A starboard bow view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Boise (SSN-764) underway at high speed off the Virginia Capes during builders sea trials, 7/12/1992. Chris Oxley (OPA-NARA II-2016/02/06).
Newport News just got the go-ahead for a five-year overhaul and modernization of the long-sidelined improved Los Angeles-class (688i) class submarine USS Boise (SSN-764), which has been redlined since 2017 and has sat idle at Norfolk for the past seven years.
It had been thought by many that the boat, which had been in the fleet since 1992 (she was ordered by the Reagan Administration) and at this point would be 37 years old when she completes her overhaul, would possibly just be scrapped as the 688s are getting very long in the tooth indeed. However, as we can see, the Navy apparently got the lead out when it comes to hunter-killers last week.
The DOD Announcement:
Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $1,173,178,011 cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-18-C-4314 for completion of USS Boise (SSN 764) engineered overhaul. This contract modification includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract modification to $1,238,312,189. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by September 2029. Fiscal 2023 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $29,559,482 (81%); and fiscal 2024 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $6,948,094 (19%), will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
And finally, EB got the green light to purchase long lead time material for the as-yet-to-be-named Block V Virginia class submarines SSN 814, SSN 815, SSN 816, and SSN 817.
The Announcement:
General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp., Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a not-to-exceed $150,984,000 undefinitized contract action modification to previously awarded contract N00024-24-C-2110 for long lead time material associated with the Virginia Class submarines SSN 814, SSN 815, SSN 816, and SSN 817. Work will be performed in Sunnyvale, California (36%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (17%); Spring Grove, Illinois (13%); York, Pennsylvania (4%); Annapolis, Maryland (4%); Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (3%); Windsor Locks, Connecticut (3%); Cleveland, Ohio (1%); and other locations less than 1% (19%), and is expected to be completed by September 2035. Fiscal 2024 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $150,984,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The statutory authority for this sole source award is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii) – Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
Since you came this far and are into submarines, Netflix (yes, I know) has a doc on the lost Argentine Navy’s German-built TR-1700-class boat, ARA San Juan (S-42), which went missing in 2017 and was found at a depth of 2,976 ft a year later.
The Spanish Navy over the weekend decommissioned the Agosta-class SSK Tramontana, capping a career that began in 1985.
One of four DCNI S-70 Agostas built under license in Spain at the Cartagena dockyard, in her career, Tramontana sailed 315,144 nautical miles, 218,384 of those while submerged.
Besides her Cold War career and her role in the very curious 2002 Perejil Island crisis, she clocked in on a myriad of NATO missions over the years including the 2011 Libyan blockade (Operation Unified Protector) as well as the more recent NATO Active Endeavor and Sea Guardian/European Union’s Operation Sophia counter migrant smuggling efforts.
Consoussiours of bad 1980s/90s action films will perhaps recognize Tramontana from the Charlie Sheen vehicle, Navy SEALS, where she subbed for an American boat.
She was decommissioned on 16 February 2024 at Cartagena Arsenal submarine base with VADM Pedro Luis de la Puente García-Gang in attendance.
Slated to be disarmed and stripped of anything usable or still classified, Tramontana will be expended as a target at some future date.
Only class member Galerna (S-71), commissioned in 1983, remains in Spanish service, with sisters Siroco (S 72) and Mistral (S 73) already discarded.
The class will be replaced by the four new Isaac Peral/DCNI S80 Plus Scorpène AIP variants under construction.
“Escort Carrier HMS Nairana Stalked Unsuccessfully by U-Boat 502, 1 February 1944,” by Charles David Cobb via National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.
While a stirring image, the caption, however, is not correct.
U-502, a Type IXC boat under Kptlt. Jürgen von Rosenstiel, was lost on 6 July 1942 in the Bay of Biscay west of La Rochelle due to a rain of depth charges from a 172 Sqn RAF/H Wellington aircraft, with all hands lost.
The escort carrier HMS Nairana (D05), meanwhile, only entered service on 12 December 1943. While on shakedown, as part of F. J. “Johnny'” Walker’s famous Support Group 2, using Enigma intelligence, chased down the damaged U-592, a Type VIIC under Oblt. Heinz Jaschke, on 31 January 1944 off Ireland, and sent her to the bottom with all hands.
