The news in early February was amazing. The USS Bataan, USS Mesa Verde, and USS Whidbey Island had just returned from a 322-day deployment, the longest such deployment for Navy ships in almost 40 years. I marveled over the perseverance of the crews and their families to endure such a lengthy time apart.
Then I read a note from our Navy’s history and heritage and was even more amazed at deployments made by a Navy warship and their crew some 182 years ago. The ship was the sloop of war USS Vincennes, and all information is from the Naval History and Heritage Command website.
Built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City and commissioned in August 1826, the 703-ton Boston class sloop of war sailed to the Pacific by way of Cape Horn and cruised extensively in that ocean until 1830. Her return voyage was made by way of China, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, with arrival back in New York in June 1830.
The USS Vincennes had circumnavigated the Earth over nearly four years, becoming the first U.S. Navy ship to do so. Did you read the length of that deployment? Four years!
But the Vincennes and her crew weren’t done. One four-year circumnavigation of the globe wasn’t enough.
And so following repairs in 1831-32, the USS Vincennes got under way in 1833 for a second Pacific deployment, again sailing around the globe before returning to the East Coast of the United States in June 1836.
Was a duo of four-year deployments around the world enough for this mighty Navy warship?
The answer is no. They had one more left in them.
The sloop of war was refitted with a light spar deck for service as flagship of the United States Exploring Expedition before leaving Hampton Roads, Va., on an expedition in August 1938 under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. The Vincennes passed around Cape Horn early in 1839 before conducting survey operations and other scientific work along the west coast of South America and in the South Pacific. In late 1839, the ship arrived at Sydney, Australia, which would serve as her base for a pioneering cruise to Antarctica beginning in mid-January of 1840, concluding in mid-February 1840. After operating along the icy coast of the world’s southernmost continent, the Vincennes spent the remainder of her deployment visiting the islands of the South Pacific, Hawaii, the Columbia River area, California, Wake Island, the Philippines and South Africa before ending its third world-wide voyage at New York in June of 1842.
Next time you think today’s fleet deployments are hard, remember the Sailors of the USS Vincennes and their achievements. By today’s standards, they would be remarkable. They did all this in the 1800s, before many of today’s creature comforts for quality of life aboard ships were around. It only makes me respect them more.