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Admiral Arleigh Burke’s Deep Dive Diploma

Posted on August 23, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

U.S.S. Robert E. Lee (SSBN 601) Pax Deterrendo Deep Dive Diploma

Be it known among all ye landlubbers and topside sailors that on 15 Nov 60 I was visited in the depths of my domain by the U.S.S. Robert E. Lee (SSB (N) 601) during a dive to DEEP DEPTH. And among the distinguished present at that time was Admiral A.A. Burke, USN He shall forevermore bear the mark of the confirmed Ballistic Missile Submariner.

For Davy Jones
W.F. Dawson
His Majesty’s Scribe

Neptunus Rex
Woodall
Commanding
His Majesty’s Servant

Arleigh Albert “31-knot” Burke was of course the longest serving Chief of Naval Operations, a job typically filled in two-year terms, serving from across the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, working 15-hour days, six days a week, starting in 1955. Born 19 Oct 1901, he was just a couple weeks past his 59th birthday when he picked up his Deep Dive diploma above.

Upon completing his third term, Burke was transferred to the Retired List on August 1, 1961.

Though famous for being a destroyer man, he oversaw what became the Navy’s SSBN program, arguing that land-based missiles and bombers were vulnerable to attack, which made the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance dangerously unstable. By contrast, nuclear submarines were virtually undetectable and invulnerable– the strongest part of the nuclear triad.

The Robert E. Lee was a George Washington-class fleet ballistic missile submarine and the third to join the fleet when she was commissioned 15 September 1960. She served until replaced by a more modern Ohio-class boomber in 1983 and was recycled by 1991. When commissioned (and while Burke took his cruise) Lee carried 16 UGM-27 Polaris SLBMs, each capable of being armed with a single Mk 1 re-entry vehicle, carrying a single W-47-Y1 600 kt nuclear warhead.

A true relic from a forgotten battlefield

Posted on August 22, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

160817-N-PM781-002 WASHINGTON (Aug. 17, 2016) An M1 Garand rifle used by U.S. Marine Corps Raiders during the World War II attack on Japanese military forces on Makin Island is at Naval History and Heritage Commands (NHHC) Underwater Archaeology Branch. Due to the rifles significant surface concretions, corrosion and other physical damage, NHHC Underwater Archaeology Branch is performing an assessment of the artifacts stability. (U.S. Navy photo by Arif Patani/Released)

During the darkest part of the war in the Pacific, a group of Marine Raiders stormed Japanese-held Makin Island. Today one of their Garands left behind is undergoing long-term preservation.

Scarcely eight months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and just weeks after the fall of Corregidor, the U.S. Navy was planning to take the war to Imperial Japan at a little known island in the Solomons by the name of Guadalcanal. As part of the initial assault on that chain, “Carlson’s” 2nd Marine Raider Battalion were to carry out a diversionary strike on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

Carried to Makin by two submarines, USS Argonaut and USS Nautilus, some 211 Raiders came ashore in rubber rafts in the predawn hours of August 17, 1942. By the end of the day they had annihilated the Japanese garrison, sunk two of the Emperor’s boats, and destroyed two of his planes. As part of the withdrawal the next morning, 19 fallen Marines were left behind in graves on the island.

In 1999 the military returned to Makin, now known as Butaritari in the island nation of Kiribati, to recover the Marines, 13 of whom are now interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Now, attention is being paid a rifle found during the recovery process, a corroded M1 Garand discovered in the grave and returned to Hawaii before its eventual transfer to the Raiders Museum located at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

After an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team inspected the rifle to make sure it was not loaded, it has now been transferred to the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Underwater Archaeology Branch at the Washington Navy Yard.

There, the archaeological conservators are formulating a plan to treat the rifle, buried in wet sand on a Pacific battlefield for over 50 years, and preserve it for future generations.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Forward-looking Submarine Ops of Luis Philip Senarens

Posted on August 14, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Forward-looking submarine Ops of Luis Philip Senarens

Along with Tom Swift, Frank Reade Jr., and others, Jack Write was one of the host of fictitious “Edisonade” series of brilliant young inventors from the 1880s-1914 who graced the pre-Great War dime novels of the era. These were young men whose adventures were full of pluck and included the high tech forward thinking science of the era including radios, electric weapons, electrical land vehicles, steam powered robots, airships, rockets and submarines.

Speaking of which, Brooklynite Cuban-American Luis Philip Senarens, who was so busy that he wrote under a series of at least a half-dozen pseudonyms and has been described as both “the first prolific writer of science fiction” and “the American Jules Verne” crafted no less than 300 dime novels, inventing first Frank Reade Jr. and later Jack Wright. Most of these he wrote as “Noname.”

While written almost exclusively in the 1890s, they were republished several times through about 1920 and while Senarens himself was not the illustrator, the detailed descriptions he embedded in his work helped craft the images seen on the cover.

Many of these involved complex submarine operations long before they were practical including:

Jack Wright’s Submarine Catamaran (1891)
Jack Wright And His Electric Turtle (1891)
Jack Wright And His Submarine Yacht (1892)
Jack Wright And His Deep Sea Monitor (1892)
Jack Wright And His Ocean Sleuth-Hound (1892)
Jack Wright And His Dandy Of The Deep (1892)
Jack Wright And His Submarine Torpedo-Tug (1893)
Jack Wright And His Submarine Explorer (1894)
Jack Wright And His Submarine Warship (1894)
Jack Wright And His Submarine Destroyer (1894)
Jack Wright And His Electric Submarine Ranger (1895)

Senarens also gave Reade his own U-boat from time to time, such as in this arctic submarine adventure from 1892 and in The Search for the Silver Whale.

