Category Archives: US Navy

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023: The Only ‘T’ in the P-class

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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023: The Only ‘T’ in the P-class

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 41932

Above we see a great 1937 image of the Porpoise-class fleet boat USS Tarpon (SS-175), her bow breaking the surface at a relatively steep up angle. The only one of two of her class that was commissioned without a “P” series fish name (note her “P4” bow number), some 80 years ago today, Tarpon accounted for an entire Japanese regiment when her torpedoes sent the troopship Tatsuta Maru to the bottom in the middle of an overnight gale while some 42 nautical miles east of Mikura Jima, and none of the 1,400 men aboard her were ever seen again.

Background on the Porpoise class

As noted by Pigboats.com, the Porpoise was the first of the so-called “fleet boats,” large cruising submarines of a full double hull design thought suitable for cross-ocean combat and dives as deep as 250 feet. “These boats were the culmination of the four decades of submarine design and research that preceded them and were the height of US technology leading into World War II.”

Some 301 feet overall, they went almost 2,000 tons when fully loaded and submerged. Capable of 19 knots on the surface, they could overhaul most merchant ships but could never outrun an enemy destroyer or sub-buster. Submerged speed maxed out at just eight knots. Armament consisted of four forward 21-inch torpedo tubes and two stern tubes of the same size. Besides the capability to carry 16 torpedoes, the class also had a 3-inch/50 single deck gun wet mount over their flat sterns.

Sistership USS Shark, SS-174, the only other non-P-named Porpoise class boat. Seen here under construction at Electric Boat in Connecticut, 20 May 1935, her four-pack of forward torpedo tubes is plainly seen.

USS Shark (SS-174). Official model, photographed circa 1938 by her builder, the Electric Boat Company NARA

Detailed by Norman Friedman in U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History:

Porpoise (SS-172) was the first of a new generation of submarines that developed into successful WW II fleet boats. Her design shows much of the standard above-water configuration for U.S. submarines completed through 1942. Many features of her internal arrangement were adopted in Dolphin (SS-169): Officer’s quarters above the forward battery, control room below the conning tower & above the pump room, crew’s quarters above the after battery, the engine room & a maneuvering room above the motor room. Dolphin differed in having a large galley above an auxiliary (battery-charging) machinery room abaft the crew’s mess / after battery forward of the main engine room. In Porpoise, a small galley & washroom with a storeroom below was worked in at the after end of the control room.

Porpoise plan, Drawing by Jim Christley via Navsource.

In all, ten Porpoise class boats were constructed in three sub-classes with USS Porpoise (SS 172) and Pike (SS 173) in the initial run built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, sisters Shark (SS 174) and Tarpon (SS 175) constructed at Electric Boat to a slightly upgraded arrangement, and the final six boats with much better endurance split between both yards: Perch (SS 176), Pickerel (SS 177), Permit (SS 178), Plunger (SS 179), Pollack (SS 180), and Pompano (SS 181). All were completed in 44 months between 27 October 1933 when Porpoise was laid down and 12 June 1937 when Pompano was commissioned. Not bad when you remember this is peacetime construction.

The first USS Tarpon on the Navy List, like our vessel, was a submarine, only the 14th ever commissioned. A humble little 105-foot craft with fire-prone gasoline engines, she was only in commission for 10 years before her career ended.

USS Tarpon (Submarine # 14) Photographed by Enrique Muller, 1909. The gunboat in the right distance is either USS Castine or USS Machias. NH 43600

Meet Tarpon

Constructed at EB, our second Tarpon was commissioned on 12 March 1936, then almost immediately sailed for the West Coast to join Submarine Division (SubDiv) 13 with whom she operated out of San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

A great series of diving images of Tarpon, from which the first photo of this post was taken, was captured at the time, the benefit of being so close to Hollywood, I guess.

USS Tarpon (SS-175) recovering a practice torpedo, during exercises off San Diego, California, 22 August 1937. NH 63184

USS Tarpon (SS-175) underway on the surface, circa 1937. NH 41923

Same as the above, NH 41924

A great stern shot from the series, showing her single 3″/50 deck gun. Catalog #: NH 41919

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging, with her foredeck awash, circa 1937. NH 41918

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging NH 41934

USS Tarpon (SS-175) submerging NH 41933

NH 41925

USS Tarpon underway while nearly submerged, circa 1937. NH 41929

USS Tarpon running submerged, with her periscope extended. NH 41927

USS Tarpon surfacing, with her bow at a shallow up angle, circa 1937. NH 41920

USS Tarpon underway on the surface, circa 1937. Crew members appear to be preparing to bring her 3/50 deck gun into action. NH 41928

She was soon transferred to the Philippines with SubDiv 14 where she was forward deployed along with many of her sisters, augmenting a half-dozen old “Sugar Boats” that had been in the PI since the 1920s.

