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Warship Wednesday 28 January 2026: Juliana’s Enforcer

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

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

Warship Wednesday 28 January 2026: Juliana’s Enforcer

U.S. Navy photo 80-G-708163

Above we see the Dutch S (Saumarez/Savage)-class destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen (D 802) at Yokosuka some 75 years ago this month, in January 1951, while deployed with the UN Blockading and Escort Force off Korea.

She had been ordered under a different name by the British some 10 years prior, in January 1941, for a very different war, and gave good account not only in the Atlantic against the Germans but would also draw blood in a third conflict in 1962– oddly enough against a German-built warship.

The S-class

The 16 wartime British “S” & “T” class destroyers were long ships (363 feet) but thin (just 35 feet), giving them a 10:1 length-to-beam ratio, making them a knife on the water.

Tipping the scales at just 2,500~ tons, they were slender stilettos made for stabbing through the waves at nearly 36 knots on a pair of Parsons geared turbines generating 40,000 shp. Armed with a quartet of shielded 4.7-inch QF Mk IX guns for surface actions, U-boat busting depth charges, and two four-packs of anti-ship torpedo tubes along with a mixed battery of AAA guns, they were ready for a fight.

Class leader HMS Saumarez (G12) was completed in July 1943, right in time for the crucial part of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the 15 ships that followed her were made ready to go into harm’s way as soon as they could leave the builders’ yards. The class proved so successful that the design was essentially reused for the only incrementally improved “U” & “V” and “W” & “Z” destroyer classes, a further 32 greyhounds.

Saumarez would cover herself in glory, being instrumental in the sinking of both the German battleship Scharnhorst and the Japanese cruiser Haguro.

Beam view, HMS Saumarez (G12). IWM A 18404

Another S-class, HMS Success, was transferred on completion to the Free Norwegian forces on 26 August 1943 as KNM Stord (G26), and soon got to chasing the Germans, helping scrap with Scharnhorst just four months after transfer. A third, HMS Shark, while serving as KNM Svenner, was lost on D-Day off Sword Beach by torpedoes from a German S-boat. A fourth, HMS Swift (G46), was sunk by a mine off Sword on 24 June 1944.

But we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves.

Meet Scourge

Our subject was ordered from Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, on 9 January 1941 as Yard No 1095, the future HMS Scourge (G01). Laid down on 26 June 1941– the same week the Axis invaded the Soviet Union– she would be constructed at the yard alongside wartime sisters HMS Scorpion, Teazer, and Tenacious, as well as near-sisters Ulysses and Undaunted.

Christened 8 December 1942, she was the 10th (and, sadly, the last) to carry the splendid name of Scourge in the Royal Navy, going back to a 14-gun brig-sloop launched in 1779. Notably, the eighth Scourge, a Beagle-class destroyer, landed ANZACs at Gallipoli. This allowed our final Scourge to begin life carrying the past battle honors Crimea 1855, and Dardanelles 1914-15.

Adopted by the civil community of Bexhill, East Sussex, who held a “warship week” to raise money for her completion, HMS Scourge was commissioned on 14 July 1943, LCDR George Ian Mackintosh Balfour, RN, in command. A regular who earned his sub-lieutenant stripe in 1932, Mackintosh Balfour had seen much of the war already, having commanded the destroyers HMS Decoy (H 75) and HMS Tuscan (R 56).

As completed, beside her main and torpedo batteries, she carried a twin 40/56 Bofors Mk VIII and four twin 20/70 Oerlikon Mk IIs for AAA defense, as well as four depth charge throwers and two racks with room for as many as 130 “ash cans” for ASW. Her sensor suite included Type 271, 285, and 291 radars, as well as Type 144 sonar.

HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer 12 October 1943. Note the great layout view of her twin quad torpedo turnstiles and four 4.7/45 guns. IWM A 19638

HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer 12 October 1943. IWM A 19639

A very clean HMS Scourge (G01) S-class destroyer, undated, likely soon after delivery. Photo by Stewart Bale Ltd, Liverpool IWM FL 18828.

Getting into the war!

Her construction was drawn out nearly three years due to the late delivery of armament and fire-control equipment.

Scourge began her shakedown with the 23rd Destroyer Flotilla just in time to take part in Convoy TA 58 (Operation Quadrant), whose primary mission was to zip HMT Queen Mary, with Churchill aboard, to the Quebec Conference in August 1943.

By 20 October 1943, she took part in Operation FR, the movement of 10 wooden-hulled American Admirable-class minesweepers and SC-class submarine chasers for Lend Lease to the Soviet Navy from Iceland to the windswept Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia.

Scourge then picked up Convoy RA 054A, her first of a dozen such runs between Archangel/Murmansk and Britain and back. Often traveling in conjunction with her sisters, she braved the harsh Barents Sea weather, U-boat attacks, a near brush with Scharnhorst, and long-ranging German Condor aircraft.

Taking a break from her convoy work after her initial five runs (besides RA 054A, she was on JW 054B, JW 055B, JW 056B, and RA 056), Scourge was nominated to join the great Neptune flotillas for the Overlord (D-Day) landings in Normandy.

On hand with the Sword Bombardment Group, she fell in with the battleships HMS Ramillies and Warspite, the heavy cruiser Frobisher, the light cruisers Arethusa, Danae, Mauritius, and Dragon (Polish), and 13 destroyers, including sisters Saumarez, Scorpion, Serapis, Stord, Svenner, and Swift. Scourge lent her guns to the cacophony on 6 June 1944 and continued to defend the beachhead as the fight moved inshore.

