Category Archives: World War Two

Warship Wednesday 31 December 2025: What a wee bit of Whale Oil Tax gets you

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 31 December 2025: What a bit of Whale Oil Taxes Gets You

(Photographer: James Edward Farrington, radio operator; British Antarctic Survey Archives ref: AD6/19/1A/201/3)

Above we see the unique British polar research ship-turned minesweeper HMS William Scoresby (J 122) approaching Deception Island, in the South Shetland Islands, circa 1944, during Operation Tabarin, the little-known WWII Royal Navy expedition to Antarctica.

A humble 370-tonner that ran 134 feet from bow to stern, Scoresby launched 31 December 1925, a century ago today, and became an icy legend.

Meet Scoresby

Our subject was named for William Scoresby, Jr, a whaling captain and almost accidental Arctic scientist and later ordained Church of England clergyman, who was born in Cropton, near Pickering, Yorkshire, on 5 October 1789.

A veteran of numerous whaling voyages to far off, oft-frozen waters (his first at age 10 with his sea captain father, a man later credited with inventing the crows nest), he penned his An Account of the Arctic Regions in 1820, one of the first clear-eyed examinations of such areas, followed up by Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery three years later. These volumes have been called “the beginning of the scientific study of the polar regions.”

Besides his work as a whaler and explorer, Scoresby was also the first chaplain of the Mariners’ Floating Church and passed away in 1857.

In practical terms, the good Rev. Scoresby charted 400 miles of East Greenland’s coast– with most of his place names still in use– and his meticulous ship logs, including weather and current data, provide valuable information for climatologists even today.

Ordered as one of His Majesty’s Royal Research Ships– in the same vein as the legendary RRS Discovery, Scott’s old ship– for the Government of the Falkland Islands from Hull-based trawler maker Cook, Welton & Gemmell in East Riding of Yorkshire (Yard No. 477), the future RRS William Scoresby was launched on New Years Eve 1925, christened by the Lady Harmer.

Built on spec for a thrifty £34,303 to the modified plans of a whale catcher, her intended primary service was to study and mark whales and to conduct research trawls for the South Atlantic fisheries. At the time, it was seen that data on the biological and physical conditions affecting the distribution of the whale stock were of preeminent importance.

Ice-strengthened, she was 134 feet in length, 26 in beam, and could make 12 knots. Her triple-expansion steam engines were built by Amos and Smith of Hull. She had a powerful commercial winch and port side gallows, which would allow her to tow a full-sized otter trawl.

Scoresby AWM P08145001

Her only armament at the time were a couple of revolvers for problems that needed revolvers and a few 12-bore (12 gauge) single-shot marker guns, developed by Holland & Holland to fire special 10-inch marker darts on an Eley-Kynoch charge that could be recovered during the harvest and returned (for a £1 reward), allowing the data of the whale’s travel from when and where it was darted to when and where it was harvested to be cataloged.

The darts were engraved with “Reward for return to the Colonial Office, London” and later “Return to Discovery British Museum [Nat History] London.

Between 1934 and 1938, 5,219 whales of six species were marked in the Southern Hemisphere using such guns from Scoresby and Discovery II, yielding significant data on migration patterns for species such as Blue, Fin, and Humpback whales.

Scoresby also possessed a sampling and sounding winch for oceanographic surveys, along with a small onboard laboratory for conducting scientific work on plankton and hydrology. While deployed, in addition to whales and their krill, the humble vessel’s embarked scientific detachment also branched out to study seals, bird life, lichens, mosses, and algae.

The same fund that paid for Scoresby, raised from taxes levied on whaling exports from the Falkland Island Dependencies and on the whaling companies, in the same year established a new £10,000 marine station at the whaling station at Grytviken on South Georgia Island, later of Falklands 1982 fame.

Once launched and floated down the River Hull for fitting out in Hull’s Queen’s Dock, the RRS William Scoresby was completed on 14 June 1926.

Her first Master was George M Mercer (Lieutenant Commander, RNR), and she arrived at Cape Town two months later to join RRS Discovery. Over the next 13 years, her skippers were all officers either on the Royal Navy’s retired or reserve list.

Scoresby completed seven voyages to Antarctic waters between 1926 and 1937, operating initially with the old RRS Discovery and after 1929 the new RRS Discovery II, based mainly out of Port Stanley in the Falklands and Grytviken on South Georgia– in the very shadow of Shackleton’s grave.

The William Scoresby moored at a snow-covered wharf, believed to be at South Georgia Island, circa 1930. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/73]

A ship just visible behind a large iceberg, identified as ‘William Scoresby sheltering beneath iceberg’. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/15B]

Coupled with the 13 “Discovery Investigation” voyages made by Discovery I and II in roughly the same period, these missions advanced the understanding of everything in the Antarctic along biological and oceanographic lines.

The 172-foot three-masted barque RRS Discovery I. Scott’s ship, she was taken into service by the British government in 1923 for £5000, becoming the first Royal Research Ship after a controversial £114,000 refit. Replaced in 1929 by a purpose-built steamer with the same name, she later served as the base for the British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson.

The 1081-GRT, 272-foot steel-hulled RRS Discovery II during one of her scientific voyages in Antarctica between 1929 and 1951.

Between voyages, which were usually six-seven months long, Scoresby typically retired to Portsmouth Dockyard for repairs to damages incurred while among the ice floes and bergs. Dredged seabed rocks and preserved biological specimens were brought back for further study.

If too banged up for the 8,000nm return trip to England, she would call at Montevideo– the closest friendly port to the Falklands, some 1,200 miles west– in a pinch, or at the Royal Dockyard at Simonstown, South Africa (2,000 miles East) instead.

The ‘William Scoresby nearing Simonstown, South Africa, for dry dock and repair’, with dark smoke issuing from the funnel. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/15F]

William Scoresby in dry dock for repairs, likely Simonstown, circa 1930. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/12C]

During this period, her crew tagged and tracked something on the order of 3,000 whales alone and “undertook studies on plankton, fish, and hydrological surveys.” These results were published from Cambridge in the Discovery Reports.

The exception to the rule and the longest of these pre-war voyages was the two and a half year 1928-1930 Second Wilkins-Hearst Antarctic Expedition, so called as it was led by Australian explorer (and soon to be knighted) Hubert Wilkins, MC and Bar, and funded by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Among the cargo and specialized gear crammed aboard Scoresby was a Baby Austin car equipped with snow chains.

This voyage included loading up one of the expedition’s two Lockheed Vega floatplanes on her stern via the ship’s jib crane boom at Deception Island and heading South, aiming for the first trans-Antarctic flight.

Loading a Lockheed Vega floatplane to ship. Aeroplane is marked “Wilkins Hearst”. The ship is the “William Scoresby”. Probably taken by the attached biologist George Rayner. Museums Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/393662 Accessed 30 December 2025

Ploughing through breaking ice. The Research Ship William Scoresby of Sir Hubert Wilkins’ Expedition photographed from the air off the byplane [sic] which she carried on board, together with a tractor, and three life boats.’ State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/72]

Royal Research Ship (RRS) William Scoresby in pack ice, Beascochea Bay, Argentine Islands, off the West coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. The photograph appears to have been taken during the Second Wilkins-Hearst Antarctic Expedition of 1929-1930, when an attempt was made to fly over the South Pole by plane. The Lockheed seaplane used by H. Wilkins can be seen secured on the afterdeck of the ship. Museums Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/393816 Accessed 30 December 2025

Scoresby sailed just below the 67th parallel in an attempt to find somewhere suitable to take off for an attempted flight across Antarctica, but in the end was unable to find a suitable place on the ice to take off with sufficient fuel to complete such a long flight.

Nonetheless, the floatplane did make several shorter flights completed over a period of weeks, in December 1929 and January 1930.

Scoresby moored close to a deep snow-covered shoreline with a steep rocky mountain ridge partially visible in the background to the right. On the afterdeck of the ship is a light aeroplane slung from a jib crane boom attached to the aft-mast. Museums Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/393656 Accessed 30 December 2025

The Lockheed Vega fitted with pontoons due to ice-free conditions and moored alongside the William Scoresby. State Library South Australia PRG 675/1/2A

Lockheed Vega on water alongside the William Scoresby. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/16D]

Lockheed Vega taking off along William Scoresby. State Library South Australia [PRG 675/1/3A]

RRS Discovery II continued such work with floatplanes in the Antarctic, supporting the Ellsworth “Polar Star” which was a specially modified Northrop Gamma 2B monoplane, and embarking two RAAF Gipsy Moths and seven air/ground crew for her 1935-36 expedition.

At least 41 members of Scoresby’s circa 1926-39 crews were authorized bronze or silver Polar Medals “for good services” in 1941, a rare award that to this day has only been handed out less than 1,000 times, as it requires at least 12 months of arduous service in such a region to qualify to receive. By comparison, the U.S. Antarctica Service Medal, the primary medal for American Antarctic service, can be earned these days with just 10 days spent on orders south of 60°S latitude.

