Category Archives: World War One

Happy 157th QAMR!

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Queen Alexandra’s Mounted Rifles, the oldest regular force unit in the New Zealand Army, turned 157 this month.

Formed 16 September 1864 as the Alexandra Troop of the Wanganui Cavalry Volunteers, the unit’s motto is Ake Ake Kia Kaha (Forever and Ever Be Strong). First deploying overseas in the Boer Wars, they continued to be very active in both World Wars as well as in recent years. 

Hard-riding New Zealand horse soldiers guard German prisoners of war captured in Palestine near Jericho in 1918.

As noted by the Army, “QAMR has a proud tradition of Operational service from South Africa, Egypt, Greece, Crete, North Africa, Italy and, more recently, in Bosnia and Afghanistan.”

These days, they ride iron horses as they have since 1942, today forming a squadron of NZLAVs, the Kiwi version of the LAV III 6×6.

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021: Behold, the Destroyerzooka

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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, Sept. 22, 2021: Behold, the Destroyerzooka

Here we see the Soviet Orfey (Orpheus)-class destroyer Engels (formerly Desna) with his (Russian warships are always masculine by tradition) unique stern 12-inch (305mm) Kurchevsky pattern “Dynamo-Reactive” recoilless rifle, circa the summer of 1934. A tough little ship going past his goofy one-off experimental gun, he had an interesting life.

Background

With a shredded naval list after the Russo-Japanese War, having lost two out of three fleets, the Tsarist Imperial Navy needed new ships of every stripe in the 1910s as they were facing an increasingly modern Ottoman fleet in the Black Sea as well as the Swedes (always a possible opponent) and the German juggernaut in the Baltic. Part of the naval buildout was a series of 52 destroyers derived from the Novik.

Novik was a great destroyer for 1910. At some 1,600-tons full load, he could make 37.3 knots, which is still fast for a destroyer today, and carried four twin 18-inch torpedo tubes (eight tubes total) as well as four 4-inch guns.

The follow-on Orfey-class upgrade from Novik, planned to number 23 vessels, ended up being trimmed back to just 16 due to the Great War and Russia’s series of revolutions and civil war, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Some 1,440-tons when fully loaded, the 321-foot tin cans used a plant that had two Curtis-AEG-Vulkan turbines and four Normand-Vulkan boilers on two shafts to make 32 knots, making them still very fast for the age but slightly slower than the 6-boiler/3-turbine/3-shaft plant seen in Novik. However, they carried more torpedo tubes, a total of nine, in addition to their four 4″/60 Vickers-Obukhovski Pattern 1911 guns.

Ofrey class destroyer plan. These ships, benefiting from the Russo-Japanese war experience, had double the main transverse bulkheads of pre-1904 Russian destroyers with 12 watertight sections (each with their own pumping systems) as well as individually compartmentalized boilers, hence all the funnels. The keel was made of doubled 6mm steel sheets set at angles to each other, creating a double hull of sorts. Lacking true armor, the conning tower/bridge was made of half-inch ordnance steel sheets to provide splinter and small arms protection. Interestingly, the topside radio room (one 2 kW transmitter and two receivers) and two 45-cm searchlights were fed by a separate 10kW Penta kerosene dynamo protected centrally, rather than the rest of the ship’s power which was provided by two 20 kW turbo generators.

Desna, shown here in fitting out at the Kolpino Metalworks in Petrograd (Great War-era St. Petersburg) had nine 18-inch torpedo tubes.

Closer detail on those tubes

And even closer

His initial armament, as with the rest of the class, included four long-barreled 4″/60 Vickers-Obukhovski Pattern 1911 guns, one over the bow, and three crowding her stern. These could fire a 66-pound HE or 52-pound “Diving” shell at 12 rounds per minute, providing the crew was drilled properly, to a range of 17,600 yards. Two 150-shell magazines, fore, and aft, were installed below deck. The guns were directed by a 9-foot Barr & Stroud 30x stereoscopic rangefinder of RN F.Q. 2 pattern.

Laid down in November 1914, three months into the Great War, Desna was named after the famed tributary of the Dnieper that runs through Smolensk to Kyiv.

Commissioned 16 August 1916, he was rushed into operations and famously came to the defense of the heroic but obsolete Borodino-class battleship Slava during the long-running Battle of Moon Sound, in which the Russian battlewagon gave, by all accounts, a full measure against a much larger and more powerful German force.

Slava, after the Battle of Moon Sound

Helping to evacuate Slava’s crew, Desna fired torpedoes into the stricken battlewagon to prevent it from falling into German hands. Desna’s brother, Grom, was sunk during the operation.

