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Warship Wednesday, June 8, 2022: The Ship Behind the Ships Behind the Torpedoes

Posted on June 8, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

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, June 8, 2022: The Ship Behind the Ships Behind the Torpedoes

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-10120

Above we see the lead ship of her class, the submarine tender USS Fulton (AS-11), arrive at Pearl Harbor with her decks crowded with USS Yorktown (CV-5) survivors on board, 8 June 1942– 80 years ago today– following the Battle of Midway. While she didn’t get any licks in at Midway, Fulton’s important contribution to the war in the Pacific was huge and overlooked by the history books. For some 1,900 men of Yorktown, she was incredibly important on this day, and these rescued carriermen would soon be put back to work.

Fulton was of course named for famed American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton who developed the world’s first commercially successful steamboat. However, he also designed an interesting sail-powered submersible (“Nautilus”) and thought up “anchored torpedoes” similar to a floating mine.

Fulton’s Nautilus

In 1801, Mr. Fulton sank a small, unmanned ship using such a mine with an explosive charge of 20 pounds of gunpowder at Brest, France, then ten years later conducted a high-profile exhibition attack against the brig USS Argus in the East River via a rowboat and a spar torpedo.

Our vessel is at least the fourth– and somehow last– such ship on the Navy List following in the wake of a sidewheeler that saw much use in the 1840s and 50s, the Navy’s first submarine tender, and a patrol tug, the last of which was decommissioned and scrapped in 1934.

USS Fulton montage of two pen and ink drawings, with associated text, by Samuel War Stanton. The artworks depict the ship as first completed, circa 1837, with three masts and four smokestacks. Collections of the Navy Department, 1967. NH 65483

The Navy’s first officially-designated submarine tender, the USS Fulton (AS-1). Built at Fore River, she was ordered in 1911 and spent two decades in her intended role then, too small to service the Navy’s more modern subs, was reclassified as a survey ship/gunboat in 1930, serving for another few years until she was gutted by a fire in 1934 off Hong Kong.

USS Fulton AS-1 NH 1222

When it comes to submarine tenders, besides a motley list of ~30 old minesweepers, monitors, and cruisers who spent their final days in such auxiliary service in the 1900s-1920s, the Navy’s early AS pennants included a few increasingly larger purpose-built ships– the 3,500-ton Bushnell (AS-2) in 1915, the 8,000-ton Holland (AS-3) in 1926, the repurposed old gunboat Alert AS-4, and converted merchant cargo steamers and passenger liners such as Beaver (AS-5), Camden (AS-6)– ex SS Kiel, Rainbow (AS-7)– ex SS Norse King, Savannah (AS-8)– ex SS Saxonia, Canopus (AS-9)– ex SS Santa Leonora, and Argonne (AS-10).

With the Navy building increasingly larger squadrons of increasingly larger “fleet boats” for long-range service in the Western Pacific, the need for a new and modern class of submarine tenders was realized, one that could be used to both succor those divisions of American subs and replace older, more limited tenders such as Alert (sold 1922), Bushnell (reclassified as a survey ship in 1940), Camden (converted to a barracks ship after 1931), Rainbow (sold 1928), Savannah (sold 1934), and Argonne (converted to an auxiliary repair ship 1940). In fact, of the pre-WWII tenders, only the “aging but able” Beaver, Canopus, and Holland were still in the submarine game when the U.S. entered the war.

The U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Holland (AS-3) doing what tenders do, with seven nursing submarines of Submarine Squadron 6 and Submarine Division 12 alongside, in San Diego harbor, California (USA), on 24 December 1934. The submarines are (from left to right): USS Cachalot (SS-170), USS Dolphin (SS-169), USS Barracuda (SS-163), and USS Bass (SS-164), USS Bonita (SS-165), USS Nautilus (SS-168) and USS Narwhal (SS-167). Despite her small size and limited abilities, Holland proved her worth over and over in WWII, escaping from the Philippines in 1942 and setting up shop in Australia, surviving the conflict, and completing 55 submarine refits during the war. 80-G-63334

Some 9,250 tons (18,000 full load), the Fulton and her class of six sisters (Sperry, Bushnell, Howard W. Gilmore, Nereus, Orion, and Proteus, numbered AS 12, 15-19) were all built in the Bay Area, with the first five by Mare Island Naval Shipyard and the last pair by Oakland’s Moore Dry Dock Company with four hulls laid down before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fulton was ordered in FY38 while the others were ordered in 1940. With a length of 530 feet and a reliable diesel-electric engineering suite (four General Motor 16-248 diesel generators supplying power to an electric motor via a Fairbanks Morse Main Reduction Gear), they could sustain 15.4 knots (Fulton hit 18.7 knots on trials!). Using 130 frames, she was made tough, with special protection over her magazines to withstand hits without going sky high.

With an endurance of up to 40,000 miles if she used all her stores and could defend themselves against surface and air threats via a battery of four 5″/38 cal DP guns controlled by a Mark 37 (later Mark 51) director. Ammunition trunks were located on the hold level under the position of the 5″/38s and hoists lifted the powder and shells upward to the gunners. This was later augmented by two twin 40mm AA gun mounts and a dozen 20mm Oerlikon AA gun mounts– essentially the gun armament carried by a destroyer.

She was seen at the forefront of the late 1930s U.S. Navy submarine force, as seen below in this period illustration by I.R. Lloyd of Fulton steaming alongside the Tambor-class submarines USS Gudgeon (SS-211) and USS Tuna (SS-203) under a protective cloud of flying boats.

However, it was her stores– including 26,600 bbls of usable diesel– and shops allowing her to mother up to a dozen submarines at a time, which made Fulton and her sisters so special. This included a total design accommodation for 64 officers, 22 warrant officers, 70 CPOs, and 1,144 enlisted, allowing for not only the tender’s crew but for the flag complement of a submarine squadron and two full relief crew divisions for her submarines.

Via the 1990s HAER report on sistership USS Sperry (AS-12) of the class:

Most of the ship was devoted to the manufacture, refurbishment, and storage of submarine equipment. The hold contained several spaces devoted to the storage of torpedoes and other equipment. Void spaces filled with ballast water and fuel oil in the hull protected the equipment from mines or torpedoes. The third deck included a number of repair shops and storage areas for electrical equipment, metals, and torpedoes. The second deck had a large machine shop for fabricating machine parts, a metals department, and a welding area. The machine shop office and main tool issue room were in the forward section of the ship on the same level. A large portion of the main deck was allocated for pipe fabrication (metal and rubber), as well as a foundry for the blacksmiths and a small welding room. A number of compartments dedicated to the repair of electrical equipment, mechanical instruments, and optics were located on the main deck amidships. The upper deck had spaces for carpentry and accompanying equipment. Just aft of the carpenter and pattern shop was a small gyrocompass repair shop. A calibration lab, communication and sonar repair area, and radar shop were at the stern. Finally, at the aft end of the superstructure, there was a technical repair library and printing shop, as well as a machine shop and fluid repair facility for governors, valves, and hydraulics. Above the superstructure
was a small cryptographic repair shop.

There were two messes, a bakery, a butcher shop, and a vegetable prep pantry. There were six diesel generators in the machine rooms supplying power to both the ship and any submarines moored alongside.

To supply the physical needs of the crew, there was sufficient space for showers, heads, and washrooms around the ship and near the living quarters. A dentist and medical doctor were permanently stationed onboard with offices and amidships on the upper deck. A barbershop was on the port side, forward of the crew’s berthing on the second deck. Laundry facilities were on the same deck at the stern. There was a ship’s service store where the crew could purchase personal items. A post office, chaplain’s office, library, and a career counselor to advise the crew on future positions were also onboard.

From Fulton’s War History:

As described by Tendertale of the class:

Submarine tenders enabled the Navy to move into a conquered island and in a matter of a day or so have a submarine base in full commission, able to service and repair any of our submarines regardless of their type or special equipment. At our island bases in World War II, submarine tenders worked indefatigably to keep the submarine at sea and on the firing line.

Sponsored by Mrs. A. T. Sutcliffe, great-granddaughter of Robert Fulton, she was christened on 27 December 1940 and commissioned USS Fulton (AS-11), on 12 September 1941, just three months shy of Japanese carrier planes rounding Diamondhead. Her first of 34 skippers were CDR Alexander Dean “Doug” Douglas (USNA 1917), the swaggering career submariner from Oklahoma who had brought the disabled USS R-14 110 miles back to Pearl Harbor on improvised sails made from hammocks and blankets in 1921.

War!

Underway on her shakedown cruise out of San Diego when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Fulton (AS-11) was ordered at once to Panama and then spent the next month working as an ersatz seaplane tender, establishing advanced bases for PBYs in Nicaragua’s Gulf of Fonseca and the Galapagos Islands.

She arrived at Pearl Harbor, ready to get into the sub-tending biz, on 15 March 1942, at a time when the harbor’s waters were still black with leaking bunker oil from the hulks on Battleship Row. Mooring at Pier S-1, she clocked in for SubRon Eight. Her first sub, the brand new Gato-class fleet boat USS Drum (SS-228), moored alongside later that afternoon.

Midway

At 0545 on 5 June 1942, Fulton received verbal instructions from ComSubPac to prepare to get underway as soon as possible under direct orders handed down from Nimitz himself. Amazingly, less than two hours later, picking up the elderly four-piper destroyers USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Allen (DD-66) as escorts, she stood out of Pearl Harbor at 0734 then proceeded northwestward at 17 knots, zig-zagging to avoid Japanese submarines. Her destination was to meet ASAP with “undesignated vessels of Task Force 16 and 17 to “transfer excess personnel.”

Said “excess personnel” hailed from the damaged carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), which had been mauled in an air attack on the afternoon of 4 June by a strike from the Japanese carrier Hiryu that left the flattop with two torpedoes and three bomb hits, dead in the water and with a severe list.

Men abandoning Yorktown CV-5 while ships swarm to assist NARA 80-G-021694

As Fulton and her escorts made the best speed for the Yorktown and her escorts, the Japanese submarine I-168 came across the scene on the afternoon of 6 June and fired four torpedoes, hitting both the destroyer Hammann and Yorktown, sinking the destroyer in minutes, and forcing the withdrawal of Yorktown’s salvage party, though she would continue to float through the night.

It was during the next day, at 1300 on 7 June, just hours after Yorktown dived for the ocean floor, that Fulton came alongside the cruiser USS Portland (CA-33) and destroyer USS Russell (DD-414), which between them were carrying the bulk of the carrier’s crew. Slowing to eight knots and rigging five trolleys and whips, they began to send over survivors via coal bags, but the transfer was stopped after a few hours after a suspected submarine contact was made by one of the destroyers.

USS Portland (CA-33), at right, prepares transfers USS Yorktown survivors to USS Fulton (AS-11) on 7 June 1942, following the battle of Midway. Fulton transported the men to Pearl Harbor. 80-G-312028.

Battle of Midway, June 1942: USS Yorktown survivors are checked in on board USS Fulton (AS-11), after being transferred from USS Portland (CA-33) for transportation to Pearl Harbor, on 7 June 1942. Note life jackets, which are oil-stained. 80-G-312030

Dropping lines, the transfer was finished under cover of darkness via whaleboat.

By 2245, Fulton was headed back to Pearl with 101 officers, and 1790 enlisted from Yorktown, including 59 stretcher cases.

From her War Diary for July 1942:

She would arrive back at Pearl early the next afternoon and was greeted by Nimitz, who, ironically, was the division commander for a younger LT. Alexander Dean Douglas when he had sailed R-14 into the same harbor some 21 years prior.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (2nd from left) on the dock at Pearl Harbor, 8 June 1942, watching USS Fulton (AS-11) arrive. She was carrying survivors of the USS Yorktown (CV-5), sunk in the Battle of Midway. Rear Admiral William L. Calhoun is in the right-center, wearing sunglasses. Rear Admiral Lloyd J. Wiltse, of Nimitz’s staff, is in the center background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

USS Fulton (AS-11) docks at Pearl Harbor on 8 June 1942 with USS Yorktown (CV-5) survivors on board, after the Battle of Midway. Among the tugs assisting Fulton are Hoga (YT-146) and Nokomis (YT-142). 80-G-312058

With her decks cleared by dark, Fulton welcomed the submarine USS Growler (SS-215) alongside for refit and manned her AAA batteries, shells at the ready, as part of the base defense plan. Back to business as usual.

