Category Archives: hero

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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‘They told me you’d never load 8 missiles on an F-15E’

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The USAF recently released an amazing 36-minute doc, “Dangerous Game” about the 13 April 2024 overnight air-to-air swirling fight involving a squadron of F-16Cs (D.C. Air National Guard’s 113th Wing) and two of F-15Es (335th and 494th FS) vs 185 Shahed loitering munitions, followed by at least 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles.

“I can’t emphasize how dangerous this mission set is. At times, I’m 1,000 feet above the ground. Minsafe altitude was 4,000 feet. I am 3,000 feet below the altitude that is going to keep me alive because I can’t see the ground. There’s not enough ambient light.”

They even tried to get a hole-in-one shot on a moving drone with a LJDAM, as they were out of missiles, with the concept of hitting the ground ahead/around the low-flying UAV and knocking it out with the blossom.

Screaming across the desert to get back to base with all their ordnance expended, they wound up flying through a 360-degree hailstorm of Iranian ballistic missiles being launched ahead of them while IDF ABMs were reaching out and intercepting them in flight above them, leaving green flaming shrapnel to rain down on the F-15Es.

Then came 32-minute Integrated Combat Turnarounds (ICT) to get refueled and rearmed aircraft back in the fight– as Iranian missiles were inbound to their base.

It is well worth your time.

1202 Days and a Cup of Coffee

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80 years ago this week, Gen. Jonathan “Skinny” Mayhew Wainwright IV (USMA 1906) is seen enjoying a cup of Joe in House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s Office, 10 September 1945, after addressing the House and before picking up his MoH. If anyone ever deserved a good cup of coffee at the time, it was Wainwright.

National Archives Identifier, 350297855

Note Wainwright’s simplified salad bar and four-starred epaulets on his “Sun tans.”

A veteran of the Moro Rebellion with the old 1st Cavalry before they gave up their horses and the Great War– where he fought in the Meuse-Argonne with the 82nd Infantry Division back when they were “legs”– Wainwright was a one-star regular left holding the bag in the Philippines in April 1942 as a newly promoted lieutenant general (temporary) when “Dug Out” Doug was ordered to evac to Australia.

This meant a very hard 1202 days as the highest-ranking American POW in Japanese custody, and, while most of the PI had been liberated before the end of the war, Wainwright, who had been held in Manchuria/Manchukuo, was only freed by the Soviet Red Army on 20 August 1945, a week after the Japanese had signaled they would surrender.

He was soon plucked out of China by a USAAF C-47 and rushed to recently occupied Japan.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright greet each other at the New Grand Hotel, Yokohama, Japan on August 31, 1945, in their first meeting since they parted on Corregidor more than three years before. (US Army HD-SN-99-02411)

Wainwright was present at the Japanese surrender on Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, then accompanied the documents to Washington via air.

He was quickly given a MoH and a fourth star (which was not temporary).

Following a short post-war stint as commander of the Eastern Defense Command in New York and later the Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston, he was moved to the retired list in August 1947 upon reaching the age 64 mandatory top out.

He passed of a stroke in 1953– on September 2nd no less– aged 70, and is buried in Arlington, Section 1, Grave 358-B.

‘Harlem Hellfighters’ get their Gold

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“Hellfighters of Harlem in the Meuse-Argonne, September 26-October 1, 1918.” The 369th Infantry fought valiantly in the Allied (Champagne) Offensive as part of the French 161st Division, U.S. Army painting by Col. H Charles McBarron Jr

Black New York National Guard Soldiers, known as “Hellfighters” for their fight against the Kaiser’s boys 100 years ago, were recognized with Congress’s highest honor during a recent ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to descendants of some of the 4,000 Soldiers who served in the 369th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, during World War I.

Final WWII VC Holder Boards his PBY for Home

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Flying Officer John Alexander Cruickshank (126700), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, late of No. 210 Squadron, has passed at the age of 105.

Born in Aberdeen in 1920, he joined the Territorials in Scotland at age 19. Once the war started, he served in the Royal Artillery until his transfer to the RAFVR came through in the summer of 1941. Following flight training in Canada, he joined 210 Squadron, piloting PBY Catalinas out of windswept RAF Sullom Voe in Shetland on ASW duties in the North Atlantic.

It was while supporting Operation Mascot, one of the myriad attempts to sink the Tirpitz in her Norwegian lair, 17 July 1944, that Cruickshank’s PBY, JV928 Y, encountered German type VIIC submarine U-361 (Kptlt. Hans Seidel) west of the Lofoten Islands.

The first bombing run, through fierce AAA fire from the surfaced U-boat, riddled the PBY but failed as the bombs did not release. This required an even more dangerous second run, lacking the element of surprise.

Photograph taken from Consolidated Catalina Mark IVA, JV928 ‘Y’, of No. 210 Squadron RAF during an attack on German type VIIC submarine U-361 west of the Lofoten Islands. IWM C 4590

The swirling battle sent U-361 to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea, with Seidel and all 51 hands.

