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Warship Wednesday 10 December 2025: Dutch Avenger

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling 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 As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 10 December 2025: Dutch Avenger

NIMH Objectnummer 2158_014036

Above we see the kanonneerboot (gunboat) Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen (U 93) arriving at Willemstad, Curaçao, Dutch Antilles, on Halloween 1939, complete with a large Dutch flag painted amidships as a mark of neutrality. While she arrived to be a station ship in a neutral country’s overseas territory during the first months of WWII, she would go on to put on war paint and go looking for some payback after her homeland was invaded and occupied a few months later.

She would help stop a large German freighter some 85 years ago this week– one of many Axis ships “The Flying Dutchman” would bag.

The need for a gunnery school ship

Our subject was ordered as an artillerie-instructieschip, a vehicle to train the Dutch Navy’s gunners and new gunnery officers in preparation for a series of modern warships, most of which were never constructed before the war began. She was badly needed to replace the very old (laid down in 1897) Holland-class pantser-dekschepen (protected cruiser) Hr.Ms. Gelderland, which had been taken out of front-line service in 1919 and had been working as an artillery training ship ever since.

With a full displacement of just 2,388 tons and a 322-foot length, Van Kinsbergen was rightfully a sloop or frigate. Using two sets of Werkspoor geared steam turbines driven by two Yarrow boilers, she could make 25.5 knots on 17,000shp. Range was 5,790nm at 14.5 knots on 696 tons of oil. Armor was slight, just a half-inch belt, an inch shield on the main guns, a 20mm protected deck over machinery spaces, and 20mm on the conning tower.

Stoom- en motorschepen,Kanonneerboten,Van Kinsbergen 1939-1974,Algemeen plan (Dutch Nationaal Archief )

Her primary armament was four single 12 cm/45 (4.7″) Wilton-Fijenoord Nr. 6 guns in half-shielded (open back) mounts. A dual-purpose gun derived from earlier Bofors SP designs with a 55-degree elevation, they had a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute and a range of 17,500 yards.

The Dutch aimed to use the same gun on new minelayers (Hr.Ms.Willem van der Zaan (ML-2), the four Tjerk Hiddes/Gerard Callenburgh-class destroyers, seven 1,400-ton 1938 pattern K-class gunboats, and as the secondary battery of a trio of planned 30,000-ton Design 1047 battlecruisers (which were very similar to the German Scharnhorst).

Van Kinsbergen was also given a large and very advanced (for its time) Hazemeyer Signaalapparatenfabriek HSLG-4 fire control device that could be used to direct both her main and secondary armament. Speaking to the latter, she carried two twin 40/56 Bofors Nr.3 guns on advanced triaxial stabilized mounts, one of the first mountings of what would go on to be one of the main Allied AAA mounts of WWII.

The Hazemeyer device was used on both the 4.7-inch guns and 40mm Bofors of the Navy’s late model cruisers, such as De Reuter, and 48 land-based 75mm/43 Vickers Model 1931 AAA guns in service with the K.Lu A.

Dutch AAA HSLG-4 Hazemeyer Signaalapparatenfabriek fire control with 75mm Vickers 1939 AKL071201

Dutch Luchtdoelartilleristen bedienen een Vickers 7,5 cm t.l. vuurmond AKL075817

Most of the Hazemeyer-equipped 7,5 cm Vickers operated by the K.Lu.A were in storage at Artillerie Inrichtingen Hembrug, recently arrived from Britain and waiting to be assembled when the Germans invaded Holland in May 1940.

2158_014040

Een geschutkonstabel-kanonnier bedient een dubbelloops 40mm Bofors mitrailleur (Hazemeyer opstelling) aan boord van Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen NIMH 2158_039637

Van Kinsbergen gun’s crew at action stations on the twin Bofors gun by British LT Sidney James Beadell, RNVR, IWM (A 4686)

She was also fitted in 1939 with four .50 caliber machineguns, and two depth charge racks. Most sources also list her with a pair of 3″/52 SA Nr.2 mounts, at least one of which would be mounted ashore to defend Curacao later in the war.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Van Kinsbergen

Our subject was named in honor of VADM (Count) Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, who famously beat the Turks several times while in Tsarist service (the Russian Imperial Navy named destroyers after him), in addition to his multiple feats in Dutch service.

Laid down by Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij, at Rotterdam, Netherlands on 11 September 1937, she launched on 5 January 1939– christened by Mrs. A. van Dijk-Wierda, wife of the then Minister of Defense Jannes van Dijk– and commissioned on 21 August 1939– less than a fortnight before the start of WWII in Europe.

The same day Van Kinsbergen entered service, the ancient cruiser Gelderland was laid up, and many of the new ship’s crew came from the vessel she replaced, including her skipper, Kapitein-Luitenant ter Zee (CDR) John Louis Karel Hoeke, RNN, a Java-born regular who had earned his commission in 1915.

A very clean Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen, early in her career, possibly on trials, before her fire control was installed. NIMH 2158_005639

Same as above NIMH 2173-222-086

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen was still without her fire control (vuurleiding) installed on 17 April 1939. 2158_014022

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen at sea,17 April 1939. NIMH 2158_014020

War!

With the Germans marching into Poland and the lights going out across Europe once again for the second time in 25 years, Van Kinsbergen’s planned career as a training vessel was put on hold as her North Sea stomping grounds were now a war zone.

Hr.Ms. Kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen with fire control, likely 1939 2158_014023

Hr.Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Nederland, KITLV 377322

Instead, it was decided she would be of better use in reinforcing the neutrality of the isolated overseas garrison in the wind-swept Dutch West Indies, a move which also put her within an easy cruising distance of the crown’s Suriname colony. In this, she relived the 1,800-ton sloop Hr.Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau— just in time for the latter to return home to be sunk by the Luftwaffe the next year.

On 2 October, after a visit from Queen Wilhemena herself, Van Kinsbergen left Den Helder, escorting the submarines Hr.Ms. O 15 and O 20, on a slow crossing to Curacao via the Azores and Puerto Rico that ended on Halloween. While O 15 would remain in the West Indies for a year, the ill-fated O 20 would continue through the Panama Canal to serve in the Dutch East Indies, where she was sunk by a trio of Japanese destroyers in December 1941.

When the Germans rudely violated Dutch neutrality on 10 May 1940– even while the country hosted the exiled former German Kaiser– war came to both metropolitan Holland and her overseas colonies.

Marineman op wacht bij Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen, 1940 Bestanddeelnr 934-9873

In the Dutch West Indies, Van Kinsbergen and her crew clocked in with local authorities, including a company of Marines and the 1-pounder armed local coastguard vessels HM Aruba and HM Practico, then moved to seize seven German merchant ships that were interned in the islands. These included the SS Este (7915 gt), SS Vancouver (8269 gt), MS Henry Horn (3164 gt), MS Patricia (3979 gt), MS Frisia (561 gt), MS Karibia (428 gt), and ES Alemania (1380 gt).

While the German crews– confined to their ships since the invasion of Denmark in April– tried, only one of these seven, the HAPAG turboship Almania, managed to successfully scuttle. The other six were soon in Allied service under new names for the duration, while 220 German nationals (215 men from the seven ships and five German sailors turned over by Dutch steamers) were locked up in an internment camp on Bonaire until the British could pick them up later in the summer.

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen “Terror of the Caribbean” with her Dutch flag paint job

Of these seized vessels, Este, renamed Suriname, was torpedoed and sunk by U-558 off Venezuela in September 1942 with the loss of 13 crew. Most of the others, including Vancouver (renamed Curacao), Henry Horn (renamed Bonaire), and Patricia (renamed Arbua), survived the war and were given to Dutch shipping firms post-war as reparations, sailing well into the 1950s.

Soon after the seizure of the German ships, the French dispatched 150 colonial troops from Senegal to help garrison out lying Aruba but then, when France fell the next month and dropped out of the war, Van Kinsbergen stood by the tense scene in early July as the Vichy French armed merchant cruiser Esterel (X21) reembarked the Tirailleurs Sénégalais to return them to Africa.

The 40mm story

On 20 August 1940, Van Kinsbergen would find herself steaming with the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) north of Trinidad, with the latter’s gunnery officers very interested in the Dutch ship’s 40mm Bofors mounts, which they saw in action against towed target kites. The performance reportedly convinced them to help push to adopt the gun as the U.S. Navy standard, with BuOrd formally obtaining Swedish licenses in June 1941.

The first U.S. ship to get 40mm Bofors was the gunnery training ship USS Wyoming (AG-17), which received a quad mount in June 1942; shortly after, the destroyer USS Coghlan (DD-606) became the first combat ship fitted with a twin mount in July.

Over 400 U.S. DDs/DEs would carry the weapon, plus a myriad of cruisers, carriers, battleships, LSTs, you name it. During 1944 alone, U.S. factories produced 6,644 single mountings, and approximately 3,650 twin and 750 quad mountings for the Navy.

The Bofors was credited with more “kills” (742.5) than any other USN AAA platform of the war.

Back to our ship

Van Kinsbergen spent the rest of 1940 operating with British ships in patrols off the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, looking to intercept German, Italian, and Vichy blockade runners– narrowly missing the Hapag-steamers Helgoland (2947 gt) and Idarwald (5033 gt) as well as the French Charles L.D. (5267 gt).

