Jan. 30, 2011

The mystery lingers. How could it not?

Generations have come and gone since the disappearance of the World War I collier Cyclops somewhere between Barbados and Hampton Roads.

The Navy did its best to locate the vessel. A retired master diver thought he had stumbled across the wreckage while searching for a missing sub. Clive Cussler paid for a subsequent search. All to no avail. The greatest mystery in Navy annals persisted.

This much we know: The Cyclops steamed out of Norfolk in early 1918, bound for Brazil with a load of coal. Orders were to return with its hold full of manganese ore for the war effort. Stopping briefly in Barbados on March 3, the ship departed the next day for Baltimore.

And vanished. All 309 passengers and crew lost. Never a trace of wreckage, never a distress signal. “Voyage to oblivion,” someone called it.

Theories abound: German torpedoes sank it or a German-leaning captain sailed it home to the Fatherland. The Bermuda Triangle swallowed it whole. A violent storm off the Virginia Capes caught its crew off guard.

President Woodrow Wilson’s pronouncement that “Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship” seems to have held true.

But has it?

A column I wrote last week, showing a spare parts chest that someone liberated from the ship while it was in port – it was later found in the basement of a house on 37th Street in Norfolk and donated to the Mariners’ Museum – generated a flurry of e-mails. And piqued my interest again.

“My dad was Chief Master Diver Dean D. Hawes,” wrote Deana Zagorski. “He had stated till the day he passed away he had stood on the bow of USS Cyclops back in 1969 while searching for the Scorpion.”

Hawes did stand on the deck of a sunken wreck about 70 miles off the Capes. He was sure it was the Cyclops and convinced the Navy, then Cussler, the undersea explorer and author,to stage searches. Virginian-Pilot reporter Tony Germanotta went out with him in his last quest in 1983 and recorded his disappointment when a diver surfaced and said, “That ain’t it,Dean."

Jerry Unser wrote that his grandfather, Lawrence “Pappy” Martin, who lived on Somme Ave. in Norfolk, had served as merchantman on the Cyclops and went on leave shortly before its fatal voyage to Brazil.

“He said emphatically there was no mystery surrounding the sinking of the boat as it was a ‘rusted piece of junk,’” Unser wrote. “He said that with wave action and the boat going through heat stresses carrying ore such as coal, manganese, etc., it would split at the seams. Crews would go out and drill small holes at these points to stop the cracks, and effect more permanent repairs later. “

It’s true that the ship may have had structural flaws, a point brought home when two sister ships later went to the bottom. So here’s the best theory: Overloaded and hit by a powerful storm, it broke apart, suddenly, before signals could be made or lifeboats deployed.

But where? Apparently we’ll never know.

There are few surviving photos, but here, suddenly, comes one from a reader, David Moscopolos, with this note:

“My grandfather was a cook on the ship right before it was missing. He was attached to the ship as a merchant seaman. He always liked Norfolk and he decided to live here…once he was discharged.” James Moscopolos owned a meat market in downtown Norfolk and lived in Princess Anne County until he died in 1953.

The photo shows Moscopolos, with dapper mustache and Greek sailor cap, on board the doomed ship with a buddy. He’d request and receive his discharge at the age of 30 in 1912. It was a good time to quit. He’d have 41 more years to live.

Photo: Merchant seaman James Moscopolos, at left with a fellow crew member on board the Cyclops in about 1912. Courtesy of David Moscopolos.

Jan. 23, 2011

In a storage room of the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News is a glimpse of an unfathomable mystery.

A small, humble chest, wooden, dark green, splotched with red and bearing a stenciled identity, “U.S.S CYCLOPS, MISC. SPARES …COAL CONVEYOR MOTORS,” is empty now, save for the musty smell of the wood.

And maybe a hint of tragedy.

The Cyclops, born a collier at a shipyard in Philadelphia in 1910, steamed to Norfolk to join the Navy’s Auxiliary Service to refuel ships of the Atlantic Fleet. The massive vessel -- 542 feet long by 65 wide – was a workhorse of the fleet, servicing ships from Newport, R.I., to the Caribbean. There was a stint in the Baltic in 1911 and, during troubled conditions in Mexico in 1914, valiant service evacuating refugees.
But there was something odd about the Cyclops, specifically its skipper, LCDR George

W. Worley, who was known as both colorful and tyrannical. According to ship’s lore, he might cavort about in longjohns and derby hat one day and chase a fellow officer with a pistol the next. His reputation for cruelty rivaling that of HMS Bounty’s William Bligh, he berated and cursed insubordinates for trivial offenses.

And then there was this: he was born Johann Frederick Wichmann in Hanover, Germany, changing his name after jumping ship in San Francisco in 1878. This would come to light after what became one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in naval history.

