Category Archives: hero

85 years ago: Carnarvon Castle v Thor

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The Union-Castle Line Royal Mail Motor Vessel Carnarvon Castle was built in 1925-26 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast (Yard No. 595), and at 20,122 GRT and 656 feet overall, was a beautiful ship. With two squat funnels (the foremost being a dummy for looks) she had accommodations for 310 first class, 275 second class, and 266 third class passengers and could make 18 knots.

Coming off a rebuild at Harland & Wolff in 1938 that saw her profile change to a single funnel, 30 feet added to her hull, a new accommodation plan for 699 passengers and a faster speed of 20 knots, it was a no-brainer that the Royal Navy tapped her for service as an armed merchant cruiser in September 1939, carrying eight 6-inch guns left over from scrapped Great War battleships, a pair of 3-inch DP mounts, and some Lewis guns.

Between 25 November 1939 and 21 November 1943, HMS Carnarvon Castle would ride shotgun on a dozen, mostly Sierra Leone-bound, convoys.

Carnarvon Castle, Armed Merchant Cruiser, WWII, By Artist Robert Lloyd

Some 85 years ago today, on 5 December 1940, she would encounter the German Hilfskreuzer Thor (AKA HSK 4, Schiff 10, and Raider E) which was arguably slower (17 knots) but better armed (6x Krupp 5.9″/45s, 4x37mm, 4x20mm Flak, 4x torpedo tubes, mines) and better prepared, having already sunk seven Allied ships and captured one already on her cruise.

The fight would last five hours.

As detailed in “Ocean Liners” by Philip J Fricker:

The Captain had learnt by an intercepted wireless message that the AMC was in the vicinity and hoped to avoid her. However, on 5 December, a large vessel loomed up out of the mist when the Thor was about 550 miles south of Rio and signaled the Thor to stop. (The latter at the time was disguised as a Yugoslav ship.) The British AMC then fired a warning shot, and, realizing he could no longer avoid an engagement, the German captain hoisted his battle ensign and opened fire at a range of about 14,000 yards.

According to the German account, the sun broke through spasmodically, and the British ship was silhouetted against the misty horizon, making a larger target. An enemy shell damaged her electrical control gear early in the action, and guns had to be fired independently by hand control. Nevertheless, the British ship kept up a good, slightly irregular, rate of fire. The Thor kept up a steady fire and also fired a couple of torpedoes, which missed.

By 0844 range had been reduced to about 8,000 yards, and the British AMC had been hit several times. There were several outbreaks of fire on board, and the internal communication had been badly disabled. Accordingly, the ship turned to port and sailed off in a northerly direction to try to control the fires. Having no wish to reopen the engagement, the Thor made off to the eastward. She had expended no fewer than 593 rounds of ammunition, about 70 per cent of her supply, and had escaped damage.

The British ship had not been so fortunate. Twenty-seven enemy shells had found a mark, and her casualties numbered four killed and 28 wounded. The fires were eventually put out, and the ship set a course for Montevideo, where she arrived on 7 December. Some plates salvaged from the wreck of the Graf Spee were used to patch her hull. The Carnarvon Castle later crossed to Cape Town for full repairs.

The skipper of the Thor, Captain Otto Kähler, reported no damage to his ship. It had been Thor’s second gunnery duel with a British Armed Merchant Cruiser, the first being on 28 July 1940 with HMS Alcantara, also a former Union Castle Liner.

On 4 April 1941, Thor engaged and sank HMS Voltaire, the third British Armed Merchant Cruiser she met, in a battle that left 99 British sailors dead and 197 as POWs, underlining just how well Carnarvon Castle had fought the year before, especially when you consider that Voltaire had the same armament as Carnarvon Castle.

Thor arrived in German-occupied France on 23 April 1941 after a 329-day and 57,532-mile war patrol, then seven months later, with new guns, an Arado scout plane, and radar, would venture out on a second one of 321 days that would end in Japan.

As for Carnarvon Castle, she would be converted to trooping duties in late 1943 and survive the war.

Returned to commercial use in 1947, she would be refitted for the emigrant trade and would continue to sail until 1963, when she was scrapped, having served a long and varied 37-year career.

The forgotten Hagaru-ri airlift

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Official period caption: “Astonished Marines of the 5th and 7th Regiments, who hurled back a surprise onslaught by three Chinese communist divisions, hear that they are to withdraw! Ca. December 1950.”

Photo by Sgt. Frank C. Kerr. (Marine Corps). NARA FILE #: 127-N-A4852

After four days of violent combat in late November 1950 against the PRC’s fresh 59th, 79th, and 89th divisions, the 5th and 7th Marines began a fighting withdrawal to Hagaru-ri, the division’s forward operating base, some 14 miles south, with an ultimate evacuation by sea at Hungnam, another very cold and hard 78 miles away.

Joined in Hagaru-ri by the Army’s badly mauled 31st Regimental Combat Team, one of the first large American aeromedical evacuations then took place with wounded removed by USAF and Marine C-47s and C-54s, as well as by Stinson OY-1 liaison aircraft, and Sikorsky HO3S-1 helicopters of Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) 6.

By the end of 5 December, the last full day of the Hagaru-ri airlift before the troops bugged out for Hungnam, an eye-popping 4,369 wounded Marines and Soldiers had been evacuated by the Combat Cargo Command in six days.

Corpsman offering canteen of water to wounded men aboard a Marine air evacuation transport departing an emergency air strip at Hagaru-ri to the rear area evacuation. USMC Photo No. A-130289, 127-GR-51-A130289, National Archives Identifier 74241240

Casualties are being put aboard evacuation planes at Hagaru-ri. From here, and later at Koto-ri, to the South, an estimated 4,800 wounded men were snatched from death and flown back to safety and hospitalization. USMC Photo by T/Sgt, Royce V. Jobe, No. A-130281. 127-GR-51-A130281. National Archives Identifier 74241237

The battered 1st Marine Division reached the port of Hungnam on 11 December, and evacuation by 193 assembled Task Force 90 ships commenced through Christmas Eve, by which time some 100,000 UN troops and another 98,000 Nork refugees had been taken off by sealift.

The Cold Desperate Fire of the Sapper Steel Battalion

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It is unusual for American units to burn their colors every year, but there is one, the 2nd Engineer Battalion.

During the Battle of Kunu-ri in the Korean War, in late November 1950, with an tsunami of Chinese “volunteers” close to overrunning the 8th Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, the division’s attached 2nd Engineer Battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Alarich “Al” Zacherle, elected to set his unit’s own colors ablaze rather than let them be captured by the enemy and used as a trophy.

It was clear to Zacherle that his unit, left to perform a rear guard action as the division left the mountain pass, would likely be mauled if not eliminated in toto.

Founded in 1861 and first seeing combat at Antietam, then fighting in the Great War and WWII with the 2nd Division, the unit had 25 hard-earned battle streamers, at least three French Croix de Guerre, and a Presidential Unit Citation by 1950.

“The colors, box and all, were drenched with gasoline,” Zacherle wrote in a 1996 letter to the battalion’s association. “A last look at the colors with the unbelievable number of battle streamers were imprinted on our minds. Setting the fire produced a bright blaze that denied the enemy of a trophy they surely would have greatly prized.”

When the 2nd Battalion regrouped after the withdrawal, just 266 of its 787 Soldiers were present for roll call. While 331 of those “missing” had been captured, only 117 of those men survived the conflict.

Zacherle was a prisoner of war from 30 November 1950 to September 1953 at Pyeongtaek, but, repatriated post-ceasefire, lived to a ripe old age of 94, passing in Florida in 2005. He reportedly weighed but 80 pounds when released.

For at least the past 30 years, the unit, now as the Fort Bliss-based 1st Armored Division’s 2d Brigade Engineer Battalion (2BEB), has held a burning ceremony with each Soldier present reading off the name of a fallen/missing circa 1950 member of the battalion as the roll is called.

