Category Archives: military history

Wetterstation Kurt

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80 years ago today, the only (known) World War II military installation conducted by Germany in North America was erected.

On 22 October 1943, the Type IXC/40 submarine U-537 (Kptlt. Peter Schrewe) of the 10. Flottille out of Lorient in occupied France arrived at remote Martin Bay (Naukjuke Bay) at the northern tip of Labrador with a special cargo– Wetter-Funkgerät Land (Weather Radio for Land) No. 26.

Type IXC/40 submarine U-537 at anchor in Martin Bay, Labrador, Dominion of Newfoundland (now Canada) on 22 Oct 1943. Crewmen can be seen on deck offloading components of Weather Station Kurt into rubber rafts. The photo was taken ashore from the Hutton peninsula by one of U-537’s crew. (Photo Bundesarchiv via ww2dbase)

Manufactured by Siemens, WFL-26 consisted of a variety of meteorological instruments, a 150-watt Lorenz 150 FK-type transmitter with a 33-foot antenna on a tripod base, a shorter pole with instruments, and ten interconnected 220-pound canisters with nickel-cadmium and dry-cell high-voltage batteries.

Schematic of a German WFL manufactured by the Siemens-Schuckert corporation. It had been designed by Drs. Dr. Ernest Ploetze and Edwin Stoebe. The schematic was saved by Siemens employee Franz Selinger who would supply it to the Canadian government in 1980

Under the direction of embarked passenger Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer and Siemens technician Walter Hildebrant, U-537’s crew spent two windswept days in Canadian waters shuttling canisters ashore and erecting what was to be known as Wetterstation Kurt (Weather Station Kurt) on top of a small hill with a good view of the horizon some 400 yards in from the beach.

German Weather Station Kurt set up on the Hutton Peninsula, Labrador, Dominion of Newfoundland on 22 October 1943. You can make out the “Canadian Meteor Service” and WFL-26 markings (Bundesarchiv)

To camouflage the nature of the station, rather than being marked “Secret Nazzi Weather Stuff,” the canisters were carefully sanitized to only have numbers and fictional “Canadian Meteor Service” markings. At the same time, empty packs of Camel cigarettes and other North American items were salted around the site.

On the 24th U-537 continued on its way, with Sommermeyer verifying Kurt was up and running, broadcasting readings on 3940 kHz every three hours.

Civilian technician Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer aboard U-537 in the Labrador Sea listening to signals transmitted by Weather Station Kurt broadcasting from the Labrador coast, 24 Oct 1943. (Bundesarchiv)

However, for unknown reasons, Kurt, which had planned to transmit for at least six months if not a year, halted its readings after just a month and the Germans never made an effort to revisit the site to affect repairs.

The first time anyone in Canada found the site (and reported it) was when government geomorphologist Peter Johnson came across it in 1977 while researching the area as part of the two-year Torngat Archaeological Project which cataloged 450 km of coastline and just under 350 sites along the Labrador Coast, thinking it was an old Canadian Weather Service or RCN installation.

A German researcher, Franz Selinger, formerly of Siemens, seeing images of the station, alerted Ottawa as to the likelihood that the mysterious station was the lost Herr Kurt.

Still, it wasn’t until 1981 that the Canadian Coast Guard responded to it and examined the damaged and rusting site in an expedition led by Department of National Defence historian W.A.B. Douglas. Reportedly, some parts were missing, but the canisters, tripod, and mast, and some of the old dry-cell batteries were left to identify.

Canadian Coast Guard shore party made the first examination of the remnants of German Weather Station Kurt on the Hutton Peninsula, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada on 21 Jul 1981, 38 years after it was deployed. Photo via ww2dbase

Partially recovered and restored, WFL-26 is on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

Kurt, is still quiet but no longer beach litter.

As for U-537, she arrived back at Lorient uneventfully on 8 December 1943 and, was dispatched to the Far East to operate with 33. Flottille out of Penang. She was lost on 10 November 1944 east of Soerabaja, sunk by the Gato-class fleet boat USS Flounder (SS-251), taking all hands to the bottom of the Java Sea.

Portugal’s sub force getting it done

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The modern Tridente-class submarine, a unique fuel cell AIP variant of the German Type 209PN/Type 214PN, has been in operation since 2010 with the Portuguese Navy. While three were envisioned, just two were completed– NRP Tridente (S160) and NRP Arpão (S161).

Tridente-class submarine of the Portuguese navy

The country has made good use of these in recent deployments and in bird-dogging passing Russian warships. Speaking to the former, Arpão in August wrapped up a 120-day patrol as part of the Open Sea Initiative 23.2, in the South Atlantic, which contributed to strengthening military and diplomatic relations between Portugal and each of the countries visited — Cape Verde, Brazil, South Africa, Angola, and Morocco– having traveled more than 13,000 miles and spent over 2,500 hours underway.

She reportedly covered the length of the African continent submerged in 15 days.

Arpão (FrigCapt. Taveira Pinto) arrived in Lisbon in August after her deployment which made her the first Portuguese submarine to carry out an equator-crossing mission.

Interestingly, her 35-member crew is co-ed.

You have to love Arpão’s patch. Of note, Arpão means “Harpoon”

Turning around just 60 days later, Arpão has deployed again, this time to the Med as part of NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian, on a patrol that will run into December and include taking part in Dynamic Mariner 23.

She is a good-looking boat for sure.

