Morris view of Holland more widely accepted in our era
Irishman deserves to be called ‘Inventor of the Modern Sub’
By Robert A. Hamilton
Day Staff Writer

Century old photographs of John P. Holland inevitably show him in a bowler hat, with wire-rim spectacles and a walrus mustache, with a forced pose and a look that seem to signal aggravation.

Perhaps the look stemmed from a fear that the time needed to make a photographic plate would mean less time for inventing a working submarine.

“He was incredibly single-minded,” says Richard K. Morris, whose files on the Irish inventor still fill three drawers in the library of his Deep River home, despite his extensive donations to the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and other collections.

Holland running on the surface

When Morris published his 1966 book, “John P. Holland: Inventor of the Modern Submarine,” the title was seen as an overstatement by many, but today it is coming into wide acceptance. A former director of the British submarine museum at Gosport, England, told him in a recent letter that he might even have underestimated Holland’s contributions.

“I think now, others are finally starting to understand that Holland is responsible for many of the finer mechanical aspects of a submarine,” Morris says. Holland, after all, proposed the speedy porpoise-shaped hull that the Navy would not rediscover for more than half a century.

“The Holland VI could get to six or seven knots, submerged,” Morris said. “No other submarine until the Albacore, in 1951 (which brought back the shape of the Holland VI’s hull), would exceed that speed.”

His boats were unique: they had a fixed center of gravity that let them submerge more quickly; two means of propulsion, a gasoline engine for surface operations, and battery power for submerged operations; and even the first, albeit primitive, missile-firing system.

In fact, many of Holland’s best ideas, such as placing the propeller aft of the rudder to give it greater maneuverability, became vitally important when nuclear-powered submarines took to sea, with the power that allowed them to achieve speeds that would make lesser designs dangerous.

Simon Lake competed with John Holland to build the Navy's first submarine. Although the Navy did not purchase Lake's submarine Protector, it used some of Lake's inventions in its submarines.

“It took more than half a century for the technology to catch up with Holland’s ideas,” Morris says.

But it took almost twice that long for credit to catch up with Holland, in part because of the efforts of his business partners in that era, Morris adds.

Holland helped found Electric Boat, with the help of key figures such as financier Isaac L. Rice, lawyer Elihu B. Frost, and engineers Frank Cable and Lawrence Y. Spear.

EB had control of all the patents by the time Holland left the company in 1904, and Holland was warned he could not even use his own name to start another submarine yard. Morris notes that Cable’s 1924 book, “The Birth and Development of the American Submarine,” downplayed Holland’s role, and never mentions key people such as Arthur L. Busch, chief constructor at the Crescent Shipyard where the early Holland submarines were built, who worked closely with Holland for almost two decades.

“One of the reasons it took so long for Holland to get the recognition he deserved is the kind of thing Cable did in his book,” Morris says. He ignores, in fact he denigrates, Holland. He mentions at one point that Holland was an elementary school teacher and never got above elementary level. Unbelievable stuff.”

One newspaper editorial cartoon of the time showed a little man labeled “Holland” being swallowed alive by a giant whale designated “Electric Boat.”

“They were really tough on Holland - they left him in poverty,” Morris said. “Holland wasn’t a good businessman. He was a dreamer.”

Born in County Clare

Holland was born on Feb. 24, 1842, in Loscannor, County Clare, Ireland, and grew up within view of the North Atlantic. His father was a member of the coastal guard, hired to ride the western cliffs looking out for invasions by France or, later, Germany. He tried to get into the Merchant Marines, but was so nearsighted he was rejected, and instead became a teacher.

This is the last known photographic portrait of John Holland, taken in 1912 when he retired from public life.

A noted science teacher of the day, Edmund Burke, recognized his mechanical abilities and encouraged them. By 17, he already had plans for a submersible boat. He emigrated to this country when he was 30, and among his earliest backers were the Fenians, a political group that wanted Ireland to overthrow British rule.

In 1878, Holland launched a 14-foot iron craft he and a friend tested by sitting on the bottom of the Passaic River in New Jersey for 24 hours. Unsatisfied with the ballast system and diving planes, he later built the “Fenian Ram,” 30 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, at a cost of some $13,000. In 1895, his Holland Torpedo Boat Co. won $150,000 in Navy funding to build the “Plunger,” a 140-foot, 420-ton submarine that ran on compressed air but was almost uncontrollable on the surface and was later scuttled for use in diver training.

But in 1896, at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabethport, N.J., he laid the keel for the “Holland,” 54 feet in length and 75 tons of boat powered by a 50-horsepower gasoline engine with a 60-cell storage battery for submerged operations.

After the submarine sank at the dock, Holland worried that some of its electrical systems might be damaged. He asked his supplier, Electro-Dynamic Co. of Philadelphia, to help with repairs, and they sent him Cable, the engineer, who made the repairs and suggested improvements such as new rudders and a two-man control station.

Near bankruptcy, Holland accepted a capital infusion from Rice and Frost, and in 1899 saw his Holland Torpedo Boat Co. absorbed into the newly formed Electric Boat. A year later, the company made its first sale to the Navy, garnering $150,000 for the newly refurbished Holland VI, and getting contracts for several more boats.

USS A-2 (SS-3, formerly Adder) was designed by John Holland and launched at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabethport, New Jersey in 1901. A-2 was shipped to the Philippines in 1909 and served in the defense of Manila Bay until 1919. The two tall “masts” are actually fixed periscopes

But in 1904, Holland left the company, disillusioned that his partners seemed more interested in submarine sales than development of the technology, and bitter that Navy officers seemed more interested in having a deck to strut upon than exploring the potential impact of submarines on warfare.

Little interest at first

“It was the small countries that were interested in submarines right from the start, not the major naval powers. Greece, Turkey, Italy, Peru - they all wanted submarines. The one exception was Russia, which seemed to realize the potential very early.”

