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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023: Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

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

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023: Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Above we see the mighty King Edward VII class battleship HMS Britannia, circa 1908, in all her fine peacetime glory. She would give more wartime service than her sisters and came within two days of finishing the conflict unscathed, tragically sent to the bottom 105 years ago this week.

The King Edward VII class

Hitting over 17,000 tons when fully loaded and with a 453-foot overall length, the eight battleships of the King Edward VII class (King Edward VII, Africa, Britannia, Commonwealth, Dominion, Hibernia, Hindustan, and New Zealand/Zealandia) were big for pre-Dreadnoughts (more than 2,000 tons heavier and 30 feet longer than the preceding Duncan class), as well as being fast, capable of hitting 18.5 knots on a pair of triple expansion steam engines driven by as many as 18 water tube boilers.

King Edward VII, the class leader, was completed in February 1905, just 22 months before HMS Dreadnought.

Carrying a 9-inch Krupp armor belt with barbettes, turrets, conning tower, and bulkheads thickening to as much as 12 inches, they could take abuse and could dish it out as well in the form of four BL 12″/40 (30.5 cm) Mark IX guns-– which were the first large-caliber British gun to use a Welin breech mechanism that considerably shortened the loading time. 

Forecastle of HMS Britannia ca. October 1914. Note the forward twin 12-inch/40 mount

Rather than the 6-inch secondary battery of the Duncans, the KEVIIs carried another four 9.2″/47 (23.4 cm) Mark Xs in single gun beam turrets with about a 170-degree arc of fire and 10 6-inch casemates as a tertiary battery.

Note one of the four single 9.2-inch mounts

Added to this were nearly 30 12- and 3-pounder counter-boat guns and a quartet of 18-inch torpedo tubes.

Jane’s 1914 on the King Edward VII class

Had it not been for the fact that Dreadnought came along in 1906, the KEVIIs would have been top-of-the-line but instead were obsolete almost as soon as they were finished. In fact, other than the two Lord Nelson-class battleships (which were just improved KEVIIs) the King Edward VII class was the last pre-Dreadnoughts ordered by the Admiralty.

Meet Britannia

Our subject is the sixth RN warship– going back to a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line launched in 1682– to carry the name of Britannia, the goddess and personification of Great Britain.

National Service Britannia poster by Septimus E. Scott Great Wr

One of the most majestic and hard-serving of the five prior ships (all sail-powered) was the 120-gun first-rate launched in 1820 and remained in the line through 1859 then endured as a training hulk for some years after.

HMS Britannia entering Devonport Harbor, 1820. Hand-colored lithograph print, from a painting by Thomas Lyle Hornbrook, (L) and HMS Britannia, a 120-gun first-rate ship of the line, lithograph by John Ward (R).

Laid down on 4 February 1904 at the Portsmouth Dockyard, our Britannia was launched that December and entered service in September 1906, just three months before Dreadnought— a short run on top!

Battleship HMS Britannia 1906 Symonds & Co Collection IWM Q 21042

Battleship HMS Britannia Photo by E Hopkins IWM Q 75235

Still, the new class of KEVIIs were majestic for a time and served as a unit with first the Channel Fleet and then the Home Fleet, with the class leader as the flag of each in turn.

Noted maritime artist William Lionel Wyllie sailed with the squadron and captured them in his eye.

Battleships steaming in two columns towards the artist’s viewpoint, led by the ‘King Edward VII’class ‘Britannia’ of 1904 on the right by William Lionel Wyllie. The ships are all of the type colloquially known as pre-dreadnoughts and the date is 1906-07, since ‘Britannia’ was the only one to carry a white funnel band mid-way on each funnel and she only wore these bands in those years. Wyllie has apparently used a very large number of pins to hold the paper down, suggesting the sketch may have been made at sea. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London RMG PU9918

“No.2 / Reduce speed to 30 Revolutions’ [‘King Edward VII’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘Hibernia’, ‘Britannia’, ‘Hindustan’, ‘Africa’] by William Lionel Wyllie. Numbered and inscribed by the artist, as title, and with the ship names identifying those shown. It is one of a group of four (PAE1035-PAE1038) showing battleships of the ‘King Edward VII’ class during squadron evolutions in the period 1907-09 while serving in the Channel Fleet. The set, each within a ruled frame, was probably made for illustration use. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London RMG PV1036

A general view of Line B with the battleships at anchor during the Naval Review or Kings Review of the Fleet at Spithead. HMS King Edward VII in front, with Britannia, Hindostan, and Dominion behind. The ship on the column on the left side of the photo is the Queen. The ships were in Spithead for a naval review witnessed by King Edward VII, in July 1909. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London RMG 4793355124

King Edward VII-class battleships on maneuvers ca. 1909

By 1912, with the number of modern fast battleships filling the ranks of the Royal Navy, the eight still young but out-gunned KEVIIs made up the newly-formed 3rd Battle Squadron, where they were nicknamed “the wobbly eight” due to their slight tendency to roll in heavy seas and have issues holding formation due to their hull form.

HMS Hindustan seen astern of HMS Britannia ca. October 1914. While they had long legs, the KEVII’s were not great seaboats

And, of course, running these coal-eating and steel-spitting leviathans required a lot of hard work. 

Royal Naval Coaling Crew, HMS Britannia 12.9.09. The class had bunkerage for 2,150 tons of coal and another 400 of oil for superheating, allowing a range of 7,000nm at 10 knots. 

Soon after they were ordered to the Mediterranean to stand by during the Balkan Wars but were back in home waters by 1913.

Royal Navy’s Third Battleship Squadron at Valetta’s Grand Harbour, Malta – 1st December 1912. Working from left to right HMS Hindustan (bow only), Africa, Hibernia, and King Edward VII.

War!

The 3rd Battle Squadron, under VADM Edward Bradford, spent the tail end of 1914 and most of 1915 racing around in support of the cruisers on the Northern Patrol but managed to not bump into the Germans.

Battleship HMS Britannia 1914 Symonds & Co Collection IWM Q 21043A

It was during this period that Britannia ran aground on Inchkeith in January 1915 and suffered severe damage that took her offline for repairs at Devonport. Further, Hibernia and Zealandia were detached for Gallipoli.

The squadron was permanently reduced in early 1916 when class leader King Edward VII struck a mine laid by the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Mowe off Cape Wrath and took 10 hours to sink. The remaining seven members, with Hibernia and Zealandia, returned and Britannia back from repair, screened by the 3rd Cruiser Squadron (HMS Antrim, Devonshire, and Roxburgh) and the destroyers Beaver, Druid, Ferret, Hind, Hornet, Mastiff, Matchless, and Sandfly, was left behind when the Grand Fleet went to scrap with Scheer at Jutland in May.

Post-Jutland and with the Allied effort to force the Dardanelles abandoned, there was little for Britannia and the rest of the 3rd BS to do in Northern Europe, and she and sister Africa were sent to rove in warmer waters.

Britannia left Portsmouth on 18 October 1916 for Taranto via Gibraltar and Malta, arriving in the Italian port on 20 November. She would remain there through Christmas and New Years, conducting training and sending parties ashore before shoving off on 16 February 1917 for the South Atlantic, turning left at Gibraltar and heading to Freetown, Sierra Leone then setting out to escort a six-ship convoy from West Africa to Bermuda in late March.

Returning to Sierra Leone in May, Britannia would sortie 3,700 miles down the continent to Simonstown, South Africa, beginning on 7 June 1917 in convoy with two merchantmen, passing the French cruiser Dupleix and Japanese cruiser Tsushima with their own Northbound convoys on the way. Britannia would arrive in South Africa then promptly turn back around on the 26th with another Freetown-bound eight-ship convoy, arriving there on 11 July when she hoisted the flag of RADM T.D.L. Sheppard, commanding the 9th Cruiser Squadron.

After a quick run to Ascension, Britannia would return to Freetown to pick up a 10-ship convoy to Simonstown on 8 August and remain in South African waters for a spell, shifting to Cape Town, before heading back to Sierra Leone at the end of September– with the battleship herself carrying a load of bullion north in addition to her escort role.

