Category Archives: submarines

Warship Wednesday, July 19, 2023: Red Sub Circumnavigator

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

Warship Wednesday, July 19, 2023: Red Sub Circumnavigator

Above we see the type IX-bis S (Stalinets) class “medium” Guards Red Banner submarine S-56 returning to Polyarni in early 1944 from a patrol off the coast of German-occupied Norway. The most celebrated of her class, she claimed one of her biggest “kills” some 80 years ago today.

The S-class

It is a little-known fact that the Tsarist Imperial Navy entered the Great War in 1914 with more submarines in its inventory than anyone else. Following the national disaster that was the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the reformed Red Navy inherited a few of these old boats and even managed to keep some of them in operation into the 1950s!

When it came to new designs, by the late 1920s the Soviets built a half dozen modest 1,300-ton Dekabrist-class (Series I) submarines constructed with Italian expertise, followed by 25 minelaying Leninets-class (L class, or Series II) submarines of the same size which were essentially reverse engineered from the lost British L-class submarine HMS L55 which was recovered by the Soviets, and a staggering 88 Shchuka-class (Series III, V, V-bis, V-bis-2, X, X-1938) “medium” submarines that went some 700 tons and were ideal for use in the cramped Baltic and Black seas.

Then, the Stalinets class in IX, IX-bis, IX-bis-II, and XVI series, began to appear in 1936.

Besides the lessons learned in making the Italian-based Dekabrist-class and English-based Leninets-class boats, the Russians, who were very close to a quietly rearming Weimar Germany in the early 1930s, worked with the Dutch front company Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (IvS), which was, in fact, a dummy funded by the German Weimar-era Reichsmarine using design assets from German shipyards AG Vulcan, Krupp-Germaniawerft, and AG Weser to keep Berlin in the sub-making biz while skirting the ban on such activity by the Versailles treaty.

IvS had previously built boats and shared technology with Finland and Spain and it was with the latter’s planned Submarino E-1 that the Soviet S-series was based.

Spanish submarine E-1 at the shipyard in Cádiz. Built in Spain from 1929-30, Soviet engineers participated in her construction and trails. Although her design would go on to be used as the basis for both the German Type IA submarine and the Russian Stalinets class, ironically, the Spanish Navy never operated E-1, as she was sold to Turkey in 1935 just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. She went on to fly the star and crescent until 1947 as TCG Gür.

Some 255 feet long and with an 840/1070 ton displacement, the basic Stalinets design was good for 19.5 knots on the surface and a cruising range of 4,000nm. Carrying four forward torpedo tubes and two sterns, they also mounted a 100mm deck gun and a 45mm backup as well as machine guns that could be set up for AAA use. Besides the six 533mm torpedoes in the tubes, they could carry another six spare fish.

Stalinets class

The first flight of three boats used German diesels, something that was corrected in follow-on ships that evolved slightly across their construction, hence the four different flights. In all, some 41 Stalinets would be completed. The first, C-1, was laid down on Christmas Day 1934 (because who needs religion in the worker’s paradise) and delivered on 23 September 1936 while a final eight whose construction began at around the same time languished on the builder’s ways during WWII, and were only finished post-war.

The subject of our tale is the most successful of the class. Of the 33 Stalinets class boats completed in time for WWII, 16 were lost. Of the 30 that saw combat patrols, 19 claimed tonnages. This would include the infamous S-13, which sank five ships including two large transports Wilhelm Gustloff and General Steuben, regarded as among the worst maritime disasters in history.

1946 Janes entry on what was left of the class at that time

Two submarines of the class were awarded the rank of Guards, and seven boats earned the Red Banner, only S-56 was awarded both distinctions.

Meet S-56

A 2nd series (IX-bis) Stalinets, S-56 was intended for service in the Pacific Fleet and therefore was assembled at the Dalzavod works at Vladivostok from a kit sent across Siberia from Leningrad starting on 24 November 1936. Launched Christmas 1939, she was commissioned on 20 October 1941, as the Germans were on the outskirts of Moscow.

With the Soviets eschewing combat against the Japanese until after Berlin was licked, on 6 October 1942, S-56, along with sisters S-51, S-54, and S-55, departed Vladivostok ahead of the ice to join the Red Navy’s Northern Fleet at Murmansk. They would be joined by the Leninists-class minelaying subs L-15 and L-16 sailing from Petropavlovsk on a 17,000-mile transoceanic voyage across both Pacific and Atlantic, maneuvering the seas of Japan, Okhotsk, Bering, Caribbean, Sargasso, Northern, Greenland, Norwegian and Barents with stops in Dutch Harbor, San Francisco, the Panama Canal, Guantanamo Bay, Halifax, and Rosyth.

At least that was the plan.

L-16 was lost en route with all hands, believed torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine I-25 on 11 October 1942 approximately 500 miles west of Seattle. This was even though the Soviet Union and Japan were officially at peace. Fog of war, after all.

Via Combined Fleets on I-25:

While returning to Japan on the surface, I-25 spots two ships, apparently en route to San Francisco. The seas are rough. LCDR Tagami first identifies the ships as two battleships. Later, he identifies them as two “American” submarines. At 1100, he dives and fires his last remaining torpedo. It hits 30 seconds later. Several heavy explosions follow. One of the explosions wrecks a head aboard I-25.

The leading submarine starts to sink rapidly stern first with its bow up 45 degrees. A second explosion follows. When the smoke clears there is only an oil slick on the water. The submarine sinks with all 56 hands (a Russian crew of 55, a naturalized American and American interpreter/liaison officer Sergey A. V. Mikhailoff (USNR) who boarded the submarine at Dutch Harbor) at 45-41N, 138-56E. (Postwar, it is learned that the submarine was Soviet Cdr Dmitri F. Gussarov’s 1,039-ton minelayer L-16 en route from Petropavlovsk, Siberia via Dutch Harbor, Alaska to San Francisco.)

The accompanying Soviet L-15 reports seeing one more wake, fires five 45-mm rounds at I-25 and mistakenly claims a hit on I-25’s periscopes.

The five remaining Russian boats were captured several times by American and Canadian cameras while en route to Murmansk.

Russian S-type submarine probably photographed about 1942. 80-G-636837

The Russian submarine S-54 is seen departing Mare Island on 11 November 1942. USN photo # 6697-42

Russian submarine SS-55 is seen departing Mare Island on 11 November 1942. USN photo # 7001-42

The skippers had a chance to meet and pose for a snapshot in Panama, where they rested from 25 November 25 to 2 December 1942.

From left to right: S-54 skipper, LCDR Dmitry Kondratievich Bratishko, S-51 skipper Captain 3rd rank Ivan Fomich Kucherenko, submarine group commander, Captain 1st Rank Alexander Vladimirovich Tripolsky, commander of S-56 LCDR Grigory Ivanovich Shchedrin, commander L-15 Captain 3rd Rank Vasily Isakovich Komarov, Commander S-55 Captain 3rd Rank Lev Mikhailovich Sushkin. Unfortunately, the names of the American officers are not noted.

Soviet “L” Class submarine (L-15) in Halifax harbor. Date: January 1943. Reference: H.B. Jefferson Nova Scotia Archives 1992-304 / 43.1.4 180.

In March 1943, S-56 became part of the 2nd division of the submarine brigade of the Northern Fleet, after a voyage of 153 days.

