The Battleship Texas Foundation announced this week that it has finalized an agreement with the Galveston Wharves Board securing Pier 15 as the two-world-wars champ’s future new home.
They still have lots of steps to accomplish in the next several months to move the ship from the yard and make her ready to open to the public in 2026:
Final engineering of the mooring system
Permitting by the US Army Corps of Engineers and other regulatory bodies
Dredging the Pier 15 berth
Finalize plans for shoreside facilities
Construction of the moorings and other infrastructure
Even then, the (re)birth of the new Texas naval museum site may be the death of another.
The battlewagon’s old home, in the mud pond of the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, was a good 45 minutes away from Galveston– an hour in Houston traffic.
The new site will be just 7 short miles from Pelican Island, the home since 1971 of the Galveston Naval Museum, a small and unsung facility that hosts one of the last remaining Edsall class destroyer escorts, USS Stewart (DE-238), and the “Lucky Lady,” USS Cavalla (SS-244)— the Gato class fleet boat best known for sinking the Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku, one of the last Pearl Harbor attackers run to ground. She carries a streamlined SSK conversion superstructure from her Cold War service.
They also have the sail of the Sturgeon-class hunter-killer USS Tautog (SSN-639) and the still very WWII-esque Fleet Snorkel-converted conning tower of the Balao-class fleet boat USS Carp (SS-338), making the museum one of the few places where one can see the difference between three different submarine classes spanning from 1941 to 2005.
The move of Texas to Galveston could be a boon to the smaller ASW-focused museum nearly next door, with visitors coming specifically to see the battleship, then hitting the destroyer-sub museum as a side quest. I wish this to be the case.
However, I can vouch for the rapid decline in interest by a family accompanying dad to see old warships in humid southern seaports, and the side quest may end up being a quest too far. Warship museum burnout can be a thing.
That just leaves Stewart and Cavalla to possibly see their would-be visitors cannibalized by the much more impressive (and better located) Texas. Could you have taken the USS Drum seven miles from the USS Alabama and run it as a viable separate museum? I doubt it. Plus, as both of the Pelican Island vessels have been ashore for years, moving them closer to Texas to combine the museums is also likely a logistical no-go.
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Warship Wednesday, July 23, 2025: The Phoenix of Heigun
U.S. Navy photo via Japanese Ministry of Defense
Above we see the Tachibana (improved Matsu) class destroyer Nashi(pennant 4810) sinking in the shallow waters off the coast of Heigun Island (Heigunjima) after a strike by carrier aircraft of the U.S. Navy’s TF 38, some 80 years ago this month, on 28 July 1945.
Never fear, for she would rise again.
The Matsu/Tachibana-class
In 1942, the Japanese admiralty sought to replenish their rapidly depleting ranks of Long Lance-wielding fast destroyers with a simplified “war finish” model, designated as the Type D.
Rather than the downright elegant pre-war-designed Type-B/Akizuki class (2,700 tons, 440 feet oal, 8×3.9″ guns, 4x25mm AAA, 4x610mm TT, 56 dc, 33 knots) the Type Ds sacrificed size, speed, and armament in the interest of getting as many “good enough” hulls in the water as possible.
The Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Akizuki (Type-B/Akizuki-gata) on a trial run off Miyazu Bay. They had a 52,000 shp, three-boiler/two-turbine plant. Beautiful Long Lancers, only a dozen were completed.
As such, the Type Ds were much smaller, just 1,500 tons and 328 feet overall, but on a 2 boiler/2 turbine 19,000shp plant, could still make (almost) 28 knots. Further, while their gun armament was much reduced (three 5″/40 Type 89s in a 1×2 and 1×1 format) they carried many more AAA guns (two dozen 25mm Type 96s) than early war Japanese destroyers and still had room for 32 depth charges and a four-tube Long Lance battery, which gave them a big bite. The big size difference often leaves these ships rated today as destroyer escorts rather than destroyers.
IJN First-class destroyer Momi (Matsu-class) after turning over from the yard in 1944. Note the knuckle bow.
IJN First-class destroyer Momo (Matsu-class) June 3, 1944, on Miyazu Bay trials.
An even more simplified version of the Type D, known in the West as the Tachibana class after the first hull so modified, began to arrive in early 1945. While there were corners cut, such as the use of lower-grade steel, a simpler hull form, more basic engineering, and the omission of a high-angle fire control director, they did have a fit for Type 13 early-warning and Type 22 surface-search radars
IJN First-class destroyer Hatsuzakura (Tachibana-class), August 27, 1945, photo taken by a photo Hellcat from the USS Shangri-La during the ceasefire before VJ Day while the ship was in Sagami Bay. Note the straighter bow rather than the knuckle (chine) bow in the standard Matsu type. These ships ran a pair of Kanmoto Type 3 Hei steam turbines, and their sensors included 2-shiki 2-go and 3-shiki 1-go radars, as well as a 93-shiki sonar.
Tachibana-class destroyer underway off Yokosuka, Japan, post-war on 7 September 1945. Note her fully-depressed 5″ guns. NH 96189
While 154 Matsu-class tin cans were planned, the strangulation of Japan’s war industry at all levels ensured that never happened. As it was, the first, Matsu herself, was only completed in late April 1944, at a point where the endgame was already well on its way.
In the end, just 34 Matsus (including 14 Tachibana subvariants) were completed. Ten of those were lost during the war, and six were too severely damaged to be repaired.
The damaged IJN Tachibana-class destroyer Nire on October 16, 1945. She has been marked with her name in English by the Allied occupation commission. She was only active for about five months and was severely damaged at Kure on 22 June 1945 by USAAF B-29s. Never repaired, she was scrapped in 1948. 80-G-351884
Anywhoo…
Meet Nashi
Laid down on 1 September 1944 (Showa 19) at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries Kobe Shipbuilding Works, Nashi (Pear tree) was the second destroyer to serve under that name with the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first was a Momi-class destroyer completed in 1919 and, small (just 1,000 tons) and armed with older 21-inch torpedo tubes, was obsolete and scrapped in 1940.
One of her first officers assigned was Lt. Sakon Naotoshi, age 19. The second son of VADM Sakon Masayoshi, he joined the Navy as an ensign candidate in September 1943 and, after a quick class on the battleship Ise, shipped out on the Mogami-class heavy cruiser Kumano that November, joining his older brother Masaaki, who was already an ensign. When Kumano was sent to the bottom off Luzon on 25 November 1944, Naotoshi survived and made it back to Japan, made Nashi’s navigator in February 1945 while the destroyer was fitting out.
Nashi, post-delivery in early 1945.
War!
Delivered 15 March 1945, Nashi was assigned to the 11th Torpedo Squadron of RADM Takama Kan and sent to train in the relative safety of the Seto Inland Sea. However, due to scarce fuel supplies, most of this training was at anchor, and she only managed to get underway on a couple of short day trips. Originally tapped to participate in the Valkyrie ride that was Operation Ten-go, the final major Japanese naval operation of the war off Okinawa in April, there was not enough fuel to go around for Nashi and her utterly green crew, and she was left behind.
Nashi continued mainly anchorage training while at anchor. Many of the crew were older so-called national soldiers, but their skill level improved little by little through repeated training. Many of them could not swim, so I took them to a nearby beach and taught them how to swim. The first time was on Tencho-sai, April 29th, but the water was quite cold. I gathered the lookouts, anti-aircraft gunners, and machine gunners and taught them how to identify them, showing them pictures of Japanese and American aircraft. Since there were few opportunities to sail, the navigator had a lot of free time!
In May, she was assigned to the 11th TS’s 52nd Destroyer Division along with her sisters Sugi, Kashi, Kaede, Nire, and Hagi, and, shrugging off a B-29 attack, by early July was being refitted to operate a single Kaiten human torpedo over her stern.
By early July, Nashi and were placed under RADM Takeshi Matsumoto’s 31st Squadron, the Special Naval Corps that was being primed to resist the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. However, the squadron only had an allotment of 850 tons of fuel oil for its 15 destroyers. As the Matsu-class each carried 370 tons of fuel, this was just a little over two ships’ worth. For this reason, only two ships, Nashi and sister Hagi, were to be in operation, and the rest were to be camouflaged near the coast, with the crews taking turns aboard Nashi and Hagi for training.
