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Warship Wednesday, March 27, 2024: That Time a Jeep Carrier Airshipped an Indian Army Brigade

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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

Warship Wednesday, March 27, 2024: That Time a Jeep Carrier Airshipped an Indian Army Brigade

U.S. Defense Imagery VIRIN: 111-C-9093 by Van Scoyk (US Army), via the U.S. National Archives 111-C-9093

Above we see, on the center-line forward elevator of the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier USS Point Cruz (CVE-119), a great original Kodachrome showing a 25-man stick of Enfield-armed Indian Army troops ready to be airlifted ashore by five waiting H-19s to Panmunjom, Korea during Operation Platform on 7 September 1953. It was a remarkable achievement: vertically inserting 6,061 combat-ready Indian troops some 30 miles inshore in 1,261 helicopter sorties without losing a single man or bird.

You’ve never heard of Operation Platform? Well, stand by for the rundown.

The Commencement Bays

Of the 130 U.S./RN escort carriers– merchant ships hulls given a hangar, magazine, and flight deck– built during WWII, the late-war Commencement Bay class was by far the Cadillac of the design slope. Using lessons learned from the earlier Long Island, Avenger, Sangamon, Bogue, and Casablanca-class ships. Like the hard-hitting Sangamon class, they were based on Maritime Commission T3 class tanker hulls (which they shared with the roomy replenishment oilers of the Chiwawa, Cimarron, and Ashtabula-classes), from the keel-up, these were made into flattops.

Pushing some 25,000 tons at full load, they could make 19 knots which was faster than a lot of submarines looking to plug them. A decent suite of about 60 AAA guns spread across 5-inch, 40mm, and 20mm fittings could put as much flying lead in the air as a light cruiser of the day when enemy aircraft came calling. Finally, they could carry a 30-40 aircraft airwing of single-engine fighter bombers and torpedo planes ready for a fight or about twice that many planes if being used as a delivery ship.

Sounds good, right? Of course, had the war run into 1946-47, the 33 planned vessels of the Commencement Bay class would have no doubt fought kamikazes, midget subs, and suicide boats tooth and nail just off the coast of the Japanese Home Islands.

However, the war ended in Sept. 1945 with only nine of the class barely in commission– most of those still on shake-down cruises. Just two, Block Island and Gilbert Islands, saw significant combat, at Okinawa and Balikpapan, winning two and three battle stars, respectively. Kula Gulf and Cape Gloucester picked up a single battle star.

With the war over, some of the class, such as USS Rabaul and USS Tinian, though complete were never commissioned and simply laid up in mothballs, never being brought to life. Four other ships were canceled before launching just after the bomb on Nagasaki was dropped. In all, just 19 of the planned 33 were commissioned.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Point Cruz

Our boat was initially named Trocadero Bay— for a strait in the eastern part of Bucareli Bay in the Prince of Wales archipelago of Alaska– in line with the “Bay” naming convention at the time for escort carriers. Laid down at Todd Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma on 4 December 1944, she was subsequently renamed Point Cruz to honor the decisive three-day battle in November 1942 on Guadalcanal.

Point Cruz (CVE-119) was launched on Friday, 18 May 1945, NARA 80-G-345301.

Launched a week after VE Day, her construction ended just after VJ Day and she was commissioned on 16 October 1945, a war baby completed too late for her war.

Flight deck of the USS Point Cruz with Avengers and Corsairs, off of San Diego, November 1945

Following trials and shakedowns off the West Coast, Point Cruz spent about a year shuttling aircraft to forward bases around the Western Pacific before reporting to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in March 1947 for inactivation. Decommissioned three months later, she was laid up in the Pacific Reserve Fleet at Bremerton without firing a shot in WWII.

Bremerton, Washington, aerial view of the reserve fleet berthing area at Puget Sound. 25 October 1951. Ships present include USS Indiana (BB-58); USS Alabama (BB-60); USS Maryland (BB-46); USS Colorado (BB-47); and USS West Virginia (BB-48). Four Essex (CV-9) class CVs one Commencement Bay (CVE-105) class CVE in the foreground– possibly Point Cruz– one Independence (CVL-22) class CVL, as well as numerous CA, CL, DD, DE, and auxiliary-type ships are also visible. 80-G-435494

Headed to Korea

With the sleepy early Cold War peace shattered when the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, the Navy was soon reactivating gently used ships from mothballs to sustain the high tempo carrier, fire support, and amphibious warfare operations off the Korean coast. Point Cruz was dusted off and recommissioned on paper on 26 July 1951 but would spend the next 18 months in an extensive overhaul modifying her for use as an ASW Hunter-Killer Group carrier.

Our girl only got underway for Sasebo in January 1953. There, on 11 April, she would embark the scratch air group consisting of F4U-4B Corsairs of VMF-332 and TBM-3W/3E Avengers of VS-23, along with a HO3S-1 helicopter det from HU-1 for C-SAR, and would go on to patrol the Korean coast for the last four months of the conflict.

Vought F4U-4 Corsair fighters assigned to U.S. Marine Corps attack squadron VMA-332 Polka-dots aboard the escort carrier USS Point Cruz (CVE-119) on 27 July 1953 during a deployment to Korea. “Replacing the VMF-312 Checkerboards, which had a red and white checkerboard painted around the engine cowlings, VMA-332, somewhat mockingly, adopted the red polka dots on white background. The design was reminiscent of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker’s ‘Hat in the Ring’ Squadron of World War I. The addition of the hat and cane was derived from the squadron tail letters (MR), being the abbreviation of ‘mister’, and feeling they were gentlemen in every regard, the hat and cane were adopted as accouterments every gentleman has. It was then that the squadron picked up the nickname VMA-332 Polkadots.” Photo by Cpl. G.R. Corseri, USMC

USS Point Cruz (CVE 119) at sea, east of Japan, 23 July 1953. She has anti-submarine aircraft on her flight deck including seven TBM-3S and TBM-3W Avengers and one HO4S helicopter. 80-G-630786

Op Platform

When the Korean War Armistice came about, our little flattop was tasked with her role in Operation Platform (Operation Byway by the U.S. Army and Operation Patang/Kite by the Indian Army), airlifting Indian troops to the Panmunjom neutral buffer zone– without touching South Korea– to supervise the neutral repatriation of some 22,959 North Korean and Chinese POWs, many of which didn’t want to return to their home countries. It would take nine months for these men to either be sent back to their homeland or a neutral country under the agreement that halted the war.

The “hop, skip, and a jump” logistics of Platform/Byway/Patang began with the “hop” of six Allied transports (two Indian, two American, and two British) carrying 6,061 men of the hand-picked five-battalion 190th Indian Brigade from Japan under Brigadier Rajinder Singh Paintal, a formation that would become the post-war Custodian Force India (CFI).

Consisting of some of the most storied units of the Indian Army, many of these men had seen combat in WWII and were professional soldiers. The force was under the overall command of Maj. Gen. Shankarrao Pandurang Patil Thorat, KC, DSO, a long-serving Sandhust-educated gentleman officer who had picked up his well-deserved DSO as c/o of 2/2 Punjab in the hell of Kangaw on the Arakan coast of Burma, against the Japanese in 1945, and subsequently earned his brigadier’s straps while under British service. Singh, the brigade commander, had likewise been through Sandhurst and, as a captain with the 4/19 Hyderabad Regiment, was captured at Singapore in 1942 and endured four years as a POW in Japanese camps.

Most had to be brought to Korea via a USAF airbridge from India to Japan via Calcutta and Saigon.

315th Air Division, Far East–One hundred paratroopers of the Indian Paratroop Battalion board a U.S. Air Force 374th Troop Carrier Wing C-124 “Globemaster” at Dum Dum Airport, Calcutta, en route to Korea to serve with other Indian Custodial Forces in the demilitarized zone. Five hundred and seventy-five Indian troops were airlifted from Calcutta to southern Japan in the three-decked planes in 20 flying hours, with only two stops for refueling. It was the first Globemaster landing at either Calcutta or Saigon, Indo-China, where a refueling stop was made. The Indian paratroopers were brought to southern Japan, where they were scheduled to transfer to a surface vessel. NARA – 542320

The “skip” would see the troops transferred from their troopships to an anchored Point Cruz without landing in South Korea proper– as Rhee thought they were basically co-opted by the Communists– via U.S. Navy LCUs from Inchon.

Then came the final “jump” which was the movement ashore to Panmunjom from Point Cruz’s flight deck via Sikorsky S-55 Chickasaw H-19/HRS-2 helicopters, five aircraft at a time, each carrying five man sticks (each stick limited to 2,000 pounds including men and gear). The choppers came from the Army’s 1st Transportation Army Aviation Battalion (Provisional), which consisted of the 6th and the 13th Helicopter Companies; and the “Greyhawks” of Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron 161 (HMR-161), with an Army colonel as the overall “air boss.”

August 27 saw Point Cruz arrive at Inchon and fly off her fixed-wing aircraft that afternoon. The 28th and 29th saw the Army and Marine helicopter pilots come aboard for orientation.

It was decided that the five-helicopter blocks would form up, land, and take off as a unit for safety, then deliver their charges ashore. Lifejackets would be issued to the troops from a pool just before loading, then collected at the landing zone ashore for reissue to the next group.

The airlift started on 1 September with the first Indian troops shipped over to Point Cruz from the British troopship HMT Empire Pride. Some 437 men were airlifted that afternoon in 89 sorties. The next day 907 men in 186 flights– including deputy brigade commander Brig Gen. Gurbuksh Lingh and the entire 6th Bn Jat Regiment– followed by 73 sorties on 3 September carrying 360 men for a composite total of 1,704 troops carried ashore in 348 flights.

Indian troops Korea Inchon, Sept 1953

Point Cruz: Indian troops loading up during Operation Platform Sept 1953 LIFE

The British steamer HMT Dilwara arrived off Inchon on 6 September from Japan and started transferring men via LCU to Point Cruz, with the airlift starting up again on the 7th with 979 Indian troops, primarily of the 3rd Bn Dogra Regiment, carried inshore in 196 flights.

When the Indian ship Jaladurga steamed into Inchon a few days later, followed by the American MSTS troopship USNS General Edgar T. Collins (T-AP-147), 1,555 Indian troops were transferred aboard Point Cruz and then carried into the DMZ in 328 flights. These were primarily from the 5th Bn Rajputana Rifles and of the brigade’s HHC.

The final phase saw the Indian ship Jalagopal and the transport USS Menifee (APA-202) transfer 1,823 Indian troops to Point Cruz via boat, which were then carried into the DMZ in 389 sorties between the 28th and the 30th. These troops included the whole of the 3rd Bn Garhwal Rifles and the 2nd Bn Parachute Regiment (Maratha), along with support personnel.

Platform was a tremendous success in terms of moving the 190th ashore, especially considering the military use of the helicopter was in its infancy and the first U.S. military rotary wing shipboard trials had only been conducted a decade prior.

Twilight

Wrapping up her involvement in moving the Indians to the Panmunjom buffer zone, Point Cruz reembarked her Corsairs and Avengers and resumed patrols in the tense waters around Korea. Headed back to San Diego, she landed her aircraft on 18 December 1953 and began an overhaul there that would last until April 1954.

A West Pac cruise from 27 April to 23 November saw her embark the short-lived 11-ton Grumman AF-2W/2S Guardians of VS-21– the first purpose-built ASW aircraft system to enter service in the U.S. Navy aircraft, along with a HO4S-3 helicopter det of HS-2.

A follow-on West Pac cruise (24 August 1955- February 1956), as the flagship of Carrier Division 15, would see Point Cruz with another new ASW platform, the twin-engined 12-ton S2F-1 Tracker, the largest Navy aircraft to operate from CVEs. This cruise would also see one of the final carrier deployments of Corsairs, with a det of radar-equipped F4U-5N night fighters of Composite Squadron 3 (VC-3) “Blue Nemesis” embarked to give the flattop some limited air-to-air capability.

USS Point Cruz (CVE-119) underway with a Sikorsky HO4S-3S of Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron HS-4 and Grumman S2F-1 Trackers of Antisubmarine Squadron VS-25 on board, 1955. U.S. Navy photo USN 688159

USS Point Cruz (CVE-119) is underway with a Sikorsky HO4S-3S of HS-4 and four S2F-1 Trackers of VS-25 aboard, 1955. Note she still has her 40mm twin Bofors installed including at least one that is radar-guided. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.035.048

Point Cruz departed Yokosuka on 31 January 1956 and arrived in Long Beach in early February for inactivation at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Decommissioned on 31 August 1956, CVE-119 was placed in the Bremerton Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet.

