Category Archives: military history

Key West Decommissioning, and (Commissioning)

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Capping an impressive 36-year career, the third U.S. Navy ship (the first being a Civil War gunboat while the second was a WWII-era frigate) to be named after Key West, Florida is headed for imminent decommissioning and recycling.

USS Key West (SSN-722), a Flight II (VLS equipped) Los Angeles class hunter-killer, was ordered from Newport News on 13 August 1981 and commissioned just over six years later on 12 September 1987– appearing in the pages of Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising more than a year before she actually entered service.

Key West spent the beginning of her career on the East Coast but since 1996 has been a Pacific-based boat.

In 2001, she launched Tomahawks into Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom following the September 11 attack, then later did the same during Iraqi Freedom in January 2003.

Now, her career has come to a close.

A couple of weeks ago, she arrived at Kitsap 25 days after she shoved off from Naval Base Guam for the last time, switching from the control of forward-deployed SUBRON15 in preparation for decommissioning.

APRA HARBOR, Guam (Jan. 17, 2023) – The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Key West (SSN 722) departs Apra Harbor, Guam, Jan. 17. Key West is one of five submarines assigned to Commander, Submarine Squadron 15. Commander, Submarine Squadron 15 is responsible for providing training, material and personnel readiness support to multiple Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines and is located at Polaris Point, Naval Base Guam. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Eric Uhden)

NAVAL BASE GUAM (Jan. 17, 2023) – The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Key West (SSN 722) departs Naval Base Guam, Jan. 17. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Eric Uhden)

Once decommissioned, Key West will leave 24 of the 62-strong 688 class still in service, with all of the remainder being Flight II and III boats.

The current USS Key West visited her namesake city– formerly a big submarine base– in 1987, for a week-long celebration after commissioning, then again in 1992 and 1994 while on the East Coast, but hasn’t been there since. While both the Army and Navy maintain facilities on the island, there hasn’t been a ship stationed there since U.S. Naval Submarine Base Key West closed in 1974.

Submarines USS Cutlass (SS-478), Trutta (SS-421), Odax (SS-484), Tirante (SS-420), Marlin (SST-2) & Mackerel (SST-1), alongside for inspection at Key West. Note the differences in sails, showing off a bunch of different GUPPY styles alongside the two pipsqueak training boats. Wright Langley Collection. Florida Keys Public Libraries. Photo # MM00046694x

With that being said, the Conch Republic is set to greet PCU USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123), currently building at Ingalls in Pascagoula, for the new destroyer’s commissioning on 13 May before a crowd of as many as 5,000 visitors.

A photo I took last in March 2022, showing the future Flight IIA Burke USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123), front, and PCU USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125), rear, at Ingalls’s West Bank, fitting out. Note the differences in their masts. The Flight III upgrade as seen on Lucas is centered on the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar and “incorporates upgrades to the electrical power and cooling capacity plus additional associated changes to provide greatly enhanced warfighting capability to the fleet.”

Higbee won’t be the first Burke “brought to life” at the windswept southernmost point, as USS Spruance (DDG 111) was commissioned there in October 2011.

80 Years Ago: Yanks and Ozzies Team Up to Close the Bismarck Sea

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In early March 1943, Japanese RADM Masatomi Kimura was tasked with carrying out Operation 81, a scratch troop convoy running from Simpson Harbour in Rabaul to Lae, New Guinea. The run was short compared to what the Allies were trying to pull off in the Atlantic or even in the Medderterrainan– just 400 miles. Just six months prior, the control of that part of the Southwestern Pacific was firmly undecided but leaned heavily to favor of the Empire. Well, things had certainly changed by the time Operation 81 got underway.

Kimura was given eight destroyers– Asashio, Arashio, Asagumo, Shikinami, Tokitsukaze, Uranami, Yukikaze, and Shirayuki— all veterans of the Tokyo Express days of running fast nighttime convoys through Guadalcanal’s Ironbottom Sound.

However, this speedy force was shackled to eight slower freighters and transports. Besides 400 Imperial marines (of the Yokosuka 5th and Maizuru 2nd Special Naval Landing Party) these vessels were filled with some 6,500 troops of the Imperial Army including LtGen. Hatazō Adachi’s 18th Army Headquarters and half of the 51st Infantry Division (115th Infantry and 14th Artillery Regiments, plus supporting units). Adachi, a battle-hardened officer much-employed in the assorted China campaigns, had been appointed commander of the 18th some three months prior, and two of the Army’s divisions, the 20th and 41st, were already in New Guinea and he hoped to arrive with his fresh 51st, also drawn from the Kwantung Army in China, then kick off a renewed effort in New Guinea.

Well, things didn’t quite turn out that way.

Obstensibly protected by air cover provided by the carrier Zuihō’s fighter group flying from land, two Army flying groups (1st and 11th Hikō Sentai), along with the Navy’s shore-based 252nd and 253rd Air Groups, Kimura’s slow-moving (seven knots!) 16-vessel convoy was quickly spotted by Royal Australian Air Force and U.S. Army Air Force aircraft on 2 March 1942 and havoc ensued.

Over the course of the next two days, five RAAF squadrons (Nos. 6, 22, 30, 75, and 100) and no less than 18 USAAF squadrons of the 35th and 49th FG, 3rd AG, 34th, 43rd, and 90th BGs, would hammer the convoy and annihilate its aircover. The mix of aircraft involved was incredible, with the Ozzies running Hudsons, Bostons (Havocs), Beaufighters, Beauforts, and Kittyhawks (P-40s) and the Americans sending P-38s, P-39s, and P-40s to sweep Zeroes and B-24s, B-25s, B-17s, and A-20s for body blows.

Watch Bismarck convoy smashed! by official war correspondent Damien Parer on 3 March 1943 [courtesy of British Pathé]. Parer filmed the action from a plane cockpit over the shoulder of Flight Lieutenant Ronald Frederick ‘Torchy ‘ Uren, DFC. This film includes shots of air attacks on ships and rafts by Beaufighters of No. 30 Squadron RAAF, the first unit to go in for the attack on the convoy.

The images released of the carnage, some garnered at mast-top level, are still chilling today even in black and white low-rez.

In the end, all eight transports were sent to the bottom along with four of Kimura’s destroyers, with the survivors turning back. While the Japanese would pull 2,734 men from the water— and return them back to Rabul rather than continue on to New Guinea– over 3,000 perished.

