Category Archives: for those lost at sea

The Howling Sea Wolf

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Some 80 years ago: the Sargo-class fleet boat USS Seawolf (SS-197) seen waging her very successful “Maru War” in the Pacific while on her 7th war patrol.

USS Seawolf (SS-197) – Periscope photograph of a sinking Japanese ship, torpedoed by Seawolf in the Philippines-East Indies area during the fall of 1942. This ship carries at least one landing craft forward, has a searchlight above her pilothouse, and a gun mounted at the aft end of the midship superstructure. Her general configuration resembles Gifu Maru, sunk on 2 November 1942, but she could also be the converted gunboat Keiko Maru, sunk on 8 November. Note the boat hanging from a davit amidships, as crewmen attempt to lower another boat further forward. US Navy Photo #: 80-G-33192

USS Seawolf (SS-197) – Periscope photograph of a sinking Japanese ship, torpedoed by Seawolf on a war patrol in the Philippines-East Indies area in the fall of 1942. This ship is possibly Gifu Maru, sunk on 2 November 1942 in Davao Gulf, Mindanao. US Navy Photo #: 80-G-33187

Leaving Freemantle, Australia on 1 October 1942, Seawolf (LCDR F.B. Warder in command) was ordered to patrol off the Davao Gulf, southern Philippines.

In the same one-week period she would sink the Japanese water tender Gifu Maru (2933 GRT) west-south-west of Cape San Augustin, Mindoro, the Japanese troop transport Sagami Maru (7189 GRT) off Davao, and the Japanese auxiliary gunboat Keiko Maru (2929 GRT) off Cape San Augustin, Mindanao.

Periscope photograph taken from USS Seawolf (SS-197), while she was on patrol in the Philippines-East Indies area in the fall of 1942. 80-G-33184

The sub would then end her patrol at Pearl Harbor on 1 December– just in time for a Christmas refit.

Seawolf would go on to be lost on her 15th war patrol, believed lost with 83 officers and men as well as 17 Army passengers, tragically believed sunk by friendly fire from aircraft from the escort carrier USS Midway (CVE 63) and the ASW weapons from the destroyer escort USS Richard M. Rowell (DE 403) off Morotai on 3 October 1944.

She was the most successful Sargo-class submarine, honored with 13 battle stars and credited with 71,609 tons of enemy shipping. She is one of 52 American submarines regarded as on Eternal Patrol.

Port side view of the Seawolf (SS-197) underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 7 March 1943. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. US Navy photo # NH 99549.

Operation Blackleg: Riding a Missile Like a Motorbike

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“Fraction of a Second” by Dave Coburn, depicts hard hat Royal Navy Clearance Diver Ray Sinclair, his saturation rig above him, placing a 4-pound C4 packet on the live warhead of a GWS.30 Sea Dart missile on the wreck of the Type 42 (Sheffield-class) destroyer HMS Coventry (D118), on her side some 330 feet down on the bottom of the icy South Atlantic.

The painting comes as part of the 40th anniversary of “Operation Blackleg” undertaken in October-December 1982 by 25 divers and 13 support staff of the Royal Navy’s Clearance Diving Branch. This historic series of dives were carried out by the Deep trials and Saturation Diving Team (NP2200), and either fully recovered or destroyed– at depth– all of the NATO sensitive equipment and documents from the war grave of HMS Coventry.

Coventry was sunk by Argentine Air Force A-4 Skyhawks on 25 May 1982 during the Falklands War, capsizing 20 minutes after three 1,000-pound bombs hit the 4,800-ton destroyer. While the nearby Type 22 frigate HMS Broadsword subsequently rescued 170 of Coventry’s crew, 19 were killed.

David Lidd: HMS ‘Broadsword’ Rescuing Survivors from HMS ‘Coventry’, 25 May 1982.

Following the conclusion of hostilities, the Admiralty evaluated its underwater graves for sensitive equipment and cryptographic material that could be salvaged and exploited by passing Soviet submarines that would likely not be concerned about the wrecks’ status as an official war grave, protected by the Military Remains Act.

Of the six British ships sunk in the Falklands, one, SS Atlantic Conveyor, was a roll-on/roll-off type container ship taken up from trade so she possessed few secrets.

Two 1960s-designed Type 21 frigates– HMS Antelope (F170) and HMS Ardent (F184)— sank inside the close littoral of the Falkland Islands themselves, within sight of shore on the bottom of San Carlos Water and in nearby Grantham Sound, their wrecks often checked on by RN survey ships.

The Round Table-class LST, RFA Sir Galahad, wrecked by Argentine Skyhawks and burned out, was towed to deep water after the end of the war and scuttled.

Perhaps the most famous British loss of the war was that of the modern Type 42 guided missile destroyer HMS Sheffield (D80), which was towed off and scuttled in more than 9,000 feet of water after she was abandoned following a hit by an Argentine Exocet missile and resulting inferno that gutted the ship. The fire likely destroyed anything useful and the depth kept her shrouded if not.

However, Coventry, Sheffield’s sister, went to the bottom quickly after she was hit, some 13 miles north of Pebble Island, at a depth of 330 feet. Less than four years in the fleet, she carried both advanced equipment and sensitive books that had not been secured. While a tough technical dive, her location was still within the realm of potential discreet salvage by skilled military teams either from Soviet subs or passing Warsaw Pact “trawlers.”

The command, in a scene reminiscent of a James Bond film and spoken with the seriousness of ‘M’, informed the divers, “If we fail to recover or destroy all the items on the Ministry of Defence list, NATO would be set back by 25 years.”

This was a problem that had to be fixed.

The NP2200 team, operating from the chartered support ship MV Stena Seaspread and equipped with early ROVs, made contact with the ship, penetrated the wreck– which still had deceased ship’s company aboard– made their way to the Computer Room to recover the crypto tapes from the computers, cleared the safe in the Captain’s Cabin of Top Secret documents, recovered some of the ship’s relics, and, finally, set demo charges.

As noted by Sinclair:

On November 26, 1982, my final excursion as diver (1) was to make my way over to the Sea Dart missile launcher. There, on the launcher, was the last armed Sea Dart missile sticking defiantly out 90 degrees to the ship. There would have been a different outcome if this missile had shot down the attacking Argentine jets.

The top side sent down one 4lb pack of plastic explosives and two 50lb charges. I placed the 50lb charges on the ship’s superstructure at strategic locations. I then swam over to the Sea Dart, straddle the missile like a motorbike, and secured the explosive pack to the warhead. Command was unsure whether deep demolitions using cortex would work. The diving bell and divers of 003 were now safely on board and commencing decompression. The Stena Seaspread moved off station. All three charges detonated.

Commissioned to honor all the divers of NP2200, who in the most harrowing and dangerous conditions performed as a team to successfully complete the arduous mission. The painting also honors all military personnel who risk their lives in bomb and mine disposal operations.

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022: Limping into Exile

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022: Limping into Exile

Original print with McCully report MSS.-AR branch. Naval History and Heritage Command Catalog #: NH 91178

Above we see Tsar Nicholas II’s once-mighty Russian Pacific fleet at anchor at Vladivostok, in September 1903. From left to right: the battleship Sevastopol, armored cruisers Gromoboi and Rossia, battleship Peresviet, protected cruiser Bogatyr, cruiser Boyarin, center; auxiliary cruiser Angara (three funnels, black hull); and battleships Poltava and Petropavlovsk. Of course, the following year would bring war with the Japanese Empire, and just about all the above would be swept away. 

Tracing its origins to the old Okhotsk flotilla of 1731, the Tsarist Pacific fleet would reach its zenith in 1904 and, just a decade later, was a shadow of its former self.

Here is the tale of how the Tsar’s final Pacific flotilla ended its days, 100 years ago this week.

1914-17

When Russia entered the Great War in August 1914, the renamed Siberian Military Flotilla included the smallish protected cruisers Askold (Krupp-built, 5,900 tons, 12×6-inch guns) and Zhemchug (3,100 tons, 8×4.7 inch), a mix of 22 old/small torpedo boat-sized destroyers, seven or eight early submarines, a couple of auxiliary cruisers (really just converted steamers), three minelayers, some random gunboats exemplified by the old Danish-built Mandzhur, and two new Taymyr-class icebreakers.

The flotilla was manned by some 6,000 officers and men, including shore establishments, magazines, and drydocks.

Russian protected cruiser Askold under repair in Toulon, Sept 1916

Russian Cruiser Zhemchug as part of the Siberian Flotilla

Russian Siberian Military Flotilla Ulysses Bay 1908 with the submarines Delfin, Kasatka, Skat, Nalim, Sheremetev, Osyotr, Kefal, Paltus, Bychok or Plotva, and destroyer Grozovoy

All-in-all, a respectable coastal defense force to protect its two key ports at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk, both of which had a serious network of modern coastal artillery emplacements ashore. Further, this did not consider the 30 or so small shallow-draft gunboat flotillas on the Amur, Ussuri, and Sungari River systems coursing through the somewhat outlaw China and Korean border regions.

Its commander, since November 1913, was RADM Maximilian Fedorovich Schultz, one of the few Russian officers who came out of the 1904 War with a decent combat record as the skipper of the hard-fighting cruiser Gromoboi.

However, this force was soon whittled down as the war went on, with Zhemchug scandalously blasted away at her moorings at Penang by the German raider Emden in October, and Askold was sent into the Indian Ocean to search for Emden and then spent practically the rest of the war in the Mediterranean Sea.

Once the Ottoman Turks entered the war and closed off Russia’s Black Sea ports to British and French war material in late 1914, coupled with the destruction of the German East Asia Squadron under Admiral Maximilian von Spee, leaving the Pacific largely safe, Russia’s far Northern ports at Archangel and Romanov-on-Murman (today’s Murmansk) would become strategically important to the War effort. This saw a lot of the Siberian Flotilla siphoned off to become part of the new Arctic Flotilla/Northern Fleet in the freezing White Sea under Rear Admiral Ogrimov.

Askold would eventually end up in Archangel, as would the six best torpedo boats from Vladivostok and the submarine Delfin— the latter sent across the Trans-Siberian railroad and then barged up the Dvina River, a trek of over 8,000 miles. The minelayer Ussuri, along with the shiny new icebreakers Taymyr and Vaygach, would likewise be sent to the White Sea in 1915, largely by the Northern Route.

The twin icebreakers Taymyr and Vaigach are coaling from a freighter at Emma Harbor, 1913. Part of the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition under CDR (later ADM) Aleksandr Kolchak that helped chart the Northern Sea Route over Siberia and discovered what is now Severnaya Zemlya, they were assigned to the Pacific pre-war but would end up in the White Sea by 1915.

The Japanese, now Russian allies on paper at least, also retroceded (for a token fee) some wrecked old Tsarist warships captured during the 1904-05 War that they had rebuilt on a budget: the Petropavlovsk-class battleship Chesma (ex-Poltava), the battleship Peresvet (reclassified as an armored cruiser as she had been equipped with smaller caliber British Armstrong guns by the Japanese), the cruiser Varyag, and the auxiliary cruiser Angara.

Transferred by the Japanese at Vladivostok in March/April 1916, the first three were soon dispatched to the Med (where Peresvet was promptly sunk by a German mine off Port Said) within weeks, and two would end up in Archangel by 1917. 

Chesma was photographed at Vladivostok in 1916, after being repatriated by Japan to Russia. This ship served as The Japanese Tango after being salvaged at Port Arthur after The Russo-Japanese War; previously, she was The Russian Poltava. NH 94326

Chesma, foreground, and Varyag, background, photographed at Vladivostok after being retroceded by Japan in March 1916. NH 94355

Peresvet photographed at Vladivostok in 1916 after being returned by Japan to Russia. This ship was sunk at Port Arthur in 1904 and served the Japanese Navy as the Sagami from 1905 to March 1916. Peresvet was mined and sunk on 4 January 1917 near Port Said, Egypt. NH 94791

Staffing these three large ships significantly drained the flotilla of manpower, leaving several ships laid up afterward.

Angara, in poor material condition, never left Vladivostok and served as a barracks and depot ship there.