Six Porpoise-class boats nested together, circa 1939-1941. Probably seen from the tender USS Canopus (AS-9) in Manila Bay, Philippines. The inboard submarine is not identified. The others are (from left to right): USS Pike (SS-173); USS Tarpon (SS-175); USS Porpoise (SS-172); USS Perch (SS-176); and USS Permit (SS-178). Collection of Jack L. Wheat, who served in Canopus. NH 99672.

A different view of the above

War!

Assigned to the newly-formed SubDiv 203 just days before the war in the Pacific started, Tarpon began her first war patrol just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was assigned to patrol off southeastern Luzon. With little to show for her efforts, she put into Darwin, Australia on 11 January 1942.

Her second patrol went even worse, with the boat surviving a tense grounding situation west of Flores Island in the Dutch East Indies. After jettisoning anchors, torpedoes, oil, and ammunition she is able to free herself and make it back to Freemantle.

Her third and fourth patrols ended with no enemy ships on her tally and her original skipper that she started the war with subsequently reassigned to shore duty, while Tarpon was ordered to the Mare Island Navy Yard for an overhaul in June 1942 that would change her sensor suite, add two extra external torpedo tubes, and a 20mm AAA mount.

She would spend four months refurbing in California and leave with a new skipper, LCDR Thomas Lincoln Wogan, (USNA 1930). A career submariner, Wogan had commanded the old Sugar Boat USS S-34 (139) out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska already under nightmarish conditions and was surely glad to get the upgrade and orders for warmer waters.

Leaving Mare Island, Tarpon had another great photo shoot.

USS Tarpon (SS-175) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, after an overhaul, 24 September 1942. Circles mark recent alterations to the ship. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-35372

Same as above. Note the new 20mm gun. Catalog #: 19-N-35373

Same as above. Note the two recently installed external bow torpedo tubes, giving her a six-tube main punch. NH 99008

Off Mare Island. NH 99009

USS Tarpon off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, after an overhaul, 30 September 1942. Note barrage balloons in the distance. 19-N-35370

19-N-35369

19-N-35371

A smashing Sixth Patrol

Getting back in the war, Tarpon would spend her 5th war patrol roaming north of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands area in October-November.

It would be her sixth patrol, and second with Wogan, 33, as the “old man” that Tarpon would finally draw blood. In nine days across the first two weeks of February 1943, while on patrol in Japanese home waters, south of Honshu, she claimed two massive transports.

First was the Japanese troopship Fushimi Maru (10935 GRT) about 20 nautical miles south of Omai Zaki on 1 February after a pair of night attack runs (one submerged, one surfaced) and six torpedoes. A former Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) lines merchant passenger-cargo ship delivered in 1914, she was carrying a battalion-sized element when sunk. The auxiliary net layer Kokai Maru rescued 214 survivors and dropped depth charges on Tarpon without success.

From her war patrol report: 

The second was the aforementioned Japanese troop transport Tatsuta Maru (16975 GRT), another NYK liner although one with a much more interesting history. Carrying 1,223 soldiers and passengers and 198 crew members to Truk under escort from the destroyer Yamagumo, she never made it, taking what was believed to be all four torpedoes launched from Tarpon’s forward tubes.

Sinking in less than a half-hour with seas in too high a state to take to the lifeboats, Yamagumo stood by but was not able to recover any survivors. As with Fushimi Maru, the attack on Tatsuta Maru was a submerged night attack run aided by radar conducted from at periscope depth (35 feet) from almost point-blank range.

The rest of the war

Tarpon’s continued service saw a slow 7th patrol followed by an 8th patrol that damaged the Japanese merchant Shinsei Maru (4746 GRT) off Mikura Shima and sank the 97-ton guard boat Yulin Maru in a surface gun action.

On her 9th patrol, she would end the career of the 4,700-ton German armed auxiliary commerce raider Michel (Hilfskreuzer-9/Schiff-28/Raider H) off Chichi Jima.

HK Michel

The former Gdynia-America-Line steamer Bielsko, the German was armed with a half-dozen 6-inch guns and another half-dozen torpedo tubes, making her deadly for any Allied merchantman her Arado seaplanes could find, and she had claimed no less than 18 of them. Tarpon would end Michel’s second raiding voyage just 50 miles short of the safety of Yokohama on 17 October 1943. Hit by four torpedoes from Tarpon across four attack runs, the last of Hitler’s operational HSKs went to the bottom carrying her skipper, KzS Günther Gumprich, and three-fourths of her crew.

Although Tarpon went on to complete three further patrols under a new skipper, her record of kills stopped with the German raider’s end. An aging vessel whose design was surpassed by the newer Gato and Balao-class fleet boats, she was ordered to the East Coast to serve as a training boat for new crews.

The submarine departed Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1944, and arrived at New London, Conn., on 17 January 1945.

USS Tarpon in New London, note her long homeward bound pennant and the snow-covered landscape– a big difference from her last eight years of Pacific service for sure!

With the war soon over, Tarpon decommissioned in Boston on 15 November 1945.

Tarpon decommissioned at Boston

She received seven battle stars for her World War II service.

Tarpon went on to serve as a Naval Reserve training hulk for a time at New Orleans before being stricken from the Navy List in 1956.