On 11 December 1940, the German Norddeutscher Lloyd freighter Rhein (6049 gt) was en route from Tampico, Mexico, to Germany with cargo and was followed by several warships in an attempt to apprehend and capture her.

German Norddeutscher Lloyd freighter Rhein, ironically in Rotterdam prewar

However, during the attempted arrest by the Van Kinsbergen, some 40 miles NW of the Dry Tortugas, the ship was set on fire by the crew in an attempt to scuttle her. Later that day, the burned-out hulk was sunk by 22 rounds of 6-inch cannon fire by the British light cruiser HMS Caradoc. Van Kinsbergen dutifully rounded up the shipwrecked German merchant sailors whose war had come to a close.

11 December 1940. The capture of the German freighter Rhein by Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen and HMS Caradoc. The crew of the sunken ship. NIMH 2158_052025

In February 1941, Van Kinsbergen, in conjunction with two Canadian corvettes, seized the Danish tankers Scandia (8571 gt) and Christian Holm (9919 gt) at the entrance of the Gulf of Paria, escorting them to Trinidad. These tankers were in Admiralty service within weeks.

On 26 May 1941, just after leaving a much-needed yard period in Bermuda, Van Kinsbergen captured the Vichy French CFN steamer SS Winnipeg (8379 gt) with 732 passengers aboard, including eight Jewish photographers who were saved from internment and persecution in France. Winnipeg would be put into Canadian service and sunk by submarine U-443 while on a convoy run the following October.

Five days after seizing Winnipeg, Van Kinsbergen came across the Vichy-French CGT steamer Arica (5390 gt) and captured the same, escorting her to Trinidad for further Allied service. Like Winnipeg, Arica was soon under the red duster only to be sunk by U-160 off Trinidad in November 1942.

The far-traveled Dutch sloop was directed to Liverpool in July for refit, with 11 captured enemy ships to her credit.

In August 1941, British LT Sidney James Beadell, RNVR, an official war photographer, visited Van Kinsbergen while still in port, and while he dutifully logged several great images that captured a moment in time, he apparently jotted down that she was a cruiser (!) named Van Kingsbergen (sic).

Official wartime period captions, likely by Beadell:

“The Dutch rating responsible for sounding action stations on board Van Kingsbergen (sic)”  IWM (A 4687

“Three Dutch ratings seen busy while sail making” and “A Dutch rating busy with palm and needle.” Actually, it seems like they are mending a tarpaulin cover. IWM (A 4688/4689)

“A Dutch rating who is one of the loading members of the gun’s crew.” Of note, the fixed HE shell of the 4.7″ Mark 6 weighed 70.5 lbs, so the rating is getting his reps in for the photographer for sure. IWM A 4690/A 4691

“A Dutch naval guard with rifles and bayonets.” Note the Indonesian rating and the bluejacket’s Dutch Model 1895 (Geweer M. 95) 6.5mm Mannlicher carbines, complete with web gear. IWM (A 4692)

“A Dutch officer taking a sight,” an obviously posed shot as the ship is tied up. IWM (A 4694)

“A Dutch signalman.”  IWM (A 4693)

It was while in Britain that Van Kinsbergen changed crews and skippers, with KLtz Cornelis Hellingman, late of the sub tender Hr.Ms. Colombia, changing places with the good KLtz Hoeke. Hellingman had earned both a British DSO and a Dutch Bronzen Kruis for his command of the Ymuiden/Ijmuiden naval sector (the gateway to Amsterdam) on 14/15 May 1940 and his decision to demo the six ships in the harbor and wreck the port facilities there rather than allow them to fall into German hands.

In September 1941, leaving Britain to return to the Caribbean, the now camouflaged Van Kinsbergen carried 60 men from the newly-formed Free Dutch Prinses Irene-Brigade to Paramaribo, Suriname, to beef up the garrison there.

18 April 1942. De kanonneerboot Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen departs from Curaçao. Note her camouflage scheme. NIMH 2158_053743

Her first Allied convoy, from 19 to 27 July 1942, was the Curacao/Trinidad-to-Key West TAW.6C in which the Dutch slugger was the main escort, augmented by the plucky little 136-foot minesweeper USS YMC-56 (which had a couple of deck guns but no ASW gear or depth charges). The duo shepherded six merchants (three American, one each Norwegian, British, and Dutch), including the big tankers MT Beacon (10,388 tons, Standard Oil Co.) and the 9,912-ton Nortraship MT Glaron.

Her next convoy was TAW.9, another Trinidad-to-Key West run, from 27 July-4 August, that numbered 10 merchants (again, mostly tankers) and six escorts, the latter including a pair of small (173-foot) U.S. PCs, fresh from the shipyard.

Convoy TAW.14, 15-25 August 1942, teamed up Van Kinsbergen with two PCs and an SC as well as an old American flush-deck tin can (USS Upshur) to run 14 merchants, mainly tankers, to Key West.

Following that, she sailed for Norfolk for modernization. There until late October, she emerged with a Type 271 radar, a Type 128C ASDIC, six 20mm Oerlikons (two twin, two single), eight K-gun DCTs, and racks for 52 depth charges.

Van Kinsbergen was seen in late 1942 post-refit (likely between 7 and 12 November) in camouflage scheme near two U.S. Cleveland class cruisers and two tankers, at least one of which is a U.S. Navy AO. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 87890.

Same as above NH 87895

Same as above NH 87888

In Convoy TAG.20 (11-15 November 1942: Trinidad – Guantanamo) (27 merchants and 10 escorts), Van Kinsbergen joined the “reverse Lend-Leased” American Flower-class corvette USS Spry (PG-64), the old flush-deck tin can USS Biddle (DD-151), the gunboat USS Erie, and a half-dozen PC/SCs.

It was during TAG.20 that on 12 November, Van Kinsbergen rescued survivors of the Erie after the American sloop was torpedoed by U-163 and beached, ablaze.

In Convoy TAG.22   (21-14 November 1942: Trinidad – Guantanamo) 43 merchants and 10 escorts, Van Kinsbergen sailed alongside another American Flower— USS Tenacity (PG-71)— the somewhat infamous flush-decker USS Greer (DD–145), and seven small PCs/SCs, one of which was the mighty Free Dutch Queen Wilhelmina (ex-USS PC 468), later to become nicknamed as the “Queen of the Caribbean” due to her Caribbean beat.

In April 1943, she got a third skipper, KLtz Johannes Jacobus Lukas Willinge, RNN, late of the light cruiser Hr.Ms. Sumatra, and in August would get a fourth, Ktz Jan August Gauw, RNN, who had formerly commanded the minelayer Hr.Ms. Nautilus (M 12) until she was sunk in 1941 after being run down by the British freighter Murrayfield off Grimsby.

By this time, she had added a pair of Mousetrap Mk 20 ASWRLs and upgraded her sensors to an SF radar, a TBS system, and QHB sonar, with the work done in New York.

While operating from New York, she joined the outward bound leg of two very large NYC to Liverpool Atlantic convoys, sailing as part of the escort with a couple of divisions of primarily Canadian corvettes, frigates, and minesweepers.

These included:

  • Convoy HX.304 (17-20 August 1944, 87 merchants and 27 escorts)
  • Convoy HX.311 (30 September- 3 October 1944, 60 merchants and 25 escorts)

Van Kinsbergen in camouflage in October 1944, NARA

Ordered to England in January 1945, her war was over.

She changed her pennant to N 3 in May and arrived back “home” in Rotterdam in August, entering the RDM dockyard there for service.

Wait, another war?

Able to float in just 10 feet of seawater, Van Kinsbergen was ideal to support operations in the littoral of the 17,000-island Indonesian archipelago, which at the time was fighting to break free from Dutch colonial rule.

With that, she set out for the Pacific on 24 October 1945. No rest for the weary.

Practicing with 20mm anti-aircraft guns on the gunboat Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen during the crossing to the Dutch East Indies, October-November 1945. Note the colonial gunner. NIMH 2173-222-009

Van Kinsbergen in heavy weather around 1945. 2173-222-091

Crossing the line headed to the Pacific! (Neptunus a/b van de kanonneerboot Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen in 1945.) 2173-222-085

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen, 1946, sans camouflage. NIMH 2173-222-096

Officers from Van Kinsbergen ashore in Ambon (Molukken) in March 1946. NIMH 2173-222-022

Van Kinsbergen during actions on the south coast of Borneo in April 1946. NIMH 2173-222-100

A landing with support from the gunboat Van Kinsbergen on the south coast of Borneo in April 1946. NIMH 2173-222-026

Damage to propellers and propeller shafts sustained during support of a landing in April 1946 near Bawal Island (South Borneo) by the gunboat Van Kinsbergen, dry-docked in Singapore. NIMH 2173-222-028

A bow shot of the same. NIMH 2173-222-029

And a Cold War

In late 1947, Van Kinsbergen received a further upgrade, swapping out her old 4.7-inch guns for a pair of 2 x 4″/45 SK C/32s, while keeping her Bofors and Oerlikons. Her ASW suite was reduced to two throwers, landing her Mousetraps and stern racks. The sensor fit at the time included the SL-1, SH-1, and Mk 34 radars, as well as her QHB sonar.