Pechenga, a Russian depot ship probably photographed at Vladivostok during World War I. This ship was built in 1898 in Scotland as Moskva for the Russian Volunteer Fleet Association; it was renamed Angara in late 1903 for naval service and sunk at Port Arthur. She was raised by Japan and renamed Anegawa Maru, then served as a transport until and ceded back to Russia in 1916. Scuttled in 1922, she was later raised and scrapped by the Soviets. NH 92087

Further transfers of the rest of its submarines to the Black and Baltic Sea via rail, and the paying off of three worn-out torpedo boats/destroyers (Besposhtchadny, Boiki, and Grozny) in 1916 would leave the Siberian Military Flotilla in 1917 without any battleships, submarines, or cruisers, and precious few escorts. Its two most powerful ships being its auxiliary cruisers. 

Orel (“Eagle”), a German F. Schichau-built fast passenger steamer with accommodations for 390 passengers, built originally for the Russian Volunteer Fleet, was the Siberian Military Flotilla’s most fearsome warship after October 1914 and would remain so until she sailed away in January 1920. Mounting eight deck guns ranging from 47mm to 120m,m along with a few machine guns and capable of maintaining 16 knots, she was classed as an auxiliary cruiser by the Russians. During the Great War, she looked for the German raider Emden, landed her naval infantry at Singapore to suppress a rebellion of Sepoys, and patrolled from Hawaii to Bombay. She was sold after the Russian Civil War to an English shipping firm and, as the SS Silvia and later SS Haitian, would survive in merchant service until 1950. Image from Yu.N.Trifonov, A.E.Volkov’s “Marine collection” 2007/06.

Orel and her sisterships, the passenger steamers Poltava, Simbirsk, Pensa, and Rjasan, from the 1910 Engineering magazine

Revolution

By the time of the March Revolution that overthrew the Tsar in far-away Petrograd, the Siberian flotilla would number only about a dozen semi-active torpedo boats/destroyers, the auxiliary cruisers Lieutenant Dydymov and Orel, the 700-ton gunboat Adm. Zavoyko, the gunboat Mandzhur, and the 2,500-ton minelayer Mongugay.

On 29 November 1917, Adm. Zavoyko raised a red flag on her masts while in Golden Horn Bay, the first such vessel in the Pacific to do so, and the rest of the fleet went over to the Bolsheviks, becoming the Red Siberian Flotilla on 12 December 1917– with most ships’ officers and senior NCOs released from duty.

RADM Schultz, after a term in the brig guarded by red-arm banded sailors, was retired. He returned to his sister’s home near Luga, outside of Petrograd, and was later arrested in late September or early October 1919 and shot by the Bolsheviks. His body was never found.

Intervention and Civil War

Meanwhile, with stockpiles of allied war aid crowding the docks of Vladivostok, American (cruiser USS Brooklyn), British (cruiser HMS Suffolk), and Japanese (battleships Iwami and Asahi) warships were in the harbor by January 1918 and had sent marines ashore to protect their consulate.

Bundled up, U.S. Marines landed from USS Brooklyn (CA-3) at Vladivostok, Siberia, in 1918-19. 111-SC-76186

This soon expanded to a mandate to support the withdrawal of the newly formed Czech Legion, recruited from Austrian POWs held in Russian camps, and whole divisions of ground troops came ashore over the summer, with the Japanese eventually landing 72,000 troops under the command of Gen. Kikuzo Otani. By comparison, the smaller American Expeditionary Force, Siberia, of Maj. Gen. William S. Graves only amounted to about 8,000 soldiers. The latter was supported by a U. S. Navy task force under RADM William L. Rodgers. Similar forces were landed by the Canadians (4,400) and British (6,700, mostly Indian, troops).

American sailors equipped with Remington-made Mosin rifles and helmets in Vladivostok, Russia, 1918. 111-SC-50100

U.S. Soldiers in Vladivostok, Aug. 1918, a mission that would span four years

Russian Intervention, 1918-20. Hospital Car operated by the American Expeditionary Forces at Khabarovsk, north of Vladivostok. American Red Cross Collection. The war in Siberia was one of railways and ports. Photograph received November 11, 1919. National Archives.

With the change in Eastern Siberia’s political polarity in June 1918, the anti-Bolshevik White Russians under then-Admiral Kolchak, with the interventionists as muscle, took control of the Siberian Military Flotilla. The Japanese duly impounded the destroyers Tochnyy, Tvordyy, Smelyy, and Skoryy, along with most of the gunboats of the Amur River flotillas, and never gave them back.

Russian destroyer Skoryy, seen at Port Arthur in 1903. The 258-ton Sokol-class destroyer was assembled at Port Arthur from a Nevsky-supplied kit and, escaping the fall of the fortress in 1905, was eventually taken over by the Japanese in June 1918, who kept her in operation for four years, scuttling the vessel in October 1922 along with the other destroyers the Japanese had taken up.

Bereft of lower ratings, who had either signed up with the Reds or deserted, the Flotilla was sidelined through most of the Russian Civil War. During this period, its leadership shifted between Rear Admirals Sergei Nikolaevich Timirev and Mikhail Andreevich Berens. Efforts to train new officers and crews from local recruits were begun but, as it would turn out, were short-lived.

Once Kolchak was betrayed and executed at the end of 1919 and it looked like the Reds were going to win, a great flight from Vladivostok led to the departure of a convoy led by Orel (with RADM Berens aboard), the transport Yakut, and a group auxiliary ships manned by midshipmen of the local Naval School and refugees from Vladivostok to Japanese-held Tsingtao in January 1920, with Orel proceeding ultimately to Sevastopol where they would join the White Russian forces there.

Two Siberian Flotilla units were probably photographed off Vladivostok. Transport Yakut was a former British Steamship, purchased in 1892. A Nevski-built, Yarrow-Type Destroyer appears at left. NH 94289

In their wake, Berens (or the Japanese) had scuttled the destroyers Trevozhnyy, Inzhener-mekhanik Anastasov, and Leytenant Maleyev.

Destroyer Inzhener-mekhanik Anastasov in Vladivostok. She had been scuttled in 1920.

Their supply lines running short and the Japanese still in control of the region as far inland as the eastern shores of Lake Baikal, the Reds stopped just short of overrunning the maritime region and Vladivostok languished as the principal port of a rump state– the Far Eastern Republic– under the protectorship of the Allied interventionists and with the tacit agreement of Moscow.

This thing. The population, just 1.7 million-ish, half of it Chinese/Mongol, was sparse but the mineral riches were heavy

It should be noted that the FER kind of wanted to just break away from the whole Russia thing and go its own way, much like the Baltics, Caucasus, Ukraine, Finland, and Poland had already. Their much-divided 400-member representative Constituent Assembly consisted of about a quarter Bolsheviks with sprinklings of every other political group in Russia, including Left and Right Social Revolutionaries, Kadets (which had long ago grown scarce in Russia proper), Mensheviks, Socialists, outright Monarchists, and Anarchists. This produced a weak and divided buffer state between Soviet Russia and Imperial Japan, and Moscow, fighting Poland in the West and against Wrangel’s White Russian forces in Ukraine at the time, had bigger fish to fry.

The thing is, Washington and London were tired of their Russia expenditures once it became clear regime change wasn’t going to be a thing, and, with the withdrawal of the British, the Czech Legion, and AEF-Siberia by April Fool’s Day 1920, it became an outright Japanese puppet, safe and snug behind a cordon sanitaire of the Emperor’s bayonets.

Enter RADM Georgy Karlovich Stark

The descendant of a Scottish family of the Clan Donnachaidh that moved to Russia back during the days of Peter the Great, Stark was a career naval officer born in 1878. Graduating from the naval cadet school in 1898, he was well-placed as his great uncle was Admiral Oskar Viktorovich Stark, the commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet at the beginning of the 1904 war. The younger Stark spent his career in destroyers, ultimately going on to command the 5th and 12th destroyer divisions against the Germans in the Baltic in 1916 and, after the March Revolution, was promoted to rear admiral in charge of the Baltic Fleet’s mine forces– the most effective unit of that fleet.

Cashiered once the Bolsheviks came into power, Stark made his way east and fell in with Kolchak by June 1918, ultimately leading an infantry division of all things in combat along the Trans-Siberian. Narrowly escaping the White collapse along the shores of Lake Baikal and crippled by typhus, he was in a Vladivostok convalescence bed when Berens pulled stumps with the flower of the Siberian Flotilla’s officer corps.

Under the squishy politics of the FER, the flotilla was rechristened the republic’s “People’s Revolutionary Fleet” but, following a pro-White coup under Gen. Mikhail Diterikhs and others in Vladivostok in May 1921, became the Siberian Military Flotilla once again– using the old St. Andrew’s naval flag– under the new Provisional Priamur Government, with a recovered Stark in command. Reforms and rebuilding efforts by Stark (who also pitched in with running the government) put some of the fleet’s destroyers and gunboats back in service, and they were used to support a variety of amphibious landings along the coastline to fight Red partisans throughout the summer periods of 1921 and 1922.

The gunboat Adm. Zavoyko, away on a mission when the coup went down, rather than sail for Vladivostok and join the Whites, instead made for Shanghai. There, according to legend, she successfully fended off several plots from foreign actors, Whites, monarchists, and the like to take over the vessel.

Then, starting in June 1922, the Japanese began to slowly withdraw from the Priamur enclave, with the final troops sailing away in early October. Diterikhs tried to go on the offensive near Khabarovsk to scare the Reds off, but they were driven back. On 9 October, the Reds occupied Spassk and began moving into South Primorye, then, by 19 October, were on the outskirts of Vladivostok.

Members of the Provisional Amur Government in Vladivostok, 1922. In the center are the brothers Spiridon (Chairman of the Government) and Nikolai Merkulov (Minister of Foreign Affairs), and to the right, in a bow-tied Tsarist admiral’s uniform, is RADM Georgy Stark, commander of the Siberian Flotilla.

This left Stark tasked with a maritime evacuation of the last die-hard White Russians, bereft of international support, using what remained of the flotilla. A genuine spit-and-bubble gum effort. Scuttling the already disarmed destroyers-turned-minesweepers Serdityy and Statnyy, as well as the Pechenga (old Angara) after stripping them of everything useful, he was able to scrape together a handful of vessels that could make the open ocean.

Serdityy, a Russian destroyer, photographed at Vladivostok in 1916. Note that the ship’s guns have been removed, probably for service as a minesweeper. This ship was ordered as Bekas but was renamed on 26 December 1899 (old-style calendar). Note the floating dock in the left background. NH 92392

Stark’s force included the auxiliary cruiser Lieutenant Dydymov, the gunboats Mandzhur, Farvater, Strela, Strazh, and Porazhayushchiy; the minelayer Mongugai, the tug Baykal, dispatch boat Ayaks, and the freighters Diomed, Zapal, Patrokl, Svir, Uliss, Il’ya Muromets, Batareya, and Parizh. Joined by a dozen miscellaneous civilian vessels– including fishing trawlers and construction barges– under a tri-color Russian flag at Posyet Bay, Stark’s little fleet numbered 28 ships all told by 28 October, filled with over 10,000 refugees.

Korea and China

Sailing 370 miles for Genzan (Wonson) in what is now North Korea, they arrived on Halloween 1922 and remained there for three weeks as other White Russian vessels swelled Stark’s exile fleet to over 40 ships. Ordered to leave by the Japanese, who were not anxious to support a Russian exile community in the Hermit Kingdom, Stark consolidated his ships, shedding the crippled vessels along the way (Dydymov was tragically lost in a storm while the dispatch boat Ayaks was later lost off Formosa) and stopped briefly at Fuzan (Busan) before arriving at Shanghai with just 15 ships. He was joined there by the White Russian gunboat Magnit, which had left Petropavlovsk with 200 Siberian Cossacks aboard.

Soon, the gunboats Farvater, Strela, Strazh, and Porazhayushchiy were disarmed and sold to a French concern in Shanghai in exchange for enough credit to buy 1,500 tons of coal for the ships that were left.

