That brilliant naval scofflaw, Scottish-born John Paul Jones of “Give me a fast ship, for I intend to sail in harm’s way” and “I have not yet begun to fight!” fame, is credited today by some as “The father of the U.S. Navy.” Of course, he had a spotty record prior to casting his lot with the Revolutionary Colonials in 1775, including more than a decade of service in British merchant and slave ships, a stint that covered a messy incident in putting down a mutiny and being labeled as “unnecessarily cruel” by at least one of his crews.
Between his command of the sloop USS Providence in 1776– which included taking at least 16 British prizes– and becoming the skipper of the new sloop USS Ranger in late 1777, he roomed at the Purcell boarding house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire from which he penned a number of letters. Returning to the area again in 1781-82, after his stint in commanding the short-lived 42-gun USS Bonhomme Richard and before his promised command of the new 74-gun ship-of-the-line USS America could be completed, he once again boarded with the widow Purcell.
This house today is remembered as the John Paul Jones Historic House in the care of the Portsmouth Historical Society, although it was never owned by Jones and he only lived there briefly for two short periods.
Nonetheless, you know I had to stop off there on my recent trip to Portsmouth.
It is a beautiful home, especially right before dusk when you are headed to dinner at the Library Restaurant next door on State Street.
Jones went on to spend time in the service of Catherine the Great (rising to the rank of rear admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, higher than his American rank), then was found dead in his Paris apartment of nephritis at age 45 in July 1792– 230 days ago this week.
Interestingly, at least two other homes of Capt/RADM Jones exist today including the John Paul Jones Cottage Museum at Arbigland in his native Scotland and the house owned by his brother in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where Jones often stayed.
I don’t often recommend content from Business Insider, but they have been posting otherwise well-made videos from Great Lakes recently, and these two I found interesting:
A Navy sailor breaks down every item that new recruits are issued on their first day of boot camp. MM2 Lionell Comeaux explains what’s in the Navy “ditty box,” or the first issue of uniform items, hygiene products, and more that new recruits receive once they arrive at Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes:
A Navy sailor breaks down every uniform that new recruits are issued at Navy boot camp. HM1 Daniel Andren explains the history, features, and uses for the six uniforms every sailor receives in their sea bag, which they’re issued on their first night and which stays with them throughout their Navy career, and shares his favorite and least favorite uniforms to wear.
The six uniforms every sailor is issued in their sea bag:
USCGC Northwind in Antarctic waters, 16 December 1956. K-21429.
In all, an impressive eight Wind-class ships were built. Equipped with 5″/38 DP mounts and with the ability to carry floatplanes (later helicopters as soon as 1945), they fought the Germans in the “Weather War” while on Greenland Patrol in WWII, were the coldest boats of the frozen front lines of the Cold War where they helped establish the DEW Line and made sure Thule AB could exist in the Arctic and McMurdo in the Antarctic. Operations Deep Freeze, Nanook, Blue Nose, High Jump (aka “The Battle of Antarctica”), and more. They also proved to have long lives, with several still clocking in for hard work crunching ice in the late 1980s.
However, one of the Winds that got little love from the history books was a special one-off sister HMCS Labrador (AW50), the Royal Canadian Navy’s only polar icebreaker. She was almost amazingly advanced for the “old school” Tars of the RCN, being the first fully diesel-electric vessel in the Royal Canadian Navy as well as the first to have central heating and ventilation, air conditioning, and bunks instead of hammocks.
Built domestically under license by Marine Industries Limited in Sorel, Quebec (Yard No. 187), she was laid down on 18 November 1949, making her all-Canadian. Her seven American sisters were all built at San Pedro while her unarmed freshwater half-sister USCGC Mackinaw (WAGB-83) was built for Great Lakes service at Toledo.
Speaking of unarmed, the 6,500-ton HMCS Labrador was completed with a much-reduced fixed armament, mounting two 40mm Bofors and a single 3″/50 gun platform on the forecastle– though the latter was never mounted.
