Warship Wednesday, May 8, 2019: Vladivostok’s Red Pennant
Here we see the Russian steam gunboat Adm. Zavoyko bobbing around in Shanghai harbor sometime in 1921, as you may observe from the local merchants plying their wares. When this photo was taken, she was perhaps the only seagoing member of a Russian fleet on the Pacific side of the globe. Funny story there.
Built at the Okhta shipyard in St. Petersburg for the Tsar’s government in 1910-11, she was named after the 19th century Imperial Russian Navy VADM Vasily Stepanovich Zavoyko, known for being the first Kamchatka governor and Port of Petropavlovsk commander, the latter of which he famously defended from a larger Anglo-French force during the Crimean War.
This guy:
The riveted steel-hulled modified yacht with an ice-strengthened nose was some 142.7-feet long at the waterline and weighed in at just 700-tons, able to float in just 10 feet of calm water. Powered by a single fire tube boiler, her triple expansion steam engine could propel her at up to 11.5-knots while her schooner-style twin masts could carry an auxiliary sail rig. She was capable of a respectable 3,500 nm range if her bunkers were full of coal and she kept it under 8 knots.
Ostensibly operated by Kamchatka governor and intended for the needs of the local administration along Russia’s remote Siberian coast, carrying mail, passengers and supplies, the government-owned vessel was not meant to be a military ship– but did have weight and space reserved fore and aft for light mounts to turn her into something of an auxiliary cruiser in time of war (more on this later).
Sailing for the Far East in the summer of 1911, when war was declared in August 1914, the white-hulled steamer was transferred to the Siberian Flotilla (the largest Russian naval force in the Pacific after the crushing losses to the Japanese in 1905) and used as a dispatch ship for that fleet.
Now the Siberian Flotilla in 1914, under VADM Maximilian Fedorovich von Schulz– the commander of the cruiser Novik during the war with Japan– was tiny, with just the two cruisers Askold and Zhemchug (the latter of which was soon sunk by the German cruiser Emden) the auxiliary cruisers Orel and Manchu; two dozen assorted destroyers/gunboats/minelayers of limited military value, seven cranky submarines and the icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigach. As many of these were soon transferred to the West and Arctic in 1915 once the Germans had been swept from the Pacific, our little steamer, armed with machine guns and a 40mm popgun, proved an increasingly important asset used to police territorial waters.
ADMIRAL ZAVOYKO 1917
By 1917, with the Siberian Flotilla down to about half the size that it began the war with– and no ships larger than a destroyer– the 6,000 sailors and officers of the force were ripe for revolutionary agitation. As such, Adm. Zavoyko raised a red flag on her masts on 29 November while in Golden Horn Bay, the first such vessel in the Pacific to do so.
She kept her red pennant flying, even as Allies landed intervention forces at Vladivostok.
Japanese marines in a parade of Allied forces in Vladivostok before British, French and American sailors, 1918
As for the rest of the Siberian Flotilla, it largely went on blocks with its crews self-demobilizing and many jacks heading home in Europe. The fleet commander, Von Schulz, was cashiered and left for his home in the Baltics where he was killed on the sidelines of the Civil War in 1919.
By then, it could be argued that the 60 (elected) officers and men of the Adm. Zavoyko formed the only active Russian naval force of any sort in the Pacific.
In early April 1920, with the counter-revolutionary White Russian movement in their last gasps during the Civil War, the lukewarm-to- Moscow/Pro-Japanese Far Eastern Republic was formed with its capital in the Siberian port. It should be noted that the FER kind of wanted to just break away from the whole Russia thing and go its own way, much like the Baltics, Caucuses, Ukraine, Finland, and Poland had done already. Their much-divided 400~ representative Constituent Assembly consisted of about a quarter Bolsheviks with sprinklings of every other political group in Russia including Social Revolutionaries, Cadets (which had long ago grown scarce in Russia proper), Mensheviks, Socialists, and Anarchists. This produced a weak buffer state between Soviet Russia and Imperial Japan.
This thing:
The Far Eastern Republic ran from the Eastern shores of Lake Baikal to Vladivostok and only existed from 1920-23.
Now flying the (still-red) flag of the FER, Adm. Zavoyko was soon dispatched to bring a cache of arms to Red partisans operating against the last armed Whites on the coast of the Okhotsk and Bering Seas.
However, after Adm. Zavoyko left Vladivostok, the local demographics in its homeport changed dramatically. By early 1921, the population of the city had swelled to over 400,000 (up from the 97,000 who had lived there in 1916) as the White Army retreated east. With the blessing of the local Japanese forces– all the other Allies had left the city– the Whites took over the city in a coup on May 26 from the Reds of the Far Eastern Republic. As the Japanese were cool with that as well, it was a situation that was allowed to continue with the Whites in control of Vladivostok and the Reds in control of the rest of the FER, all with the same strings pulled by Tokyo. To consolidate their assets, the Whites ordered Adm. Zavoyko back to Vladivostok to have her crew and flags swapped out.
This put Adm. Zavoyko in the peculiar position of being the sole “navy” of an ostensibly revolutionary Red republic cut off from her country’s primary port. With that, she sailed for Shanghai, China and remained a fleet in being there for the rest of 1921 and into 1922, flying the St. Andrew Flag of the old Russian Navy. There, according to legend, she successfully fended off several plots from foreign actors, Whites, monarchists, and the like to take over the vessel.
By October 25, 1922, the Whites lost their Vladivostok privileges as the Japanese decided to quit their nearly five-year occupation of Eastern Siberia and the Amur region. White Russian RADM Georgii Karlovich Starck, who had held the rank of captain in the old Tsarist Navy and was the nephew of the VADM Starck who was caught napping by the Japanese at Port Arthur in 1904, then somehow managed to scrape together a motley force of 30 ships ranging from fishing smacks and coasters to harbor tugs and even a few of the old gunboats and destroyers of the Siberian Flotilla and sail for Korea with 10,000 White refugees aboard. His pitiful force eventually ended up in Shanghai on 5 December, where it landed its refuges, and then proceeded to sell its vessels (somewhat illegally) in the Philippines the next year, splitting the proceeds with said diaspora. Starck would later die in exile in Paris in 1950. His second in command, White RADM Vasily Viktorovich Bezoire (who in 1917 was only a lieutenant), remained in Shanghai and was later killed by the Japanese in 1941.
As for Adm. Zavoyko, once the FER voted to self-dissolve and become part of Soviet Russia, she lowered her St. Andrew’s flag, raised the Moscow flag, and sailed back home to the now-all-Soviet Vladivostok in March 1923 where became a unit of the Red Banner Fleet– the only one in the Pacific until 1932.
