Official period caption: “U.S. Aeroplane Carrier Langley in Gaillard Cut, Panama Canal, Nov 16, 1924.”
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) photo. NARA Identifier: 100996474; Local Identifier: 185-G-947; Agency-Assigned Identifier: 80-C139; Container ID: Box 5, Volume 10. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/100996474
Seen passing through the Culebra (Gaillard) Cut, the 14,000-ton USS Langley (CV-1) was on her way to join the Pacific Fleet after two years as an experimental ship on the East Coast. The nation’s only operational aircraft carrier, she has Vought VE-7 Bluebirds of Fighter Plane Squadron One (VF-1) forward. The VF-1 Bluebirds had made the first-ever take-off from a U.S. carrier just two years before this photo when LT Virgil Childers Griffin (Naval Aviator # 41) lifted off from Langley in his VE-7-SF on 17 October 1922.
Further aft, with their wings folded, are at least two large Liberty-powered Douglas DT-2 torpedo bombers, aircraft that struggled to take off from Langley’s 534-foot deck– until a catapult arrangement was worked out.
Langley arrived at San Diego on 29 November to join the Pacific Battle Fleet and for the next 12 years operated off the California coast and Hawaii, engaged in training fleet units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical fleet problems.
USS Langley (CV-1). Docked at the carrier pier at Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego, California, with a Douglas DT-2 airplane taking off from her flight deck. This photo may have been taken during catapult tests in 1925. NH 47024
Langley. A group of officers on the flight deck during the Hawaii cruise of 1925. The aircraft immediately behind them appears to be a Vought VE-7. NH 72940
Langley. Night flying exercises at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in July 1925. Courtesy of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Ret), 1972. NH 78325
By August 1926 she was carrying the Navy’s first full-fledged carrier airwing, consisting of two squadrons of F6C-1 Goshawks of VF-1 and VF-2B, Curtiss SC-2 torpedo bombers of VT-2, and assorted support planes of Utility Squadron 1 (VJ-1): Martin MO-1 three-seat observation monoplanes, Boeing NB-1 trainers, and PN-7 seaplanes.
Langley was converted to a more humble seaplane tender in 1937, by which time the Navy had the mammoth 36,000-ton large deck carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3); the first keel-up designed fleet carrier, the 17,000-ton USS Ranger (CV-4); and the three new 22,000-ton Yorktown class carriers well under construction.
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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024: One Busy Bug
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-684905
Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), in her gun-less Fleet Snorkel configuration, off Oahu on the 14th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Commissioned some 80 years ago this week on 15 November 1944, you wouldn’t think she’d even have a chance to get in the Big Show before the war ended.
You’d be very wrong about that.
The Balaos
A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.
Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.
An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:
Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)
Our subject was the first (and only) U.S. warship named for the common label for the Rainbow surfperch (Hypsurus caryi), a multicolored little guy found along the coast of California. Laid down on 21 October 1943 at Groton, Connecticut by the Electric Boat Co, she was launched on 2 July 1944, and sponsored by Mrs. Anna A. Perry, the wife of Annapolis All-American football legend Capt. Lyman Spencer “Pop” Perry (USNA ’19), who at the time was serving as a Commodore of training operations on the West Coast.
80-G-448203
Commissioned at the U.S. Submarine Base, New London, on 15 November 1944, Bugara’s plankowner skipper was T/CDR Arnold Frederic Schade (USNA ’33). He was the youngest submarine commander in the Navy for a time and started the war on the training boat USS R-12 (SS 89), then was XO on the famed USS Growler (SS 215) when his commander in February 1943, CDR Howard Walter Gilmore, earned the MOH the hardest way.
In all, the 32-year-old Schade was the veteran of eight previous war patrols, including the last two as Growler’s skipper. He already had a Navy Cross and Silver Star on his jacket for sinking a trio of Japanese destroyer leaders on the 4th of July 1942 and for five other ships on the second patrol.
Bugara’s crew was one of veterans, no surprise as the Navy had been at war for three hard years when it was formed. Of the sub’s nine officers that made up her wardroom and seven chiefs in her goat locker, they counted no less than 73 war patrols among them, including one LT (j.g) with the unintentionally ironic last name of “Sinks” who had nine patrols on his own.
After abbreviated shakedowns and post-delivery maintenance, Bugara left New London for the Pacific via Panama on Christmas Day 1944. After all, there was a war on.
First Patrol
This overhead view of the Bugara (SS-331) was taken during torpedo practice firings off Panama Bay in January 1945 while heading to the Pacific. The torpedo retrieving davits are rigged, which are used for hauling the practice torpedo out of the water. Note at this point she only has one 5″/25, forward, as well as a twin 40mm Bofors aft. USN Archive photo # 19-N-76588.
Bugara cleared Pearl Harbor on 21 February 1945 on her 1st War Patrol and steamed directly to recently secured Saipan, ordered to patrol north of Luzon, Philippines in support of the Iwo Jima campaign.
A snooze fest with Japanese shipping already largely sanitized from the area, she fought off a typhoon and had to crash dive for several enemy aircraft while on the surface. In fact, she encountered far more fellow Allied submarines on patrol– American (USS Perch, Besugo, Blueback, Tuna, Tigrone, Puffer, Spot, Sea Fox, Hake, and Pargo), British (HMS P-248) and Dutch (Hr.Ms. K-14)– than she did anything else.
Disappointingly, the only Japanese vessels she spotted that were large enough to warrant a torpedo were marked as hospital ships. The only “action” her crew saw was in destroying a floating mine via gunfire.
It was essentially a qualifying cruise, with 29 of the 36 crewmembers who lacked their “Dolphins” earning them while underway.
On 21 April 1945, Bugara ended her inaugural patrol at the big Allied sub base at Fremantle, Australia after steaming 13,724 miles in 59 days.
Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.
Schade noted, “Morale of all hands is high despite the lack of combat opportunity.”
Second Patrol
After a three-week turnaround that included installing a second 5″/25 on her aft deck– the so-called gunboat submarine configuration— and director antennae for her APR, on 16 May 1945 Bugara sailed out of Fremantle for her 2nd War Patrol, ordered to hunt in the South China Sea off Hainan and serve as a floating “Log Joint” lifeguard station for aircrews downed at sea during the Okinawa campaign.
As on her first patrol, Bugara met or operated with other Allied subs on just about every day she was underway, and only a few local native craft– Chinese junks from which she would barter cigarettes for fresh fish– were spotted. Likewise, while on her first patrol, she often had to cope with Japanese aircraft, they too were scarce and instead, she typically logged voice contacts with passing four-engine Navy PB4Y Privateers.
On 20 June 1945, Bugara ended her monotonous 36-day patrol at recently liberated Subic Bay, where, in a twist of fate, she tied up next to the new Fulton-class sub tender USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), named after Schade’s old boss on Growler.
Bugara logged zero enemy contacts despite the fact she steamed 10,118 miles across the Western Pacific, waters that the Empire had owned just a year prior.
Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.
Such boring late-war patrols often drove eager submarine skippers to think out of the box to find a fight.
For instance, in April 1945, USS Bluegill under LCDR Eric Barr landed some Australian Commandos followed by a short party of his own on the deserted low-lying reef of Pratas, some 160 miles southeast of Hong Kong, and “captured it.”
57 Sunk!
Shifting operations further south where the Japanese may still have some naval and merchant assets and with the new Loran navigation system installed, on 14 July 1945 Bugara departed Subic Bay to begin her 3rd War Patrol, ordered to the relative backwater of the Gulf of Siam where the Japanese had been unabated since early 1942.
The 29-day patrol report makes absolutely great reading and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
On the night of 23 July, she put a “Commando Party ashore north of Lem Chong Pra– armed to the teeth with demolition equipment,” but had to take them back off the next morning just before dawn “highly embarrassed as the jungle had been so thick they couldn’t get off the beach.”
While a six torpedo spread against a small Japanese convoy on the early morning of 20 July yielded no hits– all of the fish running deeper than their settings– she had much better luck with her guns. In fact, while a normal load of “fish” was 24 torpedoes, Bugara had instead left Subic with just 12 (apparently worthless) torpedoes but with a full 240 rounds for her 5-inchers including 60 rounds of VT, stowing four racks full of ammo in her torpedo room instead.
In all, she made contact with 62 small surface vessels and, after finding them to be under Japanese control, sent at least 57 to the bottom in a series of one-sided gun actions over the fortnight between 24 July and 7 August, many in the dark.
From her War Patrol report:
She even ran into a batch of canoe-borne Malay pirates while in mid-attack on a Chinese schooner and performed actions worthy of the days of Stephen Decatur and Edward Preble.
In all, she fired 201 rounds of 5-inch, 291 of 40mm, and 400 of 20mm, finding in fact that the VT fuzed shells were not ideal as they were fired typically too close (within 600 yards on average) to arm.
Realizing that many of the crews on these wooden coasters and schooners were natives working under threat of death, Bugara’s crew went to great lengths to save them, even though on one occasion she had to submerge when a strange aircraft approached and left her rescues bobbing in the Gulf of Siam for a few minutes until she surfaced again after it had passed. Keep in mind that during this period she was working in typically just 10 fathoms (60 feet) of water, almost bottoming when completely submerged.
This also allowed her to glean some good old-fashioned HUMINT, with one particularly friendly Chinese who spoke pidgin English kept aboard for a couple of weeks as a translator. Schade included it with a wish list of items should he be sent back to the area:
On 17 August 1945, Bugara ended her final patrol of WWII at Fremantle, two days after Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Bugara and her crew were finally awarded the Submarine Combat Insignia for a patrol.
Few late-war subs could beat her record of “bunny bashing” in gun actions. The only one I can think of was Bill Hazzard in USS Blenny (SS-324) which bagged 62 mischievous Japanese vessels.