The ship was by no means an exact copy of the American icebreakers, for advantage was taken of USN experience to incorporate many improvements. The stem of the Canadian ship, for instance, was given a knife-edge instead of the U shape of the American vessels, and the bow propeller fitted in the original Wind Class was omitted. The flight deck was made about half as big again as those fitted in the American ships and could accommodate three helicopters. Another major deviation from the US design was the fitting of retractable Denny-Brown stabilizing fins in an attempt to cut down the excessive roll of the Wind Class ships in rough weather. A great many changes involving accommodation of personnel were also made in order to provide better quarters and more recreational space for the ship’s company. Further modifications were necessitated by the fact that the RCN communications and radar requirements were about twice as great as those of the American ships. The ship’s first Commanding Officer, Captain O.C.S. Robertson, GM, RD, RCN, was responsible for many of the improvements made to the ship. He spent several months working with USN icebreakers, and his fertile mind conceived improvements and modifications at a rate that almost had the Naval Constructor in Chief wishing the ship had been assigned a less efficient and enthusiastic CO.
Commissioned 8 July 1954– some 68 years ago this week, later that November Labrador became the first warship to circumnavigate North America in a single voyage, sailing North from Halifax, crossing the Northwest Passage, sailing down the Pacific Coast, and back up to Halifax via the Panama Canal.
She could carry three helicopters including two Bell HTL-4 and a HUP II. Along with the 36-foot (11 m) all-aluminum hydrographic sounding craft Pogo. 2
She was Canada’s first heavy icebreaker and the Royal Canadian Navy’s first vessel capable of reliably operating in the waters of the Arctic, in essence, the country’s first Arctic patrol ship. She was the first warship as well as the first deep-draught ship of any type to transit the Northwest Passage and only the second vessel ever to accomplish the feat in one season.
USCGC Eastwind W279 coming alongside HMCS Labrador in the Arctic Ice
However, scandalously cash-strapped (a heritage the service continues to carry to this day), Labrador decommissioned on 22 November 1957 and transferred to civilian control in 1958 after just four years of RCN service.
Operating with the Department of Transport as the Canadian Government Ship (CGS) Labrador and then after 1962 with the newly-formed Canadian Coast Guard as CCGS Labrador, she endured until 1988 and was sent to the breakers. Today, the RCN hopes to field six new new “ice-capable” patrol ships, this time armed– the Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessels– which are, at 6,600 tons, actually bigger than Labrador. It seems sending armed ships to the Arctic has finally become popular in Canada.
For more on Labrador, see her page on For Posterity’s Sake, a Royal Canadian Navy Historical Project.
80 years ago today, official caption: “CPO George Sanderson. View was taken in 1942. Sanderson held the distinction of being the oldest man in the armed forces on active duty. Joined (sloop-of-war) USS Iroquoison 7 July 1882, recalled to active duty on 15 July 1942. Born 3 January 1862.”
Original print signed: Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, best wishes, George Sanderson. Naval History and Heritage Command, Yarnell collection NH 81981
The Chief Boatswains Mate has 10 (gold) hash marks on his sleeve, denoting at least 40 years of active service.
Mustachioed Gunners Mate First Class (Gun Captain) George Sanderson in the center with his gun crew, USS Oregon (BB-3) before the battle of Santiago, 1898. LOC LC-D4-32321 det 4a16563
After a life of service on Civil War Sloops of War, a Coast Survey Ship in the Arctic, Screw Gunboats, Screw Sloops of War, Protected Cruisers, the first Battleships, a prize Spanish Gunboat, Hospital Ship, Schooner Rigged Steamer, Armored Cruiser plus a fleet of Receiving ships, he wanted more sea duty. Over 40 years of service ‘Sandy’ Sanderson had rounded the world 21 times, landed Marines in Panama in the 1880s, served in the Spanish American War as a Gun Turret Captain, fought Philippine Insurrectionists, Boxer Revolutionaries, Panamanian Revolutionaries, Zulu uprisings, protected seals in the Bering Sea, and made liberties in the Hawaiian Kingdom, as Sandy put it, “when they were something – when old King Kalakaua was in charge”. Recalled during World War I, he organized and was placed in charge of a gunnery school in New York City with 542 men assigned there and retired again in 1922.
Putting on his old uniform again after Pearl Harbor, he asked for sea duty.
He asked for sea duty.
Ultimately taken back into service, though restricted to shore assignments, he was assigned to Treasure Island and Recruiting Duty,
“Sandy” became one of the Navy’s best recruiters of Sailors, Seabees and in particular, WAVES, having had experience with the first Yeomanettes during World War I when he ran the NYC Gunnery School. 80-G-359957: “CBM George “Sandy” Sanderson, 81, oldest man on active duty in the Navy was nearly swamped by WAVES when he visited Portland, Oregon, recently and appeared at the Navy Mother’s Club tea on Navy Day.”
