The Seven U.S. Navy Ships Named USS Alabama

As noted and linked below, I've written blog posts on both USS Alabama battleships. In this one I decided to cover all the ships of that name in the U.S. Navy over the years. 

One of these days I need to do a post on all the ships named after Alabama cities. I have written one on the "USS Birmingham and Early Flight".  

• USS Alabama (1819), a 74-gun ship of the line, laid down in 1819 to honor the new state, but never completed as such. Eventually she was launched in 1864 as the store ship USS New Hampshire. After the war she became a receiving ship for new sailors awaiting assignment and later a training vessel. In 1904 she was renamed Granite State to free her second name for a new battleship. She caught fire and sank at her pier on the Hudson River in May 1924. 

Source: Wikipedia 

• USS Alabama (1838), a sidewheel steamer built in Baltimore and transferred to the Navy in 1849  served as a troop transport during the Mexican–American War. She carried personnel involved in the capture of Veracruz, but was found unsuitable for continued naval service. Apparently no image or records of naval service exist. She was sold at a public auction in New Orleans in 1849 and foundered in the Bahamas in 1852. 

• USS Alabama (1850) was a sidewheel steamer merchant vessel commissioned in September 1861 during the American Civil War. The U.S. Army had begun using her as a troop transport in the spring and summer of that year. She saw extensive service along the Georgia and Florida coasts in the occupation of coastal areas and participated in the capture of blockade runners. Later in the war she worked along the North Carolina coastline. She was decommissioned in Philadelphia in June 1865 and soon sold back into civilian service. She was destroyed by fire in 1878. 

The steamer burning on December 24, 1871--a date different from the 1878 one in the Wikipedia entry. The source of this illustration and the 1871 date is the collections of the Royal Museums Greenwich 

Source: Wikipedia

I did find a notice that appeared in at least three U.S. newspapers that may be the 1878 burning:

Source: Daily Press & Dakotaian [Yankton, Dakota Territory] 12 March 1878. The other newspapers were from St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois. 

• USS Alabama (BB-8), a pre-dreadnought battleship commissioned in 1900 and scrapped in 1924. I've written a blog post about her here. Here fate is much different than the later USS Alabama battleship described below. 

USS Alabama on maneuvers off New York City in October 1912

Source: Wikipedia

Portion of the USS Alabama being scrapped at a shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland in June 1928. 

"Alabama had been sunk in bombing tests in September 1921 and had to be raised for scrapping. Note the cofferdam used to seal her hull amidships, and the dished-in side plating caused by near-miss bomb explosions." 

Source: U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command

• USS Alabama (SP-1052) was a 69-foot motor boat built in Boston in 1906 and inspected by the Navy in the summer of 1917 for possible World War I use. She was assigned the designation SP-1052, but probably never saw active service. Her fate is unknown. 

Source: Wikipedia

• USS Alabama (BB-60), a South Dakota-class battleship commissioned in 1942, converted to a museum ship in 1964 and now docked in Mobile, Alabama. You can find detailed information at the Battleship Memorial Park website, the Wikipedia entry and at the Encyclopedia of Alabama. I've written a blog post on the campaign to save the ship and bring it to Mobile. 

• USS Alabama (SSBN-731), an Ohio-class submarine, is currently in service. The ship was launched on May 19, 1984, and commissioned May 25, 1985. Homeport is the Naval Submarine Base at Bangor, Maine. USS Alabama made a visit to Mobile on one of its early voyages in 1985 or 1986. The vessel is featured in Time Under Fire, a Bermuda Triangle science fiction thriller. Completion of its landmark 100th patrol in 2021 is described here. 

Source: Wikipedia

There is at least one fictitious USS Alabama battleship. In their 1941 film In the Navy the comedy team of Bud Abbott & Lou Costello are up to their usual hijinks aboard just such a vessel. The film was released on May 30, 1941; the second USS Alabama battleship was commissioned on August 16, 1942. 

The film also stars Dick Powell, who was still in the "romantic crooner" stage of his career. Strangely enough, he plays a famous singer who joins the Navy and tries to hide his identity. Shemp Howard, an actor and comedian best known as one of the Three Stooges, has a small role. In addition to Powell's, songs are provided by the Andrews Sisters. The film was a box office success. 

