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Fascinating Archive! 35pp of World War I Naval Technology, Including Sights, Torpedoes, a Helicopter, & Salvage Ships
Fascinating Archive! 35pp of World War I Naval Technology, Including Sights, Torpedoes, a Helicopter, & Salvage Ships
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Description:

US Navy World War I
various, ca. 1916-1928
Fascinating Archive! 35pp of World War I Naval Technology, Including Sights, Torpedoes, a Helicopter, & Salvage Ships
Archive

U.S. NAVY, Archive of Documents Related to Naval Technology, 1916-1928. 8 documents, 35 pp.

This rich archive of correspondence and reports focuses on naval technology during and after World War I. In 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels established the Naval Consulting Board at the suggestion of Thomas A. Edison. Daniels formed the board with members from eleven scientific and engineering organizations to provide the United States with the "machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare." As Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1921 to 1924, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1887-1944) was instrumental in establishing the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in 1923 in Washington, D.C.

Contents and Highlights
-- Bradley A. Fiske, Autograph Letter Signed, to Elmer A. Sperry, August 22, 1916, Newport, Rhode Island. 2 pp., 8" x 10.5".
"A letter from Mr. Sagmuller tells me that the Bausch & Lomb Co. is so pressed now that he cannot make the spotting glass that I suggested to you for use with ‘prism firing.' You may remember that I wrote a letter to the Bausch & Lomb Co in your office, & that you signed it. Now here is another instrument that does not need a great optical Co. to make it. It is a binocular telescope. The operator directs it at the target ship, & sees what I show in Fig. 3 with his left eye, & what I show in Fig 4 with his right eye. When the gun or salvo is fired, he keeps the cross wire on the water line of target ship: & when salvo falls, he notes the relation of the splashes to the cross wire."
Typed Copy of the above. 2 pp., 8.5" x 11".
Rear-Admiral Bradley A. Fiske (1854-1942) was known within the U.S. Navy as an innovator. He took particular interest in gunnery and developed some of the first optical sights adopted by the U.S. Navy in the 1890s. He also frequently collaborated with the engineers at the Sperry Gyroscope Company from the early 1900s until World War I.

-- [Hudson Maxim?], Typed Letter, to Willis R. Whitney, March 26, 1917, Schenectady, New York. 5 pp., 8.5" x 11".
"The following are some figures recently made by me for Admiral Earle, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy, which you may find interesting upon the subject of driving torpedoes." (p1)
Hudson Maxim (1853-1972) was an American inventor and chemist who invented a variety of explosives and held many patents, including a 1912 patent for a "motorite torpedo." Willis R. Whitney (1868-1958) was a chemist and the founder of the research laboratory at General Electric Company. Both were members of the Naval Consulting Board.

-- Edgar Buckingham, Typed Report, "Notes on the Helicopter," August 17, 1917, n.p. 11 pp., 8.5" x 11".
"General Remarks on the Design of the Helicopter: The foregoing notes show that so far as regards lifting power, a small one man helicopter is entrely practicable.... The machine is merely a less bulky substitute for the captive balloon.... Since the machine cannot glide with the motor stopped, it must be provided with a parachute to prevent a disastrous fall every time the motor stops." (p5-6)
"The whole problem of designing a successful helicopter seems to me to hinge primarily on the propellers and to be a problem in screw propeller design. Various further points might be mentioned—for example, computation has shown that the propeller speeds need not be excessive—but it appears that the foregoing notes are sufficient for the present." (p11)

-- Matthew B. Sellers, Autograph Note Signed, to Elmer A. Sperry, October 8, 1917, Baltimore, Maryland. 1 p., 5" x 8".
"I enclose Capt. Chambers blueprint and paper on the Helicopter as I have one already."
Matthew B. Sellers Jr. (1869-1932) was an inventor and scientist known for his pioneering work with airplanes. He was one of the representatives of the Aeronautical Society of America on the Naval Consulting Board.

