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Warship Wednesday Sept. 25, 2024: Fearless Outpost

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

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024: Fearless Outpost

Above we see the business end of the Surprise class three-masted canonnière de station, Zélée in her gleaming white tropical service livery, before 1915.

Some 110 years ago this week, this humble colonial gunboat stood up to a pair of German armored cruisers that outclassed her in every way, and in the end, forced them to retire empty-handed.

The Surprise class

Built for colonial service, the three sisters of the 680-ton Surprise class– Suprise, Décidée (Decided), and Zelee (Zealous)– were compact steam-powered gunboats/station ships, running just 184 feet overall length and 26 of beam with a mean draught of just over 10 feet.

They were one of the last designs by noted French naval architect and engineer Jacques-Augustin Normand, who built the country’s first steamship.

Composite construction, they were wooden framed with a hull of hardened steel plates sheathed in copper below the waterline. The hull was segmented via nine waterproof bulkheads. A small generator provided electric lighting topside and belowdecks as well as a powering a large searchlight atop the wheelhouse. Radio sets would be retrofitted later.

Using a pair of Niclausse boilers (Surprise had cylindrical boilers) to supply steam to a horizontal triple expansion engine of 900 horses, they had a maximum speed of 13.4 knots and a steaming radius, on 75 tons of mid-grade coal, of 2,700nm at 10 knots. They carried three masts and were rigged as a barkentine, reportedly able to make six knots under canvas to stretch that endurance.

Armament was a pair of Mle 1891 3.9″/45 guns, fore and aft with limited firing arcs, four Mle 1891 2.6″/50 9-pounders on the beam, and six M1885 37mm 1-pounder Hotchkiss rapid fire guns including one in the fighting tops of each mast and two on the bridge wings.

No shell hoists meant chain gangs to reload from an amidships below deck magazine. While torpedo tubes would have been ideal for these slow gunboats, there seems to have been no thought to adding them.

Crew would be a mix of six officers and 80-ish ratings including space for a small det of marines (Fusiliers marins), to be able to land a platoon-sized light infantry force to rough it up with the locals if needed. Speaking of the locals, in line with American and British overseas gunboats of the era, when deployed to the Far East these craft typically ran hybrid crews with most service and many deck rates recruited from Indochina and Polynesia, which had the side bonus of having pidgin translators among the complement.

Meet Zelee

Our gunboat was the second in French naval service to carry the name. The first was a trim 103-foot Chevrette-class corvette built at Toulon for the Napoleonic fleet and commissioned in 1812. Armed with a pair of 4-pounder cannon and 12-pounder carronades, she saw extensive service in the Spanish Civil War in 1823, was on the Madagascar Expedition in 1830, and later, after conversion to steam power in 1853, was used as a station ship in assorted French African colonies for a decade then, recalled to Lorient, spent another 20 years as an accommodation ship and powder hulk before she was finally disposed of in 1887 after a long 71-year career.

She is probably best known for taking part in Jules Dumont d’Urville’s second polar expedition to Antarctica together with the corvette Astrolabe, a successful four-year voyage that filled reams of books with new observations and charts. The report on the expedition (Voyage au pole sud et dans l’Océanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée exécuté par ordre du roi pendant les années 1837-1838-1839-1840) spans 10 volumes alone.

The expedition discovered what is known as Adélie Land, which endures as France’s Antarctic territory and base for their Dumont d’Urville Station. Zelee’s skipper on the voyage was LT (later VADM) Charles Hector Jacquinot, a noted French polar explorer in his own right who went on to be a big wheel in the Crimean War.

The Corvettes Astrolabe and Zélée in the ice, likely near the coast of Antarctica, 9 February 1838. By Auguste-Etienne-François Mayer c. 1850, via the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our second Zelee was the third of her class and laid down at Arsenal de Rochefort in April 1898, built in the same slip that sister Décidée had just departed. Of note, Surprise was constructed by Normand at Le Havre and completed in 1896.

As completed, she originally carried a black hull. Her first of eight skippers was LT Louis Rémy Antoine Exelmans.

French gunboat Zélée, fitting out near the aviso Mésange, in 1899 at Rochefort.

Canonnière Zélée sur la Charente, 1900, soon after delivery.

Same as the above.

Quiet Antebellum Service

Soon after delivery, class leader Surprise was later joined by sisters Décidée and Zelee caught orders for the Far East.

Painted white and given a lot of leeway in appearance, they roamed, typically separately, from Indochina to China where they served on the Yangtze and as station ships in Nanchang, to Japan, New Caledonia, and Polynesia.

Décidée Saigon

French Canonnière de station Surprise, Haiphong, with canvas covering her decks and her laundry aloft. Surprise would later be moved to Africa, where she would remain until 1916. 

The gunboat Zélée in Hanavave Bay, Baie des Vierges, Fatu Hiva Island, 1910. Collection: The Marquesas Islands

Zelee while visiting Australia. Australian National Maritime Museum. Samuel J. Hood Studio ~ Object № 00035067

French Zélée gunboat Papeete Tahiti 

In December 1913, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Maxime Francois Emile Destremau (Ecole Navale 1892) arrived to take command of Zelee, then stationed in the backwater Tahitian capital of Papeete.

While ostensibly a “French” colony since 1880, at the time the little harbor only had 280 French residents along with over 350 British and Commonwealth, 215 Chinese, 100 Americans, 50 Japanese, and some 30 or so Germans as well as a few Greeks, Swedes, and Spaniards. The truth was you were far more likely at the time to hear English on the narrow palm-lined streets of Papeete than French.

The colony had big plans. It was even slated to receive, sometime in 1915, a station de téléphonie sans (TFS) wireless station. Until then, it had to rely on semi-regular mail services from France, typically a six-week trip at its most rapid.

As for Destremau, the 37-year-old lieutenant had seen over 20 years of sea service including on the avisoes Scorff and Eure, the cruiser Eclaireur, and the early submarines Narval, Gustave-Zéde and Pluviose. His mission in French Oceania consisted mainly of showing the Tricolor from island to island and doing the old “hearts and minds” thing that goes back to the Romans.

Destremau, who had spent his career largely at Toulon and Brest, seemed to enjoy his Pacific deployment, creeping his shallow-draft gunboat into atolls that rarely saw the Navy.

In a February 1914 letter home, related via Combats et batailles sur mer (Septembre 1914-Décembre 1914) Avec cinq cartes dressées par Claude Farrère et Paul Chack, Destremau wrote:

Since yesterday we have been sailing in a truly strange way. We have crossed a large lagoon of about sixty kilometers, of which there is no map and which is full of submerged rocks. You can distinguish them by the change in color of the water and you avoid them as best you can. After four hours of this exercise under a blazing sun, we are very happy to arrive at the anchorage, where I find a charming little village hidden in the coconut trees. As the Zélée had never been there, we were given a real ovation. A meeting on the water’s edge of the entire population in full dress; gifts of coconuts and chickens, and organization of songs for the evening. Ravishing choirs, extremely accurate voices, and harmonies of a truly astonishing modernism. Just ten men and ten women are enough to compose an ensemble in at least six parts, with solo calls, an ensemble in at least six parts, with solo calls, admirable rhythm, and measure!

Postcards exist of her idyllic time in Polynesia.

gunboat Zélée (left) and the armored cruiser Montcalm in Tahiti in 1914

Tahiti Papeete Harbor– Arrival of Australian and American Couriers, Zelee is in the center background, with a giant Tricolor

Tahiti. – Pirogues ornées, 14 Juillet 1914, et Zelee

War!

