Category Archives: submarines

HM Submarine Trooper, Found

Posted on by One comment

HMS Trooper, circa 1943

The RN T-class submarine HMS Trooper (N91), under the command of Lt. John Somerton Wraith, DSO, DSC, RN, disappeared in the Aegean Sea with all 64 hands aboard around 6-9 October 1943 while on her 8th War Patrol.

While theories and claims of what may have happened to her included a run-in with a German Q-ship, last week it was announced that a Greek search team, led by Kostas Thoctarides, had located the wreck of the smashed submarine in 253 meters of water to the north of Donoussa Island.

The submarine was found to be broken in three sections in the position of one of the five known minefields (287 magnetic mines in total), which was laid on 26 September 1943 in this area by the German auxiliary minelayer Drache.

It appears Trooper was running on the surface when the mine detonated because the forward hydroplanes were found in their stowed position and several hatches were open.

And so we remember.

In Waters Deep– Eileen Mahoney

In ocean wastes no poppies blow,
No crosses stand in ordered row,
There young hearts sleep… beneath the wave…
The spirited, the good, the brave,
But stars a constant vigil keep,
For them who lie beneath the deep.
‘Tis true you cannot kneel in prayer
On certain spot and think. “He’s there.”
But you can to the ocean go…
See whitecaps marching row on row;
Know one for him will always ride…
In and out… with every tide.
And when your span of life is passed,
He’ll meet you at the “Captain’s Mast.”
And they who mourn on distant shore
For sailors who’ll come home no more,
Can dry their tears and pray for these
Who rest beneath the heaving seas…
For stars that shine and winds that blow
And whitecaps marching row on row.
And they can never lonely be
For when they lived… they chose the sea.

Would-be Nautilus

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 105 years ago this week: USS H-2 (Submarine No. 29) partially submerged in the Hudson River, while on recruiting duty at New York City, on 6 October 1919, with the Manhattan skyline in the background. At about that time, while commanded by LCDR Clarke Withers, she performed the remarkable feat of sending a wireless message while submerged.

Note the submarine “fish flag” atop her periscope. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 45615

The second of her class of nine Electric Boat 26A/26R design subs, the 150-foot/467-ton H-1s were ordered by the U.S. Navy and the Tsarist fleet (hence the 26A and 26R designations) with the first three originally given then-traditional “fish” names: Seawolf, Nautilus, and Garfish. These were later changed before commissioning to a more homogenous H-1 through H-9 once the Tsar’s boats were acquired after the Russian Revolution and Civil War prevented delivery.

Constructed at Union Iron Works, San Francisco, H-2 would deploy with her H-1 sister to the Atlantic in October 1917, where they would spend the Great War on a series of patrols and tests of new equipment, coupled with training tasks.

Her wireless arrangement was novel for the time.

USS H-2 Description: (Submarine # 29) At the New London submarine base, Groton, Connecticut, in 1919. This photograph has been annotated to identify H-2’s radio antenna installation and features an associated diagram. This image was used in RADM R.S. Griffin’s History of the Bureau of Steam Engineering. NH 45618

Postwar, the class was soon withdrawn from service, with H-1 wrecked in 1920 and the remaining eight boats all decommissioned by 1922, later sold for scrap.

The Navy, however, would soon recycle the name “Nautilus” to two follow-on submarines, SS-168 and SSN-571, both of which set milestones of their own.

The Java Frog

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here we see the Free Dutch Navy’s onderzeeboot Hr.Ms O 19 (N 54) as she enters Dundee, Scotland during WWII, circa October 1943 to June 1944. Note the oversized frog emblem on her conning tower, specially made for her skipper, the grinning Luitenant ter Zee 1e klasse (LTZ 1c= LCDR) Armand van Karnebeek.

Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Marine, via NIMH Objectnummer 2158_016200

Note the 88mm Bofors deck gun and a British sloop in the background. NIMH 2158_016202

Born in Soerabaja, Java, in 1909, Van Karnebeek earned the nickname “De kikker” (The Frog), reportedly for his large mouth, while a naval cadet in the late 1920s. Opting for the submarine service, by October 1939 he was the skipper of Hr.Ms. K XV (N 24) in the Dutch East Indies.

Taking command of O 19— which was in the Far East when the War started and pulled six combat patrols against the Japanese before catching orders to shift to Scotland for refit– in 1943, Van Karnebeek had the self-designed frog emblem applied to his boat.

Onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. O 19, in Loch Long, Scotland, NIMH 2158_016211

O 19, a near sister of the Dutch-made Polish subs Orzel and Sep, under Van Karnebeek, deployed back to the Far East via the Med and the Suez then completed her 7th and 8th War Patrols out of Freemantle in 1944, bagging several small Japanese coasters and sampans in the Java Sea via naval gunfire.

When Van Karnebeek left the boat in December 1944, replaced by LTZ 1c Jacob Frans Drijfhout Van Hooff, the new captain ordered the toad painted over.

It may have taken the boat’s luck with it, as, less than six months later, Van Hooff grounded O-19 on a reef in the China Sea so hard she had to be destroyed via demolition charges, torpedoes, and gunfire from USS Cod.

As for The Toad himself, Van Karnebeek retired from Dutch naval service as a vice admiral in 1961 after 32 years of service and passed in 2002, aged 92.

Warship Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024: Slow Going

Posted on by 5 comments

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024: Slow Going

File-450-44 U.S. Navy Yard, SC 1 March 1944. Port Broadside, Down View

Above we see the Porter-class destroyer USS Moffett (DD-362) underway in Charleston, South Carolina passing under the Cooper Bridge on 1 March 1944. She was headed to the Big Apple, to undertake one of the screwiest– and most important– convoys of the war.

The Porters

Designed as “Gold-plater” destroyer leaders (of which 13 were allowed under the London Naval Treaty) to host a commodore of a four-piper DESRON and likewise make up for the American shortfall in light cruisers in the early 1930s, the eight twin-stack Porter-class destroyer leaders (381 feet oal, 1850 tons, 50,000shp, 37 knots, 8x 5-inch guns, 8x torpedo tubes) generated 50,000 shp to allow for 37 knots. The torpedo battery carried a reload, allowing the ships to pack 16 Mark 11 or 12 (later Mark 15) torpedoes.

A typical 1930s Porter:

The Porter class destroyer USS Balch (DD-363) underway, probably during trials in about September 1936. Note her superstructure including her large aft deck house, twin 4-tube torpedo turnstiles amidships, and twin funnels. NH 61694

They even had a class of follow-on half-sisters, the Somers, with a slightly different topside appearance to include three 4-tube torpedo turnstiles and a single funnel:

Somers class USS Jouett (DD 396), starboard view, at New York City 1939 NH 81177

Another thing that the Porters and Somers shared besides hulls was their peculiar Mark 22 mounts for their twin 5″/38 guns. These were limited elevation gun houses that relegated these rapid-fire guns to being capable of surface actions only.

As noted by Navweaps:

“Their low maximum elevation of +35 degrees of elevation was adopted mainly as a weight savings, as it was calculated that these ships would only be able to carry six DP guns rather than the eight SP guns that they actually did carry. The Mark 22 mounting used a 15 hp training motor and a 5 hp elevating motor.”

Check out those funky Mark 22 turrets! Somers-class sister USS Warrington (DD 383) arriving at New York City with Queen Mary and King George VI on board, 1939. Also, note a great view of her quad 1.1-inch AAA mount in front of the wheelhouse. LC-USZ62-120854

Most of the Porters and Somers would have their low-angle 4×2 Mark 22s replaced later in the war with 3×2 Mark 38 DP mounts, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Still, these destroyers got their SP 5 inchers into the fight during the upcoming war, as we shall see.

As for AAA, most as commissioned carried two “Chicago Piano” quad 1.1-inch mounts and a pair of flexible water-cooled .50 caliber MGs, guns that would soon be replaced during the war with 20mm Orelikons and 40mm Bofors.

Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-21955

Meet Moffett

Our destroyer was the first (and so far only) in U.S. naval service to carry the name of RADM William Adger Moffett (USNA 1890) who earned a Medal of Honor while skipper of the cruiser USS Chester in a daring and dangerous night landing in 1914 at Veracruz, later became known as the architect of naval aviation and was killed in the loss of the airship/aircraft carrier USS Akron (ZRS-4) in 1933 at age 63– just six months shy of his mandatory retirement.

RADM Moffett, the Navy’s first Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, a position he held until he died in the crash of the rigid airship USS Akron (ZRS 4) in 1933. His MoH is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.

Moffett (DD‑362) was laid down on 2 January 1934 at Quincy, Massachusetts by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation.

Launched on 11 December 1935, she was sponsored by Miss Beverly Moffett, the daughter of the late admiral.

She was commissioned at Boston on 28 August 1936.

Quiet Interwar Service

Soon after delivery, Moffett, assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, slipped into a cycle of summer cruises to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, where she took part in exercises and gunnery drills in addition to regional port calls.

When FDR kicked off the Neutrality Patrol, Moffett once again roamed to points south, her old stomping grounds. In 1940, Moffett, operating out of Puerto Rico, was part of the task group keeping tabs on the Vichy French West Indies fleet based at Martinique and Guadeloupe that included the carrier Bearn and the light cruisers Jeanne d’Arc and Émile Bertin.

By August 1941, Moffett was detailed to escort the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) as the latter carried Roosevelt to the Atlantic Charter Conference with Churchill at Argentia, Newfoundland.

Soon after, things got hot.

War!

Post Pearl Harbor, Moffett once again ended up in South Atlantic waters, tasked with a series of patrol and convoy missions including several voyages to West African parts.

USS Moffett (DD-362) in South American waters with a bone in her teeth, 15 January 1943. 80-G-64929

USS Moffett (DD-362) in South American waters, 15 January 1943. Note her depth charge racks. 80-G-64931

U-128

On 17 May 1943, as Moffett and her Somers-class half-sister USS Jouett (DD-396) were on escort duty south of Recife, Brazil, and were directed to a nearby surface contact where PBMs of VP-74 had spotted and fired a German submarine, the Type IX-C U-128 (Oblt. Hermann Steinert), some 42 days out of Lorient.

Two PBMs commanded by LCDR H.S. Davis, USNR, and LT(jg) H.C. Carey, USN, cripple the German submarine, U-128, in South Atlantic. One plane dropped depth bombs bringing her to the surface, while the second machine-gunned her. USS Jouett (DD-396) and USS Moffett (DD-362) led to the scene by one of the planes and finished her with direct hits. The PBMs dropped life rafts and the destroyer picked up many survivors. Shown: Eruption of water after depth charges. The conning tower may be seen (center), incident #3219. Photograph released May 17, 1943. 80-G-42064

Moffett fired 150 shells of 5-inch Common at the sub, hitting the boat at least six times.

Once U-128 took her final dive, Moffett stood by to rescue the survivors, numbering 51–four of which later died of wounds, a combination of chlorine poisoning and shrapnel. As detailed in later ONI interrogations of U-128’s crew, Moffett’s officers and crew “received high praise from all prisoners for the good treatment received while aboard her.”

The impounded property taken from U-128’s crew, as noted by Moffett in her report:

U-604

Across three days in August, while escorting the Omaha-class light cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) and a merchant ship to windswept Ascension Island, Moffett made contact with what is believed to be the Type VIIC U‑604 (Kptlt. Horst Höltring) and fought the German so hard that her new skipper, LCDR Gilbert Haven Richards (USNA 1933) thought it was two different engagements.

With Navy aircraft in support, the running fight ensued through the night until the submarine surfaced some 95 miles north of Trinidad the next morning, with Moffett smothering her in shells until she disappeared.

From her report: 

Three days later, while still escorting Memphis, and again with the aid of aircraft, a sonar contact was regained and a submarine believed badly damaged by Moffett’s depth charges.

As DANFs notes, “In the dark and confusion of action, a friendly aircraft mistaking Moffett for the enemy made two strafing runs which caused minor damage. The stricken submarine was finally scuttled by her crew on 11 August; Moffett was credited with the kill.”

Throughout the action, Moffett’s gunners expended 28 star shells and 104 rounds of 5-inch common. She also suffered 13 men injured by blue-on-blue strafing.

From her report:

Then came a refit at Charleston followed by her most taxing convoy experience, this time in the North Atlantic.

Convoy NY‑78

On 25 March, designated TF 67, Moffett got underway from Pier 80 in the North River to join Convoy NY-78 (sometimes incorrectly seen as YN-78) as its sole destroyer and convoy commander. The “NY” convoy code denoted a New York-to-Britain slow convoy of which 57 transited between August 1943 and November 1943.

However, NY-78 would be very special indeed, and the Overlord landings depended on it.

USS Moffett (DD-362) underway at sea on 26 March 1944, leaving New York as the convoy boss of NY-78/TF-67. Note that she still carries four twin 5/38 low-angle gun mounts. 80-G-233588

The primary goal was to move 34 large (250 feet on average) railway car barges (or car floats) a type of vessel common in the Big Apple but rare and desperately needed for the logistics end of the D-Day landings, to Europe.

Workers from Arthur Tickle Engineering preparing “pickaback” barges for D-Day invasion, 1944. Source: National Archives

Capable of carrying 1,000 tons of deck cargo but only drawing 6 feet while doing it, these would be needed to move ammo and fuel into the landing beaches starting D+1.

A pickaback convoy heads out to the Narrows. National Archives.

