Located at Cambrai Barrack in Catterick is The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeths’ Own) of the British Army, a fairly new regiment, only being formed in 2015. Nonetheless, it was created via an amalgamation of several other Lancer regiments to include the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales’s) and the Queen’s Royal Lancers, the latter of which had been formed by a 1993 amalgamation of the 16th/5th Lancers and the 17th/21st Lancers, carrying the history of those two regiments (which had also been amalgamated in 1960 and 1922, respectively). Hence, today’s Royal Lancers tend the history and lineage of no less than a half-dozen old Napoleanic and Crimean-era “pole cavalry” regiments.
The coolest of which, the 17th Lancers (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) (the original skull head “Death or Glory Boys”) has lingered on in the center of the unit’s cap badge and banners, along with the traditional black beret of the Tank Corps.
A battalion-strength unit, today’s Royal Lancers are built around four Sabre Squadrons (A, B, C, and D) with CVR(T) Scimitars (but are converting to Jackals) and Panthers to perform an armored scout/recon role in 1 Armoured Infantry Brigade.
The Royal Lancer’s daily driver, the CVR(T) Scimitar, includes light armor and a fearsome 30 mm L21 RARDEN cannon. A design that dates to the 1970s and saw combat in the Falklands and against Saddam, Scimitar is supposed to be retired by 2023 and the British are giving them away to the Ukrainians.
Of course, the Lancers are moving to the lighter and faster, but almost totally unarmed and unarmored, Jackal, but hey…
Still, with an amalgamated lineage that dates to 1759, the Lancers have a certain cavalry record to uphold.
They provide dismounted lance-wielding marching platoons for events such as the Queen’s Jubilee, the only unit authorized to do so.
And there are always Lancer wedding parties.
Note the red caps, a throwback to the lining of the old Lancer czapka of the 19th century
The officer’s dress mess uniform (augmented by the retiree-standard bowler hat and pinstriped suit with umbrella) is a throwback to Wellington. For reference, today’s RL’s mess dress tunic runs a paltry £2,285, showing that, while times may have changed since the old days, they haven’t changed all that much.
A contemporary Royal Lancer officer in mess dress flanked by the original constituent lancer regiments: from left to right: 17th, 9th, 16th, RL, 12th, 5th, and 21st Lancers. Note the czapkas on the legacy uniforms
This all brings us to this week where the Colonel of the Regiment, Commanding Officer, Padre, and other Lancer representatives traveled to Montreuil-Sur-Mer, France, for the unveiling of the renovated statue of the iron-hearted Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from 1915 to the end of the First World War.
Haig, born seven years after Balaclava, had commanded the 17th Lancers and was Colonel of the Regiment of the 17th/21st Lancers. His Lancer uniform is in the IWM.
“Soldiers from the Regiment conducted a Lance Guard for the unveiling ceremony and the church service afterward, performing admirably in ceremonial dress despite the extreme 34-degree heat!” noted the regiment.
Just some snaps taken while kayaking around Gulfport harbor down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The above shows the replica Ship Island Lighthouse at Jones Park built in 2011 after the original which was lost to a fire in 1972 (and a replica made by the SeaBees had been lost to Katrina). To the left are the gleaming white 87-foot Bollinger-built Maritime Protector-class cutters USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359) next to CG Sta Gulfport, where you can see the nose of two 45-foot RB-Ms poking out from the boathouse. You can see Customs “Blue Lighting” interceptors to the far left.
A close-up of USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359). The “color of the boathouse” in Gulfport is rust, btw.
Also buzzing around for the past couple of weeks, no doubt on summer camp, have been a number of USCG Transportable Port Security Boats, surely of the Kiln-based PSU 308. As noted by the USCG, “TPSBs serve to assist in anti-terrorism force protection and shore-side security capable of supporting port and waterway security anywhere the military operates.”
Over the weekend, Bath Iron Works in Maine hosted the christening of the USS John Basilone (DDG-122), a late-batch Burke-class destroyer, with Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Troy Black delivering the ceremony’s principal address.
Basilone via General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
The warship was transitioned to launch over a three-day period last week.
Who was Basilone?
Born in Buffalo, New York in November 1916, John (no middle name) Basilone, Roman Catholic, son of Salvatore and Dora Basilone, had done his bit for his country prior to World War II. He had served in the Regular Army from 5 February 1936 to 7 September 1939 and was still in the Army Reserves (3rd Corps) from which he had to petition the force for a discharge to join the Marines, a move that was approved 11 July 1940.
His civilian job listed on intake to the Corps was that of a truck driver.
His Navy physical, when he joined the Marines, listed in addition to several minor scars and burns, two tattoos on his biceps. On his right, the “bust of a western woman.” On the left, a sword and the words “Death Before Dishonor.”
By September 1940, newly-promoted PFC Basilone was standing tall and would make Corporal the following May before grabbing his third stripe as a Sergent on 23 January 1942, just six weeks after Pearl Harbor.
Less than nine months later, SGT Basilone would become a legend for his actions at Guadalcanal.
Medal of Honor citation:
“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action against enemy Japanese forces, above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division in the Lunga Area. Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 24 and 25 October 1942. While the enemy was hammering at the Marines’ defensive positions, Sgt. Basilone, in charge of 2 sections of heavy machine guns, fought valiantly to check the savage and determined assault.
In a fierce frontal attack with the Japanese blasting his guns with grenades and mortar fire, one of Sgt. Basilone’s sections, with its guncrews, were put out of action, leaving only 2 men able to carry on. Moving an extra gun into position, he placed it in action, then, under continual fire, repaired another and personally manned it, gallantly holding his line until replacements arrived.
A little later, with ammunition critically low and the supply lines cut off, Sgt. Basilone, at great risk of his life and in the face of continued enemy attack, battled his way through hostile lines with urgently needed shells for his gunners, thereby contributing in large measure to the virtual annihilation of a Japanese regiment. His great personal valor and courageous initiative were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.”
His battlefield promotion to Platoon Sergent was signed by Lt. Col Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller, 1st Bn, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, FMF, in November 1942.
Basilone has long been a Marine Corps icon, and his actions on 24/25 Oct 1942 were recreated in The Pacific.
Basilone could have sat out the war and signed War Bonds and taken pictures for the cameras back home, which he did for a minute, but he voluntarily returned to action at the Battle of Iwo Jima in February of 1945, where he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse and led a Marine tank under fire safely through a minefield. He was killed in action later that day and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his unwavering devotion and valiant spirit of self-sacrifice.
