Blue Highways: New London, Connecticut

Unfolding the Map

I heard something that shocked me recently.  Those children born 18 years ago have most likely never known cars with anything other than a CD player. Being 48 years old, I remember 45 rpm records.  I also remember the Cold War.  Something as distant in time as those events and the threat of nuclear annihilation only registers on the minds of those younger than 30 if they read it in history books.  About 10 years ago, a young friend, then in her early 20s, asked my wife "so what was this Berlin Wall thing all about?"  For those of us that lived in the Cold War and remember, it was a shadow of terror over our lives that were otherwise lived normally.  This post, as we wait with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) for a ferry in New London, remembers some of that time period.  To pinpoint New London, target the map.

Book Quote

"...I asked where they built the submarines, and he pointed to a dagger of a shadow.  'That black thing is the Ohio.  She's the first Trident.  The orange bull on blocks is the Michigan.'

"'How can anything that big move under water?'

"'They're longer than the Washington Monument.  The Ohio will carry twenty-four missiles, each one with a dozen warheads: two hundered eighty-eight atomic explosions.  One hell of a bitch with twelve sisters coming along behind at a billion dollars each.'  He offered a Chiclet.  'They used to name battleships after states because they were the dreadnaughts of the sea, but there's your dreadnaughts of the next war.'

"'....You think war is finished?  Whatever peace we'll know will come because of things like those devils...Those Tridents are the new Peacemakers...'"

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 6

New London, Connecticut. Photo by Ralph Thayer and hosted at Wikipedia. Click on photo to go to host page.

New London, Connecticut

Recently, on a work trip to San Diego, I took time out from the conference I was attending to spend some time at the Maritime Museum with my wife.  The harbor's star attraction was the USS Midway, a decommissioned and historically important aircraft carrier.  But for me, the highlight of the visit was a tour of a decommissioned Soviet submarine.

I've been, at least somewhat, a fan of submarine films.  Movies like Das Boot, The Hunt for Red October and U-571 are filled with drama and tension.  I suppose such tension comes with the tight, cramped and even claustrophobic environment of a long metal tube submerged for days and weeks beneath the surface of a deep, dark and unforgiving ocean.  One mistake, one faulty rivet or plate, or one engine (or nowadays nuclear reactor) accident could mean a cold, dark and unpleasant death.  In wartime, the stakes and terror can be even higher, and death could come in the form of a torpedo or a depth charge.

The most recent movie I saw on submarines, K-19: The Widowmaker, was about a Soviet submarine much like the one I toured in San Diego.  But only by going into such a submarine can one really get a sense of the conditions in one.  Touring through the sub, I understood why the pay was greater and the honors greater than in other parts of the Soviet Navy.  Pipes and valves stick out in odd places, guaranteeing that if you don't watch your head you will probably crack it open on something.  There were cramped toilets where the sailors had only weekly shower privileges.  Other features: a tiny kitchen with a cook trying to stretch stores as far as they will go, helping men forget with an unauthorized shot of vodka or beer; miniscule berths that sailors shared - one used the berth and slept while the other did his duty; everywhere the smell of diesel and hot machinery.  When I did my tour, I realized that the mother and her son passing through the sub behind me were Russian, and they spoke Russian with each other while looking into cabins and berths.  I closed my eyes and imagined that where once a chorus of Russian voices filled that ship, the strains of Russian now probably echoed infrequently off the inner hull.

It is easy to forget, or not even realize, that from the end of World War II until 1989 the world was at the mercy such metal tubes, whether they rode under the waves or rocketed through the air.  As my studies in international relations remind me, many scholars believe that these engines of war were what saved humanity.  Submarines and missiles, goes the argument, were what kept the peace between two of the most powerful nations the world has ever seen.  Such subs. loaded with nuclear missiles and nuclear-tipped torpedoes, were the trump card of the Cold War.  If a devastating attack was launched, even if the enemy was taken by complete surprise and completely annhilated, its subs could launch a similarly devastating counterattack from off the coasts, destroying the other nation in a matter of minutes.

That was the world I grew up under - nations held hostage to peace under the threat of weapons of mass destruction pointed at each other.  It was called a peace, but it was a damn frightening peace.  Just as two gunslingers, hands at their sides, face each other in the dusty street in movies about the Old West, the United States and Soviet Union stared each other down, weapons in plain sight, each knowing what the other was capable of, each waiting for one to either move or back down.  Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the Soviets decided to station nuclear missiles in their ally Cuba, and the United States responding with a blockade.  It was steely-eyed feint and counter-feint, each probing for weakness and backing off if there would be disadvantaged.  For almost five decades, these gunslingers, the US and the Soviets, faced each other until finally, the Soviets blinked, turned and walked into the sunset.

