Category Archives: for those lost at sea

Korean Privateers

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How about this great circa 1952 Kodachrome of an airstrip “somewhere in Korea” (likely Taegu Air Base, K-9) showing a USAF RF-51D photo Mustang (s/n 44-84775; c/n 44631, formerly F-6D) of the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron with a second RF-51D to its left while in the distance to the right you see two huge dark blue Navy Convair PB4Y-2 Privateers of VP-871 and a USAF Douglas R-4D1 Skytrain.

342-FH-4A39909-K90259, National Archives Identifier 176889420

The legendary Privateers weren’t a fluke, as no less than 22 Navy VP squadrons made 38 deployments to support the Korean War between 16 July 1950 and December 1953.

While most of these were with the new P2V-3/3W/5/6 Neptune (7 squadrons, 14 deployments) or PBM-5/5S/5S2 Mariner flying boats (8 squadrons, 14 deployments), at least seven squadrons of WWII-era PB4Y-2S Privateers (VP-9, VP-17, VP-22, VP-28, VP-42, VP-772, and VP-871) made 10 deployments. The last two Privateer squadrons mentioned (VP-772 and VP-871) were USNR units that were activated and rushed to the theatre, with planes often taken out of long-term storage.

PB4Y Privateer patrol planes of VP-23, in formation over Miami, Florida, July 1949. PB4Y-2 in foreground is Bu. no. 60006. Note that by this time, their dorsal gun mounts had been removed. 80-G-440193

The Privateers served in sea patrol, SAR, and night interdiction missions as well as supporting combat ashore. Of note, the reservists of VP-871, which is now VUP-19, earned its “Big Red” nickname during Korea for its role in night missions, dropping hundreds of red illumination flares to support allied air and ground units.

These “Lamp Lighter” or “Firefly” missions typically saw a P4Y rendezvous with four attack aircraft, search for truck convoys, and illuminate the targets for the attack aircraft, with each long-legged patrol bomber carrying as many as 250 flares.

During Korea, 5 PBMs and 6 P2Vs were lost in the conflict (including 16 KIA and 2 POW in combat-related crewmember losses), while only two Privateers were seriously attacked. Both of these were PB4Y-2Ss of VP-28, jumped off the coast of Red China by PRC MiG-15s on 20 September and 23 November 1952, respectively. Neither were lost, although one had to make an emergency landing in Okinawa.

All Navy PB4Y-2s were retired by 1954, though unarmed PB4Y-2G Privateers served until 1958 with the Coast Guard before being auctioned off for salvage, with many of those going on to work in the Western States as firebombers well into the 2000s.

USCG Coast Guard PB4Y-2G Privateers over San Francisco, 026-g-024-031-001

Warship Wednesday, September 24, 2025: Low Lying

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, September 24, 2025: Low Lying

Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Marine, Objectnummer 2158_002096

Above, we see the Dutch Heiligerlee-class deckhouse monitor 2de klasse Zr.Ms. Krokodil between 1887 and 1900. Note her myriad of topside shielded 37mm 1-pounder Hotchkiss QF guns, including two covered 5-garreled Gatling style Krupp-Gruson Revolverkanone looking over her stern and two singles crowding her forward military mast, from where they had a great enfilade angle on approaching small craft. This augmented her single 11.4-inch L22 Krupp No.1 breechloading rifle in her turret.

One of a group of interesting ironclads built for the Netherlands to a British design, she had a quiet career.

Dutch monitors

Keen to learn from the naval developments coming out of the U.S. during the Civil War, the Koninklijke Marine, then as now one of the most professional sea services in the world, was quick to upgrade. From the mid-1860s to the late 1870s, the Dutch navy rushed to complete a fleet of armored monitors for coastal defense.

These included the two large domestically-built Rammonitor 1ste klasse vessels, the Rijkswerf-built Zr.Ms. Draak (2,234 t, 201 ft. oal, 8.4 knots, 2×11.4″/22 guns, ƒ1,311,715 cost) and the Fijenoord-built Matador (2,000 t, 209 ft. oal, 7.5 knots, 2×11.4″/22, ƒ1,039,529) that entered service in 1877.

Rammonitor Zr.Ms. Matador NIMH 2158_006466

These beasts were preceded by 11 Monitors 2de klasse, led by six bow ram-equipped Adder-class vessels (Zr.Ms. Hyena, Panter, Haai, Adder, Wesp, and Luipaard), delivered by Rijkswerf and Fijenoord between 1870 and 1876. Running 1,500 tons and some 192 feet long, they carried two 9-inch Armstrong/EOC RML guns and were protected with between 5.5 and 11 inches of iron plate armor. Speed was 7 or 8 knots, depending on the vessel, as none of the six appeared to have been 100 percent identical. These ships ran between ƒ755,955 (Adder) and ƒ920,343 (Luipaard).