War!

When the war kicked off, RRS Discovery II was turned over to the Admiralty and served with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, mainly in the North Atlantic as a buoy tender and rescue ship out of Scotland, before resuming her Antarctic survey work only after the war ended.

Meanwhile, our subject, at the time laid up at St Katherine’s Dock, London, was taken over by the Admiralty in October 1939 and by January 1940 became HM Minesweeping Trawler Scoresby (J122) armed with a single “rather antique looking” manually trained 12 pounder (3-inch) gun on her bow (likely one of the 3,494 Mk I and II guns 12cwt QF 3″/40s on hand in RN stocks hand left over from the Great War) and some basic mechanical sweep gear (paravanes, etc.). This was augmented by a Lewis gun and a few small arms.

Her first wartime skipper was CDR (Retired) Harry Petit-Dann, RD, RNR, originally minted a lieutenant in 1924 and moved to the retired list in 1926.

On 1 May 1940, Scoresby sailed as an escort for ships in Convoy OG.28F, which was formed at sea and arrived at Gibraltar a week later. It had to be hairy as the convoy had 44 merchant ships and just three escorts, our little research vessel, the old destroyer HMS Versatile (D32), and the sloop HMS Folkestone (L22).

From Gibraltar, Scoresby continued alone down the West African coast on patrol.

By mid-May, she was part of the 93rd Minesweeper Group at Freetown, Sierra Leone, joining five other minesweeping trawlers there briefly before shifting across the South Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro in June.

Finally, on 23 January 1941, Scoresby pulled into her old haunt at Port Stanley in the Falklands, assuming station at the local shore establishment “stone frigate” there dubbed HMS Pursuivant. The only other armed floating military assets in the Falklands at the time were the minesweeping whaler HMT Roydur and the minesweeping drifter HMT Afterglow.

There, Scoresby remained on quiet duty, patrolling from Port Stanley in West Falkland to old Port Louis, East Falklands, part of the local effort to defend against passing German raiders and U-boats, as well as interloping Argentine naval ships who were planting flags around the British Antarctic Territories. This duty grew more tense after December 1941, when Churchill feared a move by the Japanese to seize the Falklands.

While the cruisers HMS Ajax, Achilles, Exeter, and Cumberland had sheltered at various times in the Falklands during their Graf Spee chase in late 1939, later joined by HMS Dorsetshire and Shropshire the islands were left fairly on their own after even the old heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins was shifted from the South Atlantic to the Indian Ocean in late 1940 as the traffic in German commerce raiders and blockade runners had thinned– or at least they thought.

A red alert went through the Falklands after the German Hilfskreuzer Pinguin (HSK 5) raided into Antarctic waters in January 1941, where it captured the whole of the Norwegian whaling fleet: three factory ships and 11 chasers, capturing a whopping 20,000 tons of precious whale oil in the process. The Admiralty dispatched the armed merchant cruiser HMS Queen of Bermuda to patrol the waters for a few months in response, but even she resumed her regular duties.

A 1,700-man reinforced battalion (11th West Yorks) arrived in the Falklands in 1942 and would remain ashore into early 1944 when they were replaced by a smaller force of Royal Scots. Other than Scoresby and her two fellow armed trawlers, that was it for local defense in the islands, barring passing Allied warships taking the “long way around” Cape Horn.

A small force of several RN armed merchant cruisers protected Simonstown to Freetown convoys up the Southwest coast of Africa, but they generally came nowhere near the Falklands except for a short patrol by HMS Carnarvon Castle in January 1943 to respond to Argentine flag-raising antics on far-away Deception Island.

Meanwhile, CDR Petit-Dann was relieved as Scoresby’s skipper in mid-1942 by one T./Lt Thomas Gentle, RNR– who soon left to command the new Algerine-class minesweeper HMS Welcome (J 386)— and T./Lt. Harold Olaf Olsen, RNR, a Norwegian-born officer who by early 1944 left to command the ASW whaler HMS Thirlmere (FY 206)/ex-Kos XXVI.

This left Scoresby in early 1944 in command of Lt Victor Aloysius John Baptist Marchesi, RN, recently arrived in the islands from England with the mysterious 14 members of Naval Parties 475 and 476, aboard the troop ship HMT Highland Monarch, hitching a ride with the Royal Scots coming to relieve the miserable 11th West Yorks.

The London-born Marchesi was only 30 at the time but was more than qualified, having served some months as an RNR officer in the battlecruiser HMS Hood before joining the Brocklebank Line before the war. As fourth officer in the RRS Discovery II in January 1936, he helped rescue the American airman Lincoln Ellsworth and his Canadian co-pilot, Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, from the Ross ice shelf.

Transferring to the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the war, in addition to commanding Scoresby, Marchesi was also the 2IC of NP 475/476, which had been handpicked by T/LCDR. James William Slessor Marr, RNVR, a 42-year-old Scottish marine biologist and polar explorer who had sailed with Shackleton on the Quest as a lad, took part in the BANZARE expedition, and been a member of both Discovery II and Scoresby’s pre-war crews at one time or another. At the time, Marr already had a mountain named after him in Antarctica, as well as a bay named in his honor in the South Orkney Islands, and had earned both a Polar Medal (with clasp) and a W. S. Bruce Medal.

There was reason Scoresby had such a man in charge.

Tabarin

The expedition was named Operation Tabarin after Bal Tabarin, a famed and chaotic Paris cabaret and nightclub second only to the Moulin Rouge, as a sort of tongue-in-cheek stab at the chaotic nature of the endeavor. Ironically, at the time, the real Bal Tabarin on Rue Victor-Massé just off the Seine was favored by both the German officer corps in Paris and the movers and shakers of the Resistance.

Their mission: establish year-round British bases in the far south, at Deception Island at a minimum, to deny its use in sheltering German, Japanese, or Argentine vessels and strengthen Britannia’s assertions of sovereignty over its claimed Falkland Islands Dependencies

Scoresby took the place of NP 475/476s former mothership, the condemned Norwegian sealing vessel Veslekari. Taken up in Iceland in 1943 and renamed HMS Bransfield, the old sealer proved unsuited for the task and was abandoned, the party left to ship to the Falklands via HMT Highland Monarch while their equipment was transshipped as cargo to Montevideo on other vessels.

Scoresby was assigned as escort to the slightly larger but very familiar coaster Fitzroy (ex-Lafonia), a 165-foot/853-ton steamer which had built by Henry Robb in 1931 for the Falkland Islands Company to serve as the inter-islands mail ship. The islands’ only dedicated lifeline to the world, the needs of the Crown took priority, and she was used first to retrieve the expedition’s equipment from Montevideo before the two vessels set out, bound for Deception Island.

Fitzroy

On 29 January 1944, they left Port Stanley, headed south. 

The first installation, established on 3 February 1944, was Base B, at Whaler’s Bay, on Deception Island, where Carnarvon Castle had called the year prior. Importantly, they had a radio to report any enemy vessels or interactions and were in regular communication with Port Stanley.

Marchesi later said in a postwar interview that, until inside the harbor, he could not see whether it was occupied by an Argentine warship or a German U-boat. “Just as well,” he said, “because my one handgun and William Scoresby’s puny bow-mounted gun would hardly have put the fear of death into anyone.”

The second, larger, post would be Base A, at Port Lockroy, on nearby Goudier Island in the Gerlache Strait, established on 11 February. The base was to have been at Hope Bay on the Antarctic mainland, but Fitzroy was not ice-strengthened and could not risk the sea ice in the bay.

It was sparse to say the least.

As described by the British Antarctic Survey:

The base at Port Lockroy was built on Goudier Island in February 1944. It housed a nine-man wintering team. The hut was erected from prefabricated sections, and some timber used in the construction was salvaged from an abandoned whaling station on Deception Island. The building contained a mess room where the men ate, relaxed, and slept, a work room, a kitchen, a store room, and a generator room. There was even a bathroom. However, because water was rationed, only the person whose turn it was to gather and melt the ice or snow was allowed to bathe. This meant up to nine days between baths!

Unloading cargo for the construction of Base A on Goudier Island, Antarctic Peninsula (1944) British Antarctic Survey Archives.

The secrecy bubble popped, and in April 1944, the existence of both bases was shared globally via a BBC announcement, news that reached the polar outposts– men alone on a continent of some 5 million square miles– and left them amused.

All 14 members of the expedition wintered over the 1944 season, and a third base was set up on the mainland at Hope Bay (Base D) on 13 February 1945, where the Union Jack was unfurled on a 20-foot pole that had been found near the remains of the hut from Otto Nordenskjold’s circa 1901 Swedish Antarctic Expedition.