Nairana, whose air group notably splashed a trio of lumbering Junkers Ju 290 while on convoy duty in May 1944, was transferred post-war to the Royal Netherlands Navy as the HMNLS Karel Doorman (QH1), the first Dutch aircraft carrier, then was later sold for commercial use, only being scrapped in 1971.
Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024: One Hard Working Little Boat
Photograph FL 22144 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Above we see HM Submarine Untiring (P59), a small Group III U (Undine)-class boat underway, likely on trials in the Tyne in early 1943 as she doesn’t have her deck gun fitted. Launched some 81 years ago this month, her war was short, just under two years, but she made her presence known in the Med and would continue to serve in Greek waters well into the 1950s at which point she was the last of her class.
Coastwise submarines rushed into service as part of the War Emergency 1940 and 1941 programs, the U-class boats were dubbed “short hull” for a reason: their overall length was but 191 feet while submerged displacement was only 700 tons. Compare this to the Royal Navy’s T class (or Triton class) boats that preceded them, which ran 276 feet and displaced over 1,500 tons. Likewise, where the T-class carried 16 fish in 10 tubes as well as a 4-inch QF deck gun, the Undines had to make do with a much smaller “throw” of just 8 torpedoes in four bow tubes (no stern tubes) and a Q.F. 12-pdr. 3-inch/40 AAA gun augmented by a trio of .303 Vickers guns.
U class submarine
But make no mistake, while small and slow (10 knots max submerged, 11 on the surface) the Undines were deadly. Plus, with a periscope depth of just 12 feet under the surface and a draft while surfaced of just over 14 feet, they were shallow water submarines and proved quite useful in littoral taskings such as landing agents and commandos as well as doing beach and harbor reconnaissance.
Meet Untiring
Simple vessels able to be produced rapidly and in large numbers, most Undines were completed in about a year from keel laying to commissioning. The only Royal Navy warship to bear the name “Untiring,” she was laid down at Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 23 December 1941, launched on 20 January 1943, and commissioned on 9 June 1943.
Her first skipper was LT Robert Boyd, DSC, RN, who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross after serving almost two years under CDR E.D Cayley (DSO and three bars) on Untiring’s sistership, HMS/m Utmost (N 19) earlier in the war and had gone on to command the older submarines HMS/m L-23 and HMS/m H-43 between November 1942 and February 1943.
After completing trials in the Tyne estuary and exercises off Blyth, Untiring set off for Holy Loch in July 1943 to join the 6th Flotilla for torpedo and noise trials along with A/S and attack exercises.
War!
By 23 August, Untiring left Lerwick on her 1st War Patrol, ordered to look for German U-boats in the Norwegian Sea. Four days later she sank the Norwegian halibut trawler M-96-G /Havbris I with gunfire about 50 miles off the Norwegian coast, putting the boat’s 7-man crew ashore in the Shetlands when she returned to Lerwick on 5 September.
Her 2nd War Patrol was to sweep through the Bay of Biscay then head to Gibraltar, where she arrived on 3 October, bound for service in the Med.
Leaving “The Rock” a week later for her 3rd Patrol off the coast of German-occupied southern France where she unsuccessfully attacked the German U-boat U-616 with four torpedoes off Toulon on 15 October, followed by an attack on two barges on 19 October and an unidentified escorted merchant vessel two days later– without any confirmed kills.
Headed out from Algiers (assigned to 8th Flotilla, HMS Maidstone) for her 4th War Patrol on 4 November, Untiring headed for the Italian Riviera. She put in at Malta (where she shifted to 10th Flotilla, HMS Talbot) on the 23rd having had no luck.
Her 5th War Patrol in December 1943 included sinking the German net layer Netztender 44/Prudente (396 GRT) inside Monaco harbor and surviving a six-hour duel off Cape da Noli with German UJ boats (auxiliary submarine chasers) and destroyers.
She sank the German barge F296 off the Sestri Levanto Lighthouse in early January 1944 during her 6th Patrol and added the barges FP 352/Jean Suzon and FP 358/St. Antoine later that month to her tally while on her 7th, surviving 14 depth charges dropped by escorts in the latter attack.
HMS Untiring, 1944, likely at Malta
While her 8th Patrol (14-26 February 1944 off southern France) yielded no joy, her 9th Patrol in April in the same waters saw her sink the German auxiliary minesweeper M 6022/Enseigne south of Cannes followed by the German merchant Diana (1454 GRT, ex-Greek Mairi Deftereou) south of Oneglia the next afternoon.
