Happy Birthday, Isaac Watts!

Today is the birthday in 1698 of the renowned Christian hymn writer and pastor, Isaac Watts. Centuries of Christians have found deep comfort in Watts’s elevated verse in hymns like my personal favorites: “Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?,” "Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne,” "From All that Dwell Below the Skies,” “Give to Our God Immortal Praise,” “How Sweet and Awesome Is This Place,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” “O Bless the Lord My Soul,” “Teach Me the Measure of My Days,” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” Even the unchurched will remember having sung “Joy to the World” at some time in their lives.

Isaac Watts wrote over 500 hymns. Not only a writer for adults, Watts also wrote a large collection of “children’s” verse, Divine and Moral Songs for Children.* One of the more practical is Song 19, “Against Swearing, and Cursing, and Taking God's Name in Vain.”

   I.

Angels, that high in glory dwell,

Adore thy name, Almighty God!

And devils tremble down in hell,

Beneath the terrors of thy rod.

   II.

And yet, how wicked children dare,

Abuse thy dreadful glorious name;

And when they're angry, how they swear,

And curse their fellows, and blaspheme.

   III.

How will they stand before thy face

Who treated thee with such disdain,

While thou shalt doom them to the place

Of everlasting fire and pain?

   IV.

Then never shall one cooling drop

To quench their burning tongues be giv'n;

But I will praise thee here, and hope

Thus to employ my tongue in heav'n.

   V.

My heart shall be in pain to hear

Wretches affront the Lord above:

Tis that great God whose pow'r I fear;

That heav'nly Father whom I love.

   VI.

If my companions grow profane,

I'll leave their friendship when I hear

Young sinners take thy name in vain,

And learn to curse and learn to swear.

*First Published In 1715, the original title is Divine Songs Attempted In Easy Language, For The Use Of Children With Some Additional Composures. These are available from Project Gutenberg. Sadly, you'll have to search for Watts's numerous "adult" hymns in old hymnals, since the contemporary church seems to have taken an aversion to the oldies of our Christian heritage. Thankfully, though, most of these still can be tracked down online.

Appointed Metalsmith 2C

On this date in 1942, Dad was appointed Metalsmith Welder, 2nd Class. In the hectic early months of the war in the Pacific, many sailors, like my dad, found themselves promoted early, the time requirements being waived in wartime per the Bureau of Naval Personnel. From a repair ship like the Vestal, Dad and other metalsmiths routinely repaired and constructed metal equipment aboard ship. They maintained and repaired ventilating and drainage systems, tested and replaced watertight gaskets, heat-treated and case-hardened metals, and cut, welded, and riveted metal parts. Of course, metalsmiths also worked with damage repair parties on battle-damaged ships and other naval craft, which in wartime was their primary task.

Source: Frank L Dolan's Service Records

The Battle of Midway

Six months after Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway on June 4-7, 1942, was fought over the tiny U.S. Pacific base at Midway atoll. Potentially, it was the strategic high point for Japan's war in the Pacific. Until now, Japan had enjoyed naval superiority over the United States, choosing where and when to attack. But Midway would be the battle that changed the war in favor of the U.S. The 2 fleets opposing each other at and above Midway were essentially equals. But after Midway the United States was able to take the offensive.

The Japanese, embarrassed by the Doolittle’s Raid on their home island in April, and humbled at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, sent its navy to move on Midway in order to draw out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet's aircraft carrier force. The plan was to quickly take out Midway's defenses, invade the atoll's two small islands, and establish an air base there. Japan expected the U.S. carriers to fight but assumed they would arrive too late to save Midway.

With superior U.S. communications intelligence,* the Japanese plan was thwarted, and the U.S Fleet trapped the Japanese on this date, 70 years ago, in the second of the Pacific War's great carrier battles. The skill and sacrifice of American Navy pilots cost Japan 4 carriers while only 1 of the 3 U.S. carriers was lost. In addition to the carrier, the U.S. lost 307 men and 145 planes. Japan, however, lost 4,800 men, 4 aircraft carriers, a heavy cruiser, and 291 planes. Also, the air base at Midway, though damaged in the Japanese air attack, remained operational and later became a vital component in the U.S. Pacific offensive.

The Battle of Midway
Source: Nauticos

Following the battle, back at Pearl Harbor, Dad recalled making repairs to one of the carriers in that battle, but he did not remember which one (there were so many ships to repair in the months after the Pearl Harbor attack). He also remarked seeing lots of damaged planes, a testimony to the ferocity of the Battle of Midway. As the victorious ships returned, Dad clearly remembered seeing all the sailors waving and cheering from their ships and on the docks as they reentered the harbor at Pearl.

*See "Navy marks Battle of Midway's 70th anniversary" for a current photo and article about retired Rear Adm. Mac Showers, the last surviving member of the intelligence team that deciphered the Japanese messages, which changed the outcome for the U.S. in the Battle of Midway.

Target Practice at Pearl

"[Vestal] underway for operating area, and returned to berth X-6. Engaged in routine upkeep and repairs to vessels of the U.S. Fleet; and practice firing of 50 caliber and 20 mm guns at target towed by plane."

Even repair ships had to keep up their combat skills.

Source: USS Vestal War Diary, May 26, 1942

Battle of the Coral Sea, 1942

The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought on May 4-8, 1942, with most of the fighting happening on the 7th and 8th. It was the first fleet action of the war in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was also the first naval battle in history in which ships on neither side sighted or fired directly upon the other. The battle, part of the Pacific Theater of World War II, is considered a tactical victory for Japan since the American carrier Lexington was lost while Japan only lost the light carrier Shōhō in the battle. However, the Coral Sea was a strategic victory for the Allies, as the Japanese abandoned their attempt to land troops to invade New Guinea via Port Moresby. While the engagement ended with no clear victor, the damage suffered and experience gained by both sides set the stage for the Battle of Midway next month.

The Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4-8, 1942
Source: The Reports of General MacArthur... in the Pacific

During this early period in the war, my dad, a weldor on the repair ship, USS Vestal, is at Pearl Harbor, where he has been serving since before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. But his ship is about to follow the fleet as it sails in July to various bases of operation: Tongatabu, New Caledonia, and Espiritu Santo.

National Poetry Month, Day 30

The Land of Lost Content
A. E. Housman

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

National Poetry Month, Day 29

At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners (Holy Sonnet 7)

John Donne

At the round earth's imagined corners, blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,

All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow,

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes,

Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;

For, if above all these, my sins abound,

'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace,

When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,

Teach me how to repent; for that's as good

As if thou hadst seal’d my pardon with thy blood.

National Poetry Month, Day 28

Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                  Praise Him.

National Poetry Month, Day 27

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
William Wordsworth

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

National Poetry Month, 26

A Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns

O my luve's like a red, red rose,

    That's newly sprung in June;

O my luve's like the melodie

    That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

    So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

    And the rocks melt wi' the sun:

O I will love thee still, my dear,

    While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,

    And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

    Though it were ten thousand mile