Category Archives: World War One

How a Trench Knife in a French Cemetery Led to Honoring a Fallen Great War GI

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The Disson M1917 and later M1918 trench knives, or “knuckle dusters” were a uniquely American item in the Great War

In February 2018, a French undertaker working in a cemetery in Villers-sur-Fere, a village about 60 miles northeast of Paris, discovered a set of undocumented remains. The fallen warrior was found with assorted field equipment that included a steel helmet, a trench knife, and an ammo belt full of 30.06 cartridges.

The undertaker contacted authorities and, it was discovered that American forces battled German forces in the village in the summer of 1918. This led to calling in a Great War archaeology expert and the American Battle Monuments Commission.

ABMC historians consulted the memoir of famed Army Chaplain Francis P. Duffy, which describes the burial of U.S. Soldiers from the 42nd “Rainbow” Infantry Division in the location where the remains were discovered. Notably, three Soldiers of the 42nd’s 150th MG Battalion earned the Distinguished Service Cross at Villers-sur-Fere in July 1918, one posthumously.

They were not the only ones, as the main color in the Rainbow division in France was red.

During its time on the Western Front, the 42nd participated in six major campaigns across 264 days in combat in 1917-1918 and incurred 14,000 casualties– a whopping one-out-of-sixteen casualties suffered by the American Army as a whole during the war. The fallen included poet Sgt. Joyce Kilmer– -the author of the poem “Trees“-who was killed in action.

In the end, the lost Joe discovered at Villers-sur-Fere in 2018 was laid to rest with full military honors alongside 6,000 of his fellow countrymen this week at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France.

The ceremony is reportedly the first burial of an unknown U.S. Soldier from World War I since 1988 and the first burial at Oise-Aisne since 1932.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade carry a casket with the remains of a World War I unknown soldier at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France, June 7, 2023. Photo By: Russell Toof, American Battle Monuments Commission. VIRIN: 230606-D-GJ885-005

Notably, Kilmer, who was killed near Oise-Aisne, is buried at the same cemetery, (Plot B, Row 9, Grave 15).

With that, Kilmer’s “Rouge Bouquet,” a tribute to the 19 Americans killed by a German artillery bombardment in the Rouge Bouquet wood near Baccarat, France in March 1918 comes to mind. An excerpt reads:           

“In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet

There is a new-made grave to-day,

Built by never a spade nor pick.

Yet covered with earth ten metres thick

There lie many fighting men,

Dead in their youthful prime…”

Warship Wednesday, May 17, 2023: Hugo’s Everlasting Clouds

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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, May 17, 2023: Hugo’s Everlasting Clouds

Swedish Marinmuseum photo identifier D 8751

Above we see a nice view of the Royal Swedish Navy drawn up at Karlskrona, circa 9 July 1904, dressed for Queen Sofia’s 68th birthday. The line includes an array of immaculate coastal battleships (pansarbat) and cruisers to the left including Oden, Aran, Wasa, Tapperheten, Thule, Thor, and Gota; the sleek new Yarrow-built destroyer (Sweden’s first) Mode, center, and, foreground, the 850-ton torpedkryssare (torpedo cruiser/torpedo boat tender) Psilander.

Directly in front of the dowdy Psilander is the old training brig Falken. To the right, floating like clouds, are the twin new gleaming skeppsgossefartygeten (ships boys ships) Najaden and Jarramas.

While everything you see has long since been scrapped, the two tall ships have endured.

HM Övningsfartyg

Designed by famed Swedish naval engineer Hjalmar Hugo Lilliehøøk– who had a hand in every single one of the above vessels– Najaden (Swedish for Naiad, or water nymph) was the first of the twins and was built at Orlogsverftet in Karlskrona in Sweden in 1897 as a training ship (Övningsfartyg) for the Swedish Navy. As such, she would be at the disposal of the Skeppsgossekaren (The Ship’s Boy Corps), a formation that dated back to 1685 and was responsible for recruiting, raising, and training young boys in the art of seamanship.

The beautiful three-masted full-rigger– claimed by many to be the smallest made– Najaden was compact, at just 160 feet overall, counting her bowsprit, and could carry a full 24 sheets including jibs and staysails although the typical 16-sheet rig used covered over 8,000 sq. ft. of canvas by itself.

With a draft of just 12 feet, she was capable of speeds as fast as 17 knots, her main mast towering 82 feet above her deck.

Swedish Royal Navy sail training ship HMS Najaden

At some 335 tons, she was much larger than the circa 1877-built Falken (Falcon), which drew only 110 tons on her 77-foot length. This allowed Najaden to carry a crew of 20-25 professional cadre and as many as 100 naval cadets and boy sailors, easily three times those on the smaller Falken. Her typical complement was 118, including 92 boys. Her regular year-round crew consisted of 5 officers, 6 NCOs, a ship’s doctor, and 14 ratings, almost all of which served as instructors as well.

For an armament, used primarily for training and signaling, she carried a small arms locker of rifles and pistols, a pair of 3-pounder 47mm guns, and a quartet of 1-pounder 37mm pieces.

Najaden proved so successful that an updated sister ship, Jarramas, was ordered from the same yard in 1899. The pair differed in construction when it came to hull material, with Najaden sporting an iron hull and Jarramas using steel. As such, Jarramas was the last sailing vessel to be built at Orlogsverftet, the end of an era. She carried the name of King Charles XII’s famed circa 1716 frigate, which was a Swedish corruption of the Turkish word for “mischievous.”

Jarramas proved even faster than her sister, logging 18.3 knots on at least one occasion. Neither ship was ever fitted with engines although by most accounts they did have generators for electrical lights and ventilation fans.

Övningsskepp typ Jarrasmas och Najaden

Jarramas under segel. Note the colorized accents to the flags and bow crest. D 14975_1

Jarramas under inspektion D 8874

Jarramas MM01916

HM Övningsfartyget Jarramas DO14939.126

Every spring the ships were rigged to run summertime trips to Bohuslän on Sweden’s West Coast or along the Gulf of Bothnia on the East Coast, stopping at various Baltic ports. Happy duty.

Najadens besättning 1902 D 8766

Wars

During the Great War, both ships canceled their summer trips and were used by the Swedish Navy as receiving ships and dockside training vessels, their classroom space was used to school recruits.

Once the guns of August fell silent again, they resumed their former schedules.

Najaden 1923 D 15061_14

Najaden 1923 D 15061_12

Najaden 1923 D 15061_3

Jarramas 1924, Lübeck D 15061_49

Gruppbild ombord Najaden 1923 D 15061_2

Swedish Royal Navy sail training ship HMS Najaden photographed off Karlskrona in 1933, sister Jarramas in the distance

Jane’s 1931 listing for Falken, Najaden, and Jarramas. Falken would be disposed of in 1943 after 66 years of service.

In 1939, the old Skeppsgossekaren was replaced by the newer Sjömansskolan, which still exists.

Najaden at the time was demasted and laid up, used during WWII as a stationary receiving ship.

Postwar, she was then towed to Torekov just south of Halmstad to serve as a breakwater. Her name was quickly reissued to a Neptun-class submarine that would commission in 1943 and serve through the 1960s.

Neptun-class Ubat Najaden underway, July 1953, at Hårsfjärden.

Meanwhile, Jarramas lingered in service until 1948, including use as a training ship in protected waters during WWII.

Post War Rescue

Najaden, in poor material condition and without her masts, canvas, or rigging, was saved by an outpouring of support by the people of the west coast city of Halmstad, who in the 1950s paid for a non-sailing restoration at Karlskrona that saw new masts stepped and some of her rigging plan restored.

She endured this “town ship” mission until 2013, during which she was twice again rebuilt (1989 and 1990-1996) and would host sea scouts, festivals, local events, and parties. A floating fixture of the community. In 2014, she was sold to a new group of enthusiasts who towed her to a new homeport in Fredrikstad in Norway, where her preservation continues.

Although not seaworthy, she is still used for seminars and conferences, lectures, concerts, and other activities, lying by the quay.

They hope to one day make her seaworthy once again, under a Norwegian flag. Of note, when she was built, Norway and Sweden were unified, so in a sense, she has a bit of Norwegian heritage as well. 

As for Jarramas, replaced by the new 128-foot training schooners HMS Gladan (S01) and HMS Falken (S02) in 1947, her days in the Swedish Navy came to an end.

However, just as Najaden was saved at Halmstad, Jarramas was saved by the city of Karlskrona where she was preserved as a museum ship and coffee shop of all things. Extensively renovated over the years, she reportedly requires extensive continuous maintenance, which led her to be taken over by the Marinmuseum in 1997.

Today, Jarramas is the centerpiece of the Marinmuseum in Karlskrona, preserved as Sweden’s last full rigger, alongside the minesweeper HMS Bremön, the motor torpedo boat T38, the Cold War era fast attack craft HMS Västervik, and the submarines HMS Neptun and HMS Hajen.

The minesweeper Bremön (rear), the FAC Västervik, and the full rigger Jarramas at the pier by the Marinmuseum in Karlskrona.

It’s great to see that both sisters are still with us.

Meanwhile, the Swedes still use the gleaming white circa 1940s skolfartyg schooners Gladan and Falken as the nation’s tall ship training squadron.

HMS Falken (S02)

They are assigned to the Skonertdivisionen at the Naval Academy and are based in Karlskrona, nearby the old Jarramas.

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!

Warship Wednesday, May 3, 2023: Where Dewey and Halsey Intersect

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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, May 3, 2023: Where Dewey and Halsey Intersect

Via the estate of Lieutenant C.J. Dutreaux, U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. WHI.2014.21

Above we see the splinter-riddled and abandoned Spanish Navy Velasco-class unprotected cruiser (crucero desprotegido) Don Juan de Austria as she appeared some 105 years ago this week, her hull on the bottom of Manila Bay, the first week of May 1898. Lost on the same day with two of her sisters of the “Escuadra Negra,” she would go on to serve a further two decades, albeit under a different flag.