On her 10th Patrol, also conducted off Southern France, she zapped the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 6075 (ex-Clairvoyant) off Toulon on 27 April then was battered by no less than 82 depth charges dropped by her sister, with LT Boyd noting, “The first pattern had been unpleasantly close causing some minor damage.” Nonetheless, Untiring lived up to her name and proceeded three days later to torpedo and sink the German merchant Astrée (2147 GRT) off the Cape Bear Lighthouse.
Her 11th Patrol proved uneventful and, while she attacked a German UJ boat off Toulon on her 12th Patrol in early June, it was likewise fruitless. Not to be deterred, Boyd found UJ 6078/La Havraise (398 GRT) about 12 nautical miles southwest of La Ciotat on 10 June and sent the subchaser to the bottom.
Untiring’s 13th War Patrol in early July, also off Southern France, saw an unsuccessful attack on a German auxiliary patrol vessel. On this trip, she carried the COPP 2 (Combined Operations Pilotage Party 2) commando team– including an attached U.S. Marine colonel– set to conduct a reconnaissance of le de Port Cros to the east of Toulon on the eve of the upcoming Dragoon landings. As noted by COPP Survey, “They were who was originally to be taken close to shore by canoe. However, the mission got downgraded to a periscope-only reconnaissance.”
Her 14th Patrol, conducted in late July, involved, as U-boat.net says, a “special operation off north Corsica,” although Brooks Richards’s otherwise minutely detailed Secret Flotillas does not mention anything about Untiring during this period although sisters HMS Unbroken, Urge, and Utmost were well-documented as clandestine agent and spy runners in the Med by Richards.
Shifting to operations off Greece in October for her 15th War Patrol, Untiring fired fish at the German torpedo boat TA 18 (former Italian Solferino) off the Kassandra peninsula unsuccessfully on the 4th then settled for sinking an 80-ton Greek caique the next day via gunfire then duked it out with a pair of German UJ boats that responded.
Ordered back to Rothesay in late October for refit, she arrived there (joining the 7th Flotilla, HMS Cyclops) by way of Gibraltar in early December. There, LT Boyd left his boat for command of the HMS Otway (N 51). Untiring’s new skipper, LT George Edward Lynton Foster Edsell, RN, who had commanded the submarine HMS Proteus (N 29), would be her last British captain.
Post-War
Following the boat’s refit, which would last until 28 May 1945– some three weeks past VE-Day– Untiring was dispatched back to the Med and arrived at Piraeus, Greece in July after stops at Gibraltar and Malta.
There, at 1030 on 25 July 1945, Untiring was decommissioned by the Royal Navy and turned over to the Royal Hellenic Navy, being renamed first Amfitríti (Amphitrite) and then Xifias (Swordfish), joining five other U and V-boats loaned to the Greeks.
The six British boats would make up the post-war Greek submarine program, as shown by this 1946 Jane’s entry, including Untiring/Xifias.
Untiring was returned to the Brits in December 1953 (initially recommissioned under one Lt. C.A.J. French) and tasked for a few years as a floating schoolship for National Service midshipmen before she was sent to the bottom off the Devon Coast off Start Point in July 1957 for continued use as a sonar target. Ironically, in this last act, she fulfilled the class’s original intent, to serve as a training boat for ASW work.
The RN loaned several of the class to allies with three boats (Ursula/V1, Unbroken/V2, Unison/V3) going to the Soviets late in the war, two (P41/Uredd, and Varne/Ula) operated by the Free Norwegians, one (P47/Dolfijn) to the Dutch, and two to the Poles (P52/Dzik and Urchin/Sokol).
Of the 49 Undines completed during the war (at least five ordered boas were canceled), no less than 19 were lost through a variety of enemy actions, blue-on-blue incidents, and accidents– a ratio of more than one out of three.
The balance left post-war was not of a type the Admiralty wanted but their small size and simple nature– they were designed as training boats after all– made them ideal to supply to overseas allies who had lost their subs during the conflict. Meanwhile, the Brits quickly disposed of everything else.
Royal Navy U class submarines in Jane’s 1946 edition, noting that “most are expected to be discarded in the near future.”
The last of the class in active RN service, HMS/m Uther (P62), was sold for scrap in 1950, making Untiring the final Undine in British service when she returned in 1953.
