Naval Historical Foundation

Ezra Pray Journal

In September 1861, with the American Civil War five months old and showing signs of becoming a protracted conflict, Dr. Ezra Pray, practicing medicine in New England, applied for and was granted a naval surgeon’s appointment.  Pray had been born on 13 March 1832 in Rochester, NH, son of farmer Ezra H. Pray and mother Hannah Tebbetts. At 29, Dr. Pray was described in his enrollment record as 5 feet, 10 inches tall, light complexion, light blue eyes and brown hair.

With his appointment effective 21 October 1861, Pray was designated an “acting assistant surgeon” and ordered to report to the U.S. Bark Fernandina in New York City, where he arrived a week before that ship was commissioned on 16 November 1861. This wooden sailing vessel had started commercial life as the Florida, built in New Jersey in 1858, with an overall length 115 feet, beam 29 feet, draft 10 feet, and displacement of 297 tons. Purchased by the Navy on 29 July 1861 for $14,000 and renamed Fernandina (a town in Florida), she was refitted for naval service, sailed with a complement of 86 men, and was armed with six 32-pounder muzzle loading cannon. She was commanded by Acting Volunteer Lieutenant George W. Browne, who was coming to this assignment with limited previous naval experience in the young war.

Pray’s 154-page journal begins with his application for appointment in September and his service in Fernandina from November through 18 April 1862; however, he actually began to write his account in late January through early February 1862, using the ship’s official logbook to remind himself of the key events of his first few months on board.  Thus the journal begins retrospectively until going “live” in February.

Sailing from New York City on 27 November 1861 for duty with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Pray and his ship arrived on station off Wilmington, NC on 14 December (after stopping off in Hampton Roads, Virginia briefly to receive orders from the squadron commodore). Pray described the experience of going to sea for the first time from his landlubber’s perspective, including observations about the sea, the ship, and his sea-sickness.  (See attached maps of Hampton Roads, VA and Wilmington, NC).

The first few months revealed the monotony of blockade duty, punctuated with occasional threats not so much from rebel forces but more from the rough winter weather at sea and the ever-present danger of running aground on the lee-shore and shoals of the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” coast. While Pray was a conscientious doctor who looked after his shipmates with compassion and professionalism, he was clearly hoping for the excitement of combat and the opportunity to share in prize money for capturing blockade runners.  Christmas day, 1861, brought Fernandina’s first success in this area, as she took blockade runner William H. Northrop as a prize with a cargo of drugs and coffee.

Within the first few weeks of his five month service in the bark, Pray began to clash with his commanding officer, Lieutenant Browne.  As he became more familiar with Navy life, Pray came to the conclusion that Browne was a martinet, incompetent to command, and incapable of keeping his crew safe and motivated to accomplish their wartime mission.

Matters reached a crisis when, in the late hours of 4 April 1862, Pray was awakened by a crewmember with a frantic “Doctor, get up! Captain has killed a man!” Responding to an altercation on deck, he found the captain and a crewmember slightly injured, and witnessed Browne shooting drunken sailor John Hillman in the abdomen while Hillman was being restrained by another sailor. Certain that his crew has mutinied, Browne’s actions as reported by Pray, even as Pray tried to save Hillman’s life, revealed the rapidly deteriorating discipline and respect for authority so necessary for maintaining order at sea. Dispatched first to Hampton Roads, and then to Baltimore, Maryland (because the hospital ship in Hampton Roads was filled to capacity with the sailors wounded in the previous month’s epic battles between Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia and USS Monitor and Union navy blockading ships), Fernandina’s arrival on 16 April preceded Hillman’s death by one day, and the Navy Court of Inquiry “to inquire into the circumstances of a Mutinous riot and affray…” by 5 days.

Entry 4 April 1862: "Dr. get up - Capt. has killed a man”

That court adjourned on 2 May 1862, finding that “There was not at the time of the shooting of John Hillman, nor had there been, anything which can properly be called a mutiny on board the ship, nor did the officers who witnessed what occurred on deck, regard the ship as in a state of mutiny, except the captain, who seems so far to have lost his self-possession as to magnify the noise and violence of three drunken men into a mutiny, and even to suspect, without reason, that some of his officers were in collusion with this imaginary mutiny.  It was this entire misapprehension by the captain of the nature of the disturbance, which alone extenuates the gravity of his fault in shooting John Hillman, which was wholly unjustified by any real existing danger to himself, or to the ship.”

Acting Lieutenant Browne was disrated to Acting Master on 14 May and reassigned ashore. He subsequently was assigned in June 1862 to command the brig Bohio.  By March 1864 he was on sick leave and his appointment was revoked the following month.

Having filled up all available pages, Pray concluded his journal by announcing his intention of sending it home for the benefit of friends and family.  Reassigned in June 1862 to the US steamer Cambridge, Dr. Pray continued his medical service in that and several other Union warships until his honorable discharge on 1 March 1866.

Pray married Martha J. Hanson of Somersworth, NH on 16 Aug 1865 and they had two sons.  Pray, having returned at some point to farming, received a pension for his military service, as did his widow some years later. Fracturing his femur in a fall on ice, Pray died 4 Apr 1918, age 86, at Rochester, NH.