He was the only enlisted Marine to receive both decorations in World War II.
On June 6, 1948, the John Basilone American Legion Post in Raritan dedicated the life-size statue of Basilone holding a water-cooled M1917 Browning machine gun.
The statue was sculpted by childhood friend Phillip Orlando. (New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs photo by Mark C. Olsen)
Above we see a tow line to the British Town-class light cruiser HMS Liverpool (C11) during Operation Harpoon, one of the Allied convoys desperately raced in a pincer movement to supply besieged Malta in the Axis-dominated central Mediterranean, now some 80 years ago this week. While the damage to Liverpool, a cruiser that is shown listing and billowing black smoke, looks bad, she had already toughed out worse during the war and would come back to serve again.
In the mid-1930s, the British didn’t have a shortage of cruisers, as for generations they had kept large numbers of the type around to police their global Empire and sea lanes in the event of war. The thing is, in a “modern problems require modern solutions” situation was the appearance of very large “light” cruisers (under 10,000 tons, guns smaller than 8-inch bore) such as the four Japanese Mogami class (“8,500” declared tons, 15×6-inch guns, 5 inches of armor) and their American echo, the nine Brooklyn-class (9,500 tons, 15×6-inch guns, 5.5 inches of armor) cruisers, the Admiralty decided they needed something like Mogami/Brooklyn of their own.
As Richard Worth put it, “Aware of Japanese and American decisions to build large light cruisers, the British reluctantly admitted their ships had begun to look puny. Arethusa [the best Royal Navy light cruiser of the day, at some 5,200-tons and carrying just a half dozen 6-inch guns] had a broadside of 672 pounds while Brookly had one of 1,950 pounds.”
This led to the eight original Southampton or “Town” class light cruisers, all named after large cities (Southampton, Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle, Gloucester, Liverpool, and Manchester) in the UK. Designed at 9,100 tons– a figure that would balloon over 12,000 during WWII– and 591-feet long overall, the class was intended to carry a full dozen 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIII guns in four triple turrets, allowing a 1,344-pound broadside. To this were added eight 4-inch guns and two triple torpedo tube launchers.
The class’s circa 1939 layout via the 1946 ed of Janes. The class had a 3-to-4-inch side belt, about half that thickness on the turrets, and 4 inches on the CT so, while an answer to the Mogami/Brooklyn, they didn’t have quite as many guns or as much hull structure and steel plate.
Stern Mark XXII turrets on classmate HMS Sheffield after she had sunk the German tanker Friederich Breme in the North Atlantic on 12 June 1941. The cylinders are empty propellant canisters. As noted by Navweaps, Tony DiGiulian describes the 6″/50 Mark XXIII as, “A reliable weapon, although somewhat obsolescent in its use of bag ammunition, manual ramming, and manually-operated breech mechanism.” IWM photograph A 4401.
The latter three of the class– Gloucester, Liverpool, and Manchester— were modified slightly while under construction, adding improved armor protection and fire control systems. Two further half-sisters, Edinburgh, and Belfast, ordered in 1939, continued with the up-armoring trend, adding steel plate to the point that it made up some 18 percent of their displacement, the best British light cruisers in terms of armor. They would need them as the British would use the Towns in much the same role as they did their beefier County-class heavy cruisers which went about 40 feet longer and 2,000 tons heavier.
As with the contemporary light cruisers of the day, the Towns were fitted with extensive aviation facilities and could carry a trio of Supermarine Walrus flying boats.
Supermarine Walrus floatplane being catapulted from a Town Class Light Cruiser, HMS Edinburgh, during a Mediterranean Convoy. Aug 1941
Liverpool, the eighth such ship in the RN to carry the name since 1741, was ordered in March 1935 from Fairfield SB at Govan, Glasgow as part of the 1935 Estimates and laid down on 17 February 1936. The Liverpool immediately prior was a 4,800-ton Great War light cruiser that served off West Africa and in the Adriatic and Aegean during WWI before heading to the breakers in 1921.
NH 59874 HMS LIVERPOOL (British Cruiser, 1909)
Commissioned 2 November 1938, the 9th Liverpool visited her namesake town and shipped out for the East Indies and China stations, joining the 5th Cruiser Squadron at the latter just before WWII broke out.
Her initial taskings included working out of Aden on the hunt for German raiders and blockade runners in the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean before moving to Hong Kong just before Christmas 1939 to continue interception duty.
On 21 January 1940, Liverpool intercepted the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) (Japan Mail Steam Ship Co. Ltd) liner Asama Maruoff Japan just 35 miles off Tokyo Bay’s Nozaki Lighthouse, during the liner’s final leg of a scheduled run from San Francisco for Yokohama. Although she would later be requisitioned by the IJN in 1941 and converted to a troopship, at the time Liverpool boarded her, Asama Maru was still a commercial ship under a neutral flag operating in her home waters.
As noted by Combined Fleet:
At 1315, Captain Read sends a boarding party armed with pistols. The British officer in charge explains to Captain Watabe that it will be necessary to take 21 German passengers as prisoners of war. At 1435, the boarding party leaves the ship with the Germans, all former officers or technicians discharged from Standard Oil tankers. At 1440, HMS LIVERPOOL signals “Proceed”. Shortly after nightfall ASAMA MARU arrives at Yokohama. LIVERPOOL takes the Germans to Hong Kong.
The resulting public indignation felt in Japan over the high-handed incident further strained relations between London and Tokyo, which of course would erupt in open warfare the next year.
Transferred to the Red Sea Force by April, Liverpool would work alongside HMAS Hobart and support operations around the Horn of Africa.
The Med!
By June 1940, Liverpool would enter the Med, where things, since the Italians had entered the war, had really gotten interesting. Attached to the 7th Cruiser Squadron, before the month was out she had bombarded the Italians at Tobruk, where she scrapped with shore batteries and sank the minesweeper, Giovanni Berta, then fought a surface action off Zante on the 27th where she sent the Italian Turbine-class destroyer Espero (1,700 tons) to the bottom and damaged two others, catching a 4.7-inch shell hit during the latter fight.
The Italian minesweeper Triglia was later reclassified gunboat and rechristened Giovanni Berta, at La Spezia in 1933; she was the first Italian warship to be sunk in action during WWII at Tobruk, on 12 June 1940, shattered by 6-inch shells from HMS Liverpool.
July 1940 also proved hectic, with Liverpool covering British convoys between Alexandria and Greek Aegean ports, suffering through repeated air attacks from land-based bombers (coming away with damage twice), escaping further damage during the confusing Battle of Calabria, and ending the month assigned to 3rd Cruiser Squadron, under much-needed repair.
