USS Quincy (CA-39) photographed from a Japanese cruiser during the Battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal, 9 August 1942. Quincy, seen here burning and illuminated by Japanese searchlights, was sunk in this action (NH 50346).
Known today as the Battle of Savo Island British RADM Victor Crutchley’s Task group 62.6 cruiser and destroyer covering force, subordinated under U.S. ADM Richmond K. Turner for the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal, seemed mighty on paper: three Australian and five American cruisers, 15 destroyers, and some minesweepers.
The thing is, most were huddled around the beach and those that weren’t were separated into a number of smaller groups including:
Two tin cans on radar picket (USS Blue and USS Ralph Talbot)
A Southern cruiser group with the heavy cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago along with the destroyers USS Bagley and USS Patterson; and…
A Northern cruiser group with the heavy cruisers USS Vincennes, USS Quincy, and USS Astoria along with the destroyers USS Helm and USS Wilson.
Running a barricade to defend the landing beaches and ‘phibs, this immediate force of five Allied heavy cruisers and six destroyers– equipped with radar!– seemed a good match for Japanese VADM Gunichi Mikawa’s incoming striking group from Rabaul and Kavieng of five heavy cruisers (Chokai, Aoba, Furutaka, Kako, and Kinugasa) two light cruisers (Tenryu and Yubari) and the destroyer Yunagi.
Seemed.
However, ineffectively deployed into three separate and spread-out forces against Mikawa’s unified squadron, the Australian-American task group was sleepwalking with fatigued crews in the dark without properly using their radar (which was so new that tactics were still being developed for its use) and largely ignoring aerial spotting reports that should have warned the force while the Japanese, skilled in night fighting and armed with formidable Long Lance torpedos, took the Allies out with almost spooky ease, pounded to the seabed while fixed under the gaze of enemy searchlights.
Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942. cruisers USS Astoria (CA-34), USS Vincennes (CA-44), USS Quincy (CA 39) shown torpedo attack and shellfire from the Japanese cruisers. by John Hamilton NHHC
Japanese cruiser Yūbari shines searchlights toward the northern force of Allied warships during the battle of Savo island
Heavy cruiser Furutaka during the Battle of Savo Island.
“Night Battle of Savo Island by an unknown Japanese artist.”
In the short pre-dawn hour between 01:31 of 9 August 1942, when Mikawa ordered “Every ship attack” and 02:20 when he ordered them to retire, Vincennes, Quincy, Astoria, and Canberra were all mortally wounded while Chicago and two destroyers were very seriously damaged. Only two Japanese cruisers were damaged but could still make it back to base.
It was a mauling, an execution by large caliber shells at point blank range.
Canberra was hit at least 24 times. Astoria took 65 hits. Vincennes was struck an estimated 74 times. They were the first ships to be sunk in what today is named “Ironbottom Sound.”
HMAS Canberra’s last moments off Savo Island, 9th August 1942
Hits sustained by Astoria at the Battle of Savo Island off Guadalcanal on August 9, 1942
The Allies suffered at least 1,077 killed and missing while the Japanese a mere 58.
Some 500 no doubt traumatized survivors of the lost American cruisers would be held under Marine guard at Treasure Island for weeks with orders not to talk about the defeat– something that only hit the papers back home nearly three months later. After all, nothing stays secret forever.
James D. Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, covers this sad tale in great detail. See chapter “The Martyring of Task Group 62.6” in particular.
An interesting conversation on the battle from the Australian point of view– Canberra was the RAN’s largest warship loss in any conflict– the Naval Studies Group at the University of Canberra held a panel of Dr. Greg Gilbert, Vice Admiral Peter Jones, and Dr. Kathryn Spurling to discuss the engagement a few years ago.
Some 80 years ago today, on 6 August 1942, the Royal Canadian Navy’s C-class destroyer leader HMCS Assiniboine (I18)turned herself into a knife to slice up a German sausage in the form of a U-boat
Ordered in 1929 for the Royal Navy as HMS Kempenfelt, she joined the British fleet in 1932 and served until the outbreak of World War II, when shortly after Hitler sent his legions over the Polish border, the 1,400-ton tin can moved over to the Canadians and was given her Assiniboine moniker (just “Bones” to her crew) and was soon busting German blockade runners in the Caribbean. Allocated for mid-ocean escort service in June 1941, she would ride shotgun on a staggering 71 convoys.
This brings us to Kptlt. Rudolf Lemcke’s U-210, a Krupp-built Type VIIC operating with the Steinbrinck wolfpack some 20-days into her first war patrol.
At 1325 on August 6, in a patch of clear weather, H. M. C. S. Assiniboine, forming part of the escort of S. C. 94 from Halifax to the United Kingdom, sighted a conning tower bearing 30° range 6 miles. At 1338 she fired three salvos, before the last of which the U-boat altered course to port and dived. It has been positively established by survivors’ statements that this boat was not U-210. Assiniboine arrived in the vicinity of this U-boat’s diving position at 1357 and altered course to 330°, this being the estimated course of the U-boat before she dived. Assiniboine then carried out a box sweep in the area, at 1418 firing a pattern of depth charges set at 100 to 225 feet, but with no evident results, and continued to sweep in the presumed track of this U-boat.
At 1912 Assiniboine sighted a conning tower bearing 120° at 2,000 yards retiring at full speed into the fog. At 2036, with visibility about 2,000 yards, she established a Radar contact bearing 270°. Almost immediately she sighted U-210, stopped. Then U-210 went ahead at full speed and altered course to starboard, disappearing into the fog after Assiniboine had fired one round. Assiniboine, hearing H. E. at this time bearing 300°, increased speed, but misjudged the distance she had run and, thinking she had passed the U-boat’s position, altered to 345°, the target’s estimated course. She then realized her mistake, and altered course back to 190°. Visibility was then 600 to 800 yards.
At 2000 the bridge watch was relieved aboard U-210, the following men coming on duty: Quartermaster Holst, Coxswain Krumm, Monbach, and Meetz. Mueller relieved Mycke at the helm. Mueller is believed to have stood alone in the conning tower at this time. As none of the bridge watch survived the following action, accounts of the sinking of U-210 are limited to his statements and those of men below decks.