“Nearing Cape Town.” Portrait of a ship and the Table mountain range behind taken from the SS Durham Castle which was being escorted by HMS Britannia from Sierra Leone to Cape Town. The image is from an album chronicling the wartime experiences of Archibald Clive Irvine (1893-1974) in East Africa. During this time he would meet Dr John W Arthur which in turn would lead to his missionary work at Chogoria in Kenya.

This 8,000-mile roundtrip convoy-and-gold run would repeat another five times (November 1917, January 1918, March 1918, May 1918, and July 1918), shelping gold from South African mines to Freetown for further shipment to England from there, then returning to Simonstown with ammunition and stores that had been sent down from Europe.

In general, she would accomplish the trip in 15 days from port to port, making the 3,700-mile trip at about 10 knots the whole way. While the idea of a sole battlewagon with no other escorts shepherding a slow convoy would seem ludicrous to most in WWII, in 1917-18 it wasn’t a bad idea when you keep in mind this was off Africa and the most likely German warship encountered would have been the occasional auxiliary cruiser commerce raider of the same sort as SMS Mowe (9,800t, 4×6″, 1x 4″, 2xtt, 13 knots) and SMS Wolf (11,000t, 8×6″, 4xtt, 11 knots). It was boring work, but Britannia found a useful niche that arguably needed a pre-dreadnought battleship to fill. Meanwhile, her six sisters left behind in Europe were at this time being relegated to ignoble use as depot, training, floating barracks, and support ships.

On 20 October 1918, she set off for Gibraltar on her final convoy run.

While our battleship did not (knowingly) come across a U-boat in all of these African cruises, between June 1917 and September 1918, her deck logs noted that she put her periscope target over the side for gunners and spotters to work with while underway on no less than 39 occasions while she “exercised submarine stations.” Besides, other than the rare case of the large cruiser submarine U-154 appearing off the coast of Liberia in April 1918, no German U-boat of the Great War made it into the South Atlantic.

In fact, Britannia almost made it to the Armistice without having a bad interaction with the Kaiser’s underwater sharks.

Almost.

The Tragic Final Act

The UB III type submarine SM UB 50 under Oblt. Heinrich Kukat was roving out from the Med in November 1918 from her home as part of the Pola, Croatia-based Mittelmeer II Flotilla. Notably, U-Flottille Pola had at the time been disbanded as Austro-Hungary was rapidly leaving the war (and dissolving as a country) with the eight remaining KM U-boats still there on 28 October (U-47, U-65, UB-48, UB-116, UC-25, UC-53, and UC-54) scuttled by their crews.

UB 50 had already been a terribly busy and successful boat during the war,  credited with sinking 39 Allied ships and damaging another 7 in just 14 months.

With both UB 50 and Britannia heading home from their respective wars, they chanced upon each other in the Strait of Gibraltar on the morning of 9 November 1918. Kukat managed to get close enough to fire two torpedoes into the Englishman while she was steaming 11 miles NNW of Cape Spartel just to the West of Gibraltar. Stopping dead in the water, a cordite explosion in one of Britannia’s 9.2-inch magazines went up and she was doomed.

HMS Britannia sinking NARA 45511435

Still, under the cool leadership of her skipper, Capt. Francis Wade Caulfeild– formerly the commander of the battleship HMS Venerable and cruisers Fox, Juno, and Royal Arthur— most of her crew (712 of 762) made it off as she sank slowly for nearly three hours. It was just two days before the signing of the Armistice and, other than the Racecourse-class minesweeper HMS Ascot that was sent to the bottom by UB 67 on 11 November, she was the last Royal Navy ship lost to combat in WWI.

Britannia was the eighth largest allied ship sunk by German U-boats during the war, coming in just behind the French battleship Danton (18,300 tons) and the 18,000-ton liners President Lincoln and Laconia.

Epilogue

At least 23 of the men whose bodies were recovered are interred at the Garrison Cemetery in Gibraltar while the others have No Other Grave than the Sea.

HMS Britannia and her lost crewmembers have been memorialized in no less than 42 locations around the UK, led by the Plymouth Naval Memorial that commemorates more than 7,200 Royal Navy personnel and 75 sailors of the Royal Australian Navy who died during the Great War.

Plymouth Naval Memorial

With her remains on the bottom of the Atlantic, the only relics of her in circulation are period postcards. 

Meanwhile, Combrig has a detailed scale model of her. 

Britannia, Combrig

Her last skipper, Caufield, was given command of the Bellerophon class dreadnought HMS Temeraire on 13 February 1919 then shifted to the Retired List in 1920 with the rank of Rear Admiral, capping a 28-year career. It was while on the list that he was increased to Vice Admiral in 1925. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by order of King George V in the 1936 New Year Honours.

Vice-Admiral Francis Wade Caulfeild, C.B.E passed in 1947, at age 75.

As for UB 50, she made it home to a collapsing Germany and, on 16 January 1919, was surrendered to the Allies. Awarded to Britain as a trophy ship, she was broken up in Swansea in 1922.

UB 50’s final skipper, Oblt. Kukat, who held both the EK1 and EK2 and was a Komtur of the Königlicher Hausorden von Hohenzollern, threw in with the Freikorps crowd in the violent post-war era before the Weimar Republic and, as a company commander with Marine-Brigade von Loewenfeld, was killed in a clash in Bottrop during the Ruhr uprising in 1920, dead at 29. He was the only former U-boat captain killed in Freikorps service and those who served with him during the Great War including famed evangelist Martin Niemöller and some guy named Karl Dönitz spoke highly of him.

Oblt. Heinrich Kukat is listed on the memorial marker of the Loewenfeld Freikorps in Kirchhellen. Other members of the controversial interwar partisan unit included U-boat “ace of aces” Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière and future Abwehr boss, Wilhelm Canaris.

While the name Britannia did not grace another RN warship after 1918, the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth carried the name HMS Britannia as a Naval Shore Establishment after 1906, one that was retained until 1953 when the college simply became HMS Dartmouth and the name Britannia was issued to the newly launched royal yacht HMY Britannia, which in turn remained in service until 1997.

The Royal Yacht Britannia at the 1977 Spithead Fleet Review on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the reign of Queen Elisabeth II. In her 43-year career, she sailed over a million miles and visited 600 ports. She is preserved as part of The Royal Yacht Britannia Trust as a pier-side museum in Edinburgh.

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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Echoes from 1940

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The MAREANO project, conducted by the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), and the Norwegian Mapping Authority, has been mapping the seascape of the Norwegian continental shelf since 2005.

Their most recent Spring expedition on board research vessel G.O. Sars found an aircraft engine and no less than seven wrecks. One appears to be the long-lost T-class submarine HMS Thistle (N 24), located at 160 meters depth outside Rogaland in southwestern Norway.

Built by Vickers pre-war, she was commissioned in July 1939, just less than eight weeks before Hitler sent his legions into Poland and sparked WWII. She conducted six war patrols off the German/Jutland coast and vanished during her seventh with skipper LCDR W.F. Haselfoot, RN, and all 52 hands while off the coast of Norway.

Post-war analysis shows her to be lost on 10 April 1940 during the initial phases of the German invasion of that country, sent to the bottom by two torpedos from the school boat U-4 (Oblt. Hans-Peter Hinsch).

HMS Keith

HMS Keith

In related news, the B-class destroyer flotilla leader HMS Keith (D 06), lost during the Dynamo evacuations from Dunkirk on 1 June 1940, sunk by German Stuka dive bombers in just 23 meters of water, has been located and mapped via multibeam sonar from the French DRASSM agency.

And so we remember. 
 
There are no roses on sailors’ graves,
Nor wreaths upon the storm-tossed waves,
No last post from the King’s band,
So far away from their native land,
No heartbroken words carved on stone,
Just shipmates’ bodies there alone,
The only tributes are the seagulls sweep,
And the teardrop when a loved one weeps.

Wetterstation Kurt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kurt, is still quiet but no longer beach litter.