Discharged in August 1945, he earned his 11th service stripe!
CBM (PA) George ‘Sandy’ Sanderson, USN – The oldest US Navy sailor serving in World War II. All Hands, March 1949.
Attempting to reenlist for Korea but denied, Sanderson passed the bar in 1954.
Every gun nerd knows about SOPMOD. SOPMOD refers to Special Operations Peculiar MODification kit.
This stuff:
The purpose behind SOPMOD is to provide rifles with the flexibility and versatility to adapt basic issue weapons to meet mission-specific requirements.
It started off a lot less high-speed.
Retired Navy SEAL Mark “Coch” Cochiolo talks about his career in SOPMOD, with a great 11-minute show and tell below going from the old days of pipe-clamping Maglights on MP5s, and drilling eye-bolts through handguards to where we are at today.
I’m on the road, haunting New England on a gun industry-related trip all week (although I do plan to catch the screening of “Master and Commander” on the deck of the USS Constitution on Friday night!). As such, I didn’t have the time to do a proper Warship Wednesday today.
Until then, enjoy this haunting image– photographed by scout aircraft from USS Ranger (CV 4)— of the dreadnought USS Tennessee (Battleship No. 43) with San Francisco Bridge in the background, 84 years ago today, 13 July 1938. The image was likely snapped by the observer in a Vought SBU-1 (Corsair) belonging to the “Ducks” of Scouting Squadron Forty-Two (VS-42).
U.S. Navy photo now in the National Archives 80-CF-14-2054-12
There have been lots of interesting combat swimmer news bits in the past week.
For starters, check out this photo dump from Saventa, Aruba (June 19, 2022) showing Marines with 2d Reconnaissance Battalion conducting a dive during Exercise Caribbean Coastal Warrior in conjunction with Dutch Korps Mariners marines. “This bilateral training exercise allows 2d Recon to expand its knowledge and proficiency when operating in littoral and coastal regions.”
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
Of course, you see rubber duck M4s, because why waste a good weapon in saltwater immersion training. But this post isn’t about rubber rifles with droopy barrels. Check out that last image and you will see a STIDD Diving Propulsion Device or DPD.
This thing:
STIDD also makes a cargo pod for the DPD, which is now in its third generation.
The DPD is rare, but the Marine Recon community has been using them in small numbers for a decade. Check out this image from 2014:
JAN 31, 2014. Cpl. Peter E. Kober, left, and Sgt. Scott A. Hulsizer carry their diver propulsion device into the water to begin their dive Jan. 22, during a certification course at Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The DPD is a battery-powered vehicle capable of carrying two divers and their equipment while submerged out of sight. The course was a part of Exercise Sandfisher 2014. Kober and Hulsizer are reconnaissance men with Company B, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force. Photo by Cpl. Brandon Suhr
“The (DPD) gives the combat divers an amazing benefit over the normal combat diving operational limitations they have,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Donald R. Miner, a medical deep-sea diver and instructor for the course with Headquarters Company, 3rd Recon. Bn., 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force. “It can defeat high currents and high tides using its battery. It also gives the divers more relaxation time as they’re not swimming for extended periods. They can go without expending all their energy trying to get to shore.”
Jet Boots!
Meanwhile, 10th Group’s base paper recently profiled a three-week ODA combat dive requalification at Key West’s very tough SFUWO school. To be validated, a dive team must perform six closed-circuit dives using a rebreather, one open-circuit search dive, and an Over the Horizon inflatable boat move of at least 15 nautical miles.
The group used Jet Boots for part of the requal. Simple twin scooter fans that strap to your legs, they can push you at up to 4 knots underwater.
KEY WEST, Fla. — Special Forces operators with 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), carry a simulated stinger missile on shore near Key West, Florida, during a three-week dive requalification on May 6, 2022. Combat divers performed a closed-circuit dive to rehearse undersea wartime operations. The things strapped to their legs are Jet Boots (Photo by Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant)
Said the team leader:
“We’re incorporating (the Jetboots Diver Propulsion System) on our dives to extend our range. With dive operations, we’re limited to about 2 kilometers of diving. With the Jetboots capability SFUWO provides, we can do (infiltrations) of up to 7 or 8 kilometers.”