According to Mueller, fog closed around the U-boat as the watch was relieved and Lemcke, thinking that U-210 was safely hidden, came below to eat his supper. A few minutes later Mueller heard confused sounds of shouting and firing above, and Lemcke and Tamm passed him on the way to the bridge. General alarm was sounded throughout the U-boat, by buzzers in the forward compartments and by flickering green and red lights in the engine room, as the crew were eating their evening meal.
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Assiniboine.
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closes
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enemy.
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Assiniboine takes a scalp.
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At 2050 Assiniboine gained another Radar contact at 035° on the starboard bow, range 1,200 yards. She closed it at full speed and about 1 minute later sighted U-210, still on the surface. She closed to ram at full speed, having first housed the dome and prepared a 50-foot depth-charge pattern.
Both vessels opened fire and for about 25 minutes a furious action ensued at almost point-blank range. U-210 took a constant evading action, and Assiniboine was forced to go full astern on the inside engine to prevent U-210 getting inside her turning circle, which the U-boat seemed to be trying to do. During some of this action the two vessels were so close that Assiniboine‘s company could see Lemcke on U-210‘s bridge bending down to pass wheel orders.
Aboard U-210 no effort was made to dive immediately nor could anyone reach the 8.8-cm. gun, but fire from Assiniboine was returned by Holst, manning the 2-cm. gun at a range of approximately 200 yards. Explosive bullets were used and started a second-degree fire in Assiniboine‘s forecastle, spreading aft almost to the bridge.
Lemcke was blamed posthumously by his men for not submerging at once, but the volume of smoke pouring from the destroyer apparently led him to believe that he had damaged her considerably, and encouraged him to prolong the action. Prisoners also stated that he felt he could escape on the surface through the protecting fog, if need be.
Assiniboine‘s first hits damaged one of U-210‘s port trimming tanks. The bridge was then struck by machine gun bullets. Holst was shot through the neck and killed outright, and Krumm was badly wounded. An instant later Assiniboine scored a direct hit with her 4.7 gun on the conning tower, the shell making a shambles of the bridge.
A prisoner stated that Lemcke was literally blown to pieces, and that Krumm, lying wounded, was virtually decapitated. It is assumed that Tamm also suffered a violent death.
Mueller believed that a body was flung against the torpedo firing mechanism, releasing an unset torpedo. Between them prisoners counted three more direct hits: One through the forward torpedo tubes, another which carried away the deck covering between the 8.8-cm. gun and the forward torpedo hatch – neither causing leaks in the pressure hull – and one aft which smashed the screws, water entering the boat. The boat was down by the stern, the electric motors had caught fire, and the round hitting the conning tower had severely damaged the Diesel air-intake.
During the action an attempt was also made to fire one torpedo.
The tube’s crew was told to stand by, but the order was never given.
With the conning tower practically demolished, Sorber, the engineer officer, now attempted to dive U-210. As the boat submerged, she
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was rammed to starboard by Assiniboine abaft the conning tower and over the galley hatch (Kombüsenluke). U-210 descended to a depth of 18 meters. Water was flooding into the boat through the damaged Diesel air-intake, and through the battered stern. The electric motors had failed and everything breakable within the boat had been shattered.
Sorber gave the order to blow tanks and abandon ship, under the misapprehension that Göhlich, who had received superficial cuts, was too badly injured to make the ultimate decision. Sorber later reproached himself for surfacing and surrendering as he believed, upon subsequent reflection, that he might have been able to escape submerged. On surfacing, it was found that the water in the air-intake prevented the Diesels from being started and, according to survivors, U-210 remained stopped and slightly down by the stern. Assiniboine rammed again aft as U-210 surfaced, firing a shallow pattern of depth charges as she passed. The C. O. of the destroyer stated that the U-boat then sank by the head in 2 minutes.
Mueller stated that he stayed at his post until he heard the order. “Blow tanks; stand by life jackets!” He then left the helm as his life jacket was in the forward torpedo compartment and the men had been told never to take any but their own. He clambered through to the bow compartment, where he found a number of men abandoning ship through the forward torpedo hatch. Water was flooding through the hatch as he followed them. The majority of the engine-room personnel thought they were trapped when they found, first, that the galley hatch was jammed, and then, that they could not move the conning tower hatch which had become jammed by the direct hit on the bridge. Through their combined exertions they finally got the conning tower hatch open. The last man out of the control room stated that water was well over his boots there as he left.
When all were mustered, the engineer officer and one of the control room petty officers apparently went below, opened flooding valve 5 and put an explosive charge in the periscope shaft. There is a special opening in the shaft inside the boat for this purpose. The radio men threw overboard a number of secret papers, or burned them with incendiary leaflets. They also smashed the radio equipment with a hammer. Sorber himself denied that he had done anything more than open the seacocks before leaving the boat, as the last man out.
U-210 sank at 2114, H. M. S. Dianthus appearing out of the fog in time to see her go under. Although at the time of her sinking her after aerial was out of action and her Morse key broken, the chief radioman said he was able to send a signal reporting her sinking. Although this signal was much under power, he was sure that if B. d. U. did not receive it, one of the other U-boats in the vicinity did.
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One survivor said that the radioman told them afterward that he had not been able to send any signals.
In view of the tremendous punishment taken by U-210 it is remarkable that the entire crew below decks escaped with their lives.
Bones would survive the war and be scrapped in 1952 with three Battle Honours (Atlantic 1939-45, Biscay 1944, English Channel 1944-45).
The battle between Bones and U-210 is remembered in maritime art.
HMCS DIANTHUS IN THE DISTANCE. BONES BEATS U210 THE AUGUST 1942 SINKING OF THE GERMAN SUBMARINE, U210 BY HMCS ASSINIBOINE Tom Forrestal CWM 20110023-001
HMCS ASSINIBOINE by SubLt Beatty Grieve CWM 19740552-002-2487×2160
ASSINIBOINE VERSUS U-BOAT U-210 CDR Harold Bement CWM 19710261-1021
Official caption: “Somewhere on the Pacific, an alert Coast Guardsman scans the horizon as he clutches his machine gun, looking for trouble.” Released 29 September 1942.
USCG Photo via the National Archives 26-G-09-29-42(6)
Incidentally, the Coasties were, as far as I can tell, the longest user of the Thompson submachine gun. The service picked up some M1921 Colts during Prohibition to fight bootleggers and rumrunners and continued to have WWII-era M1 Thompsons in the small arms lockers of cutters well into the 1970s, with some tapping in on Market Time during Vietnam.
