Formed at Cherry Point on 1 August 1943 as Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 333 (VMSB-333), the logically named “Trip Trey” began their career flying SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from Midway on anti-shipping patrols.
Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless Dive Bomber of VMSB-333 over Wake Island.
The original “Trip Trey” crest, circa 1943. From the Claude A. Larkin Collection (COLL/791) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division
Adding an “F” designation to their name after transitioning to F4U Corsairs in late 1944, VMBF-333 was deactivated just two months after VJ-Day.
Reformed during the Korean War as Marine Attack Squadron 333 (VMA-333), they transited quickly through the F6F Hellcat to the A-1 Skyraider and entered the jet age in 1957 with FJ-3 Fury jet fighters, again adding the “F” to their title to become VMF-333, after which adding the triple shamrock to their planes and going by the “Fighting Shamrocks” as well as the more commonly applied “Trip Trey.”
Next came the F-8 Crusader– with which they ran hot pad alerts at GTMO during the Cuban Missile Crisis– and then the F-4 Phantom in 1966.
Remaining part of CVW-8 through most of the 1970s and carrying “AJ” tail flashes, they would ship out with the brand-new supercarrier USS Nimitz in 1976 on a Med Cruise.
Four U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell F-4J Phantom II (BuNo 153848, 155523, 155525, 155511) from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron VMFA-333 “Shamrocks” in flight. VMFA-333 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea from 7 July 1976 to 7 February 1977. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7315.009 by PH2c Klaus Homedale, U.S. Navy
An air-to-air silhouetted view of a Marine Strike Fighter Squadron 333 (VMFA-333) F-4 Phantom II aircraft, 9/1/1985. At this time the Shamrocks were one of the few active duty Phantom operators in the U.S. military. U.S. Navy photo DNSC9011796 by LCDR David Baranak, via NARA (330-CFD-DN-SC-90-11796).
The last regular Marine squadron to operate the big smoky Phantom, they transitioned to F-18A Hornets in October 1987, which they would fly during Desert Storm just three years later, delivering over 2 million pounds of ordnance (typically 2,000-pounds at a time) against Iraqi forces across a staggering 700 combat sorties.
VMFA-333, Operation Desert Storm, 1991 USMC photo
“Over the Oil Fields,” by Col H. Avery Chenoweth, USMCR. “Towards the war’s end, the Bahrain-based Shamrocks of VMFA-333 were able to survey damage caused by their bombing runs. Previously, the ground fire had caused the F/A-18’s to pull out rapidly from their dive-bombing runs, no chance for visual confirmation.” Photo via the National Museum of The Marine Corps.
Returning from the sandbox, the “Fighting Shamrocks” were deactivated on 31 March 1992 during the post-Cold War drawdown.
Warship Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2022: Jesse James of the Java Sea
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #NH 99230
Here we see the Salmon-class fleet submarine USS Sturgeon (SS-187)off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Note the barrage balloon in the right background as it is just 18 months past Pearl Harbor and just over a year past when Japanese Navy submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood Oil Field to the South in Santa Barbara. While the Cold War-era USS Sturgeon is well known to the current generation of naval enthusiasts, her WWII namesake gets little attention.
The Salmon class boats, and the successive very similar 10-boat Sargo class submarines, set the Navy on the road for the mass-produced WWII “fleet boats” of the Gato, Balao, and Tench classes. Some 308 feet in length, they were the first American boats able to hit 21 knots while surfaced, meaning they could help screen and scout for the fleet, and conduct a lengthy 75-day/11,000nm patrol without refueling/replenishment. They took with them a 3″/50 DP deck gun capable of sinking a small craft under 500 tons as well as space available for 24 torpedoes stored both in the hull and in topside deck storage. This put the whole Pacific at the feet of these vessels, and it was no surprise that Admiral Hart’s Philippine-based Asiatic Fleet in 1941 included all 16 Salmon and Sargo-class boats.
The six boats, all with fish names beginning with an “S” (Salmon, Seal, Skipjack, Snapper, Stingray, Sturgeon) were ordered in 1936 from three yards: Electric Boat (SS 182-184); Portsmouth (SS 185,186), and Mare Island (SS 187) with our vessel being the sole West Coast model.