It should be realized while looking at this work that the U.S. Navy’s first modern commissioned submarine, the dynamite gun armed USS Holland, was not commissioned until 12 October 1900 while the Royal Navy’s first submarine, HMS Holland 1 (guess who the inventor was), was not accepted until the following year. Russia’s first working submersible, Delfin was adopted in 1903, and the German’s kerosene powered SM U-1 was not commissioned until 1906. It could be argued the submariners of these early craft may have had a copy of a Noname attributed submarine dime novel stashed among their sea bags.

Other than the works of Swedish industrialist and arms dealer Thorsten Nordenfelt (who will be spoken about in a coming Warship Wednesday), Spain’s Peral, and the experimental French submarine Gymnote, which were afloat during Jack Wright’s heyday, there were few workable submersibles on the seas.

As for Senarens, he died in 1939 though his Reade and Wright adventures had peaked long before then.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Japan’s WWII Alaskan mini-sub base

Posted on August 13, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

When the U.S. entered WWII, the entire garrison of tiny Kiska Island in the Aleutians consisted of a 10 man U.S. Navy radio/weather station. As a diversionary attack as part of the Battle of Midway, on 6 June 1942 the Japanese landed in force, some 550 men of an elite Naval Landing unit.

Over the next year, the Japanese build up on the remote island grew to 3,700 Navy personnel at Kiska Harbor and some 3,500 Army personnel at Gertrude Cove despite U.S. air and naval attacks. They put in fire hydrants and the beginnings of a water system, laid hundreds of foxholes, personnel trenches and barbed wire entanglements; dug underground bunkers into the hillsides; constructed a power and telephone network and erected a Shinto shrine.

Japanese propaganda design of the Aleutian Islands Campaign, 1942

In the harbor floated Kawanishi H6K ‘Mavis” flying boats, Nakajima A6M2-N ‘Rufe’ floatplane fighters and Aichi E13A ‘Jake’ floatplane bombers/reconnaissance aircraft. They also crafted a slipway and repair facilities for midget submarines (more on this later).

With a looming Canadian-U.S. force ready to invade the frozen tundra near the Bearing Strait in July 1943, the Japanese swiftly withdrew their troops and when the 34,000-man Allied force hit the beaches the next month, they found nothing but a ghost town– and three wrecked Japanese midget submarines.

These subs remain to this day.

The Japanese used Kiska as a base for Type A Kō-hyōteki-class submarines. The same type of boat that helped attack Pearl Harbor (where USS Ward splashed the first American kill of the Pacific War on one trying to penetrate the harbor), the 47-ton Type A was just 78-feet long and was electric-only, with a 600hp motor and 224 Type D batteries.

They were actually pretty fast– 19 knots submerged– but due to not being able to recharge their batteries, had a very short range (about a half-hour at full speed, 24-hours if barely spinning the contra-rotating propellers). The two-man crew of these boats carried a pair of 17.7-inch Type 98 (Type 97 “Special”) torps in a pair of blackpowder-fired tubes forward (each with a 772-pound warhead and a 3.4-mile range), and a 300-lb scuttling charge for when things went wrong.

Interior of a Type A Japanese midget submarine. Copyright Newspix/News Limited, via NWS.gov.au.

The IJN completed about 105 of these vessels in four slightly different variants, of which a few were based at Kiska for coastal defense against encroaching U.S./Canadian vessels, and others lost in raids on Australia and Madagascar.

As noted by Combined Fleet.com, on 28 June the seaplane/submarine tender Chiyoda left Yokosuka with six Type A’s (HA-28, HA-29, HA-31, HA-32, HA-33 and HA-34) as well as the 150-man crew of the future midget submarine base, a detachment of the 12th Construction Battalion and 200-tons of cement.

The submarines on Kiska were launched to and from their base via a beaching railway with four sets of launch rails in the Western part of Kiska Harbor, and all the structures around the bases, when abandoned, were rigged with 155mm IEDs, sulphuric acid cans set to explode via live grenade, and other booby traps, making souvenir hunting hazardous to a GI’s health.

Arriving 5 July, the submarine force joined the 5th Guard Unit, Special Purpose Unit and was under command of Lt ( j.g.) Otozaka Shoichi. With Chiyoda leaving, the aging L-class submarine RO-61 (1,000-tons, completed 1920 to a British design) arrived in August to serve as a pier-side battery charger for the midgets, three of which were afloat in the harbor at a mooring buoy and three more retained on land.

By November 1942, with the submarine base built and the vessels operational, they begin taking regular personnel casualties in air raids from American bombers. Larger subs stopped coming as often.

Losses mount, with HA-33 sunk in a heavy storm in early April 1943 and on the 14th P-40 Warhawks from Amchitka strafe HA-29 and HA-34, leading to the cannibalization of HA-29 and HA-34 for spare parts, but as a result of continuing air attacks and storms repair cannot be completed.

This led Vice Admiral Kawase Shiro in May to order the midgets redeployed to nearby Attu but when two fleet submarines arrive to accomplish this, the news that Attu has fallen leads the midget crews to instead embark on I-31 and I-35 for the Kuriles.