Her combat career would encompass 125 days underway on eight patrols against the Germans in which she was declared overdue and likely destroyed no less than 19 times, more an issue of poor radio communications than anything else.

S-56 in the Northern Fleet

She logged 13 attacks and fired 30 torpedoes. This included several runs on German convoys, escaping a surface duel with a pair of escorts, surviving a glancing torpedo strike from the German U-711, and reportedly hitting at least one large freighter with a dud torpedo.

Although she would claim 14 enemy transports and warships sunk with a total displacement of 85,000 tons, her post-war validated tally is a good bit smaller (as are most subs from all sides).

Her successes detailed by U-boat.net, included:

  • 17 May 1943 sank the German tanker Eurostadt (1118 GRT) off the Kongsfjord.
  • 17 July 1943 sank the German minesweeper M 346 (551 tons) west of the Tanafjord.
  • 19 July 1943: Torpedoed and sank the German auxiliary patrol vessel NKi 09 / Alane (466 GRT, former British ASW trawler HMS Warwickshire) off the Tanafjord near Gamvik.
  • 31 July 1943 sank the German merchant Heinrich Schulte (5056 GRT) west of the Tanafjord.

C56 Victory Parade July 1945

Epilogue

In 1954, the now famed S-56 was sent back to her birthplace at Vladivostok via the then very perilous Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, thus becoming the first Russian submarine to circumnavigate the globe.

Decommissioned in 1955, she was retained in the Pacific Fleet as a floating charging station and damage control training hulk, renamed ZAS-8 and then UTS-14.

In 1975, on the 30th anniversary of VE Day, she was installed as a museum ship on the Korabelnaya Embankment, where she remains well preserved today, the last of her class.

She is also celebrated in several heroic Soviet maritime art pieces.

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

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Incident #3658

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80 Years ago today: Attack on the Type VIIC German submarine, U-134 (Kptlt. Hans-Günther Brosin), by a PBM Mariner of the “Flying Tigers” of VP-201, lat 27-04W, Long 59-48W, the pilot was LT John T. Hitchcock– a gunfighter’s name– in incident #3658, on 8 July 1943.

U.S. Navy photo in the National Archives. 80-G-205264

The U-boat survived this attack, along with three others on 18 and 19 July and 21 August. U-134 notably knocked USN Blimp K-74 (Sqdn ZP 21) from the sky on the 18 July encounter– the only airship shot down during WWII.

U-134 finally met her match on 27 August 1943 in the Bay of Biscay north of Cape Ortegal, in position 44.03N, 08.05W, by depth charges from the British frigate HMS Rother. (Axel Niestlé & Eric Zimmerman, July 2004).

All hands were lost, with Brosin and his 47 tough-to-kill members of the Ubootwaffe, still on patrol.

The pilot of the lumbering flying boat in the image above, LT Hitchcock, would become an anthropologist and college professor of some note after the war, hanging up his guns so to speak.

As for VP-201, it was redesignated VPB-201 on 1 October 1944, then on 15 May 1946 to VP-MS-1, then to VP-ML-8 the next year when they converted to the new P2V Neptune, and finally Patrol Squadron (VP) 8 on 1 September 1948, later becoming the first squadron to field the P-3 Orion. The Flying Tigers are still around, based at Jacksonville as part of AIRLANT. These days they fly the P-8A Poseidon.

Getting back in the game after 3 years in the penalty box

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80 years ago today, several French Navy warships that had been interned at Alexandria from June 1940 to June 1943 were rearmed, saluted, and welcomed back to the war. Among these was the cruiser Suffren.

French heavy cruiser Suffren leaving Alexandria Harbor, Egypt, 23rd June 1943, after a three-year stay during which she was interned by the British. She sailed out to join the Free French forces- IWM Photo

French heavy cruiser Suffren, shown leaving Alexandria Harbor, Egypt, on 23rd June 1943, after a three-year stay during which she was interned by the British. She sailed out to join the Free French forces- IWM Photo

To students of naval history, the name “Suffren” is quick to jog memories.

An homage to Admiral Comte Pierre André de Suffren, an 18th-century hero who doggedly fought the Royal Navy from the East Indies to the West Indies and off the coast of North America during the Seven Years War and later the American Revolution, more than a half-dozen French ships have carried his name.

These included the 74-gun ship of the line that tangled with HMS Victory directly at Trafalgar, an event that led to Nelson’s death; the early and somewhat innovative central battery ironclad of the late 19th Century; a Great War-era République-class pre-dreadnought that covered the withdrawal from the Dardanelles in 1915 with her 12-inch guns only to be sunk by a German U-boat the next winter; the lead-ship of a four-vessel class of heavy cruisers that saw combat in WWII; and the lead ship of a class of guided-missile destroyers that served during the Cold War.

The WWII-era Suffren, a handsome 12,000-ton CA, survived WWII in Free French service and went on to serve off Indochina and elsewhere, only heading to the breakers in 1974.

In 2019, the eighth Suffren, a brand new Barracuda-class submarine (Q284), was launched. The name was, once again, set aside for the first ship of her class.

The 7th warship to carry the name for France, Suffren (D602), was decommissioned in 2008 after nearly a decade in reserve. The 8th was commissioned in late 2020.

The submarine’s skipper was presented with relics from past Suffrens, including the long-interned cruiser

Welcome Back, Iowa

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The future USS Iowa (SSN 797) was officially christened by Christie Vilsack, the ship’s sponsor and former first lady of Iowa, during a ceremony at the Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut last Saturday. She is the 23rd Virginia-class submarine and the 6th advanced Block IV boat of the class.

230617-N-UR986-0140 GROTON, Conn. (June 17, 2023) – Christie Vilsack, sponsor of the pre-commissioning unit (PCU) USS Iowa (SSN 797), christens the ship during a ceremony at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut , June 17, 2023. Iowa and crew will operate under Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) FOUR 

230617-N-UR986-0042 GROTON, Conn. (June 17, 2023) – The crew of the pre-commissioning unit (PCU) USS Iowa (SSN 797), stand in ranks next to their ship during a christening ceremony at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut, June 17, 2023. 

The future USS Iowa (SSN 797) is the fourth U.S. Navy vessel and first submarine named in recognition of the state. Previous ships named after the state were battleships, as well as, a converted merchant ship that was never activated.

Her crest includes BB-61, “The Grey Ghost” that I saw recommission in 1984 as an excited 10-year-old at Pascagoula– and accidentally bumped into then Veep George Bush in a passageway.

The final battleship Iowa decommissioned on 26 October 1990 and her name was stricken from the NVR on 17 March 2006, leaving an almost 16-year gap on the Navy List without the Hawkeye State.

Ironically, the first USS Iowa (Battleship No. 4) was launched on 16 June 1897– 126 years and one day prior.

Triumph, located

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British T class submarine HMS Triumph (N18) underway, circa 1940. IWM FL 5477

HM Submarine Triumph (N 18), a Royal Navy T class boat, was ordered from Vickers in 1936 just after Hitler ordered the Rhineland reoccupied, launched in early 1938 as his forces made ready to roll into Austria for the Anschluss, and commissioned in early 1939 as the Czechoslovakia crisis was coming to an end following that country disappearing from the map.

