Dec. 7, 1941
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Of the ships and service craft moored at Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, one had connections to South Dakota.
The minelayer USS Oglala was the flagship of the Pacific Fleet Mine Force. A flagship is the ship that carries the commander of a fleet and flies the commander’s flag. A minelayer is a naval vessel for laying underwater mines.
The Oglala had started life as a coastal passenger vessel, carrying people between Boston and New York. The vessel was built in 1906 or 1907 by the William Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia with the name Massachusetts. The vessel was taken over by the Navy in World War I and converted to a minelayer with the name USS Shawmut. At the end of the war, the Shawmut was converted to a seaplane tender. On Jan. 1, 1928, the ship was again converted into a minelayer and renamed the USS Oglala.
“This name was selected by President (Calvin) Coolidge in recognition of the honor paid him by the Oglala Tribe in making him a chieftain,” wrote J.V. Ogan, Captain, U.S. Navy, Commanding, in a 1950 letter to a boarding school at Pine Ridge.
Coolidge and his wife, Grace, spent the summer of 1927 in the Black Hills. While in South Dakota, the president was adopted as an honorary member of the Sioux tribe in recognition of his support for the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, granting full U.S. citizenship to American Indians and permitting them to retain tribal land and cultural rights.
On a Sunday morning 76 years ago, the Oglala was moored alongside the cruiser USS Helena at Pier Ten-Ten in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard near Honolulu, Hawaii. Among those on board were Rear Adm. William R. Furlong, commander of the minecraft battle force, and Seaman First Class Loren Bailey.