Just days later, Scourge joined with near-sister HMS Urania and the K-class destroyer HMS Kelvin to escort first Churchill and later King George VI himself, then aboard Arethusa, to Sword. Keep in mind that the control of the Channel was still very much in question at the time, with German U-boats below and S-boats above frequently encountered along with mines, midget submarines, and the occasional Luftwaffe aircraft.

The Navy lands supplies in Normandy, 13 June 1944, on board HMS Kelvin during Mr. Churchill’s crossing to France. At 30 knots in the Channel, HMS Scourge is seen from the destroyer HMS Kelvin. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24090.

The Navy lands supplies in Normandy, 13 June 1944, on board HMS Kelvin during Mr. Churchill’s crossing to France. At 30 knots in the Channel, HMS Scourge is seen from the destroyer HMS Kelvin. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24089.

The King goes to France. 16 June 1944, on board the cruiser HMS Arethusa and at the beachhead in Normandy. The S-class destroyer HMS Scourge, seen from the Arethusa during the crossing. Photo by LT CH Parnall, RN, IWM A 24198.

On 25 June, she escorted vital Convoy FTM 017 from the Thames estuary to the Normandy landing beaches, backfilling equipment and supplies for the push inland.

In addition to seven further Russian runs (JW 061A, RA 061A, JW 063, RA 063, RA 064, JW 065, and RA 065) between November 1944 and March 1945, Scourge clocked in as a carrier escort on Operation Mascot (the July 1944 attempt to cripple the German battleship Tirpitz in the Kaa Fiord), Operation Turbine (August 1944 anti-shipping sweep of the Norwegian coast), Operation Offspring (mining the Norwegian coast), Operation Victual (a distant covering operation for Russian-bound convoy JW59, spoiling to fight Tirpitz), Operations Handfast and Provident (two further Norwegian mining sorties in November 1944), Operation Selenium (more Norwegian mining in February 1945), Operation Newmarket (to raid German U-boat tenders in Kilbotn, Norway in April 1945) and Operation Invective, the latter a destroyer-only anti-shipping run that saw the tin cans shell German searchlight positions on the Norwegian coast.

In early May, she went on one further combat operation in Norwegian waters, as part of the Operation Judgement escort for three jeep carriers bound for another bite at the U-boats of Kilbotn.

It was the Royal Navy’s last offensive operation against the Germans.

Operation Judgement, May 4, 1945, was an attack on the U-boat base at Kilbotn, near Harstad, Norway. This proved to be the last offensive operation by the Home Fleet, as the war in Europe ended just a few days later. The main targets of the attack are, in fact, hidden behind water columns and smoke in the center of the photo. They were the depot ship Black Watch and the Type VIIC submarine U-711 — they were both sunk. The ship visible in the center of the pic is, in all probability, the motor vessel Senja, also sunk in this attack but raised and repaired after the war. U-711 was the last U-boat sunk by the Fleet Air Arm in WW2. The attack was carried out by Avenger torpedo-bombers and Wildcat fighters from Squadrons 846 (HMS Trumpeter, Capt. K. S. Colquhoun), 853 (HMS Queen, Capt. K. J. D’Arcy), and 882 (HMS Searcher, Capt. J. W. Grant).

Wrapping up her RN service in WWII, Scourge sailed as part of VADM McGrigor’s Force 6 into the Skagerrak and Kattegat from 7 to 12 May 1945, marking VE-Day at sea.

For her WWII service, Scourge was granted the battle honors Arctic 1943-45 and Normandy 1944.

Post VJ Day, she was laid up and quietly placed out of service.

At least for a few months.

Dutch Days

Ex-Scourge was sold to the Royal Netherlands Navy on 1 February 1946 after a short spell in ordinary.

At the time, she had her original four 4.7/45s, depth charge armament, Type 144 sonar, and eight torpedo tubes, but had been fitted with two 40mm Bofors Mk IV Hazemeyer mounts, four twin 20mm Oerlikons, and carried upgraded Type 276, 285, and 291 radars.

She joined sisters ex-Scorpion and ex-Serapis, which had been transferred in October 1945 and renamed Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (D 804) and Hr.Ms. Piet Hein (D 805), respectively, in Dutch service. Following the trend of her now-Dutch sisters being named after famous admirals, Scourge became at least the sixth RNN warship named for the storied Evertsen family of naval heroes with pennant D 802. Taking the naming convention forward, all three names had been carried previously by Dutch destroyers (torpedobootjager) lost against the Japanese in 1942.

Evertsen (D 802), ex-HMS Scourge, between 1946 and 1957. NIMH 2158_002503

Almost as soon as their crews got acquainted with their new ships, they were off to the Dutch East Indies, which was fighting mad in the process of becoming Indonesia.

Hr.Ms. Evertsen (ex. HMS Scourge), D 802, and Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (ex. HMS Scorpion), D 804, at Soerabaja, Dutch East Indies, April 1950, clad in flags and tropical canvas. NIMH 2158_028763

The sisters in Jane’s circa 1954, referred to as the Evertsen class in Dutch service.

Aerial photograph of the Hr.Ms Evertsen or the Hr.Ms Kortenaer in the Strait of Madura, 1949. Note her extensive use of canvas awnings. Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD392 30D

Aerial photograph of laying a smoke screen near Gili Pandan Island in the Madura Strait by Hr.Ms Evertsen, Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD390 013

Aerial photograph of gunnery exercises by the Hr.Ms Evertsen or the Hr.Ms Kortenaer in the Strait of Madura, Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Indië KITLV MLD392 017

Korea

Still in the waters off Java when the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in June 1950, Evertsen was dispatched to the Yellow Sea to join the UN forces off the embattled South Korean coast, arriving on 19 July.

She ultimately joined Task Force 96 in the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and saw service during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter and then covered the amphibious squadron at Inchon’s outer port.

