U.S. Navy veteran (1929-1957), Engineman Chief Petty Officer (ENC), and member of the U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition of 1939-41. He was the longest serving sailor on the Navy's oldest sea-going ship, USS Bear, during World War II.
Charles was the oldest son of William F. and Ella Lytton Meyer, born May 27, 1905, in Brookport, Illinois. Around 1910, his family moved to Dunedin, Florida, where his two younger brothers and sisters were born and where he graduated from high school. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 1, 1929 and received training at Hampton Roads, VA, attending the naval engineering school. For six years he was in charge of the machine shop aboard the battleship, U.S.S. Nevada (BB-36), before transferring to experimental laboratory work at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, WA. Following that, on April 25, 1939 he reported to the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Lexington (CA-2), then homeported at San Pedro, CA. As a chief machinist mate (CMM), Meyer was in charge of "D" engine room on the "Lady Lex".
On September 29, 1939, he was detached from the Lexington to report to the USS Bear (AG-29), the former "Bear of Oakland", a steam-powered barquentine schooner built in Scotland in 1874 for sealing, but purchased in 1884 by the U.S. Revenue Service, predecessor to the Coast Guard. The Bear had primarily seen duty as a cutter in Alaska until decommissioned in 1926 and given to the city of Oakland, CA to become a museum ship.
In 1932, famed Navy Polar Explorer, ADM Richard E. Byrd had purchased the Bear from the city of Oakland for $1,050. Bear and the old steel-hulled lumber ship S.S. Pacific Fir, renamed the Jacob Ruppert after one of Byrd's financial backers, carried the 1935 "Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition". Following that expedition, Admiral Byrd leased the Bear to the U.S. Navy for $1 a year.
On July 7, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Byrd for a private White House meeting to inform him of his intention to establish a permanent American presence on the continent. FDR designated Byrd commanding officer of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS), which was supported by the Navy, Interior, State, and Treasury Departments. Refitted with new sails, spars and a diesel engine, the Bear of Oakland was recommissioned U.S.S. Bear at Byrd's hometown of Boston on September 11, 1939. Bear along with the merchantman U.S.M.S. North Star (supplied by the Dept. of Interior) would depart separately from Boston on November 22 and 15, respectively, carrying 125 men, 130 sledge- dogs and kennels, several hundred tons of coal and supplies, two light Army tanks, two light tractors, three airplanes, and a massive, rubber-tired one-of-a-kind "Snow Cruiser" for the 1939-41 U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition.
Most of the men were recruited from all three branches of the military, civil service and scientific institutions, with a few volunteers employed by the Department of the Interior at $10 per month, with food and clothing included. A total of fifty-nine men, divided initially into three groups, wintered in Antarctica and remained the entire 18 months at one of the two base camps the men established: East Base and West Base.
Two thousand sailors applied for forty spots in the expedition. Chief Meyer was one of two chief petty officers (both machinist mates) selected for the U.S.S. Bear's crew of thirty-three men and eight officers. Although he did not apply for it, Meyer was selected for additional duty as the pilot and machinist of the "Snow Cruiser", the highly publicized, $150,000, 27-ton (37 tons loaded), 55' long, 5,000 mile cruising range, snow-terrain vehicle designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, Scientific Director of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago and built by the Pullman Company with funding from seventy different private companies. Officially named "Penguin 1", the red painted behemoth was designed to carry a 5-person, Beech 17 "Staggerwing" airplane and a crew of four men: operator/ machinist, aviator, radioman and scientist on long- distance exploratory treks over the frozen Antarctic.
The objectives of the expedition were outlined in an order from FDR dated November 25, 1939. The President wanted two bases to be established: East Base, in the vicinity of Charcot Island or Alexander I Land, or on Marguerite Bay if no accessible site could be found on either of the specified islands; and West Base, in the vicinity of King Edward VII Land, but if this proved impossible, a site on the Bay of Whales at or near Little America was to be investigated, and delineation of the continental coast line between the meridians 72 degrees W., and 148 degrees W.
A 600 horsepower Atlas Imperial diesel engine had been installed on the Bear to help push the ice. The Bear was under sail for the majority of the journey to the ice. She was never in shipping lanes and spent a great deal of time in uncharted waters. The diesel engines were used as little as possible in order to save fuel. The crew sailed for weeks without seeing other ships or land.
U.S.M.S North Star steamed into the Bay of Whales to establish West Base on January 12, 1940. U.S.S. Bear entered the bay on January 14, 1940. Working in two 12-hour shifts, the Bear was unloaded in less than a week and by January 24, the North Star was underway for Valparaiso, Chile, to pick up additional supplies, including a Navy twin-engine Curtiss-Wright Condor plane and prefabricated buildings. Meanwhile, the Bear under Byrd's command, worked its way eastward from the Ross Sea along the edge of the pack ice to locate a suitable site for East Base. This was not discovered until a reconnaissance flight on March 8, by Byrd, LCDR Richard Black, the East Base commander, East Base pilot ACMM Ashley C. Snow and co-pilot/ radioman RM1c Earl B. Perce. An island on the north side of Neny Bay, just north of Alexander Island and Marguerite Bay, became the home of East Base. The island was subsequently named Stonington Island.
North Star joined the Bear at East Base laden with the supplies and prefabricated buildings she had boarded at Valparaiso. Offloading was completed on the evening of March 20, the first day of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Both ships stood out from Antarctica the next morning, the Bear bound for Boston and the North Star for Seattle, to resume her duties carrying supplies to Alaska during the spring and summer. For unknown reasons, Chief Meyer ulimately remained attached to the USS Bear crew and was not one of the four crewman of the Snow Cruiser (along with "Navy", the 8-year old "retired" lead sledge-dog and veteran of Byrd's 1935 Expedition, along with his owner, Dr. F. Alton Wade) that ultimately "wintered over" in Antarctica.
