Category Archives: military history

Three Crowns Underway

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This striking circa summer 1944 image shows the Swedish coastal battleship (pansarskeppet) HSwMS Sverige with a bone in her teeth despite her rather old-fashioned Edwardian-era bow form. Note her twin forward 11.1″/45 Bofors guns above white “neutral stripes” over an overall camouflage scheme, the latter very useful when hugging the coastline and hiding out along the country’s craggy coastline. The Tre kronor (Swedish “Three crowns”) is a national emblem of Sweden dating back to the 13th century.

Photo by Ernfrid Bogstedt via the Sjöhistoriska museet. Fo196138

The lead-ship of her class, Sverige was laid down in 1912, completed during the Great War where she helped enforce the country’s brand of heavily-armed neutrality, was modernized in the 1930s and continued to serve both through WWII as seen above and the early days of the Cold War. 

May 1934, the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans at Stockholm (center) with the twin pansarskeppet Gustav V and Sverige in the foreground. Fo39197

The Sverige trio, some 7,700 tons at their heaviest, were just under 400 feet long but were protected akin to a heavy cruiser with up to 8-inches of armor and carried a quartet of Bofors M/1912 11.1-inch/45 caliber guns, the latter capable of landing a 672-pound armor-piercing “arrow nose shell” an impressive 31,000 yards away (the latter a closely-held secret until as late as the 1960s, with most foreign intelligence pointing to a more sedate 20,000-yard range).

Janes’s 1946 entry on the class

She was only decommissioned in 1953, after over 40 years of service, and was scrapped in 1958.

As for her contemporaries, she outlived almost all of them. For the record, the last of the pansarskepp-era mini-battleships, Sverige‘s sister HSvMS Gustav V, was used as a training hulk and pier side until 1970 when she was finally scrapped.

HMS Caroline to Return to Service

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The last of her class of 28 Great War-era Royal Navy light cruisers, HMS Caroline was built by Cammell Laird inside of a year: laid down on 28 January 1914, launched on 29 September 1914, and completed in December.

HMS Caroline was decommissioned for the first time and reduced to ‘Care and Maintenance’ on 6 February 1919. Since December 1914 the ship had steamed an estimated 80,000 nautical miles, more than three times around the world. Here, she is seen in India just after the Armistice

After her war service, she was retained as a drill ship for the RNVR from 1924 until– amazingly– 2011 when she was finally decommissioned.

Following an £845,600 grant to support her conversion to a museum ship, the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland still afloat opened to the public in 2016 but sadly closed her gangway in early 2020 due to COVID.

Well, after a three-year hiatus, and a new funding package in place, the last First World War British light cruiser is welcoming guests once again and will be reopening daily for tours from Saturday 1st April.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023: The Electric Angel

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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 time 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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023: The Electric Angel

Photo via the San Francisco City Archives.

Above we see the cruzador de 3ª classe São Gabriel of the Royal Portuguese Navy as she rested in San Francisco harbor in April 1910 during her epic 16-month “circumnavegacao” of the globe. A lightly armored protected cruiser roughly more akin to a sloop or large gunboat of the era, she nonetheless marked several important milestones in the country’s naval history.

Portugal’s Modern Navy

While Portugal had one of the world’s best navies in the days of Afonso de Albuquerque, Ferdinand Magellan, and Vasco De Gama, by the late 1890s, the empire was in steep decline. With only about 300 merchant ships carrying the country’s flag– mostly sailing vessels– Portugal did not have a big civilian fleet to protect. What Lisbon did have were lots of overseas possessions such as the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic, African colonies in Guinea, Angola, and Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Goa in the Indian Ocean, Timor in the East Indies, and the Chinese enclave of Macau.

To protect this far-flung collection of pearls, Portugal had only several wooden-hulled vessels and the 3,300-ton British-built ironclad Vasco Da Gama (go figure), which was laid down in the 1870s.

Thus, in the early 1890s, the service embarked on a naval expansion and rejuvenation project under the helm of Naval Minister Jacinto Cândido da Silva, with orders placed roughly simultaneously both in domestic yards and in England, France, and Italy. With an emphasis on smallish cruisers with long legs that could police overseas colonies, the building program would include the 2nd class protected cruiser Dom Carlos I (4250 tons, 4x 6-inch guns, ordered from Armstrong Elswick in Britain), the 3rd class Rainha Dona Amélia (1683 tons, 4 x 6-inch guns, built domestically), the small unprotected cruiser Adamastor (1757 tons, 2 x 6- inch guns, built in Italy), and two 3rd class cruisers ordered from France (our Sao Gabriel and her sister Sao Rafael). Further, the old Vasco Da Gama was taken to Italy and completely rebuilt in a move that saw her cut in half and lengthened by 32 feet, fitted with new engines, guns, and machinery.