Dog teams were brought in by Tabarin in 1945 to increase surveying capabilities at Hope Bay, Trinity Peninsula.

On the way back to Port Stanley in 1945, Scoresby stopped at Scotia Bay on Laurie Island to “show the flag” to a group of frostbitten Argentinean meteorologists who had been stuck at their Orcadas Station for 14 months. A little tit-for-tat in the ice.

Scoresby, Fitzroy, and two chartered vessels, SS Eagle and MV Trepassey, would return to the region from the Falklands in early 1946 to resupply the posts and swap out personnel.

Tabarin was extensively documented, with some 1,800 images preserved from the operation today.

For a deeper dive on the operation, check out Operation Tabarin: Britain’s secret wartime expedition to Antarctica, 1944-46 by Stephen Haddelsey.

Post-war service

HMS Scoresby (J122) saw her military service under the Admiralty cease in September 1946.

Landing her gun, she was sent for a major  £11,900 refit and, in November 1949, was released to the Admiralty outright to continue her service under the RFA. She spent the first 10 months of 1950 conducting research into whales off the west coast of Australia– sailing to Fremantle and back to England via the South Atlantic.

On 26 February 1951, the Admiralty transferred Scoresby to the newly formed National Institute of Oceanography, and she would continue serving with that organization in the Southern Ocean for the next two years.

Paid off, ex-Scoresby was on the January 1953 Disposal List, offered for sale for £2,500. She lingered on the list for 17 months until a bid of £1,900 from BISCO (British Iron and Steel Corporation) for demolition was accepted, with her salvaged radio equipment fetching a further £600.

And that was that.

Epilogue

Human habitation of Antarctica has been continuous since the establishment of the first two Tabarin bases by Scoresby and Fitzroy in February 1944.

The scientific observations and surveys initiated during Tabarin continued after the War, and the work was put on a long-term footing under the Colonial Office as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS). FIDS was re-named the British Antarctic Survey in 1962 and continues today.

Port Lockroy was occupied until 1962, Hope Bay until 1964, and Deception Island until 1967, replaced by newer, less militaristic installations inside the British Antarctic Territory, which formed in 1962 after the Antarctic Treaty came into force. They have been replaced by the year-round Rothera Research Station on Adelaide Island and four smaller stations (Signy, Fossil Bluff, Sky Blu, and Halley VI) that don’t overwinter.

Of note, Base A (Port Lockroy) is now the famous “Penguin Post Office.”

The BAS’s current dedicated research and logistic support ship these days is the hulking 15,000-ton RRS Sir David Attenborough (aka “Boaty McBoatface”), which entered service in 2021, backed up by the armed RN icebreaker HMS Protector.

The archives of the Discovery Investigations are held by the National Oceanographic Library.

The British Antarctic Oral History Project includes interviews with members of the ship’s company, which provides insight into the daily life onboard ship.

A bay on the coast of Antarctica’s Kemp Land, discovered by Scoresby’s crew in 1936, was named after her.

As for Scoresby’s former pals, Fitzroy continued to sail between the Falklands to Montevideo, South Georgia, and Graham Land (Antarctica) until 1957, when she was scrapped. RRS Discovery II’s final Antarctic voyage wrapped in 1951, but she continued to work as an oceanographic ship in the North Atlantic until she was scrapped in 1962. She was replaced by a third RRS Discovery in 1962, which, at 4,378 DWT, was the largest general-purpose oceanographic research vessel in use by the Brits until 2006. The current fourth RRS Discovery joined the fleet in 2013.

When it comes to Scoresby’s Operation Tabarin skipper, LT Marchesi remained in the Royal Navy post-war, served two years aboard the carrier HMS Unicorn during Korea, lectured at public schools about naval careers, and was the senior RNR officer in Northern Ireland. In retirement, he worked for Bass, was a port relief officer for Cunard, and land-locked captain of the famed clipper Cutty Sark at Greenwich.

In 2005, Marchesi recounted the story of Operation Tabarin for the BBC, and his exploits were commemorated in a series of stamps issued by the Falkland Islands in the same year (and reissued for the 80th anniversary recently).

Victor Marchesi, captain of the expedition support ship, HMS William Scoresby, and 2nd-in-command of Operation Tabarin, Jan 1946. (Photographer: M. Sadler. Archives ref: AD6/19/2/E402/43a)

He passed in December 2006, aged a ripe 92.

His obituary notes:

At sea, Marchesi recalled keeping watch for hours on the exposed bridge of Scoresby during icy gales and, when off watch, feeling pain in his hands and feet as his circulation returned. In the winter months, Marchesi serviced the remote islands of the Falklands and, for three months each year, refitted his ship in the bright lights of unrationed Montevideo. There he met a talented, multi-lingual secretary in the embassy who contrived a passage to Port Stanley; she was waiting for him when he returned from his third southern voyage, and they were married within the hour.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Sea Dragon and Black Dragon

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 80 years ago today.

Post-war view of Yokosuka, while anchored in Tokyo Bay.

The surrendered 33,000-ton 16-inch gunned Japanese super-dreadnought Nagato can be seen in the right background in this image, 30 December 1945, with the more advanced Iowa-class fast battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) in the foreground, which carried an extra 16-inch gun when compared to Nagato and hit the scales at a massive 57,540 tons at the time due to her immense AAA battery and huge crew.

USN photograph courtesy of David Buell, via Navsource.

New Jersey, launched 7 December 1942 by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, was commissioned 23 May 1943, making her just over two years in the fleet at the time, and had earned nine battle stars for her World War II service in the Pacific. She would go on to serve in Korea (four more battle stars plus a Presidential Unit Citation), Vietnam (three more plus a Navy Unit Commendation), Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf and would only decommission for her final time on 8 February 1991.

She, of course, is a museum ship with at least another 20 years of service ahead of her following her latest dry docking.

Nagato, commissioned on 25 November 1920, had served just over 25 years with the Imperial Fleet but spent the majority of the war in home waters, one of the primary reasons she was still afloat in 1945, albeit a little battered. That would soon change, as she was sunk just seven months after this image was taken, sent to the bottom as a target in the Atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, Operation Crossroads, 29/30 July 1946.

Her decaying wreck will continue to rest on the ocean floor in Bikini Lagoon, some 170 feet down, for decades to come.

Getting Some Sun with the Boys

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 85 years ago today. 6th Australian Division, Cyrenaica, Libya. 29 December 1940. Official wartime caption: “Near Bardia, one of the BREN gun posts is placed to protect the artillery batteries from dive bombers. Left to Right: Gunners N.H. McLeod and Whalen, Bombardier Greenwood.” Note the Boys .55 caliber anti-tank/anti-material gun and its distinctive “donut” style muzzle break.

Negative by James Francis (Frank) Hurley, Australian War Memorial No. 004944

Formed in September 1939 from the 16th (New South Wales), 17th (Victoria), and 18th Australian Infantry Brigades, the 6th Australian Infantry Division Brigade sailed for the I Australian Corps in the Middle East via brigade-sized lifts between 20 January and 8 May 1940 with the last (the 18th Bde) diverted to England at the time of Dunkirk. The carved-out brigade was replaced by the newly formed 19th Bde, raised in Palestine from the 2/4th, 2/8th, and 2/11th Battalions, in November 1940. (The 18th, having spent six months on defensive duties in England, finally reached North Africa in January 1941, where it was attached to the Australian 7th Division).
 
The 6th Australian Division entered combat at Fort Maddalena and Garn el Grein on 11 and 12 December 1940 and would see lots of action during Operation Compass in and around Tobruk, where the division lost 214 men killed, 790 injured and 21 captured– traded for a part in capturing 65,000 Italians by 5 February 1941. 
 

Members of C Company (mostly from 14 Platoon), Australian 2/11th Infantry Battalion, part of the 6th Division’s 19th Bde, having penetrated the outer defenses of Tobruk, assemble again on the escarpment on the south side of the harbor after attacking anti-aircraft gun positions, on 22 January 1941. San Giorgio is one of the plumes in the background. Burning fuel oil tanks at the port are the second. AWM

Rushed to Greece in March 1941, the 6th Division suffered more than 2,800 casualties– most of those taken prisoner– in the withdrawal from Greece. Used to capture Syria from the Vichy French, post-Pearl Harbor/Darwin, the 6th was pulled from Syrian garrison duty and rushed home where they soon were allowed to bask in the “joy” of the Kokoda trail and the New Guinea campaign. 
 
Disbanded in early 1946, during its six-year war, over 40,000 Australians served in the division’s ranks, fighting across three continents from Libya to Greece to Syria and New Guinea. Of these, 1,763 were killed in action or died, a further 3,978 were wounded and a total of 5,153 men became prisoners of war. 