These big barges, unlikely able to make the tow across the Atlantic in any sort of heavy seas, were specially modified into “Pickabacks” which meant lashing smaller composite barges taken up from coastal trade– including oil barges and wooden scows– to their decks, installing stronger cleats for the haul, reinforcing the hulls and decks via timber and concrete, making it all watertight by adding new covers and hatches– often replacing repurposed manhole covers– and welding on large skegs to cut down their tendency to yaw.

These Pickabacks took months to prepare, under the guidance of Capt. Edmond J. Moran, the scion of the NYC area’s go-to tugboat operation, Moran Towing. Work was done across a half-dozen Hudson area shipyards and terminals to rush the project to completion. Interestingly, since the barges were too large to lift via crane, the solution to make the Pickabacks was to install seacocks in the bottom of the railway car floats while in the bottom of a dry dock, open the dock, and allow the barge to submerge, float in the scows atop it, then close and slowly drain the dock, stacking the whole affair upon itself where it could then be lashed together.

From an August 1945 Popular Science piece published “Now it can be told” style:

Moffett’s point man would be the newly commissioned Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Marsh (DE-699) which was sailing on just her third Atlantic convoy. Her left and right arms would be Marsh’s sisters, USS Runnels (DE-793) and USS Tatum (DE-789), who were fresh off their shakedown and on their first convoy run. The Auk-class minesweeper USS Staff (AM-114)— destined to be the leading ship of the minesweeping group that led the invasion on D-Day– would also tag along.

A force of a dozen small 173-foot subchasers-– PCs 564, 565, 567, 568, 617, 618, 619, 1232, 1233, 1252, 1261, and 1262-– would accompany the force as a way to get them to Europe, where they would be desperately needed just off the surf line during the landings.

To tow the 34 Pickabacks, the convoy had a motley mix of two dozen tugs that would remain in Europe for Overlord. This included the large 205-foot Cherokee/Abnaki-class fleet tugs USS Kiowa (AT-72), USS Bannock (AT-81), USS Pinto (AT-90), USS Abnaki (AT-96), USS Alsea (AT-97), and USS Arikara (AT-98); the Texas-built 143-foot Admiralty tug HMS Emphatic (W 154), the smaller 143-foot Sotoyomo-class rescue tugs ATR-97, ATR-98, and ATR-99; the 165-foot wooden hulled ATR-4, ATR-13, and ATR-15; and 10 large 186-foot ocean-going Maritime Commission contracted V4-M-A1 tugs (Black Rock, Bodie Island, Farallon, Gay Head, Great Isaac, Hillsboro Inlet, Moose Peak, Sabine Pass, Sankaty Head, and Trinidad Head) owned by the WSA and operated by civilian mariners of Moran Towing. As with the barges, these craft would all be needed on D-Day both to beach the ammo barges and to tow the hundreds of massive concrete caissons as part of Operation Mulberry. Later, they towed damaged ships to Britain for salvage or repair.

To provide fuel for the short-legged flotilla, the old oiler USS Maumee (AO-2), which had been in mothballs before the war, was sent along. Too slow for fleet work at just 13 knots top speed, but that wouldn’t be a problem on NY-78.

Highlights distilled from Moffett’s March and April 1944 War Diaries.

Sound contacts were reported on almost every day at some point, requiring general quarters and investigation. The convoy stretched out over more than 10 miles, sometimes twice that much, leaving Moffat to order individual PCs to form clusters and smaller sub-convoys inside the group. Every night brought an order to darken ships and every morning brought the need to inspect the spiderweb of towlines and count noses.

A pickaback convoy depiction, via Aug 1945 Popular Science

So many lines bridles and towlines were lost that Maumee’s machine shop set to nearly round-the-clock work turning fathoms of 1 5/8-inch beaching gear wire rope and thimbles into new bridles. Stragglers were a fact of life.

On 27 March, Convoy UC-16, composed of empty fast-moving tankers and freighters headed back from Britain to pick up waiting cargos in New York, was sighted in the distance, speeding away.

On 30 March, a mysterious keg was spotted, bumping along the convoy route. Moffett deep-sixed it via 544 rounds of 20mm and 81 of 40mm. The lagging Pinto group reported a barge down by the stern.

April Fools Day brought a breakdown, of ATR-4, which was ordered to be taken in tow by ATR-15, which in turn broke down the next day.

3 April brought an open-ocean chase down of separated barges lost from Bannock’s tow.

4 April saw Moffett’s HFDF picking up German radio transmissions and the convoy standing by while HMS Queen Mary raced by later in the morning.

5 April saw Moffett investigate an abandoned life raft found adrift. Ordered to clear the derelict, the destroyer hit it with an impressive array of ordnance– 643 rounds of 20mm, 111 of 40mm, and a Mark VI depth charge– to no avail. As noted by her log, “Raft punctured but still afloat.”

6 April saw an all-day effort to save a sinking barge in the Pinto group, with Moffett sending a 14-man DC party to dewater the vessel via portable pumps. With the barge saved, the boat returning the DC crew to the destroyer flipped in rough seas, leading to a SAR operation that stretched into the dark but recovered everyone. The next day would not be so lucky, with two of her complement in a rubber raft crushed between the destroyer and ATR-97 in heavy seas during efforts to chase down two adrift barges. The bodies were buried at sea.

And so it continued, with the deck log reading increasingly dicey, and refueling efforts repeatedly canceled due to heavy seas. Likewise, more and more barges were breaking loose. While early on in the convoy it was news if one was adrift, twos and threes became standard by the 11th.

On 12 April, ATR-98 reported a one-foot hole in her engine room following a collision in heavy seas with Abnaki. Within 40 minutes the crew, unable to counteract the flooding, were abandoning ship. Within an hour, Moffett had proceeded to the scene of the sinking tug and recovered all 44 survivors, with no casualties.

On the 16th, the lead barge being towed by ATR-4 broke in two, requiring her to heave to in heavy seas and restring her entire tow group, with the assistance of a PC and Emphatic.

The 17th brought a confusing day that began with a stack fire on USS Staff, and a 14-hour running battle with phantom sonar contacts and perceived torpedo sign that earned 19 depth charges from Staff, PC-619, and Moffett:

By the afternoon of 18 April, land-based British planes were sighted. It was over. 

The next morning, the convoy dispersed as Maumee, all the remaining tugs and barges, along with PCs 1233, 1252, 1262, and 1263 made for Falmouth under Admiralty orders while Moffett and the remaining units made for Plymouth, capping a 25-day epic run. A 3,400nm trek that averaged just under six knots!

After transferring the survivors of ATR-98 ashore, Moffett had 48 hours to replenish her bunkers and storerooms, then shoved off and headed home on the 22nd via Milford Haven and Belfast.

As for the Normandy landings, at least 16 of the large NYC rail barges delivered were loaded and towed to the landing areas where they were beached at high tide at D-Day and allowed to dry out. They were unloaded by trucks alongside when dry and LCVPs when wet. As the Navy notes on its Operation Neptune history: “During the D+12 storm [which disrupted the Mulberry harbors] this reserve supply of ammunition proved very necessary.”

Original Caption: CPU 11-15-11 Date: Rec’d 14 June 1944 Taken By: CPU 11 Subject: Beach on the coast of France, showing debris and wreckage in the foreground. Casualty evacuation boats in readiness. The barge grounded, Landing craft and ships in the background. 80-G-252564

The tugs gave yeoman service off Normandy, with some of the civilian-manned V4s making as many as 10 shuttle trips carrying Mulberry components, often while sidestepping German E-boats, midget subs, fire from shore batteries, mines, and aircraft.

The humble Pinto and Arikara earned Navy Unit Commendations– rare citations for tugs– off France as part of Combat Salvage and Fire Fighting Unit Force “O,” clearing wrecks from the beach area reserved for the erection of the artificial harbors and taking damaging fire in the process. Many of these tugs would pivot to the Med to take part in the Dragoon Landings in August.

The mighty USS Pinto (ATF-90) motors up the Elizabeth River on October 17, 1944, following an overhaul at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard

The dozen 173-foot subchasers brought over in the convoy formed PC Squadron One and served as control craft for the waves of LCIs headed to the beaches on D-Day, where PC-1261 was sunk off Utah Beach by a German coastal battery 58 minutes before H-Hour.

Coming in close– skirting the surf line– the PCs traded fire with German pillboxes in an attempt to support the landings. They also pulled wounded from the water and, later that day, did the same with bodies. Then came a full month of picket duty off the beaches, intermingled with repulsing German air and boat attacks– PC-619 downed a Heinkel He 177 on D+4 and picked up its sole survivor. They shuttled senior officers and dispatches from England to Normandy, blew up floating mines with their 20mm guns, escorted coal barges from Newcastle to France, and PC-1262 even patrolled down the river Seine, escorting a load of potatoes to the emaciated citizens of Rouen. The vessels of PCRON1 went on to blockade the Channel Islands, fight it out with E-boats, rescue freezing survivors from the SS Leopoldville, and were among the first American ships in a German port during the war, sailing into Bremerhaven to occupy the port in May 1945.

While the vessels of Convoy NY-78 went on to great things, Moffett’s war was on the last few innings.

End Game

Moffett, aerial view, in Hampton Roads, Virginia, 13 June 1944 80-G-236743

Moffett, late war in Measure 32/3d camouflage scheme.

Moffett went on to ride shotgun on several late war convoys from the East Coast to the Med and back including UGS 48 (July 1944: Hampton Roads – Port Said), GUS 48 (Aug 1944: Port Said – Hampton Roads), UGS 55 (Sept. 1944: Hampton Roads – Port Said), GUS 55 (Oct 1944: Port Said – Hampton Roads), UGS 62 (Dec 1944: Hampton Roads – Gibraltar), UGS 71 (Jan. 1945: Hampton Roads – Southern France), and UGS 83 (March 1945: Hampton Roads – Gibraltar).

Of note, Moffett was typically chosen to carry the TF/Convoy commander on these runs, which would include over a dozen, usually newer, escorts and as many as 70 merchies. She had a reputation for good luck and success– plus space for a commodore.

These convoys were largely anti-climatic milk runs except for UGS 48 which was twice attacked by enemy aircraft including an ineffective night attack by German He 111s and a follow-up by Italian S.79 torpedo bombers of Gruppo Buscaglia-Faggioni, leaving a Liberty ship (MV Samsylarna) damaged.

Moffett’s diagram of the He 111 attack, which saw the German bombers come in at mast top level at 2 a.m., defeating the destroyer’s SC-type radar:

Moffett at the Boston Navy Yard, 12 September 1944. 19-N-70743

After UGS 83, Moffett made for Boston NSY in April 1945 to begin extended repairs.

Following VE-Day, she was towed to Charleston for an extensive refit that planned to beef up her AAA suite and replace her 5-inchers with newer models.

Moffett aerial view, in Hampton Roads, Virginia, 13 June 1945. 80-G-236748

Moffett at Charleston, South Carolina, 1 July 1945. 80-G-365146

However, she was still in the yard at VJ Day and this reconstruction was halted.

She decommissioned on 2 November 1945, spent 14 months in mothballs, and then was stricken and sold for scrap on 16 May 1947 to the Boston Metals Co. of Baltimore.

Moffett only received 2 battle stars for World War II service.

Epilogue

Few relics other than postcards and canceled postal stamps remain of Moffett.

Her War Diaries are digitized in the National Archives. 

The Navy has not used the name “Moffett” for a second warship, perhaps because they renamed the old NAS Sunnyvale in California to Moffett Field, a moniker that endures even after the Navy pulled out in 1994, turning it over to NASA.

Of her our greyhound’s sisters, class leader Porter was torpedoed and lost at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in 1942; Selfridge survived a torpedo in the night action at Vella Lavella, and Phelps was damaged by shore battery fire off Saipan in 1944. Like Moffett, none survived long after the war, and all were soon scrapped, made obsolete by newer Fletcher, Sumner, and Gearing-class destroyers.

Speaking of which, Moffett’s sixth skipper, Capt. Gil Richards– who was in command during the grueling multi-day battle with U-604 and the crazy NY-78 convoy– ended the war as the commander of the new Gearing-class tin can USS Kenneth D. Bailey (DD-713).

Postwar, in the summer of 1946, Richards was hospitalized at Bethesda Naval Hospital suffering from “the rigors of continuous sea duty,” and soon retired to civilian life. Moving to New Jersey, he died in 1983, aged 72. His civilian life was as successful as his Navy life, but his son noted, “His heart never left the U.S. Navy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Sept. 18, 2024: Passing the Cup Around

Posted on by 3 comments

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024: Passing the Cup Around

Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) photo 2000-364-26

Above we see the business end of the Polish submarine Orzel while on the builder’s ways at NV Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde in Holland in 1937, showing her four-pack of forward 21.7 inch torpedo tubes.

Some 85 years ago this month the boat and her crew would be homeless and looking for some revenge.

The Polish submarine program

Left with only about 90 miles of coastline along the Baltic by the Versailles framers, the Polish Navy (KMW) for the 1920s was made up very simply of a half-dozen small (300-400 ton) ex-German torpedo boats, two slow ex-Russian gunboats, four flat-bottom FM-class German coastal minesweepers, and some shallow-draft river monitors.

Following a military alliance with France, it was decided to build a proper navy base, operate an near condemned French protected cruiser (ex-D’Entrecasteaux, laid down in 1894) as a stationary training ship, and start exploring options for more modern warships to include battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines with varying degrees of success.

Speaking to the final type, Warsaw cobbled together enough cash (and French-backed loans) by 1928 to buy a trio of new Normand-Fenaux-type (enlarged French Saphir class) minelayer submarines.