In early August 1914, the entire armada under the command of RADM Albert Louis Marie Huguet’s Division navale d’Extreme-Orient— a force whose area of operation spanned from the Bay of Bengal to the Yangtze to Noumea to Tahiti– was not very impressive and, worse, was thinly spread.

His flag was on the cruiser Montcalm (9,177 tons, 21 knots, 2×7.6″, 8×6.4″, circa 1902), then steaming to New Caledonia after a rare visit to Polynesia. Another old cruiser, Dupleix (7,432 tons, 20 knots, 8×6.4″, circa 1903), was in Chinese waters. The dispatch vessel Kersaint (1,276 tons, 16 knots, 1×5.5″, 5×3.9″, circa 1897) was laid up at Noumea but was soon to be rearmed. Décidée was in Saigon. And in Polynesia was Zelee.

That’s it.

When the news hit that France and Germany were at war on 6 August– three days after the fact– Zelee was visiting the island of Raiatea, about 150 miles west of Tahiti. Immediately, the 36-year-old artist Joseph Ange Léon Octave Morillot, a naval officer who had resigned his commission in 1906 while on Polynesian station to go native, paint local topless women, and smoke opium, presented himself to Destremau and voluntarily returned to duty as a reserve ensign.

Setting out for Papeete with the news and an extra officer, Zelee arrived on the 7th.

By that time the colony was in full panic mode, with the belief that the German Bussard-class unprotected cruisers SMS Geier and Cormoran (1900t, 15 knots, 8×4.1″/35 guns, 2 tt) were typically in Samoa, just a five-day steam away from Tahiti. As Tahiti was a coaling station for the French fleet, some 5,000 tons of good Cardiff coal was on hand, which would make a valuable prize indeed.

As far as coastal defenses at Tahiti, as early as 1880, the French Navy had built a fort equipped with nine muzzle-loading black powder cannons to protect the entrance to Papeete but it had fallen into disrepair, its garrison removed in 1905 and its guns dismounted. As noted, by 1914, “the artillery pieces were lying limply on the ground among the flowers and moss. The gun carriages, covered with climbing plants, were firmly secured by a tangle of perennial vines of the most beautiful effect. In short, the tropical forest, exuberant, had reclaimed its rights and buried the battery.”

The island’s Army garrison consisted of a Corsican lieutenant by the name of Lorenzi and 25 Troupes Coloniales. When the Tahitian gendarmes were mobilized, they added another 20 locals and a French adjutant. Soon the word got around and reservists stumbled forward until Lorenzi commanded a mixed force of 60 rifles, who were soon drilling 12 hours a day.

French reservists also come running. each of whom is assigned a post. From the bush, we see emerging, with long beards and tanned skin, Frenchmen steeped in the land of Tahiti and who have become more Maori than the Maoris themselves, men who live, love, and think in Tahitian. At first, they hesitate a little to speak the beautiful language of France, but very quickly they find it again in their heads the marching songs that they sang every day during the field service hikes, so hard under the tropical sun.

With the possibility that two German cruisers, capable of landing a 150-man force, could be inbound, and with the likelihood that Zelee could survive a gun battle with either, the decision was made to write off the gunboat and move most of her men and guns ashore to make a dedicated land-based defense.

Destremau had a small wardroom– Ensign 1c PTJ Barnaud as XO, Ensign LSM Barbier, Ensign RJ Charron, Midshipman H. Dyevre, Midshipman 2c JA Morier, and Asst. Surgeon (Medecin de 2e classe, Medecin-major) C. Hederer. Meanwhile, his crew numbered 90.

Using sweat, yardarm hoists, and jacks, the crew dismounted the stern 3.9-incher (for which there were only 38 shells), all four 2.6-inchers, and all six 37mm 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns. They left the forward 3.9 mount and 10 shells.

Rigging a line from the harbor to the top of the 100-meter hill overlooking it, a roadcrew was formed to slowly muscle up the five large guns to the top. Meanwhile, the six Hotchkiss guns were mounted on as many requisitioned Ford trucks from a local copra concern– primitive mobile artillery– led by Ensign Dyevre. Ensign Barnaud formed a group of 42 riflemen who, with Dyevre’s gun trucks, formed a mobile reserve.

Destremau (center, with cap) and his staff in Tahiti: Ensigns Barbier and Barnaud, midshipmen Dyèvre and Le Breton, colonial infantry LT Lorenzi.

One of the ship’s engineers formed a section of dispatch riders mounted on proffered bicycles. The signalers formed a series of semaphore stations at the top of the hill battery visible to the old fort 18 km to the east, and the end of the lagoon five km to the west. Bonfires were built to signal at night. Within days, telephone lines connected the whole affair. Two old bronze cannons were mounted at the hilltop semaphore station and Pic Rouge in the distance, ready to fire as signal guns. Gunners mined the channel markers, ready to blow when needed. Likewise, plans were made to burn the coal depot.

The colony’s resident Germans as well as the Teutonic members of the captured Walküre’s crew, were interned and moved to the island of Motu-Uta in the harbor. In deference to their neighbors, they were not placed under guard, simply left in their own tiny penal colony in the middle of paradise.

The painter Morillot, taking it upon himself to become a one-man recruiting officer, made daily trips to the island’s interior in search of warm bodies. Soon there were more volunteers than there were rifles or positions on the gun crews.

With the whole island in a state of tense pre-invasion alarm, on 12 August the British-built German Rhederei line cargo steamer Walküre (3932 GRT) appeared offshore. Loaded with a cargo of phosphates from Chile and headed to Australia, she was unaware of the state of war.

Ensign Barbier, racing to Zelee with a skeleton crew, managed to raise steam and, with 10 shells quickly returned to the gunboat by Dyevre for its sole remaining 3.9-incher, soon set off to pursue the German steamer.

With Dyevre leading the boarding crew, pistols in hand, Walküre was captured without a shot. Impounding the vessel– with the support of her mixed British and Russian crew– our gunboat and her prize returned to Papeete to the reported wild cheers of her colonists.

By 20 August, the colony was as ready as it was going to get, with the five large guns of the ersatz battery commanding the harbor and pass, trenches dug, observation posts manned, 150 armed if somewhat motley irregular infantry, and six 37mm gun trucks, all there was to do was wait.

They had a month to stew.

Enter Von Spee

While Geier and Cormoran never made it to Tahiti, Admiral Maximillian Von Spee’s two mightiest ships in the Pacific, the 11,400-ton twin armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, did.

Scharnhorst and her sister were very distinctive with their four large funnels.

With a mission to seize the port and its desperately needed coal supply, and with no Allied warships within several days of the isolated colony other than our tiny (and largely toothless Zelee), it should have been a cakewalk.

With each of the big German cruisers packing eight 8.2-inch and another six 5.9-inch guns, and able to put a battalion size landing force ashore, the sight of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau appearing like a phantom from the sea smoke just 2,000 meters off the reef at Papeete at 0630 on 22 September 1914 was a shock to Destremau.

The signal cannon fired and the phones rang. Soon, Papeete became a desert as its inhabitants, long ready to bug out, took to the interior.

Orders came quick.

Barbier was ordered to rush to Zelee with 10 men and light her boilers, to ram the German cruiser closest to the pass once she had enough steam. The coal yard was set alight. The channel beacons went up in a flash of light and smoke. A crew on Walküre rushed to open her seacocks and she soon began settling on the bottom of the harbor.

