State of Delaware Commissions New Nuclear Sub - Apr 2, 2022

 Today I had the privilege to (virtually) witness a commissioning of a new nuclear submarine called the USS Delaware in my home city. The ceremony was attended by Senator Tom Carper, Governor John Carney, County Executive Chris Coons, the Secretary of the Navy, President Joseph R. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.



The last time the United States Navy had a vessel called USS Delaware was more than a hundred years ago.  The last USS Delaware (BB-28) was a Dreadnought class battleship that served in World War 1. She was launched in 1910 and decommissioned in 1924. There were a few other USS Delaware ships, one that defended the Delaware River in 1776, another that replaced her after she was sunk a year or so later. One that served in the Civil War launched in 1861, another in 1868.  The 1861 vessel was built and launched by the Harlan & Hollingsworth steamship company right here in Wilmington. Her other namesakes served with distinction in the Navy of their time.

The previous USS Delaware.

Amusingly enough, it was a librarian who chose the name. A local librarian in Newark was a scholar of naval history and he saw that no ship had sailed named after Delaware for almost a century. So he wrote letters to the Secretary of the Navy, to Senator Tom Carper and First Lady Jill Biden asking if one of a series of new nuclear attack submarines under construction could bear the name. After a few months, the librarian's request was obliged.

The commissioning ceremony was originally scheduled for April 2020. The event was an mainly invitation for government officials and the crew's families. Only a limited number of public tickets were available. I wanted to attend in Hugh's memory, but sadly I learned about it a month after the tickets sold out. I started writing a letter to the authorities asking for an appeal to attend, but received no reply. As it turned out, it was canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The Delaware received her true commissioning at sea, while she was submerged. A first in Navy history.

I wanted to be present for this ceremony because my Grandpa attended several boat commissions in his life. He was an honorary guest when the SS-576 boat was dedicated in 1956, named Darter after his diesel boat from WWII. And he was on the crew that decommissioned her, thirty years later. (One of these days I will get around to uploading the video he had inside the control room as they were taking her out to sea one last time)

I know if he were still alive today, he would have come down here to see them off. And I hope he would be proud of me for wanting to be there.

This USS Delaware was built by General Dynamics and the Electric Boat Company, which has been building submarines since World War II.

As soon as a decent video of the live webcast is posted to Youtube, I will embed the video in this blog post.

They couldn't have picked a better day to do it. It was a beautiful sunny day here in Wilmington, with a clear blue sky and a warm breeze.  Fair winds and following seas, to the crew of the SS-791!

Grandpa Speaks Again! [Found audio recording]

I reposted this blog entry with an important update.

Back in 2012 after my Grandma passed away, my family was cleaning out the house. I got the privilege of going through everything that was in Grandpa's radio room upstairs. One of the things I found tucked away in a forgotten corner was a stack of flat boxes. These boxes contained old reel-to-reel analog tapes. I told Mom I couldn't bear to throw them away, because what if my Grandfather's voice was on them. I hadn't heard him speak since I was eleven years old.  It took me almost four years to find the right equipment to play these tapes, and when I did, what I found was fascinating (to me).  The tapes were like a trip back in time. Among the varied recordings were a Christmas morning with the kids unwrapping presents in 1966, my Aunt playing the piano and singing in 1974, a recording of President Nixon's resignation, a radio news broadcast about the Vietnam War, about 10 minutes of Grandpa pretending to talk to his daughters on the radio during a snow day in 1971. And the last tape was this, a recording about Government research in long distance communication.

I do know that Hughie was a civilian contractor for the United States Air Force after he was discharged from the Submarine Service, and he did that until he retired in 1975. He did some work for Raytheon helping to develop the field of telecommunications, including microwave, infra-red lasers, satellite and radar.  This recording you are about to hear would have been lost forever it were not for these preservation efforts.

I had originally shared this as a private Facebook video, but I recently discovered Facebook videos can now be downloaded. So here at last, is the embedded video for you to watch and listen.  The working tape deck I found actually has vacuum tubes in it, so it takes a minute to warm up... this is what the loud humming noise is when it comes on.

On this tape, he's rehearsing for a presentation he was to give at his job as a civilian contractor for the Department of Defense, the exact date is unknown. His voice on the tape sounds a little plodding and monotone, I think he was reading from notes. What he's talking about is an experimental acoustic coupler modulator - demodulator, otherwise known as a modem, and how it can potentially enable "wide band digital data transmission capability" ...the precursor to today's internet. He even hints at the possibility of wireless data transfer through radio signal and how atmospheric phenomena such as rain and lightning can cause interference. (ever notice how the internet is slower on rainy days?) This is mind-blowing.

But the year is 1973, and the public won't have access to it for another 20 years. Sadly (or thankfully) he did not live to see what it would eventually become. But this is his actual voice, not heard in over two decades.

He was involved in the development of ARPANET. That is just amazing.

Note: he states at the start of this recording that the information is declassified.

Commissioning Envelopes

Some fresh material in the Siegel archive for the first time in ages. These are known as first day covers. Way back in the days before the internet when stamp collecting was still a popular thing to do, these were a good way to commemorate important or historic events. Grandpa had one for each of the boats he served on, with another first day cover for the 50th anniversary of the Darter launch on September 7, 1993.