Some filming was done at naval bases in San Diego and San Pedro, California. I've yet to determine why the name USS Alabama was chosen. Perhaps construction of the new battleship had been in the news or naval consultants suggested it. 

A fictitious USS Alabama ballistic missile submarine appears in the 1995 film Crimson Tide. As Wikipedia notes, the real USS Alabama makes an appearance:

"Because of the Navy's refusal to cooperate with the filming, the production company was unable to secure footage of a submarine submerging. After checking to make sure there was no law against filming naval vessels, the producers waited at the submarine base at Pearl Harbor until a submarine put to sea. After a submarine (coincidentally, the real USS Alabama) left port, they pursued it in a boat and helicopter, filming as they went. They continued to do so until she submerged, giving them the footage they needed to incorporate into the film.^[10]"

Two Books & Two Notorious Alabama Authors

Lately I've been going through my book collection in an effort to downsize--no, really! Anyway, I came across these two novels written by Alabama authors who were, shall we say, a bit controversial back in the day. I haven't read either one, but thought I'd put together a piece on the authors.

We can say some things for certain about James Franklin Camper, Jr., but many of his life activities are murky to say the least. He was born in Hueytown in 1942; his parents were Frank and Betty Camper. Their son spent time in Vietnam, claiming participation in the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol [the Army Rangers] with the 4th Infantry Division. Military records indicate a year of truck driving. Then he became absent without leave, later supposedly working as a covert operative for the FBI infiltrating "leftwing" political groups. Camper also claimed to have trained forces in Saudi Arabia and Panama and worked covert operations in El Salvador and Guatemala.  

Camper and his wife settled in Dolomite in 1980, but he was soon running a mercenary school in south Florida. In March 1981 Camper, fellow instructor Robert Lisenby and several students--all armed and wearing camouflage--were arrested some two miles from the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant. The men were charged with felony trespassing and fined; Camper returned to Alabama after a night in jail. Later that year he would testify against Lisenby about a plot in which the men were hired by one drug gang to kill the leader of a rival gang in Miami.

The mercenary school was relocated to acreage a few miles from Dolomite, and he also opened a gun store in Hueytown. Camper's involvement in strange events continued. Four Sikhs who trained at the school in 1985 were later suspected of involvement in the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182, which blew up over Ireland and killed 329 people. That same year he apparently tipped off the FBI about a plot to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi New Orleans during the Indian Prime Minister's diplomatic visit to the U.S. 

In March 1986 Camper was arrested for helping two women attempt to plant  bombs and kill employees at a school they operated. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison; associates received lesser terms. While in Leavenworth Camper was burned by scalding water in 1987 after a 60 Minutes story described him as an informant. Camper testified at a public U.S. Senate hearing in which some of his covert work for the FBI was confirmed. 

After serving five and a half years, Camper was released and settled with his wife in Birmingham. For a time he ran a computer store, ABC Computers. 

Wait--there's more! Camper is also an author of some fifteen novels and non-fiction books. One of the novels is the 1989 title below issued by Dell Publishing. The other, Sand Castles, was published in 1979. The novels may be based on their author's real exploits.  

I am indebted to the entries on Camper at BhamWiki and Wikipedia for the information above. More information can be found there. A "Soldiers of Fortune/Mercenary Wars" page that praises the "real thing" of Camper's military and covert careers can be found here. 

Asa Earl Carter [1925-1979] is another notorious figure in state history. For many years his dual identity was hidden, but for some time now the hoax he perpetrated has been well known. 

Carter was born in Oxford, near Anniston. After high school he served in the U.S. Navy, then studied journalism at the University of Colorado. By 1953 he was back in Alabama, broadcasting anti-Semitic and other racist commentary on a Birmingham radio station.

He found a receptive audience in the state and also wrote and published a white supremacist magazine, The Southerner. He even went so far as to join a racist paramilitary revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Although Carter was not involved, members of this group attacked Nat King Cole in Birmingham in 1956 and castrated a black man the following year. 