To commemorate her service during the Revolution and Civil War, her old imperialist name was changed to Krasny Vympel (Red Pennant). She was also up-armed, picking up four 75mm guns in shielded mounts, along with a gray scheme to replace her old white one.
For the next several years she was used to fight pockets of anarchists and White guards that persisted along the coast, engage stateless warlords, pirates, and gangs along the Amur, and shuffle government troops across the region as the sole Soviet naval asset in the area. She also helped recover former Russian naval vessels towed by the Japanese to Northern Sakhalin Island (where the Japanese remained in occupation until 1925).
In 1929, she stood to and supported the Northern Pacific leg of the Strana Sovetov (Land of the Soviets) seaplanes which flew from Moscow to New York. After that, with her neighborhood quieting down, she was used for training and coastal survey work but kept her guns installed– just in case.
Tupolev TB-1 Strana Sovyetov floatplane, 1929. The two planes would cover some 21,000 km to include a hop from Petrovavlask to Attu, which our vessel assisted with.
During WWII, with the revitalized Soviet Pacific Fleet much larger, Adm. Zavoyko/Krasny Vympel kept on in her role as an armed surveillance vessel and submarine tender, occasionally running across and destroying random mines sewn by Allied and Japanese alike.
In 1958, after six years of service to the Tsar, five years to various non-Soviet Reds, and 35 to the actual Soviets, she was retired but retained as a floating museum ship in her traditional home of Vladivostok in Golden Horn Bay.
Krasny Vympel 1973, via Fleetphoto.ru
Today, she remains a popular tourist attraction. She was extensively rebuilt in 2014 and, along with the Stalinets-class Red Banner Guards Submarine S-56 and several ashore exhibits, forms the Museum of Military Glory of the Pacific Fleet.
Krasny Vympel 75mm guns and Maxim, via Fleetphoto.ru
She has been the subject of much maritime art:
As well as the cover of calendars, postcards, pins, medals, and buttons.
Displacement — 700 t
Length: 173.2 ft. overall (142.7 ft. waterline)
Beam: 27.88 ft.
Draft: 10 ft.
Engineering: 550 HP on one Triple expansion steam engine, one coal-fired boiler
Speed: 11.5 knots; 3500 nm at 8
Crew: 60
Armament:
(1914)
1 x 40mm Vickers
2 x Maxim machine guns
(1923)
4 x 75-mm low-angle
1 x 40mm Vickers
2 x Maxim machine guns
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Today, let us celebrate a modern warrior king, or grand duke, as it was.
Related to King Louis XIV through his father and the famed Dutch-German House of Nassau through his mother, Jean Benoît Guillaume Robert Antoine Louis Marie Adolphe Marc d’Aviano was born at Berg Castle in Luxembourg on 5 January 1921 and was the eldest son of Grand Duchess Charlotte, who had assumed the duchy’s throne the previous year immediately after the country was liberated from the Kaiser’s forces by the Allies.
Jean was sent to Ampleforth College in England at age 13, where he served in the school’s officer’s training corps which was commanded by a Great War-era Grenadier Guards officer. When he returned home from abroad in 1938 at the age of 17, Jean was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Corps des Gendarmes et Volontaires— the country’s mixed two-company police and volunteer corps.
(Photos: Collection MNHM /Cour Grand Ducale MNHM – Musée National d’Histoire Militaire Luxumbourg)
On 10 May 1940, three German panzer divisions swept through the Duchy and by the end of the day the Luxembourgish forces had laid down their arms. The royal family fled to England and later the U.S. to set up a government in exile. This “Free Luxembourg” government later raised a 70-man force overseas who formed a four-gun artillery battery attached to the Free Belgian Brigade.
As for Jean, he fell back on his previous experience in British officer training and, after a stint at Sandhurst, joined the 3rd battalion, Irish Guards, as a lieutenant in 1943.
He landed at Normandy at Arromanches five days after D-Day and went on to serve as a liaison officer with the rank of captain in the 32nd Brigade, fighting in the Battle of Caen– which was no pushover-– and in the liberation of Brussels.
He reentered Luxembourg in September 1944 but kept on trucking with the British Army through Arnheim and the fight into Germany itself, only retiring from active British service in 1947. He would later serve as the Irish Guard’s titular Colonel from 1984 through 2000.
When he became Grand Duke in 1964, he became head of the country’s military, which by 1967 was expanded to a full brigade in size under NATO. Having been decidedly beefed up after its experiences in 1914 and 1940, the Duchy moved to conscription to swell the ranks.
Jean retained his rank of general until he left the throne, retiring in favor of his son, Henri, in 2000 at age 79, having first put on a uniform more than six decades prior.
Grand Duke Jean died 23 April, aged 98.
His mortal remains will be exhibited at the Grand-Ducal Palace of Luxembourg with the public eager to pay a last tribute to his royal highness is invited:
Thursday, May 2, from 10.00 to 12.00 and from 14.00 to 19.00.
Friday, May 3 from 10.00 to 12.00 and from 14.00 to 16.00.
Warship Wednesday, May 1, 2019: Indy Radio (on May Day)
(All photos: Chris Eger)
Here we see an immense– and operational— vacuum tube of a General Electric Model TAJ-19 radio complete with its original 1942 U.S. Navy Bu Ships data plates. The location? The entry level of the Indiana War Memorial, home to the USS Indy Radio Exhibit which is dedicated not only to the famous heavy cruiser of the same name but also to all WWII U.S. Navy radiomen and radio techs.
The radio room exhibit, which I stumbled on last Sunday while in town for the NRA Annual Meetings while on the job with Guns.com, was manned by four big-hearted gentlemen who lovingly cared for the very well maintained cabinets. Their ham call sign is WW2IND for you guys looking for QSL cards.
The TAJ-19 is a 500-watt CW and 250-watt MCW transmitter that operated from 175kc up to 600kc and was used on just about everything the Navy had in WWII that was bigger than a destroyer escort. This one is still operational…
Over 32 volunteers worked since 2008 to establish the radio room, sourcing some 174 items from across the country to include surplus equipment from the period battleships USS Iowa and USS Alabama.
Bravo Zulu, gentlemen!
As for the War Memorial itself, they have an amazing collection which I will get to more in future posts including extensive space dedicated to the USS Vincennes, to both modern USS Indiana‘s (Battleships No. 1 and 58), as well as the above-mentioned cruiser, and the more modern attack sub that shares her same name.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
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The British Army has long included Highland regiments, hardy units recruited in Scotland– that in some cases were established long before the British Army was. Kilt-wearing regiments included such storied outfits as the 42nd Foot/Royal Highlanders/Black Watch, Cameron Highlanders, Gordon Highlanders, the Seaforth Highlanders, and the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.