She ended her career off Cape Hatteras in 1957 where she sank while under tow to the salvage yard.

Epilogue

Part of NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Tarpon today rests 135 feet down and, as noted by the agency, “The site is heavily encrusted with coralline algae and supports an array of cnidarians, such as sea anemones and corals. Tarpon also typically has several sand tiger sharks on site, which can provide dramatic photographic subjects while enjoying this historic shipwreck dive.”

Today, the ex-USS Tarpon wreck site is home to an abundance of marine life. Here, a sand tiger shark swims in the foreground with the Tarpon’s dive planes in the background. Photo: Tane Casserley, NOAA

Meanwhile, most of her patrol reports and plans are in the National Archives. 

Her most famous skipper, Capt. Wogan, who had earned a Navy Cross and two Silver Stars while aboard Tarpon, sadly took his life in 1951 while commander of the tender Sperry, aged just 42.

There has not been a third Tarpon in U.S. Navy service.

As for her nine sisters, four (Shark, Pompano, Perch, and Pickerel) were lost while on service in the Pacific. They are considered on Eternal Patrol, numbered among the 52 American submarines that never returned to port during the conflict.

Their names are inscribed on a memorial at the USS Albacore Museum in New Hampshire. (Photo: Chris Eger)

Like Tarpon, many of her surviving sisters spent a short spell as training boats in the last days of the war and immediately after.

Also like Tarpon, they were all disposed of by the mid-1950s. Since they were all scrapped, Tarpon endures as the best-preserved relic of the class.

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!

Float Around and Find Out

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Unless you have been in a cave in the woods the past week, the whole country was abuzz over the maneuverable Chinese “commercial weather” balloon that crossed from Montana to South Carolina.

Sure, it was essentially just rebooted 1950s strategic recon tech of the same sort that we used over the Soviet Union and the Middle East (see the 516 balloons launched during Operation Genetrix, for instance). Still, it made many folks doubt American Continental air defense and/or the political will to use it, for better or worse, which may have been the whole purpose if you think of it as a PsyOp.

Then again, maybe it was a dress rehearsal for a balloon-carried EMP device (2014 Congressional testimony: “[E]ven a relatively low-altitude EMP attack, where the nuclear warhead is detonated at an
altitude of 30 kilometers, will generate a damaging EMP field over a vast area, covering a region equivalent to New England, all of New York, and half of Pennsylvania.”).

But no matter what, the mechanics of the shootdown should be interesting to any student of military history.

The nuts and bolts, as detailed by the DOD:

An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon. The F-22 fired the Sidewinder at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

F-15 Eagles flying from Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, supported the F-22, as did tankers from multiple states including Oregon, Montana, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Canadian forces also helped track the overflight of the balloon.

The balloon fell approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water. No one was hurt.

The Navy has deployed the destroyer USS Oscar Austin, the cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the USS Carter Hall, an amphibious landing ship in support of the effort.

The shootdown area was perfectly planned for recovery, with the Coast Guard able to close down the impact area so the Navy could switch to salvage. Inside U.S. territorial waters, it can be cordoned off effectively while the shallow depth allows even scuba-diver level salvage ops. Naturally, a drop from 60,000 feet onto the surface (and the likelihood that its electronics were probably already remotely destroyed via a WP grenade or something of the sort once it beamed its last messages back to Bejing) means the intel gleaned will likely be of little value other than as a trophy, but still.

A window on the shootdown showed that the pair of F-22s that splashed the balloon– the type’s first documented air-to-air “kill” since taking to the air in 1997– were call-signed FRANK01 and FRANK02.

Why was this important?

The general theory is that this was a salute to 2nd Lt Frank Luke Jr., the famed Great War ace who zapped four German airplanes and 14 balloons in 1918 over the Western Front, making him the all-time American balloon killer of the conflict.

The more things change…

2nd Lt. Frank Luke Jr. with his biplane in the fields near Rattentout Farm, France, on Sept. 19, 1918.

Had a Navy or USMC F-18 or F-35 splashed the Chinese balloon, the flight callsign should have been DAVE01/02 as the first U.S. Naval air ace during World War I, LT David Sinton Ingalls, USNRF, was credited with four enemy aircraft and an observation balloon while flying with Royal Air Force Squadron 213.

“Shooting Down a Kite Balloon” Painting, Oil on Wood; By Bruce Ungerland; 1971; Framed Dimensions 50H X 43W NHHC NH 77664-KN

Scouting Force

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Some of the heaviest of heavy sluggers in the Pacific War were the Pensacola and Northampton classes of heavy “treaty cruisers.” Below is a rare snap of seven of these vessels all in one place at one time, 90 years ago today. Of note, two of the seven were lost in combat during WWII.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph #80-G-451164, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, Oahu, Hawaii – Scouting Force ships at, and off, the yard, 2 February 1933. Cruisers tied up at 1010 Dock are (from left to left-center) heavy cruisers USS Augusta (CA 31), Chicago (CA 29), and Chester (CA 27). USS Northampton (CA 26) is alongside the dock in the center, with USS Kane (DD 235) in the adjacent Marine Railway and USS Fox (DD 234) tied up nearby. USS Louisville (CA 28) is in the center distance. Moored off her bow and at the extreme right are USS Salt Lake City (CA 25) and USS Pensacola (CA 24).

