80 years ago this month. December 10-27, 1944 – Alsace. General de Lattre de Tassigny, at the head of the 1st (Free French) Army, and General Béthouart, commanding its 1st Army Corps, inspect the recently mechanized 1st Algerian Spahi Regiment (1er régiment de spahis algériens, 1er RSA) on the Alsace front.
ECPAD Ref.: TERRE 10038-L63
Note the American-supplied Stuart light tanks– the Free French operated a mix of 615 M3A3s and M5A1s during the war– and uniforms, particularly the famed 16-button “32-ounce” roll-collared Melton wool overcoats, beloved by Joes for their ability to remain warm even when soaking wet.
The 1er RSA– not to be confused with the later 1er régiment de marche de spahis marocains (1er RMSM)– was the first of the Spahi regiments in French colonial service, organized at Algiers in 1834 around a cadre of 214 horsemen seconded from the 1er régiment de chasseurs d’Afrique (1er RCA), which had been established two years prior.
It rapidly covered itself in glory in North Africa, earning six honors in 15 years (Taguin 1843, Isly 1844, Tedjenna 1845, Temda 1845, and Zaatcha 1849) across hard campaigning.
Detachments fought in the Crimea and against the Germans in 1870.
Shipping out to Indochina in 1884, it fought in the jungles of Southeast Asia for a generation– with one squadron sent for service in Dahomey– before earning further honors in Morocco fighting in 1907-13.
Rushed to the Continent in the Great War, the wild cavalrymen from Algeria were bled white at Artois in 1914 and the Aisne in 1915 before being sent back to the deserts, this time to the Palestine Front, to fight alongside the Australian Light Horse against the Ottomans.
Officers of 1er régiment de spahis algériens in 1920, with lots of Great War-era service medals via Spahis.fr
Disbanded in 1939 to form two infantry division reconnaissance groups (the 81st and 85th GRDI) which in turn were lost in the 1940 campaign, the regiment was reformed in Algiers in late 1942 around three squadrons of horse cavalry then got in some licks in the Tunisian campaign including the battles at Kranguet Ouchtatia and Ousseltia.
February 1943 – Tunisia. Patrol of spahis from the 1st Algerian spahi regiment advancing in the desert during the Tunisian campaign. Ref.: TERRE 22-221
Official caption: “Algiers, North Africa – The Famous French Arabian Cavalry- The Spahis- On Review During Presentation Of Curtiss P-40’S To The Free French By America.” (U.S. Air Force Number K87. Color)
Trading their horseshoes from tracks, the 1er RSA– technically now the 1er Régiment de Spahis Algériens de Reconnaissance (RSAR)– landed in Marseilles in Southern France as part of the Dragoon Landings in late 1944, they fought in Alsace at the Battle of Frédéric-Fontaine, breached the Belfort Gap, and stormed the Saint-Louis barracks. In early April 1945, they spearheaded the division’s crossing of the Rhine at Maxau and ended the war in German territory, fighting a die-hard SS unit at Merckelfingen in the last days of the war.
After returning to Northern Africa post-war, they fought against the AFN insurgency and, zeroed out after 1962, was formally disbanded in 1964, its banners cased and badges retired.
One of the unit’s spectacular service uniforms is preserved in the Musée de l’Armée.
Above we see the magnificent modified York-class heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (68), entering Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta, likely during her service with the Mediterranean Fleet’s 1st Cruiser Squadron at Alexandria, during the Abyssinian crisis between October 1935 and July 1936.
Simultaneously the final British warship to be built with 8-inch guns and the last “Washington” treaty cruiser built for the Royal Navy, she would use her guns to good effect against a tough “pocket battleship” some 85 years ago this week.
The Yorks
Sometimes referred to as the “Cathedral” class cruisers, York and her near-sister HMS Exeter (68) were essentially cheaper versions of the Royal Navy’s baker’s dozen County-class cruisers, the latter of which were already under-protected to keep them beneath the arbitrary 10,000-ton limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Weighing in at 8,250 tons, the Yorks were intended not for fleet action but for the role of sitting on an overseas station and chasing down enemy commerce raiders in the event of war.
York mounted six 8″/50 (20.3 cm) Mark VIII guns in three twin Mark II mounts. Fairly capable guns, they could fire a 256-pound SAP shell out past 30,000 yards at a (theoretical) rate of up to six rounds per gun per minute. Importantly, they carried 172 rounds per gun, up from the 125-150 carried by the preceding County class, a factor which allowed a slightly longer engagement time before running empty.
Bow turrets of HMS York. Photograph by Mrs. Josephine Burston, via Navweaps
Notably, Exeter was completed with the same main gun but in Mark II* mounts, which allowed for a shallower 50-degree elevation.
Cruiser HMS Exeter training her 8-inch guns to starboard
Exeter vessel also had a slightly different “straight” arrangement for her funnels and masts, whereas York’s carried a slant, giving each sister a distinctive profile.
Exeter’s 1930 rigging plan
HMS York. Note the slant to her masts and stacks. Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives Photo No. 447-2863.1
Rounding out the cruisers’ offensive armament was a half-dozen deck-mounted 21-inch torpedo tubes a battery of DP 4-inch guns and a few Vickers machine guns to ward off aircraft.
Built with overseas service in mind, they could cover 10,000nm at 14 knots. Able to achieve 32.3 knots due to having 80,000-ship via Parsons geared steam turbines, they sacrificed armor protection for speed and magazine space, with just 1 inch of steel on their turrets and a belt that was just 3 inches at its thickest.
Exeter, Janes 1931
As noted by Richard Worth in his excellent tome, Fleets of World War II:
In trimming down the County layout, designers managed to retain several features, though sea keeping suffered. Protection also received low priority; the armor scheme (similar in proportion to the County type) included some advances, but all in all, the Yorks seemed even more vulnerable, especially in the machinery spaces.
Meet Exeter
Ordered as part of the 1926 Build Programme, Exeter was the fifth RN vessel to carry the name since 1680 and carried forth a quartet of battle honors (Adras 1782, Providien 1782, Negapatam 1782, and Trincomalee 1782) from these vessels. Constructed for £1,837,415 by HMNB Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth, she launched on 18 July 1929.
Her sponsor at the christening was Lady Madden.
Anchored off Plymouth, England, during her builder’s trials in May 1931. NH 60806
Bestowed with the familiar motto, Semper fidelis, Ever Faithful, she long maintained a relationship with her ancient namesake cathedral city along the River Exe.
On 23 May 1931, just before she was commissioned, HMS Exeter’s skipper and officers visited the town’s Mayor H W Michelmore, at the Exeter Guildhall. By tradition, Royal Navy ships named after a town are given a small gift by the town, and the Mayor announced that a model of the hall, paid for by public subscription, would be made of silver. Michelmore and a crowd of local dignitaries presented the finished model, about the size of a breadbox, three months later.
“On behalf of myself, my officers and ships crew, and of those who will come after us, I thank you most heartily and sincerely for the beautiful gift you have given us,” her plankowner skipper, Captain (later RADM) Isham W. Gibson, told the delegation. “We hope that you will count us as citizens of Exeter, afloat.”
NH 60803
Exeter, August 1931. NH 60804
Peacetime idyllic cruising
She was a striking vessel for her age. A true peacetime cruiser.
For the next decade, she would embark on a series of “waving the flag” port visits around the globe as she shifted between North America and West Indies Station, based in Bermuda, to the Mediterranean Fleet. This would involve roaming along the coast of Latin America, trips through the Panama Canal with corresponding port calls on the West Coast of America as far north as Esquimalt, BC, and cruising along the Caribbean.
On one such port call, the U.S. Navy dutifully took lots of close-up photographs of her armament and layout that were no doubt forwarded to the ONI, hence their preservation for posterity.
Exeter, .50 cal quad Vickers anti-aircraft machine gun mount. Note the Bluejackets aboard. NH 60811
Shagbats! Exeter with Supermarine Walrus amphibians on catapults. NH 60809
Same as above, NH 60810
Exeter 4″ anti-aircraft gun. NH 60808
Exeter At Montevideo, Uruguay in 1934. NH 60816
Exeter in Balboa harbor, canal zone, 24 April 1934. NH 60812
HMS Exeter, Panama Canal, 1930s. 33rd infantry honor guard at the Miguel locks. N-173-3
HMS Exeter, Northbound, Gamboa Signal Station, March 8, 1935, 185-G-2031
HMS Exeter returning to Devonport from the Mediterranean in July 1936, note her “homeward bound” pennant.
British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, 1936
HMS Exeter at the Royal Naval Dockyard, on Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, in the British Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, with Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse beyond, circa 1936
Aerial view of HMS Exeter, Panama Canal Zone, circa early 1939. NH 60807
Exeter off Coco Solo canal zone, circa 1939. NH 60814
Get the Graf!
Skipping a planned dockyard period at Devonport in early August 1939 due to rising tensions in Europe, Exeter’s crew was recalled from leave and prepared to return to service with the South Atlantic Division of the West Indies Squadron, escorting the troopship Dunera to Cape Verde before diverting to Freetown.
On her bridge was newly promoted Capt. Frederick “Hooky” Secker Bell, a fighting sailor who served as a mid on HMS Challenger in the Cameron Campaign in 1914, on board the battleship HMS Canada at the battle of Jutland in 1916, and, as a young lieutenant in 1918, was one of only two survivors of his destroyer when it was sunk from under his feet by one of the Kaiser’s U-boats. He had been XO of the battlewagon HMS Repulse just before moving into Exeter’s captain’s cabin– a battleship man in a cruiser.
