Warship Wednesday: Jan. 20, 2016 The Slow boat up the Paraguay River
ARP Paraguay 2005
Here we see the Humaitá-class gunboat (cañonera) ARP Paraguay (C1) of La Armada Paraguya (go figure) as she sits in 2005. Though she may look humble, she and her sister were a force to reckon with in their day.
With tensions mounting with neighbor Bolivia over the Chaco region in the early late 1920s, landlocked Paraguay has access to the Atlantic through the river system and has had an organized armada to patrol that system (and poke its head out into the ocean from time to time) since about 1900.
However, the fleet of small river coasters just was not going to cut it with a looming war. You see the rugged Chaco was thought at the time to be a rich source of petroleum and with Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia; it was only a matter of time before one of the world’s first and worst petro wars, La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for “The War of the Thirst”) kicked off. While full fledged war did not erupt until 1932, a number of border incidents in 1927 and increasing troop movements into the area were a clear escalation that could really only lead to the balloon going up.
With that in mind, Paraguay, allied with Argentina, ordered a pair of 850-ton, 229-foot gunboats from Odero-Terni-Orlando, in Italy in 1928 at a cost of £300,000 total after shopping around in other yards throughout Europe. These craft were designed by local Paraguayan dockyard manager Capt. José Bozzano.
Bozzano, a man of many talents, would later use his Armada dockyard crew to make over 30,000 locally produced Paraguayan grenades plus 25,000 mortar grenades (and the mortars to fire them), 7,500 aerial bombs and some 2,000 vehicles during the Chaco War. Talk about buy local.
Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá without her main armament, shortly after being launched
Anyway, the two gunboats, ARP Humaitá (C2) and ARP Paraguay (C1), arrived in Paraguay on May 5, 1931 with mostly Italian crews and they were pretty neat. Though about the size of a frigate or sloop of the time, they could float in just 5.5 feet of freshwater. Further, they were pretty much the most heavily armed river boats of all time.
Main 4.7-inch twin guns of the Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá before being mounted. Pretty damn big for a river gunboat
Protected from small arms fire and shrapnel by a half-inch steel belt (3/4 inch on the conning tower), they carried an impressive battery of no less than seven 76mm (three Ansaldo 76 mm AAA cannons) and 120mm guns (two twin Ansaldo 4.7 in guns) as well as machine guns and a half-dozen large naval mines to cripple Bolivian shipping should it exist (it did not other than a few small ~100 foot long craft).
Cañonera Paraguay shuttling troops up river. Its all assholes to elbows
Each gunboat could cart a full regiment of infantry up river and drop them off to go do the Lord’s work in slaughtering Bolivians looking for oil.
Since then, these two gunboats have been involved in a couple of coups, the Paraguayan Civil War (Paraguay and Humaita, were both seized by the rebels in Buenos Aires while they were undergoing repairs), carried Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina into exile, gave surface commands to retired Kriegsmarine officers in the 1960s and, largely due to the fact that they have spent almost their whole lives in freshwater, are still around in some sort of service today.
Ah Peron being shipped away on ARP Paraguay. Don’t cry for me…
Humaitá has been a museum ship since 1992, though she still serves as a stationary training ship from time to time while Paraguay is used as a receiving and depot vessel while officially listed as the Paraguayan Navy’s flagship. Surely this is the only case of an entire class of surface combatants to have remained in some sort of continuous service for 85 years…
The vintage Paraguayan gunboat HUMAITÁ seen here at the Sajonia Naval Station, Asunción, Paraguay. via shipspotting
ARP Humaitá (C2) as museum ship
The 4.7s are still functional though shells for them haven’t been made since 1943
ARP Paraguay (C1), 2005, note the WWII era 76mm gun over the pre-WWII 4.7 twin mount
For more on this ship, visit here, here and here, all excellent Spanish sources.
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
151117-N-JC374-138 ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 17, 2015) Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Soualiho Fofana, assigned to Commander, Task Group (CTG) 56.1, uses a satellite phone for communications during a U.S.-U.K. Mine Countermeasures Exercise (MCMEX). U.S.-U.K. MCMEX is designed to improve interoperability and evolve the expeditionary mine countermeasures company concept of employment from an afloat forward staging base and afloat platforms of opportunity. (U.S. Navy Combat Camera photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonah Stepanik/Released)
It seems according to multiple operational reports received by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) in the the days after the 15 hour detainment of 10 U.S. Sailors and their two NAVCENT Riverine Command Boats (RCBs) after they drifted into Iranian territorial waters shows that some sat phones were fooled with.
A post-recovery inventory of the boats found that all weapons, ammunition and communication gear are accounted for minus two SIM cards that appear to have been removed from two handheld satellite phones.
The Sailors are in good health and continue to go through the reintegration process. The Navy command investigation continues and more details will be provided when it is completed.
A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter with a yellow paint scheme lands at Coast Guard Air Station Astoria, Ore., Jan. 15, 2016. The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is one of two centennial aircraft that will be stationed in the Pacific Northwest along with an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter that will be located at Air Station North Bend, Ore. in celebration of 100 years of Coast Guard aviation (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)
The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is the first specially painted aircraft delivered by the Coast Guard to an operational unit during the centennial celebration of Coast Guard aviation, and will operate out of the Warrenton base for the next 4 years. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg)
The Jayhawk helicopter is painted yellow to represent the chrome yellow paint scheme that Coast Guard and Navy helicopters used in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Examples include the Sikorsky HO3S-1G used from 1946 to 1955 and the Sikorsky HO4S used from 1951 to 1966.