Trim little 1,250-ton boats that ran just 257 feet overall, they carried four bow tubes and a trainable twin tube atop the pressure hull along with the ability to carry and deploy 40 mines.

These three boats– Wilk (Wolf), Rys (Linx), and Zbik (Wildcat)– were delivered by the early 1930s from three different French yards (A C de la Loire Nantes, A C Augustin-Normand, and CNF) after significant delays and were never really successful, reportedly being noisy and prone to leaks.

Polish submarine Wilk visiting Stockholm in 1932 Fo37710C

However, the Wilks were the cradle of the Polish submarine force, and soon after the Poles in 1933 moved to order four larger submarines in two flights as a believed counter to German pocket battleships. After consulting French, British, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and American firms for designs, the KMW went with the conjoined submission from NV Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde, Vlissingen and Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij.

The design was based on the one-off experimental Dutch Hr.Ms. O 16— a 1,200-ton/251-foot advanced ocean-going welded double-hulled design using high tensile St52 steel yielding a 330-foot depth rating and hydraulic surface controls while being capable of hitting 18 knots while carrying 8 torpedo tubes.

The Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. O 16 fitting out in late 1936. Note the masked 88mm gun forward of her sail. At the time of her commissioning, she was the largest submarine in the Dutch Navy. Sent to the Dutch East Indies in 1939, when war came with Japan two years later, she sank three Japanese troopships and damaged two others before she was sunk by a mine in December 1941. NIMH

The Polish boats would be larger (1,473 tons, 276 feet oal), faster (19.44 knots– capable of chasing down Russia’s Gangut-class battlewagons), and even more heavily armed with a full dozen tubes (4 bow/4 stern 550mm, and 2×2 external 533mm trainable) along with room to carry 20 steel fish.

Her plant used a pair of Dutch-licensed 6QD42 Sulzer diesel engines for surface running, another pair of Brown Boveri electric motors for subsurface, and two 100-cell batteries.

Sulzer diesel’s 2000-364-53

Big for a Baltic boat, she had a range of 7,000nm at 10 knots and could remain underway for 90-day combat patrols. The reason behind this was to allow the class the capability to conduct long-term combat operations without depending on their (few and easily seized/blockaded) bases and, to state the obvious, would allow these subs to range out of the Baltic and interdict enemy shipping (be they Russian or German) on the Atlantic in time of war.

The Poles, who had a military alliance with France at the time, went with the Wzor 1924V, which was the big 21.65-inch French STST 24V (683 pound TNT warhead, 3,300 yards @45 knots) torpedo for her in-pressure-hull tubes and, for her topside trainable tubes, the Wzor AB, a new 21-inch Whitehead steam torpedo (660-pound warhead, 3,300 yards at 47 knots) designed for use from the deck-mounted launchers of the British-made Polish Grom-class destroyers.

When it came to deck guns, whereas the Dutch O 16 had an 88mm DP gun and a twin 40mm AAA, the Orzel would go just a bit larger with a single low-angle 4.1-inch L/40 wz.36 Bofors forward in a revolving bubble-shaped mask in front of the sail and a twin Bofors atop the rear of the sail that could be lowered into a watertight shaft, augmented with a twin 13.2mm Hotchkiss heavy machine gun mount. The big Bofors had four watertight ready lockers capable of holding 21 shells between them while a magazine capable of storing another 100 rounds was located amidships under the auxiliary control room, with a chain gang passing shells forward during a prolonged surface engagement. The same magazine held 1,200 40mm shells and six boxes of 13.2mm ammo as well as small arms.

The Poles wanted four submarines and eventually ordered two, Orzel (Eagle) and Sep (Vulture) from the Dutch, with a second pair– Kuna (Marten) and Lasica (Weasel)– ordered in France to a slightly modified design (lighter steel and no deck gun) in late 1938 from AC Augustin Normand and AC de la Loire Nantes. The French pair saw work suspended on them in April 1939 and both would be destroyed on the slipways by the Germans during the war.

The cost for the planned two new Dutch-built subs was 21 million zlotych, a figure that would be satisfied in part (10 percent) by Polish agricultural products and raw materials sent to Holland, 15.44 million zlotych from the Polish government generated by bonds sold on the Warsaw Stock Exchange largely to French and British investors, and the balance, about 3.5 million zlotych, raised via a combination of public subscription into the Fundusz Obrony Morskiej (Maritime Defense Fund) to include schoolchildren’s campaigns and a 0.5 percent garnish on the pay of Polish Army and Navy’s officer and NCO corps.

As a side note, there was enough money left over from the subscription that the Polish Navy planned to order a class of 17 motor torpedo boats– one named after each of the country’s provinces– but the war intervened.

The Dutch thought the finished product was so nice that they ordered a follow-on pair of subs based on the Orzel design but with minor tweaks. The two boats, Hr.Ms. O 19 and O 20, ditched the masked deck gun design for a simpler standalone 88mm DP and reduced the number of torpedo tubes to add 10 vertical mine tubes along each side of the casing outside the pressure hull, each capable of carrying two mines. They were notably the first submarines equipped with working snorkels.

One of Orzel and Sep’s near sisters, Hr.Ms. O 20 seen entering Curacao in the Dutch West Indies in November 1939. Both O 19 and O 20 managed to escape the Germans in 1940 and sailed for the Allies during the war, being lost in 1941 and 1945, respectively. NIMH 2158_015360.

Meet Orzel

On 29 January 1936, the Polish Navy signed a contract with the Dutch submarine concern for the construction of two submarines to the modified O 16 design.

Our subject was the first of her class laid down, as Yard No. 205, at De Schelde, Vlissingen, on 14 August 1936. Her sister, Sep, was laid down three months later as Yard No. 196 at nearby Rotterdamsche Droogdok, Mij.

zoetwaterinstallatie desalination plants 2000-364-52

Orzel was launched on 15 January 1938, with 35-year-old Kmdr.ppor. (CDR) Henryk Kloczkowski, a former cadet of the Tsar’s Imperial Navy– and nephew of RADM Wacław Kloczkowski– who had graduated from the French submarine school (École de Navigation Sous-Marine) in Toulon, appointed as her first skipper.

15 January 1938. The Polish submarine ORP Orzel is being towed here by a tugboat from the shipyard to another location, after the launching festivities. On the forecastle the Dutch Chief Supervisor of the shipyard, Mr. Meerman. Saluting on the bridge the Polish naval officer (supervision for the construction kltz. Niemirski. NIMH 2000-364-34

17 October 1938, construction of the Polish submarine Sep at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM), showing her just after launch being pulled by a yard tug. NIMH 2158_072978

By late January 1939, she had finished her builder’s trials including torpedo tests in Den Helder and speed trials in Norwegian waters in the Oslofjord, then was handed over to her Polish crew in a ceremony held on 2 February.

Matka chrzestna okrętu podwodnego ORP “Orzeł” generałowa Jadwiga Sosnkowska (z kwiatami), kontradmirał Józef Świrski, poseł RP w Holandii Wacław Babiński i gen. Stanisław Kwaśniewski w czasie wodowania okrętu.

Feb 2 1939 Orzel commissioning plankowners at the Vlissingen yard canteen 2000-364-62

2 February 1939. The consecration of the Polish submarine ORP Orzel by the chief chaplain of the Polish miners in Limburg, Father Hoffman. The boat was christened by Mrs. Jadwiga Sosnkowska, wife of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, who was head of the Committee for Matters of Armaments and Equipment (in the photo she is arranging the flowers). During WWII, Sosnkowski would become the CiC of the Polish military in exile before he was demoted over his protests about the Warsaw Home Army being left to rot in 1944. NIMH 2000-364-33

On 5 February, the newest Polish submarine left Vlissingen and headed into the Baltic for Gdynia, arriving there on the 7th to a welcoming crowd.

Polish submarine Orzel arriving home via Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe

It was there that a plaque was ceremonially unveiled, mounted on the ship’s conning tower, informing that the boat was built in part with public contributions from the FOM.

Sep joined her sister Orzel in Poland in April.

The sisters then spent the next several months on a series of shakedown cruises in the Baltic– there were clouds on the horizon.

War!

On 24 August 1939, two days after a speech from Hitler to his commanders all but saying war was inevitable with Poland, the Polish military went on alarm and began quietly mobilizing as the world slow-walked into the opening conflict of WWII over the next week.

Orzel spent that week checking and rechecking her systems, taking on a full load of torpedoes and shells, and provisioning. Her skipper was handed several sealed orders in different envelopes aligned with various plans, and some $9,000 in gold and Polish banknotes should he have to put to sea and refuel elsewhere.

By 0700 on 1 September, three hours after the start of the German invasion, Orzel left her pier and submerged in the Bay of Gdansk where she survived her first depth charging of the war that evening. Her orders, as part of the Polish Navy’s Worek Plan, were to watch for the old battlewagon KMS Schleswig-Holstein, should the pre-dreadnought leave Danzig, and put her on the bottom.

German battleship Schleswig-Holstein bombarding a Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig, Sept 1939. Orzel was ordered to take her out if the opportunity arose. 

With Schleswig-Holstein staying put and after dodging several Kriegsmarine destroyers and being bombed several times by German aircraft while on the surface, and with a malfunctioning compressor, LT Kloczkowski decided on his own to abandon his patrol zone on the morning of 4 September and head to Swedish waters near Gotland. Claiming illness and signaling back and forth with naval command, Kloczkowski ordered his boat to Tallinn in neutral Estonia on the night of the 14th.

Once in Tallinn, on a 24-hour stay under the rules of war, the crew went ashore for baths, Kloczkowski to the hospital, and the malfunctioning compressor was sent off for local repair.

Well short of 24 hours, the Estonian gunboat Laine/Laene (ex-Russian Sputnik, 400 tons, two 75 mm L/50 Canet guns) came alongside Orzel and put a detachment of armed sailors aboard, informing the remaining officers and crew aboard that the sub was being interned.

Breakout

Orzel was untied and towed deeper into the Tallinn military port facility, flanked by two armed minelayers. Meanwhile, the Estonians seized and removed the boat’s maps, navigation log, and small arms before sealing its radio compartment.

Polish submarine Orzel at Tallinn’s military harbor. The 400-ton Estonian sidewheeler minelayers Suurop (1x 47mm gun) and Ristna, formerly the Russian Apostol Piotr and Apostol Paviel, are visible to the left. Eesti Meremuuseum MM F 7318.

The disarmament continued for the next two days with the Estonians impounding and removing Orzel’s deck gun breech, 14 of 20 torpedoes, and the shells from her magazine.

Having seen enough and unwilling to sit out the war in an Estonian internment camp, Orzel’s XO, Kpt.mar. (Lt.Cdr.) Jan Grudzinski, rallied the sub’s crew on the night of 17/18 September– 85 years ago today– and made a move to release themselves from custody.

Overpowering the two Estonian sailors on her quarterdeck and casting off at 0300 on 18 September, Orzel motored out on her quiet electrical suite until sentries on shore spotted her leaving the darkened harbor and opened fire with a 130mm coastal defense battery firing 14 shells blindly into the night. Sending the crew below, the Polish submarine submerged as soon as she had depth under her keel and headed towards the Finnish Aland Islands, with the Estonian Navy giving short and apparently half-hearted pursuit.

As for Poland’s four other submarines, sister Sep managed to make it to Swedish waters on 17 September along with the damaged submarines Rys (on the 18th) and Zbik (on the 25th) after the latter two had laid their mines. They were disarmed and interned first in Nynäshamn (Vaxholm) and then in Mariefred for the duration.

Polska ubaten ORP Sep interned in Nynäshamn, guarded by Pollux, Vedett Boat No. 52 (ex 1st class torpedo boat, b. 1909) in September 1939. Fo37714A

Only Wilk, having sown her mines, managed to skirt German dragnets then thread the Danish straits (Oresund) on 14/15 September and, once in the North Sea made for British waters.

With Orzel’s crew champing at the bit to fight rather than be interned again, and Polish exile forces in London advising that the Germans claimed her crew had killed the two Estonian sailors aboard, Grudzinski headed to Gotland as best she could without charts and put the two “resurrected” men (electrician Roland Kirikmaa and conscript sailor Boris Mahlstein) ashore in the sub’s dinghy at Östergarnsholm in Sweden on 21 September. Grudzinski had left the Estonians with $50 each, a bottle of liquor from the sub’s medicine locker, and a letter of commendation. They arranged to return home via plane before the week was out.

Orzel then turned back to sea and patrolled unsuccessfully for German ships over the next two weeks just off Oland. Lacking charts, she grounded twice during this period, sustaining some minor damage to her keel and the bow outer torpedo caps. This, coupled with chipped propeller blades and oil leaks, would seem to point to the logical move to opt for the quiet life in Sweden.

However, electing to follow in Wilk’s footsteps, Orzel then began heading West on 7 October.

The boat’s navigator, 24-year-old LT Marian Mokrski, his charts impounded, was left with only a dated German edition of the Baltic List of Lights and Fog Signals (Verzeichniss der Leuchtfeuer und Signalnstellen) and navigational tables (Nautische Tafeln). Using those, along with his personal knowledge of the Baltic Sea and its straits from previous passages (and apparently an eidetic memory), created three hand-drawn navigational charts covering the span from Leningrad, through the Strait of Oresund, and around Denmark via the Skagerrak into the North Sea. A cadet of the 1937 tranche (graduated 2nd in his class), he had previously been a sonar officer on the Wicher-class destroyer ORP Burza and had sailed on a nine-month exchange with the French on the training cruiser Jeanne D’Arc.