After he left EB in 1904, Holland worked on some mechanical problems that intrigued him, but he never achieved any great success in his subsequent ventures. In a letter to a Japanese naval officer in May 1909, he mentioned that he had suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed. The same year, he developed serious arthritis.

Holland died in August 1914, 40 days before a German U-boat torpedoed and sank a British cruiser at the outset of World War I.

Morris’ interest in Holland began when he was in high school, and stumbled across a 16-volume diary of sorts kept by his grandfather, Charles A. Morris, Holland’s superintending engineer. The diaries contained dates, observations on some of the people in the shipyard, and details on the boats.

Crew of USS Holland
Location unknown
circa 1901

His grandfather wrote how, at a time when Holland was out of money, he hired him as a draftsman at Morris-Cummings Dredging Co., where he worked for three years, and introduced him to Frost, who was impressed that Holland knew to the penny ($312.19) how much money he would need to complete the design of the Holland VI.

And the senior Morris saved two handwritten copies of an 1891 treatise by Holland, 34 pages with drawings and calculations, “The Practicality of Mechanical Flight.”

“I showed it to an aviation engineer I know, who said he thinks it could have flown,” Morris said. “If he hadn’t developed this focus on the submarine, he might have beaten the Wright brothers.” Wilbur and Orville Wright first flew Dec. 17, 1903.

After 15 years of work, including several years poring over the company archives, EB librarian Frank Anderson finally told him to stop researching and start writing. Initially published by the Naval Institute Press, his book was later reprinted by Arno Press in 1980, and a second edition was brought out last year by the University of South Carolina Press.

His book, and articles he wrote for prestigious maritime journals such as the Naval Institute Proceedings and the Submarine Review, have brought a considerable amount of overdue fame to the little inventor. Last summer, Dundalk, Ireland, where Holland taught briefly, mounted a major exhibit on Holland’s work in submarines. Loscannnor now has a permanent display of Holland photographs in its community center. RTV-3 in Dublin is going to produce a television documentary on Holland and his inventions. And Morris has just been made a life member of the Maritime Institute of Ireland for his contributions to Irish maritime history.

“I feel like I’ve always known him,” Morris said. “He’s a part of me now, just like my grandfather.”

THE SUBMARINE BOAT AND ITS FUTURE
BY JOHN P. HOLLAND

When the first submarine torpedo-boat goes into action, she will bring us face to face with the most puzzling problem ever met in warfare. She will present the unique spectacle, when used in attack, of a weapon against which there is no defense. You can pit sword against sword, rifle against rifle, cannon against cannon, iron-clad against iron-clad. You can send torpedo-boat destroyers against torpedo-boats, and destroyers against destroyers. But you can send nothing against the submarine boat, not even itself. You cannot fight submarines with submarines. The fanciful descriptions of the submarine battle of the future have one fatal defect. You cannot see under water. Hence, you cannot fight under water. Hence, you cannot defend yourself against an attack under water, except by running away. If you cannot run away, you are doomed. Wharves, shipping at anchor, the buildings in seaport towns cannot run away. Therefore, the sending of a submarine against them means their inevitable destruction.

"USS Holland in War Trim"

Tomorrow, if we had a fleet of submarines big enough, they could protect New York harbor completely against an attack by the combined surface fleets of the world. But our shipping and our city would still be at the mercy of our enemies, if they had even one submarine, manned by a fearless crew of experts. You could not mine against her, for she would countermine. You could not close the harbor against her, even with a net-work of torpedoes and chains stretched across the Narrows, reaching from the surface to the bottom of the channel. From a safe distance she would simply send a torpedo against the network that would blow it to pieces, giving her all the passageway she wanted to go in and out. You could not chase her with a fleet of your own submarines, because you could more easily find a needle in a haystack than a sixty-five foot cylinder in a place like New York Bay. And if, by accident, you did find her, she would be out of sight in a flash. Then, too, the pursuing boats could never tell under water whether it was one of their own number or of the enemy. This difficulty might be met by sending only one submarine in pursuit; but, in that case, the prospect of finding the quarry would be about as promising as dredging with a butterfly-net for a half-dollar that had been thrown into the bay.

No; as nearly as the human mind can discern now, the submarine is indeed a "sea-devil," against which no means that we possess at present can prevail. She can pass by anything above or beneath the waves, destroy wharves and shipping and warships at anchor, throw shells into the city and then make her way out again to sea. She can lie for days at the bottom of the harbor, leaving only when she has used up all her stored power except what is required to carry her back to the open, when she can come to the surface a speck on the water. She would never have to expose herself for more than a second at a time during all her work of destruction in the harbor. This would be when she rose to discharge her gun to shell the city. The recoil of the gun would send her down again and out of sight. The chance of hitting her would be one in a million, even if the harbor was a floating battery, which it would not be very long while the submarine was at work. Her torpedoes she could discharge without coming to the surface at all.

It may be that the tacticians can solve the problem. To me it is the most profiund puzzle. To me there seems but one solution, and that is too Utopian for serious consideration. Nations with sea ports will have to refrain from making war. It is probably safe to trust the ingenuity of man to provide the means for preventing such a contingency.

But how the menace of the submarine is to be met nobody has at this time been able to say. The greatest minds in the armies and navies of the world are wrestling with the problem, but so far they have not succeeded in solving it. The genius of scores inventors is groping in the same field, but so far without result. Still, there are many capable men who insist that, sooner or later, a weapon will be devised to fight the "sea-devil" when she attacks. Even these, however, are agreed that, in one direction at least the "sea-devils" will remain unconquerable. They will make a close blockade impossible. With the investment of Santiago, the world, undoubtedly, saw the last instance of a harbor of a civilized nation being closed by hostile warships - that is, unless the next war comes with unexpected suddenness. Even to-day, no fleet of warships could safely lie within the five mile limit deemed effective in blockading, if France was the object of the attack. Her fleet of submarines, small as it is, would make the enemy very uneasy. If necessary, the boats could be carried from one of her coasts to the other by rail. The six Holland boats building for the United States, though inadequate for general protection, would make a big hole in any blockading squadron that settled down in front of one of our great harbors. The squadron would have to face almost inevitable destruction, or put out to sea.