Many of these regiments still issued the knee-length pleated uniform kilt for field dress as late as 1942 and Highlanders sent to France with the BEF went to the Continent in 1939 wearing their traditional uniforms.
Today the pipers of the Scots Guards and the Jocks of the Royal Regiment of Scotland as a whole still wear the Type 1A Military Kilt on occasion (although the latter includes several lowland regiments that have been amalgamated) and to keep you straight on how to do that properly, check out the hilarious instruction from CSgt Benson, Master Tailor of 2 Scots, below:
World War II in the Pacific began (unless you ask the Chinese or French) on 2 December 1941 with the famous “Niitakayama Nobore” (Climb Mount Niitaka) signal sent to Nagumo’s flagship to clear the way for Yamamoto Kido Butai force of a half-dozen aircraft carriers to turn towards Hawaii and attack Pearl Harbor on the morning of the 7th.
Interestingly, the U.S. military has, since the final days of WWII, instituted the common practice of posing warplanes over Mount Fujisan, just outside of Tokyo, which I always took as a bit of historic payback.
Corsairs Fringe Fuji. Painting, Wash and Scratch Board by Standish Backus 1945 NHHC 88-186-AC
Grumman F9F-6 Cougar Jet Fighters Fly in formation over Mount Fuji, Japan, 12 December 1954. They are from USS YORKTOWN’s (CVA-10), VF -153. Plane in the foreground is BU 128209. 80-G-K- 17821
F9F Panthers over Mt. Fuji, c.1957
Formation of VA-22 A4C “Skyhawk” aircraft over Mt. Fuji, Japan, 27 April 1964. NHHC
MOUNT FUJI, Japan (April 12, 2007) – Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 perform a formation flight in front of Mount Fuji. CVW-5 is embarked aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63).U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Hodge
Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 267 AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom helicopters past Mount Fuji, Shizuoka, Japan, March 12, 2017. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Andy Martinez)
Warship Wednesday, April 24, 2019: The Tiger with 17 Battle Stars to Prove It
Official U.S. Navy Photographs, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command, NH 97488-KN and NH 92237
Here we see the Essex-class fleet carrier USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, 26 June 1944 and two rebuilds later, as CVS-14 with her rails manned, circa 1970, following conversion to an anti-submarine warfare support aircraft carrier. What a difference 26 years makes!
To put into perspective the degree of change this was, look at these two shots of aircraft operating from her decks during her career. These blend Grumman F6F-5N Hellcat night fighters preparing to take off for strikes against targets in Manila Bay during the 5-6 November 1944 attacks (80-G-305244) and an A-4 Skyhawk landing on board, after a simulated strike on enemy forces during an operational readiness inspection, 18 January 1963 with an A-3B Sky Warrior and F-3 Demon are parked on the carrier’s after flight deck.
Ticonderoga was one of 24 Essex-class fleet carriers started during World War II that was completed. Another eight sister-ships never were. We have covered the Essex class before, with the Mighty Oriskany and the “Happy Valley” aka USS Valley Forge, but hey, these were some great ships and the Ticonderoga has one hell of a story.
Like many of the class, Ticonderoga owes her name to a Revolutionary War action, namely, the seizing of Fort Ticonderoga from the British on 10 May 1775, by Ethan Allen and his “Green Mountain Boys” who held it for two years.
Three previous ships before our carrier shared the moniker:
Catalog #: NH 42415 NH 45373 NH 2258
During the War of 1812, Lt. Stephen Cassin’s 17-gun schooner Ticonderogawas in the battle line at the Naval Battle of Plattsburgh where the ship “played an important role in the victory. Her guns engaged nearly every British vessel on the line and raked the British flagship at a critical juncture in the battle,” according to NHHC. Cassin was awarded a gold medal for bravery by Congress and went on to become a Commodore with two later destroyers (DD-43 & DD-372) named after him.
In April 1917, the U.S. government seized the interned German flag merchant steamer Kamilla Rickmers and renamed her Ticonderoga (ID # 1958) in January 1918. Sadly, she was sunk after an epic two-hour gun battle, with the loss of 213 lives, by the German submarine U-152 on 30 September 1918, one of the most significant blows to the U.S. Navy in the Great War. Just 22 survivors spent four days in one lifeboat until a passing ship rescued them. Her skipper, LCDR James J. Madison, USNRF, received the Medal of Honor and the USS Madison (DD-425) was later named after him.
Laid down originally as Hancock on 1 February 1943 at Newport News, Va., by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. our subject was renamed Ticonderoga before she was even launched and commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 8 May 1944, CPT. Dixie Kiefer (USNA 1918) in command.
Kiefer was a carrier man through-and-through having made the first ever night take-off from a warship in 1924 and gone on to become the carrier Yorktown (CV-5)‘s XO, picking up the DSO at the Coral Sea and a Navy Cross at Midway. When Yorktown was during that battle, Kiefer shattered his right leg while escaping the doomed ship. He was a fighter and would go on to command a fighting ship.
USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) being pushed by tugboats at Naval Air Station Hampton Roads, Virginia (USA) on 30 May 1944, shortly after delivery to the Navy by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. She is wearing camouflage Measure 33, Design 10A. Note the cut-out space on the port side of the flight deck forward of the elevator where a third Mk 37 gun director should have been placed. It was omitted from the design as its antenna protruded above the level of the flight deck. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.039.014
USS TICONDEROGA (CV-14) In Hampton Roads, Virginia, 26 June 1944. NH 92239
Same view day, different view, NH 92238
She soon sailed for the Pacific, an ocean she would call home for 30 years and two lengthy, bitter wars during which her crew invariably labeled the ship Tyco or Tico and themselves Tigers. As such, she arrived at Ulithi Atoll in the Western Carolines on the 29 October and embarked RADM A. W. Radford, Commander, Carrier Division 6, joining TF-38, and was part of the famed “Murderers Row ” photo.
“Murderers’ Row” Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944, during a break from operations in the Philippines area. The carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Wasp, Yorktown, and Ticonderoga are all painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a. Photographed from a USS Ticonderoga plane. 80-G-294131
USS TICONDEROGA (CV-14) at Ulithi Fleet Anchorage, 8 December 1944, while part of “Murderer’s Row” 80-G-K-2589
She was soon pounding the Philippines, providing extended air cover for the ground forces capturing Leyte. DANFS notes that “Her planes bombed and strafed the airfields at Zablan, Mandaluyong, and Pasig. They also joined those of other carriers in sending the heavy cruiser Nachi to a watery resting place. In addition, Ticonderoga pilots claimed six Japanese aircraft shot down and one destroyed on the ground, as well as 23 others, damaged.”