When they cleared Jutland and made it into the relative safety of the North Sea on 12 October, Grudzinski presented navigator Mokrski with the most valuable items on the boat– the last two cans of pineapple– and a hand-written commendation in front of the assembled crew.

Two days later, nearing the Isle of May, Orzel transmitted her recognition signals to the Admiralty and soon rendezvoused with the destroyer HMS Valorous who guided her ultimately to Dundee where Wilk was tied up undergoing repairs.

Free Polish Navy service

By December 1939, Wilk and Orzel had been rearmed with a mixture of French torpedoes and British 21-inchers in sleeved tubes, then received hull numbers (85-A for Orzel, 64-A for Wilk), picked up a few Lewis guns, and were placed under British orders by the Free Polish forces in London. As such, each sub had its crew augmented by an RN submarine force officer and two communications ratings for liaison purposes.

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

Orzel and Wilik in Roysth, 1940, LIFE William Vandivert

As part of the 2nd Submarine Flotilla, they were assigned to the tender HMS Forth.

Kpt.mar. Jan Grudziński, the skipper of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł seated in the boat’s fin in Scotland, 1940. IWM (HU 110081)

“Close-up of the conning tower of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł (Eagle) as she returns to her depot ship at Rosyth, 11 January 1940. Lieutenant Commander Jan Grudziński, the ship’s commander, is at the front on the right. Her pennant number (85A) has been obscured by the censor.” IWM (HU 76134)

“Gunners of the Polish Navy mine-laying submarine ORP Wilk (Wolf) manning a 100 mm Schneider 1917 gun in Rosyth, January 1940. Another submarine, ORP Orzeł (Eagle), can be seen alongside a British submarine depot ship in the background.” IWM (HU 128170)

Orzel sailed as part of the escort for Convoy ON 6 in late December 1939, then Convoy HN 6 in January 1940.

Sent out on her 2nd (1st Atlantic) War Patrol in February, she lurked off the coast of neutral Denmark for three uneventful weeks looking for German blockade runners heading into the Baltic and raiders headed out.

She was made a darling of the press, an emblem of Free Poland. 

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

Orzel in Roysth, Scotland LIFE photo by William Vandivert

She repeated the Danish search in March for her 3rd War Patrol with the same result, narrowly missing seizing the German transport Helene Russ (993 GRT) in the fog on the 11th of that month.

Then came her 4th War Patrol, departing the Firth of Forth on 3 April 1940 for the waters off Lillesand, Norway.

At the same time, as part of Operation Wesserübung, the German occupation of neutral Denmark and Norway, some 1,900 German troops were allocated to capture Bergen and Stavanger under RADM Hubert Schmundt’s Kriegschiffgruppe 3. One of the transports of 1. Seetransportstaffel– loaded with 330 soldiers and Luftwaffe personnel, six 2 cm FlaK 30 and four 10.5 cm FlaK 38 anti-aircraft guns, 73 horses, 71 vehicles and 292 tons of provisions, animal feed, fuel, and ammunition– was the requisitioned Hamburg Süd freighter MS Rio de Janeiro (5177 grt).

Built by Bremer Vulkan as Santa Ines in 1914, Rio de Janeiro sailed originally out of Stettin on runs to South America and had survived the Great War because she was interned in Valparaiso for the duration, sold to Hamburg Süd by the British in 1921. Finding herself in Argentine waters in 1939 when WWII started, she only made it back to Hamburg in January 1940 by the skin of her teeth through the Royal Navy blockade– just to be impounded by the Kriegsmarine for what would turn out to be a one-way trip to Norway.

Off Lillesand on the morning of 8 April, Orzel and Rio de Janeiro bumped into each other.

From Admiralty logs, via Uboat.net: 

0945A/8, Sighted a suspicious merchant vessel to the south. Closed to investigate. The vessel was seen to fly no ensign and was proceeding on a course of 240°. She was high in the water indicating very little cargo.

1100A/8, Closed enough to read the ships name which was Rio de Janeiro with place of registration being Hamburg.

1110A/8, Surfaced and signaled the vessel to stop which she did.

1112A/8, Ordered the vessel to sent a boat. There appeared to be very little movement on board so fired warning shots with the Lewis guns which unfortunately was the only armament available as the deck gun is still inoperative.

1120A/8, Ordered the vessel to abandon ship in 15 minutes.

1130A/8, A boat was lowered but it made very little attempt to close Orzel. So ordered the vessel once more to abandon ship and that they had 5 minutes left to do so before a torpedo would be fired.

1135A/8, Sighted a Norwegian motor boat approaching. There was still no sign of movement on board the merchant vessel.

1145A/8, Fired a torpedo while the Norwegian motorboat was still clear. a slight explosion was seen and the vessel heeled. She was still 1.8 nautical miles outside territorial waters.

1150A/8, Dived. The vessel showed no signs of sinking. More boats were seen to be lowered.

1155A/8, Sighted a Norwegian aircraft approaching. Orzel circled underwater to give the enemy crew time to pull clear before finishing off the ship with a second torpedo which blew up to ship on hitting.

About 180 Germans who survived the Rio de Janeiro sinking, were rescued by local vessels and landed at Lillesand and Kristiansand. The waterlogged and very much uniformed Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe troops freely told the Norwegians that came to their aid that they were bound for Bergen on invitation from the King’s government. The intel made its way to the Norwegian government where it was met with skepticism.

Likewise, Orzel, who came back to inspect the wreckage and found expired German soldiers adrift on the waves, reported the incident back to London.

Ordered to a different patrol zone and with the German invasion of Norway on in full force, Orzel on the 10th tangled with the German auxiliary patrol vessel V 705/ex-Carsten (258 GRT) in the Skagerrak without either side coming away damaged. She then spent the 12th through the 15th dodging a series of German bombs dropped on her while on the surface and depth charges while submerged, logging 111 ash cans and 20 bombs.

She ended her 4th patrol at Rosyth on the 19th.

“Close-up of the conning tower of the Polish Navy submarine ORP Orzeł (Eagle) as she returns to her depot ship at Rosyth after taking part in operations off Norway during which she accounted for two enemy transport ships, 19 April 1940.” IWM (HU 76132)

Her 5th War Patrol began just a week later, sent back to Norwegian waters. Unsuccessful, she returned to Rosyth on 11 May.

Orzel’s 6th Patrol, starting 23 May, would be her last. She failed to confirm receipt of signals from England on 1 June, was listed as overdue from 8 June, and feared lost on 11 June.

Her 60-man crew, along with three RN submariners– LT Keith D’Ombrain Nott, Radio Operator Walter Fordyce Green, and Telegraph Operator Leslie William Jones– are still on patrol.

Epilogue

The Cold War-era Polish Navy recycled Orzel’s name for a pre-owned Soviet-built Project 613 (Whiskey class) submarine (292, ex-Soviet S-265) that served from 1962 through 1983, and for a Project 877E (Kilo class) submarine (291) that has been in service since 1986. The latter is one of the only Warsaw Pact era subs still operational, the oldest Kilo-class submarine in active service, and the only operational submarine in the Polish Navy, having spent most of the past decade in a series of overhauls and updates.

In 2016, prewar Dutch 1:50 scale builder’s sheets for the original Orzel were restored at the Polish Navy Museum in Gdynia.

The site also has several Orzel-related exhibits including models, the Bofors guns of her sister Sep, and one of Grudzinski’s sailor’s books.

Polish Navy Museum relics of Orzel and Sep

The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, home to thousands of relics from the old Free Polish days, has several Orzel items including LT Mokrski’s hand-drawn escape charts from the 1939 Baltic breakout and her builder’s model from De Schelde.

Model of ORP Orzel presented by her Dutch constructors De Schelde 1938 PISM

Mokrski chart via PISM

Mokrski’s feat, one that can be admired by any mariner, has become a navigational exercise at the Polish Naval Academy thanks to a cadet in 2021 who painstakingly recreated his chart. 

Since 1942 when the Polish government in exile issued its own stamps, there have been dozens of pieces of philately with Orzel appearing on them.

Similarly, she is remembered in maritime art.

1940 ORP Orzel vs Rio Janeiro – Gregorz Nawrocki

1940 Polish submarine Orzel – Grzegorz Nawrocki

Polish submarine ORP Orzeł 8 .04.1940

She is also remembered in a variety of scale models, one of which has sat on my desk for years.

DeAgostini Atlas 1:350 scale Orzel

At least two Polish-language films, one in 1958 and another in 2022, have been produced about our subject with the first having the benefit of Orzel’s sister, Sep, standing in as a submarine double, which was odd because the latter by that time had her original Bofors gun replaced by a Soviet model.

Monuments to Orzel exist at Lillesand (the site of the Rio de Janeiro sinking), Tallin at the site of the Estonian Maritime Museum, and Gdynia. The two overseas posts are often visited by Polish naval attaches to lay wreaths and pay respects.

The broken hull of Rio de Janeiro was discovered off Norway in 2016.

As for the wreck of Orzel, she has been repeatedly searched for with the SANTI Finding the Eagle (Santi Odnaleźć Orła) project mounting no less than 10 expeditions since 2014, chasing down leads. How she met her final end is unknown. 

Her plank owner commander, the controversial LCDR Henryk Kloczkowski, left marooned in Estonia after Orzel escaped into the Baltic, and was arrested by the NKVD when the Soviets illegally occupied Tallinn in the summer of 1940.

Escaping the sort of final march that most other Polish officers suffered in Soviet captivity, Kloczkowski managed to attach himself in 1941 to Gen. Władysław Anders’ Polish Army in the East. Once this force was transferred to the British via the Caspian Sea and Iran in 1942, Kloczkowski was summoned to London to be brought before the Polish Maritime Court on charges over his actions on Orzel in September 1939. Demoted to the rank of sailor and given a four-year prison sentence, the latter was suspended so he could sail out on a series of American Liberty ships on dangerous Atlantic convoys. Surviving the war, he settled in Portsmouth, where he passed in 1962.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Welcome, Devils of the Deep

Posted on by Leave a comment

The third naval vessel named for the Garden State, USS New Jersey (SSN 796), was commissioned Saturday at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Middletown Township, New Jersey.

“New Jersey is the fifth Block IV Virginia-class submarine and is the first in its class designed and built with modifications for a gender-integrated crew,” and her sponsor is the wife of Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security.

Different to see subs with integrated gender crews…

LEONARDO, New Jersey: PCU New Jersey (SSN 796) pulls into Naval Weapons Station Earle Pier on Sept. 6, 2024, in preparation for the Virginia Class Fast Attack Submarine’s upcoming commissioning ceremony. U.S. Navy Photo By Bill Addison/released

The first USS New Jersey was a battleship (BB 16) commissioned in 1906 as part of the Great White Fleet that expanded the Navy during the Great War

The second, also a battleship (BB 62) but with much better lore, was commissioned in 1943 and earned commendations for action in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. This includes the Navy Unit Commendation for Vietnam service, and 15 battle/campaign stars (nine for World War II, four for the Korean conflict, and two for Vietnam.)

The “Black Dragon,” preserved as a museum ship in Camden since 2001, recently hosted the crew of PCU SSN 796 on board the Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial for an event.

Interestingly, the new sub will carry some pieces of the old battlewagons’ official silver set and other relics including wartime teak from BB-62’s deck that will be repurposed for goat locker and wardroom coffee cut racks and other items.

Warship Wednesday, 11 September 2024: You Have to Go Out…

Posted on by 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 time 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, 11 September 2024: You Have to Go Out…

USCG Photo #: 16079-A Photographer: J. N. Heuisy

Above we see a member of the 35 so-called “Buck and a Quarter” Active-class Coast Guard cutters rushed into completion to deal with bootleggers during Prohibition, the USCGC Jackson (WPC-142) as she appeared in 1927 in her original “rum-buster” haze gray configuration. Don’t let the bone in her teeth fool you, she is probably just making revolutions for 10 knots– her designed top speed.

These choppy little 125-foot gunboats were designed to serve as subchasers in times of war and Jackson, along with her sister Bedloe, did their part during the conflict, atop an unforgiving sea, to the bitter end.

The 125s

These cutters were intended for trailing the slow, booze-hauling “Blacks” mother ships of “Rum Row” along the outer line of patrol during Prohibition.

Constructed for $63,173 each, they originally had a pair of 6-cylinder 150hp Superior or Winton diesel engines that allowed them a stately speed of 10 knots, max, but allowed a 4,000 nm, theoretically Atlantic-crossing range– an outstanding benefit for such a small craft.

While slow, this was deemed at first adequate as most of the Blacks were cheapy acquired and nearly condemned old coasters and fishing schooners salvaged from backwater ports around New England and the Maritimes for their shady last hurrah. 

For armament, they carried a single 3″/23 cal deck gun for warning shots– dated even for the 1920s– a Lewis gun or two for serious use, and a small arms locker that included everything from Tommy guns to .38s. In a time of conflict, they could tote listening gear and depth charge racks left over from the Great War, but we’ll get to that later.

Taking advantage of one big contract issued on 26 May 1926, the class were all built within 12 months by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey (although often listed as “American Brown Boveri” due to their owners at the time, the Swiss Brown Boveri corporation).

The class was named in honor of former historic cutters from the Coast Guard and its preceding Lighthouse Service, Revenue Marine, and Revenue Cutter Services.

Meet Bedloe

Commissioned 25 July 1927 as USCGC Antietam (WPC-128) after a circa 1864 Revenue Cutter Service centerboard schooner of the same name that was a nod to the pivotal Maryland Civil War battle, this hardy 125-footer was first stationed in Boston under the 1st CG District where she served for eight years, accomplishing her hallmark law enforcement and SAR duties but also breaking light ice when needed.