Meanwhile, (acting) RADM (formerly Capt. 2nd rank) Vasily Viktorovich Bezuar remained at Genzan with 11 broken ships that he would liquidate, arriving in Shanghai before the year was out.

In a state of the surreal, the exiled anti-White gunboat Adm. Zavoyko was still in Shanghai at the time, and only sailed back home to the now-all-Soviet Vladivostok in March 1923 (after Stark’s fleet left), where she became a unit of the Red Banner Fleet– the only one in the Pacific until 1932.

ADMIRAL ZAVOYKO 1921

ADMIRAL ZAVOYKO 1921

It was in Shanghai that Red Navy Capt. Vladimir Alexandrovich Belli– like Stark from a Scottish family that had been in Russia since the 1700s– was sent by Moscow to talk with Stark. He brought the White admiral a photo and letter from his family in Petrograd and offered a general amnesty on behalf of the Central Committee in exchange for the return of the flotilla. Stark refused and, according to some reports, Belli didn’t blame him. Nonetheless, some of the refugees had second thoughts about their new lives abroad and returned to Russia with the Red officer.

With most of the sad little fleet’s refugees leaving the ships to cast their lot ashore with the thousands of White Russian exiles in Manchuria and China, by January 1923 it had been decided that the remaining ships which could still steam would head as a force to Manila, where– with the diplomatic support of fellow White RADM Boris Petrovich Dudorov who was serving as naval attaché in Tokyo from 1918 to 1922 and Washington after 1923 for the exile government as the Japanese did not recognize the Moscow government– they would be given a literal safe harbor.

Much like the welcome the Tsar’s battered fleet received in 1905 and the exiled South Vietnamese Navy would receive in 1975 following the fall of Saigon, the Philippines became home to Stark’s Whites.

The Last Leg

On 20 January, ten of Stark’s vessels carrying 720 or so White Russian naval officers and sailors, along with 175 of their wives and children, appeared in the Lingayen Gulf. They would be escorted into Cavite by the U.S. Navy, where their ships would be swept for weapons, the breechblocks of their guns removed, and a (guarded) camp established at Olongapo ashore.

Governor General Leonard Wood went on to secure $5K from the American Relief Administration for Russia and a matching $5K from the American Red Cross while pushing the local government to allow some of the smaller Russian ships to engage in inter-island trade. On 23 March 1923, in agreement with the U.S. Navy, Stark ordered the St. Andrews Cross lowered on his ships, replaced by the Stars & Stripes alone.

In April, President Harding authorized the emigration of 500 Russian refugees from Stark’s ships to the U.S., provided they could pay their own way on an Army-provided transport and be granted visas– while many of the balance would go on to take jobs in Mindanao.

On 24 May 1923, some 529 Russians, mostly former naval personnel and their families, were taken on the 3,000-ton U.S. Army Transport Merritt and, subject to military justice with Stark’s blessing, would sail for San Francisco in a transit paid for by Stark’s remaining funds. The fees for the necessary visas, likewise, had been paid for out of the fleet’s strongbox.

The USAT Merritt. Built in China in 1912 for the U.S. Army Quartermaster Department, she would ply the Philippines and run a shuttle service to Hawaii and California for 20 years. Sold on the commercial market as SS Bisayas, she was lost in 1942 to the Japanese, who raised her and put her back in service as the Hishigata Maru until the USAAF sent her to the bottom for a final time in 1945.

As for the last of Stark’s ships, they were left to sway at their moorings in Cavite with 75 volunteers to keep them afloat until they could be sold or disposed of.

While many of the principal European countries soon reestablished relations with Soviet Russia– Great Britain concluded a trade agreement with the Soviet regime in 1921 and accorded recognition in 1924, while Germany reestablished diplomatic relations in 1922 and concluded a comprehensive commercial treaty in 1925– U.S. relations with Moscow gently warmed until the Soviet Union was recognized in 1933. However, a Soviet delegation was allowed to visit Cavite in 1925 to inspect Stark’s remaining unsold ships, and, with one curious exception, they elected to sell them for scrap “as-is, where-is.” Of these, one, the gunboat Mandzhur, was purchased by Amagasaki Kisen, refurbished, and placed into service as Kimigayo Maru No.2.

Russian auxiliary cruiser/gunboat Mandzhur (Manchu, Manjur,) built in Denmark in 1886

Kimigayo Maru No.2, formerly the White Russian gunboat Mandzhur, was placed in regular two-day rice and barley runs between Osaka and Jeju Island from 1926 through 1941. Taken up from service by the Japanese Navy, she was lost in the June 1, 1945, B-29 bomber raid on Osaka.

The only ship of Stark’s that went back to Vladivostok was the 2,500-ton minelayer Mongugay.

Built in 1896 in Germany as a commercial steamer, Pronto, Mongugay had been bought by the Russian Navy in 1904 for service during the war with Japan. Able to carry 310 mines and armed with a mixed battery of 75mm and 47mm guns, she served the Tsar, then the Reds, then the Whites, and Stark until abandoned in Cavite. Reclaimed by the Reds in March 1925, she was made ready to sail and arrived back at Vladivostok on 12 April.

Used by Sovtorgflot as a tramp steamer of sorts into 1933, Mongugay was subsequently handed back over to the newly formed Soviet Red Banner Pacific Fleet and used as a receiving ship until 1951, when she was finally scrapped.

As for Stark, the unsinkable admiral would wander around Asia and Europe for a bit before settling with the large Russian exile community in Paris, where he would work as a taxi driver while serving as the chair of the “All-Foreign Association of Russian Naval Officers.” During the occupation of Paris by the Germans, he refused to cooperate with the German authorities and instead was involved with the Resistance.

Passing in 1949, aged 71, Stark was buried in the Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

Stark’s second in command, the young Bezuar, would go on to serve as a merchant ship captain in Philippine and Chinese waters during the interwar period and was killed in December 1941 when the Japanese sank his ship. Speaking of which, many of the White Russian exiles that settled in Mindanao would go on to join and support anti-Japanese resistance forces in the islands during WWII occupation.

Belli, the Red officer of Scottish ancestry who offered Stark and company amnesty in Shanghai in 1923, went on to spend 10 years as a guest in Stalin’s gulag during the Purges, then, during WWII, returned to service and eventually retired in 1951 as a rear admiral teaching international naval law at the Voroshilov Naval Academy. He outlived just about everyone else involved in this story and died in Leningrad in 1981, still officially a member of the Frunze Academy’s board at age 93.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Making room for the honored dead

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Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) is probably America’s most hallowed ground. Founded unofficially in the Civil War on the somewhat illegally seized grounds of Robert E. Lee’s wife’s estate, the Army cemetery today consists of 624 acres and is the final resting place of over 400,000 service members and their families.

However, it is fast running out of space. This brings us to the massive Arlington National Cemetery Southern Expansion Project, a planned 50-acre expansion that has been underway in assessment and roadway diversion for most of a decade with the primary purpose to increase the capacity for future interment at the cemetery, adding anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 new individual gravesites at a cost of $420 million. This will allow it to continue to serve new qualifying interments into about 2060.

VOA has more details in the below video.

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022: Stuck in the Middle

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022: Stuck in the Middle

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97800

Above we see the camouflaged brand-new Gleaves (Bristol)-class destroyer, USS Duncan (DD-485), en route from her builder’s yard at Kearny, New Jersey, to be delivered to the Navy, on 15 April 1942. Note that her radar antenna has been edited out by a wartime censor. Commissioned the next day, her naval career would last but 179 tense days, and she would be forever retired into the shark-infested waters off Savo Island some 80 years ago today.

The Gleaves class is an unsung group of 66 destroyers and fast minesweepers who began construction pre-WWII and completed in the first stage of the war. With the huge building of the follow-on Fletcher– and Sumner-class destroyers, the Gleaves are often forgotten. What should never be forgotten is the sacrifice these ships made, with no less than 17 of the class lost during WWII or damaged to the point that they were written off as not worth repairing.

Slight ships of just 2,395 tons, and 348 feet of steel hull, they were packed with a turbine-powered 50K shp plant that gave them a theoretical speed of over 37 knots and a 6,500-mile range at an economical 12-knot cruising speed for convoy or patrol work. Armed with as many as five 5″/38 DP mounts, up to 10 torpedo tubes, ASW gear, and AAW batteries, they were ready for almost anything and could float in as little as 13 feet of seawater, leaving them able to get inshore when needed. With 269 berths and only 24 apprentice strikers out of their planned 293-man crew having to rig hammocks, the class was modern for their era, part of the “New Navy.”

USS Gleaves (DD-423): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard & Outboard Profile, 6/23/1939, as modified 1945. Note the SG and SC-3 radar rigged on the top of the mast as well as the Mk 28 radar antenna on the gun director atop the wheelhouse. National Archives Identifier: 167816741

Our Duncan was named for 19th Century naval hero Silas Duncan, who lost his right arm at Lake Champlain while assigned to USS Saratoga in 1814 but would go on to later serve on the Independence, Hornet, Guerriere, Cyane, and Ferret, then command the sloop USS Lexington on overseas stations in the 1830s. His name was honored previously by the Navy in the circa 1912 Cassin-class destroyer USS Duncan (DD-46) which earned a reputation on U-boat patrols in the Great War.

Laid down at the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Company in the Garden State on 31 July 1941, the second USS Duncan was launched just seven months later. Federal built several Gleaves and later Fletcher-class destroyers in World War II, setting records for both: 137 days on the 1,630-ton Gleaves-class USS Thorn (DD-647) and 170 days from keel to commissioning on the Fletcher USS Dashiell (DD-659).

USS Duncan (DD 485), keel being laid at Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, July 30, 1941. 19-LC-Box44-485.

Also launched on the same day were sisters USS Hutchins (DD 476) and USS Guest (DD 472) at Boston Naval Shipyard, and USS Lansdowne (DD 486) — the latter at Federal in the slip alongside Duncan.

USS Duncan (DD-485) en route from her builder’s yard at Kearny, New Jersey, to be delivered to the Navy, 15 April 1942. Note her stern depth charge racks. NH 97801

Commissioned 16 April 1942, just a week after the fall of Bataan in the Philippines, Duncan was placed under the command of LCDR Edmund B. Taylor (USNA 1925) a burly All-American who boxed, played football and lacrosse at Annapolis and had served almost all of his 17 years in a series of surface warfare assignments ranging from battleships to tin cans– interrupted in the early 1930s by a stint coaching ball and instructing gunnery back at the Academy.

Ducan raced through her shakedowns in the Caribbean while aiding in the escort of convoys between GTMO and Cristobal, then sailed for the South Pacific where the battle to take Guadalcanal was raging. She arrived at Espiritu Santo on 14 September and joined TF 17/18 to cover the transports carrying the 7th Marine Regiment to reinforce besieged Guadalcanal.

Duncan was next to the doomed aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7) the next day when she was burning and listing Southeast of San Cristobal Island after being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The loss of Wasp was a hugely traumatic event to the Navy, having already seen Lexington and Yorktown sent to the bottom within the four months prior.

Loss of USS Wasp (CV-7), 15 September 1942. Sinking of USS Wasp (CV 7) after being torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-19 on 15 September 1942. She was engaged in covering the movement of supplies and reinforcements into Guadalcanal Island. Photograph released on 27 October 1942. 80-G-16352

Duncan picked up survivors from the carrier, transferring 701 officers and men to other ships, and 18 wounded and two bodies to the base hospital at Espiritu Santo the following day.

The Express

Less than three weeks later, Duncan would be steaming as part of the cruiser-destroyer force of RADM Norman Scott’s Task Force 64 (TF Sugar) consisting of the heavy cruisers USS San Francisco and USS Salt Lake City, the light cruisers USS Boise and USS Helena, along with the destroyers Farenthold, Buchanan, Laffey, and McCalla. The job? Stop the nightly Japanese resupply efforts to their garrison fighting in the jungles of Guadalcanal– the Tokyo Express.

