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| (Alchetron.com) |
For
more than five decades a giant rusting hulk loomed large over Cape
Cod Bay. It was battered, beaten, and bruised yet remained a stoic
relic to a bygone day. It was created for World War II and named for
a Confederate Civil War general. Though not visible anymore it is
still there lurking just below the surface. A Liberty Ship, a
‘target ship,’ a day-trip boating adventure, this is the story of
the S.S. James Longstreet.
The
man behind the ship’s name was born in South Carolina on January 8,
1821. He graduated West Point in 1842 and would be given the rank of
Brigadier General when James Long street joined the Confederate Army
in 1861. He gained the trust of General Robert E. Lee however grew
opposed to Lee’s strategic moves beginning with the frontal assault
known as Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg. In the
end anywhere from 5,800-6,200 of the 12-13,000 Confederate soldiers
were killed on that fateful day.
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| James Longstreet, the man (Gamaliel Bradford, public domain) |
Longstreet
held several federal offices after the war beginning ironically under
former Union General Ulysses S. Grant. He was an ambassador to
Turkey as well as a U.S. Marshal for the state of Georgia. Rumors of
corruption led to his removal from the latter post in 1884.
His
post-war affiliation with the former enemy earned Longstreet some
scorn from the Confederate loyalists. This was only exacerbated with
his criticism of Lee and his memoir From Manassas to Appomattox in
1896. In 1897 Longstreet married Helen Dortch, a woman more than 40
years his junior. After being severely wounded in battle in 1864
Longstreet was told he would likely not live another decade. He
persevered though and lived another forty years, finally succumbing
to pneumonia January 2, 1904 just days shy of his 83rd
birthday. His wife Helen lived until 1962, making her a living Civil War
widow nearly a century after the war had ended.
Known
as the ‘Confederate War Horse’ James Longstreet’s name would
not completely fade into the history books.
After
the outbreak of World War II in 1941 2,708 cargo ships, known as
‘Liberty Ships’ were built to help move supplies overseas. One
such ship was a 417-foot long, 7,000 ton steel beast named after
James Longstreet. It was assembled in Houston, Texas and put into
wartime service in October 1942. The vessel would only make 3
journeys abroad though they did include stops in Australia, India,
and England.
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| James Longstreet, the cargo ship, on active duty circa 1943 (Longstreet Society.org) |
The
end of active service for the S.S. James Longstreet came during the
fall of 1943. It was one of four ships to be forced aground at Sandy
Hook, New Jersey on October 26, 1943 in gale force winds. The ship
sat on the tidal flats for a month before finally being refloated on
November 23rd. Upon being towed to New York for further
repairs it was deemed a total structural loss and decommissioned. It
was sent to a ship graveyard.
In
early 1944 the Navy acquired the Longstreet as a target ship for
surface-to-air missiles. It sat in New York Harobr until another big
storm ripped it from its moorings and sent it drifting away. For
weeks the ship was missing but when found on December 4th
it was towed to Norfolk, Virginia. It was around this time that the
Navy began ‘Project Dove’ a guided missile project. They had
been using areas of Monomoy Island and Camp Wellfleet, east of
Lecount Hollow Road, for land tests and desired a target ship for
water testing. The S.S. Longstreet provided the perfect answer.
On
April 25, 1945 just as World War II was coming to an end the former
Liberty Ship was towed into Cape Cod Bay. It was anchored in shallow
water off of Eastham on a spot called New Found Shoal, an oval shaped
spit. The Longstreet was ballasted with more than 10,000 steel drums
and scrap metal as it was partially sunk, becoming the newest Cape
Cod resident.
The
bombings of the ship went on day and night during the summer. The
times were never known to residents of the surrounding towns of
Eastham, Wellfleet, Orleans, and Brewster, only the rumbles of
approaching aircraft gave them any notice. Aircraft from as far away
as Rhode Island came and lay waste to the behemoth in the shallows.
July Fourth bombing raids were of particular thrill to tourists and
children. Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s countless tons of
ammunition was fired into and upon the vessel until it looked like
steel Swiss cheese. The pilots prepared for the Korean War and later
the Vietnam War by practicing on the Longstreet.
Not
everyone was enamored with the Cape’s oddest tourist attraction
though. The noise and rumbling of windows of homes in the
surrounding areas was bad enough. However the occasional errant bomb
was a different problem. Most well known of those such incidents was
when a bomb exploded near the front door of a home on Shurtleff Road
in Eastham on Mother’s Day 1951. Nobody was injured but it was a
jarring experience for a rural beach town such as Eastham.
Time
passed and the S.S. James Longstreet, rusted and full of holes, was
retired in 1970. The reasons were both due to the proximity of the
public to the bombings and the closing of the Quonset Point Naval
Station in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Despite it no longer being
peppered with live rounds it remained a hugely popular attraction for
photographers, painters, and even some graffiti artists who in 1966
spray painted a large Playboy bunny logo on the side of the ship.
Slowly over time the Longstreet looked less and less like a proud
wartime cargo ship. Some calls came to officially sink it fully
underwater, however time did that on its own.
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| After decades of service as a target ship. (Truro Historical Society) |
In
a fitting piece of full circle irony, a large storm finally did in
the Longstreet much as had ended its active duty in 1943. April 1996
saw a storm finally submerge the hull of the former Liberty Ship.
Occasionally the ship comes back to the forefront, either at very low
tides when it peeks its head above water, or more chilling when an
unexploded ordnance is discovered either on the surrounding beaches
or by divers and fishermen in the waters around the ship’s resting
place.
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| The location of the SS James Longstreet in relation to First Encounter Beach. |
Outside
of those moments the S.S. James Longstreet has been but a memory for
nearly 25 years. It was once one of the most photographed locations
on Cape Cod and thus has been immortalized in countless images. For
those looking to perhaps catch a glimpse of this sunken legend it
sits approximately two miles off the coast of Eastham, nearly due
west of First Encounter Beach. Its GPS coordinates are:
41.8255416978 -70.0398798405.
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View my previous blog posts: In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Bartholomew Gosnold
Be sure to check out my website: Christopher Setterlund.com
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