Hr. Ms. Evertsen in action at Wonsan, letting her 4.7s ring, 26 April 1951. Nationaal Archief 904-5397

The Dutch naval service off Korea led to the country further sending a battalion of 646 men (the NDVN), which served as part of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, ultimately being rotated out several times.

Speaking of being rotated out, Evertsen was relieved in place by the Dutch destroyer Van Galen at the end of April 1951 and was soon pointed back to Holland, having served 10 months of the “Forgotten War.”

Evertsen on her way home from Korea to the Netherlands, 8 May 1951. In “Sunday uniform” (“Zondags tenue”), most of the officers and men pose on the forecastle. Nationaal Archief 35017_002

Return of destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen from Korea, 1951. 2158_028806

As for the Dutch effort in Korea, Van Galen was rotated out in early 1952, replaced by Evertsen’s sister Piet Hein, who in turn was tapped out by the frigate Johan Maurits van Naasau in early 1953. A fifth destroyer, Hr. Ms. Dubois, arrived in November 1953 to enforce the peace, followed by Hr. Ms. Van Zijll in September 1954.

As noted by the Dutch Defense Ministry:

On average, each Dutch ship carried out 10 patrols, mainly along the west coast of Korea. The ships were also given the task of escorting a U.S. or British aircraft carrier on a regular basis. The Dutch ships were also given the task of protecting the lines of communication and bombarding enemy troop concentrations, reinforcements and infrastructure.

The Netherlands sent 5,322 soldiers to Korea, with 2,980 men seeing combat, of which 120 of them were killed and 645 wounded. They fought in battles at Hoengsong, Wonju, Soyang River, and the Iron Triangle, among others. After the armistice, the ground forces withdrew from Korea in December 1954 and the Navy in January 1955.

Some 1,360 Dutch naval personnel served in the Korean War, with the first four warships active in the fighting– Evertsen included– earning the South Korean Distinguished Unit Citation. Only one Dutch sailor, a signalman on Johan Maurits van Nassau, was killed during the conflict.

A peaceful respite

With that, Evertsen would remain in European waters for a few years at least. It was while on this domestic service that she came to the rescue of the distressed Danish schooner Svaerdfisken during a storm in the North Sea in 1954. After towing the Dane to Stavanger, the Danish ambassador to the Netherlands later presented the ship and crew with a commemorative cup in Rotterdam as an official thanks.

A great profile shot of Evertsen working in the North Sea, showing her twin torpedo turnstiles, circa 1953. NIMH 2009-001-018_008

Kortenaer (D 804) with Evertsen (D 802) behind her, dressed for ceremonies. Circa 1953-1955. NIMH 2158_007043

Presto-changeo, you are now a frigate

All of the S-class destroyers in Dutch service were converted at Rijkswerf Willemsoord between 1957 and 1958 to fast frigates (FF) with new sensors, the “X” 4/7″/45 mount removed, a shorter mainmast installed, and a helicopter platform fitted aft for Bell 47s. This saw the class switch from “D” pennants to “F” with Evertsen carrying F 803 afterward.

Meanwhile, the British did a similar Type 15/16 ASW frigate conversion to three dozen remaining T, U, V, W, and Z-class near-sisters during the same period, removing most of the gun armament and fitting new sensors and either a Squid or Limbo A/S mortar.

Jane’s on the class, 1960.

Frigate HNLMS Evertsen (F 803) in the harbor of Ponta Delgada, Azores, 15 December 1957. NIMH 2158_028782

Targeting exercises with a late model 40mm gun aboard the frigate Hr.Ms. Evertsen, 1957. Aiming is at a Grumman TBM-3W2 Avenger, a type that flew with the Dutch fleet between 1953 and 1961. NIMH 2009-003-111_008

Evertsen as a frigate, 1961 2158_107708

Post-conversion, the Evertsens were dispatched once again to the Pacific, this time to keep watch over the last Dutch colony in the Far East, 10 December 1957.

Departure of Hr Ms Evertsen to New Guinea, Nationaal Archief 909-1735

Splash one Jaguar

Queen Juliana, who took over the throne from her ailing mother, the indefatigable Queen Wilhelmina, in 1948, saw a reign that included the decolonization and independence of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Suriname, although not without a stout fight for the former.

This became particularly sticky when it came to the remnant colony of Dutch New Guinea, which escalated from a tense Confrontation (Konfrontasi) dispute in 1959 into direct low-level military conflict between the Netherlands and Soviet-backed Indonesia in 1962.

With the stage thus set, the Evertsen class was on hand in New Guinea for this endgame.

Evertsen underway as seen from a maritime patrol aircraft off the Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea in the South Pacific, note her frigate conversion. NIMH 2158_028792

Evertsen in the Konijnenburg shipyard slipway Manokwari, Netherlands New Guinea. Note her helicopter platform. NIMH 2158_028817

This conflict came to a head in what is known as the Battle of Vlakke Hoek or the Battle of Arafura Sea in the early morning of 15 January 1962. In the engagement, a trio of brand new West German-built Type 140 Jaguar-class torpedo boats– essentially Lürssen-built updated S-boats– operated by the Indonesian navy, attempted to land 150 infiltrators into Kaimana in Dutch New Guinea as part of Operation Trikora.

The boats, Matjan Tutul, Matjan Kumbang, and Harimau, were blisteringly fast, capable of hitting 42 knots in bursts, and well-armed, bristling with torpedo tubes and 40mm guns.

A 139-foot Lurssen-built Jaguar class, constructed to the Schnellboot 55 design.

