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Warship Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024: Ignore the orders, we will save the Sailors

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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.

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Warship Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024: Ignore the orders, we will save the Sailors

U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-299180

Above we see, some 80 years ago today, the cramped deck of the tiny “WGT” (John C. Butler-class) destroyer escort USS Tabberer (DE-418), crowded with shocked and waterlogged survivors of the lost destroyers USS Spence (DD 512) and USS Hull (DD 350). LCDR James A. Marks, USN, the former skipper of Hull, is being brought aboard to the left.

How had Tabberer survived the tempest that sent a trio of three larger greyhounds to the bottom? Keep reading.

The Butlers

At just 306 feet long overall, the 1,750-ton Butlers were not built to slug it out in surface actions, as they only mounted a pair of 5″/38 DP guns and a trio of 21-inch torpedo tubes, which was about half the anti-ship armament of contemporary U.S. Navy destroyer. Alternatively, they did come to war with an impressive anti-submarine armament for their size in the form of two Mk 9 depth charge racks, and eight Mk 6 K-gun projectors, along with 100 “ash cans” to keep them at work, making them popular in convoy escort in the Atlantic. A fixed 24-spigot Mk 10 Hedgehog ASW rocket launcher rested in a box between the No. 1 5-inch gun and the forward 40mm twin.

Likewise, they had a decent AAA suite for their to include a mix of 15 to 20 40mm and 20mm cannons, which would come in handy in smoking attacking Japanese planes at low level. The typical fit was two twin Bofors, one forward and the other aft, along with 10 Oerlikon singles clustered in four mounts around the bridge wings, four amidships around the stack, and two aft sandwiched between the stern 5-inch mount and the depth charge racks.

Camouflage Measure 32, Design 14D prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for escort ships of the DE-339 (John C. Butler) class. This plan, showing the ship’s starboard side, stern, superstructure ends and exposed decks, is dated 17 May 1944 and was approved by Commander William C. Latrobe, USN. 80-G-109627

Using a pair of “D” Express boilers and a matching set of two Westinghouse geared turbines (hence the WGT designation), they had 12,000 shp installed, allowing the Butlers to run up to a theoretical maximum of 24 knots (although one of the class, USS Samuel B. Roberts, made an estimated 28.7 knots while on a torpedo run against impossible odds by raising pressure on her boilers past the safe limit and diverting steam to the turbines.)

USS John C. Butler (DE-339) underway, possibly off Boston Navy Yard

While not fast enough for fleet operations, this was enough for convoy and patrol work. It also allowed them to have a nice, long range of some 6,000 nm when poking along at 12 knots.

Capable of being produced rapidly, some 293 Butlers were on the drawing board at one time or another from four shipyards (Boston NSY, Brown SB, Federal SB, and Consolidated Steel), with many constructed in fewer than six months apiece.

However, “just” 83 were completed, ranging from USS John C. Butler (DE-339), which was laid down on 5 October 1943 to USS Vandiver (DER-540) which, although laid down only a month later, languished on the builder’s ways until she was finally commissioned in 1955.

Meet Tabberer

USS Tabberer (DE-418) was the first vessel named in honor of Lt. (jg.) Charles Arthur Tabberer.

Born in 1915, he enlisted in the USNR’s aviation cadet program in 1939 and, a newly minted ensign with a set of gold wings on his chest, was assigned to Fighting Squadron 5 (VF-5) in early 1941, flying first the pokey F3F biplane and then the F4F Wildcat.

Making j.g. on 29 May 1942, Tabberer and his squadron flew from the old USS Saratoga (CV-3) for the invasion of Guadalcanal and he perished on 7 August during a swirling dogfight under near suicidal odds.

Lt. (jg.) Tabberer earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, posthumously:

DE-418 was one of 23 Butlers built at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas. Laid down on 12 January 1944 she was launched on 18 February 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Mary M. Tabberer, widow of the late Lt. (j.g.) Tabberer.

Tabberer’s sister, the famed future USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) leaving the ways at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas, 20 January 1944. All 23 of the Butlers built at Brown were side-launched.

USS Tabberer was commissioned on 23 May 1944, her construction period spanning just 132 days.

USS Tabberer (DE-418) underway near Houston, Texas (USA), circa in May 1944. She is painted in Camouflage Measure 31, Design 22D. U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships photo BS 95010A

Tabberer’s first skipper was LCDR Henry Lee Plage, USNR (Georgia Tech NROTC ’37). A Florida insurance adjuster who volunteered for active duty and sea service in 1941, Plage had already picked up some solid chops as a small escort sailor, commanding the subchaser USS PC-464 in 1942, then serving as XO on the Evarts-class destroyer escort USS LeHardy (DE-20) and then skipper of her sister, USS Donaldson (DE 44), until just two months before Tabberer was commissioned.

Following an abbreviated shakedown cruise across the Gulf Coast and up the East Coast to Boston NSY– one of the yards where her sisters were built– Tabberer spent two weeks in post-shakedown availability then left for Hawaii via the “Ditch.”

She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 7 September, to spend a month working up with the ships she would deploy with to the West Pac. Of her 225 officers and men, only about 10, primarily chiefs, were regular Navy.

On the night of 9 October, while acting as a plane guard for the Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Anzio (CVE-57), Tabberer made her first rescue at sea in the form of one of the flattop’s aviators.

It would be just one of many for our tin can.

War!

On 16 October 1944, with sequential escort sisters USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415), Melvin R. Nawman (DE 416), Oliver Mitchell (DE 417), and Robert F. Keller (DE 419) of Escort Division 72, Tabberer joined the new anti-submarine Hunter Killer group (T.G. 12.3, later T.G. 30.7) built around Anzio and her embarked air group. The overall commander of the group was Captain George Cannon Montgomery (USNA ’24), a tough career naval aviator from Alabama.

USS Anzio (CVE-57) underway at sea, on 21 May 1945, with an Avenger (TBM-3E) and three Wildcats on deck. NH 96548

The Anzio group– consisting entirely of ships that were all just barely off their shakedowns– would be responsible for at least five confirmed “kills” of Japanese submarines in the eight months between 18 November 1944 and 16 July 1945: I-41 (Kondo), RO-43 (Ts’kigata), I-368 (Irisawa), I-361 (Matsuura) and I-13 (Ohashi). Using Anzio’s embarked Wildcats and Avengers of VC-82/VC-13 to spot and pin the Japanese boats in place, the greyhounds would get to finish off the carcass and sift through the wreckage to find out which of the Emperor’s boats they killed.

This type of work was extremely dangerous for small escorts such as the Tabberer and her sisters as their compact hulls couldn’t shrug off a torpedo hit of any sort. At least two Butlers were lost to Japanese subs in October 1944 alone: USS Shelton sunk by RO-41 off Morotai, and USS Eversole by I-45 east of Leyte.

Besides her task in helping to send Japanese subs to the cold and dark embrace of Poseidon, Tabberer continued to perform the yeoman work long familiar to escorts in a carrier group– that of plane and lifeguard to the flattop’s aircrews. On at least two further occasions (7 July and 12 July 1945) she plucked soggy Anzio aircrews from the drink after water landings and delivered them back “home” via breeches buoy.

USS Anzio pilot and observer began to extricate themselves after their TBM-1C (Bu# 73282) crashed on take-off, 21 December 1944. 80-G-298075/80-G-0298071

Pacific maelstrom

While at Ulithi Lagoon with the rest of the Anzio group, on 6 December 1944, the group logged 39-knot winds in squalls and high seas.

With the weather slacking, and operations in the Philippines looming (the landings at Mindoro), the group left Ulithi on Sunday 10 December on orders from Com3rdFlt (Halsey), linking up with a replenishment group of oilers (T.G. 30.8) along the way. The next few days saw Anzio’s DEs race at flank speed to investigate sonar contacts as the skies grew grey.

As detailed by NOAA: 

The Navy’s Fleet Weather Center in Pearl Harbor had analyzed the sparse data in the area to show the typhoon much further east than it was and forecast it to move northward, avoiding the Fleet. However, the U.S. Army Air Force forecast center on Saipan sent a reconnaissance flight and found the storm heading toward Halsey and with estimated winds of 140 knots (260 km/hr). Capt. Reid Bryson tele-typed the observations to Pearl Harbor, but the Navy forecasters didn’t believe him and did not forward the information to the Third Fleet. Halsey’s chief aerologist, CDR George Kosco, who would later dub the storm “Cobra”, also believed the typhoon was closer than Pearl Harbor was depicting but still thought their southeastern course would avoid the worst of the storm.

By the 17th, the jeep carrier observed that a “tropical typhoon was developing and approaching during the day, with wind and sea increasing in intensity and Anzio laboring heavily. The northerly course toward the rendezvous assigned, 15 30′ N, 127 40′ unfortunately led near the path of the typhoon.”

That afternoon, she lost an Avenger on approach, with the crew picked up by Oliver Mitchell, and three planes in her hangar broke loose during a 19-degree roll to port. One of her escorts, Melvin Nawman, noted the ship’s barometer was dropping at .02 per hour, every hour.

USS Anzio. Rolling heavily while trying to maintain course and speed during a typhoon east of the Philippines, 17 December 1944. Note TBM Avenger heavily lashed to the flight deck. 80-G-298079

By 0629 on the 18th, Capt. Montgomery signaled Halsey that the Anzio group, along with the refueling group, were giving up on heading northeasterly to their assigned rendezvous point– into the storm– and instead reversed course south for safety. The 512-foot/11,000-ton jeep carrier had difficulty that morning holding a steady course against the wind abeam even with a 30-degree rudder and turns for 5 knots on one engine and 15 on the other.

Typhoon Cobra, as observed by radar. NOAA photo

The worst of the storm hit the two groups around 1000 and, losing radio and visual contact with the rest of her group, Anzio measured winds of 90 knots sustained before the vanes on her anemometer were carried away. Her Met department estimated she was taking 120-knot winds and seeing 60-foot seas. She rolled 36 degrees to starboard then 38 to port, losing two planes stored topside overboard while 11 others cracked up. By 1400 the seas became calmer, the winds dropped to gale force, and soon she was able to start maneuvering again. However, as the storm went by, she was only in contact with one of her five escorts who had somehow managed to remain on station– Lawrence C. Taylor.

The other DEs had suffered indeed.

Robert Keller and Oliver Mitchell, blown several miles off by the cyclonic force and heavy seas, remained out of contact with Anzio over the horizon until 1903. Keller had narrowly avoided a collision with Tabberer who was sighted around 0930 in the trough of a 60-foot swell and then vanished from radar. Mitchell lost TBS and radar contact with Melvin Nawman at 0908 and with Tabberer at 1213.

Nawman rolled an amazing 62 degrees and she lost her mast including all her radar and TBS gear. She only managed to ride best at 4 knots, right full rudder, to the NW. Steaming alone and blind back toward Ulithi at 15 knots, she contacted a passing PBM via blinker to ask the flying boat to relay that she was still afloat and headed in. Later that afternoon she spotted a different refueling group, TG 30.8.6, and fell in with it. She arrived back at Ulithi on 23 December, coming alongside the tender USS Markab to begin immediate repairs.

As for our Tabberer, her top weight was removed where possible and, fully ballasted and battened down on orders from her skipper, she survived an amazing roll of 72 degrees to starboard while visibility fell to about 30 feet and wind speed came at over 100 knots. The ship’s barometer bottomed out at 27.92 inHg (921 millibars, within the range considered “Category 4” on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) at 1230 on the 18th. At 1351, she lost the top of her mast and by 1828 the entire mast buckled while the escort was on a 50-degree roll, with the ship having to stop all engines and break out a cutting torch and axes to cut away the offending wreckage– at the loss of her radio, radar, and TBS ability.

In the darkness, CRM Ralph Tucker climbed to the highest point remaining on Tabberer— her stack– to rig a makeshift TBS radio antenna– good for a couple of miles– and saw a light in the still-heaving seas. A light attached to a voice. A voice attached to QM3 August Lindquist, of the destroyer USS Hull (DD-350), one of the escorts of the Anzio group’s adjacent T.G. 30.8 refueling group.

As retold by LCDR Plage, Tabberer’s skipper:

Hull, under the somewhat controversial command of LCDR James A. Marks, (USNA ’37) had been lost during the storm after suffering 80-degree rolls as her bunkers were almost empty. Without getting too much into the weeds, Marks is thought by many to be the basis of the fictional LCDR Queeg of Caine Mutiny fame.

Besides Hull, USS Monaghan (DD-354) and USS Spence (DD-512), both also riding light with the refueling group, were lost in the storm. Monaghan rolled to starboard at least six times and on her final roll continued and capsized. Spence succumbed to a 72-degree roll that flooded her electrical system, killing her pumps and lights, leaving a follow-on roll to deliver the coup de grace.

Between the Hull, Spence, and Monaghan, no less than 718 souls perished on the sea on or about 18 December 1944. Nimitz noted later that “It was the greatest loss that we have taken in the Pacific without compensatory return since the First Battle of Savo.”

Besides the skippers of Spence (LCDR James Andrea, USNA ’37) and Monaghan (LCDR Floyd Garrett, USNA ’38), several newly minted ensigns of the Annapolis Classes of ’44 and ’45 were lost on their first assignments. 

Over the next several days, 3rd Fleet ships scoured the seas for survivors.

Just 24 men were recovered from Spence, 10 of those by the destroyer escort USS Swearer (DE-186), part of the screen for the jeep carrier USS Rudyerd Bay (CVE-81).

USS Brown (DD-546), part of the screen for the light carriers of TG 38.1, rescued the six survivors from Monaghan as well as 13 men of Hull’s ship’s company from a life raft on 21 December, delivering them to Ulithi on Christmas Eve.

Anzio group escort Robert Keller found four additional survivors of the Hull on the 21st. The same day, Mitchell and Lawrence C. Taylor each recovered three men who were “beyond human help” and later consigned them to the deep with honors.

As for our Tabberer, she picked up 55 living men at peril on the sea: 41 from Hull including her skipper and four other officers, and 14 from Spence on the 20th. The latter came due to Plage disobeying orders to retire.

Keep in mind that Tabberer was using her big 24-inch searchlights only about 150 miles off the coast of Japanese-occupied Luzon, in waters thought crawling with enemy submarines.

With the waves still too high to launch small boats, Tabberer went for the recovery in the old-fashioned way and used her cargo nets and close-in maneuvering to get near enough for the survivors to grab on.