Beginning her first war patrol off Norway the day Germany and Britain opened hostilities, Triumph would go missing while on her 21st war patrol in January 1942 while conducting special operations off Axis-occupied Greece.

She never made it back to Alexandria and her skipper, Lt. John Symons Huddart, two SOE commandos hitching a ride, and his crew of 6 officers and 55 ratings were marked lost with HMS Triumph on 23 January.

Well, it looks like this mystery has been solved by Greek wreck diver Kostas Thoctarides, with a wreck found at a 203m depth in the Aegean Sea.

His group, ROV Services, has extensively documented the wreck verifying the following:

  • 84.28 meters long
  • A maximum width of 7.77 meters.
  • The tropid depth at periscopic depth was 34 feet (10.36 meters).
  • The TRIUMPH was the only of its T Class without external primary torpedo tubes, as they were removed during repairs in 1940 following an impact into a mine.

Of note, the Royal Navy lost 79 commissioned submarines during WWII, compared to the 52 lost by the U.S. Navy. This figure does not include such special operation vessels as the seven X craft, 18 chariots, and 5 Welmans.

Coast Guard Welcomes Back an Old Name, Retires Another

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One thing I like about the USCG is that they ditch a lot of the political rhetoric when it comes to cutter naming conventions, and make sure they salute their heroes and storied past vessels.

For instance, the first flight of 11 new 360-foot Offshore Patrol Cutters, large OPVs that will surely be sent into harm’s way several times at some point in their likely 50-year careers, all will carry the recycled names of traditional cutters that fought in the War of 1812, the Quasi-War, WWII, Vietnam, and the Great War.

One of the pending OPCs will honor USCGC Icarus (WPC-110) the famed 165-foot “B”-Class cutter that sank one of the first Nazi U-boats, U-352, in 1942 just after U.S. entry into World War II.

A great retelling of that lopsided David v Goliath sea clash, in which the German submarine had superior speed, surface and subsurface armament, is retold in Hickam’s Torpedo Junction.

In the book, Hickam spends a whole chapter on the humble Icarus— a gunboat that didn’t even have a sonar range finder– commanded by 52-year-old LT Maurice David Jester, a life-long Coastie enlisted in the service as a surfman in 1917, and its epic combat against Kptln. Helmutt Rathke’s U-352.

In the end, it came down to a surface action in which the cutter used all of its weapons, including Tommy guns, against the German, sending the sub to the bottom.

Then, in typical Coast Guard fashion, they saved 33 of her crew, including Rathke, and took them ashore to POW captivity for the duration.

Before steaming for Charleston, Jester transmitted: 

“Contacted submarine Destroyed same. Lat 34°12 ½” Long 76° 35″. Have 33 of her crew members on board. Proceeding Charleston with survivors.” 

Man, she looks short! USS Icarus, CG arriving at Charleston Navy Yard after its epic battle with U-352, photo dated 10 May 1942.

Coast Guard Cutter Icarus drawn in profile. (Coast Guard Collection)

The wreck site of the U-352 as it appears today. (Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Jester was the first Coast Guardsman to receive the Navy Cross and one of only six service members to receive it during the war.

He retired in 1944 with the rank of full commander, capping 27 years of service that spanned the First World War, Prohibition, and the Second World War.

He is interred at Arlington.

In a fitting salute to the hard-charging commander of the Icarus, the Coast Guard late last week commissioned USCGC Maurice Jester (WPC-1152), a new 154-foot Sentinel-class fast response cutter. Fittingly, she also carries the WPC designation as Icarus and is only 11 feet shorter.

The fast response cutter’s motto is “Against All Odds”.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Maurice Jester (WPC 1152), dressed overall during its commissioning ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island, June 2, 2023. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyric Jackson) . (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lyric Jackson)

Farewell, Bayberry

As Jester comes to life, the Coast Guard is putting one of its longest-serving cutters to pasture.

Originally commissioned in 1954 just as Buoy Boat CG-65400-D, the USCGC Bayberry (WLI 65400) picked up her name a few years later when the service authorized naming vessels 65 feet long or larger.

Captained by a senior chief petty officer and crewed by seven other enlisted, she had been working hard from San Francisco to Washington to Oak Island where she has been stationed since 2009. The “Keeper of Cape Fear” was just decommissioned after 69 years of service.

The Cutter Bayberry sits at a pier at Station Oak Island, N.C. Jun. 7, 2023, before its special status ceremony to signify the beginning of it being decommissioned after 69 years of active Coast Guard service. The Bayberry was built by Reliable Welding Works in Olympia, Washington. U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 2nd class Katie Lipe.

As noted by the USCG:

The Bayberry’s recent accomplishments include post-hurricane Dorian operations, where the crew led a waterways reconstitution mission, completed a complex voyage correcting 40 aids to navigation discrepancies, enabling the rapid resumption of ferry service, and facilitating the delivery of emergency supplies to 700 residents stranded on Ocracoke Island.

In typical Coast Guard fashion, Bayberry is to be replaced by the rather stalled 35-vessel Waterways Commerce Cutter program, which is far from its first delivery.

Warship Wednesday, June 7, 2023: Shutterbug SSK

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

Warship Wednesday, June 7, 2023: Shutterbug SSK

Time-Life Archives, Bernard Hoffman, photographer, from a series that ran in LIFE in 1943 entitled, How to Build a Submarine.

Above we see a fantastic original Kodachrome from 80 years ago of a female shipyard worker at Electric Boat in New London with an acetylene torch near the forward escape hatch of a building Gato-class submarine. Inscribed on the hatch is the hull number SS-243, making this the future USS Bream.

A couple of other great shots from that day, seemingly centered on the rear hatch: 

About the Gatos

One of the 77 Gatos cranked out by four shipyards from 1940 to 1944 for the U.S. Navy, they were impressive 311-foot long fleet boats, diesel-electric submarines capable of extended operations in the far reaches of the Pacific.

Able to swim an impressive 11,000 nautical miles on their economical power plant while still having room for 24 (often cranky) torpedoes. A 3-inch deck gun served for surface action in poking holes in vessels deemed not worth a torpedo while a few .50 and .30-cal machine guns provided the illusion of an anti-aircraft armament.

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

Meet Bream

Our subject, Bream, was the only U.S. Navy ship to carry the name of the “A common food and game fish of the carp family typically found in lakes and slow rivers,” as noted by DANFS.

USS Bream (SS 243), insignia, showing a fish nipping a horned Japanese admiral. Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Charles Jacobs, USN, on 14 August 1943, at her builder’s yard, the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut. National Archives photograph: 80-G-468313.

Built by Electric Boat Co. of Groton, Connecticut, she commissioned on 24 January 1944, one of the staggering 74 submarines and 398 PT boats EB made for Uncle during WWII.

Her first skipper was LCDR Wreford Goss “Moon” Chapple (USNA 1930), a former heavyweight boxing champion at Annapolis who had already earned two Navy Crosses and two Silver Stars in command of the submarines USS S-38 and USS Permit.

To tell you a bit about Chapple, he was officially reprimanded in February 1942 for bringing 40 officers and men out of besieged Corregidor, pulled on the carpet because of the gross overcrowding on his little boat. Here, he is seen with his wife, Mrs. Chapple, who was the boat’s sponsor, and son, at Bream’s christening. (EBCo Photo)

Following shakedown and exercises on the East Coast and off Panama, Bream crossed “The Ditch” into the Pacific in April 1944 then made for Seeadler Harbor in the Admiralties by way of Australia.