Emerging from the dockyard at Alexandria at the end of August, Liverpool was soon back in the thick of it, accompanying the battleships HMS Valiant, Malaya, Ramillies, and Warspite as well as the carriers HMS Illustrious and Eagle in operations ranging from the Dodecanese Rhodes to Malta throughout September and into October.
Who needs a bow?
It was on 14 October, while retiring from screening Illustrious and Eagle during air attacks on the Greek island of Leros (a place Alistair MacLean would use as the loose basis of “The Guns of Navarone”), Liverpool was the subject of an attack by land-based Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 three-engine torpedo bombers.
The Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero wasn’t much to look at– their crews called them il Gobbo maledetto (“damned hunchback”), but they were maneuverable and effective when modified into torpedo bomber roles, sinking or damaging over 270,000 tons of Allied ships in the Med in 1940-43.
The hit caused a leak of aviation fuel which later ignited after the fumes spread. The resulting detonation caused so much damage in her forward frames that it wrecked the cruiser’s “A” turret and caused her bow to fall off while under tow to Alexandria. In all, the cruiser suffered 65 casualties in the incident.
View of ship’s wrecked forecastle, after the cruiser, was taken under tow. Note wreckage of #1 6″ turret. NH 60360
View of ship’s wrecked forecastle, after the cruiser, was taken under tow. Note wreckage of #1 6″ turret. NH 60361
View of ship’s wrecked taken while under tow. NH 60363
Bow breaking off, after the cruiser had been under tow for Alexandria. NH 60368
Ship’s bow breakage off. NH 60369
Ship’s bow sank after breaking off just forward of “A” turret. NH 60370
Stopped in the Med, with crew members inspecting the damage after the ship’s bow had broken off on 15 October. NH 60371
Ship underway again, after the loss of bow. NH 60372
HMS Liverpool arrives at Alexandria, Egypt, on 16 October for emergency repairs, after being torpedoed by Italian aircraft two days prior. NH 60374
Ship at Alexandria, Egypt, after the action. Description: NH 60373
HMS Liverpool at Alexandria, Egypt, after being torpedoed by Italian Aircraft in October 1940. Note wreckage around #1 6″ turret. NH 60378
HMS Liverpool in dry dock at Alexandria, Egypt, for repairs, of damage inflicted by Italian Torpedo Bombers in October 1940. Most wreckage has been removed before the installation of the temporary bow. NH 60376
Liverpool would remain under repair in Egypt for five months until it was arranged for her to steam, under her own plant, and with her abbreviated temporary bow, on a two-month trip through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and across the Pacific to California. There, in a country still in an uneasy peace, she would be patched up by U.S. Navy workers at the Mare Island Navy Yard with stops at Manila and Pearl Harbor on the way.
She would arrive on 16 June 1941.
HMS Liverpool In dry dock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 26 June 1941, for the repair of damage received in the Mediterranean Sea the previous October. The false bow had been fitted at Alexandria, Egypt, shortly after the cruiser was torpedoed. NH 60379
Back in the fight
With a new bow and extra batteries of 20mm AAA guns, Liverpool would leave Mare Island on 20 November, arriving back in the UK via the Panama Canal by 5 December– just two days before Pearl Harbor. As for Mare Island, they would have a chance to do lots of repair work in the coming days for “the home team.”
HMS Liverpool Underway 28 February 1942 IWM FL 004984
HMS Liverpool wearing camouflage, likely in early 1942
After further outfitting with radar (Type 273 surface warning, Type 281 aircraft warning, Types 284/285 fire control), Liverpool would sail for Scapa Flow on 6 February 1942 for work-ups. By the next month, she would be patrolling the Barents Sea on the lookout for German surface raiders (Tirpitz, anyone) in conjunction with Convoy PQ12 to Murmansk. She would also help screen returning Convoys QP10 and QP12 from Russia and help provide cover for outbound PQ16 into May.
Then, in early June, she was sent back to the Med for a second tour.
SM.79, Part II
In a plan to split German/Italian efforts to interdict British convoys to Malta, the Admiralty in June 1942 hit on the idea to send two at once– from different vectors. This included the Harpoon convoy which would sail West from Gibraltar and the Vigorous convoy which would make the run from Alexandria in the East.
Liverpool would be part of the Force W distant cover group for Harpoon, which had a lot of muscle including the Great War battleship HMS Malaya and the equally old carriers HMS Eagle and Argus, the latter with few aircraft. Rounding out Force W was the cruisers HMS Kenya and Charybdis as well as eight destroyers. Meanwhile, the close escort group, Force X, was made up of the cruiser HMS Cairo and 18 small combatants of which almost half were motor launches.
Departing the Clyde for Gibraltar on 6 June, Harpoon left “The Rock” for Malta on the morning of the 12th, headed eastward at a stately 12 knots in two loose columns, with Liverpool leading the starboard and Kenya the port.
Shadowed immediately by German and Italian aircraft, the pucker factor for the route would be the Skerki Channel in the Sicily-Tunis Narrows, and the first attacks started at 1030 on the 14th. Shortly after, Liverpool would have a chance to do more damage control.
Italian photograph of Town-class cruiser LIVERPOOL falling victim to a torpedo from an SM.79, roughly amidships
A much more serious attack followed half an hour later when 28 132º Gruppo SM.79 Savoia torpedo aircraft escorted by 20 Macchi fighters conducted a combined attack with 10 Cant. high level bombers. The Savoia approached from the northward in two waves of equal strength. The first wave came in at 1110 hours and the second soon afterwards. The first wave passed through the destroyer screen at 500 feet above the water, rounded the rear of the convoy, and attacked from the starboard side, splitting into groups before firing. They dropped their torpedoes from a height of 100 feet at a range of 2000 yards. They hit HMS Liverpool, which was leading the starboard column, when she was turning to meet the attack. Also, the Dutch merchant Tanimbar was hit in the rear, and she sank within a few minutes in position 36°58’N, 07°30’E.
HMS Liverpool was hit in the engine room and severely damaged. She could only make 3 to 4 knots on one shaft. She was ordered to return to Gibraltar being towed by the A-class destroyer HMS Antelope (H36) and screened by the destroyer HMS Westcott (D47). A long voyage during which the first 24 hours she was attacked from the air.