Vietnam

While in a reserve status, Point Cruz was redesignated as an Aircraft Ferry (AKV-19), on 17 May 1957.

With the massive build-up of forces in Southeast Asia, Point Cruz was taken out of mothballs, reactivated, on 23 August 1965, and placed under the operational control of the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) as T-AKV 19 in September of that year. By the end of that year, MSTS had over 300 freighters and tankers supplying Vietnam, with an average of 75 ships and over 3,000 merchant mariners in Vietnamese ports at any time.

Crewed by civilian mariners, USNS Point Cruz spent the next four years in regular aircraft ferry service from the West Coast to the Republic of Vietnam and other points Far East, typically loaded with Army helicopters– something she was quite familiar with. In this tasking, she joined at least five fellow CVEs taken out of mothballs– USNS Kula Gulf, Core, Card, Croatan, and Breton.

Men of the 271st Aviation Company, 13th Battalion, 164th Group, 1st Aviation Brigade, remove the protective cocoon from the first of the 16 CH 47B Chinook helicopters sitting on the deck of the USS Point Cruz 23 February 1968 NARA photo 111-CCV-105-CC47174 by SP4 Richard Durrance

A CH-47B of the 271st, Point Cruz, same date and place as above. NARA photo 111-CCV-638-CC47180 by SP4 Richard Durrance.

She also carried a number of jets that she could never have operated.

USNS Point Cruz delivered aircraft to Yokosuka, Japan in the mid-1960s. Types onboard appear to be A-1 Skyraiders, a T-33 Tweet, an F-104 Starfighter, and F-4 Phantom IIs. The F-104 and F-4s were possibly bound for the JASDF, the other aircraft for use in Vietnam.

Tug Smohalla (YTM-371) alongside the Aircraft Transport USNS Point Cruz (T-AKV 19) at Yokosuka, Japan, 11 June 1966. Via Navsource

Placed out of service on 6 October 1969, the ex-Point Cruz was advertised in a scrap auction in February 1971 that was secured by the Southern Scrap Material Co. New Orleans for a high bid of $108,888.88.

Removed from Naval custody on 18 June 1971, her scrapping was completed sometime in 1972.

Epilogue

The plans and some images for Point Cruz are in the National Archives.

Of the rest of the Commencement Bay class, most saw a mixed bag of post-WWII service as Helicopter Carriers (CVHE) or Cargo Ships and Aircraft Ferries (AKV). Most were sold for scrap by the early 1970s with the last of the class, Gilbert Islands, converted to a communication relay ship, AGMR-1, enduring on active service until 1969 and going to the breakers in 1979. Their more than 30 “sisters below the waist” the other T3 tankers were used by the Navy through the Cold War with the last of the breed, USS Mispillion (AO-105), headed to the breakers in 2011.

As for Operation Platform, one of the Army H-19C Hogs involved (51-14272/MSN 55225), one of the four known surviving aircraft of the type in the world, is preserved at the U.S. Army Aviation Museum in Alabama. Likewise, a Marine HRS-2, marked as 127834, is in the main atrium of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, portrayed disembarking a machine gun unit onto a Korean War position.

The CFI, on completion of their mission in May 1954, returned to India by sea and all five battalions of the 190th Brigade are still in existence in today’s Indian Army. As a testament to their success in safeguarding the controversial Chinese and North Korean POWs, some 86 of the latter as well as two South Koreans elected to immigrate to India with their protectors when the latter sailed for home.

The Marine unit that took them ashore, HMR-161, still exists as VMM-161.

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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What a Dazzling Balao

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How about this great series of photos of the brand new Balao-class diesel-electric fleet submarine USS Tilefish (SS-307) off Mare Island Navy Yard on 2 March 1944, USN photos # 1434-44 through 1436-44. Commissioned just nine weeks prior, she is pictured here just after her post-shakedown maintenance before departing for points West to get in the war.

Broadside view of the Tilefish (SS-307) off Mare Island on 2 March 1944. USN photos # 1434-44 through1436-44, courtesy of Darryl L. Baker. Via Navsource

A past Warship Wednesday alum, Tilefish gave hard service under the U.S. flag, earning five battle stars across six war patrols during WWII and another star for her Korean service. Given a Fleet Snorkel upgrade post-war, she was decommissioned and transferred to then-U.S. ally Venuzela in 1960 with 16 years on her hull. Her second career, as ARV Carite (S-11), would ironically stretch out another 16 years.

Of interest, Tilefish was a bit of a movie star, appearing in Glen Ford’s Torpedo Run as well as James Gardner’s Up Periscope while in the USN and, in Venuzlan service, as a curiously dazzle-camo’d German U-boat in 1971’s Murphy’s War, which starred Peter O’Toole as the eponymous Murphy.

That’s One Smoking Jeep Carrier

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80 years ago today.

The war diary for the Bogue-class escort carrier USS Altamaha (CVE-18), 1 March 1944:

F6F-3 Hellcat getting ready for a jet-assisted take-off from the escort carrier USS Altamaha (CVE-18), on 1 March 1944 NASM Photo No. 1996.253.7193.009.

F4U Corsair conducts a jet-assisted take-off aboard USS Altamaha (CVE-18), 1 March 1944 Photo NS0301812

I even found this great color film of the event in the NARA and uploaded it: 

USS Altamaha (CVE-18) was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 235) on 19 December 1941 at Tacoma, Wash., by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp and commissioned on 15 September 1942, Capt. J. R. Tate in command.

Following brief sea trials, she spent the last two months of 1942 and all of 1943 shuttling aircraft around to various bases in the Pacific, including Marine units, replacement aircraft for the flattops of the Pacific Fleet, and USAAF squadrons, carrying the latter as far as Karachi, Pakistan.

USS Altamaha (CVE-18) transporting Army P-51 Mustang fighters off San Francisco, California on 16 July 1943. NH 106575

Then, from 21 December 1943 through the above video, she was based in San Diego and used for experiments and carrier quals.

Finally, her time as a flattop taxi and school boat was done, at the end of March she embarked VC-66, and made her way West once again, this time with her teeth in.

Altamaha won one battle star for her World War II service, was placed out of commission, in reserve, on 27 September 1946, and spent the next 15 years in mothballs. Ironically, she was scrapped in Japan, her Bethlehem steel no doubt recycled into Toyotas and Datsuns.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

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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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32217

Above we see the Tambor-class fleet boat USS Trout (SS-202) as she returns to Pearl Harbor on 14 June 1942, just after the Battle of Midway. She is carrying two Japanese prisoners of war from the sunken cruiser Mikuma. Among those waiting on the pier are RADM Robert H. English and “the boss,” Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Note the pair of .30-06 Lewis guns on Trout’s sail, flanking her periscope shears.

Trout is believed lost with all hands, 80 years ago this month, around 29 February 1944, off the Philippines while on her 11th war patrol.

The Tambors

The dozen Tambors, completed in a compressed 30-month peacetime period between when USS Tambor (SS-198) was laid down on 16 January 1939 and USS Grayback (SS-208) commissioned on 30 June 1941, are often considered the first fully successful U.S. Navy fleet submarines. This speedy construction period was in large part due to the fact they were completed in three different yards simultaneously.

Some 307 feet long with a 2,375-ton submerged displacement, they carried 10 21-inch torpedo tubes (six forward, four aft) with a provision for 24 torpedoes (or 48 mines), as well as a small 3″/50 deck gun augmented by a couple of Lewis guns and the occasional .50 cal. They enjoyed a central combat suite with a new Torpedo Data Computer and attack periscope.

With an engineering suite of four diesel engines driving electrical generators and four GE electric motors drawing from a pair of 126-cell Sargo batteries, they could sail for an amazing 10,000nm at 10 knots on the surface and sprint for as much as 20 knots while on an attack. Further, they had strong hulls, designed for 250-foot depths with a possible 500-foot redline crush. They also had updated habitability for 70-day patrols including freshwater distillation units and air conditioning. A luxury!

Meet Trout

Our boat was one of four Tambors constructed by the historic Portsmouth Navy Yard, built side-by-side with sister USS Triton (SS-201). Trout was the first boat to carry the name in the U.S. Navy and, laid down on 28 August 1939, was launched on 21 May 1940 after a nine-month gestation period.

Trout (SS-202) bow view at fitting out the pier, 10 July 1940 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, via ussubvetsofworldwarii.org through Navsource.

Commissioned on 15 November 1940, LCDR Frank Wesley “Mike” Fenno, Jr., (USNA 1925), formerly of the “Sugar Boats” S-31 and S-37, was in command.

Following shakedowns on the East Coast, Trout sailed through “The Ditch” and joined five sister boats in Submarine Division 62, based at Pearl Harbor, where she arrived in August 1941 as part of the big build-up in the tense Pacific.

USS Trout, 1941

War!

On 7 December 1941, one of Trout’s sisters, USS Tautog (SS-199), was tied up at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and her .50 cals and Lewis guns were credited with downing at least one Japanese plane during the attack that morning.

As for the other five Tambors operating at Pearl?

They were all out on patrol, our Trout included, which was off the then-unknown atoll of Midway. That night, she spotted the Japanese destroyers Sazanami and Ushio as they shelled the American base there but was unable to successfully attack them.

Ending what turned out to be her 1st War Patrol on 20 December in the still-smoking battle-scarred base at Pearl, Trout, after landing most of her torpedoes and ballast, was ordered to take aboard 3,517 rounds of badly needed 3-inch AA ammunition and sortie out on her 2nd War Patrol on 12 January 1942, bound run the Japanese blockade to the besieged American forces on the “Rock” Corregidor in the Philippines. Over 45 days, nine American subs, Trout included, made the dangerous run to the last U.S. stronghold in Luzon.

Arriving at Corregidor on 6 February after a brief brush with a Japanese subchaser, Trout unloaded her shells and then took on a ballast of 20 tons of gold bars and silver pesos (all the paper money in the islands had already been burned), securities, mail, and United States Department of State dispatches, which she dutifully brought back to Pearl on 3 March. However, on the way she took the time to chalk up her first confirmed “kill” of the war: the Japanese auxiliary gunboat Chuwa Maru (2719 GRT), sent to the bottom about 55 nautical miles from Keelung, Formosa on 9 February.

She arrived back in Pearl Harbor to unload her precious cargo.

USS Trout (SS-202) approaches USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, to unload a cargo of gold that she had evacuated from the Philippines. The gold had been loaded aboard Trout at Corregidor on 4 February 1942. NH 50389

USS Trout (SS-202) coming alongside USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl. Note details of the submarine’s fairwater, and .30 caliber Lewis gun mounted aft of the periscope housing. NH 50388

USS Trout (SS-202) At Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, unloading gold bars which she had evacuated from Corregidor. 80-G-45971

USS Trout (SS-202): gold bars that Trout carried from Corregidor to Pearl Harbor. Photographed as the gold was being unloaded from the submarine at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942. 80-G-45970

Sailing for her 3rd War Patrol on 24 March, she was ordered to take the war to Tokyo and haunt the Japanese home waters. Trout fulfilled that mandate and logged damaging attacks on the tanker Nisshin Maru (16801 GRT) and Tachibana Maru (6521 GRT), as well as sending the Uzan Maru (5019 GRT) and gunboat Kongosan Maru (2119 GRT) to the bottom before returning to Pearl in early May.

At the time Trout had logged the most successful U.S. Navy submarine war patrol to date and she was given credit for 31,000 tons sunk and another 15,000 tons damaged.

Midway

Her 4th War Patrol was to participate in the fleet action that is known today as the Battle of Midway– Trout’s old December 7th stomping grounds. She left Pearl on 21 May in company with her sisters, USS Tambor, and USS Grayling, to join the 12-submarine Task Group 7.1, the Midway Patrol Group.

From her war diary of the battle, which included chasing down a crippled Japanese battleship which turned out to be the lost 14,000-ton Mogami class heavy cruiser Mikuma. She rescued two Japanese survivors from said warship, Chief Radioman Hatsuichi Yoshida and Fireman 3rd Class Kenichi Ishikawa, on 9 June. Some of the very few IJN POWs in American custody at the time, Trout was ordered to return to Pearl with her waterlogged guests of the Emperor’s Navy, arriving there five days later to an eager reception committee.