In the early 1960's Carter began his stint as a speech writer for George Wallace, who often hid and denied the connection. Carter quit the relationship in 1968, and in 1970 ran against Wallace in the Democratic primary for governor. That effort was unsuccessful; Carter was so racist he made Wallace look moderate in Alabama. 

Carter and his wife had moved to Abilene, Texas, by 1973; his transformation to "Forrest" had begun. He published his first novel, The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales, which was later published as Gone to Texas. A sequel, The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales, appeared in 1976. Two years later his novel Watch Me on the Mountain, explored a similar theme when Geronimo seeks revenge for the killing of his family by U.S. soldiers. 

Also published in 1976 was a coming of age tale, The Education of Little Tree. Carter claimed the story, about an orphaned Cherokee boy, was autobiographical. the book was a modest success at the time of first publication. However, the Clint Eastwood film Outlaw Josey Wales based on Carter's first two novels turned a spotlight on the author. Alabama journalist and author Wayne Greenhaw made the connection between Asa Carter, segregationist, and Forrest Carter, Cherokee memoirist. 

Carter continued to deny it up until his ignominious but somehow fitting end. In June 1979 he fell during a drunken brawl with a son in Abilene, hit his head and died. He is buried in a Methodist church cemetery near Oxford.

Little Tree achieved its greatest success after Carter's death. A paperback edition published in the late 1980's reached the New York Times non-fiction best seller list by 1991. Over a million copies have been sold. In 1991 historian Dan T. Carter, who has written extensively on George Wallace, unmasked the hoax of "Forrest" Carter and his fabricated memoir with fake Cherokee words. During his life Carter had transformed himself into a mustachioed, cowboy hat-wearing, dark complected Cherokee, and even his widow maintained the hoax until she had to acknowledge it after Carter's article. 

When the 25th anniversary publication of Little Tree appeared, the phrase "true story" had been removed from the cover. A film version of the book was released in 1997. More on Asa/Forrest Carter can be found in a February 1992 article by Dana Rubin in the Texas Monthly. The Handbook of Texas even has an entry on him. A look at literary forgeries, including fake memoirs, can be found here.

So who's up next in the Alabama Author Hall of Shame? Perhaps it's Gustav Hasford's turn. 

Frank Camper in 1985

Source: BhamWiki

Harry Townes: From Huntsville to Hollywood and Back

I've written a number of posts on this blog about Alabama natives who have  found success in Hollywood, ranging from actresses before 1960 such as Dorothy Sebastian and Gail Patrick to more recent individuals such as Gail Strickland and two who also graduated from my high school, Kim Dickens and Ned Vaughn. Now comes Harry Townes, Huntsville native, prolific television actor and Episcopal priest. 

Harry Rhett Townes was born in Huntsville on September 18, 1914. I found him and his family in the 1920 U.S. Census via Ancestry.com At that time they rented a home on Eustus Street [probably Eustis Avenue near Maple Hill Cemetery; mistakes by census enumerators were common]. Harry was the younger son of Charles and Jeanne Townes; his brother was Halsey. Sister Jena was three years younger than Harry, who was listed as five at the time of the census. In the 1930 census when Harry was 15, the family lived at 809 Randolph Street. Father Charles is not listed; he had died on November 23, 1922 and is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville. 

Presumably he graduated from high school in Huntsville, although I've yet to determine which one. Recent discussion about Townes on the Facebook "Huntsville Revisited" board indicated he went to Huntsville High. He spent time at the University of Alabama, where he may have caught the acting bug. Townes did not graduate; he's not listed in the UA directory of alumni anyway. He next appears in New York City, where he studied acting at Columbia University. I've run across one source that says he graduated there, but have yet to confirm it. His draft card, included below, puts him in New York in October, 1940. 

He picked up some Broadway credits before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps, in which he served from 1942 until 1946. After his service, Townes returned to New York to act, picking up more stage work and making his first forays into television. 

As noted in the next paragraph, Townes' first tv credit was a Dumont program; the network broadcast from New York. Townes played the character of Peter Postman from 1949 until 1951. He also acted in episodes of two other programs from New York, Trapped and Robert Montgomery Presents. During this same period, 1950-1953, he also began acting in programs broadcast from Hollywood. 