At 1640 hours, five CR. 42 fighter-bombers attacked from astern out of the sun, luckily without hitting, though one or two bombs fell close enough to increase the ships list. At 1800 hours, the tow having parted, there was a harmless attempt by eleven high-level bombers followed by an equally harmless attempt by seven torpedo aircraft which were heavily escorted by fighters. The Liverpool and Westcott each claimed to have destroyed a torpedo plane.
At 2015 hours, now once more in tow, fife high-level bombers attacked but their bombs fell wide.
At 2230 hours, six torpedo bombers made a twilight attack from very long range only to lose one of their number to the barrage HMS Liverpool put up.
At 1420 hours on 15 June, three torpedo aircraft made a final unsuccessful attempt to attack HMS Liverpool after which she, HMS Antelope and HMS Westcott were not again molested. That afternoon the tug HMRT Salvonia arrived from Gibraltar, and they took over the tow. Antelope then joined Westcott as A/S screen. With Salvonia also came the A/S trawler HMS Lady Hogarth. HMS Liverpool and her escorts safely arrived at Gibraltar late in the afternoon of the 17th.
Liverpool in dry dock at Gibraltar showing the point of impact of the Italian torpedo
Seriously damaged, Liverpool managed to mount a fighting retreat– by tow– while her crew saved the ship. It proved an example of damage control for the rest of the fleet, one that would come in handy later in the war such as in the Pacific in 1945.
Sidelines
Speaking of the war, Liverpool was so badly smashed up and repair assets so limited that, after temporary patches at Gibraltar, she was sent to HM Dockyard, Rosyth in early August 1942 and would languish there for the next two years as she was slowly rebuilt, a modernization that saw her radars upgraded and her stern “X” turret removed to accommodate more AAA batteries.
The County-class heavy cruiser HMS Berwick, forward, and HMS Liverpool, in dock Liverpool, 1943.
Although she probably could have been sent back to the lines in time to take part in the Normandy or Dragoon landings in France, the Royal Navy was short-staffed, and Liverpool remained in ordinary essentially for the rest of the war in Europe. She was used briefly as a cruise ship, with a skeleton crew, to take the Allied Tripartite Commission to occupied Germany in June 1945 and would only be brought back to full service in October 1945, a month after VJ Day.
She earned four battle honors for WWII service: Mediterranean 1940, Calabria 1940, Arctic 1942, and Malta Convoys 1942.
Post-War Victory Lap
Liverpool’s swan song in 1945 was assigned to the restructured 15th Cruiser Squadron, as part of the rapidly shrinking Mediterranean Fleet. There she would remain, usually in flagship roles with an admiral or commodore aboard, for the next seven years.
Liverpool, post-war, at Malta. Note her aircraft handling gear has been deleted.
This included a lot of tense early Cold War moments, especially in Greek and Egyptian waters, but these never came to blows.
Liverpool remained in commission until 1952 when she was reduced to Reserve status before her name appeared on the Disposal List in 1957. She was sold to BISCO for demolition by P&W MacLellan at Bo’ness, arriving at the breakers on 2 July 1958.
Epilogue
Few remnants of Liverpool exist today, but her bell is on display at Tobruk, where she fired her guns in anger in June 1940.
She is also remembered in maritime art.
Of Liverpool’s sisters, HMS Gloucester, Manchester, Southampton, and Edinburgh were all lost during the war, three of the four in the Med. Five other sisters, like Liverpool, saw limited Cold War service with HMS Birmingham, Belfast, and Newcastle seeing action again against North Korean gun batteries in the 1950s– and the latter sister even pounding Malayan Communist targets in 1955 and again in 1957.
HMS Newcastle firing at Korean enemy batteries, Chuinnapo Estuary, 1953. IWM A 32585
Belfast was the last of the Town-class cruisers afloat, serving as an accommodation ship into 1970 when she was marked for disposal and saved as a museum ship on the Queen’s Walk in London, a task she has performed admirably since Trafalgar Day 1971.
Please visit HMS Belfast if ever in London, it is well worth it.
Meanwhile, the 9th Liverpool, a Type 42 Batch 2 destroyer, has come and gone, ordered in 1977 and scrapped in 2014 after spending a solid 30 years in active service that spanned stints on Falkland patrol, Persian Gulf operations, time in the naval blockade of Libya that included 200 rounds of 4.5-inch delivered in NGFS in 2011, and your general Cold War/Post-Cold War sea ops.
The British destroyer HMS Liverpool (D-92) pulls alongside the battleship USS IOWA (BB-61) for an underway replenishment during NATO exercise Northern Wedding ’86. DN-ST-87-09368 via NARA
It is time for a 10th Liverpool.
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A popular trope is that on U.S. military bases the flagpole’s finial– the golden ball at the top of the pole–contains a razor, a match, and a bullet, just in case the base falls, so that the banner doesn’t fall into enemy hands.
This artifact in the West Point Museum collection rotates on and off exhibit. Following his graduation, Bunker served 40 years in the Army. During World War Two he was on the island of Corregidor when it was captured by Japanese forces, becoming a prisoner of war. On 6 May 1942, Colonel Bunker was ordered to remove the U.S. Flag from its pole for destruction and raise a white sheet (signifying the American surrender). Prior to the U.S. Flag’s destruction, he cut a piece out of the red stripe. On 10 June he cut this piece of the flag into two segments giving one piece to fellow POW Colonel Delbert Ausmus and holding on to the other. Bunker would not survive his time in captivity and died of starvation and illness on 16 March 1943. He was cremated with the segment of the flag he kept. Ausmus kept Bunker’s war diary, as well as this segment of the flag through his time in captivity.
Ausmus said, “On several occasions, the shirt and all of my possessions were examined by the Japanese without the piece of flag being discovered”. Upon liberation, Ausmus presented this segment of the U.S. Flag at Corregidor to the Secretary of War.
Colonel Bunker’s cremated remains were recovered in 1948 and re-interned at West Point. His legacy still lives as an inspiration in the West Point Community. During his time at West Point Bunker was an outstanding football player, contributing to three victories over Navy. He was inducted into the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame in 1969, as well as the Army West Point Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013.
The Navy’s PAO network has really done a good job of putting out great images in the past week. Check these out, taken in three different parts of the world across just three days.