Volunteers with safety lines and lifejackets went over the side to help those who could not.

Typhoon Cobra (Halsey’s Typhoon), December 17, 1944. Survivors of USS Spence (DD 512) and USS Hull (DD 350) were rescued by USS Tabberer (DE 418) after the typhoon had capsized the U.S. destroyers on December 17, 1944. Shown: Tabberer’s gunnery officer Lieutenant Howard J. Korth, USNR, in water where he added to the rescue. Note, the other destroyer lost was the USS Monaghan (DD 354). Photograph released on January 21, 1945. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-299181

As a twist of fate, Tabberer had Escort Division 72’s only doctor, LT Frank W. Cleary, aboard going into the storm, and all of the 55 men she pulled from the ocean survived.

Typhoon Cobra (Halsey’s Typhoon), December 17, 1944. Survivors of USS Spence (DD 512) and USS Hull (DD 350) were rescued by USS Tabberer (DE 418) after the typhoon had capsized the U.S. destroyers on December 17, 1944. Shown: Officers and men of USS Hull (DD 350) recuperating from their ordeal onboard USS Tabberer (DE 418). Note, the other destroyer lost was the USS Monaghan (DD 354). Photograph released on January 21, 1945. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-299182

The seriously damaged, blind, and mute Tabberer remained on station for 40 hours.

Plage sent the below memorandum to all hands on the 20th after the escort made her belated turn to Ulithi:

When she rolled into the immense 3rd Fleet anchorage, she looked pretty rough.

Almost unidentifiable.

USS Tabberer demasted after Typhoon Cobra

Legend has it that, when passing the mighty battlewagon USS New Jersey, Halsey’s flagship, she was signaled:

“What type of ship are you?”

Weary and exhausted, his vessel packed with 55 survivors he had to fight both the sea and the brass to save, Plage had his signalmen proudly reply: “Destroyer escort. What type are you?”

In addition to the serious damage to Tabberer and Nawman, three light carriers, another three escort carriers, three destroyers, and the cruiser USS Miami also sustained yard-worthy injuries, with many losing men to the sea during the storm. For example, on the light carrier USS Monterrey (CVL 26), three men were killed and another 34 seriously injured. At least 19 other vessels logged lesser damage.

USS Santa Fe (CL 60) rolls heavily, 53 degrees, as she rides out of a wave encountered in the South China Sea during Typhoon Cobra, December 1944. 80-G-700024

Destroyer in heavy seas during heavy weather in the China Sea. Possibly taken during a typhoon in December 1944. Photographed from USS New Jersey (BB-62) by LCDR Charles Fenno Jacobs, USNR. The destroyer wears camouflage design 9d. 80-G-470284

The entire Third Fleet was sidelined for 18 days following Cobra.

Nimitz noted, “Some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by the fires, by being smashed up, or by being swept overboard.”

It was a hell of a lick.

Plage was presented a Legion of Merit by Halsey himself during a 20-minute visit and inspection on 29 December.

In the name of the President of the United States, the Commander, Third Fleet, United States Pacific Fleet, takes pleasure in awarding the Legion of Merit to 

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER HENRY L. PLAGE

UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following

CITATION

For exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service to the Government as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. Tabberer operating in the Western Pacific war area from December 18, 1944 to December 20, 1944. During this period, while his ship was combating a storm of hurricane intensity and mountainous seas causing severe damage, Lieutenant Commander PLAGE directed the rescue of fifty-five survivors from two destroyers which foundered as a result of the same storm. In spite of seemingly insurmountable hardships and adverse conditions, he persisted in the search for survivors for fifty-one hours. Lieutenant Commander PLAGE’s courageous leadership and excellent seamanship through treacherous and storm-swept seas and his timely reports aided materially in the rescue of additional survivors by other ships which later arrived at the scene. His outstanding conduct was in keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval Service.

W. F. Halsey

Admiral, U.S. Navy

In addressing the assembled crew, Halsey was frank:

Your seamanship, endurance, courage, and the plain guts that you exhibited during the typhoon we went through are an epic of naval history and will long be remembered by your children and their children’s children. It is this spirit displayed throughout the world by the American forces of all branches that is winning the war for us.

Plage had recommended decorations for those who had spent considerable time in the water aiding men who were either too weak or injured to climb the boarding nets unassisted. These included the ship’s XO, LT Robert M. Surdam, the ship’s gunnery officer, LT Howard L. Korth, TM1/C Robert Lee Cotton, and BM1/C Louis Anthony Purvis. The brass authorized the Navy & Marine Corps Medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism by the United States Department of the Navy, for these four men.

Dressed in their best and gathered in the wardroom of USS Tabberer after the Typhoon Cobra rescue are seated (left to right): LT Robert M. Surdam, USNR; LCDR Henry L. Plage, USNR, and LT Howard L. Korth, USNR. Standing, (left to right): TM1/C Robert Lee Cotton and BM1/C Louis Anthony Purvis. This photo was likely taken on 29 December 1944 during Halsey’s visit to the battered ship at Ulithi Atoll. 80-G-299183

Tabberer, and all hands, were the first to receive the new Navy Unit Commendation (although others would receive it retroactively for past service that predated the honor).

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

WASHINGTON

The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in commending the

UNITED STATES SHIP TABBERER

For service as follows:

For extremely meritorious service in the rescue of survivors following the foundering of two United States Destroyers in the Western Pacific Typhoon of December 18, 1944. Unmaneuverable in the wind-lashed seas, fighting to maintain her course while repeatedly falling back into the trough, with her mast lost and all communications gone, the U.S.S. TABBERER rode out the tropical typhoon and, with no opportunity to repair the damage, gallantly started her search for survivors, steaming at ten knots, she stopped at short intervals and darkened her decks where the entire crew topside, without sleep or rest for 36 hours, stood watch to listen for the whistles and shouts of survivors and to scan the turbulent waters for small lights attached to kapok jackets which appeared and then became obscured in troughs blocked off by heavy seas.

Locating one survivor or a group, the TABBERER stoutly maneuvered windward, drifting down to her objective and effecting rescues in safety despite the terrific rolling that plunged her main deck underwater. Again and again, she conducted an expanding box search, persevering in her hazardous mission for another day and night until she had rescued fifty-five storm-tossed and exhausted survivors and had brought them aboard to be examined, treated, and clothed.

Brave and seaworthy in her ready service, the TABBERER, in this heroic achievement, has implemented the daring seamanship and courage of her officers and men.

All personnel attached to and serving on board the TABBERER, during the above-mentioned operation, are hereby authorized to wear the NAVY UNIT COMMENDATION RIBBON.

James Forrestal

Secretary of the Navy

Continued Service

Sent to Pearl Harbor NSY on 30 December in company with her storm-damaged sisters Nawman and Conklin (DE 439), the three patched-up tin cans escorted another Cobra survivor, the light carrier USS Monterey (with future President Gerald Ford aboard as a junior officer) to Oahu via Eniwetok for repairs. Proceeding at 15 knots, they made Pearl on 10 January 1945, with Tabberer docking at Berth Baker 17.5.

The workers at Pearl worked fast in 1945 and, just a fortnight later, both Nawman and Tabberer, fresh and looking new, set out for Eniwetok as part of T.U. 16.8.5, the covering force for Convoy PD-275-T.

Transferring to the 5th Fleet on 28 January 1945 saw the Anzio group switch numbers from TG 30.8 to TU 50.7.1. Tabberer and Nawman rejoined the group at Saipan on 7 February– the first time back with Anzio since Cobra hit some seven weeks prior.

Joining up with other baby carriers– including USS Rudyerd Bay, Saginaw Bay (CVE 82), Makin Island (CVE 93), Luga Point (CVE 94), and Bismarck Sea (CVE 95), the force, under RADM G.R. Henderson, headed for Iwo Jima.

Tabberer was present for the five-plane kamikaze attack during the night of 21-22 February that hit the latter carrier, sending her to the bottom with 318 gallant sailors. The destroyers of the screen rescued 625 men from the water that night.

Large explosion on board Bismarck Sea (CVE-95), after she was hit by a kamikaze during the night of 21-22 February 1945, while she was taking part in the Iwo Jima operation. She sank as a result of her damage. Photographed from Saginaw Bay (CVE 82). 80-G-335103.

Regrouping, the force continued their operations off Iwo for 42 days, with Tabberer typically spending burning the midnight oil (and jo pots full of coffee) running nightly ASW sweeps of the area while rousing her sleepy gun crews back to GQ during daylight as enemy planes came in close.

Given a short few days of downtime in San Pedro Bay in mid-March, Tabberer would spend the next six weeks screening assorted TF38 vessels during the invasion of Okinawa, again in night-time ASW sweeps supporting Anzio, spending another 52 days at sea under combat situations.

USS Tabberer (DE 418) underway replenishment, taken from the escort carrier USS Makin Island (CVE-93) on 25 March 1945. 80-G-323053

Sent to Guam for a short yard period in early May, by the 23rd of that month she was back on station off Anzio, sanitizing shipping and supply routes between the Marianas and Okinawa of Japanese submarine activity.

This continued for the next several weeks, with the Anzio group ordered closer to Tokyo in July to screen replenishment ships just offshore of the Japanese Home Islands. This saw Tabberer’s crew engage in target practice on assorted floating mines belonging to the Emperor and rescue aviators from both an F4F and a TBM. 

TBM lost from Anzio, July 1945

Post VJ Day, she was sent to Korean waters on occupation duties, berthing at Jinsen (Incheon) on 11 September for nine days before being sent to Okinawa.

On 7 October, steaming out of Buckner Bay with her fellow tin cans of Escort Div 72 (without Anzio for once), they made for Tsingtao, China, the treaty port that had been under Japanese control since they wrested it from the Germans in 1914, followed by the troopship USS Dade (APA 99), filled with U.S. Marines returning to China for the first time since 1941. From there, the force went to Taku, China on the 12th, with Tabberer sinking two floating Japanese mines via gunfire– the mines apparently missing the memo that the war was over. On the 15th she saved a lost Allied aviator from the water off Taku anchorage and then escorted a convoy of LSTs and LSMs from Chinese waters to Okinawa.

Detonating three more floating mines on 19 October, she then escorted USS Blue Ridge (AGC2) to Tsingtao and Taku, sinking another mine on the 23rd and a 75-foot derelict coaster on the 29th. Remaining in Taku at the disposal of Com7thPhib until 15 November, she was sent as an escort for three auxiliaries returning to Okinawa before heading back to Taku by the end of the month with her old friend, Melvin Nawman.

Tabberer would remain in Chinese waters until 22 December 1945 when she was ordered back to to CONUS for the first time since August 1944, stopping at Okinawa, Eniwetok, and Pearl Harbor before entering San Francisco on 15 January 1946 with her homeward-bound pennant whipping overhead.

“With over 110,000 miles of steaming behind her, the Tabberer has contributed her share to the records set and glory earned by the ships of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet,” ended her official War History.

She was placed out of commission, in reserve, at San Diego on 24 April 1946.

In her 15 months of WWII service and four months on occupation duty, Tabberer earned four battle stars, received the Navy Unit Commendation, and survived the Navy’s worst storm suffered at sea.

Cold War

With the Korean War mobilization, Tabberer was dusted off and recommissioned on 7 April 1951. Ordered to the East Coast, she was homeported at Newport for the next decade.

September 1953. USS Tabberer (DE 418) at sea off Newport, Rhode Island. Note the Cold War-era big hull numbers, her twin 40mm Bofors behind mount No. 1, and her WWII-era sensors. Note there are two rockets loaded in her deck-mounted Mk 10 Hedgehog. 80-G-626823

Her taskings were typically being used as an ASW exercise vessel for subs out of New London and in taking Annapolis and NROTC midshipmen on summer cruises to the Caribbean and back, interspersed with trips down south to get her annual gunnery tables at Vieques to help beat the old smoke boats at Key West.

Speaking of which…

In November 1954, she suffered a collision with the submarine USS Diablo (SS-479) while in ASW exercises off Block Island that caused no casualties and left both vessels still afloat.

In the mid-1950s our DE underwent a series of modifications including landing her 20mm guns along with her fixed Mk 10 Hedgehog as well as her surface torpedo tubes, installing a remotely trainable 24-spigot Mk 15 Hedgehog device forward. Her 40mm twins were moved to platforms amidship, instead of twin 3″/50s which would have added too much weight.

She also picked up accommodations for a squadron commodore and his staff to allow Tabberer to serve as the flagship of an escort squadron. She rated more modern radar (SPS-6), sonar, and communications upgrades.

USS Tabberr (DE-418) seen 1950s after her modernization. Note her trainable 24-spigot Hedgehog ASW system, just behind her No. 1 mount and more modern radar package on her mast. Courtesy of Mr. Ted DiCecco, Avondale, Pennsylvania. NH 73660

Same as above. Note her hull number repeated on her No.1 mount. You can also make out the two twin Bofors mounts aft of her stack. NH 73661

On 30 August 1957, as part of Operation Deep Water, a test of Atlantic convoy duty should WWIII break out, Tabberer got operational from Key West, bound for Europe as the flagship of CortRon12.

Her outbound squadron comprised four other WWII-era DEs including her old bosom buddy, Melvin Nawman. By 2 September, the escorts linked up off the Virginia Capes with a mixed group of nine troopships, auxiliaries, and phibs, packed with a reinforced Marine brigade, to shepherd over to Europe at the regal speed of 12 knots. Engaging Allied OPFOR submarines along the way, the circular convoy stepped it up to 14.5 knots and made it successfully to Naples by noon on 14 September.

Attached to PhibGroup2, Tabberer, and company spent the next seven weeks in a series of amphibious warfare exercises and friendly port calls in the Mediterranean ranging from Saros Bay, Turkey (the country had joined NATO in 1952) to Patras, Greece; Suda Bay, Crete; Palermo, Sicily; Palma, Spain, and Gibraltar.

The exercise saw 8,000 Marines hit the beach in Gallipoli, linking up with a Turkish Army corps, simulating a response to a Soviet attempt to seize the straits. It was notable as it was both the first Marine vertical envelopment during an overseas deployment and the first time that a U.S. Marine joint air-sea-ground task force had been used in a NATO exercise. Supported by three full carrier battle groups, it sent a message.