Caption: A newly -completed Destroyer of the improved “Novik” Type, either DESNA (1915-1941) or AZARD (1916-1919). Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983. Catalog #: NH 94295

Same, NH 94294

Same, NH 94296

Civil War

Becoming part of the Red Baltic Fleet by default during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, Desna took part in the “Ice Campaign” during which the force broke through the frozen Baltic to escape Helsinki ahead of the Germans in April 1918.

Based at the fortress island of Kronstadt, Desna took part in operations against the British in 1918-19. (During this period, brother Gavriil helped sink HM Submarine L-55 and three British torpedo boats, while brothers Konstantin and Vladimir/Svoboda were sunk in turn by British mines. Another classmate, Kapitan Miklucha Maklai/Spartak, was captured by the British and turned over to the Estonians.)

Then, in the continued evolution of counterrevolution, Desna and company fought against the Bolsheviks in the 1921 revolt of the Red Fleet.

Rudolf Franz’s 1936 painting depicts the storming of Kronstadt by the Red Army to put down the revolt. Over a thousand were killed on both sides and an estimated 2,100 rebellious sailors were executed or disappeared into labor camps.

In part to wipe out the stain of his role in the brutally suppressed Kronstadt revolt, Desna was renamed in 1922 to Engels, celebrating the German socialist philosopher of the same name who helped develop Marxism.

An ice-bound Engels

Then came several years of lingering operations and refits, as the Soviets were cash strapped for operational funds throughout the rest of the decade. During this period, classmates Orfey and Letun, in bad technical condition after Great War damage, were broken up after the Civil war.

Dynamo-Reactive!

In 1932, Engels was refitted and rebuilt, emerging two years later with a new engineering plant as well as a new gun over his stern in place of two of his 4-inchers.

A design came from the mind of weapon engineer Leonid Kurchevsky, who was fascinated with recoilless rifles. He had spent time in Stalin’s gulag system then emerged in 1929 to catch the eye of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the “Red Napolean” military theoretician who wanted to see Kurchevsky’s simple designs fitted on everything.

Kurchevsky and some of his recoilless rifles in the early 1930s.

The Kurchevsky gun fitted on Engels was awkward, only able to fire to port and starboard with a low train and elevation.

It fired a 660-pound shell to 14,000 yards but proved inaccurate, unreliable, and prone to malfunction. A larger 15-inch model was to be installed on a cruiser but never made it off the drawing board.

I mean, come on…

While some 2,000~ Kurchevsky guns were delivered, fitted to tanks and vehicles as well as ships, it turns out they sucked.

Via Global Security: 

Soon the “bubble” burst. It turned out that the armor-piercing shells of anti-tank DRP, even when fired at point-blank, were not able to penetrate armor thicker than 30 mm. The accuracy and range of field artillery guns do not meet the requirements at all. At the same time, the guns themselves are unreliable and unsafe during operation, there had been numerous cases of rupture of barrels during firing.

Aircraft and naval automatic cannons of the Kurchevsky caliber from 37 to 152 mm gave constant failures and delays during firing due to incomplete combustion of the nitro-fabric sleeves and the unreliable operation of the pneumatic recharge mechanism, which made this weapon absolutely not combat-ready. Soon all PDDs were removed from the troops and destroyed. By June 22, 1941, there was not a single Kurchevsky gun in service with the Red Army.

While Tukhachevsky was sacked in 1937 for other reasons and scapegoated as a Trotskyist in the Great Purge before WWII, Kurchevsky got the wrap at around the same time directly for his funky weaponry. Thrown back in the gulag the inventor was executed sometime in the late 1930s.

War, again, and again

With the Russians flexing against the Finns in the 1939-40 Winter War, Desna/Engels, his Kurchevsky gun landed, and his old 4-inchers reinstalled, bombarded Finnish positions and installations, a task for which his 9-foot draft no doubt assisted.

When the Germans invaded in 1941, Engels was used in coastal minelaying and convoy duty.

Just two weeks after Barbarossa kicked off, on 6 July, he and two other destroyers (Serditogo and Sil’nyy) clashed with two German minesweepers (M-23 and M-31) in what is known today as the Battle of the Irbensky Strait. Famed in Russian naval lore as it was the largest surface battle they fought in the Baltic in WWII; it is much less known outside of the Motherland. This is probably because all vessels involved sailed away after the engagement, a tactical draw.

Damaged extensively on 7 August 1941 by a 550-pound bomb dropped via Stuka, Engels was soon patched up and two weeks later sailed from Tallinn in occupied Estonia to Kronstadt as part of one of the desperate convoys headed north from the doomed port. That month, some 190 Soviet ships and 40,000 souls attempted to escape. The seaborne evacuation of encircled Tallin to Krondstadt and Leningrad went down in history as the “Soviet Dunkirk.” 