The difficulties that plagued Chief Meyers and the rest of the crew driving the Snow Cruiser from Chicago to Boston, presaged the problems that were to come in Antarctica. The Snow Cruiser's performance proved to be a disappointment and the great expectations, including a trip to the South Pole, were quickly abandoned. Despite its twin diesel engines that delivered 300 horsepower, its gear ratio designed for speed had sacrificed too much torque. The huge, 10' tall and relatively smooth, Goodyear tires, the largest molded to date by the company, couldn't gain traction and the behemoth became mired by snow chocks that built up in front of the massive tires. The tires spun in place, managing to sink the vehicle as much as 3 feet in the snow and the motors overheated after it had gone only a few hundred yards. To gain traction, the team mounted the spare tires to the front wheels but this proved insufficient to correct the problems. Barely inching along, the cruiser made it to West Base and was parked there, its crew, CPL Felix Ferranto, USMC, radio operator; Dr. Wade; Beech "Staggerwing" pilot TSGT Theodore Petras, USMC and MM2c Clyde W. Griffith USN, diesel mechanic, absorbed into the contingent of twenty-nine men led by Dr. Paul Siple, the base commander.
On the 1940 return trip to the States, the Bear experienced 100-knot winds in the Strait of Magellan. They anchored off Patagonia to assess damage to the ship. The Patagonian pirates would move the sea buoys and land beacons in order to make ships run aground. Armed guards were posted in order to keep pirates from boarding. The U.S.S. Bear arrived at Boston on June 5, 1940 and its crew was given leave. While Chief Meyer was visiting his wife and parents in Florida, he was interviewed for a national wire service article on June 22. He complained that he couldn't get used to the 90 degree heat and noted the shortcomings of the Snow Cruiser, concluding that it was "not so hot".
With international tensions on the rise, it was decided to evacuate the two U.S. Antarctic bases rather than relieve the men with replacements. Chief Meyer and the crew of U.S.S. Bear sailed from Philadelphia on October 13, 1940 and U.S.M.S. North Wind stood out from Seattle on December 11, bound for Antarctica. The plan was that one day the bases would be reoccupied and so much of the equipment and supplies were left behind as the two ships sailed from West Base on February 1, 1941. The evacuation of East Base was concluded on March 22 and both ships sailed immediately. On the journey the Bear hit an iceberg during a whiteout, causing damage to the jib boom and bowsprit. They docked at Punta Arenas for repairs. A reporter for Time magazine asked a member of the ice party what they planned to do while in Punta Arenas. "Rock collecting" was the answer. The North Star arrived in Boston on May 5 and the Bear on May 18.
With her Antarctic duties completed, U.S.S Bear assumed regular patrol duties, homeported out of Boston. On September 12, 1941, the schooner towed the German-controlled Norwegian sealer Buskø into Boston, following its capture by the Coast Guard cutter Northland. The Nazis had been using the ship to supply secret weather stations in the Northwestern Atlantic. On September 29, 1941, Charls Meyer married May Straitiff, a divorcee.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Meyer remained attached to the U.S.S Bear when the ship served in the Northeast Atlantic Greenland Patrol. The rigging was cut down to two masts to become a fully motorized ship with auxiliary sail power that was not used during the war. When more modern ships were available to replace her, U.S.S. Bear was decommissioned on May 17, 1944 and laid up in Boston until the end of the war.
The Bear had the distinction of being the oldest U.S. Navy ship to be deployed outside the continental United States during World War II. She was also one of a very few U.S. Navy ships to have served during the Spanish–American War as well as both world wars. Chief Machinist Mate Charls Meyer remained on the Bear through her last day on the rolls as an active Navy ship. With four and a half years on the Bear, all as a chief petty officer, he was the longest serving Navy non-commissioned officer during the 70- year- old ship's many lives and one of only two remaining crew-members from the 1939 Antarctic Expedition still on the ship when she was decommissioned, the other being the Chief Commissary Steward (CCS), Charles E. Nussbaum.
Meyer retired from the Navy on June 28, 1957 after 28 years continuous service, including World War II and the Korean Conflict. He had visited both the Arctic and Antarctic during his time in the Navy. Following retirement, he and his wife May remained in Waukegan, IL, where they had lived during his duty at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station late in his career. Charls Meyer went to work for Johnson (marine) Motors in Waukegan, until his retirement in 1968. In 1970, he and his wife relocated to her hometown, Indiana, PA.
Mr. Meyer was a member of the Calvary United Presbyterian Church of Indiana, life member of V.F.W. Post 1989, Indiana, PA, Masonic Lodge #192 F&AM, Dunedin, FL, American Polar Society, Fleet Reserve Assoc. Great Lakes Branch 53, Gurnee, IL, Eastern Star Mid- Pacific Chapter 10, Honolulu, HI and AARP.
Charls L. Meyer, died unexpectedly on Monday, May 13, 1974, at his home, 192 N. 12th St., Indiana, PA. He was 68 and survived by his widow, May Straitiff Meyer; a step-daughter, Mrs. Paul D. (Bette) Pearson, Houtzdale; a brother: William F. Meyer Jr. of New Jersey; a sister: Miss Thea Meyer of Clearwater, FL; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Harry P. Meyer and step-son, Thomas E. Borland, who had died the previous month, April 24, 1974. Borland was only sixteen years younger than his step-father and had also been a Navy veteran of WWII and Korea. Meyer had attended his funeral and visitation just three weeks earlier at the same funeral home where his family and friends now gathered to pay respects to him.
Charls Meyer's family received his friends from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday, May 16, 1974, at Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home, in Indiana, PA. A Masonic service was conducted at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Thursday evening and VFW Post 1989 met at 7:30 p.m. at the funeral home to honor their comrade.
Services were held at the funeral home on Friday, May 17, 1974 at 1:30 p.m. with the Rev. E. Vincent Stratton, officiating. Interment followed at Oakland Cemetery, Indiana, PA.
Chief Meyer was laid to rest 30 years to the day after the U.S.S. Bear had been decommissioned, never to sail again.
(Some information from the Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, PA, Wed, 15 May 1974, page 37)
Grateful thanks to Member B. Felix for his generous time and expense in driving fifty miles to take the memorial photos of Chief Meyer, his wife and stepson's gravesites.