Leaving “The Rock” late in the night of 7 November, the five aging but still operable DEs set out across the Atlantic again. Without having to shepherd a convoy, they made Bermuda without issue on the morning of 15 November, pulling up to the British colony at 19.5 knots. Following a couple days of libo, the DEs, led by Tabberer with ComCort12 still aboard, made Key West on the 19th. It was her last operational deployment.

Transferred to Philadelphia, she would spend the next two years in the same sort of laid-back semi-reserve service she had before Operation Deepwater.

Effective Friday, 2 September 1960– the 15th anniversary of VJ Day– USS Tabberer was decommissioned at Philadelphia, having been towed, cold iron, under the bridge to the Reserve Basin and, placed in mothballs for the second, and final, time on the 1st.

The Butler class listing in the 1960 Janes. Most of these vessels were in mothballs. 

On 1 July 1972, Tabberer’s name was struck from the NVR and in October 1973 she was sold for scrapping to Mr. David Hahn, of Key West.

Navy destroyer escorts USS Raymond (DE-341), USS Oswald (DE-767), USS Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416), USS Tabberer (DE-418), and USS Coffman (DE-191) laid up at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Pennsylvania (USA), circa in early 1973. By Jim Cunliffe via Navsource

Epilogue

Few lingering relics remain of Tabberer.

Her War History and deck logs are in the National Archives. 

No Butler class destroyer escort is preserved or remains in service.

She has a tribute marker at the National Museum of the Pacific War (the Nimitz Museum) in Texas.

The Navy, in its wisdom, has not elected to reuse the name Tabberer for another vessel.

For the men associated with the vessel, her most famous wartime skipper, LCDR Henry Lee Plage, remained on sea duty after the war and gave the Navy 17 years of service before retiring in 1954. Returning to Florida, he passed in 2003, aged 88, leaving behind a batch of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Plage. The Navy could use a destroyer named in his honor.

Of the 92 survivors rescued from the sea after Typhoon Cobra, 55 were saved by Tabberer. Those men went on to lead their own lives and create children to carry on their own stories.

The most senior of those survivors, LCDR Marks, the lightning rod skipper of the ill-fated USS Hull, committed suicide in 1986.

Capt. George Montgomery, the gold wing-wearing leader of the Anzio group that gave the order counter to Halsey to turn his ships south, earned a Legion of Merit of his own for his group’s work off Iwo and Okinawa in 1945.

Basketball team, USS Anzio, 1945. “Over two years, undefeated.” Capt. Montgomery at center.

Post-war, Montgomery joined the staff of the Naval War College and was commander of a fleet air wing in the Caribbean then capped his career, appropriately, as Chief of Naval Air Safety before retiring in 1954 after 30 years in the Navy. RADM Montgomery passed in 1992, aged 92. He was survived by a son, retired Navy Capt. George C. Montgomery Jr., three grandchildren; and a great-grandson. It seems the salt was in the blood.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Sub and Yippy Tie Up

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“In a quiet inlet of the Bering Sea, a YP Boat gets a coat of paint and a sub ties up for fuel and provisions. The short Alaskan day is ending and lights may be seen in the barracks until total darkness requires a blackout.”

Painting, Oil on Board; by William F. Draper; 1942; Framed Dimensions 20H X 24W NHHC Accession #: 88-189-N

While the naval aspect of the Aleutians Campaign ended strong for the US, with RADM Charlie McMorris’ victory off the Komandorski Islands in March 1943 and the swansong of Operation Cottage five months later, it started rough, at the raid on Dutch Harbor in June 1942, and was a long uphill slog that, considering Nimitz’s big fleet problems in Guadalcanal, 5,000 miles on the other side of the Pacific, was always a backwater.

It was a war of the Sugar Boats, the Yippies, PT boats, Canadian armed merchant cruisers, and muddy PBYs.

Warship Wednesday Dec. 11, 2024: Cathedral Slugger

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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

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024: Cathedral Slugger

Above we see the magnificent modified York-class heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (68), entering Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta, likely during her service with the Mediterranean Fleet’s 1st Cruiser Squadron at Alexandria, during the Abyssinian crisis between October 1935 and July 1936.

Simultaneously the final British warship to be built with 8-inch guns and the last “Washington” treaty cruiser built for the Royal Navy, she would use her guns to good effect against a tough “pocket battleship” some 85 years ago this week.

The Yorks

Sometimes referred to as the “Cathedral” class cruisers, York and her near-sister HMS Exeter (68) were essentially cheaper versions of the Royal Navy’s baker’s dozen County-class cruisers, the latter of which were already under-protected to keep them beneath the arbitrary 10,000-ton limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Weighing in at 8,250 tons, the Yorks were intended not for fleet action but for the role of sitting on an overseas station and chasing down enemy commerce raiders in the event of war.

York mounted six 8″/50 (20.3 cm) Mark VIII guns in three twin Mark II mounts. Fairly capable guns, they could fire a 256-pound SAP shell out past 30,000 yards at a (theoretical) rate of up to six rounds per gun per minute. Importantly, they carried 172 rounds per gun, up from the 125-150 carried by the preceding County class, a factor which allowed a slightly longer engagement time before running empty.

Bow turrets of HMS York. Photograph by Mrs. Josephine Burston, via Navweaps

Notably, Exeter was completed with the same main gun but in Mark II* mounts, which allowed for a shallower 50-degree elevation.

Cruiser HMS Exeter training her 8-inch guns to starboard

Exeter vessel also had a slightly different “straight” arrangement for her funnels and masts, whereas York’s carried a slant, giving each sister a distinctive profile.

Exeter’s 1930 rigging plan

HMS York. Note the slant to her masts and stacks. Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives Photo No. 447-2863.1

Rounding out the cruisers’ offensive armament was a half-dozen deck-mounted 21-inch torpedo tubes a battery of DP 4-inch guns and a few Vickers machine guns to ward off aircraft.

Built with overseas service in mind, they could cover 10,000nm at 14 knots. Able to achieve 32.3 knots due to having 80,000-ship via Parsons geared steam turbines, they sacrificed armor protection for speed and magazine space, with just 1 inch of steel on their turrets and a belt that was just 3 inches at its thickest.

Exeter, Janes 1931

As noted by Richard Worth in his excellent tome, Fleets of World War II:

In trimming down the County layout, designers managed to retain several features, though sea keeping suffered. Protection also received low priority; the armor scheme (similar in proportion to the County type) included some advances, but all in all, the Yorks seemed even more vulnerable, especially in the machinery spaces.

 

Meet Exeter

Ordered as part of the 1926 Build Programme, Exeter was the fifth RN vessel to carry the name since 1680 and carried forth a quartet of battle honors (Adras 1782, Providien 1782, Negapatam 1782, and Trincomalee 1782) from these vessels. Constructed for £1,837,415 by HMNB Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth, she launched on 18 July 1929.

Her sponsor at the christening was Lady Madden.

Anchored off Plymouth, England, during her builder’s trials in May 1931. NH 60806

 

Bestowed with the familiar motto, Semper fidelis, Ever Faithful, she long maintained a relationship with her ancient namesake cathedral city along the River Exe.

On 23 May 1931, just before she was commissioned, HMS Exeter’s skipper and officers visited the town’s Mayor H W Michelmore, at the Exeter Guildhall. By tradition, Royal Navy ships named after a town are given a small gift by the town, and the Mayor announced that a model of the hall, paid for by public subscription, would be made of silver. Michelmore and a crowd of local dignitaries presented the finished model, about the size of a breadbox, three months later.

“On behalf of myself, my officers and ships crew, and of those who will come after us, I thank you most heartily and sincerely for the beautiful gift you have given us,” her plankowner skipper, Captain (later RADM) Isham W. Gibson, told the delegation. “We hope that you will count us as citizens of Exeter, afloat.”

NH 60803

Exeter, August 1931. NH 60804

Peacetime idyllic cruising

She was a striking vessel for her age. A true peacetime cruiser.

For the next decade, she would embark on a series of “waving the flag” port visits around the globe as she shifted between North America and West Indies Station, based in Bermuda, to the Mediterranean Fleet. This would involve roaming along the coast of Latin America, trips through the Panama Canal with corresponding port calls on the West Coast of America as far north as Esquimalt, BC, and cruising along the Caribbean.

On one such port call, the U.S. Navy dutifully took lots of close-up photographs of her armament and layout that were no doubt forwarded to the ONI, hence their preservation for posterity.

Exeter, .50 cal quad Vickers anti-aircraft machine gun mount. Note the Bluejackets aboard. NH 60811

Shagbats! Exeter with Supermarine Walrus amphibians on catapults. NH 60809

Same as above, NH 60810

Exeter 4″ anti-aircraft gun. NH 60808

Exeter At Montevideo, Uruguay in 1934. NH 60816

Exeter in Balboa harbor, canal zone, 24 April 1934. NH 60812

HMS Exeter, Panama Canal, 1930s. 33rd infantry honor guard at the Miguel locks. N-173-3

HMS Exeter, Northbound, Gamboa Signal Station, March 8, 1935, 185-G-2031

HMS Exeter returning to Devonport from the Mediterranean in July 1936, note her “homeward bound” pennant.

British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, 1936

HMS Exeter at the Royal Naval Dockyard, on Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, in the British Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, with Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse beyond, circa 1936

Aerial view of HMS Exeter, Panama Canal Zone, circa early 1939. NH 60807

Exeter off Coco Solo canal zone, circa 1939. NH 60814

Get the Graf!

Skipping a planned dockyard period at Devonport in early August 1939 due to rising tensions in Europe, Exeter’s crew was recalled from leave and prepared to return to service with the South Atlantic Division of the West Indies Squadron, escorting the troopship Dunera to Cape Verde before diverting to Freetown.

On her bridge was newly promoted Capt. Frederick “Hooky” Secker Bell, a fighting sailor who served as a mid on HMS Challenger in the Cameron Campaign in 1914, on board the battleship HMS Canada at the battle of Jutland in 1916, and, as a young lieutenant in 1918, was one of only two survivors of his destroyer when it was sunk from under his feet by one of the Kaiser’s U-boats. He had been XO of the battlewagon HMS Repulse just before moving into Exeter’s captain’s cabin– a battleship man in a cruiser.

When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September, Exeter was in passage to Rio de Janeiro, and, clearing for war service, she soon took up station off Rio for the purpose of trade defense and interdicting German shipping.

By early October, with German surface raiders afoot in the South Atlantic, Exeter joined Hunting Force G along with the older but more heavily armed County-class heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland (9,750 tons, 8×8″ guns, 31 knots, 4.5-inch belt) and the Leander-class light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles (7,270 tons, 8×6″/50s, 32.5 knots, 4-inch belt), with the force ranging from the Brazilian coast to the Falklands.

These hounds would eventually find fruit in the chase for the German Deutschland-class panzerschiff cruiser KMS Admiral Graf Spee (14,890 tons, 6×11″/52, 8×5.9″, 28.5 knots, 3.9-inch belt), however, its strongest asset, Cumberland, was in the Falklands under refit at the time, leaving our Exeter and the two lighter cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, to fight it out.

Kriegsmarine Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee im Spithead U.K. 1937. Colorised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

A detailed retelling of what is now known to history as the Battle of the River Plate would be out of the scope of this post, but, beginning with Graf Spee’s sighting of Force G at 0520 on the morning of 13 December, and ending when the engagement broke off around 0730 with the big German cruiser retreating into the River Plate estuary, is the stuff of legend.

In those swirling two hours, Graf Spee had been hit at least 70 times by British 8- and 6-inch guns, with the German suffering 36 killed and another 60, including her captain, Hans Langsdorff, wounded– in all about a fifth of her complement. While in no danger of sinking and still very much able to fight– albeit with only a third of her 11-inch shells left in her magazines– the panzerschiff had her oil purification plant, desalination plant, and galley destroyed, factors that would make a 6,000 mile run back to Germany likely impossible.

Graf Spee also gave as good as she got, with Exeter, pressing the fight against the larger ship repeatedly, getting the worst punishment in the form of hits from seven 660-pound 11-inch shells– ordnance she was never expected to absorb. Listing and with her two front turrets knocked out, Exeter had 61 dead and 23 wounded crew members aboard and could only make 18 knots. With only one turret still operable– and under local command only– Captain Bell had vouched that he was ready to ram Graf Spee before the German had retired.

As detailed by Lt Ron Atwill, who served in Exeter during the battle:

  • ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets were out of action from direct hits.
  • ‘Y’ turret firing in local control.
  • The Bridge, Director Control Tower, and the Transmitting Station were out of action.
  • A fire was raging in the CPO’s and Serving Flats.
  • Minor fires were burning on the Royal Marine messdeck and in the Paint Shop.
  • There were no telephone communications – all orders had to be passed by messengers.
  • The ship was about four feet down by the bows due to flooding forward and had a list to starboard of about eight degrees due to some six hundred and fifty tons of water which had flooded in splinter holes near the waterline plus accumulations of fire fighting water. This degree of list is quite considerable and makes movement within the ship very difficult when decks are covered with fuel oil and water.
  • Only one 4-inch gun could be fired.
  • Both aircraft had been jettisoned.
  • W/T communications had completely broken down – mostly due to aerials having been shot away.

HMS Exeter (68) as seen in 1939, shows splinter damage to ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets and the bridge from the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. While her rear ‘Y’ turret was intact, its electrical system had suffered a short from saltwater intrusion and was down to manual control. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43488

Swiss cheese splinter damage to Exeter’s stacks. Splinters had riddled the ship’s funnels and searchlights, wrecked the ship’s Walrus aircraft just as it was about to be launched for gunnery spotting, and slaughtered her exposed torpedo tube crews. Shrapnel swept the bridge, killing or wounding almost all the bridge personnel and knocking out most of the ship’s communications and navigational tools, forcing the vessel to be directed by one of the compasses pulled from a launch. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43505

With no means to fight left at her disposal other than the single 4-inch open mount still working, Exeter remained on watch with the lighter Ajax and Achilles, both damaged and nearly out of shells, keeping station at the Plate’s mouth should Graf Spee attempt to escape. Cumberland, rushed 1,000 miles from the Falklands in just 34 hours, arrived to reinforce the force late on the night of 14 December and relieve Exeter, who was ordered to retire to the Port Stanley for emergency repairs.