All would be delivered between 1897 (Adamastor) and 1903 (the modernized Vasco Da Gama). The effect was that, in a decade, Portugal had gone from one elderly ironclad to six relatively effective, if light, cruisers.

Navios da Marinha de Guerra Portugueza no alto, Mar 1903, by Alfredo Roque Gamerio, showing cruzadors Vasco da Gama, Don Carlos I, Sao Rafael, Amelia and Adamastor to the far right. Note the black hulls and buff stacks

Os Anjos

The French-built pair was slim and beautiful, albeit with a ram bow. Ordered from the Augustin Normand Shipyards in Le Havre, they were just 246 feet in length and displaced 1,800 tons.

Portuguese protected cruiser São Gabriel Cruzador Watercolor by Artur Guimarães

Able to float in 16 feet of seawater, the two cruisers carried a pair of 6-inch/45 singles fore and aft, four casemated 4.7-inch/45s, eight 47mm Hotchkiss anti-boat guns, a 37mm landing gun, and a bow-mounted 14-inch torpedo tube. With just under an inch of armor plate covering their decks and a 2.5-inch steel plate on the side of their conning towers, they had a modicum of protection against small-caliber enemy shells and splinters. Able to make 17 knots on trials, they weren’t especially fast when you think of cruisers, but for the 1890s the speed was adequate.

Jane’s 1914 entry for Sao Gabriel.

To extend their range, they were fitted initially with a three-masted auxiliary sailing rig, here seen partially rigged on São Rafael. Note this was later reduced to two masts as seen in the top image of Sao Gabriel in San Francisco in 1910.

The sisters were so fetching that they were dubbed “The Angels” (Os Anjos) when they were delivered.

They favored the very similar French colonial sloop Kersaint, a 225-foot 1,300-ton steel-hulled gunboat with a ram bow constructed about the same time as Sao Gabriel.

Capable of 16 knots, Kersaint was designed for overseas service and carried a barquentine sail rig in addition to her single VTE engine and four boilers. She mounted a single 5.4-inch gun forward and a smaller 4-incher over her stern as well as seven 37mm Hotchkiss mounts on upper deck sponsons. She was lost on a reef in Tahiti in 1919.

Sao Gabriel and Sao Rafael carried the names of Vasco Da Gama’s twin command ships on his 1497-99 initial voyage to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Here, the original carrack is in a circa 1900 print.

Portuguese cruisers São Gabriel and São Rafael in dry dock, 1908 during their refit from overseas service. Note the extensive scrollwork and commander’s balcony on her bow, their black hulls, and royal ensign

Portuguese protected cruiser São Gabriel, during her early overseas service before her 1908 refit

Where these two cruisers shined was in their extensive electrical fit, the first warships in the Portuguese fleet with such a luxury. This included two 30 horsepower Laval generators that produced about 20 Kw of electricity which enabled them to have two powerful topside searchlights, extensive internal incandescent lighting in more than 50 compartments (most of the ship), external running lights and signal lamps, electric engine room telegraphs on the enclosed bridge, ammunition lifts in the magazine, below deck forced ventilators and even electric stoves.

The electrical plan for the class.

It made sense for Sao Gabriel to fit the first Marconi wireless radio system in the Portuguese Navy, which she tested on 11 December 1909 when, at 1530 on the afternoon when steaming off Lisbon, she established communications via telegraphy with the radiotelegraph post in Vale de Zebro.

Circumnavigation

With the 390th anniversary of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s first circumnavigation approaching, it was decided in 1909 to send Sao Gabriel around the globe on a solo cruise to mark the occasion and flex the country’s new muscle. Leaving Lisbon on 11 December– the day she tested out her wireless for the first time– she would return home 16 months and nine days later on 19 April 1911, after calling at 72 ports. In all, the slim Portuguese cruiser would steam just shy of 42,000 nautical miles.

In accomplishing her mission, she became the first Portuguese warship to enter ports in Chile, Peru, Panama, Mexico, California, and the islands of Hawaii, as well as touching each of the country’s overseas ports on a single cruise.

The route of her 1909-11 cruise.

The miles between her port calls:

Portuguese cruiser Sao Gabriel visiting Capetown

Her trip was exceedingly lucky and a tribute to Portuguese navigation and seamanship. Despite the best attempts of Poseidon, who threw typhoons, hurricanes, and pirates at the little warship, she suffered no casualties either human or mechanical, and made every mile underway under her own steam, arriving back in Lisbon with all 242 souls she took to sea. That’s remarkable even by today’s standards.

The rest of her career, and loss of a sister

Sao Gabriel continued to be a lucky ship, and largely escaped involvement in the uproarious series of domestic coups that wracked her homeland and saw much participation of other Portuguese naval assets, and swapped ensigns from the royal to the republican example when she arrived back home.

To wit, her sister Sao Rafael, which in 1910 took an active part in the military coup that established the Republican regime in Portugal by shelling the Terreiro do Paço and the Palácio das Necessidades where King D. Manuel II, later tore her bottom out on the rocks at the mouth of the Ave River while patrolling against monarchists forces.

