The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetary commemorated its 100th year anniversary last Thursday. On November 9, 1921, the cruiser USS Olympia arrived at the Washington Navy Yard on the Anacostia River, carrying the casket of an unknown American soldier, to be interred in the tomb on Armistice Day, November 11th.
In celebrating the centennial it seems worthwhile to also remember the harrowing transatlantic voyage of the cruiser Olympia that very nearly ended in disaster as the ship battled mountainous seas in the remnants of two hurricanes, threatening both the ship and its precious cargo.
The Olympia arrived in France in October 1921 to load the casket of an unknown American soldier killed during World War I. The casket, too large to fit below decks was lashed on the upper deck. A Marine honor guard stood watch over the casket during what proved to be a treacherous 16-day voyage. Roughly halfway across the Atlantic, the cruiser encountered a hurricane. The Marine guards lashed themselves to the ship’s stanchions so they wouldn’t be swept overboard. Twenty-foot seas broke over the pilot house. One Marine was drenched by a wave so big that it tore his hip boots off. And the ship was rolling so badly that the crew feared that each roll would be its last.
The dramatic journey of the first unknown aboard Olympia a century ago has rarely been told, said the Independence Seaport Museum‘s chief curator, Craig Bruns to the Washington Post. And few realize how close it came to disaster.
In “all the history books … the unknown soldier is selected [in France], Olympia picks up the body, and the next paragraph is Olympia drops off the body in Washington,” Bruns said in a recent interview.
The dicey ocean crossing is the missing chapter.
“Why was the story not recorded?” he said. “Was it seen as distracting from the unknown soldier” story? Was it embarrassing to the Navy?”
The Independence Seaport Museum is hosting a special exhibit on the perilous voyage, Difficult Journey Home, which runs through November 25, 2021.
Many of the warships of that era rode low in the water. They were designed for ordnance of one weight and then fitted with better, heavier ordnance.
They were “wet” ships.
The only advantage to their resultant, minimal freeboard was they were slightly harder to hit near the waterline.