NHF Executive Director Captain Charles T. Creekman, USN (Ret.), at right, presents the journal to Jan Herman, Historian of the Navy Medical Department, on 15 Feb 2012

At some point the journal (which nowhere mentions its creator, Ezra Pray, by name) passed out of the custody of the Pray family.  A later owner of the journal taped a handwritten note to the inner cover, reporting: “A hand written diary of Civil War—found among Sid’s things. A Navy Dr. wrote it. Valuable, keep. A neighbor of Sid’s burned the rest of set.” No other writings of Dr. Pray have yet come to light.

Apprised of this unique naval history artifact coming available on the market during 2011, the first year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, the nonprofit Naval Historical Foundation (NHF), itself celebrating 85 years of “preservation, education and commemoration of naval history,” determined to acquire the journal to ensure it would remain accessible to historians and the American public.  With the generous support of Board member and former Secretary of the Navy Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, former NHF vice president Vice Admiral George W. Emery, USN (Ret.) and the Foundation for the History of Navy Medicine, the NHF purchased the journal for $4,500.00 (NHF collection accession number 2011-004).  The narrative was scanned and transcribed, with the original donated to the collection of the U.S. Navy Medical Department Office of the Historian in Washington, DC.  A copy has been donated to the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Histories and Archives Division, Washington Navy Yard, DC.

A note about the transcription; Pray’s original grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling have been retained in nearly every instance. Several illegible words are indicated with underlined blanks in the narrative. Pray’s asides are indicated with his own (  ). Explanatory asides inserted by NHF are indicated by [   ].

Transcript of Journal of Acting Assistant Surgeon Ezra Pray

References: (which contributed to the background section and to the transcription of Pray’s narrative)

Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of Union and Confederate Armies. Plate CXXXII (Approaches to Wilmington, NC); plate CXXXIX (Entrances to Cape Fear River, NC). Washington: GPO, 1891-1895.

Barnes, Elinor and James A., eds. Naval Surgeon: Blockading the South, 1862-1866. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1963. [the diary of Dr. Samuel P. Boyer, who followed Dr. Pray as surgeon in Fernandina from 6 July 1862-19 February 1864—but never mentions either Pray or the events of April 1862!]

Browne, George W. file, ZB files, Navy Department Library, Washington Navy Yard, DC.

Browning, Robert M. From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1993.

Fernandina, USS file, ZC files, Navy Department Library, Washington Navy Yard, DC.

Fernandina entry, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History and Heritage Command website www.history.navy.mil, 2012.

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (OR Navy), Series 1, Volumes 6, 7, 8. Operations of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from: October 29, 1861, to March 8, 1862 (vol. 6); March 8 to September 4, 1862 (vol. 7); and September 5, 1862, to May 4, 1863 (vol. 8). Washington: GPO, 1897, 1898, 1899.

Pray, Ezra file, ZB files, Navy Department Library, Washington Navy Yard, DC.

Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Navy). Court of Inquiry 21 April 1862, Box 89, file no. 3111. Record Group 125, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

Register of the Commissioned, Warrant, and Volunteer Officers of the Navy of the United States, including Officers of the Marine Corps and Others, to January 1 1863. Washington: GPO, 1863. Page 163, Browne; page149, Pray.

Register of Volunteer (acting) officers, Navy 1861-ca.1880; Personnel Records 1803-1897; Records Collection of Office of Naval Records and Library, Volumes 1 and 2, Record Group 45, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

Veteran’s Certificate 39424 and Widow’s Certificate 878896; Acting Assistant Surgeon Ezra Pray; Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Veterans Who Served in the Army and Navy Mainly in the Civil War and the War with Spain (“Civil War and Later Survivors’Certificates”), 1861-1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

The following speech was delivered by RADM Joseph F. Callo, USNR (Ret), to the Society of the War of 1812 in the State of New Jersey and Jamestowne Society at the Nassau Club of Princeton, New Jersey on 29 October 2011. It also appears in the Fall 2011/Winter 2012 issue of “Pull Together.”

The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is approaching, and after 200 years it’s time to change how we think about that war.  To support that proposal, I’m going to explore what I believe the narrative of that war has been and how we might change it to make it more accurate and more relevant to our own lives and times.

Battle of Lake Erie (Mural in U.S. Naval Academy, NH 43575-KN)

In the past there have been heated—and mostly partisan—arguments about who won.  Then in recent years, it became fashionable to claim that the war was a stalemate, with the further claim that it was simply a horribly stupid waste of life.

Those two latter conclusions are easy to slide into if one simply concentrates on the war’s military actions. For example, of 25 noteworthy naval actions, the U.S. Navy won thirteen and the Royal Navy won twelve.  And along the Canadian borders there were bloody battles won and lost but no major change in the border.  Then on the one hand the U.S. Navy won the critically important fleet actions on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain and American privateers had a significant effect on Britain’s vital sea lines of communication.  But on the other hand, the Royal Navy was able to apply a punishing blockade and a series of successful expeditionary warfare raids against America’s Atlantic coast.

And so the discussions have rolled on. But while it’s true that there was no unconditional surrender by either side, and in a compilation of the results of individual actions there was no clear winner, there were indeed some very important, bottom line gains and losses for each side.  And those gains and losses had long term, geopolitical implications for both the United States and Great Britain—and in fact for the world.  But I’ll come back to that particular point towards the end of my remarks.

One of the biggest problems with the current narrative of the War of 1812 is, I believe, that there has been a tendency to focus on the main events as if they were free standing, rather than parts of a stream of interconnected campaigns, battles, policies, and decisions.  And the corollary of seeing the War of 1812 as a series of free-standing events is that tactical matters inevitably overshadow strategic matters.