‘She’s All Ablaze’

Posted on by Leave a comment

In the hard Christmas of 1915, the gleaming new “Superdreadnought” USS New York (Battleship No. 34) was resting in the Hudson. Bedecked with Christmas trees from her yardarms and one huge Douglas fir on the roof of A Turret, the warship hosted 100 needy children on a tour.

USN photo courtesy of Scott Koen & ussnewyork.com, via Navsource. https://www.navsource.org/archives/01/34a.htm

Then came a large Christmas Party attended by members of the battleship’s crew, who all chipped into the fund to buy the kiddies some gifts to make their season bright.

From a period paper published on 26 December 1915:

When Chief Bos’n’s Mate ‘Arry Percival of the superdreadnought New York slipped his ‘and around ‘is waistline to the top of ‘s pocket and nonchalantly withdrew there from something which looked ever so much like a regular flask filled with an amber-colored something that made the grape juice in the punch bowl on the reporters’ table blush a deeper purple, everyone in the foc’sle was too busy feeding his or her’s Christmas face to gasp at ‘Arry’s apparent audacity. But it wasn’t that at all, and nobody should have gasped anyhow if anyone had time to indulge in an outburst.

So, Mr. Percival proceeded to justify his lack of respect for h’ by sprinkling a great big melon-shaped plum pudding with what is technically known on shipboard as the illuminating gear, same being the contents of the flask-like affair from the Chief Bos’n’s Mate’s ‘ip pocket. Then he touched a lighted match to the steaming dish and surveyed the dancing blue flames with evident satisfaction. The next instant, Mr. Percival lifted the huge platter in his arms and paraded his burden along as happy a Christmas table as yesterday knew.

“‘Ere you go, children,” beamed the Chief Bos’n’s Mate. “She’s all ablaze.”

And the “Ahs ” and “Ums” that greeted his announcement simply smothered the flames as he set the dish before the New York’s guests in the center of the long mess table.

Fast forward exactly 30 years, and after Great War service in Battleship Division Nine as reinforcement for the British Grand Fleet, earning three battle stars for her WWII service that included 1,088 operational days with the Atlantic Fleet and another 276 in the Pacific, firing over 53,000 shells in anger, she was docked in the Hudson once again.

A tired and very well-traveled war vet.

From her amazing 229-page WWII cruise book digitized online via the Bangor Public Library, the “Christmas Ship” in December 1945:

Christmas 1944 ‘Somewhere in England’

Posted on by 2 comments

No Warship Wednesday today for obvious reasons.

But I do have something special for you guys (and we do have a companion piece publishing tomorrow)

While poking around my normal haunts of antique stores, library sales, and the like, I came across an old book and bought it. No surprise.

A bigger surprise was finding this old veteran tucked in between the pages, used as a bookmark. It is well-traveled and yellowed, printed on cheap paper using wartime-quality ink.

But it has traveled 81 years to be here and deserves a mention.

I am presenting you with the program and menu for the 1944 Christmas dinner aboard the United States Landing Ship (Tanks) 294, at the time, “somewhere in England.”

I thought one of the more humorous parts was that “Cigarettes!” with an exclamation point is listed under desserts.

USS LST-294 gets hardly a mention in naval history, but she was there. I mean t-h-e-r-e kinda there. Like the first wave of D-Day on Omaha Beach, kinda there. And that was just over four months after she commissioned.

USS LST-294 high and dry on the beach at Normandy, June 1944.

Cigarettes! Indeed.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em, boys.

Le Tonnant Found

Posted on by Leave a comment

The lost Redoubtable (Pascal)-class submarine of the M6 series (Agosta type) Le Tonnant (“Thunderer”) (Q172) has been discovered.

Built by F.&Ch de la Méditerranée and commissioned on 1 June 1937, she made a high-profile pre-war deployment to Indochina, participated in some early war patrols with the Toulon-based 3rd Submarine Squadron before the Fall of France in June 1940, and ventured as far as Dakar.

She then sailed under orders from Vichy until 15 November 1942, when she was scuttled off Cadiz, Spain, by her own crew following the German occupation of Southern France and the British-American occupation of French North Africa.

Her crew all managed to reach Spain and be interned for the duration, while Le Tonnant settled into the seabed.

Of Le Tonnant’s 31-boat class, only five survived the war, including the famous Casabianca (Q183).

Now, 83 years later, her wreck has been documented by a Franco-Spanish research team by the Univesite de Bretagne Occidentale.

 

Fletcher snowballs

Posted on by One comment

Happy first day of winter.

With that, how about this amazing watercolor painting by Edward T. Grigware titled “Scene Onboard Ship,” one you can almost feel if in a snowy area today.

It was painted in 1943 and depicts U.S. Navy sailors aboard two tied-up destroyers working in bone-numbing cold and snowy conditions, likely in the Alaska theater where Grigware, an official Navy artist, was deployed.

Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Edward T. Grigware; 1943; Framed Dimensions 16H X 18W. Naval History and Heritage Command Accession #: 07-805-P

Grigware, born in 1889, was already a well-known American artist and illustrator before he moved from Chicago to Cody, Wyoming, in the 1930s. He attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and spent time working as a commercial artist.

During WWII, Grigware created poster art to support the war effort and painted pieces for the Navy, including the haunting work above.

The Recycled Spoils of War, Dutch East Indies edition

Posted on by Leave a comment

One of the many “wars after the war” following VJ Day saw the curious fight between British colonial units (mostly of the 5th Indian and 23rd Indian Divisions, along with the 36th and 49th Indian Brigadea) against Indonesian freedom fighters and Japanese hold outs in the Dutch East Indies in late 1945/early 1946 before the Dutch could arrive in numbers from Europe and America and take over the fight for their arguably already lost colony.

In early December 1945, while the British declared victory over various republican militias in the Indonesian city of Surabaya (Soerabaja), which they had been fighting since late October, armed anti-colonial resistance remained vibrant across the rest of the island of Java and began to spread elsewhere in the 17,000-island archipelago—a fire of the kind that could never be extinguished.

Operation Ponce, which began in mid-December, saw 161 Indian Brigade (of the 5th ID) move out into the countryside, kicking off almost another full year of fighting for the deployed Commonwealth forces, albeit on a smaller scale.

The combat saw lots of interesting scenes in which local Indonesian insurgents (and Japanese fellow travelers) used a mixture of former pre-1942 Dutch/British, 1945 inherited Japanese, and locally made hardware against British/Indian and Dutch forces outfitted with freshly supplied late-war U.S. equipment.

Bren gunners of the 3/9th Jats, British Indian Army, cover the advance of their regiment against Indonesian nationalists in Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. The Jats had already fought the Axis across North Africa, Ethiopia, Burma, and Malaya before they arrived in Java. Photo by Burt Hardy, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5661)

Private Edermaniger mans his Bren Gun at an outpost in the 5th Indian Division’s lines at Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. Desmond Davis, Photographer, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit,  IWM (SE 7146)

Indian infantry advancing with British Stuart light tanks on the railway marshalling yards at Surabaya (Soerabaja) during fighting with Indonesian nationalists, December 1945. Photo by Burt Hardy, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5665)

A British-operated Sherman tank involved in street fighting against Indonesian nationalists in Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. Desmond Davis, Photographer, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5975)

Flt Lt Threlfall, RAF, disarms four armed Indonesians captured at Bekassi, 24 November 1945. The guns appear to be pre-1940 Dutch Mannlichers, and the age of the locals would seem to make them part of the PRI, the Indonesian youth movement.  

A British soldier holding a Japanese rifle and a Molotov cocktail, typical weapons used by Indonesian nationalists in the fighting in Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. Photo by Burt Hardy, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5667)

A man of the 1st Battalion, The West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) examines a Japanese artillery piece that was used by Indonesian nationalists during the fighting in Surabaya (Soerabaja) until destroyed by British forces, December 1945. The battalion was in India at the outbreak of WWII and saw hard jungle fighting in Burma from 1942 to 1944 before returning to India and deploying from there to Java. Photo by Duncan McTavish, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5735)

A soldier of an Indian armored regiment examines a formerly British, formerly Japanese Marmon-Herrington CTLS light tank used by Indonesian nationalists and recaptured by British forces during the fighting in Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. The “PBM” is likely for the People’s Militia (Barisan Rakyat) group. Photo by Duncan McTavish, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM (SE 5742)

A Thunderbolt Mk II (P-47D-25/-30-RE/30/-40-RA) of No. 81 Squadron, RAF, is being prepared for action against Indonesian nationalists at Kemajoran airfield, Batavia, in readiness for operations against Indonesian nationalists at Surabaya (Soerabaja) in Java. The unit, which had been No. 123 (East India) Squadron RAF until 10 June 1945 when it was rebadged, shifted from Chittagong to the Dutch East Indies in November along with No. 60 Squadron (also a Thunderbolt Mk II outfit) and remained there until June 1946, flying tactical reconnaissance duties and covering Allied road convoys, while attacking nationalist held airfields and ammunition dumps. (Photo by SGT Woollacott IWM CF 842)