The rest of Fulton’s War

With the frontlines moving ever toward Tokyo, Fulton was ordered first to Midway, then to Brisbane in Australia where she established a submarine base and rest camp. As noted by DANFs, “and in addition to refitting submarines between their war patrols, acted as tender to other types of ships. Milne Bay, New Guinea, was her station from 29 October 1943 until 17 March 1944, when she sailed for a west coast overhaul.”

USS Growler (SS-215) halftone reproduction of a photograph, copied from the official publication United States Submarine Operations in World War II, page 207. The photo was taken while Growler was alongside USS Fulton (AS-11) at Brisbane, Australia in February 1943, after ramming a Japanese Patrol Vessel in the Bismarck Islands area on 7 February 1943. Note her badly bent bow. Growler’s Commanding Officer, Commander Howard W. Gilmore, USN, lost his life in this action. NH 74515

Warshot torpedoes being readied for the boats on submarine tender, USS Fulton AS-11, in 1943

1940s comedian Joe E Brown entertaining Sailors at New Farm Wharf in Brisbane during WWII, USS Fulton in the background

USS Fulton (AS-11) underway off Mare Island Navy Yard, California on 3 June 1944. The ship is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 4Ax. NH 107760

Returning to the war in June 1944, Fulton tended boats at Pearl (again), then Midway (again) before being assigned to Saipan, and eventually to recently-liberated Guam in June 1945, where she was when the Japanese threw in the towel. She celebrated VJ-Day at sea, headed back to Pearl, and arrived in Seattle on 22 September.

Between May 1942 and August 1945, from no point further East than Pearl and typically much closer to the lines than that, Fulton completed an eye-popping 110 submarine overhauls (twice as many as Holland) and 222 submarine voyage repairs “some of the latter, while not actually classified as refits were in the nature of refits due to the magnitude of work done.” In short, at least 300 war patrols were made possible by the floating torpedo warehouse, workshop, and hotel known as “Building 11,” a vessel that returned a submarine to service on average roughly every third day of the war.

With such a feat, if you find the nature of the American submarine force’s war in the Pacific amazing, you must give a slow hand salute to the men of Fulton.

Fulton received just one battle star for World War II service.

Post-War miles to go

Fulton was assigned to TG 1.8 for the Operation Crossroads atomic weapons tests in the Marshalls in 1946, acting as a repair vessel for the task force and supporting the half-dozen subs taking part.

With that behind her, she was laid up at Mare Island on 3 April 1947.

Fulton class tenders Janes’s 1946

With the Cold War getting colder during Korea, Fulton was taken out of mothballs in 1951 and, just three weeks later, would be tending boats at New London, her home for the rest of her career, a period that would see her sortie out and welcome the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN-571), from her historic submerged passage under the North Pole in August 1957.

After upgrades were completed as part of the second Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Program (FRAM II) in 1959-60, Fulton’s primary duties shifted from repairing and replenishing diesel-powered submarines to performing similar tasks on nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) and attack submarines (SSN). Importantly, she would host the world’s first all-SSN squadron, SubRon 10, serving as flagship.

She, along with her sisters, would continue to serve in such roles throughout the Cold War.

The entry for the Fulton class in the 1973 edition of Janes.

A starboard bow view of the submarine tender USS FULTON (AS 11) moored to the State Pier. A Sturgeon class nuclear-powered attack submarine is tied up alongside the Fulton, 5/30/1987. NARA DN-ST-87-07702

A starboard quarter view of the submarine tender USS FULTON (AS-11) underway, 3/12/1988. Note, that she has lost her armament but still has a WWII gun tub on her bow. NARA DN-SN-90-01473.

On 30 September 1991, SubRon 10 was disbanded at New London and Fulton was decommissioned at her berth. The Queen of the Submarine Force, the only vessel older than her on the NVR that day (other than the USS Constitution) was the repair ship USS Vulcan, which had actually been laid down after her.

Fulton was the last ship afloat associated with the Battle of Midway, outliving the New Orleans-class submarine USS Minneapolis (CA-36) which was scrapped in 1960, and the Gato-class fleet boat USS Grouper (SS/SSK/AGSS-214) which was sent to the breakers in 1970.

Besides her sole WWII battle star, Fulton earned two Meritorious Unit Commendations and two Navy “E”s across her 50-years of service.

Epilogue

The decommissioned U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Fulton (AS-11) in storage in the mothball fleet near Portsmouth, Virginia (USA). The Fulton was decommissioned on 30 September 1991. USN Photo taken 8 October 1994 DN-SC-95-01398 by Don S. Montgomery USN (Ret.)

The Fultons were all long-serving ships, with two, Orion and Proteus continuing to serve until 1992 and 1993, respectively. The latter would remain as a barracks barge (IX-518) sans her stacks, cranes, and other topside fittings into 1999 and was only scrapped in 2007.

Fulton herself lingered in storage on the James River for a few years, finally being sold for scrapping in Brownsville, Texas, on 17 November 1995. Her scrapping was completed on 21 December 1996.

Of note, the first boat she tied lines to, USS Drum— the first Gato-class submarine to enter combat in World War II– has been preserved as a museum ship at Mobile since 1969, ironically at a time when Fulton still had another quarter-century of service ahead of her.

As for Fulton’s first skipper, the man who was on the bridge during Midway, “Doug” Douglas left his tender in October 1942 to serve as a commodore of a Torch Landing convoy and retired as a full captain in 1947, marking 30 years of service. Passing in 1989 at age 94, he donated his remains to medical research and has a headstone at Arlington.

There remains a USS Fulton Association that treasures their former home.

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Welcome USS Columbia, err, PCU District of Columbia I mean

Posted on June 7, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

General Dynamics Electric Boat conducted a keel-laying ceremony for the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, USS Columbia (SSBN 826) at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, over the weekend.

Rather than being the 10th USS Columbia as previously announced by SECNAV Ray Mabus in 2016– a tradition that goes back to a 44-gun frigate in 1813 and included two cruisers and an ironclad– current SECNAV Carlos Del Toro issued a statement two days after the fact that the new boomer would be the first-named “District of Columbia” so as not to confuse it with the current USS Columbia (SSN 771), an 688i/Los Angeles-class attack submarine commissioned in 1994– named for the cities of Columbia, South Carolina; Columbia, Missouri; and Columbia, Illinois in conjunction with the naming convention used by the 62 boats of her class.

Of course, PCU District of Columbia won’t likely reach the fleet until at least 2027 (if not 2031) at which point SSN-771 will be between 33 and 37 years old and likely spinning down for decommissioning, but hey…

My suggestion: Do what they did with the old Span-Am War-era protected cruiser USS Columbia (C-12/CA-16) which was renamed USS Old Columbia in 1921 to free up the original name for use by the troop transport USS Columbia (AG-9). SSN-771 would likely just wear it for a year or two, probably not even to include a patrol, while preserving the lineage associated with the name.

U.S. Navy “Second Class Cruisers – 1899” Monitor, USS Amphitrite; USS Atlanta; USS Columbia; USS Charleston, USS Minneapolis. Published by Werner Company, Akron, Ohio. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

But anyway, the direct USS District of Columbia moniker will salute the Washington D.C.-based Navy installations currently under Naval Support Activity Washington as well as old bases over the years including Naval Air Station/Naval Support Facility Anacostia, the Naval Gun Factory, Washington Navy Yard Marine Barracks (“8th & I”), and the historic United States Naval Observatory campus (established by order of John Quincy Adams), which is a good thing.

If only the Navy would have somehow, someway, seen this coming. It’s like our naming conventions are done with the magic 8-ball or ouija board over the past few years or something. Of course, you could always look at it as another step in the plan to turn DC into the 51st state, but, hey…

Old Hunters Fading Away

Posted on May 23, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Over the weekend, three high-mileage and very effective SSNs were put to pasture, accounting for a century of operations between them.

In the UK, two of the remaining class of seven Trafalgar-class submarines, built in the late 1970s and early 1990s– namely HMS/m Trenchant (S91) and HMS/m Talent (S92)— were decommissioned 20 May 2022 at Devonport Naval Base.

Between Trenchant and Talent, they served a total of 65 years. This has included everything from the Indian Ocean and Med patrols, playing hide and seek with Soviet SSNs, to top-secret operations unknown, ICEX surfacing at the North Pole, and the like. Notably, Trenchant, AKA “Tiddly T,” in 2013 completed the longest patrol ever carried out by a Royal Navy SSN– 335 days and 38,800nm.

HMS Trenchant paying off in March 2021

HMS Talent

Of the class, this only leaves HMS/m Triumph (S93), now 29 years old, still on active service.

Although originally scheduled for decommissioning in early 2021, the slow delivery of the Astute-class boats delayed the retirement of the two subs till this month.

With the aging HMS/m Triumph, this leaves the UK with only five active SSNs, just barely enough to keep one boat at sea.

As noted by the Admiralty:

Four Astutes have been commissioned, soon to be joined by number five, HMS Anson, which has completed successful diving checks. Like the T-boats before them, they are deployed around the globe daily: HMS Astute sailed to the Pacific and back with the Carrier Strike Group last year; HMS Ambush launched furtive raids by Royal Marines in Norway’s fjords as part of wider UK/NATO operations in the Arctic this spring, and newly-commissioned HMS Audacious has been on patrol in the Mediterranean has reached full operating capability on 4 April.

Commodore James Perks, Commodore Submarine Service, was quoted as saying:

“The Trafalgar Class developed a world-class reputation and defended UK interests unstintingly across the world’s oceans. The Astute submarines have now taken up the baton, continuing to protect the UK from threats with deeply professional submarine crews. As we look back with appreciation at the service provided by HMS Talent and HMS Trenchant, we can also look forward with excitement to the future.

We have some of the best attack submarines in the world in the Astute class and developments in submarine training mean that we will continue to have the best men and women sailing and fighting them, protecting our nation far into the future.”

Britain has retired 20 nuclear submarines since 1980 through their own dismantling program with the remnants of 7 stored at Rosyth dockyard in Fife, Scotland, and 13 at Devonport dockyard, Plymouth.

C-ya, Okie

Meanwhile, at the same time the Brits were saying goodbye to two Trafalgar class boats, on the other side of the world at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, USS Oklahoma City (SSN 723) was decommissioned, Friday, May 20. Awarded in 1981 and delivered in 1988, she is one of the first Flight II (with VLS) Los Angeles-class submarines decommissioned.

LA class sub USS Oklahoma City SSN 723 shows off her 12 Mk45 VLS tubes, in better days

The last Flight I sub, USS Olympia (SSN-717) was decommissioned in February 2021, though two Flight I boats will be converted to moored training ships. Four Flight IIs remain active as do 22 688i variants. The Navy also has at least 21 new Virginia-class SSNs active and a planned 45 more on the schedule.

Of note, OKC accomplished a lot in her 34 years at sea including being the first to transit to its patrol area in the Pacific Ocean via the Arctic Ocean, then circumnavigating North America by transiting back to the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal and returning to her homeport in Norfolk. She also helped with a drug bust of some 11 tons of coke.

USS Oklahoma City (SSN 723) returns home to US Naval Base Guam after her final deployment, August 2021.

She’ll follow in the footsteps of the more than 130 other U.S. nuclear-powered submarines sent to spend their last days at the nation’s largest public shipyard, her reactor compartment stored, her hull cut up and sold for scrap, with possibly her sail or diving planes retained ashore as a monument.

Warship Wednesday, May 18, 2022: Spaghetti Battleship Slayer

Posted on May 18, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, May 18, 2022: Spaghetti Battleship Slayer

Via the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), the Italian Central State Archives

Above we see a tonnage flag flown by the Marcello-class submarine R. Smg. Barbarigo after she sank a
Colorado-class battleship, specifically the USS Maryland (BB-46), some 80 years ago this month.

Contemporary propaganda artwork of the claimed sinking of the battleship USS Maryland by the Italian submarine Barbarigo, May 1942

What’s that? You didn’t know Maryland was Deep Sixed by the Royal Italian Navy during WWII? Well, about that…

The nine submarines of the Marcello class were all constructed in 1937-38 by Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico in Trieste for the Italians, drawing from lessons learned during the Spanish Civil War in which Italian Sottomarini Legionari (Submariners Legion) “pirate” submarines fought a not-so-secret war on behalf of Franco. Small vessels compared to American and Japanese “fleet boats,” the Marcellos were only 1,300 tons submerged and 239 feet overall. However, they were speedy for the time, able to make 17 knots on the surface, had long enough legs (7,500nm range at 9 knots) for operations outside of the Med, and carried eight 21-inch torpedo tubes as well as two 4″/47cal deck guns.