There is a very interesting new book out.  Some of you may have read it already. The book’s title is 1812—The Navy’s War, written by George Daughan.  Towards the end of the book there is, for me, a particularly enlightening passage. The passage quotes from a letter from the Duke of Wellington to the British prime minister at the time, Lord Liverpool.  The prime minister had suggested that Wellington go to Canada and take over leadership of the land war along the Canada-U.S. border. At that point Wellington had a deserved reputation as a successful field commander in the Peninsula Campaign against Napoleons’ army.  Wellington’s response focused on an important point.  This is what he said:

“That which appears to me to be wanting in America is not a general, or a general officer and troops, but a naval superiority on the Lakes….The question is, whether we can obtain this naval superiority….If we cannot, I shall do you but little good in America.”[i]

Wellington understood the continuing strategic issues of the War of 1812, in this case the question of whether or not the British could take control of the communication and supply routes represented by the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.  Wellington wasn’t thinking tactically.  He was confident that he could dominate in the field in most situations with his experienced troops.  He was instead emphasizing the kind of strategic issue that gives context to individual actions and decisions.

And the importance of context is nowhere more important than when trying to establish the true causes of the War of 1812.  The American declaration of war in June 1812 is generally attributed to America’s need to assure “free trade and sailors’ rights.”

In the book Sea Power—A Naval History edited by E.B. Potter and Admiral Chester Nimitz, the circumstances behind that battle cry are spelled out succinctly:

“In the post-Trafalgar period the intensifying commerce warfare between Britain and France left the United States the only major neutral trader on the high seas. American merchant shippers enjoyed unprecedented prosperity both in the general carrying trade and as exporters of American wheat, tobacco, and cotton.  At the same time American merchantmen and even naval vessels, caught between Britain’s Orders in Council and Napoleon’s retaliatory Decrees were subjected to increasing interference that eventually grew intolerable.”[ii]

That’s fine as far as it goes, but in reality there was more—much more—to the story than a simple desire for free trade and sailors’ rights.

As the war approached, there were also strong, emotionally- laden political and diplomatic cross currents that shaped the decisions of President Madison and then-British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.  And politics, as we know, is often a force unto itself.

President James Madison (by Asher Durand after Gilbert Stuart, KN-10921)

While Madison was the leader in the House of Representatives, he steadfastly resisted the pressure of those in Congress who were inclined towards war with Great Britain.  Those advocating war were mostly from the South, along with expansionists from the then-western states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, who were anxious to push the United States’ borders to the west.

Notwithstanding the pressures coming from those inclined towards war with Great Britain, Madison acted on his belief that he could avoid armed conflict by convincing Prime Minister Perceval that a major clash was inevitable, unless Britain dealt with the issues of free trade and impressment.  Madison was further convinced that Great Britain’s preoccupation in Europe with Napoleon would make Britain reluctant to open up a new global warfront.

Madison was wrong on all of the above.  In fact Perceval believed that the regional political divisions within the United States, along with America’s obvious military weakness would force America to accommodate Britain’s maritime policies, no matter how onerous or economically damaging.  In addition Perceval and many around him believed that U.S. complaints could be quieted with a limited application of military pressure.   All of the foregoing created perceptions on the part of the British leadership that were as important as the actual circumstances involved.

There was another important psychological factor among much of the British leadership.  As a result Prime Minister Perceval and his successor, Lord Liverpool, who became Prime Minister in May 1812, had a desire to settle scores with the United States.  In the first chapter of his book, Daughan is blunt:

“The Treaty of Paris…hardly reconciled the king or his people to colonial liberty.  Bitter about their humiliating defeat, the British watched with satisfaction as the thirteen states floundered without a central government….Many in London expected the American experiment in republican government to fail.”[iii]

The Evening Star in London put things in more colorful terms:

“England shall not be driven from the proud pre-eminence, which the blood and treasure of her sons have attained for her among nations, by a piece of red, white, and blue striped bunting flying at the mastheads of a few fir-built frigates manned by a handful of bastards and outlaws.”[iv]

As we know the feelings were mutual, and it’s difficult to overemphasize the importance of sentiments such as those when discussing the reasons for the War.  Yet they usually get little emphasis, if any.

The miscalculations on both sides that contributed to the U.S. declaration of war continued into the armed conflict.  For example the British leadership failed to recognize the importance of the U.S. Navy’s early, morale-boosting, tactical victories in the early single-ship actions.

Those stunning single-ship actions were shrugged off at the Admiralty and Whitehall as embarrassing but basically non-determinants in the war, when they were in fact hugely important in sustaining a fighting spirit in the U.S. Navy.  And of greater importance, those early naval victories sustained the will of the American political leadership and the public to fight on in the war.

The British were not alone in this pattern of miscalculations.  For example the U.S. political leadership constantly misjudged the determination of most Canadians to remain part of the British Empire.  A month into the war, then-former-president Jefferson, famously opined: “[T]he acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.”[v]

The serious misjudgments were still evident—not surprisingly at this point—during the peace negotiations that began at Ghent in August 1814.  In the early phases of those deliberations, for example Madison doggedly believed that the British were anxious for a negotiated peace.  When in truth Prime Minister Liverpool was convinced that with the pressures of Britain’s blockade and expeditionary warfare raids—particularly the presumably devastating psychological impact of the burning of Washington—the United States would not, could not, sustain the war for much longer.