Here we see, buried under extensive awnings, the Danae-class light cruiser HMS Delhi (D47) at Long Beach, California, on 28 July 1932.
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 60836
Laid down at Armstrong Whitworth during the Great War, Delhi wasn’t commissioned until June 1919, dispatched almost immediately to Baltic service against the Bolsheviks. Seeing much interwar service around the globe in the Med, Far East, and the Caribbean, her stop in California came during her time as flagship, 8th Cruiser Squadron, during a 20,000-mile, five-month cruise from Devonport to Malta via both the Atlantic and Pacific.
Historic voyage map from HMS Delhi log showing voyage from England to Canada and on to Malta, 1932. Via Wiki commons.
The U.S. Navy captured numerous shots of her in Long Beach, detailing the 5,000-ton cruiser at peace.
At Long Beach, California with a view of 2 pounder QF anti-aircraft pom-pom gun by the bridge and two forward BL 6-inch Mk XII naval guns, one of which is completely covered by canvas overhead. NH 61082
With a view of the range clock on the foremast and her extensive variety of small boats. NH 61083
View of her portside QF 3-inch high-angle anti-aircraft gun (she had one on each side) as well as her torpedo tubes. NH 61081
Coming into Berth K, sans awnings. Note her two sets of starboard torpedo tubes. NH 60828
A great bow-on shot from the pier. Note the bales of what could be rubber stacked to the right. NH 61279
NH 61277
Astern. Note the “City of Long Beach” sign in the distance. NH 61278
Following her 1932 cruise, Delhi ended up in the Mediterranean with the 3rd Cruiser Squadron, where she was involved in the periphery of the Spanish Civil War. When WWII came, she was reactivated from mothballs, captured a German blockade runner, served with Force H, supported the Allied landings at Algiers, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and the Dragoon landings in Southern France, fighting off German explosive boats, Fritz bombs and air attacks, suffering extensive battle damage on several occasions.
The proud Dehli was judged to be too aged, too broken, and too obsolete after VJ Day and was eventually sold for scrap in 1948.
Above we see 28-year-old Oberleutnant zur See (=Lieutenant) Hans-Günther Kuhlmann on the running bridge of DKM U-166, a brand new German Type IXC U-boat, circa 1942. The good Oblt. Kuhlmann was U-166‘s sole skipper during WWII and he, his submarine, and all 51 of her hands have been sleeping along the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico for 80 years as of this week, although how they got there was the subject of contention.
One of the 54 Type IXCs completed during the war, U-166 was laid down at Seebeckwerft A.G. (Yard # 705) in Bremerhaven at the mouth of the Weser River on 6 December 1940 just after the Battle of Britain served up the first German defeat. At some 1,232 tons, she was not a big boat, running just 251 feet overall. However, the class was well designed and capable of 13,450-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. While most of these boats could carry as many as 66 mines, all could also carry TMC-type torpedo mines in the place of a fish.
Commissioned on 23 March 1942, she spent the next two months in the 4. Flottille training squadron out of Stettin on the Baltic, then chopped on 1 June to Korvkpt. Günther Kuhnke’s 10. Frontflottille at Lorient in occupied France.
An AGFA video exists of her sea trials.
Arriving on 10 June after a combat sortie from Kristiansand in occupied Norway, her first war patrol was uneventful.
U-166 with her commander, Han-Günther Kuhlmann (bareheaded, top), before her patrol. Image courtesy of the PAST Foundation.
Spending a week in France stocking up and enjoying the local sights, U-166 sailed for her second (and final) war patrol on 17 June 1942.
Making for the Gulf of Mexico via the Florida Straits, U-166 drew her first blood when on 11 July 1942 she shelled and sank the unescorted and unarmed Dominican two-masted schooner Carmen (84 tons), which had been carrying a mixed cargo of maize, mahogany, and cedar, about 8 miles northeast of Gaspar Hernández, DR. The Dominicans had declared war on Germany four days after Pearl Harbor, for reference, and Carmen was one of four Dominican-manned ships sent to the bottom by U-boats during the conflict. While the country never sent troops overseas to help the Allies, at least 100 Dominicans signed up with the U.S. military during the war.
Two days later, U-166 fired her first warshot torpedo, ending the career of the unescorted and unarmed Ford Motor Company’s SS Oneida (2,309 tons), sailing empty from Puerto Rico to Cuba, while steaming about two miles north of Cape Maysi, Cuba. The steamer sank in minutes, but 23 survivors were able to make it safely to shore.
On 16 July, U-166 would claim her third vessel in a week, stopping the Miami Fish & Ice Co’s unarmed trawler Gertrude (16 tons) about 30 miles northeast of Havana, a port to which she was carrying a load of fresh onions. Putting her three-man crew into their motor launch and pointing them towards the shore, Gertrude was sent to the bottom with a scuttling charge or gunfire (reports vary).
Moving into the Gulf of Mexico, U-166 quietly laid nine TMC mines off Port Eads/South Pass, at the southern tip of the Mississippi River on the Louisiana coast. This was considered the boat’s primary mission, as each of these massive 2,400-pound mines could break the back of a merchantman and potentially block the Mississippi– not to mention cause a massive panic as, in typical U.S. Navy fashion, there was nowhere near enough mine countermeasures assets available to safeguard the domestic sea frontier. However, although Kuhlmann’s special mission was successful on its face, in a stroke of luck for mariners in the area, none of the mines ended up making contact and the field was cleared post-war after Allied panels were given access to Kriegsmarine records logging some 43,636 mines sown worldwide in at least 1,360 minefields.
Anyway, after delivering his eggs to the mouth of the Mighty Miss, Kuhlmann & Co. decided to stick around and pursue targets of opportunity for his remaining torpedoes. This brings us to the…
Robert E. Lee
Constructed for “Ice King” banking and shipping magnate Charles Wyman Morse for his Eastern Steamship Lines, the sistership 5,100-ton passenger liners SS George Washington and SS Robert E. Lee were put into service with Eastern’s Old Dominion Line. In 1937-38, they were making four regular sailings weekly between NYC’s Pier 25 to Norfolk’s Pier S for $12 one way or $16.50 round trip.
