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Warship Wednesday October 9, The Broken America

Posted on October 9, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 9, The Broken America

Here we see the luxury liner SS America. At the time she was one of the fastest and most elegant ships at sea. Her life would take a tragic and sad end.

Built in the end of the preWWII luxury liner era that saw such ships as the Hamburg, Normandie, and Queen Mary take to the seas, the SS America was not the biggest ship in the sea, but at 35,000-tons, was still the size of a battleship. With a capacity of 1200 passengers, she was intended to take up the North Atlantic trade from New York to England/France at speeds of over 22-knots. Laid down in August 22, 1938 by the Maritime Administration, she was paid for in part by the government but ran by the United States Lines company from New York.

When she was completed and sailed on her maiden voyage on August 22, 1940, World War Two had been going on for a year in Europe. To keep her safe from German U-boats or surface raiders, (the US was neutral at the time), she sailed with every light on, giant American flags painted on her sides (where a U-boat captain would target through his attack periscope) and behaved as noisy as possible. Even with this said, USN inspectors poured over her plans and made notes, even helping to degauss the ship in early 1941 against magnetic mines. The FBI also quietly removed two German spies from her crew.

Then, just six months before Pearl Harbor, the Maritime Administration called in their marker and pressed the ship into service with the navy. Renamed the troop ship USS West Point, she was given pennant number AP-23. Armed with four single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts , four single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts, four twin 40mm AA gun mounts, and eight .50 cal machine guns, she was made capable of carrying as many as 7600 Army troops as well as some 400-tons of their cargo. Although on some missions she carried as many as 8500.

Capable of moving an entire brigade at once, with a few extra battalions attached, she was one of the most capable ships in the Naval Transportation Service. During the war she moved over 450,000 US, Canadian, Australian, British and other allied troops to North Africa, Italy, the Pacific and back and forth across the Atlantic. In a single year, between June 27, 1944, and June 24, 1945, the West Pont crossed the Atlantic 27 times and carried more than 140,000 passengers. Used on occasion as a hospital transport, she carried another 16,000 wounded soldiers back home to urgent medical care. Another class of passenger, 14,000 Axis prisoners of war, were also carried off into life in POW camps. Thus she served as a prison ship, transport, and hospital craft.

On March 12, 1946, the MARAD, having gotten their moneys worth from the ship, disarmed her and gave her back to the United States line. In all, West Point had accomplished 145 missions, made 15 Pacific crossings and 41 on the Atlantic, steamed 456,144 nautical miles and carried 505,020 passengers of all kinds while in US service.

The ship resumed a weird and varied life over the next 48 years.

The Name Game!

Ok guys and girls, lets play the name game with this ship. Follow along at home.

She was built as the SS America for the United States Lines in 1940.
In 1941, the MARAD acquired her and sailed her for five years as the USS West Point.
Then the United States Lines picked her back up and used her old name until 1964 when…
The Chandris Grooup bought her and renamed the aging ship the SS Australis, and changed her to Greek registry.

Then Venture Cruises started up and for a year (1978) ran her as the SS America for the third time before…
Chandris required her and renamed her SS Italis…
Intercommerce bought her and called her the SS Noga to be converted to a floating prison ship in Lebanon before…
Silver Moon picked her up and referred to her as the Alferdoss in 1984…
Then finally the Chaophraya Transport Co acquired the fifty year old ship and caller her the SS America Star in 1994.

So if you were keeping track, that’s at least 9 different name changes including going back and forth to the SS America three times. Eh, it happens.

Well, after four decades of abuse and varying levels of maintenance from one cruise liner company to the next, the old SS America was, by the 1980s, basically derelict. In 1993 her last owner decided to tow her from Greece, where she had sat for decades to Thailand to be converted to a floating hotel at Phuket Beach. In the course of a 100-day tow by the Ukrainian tugboat Neftegaz-67, she broke her lines and ran aground off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

There she has stayed for the past 19 years, slowly being washed out to sea.

In another decade, all that will be left is the memory.

Specifications (as USS West Point) :
Displacement 26,455 t.(lt) 35,400 t.(fl)
Length 723′
Beam 93′ 3″
Draft 32′ 9″
Speed 24 kts.
Complement
Officers 57
Enlisted 912
Troop Accommodations
Officers 587
Enlisted 7,091
Largest Boom Capacity 20 t.
Cargo Capacity 400 DWT
non-refrigerated 110,243 Cu ft
Armament
four single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
four single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
four twin 40mm AA gun mounts
eight .50 cal machine guns
(later augmented by as many as 10 20mm Oeirkilons)
Fuel Capacities
NSFO 32,100 Bbls
Diesel 525 Bbls
Propulsion
two Newport News Shipbuilding turbines
six Babcock and Wilcox “A”-type boilers, 430psi 725°
double De Laval Main Reduction Gears
four turbo-drive 600Kw 100/240 D.C. Ship’s Service Generators
twin propellers, 34,000shp

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Royal Austrialian Navy Turns 100 this weekend!

Posted on October 8, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Looks like one heck of a party

Warship Wednesday October 3 The Phoenix of Pearl Harbor

Posted on October 2, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 3 The Phoenix of Pearl Harbor

Here we see the Colorado-class battleship USS West Virgina (BB-48) as she appeared at the end of her WWII refit. You wouldn’t know it at the time but she was over 20 years old and had already seen severe combat, even being sunk in the first hour of the war.