Victims of the bomber disaster arrived in Den Helder on July 24, 1948. Bestanddeelnr  902-8692

Aankomst Van Kinsbergen te Rotterdam, Aug 9 1948 Bestanddeelnr 902-7914

Vertrek Van Kinsbergen uit Rotterdam, 15 October 1948 Bestanddeelnr 903-0544

H. Ms. Van Kinsbergen (N 3) Marvo 3, 14 October 1948 Bestanddeelnr 903-0537

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2501

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2500

Terugkeer Hr. Ms. kanonneerboot Van Kinsbergen in Den Helder, 2 March 1949 Bestanddeelnr 903-2499

Reclassified as a frigate with the pennant number F804 in November 1950, by February 1952, she was deployed once again to the Pacific, remaining in New Guinea until December 1954 and circumnavigating the globe in the process.

Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen na 3 jaar uit Nieuw Guinea weer te Den Helder, Feb 4 1955 Bestanddeelnr 906-9672

Hr. Ms. Van Kinsbergen na 3 jaar uit Nieuw Guinea weer te Den Helder, Feb 4 1955 Bestanddeelnr 906-9673

Van Kinsbergen 1954 Janes

By the time she returned to the Netherlands on 5 February 1955, her 16-year career was all but over. She served as an accommodation ship (pennant A 876) in Vlissingen from 1 November 1955 and would continue in that reduced role until 29 May 1959, when she was stricken.

From left to right, the decommissioned artillery training ship/frigate Van Kinsbergen (A 876) and the frigate Ternate (F 812, ex-M 816, ex-HMAS Kalgoorlie, 1946-1956) lay up at the Marine Etablisement Amsterdam in the early 1960s. NIMH 2158_001595

In five years, the Dutch disposed of eight frigates. Flores on 1 May 1955. Soemba in Jan 1956. Jan van Brakel in Aug. 1957. Batjan, Boeroe, and Ceram in 1958. Johan Maurits van Nassau was sold for scrap in January 1960 for 257,650 florins and was broken up at Diemen. Van Speijk was stricken from the active list in 1960.

Van Kinsbergen lingered until 19 February 1974, when she was towed to Fa. Van Heyghen, Ghent, Belgium, for scrapping, her value listed as 515,500 florins.

Epilogue

The “Flying Dutchman’s” myriad of interactions with U.S. Naval forces during WWII, particularly while working under COMCARIBSEAFRON, are cataloged extensively in the National Archives, as are her Bureau of Ships plans and reports from the October-November 1942 refit in Norfolk. Speaking of plans, dozens of pages of her original drawings are digitized online. 

A Den Haag bar, Gastropub Van Kinsbergen, celebrates not only the admiral but also our training ship/gunboat/cruiser, collecting various militaria and relics of her from around the world, including the ship’s crest, salvaged from an antique dealer in Turkey.

As for Van Kinsbergen’s crew, her first skipper, KLtz JLK Hoeke, after a stint in command of the Dutch submarine tender/auxiliary cruiser Colombia (18 Aug 1941-27 Feb. 1943, when she was sunk by U 516 near Simonstown) died in Wallington, England, in March 1944, aged 50, during the “Baby Blitz.” He is buried in Loenen.

Her second wartime skipper, the DSO-wearing KLtz Hellingman, survived the war and retired in December 1945 as a full captain, concluding 30 years of honorable service. The hero of Ijmuiden passed in 1979, aged 85.

Her third and fourth WWII skippers, Willinge and Gauw, would both rise to wear admiral stars post-war and pass in 1989 and 1967, respectively.

The Dutch Navy recycled the name Van Kinsbergen for a Kortenaer-class frigate, F 809, which entered service in 1980, served for 15 years, and is still in the Greek Navy.

Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen (F809) Kortenaer-class frigate NIMH 2158_014137

Keeping the name alive, the first purpose-built naval training vessel for the Dutch Navy, MOV Van Kinsbergen (A902), entered service in 1999. Built by Damen (who else?) she is a trim little 136-footer that typically ships 16 students of the Dutch Royal Naval College (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Marine) around 200 days each year.

Dutch Navy naval training vessel MOV Van Kinsbergen (A902)

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Chosin Thanksgiving

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75 years ago.

Official caption: Thanksgiving Turkey is prepared for members of the Camp Pendleton-based “Fighting Fifth” Marine Regiment near the Chosin Reservoir of North Korea, 21 November 1950.

At this stage, a lot of folks thought the Korean Campaign was a wrap with “home by Christmas” talk being thrown around.

Marine Photo A4975 by Sgt FC Kerr, National Archives Identifier 74242756

The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir/Battle of Lake Changjin would kick off just six days after the happy image above was snapped.

Lasting approximately 17 days, it pitted 120,000 enemy Chinese “volunteers” of the Red 9th Army against a force of just 30,000, mostly Marines (primarily of the 1st Marine Division’s 5th, 7th and 11th Marines augmented by the British 41 Commando RM and assigned Sailors) as well as a smattering of Soldiers from the 3rd and 7th Army Infantry Divisions.

This, as an estimated 300,000 Chinese poured across the Yalu, forced MacArthur to notify Washington, “We face an entirely new war.”

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 30 October 2025: End of the Line

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling 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 As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 30 October 2025: End of the Line

IWM (Q 48273)

Above we see the Italian Conte di Cavour-class dreadnought Giulio Cesare, in a very clean state while at Taranto during the Great War, on 3 June 1917. Note her interesting original five-turret (A-B-Q-X-Y), 13-barrel (3-2-3-2-3) main battery of 12″/46 Model 1909 Elswick pattern guns. She also wears a bow eagle with the Caesarian motto, “Veni. Vis. Vita.”

Following her second world war, she would go on to be the final battleship lost while in active service, under very controversial circumstances, some 70 years ago this week.

The Cavour class

The three-pack of Conte di Cavour–class battleships was designed in 1908 by RADM Engineer Edoardo Masdea, Chief Constructor of the Regia Marina, in the immediate spell after HMS Dreadnought and the French Courbet-class battlewagons. They followed in the wake of Italy’s first dreadnought, Dante Alighieri (19,500t, 551 ft. oal, 22 knots, 12×12″ guns, 10 inch armor plate), but were much heavier, at 24,500 tons.

As built, they carried the previously mentioned 13 12″/46s as well as 18 casemated 4.7″/50s, three torpedo tubes, and assorted tertiary light guns. Their Parsons turbines on 20 Yarrow boilers allowed Cavour to hit 22 knots on trials, but Cesare, even with 21 Babcock boilers installed (later 24), was only able to hit 21.7 knots. Even this came by whittling down the armor belt to where it was only 9.8 inches at its thickest, tapering to as thin as 3 inches near the bow, while the front forward tower and front turret faces were only 11 inches. Still, they were triple bottomed and had 23 watertight sections. While Terni made the armor for Cavour, Cesare’s and Da Vinci’s was imported from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.

Plan, via the 1914 Jane’s

The three sisters, Cavour, Cesare, and Leonardo da Vinci, were laid down within weeks of each other in the summer of 1910 at three different yards (La Spezia, Gio. Ansaldo, and Odero) to be finished in 1913, one that would slip slightly due to Italy’s war with the Ottoman Empire and a diversion of resources during that period.

Hail, Cesare!

Our subject was named after the legendary Roman general and statesman of Et Tu Brute fame. Laid down at Ansaldo in Genoa on 24 June 1910, she launched on 15 October 1911 to much fanfare, one day after Da Vinci slid down the ways at Odero.

15 October 1911, Sestri-Ponente & Launch of Giulio Cesare, Bain News Service, LC DIG ggbain-09800-09879u

Fitting out would take nearly three full years, but she entered service on 14 May 1914, just 10 weeks before the “lights went out across Europe.”

Placing a 305 mm/12″ gun within Turret 2 of the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, Genoa, 1912

Battleship Giulio Cesare during sea trials, 9 January 1913.

She was the first of her class commissioned, three days before Da Vinci and a full 11 months ahead of Cavour, which had been delayed due to Terni developing their cemented armor, while Ceasare and Da Vinci benefited from American imports.

Cesare compared to her contemporaries. Imagerie d Epinal Les Flotte de Guerre 

Great War

While the potential of a clash with the British and French loomed at the beginning of WWI, as Italy was officially an ally of Germany and Austria, the country’s quick declaration of neutrality, migrating to a polar shift to join the fight against Berlin and Vienna by May 1915, changed the orientation of the Italian battle fleet.

The Cavours were assigned to RADM Corsi’s 1st Battleship Division and left on seemingly eternal alert, ready to weigh anchor and sortie out within three hours.

Italian battleships of the Cesare Class, showing triple gun turrets, Great War. NH 111474 and IWM Q 19095

With the German Mediterranean Squadron chased to the Black Sea and the Austrian fleet effectively bottled up in the Adriatic, the naval war in the region devolved into four years of small craft and submarine operations as the respective battleships lay in wait for a decisive Tsushima/Battle of Yalu River/Manila Bay/Santiago style sea clash.

This led to a boring war for the Italian battleships as the Austrians decided to ride out the war safely at anchor rather than tempt a Jutland.

