Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-12-03
REVEALS BRAVERY
!. OF ADM. FLETCHER
Former Subordinate Tells
,UnWritten Chapter in Span
ish War Experience.

An unwritten chapter from the
Spanish War service of the late Rear
Admiral Frank F. Fletcher. retired, was
related yesterday by Emil Henry RoS-
enblatt, 73-year-old former yeoman,
who served in a confidential capacity
to the then Lieut.. Fletcher during his
short but eventful command of the
U. S. S. Kanawha, converted million
aires yacht
With other men who served at vari-
Gus times under the distinguished naval
officer, Rosenblatt was one of the
mourners who attended the funeral of
his former commander when Admiral
Fletcher was laid to rest yesterday in
Arlington National Cemetery. AS lone
of the boys" who loved and revered
her husband he made himself known
to the admiralS widow, Mrs Susan H.
Fletcher who warmly expressed her
appreciation of his remembrance of the
man under whom he had been so proud
TO serve
During the years before and since the
Spanish War Rosenblatt has
been in the general insurance business
and has just come to make his resi-
dence in Washington after six years in
Norfolk. Va. He is residing temporarily
at lis l street.
He doesn't resemble the bulky athletic
figure he presented as yoeman in the
days of 1898 but he claims he is Just
as young now in spirit. From a we'll
thumbed diary he kept during the %
days he spent in foreign waters aboard
the one time palatial yacht Kanawha
stripped of its luxurious fittings for war
service, Rosenblatt recounted some of
the days he spent under its commander
Gust and Severe"
"Lieut. Fletcher was a very just man
and severe one" RoSenblatt said. He
believed in Gen. Sherman's interpreta-
ton OF war but he never asked or ex-
pected any of his men to do anything
he or his officers would not do
In the accounts of Admiral Fletcher's
distinguished service with the Navy at
the time of his death, Mr.. RosenblatC
told The Star he was surprised to see
no mention whatever of his services
during the SpaniSh-American War.
The Kanawha, given to the Govern
Inent by a prominent oil man, was in
tended as a dispatch boat for Admiral
Simpsons fleet. With high hopes, its
crew of % men and 5 officers sailed
from New York on August 4, 1898, for
Cuban waters, but a series of five coal
bunker fires en- route compelled the yes
Sci to put into Port Royal for repairs
Whle the converted yacht was spending
five days there. Rosenblatt explained re-
gretfully that "the war had to come to
a stop" This was on August ID, but
the Kanawha, with bunkers repaired,
proceeded to Cuban waters. and at sew
eral ports, including Gibara and
Guantanamo, was the only American
var vessel in those waters.
I'VE were a green lot when we
shipped aboard the Kanawha," Rosen-
blatt reminisced. Nearly all of us
were out of the I'd Battalion of the
New York Naval Militia. We weren't
used to roughing it on a naval vessel,
and our mothers and sweethearts had
baded us down with comforts to make
life easier on the briny Deep"
The crew of raw recruits soon found
out that the commander of the vessel
had different idea of war. To the %
men under him. the voyage meant just
eanother lark
Every Detail Remembered.
: Lieut.. Fletcher had heard rumors Of
some of the rather unique equipment
with which his sailor boys had been
provided, so he ordered an inspection
the first day out Rosenblatt still re-