SS Robert E. Lee and her sister George Washington were simple one-stack, three-decker 373-footers that, besides work-a-day transport of almost 400 passengers on each coastwise trip, could run fresh produce as cargo from Virginia to New York City by the next day and return with garments, furniture, and dry goods from the North.
A June 1924 detail from the Marine Review on SS Robert E. Lee and her sister George Washington, noting they could carry almost 250,000 bales of cargo (1,700 tons) loaded through 10 cargo elevators as well as 322 “white and colored” passengers along with 58 in steerage. Capable of 16 knots, they were fast for their type and time.
Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Lee and Washington were taken up by the War Shipping Administration under contract by the Alcoa Steamship Co. and converted to carry up to 778 troops, typically on shuttle runs from U.S. East Coast ports to assorted Allied Caribbean bases and Bermuda. This conversion included a dark paint scheme, degaussing equipment to help avid mines and magnetic exploders on torpedoes, lots of Carley floats rigged to break loose topside if needed, and a single 3″/50 DP mount with its accompanying Naval Guard crew.
Sailing from Trinidad on 21 July for Tampa with eight officers, 122 crewmen, six armed guards, and 268 passengers– including 115 waterlogged mariners of the sunk tankers Andrea Brovig (Sunk by U-128 on 23 June), Høegh Giant ( U-126 on 3 June), and Stanvac Palembang (U-203 on 11 July)– along with 47 tons of general cargo and personal effects, Lee was part of Intracoastal Convoy TAW-7. However, just short of Florida, TAW-7 was dispersed, and she was carved out and diverted, escorted by the brand-new (commissioned 15 June) PC-461-class submarine chaser USS PC-566 riding shotgun, for New Orleans.
USS PC-566, via The Ted Stone Collection, Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA. She would spend her entire career in the Florida-Caribbean area on patrol and escort duty and as a training ship out of Miami then go on to be sold to Venezuela in June 1961 and serve for another decade.
It was on the late hours of 30 July, about 45 miles southeast of the entrance to the Mississippi River and 146 miles south-by-southwest of the Biloxi lighthouse, that U-166 would see its biggest prize.
Firing a single torpedo, Lee was as unlucky as the men of the three tankers that she carried, and the ship soon sank, taking 25 souls with her.
Lookouts had spotted the torpedo wake about 200 yards away before it struck just aft of the engine room. The explosion destroyed the #3 hold, vented through the B and C decks, and wrecked the engines, the radio compartment, and the steering gear.
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The badly damaged Robert E. Lee first listed to port then to starboard and finally sank by the stern about 15 minutes after the torpedo hit. One officer, nine crewmen, and 15 passengers were lost. The survivors…abandoned the ship in six lifeboats, eight rafts, and five floats and were soon picked up by USS PC-566, USS SC-519, and the tug Underwriter and landed in Venice, Louisiana.
The end of U-166
Immediately after Lee was hit, her escorting 173-foot subchaser PC-566, with her green crew under the command of LT Herbert Gordon Claudius, USNR, dropped five depth charges across a sonar contact, circled back and dropped another five, then proceeded to pick up survivors after the contact disappeared in deep water and a large– reportedly 200 feet wide– oil slick was observed.
PC-566‘s depth charge runs were considered (at the time) ineffective, but U-166 never made it back to Lorient.
As Claudius and his crew had been rushed into service and had not received any formal ASW training yet, his reported “kill” was dismissed as unlikely. The new skipper was stripped of his command, sent to Sonar school to ride a desk, and admonished “for breaking radio silence twice before his arrival” and for “not being in the proper patrol station, nor that any proven system of attack was followed.” Further, the Navy said, “It is not considered probable that any except minor damage could have been sustained by the submarine.”
The Coast Guard flew some 25 Widgeons, numbers V197 through V221 from 1941 to 1950, purchased from Grumman for $75,000 each. V203 is pictured here. Equipped with twin inverted Ranger L-440 engines, the J4F-1 was a high-wing all-metal monoplane with a range of 750 miles at a pokey 135 miles per hour. It was modified to carry a crew of two and a single 325-pound depth charge under the inboard right wing. Alternatively, a bomb, raft, or droppable SAR gear could be carried in that position.
Piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry C. White with RM1 George H. Boggs as a crewmember, V212 was forward deployed from an outlying grass field at Houma, Louisiana owned by Texaco, and reported depth charging a surfaced German U-boat on 1 August, two days after Robert E. Lee was lost and about 100 miles away from that killing field.
They were at 1,500 feet at the base of a broken cloud deck 100 miles south of the Houma base. Through the open windows of their twin-engine Grumman J4F-1 Widgeon amphibian, they could see about 10 miles across the hazy gulf sea. White had just turned to the northeast to set up a ladder search for the assigned area and moments later they saw a surfaced German submarine. White started to maneuver the Widgeon behind the sub for a stern attack, but it immediately became obvious that as soon as White and Boggs had seen the sub, the sub had seen them, and the U-boat began to slide underwater in a crash dive. White banked sharply to starboard and from a half mile away began his dive towards the sub fully aware that he had only a sole depth charge under his wing and that he would have but one try.
At an altitude of 250 feet, the single depth charge was released. Boggs stuck his head out of the window and watched the depth charge fall into the Gulf waters, its fuse set to explode 25 feet below the surface. He estimated it entered the water 20 feet from the submarine on the starboard side. Boggs saw a large geyser of water rise from the explosion. White later wrote that the submarine was visible during the entire approach being just under the water and still clearly visible when the depth charge was released. When they circled back around, they saw only a medium oil slick. German records obtained after the war verified that the U-166 had been sunk in that area at the beginning of August. White and Boggs were given credit for the sinking.
Coast Guard Air Station Biloxi was an 18-acre seaplane base founded at Point Cadet on Back Bay in 1934 and remained in service until 1966 when the land and its 12,000 square-foot hangar and barracks were turned over to the city.
The above image is from 1941. In the far back of the hangar pictured above is a twin-engine PH-2 Hall Aluminum Flying Boat, either V-166 or V-170. Next to it is the single-engine JF-2 Grumman Amphibian V-143. A brand new twin-engine JFR-2 Grumman Amphibian, V-184, pokes its nose into the sunshine.