"Eight Feet Below the Surface"

Those who question the efficiency of the submarine in other directions have been compelled to admit this. They still insist, however, that these boats will never have value as offensive weapons. They say that these boats cannot live away from home, and that, therefore, they will never be available in making war on a country across seas. They rank submarine boats simply as weapons of coast defense.

That this is erroneous will soon be demonstrated. A submarine is now under construction that will explode this theory. Not long after this article is published, she will start on a journey across the Atlantic. She will travel entirely under her own power. She will go first to Bermuda, a distance of 676 miles, then to Fayal, 1,880 miles, and thence to Lisbon, 940 miles, or a total of 3,496 miles. If it were deemed advisable, the trip could just as easily be made direct, without making a call at any intermediate port.

This boat will go on the surface almost exclusively. Her chief motive power will be a gasoline engine of 160 horse-power, that will drive her at the rate of nine and a half knots an hours. This engine will also generate the electric power that may be needed for submerged runs, and such work as may be deemed expedient in the harbors where she touches. Her crew will subsist entirely on the provisions she carries. The food will be cooked by electricity. The crew will consist of seven men, who will sleep in hammocks slung from the ceiling.

While this voyage will not be comfortable, judged from the standpoint of the regular trans-Atlantic travellers, it will not entail any real hardships. During storms or dirty weather the boat will run awash, only her turret showing above the surface, and, as the water will break over instead of against her, there will be no rolling. The boat will lie as steadily as a water-soaked log. She will be accompanied by a tender, probably a small tramp steamer. An extra crew will be carried on this tender, in case her own men find the confinement too much to endure for the sixteen days required in crossing the ocean.

This trip will show that it is possible to send a fleet of submarines against a foreign coast, as well as to employ them for defense at home.

"Ready to Rise to the Surface"

We have been so busy up to this time in getting a hearing for the claims of the submarine as an engine of war that we have overlooked almost entirely her future usefulness in the pursuits of peace. Yet in this field she presents most fascinating possibilities. As a factor in commerce, there are great acheivements before her. As an instrument of science, she has possibilities that no man may prescribe.

As soon as men overcome their fears and learn to go down beneath the water as readily as they now skim its surface, the progress of the submarine in commerce will be rapid. She has, along certain lines, such manifest advantages that her development is to be measured only by the length of time people may require to conquer the foolish dread of travelling under water.

Within the next ten years, we shall have made more progress in submerged navigation than has been made in the three hundred years that have just passed. Within that period, I expect to see submarine boats engaged in regular passenger traffic. Owing to the well-defined limitations that surround travel under water it is no difficult matter to forecast what the nature of such travel will be.

For trans-Atlantic travel submarine boats will never be possible commercially. Here and there, no doubt, such boats will cross, but the reguar ocean carrying-trade will always be conducted on the surface. For short trips, however, the submarine offers commercial advantages that will render it a dangerous rival of the surface sailing vessel, if, indeed, it does not drive the latter entirely out of the competition in particular waters. Take, for example, the trip across the English Channel. No other water journey causes an equal amount of suffering. The most hardened traveller becomes seasick there. The fogs and heavy traffic are constantly causing collisions on that course, and the storms toss the stoutest boats about like cockleshells. Thousands are deterred every year by its dangers and annoyances from essaying that short voyage.

v The submarines will effectively remove all these objections. There will be no seasickness, because in a submerged boat there is absolutely no perceptible motion. There will be no smells to create nausea, for the boats will be propelled by electric power taken from storage batteries, which will be charged at either end. The offensive odor that causes so much discomfort in surface boats is due to the heated oil on the bearings, and to the escaping steam. There will be no steam on these submerged channel boats, and the little machinery necessary to drive them will be confined within an air-tight chamber.

There will be no collisions, because the boats coming and the boats going will travel at different depths - say, one at twenty, the other at forty feet. The water overhead may be crowded with large and small craft, but the submarine will have a free, unobstructed course. She will be kept absolutely true to this course by means of cables running from shore to shore. On these cables will run an automatic steering gear attached to the submarine. Storms and fogs will have no existance for the traveller, for weather cannot penetrate below the surface of the water. There, everything is smooth and clear.

"The Engine Room of the ‘Holland’"

The appointments on such a vessel will be finer than anything that can be furnshed on the surface. There will be no dampness, no stickiness. The passenger will enter a hansomely fitted cabin at Dover. Electric lights will make it cosey and bright. Neither the cold of winter nor the extreme heat of summer will be felt. The temperature under water is about the same all the year round.

Almost without a jar, the boat will put off from her dock on the English side. Practically no vibration will be felt from the smoothly running machinery. Before the traveller fairly realizes that a start has been made, the boat will be fast at her dock at Calais. The three of four hours consumed will be passed in reading, in sleep or in social intercourse, as pleasantly as though the traveller were at home in his own drawing-room. The nervous old lady will have less to worry her than she would find on a drive through the streets of London or Paris. Her husband or son will find perfect comfort in a handsomely appointed smoking-room.

This is no dream. It is simply the forecast of a trip that I myself expect to make some day, and I am fifty-nine years old. It is so feasible commercially that capital in plenty will be found for its realization.

Had not the unreasonable prejudice against the submarine existed all these years, such a line might be seen in operation to-day.

Boats of this class will be more economical than the surface channel boats are to-day. The first cost, it is true, will be larger than that of constructing the present day craft; but, after that, with charging stations on either shore, the operating expenses will be much less.