USS Duncan (DD-485) underway in the south Pacific on 7 October 1942. Photographed from the escort carrier USS Copahee (ACV-12), which was then engaged in delivering aircraft to Guadalcanal. NH 90495

Sailing from Espiritu Santo and reaching the vicinity of Savo Island by 11 October, they were soon to contact the Express. At 1810, scout planes from the American cruisers spotted two enemy cruisers and six destroyers (actually the three heavy cruisers Furutaka, Aoba, and Kingusagasa, along with the destroyers Fubuki and Hatsuyuki, covering six destroyers and two seaplane tenders loaded with reinforcements and cargo).

By 2325, after creeping up on the Japanese force, Helena’s SG radar made contact at 27,000 yards out– heady stuff for the era. Just before midnight, Helena was requesting permission to fire, and, at 2346, both of Helena’s batteries opened on separate but unspecified targets while Salt Lake City joined in on a contact just 4,000 yards to her starboard. Soon after, the swirling scrap between the two surface action groups that went down as the Battle of Cape Esperance became disjointed and confusing– an understatement– with searchlights and gun flashes cracking across the night sky and torpedoes filling the water.

During the action, Duncan was one of the ships that may have plastered the cruiser Furutaka.

As noted by Combined Fleets:

At 2235, Rear Admiral Goto’s three cruisers and two destroyers are picked up by Captain Gilbert C. Hoover’s USS HELENA’s radar. Scott reverses course to cross the Japanese “T”. Both fleets open fire. ComCruDiv 6, Rear Admiral Goto, thinking that he is under “friendly-fire”, orders a 180-degree turn that exposes each of his ships to the Americans’ broadsides.

Flagship AOBA is damaged heavily. Admiral Goto is mortally wounded on her bridge. After AOBA is crippled, Captain Araki turns FURUTAKA out of the line to engage Captain (later Vice Admiral) C. H. McMorris’ USS SALT LAKE CITY. LtCdr E. B. Taylor’s USS DUNCAN (DD-485) launches two torpedoes toward FURUTAKA that either miss or fail to detonate. She continues firing at the cruiser until she is put out of action by numerous shell hits. At 2354, FURUTAKA receives a torpedo hit to port side that floods her forward engine room.

Destroyer FUBUKI is sunk and HATSUYUKI damaged. Captain E. J. Moran’s USS BOISE, USS SALT LAKE CITY and USS FARENHOLT (DD-491) are damaged.

About 90 shells hit FURUTAKA, jamming her No. 3 turret in train and starting several fires. Several shells penetrate the engine rooms. The Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedoes ignite as well. The fires draw more gunfire.

12 October 1942:

Around 0040 FURUTAKA goes dead in the water. After the battle flag is lowered, the order is given to abandon ship. At 0228 (local), FURUTAKA sinks stern first 22 miles NW of Savo Island, at 09-02N, 159-33 E. Thirty-three crewmen are killed and 225 counted as MIA. Captain Araki and 517 survivors are rescued by HATSUYUKI and by DesDiv 11’s MURAKUMO and SHIRAYUKI (of Admiral Joshima’s Reinforcement Group).

Duncan’s report, filed after the fact, details how at one point she was in the crossfire between the two battlelines, bracketed by cruisers at effectively point-blank distances on both sides of her beam:

In the end, wrecked by several large-bore shell hits at close range (thought to be from cruisers under both flags), the charred hulk of Duncan was abandoned and sunk just short of Savo Island just before noon on 12 October. McCalla, one of her sisters, managed to search for and save 195 men from the oil-soaked waters once dawn broke– with rifle parties on deck having to fire at sharks seen circling men in the water.

Some 48 of Duncan’s crew were lost with the ship and remain on duty. Due to the shell hits on her wheelhouse and chart room, of her 13 officers aboard during the battle, all but four were killed or seriously wounded. Of her enlisted, at least 35 of those rescued by McCalla, about one in five, were listed as wounded.

Duncan received just one battle star (Second Savo) for her brief, though eventful, World War II service.

Epilogue

Taylor, Duncan’s sole skipper, earned the Navy Cross for his actions during the Battle of Cape Esperance. His citation read:

For extraordinary heroism during action against enemy Japanese naval forces off Savo Island on October 11, 1942. Although his ship had sustained heavy damage under hostile bombardment, Lieutenant Commander Taylor, by skillful maneuvering, successfully launched torpedoes which contributed to the destruction of a Japanese cruiser. Maintaining the guns of the Duncan in effective fire throughout the battle, he, when the vessel was finally put out of action, persistently employed to the fullest extent all possible measures to extinguish raging fires and control severe damage.

Taylor would soon be given a second destroyer, the newly commissioned Fletcher-class tin can USS Bennett (DD-473), and the rank of captain. Taking Bennett into harm’s way, he soon earned a bronze star operating in the Bismarck Archipelago on a night raid to engage Japanese shore batteries and ammo dumps near Rabaul. He then went on to command DESDIV 90 and DESRON 45, adding a silver star to his salad bar in the Philippines. This consummate surface warrior would end the war as an aide to Forrestal. Post-war, he commanded the heavy cruiser USS Salem (CA-139), was commander of the ASW Force during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and retired in 1966 as a vice admiral.

His son, Capt. Edmund Battelle “Ted” Taylor Jr., was aboard a helicopter that developed engine trouble and crashed as it attempted to land on the cruiser USS Providence off Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin in May 1972 and is listed as missing in action. Vice Admiral Edmund Battelle Taylor passed the next year, aged 69, in Virginia Beach.

As for her sisters, the surviving Gleaves were slowly placed in mothballs or given away as military aid to overseas allies in the 1950s, with the last in active U.S. service, USS Fitch (DD-462/DMS-25), decommissioned in 1956. Most of those sent to the reserve was later scrapped or sunk as targets in the 1970s. Of those sent overseas, the last to be disposed of was ex-USS Lardner (DD-487), who finished her second life as the Turkish Navy’s Gemlik in 1982. No Gleaves-class destroyers are preserved.

The Navy, as it did often in the darkest days of WWII, quickly re-issued the name of the heroically lost destroyer. The third (and final) warship named in honor of Master Commandant Silas Duncan, a new Gearing-class destroyer, USS Duncan (DD-874), was commissioned on 25 February 1945. She was launched by the same distant cousin that launched “our” Duncan, would see brief service in WWII prior to D-Day, earning seven battle stars off Korea, picking up a FRAM II conversion, and standing guard on Yankee Station in Vietnam before she was retired in 1971.

USS Duncan (DD-874) at Pearl Harbor, circa the mid-1960s. Retired after a busy 26 years, she was disposed of in a 1981 SINKEX. NH 74033.

This latter Duncan maintains a veteran’s association that honors the memory of both destroyers.

Specs:

(As-built)
Displacement: 1,630 tons
Length: 348 ft 3 in
Beam: 36 ft 1 in
Draft: 13 ft 2 in
Propulsion: four boilers; two Allis Chalmers Turbines, 50,000 shp, two propellers
Speed: 37.4 knots
Range: 6,500 nautical miles at 12 kt
Complement: 208 designed. Wartime: 16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament:
4 × 5 in/38 cal guns (1 deleted in 1945)
4 x 40mm Bofors in two twin mounts.
7 x 20mm Oerlikon in single mounts.
Torpedo Tubes: 5 x 21-inch in one quintuple mount (deleted in 1945)
ASW: 2 racks for 600-lb. charges; 6 “K”-gun projectors for 300-lb. charges, three Mousetrap devices.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I am a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2022: Way Down Upon…

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2022: Way Down Upon…

U.S. Navy photo in the National Archives. 80-G-344419

Above we see Naval Aviators of the “Flying Boars” of Fighter Squadron (VF) 40, upon their return to the Sangamon-class escort carrier USS Suwannee (CVE 27), talking about splashing three Japanese Vals off Okinawa, on 16 May 1945. In flight suits are (L-R): Ensign Raymon L. Lebel, LT John E. Lockridge, and LT (jg) Joseph Coleman. For that month alone, the F6F-3 Hellcat squadron would claim six enemy aircraft and nine fishing boats destroyed.

Not a bad job for flying from a converted oiler.

Tanker flattops

During WWII, the U.S. launched 50 of the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company’s Casablanca-class and 45 smaller Bogue-class escort carriers between September 1941 and June 1944. These 95 rapidly built flattops, based on simple Liberty ship/C3-class freighter hulls, were the bulk of the “jeep carrier” production. At just 10,000-ish tons and about 500 feet long with the ability to carry about 20 or so aircraft (typically Wildcats and Avengers), these formed the backbone of the Allied “hunter-killer” ASW teams in the Battle of the Atlantic and later lent their shoulders to support amphibious warfare landings across the Western Pacific.

However, before the Navy settled for these little guys, it rushed a four-ship class of oiler conversions into service which set the bar high for the type.

The largest escort carriers converted for the U.S. Navy; the Sangamon-class all started life as big Maritime Commission Type T3-S2-A1 oil tankers. Large and turbine powered, the 553-foot, 11,300-ton (gross) vessels could tote 146,000 bbl. of oil at 18-19 knots and do it reliably. A full dozen of these had been laid down before WWII started, originally intended for a variety of U.S.-flagged oil companies. Of that dozen, all were rapidly taken up by the Navy in the summer of 1941 for conversion to desperately needed Cimarron-class oilers, a type the fleet would need possibly more than any other in 1942.

The thing is, in 1942, the Navy found it needed aircraft carriers even more.

Four Cimarrons— SS Esso Trenton, Esso Seakay, and Esso New Orleans, all originally planned for Standard Oil; and Esso Markay, which would drop the “Esso” and become just the SS Markay for the Keystone Tankship Corp– had only just gotten as far as changing their names to the Cimarron-class standard convention after rivers when the Navy stepped in once again and ordered their fast conversion to “Aircraft Escort Vessels,” often with different hull numbers to keep things properly confusing.

  • SS Esso Trenton became USS Sangamon (AO-28), then AVG-26.
  • SS Esso Seakay became USS Santee (AO-29), then AVG-29.
  • SS Esso New Orleans became USS Chenango (AO-31), then AVG-28
  • SS Markay became USS Suwannee (AO-33), then AVG-27.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

While our vessel is the only “Suwannee” on the NVR– named for the river which rises in Ware County in southeastern Georgia and flows southwest across Florida to empty into the Gulf of Mexico at Suwannee Sound– the Navy had two previous “Suwanee,”: a Civil War gunboat that spent her career fruitlessly chasing the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah, and a captured German steamer (ex-SS Mark) that was turned into a collier in the Great War.

Four ladies swimming and eating watermelon in the Suwannee River, Fanning Springs Florida

Our subject vessel was laid down at New Jersey’s Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. as hull number 5 on 3 June 1939 for Standard Oil, then, as mentioned, was delivered to Keystone in early 1941 sans her planned “Esso” prefix. She was purchased by the Navy on 26 June 1941.

Tanker SS Markay (incorrectly listed as Esso Markay) was photographed on 26 June 1941, just before conversion into USS Suwannee (AO-33), later AVG/CVE-27). Probably photographed in Baltimore, Maryland. 19-N-24297

Her Navy conversion was brief, and Suwannee was placed in commission on 16 July 1941 after just three weeks of work which consisted primarily of adding underway replenishment gear, painting her haze gray, and bolting on a topside armament of a single 5-inch gun and four water-cooled .50 caliber machine guns.

Her first task was to take Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron (MTBRon) 1, including its men as passengers and six 77-foot Elco torpedo boats (PT-20, PT-21, PT-22, PT-23, PT-24, and PT-25) as deck cargo, to Hawaii, shipping out from Brooklyn with the mosquito boats aboard and arriving at Pearl Harbor on 18 September, delivering the craft to Hawaii. Originally to go to the Philippines, MTBRon 1 would instead see action at Pearl Harbor, then later at the Battle of Midway, and participated in the Aleutian campaign.

PT Boats and Zeros Painting, Oil on Canvas; by Griffith Baily Coale; 1942; Unframed Dimensions 10H X 20W Accession #: 88-188-AF On the brightly colored waters of the lagoon, the PTs are skimming about, darting here and dodging there, maneuvering between the rows of machine gun splashes, incessantly firing their twin pairs 50 caliber guns.

