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Warship Wednesday 17 December 2025: They Give a Good Account of Themselves

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

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Warship Wednesday 17 December 2025: They Give a Good Account of Themselves

Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Naval History and Heritage Command NH 68493

Above we see the awning-covered and white painted Insect-class gunboat HMS Ladybird (P.0A) lounging on the Yangtze River during China’s warlord period, circa the late 1920s. A globetrotter, she witnessed history around the world in two official wars and several undeclared ones.

Don’t let her innocuous profile and name fool you, Ladybird was a killer, as three Italian freighters found out some 85 years ago today.

The Insects

The dozen shallow draught river gunboats of the Insect class, some 237 feet long and 635 tons displacement, were flat-bottomed ships designed by Yarrow to operate in shallow, fast-flowing rivers, and able to float in just four feet of brown water.

They had enough muscle (2,000 ihp plant on Yarrow boilers and twin VTE engines and three rudders) to make 14 knots (designed, yet “easily made” 18 knots on trials), thus capable of going upstream against the flow as needed and could turn “almost on a six-pence.”

Get a feel for the class from this excellent model of the Insect class gunboat HMS Tarantula in the RMG collections.

F7752 001

F7752 004

F7752 003

F7752 002

While ordered as a class in February 1915 for emergency war service in Europe (e.g. to fight on the Danube against Austrian river monitors but instead against the “Johnny Turk” in the Tigris flotilla), the consensus is that they would, after the Great War had wrapped up, see China service on the Yangtze and similar large waterways to protect the Crown’s interests in the often lawless region. Thus, they were classed and described as “Large China Gunboats” during construction, which also allowed cover for their planned use in Europe and the Middle East.

They were well-armed for such endeavors, with a BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun forward and another one in the rear to poke holes in said Austrian river monitors. An elevated central battery clustered around the single stack and mast held a group of six Maxim/Vickers water-cooled .303 machine guns and a couple of smaller QF Mk I 12-pounders. All of these guns, even the MGs, had front splinter shields. However, as the muzzles of the 12 pdrs were immediately over head of the crews working the 6-inchers, being one of these gunners was certainly hard on the hearing.

Aerial photograph of British Aphis (Insect) class gunboat. Note the two 6-inchers, fore and aft.

According to the excellent site on these ships, maintained by Taylor Family Collection: 

Their steel plating was thin by warship standards – only five-sixteenths of an inch amidships, tapering to about one-eighth of an inch at the ends. The decks were strengthened in the vicinity of the main armament mountings with steel doublers three-eighths of an inch thick, and a three-quarter-inch steel doubler was also fitted on the sheer strake over the mid-ship section as extra stiffening. Beyond this, they carried no armour and had no double bottoms, unlike most ships.

That their armour was so minimal is not surprising given that these were essentially “kitset” ships specially designed to be broken down and reassembled. Heavy armour plating or additional construction “stiffening” was counterproductive. Active service with the Tigris Flotilla, however, resulted in rearming – a 2-pounder pom-pom added, four of the .303–inch Maxim guns removed, and a 3–inch anti-aircraft gun installed in their place. All were fitted for towing kite balloons (to carry artillery observers). Initially, sandbags were built up around the battery deck for the protection of personnel, but later a 5–foot shield made of ¼ inch chrome steel plate was built all around this deck as can be seen in the photos.

All 12 were named for insects and acrahnids (Aphis, Bee, Cicala, Cockchafer, Cricket, Glowworm, Gnat, Mantis, Moth, Scarab, Tarantula, and our Ladybird) as befitting their role and, to speed up delivery, were ordered simultaneously from five small yards (four from Barclay, two each from Ailsa, Lobnitz, Sutherland S.B, and Wood/Skinner). No, although they were to a Yarrow design, that esteemed firm was too busy making “real” warships to deal with such bugs.

Meet Ladybird

Our subject was laid down in 1915 at Lobnitz, Renfrew, as Builder’s Hull No. 804. Her slightly older sister, HMS Gnat, No. 803, was built nearly side-by-side at the same yard. Gnat hit the water in December 1915 while Ladybird slid down the way the following April. The two would commission by May 1916.

Ladybird’s original pennant number, issued in January 1916, was P.5A. This later shifted to P.0A in January 1918.

HMS Ladybird, at Port Said, Egypt, November 1917. Note the cruiser and destroyers in the background. Photo by Surgeon Oscar Parkes, IWM SP 560

Her first skipper was Acting Commander Vaughan Alexander Edward Hanning-Lee, an Englishman from a long-service naval family. He had 16 years of service behind him, including command of several destroyers and the gunnery training ship HMS St. George (an old Edgar-class cruiser), as well as detached service at Salonika. Hanning-Lee would remain in command of Ladybird through the end of 1918.

War!

The Insects, with Serbia all but knocked out of the war and access to the Danube closed, were repurposed to fight in the Eastern Med and Mesopotamia, while Cricket, Cicala, Cockchafer, and Glowworm were kept in British home waters to defend against German zeppelin raids.

Gnat, Mantis, Moth and Tarantula were towed to the Persian Gulf to join the Tigris Flotilla while Bee and Scarab guarded the Suez Canal.

Ladybird and sister Aphis would be detailed to Egypt, and had a very busy 1917, giving good, if somewhat undetailed service against the Ottomans in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, notably providing fire support for Bulfin’s XXI Corps during the victorious Third Battle of Gaza in November.

“Egypt scenes. Monitor HMS Ladybird in the Suez Canal, 1917.” This photo is part of an album compiled by Sub. Lieutenant Bertie Henry Buck, during his service in WWI and is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s collection. Object number: 00007425_9

CDR Hanning-Lee earned a DSO aboard Ladybird and a later OBE for his gallant conduct and services in the Mediterranean, retiring soon after.

The Armistice brought an end to the hostilities, of a sort.

Wait, another war?

While peace had officially broken out across the world, the Insects would spend the next several years, often deck-deep in combat, although not officially in war.

Cicala, Cockchafer, Cricket, and Glowworm sailed through the Barents Sea to Archangel for service as part of the Dvina River Force, supporting the White Russians, where they would remain through most of 1919, fighting the Reds.

Six went to the Far East with Mantis and Tarantula dispatched to the West River near Hong Kong, while Bee, Gnat, Moth, and Scarab were sent to the Yangtze River.

Aphis and our Ladybird, however, were shipped in February 1919 to join Capt. Vernon Haggard’s newly formed Naval Brigade on the Danube, aka the British Danube Flotilla, to enforce the naval terms of the Armistice with Austria-Hungary in conjunction with the Entente military mission in Budapest, the latter led by the unpopular French Lt.Col. Ferdinand Vix.

A group of British, Serbian, and Yugoslav officers at Baja on the River Danube in the summer of 1919. Front row from left to right: Commander Jellacic, commander of Yugoslav war vessels on the Danube; Lieutenant Colonel Milossovic, commander of the 9th Serbian Infantry Regiment; Captain Vernon Haggard RN, commander of the Royal Navy Danube Flotilla; Lieutenant Colonel Draskio, town commandant at Baja; Surgeon Lieutant Commander P F Cope RN, medical officer to the Danube Flotilla and Father Gregorevitch, Yugoslav Army Chaplain. Rear row from left to right: Lieutenant Pric, commanding officer of the patrol boat NERETVA; Commander R Stone RN, commanding officer of HMS LADYBIRD; Lieutenant Andric, first lieutenant of the Yugoslav monitor SAVA; Lieutenant Bacic, adjutant to Commander Jellacic; Lieutenant Commander H Hewitt, Senior British Naval Officer, Baja; Lieutenant Commander E Edmonds RN, commander of British MLs on the Danube; Lieutenant E Pigou RN, British liaison officer in SAVA; Lieutenant Kovacek, first lieutenant of the Yugoslav monitor DRAVA; Paymaster Lieutenant Commander Fritz Reger, secretary to Captain Haggard, Lieutenant H S Beresford RN, British liaison officer in DRAVA; unknown Segrbian Army officer. IWM Q 115088

This small shallow water river force also included at least four new Vickers-designed Elco-built 86-foot ML.51 motor launches, ML 196, ML.210, ML.228, and ML.434. The MLs, armed with a 3pdr plus depth charges and carrying an eight-man crew, were dangerous boats as they had gasoline engines and were poorly ventilated, with the 196 and 434 boats later catching fire and sinking in the river.