Biloxi Coast Guard Air Station would become the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum. The structure was destroyed in Katrina.
A stylized 1940s postcard made from composite photographs showing two J2F Ducks, three airborne J4F-1 Widgeons, and an RD-4 Dolphin at USCG Air Sta Biloxi at Point Cadet. After 1966, the old hangar was used by the city for concerts and festivals until it was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.
The destruction of U-166 by V212 went down in Coast Guard (and Grumman) history and was celebrated for the rest of the 20th Century. This led V212– which had been sold on the commercial market in 1948 when the USCG got out of the Widgeon game and later flown as a commercial airliner (N212ST) in Alaska– to be acquired by the National Naval Aviation Museum at NAS Pensacola in 1988 and preserved, reverted to her WWII USCG livery.
In all, from 1942 into 1943, no less than 24 German U-boats patrolled the Gulf of Mexico– the American Sea– sinking 56 Allied vessels of which 39 were in the coastal waters of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. U-166 has the distinction of being the only German submarine lost in the Gulf.
Epilogue
In 1986, Shell Offshore found two likely shipwrecks on a deep tow survey in one of their leased oil fields due south of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 5,000 feet of water. It was thought that one was possibly the remains of the bauxite freighter SS Alcoa Puritan, another World War II casualty lost in the same rough area as Robert E. Lee, sunk by U-507 about 15 miles off the entrance to the Mississippi River in May 1942.
In 2001, deep water HUGIN 3000 AUVs of C&C Technologies working pipeline survey along the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico’s Mississippi Canyon for BP and Shell (the Mississippi Canyon is home to well MC 252, the infamous Deepwater Horizon well), found a single-stack ocean liner and, less than a mile away, a broken submarine.
In 2010, U-166 was briefly revisited during the Lophelia II study, where archaeologists collected additional ROV videos, still photos, core samples, and biological samples and re-examined the test platforms that had been deployed on site since 2003.
Finally, in 2014, as part of a National Geographic Explorer-funded effort that was turned into a one-hour special, Robert G. Ballard surveyed the U-boat and suggested that one of PC-566’s depth charges had wrecked the bow and likely detonated several torpedo warheads.
Further analysis by the Naval History and Heritage Command agreed. It turned out that PC-566 was the only one of the 343 PC-461 class submarine chasers to be credited with sinking a U-boat.
This also brought some closure to Kuhlmann’s widow. Following the film crew documenting the discovery of the U-boat, she donated an ample collection of images from Kuhlmann’s service to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans through the PAST Foundation, where it is preserved as part of the story.
Some personal images of Kuhlmann are in the collection of The National WWII Museum.
Down the coast in Biloxi, U-166 has always had a special place in the city’s lore, as for years it was celebrated as the base where V212, the long-thought dispatcher of the boat, was assigned. The City’s Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum— located on the grounds of the old Coast Guard Air Station at Point Cadet– has exhibits on the base, its aircraft, and history, as well as the barrack’s tower, saved after Hurricane Katrina.
(Photo: Chris Eger)
Since 2005, the Seafood Industry Museum has had a 45-foot U-boat model, constructed for the film U-571, which has been dedicated to U-166 (although it depicts a German Type VII U-boat) after a rework in 2008 by volunteers of the Tullibee Base Submarine Veterans and those of Seabee Base Gulfport.
The U-571 model is next to the old tower from the USCG Air Sta Biloxi barracks. (Photo: Chris Eger)
As for V212, the NHHC revised the record book and cited that the Coast Guard seaplane likely had attacked but failed to sink U-171, a Type IXC sistership of U-166 that was operating in the same area at the time and reported being bombed by a “Flugboot” (flying boat) on 1 August with slight damage. U-171 went on to sink the tanker R. M. Parker Jr. (6,779 tons) two weeks later off the Louisiana coast, then was herself lost just short of Lorient when she struck a mine just miles short of the end of her maiden war patrol.
Speaking of losses, of U-166’s sister boats, 50 of 54 were lost, almost all to Allied ASW efforts. Only four survived the war and a single example, U-505, is the only one of two of her class (U-534 was sunk in 1945 and then salvaged by the British in 1993) preserved. Of all places, U-505 is in Chicago.
4 June 1944 Tug USS Abnaki (ATF-96) tows U-505 photo from USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) Note the large U.S. Ensign flying from U-505’s periscope. 80-G-324351
And finally, Robert E. Lee’s sister, George Washington, survived the war and lived a second life in the Pacific until the mid-1950s.
George Washington’s entry in “U.S. Troopships of WWII.” After the war, she was acquired by the Alaska Transport Company (ATCo.) to run between Seattle and Alaska until ATCo went bankrupt in 1948. A French company named CGT bought her in 1949, renamed her SS Gascogne (Gascoigne), ran her in the Caribbean for a while, then in 1952 sold her to Messageries-Maritimes, who operated her in Indochina until she was scrapped in Hong Kong in 1955.
Specs:
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
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The Parachute Regiment was established on 1 August 1942 from No 2 Commando/No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion (which had already conducted the first British airborne operation, Operation Colossus, against the Tragino aqueduct, on 10 February 1941, and been renamed 1st Parachute Battalion in September 1941) and volunteers who were forming the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions. This new regiment was placed under the Army Air Corps, alongside the existing Glider Pilot Regiment (air-landing infantry), as the 1st Parachute Brigade and, before 1942 was up, was tossed into action in French Morocco and Algeria during Operation Torch.
“The Parachute Regiment in Training, Ringway, August 1942.” A paratrooper armed with a STEN gun equipped for a jump. Malindine E G (Lt), Puttnam L (Lt), Spender H (Lt), War Office official photographer. IWM H 22754.
Same spread as above, IWM H 22759, note the Pegasus flash on the Para’s smock and No. 4 Enfield bayonet for his STEN.
By Overlord in June 1944, the British had five parachute brigades consisting of 17 battalions, most of which were under the 1st (British) Airborne Division, and 6th (British) Airborne Division. By the end of the war, the Brits had an impressive 31 battalions of Denison smock-wearing airborne troops in a mix of glider-borne infantry (10), SAS (3), and parachute light infantry (18) units, not even counting hard-charging Indian (6) and Gurkha (1) airborne battalions who were very active that year against the Japanese in the CBI theatre.