The Velasco class

Built in three Spanish yards (La Carraca, Cartagena, and Ferrol) as well as at the Thames Iron Works in Blackwall, these very slight cruisers were meant for overseas colonial service and diplomatic representation in Spain’s far-flung global territories, not for combat against the armored fleets of modern states. Ridiculously small vessels by any measure, they ran just 210 feet overall with a 1,100-ton displacement. However, they could float in just two fathoms, which was important for their taskings.

Beautiful three-masted iron-hulled barque-rigged steamers with a bowsprit, they carried a quartet of British Humphrys cylindrical boilers to feed on a pair of horizontal compound steam engines that could turn a centerline screw for speeds up to 15 knots, although they typically only made about 12-13 in practice.

The eight-ship class included Velasco, Gravina, Cristóbal Colón, Isabel II, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, and Infanta Isabel, all traditional Spanish naval heroes and regal names.

Only the first two, Velasco and Gravina, carried their maximum armament of a trio of British-made Armstrong M1881 BL 6-inch guns and two smaller 70mm/12cal Gonzalez Hontorias.

Cruiser Gravinia, Spanish Velasco class. The period illustration shows her sailing rig

The six follow-on vessels would carry a more homogeneous four-gun battery of 4.74-inch/35 cal M1883 Hontorias in single shielded mounts amidships, augmented by four five-barreled 37mm Hotchkiss anti-torpedo boat gatling guns, another quartet of 3-pounder Nordenfelts, and two 14.2 inch Schwartzkopff torpedo tubes along the beam.

Period line drawing of Conde de Venadito, note the two broadside sponsons supporting her 4.7-inch guns

The four 12-cm. B. L. Hontoria M1883s on the last six cruisers of the class had a range of 10,500 meters but were slow to reload. Here, is a blistered example seen on the Spanish Cruiser Isla de Cuba.

Our subject, named for the 16th-century Bavarian-born illegitimate son of King Charles I of Spain who went on to become a noted general and diplomat, was laid down at the Arsenal del Cartagena in 1883 and completed in 1889.

Constructed and delivered between 1879 and 1891, they saw much overseas service, with sister Infanta Isabel— the first metal-hulled warship built in Spain– especially notable for her appearance in American waters during the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

Infanta Isabel in New York. (1893), Note the great view of her guns and masts

Infanta Isabel at the International Columbian Naval Review in New York in April 1893. Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1981.NH 92029

Infanta Isabel in New York 1893

Spanish Velasco-class Unprotected Cruiser Infanta Isabel towing Nao Santa María out of Havana April 1893

Another, Conde de Venadito, would later transport the remains of Christopher Columbus from Havana to Seville at around the same time.

Cruisers Sánchez Barcaíztegui and Conde de Venadito, Havana, 1895

Spanish Cruiser of the Infanta Isabel Class photographed in U.S. waters, likely either Conde de Venadito or Infanta Isabel, with the river steamer Angler in the background, circa the 1880s or 1890s. NH 46866

As noted by the above images, the class typically carried a gleaming white scheme, which led to sisters assigned to the Philippines who carried more practical, black-painted hulled derided as “the Black Squadron.”

Sadly, they would also prove extremely unlucky to their crews. The English-built Gravina would be wrecked in a typhoon while in Philippines waters in 1884 just three years after she was completed. Meanwhile, the Carraca-constructed Cristóbal Colón ran aground in the Los Colorados shoal near Mantua Pinar del Río Cuba in 1895 then was destroyed by a hurricane before she could be pulled free.

Some saw extensive combat.

For instance, Conde de Venadito provided naval gunfire support during the Margallo War against the Rif in Morocco in 1893. Ulloa was continually active against Philippine insurgents in Mindanao in 1891 then again in 1896-97 in the Tagalog Revolt. Similarly, Velasco would unleash her guns on insurgents in Manila in 1896 and in Bacoor, Vinacayan, Cavite, Viejo, and Noveleta the following year.

Others fought Cuban rebels and those trying to smuggle munitions to them from time to time prior to 1898.

This brings us to…

The Crucible of the Spanish-American War

While fine for service as station ships in remote colonial backwaters, a floating sign to the locals that Spain’s enduring empire still had a modicum of prestige remaining, they just couldn’t slug it out with other modern warships of any size. Of the eight Velascos, two had been lost in pre-war accidents. Conde de Venadito, Isabel II, and Infanta Isabella were in Cuba, with the latter laid up in need of a refit.

Meanwhile, Velasco, Don Antonio de Ulloa, and our Don Juan de Austria were in the Philippines where they had been for a decade.

Their fight in the Battle of Manila on 1 May 1898 was brief.

Don Juan de Austria was the first Spanish ship in Admiral Don Patricio Montojo’s battleline to spot Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron, at 0445.

Battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898. With Manila, Philippines, in the top center, and the Spanish fleet in the upper right, the U.S. Navy ships listed descending on the left to bottom are: Colliers; USS McCullough; USS Petrel; USS Concord; USS Boston; USS Raleigh; USS Baltimore; and USS Olympia – signaling “Remember the Maine.” Color lithograph by Rand McNally. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Placed adjacent to the old Aragon-class wooden cruiser Castilla (c1869, 3342t, 4×5.9-inch guns, 2×4.7-inch guns) to give that ship some protection, by 0630 both vessels were taking hits and were increasingly disabled by American shells (at least 13 large caliber hits on Don Juan de Austria alone) that also killed or wounded several men. By 0830, both were abandoned.

A U.S. Navy boarding party from the gunboat USS Petrel went aboard later that day and set her upper works on fire.

Halftone reproduction of an artwork by E.T. Smith, 1901, depicting a boat party from USS Petrel setting fire to Spanish gunboats near the battle’s end. The party was under the direction of Chief Carpenter’s Mate Franz A. Itrich, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for this operation. Copied from Deeds of Valor, Vol.II, page 354, published by the Perrien-Keydel Co., Detroit, Michigan, 1907. Photo #: NH 79948

Wreck of the Spanish cruiser Castilla off Cavite, shortly after the battle. In the background are (left-to-right): the cruisers USS Olympia, USS Baltimore, USS Raleigh, and two merchant ships. Copied from the USS Baltimore album, page 27. NH 101344

Sister Don Antonio de Ulloa got an even tougher beating, receiving 33 hits (four 8-inch, three 6-inch, one of 5-inch, and the rest of 3- and 6-pounder). Her commander, Capt. José de Iturralde, was killed as were half of her 130-man crew. In a pyrrhic victory, one of her 3-pounder Hotchkiss rifles was credited with firing the last shot at Dewey’s fleet in the battle.

Wreck of Spanish cruiser Don Antonio de Ulloa NHHC WHI.2014

Later that day, Velasco, laid up pending repairs and without her guns installed, was destroyed while anchored in the company of the gunboat General Lezo in the Spanish yard at Cavite.

Wreck of Spanish cruiser Velasco at Cavite, May 1898. NHHC WHI.2014.24

Meanwhile, sisters Infanta Isabella and Conde del Venadito, in poor condition in Cuban waters, survived the war (largely because they did not fight) with the latter hulked soon after her return to Spain. Isabel II, who fought in the battles of San Juan and survived, was likewise scrapped just a few years later.

By 1907, only Infanta Isabella remained in Spanish service from the eight-ship class.

Infanta Isabella’s 1914 entry in Jane’s. She had been rebuilt between 1910 and 11, removing her tubes, old machinery, and guns and replacing them with a single Skoda 70 mm gun and 10 Nordenfelt 57 mm guns. Once she returned to Spain, she continued extensive overseas service in the Canary Islands, the Gold Coast, and Guinean possessions, soldiering on until 1926, a full 39-year career, benefiting from parts from the stripped Conde del Venadito and scrapped Isabel II.

But the battered Don Juan de Austria would sail again.

U.S. Service

Salvaged and repaired in nearby Hong Kong, our Spanish cruiser was commissioned into American Navy as USS Don Juan de Austria on 11 April 1900. Re-rated as a gunboat due to her small size and low speed, she was rearmed with American ordnance to include two 4-inch mounts, eight rapid-fire 6-pounders, and two rapid-fire 1-pounders. Her waterlogged Spanish machinery was replaced with four straight-away cylindrical boilers, and one 941ihp horizontal compound engine, allowing her to make 12 knots.

In this respect, she mirrored another raised Spanish cruiser, the second-class protected cruiser USS Isla de Luzon, which was also one of Admiral Montojo’s warships lost in Manila Bay. A third Spanish cruiser, the Alfonso XII-class Reina Mercedes, sunk as a blockship in the entrance channel of the harbor at Santiago de Cuba, was also raised and put into U.S. Navy service under her old name, becoming USS Reina Mercedes despite the fact she could not even sail under her own power and would serve her second career wholly as a receiving/barracks/prison ship. In each case, the old Spanish Navy names were carefully retained to highlight the fact they were war trophies.

More mobile than USS Reina Mercedes, which earned the unofficial title of the “Fastest Ship in the Navy,” USS Don Juan de Austria did manage to get around quite a bit once her name was added to the Navy List. Her first American skipper was CDR Thomas C. McLean, USN, fresh off his job as commanding officer of the torpedo station at Newport, Rhode Island.

Officers of USS Don Juan de Austria. Photograph taken while at Canton, China, circa September 1900. Note her newly installed USN quarterdeck board. The officers listed are numbered as follows: 1. Lieutenant Junior Grade John D. Barber, Asst. Paymaster, USN; 2. Naval Cadet Allen Buchanan, USN; 3. Lieutenant John L. Purcell, USN; 4. Ensign William L. Littlefield, USN; 5. Naval Cadet Ralph E. Pope, USN; 6. Lieutenant Henry B. Price, USN; 7. Commander Thomas C. McLean, USN, CO; 8. Lieutenant Harold A. Haas, Asst. Surgeon, USN; and 9. Lieutenant Armistead Rust, USN. NH 104885

She soon spent the next three years alternating between standing station off China to protect American interests there, and action in the Philippines where the U.S. was fighting a tough insurgency throughout the archipelago. 