However, the little Indonesian flotilla was spotted by an alert Dutch Navy P-2 Neptune patrol plane, and Evertsen, nearby, was diverted to the scene to intercept. Sister Kortenaer and a third Dutch destroyer, the newly commissioned Hr.Ms. Utrecht trailed behind.

By the time the smoke cleared, Evertsen sank the flagship MTB, RI Matjan Tutul (650). The two other Jaguars were damaged but made their escape more or less intact. Among the 23 missing considered dead was the flotilla commander, Commodore Yosaphat “Yos” Sudarso.

The Battle of Vlakke Hoek (Dutch New Guinea). Empty shells after the action aboard a fast frigate of the Evertsen class. NIMH 2158_035634

A short color film in the NIMH archives contains footage from Evertsen’s radar during the night battle near Vlakke Hoek with the Indonesian motor torpedo boat Matjan Tutul, including the captured survivors on the quarterdeck of the frigate the next morning.

The three Evertsens remained in Dutch service through the UN-brokered agreement to the transfer of Dutch New Guinea from Dutch to Indonesian control in October 1962.

An Evertsen-class destroyer (with tropical canvas) photographed from the air at Mios Woendi, Papua, between May and July 1962. NIMH 2007-11-27

Sent back to Europe, the class, obsolete for NATO use, was retired and scrapped in 1963.

Epilogue

The Dutch ships were the final S-class destroyers, the type having left British service in 1960. The last of their (near) sisters, the V-class destroyer HMS Grenville (R97/F197), remained in RN service until 1974 as a trials ship and was only broken up in 1983.

The British have not reused the awe-inspiring sea dog-appropriate name HMS Scourge, but the Dutch have recycled Evertsen for a Van Speijk-class frigate (F815), active from 1967 to 1989, and a De Zeven Provincien-class frigate (F805), commissioned in 2005.

HNLMS Evertsen conducts a high-speed turn in the Gulf of Aden while on JTF duties

As for Indonesia, a replica of Matjan Tutul has been created.

Matjan Tutul (replica), at the Satriamandala Museum in Indonesia. Wikimedia Commons image

The Troika commodore who was killed in the operation, Yos Sudarso, was promoted to vice admiral posthumously and has had two frigates named after him since then. Ironically, the current one to bear the name is a former Dutch Van Speijk-class frigate that has remained in Indonesian service since 1985. 

KRI Yos Sudarso (353) Indonesian Navy, Ex HNLMS F 803 van Galen

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Sea Legs

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The mighty 21,000-ton dreadnought, USS Florida (Battleship No. 30), gives Naval Academy Midshipmen a taste of salt water on their annual cruise during the early 1920s. She is followed by USS Delaware (BB-28) and USS North Dakota (BB-29).

NARA photo 19-N-12607. National Archives Identifier 496081005

According to DANFS, Florida was familiar to the Mids, having often carried them as part of the Practice Squadron to sea during her career. This included a tour of European ports of call, including Copenhagen, Denmark; Greenock, Scotland; Lisbon, Portugal; and Gibraltar in 1923; as well as regular summer cruises in both 1912 and 1913 then 1927 through 1930, ranging from Nova Scotia to the Panama Canal. She also conducted coastal cruises for Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) students from Harvard, Yale, and Georgia Tech.

Her summer trip to Europe, her decks teeming with Mids, would be her last.

USS Florida (BB-30) at Kiel, Germany, 7 July 1930, during a Midshipman’s training cruise. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-1025114

Decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 16 February 1931, Florida was authorized on 1 April to be placed on the list of Navy vessels to be disposed of by salvage in accordance with the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Consequently, Florida was stricken from the Navy Register on 6 April 1931, and her final scrapping, including all shipments of materials sold or reserved, was completed on 30 September 1932.

Whimbrel, is that you?

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Some 75 years ago this week.

Official period caption: “Egyptian sub-chaser anchored in Grand Harbor, Valetta, Malta. 24 January 1951.”

Photographed by U.S. Navy PH2 W.S. McGill, 80-G-426951

I’m fairly sure that the warship above, with very British lines, is the Egyptian Navy frigate El Malek al Farouq (Farouk). A former Yarrow-built Black Swan-class sloop, HMS Whimbrel (U 29), she entered service in January 1943, making her just eight years old in the above photo.

She replaced a Hawthorne-built sloop of the same name, which was sunk in a scrap with the Israelis in 1948. As such, she was the best ship in the Egyptian fleet until a pair of ex-British Z-class destroyers (HMS Myngs and Zenith) were transferred in 1955.

Transferred in November 1949 to the nascent Egyptian force, she was named after Farouk I, the King of Egypt and the Sudan from 1936 through 1952, including the period during which she was captured above.

After King Farouk was overthrown in a military coup, the sloop/frigate was renamed a third time to Tariq (Tarik) in 1954.

Tariq, ex-Farouk, ex-Whimbrel, in the 1960 Janes.

Where the ship really stands out is, as Whimbrel, rode on more than two dozen Atlantic convoys and picked up battle honors for Sicily, 1943; Atlantic, 1943–44; Normandy, 1944; English Channel, 1944; Arctic, 1944; and Okinawa, 1945, and has been reported as the only member remaining of the 16 Royal Navy warships to have been present at the Surrender of Japan on VJ Day in Tokyo Bay.

Wait, what?

Yeah, the Egyptians apparently kept Tariq in somewhat limited service as a pier-side trainer until at least 2016 and held on to her for a while after that.

Assorted museums in the UK have shown an interest in housing ex-Whimbrel and as a museum ship, but I am not sure that is still a thing.

She has likely been scrapped since then.

I would love to be wrong about that.

Keeping those moto murals a thing underway

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Never underestimate the ability of a moto mural. Nice to see they are still popping up around the fleet.

Bulkheads: a Sailor’s canvas!