US aerial attack on Manila Bay, Philippines, by planes from USS Ticonderoga (CV 14), 13 November 1944 80-G-272702
80-G-272703
Of course, being so close enough to strike Japanese targets meant that Japanese targets could also strike back at Tico.
During air action off Luzon, the Philippines, Japanese Zero fighter in a suicide crash dive registers a near miss on USS Ticonderoga (CV 14) November 5, 1944 80-G-289986
She would soon come to raid Japanese ships and bases in occupied French Indochina (Vietnam), a region she would later come to know very well. “There, on the 12th [of January], they launched their approximately 850 planes and made a series of anti-shipping sweeps during which they sank a whopping 44 ships, totaling over 130,000 tons.”
Saigon River Front, French Indochina, Caption: Ships and installations afire after aerial attack by carrier-based planes of US Pacific fleet, 12 January 1945. Taken by plane from USS TICONDEROGA (CV-14) #: 80-G-301944
Less than two weeks later, while attacking Japanese positions on Formosa, our carrier ran out of luck.
On 21 January 1945, Ticonderoga was hit by not one but two back-to-back Japanese kamikazes, suffering 144 killed and at least another 200 injured. The first plane crashed through the ship’s flight deck abreast of the No. 2 5-inch mount, and its bomb exploded just above her hangar deck. Kiefer responded by ordering flooding to put a 10-degree list on the ship, causing the flaming wreckage to slip overboard.
USS Ticonderoga (CV 14) afire after a bomb hit by Japanese suicide plane at Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands. As seen from USS Vincennes (CL 14), 21 January 1945. 80-G-343576
The second kamikaze smashed into carrier’s starboard side near the island, setting more planes on fire as the carrier was still recovering from the first. The resulting explosion injured Kiefer, with 65 wounds from bomb shrapnel and a broken arm, but the Captain who stuck it through until Yorktown went down remained on the bridge for another 11 hours. He would later receive the Distinguished Service Cross from Navy Secretary Forrestal who called him the “Indestructible Man.”
USS Ticonderoga (CV 14). Shown Damage to island structure from Japanese kamikaze dive from the night of 20-21 January 1945 80-G-264996
USS Ticonderoga (CV 14). Shown: Damage to the flight deck from Japanese kamikaze dive from the night of 20-21 January 1945. Photographed by PHOM Peters and PHOM Quillinan, January 22, 1945. 80-G-264995
Bomb hole in flight deck from dropped by a Kamikaze plane that hit the ship’s forward elevator, off Formosa, 21 January 1945. Crewmen in the background are cleaning up debris from the hit. 80-G-273223
Wrecked plane on the hangar deck, after fires where the first Kamikaze hit received off Formosa, 21 January 1945. 80-G-273213
USS Ticonderoga (CV 14). Damage to hangar deck from Japanese kamikaze dive from the night of 20-21 January 1945 80-G-264994
Bomb penetration in the gallery deck, looking up and aft from the hanger deck. The bomb dropped by the first of two Kamikaze planes which hit the ship off Formosa, 21 January 1945, passed through the flight deck to enter the gallery deck here. 80-G-273226
Still, Tico was soon underway under her own power with all fires out.
Ticonderoga Underway with “all fires out”, after being hit twice by Kamikazes of Formosa, 21 January 1945. Note: fire damage to her island. Photographed from USS ESSEX (CV-9) #: 80-G-373726
She headed back to the West Coast under her own steam, arriving at Puget Sound Navy Yard on 15 February. She would remain there for repairs, only heading back to Ulithi in May. There, she rejoined TF-38 and by June Ticonderoga‘s fighters were strafing airfields on Kyushu.
In July, “her planes joined those of other fast carriers in striking ships in the Inland Sea and airfields at Nagoya, Osaka, and Miko. During those raids, TF 38 planes found the sad remnants of the once-mighty Japanese Fleet and bagged battleships Ise, Hyuga, and Haruna as well as an escort carrier, Kaiyo, and two heavy cruisers. On 28 July, her aircraft directed their efforts toward the Kure Naval Base, where they pounded an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, a destroyer, and a submarine.”
Early August saw raids on Tokyo and she entered the Bay there at peace on 6 September. After a series of Magic Carpet missions taking returning GIs home to the states, she was placed out of commission on 9 January 1947 and berthed with the Bremerton Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet.
USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) San Francisco Bay, California, following the end of World War II, circa late 1945 or early 1946. A blimp is in the background. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1973 NH 77366
The war was the end of Dixie Kiefer. The hard-to-kill carrier man died at age 49 on 11 November 1945 in the crash of a transport plane on Mount Beacon, New York. He is buried at Arlington.
After a period in mothballs, Tico was returned to service during the Korean War and sent for an SCB-27C conversion to better suit the new jet planes that filled the Navy’s hangars, installing catapults and better aircraft handling systems. On 11 September 1954, Ticonderoga recommissioned but was soon further converted to SCB-125 format– one of just 14 such Essex-class carriers given the angled deck/hurricane bow improvements. This earned her a new designation, as an attack carrier (CVA 14).
By late 1957, she was on her first West Pac deployment since 1945. She would make six more by 1964.
80-G-1010802 USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), full stern view, March 1957.
USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) moored at a pier, probably at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. On deck are various aircraft of Carrier Air Group 5 (CVG-5) which had been assigned to the Ticonderoga for a deployment to the Western Pacific from 10 May 1961 to 15 January 1962. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.039.045
In the first U.S. naval action off Vietnam, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, Tico was there. On 2 August 1964, she sent rocket-armed F-8E Crusaders to respond to urgent calls from the destroyer Maddox (DD-731), who had reported being attacked by North Vietnamese Navy PT boats, leaving one boat dead in the water and damaging the other two. A few days later her planes reportedly destroyed another 25 boats at dock in a retaliatory strike.
When she would return to Vietnam in 1965, it would be as a full-time warfighter, delivering some 10,000 combat sorties from her position on Dixie and Yankee Stations, losing 16 planes to enemy fire and accident.
Just days after the first major U.S. engagement in Vietnam, at the of Ia Drang Valley, near Christmas 1965, Bob Hope and his cast of supporting acts landed on Tico and entertained her 2,000-man crew, famously hitting golf balls off her deck.