So we see that the War of 1812 was launched and sustained to a significant degree by one false impression after another and a high degree of emotion on both sides.  It wasn’t until the connected Battles of Lake Champlain and Plattsburg that the direction of the negotiations at Ghent finally changed.  And at that point they changed radically.

With Commodore Macdonough’s victory over a British fleet on Lake Champlain on 11September 1814 and U.S. Brigadier General Alexander Macomb’s  accompanying repulse of British General Prevost at Plattsburgh—along with  the subsequent withdrawal of Prevost’s army to the north—the strategic nature of the War of 1812 was suddenly altered.

Battle of Lake Champlain (Edward Tufnell, Navy Art Collection NH 51480-KN)

The Battle of Lake Champlain became the main tipping point by stopping a British thrust down Lake Champlain and the Hudson Valley and into the commercial heart of America.  Such a campaign, if successful, would in all probability have shattered the United States geographically and ended the nation then and there.  The coincidental repulse of the British attack on Baltimore was the exclamation point on the new strategic equation.

Let’s shift focus now to assess the outcome of the war.  On the positive side for Britain, the period of relative peace that followed the war allowed Britain to benefit economically from her foreign trade and to firmly establish her de facto dominance of the seas.  The latter would prove to be an unchallenged and immeasurable geostrategic benefit to Britain for a century.  The end of the war also helped Britain to focus on the Industrial Revolution’s early stages and to quickly become the world’s largest economy.  These were obviously important and very positive outcomes of the War of 1812 for Great Britain.  It should be noted, however, that notwithstanding those positives, there were many in Britain who felt that their nation had conceded too much at Ghent.

On the positive side for the United States, the dominant position of America in Florida and Louisiana was confirmed and the possibility of a massive buffer Indian nation in the territories that would become Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan was eliminated.  And U.S. foreign trade was once again able to contribute to America’s burgeoning economic might.

In addition and arguably most important of all, the United States gained international stature that did not exist before the war.  The companion to that new stature was the recognition in the United States that a strong, standing military was an essential component of national security, and both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy emerged from the War of 1812 as more professional military services.

Many—perhaps most—would  agree that at the center of that new American global stature was the U.S. Navy, a force that had established emphatically that it not only would fight against the best, but it also could win decisively at that level. And it could win not only in a tactical context but in a strategic context as well.

Frequently the War of 1812 is referred to as America’s second war of independence, and it was that.  It was also the validation of the implausible vision of John Paul Jones who wrote in 1778:

“Our Marine (Navy) will rise as if by enchantment and become, within the memory of persons now living, the wonder and envy of the world.” [vi]

Representative of the new U.S. Navy that was shaped during the War of 1812 was a group of officers referred to as “Preble’s Boys.”  They were named for Commodore Edward Preble, who noted the youth of his officers when he was in command of a squadron in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars.  All his captains were less than 30 years old—some were in their early 20s.  After a few months of action in the Mediterranean, however, “Preble’s Boys” established themselves as exceptional warfighters, officers who were forward-leaning if not downright aggressive in their combat doctrines.

Among the “Preble’s Boy’s” who went on to distinguish themselves in the War of 1812 were William Bainbridge, victor in the action between USS Constitution and HMS Java; Stephen Decatur, who defeated HMS Macedonian while in command of USS United States; Isaac Hull, victor over HMS Guerriere while captain of USS Constitution; Thomas Macdonough, victor at the Battle of Lake Champlain; David Porter, who, as captain of USS Essex captured HMS Alert, the first British ship captured in the War of 1812; and Charles Stewart, who captured HMS Cyane and HMS Levant in a single extended action.

“Preble’s Boys” were part of the new breed of professionals who bridged the gap between the inward-looking and basically defensive attitudes that followed the American Revolution and the global sea power concepts that came to maturity at the beginning of the twentieth century with President Teddy Roosevelt and Admiral A. T. Mahan.  In a book by Allan Westcott titled Mahan on Naval Warfare—Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, the Introduction includes the following:

“[T]he historian of sea power (Mahan) had much to do with the emergence of the United States in 1898 as a world power, with possessions and new interests in distant seas.  And no one believed more sincerely than he that this would be good for the United States and the rest of the world.”[vii]

It was “Preble’s Boys,” along with those who fought with them and paid a heavy price in blood, who connected ideas of liberty with the steady progress of globalization that continues up to our own times.

In his book On Seas of Glory, former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman wrote at the beginning of his chapter on the War of 1812:

“Before the War of 1812 the young republic did not have an organized naval service in the truest sense.  Gradually, the need to defend the commerce of the fragile new nation against warring European powers, Barbary pashas and pirates created the foundation of the U.S. Navy in fits and starts.”[viii]

At the end of the chapter Lehman’s focus is far reaching:

“The early efforts of Adams, Jones and Barry to establish institutional permanence were now accomplished, complete with a rich store of custom and tradition, borrowed liberally from the British and French navies, but very distinctly American….The new republic now had a formidable instrument to build a global commerce, enforce a Monroe Doctrine, and when the test came, to preserve the Union from rebellion.”[ix]

At the beginning of my remarks, I said there were a lot more than tactical victories and defeats during the War of 1812 and that there were very important gains and losses at the end of the war that had long term implications for both the United States and Great Britain—and in fact for the world.