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

Portugal’s sub force getting it done

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

Tridente-class submarine of the Portuguese navy

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

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

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

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

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

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

She is a good-looking boat for sure.

Portuguese Sub Heritage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These remained in service into the late 1960s.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Marina do Portugal in the Great War

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

What they had on hand was a bit different.

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

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

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

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

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

This sets the stage for our story.

Meet Augusto de Castilho

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

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

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

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

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

War!

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

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

ADM Augusto de Castilho (1841-1912)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epilogue

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

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

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

Mural in the Museu de Marinha

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

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

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

Mural in the Museu de Marinha

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

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

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

The statue of Carvalho Araújo has its hands clenched defiantly.

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

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

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Rolf’s Curious Shark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on the Type UE IIs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All

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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-35726

Above we see the Gato-class fleet boat USS Wahoo (SS-238) at Pearl Harbor, soon after the end of her Third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Her skipper, LCDR Dudley W. Morton, who would count four Navy Crosses in the war, is on the open bridge, in right-center while the officer to the left could be XO, LT Richard H. O’Kane, who would go on to earn the MoH.

If you will observe, there is a broom lashed to the periscope head, indicating a “clean sweep” of enemy targets encountered as well as an aloft pennant bearing the slogan “Shoot the Sunza Bitches” and eight small flags, representing claimed sinkings of two Japanese warships and six merchant vessels. What is not in the picture is the forward radar mast, which has been brushed out by wartime censors.

Just six months after this image was snapped, Wahoo would be broken on the bottom of the La Pérouse Strait, lost exactly 80 years ago today.

The Gatos

The 77 Gatos were cranked out by four shipyards from 1940 to 1944 for the U.S. Navy, they were impressive 311-foot-long fleet boats, diesel-electric submarines capable of extended operations in the far reaches of the Pacific. Able to swim an impressive 11,000 nautical miles on their economical power plant while still having room for 24 (often cranky) torpedoes. A 3-inch deck gun served for surface action in poking holes in vessels deemed not worth a torpedo while a few .50 and .30-cal machine guns provided the illusion of an anti-aircraft armament.

Developed from the Tambor-class submarines, they were the first fleet boats able to plumb to 300 feet test depth, then the deepest that U.S. Navy submersibles were rated.

Meet Wahoo

Our subject is the first U.S. Navy warship– and probably the first in any fleet– named for the wahoo, a beautiful (and delicious) sport fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, known for putting up a fight.

Laid down a half-year prior to Pearl Harbor on 28 June 1941 by the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California, Wahoo was launched on Valentine’s Day 1942– a sweetheart gift to the Japanese Navy.

She was commissioned on 15 May 1942, LCDR Marvin Granville Kennedy (USNA 1930) in command.

Kennedy, who had served in a mix of both surface warfare and submarine billets, was XO of the huge “V-boat” USS Narwhal (SS-167) at the beginning of the war, aboard her when her gunners opened up at incoming Japanese planes over Pearl Harbor. Wahoo was his first command, and he would be at her attack periscope for her first two patrols.

The new boat and green crew spent the next three months fitting out and conducting initial training along the California coast then, after a post-shakedown repair at Mare Island, left headed for Hawaii on 12 August.

Wahoo off Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Note the barrage balloons over the yard and the City of Vallejo. 19-N-33836

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Circles and associated text mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YF-239 is alongside the submarines in the right background. Note the antenna for an SJ radar mounted on the light mast in front of Wahoo’s periscope shears. 19-N-33839

USS Wahoo (SS-238) View from astern, taken off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. 19-N-33837

War!

First War Patrol (23 Aug 1942, Pearl Harbor-17 Oct 1942, Pearl Harbor)

Her patrolling career began in August 1942 in the Carolines. On this patrol, Wahoo claimed the sinking of a freighter not confirmed by post-war review. Other attacks were spoiled by faulty torpedoes, a common refrain in the U.S. Submarine Force in the Pacific at this time.

Second War Patrol (8 Nov 1942, Pearl Harbor- 26 Dec 1942, Brisbane)

Her second patrol was in the Solomons, where she sank a freighter, the Japanese collier Kamoi Maru (5355 GRT) off Buin, on 10 December. Following this patrol, Kennedy, who earned a Silver Star for sinking the enemy collier, left the boat and joined the staff of Commander Service Force, Southwest Pacific.

Replacing the 37-year-old Kennedy was an old classmate of his from Annapolis, Florida-born LCDR Dudley Walker Morton, better known by his Academy nickname of “Mushmouth” or, just the simpler “Mush.” Morton had previously commanded the smaller boats USS R-5 (SS-82) and USS Dolphin (SS-169), then sailed as XO under Kennedy on Wahoo’s Second War Patrol. The new XO would be LT Richard Hetherington “Dick” O’Kane (USNA 1934)

It seemed like, in Wahoo’s case, that the third time was the charm when it came to patrols.

Third War Patrol (16 Jan 1943, Brisbane-7 Feb 1943, Pearl Harbor)

Wahoo conducted her third patrol from Australia through New Guinea to the Palau area of the Japanese-annexed Caroline Islands. She steamed 6,454 miles and expanded all her torpedoes.

Prior to leaving Australia, Morton reportedly told the crew:

“Wahoo is expendable. We will take every reasonable precaution, but our mission is to sink enemy shipping. . . . Now, if anyone doesn’t want to go along under these conditions, just see the yeoman. I am giving him verbal authority now to transfer anyone who is not a volunteer. . . . Nothing will ever be said about you remaining in Brisbane.”

Periscope photograph, taken by USS Wahoo (SS-238) on 27 January 1943. The view shows a refinery and large warehouse adjacent to a phosphate works on Fais Island (near Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands). Wahoo had intended to shell the latter, but had to break off when an enemy ship came on the scene. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39745.

She sank the destroyer Harusame on 24 January off Wewak, New Guinea.

Harusame’s back is clearly broken. Wartime intelligence evaluated this photo as showing one of the Asashio-class (see Photographic Intelligence Report # 82, 17 March 1943). However, the ship’s bridge structure identifies her as a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, with the # 2 (single) 5 gun mount removed. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-35738 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

Two days later chased down a four-ship convoy included sinking the large Japanese army cargo ships Buyo Maru (5447 GRT) and Fukuei Maru No.2 (1901 GRT) along with damaging the tanker Pacific Maru (5872 GRT).

Periscope photograph, showing Japanese transport Buyo Maru sinking after she was torpedoed by USS Wahoo (SS-238) north of western New Guinea on 26 January 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39746.

The scene in the control room during Wahoo’s 27 January 1943 action with a Japanese destroyer. When the photo was taken the submarine was at 300 feet, rigged for depth charges. Six charges had just gone off and the crew was awaiting more. Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, Wahoo’s Commanding Officer, reported this action as “Another running gun fight … destroyer gunning … Wahoo running. Shaved head on crewman at right is a product of an Equator crossing ceremony three days previously.” 80-G-38602

Two views of the same action. LT Richard H. O’Kane, XO, at the periscope, and LCDR Dudley W. Morton, skipper, with another officer, in Wahoo’s conning tower during the boat’s attack on a Japanese convoy north of New Guinea, 26 January 1943. Several ships, among them the transport Buyo Maru, were sunk in this action. 80-G-37034 &80-G-37033

USS Wahoo (SS-238) Provides food and water to the crew of a becalmed fishing boat, circa January 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Act of Mercy While on the war patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and a convoy of four ships, the submarine Wahoo, commanded by LCdr. Dudley W. Morton, USN, of Miami, Fla., came across a small fishing boat, becalmed. Three of the crew of nine aboard the fishing vessel had died when the submarine found her. Three remaining crew members were without food and water. This picture shows members of the submarine’s crew handing water and food to the men in the fishing vessel. A few days later the Wahoo destroyed the Japanese destroyer and convoy. View looks forward from Wahoo’s machinegun platform.” NH 42275

USS Wahoo (SS-238) arrives at Pearl Harbor at the end of her third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Hero’s Welcome A Navy band is on hand to greet the submarine Wahoo on her return to Pearl Harbor following a patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and an entire enemy convoy of four ships. The battle with the convoy lasted for a period of 14 hours. Note that Wahoo’s radar antennas have been crudely censored out of the image.” NH 42274

Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, commanding officer of USS Wahoo (SS-238), at right, with his executive officer, Lieutenant Richard H. O’Kane, on the submarines open bridge, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after her very successful third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-35725.