From Seeadler, she put to sea on 29 May for her 1st War Patrol, loaded with Mark 23 torpedoes for the Morotai Strait.

Chasing down contacts and avoiding Japanese sub busters, she made two unsuccessful attacks on passing convoys in early June before hitting paydirt on 16 June when she torpedoed and sank the Japanese army cargo ships Yuki Maru (5704 GRT) and Hinode Maru (1916 GRT) off Halmahera Island. Bream promptly got 25 depth charges dropped on her roof in exchange.

From her patrol report:

Bream ended her 1st War Patrol at Manus on 29 June then put back out for an unsuccessful 2nd War Patrol, south of the Philippines, three weeks later that ended in early September with a return to Australia.

Her 3rd War Patrol would be much more fruitful.

Heading out on 2 October, Moon, besides his command on Bream, was commander for a submarine “search and attack group” (Yankee wolfpack) consisting of USS Raton (SS-270) and USS Guitarro (SS-363), bound for a patrol in the central Philippines, where they would be joined briefly by USS Ray (SS-271).

On the 23rd, Bream torpedoed and damaged the 9,000-ton Japanese heavy cruiser Aoba off Manila Bay, with one of six torpedoes hitting the warship’s No. 2 engine room. In return, the cruiser’s escorts dropped 32 depth charges on our boat.

From Bream’s patrol report:

The heavily damaged Japanese cruiser Aoba 

Aoba limped into Cavite Navy Yard near Manila for emergency repairs. She would eventually make it back, slowly, to Kure but her damage was deemed irreparable and she never sailed again. Related to a floating AAA battery, Aoba was later sent to the bottom there at the hands of TF 38 carrier aircraft.

On 24 October, Bream ran across floating debris that included several dead bodies (listed by Moon as “non-survivors”) and six Japanese who they took prisoner after one sailor, White, “showed unusual solicitude in diving overboard to retrieve one who slipped back into the water.”

From her patrol report:

These EPOWs were quartered in the forward torpedo room and then transferred to Australia-bound sister USS Cod (SS-224) five days later, with Moon noting in his ship’s log “Cod was not too crazy about the Japs.”

Then, on 4 November, the Bream-Guitarro-Ray wolfpack shared the sinking of the Japanese seaplane tender/transport Kagu Maru (6806 GRT), picked off from convoy TAMA-31A off Dasol Bay, Philippines. The poor Kagu Maru, carrying troops of the 218th Naval Construction Unit, had no chance, being hit by one of four torpedoes from Bream, then one of eight torpedoes from Guitarro, and finally two of two from Ray in a third attack.

During the November 4 attack, Bream was also attacked by a Japanese plane, which dropped two bombs that resulted in a near miss that nonetheless caused some flooding and damage to our boat.

From her patrol report:

Two days later, on 6 November, the pack found the Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano west of Lingayen.

From her patrol report:

Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano anchored at Rabaul, with a Mitsubishi F1M Pete reconnaissance seaplane in the foreground, December 4-5, 1942

Part of the cover force for convoy MATA-31, Kumano had narrowly avoided the submarine USS Batfish the day prior but, out of a staggering 23 torpedoes fired from the Bream-Guitarro-Ray-Raton wolfpack, two made good, blowing off the cruiser’s bow section and flooding all her engine rooms. Dead in the water, Kumano had to be towed into Dasol Bay with an 11-degree list. Towed from there to Santa Cruz harbor, she was found still under repair on 25 November by aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga and bombed to the bottom of the harbor.

By that time, Bream’s submariners were already throwing back a cold one in Australia and returned home early.

Her third patrol ended after just 52 days (35 submerged), with Bream traveling 10,833 miles. Her primary reason for calling it quits early was that she only had three torpedoes left. It would be her most successful patrol.

There, plankowner skipper Moon Chapple was pulled from his boat, given a Gold Star in lieu of the Second Silver Star Medal, and sent back to New London to become a tactics instructor at the Submarine School, replaced by LCDR James Lowell Page McCallum.

Targets thinned out notably by this stage of the war, with most subs managing only to bag the occasional coaster or trawler via surface action as the small fry wasn’t worth wasting a torpedo on. For instance, Bream on 14 March 1945 bagged the auxiliary submarine chaser Keihin Maru (76 GRT) in a surface action in the Java Sea, while on her 5th War Patrol, after adding no tonnage on her 4th Patrol in early 1945.

An extensive depth charging in March that cut her 5th Patrol short led to the submarine’s periscopes, her starboard shaft, and both of her screws being replaced in Freemantle, a patch job that was done in three weeks. She was thought capable of another patrol and sortied out on 20 April.

On her 6th War Patrol, Bream came across the German minesweeper/submarine depot ship Quito (1230 GRT) off Borneo’s Tanjong Puttion on 29 April, just a week away from VE Day. Loaded with fuel for Monsoon U-boats, she had been steaming from the oil fields of Balikpapan for Jakarta, and, with her daily position reports intercepted by the Navy’s FRUMEL unit in Melbourne, she was never going to make it.

From her patrol report:

The next day, a severely burned survivor from Quito, picked up by the submarine USS Besugo (SS-321), passed on the identity of the fireball that Bream had sent to the bottom.

Later on the same patrol, Bream was given orders to recon the anchorage at Miri in Japanese-occupied Borneo, where she found no shipping but was spotted by a passing American B-24 who got overly excited. As noted in her war history, “USS Bream made the big time on the 22nd when a U.S. Army plane reported her as a carrier, but still no targets. No flight pay either.”

She was also pressed into duty as a minelayer, sowing 23 Mark 12 mines off Pulo Ob in the Gulf of Siam on 8-9 May. Ironically, she would have to get really involved in navigating such fields directly after.

While on lifeguard duty in the Philippines in late May, she picked up the pilot of a downed USAAF P-51 Mustang on the 19th “after barreling through a minefield at four main engine speed,” then negotiated a different minefield on the 26th to pluck four survivors of a downed B-25 bomber from the water. The patrol report noted, “We are mighty ready to get these boys but wish they wouldn’t pick the minefields to ditch in.”

After 18 months and six hard charging patrols, during which she received rail cars full of depth charges and at least two air-dropped bombs, Bream was in need of refit and left Saipan in June 1945 for Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard at San Francisco.

She stopped off at Pearl on the way and a series of photos, taken by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, likely stationed ashore rather than part of her crew, were taken. It is rare that images of wartime Gatos exist, and these are some of the best, despite their poor condition.

USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325193

USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325192

Note her rough appearance. Hard to believe she is only been in the fleet for 18 months at the time this image was snapped. This is a fighting submarine! USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. The two large ships directly behind the sub at the center of the photo are both later Baltimore class cruisers.

