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Warship Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

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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, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32217

Above we see the Tambor-class fleet boat USS Trout (SS-202) as she returns to Pearl Harbor on 14 June 1942, just after the Battle of Midway. She is carrying two Japanese prisoners of war from the sunken cruiser Mikuma. Among those waiting on the pier are RADM Robert H. English and “the boss,” Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Note the pair of .30-06 Lewis guns on Trout’s sail, flanking her periscope shears.

Trout is believed lost with all hands, 80 years ago this month, around 29 February 1944, off the Philippines while on her 11th war patrol.

The Tambors

The dozen Tambors, completed in a compressed 30-month peacetime period between when USS Tambor (SS-198) was laid down on 16 January 1939 and USS Grayback (SS-208) commissioned on 30 June 1941, are often considered the first fully successful U.S. Navy fleet submarines. This speedy construction period was in large part due to the fact they were completed in three different yards simultaneously.

Some 307 feet long with a 2,375-ton submerged displacement, they carried 10 21-inch torpedo tubes (six forward, four aft) with a provision for 24 torpedoes (or 48 mines), as well as a small 3″/50 deck gun augmented by a couple of Lewis guns and the occasional .50 cal. They enjoyed a central combat suite with a new Torpedo Data Computer and attack periscope.

With an engineering suite of four diesel engines driving electrical generators and four GE electric motors drawing from a pair of 126-cell Sargo batteries, they could sail for an amazing 10,000nm at 10 knots on the surface and sprint for as much as 20 knots while on an attack. Further, they had strong hulls, designed for 250-foot depths with a possible 500-foot redline crush. They also had updated habitability for 70-day patrols including freshwater distillation units and air conditioning. A luxury!

Meet Trout

Our boat was one of four Tambors constructed by the historic Portsmouth Navy Yard, built side-by-side with sister USS Triton (SS-201). Trout was the first boat to carry the name in the U.S. Navy and, laid down on 28 August 1939, was launched on 21 May 1940 after a nine-month gestation period.

Trout (SS-202) bow view at fitting out the pier, 10 July 1940 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, via ussubvetsofworldwarii.org through Navsource.

Commissioned on 15 November 1940, LCDR Frank Wesley “Mike” Fenno, Jr., (USNA 1925), formerly of the “Sugar Boats” S-31 and S-37, was in command.

Following shakedowns on the East Coast, Trout sailed through “The Ditch” and joined five sister boats in Submarine Division 62, based at Pearl Harbor, where she arrived in August 1941 as part of the big build-up in the tense Pacific.

USS Trout, 1941

War!

On 7 December 1941, one of Trout’s sisters, USS Tautog (SS-199), was tied up at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and her .50 cals and Lewis guns were credited with downing at least one Japanese plane during the attack that morning.

As for the other five Tambors operating at Pearl?

They were all out on patrol, our Trout included, which was off the then-unknown atoll of Midway. That night, she spotted the Japanese destroyers Sazanami and Ushio as they shelled the American base there but was unable to successfully attack them.

Ending what turned out to be her 1st War Patrol on 20 December in the still-smoking battle-scarred base at Pearl, Trout, after landing most of her torpedoes and ballast, was ordered to take aboard 3,517 rounds of badly needed 3-inch AA ammunition and sortie out on her 2nd War Patrol on 12 January 1942, bound run the Japanese blockade to the besieged American forces on the “Rock” Corregidor in the Philippines. Over 45 days, nine American subs, Trout included, made the dangerous run to the last U.S. stronghold in Luzon.

Arriving at Corregidor on 6 February after a brief brush with a Japanese subchaser, Trout unloaded her shells and then took on a ballast of 20 tons of gold bars and silver pesos (all the paper money in the islands had already been burned), securities, mail, and United States Department of State dispatches, which she dutifully brought back to Pearl on 3 March. However, on the way she took the time to chalk up her first confirmed “kill” of the war: the Japanese auxiliary gunboat Chuwa Maru (2719 GRT), sent to the bottom about 55 nautical miles from Keelung, Formosa on 9 February.

She arrived back in Pearl Harbor to unload her precious cargo.

USS Trout (SS-202) approaches USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, to unload a cargo of gold that she had evacuated from the Philippines. The gold had been loaded aboard Trout at Corregidor on 4 February 1942. NH 50389

USS Trout (SS-202) coming alongside USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl. Note details of the submarine’s fairwater, and .30 caliber Lewis gun mounted aft of the periscope housing. NH 50388

USS Trout (SS-202) At Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, unloading gold bars which she had evacuated from Corregidor. 80-G-45971

USS Trout (SS-202): gold bars that Trout carried from Corregidor to Pearl Harbor. Photographed as the gold was being unloaded from the submarine at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942. 80-G-45970

Sailing for her 3rd War Patrol on 24 March, she was ordered to take the war to Tokyo and haunt the Japanese home waters. Trout fulfilled that mandate and logged damaging attacks on the tanker Nisshin Maru (16801 GRT) and Tachibana Maru (6521 GRT), as well as sending the Uzan Maru (5019 GRT) and gunboat Kongosan Maru (2119 GRT) to the bottom before returning to Pearl in early May.

At the time Trout had logged the most successful U.S. Navy submarine war patrol to date and she was given credit for 31,000 tons sunk and another 15,000 tons damaged.

Midway

Her 4th War Patrol was to participate in the fleet action that is known today as the Battle of Midway– Trout’s old December 7th stomping grounds. She left Pearl on 21 May in company with her sisters, USS Tambor, and USS Grayling, to join the 12-submarine Task Group 7.1, the Midway Patrol Group.

From her war diary of the battle, which included chasing down a crippled Japanese battleship which turned out to be the lost 14,000-ton Mogami class heavy cruiser Mikuma. She rescued two Japanese survivors from said warship, Chief Radioman Hatsuichi Yoshida and Fireman 3rd Class Kenichi Ishikawa, on 9 June. Some of the very few IJN POWs in American custody at the time, Trout was ordered to return to Pearl with her waterlogged guests of the Emperor’s Navy, arriving there five days later to an eager reception committee.

Battle of Midway, June 1942. The burning Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma, photographed from a U.S. Navy aircraft during the afternoon of 6 June 1942, after she had been bombed by planes from USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Hornet (CV-8). Note her third eight-inch gun turret, with the roof blown off and barrels at different elevations, Japanese Sun insignia painted atop the forward turret, and wrecked midship superstructure. 80-G-457861

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Three officers standing together are: Commander Jack Haines; Commander Norman Ives, and Commander O’Leary. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32213

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Japanese Prisoner. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32212

With four patrols under his belt, including the successful 3rd patrol, the Corregidor ammo run/gold return, and the Midway POWs, FDR directed that LCDR Fenno be awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross, while the rest of the crew received the Army Silver Star Medal. Fenno also racked up two Navy Crosses and, ordered to take command of the building Gato-class fleet boat USS Runner (SS-275), Trout’s plank owner skipper left for New London.

He was replaced by LCDR Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage (USNA 1931) who had earned a Silver Star earlier in the year as the diving officer on Trout’s sister, USS Grenadier (SS-210), during the sinking of the 14,000-ton troopship Taiyō Maru.

Back in the War

Red Ramage and Trout left Pearl on the boat’s 5th War Patrol on 27 August, bound for the Japanese stronghold of Truk, where she was able to sink the net layer Koei Maru (863 GRT) and damage the 20,000-ton light carrier Taiyo, knocking the latter out of the war for over two months and forced her back to Kure for repairs.

Escort carrier IJN Taiyo in Kure drydock after Trout torpedo

Damaged by a Japanese airstrike that knocked out her periscopes, Trout cut her patrol short and made for Freemantle.

Repaired, Trout’s 6th War Patrol, in the Solomons in October-November, proved uneventful.

Red Ramage then took Trout on her 7th Patrol, leaving Fremantle four days after Christmas 1942, headed for the waters off Borneo. This long (11,000-mile, 58-day) patrol saw the boat damage two large (16-17,000 ton) tankers as well as two small gunboats and sink a pair of coastal schoolers. Combat included a running gunfight with the tanker Nisshin Maru on Valentine’s Day 1943 which left 10 members of Trout’s crew injured.

Trout vs Nisshin Maru Feb 14 1943

Trout’s 8th War Patrol, a minelaying run off Japanese-occupied Sarawak, Borneo in March-April, ended Red Ramage’s tour with our boat, and he left Freemantle bound for Portsmouth where he would oversee the building, outfitting, and first two (very successful) war patrols of the new Balao-class submarine USS Parche (SS-384).

Trout’s final skipper would be LCDR Albert “Hobo” Hobbs Clark (USNA 1933) who had been Trout’s Engineering officer on several of her early war patrols before serving on the staff of SubRon 6. He rejoined his former boat as “the old man” on 4 May 1943, just shy of his 33rd birthday. He would not see his 34th.

Trout was ordered back to the occupied Philippines as part of LCDR Charles “Chick” Parsons’s “Spy Squadron” of 19 submarines– including several Tambors— which delivered 1,325 tons of supplies in at least 41 missions to local guerrillas between December 1942 and New Years Day 1945, with an emphasis on medicine, weapons, ammunition, and radio gear.

Trout’s 9th War Patrol, from 26 May to 30 July 1943, saw two successful “special missions” landing agents and supplies in Mindanao well as conducting four attacks on Japanese surface ships, claiming some 17,247 tons sunk. Post-war the only confirmed sinking from this patrol was the freighter Isuzu Maru (2866 GRT), sunk 2 July.

Trout’s four attacks on the 9th War Patrol

As for the Spyron missions accomplished by Trout on this patrol, these included recovering Chick Parsons himself along with survivors of the Bataan Death March, who had escaped the hellish Davao POW camp, and delivering them to Australia where they were able to tell the world of what they had endured.

Details of Trout’s two Spyron missions, via the 7th Fleet Intelligence Section report:

Special mission accomplished. 12 June 1943.
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To deliver a party of six or seven men, funds ($10,000), and 2 tons of equipment and supplies to a designated spot on Basilon Island to establish a secret intelligence unit in the Sulu Archipelago and Zamboanga area; to establish coast watcher net in the area and for surveying purposes, and to arrange for delivery of extra supplies to guerrilla units.

Special Mission accomplished 9 July 1943
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To land a party of two officers and three men, together with supplies and ammunition off Labangan, Pagadian Bay, on the South Mindanao Coast. In addition to the above, Trout picked up Lt. Comdr. Parsons and four U.S. Naval officers and reconnoitered the area southeast of Olutanga Island (South Coast of Mindanao, P.I.).

Leaving Freemantle again just three weeks later on her 10th War Patrol, Trout again returned to the Philippines where she patrolled the Surigao and San Bernardino straits. She would fight an epic surface engagement, pirate style, with a Japanese trawler during this patrol.