The USCG sent no less than 11 of the first 125s to Boston, where they were desperately needed to parol the New England coastline. Besides Antietam, they included USCGC Active (WPC-125), Agassiz (WPC-126), Alert (WPC-127), Bonham (WPC-129), Dix (WPC-136), Faunce (WPC-138), Fredrick Lee (WPC-139), Harriet Lane (WPC-141), General Greene (WPC-140), and Jackson (WPC-142).

These new cutters were based at the Charleston Navy Yard and arrived in a haze-gray livery, built to take the “Rum War” to the bootleggers.

Five 125-foot cutters– likley including Antietam– at Charleston Navy Yard Boston late 1920s. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.

Once the Volstead Act was repealed, the 125s got a more regal peacetime USCG white and buff appearance.

Cutter Antietam in the Boston area, likely during a summer regatta around 1930. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection 08_06_004565.

USCGC Antietam, later Bedloe in 1930, likely in the Boston area. USCG Photo.

With cutters needed on the Great Lakes and the downturn in cutter tempo that accompanied the end of Prohibition, Antietam transferred to Milwaukee in May 1935, a station that typically meant a winter lay-up once the lakes froze over.

Of note, on 1 December 1937, Antietam was used as a dive platform for a famous deep dive in Lake Michigan by Max Gene Nohl that set the world’s then-deep dive record of 420 feet. Nohl, using a self-contained suit with a heliox (helium/oxygen) breathing mixture pioneered by what would become DESCO, had earlier made history from the cutter’s deck the previous April when she hosted the first live underwater broadcast to a national audience by WTMJ over the NBC-Blue network.

On 10 April 1937, Max Nohl (shown in the dive suit) along with John Craig made a dive on the shipwreck Norland to perform another early test of the newly designed diving suit in conjunction with testing the helium-oxygen mixture that Dr. End and Max had been working on. The dive took place off the deck of the Coast Guard cutter Antietam (note the “A” on her whaler) about five miles out from Milwaukee’s breakwater, via the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Between 1939 and 1940, most of the 125s in the Coast Guard’s inventory had their often cranky original diesels replaced by new General Motors 268-As. Rated for 600 hp, they were capable of breaking 14 knots (vs the designed 10) in still seas. However, the radius dropped down to 2,500nm @ 12 knots and 3,500 @ 8.

Then came WWII in Europe and the need for the Neutrality Patrol. This was long before FDR’s 1 November 1941 Executive Order 8929 that transferred the Coast Guard to the Navy Department.

With the Navy short on hulls, Antietam was pulled from her Wisconsin home and ordered to Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1940. There, her armament was beefed up at the Tietjen & Lang yard to include stern depth charge racks and the capacity to carry 10 cans. To acknowledge the upgrade, in February 1942, the 125s were redesignated from WPC (Coast Guard patrol craft) to WSC (Coast Guard sub chaser.)

Assigned to the EASTSEAFRON (Eastern Sea Frontier), Antietam was stationed out of Stapleton, Staten Island, where she saw service as a coastwise convoy escort along the eastern seaboard. It was in this duty that she proved a godsend to those souls on the sea and was involved in several rescues including that of the unescorted Gulf Oil tanker SS Gulftrade (6,776 tons) after she had been sunk by U-588 (Victor Vogel). Antietam pulled 16 Gulftrade survivors out of the ocean on 9 March 1942.

It was around this period that our cutter would be further up-armed with a pair of 20mm/70 Mk 4 Oerlikon AAA guns, a Mousetrap Mk 20 ASWRL, swap out their goofy little 3″/23 for a 40mm Bofors single Mk 1, and pick up a SO-model surface search radar set. So equipped, they had become subchasers in reality rather than just names.

The 125-foot Coast Guard Cutter Cuyahoga ready to depart from the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Md., Feb. 11, 1945. U.S. Coast Guard photo. Note her 40mm Bofors crowding her bow. By mid-war Antietam and her sisters had a similar appearance.

As the Navy was looking to use the name “Antietam” for a new Essex-class fleet carrier (CV-36) that was under construction at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, our patrol boat was unceremoniously renamed USCGC Bedloe on 1 June 1943. Shortly after, she was dispatched to Navy Section Base (NSB) Morehead City, North Carolina, to join the Chesapeake Escort Group (T.G. 02.5).

The AOR of TG 02.5, as seen on the cover of its war diary

Morehead City served as the link in the coastal escort chain between Norfolk and Charleston and its vessels– a mix of auxiliary motor minesweepers (YMS), miscellaneous Yard Patrol craft (YPs), random patrol yachts such as USS Cymophane (PYc-26), a handful of 110-foot patrol boats (PC) and subchasers (SC), augmented by a dozen Coast Guard 83 footer “Jeeps of the Deep”— was a motley assortment to say the least. A couple of 97-foot converted trawler hulled coastal minesweepers, USS Kestrel (AMc-5) and USS Advance (AMc-63) puttered around on sweep duties just in case the Germans laid a few eggs.

Antietam/Bedloe, and her sister Jackson, were about the brawniest vessels the Morehead City group had at its disposal.

USCGC Bedloe, probably 1944. Note her stern depth charges and SO radar set. USCG Photo #: A-8125.

Meet Jackson

Repeating the name of one of the 13 circa 1830s Morris-Taney class 73-foot topsail schooners ordered for the service USCGC Jackson (WPC-142) commissioned 14 March 1927. Like her sister Antietam/Bedloe, she was immediately assigned to Boston.

Four 125-foot cutters at Charleston Navy Yard Boston late 1920s including, from the outside, USCGC Fredrick Lee, General Green, and Jackson. Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection.

Like Antietam, Jackson painted over her haze grey for a more Coastie white and buff scheme post-Prohibition.

A black and white photograph of the Coast Guard Cutter Jackson passing through the Cape Cod Canal on the day of the Canal Bridge Opening, August 15, 1935. Nina Heald Webber Cape Cod Canal collection. MS028.04.022.005

Reassigned in the late 1930s to U.S. Coast Guard Stations Rochester and Greenport, New York in the Great Lakes, Neutrality Patrol work saw her armed and assigned to Norfolk on 1 July 1941 for anti-submarine patrol and coastal escort duty.

This typically boiled down to escorting one or two merchies at a time along cleared (for mines) routes at speeds hovering around 10 knots. Some faster vessels took their chances and ran the coastline on their own which didn’t always work.

One such instance was the unescorted and unarmed tanker SS Tiger (5,992 tons) which on April Fool’s Day 1942 caught a torpedo from U-754 (Hans Oestermann) just as she reduced speed and signaled with blinkers to pick up a pilot off Cape Henry, Virginia. Her complement taken off by the Yippee boat USS YP-52, Jackson and the tug Relief brought a salvage crew by the listing tanker to attempt to tow it to Norfolk but the hulk was uncooperative and sank in the Chesapeake.

On 20 July 1944, Jackson was made part of Task Group 02.5, joining sister Antietam/Bedloe.

Then came…

SS George Ade

An EC2-S-C1 break bulk cargo carrier, SS George Ade (7176 tons) was built by Florida-based J. A. Jones in 1944. Based out of Panama City, while carrying a mixed load of cotton, steel, and machinery from Mobile to New York, the brand new Liberty ship was unescorted (!) and steaming on a non-evasive course (!!) off Cape Hatteras when she came across by the Schnorchel-equipped Type IXC U-518 (Oblt. Hans-Werner Offermann) on 12 September 1944.

Hit by a Gnat that destroyed her rudder and flooded the shaft alley, she was effectively dead in the water. Her Naval Armed Guard fired a few rounds in U-518’s direction, keeping the boat away but she was a sitting duck.

The Great Atlantic Hurricane of September 1944

Four days before George Ade was torpedoed, Commander Gulf Sea Frontier issued an advisory that a tropical hurricane centered east of the Leeward Islands was moving northwest at 10 knots. Aircraft recon on 11 September found a system with a radius of 150 miles and warnings “This is a large and severe storm” were flashed.

It would grow into what we today would deem a Category-4 monster.

Guantanamo to New York Convoy GN-156 on 12 September came across the storm’s periphery and logged 47-knot winds, later upping to over 65 which scattered the convoy although no casualties were reported.

On the night of 12 September, the refrigerated stores ship USS Hyades (AF-28), escorted by the Somers-class destroyer USS Warrington (DD-383) only two days out of Norfolk bound for Trinidad, encountered the hurricane between West Palm Beach and the Bahamas as the storm moved North.

USS Warrington (DD-383), photographed by Navy Blimp ZP-12, 9 August 1944. Just five weeks after this image was snapped, the destroyer would be at the bottom of the Atlantic. 80-G-282673

As noted by DANFS:

Later that evening, the storm forced the destroyer to heave to while Hyades continued on her way alone. Keeping wind and sea on her port bow, Warrington rode relatively well through most of the night. Wind and seas, however, continued to build during the early morning hours of the 13th. Warrington began to lose headway and, as a result, started to ship water through the vents to her engineering spaces.

The water rushing into her vents caused a loss of electrical power which set off a chain reaction. Her main engines lost power, and her steering engine and mechanism went out. She wallowed there in the trough of the swells-continuing to ship water. She regained headway briefly and turned upwind, while her radiomen desperately, but fruitlessly, tried to raise Hyades. Finally, she resorted to a plain-language distress call to any ship or shore station. By noon on the 13th, it was apparent that Warrington’s crewmen could not win the struggle to save their ship, and the order went out to prepare to abandon ship. By 1250, her crew had left Warrington; and she went down almost immediately.

From Warrington’s War History:

A prolonged search by Hyades, Frost (DE-144), Huse (DE-145), Inch (DE-146), Snowden (DE-246), Swasey (DE-248), Woodson (DE-359), Johnnie Hutchins (DE-360), ATR-9, and ATR-62 rescued only 73 men of the destroyer’s 321 member watch bill– and these were spread out for 98 miles from the destroyer’s last position!

Coordinated by the jeep carrier USS Croatan, whose escorting tin cans did a lot of the work in pulling men from the water, the group commander signaled on 14 September, “Sharks very active. Am making every effort to locate and recover living before dark as those so far rescued are very weak.”

Further north, New York to Guantanamo Convoy NG-458, with 15 tankers and 17 freighters escorted by two frigates and a few PCs and YMSs, encountered the unnamed hurricane for 18 hours across the 12th and 13th, and reported: “winds estimated 130-150 knots and seas 50-60 feet.” The COMEASTSEAFRON War Diary for the period notes, “It was impossible for a person to remain exposed to the wind because the tremendous force of driving spray was unbearably painful. Visibility was nil, and all ships and escorts were widely scattered.”

One man, LT North Oberlin of USS PC-1210, was swept overboard “and undoubtedly drowned.”

Another small escort, PC-1217, had her bulkhead plates buckled and several compartments flooded– including her radio shack. Her communications knocked out and long missing from the rest of the convoy, she limped into Mayport alone on the 16th– self-resurrecting from among the missing thought dead.

One ship that never arrived in port was the 136-foot baby minesweeper USS YMS-409, which foundered and sank, taking her entire crew of 33 to the bottom.

Photo from the collection of LT(jg) Bernard Alexander Kenner who served on board YMS-409. He departed a few days before the ship left port and sank off Cape Hatteras. He kept this photo for over 61 years along with a list of his former crew mates who perished, via Navsource.

Further up the coast, the USCG’s Vineyard Sound lightship (LS-73), anchored before the shallows off Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, was also claimed by the storm, taking her entire crew.

The 123-foot United States Lightvessel 73 (LV 73 / WAL-503) on her Vineyard Sound station where she served from 1924 through 1944. On 14 September 1944, she was carried off station during a hurricane and sank with the loss of all hands. USCG photo

…Back at the George Ade

Late on the afternoon of 12 September, some 14 hours after the attack by U-518 that left her dead in the water, the salvage ship USS Escape (ARS 6), escorted by our previously mentioned Bedloe and Jackson, arrived and took her in tow.

Struggling against the ever-increasing seas with the hurricane inbound, Ade and Escape hove to on 14 September some 12 miles off Bodie Island, North Carolina in 13 fathoms of water, where they reported 100-knot winds and 50-foot seas. Ade suffered one of her anchors, two lifeboats, and four rafts carried away.

However, the tow’s escorts, Bedloe and Jackson, had vanished.

At around 1030 on 14 September, Jackson was struck hard by seas while laid her over her port side, a roll from which the 125-footer could not recover. Given the order to abandon ship, her complement too to four life rafts, which all swamped/flipped and sank within 30 minutes. This left her crew afloat and on their own…in a hurricane.

Bedloe, meanwhile, was entirely unaware of the disaster with her nearby sister due to the strong seas and nil visibility. At around 1300 local, she suffered three severe rolls to port, the last of which left her that way until she submerged three minutes later. Of her crew, 29 were able to abandon ship on three life rafts.

Rescue

With Bedloe and Jackson failing to report to shore following the storm, and George Ade and Escape confirming their separation from the escorts, the 5th Naval District launched an air search beginning with four Coast Guard-operated OS2U3 Kinfishers from CGAS Elizabeth City taking to the air at first light on the morning of the 16th. At this point, the survivors of Bedloe and Jackson had been on the sea for two days.

The first group of men, the three waterlogged rafts from Bedloe with but just 21 remaining men, were spotted 10 miles off Cape Hatteras. Three of the Kingfishers landed and taxied to the rafts to give aid to the injured.

