Dazzle Camouflage

by Anita Mae Draper

HMT Olympic in dazzle camouflage at Pier 2 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, painted by Arthur Lismer. Public Domain wikipedia

Dazzle camouflage came to my attention during family research into letters written during WW1 and sent home to the family. One letter noted that Olympic was still in harbor. The thought of a luxurious liner serving as a troop ship sent me into research mode. I was amazed to find the above image by war artist Arthur Lismer that shows the HMT Olympic in Halifax Harbor at the end of the First World War while still painted in dazzle camouflage. Further research led to the discovery that the Olympic was sister ship to the Titanic and the Britannic. 

Titanic (right) had to be moved out of the drydock so her sister Olympic (left), which had lost a propeller, could have it replaced. March 6, 1912. Public Domain, wikimedia

The Royal Mail Ship Olympic was the first of three British ocean liners of the White Star fleet and the largest vessel of its kind until the Titanic was launched with slightly more interior furnishings thus adding to the overall weight. The RMS Titanic sailed her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912 and sank five days later on April 15 after hitting an iceberg giving her five days in service.

HMHS Britannic was completed on December 23, 1915 and began service less than a month later. She served as a hospital ship for eleven months before sinking in the Aegean Sea after hitting a mine on November 21, 1916.  

His Majesty's Hospital Ship (HMHS) Britannic. Public Domain, wikimedia

After the Titanic went down, the Olympic was taken out of service for a refit. Her lifeboats were increased from 20 to 64 and major modifications were made before she returned to mail and passenger service. In May 1915, the Admiralty requisitioned the Olympic as a troopship and installed 12-pounders and 4.7-inch guns. On 24 Sep 1915, the newly designated HMT Olympic (Hired Military Transport) began its military service with 6,000 soldiers on board. ​From 1916 to 1917, HMT Olympic was chartered by the Canadian Government to transport troops from Halifax to Britain. In 1917, she gained 6-inch guns and was painted with the dazzle camouflage scheme. 

HMT Olympic in dazzle camouflage while in service as a troopship during the First World War. Public Domain, wikipedia

The dazzle paint scheme is credited to Norman Wilkinson, a British marine artist whose geometric patterns made ships visible, yet distorted the perception of them so that their size, number and heading couldn't be easily discerned. An example of this is the USS West Mahomet when she was photographed in port in November 1918. 

USS West Mahomet In port, circa November 1918. Public Domain, wikipedia

In 1922 the Encyclopaedia Britannica published this plate which illustrates the dazzle camouflage effect as seen through a U-boat, or submarine, periscope.

Plate illustrating the "dazzle painting" method of camouflaging ships to make their orientation less apparent, by Norman Wilkinson.  Originally published 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica, Public Domain wikimedia

The dazzle camouflage paint scheme was received with mixed reactions, depending on how one perceived what they were looking at, and the multitude of factors at the time. 

As November 11th draws near, we remember the men and women who served in military conflicts for the sake of freedom. 

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Anita Mae Draper lives on the Canadian prairies where she uses her experience and love of history to enhance her stories of yesteryear's romance with realism and faith. Readers can enrich their story experience with visual references by checking Anita's Pinterest boards. All links available on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com

Detroit's Floating Post Office

I don't remember how I stumbled across this tidbit exactly, because I've never been to Detroit, but I knew the second I saw "floating post office" I had to do a blog post on it. When you're a historical author, you stumble across all kinds of fun facts. :)

J.W. Westcott around 1908
(Public Domain)

Before Henry Ford drove the first automobile down the streets of Detroit, this city held the only floating post office in America. And now, the J.W. Westcott is the only ship to have its own zip code.

John Ward Westcott must have been destined to make his mark on the Great Lakes. It is almost eerie how how the waters seem to run through the family, even to the decedents today.  David and Mary Jane Westcott, John's parents, were the first couple to be married on a steamship in the Great Lakes. As a fireman and also the founder of  the Ward's Central and Pacific Line, the Westcotts were a prominent Michigan family and well known in the shipping industry. However it would be John who made the greatest impression.

As a boy, John Westcott worked in his father's shipyards and also as a cabin boy. In 1869, John Westcott became the youngest man to captain on freshwater. A mere five years later, this enterprising young man founded his own company. His familiarity with the industry caused him to see a need. A reporting agency that could pass docking and destination information to the ships. He used a rowboat to ferry messages to shore and back and became known for his "mail in a pail" method. Since this was before the invention of radios, etc, his business boomed since companies relied on messages for communication and logistics. Westcott would put the messages in a pail that would be raised over the ship's rail.