Sao Rafael wrecked just offshore and was a spectacle both for the locals and foreign press.

One striker, António Maria Dias, died in the incident but the other 237 men aboard were saved.

Continuing her service, even while other Portuguese cruisers and gunboats would deploy overseas for extended periods, following her circumnavigation Sao Gabriel would typically spend most of her time at home, with the occasional Atlantic training cruises with midshipmen.

This would include a 1920 trip to Boston and Bermuda.

Portuguese cruiser São Gabriel visiting Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the US in 1920

Portuguese protected cruiser São Gabriel, Boston, 1920. Note the extensive scrollwork on her bow and her single torpedo tube, just over her submerged ram bow. None of these things were seen as modern in 1920. 

Sao Gabriel Boston 1920

Likewise, her Great War service was anticlimactic, spent in coastal waters. It very much seemed like the Navy was disinclined to risk their most famous warship, especially at a point when she was so patently obsolete.

By 1924, with her boilers and engines wore to the extent that she could barely steam any longer, and cash too tight for the Gomes-Gaspar government (who had repressed at least four military coups in two years) to justify an expensive rebuild that would make the Navy even more powerful, Sao Gabriel was sold for scrap.

Epilogue

The Angels today have much of their logs, papers, plans, and extensive correspondence from Sao Gabriel‘s circumnavigation in Portuguese archives. Likewise, her builder’s model endures at the Museu de Marinha.

Cruzador São Gabriel. Modelo do Museu de Marinha

Her globe-rounding skipper, Capt. António Aloísio Jervis de Atouguia Ferreira Pinto Basto, penned a 449-page journal covering Sao Gabriel’s 1909-11 voyage, which is digitized online in at least two locations.

It makes for great period reading, covering everything from dining in Osaka with geishas, documenting the tragic conditions in Shanghai, riding around Hawaii, and everything in between.

In addition to her likeness gracing numerous postal stamps over the years, in 1985, a commemorative medal celebrating the first Portuguese wireless stations was issued by the government.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem like the Portuguese have reused the names of the Angels. A shame.

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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Of Norwegian P-8s, NDSTC, and Nordstream…

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“Munin,” (SN 169586) the third out of five Boeing P-8 Poseidon (militarized 737-800) maritime patrol aircraft on order for the Royal Norwegian Air Force seen landing for the first time in its home country last May. The type is replacing elderly both P-3 Orion and DA-20 Falcon EW aircraft in Norwegian service. Note the “Saint” logo on its tail. All five have names from Norse mythos– Vingtor, Viking, Ulabrand, and Hugin– and will be operated by the RNoAF’s 333 Squadron out of Evenes Air Station. (RNoAF photo)

Just going to leave this here, without judgment or throwing any shade or rocks.

Old school journo Sy Hersh– formerly of the NYT and the guy who broke the story on Abu Ghraib and My Lai– is now over at substack because that’s just how the 2020s work.

Well, on Wednesday, he published a 5,500-word article based partially on unnamed confidential sources (which, of course, always take with a grain of salt) that Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center (NDSTC) personnel (aka “The Panama City Boys” in his piece) laid remotely triggered demo charges on the Nordstream pipeline where it rested on the seabed 260 feet down (well within a technical dive depth) a few miles off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm in conjunction with the Norwegian Navy. The emplacement, he contends, was done during the regular Spring BALTOPS exercise and triggered remotely long after.

From Hersh:

The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea—from near and distant ships, underwater drilling, seismic events, waves, and even sea creatures. To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low-frequency tonal sounds—much like those emitted by a flute or a piano—that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives. (“You want a signal that is robust enough so that no other signal could accidentally send a pulse that detonated the explosives,” I was told by Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Postol, who has served as the science adviser to the Pentagon’s Chief of Naval Operations, said the issue facing the group in Norway because of Biden’s delay was one of chance: “The longer the explosives are in the water the greater risk there would be of a random signal that would launch the bombs.”)

On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place.

So anyway…

Sudden Squall

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With all the heavy winter rain we have been getting lately, this painting struck me as being relative.

Official caption: “USS De Haven (DD-727) provides anti-aircraft and anti-submarine protection for the carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) while on Yankee Station, an operational staging area just off the coast of North Vietnam. The winter monsoon in that region is characterized by consistent heavy clouds and rainfall that make operations difficult.”

Painting, Oil on Canvas; by R. G. Smith; 1969; Framed Dimensions 53H X 65W. NHHC Accession #: 88-160-FI.

The second vessel named after 19th Century polar explorer LT Edwin Jess De Haven, the above Sumner-class destroyer was christened by his grandaughter at Bath Iron Works and commissioned on 31 March 1944. She was soon screening the fast carriers of TF38 striking Luzon in support of the invasion of Leyte by that November. Across her 49-year career, this second DeHaven received five battle stars for World War II service and in addition to her Navy Unit Commendation picked up a further six for Korean War service and decorations for 10 tours in off Vietnam between 1962 and 1971.