Speaking of training, Nashi served off Hikari as the target boat for Kaiten launched by the submarine I-157, then moved to Hirao, where she drilled in receiving and launching a Kaiten of her own (which she did four times in training). Then it was back to Hikari to serve as a target boat for I-36’s Kaiten.
On the 24th/25th July, while off the coast of Ushijima, Nashi was strafed by F6F Hellcats and, according to navigator Sakon, her crew downed two of them with the crew later picked up by a Navy PBY, which they saw from a distance but could not engage. This tracks with the large 1,700-plane strikes on Kure and the Seto Inland Sea done by Third Fleet’s (British) TF 37 and American TF 38 that occurred over 24-28 July and lost a combined 133 carrier aircraft but sank or damaged most of what was left of the Emperor’s Combined Fleet.
In the four-day operation, TF-38 flew 3,620 offensive sorties (plus 672 British sorties from TF-37). U.S. aircraft dropped 1,389 tons of bombs, fired 4,827 rockets, and claimed 52 Japanese aircraft shot down and another 216 on ground. There were 170 Navy Crosses awarded, five of them posthumously. The cost was high: 101 U.S. Navy aircraft were downed and 88 men killed.
Speaking of which…
Caught while anchored off the north coast of Heigun Island on 28 July, Nashi was rocketed and strafed in attacks by 10 American carrier-born F6F Hellcats through the morning (NHHC credits her destruction to a bomb hit and a near miss). Her stern AAA magazine on fire and depth charges blowing purple flames, the ship’s captain, LCDR Toshio Takada (who previously had the light cruiser Noshiro as well as the destroyers Hatsuyuki and Kagero shot out from under him), ordered flooding which soon grew out of control and she capsized, taking 60 of her crew with her by 1400. Some 155 survivors were pulled from the water by local fishermen and transferred to her sister Hagi.
Even though the war only had a couple more weeks in it, LCDR Takada was quickly reassigned to command the 42nd Special Attack Squadron while his young navigator, Sakon, became navigator of the destroyer Hatsusakura.
Nashi was removed from the IJN’s List on 15 September 1945.
Of the 18 Matsu/Tachibanas still afloat and relatively intact on VJ Day, some were disarmed and used by their former crews to shuttle Japanese troops back home from their remaining garrisons overseas.
The disarmed former IJN First-class destroyer Tsuta (Tachibana-class), departing for Sasebo Shanghai as a reparation ship, July 26, 1947. Note the Tachibana class’s transom stern, which is different from the more destroyer-like stern on the standard Matsu class. Tsuta was later handed over to the Republic of China on 31 July 1947 in Shanghai, and, rearmed, served for another decade as ROCN Hua Yang,
The “magic carpet” service finished, the Allies divided up the remaining vessels. The Americans sank or scrapped five in 1947-48. The Brits did the same for the five they inherited at Hong Kong and Singapore. The Soviets put four into service and kept them in operation into the late 1950s. Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT fleet was given four hulls and kept them around until as late as 1961.
The Pacific Red Banner Fleet’s TsL-24. The former Japanese Navy Matsu class destroyer Shii, she was captured in Japan post-war and handed over to the Soviets in 1947 at Nakhodka. She continued to fly a red flag until 1960.
Slow rebirth of the Japanese Navy
Post-war, even though the Japanese naval ministry was being dismantled, a “Sea Sweeping Department” staffed with former naval personnel began operations under the blessing of the U.S. Navy as early as 6 October 1945 to clear more than 55,000 Japanese defensive and 11,000 American offensive mines off the country’s coast. It was a vital mission, with more than 90 ships hitting mines off Japan in the decade after the war, resulting in over 2,700 casualties. Among those needless losses was the USS Minivet (AM-371), sunk four days after Christmas 1945, taking 31 bluejackets with her.
USS Minivet (AM-371) sinking after hitting a mine off Tsushima Island, Japan, during mine clearance operations on 29 December 1945. At right is a Japanese mine-destructor trawler moving in to rescue survivors. Photographed from USS Redstart (AM-378). 80-G-607204
Shuffled from the Demobilization Ministry to the Ministry of Transport, Japan’s Minesweeping Bureau eventually grew to some 300 vessels, mainly small converted trawlers and small left-over air-sea rescue boats, 85-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled subchasers (23 Chiozuru-class), and 108-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled picket boats (10 Ukishima class) armed with a single 13.2mm HMG ala the fictional Shinsei Maru and Kaishin Maru of “Godzilla Minus One” fame, crewed by 10,000 former IJN sailors and officers.
The fictional Shinsei Maru and Kaishin Maru of “Godzilla Minus One” were not too far off from reality.
By 1948, it became the civilian Maritime Safety Agency, a force that is today’s Japan Coast Guard, with the minesweepers part of the Sea Route Clearance Headquarters.
A group of Japan Maritime Safety Agency Ukishima-class minesweeping vessels leaving Kobe Port to take part in the agency’s first boat parade in October 1948. The three vessels from the front are the former Type 1 Patrol boats No. 84, No. 134, and No. 136. Note the agency’s blue and white compass flag flying from each, rather than a Hinomaru or Rising Sun Flag.
By October 1950, 20 MSA minesweepers were sent to assist the UN forces in the Korean War as part of the “Japanese Special Minesweeping Force (Nihon tokubetsu sōkaitai).” Growing to 43 vessels operating in five divisions and in tandem with RN and USN forces, for two months, they actively swept mines in Wonsan, Incheon, Haeju, Gunsan, Jinnampo, and other areas. One of these Japanese MSA sweepers, MS-14, hit an enemy mine during clearing operations at Wonsan and sank, with one fatality and 18 injuries.
By August 1952, the uniformed National Safety Agency Guard (Kei Bitai) was formed– later becoming the Safety Security Force and the Maritime Self-Defense Force, today’s Japanese navy– inheriting the mine mission. Organized at the time around 10 small minesweepers, the U.S. Navy quickly transferred eight 136-foot YMS-1-class minesweepers and four 138-foot Bluebird-class minesweepers to the force after the U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement was signed in March 1954, while the Japanese government began production of 30 assorted Atado, Yashiro, and Kasado-class minesweepers domestically.
However, the JMSDF needed some actual warships, rather than just a few squadrons of very lightly armed mine craft.
The U.S. Navy soon began loaning 18 beat-up WWII veteran Tacoma-class patrol frigates mothballed in Yokosuka to the budding JMSDF starting in 1953.
Dozens of ex-Soviet used Tacoma-class PFs were laid up at Yokosuka in January 1951. NH 97295
The first of these was ex-USS Ogden (PF-39) on 14 January 1953, which became JDS Kusu (PF-1), and so forth. In Japanese service, these became known as the “Tree” class due to their traditional arboreal names.
JMSDF Kusu (Tree)-class frigates, former Tacoma-class patrol frigates, complete with rebooted IJN Rising Sun Flag. These ships were in extremely poor condition when transferred, having been Lend-Leased to the Soviets late in WWII and only returned in 1949, then placed in storage at Yokosuka. Notably, footage of them in JMSDF service appeared in 1954’s original Godzilla. While loaned to the Japanese military for initially five years, they were all eventually transferred outright and continued to serve into the 1970s.
On 19 October 1954, the two well-worn Gleaves-class destroyer-minesweepers, ex-USS Ellyson (DMS-19) and Macomb (DMS-23), were transferred to Japan and became JDS Asakaze (DD-181) and Hatakaze (DD-182), respectively. They were followed the next June by two retired Bostwick destroyer escorts, ex-USS Amick (DE 168) and Atherton (DE-169), which entered service as Asahi and Hatsuhi.
ex-USS Ellyson Macomb as Asakaze (DD-181) and Hatakaze (DD-182)
Domestic Japanese warship production resumed in 1954 as well, with the twin 2,340-ton Harukaze-class destroyers, completed with U.S. weapons and sensors, laid down at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki SY, followed by three small 1,000-ton Type B Akebono/Ikazuchi class destroyer escorts.