Fourth War Patrol (23 Feb 1943, Pearl Harbor- 6 Apr 1943, Midway)

For her fourth patrol, Wahoo went to the Yellow Sea west of Korea and just ran amok, only returning after she expended all 24 of her torpedoes.

She sank the cargo ship Zogen Maru (1428 GRT) and damaged the freighter Kowa Maru (3217 GRT) east of Dairen on 19 March, sank the cargo ships Hozan Maru (2260 GRT) and Nittsu Maru (2183 GRT) on 21 March, on 23 March sent the cargo ships Teisho Maru (9849 GRT) and Takaosan Maru (2076 GRT) via torpedoes then finished up with the smaller Satsuki Maru (830 GRT) via gunfire.

Nittsu Maru (Japanese cargo ship) sinking in the Yellow Sea, off China on 23 March 1943. Periscope photograph taken from USS Wahoo (SS-238), which had torpedoed the ship. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-60948.

She finished her run with the cable ship Yamabato Maru (2256 GRT) south of Kyushu, Japan, and two sampans.

Her claimed kills were a bit higher.

Fifth War Patrol (25 Apr 1943, Midway-21 May 1943, Pearl Harbor)

Going to the Kurile chain for her fifth patrol, Wahoo sank two confirmed freighters– Takao Maru (3204 GRT) and Jimmu Maru (1912 GRT) — off Kone Zaki, north-eastern Honshu on 9 May. She ended, again, with no torpedoes left, having steamed 6,828 nm.

Her 5th war patrol claims:

Following the end of the patrol, she was sent back to Mare Island for a much-needed overhaul, carrying almost 30,000 miles on her diesels and the effects of multiple depth charging runs from the Empire.

A series of photographs from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives remains to document her condition at this stage of her hard life.

USS Wahoo (SS-238) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 14 July 1943. 19-N-48937

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. Circles mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. YF-239 and YF-200 are in the left-center distance. 19-N-48941

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. White outlines mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. 19-N-48942

Sixth War Patrol (2 Aug 1943, Pearl Harbor-29 Aug 1943, Pearl Harbor)

The sixth patrol of Wahoo, conducted in the target-rich Japan Sea, suffered from defective Mark 14 steam torpedoes. None of the 10 fish fired in nine attacks on enemy merchantmen resulted in a torpedo hit but she was able to sink a trio of sampans with surface gunfire.

The patrol reports of the failed attacks are crushing:

She made good in surface actions against fishing boats– at least her guns worked!

Across her first six patrols, she claimed 27 ships sunk, totaling 119,100 tons, and damaged two more, making 24,900 tons. Of these, most were on Mush Morton’s three patrols, in which Wahoo had sunk a claimed total of 93,281 tons of shipping in only 25 patrol days.

Leaving the boat was her talented XO, Dick O’Kane, who was called up to the big leagues and rewarded with a command of his own, the Balao-class boat USS Tang (SS-306).

Seventh (Last) War Patrol (9 Sep 1943, Pearl Harbor-lost on/about 11 October 1943, in La Perouse Strait)

Sent back to the Sea of Japan– armed with the new Mark 18 electric torpedo, instead of the hated Mark 14s– Wahoo was the only Allied warship active there when the fishing vessel Hokusei Maru (1394 GRT) was lost west of the Kuril Islands on 21 September, the gunboat Taiko Maru (2958 GRT) west of the Tsugaru Strait on 25 September, the freighter Masaki Maru No.2 (1238 GRT) in the Sea of Japan east of Hungnam on 29 September, the transport Konron Maru (7908 GRT) in Tsushima Straits on 5 October, the cargo ship Kanko Maru (1283 GRT) off Korea on 6 October, and the cargo ship Hankow Maru (2995 GRT) off the Oga Peninsula on 9 October. Good hunting!

However, the hunter became the hunted, and Wahoo never made it back to Pearl, with her war flags flying and crew beaming. Postwar, it was determined that Japanese E13A1 “Jake” floatplanes out of Wakkanai, supporting the submarine chasers Ch-15 and Ch-43, and minesweeper Wa-18, following up on the sighting of a strange submarine by the coast artillery battery on Soya Misaki, responded and chased Wahoo to the bottom of the in La Perouse Strait on the morning of 11 October 1943.

The wreck, found in 2004 resting 12 miles off the northeast coast of Hokkaido in the middle of the strait, confirms the place and cause of her destruction.

She was lost with all 80 hands. Declared officially dead in 1946, all are memorialized at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) on the Court of the Missing.

“Going Home,” watercolor on paper by Georges Schreiber, 1943; accession # 88-159-JN as a gift of Abbott Laboratories.

Wahoo earned six battle stars for World War II service.

Wahoo is one of 64 American subs (52 from WWII alone) still listed as being on “Eternal Patrol,” remembered in markers across the country. Of note, Gato-class sisters USS Corvina (SS-226) and USS Dorado (SS-248) were both lost within days of Wahoo, with all hands. (Photo: Chris Eger)

For a deeper dive into USS Wahoo, please see Warfish.com.

In all, “Mush” Morton would be awarded four Navy Crosses, the final one posthumously.

Commander Dudley Walker Morton USN (USNA 1930) is remembered with a memorial stone at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Virginia, Memorial Section MH, Plot 669.

Epilogue

The fighting spirit of Mush Morton and the Mighty Wahoo would endure long after they were gone.

A billboard at Mare Island in late 1943, highlighting the exploits of the Yard’s famed sub, albeit in a PG-rated format. 80-G-K-15091

Wahoo’s plans, deck logs, and patrol reports (1-6) are digitized in the National Archives. 

Wahoo’s ship’s bell and commissioning pennant, which had been stored at Pearl Harbor while she was on her wartime service, are preserved at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park along with a marker honoring her.

In 1995, the Wahoo Peace Memorial cenotaph was dedicated in Japan at Cape Soya near Wakkanai overlooking the La Perouse Strait where the submarine was lost.

The Forrest Sherman-class destroyer USS Morton (DD-948) was named in honor of Wahoo’s most famous skipper. Built at Ingalls and nicknamed “The Saltiest Ship in the Fleet!” due to the obvious Morton’s Salt reference, she served until 1982, chalking up several stints off Vietnam including close-in NGF support and Sea Dragon operations off North Vietnam.

Dick O’Kane, who according to the NHHC took part in more successful submarine attacks than any other American officer across five patrols with Wahoo and five more in command of Tang, earned the Medal of Honor, three Navy Crosses, three Silver Stars, and the Legion of Merit with Combat “V.” After Tang suffered a sinking via a runaway torpedo in the Formosa Sea, O’Kane and four of his surviving crewmen were “rescued” by the Japanese. After surviving the war at just 88 pounds and testifying as a witness at the Japanese War Crime trials, he returned to duty, retiring in 1957 as a rear admiral after having punched tickets as COMSUBDIV 32 and as the Officer in Charge of the Sub School at New London.

RADM Dick O’Kane passed in 1994 and both he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery and is on the list of Top Ten U.S. Navy Submarine Captains in World War II by the total number and tonnage of confirmed ships sunk during the conflict, just ahead of Morton.

O’Kane’s legacy lives on. The USS O’Kane (DDG-77), a Navy destroyer, was commissioned in Pearl Harbor in 1999 and continues to serve based out of San Diego.

USS O’Kane (DDG 77) ‘s “Battle Cat” war flag is a Rising Sun flag trampled by the “kills” O’Kane chalked up in his career. Meanwhile, her ship’s crest includes dolphins, the MoH, and four Navy crosses

The former rear admiral’s Medal of Honor is kept at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Honolulu.

