Following up on our Warship Wednesday this week, which covered the Great War-era Admiralty Strath-class “battle trawler” HMT William Barnett (3632) and its later life as the French Navy’s auxiliary minesweeper Roche Noire during WWII, how about a great series of related period maritime art?
British portrait painter, landscape artist, and printmaker Francis Edgar Dodd, RA, turned 40 as the “lamps are going out all over Europe.”
Volunteering to serve as an Official War Artist during World War I, he spent some time at sea with the hired trawler HMT Mackenzie (Adty No 336) during the conflict.
One of more than 1,400 British trawlers taken up from trade— some dating back to 1880– Mackenzie was built in 1911 (Hull-reg H.349) and retained her original name while in naval service. A craft of some 335 tons, she was hired in August 1914 and would remain in RN service, armed with a single 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun, likely taken from an old torpedo boat or battleship fighting top.
Primarily serving as a minesweeper, Mackenzie was returned to her owner in 1919.
She was one of the lucky ones. Of the 1,456 hired trawlers used by the British during the war, 266 were lost during the conflict including no less than 142 to enemy action. They fought a war very much as real as those with the Grand Fleet at Jutland.
Dodd captured the life on Mackenzie in great detail. You can almost smell the pipes’ smoke and coal dust.
80 years ago today: American DUKWs transport supplies to waiting British troops and American paratroopers across the River Waal at Nijmegen, Holland, the day after German frogmen of Marine Einsatzkommando (MEK) 65 dropped the East-West bridge’s central span via floating mines, 30 September 1944
Midgley, A. N. (Sergeant), No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM B 10435
Same as above, IWM B10434
During the war, the Arsenal of Democracy cranked out over 21,000 of this six-wheel-drive amphibious modification of GMC’s 2+1⁄2-ton CCKW “Jimmy” trucks.
With a 7-ton curb weight, they were capable of 50 mph on paved roads and 6 knots in the water via its stern propeller and could carry 24-ish troops or as much as 5,000 pounds of payload while operated by a single driver.
DUKW Amphibious vehicles in the canals of Venice, Italy, during World War II. c. May, 1945
They remained in service post-war well through Korea while Allies such as France (Indochina), Britain (Malaya/Borneo), and Spain (Africa) would keep them in service into the 1980s.
DUKW of the Spanish Infantería de Marina in a Madrid parade, late 1960s
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Warship Wednesday, 11 September 2024: You Have to Go Out…
USCG Photo #: 16079-A Photographer: J. N. Heuisy
Above we see a member of the 35 so-called “Buck and a Quarter” Active-class Coast Guard cutters rushed into completion to deal with bootleggers during Prohibition, the USCGC Jackson (WPC-142) as she appeared in 1927 in her original “rum-buster” haze gray configuration. Don’t let the bone in her teeth fool you, she is probably just making revolutions for 10 knots– her designed top speed.
These choppy little 125-foot gunboats were designed to serve as subchasers in times of war and Jackson, along with her sister Bedloe, did their part during the conflict, atop an unforgiving sea, to the bitter end.
The 125s
These cutters were intended for trailing the slow, booze-hauling “Blacks” mother ships of “Rum Row” along the outer line of patrol during Prohibition.
Constructed for $63,173 each, they originally had a pair of 6-cylinder 150hp Superior or Winton diesel engines that allowed them a stately speed of 10 knots, max, but allowed a 4,000 nm, theoretically Atlantic-crossing range– an outstanding benefit for such a small craft.
While slow, this was deemed at first adequate as most of the Blacks were cheapy acquired and nearly condemned old coasters and fishing schooners salvaged from backwater ports around New England and the Maritimes for their shady last hurrah.
For armament, they carried a single 3″/23 cal deck gun for warning shots– dated even for the 1920s– a Lewis gun or two for serious use, and a small arms locker that included everything from Tommy guns to .38s. In a time of conflict, they could tote listening gear and depth charge racks left over from the Great War, but we’ll get to that later.