When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September, Exeter was in passage to Rio de Janeiro, and, clearing for war service, she soon took up station off Rio for the purpose of trade defense and interdicting German shipping.
By early October, with German surface raiders afoot in the South Atlantic, Exeter joined Hunting Force G along with the older but more heavily armed County-class heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland (9,750 tons, 8×8″ guns, 31 knots, 4.5-inch belt) and the Leander-class light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles (7,270 tons, 8×6″/50s, 32.5 knots, 4-inch belt), with the force ranging from the Brazilian coast to the Falklands.
These hounds would eventually find fruit in the chase for the German Deutschland-class panzerschiff cruiser KMS Admiral Graf Spee (14,890 tons, 6×11″/52, 8×5.9″, 28.5 knots, 3.9-inch belt), however, its strongest asset, Cumberland, was in the Falklands under refit at the time, leaving our Exeter and the two lighter cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, to fight it out.
Kriegsmarine Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee im Spithead U.K. 1937. Colorised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
A detailed retelling of what is now known to history as the Battle of the River Plate would be out of the scope of this post, but, beginning with Graf Spee’s sighting of Force G at 0520 on the morning of 13 December, and ending when the engagement broke off around 0730 with the big German cruiser retreating into the River Plate estuary, is the stuff of legend.
In those swirling two hours, Graf Spee had been hit at least 70 times by British 8- and 6-inch guns, with the German suffering 36 killed and another 60, including her captain, Hans Langsdorff, wounded– in all about a fifth of her complement. While in no danger of sinking and still very much able to fight– albeit with only a third of her 11-inch shells left in her magazines– the panzerschiff had her oil purification plant, desalination plant, and galley destroyed, factors that would make a 6,000 mile run back to Germany likely impossible.
Graf Spee also gave as good as she got, with Exeter, pressing the fight against the larger ship repeatedly, getting the worst punishment in the form of hits from seven 660-pound 11-inch shells– ordnance she was never expected to absorb. Listing and with her two front turrets knocked out, Exeter had 61 dead and 23 wounded crew members aboard and could only make 18 knots. With only one turret still operable– and under local command only– Captain Bell had vouched that he was ready to ram Graf Spee before the German had retired.
As detailed by Lt Ron Atwill, who served in Exeter during the battle:
‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets were out of action from direct hits.
‘Y’ turret firing in local control.
The Bridge, Director Control Tower, and the Transmitting Station were out of action.
A fire was raging in the CPO’s and Serving Flats.
Minor fires were burning on the Royal Marine messdeck and in the Paint Shop.
There were no telephone communications – all orders had to be passed by messengers.
The ship was about four feet down by the bows due to flooding forward and had a list to starboard of about eight degrees due to some six hundred and fifty tons of water which had flooded in splinter holes near the waterline plus accumulations of fire fighting water. This degree of list is quite considerable and makes movement within the ship very difficult when decks are covered with fuel oil and water.
Only one 4-inch gun could be fired.
Both aircraft had been jettisoned.
W/T communications had completely broken down – mostly due to aerials having been shot away.
HMS Exeter (68) as seen in 1939, shows splinter damage to ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets and the bridge from the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. While her rear ‘Y’ turret was intact, its electrical system had suffered a short from saltwater intrusion and was down to manual control. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43488
Swiss cheese splinter damage to Exeter’s stacks. Splinters had riddled the ship’s funnels and searchlights, wrecked the ship’s Walrus aircraft just as it was about to be launched for gunnery spotting, and slaughtered her exposed torpedo tube crews. Shrapnel swept the bridge, killing or wounding almost all the bridge personnel and knocking out most of the ship’s communications and navigational tools, forcing the vessel to be directed by one of the compasses pulled from a launch. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43505
With no means to fight left at her disposal other than the single 4-inch open mount still working, Exeter remained on watch with the lighter Ajax and Achilles, both damaged and nearly out of shells, keeping station at the Plate’s mouth should Graf Spee attempt to escape. Cumberland, rushed 1,000 miles from the Falklands in just 34 hours, arrived to reinforce the force late on the night of 14 December and relieve Exeter, who was ordered to retire to the Port Stanley for emergency repairs.
Ordered by Berlin not to have his ship interned in Uruguay, options were limited to Langsdorff, Graf Spee’s skipper. Partially due to his ship’s damage, and partially because the three British cruisers at the river’s mouth could bird-dog him should he put to sea, a factor acerbated by openly exaggerated signals that RN carriers and battlewagons were rapidly inbound (they were in fact still five days away), Langsdorff landed his crew– who he refused to sacrifice in vain– scuttled his ship in Montevideo, and then blew his brains out.
Admiral Graf Spee in flames after being scuttled in the River Plate estuary, 17 December 1939. IWM 4700-01
Later Allied inspection of Graf Spee’s hull showed Exeter got in at least three hits from her “puny” 256-pound 8-inchers, including the key destruction of her oil purification plant, the blow that cut off the big cruiser’s legs.
Admiral Graf Spee, ship’s port bow, taken while she was at Montevideo, Uruguay in mid-December 1939, following the Battle of the River Plate. Note crew members working over the side to repair damage from an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The notation The ‘Moustache’ refers to the false bow wave painted on Admiral Graf Spee’s bows. The original photograph came from Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s World War II history project working files. NH 83003
Admiral Graf Spee photograph of a shell hole in the ship’s forward superstructure tower, made by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The sketch below shows the location of the hole, and describes it as large enough to crawl through. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Page from an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. The photograph was taken on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN. NH 51986
Admiral Graf Spee photograph of the interior of the ship’s forward superstructure tower, showing damage caused by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter during the Battle of the River Plate. Cut wires and the absence of a fire control tube were noted on the original report in which this image appeared. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Photographed on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN, for an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. NH 51987-A
Arriving at Port Stanley on 20 December, Exeterwould remain there for a month, patched up with steel plate salvaged from the old Grytviken whaling station while her wounded were cared for in local homes, until the battered cruiser began her slow voyage back to England. She arrived at Plymouth on 15 February 1940.
HMS Exeter arrives back in the UK after emergency repairs at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands following the battle of the river Plate. Lighter paintwork can be seen where the damage was patched up.
Churchill, at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, visited the cruiser and addressed the crew. The bulldog had come “to pay my tribute to her brave officers and men from her shattered decks in Plymouth Harbor”
Arrival at Plymouth with Churchill coming aboard. IWM HU 104428
On 23 February, her celebrated crew marched through the City of London. Bell was made a companion knight of the Bath while the other members of the crew would pick up two DSOs, seven DSCs, and nearly 40 DSMs.
Leap Day 1940 saw Bell lead 87 members of his crew on a Freedom of the City parade with fixed bayonets through Exeter, where seemingly the entire town turned out. The cruisermen brought with them a host of souvenirs to hand over to the city including Exeter’s shell-torn White Ensign and her bell, left with the city for safekeeping.
Pacific maelstrom
Exeter’s extensive repair would stretch for a year and included rebuilding her gun houses, installing new catapults and torpedo tubes, as well as modernization that saw a Type 279 search radar, Type 284 gunnery control radar, tripod masts, and improved anti-aircraft armament shipped aboard. The latter included landing her old 4.1-inch singles for four twin 102/45 QF Mk XVIs along with two massive octuple 40mm 2-pounder MK VIII mounts.
In that period, her near-sister, York, was lost to MTMs of Xª Flottiglia MAS in Suda Bay.
HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A3553
HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941 hoisting Walrus, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A 3555
Stern view, same place and time as above. A 3552
Exeter’s ninth and final skipper, Capt. Oliver Loudon Gordon, took command on 11 March 1941.
Following post-refit workups with the Northern Patrol in April 1941, Exeter was transferred to the East Indies Squadron, which was beefing up as tensions with the Empire of Japan were at an all-time high. Likewise, Bell was ordered to a new position as Flag Captain to the Flag Officer, Malaya,
Sailing south with a military convoy on 22 May– while keeping an eye out for the raiding Bismarck and Prinz Eugen— she arrived in Freetown on 4 June and Durban two weeks later before spending the next six months as escort a series of different slow convoys (CM 014, BP 012, CM 017, and MA 001) shuttling around the Indian Ocean.
On 7 December 1941, she was ordered to Singapore to join the ill-fated Force Z– the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. She didn’t make it to join the force before it was destroyed by Japanese land-based bombers three days later in the South China Sea.
Instead, Exeter leaned into her speed and, under the combined ABDA Command in Java, she spent January and February 1942 as part of several different Allied convoys (DM 001, BM 010, BM 011, BM 012, JS 001, and SJ 5) running troops to Singapore and around the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Exeter firing at Japanese aircraft which unsuccessfully attacked convoy JS1 in the Bangka Strait during the 14/15 February 1942, NIMH 2158_017924
A harbor tug crosses the bow of the 8-inch gun cruiser HMS Exeter as she lies anchored in the congested harbor of Tanjong Priok, the port for Batavia, now Jakarta, in the first days of February 1942. Exeter helped clear the congestion, taking thirty merchant ships to sea. AWM P04139.003
On 25 February, Exeter, along with the RAN Leander-class light cruiser HMAS Perth (sister to Ajax and Achilles) and destroyers HMS Electra, Encounter, and Jupiter, were detailed to join the ABDA’s Eastern Striking Force under Dutch RADM K.W.F.M. Doorman at Soerabaja, which was then renamed the Combined Striking Force. Doorman’s force was slight, made up of just the Dutch light cruisers HrMs De Ruyter and HrMs Java, the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30), and a mix of nine Dutch and American destroyers, mostly old “flush deckers” from the Great War.
