Tag Archives: Boston Navy Yard

Time Capsule, Bonita in Beantown Edition

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95 Years Ago:

Check out this great shot of the V-class/Barracuda-class diesel-electric submarine USS V-3 (SF-6) at the Boston Navy Yard, most likely in June/July 1926, shortly after her commissioning at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine.

Note her big 5″/51 on deck, impressive for a submarine deck gun, and the signalmen atop her fairweather. Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection

The most impressive part of this shot, in my opinion, is the ships in the background. Note the historic frigate USS Constitution, at least one cruiser, and the lattice masts of at least one battleship.

For the record, V-3 would be one of the few U.S. Navy submarines to pick up a name instead of a number (most in the 1910s-20s lost theirs rather such as Warship Wednesday alumni USS Salmon, err USS D-3). She was renamed USS Bonita, 9 March 1931, and reclassified (SS-165), 1 July 1931.

An older boat taken out of mothballs in 1940 as war loomed, Bonita patrolled in the Pacific off Panama until after the U.S. entered World War II, then transitioned to patrolling the East Coast then, later, training duty out of New London and was decommissioned even before WWII ended, on 3 March 1945, sold for scrap seven months later.

However, “Old Ironsides” remains.

Happy Flag Day

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Even in Preble’s day, the flag had to be guarded day and night to prevent souvenir hunters from making away with bits of it-Note the relative size of the Marine complete with heavy white buff leather belts, M1859 pattern enlisted dress frock coat with fringed epaulettes and tall painted shako. This particular antebellum uniform would be replaced in 1875.

This is the first known photograph, taken on 21 June 1873 in the Boston Navy Yard by then-Commodore George Henry Preble, of the Great Garrison Flag– the famous flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the National Anthem. The flag was flown over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland during the bombardment of the position by the Brits in 1814. Preble, entered the Navy as a midshipman on December 10, 1835, and retired in 1878 as a rear admiral after a 43-year career.

While at the Boston Naval Yard, Preble had the cotton and dyed English wool bunting flag sewn to a piece of sailcloth in order to preserve it and penned the first book about the ensign, History of the American Flag. Even in Preble’s day, the flag had to be guarded day and night to prevent souvenir hunters from making away with bits of it– and swaths cut from the banner before then still surface today. 

The flag has been in the Smithsonian’s collection since 1912 and was restored/stabilized in 2008.

The preserved Star-Spangled Banner today is on display in its own protective chamber at the Smithsonian, and you can thank RADM Preble for that. (Hugh Talman / NMAH, SI)

Washington’s Standard

Also, if you are in the Philadelphia area this week/end, the faded and fragile blue silk flag known as the Commander-in-Chief’s Standard that marked General George Washington’s presence on the battlefield during the Revolutionary War will be on display this Flag Day through Sunday, marking its first public display in Philadelphia since the war itself. The Museum of the American Revolution is bringing the old banner out from secure archival storage for the event.

The AmRev will also have famous original Monmouth Flag and the Forster Flag on display, two of the oldest surviving flags from the American Revolution, dating to 1775-6.