Allied casualties were relatively light. Some 13 RAAF and USAAF aircrew were lost in the action, along with 6 Allied aircraft.

As noted by the NHHC, ” As a result of the losses, the Japanese never again risked sending a large convoy into water that was controlled by American aircraft.”

Unleash the Mosquitos!

As a postscript to what later became known as the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, LCDR Barry K. Atkins on the night of 3/4 March led ten boats (77-foot Elcos PT-66, 67, and 68; and the 80-foot Elcos PT-119, 121, 128, 132, 143, 149, and 150) of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron (PTRON) 8out of Milne Bay and Tufi, New Guinea, on a mop-up operation against the flotsam over Kimura’s convoy’s watery graves.

A PT boat patrolling off New Guinea. National Archives photo 80-G-53855 from the collection of Joseph N. Myers

As described by Bulkley in “At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy”:

At 2310 the 143 and 150 saw a fire ahead, to the north. On close approach they saw it was a cargo ship, Oigawa Maru of 6,493 tons, dead in the water, with a large fire in the forward hold and a smaller fire aft. It seemed to be abandoned. At 800 yards the 143 fired a torpedo which exploded near the stern and the ship began to heel to port and settle in the water. Five minutes later the 150 fired a torpedo at 700 yards. This one exploded amidships and the ship sank, stern first, with a brilliant blaze of fire just before she went under.

The second group of boats, PT 149 (Lt. William J. Flittie, USNR), PT 66 (Lt. (jg.) William C. Quinby, USNR), PT 121 (Ens. Edward R. Bergin, Jr.,

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USNR), and PT 68 (Lt. (jg.) Robert L. Childs, USNR), also saw the fire and began to approach it at slow speed. To Lieutenant Flittie, on the 149, the fire appeared as several lights on a stationary ship, and when it blazed up before taking its final plunge he thought the ship had put a searchlight on him. He fired one torpedo, the light went out immediately, and he could not find the target again.

The third group, PT 67 (Ens. James W. Emmons, USNR) and PT 128 (Ens. James W. Herring), also saw the fire. PT 128 fired two torpedoes at long range, 1,500 yards, the second at about the same time the 143 fired. Both of the 128’s torpedoes missed, but, seeing the explosion from the 143’s torpedo, the crew of the 128 thought for a time that their torpedo had hit.

After the sinking Lieutenant Commander Atkins ordered the three groups to search an area further to the west. All boats encountered heavy seas and frequent rain squalls, but found no more ships.

It was learned later that there were only two ships still afloat when the PT’s arrived in the area: the damaged cargo ship which they sank, and a destroyer which was finished off by planes the following morning.

On the 4th of March our planes returned and strafed everything afloat in Huon Gulf. Thousands of Japanese troops from the sunken transports were adrift in collapsible boats. For several days, the PT’s, too, met many of these troop-filled boats and sank them. It was an unpleasant task, but there was no alternative. If the boats were permitted to reach shore, the troops, who were armed with rifles, would constitute a serious menace to our lightly held positions along the coast.

At daylight on March 5, Jack Baylis in PT 143 and Russ Hamachek in PT 150 sighted a large submarine on the surface well out to sea, 25 miles northeast of Cape Ward Hunt. Near it were three boats: a large one with more than 100 Japanese soldiers and two smaller ones with about 20 soldiers in each. The men were survivors of the Bismarck Sea battle; the submarine was taking them aboard. Each PT fired a torpedo. The 143’s ran erratically. The 150’s ran true, but missed as the submarine crash dived. The PT’s strafed the conning tower as it submerged, then sank the three boats with machine-gun fire and depth charges.

Five days later Comdr. Geoffrey C. F. Branson, RN, Naval Officer in Charge, Milne Bay, received intelligence that a lifeboat containing 18 survivors of the battle had drifted ashore on Kiriwina, in the Trobriand Islands, 120 miles to the north of Milne Bay. The Trobriands were then a sort of no-man’s land; the Japanese held New Britain to the north, we held the New

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Guinea coast to the south. The only military installation in the Trobriands was an Allied radar station on Kiriwina, which might be endangered by the new arrivals. Ens. Frank H. Dean, Jr.,12 took Commander Branson to Kiriwina in PT 114, captured the 18 Japanese, who were in a docile mood, and returned to Milne Bay the next day. One of the prisoners, who had been badly wounded a week earlier in the Bismarck Sea and almost certainly would have died had he not been captured, later sent his American-made money belt to “Skipper” Dean as a token of gratitude.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea, a striking victory for airpower, convinced the enemy that he could no longer run surface ships from Rabaul to Lae. He never tried to again. The Fifth Air Force began operating from Dobodura, near Buna, in April, and thereafter the enemy was unable to send cargo ships or destroyers anywhere on the north coast of New Guinea east of Wewak. He could still move some supplies overland through the Ramu and Markham River Valleys, a slow and arduous undertaking, and he could operate a submarine shuttle service between Rabaul and Lae, but the great bulk of supplies had to be moved by coastal barges. The Air Force was to prevent the barges from operating by day, and the PT’s were to cut down the night traffic to such a thin trickle as literally to starve the enemy out.

Pour One Out for the Scout Snipers…

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Marine Sniper with a Springfield 1903A1 and Unertl 8-power scope. Note the length and size of the objective lens. In 1943, the Marines established the first “Scout and Sniper” schools at Greens Farm in California and New River in North Carolina during World War II, the basis of today’s Scout Sniper program.

The Marine Corps is dismantling its iconic dedicated Scout Sniper platoons – a facet of each infantry battalion for generations – and is doing away with the coveted 0317 Military Occupational Specialty.

The product of a grueling training pipeline that yields field-ready precision marksmen qualified on the M40, M110, and M107 series rifles, the Marine Scout Sniper program is facing permanent disbandment as a result of a shifting focus in the country’s amphibious warfare service.

A leaked Feb. 21 unclassified message from Lt. Gen. D. J. Furness, the deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations, detailed that the current 18-member Scout Sniper Platoons assigned to the Corps’ infantry battalions will quickly transition to 26-member Scout platoons – in other words, cutting the snipers in favor of a unit that would provide more “continuous all-weather information gathering.”