Entertainer Bob Hope tees-off on the flight deck aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) during his visit to the carrier off the coast of Vietnam on 26 December 1965. USN Photo 030728-N-0000X-001
Bob Hope during the 1965 Christmas show aboard the USS Ticonderoga back when the Navy was hairier. GARY COOPER STARS AND STRIPES
As reported by Stars and Stripes “Some of the men, exhausted from launching strike after strike recently, were almost too tired to watch the show. One rolled over and mumbled to a buddy, ‘wake me when the broads come on.’
The 2-hour long Christmas Special was broadcast at home on NBC for the country to get a soda straw window into Vietnam through the carefully controlled lens.
USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) Refueling from USS Ashtabula (AO-51), while operating off the coast of Vietnam, circa early 1966. Although seas were running very high, the ships completed replenishment and Ticonderoga received 175,000 gallons of black oil. The original print was received by the All Hands magazine Editorial Department on 14 February 1966. NH 97487
Back to Yankee Station in 1966-67, her airwing would run another 11,650 combat sorties, earning a Navy Unit Commendation, her second. Her 1968 deployment saw 13,000 sorties. By early 1969, Tico was on her fifth consecutive combat deployment (third Navy Unit Commendation) to Southeast Asia.
Caption: At sea, the Attack Carrier USS TICONDEROGA (CVA-14) is underway in November 1968. Note her A-3, A-4, and F-8 airwing. USN 1129290
A U.S. Navy Vought F-8H Crusader from Fighter Squadron 111 (VF-111) Sundowners on the forward elevator of the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), 1969.
In 1970, she would be given a reprieve from operating A-4s, F-8s and the like off Vietnam and Ticonderoga was re-designated (CVS-14), tasked with ASW combat for which she carried SH-3 sub-hunting helicopters and S-2 Tracker patrol planes. Her next two West Pac cruises were spent in exercises with allied nations and in the quieter past-time that was keeping tabs on Soviet subs.
USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14) lit up for Christmas at Naval Air Station North Island, California in December 1971. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.039.067
USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14) underway off San Diego, California, after departing Naval Air Station, North Island, for her final Western Pacific deployment, 17 May 1972. USN 1152586
It was during this time she came to be loaned out to support NASA on three different, but noteworthy occasions.
In April 1972, HC-1 Sea Kings from USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14) recovered Apollo 16, returning from an 11-day mission to the moon that brought back 213 lbs. of lunar material.
The Pacific Ocean. A view of the recovery carrier for the Apollo 16, USS Ticonderoga (CVS 14) with Apollo 16 spelled out on the flight deck. Photographed by PH1 Carl R. Begy on April 29, 1972. 428-GX-USN 1152791
The mission was repeated in December 1972 with Apollo 17. Then, HC-1 was used about 200 miles east of Pago Pago in the South Pacific to recover the last manned mission to the moon (a footnote that still stands).
A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3G Sea King (BuNo 149930) of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 1 (HC-1) “Pacific Fleet Angels” recovers an Apollo 17 astronaut on 19 December 1972, with the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14) in the background. NASA Photo ap17-S72-55974.
A water-level view of the Apollo 17 Command Module (CM) floating in the Pacific Ocean following splashdown and prior to recovery. The prime recovery ship, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVS-14), is in the background. When this picture was taken, the three-man crew of astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans and Harrison H. Schmitt, had already been picked up by helicopter and flown to the deck of the recovery ship. The spacecraft was later hoisted aboard the USS Ticonderoga. A United States Navy UDT swimmer stands on the flotation collar. Apollo 17 splashdown occurred at 13:24:59 (CST), 19 December 1972, about 350 nautical miles southeast of Samoa. NASA photo: S72-56147
Another key facet of Apollo 17 was the space vessel’s Command Module Pilot, CAPT. Ronald E. Evans, USN, established a record of more time in lunar orbit than anyone else in the world, a record that stands to this day. As a happy coincidence, Evans was flying Vietnam combat operations with VF-51 in F-8 Crusaders aboard Ticonderoga when he heard of his selection to NASA in 1966.
Evans, as a Tiger. He died in 1990.
In June 1973, Tico was tapped again to support NASA and picked up the three-man all-Navy crew (CAPT Charles Conrad Jr., CDR Joseph P. Kerwin, and CDR Paul J. Weitz, USN) of Skylab 2, the first U.S. manned orbiting space station after they had completed 404 orbits.
22 June 1973 The Skylab 2 Command Module, with astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz still inside, floats in the Pacific Ocean following successful splashdown about 835 miles southwest of San Diego, California. The prime recovery ship, USS Ticonderoga, approaches from the left background. A recovery helicopter hovers in the foreground. The three Skylab 2 crewmen had just completed a 28-day stay with the Skylab 1 space station in Earth orbit conducting numerous medical, scientific and technological experiments. NASA Photo S73-29147
On 1 September 1973, the old carrier, which had picked up 17 battle stars (5 WWII, 12 Vietnam) was found to be unfit for further naval service. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 16 November 1973 and she was sold for scrap the next year to Zidell Explorations Corp. for a bid of $601,999.99 (she had originally cost Uncle $78 million in 1944 dollars to build).
USS TICONDEROGA (CVA-14) Being scrapped at Tacoma, Washington, 1975. NH 89301
Her bell is preserved aboard Naval Station North Island.
USS Ticonderoga Veterans’ Association
As for her sisters, only four (of 24) remained with the fleet longer than Tico did– Intrepid (decommissioned 1974), Hancock (1976), Oriskany (1976) and Lexington (1990). Today, four Essex-class carriers are semi-preserved (Intrepid, Lexington, Yorktown, and Hornet) as floating museums.
Tico is remembered in several works of maritime art in the public collection.
USS TICONDEROGA (CVS-14) Port side view showing the launching of S-2 and SH-3 units of HELISUPRON-1. NH 78896-KN
USS Ticonderoga at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. “After nearly thirty years of service to the Navy starting in World War II, one of USS Ticonderoga’s last missions was the recovery of the astronauts of Apollo 17. The artwork shows the ship waiting at Pearl Harbor for orders to go on station near American Samoa.” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Paul D. Ortlip; 1972; Framed Dimensions 25H X 31W Accession #: 88-162-OZ
“Back from the Moon, The press conference given by the astronauts” Painting, Oil on Canvas; by Paul D. Ortlip; 1972; Framed Dimensions 57H X 76W Accession #: 88-162-OR Apollo 17 was the sixth and final manned mission to the moon. Captain Eugene Cernan, USN, Captain Ronald Evans, USN, and Harrison Schmidt are greeted by dignitaries, the press and crew of USS TICONDEROGA upon their return.