It concludes with Taps and a night shoot.

 

The dusty cardboard box of Kaiser Karl

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The Habsburgs by the 1860s had at least five assorted life guard units in their Household Division, with probably the most elite of them– on regular watch anyway– being the Imperial-Royal Trabant Lifeguards (k.k. Trabantenleibgarde).

Composed of long-serving Army officers and career NCOs, the half-company-sized Trabantenleibgarde was responsible for mounting the interior guard at the imperial residences of Hofburg and Schönbrunn in Austria. A larger force of picked enlisted men, the Leibgarde Infanterie Kompanie, handled day-to-day exterior guard work. The castles and residences in Hungary were guarded by dedicated Hungarian units.

When the last Habsburg emperor, Charles (Kaiser Karl I of Austria/King Károly IV of Hungary), left Schönbrunn Palace for the final time in the quiet pre-dawn hours of 12 November 1918, he personally dismissed the men of the Trabantenleibgarde without relief, their watch concluded.

However, Charles forgot to change the non-commissioned officer on duty in the Hall of Mirrors. Legend has it that the guard remained at his post until overcome by fatigue and drowsiness; he fell asleep on he shiny floor. He was found the next morning lying next to his white-crested helmet.

Emperor Karl I of Austria-Hungary inspecting troops of the Polish Auxiliary Corps in Bukovina, 10 December 1917. The officer on horseback is probably Lieutenant Colonel Michał Żymierski (IWM)

While Charles beat feet to Schloss Eckartsau, east of Vienna, and issued a proclamation that was ultimately taken as an abdication-in-waiting with the hope that his people would recall him, the old Empire was shattered to pieces in the wake of the country’s Great War defeat and ruin.

Leaving Austria for good in March 1919 for Switzerland and finally Portugal, where he died in exile in 1922, the Austrian Parliament pulled the plug on the monarchy in April 1919 and barred Charles and his male descendants from ever returning unless they formally renounced their rights to the throne.

Well, it seems like Charles and his wife Zita got the last laugh as a literal treasure trove of jewels, including the famous 137-carat Florentine Diamond, thought lost to history and unseen since 1918, just surfaced in the hands of male Habsburg descendants.

Long feared broken up, it turned out that Zita carried the cardboard box full of jewels away and locked the trove in a Canadian safe deposit box in the 1940s, where they remain today.

The family secret was kept on the condition that at least 100 years had passed since the last Austrian Kaiser’s death before it would be revealed.

The family wants to put the jewels on display in a Canadian institution, but the Austrian government is already making noise about getting the items, some of which have been in the personal collection of the Habsburgs since the 1700s, back.

You have to give it to Charles, Zita, and their offspring, though. The jewels could have easily been passed on in private sales at any point since 1919, but have been kept intact and safe. Worse, they could have abandoned them to history. Keep in mind that since they left Austria, the country descended into a spiral of Nazi and later Allied occupation that lasted 23 years, bracketed by cycles of oddball socialist governments. Had the jewels been left at Schönbrunn, they very well may have vanished.

Remember that the 12th-century Holy Crown of Hungary, also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, which last rested on Charles’s head in 1916, was recovered in the remote mountain hamlet of Egglesberg, Austria, by the U.S. 86th Infantry Division in April 1945 and kept in Fort Knox until 1978, when it was handed over to the Hungarian government.

At least the secret was kept, clad in pasteboard, and the last post has finally been relieved.

Standing watch

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Even with the longest U.S. federal government shutdown in modern history and the cancellation of myriad Veterans Day parades, observations, and related airshows, some watches are still maintained.

At Arlington, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard,” continues to stand watch at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 24/7 as it is considered a sacred, unquestionable duty. This perpetual watch is maintained regardless of weather or national events, and has been standing continuously since 1948.

An interview with Tomb Guards on what goes into the honor.

On a smaller level…

In Hattiesburg, for at least the past 35 years, the University of Southern Mississippi’s ROTC programs have performed a 24-hour vigil around the four granite pillars of Hattiesburg’s Veterans Memorial Park from 1100 on 10 November until the City’s Veterans Day ceremony begins the next day at 1100. The cadets take shifts in standing watch over the pillars bearing the names of the 173 individuals from the Hattiesburg area who died at war, from 1917 to the present day.

Although the “official” vigil was canceled due to the shutdown, volunteer cadets from USM’s Army and Air Force ROTC units, many not under scholarship, have begun the watch and held it overnight, with temperatures dropping into a hard freeze.

Because honor.

The forgotten Skysoldiers who fought the Fu-Go

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This week marks the 80th anniversary of the conclusion of the joint War Department/Forestry Service “Firefly Project,” which spanned 1 June to 30 October 1945.

Original Caption: Forest Fires – A trooper in full gear waits for the order to board the ship. Photograph taken at Pendleton Air Base, Pendleton, Oregon, by Edgar W. Weinberger, Army Air Forces Photographer. 22 August 1945 342-FH-3B-42508-29999AC

Made up of some 300 paratroopers of the segregated “Triple Nickels” of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion and a few C-47s of the First Troop Carrier Command from the Fourth Air Force’s Ninth Service Command, these men held the line in the Pacific Northwest against a wave of 9,300 Japanese incendiary bombs carried across the ocean via high altitude “Fu-Go” balloons.

While there were “only” 285 reported incidents with these bombs– including six picnickers killed while enjoying the woods in Oregon– the Firefly crews, serving as the nation’s first smoke jumpers, quietly completed 1,200 counter-fire jumps into heavy timber and helped contain 36 fires.

Trained in EOD as well as wildfire suppression, they had to improvise their gear and hold the line sometimes for days until Forest Service mule trains arrived with conventional firefighters. Then, extraction was typically by foot, several miles back over broken ground to the nearest road, carrying as much as 125 pounds of gear each.

Check out these amazing period Kodachromes of the operation via NARA.

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – Lt. Clifford Allen of Chicago, Ill. He is one of the firefighters of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. He wears his complete outfit just before taking off for a jump. Note the 150 ft. rope descending from tall trees; the plastic helmet and catcher’s mask are protection against branches and brambles. 342-C-K3746

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – A C-47 of Troop Carrier Command carries these parachutists of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion to the scene of a remote fire in Wallowa forest, Oregon. Men of this unit have made over 8000 jumps since the first of April 1945. 342-C-K3751

342-C-K3727

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – A paratrooper in a tree is a common sight near a fire. The troopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry prefer to land in the trees rather than on rough terrain. They carry 150 ft. ropes with them to aid them in reaching the ground. Umatilla National Forest, Oregon. 342-C-K3720

Original Caption: This is the emblem of the “Operation Firefly” painted on the nose of a C-47 (Douglas) piloted by Lt. MG Brewer. The Firefly project has four of these ships, operated by the Army Air Forces Troop Carrier Command. They cooperate with the US Forestry Service in transporting paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion to the site of the forest fires. This unit is effectively preserving the timberland and the watershed of the Pacific Northwest, spanning the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and even Canada. Photographer: Edgar W. Weinberger (Pendleton, Oregon) 342-C-K3743

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – Insignia of Troop Carrier Command. The function of the Troop Carrier Command is tactical. It is responsible for transporting paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion to areas where forest fires are raging. 342-C-K3742

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – Firefighting Parachutists of the 55th Parachute Infantry don their heavy leather coveralls before boarding a C-47 of the First Troop Carrier Command. Soon they will be winging their way to another jump and another fire. Their equipment, including two chutes weighing between 75 and 125 lbs, lies before them. Pendleton Army Air Base, Pendleton, Oregon. 342-C-K3716

Original Caption: Operation Firefly – Paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry climb into their parachute harness before boarding a plane of the First Troop Carrier Command. The C-47 will drop the airborne firefighters near an area where a forest fire is raging. Umatilla National Forest, Oregon. 342-C-K3711

Following Firefly, the 555th was withdrawn back to North Carolina and folded into the 82nd Airborne Division, eventually becoming part of the 505th PIR in 1947.