Sadly, Da Vinci would be lost to an unexplained magazine explosion while moored at Taranto in August 1916, taking a full quarter of her crew with her.

Da Vinci turned turtle at Taranto, August 1916.

In all, Cesare only spent 418 hours at sea during Italy’s war, 31 hours on combat missions (supporting operations in the islands of the Ionian archipelago in May 1917), and 387 hours in training/exercises, without ever encountering an enemy during the conflict in which her country suffered over 650,000 dead.

Interwar

The remaining sisters saw more sea time in the months just after Versailles than during the entire war, with Cavour heading to the Americas for a flag-waving cruise while Cesare toured the Eastern Med and stood by the Greek-Turkish conflict.

Cesare photographed at Constantinople, Turkey, in August 1919. Note that the ship is flying a Greek National Flag at the mainmast top. NH 47786

Jane’s 1921, with Da Vinci missing.

Following this, she had her first modernization, landing some small guns and her bow crest, picking up some AAA pieces, and changing her mast arrangements.

She also engaged in a bit of battleship diplomacy, being used in the seizure of Corfu in August 1923.

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare in La Spezia, 1925

A 1925 upgrade saw her pick up a Macchi M.18 seaplane over the stern along with a catapult and crane to retrieve it, and, after two years in ordinary, by 1928, she was relegated to use as a gunnery training ship, with the country soon after moving to build four new 40,000-ton Littorio-class battleships.

Jane’s 1929.

Great Rebuild

It was decided by the Italian admiralty in the early 1930s to not only keep on with the construction of a planned quartet of new Littorio-class 30-knot fast battleships, with their impressive 15-inch guns, but also to extensively modernize the two Cavours and the two similar yet slightly younger Andrea Doria-class battleships, giving Mussolini eight battleships in a decade. At least that was the plan, anyway.

Following the design by Gen. Francesco Rotundi, the Cavours and Dorias were rearming with more capable 12.6″/44 Model 1934 guns on upgraded mounts, with the middle Q mount deleted, giving them 10 new guns in place of 13 older ones, with a modern fire control house atop the conning tower.

Naples during the great 5 May 1938 naval review, showing the modernized Cavour followed by the similarly modernized Cesare and a heavy cruiser. NH 86147

The modernization also added armor, replaced the boilers and machinery, and deleted the casemate guns for more modern  3.9″/47 M1928 twin AA guns in high-angle turrets.

Cesare carried 12 of these 100 mm/47 (3.9″) Model 1928 AA guns in six twin turrets. These art deco-looking mounts were also used on the Trento, Zara, and Condotteri class cruisers.

They also picked up an assortment of twin Breda 37mm and Breda M31 13.2mm guns, landed the circa 1914 torpedo tubes, and lengthened the hull for added stability. Powered by eight more efficient Yarrow boilers and with 75,000shp on tap compared to the old 30,000shp, the class could make 27 knots, making them, at age 20, the fastest they had ever been.

Cesare underwent modernization at the Cantieri del Tirreno shipyard in Genoa from 25 October 1933 to 1 October 1937. Tellingly, the rebuild was one month longer than her original construction.

The U.S. Navy’s ONI, with war on the horizon, made sure to get several nice images of her in the late 1930s, essentially a new ship built around the upcycled bones of a circa 1914 dreadnought.

Cesare photographed during the late 1930s after her 1933-37 reconstruction. NH 86124

Cesare was photographed in 1938 following her 1933-37 reconstruction. NH 86127

Cesare photographed before World War II. The photograph has been retouched. NH 86590

Cesare at sea, 1938, photographed before World War II. NH 86588

Many shots endure from the epic May 1938 Naples Naval Review.

Italian battleship, either Cavour or Cesare, probably photographed during the 5 May 1938 naval review off Naples. Cant Z.501 flying boats be seen overhead. NH 86141

Cesare, 5 May 1938, at the Naval review off Naples. The torpedo boats Spica and Aldebaran appear in the background, NH 86142

Italian battleships Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples. NH 86153

Italian battleships Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples, followed by two Zara class cruisers. NH 86154

Cavour and Cesare seen in column at the May 1938 Naval review off Naples. NH 86151

5 May 1938, battleships Cavour and Cesare as seen from the fantail of a destroyer-type ship. Two cruisers appear in the right background, and a paravane for minesweeping can be seen on the ship’s stern in the foreground. NH 86148

Late 1930s, two Italian battleships and about nine or ten torpedo boats, the Cavour and Cesare, appear in the foreground, and the torpedo boat Altair can be identified in the background by her hull letters “AT.” NH 86140

A Second War

Cavour-class battleships as rebuilt, circa 1939. Luce archives via NHHC NH 111400

Giulio Cesare – San Giorgio, NH 111420

ONI 202 sheet on Cavour and Cesare.

Soon after Italy joined Germany in World War II, Cavour and Cesare, as the 5th Battleship Division, were part of a 14-cruiser/16 destroyer covering force running a convoy from Taranto across the Med to the country’s Libyan colony under the overall command of ADM Ingio Pola.

On the return trip, they crashed into a trio of Royal Navy task groups, Force A (five cruisers), Force B (battleship HMS Warspite and six destroyers), and Force C (battleships HMS Malaya and Royal Sovereign, carrier Eagle, 10 destroyers) on 9 July 1940, and the Battle of Calabria/Battle of Punta Stilo ensued.

During that clash, in which no ships were ultimately sunk on either side, Cesare opened fire on Warspite at an impressive 29,000 yards and, while her shells fell long, damaged two of the British battlewagon’s escorting destroyers. In return, the closing Warspite fired at and eventually hit Cesare with a 15-inch shell from 26,000 yards, exploding one of the Italian ship’s funnels and damaging four boilers, causing her to fall out of the battle line and reduce speed as Cavour took over. Cesare made it to Messina safely and took a month to repair.

Italian battleships at the Battle of Punta Stilo, July 9, 1940. Cavour opens fire with her 12.6-inch main battery during the battle. Photograph taken from aboard her sister ship Cesare. NH 86586

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, seen from her sister Conte di Cavour, firing at HMS Warspite with her 320 mm guns, waters off Punta Stilo (Calabria), around 1555 h, 9 July 1940

Warspite hit on Cesare

Warspite hit on Cesare

Warspite hit on Cesare

Italian battleship Giulio Cesare after a hit from the HMS Warspite during the Battle of Calabria, 9 July 1940. The 15-inch shell hit the Italian ship from around 13nm. IWM HU 52333.

Then came the dramatic pre-Pearl Harbor night attack by a handful of British Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bombers from the carrier HMS Illustrious on the Italian battleship anchorage of Taranto on 11 November 1940.

Cobb, Charles David; Taranto Harbour, Swordfish from ‘Illustrious’ Cripple the Italian Fleet, 11 November 1940; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/taranto-harbour-swordfish-from-illustrious-cripple-the-italian-fleet-11-november-1940-116445

While Cesare was spared damage, one torpedo sank sister Conte di Cavour in shallow water and effectively took her out of the war.

Cesare would strike out against the British again at the Battle of Cape Spartivento/Cape Teulada in November, without giving or receiving much damage, and in convoy work, including what is remembered by the Brits as the First Battle of Sirte off Malta in December 1941.

With the Med becoming less and less friendly to Italian capital ships due to British submarines and land-based bombers, Cesare was largely port-bound by 1942 and was eventually withdrawn up the Adriatic to a safer anchorage at Pola (Pula) and reduced to training status. It would seem her war was effectively over.

During the 1940–1943 campaign, Cesare made 38 combat sorties, covering 16,947 miles in 912 sailing hours, and consumed 12,697 tons of oil in the process.

Russia-bound

Spared the indignity suffered by most other post-1942 Axis capital ships, which were sunk at their moorings by Allied bombers, when Italy switched sides on 8 September 1943, Cesare overcame a small mutiny by Mussolini-inclined crew and made it safely to Malta by the interned under British guns. She fought off German air attacks along the way and managed not to be sunk by her former allies, such as the Littorio-class battlewagon Roma, which was sunk by German Fritz X radio-controlled bombs launched by Do 217s on 9 September, taking over 1,300 of her crew to the bottom.

Cesare was the last Italian capital ship to arrive at Malta.

As the invasion of Italy pushed the Germans and the rump of the Italian socialist republic further and further up the country’s “boot,” Cesare and the two Dorias were released to return to Taranto in June 1944, where they languished in ordinary.

Post VE-Day, Cesare was one of a list of ex-Italian vessels held by an Allied commission to be handed out as trophies.

Cesare in the 1946 Jane’s.

This process dragged on for years as Stalin’s iron curtain descended across Eastern Europe and the Western Allies were in no hurry to keep giving his war machine new toys. It was only in December 1948 that she was moved to Sicily and finally removed from the Italian naval list, ending her 34 years of service to Rome.

Ex-Cesare was turned over to the very happy Soviets under ADM Gordey Ivanovich Levchenko on 6 February 1949.

While Stalin wanted the newer Littoros, Cesare was arguably the nicest battleship the Russians had at the time, despite her age and the fact that she had basically been in reserve for six years and had not been dry-docked in eight.