The last holdout of the nearly 50 mighty British U-class boats, HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMS/m Varne, continued in Norwegian service until 1965, when she was broken up, ironically, in Hamburg, having served just 23 years, most of them for King Haakon VII.
HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMSm Varne in Norwegian service
Epilogue
Untiring’s first (and remarkably successful) skipper, Robert Boyd, added a DSO in 1944 to his circa 1942 DSC for his wartime exploits underway. Following the command of Otway as mentioned above, he would go on to become the “old man” on the cruiser HMS Frobisher and the submarine tender HMS Forth (A187) after the war. He retired on 10 June 1959 at the rank of captain, capping 22 years of service in the Royal Navy. Robert passed away in 1985 in Portugal.
Her last wartime British skipper, George Edward Lynton Foster, would go on to command the submarine HMS Vivid and leave the RN in 1950 as an LCDR after 12 years of service for a career in real estate in California.
The Royal Navy has not had a second Untiring on its navy list and I can find no monuments to her. As for her patrol reports and deck logs, they are in the National Archives at Kew.
As for her hulk, she is located at 177 feet in Bigbury Bay and is a popular, somewhat complicated due to her depth, recreational dive.
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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As part of AUKUS, the Royal Navy is set to forward-deploy one of its precious seven nuclear attack submarines (SSN) to Freemantle from around 2027. Of course, this has all happened before.
Here we see two Royal Navy T class submarines in Freemantle, Australia in 1945, outboard of a light cruiser, while American submarines and a sub tender are off in the distance.
The closest T-boat, with her crew busy working on her 4-inch gun and loading supplies, has her name board out of view but the second is HM Submarine Thorough (P 324).
Via the State Library of WA
Commissioned at Vickers in March 1944, Thoroughwas posted to the Far East in July, conducting her first 5 war patrols from Trincomalee, then shifted to Freemantle in March 1945 along with the general move into the region by the British Pacific Fleet. It was from the Western Australian base that she conducted Patrols Nos. 6-8.
HMS Thorough (P324), a T-class submarine. The class was equipped with an impressive battery of 8 21-inch bow tubes (2 external) as well as two amidship tubes, with 17 torpedoes carried. However, Thourogh by far used her forward 4-inch mount, 20mm stern Oerlikon cannon, and a trio of .303 machine guns more.
In August 1945, in company with HMS Taciturn, which may be the second T-class boat in the picture, Thorough attacked Japanese shipping and shore targets off northern Bali, sinking a coaster and a sailing vessel with gunfire, bringing her wartime total to 40 “kills” all via surface gun actions.
She survived the war, completed the first circumnavigation by a RN submarine in 1957, and was decommissioned in 1962, scrapped at Dunston on Tyne.
Just walking around the Gulfport harbor on the weekend– back when it was 70 degrees just a week ago– and spied this, now increasingly familiar, scene: an Ocean Aero Triton Autonomous Underwater and Surface Vehicle (AUSV), with its recycled USCG 26ft RB-S chase boat (note the red showing through on the sides) and the replica of the old Ship Island lighthouse on the west horizon. The new (post-Katrina) Coast Guard station is to the left.
(Photo by Chris Eger)
Ocean Aero is based at the port, nestled in among the banana boat facilities, and tests its production Triton AUSVs from the harbor before packing them up for delivery.
They typically run them 2 at a time, which leaves open the possibility of drone boat races? I think they should keep that in mind. I grew up with the submarine races in Pascagoula back when Ingalls was making Sturgeon-class hunter-killers and that was a blast.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the idea to keep the Japanese Combined Fleet fenced in its home waters was through investing a lot in submarines. Admiral Hart’s Asiatic Squadron, based in the Philippines, had no capital ships and just a few old cruisers and destroyers, but it did have subs– 29 of them!
Following his arrival as CinCAF in 1939, Hart had steadily increased the number of submarines assigned to his small fleet from six to seventeen, including the first modern fleet-type boats. As the war clouds gathered in November 1941, another squadron of twelve modern fleet boats with their submarine tender Holland sailed into Manila Bay from Pearl Harbor as reinforcements.
Likewise, the Dutch spent a bunch of guilders in buying Koloniën (“colonial”) submarines for use in barring the door to the Dutch East Indies.
Of course, events soon proved that almost nothing was enough to stop the Japanese juggernaut in December 1941-April 1942 and (almost) all of these boats soon found themselves forced to withdraw to the best friendly option available at the time— Freemantle in Western Australia.