To that point and in closing, I suggest that what the victories and defeats, mistakes on both sides, and the good and bad luck of the War of 1812 all added up to was a happening that is still playing out.  That happening was the emergence of the United States as a global—eventually preeminent—naval power.

Our security and prosperity, as well as that of much of the world, is to a significant extent based on U.S. naval power, a global force that came forth in a brilliant flash of history between 1812 and 1814.  It was a marriage of democratic political concepts to sea power.  It was a phenomenon that harks back to Themistocles and the triremes of the Athenian empire of the fifth century BC.

The conjunction of American theories of liberty with global sea power in 1814 is, in my opinion, the single most important outcome of the War of 1812.  And it was an enormously important—and mostly positive—outcome that has born heavily on world history.  We ignore that message from history at great risk.

By PHC Milt Putnam, USN (Ret)

June 27, 1969 – Naval Air Station, Imperial Beach, California

Photographer Milt Putnam standing alongside a Sikorsky Sea King helicopter on the deck of aircraft carrier USS Princeton, May 1969, for Apollo 10 recovery mission (Photo by Ralph Howard)

A banging on my door at Naval Air Station, Imperial Beach, California, shook me out of a deep sleep. It was 4 AM. Bill Case, a Senior Chief Journalist, from Pacific Fleet Headquarters Hawaii, was there with a big smile on his face. He asked, “Is your bag packed? We’re leaving for the Apollo 11 recovery this morning.” I replied “Take off time for USS Hornet is 10 hundred hours.” We talked for about an hour and finally he crawled into an empty bunk in my room so we could get a couple hours sleep. Bill and I had become friends during the Apollo 8 recovery, December 1968 on USS Yorktown, and Apollo 10 recovery, May 1969 on USS Princeton. Apollo 8 and 10 were the first manned flights to orbit the moon.

In late June, eight HS-4 helicopters with “Black Knight” flight crews landed on USS Hornet (CVS-12) seventy-five miles off the California coast. At Pearl Harbor the ship was loaded with additional recovery equipment, and US Navy Underwater Demolition Team 11 (UDT-11). Also boarding were civilian television crews, magazine, newspaper photographers and writers, including my photography friends Walter Green and Berry Sweet of The Associated Press and Pete Cosgrove with United Press International. Lee Jones, a NASA motion picture photographer, also joined us. Lee would fly the Apollo 11 recovery mission with me as he had during the Apollo 8 and 10 recoveries.

During practice recovery July 11, 1969, Navy UDT swimmers (wearing orange and standing on flotation collar) finish attaching the flotation collar around a dummy capsule, with USS Hornet in background. (Photo by Milt Putnam, HS-4)

For the first two weeks of July, off the Hawaiian Coast, Hornet, the helicopter crews, and UDT-11 got down to business training for the recovery of Apollo 11. It was practice, practice, practice in preparation for the real thing on July 24. During simulated recovery exercises UDT-11 swimmers jumped from helicopters into the Pacific Ocean and swam to the nearby training capsule (called a boilerplate) where they attached flotation collars to the dummy spacecraft, and playing the part of astronauts, were hoisted into helicopters time after time.

I flew in the Photo Helicopter shooting pictures for Navy and NASA archives. Several of my practice photos were released via the Associated Press and United Press International. Those images were published in newspapers and magazines throughout the country. Determined to study how rapid the Pacific light would change during the actual recovery, I began taking light exposure readings with a hand held lightmeter every minute or two on early morning practice flights.This taught me how often the exposure settings on my cameras would need to be changed. Those readings were recorded in a small notebook that has since been lost. (All of my Nikon cameras did not have built in light meters.)

Liftoff

On July 16, Apollo 11 launched from Florida. At that time, Hornet was about 1600 miles southwest of Hawaii at the Primary Launch Abort Area. If the astronauts had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific before leaving earths atmosphere this was the location. We heard the Apollo 11 launch broadcast over the ship’s radio and knew the astronauts were underway. Within three-hours of takeoff from Florida and over the Pacific Ocean the spacecraft blasted out of earth orbit toward the moon. (Hornet being so far from land, we were not able to see the launch on television). USS Hornet then sailed north to the Primary Recovery Site, 1200 miles southwest of Hawaii. For the next week, practice recoveries continued, each day starting before dawn and lasting through early evening in all kinds of weather. During this time frame, 16 or 17 training recoveries were completed.

The lunar module piloted by Neil Armstrong touched down on the moon on July 20 – “Houston, Tranquility Base here, The Eagle has landed.” As Armstrong spoke those words, everyone listened closely through crackling static air waves on the ships radio. Two and one half hours later we heard, “That’s one small leap for man, one giant step for mankind.” Armstrong was the first man to step onto the moon. Hornet was on station (splashdown recovery site), practicing and awaiting the astronauts return to earth.

Deteriorating weather with rain, high winds and rough seas approached the Primary Recovery Area and caused much concern on July 22. The Navy and NASA decided it was best to move the splashdown site to another location 250 miles from the storm. USS Hornet steamed at full speed to the new location 950 miles southwest of Hawaii. A few of the crew wondered if we’d be late for splashdown.