Bugara’s 3rd Patrol was the subject of at least one patch by her crew, emblazoned with a “57” on a hapless skull.
Bugara’s WWII patches. NHHC 2017.001.020 and NHHC 2017.001.021.
Sent with SubRon 5 to Subic Bay in September, she patrolled local waters there into mid-November when her squadron was ordered to clear Japanese-held islands in the South China Sea. This included Bugara sending large and heavily armed landing forces ashore at Tizard Bank and Itu Aba, where all they found were destroyed weather and radio stations.
Arriving back at San Diego in February 1946, three months later, she was back in Pearl Harbor, SubRon 5’s next home port.
There, as part of Operation Road’s End, on 28 May 1946, Bugara successfully sank her only Japanese ship via torpedo– the captured Type AM (I-13-class) submarine I-14in a test of the new Mark 10-3 exploder– which worked.
A huge aircraft-carrying submarine (the largest submarines ever built until U.S. Poseidon SSBNs of the 1960s), I-14 was sent to the bottom in deep water off Barber’s Point at deliberately unrecorded locations along with four other captured enemy boats (I-400, I-401, I-201, and I-203) to keep their technology out of Soviet hands.
I-14 and I-400 alongside USS Proteus (AS-19), in Japanese home waters, after WWII. Note: the crew of deck and another sub (unidentified) along in the background. NH 50387
These boats, had the war gone on long enough, were part of a Japanese plan to wage biological warfare against cities in Southern California, in retaliation for the U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities, or alternatively an attack on the Panama Canal– keep that in mind the next time someone says the A-Bombs didn’t have to be dropped.
To prove to Stalin that these went to Davy Jones, the Navy filmed the sinking of all these big I boats– in beautiful color.
Bugara received three battle stars for her service in World War II, one for taking part in the Iwo Jima campaign (12-16 March 1945), one for Okinawa (17 March to 4 April 1945, and one for her third patrol (14 July 45 – 17 Aug 45) as well as an Occupation Service clasp for July- August 1948 when she returned to the area on a West Pac patrol.
Korea
Stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea in June 1950, she was soon sent forward on a series of war patrols off the embattled peninsula that was broken up by a five-month Fleet Snorkel conversion at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in late 1951 that saw her guns landed, a snorkel fitted along with better sensors, and a new, streamlined fairwater that covered her scopes installed.
Compare these two silhouttes.
Bugara received two Korean War battle stars during the conflict, logging four periods in theatre (5 Oct-28 Nov 50, 20 Jan-18 Jun 51, 20 Apr-4 Jun 54, and 14-27 Jul 54).
She also survived a crack-up during the conflict with the escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) that left both vessels damaged but gratefully without any casualties, and each soon returned to work.
That’s not going to buff out
By August 1955, she was transferred to San Diego as part of SubRon 3.
USS Bugara (SS-331), May 1956. Shown while operating off San Diego. 80-G-696504
Same as above. 80-G-696503
USS Bugara (SS-331) off Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, December 7, 1955. 80-G-684904
She would fall into a decade of drills training evolutions, shipyard availabilities, and regular WestPac deployments and SEATO exercises where she would typically interact with the growing Japanese, Filipino, Australian, and Taiwanese fleets.
USS Bugara with an S-2 Tracker overhead, likely in an ASW exercise. Submarine Forces Museum
She also got a bit of payback against tin cans for her Whitehurst damage.
In April 1958 while using a practice torpedo against USS Yarnall (DD-541), which was set to run at 30 or 40 feet, it actually ran at 10 and smacked the Fletcher class destroyer on the port bow.
Yarnall’s skipper radioed, “We’ve been hit and are taking on water.”
Bugara’s skipper offered assistance.
Yarnall’s captain replied, “You can go to hell!”
Then came…
Vietnam
During the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, no less than 60 different submarines were operational off Vietnam at some time between 1964 and 1975, many staying long enough to earn campaign stars. Most, 42, were old “smoke boats,” such as Bugara, including many of her sisters. Eighteen others were modern SSNs which were utilized more sparingly.
Vietnam War. June 1969. Sailors aboard the guided missile frigate USS Brooke (DEG 1) watch as the Gato-class submarine USS Bluegill (AGSS 242) travels on the surface. Official U.S. Navy photo (K-74080)
In 1968, at the request of COMNAVFORV RADM Kenneth L. Veth, the Seventh Fleet deployed a submarine just off the coast of Sihanoukville (Kampong Saom) Cambodia to monitor shipping traffic. COMNAVFORV and 7th Fleet later pioneered tracking inbound gun-carrying trawlers passing through the strait between the Chinese mainland and Hainan with submarines working with over-the-horizon P-3s. The result was the ability to track a trawler’s passage, sight unseen, with the final act being an interception by surface assets and destruction. Sculpin in one known 1972 incident, tracked a Chinese trawler from its homeport across some 2,500 miles to the Southern coasts of South Vietnam, where it was sent to the bottom by the RVN Navy.
Communications intelligence personnel on board the submarine intercepted a message from the trawler that made clear the enemy was unaware of the submarine trailing her until the last hours of the mission. During the passage from Hainan, the submarine’s sonarmen became intimately familiar with the trawler’s distinctive shaft and propeller sounds. Periscope photographs of the white-colored trawler confirmed their analysis.
They also performed submerged lifeguard duty for downed aviators between Hanoi and Haiphong and the carriers on Yankee Station.
A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 (HS-2) “Golden Falcons” sits on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) for a deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 12 August 1965 to 23 March 1966. In the background is the Fleet Snorkel Balao-class submarine USS Segundo (SS-398).
Others, such as Perch and Tunny, would carry out commando raids near shore. Submarines carried UDT 11 and UDT 12 frogmen to their dangerous missions in Operations Starlite, Jackstay, Dagger Thrust, Blue Marlin, and scores of other amphibious operations during the war.
Some, such as USS Salmon (SSR-573), would lay mines off North Vietnamese harbors.
They also served as an OPFOR “tame wolf” for the carriers’ escorts, embarked SH-2/3s, and land-based P-3 Orions to keep their ASW skills sharp should a Russki boat come poking too close.
A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 8 (HS-8) “Eightballers” from USS Bennington (CVS-20) is seen flying over an unidentified Fleet Snorkel conversion submarine during the carrier’s deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 30 April to 9 November 1968.
Many of these submarines still have the exact details of their Vietnam service classified. They don’t call it the “Silent Service” for nothing.
Those who tallied up multiple Vietnam campaign stars included USS Grayback (8 stars), Razorback (5), Tunny (5), Barbel (4), Bluegill (4), Bonefish (4), Sea Fox (4), Swordfish (4), Tang (4), Salmon (3), Scamp (3), Tiru (3), Wahoo (3), Barb (2), Blueback (2), Bonefish (2), Carbonero (2), Pomfret (2), and Rasher (2).
Our girl Bugara beat out all but Grayback and received an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and seven campaign stars for her service during the Vietnam War.
Bugara was, by most accounts, the first submarine ordered into Vietnamese waters with a war face on since WWII, assigned to Task Force 77 for operations in the South China Sea as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964.
In 1965, Bugara passed her 6,000th dive on her 21st birthday.
Steaming cross-Pacific in 1966 allowed her the rare treat of “Tying the Knot” by doing surfaced and submerged 360-degree turns at both the Equator and the 180th meridian.
She appeared in several films and broadcasts highlighting the American Navy in Vietnam as she was one of the few subs to make port calls in Thailand (Bangkok, Ko Sumui, and Satahib) and Vietnam (DaNang) in addition to her regular WestPac calls at Subic Bay, Australia (Perth and Geraldton), Yokosuka, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Kaohsiung and Keelung).
On 7 July 1967, she loaded and fired four exercise torpedoes. She also carried one war shot torpedo, serial #63813 which she would use on the 11th to send the stricken Buckley-class destroyer escort ex-USS Currier (DE-700) to the bottom in deep water off California.
ex-USS Currier (DE-700) SINKEX by USS Bugara, 1967. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)
Close up. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)
Currier, who had received two battle stars for WWII service and one for Korea, had been with the Fleet Sonar School since 1954 and was sent to mothballs for seven years before her SINKEX.
Part of Bugara’s 1968 enlisted crew with non-reg black berets of the type commonly available in Vietnamese markets, complete with embroidered Dolphin insignias. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)
With the ASW vendetta between The Bug and the 7th Fleet’s escorts continuing, in 1969 she was hit by a practice MK 44 torpedo shot by an American destroyer. The torpedo failed to shut down as it was expected to, causing a big hole in Bugara’s aft superstructure. While the exercise torp was never recovered, months later its transducer and nose of the torpedo were found in a space outside of the pressure hull below the aft torpedo tubes.
Her 12th and final post-Korea WestPac cruise was capped in August 1969 when she arrived home in San Diego. She logged her 7,000th dive later that year.
Despite a year-end yard period and battery renewal that would have bought Bugara another half-decade of service, the first week of January 1970 instead brought a flash from the CNO that the five remaining Fleet Snorkel boats (our girl plus USS Medregal, Segundo, Carbonero, and Sabalo), considered too obsolete to transfer overseas much less to keep in service, were to be prepped for use as mobile targets for Mk. 48 torpedo service weapon tests.
Bugara (SS-331) possibly off San Diego, 11 June 1970. Note the four-man MK 7 Mod 6 swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) on her pressure hull. Photo courtesy of Cole Smith and atlanticfleetsales.smugmug.com. Via Navsource
Bugara in the end cheated to torpedo its meal and made her final dive on her own terms.
Decommissioned and Stuck from the Naval Register on 1 October 1970, ex-Bugara was slated to be expended in a SINKEX off the Washington coast.