John Ward Westcott Circa 1910
Detroit Free Press (Public Domain)

Westcott opened several locations or branches along the Great ports, however only one survives today. In 1902, Westcott had a disagreement with a couple of employees, who then left the company and started their own. The competing Independent Marine Reporting Company didn't last long, however.

In 1948, the Westcott family signed a contract to become a part of the United States Postal Service. It is now a mail boat that delivers mail, and much more, to sailors in the Great Lakes. It even has its very own zip code, and is the only ship to have one.

Even today, the J.W. Westcott is a lot more than a mail delivery boat. The staff and crew have cultivated relationships for years, and since the business has stayed in the family, it is as much a part of the community as anything could be. A postal worker will drop mail off at the boat, but it isn't their only cargo. They also deliver tobacco products, coffee, toilet paper...almost anything to the ships off shore. There are even tales of a mistress being delivered to a ship, while the unsuspecting wife was ferried back to shore. Other oddities include the delivery of a goat destined for a petting zoo. Today the J.W. Westcott is still in the family. The great-grandson of John Westcott retains presidency of his family's heirloom business. 

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Amber Schamel writes riveting stories that bring HIStory to life. She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".  Her title, Dawn of Liberty, was awarded the 2017 CSPA Book of the Year award in Historical Fiction. She lives in Colorado and spends half her time volunteering in the Ozarks. Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at www.AmberSchamel.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

The Resolven: A Historical Mystery at Sea

The story of the ship Resolven is a sad and eerie one. It sailed on the east coast of Canada in the summer of 1884. Captain John James of Cardiaganshire, Wales, had a crew of seven men besides himself. They had also taken on four passengers, men who lived along the coast of Newfoundland, in the Conception Bay area.

This ship is a brig, the same type vessel as the Resolven.

Brig Wolverine By Unknown - [1], Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

w/index.php?curid=44844441

One Friday in August, the Resolven was found drifting off the coast near Baccalieu Head by the sailors on a British Royal Navy gunboat, HMS Mallard. The Resolven was a Welsh merchant brig, but the captain and his crew were not aboard when she was found. Neither were any of the passengers.

The ship had last been seen on Wednesday evening, when it left Harbour Grace about 6 p.m. and passed the Baccalieu lighthouse around midnight. What happened between then and Friday?

The men who found the abandoned vessel guessed that the crew had been on board less than six hours before they arrived. This was based on the facts that fires were still lit in the galley, and the cabin table held food ready to eat. All her sails were set to catch the wind. Despite a search of nearby shores, no trace was found.

Why had the people aboard left the ship? And why all of them at once? Many guesses have been made, but none has been proven.

The Resolven had had set sail from Aberystwyth, in Wales, months earlier. It took its name from a town in Wales, also called Resolven.

Photo of Resolven, Wales, community hall:

Jaggery [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/

licenses/by-sa/2.0)],via Wikimedia Commons

The captain is said to have carried a personal fortune in gold coins on board, but the gold was not on the brig when it was found. It is also thought that none of the missing men were ever found, but there is some dispute to that. 

Here are some suggested theories as to why the men disappeared:

1. Iceberg alert. Many people believe the crew and passengers abandoned ship because they felt they were in danger of crashing into an iceberg and sinking, or else the ship was actually damaged by an iceberg. Either way, they may have feared for their lives if they stayed aboard.

I have not found records of the extent of the damage to the Resolven at the time when it was found abandoned. However, if the ship had sustained damage, it was not catastrophic. This brig was towed to shore, refitted, and put back into service, so it could not have been crippled or in immediate danger of going down, whether from iceberg, weather, or other natural causes.

2. Was there a mutiny? If so, why did they all abandon the ship? Most mutineers either leave the vessel in a ship’s boat or take over the ship and set the captain and loyal crew members adrift. But everyone left the Resolven.

3. Could the Resolven have been boarded by pirates? Possible, but no evidence substantiates this.

4. Could the passengers have arranged the incident so that they could steal and escape with the captain’s gold? This seems very possible, as the passengers would know the coast and could plan together a way to benefit themselves and not get caught.

Captain James’s great-grandson has done a lot of digging into this story. He’d heard about it from his great-uncle, but wasn’t sure whether or not it was true. As a result, in addition to receiving the captain’s New Testament, which was left aboard the Resolven, Will Wain has made some interesting contacts in Canada and learned some intriguing things that may or may not be facts.

Captain John James's signature, in the New Testament he left on board the ship, now returned to his family.

Photo by Will Wain, used by permission.

In England’s National Archives, he found a copy of the ship’s log of the HMS Mallard, the vessel that found the Resolven adrift in 1884. Here was proof that his great-grandfather’s ship had really been discovered in the manner he’d heard. Wain posted about this on his website and later started a Facebook page about the Resolven.

