equipping it with a more conspicuous nucleus of protected cruisers to be used in distant seas.

He therefore commissioned M. to design a new type of this type of unit, based on the plans of the British Armstrong shipyards. From M.'s studies came the seven cruisers of the "Regioni" or "Lombardia" class, composed, in addition to the class leader, of the "Calabria", the "Elba", the "Etruria", the "Liguria", the "Puglia" and the "Umbria", laid down between 1888 and 1893.

Thanks to them, the M. gained notoriety, as these cruisers remained famous for their intense and prolonged activity abroad and for their good habitability, a precious factor for units intended for long cruises.

He then became a member on 1 Nov. 1888 to 31 March 1894 of the Committee for the Designs of Ships and in that period he continued to study improvements to these units and devoted himself to the design of larger ships which led in 1892 and 1893 to the beginning of the construction of the armoured cruisers "Vettor Pisani" and "Carlo Alberto". The Ministry of the Navy, however, asked for more protected and more armed units than these two and entrusted M. with the task of designing them. M.'s studies took the form of the cruisers of the "Giuseppe Garibaldi" class, the first of which was laid down in 1893, which were also sold to other countries, so much so that the Royal Navy would have to wait until the beginning of the twentieth century to include three of them ("Giuseppe Garibaldi", "Francesco Ferruccio" and "Varese").

On 16 April 1894 M. was appointed director of naval construction of the Royal Arsenal at the first maritime department and from 1 February 1894 he was appointed director of naval constructions of the Royal Arsenal at the first maritime department. In 1896 he held the same post in the Ministry of the Navy, at the same time being promoted to inspector, a rank that later changed to that of major general.

In the following years, M., first a member of the Superior Council of the Navy (1 February 1899) and, immediately afterwards (2 March), appointed substitute judge of the Supreme Court of War and Navy, continued to carry out important duties. On 11 Jan. In 1901 he was appointed head of the Technical Office of the Ministry of the Navy and devoted himself to the study of two other armoured cruisers, the "S. Giorgio" and the "S. Marco", which were laid down in 1905 and 1907 respectively.
On 9 June 1904, due to the extensive knowledge he had acquired in the field of shipbuilding, he became a member of the commission for the study of the reforms to be made to the code for the merchant marine. On 28 July of the same year, he became de facto head of the Naval Engineering Corps and on 1 September he was promoted to lieutenant general.

In 1905 he collaborated with another eminent officer of the naval engineers, V.E. Cuniberti, in the conception of the first single-caliber battleship of the Royal Navy, the "Dante Alighieri", which was laid down in 1909 and for which M. studied the innovative arrangement of the main artillery in triangular towers placed on the diametral plane of the ship.

On 17 ag. In 1907 M. regained the direction of the Technical Office (with the new name of Committee for the examination of ship projects) and devoted himself to drawing up plans for three other battleships: the "Conte di Cavour", the "Giulio Cesare" and the "Leonardo da Vinci", which began to be built in 1910. These plans were then used, with minor changes made by Lieutenant General G. Valsecchi, to build the "Duilio" and the "Andrea Doria", laid down in 1912.

In recognition of his merits, in addition to being appointed on 24 May 1906 Grand Officer of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and on 4 June 1908 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy, on 27 Jan. In 1910 he became a senator of the Kingdom.

He died in Rome on 12 May 1910.

A proof of M.'s extensive technical knowledge is offered by some articles that he published in the Maritime Review: Di mutamenti che possa portato nelle costruzioni navali i cannoni da 160 t., VIII (1875), 9, pp. 417-428; Prove di velocità del regio avviso Cristoforo Colombo, IX (1876), 12, pp. 574-578; L'Italia R. nave di prima classe, XIII (1880), 10, pp. 51-81. M. also edited, for the same periodical, the translation of an important article in English (originally published in Naval Science): Le macchine marine moderne, I, ibid., IX (1876), 4, pp. 52-65; II, ibid., 5-6, pp. 362-377.