As for the PBY, JV928 Y suffered one crewman killed (Flying Officer J.C. Dickson, navigator/bombardier) and four more wounded, Cruickshank among them. Despite being hit by shrapnel in 72 places, including twice in the lungs and ten serious wounds in the legs, Cruickshank somehow refused morphia and remained in the cockpit beside the co-pilot until his damaged aircraft, full of dead and dying, made it some five hours back to the Shetlands and landed safely.

He earned Coastal Command’s third Victoria Cross, the others being posthumous.

Post-war, he left the service and went into banking. In 2020, he became the first VC holder to reach the age of 100, setting a new bar.

Heart of Oak

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HM Trawler Kingston Amber (FY 211) seen battling her way through heavy seas on the Northern patrol, 1942.

Photo by LT R.G.G. Coote. LOC LC-USZ62-89354 via IWM

The 467-ton F/V Kingston Amber was completed in September 1937 and taken over by the Admiralty two weeks after the Germans marched into Poland in 1939. Her wartime armament included a single 4-inch QF gun, and two .50 cal Vickers. She rode shotgun on numerous convoys and survived the conflict. During World War II, the British Royal Navy requisitioned approximately 816 English and Welsh trawlers, along with about 200 steam drifters, using them for a wide array of ASW, coastal patrol, and mine-sweeping tasks.

Post-war, Kingston Amber was returned to her owner in February 1946, completing over a decade of commercial service before she was scrapped at Bruges in January 1959.

The Royal Naval Patrol Service numbered some 66,000 men during WWII, manning 6,000 assorted small vessels, including the above-mentioned trawlers. With some 200 RNPS trawlers lost during the conflict, at least 14,500 of these “Sparrows” gave their lives, and no less than 2,385 RNPS seamen remain unaccounted for in Poseidon’s embrace, having “no known grave but the sea.”

Warship Wednesday, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

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

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, July 30, 2025: Ocean Station Savior

Above we see the 255-foot Owasco-class gunboat, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Pontchartrain (WPG-70) during rough weather while slogging along in the Pacific, 8 January 1950.

Commissioned during the last days of WWII, some 80 years ago this week, “Ponch” had a lengthy career that included lots of dreary service on Ocean Stations (13 of those shifts during Korea), a Vietnam Market Time deployment, and numerous rescues at sea– including one that was spectacular.

The 255s

The Coast Guard got seriously ripped off by the White House in early 1941 when 10 of its best (and newest) blue water cutters, the entire 250-foot Lake (Chelan) class, were transferred to the Royal Navy as part of FDR’s “Bases for Destroyers” deal. These hardy 2,000-ton turbine-powered low-mileage cutters became Banff-class sloops in RN service and saw lots of service, with three lost during the war and a fourth damaged so badly she was scrapped in the Philippines.

A splendid example of the 250-foot Lake class cutters, USCGC Pontchartrain (WPG-46) and USCGC Chelan (WPG-45), seen on 30 September 1937. Under the canvas awnings are a 5″/51 forward, a 3″/50 aft, and two 6-pounders. 

By 1942, with it apparent that the old Lakes would likely never return from overseas (at least not for years) and the U.S. firmly in the war, the USCG moved to build a replacement class of ten ships. To this number was added another three hulls, to finally replace the ancient cutters Ossipee (165 ft, circa 1915), Tallapoosa (165 ft, circa 1915), and Unalaga (190 ft, circa 1912).

Originally a 312-foot design that was a simplified follow-on to the service’s seven well-liked turbine-powered 327-foot Treasury (Campbell) class cutters, which had a provision to carry a JF-2/SOC-4 floatplane as well as two 5″/51s and ASW gear, this soon morphed into a much more compact 255-foot hull with an even heavier armament. The 255-foot oal guideline (245 at the waterline) conceivably allowed them to pass through the then 251-foot third lock of the Welland Canal in Ontario if needed, so they could operate on the Great Lakes at some future date.

The 1945 outfit for the class was twin 5″/38 DP mounts fore and aft, backed up by two quad 40mm Bofors, a Hedgehog ASWRL, two depth charge racks, and six K-guns. Overloaded already in such an arrangement, there was never a floatplane fitted, although the superstructure was divided into two islands to allow a midship location on deck for such a contraption.

While most carried SR and SU radar sets, Mendota and Pontchartrain carried more updated SC-4 and SF-1 radar sets. They all carried a QJA sonar set and Mk 26 FCS.

255 class leader CGC Owasco (WPG-39) off San Pedro, California. 18 July 1945. Note the short hull, packed with twin 5″/38s fore and aft as well as ASW gear and Bofors mounts.

Powered by twin Foster-Wheeler 2 drum top-fired Express boilers and a 3,200 kVa Westinghouse electric motor driven by a turbine, these cutters were good for 19 knots but could sail 10,000nm at 10 knots economically on 141,755 gallons of fuel oil, giving them extremely long legs. Able to navigate in three fathoms of sea water, they could get into tight spaces.