Battle of Midway, June 1942. The burning Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma, photographed from a U.S. Navy aircraft during the afternoon of 6 June 1942, after she had been bombed by planes from USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Hornet (CV-8). Note her third eight-inch gun turret, with the roof blown off and barrels at different elevations, Japanese Sun insignia painted atop the forward turret, and wrecked midship superstructure. 80-G-457861

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Three officers standing together are: Commander Jack Haines; Commander Norman Ives, and Commander O’Leary. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32213

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Japanese Prisoner. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32212

With four patrols under his belt, including the successful 3rd patrol, the Corregidor ammo run/gold return, and the Midway POWs, FDR directed that LCDR Fenno be awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross, while the rest of the crew received the Army Silver Star Medal. Fenno also racked up two Navy Crosses and, ordered to take command of the building Gato-class fleet boat USS Runner (SS-275), Trout’s plank owner skipper left for New London.

He was replaced by LCDR Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage (USNA 1931) who had earned a Silver Star earlier in the year as the diving officer on Trout’s sister, USS Grenadier (SS-210), during the sinking of the 14,000-ton troopship Taiyō Maru.

Back in the War

Red Ramage and Trout left Pearl on the boat’s 5th War Patrol on 27 August, bound for the Japanese stronghold of Truk, where she was able to sink the net layer Koei Maru (863 GRT) and damage the 20,000-ton light carrier Taiyo, knocking the latter out of the war for over two months and forced her back to Kure for repairs.

Escort carrier IJN Taiyo in Kure drydock after Trout torpedo

Damaged by a Japanese airstrike that knocked out her periscopes, Trout cut her patrol short and made for Freemantle.

Repaired, Trout’s 6th War Patrol, in the Solomons in October-November, proved uneventful.

Red Ramage then took Trout on her 7th Patrol, leaving Fremantle four days after Christmas 1942, headed for the waters off Borneo. This long (11,000-mile, 58-day) patrol saw the boat damage two large (16-17,000 ton) tankers as well as two small gunboats and sink a pair of coastal schoolers. Combat included a running gunfight with the tanker Nisshin Maru on Valentine’s Day 1943 which left 10 members of Trout’s crew injured.

Trout vs Nisshin Maru Feb 14 1943

Trout’s 8th War Patrol, a minelaying run off Japanese-occupied Sarawak, Borneo in March-April, ended Red Ramage’s tour with our boat, and he left Freemantle bound for Portsmouth where he would oversee the building, outfitting, and first two (very successful) war patrols of the new Balao-class submarine USS Parche (SS-384).

Trout’s final skipper would be LCDR Albert “Hobo” Hobbs Clark (USNA 1933) who had been Trout’s Engineering officer on several of her early war patrols before serving on the staff of SubRon 6. He rejoined his former boat as “the old man” on 4 May 1943, just shy of his 33rd birthday. He would not see his 34th.

Trout was ordered back to the occupied Philippines as part of LCDR Charles “Chick” Parsons’s “Spy Squadron” of 19 submarines– including several Tambors— which delivered 1,325 tons of supplies in at least 41 missions to local guerrillas between December 1942 and New Years Day 1945, with an emphasis on medicine, weapons, ammunition, and radio gear.

Trout’s 9th War Patrol, from 26 May to 30 July 1943, saw two successful “special missions” landing agents and supplies in Mindanao well as conducting four attacks on Japanese surface ships, claiming some 17,247 tons sunk. Post-war the only confirmed sinking from this patrol was the freighter Isuzu Maru (2866 GRT), sunk 2 July.

Trout’s four attacks on the 9th War Patrol

As for the Spyron missions accomplished by Trout on this patrol, these included recovering Chick Parsons himself along with survivors of the Bataan Death March, who had escaped the hellish Davao POW camp, and delivering them to Australia where they were able to tell the world of what they had endured.

Details of Trout’s two Spyron missions, via the 7th Fleet Intelligence Section report:

Special mission accomplished. 12 June 1943.
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To deliver a party of six or seven men, funds ($10,000), and 2 tons of equipment and supplies to a designated spot on Basilon Island to establish a secret intelligence unit in the Sulu Archipelago and Zamboanga area; to establish coast watcher net in the area and for surveying purposes, and to arrange for delivery of extra supplies to guerrilla units.

Special Mission accomplished 9 July 1943
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To land a party of two officers and three men, together with supplies and ammunition off Labangan, Pagadian Bay, on the South Mindanao Coast. In addition to the above, Trout picked up Lt. Comdr. Parsons and four U.S. Naval officers and reconnoitered the area southeast of Olutanga Island (South Coast of Mindanao, P.I.).

Leaving Freemantle again just three weeks later on her 10th War Patrol, Trout again returned to the Philippines where she patrolled the Surigao and San Bernardino straits. She would fight an epic surface engagement, pirate style, with a Japanese trawler during this patrol.

As noted by DANFS:

On 25 August, she battled a cargo fisherman with her deck guns and then sent a boarding party on board the Japanese vessel. After they had returned to the submarine with the prize’s crew, papers, charts, and other material for study by intelligence officers, the submarine sank the vessel. Three of the five prisoners were later embarked in a dinghy off Tifore Island.

A happy patrol, she would go on to sink the transports Ryotoku Maru (3438 GRT) and Yamashiro Maru (3427 GRT) back-to-back on 23 September before returning to Pearl Harbor, and from there, a much-needed trip to Mare Island for a four-month shipyard overhaul.

In her first ten patrols, Trout claimed 23 enemy ships, giving her 87,800 tons sunk, and damaged 6 ships, for 75,000 tons.

Leaving Mare Island for Pearl, on 8 February, Trout began her 11th and final war patrol. Topping off with fuel at Midway on the 16th she headed towards the East China Sea but was never heard from again.

Hobo Clark went down fighting and her 81 officers and men are listed on Eternal Patrol, with Clark and two other officers in the USNA’s Memorial Hall. 

As detailed by DANFS:

Japanese records indicate that one of their convoys was attacked by a submarine on 29 February 1944 in the patrol area assigned to Trout. The submarine badly damaged one large passenger-cargo ship and sank the 7,126-ton transport Sakito Maru [which was carrying the Japanese 18th Infantry Regiment, of which 2,500 were lost]. Possibly one of the convoy’s escorts sank the submarine. On 17 April 1944, Trout was declared presumed lost.

It is thought that she was sunk by the destroyer Asashimo in conjunction with fellow tin cans Kishinami and Okinami.

Japanese destroyer Asashimo

Trout received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her second, third, and fifth patrols.

Trout is on the list of 52 American submarines lost in the conflict, along with twin sister Triton and classmates Grampus, Grayling, Grayback, Grenadier, and Gudgeon.

(Photo: Chris Eger)

Just five of 12 Tambors were still afloat on VJ Day, and the Navy quietly retried them for use as Reserve training ships and then disposed of even these remnants by the late 1950s.

Epilogue

The plans and war diaries for Trout are in the National Archives. 

Her 2nd Patrol– the Corregidor sneak that brought in AAA shells and left with gold and silver– was turned into an episode of The Silent Service in the 1950s.

Of her two surviving skippers, Mike Fenno would go on to take USS Runner on her first two war patrols in 1943 and take USS Pampanito (SS-383) on her 4th in 1944, chalking up at least two additional Japanese Marus, before going on to command SubRon 24 (“Fenno’s Ferrets”) for the rest of the war. He went on to command Guantanamo Bay during the tense early Castro period and retired as a rear admiral in 1962.

RADM Mike Fenno passed away in 1973, aged 70, and is buried in Arlington.

Red Ramage likewise took other boats out after he left Trout and is famous for a July 1944 convoy attack on USS Parche in conjunction with USS Steelhead that went down in the history books as “Ramage’s Rampage,” after it sent five Japanese ships to the bottom. This earned Ramage the MoH. He retired as a vice admiral in 1969 and passed in 1990. Like Mike Fenno, he is buried at Arlington. In 1995, the Flight I Burke, USS Ramage (DDG-61)— which I worked on at Ingalls and sailed on her trials– was named in honor of “Red.”

Red Ramage

The Navy recycled Trout’s name for a late-model diesel boat of the Tang class (SS-566). This second USS Trout was laid down on 1 Dec. 1949 at EB and at her launch she was sponsored by the widow of LCDR Albert H. Clark, the last commanding officer of the first USS Trout (SS-202), who was lost on the boat’s 11th war patrol in 1944 along with 80 other souls.

Here we see a P-2H Neptune of Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 as it flies over the Tang-class submarine USS Trout (SS-566), near Charleston, S.C., May 7, 1961. NHHC KN-2708

After serving during the Cold War and being transferred to Turkey, in 1992, the near-pristine although 40-year-old Trout was returned to U.S. Navy custody and then used as an experimental hull and acoustic target sub at NAWCAD Key West. She somehow survived in USN custody until 2008 when she was finally reduced to razor blades at Brownsville.

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.

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Juan Sebastián de Elcano Sails on Her 96th Training Cruise

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Commissioned in 1927, the Spanish Navy’s 371-foot steel-hulled training barquentine Juan Sebastián de Elcano left Cadiz last month for a regular seven-month cadet cruise, her 96th.

The ship is under the command of Captain Luis Carreras-Presas do Campo and the crew of the four-mast brig-schooner is made up of 21 officers, 21 NCOs, 135 seamen/third-year cadets, and 2 civilians.

Elcano via Ministerio de Defensa España

She is expected to call at 10 overseas ports sailing across the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific: Las Palmas (Canary Islands), Fortaleza (Brazil), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Manzanillo (Mexico), San Diego, Balboa, New Orleans, Boston, London, and Marin (NW Spain), returning to her home base on 21 July.

With a history that includes covering over 2 million miles under sail and ten full circumnavigations of the globe, if you have a chance to visit her you will not be let down.

I had a chance to visit Elcano last June when she called at Pensacola’s Commendencia Street Slip, her 9th visit there since 1959. Of interest, I noted she carried a pair of well-greased 37mm DP 6-pounders for use as saluting guns, and a rack of HK G36s and sabers on the quarterdeck protected by a Cabo armed with a Star Model 30M sidearm.

Gotta love those HK36s

A closer look at the stand. Note the officer sabers and, while there are no loaded mags in place, you can bet there is an ammo box somewhere close if needed.

The wheels and breech are well lubricated and these pieces no doubt get a lot of TLC after firing salutes. Can you imagine having to clean off powder and carbon from this bad boy? Well, I guess that’s what midshipmen are for. 

The Star Model 30M, with gold embossed grip panels, is a standard sidearm of the Spanish Navy, despite Star going belly up years ago. Also, note the Bianchi UM84 holster in parade white 

El Cano is beautiful, and if you get a chance to visit her this year– or any year– please do

 

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024: One Unlucky Beauty

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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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024: One Unlucky Beauty

National Archives Record Group 19-LCM. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102049

Above we see the beautiful U.S. steam yacht Nahma in all her pre-Great War finery. She had entertained Kaisers and Kings and had a strange yet underreported knack for damaging Italian warships in both times of peace and conflict.

Matching yachts for matching brothers

Ordered as Yard No. 300 from the Clydebank Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., the fine Scottish-built Nahma was paid for in 1896 by one Mr. Robert W Goelet, son of Manhattan real estate tycoon Robert R. Goelet. A familiar design to the builder– one by George L. Watson of Glasgow– Nahma was a carbon copy of much more famous future presidential yacht Mayflower, ordered the year prior by Ogden Goelet, brother to Robert W.

As noted by the NYT in October 1897:

She is built entirely of steel, on the spar-deck principle, and has a clipper stem and a square stern. From the foremast to within 50 feet of the taffrail extends the promenade, or boat, deck, which has a length of 190 feet. The vessel is schooner rigged, each mast being in one length. She has a standing bowsprit, and in all respects her rig is most smart in appearance. She is painted white, with a green boot top, and, with her great array of portholes, her fine set of boats, including a steam launch, and her large funnels, ventilators, and awning supports, which are of metal tubes, she presents a handsome appearance.

She is subdivided into several water-tight compartments by seven bulkheads, all of which are cemented. Her dimensions are as follows:- Length on load water line, 275 feet; length between perpendiculars, 288.8 feet; and from over the figurehead to taffrail 320 feet; breadth 36.7 feet, with a depth molded of 17.7 feet. Her tonnage is 969.79 and 1,739.83, net and gross, respectively, and 1,844, according to the Thames yacht measurement.