On June 8, the two remaining midget submarines in the harbor are scuttled with demolition charges and one midget submarine is blown up using two Type 98 torpedo warheads, ending in watery graves. The three partially cannibalized midget submarines in the maintenance shed (including HA-32 and HA-34) are also demolished and the cache of some 20 remaining torpedoes are thrown in the harbor.

The sheds and buildings are burned with the stored fuel.

When the Americans arrived in August all they found were ruins.

Entrance to tunnel near Japanese sub base on Kiska, August 1943. Tunnels gave protection to the Japanese against bombs and provided sleeping quarters; image and caption Alaska State Library/Alaska’s Digital Archives (as with three following images).

Inside view, looking seaward, of covered, Japanese submarine beaching railway, tracks leading to waterfront; a soldier passes large submarine handling cradles on left; warships are visible through opening.

Japanese winches used to pull submarines into work shed on Kiska, August 1943.

Two-person submarines, damaged by internal explosions, on Kiska, August 1943. Fleet Air Wing Four military personnel remove incapacitated submarines from marine railway track leading to waterfront; lumber is scattered along one side; sandbags line top of hillside; winches for hauling subs are at right. All of the submarines, as with other equipment left on the island by the Japanese, were captured in thoroughly disabled condition as to be expected.

Submarines converted into scrap on Kiska Island, August 1943. Fleet Air Wing Four military personnel use torches to cut up submarines for scrap

Today these boats are still there to some degree

These images from Brian Hoffman, cc-nc-sa-4.0, via Flickr:

Kiska is federally owned and forms part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which is administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, though the National Park Service and others are also stakeholders.

RN to trim UAVs, but will at least keep the boomers

Posted on July 25, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

The aging HM Submarine Vanguard (S28), commissioned in 1993, is the lead ship of the RN’s four boomers.

It looks like the Brits will keep their SSBN fleet for another generation with MPs voting overwhelmingly in favor of renewing their aging Trident submarine fleet by 471 to 117. Opponents to the renewal of the Faslane, Scotland-based subs came from the Scottish National Party (SNP) and parts of the Labour Party, however new PM Theresa May stressed lawmakers to back Trident, not only to protect Britain from growing threats from Russia and North Korea, but also to protect thousands of jobs in Scotland and elsewhere post-Brexit.

The Brits, along with former WWII Big Five countries U.S., Russia, France and China, are the only operators of SSBNs, and the only other country besides the U.S. to operate Trident SLBMs (D5 variants) from their four 15,900-ton Vanguard -class submarines.

They form the UKs only nuclear deterrent.

Meanwhile, maritime surveillance capabilities of the British Royal Navy are to experience a setback in 2017 due to budget constraints. Janes has it that the ScanEagle UAS will leave RN service, without being replaced, in November 2017.

Since 2014, ScanEagle flights have operated from the Type 23 frigates HMS Somerset, HMS Northumberland, HMS Kent, HMS Richmond, and HMS St Albans, with HMS Portland now deploying. As well as using the UAS in primary ISR and overwatch roles, the RN has also conducted tactical development to explore the utility of ScanEagle for other tasks such as covert surveillance, anti-submarine warfare, naval gunfire support spotting, and support to Harpoon missile surface engagements.

But don’t worry, the RM is now opening combat roles to females, so there is that.

Warship Wednesday July 13, 2016: The tale of the pre-owned polar sub

Posted on July 13, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 13, 2016: The tale of the pre-owned polar sub

Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1978 #: NH 86969

Here we see the O-class diesel-electric submarine USS O-12 (SS-73) at the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., Bridgeport, Connecticut, on 7 October 1918, just before her completion. Although her Naval service during the Great War and immediately after was limited, her mark on history was not.

The U.S. Navy, dating back to the Revolutionary War’s Turtle and the Civil War’s Alligator, was a world leader in submarine development.

Starting with the 64-ton gas/electric USS Holland (SS-1) in 1900, the Navy proceeded with the 7-vessel Plunger-class; 3-ship Viper/B-class; 5-ship Octopus/C-class (the first United States submarines with two-shaft propulsion and an overall length longer than 100-feet); 3-ship Narwhal/D-class (designed to survive flooding in one compartment); 2-ship E-class (first US diesel-powered submarines and first with bow-planes); 4-ship F-class; 4-ship G-class; 9-ship H-class; 8-ship K-class; 11 L-class boats (first US submarine class equipped with a deck gun); the unique M-1 (world’s first double-hulled design); 3 large 1,500-ton AA-1-class boats capable of 20-knots; and 7 smaller N-class boats (first US Navy submarine class completed with metal bridge shields) by 1917.

In all, some 67 submersibles were built in less than two decades, with each teaching a lesson.

This led to the most capable class of U.S. Navy subs commissioned in World War I, the O-class.

Originally designed to fight off German U-boats along the East Coast, the boats of this class were not gigantic (500-600 tons, 173 feet oal) but had a decent 5,500 nm range and could carry 8 torpedoes as well as a deck gun. Laid down in five different yards (and two slightly different designs, one by Electric Boat the other by Lake) on both coasts starting in March 1916, all 16 were completed in 1918.

Built for $550,000 each, they were the first U.S. boats with really reliable diesel engines as well as the first in which each officer and man had his own berth and locker (even later designs would require “hot-bunking” well into the 1970s)

Wartime service on the O-class was limited, with two being shelled by an armed British steamer who thought them to be U-boats being the closest they came to combat.