USS Bream (SS 243) entering Pearl Harbor after a successful war patrol. View of the conning tower. Note her homeward-bound pennant and mounted Oerlikons. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325197

At the Pearl Harbor submarine base, crew members touch up the rusted areas on USS Bream (SS 243), which has just completed a successful war patrol. Note her 5″/25. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325172

Another great view of the 5″/25. At the Pearl Harbor submarine base, crew members touch up the rusted areas on USS Bream (SS 243), which has just completed a successful war patrol. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325173

USS Bream (SS 243). Crew members inside torpedo tube. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325176

USS Bream (SS 243). Crew members in engine room spaces. Note the “patrol beard” and the snipe chewing a cigar. Talk about old-school Navy! Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-325181

In true Navy tradition, shipmates of John O. Tibs toss him overboard from USS Bream (SS 243) at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on his promotion to Chief Machinist’s Mate. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate First Class L. Strawger, 15 June 1945. 80-G-495544

Bream was in San Francisco on VJ Day. Following her refit, she was decommissioned there on 31 January 1946 and was placed in reserve.

Bream earned four battle stars for her World War II service.

Cold War

After five years in mothballs, war came again and Bream was dusted off for Korea, then, along with six other sisters– USS Angler (SS-240), USS Grouper (SS-214), USS Bashaw (SS-241), USS Bluegill (SS-242), USS Cavalla (SS-244), and USS Croaker (SS-246), she was selected to become a submarine hunter-killer (SSK) via an SCB 58 conversion, sometimes called a “Grouper conversion” after the first boat that underwent the transition from fleet boat to SSK.

Comparing Fleet Boat Gato to SSK Gato. Forgive the bend in the page. The SSK conversion did not have that crazy hull deformity

As noted by DANFS:

As a part of the Navy’s fleet expansion program in response to the communist invasion of the Republic of Korea, Bream was recommissioned on 5 June 1951 and reported to Submarine Squadron 3, Pacific Fleet. From June 1951 until August 1952, she was engaged in type training and provided services to the Fleet Sonar School at San Diego. She was decommissioned once again on 10 September 1952 to undergo conversion to an antisubmarine “killer” submarine at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard.

The conversion included the installation of a snorkel, which enabled her to take in air and operate her diesel engines while submerged. In addition, her conning tower was streamlined, the habitability of the crew’s living spaces was improved, and special sonar listening equipment was installed. The warship was redesignated SSK-243 in February 1953. Bream was placed back in commission on 20 June 1953.

USS Bream (SSK-243) photographed during the 1950s. Description: Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (MSC), 1974. Catalog #: NH 78980

USS Bream (SS-243) USN 1042361

Our new SSK would spend the next decade on a series of training, exercises, antisubmarine warfare tactical development duty, and West Pac cruises. Shifting her homeport to Pearl Harbor in 1956, she roamed the largest ocean Pacific spanning from Adak, Alaska to Aukland, New Zealand, and from Hong Kong to Pago Pago, notably spending both Christmas Day 1957 and 1962 in Yokosuka.

Bream (SS-243) is seen here on 1 January 1962 off the coast of Hawaii. The fairwater has been streamlined and all guns removed. Also, she has been fitted with an enlarged sonar dome on her bow. USN Archives photo # USN-1039531 courtesy of All Hands magazine by the Naval Historical Center, April 2002, pg. 47 & submitted by Bill Gonyo. Text courtesy of The Floating Drydock, Fleet Subs of WW II” by Thomas F. Walkowiak.

In April 1964, Bream was reclassified as an auxiliary submarine (AGSS-243), as were most of her remaining sisters still in U.S. Navy in service, and switched primarily from duty as a warfighting submarine to a training boat, largely in conjunction with ASW assets such as destroyers and patrol aircraft as an OPFOR. This included a trip to Vietnam in late 1965 as well as three extended WestPac deployments to perform the same services to allies in the South Korean, Taiwanese, and Philippine fleets.

Bream (AGSS-243) underway in the Pacific in the late 1960s, via Navsource.

With time not kind to these old WWII-era diesel boats, and the Navy desperately wanting to be SSN-only, Bream was slated to decommission in 1969. On 28 June, she and four sisters– USS Bluegill (AGSS 242), 1944 Wolfpack pal USS Raton (AGSS 270), USS Tunny (AGSS 282), and USS Charr (AGSS 328), were decommissioned on the same day.

Raton (AGSS-270) and Bluegill (AGSS-242) during the decommissioning ceremony at Mare Island on 28 June 1969. Bream (AGSS-243), Tunny (AGS-282) and Charr (AGSS-328) are forward of Raton and Bluegill. Chara (AE-31) is in the background. Photo courtesy of the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum via Darryl L. Baker. Via Navsource.

In a fitting allegory that there would be no going back for these old “smoke boats,” Bream was struck from the Naval Register and sunk as a target, on 7 November 1969, sent to the bottom in tests of the new Mk48 heavyweight torpedo by the Skipjack-class nuclear-powered submarine USS Sculpin (SSN 590).

Epilogue

Almost all of Bream’s war patrol reports, war history, and Cold War-era logbooks are digitized in the National Archives and sometimes make very entertaining reading.

Her battle flag is one of 49 preserved in the Submarine Force Library and Museum and is certainly colorful.

Note her six service stripes for her patrols, the minelaying flag, the Swazi for the German ship Quito, two rising suns for the two Japanese cruisers she accounted for, and the lifeguard flag for the five Army aviators she plucked from the Japanese minefields off Takao in the PI. Note that she is seen sailing into the setting sun. She had a busy 18 months.

As for her WWII skipper, “Moon” Chapple commanded the heavy cruiser USS Pittsburgh in the Korean War and would go on to retire as a rear admiral in 1959. He died in 1991, aged 83.

One of Bream’s Cold War era crewmembers, EM1 Bob Droke, a shutterbug who later became a commercial photographer, has a great collection of period images from Bream on Flickr. 

1955-57 USS Bream at Sea photo by Bob Droke

USS Bream, docked at Pearl Harbor, photo by Bob Droke

As for her sisters, other Gatos lived on, although an amazing 20 were lost in the Pacific during WWII. The last two Gato-class boats active in the US Navy were USS Rock (SS-274) and Bashaw (SS-241), which were both decommissioned on 13 September 1969 and sold for scrap. Nine went to overseas allies with the last, USS Guitarro (SS-363) serving the Turkish Navy as TCG Preveze (S 340) in one form or another until 1983.

A full half-dozen Gatos are preserved in the U.S. so please visit them when you can:

  • USS Cavalla is at Seawolf Park near Galveston, Texas
  • USS Cobia is at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin
  • USS Cod is on display in Cleveland
  • USS Croaker is on display in Buffalo, New York
  • USS Drum is on display on shore at Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama
  • USS Silversides is on display in Muskegon, Michigan

Two of these, Cavalla and Croaker, are rare SSK Gato conversions, like Bream, while Cod and our boat were liked via the POW incident.

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

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‘Just’ 11,400 Hours

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The last Norwegian Lockheed P-3 Orion mission is planned for the end of the month, ending a 54-year-long era of the converted Electra airliners turned sub-busters. The service still has six airframes, the four P-3C IIIs (delivered in 1989) and two P-3N (modified former P-3Bs delivered in 1969) of the historic No. 333 Sqn, based at Andøya Air Station.

They are being replaced by new P-8 Poseidon.

Also taking his last flight in Norwegian service is Major Leif Otterholms, who has flown P-3s since 1985, the last 20 years as TACCO. All in all, he has logged over 11,400 flight hours.

An impressive career, for sure. 

Warship Wednesday, May 31, 2023: USS Fallout

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

Warship Wednesday, May 31, 2023: USS Fallout

Photo courtesy Jim Merritt.