Ordered by Berlin not to have his ship interned in Uruguay, options were limited to Langsdorff, Graf Spee’s skipper. Partially due to his ship’s damage, and partially because the three British cruisers at the river’s mouth could bird-dog him should he put to sea, a factor acerbated by openly exaggerated signals that RN carriers and battlewagons were rapidly inbound (they were in fact still five days away), Langsdorff landed his crew– who he refused to sacrifice in vain– scuttled his ship in Montevideo, and then blew his brains out.

Admiral Graf Spee in flames after being scuttled in the River Plate estuary, 17 December 1939. IWM 4700-01

Later Allied inspection of Graf Spee’s hull showed Exeter got in at least three hits from her “puny” 256-pound 8-inchers, including the key destruction of her oil purification plant, the blow that cut off the big cruiser’s legs.

Admiral Graf Spee, ship’s port bow, taken while she was at Montevideo, Uruguay in mid-December 1939, following the Battle of the River Plate. Note crew members working over the side to repair damage from an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The notation The ‘Moustache’ refers to the false bow wave painted on Admiral Graf Spee’s bows. The original photograph came from Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s World War II history project working files. NH 83003

Admiral Graf Spee photograph of a shell hole in the ship’s forward superstructure tower, made by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The sketch below shows the location of the hole, and describes it as large enough to crawl through. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Page from an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. The photograph was taken on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN. NH 51986

Admiral Graf Spee photograph of the interior of the ship’s forward superstructure tower, showing damage caused by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter during the Battle of the River Plate. Cut wires and the absence of a fire control tube were noted on the original report in which this image appeared. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Photographed on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN, for an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. NH 51987-A

Arriving at Port Stanley on 20 December, Exeter would remain there for a month, patched up with steel plate salvaged from the old Grytviken whaling station while her wounded were cared for in local homes, until the battered cruiser began her slow voyage back to England. She arrived at Plymouth on 15 February 1940.

HMS Exeter arrives back in the UK after emergency repairs at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands following the battle of the river Plate. Lighter paintwork can be seen where the damage was patched up.

Churchill, at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, visited the cruiser and addressed the crew. The bulldog had come “to pay my tribute to her brave officers and men from her shattered decks in Plymouth Harbor”

Arrival at Plymouth with Churchill coming aboard. IWM HU 104428

On 23 February, her celebrated crew marched through the City of London. Bell was made a companion knight of the Bath while the other members of the crew would pick up two DSOs, seven DSCs, and nearly 40 DSMs.

Leap Day 1940 saw Bell lead 87 members of his crew on a Freedom of the City parade with fixed bayonets through Exeter, where seemingly the entire town turned out. The cruisermen brought with them a host of souvenirs to hand over to the city including Exeter’s shell-torn White Ensign and her bell, left with the city for safekeeping.

Pacific maelstrom

Exeter’s extensive repair would stretch for a year and included rebuilding her gun houses, installing new catapults and torpedo tubes, as well as modernization that saw a Type 279 search radar, Type 284 gunnery control radar, tripod masts, and improved anti-aircraft armament shipped aboard. The latter included landing her old 4.1-inch singles for four twin 102/45 QF Mk XVIs along with two massive octuple 40mm 2-pounder MK VIII mounts.

In that period, her near-sister, York, was lost to MTMs of Xª Flottiglia MAS in Suda Bay.

HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A3553

HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941 hoisting Walrus, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A 3555

Stern view, same place and time as above. A 3552

Exeter’s ninth and final skipper, Capt. Oliver Loudon Gordon, took command on 11 March 1941.

Following post-refit workups with the Northern Patrol in April 1941, Exeter was transferred to the East Indies Squadron, which was beefing up as tensions with the Empire of Japan were at an all-time high. Likewise, Bell was ordered to a new position as Flag Captain to the Flag Officer, Malaya,

Sailing south with a military convoy on 22 May– while keeping an eye out for the raiding Bismarck and Prinz Eugen— she arrived in Freetown on 4 June and Durban two weeks later before spending the next six months as escort a series of different slow convoys (CM 014, BP 012, CM 017, and MA 001) shuttling around the Indian Ocean.

On 7 December 1941, she was ordered to Singapore to join the ill-fated Force Z– the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. She didn’t make it to join the force before it was destroyed by Japanese land-based bombers three days later in the South China Sea.

Instead, Exeter leaned into her speed and, under the combined ABDA Command in Java, she spent January and February 1942 as part of several different Allied convoys (DM 001, BM 010, BM 011, BM 012, JS 001, and SJ 5) running troops to Singapore and around the Dutch East Indies.

HMS Exeter firing at Japanese aircraft which unsuccessfully attacked convoy JS1 in the Bangka Strait during the 14/15 February 1942, NIMH 2158_017924

A harbor tug crosses the bow of the 8-inch gun cruiser HMS Exeter as she lies anchored in the congested harbor of Tanjong Priok, the port for Batavia, now Jakarta, in the first days of February 1942. Exeter helped clear the congestion, taking thirty merchant ships to sea. AWM P04139.003

On 25 February, Exeter, along with the RAN Leander-class light cruiser HMAS Perth (sister to Ajax and Achilles) and destroyers HMS Electra, Encounter, and Jupiter, were detailed to join the ABDA’s Eastern Striking Force under Dutch RADM K.W.F.M. Doorman at Soerabaja, which was then renamed the Combined Striking Force. Doorman’s force was slight, made up of just the Dutch light cruisers HrMs De Ruyter and HrMs Java, the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30), and a mix of nine Dutch and American destroyers, mostly old “flush deckers” from the Great War.

Of the five allied cruisers, only Houston was more powerful than Exeter, carrying nine cramped 8″/55 guns in her thin hull. However, only six of Houston’s 8-incher were operable as her aft turret had been knocked out in an earlier air attack. Further, only Exeter had radar.

Rushing out to confront a force of 30 Japanese troops transports on 27 February 1942 protected by RADM Takeo Takagi’s two heavy cruisers, two old light cruisers, and 14 destroyers, things got pear-shaped pretty fast in what became known as the First Battle of the Java Sea.

A flurry of over 90 Long Lance torpedoes sank a Dutch destroyer while a lucky 7.9-inch hit from the Japanese Myoko-class heavy cruiser Haguro penetrated to Exeter’s aft boiler room and knocked six of her eight boilers offline, dropping the British cruiser’s speed to just five knots.

Retiring South towards Surabaya via the Sunda Strait with Encounter and the American destroyer USS Pope (DD-225) escorting, Exeter had the supreme misfortune of running into the four Japanese heavy cruiser sisters Nachi, Haguro, Myoko, and Ashigara, along with their four escorting destroyers, supported by the carrier Ryujo over the horizon, on the morning of 1 March.

Although Exeter had managed to increase her speed to 23 knots by this time, it was far too slow to avoid being overtaken by the armada of bruisers and fast greyhounds. The disparity in ordnance in big guns alone– 40 7.9″/50s vs six 8″/50s– was staggering before even taking into account smaller guns and torpedo tubes.

Japanese shells rain down around HMS Exeter during her ill-fated encounter in the Java Sea

Despite Encounter and Pope bravely making smoke and attempting torpedo runs against impossible odds– the same sort of bravery later seen by American escorts in the defense of Taffy 3 in October 1944– it was all over in about three hours and all of the Allied vessels were sent to the bottom piecemeal.

Exeter sinking on 1 March 1942 after engagement with Japanese Cruisers off Java. This Japanese photo was captured by U.S. Forces at Attu in May 1943. Collection of Admiral T. C Kinkaid, USN. NH 91772

NH 91773

Exeter sinking after engaging Japanese heavy cruisers in the Java Sea, 1 March 1942. Image taken from the captured Japanese wartime booklet “Victory on the March” 80-G-179020

Exeter earned three battle honors (River Plate 1939, Malaya 1942, and Sunda Strait 1942) to add to the four she carried forward.

Epilogue

Over the next two days, Japanese destroyers would pick up some 800 Allied survivors from the three lost warships in the water after the battle including 652 men of the crew of Exeter, the cruiser remarkably “only” losing 54 in the battle itself. A large reason why so many of Exeter’s crew survived the battle was that Capt. Gordon, his ship lost, ordered her evacuated before the final bloody game could play out. Like Capt. Langsdorff at Montevideo, Gordon owed it to his men not to ask them to perish in vain.

Tossed into the hell that was the Japanese POW camp systems no less than 27 of Pope’s sailors, 37 of Encounter’s, and 30 from Exeter died in the prison camps, usually from either malaria or pneumonia. When it came to Japanese camps, they typically lost a full quarter of those housed within.

Recovered from camps in the Celebes, Macassar, and Nagasaki in September 1945, Exeter veterans were given emergency medical care and repatriated. AWM photos

The wrecks of Encounter, Exeter, and Pope have been extensively looted by illegal salvagers.

Capt. Gordon, while being removed from Japan on USS Gosper (APA-170) in October 1945, finally had a chance to deliver his 12-page report on Exeter’s final battles to the Admiralty, via U.S. channels. With the traditional English gift of understatement, he noted that, during the evacuation of the cruiser, “The ship was evidently leaking oil fuel considerably, which, with a slight lop, made conditions in the water decidedly unpleasant, at first.”

July 1942 portrait of Capt. Oliver L Gordon, RN, HMS Exeter, who was captured in the Java Sea. Capt Gordon was a prisoner of war in Zentsuji Camp, Shikoku, Osaka, Japan. He later wrote of his experiences both in command of the Exeter and as a prisoner of war in Japan in the book Fight It Out, published in 1957, and passed in 1973. AWM P04017.059

As for “Hooky” Secker Bell, Exeter’s commander during the fight with Graf Spee, he escaped Singapore before the fall in 1942 and survived the war. In January 1946 he took command of the battleship HMS Anson, was named an ADC to King George VI, and retired on health grounds in January 1948.

In 1956, he served as an advisor to the film The Battle of the River Plate which included the huge Des Moines class heavy cruiser USS Salem as the Graf, Achilles as herself, the light cruiser HMS Sheffield as Ajax, and the light cruiser HMS Jamaica as our Exeter.

Her 1931-marked bell and River Plate battle-damaged ensign, along with a scale model of the cruiser, are in Exeter as part of the city’s archives.

St Andrews Chapel in Exeter has several relics and a memorial stained glass window which incorporates the ship’s badge.

She is celebrated in maritime art, and for good reason.

HMS Exeter at Plymouth in 1940: Back from the Graf Spee action, by Charles Ernest Cundall. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1848)

Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939 watercolor by Edward Tufnell, RN (Retired), depicting the cruisers HMS Exeter (foreground) and HMNZS Achilles (right center background) in action with the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee (right background). NH 86397-KN

Admiral Graf Spee vs Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter painting by Adam Werka

The Battle of the Java Sea, painting by Van der Ven. From left to right two American destroyers (Four stackers), cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, HMAS Perth, HMS Exeter, Hr.Ms. Witte de With, Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (sinking) and HMS Jupiter. NIMH 2158_051001.

The Royal Navy, when passing through the Sunda Strait, typically holds a memorial service for the lost cruiser and her escorts.

HMS Montrose showers the now-calm waters of the Java Sea with poppies over the site where 62 men lost their lives when cruiser HMS Exeter and destroyer HMS Encounter fell victim to the Japanese, 2019. MOD photo

In 1980, a Type 42 destroyer, HMS Exeter (D 89), joined the fleet to perpetuate the name. She earned the ship her eighth battle honor (Falklands- 1982) and was only decommissioned on 27 May 2009.

October 1987. Gulf Of Oman. A starboard beam view of the British destroyer HMS Exeter (D-89) underway on patrol while stationed in the region as part of a multinational force safeguarding shipping during the war between Iraq and Iran. PH1 T. Cosgrove. DN-ST-93-00902

A veterans organization for all the past Exeters endures. 

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Rustyguts!

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This week, some 85 years ago, Canadian maritime artist Donald Mackay’s painting depicts the open sea bridge of the destroyer HMCS Restigouche (H00) escorting a large convoy of troop ships, including the four-funneled 45,000-ton Cunard liner-turned-troopship RMS Aquitania (center left), across a brooding North Atlantic.

Beaverbrook Collection of War Art CWM 19710261-4245

Mackay is likely portraying troop convoy TC 1, which left Halifax with half (some 7,449 soldiers) of the newly formed Scotland-bound 1st Canadian Infantry Division on 10 December 1939. One officer (center) communicates with another ship by signal lamp, while an officer (left) records the message as a lookout stands by. The two large loops (right) are the direction-finding aerial used for navigation. Other navigational equipment is visible, including a gyroscopic compass repeater (center) providing compass directions.

It was Aquitania’s first WWII troop transport operation, carrying 2,638 troops and sailing in company with fellow liners/troopships Empress of Britain (1,303 troops), Empress of Australia (1,235 troops), Duchess of Bedford (1,312 troops), and Monarch of Bermuda (961 troops). The force was escorted by the old Royal Sovereign class battleship HMS Resolution along with the Canadian tin cans HMCS Fraser, Ottawa, Restigouche, and St. Laurent while an over-the-horizon cover force was built around the carrier HMS Furious, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and the light cruiser HMS Emerald. They would be met at 20’E by a dozen RN tin cans of the 6th and 8th Destroyer Flotillas, to help shepherd the Canucks through the wolves.

Between her Great War and WWII service, Aquitania sailed more than 500,000 miles and carried nearly 400,000 Commonwealth soldiers around the globe for the King.

As for Restigouche, completed in 1932 as HMS Comet, the “C” Class destroyer was purchased from Britain and commissioned in the Royal Canadian Navy on 15 June 1938. Like Aquitania, Convoy TC 1 was her first WWII convoy and the little greyhound would ride shotgun on no less than 72 by March 1945 including fully seven of the 14 big TC runs that brought Canada’s five Europe-bound field divisions and their reinforcements to the Continent. She also served off Normandy on D-Day and helped clean out the Bay of Biscay. 

Her hard-working hull was often streaked with red iron oxide, and she was nicknamed “Rustyguts” by her crew.

Period Kodachrome of the Canadian destroyer HMCS Restigouche (H00), circa 1944-1945. Canadian Navy Heritage photo CT-284

HMCS Restigouche, River-class destroyer of the RCN during WW2. LAC Kodachrome. MIKAN 4821961

She earned five battle honors and her motto was Rester droit (Steer A Straight Course).

Paid off on 5 October 1945, she was broken up the following year.