As noted by DANFS:

On 25 August, she battled a cargo fisherman with her deck guns and then sent a boarding party on board the Japanese vessel. After they had returned to the submarine with the prize’s crew, papers, charts, and other material for study by intelligence officers, the submarine sank the vessel. Three of the five prisoners were later embarked in a dinghy off Tifore Island.

A happy patrol, she would go on to sink the transports Ryotoku Maru (3438 GRT) and Yamashiro Maru (3427 GRT) back-to-back on 23 September before returning to Pearl Harbor, and from there, a much-needed trip to Mare Island for a four-month shipyard overhaul.

In her first ten patrols, Trout claimed 23 enemy ships, giving her 87,800 tons sunk, and damaged 6 ships, for 75,000 tons.

Leaving Mare Island for Pearl, on 8 February, Trout began her 11th and final war patrol. Topping off with fuel at Midway on the 16th she headed towards the East China Sea but was never heard from again.

Hobo Clark went down fighting and her 81 officers and men are listed on Eternal Patrol, with Clark and two other officers in the USNA’s Memorial Hall. 

As detailed by DANFS:

Japanese records indicate that one of their convoys was attacked by a submarine on 29 February 1944 in the patrol area assigned to Trout. The submarine badly damaged one large passenger-cargo ship and sank the 7,126-ton transport Sakito Maru [which was carrying the Japanese 18th Infantry Regiment, of which 2,500 were lost]. Possibly one of the convoy’s escorts sank the submarine. On 17 April 1944, Trout was declared presumed lost.

It is thought that she was sunk by the destroyer Asashimo in conjunction with fellow tin cans Kishinami and Okinami.

Japanese destroyer Asashimo

Trout received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her second, third, and fifth patrols.

Trout is on the list of 52 American submarines lost in the conflict, along with twin sister Triton and classmates Grampus, Grayling, Grayback, Grenadier, and Gudgeon.

(Photo: Chris Eger)

Just five of 12 Tambors were still afloat on VJ Day, and the Navy quietly retried them for use as Reserve training ships and then disposed of even these remnants by the late 1950s.

Epilogue

The plans and war diaries for Trout are in the National Archives. 

Her 2nd Patrol– the Corregidor sneak that brought in AAA shells and left with gold and silver– was turned into an episode of The Silent Service in the 1950s.

Of her two surviving skippers, Mike Fenno would go on to take USS Runner on her first two war patrols in 1943 and take USS Pampanito (SS-383) on her 4th in 1944, chalking up at least two additional Japanese Marus, before going on to command SubRon 24 (“Fenno’s Ferrets”) for the rest of the war. He went on to command Guantanamo Bay during the tense early Castro period and retired as a rear admiral in 1962.

RADM Mike Fenno passed away in 1973, aged 70, and is buried in Arlington.

Red Ramage likewise took other boats out after he left Trout and is famous for a July 1944 convoy attack on USS Parche in conjunction with USS Steelhead that went down in the history books as “Ramage’s Rampage,” after it sent five Japanese ships to the bottom. This earned Ramage the MoH. He retired as a vice admiral in 1969 and passed in 1990. Like Mike Fenno, he is buried at Arlington. In 1995, the Flight I Burke, USS Ramage (DDG-61)— which I worked on at Ingalls and sailed on her trials– was named in honor of “Red.”

Red Ramage

The Navy recycled Trout’s name for a late-model diesel boat of the Tang class (SS-566). This second USS Trout was laid down on 1 Dec. 1949 at EB and at her launch she was sponsored by the widow of LCDR Albert H. Clark, the last commanding officer of the first USS Trout (SS-202), who was lost on the boat’s 11th war patrol in 1944 along with 80 other souls.

Here we see a P-2H Neptune of Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 as it flies over the Tang-class submarine USS Trout (SS-566), near Charleston, S.C., May 7, 1961. NHHC KN-2708

After serving during the Cold War and being transferred to Turkey, in 1992, the near-pristine although 40-year-old Trout was returned to U.S. Navy custody and then used as an experimental hull and acoustic target sub at NAWCAD Key West. She somehow survived in USN custody until 2008 when she was finally reduced to razor blades at Brownsville.

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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Mine Units Earn MCU

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ARABIAN GULF. A formation of Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships USS Devastator (MCM 6), USS Gladiator (MCM 11), USS Sentry (MCM 3), and USS Dextrous (MCM 13) maneuver in the Arabian Gulf, July 6, 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Antonio Gemma Moré/Released)190706-N-HV841-002

The Chief of Naval Operations has advised the SECNAV has issued a Meritorious Unit Commendation for the MCM units of Bahrain-based Task Force 52 in ’21-23, a period that included a historic 5,000-mile transit from the Arabian Gulf to the Red Sea– the first time the voyage was completed in seven years for U.S. Navy mine countermeasures ships.

The MUC:

For meritorious achievement from October 2021 to June 2023. The personnel of Commander, Task Force FIVE TWO distinguished themselves through unprecedented performance that enabled the world’s largest mine countermeasures task force to achieve unparalleled results in support of mine warfare initiatives in the U.S. FIFTH Fleet area of operations. During this period, Commander, Task Force FIVE TWO led the development and execution of 65 multi-national mine countermeasures exercises that employed assets and personnel from 60 partner nations.

Their efforts resulted in the successful operational employment of eight mine countermeasure ships, one MH-53E helicopter detachment, two expeditionary mine countermeasures companies, and one mine hunting unit. Additionally, due to the decommissioning of legacy mine countermeasure platforms, they created hybrid Mine Countermeasures Mission Packages, utilizing next-generation unmanned systems and legacy mine countermeasure platforms, ultimately transforming into the U.S. Navy’s only trans-regional mine countermeasures task force.

The hybrid Mine Countermeasure Mission Packages provide a full spectrum of detect-to-engage mine warfare capability in support of U.S. Central Command and U.S. national objectives in the FIFTH, SIXTH, and SEVENTH Fleets. By their truly distinctive accomplishments, unrelenting perseverance, and unfailing devotion to duty, the officers and enlisted personnel of Commander, Task Force FIVE TWO reflected credit upon themselves and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

//SIGNED//

L. M. Franchetti

Admiral, US Navy

Those wacky Army sea mines

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The beautiful and brand new 188-foot 1,300-ton U.S. Army Mine Planter No. 16, Col. George W. Ricker, at New Orleans’s Pauline Street Wharf, 14 May 1943. She arrived at the New Orleans Port of Embarkation from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on 11 May 1943 from her builder, Marietta Manufacturing Co. She only served the Army for a year before the Navy picked her up and commissioned her as the Minesweep Gear and Repair Ship, USS Planter (ACM 2), in April 1944. Struck from the Naval Register on 23 December 1947, she was sold to commercial interests and was still in use as a fishing trawler into the 1970s. Official U.S. Army Photograph 298-1-43 via the WWII Museum.

Lost in the sauce when it comes to U.S. mine warfare in World War II is the Army’s sea mine planting efforts during the conflict.

Brainstormed by the Army as early as 1866 from experience gained against Confederate “torpedoes” in the Civil War, by 1876 an experimental defensive minefield was sown at Fort Mifflin in Pennsylvania. This led to an explosion (pun intended) in floating Army minefields during the Endicott Period of coastal defense.

By the Spanish-American War, at least 28 harbors and coastal chokepoints had Army-controlled electric submarine mines installed.

Mine 1919 Fort Pickens, outside of Pensacola. Typically 45 mines in seven groups were planted there between 1917-18

This only continued to grow and, after Army sea mines were transferred from the Corps of Engineers to the Artillery Corps, leading to the dedicated Coast Artillery Corps in 1907, the branch even kicked off an Army Mine Planter Service in 1918. At least 37 large planters, typically named after colonels and generals, were used by the AMPS during this period as well as twice as many “junior mine planters”, or “pup planters.”

Army-controlled submarine nets, mines, and shore batteries protected the entrance to San Francisco Bay May 1942 Ft. Cronkite. Of note, Fort Funston with its modern 16-inch guns, is not listed

By the time WWII came, the Coastal Artillery controlled 27 Harbor Defense Commands with minefields, at least five of them overseas in Hawaii, the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Speaking of which, USAMP Col. George F.E. Harrison and USAJMP Neptune sowed Army minefields at Manila Harbor in 1941 to help block the Japanese advance. Both planters were sunk during the Luzon campaign, with Harrison earning a Navy battle star.

The 704-ton, 172-foot USAMP Col. George F.E. Harrison moored pierside at Ilollo, Panay, Philippine Islands, 2 February 1933. Sunk by Japanese dive bombers in May 1942, she was later raised and would serve as the Japanese Imperial Navy cable ship IJN Harushima, only to be sent to the bottom again, this time by American dive bombers, in 1945. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo # 331549, U.S. National Archives 111-SCA-Album-2986.

On 7 December 1941, the Army had approximately 5,000 controlled mines on hand for harbor defense and during the war would sow 7,320 (3,569 contact and 3,751 magnetic) domestically along with 1,847 mines ex-CONUS.

That doesn’t even count the no less than 12,000 air-dropped offensive mines laid by the USAAF in the Pacific during the war, which is a whole different story.

Operation Starvation. Loading aerial mines on a B-29 of the 468th Bomb Group, 24 January 1945. (NARA)

Via Navweaps: 

By 1945, the Army Air Force was devoting considerable resources to the mining role, with 80 to 100 B-29s based at Tinian being used to mine the home waters around Japan. These B-29s could carry seven 2,000 lbs. (907 kg). or twelve 1,000 lbs. (454 kg) mines. “Operation Starvation” started in March 1945 and continued until early August with 4,900 magnetic, 3,500 acoustic, 2,900 pressure, and 700 low-frequency mines being laid. These mines sank 294 ships outright, damaged another 137 beyond repair, and damaged a further 239 that could be repaired. In cargo tonnage, the total was 1.4 million tons lost or damaged which was about 75% of the shipping available in March 1945.

With the Army’s airborne minedropping capability going in 1947 to the newly established USAAF (which still maintains the little talked about skillset), and the disbandment of the Coastal Artillery branch soon after, when the defunct AMPS was fully zeroed out on paper on 22 January 1954– 70 years ago today– it closed the Big Green’s 88-year run with sea mines.

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Jan. 11, 2024: Like a Bad Penny

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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 (on a Thursday) Jan. 11, 2024: Like a Bad Penny

Above we see the modified Russian Sokol (Falcon) class destroyer Reshitel‘nyi (also seen in the west transliterated as Rieshitelni, Ryeshitelni, or Reshitelnyy, and often confused with sister Rastoropny) and her crew in Port Arthur in 1904. 

She had…an odd career. 