“An Indian soldier guards a former Japanese army light tank used by Indonesian nationalists until knocked out by British forces during the fighting in Surabaya (Soerabaja).” An Indian soldier guards a Universal (Bren) Carrier, which was converted into an ad hoc tank by the Japanese, perhaps by use with the SNLF, as witnessed by the anchor, then taken over by Indonesian nationalists after the surrender, in Surabaya, 27 November 1945. Desmond Davis, Photographer, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM SE 5866

A South African-made Marmon-Herrington Mark III armored car, formerly of the British Army, captured in Singapore/Malaysia in 1941/42, moved to Java by the Japanese after that, then captured circa-September 1945 from Imperial Japanese Army stocks by PRI, the Indonesian Youth Movement, seen wrecked in Surabaya (Soerabaja), December 1945. Note the pro-Democracy signs, written in English to appeal to the occupying British/Indian troops. Photo by Burt Hardy, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM SE 5632

12 December 1945. A Soldier of the 5th Indian Division examines a 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun, likely a former Dutch, captured in 1942, knocked out by a British tank during fighting with Indonesian nationalists outside the town of Surabaya (Soerabaja). This gun was just one of many weapons handed over to the Indonesians rather than the British following the Japanese surrender. IWM (SE 6183)

The Dutch KNIL colonial army in the East Indies had fielded 40mm Bofors luchtdoelgeschut AAA guns, such as this one seen at Tjimahi, West Java, in 1939. When the islands fell to the Japanese, apparently, some survived long enough to be turned over to the Indonesians in 1945. NIMH 2155_022706

Mechanics of 3219 Servicing Commando, Royal Air Force (RAF), check the engines of a Japanese Kawanishi H6K Mavis flying boat at Sourabaya (Soerabaja), Java, in preparation for an air test flight. Of interest are the markings added by Indonesian nationalists and the fact that an additional band of blue has been added to the fuselage marking by the Dutch. IWM (CF 1074)

Corporal Ralph Hayden and Leading Aircraftman Harry Pearce of No. 80 Squadron (RAF) photographed amongst parts of Japanese aircraft, now bearing ersatz Indonesian markings, found when Royal Air Force personnel reached the airfield and seaplane base at Sourabaya (Soerabaja), Java. No. 80 Squadron, formed in the Great War, flew Tempest Mk Vs in the Far East and today is a F-35 training squadron at Eglin. IWM (CF 1078)

A list of over 200 Japanese aircraft acquired by the Indonesians, mid-1946:

The Brits even handed out some of the captured Japanese small arms to local “friendlies,” which probably just put them back into circulation.

The Indonesian chief of police in the town of Grissee, 15 miles from Surabaya (Soerabaja), receives 18 rifles and 200 rounds of ammunition to assist with keeping law and order in the area. The guns had been confiscated a few weeks earlier when British and Indian troops made a sweep through the town. However, as the chief of police assisted the British forces in locating and destroying Japanese ammunition dumps, the guns were handed back. Three days after this photograph was taken, Indonesian nationalists reoccupied Grissee and probably took control of the weapons. Desmond Davis, Photographer, No. 9 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit,  IWM (SE 6536)

The British military only fully withdrew from the Dutch East Indies in November 1946, at which point the Dutch forces in the region had swelled to 115,000 under arms (70,000 Dutch Army/Air Force rushed from Europe, 40,000 colonial KNIL troops, and 5,000 American-trained Dutch Marines), not counting sailors afloat.

“See the world. Get it done in the Indies. Serve!” Dutch recruiting poster, circa 1945-1949,

The odd collection of harvested weapons would endure until the Dutch quit the islands in 1949.

As a supreme example of this flotsam of war, check out this 1946 image from Java showing captured weapons bagged by Dutch Marines in the countryside.

NIMH 2174-1377

The above include British-made Vickers M27 machine guns (with ribbed cooling jackets), Dutch Mannlicher M95 rifles, ex-Japanese Swiss-made MP28 submachine guns, Dutch-issued Danish-made Madsen light machine guns (with curved magazines), Colt-Browning and Maxim machine guns (smooth cooling jackets), various landmines, ammunition belts, and helmets. The helmets include Japanese, Dutch M34s, and the local Dutch East Indies-made version of the M16 German Stahlhelm manufactured by N.V. Machinefabriek Braat in Soerabaia, which were issued to the colony’s Stadswacht (Urban Home Guards), firefighters, and Luchtbeschermingsdienst (LBD=Air Raid Protection Service).

Captured Indonesian rebels, with the first two wearing a pre-1942 Staadwacht Stalhelm and an M23 helmet, seen in the middle of the group

February 1947, a Dutch Stuart tank passes a wrecked Japanese Type 89 I-Go in Indonesia

Indonesian troops drilling with captured Japanese Arisaka Type 99 rifles during 1949,

Between 1945 and 1949, the Dutch alone suffered 6,177 losses, including 3,281 in combat.

The British suffered over 600 dead (most of them Indian) for a colony that was not even theirs.

Meanwhile, Japanese losses– for a country that had already surrendered– are believed to be over 700, with some estimates being twice that high.

Indonesian soldiers march through an empty street, 12 November 1949, mostly equipped with salvaged Japanese rifles and equipment, as well as at least one Australian Owen submachine gun, source unknown. Dutch Nationaal Archief Bestanddeelnummer: 888

The number of Indonesians who perished during the period is all over the place, with some quoting as high as 300,000 when civilian deaths by famine and disease are taken into account.

It was truly one of the most senseless of Cold War conflicts.

Tusky at peace, yet girded for war

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 85 years ago this month.

Late December 1940.

A great view of a cramped turret full of 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 12 guns of the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37), as she rests in Norfolk, hosting dignitaries. ADM William D. Leahy (fore, L) and his wife are seen standing under the guns with Capt. Lee P. Johnson (fore, R), before they collectively departed for Vichy France, on a diplomatic mission.

LIFE Archives

Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, and his wife on board USS Tuscaloosa (CA 37), inspecting the cruiser’s Marines, before they depart for France in late December 1940. Note the Springfield 1903s

The big T in December 1940 was amid her stint on FDR’s Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic and Caribbean– having met up with the Dutch gunboat Van Kinsbergen to examine the latter’s 40mm Bofors mounts just four months prior.

Tusky’s December was to be a busy one. Per DANFS:

On 3 December 1940, at Miami, President Roosevelt embarked in Tuscaloosa for the third time for a cruise to inspect the base sites obtained from Great Britain in the recently negotiated “destroyers for bases” deal. In that transaction, the United States had traded 50 old flush-decked destroyers for 99-year leases on bases in the western hemisphere. Ports of call included Kingston, Jamaica; Santa Lucia, Antigua; and the Bahamas. Roosevelt fished and entertained British colonial officials-including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, on board the cruiser.

While the President cruised in Tuscaloosa, American officials in Washington wrestled with the problem of extending aid to Britain. Having barely weathered the disastrous campaign in France in the spring and the Battle of Britain in the summer, the United Kingdom desperately needed war materiel. American production could meet England’s need, but American neutrality law limiting the purchase of arms by belligerents to “cash-and-carry” transactions was about to become a major obstacle, for British coffers were almost empty. While pondering England’s plight as he luxuriated in Tuscaloosa, the President hit upon the idea of the “lend-lease” program to aid the embattled British.

On 16 December, Roosevelt left the ship at Charleston, S.C., to head for Washington to implement his “lend-lease” idea, one more step in the United States’ progress towards full involvement in the war. Soon thereafter, Tuscaloosa sailed for Norfolk and, on 22 December, embarked Admiral William D. Leahy, the newly designated Ambassador to Vichy France, and his wife, for passage to Portugal. With the “stars and stripes” painted large on the roofs of Turrets II and III, and her largest colors flying, Tuscaloosa sailed for the European war zone, initially escorted by USS Upshur (DD-144) and Madison (DD-425).

Letting those big guns sing in the Torch (North Africa), Overlord (Utah Beach at Normandy) Dragoon (Southern France), Detachment (Iwo Jima), and Iceberg (Okinawa) landings, Tuscaloosa received seven battle stars for her WWII service. She fired 22,000 shells in the latter two operations alone.

Placed out of commission at Philadelphia on 13 February 1946, Tuscaloosa remained in reserve there until she was struck from the Navy list on 1 March 1959. Her hulk was sold on 25 June 1959 to the Boston Metals Co. of Baltimore for scrapping.

Warship Wednesday 17 December 2025: They Give a Good Account of Themselves

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 17 December 2025: They Give a Good Account of Themselves

Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Naval History and Heritage Command NH 68493

Above we see the awning-covered and white painted Insect-class gunboat HMS Ladybird (P.0A) lounging on the Yangtze River during China’s warlord period, circa the late 1920s. A globetrotter, she witnessed history around the world in two official wars and several undeclared ones.

