Tiptoeing through the duds

Sea Scouts

POOLES ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE, the first lighthouse built by the United States government, is one National Historical Monument you never want to visit. Even the Sea Scouts weren't foolish enough to go there inasmuch as it is surrounded by a mass of unexploded ordnance. The reason is that Pooles Island, near the confluence of the Gunpowder River and the Chesapeake Bay, was the target of nearly continuous artillery barrages from 1918 until some time in the 1960s. Located just offshore of the United States Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Pooles Island was the impact area for shells fired to test artillery and mortars since the beginning of America's entry in the the First World War. 

Pooles Island Lighthouse

The narrow passage between Pooles Island and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay was closed to boat traffic during test firings. Pickett boats patrolled both ends of the narrow strait. Our USAAF P-250 Crash Boat came to us from that service. It was stuck in ice one winter while attempting to return to its moorings. The crew walked ashore on the ice shelf and the boat was allowed to sink during the Spring thaw. Fortunately, the water was shallow and we were able to retrieve it without too much difficulty. 

USAAF P-250 42' Crash Boat

We didn't have the funding to buy new or even used boats and had to take what we could get. The crash boat was an opportune find. It had a double-planked mahogany hull fastened over closely spaced oak frames. The crew who abandoned the boat probably could have forced their way home like an ice breaker. Luckily for us they didn't and we acquired the perfect vessel for our purposes. It was built to respond to emergencies. A continuous bilge ventilation system allowed us to fire up the engines at a moment's notice without worrying about igniting fumes.

The boat had two bench seats in the cabin forward of the bridge and two in the one aft that could be used as berths. We added three hanging pipe racks with bed springs and cot mattresses forward and converted the seat backs in the after cabin into berths that were hinged to serve as both berths and seat backs. This gave us a total of nine berths. We carried cots on board for two to sleep on the bridge and four in the after cockpit, giving us accommodations for a total of fifteen. 

As I researched Castro's revolution to write Rebels on the Mountain, I learned that he had attempted to purchase a P-250 Crash Boat like ours to transport his group of 83 rebels from Mexico to Cuba. I can't imagine where he would have put them. Indeed, the cabin cruiser he used, the Granma, was only about twenty feet longer.

Cabin Cruiser Granma

I visited Aberdeen once with my junior high school class, about two years before I joined the Sea Scouts. The landscape was dominated by skeletal steel structures that held two electronic sensors. Canon cockers fired artillery and mortar rounds through them to measure the velocity of the shells. This data was transmitted to Philadelphia where human computers calculated ballistic charts, called firing tables, that soldiers used to fire accurately at the enemy. American Heritage magazine recently featured a story about the women who were recruited during World War II to perform this duty, and who programmed the first digital computers.

We frequently observed the impact of artillery rounds on Pooles Island from a safe distance. However, there were times when a few rounds fell short of the island and sank a buoy marking the channel between the island and the mainland. The Coast Guard who had to maintain and replace these buoys were none to happy. They accused the Army of sinking them intentionally. If true, it represented an amazing feat of marksmanship.

As I learned later in my training as an infantry officer, artillery and mortars are principally used in batteries of three to four tubes. One tube fires a round for registration. A forward observer reports adjustments to a fire control team who calculate changes in the weapon's elevation and direction to hit closer to the target. In the case of mortars, they also have to calculate changes in the number of supplemental propellant packages attached to the fins of the mortar round to alter the weapon's range. Several rounds may be needed to bracket the target. When the observer believes that the registration round has impacted close enough to the target, he requests that the entire battery fires for effect. With three or four tubes firing simultaneously, chances are good that the target will be struck. If the target is a group of personnel, the combined bursting radius of all three or four rounds should spread a sufficient amount of shrapnel in their ranks to decimate them.

However, when we observed a buoy being sunk, the canon cockers at Aberdeen usually required no more than two rounds for registration and hit it squarely with the third round. Only later, when I studied artillery tactics, did I come to appreciate their accuracy. The buoys were no more than four feet in diameter!

I must admit to visiting Pooles Island twice. On the first occasion, the picket boat must have moved further up the channel, out of sight, and the firing hadn't commenced when we ventured into the channel. We got out of there just as fast as you can imagine as soon as the first rounds impacted. Luckily, they fired in trajectories that impacted towards the center of the island, away from the beaches. On the second occasion, we beached to bailout a small sailboat and, since they weren't firing that day, we explored a little. We hadn't heard of duds before and, fortunately, didn't encounter any otherwise my career as a storyteller would never have gotten off the ground any farther than an exploding shell could have launched me.