Launch of Regio Sommergibile Cappellini, one of the Marcello class. Note her two forward starboard bow tubes. The class had four tubes forward and four stern, an unusual arrangement compared to American subs. Note that her deck guns have not been fitted.

A trio of brand new Italian Marcello-class submarines in Venice, 1939, complete with deck guns. They carried one 4″/47 forward of the sail, another aft, as well as fittings for two twin 13.2mm Breda (Hotchkiss) Model 1931 AAA machine guns. In the foreground on the right is an H-class submarine and in the background are some cruisers and Folgore-class destroyers.

Overall, the Italians could have done worse, and the class was successful in WWII.

Our subject was named for the 15th-century Doge of Venice, Agostino Barbarigo, the commander of the Venetian fleet in the Battle of Lepanto and a figure made infamous by the Assassin’s Creed video game series.

Agostino Barbarigo by Paolo Veronese, Cleveland Museum of Art.

As such, she was the second submarine Barbarigo in the Italian Navy, with the first being the leader of a four-boat class designed during the Great War that served through the 1920s.

The first R. Smg. Barbarigo was active from 1918 through 1928.

Laid down at C.R.D.A. Monfalcone, (Trieste) on 6 February 1937, R. Smg. Barbarigo (2°) was commissioned 19 September 1938 and was assigned to 2º Gruppo Sommergibili at Naples.

Early War Service

When the war started, with the Italian kick-off coming during the last weeks of the Fall of France in June 1940, under the command of Capitano di Corvetta (CC) Giulio Ghiglieri, Barbarigo’s first war patrol was a sortie off the coast of Algeria that yielded no results. Her second patrol, the next month between Cape de Gata and Cape Falcon, was much the same.

Once France fell and the Germans were setting up shop in the English Channel, Barbarigo was one of the Italian submarines assigned to the BETASOM group which would become operational in the North Atlantic from Bordeaux. Passing Gibraltar on 14 August 1940, four days later the boat was in an unsuccessful surface action with the British steamer Aguilar (3,255 GRT) bound from Lisbon to the Canary Islands.

Italian sumergible Barbarigo going up the Garonne river to reach her BETASOM base in Bordeaux.

Italian submarine Barbarigo in Bordeaux 1942.

Submarine Barbarigo, Bordeaux, note her deck gun

Stern shot in Bordeaux

Barbarigo in Bordeaux.

Ghiglieri would command Barbarigo on her 4th, 5th, and 6th War Patrols, never officially bagging anything although she was highly active, ranging from Ireland to the Bay of Biscay. Ghiglieri would leave the boat in June 1941, having commanded her under combat conditions for a full year. He would go on to command the Pisani-class boat Des Geneys for a year, also unsuccessfully, then rode a desk for the rest of the war.

Barbarigo’s new skipper, CC Francesco Murzi, was immediately successful, sinking the British freighter Macon (5,141 GRT) and tanker Horn Shell (8,272 GRT) back-to-back in July 1941.

The Grossi Era

With Murzi transferred to command the new, and larger, Cagni-class submarine Ammiraglio Millo in August, Barbarigo’s third wartime skipper would be CC Enzo Grossi. Born in Brazil in 1908, Grossi was a seasoned commander, having joined the Italian Navy in 1929 and risen to command the submarines Tito Speri and Medusa earlier in the war, earning both the Silver and Bronze military medals for valor in operations in the Med.

Barbarigo’s 8th War Patrol (22 Oct- 11 Nov) saw her operate against convoy H.G.75 off the Portuguese coast in conjunction with German U-boats and have a stalking duel with the British submarine HMS/m Una, ultimately returning to port without sinking anything.

The boat’s 9th patrol (18 Jan – 16 Feb 1942), west of the Azores, saw more success with the unarmed Spanish cargo ship Navemar (5,301 GRT) sent to the bottom, although Grossi claimed to have sunk a large armed merchant cruiser.

Her 10th patrol, run some 300 miles off the Brazilian coast from 25 April to 16 June, would become famous, at least in her time.

On 18 May, she seriously damaged the Brazilian tanker Comandante Lyra (5,753 GRT) bound for Pernambuco, and two days later came across a battleship and escorting destroyer(s).

Via Uboat.net:

At 0245 hours, Barbarigo was steering 020°, when an officer of the watch, First Officer T.V. Angelo Amendolia, observed a dark shadow. He immediately put the helm hard to starboard and summoned C.C. Grossi to the bridge. It was a large destroyer. The submarine was ready to make a stern attack when a much larger shadow appeared, which was identified as an American battleship of the MARYLAND-CALIFORNIA class because of her lattice masts. A second destroyer followed her.

At 0250 hours, two stern torpedoes were fired at 650 meters, aimed at the “battleship” (one of 533mm and one 450mm of type A 115) which was steering 200° at 15 knots. After 35 seconds, two explosions were observed. G.M. Tendi who was observing with binoculars reported that the battleship was sunk, and this confirmed Grossi’s impressions. From a distance of 800 meters, Grossi saw the battleship sinking bow first.

Grossi did not waste time in forwarding his claim and, at 1500 hours on 22nd May, he received a signal from Rome informing him of his promotion and the congratulations from the Duce and a grateful Nation.

The patrol also included an attack on the British freighter Charlbury (4,836 GRT) that was sent to the bottom after a five-hour, six-torpedo engagement on 29 May.

Returning to Bordeaux with his kill flags flying, Grossi and crew were feted by the German and Italian media.

Grossi, in the sweater, regaling the crowd with the stories from the patrol

The conning tower slogan reads, “Who fears death is unworthy of living.”

Although Grossi had not even been on the bridge at the time, he was dutifully photographed, shirtless and engrossed, recreating the attack at the boat’s periscope.

Of course, as you likely know, the USS Maryland (Battleship No. 46) in May 1942 was in training exercises in Hawaiian waters alongside her sister USS Colorado, having just been patched up at Puget Sound Navy Yard after Pearl Harbor. Her third sister, USS West Virginia, was still at Puget Sound for a longer, two-year, reconstruction and modernization. Of the visually similar California class, both USS California and USS Tennessee were likewise at PSNY under repair from Pearl Harbor. In short, there were no such battleships as Grossi claimed off Brazil in May 1942.

The postwar analysis points to the target Grossi engaged were the elderly Omaha-class light cruiser USS Milwaukee (CL-5) — a ship of 7,000 tons rather than 32,000– escorted by the lone Porter-class destroyer USS Moffett (DD-362), neither of which knew they were attacked.

On Grossi’s next patrol, Barbarigo’s 11th during the war, the boat sortied from Bordeaux on 29 August and returned a full month later, having dealt deadly blows to the Americans once again while steaming off the Brazilian coast and West Africa.

In the pre-dawn hours of 6 October, with Grossi again not in the control room, he bagged another battleship. What luck!

Times 05.40 of the day 6 – Stq. 23 of the q.d.p. n. 6718 (lat. 02’10/20’N, long. 14°10/20’W) time 02.34 I have sunk a unit type Nb (battleship) Cl. (class) ” Mississippi ” (U.S.A.) course 150° speeds 13knots four forward torpedoes hit 6 meters seen the ship sink avoided reaction I direct zone – 043106.

Two days later, when the news hit an embattled Central Europe, Hitler conferred the Iron Cross to Grossi. El Duce likewise promoted him to C.V. and awarded him the Medaglia d’Oro, the highest Italian award.

Grossi became one of the most decorated naval officers in the Axis fleets, personally receiving two EAKs from Donitz and Italy’s highest award from El Duce

The slayer of two battleships, a feat greater than Günther Prien, Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen, Eli Thomas Reich, Johannes Spiess, and Rudolf Schneider, submarine skippers who only had one battleship to their name across two world wars.

In actuality, USS Mississippi (Battleship No. 41) was at the time participating in exercises off Hawaii and escorting convoys back and forth to Fiji. Her sisterships USS New Mexico (BB-40) and Idaho (BB-42) were at the time both at PSNY undergoing modernization.

As noted by Uboat.net:

Unfortunately, the “battleship” was the Flower-class corvette HMS Petunia (K 17) who had sighted five torpedo tracks (not four!). One torpedo passed under her (the torpedoes had been set for a depth of 6 meters) and another missed close astern, but her ASDIC and R.D.F. were inoperative and her counterattack, at 2255 hours, with only one depth charge was ineffective.

With such a high-value personality on their hands, Grossi was promoted to the safety of shore duty and made the commander of BETASOM at Bordeaux in December 1942. After the Italians dropped out of the war in September 1943, the last four Italian boats pierside in France (Bagnolini, Giuliani, Cappellini, and Torelli) were handed over to the Germans.

Grossi then cast his lot with Mussolini’s remnant fascist Italian Social Republic, assuming command of the 1ª Divisione Atlantica Fucilieri in the Marina Nazionale Repubblicana, a paper force of some 5,000 shipless Italian sailors and Marines employed piecemeal by the Kriegsmarine to build and equip coastal batteries on the Atlantic Wall and in the Channel Islands. The unit took part in the Battle of Normandy, with some isolated garrisons– Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, and La Rochelle– only surrendering at the end of the war.

Grossi also apparently was key in a plan to smuggle Mussolini to Japan in 1945 that, obviously, fell through.

As for Barbarigo, her days were numbered as well. Under LT Roberto Rigoli, the submarine would sink the freighters Monte Igueldo (Spain, 3,453 GRT), Affonso Penna (Brazil, 3,540 GRT), and Stag Hound (U.S. 8,591 GRT) across a week in February-March 1943 on Barbarigo’s 12th War Patrol.

Her 13th Patrol would turn out to be her unluckiest. Sailing with her 5th wartime skipper in four years– LT Umberto De Julio– Barbarigo was converted to a blockade-running transport submarine, code name Aquila V, and sailed from Bordeaux on 16 June 1943 to Singapore with 130 tons of materials and 5 billion Lire. She was never seen again and was believed sunk sometime around 24 June, the cause is unknown. De Julio, five officers, 47 ratings, and two passengers– Imperial Japanese Army Colonels Gondo and Miura– disappeared with her.

Epilogue

During their missions in the Atlantic, the 27 Italian submarines assigned to BETASOM sank a total of 109 ships for 593,864 gross tons, with Barbarigo accounting for 7 of those ships for 39,300 GRT. These are the hard numbers, not the unverified figures. This puts Barbarigo in fifth place among the BETASOM boats, behind Da Vinci (17 ships, 120,243 GRT, the most successful non-German Axis sub of WWII), Tazzoli (18/96,650 GRT), Torelli (7/42,871), and Morosini (6/40,927).

Barbarigo was one of 88 Italian submarines lost during the war, some two-thirds of their force. Keep in mind the U.S. Navy “only” lost 52 boats during the conflict, giving you a window on how dangerous it was to be an Italian submariner.

Of Barbarigo’s sisters, only Dandolo was in operational condition at the end of the war, having sailed to the United States after the Italian armistice in Sept. 1943. She was scrapped in 1948, the Italians soon moving on to surplus American boats.

Barbarigo’s best-known skipper, Enzo Grossi was cashiered and stripped of all ranks in 1945 by the post-war Italian government. A subsequent investigative commission by the Italian Navy, working in conjunction with Allied archivists, revoked his WWII awards and discredited his battleship sinking claims. Grossi, who emigrated to Argentina after the war, died from a tumor in 1960, aged just 52. The findings of the 1948 commission were later confirmed by a second board in 1962.

Of note, USS Maryland and Mississippi became two of the longest-living American battlewagons, with “Fighting Mary” only sold to the breakers in 1959, some 43 years after she was ordered, and the “Mighty Miss” still on active duty as a missile trials ship as late as 1956.

Specs:

U.S. Navy ONI-202 circa 1942 listing for the Marcello class

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Happy 500th, Marinen!

Posted on May 9, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Tracing its lineage to that time the scrappy hövitsman Gustav Eriksson (later Gustav I, later Gustav Vasa) purchased a dozen ships from the Hanseatic town of Lübeck for the princely sum of 7,600 marks on 7 June 1522, the Swedish Navy predated old Gus’s 37-year reign, one that didn’t begin till the summer of 1523 after he licked the Danes– with the help of said ships.

Principal among the vessels purchased from the Germans was Lybska Svan, aka the “Svanen från Lübeck,” or the “Swan from Lubeck,” a plucky little 20-gun brig.