The Sokol class

Basically the default class of Russian torpedo boat destroyers in the 1900s, the Sokols (sometimes referred to as the Krechet class as the second ship incorporated several minor changes) were a Yarrow design and were one of the world’s fastest such ships when they took to the water, with the lead ship hitting 30.2 knots at 4,500hp on trials– although with the more typical 3,800 hp output they were rated at 29 knots, which was still plenty fast for the era.

An artist’s impression of Sokol

Small and sleek, they were not much larger than torpedo boats, running about 190 feet overall with just a narrow 18.5-foot beam. They could float in just seven feet of water, making them ideal for littoral operations. Displacing around 240 tons, they used 2 VTE steam engines fed by 4 Yarrow boilers and were good for about 600 miles on a maximum 58-ton coal load when chugging along at 15 knots.

Sokol before delivery in 1895 while still in the Glasgow area on trials with her recently arrived Russian crew, but no armament. Via Cassiers Magazine circa 1897

Destroyer Сокол ‘Sokol’ during her travels from Great Britain to St. Petersburg in 1895, after a heavy green paint was applied and her armament installed.

Owl, later Ryanyy, on trials in the Gulf of Finland in May 1901. She would serve in the Baltic Fleet her entire career, survive the Great War, and was captured in Helsingfors by Finnish White Guards in 1918, later becoming S1, the first Finnish destroyer although she was largely just used for training along with four of her sisters. She was the last of the class afloat, only discarded in 1939.

Sokol class destroyer Prytkiy (Quick) formerly Kretchet

Their main armament was two Russian-pattern 15-inch Lessner-type torpedo tubes on aft turnstiles with six Whitehead torpedoes (two loaded, four in the bow cockpit with their warheads in the magazines) while her guns were French: a single 3″/48 Canet gun with 180 shells, and three 47mm 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns with a supply of 800 rounds. They could also carry as many as 18 mines in a pinch.

Sokol class destroyer. Note her large Canet gun forward, three smaller Hotchkiss guns spread out stern and amidships, and her two aft torpedo tubes. Observe the rail track running down the starboard side of the deck. This allowed reload torpedoes to be moved from the bow cockpit to the tubes and could also double as parking for mines, which could be deployed over the side

The crew was about 50 officers and men.

In all, 27 hulls of the Sokol/Krechet class were constructed between November 1894 when the class leader was laid down at Yarrow in Glasgow and the final, Statnyy, laid down by the Nevskiy works in St. Petersburg, was completed in July 1904. In between, two other yards– that of Wm. Crichton’s works in Finland and St. Petersburg and the Izhora Admiralty Works at Kolpino– got in on the contracts. Following Sokol’s lead, they were initially all issued bird names, but in 1902 this was changed to a more dynamic naming convention after attributes (Obedient, Strong, Zealous, et.al.)

Meet Our Tin Can

Laid down at the Nevskiy Works as Kondor in 1900, just after the Tsar’s government had wrestled a 25-year lease on the Chinese harbor at Port Arthur along with a concession to extend the Russian-run Chinese Eastern Railway to the port, the 12th Sokol was also the first of a series of 12 destroyers that would be shipped, incomplete, in sections some 7,000 miles east by rail and boat to be completed at the growing naval base on the Liaotung Peninsula.

These 12 were very slightly longer (200 feet oal vs the 190 feet of the standard Sokol) and heavier (300 tons full load vs 240) with a beam a few inches wider and a draft a few inches deeper. This was to accommodate eight smaller but more efficient Yarrow boilers and bunkers to carry as much as 80 tons of coal, giving them an endurance of 750 miles at 15 knots, something thought beneficial for the Pacific.

At that, Kondor, which had been renamed while incomplete, first to Baklan (Cormorant) and then to Reshitel‘nyi (Resolute) under the new naming convention for the type, took to the water of the Pacific and was commissioned on 14 July 1903.

Russian destroyer Reshitel‘nyi. One of the very few images of her

Of the 12 stretched Sokols sent to Port Arthur in such a manner, all managed to be completed although the final three– Strashnyy, Stroynyy, and Statnyy— were done in the summer of 1904 while the port was under Japanese blockade, so the shakedown period was…difficult.

War!

As covered above, Reshitel‘nyi was the oldest of the dozen modified Sokol class destroyers at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.

Her first skipper, the noted polar explorer LT Alexander Alekseevich Korniliev, died of pneumonia and severe concussion received in his ship’s first battle with the Japanese fleet in the frigid waters, one that saw the sister destroyer Steregushchiy sent to the bottom while on a scouting mission that bumped into a superior force.

Japanese destroyer IJN Sazanami attempting to tow a sinking Steregushchiy, lost in action against two Japanese cruisers, while Reshitel‘nyi managed to escape. In the fight, Reshitel‘nyi lost one killed and 16 injured– a third of her crew. William Lionel Wylie painting.

Reshitel‘nyi’s second skipper was Capt. (2nd Rate) Fyodor Emilievich Bosse, who had been in command of the two-ship task group when Steregushchiy was lost and was ordered to take over for the ailing LT Korniliev. Bosse, who was also wounded in the engagement, surrendered his command in March 1904 and was invalided back to European Russia (while the railroad was still connected) for recovery– saving him from the disaster that would befall the Tsar’s Pacific Squadron.

Bosse, who commanded the ill-fated task group that left Steregushchiy sunk, Reshitel‘nyi damaged, and himself wounded bad enough to be sent home. He would retire as a rear admiral in 1916 after 40 years of service, survive the Revolution and Civil War, and then go on to be an advisor to the Peruvian Navy during the 1932-1933 Peruvian-Colombian War. He is buried in Lima.

With her third skipper in less than a year, LT Platon Platonovich Travlinsky, the scratch-and-dent Reshitel‘nyi was one of the Russian destroyers on patrol just outside of Port Arthur that spoiled the second Japanese attempt to scuttle four blockships at the entrance, torpedoing them well short of the outer harbor, too far out to fill their intended role.

Russian accounts credit the destroyer Silnyii with hitting two of the blockships while Reshitel‘nyi torpedoed a third.

Second attempt to block Port Arthur, 27 March 1904 William Lionel Wylie RMG PV0976

In July, out of torpedoes, Reshitel‘nyi conducted two successful mine laying operations near the harbor’s approaches.

Escape to China

Russian RADM Wilgelm Vitgeft, the third head of the Russian Squadron at Port Arthur since the war started (the first was sacked and the second killed when his flagship was sunk), was ordered against his better judgment to break out of the besieged port in early August 1904 and form up with a group of armored cruisers that made up the Vladivostok squadron, turning the tables on the Japanese blockade force under Admiral Togo.

In a poor state and with repair facilities in Port Arthur lacking, Reshitel‘nyi was unlikely to be able to break out for Vladivostok and would have to remain in the port to be destroyed or scuttled by her crew should the siege not be lifted.

On the morning of 10 August, Vitgeft took everything he thought that could make it– the battleships Tsesarevich, Retvizan, Pobeda, Peresvet, Sevastopol, and Poltava, the protected cruisers Askold, Diana, Novik and Pallada, and 14 destroyers– out to sea. A few hours later, most of them limped back after being repulsed by Togo. Vitgeft and his staff were killed by a 12-inch salvo from the Japanese battleship Asahi that cleared the bridge of his flagship, Tsesarevich, which, heavily damaged, made for exile in the German treaty port of Tsingtao along with three German-made destroyers.

That afternoon came orders for Reshitel‘nyi to limp out under the cover of darkness to the nearest neutral port with a Russian consulate, Chefoo (now Yantai), some 100 miles directly across the Bohai Strait from Port Arthur on the Shandong Peninsula. There, she would bring vital dispatches for the consul to send on to the higher authorities, among them the details of Vitgeft’s defeat.

But first, let us paint you a picture of Chefoo during the Russo-Japanese War.

It was from Chefoo that the flotsam and jetsam of the combat at Port Arthur washed up. As early as February 1904, shipwrecked Japanese sailors rowed into the harbor in the lifeboats. This was followed by successive waves of Russian refugees and blockade runners of all stripes smuggling contraband across to the besieged garrison via sampan and coaster. Meanwhile, foreign correspondents of all stripes set up shop in Chefoo to turn second and third-hand tittle-tattle into news stories for the hungry masses back home. For example, many of the columns on the war appearing in the New York Times in 1904 were filed from Chefoo.

The indifferent Chinese Qing dynasty’s government at Chefoo was represented by one Admiral Sah aboard the fine German-built protected cruiser Hai Yung (2680 tons, 3×5.9 inch, 8x 4.1 inch, 3 tt), resting at anchor under the protection of a battery of Krupp-made coastal artillery that controlled the harbor.

Ashore was a division of the Qing New Army’s infantry and brigade of cavalry, both of which had Japanese instructors, so there is that.

Western warships also often could be found in the harbor, with the American cruiser USS Cincinnati sharing space that summer with German VADM Curt von Prittwitz’s visiting East Asiatic Squadron, with the old man aboard his flagship, the cruiser Furst Bismarck.

Now back to the story of our little destroyer’s breakout.

Moving out of Port Arthur on the dark night of 10 August, Reshitel‘nyi was able to make 18 knots and miraculously threaded her way through holes in the Japanese screen, arriving at Chefoo at 0605 on the morning of 11 August.

Reshitel‘nyi (spelled “Rieshitelni” on the record), was photographed at Chefoo, China, on 11 August 1904, possibly by U.S. Navy personnel or the American consul. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil, 1982. NH 94358

Her fourth skipper, the eager LT Mikhail Sergeevich Roshchakovsky (formerly of the daring little minelayer Avos who had crept within yards of Japanese warships to lay mines outside of Port Arthur), had a plan of his own which included patching his little warship up enough to be able to sortie south to the only allied port, Saigon in French Indochina, where he could presumably join Admiral Rozhestvensky’s Russian Baltic Fleet (dubbed the Second Pacific Squadron) for their final voyage.

Floating under the radar, so to speak, in the Chinese port without surrendering to internment wasn’t out of the question. At the same time, the damaged Russian light cruiser Askold and the destroyer Grosovoi had taken refuge in the port Wusong on the Yangzi and remained there, fully armed, until they voluntarily accepted internment the next month.

Service aboard shrapnel-riddled Askold in Shanghai

However, even in good repair, the likelihood that Reshitel‘nyi would be able to cover the 1,085 sea miles from Chefoo to Saigon, when her maximum range at 15 knots was only about 750 miles when packed with coal, avoiding prowling Japanese warships along the way, was slim.

Still, she would eventually link up with Rozhestvensky but in a quite different way than what Roshchakovsky had in mind.

Unluckily for Roshchakovsky’s plan, Admiral Sah, sending over officers from his cruiser, ordered the Russian destroyer disarmed within 24 hours or he would eject them from the port. Taking a vote from his crew, who elected to tap out rather than roll the dice at sea with moody engines, Roshchakovsky dutifully handed over the breechblocks from his deck guns, barred his torpedo tubes, and surrendered his small arms locker (13 rifles and two revolvers), in addition to disabling his engines and supplying the Chinese with a list of names of his crew. The Russians signed a pledge not to participate in further hostilities.