USS Don Juan de Austria in Chinese waters circa 1900. Note she now has a white hull, two much-reduced masts, and extensive awnings. NH 54544

Per DANFS:

She was employed in the Philippines in general duties in connection with taking possession of the newly acquired territory, supporting Army operations against the insurgent native forces, transporting troops and stores, blockading insurgent supply routes, and seizing and searching various towns to ensure American control.

USS Don Juan de Austria photographed in the Philippine Islands, circa 1900. Inset shows one of the ship’s boats. Courtesy of Captain R. E. Pope, USN (Ret.) NH 54546

In this, her crew could be nearly halved to send as many as 75 bluejackets ashore as an armed landing force. 

Her crew would even take into custody one of the insurgency’s leaders.

Aguinaldo, a cousin of Emilio, Guiando, Captured by the Don Juan De Austria 1900. NH 120409

She departed Hong Kong on 16 December 1903 for the United States, sailing by way of Singapore, Ceylon, India, the Suez Canal, and Mediterranean ports to arrive at Portsmouth Navy Yard on 21 April 1904, where she was placed in ordinary for 18 months’ worth of repairs and refit. This saw her small 4- and 1-pounders removed, and another four 4-inch mounts added, giving her a total of six. Four Colt machine guns were also added.

In December 1905, a young Midshipman by the name of William Frederick Halsey, Jr. (USNA 1904) was transferred to the USS Don Juan de Austria. Promoted to ensign while aboard her the following February, Mr. Halsey served as the gunboat’s watch and division officer for the next two years.

USS Don Juan de Austria, the scene in the wardroom with officers reading circa 1906. Tinted postcard photo. Courtesy of Captain Ralph C. McCoy, 1974. NH 82781-KN

USS Don Juan de Austria, a group photo of the ship’s officers and crew, circa 1907. The officer at the extreme lower right is Ensign William F. Halsey. Note the breechblock of the 4-inch gun to the left. Courtesy of the U. S. Naval Academy Museum NH 54547

Assigned to the Third Squadron, Atlantic Fleet, USS Don Juan de Austria with Halsey aboard would spend most of 1906 off the Dominican Republic “to protect American interests,” clearly swapping being a colonial Spanish cruiser to one on the same mission for the White House.

However, with a new series of much more capable small cruisers joining the fleet, such as the 4,600-ton scout cruiser USS Chester (CL-1)-– which packed eight 5- and 6-inch guns, carried a couple inches of armor protection, and could make 26 knots– Don Juan de Austria was no longer needed for overseas service. With that, she was placed out of commission at the Portsmouth Navy Yard on 7 March 1907. As for Halsey, he joined the brand new USS Kansas at her commissioning five weeks later and made the World Cruise of the Great White Fleet in that battleship.

Nonetheless, the Navy still needed functional warships for state naval militias to drill upon in the days prior to the formation of the USNR, and USS Don Juan de Austria soon shipped by way of the St. Lawrence River to Detroit, where she was loaned to the Michigan Naval Militia.

Likewise, the former Spanish cruiser USS Isla de Luzon, was also loaned at this time to the Illinois Naval Militia, stationed at Chicago, meaning both of these one-time Armada vessels were deployed to the Great Lakes in the decade before 1917.

Our little cruiser became a regular around Detroit and Windsor.

Don Juan de Austria (on the right) is seen looking upriver from the Belle Isle Bridge in Detroit, Michigan during the Parke Davis Excursion. Sometime between July 1907 and April 1917. Library of Congress photo LC-D4-39089

USS Don Juan de Austria, pre WWI postcard, likely while in Naval Militia service. Courtesy of D.M. McPherson, 1976 NH 84404

USS Don Juan de Austria postcard photo, taken while serving as Michigan Naval Militia Training Ship in the Detroit River, circa 1910. Courtesy of Kenneth Hanson, 1977. NH 86031

USS Don Juan de Austria, photographed during the Perry centennial Naval parade, 1913, possibly at Erie, Pennsylvania. She was a training ship of the Michigan Naval Militia at the time. Courtesy of Rear Admiral Denys W. Knoll USN ret., Erie Pennsylvania. NH 75676

Great War recall

USS Don Juan de Austria, 1914 Janes. Compare this to Infanta Isabella’s entry from the same volume above. Note by this time her armament had morphed to two 4″/40 rapid fire mounts, eight 6-pounder rapid fire mounts, two 1-pounder rapid fire mounts and she would later also carry two temporary 3-pounders.

Once the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, USS Don Juan de Austria would soon leave her familiar birth in Detroit and sail for Newport, where she became a patrol asset for use off of New England.

USS Don Juan de Austria, ship’s Officers, and Crew pose on board, circa 1917-1918. Photographed by C.E. Waterman, Newport, Rhode Island. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2008. NH 105498

Under the command of a USNRF lieutenant, by August 1918 she was escorting slow convoys to Bermuda and a group of submarines back to Newport. Among her final missions was, in April 1919, to escort the ships carrying the 26th Infantry “Yankee Division,” formed from New England National Guard units, back from “Over There” and German occupation duty back home to Boston.

USS Don Juan de Austria in the foreground leading USS America (ID # 3006) up Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, on 5 April 1919, the 26th INF Div aboard. The transport is the former 22,000-ton German Hamburg-America liner SS Amerika, seized by the Navy at Boston in April 1917 where she had been interned for three years. NH 54586

Similarly, Isla de Luzon was used as a recruit training ship in Chicago until September 1918 when she arrived at Narragansett Bay for assignment to the Naval Torpedo Station. There, armed with torpedo tubes for the first time since 1898, she would pull duty with the Seamen Gunner’s Class through the end of the year and remain a yard craft for the Station until disposed of in mid-1919.

USS Don Juan de Austria was decommissioned at Portsmouth on 18 June 1919 and sold on 16 October 1919 to one Mr. Andrew Olsen. She lingered until 1926 when mention of her arose as “abandoned.” I have no further information on her final disposition although it is marginally conceivable, she may have been converted to a tramp steamer.

Epilogue

Few items remain from the Velascos besides a handful of removed Spanish guns that have been on display, typically in small American towns, since 1898.

Also saved is the Hotchkiss rifle captured from the Spanish cruiser Don Antonio De Ulloa which fired the last shot at Dewey’s fleet, preserved at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy.

They endure in period maritime art. 

Spanish Armada’s Training Squad before the Spanish-American War of 1898, although the represented ships never sailed together. Oil on canvas painted and signed with initials A.A. by Antonio Antón e Iboleón, around 1897. From left the Battleship Pelayo with insignia, followed by the cruisers Cristóbal Colón, Infanta María Teresa, and Alfonso XIII; to the right, the cruiser Carlos V with insignia, Oquendo and Vizcaya. On the starboard side of the Pelayo sails the Torpedo-gunboat Destructor, and two Terror-class torpedo boats sail on the bows of the Carlos V.

USS Don Juan de Austria almost outlasted her sisters, the Cadiz-built Infanta Isabel, which was only stricken by the Spanish in 1926, and Count of Venadito, which, hulked in 1902, was sunk as a target by the battleship Jaime I and the cruisers Libertad, Almirante Cervera, and Miguel de Cervantes in 1936.

A fitting end to the class.

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!

Interested in a Curious Film-Used Mauser?

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From time to time, large movie and TV productions leave a mark on firearms history and the market for such items. For instance, trailer loads of resin (heavy dense rubber or plastic) M1 Garand/Carbine, M1918 BARs, MP40 SMGs, and 98K rifle prop guns manufactured for Tom Hanks’ epic Saving Private Ryan, have been sold and resold over the past two decades– some even going on to cause heartburn at airports. This is in addition to a handful of live-fire capable “hero” guns used in close-ups.

Well, it seems that some movie flotsam in the form of stacks of original antique Mauser Infanterie-Gewehr 71/84 rifles in the original 11x60mm (.43 Mauser) are now up for grabs after serving some extra time in the movies.

These guns were originally sold by Navy Arms’ President, Val Forgett III, to Motion Picture Weapons, the company that supplied the prop guns for the Tom Cruise movie “The Last Samurai” and whose owner, Robert “Rock” Galotti, served as Weapons Master on the film, Mr. Galotti recently sold back these guns to Navy Arms and has also supplied letters of authentication, by serial number, for each rifle.

The I.G. 71 was the first bolt-action breechloader ever built by the Mauser brothers and later upgraded to the 71/84 standard that included an 8-round tubular magazine designed by Alfred von Kropatschek, becoming the German Army’s (and Mauser’s) first repeating rifle.

Jager of the Imperial German Army in 1875 By Auguste Legras from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, note his Mauser 71 rifle

Besides being used by Germany until the Mauser 98 came along to replace the 8x57mm Gewehr 88 rifle in front-line service, the basic Mauser 71 and its later 71/84 would be exported throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia, seeing the elephant in any number of more local dust-ups from the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916 to defending Ethiopia from Mussolini in the 1930s, with some German Volkssturm units still issued these antiques as late as 1945.

Now the 71/84s used in The Last Samurai are, sadly, not 100 percent correct, having been modded to appear as the more (and brand new) period-appropriate I.G. 71 for the film, complete with new stocks made for the movie including the identical cartouches to the originals and a new black leather sling.

After all, it would have seemed funny had the Emperor’s new model troops been carrying guns with already-worn furniture. However, all metal parts are original.

Navy Arms apparently is selling these in two grades via their Old West Scrounger sister company including a $995 Grade I (shows wear, dents, and scratches, but does not have cracked stocks), an $895 Grade II (which comes complete with a cracked stock).

Being made in the 1880s, you can purchase these rifles and have them shipped directly to your door, as antiques they do not require any paperwork or shipping to an FFL. Plus, you get a rifle that is both a legit warhorse with its own pre-Tom Cruise martial history and a tiny slice of movie magic.