The flotilla also held control, at least temporarily in conjunction with the French, of the former Austrian KuK Donau Flotilla monitors Bodrog, Czuka, Wels, Stör, Vizu, Lachs, Fogas, Barsch, and Compó, which had lost many of their officers but still had their mostly Croat crews aboard.

While based in Baja, Hungary, the Flotilla got into a hairy situation when Bela Kun’s Soviet Republic of Hungary came to power between March and August 1919, which coincided closely with the eight-month-long and almost totally forgotten in the West, Hungarian–Romanian War and Hungarian–Czechoslovak War (both of which Hungary lost). Then came reactionary Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy’s “White Terror” after the fall of the communist government, which lasted through 1921.

All of this was tense to say the least, with one of the Flotilla’s vessels (ML.210) being captured by Hungarian Reds at one point and the old Austrian monitors always one step away from casting their lot with one faction or another, thus requiring constant minding– with the Yugolsavs taking custody of most of them in November 1919, although the Trianon Peace Treaty of 1920 divided the old KuK Donau Flotilla between Austria and Hungary.

Jane’s 1921 listing on the class, note Glowworm, Aphis, Ladybird, and ML 196 listed as being in the British Danube Flotilla. Glowworm had only joined the force in 1920.

The British quit the Danube in January 1926, but Ladybird had left the force before then, being laid up in reserve at Malta on 17 April 1922, after all the interventions, wars, and revolutions in Hungary had passed.

While Ladybird was lucky, others of her class serving abroad in similar undeclared conflicts were not. Cicala, serving on the broad Dvina River in Northern Russia in 1919, was the host to a mutinous crew and was later mined by the Bolshevik Reds and bottomed out, but was raised and returned to service. Likewise, both Glowworm and Cockchafer were badly damaged in a munitions barge explosion at Beresnik/Bereznik in August 1919 but were similarly repaired.

HMS Cicala in North Russia (Yeoman of Signals George Smith)

Once the Danube Flotilla was disbanded, Aphis and Ladybird— the latter recommissioned at Malta on 29 January 1927– were sent to join their sisters in the Far East while Glowworm, her wounds her Russia service never truly healed, was sent to Malta where in 1928 it was decided by the Admiralty that, due to her poor condition, she should be sold for scrap in September of that year.

Jane’s 1929 listing on the class note with Glowworm absent. By this time, the class was all based in China/Hong Kong, where they would run into a whole different set of problems.

Interbellum

The Insect-class river gunboat HMS Ladybird on route from Hong Kong to Shanghai in July 1927. IWM Q 80179

As noted by the December 1984 edition of the (Australian) Naval Historical Review: 

Typically, these gunboats…carried two officers and sometimes a doctor; six or seven petty officers and leading seamen, plus 17 able seamen. The remainder of the 50-odd souls aboard were Chinese servants, cooks, seamen, and black gang. Obviously, British ability to mount a landing force fell well below the capabilities of the ‘new six’ US gunboats, with their 4 line officers, doctor, and about 50 US enlisted. However, the British POs enjoyed more responsibility and authority than the American, as all RN officers could be off the ship at the same time.

It was during this period that, from 21 April 1932 to 30 September 1933, Ladybird was commanded by LCDR Eric Wheeler Bush, the youngest recipient of the D.S.C. in history, at not quite 17 while on HMS  Revenge at the Battle of Jutland.

The U.S. Navy’s flotilla of China Station patrol boats (ala Sand Pebbles) worked so closely with the RN’s boats that a number of excellent images of Ladybird exist in the NHHC archives from this era, many from the collections of Donald M. McPherson and Philip Yarnell.

HMS Ladybird at Shanghai, China circa the 1920s. NH 68496

Looking down on the Yangtze River, Ichang, China 1920s. USS Elcano (PG – 38) is above the “X” (bottom, left of center). HMS Ladybird (A British gunboat) is forward and to the right of ship with large single stack at bottom right center. USS Monocracy (PG-20) is forward and above Ladybird. NH 67243

HMS Ladybird British river gunboat, view taken at Ichang, China, May 1937. NH 81636

Yangtze River Patrol. A British gunboat on the Yangtze river, probably the HMS Ladybird, possibly near Ichang, China circa the 1920s. NH 67311

Yangtze River Patrol. A British gunboat on the Yangtze river, probably the HMS Ladybird, possibly near Ichang, China circa the 1920s. NH 67312

She also frequently found herself a consort to the ill-fated American gunboat USS Panay (PR-5). She and sister HMS Bee, the river flotilla flagship at the time, were on hand for Panay’s final day during the evacuation of Nanking in December 1937.

USS Panay (PR-5) in background right, beyond HMS Ladybird, British river gunboat. Weldon James of UPI News Service waves a handkerchief at Panay prior to his and others’ evacuation on the U.S. ship at Nanking, China, 12 December 1937. NH 50838

Panay, escorting three small Standard Oil tankers, Mei Ping, Mei An, and Mei Hsia, which in turn were packed with some 800 Chinese employees of the company and their families, was attacked on 12 December by Japanese naval aircraft while some 28 miles upstream from Nanking. The force, comprised of Yokosuka B4Y Type-96 “Jean” bombers and Nakajima A4N Type-95 biplane fighters, sank all four ships.

The same Japanese bombers later struck SS Wanhsien, owned by the China Navigation Company, part of a British company, later that day with negligible damage.

Ladybird and Bee, along with the American gunboat USS Oahu (PR-6), rushed to the scene in the aftermath and took aboard survivors of the vessels. Three Americans and an Italian correspondent were killed and at least 48 were seriously wounded.

A Japanese field artillery unit near Wuhu on the Yangtze, under orders from Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, opened fire on the scene with Bee dodging a near-miss and Ladybird taking six hits, suffering several casualties. One of Ladybird’s crew, Sick Berth Attendant Terrance N Lonergan, C/MX 50739, became the first member of the Royal Navy to perish in conflict with the Japanese since 1862.

HMS Ladybird, view of the damage on the port side sustained in an artillery attack by a Japanese Army battery on 12 December 1937, the same day as the USS Panay (PR-5) sinking. Courtesy of Vice Admiral Morton L. Deyo, USN (retired) NH 77816

USS Oahu (PR-6). The coffin of SK1 C.L. Ensminger, USN, lies beneath a U.S. flag on the fantail of the Oahu, as she heads to Shanghai, China, with the survivors of sister ship USS Panay (PR-5) which was sunk on 12 December 1937 by Japanese planes. British gunboat HMS Ladybird is astern of Oahu, 15 December 1937. Ensminger was killed in the attack on Panay. NH 50808

The class also thinned once again, with Bee, in poor material shape, being paid off in 1938 when the new Dragonfly-class gunboat HMS Scorpion arrived from Britain. Ex-Bee was sold in Shanghai for scrap on 22 March 1939 for just £5,225.

And another war

When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September 1939, kicking off WWII, Ladybird was still in China, where she would remain for the rest of the year until she and sister Aphis were nominated for service in the Mediterranean. Their local Chinese crew would remain behind, transferred throughout the station.

In the meantime, both gunboats were upgraded during a refit in Singapore, landing their original 6”/45 Mk VII guns for more capable 6”/50 Mk XIII guns which had been removed from the Jutland veteran battleship HMS Agincourt in 1922 and sent East. They also picked up two Vickers 40mm/39 2pdr QF Mk VIII pom-poms in place of their old 12 pounders. The latter would become a common addition on the Insects in this period.