Charles was the oldest son of William F. and Ella Lytton Meyer, born May 27, 1905, in Brookport, Illinois. Around 1910, his family moved to Dunedin, Florida, where his two younger brothers and sisters were born and where he graduated from high school. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 1, 1929 and received training at Hampton Roads, VA, attending the naval engineering school. For six years he was in charge of the machine shop aboard the battleship, U.S.S. Nevada (BB-36), before transferring to experimental laboratory work at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, WA. Following that, on April 25, 1939 he reported to the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Lexington (CA-2), then homeported at San Pedro, CA. As a chief machinist mate (CMM), Meyer was in charge of "D" engine room on the "Lady Lex".
On September 29, 1939, he was detached from the Lexington to report to the USS Bear (AG-29), the former "Bear of Oakland", a steam-powered barquentine schooner built in Scotland in 1874 for sealing, but purchased in 1884 by the U.S. Revenue Service, predecessor to the Coast Guard. The Bear had primarily seen duty as a cutter in Alaska until decommissioned in 1926 and given to the city of Oakland, CA to become a museum ship.
In 1932, famed Navy Polar Explorer, ADM Richard E. Byrd had purchased the Bear from the city of Oakland for $1,050. Bear and the old steel-hulled lumber ship S.S. Pacific Fir, renamed the Jacob Ruppert after one of Byrd's financial backers, carried the 1935 "Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition". Following that expedition, Admiral Byrd leased the Bear to the U.S. Navy for $1 a year.
On July 7, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Byrd for a private White House meeting to inform him of his intention to establish a permanent American presence on the continent. FDR designated Byrd commanding officer of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS), which was supported by the Navy, Interior, State, and Treasury Departments. Refitted with new sails, spars and a diesel engine, the Bear of Oakland was recommissioned U.S.S. Bear at Byrd's hometown of Boston on September 11, 1939. Bear along with the merchantman U.S.M.S. North Star (supplied by the Dept. of Interior) would depart separately from Boston on November 22 and 15, respectively, carrying 125 men, 130 sledge- dogs and kennels, several hundred tons of coal and supplies, two light Army tanks, two light tractors, three airplanes, and a massive, rubber-tired one-of-a-kind "Snow Cruiser" for the 1939-41 U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition.
Most of the men were recruited from all three branches of the military, civil service and scientific institutions, with a few volunteers employed by the Department of the Interior at $10 per month, with food and clothing included. A total of fifty-nine men, divided initially into three groups, wintered in Antarctica and remained the entire 18 months at one of the two base camps the men established: East Base and West Base.
Two thousand sailors applied for forty spots in the expedition. Chief Meyer was one of two chief petty officers (both machinist mates) selected for the U.S.S. Bear's crew of thirty-three men and eight officers. Although he did not apply for it, Meyer was selected for additional duty as the pilot and machinist of the "Snow Cruiser", the highly publicized, $150,000, 27-ton (37 tons loaded), 55' long, 5,000 mile cruising range, snow-terrain vehicle designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, Scientific Director of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago and built by the Pullman Company with funding from seventy different private companies. Officially named "Penguin 1", the red painted behemoth was designed to carry a 5-person, Beech 17 "Staggerwing" airplane and a crew of four men: operator/ machinist, aviator, radioman and scientist on long- distance exploratory treks over the frozen Antarctic.
The objectives of the expedition were outlined in an order from FDR dated November 25, 1939. The President wanted two bases to be established: East Base, in the vicinity of Charcot Island or Alexander I Land, or on Marguerite Bay if no accessible site could be found on either of the specified islands; and West Base, in the vicinity of King Edward VII Land, but if this proved impossible, a site on the Bay of Whales at or near Little America was to be investigated, and delineation of the continental coast line between the meridians 72 degrees W., and 148 degrees W.
A 600 horsepower Atlas Imperial diesel engine had been installed on the Bear to help push the ice. The Bear was under sail for the majority of the journey to the ice. She was never in shipping lanes and spent a great deal of time in uncharted waters. The diesel engines were used as little as possible in order to save fuel. The crew sailed for weeks without seeing other ships or land.
U.S.M.S North Star steamed into the Bay of Whales to establish West Base on January 12, 1940. U.S.S. Bear entered the bay on January 14, 1940. Working in two 12-hour shifts, the Bear was unloaded in less than a week and by January 24, the North Star was underway for Valparaiso, Chile, to pick up additional supplies, including a Navy twin-engine Curtiss-Wright Condor plane and prefabricated buildings. Meanwhile, the Bear under Byrd's command, worked its way eastward from the Ross Sea along the edge of the pack ice to locate a suitable site for East Base. This was not discovered until a reconnaissance flight on March 8, by Byrd, LCDR Richard Black, the East Base commander, East Base pilot ACMM Ashley C. Snow and co-pilot/ radioman RM1c Earl B. Perce. An island on the north side of Neny Bay, just north of Alexander Island and Marguerite Bay, became the home of East Base. The island was subsequently named Stonington Island.
North Star joined the Bear at East Base laden with the supplies and prefabricated buildings she had boarded at Valparaiso. Offloading was completed on the evening of March 20, the first day of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Both ships stood out from Antarctica the next morning, the Bear bound for Boston and the North Star for Seattle, to resume her duties carrying supplies to Alaska during the spring and summer. For unknown reasons, Chief Meyer ulimately remained attached to the USS Bear crew and was not one of the four crewman of the Snow Cruiser (along with "Navy", the 8-year old "retired" lead sledge-dog and veteran of Byrd's 1935 Expedition, along with his owner, Dr. F. Alton Wade) that ultimately "wintered over" in Antarctica.