Commissioned on 1 December 1923, with Navy Cross-winner Captain (later Admiral) Thomas J. Senn in command, West Virgina was the last US battleship built for nearly two decades. The end of World War One and the resulting Washington and London Naval Treaties stopped further battleship construction. In fact, one of her sister ships, the USS Washington BB-47, was canceled while some 75% complete and sunk as a naval target.

Her appearance in the 1920s and 1930s was far more ‘old-school’

West Virgina was arguably the most powerful class of battleship afloat in the world at the time. Displacing nearly 35,000-tons at a full load, their clipper bow set them apart from earlier US battlewagons and made them far drier, especially in rough weather. Turbo-electric transmission pushed four screws and could make 21-knots. Keeping enough oil in her bunkers for a 8000-mile round trip at half that, she was capable of crossing the Atlantic without an oiler to keep close to her. Upto 13.5-inches of armor (18 on turret faces) shielded her while 8 powerful 16-inch guns gave her tremendous ‘throw’.

The closest rival in any fleet around the world to her in 1923 was the British HMS Hood. Hood was bigger and faster (47,000-tons, 31-knots) but had thin armor and 8-15-inch guns. The Japanese Nagato-class were also slightly larger (38,000-tons), slightly faster (25-knots), and 8x 16-inch guns, but like the Hood had less armor.

As a hold back of pre-WWI thinking, she was the last US battleship commissioned with torpedo tubes and a four-turret main battery.

The West Virgina is seen forward, settled and burning after 7 torpedo hits. Half-sister USS Tennessee is just behind her

A happy ship, she spent the first 18 years of her life in the peacetime navy, participating in naval gunnery exercises, showing the flag, and taking part in war games. On December 7, 1941, just a week after her birthday, she was sitting peacefully at the quay on Battleship Row. Japanese torpedo bombers sent *seven* fish into her sides while at least two Type 99 bombs hit her decks (one of which failed to explode). Catastrophic damage, flooding, and oil fires resulted and the battleship sank in 40-feet of water, settling on her hull with her decks awash. No ship can withstand 7 torpedo hits. Incredibly, only a hundred of her crew (about 10%) were lost in the battle.

After spending six months on the bottom of Pearl, she was one of the first ships salvaged. Patched up and pumped out, she refloated and spent the next year at Pearl under repair. Following this, she was able to steam to Puget Naval Yard for modernization. There she spent 15-months being converted from 1923 to 1943. Her old 5-inch/51s and 3-inch guns were removed as were her dated observation towers. She was given a new camouflage scheme, a wider hull (with more torpedo protection), a new radar package, and a huge new AAA suite that included 16 new rapid fire 5-inch guns and nearly 100 40mm Bofors and Oerlikon 20mm cannons. Likewise, the entire interior of the ship was upgraded from keel to bridge.

Compare this picture of the USS Alabama, a brand new SoDak class battleship in 1943 compared to the refurbished Wee Vee at the top of this post…

In the end she looked more like a new 1943-era South Dakota class battleship than a 1920s Colorado.

She took her new act on the road and steamed West for some payback. As the flagship of Battleship Division Four (BatDiv4), she led five other WWI-era battleships into the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf. These ships included the USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Mississippi (BB-41), USS Tennessee (BB-43), USS California (BB-44), and USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)— three of which had been at Pearl Harbor with the Wee Vee.

Wee Vee in 1944, post-refit

In combat with the Japanese battlewagons Fuso and Yamashiro, the Wee Vee sent more than 16 salvos into the Japanese line in a night action, being credited with numerous hits on Yamashiro, leading to that ship’s sinking.

USS West Virgina off Okinawa April 1, 1945. That’s one heck of an April Fools day payback to the Japanese, who had already marked the WV off their “to sink” list once before

She finished the war with bombarding Iwo and Okinawa, coming to within 600-yards of the beach (which is close for a ship that needed 31-feet of water under her keel to float). She caught a kamikaze for her trouble.

Decommissioned on 9 January 1947, the Navy kept the newly rebuilt old battlewagon on red lead row for 12 years before striking her in 1959. With several newer ships around for donation to museums such as the Massachusetts and Alabama, no one seemed to want the Wee Vee and she was sold for her value in scrap metal per pound after 36-years of service.

Her bowflag is preserved in Clarksburg, WV, and her mooring quay is retired on Battleship Row, in mute testimony to that quiet Sunday morning in 1941.

Still waiting for her to come home…..

Specs:

Displacement: 33,590 tons
Length: 624 ft (190 m)
Beam:

97.3 ft (29.7 m) (original)
114 ft (35 m) (rebuilt)

Draft:    30.5 ft (9.3 m)
Speed:    21 kn (24 mph; 39 km/h)
Complement:    1,407 officers and men
Sensors and
processing systems:    CXAM-1 RADAR from 1940[3]
Armament:

8 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 cal guns
12 × 5 in (130 mm)/51 cal guns
4 × 3 in (76 mm)s
2 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes

After Reconstruction:

8 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 cal guns
16 × 5 in (130 mm)/38 cal guns
40 × Bofors 40 mm guns
50 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons

Armor:

Belt: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
Barbettes: 13 in (330 mm)
Turret face: 18 in (457 mm)
Turret sides: 9–10 in (229–254 mm)
Turret top: 5 in (127 mm)
Turret rear 9 in (229 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 3.5 in (89 mm)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Sept 25 The Lucky O

Posted on September 25, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Sept 25 The Lucky O

Here we see the class Helgoland-class battleship Seiner Majestät Schiff (SMS) Oldenburg of the Imperial German Navy chilling in a fjord in the Kingdom of Norway just before World War One.