Class leader USS Salmon (SS-182) running speed trials in early 1938. Note the S1 designator. NH 69872
Salmon class subs USS Stingray (SS-186), foreground Operating in formation with other submarines, during Battle Force exercises, circa 1939. The other three submarines are (from left to right): Seal (SS-183); Salmon (SS-182) and Sturgeon (SS-187). Collection of Vice-Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Retired). NH 77086
Same as the above, Submerging. NH 77089
Sturgeon, named for the large, bony-plated fish with an elongated body. It is found in both fresh and saltwater, was the second such vessel in the Navy with that name, the first being an early E-class submarine (SS-25) that was christened USS Sturgeon but was renamed USS E-2before she entered the fleet in 1911 and went on to make four war patrols against the Germans in 1918.
Laid down at Mare Island on 27 October 1936, our Sturgeon was sponsored at launch by the wife of a Great War Navy Cross holder who retired as a vice admiral.
USS Sturgeon (SS 187) was launched by Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, CA. Note St. Vincent Church in distance and the temporary “S6” designator on her hull. Via Mare Island Navy Museum
Commissioned on 25 June 1938, she was assigned to SubRon 6 and conducted her shakedown along the coast of Latin America, then made two summer squadron cruises (1939 and 1940) to Hawaii with the Pacific Fleet.
USS Sturgeon (SS-187) arriving at Pearl Harbor pre-war, likely on summer maneuvers in 1939 or 1940. Note the Somers-class destroyer USS Sampson (DD-394) in the distance. An East Coast-based tin can, Sampson was in Hawaii for both the 1939 and 1940 fleet exercises.
It was around this time that LCDR William Leslie “Bull” Wright (USNA 1925), a colorful six-foot-three cigar-chomping Texan, arrived as her skipper.
A brand new beautiful West Coast submarine, the Navy detailed her to help film the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer action movie, Thunder Afloat, whose plot involved a piratical submarine, played by Sturgeon on screen.
Stock footage of Sturgeon surfacing, her crew dutifully barefoot and bare-chested, firing her deck gun at targets unseen and resubmerging all within a couple of minutes, was reused in other films for years.
On 18 November 1941, the submarine tender USS Holland (AS-3) with Salmon, Swordfish (SS-193), Skipjack, and our Sturgeon, arrived at Manila and formed SubDiv 21 of the Asiatic fleet.
War!
Sturgeon was moored in Mariveles Bay at the southern tip of Bataan on 7 December 1941, then put to sea the next afternoon to patrol an area between the Pescadores Islands and Formosa. After missing a chance at a target on the third day of the war, she spotted a Japanese cruiser escorting a coastwise invasion convoy on 18 December– the whole reason the Salmons were in the PI– but her attack was spoiled, and she received her first depth charge attack instead.
From her First War Patrol records:
Bull Wright and company returned to embattled Mariveles Bay on Christmas, then left again just three days later for her second war patrol.
While Sturgeon claimed torpedo hits that were not borne out by post-war examination boards– and after believing she sank a Japanese ship, signaled to Pearl Harbor “Sturgeon no longer virgin!”– she ended her second war patrol at Surabaya on Java on 13 February 1942. She was then was forced to head for Australia within the week due to the looming fall of Java. She sailed with sisters Sturgeon and Stingray, escorting Holland, and the destroyer tender USS Black Hawk (AD-9) safely to Fremantle. Bull Wright received a Navy Cross.
Departing on her third war patrol on the Ides of March, she headed for the Makassar Strait once again and, 80 years ago today, chalked up her first confirmed kill, that of the Japanese AK Choko Maru (842 GRT) off Makassar city.
Another notable incident of this patrol was to put ashore LT Chester William “Chet” Nimitz Jr. (yes, that Nimitz’s son) and a small search party looking for evading Australian personnel on Japanese-held Java.
Her fourth war patrol, which began on 5 June 1942 from Freemantle, would be both successful and incredibly tragic.
Montevideo Maru
Constructed at Nagasaki in the 1930s, the 7,266 ton, twin-screw diesel motor vessel passenger ship MV Montevideo Maru was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a troop transport in the early days of the war, supporting the landings at Makassar in February 1942 and was part of the Japanese seizure of New Britain. The vessel and her two sisters were well-known to U.S. Naval Intelligence before the war.
Via ONI 208J.
