SENDER THREAT…PASS TO NOB BERMUDA FOR ACTION … ARMY TUG RETURNING UNESCORTED TO BERMUDA WITH LEAKING FUEL TANKS. REQUEST PROVIDE ESCORT WITHIN 50 HOURS. — Message from USS Threat, February 5, 1944TUG REPORTS SHE IS SINKING APPROX. LAT 31-29 LONG 60-45 AT 1325Z. CHEROKEE DEPARTS BERMUDA 1600Z/6TH TO ASSIST.—Message from US NOB Bermuda, February 5, 1944The making of a clock is a complicated business that results in one of the simplest, but most important, in military parlance, “signals”, known to mankind. Two hands embellish the simple clock face and indicate the hour and minute by day or night. Behind the face of the clock are numerous gears, wheels, or cogs that move the hands in a consistent manner, (except perhaps the old clock at the Bermuda Dockyard, known as the “four-faced liar”), and that dependable motion allows people to live orderly lives and to turn up on time for important events, like a romantic date.Clocks are perhaps the earliest of complex “machines” and their symbolic value is expressed in the phrase, “It ran like clockwork”, when describing actions such as military campaigns. For such activities to run like clockwork, all the “cogs” have to be of the right dimensions, fitted into the right place, and moved at the right pace, etc, etc. Such was the cog-work for “D-Day”, when some 6,939 vessels (the largest fleet ever amassed) were “cogged in” for the invasion of France to defeat the occupying forces of Hitler’s German Reich.One of the smaller cogs in that great military exercise was a “large tug” of the US Army, labelled LT-23, which had a crew of smaller, but significant, wheels, including one Franklin Lee Brown, born Detroit, Michigan, on May 12, 1925. Frank recently visited the National Museum of Bermuda and kindly supplied Curator Elena Strong with an account of his sojourn at Bermuda, with the unknown destination of “Utah Beach” on the coast of Normandy on D-Day. Frank lived to tell his tale, unlike some 2,500 other Americans who died on Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944.Franklin Brown reported for duty on May 7, 1943 at Ashtabula, Ohio and left “Boot Camp” a month later. He was assigned to the Naval Communication School at the University of Chicago, a course that lasted 16 weeks. Instruction was given in semaphore, blinker (using Morse Code), flag hoist, plane spotting and related subjects; Brown graduated as Seaman First Class. Frank then transferred to the Armed Guard Center in Los Angeles, where: “We had a huge athletic field to practice on, which the residents had a perfect view of from above … by watching the different groups practice a lot of the gals learned semaphore … it was not uncommon to see a sailor talking to one of the gals via semaphone … some of the gals were better at it than us.”On January 19, 1944, Seaman Brown received orders to report for duty on USAT LT-23, via New Orleans to join Convoy CK-1 at Charleston, South Carolina; hence began his intersection with the fair isles of Bermuda, some 700 miles to the northeast. The initials CK were used only four times for convoys out of Charleston bound for Britain; Franklin would ship to Bermuda on CK-1 and later join CK-2. In retrospect and likely unknown to him, but obvious now from the makeup of the convoys, the final destination of the vessels of the two fleets was Normandy on D-Day.The LT-23, for a small vessel, carried the large name of Major CA McGarrigle and was built as a US Army tug by the Tampa Marine Corporation on the west coast of Florida in 1943. Later sold to Cie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez and renamed Bassel, the “large tug” LT-23 was still in service in 1966 in Egypt. In 1944, the tug was needed for towing duties from England to France for Operation Overlord.Convoy CK-1 departed Charleston on Thursday, January 20, 1944 with six Army Transport Ships, eleven small oil tankers and six tugs, escorted by Raven/Auk Class minesweepers, USS Owl, Kewaydin, Swerve, Threat and Tide, and three sub-chasers, PC-484, PC-1176 and PC-1261. The last was the first Allied vessel sunk on D-Day at 0534hrs in Ed Sector off Utah Beach. The convoy made a brief stop at Bermuda in early February and was proceeding in heavy weather on the fifth, when LT-23 had engine trouble and was told by the Commodore: ‘You will have to return to Bermuda unescorted … a Navy Tug from Bermuda will meet you in a couple of days.’Heading for Bermuda, the main engine broke down, followed by the auxiliary, which ran the bilge pumps, so LT-23 began to take on water. Spotted by a plane out of NOB Bermuda, Brown received the message a number of times by blinker: ‘How long can you stay afloat?’ The Captain of the tug got exasperated and told Frank to signal back ‘Until we sink!’ The engines were restarted and shortly thereafter, the tug USS Cherokee arrived to escort LT-23 to Bermuda, where she went into drydock at the Dockyard. Seaman Brown then spent some weeks on the island on various duties, including anti-aircraft practice on the South Shore site where the ‘Grand Atlantic’ housing complex now stands.On 13 April 1944, LT-23 joined Convoy CK-2 of a dozen vessels plus escorts and arrived intact at Milford Haven in Wales in the middle of May. Franklin Lee Brown on LT-23 then took part in the D-Day landings a few weeks later, towing two barges full of ammunition: ‘We got rid of the barges about a mile from the Utah Beach. We were happy to get rid of them!’Technologically speaking, the two most interesting vessels in Convoy CK-2 were the David O Saylor and the Vitruvius, as they had hulls not of steel but of concrete. McCloskey and Company at Tampa, Florida, built 24 such ships and they were named for significant individuals in the science and development of concrete, the earliest being the Roman architect Vitruvius. Those two ships were sunk as breakwaters on D-Day, while seven others are still afloat on the Powell River in Canada: Bermudians would undoubtedly like to know what type of re-bar McCloskey used!Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum at Dockyard. Comments may be made to director@bmm.bm or 704-5480