Preserved Sikorsky HO3S-1G at USS Intrepid Museum with vintage chrome yellow scheme.
The yellow Jayhawk helicopter is one of two centennial aircraft that will be stationed in the Pacific Northwest. An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter is scheduled to be delivered to Air Station North Bend later this month. These two aircraft are the first of the 16 centennial painted aircraft in the country. Altogether, three different Coast Guard aircraft types, including the Jayhawk and Dolphin helicopters as well as the HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane, are receiving historic paint schemes representing various eras of Coast Guard aviation.
Coast Guard Aviator #1, Elmer Stone
Coast Guard aviation officially began April 1, 1916, when 3rd Lt. Elmer Stone reported to flight training in Pensacola, Florida and later embarked on the epic NC-4 flight across the Atlantic. The Coast Guard is celebrating the centennial of Coast Guard aviation throughout 2016, with a variety of activities honoring the accomplishments and sacrifices of the men and women throughout the past 100 years
Sorry about the late posting this week, in the effort to get to SHOT Show in Vegas this weekend and with the winter weather making horse care more pressing, its been busy this week!
Warship Wednesday (on a Friday): The Tennessee peace cruiser
Image by Robert M. Cieri via Navsource
Here we see the Denver-class protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16/PG-30/CL-18), port bow view, while in New York harbor, 1905. You can tell by her fine lines and ornamental brightworks, she was meant more to impress colonial locals and less to sink enemy ships.
Though she never fired a shot in anger, the hardy little Chattanooga was around for a quarter century and saw immense changes to the fleet she was a part of, changes that eventually left her out of step, though her relics are now a part of the more asymmetric war on terror.
In 1899, Pax Americana found herself suddenly a colonial power after picking up the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a host of other scattered territories as part of spoils in the Spanish-American War. Further, President McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii in 1898 while the Tripartite Convention of 1899 split up the Samoan islands between the U.S., Germany and Britain– though neither the native Hawaiians nor the Samoans were really happy about either.
With all of these far-flung possessions added to the 45-state Union, the Navy needed some warships to go wave the flag there without depleting the main battle fleet as outlined by the good Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan. These ships need not slug it out in naval combat with a determined foe, they only needed long legs; a few guns to impress the locals while being capable of sending potential pirates, rabble-rousers and armed merchant cruisers to the bottom; and a high mast to show a flag.
This led to the six-pack of Denver-class vessels, peace cruisers if you will.
USS Des Moines (C-15, CL-17, PG 29), a good postcard reference to the Denver class. Note the schooner rig and fine lines.
The Denvers didn’t have much armor (about the thickness of a good butter knife in most places), nor did they have large guns (10 5″/50 Mark 5 single mounts, able to penetrate just 1.4-inches of armor at 9,000 yards though their 50-pound shells were capable of a 19,000 yard range overall which made them perfect for shelling uprisings on shore or warning off undesirable foreign ships creeping around colonial ports), nor were they particularly fast (they were designed but not fitted with an auxiliary Schooner sail rig).
One of ‘Nooga’s 5″ deck guns, probably port side forward. From the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN provided by Herman B. Froelich, via Navsource
However, they were 308-feet of American soil that could self-deploy and remain on station with little support when needed while still being able to float in 15 feet of seawater.
In short, they were the littoral combat ships of 1899.
The six ships, in what seems to be shipyard welfare from Uncle Sam, were built in six different yards near-simultaneously, all commissioning within about 18 months of each other.
The hero of our story, USS Chattanooga, was laid down at Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey, a new shipyard whose historical claim to fame was in building the USS Holland (SS-1), the nation’s first official modern submarine and a number of the follow-on A-class pigboats. She was named for the city in Tennessee and was the second Chattanooga on the Navy List, the first being a Civil War steam sloop that was holed and sunk at her dock by floating ice in 1871.
Commissioned 11 October 1904 during the tensions of the Russo-Japanese War, Chattanooga headed for Europe where she joined the squadron there and helped escort the body of Scottish-American Capt. John Paul Jones, late of the Continental Navy, from an unmarked grave in a Parisian cemetery to a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.
Starboard side view, anchored, 12 OCT 1906. Photo 0-G-1035139 from The National Archives.
Port side view at anchor in Genoa, Italy in the early 1900’s. Giorgio Parodi via Navsource
For the next seven years she cruised the Pacific (via the Suez), the Med, the Caribbean and helped train Naval Militia before entering into layup in 1912.
An early 63-foot A-class submarine, likely USS Grampus (SS-4) or Pike (SS-6) on the Willapa River, at Raymond, Washington, circa 1912. The stern of the USS Chattanooga can be seen in front of the sub. Photo provided by Steve Hubbard of the Pacific County Historical Society, Washington State via Pigboats
When 1914 came about, a new crew manned the rails and brought her back to life for the tensions in Mexico, sailing off the Pacific coast of that country, protecting American interests, chiefly from the port of La Paz through early 1917.