The hero of our tale, USS O-12, was laid down at the Mr. Simon Lake’s Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut and commissioned 18 October 1918.

USS O-12 (SS-73) Photographed as she left her dock at the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., to start her official trials, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 21 August 1918. Note damaged bridge in the background. #: NH 44559

Made part of Submarine Division 1, she was sent with several sisters to secure the Panama Canal, where she spent almost all of her U.S. Naval career.

USS O-12 (Submarine # 73) At Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone in February 1920. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1971. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 74644

"O" Class Submarines photographed in port by A.E. Wells of Washington, D.C., circa 1919, with S.S. SOTHERLAND in background. Subs are (l-r): O-12 (SS-73), O-15 (SS-76), O-16 (SS-77), O-14 (SS-75), O-13 (SS-74), O-11 (SS-72).#: NH 44558

“O” Class Submarines photographed in Panama by A.E. Wells of Washington, D.C., circa 1919, with S.S. SOTHERLAND in background. Subs are (l-r): O-12 (SS-73), O-15 (SS-76), O-16 (SS-77), O-14 (SS-75), O-13 (SS-74), O-11 (SS-72).#: NH 44558

Submarines O-12, O-14, O-11, and others in dry-dock circa 1919 with floating Derrick No. 5 (YD-5). Description: Courtesy Philadelphia evening ledger. #: NH 42566

On 17 June 1924, after just a few years in commission, she was pulled from service along with all of her Lake Torpedo Boat Company design sisters, replaced by newer R and S-class submarines. Meanwhile, nine of her Electric Boat-designed classmates continued service (one, USS O-5, was lost in a collision on 28 October 1923).

Rusting away in Philadelphia, O-12 was stricken on 29 July 1930 and was soon leased for $1 per year (with a maximum of five years in options) to Lake’s company for use as a private research submarine– as far as I can tell the first time this occurred. As part of the lease, she was disarmed and had to be either returned to the Navy or scuttled in at least 1,200 feet of water after her scientific use.

Australian explorer and man of letters Sir George Hubert Wilkins, MC & Bar, and American polar explorer and philanthropist Lincoln Ellsworth (whose family bankrolled Roald Amundsen’s 1925 attempt to fly from Svalbard to the North Pole) hammered out a deal to use the retired sub on a private trip to the North.

Simon Lake was all-in and made tremendous modifications to the ex-O-12.

Cutaway illustration of the Nautilus for Modern Mechanics magazine, 1931

Cutaway illustration of the O-12/Nautilus for Modern Mechanics magazine, 1931

The prow of the submarine was equipped with a rounded plunger, which served as extra protection while diving under the ice. Her topside structure cleared for operating under ice, she was outfitted with a custom-designed drill that would allow her to bore through the ice pack overhead for ventilation and even transfer crew through the pack.

Elevating conning tower showing crewman exiting through tube on to ice

Elevating conning tower showing crewman exiting through the tube on to the ice

All 18 crewmembers–mostly ex-Navy men– had to sign a contract indemnifying Lake, the submarine’s skipper Sloan Danenhower and the Expedition against damages, including particularly claims for death.

Jean Jules Verne, grandson of Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was present at christening, at the invitation of Lake, and the ship was named Nautilus. She was christened with a bucket of ice cubes.

Ellsworth contributed $90,000 to the project while newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst added $61,000 for exclusive rights to the story. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute pitched in $35,000 and even Wilkins chipped in $25,000 of his own money. There were also several moneymaking tie-ins.

During the expedition, special radio telegrams were sent as were a series of 12,655 postal covers (mailed during the voyage at London, Bergen, Spitsbergen and from an unidentified port at the end of the expedition. The basic fee was 75 cents per cover for the first three legs, $1 for the final leg with additional fees for registry service and autographs.)

However, things started going bad almost immediately.

A June 1931 crossing to Europe almost ended in failure had Nautilus not been towed by the battleship USS Wyoming in the mid-Atlantic and emergency repairs in England. Setting out from Norway in August, they only had 600 miles to go to reach the Pole and make history.

Nautilus in the dry dock in Devonport, England undergoing repairs to the engines and other items things that failed during the first part of the voyage

Ex O Class Submarine USS O-12 pictured loading what looks like powdered milk at Bergen in 1930.

Nautilus reached 82°N, the farthest north any vessel had reached under its own power, and preparations began to dive –the first submarine to operate under the polar ice cap.

Captain Sloan Danenhower opening the conning tower hatch following a dive. A huge cake of ice can be seen jammed on the main ice drill

The Nautilus in the Arctic, 1931.

The thing is, she was missing her diving planes, suffering from mechanical issues, facing thicker ice than anticipated, and fighting severe storms and by September had to turn back for Spitsbergen and then Norway, for repairs, without ever reaching the Pole.

In Bergen

There in Norway, Wilkins threw in the towel on Nautilus and agreed with the Navy to sink her in deep water outside Bergen, which was done 30 November 1931.

Her wreck, in over 1,100 feet of water, was found in 1985 and has been visited several times since then. In good condition, the Bergen Maritime Museum has an extensive exhibit on her though there are no plans to raise this world’s first Arctic submarine.