The Cyclops, now a commissioned Navy ship and Worley a full commander, departed Norfolk in early February 1918 for Rio de Janeiro. Stopping in Bahia, Brazil and taking on manganese ore, which was used in weapons-making, she headed back toward Hampton Roads, with a brief stop in Barbados on March 3.

And was never seen or heard from again.

With the Cyclops due in port no later than March 13, the Navy was reported several days later to express “extreme anxiety” over its fate and that of 309 passengers and crew. A massive search and wireless calls up and down its route found not a shred of wreckage, not a radioed answer.

The disappearance of the Cyclops was the gravest non-combat loss of a Navy ship. And one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the deep.

“She really just literally got swallowed by the sea,” said Marc Nucup, associate curator at the museum.

There have been dozens of theories, among the most intriguing swirling about Commander Worley’s alleged German sympathies, as well as those of one of his passengers, Alfred Gottschalk, U.S. consul-general in Rio. Did the two conspire to hand the ship over to the Germans?

One contributing piece of the puzzle is that Worley, who lived in Norfolk with his wife and daughter. sold his house just before departing – as though planning never to return.

Or did a German U-boat sink the Cyclops, with all hands going to the bottom?
The problem with these theories is that a search of German admiralty records didn’t offer a clue.

Did the ship break apart in a storm?

The problem here is that there were no distress signals and no debris.
The most likely scenario revolves about the fact that the Cyclops, with 10,000 tons of manganese ore on board, was severely overloaded. It’s possible that a cargo shift increased the ship’s list just enough to make it vulnerable to a rogue wave, which could cause it to suddenly turn turtle and sink before a distress call could be made or a lifeboat launched.

Then, too, the Cyclops was thought to have a structural weakness amidships that might have caused it to break in two. This theory gained credence after two sister ships sank during World War II.

But no distress calls? No debris? No sunken remains?

The Mariners’ Museum has a few artifacts. In addition to contemporary news accounts, the museum library has a postcard showing the Cyclops berthed at a pier, and an engraved invitation to a reception on another ship.

Then there’s the wooden chest. It was apparently taken home by one of the crew during a stay in port and, years later, found in a basement and turned over to the museum.

Even though it has no connection to the ship’s sad fate, there’s a weird feeling about it. Maybe because it’s just about the only tangible proof that the Cyclops even existed.

Photos:
The wooden chest. The Mariner’s Museum photo staff added a few touches of mystery.
The U.S.S. Cyclops at anchor.

Both courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum.

Jan. 16, 2011

The year was 1959. The Tidewater area – remember when it was called that? – was feeling the pressure of baby boomers whose parents had arrived here during World War II. They were now ready for college but there were few choices of four-year residential campuses.

At the same time, a farm family on land that straddled Norfolk and Princess Anne County was feeling the pressure of growing real estate taxes and wished to sell.

Luckily for both the students and the farmers, Joseph S. Johnston, a local Methodist church official, had a vision that the church build a college in or near Norfolk. There were studies, of course, but events followed swiftly.
A 1962 aerial view of the Virginia Wesleyan site shows farm buildings in the center and, in upper left, still-standing World War II barracks. Courtesy Virginia Wesleyan College. (Click to enlarge)

In February 1961, reading from a scribbled note on the back of a voucher slip, Johnston moved that the Virginia Methodist Commission on Christian Higher Education recommend “the establishment at the earliest possible date of a 4-year co-ed campus-type Methodist College in the Norfolk area.”

It was an idea whose time had come. In June of the same year, delegates to the Virginia Methodist Annual Conference in Virginia Beach voted overwhelmingly in favor of establishing Virginia Wesleyan College. After an all-night session with attorneys, a charter for the new school was approved. Even though the school wouldn’t open for five years, with many hurdles and crises to face, it marked the official beginning of the new college.

This is the story that Stephen S. Mansfield, who has been associated with Virginia Wesleyan Collage for most of its history has woven together in a new book, Wisdom Lights the Way, Virginia Wesleyan College’s First Half Century.

It wasn’t as simple as deciding to build a college, choosing the land and plunking it down in the middle of farm fields. There were tough choices to be made, not the least of which was finding the money, deciding on a site and coming to terms with one of the major issues of the day, the dawning civil rights revolution.

There were no less than 17 potential sites, one at the Virginia Beach oceanfront, another on farm land near Great Bridge. There was also the thought of relocating then-struggling Randolph-Macon College in Ashland to Norfolk.

The property that brothers William and John Smith owned – then on Burma Road – had an interesting history. It had been part of land the federal government confiscated in 1866 as a temporary station for recently freed slaves. During World War II, part of the property was used for barracks for pilots in training. Next to the Smith’s land was another parcel of 56 acres that once contained a prison farm.