 

Above we see a great 1968 image of the Edsall-class destroyer escort-turned-radar picket, USS Falgout (DER-324) with a bone in her teeth during a Westpac deployment. Some 25 years old at the time, of note her christening occurred 80 years ago this week. 

A vessel that saw combat against the Germans while on convoy duty during WWII, she would continue to serve in Korea and as a Cold Warrior, seeing the atomic starburst no less than nine times.

The Edsall class

A total of 85 Edsall-class destroyer escorts were cranked out in four different yards in the heyday of World War II rapid production with class leader USS Edsall (DE-129) laid down 2 July 1942 and last of class USS Holder (DE-401) commissioned 18 January 1944– in all some four score ships built in 19 months. The Arsenal of Democracy at work–building tin cans faster than the U-boats and Kamikazes could send them to Davy Jones.

The U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Edsall (DE-129) underway near Ambrose Light just outside New York Harbor on 25 February 1945. The photo was taken by a blimp from squadron ZP-12. Edsall is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 3D. U.S. Navy photo 80-G-306257

These 1,590-ton expendable escorts were based on their predecessors, the very successful Cannon-class boats but used an FMR type (Fairbanks-Morse reduction-geared diesel drive) propulsion suite whereas the only slightly less prolific Cannons used a DET (Diesel Electric Tandem) drive. Apples to oranges.

edsallArmed with enough popguns (3×3″/50s, 2x40mm, 8x20mm) to keep aircraft and small craft at bay, they could plug a torpedo into a passing enemy cruiser from one of their trio of above-deck 21-inch tubes, or maul a submarine with any number of ASW weapons including depth charges and Hedgehogs. Too slow for active fleet operations (21 knots) they were designed for coastal patrol (could float in just 125 inches of seawater), sub-chasing, and convoy escorts.

Meet Falgout

The hero of our story, USS Falgout, is the only ship named for Seaman 2c George Irvin Falgout, a resident of Raceland, Louisiana who was a posthumous recipient of the Navy Cros for his actions while serving on the heavily damaged cruiser, USS San Francisco (CA-38) at Guadalcanal in November 1942. Falgout reportedly “remained at his gun, blazing away at a Japanese aircraft until it crashed his station.”

His citation:

The only ship named in his honor was constructed by Consolidated Steel Corp, Ltd., Orange, Texas (all the Edsalls were built at one of two Texas Gulf Coast yards) and sponsored at launch by his sister, Mrs. H. J. Guidry. She was commissioned on 15 November 1943 with an all-Coast Guard crew under CDR Henry A Meyer, a Coast Guard regular who earned his first thin gold stripe in 1931.

The CNO, ADM Ernest J. King, had, in June 1943, ordered the Coast Guard to staff and operate 30 new (mostly Edsall-class) destroyer escorts on Atlantic ASW duties, trained especially at the Submarine Training Centers at Miami and Norfolk. Each would be crewed by 11 officers and 166 NCOs/enlisted, translating to a need for 5,310 men, all told.

By November 1943, it had been accomplished! Quite a feat.

The USCG-manned DEs would be grouped in five Escort Divisions of a half dozen ships each, 23 of which were Edsalls:

  • Escort Division 20–Marchand, Hurst, Camp, Crow, Pettie, Ricketts.
  • Escort Division 22–Poole, Peterson, Harveson, Joyce, Kirkpatrick, Leopold.
  • Escort Division 23–Sellstrom, Ramsden, Mills, Rhodes, Richey, Savage.
  • Escort Division 45–Vance, Lansing, Durant, Calcaterra, Chambers, Morrill.
  • Escort Division 46–Menges, Mosley, Newell, Pride, Falgout, Lowe.

These ships were soon facing off with the Germans in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Following shakedown along the East Coast and the Caribbean– where Falgout picked up 11 survivors from the American tanker Touchet that was torpedoed and sunk on 3 December 1943 by German U-boat U-193— our new destroyer escort was bound for the Med in February 1944 as part of the escort of Convoy UGS 32 to Casablanca, and returned to New York with GUS 31.

Then came Convoy UGS 38 out of Hampton Roads to Bizerte in Tunisia in April. This crossing proved much more contentious and suffered from German air attacks by waves of Junkers and Heinkel bombers with the Benson-class destroyer USS Landsdale (DD-426) sunk after hits from torpedo-carrying Ju 88s on the night of the 20th. Falgout expended no less than 600 rounds of 20mm and 16 rounds of 40mm on bombers that came close enough to swat.

While on the next homeward bound convoy, GUS 39, Falgout’s sistership USS Menges (DE 320), was hit by a G7es acoustic torpedo from U-371 on 3 May. The German fish destroyed a third of the tin can, and created casualties of a third of the ship’s crew but would amazingly survive the war. Just two nights later, the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Fechteler (DE-157), would be sunk near Falgout by German submarine U-967, with the bulk of the crew rescued.

Not all the Coast Guard-manned DEs would come through to VE-Day. USS Leopold (DE-319) of CortDiv 22 was torpedoed by U-255 and later sank in the North Atlantic, 400 miles south of Iceland on 10 March 1944, with a loss of 13 officers and 158 men. Two other classmates with Navy crews, USS Frederick C. Davis (DE-136) and USS Fiske (DE-143), would also be lost in the Atlantic to U-boats.

Falgout would make two further roundtrips to Bizerte and back followed by three to Oran and back, although not coming as close to death as on UGS 38/GUS 39. Notably, however, she did pluck four Ju88 crewmembers from the water following a raid on GUS 45 in July 1944.

USS HAMUL (AD-20) Caption: At Bermuda in early 1944, while serving as flagship of the DD-DE shakedown group (CTG-23.1). Alongside are: CALCATERA (DE-390), PRIDE (DE-323), FALGOUT (DE-324), ALGER (DE-101), and EICHENBERGER (DE-202). Description: Collection of Captain D.L. Madeira, 1978. Catalog #: NH 86271

She was in Oran when the news of the German surrender was received.

Her final WWII skipper was a young LCDR Henry C Keene, Jr.,(USCGA 1941), who had been aboard the Treasury-class cutter USCGC Bibb (WPG-31) earlier in the war when that vessel plucked 235 survivors (and a dog) from U-boat-infested waters in the North Atlantic. Keene would later retire in 1965 as commander of Ketchikan CG Base and go on to be a noted Superior Court judge in Alaska. Meanwhile, the good CDR Meyer, who was the greyhound’s first commander, would continue his career with the Coast Guard for at least until 1956, retiring sometime later as a full captain.

For her 14 convoys, Falgout received one battle star for her wartime service, her only casualty being EM3c James G. O’Brien who died in a 1944 accident while on libo in Casablanca, falling from a second-story window.

After limited post-war service, during which she spent most of 1946 “in commission, in reserve” in Charleston with a caretaker crew (the USCG was returned to the Treasury Department in December 1945, and most of its wartime personnel discharged and Navy-owned ships returned) Falgout was classified “out of commission, in reserve” 18 April 1947 and lowered her flag.

The Edsall class, 1946 Janes.

Break out the white paint.

With the dramatic surge in air and maritime traffic across some downright vacant stretches of the Pacific that came with the Korean War, the USCG was again tapped to man a growing series of Ocean Stations. Two had been formed after WWII and the Navy added another three in 1950, bringing the total to five.