With the route obvious to the Germans and Finns, the Axis planted 2,000 mines in what became known as the Juminda Barrage. 

A German map from 1941 showing the location of the Juminda mine barrage

It was on this voyage that he stumbled across a German minefield off Cape Juminda, hitting one with his bow and shrugged it off, damage control successful. However, while the damaged destroyer was being rigged for towing by the icebreaker Oktyabr, Engels hit a second mine that exploded under her stern and triggered the aft 4-inch magazine. That was it and she rolled over and sank. 

Four days later, classmates Pobiditel/Volodarski and Azard/Artyom were lost in a similar minefield in the same Tallinn-to-Kronstadt run. Some 80 ships eventually hit mines in the Jumidia Barrage, with at least 21 Soviet warships, including five destroyers sent to the bottom in August alone. 

Epilogue

As with Desna/Engels, few Orfey-class destroyers made it out of WWII. Three units that survived by nature of serving with the Northern Fleet out of Murmansk and two more with the Pacific Fleet out of Vladivostok remained in service into the early 1950s but were soon discarded. The last remaining example of the class, Spartak, spent her final days in Peru’s Pacific coast as the Estonians had sold her to that Latin American country in the 1930s.

The class is remembered in some Soviet-era maritime art.

Meanwhile, a fishing net-wrapped wreck off Estonia’s Cape Yuminda, documented in 2016, could be the bones of Engels.

As for Leonid Kurchevsky, he was “rehabilitated posthumously in 1956” after the end of the Stalin regime. The next year, Marshal Tukhachevsky and his codefendants in the Purge trial were declared innocent of all charges and rehabilitated, posthumously.

Specs:


Displacement: 1,260 tons (standard) 1,440 tons (full load)
Length 321 ft 6 in
Beam 30 ft 6 in
Draught 9 ft 10 in
Machinery: 4 boilers (30,500 shp) 2 steam turbines, 2 shafts
Speed 32 knots
Range: 1,680 miles @21 knots
Complement: 150 (8 officers, 6 michman, 136 ratings)
Armament:
(1917)
4 x 4″/60 Vickers-Obukhovski Pattern 1911 guns in single unprotected mounts
1 x 40/39 Vickers AAA pom-pom anti-balloon gun
2 x Maxim machine guns (7.62×54)
9 x 18-inch torpedo tubes (3×3)
80 M1908 style sea anchor mines
10 depth charges

(1934)
1 x 12-inch recoilless rifle (experimental)
2 x 4″/60 Vickers-Obukhovski Pattern 1911 guns in single unprotected mounts
1 x 3″/28 Lender AAA
4 x 1 12.7mm/79 DK Heavy machine gun (drum fed)
9 x 18-inch torpedo tubes (3×3) with more modern 45-36Н torpedoes
2 x depth charge racks
58 mines

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!

A Splash of Color in a Sea of Doughboy Brown

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American Expeditionary Forces Distinctive Cloth Insignia Chart.

For reference, on 6 April 1917, when the U.S. declared war against Imperial Germany, the nation had a standing army of 127,500 officers and men while the entire National Guard had another 181,620 members. The concept of full divisional-sized operations was almost alien, an abstract theory.

By Armistice Day, one cavalry division and a staggering 63 infantry divisions were planned, although many of those never took the field. By the end of the war, over four million men had served in the United States Army, with an additional 800,000 in other military service branches. While 24,234,021 men registered for the draft, a full third of those that served in the ranks were volunteers. Some 745,845 left in the American Expeditionary Forces. 

1917 Government Issue

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I recently got a chance to check out this beauty. 

What we have here is a beautiful Colt Model of 1911 U.S. Army whose serial number, 164462, puts its production squarely in the range of guns made in 1917, during the ramp-up between American pre-war examples and the simplified “Black Army” Colts. For reference, Colt in 1917 produced some 70,000 GIs while in 1918 they made over 360,000.

The frame is correctly marked with the “GHS” stamp of U.S. Army Major Gilbert H. Stewart, who was the inspector of ordnance from Sept. 1914 to Jan. 1918. Accepted martial Colts in the serial number range between 101,500 and 230,000 should have Stewart’s initials.

Intact M1911 models are rarely encountered even though some 650,000 or so were made between 1912 and 1925. After that time, most still in military stores were reworked to the updated M1911A1 standard which saw a different mainspring housing and small parts. Further arsenal rebuilds saw blued finishes replaced with a heavy parkerized coating. Likewise, such reworks will have a variety of arsenal codes (AA, SA, RIA, etc.), which this pistol does not carry.

As the price of even Black Army models skyrocket, nicely blued military-marked M1911s will likely continue to gain value.