JDS Yukikaze (DD-102), one of two new Harukaze-class destroyers, is Japan’s first post-WWII domestically built warship. Commissioned in July 1956, she looks very American with her SPS-6 radar and Mk 12 5″/38 DP mounts, and radar-directed Bofors.
And then the JMSDF remembered the poor old Nashi.
Meet Wakaba
The local fishermen’s association in Heguinjima purchased the wreckage of the broken and long-submerged Nashi from the government in the early 1950s for its value in scrap (1.6 million yen) and to raise the hulk and move it offshore, where it would serve better use as a reef. With the blessing of the regional finance ministry, they hired the Hokusei Senpaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. to patch and lift the wreck intact.
ex-Nashi broke the surface on 21 September 1954.
Note the lifting pontoons
As, on inspection, she was found to be in particularly good condition, it was decided to offer the wreck back to the government. The patriotic fishermen’s association waived its ownership and absorbed the financial loss, while the JMSDF agreed to reimburse Hokusei Senpaku’s expenses and purchased ex-Nashi on 12 May 1955.
Towed to Zosen’s Kure shipyard on 10 September, the ex-Nashi was in very rough shape indeed and spent the next nine months in a 900-million-yen restoration and reconstruction.
Her boilers and turbines were restored, and it was found that, besides being incredibly noisy (a decade in saltwater does that), they could still generate about 14,000shp, good enough for 24 knots.
Her superstructure was rebuilt, adding a western-style mainmast. Her wartime Japanese ordnance and sensors were removed. She received a forward twin Mk 33 3″/50 DP mount, a 24-spigot Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, two depth charge racks, and two K-guns, along with SO-series radar. This configuration was similar to that of the Type B destroyer escorts that had been ordered at around the same time, but with a much better gun (the Type Bs had older 3″/50 DP singles).
Thus rebuilt, the JMSDF renamed the finished product Wakaba (“young leaf’), following in line with a circa 1905 Kamikaze-class destroyer scrapped in 1929 and a 1934 Hatsuharu-class destroyer that was sunk in Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
Wakaba, Japanese destroyer, circa 1934, ONI files. The Hatsuharu-class destroyer that was sunk in Leyte Gulf in October 1944. NH 73051
Our ex-Nashi/new-Wakaba recommissioned on 31 May 1956 and was assigned to the Yokosuka-based 11th Escort Division. Her pennant/hull number, issued the following September, was DE-216.
While it is often said in Western circles that Nashi/Wakaba was the only ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy that became a part of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, that is not the case, as shown above with the small subchasers and picket boats turned minesweepers. However, Nashi/Wakaba was the largest former IJN vessel, and, from what I can tell, the only steel-hulled warship of the old fleet to rejoin the new one.
In September 1957, Wakaba entered Uraga Dock in Yokosuka to be refitted as a radar picket, basically a DER, and was given a fit of SPS-5 and SPS-12 radars when she emerged on 26 March 1958.
Additional sensor fits followed, and, during annual yard periods, she later picked up an SQS-11A sonar in February 1959 and an SPS-8B high-angle radar in December 1960, with a second mast installed aft.
JDS Wakaba, 1960 Janes
As a radar picket. JMSDF Wakaba class escort (DE261) Wakaba (ex IJN Matsu Tachibana class destroyer Nashi) at Uraga ship yard,1 Apr. 1962
In August 1962, Wakaba was used to evacuate children from Miyakojima during a volcanic eruption on the island.
Increasingly, she was used as a trials ship. In July 1962, she had the domestic NEC/Hitachi Type 3 sonar prototype installed for two years of testing. The set later evolved into the Type 66 OQS-3, which was the JMSDF’s go-to destroyer-mounted sonar during the late 1960s-early 1980s and was installed on the Cold War Minegumo, Takatsuki, Haruna, Yamagumo, and Chikugo classes.
The next year saw an experimental twin 21-inch torpedo tube installation on Wakaba. By 1963, she was withdrawn from further use as an escort and became a dedicated radar trials ship, her crew reduced from 206 to 170. She was listed as such in Jane’s.
JDS Wakaba, 1965 Janes
JDS Wakaba June 11, 1965 Tokyo Bay by Koji Ishiwata
On 24 July 1970, Wakaba was damaged in a collision with the tanker Daisan Chowa Maru in the Uraga Strait. A follow-on inspection in dry dock found that the tin can, built in a rush under less-than-ideal conditions in 1944-45, then sunk for a decade and patched back up, wasn’t worth continued investment. She was disarmed that fall at Sumitomo’s yard in Uraga and decommissioned and stricken in March 1971, and was disposed of via sale to the Furusawa Steel Works at Etajima.
Her SPS-12 air search radar was installed on the 4,100-ton training ship Katori (TV-3501) and remained in use until 1998.
Epilogue
By twist of fate, Nashi’s Imperial Japanese Navy weapons were a historic time capsule. The vast majority of WWII ordnance left in the country post-war was immediately demilitarized and scrapped. When the JMSDF reformed in 1954, as shown above, it did so with surplus USN hardware. Nashi’s decade underwater got her a pass, and once raised and taken to Kure, was carefully removed for display ashore.
Today, her forward 5″/40 Type 99 mount and Type 92 quad Long Lance torpedo tubes are on display at the JMSDF’s First Technical School in Etajima.
As for Nashi’s wartime navigator, Naotoshi Sakon, who lost both his brother (killed on the destroyer Shimakaze in 1944) and father (hung by the British at Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison in 1948 over theBihar Incident), he was involved in demilitarization work after the war before joining the MSA in 1952 and the JMSDF in 1954. Promoted to captain, he was skipper of the destroyer Hatushi, then military attaché at the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, commander of the 4th Escort Group, commander of the Training Squadron, director of the Training Department at the National Defense Academy of Japan, secretary-general of the Joint Staff Council, and director of the Joint Staff College, before retiring as a rear admiral in November 1979, capping a 36 year career. Staying active post-retirement, he worked for the Institute for Peace and Security Studies until his death at age 88 in 2013.
Sadly, the JMSDF has reused neither the names Nashi nor Wakaba.
There are a number of Tachibana-class destroyer model kits out there, complete with Kaiten, such as this 1/700 scale example from Pit-Road.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
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The 5,400-ton Town-class cruiser HMS Nottingham was the Royal Navy’s only remaining lost cruiser from the Great War era, whose wreck was previously undocumented.
Was.
Lost to three torpedoes from U-52 (Kptlt. Hans Walther, Pour le Mérite) on 19 August 1916 during a missed connection between the RN’s Grand Fleet and the Kaiserliche Marine’s High Seas Fleet, HMS Nottingham had an extensive service record.
She served in most of the key fleet actions, including the battles of Heligoland Bight (1914), Dogger Bank (1915) and Jutland (1916) where, at the latter, Nottingham was heavily engaged, alongside her fellow light cruisers of the 2nd Squadron, HMS Birmingham, Southampton and Dublin, in a major close-quarters battle with the cruisers of Germany’s 4th Scouting Group –SMS Stettin, München, Frauenlob, Stuttgart and Hamburg. On 20 June 1915, she even missed two torpedoes from U-6.
In April 2025, ProjectXplore divers Dan McMullen, Leo Fielding, and Dom Willis, supported by skipper Iain Easingwood of MarineQuest, loaded the dive charter MV Jacob George with a C-MAX CM2 side scan sonar and 300m or armored towing cable and documented the wreck they believed to be Nottingham on the bottom at 262 feet, 60 miles off the coast of Scotland.
Earlier this month, 10 divers from the UK, Germany, and Spain gathered, and outfitted with JJ-CCR rebreathers on trimix/O2 fills, dove the wreck, clearly documenting “Nottingham” on her stern, as well as her four distinctive funnels, which are intact, as well as gun arrangement, and other facets that solidified the discovery.
The future Block IV Virginia-class submarine USS Arkansas (SSN 800) was recently launched into the James River at Newport News. She was ordered on 28 April 2014 and not laid down until November 2022, highlighting how far behind 774 production is running.