Starboard side view while in San Diego, 1915. Caption on the back of the photo reads: “This photo was taken after were secured from coaling ship and were cleaning her up.” Via Navsource
Nooga’s shipboard naval landing party drills with M1909 Benet Mercie light machine guns. During the Mexican crisis, her landing team and those of the other Pacific fleet ships sent to babysit ports in Mexico drilled non-stop, though did not wind up going expeditionary. A ship Chattanooga’s size could muster 80-100 men for action ashore, a common tactic in those days. Photo via Navsource from the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN.
In April 1917 with the U.S. entry into the ongoing Great War with Germany, Chattanooga chopped to the Atlantic Fleet and cruised the Caribbean for enemy shipping for a while before joining in convoy duties across the big pond. While vital, her brief wartime service was unexciting.
Following the end of the conflict, she remained a fixture in European ports with a concentration on the Black Sea, where the former Russian Empire was tearing itself apart in a civil war, and around Greece and Turkey, who were warming up a conflict of their own.
USS CHATTANOOGA (C-16) in a European port circa 1919. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. Catalog #: NH 94980, via Naval History and Heritage Command. She was reclassified as a gunboat, PG-30, 17 July 1920. Her place in the fleet was taken by much more powerful modern cruisers. Note her darker and more smudgy haze gray scheme and simplified rigging. Also note the huge ensign on her mast. That’s what she did.
Chattanooga most importantly helped supervise the liquidation of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy (kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine) in the Adriatic.
She provided support to the Naval Reservist prize crew on the 15,000-ton Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi at Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia. On the morning of 7 November 1920, Zrínyi was decommissioned and Chattanooga took her in tow across the sea to Italy where, under the terms of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, Zrínyi was turned over to the Italian government at Venice.
Bluejackets on the American/Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi, View of the ship’s bow, looking forward from the bridge. This photograph was taken at Spalato, Yugoslavia, while the ship was in US Navy custody pending conclusion of peace treaties. The ship was commissioned in the US Navy from 22 November 1919 to 7 November 1920, when it was handed over to Italy. The ship never got underway while in US hands except for the delivery voyage under tow by Chattanooga in November 1920. Photo Catalog #: NH 43536, Naval History and Heritage Command
Ordered back to the U.S., Chattanooga was decommissioned at Boston on 19 July 1921 and, though reclassified as a light cruiser, CL-18, the next month, never saw active duty again.
She was stricken in 1929 and sold for her value in scrap the following year. As for her five sisters, one, USS Tacoma was lost January 16, 1924 after she ran aground, while the other four vessels were all laid up like Chattanooga and subsequently scrapped.
While a frigate and later a cruiser were both laid down during WWII with intention of continuing her name, they were not commissioned as such and the Naval List has not seen another Chattanooga since 1929.
However, relics of her do exist and have found new importance.
Plaques commemorating the World War One service of the protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16, PG-30, CL-18) on display in the Douglas MacArthur Memorial, in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. One of the ship’s commanders was Arthur McArthur III, brother of the famed general. Image via Flckr. Ironically, Art Mac Arthur also served on the submarine Holland, built in the same shipyard as Chattanooga and the Grampus, shown near the cruiser in the 1912 image above.
Her bell, image by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette. The bell was made in Chattanooga by the Fischer Evans works. The bell will be displayed at the Navy Ball in Chattanooga this year
Her 200-pound bronze magnesium ship’s bell has been first at the Lions Club hall then the recently shuttered American Legion Post 23 in Shelbyville, Tennessee for more than 85-years. Recently, following the terror attack on the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of five naval personnel, a reservist from the base, CS1 Gowan Johnson, was able to track the bell down and reclaim it for the center.
While the Navy’s reserve center quarters here are being modified, the USS Chattanooga’s bell has found a temporary home inside the National Medal of Honor Museum in Northgate Mall, where it is displayed along with vintage photos of the ship and crew.
“It’s open to the public to view, and touch, if they like,” explains Charles Googe, a museum volunteer.
Meanwhile, Johnson is hard at work preparing the bell for a more permanent home at the Reserve Center. A cast-iron yoke is being fabricated for the bell, he said, and the shrine will be anchored to a black granite base with a plaque honoring the dead. The emblems of the U.S. Navy and Marines also will be part of the exhibit, he said.
“We are thinking that we could toll the bell five times on July 16 when the names are read for the [shootings anniversary] ceremony,” Johnson said.
In the meantime, Petty Officer Johnson has begun to muse about another possibility, now that the Navy is commissioning a new class of ships bearing the names of American cities.
“How about another ship called the USS Chattanooga?” Johnson said.
Perhaps people in high places will get wind of his idea and answer the bell.
Specs:
Displacement:
3,200 long tons (3,251 t) (standard)
3,514 long tons (3,570 t) (full load)
Length:
308 ft. 9 in (94.11 m) oa
292 ft. (89 m)pp
Beam: 44 ft. (13 m)
Draft: 15 ft. 9 in (4.80 m) (mean)
Installed power:
6 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × vertical triple expansion reciprocating engines, 4700 shp
2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner
Speed:
16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
16.75 knots (31.02 km/h; 19.28 mph) (Speed on Trial)
Range: 2200 nmi at 10 kts
Complement: 31 officers 261 enlisted men
Armament:
10 × 5 in (127 mm)/50 caliber Breech-loading rifles
8 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) rapid fire guns
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns
Armor:
Deck: 2 1⁄2 in (64 mm) (slope)
3⁄16 in (4.8 mm) (flat)
Shields: 1 3⁄4 in (44 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
I’m a member, so should you be!