Taking advantage of one big contract issued on 26 May 1926, the class were all built within 12 months by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey (although often listed as “American Brown Boveri” due to their owners at the time, the Swiss Brown Boveri corporation).
The class was named in honor of former historic cutters from the Coast Guard and its preceding Lighthouse Service, Revenue Marine, and Revenue Cutter Services.
Meet Bedloe
Commissioned 25 July 1927 as USCGC Antietam (WPC-128) after a circa 1864 Revenue Cutter Service centerboard schooner of the same name that was a nod to the pivotal Maryland Civil War battle, this hardy 125-footer was first stationed in Boston under the 1st CG District where she served for eight years, accomplishing her hallmark law enforcement and SAR duties but also breaking light ice when needed.
The USCG sent no less than 11 of the first 125s to Boston, where they were desperately needed to parol the New England coastline. Besides Antietam, they included USCGC Active (WPC-125), Agassiz (WPC-126), Alert (WPC-127), Bonham (WPC-129), Dix (WPC-136), Faunce (WPC-138), Fredrick Lee (WPC-139), Harriet Lane (WPC-141), General Greene (WPC-140), and Jackson (WPC-142).
These new cutters were based at the Charleston Navy Yard and arrived in a haze-gray livery, built to take the “Rum War” to the bootleggers.
Five 125-foot cutters– likley including Antietam– at Charleston Navy Yard Boston late 1920s. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.
Once the Volstead Act was repealed, the 125s got a more regal peacetime USCG white and buff appearance.
Cutter Antietam in the Boston area, likely during a summer regatta around 1930. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection 08_06_004565.
USCGC Antietam, later Bedloe in 1930, likely in the Boston area. USCG Photo.
With cutters needed on the Great Lakes and the downturn in cutter tempo that accompanied the end of Prohibition, Antietam transferred to Milwaukee in May 1935, a station that typically meant a winter lay-up once the lakes froze over.
Of note, on 1 December 1937, Antietam was used as a dive platform for a famous deep dive in Lake Michigan by Max Gene Nohl that set the world’s then-deep dive record of 420 feet. Nohl, using a self-contained suit with a heliox (helium/oxygen) breathing mixture pioneered by what would become DESCO, had earlier made history from the cutter’s deck the previous April when she hosted the first live underwater broadcast to a national audience by WTMJ over the NBC-Blue network.
On 10 April 1937, Max Nohl (shown in the dive suit) along with John Craig made a dive on the shipwreck Norland to perform another early test of the newly designed diving suit in conjunction with testing the helium-oxygen mixture that Dr. End and Max had been working on. The dive took place off the deck of the Coast Guard cutter Antietam (note the “A” on her whaler) about five miles out from Milwaukee’s breakwater, via the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Between 1939 and 1940, most of the 125s in the Coast Guard’s inventory had their often cranky original diesels replaced by new General Motors 268-As. Rated for 600 hp, they were capable of breaking 14 knots (vs the designed 10) in still seas. However, the radius dropped down to 2,500nm @ 12 knots and 3,500 @ 8.
Then came WWII in Europe and the need for the Neutrality Patrol. This was long before FDR’s 1 November 1941 Executive Order 8929 that transferred the Coast Guard to the Navy Department.
With the Navy short on hulls, Antietam was pulled from her Wisconsin home and ordered to Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1940. There, her armament was beefed up at the Tietjen & Lang yard to include stern depth charge racks and the capacity to carry 10 cans. To acknowledge the upgrade, in February 1942, the 125s were redesignated from WPC (Coast Guard patrol craft) to WSC (Coast Guard sub chaser.)
Assigned to the EASTSEAFRON (Eastern Sea Frontier), Antietam was stationed out of Stapleton, Staten Island, where she saw service as a coastwise convoy escort along the eastern seaboard. It was in this duty that she proved a godsend to those souls on the sea and was involved in several rescues including that of the unescorted Gulf Oil tanker SS Gulftrade (6,776 tons) after she had been sunk by U-588 (Victor Vogel). Antietam pulled 16 Gulftrade survivors out of the ocean on 9 March 1942.