Storis to Return, Zumwalt Floats, Arkansas Launches

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U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Storis during the run for a short-cut Northwest Passage prepares to send helicopters aloft on ice reconnaissance before proceeding eastward through Amundsen Gulf to Dolphin and Union Straits, Canadian Northwest Territory (July 23, 1957). 26-G-5782

The name USCGC Storis is one of the most hallowed to the Coast Guard.

Commissioned in 1942, the heavily-armed 230-foot icebreaker earned her chops in the “Weather War” against the Germans in Greenland, later became the first U.S. vessel to circumnavigate the North American continent after she cleared the Northwest Passage, and stood watch over Alaska– supporting the DEW Line and rebuffing Soviet interlopers during the Cold War. Once it thawed, she became the first foreign warship to visit the Russian Pacific Fleet bastion of Petropavlovsk since 1854.

Only narrowly escaping preservation as a museum ship following her decommissioning in 2007, the service has apparently bestowed the name on a much less noble successor.

Rather than holding out to name one of the big new Polar Security Cutters currently under construction, the USCG is apparently renaming the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel Aiviq as USCGC Storis (WAGB-21), as detailed by images coming from Tampa Ship LLC in Florida, where she is undergoing a rushed conversion before entering federal service sometime in 2026.

Icebreaker Aiviq is now in USCG Icebreaker Red and carries the name Storis on its transom. (Source: GCaptain)

Icebreaker Aiviq is now in USCG Icebreaker Red and carries the name Storis on its transom. (Source: GCaptain)

The Coast Guard intends to permanently homeport the vessel in Juneau, Alaska, a departure from its longstanding tradition of basing icebreakers in Seattle.

China trembles. 

Meanwhile, in DDG-1000 news…

Some 16 months after arriving in Pascagoula, and with her original twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems replaced with 12 new Conventional Prompt Strike missile tubes, USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) undocked on 6 December and returned to the water of the Pascagoula River.

Zumwalt undocking, 6 December 2024, Pascagoula, HII photo

Zumwalt undocking, 6 December 2024, Pascagoula, HII photo

She will now undergo testing in the Gulf of Mexico before returning to the fleet and the (hopeful) IOC of her new hypersonic boost-glide weapon system.

Keep in mind that Zumwalt was laid down in 2011 and commissioned eight years ago, so it will be nice to finally see her with a set of teeth…eventually.

A deeper dive by Alex Hollings. 

Welcome Back, Razorback!

The 27th Virginia-class submarine, the future USS Arkansas (SSN 800), was christened Saturday at Newport News.

USS Arkansas was christened on the 83rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor. HII photo

It is a great name and it’s nice to see it on the NVR again, after a 26-year absence.

When commissioned, likely in 2026, the advanced Block IV boat will be the fifth warship to carry the name of The Natural State including the mighty Wyoming-class battleship (BB-33) and a Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser (CGN-41).

Of note, BB-33 was at anchor in Casco Bay on the sleepy Sunday morning of 7 December 1941, part of the Atlantic Neutrality Patrol, a task that spared her a spot on Battleship Row in Pearl that day.

She would be in the gunline off Normandy.

Opening the Attack Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944 D-Day. Arkansas is in the foreground, and French cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm are in the background. NHHC 88-199-ew

Once her work was done in Europe, she of course returned to the Pacific to support the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The Brown Water Navy’s 81mm Mortar Mark 2

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In a recent Warship Wednesday (Coast Guard Ron Three) we touched on the use of the 81mm mortar in two fixed emplacements behind the main 5-inch gun mount on a series of USCG cutters that deployed to Vietnam between 1967 and 1972.

The 81mm mortar was mounted on either side of the No. 1 (5-inch) mount, seen here on USCGC Campbell in 1967.

Developed by the Navy and Coast Guard in two different models (Mark 2 Mod 0 and Mark 2 Mod 1) in the early 1960s, the thought behind such mounts was that they could be used for illumination quicker and easier than shooting star shells from the main gun (which also could conceivably leave the main gun slow to switch gears from lofting illum shells to hitting surface/shore targets with HE).

Plus, the mortars could be used for near-shore naval gunfire support as well.

Campbell’s mortar team “hanging an 81” ashore

These mortars were also used extensively by the USCG’s 26 82-foot Point class cutters as part of CGRON One during the war, typically piggybacked with an M2 air-cooled Browning .50 cal BMG.

Rel. No. 6135: USCGC POINT LOMAS FIRED AT SUSPECTED VIET CONG CAVE HIDEOUT: An 81mm mortar shell fired from the 82-foot U.S. Coast Guard Cutter POINT LOMAS (WPB-82321) shatters rocks over the entrance to a suspected Viet Cong cave hideout along a beach in a Viet Cong controlled area near Danang. Rounds from a .50 caliber machine gun, mounted piggyback on the mortar gun also were fired into the cave. Commanding the POINT LOMAS is Lieutenant Keith D. Ripley, USCG of Baltimore, Md. The 82-footer was stationed at Port Aransas, Texas, before reporting for duty with Coast Guard Squadron One’s Division 12, based at Danang, Vietnam, in July 1965. 

The Navy also heavily used them on just about everything that moved that was smaller than 165 feet in length, as detailed by Bob Stoner GMCM (SW) Ret. over at Warboats.org.

Navy 50-foot coastal patrol craft (PCF); Navy 75-foot fast patrol boats (PTF, “Nasty”-class); Navy 95-foot fast patrol boats (PTF, “Osprey”-class); Navy 164-foot patrol gunboats (PG, “Ashville“-class); miscellaneous riverine craft which were mostly converted LCM-6 landing craft: MON (monitor); CCB (command and control boat); Zippo (flame thrower boat); ASPB (assault support patrol boat); HSSC (heavy SEAL support craft); and advanced tactical support bases such as SEA FLOAT/SOLID ANCHOR (Nam Can) and BREEZY COVE (Song Ong Doc).

Cam Ranh Bay, Republic of Vietnam. Gunner’s Mate Second Class Robert Phalen, left, and another crewmember of Fast Coastal Patrol Craft 42 (PCF 42) prepare to fire an 81mm Mortar while on patrol, 18 October 1968. 428-GX-K60314

South Vietnam. Engineman Second Class McCune drops a projectile into a mortar on the deck of the fast coastal patrol craft (PCF-3) of Coast Division 11 as Boatswain’s Mate First Class Byerly stands by to fire on the Viet Cong unit position. Photographed by F. L. Lawson, 17 July 1967. 428GX-K40159

GMCM Stoner:

The mortar itself is mounted on a very robust tripod and uses clamps to control traverse and elevation angles. Unless fitted with NO FIRE zone mechanical stops, the mortar has 360 degrees of traverse and -30 degrees of depression, and +71.5 degrees of elevation. Its rate of fire is 18 rounds/minute at 45 degrees elevation in DROP FIRE mode and 10 rounds/minute in TRIGGER FIRE mode. Sights for the mortar are attached to the left side of the elevation arc. The weight of the Mk 2 Mod 0 was 593 pounds; the weight increased to 677 pounds in the Mk 2 Mod 1 (with machine gun). The range of the 81mm (direct) was 1,000+ yards; (high angle, indirect) was 3,940 yards. The maximum effective range of the .50 Browning machine gun was 2,000 yards; the maximum range was 7,440 yards.

From the 1966 manual, OP 1743, of the Mark 2 Mod 0:

Post-Vietnam, the Navy’s nascent riverine and littoral capability transitioned to Boat Support Units which later changed their name to become Coastal River Squadrons, then later the Special Boat Squadrons and SBTs, with some Mark 2s remaining in service, especially in reserve outfits, into the mid-1980s.

Likewise, the USCG kept their Mark 2s on stateside cutters– both on small 82- and 95-footers as well as high endurance 255-to-378-foot cutters– into the early 1980s.

USCGC Cape Jellison (WPB-95317) getting some time in off Seward Alaska in the early 1980s with their 81/.50 cal mount

Warship Wednesday Dec. 4, 2024: Danish E-Boat Days

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to 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

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Warship Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024: Danish E-Boat Days

Foto: Tøjhusmuseet

Above we see a great Royal Danish Navy recruiting poster from 1951 by Aage Rasmussen. Reading roughly, “A healthy life. A future – become a naval officer,” it shows a well-dressed lieutenant in the Danish RN style uniform, complete with Marineglas 6×30 binos produced by Carl Zeiss.

You may find the planing torpedo boat– the hull number, P558, makes it Musvaagen— in the poster’s foreground familiar. We’ll get into that.

The Danish TB Saga

Denmark loved fast torpedo boats probably longer than any other naval force in history, fielding no less than 108 of them between 1879 and 2000.

Danish torpedoer Hajen, first of her type in service to the King of Denmark

As we have touched on with a past Warship Wednesday (“A Tough Little Wolf”) which focused on the Great War-era Søridderen and Tumleren classes, the country had 17 such TBs on hand going into 1914.

The green-painted Tumleren class torpedo boat Vindhunden aside the anchored panserskibet coastal defense ship Peder Skram at Østre Mole. Commissioned in 1911, Vindhunden and her class would be retired by 1935. (Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

Danish Tumleren class torpedo boat Vindhunden in Aarhus Harbour between 1919 and 1924, note the cutlass worn, likely by the crew’s bosun. There is just so much I love about this image from the dirty whites and flatcaps to the drying kapok life jackets and the grimy snipe catching a smoke. (Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

During WWI, the country managed to construct 10 further vessels of the 126-foot Springeren class, the last two of which were finished in 1919. This allowed the country, interbellum, to retire elderly boats left over from the late 19th Century.

June 1927. Three Great War-era Springeren-class TBs in Aarhus harbor including Søhunden (Nr.7), Narhvalen (Nr.5), and Havhesten (Nr.6), June 1927 at the Østre Mole. At the time, Søhunden was under the command of HKH Kronprins Frederik, the Danish heir. (Photo: Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

By 1929, six big (195-foot) and well-armed Dragen/Glenten-class torpedo boats began entering service, which gave enough breathing room to the Danish admiralty to finally put the last of their pre-1914 TBs (the six members of the Søridderen and Tumleren classes) to pasture, and downgrade the Springeren-class to fast mine warfare vessels (capable of both laying and sweeping).

Danish Torpedobåden Dragen T1 overhead. Capable ships of 335 tons, the Dragen/Glenten-class torpedo boats carried two deck guns, two bow-mounted 17.7-inch tubes, and 4 or 6 further 17.7-inch tubes on turnstiles.

Danish torpedo practice 1939 Torpedobåd affyrer skud i Aarhus Bugten.

Danish Torpedobåden Dragen (T1). THM-12146

Danish Mandskab, Torpedosektionen Dragen class in background 1937-38 THM-6114

Danish Aarhus Harbour, torpedo boats T1 Dragen, T2 Hvalen, and T3 Laxen are located at the Quay 1939, iced in

Danish torpedo boat T3 Laxen in Aarhus Bay in the autumn of 1939

Aarhus, Denmark, Torpedo boats T2 Hvalen, T5 Høgen, and T4 Glenten, 1939. Note the six chemical smoke cylinders on the stern and twin 75-foot mine rails on each boat.

Then came WWII.

Denmark entered the conflict in 1939 the same way it had in the First World War, as a neutral. To enforce this neutrality on the sea, she had the aforementioned Dragen/Glenten TBs in her fleet– balancing several small gunboats, 10 fast minesweepers (the old Springeren-class TBs, sans torpedoes), four submarines, the training cruiser (artilleriskib) Niels Juel, and the old bathtub battleship (kystforsvarsskib) Peder Skram.

Ordered not to resist when the Germans blitzkrieged through the country in April 1940, and then largely disarmed, the Danish Navy was further humiliated by its government and ordered to “lease” their beautiful Dragen/Glentens to the occupier in February 1941. The Kriegsmarine used them as U-boat support ships and torpedo retrievers, numbered TFA1 through TFA6.

One, TFA3 (ex-Dragen) was lost to a mine, while the other five were in condemned condition by the end of the war.

Wrecked former Danish torpedo boats, the Dragon class, photographed in Flensburg harbor after Donau’s explosion, 14 June 1945. A4= “ex-Glenten”, 5= “ex-Hvalen, 6= “ex-Laxen” THM-6979

Post-war, the Danish Navy, which had committed ritual scuttling in 1943 to escape German capture, only had a single torpedo boat left, Havkatten, a circa 1920 member of the Springeren class had been able to escape to Sweden and returned home in 1945 as the flagship of the Free Danish Brigade’s 133-member flotilla (Den Danske Flotille).

Officially rerated in the 1930s as a minesweeper, Havkatten only had a single 17.7-inch torpedo tube still mounted in her bow– but no torpedoes!

The torpedo boat Havkatten, which escaped to Sweden on 29 August 1943, returns to Copenhagen on 11 May 1945. Her 27-member crew at this point manned two 57mm AAA guns and a 40mm Bofors. FHM22287

Besides Havkatten, the Danish flotilla at VE Day only contained three small 80-foot coastal mine boats (MS 1, MS 7, and MS29), each with a 12-man crew and armed with a 20mm cannon, nine even smaller coast guard launches with 5-man crews, and the 41-foot motor launch Fandango, with the latter types only armed with small caliber machine guns.

Schnellboote Solution!

Looking to get back into the TB business after WWII, the easiest way to pull this off was for the Danes to get reparations in the form of former Kriegsmarine Schnellboote, or E and S-boats in Allied parlance.

The Danes had the hulk of one, S116, on hand already in 1945.

As chronicled by Die Schnellboote Seite, beginning in early 1947, OMGUS, the U.S. occupation government in Germany, authorized the sale of 10 scratch-and-dent German E-boats collected at Bremerhaven for $80,000. With that also came whatever 21-inch torpedoes and parts could be scrounged.

S64 in Kriegsmarine service with the panther emblem of 4. Schnellbootflottille. Post-war, she was the Norwegian Lyn and then the Danish Stormfuglen

Hejren (P566) ex-S117, in Danish green livery.

Copenhagen kept reaching out concerning similar boats and obtained four more from U.S. stores in 1948, and another four from the British.

In 1951, the Danes picked up six E-boats from Norway, where they had been in coastal service.

Ultimately, the Danes would own no less than 22 former German E-boats and eventually get 18 of them working.

The first operational, appropriately dubbed Glenten (T51), formerly the Kriegsmarine’s S306, entered service in July 1947, and those that followed are typically known as the Glenten class in Denmark even though the boats came from several slightly different German classes. Meanwhile, in English-speaking sources, these are often broken down by former German sub-classes: Glenten/T51/S170, Gribben/T52/S38, and Havørnen/T53/S139.