Shipping back to the East Coast, Suwannee carried passengers and cargo from Texas to Newfoundland in the uneasy neutrality that was the U.S. in 1941. At Norfolk Navy Yard in maintenance on December 7th, she continued her service as an oiler, dodging U-boats along the East Coast.

With the success of the small early escort carriers USS Long Island (originally AVG-1, later ACV-1 then CVE-1), her sister HMS Archer (D78), and the Royal Navy auxiliary aircraft carrier (aka escort carrier) HMS Audacity (D10), it was decided just two months after Pearl Harbor to convert the quartet of above-mentioned oilers to carriers.

With that, Suwannee decommissioned on 20 February 1942 at Newport News, Virginia, to begin the conversion process.

Meet your new carrier

Recommissioned 24 September 1942– 80 years ago this week– our new carrier’s first skipper was Capt. (later Admiral) Joseph James “Jocko” Clark. The first Native American to graduate from Annapolis when the Cherokee passed out in 1917, Jocko learned his trade in the surface warfare field and then became a Naval Aviator in 1925. He was XO of USS Yorktown (CV-5) at the Coral Sea and Midway, having just seen his beloved carrier sent to the bottom just three months before taking command of his tanker-turned oiler-turned-AVG. Kind of a demotion and promotion all at the same time.

Armed with two 5″/38s, one port another starboard, these ships would eventually carry 22 40mm and 21 20mm AAA guns before the war was out, giving them a respectable self-defense armament.

The Sangamon class carrier’s air department included the flight deck and hangar deck crew, an Aerology Lab, radar, and radio maintenance shops, a photographic lab, a parachute loft, an ordnance gang, and Air Office. With a flight deck 503 feet long and 85 feet wide, they had a single catapult installed but would later pick up a second. They were the only CVEs during the war that were deemed suitable to fly dive bombers from as the SBDs were awkward on small hulls since their tough wings, filled with massive air braking flaps, did not fold.

Keep in mind that in their full-load 1944 displacement, the Sangamons went almost 25,000 tons, twice the weight of other CVEs. 

USS Sangamon, as converted

Suwanee’s first air group, 18 F4F Wildcats and 15 new TBF Avengers of Escort Scouting Group (VGS) 27 were the Navy’s top aircraft of the time and were attached on the day she was recommissioned. It should be noted this was significantly larger than the freighter-based CVEs (some of which only shipped out with eight aircraft) and, with a more robust hull type, the oiler-based baby flattops could conduct ops in higher seas. Truth be told, they should have been labeled “light carriers” as they were much close to the cruiser-hull converted Independence-class CVLs in size (15,000 tons, 620 feet oal for Indy) and supported roughly the same sized air wing.

As noted in Hunter-Killer: U.S. Escort Carriers in the Battle of the Atlantic by William T. Y’Blood:

The Sangamon-class ships were much more stable than the Bouge-class vessels because they had lower flight decks– 42 feet versus 54 feet– on a longer hull. These vessels also had two elevators but the hangar deck distance between them was shorter than in the other carriers. This shorter length was mitigated by increased width and no shear in the hangar deck area. A number of openings in the flat sides of the hull gave excellent ventilation for the hangar deck.

One big advantage that vessels of the Sangamon class had over the Bogue class was in the amount of fuel oil the former could carry. The Bouge could carry only 3,290 tons whereas the Sangamons could carry over 5,880 tons. Over and above this, too, was the fact that these ex-oilers could carry 100,000 gallons of aviation fuel and 7,000 gallons of aviation lubricants.

The Sangamon-class were very efficient, with more speed, greater range, increased stability, and the capability of operating more aircraft than the earlier escort carrier classes. However, because of the critical need for more oilers, these four ships would be the only such vessels converted. Had sufficient tanker hulls been available, the Kaiser CVEs might never have been built.

Aerial view of the escort carrier USS Suwanee (CVE-27) underway. USN 470158

Torch!

Just barely out of the shipyard– their guns had only been test fired for structural validation and yard workers were still aboard– the four Sangamons were joined with the Navy’s only “real” carrier in the Atlantic at the time, the smallish USS Ranger (CV-4), to form TF34 under RADM Ernest McWhorter and head to North Africa where they would support the Operation Torch landings.

As the Vichy French had 170 modern aircraft ashore in Morrocco as well as a significant surface and submarine force, and, if they wanted to, could be a formidable opponent, the five-carrier task force had its hands full.

The carriers had to mix and match their air wings so that Chenango could carry 76 Army P-40F Warhawks on a one-way trip. To support the landings, Ranger carried 54 Wildcats and 18 SBDs while Sangamon would ship with 9 Avengers, 9 SBDs, and 12 Wildcats; Santee with a strike-heavy package of 14 F4Fs, 8 TBFs, and 9 SBDs; and Suwanee with at least 29 Wildcats drawn from VGF-27 and VGF-28 and 9 TBFs. The Wildcats, fresh from Grumman, had to test fire their guns for the first time on the trip from the East Coast to the war zone.

USS Brooklyn (CL-40) and USS Suwannee (ACV-27) underway, with the amphibious convoy, en route to North Africa, in early November 1942. 80-G-30228.

USS Santee (ACV 29) en route to Torch landings

Color image showing SBD Dauntless and F4F Wildcat aircraft on the flight deck of USS Santee (ACV 29) during Operation Torch. Note the directions written on the deck

USS Chenango (CVE-28) ferrying army P-40F fighters to Morocco, with the North African Invasion force, November 1942. 80-G-30221

As the landings had three major objectives– Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers– Ranger and Suwanee would remain in the Center Attack Group (TG 34.9) headed for Casablanca, Sangamon and Chenango headed for Port Lyautey with the Northern Attack Group (TG 34.8), and Santee would cover the Southern Attack Group (TG 34.10)’s push off Safi.

Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighter (nicknamed “Rosenblatt’s Reply”) on board USS Suwanee (ACV-27), circa late 1942 or early 1943. The plane bears traces of the yellow Operation Torch marking around its national insignia. Photographed by Ensign Barrett Gallagher, USNR. 80-G-K-15634

SBD Dauntless dive bombers pictured in flight over an escort carrier during Operation Torch. NNAM photo

As noted by DANFS:

Early in the morning of 8 November, Suwanee arrived off the coast of Morocco, and, for the next few days, her Wildcat fighters maintained combat and antisubmarine air patrols, while her Avengers joined Ranger’s in bombing missions. Between 8 and 11 November, Suwannee sent up 255 air sorties and lost only five planes, three in combat and two to operational problems. On 11 November, off Fedala Roads, her antisubmarine patrol claimed the destruction of a submarine, a “kill” not verified in post-war accounting.

While DANFS says Suwanee’s claim wasn’t borne out post-war, most other sources disagree.

To expand on that, Suwanee’s operations included sending her Avengers with Ranger’s airwing to attack the French battleship Jean Bart and three submarines at Casablanca, scoring a bomb hit on the incomplete dreadnought and one on the docked submarines. Her Avengers also got in licks against the cruiser Primaguet and the destroyer Albatros as they tried to sortie from Casablanca’s outer harbor.

With her Wildcats burning gas providing a CAP over the Task Force, it once again fell to her Avengers to do the heavy lifting, with four TBF “Turkeys” smothering the French Redoutable-class submarine Sidi Ferruch (Q181) in a dozen Mk.17 depth bombs off Fedhala Roads.

French submarine Sidi-Ferruch (Q181) facing the cathedral of Saint Mary Major in the Old Port of Marseille, pre WWII

As noted by Y’Blood:

The Sidi-Ferruch was diving when the last four bombs exploded directly over her. The conning tower bobbed back up, and pieces of the vessel were flung in the air. The conning tower then submerged vertically. Violent explosions and a “boiling” of the water disturbed the surface for about ten minutes. Seeing the obvious death throes of the submarine, the fourth pilot held his bombs. A light boiling of the water, accompanied by some oil, continued for 45 minutes. There was no doubt that the VGS-27 fliers had destroyed the sub.

Even Uboat.net, the gold standard these days for Axis submarine losses in Europe, holds that Sidi Ferruch met her end at the hand of Suwanee’s air group.

It was the first time an American escort carrier would bag an enemy submarine but it would be far from the last. In the Battle of the Atlantic, jeep carriers would harvest more than 50 U-boats and at least two Japanese submarines while in the Pacific and Indian Oceans at least another nine would be added to the list. Suwannee’s sister Santee’s embarked VC-9 air group across a single cruise in July 1943 would tally three German boats: U-160, U-509, and U-43. 

Overall, the four “oiler carriers,” rushed through a hasty conversion to aviation vessels, acquitted themselves well in Torch. Despite almost near total inexperience by all involved, with new planes flown by green crews from ships that had been cobbled together, the three operational Sangamons flew 582 combat sorties in four days, dropped 399 bombs, and fired 111,000 rounds of ammunition. In exchange, they lost 29 aircraft– 21 from Santee alone– and landed 74 of 76 Army P-40s from Chenango.

Shifting gears to Guadalcanal

The Vichy regime over, and all but occupied metropolitan France now in with the Allies, Suwannee sailed home and, after a short yard period, was transferred to the Pacific where the fight around Guadalcanal was at its height and the Navy could only count on one or two forward deployed carriers at a time, all the others having been sunk or sent home with a beating.

Reaching New Caledonia on 4 January 1943, Suwannee spent the next seven months providing air escorts for Guadalcanal-bound convoys and in the occupation of New Georgia, Rendova, and Vanunu. She was interchangeably part of TF 18 and TF 69 during this period. The beans, bullets, and avgas that made it to the Marines and Soldiers on “The Canal” during this period largely did so under a protective umbrella of Wildcats and Avengers from Suwannee.

View from another ship showing a Sangamon-class aircraft carrier underway in the South Pacific in 1943. NNAM photo

It was during this time that one of her airedales, AMM B. L. Thomas, penned several safety drawings that were turned into posters.

USS Suwannee (AVG-27), April 7, 1943. Flight deck poster made by an AMM, B. L. Thomas, of the crew. Artwork details the dangers of propellers. Photograph: April 7, 1943. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-39315

USS Suwannee (AVG-27), poster by Thomas. Artwork details crossing the flight deck during launchings. 80-G-39316

USS Suwannee (AVG-27), poster by Thomas. Artwork details crossing the flight deck during landings. 80-G-39317

USS Suwannee (AVG-27), poster by Thomas. Artwork details sitting on the flight deck during flight operations. 80-G-39318

Suwannee returned to the U.S. for a brief refit, leaving Espiritu Santo on 26 August and arriving at Alameda on 10 September. There, she left her original air wing of VGS-27 behind and picked up the 12 F6F-3 Hellcats, 9 TBM-1C Avengers, and 9 SBDs of the newly formed Air Group (CVEG) 60 composed of VC-60 and VF-60. She would carry this force through November 1944 and would be the only carrier to embark CVEG-60.

Leaving San Diego on 16 October, Suwannee was back at Espiritu Santo and returned to service in time to spend Thanksgiving 1943 as part of the Gilbert Islands operation, bombing Tarawa with TF 53.

Another short stint on the West Coast and she headed for the Marshalls in January 1944 with her planes raiding the Roi and Namur islands of the Kwajalein Atoll and performing antisubmarine patrols.

Parry Island, Eniwetok Atoll, under bombardment 21 Feb 1944 recon from USS Suwanee (CVE 27) 80-G-218634

Escort carrier Suwannee (CVE 27) pictured at anchor at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands in an image taken from the heavy cruiser Baltimore (CA 68) Feb 7, 1944

March, joining her three sisters– Sangamon, Chenango, and Santee— as Carrier Division 22 (CarDiv 22), brought raids on the Palau Islands while April saw Suwannee supporting the Hollandia landings. By June, they were part of the invasion of the Marianas including the campaigns against Saipan and occupied Guam.