Portuguese Sub Heritage

As noted in this week’s Warship Wednesday, in 1914 Portugal had a single submarine to its name, a small Fiat-designed La Spezia-built boat, dubbed Espadarte (Swordfish). Ordered in 1910, this 148-foot/300-ton diesel-electric boat would remain in service until 1930.

Espadarte, seen here in Lisbon, was the first sub in the Marinha Portuguesa)

NRP Espadarte, the first Portuguese submarine delivered to the Navy, on April 15, 1913

She was very active, if nothing else providing an OPFOR for the fleet. 

ASW training between destroyer NRP Guadiana and submarine NRP Espadarte Portugal 1915

To replace their well-worn little Italian boat and expand their force, Portugal ordered a pair of modified Squalo class boats from C.R.D.A in Trieste in 1931. However, Mussolini ordered them seized on the ways in 1935 and pressed into service as the Glauco class off Spain, where the Italian “pirate submarine” fleet was very active.

To replace the undelivered Italian boats, Portugal turned to Vickers in Britain for a pair of 227-foot/1,000 ton boats that could carry a dozen torpedos and have a 5,000nm endurance while carrying a very English 4-inch gun in a streamlined semi-turret forward of the sail. All three– Delfim, Espadarte, and Golfinho were delivered in May 1934 and remained active through WWII.

The Vickers built Delfim class, as described in the 1946 ed of Jane’s

Class leader Delfim. Note the “D” on her fairwater as a designator. Logically, Golfinho carried a “G” while Espadarte had an “E”. The forward streamlined QF 4-inch (102 mm) Mk XII deck gun mount was similar to that seen on the RN’s O-class and, on a smaller scale, to the four-gunned experimental HMS X-1 cruiser submarine of the same era. 

To replace the Vickers boats, Portugal managed to pick up a trio of WWII surplus British 217-foot/990-ton S-class boats in 1948: HMS Spur/NRP Narval (S160), HMS Saga/NRP Náutilo (S161), and HMS Spearhead/NRP Neptuno (S162).

These remained in service into the late 1960s.

British RN S-class submarine HMS Spearhead, as NRP Neptuno (S162) in Portugal service 1950s

Then, in 1967, Portugal ordered a four-pack of French Daphné type SSKs that entered service as the Albacora-class by the end of the decade.

While one– NRP Cachalote (S165)— was sold to Pakistan after the Carnation Revolution and the military fell out of favor, the other three (Albacora S163, Barracuda S164, and Delfim S166) would be retained into the 2000s, replaced by the current German boats.

NRP Barracuda was NATO’s oldest active submarine when she was decommissioned in 2010. Laid down by the Dubigeon Shipyards of France in 1967, she is preserved as a museum ship in Portugal.

Mosquitos!

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80 years ago today: PT boat No. 285 underway, 19 October 1943. Note the extensive camouflage paint scheme on the 78-foot Higgins Motor Torpedo Boat, her SO type radar set, four lightweight Mark 13 aircraft torpedos in roll-off mounts, two twin M2 .50 cal Brownings pointed skyward, another pair of 20mm Oerlikon singles fore and aft, and a 7×3-foot balsa float on deck filled with supplies.

U.S. Navy Photo in the National Archives 80-G-85754

Carrying the unofficial names of “Scuttlebutt John” and “Fighting Irish,” PT-285 was laid down 8 February 1943 by Higgins Industries in New Orleans, completed 16 July 1943, and assigned to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron TWENTY THREE (MTBRon 23), going on to see action at Bougainville and Green Island as well as in New Guinea, ending her career in the Philippines, stripped and torched off Samar as excess equipment in November 1946.

PT boat No. 337, an 80-foot Elco Motor Torpedo Boat, was photographed the same day in likely the same location, and she gives a great profile view of such a craft. She carries the same torpedo punch as PT-285 above, but one fewer 20mm mount and a wooden dingy instead of the balsa float.

80-G-85757

PT-337 was laid down at Elco in Bayonne, New Jersey on 17 February 1943 and completed on 14 May then was assigned to MTBRon 24 for service in New Guinea. Serving under the unofficial names of “Heaven Can Wait” and “PT Intrepid” she was lost to Japanese shore batteries on 7 March 1944 in Hansa Bay, New Guinea.

Bulkely covers the tragic tale in his At Close Quarters book on PT boat operations in WWII:

On the night of March 1/2, Lt. R. H. Miller, USNR, in PT 335 (Lt. Bernard C. Denvir, USNR), with PT 343 (Ens. Fred L. Jacobson, USNR), destroyed two enemy luggers and set fire to a storehouse, a fuel dump, and an ammunition dump at Bogia Harbor, 125 miles northwest of Saidor. On the following night, Lieutenant Commander Davis, in PT 338 (Lt. (jg.) Carl T. Gleason), with PT 337 (Ens. Henry W. Cutter, USNR), went 10 miles farther up the coast to Hansa Bay, a known enemy strongpoint.

The boats idled into the bay at 0200, the 338 leading. They picked up a radar target a mile and a quarter ahead, close to shore. Closing to 400 yards, they saw two heavily camouflaged luggers moored together. Heavy machine-gun fire opened from the beach. As the PT’s turned and started to strafe the beach, more machine-guns started firing along the shore, and a heavy-caliber battery opened from Awar Point, at the northwestern entrance of the bay.