It was around this period that our cutter would be further up-armed with a pair of 20mm/70 Mk 4 Oerlikon AAA guns, a Mousetrap Mk 20 ASWRL, swap out their goofy little 3″/23 for a 40mm Bofors single Mk 1, and pick up a SO-model surface search radar set. So equipped, they had become subchasers in reality rather than just names.
The 125-foot Coast Guard Cutter Cuyahoga ready to depart from the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Md., Feb. 11, 1945. U.S. Coast Guard photo. Note her 40mm Bofors crowding her bow. By mid-war Antietam and her sisters had a similar appearance.
As the Navy was looking to use the name “Antietam” for a new Essex-class fleet carrier (CV-36) that was under construction at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, our patrol boat was unceremoniously renamed USCGC Bedloe on 1 June 1943. Shortly after, she was dispatched to Navy Section Base (NSB) Morehead City, North Carolina, to join the Chesapeake Escort Group (T.G. 02.5).
The AOR of TG 02.5, as seen on the cover of its war diary
Morehead City served as the link in the coastal escort chain between Norfolk and Charleston and its vessels– a mix of auxiliary motor minesweepers (YMS), miscellaneous Yard Patrol craft (YPs), random patrol yachts such as USS Cymophane (PYc-26), a handful of 110-foot patrol boats (PC) and subchasers (SC), augmented by a dozen Coast Guard 83 footer “Jeeps of the Deep”— was a motley assortment to say the least. A couple of 97-foot converted trawler hulled coastal minesweepers, USS Kestrel (AMc-5) and USS Advance (AMc-63) puttered around on sweep duties just in case the Germans laid a few eggs.
Antietam/Bedloe, and her sister Jackson, were about the brawniest vessels the Morehead City group had at its disposal.
USCGC Bedloe, probably 1944. Note her stern depth charges and SO radar set. USCG Photo #: A-8125.
Meet Jackson
Repeating the name of one of the 13 circa 1830s Morris-Taney class 73-foot topsail schooners ordered for the service USCGC Jackson (WPC-142) commissioned 14 March 1927. Like her sister Antietam/Bedloe, she was immediately assigned to Boston.
Four 125-foot cutters at Charleston Navy Yard Boston late 1920s including, from the outside, USCGC Fredrick Lee, General Green, and Jackson. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.
Like Antietam, Jackson painted over her haze grey for a more Coastie white and buff scheme post-Prohibition.
A black and white photograph of the Coast Guard Cutter Jackson passing through the Cape Cod Canal on the day of the Canal Bridge Opening, August 15, 1935. Nina Heald Webber Cape Cod Canal collection. MS028.04.022.005
Reassigned in the late 1930s to U.S. Coast Guard Stations Rochester and Greenport, New York in the Great Lakes, Neutrality Patrol work saw her armed and assigned to Norfolk on 1 July 1941 for anti-submarine patrol and coastal escort duty.
This typically boiled down to escorting one or two merchies at a time along cleared (for mines) routes at speeds hovering around 10 knots. Some faster vessels took their chances and ran the coastline on their own which didn’t always work.
One such instance was the unescorted and unarmed tanker SS Tiger (5,992 tons) which on April Fool’s Day 1942 caught a torpedo from U-754 (Hans Oestermann) just as she reduced speed and signaled with blinkers to pick up a pilot off Cape Henry, Virginia. Her complement taken off by the Yippee boat USS YP-52, Jackson and the tug Relief brought a salvage crew by the listing tanker to attempt to tow it to Norfolk but the hulk was uncooperative and sank in the Chesapeake.
On 20 July 1944, Jackson was made part of Task Group 02.5, joining sister Antietam/Bedloe.