As for her sisters, the five other Lake designs were scrapped in 1930, USS O-9 (SS-70) and her 33 officers and men were lost on a test dive in 1941, and seven Electric-design classmates served through World War II at New London training thousands of students at the Submarine School, being scrapped in 1946. Few enduring relics remain of the class.

The Ohio State University Libraries have an extensive online exhibit on Nautilus as does PigBoats.com from which many of the images in this post originate. Dr. Stewart B. Nelson has a great post covering the vessel and her discovery here while the Universal Ship Cancellation Society Log details the philately history of the Nautilus covers in a way far outside the scope of this post.

Wilkins’ 1931 book “Under the North Pole: the Wilkins-Ellsworth Submarine Expedition” is available for download free online in multiple formats.

After his death, the Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarine USS Skate on 17 March 1959. The Navy confirmed on 27 March that, “In a solemn memorial ceremony conducted by Skate shortly after surfacing, the ashes of Sir Hubert Wilkins were scattered at the North Pole in accordance with his last wishes.”

Specs:

Simon Lake’s O-12 (SS-73) retained his trademark stern and amidships planes (shown folded down in the outboard view). Note the separate flooding ports in the watertight superstructure. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

O-12 (SS-73) was discarded in 1930 to be rebuilt by Lake & Danenhower Inc., of Bridgeport CT., for the Wilkins Artic expedition. Lake had long thought about submarine operations under ice; in 1903, he built a trestle atop his Protector and deliberately operated her in iced waters. The Nautilus conversion, shown here, was far more sophisticated. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

O-12 (SS-73) was discarded in 1930 to be rebuilt by Lake & Danenhower Inc., of Bridgeport CT., for the Wilkins Arctic expedition. Lake had long thought about submarine operations under ice; in 1903, he built a trestle atop his Protector and deliberately operated her in iced waters. The Nautilus conversion, shown here, was far more sophisticated. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

Displacement:
491 long tons (499 t) surfaced
566 long tons (575 t) submerged
Length: 175 ft. (53 m)
Beam: 16 ft. 7 in (5.05 m)
Draft: 13 ft. 11 in (4.24 m)
Propulsion:
Diesel-electric
2 × 500 hp (373 kW) Busch Sulzer diesel engines
2 × 400 hp (298 kW) Diehl electric motors
1 shaft
18,588 US gallons (70,360 l; 15,478 imp gal) fuel
Speed:
14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) surfaced
11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) submerged
Test depth: 200 ft (61 m)
Complement: 2 officers, 27 men (Naval service), 20 scientists, explorers, and crew in civilian
Armament: (Disarmed 1930)
4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes, 8 torpedoes
1 × 3″/50 caliber deck gun

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

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Dive! Dive! Dive!

Posted on July 11, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Good morning! How about starting your day with some footage rarely seen outside of dolphin and bubblehead circles. Below we have the 1000th dive of the USS San Francisco (SSN 711) courtesy of COMSUBRON11. An early Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, she was commissioned 24 April 1981 and has spent her entire service homeported in the Pacific and in 2006 inherited the bow section of the retired classmate USS Honolulu (SSN-718) after a seamount collision crumpled her original. Still, with 35 years of service under her belt, that makes 29~ dives per annum, per average, which isn’t bad, and she is one of the last “first flight” 688’s left.

And it’s one hell of a view.

Warship Wednesday July 6, 2016: Of British frogmen and Japanese holy mountains

Posted on July 6, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday July 6, 2016: Of British frogmen and Japanese holy mountains

Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

Here we see His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Ship Takao, the leader of her class, who would go on to fight giants only to be crippled by midgets.

Beginning in the 1920s, the Imperial Japanese Navy had progressed from their traditional enemies– the Chinese, Russians, and Imperial Germans– to the prospect of taking on the British and Americans in the Pacific. This led to new battleships and carriers.

To screen these ships, heavy cruisers were needed. This led to the eight ships that included the 9,500-ton Furutaka-class, 8,900-ton Aoba-class, and 14,500-ton Myōkō-class heavy cruisers built between 1925-29. Building on the lessons learned from these, the Navy ordered four impressive 15,490-ton Takao-class ships, each mounting 10 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (the heaviest armament of any heavy cruiser in the world at the time) and buttressed by up to five inches of armor plate.

Bow turrets of Takao about 1932. Via Navweaps

Capable of making 35+ knots, these were bruisers and if their main guns did not catch you then their eight tubes of Type 90 (and later Type 93) torpedoes would.

Laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 28 April 1927, class leader Takao was named after the holy mountain in Kyoto which is home to the Jingo-ji temple that dates back to the 9th Century.

She was commissioned 20 May 1932 and soon three sisters followed her into service.

IJN heavy cruiser Takao as published in The Air and Sea Co. – The Air and Sea, vol.2, no.6 1933

Japanese heavy cruiser ship: H.I.J.M.S. TAKAO Catalog #: NH 111672

May.11,1937 Takao class Heavy-cruiser Takao at Sukumo Bay. Note her extensive bridge and mast location. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

Proving top-heavy, Takao and to a lesser degree her sisters were modified by having their bridge reduced, main mast was relocated aft, and hull budges added to improve stability.

World War II era recognition drawings, showing the configuration of Takao (1932-1945) and Atago (1932-1944), as modernized in 1938-39. The original print came from Office of Naval Intelligence files. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 97770

July 14, 1939 Takao-class Heavy cruiser “Takao” on sea trials at Tateyama after reconstruction. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

1939 Yokosuka

Takao cut her teeth patrolling off the coast of China during military operations there and on Dec. 8, 1941 fired her first shots in anger against Americans when she plastered the shoreline of the Lingayen Gulf on Luzon in the Philippines.