However, in the tow from Mare Island to her death ground, our girl sank in a towing accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about 4 miles NW of Cape Flattery on 1 June 1971, with no injuries or lives lost. The next day, the Navy sent an NRF reserve ship out from Tacoma, USS Uhlmann (DD-687), to find the sunken hulk with sonar, and later DevGroupOne sent out an early deep-diving robot to film Bugara upright on the ocean floor.
In all, she stacked up a full dozen battle/campaign stars– three for WWII, two for Korea, and seven in Vietnam. In addition to the 57 “little boys” she sent to the bottom in 1945 in gun actions, she also deep-sixed a big Japanese I boat postwar and a tin can that was past its prime. All in all, not a bad run in 26 years.
Epilogue
Little remains of Bugara on dry land. Her WWII Jolly Roger-style battle flag has faded into history and I believe her bell was still aboard when she sank.
She rests 800 feet below the surface of what is now the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
In September 2008 ex-USS Bugara was surveyed by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of that oceanographic vessel’s shakedown cruise in a test of her state-of-the-art multibeam sonar system (Survey ID EX0801).
In 2017, she was surveyed as part of a larger expedition by NautilusLive.
She had a fairly active veteran’s group that, from what I can tell, had their last reunion in 2017 and has been offline for the past several years (archived here). They still maintain a group of images on Flickr, heavy on those released by NautilusLive.
She had 16 skippers between 1944 and 1970, the most noteworthy of which was Arnold Schade. Once he left Bugara in February 1946 he went on to other submarine commands, including SUBCOMLANT, a role in which he advised President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Commander Middle East Force in 1963-64, he earned the Legion of Merit and later pinned a Gold Star to his Distinguished Service Medal. VADM Schade retired in 1971 after 38 years of service– ironically the same year as Bugara.
Schade passed at the age of 91 in San Diego and is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Section CBEE, Row 2, Site 121.
She also had the deepest-dived Navy man in history as part of her wardroom during the Cold War. Bugara’s XO in 1962-63 was LCDR Don Walsh. Two years before being piped aboard the sub, he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, while aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste (DSV-1), made the record maximum descent in the Challenger Deep, dropping into the darkness to 35,813 feet.
The world’s record descent, man’s deepest dive, had taken nine hours.
Krupp Sphere to Bathyscaph Trieste, 1960. Jacques Piccard center left and Lieutenant Don Walsh stand next to the sphere alongside an unidentified naval officer and civilian. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph. NMUSN-4764
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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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024: The Ones That Got Away
Above we see the period depiction by renowned German maritime artist Willy Stöwer of the armed sailing ship (segelschiff) SMS Ayesha off Hodeida (now Al Hudaydah, Yemen) in January 1915, to the warm welcome of allied Ottoman troops. Stöwer, best known for his decades of painting battleships, cruisers, and U-boats, apparently made an exception for the humble Ayesha, as she had an incredibly interesting story that began some 110 years ago this week.
And a tale rather different from the one shown above.
The Background
Part of Admiral Maximillian von Spee’s Eastern Squadron, the 4,200-ton Dresden class of light cruiser SMS Emden was detached from the rest of Von Spee’s force to become an independent raider in the Western Pacific, as the main force of five cruisers made for the Eastern Pacific and, ultimately, the South Atlantic. In doing so, Emden was sort of a sacrificial rabbit to draw away the British, Australian, French, Russian, and Japanese hounds as Von Spee made his exit.
In an epic 97-day patrol, Emden captured 23 merchant ships (21 Brits, one Russian, one Greek) with 101,182 GRT of enemy shipping, sending 16 to the bottom, releasing three, and keeping as four as prizes. In each encounter with these unarmed merchies, Emden practiced “cruiser rules,” in which all passengers and crew on board these ships were brought to safety. She took off the kid gloves and accounted for two warships by sucker punching the 3,500-ton Russian light cruiser Zhemchug and the 300-ton French destroyer Mousquet as they slumbered in Penang harbor in British Malaysia.
German cruiser SMS Emden off Madras. Artwork by Hans Bohrdt. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Fire from Bombardment of Madras by SMS Emden
Emden also bombarded oil depots in Madras, India, sending shivers through the Raj, and tied up dozens of allied warships in running her to ground. This included four brawlers– any of which could make short work of the smaller German warship– that had closed the distance to within just 50 miles of the raider: the 14,600-ton British armored cruiser HMS Minotaur, the 16,000-ton Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki, and the twin 5,400-ton Australian light cruisers HMAS Sydney and Melbourne.
This game all cumulated in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands on 9 November 1914.
Direction Island
The remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands, two desolate flat, low-lying coral atolls made up of 27 islets in the Indian Ocean some 800 miles West of Sumatra, in 1914 only had a population of a few hundred. The British colony was defacto ruled by the Clunies-Ross family, which had settled the archipelago in the 1850s, and whose paterfamilias generally served as the resident magistrate and Crown representative.
Modernity had reached this corner of the British Empire, with the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, in 1901, establishing a cable station on Direction Island on the top of the Cocos chain with submarine cables eventually running to Rodrigues (Mauritius), Batavia (Java), and Fremantle.
By 1910, this had been complemented by a Marconi wireless station, making it a key link in the communication chain between India and Australia.
A link worthy of breaking, in the mind of Emden’s skipper, Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller.
Arriving just offshore of the Cocos over a deep trench– Emden needed at least 18 feet of seawater under her hull to float– in the predawn of 9 November, a landungskorps was assembled and ready to go ashore, seize the station, wreck it, and withdraw with any interesting portable supplies to feed the cruiser’s 360-member crew.
Going ashore at dawn in a steam pinnace and two whaleboats was Kpt. lt Hellmuth von Mücke, Leutnants Schmidt and Gysling, six petty officers, and 41 ratings, including two signalmen who knew what to destroy and a former French Foreign Legionnaire who was good with languages (among other things). Expecting resistance from a company-sized garrison at the colony, Mücke raided Emden’s small arms locker, taking four Maxim guns– each with 2,000 rounds of ammunition– 29 dated Gewehr 71 rifles, and 24 Reichsrevolvers.
With a strange warship offshore, disguised by a false fourth funnel, overhearing a coded signal from Emden to her prize ship-turned-tender Buresk, and three small boats filled with armed men headed in from the sea, the wireless station went into alert and started broadcasting at 0630 about the unknown man-of-war, only to be jammed by chatter from Emden’s powerful Telefunken wireless set turned to maximum power.
However, the part of the message broadcast before the jamming– “SOS strange ship in harbor,” and “SOS Emden here”– reached HMAS Sydney, escorting a convoy some 50nm away. The Australian cruiser replied that she was on the way to investigate. Her call letters, NC, led Emden’s signalmen to think she was the cruiser HMS Newcastle, which ironically was also in the Far East just nowhere near Emden, and they estimated by her signal strength and bearing that she was over 200 miles away.
In short, Emden’s skipper thought they had more time, but was very wrong.
Once landed, Von Mücke’s shore party got busy wrecking. Local photographers A.J. Peake and R. Cardwell, apparently EETC employees, began snapping photos documenting the activities of the landing party over the next two days.
The force soon captured and wrecked the undefended telegraph office without a shot– the island’s entire arsenal amounted to a “few 12 bore guns and two small and ancient pea-rifles”– cut three of four underwater cables, and felled the station’s transmission mast via explosives. This caused collateral damage as coral shot around like shrapnel, holing buildings and destroying the island’s supply of scotch.
Emden’s launch grappling for cable at Direction Island. NLA obj-149336815
The Eastern Extension Telegraph Company office after the German raid, 9 November 1914. NLA obj-149337412
The bottom of the mast with the wireless hut at the back. NLA obj-149338323
The wireless mast as it lay across the garden. NLA obj-149338122
More shots of the destroyed cable station. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19150107-39.
Under the German flag, Direction Island, November 1914. Note the sun helmet and Mauser of the German sailors. NLA obj-149336272
At 0900, with Emden spotting an incoming ship and soon acknowledging it was not her tender Buresk, the cruiser cleared decks and signaled her shore party to return immediately.
“Landing party having been recalled by the Emden, leaves the jetty but turns back on seeing Emden putting to sea.” In the background is the copra schooner Ayesha, owned by the Clunies-Ross family.” Note the white-uniformed officer complete with pistol belt. NLA .obj-149337219
“The Emdens’ landing party left the island on their futile attempt to rejoin their ship, Direction Island, 1914.” NLA obj-149336127
Not able to catch up to the withdrawing Emden, her away force returned to the docks on Direction Island. Soon signs of a battle could be seen over the horizon.
View from the beach of Direction Island with the battle between the SMS Emden and HMAS Sydney in the far distance. NLA obj-149338507
Unknown to Von Mucke and his men, nor to the colonists on Direction Island, Emden, and Sydney clashed between 0940 and 1120 in a one-sided battle that left the German cruiser grounded and ablaze on North Keeling Island with more than half of her 316 men aboard dead, missing, or wounded.
German raider, SMS Emden is sunk by Australian Cruiser, HMAS Sydney, RAN collection.
German cruiser SMS Emden beached on Cocos Island in 1914
Sydney suffered four fatalities and a dozen wounded.
Von Mucke knew that Emden was either sunk or had fled over the horizon and that the only warship coming to collect them would likely be an enemy. He set up his Spandaus on the beach and waited.
A German Maxim gun and ammunition boxes were set up to repel landings at Direction Island, on 9 November 1914. NLA obj-149337513
Meet Ayesha
The local coconut and cargo hauler, the 97-ton, 98-foot three-master schooner Ayesha, was anchored just off the docks on Direction Island, with Von Mucke’s crew passing close by on their way to the island that morning. She was a fine-looking vessel, for a coastal lugger, and typically sailed the local waters with a crew of five or six mariners and a master.
