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Joseph Knefler Taussig | |
|---|---|
 Vice Admiral Joseph K. Taussig | |
| Born | (1877-08-30)August 30, 1877 Dresden, Germany |
| Died | October 29, 1947(1947-10-29) (aged 70) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. |
| Place of burial | |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Branch |  United States Navy |
| Service years | 1895–1941, 1943–1947 |
| Rank |  Vice admiral |
| Commands | Ammen Wadsworth Division 6, Destroyer Force Division 8, Destroyer Force Little Division of Enlisted Personnel, Bureau of Navigation Columbia Cleveland Trenton Maryland Battleship Division 3, Battle Force Cruisers, Scouting Force Norfolk Navy Yard Fifth Naval District |
| Conflicts | Spanish–American War Philippine–American War China Relief Expedition Cuban Pacification World War I Second Nicaraguan Campaign World War II |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Medal (World War I service) Legion of Merit Silver Life Saving Medal Purple Heart Medal Order of Saint Michael and Saint George U.K. Order of the Merit of Chile |
| Relations | Rear AdmiralEdward D. Taussig (father) Joseph K. Taussig Jr. (son) |
Joseph Knefler Taussig (30 August 1877 – 29 October 1947) was avice admiral in theUnited States Navy. He served in theSpanish–American War,Philippine–American War,China Relief Expedition,Cuban Pacification,World War I,Second Nicaraguan Campaign, andWorld War II.
The son of German-Jewish parentsRear AdmiralEdward D. Taussig and his wife Ellen Kneffler, the daughter ofFrederick Knefler, Joseph Taussig was Jewish[2] and was born inDresden,Germany, where his father, alieutenant (navy) was on special service at theEuropean Station (February 1877 – January 1880).[3] One of five sons, he entered theUnited States Naval Academy (USNA) in 1895. His older brother, Paul Taussig, had been enrolled at the USNA but died the previous July of a sudden onset of acuteappendicitis. Joseph Taussig, like his late brother, excelled in athletics at USNA. A football star, he wasquarterback for the 1899 Navy team. He also excelled attrack and field events and was president of the USNA Athletic Association. He was the second of a four-generational family of United States Naval Academy graduates that served from 1863 to 1970 starting with his father, Rear AdmiralEdward D. Taussig (1847–1921), continuing with his sonCaptainJoseph K. Taussig Jr. (1920–1999), and ending with his grandson, Captain Joseph K. Taussig III USMC (1945–). One of his daughters married George Philip for whom theUSS George Philip was named.
When theSpanish–American War began in April, 1898, Taussig was in his final year as acadet (asmidshipmen at USNA were known from the latter part of the 19th century until 1902). He was assigned to theflagship ofAdmiralWilliam T. Sampson, the cruiserNew York, and was on board during the bombardment ofAguadores andSantiago and the pivotal navalBattle of Santiago de Cuba on July 3, 1898, where the Spanish fleet was wiped out and AdmiralPascual Cervera taken prisoner.
Taussig was a prolific and talented journalist and writer during his entire 46-year naval career. In later years, his direct and honest candor earned him the professional disfavor ofAssistant Secretary of the Navy (and laterPresident of the United States)Franklin D. Roosevelt andSecretary of the NavyJosephus Daniels. In the daily 125 page journal (with an additional 35 pages of imprints) that Taussig maintained of his experiences and observations during the Spanish–American War, he wrote about the troops embarkation fromTampa, Florida, the Army landing atDaiquirí andSiboney, the condition of the Cuban and Spanish armies, theBattle of Santiago de Cuba, a visit toMorro Castle inHavana Harbor and the fleet's triumphal and feted return toNew York Navy Yard after the end of hostilities in August 1898. Taussig's journal includes his pencil sketches of troops, ships, locations, maps, and prints of naval personnel involved in the war. He also wrote numerous letters to his father and brother Charles Taussig, who became a well-known attorney in New York City. Returning to complete his studies at the USNA, Taussig graduated in the class of 1899.