Sources and Bibl.:
Rome, Ministry of Defence, Arch. of the Historical Office. of the Navy, Official Biographies, b. M.2, f. 17; for information on the characteristics and activities carried out by the naval units in the design of which M. participated, see ibid.,
> Raccolta di base, bb. 2133, f. 1 («Andrea Doria»); 2114-2118 ('Calabria'); 2123 ('Carlo Alberto'); 2095 ("Conte di Cavour"); 2133, f. 2 ("Dante Alighieri"); 2137 and 2138, f. 1 ("Duilio"); 2140-2142 ('Elba'); 2145 ("Etruria"); 2152 and 2153, f. 1 ("Francesco Ferruccio"); 322, f. 7 and 2127, f. 12 ("Julius Caesar"); 2157, f. 2 and 2158 ("Giuseppe Garibaldi"); 2164 and 2165, f. 1 ('Italy'); 2134-2136, 2268-2273 ("Leonardo da Vinci"); 2169, f. 1 ("Lepanto"); 2175, f. 4 and 2282, f. 2 ('Liguria'); 176, 359, f. 5, 2166, 2167, f. 1, 2383 ('Lombardy'); 2190 and 2262, f. 10 ('Puglia'); 2198, f. 6 and 2262, f. 3 ("Re Umberto"); 2203, ff. 2-3, 2204, ff. 1-2, 263, f. 5 ("St. George"); 2206, f. 3 ("St. Mark's"); 2234-2235 ('Umbria'); 2246, f. 3 and 2282, f. 4 («Varese»); 2249, ff. 1-4, 2250, 2251, ff. 1-2 ('Vettor Pisani').
> On M. see: Lt. General of the Naval Engineers E. M. Senator of the Kingdom, in Riv. Marittima, XLIII (1910), 5, pp. n.n.; > G. Giorgerini - A. Nani, Le navi di linea italiane 1861-1969, Roma 1969, pp. 20, 256, 258, 266, 278;
> G. Annovazzi, 50 navi italiane famose, Milan 1971, pp. 100, 114, 117, 124, 153; F. Bargoni, Esploratori, frigate, corvette ed avviso italiani 1861-1974, Rome 1974, p. 178;
> G. Giorgerini - A. Nani, Gli cruisetori italiani 1861-1975, Roma 1976, pp. 237, 270, 280, 282, 302, 342;
> G. Cavallotti, Il romanzo della corazzata. Storia della nave da guerra regina dei mari, Milan 1978, p. 110; Navi e marinai, Milan 1979, I, pp. 289, 294, 296, 298; II, pp. 602, 604, 666, 731;
> A. Rastelli, Le navi del re. Immagini di una flotta che fu, Milan 1988, pp. 53, 95 s.;
> E. Bagnasco - A. Rastelli, Le costruzioni navali italiane per l'estero, in Riv. marittima, CXXIV (1991), 12, suppl., p. 15;
> G. Giorgerini - A. Nani, Almanacco stor. delle navi militari italiane, Rome 1996, pp. 46, 190, 192, 211, 213, 236, 239, 242, 285, 287, 289;
> L. D'Ippolito, Gli incagli del regio cruisetore S. Giorgio, in Bull. d'Arch. of the Historical Office. of the Navy, XI (1997), 4, pp. 9, 13;
> M. Gabriele, Benedetto Brin, Rome 1998, pp. 68, 71, 84, 106; H. Jentschura - D. Jung - P. Mickel, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, London 1999, p. 75;
> F. Bargoni - F. Gay - V.M. Gay, Navi a vela e navi miste italiane (1861-1887), Roma 2001, p. 474;
> A. Turrini, L'opera di Cesare Laurenti. Realizzazione e progetti, Rome 2002, p. 19;
> M. Gabriele, Simone Pacoret de Saint Bon, Rome 2002, p. 187;
> Id., Giovanni Bettolo, Rome 2004, pp. 101, 160, 167;
> M. Gemignani, Adone Del Cima commander of the battleship Roma, Rome 2005, p. 44; M. Cosentino - R. Stanglini, Il corpo del genio navale, Firenze 2006, pp. 37, 44-46, 54 s., 59 s., 154;
> A. Ronconi, L'industria navale italiana e la battaglia di Tsushima, in La battaglia di Tsushima. Proceedings of the Conference... 2005, edited by M. Gemignani, Rome 2006, pp. 81, 83;
> A. De Gubernatis, Piccolo Diz. dei contemporanei italiani, Rome 1895, p. 586; Biographical and bibliographic enc. «Italiana», A. Malatesta, Ministers, deputies, senators from 1848 to 1922, II, p. 169; Enc. Italiana, XXII, p. 497.

=========================================================================









Region Class protected cruiser in Hudson River.

[miletus12]

Prepared 1 August 1892 by,
Elias Mathew Vashon LLD for
The Bashon Law Group.

Memorandum For Record for 31 July 1892 Meeting at William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding and Engineering Company:

Participants at the meeting;

Mister Charles Francis Brush, MEE, representing the American Consortium of Manufactured Electronics on behalf of its board of Directors.
Mister Theodore William Cramp, representing the builder-contractor.
Doctor Irene Goss Davenport, Owner of the Union Iron Works, American Shipping Lines, representing the Tesla Experimental Laboratories.
Mister Edoardo Masdea, consultant naval architect and designer of the artifacts under discussion.
Captain Montgomery Sicard, representative for Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy.
Mister Theodore Delavan Wilson, chief constructor of the United States Navy, representing the Office of Procurement.

