In an effort to commemorate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic next May and the Royal Canadian Navy’s role in that epic U-boat war, the Canadian Admiralty has authorised a special paint throwback paint scheme to be carried by the Kingston-class coastal defence vessel HMCS Moncton (MM708) and the Halifax-class frigate HMCS Regina (FFH-334).
As noted by the RCN, “These historical paint schemes provide a wonderful opportunity to honour the sailors of our past, embrace the sailors of our present, and look ahead to our bright future.”
While Moncton was repainted first in late August, Regina has been seen at sea earlier this month sporting her new scheme. Here she is seen at sea for sensor trials off Nanoose, and she looks striking.
Every warship looks better with a bone in their teeth, but a dazzle pattern is the best…
Courtesy of the USS Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association, 1986. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 96011
Here we see the hard-charging John C. Butler-class destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), photographed from sistership USS Walter C. Wann (DE-412), only a week or two before she was lost in off Samar on 25 October 1944, during the greater Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is 75 years ago this week.
At just 306 feet long overall, the 1,750-ton Butlers were not built to slug it out in surface actions, as they only mounted a pair of 5″/38 DP guns and a trio of 21-inch torpedo tubes, which was about half the anti-ship armament of contemporary U.S. Navy destroyer. Alternatively, they did come to war with an impressive anti-submarine armament for their size in the form of a Hedgehog device, two depth charge racks, and eight K-gun projectors, making them popular in convoy escort in the Atlantic. Likewise, they had a serious AAA suite to include a mix of 15 to 20 40mm and 20mm cannons, which would come in handy in smoking attacking Japanese planes at low level.
Using a pair of “D” Express boilers and a matching set of two Westinghouse geared turbines, they had 12,000 shp installed, allowing the Butlers to run up to a theoretical maximum of 24 knots (more on this later). While not fast enough for fleet operations, this was enough for convoy and patrol work. It also allowed them to have a nice, long range of some 6,000 nm when poking along at 12 knots.
Capable of being produced rapidly, some 300 Butlers were on the drawing board at one time or another from no less than four shipyards, with many constructed in fewer than six months apiece. However, “just” 83 were completed, ranging from USS John C. Butler (DE-339), which was laid down on 5 October 1943 to USS Vandivier (DER-540) which, although laid down only a month later, languished on the builder’s ways until she was finally commissioned in 1955.
Our spotlight vessel, DE-413, was named in honor of then-recently deceased Samuel Booker Roberts Jr. The double son of a sailor– his mother was a Great War Yeoman (F) and his father was a Machinist’s Mate in the same conflict– he joined the peacetime Navy Reserve in 1939 at age 18 and soon served on the battleship USS California (BB 44) and destroyer tender USS Heywood (AP 12) before being assigned to the combat transport USS Bellatrix (AK 20). In charge of one of the amphibious ship’s Higgins LCVPs, Coxswain Roberts was soon running Marines and precious cargo ashore on Guadalcanal, where he was killed on 27 September 1942, at age 21, after volunteering to use his boat as a decoy to draw Japanese fire during a combat evacuation of a trapped group of Marines (companies A and B of 1/7). His parents were later presented with his Navy Cross.
USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was laid down on 6 December 1943, at Houston, Texas, by Brown Shipbuilding Co. and was launched just six weeks later with the sponsor being his mother, Anna.
Samuel B. Roberts leaves the ways at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas, 20 January 1944. NH 82850
The Navy’s newest destroyer escort then commissioned on 28 April 1944, LCDR Robert W. Copeland, USNR, in command. Commissioned as a Naval Reserve officer in 1935, Copeland was a lawyer from Tacoma, Washington who had been called back to the fleet in 1940. Since then, he had commanded the tug Pawtucket (YT-7), patrol craft Black Douglas (PYc-45), and Evarts-class destroyer escort Wyman (DE-38) — seeing action in the Pacific on the latter.
Soon, Roberts was headed to the Far East after workups on the East Coast, via a convoy through the Panama Canal.
Photographed in 1944, probably circa June, while off Boston, Massachusetts. Note she is not camouflaged as of yet. Courtesy of Robert F. Sumrall, 1980. NH 90603
On 21 August 1944, she got underway from Pearl Harbor for Eniwetok and points West. By October, she was part of the armada prepping for the 7th Fleet’s upcoming invasion of the Philippines.
During that campaign, the last huzzah of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Halsey’s 3rd fleet was drawn north by a Japanese carrier task force while Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet was tied up to the south, leaving three escort carrier task forces, Taffy 1, 2, and 3, to cover the Leyte amphibious landings themselves.
This group of jeep carriers was confronted with a Japanese surface action group under VADM Takeo Kurita including four battleships — including Yamato–, six cruisers, and a dozen destroyers. To this RADM Clifton A. F. Sprague’s Taffy 3 could muster five escort carriers, the destroyers Heermann (DD-532), Hoel (DD-533), and Johnston (DD-557) and the four escorts Dennis (DE-405), John C. Butler (DE-339), Raymond (DE-341) and Roberts.
USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) or USS Dennis (DE-405) on October 25, 1944, at the Battle of Samar. 80-G-288145.
Spotting the massively outgunned ships of Taffy 3 just after dawn on 25 October, Kurita immediately ordered his battleships to open fire, in what could have quickly turned into an absolute slaughter. The jeep carriers, based on merchant freighter hulls, could only make 16 or 17 knots, meaning they had no hope of outrunning the Japanese without a head start.