103 Years Ago Today (ish?), Pulling the 75s

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September 9, 1918: Six-horse artillery caissons of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, “The Big Red One,” moving up through the woods in Mandres aux Tours (Mandres-aux-Quatre-Tours?), in north-east France’s Lorraine region. The guns should be famed “French 75s” (Canon de 75 modèle 1897) of which the American Expeditionary Forces used some 1,900 during 1917-18, dubbed the more GI “75 mm Gun M1897.”

Note the consistency of the horse’s coats and the doughboys smoking cigarettes as they ride. Photo via the Society of the First Infantry Division 

However, a 1936 Christmas Card for the veterans of the 1st ID’s 76th Field Artillery Regiment, signed by John J. Waterman, Lieutenant Colonel, reads:

Battery B moving through the woods, Mandres aux Tours, France, August 9, 1918. 

A copy of this picture enlarged by two by three feet hung in the office of the Chief of Field Artillery. The regiment spent a little over two weeks at Mandres, re-equipping, and training for the St. Michel offensive.

Of note, the commander of the regiment’s Battery D should be familiar to students of military history.

Besides St. Mihiel, the regiment fought during the Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne offensives in the Great War, for which it was presented the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star, and completed occupation duty in Germany.
 
During WWII, it was converted from horse-drawn to motorized operation then landed in France (again) at Utah Beach in 1944, then fought assigned in elements to the 7th, 8th, 3rd, and 1st Infantry Divisions (the regiment had five battalions). 
 
The last active element of the regiment, 1st Battalion, was part of the Massachusetts Army National Guard and carried its 105mm howitzers to Iraq three times and once to Afghanistan before inactivation in 2015.

Happy Labor Day, Almost Inverted Jenny edition

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Sept. 1918, via the Ledger Art Service: “Airplane coming down at a difficult angle after a flight over Philadelphia’ Labor Day Parade.” From the looks of it, it seems to be an Army Curtiss JN-4 Jenny trainer, of the same type as the famous stamp.

Signal Corps photo 111-SC-45453 via the National Archives. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/86697115

Enjoy your day. See you tomorrow.

Warship Wednesday, August 11, 2021: The Guacolda-class submarines, via Quincy, Mass

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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, August 11, 2021: The Guacolda-class submarines, via Quincy, Mass

Original caption: July 4, 1917, Boston (Charlestown) Navy Yard, “Six British subs bottled up in Navy Yard because of U.S. Neutrality are given to the Chilean government in exchange for a Man of War which could not be built by England.”

The Chilean flag was hoisted in that day over six Holland-type submarines, marking the creation of the Chilean Navy’s submarine branch, which has the motto, “Semper Fidelis.” Photo by Leslie Jones, via Boston Public Library, Print Department. Note the famed “original six” frigate USS Constitution in the background. 

Ordered in 1914 from the Fore River Yard at Quincy, Massachusetts, once the Great War kicked off, then-neutral Uncle Sam interned HMS H11 through HMS H20 for the duration of hostilities (or at least, it turned out, American neutrality), despite the fact they did not have their torpedo tubes installed.

Holland 602 type submarines designed to meet Royal Navy specifications, nine other 150-foot/360-ton H-class boats were built by Vickers Canada in Monreal for the Admiralty while another 23 were ordered from Vickers, Cammell Laird, Armstrong Whitworth, and William Beardmore in Britain.

HM Submarine H.4, one of the Canadian Vickers-made boats, at Brindisi, August 1916. Notably, H4 sank U-boat UB-52 in the Adriatic on 23 May 1918, one of the biggest wins for the class. Photograph SP 578 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

Of the 10 Yankee “H” boats, the British eventually transferred two, later christened HMCS CH-14 and CH-15, to Canadian service, while HMS H11 and H12 were cleared to sail after the U.S. entered the war in April 1917 only to be scrapped shortly after the conflict.

CH14 and CH15, Canadian submarines 1920-22

Likewise, the Canucks laid up their H-boats by 1922 and disposed of them soon after.

The remainder, H13 along with H16 through H20, were transferred to the Chilean government to partially compensate for Chilean vessels under construction in Britain that were seized in 1914 (such as the dreadnoughts Almirante Latorre/HMS Canada and Almirante Cochrane/HMS Eagle) for the fight against the Kaiser.

Commissioned into the Chilean Navy as Guacolda (H1), Tegualda (H2), Rucumilla (H3), Guale (H4), Quidora (H5), and Fresia (H6), on 28 March 1918, the flotilla set sail for Valparaíso on its maiden voyage under the command of RADM Luis Gomez Carreño.

These obsolete craft remained in service in Latin American waters through WWII, with the last only scrapping in 1949. Rucumilla had a particularly interesting rescue/salvage after she was lost at sea. 

