The Old Navy Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Old Navy

  Publishing Information

  Biography

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Boyhood in China 1881-1885

  Chapter 2

  Washington and Annapolis 1885-1898

  Chapter 3

  The Spanish-American War 1898

  Chapter 4

  Life of a Junior Officer 1900-1903

  Chapter 5

  Imperial Germany 1903

  Chapter 6

  Edwardian England 1903

  Chapter 7

  The Mediterranean and Cuba 1904-1906

  Chapter 8

  The Bamboo Fleet 1907-1908

  Chapter 9

  Japan, China, and Vladivostok 1909

  Chapter 10

  Destroyer Service 1910-1914

  Chapter 11

  World War I 1918

  Chapter 12

  Transport Service and Shore Duty 1919-1921

  Chapter 13

  The Levant 1922-1924

  Postscript

  Preview

  The Old Navy

  by

  Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix 3rd

  Edited by

  Daniel P Mannix 4th

  Publishing Information

  The Old Navy

  by Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix 3rd

  Edited by Daniel P Mannix 4th

  © Copyright 1983 by Daniel P Mannix

  mobi digital edition Copyright 2014 by eNet Press Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by eNet Press Inc.

  16580 Maple Circle, Lake Oswego OR 97034

  Digitized in the United States of America in 2014

  Published 201406

  www.enetpress.com

  Cover designed by Eric Savage; www.savagecreative.com

  ISBN 978-1-61886-974-6

  Biography

  Daniel P Mannix IV

  Daniel Pratt Mannix IV (Oct 27, 1911 – January 29, 1997) became best known as an American author and journalist. Mannix’s works include the 1958 book Those About to Die, which remained in continuous print for three decades, and the 1967 novel The Fox and the Hound which was adapted into an animated film by Walt Disney Productions. His novel Drifter was a Newberry Medal Nominee.

  Childhood

  “Daniel Pratt Mannix 4th’s early life might have come right out of True Adventure magazine, and it still would have been hard to believe.” 2/2/1997, Philadelphia Inquirer

  As a child and young man, Daniel P Mannix spent a lot of time at his grandparents’ farm outside Philadelphia while his naval father was away on postings accompanied by his wife, Jule Junker Mannix. Daniel began to keep and raise various wild animals. The cost of feeding these animals led Daniel to write his first book, The Back-Yard Zoo.

  Career

  Mannix life was filled with many and exciting chapters; it was remarkably different from other writers of his generation. His career included times as a side show performer, magician, trainer of eagles and film maker. His life became not what his family planned when he was born in Bryn Mawr. The son, grandson and great-grandson of Navy men, he was assumed to have saltwater in his veins, and duly enrolled at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., in 1930. But he quickly moved in 1931 to the University of Pennsylvania, while postponing his interest in zoology for a degree in journalism. During World War II, Navy lieutenant Mannix was with the Photo-Science Laboratory in Washington, D. C.

  The Great Zadma was a stage name Mannix used as a magician. He also entertained as a sword swallower and fire eater in a traveling carnival sideshow. Magazine articles about these experiences, co-written with his wife, became very popular in 1944 and 1945 and these accounts of carnival life are to be found in the book, Step Right Up, reprinted in 1964 as Memoirs of a Sword Swallower. At times Mannix was a professional hunter, a collector of wildlife for zoos and circuses, and a bird trainer. In 1956 Mannix showed his many talents by writing, producing, directing, acting in, training birds and photographing for a short film Universal Color Parade: Parrot Jungle.

  An an author Mannix covered a wide variety of subject matter. His more than 25 books ranged from fictional animal stories for children, the natural history of animals, and adventurous accounts about hunting big game to sensational adult non-fiction topics such as a biography of the occultist Aleister Crowley, sympathetic accounts of carnival performers and sideshow freaks, and works describing, among other things, the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, the history of torture, and the Roman games. His output of essays and articles was extensive. In 1983, Mannix edited The Old Navy: The Glorious Heritage of the U. S. Navy, which is his father’s (Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix III) autobiographical account of his life and naval career from the Spanish-American War of 1898 until his retirement in 1928.

  An interest in magic led Mannix to become a skilled stage magician, magic historian, and collector of illusions and apparatus. In 1957, he was one of the 16 members who co-founded the Munchkin Convention of the International Wizard of Oz Club. He contributed numerous articles to The Baum Bugle, including one on the subject of the 1902 musical extravaganza, The Wizard of Oz.

  Personal Life

  Travel and the raising of exotic animals led to an adventurous life for Mannix and his wife as they traveled around the world until 1950. They had a son, Daniel Pratt Mannix, V, and a daughter, Julie Mannix Von Zernick. From 1950 on they lived in Pennsylvania. Mannix died at the age of 85 and was survived by his son and daughter, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

  Literary Influence

  According to Martin M Winkler’s book, Gladiator: Film and History, Mannix’s 1958 non-fiction book Those About to Die (reprinted in 2001 as The Way of the Gladiator) was the inspiration for David Franzoni’s screenplay for the 2000 movie Gladiator.

