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Warship Wednesday, June 18, 2025: Death of a Destroyer

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says, “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, June 18, 2025: Death of a Destroyer

Naval History and Heritage Command photograph 80-G-309163

Above we see a Fletcher-class destroyer, almost certainly USS Twiggs (DD-591), resplendent in her late war Camouflage Measure 32, Design 6D, as she plasters Iwo Jima’s West Beach with 5-inch Willy Pete shells at 1600, 17 February 1945, during the pre-invasion bombardment of the island. Screening UDT Team 14 divers clearing obstacles in the water, the effect was dramatic, and she fired a mix of over 700 5-inch shells ashore that day, closing to within just 300 yards of the beach.

As detailed by Twigg’s report of the action: A fast ship sent in harm’s way, Twiggs‘ career from commissioning to loss– some 80 years ago this week– was a scant 620 days.

The Fletchers

The Fletchers were the WWII equivalent of the Burke class, constructed in a massive 175-strong class from 11 builders that proved the backbone of the fleet for generations. Coming after the interwar “treaty” destroyers such as the Benson- and Gleaves classes, they were good-sized (376 feet oal, 2,500 tons full load, 5×5″ guns, 10 torpedo tubes) and could have passed as unprotected cruisers in 1914.

Destroyer evolution, 1920-1944: USS HATFIELD (DD-231), USS MAHAN (DD-364), USS FLETCHER (DD-445). NH 109593

Powered by a quartet of oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers and two Westinghouse or GE steam turbines, they had 60,000 shp on tap– half of what today’s Burkes have on a hull 25 percent as heavy– enabling them to reach 38 knots, a speed that is still fast for destroyers today.

USS John Rodgers (DD 574) at Charleston, 28 April 1943. A great example of the Fletcher class in their wartime configuration. Note the five 5″/38 mounts and twin sets of 5-pack torpedo tubes.

LCDR Fred Edwards, Destroyer Type Desk, Bureau of Ships, famously said of the class, “I always felt it was the Fletcher class that won the war… they were the heart and soul of the small-ship Navy.”

Meet Twiggs

Our subject was the second warship to carry the name of Georgia-born Major Levi Twiggs, USMC. The son of Major General John Twiggs, the “Savior of Georgia” of Revolutionary War fame, the younger Twiggs was commissioned a Marine second louie at the ripe old age of 19 on 10 November 1813, the young Corps’ 38th birthday. He fought against the British and was captured on the 44-gun heavy frigate USS President in 1815 after a fantastic sea battle against the frigate HMS Endymion.

Returning to American service after the Treaty of Ghent, he continued to serve for another 32 years until he fell in combat– along with almost every other officer and NCO of the Marine Battalion– whilst leading a storming party in the assault on Chapultepec Castle before Mexico City on 13 September 1847.

Twiggs perished in battle at age 54, having spent most of his life leading Marines against all comers. The Chapultepec battle led to the “Halls of Montezuma” in the Marine Corps hymn and the “blood stripe” worn on the service’s dress blue trousers. Photos: NH 119304/Yale University Library/ Library of Congress photo digital ID: cph 3g06207.

The first USS Twiggs was a Wickes-class four-piper destroyer laid down but not completed during the Great War. The hardy warship (Destroyer No. 127) was mothballed on the West Coast from 1922-1930, and 1937-39, but was eagerly accepted by the Admiralty in 1940 as part of the “destroyers for bases” agreement with Britain.

USS Twiggs Description: (DD-127) circa the 1930s. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. NH 67822

Put into RN service as the Town-class destroyer HMS Leamington (G 19), she helped scratch at least two German submarines (U-207 and U-587) while on convoy duty in the Atlantic. Later loaned to the Canadians as HMCS Leamington (G49), she was used in a decent war film and further loaned to the Soviets as the destroyer Zhguchi. She was only scrapped in 1950, ironically outliving the second USS Twiggs.

Speaking of which, our subject, USS Twiggs (DD-591), was built side by side at the Charleston Navy Yard with her sister, the future USS Paul Hamilton (DD-590), laid down on 20 January 1943. The keels were officially laid by striking three arcs simultaneously on the keel of each vessel by the wives of the crews’ junior officers, assisted by their husbands.

205-43 US Navy Yard, SC, January 20, 1943. USS Paul Hamilton (DD 589) & USS Twiggs (DD 591) Keel Laying Ceremonies. DD591 striking the arc and officially laying the keel. Left to right: front row: Mrs. R. G. Odiorne, Mrs. A. A. Rimmer, Mrs. J. W. Clayton, Mrs. T. H. Dwyer. File 14783.” Via Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.

With resplendent red and haze grey hulls, the two sisters launched side-by-side on 7 April 1943. Twiggs was sponsored by Mrs. Roland S. Morris (Augusta Twiggs Shippen West), the great-granddaughter of the late Maj. Twiggs, whose husband had served as a diplomat under Woodrow Wilson.

Original Kodachrome. USS Paul Hamilton (DD-590) and USS Twiggs (DD-591) are ready for launching at the Charleston Navy Yard, South Carolina, 7 April 1943. 80-G-K-13833

Commissioned on 4 November 1943, Twiggs was built in just 288 days. Her plank owner crew was led by CDR John Benjamin Fellows, Jr. (USNA 1931).

A career surface warfare man, he had learned his trade on the old cruiser USS Chester, then served on the cruiser USS Chicago. His first XO stint was on the humble “Old Bird” minesweeper USS Sandpiper doing survey work in the Aleutians. Then came work on a string of tin cans, earning his first command on the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Gwin (DD-433) from whose deck he picked up both a Navy Cross and a Silver Star off Savo Island and in the Kula Gulf, respectively.

The young CDR Fellows led Twiggs on her shakedown cruise to Bermuda in December 1943. On her way down the East Coast, she was photographed by a Navy blimp from Naval Air Station Weeksville in North Carolina.

