Joseph Taussig, Jr. US Navy USS Nevada

On deck that morning was a brand-new Ensign, Joseph Taussig Jr., on his first ship after graduating from the Naval Academy.  -------------------------- Joseph came of a Navy family.  When the US declared war on Imperial Germany in April of 1917, the only American armed force at all able to promptly do anything was the Navy, and that was limited, since so much preparation was need.  BUt, within the Navy, one element -- desperately needed by Britain -- was more destroyers, to serve as convoy escorts and defence against U-boats.  We had destroyers, and they were quite ready.  And went, an entire squadron, immediately  Their appearance off the large Royal Navy base at Queenstown (Cobh) in Ireland, became the subject of a superb ship painting titled "Return of the Mayflower", showing a long line of those low, gray seawolves steaming in at speed, while a small faffrigged Irish fishing craft has a couple of men in it, waving at them as they approach.  The lead destroyer had the squadron commodore in it:  it was Joe Taussig's father, who eventually becae an admiral.  So also was his grandfather an admiral; his notablity was as something of a diplomatic figure. ----- The day before the attack, Joe had qualified as Officer-of-the-Deck IN PORT -- in other words, he was green as grass and just barely trusted to collect liberty cards and stand a gangway watch on a quiet weekend morning. Very conscious of his function, and knowing that as OOD he was in legal fact the same as the ship's skipper while in that job, he had Power. And planned to use it. Arriving a few minutes earlier than the usual 15 minutes beforehand, to make sure he would be fully apprised of anything he ought to know, he got the turnover early too. Below in the engineroom was the ship's most senior officer aboard, who had also been one of his instructors at the Academy. As an instructor, he had made Joe's life as a midshipman very rough at times, Joe remembered ever minute of it, and as OOD, he decided to get a little of his own back. He did this by ordering that all the ship's boilers be fired up, though only one was normal in port. He knew that this would seriously annoy his former instructor, and also that he could get away with it. And that is why NEVADA could get moving within only a few minutes of the attack -- she was already developing steam. Her "skipper" also has been mentioned -- a Chief Quartermaster on the bridge who in fact actually took over the battleship and got her underway. He had been in the Navy 22 years, and spent all of it in NEVADA, at a time when one could reenlist aboard, over and over again, and stay with one ship for an entire career.  That old QMC knew every rivet in the ship, and exactly what she could do and how to handle her. After Pearl Harbor, Joe was sent back stateside to a hospital for his leg, which had to come off.  He spent a couple of years trying gamely to recover and learn how to use an artificial leg.  What makes that of considerable interest is that instead of the usual medical discharge, the Navy kept him on duty:  he liked to say he was the only "peg leg" officer in the Navy -- in fact, he was on only peg leg, not merely in the entire US Navy, but at any grade i ANY of the armed forces.  That he was kept on duty no doubt relates to his strong family-of-admirals background as much as anything else, and probably entirely so; but the Navy did well by it.  Joe became a waling exemplar of how a war-crippled man could make it anyway, and was never backward about visiting hospitals and recovery areas and saying so. Professionally, though, he never got back to sea, he became a specialist in shipboard safety, especially as it related to fire, and wound up as the Navy's prime expert on the subject before he retired as a full Captain. I got all this from Joe Taussig himself, who died a couple of years ago at home in Annapolis. ---Frank Pierce Young

On deck that morning was a brand-new Ensign, Joseph Taussig Jr., on his first ship after graduating from the Naval Academy.  -------------------------- Joseph came of a Navy family.  When the US declared war on Imperial Germany in April of 1917, the only American armed force at all able to promptly do anything was the Navy, and that was limited, since so much preparation was need.  BUt, within the Navy, one element -- desperately needed by Britain -- was more destroyers, to serve as convoy escorts and defence against U-boats.  We had destroyers, and they were quite ready.  And went, an entire squadron, immediately  Their appearance off the large Royal Navy base at Queenstown (Cobh) in Ireland, became the subject of a superb ship painting titled "Return of the Mayflower", showing a long line of those low, gray seawolves steaming in at speed, while a small faffrigged Irish fishing craft has a couple of men in it, waving at them as they approach.  The lead destroyer had the squadron commodore in it:  it was Joe Taussig's father, who eventually becae an admiral.  So also was his grandfather an admiral; his notablity was as something of a diplomatic figure. -------------------------- The day before the attack, Joe had qualified as Officer-of-the-Deck IN PORT -- in other words, he was green as grass and just barely trusted to collect liberty cards and stand a gangway watch on a quiet weekend morning. Very conscious of his function, and knowing that as OOD he was in legal fact the same as the ship's skipper while in that job, he had Power. And planned to use it. Arriving a few minutes earlier than the usual 15 minutes beforehand, to make sure he would be fully apprised of anything he ought to know, he got the turnover early too. Below in the engineroom was the ship's most senior officer aboard, who had also been one of his instructors at the Academy. As an instructor, he had made Joe's life as a midshipman very rough at times, Joe remembered ever minute of it, and as OOD, he decided to get a little of his own back. He did this by ordering that all the ship's boilers be fired up, though only one was normal in port. He knew that this would seriously annoy his former instructor, and also that he could get away with it. And that is why NEVADA could get moving within only a few minutes of the attack -- she was already developing steam. Her "skipper" also has been mentioned -- a Chief Quartermaster on the bridge who in fact actually took over the battleship and got her underway. He had been in the Navy 22 years, and spent all of it in NEVADA, at a time when one could reenlist aboard, over and over again, and stay with one ship for an entire career.  That old QMC knew every rivet in the ship, and exactly what she could do and how to handle her. After Pearl Harbor, Joe was sent back stateside to a hospital for his leg, which had to come off.  He spent a couple of years trying gamely to recover and learn how to use an artificial leg.  What makes that of considerable interest is that instead of the usual medical discharge, the Navy kept him on duty:  he liked to say he was the only "peg leg" officer in the Navy -- in fact, he was on only peg leg, not merely in the entire US Navy, but at any grade i ANY of the armed forces.  That he was kept on duty no doubt relates to his strong family-of-admirals background as much as anything else, and probably entirely so; but the Navy did well by it.  Joe became a waling exemplar of how a war-crippled man could make it anyway, and was never backward about visiting hospitals and recovery areas and saying so. Professionally, though, he never got back to sea, he became a specialist in shipboard safety, especially as it related to fire, and wound up as the Navy's prime expert on the subject before he retired as a full Captain. I got all this from Joe Taussig himself, who died a couple of years ago at home in Annapolis. ---Frank Pierce Young