From the ancient waters of the Adriatic:
220606-N-AO868-1147 ADRIATIC SEA (June 6, 2022) Ensign Stephen Hess uses a telescopic alidade in the pilot house of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto (CG 56), as it transits behind the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) in the Adriatic Sea, June 6, 2022. Truman is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Naval Forces Europe area of operations, employed by the U.S. Sixth Fleet to defend U.S., Allied, and Partner interests. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Conner Foy/Released)
220606-N-AO868-1167 ADRIATIC SEA (June 6, 2022) The Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transits the Adriatic Sea on June 6, 2022. Truman is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Naval Forces Europe area of operations, employed by the U.S. Sixth Fleet to defend U.S., Allied, and Partner interests. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Conner Foy/Released)
To the Atlantic
220605-N-YD731-1271 ATLANTIC OCEAN (June 5, 2022) Sailors assigned to the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf (CG 55) prepare to shoot line during a replenishment-at-sea with the Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS Leroy Grumman (T-AO 195), June 5, 2022. The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is underway completing a certification exercise to increase the U.S. and allied interoperability and warfighting capability before a future deployment. The George H.W. Bush CSG is an integrated combat weapons system that delivers superior combat capability to deter, and if necessary, defeat America’s adversaries in support of national security. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Novalee Manzella)
USS Leyte Gulf CG-55 conducts a replenishment-at-sea with USNS Leroy Grumman (TAO-195), on June 5, 2022. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Novalee Manzella)
USS Leyte Gulf CG-55 conducts a replenishment-at-sea with USNS Leroy Grumman (TAO-195), on June 5 2022. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Novalee Manzella)
And to the Pacific
PACIFIC OCEAN (June 7, 2022) An F/A-18F assigned to the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22 makes an arrested gear landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz is underway in the U.S. 3rd fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Lorenzo Fekieta-Martinez)
PACIFIC OCEAN (June 7, 2022) An aircraft makes an arrested gear landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz is underway in the U.S. 3rd fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Lorenzo Fekieta-Martinez)
Between stuff like this, and Maverick, the recruiters just have to sit back and show where to sign.
Of course, a lot of the platforms shown are high-mileage, with Nimitz– the oldest operational aircraft carrier in the world– laid down in 1968 and is planned to be removed from the battle force in fiscal year (FY) 2025, when the ship’s Terminal Off-load Program begins. Meanwhile, Leyte Gulf, the Navy’s 9th Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser and one of its most veteran of the type still in service, had her first steel cut at Pascagoula in 1985 and has a planned decommissioning in 2024 alongside sister San Jacinto, from whom’s bridge the top two images were captured. The oiler Grumman was laid down in 1987 while Nimitz’s sister Truman was ordered the year after. In short, most of the rank and file working on these ships are younger than the compartments they work, eat, and sleep in.
To them, they are serving in the “Old Navy” of which they will one day regale these new recruits.
On 12 June 1942 five transports landed the 145th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army’s 37th Infantry “Buckeye” Division, composed largely of men of the Ohio Army National Guard, at Auckland (after having first reinforced Fiji the month before), complete with wool uniforms and brand-new M1 helmets and M1 Garands as four military bands stood on Prince’s Wharf ready to greet them. New Zealand’s own forces, at the time, some 100,000-strong, were heavily engaged at sea as well as in the Middle East– and London would not let them leave– meaning the country was wide open to Japanese domination.
As the ships berthed, another interesting exchange occurred. The Americans threw down oranges, cigarettes and money; the waiting Kiwis picked up the gifts and threw back New Zealand coins. When some of the visitors wondered where they were, an American on the wharf, one of the advance guard, told them all they needed to know: ‘No Scotch, two per cent beer, but nice folks.’ Some evidently did know what country they had reached, for the first of the newcomers to land on New Zealand soil was Sergeant Nathan E. Cook, chosen as a namesake of the explorer Captain James Cook.
The 37th would, in April 1943, start moving out for Guadalcanal, and fight its way across the Northern Solomons and Luzon before the war was out, earning 9 unit citations and 7 MOHs. Not a lot of overcoats and fresh milk there.
The next day, 1st Marine Division elements arrived in Wellington aboard USS Wakefield, moving into hastily constructed camp facilities.
In all about 100,000 Americans served in New Zealand, averaging between 15,000 and 45,000, peaking at 48,200 in July 1943, with the numbers declining well below that amount in late 1944. Besides the 37th, the Army’s 25th as well as the Marine 2nd and 3rd Divisions would spend significant time in the islands, with Joes remaining based around Auckland and Devils at Wellington. In addition, many thousands of other American sailors, merchant seamen, made visits to the country.
Dean Cornwell, Have a “Coke” = Kia Ora, c. 1943-1945 (Archives New Zealand, AAAC 898 NCWA Q392)
A memorial to the Americans in NZ during the conflict is located at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington.
It is also noted that American “bedroom commandos” managed to take an estimated 1,500 Kiwi women back to the U.S. as war brides. Thus goes the spoils of 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– 100 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.
These included the colors of the:
-The Royal Irish Regiment.
-The Connaught Rangers.
-The Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment.
-The Royal Munster Fusiliers.
-The Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
-The South Irish Horse.
These regiments had been bled white during the Great War just a few years prior. “Estimates of how many Irish men fought in the First World War vary, but it is now generally accepted that around 200,000 soldiers from the island of Ireland served over the course of the war,” notes the IWM. This was up from the 30,000 in service with The Old Contemptibles in 1914. “Historians today tend to use a figure of between 27,000 and 35,000 men killed” when it comes to the numbers of Irishmen left on Great War battlefields.
The “Blue Caps/Old Toughs” of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, for instance, dated back to the old 102nd and 103rd Foot of 1644 and had over four dozen battle honors on their flag starting with the Battle of Plassey, making them one of the most decorated units in the British Army.
Royal Dublin Fusiliers June 12th 1922
According to The Times the King inspected the representatives of the regiments and then addressed them as such:
We are here today in circumstances which cannot fail to strike a note of sadness in our hearts. No regiment parts with their Colours without feelings of sorrow. A knight in days gone by bore on his shield his coat-of-arms, tokens of valour and worth. Only to death did he surrender them. Your Colours are the records of valorous deeds in war and of the glorious traditions thereby created. You are called upon to part with them today for reasons beyond your control and resistance. By you and your predecessors these Colours have been reverenced and guarded as a sacred trust – which trust you now confide in me.
As your King I am proud to accept this trust. But I fully realise with what grief you relinquish these dearly-prized emblems; and I pledge my word that within these ancient and historic walls your Colours will be treasured, honoured, and protected as hallowed memorials of the glorious deeds of brave and loyal regiments.
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.
With Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee passing last week, the Admiralty made sure to release a bunch of images of Tars and Marines assembled at assorted Royal Navy assets to celebrate.