Don’t let her innocuous profile and name fool you, Ladybird was a killer, as three Italian freighters found out some 85 years ago today.

The Insects

The dozen shallow draught river gunboats of the Insect class, some 237 feet long and 635 tons displacement, were flat-bottomed ships designed by Yarrow to operate in shallow, fast-flowing rivers, and able to float in just four feet of brown water.

They had enough muscle (2,000 ihp plant on Yarrow boilers and twin VTE engines and three rudders) to make 14 knots (designed, yet “easily made” 18 knots on trials), thus capable of going upstream against the flow as needed and could turn “almost on a six-pence.”

Get a feel for the class from this excellent model of the Insect class gunboat HMS Tarantula in the RMG collections.

F7752 001

F7752 004

F7752 003

F7752 002

While ordered as a class in February 1915 for emergency war service in Europe (e.g. to fight on the Danube against Austrian river monitors but instead against the “Johnny Turk” in the Tigris flotilla), the consensus is that they would, after the Great War had wrapped up, see China service on the Yangtze and similar large waterways to protect the Crown’s interests in the often lawless region. Thus, they were classed and described as “Large China Gunboats” during construction, which also allowed cover for their planned use in Europe and the Middle East.

They were well-armed for such endeavors, with a BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun forward and another one in the rear to poke holes in said Austrian river monitors. An elevated central battery clustered around the single stack and mast held a group of six Maxim/Vickers water-cooled .303 machine guns and a couple of smaller QF Mk I 12-pounders. All of these guns, even the MGs, had front splinter shields. However, as the muzzles of the 12 pdrs were immediately over head of the crews working the 6-inchers, being one of these gunners was certainly hard on the hearing.

Aerial photograph of British Aphis (Insect) class gunboat. Note the two 6-inchers, fore and aft.

According to the excellent site on these ships, maintained by Taylor Family Collection: 

Their steel plating was thin by warship standards – only five-sixteenths of an inch amidships, tapering to about one-eighth of an inch at the ends. The decks were strengthened in the vicinity of the main armament mountings with steel doublers three-eighths of an inch thick, and a three-quarter-inch steel doubler was also fitted on the sheer strake over the mid-ship section as extra stiffening. Beyond this, they carried no armour and had no double bottoms, unlike most ships.

That their armour was so minimal is not surprising given that these were essentially “kitset” ships specially designed to be broken down and reassembled. Heavy armour plating or additional construction “stiffening” was counterproductive. Active service with the Tigris Flotilla, however, resulted in rearming – a 2-pounder pom-pom added, four of the .303–inch Maxim guns removed, and a 3–inch anti-aircraft gun installed in their place. All were fitted for towing kite balloons (to carry artillery observers). Initially, sandbags were built up around the battery deck for the protection of personnel, but later a 5–foot shield made of ¼ inch chrome steel plate was built all around this deck as can be seen in the photos.

All 12 were named for insects and acrahnids (Aphis, Bee, Cicala, Cockchafer, Cricket, Glowworm, Gnat, Mantis, Moth, Scarab, Tarantula, and our Ladybird) as befitting their role and, to speed up delivery, were ordered simultaneously from five small yards (four from Barclay, two each from Ailsa, Lobnitz, Sutherland S.B, and Wood/Skinner). No, although they were to a Yarrow design, that esteemed firm was too busy making “real” warships to deal with such bugs.

Meet Ladybird

Our subject was laid down in 1915 at Lobnitz, Renfrew, as Builder’s Hull No. 804. Her slightly older sister, HMS Gnat, No. 803, was built nearly side-by-side at the same yard. Gnat hit the water in December 1915 while Ladybird slid down the way the following April. The two would commission by May 1916.

Ladybird’s original pennant number, issued in January 1916, was P.5A. This later shifted to P.0A in January 1918.

HMS Ladybird, at Port Said, Egypt, November 1917. Note the cruiser and destroyers in the background. Photo by Surgeon Oscar Parkes, IWM SP 560

Her first skipper was Acting Commander Vaughan Alexander Edward Hanning-Lee, an Englishman from a long-service naval family. He had 16 years of service behind him, including command of several destroyers and the gunnery training ship HMS St. George (an old Edgar-class cruiser), as well as detached service at Salonika. Hanning-Lee would remain in command of Ladybird through the end of 1918.

War!

The Insects, with Serbia all but knocked out of the war and access to the Danube closed, were repurposed to fight in the Eastern Med and Mesopotamia, while Cricket, Cicala, Cockchafer, and Glowworm were kept in British home waters to defend against German zeppelin raids.

Gnat, Mantis, Moth and Tarantula were towed to the Persian Gulf to join the Tigris Flotilla while Bee and Scarab guarded the Suez Canal.

Ladybird and sister Aphis would be detailed to Egypt, and had a very busy 1917, giving good, if somewhat undetailed service against the Ottomans in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, notably providing fire support for Bulfin’s XXI Corps during the victorious Third Battle of Gaza in November.

“Egypt scenes. Monitor HMS Ladybird in the Suez Canal, 1917.” This photo is part of an album compiled by Sub. Lieutenant Bertie Henry Buck, during his service in WWI and is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s collection. Object number: 00007425_9

CDR Hanning-Lee earned a DSO aboard Ladybird and a later OBE for his gallant conduct and services in the Mediterranean, retiring soon after.

The Armistice brought an end to the hostilities, of a sort.

Wait, another war?

While peace had officially broken out across the world, the Insects would spend the next several years, often deck-deep in combat, although not officially in war.

Cicala, Cockchafer, Cricket, and Glowworm sailed through the Barents Sea to Archangel for service as part of the Dvina River Force, supporting the White Russians, where they would remain through most of 1919, fighting the Reds.

Six went to the Far East with Mantis and Tarantula dispatched to the West River near Hong Kong, while Bee, Gnat, Moth, and Scarab were sent to the Yangtze River.

Aphis and our Ladybird, however, were shipped in February 1919 to join Capt. Vernon Haggard’s newly formed Naval Brigade on the Danube, aka the British Danube Flotilla, to enforce the naval terms of the Armistice with Austria-Hungary in conjunction with the Entente military mission in Budapest, the latter led by the unpopular French Lt.Col. Ferdinand Vix.

A group of British, Serbian, and Yugoslav officers at Baja on the River Danube in the summer of 1919. Front row from left to right: Commander Jellacic, commander of Yugoslav war vessels on the Danube; Lieutenant Colonel Milossovic, commander of the 9th Serbian Infantry Regiment; Captain Vernon Haggard RN, commander of the Royal Navy Danube Flotilla; Lieutenant Colonel Draskio, town commandant at Baja; Surgeon Lieutant Commander P F Cope RN, medical officer to the Danube Flotilla and Father Gregorevitch, Yugoslav Army Chaplain. Rear row from left to right: Lieutenant Pric, commanding officer of the patrol boat NERETVA; Commander R Stone RN, commanding officer of HMS LADYBIRD; Lieutenant Andric, first lieutenant of the Yugoslav monitor SAVA; Lieutenant Bacic, adjutant to Commander Jellacic; Lieutenant Commander H Hewitt, Senior British Naval Officer, Baja; Lieutenant Commander E Edmonds RN, commander of British MLs on the Danube; Lieutenant E Pigou RN, British liaison officer in SAVA; Lieutenant Kovacek, first lieutenant of the Yugoslav monitor DRAVA; Paymaster Lieutenant Commander Fritz Reger, secretary to Captain Haggard, Lieutenant H S Beresford RN, British liaison officer in DRAVA; unknown Segrbian Army officer. IWM Q 115088

This small shallow water river force also included at least four new Vickers-designed Elco-built 86-foot ML.51 motor launches, ML 196, ML.210, ML.228, and ML.434. The MLs, armed with a 3pdr plus depth charges and carrying an eight-man crew, were dangerous boats as they had gasoline engines and were poorly ventilated, with the 196 and 434 boats later catching fire and sinking in the river.

The flotilla also held control, at least temporarily in conjunction with the French, of the former Austrian KuK Donau Flotilla monitors Bodrog, Czuka, Wels, Stör, Vizu, Lachs, Fogas, Barsch, and Compó, which had lost many of their officers but still had their mostly Croat crews aboard.

While based in Baja, Hungary, the Flotilla got into a hairy situation when Bela Kun’s Soviet Republic of Hungary came to power between March and August 1919, which coincided closely with the eight-month-long and almost totally forgotten in the West, Hungarian–Romanian War and Hungarian–Czechoslovak War (both of which Hungary lost). Then came reactionary Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy’s “White Terror” after the fall of the communist government, which lasted through 1921.