They also have $399 screen used replicas made from solid rubber and painted to have the look and feel of the originals (but the bolts do not move, etc).

Warship Wednesday, April 19, 2023: Norway’s Fair-haired Bruiser

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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, April 19, 2023: Norway’s Fair-haired Bruiser

Norwegian Marinemuseet image MMU.942036

Above we see the proud crew of the Royal Norwegian Navy Tordenskjold-class panserskipet (battleship) KNM Harald Haarfagre (also seen as Harald Hårfagre) posed around her aft 8.26-inch Armstrong main gun in the fall of 1914. Besides the large range clock on the mast, note the crews’ German-style wool jumpers and flat caps, as well as the uniforms of the officers, arrayed to the right.

Coastal battleships

Ordered from Sir WG Armstrong, Mitchell & Co’s Low Walker yard in 1895 as Yard Nos. 648 and 649, respectively, Harald Haarfagre and Tordenskjold at the time were the largest warships envisioned for the Norwegian fleet. Essentially smallish slow armored cruisers, the pair went 304 feet long overall (279 at the perpendiculars), displaced some 3,800 tons, and were swathed in up to 8-inches of Harvey steel armor– including a 174-foot long by 6.5 foot 7-inch main belt.

The cost was on the order of $925,000 per ship.

Armstrong blueprint for Norwegian Tordenskjold Class Coastal Defense Ship HNoMS Harald Haarfagre

Harald Haarfagre by Geoff Gray, pg 60 in the 1900 edition of Brassey’s Naval Annual. Their peacetime Norwegian livery was of black hulls with yellow funnels and gun shields, and white superstructure and masts.

Lead Ship, Coastal Defence Ship HNoMS Tordenskjold at Armstrong Whitworth & Co. Ltd Yards. (Low Walker Shipyard), Newcastle upon Tyne, March 18th, 1897. 

Tordenskjold at Armstrong Whitworth & Co. Ltd Yards. (Low Walker Shipyard), Newcastle upon Tyne, March 18th, 1897.

Panserskipet Harald Haarfagre, via Tyne Museum. Note the ram bow

Powered by three cylindrical boilers driving two R & W Hawthorn Leslie Co-built engines, each on their own screws, they were rated for 16 knots– surpassing this by hitting 17.2 on builder’s sea trials in 1897.

Built for the often narrow confines of Norway’s craggy and unpredictable coast, they could float in just 16.5 feet, which is comparably shallow for a well-armored steel-hulled warship.

The sisters carried a single 8.2″/44 Armstrong B forward and a second aft in well-protected turrets clad in up to 8 inches of armor and fed by electric hoists from magazines well below deck.

HNoMS Tordenskjold at Armstrong Whitworth & Co. Ltd Yards. (Low Walker Shipyard), Newcastle upon Tyne, March 18th, 1897, showing her stern 8.2″/44 Armstrong turret.

Their main guns proved a common focal point for crew and wardroom portraits over the years.

Offisersbesetningen på PS Harald Hårfagre 1897. Note the 12-pounder in the background. MMU.940805

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre første offiserbesetnig 18. Des 1897 9.mars 1898. Note the 12-pounders in the background MMU.942040

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre besetnigen 1899 MMU.942037

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre besetningen 1910 MMU.942035

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre besetningen 1921 MMU.942034

Secondary and tertiary batteries included six 4.7″/44 Armstrong Model Y guns in shielded mounts, six shielded Armstrong N 12-pounder singles, six Hotchkiss 37mm three-pounders in fighting platforms on the masts, and two submerged torpedo tubes (17.7 inch in Haarfagre and 18 inch in Tordenskjold) along the beam for Mr. Whitehead’s devices.

Harald Haarfagre, seen in Horten, October 1903, with a good view of her gun decks. Note the 4.7″/44s and smaller 12-pounders along with the three-pounders in the mast. Also note the extensive small boat storage facility, with most boats apparently off-ship at the time of the photo. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

Another Anders Beer Wilse photo from the same period at Horten shows her crew in gun-loading exercises in summer whites towards the stern of the gun deck. Note the 4.7-inch Armstrong on deck, with the 12-pounders above. Also, note the crew’s bayonets and Krag rifles at the ready on racks. The officers stand ready with sabers. Note the ornate “For Konge Og Fedreland Flaggets Heder!” (For the honor of the King and Fatherland Flag) crest. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre Styrbord side MMU.940381

They were seen by many at the time as being effectively just miniature versions of the British circa 1892 Centurion class battleships (10,000 tons, 390 ft oal, 2×2 10 inch, 9-12 inches armor, 17 knots).

Centurion class battleship HMS Barfleur, 1895. The Tordenskjolds were about half as heavy but of a similar arrangement and with smaller guns. Symonds and Co Collection, IWM Q 20993.

As such, the Tordenskjolds were considered a close match for the three new Swedish Oden class pansarbats, or coastal battleships (3400 tons, 278 ft oal, 1 or 2x 10″/41, 9.5 inches of Creusot or Harvey armor, 16 knots). This was important as, although the two countries were a United Kingdom under a Swedish king since 1814, the union’s dissolution was on the horizon, and some thought it could lead to bloodshed.

Tordenskjold was named in honor of Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold, the famed 18th Century Scandinavian admiral and naval hero who perished at the ripe old age of 30 in a duel. Meanwhile, Haarfagre was named for the famed “Harald Fairhair” (Haraldr inn hárfagri), the storied 9th Century first king of a united Norway.

Portrayed by Peter Franzén in the recent Vikings TV show, the semi-fictionalized Harald is celebrated throughout Norway and Iceland going back to the sagas of his era, and numerous monuments stand throughout Norse lands honoring the old king, his reputation is akin to King Arthur in the Anglo-Saxon culture.

Quiet peacetime service

Completed in early 1898 and delivered to the Norwegian navy, the twin Tordenskjolds remained the strongest ships in that fleet until the two slightly heavier (4,100-ton) Armstrong-built Norge class panserskipene were delivered in 1901. 

1931 Jane’s listing for the Norge class and Tordenskjolds, very similar ships built by the same yard, only differing in armor type (Krupp vs Harvey) and engineering plants. The Norwegians regarded all four ships as sisters of the same class. Note the 3-inch AAA guns mounted on the turrets, added in 1920.

This quartet of Norwegian coastal battleships would serve side-by-side for three decades, giving the country the bulk of its maritime muscle going into the tense six-month 1905 crisis with Sweden that almost led to a real shooting war between the two and the ultimate founding of today’s Norway and Royal Norwegian Navy, with the cipher of Sweden’s King Oscar II being replaced by that of his grandnephew, Prince Carl of Denmark who would rise to the Norwegian throne under the regnal name of Haakon VII.

The new Royal Norwegian Navy in 1905, besides the four coastal battleships, included 34 coastal torpedo boats (led by the unique torpedobåtjager Valkyrjen), a dozen gunboats of assorted types, and four elderly monitors.

Norwegian torpedo boats. 1900. The country had these craft as the backbone of littoral naval forces at the time

Had it gone to war against Sweden, they faced at the time not only the three Odens, but also four larger Aran-class coastal battlewagons, the one-off battleship Dristigheten, the three old but reconstructed Svea-class coastal battleships, five 800-ton destroyers labeled by the Swedes as torpedo cruisers (torpedokryssare), a small Italian-built submarine, and about 40 assorted torpedo boats. Although the Swedes had the advantage in terms of big guns, the Norwegians would surely have fought on their home turf which would have been interesting, to say the least.

Besides the 1905 crisis, the panserskipene also would stand guard over Norway’s coast during the Great War, enforcing Oslo’s neutrality against all comers. This came as the British seized a new pair of 5,000-ton 9.4-inch gunned Bjørgvin-class coastal battleships that were building in the UK. Of note, the planned KNM Bjørgvin and KNM Nidaros would enter RN service as the monitors HMS Glatton and HMS Gorgon and never flew a Norwegian flag.

Other than that, before 1940 at least, the Tordenskjolds were happy ships, and many peacetime photos exist from that period, often calling at other European ports.

Norwegian Norway coastal battleship Tordenskjold. How about that beautiful bow scroll

Norwegian Panserskipet Tordenskjold, note her stern scroll

HNoMS Harald Haarfagre

Skaffing på banjeren på PS Harald Hårfagre MMU.940449

HNoMS Harald Haarfagre 

HNoMS Harald Hårfagre or HNoMS Tordenskiold at the roadstead of Trondhjem 1906

Panserskipet Harald Hårfagre, Aktenfra MMU.940387

Køyestrekk om bord i PS Harald Hårfagre MMU.940448

Harald Haarfagre crew at mess. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

Harald Haarfagre’s crew practice signals. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

Harald Haarfagre’s bridge, circa 1903. Note her extensive brass fittings and the impressive whiskers of her officers and quartermasters

The Norwegian coastal defense ship HNoMS Harald Haarfagre in drydock at Karljohansvern naval base, 1903. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

The Norwegian coastal defense ship HNoMS Harald Haarfagre in drydock at Karljohansvern naval base, 1903. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

Harald Haarfagre in dry dock, 1903. Note her extensive bow scroll. Photo via Norsk Maritimt Museum, Anders Beer Wilse Collection.

In the 1920s, they were modestly modernized, landing their old low-angle 37mm guns and dated torpedo tubes in exchange for a pair of more modern 76mm AAA guns.

By the early 1930s, with defense kroner at an all-time low, the Norwegians decided it was better to partially strip and sideline the older Tordenskjolds and sort of modernize the better-protected Norge class panserskipene (which were transferred to a reserve status), as the fighting line of old had been augmented by six American L-class coastal submarines built under license at Karljohansvern and a planned eight fast new Sleipner– and Ålesund-class destroyers.

This saw Tordenskjold and Harald Haarfagre land most of their armament (which was recycled in many cases for use in coastal forts) and retained for use as training vessels and accommodation hulks at Karljohansvern (Horten), out of commission.