The schooner Ayesha, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, November 1914. NLA obj-149336020
Ayesha in open water State Library of Australia PRG-1373-29-15
The solution, to Von Mucke, was to seize the schooner, requisition supplies from the station, and load his men on board with the hope of heading to Dutch Sumatra, some 800 or so miles away, where they could figure out the next steps.
He boarded her with one of his officers for an inspection.
From a June 1915 New York Times interview with Von Mucke translated from the Berliner Tageblatt:
I made up my mind to leave the island as soon as possible. The Emden was gone the danger for us growing. I noticed a three-master, the schooner Ayesha. Mr. Ross, the owner of the ship and the island, had warned me that the boat was leaky but I found it a quite seaworthy tub.
“Schooner Ayesha commandeered by Germans being prepared for the voyage” Sails have been bent to the booms and forestays. AWM P11611.027.002
Germans commandeer cable station stores to provision the yacht Ayesha, owned by the Clunies-Ross family after the German raider SMS Emden was driven ashore at North Keeling Island by HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1914. On the evening of 10 November 1914, a party from the Emden used the Ayesha to escape from the island. AWM P03912.001
A German landing party at Direction Island, preparing to go aboard the yacht Ayesha, after their ship the German raider SMS Emden was destroyed by HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1914. AWM P03912.002
The master and mate were released from their duties, although they warned Von Mucke the ship’s hull, thin, “worn through” and overgrown, could not handle an ocean voyage. Inspecting the hold, the wood was indeed “red and rotten, so much so, indeed, that we stopped our scratching as we had no desire to poke the points of our knives into the Indian Ocean.”
On the evening of 10 November, the Germans used the Ayesha to escape from the island.
The locals– according to both German and British reports– actually gave the Germans three cheers as they left. Von Mucke said they went even further and asked for their autographs. Emden’s fame had proceeded them.
“Steam pinnace taking last of Germans aboard the Ayesha. The Germans are waving to the British, who have given them three cheers.” NLA obj-149339081
It wasn’t until the next day, 11 November, that sailors and Marines from HMAS Sydney arrived at Direction Island to find out that the Emden’s shore party had come and gone, with a decent head start.
A party of armed sailors from HMAS Sydney lands on Direction Island, on 11 November 1914. A party from the German raider Emden had landed and taken possession of the cable station on the island, but on the evening of the 10th, they escaped in the schooner Ayesha, which belonged to the owner of the island. AWM EN0390
Von Mucke raised their small war flag and christened the schooner SMS Ayesha (Emden II) to three hurrahs from her new crew. Nonetheless, she struck her flag soon after and sailors soon went over the side to paint over the ship’s name. Word had to have gone out and the British were no doubt looking for her.
Ayesha’s navigational equipment was limited to a sextant, two chronometers, and a circa 1882 Indian Ocean Directory, filled with quaint old high-scale charts and notes made as far back as the 1780s. With 50 men crowded onto a ship designed for five, they fashioned hammocks from old ropes and slept in holds and on deck.
Even more limited was the crew’s kit, as the men had landed on Direction Island for a raid and only had the clothes on their backs and cartridges in their pouches.
The whole crew went about naked in order to spare our wash…Toothbrushes were long ago out of sight. One razor made the rounds of the crew. The entire ship had one precious comb.
Further, Ayesha’s canvas was old and rotten, and three of the schooner’s four water tanks had been contaminated with salt water.
She had enough canvas to rig fore and aft sails on the main and mizzen and two square sails on the foremast. Still, these were threadbare and had to be patched constantly as they “tore at the slightest provocation.”
One condemned sail was rigged over the ballast for use as a shared bed by ratings, which sounds almost enjoyable until you find out that the schooner leaked so bad that water rose over the ballast at sea and typically sloshed around just below the sail bed.
From Von Mucke’s later book, as translated in 1933 and republished by the USNI:
Below deck, aft of the hold, were two small cabins originally fitted with bunks, but in these, we were compelled to store our provisions. Swarms of huge cockroaches made it impossible for human beings to inhabit them.
Another old sail was rigged up to catch and filter rainwater into three repurposed Standard Oil cans for drinking which was rendered palatable by “a dash or lime juice of which we had fortunately found few bottles among the provisions of the former captain.”
Gratefully, it turned out that the crew’s former Legionaire was a crack chef and managed to cobble together decent meals from the larder of rice and tinned beef.
At night, the only light was two oil lamps that “gave off more smoke than light.”
Most of the armament was secured down below, with the Spandaus concealed and arranged to fire through loopholes on deck should they be needed.
Leaving the steam pinnacle behind for the islanders to use, Von Mucke originally towed the two cutters from Emden behind the Ayesha, as there was no tackle available to bring them aboard nor deck space to house them but eventually, they were lost. Soon all they had in terms of small boats were a pair of jolly boats that the schooner carried in small davits, each able to hold two men. At times of doldrums, they were put out to tow the schooner with the help of Emden’s lost cutter’s long oars.
After 16 days at sea wandering towards Sumatra and keeping over the horizon from steamers, Ayesha was intercepted by the Dutch Fret-class destroyer Lynx (510 tons, 210 feet oal, 30 knots, 4×3″, 2xtt) on 26 November and was escorted into Padang in Wester Sumatra the next day.
Given 24 hours in port, Von Mucke was warned by Lynx’s Belgian-born skipper “I could run into the harbor but whether I might not come out again was doubtful.”
Von Mucke related that at the time he “felt truly sorry for the Lynx. It must have been very irritating to her to have to trundle behind us at the wonderful speed of one knot, a speed which, with the light breeze blowing, the Ayesha could not exceed.”
The Dutch did not allow Ayesha to take on clothes, charts, or tackle, as they could have added to the warship’s effectiveness. What was allowed were some tinned provisions and ten live pigs, the latter stored in a makeshift pen around the chain locker.
They left the Dutch port with reinforcements as two reserve officers, LTs Gerdts and Wellman, who had been interned at Pandang on German steamers earlier in the war and wanted to cast their lot with Von Mucke. Once smuggled aboard under darkness via rowboat, as berthing was already a problem, their spaces were found on the deck under the mess table.
The German schooner was towed back out to sea on the evening of the 28th. She was followed out of territorial waters by the Dutch cruiser De Zeven Provincien.
Another bright spot of her brief stay in the Dutch East Indies was that the local German consul managed to smuggle the crew a small bundle of chocolate, cigarettes, and German newspapers. There was also a promised rendezvous location out to sea in a fortnight or so with a German merchant steamer that was still afloat and filled with enough coal to steam anywhere on the globe.
With a few weeks’ worth of food left from the stockpile removed from Direction Island, but relying largely on rainwater for drinking and bathing, the schooner spent the next two weeks wandering West into the Indian Ocean, keeping hidden while drifting towards her promised rendezvous.
Finally, in heavy seas near South Pagai in the Dutch Mentawai Islands on 14 December, Ayesha spied the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) freighter Choising (ex-Madeleine Rickmers), a slight vessel of just 1,657 tons. Still, she was the best Christmas present Von Mucke could ask for.
The meeting, in the fog and mist, was probably traumatic to the complement of the steamer whose ship’s officers and engineer were German, and most of the crew were Chinese.
Up flew our ensign and colours. The steamer ran up the German flag. The crew climbed aloft into the shrouds, and three cheers rang from deck to deck. As usual, our men were dressed in the manner customary in thc Garden of Eden, a costume which necessity had forced upon them. The men of the Choising confided to us later that they were speechless with astonishment when suddenly, out of the fog, emerged a schooner, the shrouds of which were filled with naked forms.
Having sailed Ayesha for 1,709 sea miles, the crews waited until the waters calmed on the 16th to transfer to the steamer then scuttled the schooner, Emden’s final victim. They removed Ayesha’s wheel and figurehead and took them along to their new ship.
Willy Stöwer – Ayesha im Indischen Ozean nach Treffen mit Choising
The overloaded Choising set out West across the Indian Ocean towards Yemen on the Arabian peninsula, part of the now-German allied Ottoman Empire. Thumbing through Choising’s Lloyds book, the freighter assumed the identity of the Italian steamer Shenir, which was similarly sized and had the same general layout.
This included painting Shenir, Genoa on her bow and crafting an approximated Italian flag from sailcloth and a green window curtain from the captain’s cabin.
They stayed out of the shipping lanes, celebrated a low-key Christmas and New Year at sea, and after entering the Bab-el-Mandeb, passing close abreast of two British gunboats in the darkness, made it to Hodeida on 5 January 1915, having crossed 4,100 miles of the Indian Ocean successfully.
Cruise of the Emden, Ayesha, and Choising. Bestanddeelnr 22032 010
Arabian Nights
With the French cruiser, Desaix spotted near Hodeida, Von Mucke and his men bid Choising farewell. With no Ottoman naval officials to turn to, she went across the straits to Massawa in Eritrea which was under Italian control and still neutral, intending to link up with the cruiser SMS Konigsberg which they thought was still off the coast of Africa but was trapped upriver in the Rufiji.
Choising, remaining in Somaliland, would go on to be seized by the Italian government once that former German ally declared war against the Empire in May 1915. This led to her final service as the Italian-flagged Carroccio. As part of a small Italian convoy, she was sent to the bottom of the Adriatic Sea on 15 May 1917 off the coast of Albania by the Austrian destroyer Balaton in a messy surface action known today as the Battle of the Strait of Otranto.
Meanwhile, contrary to early rosy reports that the Turks welcomed Von Mucke with open arms in Hodeida and soon spirited them via train up the Hejaz railroad to Constantinople and from there to Germany, it would be five long months of slogging across Arabia to Damascus before the Germans had any sort of safety.