Further, his cribbage board, which he presented to the second Tang (SS 563) in 1957, is handed down to each oldest fast-attack submarine in the Pacific Fleet. Since that boat retired, it has been handed down to USS Kamehameha (SSBN 642), USS Parche (SSN 683), USS Los Angeles (SSN 688), USS Bremerton (SSN 698), USS Olympia (SSN 717) and now USS Chicago (SSN 721).

191022-N-KB401-0021 JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM Oct. 22, 2019 — Cmdr. Benjamin J. Selph, commanding officer, USS Olympia (SSN 717), plays a game of cribbage on the O’Kane board against Cmdr. Chance Litton, commanding officer, USS Chicago (SSN 721).

Wahoo’s legacy lived on as well. Two different Tench class submarines (SS-516 and then SS-518) were to have carried the name but never made it into service. A Tang-class boat, SS-565, did, however, in 1952. She served until 1980, one of the final diesel boats on active duty with the U.S. Navy.

USS Wahoo (SS-565) underway in the Pacific, 24 July 1978. USN 1174147

The famed original Wahoo’s battle flag and fairweather featured a Native American with a war bonnet with feathers for each Japanese ship the boat had sunk. The second Wahoo continued the tradition via the Al Capp character “Lonesome Polecat,” armed with a torpedo-tipped arrow.

A planned Block 5 Virginia-class submarine, SSN-806, will be the third USS Wahoo commissioned. Likewise, her sister SSN-805 will be the third USS Tang.

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.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023: Shipping Green

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

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023: Shipping Green

Photo by Gilbert Milne, Government of Nova Scotia Virtual Archives H.F. Pullen NSARM accession no. 1984-573 Box 2 F/34

Above we see one of the 67 hardy River class frigates used by the Royal Canadian Navy, HMCS Swansea (K328), shipping green in January 1944 while off Bermuda. As acknowledged by Jane’s in 1946 about the class, following hard wartime service: “These ships have shown very good endurance and sea-keeping qualities.”

While the crew of Swansea— commissioned 80 years ago today– may have had something to say about that, the tough environment of the North Atlantic wasn’t enough to slow their business of slaying U-boats– and business was good.

The Rivers

While today the Royal Canadian Navy is often seen as a supporting actor in the North Atlantic and an occasional cameo performer elsewhere, by the end of World War II the RCN had grown from having about a dozen small tin cans to being the third-largest fleet in the world— and was comprised almost totally of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and sloops! The force traded 24 of its warships in combat for a butcher’s bill that was balanced by 69 Axis vessels but had proved decisive in the Battle of the Atlantic.

One of the most important of the above Canadian ships was the River-class frigates. Originally some 1,800 tons and 301 feet in length, they could make 20-knots and carry a twin QF 4-inch gun in a single forward mount as well as a modicum of 20mm AAA guns and a wide array of sub-busting weaponry to include as many as 150 depth charges.

In addition to her twin 4″/45 forward, Rivers also carried six 20mm Oerlikons in two twin mounts — one seen here in a LAC Kodachrome of HMCS Thetford Mines– and two singles. Note the wavy lines on the Canadian lieutenant’s sleeve, denoting his status as a reserve officer. The running joke in Commonwealth Navies that used the practice was so that, when asked by an active officer why the braid was wavy, the reservist would answer, “Oh good heavens, so no one would mistake that this is my real job.”

Produced in five mildly different sub-classes, some 50 of the 150ish Rivers planned were to be made in Canada with others produced for the RCN in the UK. This resulted in a shipbuilding boom in the Land of the Great White North, with these frigates produced at four yards: Canadian Vickers in Montreal, Morton in Quebec City, Yarrow at Esquimalt, and Davie at Lauzon.

River-class frigates fitting out at Vickers Canada, 1944

Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Waskesiu (K330) with a bone in her mouth, 1944. Kodachrome via LAC

Meet Swansea

Ordered in October 1941 from Yarrows Ltd., Esquimalt, our little frigate remains the only vessel ever named for the Lake Ontario-facing Swansea neighborhood of Toronto, which until 1953 was an independent village. Yard No. 83 was laid down on 15 July 1942, launched almost exactly five months later, and commissioned on 4 October 1943.

Her skipper had already accounted for German U-boats a few times before.

Fifty-seven-year-old A/CDR Clarence Aubrey King, RCNR, DSC, DSO, had served in the British merchant service then switched to the Royal Naval Reserve in the Great War where he served in “Q-ships” and commanded one of those dreaded U-boat killers for the last 15 months of hostilities. During this time, he was credited with “one sure kill and two probables,” earning the Distinguished Service Cross in June 1917. Rejoining the colors with the RCN when WWII started, he commanded the corvette HMCS Oakville (K 178) in her battle with U-94 in August 1942 which ended with the latter’s destruction. This earned him the DSO.

Shipping out from Victoria, B.C., where Swansea was brought into service, her crew did their shakedown cruise to Halifax via the Panama Canal, arriving six weeks later on 16 November.

War!

Swansea clocked in for the Battle of the Atlantic right away. Her first convoy was SC 154 from Halifax to Liverpool in February-March 1944 and, briefly, the West-bound HX 281.

From there, she was detached to join Escort Group 9 at Londonderry, Northern Ireland. EG9 was all-Canadian, including the frigates HMCS Matane, Meon, Port Colborne, St. John, and Stormont in addition to Swansea.

Her first “kill” was a Type IXC/40 German submarine, U-845 (KrvKpt. Werner Weber) on 10 March 1944. In this action, south-west of Ireland, Swansea’s depth charges– joined with those from the British destroyer HMS Forester, the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Laurent, and the Canadian corvette HMCS Owen Sound– sent U-845 to the bottom, with the group picking up 45 waterlogged survivors, KrvKpt. Weber not among them.

Then came U-448, a Type VIIC, sunk on 14 April 1944 north-east of the Azores by depth charges and naval gunfire from Swansea and the British sloop HMS Pelican, who afterward picked up 42 survivors. 

HMCS Swansea # 2 gun in action SWN0228

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24331) U-boat survivors clinging to a yellow inflated life raft, wait to be picked up after the U-boat had made its death dive. In the lower left-hand corner SWANSEA’s sea-boat is coming alongside with survivors, and (top left) is the sloop HMS PELICAN which also picked up survivors. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156236

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24329) SWANSEA’s seaboat alongside U-boat survivors helped out of the sea and onboard the frigate. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156234

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24330) One of the U-boat survivors, still dazed, rests on the deck as his sea-soaked clothes are stripped off by men of the SWANSEA. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156235

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24332) Petty Officer G Ardy, of London, Ontario, standing by the gunshield on which are painted symbols indicating SWANSEA’s U-boat kills. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156237

U-448’s skipper, the Iron Cross-daubed Oblt. Helmut Dauter, was famously photographed walking off Pelican’s deck into captivity at Greenock, his war over.

U-BOAT PRISONERS ARRIVE AT A BRITISH PORT. 20 APRIL 1944, GREENOCK, THE ARRIVAL OF U-BOAT PRISONERS PICKED UP AFTER BEING SUNK BY HMS PELICAN. (A 22935) The Captain of the U-Boat (U448) Helmut Dauter, wearing an Iron Cross, leaving HMS PELICAN. Behind him is Liuet J Bathurst, the Captain of HMS PELICAN. Dauter, who earned the German Cross in Gold, would survive the war, and pass in 1987. The fact that the skipper and 41 of his crew lived through a four-hour-long creeping attack and 56 depth charges, with their boat’s batteries damaged and depth gauge broken, as well as a 6-inch hole in the after part of U-448’s pressure hull, then surfaced into heavy fire from both of the greyhounds that chased her down and were able to abandon ship to be recovered alive, was a small miracle. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205155072

Swansea’s third sub, U-311 (Kptlt. Joachim Zander), another Type VIIC, was sent to her eternal patrol on 22 April 1944 south of Iceland by depth charges from Swansea and her sister, HMCS Matane, with all hands lost.