Lybska Svan via the Swedish Naval Museum. The ship fought in nine sea battles in its short career, and it hosted the Denmark capitulation in 1523 that paved the way for Sweden to become an independent state. To Sweden, it is a combination of the USS Missouri and Independence Hall.

For those with basic math skills, that means the Marinen is fast approaching its 500th anniversary.

PostNord Sverige has just released a set of three 26-kroner stamps to celebrate the Swedish Navy’s 500th anniversary this year.

One stamp depicts an advanced Saab A26 AIP hunter-killer submarine, currently being built for the force, and the commemorative sheet also shows a Saab CB90 Next Generation patrol boat in action as well as a UH-46/KV-107, which the Swedes used for SAR and ASW from 1963-2011. For a throwback, the Lybska Svan is depicted, of course.

Warship Wednesday, May 4, 2022: Release the 30-Only-One!

Posted on May 4, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland 6 comments

Warship Wednesday, May 4, 2022: Release the 30-Only-One!

Naval History and Heritage Command NH 72318

Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Kraken (SS-370) tipping on the way during launching at Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co., Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on 30 April 1944.

And splash…NH 72319

During World War II, the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built 28 submarines for the U.S. Navy and had contracts to build two more that were canceled.

Sponsored by Ms. Frances (Giffen) Anderson, wife of influential and rabidly anti-Japanese GOP Congressmen John Zuinglius “Jack” Anderson of California, Kraken’s side launched into the Manitowoc, as shown above, in April 1944 then commissioned on 8 September of the same year.

Kraken on trials in Lake Michigan circa 1944. Note she only had one 5″/25, aft, and two 20mm Oerlikons on her sail. Description: Courtesy of Alfred Cellier, 1978. NH 86955

This picture is of the crowd gathered for the commissioning ceremony of the submarine USS Kraken (SS 370) at the Manitowoc on 8 September 1944. Huge scrap piles of material for unfinished submarines can be seen in the background. The large cylindrical sections labeled “SS-379” would have formed hull portions of the USS Needlefish (SS 379). Other parts would have gone into the Needlefish or the USS Nerka (SS 380). In July 1944, with the war winding down, those contracts had been canceled and the parts for those two unbuilt boats were scrapped, as shown here. (Manitowoc Library photo P70-7-505)

USS Kraken (SS-370) running surfaced in Lake Michigan, Michigan. September 1944. NH 72321

Incidentally, Ray Young, a Manitowoc artist employed as a shipyard designer, would create Kraken’s insignia, that of a binocular-eyed sea dragon. He would do the same for the last nine subs completed by Manitowoc and for a quartet of boats built by Electric Boat.

Some of Young’s amazing insignia, with Kraken’s in the top left corner.

Off to war!

Immediately following her commissioning, Kraken steamed via Chicago to Lockport, Illinois, then was towed in a floating dry dock down the Mississippi River arriving at Algiers Naval Station, across the river from New Orleans, on 4 October.

Kraken, with crew on deck, passed inbound up the Manitowoc River through the open Eighth Street drawbridge in Manitowoc, in September 1944. NH 72323

Setting out for the Pacific via the Panama Canal, Kraken was assigned to Submarine Division 301, SUBRON 30, part of the 7th Fleet. She arrived in Hawaii on 21 November, just in time for Thanksgiving, then made ready for her inaugural war patrol.

Leaving Pearl Harbor on 12 December 1944, she made for the South China Sea for anti-shipping work. Pulling lifeguard duty for carrier airstrikes off Hong Kong on the morning of 16 January 1945, she rescued one Ensign R. W. Bertschi, USNR, an F6F-5 Hellcat pilot (BuNo 70524) of the “Jokers” of VF-20 from USS Lexington (CV-16).

A week later, on 22 January, Kraken encountered a 5,000-ton oiler and made a submerged daylight attack with three fish that resulted in no hits. A nighttime surfaced attack two days later, firing a spread of four torpedoes against a Japanese destroyer, also resulted in no damage. She ended her 1st Patrol at Fremantle on Valentine’s Day 1945, and Bertschi, in addition to his wings of gold, finally made it to shore, just falling short of earning a set of dolphins.

Her next sortie was lackluster. Kraken arrived at Subic Bay, the old U.S. Navy base that had just been liberated, on 26 April, concluding her 2nd Patrol.

Her 3rd War Patrol was conducted in the Gulf of Siam, the South China Sea, the Java Sea, and the Eastern Indian Ocean between 19 May and 3 July. She was part of a “Yankee Wolfpack” consisting of USS Bergill (Comwolf), Cobia, Hawkbill, and Bullhead patrolling the Pulo Wai-Koh Krah Line, then near the British T-class subs HMS/m Taciturn and HMS/m Thorough. By that time of the war, the seas were undoubtedly target poor.

In the predawn hours of 20 June, Kraken surfaced alone off Japanese-occupied Java to shell the Merak roadstead, following up on a report from Bullhead. This resulted in a surface gun action with two anchored “Sugar Charlie” type coasters, reportedly sinking one (later confirmed to be the 700-ton Tachibana Maru No.58) and damaging the other.

Two days later, Kraken shelled the Anjer Point Lighthouse just after midnight and got into an artillery duel with a Japanese coastal battery for her trouble.

However, she did stalk a small coastal convoy of five Marus and three escorts, then followed it through the next day before taking a run at it during the bright moonlight on the morning of the 23rd in a combined torpedo and gun attack.

In the swirling four-hour engagement, Kraken expended five MK XIV-3A and four MK XVIII-1 torpedoes at ranges just over 2,000 yards along with 54 rounds of 5-inch HC, 116 rounds of 40mm, and 474 rounds of 20mm at ranges as close as 1,500 yards. The Japanese escorts, small subchasers, fired back and bracketed Kraken but caused no damage.

Kraken was credited at the time with sinking a 1,600-ton transport oiler and a 700-ton coastal steamer, as well as damaging two ~400-ton escorts, although this was not borne out by postwar boards.

She ended her 3rd, and most successful, Patrol at Freemantle, steaming some 11,926 miles in 45 days.

Kraken (SS-370) with Ray Young’s “Sea Dragon” and WW II sinkings on the conning tower. USN photo courtesy of Scott Koen & ussnewyork.com via Navsource.

Further detail of the Kraken’s “Sea Dragon” and WW II sinkings on the conning tower. Note three Maru sinkings, three ships damaged including two Japanese naval vessels, two shore bombardments, and Ensign Bertschi’s rescue. Courtesy of ussubvetsofwwii.org via Navsource.

It was in Australia that she was given a quick overhaul that included doubling her armament to make her one of the late war “gunboat submarines.”

However, her following 4th War Patrol did not gain any kills, although Kraken suffered one of the last active Japanese air-and-naval pursuits of the war, logged on 13 August. The Patrol ended after just 23 days when Kraken was signaled to halt hostilities on 15 August due to the Japanese surrender and proceeded to Subic Bay.

She would linger there for a few days before being ordered stateside as her crew was made up of several very experienced officers and men that had been drawn from other boats, some having as many as 15 war patrols under their belts.

Setting out for California, Kraken would be one of the escorts for the famed battleship USS South Dakota (BB-56), as she carried Admiral Halsey under the Golden Gate Bridge in October.

The crew of USS Kraken (SS 370) unloads their torpedo stores at the end of World War II in San Francisco. An MK18 is shown. Note the camo on her 5″/25.

Kraken received just one battle star (Okinawa) for World War II service. She was initially credited with sinking three ships, totaling 6,881 tons.

Kraken is listed as one of 15 Manitowoc Balaos in Jane’s 1946 entry.

Peacetime

Placed out of commission on 4 May 1946, Kraken languished in mothballs with the Pacific Reserve Fleet until August 1958, when she was ordered partially manned and towed to Pearl Harbor NSY for snorkel conversion.

She emerged much changed, with a streamlined profile, no deck guns, and a very modern appearance.

Kraken remained at Pearl for the next 14 months, heading to sea for brief exercise periods.

Her final deck log was dated 24 October 1959 and closed quietly.

El Inolvidable Treinta y único

The reason for her USN deck log ending was that Kraken had been transferred on loan to the Spanish Navy as SPS Almirante García de los Reyes (E-1). While Franco, the old fascist buddy of Mussolini and Adolf, was still in power, the 1953 Madrid agreements thawed the chill between the U.S. and the country, opening it to military aid in return for basing.

The Spanish at the time only had two circa 1927 EB-designed pig boats (C1 and C2) that had survived the Civil War but were in poor condition, two small 275-foot/1,050-ton boats (D1 and D2) constructed in 1944 at Cartagena that were both cranky and obsolete, and G-7, the latter a partially refirb’d German Kriegsmarine Type VIIC U-boat, ex-U-573, which had been interned after receiving damage and sold to Franco’s government.

Spanish submarines in Barcelona, 1966. Almirante García de los Reyes (S-31) ex-USS Kraken (SS-370), two D Class units including S-21– already modernized with the Spanish version of the GUPPY conversion– and in the foreground the domestically built midget submarines Foca (SA-41) and Tiburon (SA-42).

This made Kraken/Almirante García de los Reyes the only relatively modern sub in the Spanish Navy in the Atomic era as she had the fleet’s first snorkel, guided torpedoes (Mk37s), and submarine sonar. As such, after her pennant number shifted to the more NATO-compatible S-31 in 1961, the boat was termed “El Treinta y único” or “Thirty-Only One” as she was the sole submarine in the force considered battle-ready.

This would endure for more than a decade.

Visiting New York

Melilla August 1971 El treinta y unico El Mejor Spanish S-31 submarine Admiral Garcia. Note the old light carrier USS Cabot as Dédalo with Sikorsky S-55 Pepos on deck

In July 1971, USS Ronquil (SS-396), a Guppy’d Balao-class smoke boat became SPS Isaac Peral (S-32) and allowed the old Kraken some backup. The next year two more Balao Guppies, ex-USS Picuda (SS-382) and ex-USS Bang (SS-385), would arrive in October 1972, renamed SPS Narciso Monturiol (S-33) and Cosme Garcia (S-34), respectively.

Kraken/Almirante García de los Reyes’s 1973 entry in Jane’s.

Sold to Spain and struck from the US Naval Register, on 1 November 1974, Kraken would endure in operation until April 1981, when she was finally removed from service and scrapped.

By that time, Spain had a force of four brand-new French-built Daphné-class submarines in service.

Epilogue

Kraken’s plans and deck logs are in the National Archives but as far as I can tell little else remains of her.

Sadly, her name, possibly the most epic sea creature there is, has not been repeated on the Navy List.

Eight Balao-class submarines are preserved (for now) as museum ships across the country. None are Manitowoc-built boats.

Nonetheless, please visit one of these fine ships and keep the legacy alive:

-USS Batfish (SS-310) at War Memorial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
–USS Becuna (SS-319) at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
–USS Bowfin (SS-287) at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Honolulu, Hawaii.
–USS Clamagore (SS-343) at Patriot’s Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. (Which will not be there much longer)
–USS Ling (SS-297) at New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack, New Jersey. (Which is hopefully in the process of being saved and moved to Kentucky)
–USS Lionfish (SS-298) at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.
-USS Pampanito (SS-383) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California, (which played the part of the fictional USS Stingray in the movie Down Periscope).
–USS Razorback (SS-394) at Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,525 surfaced; 2,415 submerged.
Length 311′ 9″
Beam 27′ 3″
Draft 15′ 3″
Main machinery: 4 x General Motors diesel model 16-278 A, 4 x General Electric electric motors
Speed (knots): 23 surfaced, 11 submerged.
Range (miles): 11.000 at 10 knots (surfaced), 95 at 5 knots (submerged). Patrol endurance was 75 days.
Complement: 70 (10 officers)
Sonar: Passive: AN/BQS-2 B. Active: AN/BQS-4 C.
At the end of his career used an updated BQR-2 taken from stricken SS-382/S-33.
Guns:
1 x 5″/25 (second added in July 1945)
1 x 40mm/60 Bofors (second added in July 1945)
1 x 20mm Oerlikon
All were removed when she entered service in Spain.
Torpedoes:
10 x 533mm tubes: 6 forward, 4 aft
24 torpedoes: 16 forward and 8 aft.
Initially armed with Mk14/18 torpedoes, in the last years of her career changed to Mk37

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Making like its 1942 Again

Posted on April 21, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

While today’s modern nuclear-powered submarines have surveillance, strike, ASW, and AShW as their primary missions, they also can still do well in that most age-old of submarine tasks– inserting small teams of commando types in the littoral, something I’ve always been a huge fan of.