Overland from Hodeida, from Von Mucke’s book
The reason for choosing the port was simple:
Our only knowledge regarding Arabian ways and customs was a ” round the world’ guidebook that would have answered the purposes of a sight-seeing couple on their honeymoon very well. From it we learned that Hodcida is a large commercial city, and that the Hedjaz railway to Hodeida was in course of construction. As the book was some years old and as one of my officers remembered that years ago he had met a French engineer who told him that he had been engaged in the construction of a railway to Hodeida, we took it for granted that the railway was completed by this time.
Nonetheless, the word would precede them, hence Willie Stower’s fanciful depiction of the long-scuttled Ayesha arriving at a big red carpet Ottoman welcome at Hodeida.
Another such propaganda piece from 1915:
With the railway incomplete, the journey, which is a bit off subject for a Warship blog, included a three-day firefight with a battalion-sized force of Arab rebels, unruly camel caravans with wary Bedouins watching from the dunes, creeping up the uncharted coast on local fishing dhows (zambuks), and avoiding being kept as “guests” by local Turkish garrison commanders and sheiks looking to add the Teutonic travelers to their muscle.
SMS Emden crew is attacked by Arabs on their desert hike to Jeddah, Der Krieg 1914/19 in Wort und Bild, 35. Heft
Finally arriving at the terminus for the Hejaz railroad at Al Ula, a trek of 1,100 miles from Hodeida on 7 May, the force met Berliner Tageblatt correspondent Emil Ludwig, who was waiting for them, and within days they were being hosted by the German counsel in Damascus. By this point, their firearms cache had been whittled down to one machine gun, a few revolvers, and just 13 rifles, the rest bartered along the way for food, safe passage, boats, and camels; or lost in zambuk wrecks.
The photo of the Damascus meeting shows the Emden’s men complete with crisp new Turkish uniforms and fezes!
Besatzungsmitglieder von SMS Ayesha im Garten des Kaiserlichen Konsulats in Damaskus 11. Mai 1915. 2) Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke, 3) Konsul Walter Rößler. Note the Gewehr 71 Mausers.
Then came an even larger show in Constantinople, attended by foreign legations and German RADM Wilhelm Souchon, former commander of the Kaiser’s Mediterranean Squadron and current unofficial commander of the Ottoman fleet. Souchon had a gift for the men: Iron Crosses sent directly from Berlin.
Six of the 50-man forces that had landed at Direction Island six months prior had been left behind, three killed by rebels, and three by assorted diseases and accidents. Of Emden’s 360 crew, virtually all except Von Mucke’s detachment were dead or POWs by this point in the war– to include the Kaiser’s own nephew. The same could be said broadly for all the fine young men of Von Spee’s squadron.
The arrival of Captain Mücke with the SMS Emden’s landing party in Constantinople
Captured German photograph of the captain and officers of the Ayesha being presented to the Turkish authorities by the American Ambassador. Figures from right to left are (1) Enver Pasha; (2) German Ambassador; (3,5,6) Officers of the raider Emden; (4) Provost of Town; (7) Admiral Suchow Pasha of Goeben. AWM A011403
Captured German photograph showing the arrival of the officers who escaped from the raider Emden after commandeering the yacht Ayesha, with the German flag which saved them from falling into the hands of the enemy. AWM A01402
They were lucky.
Soon after Von Mucke’s trip up the Arabian peninsula, another group of Von Spee’s men, elements of the crew of the river patrol boat SMS Tsingtau including Kptlt. Erwin von Möller, LtzS Hans von Arnim, Vizesteuermann Heinrich Deike, Karl Gründler, Heinrich Mau, Arthur Schwarting plus Turkish ship’s cook Said Achmad, sailed the coastal schooner Marboek for 82 days from Sumatra where they were interned to the Arabian coast at Hadramaut, then headed out overland for Sana, much like Von Mucke.
They were all killed in the desert by rebels on 25 May 1916.
Epilogue
Von Mucke, whose interviews with Emil Ludwig soon circled the globe, spent some time as head of a Turko-German river flotilla in the Euphrates, then finished the war back in Germany as head of the Danube Flotilla. You could say the Kaiserliche Marine wanted to keep him from being lost at sea. Sadly, half of the men who had returned with him from Emden had been killed later in the Great War.
His mug was snapped often and widely distributed. A dashing hero with a romantic tale.
Capt. Von Mucke & bride & sailors of EMDEN LOC ggbain-20400-20461v
Kpt. Von Mucke in Berlin LOC ggbain-19500-19578v
He also penned two thin wartime books, one on each of the vessels he served on during the conflict.
Postwar, retired from the Navy after an 18-year career, he had six children and earned a living in Weimar Germany through writing and conducting lecture tours, retelling his story. Turning to politics, he briefly held a seat in the Saxon state parliament, flirted with the Nazis (membership number 3,579) before they rose to power, then by 1930 had become an outspoken pacifist and member of the Deutschlandbund, an anti-Nazi group. Banned from writing after 1933, he was labeled a communist and tossed into concentration camps on at least two occasions. Despite the fact his naval pension had been suspended, he volunteered for combat with the Kriegsmarine in 1939 at age 58 but was rejected because he was considered politically unreliable.
Remaining in East Germany post-WWII, Von Mucke wrote pamphlets against the rearmament of West Germany for the communists but soon fell out with them as well. He passed in 1957 at age 76 and is buried in Ahrensburg.
As she sat in shallow water along the reefs off Keeling and was extensively salvaged over 40 years, literally tons of souvenirs of Emden exist, primarily in Australia, where her bell and several relics are on display at the AWM in Canberra while two of her 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns are in parks in the Canberra and Sydney.
Relics from Sydney and Emden’s battle on display at the Australian War Memorial
It is also likely that many tons of her good Krupp steel armor plate were recycled for use by the Japanese Combined Fleet, as her salvors for long periods in the 1920s and 30s were from Yokohama.
However, little, if anything, survives of Ayesha other than period photographs and romanticized postcards, along with the works of Von Mücke.
She is remembered in postal stamps of the Cocos Islands, for obvious reasons.
The small 4×6 Reichskriegsflagge flown over Keeling by Emden’s Landungskorps, then our subject schooner and brought back to Germany in 1915 with Von Mücke and the gang at some point was put on display in the Marienkirche (St. Mary’s Church) in Lübeck.
Then in the 1930s, it was passed on to Kapt. Julius Lauterbach. A HAPAG reserve officer who had served on the liner Staatssekretär Kraetke before the war and as Emden’s 1st navigation officer during the conflict. He left the cruiser with a 15-man prize crew put aboard the captured 4,350-ton British steamer Buresk in September 1914 to serve as a tender. Captured after Emden was destroyed and Buresk scuttled, he escaped along with 34 other Germans held by the British in Singapore during the Sepoy Mutiny in February 1915. Returning to Germany on his own, (like Von Mücke he also wrote a thin book published during the war, “1000£ Price on Your Head – Dead or Alive: The Escape Adventures of Former Prize Officer S. M. S. Emden”) he was given command of a trap ship (German Q-ship), and subsequently the raider SMS Mowe. In 1955, Lauterbach’s widow donated the flag to German militaria collector Karl Flöck who placed it on display at the Gasthaus zum Roten Ochsen in Cologne for years until it went up to auction in 2009. It is now in private hands.
The tale of Emden has been told numerous times in numerous ways, but it generally left out that of Von Mucke and his refugees. Of note, a 2013 German film, Die Männer der Emden, included it. The trailer includes camels, suffering, and a bit of swashbuckling, as it should.
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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Some 57 years ago this month. Aden Emergency. The flight deck of the 54,000-ton Audacious-class aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (R 05) was photographed as part of Task Force 945 in the Gulf of Aden during the British withdrawal from the Aden colony in November 1967.
IWM (HU 106844)
Eagle’s deck is crowded with De Haviland Sea Vixen FAW.2s of 899 Naval Air Squadron and Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 and S.2s of 800 Naval Air Squadron. Meanwhile, following behind are the Centaur-class commando carrier HMS Albion (R 07), HMS Fearless (L10) of later Falklands fame, and the WWII-era Amphion-class submarine HMS Auriga (S69).
From the same period, drink in this beautiful shot of a Zuni rocket-armed Bucc from Eagle putting its watchful eye over the colony.
A Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft of 800 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Eagle on patrol over Aden and Khormaksar airfield, during the withdrawal of British troops on 29 November 1967. IWM A 35119
The Harland and Wolff-built Eagle, one of Britain’s two proper big deck carriers during the Cold War, was decommissioned in 1972 after just 21 years with the fleet while her sister, HMS Ark Royal, would endure until 1979. Both would have been welcome in the Falklands.
110 years ago this week, 3 November 1914. Admiral Maximilian von Spee’s victorious German East Asia Squadron (Ostasiengeschwader) basking at anchor in Valparaiso, Chile just a few days after the Battle of Coronel, which delivered the Royal Navy its first major naval defeat at sea via surface engagement since the War of 1812 (when the 20-gun brig USS Hornet under the command of James Biddle captured the 19-gun brig-sloop HMS Penguin off Tristan da Cunha after a well-fought battle on 23 March 1815).
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph NH 59638
The German ships are in the distance, with the 13,000-ton armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the lead, followed by the 4,900-ton Königsberg-class light cruiser Nürnberg. Watchful Chilean Navy warships in the middle distance include (from left to right): cruisers Esmeralda, O’Higgins, and Blanco Encalda along with the old (commissioned 1890) ironclad battleship Capitan Prat.
November 4, 1914. Valparaiso. Scharnhorst 3 days after the Battle of Coronel. She is taking on provisions
While Von Spee could take on water and limited provisions and patch their damage from the running fight at Coronel, they could never replace the shells they expended in the scrap with RADM Sir Christopher Cradock’s outclassed and out-fought squadron.