This leaves us with the other five 2de klasse monitors, which kicked off the Dutch monitor race.

These vessels, the Laird Brothers-designed Heiligerlee class, included Zr.Ms.Cerberus, Bloedhond, Tijger, and our primary subject, Krokodil. All ordered in 1867 as the ink was still drying at Appomattox and the smoke was still in the air from Lissa, these five ships were built at two different British yards (Laird and Napier) as well as at Rijkswerf.

Heiligerlee model, via Rijksmuseum

While they were roughly the same design, they varied from hull to hull but generally ran 1,500 tons and 192 feet overall. Carrying two 9-inch Armstrong/EOC RML guns, they were protected with between 5.5 and 11 inches of iron plate armor. Speed was between 7 and 9 knots, depending on the vessel.

Zr. Ms. Luipaard

Zr. Ms. Luipaard

As you may have guessed, the Heiligerlee design would prove the basis for the follow-on Adders as described above.

Meet Krokodil

Laid down at Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, within days of her class-leading sister Heiligerlee, Krokodil was launched 13 Feb 1868 and entered service 21 July 1870. She cost ƒ765,115 compared to Heiligerlee’s ƒ788,348

Monitor  Zr.Ms. Krokodil in Birkenhead, England, in 1868, showing her original twin turret. NIMH Objectnummer 2158_002092

Krokodil was well-documented in the British press at the time, with a well-known line drawing appearing in the Illustrated News and a description in the Engineer.

A circa 1868 print of Krokodil. NIMH Objectnummer 2158_002093

Krokodil print, Illustrated News

Dutch Harbor Defense Ironclad Monitor Krokodil, Illustrated London News, September 5, 1868,

With a draft of just under 10 feet, these monitors were well-suited for inland service, defending the sea inlets along the extensive canals of their home country.

Krokodil, 1871, via Rijksmuseum

However, their low freeboard made them lethal to their crews in any sort of chop, as witnessed by the original USS Monitor, which went to the bottom early in her career.

Hauntingly, Adder capsized near Scheveningen with all 65 crew members on board in 1882.

With the rapid advancement in naval guns, the standard Dutch monitor big gun, the muzzle-loading Armstrong 9-incher, was soon made obsolete and, starting with the Luipaard in 1877, would instead carry 11.4″/22 Krupp No.1 breechloaders.

The Krupp gun, besides being about 15 percent cheaper than the British RML, was also more effective, capable of firing a 560-pound AP shell to 9,000 yards instead of the 249-pound “pointed bullet” (puntkogel), which had a 6,000-yard range. However, as a single Krupp gun weighed more than two Armstrongs, this meant the twin-gun turrets on the Heiligerlees and Adders were eventually converted to a single gun.

The brown-powder fired Krupp 28cm L22 C76 Nr. 1 kanon as used by Dutch ironclad monitors starting in 1877.

Krokodil only received her Krupp upgrade in 1884, making it easy to date images of her. As small torpedo boats had become a threat by that time, she also picked up a smaller 3-inch gun and four Hotchkiss 1-pounders as described in the first image of this post.

Zr.Ms. Heiligerlee class monitor 2de klasse 2158_005033

Heiligerlee class monitor with 28 cm A No. 1 gun after 1884, Amsterdam. Afbeeldingsbestand: PBKD00201000009 G

Monitor Hr.Ms. Krokodil in Harlingen on laundry day, circa 1887-1900. NIMH Objectnummer 2158_002094

By the late 1890s, after international naval lessons learned in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the Spanish-American War in 1898, the age of the iron-sheathed monitor was clearly passed.

On 16 March 1900, Krokodil was decommissioned and, after a few years of service as a hulk, was sold for ƒ32.257 worth of scrap in 1906 to J.G. van der Linden of Woerden.

All of her sisters were similarly disposed of, with Heiligerlee surviving the latest, being scrapped in 1910. The larger and more advanced Draak was the last Dutch monitor in service, but even she left in 1914. The age of steel and electricity had come.

All that remains are their builders’ models and the wreck of Adder.

Model monitor Tijger, in full rigged arrangement. Heiligerlee class, via Rijksmuseum

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Vale, McLane

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The fourth cutter to bear the name McLane (after vessels commissioned in 1832, 1845, and 1865) was commissioned in 1927 as WSC-146 (later WMEC-146).