Following graduation, he was assigned to theprotected cruiserNewark which departedNew York Naval Yard in March 1899 bound for thePhilippines. The ship made ports of call in the Caribbean, Caracas (Venezuela), Montevideo (Uruguay) and ports in Chile and Peru before heading up the California coast toMare Island Navy Yard near San Francisco for outfitting and repairs prior to deployment with theAsiatic Squadron. Departing from the West Coast,Newark made stops in Hawaii and Guam in transit to the Western Pacific and arrived in Cavite in November 1899. For the next five months,Newark was station ship at Vigan on the island of Luzon. During that time, Taussig was part of alanding party that embarked at Pamplona to rescue American citizens being held hostage by Insurrectos opposed to U.S. control of the Philippines. However, once there, thelanding party was ordered to return to the ship. In December,Newark moved toAparri where it accepted the surrender of the Insurrectos in the provinces ofIsabela,Cagayan andBataan.
In April 1900,Newark was ordered to sail to Japan and then toTaku, China as part of the multinationalChina Relief Expedition being mobilized to rescue the foreign legations in Peking that were then besieged by theBoxers, a movement that opposed the growing influence of European business interests and Christian missionaries in China. The joint naval force was under the command ofVice AdmiralEdward Hobart Seymour, Royal Navy with CaptainBowman H. McCalla, USN of theNewark, second in command. As a naval cadet member of the multinational landing force that came to be known as theSeymour Relief Expedition Taussig served alongside and began a long and fraternal professional association with Royal Navy officers CaptainJohn Jellicoe andLieutenantDavid Beatty who later advanced toFirst Sea Lords of the Royal Navy.
On June 7, 1900, the 2,100 strong Seymour Relief Expedition set out fromTientsin by train with the destination Peking and the objective the release of the besieged foreign legations. However, progress was repeatedly halted due to stretches of track that had been torn up by theBoxers and intermittent attacks. The imperial forces of theDowager Empress were allied with the Boxers and joined in the attacks. Just seven days into its rescue mission, the expedition was forced to retreat to Tientsin due to the rail-bed both north and south of Yang Tsun being destroyed by the Boxers, cutting off the force's supply replenishment. During the retreat, Taussig was seriously wounded in the leg during a Boxer attack. He recovered in Japan and was advanced four numbers in grade because of his injury. Forty-three years later he was awarded thePurple Heart for his combat wounds.
As he had done during the Spanish–American War, Taussig maintained a daily journal of the time he was in the Philippines and subsequently China while attached toNewark as a naval cadet. These include detailed descriptions of his shipmates and officers including CaptainBowman H. McCalla of theNewark, Vice Admiral Seymour, the progress and setback of the Seymour Expedition, the political dynamics, social customs and recreation in China, and drawings of engineering details ofNewark and urban scenes in Vigan and Pamplona. Of tactical significance, the journal includes a list of the ports of call forNewark and an intelligence report on the fortifications of Sydney, Australia and the government ofNew South Wales. Taussig submitted his journal to CaptainJohn Fremont of theCulgoa who attested to it and pronounced it an excellent piece of work. The 120 page journal that Taussig wrote during his time attached toNewark was the basis for his April 1927 article on the Seymour Relief Expedition, one of forty-four articles that he eventually authored for theU.S. Naval Institute magazineProceedings.
Following recuperation from his leg wound, Taussig was assigned to theNashville in the Philippines and then to theCulgoa, a supply ship carrying food stores for the Army from Australia to the Philippines. Following that, he was assigned toYorktown commanded by his father,CommanderEdward D. Taussig USN. While serving onYorktown at Yokohama Harbor, Taussig rescued a shipmate who had gone to the rescue of another drowning man. Both men were saved and for his heroism, Taussig was awarded theSilver Life Saving Medal by theU.S. Treasury Department in 1902. Of the numerous personal decorations andservice medals he was awarded, it was the medal that Taussig prized most throughout his life.
After two years as a naval cadet, and having participated in three separate conflicts initiated by native interests opposing foreign intervention by the age of twenty-three, Taussig was commissionedensign on 28 January 1901 to begin a series of promotions and distinctions that would underscore his service to the navy. Returning to the United States from theAsiatic Squadron in 1902, he was assigned toTexas and next served asnavigator onTopeka. In 1905 he was onAmphitrite, the station ship at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The following year he wasnavigator andexecutive officer onCeltic. In 1907, Taussig joined the officer staff ofKansas, one of the ships of theGreat White Fleet that circumnavigated the globe in 1907 as a demonstration of U.S. Naval seapower and global presence. After the fleet rounded Cape Horn and steamed up the western coasts of South and North America, he detached fromKansas atMare Island Navy Yard and was assigned to the staff of his father, Edward D. Taussig, by then a rear admiral and commandant of theNorfolk Navy Yard. In 1910 he was appointedflag secretary and aide to Rear AdmiralCharles Vreeland, commander of the 2nd and 4th Divisions of theAtlantic Fleet.