After Tico‘s removal from the fleet, a new class of guided missile cruisers was commissioned, beginning with the lead ship (CG-47) named Ticonderoga.
USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) Transiting the Suez Canal en route to the Mediterranean Sea, following a deployment in support of Operation Desert Shield, 22 August 1990. Photographer: PH3 Frank A. Marquart. NH 106516-KN
Both the carrier and cruiser’s flames are kept alive by the well-organized USS Ticonderoga Veterans’ Association who are actively requesting a new warship be named after their vessels.
And of course, all the former Ticos are remembered and celebrated at the New York town of the same name and by the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, where a display of artifacts to the ships exists.
Of the men Tico brought back home from space, Navy CAPT. Eugene Andrew Cernan, the last man to walk on the lunar surface, died in 2017, aged 82. The former Skylab 2 crew, Kerwin- Conrad-Weitz, have all since joined their friends on the wall. This leaves just Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, and Charles “Charlie” Duke, both 83, of Apollo 16 and 17, respectively, still on this side of the wall.
Specs:
USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) At sea off the Philippines, just prior to her first strike against the Japanese, 5 November 1944. The ship is painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a. NH 92243
Displacement: As built:
27,100 tons standard
Length: As built:
888 feet (271 m) overall
Beam: As built:
93 feet (28 m) waterline
Draft: As built:
28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m) light
Propulsion: As designed:
8 × boilers
4 × Westinghouse geared steam turbines
4 × shafts
150,000 shp (110 MW)
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h)
Complement: 3448 officers and enlisted
Armament: As built:
4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns
4 × single 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns
8 × quadruple Bofors 40 mm guns
46 × single Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
Armor: As built:
4-inch (100 mm) belt
2.5-inch (60 mm) hangar deck
1.5-inch (40 mm) protective decks
1.5-inch (40 mm) conning tower
Aircraft carried: As built:
90–100 aircraft
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
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During WWII, Miami Shipbuilding Corp. cranked out some 740 63-foot AVRs (Auxiliary, Vessel, Rescue) for use in coastal search and rescue with as many as 200 being promptly sent as Lend-Lease to overseas allies. As most were co-located near seaside airbases and used to respond to downed planes they were typically dubbed “Crash Boats.”
Post-war, the type was largely sold off or abandoned, leaving very few to live on past the 1950s.
Speaking of which, this bad boy is up for grabs in British Columbia (via Craigslist of all things) :
The stunning P-619 is a WW2 AVR and is a major piece of US naval history. She is the last remaining AVR in the world in original military layout. Consigned by the USN, she was built in Oct/Nov 1943 by the Miami Shipbuilding Corp. Immediately transferred to the USAAF, she served in the Pacific from 1943-45. She went back to the Navy after the War and was stationed at a Sacramento air base until the ’50s when she left active service.
I acquired the boat in 2006 and began restoration which has involved hundreds of thousands of dollars and many thousands of hours. The boat is in excellent condition and while not all details have been completed, she is fully operational as a cruising vessel. She is very well built with a double planked hull of gorgeous Honduras mahogany, aircraft cloth, and fir. There are currently two Gray Marine 6-71s supplying power, and at 8 knots, consumption is about 6 gph. Supplied with the sale are four of the original Hall-Scott V12s with gears. Two of these motors are USN rebuilds (only one has been run) and the other two are apart and supplied on pallets. The two on pallets came from the boat used the 1997 movie McHale’s Navy. When installed, the boat could reach upwards of 40 knots when unladen.
I personally have run out of steam on completing details and the install of the V12s and would like to see someone(or some group) in the Washington area, acquire and look after our girl. Thus, our ‘crew’ could pay regular visits.
22 April 1944: British paratroopers prepare for a practice jump from an RAF Dakota, based at Down Ampney in Wiltshire. Imperial War Museums (TR 1662)
The British 1st Airborne division was formed in late 1941 after Churchill, demanded an airborne force, and was initially under command of Major-General Frederick A. M. Browning.
By the end of the war, the Brits had 17 parachute battalions in two full divisions (1st and 6th) as well as the 11th SAS, eight air landing (glider) battalions including a whole unit of the Black Watch, a recce regiment, and two entire glider-borne artillery regiments equipped first with the First World War vintage 3.7 inch Mountain Howitzer and later with the 75mm U.S. Pack gun.
Warship Wednesday, April 17, 2018: Canadian Snorkel Power
George Metcalf Archival Collection, Canadian War Museum (CWM) 20030014-094
Here we see IXC/40-class submarine U-190 of the German Kriegsmarine sailing to Bay Bulls, Newfoundland in May 1945, under escort by Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) vessels including the Fairmile-type motor launch seen in the distance. If you note, she is flying the RCN’s White Ensign and had just become the country’s first post-WWII submarine.
Boom! The RCN Jack over her conning tower, as the first German submarine, to surrender to the Canadians (and their first sub in service since 1927). Note the sub’s distinctive 8-pointed star crest and her post-commissioning snorkel apparatus. Photo via The Rooms
One of the nearly 200 Type IXC/40s completed during the war, U-190 was laid down in 1941 at DeSchiMAG AG Weser of Bremen and commissioned on 24 September 1942 with Kaptlt. Max Wintermeyer as her first skipper. At some 1,257-tons, she was not a big boat, running just 251-feet overall. However, the class was well designed and capable of 13,000-nm cruises on their economical diesel engines. Able to carry 22 torpedoes and a 4.1-inch deck gun with 180~ shells as well as a Flak armament, they were deadly and efficient killers when it came to stalking Allied merchantmen.
This photograph shows the September 1942 commissioning of the German submarine U-190. As part of the commissioning ceremony, the German navy’s ensign flies from the conning tower (left) and is being given the Nazi salute by the submarine’s commanding officer (center right) and by spectators (lower right). George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 19870078-002
By 1 March 1943, she was assigned to 2 Flottille in Lorient, France.
As noted by Uboat.net, although she conducted six war patrols and took part in at least three North Atlantic wolfpacks (Neuland, Ostmark, and Stürmer), she was not very successful. Her only confirmed merchant victim was the British-flagged freighter Empire Lakeland(7,015-tons) sunk south of Iceland while part of New York-to-Glasgow convoy SC-121 during the submarine’s 111-day 2nd Patrol.
In August 1944, Oblt. Hans-Erwin Reith, 24, took command of the vessel and bugged out for Flensburg as the Allied liberation of France removed Lorient as an operating base. On 19 February 1945, Reith left Horten for U-190‘s final (German) patrol. It would last 85-days, with the crew later saying she spent upwards of 40 days on this patrol snorkeling continuously.