A 125-foot “Buck and a Quarter,” she was built to take on rumrunners during Prohibition.

Five 125-foot cutters at Charleston Navy Yard, Boston, late 1920s. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.

Five 125-foot cutters at the Charleston Navy Yard, Boston, in the late 1920s, including, from the outside, the USCGC Fredrick Lee, General Green, and Jackson. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.

Painted haze grey and with her armament significantly stepped up, she served on the Bering Sea Patrol during WWII.

Heavily occupied with convoy escort work, anti-submarine patrols, screening duties, and rescuing both vessels and aircraft in distress, the McLane and her crew are often credited with sinking the Japanese submarine Ro-32 (or possibly the Soviet sub Shch-138!) in July 1942 and a multiple-person rescue of a downed Lockheed Electra in February 1943, among several other notable actions.

Original caption: Coast Guard Lieut. Ralph Burns (right) of Ketchikan, Alaska, is presented the Legion of Merit Medal by Coast Guard Capt. F.A. Zeusler (left), commanding officer of the Alaskan Coast Guard District, in ceremonies at Ketchikan. Coast Guard Commander G.F. Hicks (center), Ketchikan base commander, witnessed the presentation. The award was made by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on behalf of the President. The medal was awarded for “exceptionally meritorious conduct” during an action in North Pacific waters in which the U.S. Coast Guard cutter McLane, with Lieutenant Burns in command, eliminated a Japanese submarine with depth charges. It was the first Japanese sub sunk in Alaskan waters.” National Archives Identifier 205588237

McLane was awarded one Battle Star for her World War II service.

125 ft. Active-class “Buck and a Quarters,” via 1946 Janes

Switching back to her white and buff scheme post-war, she was based in California until decommissioned in December 1968, capping 41 years in the service.

125-foot “buck and a quarter” USCGC McLane (W146) in her post-WWII scheme. Note her 40mm Bofors, circa 1962

Mothballed at the US Coast Guard Yard for less than a year, the McLane was sold to the Marine Navigation and Training Association of Chicago in November 1969, who operated her as a school and instruction ship for Sea Scouts on the waters of Lake Michigan into the early 1990s. She was then acquired by the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum in 1993 (now known as the USS Silversides Submarine Museum) and began her third career as a museum ship in Muskegon.

That final chapter has now closed, and with her 98-year-old hull increasingly unstable, the museum has “de-assessed” McLane, towing her off to the breakers last week.

As noted by the museum:

The vessel, which had been closed to the public since spring 2025 due to ongoing maintenance concerns, was towed away with the support of dedicated community partners. After nearly a century of service in both salt and fresh water, the McLane’s condition had deteriorated to the point of being inaccessible for public touring and beyond the scope of feasible preservation.

Despite efforts to explore alternative preservation options, the museum ultimately determined that continued stewardship of the McLane was no longer sustainable. With the cold season approaching, the combination of time, weather, and structural decline made timely action necessary to ensure the safety of the vessel and the surrounding environment.

One of 33 Active-class cutters, McLane’s only remaining sister afloat, the former USCGC Morris (WPC-147/WSC-147/WMEC-147), was saved from the scrappers by the Vietnam War Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas, in 2021 and is being restored to sailing condition.

Two of the class, USCGC Jackson (WSC-142) and Bedloe (WSC-128), capsized going to the aid of a torpedoed freighter in the Great Atlantic Hurricane of September 1944.

U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Looks Back on 250 Years of Service

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There are a lot of 250th anniversaries this year, looking back at 1775. One of the most overlooked is the Semiquincentennial of the founding of the Army’s Chaplain Corps (DACH).

Established during the Revolution, the Corps was created on 29 July 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized a Chaplain for each of the Continental Army’s 38 regiments.

In the shadow of Chaplain headstones and the four memorials to Chaplains’ service and sacrifice in our nation’s wars, Arlington National Cemetery’s Senior Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ludovic Foyou recently welcomed a crowd of Chaplains, family members, and well-wishers, saying the cemetery was “where the legacy of our Corps is not just remembered, it is buried into the very soil we stand on.”

Foyou highlighted the significance of the memorials behind him, explaining their tributes:

One honors Chaplains killed in World War I.

Another commemorates 134 Protestant Chaplains who died in both world wars.

A third memorializes 83 Catholic Chaplains who lost their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

And the most recent honors 14 Jewish Chaplains who died while serving their country.

“These stones do not simply remember the dead,” he said. “We follow in the footsteps that walked through the mud, fire and fear to reach those in need.”