The difficulties that plagued Chief Meyers and the rest of the crew driving the Snow Cruiser from Chicago to Boston, presaged the problems that were to come in Antarctica. The Snow Cruiser's performance proved to be a disappointment and the great expectations, including a trip to the South Pole, were quickly abandoned. Despite its twin diesel engines that delivered 300 horsepower, its gear ratio designed for speed had sacrificed too much torque. The huge, 10' tall and relatively smooth, Goodyear tires, the largest molded to date by the company, couldn't gain traction and the behemoth became mired by snow chocks that built up in front of the massive tires. The tires spun in place, managing to sink the vehicle as much as 3 feet in the snow and the motors overheated after it had gone only a few hundred yards. To gain traction, the team mounted the spare tires to the front wheels but this proved insufficient to correct the problems. Barely inching along, the cruiser made it to West Base and was parked there, its crew, CPL Felix Ferranto, USMC, radio operator; Dr. Wade; Beech "Staggerwing" pilot TSGT Theodore Petras, USMC and MM2c Clyde W. Griffith USN, diesel mechanic, absorbed into the contingent of twenty-nine men led by Dr. Paul Siple, the base commander.
On the 1940 return trip to the States, the Bear experienced 100-knot winds in the Strait of Magellan. They anchored off Patagonia to assess damage to the ship. The Patagonian pirates would move the sea buoys and land beacons in order to make ships run aground. Armed guards were posted in order to keep pirates from boarding. The U.S.S. Bear arrived at Boston on June 5, 1940 and its crew was given leave. While Chief Meyer was visiting his wife and parents in Florida, he was interviewed for a national wire service article on June 22. He complained that he couldn't get used to the 90 degree heat and noted the shortcomings of the Snow Cruiser, concluding that it was "not so hot".
With international tensions on the rise, it was decided to evacuate the two U.S. Antarctic bases rather than relieve the men with replacements. Chief Meyer and the crew of U.S.S. Bear sailed from Philadelphia on October 13, 1940 and U.S.M.S. North Wind stood out from Seattle on December 11, bound for Antarctica. The plan was that one day the bases would be reoccupied and so much of the equipment and supplies were left behind as the two ships sailed from West Base on February 1, 1941. The evacuation of East Base was concluded on March 22 and both ships sailed immediately. On the journey the Bear hit an iceberg during a whiteout, causing damage to the jib boom and bowsprit. They docked at Punta Arenas for repairs. A reporter for Time magazine asked a member of the ice party what they planned to do while in Punta Arenas. "Rock collecting" was the answer. The North Star arrived in Boston on May 5 and the Bear on May 18.
With her Antarctic duties completed, U.S.S Bear assumed regular patrol duties, homeported out of Boston. On September 12, 1941, the schooner towed the German-controlled Norwegian sealer Buskø into Boston, following its capture by the Coast Guard cutter Northland. The Nazis had been using the ship to supply secret weather stations in the Northwestern Atlantic. On September 29, 1941, Charls Meyer married May Straitiff, a divorcee.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Meyer remained attached to the U.S.S Bear when the ship served in the Northeast Atlantic Greenland Patrol. The rigging was cut down to two masts to become a fully motorized ship with auxiliary sail power that was not used during the war. When more modern ships were available to replace her, U.S.S. Bear was decommissioned on May 17, 1944 and laid up in Boston until the end of the war.
The Bear had the distinction of being the oldest U.S. Navy ship to be deployed outside the continental United States during World War II. She was also one of a very few U.S. Navy ships to have served during the Spanish–American War as well as both world wars. Chief Machinist Mate Charls Meyer remained on the Bear through her last day on the rolls as an active Navy ship. With four and a half years on the Bear, all as a chief petty officer, he was the longest serving Navy non-commissioned officer during the 70- year- old ship's many lives and one of only two remaining crew-members from the 1939 Antarctic Expedition still on the ship when she was decommissioned, the other being the Chief Commissary Steward (CCS), Charles E. Nussbaum.
Meyer retired from the Navy on June 28, 1957 after 28 years continuous service, including World War II and the Korean Conflict. He had visited both the Arctic and Antarctic during his time in the Navy. Following retirement, he and his wife May remained in Waukegan, IL, where they had lived during his duty at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station late in his career. Charls Meyer went to work for Johnson (marine) Motors in Waukegan, until his retirement in 1968. In 1970, he and his wife relocated to her hometown, Indiana, PA.
Mr. Meyer was a member of the Calvary United Presbyterian Church of Indiana, life member of V.F.W. Post 1989, Indiana, PA, Masonic Lodge #192 F&AM, Dunedin, FL, American Polar Society, Fleet Reserve Assoc. Great Lakes Branch 53, Gurnee, IL, Eastern Star Mid- Pacific Chapter 10, Honolulu, HI and AARP.
Charls L. Meyer, died unexpectedly on Monday, May 13, 1974, at his home, 192 N. 12th St., Indiana, PA. He was 68 and survived by his widow, May Straitiff Meyer; a step-daughter, Mrs. Paul D. (Bette) Pearson, Houtzdale; a brother: William F. Meyer Jr. of New Jersey; a sister: Miss Thea Meyer of Clearwater, FL; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Harry P. Meyer and step-son, Thomas E. Borland, who had died the previous month, April 24, 1974. Borland was only sixteen years younger than his step-father and had also been a Navy veteran of WWII and Korea. Meyer had attended his funeral and visitation just three weeks earlier at the same funeral home where his family and friends now gathered to pay respects to him.
Charls Meyer's family received his friends from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday, May 16, 1974, at Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home, in Indiana, PA. A Masonic service was conducted at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Thursday evening and VFW Post 1989 met at 7:30 p.m. at the funeral home to honor their comrade.
Services were held at the funeral home on Friday, May 17, 1974 at 1:30 p.m. with the Rev. E. Vincent Stratton, officiating. Interment followed at Oakland Cemetery, Indiana, PA.
Chief Meyer was laid to rest 30 years to the day after the U.S.S. Bear had been decommissioned, never to sail again.
(Some information from the Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, PA, Wed, 15 May 1974, page 37)
Grateful thanks to Member B. Felix for his generous time and expense in driving fifty miles to take the memorial photos of Chief Meyer, his wife and stepson's gravesites.