As far as I can tell, they were the last pre-WWI Holland design sent to the breakers, and probably the last to submarines to carry 18-inch tubes on active duty. Of note, the Brits completed H21 and above with 21-inch tubes, some of whom continued to serve in WWII. 

Chilian Guacolda (Holland 602/H-class) submarines, via Jane’s 1946

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!

The Guards Connection

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Check out this great image, circa 1901, by Mr. James Russell & Sons of Baker Street, London, fame. The seated gentleman is His Grace, Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox, and 1st Duke of Gordon, KG, PC. He is surrounded by three of his grandsons who recently returned to England from campaigning abroad: LT Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, Lord Settrington of the Irish Guards; LT Hon. Esme Gordon-Lennox of the Scots Guards; and LT Hon. Bernard Charles Gordon-Lennox of the Grenadier Guards. All of them are wearing the South African Medal, having just fought the Boer, while Lord Settrington is also wearing a D.S.O.

Bernard would later perish near Ypres in 1914, as a major, and is buried there. Lady Bernard Gordon-Lennox remained a widow until her death in June 1944, during World War II, aged 67, when a V-1 flying bomb hit the Guards Chapel at Wellington Barracks and killed her.

Lord Settrington, who would become the Earl of March in 1903 and was a colonel of the Sussex Yeomanry (see= Gallipoli) in the Great War, would have a son that would die in August 1919 of war wounds, seconded from the Irish Guards to the Royal Fusiliers fighting the Bolsheviks in Northern Russia, age 20, and is buried in Archangel.

Brigadier-General Lord Esmé Gordon-Lennox would be the longest living of the above quartet, as he would survive the Great War and enjoy a ripe old age, passing in 1949.

As for Charles, the paterfamilias had previously done his time in the colors with the Horse Guards in the 1840s-50s and was an ADC to Wellington.

The Gordon-Lennox family has continued to serve, often lengthy military careers, in the Guards. 

103 years Ago: I will Hold

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Via the National Museum of the Marine Corps:

On 19 July 1918, 1st Lt Clifton Cates, who would later become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps, sent this legendary message back to his command during the fighting at Soissons. At the time, his company, No. 79 of the Sixth Marines, was holding the line by its fingernails along with remnants of the regiment’s 2nd battalion, in the face of stiff German opposition. 

Cates, who was Commandant during Korea, would see his Marines involved in the mud once again, albeit 30 years apart. 

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Murray, commanding the 5th Marines, shows a captured percussion fired, black powder wall gun to Commandant of the Marine Corps General Clifton B. Cates, in Korea. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

Warship Wednesday, July 14, 2021: The Edison Bubblehead Connection

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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, July 14, 2021: The Edison Bubblehead Connection

U.S. War Department photo 165-WW-338B-30, via the National Archives.

Here we see the early Narwhal/D-class USS D-3 submersible (Submarine No. 19, ex-Salmon) underway off New York City during the October 1912 Naval Review with the fog-shrouded pre-dreadnought battlewagon USS Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) in the background. Note the Battle Efficiency “E” award displayed proudly on D-3‘s fairwater, her tuna-tower style surface running bridge complete with a life ring, and her submariners wearing no doubt spotless crackerjacks. Although the name “USS D-3” doesn’t inspire, or garner much name recognition to naval history buffs, this humble little boat pulled off a few “firsts” that deserve recognition.

The trio of boats that made up the Navy’s D-class submarine family– Narwhal (D-1, SS-17), Grayling (D-2, SS-18), and Salmon (D-3, SS-19) — were all laid down on the same day, 16 April 1908 by Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, Mass., under subcontract from the newly-formed Electric Boat Company of, Groton, Connecticut. At the time of ordering, they were reportedly the largest submersibles designed, being 134 feet in length overall and displacing 337 tons. Using port and starboard gasoline (!) engines, theoretically capable of developing 300 horsepower each, they were designed to reach 16 knots surfaced (although this proved to be closer to 13 knots in operation. For submerged operations, they had two 97 kW electric motors fed by two 60-cell batteries enabling a brief (three-hour burst) speed of about 8 knots while underwater. They were short boats. From the tip of the tallest periscope to the outermost layer of paint at the bottom of the keel on a D-class submarine was about 50 feet, meaning they could completely submerge at anything past the 10-fathom line.

Compared to today’s submarines, they had lots of issues. For instance, it took the class a full three minutes to submerge. Further, their torpedo battery, two tubes each on her starboard and port bows, took a solid minute to flood and used small (18-inch) fish without the room to carry reloads– although they were the first U.S. boats to be able to fire a potentially devastating four-torpedo brace all at once.