USS Twiggs (DD-591), 7 December 1943. Position: 36°54′, 75°13′; Course: 265; Time: 1414; Altitude: 300′; Camera: K-20; F.L. 4.5″; Shutter speed: f/250. 80-G-215535

She had post-shakedown availability in January 1944 back in Charleston. In April 1944, CDR Fellows was pulled from his command. Bumped upstairs to a crash course at the Army-Navy Staff College in D.C., she was then sent on to the CBI command in India and soon after assigned to the G3 shop in the U.S. 10th Army.

Twigg’s second and final skipper would be CDR George “Geordie” Philip, Jr. (USNA 1935). A former student of the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City before going to Annapolis, Philip had served on the battlewagons Mississippi and California as well as the destroyer USS Ellet (DD-398) before the war. Once the big show started, he served as the XO and navigator on the early Fletcher-class tin can O’Bannon (DD 450)— the Navy’s most decorated destroyer during the war– off Guadalcanal, earning a Silver Star. Twiggs would be his first command.

She then escorted “Big Ben,” the new (and ill-fated) Essex-class carrier USS Franklin (CV-13) to Hawaii via the Panama Canal and San Diego, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 6 June 1944.

War!

After exercises and drills in Hawaiian waters and escorted convoys operating between Oahu and Eniwetok, Twiggs was added to DESRON 49, which was busy rehearsing with TF 79 for the liberation of the Philippines. Her baptism of fire would be in support of the amphibious assault on Leyte Island in October 1944, providing antiaircraft protection for the transports during the landings.

This included popping star shells every 30 minutes at night over target areas, delivering fire support ashore, sinking floating mines, and engaging numerous air contacts. In doing so, our destroyer expended 345 5-inch, 800 40mm, and 1,600 20mm shells in just five days.

While off Leyte, she also plucked two downed FM-2 Wildcat pilots of Taffy 2’s jeep carriers from the drink: Ensign A.F. Uthoff of VC-27 from USS Savo Island (CVE-78) and LT Abe Forsythe of VC-76 from USS Petrof Bay (CVE-80).

Next, following escort duty back and forth between the PI and Papua New Guinea, came the Mindoro operation in mid-December. This time, she sailed with 14 other destroyers of DESRON 54 as a screen for RADM Ruddock’s TG 77.12 (battleships USS West Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado; cruisers Montpelier and Minneapolis, escort carriers Natoma Bay (CVE-62), Kadashan Bay (CVE-76), Marcus Island (CVE-77), Savo Island (CVE-78), Ommaney Bay (CVE-79), and Manila Bay (CVE-61) which was to provide heavy cover and air support for Operation Love III, the invasion of Mindoro Island.

Twiggs stood by her Boston-built sistership USS Haraden (DD-585) after that destroyer had been hit by a suicide plane on 13 December and picked up two survivors from the ship that had been tossed into the sea. Notably, one of those waterlogged bluejackets had already survived a hit from a Japanese Kate torpedo plane on the destroyer USS Smith (DD-378) during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and rated the impact on Haraden to be more violent. Due to the proximity of other ships, Twiggs had only been able to get off 96 rounds of AAA fire at the enemy planes, mostly 40mm.

As Haraden lay dead in the water, Twiggs came alongside to help with DC and casualty care. Haraden was soon underway on her own power, making 20 knots, after suffering 14 killed and 24 wounded, with seven men transferred to Twiggs for treatment, one of whom later expired from multiple wounds. With the damaged ship having no radio, Twiggs escorted her back out of the area until Haraden linked up with a tow convoy, then returned to the TF.

Mindoro Operation, December 1944. USS Haraden (DD-585) after being hit by a Kamikaze in the Sulu Sea on 13 December 1944, while en route to the Mindoro invasion. USS Twiggs (DD-591) is alongside, rendering assistance. Photographed from USS Kadashan Bay (CVE-76). 80-G-273000

Then came the Luzon/Lingayen operation in early January 1945, with Twiggs acting as an escort for VADM Oldendorf’s TG 77.2 as it sortied toward the PI from Kossol Roads.

Entering the Mindanao Sea on 3 January, late on the afternoon of the next day, she was standing by the jeep carrier Ommaney Bay at 1714 when the latter was zapped by a kamikaze that sparked uncontrollable fires and an order to abandon ship, with all survivors in the water picked up by 1834.

USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) exploding after being hit by a kamikaze attack, in the Sulu Sea off Luzon, during the Lingayen Operation, 4 January 1944. Two destroyers are standing by. NH 43063

Twiggs, accompanied by Charleston-built sisters USS Bell (DD-587) and Burns (DD-588), stood by while Ommaney Bay slipped below the waves and transferred the survivors they collected later that night to the battlewagon West Virginia. Twiggs had picked up 26 officers and 185 enlisted from the carrier and its air group, VC-75.

Twiggs continued fighting the Divine Wind off and on during the operation, and also clocked in as a lifeguard once more, picking up a group of downed American aviators just before sunset on 13 January, the crews of a Navy PBY and an Army F-6 (photo P-51 Mustang).

The next morning, she grabbed three more when the crew of an Avenger off another jeep carrier crashed near them, bringing her lifeguard count to a full 224 in less than a fortnight. Twiggs then chopped to TF 54, which sortied from Ulithi on 10 February for rehearsals that brought them as a fighting force off Iwo Jima by 16 February. Using the callsign “Gabriel,” Twiggs was ready to deliver fire ashore as needed.

While supporting the invasion of Iwo with NGFS in the three weeks between 16 February and 10 March 1945, she expended almost 5,000 5-inch shells as well as another 5,000 40mm. Past the initial beach landings, during much of the gunfire support work, she was heaving two 5-inch salvos a minute at targets unseen by the ship, 5,000-6,000 yards inland, spotted by aircraft in real time.

After a short break to rest and restock her magazines, she popped up two weeks later off Okinawa to take part in the preinvasion bombardment, alternating with anti-air picket duty and ASW patrols.