Other members of the class would also later be transferred to fight the Germans and Italians in the Med and Middle East, leaving just Cicala and Moth in Hong Kong while Mantis was paid off in January 1940. It was at about this time that the 10 remaining Insects shelved their P-series pennants for T-series, with Ladybird becoming T58, Aphis T57, et. al.

In January 1940, Ladybird’s new skipper was 39-year-old recalled LCDR (retired) John Fulford Blackburn, who had been on the retired list since 1934. Everyone has to do their part and all that. Her captain since March 1938, LCDR Robert Sydney Stafford, would take command Aphis.

On 3 March 1940, Ladybird and Aphis left Penang in Malaysia under escort of the cruiser HMS Durban (D 99), which later handed them over to the cruiser HMAS Hobart (D 63), to proceed to the Mediterranean via Colombo, Aden, and the Suez.

Once in the Med, she became something of a regular off the coast of the Italian Libyan port of Bardia, home to a full army corps.

In Operation MB 1, on 23 August 1940, the Australian destroyer HMAS Waterhen covered Ladybird when she boldly entered Bardia, and fired point-blank on buildings and harbor defenses. Both vessels withdrew safely after the attack. The slow-going Ladybird returned to Alexandria on the 25th, trailing Waterhen by a day.

Ladybird would repeat her punishment of the harbor on 17 December 1940. Sailing with the destroyers HMAS Voyager and HMAS Vendetta providing cover, Ladybird, sister Aphis, and the monitor HMS Terror splashed the Italian coasters Galata, Giuseppina D, and Vincenzino, shelled and sunk in the mud at Bardia.

She then spent a week off the town over the New Years, with Aphis, Terror, Gnat, and Ladybird supported by the destroyers Voyager and HMS Dainty while the carrier HMS Illustrious, two cruisers, and four destroyers poked around further offshore– wishing the Italians to sortie out– and the bruising battleships HMS Barham, Warspite and Valiant even coming in close enough to lend their big guns in two bombardment runs on 3 January 1941, landing 244 15-inch shells.

This was during Operation Compass, the strike by the British 7th Armored Division and 6th Australian Division, with Free French Colonial troops brought in by ship from Syria, to seize the Italian stronghold, wrapping up Lt. Gen Annibale Bergonzoli’s XXII Army Corps in the process and capturing 36,000 Italian troops along with 400 guns and 900 vehicles by 5 January 1941. Ladybird inherited a second-hand 20mm/65 M1939 Breda AAA gun and several crates of shells in the process.

31 December 1940. “A visit to a company of Free French in the Bardia area, troops landing on the coast from a warship.” HMS Ladybird. stationary with a small boat in the foreground. Photo by Capt. Geoffrey John Keating, No. 1 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit IWM (E 1538)

Australian combat cameraman Damien Peter Parer was on board Ladybird when she bombarded Bardia and took dozens of snaps of the gunboat during this New Years trip, with most of them in low-rez format online at the Australian War Memorial.

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. At the safest end of the 6-inch guns on HMS Ladybrd during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004991

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. Rapid fire from the 6-inch guns on HMS Ladybrd during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004990

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. The crew aboard HMS Ladybrd gives the Pom Pom a drink during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004993

He also caught numerous images of her crew snatching a bit of rest when they could between gun runs and batting away successive low-quality Italian air raids.

And a meal in the Petty Officers’ Mess, complete with the ship’s cat, Cinders. AWM 005005 and 005013.

Over 21/22 January 1941, Ladybird, Aphis, and Terror gave the same treatment to the Italian port of Tobruk on the Libyan/Egyptian border, where another 20,000 Italians were captured.

In February 1941, Ladybird landed 24 Royal Marines as part of Operation Abstention, a failed attempt to seize the Italian island of Kastelorizo (Castellorizo) in the Aegean, about 80nm from Rhodes. Sailing from Suda Bay, Crete with the destroyers HMS Decoy and Hereward packed with 200 men of No. 50 Army Commando, Ladybird was struck by bomb dropped by an Italian SM.79, wounding three sailors just after she put her Marines ashore. Damaged and low on fuel, she was forced to reembark her Marines and head to Haifa, one of several spoilers to the mission.

Once Rommel arrived in North Africa, the British fortunes in the theatre reversed and, not only was Bardia recaptured, but the German Afrika Korps surged into Egypt.

In early April, Ladybird and a few other ships were trapped in Tobruk with 27,000 other Allied troops, mostly of the 9th Australian Division but also with smatterings of Free Czech and Polish units. Together, these “Rats of Tobruk” held out for the next seven months against all odds as Rommel tried to reduce and either capture or wreck the port.

Soon, the cargo ships SS Draco, Bankura, and Urania, along with the 3,000-ton armed boarding vessel HMS Chakla were sunk by Axis aircraft of the Luftwaffe’s 3./StG 1 and 2./StG 2, along with the Regia Aeronautica’s 96, 236, and 239 Squadriglias.

“Armed boarding vessel Chakla, under bombing attack in Tobruk harbour, 1941-04-29. Note her camouflage scheme, the colours of which are probably 507a (the darker grey) and 507c. The Chakla was sunk as a result of the attack. (still from a cine film).” AWM 127950.

On 7 May, the Hunt-class minesweeper HMS Stoke (J 33) was bombed and sunk at Tobruk by Stukas of 2./StG 2, with the loss of 21 of her crew. Ladybird rushed to pick up her survivors.

Five days later, Ladybird had her turn in the barrel and was sent to the bottom after a bomb strike from II./StG 2,  settling on an even keel in ten feet of water with three men killed, all listed as “missing presumed killed”:

  • George R Morley, Able Seaman, P/J 59384, MPK
  • Wiliam Olley, Able Seaman, P/JX 171410, MPK
  • Edward Paton, Able Seaman, P/JX 152815, MPK

Tobruk, Cyrenaica, Libya. c. May 1941. A general view of bomb damaged buildings. The smoke from the harbour is from HMS Ladybird set on fire by an enemy bomb. (Donor Sergeant Maxwell) AWM 022116

By July, Ladybird’s sister HMS Cricket was similarly crippled by an Italian bomber off Mersa Matruh, Egypt while another sister, Gnat had the first 20 feet of her bow knocked off by German submarine U79 at Bardia in October and was knocked out of the war.

Even with the gunboat on the bottom and her crew dispersed through the fleet, the hulk of the old Ladybird hosted men of No. 40 Battery, 14th (“West Lothian Royal Scots” as they had converted from a Royal Scots infantry company) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (T.A.), who lived aboard her remaining topside, roughing it on a ghost ship with a few tricks still up her sleeve.

14 August 1941. Original wartime caption, emphasis mine: “Tobruk. HM Submarine Ladybird seen submerged in the harbour. The pride of Tobruk is Ladybird which was sunk in the harbour with only her gun turret above the water line. She still takes part in the defense of the Town. A Gun crew live aboard with their A.A. Gun with which they give a good account of themselves.” Taken by LT Smith, No. 1 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM E.4846

5 September 1941. Gunners of No 40 Battery, 14th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, cleaning a gun on board the half-submerged HMS Ladybird, which was sunk by enemy bombs in Tobruk Harbour. Photo by Thomas Fisher. AWM 020575

Same as the above, AWM 020574

These marooned Army gunners hung up their tin hats and spent their downtime fishing, playing cards, swimming, and reading between air raids. An almost idyllic life whenever bombs weren’t falling.

These images captured by Thomas Fisher, in the AWM:

After the 231-day siege of Tobruk was relieved by the British Eighth Army in late November and the front soon surged West, Ladybird was abandoned for good.

Ladybird’s motto was Ne sperne Fortuna (Do not throw away your luck). She well-earned two battle honors for her WWII service: Mediterranean 1940-41 and Libya 1940-41. She was hit by Japanese, Italian, and German munitions– the Axis trifecta.

Of the rest of her sisters, Cicala and Moth, still in the Far East in December 1941, were lost at Hong Kong. Just four Insects survived the war, Aphis, Cockchafer, Scarab, and Tarantula, all disposed of by 1949.