As detailed by the USCG Historian’s Office:

The 255-foot class was an ice-going design. Ice operations had been assigned to the Coast Guard early in the war, and almost all new construction was either ice-going or icebreaking.

The hull was designed with constant flare at the waterline for ice-going. The structure was longitudinally framed with heavy web frames and an ice belt of heavy plating, and it had extra transverse framing above and below the design water line. Enormous amounts of weight were removed using electric welding. The 250-foot cutters’ weights were used for estimating purposes. Tapered bulkhead stiffeners cut from 12” I-beams went from the main deck (4’ depth of web) to the bottom (8” depth of web). As weight was cut out of the hull structure, electronics and ordnance were increased, but at much greater heights. This top weight required ballasting the fuel tanks with seawater to maintain stability both for wind and damaged conditions.

Eleven of the class were to be built on the West Coast at the Western Pipe and Steel Company in San Pedro, California, with the first, Sebago, laid down on 7 June 1943.

Cost per hull was $4,239,702 in 1945 dollars.

Meet “Raunchy Paunchy”

Our subject is the second USCGC Pontchartrain, following in the footsteps of a circa 1928 Lake-class cutter which, transferred to Royal Navy 30 April 1941 as part of the Bases for Destroyers deal, entered service as HMS Hartland (Y00) and, 17 convoys later, was sunk by the French during Operation Reservist, the effort to seize the port of Oran as part of the Torch landings 19 months later.

While there was one CSS Pontchartrain on the Mississippi (for obvious reasons) during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy has never used the name.

One of only two 255s built on the East Coast at the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland (alongside sister USCGC Mendota, WPG-69), WPG-70 was the final Owasco-class cutter laid down by hull number, but far from the last completed. They were part of the initial six ships laid down in 1943, while the other eight all had their keels laid down in 1944. Both WPG-69 and WPG-70 were laid down on 5 July 1943.

Launched as Okeechobee on 29 February 1944, our subject was commissioned as USCGC Pontchartrain on 28 July 1945. Had the war not ended six weeks later, she surely would have made for the Panama Canal by Halloween and seen service in the Pacific with her sisters.

Eight of her 12 sisters were completed after VJ Day.

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Aug 1945

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Sep 1945. Note the split superstructure

Not destined to join Halsey for the push on Tokyo, Pontchartrain instead clocked in on a series of more than a dozen Ocean Stations, mid-way navigation, weather, and SAR points set up post-war to help trans-oceanic flights stay on path. Usually a three-week deployment, it was thankless and, on the very beamy 255s, sometimes one heck of a ride punctuated by regular twice-daily weather balloon launches, 450-foot bathythermograph drops every four hours, and an unceasing radio check.

The cutters steamed an average of 4,000 miles per patrol, and, with transit time included, staffed the station for an average of 700 non-stop hours.

One crew member noted: “After twenty-one days of being slammed around by rough, cold sea swells 20 to 50 feet high, and wild winds hitting gale force at times, within an ocean grid the size of a postage stamp, you can stand any kind of duty.”

Pontchartrain sister, the 255-ft. U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, takes a salty shower bath in rough North Atlantic weather on ocean station ‘Delta’, 650 miles southeast of Newfoundland and east of Nova Scotia

For the record, as noted by Scheina, Pontchartrain stood the lonely guard on 61 occasions:

Atlantic, while stationed at Boston and Norfolk:

  • 20 Oct-10 Nov 46 served on OS C
  • 6-11 Nov 48 served on OS Easy
  • 23 Jan-12 Feb 49 served on OS B
  • 18 Mar-8 Apr 49 served on OS Fox
  • 17 May-7 Jun 49 served on OS Easy
  • 17 Jul-6 Aug 49 served on OS Dog

Pacific, while stationed at Long Beach:

*During the Korean War:

