Loose Tweets, Sink Fleets
In a nod to the advancement of technology in regards to operational security these days, and harkening to the old 1940s campaign…
The Navy has recast the slogan:
Category Archives: war
How many Devils can you cram in a boat?
U.S. Marines, grouped in fours and fives in outboard motor boats, approach the beach in an amphibious assault in the Rung Sat Zone, 35 miles from Saigon. Rung Sat, infested with Viet Cong, is the target of Operation Jackstay, involving 1,200 Marines. Photo taken 03/26/1966.
P.S. Dig those M14’s, baby.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Alphonse de Neuville
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Alphonse de Neuville
Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville was born in 1835 at Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais and, growing up on the coast, entered naval school at age 21. However, he always had an eye for the pencil and the brush and by 1860 was completing military-themed paintings and sketches that soon became widely received.
He illustrated several books including one that was very far-reaching for its time.
Although submersible were more fiction than fact at the time, de Neuville was able to combine his nautical background with his art to craft haunting illustrations of life under the ocean in a modern attack submarine in 1870 for the Hetzel editions of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The 111 drawings in that work (!) by de Neuville even today harken to adventure, naval warfare, and sci-fi from the true steampunk era.
Nautilus engines
In 1871, France was defeated (handily) by the Prussians and that lost war provided de Neuville steady work in immortalizing the lost armies and battles of that conflict.
Le cimetière de Saint-Privat, le 18 août 1870.
Défense de la porte de Longboyau, 21 octobre 1870
“Uhlan et cuirassier de la brigade Von Bredow, morts, ” Showing a Dead Prussian Uhlan and Cuirassier, Franco-Prussian war. “Von Bredow’s Death Ride” in which some 800~ Prussian horsemen charged the French lines with surprising results was one of the last effective use of Napoleonic-style cavalry in modern warfare. On exhibit at the Musée des Invalides, Paris.
Bataille de Champigny (1870). Note the dead Prussian officer in the foreground, sword in hand
Alphonse de Neuville – The Attack at Dawn
Alphonse de Neuville – In the Trenches. Note the broken rifle. The desperation. You feel the cold of that 1870 winter.
Perhaps his most famous painting of this war was Les dernières cartouches (The Last Cartridges) which immortalize the stand by a group of French Marines of the Blue Division at Bazeilles on 31 August and 1 September 1870 during the Battle of Sedan.
“The Last Cartridges” by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville note the Tunisian Zouave and shattered rifle
That imagery became famous in France and has been both widely imitated and reproduced in the past century and change.
One of the few Georges Méliès films (he made more than 500) that remains in existence is based on the painting and was created in 1897.
Alphonse de Neuville also did an extensive study of the French army uniforms of the era, which serve as a reference and a window into that era to this day.
Sergent of the 9th
Dragoons, mounted
Sapper
French Cuirassiers
Dragons – Alphonse de Neuville
A French Combat Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville. Note the detail on the Chassepot 1866 Needle rifle and how the officer in charge of the detail has his eyes glued on the engineer standing sentry with a cigarette in his hand and not on the work party. In the below sketch, that background detail is different
A French Military Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville in pencil– and with the officer minding the work and not the smoker
Our artist also tried his hands at other conflicts of the era.
Alphonse de Neuville – The defence of Rorke’s Drift 1879
Neuville died in Paris on May 18, 1885 at the untimely age of 49. His work is widely exhibited.
The artist
Thank you for your work, sir.
Semper Paratus as seen through WWII
During WWII, the Coast Guard bloomed from under 20,000 to more than a quarter million at its height in June 1944. At that time, the service contained 9,874 commissioned officers, 3,291 warrant officers and 164,560 enlisted personnel, augmented by another 125,000 Temporary Members of the Coast Guard Reserve who were conducting beach and harbor patrols back in the U.S. which in turn were augmented further by nearly 70,000 volunteers of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Coast Guard crew dressed to keep warm while on patrol aboard aboard a USCG schooner in 1943 while on coastal patrol in the U.S.