I looked back through the archive and realized the material I shared so far is less than half of his enormous collection of records. I will see if I can start making regular posts a few times a week until the Spring finally comes.

Welcome back, shipmates.

11/6/44 Darter Crew Arrived in Australia

  On this date in 1944, Grandpa was returned safely to Australia with the rest of the Darter crew after their 3-week ordeal of survival aboard their "lifeboat" submarine USS Dace. The photo caption says it was taken in Perth, Australia 1944. The tiny newspaper article below was the first news to reach the US of the incident.

He looks happy to be back on dry land.

When he was still in Australia, he received a sad telegram from his brother. His mother had died suddenly while he was on patrol. With both his parents dead, he had no home to go back to. (His Dad had died of a heart attack in 1942) He ended up going back to Philadelphia to stay with his brother George for awhile, until he could marry my Grandma and rent a house in New Jersey.

Darter's Contribution to Navy History

"The fourth war patrol of the USS Darter embraces one of the most outstanding contributions by submariners to the ultimate defeat of the Japanese Navy." - Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, Commander 7th Fleet, 1944

Thinking about that statement, it certainly did... Darter found herself in a position to do unprecedented damage to the Japanese fleet in a surprise attack, before anyone else even knew where the fleet was. It was the shot of a lifetime. Though the crew was unaware at the time, they nearly sent Admiral Kurita to the bottom of the Pacific, which could have "cut the head off the sea serpent" so to speak and crippled the Japanese Naval command enough to hasten their defeat. The Darter-Dace wolfpack took an incredible risk against impossible odds that night, attacking an enemy fleet head on without support. Had the aim of their torpedoes been truer that day, much would have been different. And the crew was even luckier to survive the encounter with no loss of life.

 

Remembering the War Hero

A photo of Hugh Siegel as I remember him. He only wore that vest with the patches at reunions. The hat with the feather was a special thing only WWII vets who served in Australia wore. Next are some reunion photos with his shipmates, from the 1980s & one from the '90s. The last photo is of him inside his "radio shack" where he spent a few hours every day.

Dace-Darter reunion in 1986

A reunion reception at his house. I think 1993.

My grandfather is the one who deserves all the credit for preserving the story behind the Darter-Dace incident. He did the research himself, and he did it all in the pre-internet days before Wikipedia or Google.

He sent his typewritten letters to the Navy history archives, he spent hours on long distance phone calls, he kept an up to date mailing list for his shipmates, he wrote in to Navy publications and newsletters, he stayed active in his VFW. He was the one who organized the first WWII Sub Vets reunions for the state of New York.

I often feel jealous of friends with living relatives who fought in the war that they can still talk to. I lost my grandpa when I was very young, barely eleven years old.  And he rarely ever spoke to me when he was alive. He had a stroke when I was 9, and he pretty much lost the ability to speak after that. I remember him as a kind, gentle but taciturn man. He didn't or couldn't say very much. Sometimes we heard him struggling to say something to us he thought was important, and it was difficult to watch.

But I do remember one party held at his house after a reunion sometime in the early '90s, with a bunch of WWII veterans seated around the kitchen table as they swapped war stories. What a time to be alive.

Hughie, as Grandma called him, was a licensed ham radio operator and he stayed in contact with most of them via radio in the days before cell phones. He even would message his buddies in Morse code to keep his skills sharp. Grandpa could tap code at 30 words per minute and he could listen even faster. His radio buddies used to have a virtual meeting on the radio every weeknight, Grandma called it "the Net" where they would share the local news and check up on each other, find out how things were going at the farm, etc. while we all listened to the voices intently on the scanner downstairs. I wish he had recorded some of the radio talks with his shipmates.

I still have vivid memories of the nights I stayed up late in his radio room with headphones on, listening to those guys talk on the air.  Sometimes he let me tune around on the airwaves myself and see what I could pick up. (You could talk on the radio without a license as long as the licensed operator was present) I talked to someone in Italy once and another guy he knew in Australia. 

He knew I was interested in the Navy stuff even at that age, we watched his videotapes of Victory At Sea together. He appreciated anything that had to do with Navy ships or submarines. But I never knew the younger version of him that could tell the detailed stories from his viewpoint.

When Grandpa died of leukemia at the young age of 76 I was devastated. He was buried with full military honors on a blistering hot afternoon in June 1995. My cousins were all there and we were all little at the time, I was the only one who saluted. Grandma said I talked about him for a long time as if he were still with us, and I guess I never stopped. I figured as long as I remember him, he lives on.

I miss him, all the time.

Model of the Darter

This is a scale model diorama of the Darter as she looked aground on the reef on October 24, 1944.  It was presented to Hugh as a gift at one of the veterans reunions, it was probably in 1992 (I was there when he brought it home)  The engraved brass plates and the glass case were all part of the gift form his fellow shipmate, who was a master ship modeler. I like the level of detail, the people on board the sub, the mooring ropes and the life boat in the water. My childhood drawing of the Darter was from studying this model. 

The model is still in my parents' house in New York.