  • Feb-13 Mar 50 served on OS Oboe
  • 14 May-5 Jun 50 served on OS Peter
  • 4-27 Aug 50 served on OS Nan*
  • 6-26 Mar 51 served on OS Sugar*
  • 13 Apr-5 May 51 served on OS Nan*
  • 8-29 Jul 51 served on OS Nan*
  • 21-29 Oct 51 served on OS Nan*
  • Nov-2 Dec 51 served on OS Nan*
  • 23 Dec 51-13 Jan 52 served on OS Uncle*
  • 23 Feb-16 Mar 52 served on OS Sugar*
  • 5-25 Apr 52 served on OS Sugar*
  • 29 Jun-20 Jul 52 served on OS Nan*
  • 22 Sep-12 Oct 52 served on OS Nan*
  • 28 Jan-18 Feb 53 served on OS Victor*
  • 30 Mar-20 Apr 53 served on OS Sugar*
  • 2-23 Jul 53 served on OS Uncle*
  • 25 Oct-15 Nov 53 served on OS Uncle
  • 28 Feb-10 Mar 54 served on OS Nan
  • 25 Jul-15 Aug 54 served on OS Nan
  • 17 Oct-7 Nov 54 served on OS Nan
  • 19 Dec 54-10 Jan 55 served on OS Nan
  • 15 May-5 Jun 55 served on OS Nan
  • 18 Sep-8 Oct 55 served on OS Nan
  • 12 Feb-4 Mar 5 served on OS November
  • 8-28 Jul 56 served on OS November
  • 30 Sep-16 Oct 56 served on OS November
  • 21 Dec 56-13 Jan 57 served on OS November
  • 13 May-9 Jun 57 served on OS November
  • 22 Sep-13 Oct 57 served on OS November
  • 17 Feb-8 Mar 58 served on OS November
  • 13 Jul-3 Aug 58 served on OS November
  • 14 Oct-4 Nov 58 served on OS Romeo
  • 7-28 Dec 58 served on OS November
  • 18 Jan-7 Feb 59 served on OS November
  • 27 Sep-17 Oct 59 served on OS November
  • 20 Feb-12 Mar 60 served on OS November
  • 1 16 Jul-6 Aug 60 served on OS November
  • 11-31 Dec 60 served on OS November
  • 7-27 May 61 served on OS November
  • 10-31 Mar 68 served on OS November
  • 12 May-2 Jun 68 served on OS November
  • 14 Jul-4 Aug 68 served on OS November
  • 25 Aug-15 Sep 68 served on OS November
  • 19 Jan-9 Feb 69 served on OS Victor
  • 2-23 Mar 69 served on OS Victor
  • 25 May-14 Jun 69 served on OS November
  • 17 Aug-7 Sep 69 served on OS November
  • 30 Nov- 18 Dec 69 served on OS November
  • 22 Aug-12 Sep 71 served on OS Victor
  • 3-24 Oct 71 served on OS Victor
  • 8-28 Jun 72 served on OS Charlie
  • 15 Aug-8 Sep 72 served on OS Delta
  • 29 Jan-23 Feb 73 served on OS Echo
  • 24 Apr-17 May 73 served on OS Delta
  • 6-26 Sep 73 served on OS Charlie

During this service, her appearance changed significantly.

Laid up from 17 October 1947 to 5 September 1948 as the service ran into post-war budget cuts, she emerged from Curtis Bay with most of her armament removed. Gone were the twin 5-inchers, replaced by a single mount forward. Also deleted were her aft Bofors and all her ASW weapons save for Hedgehog. This nearly halved her complement from over 250 to 130.

USCGC Pontchartrain circa 1958. Note her single 5″/38 DP, with her open Hedgehog and last 40mm Bofors quad mount behind

Pan American Flight 6

It was while on Ocean Station November that our cutter, on 16 October 1956, stood by Pan American World Airways’ Flight 6, Boeing 377 Stratocruiser N90943, the “Sovereign of the Skies,” as she pulled off a water landing while en route from Honolulu to San Francisco.

The clipper, under the command of Pan Am Capt. Richard N. Ogg, with 31 souls aboard, was quickly running out of fuel with a windmilling No. 1 prop and a shutdown No. 4 engine, while still some 250nm out from the California coast.

Nearing OS November, Ogg radioed Pontchartrain, under CDR William K. Earle (USCGA 1940), who provided sea state and weather data to bring the clipper down easily.

The cutter then made ready for SAR and laid a trail of foam to mark the best course, a wet “runway” on the Pacific.

Coast Guard sailors aboard the United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Pontchartrain use foam from firehoses to lay down a “runway” for Flight 6

The clipper ditched less than 2,000 yards away, just after sunrise.

As noted by This Day in Aviation:

At 6:15 a.m., at approximately 90 knots air speed, the Boeing 377 landed on the water. A wing hit a swell, spinning the airplane to the left. The tail broke off, and the airplane began to settle.

Injuries were minor, and all passengers and crew evacuated the airliner. They were immediately picked up by Pontchartrain.

Captain Ogg and Purser Reynolds were the last to leave the airplane.

Twenty minutes after touching down, at 6:35 a.m., Sovereign of the Skies sank beneath the ocean’s surface.

A USCG film about the incident, including original footage.

Besides Pan Am Flight 6, Pontchartrain escorted the disabled American M/V John C (1950), assisted the disabled F/V Nina Ann (1955), assisted USS LSM-455 aground on San Clemente Island, the disabled yacht Gosling, and the disabled F/V Modeoday (1957), aided the disabled yacht Intrepid (1958), the F/V Carolyn Dee (1959), went to the assistance of M/V Mamie and rescued three from the ketch Alpha (1960), medevaced a patient from USNS Richfield (1961), and assisted the disabled F/V Gaga (1963).

She was a lifesaver.

She was also a fighter.

War!

A quarter-century after joining the fleet, Pontchartrain was finally sent to combat.

USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC-70) Jan 1970. Note she has her “racing stripe.”

She was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three, working in the Vietnam littoral, from 31 March to 31 July 1970. While her 13 stints on wartime Ocean Stations during the Korean War allowed her crew to earn Korean Service Medals, Vietnam was going to be a deployment of naval gunfire support in the littoral, rather than one of quiet radio and weather watches.

USCGC Wachusett (WHEC-44), a 255-foot Owasco-class cutter, providing some blistering NGFS off Vietnam

By this time, the 255s sported SPS-29 and SPS-51 radars, and some had provision for ASW torpedo tubes abeam of the superstructures, the latter aided by SQS-1 sonars. As such, they had been changed from gunboats to the more friendly “high endurance cutters,” or WHECs.

Jane’s 1965 entry for the 255s

Joining CGRON3’s fifth deployment to Southeast Asia, Pontchartrain was the “old man” teamed up with four brand-new 378-foot gas turbine-powered cutters, USCGC Hamilton, Chase, Dallas, and Mellon. Whereas nine of her sisters had been sent to Vietnam previously, Pontchartrain was the last Owasco to pull the duty.

Pontchartrain NGFS Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

While the individual figures for Pontchartrain aren’t available, the large cutters of CGRON3 conducted no less than 1,368 combined NGFS missions during Vietnam, firing a staggering 77,036 5-inch shells ashore. Keep in mind that most of these cutters only carried about 300 rounds in their magazines, so you can look at that amount of ordnance expended as being something like 250 shiploads.

Check out this deck log for one day in July 1970, with Pontchartrain firing 175 rounds by early afternoon against a mix of targets.

Powder and shell consumption was so high that some cutters would have to underway replenish or VERTREP 2-3 times a week while doing gun ops.

Pontchartrain receiving 5-inch powder cases UNREP Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

At sea off Vietnam. Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart approaching a Mispillion class replenishment oiler USS Passumpsic (AO-107) as it is tanking a Coast Guard 311-foot HEC, likely CGC Pontchartrain. AWM Photo P01904.005 by Peter Michael Oleson.

Returning to Long Beach, Pontchartrain settled back into her normal routine and continued Ocean Station, LE, and SAR work, along with the occasional reservist cruise.

In April 1973, the Coast Guard announced that, in conjunction with the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the increased use of satellites, the OS program would be discontinued and 10 aging cutters retired– nine of them 255s. Sisters Sebago and Iroquois had already been put out to pasture.

Pontchartrain decommissioned on 19 October 1973, and by the following May, all her sisters had joined her. They would be sold for scrap before the end of 1974.

Epilogue

Some of Pontchartrain’s logs are digitized in the National Archives.

As for her skipper during the Pan Am Flight 6 rescue, CDR William K. Earle would go on to command the tall ship Eagle during Operation Sail—staged in concert with the 1964 World’s Fair—when 23 such ships assembled in New York Harbor. Retiring as a captain, he penned several articles for Proceedings, was executive director of the USGCA Alumni Association, and editor of the group’s journal. The Association maintains the annual Captain Bill Earle Creative Writing Contest in his honor. Captain Earle passed away in March of 2006.

Sadly, there has not been a third USCGC Pontchartrain.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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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.

Warship Wednesday, July 16, 2025: Flat Iron Warrior

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

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, July 16, 2025: Flat Iron Warrior

Above we see the Norwegian Gor-class gunboat-turned-minelayer KNM Tyr, all 102 feet long with a 4.7″/40 EOC gun forward and mines stowed aft. Downright ancient when the Germans came in 1940, she nonetheless proved a serious thorn in their side.

Norwegian Rendels

Starting in the 1870s, the Norwegians embarked on a program of modern warship construction, including steam engines and iron/steel hulls. Constructed locally at Carl JohansVærns Værft, Horten, they ordered eight 2nd class gunboats (Kanonbåt 2. kl) running between 250 and 420 tons, three first class gunboats of between 720 and 1,280 tons, a 1,045-ton steam corvette, an armed 350-ton minelaying “crane vessel” (Kranfartøy), and 14 assorted (45 ton-to-107 ton) 2nd class torpedo boats by 1902. Meanwhile, four 4,000-ton coastal battleships (Panserskibe) with 8.2-inch guns and up to 8 inches of armor would be ordered from Armstrong in the 1890s.

The eight 2nd class gunboats were all of the “flat iron” or Rendel type, a common format introduced by Armstrong in 1867 and built under contract for or copied by over a dozen fleets around the globe, including Norway’s neighbors Denmark and Sweden. Short and stubby, typically about 100 feet long with a 30-foot beam, they were flat-bottomed and drew a fathom or less, even under a full load. This hull form and their anemic compound steam engines only allowed for a speed in the 8-10 knot region, leaving these as defensive vessels ideal for guarding strongpoints and key harbors.

Armament was typically a single large (8-to-15-inch!) gun that could be lowered and elevated inside a shielded battery but not traversed, with the gunboat coming about to aim the horizonal.