This work grew even more deadly serious on 28 April when a downed kamikaze crashed just feet abreast of Twiggs and exploded, delivering a “glancing lick.” The force carried away much of the destroyer’s running lines and radio antennas, blew in her hull plating along the starboard side from frames 46 to 60, wrecked most of “officer’s country,” and curled back her starboard prop.

This required her to fall out of the operation and retire to Kerama Retto, a safer harbor (though still subject to near continuous air attacks) in the forward area, where she could tie up next to the LST-turned-repair ship USS Nestor (ARB-6) for two weeks in “the boneyard” and get back in the fight.

Filled with a shipload of self-titled “Old Men” of experienced craftsmen drawn from shipyards across the country, many well past draft age, USS Nestor (ARB 6) completed 1,760 rush repair jobs on 47 warships and auxiliaries in her eight months at Kerama Retto, mostly kamikaze-induced. Ironically, besides Twiggs, they helped patch up the battered carrier Franklin, which Twiggs had escorted into the theatre from the East Coast. 80-G-236726

Just 20 days after her destructive near-miss, Twiggs was back on radar picket duties in the western fire support area off Okinawa, providing NGFS on Iheya Shima and Iheya-Aguni.

The end came on 16 June, while, on radar picket duty some 5,000 yards off Senaga Shima, Okinawa’s southern tip, that observers on Twiggs around 2030 observed a single, low-flying enemy aircraft moments before it dropped a torpedo into her port side, adjacent to the destroyer’s number 2 magazine.

Very few men stationed forward survived, in particular, most of the destroyer’s bridge crew, including CDR Philip, were lost in the conflagration.

As told by the ship’s assistant communications officer, LT Oscar N. Pederson. He was one of just three officers to live– all wounded– to tell his story: Not content with just hitting Twiggs with a fish and living to fight another day, the same torpedo bomber circled back around sharply and onto the starboard side of the stricken destroyer, then crashed between her No. 3 and No. 4 guns, starting a whole new set of fires and secondary explosions.

As illustrated in a press release by the Navy entitled “Death of a Destroyer.” The senior NCO still alive, CMM Charles F. Schmidt, one of just five surviving chiefs, led the fire-fighting efforts as best he could, but the hoses had no pressure, and the hand pumps just weren’t making headway. Arriving on deck to find fuel oil spread over the water on both sides of the ship and on fire, and 40mm ready ammo cooking off in all directions, it was Chief Schmidt who ordered Twiggs abandoned.

Directing the efforts to offload the crew astern safely, the last five men trying to get off confessed they couldn’t swim.

Schmidt did what chiefs do: give up his lifejacket, help them as best he could, and then later attribute any lives saved to two other chiefs who were working amidships: Most of those recovered from the water, including Lt Pedersen and Chief Schmidt, were picked up by the destroyer USS Putnam (DD 757), which reported:

Twiggs was burning furiously, particularly around the bridge structure and forward torpedo tubes, midship machine guns, and after deck house, including 5″ mounts three and four. Almost continuous minor explosions were observed, which were believed to be 40mm, 20mm, and 5″ ammunition. Burning fragments were thrown short distances about the ship, around the rescue boats, and further igniting the thick, heavy oil layer on the water. Attempts to close the surface oil fires with the ship at this time to extinguish flames were prevented by the survivors in the water and about the stern, and propellers. At 2129, there was a tremendous explosion on the Twiggs, followed by a momentary inferno of fire throughout the ship, and she sank in less than a minute, leaving a large burning oil fire on the surface, which gradually disappeared.

Speaking of burning fragments, as noted by Navsource, the only known surviving piece of the exploding Twiggs was later found by Earl Bauer, a signalman aboard Putnam who observed this jagged piece of the exploding destroyer land red hot into the Putnam’s flag bag.

He retrieved it the next morning. This blackened, twisted, 2″ long artifact was donated to the National Museum of the Pacific War in November 2022.

Today, Twiggs is believed to rest in deep water near 26º08’N, 127º35’E, while 193 of her crew of 314 lost with the ship remain on duty.

Also lost with the ship was Jeanie, the destroyer’s mascot, along with all five of her pups.

As noted by the NHHC, Twiggs was one of five American destroyers to have more than half their crew killed and wounded in suicide attacks during the battle for Okinawa– the others being Halligan (DD-584), Luce (DD-522), Morrison (DD-560), and Drexler (DD-741).

Epilogue

Twiggs was officially struck from the Navy list on 11 July 1945. She earned four battle stars for her war.

In 1957, her wreck was donated to the government of the Ryukyu Islands.

Twiggs has a memorial plaque at the National Museum of the Pacific War (the Nimitz Museum) in Texas.

As you may surmise, NARA has most of her deck logs and reports digitized.

A few of her crew who survived managed to leave behind oral history interviews. CDR Philip’s family was presented a posthumous Navy Cross. One of 57 members of the Annapolis Class of 1935 in Memorial Hall, the Navy in 1978 named a frigate in his honor, USS George Philip (FFG 12). The greyhound was sponsored by his daughter, Margaret.

USS George Philip (FFG 12) served until 2004, her motto, “Intrepide Impelle” (To Go Boldly)

Twiggs’ first skipper, CDR Fellows, was on Okinawa on joint service with the Army when his old ship went down. He continued to serve, surviving the war, and retired from the Navy as a rear admiral. He passed in 1974.

I can’t find out anything post-war about Chief Schmidt. It seems time has done what the Japanese never could.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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At least the Resistance was only ‘Moderate’

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It happened 80 years ago today.

Official period caption: “Soldiers of the 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, advancing to Hill 115 on Okinawa against moderate resistance. 16 June 1945.”

Photographer: Moller, 3233rd Signal Service Detachment. SC Photo 270801

Hill 115 was one of the keys to Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima’s 32nd Army’s final defenses on Okinawa, with the boys of the 32nd Infantry clearing out the Japanese 44th Brigade’s HQ there shortly after the above image was snapped.