Spots in the Scout Sniper Basic Course will be zeroed out in the coming fiscal year while a nascent sniper capability will be continued in the Corps’ Reconnaissance and Marine Special Operations units under a new Military Occupational Specialty – 0322 MOS (Reconnaissance Sniper) – via a revamped, shorter training program.

The problem with that is, as these groups typically operate detached from standard infantry units, the highly specialized skill will in effect vanish at the battalion level

which will be left to get by with the current designated marksmen already at the company level. Under current doctrine, DMs typically only have a three-week course under their belt and train to engage targets out to 500 meters, rather than the much longer ranges that Scout Snipers train to achieve. 

The USMC Scout Sniper Association is urging the Commandant of the Marine Corps to reconsider what the group terms an “ill-advised” policy decision that will gut the program that has been tweaked and perfected over the past 80 years.

“This announcement by the Deputy Commandant, Plans, Policy, and Operations on Tuesday is the result of misguided assumptions and decades of neglect of the community of men who are Scout Snipers,” said the Association.

“It’s unlikely that any officer who commanded and employed Scout Snipers in combat agrees that removing a sniper capability from the infantry battalion makes sense. Replacing an 18-man Scout Sniper Platoon with a 26-man Scout Platoon will not solve the ‘all weather information gathering’ problem. Retaining the skill set and the combat capability of Scout Snipers by offering a viable career path to Scout Snipers and providing them with more engaged leadership might.”

The shift away from having dedicated sniper platoons in each infantry battalion comes as the number of battalions themselves is dwindling. 

The Corps’ three active-duty divisions would field a total of 27 infantry battalions between them if they were at full strength, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Long reduced to just 24 battalions all told, in 2020 the current commandant unveiled a plan to case the colors of three additional infantry battalions and the 8th Marine Regiment to make room to form a new Marine Littoral Regiment, the latter optimized to leapfrog rapidly across islands and coastal spaces with a smaller footprint when compared to the current force.

The result is a Corps with just 21 active-duty infantry battalions, shortly, in addition to cuts in tiltrotor, attack, and heavy-lift aviation squadrons and disbanding of all of the branch’s tank battalions. 

The big Roman off the Cape

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Image from the Italian-built semi-rigid airship Roma, overflying the bombing of the unmanned ex-German Wiesbaden-class scout cruiser SMS Frankfurt off Cape Henry, Virginia, on 18 July 1921. Note the U.S. Navy Felixstowe F5L flying boats overhead and the white targets painted on the deck of the former Kaiser’s former warship.

The imagery is related to Part of the William Mitchell papers, transferred in 1953 to the Library of Congress, Lot 6079-1. Digitized in 2015.

From the same series is this shot, showing an exploding bomb port mid-ship, about 10:01 a.m., dropped by U.S. Navy F5L.

The big seaplanes, with a 103-foot wingspan, could carry up to 900 pounds of bombs while self-defense was provided by four Lewis guns. However, even with their two big Liberty L12 engines, it could only make about 70 knots at full rpms.

As for Roma, the unusual lighter-than-air aircraft purchased by the U.S. Army for $184,000 from the Italian government just three months prior to the above images. Over-powered by six Liberty engines (which replaced the four original Ansaldo engines), the big 410-foot airship could actually outrun the F5L in terms of speed, not to mention range.

U.S. Army airship Roma in November 1921 over Norfolk, Virginia. – NARA – 518863

However, being hydrogen-filled, Roma was a flying bomb and burst into flames when brushing against powerlines outside of Norfolk on 21 February 1922, killing 34 aboard, and was the worst U.S. aviation accident on record at the time. Following the incident, the U.S. military went with helium for LTA vehicles moving forward.

Warship Wednesday, March 1, 2023: Six in One Trip!

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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, March 1, 2023: Six in One Trip!

Imperial War Museum photograph A 21989 by Royal Navy official photographer, LT CH Parnall.

Above we see the modified Black Swan-class sloop HMS Kite (U87), of “Johnnie” Walker’s famed 2nd Support Group, dwarfed by a column of water that rises six times her height during an early 1944 depth charge attack on a suspected German U-boat in the North Atlantic, possibly while sending Oblt. Horst Hepp’s U-238 to the bottom southwest of Ireland on 9 February.

About the Swans

Originally classed as well-armed multi-purpose minesweepers but redesignated almost immediately after WWII started as convoy escorts, the Swans were an improvement of the preceding Bittern-class sloop. Hardy 1,250-ton ships of 299 feet overall and, armed with half-dozen high angle 4-inch guns and some light quad Vickers .50 cal AAA pieces, they carried more than enough depth charges (as many as 110 in late-war refits) to scratch the paint on German U-boats and Japanese I-boats. They weren’t very fast (19 knots) but had long legs (7,000nm@12kts) and proved well-suited to the work.

The Black Swan-class sloop of war HMS Starling (U66) underway in 1943, a good representation of the class in profile, showing the arrangement and her trio of twin QF 4″/45 mounts. This vessel would be a near-constant companion to our sloop, her sister, during the war. IWM FL 19299

The Brits only produced 37 of these useful warships, a number that was far outpaced by the 294-strong Flower (Gladiolus)-class corvette, an even smaller (925-ton, 205-foot) and slower (16ish knots) ASW vessel on a hull derived from a commercial whaler that was equipped with a single 4-incher but could nearly the same quantity of depth charges.

But don’t let the fact that for every 5 Flowers built, there was just a single Swan fool you, as the Swans more than proved their worth, as we shall see.

Meet HMS Kite

Named after the small and agile bird of prey rather than the tethered flying vehicle, our vessel was the seventh– and so far last– HMS Kite in the Royal Navy, with the previous six vessels typically being small cutters, sloops, and gunboats stretching back as far as 1764.

A rather famous piece of art by Montague Dawson c. 1950: “Dawn Suspect” depicting the 12-gun Revenue Cutter HMS Kite giving chase to the ship of notorious smuggler David “Smoker” Browning, 16 July 1788, “finally ensnaring the Kingpin of the North Sea after years of his evading the King’s justice.” Purchased in 1778, this was the second HMS Kite, and she would give coastwise service in the Home Isles through 1793. Via the Vallejo Gallery. For more on the 18th-century cat-and-mouse game between the King’s Revenue Cutters and the North Sea smugglers, click here.