Then came…
SS George Ade
An EC2-S-C1 break bulk cargo carrier, SS George Ade (7176 tons) was built by Florida-based J. A. Jones in 1944. Based out of Panama City, while carrying a mixed load of cotton, steel, and machinery from Mobile to New York, the brand new Liberty ship was unescorted (!) and steaming on a non-evasive course (!!) off Cape Hatteras when she came across by the Schnorchel-equipped Type IXC U-518 (Oblt. Hans-Werner Offermann) on 12 September 1944.
Hit by a Gnat that destroyed her rudder and flooded the shaft alley, she was effectively dead in the water. Her Naval Armed Guard fired a few rounds in U-518’s direction, keeping the boat away but she was a sitting duck.
The Great Atlantic Hurricane of September 1944
Four days before George Ade was torpedoed, Commander Gulf Sea Frontier issued an advisory that a tropical hurricane centered east of the Leeward Islands was moving northwest at 10 knots. Aircraft recon on 11 September found a system with a radius of 150 miles and warnings “This is a large and severe storm” were flashed.
It would grow into what we today would deem a Category-4 monster.
Guantanamo to New York Convoy GN-156 on 12 September came across the storm’s periphery and logged 47-knot winds, later upping to over 65 which scattered the convoy although no casualties were reported.
On the night of 12 September, the refrigerated stores ship USS Hyades (AF-28), escorted by the Somers-class destroyer USS Warrington (DD-383) only two days out of Norfolk bound for Trinidad, encountered the hurricane between West Palm Beach and the Bahamas as the storm moved North.
USS Warrington (DD-383), photographed by Navy Blimp ZP-12, 9 August 1944. Just five weeks after this image was snapped, the destroyer would be at the bottom of the Atlantic. 80-G-282673
As noted by DANFS:
Later that evening, the storm forced the destroyer to heave to while Hyades continued on her way alone. Keeping wind and sea on her port bow, Warrington rode relatively well through most of the night. Wind and seas, however, continued to build during the early morning hours of the 13th. Warrington began to lose headway and, as a result, started to ship water through the vents to her engineering spaces.
The water rushing into her vents caused a loss of electrical power which set off a chain reaction. Her main engines lost power, and her steering engine and mechanism went out. She wallowed there in the trough of the swells-continuing to ship water. She regained headway briefly and turned upwind, while her radiomen desperately, but fruitlessly, tried to raise Hyades. Finally, she resorted to a plain-language distress call to any ship or shore station. By noon on the 13th, it was apparent that Warrington’s crewmen could not win the struggle to save their ship, and the order went out to prepare to abandon ship. By 1250, her crew had left Warrington; and she went down almost immediately.
A prolonged search by Hyades, Frost (DE-144), Huse (DE-145), Inch (DE-146), Snowden (DE-246), Swasey (DE-248), Woodson (DE-359), Johnnie Hutchins (DE-360), ATR-9, and ATR-62 rescued only 73 men of the destroyer’s 321 member watch bill– and these were spread out for 98 miles from the destroyer’s last position!
Coordinated by the jeep carrier USS Croatan, whose escorting tin cans did a lot of the work in pulling men from the water, the group commander signaled on 14 September, “Sharks very active. Am making every effort to locate and recover living before dark as those so far rescued are very weak.”
Further north, New York to Guantanamo Convoy NG-458, with 15 tankers and 17 freighters escorted by two frigates and a few PCs and YMSs, encountered the unnamed hurricane for 18 hours across the 12th and 13th, and reported: “winds estimated 130-150 knots and seas 50-60 feet.” The COMEASTSEAFRON War Diary for the period notes, “It was impossible for a person to remain exposed to the wind because the tremendous force of driving spray was unbearably painful. Visibility was nil, and all ships and escorts were widely scattered.”
One man, LT North Oberlin of USS PC-1210, was swept overboard “and undoubtedly drowned.”
Another small escort, PC-1217, had her bulkhead plates buckled and several compartments flooded– including her radio shack. Her communications knocked out and long missing from the rest of the convoy, she limped into Mayport alone on the 16th– self-resurrecting from among the missing thought dead.