Oldenburg was named for the German Duchy of Oldenburg, much like US battleships were named after states. She was laid down in 1909 at the height of the Kaiser’s lust for new, sophisticated Drednought-style battleships. Built at Schichau-Werke, Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland), she was the second of four ships of her class. The design was a significant improvement over the previous (Nassau-class, Germany’s first Drednoughts) ships. They had a larger main battery using 305mm (12.0 in) main guns instead of the puny 280mm (11 in) weapons mounted on the earlier vessels. The Helgolands were easily distinguished from the preceding Nassaus by the three funnels that were closely arranged, compared to the two larger funnels of the previous class. The ships retained the unusual hexagonal main battery layout of the Nassau-class but handled much better in heavy seas and were capable of crossing the Atlantic without coaling assistance. The ships had 17 watertight compartments and a double bottom for 86% of the length of the hull.

Oldenburg participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I in the North Sea against the British Grand Fleet, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, the largest naval battle of the war. It was in this action that the battleship fired 53x 305mm, 88x 15mm, and 30x 88mm shells at the British fleet, helping to sink a pair of destroyers (Ardent and Fortune). She was hit by one of the 4-inch shells from Fortune in the process, causing only minor damage. It was the only damage she received in her extensive wartime service, making her a lucky ship indeed.

The four ships of the class fought together as the I Division of the I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. As such they raided Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in 1914, fought in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic, and her crews took place in the Naval Mutiny that ended the war.

All four of the class were seized by the Allies and, as luck turned out, escaped destruction at Scapa Flow like the rest of the German battleships. At the time she was commanded by Hermann Bauer who had served as commander of the U-boat forces of the Kaiserliche Marine during World War I.

One each of the class went to Britain, France, the US, and Japan. Three of which were scrapped while the US sank their’s as a target for early aerial bombers.

Oldenburg was surrendered to the Japanese (yes, the Japanese owned a German battleship for a minute) but they did not take possession of the ship. Instead, they sold the vessel to a British salvage firm that scrapped it in Dordrecht in 1921. It turned out that they had enough of their own ships without using a Teutonic one.

Specs
Displacement:

22,808 metric tons (22,448 long tons) (designed)
24,700 t (24,300 long tons) (full load)

Length:    167.20 m (551.76 ft)
Beam:    28.50 m (94.05 ft)
Draft:    8.94 m (29.50 ft)
Installed power:    22,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
15 water-tube boilers
Propulsion:

3 shafts
3 Vertical triple-expansion steam engines

Speed: 20.8 knots (38.5 km/h; 23.9 mph)
Range: 5,500 nautical miles (10,190 km; 6,330 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:

42 officers
1027 enlisted

Armament:

12 × 30.5 cm (12.0 in) guns
14 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns
14 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns
6 × 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes

Armor: Krupp cemented armor

Belt: 300 mm (11.8 in)
Turrets: 300 mm
Deck: 63.5 mm (2.5 in)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Sept 18 The Sailing Vesuvius

Posted on September 18, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Sept 18

Here we see the rather interesting creation that was the USS Vesuvius, the world’s first and only Dynamite Cruiser. While contemporary cruisers of the world’s navy’s were armed with cannon and torpedoes, this ship carried three huge 15-inch bomb-throwing pneumatic cannons.

See the three tubes sticking up through the deck? Those are 55-foot long dynamite guns that run throughout the whole ship.

All guns are projectile weapons. In other words, they use force to propel an object down a barrel out to a target. The only thing that changes is the type of propellant and the projectile. In a Remington 870, a load of shot is scattered out of the muzzle by an explosion of smokeless powder set off by a primer. Well the dynamite gun does the same thing, it’s just that the projectile is made of TNT and it’s pushed out by a charge of compressed air. Kinda like a spud gun, but instead of a potato, you fire a bomb. The father of this device was one Edmund Zalinski.

Born in Kórnik, Prussian Poland on December 13, 1849, Edmund Zalinski immigrated to the US with his parents at age four. Not quite 15 years old, he dropped out of high school and volunteered for the Union Army during the Civil War. Serving in the artillery, he finished the war as an officer and remained in the Army once peace broke out. A pretty smart guy, he taught military science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while inventing several mechanical doo dads. One of these was a dynamite gun. Showing his device to the military, (he was still on the Army rolls as a First Lieutenant); it was love at first sight.

By the next year, Zalinski had teamed up with a company calling itself the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of New York (presumably to tell itself apart from the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of other towns) and was off and running. The gun was huge, and looked like something Jules Verne would use to shoot a missile to the moon. It had a 15-inch (379.5mm) bore. Using compressed air, it could catapult 500-pounds of dynamite more than two miles with better accuracy than the black-powder cannon of the era. The air was produced by a steam-powered (think locomotive) compressor fueled by coal.