Dog Beach Patrol’, (possibly on Parramore Beach, Virginia, US. October 1943). (Source – United States Coast Guard – Photo No.726. Colorized by Royston Leonard from the UK)
With so many men and (over 13,000 women) under arms and in uniform, what was the service doing in 1944?
Well, a little known fact is that a tremendous number of small naval surface combatants on the Naval List were manned entirely by USCG/USCGR crews to include a number of patrol craft and submarine chasers (PC/SC) and at least 75 303-foot/1,300-ton Tacoma-class patrol frigates (PF) while a legion of the Coast Guard’s own cutters also served the same duty in ASW and amphibious warfare support.
Coast Guard cutter USS Spencer on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, March 1943
Speaking of the ‘phibs, when FDR gave away 10 250-foot Lake-class cutters to the Brits as Lend Lease in 1940, this left over 3,000 Coasties without a ship– and the Navy promptly took them to man 53 cargo ships and attack transports (APs & APAs)– armed freighters stuffed with bunks for troops.
As the war expanded, the Navy, acknowledging the Coasties’ knowledge of working in the shallows and surfline, soon tasked them with other assignments closer to enemy beaches. As such many of the landing craft taking troops ashore from Guadalcanal to Normandy and Iwo Jima, were manned by Coastguardsmen.
Marines crouched in a Coast Guard-manned LCVP on the way in on the first wave to hit the beach at Iwo Jima, 19 Feb 1945
US Coast Guard LCVP landing craft carried invasion troops toward Luzon in Lingayen Gulf, 9 Jan 1945
United States Coast Guard-manned LST beaching at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Bismarck Islands, Dec 1943
Famous picture of an LCVP from the USCG-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarking troops of the 29th Infantry Division at Omaha Beach June 6, 1944. Clic to big up
USCG-six US Coast Guard patrol boat near the coasts of Normandy, D-day 1944. Dig the M1 steel pots…
US Coast Guardsmen assisting a wounded Marine into an LCVP after the Marine’s LVT sustained a direct hit while heading to the landing beaches on Iwo Jima, Feb 18, 1945.
LCI landing craft in the wake of a USCG-manned LST en route to Cape Sansapor, New Guinea, mid-1944
U.S. Navy/USCG invasion fleet off Iwo Jima, with LVTs and LCIs maneuvering near the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43). 1945
Charles Tyner, Fireman First Class (USCG), inspects his helmet hit by shrapnel during the Allied landings in southern France. 1944.
By the end of the war, the service manned at least 77 LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), 28 LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry, Large) and an amazing 288 vessels for the Army Transportation Corps that consisted of AMRS (Army Marine Repair Ship), TY (tankers), LT (large tugs), FS (freight and supply vessels), and F (Freight vessels) that shuttled around and carried the logistics of war that are so often overlooked.
83 foot patrol boat CG-624, later renamed CG-14 as part of Rescue Flotilla One, Normandy
On Normandy Beach during D-Day, a fleet of 60 USCG 83-foot patrol boats, dubbed Rescue Flotilla One, pulled over 400 soldiers from the water on June 6th alone. This “Matchbox Fleet” lost four of their own vessels that day to submerged German mines and coastal artillery. Four LCI(L)’s manned by the USCG were also lost at Normandy.
USCGC Alexander Hamilton (WPG-34) remains 28 miles off the coast of Iceland where she was sunk by German Type VIIC submarine U-132, just seven weeks into the war.
In all some 37 USCG vessels or USCG-manned Naval vessels were lost during the war including the Treasury-class cutter Alexander Hamilton who was torpedoed 29 January 1942 by a U-boat in the North Atlantic.
The highest cost in terms of lives came when the 14,000-ton USS Serpens (AK-97) a USCG-manned Crater-class cargo ship was destroyed by explosion, 29 January 1945 off Laguna Beach in the Solomons.
She was packed full of depth charges and artillery shells.