The preceding sixth HMS Kite was a mighty 250-ton/85-foot flat-iron Ant-class gunboat commissioned in 1871 and sold in 1920. Yes, that is a Royal Arsenal RML 10-inch 18-ton gun on her bow, capable of firing 400-pound Palliser shells, thanks for asking.

Laid down at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead as Job No 3467 (Yard No 1102), on 25 September 1941, a fortnight after Allied convoy SC 42 had 16 ships sent to the bottom by a German Wolfpack, our Kite was commissioned 17 months, 5 days later on 1 March 1943– some 80 years ago today.

Ironically, HMS Kite’s career would last just 17 months, and 21 days, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

HMS Kite (U87), as completed, underway in March 1943. Note the barrage balloon over her mast, as if a play on her name. IWM FL 22973

After the completion of her abbreviated workups, the brand-new sloop joined the newly formed 2nd Support Group at Liverpool, the home of the Western Approaches Command, in early April and was supporting Atlantic convoys by mid-month. As a bit of background on 2SG– under the command of Captain Frederic John Walker, DSO with Bar, a hard-charging career officer who served on destroyers in the Great War and had already led the 36th Group in dispatching no less than five U-boats in 1942– the ASW force initially consisted of Kite and five sisterships: HMS Starling, HMS Wren, HMS Woodpecker, HMS Cygnet, and HMS Wild Goose.

HMS STARLING on the inside berth, HMS KITE (center) and HMS WREN.

With the addition of the group to the Western Approaches and the addition of more tin cans and escort carriers from the U.S. Navy to ride close escort on convoys themselves, 2SG was given the role of a fire brigade, standing just over the horizon for convoys then rushing in with a “Tally Ho” spirit to bust up a spotted wolfpack.

“Out With U-boat Killer Number 1; the Second Escort Group’s Success. 26 January To 25 February 1944, on Board HMS Starling. With the 2nd Escort Group, Commanded by Captain F J Walker, CB, DSO and Two Bars, on His Most Recent and Most Successful Patrol. Three of the Group’s Six U-boat “kills” Were Made Within 16 Hours. The sloop WOODPECKER goes into the attack and Captain Walker shouts encouragement to her through the loud hailer.” IWM A 21988

Walker and 2SG perfected several tactics to counter interloping U-boats including the “Creeping Attack,” a sort of rolling barrage method, similar to that used by artillery supporting an infantry attack only substituting a line of sloops and depth charges, and being able to orchestrate an alternating chase handed off between several escorts that would tire out a German boat or force it to the surface while keeping the ‘hounds comparatively rested. For example, in one eight-hour Creeping Attack, at least 266 depth charges were used by Starling, Wild Goose, and Kite to chase down U-238. Such huge expenditures of ASW weapons required depth charge stocks to be replenished from specially-outfitted merchant ships while underway.

Walker was always “maximum effort” when it came to pursuing the attack, and Starling, with him on the bridge, even famously rammed one German, U-119, upon resurfacing after one such pursuit.

A reconstruction of the sloop HMS Starling ramming the re-surfaced German submarine U-119 in June 1943. Another Royal Navy warship is visible on the horizon. HMS Starling is painted in a camouflage scheme. By John Hamilton. IWM ART LD 7411

True to form, Walker played “A Hunting We Will Go” over Starling’s Tannoy (1MC) when returning to Liverpool, a move that would become a tradition for 2SG, and indeed to other hunter-killer teams.

Biscay Barricade

In late June 1943, 2SG was ordered, as part of Operation Musketry and Operation Seaslug, to, with top cover provided by the RAF and some comparatively big guns from the AAA cruiser HMS Scylla, shut down the Bay of Biscay to U-boat traffic– or at least make it hazardous for Doenitz’s boys to travel there. Over the next three months, the ASW group would prove exceptionally good at their job indeed.

HMS Kite, note her extensive depth charge racks and projector fit along with her stern 4″/45 twin mount

Kite would be credited, with her sisters, for participating in the sinking of U-449 and U-504 near Spain’s Cape Ortegal, as well as U-462-– a vitally important Type XIV milch cow, in the Bay of Biscay proper. Notably, the latter two subs were sunk in gun actions after being forced to break for the surface. Kite would also pluck some waterlogged survivors of U-545, sent to Poseidon by a RAAF Sunderland, from the drink.

Between 2SG, other ASW groups, and shore-based patrol aircraft, Musketry/Seaslug operation would account for no less than 20 U-boats in a nine-week campaign.

HMS KITE, BLACK SWAN CLASS SLOOP. OCTOBER 1943. (A 19993) Broadside view. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205152515

Six-in-One

By September, Kite and 2SG were back on convoy duty and she would chalk up two more assisted kills, on U-226 east of Newfoundland in November, and U-238 south-west of Ireland the following February, bringing her count to five boats– an ace. U-238 would be sunk during a sweep that saw 2SG bag no less than a half-dozen U-boats on a single patrol between 26 January and 25 February.

HMS KITE, SLOOP. 26 JANUARY TO 25 FEBRUARY 1944, ON BOARD HMS STARLING, AT SEA. (A 22009) HMS KITE, Sloop of the 2nd Escort Group, at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154251

HMS KITE, SLOOP. 26 JANUARY TO 25 FEBRUARY 1944, ON BOARD HMS STARLING, AT SEA. (A 22007) HMS KITE of the 2nd Escort Group, at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154249

This “Six in one trip” exploit by the group earned a star-studded reception when the flock of Swans returned to Liverpool, with thousands of locals including A. V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, waiting to greet Walker and his sloops on their return. Old Johnnie would receive a second Bar for his DSO for that one.

Neptune

In May 1944, during the build-up for the Overlord Landings on Normandy, 2SG was detailed to a search and destroy operation during D-Day in the South Western Approaches while Kite was carved away to join the 115th Escort Group for the landings themselves. Teamed up with the destroyers HMS Forester, and HMS Quorn, along with frigates HMS Tyler and HMS Seymour, Kite staged at Portsmouth with the invasion armada and worked off the British beachheads from June 6th through the 27th, and would remain in the Channel in further taskings through July.

Victual & Goodwood

In early August, Kite was assigned to take a small part in the sprawling Operation Victual– the passage of convoys JW 59 and RA 59A between Britain and Murmansk– and the simultaneous Operation Goodwood, with the latter being a series of five carrier air raids on the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaafjord.