Of the five allied cruisers, only Houston was more powerful than Exeter, carrying nine cramped 8″/55 guns in her thin hull. However, only six of Houston’s 8-incher were operable as her aft turret had been knocked out in an earlier air attack. Further, only Exeter had radar.
Rushing out to confront a force of 30 Japanese troops transports on 27 February 1942 protected by RADM Takeo Takagi’s two heavy cruisers, two old light cruisers, and 14 destroyers, things got pear-shaped pretty fast in what became known as the First Battle of the Java Sea.
A flurry of over 90 Long Lance torpedoes sank a Dutch destroyer while a lucky 7.9-inch hit from the Japanese Myoko-class heavy cruiser Haguro penetrated to Exeter’s aft boiler room and knocked six of her eight boilers offline, dropping the British cruiser’s speed to just five knots.
Retiring South towards Surabaya via the Sunda Strait with Encounter and the American destroyer USS Pope (DD-225) escorting, Exeter had the supreme misfortune of running into the four Japanese heavy cruiser sisters Nachi, Haguro, Myoko, and Ashigara, along with their four escorting destroyers, supported by the carrier Ryujo over the horizon, on the morning of 1 March.
Although Exeter had managed to increase her speed to 23 knots by this time, it was far too slow to avoid being overtaken by the armada of bruisers and fast greyhounds. The disparity in ordnance in big guns alone– 40 7.9″/50s vs six 8″/50s– was staggering before even taking into account smaller guns and torpedo tubes.
Japanese shells rain down around HMS Exeter during her ill-fated encounter in the Java Sea
Despite Encounter and Pope bravely making smoke and attempting torpedo runs against impossible odds– the same sort of bravery later seen by American escorts in the defense of Taffy 3 in October 1944– it was all over in about three hours and all of the Allied vessels were sent to the bottom piecemeal.
Exeter sinking on 1 March 1942 after engagement with Japanese Cruisers off Java. This Japanese photo was captured by U.S. Forces at Attu in May 1943. Collection of Admiral T. C Kinkaid, USN. NH 91772
NH 91773
Exeter sinking after engaging Japanese heavy cruisers in the Java Sea, 1 March 1942. Image taken from the captured Japanese wartime booklet “Victory on the March” 80-G-179020
Exeter earned three battle honors (River Plate 1939, Malaya 1942, and Sunda Strait 1942) to add to the four she carried forward.
Epilogue
Over the next two days, Japanese destroyers would pick up some 800 Allied survivors from the three lost warships in the water after the battle including 652 men of the crew of Exeter, the cruiser remarkably “only” losing 54 in the battle itself. A large reason why so many of Exeter’s crew survived the battle was that Capt. Gordon, his ship lost, ordered her evacuated before the final bloody game could play out. Like Capt. Langsdorff at Montevideo, Gordon owed it to his men not to ask them to perish in vain.
Tossed into the hell that was the Japanese POW camp systems no less than 27 of Pope’s sailors, 37 of Encounter’s, and 30 from Exeter died in the prison camps, usually from either malaria or pneumonia. When it came to Japanese camps, they typically lost a full quarter of those housed within.
Recovered from camps in the Celebes, Macassar, and Nagasaki in September 1945, Exeter veterans were given emergency medical care and repatriated. AWM photos
The wrecks of Encounter, Exeter, and Pope have been extensively looted by illegal salvagers.
Capt. Gordon, while being removed from Japan on USS Gosper (APA-170) in October 1945, finally had a chance to deliver his 12-page report on Exeter’s final battles to the Admiralty, via U.S. channels. With the traditional English gift of understatement, he noted that, during the evacuation of the cruiser, “The ship was evidently leaking oil fuel considerably, which, with a slight lop, made conditions in the water decidedly unpleasant, at first.”
July 1942 portrait of Capt. Oliver L Gordon, RN, HMS Exeter, who was captured in the Java Sea. Capt Gordon was a prisoner of war in Zentsuji Camp, Shikoku, Osaka, Japan. He later wrote of his experiences both in command of the Exeter and as a prisoner of war in Japan in the book Fight It Out, published in 1957, and passed in 1973. AWM P04017.059
As for “Hooky” Secker Bell, Exeter’s commander during the fight with Graf Spee, he escaped Singapore before the fall in 1942 and survived the war. In January 1946 he took command of the battleship HMS Anson, was named an ADC to King George VI, and retired on health grounds in January 1948.
In 1956, he served as an advisor to the film The Battle of the River Plate which included the huge Des Moines class heavy cruiser USS Salem as the Graf, Achilles as herself, the light cruiser HMS Sheffield as Ajax, and the light cruiser HMS Jamaica as our Exeter.
Her 1931-marked bell and River Plate battle-damaged ensign, along with a scale model of the cruiser, are in Exeter as part of the city’s archives.
St Andrews Chapel in Exeter has several relics and a memorial stained glass window which incorporates the ship’s badge.
She is celebrated in maritime art, and for good reason.
HMS Exeter at Plymouth in 1940: Back from the Graf Spee action, by Charles Ernest Cundall. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1848)
Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939 watercolor by Edward Tufnell, RN (Retired), depicting the cruisers HMS Exeter (foreground) and HMNZS Achilles (right center background) in action with the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee (right background). NH 86397-KN
Admiral Graf Spee vs Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter painting by Adam Werka
The Battle of the Java Sea, painting by Van der Ven. From left to right two American destroyers (Four stackers), cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, HMAS Perth, HMS Exeter, Hr.Ms. Witte de With, Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (sinking) and HMS Jupiter. NIMH 2158_051001.
The Royal Navy, when passing through the Sunda Strait, typically holds a memorial service for the lost cruiser and her escorts.
HMS Montrose showers the now-calm waters of the Java Sea with poppies over the site where 62 men lost their lives when cruiser HMS Exeter and destroyer HMS Encounter fell victim to the Japanese, 2019. MOD photo
In 1980, a Type 42 destroyer, HMS Exeter (D 89), joined the fleet to perpetuate the name. She earned the ship her eighth battle honor (Falklands- 1982) and was only decommissioned on 27 May 2009.
October 1987. Gulf Of Oman. A starboard beam view of the British destroyer HMS Exeter (D-89) underway on patrol while stationed in the region as part of a multinational force safeguarding shipping during the war between Iraq and Iran. PH1 T. Cosgrove. DN-ST-93-00902
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.
The Associated Press continues to put up archived footage from yesteryear online and some of it is striking. These recently caught my eye.
An 11-minute German training video from 1940 showing V1 and V2 rockets at Peenemunde.
A 20-minute 1976 report from Angola including some interesting footage of both CIA/South African-backed UNITA rebels and Cuban-backed MPLA in training– with lots of sweet FALs, HKG3s, and brand-new AKMs with bright orange Bakelite mags.
A 20-minute, sadly silent but in color, reel of AC-47D gunships out of Bien Thuy AB during the Vietnam War, October 1966.
A 16-minute, again silent but in color, reel of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger being rolled out.
A captured 1944 German small arms instruction training film— in color– showing the basic use of everything from an MP40 to a Luger and MG 42.
A highly entertaining 16-minute color 1952 film on the failed Lockheed XFV-1, an early VTOL fighter envisioned for WWIII convoy defense that never quite got the bugs worked out.
And a 52-second newsreel of Billy Mitchell’s Martin MB-2s flying out of Langley Field in the 1920s to drop bombs on the captured German battlewagon SMS Ost Friesland, complete with foley sounds added in the 1970s.
No war is a “clean” war, but in many ways, I think the Great War really earned the nickname at the time of a “War to End All Wars” via sheer up-close brutality.
Original Caption, circa 1918: “The way by fire has proved to be a boomerang to the Germans. The Allies are beginning to pay back the Germans in their own coin on the Western Front, by means of certain devices to which, earlier in the war, the Germans trusted as a means of paralyzing resistance in battle. The use of gas both from projectors and in bombs were of German origin. They are now being turned against their originators. French soldiers advancing under cover of a flame and smoke attack.”
Photo 165-WW-100B-1, National Archives Identifier 26425078
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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024: The Ones That Got Away
Above we see the period depiction by renowned German maritime artist Willy Stöwer of the armed sailing ship (segelschiff) SMS Ayesha off Hodeida (now Al Hudaydah, Yemen) in January 1915, to the warm welcome of allied Ottoman troops. Stöwer, best known for his decades of painting battleships, cruisers, and U-boats, apparently made an exception for the humble Ayesha, as she had an incredibly interesting story that began some 110 years ago this week.
And a tale rather different from the one shown above.
The Background
Part of Admiral Maximillian von Spee’s Eastern Squadron, the 4,200-ton Dresden class of light cruiser SMS Emden was detached from the rest of Von Spee’s force to become an independent raider in the Western Pacific, as the main force of five cruisers made for the Eastern Pacific and, ultimately, the South Atlantic. In doing so, Emden was sort of a sacrificial rabbit to draw away the British, Australian, French, Russian, and Japanese hounds as Von Spee made his exit.
