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Namesake
William Price Williamson was born 10 August 1884 in Norfolk, Virginia, the grandson of Confederate Chief Engineer William
Price Williamson of North Carolina. Confederate Chief Engineer Williamson has been credited with first suggesting that the hull of the USS Merrimack could be used to
build the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. He was appointed midshipman on 29 June 1903 and graduated from the Naval Academy with the class of 1907, in the advanced
section of that class, on 12 September 1906. Assigned to Indiana (Battleship No. 1), he landed from that ship at Kingston, Jamaica, in January 1907 and was cited by
his commanding officer for his efficient work in a rescue party during fires resulting from an earthquake there. Williamson later joined Kansas (Battleship No. 21)
and made the globe-girdling cruise of the "Great White Fleet" (1907-1908) in her before he was ordered to Washington, DC, in March 1909 for "ordnance instruction."
From there, he went to Utah (Battleship No. 31) in October of 1911. While in that dreadnought, he commanded the gun battery of Utah's landing force during the landings
at Veracruz, Mexico, in April 1914. Williamson inspected ordnance at the E. W. Bliss and Co., Brooklyn, NY, from 1914 to 1916 before he joined Galveston (Cruiser No. 17)
on 13 May 1916 for a brief tour of duty. He then journeyed to the Asiatic Station to become the Inspector of Ordnance and Powder at the Naval Magazine and Chemical
Laboratory, Olongapo, P.I. (later renamed the Naval Ammunition Depot, Olongapo) on 07 July 1916. Returning to the United States in the spring of 1918, he was assigned
duty assisting in the fitting out of Orizaba (Id. No. 1536) and became the ship's first executive officer when that transport was commissioned. Williamson then worked
closely with the ship's commanding officer, Capt. R. Drace White, another ordnance expert, in developing a workable depth charge thrower for use on board transports,
in the hope of providing them with some measure of protection of their own. Williamson's invention was a modified Lyle gun (one used for line-throwing in rescue
operations). In the first test on 16 August 1918, the crude depth charge projector hurled a 50-pound charge approximately 150 feet. However, before using their
creation in actual operations against submarines trailing her convoy, the two officers wanted at least one more test with a larger propellant charge. Accordingly,
on 17 August 1918, they commenced another experiment, one that proved to be a disaster. Williamson fired the gun, but a defective fuse caused the depth charge to
explode prematurely, killing him instantly. The blast knocked Capt. White to the deck with a broken jaw, broken knee, and flesh wounds, and killed three sailors.
In addition, four other officers and 22 other enlisted men were wounded in the tragic explosion. For his work, however, Williamson was awarded the Navy Cross
posthumously. Photo Courtesy of the United States Naval Academy.
Bill Gonyo/Robert M. Cieri |