Meanwhile, we continued to test out cameras and equipment. Walter Green and I mounted two motorized Nikon cameras (fitted with a 28 mm lens and a 35 mm lens) about 12-15 feet high on the Hangar Bay bulkhead (wall). We would fire the cameras by electronic remote when the astronauts walked from helicopter #66 to the Mobile Quarantine Facility. The MQF was a silver Airstream trailer that would house up to six people. Walter and I shot test film to ensure the exposure, focus and area covered by the lenses were correct. In 1969, cameras did not have automatic focus and exposure control, everything was done by hand and eye. Satisfied with the test, the cameras were reloaded with Kodak black and white and color film and left on the bulkhead overnight awaiting the next day’s arrival of the astronauts.

A group of photographers, including myself, were sitting around shooting the bull when “Taps” played over the ship’s speakers at 10 PM, indicating bedtime. No one was sleepy – to tell the truth, we were a little nervous knowing that within a few hours we all would be photographing the first men to land and walk on the moon. It was near 12:30 AM when I went to bed, and still I could not sleep.

Three hundred hours (3 AM civilian time) on July 24, Apollo 11 Recovery Day, all hands involved with the recovery were up moving around and having breakfast. After breakfast, helicopter crews reported to the flight ready room. We received the latest weather reports, nearest distance to land, and last minute instructions about splashdown times and location. One helicopter would be on station a few miles behind USS Hornet, another the same distance in front. The primary recovery helicopter and the photo helicopter would circle the ship a mile or two out.

Preflighting the helicopters (making sure everything was operating OK) went fast and we lifted off the carrier in the dark. The sea air was balmy as it whipped through the open hatches. Rotor blades beating the air sent vibrations through everything and everyone inside. On board the photo helicopter, I had eight Nikon cameras. Only two had motors, the other six would have to be cocked by thumb. Lenses ranged from a 35 mm up to a 300 mm (no zoom lenses). Also in the camera bag were 60 rolls of Kodak Tri-X film and 15 rolls of Kodak color.

My primary duty was to shoot black & white for immediate release through the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) wire services. By using the AP and UPI, my recovery images would be transmitted to magazines and newspapers throughout the world.

In 1969 civilian press photographers were not allowed to fly in military helicopters. It was my job to photograph the splashdown, the UDT-11 swimmers attaching the flotation collar around spaceship Columbia to secure it in the tossing seas, the astronauts leaving Columbia and crawling into the life raft, and Columbia being hoisted out of the sea by the helicopter. And then back aboard Hornet to photograph the President talking with the astronauts.

Splashdown and Recovery

It seemed like hours sitting high above Hornet waiting for Apollo 11 to arrive. Everyone was watching the dark morning sky, even though we all knew she would not arrive early. Word came from Hornet a few minutes before 6 PM (Hawaiian time), that Apollo 11 had been picked up on radar and would splashdown twelve miles downwind from the ship. I lowered the port hatch (door on the left side) on the photo helicopter. Lee Jones and I would sit side by side on the hatch steps shooting pictures of the recovery. While lowering the hatch my lightmeter cord became tangled and broke. The meter dropped into the sea and sank.

Standing in the helicopter’s hatch, Navy UDT swimmer LT Clancy Hatleberg gets set to jump into the water. (Photo byMilt Putnam,HS-4)

Helicopter #66, the primary recovery helicopter, and the photo helicopter #53, approached the splashdown site in predawn darkness to find Columbia upside down and bobbing in fairly calm seas. The astronauts sitting upside down in Columbia pushed a button to inflate three large flotation balloons to upright their craft. My helicopter moved to the right 100 feet and hovered at 40 feet. We would stay at that spot until all three astronauts were hoisted into the recovery helicopter. Commander Don Jones, flying helicopter #66, slowly moved in and dropped a marine location marker (green smoke bomb). At the break of dawn, one of the helicopters with the UDT-11 swimmers hovered near Columbia and three swimmers jumped into the ocean. A second helicopter following closely dropped life rafts and the flotation collar that would be used to help prevent Columbia from sinking. It took only a few minutes for the swimmers to attach the flotation collar and position the life rafts. It was getting lighter by the second and I was already firing the Nikons, shooting whole 36 exposure rolls of film before changing to another camera and lens. Lee Jones, the NASA photographer seated to my right, had his 16 mm motion picture camera rolling as well.

The primary recovery helicopter made a slow pass near Columbia. Navy Lt. Clancy Hatleberg, the senior UDT-11 swimmer, jumped ten feet or so into the water and swam to the command module. The next helicopter used its rescue basket to lower a bag containing four uniforms never worn by space travelers before. The uniforms, biological isolation garments, were worn by the astronauts and Hatleberg during recovery because it was unknown if the astronauts would return to earth from the moon carrying some kind of germ or virus that would cause harm. Hatleberg slipped into one of the biological isolation garments while the other swimmers in a raft moved 100 feet upwind from Columbia.