Among the imagery was this shot of the deck of the RN’s 65,000-ton Lightning Carrier, named after Elizabeth herself.
This of course begs comparison to this shot of the 18,000-ton Australian Colossus-class light carrier HMAS Vengeance (R71) from April 1954 when the then 28-year-old Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, made her first historic visit to Western Australia and the Port of Fremantle.
As noted by the RAN, “On seeing the image taken of Vengeance, HM is reported to have commented that it was ‘a most original forgery.'” Photo via the Robert Elliston Glasgow Collection – State Library of Western Australia.
During her service in the RAN, Vengeance carried a squadron each of Hawker Sea Furies and Fairey Fireflies as well as three early Bristol Sycamore helicopters. She appears to have six Furies on deck and it is likely the image was captured from a Sycamore. Interestingly, although she was only a third the size of today’s HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Australian light carrier had about the same sized air wing!
Vengeance, laid down the same week as the 1942 Torch Landings in North Africa, languished and wasn’t completed until 1952 when she was completed for a temporary loan to the Australians. She only operated “Down Under” for four years and in 1956 was sold to Brazil just after the RAN took possession of a replacement carrier, HMAS Melbourne.
Following extensive reconstruction and modernization in Rotterdam, Vengeance was renamed and commissioned by the Brazilian Navy as Minas Gerais on 6 December 1960, serving until 2001.
Warship Wednesday, June 8, 2022: The Ship Behind the Ships Behind the Torpedoes
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-10120
Above we see the lead ship of her class, the submarine tender USS Fulton (AS-11), arrive at Pearl Harbor with her decks crowded with USS Yorktown (CV-5) survivors on board, 8 June 1942– 80 years ago today– following the Battle of Midway. While she didn’t get any licks in at Midway, Fulton’s important contribution to the war in the Pacific was huge and overlooked by the history books. For some 1,900 men of Yorktown, she was incredibly important on this day, and these rescued carriermen would soon be put back to work.
Fulton was of course named for famed American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton who developed the world’s first commercially successful steamboat. However, he also designed an interesting sail-powered submersible (“Nautilus”) and thought up “anchored torpedoes” similar to a floating mine.
Fulton’s Nautilus
In 1801, Mr. Fulton sank a small, unmanned ship using such a mine with an explosive charge of 20 pounds of gunpowder at Brest, France, then ten years later conducted a high-profile exhibition attack against the brig USS Argus in the East River via a rowboat and a spar torpedo.
Our vessel is at least the fourth– and somehow last– such ship on the Navy List following in the wake of a sidewheeler that saw much use in the 1840s and 50s, the Navy’s first submarine tender, and a patrol tug, the last of which was decommissioned and scrapped in 1934.
USS Fulton montage of two pen and ink drawings, with associated text, by Samuel War Stanton. The artworks depict the ship as first completed, circa 1837, with three masts and four smokestacks. Collections of the Navy Department, 1967. NH 65483
The Navy’s first officially-designated submarine tender, the USS Fulton (AS-1). Built at Fore River, she was ordered in 1911 and spent two decades in her intended role then, too small to service the Navy’s more modern subs, was reclassified as a survey ship/gunboat in 1930, serving for another few years until she was gutted by a fire in 1934 off Hong Kong.
USS Fulton AS-1 NH 1222
When it comes to submarine tenders, besides a motley list of ~30 old minesweepers, monitors, and cruisers who spent their final days in such auxiliary service in the 1900s-1920s, the Navy’s early AS pennants included a few increasingly larger purpose-built ships– the 3,500-ton Bushnell (AS-2) in 1915, the 8,000-ton Holland (AS-3) in 1926, the repurposed old gunboat Alert AS-4, and converted merchant cargo steamers and passenger liners such as Beaver (AS-5), Camden (AS-6)– ex SS Kiel, Rainbow (AS-7)– ex SS Norse King, Savannah (AS-8)– ex SS Saxonia, Canopus (AS-9)– ex SS Santa Leonora, and Argonne (AS-10).
With the Navy building increasingly larger squadrons of increasingly larger “fleet boats” for long-range service in the Western Pacific, the need for a new and modern class of submarine tenders was realized, one that could be used to both succor those divisions of American subs and replace older, more limited tenders such as Alert (sold 1922), Bushnell (reclassified as a survey ship in 1940), Camden (converted to a barracks ship after 1931), Rainbow (sold 1928), Savannah (sold 1934), and Argonne (converted to an auxiliary repair ship 1940). In fact, of the pre-WWII tenders, only the “aging but able” Beaver, Canopus, and Holland were still in the submarine game when the U.S. entered the war.
The U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Holland (AS-3) doing what tenders do, with seven nursing submarines of Submarine Squadron 6 and Submarine Division 12 alongside, in San Diego harbor, California (USA), on 24 December 1934. The submarines are (from left to right): USS Cachalot (SS-170), USS Dolphin (SS-169), USS Barracuda (SS-163), and USS Bass (SS-164), USS Bonita (SS-165), USS Nautilus (SS-168) and USS Narwhal (SS-167). Despite her small size and limited abilities, Holland proved her worth over and over in WWII, escaping from the Philippines in 1942 and setting up shop in Australia, surviving the conflict, and completing 55 submarine refits during the war. 80-G-63334
Some 9,250 tons (18,000 full load), the Fulton and her class of six sisters (Sperry, Bushnell, Howard W. Gilmore, Nereus, Orion, and Proteus, numbered AS 12, 15-19) were all built in the Bay Area, with the first five by Mare Island Naval Shipyard and the last pair by Oakland’s Moore Dry Dock Company with four hulls laid down before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fulton was ordered in FY38 while the others were ordered in 1940. With a length of 530 feet and a reliable diesel-electric engineering suite (four General Motor 16-248 diesel generators supplying power to an electric motor via a Fairbanks Morse Main Reduction Gear), they could sustain 15.4 knots (Fulton hit 18.7 knots on trials!). Using 130 frames, she was made tough, with special protection over her magazines to withstand hits without going sky high.
With an endurance of up to 40,000 miles if she used all her stores and could defend themselves against surface and air threats via a battery of four 5″/38 cal DP guns controlled by a Mark 37 (later Mark 51) director. Ammunition trunks were located on the hold level under the position of the 5″/38s and hoists lifted the powder and shells upward to the gunners. This was later augmented by two twin 40mm AA gun mounts and a dozen 20mm Oerlikon AA gun mounts– essentially the gun armament carried by a destroyer.