Promoted tolieutenant commander, in 1911 he took command of the destroyerAmmen, followed by an assignment to theBureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C., until 1915. This duty gave Taussig the background experience which resulted in his exposing personnel shortcomings in the navy followingWorld War I. In 1915, he first locked horns with thenAssistant Navy SecretaryFranklin D. Roosevelt andNavy SecretaryJosephus Daniels when he and several other navy officers, notably AdmiralWilliam Sims, were critical of a program that provided for the use of paroled criminals to fill the depleted ranks of enlisted personnel. In 1915, Taussig returned to sea in command of the newly commissioned destroyerWadsworth andDivision 6, Destroyer Force,Atlantic Fleet. The following year, Taussig received promotion to the rank ofcommander.
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In July 1916, after serving inbattleships,cruisers,destroyers, and on staffs afloat, Taussig was assigned command of Division 8, Destroyer Force (DesDiv 8),Atlantic Fleet. The US enteredWorld War I in April 1917. At that time, Britain was suffering from uncheckedU-boat attacks on merchant shipping in the North Atlantic, so in May 1917 PresidentWoodrow Wilson ordered DesDiv 8 toQueenstown, Ireland, to assist the BritishRoyal Navy - the first group of American destroyers sent abroad during the war.
After a nine-day Atlantic crossing, most of the time in a severe southeast gale, DesDiv 8 reached Queenstown, the occasion commemorated inBernard F. Gribble'sReturn of the Mayflower.The British commander at Queenstown, Vice AdmiralSir Lewis Bayly, hosted a dinner in the Americans' honor on the night of their arrival. At the dinner, Bayly asked Commander Taussig "When will you be ready to go to sea?" Taussig replied in the now famous words: "We are ready now, sir; that is, as soon as we finish refueling."[4]
For an attack on a German U-boat on 29 July 1917, he was awarded theDistinguished Service Medal, at that time the Navy's second highest valor award. In December 1917, he returned to the US to take command of the newly commissioned destroyerLittle. By May 1918,Little was in Europe, patrolling off the coast ofFrance. The journal that Commander Taussig kept of his service in World War I was published in 1996 by theNaval War College Press under the titleThe Queenstown Patrol, 1917. With the war winding down, he was detached to theBureau of Navigation in August 1918.
Promoted tocaptain in September 1918, he was assigned to head the Division of Enlisted Personnel of theBureau of Navigation. Aware of the inadequacies of manpower from his experience in the fleet during World War I, in 1920, he was embroiled in a publicized dispute withAssistant Secretary of the NavyFranklin D. Roosevelt and testified before theU.S. Senate Subcommittee on Navy Affairs regarding the personnel shortage in the navy, stating that navy department heads had failed "to take adequate steps to provide personnel necessary for the proper conduct of the navy during the war." For his outspoken views, Taussig earned the lifetime enmity of Roosevelt, who was in a political fight with theRepublican Party over his nomination asVice President, and wrote a sharp letter to the navy subcommittee denying Taussig's charges.
Taussig candidly maintained that, "the Navy was far from being ready for War... and the enlisted personnel was entirely inadequate for the proper manning of our already completed ships on a peace time basis, and was dangerously inadequate should we suddenly be thrown into war." SecretaryJosephus Daniels was angered by Taussig's dissent and denied publication of Taussig's prize-winning essay on naval personnel in theNaval Institute press.
In 1919 he attended the senior course at theNaval War College, graduating in 1920 and appointed to the staff of the president of the Naval War College. The following year he was a staff member in the Tactics Department. In 1921 he was assigned to commandGreat Northern, later renamedColumbia, briefly flagship of the United States Atlantic Fleet. In 1922 his ship,Cleveland, rendered assistance to the victims of anearthquake and tsunami in Chile. For his actions, he was awarded theOrder of the Merit of Chile for his efforts in the earthquake relief during 1922. In 1923, he was Assistant Chief of Staff, to AdmiralHilary P. Jones, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet for six months.