See table:

German Number

German class, builder

Entered Service

Seized By

Norwegian Name

Danish Name

Entered Danish Service

Danish Number

S15

S14 Lürssen

27 February 1937

USN

N/A

(Cannibalized)

(1947)

T46

S115

S109 Schlichting

30 May 1942

UK

N/A

(Cannibalized)

(1947)

 

S116

S109 Schlichting

4 July 1942

Denmark

N/A

(Cannibalized)

(1945)

 

S122

S26 Schlichting

21 February 1943

UK

N/A

(Cannibalized)

(1947)

 

S306

S151 Lürssen

Incomplete

USN

N/A

Glenten

07/31/1947

P551 (T51)

S107

S26 Schlichting

6 July 1941

USN

N/A

Gribben

04/15/1948

P552 (T52)

S216

S151 Lürssen

27 December 1944

USN

N/A

Havoarnen

11/19/1948

P553 (T53)

S133

S26 Schlichting 

31 December 1943

USN

N/A

Hærfuglen

03/21/1949

P554 (T54)

S206

S151 Lürssen

31 August 1944

 

USN

N/A

Hoegen

03/28/1949

P555 (T55)

S127

S26 Schlichting 

10 July 1943

USN

N/A

Isfuglen

07/08/1949

P556 (T56)

S305

S301 Lürssen

29 March 1945

USN

N/A

Jagtfalken

07/08/1949

P557 (T57)

S79

S26 Lürssen

27 June 1942

Norway

N/A

Musvaagen

07/15/1950

P558 (T58)

S196

S171

Lürssen

3 July 1944

UK

N/A

Raagen

11/01/1949

P559 (T59)

S97

S26 Lürssen

25 March 1943

USN

N/A

Ravnen

01/10/1953

P560 (T60)

S207

S171

Lürssen

19 September 1944

UK

N/A

Skaden

10/07/1950

P561 (T61)

S64

S26 Lürssen

2 November 1941

USN

Lyn (1947)

Stormfuglen

10/08/1953

P562

S303

S301 Lürssen

24 February 1945

USN

E2, Brann

Taarnfalken

05/12/1952

P563

S85

S26 Lürssen

7 December 1942

USN

Storm

Tranen

11/03/1955

P564

S302

S301 Lürssen

12 February 1945

USN

E1, Blink

Falken

02/07/1953

P565

S117

S109 Schlichting

8 August 1942

USN

B97, Tross

Hejren

01/05/1956

P566

S195

S171

Lürssen

10 July 1944

USN

E3, Kjekk

Lommen

04/21/1955

P567

S68

S26 Lürssen

1 July 1942

 

USN

N/A

Viben

11/03/1955

P568 (T62)

By late 1954, the fleet reached its zenith, with 15 former German E-boats in active service, a full decade after WWII ended.

Danish Glenten class Schnellbooten. Note the boat to the right has been retrofitted with a U.S. 40mm L60. THM-24118

Havørnen (P-553, ex-S216), Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. THM-24131

Jagtfalken (P-557, ex-S79) Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. THM-24132

Musvaagen (P-558, ex-S79) first in a nest of Danish Glentenklassen E-boats.THM-24137

Same as above, with Musvaagen’s name plainly visible on the deck house. Note the forward 20mm cannon mounts and starboard torpedo tube hatch.THM-24145

Isfuglen (P-556) outboard of a group of Danish Glentenklassen S-boats. THM-24129

As acquired by the Danes, most of these boats had two 21-inch forward torpedo tubes- the first time the Danish Navy went with such large fish– with two torps loaded and room for a reload, giving them the capability to carry four torps. War-surplus German G7 straight runners were used.

Torpedo fired by Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. THM-24148

Deck-mounted armament at first typically consisted of anywhere from two to five 20mm/65 Flak C30/C38s. The guns were classified as the Mk M/39 LvSa in Danish service. The boats also had some capability to run a few mines and/or depth charges on stern racks.

2 cm Flugabwehrkanone 38 Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. Note the American M1 helmets. THM-24157

2 cm Flugabwehrkanone 38 Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote E-boat S-boat THM-24156

2 cm Flugabwehrkanone 38 Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. THM-24150

With all the E-boats running 114 feet in length on similar hulls, the force was all powered by a trio of Daimler-Benz diesels, albeit in three different variants across the classes. Even the slower models could still touch 38 knots at a full clip, at least for the length of a couple of attack runs, while the zestier of the herd could log 45. Their range was typically 700 miles, more than enough to cover the narrow Kattegat and Skagerrak straits. 

One of three 3,000 hp Daimler-Benz MB518 diesels on a Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. Other models included 2,500 hp MB511s or 2,000 hp MB501s. THM-24154

By 1951, with NATO standardization, the Danish E-boats started landing their German-made flak guns in favor of, first, a single 40mm/60 Mk M/36 Bofors aft, and then by late 1955 an improved new Swedish-made 40mm/70 Bofors SAK 315 single (M/48 LvSa in Danish service) as well a U.S. supplied 20 mm/70 Mark 7 Oerlikon (Mk M/42 LvSa) forward.

40mm Bofors L60 on Danish Glenten class Schnellboote. THM-24121

March 1957. 40mm Bofors L70. Danish boats mounted these on the stern and had a 20mm single forward in the “zero gravity” area near the bow. Note the U.S. M1 helmets. Aarhus Archive. 

Likewise, they received a small surface search radar and NATO pennant numbers, transitioning from the Danish T series (e.g. T54) to the NATO P series (e.g. P554).

In Danish service, these craft typically had 22 member crews including two officers, two petty officers, and 18 ratings.

Gangway guard for a Danish Glentenklassen Schnellboote. Note the M1 Garand rifle (adopted as the M/50 GarandGevær). THM-24141

In Danish service, boats were originally in a grey/green livery but the country did experiment with a flash white scheme as well.

4 September 1953. The MTB tender HMDS Hjælperen (A563) in Aarhus Harbor together with six motor torpedo boats, all former S-boats. Note that four are painted flash white and two are grey/green. Note the forward mounts have been landed (Photo: Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

Glenten (P551, ex S306) with the experimental flash white scheme

Our subjects were augmented in service by 10 brand-new Danish-built Flyvefisken and Falken-class vessels, which were constructed at Copenhagen based on a scaled-up 118-foot version of the German design they had been working with since 1945.

12 August 1959, Danish torpedo boats motortorpedobåde in the harbor off Vejerboden. Five Danish motor torpedo boats: Sværdfisken (P505), Flyvefisken (P500), Glenten (P551), and Falken (P565). The boats are part of a large NATO squadron of 69 ships that docked in Aarhus Harbour. Of note, Sværdfisken and Flyvefisken, despite their lower pennant numbers and appearance, are actually brand-new TBs commissioned in 1955, built at Orlogsværftets, København as an ode to the German E-boats. Note their stern 40mm L70s and surface search radar fits. (Photo: Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

The first to be decommissioned by the Danes, Hærfuglen (ex-S133), Isfuglen (ex-S127), and Musvaagen (ex-S79) were all early boats with smaller diesels and were pulled from service in November 1954. Speed was everything with these boats, after all.

By 1960, the Danes still had 11 left in service. Via the 1960-61 Janes:

However, all things fast eventually run out of time, and by September 1965, the last, Viben (ex-S68), was withdrawn, capping some 20 years of E-boat fun under the Dannebrog.

November 1957 Motortorpedobåde entering Aarhus (Base). (Photo: Aarhus Stadsarkiv)

Epilogue

None of the Danish-operated E-boats survive. 

Supplemented by the newer Flyvefisken and Falken-class near-sisters, they were replaced by a half-dozen of the Soloven (British Vosper Brave-Ferocity type). Short boats at just 98 feet, they carried four torpedo tubes and could reach a paint-peeling 50 knots.

Danish Soloven (Sea Lion) Class Vosper Brave SØHUNDEN (P514).

Finally, in 1974 the Danish Navy introduced their penultimate torpedo boat, the 10 ships of the Willemoes class. Sleek 139-footers running on Rolls-Royce Proteus gas turbines, they could make 40 knots and carry a combination of Harpoon AShW missiles, up to six torpedo tubes for modern wire-guided torpedoes, and a 76mm OTO Melera.

Danish Willemoes klassen torpedo missile boats

The Willemoes would remain in service until 2000.

The end of an era.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Kangaroo in the Pouch

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How about this great shot some 80 years ago this week showing the stern of the destroyer USS Claxton (DD-571), at left, a bow-on view of the heavy cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70), center, and another tin can stern, of USS Killen (DD-593), right, undergoing battle damage repairs in the forward deployed 927-foot floating drydock ABSD-2 at Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands, 2 December 1944.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-304088

All of the above would go on to have a rich, long life.

The famous “Kan-do-Kangaroo,” Canberra, earned seven battle stars for her WWII service, became the country’s second guided-missile cruiser (CAG-2) in the 1950s, carried the Unknown Serviceman of World War II home, walked the line during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and blistered her guns off Vietnam and only fading to the scrappers in 1978.

Killen, a Fletcher-class destroyer commissioned in May 1944, got in a torpedo against the Japanese battleship Yamashiro at Surigao Strait, and, despite being mothballed in 1946, would serve, unmanned, as a ghost ship for atom bomb and high explosive tests for another 15 years. She was expended as a target off Vieques in 1963.

ABSD-2, consisting of ten sections, continues to have at least three of them in use at Pearl Harbor, one of WWII’s forgotten yeoman vessels.

As for the hard-fighting Claxton, a sister of Killen, she earned a Presidential Unit Citation with DESRON 23 at Rendova, fought in tough surface engagements at Augusta Bay, Cape St. George, and the Surigao Strait; bombarded Japanese positions just yards off the beach in the Philippines, and fought off a dozen-strong kamikaze swarm while performing hazardous radar picket duty off Okinawa. Ending the war with eight battle stars along with her PUC, in 1959, she was transferred to the West German Navy with whom she served as Zerstörer 4 (D 178).

Claxton as Zerstörer Z-4. Ironically, in March 1943 while on her shakedowns, the Texas-built Claxton patrolled briefly in Casco Bay, Maine, awaiting the possible sortie of German battleship Tirpitz from Norwegian waters.

Claxton served with the Germans until 1981, then was passed on to the Greek (Hellenic) Navy for use as a spares ship for that country’s fleet of seven second-hand Fletchers.

Components of Claxton are no doubt aboard ex-USS Charrette (DD-581)/Velos (D16) which, still ceremonially active, has been preserved as a museum in Thessaloniki.

Hoosier Houseboat

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80 years ago this week, a fantastic series of photos of the late South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB 58) conducting a high-speed turn in Puget Sound, November 30, 1944.

BuShips photos via Navsource and the Indiana State Library collection.

How about this great shot showing off her 9 16″/45s, 20 5″/38s, 28 40mm/60 Bofors, and 35 20mm/80 Oerlikons.

Indiana, commissioned on 30 April 1942, had spent two years forward deployed in the Western Pacific, earning her stripes, before arriving at the Navy Yard at Bremerton on 23 October for a refit. She would remain there into early December before arriving at Pearl Harbor on New Year’s 1945. By 24 January 1945, her guns were ringing out against Iwo Jima and she would spend the rest of the war operational.

She traveled 180,000 nm during her war service, conducting six shore bombardment campaigns, bagging 15 Japanese planes, and earning nine battle stars in the process.

Decommissioned on 11 September 1947, she languished in mothballs for 15 years until stricken from the NVR and sold in 1963 for her value in scrap metal.

Her home state has an extensive collection of her relics at the War Memorial Museum in Indianapolis.

(Photo: Chris Eger)

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024: Ron Three

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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

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024: Ron Three

French Navy image

Above we see the white-hulled U.S. Coast Guard Reliance-class cutter Valiant (WMEC 621), steaming alongside the French Navy’s surveillance frigate FS Ventose (F733) on 29 Sept. 2024, while underway in the Windward Passage. Valiant, built in the 1960s, originally carried a 3″/50 DP gun of the same sort they used to put on submarines in WWII, but since the 1990s has only carried a 25mm chain gun forward. Ventose, which is only marginally larger than the cutter, totes a 3.9″/55 DP gun in a CADAM turret recycled from the old carrier Clemenceau.

The French, in their design concept behind Ventose and her sisters, intended them for solo overseas constabulary service, roughly akin to what the USCG’s large cutters have done for over a century Sadly, the Coast Guard long ago landed their big guns and today just have 57mm pop guns on even their largest cutters.

It wasn’t always like that.

Coast Guard Squadron Three

Immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964, the Navy got heavily involved in Southeast Asia. One rub of the situation was that road-poor Vietnam had a river and stream-dotted 12,000-mile coastline and a myriad of some 60,000 small craft in its littoral. That meant the only way you could halt and screen this shallow-water maritime traffic was by getting your own shallow-water assets and the saga of the “Brown Water Navy” and Operation Market Time was born.

At first, the Navy tried to grow its own force from local vessels, the Junk Force, augmented by old destroyers, mine warfare vessels, and some 82-foot Coast Guard patrol boats, the latter the start of a decade-long multifaceted involvement by the Guard in Vietnam.

By August 1965, TF 115 comprised eight large U.S. Navy vessels (primarily DERs augmented by MSOs and MSCs), 11 Coast Guard WPBs, 15 VNN Sea Force ships, and 215 junks. These were soon augmented by hundreds of the new 50-foot PCFs (Swiftboats), and the Navy sent more and more old destroyers and escorts into the near-shore zone for interdiction and naval gunfire support.

ADM Roy Johnson, Commander Pacific Fleet, forced in March 1967 to reassign Market Time DERs to a new interdiction campaign, known as Operation Sea Dragon, against lines of communication in North Vietnam, requested five Coast Guard high endurance cutters (WHECs) to replace the DERs in the Market Time barrier. Thus was born Commander, Task Unit (CTU) 70.8.6 (Coast Guard Squadron Three).

The Ships

In early 1967, the Coast Guard had 37 of what they termed at the time “high endurance cutters,” larger ocean-going vessels that were expected to be pressed into service as destroyer escorts/patrol frigates should WWIII start.