22 April 1944, HMCS Swansea, commanded by A/Cdr Clarence A. King, DSO, DSC, RCNR, with HMCS Matane commanded by A/Cdr A. Frank C. Layard, DSO, RN, using depth charges, together sink U 311 south of Iceland. This was Commander King’s third submarine “kill” in 7 weeks. LAC photos

Then came another escort, that of Convoy OS 077KM, in May.

After that, she was detailed as part of EG9 to Operation Neptune, the naval component of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion.

HMCS Swansea was present on D-Day, assigned to Plymouth Command to cover the lift across the Channel, and for the next four months patrolled the Channel in support of the ships supplying the invasion forces, coming to the aid of downed Allied aircraft when she could.

It was in this mission that, on 1 September 1944 in the English Channel near Lands’ End, Swansea, and her sister HMCS Saint John, sent U-247 (Oblt. Gerhard Matschulat) to the bottom with all hands.

Depth charge exploding astern of HMCS Swansea, 1944

She rode shotgun on the tail end of HX 307 the next week, making sure it made Liverpool.

Swansea was also a lifesaver, and notably rescued seven men from an adrift Mulberry artificial harbor segment on 24 September.

November 1944 saw Swansea on outbound Convoy ON 264, sailing for Nova Scotia where she would be given a six-month refit and overhaul, where she was on VE Day.

The ship’s company of HMCS SWANSEA, pictured on 30 November 1944

Her crew marched in Halifax’s victory parade.

HMCS Swansea crew VE celebration parade in Halifax NS in 1945. Note the Great War era Ross rifles

Ordered to work up for a Pacific deployment where she would lend her guns to the march on Tokyo, instead VJ Day found her in the Caribbean on post-refit shakedown.

Swansea was paid off on 2 November 1945 to reserve in Bedford Basin. She earned three Battle Honors (Atlantic 1943–44, Normandy 1944, English Channel 1944).

Jane’s 1946 entry on the 18 Canadian Rivers still in RCN service, noting all but one was in mothballs.

As for the legendary Capt. King, who had been on the bridge of Swansea for three of her U-boat kills and Operation Neptune, he would add a bar to his DSC and commanded the frigates HMCS Prince Rupert and Runnymede before moving to the Retired List in 1946. He crossed the bar in 1964 at Osoyoos, British Columbia, aged 77.

What of her sisters?

Of the 90 assorted Canadian River-class frigates ordered, a good number were canceled around the end of WWII. Four (HMCS Chebogue, HMCS Magog, HMCS Teme, and HMCS Valleyfield) were effectively lost to German U-boats during the conflict. Once VJ-Day came and went, those still under St George’s White Ensign soon went into reserve.

Graveyard, Sorel, P.Q Canadian corvettes and frigates laid up, 1945 by Tony Law CWM

Several were subsequently sold for peanuts to overseas Allies looking to upgrade or otherwise build their fleets including Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Israel, Peru, and India.

Others were de-militarized and sold on the commercial market including one, HMCS Stormont, that became Aristotle Onassis’s famous yacht, Christina O. HMCS St. Lambert became a merchant ship under Panamanian and Greek flags before being lost off Rhodes in 1964. Still others became breakwaters, their hulls used to shelter others.

One, HMCS Stone Town, was disarmed and tasked as a weather ship in the North Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s.

But, Swansea still had some life left in her. 

A different war

Swansea, by benefit of freshly refitting right before she was placed in reserve, was twice re-commissioned (12 April 1948-September 1949 and May 1951- 10 November 1953) for the purpose of training officer cadets and new recruits.

These periods saw her range as far north as Baffin Island and Godthab, Greenland, a three-week Caribbean training cruise, a Med cruise to the French Riveria, and Queen Elizabeth II’s Spithead review (34th in Line E).

She was paid off on 10 November 1953 and returned to storage once again.

Swansea was then selected to be rebuilt from 1956 to 1957, as a Prestonian class ocean escort with “FFE” pennant numbers, with our vessel becoming FFE-306. This conversion included a flush-decked configuration, an enlarged bridge, and a taller funnel. Deleted were the 20mm Oerlikons in favor of some 40mm Bofors. Further, they had their quarterdeck enclosed to accommodate two hulking Squid anti-submarine mortars in place of the myriad of depth charges/Hedgehog formerly carried. The sensor package was updated as well, to include ECM gear. One, HMCS Buckingham, was even given a helicopter deck.

Swansea recommissioned on 14 November 1957, ready to mix it up with Soviet subs if needed.

Seen in 1959, the Second World War frigate HMCS Swansea has been considerably modified to improve its anti-submarine capabilities. Although frigates like Swansea had been effective anti-submarine vessels during the Second World War, by the mid-1950s their weapons and equipment were of limited effectiveness against newer Soviet submarines. This photograph shows a number of the modifications made to Swansea between 1953 and 1957, including new guns and a bigger bridge for commanding and operating the ship (center). Other changes included the installation of two Squid anti-submarine mortars that replaced many of the ship’s depth charges. George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 19780155-001

Swansea’s subsequent Cold War service was quiet, typically just involving assorted NATO exercises that ranged from Europe to the Caribbean.

Canadian aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure and HMCS Swansea, pictured on 18 May 1959

HMCS Swansea, Autumn 1962, 9th Squadron’s visit to Churchill, Manitoba. Photo by Angus Gillingham

HMCS Swansea color postwar DND photo

HMCS Swansea postwar note Maple Leaf on funnel CTB025222

Swansea, steaming postwar, note her 306 pennant numbers

HMCS Swansea (306) in Halifax circa 1950s. The stern of the Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Iroquois (G89/DDE 217) is in the foreground. The big Duracell battery-looking things are three-barrel 12-inch (305 mm) Squid ASW mortars that could lob 440-pound shells out to 275 yards. Photo Courtesy of Claus Mathes, via For Posterity Sake. SWN0284

She was paid off for a final time on 14 October 1966 and broken up in 1967 at Savona, Italy.

Epilogue

Little of Swansea remains.

A scale model of her is on display at the Canadian War Museum while a very detailed For Posterity’s Sake site exists chronicling the ship and her crew. 

Most of the remaining Canadian Prestonian/Rivers were discarded alongside Swansea as the new St. Laurent– and Restigouche-class destroyers joined the fleet.

Two endured in auxiliary roles for a few more years: HMCS St. Catharines as a Canadian Coast Guard ship until 1968 and HMCS Victoriaville/Granby as a diving tender until 1973.

None of the Canadian-built ships were retained as museum ships, which is a shame. 

In the end, two Canadian Rivers still exist, HMCS Stormont/yacht Christina O, and HMCS Hallowell/SLNS Gajabahu, with the latter a training ship in the Sri Lankan Navy until about 2016 and possibly still afloat.

Starting life in WWII as a Canadian Vickers-built River-class frigate HMCS Stormont, Christina O was purchased in 1954 by Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who transformed her into the most luxurious private yacht of her time. She went on to host a wealth of illustrious guests, ranging from Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra to JFK and Winston Churchill.

Canadian River-class frigate, ex-HMCS Strathadam, built in 1944 by Yarrow, Esquimalt. Sold 1947 to the Israeli Navy and renamed Misgav. Subsequently sold to the Royal Ceylon Navy as HMCyS Gajabahu. Photo via Shipspotting, 2007.

For more information on the RCN in WWII, please check out Marc Milner’s North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Convoys.

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.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

DASH, is that you?

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BAE Systems this week showed off something they termed akin to a game changer regarding armed drones in naval use. Their Malloy T-600 (which ironically is the same designation as a Terminator model ) heavy lift uncrewed air system, during a large NATO REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Uncrewed Systems) exercise in Portugal, successfully released an inert Sting Ray training variant anti-submarine torpedo during a flight mission at sea for the first time.

A quadcopter with an ASW torpedo.

The T-600 is an electric-powered demonstrator aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing, can carry a payload of at least 450 pounds, and can travel at up to 43 knots. It also has a range of up to 40 nm depending on payload. It is around the size of a small car and is designed to be easily disassembled for transportation.