An eyewitness to the disaster stated:
As we headed our personnel boat shoreward the sound and concussion of the explosion suddenly reached us, and, as we turned, we witnessed the awe-inspiring death drams unfold before us. As the report of screeching shells filled the air and the flash of tracers continued, the water splashed throughout the harbor as the shells hit. We headed our boat in the direction of the smoke and as we came into closer view of what had once been a ship, the water was filled only with floating debris, dead fish, torn life jackets, lumber and other unidentifiable objects. The smell of death, and fire, and gasoline, and oil was evident and nauseating. This was sudden death, and horror, unwanted and unasked for, but complete.”
In all, Serpens lost 198 members of her crew and 57 members of an Army stevedore unit that were on board the ship in an explosion whose cause has never been determined but remains the largest single disaster ever suffered by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard-manned attack cargo vessel USS Serpens (AK-97) exploded off Guadalcanal due to unknown causes. Only two men aboard survived. A memorial service is held every year at Arlington National Cemetery at the Serpens Memorial on Jan 29. Image via USCG
The Coast Guard lost a total of 1,917 persons during the war with 574 losing their life in action, died of wounds received in action, or perishing as a Prisoner of War. Almost 2,000 Coast Guardsmen were decorated, one receiving the Medal of Honor (the only one issued to the Coast Guard), six the Navy Cross, and one the Distinguished Service Cross.
The MOH went to SM1c Douglas A. Munro, USCG, who, appropriately enough, was killed trying to rescue men off the beach as officer-in-charge of a group of landing craft at Point Cruz on September 27, 1942, during the Matanikau action in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal by Bernard D’Andrea. Click to big up. Note the Lewis guns
Munro’s Citation:
“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.”
A display containing Petty Officer First Class Douglas Munro’s Medal of Honor and accompanying citation hangs in Munro Hall at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, N.J., (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Warrant Officer John Edwards)
“Upon regaining consciousness his [Munro’s] only question was ‘Did they get off?’, and so died with a smile on his face and the full knowledge that he had successfully accomplished a dangerous mission.”
For more on the USCG in WWII, click here and dig in
Lady Sara
US Marine Corps Vought O2U-2 Corsair aircraft preparing to land on Saratoga, circa 1930
Source United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Identification Code NH 94899
The USS Saratoga (CV-3) was a beautiful ship converted from a battlecruiser that was never allowed to be built. She and her sistership, Lexington, were largely responsible for training the pre-WWII U.S. Navy in how to use a fleet carrier. As a result, she had a few interesting people cycle through her decks.
Here are a couple
Charles Lindbergh in the cockpit of a F3B-1 carrier aircraft aboard USS Saratoga, 8 Feb 1929
Ever heard of the Thatch Weave? Lt. John Thach’s Wildcat taking off from Saratoga, Oct 1941 Source United States National Archives Identification Code 80-PR-1154
And here’s a bonus shot of her all dolled up for the war.
Saratoga underway at sea, circa 1942, with 5 Grumman F4F fighters, 6 Douglas SBD scout bombers, and 1 Grumman TBF torpedo bomber
Warship Wednesday June 17, 2015: Big Paul
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, June 17, 2015: Big Paul
USS Saint Paul off Yokosuka, Japan, 21 May 1966. Click to big up
Here we see the Baltimore-class cruiser, USS Saint Paul (CA-73) coming at you bow-on. She was a hard charger who never stopped in 26 years at sea.
When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department.
When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000-tons, 3.9-inches of armor), the writing was on the wall.
That’s where the Baltimore-class came in.
These 24 envisioned ships of the class looked like an Iowa-class battleship in miniature with three triple turrets, twin stacks, a high central bridge, and two masts– and they were (almost) as powerful. Sheathed in a hefty 6 inches of armor belt (and 3-inches of deck armor), they could take a beating if they had to. They were fast, capable of over 30-knots, which meant they could keep pace with the fast new battlewagons they looked so much like as well as the new fleet carriers that were on the drawing board as well.