Sailing 22 June unescorted for Hainan Island off China, Montevideo Maru ran into Sturgeon eight days later. Our submarine pumped four fish into the “big fella” in the predawn hours of 1 July, after a four-hour stalk, with young Nimitz as the TDC officer.
All the prisoners on board died, locked below decks. Of note, more Australians died in the loss of the Montevideo Maru than in the country’s decade-long involvement in Vietnam.
Sturgeon, of course, was unaware that the ship was carrying Allied POWs and internees.
DANFS does not mention Montevideo Maru‘s cargo.
Four days later, Sturgeon damaged the Japanese oiler San Pedro Maru (7268 GRT) south of Luzon, then ended her 4th war patrol at Fremantle on 22 July.
A new skipper
On 13 August, Bull Wright left his submarine, replaced by LCDR Herman Arnold Pieczentkowski (USNA 1930), who would command Sturgeon for her 5th and 6th war patrol.
Of the Piaczentkowski period, only the 5th patrol, which sank the Japanese aircraft ferry Katsuragi Maru (8033 GRT) off Cape St. George on 1 October 1942 with a spread of four torpedoes, was the boat’s only success.
IJN Katsuragi Maru had just delivered A6M fighter aircraft to Bougainville when Sturgeon found her. Struck by at least three torpedoes, she carried two crew members and 27 ship gunners to the bottom. Here she is seen in an ONI photo taken in 1937 as she passed through the Panama Canal. NH 111553
On Christmas 1942, Sturgeon was sent to California for a five-month refit that would include swapping out her original diesels for a more reliable set of GM Detroit’s, relocating her main deck gun from aft of her sail to forward, and installing new sensors and equipment.
USS Sturgeon (SS-187) At the Hunters Point Navy Yard, San Francisco, California, 23 April 1943, following overhaul. White outlines mark recent alterations, among them the relocation of Sturgeon’s 3/50 deck gun, installation of watertight ready service ammunition lockers in her sail, and fitting of 20mm machine guns. Note the large concrete weight on deck, indicating that Sturgeon was then undergoing an inclining experiment to check her stability. 19-N-46405
USS Sturgeon (SS-187) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Note the barrage balloon and tall radio towers to the right. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-46400
USS Sturgeon (SS-187) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 3 May 1943. Ship in the left-center distance is the Fulton-class submarine tender USS Bushnell (AS-15), which was then completing her post-commissioning outfitting. Of note, Bushnell would remain in service until 1970 and be expended in a 1983 SINKEX– appropriately enough sent to the bottom by submarines. NH 99231
Another new skipper and five more patrols
Getting back into the war in June 1943, Piaczentkowski would command Sturgeon for her 7th patrol– another quiet one despite being in Japanese home waters– then leave the boat on 6 August, replaced by LCDR Charlton Lewis Murphy (USNA 1932) who had already commanded the old R-boat USS R-7 (SS-84) on the East Coast.
Murphy and the gang would embark on a fruitless 8th war patrol then strike the Empire hard on the 9th. Conducted in Japan’s Home Waters, Sturgeon sank the transport Erie Maru (5493 GRT) on 11 January 1944, blew both the bow and stern off the destroyer Suzutsuki— killing 135 including the tin can’s skipper– four days later, then sank the transport Chosen Maru (3110 GRT) before the month was up. This earned Philadelphia-born Murphy a Navy Cross.
On her 10th patrol, she sank the Japanese transport Seiryu Maru (1904 GRT) north of Chichi Jima on 11 May 1944.
Her 11th patrol, like her encounter with the Montevideo Maru, would earn the boat a degree of infamy.
Toyama Maru
Built in 1935 at Nagasaki as a 7,090-ton cargo ship for Nippon Yusen Kaisha, K. K. (NYK) Line, Tokyo, MV Toyama Maru was requisitioned by the Imperial Army as Army No. 782 in January 1941 to help move troops to Manchuria.
Japanese cargo ship Toyama Maru at the dock in Vancouver before the war. Photograph by Walter E. Frost, Vancouver City Archives CVA 447-2781.
Departing Koniya on 29 June 1944 for Naha as part of Convoy KATA-412, Toyama Maru was transporting over 6,000 men of the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade’s 298th IIB, 299th, 300th IIB, and 301st IIBs and a cargo of gasoline in cans, all of which would have proved a formidable reinforcement to the defenders on Okinawa.
Would have.