Showcasing the mural art of Quartermaster 2nd Class Carson Betancourt, from Jenks, Oklahoma, assigned to the 25,000-ton Pascagoula-built San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, USS San Diego (LPD 22). Included is one telling the epic tale of Chief Boatswain’s Mate George “Sandy” Sanderson, complete with his 11 gold hashmarks.

BZ QM2 Betancourt!

(U.S. Navy Photos by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sade’ Anita Wallace).

Greyhound Sardines

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A cluster of Great War-era Wickes (Lumberton) class four-piper flush deck destroyers seen out of commission, in mothballs at San Diego, 4 April 1939. The converted fast minelayers USS Montgomery (DM-17) and USS Gamble (DM-15) are present in the foreground, although they still wear their original greyhound hull numbers (DD-121 and DD-123, respectively), but are ornamented with the Mine Force “meatball” insignia on the bow.

Those masts are close enough that Tarzan could swing from one to the other and never touch the deck!

Reactivated to join Mine Division Two in time for Pearl Harbor, Montgomery would be irreparably damaged by a mine in Ngulu Lagoon, Caroline Islands, 17 October 1944, with the death of four of her crew, knocking her out of the war. She was stricken and sold for scrap in 1946.

Likewise, Gamble was also knocked out by Japanese bombs in February 1945 while off Iwo Jima and never repaired.

Between just these two unsung “tin cans,” they earned 11 battle stars in the Pacific, the only way that small boys can: the hard way.

Warship Wednesday 21 January 2026: Interdiction Trendsetter

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

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

Warship Wednesday 21 January 2026: Interdiction Trendsetter

From the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library, call no AAE-1505

Above we see a great period shot of the two-gunned U.S. Revenue Cutter Wolcott in the Bay area circa 1884, with a good view of the flag established by her namesake. A fine steamer with the lines of a yacht, she made history some 140 years ago this week when she made the service’s first large drug bust.

How large? Like 3,000 pounds of opium hidden in barrels at a salmon cannery in southern Alaska kind of large. And her crew did that after a 736-mile race through a storm to secure the stash.

All in a day’s work.

Meet Wolcott

Our subject was the second cutter to carry the name of Oliver Wolcott Jr., a Yale-educated Continental Army veteran who replaced Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795 after serving as the department’s auditor and Comptroller for several years.

It was while in the office that Wolcott, with the approval of President Adams, selected a design for the Revenue Marine’s Cutter ensign and pennant that he described in a letter to his collectors in 1799 as “consisting of sixteen perpendicular stripes, alternate red and white, the Union of the Ensign to be the Arms of the U.S. in dark blue on a white field .” The stripes stood for the States that comprised the Nation at that time. The original 13 States were commemorated by an arch of 13 blue stars in a white field. The flag was also flown over U.S. Customs Houses until the 1900s and, in 1916, was modified into the USCG flag with the addition of that service’s distinctive insignia. Oddly enough, the only two surviving pre-Civil War Revenue Cutter flags both have 13 stripes. 

A Civil War era Revenue Cutter Flag, carrying the correct, as specified, 16 stripes and 13 stars. 

The first cutter named for Wolcott was a light and fast 4-gun Morris-Taney-class topsail schooner of some 73 feet that entered service in 1831. She was one of 11 U.S. Revenue cutters assigned to cooperate with the Army and Navy in the Mexican-American War, but foundered shortly after.

Our subject was built in 1873 for use on the West Coast (which was inherited after the war with Mexico) and was constructed at the Risdon Iron and Locomotive Works in San Francisco.

Risdon Iron Works, Ship-Yard, Potrero, San Francisco – During Repairs to Steamers “Sonoma,” Alameda,” “Australia” and German Ship “Willie Rickmers.” British Ship “Dowan Hill” Discharging. From the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library AAC-7340

A 155-foot steamer built of white oak and yellow fir from Oregon and Washington, with bilge keels and iron-wire standing rigging and a sheathed hull, she had a standing (vertical cylinder) surface condensing steam engine with a 34-inch stoke and matching 34-inch diameter.

NHHC NH 309

With a beam of 22 feet and a draft of just over 9, the graceful 235-ton cutter could make an average of nine knots under canvas in fair seas with a good breeze or 9.5 with her engine chugging away.

Port Townsend. USRS Oliver Wolcott, Steam Revenue Cutter, 2-mast, Anchored, ‘Stbdside profile, Bunting flying, 4 July 1888, Jefferson County Historical Society. 2004.117.68

She was built to replace the smaller Civil War-era cutter Wayanda, which had served in Alaskan waters since 1868. As such, when Wolcott was commissioned in the summer of 1873, it was the crew of the laid-up and soon-to-be decommissioned Wayanda that cross-decked, bringing much of their equipment with them, to bring the new cutter to life.

Intended for the often lawless stomping grounds of the Bering Sea Patrol, where she would typically be the only government vessel in any direction for several days steaming, she carried a stand of small arms and cutlasses as well as two mounted guns, which the Coast Guard Historian describes as “of unknown type and caliber.”

It should be noted that during this period in the Territory’s history, the USRCS served largely the same role as the Army’s horse cavalry during the settlement of the Old West, being typically the only armed federal force in most of the region.

While I can find no source that details the two guns Wolcott carried, they may have been brought over from her first crew’s last cutter. Wayanda, famous for what may be a 1863 photo of Lincoln aboard with Seward, was armed with several bronze 12-pounder 4.6-inch smoothbore Dahlgren boat howitzers on slide carriages.

Twelve Pound Dahlgren Boat Howitzer (1856) by Ulric Dahlgren

Ranges for the 12 pdr heavy (at just 5 degrees elevation) were 1,150 yards with shrapnel and 1,085 yards with solid shell, the latter of which was practical for shots across the bow.

