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Warship Wednesday Oct. 23, 2024: A Tough Little Wolf

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to 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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024: A Tough Little Wolf

Nationalmuseet, Danmark, asset THM-3367

Above, we see the Danish Soridderen (Sea Knight) class torpedobåden patrol boat Søulven (Sea Wolf)—also cited in the West as Soloven, Soeulven, and Søulv —as she passed near the Trekroner Søfort at the entrance to the Copenhagen harbor before 1920.

A small boat with a fearsome name, her skipper and crew proved all-heart during the Great War, and a noteworthy British admiral doubtlessly owed his life to her pluck.

The Søridderen trio

Between 1879, when Hajen, Torpedobaad Nr.4, joined the fleet through Svaerdfisken, which entered service in May 1913, the Royal Danish Navy fielded 40 assorted torpedo boats across several different classes to include designs from British (Samuel White, Yarrow, Thornycroft), French (Forges & Chantiers), German (F. Schichau) and domestic (Burmeister & Wain, Orlogsvaerftet) yards. No less than 17 of these were still in service by the time Gaviro Princep caught up to Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and set the world alight.

In 1911, a program of three new German Schichau-designed boats and a matching set of three British Yarrow-designed boats were ordered. The lead ship would be built overseas in each case, and the two follow-on units would be constructed domestically. This led to the Schichau-designed and built 250-ton Tumleren (and Orlogsvaerftet-constructed sisters Vindhunden and Spaekhuggeren) and the 230-ton Yarrow-designed and built Søridderen (accompanied by the Burmeister & Wain-constructed Flyvefisken and Soulven).

The ships were competing designs of similar size, armament, and capability with the Tumlerens running 250 tons, 186 feet long, 18 feet on the beam, and with a 6-foot draft while the Søridderen went 181x18x6 feet.

The German-built Danish torpedobåden Tumleren. Note her trainable torpedo tubes. THM-3340

Both classes were coal-fired steam turbine-driven and fast (27.5 knots), as well as armed with five 18-inch torpedo tubes (one fixed in bow and four trainable on deck) and two 12-pounder 3″/52 M.07 QF guns.

Danish Torpedobåden Tumleren i Svanemøllebugten, 1915, by Christian Benjamin Olsen. These boats were notoriously smokey especially when using the thrifty Danish navy’s (preferred) cheap coal to stretch training dollars.

The Søridderens went a bit faster than designed on trails, hitting 28.3 knots.

Søridderen class member Flyvefisken, seen in a color period postcard. THM-30779

Søridderen member Flyvefisken, the port view seen underway. THM-4490

Jane’s 1914 listing for the Søridderen class.

The British-designed ships were also seen as more seaworthy than the German-designed boats. However, the events of 1914 precluded further orders.

Meet Soulven

Our subject carried a traditional Danish navy moniker and repeated one used by one of the Scandinavian country’s first batch of torpedo boats, a little 95-footer built in France that remained in service until 1911.

Photo showing the first torpedo boat Søulven, Torpedobaad Nr.5, launched in 1880 at anchor in Copenhagen. The picture also shows the visiting German armored battery ship Heligoland and the French cruiser Chateau Renault. Photographed Sep 8, 1891. THM-9524

The second Danish torpedo boat Soulven joined the fleet in 1911, likely recycling most of the crew of her namesake which was decommissioned at the same time.

Note her forward bow tube and trainable singles.

She would spend her first three years as a training ship, and there are some great images of her pier side conducting training with Madsen light machine guns complete with massive 40-round detachable box magazines. A treat for any gun nerd!

Soluven crew at Flådens Leje with Madsen LMGs THM-6173

Soulven note bridge and Madsens THM-6175

THM-6175 inset

War!

When the Great War began in August 1914, Denmark armed-up to protect her neutrality, having just fought Germany in 1864 and the Brits in 1807. This meant mobilizing 52,000 reserves and new drafts to add to the professional 13,000-man Army and building the 23 km-long Tunestillingen line of defenses outside of Copenhagen. Likewise, the Danish Navy dusted off its guns and torpedo tubes and began to actively patrol its waters.

With that, Soulven left her training duties behind and became the flagship of 1. Torpedobådsflotille, assigned to patrol in the Oresund, the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.

Torpedo inspection on board Soulven 1914 THM-4687

Her skipper at this time, and dual-hatted commander of the 1st TBF, was Kapt. Eduard Haack, 43, a career regular with 28 years of service on his seabag that included tours in the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) on the old steam frigate Jylland, Med cruises on the gunboat St. Thomas and cruiser Hejmdal, a stint as an officer instructor at the service’s NCO academy, service aboard the coastal battleships Iver Hvitfeldt and Herluf Trolle, command of a section of the naval mine corps (Søminekorpsets), and command of the icebreaker/OPV (inspektionsskibet) Absalon on the Greeland-Iceland-Faeroes beat.

Haack was a professional.

Haack, on Iver Hvitfeldt before he war. THM-4745

The E-13 Affair

It was during this time that the British started sending small E-class submarines through the Skagerrak and the Kattegat around Jutland then through the Oresund and across the Baltic to the Tsarist port of Revel in the Gulf of Finland. HMS E-1 and E-9 made it by October 1914, while E-11 turned back. They would soon be joined by HMS E-8, E-18, and E-19. One of their less fortunate sisters was HMS E-13.

Around 2300 on 17 August 1915, while E13 was attempting to make the passage through the Oresund to join the other British Submarines operating with the Tsar’s Navy, she experienced a gyro compass failure and ran aground in the mud on the Danish Island of Saltholm, her hull surrounded by nine feet of water.

English submarine E13 grounded on Saltholm THM-12243.

Spotted by the old (circa 1888) Danish Thornycroft-built torpedo boat Narvalen at 0500 on the morning of 18 August, the Dane dutifully notified E13 they had 24 hours to get unstuck or be interned for the duration. LCDR Geoffrey Layton, RN replied that he understood and would work to free his boat. His executive officer, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, was sent ashore to see if he could arrange a tug. 

Soon after, at 0620, two German S90-class large torpedo boats on patrol, SMS G132, and G134, likewise spotted the disabled British sub, with her crew resting atop E13’s casing. The 215-foot S90s were really more destroyer than TB, and ran large at 535 tons, carrying an 88mm gun, two 2″/40 guns, and three torpedo tubes.

S90-class Hochsee-Torpedoboot SMS S-125, a good representative of her class. Photographed by A. Renard of Kiel, probably before 1911. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 45400

To guard the beached sub, flotilla leader Søulven arrived on the scene at 0845 with Narvalen’s sister Støren. The Danish bathtub battleship Peder Skram, armed with 9.4-inch guns and swathed in as much as 8 inches of armor, was just over the horizon and making steam for the area.

With the greenlight from RADM Robert Mischke, head of the Küstenschutzdivision der Ostsee, by radio, at 1028 the German torpedo boats went on the offensive.

Signaling “Abandon Ship Immediately,” G132 and G134 heeled over and made maximum revolutions for the grounded E13, sailing into Danish coastal waters with their guns blazing. Some 15 British submariners were killed outright.

English leave E13 after the shelling, 19 Aug. 1915 THM-4679

Despite being outgunned by the two larger German boats, Søulven’s skipper, Kapt. Haack gave the order to move his boat directly between E13 and the German guns to shield the British, with the Dane calling on the Germans to halt. The maneuver worked and at 1035, the German boats turned away and left Danish waters, having closed to within 300 yards of the submarine. Haack noted that the German commander of G132 raised an arm in the air as a sign that the protest was accepted.

The Danes soon went to work rescuing the survivors of E13, including Storen’s boatswain, one AFP Olsen, who reportedly dived into the frigid water and pulled a wounded Tar, Leading Seaman Herbert Lincoln, off the bottom. Olsen would be awarded an Albert Medal by the British government for his action, but not allowed by the Danish Foreign Ministry to accept it.

The wounded were passed on to Peder Skram, who would take them to Copenhagen. The recovered bodies of 14 of the 15 men lost were loaded aboard Søulven’s sister Søridderen and brought to Lynettehavnen. The 15th was later recovered and joined his shipmates. 