U.S. Navy veteran (1929-1957), Engineman Chief Petty Officer (ENC), and member of the U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition of 1939-41. He was the longest serving sailor on the Navy's oldest sea-going ship, USS Bear, during World War II.
Charles was the oldest son of William F. and Ella Lytton Meyer, born May 27, 1905, in Brookport, Illinois. Around 1910, his family moved to Dunedin, Florida, where his two younger brothers and sisters were born and where he graduated from high school. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 1, 1929 and received training at Hampton Roads, VA, attending the naval engineering school. For six years he was in charge of the machine shop aboard the battleship, U.S.S. Nevada (BB-36), before transferring to experimental laboratory work at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, WA. Following that, on April 25, 1939 he reported to the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Lexington (CA-2), then homeported at San Pedro, CA. As a chief machinist mate (CMM), Meyer was in charge of "D" engine room on the "Lady Lex".
On September 29, 1939, he was detached from the Lexington to report to the USS Bear (AG-29), the former "Bear of Oakland", a steam-powered barquentine schooner built in Scotland in 1874 for sealing, but purchased in 1884 by the U.S. Revenue Service, predecessor to the Coast Guard. The Bear had primarily seen duty as a cutter in Alaska until decommissioned in 1926 and given to the city of Oakland, CA to become a museum ship.
In 1932, famed Navy Polar Explorer, ADM Richard E. Byrd had purchased the Bear from the city of Oakland for $1,050. Bear and the old steel-hulled lumber ship S.S. Pacific Fir, renamed the Jacob Ruppert after one of Byrd's financial backers, carried the 1935 "Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition". Following that expedition, Admiral Byrd leased the Bear to the U.S. Navy for $1 a year.
On July 7, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Byrd for a private White House meeting to inform him of his intention to establish a permanent American presence on the continent. FDR designated Byrd commanding officer of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS), which was supported by the Navy, Interior, State, and Treasury Departments. Refitted with new sails, spars and a diesel engine, the Bear of Oakland was recommissioned U.S.S. Bear at Byrd's hometown of Boston on September 11, 1939. Bear along with the merchantman U.S.M.S. North Star (supplied by the Dept. of Interior) would depart separately from Boston on November 22 and 15, respectively, carrying 125 men, 130 sledge- dogs and kennels, several hundred tons of coal and supplies, two light Army tanks, two light tractors, three airplanes, and a massive, rubber-tired one-of-a-kind "Snow Cruiser" for the 1939-41 U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition.
Most of the men were recruited from all three branches of the military, civil service and scientific institutions, with a few volunteers employed by the Department of the Interior at $10 per month, with food and clothing included. A total of fifty-nine men, divided initially into three groups, wintered in Antarctica and remained the entire 18 months at one of the two base camps the men established: East Base and West Base.
Two thousand sailors applied for forty spots in the expedition. Chief Meyer was one of two chief petty officers (both machinist mates) selected for the U.S.S. Bear's crew of thirty-three men and eight officers. Although he did not apply for it, Meyer was selected for additional duty as the pilot and machinist of the "Snow Cruiser", the highly publicized, $150,000, 27-ton (37 tons loaded), 55' long, 5,000 mile cruising range, snow-terrain vehicle designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, Scientific Director of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago and built by the Pullman Company with funding from seventy different private companies. Officially named "Penguin 1", the red painted behemoth was designed to carry a 5-person, Beech 17 "Staggerwing" airplane and a crew of four men: operator/ machinist, aviator, radioman and scientist on long- distance exploratory treks over the frozen Antarctic.
The objectives of the expedition were outlined in an order from FDR dated November 25, 1939. The President wanted two bases to be established: East Base, in the vicinity of Charcot Island or Alexander I Land, or on Marguerite Bay if no accessible site could be found on either of the specified islands; and West Base, in the vicinity of King Edward VII Land, but if this proved impossible, a site on the Bay of Whales at or near Little America was to be investigated, and delineation of the continental coast line between the meridians 72 degrees W., and 148 degrees W.
A 600 horsepower Atlas Imperial diesel engine had been installed on the Bear to help push the ice. The Bear was under sail for the majority of the journey to the ice. She was never in shipping lanes and spent a great deal of time in uncharted waters. The diesel engines were used as little as possible in order to save fuel. The crew sailed for weeks without seeing other ships or land.
U.S.M.S North Star steamed into the Bay of Whales to establish West Base on January 12, 1940. U.S.S. Bear entered the bay on January 14, 1940. Working in two 12-hour shifts, the Bear was unloaded in less than a week and by January 24, the North Star was underway for Valparaiso, Chile, to pick up additional supplies, including a Navy twin-engine Curtiss-Wright Condor plane and prefabricated buildings. Meanwhile, the Bear under Byrd's command, worked its way eastward from the Ross Sea along the edge of the pack ice to locate a suitable site for East Base. This was not discovered until a reconnaissance flight on March 8, by Byrd, LCDR Richard Black, the East Base commander, East Base pilot ACMM Ashley C. Snow and co-pilot/ radioman RM1c Earl B. Perce. An island on the north side of Neny Bay, just north of Alexander Island and Marguerite Bay, became the home of East Base. The island was subsequently named Stonington Island.
North Star joined the Bear at East Base laden with the supplies and prefabricated buildings she had boarded at Valparaiso. Offloading was completed on the evening of March 20, the first day of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Both ships stood out from Antarctica the next morning, the Bear bound for Boston and the North Star for Seattle, to resume her duties carrying supplies to Alaska during the spring and summer. For unknown reasons, Chief Meyer ulimately remained attached to the USS Bear crew and was not one of the four crewman of the Snow Cruiser (along with "Navy", the 8-year old "retired" lead sledge-dog and veteran of Byrd's 1935 Expedition, along with his owner, Dr. F. Alton Wade) that ultimately "wintered over" in Antarctica.