Arkansas SSN 800 Rollout from MOF to FDD
Arkansas SSN 800 with dock flooded before Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas is the 27th Virginia-class submarine and will be the 13th delivered by HII’s NNS.
She is the fifth vessel to be named for the “Toothpick State,” following CGN-41, a Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser that left the fleet unexpectedly in 1998, and BB-33, the iconic Wyoming-class dreadnought that gave 34 years of service across both World Wars.
“Opening the Attack” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944 D-Day, USS Arkansas opening up off Normandy. NHHC 88-199-ew
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Warship Wednesday, July 9, 2025: Gravity Boat
Koninklijke Marine image via the Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) file no. 2173-223-109
Above we see the Dutch Navy’s fully-dressed K XIV-class colonial submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII arriving in Surabaya, Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, some 90 years ago this week, on 11 July 1935, to a welcome from several Dutch warships, including the destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Galen in the background. Our subject submarine had left Den Helder some eight months and 22,710 miles prior. For reference, the circumference of the Earth around the Equator is approximately 24,901 miles.
At the time, it was the longest unescorted journey by a submarine, just besting a 1926 cruise by another Dutch sub. Shipping aboard the boat was one Prof. Felix Andries Vening Meinesz– a Dutch geophysicist and geodesist known for his work in the field of gravimetry– packing his “Golden Calf,” which was beloved by the crew for reasons we will cover.
Don’t let her bookish origins fool you, K XVIII proved to have teeth when the war started in the Pacific just seven short years later.
The K XIV-class
Paid for by the oil-rich government of the Dutch East Indies in 1930 to serve as “colonial” submarines with the “K” for “Koloniën,” the five K XIV-class boats were designed by Dutch Navy engineer J. J. van der Struyff, who already had the smaller 0 9 and K XI-classes under his belt. A bit larger and more modern than previous Dutch classes, they leveraged input from across Europe. Using a pair of 1,600 hp German-made MAN diesel engines and two 430 kW domestically built Smit Slikkerveer electric motors lined up on two shafts, these 1,045-ton vessels could push their 241-foot welded steel hulls at speeds approaching 17 knots on the surface (they made 19 on trials) and nine while submerged. The plant enabled them to cruise at an impressive 10,000nm at 12 knots, ideal for West Pacific patrols.
Using double hulls with a test depth of 250 feet, they carried both search and attack periscopes provided by Stroud and a periscopic radio antenna that could be used while submerged. Ideally, for their intended use around the 18,000-island East Indies archipelago, they could float in just 13 feet of water and submerge in anything over 50.
When it came to armament, they were outfitted with help from the British, including tubes for a batch of 200 Weymouth-built dialed-down Mark VIII torpedoes (dubbed II53 in Dutch service) that could hit 42 knots and carry a 660-pound warhead– not bad performance for the era.
A British-made II53 torpedo on board the destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen in 1929. The Dutch used these on both surface ships and subs. NIMH 2173-224-077
The torpedo tube layout in the class was interesting and not repeated in another Dutch class. They mounted eight 21-inch torpedo tubes–four bows (two on each side of the hull), two in the stern, and a twin external trainable mount forward of the conning tower– with room for 14 fish.
Hr.Ms. K XIV, seen in a Colombo drydock in December 1942, shows a good view of her bow tubes and the inset cavity forward of the fairwater for her trainable twin tubes.
A good view of the twin tubes mounted outside of the hull under the deck, prior to installation in 1931.
Besides their torpedoes, they were armed with a Swedish 88mm/42cal Bofors No.2 deck gun and two British Vickers 2-pdr QF Mark II (40mm/39cal) large-bore AAA machine guns, the latter contained in neat disappearing installations, a novel idea for guns that weighed over 500-pounds including a water-cooled jacket.
The crew of the Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. K XV with her 40mm Vickers “ack-ack” machine gun in position and 88mm Bofors gun pointing over the bow. Note the mixed crew, common for boats in the colonies. Circa late 1930s. NIMH 2158_005757
The first three boats– K XIV,K XV, and K XVI— were ordered from Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij on the same day in 1930 as Yard Nos. 167-169. The final two– K XVII and K XVIII— were ordered in 1931 as Yard Nos. 322 and 322 from neighboring Wilton-Fijenoord, Schiedam. All five were complete and ready to deploy by early 1934.
Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. K XV central control 1935 NIMH 2158_005759
Dutch submarine K XV at Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij Jan 1931 NIMH 2158_008934
Dutch submarine K XV at Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij Feb 22 1934 NIMH 2158_008935
With the class complete, they typically self-deployed some 9,000 miles to the East Indies, stopping along the way at Lisbon, Cadiz, Palermo, Port Said, Suez, Aden, and Colombo. In theory, they could have done this on one tank of diesel oil without having to refuel.
The departure of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XIV and sister Hr.Ms. K XV from Den Helder, Holland, for the Dutch East Indies, 7 February 1934. In the background can be seen sisters K XVI and K XVII, waiting offshore. NIMH 2158_008920
Dutch submarine K XV on the Tagus River, Lisbon, likely on her way to East Asia. Photo via the Direcção-Geral de Arquivos of Portugal.
The arrival of Hr.Ms. K XV in Surabaya, April 1934. In the background is the destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Nes, which would be lost in February 1942, was sunk by Japanese aircraft. The white ship in the distance is Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden, a 70-year-old 5,300-ton ramtorenschip ironclad that had been disarmed and turned into a barracks ship in 1920. NIMH 2173-223-089.
DOZ 3 (Divisie Onderzeeboten), consisting at this time of the colonial submarines Hr.Ms. K-XIV, Hr.Ms. K-XV and Hr.Ms. K-XVI, seen here in anti-aircraft exercises ca 1938. Note, you can see both Vickers 40mm being extended from the sail. You have a good view of the trainable twin external torpedo mounts via the opening just under the deck forward of the 88mm gun and the large escape hatches (drägervests) near the bow and aft of the sail. NIMH 2158_019998
Dutch submarines, including sisters K XVI, K XIV, K XII, and K XV (1933-1946,) along with the older (circa 1925) and smaller (216-feet/688 tons) Hr.Ms. K XI, alongside the supply ship Hr.Ms. Zuiderkruis, circa 1936. Of note, the obsolete little K XI, armed with more primitive Italian-made I53 torpedoes, would complete seven war patrols in WWII. Meanwhile, the 2,600-ton Zuiderkruis would escape from Java in February 1942 and spend the rest of WWII in Ceylon, operating as a depot ship and transport for the British Eastern Fleet. She would return home in 1945 and go on in 1950 after Indonesia’s independence to become the flagship of the Indonesian Navy (as Bimasakti) and President Soekarno’s yacht. NIMH 2158_019986
Circa 1931 scale model of Hr.Ms. K XVIII, a K XIV-class submarine. Note her main deck gun before the fairwater with her AAA gun atop, hull mounted diving planes, net cutters on the bow, extensive running lines, forward trunk, upside down ship’s dingy aft near its crane, and twin screws on either side of a centerline rudder. 2158_054141
A similar model endures today in the collection of the Dutch Marine Elektronisch en Optisch Bedrijf. Note the arrangement of the four periscopes and aerials, but no AAA mount and a torpedo on deck over her external tubes. 0075_15_N0007294-01
A cutaway model gives a better look at her twin stowed AAA guns on either side of the conning tower, and her external tubes are shown forward between two trunks, placed between the deck and pressure hull. NIMH_2024-033_0003
K XVIII’s forward four-pack of torpedo tubes before installation in 1932. 2158_009163
Meet K XVIII
Ordered at the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyard in Rotterdam, the future K XVIII was laid down on 10 June 1931.
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dock and Yard Company Wilton-Fijenoord. 2158_009140
Launched 27 September 1932, by the next July, she had completed fitting out and was conducting her first of two months of trials.