Transferred to the South Korean Navy in 1973, she was renamed ROKS Incheon (DD-98/918) (she was present at the landings there in 1950) and served under the flag of that country until 1993.

The USS DeHaven Sailors Association remembers both tin cans today and is very active on social media.

As for the painting, its artist has a number of haunting Vietnam-era works in the NHHC’s collection. 

Coming Home to Roost by R.G. Smith, A-4Cs over USS Shangri La

“Enterprise on Yankee Station” by R.G. Smith, Oil Painting, c. 1968. Accession: 88-160-EU Courtesy U.S. Navy Art Gallery, Naval History and Heritage Command

Modular Mine Laying Cube

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The Baltic probably has more sea mines along its bottom than any other body of water in the world. It is estimated that there are 80,000 live mines left over from the two World Wars in the ancient sea, a legacy that has kept NATO MCM flotillas regularly employed every summer.

But of course, going beyond minesweeping and hunting, the narrow seas, craggy coastline, and shallow depths of the Baltic make it ideal for the employment of such weapons and most of the countries that border it or operate upon its waves have some sort of plan for their own use of mines in a future conflict.

With that, it should come as no surprise that this little piece of bolt-on kit is being advertised and developed by a Baltic consortium based in Denmark and Finland, to both store and very rapidly deploy (when needed) modern sea mines.

Via Danish SH Defence, in cooperation with the Finnish DA-Group and FORCIT Defence companies:

SH Defence, Denmark; DA-Group and FORCIT DefenceOY AB, both located in Finland, have signed a multiparty Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to corporate and jointly explore the potential in the development of launching, laying, and storing sea mines designed by and manufactured by DA-Group and FORCIT, such as but not limited to the BLOCKER and TURSO sea mines, into the Containerized Multi-Mission Module system called The Cube™ System.

The cooperation will be based on SH Defence’s modular mission concept, The Cube™ System with associated handling equipment, and will include design and conception; supported with DA-Group patented modular SUMICO naval minelaying concept. 

Lars Gullaksen, Area Sales Director, SH Defence, said: “The Cube™ System from SH Defence is rapidly becoming the standard within modularization of maritime mission capabilities for naval, coastguard, and SAR vessels around the world, especially within NATO and around the Baltic Sea. Hence our motto The Cube – changing the game at sea.

Modern naval vessels must be capable of carrying out different missions and roles both in peacetime and wartime. Therefore, the easy and rapid exchange of capabilities is an increasing requirement for new buildings and the retrofit of naval vessels.” 

He continued: “The Cube™ System, currently available with more than 300 different payloads from approximately 160 vendors, offers a flexible and cost-efficient solution that enables reconfiguration of a vessel in only a few hours. 

This partnership with DA-Group and FORCIT allows us to jointly develop the multi-mission capabilities and expand the portfolio of payloads to include the most modern sea mines for the adaptability of both Scandinavian, NATO, and other foreign navies.” 

Kristian Tornivaara, Chief Business Officer at DA-Group Defence and Aerospace, said: “We are excited to start the collaboration with SH Defence. They are now taking real action and provide world navies the future-proof modular solution for naval minelaying. We have been working with sea mines and mission modularity for years and we have seen the need for such a system. This is also the reason for SUMICO patent, which now can be utilized in Cube System to enhance navies’ operational capabilities and flexibility.”

Hannu Hytti, Executive Vice President, Forcit Defence, said: “Forcit Defence has been developing and manufacturing modern naval mines since 1988. Recent developments in the security environment have emphasized the importance of sea denial and naval mine capabilities. With this partnership with SH Defence and DA Group we are able to provide world class full spectrum naval capabilities for maritime defence.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023: The Only ‘T’ in the P-class

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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 time 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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023: The Only ‘T’ in the P-class

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 41932

Above we see a great 1937 image of the Porpoise-class fleet boat USS Tarpon (SS-175), her bow breaking the surface at a relatively steep up angle. The only one of two of her class that was commissioned without a “P” series fish name (note her “P4” bow number), some 80 years ago today, Tarpon accounted for an entire Japanese regiment when her torpedoes sent the troopship Tatsuta Maru to the bottom in the middle of an overnight gale while some 42 nautical miles east of Mikura Jima, and none of the 1,400 men aboard her were ever seen again.

Background on the Porpoise class

As noted by Pigboats.com, the Porpoise was the first of the so-called “fleet boats,” large cruising submarines of a full double hull design thought suitable for cross-ocean combat and dives as deep as 250 feet. “These boats were the culmination of the four decades of submarine design and research that preceded them and were the height of US technology leading into World War II.”