She was seen at the forefront of the late 1930s U.S. Navy submarine force, as seen below in this period illustration by I.R. Lloyd of Fulton steaming alongside the Tambor-class submarines USS Gudgeon (SS-211) and USS Tuna (SS-203) under a protective cloud of flying boats.
However, it was her stores– including 26,600 bbls of usable diesel– and shops allowing her to mother up to a dozen submarines at a time, which made Fulton and her sisters so special. This included a total design accommodation for 64 officers, 22 warrant officers, 70 CPOs, and 1,144 enlisted, allowing for not only the tender’s crew but for the flag complement of a submarine squadron and two full relief crew divisions for her submarines.
Via the 1990s HAER report on sistership USS Sperry (AS-12) of the class:
Most of the ship was devoted to the manufacture, refurbishment, and storage of submarine equipment. The hold contained several spaces devoted to the storage of torpedoes and other equipment. Void spaces filled with ballast water and fuel oil in the hull protected the equipment from mines or torpedoes. The third deck included a number of repair shops and storage areas for electrical equipment, metals, and torpedoes. The second deck had a large machine shop for fabricating machine parts, a metals department, and a welding area. The machine shop office and main tool issue room were in the forward section of the ship on the same level. A large portion of the main deck was allocated for pipe fabrication (metal and rubber), as well as a foundry for the blacksmiths and a small welding room. A number of compartments dedicated to the repair of electrical equipment, mechanical instruments, and optics were located on the main deck amidships. The upper deck had spaces for carpentry and accompanying equipment. Just aft of the carpenter and pattern shop was a small gyrocompass repair shop. A calibration lab, communication and sonar repair area, and radar shop were at the stern. Finally, at the aft end of the superstructure, there was a technical repair library and printing shop, as well as a machine shop and fluid repair facility for governors, valves, and hydraulics. Above the superstructure was a small cryptographic repair shop.
There were two messes, a bakery, a butcher shop, and a vegetable prep pantry. There were six diesel generators in the machine rooms supplying power to both the ship and any submarines moored alongside.
To supply the physical needs of the crew, there was sufficient space for showers, heads, and washrooms around the ship and near the living quarters. A dentist and medical doctor were permanently stationed onboard with offices and amidships on the upper deck. A barbershop was on the port side, forward of the crew’s berthing on the second deck. Laundry facilities were on the same deck at the stern. There was a ship’s service store where the crew could purchase personal items. A post office, chaplain’s office, library, and a career counselor to advise the crew on future positions were also onboard.
Submarine tenders enabled the Navy to move into a conquered island and in a matter of a day or so have a submarine base in full commission, able to service and repair any of our submarines regardless of their type or special equipment. At our island bases in World War II, submarine tenders worked indefatigably to keep the submarine at sea and on the firing line.
Sponsored by Mrs. A. T. Sutcliffe, great-granddaughter of Robert Fulton, she was christened on 27 December 1940 and commissioned USS Fulton (AS-11), on 12 September 1941, just three months shy of Japanese carrier planes rounding Diamondhead. Her first of 34 skippers were CDR Alexander Dean “Doug” Douglas (USNA 1917), the swaggering career submariner from Oklahoma who had brought the disabled USS R-14 110 miles back to Pearl Harbor on improvised sails made from hammocks and blankets in 1921.
War!
Underway on her shakedown cruise out of San Diego when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Fulton (AS-11) was ordered at once to Panama and then spent the next month working as an ersatz seaplane tender, establishing advanced bases for PBYs in Nicaragua’s Gulf of Fonseca and the Galapagos Islands.
She arrived at Pearl Harbor, ready to get into the sub-tending biz, on 15 March 1942, at a time when the harbor’s waters were still black with leaking bunker oil from the hulks on Battleship Row. Mooring at Pier S-1, she clocked in for SubRon Eight. Her first sub, the brand new Gato-class fleet boat USS Drum (SS-228), moored alongside later that afternoon.
Midway
At 0545 on 5 June 1942, Fulton received verbal instructions from ComSubPac to prepare to get underway as soon as possible under direct orders handed down from Nimitz himself. Amazingly, less than two hours later, picking up the elderly four-piper destroyers USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Allen (DD-66) as escorts, she stood out of Pearl Harbor at 0734 then proceeded northwestward at 17 knots, zig-zagging to avoid Japanese submarines. Her destination was to meet ASAP with “undesignated vessels of Task Force 16 and 17 to “transfer excess personnel.”
Said “excess personnel” hailed from the damaged carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), which had been mauled in an air attack on the afternoon of 4 June by a strike from the Japanese carrier Hiryu that left the flattop with two torpedoes and three bomb hits, dead in the water and with a severe list.
Men abandoning Yorktown CV-5 while ships swarm to assist NARA 80-G-021694
As Fulton and her escorts made the best speed for the Yorktown and her escorts, the Japanese submarine I-168 came across the scene on the afternoon of 6 June and fired four torpedoes, hitting both the destroyer Hammann and Yorktown, sinking the destroyer in minutes, and forcing the withdrawal of Yorktown’s salvage party, though she would continue to float through the night.
It was during the next day, at 1300 on 7 June, just hours after Yorktown dived for the ocean floor, that Fulton came alongside the cruiser USS Portland (CA-33) and destroyer USS Russell (DD-414), which between them were carrying the bulk of the carrier’s crew. Slowing to eight knots and rigging five trolleys and whips, they began to send over survivors via coal bags, but the transfer was stopped after a few hours after a suspected submarine contact was made by one of the destroyers.
USS Portland (CA-33), at right, prepares transfers USS Yorktown survivors to USS Fulton (AS-11) on 7 June 1942, following the battle of Midway. Fulton transported the men to Pearl Harbor. 80-G-312028.
Battle of Midway, June 1942: USS Yorktown survivors are checked in on board USS Fulton (AS-11), after being transferred from USS Portland (CA-33) for transportation to Pearl Harbor, on 7 June 1942. Note life jackets, which are oil-stained. 80-G-312030
Dropping lines, the transfer was finished under cover of darkness via whaleboat.
By 2245, Fulton was headed back to Pearl with 101 officers, and 1790 enlisted from Yorktown, including 59 stretcher cases.
