Goodby NPS

The Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request, which was published on May 2, 2025, contains countless cuts to numerous government departments, agencies, services, and programs. This includes the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Park Service (NPS).

Specifically, the document calls for a massive $900 million cut to the budget for the “Operation of the National Park System,” along with a number of other cuts affecting the National Park Service.

If approved by Congress, it would be the largest budget cut in the 109-year history of the Park Service.

  The following post is from the facebook site Haze Gray.  For those of us who love history and love the NPS it’s a wake up call.  The heading picture is the USS Cassin Young, a WW2 Fletcher class destroyer which is at the Charlestown Bavy Yard part of Boston National Historical Park   One of my early assignments was helping restore and setting up programs for this ship.  In addition to researching and setting up tours I helped with chipping paint and more on my off days.  

“The Trump Administration's FY2026 Discretionary Budget Request includes a $1.2B cut - that's Billion, with a B - to the National Park Service's budget. Of that $1.2B, a whopping $900M will come from park operations - mainly by getting rid of parks. according to the National Parks Conservation Association, cuts of that magnitude will require NPS to get rid of between 350-370 parks out of a total of 433.  Per the Trump budget, only the 63 parks with "National Park" explicitly in their names would be left untouched….

. …a vocal 1/3 of the country has outright betrayed history by propping up this abominable, detestable, corrut administration - period. Shame on all of y'all that supported this. Let's dive in.

What kinds of National Parks will get the axe? Let's see what's not considered part of the 63 "crown jewels" - Pearl Harbor. Cassin Young. Gettysburg. Yorktown. Antietam. Fort Sumter. Name any battlefield - none of them are on the crown jewel list. Appomattox. SF Maritime Park (Hercules, one of the tugs that lost USS Oklahoma, most notably). Fort Point. Fort Monroe. Wright Brothers National Monument. Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Jamestown. Rosie the Riveter. Ford's Theatre. FDR Memorial. MLK Memorial. Castillo de San Marcos. Andersonville. Chickamauga & Chattanooga. Fort Pulaski. Kennesaw Mountain. The Appalachian Trail. C&O Canal. Fort McHenry. Monocacy. Boston. Vicksburg. Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville/Spotsylvania. Richmond Battlefields (Cold Harbor, Gaines Mill, Fort Harrison/Chaffin's Bluff, Totopotomoy Creek, Drewry's Bluff), Little Bighorn, Manhattan Project, Grant Memorial, Fort Raleigh, Moore's Creek, Guilford Courthouse, Lewis & Clark, Flight 93. Philadelphia's Independence NHP. Valley Forge. Cowpens. Mount Rushmore. Fort Donelson. Shiloh. Arlington House in Arlington Cemetery. Cedar Creek. George Washington Birthplace Monument. Petersburg. Manassas. Harpers Ferry.”

Here is the Budget page referenced to the National Park Service.  

RMS Olympic Sinks a U Boat

 

  RMS Olympic holds the unofficial award of being the only passenger liner to ram - and sink - a German U-Boat during the First World War.  On 12 May 1918, while enroute for France in the English Channel transporting U.S. troops  Olympic sighted a surfaced U-boat 1,600 ft ahead.  Olympic's gunners opened fire, and the ship turned to ram the submarine.  U-103 immediately crash dived to 98 ft and turned to a parallel course readying its stern torpedoes. Olympic struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower with her port propeller slicing through the pressure hull. The crew of U-103 blew her ballast tanks, and abandoned the submarine. Olympic did not stop to pick up survivors, but continued on to Cherbourg. An escort, USS Davis had sighted a distress flare and picked up 31 survivors from U-103. Olympic returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached.

For his service, Ollympic's Captain Hayes was awarded the DSO. Some American soldiers on board paid for a plaque to be placed in one of Olympic's lounges to commemorate the event, it read:

"This tablet presented by the 59th Regiment United States Infantry commemorates the sinking of the German submarine U103 by Olympic on May 12th 1918 in latitude 49 degrees 16 minutes north longitude 4 degrees 51 minutes west on the voyage from New York to Southampton with American troops."

During the war, Olympic  carried  201,000 troops and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and travelling about 184,000 miles.  Olympic's war service earned her the nickname Old Reliable.  Her captain was knighted in 1919 for "valuable services in connection with the transport of troops".

