❖ Leschi to Madison Park Race Course for the MINNEAPOLIS crew ❖ 1939

A "retention ceremony" for the US Navy crew of
the winning MINNEAPOLIS
at the Seattle Yacht Club.
Standing by the Battenberg trophy are:
Rear Admiral R.E. Ingersoll,
commanding Cruiser Div. 6, Scouting Force,
M.C. Riddle, victorious coxswain, is at the right.
Dated 16 July 1939.
click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Thomas M. Henry of Pasadena, seaman first class aboard the cruiser MINNEAPOLIS, leaned over the table in an East Madison Street tavern and said, amiably: "O.K. British. Shell out, we win."
      Four seamen from His Majesty's light cruiser, the ORION, dug ruefully into their pockets. They came up with five-pound notes and sundry shillings and tuppences.
      "To a great crew," said Seaman First Class Henry. "Had all my dough on it."
      The MINNEAPOLIS in the fifty-first Battenberg Cup race had won again.
      So had Thomas M. Henry and sundry other inveterate gamblers of the American fleet. It has been twenty-two years since a British whaleboat succeeded in defeating a crew of the US Navy.
      But an hour later, on the porch of the Seattle Yacht Club, Capt. H.R.G. Kinahan, commander of the ORION, which had challenged for a cup a countryman of his put up in the interests of British-American goodwill in 1906, said:
      "We are particularly thankful for the opportunity the Battenberg Cup race presents...the opportunity for ships crews and officers getting together.
      "If we could have a bit more of that sort of thing these days, everything would be much more peaceful."
      The Battenberg Cup race needs explantation, to a Seattle audience which had never seen, and seldom heard of it before. The cup was first given the American Navy to Prince Louis of Battenberg, commanding the British Second Cruiser Squadron, in 1906. It was received aboard the MAINE, then flagship of the fleet; and it has been contested for innumerable times. The American fleet competes for it annually. Whenever a British fighting ship comes within shouting distance of the American possessor of the cup, it may be challenged for again. This was one of those times. The ORION was visiting on a mission of goodwill. The goodwill still continues...but the MINNEAPOLIS continues to keep the cup.
      The race was for a mile and a quarter, on the Leschi-to-Madison Park course that has been the scene of seventeen Times Cup Races. The MINNEAPOLIS won it hands down in 14 minutes, 35.4 seconds. The WEST VIRGINIA was second, the SALT LAKE CITY was third. The challenging ORION was a long-last fourth.
      (Don't blame the ORION. British ships don't use whaleboats. They use "five hundredweight" cutters utterly unlike the US whaleboats, and the 3,000-pound boat the ten-man ORION crew rowed in the race had been borrowed from the cruiser ASTORIA. The men had only borrowed it for practice three days ago.)
      The MINNEAPOLIS crew, coached, and coxed by M.C. Riddle, a lanky, stern-looking youth, took the lead at the start and never headed. The SALT LAKE CITY fought it out for the first half of the course with the WEST VIRGINIA, but the VIRGINIA pulled away.
      The distance was so great between each crew at the finish that a Times photographer, 'shooting' from the top of the bathhouse at the foot of East Madison St with a telephoto lens, barely got the winner and the second-place boat on one negative; and then with plenty of time to reload he barely got the third and fourth place whaleboats in the second negative.
      The crews were towed to the Seattle Yacht Club, where Rear Admiral R. E. Ingersoll, commanding Cruiser Division No. 6, 'restored' the trophy to coxswain Ridder and his crew with the acknowledgment:
      "We wish to thank the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Seattle Yacht Club, the Coast Guard, and others; but most of all, Captain Kinahan and his ORION. Without them there could have been no race; the SALT LAKE CITY and the WEST VIRGINIA could not have challenged, at this time."
      Then, turning to Captain Kinahan:
      "But you did have us worried when we heard your boys were practicing so hard they were breaking their oars in training."
      This, however, was far away from Seaman First Class Thomas M. Henry of Pasadena. When last seen he was setting up bottles of beer for the house and admitting, calmly; 
      "That MINNEAPOLIS crew...Hell, mister, they can't be beaten!"
Text by Ken Binns. For the Seattle Times. July 1939.