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Published on 08/21/1995 All articles from this issue

Shipwrecked in Chesapeake Bay - another close call from World War II

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By Donald H. Kelly

Special to the Town Crier

Donald Kelly was a Naval officer stationed at the Patuxent River Navel Air Station at Chesapeake Bay at the start of World War II. Though he stayed stateside through the duration of the war, he still saw plenty of action. The following account details that action.

World War II started while I was still in college. Thanks largely to the good offices of Professor Brian O'Brien, Director of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, from which I graduated, I was commissioned into the Naval Reserve as soon as I turned 27. I was assigned to work in aircraft camouflage, which was the responsibility of BuAer (the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics).

My first post in the Navy was not BuAer but the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, a testing operation on Chesapeake Bay, about 70 miles from Washington, D.C. As the Navy's only aircraft test center, Patuxent River was directly under the command of BuAer. Captured enemy aircraft were reconditioned and test-flown at Patuxent.

I was assigned to the Aircraft Camouflage Section of the Tactical Test Unit. We tested various paint schemes proposed by BuAer, either to minimize the visibility of a given aircraft, or to maximize it, as in the case of target-towing or Air-Sea Rescue planes.

Since it was impractical to do much visual testing with real airplanes, the camouflage group was using small scale models, a few inches long. Cast in Bakelite, these little models were originally training devices - pilots used them to practice recognizing various planes from their silhouettes. After carefully applying the proposed paint schemes to the models, the camouflage people took them outdoors and hung them from wires, in a big frame against a clear sky background. Then observers started far away and walked toward the models, noting the distance at which each one reached the threshold of detection.

Once these model-detection experiments almost ended in disaster. At the mouth of the river, on the south side near the Test Center, stood a lighthouse on a small island, unstaffed except for occasional maintenance crews. The head of Aircraft Camouflage (our skipper) decided to send an observing crew out to the island to work. So a group of seven or eight of us set off in a motor launch with our equipment: photometers, binoculars, two-way radio, even a range finder! The four observers were women: two enlisted Waves and two civilian employees. There was also a boatswain to handle the launch. I was the senior officer present.

This was no tropic isle. There was one open spot on the leeward side of the island where we could land, but the rest was surrounded by rocky outcroppings. These proved to be rip-rap: huge chunks of broken concrete intended to withstand the ravages of the Chesapeake. It may have been a natural island when the lighthouse was built, but the local engineers wanted it to stay put.

We unpacked our gear and set to work, but the weather was worsening rapidly: dark clouds scudded across the sky and waves started building in the Bay. We decided to go home before it turned into a real blow. Surely the skipper would understand that this was no place for careful scientific work. We loaded everything back into the boat and shoved off.

Heavily loaded as it was, the launch was not very responsive. Soon our boatswain couldn't stop it from swinging broadside into the waves. One came over the side into the engine compartment and the engine died. The boatswain struggled; he got the engine re-started three times, but lost it to another wave each time. By this time, we were drifting into the sharp rocks. There we stopped, sprang a leak, sank a few inches, and stopped again. There was nothing for it but to scramble from rock to rock, back to the island. We unloaded the equipment.

The island was not far from the mainland, with submerged rip-rap most of the way. We might have been agile enough to scramble ashore at low tide. But the tide was coming in. We were all soaking, but there wasn't enough driftwood to build a fire, even if we could have lit it, and the lighthouse was locked. We turned on the radio and sent out a distress call, hoping the skipper could figure out some way to come and rescue us. But there was no answer from Aircraft Camouflage; maybe our transmitter couldn't reach the mainland in this weather. We changed the message to a general mayday, and continued to repeat it. Suddenly there was a loud voice in the receiver, "Yeah, I see you." Directly overhead roared a Navy plane, but it wasn't from the test center.

Chesapeake Bay was a busy place that day. Looking east, we could see cruisers, destroyers, landing ships, even a carrier; it looked like the whole Fleet was maneuvering in our neighborhood. Across the river, on the north side, was another Navy installation called Solomons, where Marine pilots were being trained, and they were taking part in these maneuvers. That's where our rescuer came from. Nobody was looking for us. He was just waiting his turn to practice a carrier landing, and his approach was right over our island.

It was now easy to establish communication. The pilot who had discovered us simply radioed his tower at Solomons and relayed our message. The tower then placed a phone call to Aircraft Camouflage across the river; that was how the skipper learned of our plight.

The next challenge was to arrange our rescue. The only thing the Test Center could send for us was their crash boat. This was a fast, powerful, maneuverable craft, used to pull pilots out of the drink if they had to ditch. But it couldn't get close to the island, especially not in those seas. After some negotiation, an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) was detached from the Fleet and sent over to get us. By now, we felt as if the entire United States Navy was looking over our shoulders, and not with approval.

An LST is probably the most ungainly ship ever designed, with narrow crew quarters to port and starboard, a landing ramp in the bow, and a big space in the middle (for tanks, of course). It can't be much fun to pilot one, but you do learn to maneuver in rough seas and land in tight spots. This one rumbled right up to our island and dropped its landing ramp with a crash. Having already stowed our gear, we walked up the ramp and on inside. I felt so small standing in the middle of that huge empty space (there were no tanks on board).

The LST's skipper was a grizzled warrant officer, who didn't enjoy being pulled away from maneuvers. He didn't bother to salute. (As a commissioned line officer, I technically outranked him, but I wouldn't have pulled rank in that situation for a million dollars, tax free!) He stared at our wet, bedraggled group for a minute as though we had just appeared from outer space, then he shook his head and got under way.

Every sailor who could possibly be spared from duty came crowding around, being kind and helpful. We were all wrapped in warm blankets and plied with hot coffee. It was just as well, because we needed to be very alert for the next stage of our return home.

In order to let the LST return to duty as soon as possible, the crash boat came to meet her. All we had to do was transfer from one vessel to the other. Both skippers moved well away from land, where they had nothing to think about but each other, headed into the wind and matched their speeds. Both were good sailors, able to bring their craft within inches of each other, but of course they couldn't hold that narrow gap. Fortunately, both had decks at about the same height, but there was no breeches buoy or other safety gear. Just lots of willing hands on both decks, ready to help as the gap opened and closed. One by one, we jumped across. If anyone slipped, they were caught before I could see it.

The crash boat had us home in minutes, and I reported to the skipper of Aircraft Camouflage with apprehension. After all, I had lost my first command at sea. But he couldn't bawl me out too much because the whole thing had been his idea in the first place. And he really was glad we were all OK. Any serious injuries would almost certainly have ruined the promotion he was counting on.