Sailing as part of the 34-ship JW 59 from Loch Ewe on 15 August, five days later Kite came across Oblt. Ulrich Pietsch’s U-344, on the sub’s third patrol.

As detailed by Uboat.net:

At 20.45 hours on 20 Aug 1944, HMS Keppel (D 84) got a contact on her starboard quarter, while escorting convoy JW-59. Together with HMS Kite (U 87) and a Swordfish aircraft from HMS Vindex (D 15) the U-boat was attacked with hedgehogs and depth charges. They hunted the U-boat throughout the night with their foxers (Anti Gnat devices) streamed, but the hunt was fruitless.

At 06.04 hours on 21 August, HMS Kite (U 87) (LtCdr A.N.G. Campbell, RN) had slowed down to 6 knots to clear her foxers, which had become twisted around one another. At this vulnerable moment, U-344 fired a spread of three FAT torpedoes [German G7e with a Federapparat zig zag device] at the sloop, misidentified as Dido-class light cruiser by Pietsch. The ship was struck by two torpedoes on the starboard side and heeled over to that side immediately. The stern broke off, floated for a few seconds, then sank. The bow remained afloat for a minute and then sank at a steep angle.

At 07.30 hours, HMS Keppel (D 84) stopped to pick up survivors, while HMS Peacock (U 96) and HMS Mermaid (U 30) screened the rescue operation. Only 14 of the about 60 survivors in the water could be rescued from the ice-cold water, five of them died on board and were later buried at sea.

HMS KEPPEL BACK WITH SURVIVORS. 6 SEPTEMBER 1944, GREENOCK. THE DESTROYER RETURNED WITH NINE SURVIVORS OF THE SLOOP HMS KITE, WHICH WAS TORPEDOED BY A U-BOAT DURING THE PASSAGE OF A RUSSIAN CONVOY. LATER THE KEPPEL HAD THE SATISFACTION OF SENDING THE U-BOAT TO THE BOTTOM. (A 25522) Survivors of the KITE leaving the KEPPEL. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205157229

Kite was U-344‘s only claim during the war and she was sent to the bottom the next day off Bear Island, splashed by depth charges from an 825 Sqn FAA/X Swordfish from the escort carrier HMS Vindex, lost with all hands. Immediate retribution at the hands of the Royal Navy.

In all, Kite had participated in no less than 17 convoys in her brief career, one for every month, and she earned four battle honors: “Biscay 1943,” “Atlantic 1943-44,” “Normandy 1944,” and “Arctic 1944.”

A memorial to her 258 perished crew was eventually established in the Braintree and Bocking Public Gardens— the community that adopted the ship in March 1942.

Sadly, Johnnie Walker had preceded her, having passed of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage on 9 July 1944 at age 48, a death attributed to exhaustion. He was just worn out. Somewhat poetically, the men of 2SG could not pay their respects at his well-attended public funeral, as they were out on patrol, which is something he probably would have preferred anyway.

With 17 German boats to the credit of his ships, Walker is often considered the most successful ASW commander of the war, if not in all of naval history. It would have been interesting to see what his tally would have been had he lived to VE-Day.

Likewise, 2SG was credited with the confirmed destruction of 22 U-boats during the war, earning it a distinction as the most successful ASW unit of the entire conflict.

Epilogue

Besides Kite’s loss, her sisters HMS Ibis, HMS Woodpecker, and HMS Lapwing were likewise lost during the war, the first to Italian bombers off Algiers during the Torch Landings, and the latter to U-boats. Two further sisters, HMS Chanticleer and HMS Lark, were so badly damaged by German torpedoes that they were beyond economical repair. This balance sheet was traded for a minimum of 31 German U-boats accounted for by the class in exchange.

The 25 remaining Swans and modified Swans, post-war, as detailed by the 1946 edition of Janes

Post-war, most of these economical warships would continue to serve the Admiralty into the 1950s and a few even into the early 1960s, while others would be given away as military aid.

Black Swan-class sloop HMS Crane (F123, formerly U23) seen leaving Singapore in December 1961. Note the T-class submarine HMS Teredo (S38). Assigned to the British Pacific Fleet in early 1945 after European service that included the D-Day landings, Crane continued to serve in the Far East until 1962, the last of her class in service with the Royal Navy. She was scrapped in 1965.

The last of these sloops in Commonwealth service, the Indian Navy’s Sutlej (U95), would remain on New Delhi’s naval list as a survey ship until 1983, and was likely the last ship in any fleet that had sunk Japanese I-boats. Only one of the 37 Black Swans, HMS Mermaid (U30)/FGS Scharnhorst, lasted longer than Sutlej, finally going to the scrappers in 1990 after a decade as a damage control training hulk with the West German Bundesmarine. A bit of irony there.

As for Kite, Walker, and the sloops of 2SG, their triumphant return in February 1944 from their “One in Six” patrol was depicted in 1958 by maritime artist Stephen Bone in “Arrival of Second Escort Group of Sloops at Liverpool,” now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum.

Bone, Stephen; Arrival of Second Escort Group of Sloops at Liverpool; National Maritime Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/arrival-of-second-escort-group-of-sloops-at-liverpool-172623

In 1998, an oversized statue of Captain Frederic John Walker, CB, DSO & Three Bars, crafted by sculptor Tom Murphy, was installed at Liverpool’s Pier Head, looking out to sea with his binos and seemingly waiting for his sloops to come home.

Specs:

Plan of HMS ‘Black Swan’ (1939), via RMM Greenwich

Displacement: 1,250 tons
Length: 299 ft 6 in
Beam: 37 ft 6 in
Draught: 11 ft
Propulsion:
Geared turbines, 2 shafts:
3,600 hp
Speed: 19 knots
Range: 7,500 nmi at 12 kn
Complement: 180
Armament:
6 × QF 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mark XVI AA guns (3 × 2)
4 × 2-pounder AA pom-pom
4 × 50 cal Vickers AAA machine guns
40 depth charges

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.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Got CETME C Issues?

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The Spanish started liquidating its huge stockpiles of 200,000 assorted CETME Modelo 58 7.62 battle rifles in the early 2000s, as, the Cold War was over and these rifles had been in arsenal reserve since they had adopted the more modern 5.56mm CETME Modelo L a decade prior.

Big fan of the CETME L builds out there, as they are often done very, very right. The CETME C, on the other hand…

Since then, tons of parts kits have flooded ashore and lots of builds made from such kits are available, some bad, some really bad.