Importantly, note the quartets of floatplanes visible, especially on Augusta and Chicago. Having seven cruisers able to put up to 28 observation/scout planes in the air at any one time gave the fleet some decent over-the-horizon ability, especially in the days before long-range surface search radar. 

At the time these would most likely have been Vought O2U/O3U Corsairs. With a range of 680 miles– giving a combat radius of 300– they could carry a trio of flex and fixed ANM2 Brownings and up to 500 pounds of bombs.

The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Chicago (CA-29) at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California (USA), in 1931 (looking aft from the top of the forward fire control station). Note the Vought O3U-1 Corsair floatplanes on the catapult deck. Cruisers in the U.S. Navy often carried as many as 5-6 aircraft between on-deck storage and their hangar (NH70721)

USS Northampton (CA-26) at anchor 1930s. Note four floatplanes amidships.

Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28), Pensacola-class heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City (CA-25), USS Northampton (CA-26), and USS Chicago (CA-29/also Northampton-class) turning in formation to create a slick for landing seaplanes, during exercises off Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 31 January 1933. Planes are landing astern of the middle cruisers. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-451165

USS Portland (CA-33) during the fleet review at New York, 31 May 1934, with four floatplanes amidship, likely Vought O3U-1 Corsairs with Grumman floats (Photo: NH 716)

Most famous for knocking the original King Kong off the Empire State Building, the O2U gave the fleet some serious eyes. After 1935, they would be replaced with the Curtiss SOC Seagull, a floatplane with better performance that the cruisers would often use well into WWII. 

Besides scouting, the cruiser force’s floatplanes performed a much unsung service in picking up those lost at sea, light transport of personnel and packages from ship to ship and ship to shore, as well as the all-important task of correcting distant naval gunfire missions.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023: A Hectic 133 Days

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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023: A Hectic 133 Days

The photo was taken from USS Fletcher (DD-445). National Archives 80-G-284577

Above we see a rare photograph of the new Fletcher-class destroyer USS DeHaven (DD-469) passing North of Savo Island, which can be seen on the horizon, on 30 January 1943, immediately after the Battle of Rennell Island— the last major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal Campaign. Commissioned just the previous September in Maine, DeHaven would be sunk two days after this image was captured, on 1 February 1943 (80 years ago today) in these same waters by a Japanese air attack, sort of a parting shot to the Empire’s withdrawal from the embattled island.

Fletcher class background

The Fletchers were the WWII equivalent of the Burke class, constructed in a massive 175-strong class from 11 builders that proved the backbone of the fleet for generations. Coming after the interwar “treaty” destroyers such as the Benson- and Gleaves classes, they were good-sized (376 feet oal, 2,500 tons full load, 5×5″ guns, 10 torpedo tubes) and could have passed as unprotected cruisers in 1914. Powered by a quartet of oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers and two Westinghouse or GE steam turbines, they had 60,000 shp on tap– half of what today’s Burkes have on a hull 25 percent as heavy– enabling them to reach 38 knots, a speed that is still fast for destroyers today.

USS John Rodgers (DD 574) at Charleston, 28 April 1943. A great example of the Fletcher class in their wartime configuration. Note the five 5″/38 mounts and twin sets of 5-pack torpedo tubes.

LCDR Fred Edwards, Destroyer Type Desk, Bureau of Ships, famously said of the class, “I always felt it was the Fletcher class that won the war . . .they were the heart and soul of the small-ship Navy.”

Our DeHaven

DD-469 was the first Navy ship named in honor of LT Edwin Jess De Haven. Born in Philadelphia in 1816, he shipped out with the fleet age the ripe old age of 10 as a midshipman and made his name as an early polar explorer, shipping out with the Wilkes Expedition (1839-42), and looking for Sir John Franklin’s lost polar expedition as skipper of the humble 81-foot brigantine USS Advance in 1850 as part of the Grinnell expedition. Placed on the retired list in 1862 due to failing eyesight, he passed in 1865.

His aging granddaughter, Mrs. Helen N. De Haven, made the trip to Bath Iron Works in 1942 to participate in the destroyer’s launching ceremony.

De Haven (DD-469) was launched on 28 June 1942 by Bath Iron Works Corp., Bath, Maine; sponsored by Miss H. N. De Haven, granddaughter of Lieutenant De Haven; and commissioned on 21 September 1942, T/CDR Charles Edward Tolman, USN, in command.

Launch of USS De Haven (DD-469) at Bath Iron Works, Maine (USA), on 28 June 1942 (80-G-40563

De Haven spent four weeks on shakedown cruises and post-delivery yard periods then sailed from Norfolk, reaching the Tonga Islands, on 28 November 1942. There, she attached to escort a convoy of troopships filled with soldiers of the Army’s 25th Infantry (Tropic Lightning) Division headed to Guadalcanal to relieve the “Old Breed” of the 1st MarDiv who had been there since the invasion landings in August.