Freemantle was a submarine hub in the West Pac during WWII, with Allied boats of all stripes including British and Dutch vessels, mixing with locals and Americans. In all, some 170 Allied subs at one time or another passed through Fremantle between 1941 and 1945.
In fact, during the war, no less than 127 American submarines operated out of Fremantle at one time or another, carrying out 353 patrols. Added to this were 10 Dutch boats and, after August 1944, an increasing number of British Pacific Fleet boats. All told the Allies mounted something like 416 submarine patrols from Fremantle during the war.
The Navy plans to conduct its first-ever submarine maintenance work in Australia this summer using the sub tender Emory S. Land, with 30 Australian sailors embarked to learn how to repair the Virginia class of submarine.
This step will help establish a nuclear-powered attack submarine maintenance capability at the HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia in the next few years as part of the trilateral AUKUS arrangement.
In news out of Chile, the country’s very professional (if somewhat outdated) navy has been keeping tabs on a foreign fishing fleet of 8 large trawlers crossing through the Juan Fernández Archipelago National Park and then into the Strait of Magellan to make sure they don’t illegally drop nets or lines in Chile’s EEZ.
While aerial observation occurred– conducted by AS365 Dauphin 2s, at least one submarine kept an eye on the Chinese fishing fleet as well, a great example of how modern sea power is meshing with roaming international IUU concerns.
The submarine looks to be a French-made Scorpène-class SSK, two of which — Carrera (SS-22) and O’Higgins (SS-23)— were delivered in 2005-06. The country’s fleet also runs an older pair of German HDW-made Type 209-1400s– Thomson (SS-20) and Simpson (SS-21)— which were delivered in the early 1980s during tensions with Argentina and today serve more of a training role.
Submarine “Carrera” returned to Chile after participating in the DESI 2023 exercise (PHOTO: Chilean Navy)
Chile has been in the submarine biz since 1917.
For reference, before their current boats, the Chileans ran a pair of British-built Oberon-class submarines (O’Brien and Hyatt) for three decades.
Going even further back, Santiago picked up two non-GUPPY Snorkel conversion Balao-class boats– USS Spot (SS-413)/Simpson and USS Springer (SS-414)/Thomson in 1962.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL 751)offloaded a little over 9 tons of Colombia’s finest, worth something like $239 million, on Wednesday in San Diego after the conclusion of her latest 89-day East Pac patrol.
The 418-foot cutter– with a Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and aircrew, members from Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) 101 and 102, and contractors who flew a Scan Eagle UAV embarked– patrolled more than 19,750 nautical miles conducting law enforcement and search and rescue operations in international waters off Central and South America.
The 9-ton dope haul came from six interdictions at sea– four by Waesche and two by the smaller 210-foot USCGC Active who transferred her impounds to the larger national security cutter to bring in.
The biggest of the interdictions, on 20 November, was from a narco sub, officially a “self-propelled semi-submersible” (SPSS) that was shipping more than 5,500 pounds of blow. Of note, the interdiction of the SPSS was the first (caught) in the Eastern Pacific since 2020.
11th District released many great images from the narco sub-bust, showing just how big it is with the cutter’s 26-foot RHIB as a size reference.
Members of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL-751) law enforcement boarding team inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 20, 2023. The interdiction of the SPSS yielded more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
Members of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL-751) law enforcement boarding team inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 20, 2023. The interdiction of the SPSS yielded more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
Members of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL-751) law enforcement boarding team inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 20, 2023. The interdiction of the SPSS yielded more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
Members of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL-751) law enforcement boarding team inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 20, 2023. The interdiction of the SPSS yielded more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
Note the MH-65 on her heli deck with her two-door hangar open. The Legend-class cutter can accommodate an MH-65 or MH-60T and two vertical-launch unmanned aerial vehicles (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
Of note when it comes to the WMSL program, the 10th member of the class, the brand new USCGC Calhoun (WMSL 759), departed Pascagoula on 19 November for her homeport in Charleston.
Warship Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023: One Hearty Brazilian
Photo by LT CH Parnall, Royal Navy official photographer, IWM A 20897
Above we see a scene from the life of the modified H-class destroyer HMS Hesperus (H57), some 80 years ago today on 6 December 1943, with Ordinary Seaman P. S. Buckingham, of Norwich, freshening up the ship’s record of U-boat kills on the side of the wheelhouse as the greyhound was docked at Liverpool.