The reaction in the British and Scandinavian press to the German violation of neutrality was understandable.

What occurred over the next several days in Denmark was an outpouring of mourning for the British submariners who were killed in their waters. This included some 200 Danish sailors providing an honor guard for the recovered bodies during a funeral procession in Copenhagen where the survivors of E13, clad in Danish dress uniforms, were assisted in carrying their shipmate’s coffins to the refrains of Handel’s Dead March. The proceedings were well-attended by the international legations.

Photos from the event show Haack and his men prominently.

THM-3427

Note the Remington falling block 1867s with sword bayonets. THM-3426

THM-3421

While most foreign bodies recovered in Danish waters during the war– such as Jutland sailors buried at Frederikshavn cemetery– were simply interred in Danish soil with military honors, London approved a Danish ship to carry the E13 crew remains to return speedily to England.

This led the procession solemnly to the Det Forenetede Dampskibsselskab (DFDS) steamer SS Vidar (1,493 tons) while a crowd of thousands of Danes stood by to observe in procession, with Dannebrogs lowered at half-mast across the country.

Vidar carried the remains to Hull, accompanied by the Danish torpedo boats Springeren and Støren as escorts. Vidar carried a Danish Ministry of the Navy’s representative, CDR Rørd Regnar Johannes Hammer, a Knight Commander Dannebrogorden, with 39 years of service on his record, who was responsible for the steamer’s grim cargo. Most were later interred at the Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery. 
CWGC in Hampshire. 

The British consul in Denmark, Robert Erskine, commended the Danish authorities for the dignity and efficiency with which the handling of the dead was conducted.

As for the survivors, interned for the duration of the war under international law, they were put up at the Copenhagen Naval Yard under very loose custody– referred to by the Danes as engelske orlogsgaster (“English military guests”)– and allowed to travel around the city on their own recognizance.

The crew of the English submarine E13 before leaving for Russia in 1915. Half of these men would perish in Danish waters and the other half would cool their heels in Copenhagen for the duration. Had it not been for Soulven, their story would have been likely very different. THM-4680

The Danes likewise “entertained” assorted German naval personnel as well during the war, such as the crew of Zeppelin L.3. 

German Navy zeppelin LZ-24 (Luftschiff.3) participated in 24 reconnaissance missions over the North Sea, including the first raid on England on 20 January 1915. She was scuttled by her crew after a forced landing caused by an engine failure during a snowstorm on Fanø Island, Denmark on 17 February 1915. The crew were interned. Remnants of the zeppelin are displayed in a museum in Tonder, Denmark.

Rather than enjoy this comfortable prison, E13‘s skipper, LCDR Layton, accompanied by his No. 1, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, released himself from polite custody/parole, leaving a note behind to explain his actions, and made his way back to England via Sweden three months later.

The rest of E13’s crew remained in Denmark until after the Armistice. The sub’s third officer, Sub-LT William Garriock, RNR, was left behind to command these marooned submariners. 

Largely to prevent the Germans from attempting to do so, the Danes recovered E13 and towed it to Copenhagen.

E13 grounded at Saltholm, 1915 THM-6768

Shell-wrecked English submarine, E13, beached at Saltholm THM-12244

Salvage work on English submarine E13 at Saltholm THM-12245

English submarine E 13 under tow between pontoons and salvage steamers Odin and Thor. 1915. THM-4482

Her shell and shrapnel-ridden hull were on public display for the world to see.

English submarine E13 at Copenhagen harbour THM-12255

As were recovered relics including her pierced periscope and a shot-up prayer book.

The sub was put in drydock at Orlogsvaerftet, with her interned sailors allowed to come and claim personal property and mementos. Several even reportedly helped in the ultimately futile three-year effort to repair the vessel and place it in Danish service.

Ultimately, E13 was refloated and tied up alongside the Danish submarine tender Helka in 1918, used for training purposes.

Tender Hekla, British, submarine, E13 1918 THM-8938

THM-6767

U-bådsstationen, Cophenhangen. Petty officers aboard the Danish submarine tender Hekla in 1918. The group was photographed on deck in front of the ship’s stack. To the right is the tower of the salvaged HMS E13. THM-3494

In February 1919, after the Danish Navy washed their hands of the hulk, the British sold it to a local Danish company for its scrap value.

But back to our Søulven.

Continued Service

Søulven, returning to her role in protecting Denmark’s territorial sea, conducted several rescues and police actions in the Oresund before the end of the war, including capturing Swedish smugglers on two different occasions.

Photo showing the bridge of a torpedo boat with her bow 3″/52. To the left of the picture is the torpedo boat Soulven underway, seen from the front to port. Taken in the 1920s. THM-22312

Transferred to the reserves in 1929, along with her two sisters, Søridderen and Flyvefisken, and the three rival Tumlerens, they were collectively stricken in 1935-1937 and disposed of after they were replaced by the new and very strongly armed torpedo boats of the Dragen and Glenten classes.

Their hulls were stripped of anything usable and scrapped, with their 3″/52s recycled for use as coastal artillery around the Danish littoral for another decade. 

Danish Den næstnordligste 7,5 cm kanon i Hørhaven from old torpedo boats

Epilogue

Of our cast of characters, Soulven’s skipper and commander of the 1st TBF during the Great War, Eduard Haack, finished the war as head of coastal defense for Northern Denmark. He retired from the Navy in 1920, with his last post as inspector of lighthouses. He became chief ship inspector at Statens Skibstilsyn, the Danish Shipping Authority, the next year, and remained in that post until 1936. He then helped organize the Icelandic Shipping Authority and received, among other things, a knighthood in the Icelandic Falcon Order (Islandske Falkeorden) and was made a commander of the Dannebrogordenen order. Capt. Haack passed in 1956 and is buried at St. Olai cemetery in Kalundborg, aged 85.

The German admiral who gave the go-ahead for the attack on E13, Mischke, would end the war as a vizeadmiral and pass in 1932. His family is the owner of Lahneck Castle, which he purchased in 1907.

The two torpedo boats used in the attack on E13, G132, and G134, at the end of the war were disarmed and served as minesweepers out of Cuxhaven. Retained briefly by the Reichsmarine they were scrapped in 1921.

E13’s skipper went on to be known as ADM Sir Geoffrey Layton, GBE, KCB, KCMG, DSO. After returning to England via Sweden in time for Christmas in 1915, he was given command of the experimental steam submarine HMS S-1. Transitioning to capital ships in the 1930s, he started WWII as commander of the 1st Battle Squadron, consisting of the battleships HMS Barham, HMS Warspite, and HMS Malaya. Sent to command the ill-fated China Station in September 1940, he handed it over to Tom Phillips just before the Japanese went ham in the Pacific in December 1941. He went on to command British forces in Ceylon through 1945. Retiring in 1947 as head of Portsmouth, he passed in 1964.

ADM Layton

Layton’s XO, LT Paul Eddis, survived continued submarine service in the Great War only to be killed when his boat, HMS L24, was tragically lost with all hands in a collision with the battleship HMS Resolution off Portland on 10 January 1924. Subs are a dangerous game even in peacetime.

Speaking of which, the funeral transport for E13’s 15 recovered sailors, the Danish steamer Vidar, was herself sent to the bottom during WWII while traveling from Grimsby to Esbjerg via the Tyne with coal and general cargo, torpedoed by the German submarine U-21 (Kptlt. Wolf-Harro Stiebler) in the North Sea in January 1940– four months before Germany invaded neutral Denmark. In tragic irony, she carried 15 of her crew to the bottom.

The very well-marked Vidar. Photo courtesy of Danish Maritime Museum, Elsinore

The Danes would recycle the name of Soulven for use with a new class of fast torpedo boats ordered in the early 1960s from Britain (heard that before?). This Danish third torpedo boat Soulven (P 515) would serve from 1967 to 1990.