“With a mortar squad of the 32nd Regiment, 7th Div., on Okinawa are Pfc. Guillermo Acosta, Los Angeles, Cal., and Pfc. James Barnes, Pontiac, Mich., both of whom have also participated in the assaults on Attu, Kwajalein, and Leyte.” Photographer: Moller, 3233rd Signal Service Detachment. SC Photo SC 270795

As noted by the Army’s Center for Military History: 

Within the zone of the 7th Division were Hills 153 and 115, jagged protuberances of coral which, after the fall of the Yaeju-Dake and Hill 95, became General Ushijima’s last hope of defending the eastern end of his line.

The 5-day battle for these hills and the fields of coral outcroppings on the surrounding plateau, lasting from 13 to 17 June, was as much like hunting as fighting. It was a battle of massed tanks that operated ahead of the usual infantry support, blasting the coral rocks with shell bursts and almost constant machine-gun fire. The battlefield was perfect for armored flame throwers, which poured flame into the caves and clusters of rocky crags and wooded areas, either killing the Japanese at once or forcing them into lanes of machine-gun fire. In five days, flame tanks of the 713th Armored Flame Thrower Battalion directed more than 37,000 gallons of burning gasoline at the enemy. It was also a battle of infantry platoons or individual infantrymen against disorganized but desperate enemy soldiers.

Some of the largest cave defenses in southern Okinawa were in the Yaeju and Yuza Peaks. Infantrymen of the 96th Division destroyed these positions with hand and rifle grenades, satchel charges, and portable flame throwers. For the infantrymen, it was a search for the enemy’s hiding places, often followed by a few minutes of reckless combat. Troops of the 381st Infantry occupied the commanding ground on the Big Apple Peak on 14 June, but, for lack of enough explosives to seal the numerous caves in the area, were forced into a night-long fight with the Japanese who emerged from the caves after darkness. Yuza Peak fell two days later, on 16 June. On the same day, the 17th and 32d Regiments reached Hill 153 and Hill 115, but another day of bitter fighting was required before the Japanese forces were completely destroyed.

During this battle, the 32nd won the nickname “Spearhead” because of its continuous attacks against the enemy, one that it still carries today as a unit of the 10th (Mountain) Infantry Division.

To be kept forever in the care…

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The Irish Regiments of the British Army in all their scarlet finery, 1897.

Chromolithograph by Emrik and Binger after Richard Simkin, 1897. Published as a supplement to ‘The Boys Own Paper’, 25 December 1897. National Army Museum NAM. 1973-11-137-1

The above, as detailed by the NAM:

Shows twenty mounted and dismounted figures representing twelve units: trumpeter and officer, 4th Irish Dragoon Guards; trooper, 5th Royal Irish Lancers; trooper, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons; corporal and officer, 8th King’s Own Royal Irish Hussars; officer, Royal Irish Regiment; officer, Royal Irish Fusiliers; officer and corporal, Royal Irish Rifles; private, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers; corporal and sergeant major, Royal Munster Fusiliers; drummer, Royal Dublin Fusiliers; officer, Connaught Rangers; bandsman, Leinster Regiment.

The Old Contemptibles in 1914, the regulars of the BEF, included upwards of 30,000 Irishmen, and it is now generally accepted that around 200,000 soldiers recruited from the island of Ireland served over the course of the Great War.

Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the six British infantry regiments that recruited there were disbanded, and on 12 June, 103 years ago today, their Colours were laid up at St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle, to be kept forever in the care of the King and his descendants.

The Queen’s and Regimental Colours of each Battalion were paraded through Windsor and handed to the King for safekeeping after a service at Windsor Castle.

Warship Wednesday, June 4, 2025: Tiny Hull, Heart of Oak

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, June 4, 2025: Tiny Hull, Heart of Oak

“Goliath Wins,” painting by former RN FAA veteran and well-known marine and aviation artist, the late Jim Rae.

Above we see the Tree-class Admiralty type minesweeping trawler, HMT Juniper (T123), as she engages in a one-sided artillery duel with the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in the Norwegian Sea on 8 June 1940, some 85 years ago this week.

The Trees

The British, with thousands of hardy blue water fishing boats and generations of crews along their coast in the 20th Century, were quickly able to mobilize these home-grown assets as sort of a “pirate fleet” with little effort, much akin to how the USCG almost overnight was able to deploy their 2,000-boat so-called Hooligan Navy or Corsair Fleet during WWII.

The Brits already had volumes of experience with such transformation in the Great War, ordering 609 “Admiralty” military type steel hulled trawlers specifically for naval use, along with another 1,400 boats taken up from trade. 

Trawlers on patrol at Halifax, 1918, CWM

The concept in the Great War was simple: take a boat, add a deck gun, radio set, and searchlight; crew it largely with experienced trawlermen in uniform led by a reserve officer or two, and then specialize it into either anti-submarine work with listening gear and depth charges or minesweeping with sweep gear, sort said “battle trawlers” into flotillas, and turn them loose.

When 1935’s Italian invasion of Ethiopia, followed by Hitler’s abrogation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with the reoccupation of the Rhineland by German troops and rearmament to include U-boats, signaled a new war on the horizon, the Royal Navy dusted off its trawler plan as a quick way to boost coastal forces.

This led to the prototype for the British ASW/minesweeping trawlers of the next decade, with HMT Basset (T68) built by Robb in Leith, being launched before the end of 1935.

Coal-burning with a single boiler and VTE engine good for a humble 12.5 knots, Basset ran 160 feet oal, could float in just 10 feet of seawater, and displaced 521 tons. Armament was a 3″/40 12pdr 12cwt QF Mk I/II/V taken from a WWI-era destroyer and mounted on a “bandstand” on the bow, along with weight and space saved for as many as 30 depth charges and mechanical minesweeping gear.

Basset led to a series of nearly two dozen vessels for the Royal Indian Navy and a few for the Canadians, while the design was tweaked for the follow-on Gem and Tree classes.