As those handy 772-pound muzzleloader percussion-fired guns had a history of being swapped among Navy warships and Revenue cutters as late as the 1890s, it is more than likely that Wolcott shipped out with a couple of those– which may, in turn, have had a connection to the famed President in the stovepipe hat.

Her crew was generally eight officers and 31 enlisted, with an August 1877 list of USRM officers listing the cutter with seven filled billets for a captain, first, second, and third lieutenants; a first and second assistant engineer, as well as an acting second assistant engineer– only missing a chief engineer for the eighth chair in her wardroom.

Walking the beat

Homeported to Port Townsend, Washington Territory, at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula at the gate of Puget Sound and just shy of Vancouver, Wolcott settled into a routine of keeping tabs on the passage of goods and timber from that region in the winter, while sorting north to Alaska in the summer months.

The strategic location was the maritime key to the region, and Wolcott, with her two guns, predated the Army’s Fort Worden coast defense complex, which wouldn’t be built to protect Puget Sound from invasion by sea until the 1890s, as well as the Navy’s Indian Island Magazine.

“Business section, looking down Taylor Street with Central Hotel in the center. Ships: Queen of the Pacific and the Ancon at the Union Dock; U.S. Revenue Cutter Oliver Wolcott and sailing ship Mercury in harbor. Photo taken before 1889. Handwritten across the bottom of the photograph: “Port Townsend, W.T. Mount Rainier.  A. Queen of The Pacific. B. The Ancon. C. U.S. Rev. Cutter, Oliver Wolcott. D. ship Mercury.” Port Angeles Public LibraryPTTNBLDX005

“Streetcar on Water Street, Port Townsend, WA;  five ships in harbor, with United States Revenue Service Cutter (USRSC) Oliver Wolcott the furthest ship on the right.” 1891. Note the Key City Boiler Works. Port Angeles Public Library PTTNBLDX021

In August 1881, the cutter was placed at the disposal of a detachment of officers from the 21st Infantry Regiment under one Capt. S.P. Jocelyn to make a reconnaissance for the military telegraph line to be built between Port Townsend and Cape Flattery.

Little is in the CG Historian’s files on Wolcott but a few interesting tidbits are known, such as the fact that her whole crew deserted in 1882 “for unknown reasons although it was probably due to low wages as her commanding officer at the time, Revenue Captain L. N. Stodder, was then ordered ‘to ship crew at port’ with wages not to exceed $40.00 per month.”

Wolcott was, in August 1883, briefly placed at the disposal of General William Tecumseh Sherman, who, accompanied by Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, his former aide-de-camp, was on a 10,000-mile inspection tour of the West. This included a trip around the Sound and across to Victoria.

The same year, at the request of the British Columbia authorities, as no British man-of-war was available in the Pacific, Wolcott was rushed north of the border to Port Simpson with two magistrates aboard, to prevent an “Indian outbreak” near Metlakahtla, which later turned out to be a false alarm.

Opium buster

In the 1880s, the unlicensed smuggling of opium imported from Canada to the Pacific Northwest was a serious matter– and Wolcott wound up in the thick of it.

As detailed by Captain Daniel A. Laliberte, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired) in a 2016 Proceedings piece, by 1887, 13 factories in Victoria were producing more than 90,000 pounds of the drug per year for legal use, but it was being trafficked across the line into Washington without paying the 1883 Tariff Act fees. The Port Townsend collector of customs, Herbert Beecher, worked hand-in-hand with the Wolcott to seize such illegal shipments.

On 26 December 1885, Beecher and 13 officers and men from Wolcott were waiting for the steamer Idaho to make port, acting on a tip from a confidential informant that the ship was packed to the gills with undeclared opium. After much searching, just 30 pounds were found. A bit of a whomp whomp moment that, once addressed, allowed Idaho to soon weigh anchor and continue about her business, headed to Alaska.

Shortly after, an aggrieved and unpaid crewman who had missed the Idaho’s movements came to Beecher and ratted out the whole operation, upset that he was being cut out of his share of the deal. He advised Idaho had stashed 14 barrels of opium in tins at the Kaasan Bay Salmon Fishery, in Alaska, on the freighter’s last trip north, and he could show them exactly where.

Beecher cabled Washington for permission to dispatch Wolcott in pursuit of the drug stash, with all speed, as Idaho may be headed that way.

With permission received and Wolcott steaming north on 10 January 1886 with a bone in her teeth, the little cutter had to fight out gale-force winds that required her to heave to in Metlakatlah Bay for eight hours.

Finally, on the morning of 14 January, Wolcott arrived at Kaasan Bay and anchored, sending Beecher, accompanied by Lieutenant Rhodes and eight men from the cutter, ashore to the cannery. Soon enough, the 14 barrels were located, and 3,012 pounds of tinned Canadian opium were recovered on U.S. territory, without the taxes paid.

Yes, it sounds piddly, but keep in mind the seamanship involved in racing over 700 miles north through the waters of British Columbia and Alaska that were still relatively ill-charted, in the face of a storm in winter, for a ton and a half drug bust.

Wolcott arrived back in Port Townsend on the 18th, with the drugs aboard, a scene no doubt familiar to Coast Guard cutter crews today.

Article clipped from the Daily Alta, California,19 January 1886:

As detailed by Laliberte:

The total of 3,600 pounds of opium confiscated during the case brought in $45,000 when auctioned on 20 April [1886] by the U.S. Marshal’s Service. This was the first seizure of opium by a U.S. revenue cutter and at the time the largest seizure of the drug in U.S. history, both in terms of amount of opium captured and in value of cargo forfeited. As a result of his further investigation, Beecher was able to present sufficient evidence that the U.S. District Court ordered the Idaho forfeited in December.