Finally, to see where the Chattanooga ranks among U.S. cruiser development, the U.S. Naval Historical Command put out the below infographic.
Germany has spent something like 120~ years making top-notch submarines. In fact, other than the 80 or so Romeo/Ming class diesels operated by the Chinese and the Norks, the most numerous modern submersible operated in the world are the 61 German-made Type 209 class submarines built and commissioned between 1971 and 2008.
However, if it wasn’t for the earlier Type 206 design, there never would have been a 209.
Designed in 1964 by Ingenieur Kontor Lübeck (IKL), these cute little 159-foot diesel-electric boats weighed but 500-tons at full load when submerged. However, they could stay at sea, floating in as little as 16 feet of water when surfaced and hiding in 10 fathoms when submerged if needed, for over a month.
Further, they carried 8 modern 533mm torpedoes which could be delivered all at once, allowing them the capability to sink virtually any warship found at sea–to include a Soviet battlecruiser– with a single salvo.
Some 18 were built for the Bundesmarine (West German Navy), numbered U13-U30, commissioning between April 1973 and March 1975, just under two years, which isn’t bad. Had the balloon ever gone up in the Cold War, these hardy craft would likely have given the Soviets, East Germans and Poles a lot of hell in the Baltic.
They were so nice, in fact, that the Israelis ordered three slightly modded variants they termed the Gal-class as a follow-on, which were delivered in 1976-77.
Further, another 15 very similar (535-ton/155-foot) Type 207s were built as the Kobben class for the Royal Norwegian Navy by 1966 and have gone on to serve not only that fleet but the Danes and Poles as well (the latter of which still have five of these in service) proving the design still holds water after a half-century.
The Germans kept their 18 Type 206’s in service for over 30 years in some cases, decommissioning the last four in 2011 while the Israelis did more or less the same.
In all, the 36 boats of the Type 206/207/Gal design did what they were intended to for their respective users and have gone on to live a second life to a degree. Indonesia looked to pick up as many as five, but then backpedaled, while the Germans shopped both the Type 206s and the surplus Gal-class vessels for a while.
Gal herself is now on display at the Israeli Naval museum in Haifa while two (the recently retired U15 and U17) are laid up in Germany and four have gone on to Columbia. Two, ex-U16 and ex-U18, were sold as spare parts hulks while another pair, U23 and U24 were given length (2012-2015) refits in Germany and shipped to Colombia as the ARC Intrepido and ARC Indomable respectively to begin their new careers.
Two German Type-206 submarines outbound from Kiel to Columbia, 2015.
After all, even at age 40, they are still effective.
Warship Wednesday Dec.30, 2015: Subkiller of the Florida Keys
Image by Chris Eger. All others this post are either by me, or the USCG Historian’s office
Here we see the Treasury-class United States Coast Guard Cutter Samuel D. Ingham (WPG/AGC/WHEC-35) dockside of the old Navy submarine base at Key West near Fort Zachary Taylor, part of the Truman Annex to Naval Air Station Key West, where she has been as a museum ship since 2009.
Same view of Ingham back in the late 1960s, just after she picked up her “racing stripe.”
In the mid-1930s, the Coast Guard had some 40~ oceangoing cutters consisting of a few pre-WWI era slow boats and a host of 165 and 240/250-foot vessels designed for bluewater rum-runner busting during Prohibition. With the Volstead Act repealed and the boozecraft disappearing, the new push in the Treasury department once Mr. Roosevelt took office was for long-legged boats to help patrol the nation’s burgeoning international air traffic routes to affect rescues and provide weather support.
Although the Coasties came up with their own design for a stretched version of their 250-foot Lake-class cutters, the Navy had just coughed up a new gunboat design– the two Erie-class gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) — which the service could save some bread on by gently modifying. Instead of the Erie‘s 6”/47 Mk17s, the Coast Guard went with 5”/51’s and saved money in other areas, building their cutters out at about 30 percent less cost than the Eries.
These seven new cutters, classified gunboats (WPG) in Treasury service, were all named after former Secretaries of that cabinet branch with USCGC George M. Bibb (WPG-31) laid down 15 August 1935 followed quickly by Campbell, Warship Weds alumni Spencer, Duane, Taney, Hamilton and the hero of our story, Ingham— named after Andrew Jackson’s Treasury boss. However, shortly after commissioning all of the names were trimmed to the last name only.
U.S.S. ‘Samuel D. Ingham’ Entering At Havana Harbor-Nov. 12 1936
Capable of over 20-knots and with the capability to carry a seaplane (a JF-2 amphibian), these 327-foot long, 2400-ton cutters could roam across the ocean and back again with an impressive 12,300-nm range. A pair of 5-inch/51-caliber guns augmented a few 6-pounder guns was impressive enough for shallow water (can float in 13 feet of sea) gunboat and seen as more than adequate to stop smugglers and sink derelict vessels on the high seas. In a pinch, the armament could be increased in time of war, which the Navy was keenly aware of.