Sturgeon found her the same day and, four torpedoes later, she was ablaze and sinking, carrying some 5,400 IJA troops and ship’s crew members to the bottom in very short order– often described as the greatest loss of life in a ship sunk by a U.S. submarine. As payment for the title, Sturgeon’s crew withstood an estimated 273 depth charges and aircraft bombs between 29 June and 3 July, as the boat’s war history says, “All went for naught, for she was as tough-skinned as the fish whose name she bore.”
Murphy’s report on Toyama Maru sinking
As noted by RADM Cox in H-Gram 33, “Yanagi Missions and Submarine Atrocities”:
Of 6,000 Japanese troops of the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade on board, over 5,400 died, the highest death toll of any ship sunk by a U.S. submarine (and the fourth highest of any ship sunk by a submarine of any nation. The two highest tolls were German ships packed with thousands of civilian refugees sunk by Soviet submarines, and the third-highest was a Japanese “hell ship” crammed with thousands of Allied prisoners of war and native forced laborers unknowingly sunk by a British submarine).
Sturgeon ended her final patrol when she returned to Pearl Harbor on 5 August 1944 then was sent back to California for further overhaul, with it being likely those 273 depth charges and bombs left more damage than the war history would imply. Sent to the East Coast in early 1945, she ended the war as a training boat with SubRon 1 out of New London.
Sturgeon earned ten battle stars for World War II service, with seven of her war patrols deemed successful enough for a Submarine Combat Insignia.
She was decommissioned on 15 November 1945.
Epilogue
Ex-Sturgeon was sold for scrapping, on 12 June 1948, to Interstate Metals Corp., New York, New York, just short of 12 years after she was laid down.
Her class was very successful– and lucky– with all six boats still afloat on VJ Day, earning a total of 54 battle stars after completing 70 war patrols:
Class leader Salmon (nine battle stars, 11 patrols) was a constructive loss due to battle damage after a late war surface action with Japanese surface escorts that earned her the Presidential Unit Citation, was soon disposed of in late September 1945.
Seal (10 battle stars, 11 patrols) was used as a Naval Reserve training ship after the war and sold for scrapping in 1956.
Skipjack (seven battle stars, 10 patrols) was sunk as a target twice after the war, the first time at Bikini atoll in 1946 and then, raised and examined, off California in 1948.
Snapper (six battle stars, 11 patrols) assisted with training for a while post-war then was sold for scrap in 1948.
Speaking of relics and museums, few relics are around of the Sturgeon, but her war patrol reports are digitized and in the National Archives.
Her war flag is preserved at the USS Bowfin Museum in Hawaii.
There is also a smattering of period art.
Sturgeon Herz Postcard via the UC San Diego Library
Of her seven skippers, Bull Wright was the best known but, despite his Navy Cross, he never commanded a submarine again– perhaps dogged over the Montevideo Maru, or perhaps because he was 40 years old when he left Sturgeon— and he retired quietly from the Navy after the war as a rear admiral. Although a number of WWII submarines and skippers with lower tonnage or fewer patrols/battle stars under their belt were profiled in the most excellent 1950s “Silent Service”documentary series, Bull Wright and Sturgeon were skipped.
In late 1945, an author by the name of Carl Carmer, after sitting with Bull Wright, would pen the 119-page “Jesse James of the Java Sea,” which is filled with gems reportedly from the mouth of the submariner including, “You fire a fish, and it hits or misses. You sink one or get pasted. There isn’t much variety in our pattern, you know.”
Another anecdote about Bull:
He passed in 1980 in Corpus Christi, a Texan to the end.
Her other Navy Cross-earning skipper, the quieter CDR Charlton Lewis Murphy, who commanded the boat during her 8th-11th War Patrols and chalked up five big marus including the brigade-carrying Toyama Maru, ended the war on the USS Carbonero (SS-337) and retired as a rear admiral before passing in 1961, aged 53.
Don’t worry, we aren’t throwing rocks at Piaczentkowski, he too would earn a star before he retired.
Speaking of admirals, Chet Nimitz would skipper two submarines of his own after he left Sturgeon — USS Haddo (SS-255) and USS Sarda (SS-488)— then retire as a one-star in 1957, commanding SubRon 6– which was ironically the old Sturgeon’s first squadron. He saw the 21st century and passed in 2002.