The first WWII-era Admiralty standard minesweeping trawler type was the 20-member Tree class, so dubbed as all its members were named after trees. These were just barely larger than the Basset (Dog) class, hitting 545 tons standard (770 full) and running some 164 feet long.

Armament, like Basset, relied on a single old 12-pounder forward, a twin 50-cal Vickers rear (sometimes replaced with a second 12-pounder) a pair of Vickers .303s, two depth charge throwers and two depth charge racks with provision for 30 ash cans, along with the novel new Oropesa Mk II mechanical mine sweep or LL-type magnetic mine sweep.

A trawler’s gun crew manning the 12-pounder on the fo’castle. Photographer LT FA Hudson IWM (A 17176)

A trawler’s crew manning a 12-pounder. Photographer LT FA Davies IWM (A 12317)

Ordered from nine small yards around Britain, all were laid down on the eve of the war, augmented by 67 other trawlers purchased from trade.

HMT Birch, a Tree-class trawler

British Tree class naval trawler HMT Rowan, Pennant No T119 FL18332

British Tree-class naval trawler HMT Walnut, Pennant No T103

British Tree class naval trawler HMT Acacia, Pennant No T02, IWM FL 46

HMT Bay, Tree class Trawler, IWM A 6694

HM Trawler Pine – a “Tree” class minesweeper, she was torpedoed and sunk off Beachy Head by a Kriegsmarine Schnellboot with the loss of 10 of her crew.

HMT Walnut, Tree tree-class trawler

Crews were up to 40 souls, but typically more like 35, relying on a skipper and two junior officers, a couple of ratings from the RN or RNR, and the rest members of the newly stood up Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS).

Trained at the “stone frigate” HMS Europa, the commandeered Sparrows Nest Gardens in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the ad-hoc nature of the enterprise soon led to the force being known as “Harry Tate’s Navy” after a popular comedian of the era who had problems getting his car started and soon found it falling apart all around him but carried on with confidence nonetheless. In short, something akin to the “Rodney Dangerfield Navy.”

Meet Juniper

Our subject was the second warship to carry the name in the Royal Navy, with the first being an 8-gun Napoleonic-era Shamrock-class schooner that distinguished herself on Sir Arthur Wellesley’s campaigns in Portugal and Spain.

Ordered along with her future sister, HMT Mangrove from Ferguson Brothers (now Ferguson Marine) in Glasgow, Juniper was laid down as Yard No. 344 in August 1939 while Mangrove, built side-by-side, was No. 345. Their hull numbers would be T123 and T112, characteristically out of sequence, a class trait.

Juniper launched on 15 December 1939, as the Germans were digesting newly conquered western Poland, and commissioned in March 1940, as they prepped to turn West. She was modified while under construction and fitted with a more comprehensive AAA suite: three 20mm Oerlikons in place of the twin .50 cal Vickers.

20mm Oerlikon mounting on a British trawler. LT FA Davies IWM (A 12318)

Juniper’s first (and only) skipper was 42-year-old LCDR (Emergency) Geoffrey Seymour Grenfell, RN. An 18-year-old midshipman of impeccable background during the Great War (grandson of ADM John Pascoe Grenfell, grandnephew of Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, and the nephew of a VC holder killed with the 9th Lancers in 1914) he fought at Jutland on the famous HMS Warspite, a vessel holed 150 times in the sea clash by five German battleships. Leaving active service in 1920 as a lieutenant, after nine years with the colors, he was moved to the Emergency List, where he was made a LCDR in 1928 and remained there until activated in 1939.

Grenfell was a little bit famous at the time, having married the high-profile Countess of Carnarvon in 1938, an American heiress and descendant of the Lee Family of Virginia who had just divorced the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, leaving her son to inherit the title. Of note, the family home was the real Victorian Highclere Castle, the setting of the fictional Downton Abbey. Grenfell and the Countess’s marriage was important enough to be carried across the Atlantic in the NYT’s society pages.

The rest of Juniper’s tiny wardroom was made up of Probationary Temporary (Acting) Sub-Lieutenant Neville L. Smith, RNVR, and Probationary Temporary Lieutenant Ronald Campbell Blair Arnold Daniel, RNVR. Daniel, 40, was an architect in the Richmond practice of Partridge and a proud member of the Petersham Horticultural Society, having just joined the colors in April 1940.

War!

Rushed northward in June 1940 to take part in Operation Alphabet, the Allied evacuation of Norway, on the morning of 8 June, having departed Tromso the day before as the sole escort for the Aberdeen-bound 5,600-ton tanker SS Oil Pioneer, Juniper spotted a large cruiser on the horizon off Harstad.

It turned out to be the 14,000-ton Admiral Hipper, which at the time flew the signals of the British cruiser HMS Southampton.

Hipper off Norway, 1940

Realizing the ruse too late and being too slow to make a getaway, Juniper put the “battle” in battle trawler and made ready for a surface action. Signaling her merchantmen to evade as best they could, she began a cat-and-mouse artillery action with Hipper.

Some reports state that it took 90 minutes. Others are just 15. No matter how long it took to play out, the outcome was certain, and Juniper was smashed below the waves by Hipper’s secondary 4.1-inch SK C/33 battery, the bruiser saving its big 8-inch guns for more worthy prey. Any of Hipper’s four escorting destroyers, Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck, and Z20 Karl Galster, would have been more than a match for our trawler.

An on-board camera crew captured the event.

Shortly after, the nearby KM Gneisenau caught Oil Pioneer and sank her with a combination of gunfire and a torpedo from the destroyer Schoemann, leaving one reported survivor.

The bulk of Juniper’s crew were listed simply as missing or “Missing Presumed Killed” (MPK).