  Bibliography

  Books

  1934 The Back-Yard Zoo

  1936 More Back-Yard Zoo

  1953 King of the Sky

  1958 The Wildest Game (by Peter Ryhiner as told to Daniel P Mannix)

  1958 Those About to Die, or The way of the Gladiator

  1959 The Hellfire Club

  1959 The Beast: The Scandalous Life of Aleister Crowley

  1959 Kiboko

  1962 Black Cargoes; A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518-1865 (with Malcolm Cowley)

  1963 The Autobiography of Daniel Mannix, My Life With All Creatures Great and Small

  1963 The History of Torture

  1964 The Father of the Wizard of Oz

  1965 The Outcasts

  1967 A Sporting Chance: Unusual Methods of Hunting

  1967 The Fox and the Hound (with illustrator John Schoenherr)

  1967 The Last Eagle (with illustrator Russell Peterson)

  1968 The Killers, The Story of a Fighting Cock and Wild Hawk

  1969 Troubled Waters: The Story of a Fish, a Stream and a Pond (with illustrator Patricia Collins)

  1971 The Healer

  1974 Drifter

  1975 The Secret of the Elms

  1976 Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others

  1978 The Wolves of Paris

  1983 The Old Navy: The Glorious Heritage of the U. S. Navy, Recounted through the Journals of an American Patriot by Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix, 3rd, as edited by Daniel P Mannix 4th

  Magazine Articles

  (Some of these were co-written with Jule Junker
Mannix)

  • “Raiders of the Night” in St. Nicholas Magazine, August, 1930

  • “Two Texas Goblins” in St. Nicholas Magazine, June, 1933)

  • “Gladiators of the Gods” in The Saturday Evening Post, May 25, 1935

  • “Hunting Dragons with an Eagle” in The Saturday Evening Post, January 18, 1941

  • “Death on Swift Wings” in The Saturday Evening Post, November 8, 1941

  • “We’re in the Money” in The Saturday Evening Post, January 16, 1943

  • “How to Swallow a Sword” by The Great Zadma as told to Jule Junker Mannix in Collier’s Magazine, July 22, 1994; reprinted in Collier’s December 2, 1944; reprinted in Reader’s Digest, March 1945

  • “Fire-eating is Fun” by The Great Zadma in Pocket Book Weekly, February 3, 1945

  • “Tracked by Bloodhounds” in The Saturday Evening Post, April 9, 1949

  • “The Father of The Wizard of Oz” in American Heritage, December, 1964

  Filmography

  1953 King of the Sky (documentary short)

  1958 Universal Color Parade: Parrot Jungle

  1959 Killers of Kilimanjaro

  Dedication

  To the Officers and Men

  with whom it has been my privilege

  to serve all over the world.

  Foreword

  As a child, I saw my father only once or twice a year and many times not even that often, for he was an officer in the United States Navy, and cruises were cruises in the early years of this century. It seemed to me that he always arrived unexpectedly and at night. I slept in a little room next to my grandparents on the second floor of their Delancey Place house in Philadelphia, and suddenly I would be awake and conscious of a bustling downstairs. I would run along the dark hallway in my white nightgown to the top of the great staircase that led down to the entrance hall, a checkerboard of black and white marble slabs far below me. By the light of a yellow, fan-shaped gas flame I was able to make out hurrying figures as the maids started a fire in the living room barely visible through the hastily opened sliding doors. Mother and my grandparents were already down, and then I would see Bounds, our houseman, open the glass doors that gave onto a tiny hallway beyond which was the massive street door.

  Clinging to the mahogany baluster, I would start down the carpeted steps one at a time, terrified of falling but determined not to miss this great moment which rated with Christmas. Long before I reached the bottom, the glass doors would reopen and Bounds would return. After him would come a tall figure with gold lace gleaming on his blue uniform and a boat cape thrown over his shoulders. Then would follow two seamen carrying a huge sea chest big enough to hold a corpse. Under Bounds’ direction, they would carry it into the living room, emerging a few moments later empty handed and take their departure after touching their round caps to Father. It behooved me to get there before Father entered the living room and the sliding doors were closed, for it was hard for a little boy to make himself heard through the oaken panels and I would be left standing alone in the cold hallway.

  Even in the safety of the living room, no one paid any attention to me, nor did I expect it. Father would first greet Grandmother and Grandfather as they were the eldest and he was a stickler for seniority. Then he would speak to Mother and, after an embarrassed pause, kiss her on the cheek. Both of them were obviously self-conscious and hardly knew how to behave after so many months’ separation. Then, I think almost with relief, Father would turn to me. “Did you take good care of your mother while I was away?” he would ask severely. It was part of my training to know that men always took care of women, no matter what the disparity in their ages might be. After I assured him that I had came the ceremonial opening of the sea chest.