Equipped with a schnorchel and armed with 6 [T-3 Lut] contact torpedoes and eight T-5 Gnat acoustic torpedoes, its mission was to interdict Allied shipping off Sable Island and the approaches to Halifax harbor. It was, in fact, part of the new strategy on the part of the commander-in-chief of the German Navy, Admiral Karl Dönitz, initiated in the dying days of the Nazi regime, to increase pressure on shipping in North American waters in an attempt to ease allied naval pressure in waters closer to home.
There, on 16 April, U-190 encountered a Bangor-class minesweeper, HMCS Esquimalt (J272) and sank her with a single Gnat fired from a stern tube. Esquimalt was the last Canadian warship lost to enemy action during the Second World War (or since, for that matter) and took 39 souls with her to the bottom. U-190 remained submerged for a solid week following this attack, during which time she was hunted by surface vessels, who rained numerous depth charges down upon her decks.
Dönitz had ordered all his U-boats to surrender as from 08:00 5 May, but not all did so immediately.
According to an interrogation report of U-190s crew, it was only on the 11th that U-190 picked up an incomplete version of the surrender orders, to which they responded “An B.d.U.: Seit 12 April ohne F/T. Nach erfolgreicher Unternehmung auf Ruckmarsch. F/T über Kapitulation verstuemmelt aufgenommen. Bitte um nähere Anweisungen”. (“To Admiral Commanding U-boats: Have been without wireless communication since 12 April. Now homeward bound after a successful patrol. Wireless orders about surrender received in a mutilated form. Request fuller details”)
However, Germany never returned their call and on 12 May U-190 surfaced, raised a black flag, tossed her secret papers and gun ammo overboard, and sailed on a heading of 305-degrees while sending surrender signals to New York, Boston, and Cape Race. Soon met by the River-class frigate HMCS Victoriaville (K684) and Flower-class corvette Thorlock (K394) at 43° 54’N., 45° 15′ W, Reith signed a surrender document and deeded his boat over to Canada.
In this sketch by HMCS Victoriaville’s gunnery officer, U-190’s captain surrenders his submarine to the captain of the Canadian frigate, Lieutenant Commander Lester Hickey (center left, with cap). Hans-Erwin Reith (center, with beard), U-190’s commander since July 1944, subsequently signed a deed of unconditional surrender handing over the U-Boat to the Royal Canadian Navy. Lieutenant Bud Burbridge (left) was among the Canadians who would form part of the crew taking U-190 to Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 20030255-010
In the early hours of 12 May 1945, Hans-Erwin Reith, U-190’s commander, signed this document formally surrendering the submarine to the Royal Canadian Navy. Although units of the Royal Canadian Navy had been involved in the boarding or surrender of U-Boats during the war, this document marked the first formal surrender of a German submarine to Canadian forces. Kenneth George Tryon donated this document and related artifacts to the Canadian War Museum in 1968. George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 19680168-009
For the next two days, with a skeleton German crew aboard watched by an armed force of Canadians, U-190 made for Bay Bulls while flying an RCN White Ensign.
Once they arrived, the Germans were transferred ashore to a POW camp.
Canadian war artist Tom Wood’s watercolor depicts German sailors being transferred from U-190 on 14 May 1945. Wood, assigned to paint subjects in eastern Canada and Newfoundland, was present when Canadian ships escorted U-190 to Bay Bulls, south of St. John’s. There, Canadians removed the last of the U-Boat’s crew, who had been operating the vessel under guard. The majority of U-190’s crew had been taken onto Canadian ships at the time of the submarine’s surrender. Beaverbrook Collection of War Art. CWM 19710261-4870
U-190 reached its destination on 14 May.
U190 alongside at Bulls Bay
According to the Crow’s Nest, the 8-pointed star was the Stern von Rio (Star of Rio).” Some say this name came from the boat’s inaugural trip which was supposedly to Rio but others recall it simply as the name to a popular song in Germany at the time. Hirschmann the U-190’s chief engineer, says it was only a compass rose.”
Canada’s early submarine program
The Canadians got into subs in a weird way when in August 1914, Sir Richard McBride, KCMG, the premier of British Columbia, bought a pair of small (144-foot, 300-ton) coastal submarines from Seattle Construction and Drydock Company, an act that your local government normally doesn’t do. The boats had been ordered by Chile who later refused them as not up to snuff.
Sailing for Vancouver in the dark of night as they were technically acquired in violation of a ton of international agreements (and bought for twice the annual budget for the entire Royal Canadian Navy!) they were commissioned as HMCS CC-1 and CC-2. The Dominion Government of Canada later ratified the sale while a subsequent investigation was conducted into how they were acquired.
CC-class
Nonetheless, the two tiny CC boats were the first submarines of the Maple Leaf and continued in service until after the Great War when they were laid up and replaced by a pair of American-made 435-ton H-class submarines from the Royal Navy, HMS H14 and H15, which remained in the Canadian fleet as HMCS CH-14 and CH-15 until broken up in 1927.
H-class
After this, Canada went out of the submarine business– until 1945.
Now back to our U-boat.
Marked “HMC Sub U-190,” for “His Majesty’s Canadian Submarine,” the pennant graphically marked the new ownership of the surrendered submarine, with a bulldog seizing a Nazi eagle by the neck. CWM 19760322-001
The Canadians in May 1945 had two German Type IXC/40 U-boats, sisters U-190 and U-889, both in working condition and constructed in the same builder’s yard. After transferring them on paper to the Royal Navy, they were transferred back (apparently the same day) and both became vessels of the RCN, dubbed HCMS U-190 and U-889.
The navy promptly took U-190 on a tour of eastern Canadian ports before putting it to use for training.
German submarine entering U-190 in St. John’s Harbour Newfoundland, courtesy of The Rooms
German submarine U-190 in St. John’s Harbour Newfoundland, courtesy of The Rooms
German submarine U-190 in St. John’s Harbour Newfoundland, courtesy of The Rooms. Today, her periscope is still there, located since 1963 in The Crow’s Nest Officer’s Club overlooking this very spot.
U-889 in the meantime had been deemed as one of the 10 U-boats allocated to the U.S. by the Tripartite Naval Commission and was decommissioned in December 1945 and transferred to the Yanks who later scuttled her in 1947 after a series of experiments.
U-889 in U.S. service before she was scuttled. The Navy was very interested in her snorkel, as numerous images of it are in the archives. NH 111270
As for U-190, she was soldiered on as Canada’s sole submarine throughout 1946 and into 1947.