That’s when the greyhounds of Taffy 3 leaped to the task force’s defense, largely replicating the effort made by Coxswain Roberts on Guadalcanal.
USS HERMAN (DD-532) and a destroyer-escort lay a smokescreen to protect their escort carrier group from attacking Japanese surface ships. During the Battle Off Samar, 25 October 1944. Photographed from WHITE PLAINS (CVE-66). 80-G-288885
At 0655, Samuel B. Roberts went to general quarters. Three minutes later, lookouts reported “splashes from heavy caliber [sic] shells” with both green and purple dye markings falling close aboard, between Samuel B. Roberts and Johnston. At 0700, Samuel B. Roberts and her sister ships laid down heavy black funnel smoke to cover the run-and-gun-style fighting typical of a fierce surface battle.
Over the 1MC, Cmdr. Copeland calmly told his men they would be entering “a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected, during which time we would do what damage we could.” Most of the crew prepared for the worst. RM3c Dick Rohde claimed, “He was telling us we were going to die, but he was telling the others guys that, not me. I kept thinking that somehow I’m going to make it.”
The smokescreen caused a slackening of enemy fire, and at 0716, Samuel B. Roberts entered a rain squall, further hiding her from the Japanese, for the next 11 minutes. After splitting his force into three separate groups to give chase, Adm. Kurita planned to surround Taffy 3 and destroy them. The rain squall provided the concealment Adm. Sprague needed, and intuitively he reversed course, causing the Japanese plan to fail. At 0735, Adm. Sprague hoped to scatter the enemy ships by ordering a torpedo attack, providing the escort carriers time to turn and flee. Ordered to make the first torpedo run against the enemy, the crews of destroyers Johnston, Hoel, and Heermann, prepared for battle. Dennis, Raymond, John C. Butler, and Samuel B. Roberts readied for the second torpedo attack.
Cmdr. Copeland acknowledged the order and later admitted being frightened, claiming, “My hands were ice cold from fear.” Waiting to fall in after the other destroyer escorts, whose skippers were all senior to him, Copeland realized none moved towards the enemy. Deciding to lead the charge himself, the skipper had just finished calculations needed to make a torpedo attack on the nearest enemy ship, a cruiser, when a near collision with destroyer Heermann temporarily threw Samuel B. Roberts off her attack run. Copeland fell in on a course 3,000 yards astern of Heermann and resumed the offensive, the first of the destroyer escorts to begin a torpedo run. Hoel valiantly led the charge, followed by Heermann and Samuel B. Roberts.
After a failed torpedo attack run on heavy cruiser Chōkai, Cmdr. Copeland dodged incoming fire from the enemy cruiser’s 8-inch forward guns. Salvos from several Japanese vessels splashed near the lead American warships, including Samuel B. Roberts. Cmdr. Copeland turned his attention on the enemy cruiser Chikuma, ordering his gunners to open fire on her at 0805. The two 5-inch guns on board Samuel B. Roberts, Mt. 51 and Mt. 52, “beat a regular tattoo on the Jap cruiser’s upper works,” Cmdr. Copeland wrote. The gun captains fired 608 of 650 shells, the entire capacity of the destroyer escorts’ magazine. Firing star shells and anti-aircraft rounds, the Japanese believed the attack came from a much larger force.
The battleship Kongō redirected her guns at Samuel B. Roberts and using high-explosive shells fired three from her 14-inch guns at the hapless destroyer escort. Kongo’s salvo found their mark, with one Samuel B. Roberts crewmember comparing “the impact to that of two trains colliding head-on.” The first shell struck near Samuel B. Roberts’s waterline, in the communications and gyro room. Destroying the radar, the shell extinguished all lights on board (except for the battle lanterns), knocking out communications between the skipper and crew. The second shell tore through the lower handling room of Gun 51, knocking many of the gun crew down or up against the bulkhead. Flooding began almost immediately, and the repair party quickly started moving ammunition topside. The third and final shell entered the main deck, crushing two sailors on its trajectory, before tearing a 4-foot-wide hole just aft of the hatch leading to Fireroom No. 1. The third projectile, failing to detonate until it cut through Samuel B. Roberts, also ruptured the main steam valve in several places. “All but two men…were instantly scalded to death in temperatures that soared to more than 800° or, half baked, begged for death as steam rose from their bodies.” Engine Room Number 2 was demolished while fuel and oil burned on the fantail and several smaller fires broke out below decks. Several other sailors on the 20-millimeter gun died, struck by flying shrapnel. Suddenly dead in the water, Samuel B. Roberts could not outrun her pursuers or mount a proper defense. The Japanese continued firing at her, and several destroyers rushed in for the kill.
The third shell also caused the escort vessel to dip in speed from 28.5 knots down to 17.5. Losing her two greatest assets, speed and maneuverability caused Cmdr. Copeland to realize, “we were then what you might call a ‘sitting duck in a shooting gallery.’” The aft 40-millimeter gun crew to no avail fired upon three torpedoes streaming towards Samuel B. Roberts. As several sailors braced for impact, they were relieved to discover the Type 93 torpedoes had passed harmlessly underneath. The Japanese, assuming the fighting would involve larger American warships, set the torpedoes to run too shallow. Just after breathing a sigh of relief, Cmdr. Copeland suddenly felt the bow of his ship lurch into the air.