Soviet battleship Novorossiysk, formerly Italian Giulio Cesare, from Vlorë (Albania) to the Black Sea in late February 1949.

After Cesare departed for a Soviet port, the loaned Arkhangelsk (HMS Royal Sovereign) was returned to England for scrapping.

Dubbed originally Z11 and moved to Communist allied Albania for a quick two-week refit with an Italian adviser crew aboard, then departed for Sevastopol. By order of the Black Sea Fleet dated 5 March 1949, the Italian battleship was renamed Novorossiysk.

Reportedly in extremely poor condition, with inoperable diesel generators, leaking pipes, broken fittings, and suffering signs of purposeful Italian neglect and sabotage, the Russians spent the next several years trying to reshoe their gift horse.

Although the Italians had delivered a library of technical manuals and books on the ship’s systems, a handful of Russian Italian translators on hand lacked experience in the specialized terminology used in the tomes, particularly when it came to handwritten notes and abbreviations, and the books ultimately proved an alien language.

Soviet battleship Novorossiysk (the former Royal Italian Navy Giulio Cesare

After six weeks in dry dock at Sevastopol, Cesare/Novorossiysk sailed (briefly) as Black Sea Fleet flagship on maneuvers in July 1949. Over the next five years, she had five shipyard overhauls (July 1950, April-June 1951, June 1952, November 1954, and February-March 1955) in an attempt to bring old systems back online and add new ones.

Battleship Novorossiysk (Giulio Cesare) April 13, 1955

The Soviets added several new AAA batteries (24 twin 37mm V-11 guns, six 37mm 70-K automatic cannons) and a Zalp-M radar.

It was planned to put the elderly battlewagon into her second rebuild (first Russian), which would include new Soviet-made turbine engines and Russian Obukhovskii 12″/52 Pattern 1907 guns left over from the Tsarist Gangut, Imperatritsa Maria, and Imperator Nikolai I battleship classes.

She never made that grand overhaul.

Tragedy in Sevastopol

On the night of 28 October 1955, the 41-year-old Cesare/Novorossiysk returned from a cruise marking the 100th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol and tied up at Buoy No. 3 near the Naval Hospital.

At 0131 on 29 October 29, a massive explosion under the ship’s starboard bow pierced the battleship’s hull, blew out part of the forecastle deck, and created a cavernous 1,600 sq. ft underwater hole.

Within a minute, a second explosion on the port side created what was later found to be a 2,000 sq. ft. hole in her hull.

The warship didn’t stand a chance and was settling on the harbor floor in minutes, and began to list, eventually turning turtle by the following evening.

At least 557 of the battleship’s crew were lost, along with some 60 men from the rest of the fleet who were lost in the attempt to save the ship and rescue trapped sailors.

We won’t get into the myriad of theories as to what killed Cesare/Novorossiysk, but suggestions have ranged from the far-fetched, such as Italian frogmen of the long-disbanded Xª MAS and long-dormant scuttling charges left aboard in 1948, to German bottom mines left over in the harbor’s silty bottom from their occupation of the port in WWII and assorted internal magazine explosions. Lingering mines seem the most likely cause, as extensive sweeps later found 32 mines on the bottom of Sevastopol’s harbor, some dating to the Great War.

In the end, with Stalin long gone and the Red Banner Fleet moving towards a more submarine and missile-borne strategy, the age of the Russian battleship came to an end as Cesare/Novorossiysk was raised over the course of the next 18 months and scrapped.

The final Soviet dreadnought, the circa 1911 Gangut/Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, was stricken on 17 February 1956 and slowly scrapped over the next two years.

After that, the handful of Turkish, French, British, and American battleships still on naval lists in NATO were soon taken out of service, with the Iowas staging a return in the 1980s-90s.

But gratefully, Cesare/Novorossiysk was the last one to go down with her flags flying.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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York in the Bay

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80 years ago today: The King George V-class battleship HMS Duke of York (17) in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, the day the instruments of surrender were signed by representatives from the Empire of Japanese aboard USS Missouri. Besides the flag of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser (one of five different admirals who flew their flag on her during the war), the Ensigns of four Allied nations (Soviet, French, Dutch, U.S.) were flown for a ceremonial “Sunset.” Note the battlewagon’s two quad QF 2-pounder/40mm “Pom-Pom” gun mounts, her massive four-barreled BL 14-inch Mk VII stern turret, and five smart Royal Marine buglers (center) atop the guns ready to sound Sunset.

Cross, G W (Sub Lt) Photographer, IWM A 30511

Having sunk the Scharnhorst in open combat in the Barents Sea, the battleship was the 8th in the Royal Navy to carry the name. Notably, the chairs the delegates aboard Missouri sat on were supplied by the Duke of York’s wardroom.

During the surrender ceremony itself, a massive flight of Hellcats and Corsairs from the US Task Group 38.1, which was cruising off the south coast of Honshu Island, flew overhead, yielding a much better-known image of the above scene.

U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Looks Back on 250 Years of Service

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There are a lot of 250th anniversaries this year, looking back at 1775. One of the most overlooked is the Semiquincentennial of the founding of the Army’s Chaplain Corps (DACH).

Established during the Revolution, the Corps was created on 29 July 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized a Chaplain for each of the Continental Army’s 38 regiments.

In the shadow of Chaplain headstones and the four memorials to Chaplains’ service and sacrifice in our nation’s wars, Arlington National Cemetery’s Senior Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ludovic Foyou recently welcomed a crowd of Chaplains, family members, and well-wishers, saying the cemetery was “where the legacy of our Corps is not just remembered, it is buried into the very soil we stand on.”

Foyou highlighted the significance of the memorials behind him, explaining their tributes:

One honors Chaplains killed in World War I.

Another commemorates 134 Protestant Chaplains who died in both world wars.

A third memorializes 83 Catholic Chaplains who lost their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

And the most recent honors 14 Jewish Chaplains who died while serving their country.

“These stones do not simply remember the dead,” he said. “We follow in the footsteps that walked through the mud, fire and fear to reach those in need.”

 

Operation Cochise

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3rd Marine Division AOR, Vietnam, 12 August 1967. “Army of the Republic of Vietnam Rangers dash from a Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 164 CH-46 Sea Knight [its ramp seen to the left] during Operation Cochise. The Ky Ha-based squadron transported the rangers to the operational area South of Da Nang.”

USMC photograph A 422604 by CPL Cowen. National Archives Identifier 26386815. Local Identifier 127-GVB-104-A422604

Note the hard-charging ARVN Ranger’s very handy M1 .30 Caliber Carbine in some of its final battlefield use, Nomex flight gloves, and the large battle dressing on the band of his M1 helmet, the latter complete with an ERDL camo cover. It seems he is using a 2-quart canteen carrier for spare mags, which isn’t a bad idea.

As noted of Operation Cochise by the history folder of the 1st Bn/4th Marines: 

The ARVN rangers made the first significant contact. On the morning of the 12th, three battalions of the 21st NVA Regiment attacked the rangers. Heavy fighting continued throughout the day and by 1700 the rangers reported heavy casualties. Dangerously low on ammunition, with darkness approaching, and with no sign of a letup on the part of the enemy, the rangers requested an emergency re-supply.

At 1730, a CH-46 from HMM-165, accompanied by two UH-1E gunships from VMO-6 arrived overhead with the badly needed ammunition. The gunships scouted the intended landing zone and reported that the CH-46 could not land in the contested zone. The pilot, Captain Jack H. McCracken, well aware of what would happen to the rangers without ammunition decided to try to deliver his cargo anyway. He ordered his crew chief, Corporal James E. Bauer, to stack the ammunition on the rear ramp. Captain Mc Cracken nosed over his helicopter and raced for the landing zone. McCracken then hovered 30 feet over the zone, and Corporal Bauer lowered the ramp and most of the ammunition dropped into the zone. While repeated enemy small arms hits shook the helicopter, Corporal Bauer kicked out the rest of the ammunition. As the last box dropped, enemy bullets severely damaged the helicopter, but McCracken’s re-supply permitted the rangers to continue the battle.

At 2300, the NVA units finally pulled back, leaving 197 bodies behind. The ranger losses also had been heavy, 81 killed and 153 wounded.

While the ARVN Rangers have not been around since 1975, the “Knightriders” of HMM-164 (now VMM-164) are still around as are the White Knights of the HMM-165 (now VMM-165).

As for Dr. Jack Hill McCracken, Ph.D, he earned both the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross in Vietnam and worked in both Marine and Army aviation for two decades following the conflict, “overseeing the development of a $29 billion lite helicopter project and simultaneously fighting vehemently against the proposed single-pilot helicopter program, which he successfully defeated in the interest of pilot safety and military effectiveness.” He passed at his Texas home in April 2023, aged 81.

Barbarossa in the rear view

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The German DW network has just released (in English) a sobering and fairly honest look at the massive 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis, an event now 84 years past.

It is two hours long in two parts and uses first-person accounts from both sides as well as extensive period color footage.

If you have the time, it is worth watching.

 

Cooling heels

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It happened 75 years ago today.

“Two North Koreans captured by men of F Co., 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, south of Chinju, Korea, are being searched and interrogated by a South Korean G-2 officer. 29 July 1950.”