All of this was tense to say the least, with one of the Flotilla’s vessels (ML.210) being captured by Hungarian Reds at one point and the old Austrian monitors always one step away from casting their lot with one faction or another, thus requiring constant minding– with the Yugolsavs taking custody of most of them in November 1919, although the Trianon Peace Treaty of 1920 divided the old KuK Donau Flotilla between Austria and Hungary.

Jane’s 1921 listing on the class, note Glowworm, Aphis, Ladybird, and ML 196 listed as being in the British Danube Flotilla. Glowworm had only joined the force in 1920.

The British quit the Danube in January 1926, but Ladybird had left the force before then, being laid up in reserve at Malta on 17 April 1922, after all the interventions, wars, and revolutions in Hungary had passed.

While Ladybird was lucky, others of her class serving abroad in similar undeclared conflicts were not. Cicala, serving on the broad Dvina River in Northern Russia in 1919, was the host to a mutinous crew and was later mined by the Bolshevik Reds and bottomed out, but was raised and returned to service. Likewise, both Glowworm and Cockchafer were badly damaged in a munitions barge explosion at Beresnik/Bereznik in August 1919 but were similarly repaired.

HMS Cicala in North Russia (Yeoman of Signals George Smith)

Once the Danube Flotilla was disbanded, Aphis and Ladybird— the latter recommissioned at Malta on 29 January 1927– were sent to join their sisters in the Far East while Glowworm, her wounds her Russia service never truly healed, was sent to Malta where in 1928 it was decided by the Admiralty that, due to her poor condition, she should be sold for scrap in September of that year.

Jane’s 1929 listing on the class note with Glowworm absent. By this time, the class was all based in China/Hong Kong, where they would run into a whole different set of problems.

Interbellum

The Insect-class river gunboat HMS Ladybird on route from Hong Kong to Shanghai in July 1927. IWM Q 80179

As noted by the December 1984 edition of the (Australian) Naval Historical Review: 

Typically, these gunboats…carried two officers and sometimes a doctor; six or seven petty officers and leading seamen, plus 17 able seamen. The remainder of the 50-odd souls aboard were Chinese servants, cooks, seamen, and black gang. Obviously, British ability to mount a landing force fell well below the capabilities of the ‘new six’ US gunboats, with their 4 line officers, doctor, and about 50 US enlisted. However, the British POs enjoyed more responsibility and authority than the American, as all RN officers could be off the ship at the same time.

It was during this period that, from 21 April 1932 to 30 September 1933, Ladybird was commanded by LCDR Eric Wheeler Bush, the youngest recipient of the D.S.C. in history, at not quite 17 while on HMS  Revenge at the Battle of Jutland.

The U.S. Navy’s flotilla of China Station patrol boats (ala Sand Pebbles) worked so closely with the RN’s boats that a number of excellent images of Ladybird exist in the NHHC archives from this era, many from the collections of Donald M. McPherson and Philip Yarnell.

HMS Ladybird at Shanghai, China circa the 1920s. NH 68496

Looking down on the Yangtze River, Ichang, China 1920s. USS Elcano (PG – 38) is above the “X” (bottom, left of center). HMS Ladybird (A British gunboat) is forward and to the right of ship with large single stack at bottom right center. USS Monocracy (PG-20) is forward and above Ladybird. NH 67243

HMS Ladybird British river gunboat, view taken at Ichang, China, May 1937. NH 81636

Yangtze River Patrol. A British gunboat on the Yangtze river, probably the HMS Ladybird, possibly near Ichang, China circa the 1920s. NH 67311

Yangtze River Patrol. A British gunboat on the Yangtze river, probably the HMS Ladybird, possibly near Ichang, China circa the 1920s. NH 67312

She also frequently found herself a consort to the ill-fated American gunboat USS Panay (PR-5). She and sister HMS Bee, the river flotilla flagship at the time, were on hand for Panay’s final day during the evacuation of Nanking in December 1937.

USS Panay (PR-5) in background right, beyond HMS Ladybird, British river gunboat. Weldon James of UPI News Service waves a handkerchief at Panay prior to his and others’ evacuation on the U.S. ship at Nanking, China, 12 December 1937. NH 50838

Panay, escorting three small Standard Oil tankers, Mei Ping, Mei An, and Mei Hsia, which in turn were packed with some 800 Chinese employees of the company and their families, was attacked on 12 December by Japanese naval aircraft while some 28 miles upstream from Nanking. The force, comprised of Yokosuka B4Y Type-96 “Jean” bombers and Nakajima A4N Type-95 biplane fighters, sank all four ships.

The same Japanese bombers later struck SS Wanhsien, owned by the China Navigation Company, part of a British company, later that day with negligible damage.

Ladybird and Bee, along with the American gunboat USS Oahu (PR-6), rushed to the scene in the aftermath and took aboard survivors of the vessels. Three Americans and an Italian correspondent were killed and at least 48 were seriously wounded.

A Japanese field artillery unit near Wuhu on the Yangtze, under orders from Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, opened fire on the scene with Bee dodging a near-miss and Ladybird taking six hits, suffering several casualties. One of Ladybird’s crew, Sick Berth Attendant Terrance N Lonergan, C/MX 50739, became the first member of the Royal Navy to perish in conflict with the Japanese since 1862.

HMS Ladybird, view of the damage on the port side sustained in an artillery attack by a Japanese Army battery on 12 December 1937, the same day as the USS Panay (PR-5) sinking. Courtesy of Vice Admiral Morton L. Deyo, USN (retired) NH 77816

USS Oahu (PR-6). The coffin of SK1 C.L. Ensminger, USN, lies beneath a U.S. flag on the fantail of the Oahu, as she heads to Shanghai, China, with the survivors of sister ship USS Panay (PR-5) which was sunk on 12 December 1937 by Japanese planes. British gunboat HMS Ladybird is astern of Oahu, 15 December 1937. Ensminger was killed in the attack on Panay. NH 50808

The class also thinned once again, with Bee, in poor material shape, being paid off in 1938 when the new Dragonfly-class gunboat HMS Scorpion arrived from Britain. Ex-Bee was sold in Shanghai for scrap on 22 March 1939 for just £5,225.

And another war

When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September 1939, kicking off WWII, Ladybird was still in China, where she would remain for the rest of the year until she and sister Aphis were nominated for service in the Mediterranean. Their local Chinese crew would remain behind, transferred throughout the station.

In the meantime, both gunboats were upgraded during a refit in Singapore, landing their original 6”/45 Mk VII guns for more capable 6”/50 Mk XIII guns which had been removed from the Jutland veteran battleship HMS Agincourt in 1922 and sent East. They also picked up two Vickers 40mm/39 2pdr QF Mk VIII pom-poms in place of their old 12 pounders. The latter would become a common addition on the Insects in this period.

Other members of the class would also later be transferred to fight the Germans and Italians in the Med and Middle East, leaving just Cicala and Moth in Hong Kong while Mantis was paid off in January 1940. It was at about this time that the 10 remaining Insects shelved their P-series pennants for T-series, with Ladybird becoming T58, Aphis T57, et. al.

In January 1940, Ladybird’s new skipper was 39-year-old recalled LCDR (retired) John Fulford Blackburn, who had been on the retired list since 1934. Everyone has to do their part and all that. Her captain since March 1938, LCDR Robert Sydney Stafford, would take command Aphis.

On 3 March 1940, Ladybird and Aphis left Penang in Malaysia under escort of the cruiser HMS Durban (D 99), which later handed them over to the cruiser HMAS Hobart (D 63), to proceed to the Mediterranean via Colombo, Aden, and the Suez.

Once in the Med, she became something of a regular off the coast of the Italian Libyan port of Bardia, home to a full army corps.

In Operation MB 1, on 23 August 1940, the Australian destroyer HMAS Waterhen covered Ladybird when she boldly entered Bardia, and fired point-blank on buildings and harbor defenses. Both vessels withdrew safely after the attack. The slow-going Ladybird returned to Alexandria on the 25th, trailing Waterhen by a day.

Ladybird would repeat her punishment of the harbor on 17 December 1940. Sailing with the destroyers HMAS Voyager and HMAS Vendetta providing cover, Ladybird, sister Aphis, and the monitor HMS Terror splashed the Italian coasters Galata, Giuseppina D, and Vincenzino, shelled and sunk in the mud at Bardia.

She then spent a week off the town over the New Years, with Aphis, Terror, Gnat, and Ladybird supported by the destroyers Voyager and HMS Dainty while the carrier HMS Illustrious, two cruisers, and four destroyers poked around further offshore– wishing the Italians to sortie out– and the bruising battleships HMS Barham, Warspite and Valiant even coming in close enough to lend their big guns in two bombardment runs on 3 January 1941, landing 244 15-inch shells.