But we who grew up under this peace had no idea that, unfathomably, it would end so peacefully.  When I was old enough to understand the international situation to a degree, I began to have nightmares involving flashes and mushroom clouds.  Nuclear tests were common until banned by international treaty.  Small wars often sprung up in far-flung and distant places, leading to sharp words and threats from the United States and the Soviets.  The Soviet government was painted as evil and ruthless, the Soviet people were described as dour, wretched, and lost.  I thought, like many others, that when the standoff did end, it would end civilization as well.  We just didn't know when.

A common phrase taught to me as a child was "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see."  When my parents took our family on a cruise to Alaska on a Soviet cruise ship in 1980, I saw Soviets for what they were - people.  I even got a crush on our server, a young Russian girl named Larissa.  At the time, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, and I had trouble reconciling the words of our government condemning the Soviet government and the incredibly friendly people, sharing their rich culture with us, staffing the ship.

My studies taught me that the international drama of the Cold War was, in many ways, carefully stage-managed.  Knowing that they faced annihilation and that there would be no winner in a major conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union minimized the opportunities for direct conflict and instead fought through proxies.  The argument that these nuclear-armed antagonists deterred each other from direct conflict therefore has much merit. 

I often hear the same argument made for arming individuals in our society.  The argument goes that if someone knows or suspects that you are armed, they won't harm you because it could lead to harm to themselves.  However, there is a difference between national action and individual action.  Nations are collectivities of people and therefore the risk of irrational action is less.  Nations are rarely impulsive - even the actions of Hitler and the Nazis was a well-thought out plan, and based on self-preservation.  All nations will choose self-preservation over destruction - even Nazi Germany made some overtures toward peace at the very end to try to preserve itself. 

Individuals, however, can have moments of irrationality with no cultural and collective filter to put the brakes on those thoughts.  I think of the times when, in the heat of passion or disappointment or anger, I have done irrational things.  The United States and the Soviet Union managed their conflict in a rational manner and usually considered the potential consequences of their decisions carefully.  The person who kills, or the person who feels threatened whether or not there is an actual threat, can often behave irrationally and give in to impulsive actions.  That's why I cannot buy the argument that a safe society is one where individuals are armed.

But back when I was growing up, I didn't understand such.  And I feared, greatly, that one day my life and my world would end in a flash of light.  It seems that the chances of that were, and remain, low.  I might have more to fear from a greater number of individuals packing heat within my own country than a nation-state packing a nuclear bomb.  I hope I never experience either.

Musical Interlude

The first song for the musical interlude is Yo La Tengo's Nuclear War, a remake of a Sun Ra song.  I like the images the creator of the video put in to accompany the song, as well as the clip of J. Robert Oppenheimer, lead scientist on the Manhattan Project, at the very end.

Of course, leave it to The Beatles to turn a weapon of destruction into a children's song in Yellow Submarine.  The video uses clips from the movie Yellow Submarine, interspersed with footage of swimming Beatles.

If you want to know more about New London

City of New London
Connecticut College
TheDay.com (newspaper)
Mitchell College
United States Coast Guard Academy
Wikipedia: New London

Next up: Orient Point, New York

Blue Highways: Fort Stevens, Oregon

Unfolding the Map

William Least Heat-Moon mentions Fort Stevens in this chapter even before he gets to Haystack Rock and Seaside, Oregon, but I wanted to put it in correct trip chronological order.  I'm not really sure he visited Fort Stevens rather than just mention it, so I am including it as a blue marker on the map.  It's an interesting story, however, and it shows that the United States wasn't as invulnerable to attack as we may have thought we were.  To see where Fort Stevens lies on the trip, explore the map.

Book Quote

"...Fort Stevens to the north of Tillamook Bay earned the distinction of being the last place in the forty-eight states attacked by a foreign power when the Japanese shelled it in June of 1942."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 5

Fort Stevens, Oregon. Photo by Bob J. Galindo and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to site.

Fort Stevens, Oregon

I'm pretty good at World War II history.  I'm not an expert, but I can name several engagements in both theaters of war, and I have a good timeline of events.  I understand what the motivations of each side were, and how they planned to accomplish them.  I knew that the Japanese had made some attacks on a US state.  The most notable that I knew of was the Japanese takeover of the islands of Kiska and Attu in the Aleutian Islands, some say as a feint to draw US forces away from the Battle of Midway while others say it was to protect Japan's northern flank and possibly serve as a staging ground for attacks on the US mainland.  I also knew that there were some sporadic attacks on Oregon, but I didn't know how or where.  LHM's quote gave me the impetus to look up some of this information, which I'll share with you.