The third, and so far, final, USS Sturgeon was the lead ship (SSN-637) of the last class of American submarines named for fish. Ordered in 1961, she had a career more than twice as long as “our” Sturgeon and was decommissioned in 1994, earning two Meritorious Unit Commendations and a Navy Unit Commendation. Her sail is preserved at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, while her control center is now on display at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut, giving her the distinction of stretching from coast to coast.
A starboard bow view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS STURGEON (SSN-637) underway off Long Island, N.Y, 2/1/1991 Photo by PH1 Grant. National Archives Identifier:6467979
As for Montevideo Maru, in July 2012 a new memorial by Melbourne sculptor James Parrett was dedicated on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial to commemorate those Australians who died in the defense of Rabaul, and those who later died as prisoners in the sinking of the Japanese transport.
Specs:
Displacement: 1,449 tons Surfaced; 2,198 tons Submerged. Length: 308 feet Beam: 26 ft. 2 in. Draft 14′ 2″ Watertight Compartments: 7 plus conning tower. Pressure Hull Plating: approx. 11/16 in. mild steel. Propulsion: 4 main motors with 2,660 shaft horsepower (Hoover, Owens, Rentschler Co. diesels replaced in 1943-1944 with four General Motors 278A diesel engines 4 Elliot Motor Co. electric motors, 3,300 hp 2 126-cell main storage batteries. Maximum Speed: 17 knots surfaced; 8.75 knots submerged. Cruising Range: 11,000 miles surfaced at 10 knots. Submerged Endurance: 48 hours at 2 knots. Fuel Capacity: 96,025 gallons. Patrol Endurance: 75 days. Operating Depth: 250 feet. Complement: 5 Officers 50 Enlisted Armament: Torpedo Tubes: 4 bows; 4 sterns. Torpedo Load, Max: 20 internal, 4 external (later removed) Deck Guns: 1 x 3″/50-cal Mk21 (relocated in 1943) 2 x .50 caliber M2 machine guns 2 x .30 caliber M1919 machine guns
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One of my regular stops every few weeks when I go back “home” to Pascagoula, besides Ed’s Drive-In, is the Old Coast Guard Station, AKA “The Point” where I chronicle the fleet being built at Ingalls, something I’ve done ever since I pedaled my AMF Gold Fever down there as a snot-nosed kid. Over the years I’ve seen Spruances, Kidds, Ticos, Burkes, Sa’ar Vs, Tarawas, Wasps, San Antonios, and the like slide down the ways. I even saw the rusty but still beautiful old Iowa come towed past the point and then ultimately sail on her own back out to sea, and her sister ship Wisconsin do the same thing three years later.
A recent trip to The Point showed USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002), the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer, along the West Bank of the Pascagoula River to receive her armament fit, the 12th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD-28) finishing her outfitting, and PCU USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121), a Flight IIA Burke, on the historic old East Bank finishing her days at the yard before she sails to be commissioned at Charleston in May.
As a youth, I was on the ground at Ingalls with my high school JROTC unit to provide the color guard for several christenings and commissionings (USS Cape St. George, Stout, Mitscher, Russell, et, al) then as a young adult helped build several of these vessels including USS Boxer,Stethem, Ramage, Benfold, and so on.
However, I always felt that there was never really a historic Mississippi connection to these vessels, until recently. Even the USS Farragut— who called Pascagoula a hometown for a while— was somehow built in Maine.
While the “invincible” Jacklyn Harold “Jack” Lucas hailed from North Carolina, the youngest Medal of Honor recipient in WWII– who saved the lives of three men on Iwo Jima just six days after his 17th birthday (and enlisted at 14!)– spent most of his adult life, including his twilight years, in South Mississippi.
I even met Mr. Lucas “Call me Jack” at an event in Hattiesburg a few years before his death. He was a total gentleman and a hell of a storyteller.
So it filled my heart with joy to find out that the future USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125), the first Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, has been quietly under construction at Ingalls since 2019.
A photo I took last month, showing the future Flight IIA Burke USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123), front, and PCU USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125), rear, at Ingalls’s West Bank, fitting out. Note the differences in their masts. The Flight III upgrade is centered on the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar and “incorporates upgrades to the electrical power and cooling capacity plus additional associated changes to provide greatly enhanced warfighting capability to the fleet.”
Warship Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2022: Mines, Yes, but also U-Boats!