Pilots and radio operators knocked off their shoes and then dove into the water to help pull semi-conscious men onto the wings of the bobbing planes.

Eight of the Bedloe’s crew had perished over the night of the 15th from a mixture of injuries and exposure. Two more would die shortly after rescue.

A Navy blimp dropped emergency rations.

Navy airship hovers over two OS2Us and a CG launch with picked-up survivors of the USCGC Bedloe, 16 September. USN ZP24-2906

With the Kingfishers on hand as a guide, a Coast Guard 30-foot motor lifeboat, CG-30340, from the Oregon Inlet Lifeboat Station, 15 miles away, raced to the scene and brought the survivors ashore.

BM1 William W. McCreedy from the Oregon inlet Lifeboat Station, who assisted in the rescue of the survivors from the Bedloe said the first thing he saw was a man doubled up in a small raft, his eyes resembling “a couple of blue dots in a beefsteak.”

“He flashed a beautiful smile that couldn’t be missed,” McCreedy continued. “I felt I had looked at something a man sees once in a lifetime — sort of thought I had come to the edge of heaven. Then, as though his last will to fight had been lost when he saw us, he jumped into the water. The radioman grabbed him and held him in the raft. I went overboard to help and the three of us dragged the raft down. The unconscious man’s foot was twisted in the lines, but I cut him free and we put him in the boat.” Just before reaching shore, the man reached, stroked McCreedy’s face and mumbled “We made it.” Then he died.

Once back at Oregon Inlet, a Coast Guard PBM with a doctor aboard flew the men to Norfolk for treatment.

Original caption: “Coast Guard survivors of hurricane disaster recover in Norfolk hospital: eight of the 12 survivors of the hurricane sinking of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bedloe are shown recovering in the naval hospital at Norfolk, Virginia. They were rescued by Coast Guard air and seacraft after clinging to life rafts for more than 50 hours in shark-invested [sic] Waters 15 miles off the Virginia coast. All suffered from shock and exposure, as well as lashing by the stingers of ‘Portuguese men-of-war.’ the cutter Bedloe was sunk at the height of the hurricane on Thursday, about the time that the Coast Guard Cutter Jackson went down in the same area. In all, 19 were rescued and 49 officers and enlisted men are missing in the twin disaster. In this group, left to right, are Coast Guardsmen Jerry VanDerPuy, seaman, first class, of. . . .Sheboygan, Wisconsin; John Kissinger, soundman, third class, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Robert Greeno, seaman first class, of Monroe, Michigan; Robert Hearst, seaman first class, of Latonia, Kentucky; Joseph Martzen, soundman second class, of. . . .McAdoo, Pennsylvania.; Michael J. Cusono, radioman third class, of Schenectady, NY, Pearcy C. Poole, chief radioman of Lakewood, N.J. and Joseph Ondrovik, coxswain of Bellville, Michigan.” Date: 14 September 1944. USCG Photo 1248 Photographer: “Kendall”, U.S. Coast Guard photo.

The search for the floating Jackson survivors continued into the night of the 16th, with Navy Blimp K-20 following up on a report from a Navy SB2C Helldiver that two groups of men were sighted in the water 18 miles offshore. USS Inflict (AM-251), on her shakedown cruise between Charleston and Norfolk, joined the rescue.

Aided by dropped water lights from the aircraft, whaleboats from the minesweeper recovered 12 men who had been adrift for over 60 hours, hounded by sharks and Portuguese men-of-war. Of these, the ship’s pharmacist’s mate found one man had a gangrene infection, another appendicitis, a third a broken leg, and a fourth a dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs, while all suffered necrotic salt water ulcers, hypothermia, and general fatigue.

Pushing her twin ALCO diesels to their max to break 14 knots, Inflict made Norfolk on the morning of the 17th and her charges were rushed to the Naval Hospital.

Later that day, USS PC-1245 recovered the floating bodies of four from Bedloe.

The air and naval search for the cutters’ lost members continued until the evening of the 18th. No less than 116 planes and six blimps had been aloft in the search.

In all, 22 men from Bedloe are still marked “missing” while another four who were recovered died. Of Jackson’s crew, which spent more time in the sea– almost all of it treading water– 21 are still somewhere under the waves.

This bill from Poseidon was paid, along with the 251 souls from the destroyer Warrington, LT Oberlin of PC-1210, the 33 minemen aboard YMS-409, and a dozen lightkeepers on LV-73.

Epilogue

Separate courts of inquiry conducted by ComFive and COMEASTSEAFRON inquired into the loss of Bedloe and Jackson:

Coast Guard Historian William H. Thiesen suspected Jackson succumbed to waves pushed ahead of the storm’s eyewall, while Bedloe was sunk by rogue waves formed on the backside of the eyewall, writing in a 2019 Proceedings article that, “It is possible that both cutters were victims of a phenomenon called the ‘three sisters,’ a series of rogue waves that travel in threes and are large enough to be tracked by radar.”

Post-war, the Coast Guard would use both cutters’ names a third time, with USCGC Jackson (WPC-120), ex-USS PCE(R)-858, and USCGC Bedloe (WPC-121), ex-USS PCE(R)-860. In typical Coast Guard fashion, “Both of the new cutters remained berthed at Curtis Bay, Maryland due to a lack of personnel,” and were later decommissioned and sold in 1947.

Today, Jackson rests, broken in two, southeast of Nags Head in 77 feet of water in NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. Navy EOD visited the site in the 1990s to remove ordnance and depth charges.

Sister Bedloe is close by, intact but on her side in 140 feet of water, and, while her depth charges were removed by the Navy, NOAA notes she still has live shells aboard.

The USCGC Maple in 2022 hosted a Coast Guard chaplain, divers, and an underwater archaeologist for four days while the sites were visited, mapped, and honored.

The Coast Guard Art Program has also saluted the cutters.

“The Fate of Cutters Jackson and Bedloe,” Louis Barberis, watercolor, 16 x 23. US Coast Guard Art Program 2005 Collection, Ob ID # 200503

As for the SS George Ade, the Liberty ship made it back to Norfolk where she was drydocked and repaired, returning to service on 18 December 1944.

Ade’s shot away rudder and damaged screw/shaft following the hit from U-518 and surviving a hurricane at sea immediately after. Photos: MARAD.

Post-war, Ade was transferred to the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in Mobile, Alabama, and, after 20 years in mothballs, was sold for scrap in 1967.

As for U-518, she was sunk on 22 April 1945 in the North Atlantic north-west of the Azores by depth charges from the destroyer escorts USS Carter (DE 112) and USS Neal A. Scott (DE 769), with all hands lost including Oblt. Hans-Werner Offermann. Ade was the final ship the U-boat had torpedoed.

U-518 via Deutsches U-Boot-Museum, Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, Germany

The Atlantic holds its dead.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Persistent UAV Maritime Snoopers Getting to be a Real Thing

Posted on by Leave a comment

One of the sleeper stories from RIMPAC is that General Atomic’s MQ-9B SeaGuardian spent some 100 hours poking around the exercises and demonstrated Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) targeting and a new Sonobuoy Dispensing System (SDS) to support its ASW capability.

SeaGuardian, which is basically a navalized MQ-9 Reaper (Predator B) with a longer wingspan (79 feet vs. 66), endurance (“40+ hours” vs 24), and heavier weight (12,000 pounds max T/O vs 10,500), has been under development by GA-ASI since 2017.

It is a bruiser, with SeaGuardian featuring nine hardpoints (8 wing, 1 centerline) with a maximum 4,750-pound external payload capacity. By comparison, the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber had a max payload of 2,250 pounds. Reaper is already cleared to carry Hellfire missiles, Paveways, and JDAMs.

The SeaGuardian variants can carry a 360-degree patrol radar and two 10-tube sonobuoy pods, while still being able to clock in with Hellfires and 500-pound bombs if needed. If you told me they could find a way to mount an anti-ship missile and some Mk. 50 torps, perhaps on a paired aircraft operating in teams, I wouldn’t doubt it.

It has been demonstrating a sonobuoy delivery– and monitoring– capability, having dropped BT, DIFAR, and DICASS buoys in a 2021 test and then successfully tracked a target for three hours.

In its ASW tracking role, it can carry as many as 40 NATO A-size (4 7/8-inch diameter, 36-inch length) sonobuoys. Worse case, they can be buoy trucks for P-8s and MH-60s, especially if they can deploy on an LHA/LHD.

“For RIMPAC, the MQ-9B effectively passed ISR&T information to various surface and air units, such as the Nimitz-class carrier USS Carl Vinson, Guided Missile Destroyers (DDGs), Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), frigates, patrol boats, P-8s, P-3s, and numerous other U.S. and foreign units that took part in the exercise,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander.

Impressively, once the exercise was over, SeaGuardian self-deployed back to GA-ASI’s Desert Horizon Flight Operations Facility in El Mirage, California, a trip of no less than 2,893 miles. It has a published (ferry?) range of some 5,000+ nmi, so that is well within its envelope.

For reference, Guam (or better yet, Tinian Island) to Taiwan is just 1,700 miles.

Something not spoken about is that the A-size sonobuoy opens up the use of compatible autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) such as Lockheed’s EMATT and SUBMATT which can mimic submarines and do other neat tricks.

Want to screen an SSN or SSGN operating in a tough non-permissive environment from enemy sub-busters? Imagine the confusion and diversion you can pull off with a few SeaGuardians filed with 20-30 SUBMATTs clearing the way to a vital target, especially if they could be made as glide aways.

Anyway, a few squadrons of weapons-certified SeaGuardians (Quicksink, anyone?) could be very interesting in future Pacific (or Persian Gulf) hot spots, especially in out-of-the-box asymmetric scenarios.

SeaGuardian

Building 39 Down Under, Seeming Very Familiar

Posted on by One comment

A recurring theme of WWII U.S. submarine war patrols, as witnessed in yesterday’s Warship Wednesday on the USS Burrfish, was the typical cycle of going out on a 50-to-70-day deployment and then returning to a forward-deployed submarine tender for a three-week reset/resupply, and hitting the patrol beat once again.

That’s what allowed many boats, barring extreme damage that sent them stateside for repair, to pull off a dozen or more patrols inside a two or three-year period. During the Pacific war, over 40 American submarines made at least 10 patrols, with five making 15 and the USS Stingray (SS-186) making an amazing 16 patrols in the 39 months between December 1941 and February 1945.

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

This concept still exists in the Submarine Tendered Maintenance Period (SMTP) format, which can be accomplished in about three weeks alongside a submarine tender, despite today’s SSNs being far more advanced than the old fleet boats of the 1940s.

The hulking 23,000-ton USS Emory S. Land (AS 39), the lead ship of her three-hull class of the Navy’s most modern submarine tenders, is a combination of floating warehouse, hotel, and shipyard, packing over 50 specialized workshops in her 13 decks while housing over 1,000 bluejackets and MSC civilian mariners. Some 45 years young (one of her class was laid up in 1999 after a full career), she doesn’t move very often, instead allowing her charges to come to her for rest and support.

Since arriving at her current homeport in Guam in 2016, she has become such an enduring fixture there that she is often just referred to as “Building 39.”

However, Emory S. Land departed Guam on 17 May on a roaming deployment supporting the U.S. 7th Fleet, and last week made her seventh port call, HMAS Stirling, the Royal Australian Navy’s “stone frigate” on Garden Island outside of Perth.

Garden Island, Western Australia, Australia (Aug. 16, 2024) – Royal Australian Navy sailors prepare for the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) to moor at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Aug. 16. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Darek Leary)

Carrying 30 RAN ratings since last winter, the tender is set to conduct an STMP at Stirling as part of AUKUS Pillar 1’s effort to support Australia’s acquisition of a sovereign conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability.

This is the first time Australians have participated in a U.S. submarine maintenance period in Australia.

Likewise, a forward team of Sailors from Land have been in Stirling awaiting the arrival of their ship and getting things ready.

Garden Island, Western Australia, Australia (Aug. 16, 2024) – U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39), temporarily attached to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Fleet Support Unit-West (FSU), and RAN sailors assigned to FSU, stand in formation as the Emory S. Land prepares to moor at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Aug. 16. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Darek Leary)

Land just got her first customer yesterday.

240822-N-XP344-2170 HMAS STIRLING, Western Australia, Australia (Aug. 22, 2024) – Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Hawaii (SSN 776) prepare to moor at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, as part of a scheduled port visit before conducting a submarine tendered maintenance period (STMP) with the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39), Aug. 22.(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Victoria Mejicanos)

As noted by the Navy:

The Emory S. Land crew will execute planned and emergent maintenance activities including the removal and reinstallation of an antenna located in Hawaii’s sail, divers visually inspecting the underwater towed array and torpedo tube muzzles, and simulating the removal and installation of a trim pump, to include full rigging and preparations.

Looks like this is really happening.

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Aug. 22, 2024: Ghosts of Gagil Tomil

Posted on by 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to 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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Aug. 22, 2024: Ghosts of Gagil Tomil

Via the U.S. Navy SEAL Museum.

Above we see UDT-10 swimmers (left to right) S1c Leonard Barnhill, SP(A)1c John MacMahon, LT M.R. Massey, SP(X)1c Bill Moore, and QM3c Warren Christensen on the cramped mess deck of the Balao-class fleet boat USS Burrfish (SS-312) on the early morning of 17 August 1944. Note the hearty “welcome home” breakfast of eggs, bacon, and coffee fortified with medicinal 6-year-old Overholt straight rye whiskey along with the diver’s working uniform of grease, grenades, knives, and swim trunks.