The few remaining members of the battalion are in their 90s.

Korean War Ranger Resurgence

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Earlier this week, in the post commemorating the 75th anniversary of the combat jump by the 187th “Rakkasans” Regimental Combat Team near the North Korean town of Sukchon/Sunchon well behind enemy lines, in October 1950, I would be remiss to not expound on the mention of Korean War Ranger companies, as members of the 4th Ranger Company leapt with the 187th on its second combat jump during 1951’s Operation Tomahawk.

Here’s a quick rundown.

The first Korean War-era Ranger unit was the Eighth Army Ranger Company (8213 AU), created from whole cloth from among members of the in-theatre 25th Infantry Division in August 1950. It was an experimental “Marauder” company that stood up after the Army’s unwelcome experience fighting Nork stay-behinds and guerrillas after the breakout from Pusan/Inchon and the rapid advance to the Yalu.

Eighth Army Ranger Company, 8213th Army Unit, October 1950, Korea LIFE Hank Walker

By February 1951, 18 such companies were established (the original EARC, joined by 1st through 15th Companies, along with Able and Baker Companies). Of note, while many were quickly formed from volunteers of the “All Americans” of the stateside 82nd Airborne Division, others were drawn from “leg” units and would pick up their parachute wings along the way.

Men of the “Cold Steel” 3rd Ranger Company adjust their gear before undertaking a dawn patrol across the Imjin River, Korea. Note the 3rd Infantry Division patch. 

Rangers in Korea. The “Travel Light, Freeze at Night” 5th Ranger Company. Note their 25th ID patches. Contributor: David Kaufman, via AFSOF History

The Korea-bound First Ranger Company class graduates, November 1950

They were in units much leaner than the seven 516-man Ranger Battalions fielded in WWII, all of which were disbanded by 1946.

As noted by ARSOF History: 

A provisional Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) was soon developed. TO&E 7-87 (16 Oct 1950) set the Ranger Company manning at 5 officers and 107 enlisted, with an allowable 10% combat overage, bringing the company strength to 122. A standard infantry rifle company of the time had a TO&E strength of 211.

The six-week training program included a “cycle curriculum consisted of seventeen different topics that included training with foreign weapons, demolitions, field craft and patrolling, map reading, escape and evasion, and intelligence collection.”

One company, the 2nd Rangers, was wholly African American. Unlike the smoke-jumping paratroopers of the “Triple Nickels” during WWII, the 2nd Rangers saw combat.

In all, five of the new airborne Ranger companies—the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th—saw the elephant in the Korean War besides the EARC during the concept’s 15-month run, while the 6th Rangers were deployed to Europe, attached to the 8th Infantry Division, should the Cold War turn hot there.

The Korean War combat Ranger tabs, via AFSOF History

One of the Eighth Army Ranger Company’s founders, 1st Lt. Ralph Puckett Jr., earned a MoH during the conflict during a raid just three months after the unit was formed.

Then-1st Lt. Ralph Puckett Jr. led fellow Rangers and Korean Augmentation to the United States Army soldiers across frozen terrain under enemy fire to seize and defend Hill 205 in Unsan, North Korea. Puckett will receive the Medal of Honor on May 21, 2021, for going above and beyond the call of duty as the Eighth Army Ranger Company’s commanding officer during a multiday operation that started on Nov. 25, 1950. (Courtesy photo via DVIDS)

While these units proved a godsend in many instances, ideal for deep recon and raids, the Army deemed them a waste of the best sort of men who would be better suited to strengthen the sometimes faltering line units and disbanded all 18 Ranger companies by November 1951. Many of the in-theatre Rangers were folded into the 187th, which seemed a perfect fit.

However, better minds swept in and, with the small unit Rangers showing the way, when Col. Aaron Bank started standing up the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Colorado the following June, many ex-Rangers, especially those with combat experience, were “called up to the big leagues.”

The budding Ranger Training Center at the U.S. Army Infantry School, where Companies Able and Baker were formed and soon after disbanded, was converted into the Ranger Department in December 1951. The first class of individual Ranger candidates, drawn from across the Army with men returning to their units afterward, graduated on 1 March 1952, following an expanded 59-day training period. Then, as today, they are all volunteer.

Today, Army Ranger School is of course still around, with dedicated full-time Ranger units re-established in 1974. Ranger School now runs for 61-62 days and notoriously has a completion rate of only about 50 percent.

You have to earn the tab.

Warship Wednesday 22 October 2025: Good in a Pinch

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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 22 October 2025: Good in a Pinch

Photo provided courtesy of QM2 Robert C. Granger, USCGR, via MCPOCG R. Jay Lloyd, USCG (Ret.), USCG Historian’s Office

Above we see the USCG-manned Tacoma-class patrol frigate USS Annapolis (PF-15) later in her career, circa late 1945, as noted by the weather balloon shack on the quarterdeck.

A veteran of the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII, she was dispatched to the Pacific once that quieted down and, slated to wear a Red Banner in Stalin’s war against the Empire of Japan, was recalled at the last minute– just in time to save the day for an Alaskan port.

The Tacomas

One of the most generic convoy escorts ever designed was the River-class frigates of the Royal Navy and its sister Australian and Canadian services. Sturdy 301-foot/1,800-ton vessels, some 151 were built between May 1941 and April 1945.

Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Waskesiu (K330) with a bone in her mouth, 1944. Kodachrome via LAC

River Class – Booklet of General Plans, 1941, profile

Carrying a few QF 4″/40s, a suite of light AAA guns, and a huge array of ASW weapons with as many as 150 depth charges, they could make 20 knots and had extremely long range, pushing 7,000nm at a 15-knot cruising speed.

In a reverse Lend-Lease, two Canadian Vickers-built Rivers were transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1942: the planned HMS Adur (K296) and HMS Annan, which became the patrol gunboats —later patrol frigates —USS Asheville (PG-101/PF-1) and USS Natchez (PG-102/PF-2). Built at Montreal, Asheville, and Natchez were completed with standard U.S. armament and sensors, including three 3″/50s, two 40mm mounts, Oerlikons, and SC-5 and SG radar. Everything else, including the power plant, was British.

USS Asheville (PF-1) plans

With that, the New York naval architecture firm of Gibbs & Cox took the River class frigate plans and tweaked them gently to become the Tacoma-class frigates. Some 2,200 tons at full load, these 303-foot ships used two small tube express boilers and two  J. Hendy Iron Works VTE engines on twin screws to cough up 5,500shp, good for just over 20 knots with a 9,500nm range at 12 knots. Standard armament was a carbon copy of Asheville/Natchez: three 3″/50s, two twin 40mm mounts, nine Oerlikons, two stern depth charge racks, eight Y-gun depth charge throwers, a 24-cell Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, and 100 ash cans. Radar was upgraded to the SA and SL series, while the hull-mounted sonar was a QGA set.

USS Albuquerque 1943 (PF-7), Tacoma class patrol frigate 200414-G-G0000-0003

These could be built at non-traditional commercial yards under Maritime Commission (MC Type T. S2-S2-AQ1) contracts, using an all-welded hull rather than the riveted hull of the British/Canadian Rivers. Many of these would be constructed on the Great Lakes, including by ASBC in Ohio (13 ships), Froemming (4), Walter Butler (12), Globe (8), and Leathem Smith (8) in Wisconsin. On the East Coast, Walsh-Kaiser in Rhode Island made 21, while on the West Coast, Kaiser Cargo and Consolidated Steel in California produced a combined 30 ships.

Using compartmentalized construction, they went together fast. No less than nine Tacomas were built in less than five months, 16 were built in less than six months, and 11 others were built in less than seven months. These times stack up well to the original River class built in British yards, where the best time recorded was 7.5 months. In Canada, the fastest time was just over 5 months.