=============================================

The meeting began with an overview of the armored warship project under construction in Drydock Number Two at William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia. The gist of the overview was actually a complaint review by all other parties of the reasons and excuses put forward by the builder contractor for his delays in construction schedule. In summary, the excuses were as follows:

1. Necessity to increase the size of Drydock Number Two from a length, beam, depth volume of 150 meters, 25 meters, 10 meters to 
200 meters, 40 meters, 25 meters. A corresponding new pumping and locks system had to be manufactured to fit the expanded volume dry-dock, which added to the overall start delays on the actual artifact constructed within the drydock.   
2. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the architect.
3. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the customer.
4. Delays in steel deliveries from the Carnagie Group.  
5. Technical calculation errors made from the original blueprints and the revisions from each subsequent change order. 
6. Delays in subcontractor supplied engines, motors and drive assemblies. 
7. Labor force inexperience with such an armored warship project.
8. Other contracted work which had higher priority from the customer.
9. Funding and payment delays, which held up supply purchases and hiring of needed labor.
10. Politics. 

Once the excuses were presented and rejected by the principal actors and parties present, not representative for Cramp and Sons, the discussion turned to the current problem at this date, which was and is how to bring the project back into correct alignment with the schedules and the means available. At this part of the meeting, marine architect general Edoardo Masdea brought to the    attention of Doctor Davenport-Tesla that the principle delay still remained her failure to provide the electric generator sets for the power trains as specified in the subcontract to which the Tesla Experimental Laboratories was the named supplier. Doctor Davenport-Tesla pointed out that the specified electric generator sets were delayed at Billings; Montana (See MAP.), since the Hole in the Wall Gang blew up the railroad bridge just west of Sheriden, Wyoming.  It would not be possible for the Union Iron Works Electric Motor Plant Number One of Seattle, Washington constructed generator sets to be forwarded east to Cramp and Sons for installation into the armored warship, until that railroad bridge repair was completed. 





It would take a few weeks for the Army corps of engineers to rebuild that bridge. Doctor Davenport-Tesla suggested a possible solution if time constraints were critical. The drive train components scheduled for the Ameriship cargo passenger liner, SES Richmond (GWT 10,000 metric tons) could be substituted as a complete assembly for the armored warship.^1 

This proposal was considered and rejected when Mister Theodore Cramp convinced the conference participants that the time required to move the power train from the liner to the warship would take about the same amount of time as it would to wait for the army to repair the bridge and wipe out the Hole in the Wall bandits, so that the Union Iron Works generator sets could be transported east. 

By vote, the participants adopted the Cramp counterproposal. The contract was amended to allow for the unexpected delay, caused by the incident at Sheriden, Wyoming. Other outstanding issues were postponed until the generator sets could be delivered.    

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

^1 Private note: Doctor Davenport-Tesla was perfectly aware that this was the situation, but she wanted to put the blame for this fiasco where it belonged, instead of let Edoardo Masdea deflect the blame for the delays that he apparently personally caused when he failed to do his due diligence in his supervision of the work order changes required to make his original proposal fit American standards and practices. He had failed to make the necessary adjustments in internal ship framing in his original drawings when he was confronted with the different steam engine electric propulsion drives Americans used than the British style steam engine direct drives he first designed the armored warship to use. At least that was the implied reasoning as understood at the meeting. Other issues might have also been involved?

====================================================

Conversation after the meeting:



*(William Cramp & Sons shipyard, Delaware Avenue and Cumberland Street. Mister Charles Francis Bush, Mister Theodore Cramp, Mister Elias Mathew Vashon and Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla, walk together with a cloud of Pinkerton guards in close escort and attendance to discuss the aftermath of the contentious meeting. This is "fishy", but this is Philadelphia, not Copenhagen, so let us listen in to the conversation, dear reader. Author.) 

...

