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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.”
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
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.
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.
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.
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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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
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.
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.
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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The French Navy has some 640 assorted full-time diver billets, with most (320) being Plongeurs de mineurs (PLD) who serve as clearance/EOD divers, followed by 170 Plongeurs de Bord (PLB) who ship out and serve as on-board divers for such tasks as hull inspections, disaster response, and man-overboard rescues. A select group of 60 Plongeurs d’Helicoptere (PLH) serve as CSAR rescue swimmers.
Then we have the 90 Naguers de Combat (NC), which are some of the most professional frogmen-style combat divers in the world, skilled in the use of closed-circuit breathing apparatus, HALO jumps, submarine operations, demo, kayak insertions/exfils, and all things commando.
The NCs have been around since 1952 and, drawn from the ranks of the fleet, complete a grueling 7-month training class (CNC) which typically graduates fewer than 10 members each cycle.
In all, just over 1,000 NCs have ever been minted by the French Navy in the past seven decades– the 101st course just graduated– and 19 have lost their lives while on active service.
The French Navy recently dedicated a memorial to those 19 at Brest, which, at high tide, is submerged and slowly emerges when the tide falls.
Sculpted by Nacera Kainou, who used two active duty NCs as models, the plinth contains 52 Saint-Michel medals, the patron saint of paratroopers, which were blessed in the chapel of Notre Dame de Rocamadour.
Of note, the marker contains space for more NC numbers.
It happened 85 years ago, in London, on 14 July 1940.
Men of the “Free French” 14e demi-brigade de marche de la Légion étrangère (DBMLE), who had participated in the Norwegian campaign and then rallied to General de Gaulle’s cause after the Fall of France, parade through the streets of London on Bastille Day. Note their Adrian helmets, iconic Legionnaire “Cheche” desert scarves, Alpine breeches and boots, and MAS 36 7.5x54mm bolt-action rifles carried with trigger guard out in French fashion.
Réf. : FFL 16-5345 Auteur inconnu/ECPAD/Défense
On July 14, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who delivered a very Francophile speech in tribute to the French men and women who had not given up fighting, allowed De Gaulle and his forces to celebrate Bastille Day in the English capital, which simultaneously became for a time the capital of Free France. The general laid a wreath at the foot of the statue of Marshal Foch (a ceremony he would repeat on Bastille Day 1942) and watched the (short) parade of the Free French Forces who marched from the Cenotaph in Whitehall to the statue of the marshal in Grosvenor Gardens.
The unit was originally formed as the two-battalion 13e DBMLE under the bespectacled Lt. Col. Raoul Charles Magrin-Vernerey in February 1940 in preparation for a planned Franco-British expeditionary force to initially intervene in Finland. Importantly, they were given a crash course in mountain operations, equipped with skis, and given the uniforms of the famed “Blue Devils,” the Chasseurs Alpins.
However, Finland’s peace with Moscow on 12 March put its operations on ice.
Literally.
Re-tasked to the Franco-British expeditionary force to Norway in April, the legionnaires helped liberate first Bjervik and then Narvik from the Germans before being withdrawn in early June.
April 23, 1940 – Brest. Troops stand by during the departure ceremony of the 13th Foreign Legion Marching Brigade (DBMLE) towards Norway. Ref. : NAVY 224-3148 Jammaron/ECPAD/Defense
The brigade lost eight officers and 93 legionnaires in combat in Norway, including its 2nd battalion c/o, Maj. Albéric Joseph Calixte Guéninchault. Their dead remain in a military cemetery in Narvik, a plot of land that will forever be French.
Returning to France, they landed at Brittany on 4 June but, with the country rapidly collapsing to the Germans, elected to be taken off by British ships to Scotland on the 8th, to continue the fight. After all, most of the Legion was back in French North Africa, which was not under German occupation.
Following De Gaulle’s appeal on 18 June to join his forces, the choice was put to the men of the 1,619 remaining officers and men of the 13th DBMLE and, by sundown on the 30th, 25 officers, 102 NCOs, and 702 other ranks, led by Lt.Col. Magrin-Vernerey had elected to remain in exile and cast their lot with the Allies. The rest were repatriated to Vichy French-held Morocco, taking their flags with them.
As the “old” 13th DBMLE had returned home, the men left in Britain became the brand-new 14th DBMLE on 1 July 1940. Fighting under that designation, they served on Operation Menace, the botched landing in Senegal in October, and then in the more successful Gabon campaign in November.
Hearing that the “old” 13th DBMLE had been disbanded under pressure from the Germans to draw down Vichy French forces in November 1940, the 14th adopted the name of the 13th, becoming the “new” 13th DBMLE.
As such, they continued to serve as renowned fire eaters, earning honors at Keren-Massaouah (1941), Bir-Hakeim and El-Alamein (1942), Rome (1944), Colmar and Authion (1945), covering 20,000 miles in the process, spanning from Norway to Egypt and Syria, and back to Europe, fighting up the “Boot” in Italy to landing on the shores of the Riveria and driving to the Alps.
They later added Indochina (1945-54) and Algeria (1955-62) to the list.
They endure today, stationed at Larzac as part of the 6th Armored Brigade.