Roshchakovsky requested his ship be moved from the outer mole closer to shore where the guns of the cruiser Hai Yung and the Chinese coastal battery could protect it. Just in case, he ordered three small charges placed on the bulkheads in the magazines belowdecks, ready to scuttle if needed.

Reshitel‘nyi was out of the war.

Except she wasn’t.

Not wanting to let a juicy prize slip away, the Japanese destroyers Asashio and Kasumi entered the port shortly after Reshitel‘nyi was disarmed but before she could be moved to the inner harbor and dropped anchor in a position that cornered the Russian tin can. Refusing Admiral Sah’s signals to disarm and be interned or leave immediately, they replied that they would leave the next morning

Putting an armed prize party aboard the disarmed Reshitel‘nyi at 0330 on 11 August from two whale boats, Roshchakovsky confronted the Japanese officer in charge. With his hand on a sheathed sword, the Japanese lieutenant offered two options: immediately go to sea and engage in battle, even if he had to be towed, or surrender. Roshchakovsky selected a third option, and grabbed the Japanese officer, forcing him overboard and following him over the side into the harbor. A volley of fire from the Japanese blue jackets wounded the Russian with a bullet in his thigh.

In the ensuing melee, the Reshitel‘nyi’s crew, which more than outnumbered the two boats of Japanese, armed themselves with wrenches, fire axes, and coal shovels and fought it out, that is, until someone triggered the charges in the magazine, which were lackluster in performance.

Damaged but not sinking, the battle could end only one way, with the Japanese eventually taking over the Russian destroyer. Meanwhile, the waterlogged and bleeding Roshchakovsky and his 55 crew– with two men missing and several wounded– withdrew and made for shore. The Japanese suffered as well, losing at least two of their own.

Dawn came with the Japanese towing the captured Reshitel‘nyi out of the harbor and the Russians proceeding to their consulate, where most would spend the rest of the war.

The body of one of Reshitel‘nyi’s missing was recovered and buried ashore with full military honors, carried by her crewmates and escorted by an armed honor guard provided by Admiral Sah.

The crew of the Reshitel‘nyi in the courtyard of the Russian consulate in Chefoo grave of sailor Volovich. Roshchakovsky is the bearded officer in the center. 

The fisticuffs became worldwide news and were interpreted by newspaper artists around the globe.

The crew was decorated, with Roshchakovsky both the Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class with swords, and the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree with swords and bow. His men received the Order of St. Anne.

They were Russian heroes in a war with few of those and became legends.

The Russians in late 1904 lodged a “Seven Points” letter with the Great Powers protesting China’s Japanese-leaning neutrality including the use by Japan of the Chinese Miano islands as a naval base, the transport of Japanese war material on the Shanhai-Newchwang railway, China’s Hongkew ironworks accepting Japanese military contracts, Chinese soldiers being enlisted in the Japanese Army, the use of Japanese officers in training the Chinese army, Japan paying Manchurian Hunhutses bandits as irregulars, and, last but not least, the Reshitel‘nyi incident in Chefoo.

Illustration of a “shameless geisha” holding Reshitel‘nyi after Japan captured the destroyer in a neutral port, from the Russian magazine Budil’nik. No. 32, 1904.

Of course, the Japanese countered with an equally lengthy list of instances where Russia had abused Chinese good graces during the conflict including the use of Chinese Army uniforms captured during the Boxer rebellion by scouting units in Manchuria and the entire concept of the East Chinese Railroad.

Under the Rising Sun

It turned out that, as Reshitel‘nyi was built to a British Yarrow design and carried common boilers and engines, the British-allied Japanese were able to repair her rapidly.

The breechblocks to her guns were replaced, and her 15-inch torpedo tubes were swapped out for larger 18-inch tubes. The refurbishment took six months, and she entered Japanese service on 17 January 1905 as the destroyer Akatsuki, taking that moniker to obscure the fact that the Japanese had lost a tin can of the same name to a mine the previous May.

Japanese Navy destroyer Akatsuki (ex-Russian Reshitelnyi) underway to participate in the Battle of the Sea of ​​Japan

Placed under the command of Capt. Masasaku Harada, she was with Togo’s fleet as part of his 1st Destroyer Division when it met Admiral Rozhestvensky’s Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima in May 1905.

Ironically, her last Russian skipper, LT Roshchakovsky, was there as well, sailing on the old Admiral Ushakov-class coastal battleship Admiral Seniavin as the commander of the ship’s bow 10-inch turret. Roshchakovsky had quickly left Chefoo for Russia the previous August and, after meeting with the Tsar personally to brief him of the loss of Reshitel‘nyi, had asked for an appointment with Rozhestvensky’s squadron, joining Seniavin in October only days before the tub left Russia on her 18,000 trip that ended at Tsushima.

While Roshchakovsky and Harada did not personally engage in the swirling fleet action, the battle did not go well for either. Admiral Seniavin was surrendered on the morning of the 28th and became a Japanese prize– with Roshchakovsky becoming a guest of the emperor for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, Akatsuki/Reshitel‘nyi got so turned around in the dark due to heavy seas and harsh weather that she caused Japanese TB No. 69 to capsize and sink– one of Togo’s few losses in the battle.

Following the end of hostilities, Akatsuki/Reshitel‘nyi/Kondor/Baklan picked up her fifth name, Yamahiko (also seen as Yamabiko), and the loss of the original Akatsuki, a war secret, was finally announced. She would be joined in Japanese service by her sister Sokol class sister Silnyy, which had been scuttled at Port Arthur and rebuilt and renamed Fuzuki/Fumizuki.

Also captured by the Japanese were sisters Serdityy, Smelyy, Skoryy, and Statnyy, who were not returned to service. Meanwhile, sisters Storozhevoy, Steregushchiy, Razyashchiy, Rastoropnyy, Strashnyy, and Stroyny had been lost during the conflict.

Yamahiko in the 1914 Janes, the last of her class in Japanese service. Silnyy/Fuzuki had already been hulked in 1913.

Yamahiko in the 1915 Brassey’s

In 1917, our little destroyer was disarmed and removed from Japanese naval service. Working as the coaster Yamahiko Maru for some time, she was scrapped in 1919.

Epilogue

Of the 15 Sokols left in Russian service after 1905, two (Berkut and Prytkiy) were disposed of interwar while the rest were eventually rerated as dispatch vessels or torpedo boats, in the latter tasking picking up larger 450mm tubes. They would endure in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets for another decade, with some transferred to the inland Astrakhan-Caspian Sea flotilla via the Volga.

Baltic Fleet Sokol class destroyers 1912, Ryanyy in front

The Black Sea Sokols, in the 1914 Janes.

The final members retained in Soviet service– Prochnyy, Porazhayushchiy, Retivyy, Strogiy, and Svirepyy— would all be gone by the late 1920s.

The Sokol class destroyer Porazhayushchiy, which served in the Baltic fleet from commissioning until 1918, her crew helped to recover the vital cipher book from the grounded German cruiser Magdeburg in 1914. Porazhayushchiy was later transferred to the Caspian where she retired in 1925.

Following the collapse of Imperial Russia, five of the Sokols in the Baltic fleet– Korshun, Prozorlivyy, Rezvyy, Ryanyy, and Podvizhnyy— were captured by the newly independent Finns at Helsingfors (Helsinki) and Hango in 1918. They would be used by the nascent Finnish Navy as S1-S5 and disposed of throughout the 1930s.

S3 (Finnish destroyer) in commission from 1898 to 1921. Photographed about 1920. This ship was the former Russian Sokol-class Prozorlivyy,

The Finnish S-class boats in the 1931 ed of Janes, which at the time still in numbered two former Russian Sokols picked up in 1918.

Roshchakovsky

Now, we touch on the fate of the unsinkable LT Roshchakovsky.

Repatriated from Japan in January 1906 and still nursing wounds from Tsushima and Chefoo, he was seconded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for use as a naval attaché in Greece and Germany until he was able to return to duty with the Baltic Fleet in 1908. He would go on to spend the rest of his career with the Tsarist Navy in minelaying/minesweeping work and in small escorts, including command of the Ohotnik-class mine cruiser (minnykh kreyserov) Pogranichnik in the Great War. By 1916, he was in command of the defenses to Kola Bay and Arkhangelsk, where war material was stacked up.

When the Revolution came, Roshchakovsky was cashiered and denied even a pension despite his 23 years of service. He sat out the Civil War in Norway without taking sides– notably writing White Russian General Denikin and urging him to throw in the towel for the sake of the country-– but would spend the rest of his life filing requests with the Soviets to return to naval service, all of which were officially denied. A trained engineer who had won the Admiral Nakhimov Prize while a cadet in 1896, while in Norway Roshchakovsky worked for a shipbuilding company.

Returning to the Motherland in 1925, he served as head of the foreign department under the board of НиГРЭС, the new Nizhny Novgorod powerplant, until 1928, when he was arrested for his past ties to the old regime and exiled to Siberia for three years.

In 1937, at age 61, Stalin’s NKVD picked him up again and gave him five years in a labor camp due to being a “socially dangerous element.”

Capt. 1st Rank Mikhail Sergeevich Roshchakovsky, three-time winner of the St. Anne in addition to the St. Stanislaus and St. Vladimir, perished in the gulag sometime in 1938, the date and place lost to the butcher.

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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Minehunters, ahoy

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Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1, moving about Scandinavia in April 2023, with Norwegian coast guard cutter HNoMS Nordkapp (A531) trailing, preceded by FGS Rottweil (M1061), FS Céphée (M652), HNoMS Otra (M351), BNS Bellis (M916) and EML Sakala (M314). Foto Mediacentrum Defensie

Lots of interesting news coming from the world of sea mines.

First, from the Baltic, comes news that Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group One has been very busy over the late summer and fall. In just one recent nine-day operation in Estonian territorial waters, seven minesweepers/hunters covered an area of more than 22 square nautical miles and classified 228 items as “mine-like” objects.

Of those, 16 were positively identified as historical mines left over from WWI and WWII and neutralized.

“The Baltic Sea was heavily mined during the World Wars, however, some areas more densely than others,” Commander, SNMCMG1 Polish Navy Commander Piotr Bartosewicz said. “Estonian waters are one of the most mined areas in the world and provide a valuable opportunity to train and to increase SNMCMG1’s combat readiness.”