Brush: "Why did you lie, Irene?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "No one lied."
Davenport-Tesla: "Beautiful weather, is it not?"
Brush: "It is raining, Irene." 
Cramp: "What lie?"
Brush: "Come to think of it, maybe your proposal to switch out the drive train on the Richmond into the Albany would have been a better solution, Irene."
Davenport-Tesla; "Then why did you vote against it, Chuck?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?" 
Vashon: "Do you want to lose your contracts and your company, 'Mister Cramp', Sir?" 
Cramp: "What?"
Davenport-Tesla: "Hypothetically, let us assume, that it is in our collective best interests that a Philadelphia shipbuilder with a very  overextended line of credit, and a real risk of exposure to a hostile company takeover by the Edison Combine, finds a 'legitimate legal and economic excuse' to not have its contracts and builds on the weighs cancelled. An avenue to additional capital infusion, a plausible excuse for its incompetence in management would be attributed, instead, to "unforeseen acts of god and men independent of its own internal decisions and corporate management acts'. This might be arranged through a prime customer, if that customer could be convinced that it was "acts of god and men" and not the stupidity of the shipbuilding company owners, who could not keep up with change orders and hire the additional draftsmen and ship builders to meet the contract time schedules; n'est-ce pas?"
Cramp: "We didn't have the money!"
Brush: "You could have asked for technical help and borrowed people to tide you over."
Cramp: "From your lot? What do you know about shipbuilding?"
Davenport-Tesla whistles: "I've been working on the railroad..."^2
Cramp: "What?"  
Brush: "She owns the Union Iron Works, a SHIPYARD, you idiot."
Vashon: Facepalm. 
Cramp: "I..."
Davenport-Tesla: "... should be grateful, that you have friends who look out for you."
Vashon: Buries his head in his hands.   

^2 Who, do you think, had that railroad bridge blown up as an act of god and men?  

[miletus12]

Remember this circlejerk?



------------------------------------------------------------------------

LETTERS:

Cantiere navale William Cramp & Sons,
Viale del Delaware e via di Cumberland, Kensington,
Filadelfia, Pennsylvania
17 Agosto 1892

la dottoressa Irene Tesla; Cura di
I Laboratori Tesla
625 Boylston Street, Boston

La dottoressa Irene Tesla;

Mi chiamo Dottor Edoardo Masdea. Sono l'architetto navale che visita questo posto, William Cramp and Sons. Il mio scopo, su invito della vostra marina, è quello di esaminare come questi incompetenti realizzano il mio lavoro.

Mi è molto evidente che questi imbecilli di William Cramp and Sons non capiscono la prima importanza di ciò che deve andare in una nave da guerra. Perché usano la complessa disposizione dei motori a vapore e dei motori elettrici? Perché appendono la piastra corazzata al telaio dello scafo invece di rivettarla direttamente alle travi d'acciaio per irrigidire lo scafo?

Non capisco queste differenze. Mi piacerebbe vederti personalmente per quanto riguarda i motori, i motori e l'armatura. Se questi errori non vengono corretti, le navi della tua marina non funzioneranno come intendevo. Aspettatevi di vedermi il venerdì di questa settimana, al vostro indirizzo, per discutere con voi, i cambiamenti che devono essere apportati.

Il tuo servitore:
Dott. Edoardo Masdea

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Translation:

William Cramp & Sons Shipyard,
Delaware Avenue and Cumberland Street, Kensington,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
17 August 1892

Doctor Irene Tesla; care of
The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston

Doctor Irene Tesla;

My name is Doctor Edoardo Masdea. I am the naval architect, who visits this place, William Cramp and Sons. My purpose, at the invitation of your navy, is to examine how these incompetents turn out my work.

It is most apparent to me, that these imbeciles of William Cramp and Sons, do not understand the first importance of what must go into a warship. Why do they use the complex arrangement of steam engines and electric motors? Why do they hang the armor plate to the hull frame instead of rivet it directly to the steel beams to rigidize the hull?

I do not understand these differences. I would like to see you personally about the engines and motors and the armor. If these errors are not corrected, your navy’s ships will not operate as I intended. Expect to see me on the Friday of this week, at your address, to discuss with you, the changes that must be made.

Your servant:
Doctor Edoardo Masdea

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston
20 August 1892

To: Arent Schuyler Crowninshield LCDR USN for:
The Honorable Benjamin F, Tracy, Secretary of the Navy
C/O Navy Department; Procurement
Pennsylvania Avenue at 22nd Street
Washington, District of Columbia

Sir:

See the enclosed translated letter?

I have no time to play nursemaid to that “gentleman” who intends to pester me this Friday of this week.

To quote the esteemed Wild Bill Hickock, my friend and compatriot; “Head him off at the pass”, OR Senator Sherman will pay you an unfriendly visit. He will be accompanied by Mister Henry Cabot Lodge, also very unfriendly.

Irene

===========================================================================

More Letters:

I Laboratori Tesla
625 Boylston Street, Boston
20 Agosto 1892

Indirizzato al Dottore in Scienze Filosofiche e Fisiche; Antonio Pacinotti
Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa
56126 Pisa. Autobus: 4, E, Italia

Il mio stimato collega, Antonio.