Well the Navy liked the idea so much that they built the world’s first ‘Dynamite Cruiser.’ Ordered for $350,000 from cruiser and battleship maker William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, she was laid down in 1887. Named appropriately the USS Vesuvius, its main battery would be these new guns. Mounting three of Zalinski’s 15-inch pneumatic guns, the guns were located with their breech along the keel of the ship three decks down and their 55-foot long barrels poking up through the 01 top deck. To aim the weapons, since the guns could not be turned, the whole ship tacked port or starboard while the pressure of the air was adjusted to correct range. Charges of various sizes ranging up to a quarter-ton could be used to do anything from bombard shore positions to sink ships and, being electrically fused, could fire on a delay or even while submerged.

The breeches started at the keel, three decks below….

Pressurized air chambers for the Dynamite guns

: 02 deck view of the dynamite guns

Muzzles on the deck

Only thirty shells were carried for the entire battery and in theory, the entire store of shells could be fired in less than a half-hour. In a 1889 test, 15 shells were mass fired in 16 minutes, validating the concept. These huge shells “made holes like the cellar of a country house” and, with no distant explosion to give it away, arrived almost silently on target.

For close-in defense, the cruiser had a secondary battery of three 3-pounder guns, a Colt machine gun and its small arms locker.

Overall, the ship was big (246-feet), fast (21-knots), and heavily armed with cutting edge weapons, but she just didn’t work out.

Lot 4812-9: U.S. Navy dynamite cruiser, USS Vesuvius, starboard view. Note, dolphin and seagulls. Reproduction of a painting by Koerner & Hayes, circa 1897-98.

Commissioned 3 June 1890, she worked the blockade along the Cuban coast during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and fired a few of her Dynamite Gun shells at Spanish positions with mixed results. Psychologically speaking, the ship was a huge asset to the US Navy at the time. However, her guns were outclassed by modern naval rifles and by 1904 her unique guns were removed.

The ship always did have horrible handling (40-degree rolls were common) due to her 1:10 length to beam ratio and this, coupled with her mediocre speed (for the 1900s) made her unsuitable to be used as a gun-armed cruiser. Her dynamite guns were therefore replaced by four deck-mounted torpedo tubes and she served for the next 15 years as a torpedoes trials ship, even punching a hole in her own hull in 1915 when one of her steel fish circled back around on her. She spent WWI as a coastal patrol ship.

She was stricken 21 April 1922 and sold for her value in scrap metal. As far as I can find out, there are no surviving dynamite guns on display.

Specs:
Displacement: 930 long tons (945 t)
Length:    246 ft 3 in (75.06 m)
Beam:    26 ft 6 in (8.08 m)
Draft:    9 ft (2.7 m)
Depth:    14 ft (4.3 m)
Propulsion:    2 × 2,183 hp (1,628 kW) 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines powered by a pair of steam locomotive boilers
Speed:    21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Endurance: 1800 nautical miles at 10-knots with 145 tons of good quality coal.
Complement: 7 officers and 63 enlisted
Armor: Half inch plate over sensitive areas.
Armament:    3 × 15 in (380 mm) pneumatic guns (1890-1904)
3 × 3-pounder guns
1xMG
3×18-inch torpedo tubes and 1 experimental 21-inch torpedo tube (deck mounted, after 1904).

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Sep 11 The First Cruiser of Oz

Posted on September 11, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Sep 11 The First Cruiser of Oz

Here we see the Challenger-class protected cruiser HMAS Encounter steaming quietly along the coastline in her wartime grey scheme.

The pair of sisters, Challenger and Encounter were largely built for Australian service. Their Keyham 4-cylinder triple expansion steam engines could push them at 10 knots for well over 5,000 miles before refueling. This made them the perfect ships for showing the flag in far-off lands where they would be more likely to have to bombard local native villages than to tangle with first-class foreign warships. They were colonial cruisers, mounting eleven BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns, but having little in the way of armor plate.

Her only sister-ship, HMS Challenger

Challenger spent eight years on Australian station before returning to the UK to be put up in reserve. During WWI, she was reactivated but only to patrol the African coastline then sold for scrap in 1920. Her younger sister, Encounter, however, had a more interesting career.

Commissioned on 21 November 1905, she was sent to join Challenger on the Australian patrol before being loaned to the infant Royal Australian Navy in 1912. She was still ‘owned’ by the Brits and flew the same battle flag as the Royal Navy, but she was a RAN ship.

Captain and crew of the Encounter in 1913. She was the first Aussie-controlled cruiser and as such helped start the Royal Australian Navy

The feline mascot of the Australian light cruiser HMAS Encounter, peering from the muzzle of a 6-inch gun. circa. 1914

Just eight days after the British Empire entered into war with the Kaiser, this plucky cruiser captured the German merchant steamer Zambezi on 12 August.

HMAS Encounter capturing Zambezi in August 1914. Painting by Phil Belbin (Naval Heritage Collection)

HMAS Encounter captured the Zambezi in August 1914. Painting by Phil Belbin (Naval Heritage Collection)

The Encounter had the distinction of firing the first Australian shot of World War One on 14 September 1914 when she opened fire in the long-range bombardment of Toma Ridge, outside Rabaul on New Britain, which at the time was the colony of Imperial German New Guinea.

Ashore were 40 German infantry (mainly local colonists who had been activated into the reserves) and 110 policemen led by the 48-year-old Governor of the Colony Johann Karl Emil Eduard Haber. This show of force (and the 200 Aussie infantry landed on the island) convinced Haber to surrender and to this day, New Guinea does not speak German.