Danish Sea Lion Class Vosper PT boat MTB P 515 Søulven (The Sea Wolf)

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Flying Boat for the Win

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Late last month, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s 31st Air Group, 71st Air Squadron, at Iwakuni Air Base conducted an emergency airlift of an injured individual from a Chinese oceanographic research vessel off the east coast of Ogasawara, that involved a waterborne landing of a huge ShinMaywa Industries US-2 seaplane.

With a 108-foot wingspan and 109-foot length, the US-2 has a maximum take-off weight of 52 tons. They can take off and land in about 1,100 feet of relatively calm (under 11-foot seas) water. With an operational range of 2,500nm, these birds could be invaluable in the Pacific littoral in future years.

There is a dramatic, if short, video of the big blue bird while waterborne.

Too bad the U.S. Navy decommissioned its last flying boat squadron in 1967 and the USGC put the shorter-legged Grumman HU-16 “Goat” out to pasture in 1983.

Worse, the JMSDF only has eight US-2s. 

Taking a page from AUKUS, there should be a program to spin up a squadron or two of commercial off-the-shelf US-2s in NAVAIR service, with future American aircrews training alongside the Japanese while the airframes are crafted. Heck, maybe the funding could even be offset via F-35 spending. Just saying.

It’s certainly more realistic than the daffy amphibious MC-130 fever dream that SOCCOM has been suffering from. 

Life on one of the ‘Small Boys’

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Following up on our Warship Wednesday this week, which covered the Great War-era Admiralty Strath-class “battle trawler” HMT William Barnett (3632) and its later life as the French Navy’s auxiliary minesweeper Roche Noire during WWII, how about a great series of related period maritime art?

British portrait painter, landscape artist, and printmaker Francis Edgar Dodd, RA, turned 40 as the “lamps are going out all over Europe.”

Volunteering to serve as an Official War Artist during World War I, he spent some time at sea with the hired trawler HMT Mackenzie (Adty No 336) during the conflict.

One of more than 1,400 British trawlers taken up from trade— some dating back to 1880– Mackenzie was built in 1911 (Hull-reg H.349) and retained her original name while in naval service. A craft of some 335 tons, she was hired in August 1914 and would remain in RN service, armed with a single 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun, likely taken from an old torpedo boat or battleship fighting top.

Primarily serving as a minesweeper, Mackenzie was returned to her owner in 1919.

She was one of the lucky ones. Of the 1,456 hired trawlers used by the British during the war, 266 were lost during the conflict including no less than 142 to enemy action. They fought a war very much as real as those with the Grand Fleet at Jutland. 

Dodd captured the life on Mackenzie in great detail. You can almost smell the pipes’ smoke and coal dust. 

All of these pieces are from the Imperial War Museum Collection, which has some 80 of Dodd’s wartime pieces digitized and viewable online.

The After Cabin, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 904) image: four sailors sit around a large table, upon which are plates and cutlery, while behind are cabin windows; one sailor is seen full length, the others half body. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7556

A Cook in the Galley, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 896) image: three-quarter portrait of a man in overalls and cap, holding a mug in his left hand. He is sitting in a galley, with a large range, a pot, and a kettle on the left Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7548

Cleaning the Gun, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 898) image: standing on the left a sailor, wearing a life jacket, is thrusting a pole into the breech of a deck gun, most of the mechanism of which is to the right. Rigging and a white ensign are visible behind the gun, and other ships are visible on the horizon. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7550

Cards in the Fo’c’s’le, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 931) image: below decks in a confined space, five sailors stand and sit around a table playing cards, while two others look on. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7584

The Engine Room, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 897) image: two men stand in an enclosed space surrounded by the heavy machinery of a ship’s engine room. The man to the right, wearing a cap, has his left hand on the engine-room telegraph apparatus, while the man to the left, with a pipe in his mouth, has his right leg up on a step. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7549

Forward from the Wheelhouse, HM Trawler Mackenzie: the figures are just about to slip the ‘kite’ used to sink the wire hawser to the required depths for sweeping (Art. IWM ART 905) image: a view of the bow, mast, and starboard forward deck of a ship at sea. Two figures are bending over equipment on the deck, while a third stands on a ladder resting over the side of the ship. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7557

The Stokehold, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 903) image: in a cramped enclosed space of metal plating and machinery, a stoker is bent over shoveling coal from a bunker into a boiler. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7555

Sweeps to Starboard: HMT Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 909) image: in the foreground is a view over the side of a ship with minesweeping equipment deployed. Behind, a broad seascape with several other trawlers in the distance. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7562

The Wheelhouse, HM Trawler Mackenzie (Art. IWM ART 933) image: a view inside the wheelhouse of a ship, with two officers to the left and a sailor controlling the wheel, all in left profile. A binnacle is in the left foreground and another trawler is visible through the wheelhouse windows. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/7586

Warship Wednesday Oct. 9, 2024: A Cat with Several Lives

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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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024: A Cat with Several Lives

Photo by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD/Défense

Above we see, some 85 years ago this week in October 1939, a bachi-clad fisherman-turned-sailor and his hard-bitten cat mascot, aboard the merchant marine trawler Roche Noire (Black Rock), requisitioned and armed by the French Navy in the early days of WWII to serve as an auxiliary minesweeper (dragueur de mines auxiliaire). Sadly both the fisherman and his cat are lost to history.

As for Roche Noire, it wasn’t even her first war.

The RN’s Battle Trawlers

When the early days of the Great War showed that the British, while rich in battleships and cruisers, were lacking in small coastal escorts and mine warfare craft, the Admiralty soon turned to trawlers.

Dozens were taken up from trade in Hull and other fishing ports, others were requestioned on the builder’s ways, and still others were purchased from overseas. e.g. the large fishing fleets maintained in Spain and Portugal. 

Trawlers on patrol at Halifax, CWM

By 1916, with the Royal Navy hungry for an ever larger number of such hardy coastwise vessels, and many fishing boat yards near idle, the Admiralty soon placed orders for what would be an amazing 609 armed trawlers by the end of the war– many of which wound up being canceled.

As detailed by “British Warships 1914-1919” by F J Dittmar & J J Colledge, the RN ordered “military class” trawlers to three “standard” (and yes, that needs to be quoted) designs, this would include the 156-strong Mersey class (665 tons full load,148 feet oal), some 280 of the Castle/TR class (550 tons, 134 foot oal) and 173 members of the Strath class (429 tons full, 123 feet oal).

Lord Talbot was one of the new Admiralty Mersey class of trawlers. All were capable of using an auxiliary sail rig as shown.

Using a simple coal-powered boiler with a single vertical triple expansion reciprocating engine generating between 480 and 600 ihp depending on class, these vessels had a top speed of around 10 knots.

A stoker tending fires in an armed trawler. IWM (Q 18996)

Crewed by 15 to 20 men/boys, they had allowances in their plans for hydrophones and wireless sets, although precious few carried either– with the extra berths used for such specialists needed to operate the gear.

Most had the very basic armament of a single deck gun, typically a 3″/40 QF 12-pounder 12 cwt salvaged from retired destroyers and torpedo boats, placed well forward, along with whatever small arms could be scrounged.

The crew of a British armed trawler, including a boy sailor, receiving gun instruction. Great War. IWM (Q 18974)

Sailors on board British Steam trawler HMT Strathearn firing her 12-pounder gun, Great War. IWM (Q 18965)

A few carried larger 4-inchers, while some had to make do with smaller 6-pounders. Occasionally they would carry a bomb thrower (early depth charge projector), and some had basic mechanical sweeping gear installed.

Small arms were as motley as the trawlers themselves. 

Naval Reservists at Rifle Drill on a quayside; fixing bayonets. The crew of a British armed trawler drilling on shore. Great War. Note that the rifles appear to be a curious mix of Canadian Ross rifles, German Mausers, and old Lee-Metfords! IWM (Q 18972)

Same as above. You have to love the Martini-Henry cartridge cases. IWM (Q 18973)

The Straths were the smallest of the three designs. Compact little steam trawlers.

Ordered from a mix of 13 yards starting in February 1917, the most prolific of these builders would be the Scottish firm of Hall, Russell & Co Ltd, in Aberdeen, who had 66 under contract.