These boats will be from 160 to 200 feet in length. Larger boats will never be feasible, unless we discover some better system of storing electricity than exists to-day - a contingency which is exceedingly doubtful.

To cross the Atlantic and to make any sort of speed, a submarine boat the size of one of the surface greyhounds would have to carry electric storage batteries weighing about six times as much as the vessel herself. No other motive power has been found that can be employed under water so well as electricity. Liquid air has been suggested, but nothing has been accomplished with it. The expenditure for power, therefore, stands as an absolute bar to commercial traffic across the ocean under water.

New York Hearld, April 15, 1898

There are other objections too, to general submarine travel across the Atlantic, objections that would prove insuperable even if the power problem were solved. First and foremost is the confinement. Few people could be found who would be willing to endure confinement for ten or twelve days in a limited, submerged space. The chief charms of an ocean voyage, sunshine and fresh air, would be gone. Even freedom from seasickness would not compensate for that. There could be no decks. Then, too, the danger from collision, which would be eliminated from short trips by the submarine, would here be heightened. There could be no cables for an automatic steering gear, and the vessel could not be relied on to hold her course safely, uninfluenced by ocean currents.

In the domain of science, much may be expected of the submarine. With her aid, the bottom of the ocean will be safely explored at comparatively great depths. Just how far down we shall be able to go in her, no one at this time knows. Singularly enough, we have never ascertained the limit of safety - that is, the point where the weight of the water is so great that it will crush the stoutest submarine that could be built. It has been estimated that four hundred feet below the surface is the limit, but it may be a thousand feet, just as well, for all the definite informatio we have on the subject. Whatever the depth, it is certain to be much greater than any explorers have heretofore been able to reach in person, and the scientists are certain to take full advantage of the possibilities.

In certain submarine pursuits - such as wrecking, pearl and sponge fishing, etc - a complete revolution will be wrought. Millions of dollars now lost to the world in submerged wrecks will be recovered, and the work of raising sunken ships will be a matter of days, instead of months, with the submarine’s aid.

Lake’s boat, built in Baltimore, has already given us an example of what may be expected along these lines.

The surveying of harbors and shoals and obstructions to navigation will be reduced to an exact science. Where now such surveys can be made only semi-occasionally, a perfect system of submarine patrol will be maintained.

Much missionary work will probably still have to be done before the people can be taught to take full advantage of the possibilities of submarine navigation. But the time is in sight when the prejudice against going through, instead of over, the water will have disappeared.

Wargames
Holland sinks Battleship
September 1900

Experience teaches that, wherever its application is desirable, submarine navigation is the safest method of water travel we have. For more than three hundred years, there have been submarine boats. In all that time, only one life has been lost in a boat running beneath the water. When it is remembered that, during all these years, the craft employed has been experimental, this record is certainly marvellous.

What other system of transportation can show such a clear bill? From the stage coach to the locomotive, there is a steady trail of blood and death. Last year, 7123 persons were killed on the railroads of America alone. The trolley, the innocuous, familiar trolley, that we board as blithely as we sink into a chair in our dining-room, numbers its victims by the thousands, though it has been at its work among us only eight or ten years. In the city of Brooklyn alone, over three hundred people have lost their lives since the first trolley spun merrily along the streets of that city.

The automobile, though it has passed the experimental stage, keeps the surgeons and the undertakers actively employed in attending to its daily victims, and this though its use is confined to persons of exceptional intelligence and training.

No one practically objects to travelling on the surface of the water to-day. Yet, from the time when man fashioned his first skin canoe, to the present day, when we go to Europe in floating palaces, the sea has given us a steady record of tragedies. It is no uncommon thing for a whole shipload of people to go down into the depths.

When, in contrast with these experiences, it is remembered that only one life has been lost in a submerged boat, it must be agreed that the objection to submarine travel is a superstition.

For twenty-one years I have been experimenting with submarine craft. I have travelled in submerged boats under all sorts of conditions and with all sorts of crews. All my work has been experimental, the most dangerous stage of any mode of travel. Yet I have never had an accident. On one occasion, an engineer who thought he knew more about my boat than I did gave me a few uncomfortable minutes. Before putting out for a trial dive, he cut off the automatic attachment that supplied us with air. Before I had realized what the trouble was, our supply of air was permitted to get so low that my nose began to bleed. But when the engine was stopped, the reserve buoyancy sent the boat to the surface like a cask, and we had only to open our hatch to get relief. Certainly, that is a fair showing for nearly a quarter of a century of work.

The Plunger
Holland V
Scientific American April 25, 1896

Possibly some people will exclaim against my statement that only one life has been lost in a submerged boat. They will point to half a dozen cases "of record" where whole crews lost their lives. The answer to that is very simple. The majority of cases so recorded were utterly without foundation. In other cases, the men operating the submarine boats were drowned while they were using them as surface boats, and because of that fact. The boat built by McClintock and Howgate for the Confederates sank with four of her crew, the last time after she had blown up the "Housatonic." These accidents are charged against submarine navigation, when the fact is that had the boat been used as intended, under water, instead of on the surface, she would not have lost a single life. Mr. Howgate, one of her builders, told me himself that the first and second accidents were due to the failure of the crew to close the manhole cover when preparing to run out. The waves washed over the boat and filled her. On her third trip, the new crew didn’t fasten the cover before diving. The fourth time, Mr. Howgate himself ordered the men to close the cover as the boat pulled away. Some one called back that it was "too hot."

To charge these accidents against submarine navigation is as reasonable as it would be to argue against surface navigation because a ship that went to sea with her side hatches swinging open filled and went to the bottom.