 

Cleaning Little Potato Slough

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USCG contractors have been busy cleaning out the derelicts from the waters of the Little Potato Slough near Stockton, California.

This included the World War II-era Woban-class Navy tug ex-USS Mazapeta (YTM-181) and the 140-foot Bay class minesweeper ex-HMCS Chaleur (MCB 164).

Chaleur was fairly modern, having been built in 1956-57 and only decommissioned in 1998.

HMCS Chaleur (MCB 164) in better days

She was used in a variety of commercial and private tasks until she ended up at the Stockton Maritime Museum and sank at her moorings back in 2021.

Chaleur was tied up alongside the old and very well-traveled MV Aurora (ex-Wappen Von Hamburg, ex-Delos, ex-Pacific Star, ex-Polar Star, ex-Xanadu, ex-Expex, and ex-Faithful) for years before she sank.

As Aurora was scrapped last December, all that is left now is the sheen.

Vale, Vestal

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HMS Vesta (J215) IWM FL 21022

Some 80 years ago today, on 26 July 1945, the humble 255-foot Algerine-class minesweeper HMS Vestal (J215) earned two unenviable distinctions.

As part of Operation Livery, while about 55 nautical miles south-west of Phuket, Siam, clearing enemy minefields as part of Force 63, she was hit by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft that killed 14 of her 130-member crew and left her too damaged for economical repair. That afternoon, in 72 meters of water and unmanned, she was finished by gunfire from R-class destroyer HMS Racehorse (H 11).

Vestal, ship loss:

  • CUTHBERTSON, Robert A, Act/Leading Stoker, P/KX 109403, MPK
  • FRENCH, William, Stoker 1c, P/KX 710345, DOW
  • GOODY, Henry A, Stoker 1c, P/KX 88619, MPK
  • HOPGOOD, Leslie R F, Stoker 1c, P/KX 152396, MPK
  • JORDAN, Jack, Stoker 1c, P/KX 600989, MPK
  • KING, Frank W, Leading Wireman, C/MX 97190, MPK
  • MCLEOD, Henry N, Act/Petty Officer Stoker, P/KX 89871, MPK
  • OAKLEY, Roy C, Stoker 1c, P/KX 160385, MPK
  • PALING, Maurice J, Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 117299, MPK
  • STUBBS, James, Act/Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 79900, MPK
  • TILLING, Alfred W J, Engine Room Artificer 3c, P/MX 59689, MPK
  • WALKER, Percy, Able Seaman, P/JX 189030, MPK
  • WILSON, Derrick B, Act/Leading Stoker, P/KX 137209, MPK
  • WOOD, Stanley, Cook (S), C/MX 536782, DOW

This made Vestal the sole British ship to be sunk by a kamikaze attack and the final Royal Navy ship to be lost in the Second World War. Further, the clearing operation by Force 63, which returned to Ceylon after Vestal’s loss, was the last offensive operation by ships of the British Eastern Fleet.

Vestal has since become a destination of sorts for respectful Trimix divers.

Nottingham, found

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The 5,400-ton Town-class cruiser HMS Nottingham was the Royal Navy’s only remaining lost cruiser from the Great War era, whose wreck was previously undocumented.

Was.

Lost to three torpedoes from U-52 (Kptlt. Hans Walther, Pour le Mérite) on 19 August 1916 during a missed connection between the RN’s Grand Fleet and the Kaiserliche Marine’s High Seas Fleet, HMS Nottingham had an extensive service record.

She served in most of the key fleet actions, including the battles of Heligoland Bight (1914), Dogger Bank (1915) and Jutland (1916) where, at the latter, Nottingham was heavily engaged, alongside her fellow light cruisers of the 2nd Squadron, HMS Birmingham, Southampton and Dublin, in a major close-quarters battle with the cruisers of Germany’s 4th Scouting Group –SMS Stettin, München, Frauenlob, Stuttgart and Hamburg. On 20 June 1915, she even missed two torpedoes from U-6.

In April 2025, ProjectXplore divers Dan McMullen, Leo Fielding, and Dom Willis, supported by skipper Iain Easingwood of MarineQuest, loaded the dive charter MV Jacob George with a C-MAX CM2 side scan sonar and 300m or armored towing cable and documented the wreck they believed to be Nottingham on the bottom at 262 feet, 60 miles off the coast of Scotland.

Earlier this month, 10 divers from the UK, Germany, and Spain gathered, and outfitted with JJ-CCR rebreathers on trimix/O2 fills, dove the wreck, clearly documenting “Nottingham” on her stern, as well as her four distinctive funnels, which are intact, as well as gun arrangement, and other facets that solidified the discovery.