Note the M1 Carbine-armed ROK officer’s rather unorthodox uniform capped by what could be a second-hand Australian bush (slouch) hat. Also, the Joe to the left has a muzzle cover on his carbine while the Soldier to the right is missing his canteen, which may have been loaned to the new EPOWs. Photographer: Butler. Signal Corps Archive SC 348779

After the armistice was signed in 1953, UN Command repatriated 70,183 North Korean prisoners of war as part of Operation Big Switch, which also included the return of 12,773 UN POWs to their respective countries; the latter figure contained just 7,862 South Korean POWs.

Another 22,959 Chinese/North Korean POWs elected to be sent anywhere else than home (mainly Chinese to Taiwan), with an Indian custodial force set to guard those defectors until they could be transferred abroad into 1954.

Some 7,614 Chinese and North Korean POWs died in UN custody during the war, mostly from tuberculosis and dysentery/diarrhea.

The ledger that recounts the number of Allied POWs that died in Chinese/Nork camps during the war has been forever lost to history.

Warship Wednesday, July 16, 2025: Flat Iron Warrior

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

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 As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, July 16, 2025: Flat Iron Warrior

Above we see the Norwegian Gor-class gunboat-turned-minelayer KNM Tyr, all 102 feet long with a 4.7″/40 EOC gun forward and mines stowed aft. Downright ancient when the Germans came in 1940, she nonetheless proved a serious thorn in their side.

Norwegian Rendels

Starting in the 1870s, the Norwegians embarked on a program of modern warship construction, including steam engines and iron/steel hulls. Constructed locally at Carl JohansVærns Værft, Horten, they ordered eight 2nd class gunboats (Kanonbåt 2. kl) running between 250 and 420 tons, three first class gunboats of between 720 and 1,280 tons, a 1,045-ton steam corvette, an armed 350-ton minelaying “crane vessel” (Kranfartøy), and 14 assorted (45 ton-to-107 ton) 2nd class torpedo boats by 1902. Meanwhile, four 4,000-ton coastal battleships (Panserskibe) with 8.2-inch guns and up to 8 inches of armor would be ordered from Armstrong in the 1890s.

The eight 2nd class gunboats were all of the “flat iron” or Rendel type, a common format introduced by Armstrong in 1867 and built under contract for or copied by over a dozen fleets around the globe, including Norway’s neighbors Denmark and Sweden. Short and stubby, typically about 100 feet long with a 30-foot beam, they were flat-bottomed and drew a fathom or less, even under a full load. This hull form and their anemic compound steam engines only allowed for a speed in the 8-10 knot region, leaving these as defensive vessels ideal for guarding strongpoints and key harbors.

Armament was typically a single large (8-to-15-inch!) gun that could be lowered and elevated inside a shielded battery but not traversed, with the gunboat coming about to aim the horizonal.

The Norwegian Rendels included KNM Vale and Uller (1874, 1876, 250t); Nor, Brage, and Vidar (1897-1882, 270t); Gor and Tyr (1884, 1887, 289-294t); and Æger (1893, 420t). The first five carried a single Armstrong 26.67 cm (10.5-inch) RML forward and two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns amidships.

Kanonbåt 2 kl Brage’s crew with her Armstrong 26,7cm RML.

Æger toted a more modern 8.3-inch Armstrong breechloader and three small (one 10-pdr and two 4-pdrs).

Æger. This 109-foot 420-tonner was the pinnacle of Rendel development. A one-off design, she was decommissioned in 1932 and her name recycled for a new Sleipner-class destroyer. NSM.000460

Gor and Tyr each carried a single breechloading Krupp 26 cm (10.2 inch) L/30 gun (606-pound shell, 192-pound charge, m/v 1805 ft/secs), the same model gun used on the 3,700-ton Japanese Armstrong-built protected cruisers Naniwa and Takachiho, backed up, like most of the other Norwegian Rendels, by two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns.

Kanonbåt 2. kl. Gor (b. 1884, Karljohansvern Verft, Horten), note the large Krupp gun forward. NSM.000459

Japanese officers of the protected cruiser Naniwa posing near one of her 26 cm (10.2″) Krupp guns, 1885

Meet Tyr

Constructed as Yard No. 67 at Horten, Tyr was named for the one-handed Norse god of war who sacrificed his other hand to trap the wolf Fenrir. Laid down in 1884, she launched on 16 March 1887 and, fitting out rapidly, joined the Norwegian fleet shortly after.

Norwegian gunboat KNM Tyr from 1887

After 1900, with the looming formal separation from Sweden on the horizon and the prospect of a possible fight on their hands, the Norwegians upped their torpedo boat numbers rapidly to nearly 30 boats as their four new bathtub battleships arrived on hand from Britain. With that, the Rendels transitioned to more static support roles around this time, such as minefield tenders at strategic coastal fortifications and depot ships.

Around this time, most landed their obsolete main gun in exchange for something more contemporary, with most picking up a trainable QF 4.7″/40 Elswick 20-pounder behind a shield. This allowed the removal of their armored bow bulwark. Gor and Tyr also picked up a high-angle 76mm mount, while some of the older boats received a 47mm mount.

Gor as minelegger with mines aft. 

After Norway got into the submarine business in 1909 with the small (128-foot, kerosine-engined) German-built KNM Kobben, Tyr became her tender until 1914.

K/B 2 kl Tyr as tender with Norwegian submarine Kobben alongside. MMU.944062

Tyr plan 1913, slick-decked as tender.

With the mine warfare lessons reverberating around the globe after the Russo-Japanese War, it became obvious how easy these broad-beamed shallow-draft craft could be converted to minelayers. This typically meant installing twin port and starboard rail tracks on deck running about 65 feet to the stern for easy planting either via boom over rail drop. On the Gor and Tyr, this allowed for as many as 55 mines stowed on deck.

Tyr as mine planter with her 4″/40 forward and two 37mm 1-pounders on her amidships bridge deck. Model in the Horten Marinemuseet.

Same model, note the mine arrangement. The model omits her 6-pounder 76mm gun.

mines on converted Norwegian 2c gunboat, pre-1940

Same as above

Same as above

1929 Jane’s abbreviated listing of seven of the old Rendel gunboats, including Tyr. Note that Gor is still listed with her old 10-inch Armstrong. The larger Aegir was listed separately and was disposed of in 1932.

War!

September 1939 brought an uneasy time to Scandinavia. The remaining seven Norwegian Rendals, all by this time working as minelayers, bided their time and clocked in on the country’s Nøytralitetsvakt (Neutrality Watch).

Tyr was placed under the command of Orlogskaptein (LCDR) Johan Friederich Andreas Thaulow “Fritz” Ulstrup and stationed at the outer ring Lerøy Fortress overlooking the narrow Lerøyosen south of Bergen. Ulstrup, 43, was a career naval officer who was minted in the Great War and, having studied in France from 1922 to 1924, was serving as an instructor at the Naval Academy in Bergen when the war started.

Ulstrup, who doubled as fortress commander at Lerøy, also had a flotilla of five small armed auxiliary guard boats– Haus (135grt), Lindaas (138grt), Alversund (178grt), Manger (153grt), and Oygar (128grt)– and an old (circa 1898) torpedo boat, Storm, under his control. However, the fort itself, slated in 1939 to receive a 120mm gun battery with four old L/40 French-built Schneider weapons from the decommissioned border forts of Vardasen and Gullbekkasen pointing toward Sweden, instead only had a couple of 65mm Cockerill guns and searchlights.

On the early morning of 9 April 1940, just after midnight, two cruisers appeared off Bergen and flashed that they were the RN’s HMS Cairo and Calcutta, when in fact they were the German Kriegmarine’s light cruiser sisters Koln and Konigsberg, each with nine 15 cm SK C/25 (5.9-inch) guns, as the Gruppe 3 invasion force under RADM Hubert Schmundt. The cruisers were followed by 600 troops of the Wehrmacht’s 69th Infantry Division on the 1,800-ton gunnery training ship (Artillerieschulschiff) Bremse with four 12.8 cm SK C/34s, the torpedo boats Wolf and Leopard, and the E-boat tender Carl Peters shepherding S19, S21, S22, S23, S24, and naval trawlers Schiff 9 and Schiff 18.

Tyr, loaded with live and armed mines picked up at Laksevåg, was at the ocean-front fishing village of Klokkarvik, directly in the path of the Germans.

Klokkarvik harbor during the neutrality watch in 1939/40. In the picture, you can see a mine-armed KNM Tyr at anchor with a Draug-class destroyer at the quay. Note the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Hover M.F.11 floatplane in the foreground. (Source: Naval Museum Horten)

When the Germans began to creep into the fjord and with word of other sets of foreign warships in the Oslofjord, Ulstrup, who had been arguing with Bergan’s overall commander, RADM Carsten Tank-Nielsen all day on the 8th to be able to sow his mines, finally obtained clearance at 0030 for Tyr to hurriedly drop eight mines between Sotra and Lerøy, closing Lerøyosen. However, the 10-14-hour time-delay safety features on the magnetic contacts of the mines meant they were still dormant when the German cruisers passed harmlessly over them. Storm, meanwhile, fired a torpedo at Carl Peters at 0220 but missed.

