An auspicious day!
1866 Prof. Arronax, Conseil, and Ned Land are taken aboard Capt. Nemo's 'Nautilus' to begin "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
The Last “Prize” Awards in the U.S. Navy?
The awarding of prize was an ancient naval custom. Essentially, the officers and men of a warship that captured an enemy vessel were allowed to divvy up the loot. Although the complex formula governing the division of the spoils gave the lion’s share to the officers, and particularly the captain, a rich prize could easily leave even an ordinary cabin boy with a year’s pay in his pocket.
For much of its history the United States Navy awarded prize. But in 1900 it was decided to abolish the practice.
Nevertheless, a case could be made that the U.S. Navy actually awarded prize money in 1947. It seems that in November 1941, while on "Neutrality Patrol" in the waters between Brazil and Africa, the light cruiser Omaha (CL-4) and the destroyer Somers (DD-381) came upon a merchant ship flying the U.S. flag, and bearing "Willmoto – Philadelphia” on her stern. As the appearance of the ship did not match the silhouette in the recognitions books, a boarding party was sent from Omaha. The vessel turned out to be the German motorship Odenwald, on a blockade running mission. As the Americans clambered aboard, the ship's crew tried to scuttle her, but the Yankee sailors were too quick, and quickly got things under control.
Oldenwald was taken to Puerto Rico. An admiralty court ruled that since the ship was illegally claiming American registration, there was sufficient grounds for confiscation. At that point, some sea lawyers got into the act. Observing that the attempt to scuttle the ship was the equivalent of abandoning her, they claimed that the crews of the two American ships had salvage rights, to the tune of $3 million. This led to a protracted court case, which was not settled until 1947. At that time it was ruled that the members of the boarding party and the prize crew were entitled to $3,000 apiece, the equivalent today of over $25,000 according to the Consumer Price Index, but easily nearly twice that on the basis of the prevailing “minimum wage,” while all the other crewmen in Omaha and Somers were entitled to two months’ pay and allowances at their then current rate.
By then, both Omaha and Somers had already gone to the scrap yard.
"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell." - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side." Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.