Secondo il mio racconto, questa è la prima lettera che ti ho scritto personalmente. Nella nostra associazione decennale, mi sono servito di intermediari per fare accordi e farvi richieste o chiedervi di soddisfare alcune mie richieste. I recenti avvenimenti mi hanno costretto a rivolgermi direttamente a voi.

Il vostro connazionale, il dottor Edoardo Masdea, come si definisce, ha creato con noi una situazione che vi prego di correggere con l'espediente di far richiamare il vostro governo con qualche pretesto plausibile. Se riuscirete a sistemare la faccenda, avrete la mia eterna gratitudine.

Il tuo collega elettricista;
Irene Goss Davenport Tesla
.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Translation:

The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston
20 August 1892

Addressed to Doctor of Philosophical and Physical Sciences; Antonio Pacinotti
Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa
56126 Pisa. Bus: 4, E, Italy

My esteemed colleague, Antonio.

By my account, this is the first letter, I have ever personally written to you. In our decade long association, I have used intermediaries to make agreements and either make requests of you or asked you to fulfill certain requests of mine. Recent events have necessitated me to address you directly.

Your fellow countryman, Doctor Edoardo Masdea, as he styles himself, has created a situation with us, which I beg you to rectify through the expedient act of having your government recall him upon some plausible pretext. If you can so arrange that matter, you will have my eternal gratitude.

Your fellow electrician;
Irene Goss Davenport Tesla.

==========================================================================

Dalla penna del Dottor Antonio Pacinotti
Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa
56126 Pisa. Autobus: 4, E, Italia
10 Settembre 1892

All'occhio della dottoressa Irene Goss Davenport Tesla
I Laboratori Tesla
625 Boylston Street, Boston

Signora Tesla;

Edoardo mi ha scritto la sua versione dei fatti. Ho cercato di spiegargli che in molti paesi diversi la "via inglese" non è il modo corretto di progettare una soluzione. Ho cercato di ricordargli che c'è una "via italiana" per fare le cose come si deve. Forse, prenderà a cuore, che Ansaldo o Livorno, solo perché imitano gli inglesi di Armstrong o Vickers o Elswick, potrebbero imparare meglio da Cramp o Foreriver o Ameriship Union Iron Works?

Tuttavia, potreste augurarvi la partenza di Masdea, mi è stato assicurato, qui, da Bernadette Brin, che la vostra marina e lui hanno buone ragioni per mantenere Edoardo al suo posto per correggere le gravi mancanze che Edoardo ha comunicato alle rispettive parti, che sono state riscontrate a Cramp and Sons. Rispetto abbastanza l'ingegnere Brin da prenderlo in parola. Per favore, indaga tu stesso e vedi se Masdea ha ragione nelle sue accuse?

Il tuo collega:
A. Pacinotti

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Translation:

From the pen of Doctor Antonio Pacinotti
Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa
56126 Pisa. Bus: 4, E, Italy
10 September 1892

To the eye of Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla
The Tesla Laboratories
625 Boylston Street, Boston

Madam Tesla;

Edoardo has written me his version of the events. I have tried to explain to him, that in many different countries the “English Way” is not the correct way to engineer a solution. I sought to remind him that there is an “Italian Way” to do things properly. Perhaps, he will take it to heart, that Ansaldo or Livorno, just because they mimic the British of Armstrong or Vickers or Elswick, might learn better from Cramp or Foreriver or Ameriship Union Iron Works?

However, you might wish Masdea’s departure, I am assured, here, by Benedetto Brin, that your navy and he have good reason to keep Edoardo in place to correct serious deficiencies that Edoardo has communicated to the respective parties, that were found at Cramp and Sons. I respect engineer Brin enough that I take him at his word. Please investigate for yourself and see if Masdea is correct in his accusations?

Your colleague:

A. Pacinotti

========================================================================

This is a future buttock-biter.

[miletus12]

Prepared 1 August 1892 by,
Elias Mathew Vashon LLD for
The Bashon Law Group.

Memorandum For Record for 31 July 1892 Meeting at William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding and Engineering Company:

Participants at the meeting;

Mister Charles Francis Brush, MEE, representing the American Consortium of Manufactured Electronics on behalf of its board of Directors.
Mister Theodore William Cramp, representing the builder-contractor.
Doctor Irene Goss Davenport, Owner of the Union Iron Works, American Shipping Lines, representing the Tesla Experimental Laboratories.
Mister Edoardo Masdea, consultant naval architect and designer of the artifacts under discussion.
Captain Montgomery Sicard, representative for Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy.
Mister Theodore Delavan Wilson, chief constructor of the United States Navy, representing the Office of Procurement.