These cutters were designed from the outset to accommodate a floatplane
Built at Philadelphia Naval Yard (Ingham was born at Great Spring near New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1779), the cutter carrying his name was commissioned on 12 September 1936 and was the fourth cutter to bear that name. She was assigned to Port Angeles, Washington, where she participated in arduous Bering Sea patrols until the start of WWII in Europe.
Ingham’s crew undergoing the prewar battle practice, in this case firing both of her main 5-inch 50-caliber main batteries.
Given a tasking for “Grand Banks Patrols,” Ingham was homeported in Boston with orders to identify foreign men-of-war, be on the lookout for any “un-neutral” activities, and report anything of an unusual nature. Each cruise lasted approximately two weeks. The cutters ran with their ensign illuminated by searchlight at all times and prefaced all signals with Coast Guard identification. This transitioned to three-week long weather station duty in the North Atlantic with embarked meteorologists.
In December 1940, she was up-armed with things growing increasingly tense in the North Atlantic and transferred for duty with the Navy on 1 July 1941 and her Coast Guard crew intact, spending part of the year as a floating embassy in spy-rich Lisbon for the U. S. ambassador to Portugal.
Assigned to CINCLANT at the U.S. entrance to the war, she soon began a series of convoy operations, escorting no less than 28 convoys back and forth from the East Coast to Iceland between Dec. 1941 and March 1943. Some were pure milk runs. Others were not.
On SC-107, 16 ships were torpedoed.
On ONSJ-160, Ingham reduced speed and ceased zigzagging as a force 12 hurricane developed and then had to spend three days searching for stragglers.
It was in this duty she rescued survivors from the torpedoed SS Henry R. Mallory, Robert E. Hopkins, West Portal, Jeremiah Van Rensseler, and all hands of the Matthew Luckenback.
Then there was the time she gesunken a U-boat.
Ingham fitted out for escort of convoy and anti-submarine warfare. Note her camouflage
Ingham, along with USS Babbitt and USS Leary was near Iceland, where they stumbled on the brand new German Type VIIC submarine U-626 which was on her maiden patrol on 15 December 1942. The cutter made sonar contact with an object and dropped depth charges on the sub, sinking her and killing her entire crew of 47 though some argue the point.
During the 8 to 12 watch tonight, while on patrol 3 miles ahead of the convoy, we picked up screw-beats of a submarine while listening, ran in and dropped three 600-pounders. Then, getting contact on the U-boat again by echo-ranging we made another run and gave it a 10-charge barrage. Search was continued for some time, but contact was not regained. There is a strong possibility that we sunk him without forcing him to the surface.
Another surface action in June 1942:
On the 16th, the Ingham broke away from the convoy to investigate a light brown smoke on the horizon and on approaching closer definitely sighted a submarine with conning tower and diesel oil smoke from the exhaust plainly visible. The Ingham increased speed to 19 knots and gave chase, firing one round from the forward 5″ gun at a range of 13,000 yards.
Then in 1944, she found herself in the Med, chasing sonar contacts off Morocco and Spain before assuming flagship of the Senior Mediterranean Escort Group.
U.S.C.G.C. W 35. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK. 28 May 1944 Photo No. F644C6169
Then in May, Ingham proceeded back to the states for conversion to an AGC (Combined operations communications headquarters ship) which took most of the rest of the year and led to her shipping for the Pacific, arriving Dec 26th at Humboldt Bay, reporting to Commander, Seventh Fleet.
USS Ingham, CG (WAGC-35)U.S. Navy Yard, S.C. . .U.S.S. INGHAM, (W 35), Starboard BowPhoto No. 2878-44 11 October 1944
By February 1945, as the flag of Commander, Task Group 76.3, Ingham was the HQ and guide ship for the Mariveles-Corregidor Attack Group in the PI and later oversaw the beach landings at Tigbauan, Pulupandan, Macajalar Bay, Sarangani Bay and the seizure of Balut Island. In these attacks she frequently let her 5-inchers release hate on Japanese shore positions while dodging underwater obstacles and swimming sappers.
Ingham as an AGC 1944
Commander Dean W. Colbert wrote in his memoir of life on board Ingham of her crowding at the time with four men assigned to a single rack:
“. . .during major landings, we accommodated up to 360 persons onboard and there was literally standing room only. . .Mealtime was a carefully orchestrated operation. Up to 1000 meals per day were prepared and served out of a galley roughly the size of a kitchen in a 4-bedroom house. . .It was a challenge by any standard, but Ingham’s crew rose to the occasion. Many of the ‘black gang’ . . .and other crew members had been on board during the worst of the U-boat campaigns in the North Atlantic. As a whole, the crew was superb, especially the chief and first class petty officers. They were a tremendously capable and reliable group.”
The end of the war found her off Okinawa as the flag of Adm. Buckmaster who sailed into Shanghai and Haiphong to help coordinate occupation efforts with Chinese army officials.
On 6 January 1946, she arrived back on the East Coast in New York, landed her armament, got her white paint scheme back, and picked up where she left off as a cutter.
Homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, she spent the next 22 years on quiet weather station duty, assisting those in peril at sea and conducting law enforcement operations.
Then came another war.