Still, they are an easy way for folks to get into HK G3/HK 91 series guns on the cheap. Just be advised you often have to build (or rebuild) your own to get it to run right.

Speaking of which…

One of the neat things that have popped up off and on are full-up company/battalion-level CETME Armorers Kits with Apex having some back in 2018 for $299.

Well, it looks like Centerfire Systems has some that they just listed for the same price. As they include tons of small parts, specialized tools, and even trigger packs and furniture– all in a cool case– these could be well worth it for someone looking to build/rebuild a CETME C.

2,960 Scooters Can’t Be Wrong

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Affectionately later known as the “Heinemann’s Hot Rod,” the “Scooter,” and the “Tinkertoy,” the first hand-built prototype XA4D-1 Skyhawk attack aircraft, BuNo 137812, flown by Douglas test pilot Robert Rahn, took to the air at Edwards Air Force Base on 22 June 1954. It had been mocked up in just 18 months.

The Douglas XA4D-1 Skyhawk prototype (U.S. Navy Bureau Number 137812). It first flew on 22 June 1954. (Photo: Douglas Aircraft Co.).

Just short of 25 years later, the last (McDonnell) Douglas Skyhawk, the 158th A-4M model constructed, BuNo 160264 (c/n 14607) was the 2,960th Skyhawk completed, being delivered to the Tomcats” of VMA-331 on 27 February 1979, 44 years ago today. In all, 2,405 single-seaters were completed along with 555 double-seater “T” variants, averaging an aircraft delivered to the military every three days across the production run.

2960th. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation (Photo No. 2011.003.237.035)

Today, the 2,960th is on display at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Miramar, wearing the shown paint scheme. She is one of at least 250 surviving Skyhawks on public display around the world in assorted configurations besides a few active birds with the Argentines and Brazilians or being flown by private aggressor outfits like Draken International. 

Just 95 Pfennigs per Week– and all the Bombs you can Catch!

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This great image shows a Kratzchen-wearing German Lanser in a set of exceptionally well-prepared trenches during the Great War, triumphantly holding some sort of unexploded ordnance as the rest of his company– probably wisely– stands a few paces to the side.

Imperial War Museum image Q 88134, likely a German image captured post-war and archives

Scrolled on the dugout behind the circa 1917 EOD guy is “Rent 95 pfennigs per week” while the ordnance has been variously attributed as a French Mortier (crapouillot) de 58 T N°1 bis while the IWM calls it “an unexploded aircraft bomb which had just been dropped.” As there seems to be a stack of soft evergreen boughs close at hand, perhaps they shielded its fall. 

The last Amerikansky Golland

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A century ago today, the last American submarine operated by the Russians was put into service.

The 78 assorted Type H (Holland 602) submarines made by Electric Boat in Connecticut, Fore River in Massachusetts, and Canadian Vickers in Montreal, and three British yards (Vickers, Cammell Laird, Armstrong Whitworth, and William Beardmore) then entered service with the U.S. Navy (USS H-1, H-2, and H-3), the Italians, the Royal Navy (and via the Brits on to Chile), and served as Canada’s first submarines.

HMCS CH-14 CH-15 submarines, Canada’s H boats

Added to this were 17 boats ordered by the Tsar’s admiralty for the Imperial Russian Navy in 1916.

The Amerikansky Golland

Dubbed the AG class in Russian service for “Amerikansky Golland,” they were constructed at a temporary yard outside of Vancouver, then disassembled, taken by ship to Vladivostok, then by rail via the Trans-Siberian to either Saint Petersburg on the Baltic or Nikolayev on the Black Sea where they were reassembled and launched by Russian yards.

The Russian Type H boats AG-11, AG-12, AG-15, and AG-16 alongside the submarine tender Oland in Hanko, Finland, circa 1917.

Just 11 were delivered to the Russkies before they dropped out of the war in late 1917, leaving the U.S. Navy to take over the six undelivered boats which were commissioned as USS H-4 through USS H-9.

Chile Guacolda class H-class submarines Holland 602, via Jane’s 1946

While most operators of the H-class were not terribly enamored with their boats (the U.S. Navy decommissioned all nine of theirs by 1922, the Brits either gave away most of theirs to allies or relegated them to a training role after 1920 as did the Italians, the Canadians scrapped theirs by 1927, and the Chileans, somewhat of an outlier, kept theirs through WWII) the Russians were forced into keeping theirs operational. Although the five Baltic-assigned AGs were lost during the Great War and the follow-on Russian Civil War, of the six in the Black Sea, AG-22 left with White Russian exiles and never returned while the other four were kept in service.

The last AG on hand, AG-26, was finally finished by the workers at the former Russud factory in Nikolaev (now Mykolaiv) and launched on 23 February 1923, seven years after she was originally constructed in Vancouver.

Renamed Tovarsh Kamenev, then Politrabotnik, and finally A-4, she spent her entire career in the Black Sea and carried out 12 war patrols and three blockade-running missions into besieged Sevastopol during WWII.

AG-26/Tovarsh Kamenev/Politrabotnik/A-4 would only be retired in 1947.

Operating alongside her four sisters, two were lost in combat, but all gave good wartime service– including logging dozens of attacks on Axis shipping assets during the conflict– despite their odd heritage and funky construction process, one that spanned almost 10,000 sea and rail miles from the Pacific Northwest to the Black Sea.

The surviving submarines of the AG type in Odessa in the Coastal Harbor. Late 1920s. By this time, they had been renamed A-1 through A-4.

As noted by Platonov in “Encyclopedia of Soviet submarines 1941-1945“

[T]hese obsolete submarines in every respect took the most active part in the war and even achieved relatively high results, in any case, better than the “little ones”, based on the number of sunken targets per submarine.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023: A Dozen Stars and a Wigwam

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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. 22, 2023: A Dozen Stars and a Wigwam

U.S. Navy Photo by JOC(AC) Warren Grass. National Archives Catalog #: 80-G-K K-98130

Above we see the unpresuming Navajo/Cherokee/Apache-class fleet tug USS Tawasa (AT-92) departing Subic Bay bound for Haiphong in February 1973 to take part in Operation End Sweep. Don’t let her workaday appearance fool you, launched eight decades ago today– 22 February 1943– she saw more hairy situations than many battleships across her 32-year career and helped boil the sea.