Looking on as Navy UDT swimmer LT Clancy Hatleberg closes the capsule’s hatch, astronauts Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong (center) and “Buzz” Aldrin, sit in their life raft. (Photo by Milt Putnam)

At 6:20 AM, Hatleberg quickly open the command module hatch and tossed in three remaining uniforms and closed the hatch just as quickly. After a short wait, Hatleberg opened the hatch again and out came three moon adventurers covered head to toe wearing biological isolation garments. Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin settled at each end of the life raft. Neil Armstrong sat in the middle and watched Clancy Hatleberg closely as he closed Columbia‘s hatch and locked it down. Hatleberg sprayed a decontaminate over the module and around the hatch. He then wiped down each of the astronauts with a sodium hypochlorite solution to kill any moon germs that may have gotten on their BIG suits before they exited the command module

The primary helicopter #66 moved over the spaceship and astronauts, lowering her rescue net to hoist each astronaut one at a time into the helicopter. If I had jitters they were gone – the job at hand was foremost on my mind and I was shooting pictures as fast as possible. My mind was on automatic – shoot a few pictures, change the f/stop a little, ensure the next camera was still set on 1/250 of a second shutter speed, check the f/stop. Remember that the shutter speed would soon have to be reset at 1/500 of a second because the light was getting brighter. Shoot another roll of film, load film, etc. The light exposure readings recorded in a notebook during practice recoveries never came out of my pocket. In fact, I didn’t even think about it.

HS-4 helicopter 66 hoists astronaut Neil Armstrong aboard. (Photo by AWHC Norvel Wood, HS-4)

When the last astronaut was lifted from their life raft into the recovery helicopter the photo helicopter raced back to Hornet. It was also Lee Jones and my job to photograph the astronauts as they stepped from the recovery helicopter and walked into the Mobile Quarantine Facility where they were to spend the next three days. On the way back to the carrier, I stuffed 52 rolls of exposed film into the zippered pockets of my flight suit and 8 or 10 rolls of unexposed film into another pocket. I loaded three cameras to use in the hangar bay for when the astronauts arrived. I left five Nikons and the remaining unexposed film on the helicopter for pickup later.

The photo helicopter was the first chopper back aboard Hornet. I jumped from the helicopter to the flight deck (about four feet) without realizing I was still wearing my safety belt. It was still connected to the inside of the helicopter. Toes barely touching the deck and cameras swinging from my neck and shoulders, I almost fell over before setting a speed record in getting out of a safety belt. If anyone noticed or saw my predicament no one said a word.

President Richard M. Nixon

Walking across the flight deck, I noticed the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, watching the incoming helicopters. I stopped and shot a few pictures for the naval archives and then proceeded on to the hangar bay. President Nixon and several of his staff had arrived thirty minutes before splashdown. The Presidential secret service were on Hornet a day or two before the President arrived ensuring it was safe for his visit. As a safety factor, the flight crews were ordered to turn in all weapons. We were allowed to fly with our very sharp six inch blade survival knives. The knives were needed in case a helicopter went into sea with sharks present, or it could be used to cut and saw through thick Plexiglas windows to get out of a sinking helicopter. Lee Jones and I worked our way through hundreds of sailor (who were trying to see the astronauts and President) to our assigned spots in the hangar bay. Our location was right in front of the MQF where everything would take place. We joined dozens of news photographers and writers who were also covering the recovery and the President.

President Nixon welcomes the astronauts home on board USS Hornet. (Photo by Milt Putnam, HS-4)

The Apollo 11 astronauts landed on Hornet, thirty-seven minutes after Clancy Hatleberg had opened Columbia‘s hatch the first time. Helicopter #66 was towed to an elevator and lowered to hangar bay level where the Mobile Quarantine Facility awaited. As the astronauts walked to the MQF, I remembered to fire the bulkhead mounted Nikon electrically. Those pictures really helped to tell the story of Apollo 11′s recovery.

One of my best photos of the day was taken in the hangar bay of President Nixon speaking to Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin through the MQF glass window. The President was telling a joke about astronaut Frank Borman. (Borman was Command pilot of Apollo 8, first flight to orbit the moon.) The picture shows Armstrong leaning down and looking to his right trying to see Frank Borman. Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins are laughing. The president is shown pointing toward Borman and laughing at the joke.

President Richard Nixon asks Photographer Milt Putnam to send him photos of the recovery (Photo by Unknown)

Knowing the President would be leaving the ship shortly after talking with the astronauts, I ran to the flight deck to get pictures of him shaking hands and speaking with some of the sailors. On the flight deck, a long line of men were waiting for the President. As I came alongside the sailors, President Nixon appeared through an open hatch and stepped onto the flight deck. Immediately a secret service man stepped behind me and placed a hand on my left shoulder. Walking backwards taking pictures of the President shaking hands, the secret service guy stayed with me step for step. Suddenly I bumped into him and instantly both his hands were on my shoulders and he said “This is as far as we go, bub.” We were near the Presidential helicopter. Later I realized the Navy survival knife was still attached to my flight suit. President Nixon stopped in front of me. We shook hands and he ask if I would send him pictures of the recovery. He then boarded Marine ONE and lifted off for Johnston Island 250 miles away.

Developing Film and Making Prints

Walter Green (Associated Press) developed all my film. Upon seeing how many rolls of black and white film I had, he said, “Bet you didn’t miss much,” and I said, “Walter, If I did miss something, I couldn’t ask Neil to do it again.”

As Walter finished developing several rolls of film at a time and it dried, Barry Sweet (Associated Press) edited the first run of film and chose five of my images shot from the photo helicopter, and four he and Walter had shot on the ship. I started printing and drying the pictures at a rapid pace. This completed, Barry typed captions for the photos and I stuck the captions on the prints. Each photo was transmitted singly over the wire service transmitter. Transmitting a single print was about a fifteen minute process.