=============================================

The meeting began with an overview of the armored warship project under construction in Drydock Number Two at William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia. The gist of the overview was actually a complaint review by all other parties of the reasons and excuses put forward by the builder contractor for his delays in construction schedule. In summary, the excuses were as follows:

1. Necessity to increase the size of Drydock Number Two from a length, beam, depth volume of 150 meters, 25 meters, 10 meters to 
200 meters, 40 meters, 25 meters. A corresponding new pumping and locks system had to be manufactured to fit the expanded volume dry-dock, which added to the overall start delays on the actual artifact constructed within the drydock.   
2. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the architect.
3. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the customer.
4. Delays in steel deliveries from the Carnagie Group.  
5. Technical calculation errors made from the original blueprints and the revisions from each subsequent change order. 
6. Delays in subcontractor supplied engines, motors and drive assemblies. 
7. Labor force inexperience with such an armored warship project.
8. Other contracted work which had higher priority from the customer.
9. Funding and payment delays, which held up supply purchases and hiring of needed labor.
10. Politics. 

Once the excuses were presented and rejected by the principal actors and parties present, not representative for Cramp and Sons, the discussion turned to the current problem at this date, which was and is how to bring the project back into correct alignment with the schedules and the means available. At this part of the meeting, marine architect general Edoardo Masdea brought to the    attention of Doctor Davenport-Tesla that the principle delay still remained her failure to provide the electric generator sets for the power trains as specified in the subcontract to which the Tesla Experimental Laboratories was the named supplier. Doctor Davenport-Tesla pointed out that the specified electric generator sets were delayed at Billings; Montana (See MAP.), since the Hole in the Wall Gang blew up the railroad bridge just west of Sheriden, Wyoming.  It would not be possible for the Union Iron Works Electric Motor Plant Number One of Seattle, Washington constructed generator sets to be forwarded east to Cramp and Sons for installation into the armored warship, until that railroad bridge repair was completed. 





It would take a few weeks for the Army corps of engineers to rebuild that bridge. Doctor Davenport-Tesla suggested a possible solution if time constraints were critical. The drive train components scheduled for the Ameriship cargo passenger liner, SES Richmond (GWT 10,000 metric tons) could be substituted as a complete assembly for the armored warship.^1 

This proposal was considered and rejected when Mister Theodore Cramp convinced the conference participants that the time required to move the power train from the liner to the warship would take about the same amount of time as it would to wait for the army to repair the bridge and wipe out the Hole in the Wall bandits, so that the Union Iron Works generator sets could be transported east. 

By vote, the participants adopted the Cramp counterproposal. The contract was amended to allow for the unexpected delay, caused by the incident at Sheriden, Wyoming. Other outstanding issues were postponed until the generator sets could be delivered.    

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

^1 Private note: Doctor Davenport-Tesla was perfectly aware that this was the situation, but she wanted to put the blame for this fiasco where it belonged, instead of let Edoardo Masdea deflect the blame for the delays that he apparently personally caused when he failed to do his due diligence in his supervision of the work order changes required to make his original proposal fit American standards and practices. He had failed to make the necessary adjustments in internal ship framing in his original drawings when he was confronted with the different steam engine electric propulsion drives Americans used than the British style steam engine direct drives he first designed the armored warship to use. At least that was the implied reasoning as understood at the meeting. Other issues might have also been involved?

====================================================

Conversation after the meeting:



*(William Cramp & Sons shipyard, Delaware Avenue and Cumberland Street. Mister Charles Francis Bush, Mister Theodore Cramp, Mister Elias Mathew Vashon and Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla, walk together with a cloud of Pinkerton guards in close escort and attendance to discuss the aftermath of the contentious meeting. This is "fishy", but this is Philadelphia, not Copenhagen, so let us listen in to the conversation, dear reader. Author.) 

...

