A “splendid ship” named for a “splendid city”
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 08-27-16
Arch D. Anderson, commander of the James T. Bergen American Legion post, contacted the Navy in 1938 to begin the campaign to get a ship named for Amsterdam. The Chamber of Commerce got behind the idea as did Mayor Arthur Carter, who knew President Franklin Roosevelt from Roosevelt’s days as governor in Albany.
Roosevelt approved the name Amsterdam for a light Navy cruiser in 1940. However, that vessel was converted to an aircraft carrier and launched in 1942 as the U.S.S. Independence. Work began on what would become the cruiser U.S.S. Amsterdam in 1943.
Mrs. William (Frieda) Hasenfuss, Sr., christened the U.S.S. Amsterdam on April 25, 1944 at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia.
Mrs. Hasenfuss, who lived on Northampton Road, was Amsterdam’s first Gold Star Mother of World War II. One of her nine children, Army PFC William Hasenfuss, Jr., was killed at Hickam Field in Hawaii in the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack.
“I was thinking of William when I smashed that bottle.” Mrs. Hasenfuss told a reporter as the vessel slid down the ways into the James River in 1944.
About twenty relatives and friends of the Hasenfuss family were at the ceremony along with Mayor Wilbur H. Lynch, who had succeeded Mayor Carter as Carter was then serving as a U.S. Army major and city administrator in Bologna, Italy.
Mayor Lynch, who had recommended that Mrs. Hasenfuss be the sponsor of the ship, expressed thanks on her behalf when she was overcome with emotion when the shipyard workers gave her a diamond-studded wrist watch.
Lynch said Amsterdam is “a splendid city” just as “the cruiser Amsterdam is a splendid ship.”
On January 8, 1945 Mr. and Mrs. Hasenfuss returned to Newport News when the Amsterdam received her commission under Captain Andrew Lawton of Youngstown, Ohio. The vessel was nicknamed the Flying Dutchman.
One member of the 1400-man crew was young Steve Fitz of Schenectady, who went on to a career as a talk radio host. Fitz’s last radio work was daily commentary on Amsterdam’s WVTL, done up until the month he died in January 2012
A seaman first class, Fitz operated radar that guided anti-aircraft guns. The Amsterdam earned a battle star for protecting aircraft carriers that launched planes to bomb Japan in July 1945.
Captain Lawton told a reporter that anti-aircraft fire from the Amsterdam shot down three Japanese planes. Fitz said most Japanese resistance was held off by destroyers miles away.
Fitz said. “All of us were happy when (America) dropped the nuclear bombs. We knew we would be part of an invasion of Japan and there would be a great loss of life.”
The Amsterdam was part of the fleet in Tokyo Bay for surrender ceremonies that took place onboard the U.S.S. Missouri. Fitz could see General Douglas Macarthur and Japanese officials on the battleship through his range finder.
After shore leave in Japan, the Amsterdam sailed back toward America, picking up battle-weary and wounded Seabees in Okinawa.
The ship discharged its passengers and took part in Navy Day on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. The vessel sailed to San Francisco and the crew painted her. The sailors were honorably discharged.
The ship’s battle flag was presented by Captain Lawton to Mayor Joseph Hand in a 1946 ceremony in Amsterdam.
The vessel was decommissioned in 1947 and stored in San Francisco. The ship was later moved to San Diego and scrapped in 1972.
Fitz attended a ship reunion held in Amsterdam some years ago and found it very emotional, “There is bonding when you are stuck in a place like that.”
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