Ensign Charron, in charge of the battery, was ordered to hold his fire until small boats began to gather for a landing which was logical as the popguns wouldn’t have done much to the German cruisers but could play god with a cluster of packed whaleboats.

By 0740, after a 70-minute wait, after steaming slowly in three circles just off the reef, first Scharnhorst and then Gneisenau opened up on the town and as retribution for the billowing smoke from the prized coal yard and the sinking Walküre.

By 0800, the fire shifted to Zelee, whose funnel was making smoke.

By 0820, the wrecked gunboat was filling with water, Barbier and his men moving to abandon their little warship– the crew in the end finished the job of the Germans by opening Zelee’s water intakes to the harbor.

Some accounts list 14 shots of 8.2-inch and another 35 of 5.9-inch fired by the German cruisers by 0900, others put the total count higher to 80 shells. Von Spee, afraid the harbor could be mined, retired, his plan to fuel his ships with French coal spoiled. He would miss those irreplaceable shells at the Falklands in December.

Two residents of the colony, a Polynesian child and a Japanese expat, were killed as well as several injured.

Estimates that as much as half of Papeete was destroyed in the bombardment.

The bombardment of Papeete, capital of Tahiti, a French possession in the Pacific. Showing a panoramic view of Papeete, capital of Tahiti, after being shelled by the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The numbers indicate: 1. German prisoners under an armed guard, after having been compelled to assist in clearing away the debris resulting from the bombardment. 2. The market where all perishable food (…?) 3. Ruins of the back premises of Messrs A B Donald Ltd., with the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the background and the signal station on the hill to the right. Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 22 October 1914, p.43. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19141022-43-01

Divers went down to Zelee just hours after the Germans steamed away, and recovered the ship’s tricolor. It was presented to Destremau.

German propagandists remembered the raid in spectacular fashion, complete with incoming fire from shore batteries and the ships coming in far closer to the harbor.

Die Kreuzer Scharnhorst and Gneisenau beschießen Papeete, die Hautpstadt von Tahiti, by Willy Moralt, via the Illustrierte Geschichte des Weltkrieges 1914.

Epilogue

Zelee would be partially salvaged in 1925 but remains a well-known dive site in the Tahiti area.

Her on-shore 3.9-inch gun is preserved at Bougainville Park in Papeete.

Sister Surprise would also be lost during the war, torpedoed by U-38 in December 1916 in Funchal on the island of Madeira.

Décidée survived the conflict and went to the breakers in 1922.

The French navy recycled Zelee’s name once again in 1924 on the 285-ton remorqueur-patrouilleur Zelee (ex-Lakeside) which served into 1950.

As for the German freighter Walküre, she was salvaged and repaired, then sold to an American company and would remain in service until 1925.

The painter Morillot hung up his uniform after the bombardment and returned to his painting, opium, and women, passing in 1931.

Denigrated by the governor general of Tahiti– who hid in a church during the bombardment while Destremau handled the defense– our gunboat skipper was ordered back to France to face an inquiry board. Given interim command of the destroyer Boutefeu while the board hemmed and hawed about meeting, Destremau died in Toulon of illness on 7 March 1915, aged but 39.

His decorations came posthumously.

He was cited in the order of the army nine months after passing (JO 9 Dec. 1915, p. 8.998):

Lieutenant Destremau, commanding the gunboat La Zélée and the troops in Papeete, was able, during the day of 22 September 1914, to take the most judicious measures to ensure the defense of the port of Papeete against the attack of the German cruisers Sharnorst and Gneisenau. Demonstrated in the conduct of the defense operations the greatest personal bravery and first-rate military qualities which resulted in preserving the port of Papeete and causing the enemy cruisers to move away.

After the war, he was awarded the Legion of Honor in March 1919.

A street in Papeete carries his name.

The salvaged flag from Zelee was maintained by Destremau’s family until 2014 when, on the 100th anniversary of the gunboat’s loss, it was returned to the French Navy who maintain it as a relic at the Papeete naval base.

The colony’s newest station ship/gunboat, the 262-foot Teriieroo a Teriierooiterai (P780) arrived at Papeete in May after a two-month transit from France.

The more things change… 

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Barbarians at the Gate

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80 years ago this month. Wartime official caption: “First American Heavy Guns to Fire into Germany, 16 September 1944. Here is a battery of American 155mm. self-propelled guns, mounted on tank chassis as they fired into the village of Bildehen, Germany, which is located six kilometers southwest of Aachen on the Liege-Aachen road. They opened the barrage with 21 rounds of high explosive shells each weighing 100–pounds.”

Note the gunner with the bag of propellant, fresh from its tube, and a system of ramps to stop recoil and help with elevation. Acme Photo by Andrew Lopez for the War Picture Pool, via Allison Collection, City of Little Rock Archives

Ironically, the guns shown above started out life as Great War era towed howitzers with spoked wheels: U.S. Model 1918M1 155mm gun, the famous French GPF (Canon de 155mm Grande Puissance Filloux) a direct copy of the C modèle 1917 Schneider.

Late in 1942, some 100 GPFs that remained in storage were mounted on the turretless chassis of the obsolete M3 Lee tank to form the M12 Gun Motor Carriage as a form of early self-propelled artillery. When teamed up with the companion Cargo Carrier M30 (also a turretless M3), which allowed them to go into the line with 40 rounds of 155mm ready, they proved popular in a niche role.

M12 Gun Motor Carriage 155mm self-propelled gun with the US 987th Field Artillery Battalion near Bayeux Normandy June 10, 1944. IWM – Laing (Sgt) Photographer. IWM B 541

155mm M12 Gun Motor Carriage sniping strongpoints along the German Siegfried Line, late 1944/early 1945. At its core, it is a French 155 from the Great War

These tracked GPFs earned the nicknames “Doorknocker” and “King Kong” in service due to their ability to pierce up to seven feet of reinforced concrete and turn pillboxes into a smokey hole in the ground– a useful thing in Northeastern Europe in 1944.

Like this:

M12 Gun Motor carriage used in direct firing mode against a fortified German position during the Battle of Aachen in October 1944.

A Peek Under the Hood

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Official wartime caption, some 80 years ago this month in the recently liberated Belgium:

“(Hawker) Typhoon IBs undergoing maintenance and repair at Melsbroek (B-58), near Brussels, 10 September 1944. An aircraft from No 247 Squadron RAF (foreground) and a No 181 Squadron machine are parked in front of an elaborately camouflaged hangar at the former Luftwaffe bomber base. The Germans had gone to great lengths to disguise the airfield, fabricating fake houses, shops, and even a chateau, all of which had failed to protect it from air attack.”

Goodchild A (F/O) and Bellamy W (F/O), Royal Air Force official photographer, IWM CL 3979

Note the behemoth Napier Sabre H-24 engine exposed on the foremost Typhoon.

One of the most powerful inline piston aircraft engines in the world, it was only used in the Typhoon and its derivative, the Hawker Tempest. Little wonder Tempest became the go-to V-1 killer as it was the fastest of Allied fighters at low level (the P-51 beat it at altitude) and the Tempest knocked down at least 20 Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbes.

For the record, No. 247 Squadron RAF– which flew everything from Felixstowe F2A flying boats to Gladiators and Hurricanes to Vampires and Hunters– disbanded in 1963. Ironically No. 181 Squadron had a much shorter run despite its lower squadron number, only existing from August 1942 until September 1945, running first Hurricanes and then Typhoons.