With so many different yards going all at once, the design inevitably changed from yard to yard and sometimes even from hull to hull, while the Admiralty itself contributed to the chaos by ordering minor “non-standard” changes of their own.

Delivery of the first standard Strath, HMT George Borthwick, occurred in August 1917.

With so many warships in need of names, these armed trawlers (His Majesty’s Trawler, or HMT) were bestowed the names drawn from the official crew rosters of ships at Trafalgar in 1805, with the Straths, in particular, coming from members of the crew of HMS Royal Sovereign and of Nelson’s HMS Victory.

Meet HMT William Barnett

Roche Noire entered the world in December 1917, constructed over four months at Hall, Russell (as Yard No. 622)  as a more or less standardized Strath-class armed trawler with a T3cyl (12, 20, 34 x 23in) engine constructed by the Dominion Bridge Co of Montreal.

Our subject as built was christened with the name of Petty Officer (Gunner’s Mate/Gunsmith) William Barnett, 31, of Scotland, who appeared on HMS Victory’s list of the 820 men who were awarded prize money and a Government Grant for enemy ships destroyed or captured during Trafalgar.

Digging deeper into Barnett’s service, he was born in Glasgow and volunteered for service in 1803 on the 64-gun HMS Utrecht as a Landsman before his transfer to Nelson’s flagship– where he would serve through Trafalgar. He would go on to serve on HMS Gelykheid, Zealand, Ocean, Salvador Del Mundo, Milford, and Prince Frederick, advancing to the rate of Armourer’s Mate, leaving the service in 1814.

Any gunner who sailed for more than a decade against Bonaparte deserves a ship named in his honor!

HMT William Barnett’s Admiralty Number was 3632.

Great War

Sadly, I could find no details of HMT William Barnett’s Great War service. Suffice it to say she almost assuredly spent 11 months across 1918 in a mix of dodging U-boats, escorting coastal traffic, searching for those lost at sea, guarding anti-torpedo/submarine nets at anchorages, and training young ratings.

Of her class, one member, HMT Thomas Collard (3686), was sunk in March 1918 by the German submarine SM U-19 while escorting the armed merchant cruiser HMS Calgarian North of Rathlin Island. Her crew survived.

Some deployed as far as the Adriatic and Aden.

Another classmate, HMT James Fennell (3753) would be wrecked at Blacknor Point, Portland.

Royal Navy armed trawlers in Dover harbor. IWM (Q 18226)

Eight early Straths (HMT Charles Blight, Peter Barrington, Joshua Budget, Richard Bowden, John Britton, Thomas Billincole, James Bashford, and Michael Brion) were loaned to the U.S. Navy during the war for patrol/mine work, specifically in laying and later taking up the Great North Sea Mine Barrage. The Americans would dispose of them in 1919.

British armed trawlers minesweeping in the North Sea. IWM (Q 18987)

Post-war, 23 Straths that were still under construction were canceled in 1919 while another 45 others that were sufficiently complete were finished to mercantile standards (unarmed) and sold as trawlers.

The 94 surviving members of the class in RN service were, following the dismantling of the North Sea Barrage, paid off slowly between 1919 and 1926– including Barnett— and, disarmed, were disposed of on the commercial market.

River Kelvin. Built 1919 for Scott & Sons Bowling Glasgow as Strath Class Trawler HMT George Lane. 05/1923 Acquired by Consolidated Steam Fishing & Ice Co Grimsby renamed River Kelvin. 09/1927 Registered to Consolidated Fisheries Ltd. 12/1938 Transferred to Lowestoft renamed Loddon registered LT 309. 1958 Sold to Craigwood Ltd Aberdeen. Photo via Deepseatrawlers.co.uk

Peacetime: Gone Fishing

Sold to Val Trawlers of London in 1919, Barnett became what she was designed to be from the outset– a commercial fishing boat. Named Valerie IV (sometimes seen as Valerie W), she would continue on this service out of Hull and Milford until October 1924.

Moving across the Channel, her registry soon changed to Soc. Nouvelle des Pecheries a Vapeur (New Steam Fisheries Co), in Arcachon along the Bay of Biscay just southwest of Bordeaux. With the name of Valerie IV no doubt needing a more Gallic upgrade, she became Roche Noire (ARC 3918).

In 1934, SNPV went belly up and its assets were liquidated by Credit de l’Quest. This left Roche Noire to be scooped up for a bargain price by Saint-Nazaire Penhoët Shipyards and Workshops, and operated by Nouvelle société de gestion maritime (New Maritime Management Company) out of Bordeaux (radio call sign TKED).

War! (Again)

With so many retired Straths floating around (pun intended) in 1939, it was a foregone conclusion several wound return to martial service.

Three ex-HMTs– William Hallett, James Lenham, and Isaac Harris— which had been sold on the commercial market in 1921, were taken back up by the RN in 1939– with Harris lost in December.

Three Straths in Australian waters, ex-HMTs William Fall, Samuel Benbow, and William Ivey; were taken up by the RAN as coastal minesweepers.

HMAS Samuel Benbow was in Sydney Harbour during the Japanese midget submarine attack in 1942. RAN image

Ex-HMTs William Bentley and Thomas Currell became Kiwi mine vessels in the RNZN.

Strath class HMT Thomas Currell as RNZN minesweeper during World War II

Meanwhile, in France, our William Barnett/Valarie IV/Roche Noire was requestioned by the French Navy in August 1939– even before the beginning of the war– and given hull number AD 355. Armed with a single elderly 75mm Schneider modèle 1897, she was to serve as an auxiliary minesweeper.

In October, during the doldrums of the “Phony War,” she was visited at Brest by photographer Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot who captured an amazing series of images of the (re)armed Admiralty trawler and her laid-back crew, now in the ECPAD archives.

Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Note her recently installed 75mm Schneider modèle 1897. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Note the mix of uniforms and civilian attire, augmented with bachi caps. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Dressing salted cod. Again, the only “uniform” item on many is the bachi. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Raidoman is at work. Among the “war installations” for the trawler was a radio set and searchlight. Other than that, she was all 1918. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Note her searchlight. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Commanded by a Petty Officer. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Who may have come from the retired list. Chalutier dragueur de mines auxiliaire Roche Noire, Oct. 1939, Brest, by Eugène Robert Philippe Petiot/ECPAD

Sadly, our humble Roche Noire was caught up in the fall of France in June 1940 and got the short end of the stick.

Two weeks after the “Miracle of Dunkirk” and just three days before the Armistice that brought about the Vichy regime, all ships fit to go to sea in Brest were ordered to either make for England or French colonies in Africa, ultimately carrying some 80,000 Commonwealth, Free Polish, and French troops with them.

The last ships to leave on the night of 18/19 June included the incomplete battleship Richelieu (bound for Dakar with just 250 shells and 48 powder charges for her main battery) and a flotilla under RADM Jean-Emmanuel Cadart composed of the five liners and cargo ships transporting 16,201 boxes and bags of gold– carried from Fort de Portzic by garbage trucks– escorted by the destroyers Milan and Épervier as well as the auxiliary cruiser Victor Schœlcher, bound for Casablanca.

Unable to sail, the torpedo boat Cyclone, patrol boat Étourdi the non-functional submarines Agosta, Achille, Ouessant, and Pasteur, the condemned tanker Dordogne, the auxiliary minelayer Alexis de Tocqueville, avisos Aisne, Oise, Laffaux, and Lunéville; the old armored cruisers Waldeck-Rousseau, Montcalm, and Gueydon; and a host of net-laying vessels, tugs, and assorted cargo ships were scuttled. They were joined by the armed trawlers Mouette, Trouville, Roche Noire, and Flamant.

Many of the crews of the scuttled ships made it out with RADM Cadart’s gold-carrying flotilla, so Roch Noire’s fishermen may likely have gone on to further adventures in North Africa and Senegal. 

The port facilities were likewise sabotaged, with 800 tons of gasoline and assorted ammunition stocks blown up.

Joachim Lemelsen’s 5th Panzer Division entered Brest on the 19th, and the Germans found little of immediate use, with the fires reportedly taking several days to die down.

Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-5683-29A, Brest, June 1940

The strategic port would go on to endure 1,553 days of occupation and a 43-day siege before the Germans surrendered in September 1944.

And, Back to Fishing

Immediately after taking control of Brest in 1940, Kriegsmarine VADM Eberhard “Hans” Kinzel would inspect the facility to see what was salvageable.

In his report, he would note:

The auxiliary minelayer Alexis de Tocqueville, the auxiliary patrol boat Mouette, and the auxiliary sweepers Roche Noire, and Flamant are recoverable, but the three latter are of little interest to the Kriegsmarine and could be returned to the Government of Herr Laval to ensure supplies for the population.

Shortly after, Roche Noire was raised and, after a stint in Vichy use, was removed from the French naval rolls in November 1941. She was allowed to return to fishing.

Post-war, she continued to harvest her stocks from the deep for over a decade.

In 1957, she was sold across the Channel again, returning home to be added to the inventory of Wood & Davidson – J. Wood, Aberdeen. That year she was listed in Lloyds as FV Shandwick.

Eventually, all things come to an end, and our little trawler, which served in both wars, was finally broken up in 1964.

Epilogue

Little remains of the hardy Strath-class armed trawlers, save for a few wrecks and scattered relics. 

Some models are available.

The City of Aberdeen, where many Straths were completed, maintains several models, photos, and records of these otherwise forgotten trawlers.

German VADM Kinzel, who moved to resurrect our little trawler at Brest in 1940, survived the war only to take his own life in June 1945 near Flensburg.

And, while the Admiralty hasn’t elected to recycle the names of the old Strath class, Armourer’s Mate William Barnett included, HMS Victory, currently under a “Big Repair,” endures at Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday Sept. 25, 2024: Fearless Outpost

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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

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024: Fearless Outpost

Above we see the business end of the Surprise class three-masted canonnière de station, Zélée in her gleaming white tropical service livery, before 1915.

Some 110 years ago this week, this humble colonial gunboat stood up to a pair of German armored cruisers that outclassed her in every way, and in the end, forced them to retire empty-handed.

The Surprise class

Built for colonial service, the three sisters of the 680-ton Surprise class– Suprise, Décidée (Decided), and Zelee (Zealous)– were compact steam-powered gunboats/station ships, running just 184 feet overall length and 26 of beam with a mean draught of just over 10 feet.

They were one of the last designs by noted French naval architect and engineer Jacques-Augustin Normand, who built the country’s first steamship.

Composite construction, they were wooden framed with a hull of hardened steel plates sheathed in copper below the waterline. The hull was segmented via nine waterproof bulkheads. A small generator provided electric lighting topside and belowdecks as well as a powering a large searchlight atop the wheelhouse. Radio sets would be retrofitted later.

Using a pair of Niclausse boilers (Surprise had cylindrical boilers) to supply steam to a horizontal triple expansion engine of 900 horses, they had a maximum speed of 13.4 knots and a steaming radius, on 75 tons of mid-grade coal, of 2,700nm at 10 knots. They carried three masts and were rigged as a barkentine, reportedly able to make six knots under canvas to stretch that endurance.

Armament was a pair of Mle 1891 3.9″/45 guns, fore and aft with limited firing arcs, four Mle 1891 2.6″/50 9-pounders on the beam, and six M1885 37mm 1-pounder Hotchkiss rapid fire guns including one in the fighting tops of each mast and two on the bridge wings.

No shell hoists meant chain gangs to reload from an amidships below deck magazine. While torpedo tubes would have been ideal for these slow gunboats, there seems to have been no thought to adding them.

Crew would be a mix of six officers and 80-ish ratings including space for a small det of marines (Fusiliers marins), to be able to land a platoon-sized light infantry force to rough it up with the locals if needed. Speaking of the locals, in line with American and British overseas gunboats of the era, when deployed to the Far East these craft typically ran hybrid crews with most service and many deck rates recruited from Indochina and Polynesia, which had the side bonus of having pidgin translators among the complement.

Meet Zelee

Our gunboat was the second in French naval service to carry the name. The first was a trim 103-foot Chevrette-class corvette built at Toulon for the Napoleonic fleet and commissioned in 1812. Armed with a pair of 4-pounder cannon and 12-pounder carronades, she saw extensive service in the Spanish Civil War in 1823, was on the Madagascar Expedition in 1830, and later, after conversion to steam power in 1853, was used as a station ship in assorted French African colonies for a decade then, recalled to Lorient, spent another 20 years as an accommodation ship and powder hulk before she was finally disposed of in 1887 after a long 71-year career.

She is probably best known for taking part in Jules Dumont d’Urville’s second polar expedition to Antarctica together with the corvette Astrolabe, a successful four-year voyage that filled reams of books with new observations and charts. The report on the expedition (Voyage au pole sud et dans l’Océanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée exécuté par ordre du roi pendant les années 1837-1838-1839-1840) spans 10 volumes alone.

The expedition discovered what is known as Adélie Land, which endures as France’s Antarctic territory and base for their Dumont d’Urville Station. Zelee’s skipper on the voyage was LT (later VADM) Charles Hector Jacquinot, a noted French polar explorer in his own right who went on to be a big wheel in the Crimean War.

The Corvettes Astrolabe and Zélée in the ice, likely near the coast of Antarctica, 9 February 1838. By Auguste-Etienne-François Mayer c. 1850, via the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our second Zelee was the third of her class and laid down at Arsenal de Rochefort in April 1898, built in the same slip that sister Décidée had just departed. Of note, Surprise was constructed by Normand at Le Havre and completed in 1896.

As completed, she originally carried a black hull. Her first of eight skippers was LT Louis Rémy Antoine Exelmans.

French gunboat Zélée, fitting out near the aviso Mésange, in 1899 at Rochefort.

Canonnière Zélée sur la Charente, 1900, soon after delivery.

Same as the above.

Quiet Antebellum Service

Soon after delivery, class leader Surprise was later joined by sisters Décidée and Zelee caught orders for the Far East.

Painted white and given a lot of leeway in appearance, they roamed, typically separately, from Indochina to China where they served on the Yangtze and as station ships in Nanchang, to Japan, New Caledonia, and Polynesia.

Décidée Saigon

French Canonnière de station Surprise, Haiphong, with canvas covering her decks and her laundry aloft. Surprise would later be moved to Africa, where she would remain until 1916. 

The gunboat Zélée in Hanavave Bay, Baie des Vierges, Fatu Hiva Island, 1910. Collection: The Marquesas Islands

Zelee while visiting Australia. Australian National Maritime Museum. Samuel J. Hood Studio ~ Object № 00035067

French Zélée gunboat Papeete Tahiti 

In December 1913, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Maxime Francois Emile Destremau (Ecole Navale 1892) arrived to take command of Zelee, then stationed in the backwater Tahitian capital of Papeete.

While ostensibly a “French” colony since 1880, at the time the little harbor only had 280 French residents along with over 350 British and Commonwealth, 215 Chinese, 100 Americans, 50 Japanese, and some 30 or so Germans as well as a few Greeks, Swedes, and Spaniards. The truth was you were far more likely at the time to hear English on the narrow palm-lined streets of Papeete than French.

The colony had big plans. It was even slated to receive, sometime in 1915, a station de téléphonie sans (TFS) wireless station. Until then, it had to rely on semi-regular mail services from France, typically a six-week trip at its most rapid.

As for Destremau, the 37-year-old lieutenant had seen over 20 years of sea service including on the avisoes Scorff and Eure, the cruiser Eclaireur, and the early submarines Narval, Gustave-Zéde and Pluviose. His mission in French Oceania consisted mainly of showing the Tricolor from island to island and doing the old “hearts and minds” thing that goes back to the Romans.

Destremau, who had spent his career largely at Toulon and Brest, seemed to enjoy his Pacific deployment, creeping his shallow-draft gunboat into atolls that rarely saw the Navy.