B-roll of the 10th Group guys sunning in the Keys:
The Marines have also used Jet Boots, which they simply term a “diver propulsion vehicle” or DPV.
Finally, just to remind folks they have the best toys, the SEALs (or at least SDV/DDS support guys) dropped this image just in time for July 4th reposts, albeit with open-circuit gear.
Military members from Naval Special Warfare Group Eight display the national ensign as they perform dive operations while underway on a Virginia Class fast-attack submarine USS New Mexico (SSN 778). Naval Special Warfare organizes, mans, trains, equips, deploys, sustains, and provides command and control of NAVSPECWAR forces to conduct full-spectrum undersea special operations and activities worldwide in support of Geographic Combatant Commands and national interests. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Christopher Perez).
95 Years Ago Today: Vought UO floatplane, arriving at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California, 8 July 1927, marked on its fuselage as being from USS Nevada (Battleship No. 36).
U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-HAN-142-2
The Vought UO was top-of-the-line a century ago at the time it was introduced in 1922.
“As their superiority over potential competing types became evident, they became the only observation type in use on the fleet’s catapult-equipped combat ships. The 15 first-class battleships were each equipped with one or more UO-1s. Two or more UO-1s were used aboard each of the new scout cruisers comprising the Navy’s scouting fleet.”
The two-seat observation plane accomplished several firsts, including:
The first airplane to be catapulted from a battleship at night (26 November 1924, Lt. Dixie Kiefer off the USS. California in San Diego harbor while lit by the ship’s searchlights).
Vought’s first overseas sales (to Cuba and later to Peru).
The first airplane hooked in midair from the Navy dirigible USS Los Angeles (1929).
With just 141 aircraft built, the career of the Vought UO series was limited, and, obsolete only a decade after being introduced, they were retired by the Navy by 1933.
Warship Wednesday, July 6, 2022: Dispatches from the New Navy
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 69187
Above we see the one-of-a-kind steel-hulled dispatch boat USS Dolphin (later PG-24) off New York City, about 1890. Note the Statue of Liberty in the right background. A controversial warship when she first appeared, she later proved to have a long and star-studded career.
Dolphin was part of the famed “ABCD” ships, the first modern steel-hulled warships of the “New Navy” ordered in the early 1880s along with the protected cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago. While the ABC part of this quartet was built to fight, running 3,200 tons in the case of Atlanta and Boston and 4,500 tons for Chicago, with as much as 4-inches of armor plate and a total of eight 8-inch, 20 6-inch, and two 5-inch guns between them, Dolphin was, well, a lot less of a bruiser.
Laid down on 11 October 1883 as an unarmored cruiser by John Roach and Sons, Chester, PA, Dolphin hit the scales at just 1,485 tons with a length of 256 feet (240 between perpendiculars). Her armament was also slight, with a single 6″/30 Mark 1 (serial no. 1), three 6-pounders, four 3-pounders, and two Colt Gatling guns.
6″/30 (15.2 cm) Mark I gun on the protected cruiser USS Atlanta circa 1895. Note three-motion breech mechanism and Mark 2, Muzzle Pivot Mount inclined mounting. Dolphin was to carry one of these, but it wasn’t to be. Detroit Publishing Company Collection Photograph Library of Congress Photograph ID LC-USZ62-60234
However, although all the ABC cruisers would successfully carry 6″/30s along with their other wild mix of armament, it was soon seen that Dolphin was too light for the piece and she transitioned to two 4″/40 (10.2 cm) Mark 1 pieces as her main armament.
Equipped with four (two double-ended and two single-ended) boilers trunked through a centerline stack pushing a single 2,253ihp vertical compound direct-acting engine on a centerline shaft, she also had a three-mast auxiliary sail rig, a hermaphrodite pattern carried by all the ABCD ships. With everything lit and a clean hull, it was thought she could make 17 knots on a flat sea, something that was thought to equal 15 knots in rough conditions.