The light cruisers SMS Leipzig and Dresden are not present in the above photos of Von Spee’s force. Post-Coronel, they had escorted the Ostasiengeschwader’s collier train to remote Mas a Fuera (Alejandro Selkirk Island) in the Juan Fernández Archipelago, where the squadron would gather on 6 November.
The decrepit Bussard-class light cruiser SMS Geier, too slow to tag along with Von Spee’s force was already long out of the game. After surviving 11 weeks on the run as an independent unit she had been interned under American guns at Hawaii on 17 October.
Likewise, thehilfskreuzerCormoran, which was the captured 3,400-ton Russian freighter SS Ryazan with a crew from the old Bussard-class cruiser SMS Cormoran and the stricken survey ship SMS Planet, was quietly poking around the Western Pacific and would eventually present herself to American custody at Guam on 14 December 1914.
Dresden’s sister, SMS Emden, is also missing from the above images. She was just six days away from her final engagement with the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, some 9,500 miles away off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. But that is a whole different story.
This seems like a great time to mention when a 110-foot subchaser dressed up like a 495-foot Bogue-class escort carrier some 80 years ago.
Yup, we are talking about Operation Swiss Navy’s USS SC-449.
Submarine chaser SC-449 disguised as the escort carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9), February 1945. Note the relative size of the men on the stern., via Navsource
SC-449 was one of three Submarine Chasers built in a design competition. Built as an experimental SC design she had 50 percent more stability than the production models that were built. In early 1945, she was selected by the Navy to be converted into a mock Escort Carrier (CVE) to be used in the invasion of the Japanese homelands (Operation Swiss Navy). Her deck was stripped and rebuilt with plywood to look like a CVE. The Navy liked what they saw but she was very top-heavy, so they shelved that idea, plus the atom bomb put an end to these plans.
Christopher C. Wright wrote about this in Warship International, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2008).
SC-449 was converted at Ocracoke, North Carolina, into a “deception ship” in a 1:46 scale CVE 9 configuration in November 1944. After a few months of testing, the vessel was reconverted in March 1945 at Norfolk Navy Yard back to its original configuration.
This series of photos is of the modified SC-449, part of a classified deception project by Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet.
These photographs were taken on 18 November 1944. The aerial views are a few samples of those taken at 200 ft, 500 ft, 1000 ft, and 2000 ft. NARA collection.
Decommissioned after the war, she went on to work for Texas A&M’s Marine Department, served as a quarters boat for dredge crews, and finally as a yacht before she was scrapped in 1974.
Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 447-8946.1
Above we see the Buckley-class destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) of ResDesDiv 273 as she makes a port call in Vancouver on 31 July 1965.
At just over 300 feet long, she doesn’t look like much, but by this time in her career, she had already fought in WWII– sinking a Japanese submarine some 80 years ago this week– earned battle stars during Korea, cruised off Vietnam, and would go on to live forever on the silver screen.
The Buckleys
With some 154 hulls ordered, the Buckleys were intended to be cranked out in bulk to counter the swarms of Axis submarines prowling the seas.
Just 306 feet overall, they were about the size of a medium-ish Coast Guard cutter today but packed a lot more armament, namely three 3″/50 DP guns in open mounts, a secondary battery of 1.1-inch (or 40mm), and 20mm AAA guns, and three 21-inch torpedo tubes in a triple mount for taking out enemy surface ships.
Buckley-class-destroyer-escort-1944 USS England by Dr. Dan Saranga via Blueprints
Then there was the formidable ASW suite to include stern depth charge racks, eight depth charge throwers, and a Hedgehog system.
Powered by responsive electric motors fed by steam turbines, they could make 24 knots and were extremely maneuverable.
Class-leader, USS Buckley (DE-51), cutting a 20-knot, 1,000-foot circle on trials off Rockland Maine, 3 July 1943, 80-G-269442
Meet Whitehurst
Our subject carries the name of Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. who, originally scheduled to graduate in February 1942, was matriculated early from Annapolis with the rest of his class 12 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming the second Class of 1941.
Rushed to the Pacific, Henry was lost along with 233 shipmates aboard the heavy cruiser USS Astoria (CA 34)when “Nasty Asty” was sunk early in the morning of 9 August 1942 by Japanese surface forces at the Battle of Savo Island. The young officer was 22.
Ensign Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, Jr. 16 Feb 1920-9 Aug 1942. He is remembered on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Laid down on 21 March 1943 at San Francisco by the Bethlehem Steel Co and launched on 5 September 1943, USS Whitehurst (DE-634) was sponsored by Ensign Whitehurst’s grieving mother, Mrs. Robie S. Whitehurst, and commissioned on 19 November 1943.
Her plankowner skipper was T/LCDR James Robert Gray, USN, 78836, (USNA ‘37). As a young LT(jg), he was the officer of the deck on duty aboard the high-speed minesweeper USS Wasmuth (DD-338/DMS-15) at Pearl Harbor and got the ship underway and fighting, claiming one plane downed. He then served as Damage Control Officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32) at Coral Sea and Midway. Whitehurst was his first command.
Headed to War!
Following sea trials, calibration tests, and shakedown off the West Coast, Whitehurst arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 February 1944 and then got underway for the Solomons three days later as part of a small convoy.
Such work, riding shotgun for troop transports, LCIs, and LSTs on slow and steady (8-9 knot) runs, would be her bread and butter.
She took part in the Palau, Yap, Ulithi, Woleai raid (30 Mar 44 – 1 Apr 44), and, from 26 April through 7 June, she was upfront for the Hollandia operations followed closely by Toem-Wakde-Sarmi and Biak landings, including a very close brush with Japanese shore batteries off the latter.
From her War Diary:
She then joined in the operations to clear out the Northern Solomons from 22 June into early October, which for our tin can meant escorting the PT-boat mothership USS Mobjack (AGP-7) as she shifted ports, patrolling for Japanese submarines and surface contacts, conducting exercises and drills as part of Escort Division 40.
By this stage of the war, the Solomons had become a backwater.
It was there, at Blanche Harbor on Treasury Island on 1 September, that LCDR Grey was relieved by LT Jack Carter Horton, DE-V(G), USNR, 96845. Grey was being sent on to command USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415). Horton, who had gone through the wartime midshipman school with 738 fellow “90-day wonders” at Northwestern University in Chicago, knew Whitehurst well– he had been her XO since commissioning.
The death of I-45
On 12 October, Whitehurst got underway from Humboldt Bay with orders to escort Task Unit 77.7.1, the fueling force for the 7th Fleet for the upcoming invasion of the Philippines. This included four oilers (Ashtabula, Saranac, Salamonie, and Chepachet), the civilian tanker Pueblo, and three fellow Buckleys: the sequential sisters USS Witter (DE-636), Bowers (DE-637), and Willmarth (DE-638).
Nearing the Philippines, Japanese activity increased and folks got jumpy. Just after 0200 on 17 October, a sharp echo underwater led to a radical course change, and a pattern of 13 depth charges dropped over the side as a precaution. Whitehurst’s War Diary notes, “The contact was evaluated as a large fish due to its erratic movements and narrow width.”
Creeping through the Ngaruangl Passage on 20 October, three days later they steamed through the Surigao Straits into the Leyte Gulf, anchoring off Homonhon Island, with her log taking care to note, “This part of the island in Japanese hands.”
Starting the next morning, at 0826 on 24 October, Whitehurst’s tanker group began a four-day running fight with Japanese ground-based aircraft, fending off a series of air attacks by Betty twin-engine and Val single-engine bombers as they repeatedly shifted positions. This included making emergency turns, burning both chemical and oil smoke, and filling the air with 3″/50 and 20mm shells whenever planes came within range. All the while the force managed to conduct underway refueling and escape the battleships and cruisers of Nishimura’s “Southern Force,” although they observed the flashes in the distance of the Battle of Surigao Strait over the night of 24/25 October.
Just when things started quieting down, at 0325 on 29 October Whitehurst observed a strong underwater explosion “some distance away” and received word via TBS that the Butler-class destroyer escort USS Eversole (DE-404) had been torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese Type B2 submarine I-45, taking 80 of her crew to the bottom.
Japanese submarine I-45 (B-class new type-1), on speed trial run off Sasebo, 1943
Whitehurst was detached from her task unit to screen the sistership USS Bull (DE-402) which was picking up what would be 136 survivors from the lost greyhound.
Picking up a sonar contact as she closed with the scene, Whitehurst delivered a series of four barrages of 7.2-inch Mk.10 Hedgehog charges and was rewarded with a series of secondary underwater explosions.
Just after dawn, a large (500-yard by 2,000-yard) oil slick was observed, filled with debris.
From her War Diary:
Japanese Sixth Fleet HQ had no further contact with I-45 and she is presumed lost with LCDR (promoted CDR posthumously) Kawashima Mamoru and his 103-member crew, removed from the Imperial Navy List on 10 March 1945.
Back to work
Continuing her involvement in the Philippines through the end of the month, a role that included blowing up random floating mines with rifle fire, on 2 November Whitehurst was dispatched to escort the damaged oiler Ashtabula to Hollandia for repairs. There, she witnessed the horrific disintegration of the USS Mount Hood (AE-11), packed with 4,500 tons of high explosives, in Seeadler Harbor.
Ordered to leave the harbor with a force of small LSMs and LCTs for Humboldt Bay the same day, by 12 November Whitehurst headed back to the Philippines as escort for Echelon L-13, a mix of 23 LSTs in four columns and 11 merchants in another four columns.
Entering the Surigao Strait by the 19th, enemy planes were sighted off and on over the next few days, cumulating with an attack on the 21st by two Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily,” with one of the twin-engine light bombers shot down in flames. Whitehurst’s gunners contributed 382 rounds to the effort.