The other drowning cases set against submarine boats are built on even less foundation; in fact, they have no foundation at all, because they had no existence. Very recently a certain newspaper published a circumstantial account of the great loss of life sustained in the various attempts to navigate the "Intelligent Whale," the submarine boat that has been for years at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Thirty-three deaths were charged to her. As a matter of fact, she never lost a single life, though, Heaven knows, she was handled carelessly enough. She was built in Galveston shortly after the war and brought North. The Government bought her and she made a few trips. Though a good submarine boat to-day, she was abandoned because of the public outcry against sending a crew of men under water. For nearly a quarter of a century, she has been pointed out as the "coffin ship" by wise people who knew all about her terrible record.

Admiral Hichborn, Chief Constructor of the Navy, went extensively into the question of fatal accidents in submarine navigation. He found there were eighty-three cases set down at various times. On investigation he found that fifty had never occurred at all, being of the "Intelligent Whale" class. Thirty-two were chargeable to the Howgate boat. The only case he could find where life had been lost in a submarine, when she was acting as such, was that of Day, an Englishman, who built and operated a submarine boat late in the seventeenth century. The second time she was submerged, it is reported that the hull was crushed by the weight of water. In a report on the subject, Admiral Hichborn wrote:

Crew of USS Holland
Annapolis, MD
circa 1901

"If Day were really crushed in his boat, he has the unique distinction of being the only vistim of the dangers of submarine navigation: but this distinction depends upon the supposition that reports of submarine accidents were much more reliable two hundred and forty years ago than they have been for the last forty years, during which period there have been authentic newspaper reports of the loss of eighty-two lives in attempting submarine navigation in the United States. Fifty of these lives were not lost at all, and the other thirty-two, though lost in a boat designed to operate as a submarine, were all lost when, and apparently because, she was not so operating."

These false reports are undoubtedly responsible for the backward state of submarine navigation to-day. The accident to Day practically put a stop to experiments for a hundred years.

Fulton, who went into submarine navigation before he took up steamboats, ran against a solid stone wall of prejudice. He built two excellent boats in France, but all his perseverence could not overcome the fear men have of going down into an element that they invariably associate with drowning. So, though he had the active interest and good will of the first Napolean, Fulton had to drop the matter. Others took up the work. Almost every year a submarine boat in one form or another was presented to the world by some ambitious inventor. But these craft could make no progress. Day’s ghost invariably rose against them.

In my own time, the thirty-two lives lost in the Confederate boat, and the fifty men drowned in the newspapers, stood as a solid barrier against me whenever I tried to take a step forward. But a breach has been made in the barrier. To a limited class at least, to the naval men of France and America, it has been demonstrated that the submarine is not a trap in which men are drowned like rats. The extension of this knowledge may be expected to be rapid. The commercial application of submarine navigation will follow almost immediately in the wake of this extension.

We shall soon be able, in the domain of peace, to say of the under-water boat what Admiral Hichborn said of her in war: "The submarine has arrived."

Additional Sources:

www.globalsecurity.org
www.gdeb.com
www.chinfo.navy.mil
www.history.navy.mil
www.rddesigns.com

The internal combustion engine offered speed and comparative endurance on the surface, but its deadly carbon monoxide exhaust fumes and high oxygen consumption were obstacles to life beneath the surface. By 1900, submarine designers had solved this problem with the storage battery and electric motors. John Holland was the first to conceive of employing electric motors and the internal combustion engine to power a submarine. Holland and another American, Simon Lake, became the first modern submarine designers. They began their experiments in the last decades of the nineteenth century, Holland in the 1870s and Lake in the 1890s. Holland built six submarines, including one under government contract, before the Navy would accept one of his underwater boats.

Holland on acceptance trials.

Holland was designed in the 1890's by John P. Holland, an inventor and self-taught engineer who had emigrated from Ireland some twenty-five years earlier. Built under his supervision at the Crescent Shipyard at Elizabethport, NJ, the HOLLAND VI was purchased by the US Navy 18 April 1900 for $160,000; and commissioned on 12 October 1900.

In 1900, Holland sold the Navy its first viable submarine, USS Holland (SS-1). This submarine was originally named Holland VI and was not developed under Navy contract. Holland VI was designed and built by its namesake using his own funds. USS Holland had the "amazing speed" of seven knots surfaced, made possible by her 45-horsepower internal combustion engine. She also had an endurance of several hours submerged when running on rechargeable storage batteries.

Holland was powered by a 50hp Otto gasoline engine; she carried 1500 gallons of gasoline. For underwater operations she utilized an ESB storage battery and 50hp 110-volt motor. She had one 18-inch torpedo tube with one Whitehead torpedo loaded and an 8-inch dynamite gun. Holland carried three Whitehead torpedoes, each with a pressure-sensitive piston that controlled the depth of the torpedoes’ run. The torpedo’s stability was controlled by a pendulum, while direction was controlled by a gyroscope. A number of modern torpedoes used similar principles. The pneumatic dynamite gun fired through an opening in the bow. Her original crew was five enlisted and one officer; an executive officer was later added.

For all its innovations, USS Holland had at least one major flaw; lack of vision when submerged. The submarine had to broach the surface so the crew could look out through windows in the conning tower. Broaching deprived the Holland of one of the submarine’s greatest advantages – stealth.

Utilized mainly for experimental work, Holland became a training platform for the new crews to man them. She spent summers in Newport and winters in Annapolis and then was transferred to the Reserve Torpedo Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia and languished there until decommissioned on 21 November 1910 and stricken.

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19093 S. Beavercreek Rd. #188
Oregon City, OR 97045

Good morning Snippy.

Good morning...it's COLD here this morning...brr. It was so cold yesterday that even my winter coat was not warm enough.

Good morning, snippy and everyone at the Freeper Foxhole.