De Haven screened the transports off Guadalcanal from 7 to 14 December, then sailed out of Espiritu Santo and Noumea in the continuing Solomon Islands operations.

Then, attached to Capt. Robert Pearce Briscoe’s Tulagi-based Task Group 67.5 (known as the “Cactus Striking Force”) along with the destroyers USS Nicholas, Radford, and O’Bannon, she patrolled the waters of the Southern Solomons to stop the “Tokyo Express,” the nightly effort to supply the beleaguered Japanese troops still fighting on the invaded islands.

Cactus Force took part in two bombardments of Kolombangara Island in late January 1943. During the latter, DeHaven fired 612 5-inch shells, which is some decent NGFS.

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS De Haven (DD-469) off Savo Island, viewed from USS Fletcher, 30 January 1943, two days before she was lost. NARA image 80-G-284578

Cactus Force was then sent on the night of 31 January/1 February to escort a scratch landing team of six small LCTs and the old converted “green dragon” fast transport (formerly a Wickes-class destroyer) USS Stringham (APD-6) to land the 2nd Battalion, 132nd Infantry Regiment and a battery of four 75mm pack howitzers near Kukum via Verahue Beach the other side of Guadalcanal, with the intention to outflank the Japanese who were rapidly evacuating the area.

However, they had the misfortune of being caught –in– Operation Ke-gō Sakusen, the Japanese withdrawal near Cape Esperance, and DeHaven became a victim to incoming waves of enemy aircraft screening that effort.

It was over in minutes. Four bombs– including one that hit the superstructure squarely, killing the commanding officer at once– sent the destroyer directly to the bottom as if on an elevator, taking 167 of her crew with her in the process.

She was the 15th American destroyer lost in the Guadalcanal campaign and had been in commission just four months and 11 days. The post-war analysis determined she was lost due to extreme and rapid flooding, specifically a “loss of buoyancy on relatively even keel” a fate only suffered by one other tin can in the war, sistership USS Aaron Ward (DD 483), also lost at a heavy air attack off Guadalcanal.

DeHaven’s six-page loss report is in the National Archives, submitted just four days after the ship took up her place on Iron Bottom Sound. As 10 of her officers were missing in action and three others seriously wounded on Navy hospital ships headed East, it was penned by her only unwounded officer, Ensign Clem C. Williams, Jr. Heady stuff for a 21-year-old O-1 to have to write.

Epilogue

As with the above-mentioned reports, DeHaven’s engineering drawings are in the National Archives.

She has a memorial at the National Museum of the Pacific War, located in Fredericksburg, Texas.

The man who wrote her loss report and compiled the names of her missing and dead, Ensign Williams, who was the son of a Washington dentist that had served in the Navy in the Great War, would survive his own war, become a physician in Indiana, and pass in 1992, aged 71.

Capt. Briscoe, leader of the Cactus Striking Force, would go on to command the fighting cruiser USS Denver (CL-58), earning a Navy Cross during the Northern Solomon Islands campaign from her bridge, then go on to lead the 7th Fleet during Korea. The Mississippian would conclude 41 years of service and retire in 1959 as a full admiral. He is buried at Arlington and a Spruance class destroyer, USS Briscoe (DD-977)— appropriately built in Pascagoula– was named in his honor.

When it comes to DeHaven’s fellow Fletcher-class destroyers, five of her sisterships– USS Pringle (DD-477), USS Bush (DD-529), USS Luce (DD-522), USS Little (DD-803), and USS Morrison (DD-560)— would go on to be sunk by kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa in a three week period. Life was not easy for Fletchers working the picket line in the Spring of 1945. 

The rest of her surviving sisters were widely discarded in the Cold War era by the Navy, who had long prior replaced them with more modern destroyers and Knox-class escorts. Those that had not been sent overseas as military aid were promptly sent to the breakers or disposed of in weapon tests. The class that had faced off with the last blossom of Japan’s wartime aviators helped prove the use of just about every anti-ship/tactical strike weapon used by NATO in the Cold War including Harpoon, Exocet, Sea Skua, Bullpup, Walleye, submarine-launched Tomahawk, and even at least one Sidewinder used in surface attack mode. In 1997, SEALS sank the ex-USS Stoddard (DD-566) via assorted combat-diver delivered ordnance. The final Fletcher in use around the globe, Mexico’s Cuitlahuac, ex-USS John Rodgers (DD 574), was laid up in 2001 and dismantled in 2011.

Today, four Fletchers are on public display, three of which in the U.S– USS The Sullivans (DD-537) at Buffalo, USS Kidd (DD-661) at Baton Rouge, and USS Cassin Young (DD-793) at the Boston Navy Yard. Please try to visit them if possible. Kidd, the best preserved of the trio, was used extensively for the filming of the Tom Hanks film, Greyhound.