Epilogue

Ladybird’s watch bell is in the collection of the RMG, complete with the name of a infant baptized aboard her in 1936 while on China station.

A large builder’s model of her recently sold at auction.

Model of Ladybird, via Bonhams

Of Ladybird’s 12 skippers, only one, Capt. John Fenwick Warton, who commanded her in 1920 while on the Danube, went on to become an admiral. Her 12th, CDR Blackburn, survived her sinking in 1941 and would go on to command the sloop HMS Woodcock (U 90) later in the war. Blackburn earned both a DSO and Bar during the war and rejoined the retired list afterward, passing in 1978.

The West Lothian Royal Scots, who lived aboard Ladybird in her time with the Army, remained in North Africa through the rest of the campaign then landed at Salerno under the 12th AA Brigade and fought in Italy until January 1945, when they returned to Britain and disbandment.

As for the intrepid Australian war photographer who rode Ladybird into battle off Bardia and captured the moment in celluloid, Damien Parer journeyed west to the Pacific in 1942 and filmed “Kokoda Front Line,” one of the most iconic Australian war documentaries. While covering the faces of advancing Marines on Peleliu in September 1944, Parer, walking backwards behind the cover of a tank, was killed by a burst of Japanese machine gun fire, aged 32.

Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, the Japanese officer who ordered his guns to fire on the Panay rescue party, hitting Ladybird in the process, post-war was sentenced to life imprisonment in Sugamo Prison by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He died in 1957. The attack on Ladybird was cited both against him and Gen. Iwane Matsui, the overall Japanese commander during the Nanking campaign in 1937, during their war crimes trials. Matsui was hung for his crimes at Sugamo in 1948.

Ladybird is remembered in maritime art.

“Greyhound and Ladybird in search of enemy battery off Tobruk, like ill assorted terriers” between November 1942 and December 1942. Pictures of Paintings by LCDR R Langmaid, RN, Official Fleet Artist. These Pictures Are For Illustrating a Naval War Book by Paymaster Captain L a Da C Ritchie, RN. IWM A 13635

The Royal Navy recycled her name in 1950 at the outbreak of the Korean War, by purchasing the 295-foot British-owned CNCo freighter MV Wusueh, which had been requisitioned for WWII service by the MoWT and only returned to her owners a couple years prior. Renamed HMS Ladybird, she was moored at Sasebo, Japan, as the Naval Headquarters and Communications vessel for the Commonwealth Blockading forces through 1953.

“HMS Ladybird, a British converted Yangtze River steamer. January 1951, Sasebo, Japan. HMS Ladybird was the nerve center of the British Commonwealth fleet in the Korean zone. It was the forward headquarters ship of Vice Admiral W. G. Andrewes, who commanded the fleet. It had communications equipment equal to that of a cruiser, and from her, the fueling, feeding, ammunitioning, and welfare of the fleet was administered.” IWM A 31830

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Third Battlewagon SSN this Year

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The U.S. Navy accepted delivery of the Submarine Force’s newest hunter-killer, the future USS Idaho (SSN 799), from Electric Boat on 15 December.

And with that, the Navy List is looking very 1944ish.

The future USS Idaho (SSN 799) on builders trials 251215-N-N2201-002

Idaho is the 26th Virginia-class submarine co-produced by EB and HII-Newport News Shipbuilding through a long-standing teaming arrangement. It is the 14th delivered by EB and is the eighth of 10 Block IV-configured attack submarines.

The future USS Idaho is the fifth Navy ship to be named for the state of Idaho. The first was a wooden-hulled storeship commissioned in 1866. The last was Battleship No. 42, which was commissioned in 1919 and received seven battle stars for service in World War II, then ignobly sold for scrap in 1947.

Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Vice Admiral Alexander Sharp, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 83900 

USS Idaho (BB-42) ship’s company posed on the after deck and after 14 gun turrets, circa 1938. Note Curtiss SOC-3 Seagull floatplanes, of Observation Squadron Three, atop the Turret # 3 catapult and on deck to port of the turrets. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Vice Admiral Alexander Sharp, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 83900

She joins the fifth (completed) U.S. Navy vessel named for the Bay State, the future USS Massachusetts (SSN 798), which was delivered to the service from Newport News on 21 November.

Future USS Massachusetts (SSN 798) on builder’s acceptance trials. 251008-N-MQ094-002

The last and most famous to carry the name thus far (BB-59) was commissioned in 1942 as a South Dakota-class fast battleship, earning 11 battle stars for exceptional service in WWII from Casablanca to Okinawa before being decommissioned in 1947. She remained in the Reserve Fleet until stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in June 1962 and continues to serve as a floating museum.

USS Massachusetts underway somewhere in the Pacific (1943)

While Idaho and Massachusetts are set to be commissioned in 2026, the current USS Iowa (SSN 797) was commissioned in April.

Sailors attached to the fast-attack submarine USS Iowa man the newly commissioned sub during a ceremony in Groton, Conn., April 5, 2025. The Iowa operates under Submarine Squadron 4, which provides fast-attack submarines that are ready, prepared, and committed to meet the unique challenges of undersea combat and deployed operations in unforgiving environments across the globe. Navy Chief Petty Officer Joshua Karsten

The last Iowa, the famed class-leading fast battleship BB-61, which was christened on 27 August 1942, was only stricken from the NVR on 17 March 2006 and endures as a floating museum at Los Angeles, the only West Coast battlewagon.

USS Iowa (BB-61) off Pearl Harbor, en route to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 28 October 1952. Note the ship’s hull number (61) and U.S. Flag painted atop her forward turrets. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 44536

If only Jesse Barrett “Oley” Oldendorf’s grandson were SUBRON commander…

Shaping up the ‘Fish

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How about this great piece of photo-realistic maritime art, depicting an event some 55 years ago today.

“Crew of Greenfish Shape-Up on Deck, December 16, 1970. As USS Halfbeak rests closest to the dock, the crew of USS Greenfish shape up on deck, in the lee and shadows of her black sail.”

Crew of Greenfish Shape-Up on Deck, December 16, 1970. Painting, Acrylic on Paper; by Dante H. Bertoni 88-161-aq

Painting, Acrylic on Paper; by Dante H. Bertoni; 1971; Framed Dimensions 31H X 39W NHHC Accession #: 88-161-AQ

A 311-foot Balao-class fleet boat, USS Greenfish (SS-351), was completed too late for WWII– commissioned 21 December 1945.

Nonetheless, she had a chance to deep-six an enemy submarine, sinking U-234 off Cape Cod in 1947.

Former U-234 is torpedoed by USS Greenfish (SS-542), in a test, on 20 November 1947, 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod.

Former U-234 is torpedoed by USS Greenfish (SS-351), in a test, on 20 November 1947, 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod.

A GUPPY II conversion, Greenfish gave the Navy a solid 28 years of service before being transferred to Brazil as Amazonas (S-16) in 1973, only being decommissioned in 1992, one of the longest-lived WWII subs still in service.

U.S.S. Sub 351 Greenfish Oct. 29, 1964 Photograph by Walter E. Frost City of Vancouver Archives

Olive Drab Bofors (by the Tens of Thousands)

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With all the talk of the 40mm Bofors in naval applications during WWII in last week’s Warship Wednesday (The Dutch Avenger), this image came to mind of the gun in unsung use with a U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery unit in Northwestern France in 1944.

(U.S. Air Force Number 56270AC) National Archives Identifier 204889544

While the Navy used them to shoot down 742.5 enemy aircraft in WWII, the Army bought just an ungodly amount of stripped-down, single-barreled towed models (40mm Automatic Gun M1) with the first specimens delivered in April 1941, a full year before the USN got theirs.

Chrysler alone made 30,095 gun mechanisms and 51,684 gun tubes for the land-based 40mm M1. Keep in mind that the Army had 781 AAA battalions that stood up in WWII, many of which were 40mm units.

Talk about Detroit Muscle.

NOV 08, 1943 – Chrysler Corporation ~ Life Magazine “Boss a Bofors 40mm.”