The first shell hit so close to the port bow of the 337 that some of the crew were splashed with water and heard fragments whizzing overhead. Three or four more shells dropped near the 337; then one hit the tank compartment just below the port turret, going through the engineroom. All engines were knocked out and the tanks burst into flame. Ensign Cutter pulled the carbon dioxide release, but the blaze already was too furious to be checked.

Francis C. Watson, MoMM3c, USNR, who had been thrown from the port turret, got to his feet and saw William Daley, Jr., MoMM1c, USNR, staggering out of the flaming engineroom, badly wounded in the neck and jaw. Watson guided Daley forward, slipped to the deck and shouted to Morgan J.

–224–

Canterbury, TM2c, USNR, to help the wounded man. In the meantime Cutter gave the order to abandon ship and the men put the liferaft over the starboard, or offshore, side, and began taking to the water. Daley was dazed but obedient. He got in the water by himself, and Ensign Cutter and Ens. Robert W. Hyde, USNR, towed him to the raft.

The crew paddled and swam, trying to guide the raft away from the exploding boat and out to sea. They must have been working against the current, because after 2 hours they were only 700 yards away from the boat, and were considerably shaken by a tremendous explosion. After the explosion the flames subsided somewhat, but the hulk was still burning at dawn.

Several times the survivors saw searchlights’ sweep the bay from shore and heard the shore guns firing. They did not know the guns were firing at the 338, outside the bay. When the heavy battery had first opened on the boats, Davis ordered a high-speed retirement and the 338 laid a smokescreen. When the 337 did not come through the screen, Davis tried repeatedly to reenter the bay, but every time the 338 approached the entrance, the shore battery bracketed the PT so closely that it had to retire. Finally, knowing that the 338 would be a sitting duck not only for shore guns but enemy planes in daylight, Davis set course back to Saidor.

Daley died before dawn and was committed to the sea. That left three officers and eight men in the raft. Besides Cutter, Hyde, Watson, and Canterbury, there were Ens. Bruce S. Bales, USNR; Allen B. Gregory, QM2c, USNR; Harry E. Barnett, RM2c, USNR; Henry S. Timmons, Y2c; Edgar L. Schmidt, TM3c, USNR; Evo A. Fucili, MoMM3c, USNR; and James P. Mitchell, SC3c.

To say that the men were in the raft perhaps gives an exaggerated impression of comfort. It was an oval of balsa, 7 feet by 3, with a slatted bottom open to the waves. With 11 men, it was awash. Usually they did not even try to stay in it at the same time. Some stayed in it and paddled, others tried to guide it by swimming.

At dawn on the 7th the raft still was less than a mile off the entrance of Hansa Bay. During the morning the current carried it toward Manam Island, 6 miles offshore. Cutter wanted to go ashore on Manam, thinking it would be easier to escape detection in the woods than on the surface so close to Hansa Bay. Besides, the men could find food, water, and shelter ashore, and might be able to steal a canoe or a sailboat. All afternoon they paddled and swam, but whenever they came close to shore another current pushed them out again.

–225–

That night Cutter and Bales tried to paddle ashore on logs. If they could get ashore they would try to find a boat and come back for the others. After 3 hours the unaccountable currents swept the two exhausted officers and the raft together again. While they were away, Hyde and Gregory set out to swim to the island. They were not seen again.

During the night the men saw gunfire toward Hansa Bay, as though PT’s and shore batteries were firing at each other, but they saw no PT’s. By dawn of the 8th the raft had drifted around to the north side of Manam, no more than a mile from the beach. Mitchell already had set out to swim to the island. Cutter, Schmidt, and Canterbury were delirious that night. During the storm Canterbury suddenly swam away. Barnett, a strong swimmer, tried to save him, but could not find him. Soon after dawn, Bales, Fucili, and Schmidt also set out for shore. The others were too weak to move. Most of the men thought that Bales, Fucili, and Schmidt reached the island, but Watson, who said he saw Bales walking on the beach, is the only one who claimed to have seen any of them ashore. Soon afterward Japanese were seen on the beach.

Mitchell returned to the raft in the middle of the morning. He was only 75 yards from shore when he saw several Japanese working on the beach, apparently building boats. Plans to go to Manam were abandoned.

Soon after dark that night a small boat put out from shore, circled the raft and stood off at about 200 yards. There were two men in it who, some of the men said, were armed with machine-guns. They made no attempt to molest the men in the raft, but kept close to them until about 0400, when a sudden squall blew up, with 6- to 8-foot waves. When calm came again the boat was nowhere to be seen.

On the morning of the 9th the remaining men, Cutter, Barnett, Timmons, Watson, and Mitchell, saw an overturned Japanese collapsible boat floating a few yards away. It was only 15 feet long, but it looked luxurious in comparison with the raft. They righted it, bailed it and boarded it. Mitchell saw a crab clinging to the boat, and in catching it let the raft slip away. No one thought it was worth retrieving.

The crab was not the only food during the day. Later the men picked up a drifting cocoanut. The food helped some, but the men were tortured by thirst. They had lost their waterbreaker in the storm, and the cocoanut was dry. They were suffering, too, from exposure. Scorched by day and chilled at night, they were covered with salt water sores.

–226–

The night of the 9th and the morning of the 10th were monotonous agony. At noon, three Army B-25’s flew over, wheeled about and circled the boat. Cutter waved his arms, trying to identify himself by semaphore. One of the bombers came in low and dropped a box. It collapsed and sank on hitting the water. Then came two more boxes and a small package attached to a life preserver, all within 10 feet of the boat. The boxes contained food, water, cigarettes, and medicines. In the package was a chart showing their position and a message saying that a Catalina would come to pick them up.