-- Washington Irving Chambers, Printed Document, Blueprint "Plan E." 1 p., 26.5" x 54".
"Reduced sketches of a weight carrying high speed aeroplane, designed as a modified helicopter type, in Sep-Nov 1916, for the construction of a quarter-size working model by means of which it was proposed to demonstrate, with power from an independent plant on the ground, in the manner shown by these sketches, the possibilities of this type to rise direct and to hover over an object at comparatively slow speed. The idea was principally to obtain engineering data for the construction of a full-size machine (assisted by varying the load on machine and the lift of the suspension wires) and to test both model and full-size machine in a methodical laboratory manner without damage to the machine at each test and without danger to human life."
Washington Irving Chambers (1856-1934) was a career U.S. Navy officer who played a major role in the early development of U.S. Naval aviation, giving him the nickname "the Father of Naval Aviation."

-- William L. Saunders, Typed Letter Signed, to Elmer A. Sperry, February 16, 1923, New York, New York. 1 p., 8" x 10.5". With copies of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. to William L. Saunders, January 30, 1923, and William L. Saunders to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., February 2, 1923. 5 pp., 8.5" x 11".
"I am enclosing a copy of a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt to me, and a copy of my reply, and shall be glad to have you indicate to me, at your convenience, your views on the subject as expressed by Colonel Roosevelt."
Roosevelt wrote to Saunders about the work of the Naval Consulting Board, of which Saunders was the chairman.
Roosevelt: "I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that it would give the Navy Department a sense of added security if you can notify us that you have persuaded your members to drop all thought of resigning from the Board and to resolve to consider themselves, in addition to anything further they may volunteer to do, as ‘Minute Men,' as Mr. Maxim so aptly put it." (p2)

-- Elmer A. Sperry, "The Lee-Making Salvage Ship for Universal Service," March 20, 1928. 8 pp., 8.5" x 11".
"The loss of our S-4 submarine has brought vividly to mind the very great necessity for adequate and effective salvage equipment which can go forward and perform its full quota of diving and salvage functions efficiently and under full pressure practically regardless of weather." (p1)
"Nothing is truer than the trite saying that ‘a ship rolls because she can't think of anything else to do.' The comparatively feeble forces constituting the angular aspect of the wave surface are all that is necessary as a causal effect. We know that these waves by themselves have very little force. This receives the most emphatic proof, because in instance after instance of stabilized ships, after once brought into the stabilized condition it requires only the most insignificant counter-forces, when properly emplaced, to prevent entirely even the smallest beginnings of roll from developing, and this even in the heaviest ship." (p2)
"As to the general character of this ship, it by no means need be confined to submarines or even salvage purposes alone. It would seem to a group of engineers and naval people with whom the matter has been fully discussed that it would be very much more to the point to have it apply to a general service ship which would then be able to render most impressive service, becoming available for any kind of emergency in a storm, giving service that has never before been possible and helping to salvage or stand by a wreck or any ship in trouble, regardless of the characteristics of that ship. It can at once be seen that the whole stabilizing equipment, taken as a trifle larger than necessary for the ship itself, would even then be a fitting of very minor significance as far as weight and space occupied are concerned." (p6)

Elmer A. Sperry (1860-1930) was born in New York and educated at the State Normal School and Cornell University. He founded the Sperry Electric Company in Chicago in the early 1880s. He created a system of bringing electricity into coal mines, greatly increasing the production of coal. In 1890, he formed the Sperry Electric Railway Company to create electric trolleys in cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Four years later, General Electric purchased the railway company and its associated patents. In 1898, he began working on incorporating a large gyroscope into a ship to stabilize it. In 1911, he began working with the U.S. Navy to incorporate his gyroscopic stabilizer into Navy ships. In 1913, he and his son Lawrence B. Sperry (1892-1923) created a gyrostabilizer for aircraft. During both world wars, his company developed technology used in torpedoes, ships, airplanes, and spacecraft. He also worked on related devices, such as bombsights, fire control, radar, and automated takeoff and landing.

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