In October 1947, the Canadian Navy sank U-190 as a target during Operation Scuttled, a live-fire naval exercise off Halifax– near the site of Esquimalt‘s loss. It was to be epic, with the Tribal-class destroyers HMCS Nootka and HMCS Haida using their 4.7-inch guns and Hedgehog ASW mortars on her after an aerial task force of Seafires, Fireflies, Ansons and Swordfish worked her over with ordnance.
U-190 was the featured star of “Operation Scuttled” staged near the spot where Esquimalt was sunk.
Sadly, the actual show fell far short.
From Michael Hadley’s, U-Boats Against Canada:
Almost before the ships had a chance to enter the act, U-190 pointed its bows into the air after the first rocket attack and slipped silently beneath the sea. And thus, the RCN press release announced with inflated pathos, “the once deadly sea raider came to a swift and ignominious end” – just 19 minutes after “Operation Scuttled” had begun.
Nonetheless, for a destroyed U-boat, U-190 is remarkably well preserved as relics of her are all over North America.
U-190‘s war diary is in the collection of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command
The working Enigma machine recovered on U-190 is now part of the Canadian CSE’s (Communications Security Establishment– the country’s crypto agency) collection of historical artifacts.
The Canadian War Museum has her pennant, star globe, equipment plates, a C.G. Haenel-made MP28/2 Sub-machine Gun seized from her armory (which had been on display at Naval Service Headquarters in Ottawa until 1959) and other gear.
How about a submarine’s submachine gun? The CWM has it, from U-190
And of course, U-190‘s sky periscope, one of just five such instruments preserved worldwide, has long been in the care of the historic Crow’s Nest Officers Club in St. John’s, Newfoundland where its top sticks out over the roof to allow members and visitors to peak out over the harbor.
The periscope has reportedly been there since 1963 (Photo: The Crow’s Nest)
Only a single member of the Type IXC class survives, U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Of the 87 Type IXC/40 subvariants, such as U-190 and U-889, the salvaged hull and conning tower of U-534remains preserved at Birkenhead in England.
As for Reith, he was repatriated to Germany in 1946 and died there in 1987, aged 67. His personal DWM Model 1906 (1st issue) Navy Luger recently came up at auction. Likely presented to him by family or friends on the occasion of his new command, it is marked “U-190.” It appears that it too was surrendered in 1945 and went on to live its own life.
RIAC
Esquimalt was his only victory and she is remembered every year at a public ceremony in the British Columbia that served as her namesake.
Meanwhile, the Canadians took a decade break from subsea ops after U-190 was scuttled but eventually got back into the sub biz, using two U.S. boats, —USS Burrfish (SS-312) and USS Argonaut (SS-475), as HMCS Grilse (SS 71) and Rainbow (SS 75), respectively– from 1961 to 1974. Then they bought their first new subs since CC-1 & CC-2, a trio of British Oberon-class diesel boats– HMCS Ojibwa (S72), Onondaga (S73) and Okanagan (S74), which served from 1965 to 2000. Since then, they have been using the quartet of second-hand RN Upholder-class subs, HMCS Victoria (SSK-876), Windsor (SSK-877), Corner Brook (SSK-878) and Chicoutimi (SSK-879) which are expected to remain in service in some form until the 2030s.
Specs:
U-190 model by Maschinenbau, Gabler CWM 19720073-001
Displacement:
1,144 t (1,126 long tons) surfaced
1,257 t (1,237 long tons) submerged
Length:
251 ft 10 in o/a
192 ft 9 in pressure hull
Beam:
22 ft 6 in o/a
14 ft 7 in pressure hull
Height: 31 ft 6 in
Draught: 15 ft 4 in
Installed power:
4,400 PS (3,200 kW; 4,300 bhp) (diesels)
1,000 PS (740 kW; 990 shp) (electric)
Propulsion:
2 shafts
2 × diesel engines
2 × electric motors
Range:
13,850 nmi at 10 knots surfaced
63 nmi at 4 knots submerged
Test depth: 230 m (750 ft)
Complement: 4 officers, 44 enlisted
Armament:
6 × torpedo tubes (4 bow, 2 stern)
22 × 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedoes
1 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/32 deck gun (180 rounds)
1 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 AA gun
1 × twin 2 cm FlaK 30 AA guns
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
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.
An unsung class of warship during WWII was the 59-vessel Bangor/Blyth/Ardrossan-class oceangoing minesweepers.
Despite their designation, these 600-ton/162-foot vessels carried a decent main gun (3-inch in RN service, 4-inch in the RCN) as well as ASW kit to include depth charges and listening gear to bust subs, making them something of a multi-purpose coastal escort that could also sweep mines.
They spent much of their time in harm’s way, with nearly a quarter of the class never seeing the end of the war.
Several were lost in their primary tasking, including HMS Clacton (J151), HMS Cromer (J128), HMS Felixstowe (J126) and HMS Cromarty (J09) all struck mines during clearing efforts in the Med in 1942-43, pointing out just how dangerous the mission was. Off Normandy, class member HMS Peterhead (J59) was similarly lost just two days after D-Day while HMCS Mulgrave (J313), who struck a mine off Le Havre, was so badly damaged she was never repaired.
When it came to fighting subs, HMCS Clayoquot (J174), HMCS Clayoquot (J174) and HMS Hythe (J194) were torpedoed and lost. Meanwhile, three whose names shall not be mentioned were captured by the Japanese when Hong Kong fell.
Post-War, they continued to serve in RN and Commonwealth service, as well as in the Turkish and French fleets well into the 1970s, in all, giving excellent service for such a humble maritime figure.
Which brings us to the subject today.
HMCS Esquimalt (J272) was a Bangor-class minesweeper that was sunk by U-190, a German U-Boat on 16 April 1945, making her the last Canadian warship lost to enemy action during the Second World War (or since, for that matter).
Note her splinter mats, forward 12 pounder (76mm gun) and HF/DF radio gear
Tragically, she was lost just three weeks before VE-Day, proof that the Battle of the Atlantic remained very hot right until the end of the conflict– and then some.
Every year on the anniversary of her sinking, the 35-member Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy, accompanied by a Guard of Honour from Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt pay tribute to the crew of the lost minesweeper and the 39 souls still at sea with a moment of silence and wreath-laying in Esquimalt Memorial Park, where a cairn to the ship and crew has long been established.
This year’s ceremony will be held at 5:45 pm and is open to the public.
As for what became of U-190, that’s another story.
Displacement — 700 t