For video reference, check out the below two very recent videos.

The first is of Royal Marines of Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron, 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group, conducting a small boat raid from an “unnamed Royal Navy Astute class submarine” (spoiler alert, it is HMS Ambush, S120, I mean the Brits only have five attack submarines left) during exercise Cold Response 2022, “somewhere along the Norwegian coast.”

The evolution includes the classic submergence under the rubber boat move.

Some stills released of the above:

As for the Americans

Next up, how about U.S. Marines with Task Force 61/2 (TF-61/2), and Sailors from Task Group 68.1 conducting joint launch and recovery training with Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC) aboard the Ohio-class cruise-missile submarine USS Georgia (SSGN 729), near Souda Bay, Greece, March 26, 2022. The Marines are working from Georgia’s Dry Dock Shelter and are allowed to run up and launch from the sub’s “hump” in addition to going for a periscope ride.

Warship Wednesday, April 20, 2022: A Member of the Easter Egg Fleet

Posted on April 20, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, April 20, 2022: A Member of the Easter Egg Fleet

Historic New England Nathaniel L. Stebbins photographic collection negative 13620

Here we see the fine Glasgow designed-and-built steam yacht Christabel steaming offshore on 8 August 1902. While this elegant little schooner doesn’t look very formidable, she would prove herself in the Great War soon enough.

Built for Arthur Challis Kennard, Ironmaster and Justice of the Peace of the Falkirk Iron Works, Falkirk, Christabel was a steel-hulled schooner-rigged steamer some 150 feet overall and 248 grt. Designed by the famed GL Watson firm and built by D & W Henderson & Co. of Meadowside Yard as Yard No. 370, she was completed in October 1893, with her first port of register being Glasgow. Mr. Kennard was a well-known yachtsman, and his name and vessels can be found in numerous yachting and rowing calendars of the day.

From Llyod’s Register of Yachts 1901, see entry #206, with the 248 grt Christabel listed:

Unfortunately, Mr. Kennard would pass in 1903, aged 72, and sold his beautiful Christabel sometime prior, hence appearing in New England waters in the above circa 1902 image.

Christabel 8 September 1906, now with a white scheme, something else that would indicate new owners. Stebbins negative 17648

By 1909, she was listed as being owned by Mr. Walton Ferguson, Sr. of New York City. Ferguson was well known as President of St. John Wood-Working Company as well as Stamford Electric, Vice President of Stamford Trust Company, and a director of Union Carbide, in addition to a longtime Commodore of the Stamford Yacht Club.

From Lloyd’s Register of American Yachts, 1914, listing her as #575 under Mr. Ferguson still as 248 grt with an overall length of 164 feet and waterline length of 140:

By 1916, Christabel was one of at least two large yachts in the fleet of Irving Ter Bush, one of the wealthiest men on the planet and founder of Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, Bush Tower in Manhattan, and Bush House in London.

When the U.S. entered the war with Germany, Mr. Bush sold Christabel to the Navy Department in April 1917– some 105 years ago this month– and after a very short conversion period she was commissioned on 31 May 1917 at the New York Navy Yard, becoming USS Christabel (SP-162). Her skipper was a regular officer, LT Herbert Berhard Riebe (USNA 1906), whose prior experience was in cruisers and destroyers.

Her conversion saw her pick up a speckled gray paint scheme, two 3-inch deck guns, a pair of M1895 potato digger-style machine guns, and some depth charges. More on the depth charges in a minute.

She was in good company, as no less than 40 large steam and auxiliary yachts also designed by G. L. Watson were armed for wartime work– although most were by the Royal Navy.

Christabel is listed on the bottom left, along with her near sisters and cousins

Off to war!

Assigned to Squadron Three, Patrol Force, Atlantic Fleet even before she was commissioned, Christabel was one of eight hastily armed East Coast yachts– including USS Corsair (S. P. 159), Aphrodite (S. P. 135), Harvard (S. P. 209), Sultana (S. P. 134), Kanawha II (S. P. 130), Vedette (S. P. 163), and Noma (S. P. 131)-– being fitted out to go to France for the purpose of coastal convoy and anti-submarine work. Of these eight, Christabel had the dubious distinction of being both the oldest and slowest.

Shoving off to cross the Atlantic on 9 June, Christabel and five other patrol yachts arrived in Brest (via the Azores) appropriately on July 4th, 1917. With CPT (later RADM) William B. Fletcher, U.S.N., as squadron commander, the force made a splash due to their hastily applied camouflaged paint schemes, applied while underway in some cases.

Via “On the Coast of France,” by Joseph Husband, Ensign, USNRF:

Due to the unusually fantastic scheme of camouflage which disguised the ships of the Second Squadron, these yachts were commonly known as the ”Easter Egg Fleet,” every conceivable color having been incorporated in a riotous speckled pattern on their sides.

USS Christabel (SP-162) In port, circa 1918-1919. Taken by Carl A. Stahl, Photographer, USN. NH 300

Although often nursing cranky machinery– Christabel had almost 30 years on her engine and broke down often– she was part of no less than 30 coastal convoys, being particularly useful in the role of bringing up the rear of convoys and policing stragglers and survivors of lost vessels.

First, she saves

Speaking of saving lives, on the night of 17 April 1918, the U.S.-flagged cargo ship SS Florence H. (3,820grt) suddenly erupted in a brilliant fireball while at anchor in Quiberon Bay as her cargo of 2,200 tons of smokeless powder lit off. Several vessels in the harbor rushed to her aid, including Christabel. Although 45 of her complement and Naval Armed Guard perished, 78 men were rescued, although about half of those were extensively burned and injured. For the rescue, one of Christabel’s CPOs earned a DSC.

Chief Pharmacist Mate Louis Zeller, United States Navy. Member of the crew of the USS Christabel while on patrol duty off Brest, France, during World War I, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by Admiral Wilson. Zeller dove into the water filled with burning exploding powder boxes from the Florence H., to rescue severely burned seamen, managing to accomplish this within seconds of a severe explosion. NH 63045

Then she attacks

Just a month after saving men from the Florence H., Christabel had a close brush with one of Kaiser Willy’s U-boats and at the time was credited with damaging it enough to put it out of the war.

Via “Account of the Operations of the American Navy in France During the War with Germany,” by VADM Henry Braid Wilson, United States Navy Commander, United States Naval Forces in France:

On the afternoon of 21 May 1918, the CHRISTABEL, the smallest of the converted yachts operating in French waters, was escorting a slow ship which had dropped behind the north-bound convoy from La Pallice to Quiberon Bay.

This vessel, the British steamer DANSE, was about eight miles behind the convoy, making about seven and a half knots, with the CHRISTABEL on her port bow. The sea was smooth, weather clear with no wind.

When about two miles outside of Ile de Yeu a well-defined oil slick was sighted on the port bow. The CHRISTABEL cruised around it but saw nothing definite.

At 5 :20 p. m. The Officer-of-the-Deck and the lookout suddenly sighted a wake, about six hundred yards distant on the port quarter, the CHRISTABEL at this time being about 300 yards on the port bow of the DANSE.

The CHRISTABEL headed for it, making all possible speed—about ten and a half knots—whereupon the wake disappeared, and a number of oil slicks were seen.

The Commanding Officer followed this oil as well as he could and at 5:24 p. m., believing that his ship was nearly ahead of the submarine, dropped a depth charge, but no results were obtained although the charge exploded.

At 7:00 p. m. the convoy changed course following the contour of the land and was making about nine knots. The CHRISTABEL was astern, making about eleven knots to catch up.

At 8:52 p. m. the CHRISTABEL sighted a periscope about two hundred yards off the starboard beam. She turned and headed for it, whereupon the periscope disappeared.

At 8:55 p. m. a depth charge was dropped which functioned in ten seconds, followed by a second one a few moments afterwards.

Nothing followed the explosion of the first charge, but following the explosion of the second there was a third very violent explosion which threw up between the stern of the CHRISTABEL and the water column raised by the second charge, an enormous amount of water and debris.

The CHRISTABEL then turned and cruised in the vicinity and noticed a quantity of heavy black oil and splintered pieces of wood, with very large oil bubbles rising to the surface.

Nothing further was heard of this submarine, but, on May 24, 1918, an enemy submarine, the U. C. 56, arrived at Santander, Spain, in a very seriously damaged condition, and from such information as was received, it was believed that this was the vessel attacked by the CHRISTABEL.

German Submarine UC-56 (KptLt/in Wilhelm Kiesewetter). Caption: At Christabel, Spain where she interned herself, 24 May 1918, after injuries received in an encounter with a U.S. Patrol Yacht. The explosion of one of the Yacht’s depth charges was followed by a second detonation after which splinter wood and much heavy oil came to the surface. The UC-56 is primarily a mine-laying submarine, her elaborate camouflage is distinct in the photograph. NH 111101.

Christabel’s skipper, LT Riebe, earned the Navy Cross for the attack and was made an Honorary Commander in the OBE through the offices of the Admiralty. He retired from the Navy in 1938 as a Captain with the Bureau of Navigation, died in 1946, and is buried at Arlington.

Another of Christabel’s officers, Ensign Daniel Augustus Joseph Sullivan, USNRF, came away from the action earning one of just 21 Medals of Honor presented to U.S. Navy personnel in the Great War.

Medal of Honor citation of Ensign Daniel A.J. Sullivan (as printed in the official publication “Medal of Honor, 1861-1949, The Navy”, page 125):

For extraordinary heroism as an officer of the U.S.S. Christabel in conflict with an enemy submarine on 21 May 1918. As a result of the explosion of a depth bomb dropped near the submarine, the Christabel was so badly shaken that a number of depth charges which had been set for firing were thrown about the deck and there was imminent danger that they would explode. Ensign Sullivan immediately fell on the depth charges and succeeded in securing them, thus saving the ship from disaster, which would inevitably have caused great loss of life.

Portrait photograph, taken circa 1920. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism while serving in USS Christabel (SP-162) during action with a German submarine on 21 May 1918. He was a Naval Reserve Force Ensign at that time. Note the overseas service chevrons on his uniform sleeve. Sullivan would go on to serve in destroyers, and then in the U.S. Navy headquarters in London at the end of the war and into 1919, leaving the USNRF as an LCDR. He died on 27 January 1941 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. NH 44173

In September, VADM Wilson signaled Christabel she was entitled to carry a white star on her stack, denoting an enemy submarine kill. Only two other American ships in France, USS Fanning (Destroyer No. 37) and the yacht Lydonia (S. P. 700) would join the same club.

USS Christabel (SP-162) View of the ship’s smokestack, circa 1919. The star painted on it represents the German submarine she was then credited with having sunk during World War I. Note steam whistle on the forward side of the stack. NH 55162

Epilogue

Completing her war service, the little Christabel left Brest in early December 1918 and headed home. She would celebrate Christmas in Bermuda and arrive in New London, Connecticut on New Year’s Eve.

Placed in reserve at the Marine Basin in Brooklyn on 17 May 1919, she was disposed of the next month, and sold to the Savannah Bar Pilots Association for $22,510.

According to The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (June 1934), pp. 145-175, she was renamed for the first time in her life to Savannah and used as a pilot boat well into the 1930s.

Christabel/Savannah‘s final fate is unknown, but she was apparently disposed of by the pilots before World War II.

Speaking of WWII, post-war research discounted Christabel’s role in damaging SM UC-56, but the minelaying U-boat still missed the rest of the conflict. Surrendered post-Armistice Day, she was turned over to the French and scuttled.

U-boats U-108 and UC-56, in Brest docks in 1918, turned over to the French under armistice terms, UC-56 in the foreground. NARA 45511774

The subject of much controversy, UC-56’s only success of the war was the marked and unarmed HMs Hospital Ship Glenart Castle, which sunk on 26 February 1918 with the loss of 162 including eight female nurses and 99 patients. The submarine reportedly attempted to cover up the action actions by shooting survivors in the water.

The British arrested her commander, KptLt/in Wilhelm Kiesewetter, as he was returning to Germany from Spain and tossed him in the Tower of London as a war criminal before eventually releasing him without trial. Kiesewetter, at age 61, was recalled in 1939 and is cited as the “oldest Kriegsmarine officer to command an operational U–boat,” having been the skipper of UC–1 from November 1940 to May 1941. “This boat was the ex-Norwegian submarine B-5, captured in 1940 and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine on 20 November 1940.”

