By Eleanor Cade Busby
Although he has color blindness, retired Chief Warrant Officer Rowland Gilbert paints portraits and scenics like this mural on the wall at his home in Damariscotta. Gilbert also writes poetry and opinions, often seen in the editorial pages of local papers. (E. Busby photo) |
Retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer Rowland Gilbert Sr., of Damariscotta spent most of his working life at sea. He comes by his love of the water naturally: his father was a lobsterman, but the family heritage that drew Gilbert to the Navy dates much further back than his parents.
Gilbert can trace his family history on the seas back as far as Sir Humphrey Gilbert who sailed to North America in 1583 search of a Northwest Passage (a sea route to Asia through North America).
The family tradition of service at sea for one’s country has passed down to Rowland Gilbert’s son, Rowland “Buzz” Gilbert Jr., who has retired from a 28-year career in the Navy with the rank of Lt. Commander.
Rowland Gilbert Sr., now 83, was the eldest of seven children born to Walter and Velma Gilbert in South Bristol. Gilbert said he always felt destined for the sea. All the Gilbert children spent time on the water and in the woods with their father.
“Dad liked company on the boat,” said Gilbert, “I was the oldest so I spent a lot of time out on the water with him.”
It was a naval commander who told tales of his life in the Navy that inspired Gilbert to sign up. Naval Commander Ashley Adams took Gilbert under his wing when he was a teenager.
Adams served in World War I and had retired to South Bristol. Adams taught Gilbert to swim and took long walks with him around Rutherford Island, all the while telling tales of a life at sea.
“I remember him explaining how the Moon was once part of the Earth,” said Gilbert, “He knew so many things and shared them with me.”
The retired commander shared an admiration for world heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney with Gilbert and gave Gilbert his first set of boxing gloves. Gilbert went on to box for the Navy worldwide winning the welterweight championship for the 12th Naval District. He fought so well that the Marine Captain in charge in Portsmouth once asked him when he was going to stop beating his Marines.
Gilbert enlisted in the Navy on December 15, 1950. The 18-year-old Lincoln Academy graduate reported to his first ship directly after boot camp at Newport News, Va.
Over his 22-year career, including two very short breaks in service, Gilbert served on a total of eight ships including the USS Newport News, the USS New Jersey, the USS Thor, the USS Prevail, the USS Wasp, the USS Kankakee, the USS Canberra, and the USS Piedmont.
Gilbert served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well as the Cold War and witnessed history in the making on many occasions. Three stand out as important milestones in U.S. Naval history for very different reasons.
On Dec 19, 1960, Gilbert was working in the shipyard in Brooklyn, N.Y. when a forklift accident aboard the USS Constellation caused 502 gallons of fuel to spill and become ignited by welders working in her decks below.
The resulting fire was so intense that support was required from neighboring fire departments, already exhausted from the Park Slope midair collision that occurred just three days earlier taking 137 lives.
Gilbert was a firefighter who arrived early on the scene and among the first to board the Constellation, called “The Connie” by the Navy men. Gilbert was skilled with the new oxygen apparatus, which was unfamiliar to the civilian firefighters.
“There were about 50 units lying on the ground, but no tanks,” he said. “The civilians had no idea how to use them but we had to get them onto that ship. It was a cylinder system. The canister had to screw in to break a seal, and then the exhaled CO2 could be converted to breathable oxygen.”
Gilbert demonstrated how to use the units safely before boarding the ship to carry the injured and many of the fallen to shore.
In the inferno which took 17 hours to put out, 49 men died immediately and one later expired in the hospital. At least 330 yard workers and naval personnel were badly injured.
When assigned to his next command, Gilbert was surprised by his commanding officer who had him step aside during an inspection. The Captain honored Gilbert with a special commendation for his actions in the USS Constellation fire. “I had no idea why they pulled me out,” Gilbert said. “I was just doing my duty.”
Rowland Gilbert receives a commendation from Captain Karabaras on the USS Wasp for Gilbert’s exceptional service during the tragic fire on the USS Constellation at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard in December 1960. (Photo courtesy Rowland Gilbert) |
In April, 1963, Gilbert was serving as guard at “the Brig,” the U.S. Naval Retraining Command at Portsmouth, N.H. One of his duties was overseeing the upholstery shop at Kittery, where military prisoners made items for those on active duty.
“We got an order from the new sub Thresher,” Gilbert said, “We provided the materials to make the name tags for the crew. They were wearing our tags when they went down.”
The Thresher was the most advanced submarine of its time, and its sinking during sea trials had a profound effect on the nation. One hundred twenty-nine submariners and shipyard workers were lost on April 9, 1963.
“It was a terrible loss,” said Gilbert. “Thresher was never decommissioned by the U.S. Navy and remains on ‘Eternal Patrol’.”
Gilbert returned to ship aboard on the USS Kankakee and then joined the crew of the USS Canberra in September of 1967. It was on the Canberra where he was promoted to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer.
“We were getting ready to ship home from Vietnam, when we were called in to help out with what we hoped would be the rescue of the USS Pueblo,” he said.
USS Pueblo, an American electronic intelligence and signals intelligence ship attached to Navy intelligence was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on Jan. 23, 1968, in what is known as the Pueblo Incident. The seizure of the ship and its 83 crew members, one of whom was killed in the attack, came just a week before the start of the Tet Offensive.
Gilbert was assigned to a task force ordered to recover Commander Lloyd Bucher, USN, and the captive crew of the Pueblo. “We went into the Sea of Japan in force, hoping to scare the hell out them,” he said.
Gilbert and his crewmates were involved in the rescue efforts for several months of what would become an 11 month torture and captivity for the captain and the crew. They were not released until December 1968. This became the most infamous incident of the Cold War.
“We were devastated when the action was not a success right away,” Gilbert said. “We wanted to recover that ship and free that crew but our tour had been up for months by then, and they sent us home.”
The USS Pueblo, still held by North Korea today, officially remains a commissioned vessel of the United States Navy. In early 2013 the ship was moored along the Botong River in Pyongyang and is used there as a museum ship. Pueblo is the only ship of the U.S. Navy still on the commissioned roster currently being held captive.
Gilbert continued to serve in the U.S. Navy until he retired in 1972 and returned home to Maine. He thought that his time working at the Naval Brig would make him a natural fit as a guard at the prison in Thomaston.
He quickly discovered the difference in a civilian and a military prison. “In Portsmouth, it was ‘Yes, Sir, and No, Sir,’ he said. “In the civilian prison, let’s just say the tail was wagging the dog.”
Gilbert made a career of carpentry and on his lobster boat the Wanderer II, named after his father’s boat Wanderer. “I hope to get her in the water again this summer,” he said, smiling.
Gilbert has seven children, what he say are an uncountable number of grandchildren and great -grandchildren, and his faithful companion, his dog Sunday. Sunday was trained up from a pup, as were all her predecessors to “guard the perimeter.” Sunday would really rather play fetch, but accompanies her master to Waltz Soda Fountain most days, waiting patiently outside while Gilbert has coffee and swaps stories at the counter.
Gilbert highly recommends the Navy as a career choice for men and women today. “It’s a great career and an opportunity for young people today, just as in my day,” he said, “The United States Navy is a wonderful place to learn what really matters; how to be a good citizen and to protect our great nation.”