The first television credit listed for Townes at the IMDB is The Magic Cottage, a program on the Dumont TV network from 1949 until 1952. His final appearance came on the series Valerie in 1988. Between those dates he acted in episodes on dozens of shows, many multiple times. These included Perry Mason (5), Rawhide (4), Route 66 (3), Twilight Zone (2), Playhouse 90 (3), Studio One (12), Climax! (9), Kraft Theatre (15), Armstrong Circle Theatre (10), Ponds Theater (6), Gunsmoke (7) and The Fugitive (5). He played four different doctors in that many episodes of Quincy, M.E. Townes made single appearances on such programs as Ben Casey, The Outer Limits, The Virginian, Branded, Star Trek, The Big Valley, Mod Squad, Marcus Welby, M.D., Lou Grant, and Magnum, P.I. Whew! And all of these listed only scratch the surface of his tv credits. 

Townes acted in more than 200 television programs, but he also appeared in several films. These include Operation Manhunt [see more on this one below], The Mountain, The Brothers Karamazov, Cry Tough, Sanctuary, The Bedford Incident, In Enemy County and The Hawaiians.  

While in his thirties his sister Jeanne was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Following a vision she had, her disease went into remission. This event prompted Townes' own spiritual journey that eventually led him to the priesthood. He continued acting but put himself through theology school in Los Angeles. In 1973 at age 59 and following ten years of study he became a transitional Episcopal deacon and then was ordained Father Harry Townes at St. Paul's Cathedral in Los Angeles on March 16, 1974. He had several non-stipend assignments in that city, Hollywood and Palm Springs  as he continued to earn his living with film and television work. 

Townes retired from acting in 1988, and returned to Huntsville. According to city phone books available via Ancestry.com, he lived on Randolph Avenue near a childhood home in the mid-1990s and on Mountain Brook Drive SE from 1998 until his death on May 23, 2001. He apparently never married. Townes outlived the other members of his family. Mother Jeanne died in 1967 and is buried in Maple Hill. Sister Jean died in 1998 and is also buried in Maple Hill. Older brother Milton died in 1978 and was interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham.

Townes & Barbara Hale as Della Street in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Lazy Lover” first broadcast 31 May 1958. Townes made five appearances on the program.

Perry Mason "The Case of the Lazy Lover" May 31, 1958

Townes played a pharmacist in the "Incident of the Town in Terror" episode of Rawhide first broadcast March 6, 1959. A few of the herd's cattle die of what is feared to be anthrax, but Townes' character determines it's the milder cowpox. 

Nancy Kovak and Townes in Perry Mason "The Case of the Golfer's Gambit" January 30, 1966

Both of these photos are from the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Woeful Widower" March 26, 1964. That's Jerry Van Dyke, younger brother of Dick, in the one below with Townes. 

Royal Dano, Inger Stevens & Townes in the "My Brother Richard" episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents January 20, 1957. You can read discussions by Jack Seabrook  of other appearances by Townes on this series here and here. 

Townes in "Tail to the Wind" an episode of Gunsmoke from October 10, 1959

The Outer Limits "OBIT" November 4, 1963

Townes as Captain Jesse Coulter in Rawhide "Seven Fingers" May 7, 1964

Townes appeared twice on Wanted Dead or Alive which starred Steve McQueen. This still is from "Mental Lapse" first broadcast on January 2, 1960. The other episode was "Vendetta", also in 1960.  

Operation Manhunt released in 1954 was an early film appearance by Townes, and he was even the male lead!

Townes World War II draft card filled out on October 16, 1940. Note his employer and place of employment! According to the Internet Broadway Database, Townes appeared in seven productions on Broadway between 1942 and 1969. I've yet to discover what he was doing for Warner Brothers, owner of the Strand in 1940. 

Source: Ancestry.com

Harry Townes' grave marker in Huntsville's vast Maple Hill Cemetery

Alabama History & Culture News: March 3 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

NEW RELEASES: 6 local authors with page-turning books you don't want to miss | Bham Now Bham Now These local authors are heating up the book charts in Birmingham. ... “This is not just an Alabama story, it's an international story.

