Valdez (FF 1096) - Naval Cruise Book

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H X... . g s . s -.A S s.s..f. - 7 f 'Q' I 1' f lallild 21 1917 fort Mechanic, a harbour defense builf the artisans and contractors of United States and France in 1798, when t l ffleQn'ggriationrcould3r ' tire harbour. W-4--.--..Q., f gidence of Mary Bailey Cross, that redoubltable Quaker woman who, at the node her way to Turkey where she tried to persuade the young Sultan to ,kerism. She went into a land where it was worth life itself for any infidel to jon by the Puritans who shipped her off to Barbados whence she came to ming and to become the progenitor of many illustrious descendants. ery, one may look down the harbour to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. lt beoch-sand fortress on this harbour mouth island that the badly out-manned might of the British Army and Navy on June 28, 1776, to win the first ndlt was news of that tremendous upset that reached the Continental .in5gTl18fGll'eI'lf1Q colonial representatives that the Crown of England might, The brick fortress that replaced the log and sand works took part in the assault on Fort Sumter that initiated the Civil War. Fort Moultrie was never captured and Union Troops occupiedit only after the Charleston area was evacuated by Confederate forces near the end of the Civil War. .lt was in this fort that the Seminole Indian war leader, Osceola, was held prisoner when he tiled in 1838. On Atlantic Street, which runs off the High Battery for a short two blocks, stands the house in which the ailing Seminole reportedly gave his last war whoop while a dinner guest of the captain of the ship that had brought him to Charleston from Florida. He let out his high-pitched scream to please the captain's children with the result that, as legend puts it, neighbors reached for their guns as the much-publicized war sound burst upon the neighborhood. In the attic of one of the great mansions that line the Battery rests what is undoubtedly one of the most unusual war relics. When the Confederates were evacuating Charleston in 1865, they blew up a large cannon that was in an earthwork on the Battery. A piece of the gun carriage flew high into the air and descended through the roof of the Roper House at East Battery. Ater the war, inspection revealed that it would require too much roof destruction to remove the iron segment, so the roof was sealed above it and it rests there today, a most unusual momento of a most unusual war. At 5 East Battery, Dr. St. Julien Ravenel and his engineering assistant, David Ebaugh, drew the designs for a semi-submersible torpedo boat for the Confederate Navy. It was built at Ravenel's plantation up the Cooper River and became the world's first underwater attack vessel, the progenitor of the Confederate submarine Hunley which a year later exploded a bomb under the USS Housatonic to become the first submarine to sink a ship of war. From High Battery, the two-story high canning towers of the giant Polaris nuclear powered submarines may be seen heading seaward down the same channels their predecessors, the David and Hunley followed in their time. And, in White Point Gardens, at the lower end of High Battery is a small monument that speaks eloquently of the heroism of the men who manned the Hunley. For she sank three times with as many crews before her final successful run against the Housatonic, and that 'last crew also went down with their ship. Here in White Point Gardens is the site of the gallows on which was sounded the last hurrah of the Brethren of the Sea, the pirates who had infested the American shipping lanes for many years. In 1718, Stede Bonnet, the so-called Gentleman Pirate and 38 of the followers swung in the breeze after the short stroll from the Old Exchange site, then the city's Provost. Following the custom of the time, the pirates were buried below the high water mark at harbour's edge so that the sea they had so villainously defiled could cover their bones. lt was the capture and execution of Stede Bonnet and his men that struck such fear into the hearts of other pirates that they gave up the United States littoral and retreated into the Caribbean. Seaward, mid point of the harbour's mouth, Fort Sumter mounts its massive remains above its sand-bar foundation, a constant reminder of the war that not only split the nation in two but guaranteed its survival as a united confederation of states. Standing at White Point, where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers merge to form the great harbour, one can see how Sumter sat like a fish in a barrel, surrounded by Confederate controlled guns at Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson, Cummings Point, Mount Pleasant, Castle Pinckney and a Confederate floating battery, when the die was cast on the morning of April 12, 1865, and the bloodbath began. Charlestonians watched from the upper stories and roofs of the same mansions that line the waterfront today as the war began. Some of them returned four years later to a devastated city in a poverty stricken and military governed state. Their poverty was a burden but it guaranteed one thing,the preservation of the Pre-Revolutionary, Colonial, and Ante Bellum houses, for very few Charlestonians had money with which to construct the Victorian houses that became the American fashion after the Civil War. There is only one on the battery today, a delightfully gingerbread and cuckoo clock structure put up after 1890. One of the first Christmas trees ever raised in the western hemisphere was at 30 Meeting Street where Hessian officers were quartered in 1781. Following their north European custom, they decorated the house with evergreens, a practice that did not become an American custom until many years later. A block away on King Street is the Miles Brewton house, one of.the nation's great Georgian mansions. Lord Cornwallis, who was to surrenderlto George Washlngon at Yorktown a year later, made his headquarters here during the occupation of the city..lt stands todaylmuch as it was then, complete with its colonial formal gardens and even the brick necessary used by the British officers.

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THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY WASHINGTON. D. C. 20350 The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the NAVY CROSS posthumously to PHIL I. VALDEZ HOSPITAL CORPSMAN THIRD CLASS UNITED STATES NAVY for service as set forth in the following CITATION: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action on the morning of 29 January l967, while serving with Company B , First Battalion, First Marines, in the vicinity of Danang, Republic of Vietnam. As corps- man with the third platoon, Petty Officer Qthen I-Iospitalmanb Valdez par- ticipated in a helilift with his platoon in support of Company I-I of the Second Battalion. Immediately upon landing, the platoon came under heavy e-nemy fire and sustained several wounded while maneuvering forward. Without hesitation, Petty Officer Valdez ran over seventy-five yards of open terrain, under constant enemy fire, to aid a fallen Marine. He then moved the wounded man to a safe area and, quickly and competently, rendered medical assistance. Again exposing himself to enemy fire, Petty Officer Valdez moved across approximately fifty yards of open ground to another Marine. While treating the second Marine, he positioned him- self between the man and the hostile fire. lt was at this time that Petty Officer Valdez was mortally wounded by enemy small-arms fire. Through his heroic actions and selfless devotion to duty, he was responsible for saving the lives of two Marines. His inspiring efforts were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. For the President, fsf Robert H. B. saidwm Acting Secretary ofthe Navy if