The Norwegian Rendels included KNM Vale and Uller (1874, 1876, 250t); Nor, Brage, and Vidar (1897-1882, 270t); Gor and Tyr (1884, 1887, 289-294t); and Æger (1893, 420t). The first five carried a single Armstrong 26.67 cm (10.5-inch) RML forward and two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns amidships.

Kanonbåt 2 kl Brage’s crew with her Armstrong 26,7cm RML.

Æger toted a more modern 8.3-inch Armstrong breechloader and three small (one 10-pdr and two 4-pdrs).

Æger. This 109-foot 420-tonner was the pinnacle of Rendel development. A one-off design, she was decommissioned in 1932 and her name recycled for a new Sleipner-class destroyer. NSM.000460

Gor and Tyr each carried a single breechloading Krupp 26 cm (10.2 inch) L/30 gun (606-pound shell, 192-pound charge, m/v 1805 ft/secs), the same model gun used on the 3,700-ton Japanese Armstrong-built protected cruisers Naniwa and Takachiho, backed up, like most of the other Norwegian Rendels, by two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns.

Kanonbåt 2. kl. Gor (b. 1884, Karljohansvern Verft, Horten), note the large Krupp gun forward. NSM.000459

Japanese officers of the protected cruiser Naniwa posing near one of her 26 cm (10.2″) Krupp guns, 1885

Meet Tyr

Constructed as Yard No. 67 at Horten, Tyr was named for the one-handed Norse god of war who sacrificed his other hand to trap the wolf Fenrir. Laid down in 1884, she launched on 16 March 1887 and, fitting out rapidly, joined the Norwegian fleet shortly after.

Norwegian gunboat KNM Tyr from 1887

After 1900, with the looming formal separation from Sweden on the horizon and the prospect of a possible fight on their hands, the Norwegians upped their torpedo boat numbers rapidly to nearly 30 boats as their four new bathtub battleships arrived on hand from Britain. With that, the Rendels transitioned to more static support roles around this time, such as minefield tenders at strategic coastal fortifications and depot ships.

Around this time, most landed their obsolete main gun in exchange for something more contemporary, with most picking up a trainable QF 4.7″/40 Elswick 20-pounder behind a shield. This allowed the removal of their armored bow bulwark. Gor and Tyr also picked up a high-angle 76mm mount, while some of the older boats received a 47mm mount.

Gor as minelegger with mines aft. 

After Norway got into the submarine business in 1909 with the small (128-foot, kerosine-engined) German-built KNM Kobben, Tyr became her tender until 1914.

K/B 2 kl Tyr as tender with Norwegian submarine Kobben alongside. MMU.944062

Tyr plan 1913, slick-decked as tender.

With the mine warfare lessons reverberating around the globe after the Russo-Japanese War, it became obvious how easy these broad-beamed shallow-draft craft could be converted to minelayers. This typically meant installing twin port and starboard rail tracks on deck running about 65 feet to the stern for easy planting either via boom over rail drop. On the Gor and Tyr, this allowed for as many as 55 mines stowed on deck.

Tyr as mine planter with her 4″/40 forward and two 37mm 1-pounders on her amidships bridge deck. Model in the Horten Marinemuseet.

Same model, note the mine arrangement. The model omits her 6-pounder 76mm gun.

mines on converted Norwegian 2c gunboat, pre-1940

Same as above

Same as above

1929 Jane’s abbreviated listing of seven of the old Rendel gunboats, including Tyr. Note that Gor is still listed with her old 10-inch Armstrong. The larger Aegir was listed separately and was disposed of in 1932.

War!

September 1939 brought an uneasy time to Scandinavia. The remaining seven Norwegian Rendals, all by this time working as minelayers, bided their time and clocked in on the country’s Nøytralitetsvakt (Neutrality Watch).

Tyr was placed under the command of Orlogskaptein (LCDR) Johan Friederich Andreas Thaulow “Fritz” Ulstrup and stationed at the outer ring Lerøy Fortress overlooking the narrow Lerøyosen south of Bergen. Ulstrup, 43, was a career naval officer who was minted in the Great War and, having studied in France from 1922 to 1924, was serving as an instructor at the Naval Academy in Bergen when the war started.

Ulstrup, who doubled as fortress commander at Lerøy, also had a flotilla of five small armed auxiliary guard boats– Haus (135grt), Lindaas (138grt), Alversund (178grt), Manger (153grt), and Oygar (128grt)– and an old (circa 1898) torpedo boat, Storm, under his control. However, the fort itself, slated in 1939 to receive a 120mm gun battery with four old L/40 French-built Schneider weapons from the decommissioned border forts of Vardasen and Gullbekkasen pointing toward Sweden, instead only had a couple of 65mm Cockerill guns and searchlights.