The next morning a Catalina, covered by two P-47’s, circled the boat. The Catalina picked up the five men. Within 2½ hours they were back in Dreger Harbor.

A liferaft is a hard thing to spot. During the 5 days since the loss of the 337, planes by day and PT’s by night had searched for the survivors. Of those who tried to go ashore at Manam, little is known. A captured document indicates that 1 officer and 2 enlisted men were taken prisoner by the Japanese, but none of the crew of the 337 was reported as a prisoner of war.

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023: The Duel of the Deputado and the Knight

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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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023: The Duel of the Deputado and the Knight

Above we see the humble ocean patrol boat (patrulhas de alto mar) Augusto de Castilho of the Portuguese Navy around 1918. If she looks a lot like a cod trawler with a couple of pop guns bolted on as an afterthought, you are correct.

However, her crew was filled with lions, and led by a lawmaker, she foiled one of the Kaiser’s best, some 105 years ago this week.

The Marina do Portugal in the Great War

When the lights went out across Europe in August 1914, Portugal had a decent modern fleet…planned. This included a naval program with a pair of British-built 20,000-ton dreadnoughts, three new cruisers to scout for them, a dozen new 820-ton destroyers to screen for them, and a half dozen new submarines to do underwater stuff.

What they had on hand was a bit different.

The force consisted of the circa 1875 coastal defense “battleship” (cruzador-couraçado) Vasco da Gama and five smallish cruisers (none newer than 1898). Exemplified by prior Warship Wednesday alum Adamastor (1757 tons, 2×6″, 4×4.7″, 2 tt, 18 kts), these cruisers were slow and slight, meant primarily to show the flag in the fading empire’s overseas African and Asian colonies. Augmenting these aging cruisers were a handful of destroyers, torpedo boats, colonial gunboats, and a single Italian Fiat-made submarine.

“Navios da Marinha de Guerra Portugueza no alto “Mar 1903 by Alfredo Roque Gamerio, showing the revamped fleet with the “cruzadors” Vasco da Gama, Don Carlos I, São Rafael, Amelia, and Adamastor to the far right. Note the black hulls and buff stacks/masts. The fact that these ships were all ordered from British, French, and Italian yards at the same time had to have made for some awkward fleet operations, not to mention logistics and training issues.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese merchant fleet, consisting of 66 steamers (totaling 70,000 tons) and 259 sailing ships (totaling another 44,000 tons), needed protecting in the event of a modern anti-commerce U-boat war while offering few vessels ideal to convert to auxiliary cruisers and escorts.

While German and Portuguese colonial troops in Africa were soon fighting each other, and Portugal interned over 30 German and Austrian merchant ships trapped in its ports in 1914– saving them from British and French capture– the three countries did not officially exchange declarations of war until March 1916. That does not mean that little Portugal’s steamers and sailing ships were safe by any means.

The first Portuguese-flagged merchant lost to the conflict was the 248-ton 3-masted schooner Douro sunk off the Wolf Lighthouse in the Scilly Islands on 3 April 1915 (although some sources report the 1,633-ton steamer Mira was sunk on 24 November 1914). In all, no less than 89 Portuguese merchant vessels were lost during the war.

This sets the stage for our story.

Meet Augusto de Castilho

The Bensaúde-owned four-masted fishing schooner Argus, which ranged from the Azores to the Grand Banks searching for cod along with near sisters Creoula and Hortense. Working these vessels the old way was hard, using small dories that would run lines as long as 20 hours a day and return home to Sapal do Rio Coina in Portugal with cod loaded to the gunnels. The Bensaúde family harvested fish this way going back to the 1820s and by 1909 were looking to change.

Our subject was ordered by the firm of Parceria Geral de Pescarias, Lda. (PGP. trans: General Fisheries Partnership), Lisbon, a commercial fishing enterprise founded in 1891 and run largely by the Bensaúde family. Chiefly operating in the Azores, PGP in the early 1900s embarked on a move to modernize its operations by ordering steel-hulled ships for its fleet and beginning the use of artificial drying for cod harvesting.

The company’s first steel-hull steam trawler designed for cod, named the Elite, was ordered from Cochrane & Sons, Selby in Yorkshire as Yard No 453. Launched on 22 April 1909, she was delivered to PGP that same July.

Lloyds lists her as a steel-hulled steam trawler of some 487 tons with an overall length of 160 feet, a beam of 27 and a draft of just over 14. She had an Amos & Smith triple expansion steam engine that could generate 117 nhp on a single shaft, good for 12 knots. Deeply framed, she had electric lighting and a steam-powered hoist.

I cannot find an image of Elite in her PGP days. This is probably because they were brief as she was requisitioned by the Portuguese navy on 13 June 1916, three months after Lisbon, Berlin and Vienna exchanged official declarations of war.

War!

The Portuguese navy requisitioned eleven large trawlers and used eight of these as minesweepers (caça-minas) while three (República, Almirante Paço D’Arcos, and Augusto de Castilho) were equipped for both patrol and sweeping.

Elite entered service soon after as Augusto de Castilho, after Admiral Augusto Vidal de Castilho Barreto e Noronha, who capped a 49-year career in 1908 by becoming minister of the navy and overseas possessions (Ministério da Marinha e Ultramar) before passing in 1912 at age 71. He was also the brother of noted journalist and writer Julio de Castilho, and son of scholar António Feliciano de Castilho, known for developing the Castilho Method of teaching.