Specs:

Tonnage: 248 GRT, 103 NRT
Length: 164 ft overall (per DANFS)
Beam: 22 ft
Draft: 9 ft 8 in (12.5 ft depth of hold) (listed as 11 ft. 3 in the draft in 1914 Lloyds
Installed power: 1-screw. T3Cyl. (13, 20 & 33 – 24in) 160lb. 53NHP triple expansion engine
Auxiliary sail rig: two-masted schooner
Speed: 12 knots
Complement (1917) 55 officers and enlisted men
Armament:
2 x 1 3″/23 caliber deck guns
2 x M1895 Marlin/Colt .30-06 machine guns
Depth charges

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Warship Wednesday, April 13, 2022: The Example and Inspiration Remain

Posted on April 13, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, April 13, 2022: The Example and Inspiration Remain

Here we see the sail of the British U-class submarine HMS/m Upholder (N99) with her only skipper, LCDR Malcolm David Wanklyn, VC, DSO, RN, pointing in the distance for the camera as the White Duster flaps in the breeze behind the boat’s attack periscope. Upholder is a legend, which we will get into, although her short yet brilliant career came to a tragic end 80 years ago this week.

The U-class was “Small Patrol Submarines” and simple, under 200-feet overall, and able to float in just 16 feet of water. Even in their largest format and ballasted down they only weighed about 700 tons. Carrying two diesels and two electric motors with no direct diesel drive they weren’t the fastest boats in the sea, capable of just 11 knots in a surface attack, but they made up for it in wartime use in the congested seas of the Mediterranean.

Armed with four 21-inch bow tubes and a few .303 Vickers guns, they were fitted with a single 3-inch deck gun forward of the sail.

They carried a single QF 3-inch 20 cwt gun forward, with shells handed up by hand from below decks

Standard U-type plan, with four forward tubes and none to the rear as there just wasn’t the space.

While most had “U” names, nine only received alpha-numeric designations (P32, P33, P36, P38, P39, P41, P47, P48, and P52) and four had “V” monikers (Varangian, Vandal, Varne, and Vox).

The first completed, HMS/m Undine (N48), joined the fleet on 21 August 1938 and the 49th, HMS/m Vox (P73) commissioned on 20 December 1943 while five units (Ulex, Unbridled, Upas, Upward, and Utopia) were canceled.

Our boat was a little different and was one of the seven (Undine, Unity, Ursala, Unique, Upright, and Utmost) completed with an extra pair of bow tubes, which gave them six forward tubes and a total load of 10 torpedoes, while the other members of the class just carried four and eight.

A great shot of Ursula tied to a buoy where you can note her extra two bow tubes and distinctive “nose.” Upholder and five others had this same arrangement. Of interest, Ursula fired the first British submarine torpedoes of the war when she attacked the German U-35 just eight days after Hitler crossed into Poland and would also count coup on the light cruiser Leipzig shortly after. IWM FL 20784

English built at Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, Upholder was one of a dozen sisters on 4 September 1939 just hours into WWII, was laid down 30 October 1939, and was commissioned one year and one day later on Halloween 1940.

Her skipper from shakedown through loss was “Wanks” Wanklyn, who, of note, was colorblind, a fact that never seemed to affect his nighttime attacks at sea.

Lt Commander Malcolm David Wanklyn VC, DSO, left, with his First Lieutenant, Lt J R D Drummond, both of HMS Upholder, 13 January 1942. IWM A 7293, Russell J E (Lt), Royal Navy official photographer.

Born in British India in 1911, he stoked an early interest in the sea and applied to the Royal Navy in his early teens, leaving for Dartmouth Naval College at age 14 and finishing at the top of his class as a mid in 1929. After service on Great War battlewagons HMS Marlborough and Renown, he was a lieutenant in the Submarine Service by 1933, serving on HMS/m Oberon, L56, and Shark in the lead up to the war, including tense service in the Spanish Civil War. Starting WWII as the first lieutenant on HMS/m Otway in the then-sleepy waters of the Med, he was given his first command, the cramped little HMS/m H31, in early 1940, and commanded that boat on its 5th and 6th War Patrols in the North Sea, sinking the German auxiliary patrol vessel UJ 126/Steiermark (422 GRT, built 1938) on 18 July off the Dutch coast then bringing his boat back safely after the ensuing depth charge attacks by her fellow surface escorts.

In short, Upholder’s first skipper was a regular officer with a decade of service– most of it in subs– under his belt and was ready for a fight.

Malta!

After trials and working-up in Home waters at the end of 1940, covering her first two War Patrols, Upholder was dispatched to join the 10th Submarine Flotilla in Malta on 10 December. The 10th, composed of over a dozen U-class boats (including two sailing under Free Polish control), was in January 1941 put under the control of Commander George Walter Gillow “Shrimp” Simpson, RN as Commander (Submarines), Malta. Based at Lazaretto, near Grand Harbour, Shrimp had one marching order: to stop all supplies from Italy making for the Axis troops in North Africa.

HMS/m Urge inboard of HMS/m Upholder at Malta in WWII as part of the 10th Submarine Flotilla. Observe the difference between the two classmates as Upholder has her twin external bow tubes plus four internals, giving her a prominent nose, whereas Urge only has the quartet of bow tubes. Of note, Urge was also remarkably successful, sinking the Italian cruiser Giovanni dalle Bande Nere among some 74,669 tons of shipping and damaging the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto. She was lost after meeting a minefield in late April 1942, on passage from Malta to Alexandria with all hands including Bernard Gray, a reporter for Sunday Pictorial, who was unlucky enough to gain passage through the offices of his friend, Lord Gort.

Besides daily harassment from Axis air raids at Malta, the life of the 10th Flotilla was anything but business as usual.

As detailed in British Submarines of WWII:

The Mediterranean is a very difficult hunting ground for submarines, in some places deep and clear, the outline of a submerged craft is visible for miles. In many places where the 10th Flotilla operated, the sea was very shallow and was poorly charted at that time, causing many a submarine to bump along the bottom during an attack. Ultra-shallow seas forced submarines to caution in those areas where the depth was such to allow the laying of mines, and closer to the coast they would be avoiding hordes of small craft housed in many bases to hunt down and attack submarines. The whole operating area for the Malta submarines was within the range of land-based reconnaissance aircraft. Mirages also created confusion as land and other objects appeared to be distant aircraft carriers or enemy ships. Another problem, mainly encountered near the Northern coasts, was that of the many rivers emptying fresh water into the Mediterranean; this would cause serious ‘layering’, where a submarine might ‘drop’ 100 feet in seconds in the less buoyant water. Off the Tunisian coast, another problem was encountered, what to do about enemy ships in French territorial waters. With the advance of the enemy along the North African coastline, more ports became available for the handling of the essential supplies, resulting in a greater dispersal of shipping.

Nonetheless, Upholder was off on her first of 26 Mediterranean War Patrols on 24 January 1941 and was off to a busy campaign. On 25 April, she sank the 5,428-ton Italian freighter Antonietta Lauro, then a week later bagged the German cargo ships Arcturus (2,576 GRT) and Leverkusen (7,382 GRT).

While on her 10th Med War Patrol on the night of 24 May, despite his Sub’s vital listening gear being out of action, Upholder came across a heavily escorted troop convoy just east of Siracusa, Sicily, and picked as her target a ripe troopship.

From her report:

2030 hours – Sighted three very large two-funnel liners in position 36°48’N, 15°42’E. Course was 215°. Closed to attack. It was later seen that there were at least four destroyers but most likely six.

2043 hours – Fired the last two torpedoes at the centre ship which was the biggest. The nearest destroyer (a Grecale-class) was then only 400 yards ahead. Upholder went to 150 feet upon firing and retired to the East. Two explosions were heard about a minute after firing.

2047 hours – Depth charging started. In all 37 depth charges were dropped. The last four at 2107 hours were very close. No damage was sustained.

2120 to 2125 hours – The target was heard to sink.

2250 hours – Surfaced and passed a report to Malta. There was a strong smell of fuel oil in the breeze upon surfacing.

Her victim that night was the 18,000-ton former trans-oceanic passenger liner SS Conte Rosso, built in 1922, sunk with the last of Upholder’s torpedos. The Scottish-built liner was pressed into service as a troopship then torpedoed and sunk on 24 May 1941 in a convoy to North Africa by Upholder. Of the 2,729 soldiers and crew aboard headed to Tripoli, she instead took 1,297 to the bottom with her.

Italian Line’s SS Conte Rosso is shown with her neutrality markings on her side in a photo taken in the late 1930s. NH 91277

The incident, specifically the heavy depth charging after, was dramatized in the 2018 cable series, Hell Below: Defying Rommel.

Stacking up the tonnage

Upholder would soon sink a further three freighters– including the Italian cargo ship Laura Cosulich (6,181 GRT) which carried a vital load of explosives– then move firmly into the history books during her 17th War Patrol. On 18 September 1941, accompanied by HMS/m Unbeaten, Upright, and Ursula, Upholder torpedoed three large escorted Italian transports off Tripoli, sinking two and damaging a third.

Closing at night at full speed on the surface the little submarine managed to get into a good firing position despite six escorting Italian destroyers and her torpedoes mortally wounded the converted liners Neptunia and Oceania, each of 19,500 tons and full of reinforcements for North Africa.

From her report:

0350 hours – Sighted convoy of three lines escorted by four destroyers bearing 045°. Range was about 6 nautical miles. Closed to attack.

0406 hours – In position 33°01’N, 14°49’E fired four torpedoes from 5000 yards.

0408 hours – Dived and retired to the South.

0410 – 0411 hours – Two explosions were heard. Two of the liners had been hit by one torpedo each. No depth charges were dropped following the attack.

0445 hours – Surfaced and sighted one large vessel stopped in the area of the attack. One destroyer was nearby. A second large vessel was making to the Westward at 5 knots with another destroyer as escort. Set course to the East to reach a favourable attack position to attack again after dawn when the torpedo tubes would have been reloaded.

0530 hours – Dived and approached while reloading in the meantime.

0630 hours – Sighted one Oceania-class ship still stropped with one destroyer nearby. Closed to attack.

0756 hours – When about to open fire a Navigatori-class destroyer was spotted close by. Went deep. The destroyer went overhead when Upholder was at 45 feet but did not drop any depth charges.

0759 hours – Dived under the target while at 70 feet to obtain a new attack position.

0851 hours – In position 32°58’N, 14°50’E fired two torpedoes from 2000 yards. Both hit. The liner [Oceania] sank after 8 minutes. Again no counter attack by the destroyers followed.

A huge rescue operation mounted by the destroyers managed to save 5,400 German and Italian troops, who were sent back to Europe soggy and sans equipment, but the sea claimed at least 384.

Italian troopship Oceania as she sinks after being torpedoed by HMS Upholder on September 18, 1941

Detail of the above

Besides sidelining whole brigades of Italian soldiers, Upholder also took a toll on the Regia Marina, sinking the Italian Maestrale-class destroyer Libeccio, the minesweeper Maria (B 14), as well as the submarines Tricheco and Ammiraglio Saint-Bon.

Libeccio survived the disastrous Naples-Tripoli BETA (Duisburg) Convoy– annihilated midway across the Med by Bill Agnew’s cruiser and destroyers of Force K on 8 November– only to be torpedoed the next day by HMS Upholder.

At the height of Upholder’s success, Wanklyn was presented a VC in a quiet ceremony in Malta in January 1942, surrounded by his boat’s happy crew.

SUBMARINE COMMANDER AWARDED THE VC. 13 JANUARY 1942, SUBMARINE BASE, LAZZARETTO, MANDEL ISLAND, MALTA. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER M D WANKLYN, VC, DSO, RN, WAS AWARDED THE VC FOR HIS EXPLOITS IN HM SUBMARINE UPHOLDER ON 24 MAY 1941, IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. (A 7294) Lieut Cdr Wanklyn, VC, DSO, RN, with members of the crew of HMS UPHOLDER. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205141395

SUBMARINE COMMANDER AWARDED THE VC. 13 JANUARY 1942, SUBMARINE BASE, LAZZARETTO, MANDEL ISLAND, MALTA. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER M D WANKLYN, VC, DSO, RN, WAS AWARDED THE VC FOR HIS EXPLOITS IN HM SUBMARINE UPHOLDER ON 24 MAY 1941, IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. (A 7295) Officers of UPHOLDER. Left to right: Lieut F Ruck-Keene; Lieut Cdr Wanklyn, VC, DSO, RN; Lieut J R Drummond, RN; Sub Lieut J H Norman, RNVR. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205141396

The problem is every story has an ending and some have a noticeably short third act.