Between 4 May 1967 and 31 January 1972, no less than 31 HECs completed lengthy deployments to Vietnam, one of them twice. These weren’t short cruises. All were at least six months long while many were well past that to nine or ten months. Keep in mind this was while the agency was still part of the civilian U.S. Transportation Department (they have been part of Homeland Security since 2003) and not transferred wholesale to the Navy as in WWI and WWII.

These 31 ships included six of six 327-foot Treasury-class cutters that had seen convoy escort and amphibious landing operations in WWII; nine of 18 smaller and almost as well-traveled 311-foot Casco-class cutters (former WWII Navy Barnegat-class small seaplane tenders); nine of 13 stubby 255-foot Owasco-class cutters which entered service just after WWII, and the seven of nine brand-new 378-foot Hamilton-class cutters which included such modern features as helicopter hangars and gas turbine powerplants.

Nine of the 18 311-foot Casco class cutters would serve in CGRON3 off Vietnam– and two of them would transfer to the RVNN at the end of their U.S. service (listing via the 1960 ed of Janes)

A big reason these were sent to Vietnam was that they had a relatively shallow draft (12.5 feet on the 311s and 327s, 17 on the 255s, and 15 on the 378s), allowing them to operate close to shore, surface search radar (SPS-23, augmented by SPS-29 air search), had a decent commo suite that allowed interfacing with Big Navy C4I assets, had crews familiar with sometimes sketchy coastwise interdiction in a littoral, and, most importantly, all carried a simple and easily supportable Mark 12 DP 5-inch gun (in enclosed Mk 30 single mountings with local Mk. 26 Fire Control) and knew how to use it.

The Deployments

In all, the 31 cutters sent to Vietnam steamed 1,292,094 combined miles on station, spending some 62.6 percent of their time underway conducting 205 Market Time patrols.

Five Casco class Barnegat class cutters 311 USCG Squadron Three, probably taken in Subic Bay on the way to Vietnam in 1967

CGRON3 headed to Vietnam in a column from Subic Bay

This was enabled by 1,153 underway replenishments and a smaller number of vertical replenishments.

At sea off Vietnam. Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart approaching a Mispillion class replenishment oiler USS Passumpsic (AO-107) as it is tanking a Coast Guard 311-foot HEC, likely CGC Pontchartrain. AWM Photo P01904.005 by Peter Michael Oleson.

The Coast Guard sent eight deployments of HECs to support CGRON3 with the first five each comprised of five high-endurance cutters. The sixth deployment included three high-endurance cutters, with two of the three turned over to the Vietnamese Navy at the end of the tour. The seventh and eighth deployments each consisted of just two cutters.

First Deployment

USCGC Barataria (WHEC 381) 4 May 67 — 25 Dec 67 (Casco)
USCGC Half Moon (WHEC 378) 4 May 67 — 29 Dec 67 (Casco)
USCGC Yakutat (WHEC 380) 4 May 67 — 1 Jan 68 (Casco)
USCGC Gresham (WHEC 387) 4 May 67 — 28 Jan 68 (Casco)
USCGC Bering Strait (WHEC 382) 4 May 67 — 18 Feb 68 (Casco)

Naval Base Subic Bay – USCG Squadron 3, first deployment, showing five freshly-painted Casco-class cutters alongside the repair ship USS Jason (AR-8) in late April before heading to Vietnam. Note this is before the Coast Guard adopting their now famous bow “racing stripe” 221206-G-G0000-120

A rusty and hard-serving USCGC Barataria (WHEC 381) off Vietnam in late 1967 showed a less than gleaming appearance. Note she doesn’t have a racing stripe yet and her 26-foot Monomoy is away. 230807-G-M0101-2004

From Barataria’s history: 

Barataria set a fast pace of effectiveness during her deployment in Vietnam waters. Underway 83 percent of the time, the cutter cruised over 67,000 miles without a major mechanical or electrical failure. Keeping a close watch on all moving craft in her surveillance area, Barataria detected, inspected, or boarded nearly 1,000 steel-hulled vessels traversing her area, any one of which could have been a trawler trying to sneak supplies to the enemy. Barataria was called upon many times to use her main battery against shore-based enemy troops who were aggressively engaged with Allied forces. Representative of the high state of readiness and training of the cutter’s men is the fact that U.S. Army spotter planes reported all rounds on target, never once falling out of the target area. On one mission three direct hits were scored on point targets that had been spotted by aircraft. She returned to the US on 12 January 1968 and was reassigned to San Francisco.

Second Deployment

USCGC Androscoggin (WHEC 68) 4 Dec 67 — 4 Aug 68 (Owasco)
USCGC Duane (WHEC 33) 4 Dec 67 — 28 Jul 68 (Treasury)
USCGC Campbell (WHEC 32) 14 Dec 67 — 12 Aug 68 (Treasury)
USCGC Minnetonka (WHEC 67) 5 Jan 68 — 29 Sep 68 (Owasco)
USCGC Winona (WHEC 65) 25 Jan 68 — 17 Oct 68 (Owasco)

255-foot Owasco class USCGC Minnetonka (WHEC 67), Vietnam

Of the above, Winona noted in her history that:

She steamed 50,727 miles, spent 203 days at sea, treated 437 Vietnamese, sunk one enemy trawler, destroyed 50 sampans and damaged 44 more, destroyed 137 structures and damaged 254, destroyed 39 bunkers and damaged 27, destroyed two bridges and damaged another, destroyed 3 gun positions and killed 128 enemy personnel, expending a total of 3,291 five-inch shells.

All in a day’s work.

Third Deployment

USCGC Bibb (WHEC 31) 4 Jul 68 — 28 Feb 69 (Treasury)
USCGC Ingham (WHEC 35) 16 Jul 68 — 3 Apr 69 (Treasury)
USCGC Owasco (WHEC 39) 23 Jul 68 — 21 Mar 69 (Owasco)
USCGC Wachusett (WHEC 44) 10 Sep — 1 Jun 69 (Owasco)
USCGC Winnebago (WHEC 40) 20 Sep 68 — 19 Jul 69 (Owasco)

USCGC Wachusett (WHEC-44) in the Vietnam era

“W O W . . . . . .The initials of these three high endurance cutters spell out that expression of surprise as they nest alongside Riviera Pier at the U.S. Naval Base, Subic Bay, R.P. The three, Winnebago, Owasco, and Winona, along with a fourth unit of Coast Guard Squadron Three, the Bibb, was in Subic Bay for inchop, outchop, and upkeep, marking the first time that this many ships of the five-cutter squadron had visited there since it was formed 18 months ago. The squadron is a part of the Seventh Fleet’s Cruiser Destroyer Group and the cutters serve on the Coastal Surveillance Force’s Operation Market Time in Vietnam.” COMCOGARDRONTHREE PHOTO NO. 101068-01; 18 October 1968; Dale Cross, JOC, USCG, photographer

Owasco’s history notes that on her Vietnam deployment:

By the end of her tour overseas, she had supplied logistical support to 86 Navy Swift boats and 47 Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats. She had detected 2,596 junks and conducted 178 “actual boardings and 2,341 inspections,” exceeding the “results of any Squadron Three cutter thus far.” She conducted 17 Naval Gunfire Support Missions, firing 1,330 rounds of 5-inch ammunition.” She was officially credited with killing four enemy soldiers, destroying 18 bunkers, and damaging 10, destroying 11 “military structures” and damaging 17, destroying 550 meters of “Enemy Supply Trails,” destroying 1 sampan, 1 loading pier, and interdicting 3 “Enemy Troop Movements.” She carried out 49 underway replenishments while in theatre and her medical personnel carried out 7 medical and civil action programs (MEDCAP), treating 432 Vietnamese civilians.

Fourth Deployment

USCGC Spencer (WHEC 36) 11 Feb 69 — 30 Sep 69 (Treasury)
USCGC Mendota (WHEC 69) 28 Feb 69 — 3 Nov 69 (Owasco)
USCGC Sebago (WHEC 42) 2 Mar 69 — 16 Nov 69 (Owasco)
USCGC Taney (WHEC 37) 14 May 69 — 31 Jan 70 (Treasury)
USCGC Klamath (WHEC 66) 7 Jul 69 — 3 Apr 70 (Owasco)

Both Taney and Spencer had already seen much WWII service, with the former being at Pearl Harbor and the latter a bona fide U-boat slayer. Here, on April 17, 1943, USCGC Spencer sinks U-327. National Archives Identifier: 205574168 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/205574168

Fifth Deployment

USCGC Hamilton (WHEC 715) 1 Nov 69 — 25 May 70 (Hamilton)
USCGC Dallas (WHEC 716) 3 Nov 69 — 19 Jun 70 (Hamilton)
USCGC Chase (WHEC 718) 6 Dec 69 — 28 May 70 (Hamilton)
USCGC Mellon (WHEC 717) 31 Mar 70 — 2 Jul 70 (Hamilton)
USCGC Pontchartrain (WHEC 70) 2 Apr 1970 — 25 Oct 1970 (Owasco)

Sixth Deployment

USCGC Sherman (WHEC 720) 22 Apr 70 — 25 Dec 70 (Hamilton)
USCGC Bering Strait (WHEC 382) 17 May 70 — 31 Dec 70 (Casco)
USCGC Yakutat (WHEC 380) 17 May 70 — 31 Dec 70 (Casco)

Seventh Deployment

USCGC Rush (WHEC 723) 28 Oct 70 — 15 Jul 71 (Hamilton)
USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC 722) 6 Dec 70 — 31 Jul 71 (Hamilton)

Eight Deployment

USCGC Castle Rock (WHEC 383) 9 Jul 71 — 21 Dec 71 (Casco)
USCGC Cook Inlet (WHEC 384) 2 Jul 71 — 21 Dec 71 (Casco)

Interdiction

The primary reason for these big cutters to be in Vietnamese waters was to sanitize them by combing out vessel traffic smuggling contraband, primarily small arms and munitions, to Viet Cong guerillas in the south. They did this in spades, closing with some 69,517 vessels in the five years that CGRON3 was part of Market Time. Of these, no less than 50,000 were inspected alongside, while 1,094 were boarded and searched.

At Sea – USCG Squadron 3, Vietnam. Note the 26-foot Mark V Motor Surf Boat, YAK2, likely from CGC Yakutat, dating the photo to 1970. The nine-man crew includes at least two M16s and five flak jackets, hinting at a five-man boarding team. 221206-G-G0000-119

CGC Winona on Market Time Patrol by JOC Dale E. Cross, USCG. Note the M16-armed Coastie on the lookout to the right while the flak-vest-equipped junior officer goes over a mariner’s papers. 231220-G-G0000-107

CGC Winona on Market Time Patrol by JOC Dale E. Cross, May 16, 1968. Release No. 36-68 231220-G-G0000-106

New armaments were fitted to assist with this type of seagoing asymmetric warfare. Cutters typically picked up at least two (later cutters carried as many as six) .50 caliber air-cooled M2 Brownings on pintel mounts.

Also new were pintel-mounted 81mm mortars which could be used either for launching illumination parachute rounds, in counter-ship operations, or in suppressing fire near-shore (out to 4,500 yards).

At Sea – USCG in Vietnam – Market Time – Squadron Three with a detainee on deck, one of at least 128 detained and handed over to local ARVN assets. Note the loaded M2 .50 cal to the left and the sidearm-equipped CPO on watch. 221206-G-G0000-121

CGC Klamath on Market Time, showing off her new 50 cal and mortar emplacement

The 81mm mortar was mounted on either side of the No. 1 (5-inch) mount

311-foot Casco (Barnegat) class cutter Half Moon firing the 5″/38 on NGFS in Vietnam. Note the two mortars on the base of the superstructure between the ship’s Hedgehog ASW device

Campbell’s mortar team

Campbell’s mortar team “hanging an 81” ashore

The circa early 1960s small arms lockers for HECs included 40 M1 rifles, five M1 carbines, 17 .45 caliber M1911s, two Thompson SMGs, and two M1919 .30-caliber LMGs. With Vietnam on the schedule, this was updated.

Clark’s Commandos: CGC Klamath’s Market Time boarding team. Note the M16s, flak vests, .45s, and shotguns

Campbell’s boarding team, casual in flak vests and cut-off dungaree shorts, complete with M16s

From Shots that Hit, a Study of USCG Marksmanship, 1790-1985 by William Wells:

The cutters exchanged their M1 rifles and Thompson SMGs for the M16 rifle. However, many Coast Guardsmen were exceptionally adept at procuring arms of any nature. The use of revolvers in many calibers and models was common, as were communist weapons of which the AK-47 was the favorite. In addition to the M16, the M79 grenade launcher and the M60 machine gun were added. As far as weapons on board the cutters, it was an anything-goes allowance.

Naval Gunfire Support

The large cutters of CGRON3 conducted no less than 1,368 combined NGFS missions, firing a staggering 77,036 5-inch shells ashore. Keep in mind that most of these cutters only carried about 300 rounds in their magazines, so you can look at that amount of ordnance expended being something like 250 ship-loads.

Minnetonka (WHEC-67) providing fire support during the Vietnam War. Note the loose uniform of the day

Minnetonka’s 5-inch “Iron Hoss” blistered after all-night fires

USCGC Wachusett (WHEC-44) NGFS Vietnam

CGC Waschusett At Sea with USCG Vietnam Squadron 3, logging gunfire missions, with the spades due to “digging dirt.” 221206-G-G0000-118

USCGC Cook Inlet conducts a fire support mission off the coast of Vietnam, in 1971

Color photograph of Cutter Duane performing gunfire support mission with its forward 5-inch gun off the coast of Vietnam. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

PONTCHARTRAIN NGFS Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

5/”38 from USCG Hamilton-class cutter providing NGFS off Vietnam

Powder and shell consumption was so high that some cutters would have to underway replenish or VERTREP 2-3 times a week while doing gun ops.

“Crewmen cart high explosive projectiles across the deck of the 311-foot U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Half Moon for the ship’s five-inch gun to hurl at a Viet Cong emplacement near a U.S. Special Forces Camp in the Song on Doc area, South Vietnam.” Coast Guard Photo Rel. No. 6215; 12/67;

PONTCHARTRAIN receiving 5-inch powder cases UNREP Vietnam 1970 Photo by LeRoy Reinburg

As described by John Darrell Sherwood in his War in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam:

To the casual observer, the all-white hulls of Market Time’s high-endurance cutters looked like angels of mercy, but the 5-inch 38-caliber gun mounts on these ships could let loose significant destructive power upon an unsuspecting enemy up to nine miles away. Nine men worked in the cramped confines of these turrets, enduring extreme heat and the ever-present smell of gun grease and cordite, to place ordnance on targets.