In an epic 97-day patrol, Emden captured 23 merchant ships (21 Brits, one Russian, one Greek) with 101,182 GRT of enemy shipping, sending 16 to the bottom, releasing three, and keeping as four as prizes. In each encounter with these unarmed merchies, Emden practiced “cruiser rules,” in which all passengers and crew on board these ships were brought to safety. She took off the kid gloves and accounted for two warships by sucker punching the 3,500-ton Russian light cruiser Zhemchug and the 300-ton French destroyer Mousquet as they slumbered in Penang harbor in British Malaysia.
German cruiser SMS Emden off Madras. Artwork by Hans Bohrdt. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Fire from Bombardment of Madras by SMS Emden
Emden also bombarded oil depots in Madras, India, sending shivers through the Raj, and tied up dozens of allied warships in running her to ground. This included four brawlers– any of which could make short work of the smaller German warship– that had closed the distance to within just 50 miles of the raider: the 14,600-ton British armored cruiser HMS Minotaur, the 16,000-ton Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki, and the twin 5,400-ton Australian light cruisers HMAS Sydney and Melbourne.
This game all cumulated in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands on 9 November 1914.
Direction Island
The remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands, two desolate flat, low-lying coral atolls made up of 27 islets in the Indian Ocean some 800 miles West of Sumatra, in 1914 only had a population of a few hundred. The British colony was defacto ruled by the Clunies-Ross family, which had settled the archipelago in the 1850s, and whose paterfamilias generally served as the resident magistrate and Crown representative.
Modernity had reached this corner of the British Empire, with the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, in 1901, establishing a cable station on Direction Island on the top of the Cocos chain with submarine cables eventually running to Rodrigues (Mauritius), Batavia (Java), and Fremantle.
By 1910, this had been complemented by a Marconi wireless station, making it a key link in the communication chain between India and Australia.
A link worthy of breaking, in the mind of Emden’s skipper, Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller.
Arriving just offshore of the Cocos over a deep trench– Emden needed at least 18 feet of seawater under her hull to float– in the predawn of 9 November, a landungskorps was assembled and ready to go ashore, seize the station, wreck it, and withdraw with any interesting portable supplies to feed the cruiser’s 360-member crew.
Going ashore at dawn in a steam pinnace and two whaleboats was Kpt. lt Hellmuth von Mücke, Leutnants Schmidt and Gysling, six petty officers, and 41 ratings, including two signalmen who knew what to destroy and a former French Foreign Legionnaire who was good with languages (among other things). Expecting resistance from a company-sized garrison at the colony, Mücke raided Emden’s small arms locker, taking four Maxim guns– each with 2,000 rounds of ammunition– 29 dated Gewehr 71 rifles, and 24 Reichsrevolvers.
With a strange warship offshore, disguised by a false fourth funnel, overhearing a coded signal from Emden to her prize ship-turned-tender Buresk, and three small boats filled with armed men headed in from the sea, the wireless station went into alert and started broadcasting at 0630 about the unknown man-of-war, only to be jammed by chatter from Emden’s powerful Telefunken wireless set turned to maximum power.
However, the part of the message broadcast before the jamming– “SOS strange ship in harbor,” and “SOS Emden here”– reached HMAS Sydney, escorting a convoy some 50nm away. The Australian cruiser replied that she was on the way to investigate. Her call letters, NC, led Emden’s signalmen to think she was the cruiser HMS Newcastle, which ironically was also in the Far East just nowhere near Emden, and they estimated by her signal strength and bearing that she was over 200 miles away.
In short, Emden’s skipper thought they had more time, but was very wrong.
Once landed, Von Mücke’s shore party got busy wrecking. Local photographers A.J. Peake and R. Cardwell, apparently EETC employees, began snapping photos documenting the activities of the landing party over the next two days.
The force soon captured and wrecked the undefended telegraph office without a shot– the island’s entire arsenal amounted to a “few 12 bore guns and two small and ancient pea-rifles”– cut three of four underwater cables, and felled the station’s transmission mast via explosives. This caused collateral damage as coral shot around like shrapnel, holing buildings and destroying the island’s supply of scotch.
Emden’s launch grappling for cable at Direction Island. NLA obj-149336815
The Eastern Extension Telegraph Company office after the German raid, 9 November 1914. NLA obj-149337412
The bottom of the mast with the wireless hut at the back. NLA obj-149338323
The wireless mast as it lay across the garden. NLA obj-149338122
More shots of the destroyed cable station. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19150107-39.
Under the German flag, Direction Island, November 1914. Note the sun helmet and Mauser of the German sailors. NLA obj-149336272
At 0900, with Emden spotting an incoming ship and soon acknowledging it was not her tender Buresk, the cruiser cleared decks and signaled her shore party to return immediately.
“Landing party having been recalled by the Emden, leaves the jetty but turns back on seeing Emden putting to sea.” In the background is the copra schooner Ayesha, owned by the Clunies-Ross family.” Note the white-uniformed officer complete with pistol belt. NLA .obj-149337219
“The Emdens’ landing party left the island on their futile attempt to rejoin their ship, Direction Island, 1914.” NLA obj-149336127
Not able to catch up to the withdrawing Emden, her away force returned to the docks on Direction Island. Soon signs of a battle could be seen over the horizon.
View from the beach of Direction Island with the battle between the SMS Emden and HMAS Sydney in the far distance. NLA obj-149338507
Unknown to Von Mucke and his men, nor to the colonists on Direction Island, Emden, and Sydney clashed between 0940 and 1120 in a one-sided battle that left the German cruiser grounded and ablaze on North Keeling Island with more than half of her 316 men aboard dead, missing, or wounded.
German raider, SMS Emden is sunk by Australian Cruiser, HMAS Sydney, RAN collection.
German cruiser SMS Emden beached on Cocos Island in 1914
Sydney suffered four fatalities and a dozen wounded.
Von Mucke knew that Emden was either sunk or had fled over the horizon and that the only warship coming to collect them would likely be an enemy. He set up his Spandaus on the beach and waited.
A German Maxim gun and ammunition boxes were set up to repel landings at Direction Island, on 9 November 1914. NLA obj-149337513
Meet Ayesha
The local coconut and cargo hauler, the 97-ton, 98-foot three-master schooner Ayesha, was anchored just off the docks on Direction Island, with Von Mucke’s crew passing close by on their way to the island that morning. She was a fine-looking vessel, for a coastal lugger, and typically sailed the local waters with a crew of five or six mariners and a master.
The schooner Ayesha, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, November 1914. NLA obj-149336020
Ayesha in open water State Library of Australia PRG-1373-29-15
The solution, to Von Mucke, was to seize the schooner, requisition supplies from the station, and load his men on board with the hope of heading to Dutch Sumatra, some 800 or so miles away, where they could figure out the next steps.
He boarded her with one of his officers for an inspection.
From a June 1915 New York Times interview with Von Mucke translated from the Berliner Tageblatt:
I made up my mind to leave the island as soon as possible. The Emden was gone the danger for us growing. I noticed a three-master, the schooner Ayesha. Mr. Ross, the owner of the ship and the island, had warned me that the boat was leaky but I found it a quite seaworthy tub.
“Schooner Ayesha commandeered by Germans being prepared for the voyage” Sails have been bent to the booms and forestays. AWM P11611.027.002
Germans commandeer cable station stores to provision the yacht Ayesha, owned by the Clunies-Ross family after the German raider SMS Emden was driven ashore at North Keeling Island by HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1914. On the evening of 10 November 1914, a party from the Emden used the Ayesha to escape from the island. AWM P03912.001
A German landing party at Direction Island, preparing to go aboard the yacht Ayesha, after their ship the German raider SMS Emden was destroyed by HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1914. AWM P03912.002
The master and mate were released from their duties, although they warned Von Mucke the ship’s hull, thin, “worn through” and overgrown, could not handle an ocean voyage. Inspecting the hold, the wood was indeed “red and rotten, so much so, indeed, that we stopped our scratching as we had no desire to poke the points of our knives into the Indian Ocean.”
On the evening of 10 November, the Germans used the Ayesha to escape from the island.
The locals– according to both German and British reports– actually gave the Germans three cheers as they left. Von Mucke said they went even further and asked for their autographs. Emden’s fame had proceeded them.
“Steam pinnace taking last of Germans aboard the Ayesha. The Germans are waving to the British, who have given them three cheers.” NLA obj-149339081
It wasn’t until the next day, 11 November, that sailors and Marines from HMAS Sydney arrived at Direction Island to find out that the Emden’s shore party had come and gone, with a decent head start.
A party of armed sailors from HMAS Sydney lands on Direction Island, on 11 November 1914. A party from the German raider Emden had landed and taken possession of the cable station on the island, but on the evening of the 10th, they escaped in the schooner Ayesha, which belonged to the owner of the island. AWM EN0390
Von Mucke raised their small war flag and christened the schooner SMS Ayesha (Emden II) to three hurrahs from her new crew. Nonetheless, she struck her flag soon after and sailors soon went over the side to paint over the ship’s name. Word had to have gone out and the British were no doubt looking for her.
Ayesha’s navigational equipment was limited to a sextant, two chronometers, and a circa 1882 Indian Ocean Directory, filled with quaint old high-scale charts and notes made as far back as the 1780s. With 50 men crowded onto a ship designed for five, they fashioned hammocks from old ropes and slept in holds and on deck.
Even more limited was the crew’s kit, as the men had landed on Direction Island for a raid and only had the clothes on their backs and cartridges in their pouches.
The whole crew went about naked in order to spare our wash…Toothbrushes were long ago out of sight. One razor made the rounds of the crew. The entire ship had one precious comb.