Much as Suwannee has been the first escort carrier to sink an Axis sub in the Atlantic when she pulled the plug on Sidi-Ferruch, her sister Chenango was the first to sink one in the Pacific, with VC-35 aircraft flying from Chenango splashing I-21 (Inada) in November 1943. However, Suwannee soon caught up and would be the only carrier of her class to sink enemy subs in both oceans. 

As part of the Battle of the Philippine Sea in which CVEG-60 came face-to-face with a Japanese Type KD7 boat.

As told by Combined Fleets on IJN Submarine I-184:

19 June 1944: The Battle of the Philippine Sea: 20 miles SE of Saipan. The USS SUWANEE (CVE-27) is supporting the invasion of the Marianas. Ensign G. E. Sabin’s Grumman TBM-1C “Avenger” torpedo-bomber of VT-60 is flying an ASW patrol. Sabin drops below the cloud cover and spots a surfaced Japanese submarine. LtCdr Rikihisa spots the Avenger and crash-dives, but Sabin drops his depth bombs just ahead of the submarine’s track and sinks I-184 with all 96 hands at 13-01N, 149-53E.

By September, Suwannee was supporting the landings on Morata in the Dutch East Indies and then was placed in the vanguard of the force headed to liberate the Philippines after two years of Japanese occupation.

The Divine Wind

Sailing from Manus with RADM Thomas L. Sprague’s Escort Carrier Group Task Unit 77.4.1 (Taffy 1) of TF77 on 12 October with her sisters Santee and Sangamon along with the new Casablanca-class “Kaiser coffin” USS Petroff Bay (CVE-80), Suwannee’s planes were soon raiding the Visayas.

By the 24th Taffy 1 was embroiled in the wild combat that swirled around the Battle of Leyte Gulf, just escaping the sacrifice of TG 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”) off Samar. While her airwing landed several blows against Japanese capital ships– battered survivors of the Battle of Surigao Strait– Suwannee and her sisters were subject to repeated kamikaze attacks from land-based planes across the 24th-26th.

Despite bagging at least one Zeke with her AAA guns, Suwannee took a hit about 40 feet forward of her aft elevator which peeled back a 10-foot hole in her deck and penetrated to the hangar where a 25-foot gash was ripped in the deck.

“Two Japanese Zero aircraft making suicide attacks on USS Sangamon (CVE 26) off Leyte Gulf, Philippines, as seen from USS Suwannee (CVE 27). One Japanese near miss near the bow. Trailing Japanese turned away and was shot down by our fighters, 25 October 1944.” 80-G-270665

Fires and explosion on USS Suwannee (CVE 27) resulting from a suicide hit of a Japanese “Zero” near Leyte Gulf, Philippines, taken from USS Sangamon (CVE 25), 25 October 1944. 80-G-270626

Japanese “Zero” crashes deck of USS Suwannee (CVE 27) and bursts into flames, Leyte Gulf, Philippines, 25 October 1944. TBM may be seen in flight behind the smoke. This plane which was loaded with a torpedo was unharmed by the crash. 80-G-270662

Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 1944. Damage done to USS Suwannee (CVE 27) after attack by a Japanese kamikaze off Leyte Gulf, photographed 25 October 1944. Note the hole in the flight deck. 80-G-270693

Battle of Leyte Gulf, wardroom of USS Suwannee (CVE 27) in use as an emergency sick bay following the kamikaze hit of 25 October 1944. 80-G-289527

Back conducting air ops just three hours later, the 26th saw a second kamikaze hit, this time creating a fire that destroyed nine of CVEG-60’s aircraft along with much of the ship’s bridge.

Fires and explosions on the flight deck of USS Suwannee (CVE 27), resulted from a suicide hit of a Japanese “Zero” near Leyte, Philippines. The airborne plane is friendly. Taken from USS Sangamon (CVE 26) at Leyte, Philippines, 26 October 1944. 80-G-270619

Japanese suicide “Zero” coming in for dive on USS Suwannee (CVL 27) off Leyte Gulf surrounded by ack ack This attack was the second one of the day, 26 October 1944. 80-G-270673

U.S. Navy escort carriers pictured at sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The photograph was probably taken from USS Petroff Bay (CVE-80), which was part of Task Unit 77.4.1 (Taffy I), together with the USS Sangamon (CVE-26), USS Suwannee (CVE-27), and USS Santee (CVE-29). The carrier burning in the background is most probably Suwannee, which was hit by two kamikazes, Santee by one amidships. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 2000.236.023

Damage done to USS Suwannee (CVE 27) after attack by Japanese suicide plane off Leyte Gulf. Note the shrapnel pattern. Photographed on 26 October 1944. 80-G-270689

Damage to elevator well on USS Suwanee following October 26, 1944 kamikaze hit

Nonetheless, her crew again patched up, made an emergency open-air navigational bridge, and made for the Palaus for repair.

An emergency bridge manned on after flight deck of USS Suwannee (CVL 27) was attacked by a Japanese kamikaze plane off Leyte Gulf, the Philippines, on 26 October 1944. 80-G-270674

In all, her two kamikaze hits in two days would result in almost 100 dead, another 58 missing, and 102 wounded. Keep in mind her crew and embarked air group at its largest only numbered about a thousand, meaning a full quarter of the men who sailed aboard her were on her casualty lists:

The same battle left sister Santee extensively damaged, hit both by a torpedo from Japanese submarine I-56 and a kamikaze, while Sangamon was struck by two kamikazes of her own. Retiring on 29 October, Sprague’s “oiler carriers” proved they could take abuse of the kind that was hard to shrug off.

Operation Iceberg

After some quick patchwork to get her that far, Suwannee made for Pearl Harbor in mid-December and then spent Christmas in San Diego. Repaired, she set out for Hawaii again in mid-January 1945 where she would shake down with a largely new crew and a new air wing, Air Group (CVEG) 40 composed of VC-40 and VF-40. This final package, of 20 F6F-5s and 12 TBM-1Cs, would be her last and, like CVEG-60, CVEG-40 would only know Suwannee as home.

By April Fool’s Day, she was off Okinawa as part of TF for Operation Iceberg, an 82-day battle that is known in Japan as the Kotetsu no ame (“rain of steel”) due to the intensity of the Japanese kamikaze attacks sent at the American forces. Keep in mind Japan lost an estimated 1,600 planes against the U.S. Fifth Fleet at Okinawa, a figure that never fails to stun no matter how many times you read it.

Again, Suwannee would sail with her three sisters of CarDiv 22 and was the flagship of RADM William Dodge Sample.

F6F-5 Hellcats of Fighting Squadron (VF) 60 pictured preparing to launch from the escort carrier Suwanee (CVE 27) on April 21, 1945

From DANFs on Suwannee during the period:

Her first assignment was close air support for the invasion troops; but, within a few days, she settled down to a routine of neutralizing the kamikaze bases at Sakishima Gunto. For the major portion of the next 77 days, her planes continued to deny the enemy the use of those facilities. Periodically, she put into the anchorage at Kerama Retto to rearm and replenish, but she spent the bulk of her time in air operations at sea.

In May, Suwannee suffered another serious fire because of a cracked-up Avenger.

Fire-fighting crews on board USS Suwannee (CVE 27) brought the blaze under control when a 100-pound bomb of TBM-3 (Bu# 68368) exploded after the plane landed on board. Pilot, Lieutenant Junior Grade Obed F. Flingerland, USNR, was killed and 13 crewmembers were injured. One of the crewmen died later. Photographed by Seaman First Class Hyman Atias, 24 May 1945. 80-G-325116

Likewise, both Chenango and Santee would suffer similar incidents during the operation. High-tempo carrier ops in a combat environment on a 500-foot deck across extended periods with lots of new pilots will do that.

As noted in her War Diary:

Part of CVEG-40’s scoresheet for Iceberg:

Balikpapan

With Iceberg thawed, Suwannee was pulled from the line, stopped in the PI for a week or so, then shipped south for the Dutch East Indies to support the cakewalk Free Dutch-Australian landings at Balikpapan on the Borneo coast. That accomplished, she headed North to the Japanese Home Islands once again and was at Buckner Bay, Okinawa when the news came that the Emperor would throw in the towel.

F6F-5 Hellcat of Fighting Squadron (VF) 40 launches from USS Suwanee (CVE 27) on August 30, 1945

VF-40 pilots smiling around the “kill” scoreboard, August 1945. Left to right: LCDR James C. Longino, Jr., LT (jg) Levi Monteau– pointing to trophy flags– LT(jg) Joseph Coleman, Ensign Raymond L.J. Lebel, and LT Earl E. Hartman. 80-G-349434

While RADM Sample and Suwannee’s skipper, Capt. Charles C. McDonald would go missing after their Martin PBM Mariner flying boat disappeared near Wakayama, Japan soon after VJ Day (they would be recovered in 1948), the rest of her crew made it home in late September 1945 under the command of XO, CDR Schermerhorn Van Mater.

Epilogue

Assigned to the Atlantic Inactive Fleet in October 1945 at Boston, Suwannee spent the rest of her career in mothballs there where she was re-designated to an escort aircraft carrier (helicopter) CVHE-27 in 1955. Stricken from the Navy List on 1 March 1959, she was sold later that year for conversion to merchant service but, with that falling through, was instead towed to Spain where she was scrapped in 1962.

She earned a Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars for her World War II service, the most decorated of her class.

Her 13 stars and Unit Citation

Suwannee’s war diaries and plans are in the National Archives but few other relics endure.

Her three sisters of CarDiv22 likewise were mothballed just after the war, silently redesignated CVHEs– a job they were no doubt suited for– and scrapped by the early 1960s. Between them, Santee, Sangamon, and Chenango received a total of 28 battle stars, a Navy Unit Commendation, and the Presidential Unit Citation during WWII. An impressive record. It should be noted that the Navy’s final 19 escort carriers ever finished, the Commencement Bay-class, were all based on Maritime Commission type T3 tanker hulls like the Sangamons. Apparently, a lesson had been learned.

Of Suwannee’s 31 Cimarron-class oiler half-sisters, two, USS Neosho (AO-23) and USS Mississinewa (AO-59) were lost during the war while the rest continued to serve throughout the Cold War. The final Cimarron in the fleet, USS Caloosahatchee (AO-98), only decommissioned in 1990 after an amazing 45 years of service and was not scrapped until 2010.

The U.S. Navy fleet oiler USS Caloosahatchee (AO-98) underway in 1988.

Specs:

(1942, as Converted)
Displacement (design): 11,400 tons standard; 24,275 tons full load
Length: 553
Beam: 114 over deck
Power plant: 4 boilers (450 psi); 2 steam turbines; 2 shafts; 13,500 shp (design)
Speed: 18+ knots
Endurance: 23,920 nm @ 15 knots (with 4,780 tons of oil fuel)
Aviation facilities: 2 elevators; 1 hydraulic catapult
Crew: 830 (ship’s company + air wing)
Armament: 2 single 5″/51 gun mounts; 4 twin 40-mm/56-cal gun mounts; 12 single 20-mm/70-cal gun mounts
Aircraft: 25-40

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022: Last Dance of the Prancing Dragon

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022: Last Dance of the Prancing Dragon

Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Above we see the Japanese light carrier Ryujo (also sometimes seen in the West incorrectly as Ryukyu) on sea trials at Satamisaki-oki, 6 September 1934 after her reconstruction, note her open bow and tall flight deck, showing off her bridge under the lip of the flattop. Built to a problematic design, she had lots of teething problems and, while she breathed fire in the Empire’s dramatic expansion after Pearl Harbor, the sea closed over her some 80 years ago today and extinguished her flames.

