Description

The desperate fighting tradition of the United State? Navy as founded by Yankee seamen on the decks of the USS BON HOMME RICHARD still lives in the hearts of American Bluejackets whose exploits in this war will be recorded indelibly on the pages of history. Alongside the names of John Paul Jones and James Lawrence will be inscribed those of Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan and Commander Howard W. Gilmore. And history, too, will record along with the feats of early seamen who gained their apprenticeship before the mast, those of today’s sailors who are receiving “their early apprenticeship at Naval Training Stations throughout the land. The U. S. Naval Training Station at Sampson, New York, has made, and is making tens of thousands of the millions of sailors who are and will be manning our rapidly expanding battle fleet. Here, boys and men, recent civilians, are being trained the traditions so ably upheld and carried out by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, USN, in whose honor the Station was named. Rear Admiral Sampson, who was born in nearby Palmyra, New York, graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1861. During the Civil War he commanded the U. S. Steamer DAI CHING on the Charleston blockade and later served on board the monitor PATAPASCO when it was blown up by a torpedo. He was commended for his conduct on that occasion. Rear Admiral Sampson served as Superintendent of the Naval Academy from 1866 until 1890 and was later Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. As Commander of the North Atlantic Squadron at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he carried out the blockade of Cuba and the attack on San Juan. The Admiral’s Chief-of-Staff characterized him as “One of the greatest characters of our Navy and one of the finest of our country. Sampson was a hero by nature, for nature made him great.” With his reputation as their guide, the men who go through Sampson Naval Training Station will be belt able to take their places as real fighting men in the greatest struggle this country has ever made, not only; for the democratic principles that are its very core-lip but for its very life.