The Tacomas cost about $2.3 million apiece, compared to $3.5 million for a Cannon-class destroyer escort, or $6 million for a Fletcher-class destroyer, in 1944 dollars.

Meet Annapolis

Our subject was the second Navy warship to carry the name of the Maryland location of the Naval Academy, with the first being the leader of a class of composite steel gunboats, PG-10, which had a lifespan that included service from 1897 through 1940.

Laid down as Hull 842, Maritime Commission No. 1481, at American Shipping Company, Lorain, on 20 May 1943 as PF-15, the second Annapolis was side launched into Lake Erie on Saturday, 16 October 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Belva Grace McCready.

The future USS Annapolis is preparing for launch with her glad rags flying.

The future USS Annapolis (PF-15) was launched at the American Shipbuilding Company shipyard, Lorain, Ohio, on 16 October 1943. NH 66293

The future USS Annapolis (PF-15) just after launch on 16 October 1943. NH 66190

Annapolis was then floated down the Mississippi River to Port Houston Iron Works in Houston, Texas, where she was completed. The Navy commissioned Annapolis at Galveston’s Pier 19 on 4 December 1944, her construction running just over 18 months.

Her plank owner skipper was a regular, CDR Montegue Frederick Garfield, USCG, who was one very interesting character.

Garfield had been born Henry Frederick Garcia at Morro Castle, Puerto Rico, in 1903, the son of Major Enrique Garcia of the Army’s QM Corps. He graduated, ironically, from the USNA at Annapolis in 1924 but, like his father, opted for a career in the Army, becoming a red leg in the field artillery. In 1928, at the height of the Army’s peacetime budget-cutting efforts, he opted to get his sea legs back and accepted an ensign’s commission in the USCG, becoming the service’s first Hispanic-American officer.

Henry Frederick Garcia/Garfield

After service on numerous CG destroyers on the East Coast during the tail end of Prohibition, he was assigned as engineering officer aboard USCGC Shoshone in the Pacific, which supported the doomed Earhart circumnavigation and the later search for the missing aviatrix. He then commanded USCGC Morris in Alaska in 1939, proving key in the evacuation of the fishing village of Perryville during the Mount Veniaminof eruption, then later saved the shipwrecked crew of the exploration schooner Pandora.

During the first part of WWII, Garcia served as XO of Base Charleston, where he participated in the seizure of the interned Italian cargo vessel Villaperosa, then served in Baltimore with the MSTS until being made Assistant Captain of the Port of Los Angeles, where he legally changed his name to Garfield.

Convoy runs

The newly commissioned Annapolis departed for a shakedown cruise to Bermuda on 13 December 1944 and arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, in early February 1945 after workups with the DD/DDE Task Group for post-shakedown availability.

Along the way, she came across the 9,830-ton Texaco oil tanker SS New York in the dark, which almost ended badly.

From her war diary:

Annapolis. USS J. Franklin Bell (APA 16) is on the left. Photo courtesy of QM2 Robert C. Granger, USCGR, via MCPOCG R. Jay Lloyd, USCG (Ret.) 200415-G-G0000-0010

Our frigate then made her first trans-Atlantic escort-of-convoy crossing, with U.S. to Gibraltar-bound UGS.75, leaving Hampton Roads on 17 February. Annapolis rode shotgun with five other escorts–USS Nelson (DD-623), Livermore (DD-429), Andres (DE-45), John M. Bermingham (DE-530), and Chase (DE-158)— over 55 merchant ships, arriving safely at Oran, Algeria, on 5 March 1945. She returned to New York with East-West Convoy GUS.89 on 30 March 1945.

After two weeks’ availability, Annapolis departed on exercises on 13 April 1945. She then left on her second escort-of-convoy crossing, with UGS.88 (the five escorts of CortDiv 42, along with 41 merchants) arriving at Gibraltar on 7 May 1945. Among the escorts she sailed with on this milk run, Annapolis had her ASBC-built sister USS Bangor (PF-16) alongside.

She was anchored at Mers el Kebir, Algeria, with Bangor, on 9 May 1945, and there received the news that Germany had surrendered while waiting to head back to the U.S. with Convoy GUS 90. On the ride back, Garcia/Garfield became commander of CortDiv 42.

At the same time, CDR Garcia/Garfield’s little brother, CDR (future RADM) Edmund Ernest García (USNA ’27), was commander of 58th Escort Division in the Atlantic Fleet, having earned a Bronze Star in fighting the destroyer escort USS Sloat (DE-245) across the Tunisian Coast in the face of Luftwaffe air attacks and seen action in the invasions of Africa, Sicily, and France.

Small world!

Annapolis and Bangor returned to Philadelphia from the ETO on 2 June 1945. After two weeks’ availability, they departed Philadelphia on 16 June 1945, bound for the west coast, as the Pacific War was still on. After passing through the Panama Canal– where they conducted ASW training for the new construction submarines of Subron3 for a month– they shifted station to Puget Sound Navy Yard outside Seattle to remove sensitive gear and refit for further service, with an all-new crew.

It seemed the sisters were slated to fly a red flag.

Russia-bound (?)

Annapolis and Bangor were to be the last two of 30 Tacomas transferred to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, as part of  Project Hula. They were to have the Russian pennant numbers EK-23 and EK-24, respectively.

On 1 September, Annapolis took on five officers and 25 enlisted from the Red Navy, under the command of CDR VN Milhailav, from Seattle, and left with Bangor steaming in tandem for Cold Bay.

It was while underway from Seattle to Cold Bay that the twins received, almost back to back, the announcement of the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September, followed by the news that the U.S. had suspended all further transfers of ships to the Russkis.

Annapolis and Bangor arrived at Cold Bay on 7 September, where they landed their Soviets and instead took aboard American personnel (five officers and 117 enlisted) requiring transportation to Kodiak, arriving on that far northern island on 9 September. Thus, Bangor and Annapolis were the only two frigates scheduled for transfer under Project Hula not delivered, with 28 sisters going on to serve with the Russians up until the eve of the Korean War.

Right place at the right time

Leaving Kodiak bound for Cold Harbor on 10 September, Annapolis received a distress call from the disabled fishing boat Sanak, which she found the next day and towed to Chignik Bay.

Arriving back at Cold Bay on the 12th, over the next two days, she took aboard U.S. personnel (nine officers and 155 men), then hauled them back to Kodiak alongside Bangor and the 110-foot SC-497 class submarine chaser, USS SC-1055, which had also been scheduled to be given to the Russians but was retained at the last minute. After landing those men, the three humble escorts were ordered to Seattle, with a stop at Ketchikan.

It was there on 22 September that the recently arrived frigates came to the aid of the Canadian-flagged Grand Trunk Pacific Railway liner SS Prince George (3,372 GRT), which had caught fire while tied up at Ketchikan’s Heckman Municipal Pier.

The liner Prince George had been built for GTPR in England in 1910. The 307-foot coaster was capable of carrying 236 passengers and light cargo at 18 knots and had been on the Vancouver to Southeast Alaskan run for 35 years, with a break in the Great War as a 200-bed hospital ship. (Walter E Frost – City of Vancouver Archives)

Notably, HMC Prince George was the first Great War Commonwealth hospital ship, converted at Esquimalt in 1914.

Smoke billows from the liner SS Prince George in Tongass Narrows on 22 September 1945. Ketchikan Museums: Tongass Historical Society Collection, THS 72.1.3.1

With Garcia/Garfield the senior officer present, he directed the frigates intermittently alongside the blazing Prince George using all available firefighting gear and saving 50 men stranded aboard the liner. To avoid having the stricken ship capsize at the dock, Annapolis effected a dead stick tow and beached the vessel on the shallow shores off Gravina Island to allow her to burn out quietly.