ADM Augusto de Castilho (1841-1912)

The fishing vessel’s transformation to a warship simply saw her land her fishing gear, add a paravane that could be used for mechanical minesweeping through the assistance of her existing blocks and hoist, and then mounted a 47mm/40 M1885 QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss over her stern. Later a French-made 65mm/50 M1891 Schneider 9-pounder was installed forward.

So converted and manned by a 41-member crew (nominally two officers, 3 NCOs, 36 enlisted), she reported a top speed of just 9 knots.

Her first skipper, LT Augusto de Almeida Teixeira, while escorting the steamer Loanda between Lisbon and Funchal on 23 March 1918, reportedly opened fire on a German U-boat which immediately dived.

Her next skipper also had a brush with an enemy submarine, with 1LT (Primeiro-tenente) Fernando de Oliveira Pinto, on 21 August 1918, opening fire on a U-boat on the surface off Cape Raso.

Augusto de Castilho’s third skipper, 1LT José Botelho de Carvalho Araújo, assumed command of our little minesweeper in late September 1918. The 37-year-old career naval officer joined the naval academy as a midshipman in 1899 and had served in most of its surface ships including the old ironclad Vasco da Gama, the cruisers Adamastor and São Rafael, the gunboats Zambeze, Liberal, Diu, and Lúrio; the tug Bérrio, and on the transport Salvador Correia.

He was also a political creature, having taken part in the Navy-led revolutions in 1908 and 1910, was elected as a deputado to the Assembleia Constituinte to form the Portuguese Republic in 1911, and again to represent the city of Penafiel in the Portuguese Congress of 1915.

Carvalho Araújo was also appointed a district governor in Mozambique for 18 months, the latter a common task for promising naval officers as at the time the colonies were under the administration of the navy. For campaigning against the Germans in Africa in 1914-15, he earned the Medalha Militar de Prata.

Araujo’s last command before joining the crew of Augusto de Castilho was the minesweeper Manuel de Azevedo Gomes, who detected and destroyed four German mines near the Lisbon bar in early September 1916.

Araujo onboard Augusto de Castilho. The only other officers assigned to the vessel in October were three midshipmen– Manuel Armando Ferraz, Samuel da Conceição Vieira, and Carlos Elói da Mota Freitas. The crew was fleshed out by six NCOs, a telegraphist, a cook, a corpsman, four teenage cabin boys, and 38 assorted enlisted ratings and sailors, many of whom were recent enlistments.

Although the war was winding down in October 1918, with the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet in near-mutiny, his Army in France on the verge of catastrophe, the Bulgars quitting the conflict, and the Austrians and Ottomans planning on doing so themselves, the U-boat arm was still very much in the game and Germany’s greatest submarine ace was on the prowl.

The new cruiser submarine, SM U-139, unofficially named Kapitänleutnant Schwieger by her skipper, the aristocratic Kptlt. Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, was on its first war patrol. Make no mistake that it was a green crew or skipper, however, as Arnauld de la Perière had made 14 patrols in the smaller SM U-35, sinking a staggering 189 merchant vessels and two gunboats for a total of 446,708 GRT before he took the helm of U-139, earning the EK1, EK2, and the coveted “Blue Max” Pour le Mérite in the process.

U-139 claimed her first kills with the sinking of the 3,309-ton British steamer Bylands, and the 2,691-ton Italian freighter Manin, then damaging the RN boarding steamer HMS Perth, on the first day of October off Cape Vilano while haunting convoy HG109. The next day, she sank the 300-ton Portuguese three-master Rio Cavado via naval gunfire some 290 miles off Cape Prior. Arnauld de la Perière was very much a fan of using his deck guns rather than spending a torpedo and took most of his targets in such a manner.

Then, on 14 October, U-139, some 100 miles SW of the Azores, came across a juicy target, the Dixon-built 3,200-ton mixed cargo/passenger paquete liner San Miguel of Portugal’s Empresa Insulana de Navegação (EIN) line.

San Miguel in her peacetime livery. In 1918 she was clad in a mottled zigzag camouflage.

With accommodations for 135 passengers, San Miguel was overloaded with 206 souls in addition to her crew and, with a top speed not exceeding 12 knots, had little chance of outrunning a U-boat.

Sailing from Funchal to Ponta Delgada, San Miguel had the benefit of an escort– our Augusto de Castilho, capable of a blistering 9 knots. Placing his craft between U-139 and the liner, Carvalho Araújo and Arnauld de la Perière fought a two-hour surface gunnery duel as San Miguel lit her boilers red and made for the horizon, escaping undamaged.

With the much larger and better-armed U-boat– carrying a pair of 5.9-inch SK L/45 deck guns– versus the converted fishing boat’s lighter guns, the contest was never in any doubt. In the end, the battered Augusto de Castilho, ammunition exhausted, her telegraph and engine out of action, her wheelhouse peppered, her skipper and five men killed, along with another 20 men injured, struck her flag on the order of the wounded Midshipman Armando Ferraz.

Ever the old-school gentleman raider, Arnauld de la Perière allowed the crew of the surrendered vessel who had jumped ship to return to their vessel and stock two whaleboats with rations, a sextant, a compass, and charts.

The crew of U-139 captured images of the aftermath of the battle.

He then sent over a scuttling crew who found Carvalho Araújo on deck, the ship’s ensign covering his broken body, and sent the Portuguese man-o-war to the bottom with demolition charges.