The captain later noted Samuel B. Roberts “was simply shot to pieces the last 15 minutes she was in action.” Just after 0900, the second salvo of three 8-inch shells struck, one entering the engine room and exploding (several Japanese vessels switched from armor-piercing rounds to high-explosive shells). The second shell struck one of her 40-millimeter gun mounts, killing the entire gun crew. Shrapnel sprayed across the signal bridge, striking down more men. Only the 5-inch gun captained by GM3c Paul H. Carr remained in action, despite the likelihood of it overheating and exploding from the rapid rate of fire Carr’s crew put out.
While attempting to load the last of her 325 remaining shells, an overheated powder charge sparked a breech explosion destroying Samuel B. Roberts’s only remaining 5-inch gun, killing or mortally wounding every member of the aft gun crew. The only eventual survivor, S1c Sam Blue, was blown overboard and knocked unconscious. He later regained consciousness in the water, saved only by his automatically inflatable life belt. MM2c Chalmer Goheen found Petty Officer Carr grievously wounded, defiantly clutching the last shell. Torn open from the neck down to his groin, the dying gunner begged his shipmate to help him load and fire the final shot. Petty Officer Goheen took the shell from Carr and helped him to the deck before checking on other wounded and dead men lying about them.
Petty Officer Goheen carried a wounded man missing a leg to safety and returned to find Petty Officer Carr again attempting to load the gun with the last round. Once more taking the shell from the determined gunner, Goheen helped bring him from the gun mount, where the 21-year-old gun captain died five minutes later. For his heroic actions during the battle, GM3c Paul Carr received the Silver Star posthumously.
After sending his officers around the dying vessel to conduct damage assessments, Cmdr. Copeland realized Samuel B. Roberts was no longer in any condition to fight. Looking around his battered vessel, the skipper “could see dead and wounded men everywhere. From where I stood it was obvious that she was mortally wounded,” he later wrote. At 0910, Copeland gave the order to abandon ship. After crewmembers destroyed all important equipment and secret documents, they began abandoning the only home they had known for the past six months.
Leaving the sinking destroyer escort proved difficult for many sailors, even those not suffering wounds or burns. The majority of the crew abandoned ship on the less damaged starboard side. The dog Sammy, Samuel B. Roberts’s small mascot, had run terrified around the decks throughout the battle. After the order to abandon ship, she was last spotted leaping into the water, never to be seen again. One of the escort vessels’ human survivors, jumping into the sea without a life vest, later found Sammy’s floating nearby. Unfortunately, it proved too small for him to put on.
At 1007, Samuel B. Roberts sank stern first. Her survivors watched sadly, as she slipped beneath the waves. Several clung to three life rafts (including the one launched out the portside shell hole), and two net tenders for over 50 hours before being rescued.
25 October 1944 American survivors of the battle are rescued by a U.S. Navy ship on 26 October 1944. Some 1200 survivors of USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73), USS Hoel (DD-533), USS Johnston (DD-557) and USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) were rescued during the days following the action. Photographed by U.S. Army Private William Roof. U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: SC 278010
During her torpedo run at the Japanese Center Force with the destroyers, Roberts made an estimated 28.7 knots by raising pressure on her boilers past the safe limit and diverting steam to the turbines. She earned the reputation that day as a brawler ready to take on battleships.
Copeland, who would receive the Navy Cross, later wrote that there was “no higher honor” than the privilege to lead such a gallant crew. After the war, he resumed his law career in Tacoma while switching back a reservist, eventually making Rear Admiral. He died in 1973 while an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, USS Copeland (FFG-25) was named for him.
The fighting lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, USNR, receives the Navy Cross from Rear Admiral David M. LeBreton, at Norfolk, Virginia, 16 July 1945. LCdr. Copeland received the Navy Cross for heroism while in command of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) during the Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944. Courtesy of Mrs. Harriet N. Copeland, 1980. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
As for Robert’s memory, she was quickly remembered by the Navy in the Gearing-class destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts (DD-823), which would remain with the fleet until 1970
(DD-823) Underway at sea, 10 October 1962. Photographer: PH3 Selke, of USS Essex (CVS-9) NH 107127
In 1986, an OHP, FFG-58, was given the name of the storied destroyer escort, which had earned a single battle star as well as a Presidential Unit Citation.
4 February 1986 Bath, Me: A port bow view of the guided-missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts FFG-58 as it departs Bath, Me. on sea trials. DN-SC-89-00167
On her was placed a commemorative plaque of her namesake, the USS Samuel B Roberts (DE-413)
Commemorative plaque of the USS Samuel B Roberts (DE-413). Below in raised lettering is “In Memory of Those Who Have Sailed Before Us/USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)/LCDR R. W. Copeland, Commanding Officer” The remainder of the plaque includes the names of the original crew of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Accession #: NHHC 2015.034.001
While escorting reflagged tankers during the Iran-Iraq War Operation Earnest Will, FFG-58 was struck by a mine on 14 April 1988 in the Persian Gulf, an incident that led to Operation Preying Mantis. The mine blew a 21-foot hole in the vessel and broke the keel of the ship, which post-incident analysis argued should have sent her to the bottom.
USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) underway after the ship struck a mine on April 14, 1988. A USMC CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter is on the helicopter pad. DN-SC-88-08601
Nonetheless, the battered frigate’s crew leaped to her defense, going far and beyond standard damage control procedures in an epic five-hour battle to save her. Reportedly, men rushing forward into flooding and damaged spaces touched the original Roberts‘ plaque and drew inspiration from it.
Rear Adm. Anthony A. Less, Commander Joint Task Force Middle East/Middle East Force radioed Rinn several times from his flagship, Coronado (AGF-11), and at one point asked him to evaluate the possibility of losing Samuel B. Roberts. “No higher honor,” the captain replied, a reference to when the Japanese sank the first Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 25 October 1944. That ship’s survivors had pulled Cmdr. Robert W. Copeland, their commanding officer, from the water and Copeland said he could think of “no higher honor than to have served with these men.”
Roberts was saved and eventually returned to the fleet after extensive reconstruction. Sadly, she was decommissioned in 2015 and is slated to be sold for scrap in the coming months.
As for the original 1944 destroyer escort, that vessel, along with fellow torpedo run destroyers USS Hoel and USS Johnston, are remembered at a large granite memorial dedicated in 1995 at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Point Loma, California.
Another memorial to Roberts is located in the Memorial Courtyard at the National Museum of the Pacific War, formerly the Nimitz Museum, in Fredericksburg, Texas. Further, the USS Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association is very active, although dwindling. A number of books have been written about Taffy 3 and that terrible day off Samar.
The charge of the tin cans that fateful day was remembered in maritime art.
Watercolor by Commander Dwight C. Shepler, USNR, depicting an episode during the torpedo attacks by the TG 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”) destroyer screen. Ships present are (left to right): Japanese battleships Nagato, Haruna, and Yamato, with salvo (Japanese shells contained dye for spotting purposes) from Yamato landing in left-center, USS Heerman (DD-532), USS Hoel (DD-533) sinking; Japanese cruisers Tone and Chikuma (NH 79033 KN).
In 2013, Roberts‘ 48-star national ensign, hauled down from the sinking ship by Chief Torpedoman Rudy Skau in 1944, was presented back to the Navy by a newly minted ensign who had been given the flag by Copeland before his death. It is housed at the University of Washington’s (UW) Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program in Clark Hall, Copeland’s alma matter.
Ensign, National, USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), Battle of Leyte Gulf Accession #: NHHC 2013.052.001
This month, as the Navy celebrates its 244th birthday and the Fleet remembers the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the modern era, Roberts was mentioned directly in the Presidential Message.
Aboard USS Leyte Gulf (CG-55), the battle and Roberts were also remembered, her action now ethos.
Specs:
Camouflage Measure 32, Design 14D prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for escort ships of the DE-339 (John C. Butler) class. This plan, showing the ship’s starboard side, stern, superstructure ends, and exposed decks, is dated 17 May 1944 and was approved by Commander William C. Latrobe, USN. 80-G-109627
Displacement:1,350 long tons
Length: 306 ft
Beam: 36 ft 8 in
Draft: 9 ft 5 in
Installed power: 12,000 shp
Propulsion:
2 × WGT geared steam turbines
2 × boilers
2 × shafts
Speed: 24 knots, designed
Range: 6,000 nm @ 12 knots
Complement:14 officers, 201 enlisted
Sensors: SF multi-purpose radar
Armament:
2 × single 5″/38 DP (127 mm) guns
2 × twin 40 mm Bofors (1.6 in) AA guns
10 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) AA guns
1 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
8 × Mk 6 depth charge throwers
1 × Mk 10Hedgehog ASW mortar
2 × Mk 9 depth charge racks
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The wreck sleuths with RV Petrel are like a WWII War in the Pacific Time Machine. Hats off to them and their work.
Last week they announced they found the Japanese fleet carrier Kaga at 5,400 meters (more than 17,000 feet) below the surface in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, off Midway. Then on Sunday, they announced another hit some 18nm away from Kaga, likely either the carrier Akagi or Soryu.
With that being said, the film “Midway” opens in theaters everywhere on Nov. 8, and the U.S. Navy has had a serious hand in its production.
Filmmaker Roland Emmerich has been hanging out at Pearl Harbor off and on since 2016 while the Naval History and Heritage Command has been helping with script review and feedback to both rough footage and finished products. Actors shadowed and spoke with current naval officers. Woody Harrelson, who plays ADM Chester Nimitz in the film, even got underway on USS John C. Stennis in August 2018 for research into the role, which is about the best you can do these days as few Yorktown-class carriers are around in fleet ops. Many of the background actors were active-duty military.
“I’m glad they did a movie about real heroes and not comic book heroes. Despite some of the ‘Hollywood’ aspects, this is still the most realistic movie about naval combat ever made and does real credit to the courage and sacrifice of those who fought in the battle, on both sides,” said the director of NHHC, retired RADM Sam Cox, who personally supported each phase of the historical review.
I guess we will see how close it gets in a couple weeks.