Bartosewicz took charge of SNMCMG1 on behalf of the Polish Navy in July 2023. He leads the group from its flagship Polish Navy ORP Czernicki (511) along with an international staff on board. In addition, the group comprises minehunters: Belgian Navy BNS Crocus (M917), German Navy FGS Bad Bevensen (M1063), Royal Netherlands Navy HNLMS Vlaardingen (M863), and two Polish Navy minesweepers ORP Drużno (641) and ORP Hańcza (642). The group was further strengthened by Allied minehunters from Estonia and Lithuania – ENS Ugandi (M315) and LNS Skalvis (M53), respectfully, during the HODOPS.

Earlier in the summer, as Operation Reassurance (OpRe) assets assigned to SNMCMG1, Royal Canadian Navy Clearance Divers accounted for six mines out of 10 neutralized in waters off Latvia.

They were operating from two of Canada’s venerable Kingston class “coastal defense vessels” — HMCS Summerside and HMCS Shawinigan— which are basically offshore patrol assets that can be pressed into service as mine hunters.

MCDV HMCS Shawinigan (MM704) set up for MCM with SNMCMG1 Baltic October 2023. These 181-foot diesel-electric steel-hulled OPVs have done it all since they entered service in the early 1990s. Note the .50 cal M2 in front of her wheelhouse, a weapon not normally mounted. RCN photo

SNMCMG1 rafting in the Baltic in September. The largest ship is the 2,300-ton/242-foot mine defense command ship ORP Kontradmiral Xawery Czernicki (511) in center alongside 540-ton/168-foot Dutch minehunter Zr.Ms. Vlaardingen (M 863), with the Polish 216-ton/126-foot Gardno/207P-class harbor minesweepers ORP Hańcza (642) and ORP Drużno (641) at the top. At the bottom is the 650-ton/178-foot German Frankenthal-Class mine hunter Bad Bevensen (M 1063). The Canadian Kingston class sisters HMCS Summerside and HMCS Shawinigan are sandwiched between Bad Bevensen and Czernicki.

Lacking direct sweep gear, the combination of divers and REMUS ROVs proved a decent substitute on the 30-year-old Kingstons.

Tell me again how LCS can’t get it done?

 

Meanwhile, in the Black Sea…

NATO allies Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, plan to sign an agreement on 11 January to work together to sweep the Black Sea of mines.

Besides historical mines and UXO left over from the 20th Century, the ancient sea has seen numerous floating mines wandering around due to the more recent dust-up in Ukraine, with most being small but still dangerous shallow water (inshore/river) contact mines.

Most of the devices encountered so far have been Soviet M1943 MyaM-type shallow water (inshore/river) contact mines of the type licensed to both Iran (SADAF-01 type) and Iraq (Al Mara type) back in the 1980s, typically seen with very fresh Ukrainian naval markings and contact horns covered.

Last September, the Romanian minesweeper Lt. Dimitrie Nicolescu (DM-29) survived the detonation of a mine some 25 miles off Constanţa.

Enter the Houthi

Finally, it should be remembered that the Yemen Houthi have their own domestically made KS-2 Mersad (trans: Ambush), a High-Explosive (HE), moored, contact-initiated, blast seamine, of which lots of images are making their rounds these days.

First fielded in 2017, the Mersad reportedly contains just 46 pounds of HE and is armed via four simple contact horns connected to an electric detonator powered by 16 AA batteries.

Many have wondered if they were made from repurposed Chinese freon tanks popular in the region.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023: As Easy as 123

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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, Nov. 29, 2023: As Easy As 123

Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 109514

Above we see Wickes-class tin can USS Gamble (Destroyer No. 123) steaming into after the review of Pacific Fleet, 13 September 1919, with her sister USS Radford (DD-120) trailing behind.

Brand new and beautiful in this image, she was commissioned 105 years ago today. Gamble would give her last full measure off Iwo Jima and be deep-sixed a month before the end of World War II but don’t worry, she rolled the dice and took a few of the Emperor’s ships with her.

The Wickes

Gamble was one of the iconic first flights of “Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) W.S. Sims. Beamy ships with a flush deck and a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide 35.3 knots designed speed– which is still considered fast today, more than a century later.

The teeth of these 314-foot, 1,250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK 9 guns and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.

They reportedly had short legs and were very wet, which made long-range operations a problem, but they gave a good account of themselves. Originally a class of 50 was authorized in 1916, but once the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, this was soon increased and increased again to some 111 ships built by 1920.

 

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard Profile / Outboard Profile, June 10, 1918, NARA NAID: 158704871

 

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Main Deck / 1st Platform Deck / S’ch L’t P’f’m, S’ch L’t Control P’f’m, Fire Control P’f’m Bridge, Galley Top, After Dk. House and 2nd Platform Deck. / June 10, 1918, Hold NARA NAID: 158704873

Wickes class. A close-up of her stern top-down view of plans shows the Wickes class’s primary armament– a dozen torpedo tubes in four turnstiles and stern depth charges.

Meet Gamble

Our subject is the first Navy ship to be named in honor of at least two of the quartet of Gamble brothers who served in the War of 1812. The four brothers including Capt. Thomas Gamble (USN) who served aboard USS Onedia during the war and perished while in command of the sloop USS Erie of the Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron in 1818; 1st Lt. Peter Gamble (USN) killed on the USS Saratoga during the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1814; Lt. Francis B. Gamble (USN) who died of yellow fever in 1824 while in command of the USS Decoy of the navy’s West Indies Squadron; and U.S. Marine hero Lt. Col. (Brvt) John Marshall Gamble, the only member of the Corps to command an American warship in battle– the prize ship USS Greenwich in her combat with the British armed whaler Seringapatam in 1813. Only John lived into the 1830s, passing at age 44, still on active duty.

Two of the four brothers Gamble. Midshipman Thomas Gamble, USN (L) via Analectic magazine. Painted by Waldo, and engraved by J.B. Longacre. NH 49483 and Lt. John M. Gamble, USMC (R). Photo from a portrait in possession of his grandson. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 49482)

Gamble (Destroyer No. 123) was laid down on 12 November 1917 at Newport News, launched on 11 May 1918 sponsored by a dour relative of SECNAV Josephus “Cup of Joe” Daniels; and commissioned at Norfolk 18 days after the Armistice on 29 November 1918.

Wickes class sisters USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Gamble (DD-123) on the ways at Newport News between November 1917 and May 1918. NH 43018

USS Gamble (DD-123) launched at Newport News, Virginia, on 11 May 1918. Her sistership USS Breese (DD-122) is next to her and launched the same day in a dual ceremony. NH 53813

Same as above, NH 53812

Entering a crowded and rapidly demobilizing fleet that was just coming off the Great War, Gamble would spend the next several months in a series of shakedowns and trials up and down the East Coast from Maine to Cuba but notably was one of the ships escorting the troop transport George Washington, which was carrying President Woodrow Wilson back to the U.S. from peace negotiations in Paris to Boston in February 1919 and again in July.

In May 1919, she was one of the support ships for the legendary first transatlantic flight by the Navy’s Curtiss NC flying boats, helping spot NC-4 through the Azores.

In mid-July 1919, Gamble, along with sisters Breese, Lamberton (Destroyer No. 119), and Montgomery (Destroyer No. 121), were shifted to the Pacific Fleet to join Destroyer Division 12 and made their way to San Diego via the Panama Canal.

USS Gamble (DD-123) and USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa 1919, probably at Balboa, Panama, Canal zone. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1983. NH 94956

Once on the West Coast, she would spend most of the next three years haze gray and underway, so to speak, steaming from up and down the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle and out to Pearl and back in a series of tests, maneuvers, and reviews.

Gamble photographed about 1919. NH 53815

Gamble at San Diego, California, circa 1919. NH 53816

USS Gamble (DD-123) photographed on 23 April 1919 with extensive tropical awnings covering her decks. Sister USS Breese (DD-122) is in the background. NH 53814

Gamble with her original DD-123 hull numbers. NH 67684

Destroyers at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1919 (from left to right): USS Tarbell (Destroyer # 142); USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162); USS Rizal (Destroyer # 174); USS Hart (Destroyer # 110); USS Hogan (Destroyer # 178); USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123); USS Ramsay (Destroyer # 124); and USS Williams (Destroyer # 108). Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps). NH 42537

USS Gamble (DD-123) at anchor and dressed with flags, circa 1921, following the relocation of her after 4″/50 cal gun to the top of the after deckhouse. NH 59648

Battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) at sea for maneuvers, during the early 1920s. Wickes class destroyers in the background include USS Radford (DD-120) and USS Gamble (DD-123). NH 46051

Destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD-5) in San Diego Harbor, California, with USS Gamble (DD-123) alongside, circa 1920-1922. NH 105775

U.S. fleet in Balboa, Panama, early 1920s. The center of the photo is the battleship USS New Mexico BB-40, then a cluster of flush deck destroyers including USS Ramsey DD-124, USS Montgomery DD-121, USS Breese DD-122, USS Lamberton DD-119, and USS Gamble DD-123. In the background are the battleship USS Mississippi BB-41, the tin cans USS O’Bannon DD-177, USS MacKenzie DD-175, USS Hugan DD-178, USS Anthony DD-172, and several other destroyers and another battleship in the far distance.

With budget cuts, Gamble was tapped to begin inactivation procedures and was decommissioned on 17 June 1922 and was held in reserve at San Diego.

Recall, and a job change

After nearly a decade on red lead row, Gamble was taken out of mothballs and redesignated a fast destroyer minelayer (DM-15) on 24 May 1930. This saw her head to Mare Island for a general overhaul and conversion.

The Navy had previously converted 14 Wickes and Clemson class ships to this designation in 1920, with the simple swap out of having their torpedo tubes replaced with a set of two 140-foot tracks that could carry approximately 85 1,400-pound Mark VI moored antenna mines (of which the Navy had 50,000 left over from the Great War) to drop over the stern.

The Navy ordered 100,000 Mark VI (MK 6) mines in 1917, carrying a 300-pound charge, and had so many left that even after using thousands during WWII they remained in U.S. service into the 1980s. Gamble and her sisters could carry as many as 85 of these on a pair of rails that ran, port and starboard, down the aft half of the ship.

As noted by Destroyer History.org:

Among the lessons World War I offered the US Navy was the possibility that fast ships could be effective in laying minefields to disrupt enemy operations. The surplus of flush-deckers at the end of the war provided an opportunity to experiment.

The original 14 circa 1920 rated destroyer-minelayers were slowly replaced throughout the 1930s by a smaller group of eight converted flush-deckers taken from mothballs– USS Gamble (DM-15)(DD-123), USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124), USS Montgomery (DM-17)(DD-121), USS Breese (DM-18)(DD-122), USS Tracy (DM-19)(DD-214), USS Preble (DM-20)(DD-345), USS Sicard (DM-21)(DD-346) and USS Pruitt (DM-22)(DD-347).

Jane’s 1931 entry on the type. Note Breese is misspelled as “Breeze.”