Further, Ayesha’s canvas was old and rotten, and three of the schooner’s four water tanks had been contaminated with salt water.
She had enough canvas to rig fore and aft sails on the main and mizzen and two square sails on the foremast. Still, these were threadbare and had to be patched constantly as they “tore at the slightest provocation.”
One condemned sail was rigged over the ballast for use as a shared bed by ratings, which sounds almost enjoyable until you find out that the schooner leaked so bad that water rose over the ballast at sea and typically sloshed around just below the sail bed.
From Von Mucke’s later book, as translated in 1933 and republished by the USNI:
Below deck, aft of the hold, were two small cabins originally fitted with bunks, but in these, we were compelled to store our provisions. Swarms of huge cockroaches made it impossible for human beings to inhabit them.
Another old sail was rigged up to catch and filter rainwater into three repurposed Standard Oil cans for drinking which was rendered palatable by “a dash or lime juice of which we had fortunately found few bottles among the provisions of the former captain.”
Gratefully, it turned out that the crew’s former Legionaire was a crack chef and managed to cobble together decent meals from the larder of rice and tinned beef.
At night, the only light was two oil lamps that “gave off more smoke than light.”
Most of the armament was secured down below, with the Spandaus concealed and arranged to fire through loopholes on deck should they be needed.
Leaving the steam pinnacle behind for the islanders to use, Von Mucke originally towed the two cutters from Emden behind the Ayesha, as there was no tackle available to bring them aboard nor deck space to house them but eventually, they were lost. Soon all they had in terms of small boats were a pair of jolly boats that the schooner carried in small davits, each able to hold two men. At times of doldrums, they were put out to tow the schooner with the help of Emden’s lost cutter’s long oars.
After 16 days at sea wandering towards Sumatra and keeping over the horizon from steamers, Ayesha was intercepted by the Dutch Fret-class destroyer Lynx (510 tons, 210 feet oal, 30 knots, 4×3″, 2xtt) on 26 November and was escorted into Padang in Wester Sumatra the next day.
Given 24 hours in port, Von Mucke was warned by Lynx’s Belgian-born skipper “I could run into the harbor but whether I might not come out again was doubtful.”
Von Mucke related that at the time he “felt truly sorry for the Lynx. It must have been very irritating to her to have to trundle behind us at the wonderful speed of one knot, a speed which, with the light breeze blowing, the Ayesha could not exceed.”
The Dutch did not allow Ayesha to take on clothes, charts, or tackle, as they could have added to the warship’s effectiveness. What was allowed were some tinned provisions and ten live pigs, the latter stored in a makeshift pen around the chain locker.
They left the Dutch port with reinforcements as two reserve officers, LTs Gerdts and Wellman, who had been interned at Pandang on German steamers earlier in the war and wanted to cast their lot with Von Mucke. Once smuggled aboard under darkness via rowboat, as berthing was already a problem, their spaces were found on the deck under the mess table.
The German schooner was towed back out to sea on the evening of the 28th. She was followed out of territorial waters by the Dutch cruiser De Zeven Provincien.
Another bright spot of her brief stay in the Dutch East Indies was that the local German consul managed to smuggle the crew a small bundle of chocolate, cigarettes, and German newspapers. There was also a promised rendezvous location out to sea in a fortnight or so with a German merchant steamer that was still afloat and filled with enough coal to steam anywhere on the globe.
With a few weeks’ worth of food left from the stockpile removed from Direction Island, but relying largely on rainwater for drinking and bathing, the schooner spent the next two weeks wandering West into the Indian Ocean, keeping hidden while drifting towards her promised rendezvous.
Finally, in heavy seas near South Pagai in the Dutch Mentawai Islands on 14 December, Ayesha spied the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) freighter Choising (ex-Madeleine Rickmers), a slight vessel of just 1,657 tons. Still, she was the best Christmas present Von Mucke could ask for.
The meeting, in the fog and mist, was probably traumatic to the complement of the steamer whose ship’s officers and engineer were German, and most of the crew were Chinese.
Up flew our ensign and colours. The steamer ran up the German flag. The crew climbed aloft into the shrouds, and three cheers rang from deck to deck. As usual, our men were dressed in the manner customary in thc Garden of Eden, a costume which necessity had forced upon them. The men of the Choising confided to us later that they were speechless with astonishment when suddenly, out of the fog, emerged a schooner, the shrouds of which were filled with naked forms.
Having sailed Ayesha for 1,709 sea miles, the crews waited until the waters calmed on the 16th to transfer to the steamer then scuttled the schooner, Emden’s final victim. They removed Ayesha’s wheel and figurehead and took them along to their new ship.
Willy Stöwer – Ayesha im Indischen Ozean nach Treffen mit Choising
The overloaded Choising set out West across the Indian Ocean towards Yemen on the Arabian peninsula, part of the now-German allied Ottoman Empire. Thumbing through Choising’s Lloyds book, the freighter assumed the identity of the Italian steamer Shenir, which was similarly sized and had the same general layout.
This included painting Shenir, Genoa on her bow and crafting an approximated Italian flag from sailcloth and a green window curtain from the captain’s cabin.
They stayed out of the shipping lanes, celebrated a low-key Christmas and New Year at sea, and after entering the Bab-el-Mandeb, passing close abreast of two British gunboats in the darkness, made it to Hodeida on 5 January 1915, having crossed 4,100 miles of the Indian Ocean successfully.
Cruise of the Emden, Ayesha, and Choising. Bestanddeelnr 22032 010
Arabian Nights
With the French cruiser, Desaix spotted near Hodeida, Von Mucke and his men bid Choising farewell. With no Ottoman naval officials to turn to, she went across the straits to Massawa in Eritrea which was under Italian control and still neutral, intending to link up with the cruiser SMS Konigsberg which they thought was still off the coast of Africa but was trapped upriver in the Rufiji.
Choising, remaining in Somaliland, would go on to be seized by the Italian government once that former German ally declared war against the Empire in May 1915. This led to her final service as the Italian-flagged Carroccio. As part of a small Italian convoy, she was sent to the bottom of the Adriatic Sea on 15 May 1917 off the coast of Albania by the Austrian destroyer Balaton in a messy surface action known today as the Battle of the Strait of Otranto.
Meanwhile, contrary to early rosy reports that the Turks welcomed Von Mucke with open arms in Hodeida and soon spirited them via train up the Hejaz railroad to Constantinople and from there to Germany, it would be five long months of slogging across Arabia to Damascus before the Germans had any sort of safety.
Overland from Hodeida, from Von Mucke’s book
The reason for choosing the port was simple:
Our only knowledge regarding Arabian ways and customs was a ” round the world’ guidebook that would have answered the purposes of a sight-seeing couple on their honeymoon very well. From it we learned that Hodcida is a large commercial city, and that the Hedjaz railway to Hodeida was in course of construction. As the book was some years old and as one of my officers remembered that years ago he had met a French engineer who told him that he had been engaged in the construction of a railway to Hodeida, we took it for granted that the railway was completed by this time.
Nonetheless, the word would precede them, hence Willie Stower’s fanciful depiction of the long-scuttled Ayesha arriving at a big red carpet Ottoman welcome at Hodeida.
Another such propaganda piece from 1915:
With the railway incomplete, the journey, which is a bit off subject for a Warship blog, included a three-day firefight with a battalion-sized force of Arab rebels, unruly camel caravans with wary Bedouins watching from the dunes, creeping up the uncharted coast on local fishing dhows (zambuks), and avoiding being kept as “guests” by local Turkish garrison commanders and sheiks looking to add the Teutonic travelers to their muscle.
SMS Emden crew is attacked by Arabs on their desert hike to Jeddah, Der Krieg 1914/19 in Wort und Bild, 35. Heft
Finally arriving at the terminus for the Hejaz railroad at Al Ula, a trek of 1,100 miles from Hodeida on 7 May, the force met Berliner Tageblatt correspondent Emil Ludwig, who was waiting for them, and within days they were being hosted by the German counsel in Damascus. By this point, their firearms cache had been whittled down to one machine gun, a few revolvers, and just 13 rifles, the rest bartered along the way for food, safe passage, boats, and camels; or lost in zambuk wrecks.
The photo of the Damascus meeting shows the Emden’s men complete with crisp new Turkish uniforms and fezes!
Besatzungsmitglieder von SMS Ayesha im Garten des Kaiserlichen Konsulats in Damaskus 11. Mai 1915. 2) Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke, 3) Konsul Walter Rößler. Note the Gewehr 71 Mausers.
Then came an even larger show in Constantinople, attended by foreign legations and German RADM Wilhelm Souchon, former commander of the Kaiser’s Mediterranean Squadron and current unofficial commander of the Ottoman fleet. Souchon had a gift for the men: Iron Crosses sent directly from Berlin.
Six of the 50-man forces that had landed at Direction Island six months prior had been left behind, three killed by rebels, and three by assorted diseases and accidents. Of Emden’s 360 crew, virtually all except Von Mucke’s detachment were dead or POWs by this point in the war– to include the Kaiser’s own nephew. The same could be said broadly for all the fine young men of Von Spee’s squadron.
The arrival of Captain Mücke with the SMS Emden’s landing party in Constantinople
Captured German photograph of the captain and officers of the Ayesha being presented to the Turkish authorities by the American Ambassador. Figures from right to left are (1) Enver Pasha; (2) German Ambassador; (3,5,6) Officers of the raider Emden; (4) Provost of Town; (7) Admiral Suchow Pasha of Goeben. AWM A011403
Captured German photograph showing the arrival of the officers who escaped from the raider Emden after commandeering the yacht Ayesha, with the German flag which saved them from falling into the hands of the enemy. AWM A01402
They were lucky.