The Nahma is equipped with electric lighting, heating, and ventilating devices, and a refrigerating machine. She is propelled by two triple expansion engines of 4,250 horsepower. On her trial trip she developed a sustained speed of 16¾ knots per hour. The yacht mounts two Hotchkiss quick-firing guns and carries a stand of carbines, and among her crew of seventy-two men is a gunner. She is commanded by Capt. Churchill, who was formerly in the Cunard service.

Yes, you read that right. As a 320-foot private yacht, she was built with a well-stocked small arms locker and carried a pair of 6-pounder QF 37mm Hotchkiss guns. More on this later.

Before the lights went out in Europe

She would sail briefly for the Winter 1897 season to the waters off New York and Newport, and early 1898 would see the new yacht back in Scottish waters for upgrades deemed needed by her owner. She was still in her builder’s yard when her sister, Mayflower, was purchased by the Navy from the estate of the late Ogden Goelet– who had passed aboard her at Cowes– and converted for use in the Spanish American War as a patrol yacht.

Speaking of the late Mr. Ogden, Robert W. Goelet passed away shortly after his brother, having only enjoyed his new yacht for a few months. He passed aboard her while in Nice in April 1899, and his body was returned to the States aboard her, the yacht’s flag at half mast, to be buried in Newport’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

While his widow, Mrs. Henrietta Louise (née Warren) Goelet, briefly considered the sale of the Nahma to Sir Thomas Lipton for £80,000, she elected instead to keep the vessel and made it her more or less permanent home for the next 13 years.

Mrs. Goelet kept Nahma underway, sailing from New England to Europe and back, where the elegant yacht was a staple of Cannes, Nice, Cowes, St. Petersburg, Christiania, and Kiel. Kaiser Wilhelm and his wife became regular guests aboard, calling on Mrs. Goelet on no less than seven occasions over the years. She also entertained King Edward and a legion of lesser nobility and both Mrs. Goelet and her skipper often received foreign orders and decorations in return. 

The vessel would typically just return to American waters for the late summer cup races off New York.

America’s Cup race, yacht Nahma 1901 LC-DIG-det-4a15306

America’s Cup race, yacht Nahma 1901, LOC

American-owned yacht Nahma. Commanded by Captain George Harvey of Wivenhoe with a Colne crew of 70. She could steam at 18 kts and carried quick-firing guns and searchlights for her voyaging in remote seas. A postcard, posted in Le Havre to Mrs. S Cranfield. Mersea Museum Collection BOXL_026_004_002. Used in The Northseamen, page 185

Steam yacht Nahma. A postcard was posted to Le Havre on 20 May 1912. Date: 20 May 1912. Image: John Leather Collection. Mersea Island Museum BOXL_026_004_003

Steam Yacht Nahma at anchor. Photo from J. Gelser, Alger. John Leather Collection. Mersea Museum Collection. ID BF69_006_013

Steam Yacht Nahma at Saint Malo. Postcard. John Leather Collection. Mersea Museum Collection. BF69_006_012

The New York Yacht Club’s steam yacht Nahma off Naples, 1908 by Italian artist Antonio de Simone

On one occasion, Nahma would run afoul due to her 6-pounders while passing to Constantinople.

From the NYT:

On April 27 [1903] Mrs. Goelet with a party of New York friends entered the Dardanelles on her yacht Nahma. The Nahma carries two six-pounders mounted forward and aft, “for saluting purposes.” When the sentinels on the Turkish fortresses caught the outlines of these guns under their tarpaulin coverings there was a rushing to and fro, signals flashed back and forth, and soon a shot plunged across the Nahma’s bow and the yacht hove to.

Mrs. Goelet had a dinner engagement in Constantinople for which she had already broken all speed ordinances and she did not like interference by Turkish officers with her plans.

The officers were polite, but firm. The Nahma was a warship, witness the six-pounders, and to such the passage was closed. Two days of delay followed. Mrs. Goelet demanded that Minister Leishman secure from the Sultan respect and proper reparation for her broken dinner engagement and a passage for the Nahma.

Although an extensively married man, Abdul Hamid is not without a sense of humor. At any rate, the Nahma, six-pounders and all, was allowed to steam on at the end of two days as a yacht and not as a warship. His Sultanic Majesty also conferred on Mrs. Goelet the Grand Cordon of the Turkish Order of the Chefakat, which was not much, after all, for a woman who had done what the powers have never been able to do with all their armaments.”

She also had a crack up with the Italian Navy, suffering a collision with the elderly (and quite immobile) ironclad Affondatore in Venice in May 1906, which had been largely laid up as a guard ship there for years. With the captain of the Nahma blamed by the Italian Admiralty, Mrs. Goelet quickly offered to pay for the damages stemming from the bloodless incident.

Italian ironclad “Affondatore” in her post-1888/1889 refit configuration. The Battle of Lissa veteran was semi-retired when Nahma brushed against her in Venice in 1906. She ended her days as a floating ammunition depot at Taranto in the 1920s.

Then, in August 1912, ailing with cancer, Mrs. Goelet went to Paris for treatment there and passed in the City of Lights that December. The Nahma passed to her only son, Robert Walton Goelet, who showed little interest in the vessel, although did bring legal action to keep from having to pay an exorbitant amount of tax on the ship.

Soon, the stately ship ended up in pier-side storage in Greenock, Scotland.

War!

With the U.S. entry into the Great War, and sister Mayflower still in service with the Navy since 1898, it was an easy decision that the U.S. Navy acquire the mothballed Nahma for the duration.

Picked up in early June for the patriotic sum of $1 per year, SECNAV “Cup of Joe” Daniels wrote VADM Sims that the ship would be placed at his disposal and a battery sent from the States to arm her while a crew of 130 assorted bluejackets sent across the Atlantic aboard the steamer SS New York to man her. Meanwhile, much of her original equipment was stripped and put into dockside storage in Glasgow. Her pennant was SP 771.

She was soon after equipped with two 5″/51 mounts, two 3″/50 mounts, and two machine guns– all drawn from USS Melville (AD-2), as well as a supply of depth charges (she would later pick up two Y-guns) and placed in commission under the command of LCDR Ernest Friedrick, (USNA 1903) on 27 August. Friedrick, who had sailed on the destroyers Lawrence, Stewart, and Hopkins as well as the battleship Arkansas, had earned his sea legs with the Great White Fleet and was well-respected. 

Manning a 5-inch gun on the USS Nahma. Copied from the U.S. Navy in the World War, Official pictures. Page 99. NH 124132

USS Nahma (SP-771) at sea, during World War I. Courtesy of John C. O’Connell. NH 50474

USS Nahma (SP-771) Photographed by Herman Whitaker while at anchor, circa 1917-1918. NH 42548

She would be inspected by no less a personage than King George V who had a habit of visiting American warships large and small in UK ports in 1917-18 and was no doubt familiar with Nahma.

King George V and Commander E. Friedrick of the US Navy on board the American armed yacht USS Nahma, in Liverpool, September 1917.

THE US NAVY IN BRITAIN, 1917-1918 (Q 54806) King George V and Commander E. Friedrick of the US Navy on board the American armed yacht USS Nahma, probably in Liverpool, September 1917. Copyright: � IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205287785

Then everything went bad.

The Second Italian Affair

While DANFS is short on her subsequent service, saying only:

Soon after fitting out and shakedown, Nahma reported to Gibraltar to join a group of U.S. vessels based there and serving as convoy escorts. With these ships, she escorted vessels in the Mediterranean, as well as between the U.K. and Gibraltar until the end of World War I.

Nahma was involved in a serious incident, again with the Italian fleet, just a month before the Armistice.

As described in a December 1934 article in Proceedings by LCDR Leonard Doughty:

On October 5, 1918, the Italian submarines 11-6 and 11-8, escorting the S.S. Bologna was approaching Gibraltar, coming from Bermuda. The convoy was five days late. There had been three submarines in company but one had become separated from the convoy in a fog, after sighting a supposed enemy submarine.

On the same date the U.S.S. Nahma, an armed yacht, was on patrol west of Gibraltar, and at 7:00 p.m. received a radio report of an enemy submarine in the vicinity. She proceeded toward the position given, and at 2:00 a.m., October 6, sighted a flash ahead, which resembled gunfire. At 2:30 a.m. the Bologna was sighted, followed by the two submarines.

On the Nahma, it was assumed that they were enemy submarines attacking the ship. Two shots, which did not hit, were fired at the leading submarine and the recognition signal challenge was made. After some delay, and after two more shots were fired, the correct answer was made to the challenge by the leading submarine.

The Nahma then approached the other submarine, the 11-6. As the yacht approached, men were seen running aft. They were going to hoist the colors, but on the Nahma, it was supposed that they were going to man the gun. One shot was fired, which hit the conning tower, killed two men, and wounded seven, of whom two died later. By this time the Nahma was convinced that the submarines were not enemy and stood by for the remainder of the night.

At about 5:00 A.M. the British torpedo boat 93 approached the scene and accidentally fired one shot toward the Nahma, which headed toward the flash but did not find the firing vessel. At 5:20 the T. B. 93 was observed and mistaken for another submarine, and two shots were fired at her by the Nahma before she was recognized.

In the morning, the Nahma escorted the submarines to Gibraltar.

As recalled by GM2c Lewis Clark, who was aboard that day:

On one of those submarine patrols, when we were off the coast of Spain, we spotted distant lights to starboard shortly after midnight. We steamed over to investigate and discovered a large vessel surrounded by submarines. We had no knowledge of friendly submarines in those waters, as we should have had were there any there, and it had been rumored that the Spanish were secretly supplying German submarines off the coast. It was only natural, therefore, for our captain to assume that we had come upon such an operation.

General Quarters was sounded, which meant that every man went to his battle station – I was sight center on the 3-inch gun on the quarter deck aft – full speed ahead was signaled, which, for us, was 22 knots, and the “recognition signal” was flashed from our bridge. Recognition signals were used to identify friendly craft. They were changed each midnight. We received a wrong recognition signal and reply, and the captain immediately gave the order to commence firing. We had the submarines in our gun sights when the order was given, and we were firing almost at point-blank range. Before it was discovered that the vessels were not German, we had blown the conning tower off one of the submarines, and did much damage to the others, and there were men in the water screaming for help.

It developed later that we had encountered five submarines and their mothership which the United States had given to Italy, and which were being taken by their Italian crews to Italy for service in the Mediterranean. There was hell to pay later in Gibraltar.

Friedrick was relieved and replaced by LCDR Harold Raynsford Stark of Sim’s staff, who had served briefly on sistership Mayflower, and would command the yacht over Halloween.

Sims would write the SECNAV on 17 October: 

As a result of a Board of Investigation made up of officers of our own Service and the British and Italian Services, the Commanding Officer of the Nahma will be tried by General Court Martial.

Incidents of this character have occurred a number of times during the war. As previously reported, British Patrol Vessels have frequently fired on their own submarines. In one case, covered by report submitted to the Department, a British destroyer attacked, and had every reason to believe that they had destroyed a submarine, which later proved to be a British submarine which succeeded in reaching port. During the summer, a British Auxiliary Cruiser sank a French armed sailing ship owing to a misunderstanding of an attempted recognition signal.

The Commanding Officer of the Nahma is known to be a very conscientious and capable young officer, and if any fault is to be ascribed to him it was probably due more to inexperience in this particular kind of warfare than anything else. It is considered that in view of the international character of the incident, a General Court Martial is probably the best step that could be taken.

Back in the war

Nahma, placed under the command of CDR Richard Philip McCullough, (USNA 1904), the former skipper of the armed yacht USS Cythera (SP 575), was dispatched to Constantinople with a relief crew for the armed yacht USS Scorpion (PY-3), arriving there on 16 December 1918, and would later carry RADM Mark L. Bristol to Beirut and Gibraltar and State Department consulate officers to Odessa.

As noted by DANFS:

Following the Armistice, Nahma remained in the Mediterranean for relief and quasi-diplomatic work. Operating in the Aegean and Black Seas she carried relief supplies to refugee areas; evacuated American nationals, non-combatants, the sick, and the wounded from civil war-torn areas of Russia and Turkey; and provided communications services between ports.

Nahma was decommissioned on 19 July 1919 and turned back over to Mr. Goelet’s agent in Glasgow.

Part of the lost generation

Post-war, the once immaculate yacht became a bootlegger, renamed Istar. Sold to Jeremiah Brown & Co Ltd, she made at least seven voyages (the first six profitable) from Glasgow to the waters off Long Island under the employ of the colorful Sir Brodrick C. D. A. Hartwell, “The Commodore of Rum Row,” crammed with Scotch on west-bound trips.