Sent back to Manus in December, she remained in the Admiralty Islands on interisland convoy runs and training duties, drydocking in January 1945, and then escorting the destroyer tender USS Sierra (AD-18) and repair ship USS Briareus (AR-12) to Purvis Bay in the Solomons in February.
Then came a well-earned 10-day R&R period in Australia, reporting to Ulithi afterward for the next big show.
Okinawa
Assigned to TF-51 along with two destroyers, USS McDermut (DD-667) and Leutz (DD-481), and the escort USS England (DE-635),Whitehurst and company formed the anti-submarine screen around the light cruisers USS Mobile and Miami for the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto, leaving Ulithi at the end of March.
By 6 April, the first Japanese aircraft out of Okinawa were engaged by Whitehurst, whose gunners fired 263 rounds that day.
Three Japanese Vals closed with the destroyer escort and two were shot down by the ship’s gunners. The third, in a steep 40-degree angle dive, smoking from 20mm hits, crashed into the ship’s bridge at 1502.
The entire bridge structure was enveloped in flames– with all the pilothouse and CIC personnel killed outright– and all control and communications lost. By 1507, with secondary control restored, with gun control conducted by voice, the ship’s force was fighting the fires that were under control by 1515.
The minesweeper USS Vigilance (AM-324) and assault transport USS Crosley (APD-87) came alongside the smoking warship to render medical assistance and rescue.
All of the men in the ship’s radio room as well as those in the forward gun crews had been either killed or seriously wounded by bomb fragments. In all, Whitehurst suffered 31 deaths and 37 wounded while six men were missing in action, presumed blown overboard. Overall, the casualties amounted to a third of the crew.
With Vigilance leading the way and a signalman from the minesweeper on Whitehurst’s deck passing commands back and forth via semaphore flag and handheld blinker lamp, the damaged escort made the protection of the Kerama Retto anchorage by 1830.
Four days later, patched up enough to make for the sea once again, Whitehurst joined a slow convoy bound for recently occupied Saipan and arrived there on the 20th. On the 22nd, she received a dispatch ordering her back to Pearl Harbor for battle damage repairs and alterations. Arriving in Hawaii via Eniwetok on 10 May, where she unloaded munitions and entered the Naval Yard two days later.
P.I. Powerhouse
The brutal month-long campaign to Liberate Japanese-occupied Manila, once considered one of the most beautiful of cities in the Far East, had left the Philippines’s capital a pile of rubble amid destruction perhaps only surpassed by Warsaw.
Manila, Philippine Islands, Feb. 1945. (U.S. Air Force Number 59680AC)
According to post-combat accounting, the fighting destroyed 11,000 of the city’s buildings, leaving 200,000 Filipinos homeless in addition to the 100,000 killed when the smoke cleared in early February 1945. Survivors had no running water, sewage treatment, or electricity.
That’s where Whitehurst and her sisters came in.
Gen. Kruger’s Sixth Army engineer train, tasked with helping to stand Manila back up in addition to pursuing the Japanese into northern Luzon, was soon operating two floating diesel powerplants to provide the city with a trickle of power.
Responding to the call, USS Wiseman (DE-667), one of Whitehurst’s sisters, was given a set of ship-to-shore power reels and transformers, allowing her to send juice into the Manila Electric Service by using the destroyer escort’s main propulsion plant.
Two large cable reels and a transformer were added between the X-position director and the smokestack. The transformers installed as part of the conversion provided electricity in six different voltages ranging from 2,400 and 37,500 volts using the ship’s GE generators
Photo of a power cable reels on the USS Wiseman (DE-667) from the open bridge. The Wiseman helped provide power to Manila for a time in 1945. U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation Collection: Frank M. Frazitta Papers. 0677-048-b1-fi-i6. East Carolina University Digital Collections. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/24920. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024
As detailed by DANFS on Wiseman’s mission:
Arriving at Manila on [March] 23d, she commenced furnishing power to that nearly demolished city on 13 April and, over the next five and one-half months, provided some 5,806,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In addition, Wiseman’s evaporators furnished 150,000 gallons of drinking water to Army facilities in the harbor area and to many small craft. Her radios were also utilized to a great extent. Placed at the disposal of the Navy’s port director, the ship’s communication outfit was used to handle harbor radio traffic until the director’s equipment arrived and was installed ashore.
As part of her yard period in Pearl Harbor following her kamikaze strike, Whitehurst received a similar set of ship-to-shore transmission reels, which she tested on 1 July 1945 by illuminating a test grid ashore at the Navy Yard.
3 July 1945: Whitehurst at Pearl Harbor, undergoing Inclining tests, note her TEG conversion reels are visible behind her stack. (U.S. Navy photo, National Archives #19LCM-DE634-3)
Receiving munitions, provisions, and new crew members (including a new skipper), she spent three weeks on a series of speed and maneuvering trials, augmented by gunnery and ASW exercises then shoved off on 25 July bound for the Philippines.
On 14 August 1945, Whitehurst, which had just escorted the jeep carrier USS Core (CVE-13) from Ulithi to Leyte, arrived at Manila’s inner harbor and tied up, reporting to Sixth Army to relive Wiseman.
She soon after started lighting up the P.I. at a regular 13,200 volts (5.8746E-25 MWh), 24×7.
She would continue this unsung yet vital post-war recovery service for more than two months until relieved on 26 October.
Her services were needed in Guam, and Whitehurst steamed there in early November where she tied up and supplied electrical power to the dredge YM-25, in support of the 301st Naval Construction Bn, into 1946.
No less than six other destroyer escorts– all Buckley class ships– were at some point converted into floating Turbo-Electric Generators (TEG) in such a manner: USS Donnell (DE-56), Foss (DE-59), Marsh (DE-699), Maloy (DE-791), HMS Spragge (K-572, ex-DE-563) and HMS Hotham (K-583 ex-DE-574). Notably, Donnell, which had been extensively damaged by a torpedo from U-473 in May 1944, was reclassified IX-182 and used to supply shore power off Omaha immediately after D-Day.
This allowed them to operate in important expeditionary and humanitarian roles if and when needed, a trick some of them would be called to do in later conflicts. For example, Foss and Maloy went to the aid of blacked-out Portland Maine in 1947 while Wiseman and Marsh powered the respective Korean ports of Masan and Pusan in 1950 during the Korean War.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Korea
Finally returning to CONUS in April 1946 after more than nine months of service as a floating generator, Whitehurst was decommissioned six months later and placed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Green Cove Springs, Florida. She earned six battle stars for her World War II service.
Not all of her sisters were as lucky. Four had been lost during the war: USS Fechteler, sunk by U-967 northwest of Oran, Algeria 5 May 1944; Rich; lost to mines off Utah Beach 8 June 1944 just months after joining the fleet; Bates, sunk by kamikazes off Okinawa 25 May 1945; and Underhill, sunk by a Japanese Kaiten human torpedo northeast of Luzon 24 July 1945. Meanwhile, England, like Whitehurst, was damaged by suicide planes off Okinawa, but unlike our subject was not repaired following the war.
The truth was that the peacetime Navy had little use for slow DEs with their open gun mounts when so many modern, fast, and well-armed new destroyers were just leaving the shipyards.
Port broadside aerial view of destroyer escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) November 30 1949 USN 200669
When the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel during the summer of 1950 into South Korea, Whitehurst was dusted off and recommissioned on 1 September 1950. Sent to the Far East as part of Escort Squadron 11 (CortDiv 112), she earned three battle stars (First UN Counter Offensive, Communist China Spring Offensive, and UN Summer-Fall Offensive) for her activities during the Korean War in the seven months between 25 February and 19 September 1951.
Remaining in the Westpac until 1955, she transferred to Pearl Harbor for another year of service that included poking around the remote islands and atolls of the U.S. Trust Territories for the Pacific, winning hearts and minds by providing aid and medical care for the locals while enforcing fishing regulations and low-key looking for Japanese hold outs.
With an 11-foot draft and the ability to easily launch rubber rafts due to her low freeboard, littoral surveillance came easy.
For instance, take this deck log note from March 1957 into account:
By June 1957, she was one of the last destroyer escorts remaining on active duty in her WWII configuration (if you disregard her TEG equipment).
This led to the ship and her crew being placed at the disposal of 20th Century Fox for six weeks for Dick Powell to film The Enemy Below.
Dubbed the fictional USS Haynes in the film, Whitehurst appears in several significant passages, all filmed in amazing DeLuxe Color.
Reserve Days, and her final mission
Once filming wrapped, Whitehurst was sent to the 13th Naval District at Seattle, Washington in October 1957 to serve with Reserve Escort Squadron 1 (ResCortDiv 112) as a Naval Reserve Training ship, used for weekend cruises one weekend per month and a two-week summer cruise per year.
Decommissioned a second time on 6 December 1958, Whitehurst remained “in service” as a training asset, keeping up her regular drill work.
USS Whitehurst (DE634), note the post-war hull numbers
This continued until October 1961 when she was recommissioned a second time during the Berlin Wall crisis, manned by activated reservists, and sent to Pearl Harbor to join Escort Squadron 7 for 10 months.
Buckley class USS Whitehurst (DE-634)
It was during this time that she was sent to Vietnam in March 1962 along with Escort Division 71. Operating in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, she conducted training of South Vietnamese naval officers out of Danang.
Postwar view of Whitehurst, with her distinctive cable reels on the 01 level amidships
Decommissioned a third time on 1 August 1962, she returned to her weekend warrior NRT job in Seattle as part of Destroyer Squadron 27 (ResDesDiv 273) where, during a 1963 refit, she landed much of her WWII armament and her TEG reels.
Her summer cruises, longer two-week affairs, often ranged as far as Canada and Mexico.
Whitehurst, City of Vancouver Archives. 31 July 1965.
This quiet reserve life continued into October 1968 when she was shifted to Swan Island outside of Portland, Oregon, becoming an NRT vessel there.