Brooklyn, NY. Dock No 2 with USS Dolphin (dispatch boat) showing her hull shape, masts, stack, and screw. USN 902198
Unofficial plans, USS Dolphin, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. By Deutsch Lith and Ptg Co., Photo-Lith, Balto. NH 70119
However, in the spring and summer of 1885, the ship was the subject of much controversy. The first of the ABCD ships nearing completion, she could not make her target speed under any condition, barely hitting 14 knots, and incapable of sustaining that for over six hours. Meanwhile, the Herreshoff-built steam yacht Stilettowas hitting 24.8 knots and the Cunard steamship Etruria was logging over 19 sustained across a 72-hour period.
That, coupled with the issue of armament, led to a special board directed by President Chester A. Arthur’s SECNAV Bill Chandler to inspect and evaluate Dolphin, which was accordingly reclassified as a dispatch boat rather than a cruiser.
A subsequent board formed by President Cleveland’s incoming SECNAV William C. Whitney, consisting of Capt. George E. Belknap, Commanders Robley D. Evans, William T. Sampson, and Caspar F. Goodrich (all of which became famed admirals); Naval Constructor Francis Bowles, and one Mr. Herman Winters, was formed to criticize the first board later that fall, and by early 1886 it was deemed Dolphin had caulking and planking issues, a few defective steel trusses, and her plant was never able to make the designed 2,300 hp on her original boilers. Further, it was thought her powerplant and battery were too exposed to any sort of fire to be effective in combat.
The papers were filled with drama, with the New York Times archives holding dozens of stories filed on the subject that year.
“Cruelty” Dolphin: “What! go to sea, Secretary Whitney! Why, that might make me seasick!'”– says the caption of this Thomas Nast cartoon published in Harper’s weekly, satirizing the mediocre performance during sea trials of the USS Dolphin, one of four vessels ordered by Congress in 1883 to rebuild a United States Navy that was in disrepair. Secretary of the Navy William Whitney refused to accept the new ship, setting off a well-publicized political controversy and eventually driving the shipbuilder into bankruptcy. Via the NYPL collection.
“John Roach’s little miscalculation” Illustration shows Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, handing a boat labeled “Dolphin” to James G. Blaine who shies away, refusing to accept it; in the background, John Roach, a contractor, who built the ship “Dolphin”, is crying because the Cleveland administration has voided his contract. Published in Puck, May 20, 1885, cover. Art by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler. Via LOC
Completed on 23 July 1884, Dolphin was only commissioned on 8 December 1885, while the Navy would work out her issues and pass on her lessons learned to the other new steel warships being built.
Notably, her skipper during this period was Capt., George Dewey (USNA 1858), later to become the hero of Manila Bay.
The first of the vessels of the “New Navy” to be completed, Dolphin was assigned to the North Atlantic Station, cruising along the eastern seaboard until February 1886 when it was deemed, she was ready to undertake longer runs, embarking in a stately three-year, 58,000-mile deployment and circumnavigation of the globe under CDR George Francis Faxon Wilde (USNA 1865). America had to show off her new warship via foreign service.
Accordingly, as noted by DANFS, “she then sailed around South America on her way to the Pacific Station for duty. She visited ports in Japan, Korea, China, Ceylon, India, Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Spain, and England, and the islands of Madeira and Bermuda, before arriving at New York on 27 September 1889 to complete her round-the-world cruise.”
USS Dolphin, some of the ship’s officers, with a monkey mascot, circa 1889, likely picked up on the way round the globe. Odds are the officer holding him is CDR George Francis Faxon Wilde. Decorated as a midshipman at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Wilde would go on to command the monitor USS Katahdin, the cruiser USS Boston during the Span Am War, and the battleship USS Oregon then retire in 1905 as head of the Boston Navy Yard. NH 54538
This trip, with the ship proving her worth, led to her appearing in the periodicals of the day in a much more impressive take.
Dispatch-vessel Dolphin from The Illustrated London News 1891
Harpers Weekly cover USS Dolphin
Harper’s Weekly January 1886 USS Dolphin in sails
By the time she arrived back home, the Navy’s other steel ships were reaching the fleet and they all became part of the new “Squadron of Evolution.”
USS Dolphin (1885-1922); USS Atlanta (1886-1912); and USS Chicago (1889-1935) off New York City, about 1890. NH 69190
As with most Naval vessels of the era, Dolphin would spend her career in and out of commission, being laid up in ordinary and reserve on no less than three times between 1891 and 1911, typically for about a year or so. Today the Navy still conducts the same lengthy yard periods but keeps the vessels in commission.