In a February 1914 letter home, related via Combats et batailles sur mer (Septembre 1914-Décembre 1914) Avec cinq cartes dressées par Claude Farrère et Paul Chack, Destremau wrote:

Since yesterday we have been sailing in a truly strange way. We have crossed a large lagoon of about sixty kilometers, of which there is no map and which is full of submerged rocks. You can distinguish them by the change in color of the water and you avoid them as best you can. After four hours of this exercise under a blazing sun, we are very happy to arrive at the anchorage, where I find a charming little village hidden in the coconut trees. As the Zélée had never been there, we were given a real ovation. A meeting on the water’s edge of the entire population in full dress; gifts of coconuts and chickens, and organization of songs for the evening. Ravishing choirs, extremely accurate voices, and harmonies of a truly astonishing modernism. Just ten men and ten women are enough to compose an ensemble in at least six parts, with solo calls, an ensemble in at least six parts, with solo calls, admirable rhythm, and measure!

Postcards exist of her idyllic time in Polynesia.

gunboat Zélée (left) and the armored cruiser Montcalm in Tahiti in 1914

Tahiti Papeete Harbor– Arrival of Australian and American Couriers, Zelee is in the center background, with a giant Tricolor

Tahiti. – Pirogues ornées, 14 Juillet 1914, et Zelee

War!

In early August 1914, the entire armada under the command of RADM Albert Louis Marie Huguet’s Division navale d’Extreme-Orient— a force whose area of operation spanned from the Bay of Bengal to the Yangtze to Noumea to Tahiti– was not very impressive and, worse, was thinly spread.

His flag was on the cruiser Montcalm (9,177 tons, 21 knots, 2×7.6″, 8×6.4″, circa 1902), then steaming to New Caledonia after a rare visit to Polynesia. Another old cruiser, Dupleix (7,432 tons, 20 knots, 8×6.4″, circa 1903), was in Chinese waters. The dispatch vessel Kersaint (1,276 tons, 16 knots, 1×5.5″, 5×3.9″, circa 1897) was laid up at Noumea but was soon to be rearmed. Décidée was in Saigon. And in Polynesia was Zelee.

That’s it.

When the news hit that France and Germany were at war on 6 August– three days after the fact– Zelee was visiting the island of Raiatea, about 150 miles west of Tahiti. Immediately, the 36-year-old artist Joseph Ange Léon Octave Morillot, a naval officer who had resigned his commission in 1906 while on Polynesian station to go native, paint local topless women, and smoke opium, presented himself to Destremau and voluntarily returned to duty as a reserve ensign.

Setting out for Papeete with the news and an extra officer, Zelee arrived on the 7th.

By that time the colony was in full panic mode, with the belief that the German Bussard-class unprotected cruisers SMS Geier and Cormoran (1900t, 15 knots, 8×4.1″/35 guns, 2 tt) were typically in Samoa, just a five-day steam away from Tahiti. As Tahiti was a coaling station for the French fleet, some 5,000 tons of good Cardiff coal was on hand, which would make a valuable prize indeed.

As far as coastal defenses at Tahiti, as early as 1880, the French Navy had built a fort equipped with nine muzzle-loading black powder cannons to protect the entrance to Papeete but it had fallen into disrepair, its garrison removed in 1905 and its guns dismounted. As noted, by 1914, “the artillery pieces were lying limply on the ground among the flowers and moss. The gun carriages, covered with climbing plants, were firmly secured by a tangle of perennial vines of the most beautiful effect. In short, the tropical forest, exuberant, had reclaimed its rights and buried the battery.”

The island’s Army garrison consisted of a Corsican lieutenant by the name of Lorenzi and 25 Troupes Coloniales. When the Tahitian gendarmes were mobilized, they added another 20 locals and a French adjutant. Soon the word got around and reservists stumbled forward until Lorenzi commanded a mixed force of 60 rifles, who were soon drilling 12 hours a day.

French reservists also come running. each of whom is assigned a post. From the bush, we see emerging, with long beards and tanned skin, Frenchmen steeped in the land of Tahiti and who have become more Maori than the Maoris themselves, men who live, love, and think in Tahitian. At first, they hesitate a little to speak the beautiful language of France, but very quickly they find it again in their heads the marching songs that they sang every day during the field service hikes, so hard under the tropical sun.

With the possibility that two German cruisers, capable of landing a 150-man force, could be inbound, and with the likelihood that Zelee could survive a gun battle with either, the decision was made to write off the gunboat and move most of her men and guns ashore to make a dedicated land-based defense.

Destremau had a small wardroom– Ensign 1c PTJ Barnaud as XO, Ensign LSM Barbier, Ensign RJ Charron, Midshipman H. Dyevre, Midshipman 2c JA Morier, and Asst. Surgeon (Medecin de 2e classe, Medecin-major) C. Hederer. Meanwhile, his crew numbered 90.

Using sweat, yardarm hoists, and jacks, the crew dismounted the stern 3.9-incher (for which there were only 38 shells), all four 2.6-inchers, and all six 37mm 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns. They left the forward 3.9 mount and 10 shells.

Rigging a line from the harbor to the top of the 100-meter hill overlooking it, a roadcrew was formed to slowly muscle up the five large guns to the top. Meanwhile, the six Hotchkiss guns were mounted on as many requisitioned Ford trucks from a local copra concern– primitive mobile artillery– led by Ensign Dyevre. Ensign Barnaud formed a group of 42 riflemen who, with Dyevre’s gun trucks, formed a mobile reserve.

Destremau (center, with cap) and his staff in Tahiti: Ensigns Barbier and Barnaud, midshipmen Dyèvre and Le Breton, colonial infantry LT Lorenzi.

One of the ship’s engineers formed a section of dispatch riders mounted on proffered bicycles. The signalers formed a series of semaphore stations at the top of the hill battery visible to the old fort 18 km to the east, and the end of the lagoon five km to the west. Bonfires were built to signal at night. Within days, telephone lines connected the whole affair. Two old bronze cannons were mounted at the hilltop semaphore station and Pic Rouge in the distance, ready to fire as signal guns. Gunners mined the channel markers, ready to blow when needed. Likewise, plans were made to burn the coal depot.

The colony’s resident Germans as well as the Teutonic members of the captured Walküre’s crew, were interned and moved to the island of Motu-Uta in the harbor. In deference to their neighbors, they were not placed under guard, simply left in their own tiny penal colony in the middle of paradise.

The painter Morillot, taking it upon himself to become a one-man recruiting officer, made daily trips to the island’s interior in search of warm bodies. Soon there were more volunteers than there were rifles or positions on the gun crews.

With the whole island in a state of tense pre-invasion alarm, on 12 August the British-built German Rhederei line cargo steamer Walküre (3932 GRT) appeared offshore. Loaded with a cargo of phosphates from Chile and headed to Australia, she was unaware of the state of war.

Ensign Barbier, racing to Zelee with a skeleton crew, managed to raise steam and, with 10 shells quickly returned to the gunboat by Dyevre for its sole remaining 3.9-incher, soon set off to pursue the German steamer.

With Dyevre leading the boarding crew, pistols in hand, Walküre was captured without a shot. Impounding the vessel– with the support of her mixed British and Russian crew– our gunboat and her prize returned to Papeete to the reported wild cheers of her colonists.

By 20 August, the colony was as ready as it was going to get, with the five large guns of the ersatz battery commanding the harbor and pass, trenches dug, observation posts manned, 150 armed if somewhat motley irregular infantry, and six 37mm gun trucks, all there was to do was wait.

They had a month to stew.

Enter Von Spee

While Geier and Cormoran never made it to Tahiti, Admiral Maximillian Von Spee’s two mightiest ships in the Pacific, the 11,400-ton twin armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, did.

Scharnhorst and her sister were very distinctive with their four large funnels.

With a mission to seize the port and its desperately needed coal supply, and with no Allied warships within several days of the isolated colony other than our tiny (and largely toothless Zelee), it should have been a cakewalk.

With each of the big German cruisers packing eight 8.2-inch and another six 5.9-inch guns, and able to put a battalion size landing force ashore, the sight of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau appearing like a phantom from the sea smoke just 2,000 meters off the reef at Papeete at 0630 on 22 September 1914 was a shock to Destremau.