Curiously, these ships would retain their white DD-hull numbers but wore Mine Force insignia on their bow, outwardly looking much more destroyer than minelayer.

Wickes-class destroyer USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124) view was taken by Tai Sing Loo, at Pearl Harbor, T. H., circa 1930. Note that she is fitted out as a minelayer (DM) and retains her DD-hull number while wearing a mine-force insignia on her bow. NH 49953

In addition to these minelayers, several Wickes/Clemson class flush deckers were converted during the WWII era to other tasks including eighteen fast minesweepers (DMS), fourteen seaplane tenders (AVD), and six fast “Green Dragon” transports (APD) plus test ship Semmes (AG 24, ex-DD 189) at the Key West Sound School and damage control hulk Walker (DCH 1, ex-YW 57, ex-DD 163) which was reclaimed from commercial service as a dockside restaurant at San Diego.

All eight of the active destroyer-minelayers were formed into Mine Squadron 1 headed up by the old minelayer USS Oglala (CM 4), flagship of Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, commander of Minecraft for the Battle Force of the Pacific Fleet, and forward-based with “The Pineapple Fleet” at Pearl Harbor, where a new conflict would soon find them.

USS Oglala (CM-4); USS Gamble (DD-123/DM-15); USS Ramsay (DD-124/DM-16). (listed L-R) anchored off Cocoanut Island, Hilo Harbor, Hawaii, T.H., 12 December 1931. Mauna Kea Volcano is in the distance. Note that the DMs are still wearing their destroyer hull numbers but with Mine Force insignias. 80-G-409991

Gamble and her crew were busy while in Hawaiian waters in the 1930s, and often helped in search and rescue cases including that of the missing aircraft Stella Australis, the disabled steamer President Lincoln, and the yacht Lanikai.

She was also something of a public relations boat and was tapped to carry Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd from Honolulu to Hilo in 1931 then hosted the six-year-old singing and dancing wonder, Ms. Shirley Temple, in 1935.

Besides spending the day on Gamble, Temple was declared a Colonel of the Hawaiian National Guard, inducted as a Waikiki Beach lifeguard, and given a surfboard by Duke Kahanamoku during her 1935 Hawaiian trip.

Gamble (DM-15) dressed with flags while tied up in port, circa 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition (World’s Fair) in San Francisco. Note the circular Mine Force insignia, red/blue/white with a black center and outline, on her bow. In the distance is a USCG 240-foot Lake class cutter. Courtesy of the Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia. Ted Stone Collection. NH 66812

War!

All MineRon1’s ships were swaying at their berths at Pearl’s Middle Loch on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attack came in. The squadron was divided into two divisions, with MinDiv2 consisting of Gamble, Montgomery, Breese, and Ramsay.

The response by Gamble, among others, was immediate, opening fire just two minutes after her lookouts saw enemy planes.

From her after-action report:

0745 Heard explosions on Ford Island.
0756 Wave of about 50 Japanese planes attacked battleships and Naval Air Station, Ford Island, planes flying at low altitudes about 500 feet over battleships from the direction of Diamond Head, about 700 feet over Ford Island. Five successive waves of the attack of about 10 planes each.
0758 Went to General Quarters, opened fire with .50 cal. machine guns on planes passing over nest at about 800 feet altitude. Set material condition afirm except for certain protected ammunition passages.
0759 Opened fire with 3″/23 cal. AA guns, firing as planes came within range, fuses set 3 to 8 secs.
0805 Mounted and commenced firing with .30 cal. machine guns on galley deck house.
0810 Commenced making preparations to get underway. Lighted off four boilers.
0925 One Japanese plane shot down by A.A. fire, falling in water on port beam about 1000 yards away from ship. Believed shot down by ROBERTS, W.L., BM2c, U.S.S. Gamble, port machine gunner (#2 machine gun) .50 cal., and JOOS, H.W., GM3c, U.S.S. Gamble (#1 machine gun) starboard.
0930 Division commenced getting underway. U.S.S. Breese underway.
0930 U.S.S. Gamble got underway and cleared mooring buoy.
0937 Japanese planes attacked near main channel entrance.
0955 Temporarily anchored, astern of U.S.S. Medusa.
1005 Underway proceeding out of channel.
1015 Shifted .30 cal. A.A. machine guns to top of pilot house on fire control platform.
1021 Cleared channel entrance. Eight depth charges were armed and the ship commenced off-shore anti-submarine patrol off Pearl Harbor entrance.
1204 Established sound contact with submarine and dropped three depth charges. Position bearing 162° T from Diamond Head Light, distant 2.5 miles.
1255 Proceeded on course 270° T at 20 knots to join friendly forces upon receipt of orders from CinCPac.
1412 Sighted sampan bearing 320° T.
1435 Slowed to investigate but did not search. Sampan position approximately 4 miles south of Barbers point.
1628 Sighted smoke bomb off port bow.
1631 Submarine surfaced.*
1632 Fired one shot 4″ gun and missed, short and to the left. Submarine displayed U.S. colors, and ceased firing. Submarine submerged and fired recognition red smoke bomb.
1647 Proceeded west.
1732 Sighted Enterprise and exchanged calls. Instructed by Commander Aircraft, Battle Force to join Enterprise.
1744 Joined Enterprise and took station as third ship with two other plane guard destroyers.

*The friendly submarine turned out to be the Tambor class boat USS Thresher (SS-200), which was unharmed although a critically ill member of her crew– the reason for her surfacing and heading to port– passed. She again tried to enter the harbor on 8 December but was driven off by depth bombs from a patrol plane and only made it into Pearl under escort from a seaplane tender. Thresher went on to become the most decorated submarine of the war with 15 battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.

Gamble would remain off Pearl for the rest of the month, dropping depth charges on at least two further underwater sound contacts, and continue her ASW mission into 1942 when she expanded her operations to Samoa and Fiji, sowing defensive minefields in the waters of both. She also picked up some much-needed extra AAA in the form of a couple of 20mm Oerlikons.

Escorting a convoy to Midway in June, Gamble returned with a high-profile enemy POW, CDR Kunizo Aiso, the former chief engineering officer of the Japanese carrier Hiryu which had been sunk in the pivotal battle.

Carrier flagship Hiryu: Last Moments of Admiral Yamaguchi at the Battle of Midway. oil painting by Renzo Kita, 1943. Most of the ship’s officers chose to ride her to the bottom or were evacuated. Aiso, forgotten in the engineering spaces with a small group of snipes, surfaced after the ship had been left to the sea and managed to take to lifeboats. 

Aiso was the senior Japanese naval officer imprisoned in the U.S. at the time and would be until 1944. Picked up at sea in a crowded lifeboat with 34 other survivors of his carrier after 12 days bobbing around the Pacific some 250 miles west of Midway, the English-speaking officer reportedly did not wish to return to Japan, nor wish his government be informed of his capture, preferring to be recorded as lost with his ship. For the trip to Hawaii, CDR Aiso was issued USN officer khakis and barricaded inside Gamble’s captain’s cabin with the wings cut off the wingnuts of the battle ports.

Finally, picking up 85 Mark VI mines at Pearl for points West, Gamble set off for Espíritu Santo in August 1942 and, from there, Guadalcanal.

DD-123, meet I-123

When it comes to pennant numbers, the meeting that Gamble had on the morning of 29 August some 60 miles east of Savo Island was curious. She came across I-123, a big Japanese I-121-class minelaying submarine, operating on the surface. On her fifth war patrol, she had left Rabaul two weeks prior under the command of LCDR Nakai Makoto and had already given the Marines on Lungga Point heartburn with her deck gun.

Type I-121 Submarine I-23 pictured at Kobe Naval Arsenal on April 28th, 1928

The rolling ship vs submarine combat between DM-15 (formerly DD-123) and I-123 over the course of four hours ended with Makoto and his 71 crewmembers receiving a promotion, posthumously.

Gamble’s report:

While the Japanese lost 131 seagoing Ro- and I-class submarines during World War II (100 by Allied action including mines, 3 in accidents, and 28 by unknown causes) I-123 was only the 12th boat sent to the bottom in the conflict and was one of the Empire’s first early losses.

Gamble was soon back to work.

The very afternoon after she sank I-123, she sped to Nura Island to pick up four shot-down TBF-1 Avenger (Bu. No. 00396) aviators of Torpedo 8 from the Saratoga (LT JG EL Fayle, ARM3c W Velogquz, S1C RL Minning and ARM3c JR Moncarrow), retrieved via her whaleboat from the surf line. She would rescue two more lost Airedales from Palikulo Bay two weeks later, picking up 2nd LT EN Railsbach, USMC, and Ens. EF Grant, USNR, after their SBD burned in.

Gamble was pressed into service at Guadalcanal as a fast troop transport, on the morning of 31 August carrying 158 Marines from Guadalcanal to Tulagi in company with sisters USS Gregory and USS Little, who were equally loaded down with Devil Dogs.

Gamble also was soon performing her primary role once again, that of sowing minefields around the area, planting 42 in a defensive belt in Segond Channel in December 1942.

Speaking of which…

Stopping the “Tokyo Express”

On 7 May 1943, Gamble and sisters Breese and Preble laid mines in the Ferguson Passage/Blackett Strait between Gizo and Wanawana Islands in the Solomons southwest of Rendova. Hidden by a rain squall and with enemy attention diverted by a supporting cruiser-destroyer group, the old four pipers were able to sow 250 sea mines in three rough lines across the strait in just 17 minutes.

Hours later, these mines were stumbled upon by a passing column of first-class Japanese tin cans of DesDiv 15 on an overnight fast troop transport run and sank the Kagero-class destroyer Kuroshio, with 83 lives, and crippled two sisterships– Oyashio and Kagero– which, barely able to maneuver and full of seawater, would be sunk the next day after being spotted by Navy dive bombers from Guadalcanal.

IJN First-class destroyer Hamakaze of the Kagerō-class. Three of her sisters were killed due to mines laid by Gamble and company. 

As noted by Allyn D. Nevitt over at Combined Fleet, “The loss of even one such modern destroyer was fast becoming intolerable to the Japanese; having a crack unit of three erased in one blow was pure catastrophe. American daring and ingenuity in the Blackett Strait had reaped a substantial reward indeed.”

After further service– including supporting the invasion of New Georgia and planting more mines– Gamble was sent to San Francisco in July 1943 for a three-month overhaul at Hunter’s Point Navy Yard. Arriving back in the South Pacific, Gamble spent November 1943 conducting several mining runs off Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in support of the Allied offensive there.