DeHaven’s name was quickly recycled for a new Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer (DD-727) that was building at Bath Iron Works in Maine– the birthplace of “our” destroyer. Sponsored by Mrs. H. N. De Haven– who also cracked the bottle on the bow of the first De Haven— she commissioned 31 March 1944 and was screening the fast carriers of TF38 striking Luzon in support of the invasion of Leyte by that November. In a much longer 49-year career, this second DeHaven received five battle stars for World War II service and in addition to her Navy Unit Commendation picked up a further six for Korean War service and decorations for 10 tours in off Vietnam between 1962 and 1971.

Transferred to the South Korean Navy in 1973, she was renamed ROKS Incheon (DD-98/918) (she was present at the landings there in 1950) and served under the flag of that country until 1993.

The USS DeHaven Sailors Association remembers both tin cans today and is very active on social media.

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!

Shoehorned Greyhounds

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Mare Island Naval Shipyard‘s Dry Dock No. 2 is filled with six unidentified “four-piper” type flush-deck destroyers circa 1922. To the side, you can see California Avenue, east side near Ninth Street, in Vallejo, California.

Photocopy of photograph (the original is located at Mare Island Archives). The original photographer is unknown. LOC HABS CAL,48-MARI,1BR–1

All of the destroyers are four pipers with four open-mount deck guns and four triple 21-inch torpedo tubes. Of note, the center ship of the top trio has landed two of its torpedo tube racks and has two empty turnstiles looking to heaven.

The arrangement identifies the six as members of the prolific Wickes or follow-on Clemson classes of tin cans of which a staggering 267 hulls were completed between 1917 and 1922. Several of both classes have been profiled on past Warship Wednesdays.

As for Dry Dock No. 2, the 720-foot long/98-foot wide concrete graving dock is still in active service and has been extensively photographed over the years.

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023: The Kaiser’s Tin Cans do Broadway

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

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023: Kaisers Tin Cans do Broadway

Bain News Service collection, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-50381

Above we see, in the summer of 1920 a trio of once-sunk former torpedoboten of the old Kaiserliche Marine, anchored in New York City, from left to right ex-SMS V43, G102, and S132, with the newly commissioned Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Redwing (AM-48) outboard.

A closer look. Note that all the vessels have Union Jacks on their bows, as they are in possession of the Navy if not in direct commission. LC-DIG-ggbain-31137

Check out the inset, showing a little girl playing on G102’s forward 8.8 cm SK L/45 naval gun and her boater hat-wearing father close by. Besides four such guns, the 1,700-ton vessel carried six 19.7-inch torpedo tubes and could make 34 knots on her steam turbines, a speed that is still fast today. Another boater-clad man is inspecting the view from atop her wheelhouse.

German destroyer S132 in possession of the U.S. Navy, showing the mine laying stern. Note the stern of the minesweeper Redwing. LOC

German destroyers G102 and S132 in possession of the U.S. Navy, in 1920 in New York with a great view of Manhattan from the Hudson and the ships’ guns and searchlights. LOC

The vessels had been interned at Scapa Flow by the terms of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, then scuttled by their skeleton crews on 21 June 1919. Saved by the British, who worked quickly to beach these small craft along with a few others, they were turned over to the U.S. as war reparations as part of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1920, along with the German Helgoland class battleship ex-SMS Ostfriesland and the Wiesbaden-class light cruiser ex-SMS Frankfurt.

All five ships saw extensive action with the High Seas Fleet during World War I, including (except for SMS V43) the epic clash at Jutland. That service, while fascinating, is beyond the scope of this post but I encourage you to look into it if curious.

Scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow: Tug alongside scuttled German destroyer G 102 at Scapa Flow, June 1919. Of the 74 interned German ships at Scapa, 52 were lost– including all three of G102’s sisters– with the remainder saved by the British and divvied up post-Versailles. IWM SP 1631

Turned over to a scratch American crew, they were shepherded across the Atlantic to New York by the minesweepers Redwing and USS Falcon (AM-28).

The German Imperial Navy destroyer SMS G 102 is escorted to a U.S. port by the U.S. Navy minesweeper USS Falcon (AM-28), circa 1920. Note her six assorted torpedo tubes arranged front, aft, and center. NH 45786

Ostfriesland, Capt. J. F. Hellweg (USNA 1900), USN, in command, became the only German-built battleship commissioned into the U.S. Navy on 7 April 1920 at Rosyth, Scotland, and made New York under her own power, where she was decommissioned on 20 September 1920. Hellweg, who had spent his career in surface warfare including service with the Great White Fleet and in Mexico, went on to command the Naval Observatory and was certainly an interesting figure at parties. 

After their summer as “propaganda ships,” the three tin cans were soon stripped at Norfolk and disposed of off Cape Henry, Virginia, at the infamous hands of Billy Mitchell’s land-based aircraft, followed up with a coup de grace on the humble yet still floating 1,100-ton V43 made by assembled American battleships on 15 July 1921.