While many ships would see their scoreboard whittled down greatly following post-war analysis, Hesperus went down in the books as going five for five.
The H-class
The British Royal Navy would order some 27 assorted “G”, “H” and “I” Class destroyers between 1934 and 1936 as part of the rearmament to safeguard against the growing German, Italian, and Japanese fleets in the uneasy peace leading up to WWII. They were slight ships, of just 1,800 tons and 323 feet overall length with a narrow 33-foot beam, giving them a dagger-like 1:10 length-to-beam ratio. With a speed of 35 knots and a 5,000 nm range at half that, they could keep up with the fleet or operate independently and had long enough legs for North Atlantic convoy work, should such a thing ever be needed in the future.
The differences between the three classes were primarily in engineering fit, minor superstructure changes, and armament. They were typically fitted with a quartet of QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mk IX guns, a few AAA mounts, between 8 and 10 anti-ship torpedo tubes, and depth charges for ASW work.
HMS Grenade (H86), a G-class destroyer. Note her layout which was like all her sisters. Grenade would be sunk in May 1940 off Dunkirk by German Stukas.
The 27th and last of the type delivered to the RN from the ships the Admiralty ordered was HMS Ivanhoe (D16) on 24 August 1937, completing the classes built out in just four years, which is not bad for peacetime production.
The G/H/Is would prove so successful of a design that the British exported it, accepting prewar orders for 19 ships for overseas allies: Argentina (seven Buenos Aires class ships delivered in 1938), Greece (two Georgios class delivered in 1939), Turkey (four desperately needed Inconstant class delivered in 1942, largely to keep Istanbul friendly at a crucial time in the war) and a half-dozen Jurua-class tin cans for the Brazilian Navy…that’s where Hesperus comes in.
Meet Hesperus
The Brazilian Navy in early 1938 ordered six modified H-class destroyers, spread across the Vickers, White, and Thornycroft yards. They would be named Jurua, Javary, Jutahy, Juruena, Jaguaribe, and Japura after rivers and towns in Brazil. Construction proceeded along nicely, and all were christened with their intended names by visiting dignitaries from the Latin American country and afloat in the summer of 1939.
Rather than a fit for four 4.7-inch guns, these six former Brazilian destroyers in British service would carry only three with the extra deck space freed up to be used for more depth charges– capable of toting as many as 110 ash cans across three rails and eight throwers. They would enter service between December 1939 and June 1940 as the Havant class (Havant, Handy, Havelock, Hearty, Highlander, and Hurricane) keeping with the “H” class naming sequence.
Our subject, the former Brazilian Juruena, was at first dubbed HMS Hearty on 15 January 1940 and then became the first of HM’s warships to be named Hesperus on 27 February 1940 in honor of the Greek name for the planet Venus in the evening, son of the dawn goddess Eos, and half-brother of Phosphorus– the latter the name for the same planet in the morning. This latter name change came to avoid confusing HMS Hearty with near-sister HMS Hardy (H87) in signals.
War!
In March 1940, after a rushed shakedown, Hesperus was assigned to convoy escort duty in the Northwest Approaches, a duty that would take up most of her wartime experience. In all, she would serve on no less than 74 crossings from Convoy AP 001/3 in April 1940 to Convoy MKF 042 in April 1945.
Hesperus underway at sea, resplendent in her war paint. IWM A 7101
In this work, Hesperus made five (two shared) high-profile confirmed “kills” on Donitz’s steel sharks inside of 18 months:
Type VIIC U-208(Oblt. Alfred Schlieper) on 7 December 1941, west of Gibraltar, shared with sister HMS Harvester.
Type VIIC U-93 (Oblt. Horst Elfe) on 15 January 1942 north-east of Madeira
Type VIIC U-357 (Kptlt. Adolf Kellner) on 26 December 1942, north-west of Ireland, shared with HMS Vanessa
Type IXC/40 U-191(Kptlt. Helmut Fiehn) on 23 April 1943, south-east of Cape Farewell, Greenland
Type IXC/40 U-186(KrvKpt. Siegfried Hesemann) on 14 May 1943, northwest of the Azores.
She plucked Oblt. Elfe and 40 survivors from U-93 out of the water and delivered them ashore at Gibraltar to finish their war in a POW camp, providing useful intelligence when interrogated. U-357 went down with only six survivors fished from the drink by the British. Meanwhile, U-208, U-191, and U-186 went down with all hands.