1965. She would pick up the racing stripe two years later, and ship for Southeast Asia a year after that.
Becoming part of Coast Guard Squadron Three in 1968, Ingham soon became part of the Navy’s Operation Market Time interdiction and coastal surveillance effort in Vietnam. She spent a year in CGS3, conducting numerous naval gunfire support missions, serving as a mothership to Navy Swift boats and Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats, sending medical teams ashore to win hearts and minds in local seaside hamlets, and stopping anything that moved inside her area of operation.
As noted by her official USCG history, “She participated in Operation Sea Lords and Operation Swift Raiders, earning an unprecedented two Presidential Unit Citations, the only cutter to be so honored.”
18 July 1978 Photo No. G-BPA-07-18-78
Still homeported in Virginia, Ingham picked up where she left off in 1969 and continued ocean station duty until the stations themselves were disbanded in 1980.
Atlantic Weather Observation Service “ocean stations” on which thousands of Coast Guardsmen served through most of the Cold War
After that, she was a favorite vessel of the USCGA in New London, taking cadets on summer cruises that lasted up to 10 weeks at a time and continuing to do so until 1985.
She took breaks from cadet training to seize drug runners (the Honduran fishing trawler Mary Ann, where the boarding team discovered 15 tons of marijuana in 1979, and the vessel Misfit carrying 35 tons of marijuana in 1982) as well as saving hundreds of lives during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980– often landing refugees and towing Cuban vessels to Key West for processing.
She outlasted all of her sisters in service, with Hamilton being torpedoed during the war off Iceland 29 January 1942, Spencer sold for scrap in 1981, Campbell decommissioned in 1982 and sunk as a target, Bibb and Duane decommissioned in 1985, and Pearl Harbor survivor Taney decommissioned 7 December 1986.
On 1 August 1985, Ingham‘s hull numbers were painted gold, signifying she was the oldest commissioned Coast Guard vessel in service, period. On 24 May 1988, she was decommissioned with a salute from President Reagan. It was the first time in 52 years that she did not have an official tasking.
Ingham in her pre-1967 livery by William H Ravell
USCGC Ingham Decommissioning Ceremony 1988:
Saved as a memorial, she was at first a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, S.C., and then, after dry-dock and repairs, at Key West. A maritime museum keeps her in excellent condition and in 1995 was made the official site of the USCGs WWII memorial per order of the commandant.
I had a chance to tour Ingham last month and here is a sampling of her current disposition:
The ship is a time capsule from her last use in May 1988. I was told the only thing the Coast Guard did when they turned her over was dewat the guns, remove the classified documents from the safe, and pull some sensitive internal panels from the commo, sonar, and radar suites.
Officers mess
Remember the comment about a galley for a typical 4 BR house?
Holy 2600, batman
The enlisted mess
Japanese samurai sword picked up in 1945
GMs locker.Dig the M2 giant size training tool and the 20mm OK
Barber
Captain’s cabin
Captain’s cabin. This would be the berth of the Admiral when she was an AGC in WWII
Commo anyone?
Looking forward, note her 5″/38, and saluting gun. Malloy Square and Duval Street are a few blocks up.
CIC
Her bridge is off limits, but note all the brightwork and 1930s-style porthole row
Her sistership Taney has been preserved in Baltimore harbor since her decommissioning while sisters, Duane and Bibb, are only about a half hour away from Ingham‘s current location, both sunk as an artificial reef off Key Largo, on 27 November 1987.
As a nod to her many years of service to the USCGA, Inghamis often graced with visits from cadets who spend vacation time sleeping in the onboard berths, scraping paint, and repairing heads.
When in Key West, she is well worth a stop.
Specs:
Via shipbucket
Via shipbucket
Via shipbucket
Displacement 2,350 t. (lt)
Length 327′ 0″
Beam 41′ 0″
Draft 12′ 6″ (max.)
Propulsion
two Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbines
two Babcock & Wilcox sectional express, air-encased, 400 psi, 200° superheat
two 9′ three-bladed propellers, 6,200shp (1966)
Fuel Capacity NSFO 135,180 gallons (547 tons)
Speed 20.5 kts (max)
Electronics:
HF/DF: (1942) DAR (converted British FH3) ?
Radar: (1945) SC-2, SGa; (1966) AN/SPS-29D, AN/SPA-52.
Fire Control Radar: (1945) Mk-26; (1966) Mk-26 MOD 4
Sonar: (1945) QC series; (1966) AN/SQS-11
Complement 1937
12 officers
4 warrant officers
107 enlisted 1941
16 officers
4 warrant officers
202 enlisted 1966
10 officers
3 warrant officers
134 enlisted
Armament: 1936
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
2 6-pdrs
1 1-pdr 1941
3 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
3 single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
4 .50 caliber Browning Machine Guns
2 depth charge racks
“Y” gun depth charge projector 1943
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
4 single 3″/50 cal dual gun mounts
2 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
Hedgehog device
6 “K” gun depth charge projectors
2 depth charge racks 1945
2 single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
3 twin 40mm/60 AA gun mounts
4 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts 1946
2 single 5″/38 cal dual gun mount
1 twin 40mm;/60 AA gun mount
8 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1 Hedgehog 1966
1 single 5″/38 MK30 Mod75 cal dual-purpose gun mount w/ MK 52 MOD 3 director
1 MK 10-1 Hedgehog (removed)
2 (P&S) x Mk 32 MOD 5 TT
4 MK 44 MOD 1 torpedoes
2 .50 cal. MK-2 Browning Machine Guns
2 MK-13 high altitude parachute flare mortars
Aircraft (discontinued after WWII)
1936, Grumman JF-2, V148
1938, Curtiss SOC-4
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing its 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
The Ace of Clubs, 771 Naval Air Squadron, who has celebrated over 40 years of saving lives from RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, started service with the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm 24 May 1939 at Lee-on-Solent flying Fairey Swordfish TSR biplanes, her pilots helped in the search for the Bismarck. Transitioning to SAR in 1961, they hung up their then DeHavland Sea Venoms for Westland Whirlwinds and have been a chopper unit ever since.