By 1927, with Hartwell bankrupt and squeezed out of the market, Istar had been converted for service as a shark-skinning vessel working the South African and Australian coasts but this was short-lived. Having gone aground at St Augustine Bay, Madagascar, she was salvaged and scuttled off Durban in March 1931.

Epilogue

While little remains of Nahma, her sister Mayflower served as a presidential yacht until 1929 then was ordered sold by President Hoover as an economic measure, and subsequently damaged by fire while tied up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard 24 January 1931.

USS Mayflower (PY- 1) off Swampscott, Mass., circa 1919-20. At left is a navy F-5L seaplane that had been placed at the president’s disposal by the Navy Dept. NH 46443

Nonetheless, she was still around on the East Coast when World War II came, and she was acquired by the Coast Guard as a gunboat (WPE‑183) and used in ASW patrols and training duties until decommissioned a second time in July 1946. She ended her days carrying Jewish refugees to Haifa in the late 1940s. Placed on the Israeli Navy’s list as the training ship INS Maoz (K 24), she was only scrapped in 1955.

As for Nahma’s trio of Navy skippers, LCDR Fredrick Ernest was no worse for wear. Cleared by a board of inquiry for the Italian submarine incident, he went on command of the NYC Navy Yard, the destroyer USS Preble (DD-345), the collier USS Jason (AC-12), and the training ship USS Utah (AG-16). He retired from the Navy after 30 years as a captain and, passing in San Diego in 1970 at age 88, is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

LCDR Harold Raynsford “Betty” Stark, who commanded Nahma briefly over Halloween 1918, would become the 8th Chief of Naval Operations and supervise United States Naval Forces Europe during WWII. Retiring in 1946, he passed away in 1972 and was buried at Arlington.

Finally, her last skipper, CDR Richard Philip McCullough, retired as a rear admiral in 1932 after 27 years of service but was then recalled for WWII, serving as director of naval intelligence for the 12th District in San Francisco (1939-43) and on the planning board and intelligence panel for the Overseas branch Office of War Information (1943-45). He passed in 1960.

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.

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

They are one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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I’m a member, so should you be!

Miami in Trinidad

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80 years ago today: The Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Miami (CL 89) at Trinidad during her shakedown, 19 February 1944, photographed from heavy cruiser USS Quincy (CA-71). Note her crew at quarters on deck in crackerjacks, the very weathered paint of her new Measure 32, Design 1D camouflage on her hull, and a pair of Vought OS2U-3 Kingfishers of Cruiser Scouting Squadron 8 perched on her catapults at the fantail.

Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 98404

Commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 28 December 1943, Miami had been in the fleet for just six weeks in the above image.

And from the same cruise, a great photo of the new cruiser with a bone in her teeth.

View of USS Miami (CL 89). Note spray coming over the bow, February 17, 1944. Photographed by crew of USS Quincy (CA 71). Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-367898

As detailed by DANFS:

On 12 February 1944, Miami got underway from the Chesapeake Bay and in the late afternoon moored at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Va. Underway again on the 14th, at 0835 she weighed anchor and shaped a course for Trinidad, British West Indies, to conduct her shakedown. She steamed to the Caribbean in company with the heavy cruiser Quincy (CA-71) and the destroyers Carmick (DD-493) and Doyle (DD-494). On the second day of her voyage she encountered heavy seas and at approximately 0415, Sea2c Leonard S. Dera, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., fell overboard. Despite a search for him for over an hour, Dera was never recovered.

Miami passed through the Boca de Navios Channel on 18 February 1944 and shortly thereafter anchored inside the submarine net off Trinidad. From 19 February to 1 March, the cruiser shifted between Trinidad and the Gulf of Paria to participate in drills and exercises. On 3 March, at 0522 she departed Trinidad and began her voyage back to Norfolk accompanied by Quincy and the destroyers Baldwin (DD-624) and Thompson (DD-627). She arrived at Norfolk without incident on the 7th.

Repainted and given a quick post-shakedown maintenance availability, Miami soon passed through the Canal Zone and headed to the war in the Pacific. In early June 1944, Miami joined the Fast Carrier Task Force conducting air strikes on Japanese-held islands in the Marianas on her way to earn six battle stars in 13 months for her service in World War II.

Post-war, she operated on the California coast training naval reservists until her decommissioning on 30 June 1947, at which point she entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Miami’s name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 September 1961 and her hulk was sold for scrapping to Nicholai Joffe Corp., Beverly Hills, Calif., on 26 July 1962.

Warship Wednesday Feb. 14, 2024: La Jeanne

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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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024: La Jeanne

Photo via Port of Fremantle

Above we see the stern of the beautiful French croiseur école Jeanne d’Arc as she sat in port at Freemantle’s North Quay, while visiting Australia in February 1962 on her 26th cadet cruise. Don’t let her fine lines fool you, she had survived a war and, within a year of this photo, would ride out a trio of back-to-back rogue waves that could have swamped just about any hull ever made by man.

Christened on Valentine’s Day 1930, Jeanne was a vessel any warship fan could love.

Meet Jeanne

By 1927, the quaint old armored cruiser Jeanne d’Arc, a 36-boilered coal-eating leviathan whose six tall smutty funnels led to the nickname “L’étui à cigarettes,” was getting very long in the teeth indeed. The only real reason she was still in service at all was that she had been re-tasked in 1908 for use as a training cruiser. While since the end of the Great War, she had completed nine lengthy officer cadet winter cruises– typically leaving Brest in September or October and returning around the following July– her 11,500 tons displacement was a drag on treaty limits and her armament (a pair of Modèle 1893 7.6″/40s and a dozen equally old low-angle 5.46-inchers) was obsolete.

French Cruiser Jeanne D’Arc in Gaillard Cut Dec 2nd, 1923 185-G-0990

Rather than replace her by retasking a younger cruiser on hand, it was decided to create a new, purpose-built, training cruiser that looked good– she would sail the world every year representing the Republic, after all– and had a modern armament, engineering suite, and commo suite which would translate into realistic preparation for future officers continuing into the fleet.

With almost cruise ship/large yacht lines, she ran 525 feet overall through 21 bulkheads with a raked bow and thin 57-foot beam while she displaced under 6,500 tons at standard load due to the fact she fundamentally carried no armor other than some light (20-25mm) plating around her conning tower and protecting her four main gunhouses/loading rooms.

French croiseur école Jeanne d’arc, Janes 1931

This allowed a small plant of just four Penhoët fuel-oil boilers and two sets of Parsons geared steam turbines, generating 32,500 shp on four shafts, to make 25 knots flank speed with ease and cruise at 19 knots with just half her plant going. She broke 27.84 knots on trials. Meanwhile, two Renault diesel gennies kept her electrical net alive and boilers offline while in port. She had a 5,000nm cruising radius which allowed an easy Med Cruise or Atlantic crossing.

Her armament consisted of a main battery of eight 155 mm/50 (6.1″) Modèle 1920 guns— the same as used in the new Duguay-Trouin-class light cruisers and in the casemated guns on the aircraft carrier Bearn.

Cadets having fun on the 155 mm guns of the French training cruiser Jeanne d’Arc. Note the gun houses are thinly armored, with just an inch of plate, and oversized to aid in training evolutions. 

Now compare to the same model guns in the bow turrets on the Trouin-class cruiser Lamotte-Picquet. Note the director and large searchlight above it. Besides the Trouin class, the French only used the 6.1″/50 Model 1920 on the training cruiser Jeanne D ‘Arc and the carrier Bearn.

Her secondary and tertiary DP AAA batteries were very light four 75mm/50cal M1927 singles and two 37mm/50cal M1925 singles, as they were basically just for instruction. This was augmented by two 21.7-inch torpedo tubes. A very modern design, she carried two catapults and floatplane facilities, typically for CAMS.37 flying boats.

She was designed to carry 20 officer-instructors and 156 cadet midshipmen for extended cruises in addition to her normal 572-man crew (28 officers, 120 petty officers, 424 quartermasters and sailors).

Laid down at A.C. de la Loire et Penhoët, St-Nazaire as Yard No. M6 on 31 August 1928, she was launched on Valentine’s Day 1930– and which point the old cruiser which was still in service was renamed Jeanne d’Arc II to keep the two ships straight– and commissioned on 14 September 1931, kicking off a long career.

The Salad Days of Interbellum Cruising

Her plankowner skipper, Capt. André Amédée Abel Marquis (who later, as a vice admiral in 1942, would earn certain fame/infamy for ordering the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon), would take Jeanne out on her first world cruise, a tour of South America that stretched well into 1932.

One of the ship’s junior officers in her gunnery department on this inaugural cruise was LT Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a fellow with a keen interest in diving.

French Croiseur-école Jeanne d’Arc en 1932 à la mer. Note the two floatplanes on her catapults

Jeanne d’Arc, with extensive tropical awnings covering almost her entire form, was photographed in the Canal Zone on January 21, 1932, soon after completion. This photograph was taken by the U.S. Fleet Air Base, Coco Solo, Canal Zone, from an aircraft at 875 feet altitude. NH 89076

She would continue this pattern, crossing into the Pacific, and lapping the globe.

Jeanne d’Arc in the Gaillard Cut, Panama Canal, likely photographed by the USN for ONI purposes in 1934. Note her gun houses are oversized for aid in training. NH 89077

Jeanne d’arc photographed on December 8, 1934 off San Diego, California, by a U.S. Navy Aircraft. Note her cats are turned. NH 89078

French cruiser Jeanne d’Arc at Vancouver January 9, 1935, by Walter E Frost. City of Vancouver Archives CVA 447-2336

Same as the above

Training cruiser Jeanne d’Arc at Hong Kong

French Training Cruiser Jean d’Arc pictured at Honolulu on May 27th 1933.

Cruiser Jeanne D’arc French in Istanbul

French cruiser Jeanne d’Arc rendering honors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard USS Indianapolis (CA-35), 11 December 1936. Indianapolis is carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt on his “Good Neighbor” cruise to South America. NH 68180

War!

Although a love boat of sorts, Jeanne was fast and cruiser-like, with a decent main armament, a pair of seaplanes, and a couple of torpedo tubes. Sure, if she got in a surface engagement, couldn’t take much damage and still fight due to the fact she had almost no armor protection and she was in serious trouble in the event of an air attack (although she had been bolstered by four twin 13.2mm Hotchkiss AAA mounts in 1935), but she could still serve at least as effectively as an armed merchant cruiser in such roles as searching for blockade runners and Axis surface raiders.

Croiseur école Jeanne d’arc Brest 1940

Croiseur école Jeanne d’arc Brest 1940

Assigned to the Atlantic Squadron at Brest, Jeanne spent the first nine months of the war in a series of short patrols with an eye peeled for German merchant ships trying to make for home via the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay.

In May, with the Battle of France underway and not going too well for Paris, Jeanne was tasked, along with the light cruiser Émile Bertin, to take a run of gold from the Bank of France to Canada for safekeeping, just in case. Once in the Atlantic, the two cruisers joined with the carrier Bearn, with her skipper since May 1939, Capt. Pierre-Michel Rouyer, promoted to rear admiral with his flag on our subject. They arrived at Halifax on 1 June.

Meanwhile, her former junior gunnery officer, LT Cousteau, by then a more senior gunnery officer aboard the cruiser Dupleix, was preparing to bombard Italian territory for Operation Vado, his first taste of combat.

Vichy Days

With the Fall of France looming, the government ordered the ships on 18 June to hang on to the gold and head to the colony Martinique in the Caribbean, where Rouyer would become the local administrator. There, the three warships would be a squadron in being and, after the British attack on the neutral French Mediterranean Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in July, the follow-on Vichy government ordered them to make preparations to repel the Royal Navy, if needed.

Then came an uneasy period, spanning 29 months, in which the Martinique force would neither in the war nor out of it, not fully in bed with the Axis nor friendly with the Allies. While the British had forced the matter in places like Syria, Lebanon, Senegal, and Madagascar, and the Japanese had pushed into Indochina, the French colonies in the Caribbean were left to wither on the vine.

The Germans, however, thought it risky to have the ships still armed and, therefore, easily able to sort out and join the Allies, ordering them to disarm and parole much of their crew in May 1942. RADM Rouyer was recalled to Toulon in August 1942 and, three months later, the Allies landed in French North Africa, a move that triggered the end of the Vichy regime and the de facto transfer of all of the Republic’s overseas possessions to De Gaulle’s Free French movement.