Ike Angle

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How about this great shot taken a decade ago from a rarely viewed angle on a Nimitz-class super carrier? Note the Screwtop (VAW-123) E-2C, as well as an F-18C and F-18D two-seater,

151212-N-RX777-246: ATLANTIC OCEAN (Dec. 12, 2015) Electronics Technician 3rd Class Timothy Stodden and Electronics Technician 3rd Class Cody Ray conduct maintenance on an STS-46 radar aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). Dwight D. Eisenhower and embarked Carrier Air Wing 3 are underway preparing for their upcoming deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Cole Keller/Released

At the time, Ike had just wrapped up a 25-month Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA) at Norfolk NSY and was working up with CVW-3 for a 5th Fleet Med deployment, her 21st.

The Batmen

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Some 80 years ago today, 12 December 1945, a window into the future of naval maritime patrol and sea control debuted to the public just after it had been vetted in combat.

Official period captions: “The BAT radar pilotless aircraft under the wing of a Convair PB4Y-2 Privateer at the Philadelphia Ordnance District during development and testing. The Bat was a Mark 9 special weapons ordnance device.” Photographs released December 12, 1945.

80-G-701607

80-G-701606

Note two BATs, one under each arm. 80-G-701605

The 1,700-pound SWOD Mk 9 (Special Weapon Ordnance Device) Bat radar-guided glide bomb has been called “arguably the most advanced of the early guided bombs” of the WWII era, and was even used successfully by Privateers of VPB-109 in combat in early 1945.

BAT Air-to-Surface Guided Missile homes in on a target ship during tests. Photograph released 16 October 1946. National Archives photograph 80-G-703161. launched from PBM

What of the Bat, you ask? Well, some 2,500 of these primitive anti-shipping weapons were built, but very few actually dropped before the end of the war.

The Navy re-designated them the ASM-N-2 post-war and kept Bat in inventory until after Korea, when they were replaced by more efficient air-launched weapons (the ASM-N-7/AGM-12 Bullpup in the late 50s, AGM-45 Shrike in the 1960s, and AGM-65 Maverick in the 1970s before Harpoon came around), then used as AAA targets.

Lucky Fluckey Would be Proud

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I know that, going back to the 688 class of the 1970s, hunter killers have been named after cities in the good old “fish don’t vote” adage of Big Nuke Navy Boss ADM Rickover, but I do miss those old classic fish names for subs.

One is set to return with the future Block V Virginia-class attack submarine USS Barb (SSN 804), which had her keel authenticated at Newport News on Dec. 9.

SSN-804’s sponsor is the spouse of the late RADM Eugene Bennett “Lucky” Fluckey’s grandson.

Fluckey was commanding officer of the storied Barb (SS 220) in World War II. Under Fluckey’s watch, USS Barb became one of the most highly decorated submarines in U.S. naval history, most known for sinking a record number of enemy ships and for a particularly daring mission that destroyed enemy shipping lines. Fluckey received the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” The ship earned four Presidential Unit Citations, a Navy Unit Commendation, and eight Battle Stars for service in World War II and was decommissioned in 1954.

The second Barb, (SSN 596), a Permit-class boat, was active in the Cold War, including two tours off Vietnam, and helped vet sub-launched TLAMs.

The future and third Barb will be the 31st Virginia-class submarine when commissioned, and the third Block V boat.

Of note, when the 688 series USS Helena (SSN-725) was decommissioned in July, the Virginias became the most numerous active submarine class in the world, with 24 active and two (Massachusetts and Idaho) complete pending commissioning in early 2026. They will no doubt hold that title for the next 20+ years, at least for SSNs.

A total of 67 are planned, including a trio of boats (two Block IV second-hand, one new construction Block VII) for Australia.

The Many faces of the Triple Three

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Pre-Mayberry, actor Andy Griffith, exempted from service at age 18 in 1944 due to a herniated disk,  made a couple of military service comedies during the late 1950s: the better-received Korean War-set USAF-based No Time for Sergeants, and the lesser-known Onionhead.

In Onionhead, Griffith portrayed country simple Cook 3rd Class– now known as a Culinary Specialist Third Class (CS3)– Alvin Woods, who signs up for the Coast Guard during World War II and is assigned to the fictional buoy tender USCGC Periwinkle, cue laugh track and burned cinnamon roll hilarity.

Periwinkle somehow sinks an enemy U-boat, and Wood/Griffith ends up with the girl in the end.

Based on a novel by William R. Scott, a native Oklahoman who served in the USCG during “the Big Show,” the movie was filmed at Coast Guard Base Alameda and Yerba Buena Island circa 1958, with at least some footage of the USCGC Yamacraw (WARC-333) making it to the finished, albeit ill-received, movie.

Yamacraw was a very interesting ship.

Constructed during WWII at Point Pleasant, W. Va., by the Marietta Manufacturing Co as Hull 480, a 1,320 ton, 188-foot Coastal Artillery mine planter for the U.S. Army as USAMP Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray (MP-9), she was delivered to the Army on 1 October 1942.

USAMP Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray (MP-9). Records (#742), Special Collections Department, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

After serving on the East Coast during WWII, once the threat of Axis invasion passed, Randolph transferred to the Navy on 2 January 1945. She was then converted into an auxiliary minelayer by the Navy Yard, Charleston, S.C., and commissioned there on 15 March 1945 as USS Trapper, designated ACM-9, a Chimo-class auxiliary minelayer, Lt. Richard E. Lewis, USNR, in command.

Her armament included one 40mm Bofors mount and four 20mm mounts, and she was fitted with both listening gear and radar.

USS Trapper (ACM-9), ex-USAMP Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray (MP-9), off San Francisco, California, circa 1945.Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1973. NH 77370

It was planned that she was to take part in the last push for the Japanese home islands in late 1945/early 1946, but that never materialized, and she only made it as far as Pearl Harbor by the time the Pacific War ended.

Trapper arrived at Kobe on 25 November 1945 and operated out of that port repairing minesweeping gear until 1 February 1946, when she shifted her base of operations to Wakayama for a month. She was then sent back stateside and arrived at San Francisco on 2 May, where she was decommissioned.

Transferred to the USCG on 20 June 1946 for use as a cable layer, USCGC Yamacraw (WARC-333), after a traditional cutter name, ex-Trapper/ex-Murray was struck from the Navy list on 19 July 1946.

She remained in USCG custody until early 1959.

This included filming of Onionhead and a 1957-1958 lease during the International Geophysical Year to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for acoustic studies of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. In that task, the ship towed a cable that recorded ambient sound in the ocean, plus a thermistor chain for measuring temperature.

The Navy then re-acquired the old Army mine ship on 17 May 1959, painted her haze gray, kept the USCG name, and redesignated her as ARC-5, a cable repair ship.

The difference as told by two Jane’s entries:

USS Yamacraw (ARC-5), port quarter view of cable repair ship USS Yamacraw (ARC-5) anchored in an unidentified location. Previously served as minelayer USS Trapper (ACM-9) and Coast Guard Cutter Yamacraw (WARC-333).NHHC L45-314.01.01

As a Naval auxiliary, she operated from Portsmouth to Bermuda and spent much of her at-sea time conducting research projects for the Office of Naval Research and for the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

On 2 July 1965, Yamacraw was decommissioned by the Navy for a second and final time, transferred to the permanent custody of the Maritime Administration, and struck, again, from the Navy list.

Her final fate is unknown.

Mossberg Lands $11 Million Army Contract for M590A1 Shotguns

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The military’s nearly 40-year love affair with the Mossberg 590 pump-action 12 gauge has no end in sight.

The oldest family-owned firearms manufacturer in America announced last week that the Army has awarded it a contract valued at approximately $11.6 million for additional Mossberg 590A1 shotguns. It is unclear if the award is an extension of the $19 million maximum value contract for 17-inch M590s issued in September, but either way, the Army is getting a lot more 12-gauge Mossys.