USS Narwhal (D-1) Torpedo Room. Photo via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum

The torpedo tube doors used muzzle caps that rolled into place, rather than the later door-style system incorporated after the D-class. USS Narwhal (D-1) Under construction. The date of the photo is Feb 7, 1909. Photo via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum via PigBoats.com

Bliss-Leavitt Torpedo Mark 3, 1911. A turbine-driven torpedo, designed by M.F.M. Leavitt, an engineer at E.W. Bliss Co., with tweaks from LCDR Gregory Caldwell Davison, USN, (more on him, below.) Alcohol was mixed with super-heated compressed air to provide motive power for the turbine. The Navy adopted this torpedo circa 1904 and used various models of it for the next 22 years. The D-class submarines, for almost all their career, used the larger Bliss-Leavitt Mark 4, a 1,500-pound, 16.4-foot long, 17.7-inch model with a range of about 1,000 yards. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph, NH 82836

However, they did mount some innovative signal gear, amounting to an Allied Signal Bell on the deck (with an air-operated clapper) and a “stethoscope apparatus, permitting transmission of signals with sister ships when submerged at a distance of about one mile.” They also carried a series of both observation and attack periscopes, the latter with range finders, which were cutting edge for 1908.

Remember, Mr. Holland’s first primitive submarine was only placed in service by the U.S. Navy in 1900.

Salmon was commissioned on 8 September 1910. However, the previous July, before she joined the Navy, Electric Boat took her on one hell of a builder’s trials.

Record-setting trip

With her navigator the esteemed LCDR Gregory Caldwell Davison, USN, Ret, and Electric Boat’s VP at the time, PCU Salmon set out from the Fore River bound for Hamilton, Bermuda in a historic “overseas” cruise with a 1,700-mile round trip.

She embarked a mixed 21-man crew made up of four naval enlisted men along with LT D.A Weaver as skipper, and Asst Naval Constructor D.R. Battles as ship’s engineer; 13 builder’s tradesmen under Davison’s control; and one Captain A. Cuevas of the Chilean Navy who was very keen on acquiring submarines. As these 21 souls were shipping out in a boat built to accommodate 14 (and could be run by five!) they landed most of the installed bunks as well as the torpedoes (the tubes cleaned and filled with potable water as there was no desalination equipment) and the ship was crammed with crated spare parts and supplies, with air mattresses directly over the battery deck.

PCU Salmon’s hybrid Navy/Electric Boat crew on deck while on her trip to Bermuda in 1910 via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum & Pigboats.org

It was the first international deployment for a Navy submarine (although she wasn’t commissioned just yet and had shattered the fleet’s previous submarine record (483nm) achieved by the USS Viper (Submarine # 10, later USS B-1) while also besting British (512nm) and French (1,200nm) records as well.

“The new submarine Salmon (SS-19), which will soon be turned over to the government, has broken all records by making, unattended an ocean trip of several hundred miles. She left Provincetown MA, and arrived in Bermuda, making an average speed of eight and one-half miles an hour.” Image and text provided by Washington State Library, Olympia, WA. & Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN. Photo from The Tacoma Times. (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 03 August 1910, Image 6, & PDF from The Appeal. (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1889-19??, 22 October 1910, Image 1, courtesy of chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. via Navsource.

For more on the cruise to Hamilton, LT Weaver wrote a very detailed article for the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, Volume 22.

Ready for my close-up, Mr. Edison

Once she was turned over to the Navy and commissioned, she promptly joined the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet at Newport, Rhode Island.

There, this stupendous record-setting submarine chalked up another first: she appeared in a movie.

The Edison Home Kinetoscope small gauge (22mm) process was very durable, and estimates are that upward of 70 percent of his studio’s films are still around in one form or another– as opposed to just 5 percent of other silent period films recorded in other formats.

Of the 2,100 Edison Studios motion pictures made between 1894 and 1919, just one featured a commissioned submarine in action, 1910’s United States Submarine Salmon.

According to the Moving Picture World synopsis:

The film shows the “Salmon” at close range, running on surface, submerging by water ballast, making “porpoise” dives, and running submerged so far that only the top of the periscopes are visible. All the pictures were taken from an accompanying boat and in a fairly rough sea, and it is not going too far to say that the effect is thrilling. To the many thousands of people who are keenly interested in the modern submarine boat, yet who never have had, and never may have, an opportunity to see one, the picture will be a rare treat from a spectacular standpoint, aside from its educational value. Through the courtesy and cooperation of the Holland Electric Boat Company, we are enabled to present it to the motion picture public.

These screen captures provided by the fine folks at Almost Lost Images:

 

Back to the grind

The remainder of her service was busy but not quite as heady. Salmon/D-2 was part of the forces operating in Mexican waters following the occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914, appeared in a series of naval reviews, and spent two years in Key West as the flagship of Submarine Division 2.