Then, as noted by DANFS:

Through late 1943 and much of 1944, Gamble generally served as convoy escort ship screening for enemy submarines while operating between Guadalcanal and Florida Island in the Solomons; Espíritu Santo; and Noumea, with additional runs to Suva, Fiji; Finschhaven and New Britain Island, New Guinea; Sydney; and Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

Overhaul

In September 1944, Gamble was sent back to the West Coast for four months at the Bethlehem Steel Repair Yard at Alameda. This led to a serious overhaul of her guns, landing all her old 3″/23s and 4-inchers in favor of a homogenized set of 3″/50s and 20mm Oerlikons.

According to her December 1944 plans, her WWII topside armament was mostly emplaced on a series of superstructure platforms except for a forward 3″/50 DP above the CPO quarters just 20 feet from the bow and a 20mm Oerlikon directly behind it in front of the wheelhouse. The ammo magazine was three decks down on the keel amidships and another on astern near the shafts, meaning a chain gang had to be established to hump it up top. The main gun platform was over the galley between the three remaining funnels and held two 3″/50 DPs (port and starboard) with hinged sponsons for the gun crew and two Oerlikons. A small gun tub with two single 20mm Oerlikons (port and starboard) was above Radio 3 next to the stub mast. The stern superstructure gun platform was built atop the crew’s washhouse and armory and held a single 3″/50 DP installed just 22 feet from the stern. Two portable .50 cals were set up midship atop the pilot house and on the main deck at frame 117 (of 177 frames).

She also only had three stacks by this point. 

All told, this fit gave her four 3″/50 DPs, five 20mm Oerlikons, and two .50 cals. She would also be fitted with a twin 40mm Bofors gun, although I am not sure of its placement. Not a lot of throw weight there, but then of course her main armament was in her mine rails and projectors for Mark VI depth charges.

Eight breakaway Carely float-type life rafts were installed to augment the ship’s 26-foot whaleboat and punt. The crew at this time was a skipper (LCDR/CDR) and 8 wardroom officers along with a mix of 132 rates and enlisted (62 Seamans branch, 57 Artificer branch, 4 Special branch, 4 Commissary branch, 5 Messman branch). By this time, she carried SF and SC radar sets and QCL sonar.

She also picked up a new camo scheme.

Camouflage Measure 32, Design 7D drawings prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for light minelayers of the DM-15 (Gamble) class. This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 14 June 1944. 80-G-173486 and 80-G-173487.

This readied her for the “Big Show,” the push to Iwo Jima, Operation Detachment, in February 1945.

Back in the thick of it

On D+3, 17 February, Gamble closed into the beach close enough to cover the small minesweepers (YMS) and UDT teams of Sweep 5 and 6 clearing a path in the shoaling waters, shelling Japanese coastal emplacements and positions with her 3-inch and 40mm guns to silence them from harassing the cleaners via the application of 204 rounds of 3-inch AA Common and 254 of 40mm HETSD over seven hours. There, roughly six miles off Mt. Suribachi, she scored a hit on a large ammo dump with secondary explosions as well as silencing several enemy guns and bird-dogging other emplacements for the battlewagons.

Her NGFS report: 

Taking position off the old battlewagon Nevada the next night, she was hit by two small 250-pound bombs dropped by a  Japanese Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (Nick) twin-engine bomber that came in low and fast while she was silhouetted by star shells ashore. The bombs effectively wrecked our Gamble.

From her report:

Her crew was removed, and the shattered Gamble was towed to Saipan where she was decommissioned on 1 June 1945, and her name was stricken from the Navy Register three weeks later.

Stripped of anything thought useful, a series of images and videos were captured of her scuttling process, which took place off Guam on 16 July.

 

“Down Went the Gamble (DM 15).” Gamble was scuttled in June 1945. She was previously hit by Japanese enemy bombs in Feb 1945. Artist: Standish Backus, No.9. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 428-GX-KN 18978

Gamble received seven battle stars for service in World War II.

Epilogue

As Gamble was scuttled off Guam in deep water, few relics of her remain topside.

The wooden mold for her D Sharp ship’s bell, cast at Mare Island, resurfaced in 1991.

Her plans, drawings, deck logs, and war history are online in the National Archives. 

As for Shirley Temple, a bosun whistle presented to her by Gamble’s crew in 1935 remained a treasured possession for years. After all, she would meet her future husband, Charles Alden Black, a former Naval intelligence officer, in Hawaii in 1950 so perhaps those long-ago Pearl Harbor USN memories were prized. The whistle remained part of Ms. Temple’s estate and archives until it was sold at a 2015 auction by Theriault’s in New York.

It is undoubtedly in some collector’s display as this is written and perhaps will resurface one day.

Thus far, the Navy has chosen to not reissue the name “Gamble” to a second ship, which is a pity.

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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Grendel in its Cave, 80 Years Ago

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Here we see the Kriegsmarine battleship Tirpitz at Kåfjord in German-occupied Norway, in September 1943. Note the triple torpedo nets surrounding the beast and the flotilla of attending patrol and support craft.

The slightly improved sister to the infamous Bismarck, she would be attacked by an unlikely Beowulf in the form of a trio of British midget submarines while the monster was safe in its Kåfjord cave some 80 years ago today.

Termed Operation Source, after passing through the series of protective torpedo nets, one of the miniature subs, HMS X6, placed two mines of two tons each under the battleship’s keel, while X7 set a third.

Operation ‘Source’, 22 September 1943. Johne Makin (b.1947) via the Royal Navy Submarine Museum Collection.

While all three of the daring British X craft were lost in the resulting explosion and Tirpitz was severely damaged, she was back in service six months later and it would not be until November 1944 that the injured beast was finally slain.

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023: The Lost Desert Wind

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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, Aug. 9, 2023: The Lost Desert Wind

Photo by Stewart Bale Ltd, Liverpool, Imperial War Museums’ Foxhall Collection, no. IWM FL 19059 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121477

Above we see the third flight S-class diesel boat, HM Submarine Simoom (P225), underway, likely in 1943, her only year of service. A rather unlucky boat, Simoom fired 15 war shot torpedoes in her career and, although she never hit a target that she intended to punch a hole into, she did manage to spectacularly claim her only “kill” some 80 years ago today.

The mighty S-class

Built to replace the aging boats in RN service, the first pair, HMS Swordfish, and HMS Sturgeon, were ordered in the 1929 program. Small boats, running just over 200 feet in overall length and displacing around 600 tons (900 submerged), they were relatively fast for the day, capable of breaking almost 14 knots on the surface, making them able to catch up to slow-moving merchantmen, and carried a full dozen Mark VIII torpedoes for their six-pack of forward 21-inch tubes. Meanwhile, a 3-inch deck gun and a Vickers light machine gun gave a topside armament. This could be augmented by a dozen mines. Able to operate in shallow waters, with a draft of only 10.5 feet, and able to submerge in 10 fathoms, they could crash dive in just 25-30 seconds with a good crew if needed.

Not bad for a 1920s design.

The 1929 Chatham Dockyard plan of the flight I S-class boats. Chatham would only produce two boats (HMS Shalimar and Sportsman), whereas most were built by Cammell Laird and smaller numbers by Scotts and Vickers.

As noted by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II:

“Meant as replacements for the old H-class, they required the same virtues of maneuverability and quick diving. But the Admiralty wanted more– improvements in range, armament, and surface speed. The “S” types became a pillar of His Majesty’s Submarine Force; not remarkable in any respect, rather they performed well all tasks at acceptable levels, a class of well-balanced and workmanlike boats that proved safe and easy to operate.”

A great period color shot of the S-class submarine HMS Seadog (P216), in the foreground moving off, Holy Loch, 1942. The Group 1 T-class submarine HMS Thunderbolt (N25) is in the background. Of note, Thunderbolt was originally HMS Thetis which sank with heavy loss of life in the Mediterranean just before the war and was subsequently salvaged. The two objects seen on her after casing are containers for human torpedo chariots. IWM TR 612

In all, the British would order no less than 73 S-class boats in three flights across 12 construction programs, and they would remain in production from 1930 through 1945, spanning both the interbellum and WWII era. In all, 62 were completed.

Meet HMS Simoom

The name “Simoom” after the desert wind, dates to an 1842 paddlewheel frigate and was used in no less than five other ships by the Royal Navy. The subject of our tale is the sixth and (thus far) final HMS Simoom.

Ordered in the largest batch of S-class boats (20 hulls) under the 1940 war program, she was a third flight vessel and as such had several minor improvements including a slightly higher freeboard forward, a less complicated and simplified engineering layout that allowed a maximum speed approaching 15 knots (one of the batch, HMS Seraph, could hit 16.75 knots). She also had a seventh tube installed, an external one, giving her 13 torpedoes in total. Also, in lieu of a Vickers gun, the 3rd flight S-boats carried a 20mm Oerlikon AAA gun and a primitive air warning RDF receiver. They also carried a Type 138 ASDIC system and a Type 291/291W early-warning radar.

Laid down at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead (a yard that built at least 26 of the class) on 14 July 1941, Simoom was launched the following October and commissioned on 30 December 1942, her construction spanning just under 17 months.

A series of great images were captured of her in April 1943, steaming in conjunction with the captured German Type VIIC U-boat U-570 (HMS Graph, P715).

HM SUBMARINE SIMMOM AND GRAPH AT HOLY LOCH. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16049) HMS SIMOOM (right) and HMS GRAPH. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149055

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16041) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149047

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16047) The SIMOOM from dead ahead. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149053

HM SUBMARINES SIMOOM AND GRAPH. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16048) HMS SIMOOM (nearer) and HMS GRAPH together at Holy Loch. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149054

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16043) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149049

HMS SIMOOM, BRITISH S-CLASS SUBMARINE. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16045) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149051

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16043) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149049

As detailed by Uboat.net, her wartime service was brief.

Her first war patrol off Northern Norway to provide cover for convoy operations to and from Northern Russia in early 1943 was uneventful as was her second in the Bay of Biscay.

Transferring to the still very active Med, her third patrol, off the West coasts of Corsica and Sardinia was a bust.

Her 4th, providing coverage for the invasion of Sicily harassed some coastal shipping and, in the end, she would sink the Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti on 9 August 1943.

Simoon had fired a brace of six torpedoes at the big boys of RADM Giuseppe Fioravanzo’s 8th Cruiser Division (light cruisers Giuseppe Garibaldi and Emanuele Filiberto Duca d’Aosta) but caught the smaller Vincenzo Gioberti instead, making her the last Italian tin can sunk in the war.

Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, photographed before World War II. NH 47663

She is believed to have taken 95 men to the bottom with her after dramatically breaking in two parts and sinking. Some 171 survivors of Gioberti were recovered by MAS torpedo boats from La Spezia.

The end of Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, torpedoed by HMS Simoom on 9 August 1943. She was the last Regia Marina destroyer to be lost in the war against the Allies. Photo by “Storia Illustrata” magazine

Other rather sedate patrols followed.

The mysterious end of Simoom‘s tale came in November while on her 7th patrol.