Both whaleboats eventually made shore, with the larger, carrying 37 survivors, arriving at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores two days later with all but one still alive while the second craft with 12 survivors washed up on the more distant island of São Miguel the next week, having traveled 200 miles via paddle.

Arnauld de la Perière and his U-139 closed their final tally sheet with the sinking of Carvalho Araujo. Returning to Germany, U-139 surrendered to France on 24 November and post-Versailles became the French submarine Halbronn.

Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière survived the war, was retained in the Weimar-era Reichsmarine, taught at the Turkish Naval Academy for several years in the early 1930s, and went on to become a vizeadmiral in the WWII Kriegsmarine before perishing in a plane crash in 1941, aged 54. His record [195 ships sunk (455,871 tons) and 8 ships damaged (34,312 tons)] is unsurpassed, but his chance to add San Miguel to that list was spoiled.

1LT Carvalho Araujo was posthumously promoted to Capitão-Tenente and awarded the Cruz de Guerra de 1.ª Classe and the Ordem Militar da Torre e Espada, do Valor, Lealdade e Mérito.

Epilogue

Notably, the only other Portuguese warship sunk in the Great War besides Augusto de Castilho was NRP Roberto Iven, which was the PGB-owned fishing trawler Lordelo, lost in July 1917 between Cabo da Roca and Cabo Espichel to a mine laid by the German submarine UC-54.

As for PGB and the Bensaúde Group, the original owner of our tough little fishing vessel, they remained in the cod business until 1999 then transferred their archives to the Ílhavo Maritime Museum after they closed up shop. The yard that constructed Augusto de Castilho, Cochrane & Sons, faded into history in 1993 and was Selby’s last shipbuilder. The yard’s plans and files are preserved in the North Yorkshire County Record Office.

Augusto Castilho‘s fight with U-139 is remembered across Portugal in a series of maritime artworks.

Mural in the Museu de Marinha

SM U-cruiser U 139 in a battle with a Portuguese gunboat in October 1918. After a 2 hour battle, NRP Augusto Castilho

Combate do Augusto de Castilho com o U-139. Quadro de F. Namura. Museu de Marinha Portugal RM2572-506

Combate do Augusto Castilho by Elisa Felismino in the Museu de Marinha, showing the death of her skipper

Mural in the Museu de Marinha

In 1970, a corvette, NRP Augusto Castilho (F484) entered service to continue the name. She remained on active duty until 2003 and was disposed of in 2010.

BCM-Arquivo Histórico, corvette Augusto Castilho in Lisbon, April 25, 1999 BCM-AH_APEGM_12_41

As for the heroic lost naval hero Carvalho Araújo, streets in no less than 34 Portuguese municipalities bear his name while a bronze statue sculpted by Artur Anjos Teixeira was installed in Vila Real in 1931 and is frequently rendered military honors.

The statue of Carvalho Araújo has its hands clenched defiantly.

The EIN line, whose SS San Miguel survived the war and continued to operate until 1930, replaced her with a new 4,568 GRT Italian-built packet liner named SS Carvalho Araújo.

She continued to sail into the 1970s, and, fittingly for her namesake, often carried Portuguese troops back and forth to Africa.

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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Volturno Crossing

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80 years ago today: A U.S.-supplied M4 Sherman medium tank of 4th County of London Yeomanry (4CLY) making ready to cross the Volturno river at Grazzanise, Italy, 17 October 1943 to take on the German Viktor Line. Note the camouflage on both turret and hull and a rarely seen (in the field) partial wading kit.

Photo by Mott (Sgt), No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit, IWM NA 7858

The good SGT Mott captured the same tank while it was crossing

Note the recognition flash on the hull and letter on her turret. IWM NA 7859

As noted by Mott on the back of the card for NA 7858:

The bridge built by the RE [Royal Engineers] over the Volturno at Grazzanise would not take the weight of the heavy tanks. Our tank formation found a spot where the water was no more than six feet deep and with the aid of a bulldozer to haul them up the opposite beach, they forded the river.

The 4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) was a volunteer cavalry regiment formed in September 1939. However, they trace their lineage back to the old Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles of 1794.

4CLY saw much action across North Africa (including El Alamein), Italy (where several tanks were left submerged in flood-swollen waters), and Normandy, where, suffering serious losses, was amalgamated with 3CLY to form the 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) in 1944, which went on to help liberate Holland in Market Garden and cross the Rhine.

The Sharpshooters received 42 battle honours (including “Volturno Crossing”) for World War II, a total exceeded by only one other Cavalry or Yeomanry regiment. Individually Sharpshooters received one George Medal, 9 DSOs, 42 MCs, 8 DCMs, and 71 MMs. The regimental roll of honour records 381 names.

The unit, through amalgamations, still exists as 265 (KCLY) Support Squadron in the Territorials while the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry Museum is in Croydon.

What a Difference a Year Makes

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Laid down at Newport News on the 1st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1942, CV-13 officially earned her name some 80 years ago today on 14 October 1943.

The future USS Franklin (CV-13) at launch was sponsored by the indomitable LCDR Mildred A. McAfee, USNR (Vassar 1920), then-director of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, better known as the WAVES, and she smashed the bottle in full uniform, as shown in the below photo of the event.