She would arrive back at Pearl early the next afternoon and was greeted by Nimitz, who, ironically, was the division commander for a younger LT. Alexander Dean Douglas when he had sailed R-14 into the same harbor some 21 years prior.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (2nd from left) on the dock at Pearl Harbor, 8 June 1942, watching USS Fulton (AS-11) arrive. She was carrying survivors of the USS Yorktown (CV-5), sunk in the Battle of Midway. Rear Admiral William L. Calhoun is in the right-center, wearing sunglasses. Rear Admiral Lloyd J. Wiltse, of Nimitz’s staff, is in the center background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
USS Fulton (AS-11) docks at Pearl Harbor on 8 June 1942 with USS Yorktown (CV-5) survivors on board, after the Battle of Midway. Among the tugs assisting Fulton are Hoga (YT-146) and Nokomis (YT-142). 80-G-312058
With her decks cleared by dark, Fulton welcomed the submarine USS Growler (SS-215) alongside for refit and manned her AAA batteries, shells at the ready, as part of the base defense plan. Back to business as usual.
The rest of Fulton’s War
With the frontlines moving ever toward Tokyo, Fulton was ordered first to Midway, then to Brisbane in Australia where she established a submarine base and rest camp. As noted by DANFs, “and in addition to refitting submarines between their war patrols, acted as tender to other types of ships. Milne Bay, New Guinea, was her station from 29 October 1943 until 17 March 1944, when she sailed for a west coast overhaul.”
USS Growler (SS-215) halftone reproduction of a photograph, copied from the official publication United States Submarine Operations in World War II, page 207. The photo was taken while Growler was alongside USS Fulton (AS-11) at Brisbane, Australia in February 1943, after ramming a Japanese Patrol Vessel in the Bismarck Islands area on 7 February 1943. Note her badly bent bow. Growler’s Commanding Officer, Commander Howard W. Gilmore, USN, lost his life in this action. NH 74515
Warshot torpedoes being readied for the boats on submarine tender, USS Fulton AS-11, in 1943
1940s comedian Joe E Brown entertaining Sailors at New Farm Wharf in Brisbane during WWII, USS Fulton in the background
USS Fulton (AS-11) underway off Mare Island Navy Yard, California on 3 June 1944. The ship is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 4Ax. NH 107760
Returning to the war in June 1944, Fulton tended boats at Pearl (again), then Midway (again) before being assigned to Saipan, and eventually to recently-liberated Guam in June 1945, where she was when the Japanese threw in the towel. She celebrated VJ-Day at sea, headed back to Pearl, and arrived in Seattle on 22 September.
Between May 1942 and August 1945, from no point further East than Pearl and typically much closer to the lines than that, Fulton completed an eye-popping 110 submarine overhauls (twice as many as Holland) and 222 submarine voyage repairs “some of the latter, while not actually classified as refits were in the nature of refits due to the magnitude of work done.” In short, at least 300 war patrols were made possible by the floating torpedo warehouse, workshop, and hotel known as “Building 11,” a vessel that returned a submarine to service on average roughly every third day of the war.
With such a feat, if you find the nature of the American submarine force’s war in the Pacific amazing, you must give a slow hand salute to the men of Fulton.
Fulton received just one battle star for World War II service.
Post-War miles to go
Fulton was assigned to TG 1.8 for the Operation Crossroads atomic weapons tests in the Marshalls in 1946, acting as a repair vessel for the task force and supporting the half-dozen subs taking part.
With that behind her, she was laid up at Mare Island on 3 April 1947.
Fulton class tenders Janes’s 1946
With the Cold War getting colder during Korea, Fulton was taken out of mothballs in 1951 and, just three weeks later, would be tending boats at New London, her home for the rest of her career, a period that would see her sortie out and welcome the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN-571), from her historic submerged passage under the North Pole in August 1957.
After upgrades were completed as part of the second Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Program (FRAM II) in 1959-60, Fulton’s primary duties shifted from repairing and replenishing diesel-powered submarines to performing similar tasks on nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) and attack submarines (SSN). Importantly, she would host the world’s first all-SSN squadron, SubRon 10, serving as flagship.
She, along with her sisters, would continue to serve in such roles throughout the Cold War.
The entry for the Fulton class in the 1973 edition of Janes.
A starboard bow view of the submarine tender USS FULTON (AS 11) moored to the State Pier. A Sturgeon class nuclear-powered attack submarine is tied up alongside the Fulton, 5/30/1987. NARA DN-ST-87-07702
A starboard quarter view of the submarine tender USS FULTON (AS-11) underway, 3/12/1988. Note, that she has lost her armament but still has a WWII gun tub on her bow. NARA DN-SN-90-01473.
A starboard bow view of the submarine tender USS FULTON (AS 11) moored to the State Pier. A Sturgeon class nuclear-powered attack submarine is tied up alongside the Fulton, 5/30/1987. NARA DN-ST-87-07702
On 30 September 1991, SubRon 10 was disbanded at New London and Fulton was decommissioned at her berth. The Queen of the Submarine Force, the only vessel older than her on the NVR that day (other than the USS Constitution) was the repair ship USS Vulcan, which had actually been laid down after her.
Fulton was the last ship afloat associated with the Battle of Midway, outliving the New Orleans-class submarine USS Minneapolis (CA-36) which was scrapped in 1960, and the Gato-class fleet boat USS Grouper (SS/SSK/AGSS-214) which was sent to the breakers in 1970.
Besides her sole WWII battle star, Fulton earned two Meritorious Unit Commendations and two Navy “E”s across her 50-years of service.
Epilogue
The decommissioned U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Fulton (AS-11) in storage in the mothball fleet near Portsmouth, Virginia (USA). The Fulton was decommissioned on 30 September 1991. USN Photo taken 8 October 1994 DN-SC-95-01398 by Don S. Montgomery USN (Ret.)
The Fultons were all long-serving ships, with two, Orion and Proteus continuing to serve until 1992 and 1993, respectively. The latter would remain as a barracks barge (IX-518) sans her stacks, cranes, and other topside fittings into 1999 and was only scrapped in 2007.
Fulton herself lingered in storage on the James River for a few years, finally being sold for scrapping in Brownsville, Texas, on 17 November 1995. Her scrapping was completed on 21 December 1996.
Of note, the first boat she tied lines to, USS Drum— the first Gato-class submarine to enter combat in World War II– has been preserved as a museum ship at Mobile since 1969, ironically at a time when Fulton still had another quarter-century of service ahead of her.
As for Fulton’s first skipper, the man who was on the bridge during Midway, “Doug” Douglas left his tender in October 1942 to serve as a commodore of a Torch Landing convoy and retired as a full captain in 1947, marking 30 years of service. Passing in 1989 at age 94, he donated his remains to medical research and has a headstone at Arlington.
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