Soon after Von Mucke’s trip up the Arabian peninsula, another group of Von Spee’s men, elements of the crew of the river patrol boat SMS Tsingtau including Kptlt. Erwin von Möller, LtzS Hans von Arnim, Vizesteuermann Heinrich Deike, Karl Gründler, Heinrich Mau, Arthur Schwarting plus Turkish ship’s cook Said Achmad, sailed the coastal schooner Marboek for 82 days from Sumatra where they were interned to the Arabian coast at Hadramaut, then headed out overland for Sana, much like Von Mucke.
They were all killed in the desert by rebels on 25 May 1916.
Epilogue
Von Mucke, whose interviews with Emil Ludwig soon circled the globe, spent some time as head of a Turko-German river flotilla in the Euphrates, then finished the war back in Germany as head of the Danube Flotilla. You could say the Kaiserliche Marine wanted to keep him from being lost at sea. Sadly, half of the men who had returned with him from Emden had been killed later in the Great War.
His mug was snapped often and widely distributed. A dashing hero with a romantic tale.
Capt. Von Mucke & bride & sailors of EMDEN LOC ggbain-20400-20461v
Kpt. Von Mucke in Berlin LOC ggbain-19500-19578v
He also penned two thin wartime books, one on each of the vessels he served on during the conflict.
Postwar, retired from the Navy after an 18-year career, he had six children and earned a living in Weimar Germany through writing and conducting lecture tours, retelling his story. Turning to politics, he briefly held a seat in the Saxon state parliament, flirted with the Nazis (membership number 3,579) before they rose to power, then by 1930 had become an outspoken pacifist and member of the Deutschlandbund, an anti-Nazi group. Banned from writing after 1933, he was labeled a communist and tossed into concentration camps on at least two occasions. Despite the fact his naval pension had been suspended, he volunteered for combat with the Kriegsmarine in 1939 at age 58 but was rejected because he was considered politically unreliable.
Remaining in East Germany post-WWII, Von Mucke wrote pamphlets against the rearmament of West Germany for the communists but soon fell out with them as well. He passed in 1957 at age 76 and is buried in Ahrensburg.
As she sat in shallow water along the reefs off Keeling and was extensively salvaged over 40 years, literally tons of souvenirs of Emden exist, primarily in Australia, where her bell and several relics are on display at the AWM in Canberra while two of her 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns are in parks in the Canberra and Sydney.
Relics from Sydney and Emden’s battle on display at the Australian War Memorial
It is also likely that many tons of her good Krupp steel armor plate were recycled for use by the Japanese Combined Fleet, as her salvors for long periods in the 1920s and 30s were from Yokohama.
However, little, if anything, survives of Ayesha other than period photographs and romanticized postcards, along with the works of Von Mücke.
She is remembered in postal stamps of the Cocos Islands, for obvious reasons.
The small 4×6 Reichskriegsflagge flown over Keeling by Emden’s Landungskorps, then our subject schooner and brought back to Germany in 1915 with Von Mücke and the gang at some point was put on display in the Marienkirche (St. Mary’s Church) in Lübeck.
Then in the 1930s, it was passed on to Kapt. Julius Lauterbach. A HAPAG reserve officer who had served on the liner Staatssekretär Kraetke before the war and as Emden’s 1st navigation officer during the conflict. He left the cruiser with a 15-man prize crew put aboard the captured 4,350-ton British steamer Buresk in September 1914 to serve as a tender. Captured after Emden was destroyed and Buresk scuttled, he escaped along with 34 other Germans held by the British in Singapore during the Sepoy Mutiny in February 1915. Returning to Germany on his own, (like Von Mücke he also wrote a thin book published during the war, “1000£ Price on Your Head – Dead or Alive: The Escape Adventures of Former Prize Officer S. M. S. Emden”) he was given command of a trap ship (German Q-ship), and subsequently the raider SMS Mowe. In 1955, Lauterbach’s widow donated the flag to German militaria collector Karl Flöck who placed it on display at the Gasthaus zum Roten Ochsen in Cologne for years until it went up to auction in 2009. It is now in private hands.
The tale of Emden has been told numerous times in numerous ways, but it generally left out that of Von Mucke and his refugees. Of note, a 2013 German film, Die Männer der Emden, included it. The trailer includes camels, suffering, and a bit of swashbuckling, as it should.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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110 years ago this week, 3 November 1914. Admiral Maximilian von Spee’s victorious German East Asia Squadron (Ostasiengeschwader) basking at anchor in Valparaiso, Chile just a few days after the Battle of Coronel, which delivered the Royal Navy its first major naval defeat at sea via surface engagement since the War of 1812 (when the 20-gun brig USS Hornet under the command of James Biddle captured the 19-gun brig-sloop HMS Penguin off Tristan da Cunha after a well-fought battle on 23 March 1815).
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph NH 59638
The German ships are in the distance, with the 13,000-ton armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the lead, followed by the 4,900-ton Königsberg-class light cruiser Nürnberg. Watchful Chilean Navy warships in the middle distance include (from left to right): cruisers Esmeralda, O’Higgins, and Blanco Encalda along with the old (commissioned 1890) ironclad battleship Capitan Prat.
November 4, 1914. Valparaiso. Scharnhorst 3 days after the Battle of Coronel. She is taking on provisions
While Von Spee could take on water and limited provisions and patch their damage from the running fight at Coronel, they could never replace the shells they expended in the scrap with RADM Sir Christopher Cradock’s outclassed and out-fought squadron.
The light cruisers SMS Leipzig and Dresden are not present in the above photos of Von Spee’s force. Post-Coronel, they had escorted the Ostasiengeschwader’s collier train to remote Mas a Fuera (Alejandro Selkirk Island) in the Juan Fernández Archipelago, where the squadron would gather on 6 November.
The decrepit Bussard-class light cruiser SMS Geier, too slow to tag along with Von Spee’s force was already long out of the game. After surviving 11 weeks on the run as an independent unit she had been interned under American guns at Hawaii on 17 October.
Likewise, thehilfskreuzerCormoran, which was the captured 3,400-ton Russian freighter SS Ryazan with a crew from the old Bussard-class cruiser SMS Cormoran and the stricken survey ship SMS Planet, was quietly poking around the Western Pacific and would eventually present herself to American custody at Guam on 14 December 1914.
Dresden’s sister, SMS Emden, is also missing from the above images. She was just six days away from her final engagement with the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, some 9,500 miles away off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. But that is a whole different story.
80 years ago this week. 23 October 1944. Ramgarh, India, CBI theater.
“Man Bites Mule. Although it’s only a slight variation on the popular prescription for ‘news,’ it isn’t news when man bites mule, unless you aren’t acquainted with the ways of muleskinners, Sgt. Fred Parker of Ozona, Tex., bites the ear of a mule to take the animal’s mind off branding operations. Lt. Carl W. Shultz, Independence, MO, of the Army Veterinary Corps, wields the branding iron, and Sgt. R. Sterling (right), Crawford, Neb., assists. The mule is one of a group of new arrivals at Ramgarh in the C.B.I.”
U.S. Army Signal Corps photo from the Allison collection, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.
A reliable four-legged means of cargo transport in out-of-the-way areas used by the Army going back to Washington’s Days, the U.S. Army’s Pack Service was only formally established in 1871 for use during the Indian Wars.
And, while the Army tried to retire the beasts in 1931 in favor of wheel and track, the need for them in WWII saw something of a big comeback.
5307th Composite Unit Provisional (Merrills Marauders) use mules to help pack supplies in the CBI
Army Mules are tied in a long picket line at the docks in Palermo, Sicily, before being loaded on a U.S.T. boat for the invasion of Italy. 20 September 1943. SC 180044
Mules carry supplies for the 3rd Bn., 87th Inf. Regt., 10th Mtn. Div., going up the road towards Tole, Italy. 16 April 1945.
While upwards of 3,000 mules were used in the CBI by the Army, 5,000 in Italy, and another 10,000 in Greece, the final two U.S. Army mule pack units– the 35th QM Pack Coy and the 4th Field Artillery Battalion (Pack)– were deactivated on 15 December 1956 at Fort Carson, Colorado, ending an 85-year run. The 322 remaining mules on hand were sold or transferred to other agencies including the National Park Service and the Forest Service. (The British Army held on to theirs until 1966.)
However, that isn’t the end of the story.
West Point, in a tradition dating back to 1899, keeps a few mules (and Mule Riders) on hand as mascots.
Further, the U.S. Army Special Forces annually send teams to the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California to learn the use of pack animals– just in case.
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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024: A Tough Little Wolf
Nationalmuseet, Danmark, asset THM-3367
Above, we see the Danish Soridderen (Sea Knight) class torpedobåden patrol boat Søulven(Sea Wolf)—also cited in the West as Soloven, Soeulven, and Søulv —as she passed near the Trekroner Søfort at the entrance to the Copenhagen harbor before 1920.
A small boat with a fearsome name, her skipper and crew proved all-heart during the Great War, and a noteworthy British admiral doubtlessly owed his life to her pluck.