Ulstrup closed to shore so he could place a quick phone call to Tank-Nielsen to apprise him of the situation, then returned to his minelayer to beat feet toward Bjørnefjord, playing a cat and mouse game with German E-boats and reportedly landing a hit from her 4.7-inch gun on one, receiving several 20mm hits from the Schnellbooten in exchange.

Further up the fjord, batteries at the now-alerted Norwegian inner ring Forts Kvarven (3 x 210mm St. Chamond M.98s) and Sandviken (3 x 240mm St. Chamond  L/13s) opened up on the passing Germans at 0358 and soon landed hits on both Konigsberg and Bremse in the darkness of pre-dawn, leaving the former adrift with flooded boiler rooms. While Tyr, Ulstrup, and company managed to withdraw further into the fjords– laying another 16 mines in the Vatlestraumen approaches north of Bergen–  Bergen itself fell to the German seaborne force just hours later.

However, the crippled Konigsberg would be hammered by a strike of RNAS Sea Skuas out of Orkney once the sun came up and caught five 500-pound bombs, sinking her in the harbor on 10 April.

Meanwhile, Tyr’s mines near Vatlestraumen sank the packed German HSDG freighter Sao Paulo (4977grt) on the evening of the 9th, sending her to the bottom in 260 feet of water.

The 361-foot Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampschiffahrts-Gesellschaft steamer Sao Paulo was lost to one of Tyr’s mines.

In trying to sweep the mines, the German naval auxiliary Schiff 9 (trawler Koblenz, 437grt), and the auxiliary patrol boat Vp.105 (trawler Cremon, 268grt), along with two launches from Carl Peters, were lost on the 11th. Some sources also credit the German steamer Johann Wessels (4601grt), damaged on 5 May, and the German-controlled Danish steamer Gerda (1151grt), sunk on 8 May, as falling to Tyr’s eggs.

Withdrawing down the 114-mile-long Hardangerfjord, Ulstrup was appointed the commander of this new sector on 17 April and, moving ashore to Uskedal, left Tyr to her XO, the 47-year-old Fenrik (ensign) Karl Sandnes. Ulstrup, stripping the 37mm guns from Tyr and two 65mm guns from auxiliary gunboats, mounted them on flatbed trucks as improvised mobile artillery.

A 1937 Chevy flatbed with a 65mm L35 Hotchkiss under Ulstrup’s dirt sailors, April 1940

The next two days saw a series of skirmishes around Uskedal, in which Tyr closed to shore to use her 4.7-inch gun against German positions in improvised NGFS, coming close enough to get riddled by German 8mm rifle fire in return.

A naval clash on the 20th involving the advancing Germans in the Hardangerfjord saw Tyr, under the command of Sandnes, shell the German auxiliary Schiff 18, which beached at Uskedal to avoid sinking. The same battle saw the Norwegian Trygg-class torpedo boat Stegg sunk by Schiff 221 while the Norwegian armed auxiliary Smart was sunk by Bremse. The German minesweeper M.1 went on to capture five Norwegian-flagged steamers that were hiding in the fjord.

With Ulstrup and his force ashore getting ready to displace inland under fire, and Tyr trapped in the fjord, Sandnes brought his command to the shallows and, attempting to camouflage her, hid the breechblock for her 4.7 and evacuated the old minelayer. By forced march, they made it to Matre, some 14 miles on the other side of the mountain, and soon rejoined Allied lines.

Meanwhile, Tyr was soon discovered by the Germans, who towed her back to Bergen and, along with her fellow Rendel gunboat-turned-minelayer cousin, Uller, were soon pressed into service with the Kriegsmarine.

On 30 April, Tyr and Uller left occupied Bergen with German crews on a mission to mine the entrance to Sognefjord, barring it to British ships. This service would be short-lived as a Royal Norwegian Navy Heinkel He 115 seaplane spotted the pair, now under new management, and bombed Uller seriously enough to have her crew beach on a reef and evacuate on Tyr. Uller later lifted off the reef and sank near Gulen, becoming a popular dive spot.

As for Tyr, she saw no further direct combat, although the Germans likely continued to use her in some form of coastal service for the rest of the war.

Post-war

Tyr was still afloat in 1945 when the Germans were run out, and was subsequently sold on the commercial market. Her old hull still in good shape, she was converted to an economical diesel plant and sailed for a time as a heavy lift steamship.

By 1951, she had been converted to the car ferry Bjorn West, a task she fulfilled for three decades. Further converted for service in a salmon farming operation.

Found in poor condition ten years ago, she recently passed to a consortium of Vestfold county municipality, the KNM Narvik Foundation in Horten, and the Bredalsholmen Shipyard and Preservation Centre, who, with Tyr safely in drydock in Kristiansand, plan on restoring her to her 1940 condition. At this point, she is believed to be the last Rendel-type gunboat.

They plan to make her sailable, which isn’t that far-fetched.

Epilogue

The Norwegian Navy has recycled our gunboat/minelayer’s name at least twice.

The first was an Auk-class minesweeper, ex-USS Sustain (AM-119), which was transferred in 1959 and served as KNM Tyr (N47). Three Auk-class sisters transferred with her (ex-USS Strive, Triumph, and Seer) were named Gor, Brage, and Uller, in a nod to the old Rendel boats that saw WWII service.

Ex-USS Sustain (AM-119) as KNM Tyr (N47). Commissioned 9 November 1942, she earned eight battle stars for her World War II service from North Africa to France to Okinawa, helping to sink at least one U-boat in the process. She served the Norwegians from 1959 to 1984.

The third KNM Tyr in Norwegian service, N50, was bought commercially in 1995 and spent two decades mapping and filming dozens of historic wrecks in the country’s waters with her ROVs, including Scharnhorst and HMS Hunter (H35).

The intrepid LCDR Ulstrup continued to resist the Germans after leaving Tyr in April 1940. He crafted a makeshift shoreside torpedo battery, the only torpedo available being salvaged from the wreck of an old torpedo boat, and managed to caravan mines from a storage facility in Sogn to Ulvik to surprise the occupation forces. Once the Allies pulled out in mid-June, he was left to his own devices with a resistance group that became known, logically, as the Ulstrup Organisasjon.

With the heat getting too close for comfort, Ulstrup and a dozen other patriots crowded on the sailing trawler MK Måken (M 366 B) on 19 September 1940 and set out from Alesund for the Shetlands, arriving at Baltasound 11 days later. Welcomed as a hero in London, he was soon in command of the old four-piper HMS Mansfield (G76) (former USS Evans, DD-78), which in April 1941 carried commandos for a raid on Oksfjord, Norway, where the herring oil factory was destroyed.

“HNMS Mansfield, Norwegian Town-class destroyer. She is an ex-U.S. destroyer (USS Evans) and is manned entirely by the Norwegian Navy.” Circa 1941. Note her Norwegian flag. Photo by Harold William John Tomlin, IWM A2725

Once Mansfield was passed on to the Canadians in March 1942 after the Norwegians rode shotgun on 17 Atlantic, Ulstrup, promoted to Kommandørkaptein, was given command of the 11th Department in the Ministry of Defense in London, then subsequently placed in command of the Norwegian forces in Iceland, where he spent the rest of the war.

Returning to Norway with a War Cross with Swords, Ulstrup was promoted to rear admiral in August 1952. After escorting Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie on his tour of Norwegian naval bases, including the Horten shipyards in November 1954, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II, rounding out his international awards.

Kontradmiral Johan Fredrik Andreas Thaulow Ulstrup, retired, passed in 1956, age 60, having wrapped up a 41-year career.

Tyr’s best-known “kill” of the war, the HSDG steamer Sao Paulo, packed with German military vehicles and stores that never made it to shore, is a favorite of wreck divers.

Meanwhile, in Klokkarvik, a memorial, complete with a mine and a seagull, was dedicated in 2021.

As noted in the town:

The seagull that takes off from the mine is a symbol of optimism. We should be aware of what war brings, but be most concerned with how we can secure peace. We should learn from history, – because it tends to repeat itself. The seagull draws our attention to the sea, the source of everything, our future.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Goodbye, horses

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No, not the Q Lazzarus song made infamous by Ted Levine, we are talking about the Army’s latest initiative to divest itself of equines, something it has been doing in slow motion since 1917 despite a few half-hearted returns.

It could be argued that 1916 was the height of the U.S. Army’s post-Civil War (when the Union Army fielded 6 regular army and 266 volunteer cavalry regiments as well as 170 unattached squadrons) horse cavalry. At the time, during Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Northern Mexico to chase Villa, the Army had 17 regiments of regulars– with the 16th and 17th Cavalry Regiments only organized in Texas in July 1916.

U.S. 5th Cav in Mexico, 1916

Add to this “practically all the serviceable cavalry” from the mobilized National Guard that included three cavalry regiments, 13 separate squadrons, and 22 separate cavalry troops, a force that required the immediate purchase on the open market of 1,861 cavalry horses by quartermasters to take to the field as most units were called up with less than half their stables full.

One Guard cavalry unit had no horses on call-up day except one privately owned mount, and in another that had 92 state-owned horses, only 23 passed inspection by a U.S. Cavalry remount officer.