The Sting Ray is a British acoustic homing lightweight torpedo (LWT) developed by GEC-Marconi and now produced by BAE Systems. With a 550-pound all-up weight, it only has a 99-pound warhead but is the rough equivalent of the U.S. Mk. 54.

Said Neil Appleton, Head of Sustainable Electric Products, BAE Systems Air:

“In just two years since we launched our collaboration with Malloy, we’ve developed a heavy lift UAS and working with the UK Royal Navy and Portuguese Navy, have taken part in the latest NATO REPMUS exercise. The demonstration showcased the capability of our T-600 technology demonstrator, carrying an inert Sting Ray torpedo in front of the world’s premier naval forces. It’s a fantastic achievement in our collaboration with Malloy and a sign of our joint ambitions to bring new capabilities to our customers.”

Of course, any fan of naval history will look at this and recall the old Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) drone of the 1960s-70s that could carry two small Mk.44 torpedoes, a larger Mk. 46, or a friggen nuclear depth bomb (!) out to a theoretical range of 22 nm with a speed of up to 80 knots.

The drones were unsuccessful and the Navy pulled them by the early 1970s.

QH-50 over Hazelwood, 1960, NARA 80-KN 1814

Looks like DASH had better performance in terms of speed and lift, although indeed the main problem with that drone– connectivity and near-real-time-control– has gotten a lot better over the years. Plus, the T-600 seems a bit smaller and there are a lot more drone operators around today than in 1962.

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023: Of Shorts & Hard Charging Jeep Carriers

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

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023: Of Shorts & Hard Charging Jeep Carriers

Admiralty Official Collection, IWM A 25686

Above we see, resplendent in their tropical shorts and whites, a three-man Fleet Air Arm Avenger Mk. I (TBF-1) crew of 851 Squadron— LT (A) S S Laurie, RNVR, observer; squadron leader LCDR (A) Anthony Montague “Steady” Tuke, DSC, RN, pilot; and CPO F R Brown, Telegraphist air gunner– by the aft flight deck elevator of the Ruler-class escort carrier HMS Shah (D 21) in August 1944, with four of the big torpedo bombers arrayed behind them. The place is likely Kilindini Harbor, in Mombasa, Kenya, where Shah was preparing to escort a convoy to Aden.

Commissioned 80 years ago today, she accounted for at least one U-boat, took the fight to the Pacific where she helped track down and kill the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro, and served as a great snapshot for the end of the war—then went on to get really busy.

The Bouge/AmeerAttacker/Ruler/Smiter class

With both Great Britain and the U.S. running desperately short of flattops in the first half of World War II, and large, fast fleet carriers taking a while to crank out, a subspecies of light and “escort” carriers, the first created from the hulls of cruisers, the second from the hulls of merchant freighters, were produced in large numbers to put a few aircraft over every convoy and beach in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Of the more than 122 escort carriers produced in the U.S. for use by her and her Allies, some 45 were of the Bogue class. Based on the Maritime Commission’s Type C3-S-A1 cargo ship hull, these were built in short order at Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, and by the Western Pipe and Steel Company of San Francisco.

Some 496 feet overall with a 439-foot flight deck, these 16,200-ton ships could only steam at a pokey 16 ish knots sustained speed, which negated their use in fleet operations but allowed them to more than keep up with convoys of troop ships and war supplies. Capable of limited self-defense with four twin Bofors and up to 35 20mm Oerlikons for AAA as well as a pair of 5-inch guns for defense against small boats, they could carry as many as 28 operational aircraft in composite air wings. They were equipped with two elevators, Mk 4 arresting gear, and a hydraulic catapult.

The U.S. Navy kept 11 of the class for themselves (USS Block Island, Bogue, Card, Copahee, Core, Nassau, Altamaha, Barnes, Breton, Croatan, and Prince William), all entering service between September 1942 and June 1943.

This left most of the Bogues (34 of 45) to go immediately to the Royal Navy via Lend-Lease, where they were known as the Ameer, Attacker, Ruler, or Smiter class in turn, depending on their arrangement. 

Meet Shah

Laid down on 13 November 1942 as the planned USS Jamaica (ACV-43/CVE-43) — after the bay on Long Island– under Maritime Commission contract by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., she was launched 21 April 1943 and then handed over to the Royal Navy on 27 September 1943.

Our subject, once delivered to the British, was christened as the second ship in the RN to carry the name HMS Shah, with the first being a 19th-century 26-gun iron-hulled frigate that was significant for being the first naval vessel to fire a locomotive torpedo in action, the latter during an 1877 scrap with the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar, and lives on today in HMS Victory, who has carried her iron masts as her own since 1895.

The engagement between the Huascar and HMS Shah off Ilo, May 29, 1877, Griffin & Co, 1880, via National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The “Shah” name also dovetailed well into the naming convention for the Ruler class (HMS Emperor, HMS Empress, HMS Queen, HMS Khedive, et al) which made sense.

After entering RN service, the King’s newest carrier shipped gently north to HM Canadian Dockyard at Esquimalt B.C. to receive her British equipment and sensors, which kept her pier side for the rest of the year.

She would also embark 851 Squadron, 14 Avengers that had been formed at Squantum NAS the previous October.

When 1944 arrived, ordered to head across the Pacific to join the RN’s Eastern Fleet’s 1st Aircraft Squadron, Shah first diverted to San Francisco to pick up a load of aircraft bound for points East.

Overhead view of HMS Shah (D21), formerly Jamaica (CVE-43), moored at San Francisco in January 1944. The ship is ready to ferry a deck load of 29 Wildcats, 12 Avengers (which may be hers of 851 Sqn), and 22 Curtiss Warhawks (P-40) to Melbourne, Australia; Cochin, India; and Colombo, Ceylon. The carrier painted in camouflage Measure 21, moored on the opposite side of the pier, is sometimes identified as USS Rudyard Bay (CVE-81), but this is highly questionable given the date of the photo. A more likely candidate is the USS Prince William (CVE-31). (Photo: Navsource)

And while underway.

This cross-Pacific voyage included crossing the equator, and the required ceremony involved which was conducted after the aircraft were unloaded.

“The Ancient Mariners” performing during a fancy-dress parade on the flight deck of HMS Shah. IWM A 27858

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27857) A fancy dress parade on the flight deck with ‘Potentate and his harem’ and ‘the Ancient Mariners’. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159282

Getting into the war, for real

Wrapping up her assorted aircraft ferry missions by May 1944, Shah traveled to Colombo to reembark 851 Squadron (which had been at RNAS Colombo Racecourse since February) as part of Force 66. To her Avengers were added a half-dozen Martlets (Wildcats) for some extra muscle.

She would spend the next six months in serious trade protection duties across the Indian Ocean, tasked with searching for Axis blockade runners, raiders, and subs. This would include chasing the long-range Type IXD2 U-boat U-198 (Oblt. Burkhard Heusinger von Waldegg) to ground near the Seychelles over three days in August 1943 with her aircraft attacking the boat and her escorting frigates HMS Findhorn, Hedgehog, and the sloop HMIS Godavari sinking the sub with all hands (66 men).

“Steady” Tuke, 851’s shorts-clad commander in the first image of this post and the man who dropped a torpedo into the side of the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto during the Battle of Matapan in 1941 while flying an Albacore off HMS Formidable, would add a bar to his DSC for U-198.

A Mk XI aerial depth charge is being loaded onto a Grumman Avenger aircraft on board the escort carrier HMS Shah in Eastern waters. IWM A 27853

By early 1945, Shah was clustered with the fellow escort carriers HMS Begum, Empress, Emperor, Stalker, and Attacker, to form Commodore Geoffrey Oliver’s 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron of the East Indies Fleet at Colombo then, along with Empress, Shah was switched to Force 63 in April for Operation Bishop— a carrier raid and surface bombardment of Car Nicobar and Port Blair to provide cover for Operation Dracula (the amphibious landings off Rangoon).