Look at all those depth charges. Official caption: “Smoking disaster at a Coast Guard base in Ketchikan, Alaska, the Coast Guard-manned frigate Annapolis maneuvers to tow the blazing liner Prince George downstream and away from the town. The ill-fated liner now lies, a blackened hulk, on nearby Gravina Island; only one of over 100 crew members has lost.” USCG photo. National Archives Identifier 205580274, Local Identifier 26-G-4818.

The fire raged for days, only dying out when the superstructure collapsed. Maritime Museum of British Columbia 010.036.0003j

Declared a total loss, the wreck was refloated and towed to Seattle for scrapping in 1949. Maritime Museum of British Columbia 010.036.0035

Their job done, Annapolis, Bangor, and SC-1055 shipped down from Ketchikan the next day via the inland passage through the Seymour Narrows, with Garcia/Garfield in charge of the small task force, arriving at Indian Head Ammo Depot outside of Seattle on the 25th. Annapolis then entered Puget Sound Navy Yard the next day for availability. Of note, the surplus SC-1055 was transferred to the Coast Guard as USCGC Air Sheldrake (WAVR 461) for continued service.

It was while at Puget Sound that Annapolis was refitted as a Weather and Plane Guard ship, landing much of her ASW gear and adding a weather balloon shack aft.

On 5 January 1946, she arrived at San Francisco then assumed Weather Station “E” until 5 April 1946.

Annapolis departed San Francisco on 16 April 1946, bound for Seattle, where she was decommissioned on 29 May 1946, her Coast Guard crew, mostly reservists enlisted for the duration, exiting Navy service.

Transfer, effected

With the Navy having no appetite for these slow little frigates at a time when they were mothballing brand new destroyers and DEs by the dozens, both Annapolis and Bangor were soon sold as surplus to Mexico. Annapolis became ARM General Vicente Guerrero, later ARM Rio Usumacinta, while Bangor was renamed ARM General José María Morelos, and later ARM Golfo de Tehuantepec. They were joined by Tacoma-class sisters ex-USS Hutchinson (as ARM California) and ex-Gladwyne (ARM Papaloapan), and, rated as “fragatas,” were all stationed on the Mexican Pacific Coast.

Annapolis in Mexican service

Jane’s 1960 listing of the four Mexican Navy Tacomas.

The four sisters remained in Mexican service until scrapped in 1964.

Epilogue

Little of PF-15 remains. Her war diaries are digitized in the National Archives.

As for Garcia/Garfield, after leaving Annapolis, he was made skipper of the famed USCGC Campbell (WPG-32), then was head of personnel for the Coast Guard’s Eighth District in New Orleans. He finished his career as a captain in 1956 after five years as the Chief of Intelligence of the 12th USCG District in San Francisco, then moved to San Diego and got into real estate. In all, he spent 35 years in uniform between the USNA, the Army, and the USCG. Capt. Garfield died 26 June 1966, and was buried in Section A-H, Site 52, in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, just west of San Diego.

His father, Maj. Garcia, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in 1932 and was joined by his brother, Edmund, after the retired admiral died in 1971.

The Navy recycled the name for a third Annapolis, giving it to the reconfigured jeep carrier ex-USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) when that WWII/Korean War vet was reclassified as a Major Communications Relay Ship (AGMR-1) on 1 June 1963. That floating antennae farm was disposed of in 1979.

USS Annapolis (AGMR-1) Underway at slow speed in New York Harbor, 12 June 1964, soon after completing conversion from USS Gilbert Islands (AKV-39, originally CVE-107). Staten Island ferryboats are in the left and center backgrounds. NH 106715

A fourth USS Annapolis, a Los Angeles-class submarine (SSN-760), was commissioned in 1992 and is currently part of the  Guam-based SubRon15, although she is slated to decommission in FY27.

ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia (March 10, 2024) – U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Annapolis (SSN 760) and HMAS Stirling Port Services crewmembers prepare the submarine to moor alongside Diamantina Pier at Fleet Base West in Rockingham, Western Australia, March 10, 2024.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Rakkasans hit the silk!

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Some 75 years ago today, paratroopers of the United Nations forces made a combat jump from aircraft near the North Korean town of Sukchon/Sunchon well behind enemy lines, 20 October 1950.

This dramatic picture was made on Friday, October 20, over the area of Sunchon, about 23 miles northeast of Pyongyang. It shows six Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars of Far East Air Force Combat Cargo Command about to paradrop troops of the 11th Airborne Division together with necessary equipment and supplies, to stop the northward retreat of North Korean troops who have been forced out of the enemy capital of Pyongyang. Paratroopers were dropped on an arc between the North Korean cities of Sukchon and Sunchon. 342-AF-77984AC

These men were all of the 187th “Rakkasans” Regimental Combat Team, the old 187th GIR/PIR of WWII fame. On 20 October, they dropped 1,407 men in the first serial, and 1,203 men in the second, reinforcing the regiment with its last tranche of 671 men on the 21st.

A lot of gear was also flown in/dropped in, including a full dozen 105mm pack howitzers, 39 jeeps, 38 1/4-ton trailers, a quartet of 90mm antiaircraft guns (each with a 3/4-ton truck to pull them), and 584 tons of ammunition, gasoline, water, rations, and other supplies.

111-SC-362121

It had originally been thought that the 187th could be used in Inchon in a similar way to the old 82nd/101st Airborne on D-day in Normandy, but the Army couldn’t get the paratroopers in theater in time.

The regiment had been redesignated from the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment on 28 August 1950, just three days before loading on 14 troop trains from Fort Campbell, cross-country from Kentucky to San Francisco for sealift embarkation for Korea aboard the USNS Heintzelman and the USNS Anderson. It had only arrived at Moji Port, Kyushu, Japan, on 20 September, joining the Eighth Army’s reserve.

Within days, they were airlifted via 300~ C-119 Flying Boxcar sorties from Ashyia AB to Kimpo outside of recently-liberated Seoul.

Paratroopers of the 187th Regimental Combat Team put on parachutes and “Mae West” life preservers before boarding a 483rd Troop Carrier Wing U.S. Air Force C-119 “Flying Boxcar,” en route to Korea from southern Japan. Combat Cargo “Commandos” and C-119s airlifted the 187th RCT personnel, weapons, vehicles, and supplies, in a continuous operation lasting two nights and a day, which involved 300 round-trip flights across the Japan Sea. The big transport planes landed or took off every two minutes, in combat Cargo’s eighth airlift of the 187th since the Korean war began. 342-AF-88059AC

They were used in action in “rat hunting expeditions,” mop-up duties against North Korean stragglers. They saw combat starting on 24 September as part of the tail end of the Inchon operation once the Inchon Marines had been shifted north to Wonson.

Battle-equipped paratroopers of the 187th Regimental Combat Team wait to board C-46s of the 315th Combat Cargo Group before take-off on an airborne assault mission somewhere in Korea. 342-AF-84143AC

Then came the prep for the Sukchon jump, which was intended to cut off a North Korean evacuation toward the safety of the Yalu River, hopefully bagging the country’s brass as it fled the capital of Pyongyang to the south.

As noted by the unit history:

At 1900 hours on the eighteenth, with all preparations completed and billets cleared, a briefing was held for pilots and jumpmasters at Kimpo AFB. A drizzling rain had begun and continued throughout the day. At the joint briefing, it was announced that, in the event of worsening weather, the jump would be delayed by three-hour periods.

Though the weather reports were unfavorable for the 20th, Headquarters remained alert throughout the late hours until Colonel Bowen returned with the news that P-Hour was postponed until 1100 hours, 21 October. Turned out of barracks, the troops had only their combat loads and a ticket on an air train that looked as though it might not leave.

Revielle was held at 0230 hours on 20 October. It was still raining when the men fell out for formation. Formed by plane loads in stick order, they shuttled to Kimpo AFB. At 0400 hours, the drawing and fitting of parachutes began. Then the jump was postponed for three hours. Few men realized that a train containing Communist Party bigwigs and American Prisoners of War had already departed Pyongyang.