Wolcott would later go on to seize the steamer SS George E Starr in 1890, after “Two Chinese subjects, together with a quantity of opium, were discovered secreted on board.”

She also made at least one other record-setting bust, as detailed by the National Coast Guard Museum:

Wolcott would make the service’s first at-sea interdiction that included seizure of both opium and the vessel smuggling it, and the arrest of its crew. Prompted by intelligence from customs agents in Victoria, on Jan. 10, 1889, the Wolcott steamed from Port Townsend to nearby Port Discovery Bay. Once there, the cutter hid behind Clallam Spit, just inside the entrance to the bay. That evening, when the British sloop Emerald entered, one of Wolcott’s boats shot out to intercept it. The Emerald’s master and crew immediately began tossing packages overboard, but the Wolcott’s boarding party quickly scrambled aboard and took control. They found nearly 400 pounds of opium on deck.  A subsequent search of the vessel also revealed 12 undocumented Chinese migrants hidden aboard.

Wolcott was also a savior when needed. In 1895, she rescued the survivors of the schooner Elwood, marooned at Killisnoo in Southeast Alaska, and transported Captain E. E. Wyman and his remaining crew to Sitka.

Then, as time does, it marched on and things changed.

Washington became a state in 1889.

Wolcott changed with the times as well, picking up an all-white scheme, with a buff stack and black masts and cap, late in her career.

Port Townsend. USRS Oliver Wolcott, Steam Revenue Cutter, 2-mast, Anchored, ‘Stbdside profile, In PT harbor, boat alongside. Postcard by Fulton, Jefferson County Historical Society. 1995.334.15

With the service moving on to newer, larger, and more capable steel-hulled gunboats, Wolcott was disposed of, sold on 19 February 1897 to Joshua Green of Seattle, Washington, for $3,050. Her spot was replaced by the cutter Corwin, and her crew dispersed among the service.

Epilogue

Wolcott would go on to serve briefly in commercial service during the Klondike rush, even being hired by an Army mapping expedition in 1898. 

She cracked open her hull in January 1900 on a submerged reef now named after her on the windswept West coast of Kodiak Island, and was abandoned.

In 1909, the importation and use of opium for other than medicinal purposes was outlawed, thus ending the war on drugs (right?)

A third Wolcott, a Defoe-built 100-foot steel-hulled patrol cutter, entered service in 1926 to fight rum-runners. She gained a bit of notoriety out of Pascagoula during the sinking of the defiant bootlegger schooner I’m Alone in 1929. The cutter, which was sold at auction in 1936, is still around as a houseboat in California. 

As for drug busts, hot pursuit, and the vertical striped Cutter flag, those very much remain in vogue.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Building 9, at rest

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Deactivating warships tied up at Pier 91, Seattle, Washington, in a photo dated April 1946. On the near side of the pier are the carriers Essex (CV-9), Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), and Bunker Hill (CV-17), closer to the camera. On the far side of the pier is the carrier Ticonderoga (CV-14) and the battleships Indiana (BB-58) and Alabama (BB-60). NARA 80-G-373247.

Some 80 years ago, in January 1946, USS Essex (CV-9) rested at Puget Sound Navy Shipyard’s Pier 91 in Bremerton, having arrived there in mid-September 1945 just after her last of four wartime air groups, CVG-83, flew off.

Defueled and with her ammunition offloaded, her engines were cold, she was taking shore power, while at the same time her crew was thinning out due to transfers and discharges with few replacements. The word had passed that the carrier, rushed to completion and urgently needed when she was commissioned in December 1942, was destined for mothballs after just three years of service.

She was hard-used, having steamed 233,419.75 nautical miles since commissioning, fired 333,377 rounds of ammunition (all 20mm and higher), and logged 22,260 combat sorties during the war.

When commissioned, five of the eight pre-WWII U.S. carriers had been lost in combat, and the other three were either too small to fight in the Pacific (Ranger) or suffering from damage (Saratoga and Enterprise), making Essex worth her weight in gold.

Her first air group, CVG-9, came aboard in August 1943 and would remain until replaced by CVG-15 in May 1944. CVG-4 tapped in on 22 November 1944 and was removed a few days later after Essex suffered a kamikaze hit that left her extensively damaged. Her last group, CVG-83 (augmented by two Marine Corsair units, VMF-124 and VMF-213), shipped out with her at the end of 1944 after she was repaired and resumed operations.

Check out how these groups changed, as noted in her 106-page WWII History.

Essex, the first of her legendary class of modern fast fleet carriers, earned the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars for World War II service. When it comes to WWII carriers, only the Enterprise had more stars (20).

Some statistics from her WWII service:

Slowly made ready to deactivate throughout 1946, Essex decommissioned on 9 January 1947.

By that time, the Navy hardly missed her as they would do the same thing with 13 of her newer sisters by February 1948 (USS Yorktown, Intrepid, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Hancock, Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Shangri-La, and Lake Champlain) and canceled two others, the planned Reprisal and Iwo Jima. Even with this, the Navy still had nine pristine long-hulled improved Essex-class flattops– five of them commissioned after WWII– and three brand-new 60,000-ton Midway-class super carriers on active service.

The only time in history that a fleet had over a dozen modern fleet carriers laid up.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, probably on 23 April 1948. Bremerton Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. The six “mothballed” carriers are, front to back: Essex (CV-9), Ticonderoga (CV-14), Yorktown (CV-10), Lexington (CV‑16), Bunker Hill (CV-17), and Bon Homme Richard (CV-31, in the background). At left and in the distance are battleships and cruisers. Note the “igloo” domes over the 40mm and 5-inch singles. NARA 80-G-428458

Essex would, however, rejoin the fleet, completing a SCB-27A conversion to operate jets, and was recommissioned in January 1951– just in time to see extensive combat in Korea. Essex was the first carrier to launch F2H Banshee twin-jet fighters on combat missions on 23 August 1951.