Lieutenant Commander Mildred H. McAfee, USNR, Director of the Women’s Reserve, christens USS Franklin (CV 13) at its launching at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. Released October 14, 1943. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-43444

And how about this great period Kodachrome of “Big Ben” floating out, with McAfee and eight of her fellow WAVES in the foreground.

PCU USS Franklin (CV-13). The ship floated out of her building dock immediately after christening, at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company shipyard, Newport News, Virginia, on 14 October 1943. 80-G-K-14015

The third USS Franklin was rushed to completion and commissioned just over three months later on 31 January 1944. Following a shakedown cruise, she crossed through the Panama Canal and reported for duty with TG 58.2 on 16 June 1944.

Quickly involved in the war, she supported the invasion of Saipan and of Peleliu, her planes raided Formosa and Okinawa, and by October she was taking part in the liberation of the Philippines which included the pivotal Battle of Leyte Gulf. In those not quite five months, her air group, CVG-12, logged 338 enemy planes damaged and/or destroyed, 409,500 tons of enemy shipping sunk and/or damaged, and 3,971 combat sorties flown.

It was on 30 October, just over a year past her launching, that Franklin encountered the Divine Wind off Samar Island.

As detailed by DANFS:

At 1405, VF-13 launched 12 Hellcats in response to an urgent request from a nearby fleet tanker that reported she was under attack by Japanese planes. Franklin’s crew went to general quarters and “no sooner had the fighters left the deck than Franklin was subjected to a bombing attack.” At the exact moment of the attack, the destroyer Bagley (DD-386) had been alongside Franklin taking on fuel, but quickly cast off. Six enemy planes identified as a mixture of Zekes and Yokosuka D4Y Suisei carrier bombers (Judys), came in at high speed “targeting the formation at about 3,000 feet.”

One of the planes, a Judy, “dove over Franklin,” just missing her starboard side, amidships. A Zeke, observed to still be carrying bombs then intentionally crashed into the carrier’s flight deck inboard of the No. 5 and No. 7, 5-inch mounts. A terrific explosion followed which caused a ferocious fire to sweep the nearby planes on the flight and hanger deck. A third low-flying plane attempted to bomb Franklin, but narrowly missed the carrier’s starboard side. The Japanese pilot then crashed his plane into the after portion of the Belleau Wood (CVL-24).

Two other Japanese planes crashed into the water as a result of errant suicide dives and a third one was shot down by Franklin’s gunners just as it was attempting to crash into Enterprise. Approximately 20 minutes after the attack on Franklin began additional fires broke out on the hanger deck and swept the second and third decks between frames 110 and 150. “All hands turned to,” and at about 1530 the flight deck fire was finally extinguished with the hanger deck fire lingering on until 1625. By 1800, all fires on board the carrier had been arrested with the exception of some that were still smoldering below decks. In total, casualties included 56 killed and 60 wounded.

USS Franklin (CV-13), at right, and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) Afire after being hit by Japanese Kamikaze suicide planes, while operating off the Philippines on 30 October 1944. Photographed from USS Brush (DD-745. Note flak bursts over the ships. 80-G-326798

The damage was considerable and she made for Puget Sound Naval Yard via Ulithi and Pearl Harbor for repairs, knocking her out of the war for four months.

USS Franklin (CV 13), damage to flight deck following Japanese kamikaze attack on 30 October 1944. 80-G-270814

USS Franklin (CV 13), damage to V-2 spaces following Japanese kamikaze attack on 30 October 1944. 80-G-270811

Heading back West in March 1945 with Carrier Air Group 5 embarked, Franklin would suffer through her much more extensive and well-known brush with the kamikaze shortly after.

As for the good LCDR McAfee, she would leave the Navy in 1946 as a full captain, the WAVES growing to some 80,000 in number. She went on to return to the presidency of Wellesley College, sit on the board of a number of different corporations, and passed the bar in 1994, far outliving “Big Ben” which, laid up post-war, was quietly disposed of in 1966.

Last of the Amazons

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The Pakistani Navy recently released a well-done (English language) short documentary about the third PNS Tariq (D 181), which is the former Amazon-class (Type 21) frigate HMS Ambuscade (F172).

Acquired by the Pakistani Navy in 1993 sans installed Exocet and Seacat missiles, she was initially laid down at Yarrow in Scotland (Yard No. 1008) in September 1971 and entered service in 1975.

Among a ton of Cold War exploits, Ambuscade took part in the Falklands War of 1982— firing hundreds of rounds of 4.5-inch shells in NGFS missions and chasing at least two suspected enemy sonar contacts– as well service on the old Armilla Patrol and as the Belize Guardship back in the day.

Of the eight Amazons commissioned in the late 1960s-early 1970s, two (HMS Antelope sunk on 24 May 1982 and HMS Ardent on 22 May 1982) were lost in the Falklands.

The remaining six were transferred to Pakistan after the fall of the Berlin Wall and saw much service there. They have since been decommissioned, with no less than four already disposed of in SINKEXs.

Tariq/Ambuscade was the last of her type to leave service, decommissioned on 5 August 2023, her name to be used for a new corvette.

This “final Amazon” will be sent back “home” for the first time in 30 years and converted to a museum ship on the Clyde along Glasgow’s waterfront, the only Falklands vessel preserved, I believe.

The Pakistan Navy has already donated the now 48-year-old frigate to the Cylde Naval Heritage Group and plans to bring her back to Scotland. 

The good news is that she is still in reportedly good material condition, and was steaming as late as this summer. Further, at just 2,800 tons and 384 feet oal, she has a small footprint. All positive signs for a budding museum ship. 