These stations would serve both a meteorological purpose– with U.S. Weather Bureau personnel embarked– as well as serve as floating checkpoints for military and commercial maritime and air traffic and communication “relay” stations for aircraft on transoceanic flights crisscrossing the Pacific. Further, they provided an emergency ditch option for aircraft (a concept that had already been proved by the Bermuda Sky Queen rescue in 1947, which saw all 69 passengers and crew rescued by the cutter Bibb.)

As detailed by Scott Price in The Forgotten Service in the Forgotten War, these stations were no picnic, with the average cutter logging 4,000 miles and as many as 320 radar fixes while serving upwards of 700 hours on station.

Ocean station duty could be monotonous at one moment and terrifying the next, as the vessels rode out storms that made the saltiest sailors green. One crew member noted: “After twenty-one days of being slammed around by rough cold sea swells 20 to 50 feet high, and wild winds hitting gale force at times, within an ocean grid the size of a postage stamp, you can stand any kind of duty.”

A typical tour was composed of arriving at Midway Island for three weeks on SAR standby, three weeks on Ocean Station Victor midway between Japan and the Aleutian Islands, three weeks on SAR standby at Guam, two weeks “R and R” in Japan, three weeks on Ocean Station Sugar, three weeks on SAR standby Adak, Alaska, and then back to home port.

To stand post on these new ocean stations and backfill for other cutters detailed to the role, the Navy lent the USCG 12 mothballed Edsalls (Newell, Falgout, Lowe, Finch, Koiner, Foster, Ramsden, Rickey, Vance, Lansing, Durant, and Chambers), nine of which the service had originally operated during WWII.

To man these extra vessels and fill other wartime roles such as establishing new LORAN stations and pulling port security, the USCG almost doubled in size from just over 18,000 to 35,082 in 1952.

The conversion to Coast Guard service included a white paint scheme, an aft weather balloon shelter (they would have to launch three balloons a day in all sea states), and the fitting of a 31-foot self-bailing motor surfboat for rescues in heavy weather. The USCG designator “W” was added to the hull number, as was the number 100, therefore, our vessel went from USS Falgout (DE-324) to USCGC Falgout (WDE-424).

Falgout’s sister, the Edsall-class USS Durant (DE-389/WDE-489/DER-389) in her Coast Guard livery. Note the WWII AAA suite is still intact. Falgout carried the same white and buff scheme.

Falgout was on loan to the Coast Guard between 24 August 1951– the second Edsall so converted– and 21 May 1954, in commission for duty as an ocean station vessel out of Tacoma, Washington.

Schenia notes that she pulled eight patrols in this period including two on OS Queen, two on OS Sugar, one on OS Nan, and two on OS Victor in addition to serving as the policing cutter for the International Cruiser Race Regatta in British Columbia in 1952 and the Lake Washington Gold Cup Race in 1953.

Besides nine Edsalls, two similarly loaned ex-Navy seaplane tenders, two 180-foot buoy tenders, and nine existing 255-foot/327-foot Coast Guard cutters also clocked in on Pacific Ocean station detail, with a total of 22 vessels and their crews earning the Korean Service Medal during the conflict. The Pacific Ocean station cutters in all assisted over 20 merchant and Navy vessels in distress, including one transoceanic airliner during the war.

The USCG-manned Edsalls were all retrograded to the Navy in 1954, with the last, Chambers, striking 30 July. It turned out that the Navy had other plans for these humble vessels, now double war vets.

DER

Falgout, laid back up after her 32 months of USCG service during Korea, was picked to become a radar picket ship, and given a new lease on life, reclassified into the Navy at Mare Island on 28 October 1954 as DER-324.

The DER program filled an early gap in the continental air defense system by placing a string of ships as sea-based radar platforms to provide a distant early warning line to possible attack from the Soviets. The Pacific had up to 11 picket stations while the Atlantic had as many as nine. A dozen DEs became DERs (including Falgout) through the addition of SPS-6 and SPS-8 air search radars to help man these DEW lines as the Atlantic Barrier became fully operational in 1956 and the Pacific Barrier (which Falgout took part in) by 1958.

To make room for the extra topside weight of the big radars, they gave up most of their WWII armament, keeping only their Hedgehog ASW device and two Mark 34 3-inch guns with aluminum and fiberglass weather shields.

DER conversion of Edsall (FMR) class ships reproduced from Peter Elliot’s American Destroyer Escorts of WWII

Detail of masts. Note the WWII AAA suite, one of the 3″ guns, and centerline 21-inch tubes have been landed

Her conversion complete, Falgout was recommissioned on 30 June 1955.

30 June 1955: Mare Island NSY, Vallejo, Cal. – Radm. Frederick L. Entwistle, USN (Commander, Mare Island Naval Shipyard) is commissioning speaker at the ceremony marking USS Falgout’s re-commissioning. Lcdr. Walter P. Smiley is on the far right of the photo. (U.S. Navy photo #DER-324-063055-1TH) via Darryl Baker, Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum, via Navsource.

30 June 1955: Mare Island NSY, Vallejo, Cal. – Colors are raised aboard USS Falgout at Mare Island after her conversion at the shipyard. (U.S. Navy photo #DER-324-063055-3TH) via Darryl Baker, Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum, via Navsource.

She was assigned to Seattle as a homeport, with orders coming from the Continental Air Defense Command, heading out to serve regular radar picket in the Early Warning System.

USS Falgout (DER 324) underway

In March 1959, this changed to duty out of Pearl Harbor.

On 31 January 1961, she received her 10th skipper, LCDR Samuel Lee Gravely Jr., a mustang who enlisted in 1942 and went through NROTC in 1944 to earn his commission. Gravely had previously served on USS PC-1264 in WWII, then aboard the battleship USS Iowa during Korea and the cruiser USS Toledo (CA-133), and served as executive officer and acting commander of the destroyer USS Theodore E. Chandler (DD-717) immediately before taking command of Falgout. This act, noted by the NHHC, put Gravely as the first African-American to command a combat ship.

Dominic

In late 1962, Falgout, with Gravely as skipper, was detailed to Joint Task Force 8, operating out of Pearl Harbor, for Operation Dominic.

Sparked by the Soviet resumption of nuclear testing after the 1958–1961 moratorium, Dominic would see no less than 31 air dropped, high-altitude rocket, parachuted, and underwater tests of prototype and existing weapons (including the first Polaris SLBM war shot) carried out over the Eastern Pacific spanning from the coast of California to Christmas and Johnston Island.

Falgout would closely participate (sometimes within 90 miles of the detonation) in at least nine of these tests, all off Johnston Island as part of TU 8.3.6, while she would be a more distant weather ship (over 500 miles away) for much of the remainder of the other tests, in the latter tasked with chasing off Soviet spy trawlers.

The Defense Nuclear Agency’s 432-page report on Operation Dominic I compiled in 1983, has the below rundown of Falgout’s nine hottest experiences:

Notably, of the more than 80 Army, Navy, and Coast Guard vessels that took part in or supported Dominic I, only 16, Falgout included, had personnel with “suspect” radiological film badges.