The difficulties that plagued Chief Meyers and the rest of the crew driving the Snow Cruiser from Chicago to Boston, presaged the problems that were to come in Antarctica. The Snow Cruiser's performance proved to be a disappointment and the great expectations, including a trip to the South Pole, were quickly abandoned. Despite its twin diesel engines that delivered 300 horsepower, its gear ratio designed for speed had sacrificed too much torque. The huge, 10' tall and relatively smooth, Goodyear tires, the largest molded to date by the company, couldn't gain traction and the behemoth became mired by snow chocks that built up in front of the massive tires. The tires spun in place, managing to sink the vehicle as much as 3 feet in the snow and the motors overheated after it had gone only a few hundred yards. To gain traction, the team mounted the spare tires to the front wheels but this proved insufficient to correct the problems. Barely inching along, the cruiser made it to West Base and was parked there, its crew, CPL Felix Ferranto, USMC, radio operator; Dr. Wade; Beech "Staggerwing" pilot TSGT Theodore Petras, USMC and MM2c Clyde W. Griffith USN, diesel mechanic, absorbed into the contingent of twenty-nine men led by Dr. Paul Siple, the base commander.
On the 1940 return trip to the States, the Bear experienced 100-knot winds in the Strait of Magellan. They anchored off Patagonia to assess damage to the ship. The Patagonian pirates would move the sea buoys and land beacons in order to make ships run aground. Armed guards were posted in order to keep pirates from boarding. The U.S.S. Bear arrived at Boston on June 5, 1940 and its crew was given leave. While Chief Meyer was visiting his wife and parents in Florida, he was interviewed for a national wire service article on June 22. He complained that he couldn't get used to the 90 degree heat and noted the shortcomings of the Snow Cruiser, concluding that it was "not so hot".
With international tensions on the rise, it was decided to evacuate the two U.S. Antarctic bases rather than relieve the men with replacements. Chief Meyer and the crew of U.S.S. Bear sailed from Philadelphia on October 13, 1940 and U.S.M.S. North Wind stood out from Seattle on December 11, bound for Antarctica. The plan was that one day the bases would be reoccupied and so much of the equipment and supplies were left behind as the two ships sailed from West Base on February 1, 1941. The evacuation of East Base was concluded on March 22 and both ships sailed immediately. On the journey the Bear hit an iceberg during a whiteout, causing damage to the jib boom and bowsprit. They docked at Punta Arenas for repairs. A reporter for Time magazine asked a member of the ice party what they planned to do while in Punta Arenas. "Rock collecting" was the answer. The North Star arrived in Boston on May 5 and the Bear on May 18.
With her Antarctic duties completed, U.S.S Bear assumed regular patrol duties, homeported out of Boston. On September 12, 1941, the schooner towed the German-controlled Norwegian sealer Buskø into Boston, following its capture by the Coast Guard cutter Northland. The Nazis had been using the ship to supply secret weather stations in the Northwestern Atlantic. On September 29, 1941, Charls Meyer married May Straitiff, a divorcee.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Meyer remained attached to the U.S.S Bear when the ship served in the Northeast Atlantic Greenland Patrol. The rigging was cut down to two masts to become a fully motorized ship with auxiliary sail power that was not used during the war. When more modern ships were available to replace her, U.S.S. Bear was decommissioned on May 17, 1944 and laid up in Boston until the end of the war.
The Bear had the distinction of being the oldest U.S. Navy ship to be deployed outside the continental United States during World War II. She was also one of a very few U.S. Navy ships to have served during the Spanish–American War as well as both world wars. Chief Machinist Mate Charls Meyer remained on the Bear through her last day on the rolls as an active Navy ship. With four and a half years on the Bear, all as a chief petty officer, he was the longest serving Navy non-commissioned officer during the 70- year- old ship's many lives and one of only two remaining crew-members from the 1939 Antarctic Expedition still on the ship when she was decommissioned, the other being the Chief Commissary Steward (CCS), Charles E. Nussbaum.
Meyer retired from the Navy on June 28, 1957 after 28 years continuous service, including World War II and the Korean Conflict. He had visited both the Arctic and Antarctic during his time in the Navy. Following retirement, he and his wife May remained in Waukegan, IL, where they had lived during his duty at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station late in his career. Charls Meyer went to work for Johnson (marine) Motors in Waukegan, until his retirement in 1968. In 1970, he and his wife relocated to her hometown, Indiana, PA.
Mr. Meyer was a member of the Calvary United Presbyterian Church of Indiana, life member of V.F.W. Post 1989, Indiana, PA, Masonic Lodge #192 F&AM, Dunedin, FL, American Polar Society, Fleet Reserve Assoc. Great Lakes Branch 53, Gurnee, IL, Eastern Star Mid- Pacific Chapter 10, Honolulu, HI and AARP.
Charls L. Meyer, died unexpectedly on Monday, May 13, 1974, at his home, 192 N. 12th St., Indiana, PA. He was 68 and survived by his widow, May Straitiff Meyer; a step-daughter, Mrs. Paul D. (Bette) Pearson, Houtzdale; a brother: William F. Meyer Jr. of New Jersey; a sister: Miss Thea Meyer of Clearwater, FL; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Harry P. Meyer and step-son, Thomas E. Borland, who had died the previous month, April 24, 1974. Borland was only sixteen years younger than his step-father and had also been a Navy veteran of WWII and Korea. Meyer had attended his funeral and visitation just three weeks earlier at the same funeral home where his family and friends now gathered to pay respects to him.
Charls Meyer's family received his friends from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday, May 16, 1974, at Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home, in Indiana, PA. A Masonic service was conducted at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Thursday evening and VFW Post 1989 met at 7:30 p.m. at the funeral home to honor their comrade.
Services were held at the funeral home on Friday, May 17, 1974 at 1:30 p.m. with the Rev. E. Vincent Stratton, officiating. Interment followed at Oakland Cemetery, Indiana, PA.
Chief Meyer was laid to rest 30 years to the day after the U.S.S. Bear had been decommissioned, never to sail again.
(Some information from the Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, PA, Wed, 15 May 1974, page 37)
Grateful thanks to Member B. Felix for his generous time and expense in driving fifty miles to take the memorial photos of Chief Meyer, his wife and stepson's gravesites.