On 5 May 1942, the “Old Bird” Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15) was the last surviving American vessel as the Japanese invaded the Philippines. [We covered her luckier sisters USS Avocet (AVP-4) and USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2) in separate Warship Wednesdays a few years ago]
When Quail was disabled at Corregidor, site of the last stand of U.S. forces near the entrance to Manila Bay, LCDR J.H. Morrill had the ship scuttled and gave his crew the choice of surrendering to the Japanese or striking out across the open ocean. Seventeen sailors chose to join him on the desperate voyage. With the above pistol recovered from a dead serviceman as their only armament, and virtually no charts or navigational aids, they transversed 2,060 miles of ocean in a 36-foot open motor launch, reaching Australia after 29 days.
LCDR Morrill received the Navy Cross and eventually retired at the rank of Rear Admiral.
As noted by Navsource: “Although the Quail was lost, some of its crew decided that surrendering to the Japanese on Corregidor was not an option. Even though the odds against them were enormous, these incredibly brave men in their small boat managed to avoid Japanese aircraft and warships while, at the same time, battling the sea as well as the weather. But like so many of the men in the old U.S. Asiatic Fleet, they simply refused to give up. It was a remarkable achievement by a group of sailors who were determined to get back home so that they could live to fight another day.”
The gun is currently on display at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, VA.
Quail, U.S. Navy photo from the January 1986 edition of All Hands magazine, via Navsource
One of the Quail‘s “loaner officers” who didn’t make the trip south was Lt. Jimmy Crotty, USCG, who had a more tragic fate.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Thomas J.E. Crotty
An explosives expert who graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1934 at the head of his class, he was serving with the Joint In-Shore Patrol Headquarters at Cavite when the war kicked off and spent several months on Quail working the minefields around Manila Bay.
When Quail was sunk, he volunteered to move to Corregidor where he served with the Navy’s headquarters staff and was captured while working one of the last 75mm guns with the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. He died two months later under the unspeakably harsh conditions at Cabanatuan Prison Camp #1.
The USCGA Football team dedicated their 2014 season to Crotty and his Bronze Star and Purple Heart are in the custody of the Academy.
Now, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Thomas J.E. Crotty, 30, of Buffalo, New York, killed during World War II, was accounted for Sept. 10, 2019.
One of the 2,500 Allied POWs who died at Cabanatuan, Crotty was buried along with fellow prisoners in the Camp Cemetery, in grave number 312.
According to DPAA:
Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Due to the circumstances of the deaths and burials, the extensive commingling, and the limited identification technologies of the time, all of the remains could not be identified. The unidentified remains were interred as “unknowns” in the present-day Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
In January 2018, the “unknown” remains associated with Common Grave 312 were disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis, including one set, designated X-2858 Manila #2.
To identify Crotty’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis as well as circumstantial and material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Crotty will be buried Nov. 2, 2019, in Buffalo, New York.
Warship Wednesday: Oct. 2, 2019, HMs Unlucky Killer No. 13
Here we see the Royal Navy’s K-class steam-powered (not a misprint) submarine HMS K22, bottom, compared to a smaller and more typical example of HMs submarine fleet during World War I, the HMS E37. As you can tell, the two boats are very different and, by comparing specs of the 800-ton/2,000shp E27 with the 2630-ton/10,000shp K22, you can see just how different.
A brainchild that sprang from the pipe-dream by Jellicoe and Beatty of creating submarines fast enough to operate with the Grand Fleet, these massive 339-foot submarines were designed on the cusp of World War I and a full 21 were to be built. Whereas other subs around the world were gasoline-electric or diesel-electric, the K-class would be steam-electricwith a pair of Yarrow oil-fired boilers (! on a submarine!) for use with turbines on the surface, giving them an impressive 24-knot speed.
HMS K7, showing a good profile of these interesting subs. And yes, those are stacks on her amidships
When you keep in mind that the standard British battleship of the time, the brand new Queen Elizabeth-class “fast” battleships had a max speed of 24-knots, you understand the correlation.
The K-class would use their speed to their advantage and, with a heavy armament of eight torpedo tubes and three 3-4-inch deck guns, press their attacks with ease. For all this surface action, they had a proper bridge (with windows!) and even stacks for the boilers.
HMS K2, note the gun deck with her large 4 inchers interspersed between her stacks. Click to big up
In short, they were really large destroyers that happened to be able to submerge. When using one boiler they could creep along at 10 knots for 12,500 nautical miles– enabling them to cross the Atlantic and back and still have oil left.
When submerged, they could poke around on electric motors. With all this in mind, what could go wrong?
Well, about that…
The K-class soon developed a bad habit of having accidents while underway. This was largely because for such gargantuan ships, they had small and ineffective surface controls, which, when coupled with a very low crush depth and buoyancy issues meant the ships would often hog and be poor to respond under control, along with having issues with dive angles like you can’t believe.
In short, they were all the bad things of a 300-foot long carnival funhouse, afloat.
Further, since the boilers had to be halted to dive (who wants burnt oil exhaust inside a sealed steel tube?) if these submersibles could dive in under five minutes it was due to a well-trained crew. Then, due to all the vents and stacks that had to seal, there were inevitable leaks and failures, which on occasion sent seawater cascading into the vessel once she slipped below the waves.
Of the 21 ordered, only 17 were eventually completed and these ships soon earned a reputation as the Kalamity-class because ships sank at their moorings, suffered uncontrolled descents to the bottom of the sea, ran aground, and disappeared without a trace. This led to improvements such as a large bulbous bow (note the difference in the bow form from early images of these subs to later), though it didn’t really help things all that much.