K XVIII’s Langroom. Note the ornate brass fan on the bulkhead and wooden cabinetry. 2158_009184
The officers’ quarters. Note the rugs. 2158_009181
The non-commissioned officers’ quarters are seen forward, complete with padlocked lockers, with the firing installation of the deck tubes and one of the four periscopes, probably the antenna array, in the middle. 2158_009186
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord, July-August 1933. The K XVIII is undergoing a sea trial on the Nieuwe Maas. Note her telescoping radio mast and DF gear. 2158_012445
23 March 1933. Her plankowners assembled on deck in winter dress uniforms. Note the main deck gun is not fitted yet, but the forward submergible AAA is stowed with its hatch closed and the wheel on the flying bridge. 2158_009187
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord, July-August 1933. The K XVIII is undergoing a sea trial on the Nieuwe Maas. Note that her main gun has not been fitted. 2158_012442
Having been accepted and delivered, she was commissioned into service on 23 March 1934.
Hr.Ms. Submarine K XVIII, cruising in the North Sea shortly after completion. 2158_005746
Beginning on 20 June 1934, she underwent a six-week summer voyage with a squadron from Nieuwediep through the Baltic and back. The squadron included her sistership, Hr.Ms. K XVII, the old coastal battleship (pantserschip) Hertog Hendrik, and the destroyers Evertsen and Z 5. They called at several ports including Danzig, Konigsberg in East Prussia, Riga, and Copenhagen.
Crew of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII at Königsberg during the squadron voyage to the Baltic Sea in 1934. The old (circa 1917) destroyer Hr.Ms. Z 5 is moored behind the K XVIII. 2158_012382
Arrival of submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII in Danzig during the voyage to the Baltic Sea in the summer of 1934. Behind K XVIII, the destroyer Hr.Ms. Z 5. 2158_012405
20.000 Mijlen over Zee!
Returning home in the tail end of August 1934, our brand spanking new submarine was ordered to her intended duty station, with the fleet in the Dutch East Indies.
However, it was determined that this outbound sortie would be a bit more of a slow boat to (Indo)china so to speak, as she was tasked with a series of international port calls and put at the disposal of Prof. Vening Meinesz, who taught geodesy, cartography and geophysics part time at Utrecht University.
Why part-time?
Well, that’s because the good professor, under the auspices of the KNMI (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute), had been tagging along on Dutch submarines for over a decade on a mission to measure the gravity field of the Earth. You see, it was in the subsurface dives that he could get the best readings, and almost every existing gravity reading up to that time had been done on dry land.
Before arriving on K XVIII, the professor had already shipped out several times on at least five other Dutch subs. The longest of these had been a six-month (27 May-13 December 1926) outward-bound cruise on the older K XI class boat Hr. Ms K XIII, when she deployed from Den Helder for the Dutch East Indies, via the Panama Canal and Hawaii.
Vening Meinesz’s primary instrument was one of his designs, a bronze-cased, wool-packed pendulum apparatus termed a gravimeter for obvious reasons. While the workings of his machine are beyond the scope of this post, the story goes that, to isolate its readings from the activities of working submariners, the best solution was to halt the work of said bluejackets, sending them to their racks, and halting the motors.
Rig for silence indeed.
As compensation for having to put up with the yo-yo work cycle when the professor was doing his thing, the Dutch admiralty authorized an extra guilder per man per dive when the gravimeter required them to secure stations. Thus, the machine became known to the submarine crews as Het Gouden Kalf (the Golden Calf).
The pendulum apparatus of Vening Meinesz, “Slingerapparaat van Vening Meinesz,” also known as “the Golden Calf. Positioned on the left side is the protective casing with the recording instrument on top. On the right side is the pendulum apparatus with the three pendulums at the back. Built in 1923, the instrument has been in the collection of the Delft University of Technology since 1966 and, in its time, had made over 500 submarine dives
The route from Holland to Java would be accomplished in 12 legs, the shortest just 1,200 miles, and the longest running 3,520 miles.
The end of each leg would be rewarded with a liberal port call (sometimes as long as three weeks) to show the flag, refresh supplies, and interact with the locals– with the side benefit of allowing the professor ashore to confer with regional scientific types and take gravimeter measurements in strange new places.
The port calls would include Funchal (Madeira), Saint Vincent (Cape Verde), Dakar, Pernambuco (Suriname), Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo/Buenos Aires/Mar del Plata, Tristan da Cunha, Cape Town (Kaapstad) and Durban in South Africa, Port Louis (Mauritius), and Fremantle in Western Australia before heading north to Surabaya.
NIMH_2024-033_0002
Under 43-year-old Luitenant ter zee 1e klasse (LCDR) Dirk Christiaan Marie Hetterschij, a career officer who joined the Dutch navy as a midshipman in 1910 and held his first seagoing command in 1922, K XVIII made ready for her epic voyage to East Asia. He knew the vessel well, having previously supervised the construction of the submarine.
With a wardroom of five junior officers led by 30-year-old Penang-born LTZ2 Max Samuel Wytema and Officer Marinestoomvaartdienst C. van der Linden (both of whom had sailed with Vening Meinesz previously on K XIII in 1926), a goat locker of eight petty officers, and 20 enlisted, the boat had an all-up complement of 34, skipper included.
The ship’s officers on the eve of leaving Den Helder, with Professor Vening Meinesz dutifully attired in white tropical mufti to match.
And with the whole crew. 2158_012351
13 November 1934. Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII before departure for the world voyage of 1934-35. Prof. Vening Meinesz foreground. 2158_012349
Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII leaves the port of Den Helder for her world voyage, 14 November 1934, before an assembled crowd of well-wishers. 2158_012347
The submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII stands out, moored in the harbor of Funchal, Madeira, on 24 November 1934, some 1,680nm down on the initial leg of her 1934-35 cruise. 2158_012354
However, before leaving the Atlantic, she had a side quest.
The Snip
Dutch airline KLM in 1934 was the only operator of a precious group of five triple-engine Fokker F.XVIIIs. With an 80-foot wingspan and 9-ton maximum takeoff weight, they could carry a crew of three and a dozen passengers on convertible sleeping berths on long-range flights, able to span 950 miles in six hours before needing to refuel. They were put into service on epic 7,000-mile Amsterdam-to-Batavia (now Jakarta) runs, once making it in just 73 flying hours.
One of the five KLM Fokker XVIIIs, PH-AIS “Snip” 2161_026829
Named after birds, in December 1934, one of the five F.XVIIIs, PH-AIS “Snip” (Snipe), set out on a history-making flight, KLM’s first transatlantic service to colonial Suriname and the Antilles from Holland.
Unable to make the flight non-stop, it accomplished legs from Amsterdam to Marseille, Marseille to Alicante, Spain; Alicante to Casablanca, and Casablanca to Porto Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. Waiting for the weather to clear to hop the Atlantic and packed with extra fuel, Snip and her four-man crew set out for Paramaribo in Suriname from Praia on 19 December, making the South American strip 17 hours and 35 minutes later, by far the longest leg.
Refueling once again, it went on to Curacao, where it landed on 22 December before a crowd of thousands at Hato airport, covering the 6,516nm from Amsterdam in just under 56 flying hours. While the extra fuel tanks had taken up the normal passenger space, she had carried a cargo of 233 pounds of Christmas mail containing 26,521 airmail letters and at least one bottle of beer.
It was midway on its 2,236nm Atlantic crossing from Praia that K XVIII was waiting, surfaced, lit up, and broadcasting weather conditions and forecasts as a beacon to point Snip in the right direction and be the first on the search should she not make it. While the Dutch KNSM merchant steamships Stuyvesant and Van Rensselaer were nearby, K XVIII was the only naval vessel tasked with support, and her crew heard the plane cross over on the night of the 21st in thick cloud cover.
Snip’s 1934 flight
On December 12, 1934, the Fokker F.XVIII “Snip” departed for KLM’s first transatlantic flight to Suriname and the Antilles. The plane arrived in Curacao 10 days and 6,500 air miles later without an issue, spotted along the way by K XVIII. 2161_026836
K XVIII underway on the surface in rough seas of the Atlantic. Note the barrel of her deck gun. 2158_012391
Anyway, back to our trip
On the way to Dakar in West Africa, the crew and the professor celebrated a somber Christmas on board before a paper tree while three musically inclined crew members formed an ersatz jazz band with a couple of horns and an accordion. They would cross the Equator just after New Year’s 1935 and hold the traditional crossing the line ceremony, dubbed Neptunusfeest in Dutch parlance.