For those curious, Cousteau, who had been sidelined from his own cruiser a seconded to the counterintelligence in Marseilles, was by this time working for the Resistance as a spy while placed on “armistice leave” (congé d’armistice).

Back in the war

With the fall of Vichy France and the government in Martinique recognizing De Gaulle and company, Emile Bertin, Bearn, and Jeanne were all welcomed back into the Allied fleets, and scheduled to make a trip north to American shipyards.

Starting in June 1943, Jeanne was modernized by landing her catapults and aircraft gear, her torpedo tubes, and everything smaller than her main guns.

She then took on six 40mm Bofors, 20 20mm Oerlikons, and an SF-1 radar.

French croiseur école Jeanne d’arc, Janes 1946

So equipped, she sailed back across the Atlantic in May 1944 to join the Allied forces in the Med that were gearing up to liberate Corsica and carry out the Anvil-Dragoon Landings along the French Rivera, both campaigns in which she participated, alongside Emile-Bertin and six other French cruisers, and the battleship Lorraine.

Croiseur Jeanne d’Arc amarré en rade de Brest, marins sur le pont, 1945. Note the SF-1 surface search radar set, typical installation for American cruisers of the period. It had a 48,000 yard (23 nm) range. Via the Brest Archives 3Fi019-160

Cold War

Post-war, she landed some of her WWII AAA fit, cleaned up a bit, and welcomed her midshipmen again to start carrying out regular winter training cruises.

Again, a second generation of U.S. Navy aviators would overfly and photograph the venerable Jeanne.

French cruiser Jeanne D’Arc at Honolulu Harbor, Hawaii, photograph received 30 January 1952. She is docked at Pier 9. 80-G-439501

French training cruiser, Jeanne D’Arc, off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Aerial view taken in December 1955. 80-G-686520

In February 1963, while off Japan and headed towards Hawaii, she survived a dreaded “Three Sisters” event– three rouge waves back to back. Dubbed “Trois Glorieuses” in French parlance, the event was witnessed by her escorting aviso, Victor Schoelcher, Jeanne rode the trio of 65-foot waves with her bow at as much as a 35-degree incline.

Not bad for a ship with 33 years on her hull and on her 27th midshipman cruise.

Le croiseur-école Jeanne d’Arc en 1964 au large de Québec.

However, all good things come to an end.

On 20 September 1961, the French Navy christened the 13,000-ton helicopter cruiser La Résolue, but that was just a placeholder name. This new vessel once fitted out, was to be able to take over Jeanne’s mission for a new generation of French officers.

At that, our Jeanne was withdrawn from service and her name struck, and on 16 July 1964, La Résolue became Jeanne d’Arc (R97).

French training cruiser Jeanne d’Arc (R97)

French Helicopter Cruiser Jeanne d’Arc, She served from 1964 to 2010

Epilogue

Jeanne d’Arc (R97) would surpass her namesake’s record, covering 44 midshipmen cruises before she was removed from service in 2010.

While the French have had no less than seven ships to carry the name of the fighting saint going back to 1820, the current naval list does not.

Still, she is remembered in maritime art. 

French cruiser Jeanne d’Arc in the port of Brest by Marin-Marie dated Sept 1931

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, Feb. 7, 2024: Moscow on the Hudson

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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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024: Moscow on the Hudson

U.S. Navy Photo donated by Charlotte Koch, whose husband, Richard Koch, was a Navy P2V pilot who served in Antarctica in the 1950s, via the National Science Foundation’s U.S. Antarctic Program archives.

Above we see the well-traveled Wind-class “battle icebreaker” USS Staten Island (AGB-5) hanging out with the locals and breaking a channel into McMurdo Sound on 11 February 1959, some 65 years ago this week. Staten Island served in three different fleets across 30 years and had an interesting tale to tell.

How the “Winds” came to blow

When World War II started, the U.S. Navy was up to the proverbial frozen creek as far as icebreaking went. While some foreign powers (the Soviets) really liked the specialized ships, Uncle Sam did not share the same opinion. However, this soon changed in 1941 when the U.S., even before Pearl Harbor, accepted Greenland and Iceland to their list of protected areas. Now, tasked with having to keep the Nazis out of the frozen extreme North Atlantic/Arctic and the Japanese out of the equally chilly North Pac/Arctic region (anyone heard of the Aleutians?), the Navy needed ice-capable ships yesterday.

The old (read= broken down) 6,000-ton British-built Soviet icebreaker Krassin was studied in Bremerton Washington by the Navy and Coast Guard. Although dating back to the Tsar, she was still at the time the most powerful icebreaker in the world.

The 10,000-ton. 323-foot Russian icebreaker Krassin, seen here in the Panama Canal, was studied by the USCG stateside for several months in 1941, with her design teaching the service many lessons

After looking at this ship and the Swedish icebreaker Ymer, the U.S. began work on the Wind-class, the first U.S. ships designed and built specifically as icebreakers.

Set up with an extremely thick (over an inch and a half) steel hull, these ships could endure repeated ramming against hard-pack ice. Just in case the hull did break, there were 15 inches of cork behind it, followed by a second inner hull. Now that is serious business. These ships were so hardy that one, USCGC Westwind (WAGB 281), almost 30 years after she joined the fleet, was heavily damaged by ice in the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea but still made it back. About 120 feet of the port-side hull was gashed when brash ice forced the ship against a 100-foot sheer ice shelf. The gash was two to three feet wide and was six feet above the waterline. The crew patched the side, there were no injuries, and the breaker returned home under her own power.

At over 6,000 tons, these ships were bulky for their short, 269-foot hulls. They were also bathtub-shaped, with a 63-foot beam. For those following along at home, that’s a 1:4 length-to-beam ratio. Power came from a half-dozen mammoth Fairbanks-Morse 10-cylinder diesel engines that both gave the ship a lot of power on demand, but also an almost unmatched 32,000-mile range (not a misprint, that is 32-thousand). For an idea of how much that is, a Wind-class icebreaker could sail at an economical 11 knots from New York to Antarctica, and back, on the same load of diesel…twice.

A photo of USCGC Eastwind, circa 1944. Note how beamy these ships were. The twin 5-inch mounts on such a short hull make her seem extremely well-armed. USCG Photo

To help them break the ice, the ship had a complicated system of water ballasting, capable of moving hundreds of tons of water from one side of the ship to the other in seconds, which could rock the vessel from side to side in addition to her thick hull and powerful engines. A bow-mounted propeller helped chew up loose ice and pull the ship along if needed.

With a war being on, they just weren’t about murdering ice, but being able to take the fight to polar-bound Axis ships and weather detachments as well. For this, they were given a pair of twin 5″/38 turrets, a dozen 40mm Bofors AAA guns, a half dozen 20mm Oerlikons, as well as depth charge racks and various projectors, plus the newfangled Hedgehog device to slay U-boats and His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s I-boats. Weight and space were also reserved for a catapult-launched and crane-recovered seaplane. Space for an extensive small arms locker, to equip landing parties engaged in searching remote frozen islands and fjords for radio stations and observation posts, rounded out the design.

Two of the class, Eastwind and Southwind, operated against teams of German scientists and military personnel who attempted to establish weather stations in remote areas of Greenland late in the war.

As noted by the USCG Historian’s Office in this chapter of “The Weather War,”:

On 4 October 1944 Eastwind captured a German weather station on Little Koldewey Island and 12 German personnel. On 15 October 1944 Eastwind captured the German trawler Externsteine and took 17 prisoners. The trawler was renamed East Breeze and a prize crew sailed her to Boston.

The tender was so specific and intricate that only a single shipbuilder submitted a bid, the Western Pipe & Steel (WPS) Corporation of Los Angeles, the yard that would build all eight members of the class.

Meet Staten Island, or…well, we’ll get to it

Laid down on 9 June 1942 at WPS as Yard No. CG-96 for a contract price of $9,880,037, our icebreaker would be the first Northwind (more on that below) but that was just a placeholder as from the outset it was intended to Lend Lease this first ship of the class to the Soviets, who desperately needed it to keep the country’s chimney at Murmansk and Archangel (Arkhangelsk) open during ice season– and to repay the loan of Krassin, whose design helped influence the Winds.

As such, she shipped out without radar, some of the more sensitive commo gear that her sisters had, and a simplified armament (four 3″/50 singles, 8x40mm Bofors, 6x20mm Oerlikon, and two depth charge racks).

“Hull #96 Launching Dec. 28, 1942 – #63.”; Note her forward screw shaft under a huge overhanging bow, augmenting two shafts on her stern. Photo by “Dick” Whittington Photography, Los Angeles, CA via USCG Historian’s Office.

Hull CR96 [sic, CG96] 3/4 Bow view – San Pedro Harbor; Western Pipe & Steel Co. Shipyard. 10 February 1942. Note her two 3″/50s forward, Bofors singles under her wheelhouse windows, and magazine-less 20mm Orlikons on the roof. Also, note that she has no radar fit. Photo No. 42-69-92 by “Dick” Whittington Photography, Los Angeles, CA via USCG Historian’s Office.

Launched 28 December 1942, she commissioned 26 February 1944– 80 years ago this month– with a placeholder Coast Guard crew and USCG hull number (WAG-278) but was turned over to a waiting Russian crew almost immediately, with the Coasties only riding along as far as Seattle, which the Northwind left on 9 March headed for the Motherland with a red flag flying.

Russki Days

In total, three of the eight Wind-class icebreakers were lent to the Soviets: our Northwind (renamed Severnyy Veter= North Wind), Southwind (Admiral Makarov), and Westwind (Severnyy Polyus= North Pole).

In Soviet service, Northwind/Severnyy Veter was placed under the direction of the state-owned Arkhangelsk Arctic Shipping Company (GUSMP), based in Murmansk, but had to get there first. She was assigned to the Navy List of the list of vessels of the Main Northern Sea Route on 4 March and, leaving Seattle five days later, arrived at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on 25 March where she temporarily became part of the Vladivostok Arctic Shipping Company, spending the rest of the year escorting ships and patrolling waters in the Russian Far East before making the trip along the country’s Arctic coast– the Northern Sea Route– arriving in Arkhangelsk in December 1944.

Northwind/Severnyy Veter spent the rest of the Great Patriotic War conducting ice escorts of ships and allied convoys in the White Sea. As for her two sisters that were transferred– Southwind/Admiral Makarov and Westwind/Severnyy Polyus— they were only turned over to the Soviets in February and March 1945, respectively.

When the wartime commander of the GUSMP, Captain 1st Rank Mikhail Prokofievich Belousov, a proper Hero of the Soviet Union, passed away in 1946, Northwind/Severnyy Veter was renamed Kapitan Belousov in his honor.

Belousov, a trained polar navigator who had in the 1930s commanded the old icebreaker Krassin– which the U.S. Navy had studied before designing the Wind class– had crossed the roof of the world several times along the great Northern Sea Route, come to the rescue of the disabled icebreaker Georgy Sedov, and had supervised Soviet maritime transport in the Arctic during WWII.

Repatriation

Her time under the Red Banner over, her Soviet crew sailed Kapitan Belousov to Bremerhaven in West Germany where she was met by a party from the U.S. Navy, and the ship was unceremoniously transferred back to American custody there on 19 December 1951. As with other Allied ships returned from the Russians in this era, she was reportedly in very rough shape and filthy, no doubt done on purpose.

After six weeks of cleaning and repair at Bremerhaven, she was commissioned there as USS Northwind (AGB-5) on 31 January 1952, with CDR John Boynton Davenport, USN (USNA 1941), in command. Arriving at Boston after a slow Atlantic crossing, she needed a further four months to bring her back up to Navy standards.

USN Days

In the eight years that Northwind/Severnyy Veter was loaned to Uncle Joe and the gang, the Coast Guard had picked up a second USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282), which was commissioned in July 1945. Thus, to keep from confusing the two, the original Northwind/Severnyy Veter was renamed USS Staten Island (AGB-5) on 25 February 1952—the only Navy vessel to carry that name.

Her Russian-era armament landed, and she picked up her first 5-incher, a sole 5”/38 DP in a Mark 30 enclosed single mount, as well as an SPS-6 radar set and lots of new commo gear.

Now haze gray and underway, Staten Island‘s first Navy deployment from Boston was to Frobisher Bay, where she conducted ice reconnaissance from July through September. The next year she notably became the first Navy ship to cut through the Davis Strait from Thule Air Base to the Alert station on Ellesmere Island, just 435 miles from the North Pole.