Via NYT Archives

Direct hit on G102, July 13, 1921. They were sunk during the Billy Mitchell aircraft bombing tests on German and U.S. Navy ships, showing the vulnerability of ships to aerial bombing, on July 18, 1921. Photograph from the William “Billy” Mitchell Collection, U.S. Navy Museum.

Anti-Ship Bombing Demonstration, 1921. Shown: G-102 showing smoke from a direct hit made by SE-5 with a 25-pound TNT-filled fragmentation bomb, June 21, 1921. From the album entitled, “First Provisional Air Brigade, Langley Field, Hampton, Virginia, 1921.” Note her tubes and guns have been removed. From the William Mitchell Collection. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As for Redwing, she went on to be sheep-dipped and serve in the Coast Guard during Prohibition, then would return to Navy service first on the West Coast in 1929 and then on the East by 1941. Converted to a rescue/salvage ship (ARS-4), she was lost to an Axis mine off the old Vichy French navy base at Bizerte, Tunisia, during WWII on 29 June 1943.

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!

Mush v the Harusame

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80 years ago today: The Shiratsuyu-class destroyer Harusame of the Imperial Japanese Navy was torpedoed by the famed Gato-class submarine USS Wahoo (SS-238) under the command of LCDR Dudley Walker “Mush” Morton, near Wewak, New Guinea. It would be the third of 11 attacks logged during the boat’s Third War Patrol

Harusame’s back is clearly broken. Wartime intelligence evaluated this photo as showing one of the Asashio-class (see Photographic Intelligence Report # 82, 17 March 1943). However, the ship’s bridge structure identifies her as a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, with the # 2 (single) 5 gun mount removed. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-35738 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

From Wahoo’s patrol report, in “Mush’s” words. 

Just two weeks after the above image:

Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, commanding officer of Wahoo (SS-238), at right with his executive officer, Lieutenant Richard H. O’Kane, on Wahoo’s open bridge at Pearl Harbor after her very successful third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-35725.

Beached to avoid sinking with her keel broken, Harusame was salvaged and towed to Truk where she was fitted with an emergency false bow, then sailed in convoy in May to Yokosuka for rebuilding. She returned to service in late November 1943, joining Desdiv 27, Desron 2, IJN Second Fleet.

Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Harusame underway after rebuild on November 30, 1943. Shizuo Fukui – Kure Maritime Museum, Japanese Naval Warship Photo Album: Destroyers, edited by Kazushige Todaka, p. 81

Her service would come to an end just seven months later, dispatched by USAAF B-25s 30 miles northwest of Cape of Good Hope near Manokwari on 8 June 1944 while on a troop transport run to Biak. She was lost with 74 of her crew.

As for Wahoo, she had already been lost by a remarkably similar fate– sent to the bottom by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from her Seventh War Patrol, sunk with all 79 hands by a sustained air and surface attack as she was attempting to exit the Sea of Japan via the La Perouse Strait.

Detailed by DANFS:

The loss of Morton and Wahoo caused profound shock in the submarine force. All further forays into the Sea of Japan ceased, and it was not again invaded until June 1945, when special mine-detecting equipment was available for submarines. Morton was posthumously awarded a fourth Navy Cross. When he died, his claimed sinkings exceeded those of any other submarine skipper: 17 ships for 100,000 tons. In the postwar accounting, this was readjusted to 19 ships for about 55,000 tons. This left Morton, in terms of individual ships sunk, one of the top three skippers of the war. So ended the career of one of the greatest submarine teams of World War II: Wahoo and “Mush” Morton.

Make way for Yorktown!

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80 years ago today: The brand-new Essex-class fleet carrier USS Yorktown (CV 10), was launched at Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia, on 21 January 1943.

U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-33869

The second vessel in the class, the warship had been laid down on 1 December 1941– six days prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor– as Bon Homme Richard but was renamed the become the fourth USS Yorktown on 26 September 1942 some three months after the loss of the third USS Yorktown at the pivotal Battle of Midway.

Sponsored by no less a person than Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the new Yorktown was commissioned on 15 April 1943 at the Norfolk Navy Yard with Capt. Joseph J. (“Jocko”) Clark, the skipper of the escort carrier USS Suwanee (ACV-27) during the Torch landings just five months prior, in command.

At commissioning. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-K-15555 photographed by Lieutenant Charles Kerlee, USNR. From the U.S. Navy Naval

A VF-1 Top Hatter F6F-3 fighter is launched from USS YORKTOWN, to intercept enemy forces during Mariana's turkey shoot 19 June 1944. Note target information board under the propeller. 80-G-248440

A VF-1 Top Hatter F6F-3 fighter is launched from USS YORKTOWN, to intercept enemy forces during Mariana’s turkey shoot 19 June 1944. Note target information board under the propeller. 80-G-248440

"Murderers' Row" Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944, during a break from operations in the Philippines area. The carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Wasp, Yorktown, and Ticonderoga are all painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a. Photographed from a USS Ticonderoga plane. 80-G-294131

“Murderers’ Row” Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944, during a break from operations in the Philippines area. The new Essex-class carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19), and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Wasp, Yorktown, and Ticonderoga are all painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a. Photographed from a USS Ticonderoga plane. 80-G-294131

Painting of USS Yorktown (CV-10) in her Cold War angled deck and hurricane-bowed SCB conversion with assorted ASW aircraft embarked. So converted in 1957, she was reclassified as an Antisubmarine Warfare Support Aircraft Carrier (CVS-10). She remains in this configuration today, although with a bit more rust. Courtesy of Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida. NH 86022-KN

After an illustrious career that saw 11 battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation earned during World War II and a further five battle stars for Vietnam service, Yorktown has served as a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina since 1975.