On 12 July 1969, Whitehurst was struck from the Navy List as the likelihood of her offering anything as a training asset was slim. By that time, she was one of the final members of her “disposable” class still in the Navy’s hands, a record only surpassed by a handful of fellow NRT ships which lingered into the early 1970s.
Stripped, she was towed to sea by USS Tawasa (ATF-92) and sunk as a target by the submarine USS Trigger (SS-564) on 28 April 1971 in deep water off Vancouver Island, during the development of the MK 48 torpedo– its first live warshot test.
28 April 1971 ex-Whitehurst quickly slides beneath the waves. This photo was taken by the Trigger’s Periscope Photographer, Tom Boyer.
In her ending, she served the Navy one last time by helping to test new weapons and train new bluejackets in their use.
Likewise, 11 of her class were disposed of in similar SINKEXs between 1967 and 1973: ex-USS Lovelace, ex-James E. Craig, ex-Otter, ex-Darby, ex-J. Douglas Blackwood, ex-Alexander J. Luke, ex-Vammen, ex-Loeser, ex-Currier, ex-Cronin, and ex-Gunason.
She has a memorial at the Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.
A website DE634.org, endures to keep her memory alive. Their last reunion listed, combined with veterans of USS Silverstein, Walton, and Foss, was in 2020.
As for her first skipper, James Grey, went on to command two other destroyer escorts and a troopship, including sea time during Korea, then served in several high-level shore assignments until he retired in 1960, capping 23 years with the Navy. He passed in Sunnyvale, California in 2002, aged 87.
Her first XO and second skipper, 90-day wonder Jack Horton, who commanded the ship during the battle against I-45 and somehow survived the kamikaze his ship took to the bridge six months later, mustered out in December 1945 and, settling in Houston, passed in a sailing accident on the Gulf of Mexico in 1970. Life is funny like that.
The Navy has not seen fit to commission a second USS Whitehurst.
However, The Enemy Below endures, and she is still beautiful in rich DeLuxe Color.
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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40 years ago this month, we see the beautiful clean lines of the Leahy class guided missile cruiser USS Reeves (CG-24) underway on 15 October 1984, likely somewhere in the Western Pacific as she was forward deployed to Yokosuka from 1980 to 1989.
USN Photo 330-CFD-DN-ST-85-05479 via NARA 6396505
Named for Admiral Joseph Mason “Bull” Reeves, known as the “Father of Carrier Aviation,” the above was laid down as a destroyer leader (DLG-24) in July 1960 at Puget Sound NSY, sponsored at her launch two years later by the late Admiral’s daughter-in-law, and commissioned 15 May 1964.
Designed for AAW– with her pair of twin Mk 10 SAM launchers and magazine for up to 88 Terrier ER missiles, she was soon fulfilling the role of an AAW picket and floating CSAR asset on Yankee Station off Vietnam for a rotating series of flattops, spending much of her time over the next four years underway in the Gulf of Tonkin, earning three battle stars for her service in South East Asia.
After an overhaul and re-rating along with the rest of her class as an 8,200-ton “cruiser” continued to be a staple in the West Pac for the remainder of her career– except for two deployments ( 24-Jul-1987 to 26-Sep-1987 and 15-Sep-1989 to 24-Oct-1989) to the Persian Gulf to take part in Operation Earnest Will tanker reflagging escorts.
She is seen above in her roughly final configuration, including not only her Terriers but also a Mk 16 ASROC matchbox launcher between the forward Terrier and the bridge; a pair of Mk 15 Vulcan Phalanx CIWS; eight Harpoon cans, and two triple Mk 32 12.75-inch triple tube launchers.
Part of the “Great Cruiser Slaughter” by the Clinton Administration following the end of the Cold War, Reeves was decommissioned on 12 November 1993, stricken the same day, and sunk as a target in 2,541 Fathoms on 31 May 2001
USS Mississippi (BB-41) bombarding Luzon, during the Lingayen operation, on 8 January 1945. She is followed by USS West Virginia (BB-48) and HMAS Shropshire. Photographed from USS New Mexico (BB-40). Mississippi is painted in camouflage Measure 32, Design 6D. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-301229
While surface ships have continued to fight it out in isolated instances since WWII– such as HMS Zealous (R39)/INS Eilat vs Egyptian Komar in 1967; HMS Cadiz (D79)/PNS Khaibar vs INS Nirghat in 1971, and USS Joseph Strauss vs IRIS Sahand in 1988– they have invariably been one-sided over-the-horizon missile engagements between very light ships. Well, light compared to a battlewagon anyway.
The golden age of battleships duking it out with big guns, while something that could have possibly occurred well into the late 1950s, ended 80 years ago today for all practical purposes.
As noted in 1958 by RADM Samuel E. Morison, USNR (Ret.), at the end of the age of the battleship, specifically between the New Mexico class of dreadnought USS Mississippi (BB-41), and the Japanese Fusō-class dreadnought Yamashiro, with the latter serving as the doomed flagship of Vice-Admiral Shōji Nishimura’s Southern Force at the Battle of Surigao Strait:
“When Mississippi discharged her twelve 14-inch guns at Yamashiro at a range of 19,790 yards, at 0408 October 25, 1944, she was not only giving that battleship the coup de grâce, but firing a funeral salute to a finished era of naval warfare.
One can imagine the ghosts of all great admirals from Raleigh to Jellicoe standing at attention as [the] Battle Line went into oblivion, along with the Greek phalanx, the Spanish wall of pikemen, the English longbow and the row-galley tactics of Salamis and Lepanto.”
As a follow-up to our Warship Wednesday this week (“A Tough Little Wolf”) which focused on the three Danish torpedo boats between 1881 and 1990 that carried the name Søulven (Sea Wolf), a little more in-depth on the last of that trio’s class.
The Danish Søløven(Sea Lion) class, was a Vosper design based on the company’s late 1950s Brave class– HMS Brave Borderer (P1011) and HMS Brave Swordsman (P1012)— fast patrol boat’s hull form blended with its Ferocity style construction, which was a bit cheaper than going all-metal.
HMS Brave Borderer (P1011) a fast patrol boat, during trials in the Solent, January 1960. IWM (A 34261)
HMS Ferocity, budget version of the fast Brave Class gas turbine MTB
Ranger magazine page Ferocity, a cheaper version of the Brave-class MTBs
While the steel-hulled 98-foot/114-ton Braves could make a blistering 52 knots on a suite of three Bristol Proteus gas turbines and were armed with a 40mm Bofors, four 21-inch tubes, and two depth charges, the Danish variants used a wooden hull with an aluminum superstructure and a CODOG suite of 3 Proteus gas turbines on three shafts and 2 General Motors 6V71 diesels on outer shafts.
Running 99 feet oal and with a displacement of 120 tons, the Danish boats could “only” make 50 knots and, besides their suite of twin Bofors and four torpedo tubes, were rigged to drop mines.
Manned by 27 men: 5 officers/petty officers and 22 sailors, the six boats of the class all repeated previous Danish Navy names with an S (Søløven, Søridderen, Søbjørnen, Søhesten, Søhunden, and Søulven) hull numbers P510-P515. The design and first hull were paid for by the U.S. under FMS funds under NATO aid, with the first two hulls built at Vosper’s yard in Portchester while the last four were constructed under license by the Royal Danish SY (Orlogsværftets) at Copenhagen.
Søridderen P5111 on right Gribben P508 left
Søridderen P5111 on left Gribben P508 right
Søhesten Orlogsværftets 31. marts 1963. KD Ebbe Wolfhagen i samtale med underdirektor Carl Sorensen, SMI UPI og uident KD. Bag de tre ses direktor Schou-Pedersen, Orlogsværftets Til hojre genkendes i midten (bagerst) viceadmiral Svend Pontoppidan, chef for Sovornet og til hojre med solbriller kommandor Henning Prause, chef for Televosenet. Til venstre i samme gruppe underdirektor Stundsig Larsen, Orlogsværftets Til venstre for Søløven ses motortorpedobat
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra åben bro.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra maskinkontrolpositionen i O-rummet.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her motiv fra mandskabsbanjen i forskibet.
Interiørfoto fra en gasturbinebåd af SØLØVEN-klassen. Her kabyssen.
The Søløvens were so well-liked that Vosper continued marketing the variant and contracts were secured by the King of Libya for three boats (dubbed the Susa class) and Malaysia (four Perkasa-class) which substituted eight SS-12 missiles for torpedoes.
Soulven dropping mines
Motortorpedobåden P511 SØRIDDEREN af SØLØVEN-klassen. Sort / hvidt fotografi. Uden tid eller sted.
P515 SØULVEN og P510 SØLØVEN af SØLØVEN-klassen
Uidentificerbar enhed af SØLØVEN-klassen.
SØLØVEN-klassen. Opvarmning af gasturbiner. Flådestation Frederikshavn, 1976. I baggrunden den udfasede korvet F345 DIANA af TRITON-klassen.
Danish tactics for these PT/MTBs were simple, lay up camouflaged during the day in any number of off-the-beaten-path Scandinavian inlets (they often went to Norway for exercises) then attack targets at night. They were originally tended by the mothership Hjaelperen, later replaced by Moba.
En enhed af SØLØVEN-klassen kamoufleret i Norge.
The Søløven-class was placed into reserve in 1988 and disposed of when the Flyvefisken-class Stanflex 300 patrol vessels entered service, with disposal complete by 1992.
One (Søbjørnen, P512) is on display as a museum ship at the Aalborg Maritime and Marine Museum (Springeren – Maritimt Oplevelsescenter) while at least two others are still in Western Europe as private yachts, running on diesels only.
The museum also markets a beer under the vessel’s name, with proceeds to help preserve historic Danish naval vessels.