At 1030, the order was given to chute up.

A typical C-119 aircraft carried two sticks of 23 men each, fifteen monorail bundles, and four door bundles. The planes were so filled that some men had to sit on the floor to find space. Each man, besides a main parachute and reserve, carried a light pack, water, rations, ammunition, a 45 caliber pistol, and a carbine or M-1 rifle. An extra Griswald container, filled with small arms or light mortar ammunition, was carried.

At 1200 hours, the first aircraft, commanded by Colonel Bowen, was airborne. Some of the aircraft scraped the ground on takeoff. The flightpath hooked West over the Yellow Sea before curving back into North Korea from the seaside to maximize surprise and minimize flying over enemy-contested territory.

The armada consisted of 73 C-119s of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing from Ashiya, AFB, Kyushu, and 40 C-47s of the 21st Troop Carrier Wing from Brady AFB, Kyushu, Japan. Top cover was established at 5,000 feet by escorting F-80 Shooting Stars while F-51 Mustangs were on call for ground support.

At 1350, the airborne force turned east on the base leg of the approach to the drop zone, opening the monorail doors just 20 minutes out, while still over the water. “When the green light came on, door bundles, monorail, and paratroopers debouched in a streaming mass. Seventy-four tons of equipment and 1,470 men were landed from the first two serials alone.”

“Stopped by the camera the split second before his parachute opens, this paratrooper seems to be dangling from the Far East Air Force’s C-46 Commando of the 437th Troop Carrier Wing from which he has jumped. Beneath him, the parachutes of other 187th Regimental Combat Team troopers in his “stick” have already burst open. Presenting an excellent example of the air-ground team in action, FEAF’s 437th Troop Carrier Wing works in the closest possible coordination with the veteran 187th. C-46 “Commando” of the 437th and other transports of the 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo) dropped paratroopers at Munsan-ni last March, and once previously in the Sunchon-Sukchon area north of Pyongyang, Korea, in October 1950. Since that time, the two organizations have worked closely on practice field maneuvers. Thirty “Commandos” participated in this training exercise. HF-SN-98-07329″

The first serial had landed by 1405 hours and was soon in contact with what turned out to be the 239th North Korean Infantry Regiment.

The second serial, under the command of Lt. Col. Gerhart, comprised 17 C-119s lifting the First Battalion, Regimental Headquarters, Support Company, Company A 127th Engineers, Medical Company, and Service Company. These elements dropped southeast of Sukchon before dark. By the next day, the Medical Company was carrying out casevac of critical cases by helicopter and L-5 Grasshoppers, while the Clearing Platoon moved more stable patients to a hospital in Sukchon.

In the first use of a helicopter in support of an airborne operation, the USAF’s 3rd Air Rescue Squadron sent H-5s to evacuate some 35 paratroopers and rescue 7 American POWs from the Sukchon and Sunchon area. In the same operation, a C-47 used loudspeakers to persuade some 500 enemy troops hiding in houses near Kunmori to surrender. Combat Cargo Command began aeromedical evacuations from Pyongyang.

The H-5 “Dragon Fly”, originally designated the R-5 (H for Helicopter; R for Rotorcraft), was designed to provide a helicopter having greater useful load, endurance, speed, and service ceiling than the R-4. The first XR-5 of four ordered made its initial flight on August 18, 1943. In March 1944, the AAF ordered 26 YR-5As for service testing, and in February 1945, the first YR-5A was delivered. During its service life, the H-5 was used for rescue and mercy missions throughout the world. It gained its greatest fame, however, during the Korean War when it was called upon repeatedly to rescue United Nations’ pilots shot down behind enemy lines and to evacuate wounded personnel from frontline areas. More than 300 H-5s had been built by the time production was halted in 1951.

Relieved by Australian-manned Sherman tanks of the 27th Commonwealth Brigade, the 187th was able to fall back to captured Pyongyang on the 24th. Their first combat jump in Korea was a success, and even though it did not catch the Nork leadership, it disrupted a division-sized force and bagged 3,818 enemy POWs.

In all, the 187th only suffered 29 KIAs during the operation.

Sukchon, North Korea, a 187th RCT paratrooper paints over a portrait of the country’s “Red Premier” on 20 October 1950, via LIFE magazine.

It wasn’t the first American parachute combat jump into Korea ever, as an OSS Team had made a drop into the Japanese-controlled Seoul area on 19 August 1945, four days after the ceasefire, ahead of American occupation troops in the last days of WWII.

The 187th made a second combat jump in Korea: Operation Tomahawk on 23 March 1951 into Musan Ni where 3,486 men, augmented by the 4th Ranger Company, 674th Parachute Field Artillery, and a few members of the 66 India Para Ambulance Detachment, jumped to cut off a Chinese retreat.

187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team dropping into Munsan-ni, Korea, in March 1951 SC 414084

Paratroopers of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, seated in the cargo compartment of 314th Troop Carrier Group C-119 “Flying Boxcar,” “sweated out” the flight to the drop zone at Munsan-ni, Korea, in March 1951. This was the second combat airborne assault for the U.S. Air Force aircraft of the 314th Troop Carrier Group since their arrival in the Far East in August 1950. The first assault was at Sukchon-Sunchon, Korea, in September 1950, when the 187th was dropped shortly after the Allied landing on the beachhead at Inchon. Dropping paratroopers is only one of the many missions performed by the 314th since they joined the Far East Air Forces two years ago. 342-AF-117302AC

Parachutes billow out behind a formation of 314th Troop Carrier Group C-119 “Flying Boxcars” over a drop zone in Korea as paratroopers of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team make a practice parachute jump as a part of their training for an airborne assault. 342-FH-4A(37869)

“One of the nine missions assigned to the 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo) is the dropping of paratroopers in airborne assaults. Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo has participated in two such combat assaults: at Sukchon-Sunchon, Korea, in October 1950 and at Munsan-ni in March 1951. Chutes billow out as troopers of the U.S. Army 187th Regimental Combat Team jump from a formation of U.S. Air Force C-46 “Commandos.” While airborne assaults took place, other Combat Cargo planes continued the other missions assigned to the 315th Air Division. Besides airborne operations, FEAF Combat Cargo planes have airlifted more than 1,100,000 passengers and 400,000 tons of cargo on the Korean airlift.” 342-AF-121729AC

And that was the end of large combat jumps during the Korean War.

Small jumps, of the U.S.-trained United Nations Partisan Forces Korea (UNPFK), meanwhile, were logged by at least 21 missions behind enemy lines between 17 March 1951 and 18 May 1953, with most teams ranging between 6 and 20 men, except for one large operation (Green Dragon) that dropped 97 hardy souls. Of these, with the partisan forces receiving as little as six days of training before their drop, very little was heard of them again.

Warship Wednesday, October 1, 2025: Small Ship, Big Heroes

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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

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Warship Wednesday, October 1, 2025: Small Ship, Big Heroes

Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization, via the Naval Historical and Heritage Command. NH 87370

Above we see the gleaming S. M. Schiffes Zenta, the class leader of a trio of third-class protected cruisers in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Kuk Kriegsmarine, early in her career.

Some 125 years ago, she helped carve out a piece of China for Kaiser Franz Josef, then went on to make a heroic footnote in the history of naval warfare.

The Zentas

Our subject was the lead ship of the Zenta-class cruisers, which included the follow-on half sisters SMS Aspern and SMS Szigetvar. I say “half sisters” as all three ships in the class, while they were built successively by the Austrian Marinearsenal in Pola, were evolutionarily different. For instance, whereas Zenta’s displacement was 2,500 tons (full), Aspern ran 2,625 tons, and Szigetvar 2,562. Zenta was 10 feet shorter than her sisters and had a different rigging and mast arrangement, carrying a topmast on her fore as she was rigged for auxiliary sails.