WWII

When the Germans blitzed into Norway in April 1940 without a declaration of war, in an action billed as a preemptive move to forestall Allied occupation, the toothless Tordenskjold and Harald Haarfagre were captured. The vessels had raw recruits and some reactivated retired reserve cadres on board, and, lacking all but a few small arms, were captured intact.

This inglorious fate came as their near-sisters Eidsvold and Norge, hopelessly obsolete, were sunk in very one-sided surface engagements with the Kriegsmarine.

Panserskipet Eidsvold and Norge at Narvik in early April 1940, still with their range clocks. Reactivated from mothballs the previous year and undermanned, they were outdated and outclassed by just about any period cruiser or battleship, and lost their only battle. A total of 276 men died on these two vessels, while just 96 were plucked from the freezing water, the largest single loss of life for the Norwegian navy in WWII

The Germans soon converted the captured pair of old “bathtubs” to floating batteries (Schwimmende Batterien or Schwimmende Flakbatterie, or Norwegian luftvernskrysser) with Tordenskjold rechristened as Nymphe, and Harald Haarfagre as Thetis. The conversion saw a much modernized German armament of six 4.1-inch SK C/32 guns, two 40mm Bofors guns, and nine 20mm Oerlikon guns– the latter two salvaged from Norwegian stores.

PS HARALD HÅRFAGRE ombygget til tysk luftvernskrysser THETIS i Tromsø 1945 MMU.940250

Flakschiff Nymphe, German Anti-Aircraft Ship, 1940. Formerly Norwegian Tordenskjold, anchored in a Norwegian harbor during World War II. Note her 105mm A.A. guns with camouflaged barrels, and crew members standing in formation on deck. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 71445

Flakschiff Nymphe, German Anti-Aircraft Ship, 1940. Formerly Norwegian Tordenskjold, surrounded by torpedo defense nets, in a Norwegian harbor during World War II. Note her camouflage. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 71444

Their German naval service, which was restricted to the Norwegian littoral and apparently included protecting Tirpitz and other key Kriegsmarine surface ships against RN Fleet Air Arm and RAF raids during the war, is poorly documented.

Nonetheless, the sisters survived the war, with Tordenskjold/Nymphe bombed and deliberately run aground by her German crew at Helleford in May 1945 to prevent sinking.

Harald Haarfagre/Thetis was still capable of steaming and, returned to limited Norwegian service, would carry German POWs back to their Fatherland post-war.

Both ships remained as barracks and accommodation vessels (losjiskip) as late as 1948, when the last two Norwegian panserskipene were broken up at Stavanger.

Epilogue

The dozen German 4.1-inch SK C/32 guns salvaged from Harald Haarfagre/Thetis and Tordenskjold/Nymphe were recycled for use in vessels such as thCorvettete Nordkyn and in coastal forts. At least one survives.

This German BVV-made 10,5cm SK C/32, Nr 755, circa 1932, was used as the main gun on board the corvette Nordkyn until 1956, then was dismounted and transferred to the Coast Artillery (Kystartilleriet) who mounted it at Fort Tangen (HKB Langesund), located at the far end of Langesundstangen, as cannon 3 in 1966.

Active into the 1990s, it is preserved today. MMU.071018

They also were immortalized in period maritime art.

Hårfagre and Tordenskjold, surrounded by torpedo boats, by Zacharias Martin Aagaard, circa 1902

Today, Harald Haarfagre is remembered by the Norwegian military as the shore establishment KNM Harald Haarfagre at Stavanger, tasked with training both Navy and Air Force personnel since 1952.

They have the old battleship’s circa 1897 bell on their quarterdeck for ceremonies.

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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The day the Kaiser Sank the Entire Liberian Fleet

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Some 105 years ago today, a German submarine, SM U-154, under the command of Kplt. Hermann Gercke, appeared off the Liberian capital of Monrovia and bombarded the city then sank the West African republic’s sole naval vessel.

U-154 was one of the big German Type U 151 merchant submarines built to run the British blockade in the Great War. Converted for use by the Kaiserliche Marine, she mounted two large 5.9″ L/45 deck guns, and another pair of 3.5″ L30s, and carried 18 torpedos.

The event was live-streamed by Richard Bundy, U.S. Chargé in Liberia, as told in three cables:

Monrovia , April 10, 1918 .
[Received 9.07 p.m.]

German submarine now in harbor of Monrovia. Commander sent President, Liberia, following letter this morning:

Sir: I have not the wish to do unnecessary damage to the Liberian people, being sure that you were driven into the war against your true interest; therefore I send you back those prisoners I made beating your armed ship President [ Howard? ]. In the same time I want to draw your attention to the fact that the capital of Liberia is at present helpless under German guns. Like many other allies of England and France you are not being supported by them in the moment of the most critical danger. If the wireless and cable station of Monrovia do not at once cease their work I shall regret being obliged to open fire on them. If you wish to avoid this you will have to send on to me a boat under a flag of truce and declare that you consent to stop them yourself. [Your obedient] servant, Gercke, Kapitan Lieutenant and Commandant S.M.U. Kreuzer U.

Liberian Government has not yet given its final answer to these demands but in any case it looks as if the wireless and cable stations at Monrovia will be put out of commission accordingly. This is probably the last message I will be able to send the Department. It [Page 741]is urgently requested that assistance be sent at earliest possible moment.

Monrovia , April 10, 1918 .
[Received 9.17 p.m.]
Liberian Government agreed to stop operation of wireless and cable stations and in reply to its communications commander of submarine makes following demands:

Extreme urgence, dernier ultimatum. Have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your answer to my note from this morning. Being sure of your earnest good will to comply with my demands I will not open fire on the cable and wireless stations which I was in the act of doing when just in time your boat was sent out. I am glad to be able to do so because my gun fire might have hurt innocent people. In answer for this I must put to you the following demands:

(1) The French flag is to be removed from its place shown to your commissioners;
(2) Fire is to be set on all houses belonging to the wireless and cable stations, the apparatus of each station to be destroyed;
(3) One and two to be executed within one hour after your commissioners have reached the shore.

I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant, Gercke, Kapitan Lieutenant and Commandant S.M.U. Kreuzer U.

Liberian Government has not yet given its final answer to these demands but in any case it looks as if the wireless and cable stations at Monrovia will be put out of commission accordingly. This is probably the last message I will be able to send the Department. It is urgently requested that assistance be sent at the earliest possible moment.

Monrovia , April 10, 1918 .
[Received April 11, 4 a.m.]
Liberian Government’s final reply to demands of submarine commander was considered unsatisfactory by him. At about 4 this afternoon submarine bombarded French wireless station rendering it inoperative. As result bombardment two Liberian persons killed and two wounded. Submarine is now engaging merchant steamer off Monrovia, result as yet not known. No public disorder. Believe submarine will return to complete demolition of cable and wireless station.

The naval combat between the Germans and Liberians saw U-154 easily dispatch the former I. W. West trading schooner R.L.S President Daniel E. Howard. The 73-ton converted gunboat took 26 of her crew to the bottom (although German accounts say the crew was paroled and not harmed).

The arrival that afternoon of an armed British merchantman, the 3,800-ton SS Burutu, which soon started firing at U-154, drove the German away. Two members of the Burutu’s crew were killed in the surface action. 

What triggered the U-boat onslaught was Liberia’s declaration of war on Imperial Germany the previous August. Prior to that event, the republic had a good relationship with Berlin, as the country was one of the four guaranteers of a $1.7 million load handled by a New York bank in 1912. Pre-war, the port facility at Monrovia was largely run by German firms, and something like 75 percent of the country’s overseas trade went back and forth to Hamburg.

Following the raid, Gercke was wired that he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän on 28 April for his performance, which besides the Liberian affair had seen him sink four other ships.

Two weeks later, U-154 was found and sunk by HM Submarine E-35 off the coast of West Africa, taking all 77 hands, KKpt Gercke included, to the bottom.

As far as Burutu, the Captain, Henry A. Yardley, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Seaman Edward Jones was given a gold medal by the passengers. The Dempster Lines cargo vessel would be sunk in a collision with the 7,000-ton City of Calcutta in the Irish Sea during a convoy mix-up in October 1918. She went down with all 160 aboard.

Warship Wednesday, April 5, 2023: Jackie’s Toys

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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 time 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, April 5, 2023: Jackie’s Toys

Above we see the British C-class coastal submarine HMS C-27 (57) in the Spring of 1916 as she rides like a beached whale aboard a barge in Russia on her way, via inland lakes and rivers, from Archangel to Petrograd (St. Petersburg), where she would join a flotilla of similar boats in an aim to put the Eastern Baltic off limits to the German High Seas Fleet. You wouldn’t know it by the looks of her, but this little sub had already chalked up one of Kaiser Willy’s U-boats.

Sadly, C27 was lost 105 years ago today, at the hands of her own crew.

The tiny C boats

A slightly better and larger follow-up to the 13-strong A-class (200t, 105 ft, 2×18 inch TT, 11.5 kts) and 11-unit B-class (316t, 142 ft, 2×18 inch TT, 12 kts), the C-class boats went some 300 tons and ran 143 feet overall. Powered by a 600hp Vickers gasoline (!) engine on the surface and a single 200hp electric motor when submerged, the C1, as built, could make 13 knots.

HMS C25. Note the pennant number on the hull is 30 digits off of the name.

Manned by up to 16 officers and crew, they still just carried two 18-inch torpedo tubes with no reloads (although they were designed to carry an extra pair of “fish”) and no deck gun.

HMS C11. Note her two tubes at the bow under caps

British C class submarines Grimsby

These boats were known at the time in naval circles as “Fisher’s Toys” as Jackie Fisher fancied them instead of minefields for harbor and roadstead defense against enemy sneak attacks.

Five of the boats (C12 through C16) were even fitted with three airlocks and enough emergency dive gear for the entire complement should the boat bottom be unable to surface. Certainly, a forward-looking concept. This was later changed to a planned underwater egress via a hatch in the torpedo compartment.

