Old USS Tucson flag deteriorates at City Hall
by Eric Sagara on Apr. 23, 2008, under Local, SpecialCity doesn’t have funds to pay for preservation
City Records Manager Lisa Cole with the USS Tucson flag at the City Records Center. The flag used to hang in the lobby of the Mayor and Council Chambers. The city put the flag in storage about a year ago because it was deteriorating.
Corrected version. An earlier version misstated the town where Retired Chief Gunners Mate Tom Eagling lives.
A flag that once flew over a U.S. Navy light cruiser named for Tucson that saw service during World War II has been stored by city officials who are concerned about its condition, but don’t have the money to restore and preserve it.
For more than 50 years the city kept the 18-foot flag folded in a display case. Visitors to the Mayor and Council Chambers may have noticed it hanging outside the entrance until it was taken down more than a year ago.
“It’s been so long since anybody has seen the flag unfolded that we don’t know what kind of damage there is,” said Geoff Gonzales, a management assistant in the City Clerk’s Office. “We didn’t even want to touch it unless there’s a professional conservator doing it.”
The flag was given to the city after the 6,000-ton Oakland class light cruiser was decommissioned in 1949.
The cruiser served as protection for aircraft carriers launching bombing missions in the final assault against Japan in July and August 1945. It was the only time that the cruiser saw combat, and research by the city shows that Japanese aircraft never got close enough to the cruiser for it to fire its guns.
The USS Tucson name lives on as a nuclear attack submarine based in Norfolk, Va. Last weekend members of the crew from the cruiser held a reunion with the crew of the submarine in Norfolk.
Retired Chief Gunners Mate Tom Eagling of Oro Valley first saw the USS Tucson in 1947. It was tied at the Broadway Pier in San Diego when he was returning from a tour aboard a destroyer patrolling the waters near China.
A message came in that the ship was seeking volunteers to go back to China.
“I just preferred to go back to another tour in China instead of banging heads in San Diego,” Eagling said.
“It was just a good ship – good officers and a good crew. Everybody got along good. Some ships are not like that. If they started off good, they stayed that way the rest of their career. If they started out bad, you couldn’t get away from them fast enough.
“We were on there for about three years. I shed a tear when we put her out of commission because she was a very good ship.”
Eagling said he would do “whatever it takes” to see the flag preserved and on display again.
“It’s important to me,” Eagling said. “I’m proud of serving my country and I’m proud of serving on that ship. I want to see that flag taken care of.”
Eagling said he planned to approach Mayor Bob Walkup after he returned from the reunion in Norfolk.
Walkup said steps would be taken to renovate the flag and Councilman Steve Leal said he would help raise money to pay for it.
Cmdr. Paul Spear, skipper of the USS Tucson submarine, said he has provided a flag flown over his boat to be placed side-by-side with the older flag.
Eagling said it is rare that a city has two vessels named after it.
“That’s quite an honor I’d say, both of them being good ships,” he said. “The tradition continues.”
It cost the city nearly $2,000 to remove the flag and the glass casing it is housed in and then to paint the wall. Gonzales said it would cost at least that much to have a professional conservator take a look at it.
Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, senior textile conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, said flags flown during wartime could have a variety of problems.
Moisture, heat, light and insects are all concerns when it comes to preserving textiles, said Thomassen-Krauss, who helped restore Old Glory, a flag made in 1824 and the first to carry that title, and the Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key.
“This flag has probably been exposed to a lot of ordnance,” she said. “The nitrogen and sulfur compounds have the ability to combine with the water in the air and become an acid. It’s very important to keep them in a safe, stable environment.”
The flag appears to be in good condition, judging from photos taken by the Tucson Citizen, said Nancy Odegaard, a conservator at the Arizona State Museum here and past president of the American Institute of Conservators.
The museum is home to the only conservation laboratory in the state.
There appears to be some staining from water damage, and the creases in the flag indicate it may have been made with cotton or linen, she said.
But the glass case it is housed in may be cause for worry, she said.
According to city research, the flag was ensconced in a glass display case in 1957. At that time the mounting material and papers used to frame items often contained acidic compounds.
“It would have been pretty forward thinking and unusual to be using real good materials at that time,” Odegaard said. “I would be worried about those materials.
“If there’s a desire to preserve this item because of its significance, I would say there’s a high level of urgency to look at it and determine if there is currently active deterioration going on,” she said.
Odegaard said city officials should decide what steps they want to take before starting to preserve it.
Framing an 18-foot flag and displaying it in an area where it is protected from heat, light and humidity is not easy and can be costly, she said.
It may be more realistic to keep the flag rolled up in a safe manner and bring it out for display only during special events, Odegaard said.
Thomassen-Krauss said it will not be necessary to vacuum-seal the flag, but special glass or plastics and framing materials will need to be used.
“The costs are going to be pretty high for framing it, and they ought to know that going in,” she said. “If I was going to budget for framing, I’d probably be looking at thousands instead of hundreds of dollars.”
Gonzales said the flag may have been folded in the display case to hide fraying edges caused either from flying in the wind or mishandling.
Odegaard and Thomassen-Krauss agreed that those flaws should be proudly displayed and not hidden.
“It changes your whole appreciation of the artifact and connects with history in a personal way that you wouldn’t have otherwise,” Thomassen-Krauss said. “I think it’s wonderful when you have artifacts that can tell a story.”
The USS Tucson sits at anchor in Pearl Harbor in 1945. The USS Tucson was a light cruiser used to escort aircraft carriers. It saw World War II service only in July and August 1945.
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