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October 6, 2005
Reader's Request
The Ten Ninety One
story and photo by
HELEN SANDERSON
Back in July, when Journal reader and bluesman Don Haupt told me
he had a story idea, I figured, like most skeptical reporters
would, that he was publicity-fishing. Don is kind of a ham, but
he's not predictable, so maybe it shouldn't have surprised me
when he pitched something that was sort of out of left field:
Find out about that weird little battleship near the Samoa Bridge.
Well, I forgot about it for
a while, but when Staff Writer Heidi Walters suggested a "Reader's
Request" column, Haupt and the mystery battleship resurfaced.
So, Mr. Delta Blues, this one is for you. (By the way, Haupt
is down from Tacoma this weekend to play some shows, check out
The Hum p.26.)
Right: The warship
Ten Ninety One.
It's called the Ten Ninety
One, originally the 1091, and indeed, it is, or was,
a warship of the U.S. Navy. Moored by some rotting pillars on
the east side of the Samoa Bridge all by its lonesome, it's just
a creepy walk down a barbed-wire-lined and trash-strewn path
to the water at the foot of T Street in Eureka. Considering its
unpleasant surroundings, the ship is in pretty good shape.
Local historian Ray Hillman,
who knows everything about everything, said that the Ten Ninety
One has been "very well preserved" by its owner,
a McKinleyville dentist who occasionally uses it for albacore
fishing. The ship was one of 1,100 made, and was built in Bay
City, Mich., in 1944. It's a type of ship called an LCI, or land
craft infantry, meaning it was made small and flat-bottomed so
it could land on the beach. Just turn the engine in reverse and
an LCI could motor itself off the sand and slip back to the sea
to get more supplies or soldiers. That was the basic purpose
of the LCIs, to make sneaky runs between big ships and the shore.
This particular warship saw
action in World War II in the Pacific Theater of Operations and
was used for postwar environmental cleanup along the Japanese
coast. During the Korean War, the 1091 saw action in the
North Korean Aggression and the U.N. Summer-Fall Offensive. It's
now the flagship for the LCI Veteran's Association, which has
an annual convention in Eureka. The Ten Ninety One takes
WWII veterans (once 180 of them) around Humboldt Bay.
Ten Ninety One owner Ralph Davis, the 72-year-old McKinleyville
dentist, said it was always his dream to own a ship. He purchased
it in 1988 for $115,000 in Marysville, Wash., where it housed
a fish cannery, and docked it in Eureka a year later. Davis was
in the Army from 1953-1955, where, "oddly enough,"
he served as a dentist in Alaska. His experience with boats comes
from years of commercial fishing in Alaska, where he grew up.
When he bought the 1091, he planned to take it to the
malaria-burdened South Pacific to work on mosquito abatement.
He figured the ship was big enough (163 feet long, 23 feet wide)
to haul all the "junk" he'd need to bring with him,
but he never went.
Lately, Davis hasn't used the
boat much, with fuel prices being so steep and all. Over the
years people have offered to buy it from him, but it's not for
sale, he says. The Ten Ninety One is one of the only LCIs
left and the only one that still looks like an original and is
also operational. (There's another one in Portland, but it has
no engines.) So, Davis likes the idea of keeping the unique little
ship around Humboldt County, even if he's not using it. In a
few months, he'll donate it to be used as part of a proposed
maritime museum in Fields Landing where LCI veterans can hold
their reunions.
For more information, see the
ship's page on the "NavSource" website: navsource.org/archives/10/151091.htm.
Are you baffled by some local
phenomenon? Do you want to hear about some neglected Humboldt
County lore? Send your request to [email protected],
and put "Reader's Request" in the subject line.
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