From July 1923 to June 1926, he was on the staff of the Naval War College where he was Chairman of the Strategy Department. In 1926, he was given command of thelight cruiserTrenton. From 1927 to 1930, he returned to the Naval War College as Chief of Staff and on 16 May 1930, was given command of the battleshipMaryland. He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 July 1931 and served as chief of staff to AdmiralRichard H. Leigh, Commander, Battle Fleet. In 1933 he was appointed AssistantChief of Naval Operations in the Navy Department. However, with Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) having been inaugurated President of the United States in January of that year, according to AdmiralFrederic S. Withington, Taussig never had a chance of promotion beyond rear admiral because of his dispute with FDR in the 1920s. FDR was criticized by newspaper columnistsDrew Pearson andRobert S. Allen in 1936 when instead of appointing Taussig commander of the United States Fleet, he was assigned to commandBattleship Division 3, Battle Force, with his flag on theIdaho. In 1937, still with the rank of rear admiral, he was appointed commander of Cruisers,Scouting Force, with his flag on the heavy cruiserChicago. In May 1938, he was attached as commandant, Norfolk Navy Yard andFifth Naval District, a billet his father Edward D. Taussig had filled thirty years earlier.
In May 1940, Taussig again locked horns with now-president Franklin D. Roosevelt, when Massachusetts SenatorDavid I. Walsh invited Taussig to testify at Senate hearings on plans to expand the navy. Taussig advocated the building ofIowa-class andMontana-classbattleships and offered testimony to the aggressive, imperialistic designs of theEmpire of Japan that planned to annex China, the Philippines and theDutch East Indies. He warned of the superiority of the Japanese Merchant fleet to that of the US, and the need to replenish U.S. bases in the Pacific Ocean and prepare for defense of the Philippines, stating, "I cannot see how we can escape being forced into war based on the present trends of events." He also claimed that theTanaka Memorial was genuine. Taussig's testimony set off a controversy that lasted in the press for weeks and infuriated FDR who wanted Taussig relieved of his command of Norfolk Navy Yard and theFifth Naval District. However,Chief of Naval Operations AdmiralHarold R. Stark convinced Roosevelt to reconsider and Roosevelt took no action; however, Stark publicly stated that Taussig's views were contrary to the Navy Department's and on 23 April 1940, issued a reprimand that was placed in Taussig's file.
Rear Admiral Taussig was forced to retire in September 1941 due to his age, despite his petition to continue on active duty with the impending international crisis. He was promoted to vice admiral on 22 October 1941 due to his service in theBoxer Rebellion. He had testified to the Senate committee on naval affairs in April 1940 that war with Japan over the Philippines was inevitable without a change in policy. His testimony included accurate predictions on the coming war in the Pacific. According to a May 9, 1940 article byDrew Pearson, Taussig was forced into retirement due to his public prediction that war with Japan was inevitable. In a June 9, 1940 article authored by Drew Pearson andRobert S. Allen, Taussig was referred to as "the star scholar and strategist of the navy."
On 8 December 1941, PresidentRoosevelt ordered the reprimand removed from Taussig's personnel file, after his son, EnsignJoseph K. Taussig Jr. was severely wounded and lost his leg, earning aNavy Cross while serving on theNevada during the Japaneseattack on Pearl Harbor.
Taussig's request to return to active duty was ultimately granted in 1943 and he served in theoffice of theSecretary of the Navy on the Naval Clemency and Prison Inspection Board, the Naval Discipline Policy Review Board, and the Procurement and Retirement Board, until 1 June 1947, only a few months before his death.
Vice Admiral Taussig died on 29 October 1947 atBethesda Naval Hospital. He was one of a very few individuals who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.
His survivors then included his wife of 38 years,Lulie Johnston Taussig, of Washington, D.C. and Jamestown, RI; two daughters, Mrs. Emily Whitney Sherman, of Newport, RI and Mrs. Margaret Philip Helmer of Irvine, CA and his son Captain Joseph K. Taussig, Jr. of Annapolis, MD. His daughter Margaret had been married to CommanderGeorge Philip Jr. until his death in 1945.
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The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Distinguished Service Medal to Captain Joseph Knefler Taussig, Sr., United States Navy, for exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. WADSWORTH, engaged in the important, exacting, and hazardous duty of patrolling the waters infested with enemy submarines and mines, in escorting and protecting vitally important convoys of troops and supplies through these waters, and in offensive and defensive action, vigorously and unremittingly prosecuted against all forms of enemy naval activity; and especially for a successful attack upon an enemy submarine on 29 July 1917.[5]
This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.