In peacetime before the war, she sported a crisp white scheme

She later captured another German merchant ship, looked for the raiders Emden, Wolf, and Seedler unsuccessfully, and an away team of hers found a pair of ancient bronze cannons on Carronade Island in 1916 which later helped advance the belief that the Portuguese discovered Australia first.

After the war, the Brits finally transferred the well-worn 15-year-old cruiser to the Australians in December 1919. Renamed the HMAS Penguin in 1923, she continued to serve as a submarine depot ship for another decade before being scuttled off Sydney in 1932. As such she was one of the longest-living pre-Tsuhuma British protected cruisers.

She never took a life, nor lost a life, and today is visited as a popular dive site.

Specs:
Displacement:    5,880 tons standard
Length:    376 ft 1.75 in (114.65 m) overall
355 ft (108.20 m) between perpendiculars
Beam:    56 ft 2.125 in (17.12 m)
Draught:    21.25 ft (6.48 m)
Propulsion:    Two sets of four-cylinder, triple expansion steam engines; twelve Durr boilers; twin screws
Speed:    21 knots (38.9 km/h; 24.2 mph)
Complement:    RN: 475
RAN: 26 officers, 269 sailors
Armament:    As completed:
11 x 6-inch guns
9 x 12-pounder guns
6 x 3-pounder guns
3 x machine guns
2 x 18-inch torpedo tubes

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday August 28 The Big Bang Turtle

Posted on August 28, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Here we see the City-class ironclad gunboat USS Baron DeKalb as she plied her way down the interior rivers of North America. Born January 1862 she spent her entire life on the rivers, never seeing blue water. Laid down at the James B. Eads Yard, St. Louis, Missouri just months after the Civil War started at Fort Sumter, she was one of seven stern-wheel powered shallow draught casemate gunboats destined first for the Army and then for the Navy’s Western Gunboat Flotilla. This force was the US Navy’s muscle that would split the Confederacy in two.

The ships, called “Pooks Turtles” after their designer, were the United States’ first ironclad warship, pre-dating the USS Monitor by several months. Each cost $191,000 (about $5-million in today’s figures) which was a bargain.

The 175-foot long boat could float in just 6 feet of muddy water and motor upstream at over 8-knots, powered by her 2 horizontal steam engines and five oblong coal-fired boilers pushing a 22-foot wide paddle-wheel at her stern.

Yes, back in the 1860s they went horizontal with boilers, just like on a steam locomotive. These five fed two engines that turned the ships wheel. DeKalb’s boilers are still supposedly buried in Yazoo Lake, Mississippi under years of sediment.

Her 250-man crew serviced a constantly shifting battery of up-to 18 cannon and naval rifles (although only built with 13 positions) protected by a sloping 2.5-inches of railroad armor plate. Characteristically she carried a yellow band on her twin stacks and a large Masonic compass and dividers stretched between the sister pipes as identification. This has led historians to call her the Masonic Ironclad

Commissioned in 1862 as the USS St Louis, she fought in no less than 18 engagements in 19 months, seeing heavy service. She attacked Fort Donelson (the Gibraltar of the Mississippi), Fort Pillow, captured several Confederate vessels, destroyed the Yazoo City Naval Yard, fought in the Battles of Memphis, Island No 10, Fort Hindman, Fort Pemberton, Haynes Bluff, and made sorties up the wild Yazoo and White River systems, both hotbeds of Confederate snipers and artillery batteries.

Ahhh, nothing like a quiet river cruise for Pook’s Turtles

Off Cairo, Illinois, in 1863, with barges moored in the foreground. These ships are (from left to right): USS Baron de Kalb (1862-1863); USS Cincinnati (1862-1865) and USS Mound City (1862-1865). Boats are tied astern of Baron de Kalb and Cincinnati. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Off Cairo, Illinois, in 1863, with barges moored in the foreground.
These sister-ships ships are (from left to right):
USS Baron de Kalb (1862-1863);
USS Cincinnati (1862-1865) and
USS Mound City (1862-1865).
Boats are tied astern of Baron de Kalb and Cincinnati.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

It was up the Yazoo that the St Louis, renamed the USS Baron DeKalb after a German-born Revolutionary War officer, found her end. On July 13, 1863 the lucky veteran was holed by an infernal torpedo (a naval mine) in shallow water. There she sank. The US military salvaged her guns, most of her munitions, and anything else they could carry before abandoning the ship to the river.

Her sister-ship, the equally unlucky USS Cairo, was sunk by a mine in similar fashion 12 December 1862. Raised in 1964, she is now on display at the Vicksburg military park, some about 75-miles from where the DeKalb sits in Lake Yazoo.

Today her current location is in a dead bend of the Yazoo River below Yazoo City very near the McGraw-Curran lumber yard. This hairpin bend was cut off from the main channel in the 1950s, creating Lake Yazoo. Prior to this cutoff and at low water the wreck could be seen and was photographed several times by a local resident. The tubular boilers are clearly visible in these photographs. Since that time, the site has completely silted over and even when the lake is dry, cannot be seen. During the 1930s an employee of the lumber mill used a mule team to recover what seemed to be pieces of armor plate to sell for scrap.