On her 28th War Patrol– her last sortie before she was to head to Britain for refit– Upholder was sent on 6 April 1942 to land two SIS agents in Tunisia then patrol the western approaches to Tripoli along with sistership Urge. While the agents were safely put ashore on 10 April, Upholder was not heard from again.

On 16 April, Urge heard the distant explosions of continuous depth-charging. Two days later, Italian radio reported an Allied submarine had been sunk.

With Upholder and the 33 souls aboard missing, Shrimp Simpson wrote:

I hope it is not out of place to take this opportunity of paying some slight tribute to Lt Cdr David Wanklyn, VC, DSO, and his company in HMS Upholder, whose brilliant record will always shine in the records of British submarines and in the history of the Mediterranean Fleet in this war. The Upholder would have returned to the United Kingdom on completion of this patrol. She had carried out 23 successful attacks against the enemy, and the targets attacked had almost always been heavily escorted, or else enemy war vessels.

Epilogue

On 18 April 1942, the Admiralty reported HMS/m Upholder missing, perhaps mined off Tripoli.

On 22 August, with no contact from Wanklyn and crew for over four months, the Admiralty announced (emphasis mine):

It is seldom proper for the Their Lordships to draw distinction between different services rendered in the course of naval duty, but they take this opportunity of singling out those of HMS Upholder, under the command of Lt.Cdr. David Wanklyn, for special mention. She was long employed against enemy communications in the Central Mediterranean, and she became noted for the uniformly high quality of her services in that arduous and dangerous duty. Such was the standard of skill and daring set by Lt.Cdr. Wanklyn and the officers and men under him that they and shier ship became an inspiration not only to their own flotilla, but to the Fleet of which it was a part and to Malta, where for so long HMS Upholder was based. The ship and her company are gone, but the example and inspiration remain.

While debate ensues on what happened to Upholder— theories include a sinking by the Italian Orsa-class torpedo boat Pegaso, German bombers, or a minefield– Upholder remains on eternal patrol and her wreck has not been found. She is keeping her secrets.

In terms of tonnage, the Upholder is considered to be the most successful of all British submarines.

According to U-boat.net, the “official” Admiralty figures are a bit overstated, but even the trimmed down data is impressive:

Postwar it was reported that HMS Upholder had sunk two destroyers, three submarines, three transports, ten supply ships, two tankers and one trawler, totaling 128353 GRT during her career. This figure was a bit optimistic, Given our detailed history listed below, HMS Upholder sank one destroyer, two submarines, nine supply ships (including three large troop transports and no tankers. Total tonnage sunk was 93031 GRT.

One of her victims, the 6,100-ton freighter Laura Cosulich, has gone on to a sort of infamy of her own. Sunk in shallow water off Saline Ioniche, Calabria, her 1,500-ton cargo of munitions has been extensively farmed by illegal salvagers for the benefit of the Mafia, who have used it as a “bomb supermarket” over the decades. The Italian navy sealed it off in 2015 and it is inspected routinely.

Upholder has been remembered extensively in maritime art and special stamp runs.

May 1981 40th anniversary of Upholder’s loss special issue

Hamilton, John Alan; HMS Submarine ‘Upholder’; IWM (Imperial War Museums); http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-submarine-upholder-7673

Cobb, Charles David; HMS ‘Upholder’ Attacking Italian Troopships; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-upholder-attacking-italian-troopships-116448

Zambia 948 MNH Royal Navy Submarines, Commander Wanklyn

HMS Upholder sinking Italian destroyer Libeccio by Raymond Dominic Agius

As is Wanks, who has an official portrait that he never had a chance to sit for, handing in a place of honor at the RN’s Submarine Museum.

Wankins’ portrait at RN Submarine Museum

The Submarine Museum has a mockup of her jolly roger on display as well.

In September 1944, with so few Axis targets left, the hardworking 10th Submarine Flotilla disbanded just three months after the last British boat sunk in the Mediterranean, HMS/m Sickle, became the Royal Navy’s 45th submarine loss in the ancient sea. Between June 1940 and the end of 1944, RN submarines in the Med had accounted for over 1 million tons of enemy shipping including three cruisers, at least 30 destroyers, torpedo boats, and several German and Italian submarines.

To be sure, had Rommel benefited from all the gear and stores that Shrimp Simpson’s dozen U-class boats, Upholder included, deep-sixed, Montgomery’s 8th Army would have had a tougher go of it as the Afrika Korps and its Italian allies would have been a much bigger gorilla to spank. This could have drawn the North African campaigns out longer, pushing the Atlantic Allies’ invasion of Sicily, Italy, and France even further down the calendar, and given Stalin a bigger role in the end game.

As for Shrimp Simpson, he would retire to New Zealand in 1954 as a Rear Admiral, after having served as Flag Officer Submarines/NATO COMSUBFORLANT.

Of Upholder’s sisters, the U-class itself took lots of lumps, losing besides class leader HMS/m Undine early in the war along with Unity (N66), Umpire (N82), Unbeaten (N93), Undaunted (N55), Union (N56), Unique (N95), Urge (N17), Usk (N65), Utmost (N19), Usurper (P56), P32, P33, P36, P38, P39, P41 (sailing as HNoMS Uredd under Free Norwegian command), P48, Vandal (P64) (who had the shortest life of any British submarine, lost just four days after commissioning), for a total of 19 submarines sunk– 13 in the Mediterranean and six in the Atlantic and the North Sea. This jumps to 20 if you count HMS/m Untamed (P58) which was lost while during training in 1943 due to a bad sluice valve then salvaged and recommissioned as HMS/m Vitality only to be scrapped less than two years later.

Postwar, with the class considered too small and slow by late 1940s standards, the survivors were quickly passed on to allies needing low-mileage and easy-to-use submarines (P47 to Holland, P52 to Poland then later Denmark, Untiring and Upstart to Greece, Upright to Poland, Varne to Norway, Vox to France, Unbroken, Unison and Ursula to Russia) or scrapped (Ultimatum, Umbra, Unbending, Una, United, Unrivalled, Unruffled, Unruly, Unseen, Ultor, Unshaken, Unsparing, Universal, Unswerving, Uproar, Uther, and Varangian).

Janes only listed 7 U-class submarines as being active in the Royal Navy in the 1946 edition.

The final units in British hands were withdrawn by 1950.

The last repatriated from overseas loans (Untiring and Upstart after service with the Greeks as Xifias and Amfitriti respectively) were sunk as sonar targets by the Royal Navy in 1957 and 1959. The holdout of the nearly 50 mighty British U-class boats, HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMS/m Varne, continued in Norwegian service until 1965, when she was broken up, ironically, in Hamburg, having served just 23 years, most of them for King Haakon VII.

HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMSm Varne in Norwegian service

Upholder was the first RN warship to carry the name while the second was given to the lead ship of the Type 2400 Patrol Submarines– Britain’s last diesel-electric boats.

HMS Upholder (S40), like her namesake built at VSEL, Barrow-in-Furness, led a class of four boats that repeated at least two of the names of the old U-class: Unseen, Ursula, and Unicorn. While MoD retired the class early, they were sold to the Royal Canadian Navy where they continue to serve today as the Victoria class, sadly, under new names.

Canadian submarine HMCS Victoria, ex HMS Upholder

Specs:

HMS-upholder-submarine by Dr Dan Saranga Blueprints.com

Displacement
Surfaced – 540 tons standard, 630 tons full load
Submerged – 730 tons
Length 191 ft
Beam 16 ft 1 in
Draught 15 ft 2 in
Propulsion
2 shaft diesel-electric
2 Paxman Ricardo diesel generators + electric motors
615 / 825 hp
Speed
11+1⁄4 knots max. surfaced
10 knots max. submerged
Complement: 27–31
Armament
4 × bow internal 21-inch torpedo tubes, 2 externals
10 torpedoes
1 × QF 3-inch 20 cwt gun

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Warship Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2022: Jesse James of the Java Sea

Posted on March 30, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2022: Jesse James of the Java Sea

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #NH 99230

Here we see the Salmon-class fleet submarine USS Sturgeon (SS-187) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Note the barrage balloon in the right background as it is just 18 months past Pearl Harbor and just over a year past when Japanese Navy submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood Oil Field to the South in Santa Barbara. While the Cold War-era USS Sturgeon is well known to the current generation of naval enthusiasts, her WWII namesake gets little attention.

The Salmon class boats, and the successive very similar 10-boat Sargo class submarines, set the Navy on the road for the mass-produced WWII “fleet boats” of the Gato, Balao, and Tench classes. Some 308 feet in length, they were the first American boats able to hit 21 knots while surfaced, meaning they could help screen and scout for the fleet, and conduct a lengthy 75-day/11,000nm patrol without refueling/replenishment. They took with them a 3″/50 DP deck gun capable of sinking a small craft under 500 tons as well as space available for 24 torpedoes stored both in the hull and in topside deck storage. This put the whole Pacific at the feet of these vessels, and it was no surprise that Admiral Hart’s Philippine-based Asiatic Fleet in 1941 included all 16 Salmon and Sargo-class boats.

The six boats, all with fish names beginning with an “S” (Salmon, Seal, Skipjack, Snapper, Stingray, Sturgeon) were ordered in 1936 from three yards: Electric Boat (SS 182-184); Portsmouth (SS 185,186), and Mare Island (SS 187) with our vessel being the sole West Coast model.

Class leader USS Salmon (SS-182) running speed trials in early 1938. Note the S1 designator. NH 69872

Salmon class subs USS Stingray (SS-186), foreground Operating in formation with other submarines, during Battle Force exercises, circa 1939. The other three submarines are (from left to right): Seal (SS-183); Salmon (SS-182) and Sturgeon (SS-187). Collection of Vice-Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Retired). NH 77086

Same as the above, Submerging. NH 77089

Sturgeon, named for the large, bony-plated fish with an elongated body. It is found in both fresh and saltwater, was the second such vessel in the Navy with that name, the first being an early E-class submarine (SS-25) that was christened USS Sturgeon but was renamed USS E-2 before she entered the fleet in 1911 and went on to make four war patrols against the Germans in 1918.

Laid down at Mare Island on 27 October 1936, our Sturgeon was sponsored at launch by the wife of a Great War Navy Cross holder who retired as a vice admiral.

USS Sturgeon (SS 187) was launched by Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, CA. Note St. Vincent Church in distance and the temporary “S6” designator on her hull. Via Mare Island Navy Museum

Commissioned on 25 June 1938, she was assigned to SubRon 6 and conducted her shakedown along the coast of Latin America, then made two summer squadron cruises (1939 and 1940) to Hawaii with the Pacific Fleet.

USS Sturgeon (SS-187) arriving at Pearl Harbor pre-war, likely on summer maneuvers in 1939 or 1940. Note the Somers-class destroyer USS Sampson (DD-394) in the distance. An East Coast-based tin can, Sampson was in Hawaii for both the 1939 and 1940 fleet exercises.

It was around this time that LCDR William Leslie “Bull” Wright (USNA 1925), a colorful six-foot-three cigar-chomping Texan, arrived as her skipper.

A brand new beautiful West Coast submarine, the Navy detailed her to help film the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer action movie, Thunder Afloat, whose plot involved a piratical submarine, played by Sturgeon on screen.

Stock footage of Sturgeon surfacing, her crew dutifully barefoot and bare-chested, firing her deck gun at targets unseen and resubmerging all within a couple of minutes, was reused in other films for years.

On 18 November 1941, the submarine tender USS Holland (AS-3) with Salmon, Swordfish (SS-193), Skipjack, and our Sturgeon, arrived at Manila and formed SubDiv 21 of the Asiatic fleet.

War!

Sturgeon was moored in Mariveles Bay at the southern tip of Bataan on 7 December 1941, then put to sea the next afternoon to patrol an area between the Pescadores Islands and Formosa. After missing a chance at a target on the third day of the war, she spotted a Japanese cruiser escorting a coastwise invasion convoy on 18 December– the whole reason the Salmons were in the PI– but her attack was spoiled, and she received her first depth charge attack instead.

From her First War Patrol records:

Bull Wright and company returned to embattled Mariveles Bay on Christmas, then left again just three days later for her second war patrol.

Hart ordered Sturgeon and two other S-boats to patrol off Tarakan, Borneo, in the oil-rich Netherlands East Indies, with the hope of sniping Japanese convoys in the Makassar Strait. Meanwhile, other members of his submarine forces were left to try to run the blockade around the PI to keep Bataan in the fight.