The USS Salmon (D-3) on the surface with her bridge canvas rigged probably on Long Island Sound for exercises. Via Pigboats

USS Salmon (Submarine #19, SS-19, later D-3); USS Grayling (Submarine #18, SS-18, later D-2); USS Tarpon (Submarine #14, later C-3); USS Octopus (Submarine #9, later C-1); USS Bonita (Submarine #15, later C-4); and the battleship, USS Nebraska (Battleship #14). George Grantham Bain Collection, October 31, 1911. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-B2-2335-12

USS Salmon (Submarine # 19) Crew posed on deck, while cruising out of Newport, Rhode Island, in October 1911. William D. Crowell, an architect from St. Louis, Missouri, was on board at the time. He gave this photograph to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in 1944, in reminiscence of the old days. Collection of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN. NH 58514

In November 1911, the Narwhal class lost their fish names, as did the earlier classes of U.S. submarines, and traded them in for alpha-numeric, in this case, D names.

Around 1914-15 she became a favorite subject of a New York City-based commercial photographer, Robert Enrique Muller, Jr., who was an official shutterbug for the Navy Department. He visited D-3 on what looks to be at least two different periods while she was in the Cape Cod area, snapping several photos that appeared in naval publications and as postcards.

USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Coming to the Surface, prior to World War I. Photographed by N. Moser, New York, and Enrique Muller, Jr. Note the submarine fish flag atop her after periscope and winch for handling torpedoes. She has a “D-3” on her bow, partially submerged, and a “2” for Submarine Squadron Two, on her sail. 165-WW-338B-58 via NARA

USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Underway submerged, with periscope trained on the camera, prior to World War I. Photographed by N. Moser, New York, and Enrique Muller, Jr. Collection of Christopher H.W. Lloyd. NH 102650

USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Halftone reproduction of a photograph by N. Moser and Enrique Muller, Jr., showing the submarine underway submerged, circa 1916, with her periscope trained on the camera. Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1973. NH 77469

USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Underway, prior to World War I. Photograph by Enrique Muller, printed in the book Our Navy in the War, by Lawrence Perry, 1922. NH 82569

“Handling torpedoes USS D-3” (Submarine # 19), photo listed by Enrique Muller of the “Committee for Public Information” in New York, NY, taken July 1915. Note the varied uniforms of her crew, the stowed boathook to the left, and the boat’s overall low freeboard. War Department photo 165-WW-321C-049 via NARA.

 

Wartime Service

USS D-2, D-1 & D-3 shown on May 10, 1915 (the bow of the E-2 can be seen to the left) on the upper west side of New York city moored at the 135th Street piers as part of the Presidential Review for President Wilson with the Atlantic Fleet. Via Pigboats

On 18 October 1915, the submarines D-1 (SS-17), D-2 (SS-18), D-3 (SS-19), E-1 (SS-24), G-1 (SS-19 1/2), G-2 (SS-27), and G-4 (SS-26) arrived at the New London Navy Yard in Groton, Connecticut, where they became the first such craft stationed at what is now Naval Submarine Base New London. There, they would spend the next few years alternating training duties for new submarine service volunteers with neutrality patrol and, after April 1917, active combat patrols. During this time, D-3 would have as her commander Lieutenant (j.g.) Robert Henry English (USNA 1911) who would go on to be COMSUBPAC in WWII.

“U.S. Submarines awaiting Orders” Halftone reproduction, printed on a postal card, of a photograph of five submarines nested together prior to World War I. The three boats at right are (from center to right): USS D-2 (Submarine # 18); USS D-1 (Submarine # 17); and USS D-3 (Submarine # 19). The two at left are probably (in no order) USS E-1 (Submarine # 24) and USS E-2 (Submarine # 25). Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (Medical Service Corps), 1973. NH 78926

USS D-3 (Submarine # 19, ex-Salmon) Alongside a dock with other submarines on an icy day, circa 1918. The location is probably the Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut. D-3 appears to be wearing pattern camouflage. Other submarines present are (moving outward from D-3: USS D-1 (Submarine # 17); USS G-4 (Submarine # 26); and USS G-3 (Submarine # 31). NH 99157

Postwar, her career was limited as the Navy had several new classes of submarines that were much more advanced. Placed in reserve on 5 September 1919, then in ordinary on 15 July 1921, she was towed to Philadelphia Navy Yard and decommissioned 20 March 1922. Three months later, she was sold for scrap.

More Edison-Navy Connections

Edison had several additional ties to the Navy besides the Salmon film. His early nickel-iron (NiFe) battery was trialed for submarine operations as were other inventions of his.

During the Great War, he lent his status and energy (see what I did there) to help expand the Navy’s brain pool.