While they were more heavily armored than Hipper and Mogami, they also had an extra 8-inch tube, mounting 9 8 inch/55 caliber guns whereas the German and Japanese only had 155mm guns (though later picked up 10×8-inchers, thanks for keeping me straight Tom!). A larger suite of AAA guns that included a dozen 5 inch /38 caliber guns in twin mounts and 70+ 40mm and 20mm guns rounded this out.
In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there was at least 27-feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, and take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight.
Class leader Baltimore was laid down 26 May 1941, just six months before Pearl Harbor, and was commissioned 15 April 1943.
Saint Paul, the 6th ship of the class, was laid down at Bethlehem Steel Company at Quincy, Mass on 3 February 1943.
USS Saint Paul (CA-73), a Baltimore-class cruiser note vertrep markings. She swapped her seaplanes for choppers in 1949
As such, Paul, just the 2nd U.S. Naval ship named for the Minnesota city, was completed late in the war, only being commissioned 17 February 1945.
Whereas the original ships of the class mounted Mk 12 8-inch guns, Saint Paul was completed with the more advanced Mk 15 guns in three 300-ton triple turrets. These long-barreled 203mm guns could fire a new, “super-heavy” 335-pound shell out to 30,000 yards and penetrate 10-inches of armor at close ranges. It should be noted that the older cruisers used a 260-pound AP shell.
USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions off Vietnam, Oct 1966
After shakedown, she was off the coast of Japan in July, getting in the last salvos fired by a major warship on a land target in the war when she plastered the steelworks in Kamaishi from just offshore, putting those big new 8-inchers to good use.
Watercolor “U.S.S. ST. PAUL – Let Go Port Anchor” by Arthur Beaumont, 1946
Then at the end of the war, a funny thing happened: the five almost new Baltimores that came before Saint Paul was decommissioned and laid up in reserve, whereas CA-73 remained on post. Further, many of the follow-on ships that were to come after her were never ordered, and some of these never completed. In all, just 14 Baltimore-class cruisers were built, with Saint Paul arguably seeing the most continuous service.
In Korea, Saint Paul saw hard use and made her 8-inchers a regular hitter, completing her first naval gunfire support on Nov. 19, 1950. It would be far from her last.
USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 20 Apr 1951
USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, Korea, 26 Jul 1953
HO3S-1 helicopter landing on USS Saint Paul off Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 17 Apr 1951. Her guns look sad…but are probably just depressed for cleaning as they had lots of chances to get dirty at the time.
Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) lights up the night while firing her 8-inch guns off the coast of Hungnam, North Korea 1950
Hungnam, Songjin, Inchon, Wonsan, Chongjin, Kosong, et. al. She racked up a steady total of hits onshore targets and picked up some Chinese lead in exchange from shore batteries. In all, Saint Paul earned eight Battle stars for her Korean War service, the hard way.
Much like she fired the last shots into Japan, she also completed the last naval gun mission into Korea, at a Chinese emplacement at on 27 July 1953 at 2159– one minute before the truce took effect.
USS SAINT PAUL (CA-73) near Wonsan, Korea just before the signing of truce at Panmunjon. A 5″ shell is fired from the ship against the Communist shore batteries. This round is believed to have been the last fired on enemy positions by UN Naval units before the armistice.
NARA FILE #: 80-G-625878
Still, as after WWII, while most of her sisters took up space on red lead row, she remained in service. Tragically, in 1962, 30 of her crewmen were killed in a turret explosion in peacetime drills.
![Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) "Manning the Rails" off Pearl Harbor, July, 1959. [2607 × 1481]](https://i0.wp.com/laststandonzombieisland.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/heavy-cruiser-uss-saint-paul-ca-73-manning-the-rails-off-pearl-harbor-july-1959.jpg?ssl=1)
Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) “Manning the Rails” off Pearl Harbor, July 1959. [2607 × 1481]
This gave her a chance in 1964 to fill in as the battered cruiser “Old Swayback” in the iconic Otto Preminger/John Wayne film In Harm’s Way
The Duke on St.Paul aka Old Swayback
By 1966, she earned a regular spot on the gun line off Vietnam, where she spent most of the next four years, earning another 9 Battlestars for an impressive total of 18 (1 WWII, 8 Korea, 9 RVN).