One ship that never arrived in port was the 136-foot baby minesweeper USS YMS-409, which foundered and sank, taking her entire crew of 33 to the bottom.
Photo from the collection of LT(jg) Bernard Alexander Kenner who served on board YMS-409. He departed a few days before the ship left port and sank off Cape Hatteras. He kept this photo for over 61 years along with a list of his former crew mates who perished, via Navsource.
Further up the coast, the USCG’s Vineyard Sound lightship (LS-73), anchored before the shallows off Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, was also claimed by the storm, taking her entire crew.
The 123-foot United States Lightvessel 73 (LV 73 / WAL-503) on her Vineyard Sound station where she served from 1924 through 1944. On 14 September 1944, she was carried off station during a hurricane and sank with the loss of all hands. USCG photo
…Back at the George Ade
Late on the afternoon of 12 September, some 14 hours after the attack by U-518 that left her dead in the water, the salvage ship USS Escape (ARS 6), escorted by our previously mentioned Bedloe and Jackson, arrived and took her in tow.
Struggling against the ever-increasing seas with the hurricane inbound, Ade and Escape hove to on 14 September some 12 miles off Bodie Island, North Carolina in 13 fathoms of water, where they reported 100-knot winds and 50-foot seas. Ade suffered one of her anchors, two lifeboats, and four rafts carried away.
However, the tow’s escorts, Bedloe and Jackson, had vanished.
At around 1030 on 14 September, Jackson was struck hard by seas while laid her over her port side, a roll from which the 125-footer could not recover. Given the order to abandon ship, her complement too to four life rafts, which all swamped/flipped and sank within 30 minutes. This left her crew afloat and on their own…in a hurricane.
Bedloe, meanwhile, was entirely unaware of the disaster with her nearby sister due to the strong seas and nil visibility. At around 1300 local, she suffered three severe rolls to port, the last of which left her that way until she submerged three minutes later. Of her crew, 29 were able to abandon ship on three life rafts.
Rescue
With Bedloe and Jackson failing to report to shore following the storm, and George Ade and Escape confirming their separation from the escorts, the 5th Naval District launched an air search beginning with four Coast Guard-operated OS2U3 Kinfishers from CGAS Elizabeth City taking to the air at first light on the morning of the 16th. At this point, the survivors of Bedloe and Jackson had been on the sea for two days.
The first group of men, the three waterlogged rafts from Bedloe with but just 21 remaining men, were spotted 10 miles off Cape Hatteras. Three of the Kingfishers landed and taxied to the rafts to give aid to the injured.
Pilots and radio operators knocked off their shoes and then dove into the water to help pull semi-conscious men onto the wings of the bobbing planes.
Eight of the Bedloe’s crew had perished over the night of the 15th from a mixture of injuries and exposure. Two more would die shortly after rescue.
A Navy blimp dropped emergency rations.
Navy airship hovers over two OS2Us and a CG launch with picked-up survivors of the USCGC Bedloe, 16 September. USN ZP24-2906
With the Kingfishers on hand as a guide, a Coast Guard 30-foot motor lifeboat, CG-30340, from the Oregon Inlet Lifeboat Station, 15 miles away, raced to the scene and brought the survivors ashore.
BM1 William W. McCreedy from the Oregon inlet Lifeboat Station, who assisted in the rescue of the survivors from the Bedloe said the first thing he saw was a man doubled up in a small raft, his eyes resembling “a couple of blue dots in a beefsteak.”
“He flashed a beautiful smile that couldn’t be missed,” McCreedy continued. “I felt I had looked at something a man sees once in a lifetime — sort of thought I had come to the edge of heaven. Then, as though his last will to fight had been lost when he saw us, he jumped into the water. The radioman grabbed him and held him in the raft. I went overboard to help and the three of us dragged the raft down. The unconscious man’s foot was twisted in the lines, but I cut him free and we put him in the boat.” Just before reaching shore, the man reached, stroked McCreedy’s face and mumbled “We made it.” Then he died.