Although this wreck is just a few feet off the banks of this quiet and still lake now, it is off limits under penalty of law. Since its still officially US Navy property, you can rest assured the wrath of Washington will be felt by anyone who goes poking around with a magnetometer there. Any possible research or study of a historic wreck must have prior approval of the Naval Heritage and History Command Archaeology Department. The NHC will pursue prosecution of any individual that disturb any naval site.

You can see a wartime photo of Baron De Kalb for a split-second during the opening sequence and theme song of the television show “Big Bang Theory”

Specs:

Displacement:    512 tons
Length:    175 ft (53 m)
Beam:    51 ft 2 in (15.60 m)
Draught:    6 ft (1.8 m)
Propulsion:    steam engine – Center Wheel, 2 horizontal HP engines (22″ X 6″), 5 boilers
Speed:    9 mph (14 km/h)
Complement:    251 officers and enlisted
Armour:    2.5″ on the casemates,
1.25″ on the pilothouse

Armament:

In 1862 as commissioned:
• 3 × 8-inch smoothbores
• 4 × 42-pounder rifles
• 6 × 32-pounder rifles
• 1 × 12-pounder rifle

At sinking
• 1 × 10-inch smoothbore
• 2 × 9-inch smoothbores
• 2 × 8-inch smoothbores
• 6 × 32-pounder rifles
• 2 × 30-pounder rifles
• 1 × 12-pounder rifle

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday August 21 The Tale of the Lost Confederate Egyptian Dragon

Posted on August 21, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

El Monassir/CSS Mississippi forground being watched by the HMS Majestic while the El Tousson/CSS North Carolina sits at the rear

El Monassir/CSS Mississippi foreground being watched by the HMS Majestic while the El Tousson/CSS North Carolina sits at the rear

Above we see the mighty armored steam turret ship of the Sultan of Egypt, the El Monassir as she lies fitting out in England. Laid down in 1862 at Laird, Son & Co., Birkenhead, her North African identity was a ruse as her actual owners was the Confederate States Navy and she was to be the CSS Mississippi.

Built to an innovative amalgam that combined armor plate, a ram, movable armored turrets and steam propulsion with an economical full-rigged three masted sailing suite to enable her to cross the oceans on only the coal in her bunkers, she was an interesting design. Three times the mass of the US Navy’s USS Monitor and with a comparable armor, she carried four 9-inch naval rifles in two twin turrets vs the Monitor’s pair of larger 11-inch (280 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns. Yet, she was almost twice as fast as the union ship. Even compared to the 1864-designed Canonicus-class monitors, she was still faster and better armed. Had she been taken over by the Confederacy, the Union navy was in trouble.

But alas, it was not to be. The British government, after the shattering Vicksburg and Gettysburg defeats in the summer of 1863, saw that the tide was turning against the greycoats. With the writing on the wall, they seized El Monassir/CSS Mississippi and her sistership the El Tousson/CSS North Carolina in October. They were completed on the Queen’s dime and put on the Royal Navy List in 1865 as the HMS Wivern and HMS Scorpion respectively.

The wivern, is a legendary winged creature with a dragon’s head, reptilian body, two legs (sometimes none), and a barbed tail, which may be said to breathe fire or possess a venomous bite.

The ships, even though advanced for their time, were quickly outclassed by later naval developments and hindered by their heavy weight and low freeboard. By the 1880s they were in reserve. The Wivern was sent to Hong Kong where she performed harbor duties such as barracks duty and brig boat until she was scrapped in 1922. She outlived her sister Scorpion who had spent the last three decades of her life as a guard ship in Bermuda before being sunk as a target in 1901.

Still, unless I can find otherwise, I think the El Monassir/CSS Mississippi/HMS Wivern was the last serving Confederate naval ship in the world when she was scrapped, having a lifespan of some 57-years.

Specs;

Displacement: 2,751 tons

Length: 224 ft 6 in (68.43 m) p/p

Beam: 42 ft 4 in (12.90 m)

Draught: 15 ft 6 in (4.72 m) light, 17 ft (5.2 m) deep load

Propulsion: Lairds horizontal direct action; 1,450 ihp. Inoperable by 1910.

Sail plan: Ship-rigged

Speed: 10.5 knots

Complement: 153

Armament: Four 9-inch muzzle-loading rifles (disarmed 1904)

Armour: Belt 4.5 inches, 3 inches at bow, 2 inches at stern

Turret faces 10 inches

Sides 5 inches

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Aug 14 One Hard Serving Yacht

Posted on August 14, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Aug 14

Here we see the patrol yacht USS Cythera (SP-575/PY-26) in her former livery as a Agawa, personal yacht. Owned by William Lamon Harkness, an Ohio-born oil tycoon who owned a big portion of Standard Oil at the turn of the century, Agawa was actually Harkness’s second large yacht, but both would have a sad history.

yacht Gunilda, now almost perfectly preserved in the freshwater of the Great Lakes. She was Harknesses first yacht and the Agawa favored her, even being build in the same yard

You see Harkness, born with a silver spoon (he inherited his stake in Standard), was something of an arrogant person. His first yacht, the 195-foot mega cruiser Gunilda, was a work of art. Designed by Cox & King in London, England, and built by Ramage & Ferguson in Leith, Scotland. The yacht Gunilda launched from Scotland in 1897 and sailed across the Atlantic with a crew of 25 after being chartered in 1901 by a member of the New York Yacht Club. Press reports of the vessel’s arrival in America describe her as a schooner rigged with a sail area of 4,620 sq. ft of canvas. Harkness bought her in 1903 in a fit of extravagant spending, then in 1911 sank her in Lake Superior, apparently being too cheap to spend money on a pilot.