Brush: "Why did you lie, Irene?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "No one lied."
Davenport-Tesla: "Beautiful weather, is it not?"
Brush: "It is raining, Irene." 
Cramp: "What lie?"
Brush: "Come to think of it, maybe your proposal to switch out the drive train on the Richmond into the Albany would have been a better solution, Irene."
Davenport-Tesla; "Then why did you vote against it, Chuck?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?" 
Vashon: "Do you want to lose your contracts and your company, 'Mister Cramp', Sir?" 
Cramp: "What?"
Davenport-Tesla: "Hypothetically, let us assume, that it is in our collective best interests that a Philadelphia shipbuilder with a very  overextended line of credit, and a real risk of exposure to a hostile company takeover by the Edison Combine, finds a 'legitimate legal and economic excuse' to not have its contracts and builds on the weighs cancelled. An avenue to additional capital infusion, a plausible excuse for its incompetence in management would be attributed, instead, to "unforeseen acts of god and men independent of its own internal decisions and corporate management acts'. This might be arranged through a prime customer, if that customer could be convinced that it was "acts of god and men" and not the stupidity of the shipbuilding company owners, who could not keep up with change orders and hire the additional draftsmen and ship builders to meet the contract time schedules; n'est-ce pas?"
Cramp: "We didn't have the money!"
Brush: "You could have asked for technical help and borrowed people to tide you over."
Cramp: "From your lot? What do you know about shipbuilding?"
Davenport-Tesla whistles: "I've been working on the railroad..."^2
Cramp: "What?"  
Brush: "She owns the Union Iron Works, a SHIPYARD, you idiot."
Vashon: Facepalm. 
Cramp: "I..."
Davenport-Tesla: "... should be grateful, that you have friends who look out for you."
Vashon: Buries his head in his hands.   

^2 Who, do you think, had that railroad bridge blown up as an act of god and men?

[miletus12]

LETTER:

C/O United States Post Office / General Delivery
24 Beacon Street, Boston, MA
1 September 1892

Doctor Norman Oswald Bates, DP
C/O The Athenaeum
107 Pall Mall
London, United Kingdom

My good friend Norman;

The Americans love their parades. Notice the presence of electricity everywhere?



As you can see, the nature of the barbarians in Sheriden, Wyoming is far from “barbarian” in nature. 

Here is another view.



That is a steel plant, where the chimney belches smoke. They have iron fields nearby. 


  
I have supplied you a map of my current whereabouts. Our troop is just south of the Crow Indian Nation Reserve investigating an act of sabotage. Somebody blew up a railroad bridge, west of the town of Sheriden. The local cowboys claim it was the Hole In The Wall Gang, but this area is a little too far north and civilized for that bucket to hold any water. My Punjab experience tells me it was very like a Russian job we used to encounter in Afghanistan. The yahoos who dropped that steel truss knew how critical this link is in American east west communications from their northwest Pacific states to the east.  

Your Servant and colleague;
Brandon Croyden Wycliffe, ESQ. OM FRS.

Postscript: how can these people call themselves “cowboys” when they drive everywhere in electric automobiles? Yokes, there are more autos than horses around here. Very rich folks, they are. Also, they are very mixed. Almost like India with Chinese, and Africans, and Irish all claiming to be “Americans”.    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diary of Lieutenant First William Fritch. 17 September 1892

We are still picking the pieces apart around Sheriden, Wyoming. I do not know who blew that bridge up, but it was not any train robbers. The responsible parties used cutting charges, almost as if they wanted the damage to be easily repaired, but in a most time-consuming manner, which requires clearing the tangled wreckage out. The pilings are virtually undamaged. That means to me that it was military professionals who did it.  

[miletus12]

Union Iron Works Naval Contract 115 (USS Oregon, prospective commissioning unit, about 90% complete.)

LETTER:

For Mister Peter Donahue
Union Iron Works of
Potrero Point,
San Francisco, California
15 September 1892

From Mister John Howell
C/O USN Office of Procurement; Munitions Factory Number Four
1520 Capella S,
Newport, Rhode Island

Mister Israel MacKenzie Scott

Congratulations on being appointed manager of the works. It is regrettable that Mister James Donahue had to be dismissed for incompetence, but such are the wages of mismanagement when you work for the Maiden of Steel.^1 She brooks no excuses when it comes to missed deadlines. Neither does the USN, so be warned, sir. But, now, on the subject of the aiming devices, for which you inquired.

1. For the torpedo launcher, torpedo director, see the illustration.


(Author's note: the work is quoted from this citation. That publication's author is to be credited with the illustration and description quoted.)

2. In reference to which type of torpedo will be issued with this project. I can only tell you that the original specification in the contract still calls for the Howell Mark I. You will be required to install appropriate flywheel spin-up motors per torpedo tube. We still have problems with the Electric Howell Mark II and Mark III. If we find a cable spool solution for the Mark II, that will require a WORK MODIFICATION ORDER for the torpedo turntable to provide one cable spindle and power lead per torpedo tube. The technical issue with the Mark II torpedo has not resolved successfully enough for me to officially issue the order, but to prevent delays and unnecessary confusion, you might assume I did. It will save you grief.
3. Stowage of spare torpedoes has been discussed and rejected as an option. We, or rather I think, the Office of Ordnance is out of its collective minds on this question. If they insist on an elevator through the deck to raise torpedoes from a below deck magazine, then you must conform. Between you and me, I would just install another turntable if you have the deck space or add tubes to the one you have.
4. Expect a visit from the Steel Maiden^1 within the fortnight. For some strange reason, she has taken a personal interest in your troubles. You have my sympathies.