And the detonation maps for Tightrope (Operation Fishbowl, less than 20 kt), Housatonic (9.96 Mt), Calamity (800 Kt), Chama (1.6 Mt), and Bumping (11.3 Kt):

Dominic Chama blast, 18 October. B-52 Airdrop; 11,970 Feet detonation. This was a free-fall LASL test of the Thumbelina device in an Mk-36 drop case. 

Another shot of Chama. This was a test of a lightweight small-diameter device, possibly a replacement for the W-38 (the 2-4 Mt warhead for the Atlas and Titan I missiles). The results are variously described as “thoroughly successful” while the yield was reported to be below the predicted value.

Tightrope. Nike Hercules Missile Airburst; 69,000 Feet. Carrying the LASL-designed W-31 air defense warhead.

Continued service

Brushing the dust off Dominic off her decks, Falgout would continue to be based out of Pearl for the rest of the decade.

USS Falgout (DER 324) at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, June 1963

DE-397 Wilhoite Feb 1966 Pearl Harbor with Falgout DER 324

From 1966 to 1969 Falgout rotated to service along the coast of Vietnam where she served in Operation Market Time, attempting to interdict Viet Cong maritime traffic. This would include the TEE SHOT V operation which saw our tin can serve as a mother ship in Qui Nhon Bay to two 50-foot PCFs including berthing for two spare PCF crews.

A stalwart of the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam: the PCF. Here, PCF-94 of Coastal Division 11in the Gulf of Thailand, March 1968. USN 1130655

As detailed by NHHC, TEE SHOT V “was established in the coastal area from Dong Phu village south to Chanh Oai village to detect and capture or destroy any hostile craft attempting to exfiltrate the area…During the operation a total of 2,448 junks were detected, 1,210 inspected and 484 boarded. Twenty-three persons and six junks with a total of seventeen tons of salt were apprehended and delivered to VNN authorities.”

On 10 October 1969, Falgout was decommissioned at Mare Island after just over 14 years of service to the Navy and four to the USCG under Navy orders. Her fellow DERs shared a similar fate, either laid up in mothballs or transferred to overseas allies.

USS Falgout and Canberra laid up at Stockton, California on 20 May 1972. The bow of USS Canberra (CA-70) is visible astern. Probably photographed by Ted Stone. Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1980. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 90588

1973 Janes on the Edsall class DERs.

On 1 June 1975, Falgout was struck from the NVR then in early 1977 was towed out to sea off the coast of California and sunk as a target.

Epilogue

Few relics of Falgout remain, although much of her deck logs and WWII war history is digitized in the National Archives.

As for LCDR Gravely, once he left Falgout in 1963, he went on to complete 38 years of service, command USS Taussig (DD-746), USS Jouett (DLG-29), Naval Communications Command, Cruiser-Destroyer Group Two, the Eleventh Naval District, Third Fleet, and the Defense Communications Agency.

In 1976, while serving as commander of the Third Fleet, he was promoted to Vice Admiral. He passed away in 2004 and is buried in Arlington.

The Flight II Burke, USS Gravely (DDG 107), is named for him. Here seen Oct. 26, 2013, with an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter from the “Swamp Foxes” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 overhead. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Billy Ho/Released) 131026-N-QL471-333

As for the rest of the Edsalls, the former Coast Guard-manned USS Forster (DE/DER-334/WDE-434) may possibly still be afloat in Vietnam as the pier side trainer Dai Ky, while ex-USS Hurst (DE-250) which has been in the Mexican Navy since 1973, is still in use limited use as the training ship ARM Commodore Manuel Azueta (D111).

The final Edsall in U.S. waters is USS Stewart (DE-238). Stricken in 1972, she was donated as a museum ship to Galveston, Texas on 25 June 1974 and has been there ever since, today she is celebrating the 80th anniversary of her 1943 commissioning.

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

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

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

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

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

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New Contracts: SSN 812 and SSN 813, T-AO 213, Next Gen Sub Tech

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These three interesting mentions from DOD in the past week include the next two Virginia-class hunter killers (SSN 812 & 813)– which will be Block V subs if not improved Block VI boats, which will be the 38th and 39th of the class.

General Dynamics Electric Boat, Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a not-to-exceed $1,075,896,000 undefinitized contract action modification to previously awarded contract N00024-17-C-2100 for long lead time material associated with the Virginia class submarines SSN 812 and SSN 813. Work will be performed in Sunnyvale, California (34%); Florence, New Jersey (5%); Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (3%); Spring Grove, Illinois (2%); Tucson, Arizona (2%); Windsor Locks, Connecticut (2%); Annapolis, Maryland (2%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (2%); Peoria, Illinois (1%); Ladson, South Carolina (1%); Warren, Massachusetts (1%); and other locations less than 1% (45%), and is expected to be completed by September 2033. Fiscal 2022 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $352,017,000 (33%); and fiscal 2023 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) $723,879,000 (67%) funding will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The statutory authority for this sole source award is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii) – only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

If curious about the Virginias, the Navy recently released a very good short tour of classmember USS Delaware (SSN-791): 

The recent contracts include a ninth ship (T-AO 213) in the John Lewis-class fleet oiler program (which have some of the worst names possible– can we just go back to rivers for oilers?).

General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., San Diego, California, is awarded a $736,160,588 modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-16-C-2229 to exercise the option for the detail design and construction of T-AO 213. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (58%); Iron Mountain, Michigan (8%); Crozet, Virginia (5%); Beloit, Wisconsin (4%); Mexicali, Mexico (4%); Chula Vista, California (2%); Chesapeake, Virginia (2%); National City, California (1%); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1%); Walpole, Massachusetts (1%); and various other locations less than one percent (14%), and is expected to be completed by March 2028. Fiscal 2023 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $736,160,588 (100%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Awarded May 19, 2023)

Class leader, the future USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205) on sea trials.

More on the T-AO 205 program via NASSCO. 

In 2016, the Navy awarded NASSCO with a contract to design and build the first six ships in the next generation of fleet oilers, the John Lewis-class (T-AO 205), previously known as the TAO(X). Designed to transfer fuel to U.S. Navy carrier strike group ships operating at sea, the 742-feet vessels have a full load displacement of 49,850 tons, with the capacity to carry 157,000 barrels of oil, a significant dry cargo capacity, aviation capability and up to a speed of 20 knots. The first ship, the future USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205), was delivered to the Navy last year. The future USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO 206), the future USNS Earl Warren (T-AO 207), the future USNS Robert F. Kennedy (T-AO 208), the future USNS Lucy Stone (T-AO 209), and the future USNS Sojourner Truth (T-AO 210) are currently under construction.

And going back to submarines, this contract is interesting:

Electric Boat Corp., Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a $48,627,265 modification (P00034) to previously awarded, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00014-19-C-1002 for the Next Generation Submarine Science and Technology Research effort. The contract modification adds five new option periods. The proposed effort is to develop technologies for transition to the Virginia and Columbia submarine acquisition programs, and to provide technology options for the next SSN class that improve submarine performance, operations, life cycle and affordability. The effort includes development of numerical modeling and simulations tools, development of engineering analysis methods, development and demonstration of component and system concepts, technology assessment, and application of ship builder expertise in engineering and submarine arrangements to evaluate and transition technology into submarine designs. The total cumulative value of this contract is $88,289,172. Work will be performed in Groton, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2028. Fiscal 2022 research, development, test, and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,899,265 are obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

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