She was a key vessel in Project Mushrat and sortied 14 Rockoons (balloon-assisted stratosphere sounding rockets) carrying instruments for the Naval Research Laboratory and Iowa State University.

An 11-foot long/200-pound Deacon sounding rocket is shown being towed by a Skyhook balloon in a combination known as “Rockoon”. It was launched from the icebreaker USS Staten Island during the Arctic expedition of 1953. The rocket was wrapped in plastic to avoid freezing at altitude. (via Stratocat)

As detailed by the Navy:

This project, known as Project Mushrat, is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research with the assistance of the Bureau of Aeronautics and the Military Sea Transportation Service – Atomic Energy Commission Joint Program of Basic Research in Nuclear Physics, and the Naval Research Laboratory Program of Upper Atmosphere Research. Because of the widespread interest in the project, and particularly in the balloon-rocket technique, several observers from the three military services will accompany the expedition. The Balloon-Rocket Technique, commonly referred to as Balloon Assisted Take-Off (BATO) or Rockoon, was developed by Dr. James A. Van Allen at Iowa State University and used on board the USCGC Eastwind during the summer of 1952. This method makes it possible to reach high altitudes by small, inexpensive rockets. During the summer of 1952, one of the balloon rocket flights launched from Eastwind and achieved a peak altitude of about 295,000 feet.

Mushrat: The U.S. Navy icebreaker USS Staten Island (AGB-5) with a group of civilian and naval scientists onboard left Boston, Massachusetts, on July 18, 1953, for the North Geomagnetic Pole. They will make a comprehensive series of high-altitude observations of the primary cosmic radiation and the pressure, temperature, and density of the atmosphere in the northern latitudes. 330-PS-6008 (USN 483600)

Mushrat: “Navy Testing Cosmic Radiation at North Geomagnetic Pole. USS Staten Island (AGB-5) is shown reflecting in the water. Photograph released June 28, 1953.” 330-PS-6008 (USN 483601)

Coverage of Staten Island and Mushrat in the December 1953 All Hands:

In all, while stationed in Boston, Staten Island conducted six ice-breaking operations in northern waters between 1952 and 15 December 1954.

She then transferred to the Pacific in May 1955 and, joining her classmate icebreakers of Service Squadron 1 at Seattle, would shift to resupplying the new Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar stations in the Arctic, a role that would endure for a decade. It was during these trips that Staten Island was used as a Rockoon platform, launching a further 26 aloft in 1955 and 14 in 1958.

Northwind, I presume? Navy icebreaker Staten Island (AGB-5)/ex-Northwind (WAGB-278) approaching sistership, USCGC Northwind (WAGB-288), off Icy Cape, Alaska. 30 July 1955. Note her 5″/38 forward and her twin Bofors on the bridge wings. She also carries LCVPs. USCG Photo No. 07-30-55 (06) via USCG Historian’s Office.

She also started clocking in on regular Operation Deep Freeze runs to Antarctica’s Byrd Station and the later McMurdo Station.

USS Staten Island (AGB-5) temporarily stalled by pressure ice in the Ross Sea, during Antarctic operations, on 9 December 1958. Note Adelie penguins in the foreground. NH 99297

The above image of USS Staten Island (AGB-5) was used as the cover for the 15 July 1959 edition of Our Navy

Icebreaker USS Staten Island, AGB-5, and transport USS Calvert APA-32

USS Staten Island AGB-5 in the Amundsen Sea, 21 September 1960. Note the stacked LCVPs. U.S. Navy photo via USAP

14 November 1962 Staten Island (AGB-5) follows a lead in the ice of McMurdo Sound. U.S. Navy photo via USAP

25 November 1962. Steaming past Antarctica’s only known active volcano, Mount Erebus, the Seattle-based icebreaker USS Staten Island (AGB-5) widens a channel in McMurdo Sound for trailing cargo ships en route to McMurdo Station Antarctica. U.S. Navy photo via USAP

USNS Chattahoochee off-loads fuel into drums on a sled to be towed to McMurdo Station 13 miles away. The ice breaker Staten Island (AGB-5) is the center ship. The USNS Mirfak (T-AK-271) is a cargo ship to the far left. U.S. Navy Photo

In addition to paving the way to install and resupply Arctic DEW stations and Antarctic bases, Staten Island often embarked scientists directly, such as a 1963 U. S. Antarctic Research Program expedition to the Palmer Peninsula and South Shetland Islands. The expedition, led by Dr. Waldo LaSalle Schmitt from the Smithsonian, directed the icebreaker to call at 26 remote points between 18 January and 5 March, and her botanists and biologists harvested 27,000 specimens.

The U.S. Navy icebreaker USS Staten Island (AGB-5) with a HUL-1 helicopter on board approaches the Palmer Peninsula during Antarctic operations in early 1963.

1964: Navy Icebreaker AGB-5 USS Staten Island at McMurdo Station Antarctica. Note that her 5-incher has been removed

A USS Staten Island (AGB-5) postcard, seen late in her Navy career

Coast Guard Days

By agreement with the Coast Guard, our girl– and all other Navy icebreakers– was placed out of commission on 1 February 1966, struck from the Navy list, and recommissioned as USCGC Staten Island (W-AGB-278), thus starting her third life.

She was painted white and upgraded, including strengthening her flight deck and hangar to permit her to operate with the new generation of HH-52 helicopters in a telescoping hangar, and her engineering plant was upgraded. By this time, she carried an SPS-10B and SPS-53A radar set in addition to her circa 1956 SPS-6C.

Wind Class Icebreaker USCGC Staten Island pictured c1968 with Navy Sea Sprite 9021 from Guam-based HC-5. 

Meanwhile, in Coast Guard service her main guns had already been removed, and she spent the rest of her career with a few machine guns (four M2 .50 cals) and her small arms locker.

Staten Island at a Navy pier with her hangar fully extended. 31 July 1967; Photographer unknown. Photo No. 073167-49 via USCG Historian’s Office.

Staten Island. 14 August 1967; Note the large ice launch on her davits and telescoping hangar. Photographer unknown. USCG Photo No. 278-081467-63 via USCG Historian’s Office.

USCGC Staten Island (WAGB-278), a United States Coast Guard Wind-class icebreaker, makes its way to McMurdo Station in this undated photo. NSF photo via USAP archives.

Staten Island ice rescue team retrieving mail drop in Bering Sea. 1 March 1969; Photo No. 2780021169-23A; photographer unknown. via USCG Historian’s Office.

In late 1969, she navigated the Northwest Passage, escorting the Esso-chartered oil tanker SS Manhattan eastward from Seattle to New York, in concert while in Canuk waters with the smaller Canadian icebreaker Sir John A. MacDonald.

Original Kodachrome of the Staten Island (lead) and Canadian icebreaker CCGS John A. MacDonald (red hull) escort the tanker SS Manhattan (where the photographer is standing) through the Northwest Passage, September through December of 1969. Via USCG Historian’s Office

As detailed by the USCG Historian’s Office:

She rendezvoused with Manhattan and CCGS John A. MacDonald on 20 September 1969 and departed the next day. The convoy searched out heavy ice on the trip. Manhattan was testing its unique ice-breaking bow and searching for routes that merchant ships might use to transport oil from the oil fields of Alaska’s North Slope to the East Coast. By 1 October 1969, the convoy had broken through the heaviest ice in Prince of Wales Strait and Viscount Melville Sound. Staten Island assisted Manhattan “with evaluation project, photo, and ice helicopter reconnaissance, diving operations, dental treatment of Manhattan personnel and ice-breaking assistance.”

The convoy arrived in New York on 9 November 1969. On 9 December 1969, she returned to Seattle after becoming the fourth American ship in history to make the voyage around the North American continent. The others had been the cutters Storis, Bramble, and Spar in 1957. By the time she arrived back at Seattle, Staten Island had traveled 23,000 miles, stopping at New York City, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Acapulco, Mexico after transiting the Panama Canal.

When in the Arctic, she often tracked Soviet shipping, as noted by Crewman Ronald Lange, from the files of the USCG Historian’s Office of her 1970 Alaska cruise:

Our ship operated west of the Alaskan Straits to identify and track Russian merchant ships moving down towards the Straits bound mostly Vietnam. Our 2 helicopters identified ships and we were on the bridge and CIC group (I was in CIC. an RD3) documented. We identified different types of ships using mixed drinks for keywords (Martini for a freighter, whiskey sour for a tanker, etc.)…There were several Russian corvette-type escort ships and a Russian icebreaker as well. The captain of the Russian vessel came over by helicopter and saluted Captain Putzke, who was on the wing of the bridge…We were generally left alone by the Russians, except when one of our helicopters got into Russian air space near one of their early warning radar stations in the fog.

“269-ft. USCG C Staten Island (WAGB-278) masking trails through ice-paved [sic] for deliveries.”; 29 December 1970; no photo number; photo by PH3 D. H. Walker, USCG. via USCG Historian’s Office.

Deep Freeze ’71 saw Staten Island accomplish the feat of circumnavigating Antarctica, she transported a U.N. inspection mission around to the different international outposts on the continent– including the Russian bases– to ensure weapons-free treaty compliance.

U.S. Navy aerial photo of Hut Point Peninsula taken in February 1971 when the fuel tanker USNS Maumee arrived to off-load fuel (Feb 12-14). The smaller vessel to the outside is the USCGC Staten Island (WAGB-278). A careful examination of the photo will reveal the roof of British explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s 1902 Discovery Hut. The other building and fuel storage tanks have been removed since this photo was taken. Photo via USAP

13 February 1971: McMurdo Station Antarctica. Ships moored in Winter Quarters Bay. Present are USNS Maumee (T-AO-149), USNS Wyandot (T-AK-283), USCGC Staten Island (WAGB-278), and USCGC Burton Island (WAGB-283). National Archives. K-88755

Five ships in Winter Quarters Bay on 13 February 1971. In the foreground is HMNZS Endeavour (A184), across the right is USNS Wyandot (T-AKA-92) and USCGC Burton Island (WAGB-283), across the left, is USNS Maumee (T-AO-149) and USCGC Staten Island (WAGB-278). Along the shoreline, work is underway to repair and install facing an Elliott Quay – a steel-and-timber reinforcement barrier to protect the shoreline from erosion. Photo by Carl Norton, via USAP

On 9 January 1971, one of Staten Island’s embarked HH-52A Sea Guards (#1404) crashed while some 12,000 feet high into the side of Mount Erebus while on a Deep Freeze mission. The crew, uninjured, was rescued and returned to McMurdo. The helo had already suffered a near-catastrophic water landing earlier on the deployment.

As detailed by Lange:

“After the Arctic West trip of 1970, we were assigned to Operation Deepfreeze. Our ports of call on the outward leg of our trip were Hawaii. Suva, Fiji, and Wellington, New Zealand. Our air element came from Mobile, Alabama along with 2 HH-52 helos. Our trip through Fiji was uneventful, but while conducting air operations (SAR) drills, one the helos (#1404) experienced a total electrical failure at approximately 500 feet altitude and autorotated onto the ocean. No one was injured and the helo was hauled aboard with only slight damage to its hull. The copter was repaired, and electrical components were changed out on our way to McMurdo station.

We conducted ice-breaking operations along with the Burton Island in McMurdo Sound while the air element assisted ashore with cargo operations. In January 1971, while transporting base personnel around Mount Erebus, our HH-52 (#1404), experienced a severe downdraft and crashed near the summit of the mountain. It took several hours to find the aircraft as our choppers then were mostly white against a snowy background.

Staten Island also kept up her long-running knack for linking up with the Russkies.

For two weeks in February-March 1973, Staten Island met 475 miles north of Adak Island with the Soviet Far Eastern Shipping Company research vessel Priboy for a series of joint meteorological experiments in the Bering Strait. They were assisted by a NASA flying laboratory aboard an American Conveyor 990 aircraft out of Kodiak and a Soviet Il-18 operating from Cape Schmidt. The joint sea and ice study was code-named “Bering Sea Experiment” or Project BESEX, which surely inspired no shortage of Mad Magazine-level humor among all those involved.

USCGC 278 Staten Island, Pier 91 Seattle, 1972

She then spent a month (7 March to 3 April 1973) under the operational control of COMSUBPAC involved in supporting ICEX 1-73, the long-running U.S. Navy submarine exercise in the Arctic, which led to the ship earning the Coast Guard Unit Commendation with Operational Distinguishing Device. She added it to a CGUC she already picked up in 1969 for the SS Manhattan mission through the Northwest Passage and a Meritorious Unit Commendation she received in 1971 for her circumnavigation around Antarctica.