The price for the 305 acres was $607,000, considerably less than the appraised value of $3,000 an acre, with the difference representing a gift to the college. One stipulation was that the mailing address be Norfolk, even though part of the campus was in Princess Anne, now Virginia Beach. Another 56-acre tract to the north was also available, but the trustees agreed to allow another potential purchaser, Norfolk Academy, to buy it.

Finally, the decision was made to change the name of Burma Road to Wesleyan Drive.

Another thorny issue had to be settled, and quickly. In order to qualify for federal and foundation loans and grants, Virginia Wesleyan had to open its doors to all. Some trustees worried about losing support from potential donors, but they agreed with Johnston’s position that “Virginia Wesleyan College under the freedom of its charter declare its policy to be one of service to all qualified persons seeking a higher education without regard to their age, race, color, or religion.”

Now, all they had to do was raise $3 million – and that proved harder than expected. One July 1964 Pilot story reported, “Virginia Wesleyan College is in trouble.” But donors stepped up to the plate and ground was broken one year later. In September 1966, with a first-year class of only 75, Virginia Wesleyan opened. It would grow to about 1,300 in 2011.

Mansfield joined the college’s history faculty in 1968, later becoming vice president for academic affairs and dean. After retiring five years ago, he began organizing the school’s archives – and working on this book.

Reflecting on all the participants in the college’s beginnings and all of the students that have come through its doors, Mansfield wrote, “I sense the eyes, or ghosts, of all these persons looking over my shoulder now, hoping that I ‘get it right’ in this first attempt at telling the VWC story.”

January 9, 2011

Pre-Civil War Norfolk must have been a strange place. Once again prospering after its devastating yellow fever epidemic five years past, the city’s warehouses were bulging with corn and wheat.

Thousands of bales of cotton were leaving city docks every week, bound for New York. Steamships were sailing and rail lines rolling almost constantly toward western and northern markets.

The New York and Virginia Steamship Company announced in November 1860 that the “Roanoke” would be making two non-stop trips a week to New York. “This arrangement,” the newspaper Southern Argus trumpeted, “will render that favorite line still more popular and at the same greatly facilitate the commercial operations of our city.”

And yet, the Argus, in just about the same breath, was fulminating about “northern aggression” with regard to slavery and applauding South Carolina and other Deep South states for threatening to secede from the Union. And making racist comments about inferiority.

Reeling through microfilm in Norfolk Public Library’s local history room is like tiptoeing through a minefield. I was looking for evidence of the mood hereabouts as Virginia toyed with the idea of breaking away from the nation it helped create.

It couldn’t happen, many ardent unionists felt, not in “the Old Mother State” where the seeds of independence had been sown. Were not more Founding Fathers, indeed more presidents, of those same United States sired in these quarters? Slave-holding founders, to be sure, and, yes, states’ rights champions, but still…

“Secession is not disunion,” the Argus theorized on Nov. 14. “It is simply a mode of protecting ourselves against aggression and wrong from the North.”

This short-lived daily – it had a run of about 12 years just prior to the war – carried advertisements on its front page about miracle remedies for just about every ailment. And interesting declarations, like the one by A.H. Lindsay of Deep Creek who was selling his 1,000-acre farm fronting on the Dismal Swamp Canal. “The health of the place is excellent,” he claimed. “My doctor’s bill for over fifty negroes, during the year, was only twenty-six dollars.” Location, location…

The Argus was also railing against its competitor, The Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald, for advocating that Virginia remain in the Union. Why should the state “dance crazily out of the Union to the fiddling of South Carolina,” the Herald had dared to wonder.

The rebellious South Carolina abandoned the Union on Dec. 20, followed quickly by Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. But Virginia, at least for the moment, was against secession, and Gov. John Letcher fought to keep the state out of the Confederacy.

Still, the drumbeat of confrontation was growing daily. “Minute Men” organizations were springing up throughout the South, including one in Norfolk that claimed in its bylaws “the inalienable right to resist unconstitutional aggressions by the Federal Government.”

One of the cheerleaders for disunion was former Gov. Henry Wise, now living near the Norfolk line in Princess Anne County. In a letter published in the Argus, he advocated raising an army and building warships in case war became necessary. “I say then, stick to all your rights, renounce none, fight for all and save all!”

On Jan. 7 – 150 years ago this week – the state legislature determined that a secession convention should be held the following month. But it was then with the clear expectation that cooler heads would prevail and Virginia would vote overwhelmingly to remain in the Union.

In fact, it did, but that was before the guns of April.

Illustration: A Flyer for the Daily Southern Argus from 1852, courtesy of Brown University Library.