December 20, 2004

Tried By Fire

Read: Psalm 66:1-12

You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. —Psalm 66:10

Bible In One Year: Micah 1-3; Revelation 11

The main end of life is not to do but to become," F. B. Meyer said. And for this we are being prepared every day. As silver is refined by fire, the heart is often refined in the furnace of sadness. The psalmist said in his sorrow, "We went through fire" (Psalm 66:12).

The refining process may be very painful, but it will not destroy us, for the Refiner sits by the furnace tending the flame. He will not allow us to be tried beyond our endurance; it is for our good.

We may not understand why we have to endure such misery year after year. The ordeal seems endless and pointless. Our days are wasted, or so it appears. We feel as if we are doing nothing of lasting significance.

But God is doing what matters—we are being refined. He is placing us into a crucible in which we acquire patience, meekness, humility, compassion, and the other "quiet" virtues our souls naturally lack.

So don't be afraid and don't fret. Your present trial, as painful as it may be, has been screened through God's wisdom and love. The Refiner sits beside the crucible tempering the flames, monitoring the process, waiting patiently until His face is mirrored in the surface. —David Roper

"As thy day thy strength shall be!"
This should be enough for thee;
He who knows thy frame will spare
Burdens more than thou canst bear. —Havergal

The fires of testing can produce a shining testimony.

Morning.

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

Good morning everyone.

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on December 20:
1539 Paul Melissus [Paul Schede] German poet/composer
1629 Pieter de Hoogh Dutch painter
1720 Charles Edward Stuart [Bonnie Prince Charlie/Young Pretender]
1786 Pietro Raimondi composer
1805 Thomas Graham father of colloid chemistry
1807 Richard Lucian Page Brigadier-General (Confederate Army), died in 1901
1808 Thomas Tinsley Craven Commander (Union Navy), died in 1887
1813 Samuel Jordan Kirkwood (Governor-IA)/US Secretary of Interior (1881-82)
1819 John Geary 1st San Francisco postmaster, 1st mayor (May 1, 1850)
1825 Romeyn Beck Ayres Bvt Major General (Union Army), died in 1888
1833 Dr Samuel A Mudd (convicted of giving medical aid to John Wilkes Booth)
1865 Maude Gonne Irish nationalist (Irish Joan of Arc)
1868 Harvey S Firestone Industrialist, where the rubber meets the road
1869 Charley Grapewin Xenia OH, actor (Wizard of Oz, Libeled Lady)
1870 Pieter C Boutens Dutch poet (Voices, Carmina)
1876 Walter S Adams US astronomer/director of Mount Wilson (1923-46)
1881 Branch Rickey baseball executive (Dodgers)
1884 Marius HLW "Max" Blokzijl Dutch nazi collaborator/traitor
1895 Susanne Langer US, philosopher/educator (Philosophy in a New Key)
1898 Irene [Marie] Dunne Louisville KY, actress (Show Boat, I Remember Mama, My Favorite Wife)
1901 Robert Van de Graaff Alabama, physicist (Mobility of Gaseous Ions)
1902 Sidney Hook anticommunist philosopher (Paradoxes of Freedom)
1906 Dick White head of British secret service (MI-5/MI-6)
1906 Irving Krick meteorologist
1906 Lowell Gilmore Minnesota, actor (Living Christ Series)
1922 George Roy Hill director (Slap Shot, Little Drummer Girl, Little Romance)
1924 Charlie Callas Brooklyn NY, comedian/actor (High Anxiety, Hysterical)
1925 Datuk Seri Mahathir bin Mahamad premier of Malaysia (1981-2004 )
1932 John Hillerman Denison TX, actor (Higgins-Magnum PI)
1939 Agatha N "Kim" Weston US gospel/singer (It Takes Two)
1939 Dianne Arndt artist/photographer
1946 Patti Smith singer/songwriter
1946 Uri Geller Israel, psychic (bends forks)
1947 Peter Criss[coula] Brooklyn NY, rocker (Kiss-Beth)
1948 Alan Parsons England, musician/producer/engineer (Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd, Beatles)
1955 Sammy Mitchell US programmer (Qedit/TSE/Semware)
1960 Carolyn Seaward Devonshire England, Miss United Kingdom (1979)
1966 Chris Robinson Atlanta GA, rocker (Black Crowes-Shake Your Money Maker)

Deaths which occurred on December 20:
0069 Aulus Vitellius Roman commandant of Rhine & 7th emperor, murdered
1073 Domingo Spanish monastery founder/abbot/saint, dies
1355 Stefanus IX Uros IV Dusan king (1331-46)/Serbia (1346-55), dies
1632 Nicolas Antoine French catholic pastor who converted to Judaism, executed
1749 Pakubuwono II susuhunan of Mataram Java, dies
1799 David Traugott Nicolai composer, dies at 66
1812 Sacagawea Shoshone interpreter for Lewis & Clark, dies
1876 Hannah Omish at 12 is youngest ever hanged in US
1929 Emile Loubet French premier (1892)/President (1899-1906), dies at 90
1936 Baron De Borchgrave Belgian ambassador, murdered in Madrid
1937 Erich Ludendorff German general (WWI), dies at 72
1939 Hans Langsdorff German captain (Graaf Spee), commits suicide
1942 Jean Gilbert [Max Winterfield] German composer, dies at 63
1944 Abbas Hilmi II viceroy of Egypt (1892-1914), dies at 70
1954 James Hilton English author (Lost Horizon), dies at 54
1961 Moss Heart US dramatist (You can't take it with you), dies at 57
1968 John Steinbeck author (Grapes of Wrath, Nobel 1940 & 1962), dies in New York at 66
1971 Roy O Disney Brother of Walt, dies of cerebral hemorrhage at 78
1973 Bobby Darin singer (Mack the Knife), dies of heart failure at 37
1973 Luis Carrero Blanco PM of Spain (1973), assassinated by ETA
1976 Richard J Daley Chicago mayor dies at 74
1988 Max Robinson 1st black network (ABC) TV anchor, dies of AIDS at 49
1989 Audrey Christie actress (Splendor in the Grass), dies at 77
1993 Moses Gunn actor (Shaft), dies at 64
1993 W Edwards Deming US economist (helped Japan after WWII), dies at 93 (Measure twice, cut once)
1994 Dean Rusk US Secretary of State (1961-69), dies at 85
1996 Carl Sagan scientist (Contact), dies at 62
1997 Vincent Ciccone inventor (Blow-Pops candy), dies at 81

Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1965 JONES EDWIN D.
[RESCUED REFNO 0214]
1965 HUDSON HENRY M.
[RESCUED]
1965 JOHNSON GUY D.---SEATTLE WA.
[REMAINS RETURNED 03/18/77]
1965 JEFFREY ROBERT D.---LOS ANGELES CA.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL IN 98]
1965 MIMS GEORGE I. JR.---MANNING SC.
1965 NORDAHL LEE E.---CHOTEAU MT.
1965 PITCHFORD JOHN J.---NATCHEZ MS.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED, ALIVE IN 98]
1965 TRIER ROBERT DOUGLAS---MEMPHIS TN.
[REM RET 10/14/82]
1965 WAX DAVID J.---BROOKLINE MA.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 02 AUG 93]
1966 LUCAS LARRY F.---MARMET WV.
1966 LUM DAVID ANTHONY---HONOLULU HI.
1967 CRANER ROBERT R.---COHOES NY.
[RETURNED 3/14/73 NOT ON ORIG DIA LIST,DECEASED 10/03/80]
1967 GRUTERS GUY D.---SARASOTA FL.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1968 BOUCHARD MICHAEL L.---MISSOULA MT.
1968 KENT ROBERT DUANE---DALLAS TX.
1968 MORIN RICHARD GIRARD---TWEKSBURY MA.
1969 LONG CARL EDWIN---COLLEGE STATION TX.
1972 ARCURI WILLIAM Y.---SATELLITE BEACH FL.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED,ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 GELONECK TERRY M.---DECATUR AL.
[02/19/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1972 GRANGER PAUL L.---SAN FRANCISCO CA.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1972 KLOMANN THOMAS J.---OAK FOREST IL.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 LERNER IRWIN S.---STRATFORD CT.
[POSS KIA]
1972 MADDEN ROY JR.---HAYWARD CA.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED, DECEASED 1997]
1972 MARTINI MICHAEL R.---LOS ANGELES CA.
[02/19/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 96]
1972 MC LAUGHLIN ARTHUR V. JR.---ROXBURY MA.
[POSS KIA]
1972 PAUL CRAIG A.---COLUMBUS OH.
[09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV]
1972 PERRY RANDOLPH A. JR.---TROY MT.
[POSS KIA]
1972 SPENCER WARREN R.---LA CRESCENTA CA.
[09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV]
1972 STUART JOHN F.---INDIANAPOLIS IN.
1972 WIELAND CARL T.---ORLAND FL.
[RELEASED 03/29/73, DECEASED

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0069 General Vespasianus occupies Rome
1046 Synod of Sutri: German king Henry III removes Popes Gregory VI, Benedictus IX & Silvester III & names Bishop Siutger, Pope Clemens II
1192 Richard the Lionhearted captured in Vienna
1606 Virginia Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown VA
1626 Emperor Ferdinand II/Transylvanian monarch Gábor Betlen signs Peace of Pressburg
1661 Corporation Act enforced in England
1669 1st jury trial in Delaware; Marcus Jacobson condemned for insurrection & sentenced to flogging, branding & slavery
1699 Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed-Sept 1 to Jan 1
1780 England declares war on Netherlands
1790 1st successful US cotton mill to spin yarn (Pawtucket RI)

1803 Louisiana Purchase formally transferred from France to US for $27 million

1820 Missouri imposes a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 & 50
1830 England, France, Prussia, Austria & Russia recognize Belgium (Hey! I know you.)
1860 South Carolina votes 169-0 for Ordinance of Secession, 1st state to secede
1861 Battle of Dranesville VA
1862 Battle of Holly Spring MS
1862 Battle of Kelly's Ford VA
1862 Brigadier-General Nathan B Forrest occupies Trenton KY
1862 Vicksburg campaign
1864 Battle of Fort Fisher NC
1879 Tom Edison privately demonstrated incandescent light at Menlo Park
1880 New York's Broadway lit by electricity, becomes known as "Great White Way"
1883 International cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls
1891 Strongman Louis Cyr withstands the pull of 4 horses
1892 Phileas Fogg completes around world trip, according to Verne
1892 Pneumatic automobile tire patented, Syracuse NY
1893 1st state anti-lynching statute approved, in Georgia
1900 Giacobini discovers a comet (will be 1st comet visited by spacecraft)
1906 Venezuela (under Vice-President Gomez) attacks Dutch fleet
1907 Explosion at Yolande AL, coal mine kills 91
1912 J Hartley Manners' "Peg O' My Heart" premieres in New York NY
1915 Russian troops overrun Qom, Persia
1917 Russian secret police in Czechoslovakia forms under Felix Dzerzjinski
1919 Canadian National Railways established (North America's longest, 50,000 KM)
1919 US House of Representatives restricts immigration
1920 Bob Hope becomes an American citizen
1921 American League votes to return to best-of-7 World Series, while National League votes best-of-9 Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis casts deciding vote for best-of-7

1922 14 republics form Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR)