Groot Feest means “big party.” 2158_012387
At each port, K XVIII picked up staged mail and supplies, dropped off beforehand by Dutch merchant vessels. Note the “Por K XVIII, Dakar” stencil on these boxes.
The shortest stop would be an overnight anchor on 22 March 1935 at the lonely island of Tristan da Cunha, a romantic harbor for Dutch mariners as it was where Pieter Groen from Katwijk had famously lived as an uncrowned king for years, becoming the paterfamilias of the largest family on the remote South Atlantic colony. Rarely visited, the crew passed on food and medical supplies to the colony.
Arriving in Cape Town (Kaapstad) on 2 April 1935. Note the deck awning and table forward, as well as the well-mixed uniforms of the crew, all veteran subjects of Neptune Rex (and almost blue noses), some 13,190 nm into her world cruise. 2158_012377
Twin stops in South Africa at Cape Town and Durban brought extensive interaction with the colony’s Dutch expatriates, and the ship’s officers made a pilgrimage to the statue of Jan van Riebeek to adorn it with a wreath. During her call, she was the first submarine to enter False Bay and the first to use the RN dry dock at Simon’s Town, where she was hurriedly scraped and repainted in five days, with her crew pitching in to meet the scheduled ship’s movement.
Then came the longest, 27-day stint across the Indian Ocean from Mauritius to Fremantle. Three dozen men in a 261-foot tin can for 3,520 nautical miles. Importantly, they would skirt a gravitational feature known today as the Indian Ocean Geoid Low (IOGL), a gravity “hole” that formed around 20 million years ago and is the deepest one known to man. Professor Vening Meinesz would only identify the IOGL in 1948 when looking at past data.
The home stretch arrival off Java coincided with the 339th anniversary celebration of the July 1596 arrival of Dutch merchant mariner Cornelis de Houtman in his VOC ship Mauritius after a 15-month voyage from Amsterdam, an expedition that began Dutch influence in the region.
Over the course of the voyage, Vening Meinesz had made 240 measurements while submerged.
Hr.Ms. Submarine K XVIII arriving in Surabaya after her “world voyage,” July 1935. She is being escorted in by a flight of three big Dornier Do J Wal seaplanes while her crew is assembled on deck. Do you have any idea how hard it would have been to keep those whites, white after eight months on a “pig boat?” 2158_005745
The Dutch Marineluchtvaartdienst, or Naval Aviation Service, bought five distinctive twin-engine push/pull Do J Wals from Dornier’s Italian factory in Marina di Pisa in 1926, then purchased a license to assemble a further 41 domestically at Aviolanda’s facility. Able to carry two machine guns and 2,200 pounds of bombs to 500nm, the “Whales” served in the Far East in rescue, reconnaissance, transport, and patrol roles for over a decade. They were replaced in MLD service by 1941 by 34 Dornier Do 24K flying boats and 25 Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats.
Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII in the Dutch East Indies, decorated and on parade duty, 11 July 1935. 2158_012424
K XVIII settles into the sheltered submarine docks in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, after arriving. The Dutch would operate over a dozen subs from the port in the 1930s and early 1940s. Sadly, these were not hardened pens. 2158_012434
Crew members of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII gathered for a welcome speech during Alle Hens, after arriving in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, 11 July 1935. The suited Professor Vening Meinesz stands out, literally, between grinning skipper LTZ1 Hetterschij and his XO, LTZ2 Wytema. Note the white gloves and (usually German-made) Model of 1882 swords of the Dutch officers. For those curious, Dutch ships carried a very functional Model of 1911 Klewang profile naval cutlass through the 1950s, for enlisted use. 2158_012429
All the crew were presented with a special silver medal (the Draagpenning van de Rijkscommissie voor graadmeting en waterpassing) for the occasion, with Wytema and engineering officer Van der Linden earning a second award as they had earned one previously in 1926 on K XIII.
Skipper Dirk Hetterschij also picked up the Gold De Ruyter medal and was knighted, made an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. He would similarly be made an Officer in the Belgian Ordre de Léopold II in 1936.
The chapels at the submarine barracks in both Surabaya and Den Helder received a stained-glass window with a tribute to the cruise of K XVIII. Painted by Willem Mengelberg in Zeist, it was paid for by the Stichting Algemeen Nederlandsch Comité “Onze Marine” association and includes a panel with Houtman’s circa 1596 VOC ship Mauritius. I believe they were both lost during WWII. 2158_012437
K XVIII’s XO during her 1934-35 cruise, LTZ2 Max Wytema, would go on to write two different submarine works, Klaar voor onderwater (“Clear for diving”) and, with Van der Linden, Met Hr. Ms. K XIII naar Nederlandsch-Indie (“With Hr. Ms. K XIII to the Dutch East Indies”) about their 1926 cruise. Wytema also shot several hours of amateur film footage during the cruise, which would later be edited by Brand D. Ochse, founder of Filmfabriek Polygoon, into an exotic 96-minute travel documentary, 20.000 mijlen over zee De wereldreis van onderzeeboot K XVIII (“20,000 Leagues of the Sea, The World Voyage of the Submarine K XVIII”).
Carrying a music arrangement by Max Tak, it showed many the first known moving images from such far-off locations as Tristan da Cunha, in addition to stirring sea shots of diving operations of a submarine underway, accompanied by dolphins.
Released in Dutch cinemas with the admiralty’s blessing and approval, the film was well-received and shown in several European countries, reportedly doing well for months in England and Spain.
I managed to find the first reel, which covers up to March 1935, leaving Argentina, in the NIMH, and have uploaded it, below.
Her film and book-worthy cruise behind her, K XVIII got to work as a normal Dutch fleet boat. She spent the next four years in a series of peacetime exercises and maneuvers, the highlight of which was the 23-ship September 1938 fleet review off Surabaya for (but not attended by) Queen Wilhelmina to celebrate her 40th anniversary.
War!
September 1939 brought an uneasy time to the Dutch East Indies. With Japan openly pressuring the colony, the local governor and his forces stepped up preparations to repel what was felt to be a looming invasion. Once metropolitan Holland was occupied in May 1940 by Germany, the DEI, still loyal to Queen Wilhelmina’s government in exile, sent its naval forces on patrol for Axis vessels in the region.
When the Pacific War with Japan kicked off in December 1941, K XVIII was in refit at Surabaya. One of 15 Dutch boats in the Pacific at the time (along with O-16, O-19, O-20, K-VII, K-VIII, K-IX, K-X, K-XI, K-XII, K-XIII, K-XIV, K-XV, K-XVI, and K-XVII), K-XVIII was soon back in the water, making war patrols and pumping torpedoes in the Emperor’s ships, one of the brighter moments in a campaign that was otherwise dark for the doomed ABDA Allies.
Her wartime skipper, LTZ1 Carel Adrianus Johannes van Well Groeneveld, had taken her sister, Hr. Ms K XIV, whose c/o was sick, on two short patrols while K XVIII was in refit in December. During which he torpedoed four Japanese steamers, sinking three for some 23,000 tons, a great start to the war!
With K XVIII back in the water in early January 1942, Van Well Groeneveld rejoined his command and departed Surabaya on his boat’s 1st war patrol on the 14th. After scuttling the evacuated Balikpapan light vessel Orion with gunfire so that it could not function as a beacon to the expected Japanese landing force, K XVIII spent the night of 22/23 January on a series of attacks on said force.
Narrowly missing the Japanese Sendai-class light cruiser Naka with four torpedoes, he sent the transport Tsuruga Maru(7289 GRT), carrying elements of the Sakaguchi Detachment (56th Regimental Group), to the bottom with a second load of four fish.
Tsuruga Maru was built down at Mitsubishi Shipyard as Yard No. 250, a 7,289-ton cargo ship for Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), K.K. (Japan Mail Steamship Co.) in 1916. K XVIII sent her to the bottom in January 1942.