The M590 is based on the company’s legendary M500 platform, but features a heavy-walled barrel, metal trigger guard and safety, a clean-out magazine tube, and a thick Parkerized or Marinecote finish. Numerous stock, forend, and barrel length options exist, as well as the always popular heat shield and bayonet lug.

A Mossberg 590M on display at the U.S. Army’s National Infantry Museum located at Fort Benning, Georgia. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The M590 series famously withstood the military’s grueling MIL-SPEC 3443E testing protocol for riot-type shotguns, which included running 3,000 shells with two or fewer malfunctions. As TFBTV’s James Reeves has extensively documented with his 500-round shotgun burndown series, that’s a heck of a standard, and few scattergatts can meet it.

A well-used 30-year-old Mossberg 590M that survived Hurricane Katrina and is still kicking. This thing can’t be killed. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The Army has used shotguns since before World War I. As noted by Canfield, the first Army contract for the M500 series was issued in 1979 for guns with oiled wood furniture, a standard which soon shifted to synthetic stocks.

The first contract for the updated 590s with a heatshield and bayonet lug was issued in 1987 and, since then, all branches of the U.S. military, as well as the Coast Guard, have ordered the gun at one time or another for tasks including security, EPW control, EOD use, and in door breeching with barrel lengths varying between 14 and 20 inches.

The guns have seen frontline service in Panama, Desert Storm, and during the GWOT era in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trench Grenade, a GunTuber who is an active duty Army infantry instructor in his day job, last week did a 500-round burn down with the M590, further underlining it as the people’s champ.

Warship Wednesday 10 December 2025: Dutch Avenger

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

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

Warship Wednesday 10 December 2025: Dutch Avenger

NIMH Objectnummer 2158_014036

Above we see the kanonneerboot (gunboat) Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen (U 93) arriving at Willemstad, Curaçao, Dutch Antilles, on Halloween 1939, complete with a large Dutch flag painted amidships as a mark of neutrality. While she arrived to be a station ship in a neutral country’s overseas territory during the first months of WWII, she would go on to put on war paint and go looking for some payback after her homeland was invaded and occupied a few months later.

She would help stop a large German freighter some 85 years ago this week– one of many Axis ships “The Flying Dutchman” would bag.

The need for a gunnery school ship

Our subject was ordered as an artillerie-instructieschip, a vehicle to train the Dutch Navy’s gunners and new gunnery officers in preparation for a series of modern warships, most of which were never constructed before the war began. She was badly needed to replace the very old (laid down in 1897) Holland-class pantser-dekschepen (protected cruiser) Hr.Ms. Gelderland, which had been taken out of front-line service in 1919 and had been working as an artillery training ship ever since.

With a full displacement of just 2,388 tons and a 322-foot length, Van Kinsbergen was rightfully a sloop or frigate. Using two sets of Werkspoor geared steam turbines driven by two Yarrow boilers, she could make 25.5 knots on 17,000shp. Range was 5,790nm at 14.5 knots on 696 tons of oil. Armor was slight, just a half-inch belt, an inch shield on the main guns, a 20mm protected deck over machinery spaces, and 20mm on the conning tower.

Stoom- en motorschepen,Kanonneerboten,Van Kinsbergen 1939-1974,Algemeen plan (Dutch Nationaal Archief )

Her primary armament was four single 12 cm/45 (4.7″) Wilton-Fijenoord Nr. 6 guns in half-shielded (open back) mounts. A dual-purpose gun derived from earlier Bofors SP designs with a 55-degree elevation, they had a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute and a range of 17,500 yards.

The Dutch aimed to use the same gun on new minelayers (Hr.Ms.Willem van der Zaan (ML-2), the four Tjerk Hiddes/Gerard Callenburgh-class destroyers, seven 1,400-ton 1938 pattern K-class gunboats, and as the secondary battery of a trio of planned 30,000-ton Design 1047 battlecruisers (which were very similar to the German Scharnhorst).

Van Kinsbergen was also given a large and very advanced (for its time) Hazemeyer Signaalapparatenfabriek HSLG-4 fire control device that could be used to direct both her main and secondary armament. Speaking to the latter, she carried two twin 40/56 Bofors Nr.3 guns on advanced triaxial stabilized mounts, one of the first mountings of what would go on to be one of the main Allied AAA mounts of WWII.

The Hazemeyer device was used on both the 4.7-inch guns and 40mm Bofors of the Navy’s late model cruisers, such as De Reuter, and 48 land-based 75mm/43 Vickers Model 1931 AAA guns in service with the K.Lu A.

Dutch AAA HSLG-4 Hazemeyer Signaalapparatenfabriek fire control with 75mm Vickers 1939 AKL071201

Dutch Luchtdoelartilleristen bedienen een Vickers 7,5 cm t.l. vuurmond AKL075817

Most of the Hazemeyer-equipped 7,5 cm Vickers operated by the K.Lu.A were in storage at Artillerie Inrichtingen Hembrug, recently arrived from Britain and waiting to be assembled when the Germans invaded Holland in May 1940.

2158_014040

Een geschutkonstabel-kanonnier bedient een dubbelloops 40mm Bofors mitrailleur (Hazemeyer opstelling) aan boord van Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen NIMH 2158_039637

Van Kinsbergen gun’s crew at action stations on the twin Bofors gun by British LT Sidney James Beadell, RNVR, IWM (A 4686)

She was also fitted in 1939 with four .50 caliber machineguns, and two depth charge racks. Most sources also list her with a pair of 3″/52 SA Nr.2 mounts, at least one of which would be mounted ashore to defend Curacao later in the war.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Van Kinsbergen

Our subject was named in honor of VADM (Count) Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, who famously beat the Turks several times while in Tsarist service (the Russian Imperial Navy named destroyers after him), in addition to his multiple feats in Dutch service.

Laid down by Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij, at Rotterdam, Netherlands on 11 September 1937, she launched on 5 January 1939– christened by Mrs. A. van Dijk-Wierda, wife of the then Minister of Defense Jannes van Dijk– and commissioned on 21 August 1939– less than a fortnight before the start of WWII in Europe.

The same day Van Kinsbergen entered service, the ancient cruiser Gelderland was laid up, and many of the new ship’s crew came from the vessel she replaced, including her skipper, Kapitein-Luitenant ter Zee (CDR) John Louis Karel Hoeke, RNN, a Java-born regular who had earned his commission in 1915.

A very clean Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen, early in her career, possibly on trials, before her fire control was installed. NIMH 2158_005639

Same as above NIMH 2173-222-086

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen was still without her fire control (vuurleiding) installed on 17 April 1939. 2158_014022

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen at sea,17 April 1939. NIMH 2158_014020

War!

With the Germans marching into Poland and the lights going out across Europe once again for the second time in 25 years, Van Kinsbergen’s planned career as a training vessel was put on hold as her North Sea stomping grounds were now a war zone.

Hr.Ms. Kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen with fire control, likely 1939 2158_014023

Hr.Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Nederland, KITLV 377322

Instead, it was decided she would be of better use in reinforcing the neutrality of the isolated overseas garrison in the wind-swept Dutch West Indies, a move which also put her within an easy cruising distance of the crown’s Suriname colony. In this, she relived the 1,800-ton sloop Hr.Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau— just in time for the latter to return home to be sunk by the Luftwaffe the next year.

On 2 October, after a visit from Queen Wilhemena herself, Van Kinsbergen left Den Helder, escorting the submarines Hr.Ms. O 15 and O 20, on a slow crossing to Curacao via the Azores and Puerto Rico that ended on Halloween. While O 15 would remain in the West Indies for a year, the ill-fated O 20 would continue through the Panama Canal to serve in the Dutch East Indies, where she was sunk by a trio of Japanese destroyers in December 1941.

When the Germans rudely violated Dutch neutrality on 10 May 1940– even while the country hosted the exiled former German Kaiser– war came to both metropolitan Holland and her overseas colonies.