Then came, what turned out to be, Staten Island’s final Deep Freeze deployment down south.

The red-hulled USCGC Staten Island (WAGB-278) late in her career seen underway departing San Diego Bay, on 16 November 1973 after completing Fleet Readiness Training and was en route to Antarctica for Deep Freeze 74. Marine Photos and Publishing Co. canceled postcard via the NYPL collection (NYPL_b15279351-105169).

Returning to Seattle one final time, Staten Island was decommissioned on 15 November 1974 and soon afterward sold for scrap.

In all, she had counted no less than 22 skippers– 6 Soviet, 10 USN, and 6 USCG– across her 30 years of service.

Further, as far as I can tell, she was the only ship to pull off the polar hattrick of navigating the Northern Sea Route over the top of Asia and Europe (1944), the Northwest Passage over the top of North America (1969) and circumnavigating the continent of Antarctica (1971).

From patrolling for U-boats at Murmansk to supplying Byrd Station and launching Rocktoons into the stratosphere, if it was cold, Northwind I/Severnyy Veter/Station Island got it done.

Epilogue

Her plans and a few logbooks from her time as a Navy icebreaker have been digitized in the National Archives.

Meanwhile, hundreds of preserved scientific specimens in the Smithsonian’s collection were gathered along the Palmer Peninsula and South Shetland in 1963 by the USARP Expedition working from Staten Island’s decks.

HH-52 Sea Guard #1404, lost by Staten Island in 1971, remains on Mt. Erebus and is often visited by NSF staff.

Photo by Michael Carroll and Rosaly Lopes, NSF, 24 December 2016

A second Sea Guard from Staten Island is one of the few of the type that is preserved and on display, donated to Seattle’s Museum of Flight in 1988 and put on display in its standard livery in 2011. 

The Russians still remember her as well. A detailed scale model of Northwind/Severnyy Veter is in a place of honor at the Museum of the Murmansk Shipping Company, the successor to GUSMP.

While the Navy has not commissioned another Staten Island, the Coast Guard perpetuated the name in the 45th 110-foot Island-class patrol cutter, WPB 1345, which joined the fleet in 2000.

21 October 1999. U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Staten Island (WPB 1345) is underway from Washington, DC. The cutter is returning to its homeport in North Carolina. USCG photo by PA3 Bridget Hieronymus.

She served until 2014 and was transferred to the former Russian Republic of Georgia, where she currently patrols the Black Sea as Ochamchire (P 23)-– where she will no doubt continue to cause heartburn to the Russians for years to come.

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.

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

They are one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I am a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024: One Hard Working Little Boat

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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

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024: One Hard Working Little Boat

Photograph FL 22144 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

Above we see HM Submarine Untiring (P59), a small Group III U (Undine)-class boat underway, likely on trials in the Tyne in early 1943 as she doesn’t have her deck gun fitted. Launched some 81 years ago this month, her war was short, just under two years, but she made her presence known in the Med and would continue to serve in Greek waters well into the 1950s at which point she was the last of her class.

The U-class

Originally designed in the late 1930s as an unarmed submarine to be used as an OPFOR boat for ASW training of destroyers and escorts, these were nimble little craft that soon became much more.

Coastwise submarines rushed into service as part of the War Emergency 1940 and 1941 programs, the U-class boats were dubbed “short hull” for a reason: their overall length was but 191 feet while submerged displacement was only 700 tons. Compare this to the Royal Navy’s T class (or Triton class) boats that preceded them, which ran 276 feet and displaced over 1,500 tons. Likewise, where the T-class carried 16 fish in 10 tubes as well as a 4-inch QF deck gun, the Undines had to make do with a much smaller “throw” of just 8 torpedoes in four bow tubes (no stern tubes) and a Q.F. 12-pdr. 3-inch/40 AAA gun augmented by a trio of .303 Vickers guns.

U class submarine

But make no mistake, while small and slow (10 knots max submerged, 11 on the surface) the Undines were deadly. Plus, with a periscope depth of just 12 feet under the surface and a draft while surfaced of just over 14 feet, they were shallow water submarines and proved quite useful in littoral taskings such as landing agents and commandos as well as doing beach and harbor reconnaissance.

Meet Untiring

Simple vessels able to be produced rapidly and in large numbers, most Undines were completed in about a year from keel laying to commissioning. The only Royal Navy warship to bear the name “Untiring,” she was laid down at Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 23 December 1941, launched on 20 January 1943, and commissioned on 9 June 1943.

Her first skipper was LT Robert Boyd, DSC, RN, who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross after serving almost two years under CDR E.D Cayley (DSO and three bars) on Untiring’s sistership, HMS/m Utmost (N 19) earlier in the war and had gone on to command the older submarines HMS/m L-23 and HMS/m H-43 between November 1942 and February 1943.

After completing trials in the Tyne estuary and exercises off Blyth, Untiring set off for Holy Loch in July 1943 to join the 6th Flotilla for torpedo and noise trials along with A/S and attack exercises.

War!

By 23 August, Untiring left Lerwick on her 1st War Patrol, ordered to look for German U-boats in the Norwegian Sea. Four days later she sank the Norwegian halibut trawler M-96-G /Havbris I with gunfire about 50 miles off the Norwegian coast, putting the boat’s 7-man crew ashore in the Shetlands when she returned to Lerwick on 5 September.

Her 2nd War Patrol was to sweep through the Bay of Biscay then head to Gibraltar, where she arrived on 3 October, bound for service in the Med.

Leaving “The Rock” a week later for her 3rd Patrol off the coast of German-occupied southern France where she unsuccessfully attacked the German U-boat U-616 with four torpedoes off Toulon on 15 October, followed by an attack on two barges on 19 October and an unidentified escorted merchant vessel two days later– without any confirmed kills.

Headed out from Algiers (assigned to 8th Flotilla, HMS Maidstone) for her 4th War Patrol on 4 November, Untiring headed for the Italian Riviera. She put in at Malta (where she shifted to 10th Flotilla, HMS Talbot) on the 23rd having had no luck.

Her 5th War Patrol in December 1943 included sinking the German net layer Netztender 44/Prudente (396 GRT) inside Monaco harbor and surviving a six-hour duel off Cape da Noli with German UJ boats (auxiliary submarine chasers) and destroyers.

She sank the German barge F296 off the Sestri Levanto Lighthouse in early January 1944 during her 6th Patrol and added the barges FP 352/Jean Suzon and FP 358/St. Antoine later that month to her tally while on her 7th, surviving 14 depth charges dropped by escorts in the latter attack.

HMS Untiring, 1944, likely at Malta

While her 8th Patrol (14-26 February 1944 off southern France) yielded no joy, her 9th Patrol in April in the same waters saw her sink the German auxiliary minesweeper M 6022/Enseigne south of Cannes followed by the German merchant Diana (1454 GRT, ex-Greek Mairi Deftereou) south of Oneglia the next afternoon.

On her 10th Patrol, also conducted off Southern France, she zapped the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 6075 (ex-Clairvoyant) off Toulon on 27 April then was battered by no less than 82 depth charges dropped by her sister, with LT Boyd noting, “The first pattern had been unpleasantly close causing some minor damage.” Nonetheless, Untiring lived up to her name and proceeded three days later to torpedo and sink the German merchant Astrée (2147 GRT) off the Cape Bear Lighthouse.

Her 11th Patrol proved uneventful and, while she attacked a German UJ boat off Toulon on her 12th Patrol in early June, it was likewise fruitless. Not to be deterred, Boyd found UJ 6078/La Havraise (398 GRT) about 12 nautical miles southwest of La Ciotat on 10 June and sent the subchaser to the bottom.

Untiring’s 13th War Patrol in early July, also off Southern France, saw an unsuccessful attack on a German auxiliary patrol vessel. On this trip, she carried the COPP 2 (Combined Operations Pilotage Party 2) commando team– including an attached U.S. Marine colonel– set to conduct a reconnaissance of le de Port Cros to the east of Toulon on the eve of the upcoming Dragoon landings. As noted by COPP Survey, “They were who was originally to be taken close to shore by canoe. However, the mission got downgraded to a periscope-only reconnaissance.”

Her 14th Patrol, conducted in late July, involved, as U-boat.net says, a “special operation off north Corsica,” although Brooks Richards’s otherwise minutely detailed Secret Flotillas does not mention anything about Untiring during this period although sisters HMS Unbroken, Urge, and Utmost were well-documented as clandestine agent and spy runners in the Med by Richards.

Shifting to operations off Greece in October for her 15th War Patrol, Untiring fired fish at the German torpedo boat TA 18 (former Italian Solferino) off the Kassandra peninsula unsuccessfully on the 4th then settled for sinking an 80-ton Greek caique the next day via gunfire then duked it out with a pair of German UJ boats that responded.

Ordered back to Rothesay in late October for refit, she arrived there (joining the 7th Flotilla, HMS Cyclops) by way of Gibraltar in early December. There, LT Boyd left his boat for command of the HMS Otway (N 51). Untiring’s new skipper, LT George Edward Lynton Foster Edsell, RN, who had commanded the submarine HMS Proteus (N 29), would be her last British captain.

Post-War

Following the boat’s refit, which would last until 28 May 1945– some three weeks past VE-Day– Untiring was dispatched back to the Med and arrived at Piraeus, Greece in July after stops at Gibraltar and Malta.

There, at 1030 on 25 July 1945, Untiring was decommissioned by the Royal Navy and turned over to the Royal Hellenic Navy, being renamed first Amfitríti (Amphitrite) and then Xifias (Swordfish), joining five other U and V-boats loaned to the Greeks.

The six British boats would make up the post-war Greek submarine program, as shown by this 1946 Jane’s entry, including Untiring/Xifias.

Untiring was returned to the Brits in December 1953 (initially recommissioned under one Lt. C.A.J. French) and tasked for a few years as a floating schoolship for National Service midshipmen before she was sent to the bottom off the Devon Coast off Start Point in July 1957 for continued use as a sonar target. Ironically, in this last act, she fulfilled the class’s original intent, to serve as a training boat for ASW work.

As for the rest of the class, the Undines had an impressive record with many racking up high tonnage counts. For instance, HMS/m Upholder (P37), had 93,031 GRT on her scoreboard from 14 vessels, mostly Italian transports but also including two submarines and a destroyer.

The RN loaned several of the class to allies with three boats (Ursula/V1, Unbroken/V2, Unison/V3) going to the Soviets late in the war, two (P41/Uredd, and Varne/Ula) operated by the Free Norwegians, one (P47/Dolfijn) to the Dutch, and two to the Poles (P52/Dzik and Urchin/Sokol).

Of the 49 Undines completed during the war (at least five ordered boas were canceled), no less than 19 were lost through a variety of enemy actions, blue-on-blue incidents, and accidents– a ratio of more than one out of three.

The balance left post-war was not of a type the Admiralty wanted but their small size and simple nature– they were designed as training boats after all– made them ideal to supply to overseas allies who had lost their subs during the conflict. Meanwhile, the Brits quickly disposed of everything else.

Royal Navy U class submarines in Jane’s 1946 edition, noting that “most are expected to be discarded in the near future.”

The last of the class in active RN service, HMS/m Uther (P62), was sold for scrap in 1950, making Untiring the final Undine in British service when she returned in 1953.

The last holdout of the nearly 50 mighty British U-class boats, HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMS/m Varne, continued in Norwegian service until 1965, when she was broken up, ironically, in Hamburg, having served just 23 years, most of them for King Haakon VII.

HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMSm Varne in Norwegian service

Epilogue

Untiring’s first (and remarkably successful) skipper, Robert Boyd, added a DSO in 1944 to his circa 1942 DSC for his wartime exploits underway. Following the command of Otway as mentioned above, he would go on to become the “old man” on the cruiser HMS Frobisher and the submarine tender HMS Forth (A187) after the war. He retired on 10 June 1959 at the rank of captain, capping 22 years of service in the Royal Navy. Robert passed away in 1985 in Portugal.

Her last wartime British skipper, George Edward Lynton Foster, would go on to command the submarine HMS Vivid and leave the RN in 1950 as an LCDR after 12 years of service for a career in real estate in California.

The Royal Navy has not had a second Untiring on its navy list and I can find no monuments to her. As for her patrol reports and deck logs, they are in the National Archives at Kew.

As for her hulk, she is located at 177 feet in Bigbury Bay and is a popular, somewhat complicated due to her depth, recreational dive.

 

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.

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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