Once back at Oregon Inlet, a Coast Guard PBM with a doctor aboard flew the men to Norfolk for treatment.
Original caption: “Coast Guard survivors of hurricane disaster recover in Norfolk hospital: eight of the 12 survivors of the hurricane sinking of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bedloe are shown recovering in the naval hospital at Norfolk, Virginia. They were rescued by Coast Guard air and seacraft after clinging to life rafts for more than 50 hours in shark-invested [sic] Waters 15 miles off the Virginia coast. All suffered from shock and exposure, as well as lashing by the stingers of ‘Portuguese men-of-war.’ the cutter Bedloe was sunk at the height of the hurricane on Thursday, about the time that the Coast Guard Cutter Jackson went down in the same area. In all, 19 were rescued and 49 officers and enlisted men are missing in the twin disaster. In this group, left to right, are Coast Guardsmen Jerry VanDerPuy, seaman, first class, of. . . .Sheboygan, Wisconsin; John Kissinger, soundman, third class, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Robert Greeno, seaman first class, of Monroe, Michigan; Robert Hearst, seaman first class, of Latonia, Kentucky; Joseph Martzen, soundman second class, of. . . .McAdoo, Pennsylvania.; Michael J. Cusono, radioman third class, of Schenectady, NY, Pearcy C. Poole, chief radioman of Lakewood, N.J. and Joseph Ondrovik, coxswain of Bellville, Michigan.” Date: 14 September 1944. USCG Photo 1248 Photographer: “Kendall”, U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The search for the floating Jackson survivors continued into the night of the 16th, with Navy Blimp K-20 following up on a report from a Navy SB2C Helldiver that two groups of men were sighted in the water 18 miles offshore. USS Inflict (AM-251), on her shakedown cruise between Charleston and Norfolk, joined the rescue.
Aided by dropped water lights from the aircraft, whaleboats from the minesweeper recovered 12 men who had been adrift for over 60 hours, hounded by sharks and Portuguese men-of-war. Of these, the ship’s pharmacist’s mate found one man had a gangrene infection, another appendicitis, a third a broken leg, and a fourth a dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs, while all suffered necrotic salt water ulcers, hypothermia, and general fatigue.
Pushing her twin ALCO diesels to their max to break 14 knots, Inflict made Norfolk on the morning of the 17th and her charges were rushed to the Naval Hospital.
Later that day, USS PC-1245 recovered the floating bodies of four from Bedloe.
The air and naval search for the cutters’ lost members continued until the evening of the 18th. No less than 116 planes and six blimps had been aloft in the search.
In all, 22 men from Bedloe are still marked “missing” while another four who were recovered died. Of Jackson’s crew, which spent more time in the sea– almost all of it treading water– 21 are still somewhere under the waves.
This bill from Poseidon was paid, along with the 251 souls from the destroyer Warrington, LT Oberlin of PC-1210, the 33 minemen aboard YMS-409, and a dozen lightkeepers on LV-73.
Epilogue
Separate courts of inquiry conducted by ComFive and COMEASTSEAFRON inquired into the loss of Bedloe and Jackson:
Coast Guard Historian William H. Thiesen suspected Jackson succumbed to waves pushed ahead of the storm’s eyewall, while Bedloe was sunk by rogue waves formed on the backside of the eyewall, writing in a 2019 Proceedings article that, “It is possible that both cutters were victims of a phenomenon called the ‘three sisters,’ a series of rogue waves that travel in threes and are large enough to be tracked by radar.”
Post-war, the Coast Guard would use both cutters’ names a third time, with USCGC Jackson (WPC-120), ex-USS PCE(R)-858, and USCGC Bedloe (WPC-121), ex-USS PCE(R)-860. In typical Coast Guard fashion, “Both of the new cutters remained berthed at Curtis Bay, Maryland due to a lack of personnel,” and were later decommissioned and sold in 1947.
Today, Jackson rests, broken in two, southeast of Nags Head in 77 feet of water in NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Navy EOD visited the site in the 1990s to remove ordnance and depth charges.