Marineman op wacht bij Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen, 1940 Bestanddeelnr 934-9873

In the Dutch West Indies, Van Kinsbergen and her crew clocked in with local authorities, including a company of Marines and the 1-pounder armed local coastguard vessels HM Aruba and HM Practico, then moved to seize seven German merchant ships that were interned in the islands. These included the SS Este (7915 gt), SS Vancouver (8269 gt), MS Henry Horn (3164 gt), MS Patricia (3979 gt), MS Frisia (561 gt), MS Karibia (428 gt), and ES Alemania (1380 gt).

While the German crews– confined to their ships since the invasion of Denmark in April– tried, only one of these seven, the HAPAG turboship Almania, managed to successfully scuttle. The other six were soon in Allied service under new names for the duration, while 220 German nationals (215 men from the seven ships and five German sailors turned over by Dutch steamers) were locked up in an internment camp on Bonaire until the British could pick them up later in the summer.

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen “Terror of the Caribbean” with her Dutch flag paint job

Of these seized vessels, Este, renamed Suriname, was torpedoed and sunk by U-558 off Venezuela in September 1942 with the loss of 13 crew. Most of the others, including Vancouver (renamed Curacao), Henry Horn (renamed Bonaire), and Patricia (renamed Arbua), survived the war and were given to Dutch shipping firms post-war as reparations, sailing well into the 1950s.

Soon after the seizure of the German ships, the French dispatched 150 colonial troops from Senegal to help garrison out lying Aruba but then, when France fell the next month and dropped out of the war, Van Kinsbergen stood by the tense scene in early July as the Vichy French armed merchant cruiser Esterel (X21) reembarked the Tirailleurs Sénégalais to return them to Africa.

The 40mm story

On 20 August 1940, Van Kinsbergen would find herself steaming with the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) north of Trinidad, with the latter’s gunnery officers very interested in the Dutch ship’s 40mm Bofors mounts, which they saw in action against towed target kites. The performance reportedly convinced them to help push to adopt the gun as the U.S. Navy standard, with BuOrd formally obtaining Swedish licenses in June 1941.

The first U.S. ship to get 40mm Bofors was the gunnery training ship USS Wyoming (AG-17), which received a quad mount in June 1942; shortly after, the destroyer USS Coghlan (DD-606) became the first combat ship fitted with a twin mount in July.

Over 400 U.S. DDs/DEs would carry the weapon, plus a myriad of cruisers, carriers, battleships, LSTs, you name it. During 1944 alone, U.S. factories produced 6,644 single mountings, and approximately 3,650 twin and 750 quad mountings for the Navy.

The Bofors was credited with more “kills” (742.5) than any other USN AAA platform of the war.

Back to our ship

Van Kinsbergen spent the rest of 1940 operating with British ships in patrols off the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, looking to intercept German, Italian, and Vichy blockade runners– narrowly missing the Hapag-steamers Helgoland (2947 gt) and Idarwald (5033 gt) as well as the French Charles L.D. (5267 gt).

On 11 December 1940, the German Norddeutscher Lloyd freighter Rhein (6049 gt) was en route from Tampico, Mexico, to Germany with cargo and was followed by several warships in an attempt to apprehend and capture her.

German Norddeutscher Lloyd freighter Rhein, ironically in Rotterdam prewar

However, during the attempted arrest by the Van Kinsbergen, some 40 miles NW of the Dry Tortugas, the ship was set on fire by the crew in an attempt to scuttle her. Later that day, the burned-out hulk was sunk by 22 rounds of 6-inch cannon fire by the British light cruiser HMS Caradoc. Van Kinsbergen dutifully rounded up the shipwrecked German merchant sailors whose war had come to a close.

11 December 1940. The capture of the German freighter Rhein by Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen and HMS Caradoc. The crew of the sunken ship. NIMH 2158_052025

In February 1941, Van Kinsbergen, in conjunction with two Canadian corvettes, seized the Danish tankers Scandia (8571 gt) and Christian Holm (9919 gt) at the entrance of the Gulf of Paria, escorting them to Trinidad. These tankers were in Admiralty service within weeks.

On 26 May 1941, just after leaving a much-needed yard period in Bermuda, Van Kinsbergen captured the Vichy French CFN steamer SS Winnipeg (8379 gt) with 732 passengers aboard, including eight Jewish photographers who were saved from internment and persecution in France. Winnipeg would be put into Canadian service and sunk by submarine U-443 while on a convoy run the following October.

Five days after seizing Winnipeg, Van Kinsbergen came across the Vichy-French CGT steamer Arica (5390 gt) and captured the same, escorting her to Trinidad for further Allied service. Like Winnipeg, Arica was soon under the red duster only to be sunk by U-160 off Trinidad in November 1942.

The far-traveled Dutch sloop was directed to Liverpool in July for refit, with 11 captured enemy ships to her credit.

In August 1941, British LT Sidney James Beadell, RNVR, an official war photographer, visited Van Kinsbergen while still in port, and while he dutifully logged several great images that captured a moment in time, he apparently jotted down that she was a cruiser (!) named Van Kingsbergen (sic).

Official wartime period captions, likely by Beadell:

“The Dutch rating responsible for sounding action stations on board Van Kingsbergen (sic)”  IWM (A 4687

“Three Dutch ratings seen busy while sail making” and “A Dutch rating busy with palm and needle.” Actually, it seems like they are mending a tarpaulin cover. IWM (A 4688/4689)

“A Dutch rating who is one of the loading members of the gun’s crew.” Of note, the fixed HE shell of the 4.7″ Mark 6 weighed 70.5 lbs, so the rating is getting his reps in for the photographer for sure. IWM A 4690/A 4691

“A Dutch naval guard with rifles and bayonets.” Note the Indonesian rating and the bluejacket’s Dutch Model 1895 (Geweer M. 95) 6.5mm Mannlicher carbines, complete with web gear. IWM (A 4692)

“A Dutch officer taking a sight,” an obviously posed shot as the ship is tied up. IWM (A 4694)

“A Dutch signalman.”  IWM (A 4693)

It was while in Britain that Van Kinsbergen changed crews and skippers, with KLtz Cornelis Hellingman, late of the sub tender Hr.Ms. Colombia, changing places with the good KLtz Hoeke. Hellingman had earned both a British DSO and a Dutch Bronzen Kruis for his command of the Ymuiden/Ijmuiden naval sector (the gateway to Amsterdam) on 14/15 May 1940 and his decision to demo the six ships in the harbor and wreck the port facilities there rather than allow them to fall into German hands.

In September 1941, leaving Britain to return to the Caribbean, the now camouflaged Van Kinsbergen carried 60 men from the newly-formed Free Dutch Prinses Irene-Brigade to Paramaribo, Suriname, to beef up the garrison there.

18 April 1942. De kanonneerboot Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen departs from Curaçao. Note her camouflage scheme. NIMH 2158_053743

Her first Allied convoy, from 19 to 27 July 1942, was the Curacao/Trinidad-to-Key West TAW.6C in which the Dutch slugger was the main escort, augmented by the plucky little 136-foot minesweeper USS YMC-56 (which had a couple of deck guns but no ASW gear or depth charges). The duo shepherded six merchants (three American, one each Norwegian, British, and Dutch), including the big tankers MT Beacon (10,388 tons, Standard Oil Co.) and the 9,912-ton Nortraship MT Glaron.

Her next convoy was TAW.9, another Trinidad-to-Key West run, from 27 July-4 August, that numbered 10 merchants (again, mostly tankers) and six escorts, the latter including a pair of small (173-foot) U.S. PCs, fresh from the shipyard.

Convoy TAW.14, 15-25 August 1942, teamed up Van Kinsbergen with two PCs and an SC as well as an old American flush-deck tin can (USS Upshur) to run 14 merchants, mainly tankers, to Key West.

Following that, she sailed for Norfolk for modernization. There until late October, she emerged with a Type 271 radar, a Type 128C ASDIC, six 20mm Oerlikons (two twin, two single), eight K-gun DCTs, and racks for 52 depth charges.