These men would mount the first and only submarine-launched reconnaissance operation accomplished by the Pacific UDTs during WWII, some 80 years ago this month.

Some of them are still missing.

The Balao Class

A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. Unlike those of many navies of the day, U.S. subs were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.

Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.

Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.

An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:

  • Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
  • Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
  • Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
  • Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
  • Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)

We have covered a number of this class before, such as the sub-killing USS Greenfish, rocket mail slinger USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the U-boat scuttling USS Atule, Spain’s “30-one-and-only,” and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch —but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories

Meet Burrfish

Our subject is the only U.S. Navy warship to carry the name of the tiny Atlantic swellfish. Built by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, she was laid down on 24 February 1943, launched that June, and commissioned on 14 September– her construction spanning just 202 days.

Officers and crewmen salute the colors as the Burrfish (SS-312) slides into the Atlantic at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Portsmouth, N.H., 18 June 1943 via Subvets

Her first skipper was 32-year-old LT (T/Cdr) William Beckwith Perkins, Jr., USN (USNA 1932), late of the Panama Canal Zone’s guardian submarine “Sugar Boat” USS S-11 (SS 116). A Keystoner born in Upper Turkeyfoot Township, Pennsylvania, he was the grandson of a swashbuckling horse soldier, Isaac Otey Perkins, who rode with the 5th Virginia Cavalry Regiment during the Civil War. Meanwhile, his uncle, Col. Nathaniel James Perkins, was head of the Fork Union Military Academy, which LT Perkins attended before his appointment to Annapolis.

After a four-month 8,000-mile shakedown cruise from New London to Key West– where she took part in two weeks of ASW exercises– through the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor where Burrfish arrived on 6 January 1944, she prepped for her first war patrol. This included 11 underway exercises (four at night), degaussing, and sound listening tests.

1943-1944 USS Burrfish commanding officer William Beckwith Perkins, Jr. on the right in the second row.

War!

Getting into it, Burrfish departed Pearl Harbor on 2 February 1944 for her 1st War Patrol. She was ordered to patrol in the Caroline Islands area. She was a new boat with a green crew. It was the first war patrol for not only her skipper but also for 53 of her 83-member crew– some of which were added just a day before sailing. Her XO, LT Talbot Edward Harper (USNA 1937), had made five patrols already on the USS Greyback.

Burrfish met the enemy for the first time on 10 February– a Betty bomber while she was on the surface– and both left unharmed.

Sailing through a Japanese convoy on Valentine’s Day 1944 and firing off four unsuccessful Mark 14 torpedoes, she was depth charged for two hours, counting 22 strings of cans while she went deep– 500 feet– to avoid death. Keep in mind test depth on Balaos was listed as 400 feet.

She was depth charged again by a Japanese destroyer (8 cans) on 17 February.

This pace continued for the rest of the month, concluding on Leap Day when she fired three unsuccessful Mark 14s at a large Japanese freighter accompanied by two escorts and received 33 depth charges in return.

March likewise brought a three-torpedo attack on an escorted transport on the 3rd, which was unsuccessful.

Recalled, Burrfish ended her 1st War Patrol at Midway on 22 March, with several leaks from depth charge attacks and her unusable No. 1 torpedo tube which was jammed in two feet. She had counted 30 Japanese air contacts and 13 ship contacts in her 9,561-mile, 53-day sortie but failed to claim any.

A Combat Insignia for the patrol was not authorized by ComSubPac.

Three weeks later, repaired, rearmed, restored, and refueled, she left on her 2nd War Patrol on 14 April, ordered to stalk the Japanese Home Islands, east of Kyushu and south of Honshu. Her crew at this point was mostly made up of men who had earned their “dolphins” and she carried fish with updated warheads.

Logging 16 shipping contacts, mostly trawlers, Burrfish hit paydirt on the early morning of 7 May when she came across a tanker and, after stalking it for three hours, pumping three Mk 14-3As into its hull.

Post-war review boards confirmed she sank the German oiler Rossbach (5984 GRT) formerly the Norwegian A/S Norsk Rutefart-operated D/T Madrono, south of Murotosaki, Japan. She had been seized by the Hilfskreuzer Thor in June 1942.

The Britsh-built Madrono was caught by Thor while traveling in ballast from Melbourne to Abadan. While her Norwegian crew spent the rest of the war in Yokohama, Burrfish sent the tanker to the bottom with her German prize crew aboard.

Burrfish ended her second patrol at Pearl Harbor on 4 June, having covered 9,370 miles in 52 days, and was allowed her first Combat Insignia for her successful patrol. Her original XO, Talbot Harper, left the boat to receive command of USS Kingfish (SS 234), which he would take out on four war patrols and bag seven Japanese ships, earning the Silver Star in the process.

Then came the Yap operation

Frogman mission

With the need to map Axis-held beaches and clear obstacles for follow-on landings, the Navy began standing up what would become Navy Combat Demolition Units and later Underwater Demolition Teams in the early summer of 1943. Basic training was conducted in a nine-week program at Fort Pierce, Florida, later followed by six weeks of advanced training at the NCDT&E depot in Maui for Pacific-bound UDTs. The first teams to see combat were UDT-1 and UDT-2, which hit the beach during Operation Flintlock at Kwajalein and Roy-Namur in January 1944.

These “Demolitioneers” were primarily recruited from the Seabee dynamiting and demolition school but also included bluejackets from the fleet and the occasional Coast Guardsman. In the end, some 34 UDT teams were formed, 21 of which saw combat. Organized in four dive platoons and one HQ section, the units consisted of 13 officers (plus an Army and Navy liaison officer) and 70 (later 85) enlisted men. One team, UDT-10, absorbed five officers and 24 enlisted who had been trained as OSS Special Maritime Unit combat swimmers whose group, Operational Swimmer Group (OSG) II had been pushed into more mainstream use by Nimitz.

It was in early June that it was decided, by request of 3rd Amphibious Force Commander, VADM Teddy Wilkinson to ComSubPac, that a submarine make a reconnaissance of the Japanese-occupied Palau Islands so that Wilkinson and his staff knew what they were up against.

Burrfish drew the duty and was specially modified to carry a pared-down UDT platoon and its equipment. Two 7-man LCRS rubber rafts and several sets of oars were stored deflated in a pair of free-flooding, ventilated, 8-foot-long cylindrical tanks fitted to the sub’s deck abaft the conning tower. The boats were inflated topside through the use of a special valve fitted to her whistle line. Four torpedoes were landed from her forward torpedo room and the empty skids were arranged with mattresses for the 11-man team.

Special equipment, a German-made Bentzin Primarflex camera on a custom bracket, was rigged to allow the sub to take panoramic photos via her periscope while submerged. The trick had been learned on the USS Nautilus off Tarawa by her XO, LT Richard “Ozzie” Lynch who had tried and failed with three Navy-issued cameras before experimenting with his own personal Primarflex to outstanding results.

The Navy soon acquired a dozen of the German cameras, primarily second-hand via discreet classified ads in photography magazines, for submarine surveillance use.

Burrfish was also detailed to collect hydrographic data on the ocean currents in and around the islands.

The UDT Special-Mission Group assigned to Burrfish comprised Lt. Charles Kirkpatrick as commander, an unnamed support member, and nine assorted swimmers. Five of these divers– QM1c Robert A. Black, Jr. (8114404); SP(A)1c John MacMahon (4027186); SP(X)1c William Moore (6339607); S1c Leonard Barnhill (8903302); and QM3c Warren Christensen (8697250)– were OSS OSG II men from the newly formed UDT-10 which had only arrived from Fort Pierce that June and was just wrapping up its advanced training in Maui. Two (LT M.R. Massey and CGM Howard “Red” Roeder) were instructors tapped from UDT-1’s battle-hardened Maui training cadre. While two senior men (CBM John E. Ball and CM3c Emmet L. Carpenter) were drawn from the staff of Sub Base, Pearl Harbor.

This 11-member UDT det was carried in addition to Burrfish’s 72-member crew, 53 of which had already earned their dolphins on prior patrols.

Burrfish departed from Pearl Harbor for her 3rd War Patrol with her frogmen on 11 July, topping off her tanks at Midway on the 15th before continuing West. Starting on the 22nd, she began experiencing severe Japanese air activity whenever she surfaced and observed the patrol planes to be DF-ing her radar so she secured her SD and SJ sets and relied on her primitive APR-1 radar warning receiver and SPA-1 pulse analyzer equipment for the rest of the mission.

Closing with Angaur and Yap Islands by 29 July, she spent the next three weeks inspecting the beaches each morning and conducting submerged pericope photography– filling 16 rolls of 35mm film– and closely verifying and updating the pre-war Admiralty charts she had on hand for the islands. Bathythermograph cards were scrutinized and carefully logged to note thermoclines.

Night drifting on the surface with the UDT recon team posted as topside lookouts while the radar gang listened to the APR/SPA gear allowing Burrfish to effectively discover and map out the four Japanese search radars in the area.

On 9 August, Burrfish rendezvoused with sister USS Balao some 20 miles offshore. After challenging and confirming each other from 30,000 yards via quick SJ radar blips, a rubber boat was sent over at 2300 to transfer the film and data collected thus far so that, should Burrfish be lost in her subsequent inshore beach recon via swimmer, at least the collected intel would get back to VADM Wilkinson’s staff.

Between 11 and 18 August, Burrfish closed in close enough (3,000 yards) to send recon swimmers ashore three times via their man-powered rubber rafts, swimming the final 500 yards to deploy two pairs of swimmers while a fifth man remained behind with the raft. The UDT men visited the southeast tip of Peleliu Island and Yap on the first two trips, saving the northeast coast or Gagil Tomil for the third mission.

It was at Gagil Tomil on the night of 18/19 August that three men– Black, Roeder, and MacMahon– failed to return to Burrfish before dawn forced the sub to withdraw and submerge.

As noted by the DPAA on the three missing men: 

After setting out, one team returned to the boat after one of the swimmers became exhausted in the surf. His partner then returned to the island. The two men now in the boat waited until past the appointed rendezvous time for the swimmers to return. With no sign of the others, the men in the boat rowed closer to shore to investigate. They risked discovery by using flashlights to attempt to make contact, but received no response. Finally, the two men were forced to abandon the search and return to the submarine.

Scouting the shoreline the next day from dangerously close in, Burrfish failed to catch sight of the trio.

They repeated the same forlorn wait on the 20th.

Ordered to leave, LCDR Perkins regretfully complied. All three of the missing swimmers eventually received the Silver Star, posthumously.

Crew members of UDT 10 on submarine Burrfish at Peliliu. L-R Chief Ball, John MacMahon (MIA), Bob Black (MIA), Emmet L. Carpenter, Chief Howard Roeder. Via the U.S. Navy SEAL Museum.

Perkins noted in his report, “In this officer’s experience, this group of men was outstanding – both professionally and as shipmates. They have had a long and difficult cruise in the submarine but have acquitted themselves admirably. It is a tragedy that Roeder, MacMahon, and Black are not on board.”

Burrfish concluded her 3rd Patrol at Majuro in the Marshall Islands after 47 days at sea on 27 August, logging 10,600 miles. It was deemed a successful patrol due to the quantity and quality of information obtained, with a Combat Insignia authorized by ComSubPac. However, all further UDT operations in the Pacific would be via littoral capable surface ships, typically APDs (converted destroyers, aka “Green Dragons”) and LCIs/LSTs.

On return to Hawaii, the three remaining OSS OSG II members of the UDT Special Mission Group (Christensen, Barnhill, and Moore) were put in for silver stars (all others recommended for bronze) and rolled into the Maui cadre to train incoming swimmers from the states.

With Station HYPO decoding subsequent enemy transmissions that the three missing UDT men were captured alive by the Japanese and interrogated by notoriously brutal Intelligence specialists who labeled them as members of a “Bakuha-tai” (demolition unit), the pending invasion of Yap was scrubbed, and the group was bypassed in line with the U.S. island-hopping strategy, her 6,000 man garrison surrendering post-war.

Meanwhile, the operation to capture Palau and Peleliu (Operation Stalemate II) would kick off in mid-September.

By that time, Burrfish was already on another war patrol.

Wolfpack Nights

Following a three-week turnaround alongside the sub tender USS Sperry, Burrfish departed from Majuro for her 4th War Patrol on 18 September 1944, bound for the Bonin Islands.

The patrol would be an extended operation in two parts, conducted as an element of a Yankee Wolfpack (Coordinated Attack Group 17.24) under the overall command of CDR Thomas “Burt” Klakring, commander of SubDiv 101, who would fly his flag on USS Silversides (SS 236) as afloat commodore.

The group, unofficially dubbed “Burt’s Brooms,” included not only Silversides and Burrfish but also USS Saury (SS 189), Tambor (SS 198), Trigger (SS 237), Sterlet (SS 392), and Ronquil (SS 396). While several of the boats were very seasoned– Saury, Silversides, and Trigger were on their 11th and 12th War Patrols (and would retire from combat service at the end of the patrol) — others were decidedly green, with Ronquil and Sterlet only on their second patrols.

The first phase, which lasted 48 days in the Nansei Shoto area, saw the Burrfish claim a pre-dawn 27 October kill (not confirmed by post-war boards) on an 8,500-ton cargo ship after she fired six torpedoes into a Japanese convoy and heard three explosions.

She also survived an encounter on 30 October in which an armed vessel fired a 6-round salvo at her before she submerged and another pack member sank her attacker. It is nice to have friends.