ALEXANDER, Ivor, Ordinary Seaman, LT/JX 179311, MPK
AUSTWICK, Clarence H, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 59952 ES, missing
BARGEWELL, Arthur, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 106123, missing
BROWNJOHN, Denis E, Telegraphist, C/WRX 1246, missing
CHAPMAN, Charles, Seaman, RNR (PS), LT/X 20188 A, missing
COOPER, Robert, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183134, MPK
DANIEL, Ronald C B A, Py/Ty/Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
GEORGE, William, Stoker 2c, RNPS, LT/KX 104599, MPK
GRENFELL, Geoffrey S, Lieutenant Commander, MPK
HIND, Wilson K, Leading Seaman, RNR, D/X 10320 B, missing
JILLINGS, Henry A, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177687, missing
MARSHALL, William D, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 104048, missing
NEWELL, George W, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 172789, MPK
PENTON, Thomas S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 176379, missing
PERKINS, James K, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177711, missing
PHILLIPS, Peter R S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183136, MPK
SAWKINS, Eric W, Ordinary Signalman, RNVR, P/SDX 1535, missing
SEABROOK, William H, Telegraphist, RNW(W)R, C/WRX 124, missing
SMITH, Neville L, Py/Ty/Act/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
SUMMERS, George, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 318 EU, missing
TIMMS, Ernest S, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 180470, missing
VENTRY, Vincent, Seaman Cook, RNPS, LT/JX 185635, missing
WEAVER, Edgar A, 2nd Hand, RNPS, LT/KX 181715, missing

Those survivors picked up by the Germans were taken to Trondheim and eventually made their way to the Stalag IID Stargard in Pomerania. One of these survivors, Telegraphist Charles Roy Batchelor (499/X4624), though grievously wounded, survived the war and left a detailed account of his post-Juniper experience. He was repatriated home in October 1943 due to his wounds and would endure a series of skin and bone grafts for another 18 months. He went on to make a life for himself in to the 1980s and had a family, but walked with a limp, carried facial scars, and had difficulty chewing until the very end.

Soon after sending Juniper and Oil Pioneer to the bottom, Hipper found the empty troopship SS Orama (19,840 GRT) and made it a hat-trick.

German destroyer Z10 Hans Lody picking up survivors from British troop transport SS Orama, June 8, 1940

On the same afternoon as Juniper was lost and only a few miles away, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst would meet up and sink the carrier HMS Glorious, including her defending destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent, with the loss of over 1,500 lives. That much larger disaster overshadowed our trawler’s ride to Valhalla.

Epilogue

Despite the heroic charge of Juniper, I cannot find where the vessel or her crew were decorated. British LCDR Gerard Broadmead Roope, skipper of the G-class destroyer, HMS Glowworm, sunk by Hipper under very similar circumstances in April 1940, earned a VC.

The only post-war mention I can find of the good LCDR Grenfell is a notice of the settlement of his estate, published in October 1941.

His wife, the former Countess of Carnarvon, mourned for a decade before taking her third husband in 1950, and passed in 1977.

The Trees had a tough war. Besides Juniper, five of her 19 sisters were lost in action: HMT Almond (T 14), Ash (T 39), Chestnut (T 110), Hickory (T 116), and Pine (T 101).

The British lost an amazing 122 minesweeping trawlers during the war.

The Royal Naval Patrol Service numbered some 66,000 men during WWII, manning 6,000 assorted small vessels. At least 14,500 of these “Sparrows” lost their lives, and no less than 2,385 RNPS seamen “have no known grave but the sea.”

Today, the Lowestoft War Memorial Museum at Sparrow’s Nest remembers their sacrifices. Bronze panels at the Museum hold the names of the 2,385 MPK, including those lost on Juniper, recorded on Panels No. 1 and No. 2.

“Harry Tate’s Navy” echoes into eternity. 

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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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The Hussar General at 250

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“Général Lasalle.” – François Flameng, 1906

We would be remiss if we let May escape without observing the 250th birthday of Antoine-Charles-Louis, Comte de Lasalle.

Born on 10 May 1775 in Metz, the son of an officer in the French Royal Army and knight of the Order of Saint Louis, as well as a great grand nephew of a Marshal of France from the 30 Years’ War (Abraham de Fabert, marquis d’Esternay), it was no surprise that Lasalle joined he Army at the tender age of 11 and became an officer by 14.

Sadly, he was a leg in the Alsace Regiment of the Baron de Esbecke, a unit composed mainly of Germans, and only managed to upgrade to the cavalry after the Revolution. Accepted as a lieutenant in the 24e Régiment de Cavalerie on 25 May 1791, he soon had to resign over the controversy that he was a petit noble.

However, with the enemies of France pressing in from every direction, the young Lasalle was able to convince the Comité de Salut public to allow him a spot with the 23e Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval in February 1794, and the rest is history. The 19-year-old had a horse and knew how to use it. His first notable combat was capturing a British artillery battery at Landrecies that same July.

Fighting in the Italian campaign as an ADC for Gen. Kellermann, by 1796, he was a captain. He led an 18-man troop of the 1er Régiment de Cavalerie on a mission behind enemy lines that soon matched it against a 36-strong group of Austrian hussars, which he bested. Then came a squadron command in the 22e Chasseurs à Cheval, and a trip to Egypt with the 7e Régiment bis de Hussards. There, amid the pyramids, he led 150 sabers against several times that amount of Mamelukes in swirling battles, pistols in hand.

Returning to France in 1800, he was decorated by Napoleon himself. He made a colonel at the tender age of 25, famously remarking, “Tout hussard qui n’est pas mort à trente ans est un jean-foutre, (Any hussar who isn’t dead by the age of thirty is a jerk.).”

Commanding the 10th Hussars at Vilnadella, the young colonel was in the thick of it, reportedly having three horses killed under him and breaking seven sabers, earning the Legion of Honour.

By 1803, he was a brigadier general in command of a brigade of dragoons that he would lead at  Austerlitz.

His legendary moment was in the Prussian and Polish campaigns. Leading his “brigade infernale” of the 5th and 7th Hussars, he captured the King of Prussia’s Guard and the Stettin fortress, then forced the Prince of Hohenlohe to surrender at Prenzlau. The Stettin fortress, with 5,000 Prussians inside, surrendered after a threatened “siege” by Lasalle and his 500 worn cavalrymen using wooden cannon as a ruse.