Via Uboat.net:

2 Nov 1943
HMS Simoom (Lt. G.D.N. Milner, DSC, RN) departed Port Said for 7th war patrol (5th in the Mediterranean). She was ordered to patrol between Naxos and Mikonos, Greece. At 1142B/2 she reported that she did not hold the letter coordinates for November and would use those of October. This prompted Captain S.1 to communicate them the following evening.

On the 5th she was ordered to patrol off the Dardanelles, five nautical miles west of Tenedos.

On the 13th she was ordered to leave her patrol area PM on the 15th passing between Psara and Khios, through 35°06’N, 26°44’E and then on the surface from 34°25’N, 29°59′ E. She was due in Beirut at 0901B/20 but this was later corrected to the 19th.

Simoom did not show up at Beirut. She was declared overdue on 23 November 1943.

At 1729 hours, on 15 November, the German submarine U-565 (KL Fritz Henning) fired a single stern torpedo from 2000 metres at a target described as “probably a submarine” on course 250°, one hit was heard after 3 minutes and 48 seconds. The position recorded was Quadrat CO 3381 (36°51’N, 27°22’E or off the east coast of Kos) and it is unlikely that HMS Simoom was in the area. Post-war analysis concluded that she was probably mined on 4 November 1943 on a new minefield laid off Donoussa Island (ca. 37°06’N, 25°50’E).

Her roll of lost, marked “missing presumed killed” 19 November 1943:

ADAM, William G, Able Seaman, P/JX 344969, MPK
ANGLESEA, John, Engine Room Artificer 5c, D/MX 102924, MPK
BALSON, Lewis F C, Warrant Engineer, MPK
BEDFORD, Maurice A, Ty/Leading Seaman, D/SSX 27992, MPK
BROADBRIDGE, Thomas G, Stoker 1c, C/KX 83568, MPK
CASPELL, George E, Telegraphist, C/JX 163711, MPK
COLE, Edward, Stoker Petty Officer, P/KX 83973, MPK
CROSS, Charles M, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
DAY, Horace C, Signalman, C/JX 207606, MPK
ELLIN, Sidney, Petty Officer Telegraphist, C/JX 135616, MPK
ELLIOTT, Robert, Able Seaman, P/JX 322974, MPK
FRANCIS, Rolland J, Stoker 1c, D/KX 137871, MPK
GARBETT, Basil M, Lieutenant, MPK
GILL, Geoffrey, Able Seaman, C/JX 235129, MPK
GOWLAND, William R, Able Seaman, D/SSX 15958, MPK
GRIFFITH, Ben, Petty Officer, D/J 113001, MPK
HANNANT, James H, Able Seaman, D/JX 202875, MPK
HARRIS, Walter, Stoker 1c, D/KX 134758, MPK
HATTON, Charles W, Able Seaman, C/JX 169095, MPK
HERD, Charles E, Ordinary Seaman, P/JX 281907, MPK
HERSTELL, Norman, Able Seaman, P/JX 347783, MPK
JOHNSON, Robert J, Able Seaman, C/SSX 26525, MPK
JONES, Louis F, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
KENNEDY, Gordon A, Leading Telegraphist, D/JX 154462, MPK
KERR, David A, Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 55013, MPK
LANDING, John, Leading Stoker, P/KX 84477, MPK
LILLYCROP, Francis W, Stoker 1c, P/KX 145412, MPK
LOVELL, Ernest A, Able Seaman, P/SSX 18599, MPK
MARSDEN, Tom, Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 79301, MPK
MASON, George H, Act/Leading Stoker, P/KX 90779, MPK
MAY, Sidney J, Able Seaman, C/SSX 30974, MPK
MCLENNAN, Harold B W, Ty/Act/Leading Telegraphist, C/JX 259236, MPK
MILNER, Geoffrey D N, Lieutenant, MPK
MORTIMER-LAMB, Robert J, Ty/Petty Officer, C/JX 145875, MPK
OLDING, Walter G, Act/Chief Engine Room Artificer, P/MX 46951, MPK
O’LEARY, Michael T, Electrical Artificer 3c, D/MX49539, MPK
RAWE, James A, Act/Chief Petty Officer, RFR, P/JX 136102, MPK
SALMON, Alfred W, Able Seaman, P/JX 295724, MPK
SAUNDERS, Arthur, Able Seaman, P/JX 155201, MPK
SCHOFIELD, Bernard P, Able Seaman, C/JX 241234, MPK
SEABORNE, William J R, Stoker 1c, D/KX 94051, MPK
SHANKS, Thomas S, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
SHARP, Norman, Able Seaman, D/JX 223594, MPK
SHEPHERD, John V, Stoker 1c, P/KX 83132, MPK
SMITH, William J, Stoker 1c, D/KX 145306, MPK
SONGHURST, Thomas J, Stoker 1c, C/KX 83463, MPK
TAYLOR, James, Engine Room Artificer 4c, C/MX 77617, MPK
WARDALE, Irvin, Able Seaman, D/JX 303574, MPK
WILSON, William, Act/Petty Officer, P/SSX 18131, MPK

Epilogue

In 2016, Turkish wreck-hunter Selcuk Kolay found HMS Simoom (P225) about 6 nautical miles northwest of the Turkish Aegean Island of Bozcaada (Tenedos) in 67 meters of water. There was extensive damage near the starboard hydroplane with the conclusion that Simoom had hit a mine while running on the surface. The mine Simoom hit was believed one sown by the German minelayer Bulgaria and the Italian torpedo boats Monzambano and Calatafimi in September 1941.

Likewise, Simoom’s only “kill,” the Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, had been discovered the year prior.

The Royal Navy’s wartime losses totaled 74 submarines. Of those, no less than 19 were S-class boats.

Across over 3,000 patrols, HM submarines sank 158 enemy combatant ships and damaged 54 others, in addition to sinking 1.6 million tons of enemy merchant shipping. A lot of that came from S-class boats.

Nonetheless, they were small and slow by postwar standards. By 1946, Janes listed just 39 S-class boats under the British fleet’s entry and a half-dozen of those warned “may be discarded in the near future.”

Soon, nine would be transferred to France, Portugal, and Israel.

One, HMS Sidon (P259), was wrecked by its own torpedo explosion on 16 June 1955 then refloated and sunk as a target. Another, HMS Sportsman/French submarine Sibylle, was lost off Toulon in 1952 in a diving accident.

Of the dwindling number of S boats still in RN service, most were withdrawn in the late 1940s and 1950s while still relatively young with just a couple lingering on for a few years longer. HMS Sea Devil, completed just after VE-Day, was paid off for disposal at Portsmouth on 4 June 1962, and was the last of the S class in service with the Royal Navy, completing 17 years of service. She was sold to the shipbreaker Metal Recoveries and arrived at Newhaven on 15 December 1965.

The sparsely used trio of boats operated postwar by Portugal (HMS Saga/NRP Nautilo, HMS Spearhead/NRP Nepunto, and HMS Spur/NRP Narval) were disposed of in 1969.

The last of the class afloat, HMS Springer, was used by Israel until 1972 as INS Tanin and had landed commandos in Egypt during the Six-Day War.

Submarine INS Tanin (ex-HMS Springer) arrives at Port of Haifa in 1959. She would be the last S-class boat

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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Mines, Mines, Mines

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Word is that Australia plans to invest the equivalent of $800 Million in new sea mines, sourced from Italy.

Comparatively, the Chinese have an active offensive mining development program counting an estimated 80,000 devices consisting of up to 30 types, including encapsulated torpedo mines and rising mines.

This comes as the Vigilance Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV), pitched by VARD for the Royal Canadian Navy’s future fleet, was shown off at CANSEC 2023, complete with a stern Cube modular minelaying system installed.

Vigilance Class Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) with The Cube System

The system uses 40-foot containers for a wholly “bolt-on” minelaying option

A digital mockup of the Cube minelaying system on HMS Tamar, another small OPV currently in the Pacific. 

Suffice it to say, these could fit inside the open below-deck mission bay of the Independence-class LCS– here seen on USS Cincinnati (LCS-20)– while still leaving the helicopter deck and hangar free.(Photo: Chris Eger)

Meanwhile, here in the States, the Air Force is working on a program for a single B-52 to drop a dozen 2,000-pound mines from a distance of 40 miles off, one that could be very useful in the Pacific one day.

An inert Joint Direct Attack Munition QuickStrike Extended Range mine is attached to a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, La., in early March 2023. (U.S. Air Force courtesy photo 230524-F-AA323-1002)

From Air Force Strike Command:

A B-52H Stratofortress attached to the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron validated the ability to deploy inert Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) QuickStrike Extended Range (QS-ER) mines from a standoff distance of more than 40 miles off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in early March 2023.

The QS-ER mine marries the concept of a Mk64 underwater mine to that of the GBU-64v1 JDAM Extended Range variant. The resulting weapon is the 2,000-pound QS-ER mine.

Traditionally mines are employed as unguided gravity weapons, forcing the aircraft to fly at lower altitudes and releasing the mines at multiple intervals rather than single releases. This means the mission cannot be accomplished in a contested waterway without accepting a high level of risk. But the QS-ER program changes this concept completely.

Spotted in the Mississippi Sound: Cool Little Haze Gray AUSVs

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So we came across this interesting little guy while wandering around the small craft harbor in Gulfport last week.

A closer look shows lots of solar panels on the folded sail over a torpedo-shaped hull, a forward-facing camera, and a FLIR gimble over the stern.

This is it being towed into the harbor past the Gulfport Yacht Club by a 25~ foot RHIB workboat with sparse markings.

CF 9065 LE. Looks to be a repurposed old CG 26ft RB-S, note the painted-over red sides

They motored up to the recreational boat ramp by the repro Ship Island Lighthouse where a guy with a pickup truck and a wheeled recovery cart was waiting.

Up she comes.

The hull form has a centerline thruster stem/stabilizer.

It could be deployed by two-three men. While we watched they unloaded two of these, towing them each off with a Toyota Tundra.

Stumped? It is an Ocean Aero Triton, which is capable of sailing autonomously for 3 months on solar and wind power at speeds of up to 5 knots.

The TRITON is the world’s first and only Autonomous Underwater and Surface Vehicle (AUSV). It can sail and submerge autonomously to collect data both above and below the ocean’s surface and relay it to you from anywhere, at any time.

The TRITON was built to be versatile and to handle a range of missions across a number of industries. Our pre-packaged payloads will cover 90% of the applications in the defense, research, and off-shore energy sectors, but the system is designed to support rapid NRE efforts for more specific use cases. Optional state-of-the-art payloads include advanced modal communications for high bandwidth data transfer in remote areas as well as obstacle avoidance software/hardware to ensure autonomous reactions to unexpected mission complications.

The Specs, and some shots from Ocean Aero of the Triton submerged:

Click to big up 3452×2154

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