And thus we remember:

Royal Blue

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It happened 50 years ago today.

A great original Kodachrome with an air-to-air right side view of a “hump-backed” A-4F Skyhawk (BuNo 154975) of the “Royal Blues” of Attack Squadron (VA) 127, on 21 July 1975. Hot rods, they carried J52-P-408 engines with 11,200 lbf of thrust on an aircraft with an empty weight of 10,450 pounds.

Scene Camera Operator: PH3 Stoner. DN-SC-88-06702, National Archives Identifier 6430109

Established 15 June 1962 at NAS Lemoore with a complement of F-9F/TF-9J Cougar, VA-127 soon switched to Skyhawks. At the time of the above image, the Royal Blues were the only A-4 Replacement Air Wing squadron in the Navy, a role that switched to a primary mission of adversary training by November 1975. Switching to T-38B/F-5Es in 1987, just after they became the “Cylons” in an ode to Battlestar Galactica, they briefly flew F-18s as the “Desert Bogeys” out of NAS Fallon until they were disestablished in 1996.

As for BuNo 154975, she arrived in the fleet in 1967, then flew with VA-113, VA-192, and VA-212, seeing time on Yankee Station from USS Hancock (CV-19), before serving almost a decade with VA-127 starting in 1973, and was loaned to the Blues for a period.

It was in Blue No. 5 Livery that she and her pilot, LCDR Stuart R Powrie (USNA ’70), 34, was killed when the airframe crashed in the Imperial Valley desert near the Salton Sea following the completion of a maneuver called “the clean loop-dirty loop” while flying from NAS El Centro, on 22 February 1982.

Walke, Found

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USS Walke (DD-416) photographed soon after completion, circa 1940—official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97912

The EV Nautilus has dived on the wreck of the second USS Walke (DD-416).

A Sims-class destroyer, DD-416, was laid down on 31 May 1938 at the Boston Navy Yard; launched on 20 October 1939; sponsored by Mrs. Clarence Dillon, grand-niece of the late RADM Henry A. Walke of Civil War fame; and was commissioned on 27 April 1940.

After tense service on the Caribbean Patrol keeping an eye on the Germans and Vichy French, followed by service in Icelandic waters in 1941, she was transferred to the Pacific post-Pearl Harbor. She was a plane guard and escort for USS Yorktown for several months before being detached with a damaged reduction gear that sent her home for repair.

USS Walke (DD-416) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 24 August 1942. Note her camouflage. NH 97911

Patched up, she was off Guadalcanal during its worst early phases and was lost in the great sea clash in those waters on 14/15 November 1942. She went down with at least 82 men, including her skipper, CDR Thomas E. Fraser (USNA ’24), whose family was presented a posthumous Navy Cross. A Smith-class destroyer minelayer was later sponsored by his widow.

Iron Bottom Sound, Redux

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The Corps of Exploration aboard the E/V Nautilus has been continuing Bob Ballard’s work by revisiting Guadalcanal, where Ballard and company discovered numerous wrecks from the 1942-43 naval clashes there—this time with much better cameras and gear than in 1992.

Nautilus has been using the USV DriX, a 25-foot vessel carrying an EM712 multibeam sonar to map the seafloor,

While the dives have been conducted by the ROV Hercules, which features a new model Kraft Predator manipulator with seven-function control, over 79 inches of reach, and a lift capacity of 500 pounds. They usually have smaller “buddy” ROVs too, Argus and Atalanta.

In recent days, they have posted amazing videos of the bow that was shot off the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32), the wreck of the USS Northampton (CA-26) which was lost in November 1942 during the Battle of Tassafaronga off Savo Island, the shattered hull of the USS Vincennes (CA-44) and USS Astoria (CA-34) lost at Savo island in August 1942, and one of the “long lancers” themselves, the Japanese Akizuki class destroyer Teruzuki (“Shining Moon”), sent to the bottom on 12 December 1942 in a clash with PT boats.

USS New Orleans (CA 32) comes into the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, for a new bow after battling with Japanese warships in the Southwest Pacific. In this view, she is almost ready for joining to join a new bow. The photograph was released on 11 January 1944. 80-G-44448

Vincennes

Vincennes

Astoria

Astoria

Turrets no. 1 and 2 of IJN Teruzuki

They will continue their Maritime Archaeology of Guadalcanal (NA173) expedition through July 23, so stay tuned for more discoveries.

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