She saw a more exaggerated SCB-125 angled deck/hurricane bow conversion in 1955-56 and spent her last 13 years in Cold War service in the Atlantic, including some shenanigans during the Bay of Pigs invasion, tense times in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and being the primary recovery ship for Apollo 7.

The last three remaining American pre-WWII flattops, the famed USS Saratoga (CV-3), Ranger (CV-4), and Enterprise (CV-6), were decommissioned shortly after VJ-Day. With the Prohibition-era “Sister Sara” sunk in A Bomb tests in ’46, Ranger scrapped in 1947, and “The Big E” stricken in 1956, Essex became the oldest American WWII-veteran carrier. She held that title for 17 years until 1973, when she was stricken and sold for scrap.

“Lady” Lexington (CVT/AVT-16), commissioned six weeks after Essex, would pick up that torch and carry it to November 1991.

Heavy Hitter at rest

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Some 75 years ago this month.

You could almost mistake her for a slimmed-down Iowa-class battleship at first. That was easy to do with a ship that had a full-load displacement of some 17,000 tons, ran nearly 700 feet long, had a very similar 3+3+3 main gun layout, two funnels, and up to eight inches of armor.

“Aerial of the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Columbus (CA 74) moored to Berth 8, Grand Harbor, Valeta, Malta, altitude 100 feet, S.E. direction.”

Photograph released January 1951. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-426894

The above was during Columbus’s 12 June 1950 to 5 October 1951 stint as flagship for Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean (CINCNELM), ADM Robert B. Carney (USNA 1916).

Too late to see combat in WWII, Columbus was still a “war baby,” commissioned 8 June 1945.

Joining the Pacific Fleet five months after VJ Day, she reached the old German China colony of Tsingtao on 13 January 1946 for occupation duty, serving off and on as the cruiser flagship in Chinese waters through June 1947.

Transferring to the Atlantic Fleet in 1948, she often served as a flagship for the 6th Fleet, as seen above. I mean, why wouldn’t she? She was a beautiful ship worthy of an admiral’s flag.

USS Columbus (CA 74) 3 November 1952 Mediterranean Sea USN 482321

After another spin in the Pacific from 1955-1959, she began a three-year reconstruction conversion from an all-gun cruiser to a huge guided missile cruiser, recommissioning as CG-12 in December 1962 to serve for another 14 years as a Cold War sentinel in the Atlantic and Med.

She decommissioned on 31 January 1975, capping just a few months under 30 years of faithful service, but never fired a shot in anger other than her work during the Road’s End scuttling of 24 captured ex-IJN submarines on April Fool’s Day 1946 off Goto-Retto.

Sometimes all you have to do is look mean to get the word across.

Big Navy Anniversaries This Year

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Besides the U.S. Navy’s recent 250th anniversary last October, two allied fleets are celebrating big milestones this year.

The French Navy is marking its 400th anniversary, dating officially back to an order by the Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII, establishing the first true French Royal Navy (la Marine Royale, later the Armée de Mer and today’s Marine Nationale) through the Edict of October 1626.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, the Royal Australian Navy is marking its 125th anniversary in March, commemorating a July 1911 grant from King George V to rename Australia’s nascent Commonwealth Naval Forces.

Up to 20 visiting ships from all over the world are expected to pass through Sydney Heads and into the harbor on the morning of Saturday, 21 March 2026, for an International Fleet Review to ring in the 125th.

They will be led into Sydney by the RAN flagship, HMAS Canberra.

Plus, RIMPAC is 30 this year.

Where has the time gone?

The official logo of the Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026. RIMPAC is a biennial exercise designed to foster and sustain cooperative relationships, critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. The exercise, which takes place in the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands, is a unique training platform designed to enhance interoperability and strategic maritime partnerships. (U.S. Navy graphic by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class L

Flight to Baghdad

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Some 35 years ago today. 17 January 1991. The morning that Desert Shield switched to Desert Storm.

USS Paul Foster (DD-964), USS Missouri (BB-63), and USS Bunker Hill (CG-52) on the horizon at 3 in the morning fire off the first missiles in the opening round of the Iraqi war. Described by one of the junior officers, “It looked like a Roman candle going off on the horizon as the missiles arced over on their way to Iraq.”

Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by John Charles Roach; 1991; Framed Dimensions 34H X 39W. NHHC Accession #: 92-007-J

As for the TLAM slingers, the WWII VJ Day host Missouri decommissioned for the final time in March 1992, just 14 months after her third war, and is a museum on Battleship Row in Pearl within sight of the old Arizona.

Bunker Hill decommissioned in September 2023, capping 37 years of naval service.

Foster?

Foster decommissioned on 14 March 2003 and was turned over before the end of the month to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, as the U.S. Navy’s new Self Defense Test Ship (SDTS). Ex-Foster still carries her hull number and recently just underwent a shoestring refurb to keep her in service another five years. She is the only ship of her class, the cursed Sprucans, still in existence.

Perhaps, when the Navy is finished with her, she will become a museum.

As seen against the backdrop of the Los Padres National Forest, the Self Defense Test Ship, formerly USS Paul F. Foster (DD-964), supports self-defense engineering, testing, and evaluation for the U.S. Navy. She is homeported at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, located at Naval Base Ventura County in Southern California. (U.S. Navy photo by Eric Parsons/Released)

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