  That sea chest was better than all the Christmas stockings in the world. You never knew what would be revealed except that it would be rare and wonderful. One year there was a gush of sandlewood scent as the lid was raised and then, wrapped in palm fronds, were teak elephants with real ivory tusks, a Gurkha kukri, alabaster boxes inlaid with semiprecious stones, a hookah, and many more exotic marvels. On another occasion, there was a model full-rigged ship that turned out to sail beautifully when father set the sails (the box she was in was labeled “tres fragile” so I named her that), a set of Black Watch lead soldiers, their kilted uniforms accurate down to the finest detail, and a hand-carved chess set. Again there was a necklace of fresh water pearls from South America, a set of bolas, brilliant scrapes, and strange shells. Once after the Russian-Japanese War, Father brought back a human rib from a place he called 203 Meter Hill where, he explained, the ground was too hard to bury the dead. He always had presents for everyone, including the maids, who came up from the servants’ quarters to curtsy as they received their gifts.

  It seemed to me that Father was never home for more than a few weeks and I saw little of him. Like most well-raised children of that era I spent much of my time in the nursery with my nurse and, except to inquire into my studies, Father seldom spoke to me. I was, of course, destined for the Naval Academy. I was Daniel Pratt Mannix 4th, and every Daniel Pratt Mannix had been in the armed services. It was the only respectable profession for a gentleman. Whenever Father spoke of “civilians”, he always did it with a sneer.

  As a midshipman, my father served on sailing ships, and he was still an officer in the Navy (although retired) when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. During his long career, he met the Empress Dowager of China, the German Kaiser, Edward VII of Great Britain, the Mikado of Japan, and Her Imperial Highness Zekie, Sultana of Turkey. He fought in eight wars, was awarded six medals, and saw action against the Moro pirates and the Imperial German Navy. He watched the United States grow from an obscure, third-class nation to the most powerful country in the world. Many of the campaigns he described so familiarly I had trouble finding in any historical texts. Today we have no idea how far-ranging was American influence in the early years of this century.

  Often I disagree with his dogmatic views, as I am sure many readers will. At other times, I am astonished at his insight. I feel that whether you agree or disagree with his beliefs, it is important to realize that they were the beliefs of many men in this country nearly a hundred years ago, and it was these men who made our nation great. You may be convinced that they were often wrong, but you today are living on their bounty.

  After my father’s death, my step-mother, Claudia, was kind enough to send me his trunks full of letters, notes, diaries, and photographs. For a long time the task of organizing the material seemed hopeless, but with the help of the Naval History Division in Washington, D.C., I have done my best to reconstruct a picture of the times. I have had to omit a number of his cruises (he sailed the equivalent of eight times around the world) and combined several others (for example, he made three cruises to the Philippines, which I have put together). I hope this has not resulted in contradictions or confusions.

  I consider this to be a revealing epic of America from 1880 to 1928, as seen through the eyes of a man who played a role in forming it. If naval officers or trained historians read this, I hope they will excuse any technical errors I may have made. The errors will be mine, not those of my father, Rear Admiral Daniel P. Mannix 3rd. Now I will allow him to tell his story in his own words.

  Daniel Pratt Mannix 4th

  Chapter 1

  Boyhood in China 1881-1885

  Long ago, and far away

  My first memories are of China of the 1880’s — a China of fat mandarins, of ladies with bound feet, of men with pigtails and of soldiers who carried paper umbrellas as part of their equipment and who never fought when it was raining. Their way of fighting was to frighten the enemy by exploding firecrackers and then suddenly opening their umbrellas on which were painted pictures of devils. It worked quite well on other Chinese but was not nearly as successful against the Russia
ns, French, British, Germans, and Japanese who were invading China. My father, Lt. Daniel P. Mannix, Jr., of the United States Marine Corps, had the task of turning these Chinese levies into efficient combat troops. He had brought Mother, my older sister, me, and Mammy — Mammy who, until the Civil War had been one of our family’s slaves — to China with him.

  I can also remember, very faintly, myself as a four-year-old boy who ran crying to Mammy because the little Chinese boys laughed at me for not having a pigtail. As always when she heard my cries, Mammy rushed to the rescue and at the sight of her, the Chinese children fled screaming, “First a white devil and now a black one!”

  Mother tried to comfort me, saying angrily, “How terrible that these stupid children should be prejudiced against someone just because his skin is a different color than theirs!” I remember Mammy gave Mother a curious look and after a brief pause said, “Yea, Miz Mannix, it sure is a sin.”

  Mammy soon solved the problem by pinning a false pigtail to the inside of the round cap I always wore. The cap had a coral button on top, insignia of a mandarin, third class, which was the rank that the Empress Dowager had bestowed on Father. I still have the cap and the pigtail.

  Father was “loaned” to the Chinese government as the result of an accident. He was Marine officer on board the USS Ticonderoga under Commodore Shufeldt who had been sent to the Orient in 1878 to open Korea — as Commodore Perry a few years before had opened Japan — and persuade the king to allow American merchants to trade there. At that time, Korea was a vassal state of China and technically, at least, under the Chinese emperor. The Korean king had refused to receive Shufeldt and the commodore did not wish to use force, although that was customary in those days. While hoping that his majesty would change his mind, the Ticonderoga anchored in the Wu long River, emptying into the Gulf of Chihli in northern China. Father was a torpedo expert and to pass the time, Shufeldt had him practice launching torpedoes.