K4 ran aground on Walney Island on January 1917 and remained stranded there for some time. There are several images in circulation of this curious sight
With all of this, we should double back around to the K22 mentioned above in the very first image. You see, she was completed as HMS K13 at Fairfield Shipbuilders, Glasgow, Scotland.
Launched 11 November 1916, K13 was sailing through Gareloch on 29 January 1917 during her sea trials when Kalimity raised its head.
On board that day were 80 souls– 53 crew, 14 employees of a Govan shipbuilder, five Admiralty officials, a pilot and the captain and engineer of sister submarine K14. While attempting to bring the decks awash, icy Scottish seawater poured into the engine room of the submarine, killing those stokers, enginemen and water tenders working the compartment. A subsequent investigation found that four ventilator tubes for the boilers had not closed properly.
Fifty men were left alive on the stricken ship, which by that time was powerless at the bottom of the loch. The two seniormost present, K13‘s skipper Lieutenant Commander Godfrey Herbert and his K14 counterpart, Commander Francis Goodhart, tasked themselves to make a suicidal break for the surface on a bubble of air released from the otherwise sealed off conning tower to get help– though only Herbert made it alive.
Once topside and picked up by another waiting submarine, Herbert helped pull off a what is noted by many as the first true Submarine Rescue which involved dropping airlines to the submarine while the 48 remaining men trapped inside endured a freezing, dark hell for 57 hours until they were able to be brought to the surface as the buoyant end of the submarine, pumped full of air pressure, broached the surface and a hole was cut to remove the survivors while the ship was held by a hawser.
The crew of E50 witnessing K13’s rapid dive closed in on the area discovering traces of oil and escaping air breaking the surface. The first rescue vessel arrived around midnight. Divers were sent down to inspect the submarine and just after daybreak on the 30th morse signals were exchanged between the divers and the trapped crew. At 1700 an airline was successfully connected, empty air bottles recharged and ballast tanks blown. With the aid of a hawser slung under her bows K13 was brought to within 8 feet of the surface. By midday of the 31st K13’s bow had been raised ten feet above the water. By 2100 the pressure hull had been breached using oxy-acetylene cutting equipment the survivors being transferred to safety
However, K13 slipped below the surface once more, taking her dead back to the bottom with her. Raised two months later, she was repaired, the bodies of 29 lost in her engine room removed as was the fallen skipper of K14 (while one body other was recovered from the loch, the remaining men were never found), and she was recommissioned as K22.
British submarine HMS K22 (ex HMS K13) underway at speed during trial in the Firth of Forth after repair and refit Note the change to her bow. Via Tacta Nautica
Seeing some war service with the 13th Submarine Flotilla (again with that number!) K13/22 was involved in a collision at night with sistership K14 in a chain reaction event that left two other sisters, K6 and K17, sunk. In all 105 of HMs submariners were killed in one night in 1918 aboard K-boats without a single German shot fired.
By this time, the “K” had changed from Kalamity to Killer and volunteers assigned to these boats called themselves the “Suicide Club.”
Alongside captured coastal U-boat S.M.S. UB 28 in 1918, note the huge size difference.
Soon after the war, the RN divested themselves of the K-class though they were still relatively new, scrapping most of them in the early 1920s.
K13 as K23 late in her brief second life, 1923
K13/K22 survived until she was sold for scrap in December 1926 in Sunderland.
A memorial to her 32 war dead is at Faslane Cemetery while one to her six civilians killed among her crew is at Glasgow.
A third, erected in 1961, is in Carlingford, New South Wales, Australia, and was paid for by the widow of Charles Freestone, a leading telegraphist on K13 who survived the accident and emigrated down under.
The Submarines Association Australia (SAA) visits and pays their respect to the marker in Oz every January 29 while Sailors from HM Naval Base Clyde and the RN Veteran Submarine Association pay theirs at the markers in Scotland.
“Although technology has revolutionized submarine safety over the past century, the special bravery, ethos, and comradeship of Submariners and the Submarine Service endures,” said Command Warrant Officer of the UK Submarine Service Stefano Mannucci on the 99th Anniversary service in 2016
Last week, Veterans and serving submariners at Helensburgh unveiled a plinth to mark the sinking of the Submarine K13.
“The plinth was commissioned by the West of Scotland Branch of the Submariners Association and before it was unveiled, the Branch President, retired Commander Bob Seaward, OBE explained how the plinth represents a link connecting the town and its residents to the Naval Base and the submarines which have been sailing past the town for over 100 years,” noted the Royal Navy.
K13/22 is also remembered in maritime art.
As for her skipper on that cold January day a century ago, Capt. Godfrey Herbert, DSO with Bar, having served in the Royal Navy through both World Wars, died on dry land in Rhodesia at the ripe old age of 77.
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.
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While in Columbia, South Carolina last week, filming an episode of Select Fire at FN (much more on that, later) I visited the South Carolina State House
While it looks nice, it was 95 degrees, with 95 gnats to match!
In the woods and shade just off to the side of the building, while walking down Gervais Street to Trinity Cathedral– which is breathtaking– I spied this small 6-pounder (57mm) gun on a naval mount almost hidden in the brush.
Why, hello there…
On closer look, it was indeed historic, one of the battery of six such anti-torpedo-boat-guns carried by the ill-fated armored cruiser USS Maine (ACR-1). The vessel sank in Havana Harbor in February 1898, an event that led to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War that April.
