TO PEARL HARBOR 



During the early 1900s the Navy was concentrating on acquiring hydrographic data needed 

 for nautical charts of strategic areas in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. The 

 principal ships were the converted yachts Mayflower, Eagle and Yankton, the former colliers 

 Hannibal and Leonidas (both converted steamers built in Sunderland, England and acquired by the 

 Navy in 1898), the gunboat Paducah, the gunboat Dolphin, and the cruiser Olympia, which in 

 1898 carried Admiral Dewey's flag at the battle of Manila Bay and was the podium for his: "You 

 may fire when you are ready, Gridley." 



In 1901, the Mayflower, a ship whose history is as proud as its name, sounded and charted 

 approaches into various bays and sounds of Puerto Rico and the waters ranging to the coast of La 

 Guiara, Venezuela. Originally, the private yacht of Mr. Ogden Goelet, the Mayflower was built in 

 1896 by J. and G. Thompson, Clyde Bank, Scotland. Her designer was George L. Watson who also 

 designed Thistle, competitor for the America's Cup yacht racing trophy in 1887. Acquired by the 

 Navy in 1889 for $430,000, following the death of Mr. Goelet, the Mayflower's career included 

 service in the Spanish-American War, as presidential yacht for Theodore Roosevelt, William 

 Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge, and as a U.S. Coast Guard 

 training ship. After sale by the government, she was acquired by Collins Distributors of New York, 

 renamed the Mab and registered under the Panamanian flag supposedly for short haul cargo duty 

 in the Mediterranean. On 4 September 1948, this former presidential yacht, having sailed from 

 Marseilles, France some 8 days previous, entered the port of Haifa, Palestine carrying a group of 

 Jewish refugees singing the Israeh national anthem. These refugees were all from Europe, most of 

 them from the illfated Exodus 7947 which had been turned back from Palestine in the summer of 

 1947. 



In 1902 the Carnegie Institution of Washington was founded and endowed by Andrew 

 Carnegie with an original endowment of $10 million to "encourage, in the broadest and liberal 

 manner, investigation, research, discovery and the application of knowledge to the improvement of 

 mankind . . ." In 1905 it began a comprehensive world wide study of the magnetic, electric and 

 chemical properties of the oceans using the ship Galilee. The Galilee was a 132-foot, 600-ton, 

 wooden sailing vessel built in 1891 by Matthew Turner of California for hauling freight in the 

 Pacific. She was chartered by the Carnegie Institution for a three year period (1905 - 1908). The 

 year 1909 saw the construction of the nonmagnetic ship Carnegie. The Carnegie was the second 

 U.S. ship (preceded 27 years earlier by the Albatross) to be built especially for ocean research. She 

 was active from 1909 until her loss in 1929 at Apia, Samoa from a gasoline explosion. 



There was increasing interest in the broad physical aspects of deep ocean circulation 

 stimulated primarily from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 in the North Atlantic. One of the 

 direct results of this disaster w^s the Navy's detailing (at the recommendation of the Hydrographic 

 Office) of the cruisers Birmingham and Chester to patrol in the iceberg region near the tail of the 

 Grand Banks of Newfoundland as an ice patrol for passing vessels. This particular service was the 

 forerunner of what is now the International Ice Patrol. 



World War I saw ships diverted to support the war effort, and. once again, oceanography was 

 placed in limbo. By legislative order, five ships of the Survey, the Surveyor, Isis, Bache, Patterson 

 and Explorer, with their officer complements, were assigned to the Navy, where they participated 

 primarily in troop and cargo convoy duty, seeing little combat. The Surveyor, however, was later 

 cited and decorated for disabling, by use of depth charges, the German submarine 11-39, which had 

 sunk the Lusitania. This action occurred during an attack on a ship convoy and resulted in the 

 internment of the damaged U-39 in Spain. Other Survey ships were placed under Navy jurisdiction, 

 such as the 101-foot wooden steam launch Hydrographer, performing surveying and coastal patrol 

 duties. 



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