If you compare the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier program in the 1920s and 30s to that of the U.S. Navy, there is a clear parallel. Each fleet had an initial, awkward, flattop commissioned in 1922 that proved to be a “schoolship” design to cradle a budding naval aviation program (Japan’s circa 1922 10,000-ton Hosho vs the 14,000-ton USS Langley). This was followed by a pair of much larger carriers that were built on the hulls of battlewagons whose construction had been canceled due to the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty but still carried large enough 7.9-inch/8-inch gun batteries to rate them as heavy cruisers in armament if not in armor (the 38,000/40,000-ton Kaga and Akagi vs. the 36,000-ton USS Lexington and USS Saratoga) that would pioneer the art of using such vessels via war gaming exercises. Then came smallish (to make the most of treaty limits), specially-designed, one-off carriers that were built after several years of experience with the type– the “under 10,000-ton” Ryujo vs the 15,000-ton USS Ranger (CV-4), which would be test beds for the bigger and better designs that each country would turn to for heavy lifting in 1942 (32,000-ton Shokaku class vs the 25,000-ton Yorktown class).

Laid down on 26 November 1929 at Mitsubishi in Yokoyama, Ryujo, whose name translates into something akin to “prancing dragon” or “dragon phoenix,” was slipped in by the Japanese as a nominal 8,000-ton aviation ship before the 1930 London Naval Treaty came in and limited even these small carriers as well as placed an armament cap of 6-inch guns on flattops.

Ryujo under construction Drydock No. 5, Yokosuka, Japan, 20 Oct 1931. Note how small she appears in the battleship-sized dock

Built on a slim 590-foot cruiser-style hull that, with a dozen boilers and a pair of steam turbines could make 29 knots, the Japanese elected for an extremely top-heavy build above the waterline placing her double-deck hangars and stubby 513-foot long flight deck towering some 50-feet into above the 01 deck to what proved to be an unsteady metacentric height (GM). Like Langley and Hosho, she was a true flattop, lacking a topside island, which would have made the whole thing even more unstable, instead opting to have a broad “greenhouse” bridge on the forward lip of the flight deck.

A period postcard of the Japanese aircraft carriers Ryūjō (top) and the legacy Hōshō. Note the height difference

Close-up view of the stern of carrier Ryujo, Yokosuka, Japan, 19 June 1933. Note how high her flight deck is from the main deck.

Ryujo Photograph taken in 1933, when the ship was first completed. The original print was provided by Dr. Oscar Parkes, Editor, Jane’s Fighting Ships. It was filed on 27 October 1933. NH 42271

She spent 1933 and 1935 in a series of rebuilds that moved to address her stability issues– which she suffered in a typhoon that left her hangar flooded. These changes included torpedo bulges and active stabilizers on her hull, more ballast, and, by a third rebuild completed in 1940, carried a redesigned bow form with re-ducted funnels.

Close-up of Japanese carrier Ryujo’s side mounted exhaust funnels and 12.7cm anti-aircraft guns, Yokosuka, 20 March 1933

This pushed her to over 12,700 tons in displacement and change her profile.

Aircraft carrier Ryujo undergoing full-scale trials after restoration performance improvement work (September 6, 1934, between the pillars at Satamisaki). Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

She saw her inaugural taste of combat in the war with China in the last quarter of 1937, operating a mix of a dozen Navy Type 95 Carrier Fighter and Type 94/96 Carrier Bombers (Susies), both highly maneuverable biplanes. Her Type 95s met Chinese KMT-flown Curtiss F11C Goshawks in aerial combat with the Japanese claiming six kills.

Ryujo at sea 1936. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Ryujo. Underway at sea, September 1938. Donation of Kazutoshi Hando, 1970. NH 73072

Ryujo at sea between 1934 and 1937 with only 4×2 127mm AA-guns after 1934 refit

It should be observed that the two 670-foot submarine tenders, Zuiho and Shoho, that were converted to light carriers in 1940-41, as well as the tender Taigei (converted and renamed Ryuho) and the three Nitta Maru-class cargo liners converted to Taiyō-class escort carriers in 1942-43, greatly favored our Ryujo in profile and they were surely constructed with the lessons gleaned from what had gone wrong with that latter carrier in the previous decade. Notably, while still having a flush deck design without an island, these six conversions only had a single hangar deck instead of Ryujo’s double hangar deck, giving them a smaller maximum air wing (25-30 aircraft vs 40-50) but a shorter height and thus better seakeeping ability.

Japanese carrier Zuiho, note the similarity to Ryujo

Running Amok for five months

Ryujo would be left behind when Yamamoto sent Nagumo’s Kido Butai eight-carrier strike force (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Shokaku, Soryu, and Zuikaku on the attack itself, screened from a distance by Hosho and Zuiho) to hit Pearl Harbor, instead tasking the wallowing light carrier with being the sole flattop supporting Takahashi’s Third Fleet’s invasion of the Philippines.

USN Recognition slide of the Ryujo LOC Lot-2406-5

With the Japanese keeping their battleships in a fighting reserve in the Home Islands for the anticipated Tsushima-style fleet action, and every other carrier either in the yard or on the Pearl Harbor operation, Ryujo was the Third Fleet’s only capital ship, a key asset operating amid a force of cruisers, seaplane tenders, and destroyers– appreciated at last!

Ryujo was still 100 percent more carrier than RADM Thomas Hart’s Asiatic Fleet had in their order of battle, and the dragon was very active in the PI with her airwing of Nakajima B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers and Mitsubishi A5M “Claude” fighters. It was her planes that delivered the first strikes of the Japanese invasion on 8 December when they hit U.S. Navy assets in Davao Bay in Northern Luzon then spent the rest of the month covering the landings there.

A Japanese Nakajima B5N1 Type 97 from the aircraft carrier Ryujo flies over the U.S. Navy seaplane tender USS William B. Preston (AVD-7) in Malalag Bay, Mindanao, Philippines, during the early morning of 8 December 1941. Two Consolidated PBY-4 Catalinas (101-P-4 and 101-P-7) from Patrol Squadron 01 (VP-101), Patrol Wing 10, are burning offshore. Via Maru magazine No. 461, December 1984 via j-aircraft.org

In January 1942, she was shifted south to support the Malaysia invasion from Japanese-occupied Camranh Bay in French Indochina, with her Claudes thought to have shot down at least two RAF Lockheed Hudsons off Redang Island while her Kates are credited with anti-shipping strikes off Singapore on 13-17 February that sent the Dutch tankers Merula (8,226 tons) and Manvantara (8,237 tons) along with the British steamer Subadar (5,424 tons), to the bottom. Fending off counterattacks, her Claudes shot down two RAF Bristol Blenheim from 84 Squadron and a Dornier Do 24 flying boat of the Dutch Navy.

Here we see Hr.Ms. Java was under attack by Japanese Nakajima B5N “Kate” high-altitude bombers from the light carrier Ryujo in the Gaspar Straits of what is today Indonesia, 15 February 1942. Remarkably, the Dutch light cruiser would come through this hail without a scratch, however, her days were numbered, and she would be on the bottom of the Pacific within a fortnight of the above image. Australian War Memorial photo 305183

While her Kates twice attacked Hr.Ms. Java and HMS Exeter (68) of Graf Spee fame on 15 February without causing either cruiser much damage, Ryujo’s air group found more success in attacking the Dutch destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Nes two days later. A strike of 10 B5N1s chased the Admiralen-class greyhound down in the Java Sea and landed two hits, sending her to the bottom with 68 of her crewmen.

Two Japanese Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers (B5N2 in the foreground and B5N1 in the background) over the Java Sea on 17 February 1942. The smoke in the background is coming from the Dutch destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Nes. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft from the aircraft carrier Ryujo circa 30 km from Toboali, Bangka Island while escorting the troop transport Sloet van Beele.

On the morning of 1 March in the immediate aftermath of the overnight Battle of the Java Sea, her Kates all but disabled the old Clemson-class four-piper USS Pope (DD-225) off Bawean Island, leaving her to be finished off by Japanese cruisers.

April saw Ryujo join Ozawa’s mobile force for the epic “Operation C” raids into the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, where she split her time sending out Kates on search-shipping strikes (sinking the 5,082-ton British steamer Harpasa on 5 April) and raids on the Indian ports of Vizagapatam and Cocanada, accounting for eight assorted Allied ships on 6 April in conjunction with the guns of Ozawa’s cruisers. It is even reported by Combined Fleet that Ryujo was able to use her own 5-inch guns against surface targets as well, an almost unheard of level of sea control.

Arriving back home in Kure in May after five solid months of running amok, Ryujo would land her obsolete Claude fighters in favor of shiny new Mitsubishi Type 0 A6M2 “Zekes” of the latest design– some of which just left the factory– as the Admiralty aimed to send her into an operation where she may expect interference from American F4F Wildcats and P-39 Aircobra/P-40 Warhawks: Operation AL, the diversionary seizure of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians during the Battle of Midway.

Dutch Harbor & Koga’s Zero

Sent to attack Alaska as part of VADM Hosogaya Boshiro’s Aleutian invasion force in company with the new 27,500-ton carrier Junyo, Ryujo would be active in a series of three air raids on Dutch Harbor and Unalaska on 3-4 June which didn’t cause much damage on either side, then covered the bloodless landings at Attu and Kiska on the 7th.

Dutch Harbor, Unalaska Island, Alaska, 3 June 1942: A Navy machine gun crew watches intently as Japanese aircraft depart the scene after the attack. Smoke in the background is from the steamer SS Northwestern, set ablaze by a dive bomber (80-G-11749).

However, one of the aircraft that failed to return to Ryujo was one of those beautiful new Zekes, SN 4593/Tail DI-108, flown by 19-year-old Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga. His oil line hit by a “magic BB” from small arms fire over Dutch Harbor, Koga tried to land his smoking fighter on remote green Akutan Island, some 25 miles from nowhere, where it could possibly be recovered and flown back home or destroyed in place if needed. However, it turned out that the flat field Koga aimed for on Akutan was a bog and his aircraft flipped, killing him, on contact.

Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero-sen 10 July 1942, on Akutan Island, in the Aleutians aircraft had been flown by petty officer Tadayoshi Koga, IJN, from the carrier RYUJO. Aircraft damaged on 4 June 1942; the pilot was killed when the plane flipped over on its back. This “Zero” was the first captured intact for flight tests. NH 82481

U.S. Navy personnel inspect Koga’s Zero. The petty officer’s body was recovered still inside the cockpit, relatively preserved by the icy bog despite being there for over a month. Regretfully, a number of images of his cadaver are digitized and in wide circulation. Museum of the Aleutians Collections. MOTA 2018.16.10

Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero-Sen on the docks at Dutch Harbor, Alaska, 17 July 1942. This plane, from carrier RYUJO, had crash landed after the Dutch Harbor Raid on 4 June 1942. It was salvaged by VP-41 and was the first “Zero” captured intact for flight tests. NH 91339

The Zero on a barge in Alaska on August 8

More on Koga’s plane later.

The Dragon’s final dance

Having returned to Kure in July after the disaster that befell the Japanese carrier force in a single day at Midway (“scratch four flattops”), Ryujo was now suddenly more important than she had ever been before.

By early August, she was attached to Nagumo’s Main Unit Mobile Force– who the Japanese somehow still trusted– alongside the large fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku of the First Carrier Division which had survived Midway by not being at Midway. Coupled with the battleships Hiei and Kirishima (which would never come back home), the force was dispatched towards Truk to challenge the growing American presence on Guadalcanal. With Shokaku and Zuikaku large enough to tote both strike and fighter packages, the smaller Ryujo, paired with the old battleship Mutsu in a diversionary force away from the two bigger carriers, would instead have a fighter-heavy air wing of 9 Kates and 24 Zekes as American flattops were known to be lurking in the area.

On 24 August, Nagumo’s carriers were close enough to attack Henderson Field on Guadalcanal but in turn fell under the crosshairs of the numerical inferior Task Force 61, commanded by VADM Frank J. Fletcher (who had spanked Nagumo 11 weeks earlier at Midway), in what went down in the history books as Battle of Eastern Solomons. While Ryujo’s strike would hit the U.S. positions on Lunga Point– in a raid observed by Fletcher’s radar-equipped force– SBDs from Bombing Three and TBFs from Torpedo Eight off USS Saratoga (CV 3) would find the relatively undefended Ryujo and leave her dead in the water where land-based B-17s would find her in two follow-on raids.