The gun was salvaged after the conflict and installed in 1931 at its current location.
While South Carolina raised over 1,000 volunteers in two regiments for the short conflict that in the end saw little of it, the city of Columbia acquired the gun in 1910 as a monument to the effort and installed it in Irwin Park, near the Gervais Street Bridge, in 1913. The city moved the gun to its current location and unveiled it on 22 October 1931.
While a Driggs-Schroeder type 57mm/40cal, the tube markings have worn away over time.
The brass mount is an 1894 Mark III. Notably, the largest battery of remaining Driggs 6-pdrs is preserved on SpanAm War veteran USS Olympia (C-6).
From Arlington National Cemetery, where the new USS Thresher Memorial was dedicated last week:
(U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser)
A new memorial at Arlington National Cemetery commemorates the service and sacrifice of the crew of the USS Thresher (SSN-593), the world’s most technologically advanced nuclear-powered submarine of its day. On April 10, 1963, Thresher sank during deep-diving tests off the coast of Massachusetts, killing all 129 personnel aboard: 16 officers, 96 enlisted sailors, and 17 civilian technicians. It was the deadliest accident in submarine history, leading the Navy to establish the SUBSAFE Submarine Safety Program.
Loss of the Thresher by A. L. Karafylakis NH 86731-KN
It will be the first time since 1941 that a British warship with the name has been at sea. Although the Royal Navy has previously used the moniker no less than six times going back to 1765, the last HMS Prince of Wales (53) was a King George V-class battleship that famously duked it out with SMS Bismarck, although still incomplete, only to be sunk by land-based Japanese bombers immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The well-worn battleship HMS Prince of Wales mooring in “peacetime” British Singapore, 4 December 1941. Only seven months earlier she had been under the guns of the Bismarck and six days after this photo was taken she was on the seabed (Photo: IWM)
On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, we highlighted the lost Operation Neptune minesweeper USS Osprey, which went down in the early morning of 6 June 1944, clearing a way for the invasion fleet.
In that Warship Wednesday, we covered that her bell had apparently been recovered sometime around 2007 and gave a lead to the dive op that may know more about it.
The US authorities contacted the UK coastguard when pictures of the ship’s bell appeared on the internet.
An investigation was launched by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency when it was established the bell had not been reported to the receiver of wreck.
Acting receiver Heloise Warner said the agency “put the word about” that it was searching for the bell and it was subsequently left anonymously at an undisclosed location last month.
“It’s absolutely fantastic that such a poignant part of our history is back in our possession,” she added.
Osprey’s bell via MCA
It is expected the NHHC will soon take possession of the recovered bell.
Bravo Zulu, guys, and, as always, thanks for sharing! Let’s continue to save history together.
A hearty toast to those lost on Osprey, who will never be forgotten so long as their names are still written:
Lieutenant Van Hamilton
Seaman 2nd Class John Medvic
Fireman 1st class Walter O’Bryan
Quartermaster 2nd Class Emery Parichy
Motor Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Joseph Vanasky, Jr
Warship Wednesday, Sep 11, 2019: The Leader of the Pack
Photographed by LaTour, Philadelphia. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41956
Here we see the small crew of an early H (Holland) class diesel-electric “submarine torpedo boat” USS H-1 (SS-28), originally known as the first USS Seawolf, at the Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Connecticut, circa 1919. Crew complement of these vessels was just two officers and two dozen men.
Built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, California as an improvement to the Holland 602 type, Seawolf had a staggering 70~ sisters that were ordered not only by the U.S. Navy (H-1 through H-9) but also by the navies of Imperial Russia and the British Commonwealth. With a submerged displacement of about 450-tons, these were small boats, going just 150.25-feet long overall.
USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) and USS H-2 (Submarine # 29) Fitting out at the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California, 7 October 1913. NH 66740
With a hybrid powerplant of New London Ship & Engine Co (NELSECO) diesels and Electro Dynamic electric motors, they were fast for their time, able to make 14 knots when surfaced. Likewise, they had a 2,300nm range on their meager 11,800-gal fuel bunker, a 200-foot test depth, and could remain underwater on their two 60-cell Gould batteries traveling 100 nm at 5 knots.
H Boat Cell (H-1 to H-3) at the Gould Storage Battery Company, Buffalo, New York. Each of these early boats carried 120 such cells in two batteries. NH 115013
As for armament, they carried no deck guns due to their limited size but had space reserved to tote eight torpedoes (four in their forward 18-inch tubes and four reloads).
The torpedo room of USS H-5 in 1919. The breeches of the four 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes are at the center. The tubes themselves had rotating exterior bow caps rather than doors. Scanned from Page 304 of Friedman, Norman, U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1995 via Wiki Commons.
The first three vessels were ordered before the Great War and were originally to have kick-ass predator/fish names (as was common for the U.S. Navy at the time, with early boats bestowed such enviable monikers as USS Tarantula and USS Viper) but this changed gears while they were still underway. Therefore, instead of the planned USS Seawolf, Nautilus and Garfish, we simply got USS H-1, H-2 and H-3, a naming convention that would continue through the follow-on K, L, M, N, O, R, and S-class boats until the nine V-class subs under construction in 1931 were renamed for fish, a practice that carried on through the 1970s..