The USCGC Maple in 2022 hosted a Coast Guard chaplain, divers, and an underwater archaeologist for four days while the sites were visited, mapped, and honored.
The Coast Guard Art Program has also saluted the cutters.
“The Fate of Cutters Jackson and Bedloe,” Louis Barberis, watercolor, 16 x 23. US Coast Guard Art Program 2005 Collection, Ob ID # 200503
As for the SS George Ade, the Liberty ship made it back to Norfolk where she was drydocked and repaired, returning to service on 18 December 1944.
Ade’s shot away rudder and damaged screw/shaft following the hit from U-518 and surviving a hurricane at sea immediately after. Photos: MARAD.
Post-war, Ade was transferred to the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in Mobile, Alabama, and, after 20 years in mothballs, was sold for scrap in 1967.
As for U-518, she was sunk on 22 April 1945 in the North Atlantic north-west of the Azores by depth charges from the destroyer escorts USS Carter (DE 112) and USS Neal A. Scott (DE 769), with all hands lost including Oblt. Hans-Werner Offermann. Ade was the final ship the U-boat had torpedoed.
U-518 via Deutsches U-Boot-Museum, Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, Germany
The Atlantic holds its dead.
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Back in the 1970s, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands all needed replacement minesweepers to phase out WWII-era vessels. The answer was to band together to jointly develop a class known to naval history as the Tripartite, of which some 35 were built to close out the Cold War.
Now showing their age, the 600-ton 169-foot Tripartites have been increasingly retired and passed on to second-hand users such as Ukraine, Pakistan, Latvia, and Bulgaria.
Dutch Tripartite-mijnejager Hr Ms Hellevoetsluis (M859, 1987-2011). NIMH N0009330-12
To replace the vessels in Belgian-Dutch service, as well as the 2,000-ton circa 1965 Belgian minesweeper tender Godetia, the two Lowland countries teamed up for a dozen assorted City-class MCMs that run much bigger (2800 tons, 270-foot) than the ships they are replacing, with each country picking up six new ships.
They look like a floating breadbox.
Note the landing platform for UAVs and davits for USVs
M940 class model as viewed by Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, along with Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde
Leaning heavily into unmanned systems including unmanned surface, aerial, and underwater vehicles alongside towed sonars and mine identification and neutralization ROVs, they also carry a 40mm Bofors Mk4 DP gun, soft-kill systems such as an LRAD, and high-pressure water cannon, as well as several mounts for .50 cal remote guns and 7.62mm GPMGs. This allows the City class to clock in as needed for low-threat OPV and constabulary work, such as against pirates off Somalia and migrants in the Med.
The first of the class, the future Belgian minehunter Oostende (M940), began her pre-delivery sea trials earlier this month with a planned commissioning in December.
How about this great circa 1988 shot of an unidentified sailor in UDT shorts and a chocolate chip boonie firing from the hip at a target floating behind the wooden-decked Aggressive/Agile-class ocean minesweeper USS Esteem (MSO 438), “somewhere in the Persian Gulf.” The rifle seems to be an XM177.
USN Photo 330-CFD-DN-ST-89-02593 by PH2 Alexander C. Hicks, Jr., USN, via NARA 6443568
The 172-foot Esteem, one of 93 members of her class, was built by the Martinolich Shipbuilding Co. of San Diego in the days after the U.S. Navy had an abrupt experience with sea mines off Korea in 1950 and she joined the fleet in 1955.
After lots of service in the Far East through the Vietnam era (earning six Vietnam Service Medals as well as the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation), by 1987 she was sent to the Persian Gulf, based in Bahrain with a lot of her sisters to combat a rash of mines left bobbing around in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War, a page in the largely forgotten story of Navy MCM during that period.
Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register on 30 September 1991 after 36 years of service, she was laid up at Bremerton until disposed of for sale in 2000 and scrapped soon after.
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.
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 Asashimoin 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.
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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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.
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.
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.
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
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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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.
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.
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.
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.
