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By RUSTY DENNEN
It was the biggest birthday bash ever at the Dahlgren Navy base, though the honoree, Rear Adm. John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren, was present only in spirit.
The base's namesake died in 1870, so about 20 of his descendants gathered yesterday for the invitation-only event featuring Navy brass, speakers and awards named after the admiral, and to show off the refurbished first gun fired at the base in 1918.
"We felt it was an appropriate and fitting honor that the name of someone who revolutionized naval gunnery and warfare should be honored," said Peter Kolakowski, operations department head of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. NSWC is the largest tenant command of the Naval Support Facility Dahlgren.
A welcoming letter to invitees from Capt. Catherine Hanft, commander of the Navy Support Activity South Potomac, and Capt. Sheila Patterson, commander NSWC, says Dahlgren's legacy is an organization "founded on the idea that systematic research and development could produce safer and more powerful weapons."
Dahlgren's influence on the base is evident to visitors entering the main gate. On display are two of his 12-pounder boat howitzers, designed in 1864. There's also a bronze bust.
NAVY INNOVATOR
Born in 1809, Dahlgren joined the Navy in 1826. He studied mathematics, scientific theory and the use of precision instruments at the Washington Navy Yard, according to "A Quest for Glory," a biography by Robert J. Schneller Jr.
Dahlgren excelled in a project to develop rockets for Navy ships, and in the 1850s created the Ordnance Establishment, the Navy's first weapons research and development program.
Dahlgren set up a firing range along the Anacostia River dubbed the Experimental Battery, according to Schneller, who was among those attending yesterday's ceremony.
The efforts "yielded integrated systems of shipboard armament, featuring light bronze boat guns, heavy smoothbore shell guns, and later, heavy rifled cannon," Schneller wrote.
A cast-iron, muzzle-loading cannon resembling a soda bottle was one of Dahlgren's most important designs and bore his name.
Retired Rear Adm. Jay A. DeLoach was the keynote speaker. He said Dahlgren "gave the American sailor something he'd never had before--an unshakable faith in their guns."
Ulric Dahlgren IV, Dahlgren's great-great-grandson, was among descendants present for the ceremony and a tour of the base.
Ulric, 68, who was born in Fredericksburg and is harbor master in Annapolis, Md., brought along some correspondence he had collected over the years.
He had a copy of a letter Dahlgren's son, also named Ulric, wrote to his famous father. The young man--thin and wiry like his father--was concerned about his weight.
Ulric, a Union Army colonel, was killed in an unsuccessful 1864 raid on the Confederate capital of Richmond.
"The thing about Admiral Dahlgren is that he was someone really diligent, a serious, serious guy. I think he probably wouldn't have done too many off-color things," Ulric IV said.
Dahlgren's contributions to the military, he added, are evident today.
"If you're asked to fight a war, you don't want to be sent with technologically backward equipment."
LINCOLN'S FRIEND
Marianne Dahlgren Pattyson remembered sitting on her father's knee and hearing about the Navy icon.
"Before I was born, they had it all planned. I was going to be a boy, going to the Naval Academy and becoming a rear admiral."
She laughed, "I have disappointed my family tremendously."
Pattyson and her husband, Brian, have a home in Connecticut and a ranch in Iowa.
Pattyson began to thirst for more information about her great-grandfather once she realized his prominence in the Navy.
Along the way, she inherited a game table given by Dahlgren to his good friend Abraham Lincoln. The table was returned to the family during the Truman administration. Pattyson donated it to the Cheshire Historical Society in Connecticut.
Dahlgren became synonymous with the base shortly after it was created in 1918, then known simply as the Lower Station.
At the time, Navy shore installations were named after geographic locations. But with the new proving ground on the Potomac River, the Navy agreed to consider naming it after an officer accomplished in the field of ordnance.
According to "The Sound of Freedom," by James P. Rife and Rodney P. Carlisle, several names were submitted: Dahlgren, Robert Stockton and Robert Dashiell, all Navy officers, and Phillip Alger, a Naval Academy professor.
Dahlgren got the nod from the Bureau of Ordnance as "the father of modern ordnance and gunnery."
Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division usually hands out its top honor, the Dahlgren Award, in late winter. But this year's three recipients were named yesterday during the Naval Support Facility Dahlgren's gathering to honor the base's namesake, the late Rear Adm. John Adolphus Dahlgren. Stuart A. Koch, acting technical director, was cited for "extraordinary leadership" in the Navy, and at NSWC, during a time of change and organizational challenges. Dan Mathis, deputy division head of mission assurance, was "instrumental in developing methodology for the Defense Department's Defense Critical Infrastructure Program." Michael A. Till, head of the gun systems and light weapons division, was cited for "extraordinary technical and line management leadership." |
Born on Nov. 13, 1809, in Philadelphia, John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren went on to become a military adviser to President Abraham Lincoln and an ordnance expert who revolutionized naval warfare. |