Lorraine Hellcat

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80 years ago this month. An M18 (T70) Hellcat of the 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion during Patton’s Lorraine Campaign in an ambush position down Rue Carnot in recently liberated Lunéville, France, 22 September 1944. The dismounted .50 cal M2 gunner is going to have a bad day if the Hellcat’s 76mm gun gets rowdy, especially in the days before hearing protection.

Via the Bovington Tank Museum.

Established 15 December 1941 as the TD unit for the 3rd Infantry Division, by D-Day the 603rd had been sent to England and, reequipped with M18s, deployed to the continent in support of the “Super Sixth” 6th Armored Division. They landed at Utah Beach and entered combat on 28 July 1944.

Loading shells onto a B Company, 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion M18 just outside Brest, France, are, left to right: T/5 Francis J. Kangas, Astoria, Oregon; Pfc. Dominic Juncewski, Silver Lake, Minn.; Sgt. Emory Triggs, Arkansas City, Kansas; Pvt. John Horns, Dickinson, N.D., and Cpl. Cliff Pratt, Selah, Washington. 12 August, 1944. SC 195544

Fighting through Northwest Europe, the 603rd raced through Brittany then Lorient, and through Lorrane to the Moselle. Then came the Saar, Bastogne, crossing the Rhine, and pushing through the Fulda Gap where it later helped free Buchenwald and, with the rest of the Super Sixth, is recognized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Liberating Unit.

Disbanded in 1946, one of the Hellcats from the 603rd is on display at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Wyoming.

M18 Hellcat of the 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion at the NMMV

MG at 80

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Did you know that, while the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions jumped/glided into Holland during Market Garden some 80 years ago this week with relatively light air-cooled machine guns (M1918 BARs and M1919 Brownings), the British and Polish airborne forces landed with 60 proper full-sized water-cooled Vickers MGs in both their parachute and airlanding battalions?

Courtesy of the Vickers MG Collection & Research Association:

On a more somber note, the Americans, Brits, Dutch, Poles, and even the Germans have been in attendance for the anniversary of the jumps.

The 82nd in Nijmegen, Mook, Grave and Groesbeek:

U.S. Army Paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division stand in formation during a commemoration ceremony at the 82nd Airborne Division Memorial near Mook, Netherlands Sep. 18, 2024. Each year, U.S. Army units’ partner with Dutch communities to celebrate their shared history from the campaign and the initial liberation of the Netherlands during World War II. (U.S. Army photo by Maj. Matthew Diaz)

The 101st at Nuenen and in unveiling bridge monuments in Sint Oedenrode and Son:

A convoy of vintage U.S. military World War II vehicles passes through the Netherlands town of Nuenen during the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden in Nuenen, the Netherlands, Sept. 14, 2024. Over 200 vintage U.S. military World War II vehicles, including jeeps, trucks, and even an M24 Chaffee tank, traveled in a convoy from the Netherlands town of Nuenen south to the town of Veghel, following the route that the 101st Airborne Division took alongside British soldiers against German forces during Op

Two fallen Brits from the battle were interred at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery:

With the ol’ RMLE

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While traveling around New Orleans, I often come across old French Foreign Legion insignia in antique and curious goods shops. My guess is that Francophiles and Cajuns in the area often, at one point, would sign up for life in the old Legion Etrangere and then return home at the end of the contract.

Holding their old insignia as souvenirs of places long gone, these items would eventually ebb away from them when they passed on to the great barracks in the sky. Echoes of history, I suppose.

This one is appropriate today.

Insignia of the Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion, (Regiment de Marche de la Legion Etrangere = R.M.L.E) designed in 1943 with France Dabord (“France First”) motto:

This is the scarcer metal and enamel type insignia made for officers. It is marked Drago, Paris, and was likely manufactured in late 1944, post-Liberation.

The RMLE was created in July 1943 at Sidi-bel-Abbes, Algeria, under Colonel Gentis from the remnants of the old 1st and 3rd REIM (régiments étrangers d’infanterie de marche) which had fought against Rommel in the final days of the North African campaign, specifically at Djebel Mansour. The original “les anciens” RMLE had been formed in the Great War under the famed “father of the Legion” Colonel Paul Frederic Rollet so the name was very symbolic to Legionaries at the time.

Assigned to the 5th Armoured Division (5e DB) at Oranie, the unit was equipped with American uniforms and equipment, including Springfield M1903 bolt action rifles, and had the same general structure as the 3e REI.

Some 80 years ago today, 20 September 1944, the RMLE landed at Provence near Saint-Raphaël on Dramont beach as part of the Dragoon Landings and raced towards the Rhine, helping liberate Alsace in the process.

Along the way they fought at Belfort– where I/RMLE was decimated at Montreux-Château– helped reduce the Colmar Pocket, broke through the Siegfried Line, crossed the Black Forest, entered Stuttgart, and made it into Austria by VE Day.

13 November 1944 at Valdahon, General de Gaulle, Sir W. Churchill, Generals Juin, and de Lattre de Tassigny review a detachment of the RMLE the day before leaving for combat.

Respected by the Allied troops it fought alongside, the RMLE earned a U.S. Presidential Unit Citation and Distinguished Unit Citation (“Rhine-Bavarian Alps”).

At the end of the war, the RMLE was transferred back to North Africa. Once there, on 1 July 1945, it was renamed 3e REI.

Today, 3e REI still exists as a light infantry battalion, stationed in the swamps of French Guyana for the past 50 years.

Its regimental flag carries honors from the old RMLE of Great War fame (Artois 1915, Champagne 1915, The Somme 1916, The Verdun Mountains, Picardy-Soissonais 1918, and Vauxaillon 1918) as well as our WWII era RMLE (Alsace 1944-1945 and Stuttgart 1945) and those it has earned under its own name (Indochina 1946-1954— where the regiment lost 3,396 officers and legionnaires– and AFN 1952-1962).

Danish Copper Blues

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80 years ago today. And then they came for the cops.

Amid an uptick of sabotage operations that saw no leads when investigated by the locals, and with the country’s army, navy, and air forces already disbanded in 1943, on 19 September 1944, the German occupation government in Copenhagen dissolved the Danish police, as the force was seen as a potential threat, was ineffective in putting down strikes and civil unrest, and an outright ally towards the growing and increasingly active Danish resistance movements.

German soldiers set up a field piece in front of the Police Station in Copenhagen during the action against the police on 19 September 1944. FHM-173508

Of the organization’s 10,000 members, the Germans were able to arrest upwards of 5,000 and eventually deport 1,960 high-ranking officers to Buchenwald– where no less than 60 died that winter under horrible conditions. This group was “upgraded” to POW status in December and 200 sick coppers were repatriated home while the other 1,700 were transferred to Stalag IV-B in East Prussia, where they would be liberated by the Soviets in April 1945. In all, almost 200 Danish police would perish in German custody during the war.

Other members of the Danish police managed to skip the country to nearby Sweden while many who stayed behind, typically under watch by the local Germans and subject to work details, moonlighted in the Danish resistance outright.

In early May 1945, they once again took to the streets in their uniforms, and resumed operations, with the first order of business: arrest local sympathizers– in particular the hated Schalburg corps and HIPO-korpset auxiliary police– and disarm German occupation troops.