Barry and Walter’s orders were to transmit the recovery pictures directly to Associated Press Headquarters in New York. There the AP editors would do a second edit and release everything to magazines and newspapers. We had been transmitting for about an hour when someone came running in with a message (telegram) from AP New York.
It read, “Stop transmitting to NY, receiving double images. Retransmit everything through San Francisco.” Here we were sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean transmitting pictures that were going both ways east and west around the globe creating a double image in New York. It took thirty minutes to connect with San Francisco.

Walter continued developing film. When it dried he and Barry selected more images for me to print and make ready for transmitting. I have no idea how many pictures we placed on the AP wire that day, July 24, 1969, but it must have been 25 – 30 prints. It was midday when Pete Cosgrove (United Press International) came by the AP transmitting room and asked if he could use a few of my recovery photos. He selected the astronauts seated in a raft with Clancy Hatleberg at Columbia‘s hatch and the three astronauts being hoisted into the helicopter. Also selected was one picture taken with the bulkhead mounted camera of the astronauts walking to the MQF.

Recovery Day Comes to an End

At the end of a very long day, I gathered up all my film, put it in envelopes and safely stored it in a locker with my cameras. This film would be captioned on the way back to Hawaii and later mailed to the Naval Photographic Center, Washington, DC. Lee Jones (NASA) had already collected the color film, which would be developed by NASA. I had not eaten since breakfast, but I was so tired by 8 PM that I laid down on my bunk still wearing boots and flight suit to rest for a couple of minutes before hitting the shower. I awoke at 6 AM the next morning still dressed.

The next day, Walter Green found me in the mess hall. He had a telegram from AP New York that read newspapers around the world had used more pictures that I had taken from the photo helicopter than any others. Years later a computer check showed that my photography took up nearly two-thirds of the front page of the Chicago Tribune and nearly half of the front page of The Washington Post. Newspapers in Los Angles, St. Petersburg, London and Japan also carried my pictures.

On July 26, the Mobile Quarantine Facility (with astronauts inside) was lifted off Hornet and transported on a flatbed trailer to Hickam Air Force Base and flown to Houston aboard a USAF C-141. Lee Jones was also departing the ship, but before leaving he gave me a piece of Mylar from the command module Columbia. This mylar had orbited the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon’s surface. It also was part of the spaceship’s shielding against radiation while in space.

Everyone involved with the recovery had the next day off. A couple of friends and I went to Waikiki Beach, walked around awhile, and then saw the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

USS Hornet sailed for Long Beach, California on July 28, following a very successful and historic mission. We were two days away from the California coast when I received a telegram informing me that my grandfather Andrew Brown Carver (he was known as Dude Carver.) had died at age 73. Commander Don Jones (Commanding Officer HS-4) offered to fly me off the ship but knowing I could not arrive in South Carolina in time for the funeral, I chose to remain on the ship and remember him as he looked the last time we met. A couple days before leaving Imperial Beach for the Apollo 11 recovery in June, I had called my Grandfather at the hospital, and we spoke for about 15-minutes. When Orville Wright made the first airplane flight December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, my grandfather was seven-years old. During his life he had seen aviation grow from that first flight, to watching the first men to walk on the moon via television in his hospital room.

It was mid-morning August 1 when Helicopter Squadron Four’s helos lifted from Hornet‘s flight deck for the three-hour flight to Naval Air Station, Imperial Beach.

Thinking Back

In a lifetime of taking pictures, I can safely say, I’ve never had a more exciting photographic assignment than the Apollo 11 recovery, over 40 years ago. Some of the memories from that day seem like yesterday. I can still hear the wop-wop-wop noise from the photo helicopter rotor blades and feel the vibration throughout my whole body. I can still feel the warm humid air from the rotor blades washing over me and throughout the helicopter.

I can still hear the photo helicopter pilot and co-pilot talking through the ear-phones in my helmet. Pilot – “Hatleberg is about to jump.” (Meaning the UDT-11 swimmer is about to jump into the ocean). Co-pilot – “He’s jumping close”. (Meaning close to the command module). The pilot asks me-”is the wing high enough.” (Meaning, is the rotor blade out of the pictures.) I answer, “Yes Sir, we are doing good.” Pilot -”Recovery-one is hoisting Armstrong”.

It was a tingling thrill to see the astronauts crawling out the command module into a life raft. I thought, these men just returned from the moon. My adrenaline was pumping, faster than the Nikon camera motors could shoot.

I’m very proud to have been chosen to photograph history.

I always stand a little taller when I see one of my recovery pictures in a library book, a magazine, newspaper or anywhere. I think – wow, those pictures will be seen forever.

Milt Putnam retired from the Navy in 1979 as a Chief Photographer’s Mate. In addition to covering the recovery of Apollo 8, 10, and 11 for the Navy, he photographed the Queen of England’s visit to Boston, a three-month expedition to Antarctica with The National Science Foundation, the return of POW’s from Vietnam, and earthquake relief in Peru. He later worked for several newspapers, and as Director of Photography for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture. Sciences. In November 2011, Putnam, along with others from the Apollo 11 Navy recovery team, was invited to attend the ceremony awarding Congressional Gold Medals to astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, see photo below. Footage of the ceremony can be found on C-SPAN, including specific mention of USS Hornet and the recovery crew at about 1:30 in to the video.

Neil Armstrong greets Milt Putnam in November 2011. Putnam was the primary military photographer covering Apollo 11 from its splashdown in the Pacific until President Nixon joked with the astronauts in their Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) aboard USS Hornet. (Photo by Capt. Bruce Johnson, USN, Retired)