The “PARAS” have been paired down quite a bit over the years but are still very much around.
Today, 2 Para and 3 Para Bns serve as part of 16 Air Assault Brigade, the UK’s rapid deployment “fire brigade” force, while 1 Para serves as a support group alongside elements of the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force in the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG). The Army Reserve has 4 Para Bn which retains its airborne/air assault capability through a far higher level of training typically seen in other Reserve units.
As a salute to the Regiment that over the weekend, Paratroopers of all four Battalions, the Red Devils (Britain’s version of the Golden Knights), and some 250 cherry berry vets gathered at the National Memorial Arboretum for a Service of Remembrance and recognition of the 80th Anniversary of the formation of the Regiment in 1942.
This week marks 80 years since the start of the hell that was the Kokoda Campaign.
On the night of 21 July 1942, Japanese forces of the South Seas Detachment landed on the northern beaches of Papua at Gona and moved to cross the Kokoda Trail overland to reach Port Moresby. The first fighting occurred between the Japanese and elements of the Papuan Infantry Battalion and the 39th Australian Infantry Battalion at Awala on 23 July.
July 23, 1942: Japanese troops move up Kokoda trail and clash with Australian forces. Painting by Japanese artist Kei Sato from 1943
This soon became a desperate and bloody fighting retreat– including several instances of bitter hand-to-hand combat– along the Trail that would stretch into mid-November is one of the most forgotten ground campaigns of WWII.
A patrol of the 2/31st Battalion negotiates a path through the native cane growing on the swampy river flats bordering the Brown River c 4 October 1942. A two-day rest at the river, during which time it was re-supplied by air, enabling an issue of tobacco and chocolate was “very beneficial”. The men were able to swim and wash their clothes, to light fires, and smoke at night for the first time since the campaign began more than three weeks before. In a month’s time, the 2/31st Battalion would become the first Australian troops to re-enter Kokoda.
Kokoda and the Aussies. Note the Owen SMG, Bren, No III Enfield SMLE rifle, posing among the captured Japanese helmets
Kokoda and the Aussies. Australian captured Japanese Type 11 mountain gun and Type 96 machine gun
As noted by the Australian War Memorial:
The Kokoda Trail fighting was some of the most desperate and vicious encountered by Australian troops in the Second World War. Although the successful capture of Port Moresby was never going to be a precursor to an invasion of Australia, victory on the Kokoda Trail did ensure that Allied bases in northern Australia, were vital in the coming counter-offensive against the Japanese, would not be seriously threatened by air attack. Approximately 641 Australians were killed along the Kokoda Trail and over 1,600 were wounded. Casualties due to sickness exceeded 4,000.
“The Kokoda Trail is one of the most iconic Australian campaigns of the Second World War,” Dr. Karl James, Head of Military History at the Australian War Memorial, said. “Eighty years on, it is important to continue to honor those veterans.”
These days, the Australian Army still takes jungle warfare seriously, conducting regular Butterworth training rotations in Malaysia to keep their skills sharp.
C Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment on Butterworth Rotation 136 in Malaysia, Aug 2022.
The date: the overnight of 22/23 July 1945. U.S. Navy Destroyer Squadron 61 (DesRon 61, CAPT Thomas Henry Hederman), consisting of nine modern Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers USS De Haven (DD-727), Mansfield (DD-728), Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729), Maddox (DD-731), Collett (DD-730), Taussig (DD-746), Blue (DD-744), Samuel N. Moore (DD-747), and Brush (DD-745),sweeps Sagami Bay– lower Tokyo Bay.
With each of the Sumners mounting six 5″/38s, they could get off a tremendous amount of fire when needed.
Detecting a Japanese convoy of four vessels at 2305 while still 33,000 yards away, the chase was on. Closing to within 11,000 yards by 2353, the engagement took just 16 minutes and saw the DDs fire 3,291 5-inch shells and let fly some 18 torpedoes.
The score? One Japanese merchant ship was sunk– the freighter No.5 Hakutetsu Maru (810 t), and the other, Enbun Maru (7,030 t), damaged. The escorting IJN minesweeper (No. 1) and subchaser (No. 42) were unharmed. The little convoy was carrying a disassembled aircraft factory and was headed to Korea to set up shop, a trip that was aborted after the battle.
The American losses were zero.
As noted by the National WWII Museum, the engagement, termed today the Battle of Sagami Bay, was “the first time U.S. Navy ships entered the outer reaches of Tokyo Bay since April 1939.”
While DesRon 61 never received a commendation for the action, Halsey himself signaled afterward, pointing out that the force rode heavy post-typhoon seas into the Bay with great effect:
“Commander Third Fleet notes with great satisfaction the success of this well-planned and executed attack.
Commander Destroyer Squadron 61 is to be congratulated on the sound judgment, initiative and aggressive spirit displayed in ‘beating the weather’ to drive this attack home at the very door of the Empire.
You are unpopular with the Emperor. Well done”.
Allied ships entered Japanese waters 27 August 1945 on the eve of the surrender, and staged in Sagami Bay, where DesRon 61 had its shootout the month prior.
Surrender of Japan, 1945. Description: U.S. and British warships anchored in Sagami Wan, outside of Tokyo Bay, Japan, on the day the Allied ships entered Japanese waters, 27 August 1945. Photographed from USS South Dakota (BB-57) as the sun set behind Mount Fuji’s distinctive cone. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-490487
Epilogue
Hederman, an Annapolis grad (USNA ’23) had already earned a Navy Cross with DesRon61 off Okinawa and would retire in the 1950s as a rear admiral.
The nine tin cans would continue in U.S. service through Korea and Vietnam then were disposed of, with several going to overseas allies to live a second life. This included De Haven transferred to South Korea, Mansfield and Collett to Argentina— where they were assigned escort duty for the Argentine carrier Veinticinco de Mayo during the initial invasion of Port Stanley in the Falklands on 2 April 1982. Soon after, the two destroyers picked up the last screening duty for the pride of the fleet, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser ARA General Belgrano (ex-USS Phoenix). Meanwhile,Maddox (of later Tonkin Gulf fame), Moore, Taussig, Brush, and Swenson were sent to Taiwan where they survived for another three decades.
Blue, decommissioned in 1971, was disposed of in a SINKEX in April 1977.