In June of 1942, the US was on its heels in the Pacific.  The Japanese seemed to be taking over island after island.  The US fleet had been pounded at Pearl Harbor but luckily, its aircraft carriers had survived.  The Japanese goal, as I understand it, was to create a "Co-Prosperity Sphere" in the western Pacific and, knowing that the US was a rival, Japan's aim was to significantly weaken the US so that it would present little threat to Japanese ambitions.  Japan, having little in the way of natural resources, wanted a way in which they could wield regional power and preserve it.  The Japanese hope was that their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would so weaken the US that it would have little recourse than to watch the Japanese build their empire.  However, the US was not as weakened as Japan hoped after Pearl Harbor, and the onset of war kickedstarted the massive US economy, which fired up to defeat the Japanese menace.

However, none of the outcome of the war was guaranteed in June, 1942.  Everything seemed to be going Japan's way, and the takeover of the two Aleutian Islands continued its string of successes.  Japanese leaders wanted to send a message to the United States that its isolation due to vast oceans could not protect it.  Accordingly, they dispatched two long-range submarines to the West coast of the United States to engage US warships heading for the Aleutians and to engage US forces on land if possible.

One of the subs, the I-25, in order to avoid minefields, shadowed fishing boats heading back into harbor and surfaced near the mouth of the Columbia River opposite Fort Stevens.  The sub fired 17 rounds from it's 5.5 inch deck cannon at the fort, which did not fire back in order to not give away its defenses.  The only real damage was to a set of power poles and the baseball field.  A B-17 was dispatched to look for and bomb the submarine, but the sub avoided the bombs and got away by diving.

The good news was that nobody was killed.  However, it was the first attack on the US mainland by a foreign power since the War of 1812.  In reality, the US had little to fear from a Japanese invasion, because at the time the logistics and costs needed to mount a successful invasion of the US mainland would have been prohibitive.  The only reason the US was invaded during the War of 1812 was due to British troops being stationed in Canada, and therefore Britain had a staging ground from which they could send out ships and troops.  In reality, had we been at war with Spain or France at that time, they might have been able to mount an invasion of the US as well given their territories in the New World.  As US expansionism occurred, however, and Canada became a friendly neighbor, these risks grew more remote.  The US used aggression to remove the threat of Mexican invasion, though Pancho Villa raided across the border in the early 1900s, though not sponsored by the Mexican government, necessitating an unsuccessful return incursion of US troops into Northern Mexico to find and catch him.  However, the fact that it might be prohibitive to launch an invasion against the US did not stop the public from experiencing a West coast invasion scare at the time.

By the 1940s, the US had built itself into a fortress that was, in effect, protected by two large oceans serving as vast moats.  The Japanese hoped to stoke fear and panic by making the US doubt its safety.  Later that year, in August, the I-25, which was one of eleven Japanese subs equipped with a seaplane, sent the plane on a mission over Oregon.  Loaded with incendiary bombs, the mission was to start forest fires in Oregon which would divert US manpower toward fighting them.  The bombs were dropped, the first of only two bombings of mainland America in the war, but factors including weather and two fire lookout personnel kept the fires from doing much damage.  In September, the I-25 launched the seaplane again which unloaded some incendiary bombs on another part of Oregon, but it seems as if the bombs either never exploded or the intended fires never caught.

Later, as the US military muscle exert itself and the Japanese gains were halted and then slowly reversed, Japanese leaders embarked on another program to strike terror into the US.  A Japanese scientist some years before had, through observations of balloons launched near Mount Fuji, discovered the existence of the jet stream.  With this knowledge, throughout 1944 and 1945 Japan launched over 9000 balloons into the jet stream carrying bombs that they hoped would hit forests and cities in the US.  Each carried either incendiary or antipersonnel bombs, and the Japanese hoped that 10 percent of the bombs would reach American targets.  In reality, about 300 of these balloon bombs were observed in North America, but they caused a few deaths.  One tragic set of deaths occurred in Oregon, when a minister and his family were on a forest outing.  One of the children found a bomb lodged in a tree and not knowing what it was, tried to get it down.  The resulting explosion killed the minister's wife and all of his children.

The facts of the attacks on the United States by the Japanese were kept from the American public until after the war was over, which is partly why even today so few people know that the Japanese carried out such attacks.  In reality, the best the Japanese could have hoped for was to be able to shell some American cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles...the West coast, however, was highly patrolled by the Coast Guard and the Japanese called off such a planned exercise.  But, it is an interesting facet of the Pacific War that the mainland US came under attack from Japanese forces, and escaped with very little damage.

Musical Interlude

I'm sure that that all the men at Fort Stevens were singing this song as they cheerfully went to their stations under the shelling of Japanese sub I-25 in the middle of the night.  Okay, probably not, because the song didn't come out until 1943.  But I'm sure that they were thinking in this vein.  Okay, they probably weren't thinking anything like this, either.  But we'd like to think they did.  Enjoy Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition by Kay Kyser and his Orchestra!

If you want to know more about Fort Stevens

ColumbiaRiverImages.com: Fort Stevens
Fort Stevens State Park
Visit Fort Stevens
Wikipedia: Fort Stevens

Next up:  Fort Clatsop, Oregon