A new type of tug, for a new type of war

With the immense U.S. Naval build-up planned just before WWII broke out, the Navy knew they needed some legitimate ocean-going rescue tugs to be able to accompany the fleet into rough waters and overseas warzones. This led to the radically different Navajo/Cherokee class of 205-foot diesel-electric (a first for the Navy) fleet tugs.

These hardy 1,250-ton ships could pull a broken-down fleet carrier if needed (Tawasa would prove that in 1965) and had long enough sea legs (10,000 miles) due to their economical engines to be able to roam the world. Armed with a 3″/50 caliber popgun as a hood ornament, a matching pair of twin 40mm Bofors, and some 20mm Oerlikons, they could down an enemy aircraft or poke holes in a gunboat if needed.

In all, the Navy commissioned 28 of these tough cookies from 1938 onward, making a splash in Popular Mechanics at the time due to their impressive diesel-electric power plant consisting of a quartet of GM 12-278A diesels driving four GE generators and a trio of GM 3-268A auxiliary services engines, generating 3,600shp.

Their war was hard and dangerous with 3 of the ships (Nauset, Navajo, and Seminole) meeting their end in combat, and the 25 that made it through the crucible going on to serve in other conflicts, and under other flags.

The Cherokee/Navajo class would prove successful enough that 22 follow-on tugs– with the same hull form and engineering plant but with a re-trunked exhaust that shrunk the funnel diameter– of the Abnaki class would be constructed during the war, and two (Wateree, lost in a 1945 typhoon; and Sarsi, sunk by a mine off Korea in 1952) lost in Navy service. 

Meet Tawasa

The hero of our story, USS Tawasa (AT-92) was laid down on 22 June 1942 at Portland, Oregon, by the Commercial Iron Works, a small firm that would crank out no less than 188 hulls for Uncle Sam during the conflict ranging from landing craft to escort carriers. Tawasa’s launch date, some 80 years in the rearview, saw her sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Sullivan, the tragic gold star mom of the five lost Sullivan brothers.

The first U.S. Navy vessel named for a Florida branch of mound-building Muskhogean Indians subsequently named the Apalachicola tribe, she commissioned on 17 July 1943, just under 13 months after her first steel was cut.

WWII

Following her shakedown cruise off California, Tawasa was assigned to Service Force, Pacific Fleet, and left Pearl Harbor in early November, bound to spend Thanksgiving 1943 in the Gilbert Islands, which were being taken by Marines.

USS Tawasa (ATF-92) underway, circa 1943-1945, location unknown. David Buell for his father CWO4 Benton E. Buell USN, Ret. USS Tawasa Chief Engineer, 1962-63. Via Navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/39/39092.htm

Christmas saw her in Tarawa and the New Year of 1944 with TF 52 pushing through the Marshall Islands, where she lent a hand in the landings at Kwajalein, Majuro, and Eniwetok, at times pinch-hitting as a destroyer acting as a screening vessel with her overheating and cranky WEA-2 sound equipment in the water. Her ASW armament if she had a contact? Just eight “ashcan” style depth charges on two short gravity racks over her stern.

As noted by DANFS:

Off Kwajalein Atoll on the 31st [of January], Tawasa took soundings enabling Mississippi (BB-41) to approach the shore for close bombardment. The tug then performed salvage, towing, and screening duty until 18 February when she moved to Eniwetok to assist in the assault that was to strike that atoll the next morning. She supported operations until the atoll was secured and remained in the area for almost two months, providing services to American ships using this new base.

Tawasa’s War Diary for 30/31 January 1944:

Continuing with TF52, she would soon be assisting combat-loaded LSTs landing Marines and gear on Saipan in June.

With the Marianas wrapping up, by late July Tawasa would be reassigned from TF52 back to ServRon, South Pacific, and placed on a series of unsung missions. She became particularly adept at pulling LCIs off the beach. Her embarked divers came in handy when it came to recovering lost anchors and chains, along with conducting submerged inspections of recently captured ports and leaky hulls, while her DC teams would often fan out to weld 1/4-inch steel sheeting over holes in the side of battle damaged landing craft. Her 20-ton derrick boom allowed her to salvage all manner of objects from the seafloor. Meanwhile, her sonarmen and radar operators would keep their eyes and ears peeled for interloping enemy aircraft and vessels of all types.

The Japanese surrender found our tug in Guadalcanal, where she had just transported military passengers from the Russell Islands. Post VJ-Day, she remained forward deployed except for a trip stateside to California and would operate in Chinese and Japanese waters well into 1947.

In the end, Tawasa would earn three battle stars for her WWII service.

Korea

While a wide variety of brand new ships wound up in mothballs in the days after WWII– some being towed to red lead row right from the builders’ yards– these fleet tugs remained on active service. No rest for the working man.

The Cherokee class fleet tugs listed in the 1946 Jane’s, Tawasa included. Note that the list includes the Abnaki-class half-sisters as well.

Alternating between Alaska and Guam in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Tawasa was deployed to the 7th Fleet to serve in the Korea conflict, assigned alternatively to the ports of Cho Do, Sokcho, and Chinghai while under the control of TF 92 from July 1952 through January 1953. In this, she added two further battle stars to her salad bar.

Returning stateside, she spent six months in overhaul at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard. When she emerged in November 1953, a terrific series of images were captured of her for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships files, detailing her radar (SO-4), radio, and overall fit. If you are a modeler looking for shots of a 1950s Cherokee class tug, the National Archives has you covered with this series:

Note that she still carries her WWII twin Bofors mounts. 19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145199

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145203

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145715

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145197

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145716

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145717

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145201

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145714

Note the two bridge wing 20mm single Oerlikons. These would be replaced by M2 .50 cals by Vietnam while the Bofors would be deleted about the same time. 19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145202

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145200

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145198

19-NN-ATF 92 Tawasa-145713

Wigwam

Fielded in 1952 without full-scale war shot tests, the 500-pound Mark 90 “Betty” nuclear depth charge was seen as an ace-in-the-hole against rapidly growing fleets of schnorkel-equipped Soviet Whiskey-class submarines, of which Moscow ordered a staggering 215 in four different versions (Projects 613, 640, 644, and 665) between 1949 and 1958.