Moving into the Dutch East Indies operating with Cruiser Division 4, she quickly sank five Dutch merchantmen, the British minesweepers HMS Scott Harley and M-51, the Clemson-class destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227) with all hands, and the Royal Australian Navy sloop HMAS Yarra in the first part of 1942.

During the Battle of Midway, Takao and her sister Maya took part in the diversionary task force to capture Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians.

November 1942 found her off Guadalcanal with Adm.Nobutake Kondō’s task force built around the battleship Kirishima, Takao and her sister Atago, light cruisers Nagara and Sendai, and nine destroyers. There they collided with TF-64 under Admiral Willis A. Lee made up of the new battleships USS Washington (BB-56) and South Dakota (BB-57), together with four destroyers.

By Lukasz Kasperczyk

In the ensuing melee, Takao hit SoDak multiple times with shells, knocking out her radar and fire controls and fired Long Lance torpedoes at Washington but missed. Kirishima sank and the battle was a strategic victory for Halsey and the U.S. fleet.

For the next year, she spent her life on the run, hiding from the ever-increasing U.S. submarine force while she helped evac Guadalcanal and hid out at Truk. During the war her armament and sensor package changed a number of times (as evidenced by the plans under the specs section below).

In Nov. 1943 Takao was shellacked by SBDs Dauntless from USS Saratoga, dodged torps from USS Dace the next April, then sucked up two torpedoes from USS Darter that October which left her unable to do much more than limp around the ocean at 10-knots.

By Halloween 1944, Takao was the last of her class. Sisterships Atago, Maya and Chokai were all sunk (two by submarines) within the same week during the Battle of Leyte Gulf/Samar by U.S. forces.

A wreck, by Nov. 1944 she was largely immobile at Singapore, afloat with nothing but a skeleton crew on board and no ammunition for her large guns. Her value strictly as a floating and heavily camouflaged anti-air battery.

Crucero pesado Takao en 1945 - Lukasz Kasperczyk

Crucero Takao en 1945 – Lukasz Kasperczyk

She was joined there by Myōkō, who like Takao and the rest of the available Combined Fleet, had participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf which left her with an air-dropped torpedo in her hull and another, picked up from the submarine USS Bergall as the heavy cruiser staggered off to Southeast Asia, left her irreparable at Singapore without more materials, and impossible to tow to Japan.

Operation Struggle

During the war, the British built a more than two dozen 54-foot long X/XE/XT-class midget submarines. Capable of just a short 24-36 hour sortie, they had to be launched close to their target (think SMS Tirpitz) by a tender ship and, after penetrating an enemy harbor, frogmen would attach demo charges to ships belonging to the Emperor or Der Fuhrer.

They carried a crew of four: typically a Lieutenant in command, with a Sub-Lieutenant as deputy, an Engine Room Artificer in charge of the mechanical side and a Seaman or Leading-Seaman. At least one of them was qualified as a diver.

In January 1945, the converted freighter HMS Bonaventure (F139) set sail for the Pacific with six XE-type submarines on her deck, arriving at Brisbane, Australia on 27 April– as the European war ended. The first action these Lilliputian subs saw was in an attempt to cut the Japanese underwater telegraph lines off Borneo.

In Hervey Bay, Queensland, XE3 prepares for trials July 1945

Warming up for more daring missions, the Brits launched Operation Struggle in August in which Bonaventure sailed for the coast near Singapore and launched HMS XE1 and XE3 into the waves with a mission to sink the (already busted) Japanese cruisers Myōkō and Takao respectively. Escorted closer by the S-class submarine HMS Stygian, the tiny XE boats took all afternoon and night to penetrate the harbor defenses.

Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser RNR, commanded the three-man crew inside XE-3 when they found Takao, then lying in the Johore Straits to guard the entrance to occupied Singapore, and what he saw was surreal.

The plates of the hull and the rivets of the big cruiser could be seen very clearly through the porthole of XE-3 in the 18-feet of seawater between the bottom of the ship and the mud. One side tank held 2-tons of amatol high explosive, the second one held six 200-pound limpet mines, and Fraser held two “spare” limpets in the casing of the midget sub.

After setting all of their charges, Fraser surfaced the tiny sub not too far off from the cruiser so the crew could see the vessel for what they thought was the last time, “I thought they might like to see it,” he said in a post-war interview.

Six hours later the charges tore a gaping hole in the cruiser’s hull, putting her turrets out of action, damaging her range finders, flooding numerous compartments and immobilizing the cruiser for the remainder of the war. She settled six feet six feet deeper into the harbor though her 01 deck was still above water even at high tide and was still technically afloat.

Both Magennis and Fraser gained the Victoria Cross for this hazardous mission, with the other two crew members also decorated ( Sub-Lieutenant William James Lanyon Smith, RNZNVR, who was at the controls of XE3 during the attack, received the DSO; Engine Room Artificer Third Class Charles Alfred Reed, who was at the wheel, received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal).

James Magennis VC and Ian Fraser VC WWII IWM 26940A

A week later, after aerial recon showed the Takao was still in the harbor– though nearly on the bottom of it– Fraser and his crew were readying a second go round on the ship and the Myōkō that was postponed by the dropping of the A-bomb and then later canceled once the surrender was announced.

