Random Excellence: Photographer Unknown

Credit: Huntington Ingalls Industries

Photographer unknown: the future USS Jack H. Lucas

On the internet, one thing leads to another.

I was poking around on the various websites of Raytheon Technologies Corporation, an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, because I have reason to believe that the loaner Leica 50mm Summilux-M I have here was largely designed and built for Leica, as many of its lenses have been, by Raytheon's ELCAN Optical Technologies subsidiary (formerly Ernst Leitz Canada) in Midland, Ontario. At some point I ran across a small JPEG of this image, sort of a large thumbnail. I thought it looked pretty dramatic, and I was curious as to what it shows, as I often am with photographs, so I started poking around trying to find a larger version.

It took time. It turns out that it's a small crop from a much larger picture that can be seen here on the Huntington Ingalls Industries website. HII, a Fortune 500 company, is the largest shipbuilding company in the USA. My family has a minor connection to shipbuilding; my father was charged by Congoleum Corporation with returning the Bath Iron Works, a shipyard in Maine, to profitability when Congoleum owned BIW. BIW is currently owned by General Dynamics Corporation.

The picture shows the then-future USS Jack H. Lucas, a Navy guided-missile destroyer, before its launch. I haven't been able to find out much about this ship-launching method; apparently the ship was built on level ground, moved on rails to the large apparatus [UPDATE: it's a dry dock! See Omer's comment below. —Ed.] you see it sitting on here (a process called "translation"), and then the entire apparatus is simply sunk, which lowers the ship calmly into the water, where tugs move it away. Construction continues after the ship is afloat.

Medal of Honor
That's how I came across the rather astonishing story of one Jacklyn Harold Lucas, of North Carolina, the sports-obsessed son of a tobacco farmer.

Jack Lucas enlisted in the US Marines at the age of 14 during WWII so he could fight in the war. The Marines eventually discovered his deception and moved him to non-combat duty, but, for another chance at combat, he stowed away on a transport ship bound for Iwo Jima, thus technically becoming a deserter. He turned 17 during the voyage. Before the invasion of Iwo Jima, Lucas presented himself to command and expressed his willingness to fight, and was accepted into service, presumably because he had legitimately reached the minimum age requirement. During the fighting on Iwo Jima, when his unit was being fired on in a ravine, Lucas threw his body on two live grenades to save his comrades. One of the grenades exploded. The comrades he intended to protect left him for dead. The Veterans Administration says, "Another unit discovered Lucas and tended to his injuries before carrying him to medics in a safer location. Lucas was treated on the USS Samaritan hospital ship, in multiple field hospitals and ultimately at a hospital in San Francisco, California. The grenades [sic] left over 250 pieces of shrapnel in his body and he underwent 26 operations in the following months."

Photographer unknown: President Truman and PFC Lucas

While still in a hospital in North Carolina, in 1945, the desertion charge was rescinded and Lucas was reinstated as a Private First Class in the Marines. In October of 1945, President Harry S. Truman bestowed the Medal of Honor on him, and Jack Lucas became the youngest Medal of Honor recipient in the Marine Corps as well as the youngest from any branch of the services since William "Willie" Johnston, a drummer boy, earned the medal at age 13 during the American Civil War. Lucas remains the youngest MoH recipient of the 20th century and of the 21st century so far.

Don't tempt fate
The story doesn't end there. In 1960, reportedly because he wanted to master his fear of heights, Jack Lucas enlisted in the paratroopers. On a training jump, both his main parachute and his backup parachute failed to deploy—and he survived that, too. (I presume one of the parachutes must have partially deployed, but I don't know that whole story—I haven't read his autobiography, which is appropriately entitled Indestructible.) Lucas was finally felled by cancer in 2008 at the age of 80.

Getting back to the ship, it was named in 2016 by Secretary of the Navy Raymond E. Mabus of Mississippi, who served in that capacity until 2017. Apparently naming fashions have changed; it used to be that a ship named for an individual would use the surname only, e.g., "USS Lucas." Full names are apparently now more often used. The US Department of Defense says, "The DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG 51) is a multi-mission ship designed to operate offensively and defensively, independently, or part of Carrier Strike Groups, Expeditionary Strike Groups, and Surface Action Groups in multi-threat environments that include air, surface and subsurface threats. These ships will respond to Low Intensity Conflict/Coastal and Littoral Offshore Warfare scenarios, and open ocean conflict, providing or augmenting power projection, forward presence requirements and escort operations at sea." Here's a picture of the ship just after her (hey, gotta respect pronouns) launch. USS Jack H. Lucas was christened on March 22 of this year, and will enter service in 2023.