On the early morning of 9 April 1940, just after midnight, two cruisers appeared off Bergen and flashed that they were the RN’s HMS Cairo and Calcutta, when in fact they were the German Kriegmarine’s light cruiser sisters Koln and Konigsberg, each with nine 15 cm SK C/25 (5.9-inch) guns, as the Gruppe 3 invasion force under RADM Hubert Schmundt. The cruisers were followed by 600 troops of the Wehrmacht’s 69th Infantry Division on the 1,800-ton gunnery training ship (Artillerieschulschiff) Bremse with four 12.8 cm SK C/34s, the torpedo boats Wolf and Leopard, and the E-boat tender Carl Peters shepherding S19, S21, S22, S23, S24, and naval trawlers Schiff 9 and Schiff 18.

Tyr, loaded with live and armed mines picked up at Laksevåg, was at the ocean-front fishing village of Klokkarvik, directly in the path of the Germans.

Klokkarvik harbor during the neutrality watch in 1939/40. In the picture, you can see a mine-armed KNM Tyr at anchor with a Draug-class destroyer at the quay. Note the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Hover M.F.11 floatplane in the foreground. (Source: Naval Museum Horten)

When the Germans began to creep into the fjord and with word of other sets of foreign warships in the Oslofjord, Ulstrup, who had been arguing with Bergan’s overall commander, RADM Carsten Tank-Nielsen all day on the 8th to be able to sow his mines, finally obtained clearance at 0030 for Tyr to hurriedly drop eight mines between Sotra and Lerøy, closing Lerøyosen. However, the 10-14-hour time-delay safety features on the magnetic contacts of the mines meant they were still dormant when the German cruisers passed harmlessly over them. Storm, meanwhile, fired a torpedo at Carl Peters at 0220 but missed.

Ulstrup closed to shore so he could place a quick phone call to Tank-Nielsen to apprise him of the situation, then returned to his minelayer to beat feet toward Bjørnefjord, playing a cat and mouse game with German E-boats and reportedly landing a hit from her 4.7-inch gun on one, receiving several 20mm hits from the Schnellbooten in exchange.

Further up the fjord, batteries at the now-alerted Norwegian inner ring Forts Kvarven (3 x 210mm St. Chamond M.98s) and Sandviken (3 x 240mm St. Chamond  L/13s) opened up on the passing Germans at 0358 and soon landed hits on both Konigsberg and Bremse in the darkness of pre-dawn, leaving the former adrift with flooded boiler rooms. While Tyr, Ulstrup, and company managed to withdraw further into the fjords– laying another 16 mines in the Vatlestraumen approaches north of Bergen–  Bergen itself fell to the German seaborne force just hours later.

However, the crippled Konigsberg would be hammered by a strike of RNAS Sea Skuas out of Orkney once the sun came up and caught five 500-pound bombs, sinking her in the harbor on 10 April.

Meanwhile, Tyr’s mines near Vatlestraumen sank the packed German HSDG freighter Sao Paulo (4977grt) on the evening of the 9th, sending her to the bottom in 260 feet of water.

The 361-foot Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampschiffahrts-Gesellschaft steamer Sao Paulo was lost to one of Tyr’s mines.

In trying to sweep the mines, the German naval auxiliary Schiff 9 (trawler Koblenz, 437grt), and the auxiliary patrol boat Vp.105 (trawler Cremon, 268grt), along with two launches from Carl Peters, were lost on the 11th. Some sources also credit the German steamer Johann Wessels (4601grt), damaged on 5 May, and the German-controlled Danish steamer Gerda (1151grt), sunk on 8 May, as falling to Tyr’s eggs.

Withdrawing down the 114-mile-long Hardangerfjord, Ulstrup was appointed the commander of this new sector on 17 April and, moving ashore to Uskedal, left Tyr to her XO, the 47-year-old Fenrik (ensign) Karl Sandnes. Ulstrup, stripping the 37mm guns from Tyr and two 65mm guns from auxiliary gunboats, mounted them on flatbed trucks as improvised mobile artillery.

A 1937 Chevy flatbed with a 65mm L35 Hotchkiss under Ulstrup’s dirt sailors, April 1940

The next two days saw a series of skirmishes around Uskedal, in which Tyr closed to shore to use her 4.7-inch gun against German positions in improvised NGFS, coming close enough to get riddled by German 8mm rifle fire in return.

A naval clash on the 20th involving the advancing Germans in the Hardangerfjord saw Tyr, under the command of Sandnes, shell the German auxiliary Schiff 18, which beached at Uskedal to avoid sinking. The same battle saw the Norwegian Trygg-class torpedo boat Stegg sunk by Schiff 221 while the Norwegian armed auxiliary Smart was sunk by Bremse. The German minesweeper M.1 went on to capture five Norwegian-flagged steamers that were hiding in the fjord.

With Ulstrup and his force ashore getting ready to displace inland under fire, and Tyr trapped in the fjord, Sandnes brought his command to the shallows and, attempting to camouflage her, hid the breechblock for her 4.7 and evacuated the old minelayer. By forced march, they made it to Matre, some 14 miles on the other side of the mountain, and soon rejoined Allied lines.

