PIECES OF OUR PAST - THE TEMPEST AT TYBEE

 THE TEMPEST AT TYBEE

It was once an annual rite of summer.  In the hottest weeks of the year, hundreds of regional National Guardsmen left their homes, jobs, and families and took a train to the coast.  They were there to train - to play army if you will.  The year 1926 was no exception.  The yearly summer camp was set for the last week of July and the first week of August, billed as two weeks of fun in the sun on Tybee Island.  Turns out, it was anything but fun and the sun was covered by dark, rain clouds.

As the advance units were arriving in Tybee on July 22, something else, something much more ominous was forming east of Barbados.  The storm gradually strengthened into a hurricane a day later. After striking Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Cuba, the first hurricane of the season set her sights on St. Augustine.  The once Category 4 hurricane, which killed nearly 1500 people, came ashore near New Smyrna Beach, Florida early on July 28 with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h). Thereafter, the cyclone quickly diminished in intensity, becoming a tropical depression on July 29, as it curved west-northwestward over Georgia.

While the National Guards were never in real danger of hurricane-force winds, high tides, and heavy rains inundated Savannah’s prime island.

Some 1200 soldiers and officers of the 121st Infantry Regiment were converging on Tybee along the tracks of the Central of Georgia Railroad.  The regiment was formally organized seven years earlier in 1919.  Company A (later Company K)  of the regiment was the first company to be recognized by the National Guard.  The company was under the command of Col. Lewis C. Pope, a twenty-plus veteran of the Guard and a native of Laurens County.  A second company, Headquarters Company, was located in Dublin, while the regiment was in reality centered in Macon.  Captain Charles E. Pope, of Dublin, was in command of Company K.  Lt. H.C. O’Neal commanded the Headquarter’s Company. 

The regiment was composed of units from Macon, Dublin, Barnesville, Brunswick, Waycross, Hawkinsville, Milledgeville, and Valdosta.  The troops from Dublin, Milledgeville, and Hawkinsville, under the command of Col. Pope, traveled on the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad from Dublin to Tennille’s train depot on Sunday morning the 25th of July, while the tempest was yet far, far away in the Bahamas.  

Things took a turn for the worse on the 27th.  Ocean levels began to rise rapidly, flooding the entire camp.  Tropical force winds were flattening double-pegged tents and other temporary buildings.  The troops were ordered to immediately evacuate their camps and move to the sanctuary of Fort Screven, which was slightly higher in elevation. 

The Legislature of Georgia in 1786 passed a law providing for a fort on Cockspur or Tybee Island to be named in honor of General James Screven, a Revolutionary War hero. It was never built by the state. In 1808, the Federal government obtained jurisdiction over the property on Tybee Island now known as Fort Screven Reservation. The actual title was acquired in 1875 and the post, established in 1898, was in continuous use from the Spanish-American War through both World Wars. Primarily a Coast Artillery fort, at one time Fort Fremont in South Carolina was under its jurisdiction. It became an Infantry post and finally a school for deep-sea diving. Many distinguished officers saw duty here, including General George C. Marshall as colonel in command. In 1945 Fort Screven was declared surplus by the War Department and acquired by the town of Savannah Beach.

Overnight on the 27th, winds were measured at thirty-six miles per hour.  The maximum recorded winds were measured at 48 miles per hour.  The barometer reading was 29.84 and falling.  A water spout was sucking water out of the nearby Vernon River.  Women and children on the island were evacuated to a sanctuary in Savannah.

Now, we know that the Army doesn’t simply pack its bags and go home when it rains.  For the remainder of the camp, training went ahead as close to the original plan would allow.   There were no hatches to batten down, but anything that could be batten down was battened down.  In some places, the water was eighteen inches deep. Most of the command moved to the mess hall and did not wait for the official evacuation order to come down.  At one time, commanders pondered moving the regiment to the luxurious Hotel Tybee.  Buglers and train conductors sent out calls to warn the populace of the impending storm.

Although the water was high, it wasn’t a record flood.  Access to the pavilion and from the depot to the beach was blocked.

When the winds died down and the rain stopped failing, the soldiers came out of their refuge and resumed their training schedule.  Macon won the annual baseball game.

The Dublin troops were the last to leave Tybee on August 6, 1926.  But before the men left, many got caught up in undue and unwarranted exuberance at the end of the camp.  Many soldiers descended on Hotel Tybee and almost destroyed it doing more damage to the elegant facility than the recent storm.  Officers were inundated with reports of soldiers breaking windows, ripping doors off their hinges, and painting graffiti on the walls.

Col. Pope, beyond outraged, ordered the immediate removal of troops from the streets. Pope instructed the Military Police to round up and arrest any violators.  

The troops arrived at their homes on Sunday morning, August 7, still wet, sunburned, and hung over, yelling, “Wow, that was fun!”