In July 1937, some 85 years ago this month, otherwise surface warfare-qualified Capt. William Frederick Halsey Jr. (USNA 1904) arrived at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola– where he had just earned his own wings of gold two years prior, at the age of 52, the oldest person to do so in the history of the U.S. Navy– to assume command of the Cradle of Naval Aviation.
Of course, Halsey would achieve his first star in 1938 and go on to bigger and better things just a few years later, but it was easy to see that, had the events of 1941 not gone the way they did, “Bull” may have been only a quiet command or two away from retiring in the peacetime Navy, and faded into a footnote.
Warship Wednesday, July 20, 2022: Four Stacker Convoy King
Above we see the stern of the Clemson-class tin can USS McCook (Destroyer # 252), in her second career as the Royal Canadian Navy’s Town-class HMCS St. Croix (I 81), with her White Duster flapping in the windy North Atlantic, likely while on convoy duty in 1942. Note her Q.F. 12-pdr. (12-cwt.) gun over the stern with ready rounds in the rack and splinter mats rigged for a modicum of protection. While McCook had a quiet life in her stint with the U.S. Navy, St. Croix throughout her work with the RCN would log time with 28 convoys and bust two of Donitz’s U-boats– not bad for a second-hand “four piper.”
One of the massive fleets of 156 Clemson-class flush decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, McCook came too late to help lick the Kaiser. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War.
At 1,200 tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk vessels ready for the task.
Inboard and outboard profiles for a U.S. Navy Clemson-class destroyer, in this case, USS Doyen (DD-280)
Carrying a legacy
Our vessel laid down at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp in Quincy, Massachusetts in September 1918, was the first named in honor of CDR Roderick S. McCook, USN. The Ohio-born McCook was appointed a Mid in 1854 at age 15 and gave 28 years to the Navy, including service on the steam frigate USS Minnesota, the gunboat USS Stars and Stripes, and as XO of the monitor USS Canonicus during the Civil War, distinguishing himself in the latter during the assaults on Fort Fisher to the special thanks of Congress and ADM Porter.
CDR Roderick S. McCook, USN. Promoted to commander on 25 September 1873, McCook died in 1886. NH 47933
U.S. Navy Service
McCook commissioned on 30 April 1919 and, following her shakedown on the East Coast, was folded into the rapidly-shrinking Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet. She soon shipped out for Europe at a time when the U.S. was heavily involved in shaping the post-Great War redrawing of the map of that continent and the ensuing cycles of revolution, civil war, and nationalist uprisings.
USS McCook (Destroyer # 252) Dressed in flags in a European port, circa 1919. Photographed by R.E. Wayne (# J-50). NH 46470.
Wicks-class destroyer USS Gridley (DD-92) and USS McCook (DD-252) in Venice during 1919. From the John Dickey collection, via Navsource.
Once Europe began to quiet down, and the Roaring 20s set in, the Navy found McCook (as well as many other tin cans) surplus to its immediate needs, and she was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 30 June 1922 at laid up.
Her entire active USN service would run 1,157 days– barely enough to get her hull dirty.
View of the Reserve Fleet Basin of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard circa the early 1920s. Visible ships include (left to right): the destroyers USS McCook (DD-252) and USS Benham (DD-49). U.S. Navy photo S-574-M.
Headed to serve the King
With Europe again at war, on 2 September 1940, FDR signed the so-called Destroyers for Bases Agreement that saw a mix of 50 (mostly mothballed) Caldwell (3), Wickes (27), and Clemson (20)-class destroyers transferred to the Royal Navy in exchange for limited basing rights on nine British overseas possessions. Canada would receive seven of these ships including two Clemsons:McCook and her sister USS Bancroft (DD-256).
In respect of Canada’s naming tradition for destroyers, all seven RCN flush deckers were named for Canadian rivers, ideally, those that ran in conjunction with the U.S. border, a nice touch. McCook, therefore, became HCMS St. Croix, so named after the river on the Maine/New Brunswick border, while Bancroft became HMCS St. Francis after the Rivière Saint-François which makes up part of the Maine/Quebec line.
Sailed by scratch USN crews from Philadelphia, McCook was handed over at Halifax on 24 September in a batch of five destroyers.
Transfer of U.S. destroyers to the Royal Navy in Halifax, Sept 1940. Wickes-class destroyers USS Buchanan (DD-131), USS Crowninshield (DD-134), and USS Abel P. Upshur (DD-193) are in the background. The sailors are examining a 4-inch /50 deck gun. Twenty-three Wickes-class destroyers were transferred to the RN, along with four to the RCN, in 1940 under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3199286)
HCMS St. Croix passed through the anti-submarine gates at Halifax, before receiving her camouflage.
Made ready for local patrol, she joined her first convoy, the Halifax-to-Liverpool HX 080, on 12 October– just 18 days after she was handed over. The seas were not kind to the small destroyer.
A battered HCMS St. Croix enters Halifax Harbor on 18 Dec 1940 after enduring a powerful North Atlantic storm. This photograph shows some of the damage inflicted on the ship, including guardrails hanging over the ship’s side (center) and broken windows on the ship’s bridge (top center). Less visible but more serious storm damage included bent steel plating on the bridge and below-deck flooding caused by massive waves. The photograph also emphasizes the ship’s narrow hull, which contributed to its instability in heavy seas and to poor handling. George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 19900085-1040
As part of the handover, some systems and armament were changed out, after all, McCook had been laid up since 1922 and was all-Yank. Ultimately, three of her four triple-packed torpedo turnstiles were landed as was the aft 4-inch gun, the latter replaced by a British 12-pounder. She also eventually picked up a couple light AAA guns, depth charge racks, British radar (Type 273), medium-frequency direction finders (MF/DF), ASDIC, and depth charge throwers. At least one boiler was removed to increase fuel capacity.
Unidentified personnel manning a four-inch gun aboard HCMS St. Croix at sea, March 1941. LAC 3567312
Manning a .50-caliber water-cooled AAA mount aboard HCMS St. Croix at sea, March 1941. LAC 3571062.
Once modified and updated, she was sent for work with convoys between St Johns and Iceland by April 1941, joining troopship Convoy TC 10.