In built-up areas like Song On Doc, where the Viet Cong often sheltered in structures, the methodology for dislodging defenders was to set the initial rounds to burst in the air to kill anyone exposed outdoors. Assuming troops will then run for bunkers and slit trenches soon after a bombardment begins, the next shots would be set to hit the ground and explode. Gunners would then walk the rounds across a target area like a checkerboard so as to cover as much of the kill zone as possible. White phosphorus represented the grand finale. Since many Vietnamese structures were made of bamboo, it did not take many well-placed WP rounds to transform a small village or small settlement into smoldering ashes. Shards of white phosphorus extending outwards from an airburst shot literally created a rain of fire, igniting everything in a wide dispersal area.

Commander Herbert J. Lynch, who commanded Winona (WHEC-65) in early 1968, claims it was “nothing to fire 50 rounds of shoreside support. We did so much shooting we had to re-barrell the gun.”

The shallow draft of the cutters was key.

Again, Sherwood:

Although many of these rounds consisted of unspotted harassment and interdiction missions that did little more than tear up ground and knock down palm trees, when Coast Guard vessels were allowed to fire at actual targets, the results could be devastating. For instance, on 27 August, Half Moon conducted a gunfire mission against Viet Cong troops operating on the Ca Mau Peninsula in An Xuyen Province. Subsequent intelligence reports stated that 5-inch fire destroyed three enemy buildings and killed 11 Viet Cong.

On 26 September 1967, Yakutat (WHEC-380) destroyed or damaged 27 fortified enemy positions, four sampans, and an enemy canal blockade in a single gunfire support mission off the coast of An Xuyen Province.

The high endurance cutters, with their relatively shallow 22-foot draft, were the only ships with 5-inch guns capable of operating in the shallow waters of An Xuyen Province and much of the rest of the IV Corps area.

“Sometimes we would go into areas with only one or two feet clearance between the hull and sea floor,” recalled Captain Robert W. Durfey, who commanded Rush (WHEC-723) in 1970, but “fortunately the bottom was mostly mud.”

Another anecdote from the USCG Historian’s office:

The Cutter Rush, working with an Australian destroyer, brought its guns to the aid of a small Special Forces camp in the village of Song Ong Doc. The village, located in the middle of Viet Cong-held territory, was being overrun. Gunfire from the two ships drove off the attackers and left 64 Viet Cong dead.

The results, as reported back by ground and air observers, included 2,612 structures destroyed, another 2,676 damaged, and body counts (Vietnam was big on body counts) including 529 enemy KIA and 243 enemy WIA.

Surface engagements

When it came to fighting often heavily-armed enemy cargo trawlers, several pitched sea fights, typically at night, are all but lost to history.

One such fight in March 1968, as told by Sherwood:

The Coast Guard cutter Androscoggin (WHEC-68) made radar contact with the infiltrator at 2047 local time and began maintaining covert surveillance. Early in the morning of 1 March, the trawler crossed into the 12-mile contiguous zone 22 miles from Cape Batangan, and Androscoggin soon challenged it by firing an illumination round. The trawler responded with machine gun fire, and Androscoggin returned fire with her 5-inch 38-caliber guns, hitting the trawler in the starboard quarter. Army helicopter gunships, Point Welcome, Point Grey, and PCFs -18 and -20 joined the attack as the trawler headed toward the beach. At 0210, the trawler beached itself and blew itself up in two attempts. During the battle, machine-gun rounds hit Androscoggin and other units but caused no casualties. Salvage crews later recovered a variety of military cargo from the scene, including 600 rifles, 41 submachine guns, and 11 light machine guns along with ammunition. Of the North Vietnamese crew, all that was recovered was a head and a full set of teeth.

Another fight on the same night saw Winona close to within 550 yards of an armed trawler that lit up the cutter with a mix of .50 caliber and .30 caliber machine guns, hitting the little 255-foot cutter at least 13 times and wounding three of her crew. Once Winona got her 5-incher into play, however, the trawler “disintegrated” with the entire fight lasting just two minutes.

From her history:

“We shadowed the trawler for six long hours into the night before it finally turned for the beach, our cue to intercept. Closing to 700 yards we illuminated and challenged them to stop when a running gun battle ensued. The effect in the night outfourthed the 4th of July. .50 cal. tracers, fiery red in the black, streaked both ways, punctuated by 5″ gun flashes, white with the intensity of burning magnesium. The ricochets whined off into the distance, or metal piercing rounds thwacked through steel. For seven minutes we fought until a 5” round found home at the base of the trawler’s deckhouse, and the night was day, and our ship rocked from the explosion that rained debris on our decks. For meritorious achievement that night, Captain Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star. Lt. Commander [J.A.] Atkinson, conning officer, Lt. [M.J.] Bujarski, gunnery officer, and BM3 “Audie” Slawson, director operator were awarded Navy Accommodation Medals. All four were authorized a Combat “V”.”

There were no enemy survivors. Enemy fire pierced Winona’s hull and deckhouse six times and also left several dents but she sustained no personnel casualties.

Capt. Paul Lutz describing the battle between the cutter Sherman and the large armed trawler SL3 at the mouth of the Mekong on the night of 21 November 1970:

“Sherman sinks armed enemy vessel, SL3, at Mekong River mouth, 21 November 1970” by John Wilinski

After the first round in direct fire with point detonating rounds, I saw an explosion and a bright illumination of the enemy vessel. I knew that prior enemy vessels had usually destroyed themselves when caught by allied forces and accordingly I thought it must be a self-destruct explosion. However, as our succeeding rounds showed as they hit there was the same marked explosion and a vivid illumination of the enemy vessel. Sherman was firing her forward 5″ 38 caliber gun at a maximum rate of fire (as I remember 18 rounds/minute) and every round hit and brilliantly illuminated the enemy. The rhythmic hit, hit, hit, etc. were synchronized with the firing of Sherman’s 5-inch gun and were awesome to observe. After about 8 to 10 rounds (and hits), taking about one half a minute the enemy ship was stopped and brightly burning.

Navy divers later found the trawler full of .60 caliber machine guns and recoilless rifles along “with enough ammunition and weapons to arm a division.”

Motherships

Operating between two and 20 miles offshore, these big cutters were often the closest thing to “The Fleet” that was available to the truly small boats that were running missions inshore.

They proved a home away from home for the growing fleet of CGRON1’s 82-foot patrol boats, of which ultimately 26 were deployed to Vietnam.

Point class cutter refueling from USCGC Dallas in Vietnam

Point class refueling from USCGC Dallas in Vietnam.

USCGC Point Lomas (WPB-82321) alongside the 327-foot USCGC Duane WHEC 33 1968 Vietnam

They also proved of vital support to Navy PCFs, with the small 50-foot Swiftboats typically having to swap out crews every 24 hours to remain on station. This meant lots of hot meals provided for these Brown Water sailors in the cutters’ mess, cold seawater showers, and a place to drop off mail and grab an (often warm) bunk. Then of course the boats would top off their fuel and water, and grab some snacks and ammo as a parting gift before motoring off with a rotated crew.

CGC Bibb in Vietnamese waters with a six-pack of nursing Swiftboats 200227-G-G0000-1003

The cutters also served as a floating hospital, with the ship’s corpsmen and public health service doctors ready to do what they could.

Wounded Swiftboat personnel being transferred to USCGC Campbell

As told by Mendota, who was only a 255-footer herself, a good 30 feet smaller than any cramped destroyer escort fielded in WWII!:

Mendota was not only home to the 160 men who were permanently assigned as her crew. She also served as a mother ship to U.S. Navy Swift boats and their crews, and to a lesser degree the Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats, which operated in the inner barrier closer to shore. Mendota serviced the 82-footers 40 times during her stay while the Swift boats received logistic support daily, and the crews alternated being on board Mendota every other day. The medical staff also aided 51 men who had been wounded in action.

In all, CGRON3 logged 1,516 small craft replenishments over its five-year history.

Medcaps

As part of the “winning hearts and minds” concept, these big cutters were also active in humanitarian initiatives during lulls in combat. Ongoing Medical Civil Action Program, or MEDCAP, services saw the cutters land their medical personnel ashore to provide public health aid to locals.

This is well-told by Chief Hospital Corpsman Joseph “Doc” White, who served on CGC Bering Strait in 1970 and had to race ashore to respond to an attack on Song Ong Doc village.

Chief Joe White providing medical care to local Vietnamese and their children during a visit to a village in South Vietnam. (Via Mrs. Misa White, USCG photo 201218-G-G0000-1003)

“Doc” White providing medical care to wounded Vietnamese villagers. (Via Mrs. Misa White, USCG photo 201218-G-G0000-1005)

Besides the MEDCAPs, the cutter’s crews were also involved in assorted Civic Action Projects that ranged from installing playground equipment at a village school to passing the hat for enough donations for a refrigerator for the Saigon School for Blind Girls.

As detailed by Sebago’s history:

She was assigned to Coast Guard Squadron Three, Vietnam, serving in theatre from 2 March to 16 November 1969, while under the command of CDR Dudley C. Goodwin, USCG. She was assigned to support Operation Market Time, including the interdiction of enemy supplies heading south by water and naval gunfire support [NGS] of units ashore. By July 1968, she had conducted 12 NGS missions, destroying 31 structures, 15 bunkers, 2 sampans, and 3 enemy “huts.”

Combat duties were not all the cutter did. The Sebago’s medical staff, including the cutter’s doctor, Public Health Service LT Lewis J. Wyatt, conducted humanitarian missions in Vietnam, treating over 400 villagers “for a variety of ills.” The crew visited the village of Co Luy, 80 miles south of Da Nang, and built an 18-foot extension to a waterfront pier for the villagers. She also served as a supply ship for Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats serving in Vietnamese coastal waters.

This from sistership Mendota:

The crew of Mendota also participated in humanitarian missions while serving in Vietnam. These missions were concentrated on the village of Song Ong Doc, on the Gulf of Thailand. The medical team conducted MEDCAPS (Medical Care of the Civilian Population), treating over 800 Vietnamese for every variety of medical malady during 14 visits to the village. The crew also helped rebuild a small dispensary. In addition, assistance was rendered to Vietnamese and Thai fishermen who were injured while fishing. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were also treated by the medical personnel.

Being the Coast Guard, the big cutters took a break from walking their Market Time beat to respond to numerous calls for assistance from mariners in distress.

This included Bibb responding to the Thai M/V Daktachi and her shop crafting her a new drive shaft for her broken fuel pump, Campbell aiding the Filipino vessel Carmelita which had a broken propeller shaft and was drifting in the San Bernadino Strait, Morgenthau rescuing 23 survivors from the sinking merchant ship Joy Taylor, and Owasco pulling off the crew of the SS Foh Hong and towing the flooded vessel to safety. One cutter, Winnebago, chalked up three different maritime rescues, going to the assistance of the swamped Vietnamese coastal freighter Thuan Hing, pulling 35 people from the distressed M/V Fair Philippine Anchorage, and responding to an SOS from SS Aginar.

Endgame

As part of Vietnamization, the Coast Guard did a lot of out-building for the South Vietnamese Navy. The 26 Point class cutters of CGRON1 were all handed over in warm transfers by 1971. Of the 18 311-foot Casco-class cutters operated by the USCG, seven– Absecon, Chincoteague, Castle Rock, Cook Inlet, Yakutat, and Bering Strait — were transferred to South Vietnam in 1971 and 1972.

The last two, Bering Strait and Yakutat, were selected to be used by the Vietnamese Navy as offshore patrol units and operated hybrid mixed crews for the last half of 1970. This earned Bering Strait a haze-grey scheme.

Profile photograph of High-Endurance Cutter Bering Strait in a rare paint scheme of haze gray with Coast Guard “Racing Stripe.” Mackinaw. (Mrs. Misa White)

As detailed by Tulich:

They arrived in Subic Bay in June 1970 with a small cadre of Vietnamese on board, which was supplemented by another contingent at Subic. The VNN personnel were taught the operations of the ship and soon took over important positions in CIC boarding parties, NGFS details, and repair crews. The VNN also performed the external functions of the ship, especially boardings. The VNN officers soon became underway and in-port OODs. Teams assumed engineering watches, navigated, piloted, and provided all the control and most other positions in the NGFS teams. Their training became apparent when a combined USCG/VNN rescue and assistance party from Yakutat extinguished a serious fire and performed damage control on a USN landing ship.

The transfer of Bering Strait and Yakutat at the end of their 1970 deployment, in full color (but silent):

CGRON3 was formally disestablished on 31 January 1972, leaving three shore establishments– the Con Son and Tan My LORAN stations and the USCG Merchant Marine Detachment in Saigon– as the last remnants of the service’s efforts in Vietnam. Even those would be gone by 5 May 1973 when the final Coast Guard personnel departed the country.

Ingham returning from Vietnam in 1969

USCGC Duane (WHEC-33) returning from Vietnam, 1968

Between 1965 and 1973, the USCG sent some 8,000 men to Vietnam– nearly a quarter of its active force– with the bulk of these, more than 6,000, being those afloat with CGRON3.

Seven Coast Guardsmen were killed in action, all with the smaller patrol boats of CGRON1, and their names are listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Another 59 were seriously wounded in combat.

Epilogue

Of the seven large cutters handed over to the VNN in 1971-72, six escaped to the Philippines after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and went on to be used to varying degrees by the Filipino Navy for another decade. The seventh ship, the former CGC Absecon, was captured and bore a red flag as part of the Vietnam People’s Navy into the 1990s.

The Coast Guard eventually whittled down its remaining Vietnam Veteran cutters with two, Taney and Ingham, preserved as floating museums in Maryland and Florida, respectively.

USCGC Ingham, both a WWII and Vietnam Vet, retired in 1988, is well-preserved in Key West (Photo: Chris Eger)

The last cutter in service that had fired shots into Vietnam in anger, CGC Mellon, only decommissioned on 20 August 2020, capping a 54-year career.

Ironically, Mellon is slated to be transferred to the Vietnam People’s Coast Guard at some point in the future, where she will join former CGRON3 sister Morgenthau, which has been flying a red flag since 2017.

Vietnamese Coast Guard’s patrol ship CSB-8020, formerly the Hamilton-class cutter USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC-722)

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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