Tony D’Angelo, <em>USS St. Paul,</em> details the satisfaction of rounds on target and the danger of swapping fuses on the ship’s guns.
Tony D’Angelo, USS St. Paul, remembers conducting harassment and interdiction fire, along with supporting the Marines near the DMZ, during his deployment to Vietnam.
USS Saint Paul bombarding the Cong Phy railroad yard 25 miles south of Thanu Hoa, Vietnam, 4 Aug 1967; note splashes from coastal gun batteries
Big up. More Vietnam work
St. Paul in Da Nang
USS Saint Paul (CA-73) approaching USS Boston (CAG-1) off the coast of Vietnam, September 1968. Courtesy of John Jazdzewski.
In the late 60s, as part of Project Gunfighter at Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station, Saint Paul picked up an experimental shell to use in her 8-inchers, a saboted 104mm Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) round that had an estimated range of 72,000 yards.
In 1970, Big Paul, using LRBA, made some of the longest gunfire missions in history when she fired on Viet Cong targets some 35 miles away, destroying six structures. At the time, she was the last big-gun heavy cruiser in the United States Navy.
Video of her firing after the intro…
Then, on 30 April 1971, for the first time since 1945, Saint Paul was taken out of commission after three Pacific wars. Only sisterships Chicago and Columbus, who had long before traded in their 8-inchers for Tartar and Talos missiles, lasted longer.
In the end, Saint Paul was stricken from the Naval List on 31 July 1978 and scrapped in 1980.
She was remembered in the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (SSN-708), the twenty-first Los Angeles-class submarine, in commission from 1984 to 2008.
The USS Saint Paul Association keeps her memory alive.
Her 1,000-pound brass bell is located in St. Paul’s city hall, where the city seems to take good care of it.
Specs:
Displacement: 14,500 long tons (14,733 t) standard
17,000 long tons (17,273 t) full load
Length: 673 ft. 5 in (205.26 m)
Beam: 70 ft. 10 in (21.59 m)
Height: 112 ft. 10 in (34.39 m) (mast)
Draft: 26 ft. 10 in (8.18 m)
Propulsion: Geared steam turbines with four screws
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement: 61 officers and 1,085 sailors
Armament: 9 × 8 inch/55 caliber guns (3 × 3)
12 × 5 inch/38 caliber guns (6 × 2)
48 × 40 mm Bofors guns
24 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
Armor: Belt Armor: 6 in (150 mm)
Deck: 3 in (76 mm)
Turrets: 3–6 inches (76–152 mm)
Conning Tower: 8 in (200 mm)
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Rodney redux
We’ve covered the Nelson-class battleship HMS Rodney (pennant number 29) in past Warship Wednesdays, and she is a remarkable design. Well armed and armored but slow (just 23 knots) as a result of compromises put into effect after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaties.
Well, as an update, here are a series of images from the Imperial War Museum taken by Lt. R.G.G. Coote, Royal Navy while in Scotland in the fall of 1940. Enjoy, and as always, click to big up
Her impressive 16 inchers
Sailors aboard HMS Rodney receiving a 16-inch shell from an ammunition ship, 1940
Sailor at his hammock aboard HMS Rodney, 1940. Looks comfy, yes?
Sailors conducting bayonet drill aboard HMS Rodney, circa 1940. Dig the SMLEs
Sailors conducting bayonet drill aboard HMS Rodney, circa 1940
View of the forward section of HMS Rodney, 1940
QF 2-pdr Mk VIII anti-aircraft gun mount and crew aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940
Sailors cleaning one of the 16-inch guns aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940
View of the torpedo room aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940
View of the sick bay aboard HMS Rodney, Oct 1940
HMS Rodney on the Firth of Forth at sunset,
A sleepy deuce on a green island
click to big up
A crewman finds the only shade there is on the airstrip on Green Island (now Nissan Island), Northern Solomons, beneath an F4U-1D Corsair fighter, No.974 of Marine Squadron 222, 1943-44. Source United States National Archives via the Bobby Rocker Collection via Library of Congress.