Autherine Lucy Foster, first Black student at University of Alabama, dies at 92 - The Washington Post The Washington Post “I asked the Lord to give me the strength — if I must give my life — to give it freely,” she later recalled, according to Nora Sayre's book “Previous ...

Autherine Lucy Foster, First Black Student at U. of Alabama, Dies at 92 - The New York Times The New York Times Growing up as the youngest of 10 children in an Alabama farm family, she simply wanted to get the best education her state could offer. She obtained a ...

City, UA group partner to do cemetery repairs - The Brewton Standard

The Brewton Standard

State officials acknowledged the historical significance of Union Cemetery for our area by adding it to the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register on ...

Autherine Lucy Foster, first Black student at the University of Alabama, dies at 92 - CBS 42

CBS 42

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Autherine Lucy Foster, the first Black Student to enroll at the University of Alabama, has died. She was 92 years old.

Alabama's Hidden History: Rev. Lorenzo Bonner - WVUA 23 WVUA 23 By WVUA 23 Digital Reporter Kyrsten Eller. WVUA 23 and the Murphy African-American Museum honor Rev. Lorenzo Bonner. Bonner is the senior pastor ...

Alabama's Hidden History: Melvin Jones-Conley - WVUA 23 WVUA 23 By WVUA 23 Digital Reporter Kyrsten Eller. WVUA 23 and the Murphy African-American Museum honor Mister Melvin Jones-Conley.

The 50 Legends of the Alabama Sports Writers Association Sports Illustrated Pruett was the first person in ASWA history to win the Herby Kirby Award for story of year, the Bill Shelton Award, be named to the Hall of Fame, and ...

Netflix's 'Inventing Anna' has a major Alabama connection | Miami Herald Miami Herald Inventing Anna,” the new hit series on Netflix, has viewers obsessed with the real-life saga of Anna Sorokin, a con artist who duped the ...

Birmingham students write and produce “My Voice Will Cry Out”, an original Black History ... Bham Now Significance of Black History Month. Odessa Woolfolk addressing Huffman High School students on February 25, 2022. (United Way of Central Alabama).

Proposed cultural center in Auburn to highlight Black history, contributions to city - Alabama ... Alabama NewsCenter A Rosenwald school in Midway, Alabama. ... It would include a museum space focused on the city's Black history and provide a special events venue ...

Inside one of Alabama's only Black history high school classes: What is taught? - al.com

AL.com

The class, “History of Us,” began in 2019 at Central High School, where University of Alabama Associate Professor John Giggie and graduate student ...

Memorial service set for longtime University of Alabama trustee - Tuscaloosa News Tuscaloosa News He died Dec. 21, 2021, at the age of 92 and was buried in a private graveside service at Oak Hill Cemetery in Birmingham. A Birmingham native, Oliver ...

'We're telling their stories': A day of reckoning in Montgomery will honor the 'Mothers of Gynecology' AL.com READ MORE: This Montgomery tour guide brings Alabama history to life ... At the time, the city planned to relocate the statue Sim's burial ground ...

Alabamian's work honored with Library of America volume| DON NOBLE - Tuscaloosa News Tuscaloosa News Albert Murray, an Alabama native, was an extraordinary man and truly ... recently examined by Ben Raines in his book on the slave ship Clotilda.

Art created by current, former inmates on display - Shelton Herald Shelton Herald ... at the the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. ... Participants in Auburn University's Alabama Prison Arts + Education ...

Writer turns to Wiregrass roots for new novel | Local News | dothaneagle.com Dothan Eagle Raised in Southeast Alabama, Tom Miller chose to set his post-World War II ... “I was trained as a historian and have tried to present historical ...

PHOTOS: Alabama honors Autherine Lucy Foster - Montgomery Advertiser Montgomery Advertiser The University of Alabama unveiled a historic marker honoring Autherine Lucy Foster, the first black student admitted to an all-white college in ...

Auburn legend Lionel "Little Train" James passes away | News | waaytv.com WAAY TV James was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. One of the most popular players in Auburn football history, James weighed 150 ...