It was while avoiding depth charges from the responding Japanese submarine chaser Ch-12 that K XVIII bottomed and was extremely damaged, cutting her war patrol short. Returning to Surabaya by the 27th, she was still in repair when the Japanese neared the strategic port in March and was ordered scuttled along with 120 assorted Allied vessels in the area.
Before she was set ablaze, her deck gun was used to scuttle the unseaworthy Dutch Admiralen-class destroyer Hr. Ms Banckert.
K XVIII’s wartime boss, the budding sub ace Van Well Groeneveld, while in charge of the Torpedo Works at Surabaya in March 1942, went missing and was believed killed while inspecting faulty demolition charges with two other men during the destruction of the port, just shy of his 36th birthday. Besides a Dutch MWO.4, he earned the British DSO, although he was never able to receive it.
Ignoble service under the Setting Sun
With Surabaya under new management for the next five years, the Japanese had a chance to raise and repair several of the ships that were hastily scuttled there. One of these was K XVIII. Patched up to a degree, she was put into service as an unnamed and lightly armed air warning picket hulk in the shallows of the Madoera Strait in 1944. She was sent to the bottom a final time by HM Submarine Taciturn (P334) on 16 June 1945 alongside the Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Cha 105 (130 tons). Taciturn described the action with the former pride of the Dutch submarine service as
“A K-16 class Dutch submarine covered with yellow lead and rust, she was very high in the water…Several hits were obtained and the hulk was seen listing shortly afterwards..” Before turning to sink Cha 160. Then, “target was now shifted to the rusty submarine hulk whose machine gun fire became annoying as the range closed. A considerable number of 4″ rounds were fired against her before she was seen to be sinking in position 06°52’S, 112°48’E. One of the hits was a direct hit on her gun.”
Of her four sisters, all gave hard service in East Asia in WWII, opposing the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies. Two were lost during the conflict.
Hr.Ms. K XVI sank the Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer Sagiri on Christmas Eve 1941, then was, in turn, sunk by the Japanese submarine I-66 on Christmas Day, lost with all hands.
Hr.Ms. K XVII was believed lost in a newly laid Japanese minefield on or about 21 December 1941 in the Gulf of Siam and is still on patrol with 38 crewmembers. There are wild rumors she was lost in the “cover-up” in the Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory, but they are, most assuredly, groundless.
Class leader Hr.Ms. K XIV (N 22), as we touched on above, was the most successful when it came to chalking up “kills,” is credited with three Japanese troopships — SS Katori Maru (9,848 tons), SS Ninchinan Maru (6,503 tons), and SS Hiyoshi Maru (4,943 tons)– sunk along with a fourth — MS Hokkai Maru (8,416 tons)– damaged in late December 1941 alone. Updated in America, she spent the rest of the war in Fremantle and would damage the 4,410-ton Japanese minelayer Tsugaru and bag numerous small vessels. She was retired in 1946, having completed nine war patrols. Also, like K XV, she languished in Soerabaja during the Dutch war against Soekarno, then was towed out and sunk in deep water following independence.
Hr.Ms. onderzeeboot K XIV (1933-1946) z.g.n. getrimd dieselen. NIMH 2158_005756
The K XIV class Bloedvlaggen, with K XVIII on the far right.
In all, wily “Free Dutch” submarines with nothing to lose accounted for at least 168,183 tons of enemy shipping and warships between May 1940 and August 1945, sinking no less than 69 ships– a figure that doesn’t count the myriad of small craft they also sent to the bottom. They also lost 16 boats, with seven still on eternal patrol.
In an ode to these old K boats, Indonesian rice (Indische rijsttafel) is a staple meal on Dutch submarines today, especially for service in the wardroom as a Blauwe hap (Blue Snack).
Epilogue
Little tangible remains of K XVIII. Her hulk was later raised (again) and scrapped in the 1950s after the Dutch had left. With so much war wreckage around Surabaya post-war, and with an active civil war going on in the islands until Indonesia’s independence in 1949, there was little appetite to set aside the relics of the once-famous submarine.
She is remembered in maritime art, such as on a recently released stamp from Tristan da Cunha.
Incidentally, when 20.000 mijlen over zee hit the theatres, it sparked a shoe drive in Holland for the island’s moccasin-wearing population, which ultimately received 760 assorted new pairs of wooden clogs for its 200 inhabitants. Unsuited for use in the rocky islands, the locals instead appreciated them as they kept the islanders in firewood for six months. K XVIII’s circa 1934-35 skipper, Dirk Hetterschij, after the legendary voyage to East Asia, became commander of the Dutch submarine service in Surabaya for two years, then returned home just in time for the German invasion. During WWII, he remained in the occupied Netherlands, where he played a key role in the Dutch resistance and was later arrested by the Germans for a time, but was released for health reasons. Placed in command of the Loodswezen, the Dutch Pilotage Service, post-war, he was made a rear admiral in 1947, but died in poor health the following year, just 57 years old.
RADM Dirk Hetterschij completed 38 years of honorable service to the Dutch Navy, most of it in submarines, with a dash of science and espionage behind enemy lines when needed. He is buried in Rhenen, with his wife joining him in 1974. As a side note, she had been the third wife of the swashbuckling late Dutch RADM Kaarel Doorman of Java Sea fame.
K XVIII’s multimedia talented XO during her 1934-35 cruise, LTZ2 Max Wytema, likewise continued to serve. The Dutch Naval Control Officer in San Francisco during WWII, he was recognized with a Legion of Merit by the U.S. Navy in 1942. While in California, he settled down and retired there, with his wife Annette passing in 1979. He joined her at age 78 in 1982.
In 2016, Dutch TV network VPRO released a digital version of 20.000 mijlen over zee in two parts. The website is kind of funky and takes a while to build, but it’s interesting to view once you get it going.
And finally, Professor Vening Meinesz, who became akin in his time to a Dutch Neil deGrasse Tyson after 20.000 mijlen over zee, continued his gravitational quest. He shipped out on four further Dutch subs in the late 1930s, including a three-month trip on Hr. Ms. O 16 in 1937. Teaching part-time both at the University of Utrecht and the Delft University of Technology, like his old pal Dirk Hetterschij, he rolled up his sleeves during the German occupation and helped organize the Resistance movement. Post-war, he took students and his instruments aboard a further six Dutch submarines, sailing as late as 1959.
Professor Vering Meinsez passed in 1966, aged 79. Utrecht University has the Vening Meinesz Research School for Geodynamics in his honor, while a crater on the moon also carries his name. Though he never wore a uniform, he earned his dolphins for sure.
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships. With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject. PRINT still has its place.
If you LOVE warships, you should belong. I’m a member, so should you be!
Spotted on submarine reddit: Los Angeles-class Flight II hunter-killer USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720) with her VLS hatches open, showing badges of some famous WWII USN submarines. I don’t know the author, photos taken possibly during SSN-720’s inactivation in dry dock at PSNS & IMF, 2019-2020:
Gato-class USS Wahoo (SS-238) – she gained fame as an aggressive & highly successful submarine after Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker “Mush” Morton became her skipper. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from a patrol in the Sea of Japan.
Gato-class USS Grunion (SS-216) – she sank off Kiska around 30 July 1942, due to accidents caused/related to the circular run of her torpedo.
Gato-class USS Harder (SS-257) – her Commanding Officer, Commander Samuel D. Dealey (1906–1944), “a submariner’s submariner”, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, as well as four Navy Crosses during his lifetime
Gato-class USS Darter (SS-227) – she sank a total of 19,429 tons of Japanese shipping and received the Naval Unit Commendation and four battle stars.
Tambor-class USS Triton (SS-201) – she is credited with the sinking of over 20,000 tons of Japanese shipping & warships and was lost with all hands on or around 15 March 1943. Porpoise-class USS Perch (SS-176) – she was scuttled on March 3, 1942, after a heroic battle against Japanese destroyers.
Salmon-class USS Salmon (SS-182) – she was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism against enemy surface vessels. Tambor-class USS Trout (SS-202) – she sank 12 ships and was lost with all hands on her eleventh war patrol in 1944.