In April 1891, Dolphin was detached from the Squadron of Evolution and the Navy made $40,000 available for her cabins to be refitted to assume the task of Presidential yacht from the older USS Despatch, a much smaller (560 ton) vessel that was in poor condition.
She would continue this tasking off and on mixed with yearly fleet exercises and experiments for the rest of her career.
Speaking to the latter, in April 1893, she embarked pigeons from the Naval Academy lofts, the Washington Navy Yard’s loft in Richmond, and of Philadelphia Navy Yard then released them while steaming off Hampton Roads. The birds all made it back to their nests, covering 98 miles, 212, and 214 miles, respectively, delivering short messages penned by the daughter of SECNAV Hilary A. Herbert.
The same year, she took part in the bash that was the Columbian Naval Review in New York, where Edward H. Hart of the Detriot Post Card Co. captured several striking views of her with her glad rags flying.
Dolphin LC-D4-8923
Dolphin LC-D4-20362
LC-D4-20364
In 1895, she carried out a survey mission to Guatemala
She carried President William McKinley and his party to New York for the ceremonies at Grant’s Tomb on 23 April 1897.
Grant Tomb dedication, 1897: View of Grant’s tomb, Claremont Heights, New York City, in the background, and the USS Dolphin and tugboats in the foreground. J.S. Johnston, view & marine photo, N.Y. LOC LC-USZ62-110717
Then came war.
1898!
In ordinary when the USS Maine blew up in Havanna, Dolphin recommissioned on 24 March 1898 just prior to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. She then rushed south to serve on blockade duty off Havana, Cuba, a mission she slogged away on during April and May.
It was during this period she captured the Spanish vessel Lola (31 tons) with a cargo of fish and salt.
She covered her white and buff scheme with a more warlike dark grey.
U.S. Navy gunboat/dispatch vessel USS Dolphin (PG-24), port bow. Photographed by J.S. Johnston, 1898. LOC Lot-3370-8
USS Dolphin overhauling Schooner Kate [Kate S. Flint] with an unknown young woman in white. Dolphin in distance. Santiago de Cuba. 1898 Stevens-Coolidge Place Collection via Digital Commonwealth/Massachusetts libraries system.
A second view of the same centered on Dolphin.
On 6 June she came under fire from the Morro Battery at Santiago and replied in kind. Less than two weeks later, on 14 June, Dolphin bombarded the Spanish positions in the Battle of Cuzco Well, near Guantanamo Bay, carrying casualties back to the American positions there.
Sent back to Norfolk with casualties, she arrived there on 2 July and the war ended before she could make it back to Cuba.
U.S. Navy dispatch vessel, USS Dolphin, port view with flags. Lot 3000-L-5
Good work if you can get it
Her wartime service completed; Dolphin would spend the next two decades heavily involved in shuttling around dignitaries. This would include:
Washington Navy Yard for the Peace Jubilee of 14 May to 30 June 1899.
New York for the Dewey celebration of 26 to 29 September 1899.
Alexandria, Va., for the city’s sesquicentennial on 10 October 1899.
Took the U.S. Minister to Venezuela to La Guaira, arriving in January 1903.
From 1903 through 1905 she carried such dignitaries as the Naval Committee, Secretary of the Navy, Admiral and Mrs. Dewey, the Philippine Commissioners, the Attorney General, Prince Louis of Battenberg and his party, and President T. Roosevelt on various cruises.
Participating in the interment of John Paul Jones at the Naval Academy, and the departure ceremonies for the Great White Fleet, in 1908.
Early in August 1905, she carried the Japanese peace plenipotentiaries from Oyster Bay, N.Y., to Portsmouth, N.H., to negotiate the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War.
Footage exists of her role in the event.
She also was used in survey work during this time, completing expeditions to Venezuela and the southeast coast of Santo Domingo, in addition to carrying inspection boards to survey coaling stations in the West Indies.
She also had a series of updates. For instance, in 1910, she had her original single/double-ended boilers replaced with cylindrical boilers. In 1911, she had her 6-pounder mounts deleted due to obsolescence, and in 1914 her 4″/40s were removed as well. She also had her masts reconfigured from three to two in the early 1900s.