Then came a five-day diversion (5-10 November) to Saipan to tie up next to the tender USS Fulton (AS-11), during which Klakring and all of his pack’s skippers would plan their anti-patrol boat sweep between the Bonins and Japan proper. The reason for the sweep was to sterilize the zone ahead of Halsey’s Task Force 38 which was scheduled to raid the Home Islands so that the picket boats couldn’t alert Tokyo of the approaching carriers. However, as Halsey was forced to cancel the raid due to lingering fighting over Leyte at the last minute, the subs were left holding the bag and ran the sweep as more of a dress rehearsal.

Plagued by terrible surface conditions which made torpedo attacks all but useless and gun actions more dangerous to the crews than the enemy, the 15-day/7 submarine sweep only managed to bag just four Japanese pickets as a group (15 November: Silversides sank guard boat Nachiryu Maru No. 12 while Saury bagged the guard boat Kojo Maru. 16 November: Tambor sank Taikai Maru No. 3.).

The fourth came in a surface action on 17 November 1944 Burrfish and Ronquil got in a gunfight with what turned out to be the Japanese auxiliary patrol boat Fusa Maru (177 GRT) south of Hachiro Jima, Japan. In the fight, Burrfish was hit by Japanese gunfire. Two men, Cox. H.A. Foster and S1c R.D. Lopez, were wounded.

It was a close-up affair, with the trawler within 700 yards, and Burrfish received superficial small caliber hits to her after conning tower. Ammunition expended was 9 4-inch (2 Common, 7 HC), 720 rounds of 20mm, and 500 rounds of 30.06 from her M1919s.

Meanwhile, Ronquil also suffered damage from the premature detonation of one of her 40mm Bofors shells which blew two holes in her pressure hull and required a risky topside underway repair (by her XO no less) to be able to dive again.

With Burt’s Brooms disbanded, Burrfish wrapped up her 4th War Patrol at Pearl Harbor on 2 December by tying up alongside USS Pelais, having logged some 15,700 miles across 75 days.

It was at Pearl that LCDR Perkins would depart his submarine, handing command over to LCDR M.H. Lytle, formerly of USS Sturgeon (SS 187) and with eight war patrols to his credit, just before Christmas.

USS Burrfish (SS-312) at Pearl Harbor, circa 1945. Courtesy of H. Leavitt Horton, Sr. NH 92322

Lifeguard Days

Following the Christmas and New Year holidays, Lytle took Burrfish out to sea on 3 January 1945 to begin her 5th War Patrol. She was ordered to take up station south of Japan’s Nanpo Shoto area to serve as a floating lifeguard and weather station to support B-29 raids on the Home Islands. Arriving at the station on the 23rd, she spotted her first incoming “aluminum overcast” wave that afternoon– with her SJ radar set picking up contacts as far off as 34,000 yards.

When USS Pogy (SS 266) and Ronquil entered the area the next day, Lytle, as senior officer afloat, assumed command of the three-boat wolfpack (TG 17.29) and parked astride the Hachija Shima-Chichi Jima shipping lane with the hopes of bagging something between B-29 sorties.

Unfortunately, shipping was slim and the only action Burrfish saw during the patrol was a trio of long-range (15,000 yards) Mark 18 torpedoes sent after a 300-ton Japanese patrol craft on the horizon on 11 February– for which she had to suffer a severe depth charging that required her to put in to Midway for three days of emergency repairs.

Burrfish ended her 5th War Patrol alongside USS Apollo at Guam on 24 February, having covered 8,130 miles in 52 days. ComSubPac did not authorize a Combat Insignia for the patrol.

With repairs pushing back her normal three-week turnaround cycle, Burrfish didn’t begin her 6th War Patrol until 25 March, with orders to patrol the Luzon Strait and off Formosa. A sleeper cruise, her war history notes “Thirty successive days were spent on lifeguard station for the 5th Air Force but no opportunity for rescue presented itself.”

The only “action” seen was in deep-sixing some floating mines and a derelict abandoned 40-foot sampan with her deck guns and in a pre-dawn gunfire raid on the Japanese radio station on Batan Island.

Burrfish ended her 6th war patrol at Saipan on 4 May 1945 after 65 days and 13,600 miles. ComSubPac, in its message not authorizing a Combat Insignia for the patrol, wished “better luck next time” but there would be no next time.

Sent back to her birthplace at Portsmouth Navy Yard at Kittery, Maine for a major overhaul, where she arrived in late June, she was still there when VJ Day hit.

She was decommissioned on 10 October 1946 at Sub Base New London and laid up there as part of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

Burrfish is listed as one of the Balaos in Jane’s 1946 entry.

Burrfish received five battle stars for her World War II service and claimed 13,600 tons across her six (three successful) patrols.

Cold War SSR Days

Recommissioned on 2 November 1948 after just two years in mothballs, she went back home to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for conversion to a Radar Picket Submarine and was redesignated SSR-312 on 27 January 1949.

A total of ten old fleet boats were converted to SSRs under the Migraine I, II & III (SCB-12A) programs.

Burrfish Thames River, circa 1948, on the way to her SSR conversion, via Navsource. Note she has a snorkel and no guns.

Her “Migraine I” conversion included landing her 4-inch gun as well as half of her torpedo tubes and gaining a bunch of radar gear. She retained her open fairwater, with the bridge being shifted to the forward cigarette deck, and a 40 mm Bofors taking the place of her old gun in an instance of one of the final new installations of cannon on an American submarine. Only one other SSR received the Migraine I conversion, the Tench-class boat USS Tigrone (SS-419).

As described by the Submarine Force Library and Museum Association: 

In this modification, the space formerly used as the crew’s mess and galley was turned into a CIC, and the after torpedo tubes were removed to allow the entire after torpedo compartment to be used for berthing. Two of the forward tubes were also eliminated to make additional room for storage and equipment. More importantly, however, the two radar antennas were raised on masts, with an AN/BPS-2 search radar sprouting from the after portion of the sail, and the height finder mounted on a free-standing tower just abaft it. This put the 15-foot search antenna some 40 feet above the water, with the height finder only a little below.

Burrfish returned to duty with the active fleet on 7 February 1950 and was assigned to Submarine Squadron 6 at Norfolk.

Burrfish broadside view during her trials as an SSR, conducted on 27 January 1950, via Navsource

Burrfish as radar picket in Med. Note that her 40mm gun has been removed by this time.

Burrfish as radar picket in Europe, French postcard, 23 May 1952. She still has her Bofors.

Between February 1950 and June 1956, she completed three lengthy deployments with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and “participated in several major type and inter-type exercises and operated along the eastern seaboard as a radar picket ship.” During this time she also earned an Occupation Clasp for service in the Med (29 Sep 50 – 23 Jan 51).

As part of SubDiv 62, all of the Atlantic-based radar pickets were collected including Burrfish’ old “Burt’s Brooms” buddy, Requin, two Migraine II conversions: Burrfish (SSR-312) and Tigrone (SSR-419), and the Migrane IIIs Pompon (SSR-267), Ray (SS-271), and Redfin (SSR-272) along with Sailfish. 

USS Yellowstone (AD-27) in Augusta Bay, Sicily, during her Mediterranean cruise, May- October 1950. Alongside her are (l-r): USS Sea Robin (SS-407); USS Torsk ( SS-423); USS Sea Leopard (SS-483); USS Burrfish (SSR-312); USS John R. Pierce (DD-753); USS Barton (DD-722); USS Shea (DM-30). In the background is the USS Harry F. Bauer (DM-26). 80-G-428712

On 5 June 1956, with the SSR program winding down and new SSNs arriving in the fleet, Burrfish sailed from Norfolk to New London where she reported for inactivation.

She was placed out of commission, in reserve, on 17 December 1956.

Canadian Service

As we have covered prior, the Royal Canadian Navy had a series of fits and starts that included a pair of small (144-foot, 300-ton) American-built coastal boats, HMCS CC-1 and CC-2, which served in the Great War, another pair of American-made 435-ton H-class submarines (HMCS CH-14 and CH-15) which served briefly in the 1920s, and two ex-Kriegsmarine U-boats (HMCS U-190 and U-889) which served (or at least floated) for a couple years after WWII.

Looking to regrow their nascent submarine arm in 1960 after a 13-year break, the RCN inspected 10 American mothballed diesel boats and picked Burrfish with an initial five-year loan and the agreement that Ottawa would pay for the cost of reactivation and modification. It made sense as Burrfish had only been laid up at this point for three years and had already received both a snorkel and improved higher-capacity batteries in her 1949 SSR conversion.

The mission set for the new boat was to be one of an OPFOR for Canada’s very professional ASW force, with the RCN noting, “During and after the war it had been the custom of the RN to provide ‘tame’ submarines for anti-submarine training in Nova Scotia waters. By 1961, with a growing fleet of new anti-submarine ships based at Esquimalt, it had become desirable to have a submarine stationed there as well.”

She received the name HMCS Grilse (S 71) after a Great War era yacht turned fast torpedo boat and was commissioned into the RCN on 11 May 1961. Notably, while the Canadians had run six different subs prior, Grilse was the first to have an actual name rather than just a number. 

HMCS Grilse. Note her “clean” appearance with SSR radars removed and no mounted guns.

H.M.C.S. Grilse – Esquimalt,BC – Aug. 22, 1966

HMCS Grilse

HMCS Grilse

HMCS Grilse

USS Burrfish SS-312 (Balao class) was loaned to Canada and commissioned as HMCS Grilse (71) on May 11th, 1961, seen here at Esquimalt with RCN WWII submarine vets aboard for a tour. Note the details of her snorkel and radar arrangement.

Keeping her slightly longer than her five-year loan, Grilse was withdrawn in December 1968, returned to U.S. Navy custody at Bremerton, and was struck from the Naval Register on 19 July 1969.

Grilse proved such a good investment for the Canadians that they sought to purchase four new Barbel-class diesel boats from the U.S., giving them two boats each at Halifax and Esquimalt, but the ever-thrifty government instead opted for a trio of British Oberon-class boats ordered from HM Royal Dockyard Chatham. These three, HMCS Ojibwa (SS 72), Onondaga (SS 73), and Okanagan (SS 74), entered Canadian service between 1965 and 1968.

On 2 December 1968, the mothballed USS Argonaut (SS 475) was sold to the RCN for $150,000 and renamed HMCS Rainbow (SS 75), named after one of the first ships ever to enter service with the Canadians back in 1910, giving the Canadian a solid four boats until 1975 when the old Tench-class fleet boat was retired, opting for an all-Oberon force until 2000.

On 19 November 1969, ex-Burrfish/Grilse was expended in a SINKEX, destroyed on the surface while under remote control by the brand new Mk 46 ASW torpedo dropped by a SH-3 Sea King helicopter off San Clemente Island in an early test of that weapon system.

November 19, 1969: HMCS Grilse submarine was sunk by USN off California

Epilogue

Neither the Americans nor the Canadians have used the names Burrfish or Grilse since our SS/SSR-312/S-71 was disposed of.

Her bell, marked Burrfish on one side and Grisle on the other, is on display at CFB Esquimalt.

Burrfish’s war history, plans, deck logs, and patrol reports are in the National Archives.

Her Canadian vets have a For Postery’s Sake page for Grilse’s Cold War service.

Six Balao-class submarines are preserved (for now) as museum ships across the country.

Please visit one of these fine ships and keep the legacy alive:

-USS Batfish (SS-310) at War Memorial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
–USS Becuna (SS-319) at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
–USS Bowfin (SS-287) at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Honolulu, Hawaii.
–USS Lionfish (SS-298) at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.
– USS Pampanito (SS-383) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California, (which played the part of the fictional USS Stingray in the movie Down Periscope).
–USS Razorback (SS-394) at Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

The three UDT swimmers left behind at Palau– Specialist First Class (Athletic Instructor) John Churchill MacMahon, Quartermaster First Class Robert A. Black Jr., and Chief Gunner’s Mate (Aviation) Howard Livingston Roeder, are among the 72,040 unaccounted for U.S. military personnel from WWII as tracked by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. They were memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines and at the UDT/SEAL Memorial Wall at Fort Pierce. The search for their remains continues, with their cases marked in the DPAA category of “Active Pursuit.”

Recent expeditions to Palau to help find more information about the trio were mounted by Project Recover in conjunction with the National Navy UDT -SEAL Museum. The case is personal for the Naval Special Warfare community, as it is the only combat mission ever accomplished by NSW operators where men were lost in action and their remains never recovered.

As for the rest of UDT-10, it went on to see much action in at Anguar Island, Palau, and in the Philippines before it was disestablished at Fort Pierce on 2 February 1946. It was not one of the four (UDT-11 and 12 at Coronado, 21 and 22 at Little Creek) downsized teams formed for post-war service. It was never stood back up.

Burrfish’s plank owner skipper, William Beckwith Perkins, who commanded her on her first four war patrols, and who was at her combat periscope when she sank the tanker Rossbach and fought off Fusa Maru, remained in the Navy after the war and retired as a rear admiral in 1959 after 26 years of service. Of the 465 American submarine skippers who pulled at least one war patrol, only about 60 ever managed to earn a star in the promotion-slim postwar sub force (a club he shared with Burrfish’s first XO, Talbot Harper).

Perkins passed in 1992, age 81, at Fork Union, Virginia, and is remembered as a distinguished alumni of the Fort Union Military Academy and Annapolis.

His son, who inherited his papers, has been influential in documenting the loss of the UDT men at Gagil Tomil.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

« Older Entries Recent Entries »