VMF-222, “The Flying Deuces,” was stood up at Midway in March 1942 and stormed ashore at Nissan in 1944.
Nissan is in the Green Islands of Papua New Guinea, exactly midway between Rabaul and Bougainville. The place had just been secured a month before by Kiwi’s of the 3rd New Zealand Infantry and at the time a young Richard Millhouse Nixon was a Navy supply officer at the base.
It was a home to no less than 9 RNZAF Corsair squadrons, several Navy Black Cat units, a PT-boat flotilla (Higgins and Elco boats with nicknames like Bed Bug, Dracula, and Knight Rider), and others. However as the war wound down it was swiftly abandoned to the jungle– although some Japanese soldiers remained in the mountains around the base into the 1970s.
As for VMF-222, they only flew Corsairs and were deactivated at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina on December 31, 1949.
Pictures can often say more than a thousand words
A Canadian UN soldier in Korea with a U.S. made M-1 Carbine and British Mills bomb grenades. Private Heath Matthews of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, awaiting medical aid after night patrol near Hill 166
When the Second Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry set sail for Asia on Nov. 25, 1950 the war in Korea seemed about to end. However, by the time the Princess Patricia’s arrive in Japan on Dec. 14, the tide of the war has turned dramatically with China’s intervention.
In all some 26,000 Canadians served in Korea, with over 500 never leaving there alive.
Warship Wednesday June 10, 2015: The first Red Castle
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday June 10, 2015: The first Red Castle
Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/ Click image goes big up
Here we see the Maya-class gunboat Akagi of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1902 at Kure. She was the first domestically built steel-hulled warship in Japan, but she would not be the last.
Opened to the West in the 1850s, the ships of the Shogunal and Domain naval forces rapidly evolved from wooden-hulled domestic sailing ships to screw-driven steamships (Kanrin Maru, 1857) to ironclads (French-built Kōtetsu ex-CSS Stonewall in 1869) to iron-hulled ships ordered overseas and built domestically. By 1875, the Japanese were sending iron steamships to intervene in the hidden kingdom of Korea and roam as far away as the French Atlantic ports.
In 1883, the Navy ordered a class of four iron-ribbed, iron-sheathed, two-master gunboats with a horizontal double expansion reciprocating steam engine with two cylindrical boilers driving two screws. The first of these, Maya, was laid down at the Onohama Shipyards (now Hitachi) at Kobe in 1885 while a sister, Chōkai, was laid down at the Ishikawajima-Hirano Shipyards in Tokyo the next year. Then followed an experiment, the bi-metal iron and steel composite hulled sistership Atago laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal.
Sistership Atago gives a good port-side profile. Note the extensive awning use to keep the crew from dying of heatstroke
The class was rounded out with a fourth ship developed from lessons learned in the first three– the all-steel hulled Akagi— laid down at Onohama in 1886.
All four ships were named after well-known mountains in the Empire, with Akagi carrying the moniker of the famous Mount Akagi in Gunma Prefecture. The name translates to Red Castle and the 6,000-foot high summit has long been an object of worship in the area, with the cold north winds coming down the mountain termed Akagi-oroshi or Karakkaze.
While these were not impressive ships, just 600-650 tons and but 155-feet in length, you have to remember that Shogunal Japan was just opened to the West a scant quarter century before and here they are building their own steel warships to European standards locally.
Akagi, who always seems to be photographed from the starboard. Note the beefy ass Teutonic 8-incher on deck…now THATs a gunboat
Of course, they had some experts to help out though. These classy schooner-rigged gunboats were designed by the French, carried British locomotion suites, and mounted a good German Krupp-made 8-inch (210mm) gun, a 120mm Krupp rapid-fire and a pair of English Nordenfelt-made anti-torpedo boat batteries (the Russians had just sank a Turkish ship in 1877 using just such infernal small boats).
