The Band on the Troopship

 

It was a tough crowd to please. They were tired of marches and grumbled at anything that sounded like a German waltz or polka. Some wanted more of that raggedy jazz stuff they'd heard from the colored bands of the 369th or 372nd regiments which, sad to say, we didn't know. But most didn't care what we played as long as it had a good beat and a tune you could whistle. Quite a few fellas anyway were distracted by the deck's constant rolling motion and chose to stay close to the rails. 

Mainly they were just tired and bored. After almost a year over there, the talk was less about what everyone feared and more about what each one hoped for back in the States. This last voyage couldn't go fast enough.  These boys had seen the elephant their grandads had met on the battlefields of Antietam and Gettysburg, and no one wanted to cross paths with it ever again. So they all crowded around to listen and maybe for a few minutes forget those dark memories best left behind. 

Our reed section sounded pretty strong despite being outside in the bright sun. Our chief had doubled up two bands into one and some guys had to share a folio. But over the past few months we'd played most of the dots enough times to know them by heart, even with our eyes closed and marching backwards. 

With so many packed onto this little ship there wasn't much space for us to stand, much less avoid whacking someone with a trombone slide or a drumstick. But nobody complained. We churned out the music like the steam engines rumbling below our feet. Louder and faster was what was everyone wanted. 

We were going home.

This postcard photo of a U.S. Army band performing on the crowded deck of a ship has no caption or other note to identify it or give it a date. The ratlines and mast rigging look more suited for a cargo ship or old passenger liner than a warship. The men on the left are seated on ventilation pipes or some other ship structure, not on artillery cannons. But the soldiers and sailors are so numerous and pressed close  together that I'm pretty sure it is a picture taken of a U. S. troopship returning to America, most likely in 1919. Back in 1917-18 their officers would not have allowed this kind of liberty on a ship during the voyage to France. And their uniforms would have been a lot more fresh and crisp than they look now.

Back in July 2017 I wrote a story, Going Home about a similar postcard that had a handwritten caption "Band on the USS Seattle." Like that photo, this one was probably taken by the ship's photographer and printed up as a souvenir for the servicemen onboard. 

The men's uniforms and especially the flat campaign caps match that of the American Expeditionary Force which was formed by order of President Woodrow Wilson in May 1917 when the United States joined its European allies then fighting a war against Germany. After nearly three years of furious battles the British, French, Russian, Belgium, and Italian forces had been unable to prevail over the Imperial German, Austrian, and Turkish aggressors. The AEF promised to be a crucial power that would finally defeat the enemy. But first they had to get there.

The logistics of moving men, armament, and equipment across the Atlantic ocean to France was a major obstacle for the U. S. military command. Hundreds of transport ships had to be hastily requisitioned from American passenger liners, seized German ships, and borrowed Allied ships. The facilities in New York and New Jersey at the Hoboken Port of Embarkation and in Virginia at the Newport News Port of Embarkation had to be rapidly developed for connection to existing railroad lines. Multiple supply depots and troop housing had to be constructed in order to efficiently load the overseas transport ships. Coordination with the U. S. Navy was equally important as it was the naval warships that would guard the troopship convoys across the Atlantic.

Likewise major improvements were needed on the other side of the Atlantic at the French entry ports of Bordeaux, La Pallice, Saint Nazaire, and Brest where American troops and their supplies would be taken eastward to the front. In preparation American military engineers went to France to help build 82 new ship berths, nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of railway tracks, and over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) of telephone and telegraph lines. 

Though General John J. Pershing insisted that some American soldiers would soon join the British and French forces as quickly as possible, by June 1917 only a token number of 14,000 had reached France. It was not until the spring of 1918 that the system for mobilizing, training, and transporting  the AEF was fully operational. The result was a gigantic wave of over two million American troops who had reached Europe by May 1918, with around half of them on the front lines.

However, this transport system by sea was not without chilling risks and grim hazards. 

Long Beach CA Daily Telegram
7 February 1918

On 5 February 1918, a convoy of American troopships enroute to Liverpool had reached the northern coast of the British Isles and was about to turn south into the Northern Channel that separates Scotland and Northern Ireland. Earlier in the day a German submarine, UB-77, spotted the convoy and began shadowing the line of ships. As darkness fell, the submarine's commander, Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Meyer, focused his attention on the SS Tuscania, a former luxury passenger liner of the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Line. 