Crew members of the submarine HMS C7 wearing their Rees Hall escape apparatus, dating from the 1900s. “There is no record of the apparatus ever having been used.”

These boats were seriously meant for coastal work, as they could float in just 12 feet of water while on the surface, and they often made appearances in river systems and small littoral harbors.

British submarine HMS C13 moored at Temple Pier, London. July 1909 National Maritime Museum Henley Collection.

A view looking west from Victoria Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge. Three C Class submarines are berthed alongside Temple Stairs, with two torpedo boats moored in Kings Reach at the time of the Thames Naval Review. 23 July 1909. RMG P00045

HM Submarine C34 (66) alongside HMS Victory to supply electric current from her generators to power lights and a “cinematograph lantern” for movie night for the cadets’ movie night.

The 38-vessel* class was split into three flights constructed in the half-decade between 1905 and 1910, with the first 18 boats (C1-C18) running a Wolseley 16-cylinder horizontal opposed main engine that allowed a 1,500nm surface radius. The second (C19-30), and third (C31-38) flights were equipped with a more efficient Wolseley-Vickers 12-cylinder engine that gave a better 2,000 nm radius while proving a knot faster (14 surfaced, 10 submerged).

*Two additional units were later built to a modified design for the Chilean government in Seattle and then later taken over by the Canadians (as HMCS CC1 and HMCS CC2) and should be considered their own separate class as they had different engineering and an additional stern torpedo tube along with four bow tubes rather than two.

Boy sailors having submarine instruction in the engine room in a C-class submarine in Portsmouth. IWM Q 18868

Most were built by Vickers, as they were a Vickers design, at Barrow, although six were constructed by the Royal Dockyard at Chatham as sort of an educational run.

HMS C1

HMS C14 (44)

HMS C25

HMS C38 (68)

HMS C32

HMS C31 (61)

The class was soon outpaced by the follow-on D and E-classes, which were almost twice as large, could make 16 knots on the surface, and carried safer diesel engines– the C-class submarines were the last class of gasoline-engined submarines in the Royal Navy.

Jane’s 1914 entry for the RN’s 75~ odd submarines, of which the Cs made up fully half of those numbers.

These little boats were tricky as they had very low freeboard while surfaced and the Submarine Force had both tremendous growing and teething pains at the same time. This cost lives as HMS C11 was sunk in a collision with the collier Eddystone in the North Sea in 1909, with only three survivors. In the same incident, HMS C16 and C17 collided but remained afloat. Four years later, HMS C14 was lost in a collision with a coal hopper in Plymouth Sound but was later salvaged and returned to service.

Nonetheless, some of these boats became among the first of HM Submarines to operate in the Pacific as HMS C36, C37, and C38 were transferred to Hong Kong in February 1911 to operate with the China Squadron. Ironically, the Japanese were building a series of almost identical boats at the same time, having bought the plans from Vickers.

By the time the Great War kicked off in August 1914, the remaining C-class boats were generally tasked with coastal defense and training duties in home waters while the larger craft were given more dynamic offensive missions. They did prove deadly in some cases, with HMS C15 for example torpedoing the highly successful German UC-65 (106 ships sunk for 125,000 tons) in the English Channel in November 1917.

U Boat Trap

Suggested in April 1915 by Acting Paymaster F. T. Spickernell, Secretary to VADM Sir David Beatty, as a method to combat German U-boats haunting the British Home Islands, the idea was to team up a trawler in RN service with a small coastal submarine– the Cs were ideal for this– with the fishing boat serving as bait to draw in said Hun to be bashed by waiting C-boat.

As underwater communication was non-existent at the time, and even hydrophones were still a new concept, the trawler, and C-boat were attached by a telephone line. The concept was that the trawler, being too small for the German to waste a torpedo on but still an inviting target, would soon be confronted by surfaced U-boat that would dispatch the fisherman via deck guns or a landing party. Either way, this would set up the idle and unsuspecting German to be zapped by the shadowing C-boat’s submarine volley.

Eight trawlers and a corresponding number of C-boats were tasked to operate from four ports: HMS C26 and C27 were to work with trawlers from Scapa Flow; C14 and C16 from the Tyne; C21 and C29 from the Humber; and C3 and C34 from Harwich.

Put together in May, this “U-Boat Trap” technique soon proved effective, with HMS C24, operating with the trawler Taranaki, sinking U-40 in the North Sea off Eyemouth on 23 June 1915.

This was followed up by our HMS C27, under the command of LCDR Claude Congreve Dobson, along with the trawler Princess Louise, ending the career of U-23 in the Fair Isle Channel between Orkney and Shetland on 20 July. She made good on this after missing a shot at U-19 the month prior.

As detailed in Martin Gibson’s War and Security Blog on the Royal Navy in the Great War:

The trawler was captained by Lieutenant L. Morton, but Lieutenant C. Cantlie and Lieutenant A. M. Tarver were also on board in order to train the crew. Cantile, who was the only regular officer of the three, the others being peacetime merchant marine officers who were members of the Royal Navy Reserve, took command during the subsequent operation.

At 7:55 am on 20 July Cantlie telephoned Dobson to tell him that a U-boat had been spotted 2,000 yards away. The phone then broke down; Dobson waited five minutes before slipping the cable; contact had not been restored, and he could hear gunfire.

The U-boat, which was U40, had fired one warning shot before firing at the trawler. She stopped, raised the Red Ensign, and dipped it as a sign of surrender, whilst her crew prepared to abandon ship in an apparent panic. This was in accordance with the plan, which was to trick the Germans and hopefully persuade them to come closer. It worked so well that U40 stopped near the trawler.

The trawler’s crew did not know where C27 was, but she was only 500 yards away on U40’s starboard beam when Dobson raised her periscope. He fired a torpedo, but U40 then started her engines, and it passed under her stern. He fired another that hit and sank U40. The British rescued 10 survivors, including her captain, Oberleutnant Hans Schulthess, and two other officers.

The British Naval Staff Monograph, written after the war for internal Royal Navy use only, stated that the prisoners ‘gave a good deal of information, not only of a technical character…but also on the general work of German submarines’, which it suggests may have been a result of their good treatment.

However, the U-Boat Trap results were mixed, with HMS C33 mined off Great Yarmouth while operating with the armed trawler Malta on 4 August. This was repeated when HMS C29 was lost when her companion trawler, Ariadne, strayed into a minefield in the Humber on 29 August. These losses, coupled with the increasing German wariness to fall for the bait of trawler decoys and larger Q-ships, led to the end of the program.

Nonetheless, the RN had other plans for C-27.

Headed East

With Tsarist Russia’s main ports in the Black Sea closed down by the entrance of the Ottomans to the war, and the Germans controlling the Baltic, the Imperial Russian Navy was effectively bottled up except the obsolete and neglected Siberian Flotilla. As an attempt to aid the Russians via their extra naval capacity, Britain and France attempted to force the Dardanelles and break into the Black Sea in a fiasco that was soon followed up by the slow-moving Salonika campaign.

At roughly the same time as the Gallipoli misadventure, the Royal Navy was sending a few small E-class boats through the Baltic to give the Russians some extra torpedo tubes to throw at German shipping.

Three British E-class boats in mid-October 1914 attempted the dicey journey into the Baltic through the Oresund Strait separating Denmark from Sweden, against tough German opposition. This saw HMS E-11 forced to turn back while HMS E-1 and E-9 got through to Reval in the Gulf of Finland.

SUBMARINE WARFARE DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 114325) The Royal Navy’s submarine E1 in Russia during the First World War. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205356741

Iced in over the winter, the following summer they soon torpedoed and sank a German collier, and badly damaged the destroyer SMS S-148, the battlecruiser SMS Moltke, and the cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert. Such exploits brought a meeting with the Tsar, and boxes of Russian decorations including the St. George, the country’s highest.

In late 1915, E-1 and E-9 were joined by E-8, E-18, and E-19, while sister E-13 was disabled after she ran aground in Danish waters and interned.

E18 Arriving off Dagerort, 12-9-1915. Note the extensive camouflage applied. Photo: Royal Navy Submarine Museum

They were assigned the steamers Cicero, Emilie, and Obsidian to serve as tenders and a home (away from home) for the British submariners and support staff.

By October, they waged a campaign to disrupt iron ore traffic from Lulea in Sweden to German ports and sank ten merchantmen over three weeks. The month ended with E-8 sinking Prinz Adalbert when a spread of torpedoes sent her magazine to the heavens, carrying almost 700 of the cruiser’s complement with it. The following month, E-19 hit the German light cruiser Undine with two torpedoes, sinking her south of the southern Swedish town of Trelleborg.

While the five Es were busy, a further four smaller C-class boats (our C27 along with HMS C26, C32, and C35) were given the mission to join them. However, since it was unlikely they could force the Oresund, they were stripped of as much weight as possible to give them increased buoyance, then towed to Archangel in the frozen Russian North, and finally taken by barge down the Dvina and across Lakes Onega and Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland where they would take the water once again and be ready to almost double the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic.

The thing is, this boondoggle, which sounded good on paper to someone, took almost 18 months to carry out and by the time the C-boats were ready for action in early 1917, the Tsar had been deposed, and things were getting downright weird in Russia. Nonetheless, the British boats were still as active as they could be, even while the now revolutionary Russian fleet was content to sit on its hands. As such, C32 was lost in October 1917 in the Gulf of Riga but claimed at least one German merchant sunk.

As the Bolsheviks swept to power in November 1917, and soon signed first a truce and then a peace with the Germans, the Kaiser’s troops started swarming through the Baltics and landing in Finland in March 1918. With the remaining British subs backed into a corner with no options, they made one final sortie to scuttle.