The Søridderen trio
Between 1879, when Hajen, Torpedobaad Nr.4, joined the fleet through Svaerdfisken, which entered service in May 1913, the Royal Danish Navy fielded 40 assorted torpedo boats across several different classes to include designs from British (Samuel White, Yarrow, Thornycroft), French (Forges & Chantiers), German (F. Schichau) and domestic (Burmeister & Wain, Orlogsvaerftet) yards. No less than 17 of these were still in service by the time Gaviro Princep caught up to Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and set the world alight.
In 1911, a program of three new German Schichau-designed boats and a matching set of three British Yarrow-designed boats were ordered. The lead ship would be built overseas in each case, and the two follow-on units would be constructed domestically. This led to the Schichau-designed and built 250-ton Tumleren (and Orlogsvaerftet-constructed sisters Vindhunden and Spaekhuggeren) and the 230-ton Yarrow-designed and built Søridderen (accompanied by the Burmeister & Wain-constructedFlyvefisken and Soulven).
The ships were competing designs of similar size, armament, and capability with the Tumlerens running 250 tons, 186 feet long, 18 feet on the beam, and with a 6-foot draft while the Søridderen went 181x18x6 feet.
The German-built Danish torpedobåden Tumleren. Note her trainable torpedo tubes. THM-3340
Both classes were coal-fired steam turbine-driven and fast (27.5 knots), as well as armed with five 18-inch torpedo tubes (one fixed in bow and four trainable on deck) and two 12-pounder 3″/52 M.07 QF guns.
Danish Torpedobåden Tumleren i Svanemøllebugten, 1915, by Christian Benjamin Olsen. These boats were notoriously smokey especially when using the thrifty Danish navy’s (preferred) cheap coal to stretch training dollars.
The Søridderens went a bit faster than designed on trails, hitting 28.3 knots.
Søridderen class member Flyvefisken, seen in a color period postcard. THM-30779
Søridderen member Flyvefisken, the port view seen underway. THM-4490
Jane’s 1914 listing for the Søridderen class.
The British-designed ships were also seen as more seaworthy than the German-designed boats. However, the events of 1914 precluded further orders.
Meet Soulven
Our subject carried a traditional Danish navy moniker and repeated one used by one of the Scandinavian country’s first batch of torpedo boats, a little 95-footer built in France that remained in service until 1911.
Photo showing the first torpedo boat Søulven, Torpedobaad Nr.5, launched in 1880 at anchor in Copenhagen. The picture also shows the visiting German armored battery ship Heligoland and the French cruiser Chateau Renault. Photographed Sep 8, 1891. THM-9524
The second Danish torpedo boat Soulven joined the fleet in 1911, likely recycling most of the crew of her namesake which was decommissioned at the same time.
Note her forward bow tube and trainable singles.
She would spend her first three years as a training ship, and there are some great images of her pier side conducting training with Madsen light machine guns complete with massive 40-round detachable box magazines. A treat for any gun nerd!
Soluven crew at Flådens Leje with Madsen LMGs THM-6173
Soulven note bridge and Madsens THM-6175
THM-6175 inset
War!
When the Great War began in August 1914, Denmark armed-up to protect her neutrality, having just fought Germany in 1864 and the Brits in 1807. This meant mobilizing 52,000 reserves and new drafts to add to the professional 13,000-man Army and building the 23 km-long Tunestillingen line of defenses outside of Copenhagen. Likewise, the Danish Navy dusted off its guns and torpedo tubes and began to actively patrol its waters.
With that, Soulven left her training duties behind and became the flagship of 1. Torpedobådsflotille, assigned to patrol in the Oresund, the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.
Torpedo inspection on board Soulven 1914 THM-4687
Her skipper at this time, and dual-hatted commander of the 1st TBF, was Kapt. Eduard Haack, 43, a career regular with 28 years of service on his seabag that included tours in the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) on the old steam frigate Jylland, Med cruises on the gunboat St. Thomas and cruiser Hejmdal, a stint as an officer instructor at the service’s NCO academy, service aboard the coastal battleships Iver Hvitfeldt and Herluf Trolle, command of a section of the naval mine corps (Søminekorpsets), and command of the icebreaker/OPV (inspektionsskibet) Absalon on the Greeland-Iceland-Faeroes beat.
Haack was a professional.
Haack, on Iver Hvitfeldt before he war. THM-4745
The E-13 Affair
It was during this time that the British started sending small E-class submarines through the Skagerrak and the Kattegat around Jutland then through the Oresund and across the Baltic to the Tsarist port of Revel in the Gulf of Finland. HMS E-1 and E-9 made it by October 1914, while E-11 turned back. They would soon be joined by HMS E-8, E-18, and E-19. One of their less fortunate sisters was HMS E-13.
Around 2300 on 17 August 1915, while E13 was attempting to make the passage through the Oresund to join the other British Submarines operating with the Tsar’s Navy, she experienced a gyro compass failure and ran aground in the mud on the Danish Island of Saltholm, her hull surrounded by nine feet of water.
English submarine E13 grounded on Saltholm THM-12243.
Spotted by the old (circa 1888) Danish Thornycroft-built torpedo boat Narvalen at 0500 on the morning of 18 August, the Dane dutifully notified E13 they had 24 hours to get unstuck or be interned for the duration. LCDR Geoffrey Layton, RN replied that he understood and would work to free his boat. His executive officer, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, was sent ashore to see if he could arrange a tug.
Soon after, at 0620, two German S90-class large torpedo boats on patrol, SMS G132, and G134, likewise spotted the disabled British sub, with her crew resting atop E13’s casing. The 215-foot S90s were really more destroyer than TB, and ran large at 535 tons, carrying an 88mm gun, two 2″/40 guns, and three torpedo tubes.
S90-class Hochsee-Torpedoboot SMS S-125, a good representative of her class. Photographed by A. Renard of Kiel, probably before 1911. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 45400
To guard the beached sub, flotilla leader Søulven arrived on the scene at 0845 with Narvalen’s sister Støren. The Danish bathtub battleship Peder Skram, armed with 9.4-inch guns and swathed in as much as 8 inches of armor, was just over the horizon and making steam for the area.
With the greenlight from RADM Robert Mischke, head of the Küstenschutzdivision der Ostsee, by radio, at 1028 the German torpedo boats went on the offensive.
Signaling “Abandon Ship Immediately,” G132 and G134 heeled over and made maximum revolutions for the grounded E13, sailing into Danish coastal waters with their guns blazing. Some 15 British submariners were killed outright.
English leave E13 after the shelling, 19 Aug. 1915 THM-4679
Despite being outgunned by the two larger German boats, Søulven’s skipper, Kapt. Haack gave the order to move his boat directly between E13 and the German guns to shield the British, with the Dane calling on the Germans to halt. The maneuver worked and at 1035, the German boats turned away and left Danish waters, having closed to within 300 yards of the submarine. Haack noted that the German commander of G132 raised an arm in the air as a sign that the protest was accepted.
The Danes soon went to work rescuing the survivors of E13, including Storen’s boatswain, one AFP Olsen, who reportedly dived into the frigid water and pulled a wounded Tar, Leading Seaman Herbert Lincoln, off the bottom. Olsen would be awarded an Albert Medal by the British government for his action, but not allowed by the Danish Foreign Ministry to accept it.
The wounded were passed on to Peder Skram, who would take them to Copenhagen. The recovered bodies of 14 of the 15 men lost were loaded aboard Søulven’s sister Søridderen and brought to Lynettehavnen. The 15th was later recovered and joined his shipmates.
The reaction in the British and Scandinavian press to the German violation of neutrality was understandable.
What occurred over the next several days in Denmark was an outpouring of mourning for the British submariners who were killed in their waters. This included some 200 Danish sailors providing an honor guard for the recovered bodies during a funeral procession in Copenhagen where the survivors of E13, clad in Danish dress uniforms, were assisted in carrying their shipmate’s coffins to the refrains of Handel’s Dead March. The proceedings were well-attended by the international legations.
Photos from the event show Haack and his men prominently.
THM-3427
Note the Remington falling block 1867s with sword bayonets. THM-3426
THM-3421
While most foreign bodies recovered in Danish waters during the war– such as Jutland sailors buried at Frederikshavn cemetery– were simply interred in Danish soil with military honors, London approved a Danish ship to carry the E13 crew remains to return speedily to England.
This led the procession solemnly to the Det Forenetede Dampskibsselskab (DFDS) steamer SS Vidar (1,493 tons) while a crowd of thousands of Danes stood by to observe in procession, with Dannebrogs lowered at half-mast across the country.
Vidar carried the remains to Hull, accompanied by the Danish torpedo boats Springeren and Støren as escorts. Vidar carried a Danish Ministry of the Navy’s representative, CDR Rørd Regnar Johannes Hammer, a Knight Commander Dannebrogorden, with 39 years of service on his record, who was responsible for the steamer’s grim cargo. Most were later interred at the Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery. CWGC in Hampshire.
The British consul in Denmark, Robert Erskine, commended the Danish authorities for the dignity and efficiency with which the handling of the dead was conducted.
As for the survivors, interned for the duration of the war under international law, they were put up at the Copenhagen Naval Yard under very loose custody– referred to by the Danes as engelske orlogsgaster (“English military guests”)– and allowed to travel around the city on their own recognizance.
The crew of the English submarine E13 before leaving for Russia in 1915. Half of these men would perish in Danish waters and the other half would cool their heels in Copenhagen for the duration. Had it not been for Soulven, their story would have been likely very different. THM-4680
The Danes likewise “entertained” assorted German naval personnel as well during the war, such as the crew of Zeppelin L.3.