Danish police back in Kolding after the capitulation May 1945 FHM-239219

Danish policemen in uniform May 1945. Note they are wearing resistance armbands and carrying Suomi

Roadblock in Copehagen. Note the British BREN gun. FHM-164100

Danish Police taking their uniforms in Carlsberg, May 1945 FHM-243918

Copenhagen police officers May 1945 FHM-19023

Police group at Cafe Strandlyst on Øresundsvej in Copenhagen after the liberation on 5 May 1945. FHM-243047

Danish Armed police in position at Amalienborg on 5 May 1945 FHM-314581

With the Germans having disbanded the King’s Lifeguards (Livgarden) the previous year, the local Copenhagen police also immediately set up a picket around Amalienborg Palace and secured the grounds.

They would remain the King’s ersatz personal bodyguard unit for six weeks until the reformed Livgarden, on 10 June 1945, marched in and relieved the bluebacks.

Changing of the guard at Amalienborg on 10 June 1945. The Life Guard replaces the police guard

Luckiest Air Force Pilot Retires After 180,840 Rounds of Brrrt

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Capping a 37-year career, Lt. Colonel John “Karl” Marks retired last month and hung up the title of the A-10 Thunderbolt pilot with the most flight time.

Kansas-born Marks entered the Air Force in 1987 and then went on to fly the big “Warthog” in combat for the first time in the 1991 Gulf War, chalking up 23 Iraqi tanks over three missions shared with his flight lead Capt. Eric “Fish” Solomonson.

Then-1st Lt. John Marks, poses with an A-10 Thunderbolt II at King Fahd Air Base, Saudi Arabia, during Desert Storm in February 1991. (Photo: 442nd Fighter Wing / Lt. Col. Marks) and Lt. Col. John Marks stands in the cockpit of an A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft and pumps his fists in a sign of victory after his “fini” flight on August 23, 2024, on Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. Marks retired after 37 years with more than 7500 hours in the A-10. (Photo: Mr. Bob Jennings/U.S. Air Force)

Since then, Marks has deployed overseas at least a dozen times and responded to 48 troops-in-contact situations over 358 combat sorties.

As noted by the 442d Fighter Wing in a release, Marks flew 1161 combat hours during which he expended 39,340 rounds of 30mm ammunition, dropped nearly 350 bombs, and fired 59 Maverick air-to-ground missiles. Going past that, his trigger time on the Warthog’s hulking GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm cannon included another 141,500 rounds, bringing his career total to 180,840 30mm rounds.

The GAU-8/A, made by General Electric, is a 19-foot long 7-barreled rotary cannon that fires huge 30x173mm shells— each about the size of a catsup bottle as fast as 3,900 rounds per minute. Unloaded, the gun weighs more than 600 pounds.

Marks was the first A-10 pilot to log more than 6,000 flight hours in the type in 2016 and never looked back.

In all, he has logged 7,500 hours in the aircraft, a record, with the Air Force noting, “With the clock inching toward midnight on the divestiture of the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, there are no pilots close enough in hours behind the Warthog’s stick to even come close to the bar set by Lt. Col. John ‘Karl’ Marks.”

Warship Wednesday Sept. 18, 2024: Passing the Cup Around

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024: Passing the Cup Around

Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) photo 2000-364-26

Above we see the business end of the Polish submarine Orzel while on the builder’s ways at NV Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde in Holland in 1937, showing her four-pack of forward 21.7 inch torpedo tubes.

Some 85 years ago this month the boat and her crew would be homeless and looking for some revenge.

The Polish submarine program

Left with only about 90 miles of coastline along the Baltic by the Versailles framers, the Polish Navy (KMW) for the 1920s was made up very simply of a half-dozen small (300-400 ton) ex-German torpedo boats, two slow ex-Russian gunboats, four flat-bottom FM-class German coastal minesweepers, and some shallow-draft river monitors.

Following a military alliance with France, it was decided to build a proper navy base, operate an near condemned French protected cruiser (ex-D’Entrecasteaux, laid down in 1894) as a stationary training ship, and start exploring options for more modern warships to include battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines with varying degrees of success.

Speaking to the final type, Warsaw cobbled together enough cash (and French-backed loans) by 1928 to buy a trio of new Normand-Fenaux-type (enlarged French Saphir class) minelayer submarines.

Trim little 1,250-ton boats that ran just 257 feet overall, they carried four bow tubes and a trainable twin tube atop the pressure hull along with the ability to carry and deploy 40 mines.

These three boats– Wilk (Wolf), Rys (Linx), and Zbik (Wildcat)– were delivered by the early 1930s from three different French yards (A C de la Loire Nantes, A C Augustin-Normand, and CNF) after significant delays and were never really successful, reportedly being noisy and prone to leaks.

Polish submarine Wilk visiting Stockholm in 1932 Fo37710C

However, the Wilks were the cradle of the Polish submarine force, and soon after the Poles in 1933 moved to order four larger submarines in two flights as a believed counter to German pocket battleships. After consulting French, British, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and American firms for designs, the KMW went with the conjoined submission from NV Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde, Vlissingen and Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij.

The design was based on the one-off experimental Dutch Hr.Ms. O 16— a 1,200-ton/251-foot advanced ocean-going welded double-hulled design using high tensile St52 steel yielding a 330-foot depth rating and hydraulic surface controls while being capable of hitting 18 knots while carrying 8 torpedo tubes.

The Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. O 16 fitting out in late 1936. Note the masked 88mm gun forward of her sail. At the time of her commissioning, she was the largest submarine in the Dutch Navy. Sent to the Dutch East Indies in 1939, when war came with Japan two years later, she sank three Japanese troopships and damaged two others before she was sunk by a mine in December 1941. NIMH

The Polish boats would be larger (1,473 tons, 276 feet oal), faster (19.44 knots– capable of chasing down Russia’s Gangut-class battlewagons), and even more heavily armed with a full dozen tubes (4 bow/4 stern 550mm, and 2×2 external 533mm trainable) along with room to carry 20 steel fish.

Her plant used a pair of Dutch-licensed 6QD42 Sulzer diesel engines for surface running, another pair of Brown Boveri electric motors for subsurface, and two 100-cell batteries.

Sulzer diesel’s 2000-364-53

Big for a Baltic boat, she had a range of 7,000nm at 10 knots and could remain underway for 90-day combat patrols. The reason behind this was to allow the class the capability to conduct long-term combat operations without depending on their (few and easily seized/blockaded) bases and, to state the obvious, would allow these subs to range out of the Baltic and interdict enemy shipping (be they Russian or German) on the Atlantic in time of war.

The Poles, who had a military alliance with France at the time, went with the Wzor 1924V, which was the big 21.65-inch French STST 24V (683 pound TNT warhead, 3,300 yards @45 knots) torpedo for her in-pressure-hull tubes and, for her topside trainable tubes, the Wzor AB, a new 21-inch Whitehead steam torpedo (660-pound warhead, 3,300 yards at 47 knots) designed for use from the deck-mounted launchers of the British-made Polish Grom-class destroyers.

When it came to deck guns, whereas the Dutch O 16 had an 88mm DP gun and a twin 40mm AAA, the Orzel would go just a bit larger with a single low-angle 4.1-inch L/40 wz.36 Bofors forward in a revolving bubble-shaped mask in front of the sail and a twin Bofors atop the rear of the sail that could be lowered into a watertight shaft, augmented with a twin 13.2mm Hotchkiss heavy machine gun mount. The big Bofors had four watertight ready lockers capable of holding 21 shells between them while a magazine capable of storing another 100 rounds was located amidships under the auxiliary control room, with a chain gang passing shells forward during a prolonged surface engagement. The same magazine held 1,200 40mm shells and six boxes of 13.2mm ammo as well as small arms.