Some 301 feet overall, they went almost 2,000 tons when fully loaded and submerged. Capable of 19 knots on the surface, they could overhaul most merchant ships but could never outrun an enemy destroyer or sub-buster. Submerged speed maxed out at just eight knots. Armament consisted of four forward 21-inch torpedo tubes and two stern tubes of the same size. Besides the capability to carry 16 torpedoes, the class also had a 3-inch/50 single deck gun wet mount over their flat sterns.

Sistership USS Shark, SS-174, the only other non-P-named Porpoise class boat. Seen here under construction at Electric Boat in Connecticut, 20 May 1935, her four-pack of forward torpedo tubes is plainly seen.

USS Shark (SS-174). Official model, photographed circa 1938 by her builder, the Electric Boat Company NARA

Detailed by Norman Friedman in U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History:

Porpoise (SS-172) was the first of a new generation of submarines that developed into successful WW II fleet boats. Her design shows much of the standard above-water configuration for U.S. submarines completed through 1942. Many features of her internal arrangement were adopted in Dolphin (SS-169): Officer’s quarters above the forward battery, control room below the conning tower & above the pump room, crew’s quarters above the after battery, the engine room & a maneuvering room above the motor room. Dolphin differed in having a large galley above an auxiliary (battery-charging) machinery room abaft the crew’s mess / after battery forward of the main engine room. In Porpoise, a small galley & washroom with a storeroom below was worked in at the after end of the control room.

Porpoise plan, Drawing by Jim Christley via Navsource.

In all, ten Porpoise class boats were constructed in three sub-classes with USS Porpoise (SS 172) and Pike (SS 173) in the initial run built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, sisters Shark (SS 174) and Tarpon (SS 175) constructed at Electric Boat to a slightly upgraded arrangement, and the final six boats with much better endurance split between both yards: Perch (SS 176), Pickerel (SS 177), Permit (SS 178), Plunger (SS 179), Pollack (SS 180), and Pompano (SS 181). All were completed in 44 months between 27 October 1933 when Porpoise was laid down and 12 June 1937 when Pompano was commissioned. Not bad when you remember this is peacetime construction.

The first USS Tarpon on the Navy List, like our vessel, was a submarine, only the 14th ever commissioned. A humble little 105-foot craft with fire-prone gasoline engines, she was only in commission for 10 years before her career ended.

USS Tarpon (Submarine # 14) Photographed by Enrique Muller, 1909. The gunboat in the right distance is either USS Castine or USS Machias. NH 43600

Meet Tarpon

Constructed at EB, our second Tarpon was commissioned on 12 March 1936, then almost immediately sailed for the West Coast to join Submarine Division (SubDiv) 13 with whom she operated out of San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

A great series of diving images of Tarpon, from which the first photo of this post was taken, was captured at the time, the benefit of being so close to Hollywood, I guess.

USS Tarpon (SS-175) recovering a practice torpedo, during exercises off San Diego, California, 22 August 1937. NH 63184

USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, circa 1937. NH 41923

Same as the above, NH 41924

A great stern shot from the series, showing her single 3″/50 deck gun. Catalog #: NH 41919

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging, with her foredeck awash, circa 1937. NH 41918

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging NH 41934

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging NH 41933

NH 41925

USS Tarpon underway while nearly submerged, circa 1937. NH 41929

USS Tarpon running submerged, with her periscope extended. NH 41927

USS Tarpon surfacing, with her bow at a shallow up angle, circa 1937. NH 41920

USS Tarpon underway on the surface, circa 1937. Crew members appear to be preparing to bring her 3/50 deck gun into action. NH 41928

She was soon transferred to the Philippines with SubDiv 14 where she was forward deployed along with many of her sisters, augmenting a half-dozen old “Sugar Boats” that had been in the PI since the 1920s.

Six Porpoise-class boats nested together, circa 1939-1941. Probably seen from the tender USS Canopus (AS-9) in Manila Bay, Philippines. The inboard submarine is not identified. The others are (from left to right): USS Pike (SS-173); USS Tarpon (SS-175); USS Porpoise (SS-172); USS Perch (SS-176); and USS Permit (SS-178). Collection of Jack L. Wheat, who served in Canopus. NH 99672.

A different view of the above

War!

Assigned to the newly-formed SubDiv 203 just days before the war in the Pacific started, Tarpon began her first war patrol just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was assigned to patrol off southeastern Luzon. With little to show for her efforts, she put into Darwin, Australia on 11 January 1942.

Her second patrol went even worse, with the boat surviving a tense grounding situation west of Flores Island in the Dutch East Indies. After jettisoning anchors, torpedoes, oil, and ammunition she is able to free herself and make it back to Freemantle.

Her third and fourth patrols ended with no enemy ships on her tally and her original skipper that she started the war with subsequently reassigned to shore duty, while Tarpon was ordered to the Mare Island Navy Yard for an overhaul in June 1942 that would change her sensor suite, add two extra external torpedo tubes, and a 20mm AAA mount.