He was contacted by a woman living in Newfoundland who had seen his posts and had a story of her own to tell. She told Wain that her own grandfather and his brother had told years ago of finding a man’s body near the shore on the coast of Random Island. They said he was dressed in a captain’s uniform and had been sitting under a tree, facing the ocean.

The captain's Welsh New Testament, found aboard the Resolven

Photo by Will Wain, used by permission 

The body had no identification on it, though the dead man did have a distinctive pocket watch. The woman claimed her relatives found the body in the same month and year that the Resolven was abandoned. She also said the two brothers had buried the body in an unmarked grave in a small fishing village.

Wain traveled to Newfoundland and met the woman and her brother. They showed him the area where the body was allegedly found, but didn’t know the actual location of the grave. They also told him that one of the men who found the body appeared to come into some money about that time, and when he died his wife began spending much more than it seemed logical for her to do. Was she spending the captain’s gold?

Another rumor uncovered in Newfoundland is a tale that a man lived for a long time in an isolated coastal community and might possibly be a survivor of the Resolven incident. That has not been confirmed.

The Resolven is sometimes referred to as “the Welsh Mary Celeste,” because of its similarities to the famous American ship Mary Celeste, which was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands in 1872. Another ship’s crew found her deserted but seaworthy and well provisioned. The last log entry had been made ten days earlier. The ship’s boat was missing, but the captain's and crew's personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever seen or heard from again. The Resolven’s story seems like an echo to the Mary Celeste’s.

So, what do you think happened to the men of the Resolven? Maybe you favor one of the theories above, or maybe you have another suggestion. Do you believe the story of the dead man under the tree, and that he was in fact Captain James? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Will Wain, the captain's great-grandson, has his website, which is now under construction, at: http://www.smallersky.com/about.htm and his Facebook page about the Resolven is at: https://www.facebook.com/The-Ghost-Ship-of-Trinity-Bay-1487167924829228/

Because the web page is still under construction, I found the Facebook page more helpful at this time. Will also graciously allowed me to share some of the pictures here. 

Giveaway: The Seafaring Women of the Vera B. is an adventurous novel I wrote with my son Jim. If you like sea stories, we hope you’ll enjoy this. To enter a drawing to win a copy of this book, comment below and be sure to leave your contact information.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than seventy novels and novellas. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and two Will Rogers Medallions, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. A Maine native, she lived for a while in Oregon and now lives in Kentucky. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com, where you can sign up for her occasional newsletter and read a short story on her romance page.

How a Quaker Woman Saved a Ship in Colonial America

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

This is an incredible true story about how a Quaker Woman saved a ship full of people on their way to Colonial America.

Mary Prior was a simple Quaker woman living in England who loved God. When she was young, a rich man asked her to become his wife, she refused. Her nurse chided her saying, “You might have eaten gold!”

Mary said “But I could not have digested it.”

Riches didn’t matter to her because she had determined to do only what God wanted. In 1760, she found the man God had for her and married John Pryor, a fellow Quaker.

In her lifetime of serving God, she became a prophet and went on evangelistic tours throughout England and Wales. After the birth of her last child, she felt called to travel to America and preach the Gospel. After a few years, her husband agreed but couldn’t go with her. She was 60 years old when she finally made the voyage.

Mary found the ship she believed God had told her to book passage to America with. It was called Fame and was in need of repairs. Her son, who worked for Lloyds Insurance Company warned her not to sail on the ship, but she knew God had told her to go on this ship.

During the voyage, the ship sprang a leak. Sailors and passengers worked pumps day and night to keep it afloat for several weeks, but they finally gave up.

At this point, Mary came from her cabin and announced that God had shown her they would all be rescued if they would continue to pump for two more hours. She even told the name of the ship that would rescue them, the Archibald.

The crew threw everything overboard they didn’t need and continued to pump. Two hours later, the Archibald, a sixty-ton fishing boat, showed up and rescued them. They had to reduce water ration and cram aboard the crowded ship, but they made the 600 miles left to America safely.

On March 15, 1798, the Archibald docked in Philadelpia without a single member of the crew or passengers lost.

Upon departing the boat, Mary immediately fell to the ground to thanked God. A friend who was meeting her there thought she’d stumbled, but another passenger, stopped him from disturbing her prayers. The captain, crew, and passengers gathered around her, removing their hat, and joined her in thanking God.

Because of her unusual story of rescue, Mary was able to preach the Gospel in America in a way that attracted many crowds.

Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She has received 2^nd place in the NOCW contest, 3^rd place TARA writer’s contest, and was a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her novellas Resurrection of Hope and A Christmas Promise are available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. Her novel, Alice's Notions will be released in April.