He bested Blücher at Lübeck, and the Russians at Golymin before solidifying his living legend at Jena and being made a major general of division on 30 December 1806 at 31.

“The Comte de Lasalle at the head of his brigade at the Battle of Jena – October 14th, 1806.” – Alphonse Lalauze, 1928

Murat & Hussar General Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle at the Battle of Heilsberg, June 10 1807 Breville

Fighting at Heilsberg and then serving brilliantly in the Spanish campaign, by 1809 he was with the Grande Armée again, once more fighting against the Austrians, but this time with the  Germans on the side of the French.

Capping nearly 40 hours of epic fighting at Wagram, Lasalle’s last charge ended with his death, struck in the head by a bullet while facing Hungarian grenadiers.

Général Lasalle charging at Wagram on June 6th, in the afternoon, just before he was killed.” – Édouard Detaille, 1912

“The Charge of Général Lasalle at Wagram.” – Guido Sigriste, 1906

He bested his “dead by age 30” boast by four years.

 

And in Coast Guard News…

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Lots of interesting stories from the USCG that have likely slipped through under the radar for most in the past couple of weeks.

M4 profile, just the essentials

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calhoun (WMSL 759) recently offloaded more than 19,055 pounds of cocaine and marijuana valued at approximately $140.9 million in Port Everglades, Florida, the result of five interdictions in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea by interagency partners under JIATF-S.

Check out this GM2’s carbine (and holstered Glock), from Calhoun.

Petty Officer 2nd Class David Hopkins, a gunner’s mate aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calhoun (WMSL 759), watches illegal narcotics in Port Everglades, May 16, 2025. (Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Walker)

The no-frills setup runs an Aimpoint Patrol Rifle Optic (PRO) red dot reflex sight on a QRP2 mount rather than an ACOG or Elcan. His short quad rail has an inexpensive ($125 if you shop around) Streamlight TLR RM2 1,000 lumen white light. Note the KAC 300M flip-up rear sight in case the Aimpoint takes a nap. Magpul PMAG and Mechanix gloves for the win.

USCG Hero remembered on DDG

The keel for the future USS Quentin Walsh (DDG 132), an Arleigh Burke-class Flight III guided missile destroyer, was laid down during a ceremony on 20 May at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine.

The ship’s sponsor is Madison Ann Zolper, great-granddaughter of the ship’s namesake, Coast Guard Capt. Quentin R. Walsh (USCGA 1933), who earned the Navy Cross for his heroic actions during the liberation of the strategic French port of Cherbourg in World War II.

Future USS Quentin Walsh’s (DDG 132) sponsor, Madison Ann Zolper, welded her initials into the ship’s keel plate for authentication during a keel laying ceremony at Bath Iron Works, Maine. (NAVSEA photos)

Cmdr. Quentin R. Walsh in his dress blues bearing his recently awarded Navy Cross Medal. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

Cmdr. Quentin R. Walsh in his dress blues bearing his recently awarded Navy Cross Medal. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

As detailed by the USCG Historian:

Armed with bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, and submachine guns, he and his party overcame sniper fire and blew open steel doors of underground bunkers.  About 400 of the Germans in the arsenal area surrendered.  Walsh’s command went on to capture Fort Du Homet and its garrison of 350 men. In all, his 53-man special force was credited with taking about 750 German prisoners and liberating 52 captured American paratroopers.

For his actions in and around Cherbourg beginning June 9, he received the Navy Cross.  The citation for the award noted:

“Heroism as Commanding Officer of a U.S. Naval party reconnoitering the naval facilities and naval arsenal at Cherbourg June 26 and 27, 1944.  While in command of a reconnaissance party, Commander Walsh entered the port of Cherbourg and penetrated the eastern half of the city, engaging in street fighting with the enemy. He accepted the surrender and disarmed 400 of the enemy force at the naval arsenal and later received the unconditional surrender of 350 enemy troops and, at the same time, released 52 captured U.S. Army paratroopers.  His determination and devotion to duty were instrumental in the surrender of the last inner fortress of the Arsenal.”

First visit to Nuku Hiva in over 150 years

The Bear-class 270-foot cutter USCG Cutter Harriet Lane (WMEC 903), the first of her class to be moved to the Pacific, has been roaming around recently. Last week, she called on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. In doing so, she is the first American warship to dock there since the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia in 1858.

USCG Harriet Lane (WMEC 903) at Nuku Hiva, CWO2 Michael Deaton & BM3 Joseph Curran

The windswept island has hosted Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson in the past, along with the famed 46-gun frigate USS Essex in 1813, putting Harriet Lane in good company.

CG SF in the PI

While the USCGC Stratton was in the Philippines, forward deployed as part of DESRON 15, a det from the Coast Guard’s San Diego-based Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) West has been working with the Philippine Coast Guard Special Operations Force in a dynamic training exercise in Puerto Princesa, leaving the question of what is better camo for sea ops, the green-based Scorpion OCP or the grey-based Camopat.

Photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class William Kirk:

Last Islands sent to Colombia

We’ve recently covered the recent decommissioning of the final three 110-foot Island class cutters on the beat in the U.S.– USCGC Liberty (WPB-1334), Mustang (WPB-1310), and Naushon (WPB-1311)-– long-serving in Alaska for the past 30 years. It seems they are headed south for continued service alongside each other, sisters to the end.

The decommissioned and disarmed USCGCs Naushon (WPB 1311), Mustang (WPB 1310), and Liberty (WPB 1334) transit through Seymour Narrows in British Columbia, Canada, in May 2025, heading from their longtime home in Alaska to San Diego and warmer climes. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of USCGC Mustang)

On 19 May, representatives from the Colombian Navy received the trio in a ceremony held at the port of San Diego through the Excess Defense Articles program. They will receive a refit in the States before the official handover.