His new yacht, Agawa, was laid down at Ramage and Feguson as well. She was launched 20 September 1906, Mrs Harkness being her sponsor. A 215-foot long statement in white, she was beauty in motion. She won the Mill Trophy, an award for a long-distance yacht race, in both 1907 and 1909. When the US entered World War One, the Navy was in fast need of boats that could be used as escort ships to convoy troops and supplies ‘Over There’. Harkness volunteered the love of his life for service and on 20 October 1917, the Agawa became the USS Cythera (SP 575). She served for a total of just under 18 months on the Naval List, being returned to her owner on 19 March 1919. In the war she sailed with Patrol Force, Atlantic Fleet, towing small boats to France and then escorting coastal convoys in the Med.

In WWI Dazzle Scheme

Harkness himself died on May 10, 1919, but his family put her back into civilian use for another two decades. At the time of his death, his estate was worth some $700-million in today’s dollars.

When WWII erupted, the Navy found itself in the same old problem as before, being eaten alive by German U-Boats in the Atlantic as well as Japanese ones in the Pacific. Mrs Harkness leased the now 30+ year old yacht back to the Navy for $1 on 3 Mar, 1942. On her first cruise, leaving Norfolk for Hawaii just a few months after Pearl Harbor, she was encountered by U-402 a Type VIIC German submarine under the command of Kaleu Siegfried von Forstner. Firing a single torpedo (of three fired) the U-boat broke the Cythera in half while she was zigzagging some 115-miles off the North Carolina Coast.

In World War Two haze grey

From U-boat.net ” The ship immediately split in two, and the forward half rose steeply out of the water. The ship sank very quickly and at least two of her depth charges that were preset exploded underwater. This information was told to me by one of the two survivors, Mr. James M. Brown, who I located in Maine in 1991. He was on forward lookout at the time of the attack. The other survivor was Charles H. Carter, but I was never able to locate him. He was standing on the bridge next to the Commander when they were attacked. As a side note, Charles H. Carter was at Pearl Harbor aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB 37) that was sunk during the Japanese attack. He survived two attacks within 5 months when the ships he was aboard were sunk – incredible!

Shortly after USS Cythera went down, U-402 surfaced and turned on its search light looking at whatever debris was floating in the large oil slick that was all that remained from the ship. Brown and Carter were found clinging to a small raft and were taken aboard as prisoners. They asked to be left back in the water but Von Forstner replied: No, boys, the war´s over for you. Both survivors were covered in oil, and Von Forstner gave his sweater to Mr. Brown. Both were also given some brandy to drink. Brown also spoke fluent German, but I never thought to ask if he revealed that to Von Forstner. He did say, however, that the Chief Engineer on the U-Boat spoke fluent English, so I suppose that´s how they communicated. When Brown asked Von Forstner why they were not machine-gunned in the water, Von Forstner and crew members present expressed shock that the Americans would even think of such a thing.

During the return trip to France the Americans were treated well. They were given cigarettes every day and allowed to go topside for fresh air every day. Brown said Von Forstner was a compassionate man who was not signed on to Nazi ideology. He was a professional sailor who came from a family of military background. He was not enthusiastic about war, but he did his job well as a German officer. When the Americans were turned over to the German Army in France there apparently was consternation between the U-Boat crew and the German soldiers, who may have manhandled the POWs. In the almost three-week trip to France, the crew and prisoners formed somewhat of a bond between them; in fact, the Americans even invited the crew to visit them in America after the war.

Brown, at least, wound up in a POW camp in Upper Silezia, Poland for the remainder of the war. The camp produced synthetic fuel and held mostly British POWs. Later in the war, the camp was abandoned because of advancing Soviet forces approaching from the east, and the POWs were force-marched toward Moosburg, Germany, to another camp. He was finally liberated in late April 1945 by forward units of Patton´s 3rd Army and made his way back across Europe where he was put in a military hospital for several weeks.”

U-402 herself was sunk on the 13th October 1943 in the middle of the North Atlantic, in position 48.56N, 29.41W, by an acoustic torpedo (Fido) from TBD Avenger supported by F4F Wildcat aircraft of VC-9 flying from the escort carrier USS Card. Unlike the Cythera, she went down with all hands. Fortsner was credited with 15 ships sunk (71,036 tons) and 3 ships damaged (28,682 tons), of which Cythera was both the smallest and the only warship.

Cythera‘s name was recycled on 26 October 1942 when the yacht Argosy was commissioned into the US Navy

Mr. Harkness is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Specs:
Displacement 1,000 t.
Length 215′
Beam 27′ 6″
Draft 12′
Speed 12 kts.
Complement 113 in WWI, 71 in WWII
Armament: WWI : One 3″ gun, depth charges. WWII: Three 3″ gun mounts, 50 depth charges on roll-off racks, four .50 caliber
HMGs
Propulsion: One 1,350ihp steam engine, one shaft.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday: Aug 8, 2013, The Lost Wake

Posted on August 7, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday: Aug 8, 2013

Here we see the river gunboat USS Guam steaming down the Yangtze river in old China. Unlike most of Uncle’s warships, she never once sailed US waters.