She would spend four months refurbing in California and leave with a new skipper, LCDR Thomas Lincoln Wogan, (USNA 1930). A career submariner, Wogan had commanded the old Sugar Boat USS S-34 (139) out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska already under nightmarish conditions and was surely glad to get the upgrade and orders for warmer waters.

Leaving Mare Island, Tarpon had another great photo shoot.

USS Tarpon (SS-175) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, after an overhaul, 24 September 1942. Circles mark recent alterations to the ship. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-35372

Same as above. Note the new 20mm gun. Catalog #: 19-N-35373

Same as above. Note the two recently installed external bow torpedo tubes, giving her a six-tube main punch. NH 99008

Off Mare Island. NH 99009

USS Tarpon off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, after an overhaul, 30 September 1942. Note barrage balloons in the distance. 19-N-35370

19-N-35369

19-N-35371

A smashing Sixth Patrol

Getting back in the war, Tarpon would spend her 5th war patrol roaming north of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands area in October-November.

It would be her sixth patrol, and second with Wogan, 33, as the “old man” that Tarpon would finally draw blood. In nine days across the first two weeks of February 1943, while on patrol in Japanese home waters, south of Honshu, she claimed two massive transports.

First was the Japanese troopship Fushimi Maru (10935 GRT) about 20 nautical miles south of Omai Zaki on 1 February after a pair of night attack runs (one submerged, one surfaced) and six torpedoes. A former Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) lines merchant passenger-cargo ship delivered in 1914, she was carrying a battalion-sized element when sunk. The auxiliary net layer Kokai Maru rescued 214 survivors and dropped depth charges on Tarpon without success.

From her war patrol report: 

The second was the aforementioned Japanese troop transport Tatsuta Maru (16975 GRT), another NYK liner although one with a much more interesting history. Carrying 1,223 soldiers and passengers and 198 crew members to Truk under escort from the destroyer Yamagumo, she never made it, taking what was believed to be all four torpedoes launched from Tarpon’s forward tubes.

Sinking in less than a half-hour with seas in too high a state to take to the lifeboats, Yamagumo stood by but was not able to recover any survivors. As with Fushimi Maru, the attack on Tatsuta Maru was a submerged night attack run aided by radar conducted from at periscope depth (35 feet) from almost point-blank range.

The rest of the war

Tarpon’s continued service saw a slow 7th patrol followed by an 8th patrol that damaged the Japanese merchant Shinsei Maru (4746 GRT) off Mikura Shima and sank the 97-ton guard boat Yulin Maru in a surface gun action.

On her 9th patrol, she would end the career of the 4,700-ton German armed auxiliary commerce raider Michel (Hilfskreuzer-9/Schiff-28/Raider H) off Chichi Jima.

HK Michel

The former Gdynia-America-Line steamer Bielsko, the German was armed with a half-dozen 6-inch guns and another half-dozen torpedo tubes, making her deadly for any Allied merchantman her Arado seaplanes could find, and she had claimed no less than 18 of them. Tarpon would end Michel’s second raiding voyage just 50 miles short of the safety of Yokohama on 17 October 1943. Hit by four torpedoes from Tarpon across four attack runs, the last of Hitler’s operational HSKs went to the bottom carrying her skipper, KzS Günther Gumprich, and three-fourths of her crew.

Although Tarpon went on to complete three further patrols under a new skipper, her record of kills stopped with the German raider’s end. An aging vessel whose design was surpassed by the newer Gato and Balao-class fleet boats, she was ordered to the East Coast to serve as a training boat for new crews.

The submarine departed Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1944, and arrived at New London, Conn., on 17 January 1945.

USS Tarpon in New London, note her long homeward bound pennant and the snow-covered landscape– a big difference from her last eight years of Pacific service for sure!

With the war soon over, Tarpon decommissioned in Boston on 15 November 1945.

Tarpon decommissioned at Boston

She received seven battle stars for her World War II service.

Tarpon went on to serve as a Naval Reserve training hulk for a time at New Orleans before being stricken from the Navy List in 1956.

She ended her career off Cape Hatteras in 1957 where she sank while under tow to the salvage yard.

Epilogue

Part of NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Tarpon today rests 135 feet down and, as noted by the agency, “The site is heavily encrusted with coralline algae and supports an array of cnidarians, such as sea anemones and corals. Tarpon also typically has several sand tiger sharks on site, which can provide dramatic photographic subjects while enjoying this historic shipwreck dive.”

Today, the ex-USS Tarpon wreck site is home to an abundance of marine life. Here, a sand tiger shark swims in the foreground with the Tarpon’s dive planes in the background. Photo: Tane Casserley, NOAA

Meanwhile, most of her patrol reports and plans are in the National Archives. 

Her most famous skipper, Capt. Wogan, who had earned a Navy Cross and two Silver Stars while aboard Tarpon, sadly took his life in 1951 while commander of the tender Sperry, aged just 42.