Other members of the 49-member class have been transferred to Costa Rica, Georgia, Greece, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Ukraine. Only 14 have been scrapped. Not a bad run considering the last unit was delivered from Bollinger in 1992, and they had a 15-year planned lifespan.

Turn up the motivation

The crew of USCGC Kimball (WMSL 756) returned to their Honolulu home port on 9 May after an 84-day deployment to the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

While patrolling international waters off the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Central, and South America, Kimball’s crew interdicted five suspected drug smuggling vessels, seizing $191 million worth of cocaine and apprehending 18 suspected drug smugglers.

Maritime enforcement specialists from Tactical Law Enforcement Team South and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball (WMSL 756) crewmembers interdict a suspected drug smuggling vessel while patrolling the Eastern Pacific Ocean, March 4, 2025. The U.S. Coast Guard is increasing its presence in key areas to secure the U.S. maritime border against the flow of cocaine, fentanyl, and other illegal drugs. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Max Hanfland)

Note her embarked crew included at least two NWU III camo-wearing USN enlisted (left) balanced against the ship’s crew in blue, the TACLET team in OCP, and the HITRON guys in Nomex flight suits. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Austin Wiley)

A video of one of the intercepts showing TACLET at work. Note the Gen 5 G19s. The USCG notably uses them rather than the M17/M18.

Kimball also released a very well-done 90-second moto video of the patrol, leaning into not only the seizure operations but also showing some rare footage of the cutter’s CIWS and Mk 110 in live-fire action along with small arms and HITRON clips.

Remember to remember today

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80 years ago. Memorial Day 1945 – “After four months of fierce fighting on Luzon, these 11th Airborne Division ‘Angels’ attend a Memorial Day Service for their fallen brothers held in Batangas. Their faces say it all.”

Photo via the 11th Airborne Division Association – “Angels”

Activated on 25 February 1943, the 11th entered combat in the PTO on 25 May 1944 and suffered 2,431 casualties in 204 days of combat.

You Call this Ship a Destroyer Escort…

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Talk about a recruiting poster.

Here we see the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Martin H. Ray (DE-338) knifing through the Atlantic with a bone in her teeth while on a Convoy run, circa 1944-45

NHHC Catalog #: 26-G-4502

Named for the engineering officer on USS Hammann (DD 412) who earned a Navy Cross the hard way during the Battle of Midway, DE-338 was built in Orange, Texas, christened by the widow of Lt. Ray, and commissioned 28 February 1944.

Finishing her shakedown, she rode shotgun on 14 Atlantic convoys over the course of the next year– without losing a ship– then was transferred to the Pacific in August 1945, just too late for the war against Japan, capping her service on Magic Carpet runs.

Decommissioned in May 1947 after a career that lasted just over three years, she was laid up at Green Cove Springs, Florida, for two decades, then sold for scrap.

A much deserved show

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It happened 80 years ago today.

The crew of USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) assembled for a USO Show onboard in Leyte Gulf on 22 May 1945, relaxing after being relieved from the Battle of Okinawa.

Courtesy of the National Archives & Records Administration.

As detailed by the Battleship Texas Foundation, just the week prior:

USS Texas was relieved from the Battle of Okinawa after 50 days in action. Texas expended a staggering amount of ammunition in those 50 days:

14” – 2,019 rounds
5” – 2,643 rounds
3” – 490 rounds
40 mm – 3100 rounds
20 mm – 2205 rounds

While the battle was over for Texas on May 14, 1945, Okinawa was not secured until June 22nd. This long, protracted battle was grueling for the land forces but also exposed the Navy to near-constant air attacks. The Navy lost nearly 5,000 men and another 5,000 were wounded. 36 ships were sunk and over 350 were damaged. Texas emerged from her time off Okinawa unscathed in large part due to her crew’s constant state of readiness. Captain Charles Baker included the following praise in his after-action report:

“It is worthy of comment that this vessel remained in Condition I or I Easy [“battle stations”] throughout the entire period off the coast of Okinawa, some seven weeks. That the men took this without undue fatigue is a tribute to their spirit and physical condition. It is not believed that any lesser condition of readiness can meet adequately the emergencies of suicide bombers and suicide boats. The only answer to the approaching [kamikaze] is early and great volume of fire, using every gun that will possibly bear, and early warning by radar cannot always be relied upon. The men realized this and preferred to remain at their stations, resting and sleeping there as opportunity offered, rather than be called up frequently from below as would inevitably have happened. The rest period when it finally came, however, was much appreciated.”

-Captain Baker’s Report for the Battle of Okinawa, filed May 26, 1945

The Port of Gulfport implemented ‘continuous autonomous subsea surveillance’ on May 1

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There is no secret that the Navy has often used undersea surveillance sonar such as the German-made Cerberus anti-diver set for years in sensitive areas such as strategic ports, NSYs, and homeports.

For instance, more than 20 years ago:

050815-N-1722M-026 Pascagoula, Miss. (Aug 15, 2005) – Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit One Two (EODMU-12) Det 10 prepare to guide the Cerberus Swimmer Detection System into the water at Naval Station Pascagoula during the Gulf Coast Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative 2005. The initiative is being held at the Port of Pascagoula in cooperation with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, along with federal, state, and local agencies working together to enhance homeland security. U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Michael Moriatis (RELEASED)

Plus, there are regular harbor inspections and exercises by USCGR PSUs and USNR MIUWUs, not to mention state and local dive teams and UXO/EOD dets.

Now the ante has been quietly upped in the form of full-time AUSVs.

I’ve covered the Ocean Aero Triton, which is capable of sailing autonomously for 3 months on solar and wind power at speeds of up to 5 knots, several times in the past couple of years. I see them a lot as the company is based here in Gulfport.

Up she comes.

It seems the Triton is now also “on the job” in the port, basically making a baseline scan of the bottom and then repeating the grid to look for new items which would be interesting to take a closer look at to see if they are, well, an old refrigerator, or a sea mine.

 

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