Now 771 NAS and HMS Gannet’s SAR Flight, the last two military SAR units in the UK, are standing down. Their 300~ rescues per year will be the duty of civilian contractors who assumed the task from the RAF earlier this year.
Most powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof; We, thy creatures, but miserable sinners, do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help; Save, Lord, or else we perish. –Prayers to be used in [all Ships in]* storms at sea, 1892.
Warship Wednesday, Dec.23, 2015: The lost jewel from Bizerte
960×633
Here we see the French Émeraude-class diesel-electric submarine (Sous-Marin) Turquoise (Q46), captured by the Turks, in a dry dock undergoing repairs in Constantinople, 1916.
The French got into the submarine business about the same time as the Americans, launching Admiral Simeon Bourgois’s Plongeurin April 1863.
Before the turn of the century, the Republic had flirted with a half dozen one-off boats before they ordered the four boats of the Sirene class in 1901 followed quickly by another four of the Farfadet-class, the two Algerien-class boats, 20 Naiade-class craft in 1904, Submarines X, Y and Z (not making it up), the two ship Aigrette-class and the submarine Omega.
All told, between 1900-1905, the French coughed up 36 submersibles spread across nine very different classes.
After all that quick learning curve, they proceeded with the Emeraude (Emerald) class in 1903. These ships were an improvement of the Faradet (Sprite) class designed by Gabriel-Émile-Marie Maugas. The 135-foot long/200-ton Faradet quartet had everything a 20th Century smoke boat needed: it was a steel-hulled hybrid submersible that used diesel engines on the surface and electric below, had 4 torpedo tubes, could dive to 100~ feet, and could make a stately 6-knots.
Farfadet-class boat Lutin (Q10), leaving port in 1903.
While they weren’t successful (two sank, killing 30 men between them) Maugas learned from early mistakes and they were significantly improved in the Emeraudes. These later boats used two-shaft propulsion– rare in early submarines–and were 147 feet long with a 425-ton full load. Capable of making right at 12 knots for brief periods, they carried a half dozen torpedo tubes (four in the bow and two in the stern). They also could mount a machine gun and a light deck gun if needed.
Again, improvements!
Profile of the Emeralds surfaced.
Class leader Emeraude was laid down at Arsenal de Cherbourg in 1903 followed by sisters Opale and Rubis at the same yard and another three, Saphir, Topase, and the hero of our story, Turquoise, at Arsenal de Toulon in the Med.
Launching 1908
Turquoise was commissioned on 10 December 1910 and, with her two Toulon-built sisters, served with the French Mediterranean Fleet from the Submarine Station at Bizerte.
She repeated the bad luck of the Farfadet-class predecessors and in 1913 lost an officer and several crew swept off her deck in rough seas.
When war erupted in 1914, the jewel boats soon found they had operational problems staying submerged due to issues with buoyancy and were plagued by troublesome diesels (hey, the manufacturer, Sautter-Harlé, was out of business by 1918 so what does that tell you).
To help with surface ops, Topase and Turquoise were fitted with a smallish deck gun in 1915.
Saphir probably would have been too, but she caught a Turkish mine in the Sea of Marma on 15 January trying to sneak through the straits, and went down.
Topase and Turquoise continued to operate against the Turks, with the latter running into trouble on 30 October 1915. Around the village of Orhaniye in the Dardanelles near Nagara there were six Ottoman Army artillerymen led by Corporal G Boaz Deepa who spotted a periscope moving past a nearby water tower.
Becoming tangled in a net, the submarine became a sitting duck. With their field piece, they were able to get a lucky shot on the mast, and, with the submarine filling with water, she made an emergency surface.
French submarine captured at Dardanelles by Charles Fouqueray
There, the six cannoneers took 28 French submariners captive and impounded the sub, sunk in shallow water.
Turquoise’s skipper, Lt. Leon Marie Ravenel, was in 1918 awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honour as was his XO. These sailors suffered a great deal in Turkish captivity, with five deaths.
“Das frühere französische U-Boot Turquoise welches von den Türken gefangen genommen wurde und jetzt als Mustedjb oubaschi in türkischen Diensten steht.” (The former French submarine Turquoise which was captured by the Turks and is now in Turkish service as Mustedjb oubaschi.) Paul Hoffman & Co. postcard in the NYPL collection
The Turks later raised the batter French boat and, naming her Mustadieh Ombashi (or Müstecip Ombasi), planned to use her in the Ottoman fleet.