Commissioned 20 August 1890, Akagi soon saw service in Japan’s first modern war, sailing as the escort to flagship Saikyo Maru during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Captain Hachiro Sakamoto commanded her, from a long dynasty of samurai.
Checking out Akagi’s 210mm Krupp hood ornament. Click to big up
During the pivotal Battle of the Yalu River, Sakamoto swung Akagi between the lightly protected transport carrying Admiral Kabeyama Sukenori, and the Chinese fleet (led ironically enough by American adventurers).
She soon became locked in mortal combat with the larger German-built Chinese cruiser (2,900-tons, 270 feet, 9.4-inches of armor) Laiyeun. Although more than four times the size of the Japanese gunboat, and despite the fact that the Chinese guns killed both Sakamoto and severely injured his executive officer Lt. (later Admiral and head of the Naval War College which crafted Japanese Naval theory in the 1920s) Satō Tetsutarō, the Akagi kept fighting despite being holed 8 times with 210mm German shells (small world, right?).
Great Japanese Naval Victory off Haiyang Island” by Nakamura Shûkô. Akagi in gleaming white, Chinese sailors tumbling into the dark sea
Akagi gave as good as she got, hammering the Laiyeun extensively, leaving her to limp off and be sunk later in the war unrepaired. Her sisters Atago and Chōkai likewise shellacked the Chinese Admiral Ding Ruchang’s flagship, the 8,000-ton German-built battleship Dingyuan (3x305mm guns, whose shells were filled with sawdust rather than powder due to corruption).
Lieutenant Commander Sakamoto of the Imperial Warship Akagi Fights Bravely by Mizuno
This defense of the flag by the Akagi helped carry the day and a woodblock print of the action became famous in Japan, receiving widespread duplication.
Further, a martial song was created, “Sakamoto Major, bravely of Akagi” which endured throughout the Imperial Navy through World War II and was the battle song of the Pearl Harbor carrier of the same name.
The naval review that emperor sees booty ship of the Sino-Japanese War 1895. Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
Akagi came home from her first war covered with glory and was repaired.
She was soon again in Chinese waters in 1899 as part of the Boxer Rebellion expeditionary force. In 1904, she was back in combat against the Russians, helping to bottle up the Tsar’s Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur and later invade Sakhalin island (which is still at least half-Japanese today).
It was during the Port Arthur blockade that her sister Atago came too close to an uncharted bar and grounded and sank 6 November 1904. Soon after the war, Akagi and her two remaining sisters were disarmed and laid up, obsolete.
1908
In 1911, Akagi was sold to Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, repainted, and dubbed Akagi Maru, continued in service as a coastal steamer until 1921 when she was sold to Amagasaki, another steamship company that kept her in steady tramp work until World War II.
Able to float in just 9 feet of water, Akagi Maru was used extensively during that conflict to run close to the coast and away from American submarines, becoming one of the few ships still afloat in 1945– although she did settle on the bottom during the great Halsey Typhoon that year. Raised, she remained in commercial service until 1953 when she was laid up for a final time.
She was scrapped in 1963, her good steel being recycled.
Specs:
Displacement: 614 long tons (624 t)
Length: 47.0 m (154.2 ft.)
Beam: 8.2 m (26 ft. 11 in)
Draught: 2.95 m (9 ft. 8 in)
Installed power: 950 ihp (710 kW)
Propulsion: 2 × horizontally mounted reciprocating steam engine
2 boilers, 2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner-rigged
Speed: 10.25 kn (18.98 km/h; 11.80 mph)
Capacity: 60 t (66 short tons) coal
Complement: 104
Armament: 1x 210 mm (8 in) Krupp L/22 breech-loading gun
1x Krupp 120 mm (4.7 in) L/22 breech-loading gun
2x quadruple 1-inch Nordenfelt guns
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