Dazzle is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I.  The unusual paint job on Ollympic is refereed to as Dazzle.  Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle was not to conceal but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading. Norman Wilkinson, the marine artist who invented it, explained in 1919 that he had intended dazzle primarily to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so cause them to take up a poor firing position.  If you think painting kilts is difficult try this!

Scan of wreak of U-103

The remains of U-103 lie at a depth of  300 ft in the English Channel,  about midway between England and France. Its deep location makes it inaccessible to divers but the wreck was surveyed and identified by a remotely operated underwater vehicle in 2012.

A Little Humor

USS Truman loses its  third F18 on this deployment.

 New imagery shows the cause of the most recent loss.

Private Yankee Doodle

 

 

Joseph Plumb Martin, who served in the Continental Army and later wrote about his experiences, died on this day in 1850.

  In June 1776, 15-year-old Martin left his home in Connecticut and joined the Continental Army. He served in the army until the end of the war. In 1830, he published a memoir of his military service. Rather than battle stories, Martin shared the experiences of enlisted soldiers, portraying them, not officers, as heroes of the Revolution. 

  Martin suggested that in honor of their service, pensions be given to surviving veterans, many of whom were poor and unable to work by 1830. In 1835, the Federal government began offering pensions to enlisted soldiers or their surviving families.

How was the march conducted?

 One of the most  influential military books of the 18th Century was “A Treatise of Military Discipline” by Colonel Humphrey Bland.   Officers learned how to be a commander by reading text books.  This book shows up in the libraries of numerous officers in the British and also American  Army officers libraries at the start of the American Revolution;   including George Washington;  who's personal library included Humphrey Bland "A Treatise of Military Discipline (9th ed., London, 1762)"; Lancelot Théodore, comte de Turpin de Crissé, "An Essay on the Art of War, translated by Capt. Joseph Otway" (London, 1761); Roger Stevenson, "Military Instructions for Officers Detached in the Field" (Philadelphia, 1775); Captaine de Jeney, "The Partisan: or, The Art of Making War in Detachment," translated by J. Berkenhout (London, 1760); and William Young, Manœuvres, or Practical Observations on the Art of War "(London, 1771).

  What did these books tell us in how to conduct a march?  Let us quotes from Bland who had a chapter entitled “…Marching of a Regiment of Foot, or a Detachment of Men, where there is a Possibility of their being Attacked by the Enemy.”  He suggested forming a strong "van guard" and a "rear guard." The purpose of the van-guard was “to reconnoiter, or view, every place where any number of men can lie concealed, such as woods, copses, ditches, hollow ways, straggling houses, or villages, through which you are to march or pass near…” The rear-guard was “to take up all the soldiers who shall fall behind the regiment” and to provide security for the rear of the column and prevent it from “being fallen upon (attacked) in the rear, before they have notice to prepare for their defense.”  In addition “small parties, commanded by sergeants, marching on the flanks (sides) of the battalion with orders to examine all the hedges, ditches and copses which lie near the road…" 

  Lt. Col. Smith organized his march to Concord with the combined  ten Light Infantry companies* first followed by the eleven Grenadier ** companies.  As they got closer to Lexington he detected six Light Infantry companies to march ahead of the column and capture the bridges in Concord.  

  It is known from the statement of private James Marr 4th light company that there was a "advanced guard of a sergeant and six or eight men."   In addition a number of volunteers who went out with the march joined the advanced guard as we know from the account of  Lt. William Sutherland.   

  Within the column how did the individual companies form?  According to  Captain William Souter who commanded the Marine light company;  "our companies were not able to march more then half of its  front on the open road, or more properly speaking, in two platoons, the second in the rear of the first."

   Brigadier General Hugh Earl Percy who led the reinforcements  that afternoon had been commanding his Brigade for over a year now.  On a number if occasions he marched the entire Brigade out if Boston into the countryside for exercise.   Lt. Frederick MacKenzie of the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, who marched with Percy, wrote that the brigade “… marched in the following order, Advanced guard of a captain and 50 men; 2 six-pounders, 4th Reg’t, 47th Reg’t, 1st Bttn of Marines; 23rd Reg’t, Rear guard of a Captain and 50 men.” This tactic was straight out of Bland’s Treatise.  In the Lord Percy papers there is a drawing of a march by the 1st Brigade.  The drawing is a brilliant illusion of how to conduct a march with advanced guards and flankers. 

 

* light infantry companies- 4th, 5th, 10th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd,  59th and  Marines.

** Grenadier companies - 4th, 5th, 10th, 18th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th,52nd,  59th and Marines.