1922 Polish parliament selects Stanislaw Wojcieckowski as president
1924 Adolf Hitler freed from jail early
1926 Cardinals trade Roger Hornsby to Giants for Frankie Frisch & Jimmy Ring
1928 1st international dogsled mail leaves Minot ME for Montréal, Québec
1928 Ethel Barrymore Theater opens at 243 W 47th St NYC
1933 Bolivia & Paraguay sign weapon cease fire
1935 Pope Pius XI publishes encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii
1938 Vladimir K Zworykin (Pennsylvania) receives patent on the Iconoscope TV system
1939 Radio Australia begins overseas short-wave service
1940 Connie Mack acquires controlling interest in the Athletics for $42,000
1941 Free France under Admiral Muselier occupies St-Pierre et Miquélon
1941 Japanese troops lands on Mindanao
1942 1st Japanese bombing of Calcutta
1943 "International" is no longer USSR National Anthem
1944 Battle of Bastogne, Nazis surround 101st Airborne (NUTS!)
1944 Archbishop De Young & bishop Huibers condemn black market
1944 Bishop forbids membership in non Catholic unions
1945 Rationing of auto tires ends in US
1949 Maurice Ravel/John Cranko's ballet "Beauty & the Beast" premieres
1950 "Harvey", starring James Stewart, premieres in New York
1956 Military coup under colonel Simbolon in Sumatra
1956 Montgomery AL, removed race-based seat assignments on its buses
1957 Elvis Presley given draft notice to join US Army
1960 Auschwitz-commandant Richard Bär arrested in German Federal Republic
1962 The Osmond brothers debut on the Andy Williams Show
1962 Dmitri Shostakovich opera "Katerina Ismailova" premieres in Moscow
1963 Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners
1963 Massemba-Debate elected President of Congo-Brazzaville
1963 Trial against 21 camp guards of Auschwitz begins
1964 Levi Eshkol forms Israeli government
1966 NBA awards Seattle Supersonics a franchise for 1967-68 season
1967 "The Graduate", starring Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft, premieres
1967 474,300 US soldiers in Vietnam
1967 Ian Anderson & Glenn Cornick form rock group Jethro Tull
1969 Peter, Paul & Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" reaches #1
1970 Edward Gierek succeeds Wladyslaw Gomulka as Poland's party leader
1971 Pakistan President Yahya Khan resigns
1972 Neil Simons "Sunshine Boys" premieres in New York NY
1973 Montréal Canadien Henri Richard scores his 1,000th NHL point
1974 Ethiopia becomes socialist one-party state
1975 Joe Walsh recruited to join Eagles
1976 Israel's PM Yitzhak Rabin resigns
1977 RAF -terrorist Knut Folkerts sentenced to 20 years
1978 H R Haldeman, Nixon's White House chief of staff released from jail
1980 USSR formally announces death of Alexei Kosygin
1980 NBC broadcasts New York Jets' 24-17 win over Dolphins without audio
1981 Browns set team records for most fumbles (9) & most turnovers (10)
1981 Harry Krieger/Tom Eyen's musical "Dreamgirls" premieres at Imperial Theater NYC for 1522 performances
1983 PLO chairman Yasser Arafat & 4,000 loyalists evacuate Lebanon
1983 El Salvador adopts constitution
1984 33 unknown Bach keyboard works found in the Yale library
1985 Howard Cosell retires from television sports after 20 years with ABC
1985 Position of American Poet Laureate established (Robert Warren is 1st)
1986 White teenagers beat blacks in Howard Beach NY
1987 Worst peacetime shipping disaster, Dona Paz ferry sinks after collision with oil tanker Vector; 1,749 confirmed deaths (probably closer to 3,000)
1988 Animal rights terrorists fire-bomb Harrod's department store, London
1988 NBC signs lease to stay in NYC, 33 more years
1988 Premier Ranasinghe Premadasa elected President of Sri Lanka
1989 US troops invade Panama & oust Manuel Noriega, but don't catch him
1990 Pentagon warns Saddam Hussein that US air power is ready to attack on 1/15
1990 Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze resigns
1992 Northwest & KLM introduce a new joint logo "Worldwide Reliability"
1992 Slobodan Milosevic re-elected "President" of Serbia
1993 Donald Trump weds Marla Maples
1995 American Flight 965 crashes in Colombia, 159 die, 5 survive
1999 Portugal returns Macau to China

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Taiwan : Bank Holiday
US : Flashlight Day
US : Mudd Day
Made In America Month

Religious History
1552 Death of Katherine von Bora, 53, a former nun and the widow of German reformer Martin Luther. They married in 1525, when Luther was 42 and Katie was 26, and bore six children. Luther died in 1546; Katie, six years later.
1787 A revival broke out among the Shakers of New Lebanon, Indiana, soon igniting a religious fervor among other denominations, especially in Kentucky and other colonial frontier regions.
1845 Baldwin Institute was chartered in Berea, Ohio, by the Methodists. Changing its name in 1854 to Baldwin University, the college merged in 1914 with German Wallace College and adopted its present name: Baldwin Wallace University.
1856 Newberry College was chartered in Newberry, SC, under Lutheran auspices. The campus moved to Walhalla, SC, in 1868, but returned to Newberry in 1877.
1961 Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth wrote in a letter: 'What God chooses for us children of men is always the best.'

Thought for the day :
"To criticize the incompetent is easy; it is more difficult, to criticize the competent."

Modern Lies...
Trust me

How to tick off Santa Claus...
Dress up like the Easter Bunny. Wait for Santa to come and then say, "This neighborhood ain't big enough for the both of us."

The Rules of Chocolate...
Q. Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
A. Because no one wants to quit.

Famous Last Words...
Well we've made it this far

Mornin Feather, cold enough for ya..

Morning, Mayor.

Temp -1F Windchill -21

is rumored to have walked 5-1/2 miles (each way) to attend the Christian Brothers secondary school in Ennistymon

With bare feet, uphill both ways, in the snow!

just like here, Brrrrrrr!

Morning alfa6

Only 5 more days to get right with the big guy in the red suit.

I usually don't start trying until the night of the 24th, the same time I do my shopping. ;-)