As detailed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory:

Thomas Edison, when asked by a New York Times correspondent to comment on the conflict, argued that the Nation should look to science. The Government, he proposed in a published interview, should maintain a great research laboratory…. In this could be developed … all the technique of military and naval progression without any vast expense.

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels seized the opportunity created by Edison’s public comments to enlist Edison’s support. He agreed to serve as the head of a new body of civilian experts — the Naval Consulting Board — to advise the Navy on science and technology. The Board’s most ambitious plan was the creation of a modern research facility for the Navy. Congress allocated $1.5 million for the institution in 1916, but wartime delays and disagreements within the Naval Consulting Board postponed construction until 1920. And so it was that NRL began operations at 11:00 a.m. on July 2, 1923.

Today, NRL’s Edison Program helps develop and retain talented employees.

In 1920, the Navy Department awarded him the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. Then, in 1940, the Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor. A second vessel named after the inventor, USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine, was commissioned in 1962.

USS Thomas A Edison (SSBN-610) an Ethan Allen-class ballistic-missile submarine, was ultimately decommissioned in 1983 after 21 years of dedicated service as a Polaris boat. She was also the only U.S. submarine conducting nuclear deterrent patrols to have a full-sized Steinway piano installed. Her motto was Potentia Tenebras Repellendi (Power to Repel the Darkness). NH 82295

Epilogue

The plans and ship drawings for USS Salmon/D-3 are in the National Archives.

There is a commemorative sign to the “Original Salmon” at The US Navy Submarine Force Museum

Muller’s images were often reproduced as color photomechanical print postcards, and many survive today that feature USS D-3.

Of her sisters, USS Grayling (D-2) SS-18, would be the first U.S. submarine to test bow planes, the first to be commanded by a “mustang” officer, LT Owen Hill— one of the original crewmen of the USS Holland (SS-1) — and discovered the Imperial German Navy submarine SM U-53 off Rhode Island in 1916 while on neutrality patrol. Meanwhile, class leader USS Narwhal (D-1) SS-17, in 1911 sensationally documented an encounter with whales as attributed to a young LT Chester Nimtz.

The whale of a tale, attributed to Nimitz by the old New York World, is thought to be fake news today. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Like Salmon/D-2, both her sisters were decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1922.

The Navy, while they never saw the appeal of recycling the name “D-3,” did commission a few later Salmons. The second Salmon, SS-182, was a curious composite diesel-hydraulic and diesel-electric submarine commissioned in 1938. At sea off Luzon on 8 December 1941, she started her first war patrol (of 12!) immediately upon receiving word of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. By 1945, she earned nine battlestars and a Presidential Unit Citation, racking up a tally sheet of Japanese shipping during the conflict.

USS Salmon (SS-182), running speed trials on 29 December 1937. She was scrapped in 1946, less than a decade after she joined the fleet, worn out after extensive wartime service. USN 410380

The third and so far, (as of 2021) final USS Salmon (SSR/SS/AGSS-573) was a Sailfish-class radar picket submarine commissioned in 1956. Later GUPPY-fied, she would become a normal hunter-killer and then an auxiliary research submarine, completing nine West Pac deployments including two with the Seventh Fleet off Vietnam where she conducted special operations. After decommissioning in 1977, she lingered on for another 15 years as a shallow water sonar target hulk, was sunk off Long Island where she continues to clock in as a bottom target.

USS Salmon (SS-573) underway in San Francisco Bay, the early 1970s. Naval Subjects Collection. Catalog #: L45-251.01.01

If you are curious about the D-boats, or any old pre-1940 U.S. Submarine, please visit Pig Boats.com

Specs:

Salmon, SS-19, Drawing by Jim Christley. Photo & text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press, via Navsource.

Displacement:
288 long tons (293 t) surfaced
337 long tons (342 t) submerged
Length 134 ft 10 in
Beam 13 ft 11 in
Draft 12 ft 6 in
Installed power
600 bhp (450 kW) (gasoline)
330 hp (250 kW) (electric)
Propulsion, Surfaced; 2 x Craig Shipbuilding Co. 6cyl, 4 cycle gasoline engines = 600 total shp, 2 shafts
Propulsion, Submerged: 2 x Electro Dynamic Co. 97 kW electric motors, 2 shafts
Batteries: 2 x 60-cell Electric Storage Battery Company Model 23-WL, 2,970 amp/hr. capacity each.
Speed: 13 knots, surfaced; 9.5 knots, submerged
Range: 1,179 nm at 9.3 knots on the surface, 24 nm at 8 knots submerged
Test depth: 200 feet
Complement: 1 officer, 14 enlisted
Armament 4 x 18 inch (450 mm) bow torpedo tubes for 17.7-inch torpedoes with no reloads

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