There has not been a third Tarpon in U.S. Navy service.

As for her nine sisters, four (Shark, Pompano, Perch, and Pickerel) were lost while on service in the Pacific. They are considered on Eternal Patrol, numbered among the 52 American submarines that never returned to port during the conflict.

Their names are inscribed on a memorial at the USS Albacore Museum in New Hampshire. (Photo: Chris Eger)

Like Tarpon, many of her surviving sisters spent a short spell as training boats in the last days of the war and immediately after.

Also like Tarpon, they were all disposed of by the mid-1950s. Since they were all scrapped, Tarpon endures as the best-preserved relic of the class.

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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Enter the Kampfpanzer Leopard

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As covered in recent weeks, NATO has lifted the moratorium on sending main battle tanks to Ukraine and is slated to transfer varying token quantities of M1 Abrams (that need to be rebuilt first), cranky British Challenger 2s (that use a unique ammo type) and several different marks of ex-German Leopard 2s (from assorted first, second, and third-hand users.)

Speaking to the latter, the first Leo 2s headed to Kyiv seem to be seriously high mileage, which should surprise no one.

As noted by the Canadian Army on their first shipment, “The donation of the first of four Leopard 2A4 Main Battle Tanks will help Ukraine defend its sovereignty from Russian aggression. Their delivery by our forces shows that we can project combat power on a global scale to support the rules-based international order.”

The tank is so proudly shown covered in rust and obviously needs new trackpads.

If it looks this bad on the outside… “A Leopard 2A4 tank is loaded onto a Royal Canadian Armed Forces (RCAF) Canadian Cargo-177 Globemaster III in Halifax, Nova Scotia to be sent overseas as part of Canada’s aid to Ukraine on February 3, 2023.
Photo Credit: Corporal Amelie Graveline”

Couldn’t even take a pressure washer to it for a minute, guys? “A Leopard 2A4 tank is loaded onto a Royal Canadian Armed Forces (RCAF) Canadian Cargo-177 Globemaster III in Halifax, Nova Scotia to be sent overseas as part of Canada’s aid to Ukraine on February 3, 2023.
Photo Credit: Corporal Amelie Graveline”

Analysis from Tanks Being Tanks:

The tank looks like it just came out of a training exercise with little time to fully prepare. The rubber track pads are heavily worn or damaged, large mud stains, damaged side skirts, worn/damaged road wheels, and even the headlights are missing (though probably stored for transport). But basically, Canada is sending Ukraine tanks like this.

It’s not entirely sure whether the Leopards will undergo some kind of quick repair, especially replacement of the road wheels and trackpads, but it does bring up the question. Is Canada sending their worst, but still operable Leopards to Ukraine, just to get rid of them? Could this be the same plan for the other countries sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine?

Then again, one exception of such a possible case was Spain, when they initially offered their older Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine, but later changed their minds because of the overall operational status of said tanks, which was not good. Then again, they are still planning to send tanks now, but the number currently sits at around 4 to 6 tanks, out of 20 stored tanks in good condition.

But another concern is that a report by National Post has said that out of Canada’s 82 Leopard 2 tanks in service, around 15 tanks are operational (20% of Canada’s tank fleet). So far, no other source says the same, but no source has countered that claim, leaving a high possibility that Canada’s Leopard tanks aren’t doing too well. Yet, they’re still sending “operable” tanks to Ukraine?

The Leo2s offered thus far include 4-8 Norwegian (former Dutch) 2A4s, 14 Polish (former German) 2A4s, 4-6 Spanish (former Dutch) Leopard 2Es, 4 Portuguese (former German) 2A6s, possibly a few 2A7s from Denmark. Besides the varying degree of system fits on this hodgepodge, the data plates and labels inside these bad boys alone have to be dizzying in variety.

A possibly better alternative may be to send old Leopard 1 models, which Germany has hundreds in reserve, and even Belgium has 88.

Sure, they are 1960s-1980s vintage and are roughly equivalent to M60 Pattons or Soviet T-64s (the latter of which the Ukrainians are very familiar with), but their 105mm guns and engine suites are much simpler to master than anything fitted to the Leo2s.

Yes, the armor is thinner, but Leo2s are Kornet/RPG-30 bait anyway as the ones headed to Ukraine don’t have active-armor systems, so what is the difference?

Plus, the going rate for surplus Leo 1s is seen as about $10-15K a pop (although some are looking to pass them on for a cool $500K), with both Rheinmetall and FFG having lots full of them, meaning 2-3 could be transferred to make 1 operable, giving at least some built-in spare parts supply via cannibalization.

Plus, Kyiv is already operating Gepard SPAAGs, Dachs engineering vehicles, Biber scissor bridge layers, and Bergepanzer recovery vehicles– which are all just Leo1 hulls without the turret.