The news of her capture and use under new management flashed through the Central Powers. This is from the Austrian archives:
“Französische Unterseeboot Turquoise” via Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv
Ottoman Uniforms reports her conning tower was painted with a large rectangle (likely to be red), with the large white script during this time.
Via Ottoman Uniforms
However, as submariners were rare in WWI Constantinople, she never took to sea in an operational sense again and in 1919 the victorious French reclaimed their submarine, which they later scrapped in 1920.
Her wartime service for the Turks seems to have been limited to taking a few pictures for propaganda purposes and being used as a fixed battery charging station for German U-boats operating in the Black Sea.
As for the last Bizerte boat, Topase, she finished the war intact and was stricken on 12 November 1919 along with the three Emeraudes who served quietly in the Atlantic.
Turquoise/Mustadieh Ombashi has been preserved as a model, however.
If you have a further interest in the submarines of Gallipoli, go here.
Specs:
1884×1543
Displacement 392 tons (surfaced) / 427 (submerged)
Length, 147 feet
Bean 12 feet
Draft 12 feet
No of shafts 2
Machinery
2 Sautter-Harlé diesels, 600hp / electric motors (440kW)
Max speed, knots 11.5 surfaced / 9.2 submerged
Endurance, nm 2000 at 7.3kts surfaced / 100nm at 5kts submerged
Armament:
6×450 TT (4 bows, 2 sterns) for 450mm torpedoes with no reloads
1x M1902 Model 37mm deck gun, 1x8mm light Hotchkiss machine gun (fitted in 1915)
Complement 21-28
Diving depth operational, 130 feet.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Another 378 is being sent to pasture with the looming retirement and decommissioning of USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719), who returned from her final patrol last week, a 41-day run around the Bearing Sea.
Based out of San Diego and named for Grant’s Treasury secretary, Boutwell was laid down in 1967 during a very different time in history than we know now.
(5676 × 4580)
The 3250-ton Hamilton-class cutter has put in 47 years of hard service that included standing by the disabled Soviet H-2 nuclear-powered submarine in 1972, the Prinsendam ocean liner rescue in 1980, the crazy Orca incident, shelled the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 85 ghost ship under the waves with her 5-inch deck gun (back when the USCG had 5-inch guns), and spent much time on six-week long Alaska Patrols during which she conducted surveillance operations and enforced international treaties and U.S. laws during the heart of the Cold War– often tracking multiple Soviet sonar contacts at the same time (back when the Coasties ran ASW).
She is scheduled to be modified and handed over to the Philippine Navy in coming months.
Although 36 cutters of this class were originally planned, only 12 were ever built. So far six Hamiltons have been retired and passed on to Allied navies including The Philippines who operate Gregorio del Pilar (ex-Hamilton) and Ramon Alcaraz (ex-Dallas), the Nigerians who run Okpabana (ex-Gallatin) and Thunder (ex-Chase) and the Bangladesh Navy with their Somudro Joy (ex-Jarvis) and Somudro Avijan (ex-Rush).
Boutwell‘s decommissioning will leave the USCG with only Mellon, Sherman, Morgenthau, Munro and Midgett in service (for now) from this vintage line.
Fair winds and full sails, Boutwell.
090210-N-4774B-017 SINGAPORE (Feb. 10, 2009) A full moon rises above the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Boutwell (WHEC 719) at anchor at Changi Naval Base, Singapore. Boutwell is part of the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group and is on a scheduled deployment to the western Pacific Ocean supporting global maritime security. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker/Released)
For the past half-decade the U.S. Naval Special Warfare community has quietly used a device unique to its service– the Battelle Plummet Gun– and its half-Batman, half-Star Wars, and all-cool.
The problem
While after the recent activities in the Global War on Terror in which we see Navy Seals roping out of choppers and moving around on land a lot, they are actually first and foremost combat swimmers. These fighting frogmen, who evolved from the old Underwater Demolition Teams of World War II and Korea, are tasked with taking over suspect ships at sea, sinking the bad guy’s ships in port, and seizing offshore islands and structures such as oil platforms.
Commonly termed Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations, its these actions from small boats against platforms and vessels at sea that sometimes put these special operators behind the proverbial 8-ball as the bad guys often don’t leave a ladder down to allow the frogmen easy access.
U.S. Navy SEALs board a ship from a Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat as they conduct a joint Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) exercise alongside U.S. Marines assigned to Force Reconnaissance Platoon, Maritime Raid Force, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), during composite training unit exercise (COMPTUEX) in the Atlantic Ocean, July 20, 2015. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andre Dakis/26th MEU Combat Camera/Released)
This means special devices such as a backpack-sized magnetic ship-climbing device that would “drive” up the side of a ship’s steel hull to the top, where an operator would anchor it and drop a rope ladder to the other team members below.
NSW ship climbing device at the U.S. Navy Seal/UDT Museum, Image by Chris Eger
However, these are big and bulky– not to mention noisy and complicated to employ.
What would be ideal would be a grappling hook gun like the one Luke Skywalker used to escape the Stormtroopers on the Death Star with Leia in tow, or that Batman used repeatedly. Hey, about that…
Meet the 25 pound Battelle Plummet Gun, and yes, it is as big as the M60 shown next to it for scale. Image via Chris Eger
So suffice it to say, this is one piece of kit you aren’t going to add to your turn out bag just yet.