Nonetheless, the three Hs were a relative unknown in the 1914 Jane’s:
USS H-1 (Submarine No. 28) commissioned 1 December 1913, and she and her two sisters were attached to the 2nd Torpedo Flotilla, Pacific Fleet, operating along the West Coast out of San Pedro, ranging from Los Angeles to lower British Columbia.
Old photo found in estate collection of SS-28 and SS-29 (H-1 and H-2 respectively) moored in Coos Bay, Oregon sometime between 1914-17, via Wiki Commons. Note their early canvas topside protection.
USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 30 January 1914. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. Catalog #: NH 69853
USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off Long Beach, California, circa 1914. USS Stewart (Destroyer # 13) is underway in the background. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1972. NH 76006
Considered poor open ocean boats, the H-class were not very successful in U.S. service, with the later flight (H-4 through H-9) only acquired as they had already been built for the Tsar who, after 1917, was no longer signing the checks for Mother Russia. Nonetheless, with Uncle Sam entering the war, they were all pressed into use as training boats.
“H-1 set out from San Pedro on 17 October 1917, and reached New London, Conn., 22 days later via Acapulco, Mexico, Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, Key West, Fla., Charleston, S.C., and Philadelphia, Pa. For the remainder of the war, she operated from there and patrolled Long Island Sound, frequently with officer students from the submarine school on board.”
USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off the Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Connecticut, circa 1919. Photographed by LaTour, NH 41954
Another view, same time and place NH 41955
When the war ended, H-1 and H-2 set off for their return trip to the West Coast via the Panama Canal– and they almost made it too.
On 12 March 1920, H-1 grounded in a storm off Santa Margarita Island, Baja California. Four men, including her skipper, LCDR. James R. Webb (USNA 1913), perished in the heavy surf during the effort to reach dry land as H-2 narrowly avoided the same fate.
While the repair ship USS Vestal (AR-4) two weeks later pulled the stricken submarine off the rocks, H-1 rapidly sank in 50 feet of water and her hulk was abandoned. The Navy drew a name through her entry on the Navy List on 12 April 1920, and her remains were sold where-is/as-is to scrappers a few months later. However, it doesn’t seem that said salvors were very successful.
The rest of her class in U.S. service were all much luckier, and, decommissioned in 1922, were laid up and sold for junk a decade later.
Meanwhile, the Italians and Russians had their own 19 boats, with the latter losing five in the Baltic in 1918 to avoid having the Germans capture them and continued to operate these American submersibles for years. The Soviets still had five in their Black Sea Fleet when the Germans came back in 1941, losing two during WWII. As a side note, some of the lost Tsarist subs were raised by the Finns who attempted unsuccessfully to get them working while at least one was used by White Russian Gen. Wrangel’s fleet until 1922 when it was handed over to the French for scrapping.
As for H-1s 40+ British sisters, they were produced at the Canadian Vickers Yards in Montreal, Fore River in Massachusetts, and a host of yards in the UK proper. Three were lost during WWI. A fourth, HMS H-6 (the British coincidentally used the same inspired H-series names as the USN boats) was interned in Holland in 1916 and sold to the Dutch who used her as HNLMS O 8 until WWII when the Germans captured her and later scuttled the well-traveled boat in 1945. Many of the rest of the boats lived on after Versailles as training craft and four were lost in accidents in the 1920s, as is the nature of student drivers. Nine continued to see WWII service with the Royal Navy, where two more were lost in action.
In addition to the British RN H-class units, the Canadians fielded two (CH-14 and CH-15) briefly and six went to Chile as the Guacolda-class, where they continued in service until as late as 1949, the last H-class boats in operation.
From the 1946 Jane’s:
As it stands today, H-1 could be the best remembered and most accessible of this huge class of early submarines. Lost in shallow water off Baja California, and technically not a gravesite as the bluejackets lost in her grounding died on the effort to reach the beach, her bones have often been visited over the past century.
Most recently, in 2016, locals from nearby Puerto Alcatraz rediscovered the wreck, sparking a drive by Mexican authorities of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) to move in and survey the vessel.
Time has not been kind and the stern is reportedly full of sand while most of her pressure hull has collapsed. Still, the offices of INAH, in conjunction with the U.S Navy’s NHHC, are recovering what they can for preservation and documentation.
Since her loss, the Navy has never commissioned another H-1, but there have been three subsequent USS Seawolf (s) since 1939, all hard-serving submarines.
Specs:
H-1 (SS-28) showing Profile Inboard; Profile Outboard, Midship Arrangement & Booklet of General Plans. National Archives Identifier: 55302488
Displacement:
358 long tons (364 t) surfaced
467 long tons (474 t) submerged
Length: 150 ft 4 in
Beam: 15 ft 10 in
Draft: 12 ft 5 in
Installed power:
950 hp (710 kW) (diesel engines)
600 hp (450 kW) (electric motors)
Propulsion:
Diesel/electric
2 × NELSECO diesel engines 950 hp
2 × Electro Dynamic electric motors (450 kW)
2 × 60-cell batteries
2 × shafts
Speed:
14 knots surfaced
10.5 knots submerged
Range:
2,300 nm at 11 knots surfaced
100 nm at 5 knots submerged
Test depth: 200 ft
Complement: 25 officers and men
Armament:
4 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes
8 × torpedoes
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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.