Built in China at the Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai specifically for the US Navy, she was one of the first new-built Chinese gunboats for the US. Uncle had for generations maintained a fleet of coastal and river gunboats in Chinese waters. These boats, immortalized in the book and film the Sand Pebbles, were known as the Yangtze Patrol (COMYANGPAT), after the huge river system they commonly haunted. The first modern patrol started in 1901, was with three captured Spanish shallow draft gunboats (USS Elcano, Villalobos, and Callao) that had previously been used in the Philippines. Two more gunboats, USS Palos and Monocacy, were built at Mare Island in California in 1913 and shipped across the Pacific. By 1926 these five boats were all worn out and the navy went shopping for replacements.

With dollars always short in the Navy budget, it just made sense to build these new boats in China, to save construction and shipping costs. These new ships consisted of two large 500-ton, 210-foot gunboats (USS Luzon and Mindanao); two medium-sized 450-ton, 191-foot boats (USS Oahu and Panay) and two small 350-ton, 159-foot boats (USS Guam and Tutuila).

Guam was commissioned 28 December 1927 and carried a designation as a patrol gunboat number 43 (PG-43), then reclassified the next year as patrol-boat, river, number 3 (PR-3) six months later. This change was due to the flat-bottom hulled craft being incapable of at-sea operations. Her 5-foot draft meant she could travel all over the inland river systems and she spent the next 14-years of her US Navy career doing so.

USS TUTUILA (PR-4) or USS GUAM (PR-3) Ship’s officers and crew, photographed at Hankow, China, on 14 July 1930. Note armored covers of bridge windows, awning frames, 3″/23 gun. Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1977 Catalog #: NH 85840

She had a quiet life but it was exotic. Warlords, bandits, White Russian refugees, Communist rebels, and corrupt local governments changed every few miles along the river. By 1931, Japanese interests in the country meant a dangerous future for the Yangtze Patrol.

When Americans in China were in sticky situations from 1901-1941, this is how the brown-water sailors of the US Navy’s YANGPAT came ashore.

In December 1937, 12 Japanese fighter-bombers attacked and sunk the larger USS Panay in Nanking, China as the boat was evacuating Americans from the embattled city.

Ichang, China view taken 18 May 1937, showing USS GUAM (PR-3), moored astern of USS PANAY (PR-5) prior to their inspection by the Commander in Chief Asiatic Fleet. British river gunboat GANNET (1927) is in the background, seen above PANAY. Description: Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Yarnell, 1975 Catalog #: NH 81615

Following this incident tensions grew between the Japanese and US Navy ships in Chinese waters and Guam wandered around, decked in as many US flags as could be found, keeping quiet tabs. Just before Pearl Harbor, the four larger ships were withdrawn to the Philippines but Guam and her sister Tutuila were forced to remain behind, planned to be turned over to the Chinese.

On December 5, 1941, two days before the US entered WWII, COMYANGPAT was disbanded and the USS Guam renamed USS Wake earlier in the year, was the last US Navy ship in Chinese waters. Most of her crew had already left, transferred to the larger boats, and were in the Philippines. Just the captain and 14 crewmen remained aboard, destroyed vital papers, and wired the ship with scuttling charges.

On December 8, 1941, the USS Wake surrendered to the Japanese military as crack marines of the Special Naval Landing Force stormed the ship before news of Pearl Harbor reached the naval vessel. Trapped in a no-win situation at the start of WWII, her captain did what he could to ensure the safety of his sailors who were marched off into five years of Japanese imprisonment.

Capture of USS WAKE (PR-3), 8 December 1941 Japanese special naval landing force personnel celebrate after they captured USS WAKE on the first day of World War II in the Pacific. The Shanghai “Bund” is in the background. Description: Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Catalog #: NH 96568

Japanese naval infantrymen aboard a ship off Shanghai, China, 8 Dec 1941 note captured American flag, 1928 Thompson sub-machine guns, and 12 gauge M1897 Winchester riot guns, all likely from USS Wake

She is the only US Navy ship to surrender in modern times.

It is perhaps this fact that has kept the US Navy from commissioning another USS Wake. As of this date, there has never been another. The captain and two other men escaped confinement in 1944 and walked 700 miles to Allied lines.

The Japanese used her as a gunboat manned by their local Chinese surrogates under the name of Tatara. Surviving multiple US air raids during WWII, she was captured by the US Army in 1945 and given to the Nationalist Chinese who used her as the Tai Yuan.

In a final, and fitting chapter of her life, she was captured by Mao’s Red Chinese in 1949. They kept the old girl poking around until at least the late 1960s.

Her final disposition is unknown.

Specs:
Displacement: 350 long tons (360 t)
Length:    159 ft 5 in (48.59 m)
Beam:    27 ft 1 in (8.26 m)
Draft:    5 ft 3 in (1.60 m)
Installed power:    1,900 ihp (1,400 kW)
Propulsion:    2 × triple expansion steam engines
2 × screws
Speed:    14.5 kn (16.7 mph; 26.9 km/h)
Complement: 59
Armament:    1927: 2 × 3in guns (2×1) 8 × .30-06 Lewis machine guns (8×1), infantry weapons
1942: US-made 3″ guns replaced with Japanese 3″ AA guns.
Jan 1945 several Type 93 13.2mm M.G.s installed
1946 more light machineguns added. Presumably, refit with Soviet weapons in the 1950s.

Specs:
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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