German Navy zeppelin LZ-24 (Luftschiff.3) participated in 24 reconnaissance missions over the North Sea, including the first raid on England on 20 January 1915. She was scuttled by her crew after a forced landing caused by an engine failure during a snowstorm on Fanø Island, Denmark on 17 February 1915. The crew were interned. Remnants of the zeppelin are displayed in a museum in Tonder, Denmark.
Rather than enjoy this comfortable prison, E13‘s skipper, LCDR Layton, accompanied by his No. 1, LT Paul Leathley Eddis, released himself from polite custody/parole, leaving a note behind to explain his actions, and made his way back to England via Sweden three months later.
The rest of E13’s crew remained in Denmark until after the Armistice. The sub’s third officer, Sub-LT William Garriock, RNR, was left behind to command these marooned submariners.
Largely to prevent the Germans from attempting to do so, the Danes recovered E13 and towed it to Copenhagen.
E13 grounded at Saltholm, 1915 THM-6768
Shell-wrecked English submarine, E13, beached at Saltholm THM-12244
Salvage work on English submarine E13 at Saltholm THM-12245
English submarine E 13 under tow between pontoons and salvage steamers Odin and Thor. 1915. THM-4482
Her shell and shrapnel-ridden hull were on public display for the world to see.
English submarine E13 at Copenhagen harbour THM-12255
As were recovered relics including her pierced periscope and a shot-up prayer book.
The sub was put in drydock at Orlogsvaerftet, with her interned sailors allowed to come and claim personal property and mementos. Several even reportedly helped in the ultimately futile three-year effort to repair the vessel and place it in Danish service.
Ultimately, E13 was refloated and tied up alongside the Danish submarine tender Helka in 1918, used for training purposes.
U-bådsstationen, Cophenhangen. Petty officers aboard the Danish submarine tender Hekla in 1918. The group was photographed on deck in front of the ship’s stack. To the right is the tower of the salvaged HMS E13. THM-3494
In February 1919, after the Danish Navy washed their hands of the hulk, the British sold it to a local Danish company for its scrap value.
But back to our Søulven.
Continued Service
Søulven, returning to her role in protecting Denmark’s territorial sea, conducted several rescues and police actions in the Oresund before the end of the war, including capturing Swedish smugglers on two different occasions.
Photo showing the bridge of a torpedo boat with her bow 3″/52. To the left of the picture is the torpedo boat Soulven underway, seen from the front to port. Taken in the 1920s. THM-22312
Transferred to the reserves in 1929, along with her two sisters, Søridderen and Flyvefisken, and the three rival Tumlerens, they were collectively stricken in 1935-1937 and disposed of after they were replaced by the new and very strongly armed torpedo boats of the Dragen and Glenten classes.
Their hulls were stripped of anything usable and scrapped, with their 3″/52s recycled for use as coastal artillery around the Danish littoral for another decade.
Danish Den næstnordligste 7,5 cm kanon i Hørhaven from old torpedo boats
Epilogue
Of our cast of characters, Soulven’s skipper and commander of the 1st TBF during the Great War, Eduard Haack, finished the war as head of coastal defense for Northern Denmark. He retired from the Navy in 1920, with his last post as inspector of lighthouses. He became chief ship inspector at Statens Skibstilsyn, the Danish Shipping Authority, the next year, and remained in that post until 1936. He then helped organize the Icelandic Shipping Authority and received, among other things, a knighthood in the Icelandic Falcon Order (Islandske Falkeorden) and was made a commander of the Dannebrogordenen order. Capt. Haack passed in 1956 and is buried at St. Olai cemetery in Kalundborg, aged 85.
The German admiral who gave the go-ahead for the attack on E13, Mischke, would end the war as a vizeadmiral and pass in 1932. His family is the owner of Lahneck Castle, which he purchased in 1907.
The two torpedo boats used in the attack on E13, G132, and G134, at the end of the war were disarmed and served as minesweepers out of Cuxhaven. Retained briefly by the Reichsmarine they were scrapped in 1921.
E13’s skipper went on to be known as ADM Sir Geoffrey Layton, GBE, KCB, KCMG, DSO. After returning to England via Sweden in time for Christmas in 1915, he was given command of the experimental steam submarine HMS S-1. Transitioning to capital ships in the 1930s, he started WWII as commander of the 1st Battle Squadron, consisting of the battleships HMS Barham, HMS Warspite, and HMS Malaya. Sent to command the ill-fated China Station in September 1940, he handed it over to Tom Phillips just before the Japanese went ham in the Pacific in December 1941. He went on to command British forces in Ceylon through 1945. Retiring in 1947 as head of Portsmouth, he passed in 1964.
ADM Layton
Layton’s XO, LT Paul Eddis, survived continued submarine service in the Great War only to be killed when his boat, HMS L24, was tragically lost with all hands in a collision with the battleship HMS Resolution off Portland on 10 January 1924. Subs are a dangerous game even in peacetime.
Speaking of which, the funeral transport for E13’s 15 recovered sailors, the Danish steamer Vidar, was herself sent to the bottom during WWII while traveling from Grimsby to Esbjerg via the Tyne with coal and general cargo, torpedoed by the German submarine U-21 (Kptlt. Wolf-Harro Stiebler) in the North Sea in January 1940– four months before Germany invaded neutral Denmark. In tragic irony, she carried 15 of her crew to the bottom.
The very well-marked Vidar. Photo courtesy of Danish Maritime Museum, Elsinore
The Danes would recycle the name of Soulven for use with a new class of fast torpedo boats ordered in the early 1960s from Britain (heard that before?). This Danish third torpedo boat Soulven (P 515) would serve from 1967 to 1990.
Danish Sea Lion Class Vosper PT boat MTB P 515 Søulven (The Sea Wolf)
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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105 years ago today. Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. 22 October 1919. Obsolete “pre-dreadnought” type battleships in the Reserve Basin almost a year after the conclusion of the Great War, awaiting a very near future that would turn nearly all of them into recycled scrap iron or sunk in live fire exercises.
Courtesy of Frank Jankowski, 1981. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 92300
Ships in the front row are, from left to right: USS Iowa (BB-4), USS Massachusetts (BB-2), USS Indiana (BB-1), USS Kearsarge (BB-5), USS Kentucky (BB-6), and USS Maine (BB-10), while at least three other battlewagons are in the rear, almost certainly including USS Missouri (BB-11) and USS Ohio (BB-12). Although some including the three Maine-class ships were rather “low mileage” — Ohio had only joined the fleet 15 years prior and had spent much of her latter career in ordinary, only venturing out of mothballs for summer midshipman cruises– others were relics of the Span-Am War, with Indiana credited with having dispatched two Spanish destroyers at the Battle of Santiago.
While all had seen updates in their service life, switching from pole masts and the gleaming paint schemes and bow crests of the Great White Fleet days to lattice masts and haze grey, they could not compete with the new way of war. For instance, a single Colorado-class super-dreadnought, the first of which would enter service in 1921, weighed 32,000 tons and carried eight 16-inch guns compared to Indiana’s circa 1893 10,000-ton displacement and main battery of four 13″/35s.
Of the above nine or ten battleships, all save for Kearsarge— the only United States Navy battleship not named after a state– would be sold for scrap or sunk (Iowa and Massachusetts) by 1923 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. They were left to be remembered only by their silver services, bells, and bow crests, typically preserved somewhere in their namesake states.
Soon after the above image was snapped, Kearsarge was converted into a cruising heavy-lift crane ship (AB-1) in 1920, then was unimaginatively renamed Crane Ship No. 1 in 1941, before being finally sold for scrap in 1955.
Heavy Lift Crane Ship No1,(Ex Lead Ship, Battleship USS Kearsarge) pictured in dry dock at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston. c.1925.
During her “second life,” Kearsarge raised the lost submarine USS Squalus in 1939 and would lift into place much of the heavy guns, turrets, and armor for cruisers and battleships constructed or rebuilt at Norfolk/Newport News through 1945. Here, she is seen, left, alongside the new SoDak-class fast battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), right, fitting out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1942. Note the size difference between the two hulls. NH 57767
Interestingly, the wreck of Massachusetts scuttled off Pensacola in shallow water in 1923, was still used as a target through WWII when she passed to the ownership of the state of Florida.
Following up on our Warship Wednesday this week, which covered the Great War-era Admiralty Strath-class “battle trawler” HMT William Barnett (3632) and its later life as the French Navy’s auxiliary minesweeper Roche Noire during WWII, how about a great series of related period maritime art?
British portrait painter, landscape artist, and printmaker Francis Edgar Dodd, RA, turned 40 as the “lamps are going out all over Europe.”
Volunteering to serve as an Official War Artist during World War I, he spent some time at sea with the hired trawler HMT Mackenzie (Adty No 336) during the conflict.
One of more than 1,400 British trawlers taken up from trade— some dating back to 1880– Mackenzie was built in 1911 (Hull-reg H.349) and retained her original name while in naval service. A craft of some 335 tons, she was hired in August 1914 and would remain in RN service, armed with a single 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun, likely taken from an old torpedo boat or battleship fighting top.
Primarily serving as a minesweeper, Mackenzie was returned to her owner in 1919.
She was one of the lucky ones. Of the 1,456 hired trawlers used by the British during the war, 266 were lost during the conflict including no less than 142 to enemy action. They fought a war very much as real as those with the Grand Fleet at Jutland.
Dodd captured the life on Mackenzie in great detail. You can almost smell the pipes’ smoke and coal dust.