While Sturgeon claimed torpedo hits that were not borne out by post-war examination boards– and after believing she sank a Japanese ship, signaled to Pearl Harbor “Sturgeon no longer virgin!”– she ended her second war patrol at Surabaya on Java on 13 February 1942. She was then was forced to head for Australia within the week due to the looming fall of Java. She sailed with sisters Sturgeon and Stingray, escorting Holland, and the destroyer tender USS Black Hawk (AD-9) safely to Fremantle. Bull Wright received a Navy Cross.

Departing on her third war patrol on the Ides of March, she headed for the Makassar Strait once again and, 80 years ago today, chalked up her first confirmed kill, that of the Japanese AK Choko Maru (842 GRT) off Makassar city.

Another notable incident of this patrol was to put ashore LT Chester William “Chet” Nimitz Jr. (yes, that Nimitz’s son) and a small search party looking for evading Australian personnel on Japanese-held Java.

Her fourth war patrol, which began on 5 June 1942 from Freemantle, would be both successful and incredibly tragic.

Montevideo Maru

Constructed at Nagasaki in the 1930s, the 7,266 ton, twin-screw diesel motor vessel passenger ship MV Montevideo Maru was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a troop transport in the early days of the war, supporting the landings at Makassar in February 1942 and was part of the Japanese seizure of New Britain. The vessel and her two sisters were well-known to U.S. Naval Intelligence before the war.

Via ONI 208J.

Sailing 22 June unescorted for Hainan Island off China, Montevideo Maru ran into Sturgeon eight days later. Our submarine pumped four fish into the “big fella” in the predawn hours of 1 July, after a four-hour stalk, with young Nimitz as the TDC officer.

Tragically, in what is now known as the “worst maritime disaster in Australian history,” Montevideo Maru was a “Hell Ship,” carrying more than 1,000 prisoners of the Japanese forces, including members of the Australian 2/22nd Battalion and No.1 Independent Company of the incredibly unlucky Lark Force which had been captured on New Britain.

All the prisoners on board died, locked below decks. Of note, more Australians died in the loss of the Montevideo Maru than in the country’s decade-long involvement in Vietnam.

Sturgeon, of course, was unaware that the ship was carrying Allied POWs and internees.

DANFS does not mention Montevideo Maru‘s cargo.

Four days later, Sturgeon damaged the Japanese oiler San Pedro Maru (7268 GRT) south of Luzon, then ended her 4th war patrol at Fremantle on 22 July.

A new skipper

On 13 August, Bull Wright left his submarine, replaced by LCDR Herman Arnold Pieczentkowski (USNA 1930), who would command Sturgeon for her 5th and 6th war patrol.

Of the Piaczentkowski period, only the 5th patrol, which sank the Japanese aircraft ferry Katsuragi Maru (8033 GRT) off Cape St. George on 1 October 1942 with a spread of four torpedoes, was the boat’s only success.

IJN Katsuragi Maru had just delivered A6M fighter aircraft to Bougainville when Sturgeon found her. Struck by at least three torpedoes, she carried two crew members and 27 ship gunners to the bottom. Here she is seen in an ONI photo taken in 1937 as she passed through the Panama Canal. NH 111553

On Christmas 1942, Sturgeon was sent to California for a five-month refit that would include swapping out her original diesels for a more reliable set of GM Detroit’s, relocating her main deck gun from aft of her sail to forward, and installing new sensors and equipment.

USS Sturgeon (SS-187) At the Hunters Point Navy Yard, San Francisco, California, 23 April 1943, following overhaul. White outlines mark recent alterations, among them the relocation of Sturgeon’s 3/50 deck gun, installation of watertight ready service ammunition lockers in her sail, and fitting of 20mm machine guns. Note the large concrete weight on deck, indicating that Sturgeon was then undergoing an inclining experiment to check her stability. 19-N-46405

USS Sturgeon (SS-187) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Note the barrage balloon and tall radio towers to the right. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-46400

USS Sturgeon (SS-187) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Ship in the left-center distance is the Fulton-class submarine tender USS Bushnell (AS-15), which was then completing her post-commissioning outfitting. Of note, Bushnell would remain in service until 1970 and be expended in a 1983 SINKEX– appropriately enough sent to the bottom by submarines. NH 99231

Another new skipper and five more patrols

Getting back into the war in June 1943, Piaczentkowski would command Sturgeon for her 7th patrol– another quiet one despite being in Japanese home waters– then leave the boat on 6 August, replaced by LCDR Charlton Lewis Murphy (USNA 1932) who had already commanded the old R-boat USS R-7 (SS-84) on the East Coast.

Murphy and the gang would embark on a fruitless 8th war patrol then strike the Empire hard on the 9th. Conducted in Japan’s Home Waters, Sturgeon sank the transport Erie Maru (5493 GRT) on 11 January 1944, blew both the bow and stern off the destroyer Suzutsuki— killing 135 including the tin can’s skipper– four days later, then sank the transport Chosen Maru (3110 GRT) before the month was up. This earned Philadelphia-born Murphy a Navy Cross.

On her 10th patrol, she sank the Japanese transport Seiryu Maru (1904 GRT) north of Chichi Jima on 11 May 1944.

Her 11th patrol, like her encounter with the Montevideo Maru, would earn the boat a degree of infamy.

Toyama Maru

Built in 1935 at Nagasaki as a 7,090-ton cargo ship for Nippon Yusen Kaisha, K. K. (NYK) Line, Tokyo, MV Toyama Maru was requisitioned by the Imperial Army as Army No. 782 in January 1941 to help move troops to Manchuria.

Japanese cargo ship Toyama Maru at the dock in Vancouver before the war. Photograph by Walter E. Frost, Vancouver City Archives CVA 447-2781.

Departing Koniya on 29 June 1944 for Naha as part of Convoy KATA-412, Toyama Maru was transporting over 6,000 men of the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade’s 298th IIB, 299th, 300th IIB, and 301st IIBs and a cargo of gasoline in cans, all of which would have proved a formidable reinforcement to the defenders on Okinawa.

Would have.

Sturgeon found her the same day and, four torpedoes later, she was ablaze and sinking, carrying some 5,400 IJA troops and ship’s crew members to the bottom in very short order– often described as the greatest loss of life in a ship sunk by a U.S. submarine. As payment for the title, Sturgeon’s crew withstood an estimated 273 depth charges and aircraft bombs between 29 June and 3 July, as the boat’s war history says, “All went for naught, for she was as tough-skinned as the fish whose name she bore.”

Murphy’s report on Toyama Maru sinking

As noted by RADM Cox in H-Gram 33, “Yanagi Missions and Submarine Atrocities”:

Of 6,000 Japanese troops of the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade on board, over 5,400 died, the highest death toll of any ship sunk by a U.S. submarine (and the fourth highest of any ship sunk by a submarine of any nation. The two highest tolls were German ships packed with thousands of civilian refugees sunk by Soviet submarines, and the third-highest was a Japanese “hell ship” crammed with thousands of Allied prisoners of war and native forced laborers unknowingly sunk by a British submarine).

Sturgeon ended her final patrol when she returned to Pearl Harbor on 5 August 1944 then was sent back to California for further overhaul, with it being likely those 273 depth charges and bombs left more damage than the war history would imply. Sent to the East Coast in early 1945, she ended the war as a training boat with SubRon 1 out of New London.

Sturgeon earned ten battle stars for World War II service, with seven of her war patrols deemed successful enough for a Submarine Combat Insignia.

She was decommissioned on 15 November 1945.

Epilogue

Ex-Sturgeon was sold for scrapping, on 12 June 1948, to Interstate Metals Corp., New York, New York, just short of 12 years after she was laid down.

Her class was very successful– and lucky– with all six boats still afloat on VJ Day, earning a total of 54 battle stars after completing 70 war patrols:

Class leader Salmon (nine battle stars, 11 patrols) was a constructive loss due to battle damage after a late war surface action with Japanese surface escorts that earned her the Presidential Unit Citation, was soon disposed of in late September 1945.
Seal (10 battle stars, 11 patrols) was used as a Naval Reserve training ship after the war and sold for scrapping in 1956.
Skipjack (seven battle stars, 10 patrols) was sunk as a target twice after the war, the first time at Bikini atoll in 1946 and then, raised and examined, off California in 1948.
Snapper (six battle stars, 11 patrols) assisted with training for a while post-war then was sold for scrap in 1948.
Stingray, with an impressive one dozen battle stars after 16 war patrols (the record for any American submarine), was scrapped in 1946 but two of her GM diesels were saved and are now part of the Gato-class museum sub USS Cod (SS-224) in Cleveland.

Speaking of relics and museums, few relics are around of the Sturgeon, but her war patrol reports are digitized and in the National Archives.

Her war flag is preserved at the USS Bowfin Museum in Hawaii.

There is also a smattering of period art.

Sturgeon Herz Postcard via the UC San Diego Library

Of her seven skippers, Bull Wright was the best known but, despite his Navy Cross, he never commanded a submarine again– perhaps dogged over the Montevideo Maru, or perhaps because he was 40 years old when he left Sturgeon— and he retired quietly from the Navy after the war as a rear admiral. Although a number of WWII submarines and skippers with lower tonnage or fewer patrols/battle stars under their belt were profiled in the most excellent 1950s “Silent Service” documentary series, Bull Wright and Sturgeon were skipped.

In late 1945, an author by the name of Carl Carmer, after sitting with Bull Wright, would pen the 119-page “Jesse James of the Java Sea,” which is filled with gems reportedly from the mouth of the submariner including, “You fire a fish, and it hits or misses. You sink one or get pasted. There isn’t much variety in our pattern, you know.”

Another anecdote about Bull:

He passed in 1980 in Corpus Christi, a Texan to the end.

Her other Navy Cross-earning skipper, the quieter CDR Charlton Lewis Murphy, who commanded the boat during her 8th-11th War Patrols and chalked up five big marus including the brigade-carrying Toyama Maru, ended the war on the USS Carbonero (SS-337) and retired as a rear admiral before passing in 1961, aged 53.

Don’t worry, we aren’t throwing rocks at Piaczentkowski, he too would earn a star before he retired.

Speaking of admirals, Chet Nimitz would skipper two submarines of his own after he left Sturgeon — USS Haddo (SS-255) and USS Sarda (SS-488)— then retire as a one-star in 1957, commanding SubRon 6– which was ironically the old Sturgeon’s first squadron. He saw the 21st century and passed in 2002.

The third, and so far, final, USS Sturgeon was the lead ship (SSN-637) of the last class of American submarines named for fish. Ordered in 1961, she had a career more than twice as long as “our” Sturgeon and was decommissioned in 1994, earning two Meritorious Unit Commendations and a Navy Unit Commendation. Her sail is preserved at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, while her control center is now on display at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut, giving her the distinction of stretching from coast to coast.

A starboard bow view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS STURGEON (SSN-637) underway off Long Island, N.Y, 2/1/1991 Photo by PH1 Grant. National Archives Identifier:6467979

As for Montevideo Maru, in July 2012 a new memorial by Melbourne sculptor James Parrett was dedicated on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial to commemorate those Australians who died in the defense of Rabaul, and those who later died as prisoners in the sinking of the Japanese transport.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,449 tons Surfaced; 2,198 tons Submerged.
Length: 308 feet
Beam: 26 ft. 2 in.
Draft 14′ 2″
Watertight Compartments: 7 plus conning tower.
Pressure Hull Plating: approx. 11/16 in. mild steel.
Propulsion:
4 main motors with 2,660 shaft horsepower (Hoover, Owens, Rentschler Co. diesels replaced in 1943-1944 with four General Motors 278A diesel engines
4 Elliot Motor Co. electric motors, 3,300 hp
2 126-cell main storage batteries.
Maximum Speed: 17 knots surfaced; 8.75 knots submerged.
Cruising Range: 11,000 miles surfaced at 10 knots.
Submerged Endurance: 48 hours at 2 knots.
Fuel Capacity: 96,025 gallons.
Patrol Endurance: 75 days.
Operating Depth: 250 feet.
Complement: 5 Officers 50 Enlisted
Armament:
Torpedo Tubes: 4 bows; 4 sterns.
Torpedo Load, Max: 20 internal, 4 external (later removed)
Deck Guns:
1 x 3″/50-cal Mk21 (relocated in 1943)
2 x .50 caliber M2 machine guns
2 x .30 caliber M1919 machine guns

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