HMS E18 leaving Reval for the last time on May 25th, 1916

HMS E-18 had already been lost to German activity in May 1916, leaving E-1 and E-9 to be scuttled in the Gulf of Finland off the Harmaja Lighthouse on 3 April, followed by E-8 and C-26 on 4 April, and our C27 and C35 on 5 April. E-19 was sunk on 8 April. The supply ship Emilie was sunk on the northwest side of Kuivasaari on the 9th. The maintenance ships Cicero and Obsidian were sunk southwest of Bändare on the 10th, ending the carnage.

This left the flotilla’s 150~ remaining members to exfiltrate with the nominal help of the Reds back to Murmansk, where most soon became part of the British interventionist forces that would operate on the White Sea and the Dvina against the Reds well into 1919.

The flotilla’s senior officer, E-19‘s skipper CDR Francis Newton Allen Cromie, stayed behind in Petrograd where he was officially a naval attaché but nonetheless assumed the vacant portfolio of the British ambassador. There, he helped interface with assorted counter-revolutionary types, only to be killed by Cheka agents when the Reds raided the embassy in August 1918.

C-27‘s final commander, LT Douglas Carteret Sealy, survived the war and revolution but would be lost on HM Submarine H42 when she was rammed while submerged near Gibraltar by the “V” Class destroyer HMS Versatile in 1922.

For a deeper dive (see what we did there?) into the British Baltic boats, see Baltic Assignment: British Sub-Mariners in Russia 1914-1919, by Michael Wilson.

Epilogue

Of the other 35 C-class boats built for the Royal Navy that entered the war, several failed to emerge on the other side after the Armistice. As covered, C26, C27, C32, and C35 were scuttled in the Baltic to avoid capture, while C29 and C33 were lost in 1915 while on the U-boat Trap detail.

Other wartime losses included:

  • HMS C31 was sunk by a mine off the Zeebrugge on 4 January 1915, lost with no survivors
  • HMS C16 sunk after being rammed at periscope depth by destroyer HMS Melampus off Harwich on 16 April 1917
  • HMS C17 collided with the destroyer HMS Lurcher the following month and sank.
  • HMS C34 was sunk by U-52 in the Shetlands while on the surface on 17 July 1917. Her sole survivor ended the war in a German POW camp.
  • HMS C3 was packed with explosives and rammed into the viaduct at Zeebrugge on 23 April 1918, blasted sky high, with her skipper earning the VC.

LT Richard Douglas Sandford VC HM Submarine C3, Zeebrugge Raid, 22 – 23 April 1918 IWM Q 104329

The two dozen enduring C-boats left on the Admiralty’s list in 1919 were soon disposed of, largely through sale for dismantling. They were just too obsolete for further use, even though the oldest hull in the batch had just 15 years on its frames.

HMS C4, converted in secret by D.C.B. Section at the RN Signals School at Portsmouth into an unmanned vessel controlled remotely by an operator in a nearby aircraft, was the only surviving C-class submarine not to be scrapped at the end of the Great War. Still, she only lingered until 1922 when she went to the breakers.

The wrecks of the British Baltic flotilla, our C27 included, have largely been found and well documented over the years, with some even raised for scrap or attempts to put back into service, with unsatisfactory results.

Today, the C-class is best remembered in a series of period maritime art that still stirs emotions.

“HMS Bonaventure and Submarines” circa 1911 by William Lionel Wyllie. RMG PW2083. Inscribed, as title, and signed by the artist, lower right. The ‘Bonaventure’ (1892) was a second-class protected cruiser converted to a submarine depot ship in 1907. This finished watercolor shows the ship in her 1911-14 condition. Both the ‘Bonaventure’ and the trawler tender on the left are flying large red flags, advising other vessels to keep clear of a submarine operating area. The submarine with the number ’61’, lying close to ‘Bonaventure’, is the ‘C31’, launched on 2 September 1909 and lost by unknown causes after leaving Harwich for the Belgian coast on 4 January 1915. What appears to be a practice torpedo is in the foreground and an unidentifiable submarine is on the left. As the circumstances indicate, the drawing is of an exercise off the English coast, probably in the Channel from the relatively high ground behind.

“Near the Dardanelles, English, and French warships in the harbor of Malta,” by Alexander Kircher, with C22 and C26 in the foreground.

“A fleet of submarines passing HMS Dreadnought,” by Charles Edward Dixon, circa 1909. The closest boat is HM Submarine C-14

“The submarine ‘C15’ fundraising for the Gosport war effort” by William Lionel Wyllie. RMG PV3490

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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Warship Wednesday, March 29, 2023: The Republic’s Lightning

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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 time 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 29, 2023: The Republic’s Lightning

Naval History and Heritage Command NH 64202

Above we see the French torpedo boat cruiser (croiseur porte-torpilleurs) Foudre (Lightning) circa 1901 with a half-inflated free balloon on her quarter deck and numerous 59-foot steam-powered torpedo boats arranged in her complicated gantry system. About as interesting a warship as has taken to the waves, Foudre would be a chameleon of sorts when it came to naval technology, all of which has sadly been almost forgotten.

Torpedo Boat Carrier Race

In 1878, the Royal Navy purchased the incomplete merchant steamer British Crown (Yard 7A, C7) while on the builder’s ways at Harland & Wolff in Belfast. The 390-foot, 6,400-ton iron-hulled merchantman was originally to be a cargo hauler, but her owner ran into physical limitations before she could be completed. The Admiralty picked her up for a bargain and converted her to HMS Hecla, a new type of experimental “torpedo depot ship and floating factory” that would carry and support a series of at least four small 2nd class torpedo boats.

Besides her torpedo boats, she was given enough topside armament to be considered a small cruiser. This included five 6.32-inch (64pdr) MLRs and a 4-inch (40pdr) breechloader, along with enough small arms to send a company-sized force of Tars ashore.

HMS Hecla (British Torpedo Depot Ship, 1878) Note torpedo boats on deck. NH 60288

Lessons from Hecla’s service led the Admiralty in 1888 to order from the Portsmouth Dockyard a more purpose-built “enhanced Hecla type” a 350-foot 6,820-ton steamer dubbed HMS Vulcan. Much faster (20 knots vs 12 knots) than Hecla, Vulcan could also carry more than twice the number of boats (9) while mounting a very decent armament of eight 4-inch QF guns, 12 Hotchkiss 3 pounders, and six torpedo tubes for Mr. Whitehead’s deadly steel fish. Also, unlike the unprotected Hecla, Vulcan carried an armored conning tower as well as up to four inches of plate over her machinery spaces.

H.M. steel twin-screw torpedo depot ship Vulcan

The TBs used by the two British carriers were a class of one dozen wooden-hulled craft (WTB Nos. 1-12) of some 56 feet and 14 tons that carried either a pair of 14-inch torpedoes in dropping gear or one in a centerline tube and a couple of Mr. Maxim’s water-cooled machine guns. Essentially steam-powered picket boats that carried a single locomotive boiler, they were among the largest carried by RN warships for launching via davits.

Between Hecla and Vulcan, it was thought the Royal Navy could use the vessels to set up an instant blockade of an enemy seaport or coastline, or deploy to a disputed land and establish a working naval base virtually upon arrival. Alternatively, they could be used to raid an enemy roadstead at night, with the cruisers closing to within 15 miles or so just after sunset, putting their boats in the water, then retrieving the survivors after the attack and beating feet as soon as possible after the attack.

Enter Foudre

With such a capability out there in British hands, the French moved to field a similar vessel in 1890, ordering Foudre from Soc de la Gironde, Bordeaux.

Some 389 feet overall, she hit the scales at 6,000 tons (full). Powered by twin VTEs fed by a staggering 24 boilers, she could make 19.5 knots at least on trials.

Swathed in Harvey nickel steel armor up to five inches thick, she had a decent gun armament of eight 4-inch M1891s located one fore, one aft, and six in sponsons, as well as two batteries of smaller anti-boat guns.

She carried eight 100/45 M1891 Canet guns in shields

However, her boats were her main battery.

A closer inset of NH 64202, the first image in the post, shows two of Foudre’s embarked Type A torpedo boats under the gantry with their funnels folded down.

The French had six old torpilleur-vedette spar boats but wanted something better. This led to ordering designs from Thibaudier & Normand domestically with seven built at Creusot (Lettered A, B, D-I) and Yarrow in England, with the latter being a single boat (Letter C) constructed of an early Webster’s process aluminum. The fact that they were lettered set them easily apart, as the more than 200 larger torpedo boats in the French Navy, capable of independent operations, were all numbered. 

Their length was 59 feet overall with a single stern-mounted 14-inch torpedo tube (with no reloads) oriented to fire either over the port side just off-center for banking shots at an enemy ship or downward from the bow.

Taking on a torpedo

Note the downward-sloped bow tube

Note the folding funnel and detail of the slanted bow tube

Other than the torpedo, the boats had no other armament to save weight. Speed on these boats was a paltry 16 knots with a range of about 100 miles, a performance that was largely in the hands of how effectively the vessels’ seven-man crew worked their boiler.

The difference in weight between the Creusot boat (11.5 tons) and the Yarrow-built aluminum craft (9.5 tons) was significant. However, the English boat was a failure due to electrolytic action with the salt water.

Yarrow built torpilleur-vedette a embarquer “C” for the torpedo boat cruiser Foudre. Note the offset funnel to allow for the slanted topside tube, and the armored wheelhouse, clad in a 4mm plate to protect the skipper and helmsman. She used a hull skin and frames of aluminum from 1mm to 5mm thick. Via Feb. 1895 Cassier’s drawing.

Foudre would be completed and enter service in September 1897 and based at Toulon, would spend the next four years in a series of fleet operations and experiments.

A great clear shot of her around 1900. NH 63905

And during balloon trials off Toulon in 1901. Note her forward 4-inch gun

It was discovered that her boats were so large and unwieldy that they proved hard to launch rapidly, or in any sea state, while conversely, they were too small and slow to prove much practical value in anything more than coastwise operations. This led Foudre to be laid up by 1902 after just a few years of service.

But don’t worry, the French soon found many other uses for her.