Charles was the oldest son of William F. and Ella Lytton Meyer, born May 27, 1905, in Brookport, Illinois. Around 1910, his family moved to Dunedin, Florida, where his two younger brothers and sisters were born and where he graduated from high school. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 1, 1929 and received training at Hampton Roads, VA, attending the naval engineering school. For six years he was in charge of the machine shop aboard the battleship, U.S.S. Nevada (BB-36), before transferring to experimental laboratory work at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, WA. Following that, on April 25, 1939 he reported to the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Lexington (CA-2), then homeported at San Pedro, CA. As a chief machinist mate (CMM), Meyer was in charge of "D" engine room on the "Lady Lex".
On September 29, 1939, he was detached from the Lexington to report to the USS Bear (AG-29), the former "Bear of Oakland", a steam-powered barquentine schooner built in Scotland in 1874 for sealing, but purchased in 1884 by the U.S. Revenue Service, predecessor to the Coast Guard. The Bear had primarily seen duty as a cutter in Alaska until decommissioned in 1926 and given to the city of Oakland, CA to become a museum ship.
In 1932, famed Navy Polar Explorer, ADM Richard E. Byrd had purchased the Bear from the city of Oakland for $1,050. Bear and the old steel-hulled lumber ship S.S. Pacific Fir, renamed the Jacob Ruppert after one of Byrd's financial backers, carried the 1935 "Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition". Following that expedition, Admiral Byrd leased the Bear to the U.S. Navy for $1 a year.
On July 7, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned Byrd for a private White House meeting to inform him of his intention to establish a permanent American presence on the continent. FDR designated Byrd commanding officer of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS), which was supported by the Navy, Interior, State, and Treasury Departments. Refitted with new sails, spars and a diesel engine, the Bear of Oakland was recommissioned U.S.S. Bear at Byrd's hometown of Boston on September 11, 1939. Bear along with the merchantman U.S.M.S. North Star (supplied by the Dept. of Interior) would depart separately from Boston on November 22 and 15, respectively, carrying 125 men, 130 sledge- dogs and kennels, several hundred tons of coal and supplies, two light Army tanks, two light tractors, three airplanes, and a massive, rubber-tired one-of-a-kind "Snow Cruiser" for the 1939-41 U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition.
Most of the men were recruited from all three branches of the military, civil service and scientific institutions, with a few volunteers employed by the Department of the Interior at $10 per month, with food and clothing included. A total of fifty-nine men, divided initially into three groups, wintered in Antarctica and remained the entire 18 months at one of the two base camps the men established: East Base and West Base.
Two thousand sailors applied for forty spots in the expedition. Chief Meyer was one of two chief petty officers (both machinist mates) selected for the U.S.S. Bear's crew of thirty-three men and eight officers. Although he did not apply for it, Meyer was selected for additional duty as the pilot and machinist of the "Snow Cruiser", the highly publicized, $150,000, 27-ton (37 tons loaded), 55' long, 5,000 mile cruising range, snow-terrain vehicle designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter, Scientific Director of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago and built by the Pullman Company with funding from seventy different private companies. Officially named "Penguin 1", the red painted behemoth was designed to carry a 5-person, Beech 17 "Staggerwing" airplane and a crew of four men: operator/ machinist, aviator, radioman and scientist on long- distance exploratory treks over the frozen Antarctic.
The objectives of the expedition were outlined in an order from FDR dated November 25, 1939. The President wanted two bases to be established: East Base, in the vicinity of Charcot Island or Alexander I Land, or on Marguerite Bay if no accessible site could be found on either of the specified islands; and West Base, in the vicinity of King Edward VII Land, but if this proved impossible, a site on the Bay of Whales at or near Little America was to be investigated, and delineation of the continental coast line between the meridians 72 degrees W., and 148 degrees W.
A 600 horsepower Atlas Imperial diesel engine had been installed on the Bear to help push the ice. The Bear was under sail for the majority of the journey to the ice. She was never in shipping lanes and spent a great deal of time in uncharted waters. The diesel engines were used as little as possible in order to save fuel. The crew sailed for weeks without seeing other ships or land.
U.S.M.S North Star steamed into the Bay of Whales to establish West Base on January 12, 1940. U.S.S. Bear entered the bay on January 14, 1940. Working in two 12-hour shifts, the Bear was unloaded in less than a week and by January 24, the North Star was underway for Valparaiso, Chile, to pick up additional supplies, including a Navy twin-engine Curtiss-Wright Condor plane and prefabricated buildings. Meanwhile, the Bear under Byrd's command, worked its way eastward from the Ross Sea along the edge of the pack ice to locate a suitable site for East Base. This was not discovered until a reconnaissance flight on March 8, by Byrd, LCDR Richard Black, the East Base commander, East Base pilot ACMM Ashley C. Snow and co-pilot/ radioman RM1c Earl B. Perce. An island on the north side of Neny Bay, just north of Alexander Island and Marguerite Bay, became the home of East Base. The island was subsequently named Stonington Island.
North Star joined the Bear at East Base laden with the supplies and prefabricated buildings she had boarded at Valparaiso. Offloading was completed on the evening of March 20, the first day of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Both ships stood out from Antarctica the next morning, the Bear bound for Boston and the North Star for Seattle, to resume her duties carrying supplies to Alaska during the spring and summer. For unknown reasons, Chief Meyer ulimately remained attached to the USS Bear crew and was not one of the four crewman of the Snow Cruiser (along with "Navy", the 8-year old "retired" lead sledge-dog and veteran of Byrd's 1935 Expedition, along with his owner, Dr. F. Alton Wade) that ultimately "wintered over" in Antarctica.