Let us all hope this works out. 

Happy 248th, USN

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Just living the dream since 1775…(or maybe 1798, depending on how you mark it): 

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) fires its 5-inch gun during a live-fire exercise, Sept. 24, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan U. Kledzik/Released) 180924-N-UY653-444

A 13 October 1775 resolution of the Continental Congress established what is now the United States Navy with “a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruise of three months….” After the American War of Independence, the U.S. Constitution empowered the new Congress “to provide and maintain a navy.” Acting on this authority, Congress established the Department of the Navy on 30 April 1798.

In 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized official recognition of 13 October as the birthday of the U.S. Navy. Since then, each CNO has encouraged a Navy-wide celebration of this occasion “to enhance a greater appreciation of our Navy heritage, and to provide a positive influence toward pride and professionalism in the naval service.”

Rolf’s Curious Shark

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Here we see the bow of the rare Type UE II ocean minelayer submarine, SM U-124, sometime in late 1918 after her surrender, likely in Harwich, England. Just below her net cutter is a shell hole (“sheel hole” as written on the period photo) which has been used as the focus of a shark’s mouth illustration applied sometime after.

National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Lot 9706-8

In all, some 176 surrendered German U-boats, many in poor material condition, were gathered under the watchful eyes of a combined Allied fleet at Harwich between November 1918 and March 1919.

Two other photos of U-124 exist, with official captions noted, likely taken at Harwich.

“German submarine, U 124, bow view, starboard side. Note, the sheel hole and net cutter. Lot 9706-12”

A German submarine, U 124, with her single 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 deck gun on deck. Note, the somewhat famous American submarine USS AL2 (aka USS L-2 SS-41) in the background.

There were only 9 Type UE II submarines commissioned into the Kaiserliche Marine late in the war (1917-1918), with the tenth, SM U-121, never completed.

Our subject, U-124, was only commissioned on 12 July 1918 after construction by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg (as Werk 301), and never completed any war patrols. How U-124 earned her “sheel hole” or shark paint job was unknown.

Her only skipper, Kptlt. Rolf Hans Wilhelm Karl Carls, who had already earned two Iron Crosses on the cruiser SMS Breslau in the Black Sea, would go on to become a Ritterkreuz-adorned Generaladmiral in the Kriegsmarine and was killed during an air raid in 1945.

Carls was credited with the naval planning for Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1940, which worked but shattered the German fleet. When Raeder was cashiered, he recommended Carls as his replacement but the little mustache went with Donitz. Carls shifted to the retired list in 1943 at age 57 and perished in a basement in Schleswig-Holstein during an RAF air raid just two weeks before VE-Day.

More on the Type UE IIs

These minelayers were rather large in terms of Great War U-boats, at some 1,500 tons and 267 feet oal, they were very capable, fitted with a four-pack of bow-mounted 20-inch torpedo tubes with room for 14 fish, a stern with twin 39-inch mine chutes with room for 42 sea mines, and the 5.9 inch SK L/45 deck gun as seen above, with 494 shells.

As they could cruise for some 13,900 nm on an economical diesel-electric plant, they could cross the Atlantic, complete a decent war patrol in U.S. waters that included sowing over three dozen mines and return home.

However, due to their late timing, the UE IIs saw little service, with only three claiming victims. In the end, all nine survived the war and were allocated to the victorious allies post-Versallies.

SM U-117 was one of six Kaiserian subs handed over to the U.S. and, after being dragged across the Atlantic, was sunk as a target for aerial bombing tests conducted by the Navy and Army off the Virginia Capes.

SM U-118 was turned over to France but broke her tow and was washed ashore at Hastings where she was finally broken up in late 1919.

SM U-119 served as René Audry in the French Navy and was eventually broken up in October 1937, the last of the class afloat.

SM U-120 was transferred to Italy in November 1918 and broken up soon after.

SM U-125 was towed back to the Pacific via the Med and Suez Canal by the battleship Nissin along with six other trophy subs and went on to serve in the Japanese Navy as the O1 briefly then was dismantled at Yokosuka.

SM U-122, U-123, U-126, and Rolf’s U-124 were allocated to the British and all broken up there by 1923, never seeing RN service.

Echos from the ‘War in Snow and Ice’

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During the Great War, one of the most often forgotten major battlefields were those high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian Tyrolean Kaiserjäger backed up by mobilized Standschützen militia and Italian Alpini, over control of the region that both claimed.

Italian helmet excavated on the Isonzo front, with the head of a Hungarian soldier’s 1896M pickaxe inside.

The pitched battles were by no means decisive, and it was only the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort that allowed the Italians to occupy the region in October 1918, then later awarded to Rome under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain.

In a sort of reminder of this, but through a modern lens, three videos were just recently released.

The Alpini of the Taurinese Brigade recently sent 500 troopers through what is called the 220 Mila Passi (220 Thousand Steps) climbing eight peaks– all over 1300m in elevation– across 88 km.

In related news, the NATO Mountain Warfare Centre of Excellence in Slovenia, run by an Italian Alpini colonel on former Austro-Hungarian mountains, released an interesting sizzle reel highlighting their operations.

Not to be outdone, the Austrian Bundesheer at the same time released a video of a sergeant undergoing the country’s Heereshochgebirgsspezialisten (high mountain specialist) course in the Dolomites alongside fellow troopers from the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia– all of which fought in the Tyrol in 1918!

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