Waterlogged survivors of U-93 leaving HMS Hesperus at Gibraltar on 16 January 1942. IWM A 8116
Prisoners from the U-boat, likely U-357, disembarking from HMS Hesperus at Liverpool. Note the rope stays used by the guards as clubs. IWM A 13978
The fight with U-357 was particularly rough, ending on the surface with the boat electing to fight it out after depth charges and Hesperus finishing her off by ramming– the oldest of ASW techniques.
HMS Hesperus entering Liverpool harbor, on 28 December 1942, showing damage to her bows caused by ramming U-357. IWM A 13987
Same as the above, IWM A 13986
In addition to her ASW work, Hesperus also took breaks from her convoy work to escort HMs battlewagons and carriers including HMS Resolution and HMS Ark Royal to Norway (in a campaign that also saw Hesperus ferry men of the Scots Guards ashore at Bodo in May 1940).
She would again team up with Ark Royal for the Malta relief convoys in 1941 (Operations Tiger and Splice) and as a screen for the battlecruiser HMS Renown during the hunt for the Bismarck. She screened the Churchill-carrying HMS Prince of Wales to Newfoundland for him to meet with FDR in August 1941.
Kodachrome of HMS Hesperus H57 in Canadian waters, circa 1942. Library and Archives Canada MIKAN 4821059
Aerial photo of HMS Hesperus, September 1942. Note her extensive depth charge fit. IWM A 20376
In May 1945, with the endgame in Europe, she escorted surrendered U-boats from Lochalsh to Loch Foyle for disposal as part of Operation Deadlight then, on the 29th, headed back to Norway to assist with the demobilization of German troops there.
By mid-June 1945, she was tasked with supporting aircrew training, a role that meant she was an OPFOR for coastal command bombers and patrol planes. She endured this until May 1946 when she was reduced to Reserve status at Rosyth.
Hesperus, post-war, sans camouflage and most of her depth charges. IWM A 30688.
Nominated for sale and, after removal of equipment and stores, laid up at Grangemouth awaiting demolition, ex-Hesperus was broken up there in May 1947 by G W Brunton.
End of a U-boat by Norman Wilkinson via Royal Museums Greenwich, depicting a GHI-type destroyer next to a German U-boat in its death throes amid a convoy– a sight seen by Hesperus and her sisters many times.
As for her 27 British, two Greek, and six British via Brazil sisters that saw combat, a whopping 25 were lost during the war to assorted causes, most in direct combat with the Germans.
The 10 battle-scarred survivors were either, like Hesperus, scrapped almost immediately post-war or transferred abroad for further service (Garland to the Dutch, Hotspur to the Dominican Navy).
The last G/H/I afloat were the Buenos Aires-class destroyers in Argentine service, scrapped in 1973, with their Turkish sisters preceding them. None of the class members endure or are maintained as museums.
Epilogue
At the helm of Hesperus for three of her U-boat kills was CDR Donald George Frederick Wyville MacIntyre, DSO, RN. He would add two Bars to his DSO and a DSC to his coat before his tour on Hesperus was over. He had been her plank owner skipper and commanded her for the first year of her war, including the Norway campaign, but had taken a break from the ship to command HMS Walker (D 27) in 1941– during which he was responsible for sinking two of Germany’s foremost U-boat aces, Otto Kretschmer and Joachim Schepkle aboard U-100.
MacIntyre would retire from the RN in 1955 after a 33-year career, and pass in 1981, aged 77.
Oh yes, remember Kapitänleutnant Horst Elfe, of U-93? He was the sole U-boat skipper to survive a brush with Hesperus, and survived the war as well by nature of his time as a POW in Canada which only ended in 1947 and included the “Battle of Bowmanville.” He died in Berlin in 2008, aged 91.
Elfe went on eight patrols, four as a skipper, without sinking a ship. He became a noted steel executive in Germany after the war.
HMS Hesperus had been “adopted” by Yeovil and District in its National Savings “Warship Week” that began on 28 February 1942, in which the building cost, more than £300,000 was raised.
The town has a plaque carried aboard the ship during the war as well as her final white ensign in the tower of St John’s church.
War artist William Dring visited Hesperus during the war and painted several pastels of her crew at work.
Engine Room Artificer W Wakefield wearing overalls, turning a large wheel in the engine room. Behind him are two other colleagues at work. IWM ART LD 3536
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