S-class “Sugar boat” USS S-28 (SS-133) – she sank one Japanese ship and was lost at sea with all hands in July 1944. Her wreck was discovered in 2017 at a depth of 8,500 feet (2,600 m) off the coast of Oahu.
Gato-class USS Trigger (SS-237) – she sank 18 ships and received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her fifth, sixth, and seventh war patrols.
Tang-class USS Tang (SS-306) – she sank 33 ships and was sunk during the last engagement by a circular run of her torpedo.
Compare the crests with the list of boats on Eternal Patrol:
“The sun reflected on the ocean’s surface as two MH-60R (Romeo) Sea Hawk helicopters carrying a duo of Navy photographers flew toward a metal behemoth steaming quietly on the horizon. As the helicopters approached the vessel, they were joined by two U.S. Army AH-64 Apaches—their wasp-like appearance befitting the attack helicopter’s mission and armament.
Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan Riley, a U.S. Navy Sailor assigned to Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9, raised the viewfinder of his camera, adjusted the settings, and snapped a photo of the first-of-its-kind armed air escort (AAE) exercise led by U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).”
250424-N-DK460-1015 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 24, 2025)—U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters, attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, attached to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 37, and Military Sealift Command submarine support vessel MV Malama escort the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) during a routine armed air escort exercise, April 24, 2025. Commander, Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9 exercises administrative control authority for assigned submarine commands and units in the Pacific Northwest, providing oversight for shipboard training, personnel, supply, and material readiness of submarines and their crews. SUBGRU-9 is also responsible for nuclear submarines undergoing conversion or overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gwendelyn Ohrazda)
U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters and a submarine support vessel escort the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky (SSBN 737) during a routine armed air escort (AAE) exercise, April 24, 2025. AAEs are designed to improve interoperability between our services, increasing lethality through multi-domain integration. Commander, Submarine Group (SUBGRU) 9, exercises administrative control authority for assigned submarine commands and units in the Pacific Northwest, providing oversight for shipboard training, personnel, supply, and material readiness of submarines and their crews. SUBGRU-9 is also responsible for nuclear submarines undergoing conversion or overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gwendelyn Ohrazda)
Of course, they won’t be yellow when they get operational, but the Navy quietly marked a milestone in undersea warfare: the successful forward-deployed launch and recovery of the HHI Yellow Moray uncrewed underwater vehicle, a variant of the company’s REMUS 600 series UUV, from the USS Delaware (SSN 791), a Block III Virginia-class submarine. In a further note, Delaware was the first American warship commissioned while underwater, making her the ideal historical testbed for such devices.
250501-N-N0736-1001 NORFOLK (May 01, 2025) – Sailors attached to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Delaware (SSN 791) lower a Yellow Moray (REMUS 600) unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) into the water during a UUV exercise in Haakosnsvern Naval Base in Haakonsvern, Norway, and then swim it to the sub. (Courtesy Photo)
The Yellow Moray UUV executed a pre-programmed mission profile showcasing the potential to greatly enhance the Navy’s subsea and seabed warfare (SSW) capabilities. The successful completion of this mission demonstrates the feasibility of deploying robotic and autonomous systems from submarines, opening new possibilities for clandestine operations and battlespace preparation. As part of this operation, Delaware executed three Yellow Moray UUV sorties of about 6-10 hours each using the same vehicle, validating the reliability of the system and the ability to execute multiple missions without the need for divers to launch and recover the vehicle.
But wait, there is more:
This deployment also highlighted the ability of the Submarine Force and UUV Group 1 to learn fast and overcome barriers. During the first attempts to launch and recover in a Norwegian Fjord in February, the vehicle failed to recover to the torpedo tube after multiple attempts. After recovering the UUV to a surface support vessel, technicians discovered damage to a critical part. To avoid impacts to the ship’s deployment schedule and operations, the Submarine Force (SUBFOR) shipped the UUV back to the U.S. and replaced the failed component. Knowing there was another opportunity to operate the system later in the deployment, SUBFOR returned the UUV to the theater where Delaware completed an expeditionary reload, and multiple successful UUV torpedo tube launch and recovery operations. As part of the expeditionary load, the team also executed a first-ever pierside diver torpedo tube load of the UUV in Norway, providing the operational commander with flexible options.
While the Yellow Moray itself doesn’t have much information, check out this backgrounder on the REMUS 620, its developmental “daddy”:
Here we see the submarine Bars (Snow Leopard), the first of a class of 24 planned boats for the Imperial Russian Navy, after being launched on 2 June 1915 at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg (then Petrograd).
Note her Romanov eagle bow crest and four port topside “drop collar” torpedo launcher positions. Designed by a Polish-Russian submarine engineer, Prof. Stefan Karlovich Dzhevetskiy, the launchers were a cost-effective and easy way of carrying torpedoes and were used by both the French and Tsarist navies. However, the design proved an issue in winter months, especially in ice, and greatly shortened the lifespan of the weapons carried.
On 25 July 1915, the boat, under the command of LT V. F. Dudkin, entered service and became part of the 1st Division of the Baltic Sea Submarine Force, and would be operational for the next 22 months.
Russia. Baltic. Submarine Bars 1915-1917. Note: torpedoes carried in the Dzhevetsky drop collars
Designed by Maj. Gen. (Russian admiralty officers in non-line billets were listed as colonels and generals, not admirals) Ivan Grigorievich Bubnov, the head of the GUK (Main Directorate of Shipbuilding), the Bars class was probably the most advanced and effective Russian submarines until the late mid-1930s when the Malyutka (type M) class boats began entering service.
Russian submarines Volk and Bars (center), iced in over a Baltic Winter. 1915-1917.
At 223-feet oal, they had a displacement of 650 tons (780 submerged) and could operate down to 300 feet. This made them almost ideal for the Baltic. Keep in mind that today’s Sweden’s Blekinge (A26)-class SSKs under construction right now run just 216 feet overall.
Diesel electric (with German Krupp or Russian Ludwig Nobel Kolomna plant diesels, later augmented by some American-made engines sent from New London) powering twin screws, they could make 9 knots submerged (13 on the surface) and carried enough fuel and food for 14 days of operations.
Heavily armed, they had eight 18-inch torpedos carried on the deck in Dzhevetsky drop collar trapeeze systems, and another eight fish in fore and aft torpedo rooms with two tubes in each. A small deck gun or two and a light machine gun were added. Mines could also be carried.
The Russians were able to complete 20 Bars-type boats, of which four were lost during the Great War (including Bars) while three others sank in peacetime operations. Four, as well as two of the unfinished hulls, were captured by the Germans in 1917-18. Post-war, the Soviets kept a dozen of the class in operation into the 1930s, with at least two surviving until the 1950s in use as training ships and battery charging barges.
The Soviets considered them the first “modern” submarines in Russian service.
Evolution of Soviet subs from 1914-1955 with Bars-class at top
In 1993, in the Baltic Sea, in the area of Gotska Sandön Island, the Swedish minesweeper Landsort discovered a Bars-type submarine (most likely Bars herself, which went missing in May 1917) at a depth of 127 meters.
Cap ribbon and model of the Russian submarine Bars at Vladivostok
As for her father, designer Bubnov died of typhus during the Russian Civil War in 1919, aged just 47.
MG Bubnov, in front of the building Tsarist submarine Akula, in happier days
The Tambor-class submarine, USS Tautog (SS-199), photographed from an altitude of 300 feet off the Florida coast by Navy airship ZP-31 on 29 May 1945. Note the scoreboard painted on her conning tower, representing Japanese ships sunk by the fleet boat.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-323879
Over the course of 13 war patrols,Tautog received 14 battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation for her war service. According to Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee figures, she sank 26 Japanese vessels, accounting for 72,606 tons of enemy shipping, against 39 ships claimed for 133,726 tons.
Artwork of USS Tautog’s (SS-199) World War II battle flag. Photographed circa the early 1970s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph, NH 98808-KN.
After the war, Tautog served as a USNR training boat for about a decade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before her illustrious career ended in 1959.