This, Fraser said, made him a big fan of the Bomb and left him with a rough attitude towards Japanese.

Both Myōkō and Takao surrendered to the British when they arrived in Singapore in force on Sept. 21 as part of Operation Tiderace, and when the RN got a closer look at the two found out the truth about their condition.

Fraser even returned to inspect the Takao in Singapore himself just after the end of the war. The beaten cruiser, however, would never see Japan again. She was patched up and scuttled 27 October 1946 by British Forces, with the Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Newfoundland (59) sending her into very deep water by the judicious use of naval gunfire and torpedoes– likely one of the last time a cruiser used a torpedo on another.

Her crew was repatriated to Japan in 1947.

As for XE-3, she was scrapped along with most of the other British midgets with only XE8 “Expunger” saved and put on public display at the Chatham Historic Dockyard.

For Takao, little remains.

A 1930 1:100 scale builder’s model of the Takao, captured in Japan in 1945, is in the collection of the Naval History and Heritage Command and has been displayed off an on for generations.

Catalog #: NH 84079. Note her original mast and bridge.

Takao has, however, inspired a number of pieces of naval art, mainly for model covers over the past several decades.

In the UK, the Imperial War Museum has the frogman swim suit worn on by Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis RN, VC when as the diver of the midget submarine XE3 (commanded by Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser RNR) he attached limpet explosive charges to the hull of ‘Takao‘, as well as a white IJN captain’s field cap recovered from the vessel.

The IWM also has a 1980 interview with XE 3 skipper Lt. Comm. Ian Fraser, V.C., D S.C. that includes his own account of the Takao strike (reel 2 and 3).

He wrote a book about his WWII exploits, which is long out of print but is still very much in circulation.

Specs:

Takao plans via shipbucket http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Real%20Designs/Japan

Takao’s ever-changing plans via shipbucket

Displacement:
9,850 t (9,690 long tons) (standard)
15,490 t (15,250 long tons) (full load)
Length:
192.5 m (632 ft.)
203.76 m (668.5 ft.) overall
Beam:
19 m (62 ft.)
20.4 m (67 ft.)
Draft:
6.11 m (20.0 ft)
6.32 m (20.7 ft.)
Propulsion:
4 shaft geared turbine
12 Kampon boilers
132,000 shp (98,000 kW)
Speed: 35.5–34.2 knots (65.7–63.3 km/h; 40.9–39.4 mph)
Range: 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Complement: 773
Armament:
Original layout:
10 × 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (5×2)
4 × Type 10 12 cm high angle guns (4×1)
8 × 61 cm torpedo tubes (4×2)
2 × 40 mm AA guns (2×1)
2 x 7.7 mm Type 92 MG (2×1)
Final Layout (Takao):
10 × 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (5×2)
4 × Type 89 12.7 cm (5 in) dual-purpose guns, (4×1)
66 × Type 96 25 mm (1.0 in) AA guns (26×1, 12×2, 24×3)
4 × Type 93 13.2 mm (0.5 in) AA machine guns
Type 93 torpedoes (4×4 + 8 reloads)
depth charges
Armor:
main belt: 38 to 127 mm
main deck: 37 mm (max)
upper deck: 12.7 to 25 mm
bulkheads: 76 to 100 mm
turrets: 25 mm
Aircraft carried:
One Aichi E13A1 “Jake”
Two F1M2 “Pete” seaplanes
Aviation facilities: 2 catapults

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

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

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Geoffrey Muirhead Bone, of the Somme and the Sea

Posted on July 3, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Geoffrey Muirhead Bone

Sir Muirhead Bone N.E.A.C., H.R.W.S., H.R.S.A was born 23 March 1876 in Glasgow, the son of a journalist. Bone trained to be an architect, whilst attending evening drawing classes at Glasgow School of Art where, in 1894, he decided to become an artist.

He worked for a period as a freelance illustrator for the Scots Pictorial as he honed his skill in pencil, watercolor, charcoal and gouache; as well as an etcher and sculptor.

Summer, Isle of Whithorn

His drawings of Scotland served as inspiration for later etchings, and this precise and charming watercolor has all the definition of an etching. Bone was an outstanding draughtsman with an acute sense of observation. Bone moved to London in 1901 but was to travel extensively throughout his life.

In May 1916, at the suggestion of William Rothenstein, 40-year-old Bone was appointed the first Official War Artist of the British War Propaganda Bureau, serving with Allied forces on the Western Front and for a time with the Navy.

The war artist Lieutenant Muirhead Bone crossing a muddy road, Maricourt, September 1916. IWM

His first assignment: The Somme, where the flower of British and Commonwealth youth was snuffed out in the blink of an eye 100 years ago this month.

As noted by the Imperial War Museum:

Bone arrived in France on 16 August 1916 at the height of the Somme offensive. He was made an honorary second lieutenant and provided with a car, giving him easier access to the battlefields.

He toured the Somme battlefields in the south – Maricourt, Fricourt, Montauban, Mametz Wood, Contalmaison, Trônes Wood, High Wood, Delville Wood and Pozières. He worked quickly in pencil, pen, charcoal and chalk and by 6 October had sent home approximately 150 finished drawings.

He mostly recorded life behind the lines, illustrating the context and impact of the battle rather than scenes of fighting. He depicted the work of the medical services, encampments, soldiers off duty, soldiers marching, landscapes and ruined towns.