The difficulties that plagued Chief Meyers and the rest of the crew driving the Snow Cruiser from Chicago to Boston, presaged the problems that were to come in Antarctica. The Snow Cruiser's performance proved to be a disappointment and the great expectations, including a trip to the South Pole, were quickly abandoned. Despite its twin diesel engines that delivered 300 horsepower, its gear ratio designed for speed had sacrificed too much torque. The huge, 10' tall and relatively smooth, Goodyear tires, the largest molded to date by the company, couldn't gain traction and the behemoth became mired by snow chocks that built up in front of the massive tires. The tires spun in place, managing to sink the vehicle as much as 3 feet in the snow and the motors overheated after it had gone only a few hundred yards. To gain traction, the team mounted the spare tires to the front wheels but this proved insufficient to correct the problems. Barely inching along, the cruiser made it to West Base and was parked there, its crew, CPL Felix Ferranto, USMC, radio operator; Dr. Wade; Beech "Staggerwing" pilot TSGT Theodore Petras, USMC and MM2c Clyde W. Griffith USN, diesel mechanic, absorbed into the contingent of twenty-nine men led by Dr. Paul Siple, the base commander.
On the 1940 return trip to the States, the Bear experienced 100-knot winds in the Strait of Magellan. They anchored off Patagonia to assess damage to the ship. The Patagonian pirates would move the sea buoys and land beacons in order to make ships run aground. Armed guards were posted in order to keep pirates from boarding. The U.S.S. Bear arrived at Boston on June 5, 1940 and its crew was given leave. While Chief Meyer was visiting his wife and parents in Florida, he was interviewed for a national wire service article on June 22. He complained that he couldn't get used to the 90 degree heat and noted the shortcomings of the Snow Cruiser, concluding that it was "not so hot".
With international tensions on the rise, it was decided to evacuate the two U.S. Antarctic bases rather than relieve the men with replacements. Chief Meyer and the crew of U.S.S. Bear sailed from Philadelphia on October 13, 1940 and U.S.M.S. North Wind stood out from Seattle on December 11, bound for Antarctica. The plan was that one day the bases would be reoccupied and so much of the equipment and supplies were left behind as the two ships sailed from West Base on February 1, 1941. The evacuation of East Base was concluded on March 22 and both ships sailed immediately. On the journey the Bear hit an iceberg during a whiteout, causing damage to the jib boom and bowsprit. They docked at Punta Arenas for repairs. A reporter for Time magazine asked a member of the ice party what they planned to do while in Punta Arenas. "Rock collecting" was the answer. The North Star arrived in Boston on May 5 and the Bear on May 18.
With her Antarctic duties completed, U.S.S Bear assumed regular patrol duties, homeported out of Boston. On September 12, 1941, the schooner towed the German-controlled Norwegian sealer Buskø into Boston, following its capture by the Coast Guard cutter Northland. The Nazis had been using the ship to supply secret weather stations in the Northwestern Atlantic. On September 29, 1941, Charls Meyer married May Straitiff, a divorcee.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Meyer remained attached to the U.S.S Bear when the ship served in the Northeast Atlantic Greenland Patrol. The rigging was cut down to two masts to become a fully motorized ship with auxiliary sail power that was not used during the war. When more modern ships were available to replace her, U.S.S. Bear was decommissioned on May 17, 1944 and laid up in Boston until the end of the war.
The Bear had the distinction of being the oldest U.S. Navy ship to be deployed outside the continental United States during World War II. She was also one of a very few U.S. Navy ships to have served during the Spanish–American War as well as both world wars. Chief Machinist Mate Charls Meyer remained on the Bear through her last day on the rolls as an active Navy ship. With four and a half years on the Bear, all as a chief petty officer, he was the longest serving Navy non-commissioned officer during the 70- year- old ship's many lives and one of only two remaining crew-members from the 1939 Antarctic Expedition still on the ship when she was decommissioned, the other being the Chief Commissary Steward (CCS), Charles E. Nussbaum.
Meyer retired from the Navy on June 28, 1957 after 28 years continuous service, including World War II and the Korean Conflict. He had visited both the Arctic and Antarctic during his time in the Navy. Following retirement, he and his wife May remained in Waukegan, IL, where they had lived during his duty at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station late in his career. Charls Meyer went to work for Johnson (marine) Motors in Waukegan, until his retirement in 1968. In 1970, he and his wife relocated to her hometown, Indiana, PA.
Mr. Meyer was a member of the Calvary United Presbyterian Church of Indiana, life member of V.F.W. Post 1989, Indiana, PA, Masonic Lodge #192 F&AM, Dunedin, FL, American Polar Society, Fleet Reserve Assoc. Great Lakes Branch 53, Gurnee, IL, Eastern Star Mid- Pacific Chapter 10, Honolulu, HI and AARP.
Charls L. Meyer, died unexpectedly on Monday, May 13, 1974, at his home, 192 N. 12th St., Indiana, PA. He was 68 and survived by his widow, May Straitiff Meyer; a step-daughter, Mrs. Paul D. (Bette) Pearson, Houtzdale; a brother: William F. Meyer Jr. of New Jersey; a sister: Miss Thea Meyer of Clearwater, FL; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Harry P. Meyer and step-son, Thomas E. Borland, who had died the previous month, April 24, 1974. Borland was only sixteen years younger than his step-father and had also been a Navy veteran of WWII and Korea. Meyer had attended his funeral and visitation just three weeks earlier at the same funeral home where his family and friends now gathered to pay respects to him.
Charls Meyer's family received his friends from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday, May 16, 1974, at Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home, in Indiana, PA. A Masonic service was conducted at the funeral home at 7 p.m. Thursday evening and VFW Post 1989 met at 7:30 p.m. at the funeral home to honor their comrade.
Services were held at the funeral home on Friday, May 17, 1974 at 1:30 p.m. with the Rev. E. Vincent Stratton, officiating. Interment followed at Oakland Cemetery, Indiana, PA.
Chief Meyer was laid to rest 30 years to the day after the U.S.S. Bear had been decommissioned, never to sail again.
(Some information from the Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, PA, Wed, 15 May 1974, page 37)
Grateful thanks to Member B. Felix for his generous time and expense in driving fifty miles to take the memorial photos of Chief Meyer, his wife and stepson's gravesites.
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