San Fran Triple Flats

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San Francisco Naval Shipyard: a trio of Essex-class carriers, left-to-right, USS Hancock (CVA-19), USS Oriskany CVA-34), and USS Bennington (CVA-20), 3 October 1957.

Denham/NARA # 80-G-K-23227.

Of note, Oriskany is in drydock in the middle of her SCB-125A modernization, which took place from 1 October 1956 to 29 May 1959. She was the last of her class to gain her angled deck, steam catapults, and hurricane bow and would have an exceptionally long life– the last Essex to operate as a combat carrier.

Decommissioned on 30 September 1976, she would languish in mothballs through the Lehman “600 Ship Navy” period even though she had grass growing on her decks, and be stricken in 1989, just four months before the Berlin Wall came down.

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023: First Trap

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

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023: First Trap

*As I am on the road this week at SHOT Show, trying to blend into the understated kaleidoscope carpet of the Venitian, please accept this humble offering. We shall resume the regular-length WW posts next week.*

Today is the 112th anniversary of the very first documented aircraft landing onboard a ship. The occasion, on 18 January 1911, took place when pioneering (and ill-fated) aviator Eugene Burton Ely touched down onboard USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser No. 4) while the warship was anchored in San Francisco Bay. Taking back off from the vessel later that day, he then made his return flight back to Tanforan Field ashore.

The event was captured in a very interesting series of photographs– especially for the age of giant large format box cameras– now digitized in the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

Crewmembers of merchant sailing ships at San Francisco, California, watching during the morning of 18 January 1911, as aviator Eugene Ely landed his Curtiss pusher biplane on board USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4), which was anchored off the city. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks. NH 77569

First airplane landing on a warship, on 18 January 1911. Eugene B. Ely lands his Curtiss pusher biplane on USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4), which was anchored in San Francisco Bay, California. The San Francisco waterfront is visible in the left distance. NH 77498

Eugene B. Ely’s Curtiss pusher biplane nears the landing platform on USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4), during the morning of 18 January 1911. The ship was then anchored in San Francisco Bay, California. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks. NH 77500

Ely’s Curtiss pusher biplane nears the landing platform on USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4), during the morning of 18 January 1911. NH 82737

Ely’s biplane is about to touch down. Note the arresting system, consisting of lines stretched across the platform, with sandbag weights at each end. The lines, which were to be engaged by hooks on the airplane, were held above the deck by two rows of boards laid fore and aft. Canvas awnings were erected on both sides of the platform to catch the plane (and pilot) if it veered over the edge. Also note at least two box cameras set up in the foreground. NH 77507

Note that Ely has his elevator down to compensate for an unexpected updraft the plane encountered as it came over the landing platform’s after end. NH 77607

The plane has now caught the first lines of the arresting gear, and sandbags at the ends of the lines are being pulled along the landing platform as the plane moves forward. NH 77608

 

Ely’s biplane at rest on board USS Pennsylvania. Ely (with rubber inner tubes around his shoulders, and wearing a leather helmet) has dismounted from the plane and is talking with a man standing in front of the plane. Note the sandbags attached to lines behind the plane, used to stop it after it reached the deck. NH 77609

The officer in the lower left is Lieutenant John Rodgers, who would become an airplane pilot a few months later, the second Naval Aviator. NH 77610

Ely has now walked out of view, to the left. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks. NH 77583

 

Ship’s crewmen and guests looking over Eugene B. Ely’s Curtiss pusher biplane, shortly after his successful landing on USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser # 4). Some of the Sailors are removing the sandbag and line arresting gear behind the plane. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks. NH 77503

Guests and crewmen examine and photograph Eugene B. Ely’s Curtiss pusher biplane on USS Pennsylvania’s aircraft platform, during preparations for his return flight to Tanforan field, San Francisco, California. Ely’s wife, Mabel, is standing with the photographers in front of the plane. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks. NH 77591

Crewmen and guests examine Ely’s Curtiss pusher biplane on USS Pennsylvania’s aircraft platform, after it had been rotated during preparations for his return flight to Tanforan field, San Francisco, California. Note the photographers (with large box cameras) near the platform’s after end. Sailors nearby are clearing away sandbags used to help stop the plane as it landed. Photograph from the Eugene B. Ely scrapbooks.NH 77589

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!

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