A U.S. Navy Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless flies over the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6), foreground, and USS Saratoga (CV-3) near Guadalcanal. The aircraft is likely on anti-submarine patrol. Saratoga is trailed by her plane guard destroyer. Another flight of three aircraft is visible near Saratoga. The radar array on the Enterprise has been obscured by a wartime censor. U.S. Navy National Naval Aviation Museum photo NNAM.1996.253.671

Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 24 August 1942: The damaged and immobile Japanese aircraft carrier Ryujo was photographed from a USAAF B-17 bomber, during a high-level bombing attack on 24 August 1942. The destroyers Amatsukaze and Tokitsukaze had been removing her crew and are now underway, one from a bow-to-bow position and the other from alongside. Two “sticks” of bombs are bursting on the water, more than a ship length beyond the carrier. The bow of the cruiser Tone is visible at the extreme right. 80-G-88021

Diorama of Ryjuo attack from the Don Garber Collection South Pacific WWII Museum

As detailed by Combined Fleet:

  • 1357 RYUJO is attacked by enemy aircraft (30 SBD and 8 TBF launched at 1315 from USS SARATOGA, (CV-3). The CAP manages to shoot down one TBF, but the carrier receives four bomb hits, many near-misses, and one torpedo hit aft of amidships. The torpedo floods the starboard engine room, and the ship begins to list and lose speed. A second torpedo hit, or large bomb appears to have damaged the port bow.
  • 1408, RYUJO turned north and attempted to retire as ordered by Admiral Yamamoto. But though the fire is extinguished, the list increased to 21 degrees, and flooding disabled the boilers and machinery.
  • 1420 RYUJO stops. At 1515 ‘Abandon Ship’ is ordered. AMATSUKAZE draws close along the low starboard side to attempt to transfer the crew bodily to her by planks linking the ships.
  • 1610-1625 During abandonment, the carrier and screen are bombed by B-17s that are engaged by her fighters, and she receives no further damage.
  • 1730 B-17s bomb again but again no additional damage. AMATSUKAZE completes rescue, and shortly after, about:
  • 1755 RYUJO capsized to starboard and after floating long enough to reveal holes in her bottom, sinks stern first at 06-10S, 160-50E, bearing 10 degrees 106 miles from Tulagi.
  • Four aircraft go down with the ship. Seven officers – including XO Cdr (Captain posthumously) Kishi and Maintenance Officer LtCdr (Eng.) (Cdr (Eng.) posthumously) Nakagawa – and 113 petty officers and men are lost; Captain Kato and the survivors are rescued by destroyers AMATSUKAZE and TOKITSUKAZE and heavy cruiser TONE. The destroyers soon transfer these survivors to the TOEI MARU and TOHO MARU.

Epilogue

While Ryujo has been at the bottom of the Southern Pacific for 80 years now, her legacy should not be forgotten. When it comes to Koga’s advanced model Zero, left behind in Alaska in what was described as “98 percent condition,” the aircraft was so key to Allied intelligence efforts that it has been described as “The Fighter That Changed World War II.”

Koga’s Zero in U.S. markings while assigned to NACA 1943

The folks over at Grumman were able to get their test pilots and engineers in it, then use lessons drawn from it to tweak the F6F Hellcat and later, the F7F and F8F.

Koga’s Zero in flight

As noted by Wings of the Rising Sun excerpts at The Aviation Geek Club:

Once the fighter had been sent to NAS Anacostia in late 1942, a series of test flights were performed by the Naval Air Station’s Flight Test Director, Cdr Frederick M. Trapnell. He flew identical flight profiles in both the Zero and U.S. fighters to compare their performance, executing similar aerial maneuvers in mock dogfights. U.S. Navy test pilot LT Melvin C. “Boogey” Hoffman was also checked out in the A6M2, after which he helped train Naval Aviators flying new F6F Hellcats, F4U Corsairs, and FM Wildcats by dogfighting with them in the Zero.

In 1943 the aircraft was evaluated in NACA’s LMAL in Hampton, Virginia, where the facility’s Full-Scale Wind Tunnel was used to evaluate the Zero’s aerodynamic qualities. It was also shown off to the public at Washington National Airport that same year during a war booty exhibition. By September 1944, the well-used A6M2 was stationed at NAS North Island once again, where it served as a training aid for “green” Naval Aviators preparing for duty in the Pacific.

RADM William N. Leonard said of Koga’s plane, “The captured Zero was a treasure. To my knowledge, no other captured machine has ever unlocked so many secrets at a time when the need was so great.” On the other side of the pond, Japanese Lt-Gen. Masatake Okumiya said the plane’s loss “was no less serious” than the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway, and “did much to hasten Japan’s final defeat.”

PO Koga, the teenage son of a carpenter, was at first buried in the hummocks some 100 yards from his crash site after he was extracted from the Zero. Exhumed in 1947, his remains were interred in the cemetery on Adak, in grave 1082 marked as “Japanese Flyer Killed in Action.” He was exhumed a final time in 1953 for repatriation along with 253 others from the Aleutians, and since then has been in the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Japan. The location of his lonely crash on Atukan, half a mile inland from Broad Bight, is occasionally visited by groups from Japan.

While Koga’s Zero was mauled in a mishap on the ground in February 1945 and then later scrapped, instruments from it are on display at the Museum of the U.S. Navy and two of its manufacturer’s plates are in the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage, some of the only relics of Ryujo left.

Ryujo is remembered in a variety of maritime art, most of which is used for scale model box art. 

Specs:

(1941)
Displacement: 12,732 tons
Length: 590’7″
Beam: 68’2″
Draft: 23’3″
Machinery: 12 x Kampon water-tube boilers, 2 geared steam turbines, 2 shafts, 65,000 shp
Speed: 29 knots
Crew: 924
Airwing: up to 48 single-engine aircraft
Armament:
8 x 5″/40 Type 89 naval gun
4 x 25mm/60 Hotchkiss-licensed Type 96 light AA guns
24 x 13mm/76 AAAs

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Remembering Dieppe at 80

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The colossal foul-up that was Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid, using a brigade-sized mix of mostly Canadian troops augmented by a few U.S. Army Rangers and Allied Commandos to capture and hold a French Channel port in a dress rehearsal for taking Europe back, was 80 years ago today. It turned out to be the Canadian Army’s costliest day of WWII with 907 men killed, another 2,500 wounded, and 1,976 captured.

Two Canadians received the Victoria Cross for their bravery.

German officer and soldiers examining a Churchill tank stuck on the beach in front of the boardwalk after the battle, its left track broken. Wounded men lying on the ground are about to be evacuated. Dieppe, August 19th, 1942. Department of National Defence / National Archives of Canada C-017293.

The poor showing led to putting off the liberation of France for two years as the Allies concentrated on opening the second front in the Axis’s “soft underbelly” in the Med. 

This year’s commemoration includes a few of the remaining Veterans, contingents from the Canadian Army, and HMCS Kingston.

Avenger down der periscope

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Paintings of Naval Aviation during World War II: Abbott Collection. #98: “The Kill” Artwork by Robert Benney.

“In this dramatic presentation of sea-sky battle, a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber, bomb bay doors open, leaves death in its wake as it zooms away from a conclusive attack on a surfaced enemy submarine. All the vivid action in this scene has been repeated many times in actual combat by U.S. Naval airmen. Naval planes from escort aircraft carriers wreaked havoc on submarine wolf packs attacking Atlantic convoys, and they virtually blasted them from the ocean for many months. Bombers were fitted with depth charges, one of which is pictured exploding off the U-boat’s beam here. In the attack, the plane’s rear ‘stinger’ gun splits death at the gun crews attempting to ward off these lethal hawks from the sky.” National Museum of the U.S. Navy Lot 3124-14

While the Grumman TBF Avenger was a war baby– the first production TBF-1 was completed on 3 January 1942– and saw its best use in the Pacific from Midway (where it saw its inaugural action) to Tokoyo Bay, chalking up a long list of layups in delivering torpedos against Japan’s surface ships and Marus of all types, it also did its work in the Atlantic.

Tapped to make up the sub-busting part of the composite air wings on escort carriers, Avengers would tally no less than 35 U-boat “kills” during the Battle for the Atlantic, running from U-569 (Oblt. Hans Johannsen)– scuttled on 22 May 1943 in the North Atlantic east of Newfoundland after being badly damaged by depth charges from two Avenger aircraft (VC-9 USN/T-6 & T-7) of the escort carrier USS Bogue— to U-711 (Kptlt. Hans-Günther Lange), sunk on 4 May 1945 at Kilbotn, near Harstad, Norway by bombs from Avenger and Wildcat aircraft (846, 853 and 882 Sqn FAA) of the British escort carriers HMS Searcher, HMS Trumpeter, and HMS Queen.

The crew of German submarine U-664 prepares to go over the side of the ship during an attack by two Avenger aircraft from USS Card (CVE 11), August 9, 1943. Note, the laughing sawfish insignia on the conning tower of the 9th U-boat Flotilla. 80-G-43638

Attack on German U-boats, 1943. Aerial attack on U-378, Incident #4786, October 20, 1943. The U-boat was sunk by Fido homing torpedo and depth charges from Avenger and Wildcat aircraft from Composite Squadron Thirteen (VC-13) based on USS Core (CVE-13). 80-G-207651

Air Attacks on German U-boats, WWII. U-801 was sunk on March 17, 1944, by a Fido homing torpedo by two Avengers and one Wildcat aircraft (VC-6) from USS Block Island (CVE-21), along with depth charges and gunfire from USS Corry (DD-463) and USS Bronstein (DE-189). Note, Lieutenant Junior Grade Paul Sorenson strafed and Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Woodell depth charged U-801. 80-G-222854

1st USS Jacob Jones found

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Laid down in Camden, New Jersey in August 1914, the day after the Kaiser’s troops crossed into Belgium, the Tucker-class tin can USS Jacob Jones (Destroyer No. 61) was the first U.S. Navy vessel named in honor of Commodore Jacob Nicholas Jones who, as skipper of the USS Wasp in 1812, was most notable for capturing the Royal Navy sloop of war HMS Frolic after an intense battle.

USS Jacob Jones (Destroyer # 61) underway in 1916, soon after she was completed. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 52123.

Sent to Europe after the U.S. entered the Great War in April 1917, the 1,225-ton four piper was steaming independently from Brest to Queenstown, Ireland on 6 December 1917 when she caught a torpedo in her starboard side three feet below the water line, rupturing her fuel oil tank located below the auxiliary and engine rooms. Shipping water, her stern depth charges went off and just eight minutes after the German fish struck, she went down some 25 miles southeast of Bishop Rock, Scilly Islands.

Kptlt. Hans Rose, commander of the U-51 class submarine SM U-53, had made a record (for the time) hit from over 3,000 yards. A gentleman of the old order, Kplt. Rose surfaced, took two seriously wounded blue jackets aboard, and radioed the approximate location and drift of the survivors to the American base in Queenstown, requesting rescuing ships give him an hour to leave the vicinity.

USS Jacob Jones (Destroyer # 61) Sinking off the Scilly Islands, England, on 6 December 1917, after she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-53. Photographed by Seaman William G. Ellis. Smithsonian Institution Photograph. Catalog #: Smithsonian 72-4509-A

Speaking of the survivors, DD-61‘s XO at the time was one LT Norman (Nicholas) Scott, a fighting salt who as a rear admiral would go on to lead his cruiser-destroyer force to victory at the Battle of Cape Esperance off Guadalcanal in October 1942 then perish under the lackluster command of the inexperienced RADM Daniel J. Callaghan the next month. Rose, at the time, was back in uniform complete with his Kaisarian-awarded Blue Max training officers for Donitz as a recalled Fregattenkapitän in 1. Unterseeboots-Ausbildungsabteilung.

Fast forward to yesterday and a group of divers in England have identified the bones of DD-61 in 400 feet of water 60 miles south of Newlyn, Cornwall.

USS Jacob Jones bell by Rick Ayrton

Ironically, the second USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) was also sunk by a German submarine albeit in WWII off New Jersey. It is possible that the good FKpt. Rose may have had a hand in training the young men who sent that tin can to the bottom.

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