The signal cannon fired and the phones rang. Soon, Papeete became a desert as its inhabitants, long ready to bug out, took to the interior.

Orders came quick.

Barbier was ordered to rush to Zelee with 10 men and light her boilers, to ram the German cruiser closest to the pass once she had enough steam. The coal yard was set alight. The channel beacons went up in a flash of light and smoke. A crew on Walküre rushed to open her seacocks and she soon began settling on the bottom of the harbor.

Ensign Charron, in charge of the battery, was ordered to hold his fire until small boats began to gather for a landing which was logical as the popguns wouldn’t have done much to the German cruisers but could play god with a cluster of packed whaleboats.

By 0740, after a 70-minute wait, after steaming slowly in three circles just off the reef, first Scharnhorst and then Gneisenau opened up on the town and as retribution for the billowing smoke from the prized coal yard and the sinking Walküre.

By 0800, the fire shifted to Zelee, whose funnel was making smoke.

By 0820, the wrecked gunboat was filling with water, Barbier and his men moving to abandon their little warship– the crew in the end finished the job of the Germans by opening Zelee’s water intakes to the harbor.

Some accounts list 14 shots of 8.2-inch and another 35 of 5.9-inch fired by the German cruisers by 0900, others put the total count higher to 80 shells. Von Spee, afraid the harbor could be mined, retired, his plan to fuel his ships with French coal spoiled. He would miss those irreplaceable shells at the Falklands in December.

Two residents of the colony, a Polynesian child and a Japanese expat, were killed as well as several injured.

Estimates that as much as half of Papeete was destroyed in the bombardment.

The bombardment of Papeete, capital of Tahiti, a French possession in the Pacific. Showing a panoramic view of Papeete, capital of Tahiti, after being shelled by the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The numbers indicate: 1. German prisoners under an armed guard, after having been compelled to assist in clearing away the debris resulting from the bombardment. 2. The market where all perishable food (…?) 3. Ruins of the back premises of Messrs A B Donald Ltd., with the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the background and the signal station on the hill to the right. Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 22 October 1914, p.43. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19141022-43-01

Divers went down to Zelee just hours after the Germans steamed away, and recovered the ship’s tricolor. It was presented to Destremau.

German propagandists remembered the raid in spectacular fashion, complete with incoming fire from shore batteries and the ships coming in far closer to the harbor.

Die Kreuzer Scharnhorst and Gneisenau beschießen Papeete, die Hautpstadt von Tahiti, by Willy Moralt, via the Illustrierte Geschichte des Weltkrieges 1914.

Epilogue

Zelee would be partially salvaged in 1925 but remains a well-known dive site in the Tahiti area.

Her on-shore 3.9-inch gun is preserved at Bougainville Park in Papeete.

Sister Surprise would also be lost during the war, torpedoed by U-38 in December 1916 in Funchal on the island of Madeira.

Décidée survived the conflict and went to the breakers in 1922.

The French navy recycled Zelee’s name once again in 1924 on the 285-ton remorqueur-patrouilleur Zelee (ex-Lakeside) which served into 1950.

As for the German freighter Walküre, she was salvaged and repaired, then sold to an American company and would remain in service until 1925.

The painter Morillot hung up his uniform after the bombardment and returned to his painting, opium, and women, passing in 1931.

Denigrated by the governor general of Tahiti– who hid in a church during the bombardment while Destremau handled the defense– our gunboat skipper was ordered back to France to face an inquiry board. Given interim command of the destroyer Boutefeu while the board hemmed and hawed about meeting, Destremau died in Toulon of illness on 7 March 1915, aged but 39.

His decorations came posthumously.

He was cited in the order of the army nine months after passing (JO 9 Dec. 1915, p. 8.998):

Lieutenant Destremau, commanding the gunboat La Zélée and the troops in Papeete, was able, during the day of 22 September 1914, to take the most judicious measures to ensure the defense of the port of Papeete against the attack of the German cruisers Sharnorst and Gneisenau. Demonstrated in the conduct of the defense operations the greatest personal bravery and first-rate military qualities which resulted in preserving the port of Papeete and causing the enemy cruisers to move away.

After the war, he was awarded the Legion of Honor in March 1919.

A street in Papeete carries his name.

The salvaged flag from Zelee was maintained by Destremau’s family until 2014 when, on the 100th anniversary of the gunboat’s loss, it was returned to the French Navy who maintain it as a relic at the Papeete naval base.

The colony’s newest station ship/gunboat, the 262-foot Teriieroo a Teriierooiterai (P780) arrived at Papeete in May after a two-month transit from France.

The more things change… 

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Coastie Kingfishers

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The Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane, with over 1,500 OS2U-3 delivered between August 1940 and December 1942, is and will forever be remembered as a U.S. Navy asset. After all, it flew during WWII from most of the fleet’s battleships and cruisers as well as from seaplane tenders resting inshore/near-shore and from coastal bases.

It went overseas as Lend Lease aid to Australia, Britain, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Uruguay, and others.

They were also flown extensively by the U.S. Coast Guard who was the second most prolific non-USN operator behind the RN’s Fleet Air Arm.

Beginning in March 1942 the USCG received the first of what would be 76 Kingfishers. Most (68) would be late-model OS2U-3s, but there would also be at least seven earlier OS2U-2s and a single early OS2N-1.

They were based, typically in two or four-aircraft dets, to several East and Gulf Coast CG Air Stations for coastal patrol.

OS2U-3; “‘Sea Birds’ With a Sting: Wings of the fighting U.S. Coast Guard, these ‘Sea Birds’ pack a sting–powerful depth charges–for enemy submarines molesting United Nations’ convoys. Photographed at an East Coast air base [Air Station Salem], the Coast Guard planes are about to take off on convoy patrol.” No date; Photo No. 224; photographer unknown; four OS2Us in line, on the tarmac in front of hangar at Coast Guard Air Station Salem; from ground level. USCG Historian’s Office

CGAS Biloxi Kingfisher in Back Bay with 325-pound depth charges on-water

“Tough Sea Bird” Kingfisher OS2U-3s flown by Coast Guard aviators over a coastal convoy. NARA 026-g-023-059-001

“The Eyes of Coast Guard,” 26 December 1942. OS2U Kingfishers on antisubmarine patrol, NARA 026-g-023-035-001

As detailed by CG Aviation History:

Their primary purpose was to provide the Coast Guard’s early anti-submarine efforts along the coastlines of the United States. Area patrols were flown and air cover for merchant convoys was provided. They carried two 325 aerial depth charges and could fly patrols of up to six hours.

None of the OS2Us were credited with sinking a submarine but they did make a number of attacks on submarines along the seaboards. There were 61 recorded attacks on enemy submarines made by Coast Guard aircraft. The preponderance of these was made in 1942 when there was a heavy concentration of German submarines off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

As seen in yesterday’s Warship Wednesday with the survivors of the heroic cutters Bedloe and Jackson, they also made and coordinated many rescues of survivors from torpedoed and lost ships.

The type was withdrawn from USCG service in October 1944.

The Coast Guard remembers the type well through its Art Program over the years. 

“This image depicts artwork of an OS2U3 floatplane performing an aerial attack on a submarine. A U.S. Coast Guard amphibian plane sweeps down from the sky and scores a direct bomb hit on a surfaced Nazi U-boat.” Artwork by USCG artist Hunter Wood. NARA 205575756

Another of Hunter Wood’s USCG Kingfisher vs U-boat series paintings, NARA 205575761

“Vought Kingfisher, Circa 1942, OS2U-3,” William Ellsworth, watercolor, 11 x 15. U.S. Coast Guard Art Program Collection, Ob ID # 200120

“Achtung! Achtung!” by George Schoenberger: A Coast Guard OS2U-3 Kingfisher patrol, plane surprises a German U-boat on the surface off the Atlantic Coast during World War II. The submarine is waiting for stragglers from a convoy just over the horizon. U.S. Coast Guard Art Program Collection

“Where needed, we go,” An OS2U Kingfisher seaplane enters a storm on search patrol. William Ellsworth. Chinese ink, 15 x 11. U.S. Coast Guard Art Program 2005, Ob ID # 200510

American USCG Wolves?