Carrying a W7 Thor tactical fission bomb with a theoretical yield of up to 30 kilotons– twice the force of the Hiroshima bomb– it was thought that a single Betty dropped via a patrol plane would be enough to clear out a whole nest of Whiskeys.

But the Navy wanted to be sure the theory held.

Enter Operation Wigwam, a full-scale test of a live device.

Conducted in May 1955 some 500 miles southwest of San Diego in water 16,000 feet deep, Tawasa tugged a Betty as part of a six-mile long towline that included a trio of identical white-painted 4/5-scale submarine hulls (704 tons, 140 foot long with a 20-foot beam complete with correct bulkhead spacings to spec and 1-inch HST steel hull plating) dubbed “Squaws” which were filled with instruments. 

The three Squaw submarine mock-ups generally mimicked the same hull construction techniques as seen on the Navy’s SS-563 (post-war Tang) class diesel GUPPY boats, which were at least as strong if not stronger than Soviet Whiskey boats. The targets were fitted with extensive seismography instruments at 52 locations spread throughout their compartments.

With the Squaws submerged at a depth of 250-290 feet at three different distances from the device, the Betty was rigged some 2,000 feet under the keel of its support barge and the Wigwam task force beat feet to observe from five miles away.

The resulting “hot” bubble from the submerged blast grew to over 4,600 feet across when it broke the surface and rose some 1,900 feet above the water at its height.

Squaw 12, the closest to the device, simply disappeared.

Here is the view from five miles out. Hydrophones at Point Sur, Hawaii heard the “thump” of Wigwam from 2,500 miles away. NARA 374-ANT-30-30-DPY-11-20

The gist of the 56-page after-action report on the squaws:

The external pressures applied to the three SQUAW targets in Operation Wigwam were measured with pressure gages, and the deformations of the hull were measured with strain and displacement gages. The results indicate that SQUAW-12 was at a horizontal range of 5150 ft and a depth of 290 ft the peak shock pressure at the hull was about 850 psi and the target was destroyed, probably within 10 msec. SQUAW-13 was at a horizontal range of 7200 ft and a depth of 260 ft the peak dynamic pressure at the hull was about 615 psi, and the hull was probably near collapse but did not rupture. The estimation is that the lethal horizontal range of the SQUAW target under the Wigwam test conditions is about 7000 ft for a depth of 250 ft and about 4500 ft for a depth of 70 ft.

Even though at least 362 personnel of the task force’s 6,732 men embarked– clad just in working gear with no flash or NBC protection– would have mildly dirty dosimeters after the event, and contaminated water was found at several depths during the weeks following the test, it was judged that Betty was safe-ish enough to be used under certain conditions, and was more than capable of sinking an enemy sub (or three) within a two-mile radius of its impact if used correctly.

This 11-minute film covers the test in great detail, including Tawasa and her six-mile squaw-laden towline.

Betty would remain in service until 1960 when it was replaced by the multipurpose B57 nuclear bomb during the mid-1960s. In its depth charge variant, the hydrostatic fuzed B57 had a selectable yield up to 10 kt– only about one-third of the Wigwam device– and could be dropped by P-3s, S-3s, and SH-3s as well as the short-lived Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH). It was thought that in most scenarios, the B57 depth charge would only be dialed in at 5 kt. It would finally be withdrawn in 1993.

Anyway, back to our ship.

Vietnam

Dusting off and cleaning up post-Wigwam, Tawasa would continue to serve with the 7th Fleet on WestPac deployments, including four to Vietnam (May-Oct 1968, April-Sept 1969, May-Sept 1970, and Feb-June 1972). For this, she would earn seven Vietnam-era campaign stars.

Her most notable moments during this era included the largest operational tow made by a solo tug of the Pacific Fleet: 33,946 tons, when she pulled the decommissioned USS Bunker Hill (AVT-9) from San Francisco to San Diego, and coming to the rescue of the shattered destroyer USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754) which had been sheered in two by the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne during Southeast Asian Treaty Organization exercises in the South China Sea.

Tawasa took the remaining stern section in tow and returned it to Subic Bay.

2 June 1969 SH-3 helicopters from USS Kearsarge (CVS-33) join search and rescue operations over the stern section of USS Frank E. Evans, as USS Everett F. Larson (DD-830) stands ready to offer assistance (at right). NH 98649

She closed out her Vietnam service with Operation End Sweep off Haiphong in 1973. During the six months of End Sweep, 10 ocean minesweepers, 9 amphibious ships, 6 fleet tugs, 3 salvage ships, and 19 destroyer types operated in RADM Brian McCauley’s Task Force 78, sweeping hundreds of the aircraft-laid mines.

By 1973, she was one of 25 of her class still in Navy service but her days were numbered.

Jane’s 1973-74 listing, in which the class is dubbed the Apache class. Note that the list includes the Abnaki-class half-sisters as well.

Epilogue

With a final scoresheet that would include three battle stars for World War II service, two for Korea, and seven for Vietnam, Tawasa was decommissioned and struck from the Navy list on April Fool’s Day 1975. She was sold for scrapping the following August.

There has not been a second Tawasa on the Navy List.

Much of her logs and photos are in the National Archives.

As for the rest of her sisters, many continued in U.S. Navy service until as late as the 1970s when they were either sunk as targets or scrapped. A number went as military aid to overseas allies in Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, and elsewhere. One sister, USS Apache (ATF-67) who served as the support tender for the bathysphere Trieste, was transferred in 1974 to Taiwan and continues to serve as ROCS Ta Wan (ATF-551). Added to this is USS Pinto (AT-90), which has been in Peru as BAP Guardian Rios (ARB-123), and USS Sioux (AT-75), which lingers as the Turkish Navy’s Gazal (A-587).

The final Abnaki-class half-sister in the Navy’s inventory, ex-USS Paiute (ATF-159), was stricken in 1995 after 44 years of service spanning WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the First Gulf War, then scrapped in October 2003 at Portsmouth.

The legacy of U.S. Navy fleet tugs is kept alive by NAFTS, the National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors. The only Navy tug museum ship is the former ATA-170-class auxiliary tug USS Wampanoag/USCG Comanche, which will be opened to the public in the coming months.

When it comes to Betty, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy has an inert casing on display, noting, “After tests at sea and in the Nevada desert, the Navy soon determined that the Mk 90 was not a practical weapon and retired the system in 1959.”

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.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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