The Poles wanted four submarines and eventually ordered two, Orzel (Eagle) and Sep (Vulture) from the Dutch, with a second pair– Kuna (Marten) and Lasica (Weasel)– ordered in France to a slightly modified design (lighter steel and no deck gun) in late 1938 from AC Augustin Normand and AC de la Loire Nantes. The French pair saw work suspended on them in April 1939 and both would be destroyed on the slipways by the Germans during the war.

The cost for the planned two new Dutch-built subs was 21 million zlotych, a figure that would be satisfied in part (10 percent) by Polish agricultural products and raw materials sent to Holland, 15.44 million zlotych from the Polish government generated by bonds sold on the Warsaw Stock Exchange largely to French and British investors, and the balance, about 3.5 million zlotych, raised via a combination of public subscription into the Fundusz Obrony Morskiej (Maritime Defense Fund) to include schoolchildren’s campaigns and a 0.5 percent garnish on the pay of Polish Army and Navy’s officer and NCO corps.

As a side note, there was enough money left over from the subscription that the Polish Navy planned to order a class of 17 motor torpedo boats– one named after each of the country’s provinces– but the war intervened.

The Dutch thought the finished product was so nice that they ordered a follow-on pair of subs based on the Orzel design but with minor tweaks. The two boats, Hr.Ms. O 19 and O 20, ditched the masked deck gun design for a simpler standalone 88mm DP and reduced the number of torpedo tubes to add 10 vertical mine tubes along each side of the casing outside the pressure hull, each capable of carrying two mines. They were notably the first submarines equipped with working snorkels.

One of Orzel and Sep’s near sisters, Hr.Ms. O 20 seen entering Curacao in the Dutch West Indies in November 1939. Both O 19 and O 20 managed to escape the Germans in 1940 and sailed for the Allies during the war, being lost in 1941 and 1945, respectively. NIMH 2158_015360.

Meet Orzel

On 29 January 1936, the Polish Navy signed a contract with the Dutch submarine concern for the construction of two submarines to the modified O 16 design.

Our subject was the first of her class laid down, as Yard No. 205, at De Schelde, Vlissingen, on 14 August 1936. Her sister, Sep, was laid down three months later as Yard No. 196 at nearby Rotterdamsche Droogdok, Mij.

zoetwaterinstallatie desalination plants 2000-364-52

Orzel was launched on 15 January 1938, with 35-year-old Kmdr.ppor. (CDR) Henryk Kloczkowski, a former cadet of the Tsar’s Imperial Navy– and nephew of RADM Wacław Kloczkowski– who had graduated from the French submarine school (École de Navigation Sous-Marine) in Toulon, appointed as her first skipper.

15 January 1938. The Polish submarine ORP Orzel is being towed here by a tugboat from the shipyard to another location, after the launching festivities. On the forecastle the Dutch Chief Supervisor of the shipyard, Mr. Meerman. Saluting on the bridge the Polish naval officer (supervision for the construction kltz. Niemirski. NIMH 2000-364-34

17 October 1938, construction of the Polish submarine Sep at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM), showing her just after launch being pulled by a yard tug. NIMH 2158_072978

By late January 1939, she had finished her builder’s trials including torpedo tests in Den Helder and speed trials in Norwegian waters in the Oslofjord, then was handed over to her Polish crew in a ceremony held on 2 February.

Matka chrzestna okrętu podwodnego ORP “Orzeł” generałowa Jadwiga Sosnkowska (z kwiatami), kontradmirał Józef Świrski, poseł RP w Holandii Wacław Babiński i gen. Stanisław Kwaśniewski w czasie wodowania okrętu.

Feb 2 1939 Orzel commissioning plankowners at the Vlissingen yard canteen 2000-364-62

2 February 1939. The consecration of the Polish submarine ORP Orzel by the chief chaplain of the Polish miners in Limburg, Father Hoffman. The boat was christened by Mrs. Jadwiga Sosnkowska, wife of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, who was head of the Committee for Matters of Armaments and Equipment (in the photo she is arranging the flowers). During WWII, Sosnkowski would become the CiC of the Polish military in exile before he was demoted over his protests about the Warsaw Home Army being left to rot in 1944. NIMH 2000-364-33

On 5 February, the newest Polish submarine left Vlissingen and headed into the Baltic for Gdynia, arriving there on the 7th to a welcoming crowd.

Polish submarine Orzel arriving home via Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe

It was there that a plaque was ceremonially unveiled, mounted on the ship’s conning tower, informing that the boat was built in part with public contributions from the FOM.

Sep joined her sister Orzel in Poland in April.

The sisters then spent the next several months on a series of shakedown cruises in the Baltic– there were clouds on the horizon.

War!

On 24 August 1939, two days after a speech from Hitler to his commanders all but saying war was inevitable with Poland, the Polish military went on alarm and began quietly mobilizing as the world slow-walked into the opening conflict of WWII over the next week.

Orzel spent that week checking and rechecking her systems, taking on a full load of torpedoes and shells, and provisioning. Her skipper was handed several sealed orders in different envelopes aligned with various plans, and some $9,000 in gold and Polish banknotes should he have to put to sea and refuel elsewhere.

By 0700 on 1 September, three hours after the start of the German invasion, Orzel left her pier and submerged in the Bay of Gdansk where she survived her first depth charging of the war that evening. Her orders, as part of the Polish Navy’s Worek Plan, were to watch for the old battlewagon KMS Schleswig-Holstein, should the pre-dreadnought leave Danzig, and put her on the bottom.

German battleship Schleswig-Holstein bombarding a Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig, Sept 1939. Orzel was ordered to take her out if the opportunity arose. 

With Schleswig-Holstein staying put and after dodging several Kriegsmarine destroyers and being bombed several times by German aircraft while on the surface, and with a malfunctioning compressor, LT Kloczkowski decided on his own to abandon his patrol zone on the morning of 4 September and head to Swedish waters near Gotland. Claiming illness and signaling back and forth with naval command, Kloczkowski ordered his boat to Tallinn in neutral Estonia on the night of the 14th.

Once in Tallinn, on a 24-hour stay under the rules of war, the crew went ashore for baths, Kloczkowski to the hospital, and the malfunctioning compressor was sent off for local repair.

Well short of 24 hours, the Estonian gunboat Laine/Laene (ex-Russian Sputnik, 400 tons, two 75 mm L/50 Canet guns) came alongside Orzel and put a detachment of armed sailors aboard, informing the remaining officers and crew aboard that the sub was being interned.

Breakout

Orzel was untied and towed deeper into the Tallinn military port facility, flanked by two armed minelayers. Meanwhile, the Estonians seized and removed the boat’s maps, navigation log, and small arms before sealing its radio compartment.

Polish submarine Orzel at Tallinn’s military harbor. The 400-ton Estonian sidewheeler minelayers Suurop (1x 47mm gun) and Ristna, formerly the Russian Apostol Piotr and Apostol Paviel, are visible to the left. Eesti Meremuuseum MM F 7318.

The disarmament continued for the next two days with the Estonians impounding and removing Orzel’s deck gun breech, 14 of 20 torpedoes, and the shells from her magazine.

Having seen enough and unwilling to sit out the war in an Estonian internment camp, Orzel’s XO, Kpt.mar. (Lt.Cdr.) Jan Grudzinski, rallied the sub’s crew on the night of 17/18 September– 85 years ago today– and made a move to release themselves from custody.