Sub-transport and conversion

Recommissioned in March 1904, she had her aft gantry works removed and, with four of her old torpedo boats loaded forward and the newly built small (70 tons, 2×17.7 inch tubes) Naiade-class submarines Lynx (Q23) and Protee (Q16) aft, sailed for Saigon in French Indochina where she disembarked the menagerie.

1904 with Lynx and Protee aboard under canvas

1904 with Lynx and Protee aboard. Note the white “colonial” scheme

She would repeat the trip the following year with the subs Perle (Q17) and Esturgeon (Q18) and four more TBs.

Finished with her Asian excursions, Foudre was reclassified as a floating repair ship in 1907 and then converted to become a minelayer in 1910, although she was also used to transport troops back and forth from Africa.

“Foudre will transport the troups of the Armée d ‘Afrique to France. 2-6-10” Note her gantries are gone and the forward deck house is much more visible.

Likewise, her British counterparts, HMS Hecla and Vulcan, would be soon converted from their primary mission into becoming submarine and destroyer tenders.

To the skies!

A pet project of the forward-looking VADM Auguste Boué de Lapeyrère, who had fought with the Marines ashore against the Germans as a cadet in 1870 and then later commanded the torpedo boat Volta in its fight against the Chinese sloop Fou-Sing in 1884, Foudre set her mine warfare role aside and soon became part of the budding Aéronavale, the French Navy’s air arm.

Long experimenting with balloons, by December 1911 she had become a full-fledged seaplane carrier capable of transporting, launching, and recovering up to four small floatplanes. This included large (30×15-foot) on-deck hangars, below-deck workshops, and cranes to lift the aircraft aboard and down to the sea.

This feat made her the first seaplane carrier in history, predating the British HMS Hermes and the seaplane antics aboard USS Mississippi by over a year, and the Japanese Wakamiya by nearly three.

Her arrangement as a seaplane carrier. Note she still has her stern 4-inch gun but her forward has been removed and she now has a large hangar center deck. Her forward deck house has been deleted as well. 

In the summer of 1912, she supported trials of the Voisin Canard (Duck) amphibie floatplane, equipped with Fabre floats, under the control of aviation pioneer LT Pierre Cayla. Foudre’s skipper at the time was Capt. (later VADM) Louis Fatou.

Cayla would later go on to lead the 1re Escadrille de Bombardement on the successful attack on the Pechelbronn oil complex in 1915, one of the first practical uses of strike aircraft, and earn the Legion D’Honneur.

In November 1913, she had a 113×24-foot wooden deck installed to launch a small single-seat Caudron G.3 biplane. Powered by an 80hp Rhone engine, the G.3 was light, with just a 1,600-pound maximum loaded weight, but could carry a small bomb.

Boarding a Caudron G.3 Type J on the Foudre. Note the hole cut in the wings for the lifting hook

Boarding a Caudron G.3 Type J on the Foudre. Note the hole cut in the wings for the lifting hook

She conducted at least one take-off of the aircraft from her deck on 8 May 1914, with Rene Caudron at the stick.

While this was four years after Eugene Ely’s historic flight in his Curtiss pusher airplane from the cruiser USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, it was a first for the French.

War!

Jane’s 1914 entry on Foudre.

Soon after the Great War began, Foudre landed her aircraft ramp, thus ending her G.3 operations, and joined the fleet as a sort of do-all vessel deployed to the eastern Med. In this work, she clocked in as an auxiliary cruiser, a troop transport, a tender and depot ship for seaplanes, destroyers, and submarines; and basically, any other mission that came up.

She was attached to the allied fleet for the Dardanelles operations and in October 1915 evacuated 4,000 Armenian refugees from Antioch to Port Said, thus helping to document the genocide perpetrated by the Ottomans.

By 1916, she was a floating headquarters and depot ship for the Armée d ‘Orient, the French expeditionary corps in Salonika, and would continue in that role for the remainder of the conflict.

Post-Armistice, she was heavily involved in occupation duties in the former Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian regions. A floating ship of state to protect the Republic’s interests everywhere from Syria to the Adriatic. 

The French torpedo boat carrier Foudre (L. 1895) at Spalato (Split, Yugoslavia), in 1919. NH 64205

After the war, she was used as an aviation school ship.

By August 1921, the former torpedo boat carrier/submarine transport/repair ship/minelayer/aircraft carrier/headquarters ship was retired and scrapped.

Epilogue

Little of the old Foudre still exists, other than a collection of period postcards, some of which used early photoshop techniques to overlay assorted airplanes. 

Since then, the French have recycled her name for an American-built Casa Grande-class landing ship dock (A646, ex HMS Oceanway) that was active in the 1950s and 60s.

TCD Foudre (A646) moored on the Saigon River, French Indochina in 1955. Note the F4U Corsairs on her deck. Built at Newport News in 1942-43, she was Lend Leased to the Royal Navy as HMS Oceanway (F-143) and landed U.S. troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The French operated her from 1952 to 1969. Photo: Georges Demichelis via Navsource.

The name was used again as the class leader (L9011) of a similar type of LPD that served the French Navy from 1990 through 2011. As LPDs are every bit the same sort of “all things to all people” multitool that our Great War era Foudre was, the logic is obvious.

TCD Foudre (L9011). The ship now serves in the Chilean Navy.

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!

Great War Echos along the Copacabana

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When the U.S. entered what was then termed the Great War and is now better known as World War I, the country’s Army went from an oversized border defense force to one capable of taking on the Kaiser. In April 1917, when Congress at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson declared war against Imperial Germany, the U.S. had a standing Army of just 127,500. By the end of the war the following November, this grew to a force of well over 4 million.

All those troops needed weapons, and they needed them fast.

Just as the M1917 “American Enfield” .30-06 manufactured by Remington, Eddystone, and Winchester augmented the standard M1903 Springfield rifle, the Army turned to Colt and Smith & Wesson to produce a revolver capable of firing the same .45 ACP rimless ammo that the standard M1911 Government used. For Colt, that meant a variant of its M1909 New Service chambered in .45 ACP. For Smith, this meant revamping the Hand Ejector 2nd Model from .44 Special or .455 Webley to the shorter .45 ACP.

While only something like 15,000 S&W 1st Model Hand Ejector revolvers – known as the Triple Lock because its cylinder locked up with the frame in three places – were made between 1908 and 1915, the simplified 2nd Model (which deleted the third lockup point) saw a bit more success. This was because the British government had ordered almost 70,000 modified guns chambered in their standard .455 Webley for use in the Great War before America joined the conflict. A quick redesign to allow the 2nd Model to run .45 ACP, and Smith soon had their M1917 revolver in production for the U.S. Army.

Over 160,000 S&W M1917s were delivered before the end of the war, and they were often standard issue for specialist soldiers such as dispatch riders, military police, and machine gunners, while the M1911 automatic was more traditionally issued to officers. (Photos: National Archives)

While over 160,000 were constructed for the U.S. Army, and they served through not only the Great War but also through WWII– making it the first truly popular S&W N-frame on the American market– the Brazilians really loved the big .45 ACP. Ordered as the Modelo 1937, the Exército Brasileiro took possession of 25,000 commercial grade M1917s before WWII, carried them to war in Italy, they bought another 12,000 in 1946– taking all Smith had in stock or could make.

The Brazilians liked the revolver so much that, while the 25,000-strong Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought in Italy with the Allies in WWII was largely equipped with American small arms, its officers often carried their Modelo 1937s to war. (Photos: National Archives/Exército Brasileiro)

Brazil only fully replaced the Modelo 1937 in the late 1980s with Beretta/Taurus-made Model 92 9mm semi-autos, keeping them in service for some 50 years.

This Model 1917 is from Smith’s second batch sent to Brazil in 1946, as it has a serial number outside the original run, the commercial round bottom U-notch rear sighting notch, and the standard Modelo 1937 national crest. It wears a CAI ST AL VT (Century Arms International St Albans, VT) import mark on the bottom of the barrel, and was likely from the batch of 14,000 surplus guns brought in from Brazil in 1989-1990. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Speaking of keeping dated small arms in use, the Brazilians still run Great War-era bolt guns behind the scenes.

As a bit of a backgrounder, the Brazilians loved them some Mauser rifles. They started with the M1904 Mauser-Vergueiro rifle then went all-in with the Model 1908 rifle, similar to the Gew.98 with a 29-inch barrel. After WWI, in the 1930s Brazil bought the unlicenced Czech 08/34, a K98k clone with a 22-inch barrel chambered in 7mm as well as genuine Oberndorf-built M1935s.

Supplemented by a homegrown variant of the FAL made by the Itajubá-based IMBEL after 1964 and more recently by the IMBEL IA2 in 5.56, Brazil’s Mausers linger on as the homogenized “Mosquefal” M968, converted to 7.62 NATO, used in both training and parades.

Tradecraft

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These images, via the National Archives’s Underwood and Underwood News Service collection, show the “brass tube bomb,” “magazine revolver of German make,” and assorted maps, disguises, and other sabotage gear found in October 1915 in the room occupied by one Robert Fay, “German spy, arrested by the Federal authorities for conspiracy to destroy ammunition ships in New York Harbor.”

Fay, a German national who worked for the Submarine Signal Company (now Raytheon) in Boston prior to the Great War, went back home in August 1914 to serve on the Western Front as a Lieutenant. However, following up on his special set of skills, he was dispatched back to America with a fake British passport under the name of H. A. Kearling, assigned German military attaché Franz von Papen as his handler, and went to work trying to organize acts of sabotage.

German anti-shipping bombs, 1915, including those used by both Fay and developed by Von Rintelen, via the circa 1918 ONI 40

The Fay ring, including brother-in-law Walter E. Scholz, the curious professor Herbert O. Kienzle, and Paul Daeche, would be rounded up within six months and Papen expelled– with the latter soon arriving on the Western Front himself, to take up command of an infantry battalion.

One of Fay’s more interesting attempts at freighter sabotage as detailed by ONI 40 was a 40-pound bomb made to disable a ship’s rudder.

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