This was during Operation Compass, the strike by the British 7th Armored Division and 6th Australian Division, with Free French Colonial troops brought in by ship from Syria, to seize the Italian stronghold, wrapping up Lt. Gen Annibale Bergonzoli’s XXII Army Corps in the process and capturing 36,000 Italian troops along with 400 guns and 900 vehicles by 5 January 1941. Ladybird inherited a second-hand 20mm/65 M1939 Breda AAA gun and several crates of shells in the process.

31 December 1940. “A visit to a company of Free French in the Bardia area, troops landing on the coast from a warship.” HMS Ladybird. stationary with a small boat in the foreground. Photo by Capt. Geoffrey John Keating, No. 1 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit IWM (E 1538)

Australian combat cameraman Damien Peter Parer was on board Ladybird when she bombarded Bardia and took dozens of snaps of the gunboat during this New Years trip, with most of them in low-rez format online at the Australian War Memorial.

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. At the safest end of the 6-inch guns on HMS Ladybrd during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004991

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. Rapid fire from the 6-inch guns on HMS Ladybrd during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004990

31 December 1940. “Off Bardia. The crew aboard HMS Ladybrd gives the Pom Pom a drink during the bombardment of Bardia.” Parker AWM 004993

He also caught numerous images of her crew snatching a bit of rest when they could between gun runs and batting away successive low-quality Italian air raids.

And a meal in the Petty Officers’ Mess, complete with the ship’s cat, Cinders. AWM 005005 and 005013.

Over 21/22 January 1941, Ladybird, Aphis, and Terror gave the same treatment to the Italian port of Tobruk on the Libyan/Egyptian border, where another 20,000 Italians were captured.

In February 1941, Ladybird landed 24 Royal Marines as part of Operation Abstention, a failed attempt to seize the Italian island of Kastelorizo (Castellorizo) in the Aegean, about 80nm from Rhodes. Sailing from Suda Bay, Crete with the destroyers HMS Decoy and Hereward packed with 200 men of No. 50 Army Commando, Ladybird was struck by bomb dropped by an Italian SM.79, wounding three sailors just after she put her Marines ashore. Damaged and low on fuel, she was forced to reembark her Marines and head to Haifa, one of several spoilers to the mission.

Once Rommel arrived in North Africa, the British fortunes in the theatre reversed and, not only was Bardia recaptured, but the German Afrika Korps surged into Egypt.

In early April, Ladybird and a few other ships were trapped in Tobruk with 27,000 other Allied troops, mostly of the 9th Australian Division but also with smatterings of Free Czech and Polish units. Together, these “Rats of Tobruk” held out for the next seven months against all odds as Rommel tried to reduce and either capture or wreck the port.

Soon, the cargo ships SS Draco, Bankura, and Urania, along with the 3,000-ton armed boarding vessel HMS Chakla were sunk by Axis aircraft of the Luftwaffe’s 3./StG 1 and 2./StG 2, along with the Regia Aeronautica’s 96, 236, and 239 Squadriglias.

“Armed boarding vessel Chakla, under bombing attack in Tobruk harbour, 1941-04-29. Note her camouflage scheme, the colours of which are probably 507a (the darker grey) and 507c. The Chakla was sunk as a result of the attack. (still from a cine film).” AWM 127950.

On 7 May, the Hunt-class minesweeper HMS Stoke (J 33) was bombed and sunk at Tobruk by Stukas of 2./StG 2, with the loss of 21 of her crew. Ladybird rushed to pick up her survivors.

Five days later, Ladybird had her turn in the barrel and was sent to the bottom after a bomb strike from II./StG 2,  settling on an even keel in ten feet of water with three men killed, all listed as “missing presumed killed”:

  • George R Morley, Able Seaman, P/J 59384, MPK
  • Wiliam Olley, Able Seaman, P/JX 171410, MPK
  • Edward Paton, Able Seaman, P/JX 152815, MPK

Tobruk, Cyrenaica, Libya. c. May 1941. A general view of bomb damaged buildings. The smoke from the harbour is from HMS Ladybird set on fire by an enemy bomb. (Donor Sergeant Maxwell) AWM 022116

By July, Ladybird’s sister HMS Cricket was similarly crippled by an Italian bomber off Mersa Matruh, Egypt while another sister, Gnat had the first 20 feet of her bow knocked off by German submarine U79 at Bardia in October and was knocked out of the war.

Even with the gunboat on the bottom and her crew dispersed through the fleet, the hulk of the old Ladybird hosted men of No. 40 Battery, 14th (“West Lothian Royal Scots” as they had converted from a Royal Scots infantry company) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (T.A.), who lived aboard her remaining topside, roughing it on a ghost ship with a few tricks still up her sleeve.

14 August 1941. Original wartime caption, emphasis mine: “Tobruk. HM Submarine Ladybird seen submerged in the harbour. The pride of Tobruk is Ladybird which was sunk in the harbour with only her gun turret above the water line. She still takes part in the defense of the Town. A Gun crew live aboard with their A.A. Gun with which they give a good account of themselves.” Taken by LT Smith, No. 1 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM E.4846

5 September 1941. Gunners of No 40 Battery, 14th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, cleaning a gun on board the half-submerged HMS Ladybird, which was sunk by enemy bombs in Tobruk Harbour. Photo by Thomas Fisher. AWM 020575

Same as the above, AWM 020574

These marooned Army gunners hung up their tin hats and spent their downtime fishing, playing cards, swimming, and reading between air raids. An almost idyllic life whenever bombs weren’t falling.

These images captured by Thomas Fisher, in the AWM:

After the 231-day siege of Tobruk was relieved by the British Eighth Army in late November and the front soon surged West, Ladybird was abandoned for good.

Ladybird’s motto was Ne sperne Fortuna (Do not throw away your luck). She well-earned two battle honors for her WWII service: Mediterranean 1940-41 and Libya 1940-41. She was hit by Japanese, Italian, and German munitions– the Axis trifecta.

Of the rest of her sisters, Cicala and Moth, still in the Far East in December 1941, were lost at Hong Kong. Just four Insects survived the war, Aphis, Cockchafer, Scarab, and Tarantula, all disposed of by 1949.

Epilogue

Ladybird’s watch bell is in the collection of the RMG, complete with the name of a infant baptized aboard her in 1936 while on China station.

A large builder’s model of her recently sold at auction.

Model of Ladybird, via Bonhams

Of Ladybird’s 12 skippers, only one, Capt. John Fenwick Warton, who commanded her in 1920 while on the Danube, went on to become an admiral. Her 12th, CDR Blackburn, survived her sinking in 1941 and would go on to command the sloop HMS Woodcock (U 90) later in the war. Blackburn earned both a DSO and Bar during the war and rejoined the retired list afterward, passing in 1978.

The West Lothian Royal Scots, who lived aboard Ladybird in her time with the Army, remained in North Africa through the rest of the campaign then landed at Salerno under the 12th AA Brigade and fought in Italy until January 1945, when they returned to Britain and disbandment.

As for the intrepid Australian war photographer who rode Ladybird into battle off Bardia and captured the moment in celluloid, Damien Parer journeyed west to the Pacific in 1942 and filmed “Kokoda Front Line,” one of the most iconic Australian war documentaries. While covering the faces of advancing Marines on Peleliu in September 1944, Parer, walking backwards behind the cover of a tank, was killed by a burst of Japanese machine gun fire, aged 32.

Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, the Japanese officer who ordered his guns to fire on the Panay rescue party, hitting Ladybird in the process, post-war was sentenced to life imprisonment in Sugamo Prison by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He died in 1957. The attack on Ladybird was cited both against him and Gen. Iwane Matsui, the overall Japanese commander during the Nanking campaign in 1937, during their war crimes trials. Matsui was hung for his crimes at Sugamo in 1948.

Ladybird is remembered in maritime art.

“Greyhound and Ladybird in search of enemy battery off Tobruk, like ill assorted terriers” between November 1942 and December 1942. Pictures of Paintings by LCDR R Langmaid, RN, Official Fleet Artist. These Pictures Are For Illustrating a Naval War Book by Paymaster Captain L a Da C Ritchie, RN. IWM A 13635

The Royal Navy recycled her name in 1950 at the outbreak of the Korean War, by purchasing the 295-foot British-owned CNCo freighter MV Wusueh, which had been requisitioned for WWII service by the MoWT and only returned to her owners a couple years prior. Renamed HMS Ladybird, she was moored at Sasebo, Japan, as the Naval Headquarters and Communications vessel for the Commonwealth Blockading forces through 1953.

“HMS Ladybird, a British converted Yangtze River steamer. January 1951, Sasebo, Japan. HMS Ladybird was the nerve center of the British Commonwealth fleet in the Korean zone. It was the forward headquarters ship of Vice Admiral W. G. Andrewes, who commanded the fleet. It had communications equipment equal to that of a cruiser, and from her, the fueling, feeding, ammunitioning, and welfare of the fleet was administered.” IWM A 31830

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

« Older Entries Recent Entries »