Overpowering the two Estonian sailors on her quarterdeck and casting off at 0300 on 18 September, Orzel motored out on her quiet electrical suite until sentries on shore spotted her leaving the darkened harbor and opened fire with a 130mm coastal defense battery firing 14 shells blindly into the night. Sending the crew below, the Polish submarine submerged as soon as she had depth under her keel and headed towards the Finnish Aland Islands, with the Estonian Navy giving short and apparently half-hearted pursuit.

As for Poland’s four other submarines, sister Sep managed to make it to Swedish waters on 17 September along with the damaged submarines Rys (on the 18th) and Zbik (on the 25th) after the latter two had laid their mines. They were disarmed and interned first in Nynäshamn (Vaxholm) and then in Mariefred for the duration.

Polska ubaten ORP Sep interned in Nynäshamn, guarded by Pollux, Vedett Boat No. 52 (ex 1st class torpedo boat, b. 1909) in September 1939. Fo37714A

Only Wilk, having sown her mines, managed to skirt German dragnets then thread the Danish straits (Oresund) on 14/15 September and, once in the North Sea made for British waters.

With Orzel’s crew champing at the bit to fight rather than be interned again, and Polish exile forces in London advising that the Germans claimed her crew had killed the two Estonian sailors aboard, Grudzinski headed to Gotland as best she could without charts and put the two “resurrected” men (electrician Roland Kirikmaa and conscript sailor Boris Mahlstein) ashore in the sub’s dinghy at Östergarnsholm in Sweden on 21 September. Grudzinski had left the Estonians with $50 each, a bottle of liquor from the sub’s medicine locker, and a letter of commendation. They arranged to return home via plane before the week was out.

Orzel then turned back to sea and patrolled unsuccessfully for German ships over the next two weeks just off Oland. Lacking charts, she grounded twice during this period, sustaining some minor damage to her keel and the bow outer torpedo caps. This, coupled with chipped propeller blades and oil leaks, would seem to point to the logical move to opt for the quiet life in Sweden.

However, electing to follow in Wilk’s footsteps, Orzel then began heading West on 7 October.

The boat’s navigator, 24-year-old LT Marian Mokrski, his charts impounded, was left with only a dated German edition of the Baltic List of Lights and Fog Signals (Verzeichniss der Leuchtfeuer und Signalnstellen) and navigational tables (Nautische Tafeln). Using those, along with his personal knowledge of the Baltic Sea and its straits from previous passages (and apparently an eidetic memory), created three hand-drawn navigational charts covering the span from Leningrad, through the Strait of Oresund, and around Denmark via the Skagerrak into the North Sea. A cadet of the 1937 tranche (graduated 2nd in his class), he had previously been a sonar officer on the Wicher-class destroyer ORP Burza and had sailed on a nine-month exchange with the French on the training cruiser Jeanne D’Arc.

When they cleared Jutland and made it into the relative safety of the North Sea on 12 October, Grudzinski presented navigator Mokrski with the most valuable items on the boat– the last two cans of pineapple– and a hand-written commendation in front of the assembled crew.

Two days later, nearing the Isle of May, Orzel transmitted her recognition signals to the Admiralty and soon rendezvoused with the destroyer HMS Valorous who guided her ultimately to Dundee where Wilk was tied up undergoing repairs.

Free Polish Navy service

By December 1939, Wilk and Orzel had been rearmed with a mixture of French torpedoes and British 21-inchers in sleeved tubes, then received hull numbers (85-A for Orzel, 64-A for Wilk), picked up a few Lewis guns, and were placed under British orders by the Free Polish forces in London. As such, each sub had its crew augmented by an RN submarine force officer and two communications ratings for liaison purposes.

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

As part of the 2nd Submarine Flotilla, they were assigned to the tender HMS Forth.

Kpt.mar. Jan Grudziński, the skipper of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł seated in the boat’s fin in Scotland, 1940. IWM (HU 110081)

“Close-up of the conning tower of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł (Eagle) as she returns to her depot ship at Rosyth, 11 January 1940. Lieutenant Commander Jan Grudziński, the ship’s commander, is at the front on the right. Her pennant number (85A) has been obscured by the censor.” IWM (HU 76134)

“Gunners of the Polish Navy mine-laying submarine ORP Wilk (Wolf) manning a 100 mm Schneider 1917 gun in Rosyth, January 1940. Another submarine, ORP Orzeł (Eagle), can be seen alongside a British submarine depot ship in the background.” IWM (HU 128170)

Orzel sailed as part of the escort for Convoy ON 6 in late December 1939, then Convoy HN 6 in January 1940.

Sent out on her 2nd (1st Atlantic) War Patrol in February, she lurked off the coast of neutral Denmark for three uneventful weeks looking for German blockade runners heading into the Baltic and raiders headed out.

She was made a darling of the press, an emblem of Free Poland. 

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

She repeated the Danish search in March for her 3rd War Patrol with the same result, narrowly missing seizing the German transport Helene Russ (993 GRT) in the fog on the 11th of that month.

Then came her 4th War Patrol, departing the Firth of Forth on 3 April 1940 for the waters off Lillesand, Norway.

At the same time, as part of Operation Wesserübung, the German occupation of neutral Denmark and Norway, some 1,900 German troops were allocated to capture Bergen and Stavanger under RADM Hubert Schmundt’s Kriegschiffgruppe 3. One of the transports of 1. Seetransportstaffel– loaded with 330 soldiers and Luftwaffe personnel, six 2 cm FlaK 30 and four 10.5 cm FlaK 38 anti-aircraft guns, 73 horses, 71 vehicles and 292 tons of provisions, animal feed, fuel, and ammunition– was the requisitioned Hamburg Süd freighter MS Rio de Janeiro (5177 grt).

Built by Bremer Vulkan as Santa Ines in 1914, Rio de Janeiro sailed originally out of Stettin on runs to South America and had survived the Great War because she was interned in Valparaiso for the duration, sold to Hamburg Süd by the British in 1921. Finding herself in Argentine waters in 1939 when WWII started, she only made it back to Hamburg in January 1940 by the skin of her teeth through the Royal Navy blockade– just to be impounded by the Kriegsmarine for what would turn out to be a one-way trip to Norway.

Off Lillesand on the morning of 8 April, Orzel and Rio de Janeiro bumped into each other.

From Admiralty logs, via Uboat.net: 

0945A/8, Sighted a suspicious merchant vessel to the south. Closed to investigate. The vessel was seen to fly no ensign and was proceeding on a course of 240°. She was high in the water indicating very little cargo.

1100A/8, Closed enough to read the ships name which was Rio de Janeiro with place of registration being Hamburg.

1110A/8, Surfaced and signaled the vessel to stop which she did.

1112A/8, Ordered the vessel to sent a boat. There appeared to be very little movement on board so fired warning shots with the Lewis guns which unfortunately was the only armament available as the deck gun is still inoperative.

1120A/8, Ordered the vessel to abandon ship in 15 minutes.

1130A/8, A boat was lowered but it made very little attempt to close Orzel. So ordered the vessel once more to abandon ship and that they had 5 minutes left to do so before a torpedo would be fired.

1135A/8, Sighted a Norwegian motor boat approaching. There was still no sign of movement on board the merchant vessel.

1145A/8, Fired a torpedo while the Norwegian motorboat was still clear. a slight explosion was seen and the vessel heeled. She was still 1.8 nautical miles outside territorial waters.

1150A/8, Dived. The vessel showed no signs of sinking. More boats were seen to be lowered.