Brassey’s plans for “Kreuzer A” or “Ersatz Grief,” which became Zenta. Note the sail rig and ram bow.

A more fleshed-out version.

Zenta was also the slowest of her class, capable of 19.5 knots on 7,200 shp, while her sisters could hit 20.8 knots, with the latter pair running 8,160 shp. They used eight coal-fed Yarrow boilers to feed two 4-cylinder VTE engines made by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, the Austrian navy’s chief machinery firm and maker of a dozen battleships for the dual monarchy.

Armament consisted of an eight-gun main battery of Skoda-made 4.7″ L/40 SC.96 guns (six in casemates, two open mounts on the main deck) backed up by a secondary anti-boat battery of 10  Hotchkiss/Skoda 47mm 33/44 3-pounders and a couple of Skoda M1893 8mm machine guns. As an anti-ship armament, they carried two above-water 17.7-inch torpedo tubes on the beam, using domestically produced Whitehead torpedoes.

SMS Zenta, Schiessübungen, 1903, with one of her 4.7″ L/40 Skodas in action. Note the “SMS Zenta” stencil on the life ring attached to the bridge wing.

47 mm S.F.K. L/44 gun. Image from Škoda Catalog ca. 1900 courtesy of András Hatala, via Navweaps.

Two of Zenta’s sailors pose by one of her Salvator-Dormus (Skoda) M1893 8mm machine guns. Designed by no less than Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria, they used a delayed blowback action and could fire about 180 rounds per minute from a top-mounted 20 or 30-round fixed magazine. These guns could be dismounted and, heavy at 65 pounds, could be married up to a stored landing carriage and shield for use ashore.

Armor was very thin, even for a light cruiser, ranging from 35mm at the casemates to 50mm over the conning tower.

It was estimated that the cost of these ships was £150,000 each.

Jane’s 1914 listing for the class.

Meet Zenta

All three ships of the class were named after famous battles in Austro-Hungary’s past. Our subject remembered the 1697 Battle of Zenta (Senta) with the Habsburg forces under Prince Eugene of Savoy, crushing an Ottoman force twice its size. The official state seal of Grand Sultan Mustafa II, humiliatingly captured along with over 9,000 Ottoman baggage carts full of supplies and bounty after the battle, can be viewed today in the Museum of Military History (Heeresgeschichtliches) in Vienna.

Depiction of the Battle of Senta 1697 by Jan van Huchtenburgh c. 1725.

Our ship was laid down at Pola on 8 August 1896 and launched into the Adriatic the following summer on 18 August 1897.

The future protected cruiser SMS Zenta during her launch (Stapellauf) at Pola.

Fitting out took nearly two further years, and she was commissioned on 15 May 1899. Her sisters joined her in 1900 and 1901, respectively.

Zenta. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87372

Zenta. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87371

Far Eastern Service

The Austrian fleet had dispatched units overseas to protect its interests during the Spanish-American War in 1898. For instance, the 6,000-ton armored cruiser SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia was dispatched to Cuba and came close enough to American battle lines that she was almost engaged twice.

Kuk armored cruiser SMS KAISERIN und KÖNIGIN MARIA THERESIA sails past Morro Castle, Havana, 1898, by August Ramberg

With growing tensions in the Far East after the Japanese humiliation of the Manchu Chinese Dynasty in 1895 and the U.S. fighting for control of the former Spanish colony of the Philippines, the newly completed Zenta, under Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Eduard Thomann von Montalmar, was almost immediately dispatched to the Pacific after shakedowns.

Zenta in Hong Kong, taken by Friedrich Carl Peetz, Duke University Repository

By March 1900, Zenta had arrived at China station in the Yellow Sea. Pier side at Sasebo, Japan, on 30 May, von Montalmar received orders via the Austrian legation in Tokyo to return to China and provide a detachment of armed sailors to protect the threatened legation in Peking, which was being increasingly threatened by Boxers. After confirming the orders with the admiralty, she left on 31 May at close to maximum speed, arriving at the Taku Forts on the morning of 2 June.

SMS Zenta at the Taku Anchorage (Taku-Rhede) by Alex Kircher

As the Austrian charge d’ affaires in Peking, Arthur von Rosthorn, wanted to speak directly to the ship’s skipper personally, von Montalmar, four junior officers (two dressed in mufti so as not to surpass the number of “military” personnel allowed to travel into the interior by Chinese officials) and 25 armed sailors landed and went by train in company with a force of 51 German marines and sailors to Peking, arriving on 3 June. In addition to protecting the Austrian legation, a midshipman and eight sailors were loaned to protect the Belgian envoy, who had no guards of his own.

Austrian Marines (armed sailors), likely from Zenta, marching in Tientsin (Tianjin), after their arrival, 1900. National Archives, Kew NA03-08.

Well prepared, each of Zenta’s armed sailors carried a Steyr-Mannlicher bolt-action rifle and 500 rounds, along with eight days of “iron” rations. On 5 June, the rail line from Teinstein to Peking was cut, and soon the assembled 400~ members of the eight international forces would defend the legations from Boxers and Chinese soldiers during a 55-day siege (20 June 20 through 14 August) with von Montalmar killed by an enemy grenade on 8 July. Three of Zenta’s crew were also killed in action in the Quarter: Josef Dettan (on 25 June), Marcus Badurina-Peric (26 June), and Afred Tavagna (29 June).

One happy coincidence was that it was found that some of the Chinese troops used Mannlicher rifles of the same caliber, and their captured cartridges could easily be put to use. This also allowed the Austrian sailors to loan rifles to the ammunition-strapped Russian contingent, who had only marched to Peking with 60 cartridges in their pouches.

Supporting the so-called Seymour Expedition led by by British VADM Sir Edward Hobart Seymour, a lieutenant and two midshipmen from Zenta, along with 73 additional sailors (keep in mind Zenta only had a 300-man crew!) joined Seymour’s 2,127-strong force drawn from the assorted ships crowding under the Taku forts, with the idea to force the way to Peking via Tientsin and relieve the Legation Quarter.

Seymour’s expedition, 1900 Boxer rebellion

In the resulting land combat along the road and railways, one of Zenta’s sailors, Josef Deste, was killed in action on 22 June while storming the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal eight miles northwest of Tientsin.

While Zenta had detachments fighting for their lives in Peking and on the roads outside of Tientsin, she coughed up even more men for service ashore in storming the Taku Forts, where 40 modern guns threatened the growing Western flotilla should the Chinese navy enter the fray.

A detachment of 21 Austrian sailors, under Midshipman Stenner and joined by a young 20-year-old Midshipman 2cl Georg von Trapp, joined a larger German force under Capt. Pohl to seize the Northwest Taku fort on the morning of 17 June. The force also wound up capturing the South Fort, where the Austrian flag was raised.

Erstürmung von taku by Fritz Neumann, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection

Erstürmung der Takuforts durch österr kuk Austrian SMS Zenta

While the two other landing parties from Zenta had suffered deaths, the Taku Fort group survived its battle without a loss.

The Zenta men of the failed Seymour Expedition and the Taku group then assembled a 55-man platoon to join the 14,000-strong Russian/Japanese-led relief force that ultimately lifted the Peking Siege in August. They carried with them the ship’s two Skoda machine guns.

Skoda M1893 machine guns on carriage and limber. Zenta’s crew used two of these in their work ashore during the taking of the Taku forts. This image, from a circa 1902 U.S. Army report, may actually be of our cruiser’s guns seen in China.

A week after the siege was broken, a 160-strong force from the Austrian cruisers SMS Aspern and Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, arrived in Peking on 20 August, relieving the Zenta men, who returned to the coast to rejoin their ship. In late July 1901, she departed Chefu (Zhifu) to the sounds of the Radetzky march being played.