At about 6:40 p.m. the submarine fired two torpedoes at the Tuscania and the second of these successfully hit its target inflicting severe damage. Within about four hours the Tuscania sank beneath the sea. It was then about 7 nautical miles (13 km) north of Northern Ireland′s Rathlin Island where the depth is 100 m (330 ft). 

When the Tuscania left Hoboken on 24 January it carried 2,013 U. S. military personnel with a crew of 384. Two Royal Navy destroyers and an Irish fishing boat were able to rescue most of the men. But around 210 officers, soldiers and crew were lost. It was the eighth American ship damaged or destroyed since the U. S. had entered the war, making a total of 392 lives loss including those on the Tuscania.

SS Tuscania circa 1917
Source: Wikipedia

The SS Tuscania was built in 1914 to work the route between New York and Glasgow and when war broke out it was converted into a troopship. In September 1915 it help rescue passengers and crew of the SS Athinai, a Greek passenger steamer whose cargo had caught fire, later proven to be the work of German secret agents intent on sabotage. Then in March 1917 the Tuscania evaded an attack by both a German submarine and an armed merchant ship. Four other sister ships of the Tuscania, built with the same design for the Anchor Line, had previously been sunk by German U-boats. 

Contrary to reports that the Tuscania's U-boat attacker was detected and destroyed by British warships, UB-77 survived to continue raiding shipping lanes. After the war ended the submarine was delivered to Britain under the terms of the Armistice and broken up for scrap in 1921.

Boston Globe
12 October 1918

Germany's U-boats deserved their formidable reputation as a destroyer of the high seas. Before the war began all the major world powers had placed their money on building great battleships armed with enormous guns capable of firing huge shells a very long distance. But it was the submarine's sly subterfuge of being able to hide beneath the ocean's surface that made it more devastating force for the Imperial German Navy. In March 2023 I wrote a story, Terror on the High Seas, about a set of German picture postcards that promoted the bravery of the U-boat sailors who fought for their fatherland. The perspective of war always depends which end of a telescope you look through. 

Even as the war was reaching an end in late September 1918, the German submarines were still posing a major impediment to transporting American troops to France. But there was a force even stronger than any warship that threatened all ships with destruction—storms. At the end of September 1918, HMS Otranto, an armed merchant cruiser requisitioned by the British Admiralty at the start of the war, was serving as the flagship of a large convoy leaving New York for Britain. On board were nearly 700 American soldiers. 

The start of the Otranto's voyage was marred by an accident six days out when it collied with a French fishing schooner off the coast of Newfoundland. There was some damage to the Otranto's portside life boats but the schooner was broken apart and the Otranto was delayed while rescuing its crew. It managed to catch up to the convoy but three days later they encountered a terrible North Atlantic storm. On 6 October the storm had reached Force 11 on the Beaufort scale, one down from hurricane winds, with huge monstrous waves. The weather was so bad that the British navy's escort destroyers went back to their home ports.

Unable to stay together, the convoy's ships separated and had to resort to dead reckoning. When they finally sighted a coastline, the Otranto's officer of the watch mistakenly thought it was Ireland's western coast and turned north. The other ships correctly reckoned it was the coast of western Scotland and turned south towards the Northern Channel. The Ontanto was now steering north towards the HMS Kashmir, another liner turned troopship, which was going south. Because of poor visibility caused by the storm the two ships could not avoid a collision, and the Kashmir rammed Otranto on the port side amidships, a few miles off the rocky coast of Islay, Scotland. 

HMS Ontranto, circa 1914
Source: Wikipedia

The impact punctured a huge hole in the port side of the Otranto from below the waterline to the boat deck. Suddenly the boiler rooms and then the engine rooms flooded. The ship began to list badly but it had lost its remaining lifeboats on that side. Fortunately the destroyer HMS Mounsey appeared shortly after the accident and was able to position itself to remove some of the troops and crew. Tragically it was not enough. Waves had driven the ship onto a reef near Islay and it was soon broken. The final casualty list recorded that 470 men perished: 12 officers and 84 crewmen from Otranto, 1 officer and 357 American enlisted men, and 6 French fishermen.