Getting 105mm sabots are probably going to be a problem, however, as the big players in that game right now (Greece, Turkey, Chile, and Brazil) all want to keep what they have in case they suddenly have a need for it. However, you can bet the U.S. Army probably has tons of old HEAT shells stockpiled in the desert somewhere for the 105mm M68 (the main gun fitted to the M60 Patton), which is nothing but the British-designed Royal Ordnance L7, which was the primary weapon fitted to Leo1s– all three use the same NATO STANAG 4458 shell types.

In my mind, don’t be surprised if the Leo1 becomes the new hot item shipped to Ukraine in quantity, with some container loads of quietly bought M426/M428 105mm sabots from Israel.

Pre-Priest Photoshoot

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Official caption: (early 1942)

The M-7 is the Army’s newest tank destroyer and is really a “killer.” Being tested for desert warfare at Iron Mountains, California. It carries both a 105mm Howitzer and a 50 caliber gun. Lieutenant M. Hutchison of Enterprise, Alabama is on the extreme right. Corporal L. Roberts from Graham, Texas is at post behind the Howitzer. Corporal Downing, whose home is Dekalb, Missouri, is in the turret.

U.S. Army Signal Corps Image now LOC LC-DIG-fsa-8b04892 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b04892

Of course, those who are tank and SPG versed will recognize that the T32 Motor Carriage M7— dubbed the “Priest” in British service due to the pulpit-style .50 cal ring (and the fact that the Brits already had a similar SPG named the “Bishop”)– was a self-propelled gun rather than a tank destroyer, although a lucky hit by its 4.1-inch (105mm) M2A howitzer would smash just about any armored vehicle ever made before 1970.

The original chassis was based on the M3 Lee/Grant medium tank chassis.

Over 4,400 M7s would be produced, and the type remained in service with the U.S. Army through Korea and then with allied forces well into the 1960s and 70s including combat with the Israelis in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Some may still endure in the reserves of the armies of Pakistan and Taiwan, just in case they are ever required to prey (pray?) again.

Float Around and Find Out

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Unless you have been in a cave in the woods the past week, the whole country was abuzz over the maneuverable Chinese “commercial weather” balloon that crossed from Montana to South Carolina.

Sure, it was essentially just rebooted 1950s strategic recon tech of the same sort that we used over the Soviet Union and the Middle East (see the 516 balloons launched during Operation Genetrix, for instance). Still, it made many folks doubt American Continental air defense and/or the political will to use it, for better or worse, which may have been the whole purpose if you think of it as a PsyOp.

Then again, maybe it was a dress rehearsal for a balloon-carried EMP device (2014 Congressional testimony: “[E]ven a relatively low-altitude EMP attack, where the nuclear warhead is detonated at an
altitude of 30 kilometers, will generate a damaging EMP field over a vast area, covering a region equivalent to New England, all of New York, and half of Pennsylvania.”).

But no matter what, the mechanics of the shootdown should be interesting to any student of military history.

The nuts and bolts, as detailed by the DOD:

An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon. The F-22 fired the Sidewinder at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

F-15 Eagles flying from Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, supported the F-22, as did tankers from multiple states including Oregon, Montana, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Canadian forces also helped track the overflight of the balloon.

The balloon fell approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water. No one was hurt.

The Navy has deployed the destroyer USS Oscar Austin, the cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the USS Carter Hall, an amphibious landing ship in support of the effort.

The shootdown area was perfectly planned for recovery, with the Coast Guard able to close down the impact area so the Navy could switch to salvage. Inside U.S. territorial waters, it can be cordoned off effectively while the shallow depth allows even scuba-diver level salvage ops. Naturally, a drop from 60,000 feet onto the surface (and the likelihood that its electronics were probably already remotely destroyed via a WP grenade or something of the sort once it beamed its last messages back to Bejing) means the intel gleaned will likely be of little value other than as a trophy, but still.

A window on the shootdown showed that the pair of F-22s that splashed the balloon– the type’s first documented air-to-air “kill” since taking to the air in 1997– were call-signed FRANK01 and FRANK02.

Why was this important?

The general theory is that this was a salute to 2nd Lt Frank Luke Jr., the famed Great War ace who zapped four German airplanes and 14 balloons in 1918 over the Western Front, making him the all-time American balloon killer of the conflict.

The more things change…

2nd Lt. Frank Luke Jr. with his biplane in the fields near Rattentout Farm, France, on Sept. 19, 1918.

Had a Navy or USMC F-18 or F-35 splashed the Chinese balloon, the flight callsign should have been DAVE01/02 as the first U.S. Naval air ace during World War I, LT David Sinton Ingalls, USNRF, was credited with four enemy aircraft and an observation balloon while flying with Royal Air Force Squadron 213.

“Shooting Down a Kite Balloon” Painting, Oil on Wood; By Bruce Ungerland; 1971; Framed Dimensions 50H X 43W NHHC NH 77664-KN

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