She finally arrived back in Pola on 1 October 1901 and was awarded a silk flag of honor for her Chinese actions.

Von Trapp, promoted to a Midshipman 1c, received the Silberne Tapferkeitsmedaille II. Klasse and the War Medal before he was commissioned as a Fregattenleutnant (frigate lieutenant, equivalent to sub-lieutenant) in May 1903. He soon transferred into the budding Austrian submarine corps.

The late von Montalmar was regarded as a hero back home.

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Photographed at Pola on 1 October 1901 upon her return from East Asia. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87366

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Photographed at Pola on 1 October 1901 upon her return from East Asia. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87367

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87368

Salad Days

After a refit, Zenta spent the next 12 years in a series of fleet maneuvers, yard periods, and flag-waiving cruises, including a 12-month trip along the coasts of Africa and South America in 1902-03.

Austro-Hungarian light cruiser SMS Zenta in November 1902 off Zanzibar

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

By 1905, she was relegated increasingly to a role as a torpedo boat flotilla leader, receiving a wireless set for that purpose. She also joined a series of international naval demonstrations in the Mediterranean as the region descended into a swirling series of wars in North Africa and the Balkans.

Zenta, with her laundry aloft. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87369

A (Short) Great War service

Under the command of Fregattenkapitän Paul Pachner, when August 1914 came, Zenta was the leader of six Austrian torpedo boats tasked with blockading the rocky Montenegrin coast, in particular the Montenegrin port of Antivari (now Bar). In support were Zenta’s sister Szigetvar, the old 5,000-ton coast-defense ship SMS Monarch, the equally old 1,500-ton torpedo cruiser SMS Panther, and three destroyers.

On the morning of 16 August, just over two weeks into the war, a combined Anglo-French squadron of two 25,000-ton Courbet class dreadnoughts, each packing a dozen 12-inch guns, joined by 10 smaller pre-dreadnoughts, seven cruisers, and more than 20 destroyers, swooped down on Zenta, cruising alongside the humble Austrian destroyer Ulan.

While Pachner, whose trapped ship was outgunned by almost any of the British or French ships in the squadron save for the destroyer, cleared his decks for action and turned into the fray– ordering her companion Ulan to flee northward and alert the rest of the Austrian fleet.

It was over in less than 20 minutes, with Courbet smothering the attacking Austrian cruiser with 12-inch shells, sending her to the bottom some four miles off the coast of Castellastua, reportedly with her flags still flying. At least 173 of her crew perished, while none of Zenta’s shells were observed to land within 400 yards of the closest French ship. However, the French did have three of their guns burst during the exchange, leaving a sour taste in the mouths of the French Admiralty.

As noted by French VADM Amedee Bienaime

The destruction of this small cruiser of 2,500 tons, which stood unprotected for twenty minutes under the scattered fire of our entire fleet, cost 500 large-caliber shells and the loss of two 24-centimeter and one 19-centimeter guns. The same result could have been achieved by a single armored cruiser in five minutes, with a few well-aimed shots. I must say that, compared with the efforts made to achieve it, this result is not at all satisfactory.

After about six hours of swimming, 139 battered and waterlogged survivors reached the Sveta Neđelja reef just off the Montenegro coast and were rounded up that afternoon by local troops sent in by boat. Austrian propaganda at the time claimed that they were initially pushed back into the water with bayonet charges by the Montenegrins and drowned.

Celebrity status

The battle was celebrated in Austria during the war, with a number of heroic portrayals circulated widely in periodicals and postcards.

Arthur Thiele, Zenta

Der Heldenkampf der Zenta J Huemesser 10CB2B93

Der Heldenkampf der Zenta Ulan J Huemesser Sammlung 39240_2 1-2

Painting showing SMS Zenta and SMS Ulan in action on 16 August 1914, by Harry Heusser via Illustrirte Zeitung 1915, wiki

Wien Museum Online Sammlung 39742_3

“Im Heizraum der Zenta vor dem Untergang.” (in the boiler room of the ‘Zenta’ before the sinking). By Harry Heusser, Kriegspostkarte, 1915. Wien Museum

Zenta postcard Arthur Thiele

Zenta and Ulan by Ákos Bánfalvy

Wien Museum Online Sammlung 39755_8 1-2

There was even a popular song, “The Bold Heroes of the Zenta” (Die kuhnen helden der Zenta), by Greiffenstein and Bunnieitner, Vienna, that was circulated.

The phrase “Pflichtgetreu bis in den Tod” means “Faithful to duty until death,”

The rough translation:
The waves in the blue sea, roaring and cheering…
The wondrous brave heroes of the “Zenta”!
A small cross marks the “Zenta” now, but look in the future…
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
The French fleet came into sight, but no one’s face turned pale,
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
They landed the anchors so fresh and bold,
That it seemed and hailed hostile…
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
The Frenchman then stood up in horror:
“Such brave heroes we have never seen!”
Those were the men of the “Zenta.”
But one thing was certain: That is the end;
The cruiser thundered in defiance,
But never the men of the “Zenta.”
They sank down deep from the flood,
Their banner still shines in the sun’s glow;
The men of the “Zenta” cheer.
We sing and cheer in God’s name:
To the Emperor, to the Reich a thunderous
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.” Hurrah!”

Lock up

At the same time, our lost cruiser and her crew were celebrated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; her surviving 139 marooned officers and men were cooling their heels in a Montenegrin prison camp in Podgorica.

When that Balkan country was overrun by the Central Powers in January 1916, knocking it out of the war, the Zenta men were liberated.

Officers of the small cruiser SMS Zenta with two KuK flight officers after their release from the Montenegrin prisoner of war. (HM Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum)

“Der Kommandant S. M. Schiffes Zenta nach Befreiung aus montenegrinischer Gefangenschaft” (The Commander of S. M. Ship “Zenta” after liberation from Montenegrin captivity) 1922 Pola postcard. Wien Museum

“Stab S. M. S. Zenta nach Befreiung aus montenegrinischer Gefangenschaft.” (Staff of S. M. S. Zenta after liberation from Montenegrin captivity) 1922 Pola postcard. Wien Museum

The 139 survivors returned to their old homeport of Pola aboard the 250-ton T-class torpedo boat, SMS 81T, one of Zenta’s old flotilla mates.

Austrian Torpedo Boat SMS 81T photographed returning to Pola with the freed crew of the sunken cruiser Zenta. In the background is a Battleship of the Habsburg class. NH 87683

Epilogue

Zenta’s survivors went back out to the Austrian fleet.

Pachner was never trusted by the Austrian Kriegsmarine with another seagoing command despite his “hero” status. He finished the war as a rear admiral manning a desk. After the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, he went into merchant service and sailed on Yugoslav, Spanish, and Egyptian vessels, among others.

He moved back to his native Maribor (then in Yugoslavia) in poverty and died there in 1937, aged 66. His grave is simply marked “Fremder Seemann” (foreign sailor).

After the war, a group of her 1914 survivors returned to Montenegro in 1923 and paid for a chapel to be built on top of a cliff near the shore in the Bay of Kotor, to commemorate their escape.

Von Trapp, of course, became the most celebrated Austrian U-boat “ace” in history and is immortalized in The Sound of Music.

Zenta was discovered off the coast of Montenegro in 1996. The largest artificial reef in that country’s waters, she rests on a mud bottom at 240 feet, making her a destination for deep divers in touch with their decompression tables. 

A pair of ornately decorated Chinese-made bronze cannon, with bores of 13.7 cm and 12.5 cm, respectively, dating to the Qing Dynasty, were captured during the Boxer Rebellion by the Austrian naval detachment (including von Trapp and the men of the Zenta) during the taking of the Taku Forts.

Looted from the Pei tang fortress, they were transported back to Europe as trophies and are currently on display at the HM Hadtörteneti Intezet es Muzeum in Budapest.

They were recently refurbished and given new mounts.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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