In October 1941, while part of ON 019A, St. Croix picked up 34 survivors from the Dutch merchant Tuva that was torpedoed and sunk the previous day by the German U-boat U-575 southwest of Iceland.
HCMS St. Croix (Canadian destroyer, 1940) taken circa 1941, at Reykjavik, Iceland. Note camouflage. NH 49941
HMCS St Croix (ex-USS McCook, DD-252) underway circa 1942 via Navsource
On 24 July 1942, while part of the outbound ON 113 convoy from Liverpool to Halifax, St. Croix, under command of 40-year-old LCDR Andrew Hedley Dobson, RCNR, she depth-charged U-90 (Kptlt. Hans-Jürgen Oldörp) to the bottom east of Newfoundland after the boat had attacked her convoy the day before. The U-boat took all 44 of her crew with her on her final dive, now 80 years ago this week.
Commodore L.W. Murray congratulated the Ship’s Company of HCMS St. Croix for sinking the German submarine U-90 on 24 July. St. John’s, Newfoundland, 29 July 1942. LAC 3231215
St. Croix’s crew gathered around her sole remaining set of torpedo tubes during the pier side celebration after sinking the U-90. Note the depth charges to the right. LAC 3231215
Dobson would earn the Distinguished Service Cross on 25 November 1942 for the U-90 sinking. He was still in command when she shared a second submarine kill with the Flower-class corvette HMCS Shediac (K100), against U-87 (Kptlt. Joachim Berger) off the Iberian coast on 4 March 1943 as part of Convoy KMS 10. A killer, U-87 had accounted for 5 Allied merchant ships (38,014 tons) before Shediac/St. Croix would end her budding career.
Speaking of endings, in the spirit of living and dying by the sword in epic proportions, St. Croix would come under the sights of Kptlt. Rudolf Bahr’s U-305 while escorting convoy ON-202 southwest of Iceland on the night of 20 September 1943. One of the first victims of the newly developed Gnat acoustic torpedo, she took three hits from the weapon and sank in the freezing waters in six minutes.
In all, she had served the RN/RCN for just 1,091 days, two months shy of her USN career.
After surviving 13 hours afloat, some five officers and 76 men who had survived St. Croix’s loss were picked up by the River-class frigate HMS Itchen (K 227) the next morning only to have that ship sunk by a Gnat fired from U-666 on 23 September. A single member of St. Croix’s crew, Stoker William Fisher, survived his second sinking in 72 hours. He was rescued by a Polish merchant ship, the Wisla, along with two men of the Itchen.
As noted by the Canadian War Museum, “St. Croix’s loss was felt nationwide because the crew, as on many Canadian ships, was drawn from across the country.”
For what it is worth, U-666, the slayer of HMS Itchen, the event that also claimed 80 of St. Croix’s waterlogged and traumatized crew, would meet her end in 1944 at the hands of 842 Sqn Swordfish of the British escort carrier HMS Fencer, with all hands lost. The Battle of the Atlantic was unforgiving no matter the flag.
Epilogue
All 2,852 Canadian and Newfoundland sailors and soldiers lost at sea in WWII were added to the Great War’s Halifax Memorial at Point Pleasant Park in 1966. RCN vessels and visiting warships render honors when passing the memorial in daylight.
As for her sisters, seven Clemsons were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war. Notably, the other Clemson-class RCN Four-Stacker, HMCS St. Francis (ex-USS Bancroft) who sailed as escort to 20 convoys and engaged the enemy on five occasions somehow managed to survive the conflict.
Those remaining Clemsons not sold off in the 1930s or otherwise sent to Davy Jones were scrapped wholesale in the months immediately after WWII. Sister USS Hatfield was decommissioned on 13 December 1946 and was sold for scrap on 9 May 1947 to NASSCO, the last of her kind in the U.S. Navy.
The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948, the end of an era.
None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.
Few elements of the first USS McCook— or the first HMCS St. Croix— remain today other than engineering documents in the National Archives.
St. Croix is remembered in maritime art.
“HMCS St. Croix and U-Boat in North Atlantic” by Ronald Weyman. Canadian War Museum Beaverbrook Collection of War Art CWM 19710261-5628. Weyman served aboard the St. Croix as a naval gunnery officer and only narrowly missed being on the ship when she was sunk and later went on to become an award-winning film and television director and producer after the war. His artwork likely depicts the moment U-90 was sunk on July 24, 1942.
A well-done scale model of HMCS St. Croix is on display at The Military Museums in Calgary along with photos of her service.
(Credit: Naval Museum Assoc. of Alberta via The Military Museums).
Meanwhile, the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum has an exhibit that includes letters from Stoker Fisher, St. Croix’s sole survivor.
The U.S. Navy quickly reused the McCook name in WWII, christening in April 1942 the Gleaves-class destroyer DD-496 (later DMS-46), sponsored by Mrs. Reed Knox, granddaughter of CDR McCook.
Commissioned on 15 March 1943, McCook received three battle stars for World War Il service, all in the ETO. Sent to the Pacific post-war, she was laid up in 1949 at San Diego then at Bremerton before being sent to the breakers in 1973. She was the last USS McCook.
The Canadians likewise commissioned a second St. Croix, a Restigouche-class destroyer (DDE 256) built in the 1950s in Quebec. The Cold Warrior was a big part of the RCN’s ASW plans until paid off early in 1974 due to constrained defense budgets as part of that grinning fool Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal/socialist policies.
The beautiful HMCS St. Croix (DDE 256). She was laid up in 1974, just 18 years after joining the fleet, and was sold in 1991 for scrapping. CFB Esquimalt Museum photo.
Perhaps the RCN could do with a third St. Croix.
Specs:
HMCS St. Croix plan and elevation by LB Jenson
Displacement: 1,215 tons (normal) 1,308 tons (full load) Length: 314 ft. 4.5 in Beam: 30 ft. 11.5 in Draft: 9 ft. 4 in Propulsion: 4 × boilers, 300 psi (2,100 kPa) saturated steam 2 geared steam turbines 27,600 hp (20,600 kW) 2 shafts Speed: 35.5 knots Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km) @ 15 knots Crew: (USN as commissioned) 8 officers 8 chief petty officers 106 enlisted Armament:
(1920) 4 x 4″/51 cal guns 1 x 3″/23 cal AAA 12 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (4 × 3) (533 mm)
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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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