USS Dolphin steaming alongside USS Maine (BB-10), with the Secretary of the Navy on board, circa 1903-1905. Note she still has her figurehead bow crest. Description: Collection of Mr. & Ms. Joe Cahn, 1990. NH 102421
USS Dolphin docked at the western end of the Washington Navy Yard waterfront, District of Columbia, circa 1901. The view looks north. The old experimental battery building is on the right. NH 93333
USS Dolphin (PG-24) photographed following the reduction of her rig to two masts, during the early 1900s. Note her bowcrest figurehead is now gone. NH 54536
Back to haze grey! USS Dolphin (PG 24), which was used as a dispatch ship of the Naval Review for President William Taft in New York City, New York, on October 14, 1912. Note the battleship lattice masts in the distance and the torpedo boat to the right. Published by Bain News Service. LC-DIG-GGBAIN-10794
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt in the crow’s nest of the dispatch boat USS Dolphin off Old Point Comfort, VA during the Naval review. 10/25/1913. National Archives Identifier: 196066910
ASECNAV Franklin D. Roosevelt on the USS Dolphin in 1913, observing gunnery trials of the fleet
USS Dolphin view looking forward from the bridge, taken while the ship was at sea in February 1916. Note ice accumulated on deck and lifelines. The original image is printed on postal card stock. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. NH 103039
War (again!)
Sailing from the Washington Navy Yard on 2 April 1917 to take possession of the recently purchased Danish Virgin Islands, four days later, Dolphin received word of the declaration of war between the United States and Germany. Arriving at St. Croix in the now-USVI on 9 April, she would carry the new American Governor-General James Oliver to and St. John on 15 April for a low-key flag-raising ceremony. The islands had initially been handed over in a ceremony on 31 March between the Danish warship Valkyrien and the American gunboat USS Hancock, but Oliver’s arrival on Dolphin sealed the deal.
Remaining in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean region to protect merchant shipping from German raiders and U-boats, Dolphin would pick up a camouflage scheme as she served as flagship for the very motley American Patrol Detachment at Key West, gaining a new 4″/50 gun and depth charges to augment her surviving 6-pounders.
USS Dolphin at Galveston, Texas, 1 March 1919. Photographed by Paul Verkin, Galveston. Note that the ship is still wearing pattern camouflage nearly four months after the World War I Armistice. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2007. NH 104949
She would remain in her quiet backwater into June 1920, when she was finally recalled to the East Coast and a short overhaul at Boston.
USS Dolphin (PG-24) at dock at Boston Navy Yard, MA, September 1920, back to a grey scheme. She had been designated a Patrol Gunboat, PG-24, 17 July 1920. S-553-J
Now 35 years old and with the Navy in possession of many much finer and better-outfitted vessels, Dolphin would have one last cruise. As the flagship of the Special Service Squadron, she joined the gunboat USS Des Moines (PG-29) in October 1920 to represent the U.S. at the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Straits of Magellan. The next year, she would attend the anniversary of Guatemalan independence.
Dolphin arrived at Boston Navy Yard on 14 October 1921. She was decommissioned on 8 December 1921 and was sold on 25 February 1922 to the Ammunition Products Corp. of Washington, DC. for scrapping. Rumors of her further service in the Mexican navy are incorrect, confusing a former steamer originally named Dolphin for our dispatch ship.
Epilogue
Few relics remain of Dolphin. Like most of the American steel warships, in 1909 she had her ornate bow crest removed and installed ashore. It was photographed in Boston in 1911 and, odds are, is probably still around on display somewhere on the East Coast.
Figurehead, USS Dolphin photographed in the Boston Navy Yard, 15 December 1911. NH 115213.
As for her name, the Navy recycled it at least twice, both for submarines: SS-169 and AGSS-555, the former a V-boat that earned two battlestars in WWII and the latter a well-known research boat that served for 38 years– the longest in history for a US Navy submarine.