Your servant:
John Howell, director
USN Office of Procurement; Munitions Factory Number Four

^1 The Maiden of Steel is Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla.

====================================================================

17 September 1892

A party of six people wander about the incomplete hull of the battleship under construction in UNIRON drydock number three.

The visitor was unusual. Israel Scott had not expected the woman to noticeably limp. Nor had he expected her rather harsh voice. Scott was not a musicologist. He did not recognize the mezzo-soprano range. He had trouble with her Vermonter accent, which was occasionally laced with colorful language when she spotted something she did not like: such as now;

Irene Tesla: Who balanced these turntables?
Israel Scott: They are balanced.
Irene Tesla: You, idiot. Was that before or after the gun barrels were to be installed?
Israel Scott: What?
Elias Vashon: She said…
Israel Scott: I know what she said. I was taken aback. I will have to check on that question.
Irene Tesla: You best check on the following items. Roll moment. You will need bilge keels to correct for it.
Israel Scott: The expletive deleted Navy does not want to pay us for the expletive deleted bilge keels. Otherwise, I would have installed them.
Pinkerton goon: Watch your expletive deleted language, Gomer. She is a lady.
Elias Vashon: Can we stick to the…
Irene Tesla: You had the best change out the wooden pilot house and upper works furnishings for steel.

The party makes it way back past the two-story superstructure toward the rear of the hull. Israel Scott trips over some badly coiled rope, which sprawls him out. Irene Tesla merely hops over such obstructions, with the help of her rather odd and stout walking staff. The Pinkerton goons, both of them, chuckle. Lawyer Vashon takes his time to navigate around impediments. He is the person, who holds up Human progress.

Israel Scott: I was about to suggest…
Irene Tesla: … that you cut down the superstructure by one deck. You should bulge the hull. I would investigate Otis Elevator Company to replace the Campbell sling hoists with lifts. That will necessitate rearrangement of the shell and powder handling rooms inside the barbettes. You need to place an iron neutralizer bar to zero out the magnetic compass, add a travelling countermass to balance the guns on the barbettes…
Elias Vashon: But that will drive the cost…
Irene Tesla: … shut up, Elias. Taxpayer talking, and where are the torpedoes? That actually is why Mister Howell wrote me that I needed to see with my eyes, the hash you made of things…

By this time, Israel Scott breaks out his notebook. He scribbles notes furiously as Irene Tesla points out deficiencies with her walking staff. She speaks faster than he can write.

Israel Scott: Can you wait a minute? I can't write as fast as you talk…
Irene Tesla: … I will send you a letter… Ah! The torpedo flat. No wonder Mister Hoover speculated that you were a nimrod…

What follows is a twenty-minute discussion about a universal torpedo tube mount on a turntable to be located on the stern, where the ships' boats and boat crane currently reside.

Irene Tesla: … forget about a below deck magazine and service elevator. That makes the ship stern-heavy.
Israel Scott: What about the reloads?
Elias Vashon: He's right, the contract calls for…

Irene motions to Pinkerton goon number two: Over the side with you, Elias.

The goon pitches Elias Vashon across the narrow gap between the ship and the drydock walkways. Vashon lands with an OOF.

Irene Tesla continues: No reloads. If they want reloads, then fake it.
Israel Scott: How do I fake it?
Irene Tesla: That is your problem. I would pencil in a track from an above deck magazine on the stern… in the plans, then not build in the drawing. If asked, I would cite reserve buoyancy issues.
Israel Scott: But that takes up deck space where I was going to place the ship's boats.
Irene Tesla: Did you listen? You will not build it in! As for the boats, put the boats on davits on either side of the hull, where the pilot house and the control mast is. Try not to foul the guns, Israel.
Israel Scott: But that is not enough boats! They will be weather damaged. All of these changes make no sense!
Irene Tesla: Do I need another man to make these sensible changes, Israel?
Israel Scott: I have one question, Madam…
Irene Tesla: What question?
Israel Scott: Who is the experienced shipbuilder here? Masdea, you or me?
Irene Tesla: I hired you, but that was because I thought you knew your expletive deleted business.
Israel Scott: I presume, you mean that you know better than me?
Irene Tesla smiles: With twenty passenger cargo ships, four at sea transfer colliers, and two cable laying ships, you best believe I know better, sir.

Irene Tesla motions to Pinkerton goon number two…



Final product. NCC 115. Notice the complete omission of stern mounted torpedo tubes?