1155A/8, Sighted a Norwegian aircraft approaching. Orzel circled underwater to give the enemy crew time to pull clear before finishing off the ship with a second torpedo which blew up to ship on hitting.

About 180 Germans who survived the Rio de Janeiro sinking, were rescued by local vessels and landed at Lillesand and Kristiansand. The waterlogged and very much uniformed Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe troops freely told the Norwegians that came to their aid that they were bound for Bergen on invitation from the King’s government. The intel made its way to the Norwegian government where it was met with skepticism.

Likewise, Orzel, who came back to inspect the wreckage and found expired German soldiers adrift on the waves, reported the incident back to London.

Ordered to a different patrol zone and with the German invasion of Norway on in full force, Orzel on the 10th tangled with the German auxiliary patrol vessel V 705/ex-Carsten (258 GRT) in the Skagerrak without either side coming away damaged. She then spent the 12th through the 15th dodging a series of German bombs dropped on her while on the surface and depth charges while submerged, logging 111 ash cans and 20 bombs.

She ended her 4th patrol at Rosyth on the 19th.

“Close-up of the conning tower of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł (Eagle) as she returns to her depot ship at Rosyth after taking part in operations off Norway during which she accounted for two enemy transport ships, 19 April 1940.” IWM (HU 76132)

Her 5th War Patrol began just a week later, sent back to Norwegian waters. Unsuccessful, she returned to Rosyth on 11 May.

Orzel’s 6th Patrol, starting 23 May, would be her last. She failed to confirm receipt of signals from England on 1 June, was listed as overdue from 8 June, and feared lost on 11 June.

Her 60-man crew, along with three RN submariners– LT Keith D’Ombrain Nott, Radio Operator Walter Fordyce Green, and Telegraph Operator Leslie William Jones– are still on patrol.

Epilogue

The Cold War-era Polish Navy recycled Orzel’s name for a pre-owned Soviet-built Project 613 (Whiskey class) submarine (292, ex-Soviet S-265) that served from 1962 through 1983, and for a Project 877E (Kilo class) submarine (291) that has been in service since 1986. The latter is one of the only Warsaw Pact era subs still operational, the oldest Kilo-class submarine in active service, and the only operational submarine in the Polish Navy, having spent most of the past decade in a series of overhauls and updates.

In 2016, prewar Dutch 1:50 scale builder’s sheets for the original Orzel were restored at the Polish Navy Museum in Gdynia.

The site also has several Orzel-related exhibits including models, the Bofors guns of her sister Sep, and one of Grudzinski’s sailor’s books.

Polish Navy Museum relics of Orzel and Sep

The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, home to thousands of relics from the old Free Polish days, has several Orzel items including LT Mokrski’s hand-drawn escape charts from the 1939 Baltic breakout and her builder’s model from De Schelde.

Model of ORP Orzel presented by her Dutch constructors De Schelde 1938 PISM

Mokrski chart via PISM

Mokrski’s feat, one that can be admired by any mariner, has become a navigational exercise at the Polish Naval Academy thanks to a cadet in 2021 who painstakingly recreated his chart. 

Since 1942 when the Polish government in exile issued its own stamps, there have been dozens of pieces of philately with Orzel appearing on them.

Similarly, she is remembered in maritime art.

1940 ORP Orzel vs Rio Janeiro – Gregorz Nawrocki

1940 Polish submarine Orzel – Grzegorz Nawrocki

Polish submarine ORP Orzeł 8 .04.1940

She is also remembered in a variety of scale models, one of which has sat on my desk for years.

DeAgostini Atlas 1:350 scale Orzel

At least two Polish-language films, one in 1958 and another in 2022, have been produced about our subject with the first having the benefit of Orzel’s sister, Sep, standing in as a submarine double, which was odd because the latter by that time had her original Bofors gun replaced by a Soviet model.

Monuments to Orzel exist at Lillesand (the site of the Rio de Janeiro sinking), Tallin at the site of the Estonian Maritime Museum, and Gdynia. The two overseas posts are often visited by Polish naval attaches to lay wreaths and pay respects.

The broken hull of Rio de Janeiro was discovered off Norway in 2016.

As for the wreck of Orzel, she has been repeatedly searched for with the SANTI Finding the Eagle (Santi Odnaleźć Orła) project mounting no less than 10 expeditions since 2014, chasing down leads. How she met her final end is unknown. 

Her plank owner commander, the controversial LCDR Henryk Kloczkowski, left marooned in Estonia after Orzel escaped into the Baltic, and was arrested by the NKVD when the Soviets illegally occupied Tallinn in the summer of 1940.

Escaping the sort of final march that most other Polish officers suffered in Soviet captivity, Kloczkowski managed to attach himself in 1941 to Gen. Władysław Anders’ Polish Army in the East. Once this force was transferred to the British via the Caspian Sea and Iran in 1942, Kloczkowski was summoned to London to be brought before the Polish Maritime Court on charges over his actions on Orzel in September 1939. Demoted to the rank of sailor and given a four-year prison sentence, the latter was suspended so he could sail out on a series of American Liberty ships on dangerous Atlantic convoys. Surviving the war, he settled in Portsmouth, where he passed in 1962.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Shallow Action

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80 years ago this week, the brand new Fletcher-class tin can USS Robinson (DD-562), a destroyer of Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet slips along the beach at Peleliu in the Palau group on Operation Stalemate II’s D-Day, 15 September 1944.

“Her turrets trained land-ward, gun crews, and lookouts eagerly scan the beach for a Japanese pill box or gun position to blast at almost point-blank range.”

Naval History & Heritage Command Catalog # USN 46648

As noted by Robinson’s report for the seizure & occupation of Peleliu, Angaur & Ngesebus Islands, Palau Islands, 9/12-29/44:

Close fire support of operations on a hostile beach is most effective when delivered from ranges of two to three thousand yards when five-inch and forty millimeters are used.

Keep in mind the mean draft on a Fletcher-class destroyer is 13 feet of water, so coming in that close is definitely a risk to the hull not to mention exposing the ship to Japanese guns ashore with virtually anything 13.2mm and larger able to reach out that far.

But Robinson was already a pro even though she had only been in combat for three months. A fighting greyhound that received eight battle stars for her World War II service, she had already provided naval gunfire support for the landings at Tinian in July 1944 and had bombarded Saipan the month prior in addition to other ops in the Marianas.

USS Robinson (DD-562), bow view, port side while at Puget Sound Navy Yard, 8 April 1944. Robinson was built by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation and commissioned on 31 January 1944. Her first action, following shakedowns, was in June 1944 off Saipan– plastering enemy batteries on Beach Yellow One. NH 108351

She would go on to use her guns again to support the Leyete landings in October, weather the storm of Japanese kamikaze waves in the Phillippines in which five of the eight destroyers in her squadron were hit by suicide planes, fire five torpedoes in the night action against Nishimura’s battlewagons in the Surigao Strait, support the landings at Mindoro, and the Lingayen Gulf, and end the war supporting the Borneo liberation. 

All between June 1944 and June 1945– a busy year indeed. 

As detailed by her humble three-page War History: 

This vessel fired 10,331 rounds of five-inch ammunition, 7,151 rounds of 40mm, and 1,719 rounds of 20mm at the enemy.

The lucky Robinson suffered no battle damage and recorded no personnel casualties during WWII.

Following honorable Cold War service including taking part in NASA recovery missions, Robinson decommissioned at Norfolk in June 1964 and was larger struck after a decade in mothballs.

She was expended as a target during a fleet exercise on April Fools Day 1982 when her luck finally ran out.

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