Speaking of WWII, importantly, between 1915 and 1917, our USS Dolphin’s 18th skipper was one LCDR William Daniel Leahy (USNA 1897) who, interacting with then ASECNAV Franklin D. Roosevelt, would become close companions. Although retired after service as CNO in 1939, Leahy would be recalled to service as the personal Chief of Staff to FDR in 1942 and served in that pivotal position throughout World War II. It is rightfully the little dispatch ship’s greatest legacy.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in conference with General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Admiral William D. Leahy, while on tour in the Hawaiian Islands., 1944. 80-G-239549
Specs: Displacement 1,485 t. Length 256′ 6″ Length between perpendiculars 240′ Beam 32′ Draft 14′ 3″ Speed 15.5 kts. Complement 117 1910 – 152 1914 – 139 Armament: Two 4″ rapid fires, three 6-pounder rapid-fire guns, four 3-pounder rapid-fire guns, and two Colt machine guns 1911 – Two 4″/40 rapid-fire mounts and five 3-pounder rapid-fire guns 1914 – Six 6-pounder rapid-fire mounts 1921 – One 4″/50 mount and two 6-pounders Propulsion two double-ended and two single-ended boilers (replaced by cylindrical boilers in 1910), one 2,253ihp vertical compound direct-acting engine, one shaft.
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As we covered in 2019, starting in 1978, the Swiss Air Force bought 110 late-model F-5E/F Tigers to augment their locally made F+W Emmen Mirage IIIs and replace their older Hawker Hunter aircraft (and a few downright obsolete De Havilland Venoms), becoming the country’s primary fighter until license-produced F-18s were ordered from Emmen in 1996.
Ein F5 “Tiger” der Schweizer Luftwaffe
The F-5s served the Swiss well but, with the production line ending in 1987 and the parts supply dwindling in part due to strict U.S. sanctions on anything F-5-related as Iran still flies the type, the Swiss phased out their Tigers from front line operations by 2018.
In 2019, the U.S. Navy bought the 23 most advanced Swiss F-5s with the fewest hours, along with most of the spare parts the country had left, for $39.7 million with the intention of feeding them into Navy Air’s aggressor squadrons.
The Swiss were reportedly happy to see them go at the time:
“If the Americans want to take over the scrap iron, they should do it,” Beat Flach, a Green Liberal lawmaker, told SonntagsZeitung, which reported on the planned sale in late 2019. “It’s better than having the Tigers rot in a parking lot.”
With the Tigers now in the U.S., Tactical Air Support just picked up a fat (up to $265 million) contract to rework 22 of the 23 1970s-vintage F-5s and support them into 2027. The contract includes a big chunk of work going back to Emmen in Switzerland as well. Of course, it also includes some work to eight F-5s already in the Navy’s fleet, but still…
Via DOD.
Tactical Air Support Inc., Jacksonville, Florida, is awarded a $265,300,000 firm-fixed-price, cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract provides non-recurring engineering, inspection, modification, and block upgrade efforts for 16 F-5E and six F-5F Tiger II aircraft from a Swiss Confederation configuration to a Navy/Marine Corps N+/F+ configuration. Additionally, this contract procures eight block upgrade retrofits to existing fleet aircraft. Work will be performed in Jacksonville, Florida (32%); Emen, Switzerland (16%); Carlsbad, California (8%); Clarksburg, Maryland (7%); Grand Rapids, Michigan (6%); Woodland Hills, California (5%); Olathe, Kansas (5%); Stead, Nevada (5%); Salt Lake City, Utah (3%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (2%); Waco, Texas (2%); Auburn, Alabama (1%); Deerfield, Illinois (1%); Fairborn, Ohio (1%); Avenel, New Jersey (1%); Jupiter, Florida (1%); Camarillo, California (1%); Warner Robbins, Georgia (1%); Franklin, North Carolina (1%); and Nashville, Tennessee (1%), and is expected to be completed in June 2027. No funds will be obligated at the time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Air Warfare Aviation Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0042122D0095).
All told, this puts the sticker price on these aircraft to almost $14 million a pop if all options are used, which seems kinda high for what they are, especially when there are eight squadrons worth of very supportable F-16Cs already in storage in the desert at Davis-Monthan. Open-source databases list no less than 106 F-16C airframes at AMARG. It should be noted that the Navy formerly flew dedicated Block 30 F-16Ns as aggressors between 1988 and 1998— because they were better than the F-5s— and still fly 14 old F16A/B models they’ve had since 2002, so it’s not a dumb idea.
Seems like someone in the aggressor biz just like to keep some “MiG-28s” around or at least may have some sort of concern about the Iranian HESA Kowsar, a reworked fourth-gen(ish) F-5.