Meanwhile, Tyr was soon discovered by the Germans, who towed her back to Bergen and, along with her fellow Rendel gunboat-turned-minelayer cousin, Uller, were soon pressed into service with the Kriegsmarine.

On 30 April, Tyr and Uller left occupied Bergen with German crews on a mission to mine the entrance to Sognefjord, barring it to British ships. This service would be short-lived as a Royal Norwegian Navy Heinkel He 115 seaplane spotted the pair, now under new management, and bombed Uller seriously enough to have her crew beach on a reef and evacuate on Tyr. Uller later lifted off the reef and sank near Gulen, becoming a popular dive spot.

As for Tyr, she saw no further direct combat, although the Germans likely continued to use her in some form of coastal service for the rest of the war.

Post-war

Tyr was still afloat in 1945 when the Germans were run out, and was subsequently sold on the commercial market. Her old hull still in good shape, she was converted to an economical diesel plant and sailed for a time as a heavy lift steamship.

By 1951, she had been converted to the car ferry Bjorn West, a task she fulfilled for three decades. Further converted for service in a salmon farming operation.

Found in poor condition ten years ago, she recently passed to a consortium of Vestfold county municipality, the KNM Narvik Foundation in Horten, and the Bredalsholmen Shipyard and Preservation Centre, who, with Tyr safely in drydock in Kristiansand, plan on restoring her to her 1940 condition. At this point, she is believed to be the last Rendel-type gunboat.

They plan to make her sailable, which isn’t that far-fetched.

Epilogue

The Norwegian Navy has recycled our gunboat/minelayer’s name at least twice.

The first was an Auk-class minesweeper, ex-USS Sustain (AM-119), which was transferred in 1959 and served as KNM Tyr (N47). Three Auk-class sisters transferred with her (ex-USS Strive, Triumph, and Seer) were named Gor, Brage, and Uller, in a nod to the old Rendel boats that saw WWII service.

Ex-USS Sustain (AM-119) as KNM Tyr (N47). Commissioned 9 November 1942, she earned eight battle stars for her World War II service from North Africa to France to Okinawa, helping to sink at least one U-boat in the process. She served the Norwegians from 1959 to 1984.

The third KNM Tyr in Norwegian service, N50, was bought commercially in 1995 and spent two decades mapping and filming dozens of historic wrecks in the country’s waters with her ROVs, including Scharnhorst and HMS Hunter (H35).

The intrepid LCDR Ulstrup continued to resist the Germans after leaving Tyr in April 1940. He crafted a makeshift shoreside torpedo battery, the only torpedo available being salvaged from the wreck of an old torpedo boat, and managed to caravan mines from a storage facility in Sogn to Ulvik to surprise the occupation forces. Once the Allies pulled out in mid-June, he was left to his own devices with a resistance group that became known, logically, as the Ulstrup Organisasjon.

With the heat getting too close for comfort, Ulstrup and a dozen other patriots crowded on the sailing trawler MK Måken (M 366 B) on 19 September 1940 and set out from Alesund for the Shetlands, arriving at Baltasound 11 days later. Welcomed as a hero in London, he was soon in command of the old four-piper HMS Mansfield (G76) (former USS Evans, DD-78), which in April 1941 carried commandos for a raid on Oksfjord, Norway, where the herring oil factory was destroyed.

“HNMS Mansfield, Norwegian Town-class destroyer. She is an ex-U.S. destroyer (USS Evans) and is manned entirely by the Norwegian Navy.” Circa 1941. Note her Norwegian flag. Photo by Harold William John Tomlin, IWM A2725

Once Mansfield was passed on to the Canadians in March 1942 after the Norwegians rode shotgun on 17 Atlantic, Ulstrup, promoted to Kommandørkaptein, was given command of the 11th Department in the Ministry of Defense in London, then subsequently placed in command of the Norwegian forces in Iceland, where he spent the rest of the war.

Returning to Norway with a War Cross with Swords, Ulstrup was promoted to rear admiral in August 1952. After escorting Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie on his tour of Norwegian naval bases, including the Horten shipyards in November 1954, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II, rounding out his international awards.

Kontradmiral Johan Fredrik Andreas Thaulow Ulstrup, retired, passed in 1956, age 60, having wrapped up a 41-year career.

Tyr’s best-known “kill” of the war, the HSDG steamer Sao Paulo, packed with German military vehicles and stores that never made it to shore, is a favorite of wreck divers.

Meanwhile, in Klokkarvik, a memorial, complete with a mine and a seagull, was dedicated in 2021.

As noted in the town:

The seagull that takes off from the mine is a symbol of optimism. We should be aware of what war brings, but be most concerned with how we can secure peace. We should learn from history, – because it tends to repeat itself. The seagull draws our attention to the sea, the source of everything, our future.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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