I still don't know who the photographer of the ship picture was, but I'll ask. [UPDATE: Huntington Ingalls no longer credits specific photographers; see Dennis Mook's comment below. —Ed.] I guess it can stand for the work of photographers who, generally in anonymity, take record and publicity pictures for companies and corporations.

Mike

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B&H Photo

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Omer: "The 'apparatus' is a dry dock. It lowers and raises boats and ships in and out of water by means of flotation. When a partially completed ship is pushed on to the dry dock, that vertical side of the dry dock is removed allowing the ship access to the dock.

"I worked at Avondale Shipyards in the early 1980s which at the time had one of the largest dry docks in the country, located in the Mississippi River believe it or not. The USS Iowa battleship was partly modernized there, all the while out of the water on the dry dock. Photography in the yard was of course forbidden but I still managed a few pics of coworkers, now passed." [Ed. note: Link is NSFW.]

Mike replies: Thanks Omer. I was searching for "ship launching methods," and the term "dry dock" didn't occur to me. My bad.

Dennis Mook: "Mike, that is a floating dry dock. We have several here in Southeast Virginia. As you assumed, the dry dock is flooded with water and 'sinks.' The ship is then floated on (or off). The water then is pumped out which raises the ship out of the water. There are pre-positioned blocks set to tightly fit the ship’s hull so when lifted out of the water, the ship remains level, stable and secure.

"My daughter-in-law was a photographer for Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding and my son is employed by them. She told me the company stopped crediting individual photographers and now just lists the company for photographic credit. At the Newport News Shipbuilding facility, their main business is the design and build of aircraft carriers and submarines. It is an amazing process to see how ships of that size and complexity are put together."

Comments

[ASW]

I read about the life and adventures of Jack Lucas recently, although I cannot recall where. Am I remembering correctly that his wife tried to kill him as well? She obviously didn't stand a chance.

In the picture you're looking at a dry dock, which to my understanding is the standard operating procedure for building, repairing, and doing maintenance on large ships.

Like many things in this world, dry docks are not new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_dock

You might also be interested in: https://www.marineinsight.com/naval-architecture/largest-dry-docks/

[KeithB]

On the Movies! channel we say Gary Cooper as "Sergeant York". The real Alvin York - a pacifist - might not have liked having a gun named after him.

[Bob G.]

Great story. Nice photo. Thank you for that.

With the immense factoid bulk that the internet is, it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of curiosity… or does it have to do with the “six degrees of separation”?

[Brian Reitenauer]

Small world… I just came back from a long weekend in Bath ME for a friend’s wedding. Cranes from the Bath Iron Works rise above the small town and cmplete the picture of a working waterfront town.

[robert e]

I've heard Jack Lucas' story before, but I guess on some level I don't believe it because it always astonishes.

For what it's worth, AP, Chicago Manual, NY Times and Lloyd's List all prefer "it" and "its" as pronouns for ships.

[Yeah, but then I couldn't make my little joke. --Mike / not a comedian ]

[-et-]

That looks like a floating dry dock, which has been around for at least 100 years, although previously I have only seen them mentioned as used for work on existing ships, not for the construction of new ships. (This is not an area with which I am familiar, so such usage may be far from new.)

FWIW, if you want to see a little more about floating dry docks, and also read a book that I think you might enjoy, take a look at "Under The Red Sea Sun", by Edward Ellsberg. I first read this more than 65 years ago and still consider it worth recommending.

- Tom -

[Jon Porter]

I think using a full name as a ship's moniker is at the discretion of the Navy. My father served on the USS CHARLES J. BADGER, but all his other ships, the CONY, DIACHENKO, EVANS and RENSHAW, received just surnames. Most likely the full name is used to differentiate two ships with the same name or, in the case of the BADGER, to distinguish between a Navy hero and a furry member of the weasel family.

[Alex]

Speaking of dramatic “ships on floating dry docks,” do a search for the USS Texas. As the last example of a WWI era dreadnought battleship in the world, it is an important artifact of naval architectural history. The Texas now out of the water and undergoing an overhaul to repair its hull.

[Rod S.]

Regarding that larger original photograph you found on the Huntington Ingalls Industries website:

Why does the largest shipbuilding company in the USA show photographs of its operations on its website that depict its cranes and other large structures leaning over.

Architectural photographers deal with big, impressive structures at close range all the time, and show them vertical, as they really are.

To me, the photograph just looks like a casual grab shot.