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The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119) sails alongside the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Northland (WMEC 904) and the Royal Canadian Navy offshore patrol vessels HMCS Margaret Brooke (AOPV 431) and HMCS Harry DeWolf (AOPV 430) while conducting a photo exercise during Operation NANOOK (OP NANOOK) in the Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 18, 2024. OP NANOOK is the Canadian Armed Forces’ annual series of Arctic exercises designed to enhance defense capabilities, ensure the security of northern regions, and improve interoperability with allied forces. Delbert D. Black participated in the operation alongside the U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian and Danish allies to bolster Arctic readiness and fulfill each nation’s defense commitments. (U.S. Navy photo 240818-N-MA550-1086 by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Rylin Paul)

The U.S. Coast Guard Arctic Strategy has been in a holding pattern for the past decade.

In that time, no (as in zero) new ice-capable ships have been added to the fleet or even progressed so far as to be christened. This while the country’s only medium polar icebreaker has suffered a fire that forced her to abort her latest NSF mission and the country’s only heavy polar icebreaker going through never-ending cycles of rebuilding the 50-year-old ship for 240 days a year to be able to accomplish the annual Deep Freeze resupply mission to Antarctica.

While the agency is spending $125 million on the troubled but supposedly “off the shelf” ice-capable oil field supply boat Aiviq and plans to base it in Alaska, the “The Service anticipates the vessel will reach initial operational capability in two years.”

Likewise, the multi-billion dollar effort to build the planned class of Polar Security Cutters seems to be almost for naught, with GAO griping that the design hasn’t even been finished yet despite the contract being awarded in 2019. While three of these big (22,000-ton) WMSPs are authorized, the first one will not hit its Seattle homeport until at least 2028– and don’t hold your breath on that.

Meanwhile, the only blue water cutter based in Alaska, the nearly 60-year-old USCGC Alex Haley (WMEC 39)— which often bumps into Russian naval assets in the Bearing Sea-– isn’t getting any younger. She needs a rapid replacement. 

The solution? Pump to brakes on the PSC to make sure we get it right and order a few Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessels from Canada to help walk the beat.

HMCS Harry DeWolf

The Canadians have four of these 6,600-ton/340-foot vessels in service and two under construction with two more on order for the RCN and two unarmed near-sister Arctic and offshore patrol ships (AOPS) for the Canadian Coast Guard which are currently under construction. The eighth and final ship will be delivered in 2028. The cost is about $700 million U.S. per hull. 

The Wolfs are ugly, but have a good bit of capability, being capable of operating year-round in Polar Class 4-5 ice (up to 3.9 feet of first-year ice), while embarking a big helicopter (the 30,000-pound Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone, which goes four tons heavier than the HH/SH/MH-60) and UAVs along with two large 28-foot cutters and a 40-foot landing craft.

Slow (17 knots) they have long legs (6,800nm unrefueled), able to cover the entire 1,900-mile span of the Northwest Passage, or the shorter Seattle-to-Kodiak or Boston-to-Thule runs with ease. The complement is 65, with spare berthing for embarked heli/drone dets and scientific nerds.

Armed for a constabulary “presence” and sovereignty mission they carry an enclosed Mk 38 Mod 3A 25 mm cannon and provision for a few .50 caliber mounts. In USCG service, this could be repeated and the Mk 38 updated to a 30mm gun– which is already planned for the Polar Security Cutter. I say add some Naval Strike Missiles for some serious teeth.

Produced by Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax, Nova Scotia, they are a tweak of the Norwegian Coast Guard NoCGV’s Svalbard (W303), a 6,400-ton/340-foot icebreaker and offshore patrol vessel that entered service in 2001.

Ordering while the line is hot speeds up delivery and reaps the benefit of the RCN being the beta tester on the first flight ships, allowing improvements and lessons learned to be folded into the new USCG hulls. Crews could be spun up quickly by deploying chiefs and junior officers on RCN vessels. 

Further, the Trudeau government would likely be open to selling 2-3 of the ships already under construction to the U.S. to speed up the acquisition process then “forgetting” to replace them for RCN, and CCG. If nothing else, they could be launched at Irving and finished in American yards (or at the USCG Yard) with Irving’s assistance to soothe the “not made here/American jobs” noise in Congress. 

Trudeau probably would have canceled them anyway.

Green Side Blue Dives

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Always nice to see the “Marines back in Submarines” so to speak.

Check out these recent images of Force Reconnaissance Marines from the 2nd Recon Battalion conducting dive operations near the submarine USS Georgia (SSGN-729), in the Mediterranean Sea.

240727-N-DE439-1001

Of course, the Recon Marines are wearing more basic open-circuit skin diving rigs than cool guy closed-circuit Draegers, but training is training.

Plus, they got a chance to CRRC it up from Georgia’s deck, a task that the Marines are spending more time doing going forward with the whole switch from Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV) to Littoral Craft by units such as the 4th Amtrac Bn.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (July 31, 2024) U.S. Marines from the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, assigned to Task Force 61/2, conduct dive operations with Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Georgia (SSGN 729) while underway in the Mediterranean Sea July 31, 2024. (U.S. Navy Courtesy Photo)

The old stubborn mule of the SSGN force, Georgia, formerly SSBN-729, is officially homeported in Kings Bay but tends to roam far and wide. For instance, a 100K mile/790-day forward deployment in 2020-22 that included crossing into the Persian Gulf.

Christened back in 1982, she conducted 65 strategic deterrent patrols as a bomber before she was converted to her current cruise missile & commando bus format which she has sported for the past 20 years.

While in the Med as part of the Sixth Fleet, she just got orders for what could be a very busy trip.

Second EPF Flight II inbound

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The Navy christened its 15th Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport operated by Military Sealift Command, the future USNS Point Loma (T-EPF 15), in Mobile over the weekend.

The Spearheads have been quietly getting it done around the world. For instance, sister USNS Yuma (EPF 8) just returned to Norfolk after six years of being forward deployed in the Mediterranean, a tour that included “19 countries, 48 ports of calls visited, over 167,000 nautical miles traveled.”

However, Point Loma will be the second EPF Flight II ship in the series, in short, a theatre mini-hospital ship capable of carrying an embarked Navy (or civilian Public Heath Service) medical unit, two operating rooms, and the ability to support 147 medical patients and 38 MSC civilian crew.

As noted by Austal:

EPF Flight II provides a Role 2E (enhanced) medical capability which includes, among other capabilities, basic secondary health care built around primary surgery; an intensive care unit; ward beds; and limited x-ray, laboratory, and dental support. The EPF’s catamaran design provides inherent stability to allow surgeons to perform underway medical procedures in the ship’s operating suite. Enhanced capabilities to support V-22 flight operations and launch and recover 11-meter Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats complement the ship’s medical facilities. These Flight II upgrades along with EPF’s speed, maneuverability, and shallow water access are key enablers for mission support of future Distributed Maritime Operations and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations around the world. Flight II retains the capability of Flight I to support other missions including core logistics.

The Navy is currently embarking a 35-member Expeditionary Medical Unit (EMU) aboard the first EPF Flight II ship delivered by Austal USA, USNS Cody (T-EPF 14), at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story. The equipment for EMUs is contained within ten 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which facilitates storing and transporting the authorized medical and dental allowance list items.

Some pics of EMU-1 on Cody:

This is over and above the upcoming USNS Bethesda (EMS-1) which will be one of a planned three more full-time white-hulled expeditionary medical ships based on the Spearheads.

Ball of Fire

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How many stinging Beaus can you count in this image that makes you feel sorry for the German M class minesweepers escorting a convoy off the Dutch coast, north-west of Borkum, seen some 80 years ago today, 12 August 1944?

RNZAF Photo via the IWM (C 5169)

Bristol Beaufighters MkXs from No 455 RAAF Squadron and No 489 RNZAF Squadron (together these two Squadrons formed the ANZAC Strike wing) attack German ships with a mix of RP-3 Rockets, 20mm cannons, and .303 machine gun fire.

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