“Making cavalry horses out of outlaws!”

While nearly 2 million Doughboys went “Over There” in the Great War, few were horse soldiers (just the 6th and 15th Cavalry Regiments arrived in France in March 1918, and were later sent to the trenches dismounted).

Instead, cavalry units were either repurposed into supply trains and artillery units or left to watch the border; the latter regiments organized into the short-lived 15th Cavalry Division.

At the same time, the Army went all-in on mechanization and established its first dedicated tank units.

The great cavalry farce of the 1920s-1930s

By the 1920s, the walk away from horses continued, and three regiments of regulars (15th, 16th, and 17th) were disbanded, as the regular cavalry increasingly became motorized (the 1st and 13th U.S. Cavalry were the first to hand in their horses, starting in 1932). In the Philippines, the 26th Cavalry regiment (Philippine Scouts), made up generally of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, with a few seconded Regular Army officers and NCOs, was established in 1922 using horses and equipment left behind when the segreated 9th Cavalry shipped back home.

The interwar role of horse cavalry was increasingly transferred to the National Guard and Army Reserve.

However, it was a force largely just on paper, allowing much smaller “regiments” than those typically seen in an infantry format to exist (1,090 officers and men vs 3,500 by 1918 TOE, numbers even smaller by later standards).

Florida National Guard summer camp officer with 1902 pattern sword fooling on horseback, Jacksonville, 1930 time frame. 

This saw the creation out of whole cloth of 20 NG horse cav regiments between 1921 and 1927: the 101st and 121st Cavalry Regiments in New York, 102nd Cavalry in New Jersey, the 103rd and 104th Cavalry in Pennsylvania, 105th Cavalry (Wisconsin), 106th Cavalry (Illinois), 107th Cavalry (Ohio), 108th Cavary (Georgia), 109th Cavalry (Tennessee), the 110th Cavalry in Massachusetts, the 112th and 124th Cavalry Regiments in Texas, 113th Cavalry (Iowa), 114th Cavalry (Kansas), 115th Cavalry (Wyoming), 116th Cavalry (Idaho), 117th (Colorado/New Mexico, never fully formed), 122nd (Connecticut and Rhode Island), and 123rd (Kentucky).

In 1927, each cavalry regiment at the time, when fully staffed and ready for service, included four lettered 123-man troops led by captains, organized into two numbered 248-man squadrons led by a major, plus a regimental headquarters, machinegun, medical, and service troops for 39 officers and 710 men including ferriers and veteranirians. Add to this 810 horses, 64 mules, three cars, three 1 1/2 ton trucks, a motorcycle (with side car), 38 assorted wagons, 10 M1917 water cooled MGs, 24 M1918 machine rifles (BARs), 501 M1903 Springfield rifles (with bayonets), 724 M1911 pistols, 16 M1903 medical bolos, and, of course, 425 Patton-style M1913 cavalry sabers.

These optimistically formed four NG Cavalry divisions, the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.

At the division level, there was a 103-man light tank company with 18 M1917 (Renault FT) tanks and 7 truck-pulled 37mm guns as well as an 89-man armored car company with 12 M1/M2 armored Scout cars, and a 520-man battalion of 12 horse-drawn 75mm field guns (in three batteries) and seven AAA MGs. While authorized, few divisions actually had these exotic bits of kit other than the Regular Army’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, which each housed four active Cavalry regiments.

The 3rd Cavalry Division was openly just a “paper” division with its support units in the Reserve and never in its 19-year interwar history drilled as a unit.

`Troop A, 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, Georgia National Guard at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. in 1930

It should be noted, however, that the TOE for each NG cavalry troop in peacetime would be just 65 officers and men (against the fully-manned wartime authorization of 123) but had only 32 horses, enough for training, yet still requiring a massive influx of trained horse flesh in wartime, followed by a good 6 months to a year of unit training before they could be deployed.

Further, these regiments were slowly reformatted as hybrid horse-mechanized units, with elements of both, with horse (and trooper) numbers dropping while traditional items like the saber were abandoned after 1934.

Wyoming National Guard’s 115th Cavalry Regiment in its final format, circa 1940, with jeeps, motorcycles, and trucks augmenting the regimental band and horse soldiers. 

At the same time, the Army Reserve amazingly had 24 horse cavalry regiments, numbered 301st through 324th, in six divisions (!) numbered the 61st through 66th. With somehow even fewer horses on hand than the NG units, these regiments typically had to borrow NG horses, those from CMMG or ROTC units, or trek to the U.S. 3rd Cavalry’s stables at Fort Myers in the summer to train.

Meanwhile, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment pitched in to train Great Plains Army Reservists at Fort Riley, Kansas. The 14th Cav maintained a Cavalry riding school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, specifically to train Midwestern Army Reservists, where, in 1936, their 2nd Squadron taught future president Ronald Reagan how to ride horses, by the numbers.

Reagan’s military service began with the U.S. Army Reserve via at-home Army Extension courses in 1935. He was a private in the Iowa-based 322nd Cavalry Regiment before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps. He was later assigned to the 323rd Cavalry Regiment in California and in 1942 requested a transfer to the USAAF, where he helped produce 400 training films in the 1st Motion Picture Unit.

While it was estimated that the Army would need over 200,000 horses immediately in wartime if all 44 Guard and Reserve horse cav regiments and their 10 divisional organizations were fully-fleshed out, the service typically only procured between 1,500 and 2,500 new horses every year in the 1930s, including use for both active and reserve cavalry and artillery, and at the end of the 1941 fiscal year the remount depots only had 28,000 horses on hand.

By the fall of 1940, with the Guard federalized, of the existing 19 NG cavalry regiments, 7 were reorganized into mechanized regiments, 6 were converted to field artillery, and 4 to coastal artillery.

Only two, the Texas 112th and 124th, were given a reprieve as horse cavalry and would be brigaded together as the 56th Cavalry Brigade, which survived until March 1944 when they put their horses to pasture and became the 56th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized, bound for the CBI theatre.

The regular Army’s 3rd Cavalry Regiment led its horses away in February 1942, and the 1st Cavalry Division was de-horsed by May 1943, followed by the 2d Cavalry Division ten months later.

Likewise, the massive Army Reserve “cavalry” force saw its 24 regiments melt away by 1942 when they were hollowed out by having their assigned personnel called to active duty and reassigned to Regular Army and federalized National Guard units. The empty unit shells were typically reclassified into Signal Aircraft Warning (radar) battalions and Tank Destroyer battalions (notably the 62nd, 63rd, 65th, 66th, 70th, 71st, and 75th), then rebuilt with new personnel.

Most of the “U.S” branded horses were “loaned” to the USCG, who took 3,900 for WWII beach patrol work, while over 7,000 went overseas as military aid to allies.

The Constabulary

While there was a short resurgence of small horse-mounted recon detachments formed in divisions in 1944-45, notably with the 10th Mountain, who experienced possibly the final U.S. Army mounted cavalry charge, the 35,000-strong U.S. Constabulary force in occupied Germany from 1946-52 included much use of horses.

Organized into 10 regiments, the circa 1946 TOE of each allowed for a horse platoon with 30 horses to patrol difficult terrain.

Even afterward, the Army’s Berlin Garrison was authorized 56 horses for the use of the force there as late as 1958.

“One of the famous Constabulary regiment horse patrols”

Short-lived resurgence

The Army’s last dedicated pack horse unit, the 35th QM Pack Co., was deactivated at Fort Carson, Colorado, in the spring of 1957.

Since then, the Army has continued whittling down its horse inventory with a short reprieve post 9/11 such as in the famous use of local ponies by the 5th SFG’s ODA 595 when it operated with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and the fleeting Special Operations Forces Horsemanship Course at Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California.

Man don’t those white horses glow at night! Green Berets from 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) ride horses to travel through rough terrain during a site reconnaissance training exercise on March 1, 2016 in Nevada. (U.S. Army photo by 3rd SFG (A) Combat Camera)

Plus, there was a steady resurgence post-Vietnam of ceremonial horse detachments on posts with a history going back to the Old West days.

The 11th ACR’s “Black Horse” Detachment at Fort Irwin

About that.

The Army last week announced that it was “streamlining its Military Working Equid program to align more resources with warfighting capability and readiness. MWEs include horses, mules, and donkeys owned by the Department of Defense and housed on Army installations.”

This means that, of its current seven horse detachments– often staffed by volunteers on collateral duty– just two will remain.

Starting in July 2025, the Army will sunset ownership, operation, and materiel support of MWE programs at Fort Irwin, California; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and Fort Hood, Texas.

However, MWE programs will continue with The Old Guard Caisson units at the Military District of Washington and at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.

“This initiative will save the Army $2 million annually and will allow the funds and Soldiers dedicated to MWE programs to be redirected to readiness and warfighting priorities.

An estimated 141 current Army horses will be moved out to new homes.

“Installation commanders will have one year to transfer, facilitate adoption, or donate the MWEs to vetted owners according to federal law. The Army Surgeon General’s MWE Task Force, comprised of equine veterinarian experts, will provide oversight to ensure the MWEs go to appropriate owners.”

Of note, the Caisson Platoon just resumed limited operations at Arlington last month.

 

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