San Francisco Chronicle
12 October 1918

But that was not the end of the tragic news for that day. In the newspapers it was reported that on 30 September 1918, the USS Ticonderoga, a former German steamship converted to a cargo ship for the U. S. Navy, was sunk by a U-boat attack after it had become separated from its convoy. Of the 237 sailors and soldiers who were on the ship when it left Norfolk,Virginia, only 24 survived, including Ticonderoga's executive officer and the first assistant engineer, who were taken from the water by the U-boat and eventually held as prisoners of war  after the submarine returned to port at Kiel, Germany. I believe the ship was also carrying a cargo of livestock, probably horses and mules, who also perished. 

USS Ticonderoga, 1917
Source: Wikipedia

There were so many similar tragedies that week that newspaper editors were hard pressed to find space on the front page. On 10 October 1918, RMS Leinster, a packet ship in the Royal Mail Service, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine while crossing the Irish Seas from Dublin to Holyhead. At least 564 people, mostly civilians, perished. 

Tampa Daily Times
3 October 1918

On the evening of 26 September 1918, the USCGC Tampa, a Miami-class cutter in the United States Coast Guard, was  returning to Milford Haven, Wales, after finishing its escort duty with a large ship convoy that had arrived in the Irish Sea from Gibraltar. As the Tampa crossed the Bristol Channel it was seen by a waiting U-boat that quickly dived and maneuvered into attack position, firing one torpedo at the Tamp from a range of about 550 meters (600 yd). The torpedo struck amidship on the portside and caused a huge explosion. 

The cutter went down with all hands, 131 men: 111 Coast Guardsmen, 4 U.S. Navy sailors, and 16 passengers consisting of 11 British Navy personnel and 5 civilians. It was the U. S. Navy's largest loss of life during combat in World War I. 

USCG Cutter Tampa (1912-1918), 
Source: Wikipedia

My postcard photo records a small moment of recreation enjoyed by men on a troopship returning home. I don't know the band's regiment or the ship's name. But I believe we can understand their shared experience and feelings. It was a relief that their war was over; a satisfaction with their victory; a concern for their future; and a sadness for their comrades lost.  

What often gets lost in history is the deep emotional stress caused by war. In 1914-18 the German U-boat became another new mechanical menace that changed the nature of warfare forever. Submarines, just like heavy artillery, tanks, machine guns, airplanes, and zeppelins became frightful weapons of terror. It produced a dreadful anxiety over the unseen death machines that had never been imagined before. Sadly, many people in our world today are suffering terribly from a similar distress of the hidden weapons of war. I wanted to explain this stress by showing newspaper reports on how troopships were at great risk from a submarine concealed below the ocean's surface. The trip overseas in 1918 was not a holiday cruise so I think the soldiers and sailors in my photo knew firsthand what it was all about and were very glad to see an end to it on their return home. I hope the band's music helped.

Earlier this week, Monday, June 27th, was Memorial Day, once known as Decoration Day and celebrated on May 30th. It was originally established to honor the Union soldiers who had died in the American Civil War but it has since become a day of remembrance for all members of the U.S. military who fought and died in service. The mind numbing number of casualties in World War One are often now reduced to a picture of an orderly military cemetery somewhere on the pastoral fields of France. But we should also remember the other graves too, the ones that have no marker for those lost at sea. We should cherish the memory of those brave men and do our duty to seek an end to all war. 

One of the best ways to honor and remember
the service of all our military men and women is with music.
Here is the West Point Band and West Point Cadet Glee Club
performing "Mansions of the Lord" from the 2002 film We Were Soldiers
at Lincoln Center in New York City on 29 October 2017.
This beautiful hymn was composed by Nick Glennie-Smith
to words by Randall Wallace. 
The conductor of this concert was Constance Chase. 

                                To fallen soldiers let us sing

                                Where no rockets fly, nor bullets wing

                                Our broken brothers let us bring

                                To the Mansions of the Lord

                                No more bleeding, no more Fight

                                No prayers pleading through the night

                                Just Divine embrace, eternal light

                                In the Mansions of the Lord

                                Where no mothers cry

                                And no children weep

                                We shall stand and guard

                                Though the angels sleep

                                All through the ages safely keep

                                The Mansions of the Lord

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where you don't need a ticket to see the match.