He later said: ‘I did not like to imagine war scenes & so only drew what I saw & then only when I had a chance to draw it. I am afraid [this] resulted in rather prosaic work’.

The detail and accuracy of Bone’s drawings provided an authentic, eyewitness record of the immense logistic efforts of the Somme, one that proved extremely popular and resulted in more war artists being commissioned.

The Querrieu – Albert Road An Anti-observation screen

Welsh Soldiers

tanks!

Erecting Aeroplanes

The Château, Foucaucourt

A Dead Tank

Guards Mustering for a Royal Review behind the Somme 1916

Watching our Artillery Fire on Trônes Wood from Montauban 1916

The Untilled Fields

Tommy, pencil 1916

Many of these were published during the war as The Western Front, a two-volume set of drawings with captions by Muirhead Bone, published in 1917, which is a classic of military art for the past 99 years.

The cover of The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone. Click here to download the full volume of drawings.

There was evidence this volume was used as propaganda during the war with the government’s own bio of Bone stating:

12,000 copies of the publications were to be sold, 12,000 were to be used for propaganda and 6,000 were sent to America. The publication was also translated into French (Agence et Messageries du Figaro, 1916) and 300 of these editions were sent to France along with 500 in the original English. Plates and postcards were also reproduced for distribution. There is also evidence to prove, however, that what was represented in Bone’s sketches, etchings and lithographs was represented as truthfully as possible.

Besides his work on the Western Front, he spent a good bit of 1917 observing the wartime RN, which enabled him to publish With the Grand Fleet

Between Decks (H.M.S. “Lion”)

HMS Lion: A Gun Turret

Mounting a Great Gun

Final Assembly of a Naval Great Gun

Nightwork on the Great Gun 1917

Between the wars, he returned to what he loved and knew best: landscapes.

The Mountain Background, Gerona ?1926 Sir Muirhead Bone 1876-1953 Purchased 1930 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N04558

“The Mountain Background, Gerona” 1926 Sir Muirhead Bone 1876-1953 Purchased 1930. Via the Tate.

Bone, Muirhead; Broadford Pier, Skye; Glasgow Museums;

Then came WWII and Bone was off again, becoming a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specializing in Admiralty subjects.

Sir Muirhead Bone at work on the bridge. 1940

Sir Muirhead Bone, age 64, at work on the bridge. 1940

HMS Illustrious entering the Basin at John Brown’s Shipyard, Clydebank 1940

Building HM Submarine Tradewind, a Royal Navy submarine under construction in a dockyard. The hull is in place in the water, with numerous workers on deck, where they are busy assembling the conning tower and whole upper deck. Two large cranes are visible in the background and there is a large rowing boat in the water in the left foreground. IWM ART LD 3315. Built as P329 at Chatham, and launched on 11 December 1942, HMS Tradewind was infamous for sinking the Japanese army cargo ship Junyō Maru on 18 September 1944. Unbeknown to the Commanding Officer of Tradewind, Lt.Cdr. Lynch Maydon, the Junyō Maru was carrying 4,200 Javanese slave laborers and 2,300 Allied prisoners of war of which she took down 5,620 with her into the darkness.

A portrait of George Anderson and Lawrence Smith Halcrow, shown manning a Lewis gun in an emplacement on the deck of SS Highlander. IWM 3020

Lowering a mine into the mining deck, Dec. 1940

Minelaying off Iceland

Minelaying: The last of the lay

Sir Muirhead Bone died on 21 October 1953 in Oxford, aged 77

Much of his Bone’s art is preserved and on public display throughout the UK, cataloged over at Art UK and in the collection of the Imperial War Museum and the Tate.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Ling being stripped as she awaits her fate

Posted on June 21, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Named for the magnificent lemon fish (cobia) that haunt the reefs of the Gulf of Mexico, the submarine USS Ling (SS/AGSS/IXSS-297) was one of 128 Balao-class fleet boats commissioned to bring the war to Japan’s home waters, though she was commissioned just a few weeks too late to get any licks in. Spending just 16 months on active duty, she was put in mothballs then served as a pier-side trainer for Naval reservists until the Navy got rid of her in 1972, donating the barely used but aging diesel boat to serve as a museum, becoming the centerpiece of the New Jersey Naval Museum at 78 River St. in Hackensack.

At the time the landowner agreed to rent the space to the Submarine Memorial Foundation for $1 a year in 1972, but now the veterans are getting kicked off of the property so it can be developed for its real estate potential.

The land upon which the museum and memorial sit is owned by Stephen Borg of MacroMedia — the parent company for North Jersey Media Group.

Borg’s grandfather was a veteran and brokered the original deal.

“Since 1994, the company has only had a month-to-month arrangement with the association, which we terminated on May 31, 2016,” Borg’s lawyer said in a statement as reported by CBS New York.

The thing is the channel that Ling was towed in through some 44 years ago has silted in due to the water flow being altered by the Oradell Dam and there is likely no way to move her without either A) dredging the channel which is likely cost prohibitive or B) cutting her up in place. Even if the channel was dredged, the elderly Court Street Bridge over the Hackensack River would have to be opened to allow her to pass– something that hasn’t been done since 1994.

But the old sub, which has long been the target of souvenir hunters, is already attracting more vultures.

“This is what we get when we turn out back on history…”

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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