Van Kinsbergen was seen in late 1942 post-refit (likely between 7 and 12 November) in camouflage scheme near two U.S. Cleveland class cruisers and two tankers, at least one of which is a U.S. Navy AO. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 87890.

Same as above NH 87895

Same as above NH 87888

In Convoy TAG.20 (11-15 November 1942: Trinidad – Guantanamo) (27 merchants and 10 escorts), Van Kinsbergen joined the “reverse Lend-Leased” American Flower-class corvette USS Spry (PG-64), the old flush-deck tin can USS Biddle (DD-151), the gunboat USS Erie, and a half-dozen PC/SCs.

It was during TAG.20 that on 12 November, Van Kinsbergen rescued survivors of the Erie after the American sloop was torpedoed by U-163 and beached, ablaze.

In Convoy TAG.22   (21-14 November 1942: Trinidad – Guantanamo) 43 merchants and 10 escorts, Van Kinsbergen sailed alongside another American Flower— USS Tenacity (PG-71)— the somewhat infamous flush-decker USS Greer (DD–145), and seven small PCs/SCs, one of which was the mighty Free Dutch Queen Wilhelmina (ex-USS PC 468), later to become nicknamed as the “Queen of the Caribbean” due to her Caribbean beat.

In April 1943, she got a third skipper, KLtz Johannes Jacobus Lukas Willinge, RNN, late of the light cruiser Hr.Ms. Sumatra, and in August would get a fourth, Ktz Jan August Gauw, RNN, who had formerly commanded the minelayer Hr.Ms. Nautilus (M 12) until she was sunk in 1941 after being run down by the British freighter Murrayfield off Grimsby.

By this time, she had added a pair of Mousetrap Mk 20 ASWRLs and upgraded her sensors to an SF radar, a TBS system, and QHB sonar, with the work done in New York.

While operating from New York, she joined the outward bound leg of two very large NYC to Liverpool Atlantic convoys, sailing as part of the escort with a couple of divisions of primarily Canadian corvettes, frigates, and minesweepers.

These included:

  • Convoy HX.304 (17-20 August 1944, 87 merchants and 27 escorts)
  • Convoy HX.311 (30 September- 3 October 1944, 60 merchants and 25 escorts)

Van Kinsbergen in camouflage in October 1944, NARA

Ordered to England in January 1945, her war was over.

She changed her pennant to N 3 in May and arrived back “home” in Rotterdam in August, entering the RDM dockyard there for service.

Wait, another war?

Able to float in just 10 feet of seawater, Van Kinsbergen was ideal to support operations in the littoral of the 17,000-island Indonesian archipelago, which at the time was fighting to break free from Dutch colonial rule.

With that, she set out for the Pacific on 24 October 1945. No rest for the weary.

Practicing with 20mm anti-aircraft guns on the gunboat Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen during the crossing to the Dutch East Indies, October-November 1945. Note the colonial gunner. NIMH 2173-222-009

Van Kinsbergen in heavy weather around 1945. 2173-222-091

Crossing the line headed to the Pacific! (Neptunus a/b van de kanonneerboot Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen in 1945.) 2173-222-085

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen, 1946, sans camouflage. NIMH 2173-222-096

Officers from Van Kinsbergen ashore in Ambon (Molukken) in March 1946. NIMH 2173-222-022

Van Kinsbergen during actions on the south coast of Borneo in April 1946. NIMH 2173-222-100

A landing with support from the gunboat Van Kinsbergen on the south coast of Borneo in April 1946. NIMH 2173-222-026

Damage to propellers and propeller shafts sustained during support of a landing in April 1946 near Bawal Island (South Borneo) by the gunboat Van Kinsbergen, dry-docked in Singapore. NIMH 2173-222-028

A bow shot of the same. NIMH 2173-222-029

And a Cold War

In late 1947, Van Kinsbergen received a further upgrade, swapping out her old 4.7-inch guns for a pair of 2 x 4″/45 SK C/32s, while keeping her Bofors and Oerlikons. Her ASW suite was reduced to two throwers, landing her Mousetraps and stern racks. The sensor fit at the time included the SL-1, SH-1, and Mk 34 radars, as well as her QHB sonar.

Victims of the bomber disaster arrived in Den Helder on July 24, 1948. Bestanddeelnr  902-8692

Aankomst Van Kinsbergen te Rotterdam, Aug 9 1948 Bestanddeelnr 902-7914

Vertrek Van Kinsbergen uit Rotterdam, 15 October 1948 Bestanddeelnr 903-0544

H. Ms. Van Kinsbergen (N 3) Marvo 3, 14 October 1948 Bestanddeelnr 903-0537

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2501

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2500

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2499

Reclassified as a frigate with the pennant number F804 in November 1950, by February 1952, she was deployed once again to the Pacific, remaining in New Guinea until December 1954 and circumnavigating the globe in the process.

Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen na 3 jaar uit Nieuw Guinea weer te Den Helder, Feb 4 1955 Bestanddeelnr 906-9672

Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen na 3 jaar uit Nieuw Guinea weer te Den Helder, Feb 4 1955 Bestanddeelnr 906-9673

Van Kinsbergen 1954 Janes

By the time she returned to the Netherlands on 5 February 1955, her 16-year career was all but over. She served as an accommodation ship (pennant A 876) in Vlissingen from 1 November 1955 and would continue in that reduced role until 29 May 1959, when she was stricken.

From left to right, the decommissioned artillery training ship/frigate Van Kinsbergen (A 876) and the frigate Ternate (F 812, ex-M 816, ex-HMAS Kalgoorlie, 1946-1956) lay up at the Marine Etablisement Amsterdam in the early 1960s. NIMH 2158_001595

In five years, the Dutch disposed of eight frigates. Flores on 1 May 1955. Soemba in Jan 1956. Jan van Brakel in Aug. 1957. Batjan, Boeroe, and Ceram in 1958. Johan Maurits van Nassau was sold for scrap in January 1960 for 257,650 florins and was broken up at Diemen. Van Speijk was stricken from the active list in 1960.

Van Kinsbergen lingered until 19 February 1974, when she was towed to Fa. Van Heyghen, Ghent, Belgium, for scrapping, her value listed as 515,500 florins.

Epilogue

The “Flying Dutchman’s” myriad of interactions with U.S. Naval forces during WWII, particularly while working under COMCARIBSEAFRON, are cataloged extensively in the National Archives, as are her Bureau of Ships plans and reports from the October-November 1942 refit in Norfolk. Speaking of plans, dozens of pages of her original drawings are digitized online. 

A Den Haag bar, Gastropub Van Kinsbergen, celebrates not only the admiral but also our training ship/gunboat/cruiser, collecting various militaria and relics of her from around the world, including the ship’s crest, salvaged from an antique dealer in Turkey.

As for Van Kinsbergen’s crew, her first skipper, KLtz JLK Hoeke, after a stint in command of the Dutch submarine tender/auxiliary cruiser Colombia (18 Aug 1941-27 Feb. 1943, when she was sunk by U 516 near Simonstown) died in Wallington, England, in March 1944, aged 50, during the “Baby Blitz.” He is buried in Loenen.

Her second wartime skipper, the DSO-wearing KLtz Hellingman, survived the war and retired in December 1945 as a full captain, concluding 30 years of honorable service. The hero of Ijmuiden passed in 1979, aged 85.

Her third and fourth WWII skippers, Willinge and Gauw, would both rise to wear admiral stars post-war and pass in 1989 and 1967, respectively.

The Dutch Navy recycled the name Van Kinsbergen for a Kortenaer-class frigate, F 809, which entered service in 1980, served for 15 years, and is still in the Greek Navy.

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen (F809) Kortenaer-class frigate NIMH 2158_014137

Keeping the name alive, the first purpose-built naval training vessel for the Dutch Navy, MOV Van Kinsbergen (A902), entered service in 1999. Built by Damen (who else?) she is a trim little 136-footer that typically ships 16 students of the Dutch Royal Naval College (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Marine) around 200 days each year.

Dutch Navy naval training vessel MOV Van Kinsbergen (A902)

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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