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27855) The escort carrier HMS BEGUM is in company. Avengers with folded wings are on the flight deck. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159280

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27850) Deck crews fuelling Avengers. One is standing by on the catapult. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159276

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27851) The guns of a Wildcat being serviced. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159277

For Operation Bishop, the two “jeep carriers” would provide air cover for the Free French battlewagon Richelieu, the old dreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth (flying the flag of VADM H.C.T. Walker), four cruisers (including the Free Dutch HrMs Tromp) and five destroyers.

This raid, from 27 April to 7 May, soon morphed into Operation Dukedom, to interdict Japanese surface ships trying to evac troops from the Andaman Islands in mid-May.

That led to Shah’s aircraft spotting the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro and the destroyer Kamikaze north-east of Sabang and three of her Avengers from 851 NAS, operating from sister HMS Emperor due to catapult issues with Shah, making the longest Fleet Air Arm round-trip carrier-borne attack (530 miles) of the war on 15 May.

Early the next morning, a force of five greyhounds from Captain (later Admiral Sir) Manley L. Power’s 26th Destroyer Flotilla caught up to Haguro and sent her to the bottom in a brilliant night torpedo attack that rivaled anything the Japanese pulled off in the bad old days of 1942 off Guadalcanal.

July brought the planned landings in Malaya (Operation Zipper) which was postponed.

Shah was at sea with Force 61 for Operation Carson, a planned attack on enemy shipping and airfields in Penang and Medan on Japanese-occupied Dutch Sumatra, when news of the Japanese surrender hit on 14 August.

She was reportedly the first RN ship to enter Trincomalee after the news broke and was there for the celebrations that came. Fleet photographer Sub. Lt G. Hale captured a great series of images that covered the event.

(A 30202) Looking aft over the twin Bofors guns of HMS SHAH. Two other escort carriers, HMS KHEDIVE (leading) are coming up off the starboard quarter. All three carriers were out at sea when the end of WWII came. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161379

(A 30204) Part of the ship’s company of HMS SHAH fallen in for entering harbour on the flight deck. The cruiser HMS CEYLON is in the background. It was the first time HMS SHAH made a peace-time entry into Trincomalee Harbour. It was taken at about mid-day on 15 August 1945, about 7 hours after the Prime Minister had broadcast the news that Japan had capitulated. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161381

(A 30197) Sub Lieut (A) Murray Gordon White, RNVR, a Fairey Swordfish pilot of the Royal Navy, now assistant batman in HMS SHAH, batting on Avenger bombers on 12 August 1945, off the Andaman Islands. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161374

(A 30203) Leading Seaman Alfred Charles Dennis of Plymouth enjoys a Victory cigar. He is indicating his approval not only with the quality of the cigar but with the occasion the photograph was taken, on board HMS SHAH on the day the Japanese capitulated (15 August 1945) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161380

(A 30201) A peep at a game of hockey under an Avenger bomber on the flight deck of HMS SHAH, at sea in the Indian Ocean. One of the destroyer escorts can be seen on the port beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161378

(A 30198) VJ Day celebration in Trincomalee Harbour. Taken from the flight deck of HMS SHAH shows how the British East Indies Fleet reacted to the end of the Japanese war. The flagship HMS NELSON was the centre of attraction, she is seen with her Spithead Fairy lights twinkling, being subjected to a friendly barrage of Pyrotechnics from the other ships in harbour. An Avenger bomber can be seen in the left h… Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161375

A particularly poignant image captures the men who were on duty when the war started in 1939. Of her total of over 700 embarked souls, this counted just 66 men. 

(A 30200) The Royal Navy had been at war, non-stop for six years, illustrated here unmistakably. Taken on board HMS SHAH on 15 August 1945, the day the Prime Minister broadcast the news that the Japanese had surrendered. A “pipe’ was made for all officers and men who were at sea on operations on 3 September 1939 to muster for a photograph on the flight deck. This is the result; 14 Officers and 52 ratings, 66 in all. The group includes the Captain and the Commander (centre) and the Chief Engineer. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161377

Her war over, Shah embarked the men of the soon-to-be-disbanded 851 NAS and 845 NAS– sans their well-worn aircraft which were left in Ceylon– and set sail for “home” for the first time, arriving at Gourock on the Clyde on 7 October 1945.

De-stored, stripped of her British gear, and manned by a skeleton crew, she crossed the Atlantic for the first time and was turned back over to the U.S. Navy at Norfolk on 6 December.

Laid up at Hampton Roads, ex-Jamaica/ex-Shah was disarmed and sold on 20 June 1947 for use as a merchant provided her flight deck and hangar deck were stripped at the nearby Newport News shipyard.

She earned two RN Battle Honours: East Indies (1945) and Burma (1945).

By 1946, with the Royal Navy able to count a massive 23 purpose-designed flattops either under construction or afloat, it had no need to petition the Americans to keep any of the loaned jeep carriers. Jane’s that year only listed the RN with just two– British built– CVEs. 

HMS Campania and HMS Vindex, 1946

Civil heroics

Purchased for $8 million along with two other war surplus C-3-S-A1 Class hulls by the Compañía Argentina de Navegación Fluvial— the Dodero Line– ex-Jamaica/ex-Shah along with her former jeep carrier sister ex-SS Mormacmail/ex-HMS Tracker (D 24) were converted to economical passenger steamers, capable of hauling 1,328 passengers (all Third Class) and 175 crew members each on immigration runs from war-torn Europe to Latin America.

Shah became Salta while Tracker became Corrientes, operating on the Buenos Aires to Amsterdam and Hamburg runs and back.

Shah post-conversion to Salta via Karsten-Kunibert Krueger-Kopiske. 

Postcard showing Argentine mercantile Corrientes, ex-Mormacmail, ex-BACV 6, ex-HMS Tracker (D24), from the Ministerio de Transportes de la Nación, Flota Argentina de Navegación de Ultramar, Compañía Argentina de Navegación.

This continued until 1955 when the Dodero Line became part of the government-owned FANU (Flota Argentina de Navegación de Ultramar) line, which became ELMA in 1962.

It was during this service that Salta (with 1,014 of her own passengers aboard) came to the rescue of the old Dutch liner MS Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (then sailing as the Greek-flagged TSMS Lakonia) in December 1963 when the latter caught fire 180 miles off Madeira.

Lakonia burning

Receiving the SOS call through the then-new AMVER system while some 50 miles away, Salta’s skipper pushed her engines to the maximum and arrived alongside the smoking Lakonia three hours later. The American-built freighter/carrier/liner was the first vessel on the scene and rescued no less than 490 of the 1,022 souls aboard, most of whom were British. Five other ships, coming later, managed to save 404 between them.

The rescue was the highlight of the aging ship’s career and, suffering from mechanical issues, she was sold to the breakers at Río Santiago in 1966 for $640,000.

A plaque, presented by the survivors to Salta’s crew, along with a 40,000-peso accolade, is preserved in Argentina.

Epilogue

USS Jamacia/HMS Shah’s builder’s plans are in the National Archives.

The Royal Navy has not commissioned a third HMS Shah, and, likely never will for obvious reasons.

As for 851 Squadron, Shah’s hammer, its lineage passed on to the Royal Australian Navy. Recommissioned at Naval Air Station (NAS) Nowra on 3 August 1954, it flew a variety of types including sub-busting S-2 Trackers from the carrier HMAS Melbourne— appropriate for its past history– and remained in service for another 30 years until decommissioned in 1984.

851 Squadron S-2 Trackers in flight over Uluru S-2. 

Anthony Montague “Steady” Tuke, 851 Sqn’s WWII commander, retired from the FAA in 1947 and went on to live a long life.

His 2010 obituary noted, “In retirement Tuke, who regularly supported squadron reunions and Fleet Air Arm dinners, was group secretary for West Essex of the National Farmers Union; a lay tax commissioner; and a governor of his old school. At an old boys’ dinner in 2003, to a standing ovation, Tuke accepted a bill (in euros) for the damage he had done to Vittorio Veneto in 1941.”

Steady Tuke

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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