Photograph FL 18955 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Here we see the Royal Navy Halcyon-class “sloop minesweeper” HMS Sharpshooter (N68/J68)in September 1938, at around the time Hitler sent troops into the Sudetenland and a year before he was to send them into Poland, sparking WWII. Not a very imposing ship, some 80 years ago this week she would single-handedly send a Jerry U-boat to the bottom of the Barents Sea.
Based on the Grimsby-class sloops-of-war– a baker’s dozen 1,500-ton, 266-foot slow-moving (16 knots) sub chasers built in the early 1930s and capable of hauling almost 100 depth charges along with some light guns– the 21-unit Halcyon-class were slightly smaller, running 245-feet overall, and logically lighter at 1,400-tons. Outfitted with two QF MK V 4″/45 singles and a smattering of machine guns (both .50 cal Vickers and .303 Lewis guns), they shipped with manual sweep gear rather than ASW equipment.
The first five Halcyons (ordered 1933-35) were fitted with forced lubricating compound engines, and the next two with reciprocating steam (VTE) engines, while the latter 14 (ordered 1936-37 as Europe was ramping up for war) used Parsons steam turbines, with all versions being able to hit at least 16.5 knot-ish while the latter upgrades able to touch 17. All were named for Great War-era destroyers or minesweepers.
Our little sweeper, Sharpshooter, was of the latter “turbine” type and was laid down at HM Dockyard Devonport on 8 June 1936, the fifth (and as of 2022, the last) RN warship to carry the name dating back to a 12-gun Archer-class gunbrig of the Napoleonic era. Commissioned 17 December 1937 with pennant N68, this later shifted to J68.
Assigned to the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla based at Portland (soon shifting to Scapa) her pre-war service included searching for the lost T-class submarine HMS Thetis (N25), which sank during sea trials in Liverpool Bay in the summer of 1939.
War!
Once the war began (see U-boat.netand Halcyon-class.co.uk for an extensive chronicle of her WWII service) Sharpshooter worked mine sweeping assignments in the North Sea and off Scotland, then in November transferred to Stornoway for Atlantic convoy escort duties with her Flotilla, then transferred to the 6th MS Flotilla in April 1940.
The seven sweepers of the 6th MSF, Sharpshooter included, moved to the Dover area in May, where, in response to the Blitzkrieg of the Lowlands, conducted sweeps of the coastal shipping routes off Holland. Often under German air attack on this detail, two units of the Flotilla (sisterships Hussar and Harrier) were damaged by Luftwaffe bombs before the month was up.
Called close to the beaches of Dunkirk on 28 May to help pull off members of the BEF desperate to escape the Fall of France, Sharpshooter arrived off the beaches at 0115 on 29 May and began putting boats in the water to fight the inshore surf and remove men directly from the sand—after all, she and her sisters could float in just 9-feet of water.
Dunkirk 26-29 May 1940 British troops line up on the beach at Dunkirk to await evacuation IWM
By noon on the 29th, she landed 100 soggy but safe soldiers at Dover.
On the 30th, she disembarked 273 troops at Dover, then, headed back to the beaches late that night, had a collision with the French steamer St. Helier which was pulling off French troops. This forced her to be towed back to Dover sans any more Tommys, facing a repair that would put her out of the war until mid-September.
Sharpshooter finished 1940 based at Scapa conducting fleet minesweeping/route clearance duties.
In January 1941, she was part of the sweeping screen to the north of Rockall for the battleship HMS King George V, which was taking Lord Halifax across the Atlantic to his post as the new British Ambassador at Washington.
Following that, Sharpshooter became a facet on North Atlantic convoy work, clocking on with HX 125, OB 334, PQ 8, PQ 9/10, PQ 12, PQ 13, QP 8, QP 9, PQ 18, QP 14, and QP 15 across 1941 and 1942, alternating with minesweeping operations in North Russian waters and off Allied-occupied Iceland. This duty usually consisted of riding shotgun on slow-moving Russia-bound convoys from Reykjavik to Murmansk/Archangel and back, being targets in the massive Barents Sea shooting gallery off German-occupied Norway which meant deadly threats from shore-based bombers, U-boats, and the bulk of the Kriegsmarine’s surface assets.
This brings us to Sharpshooter’s encounter with the Type VIIC submarine U-655 (KrvKpt. Adolf Dumrese) of Wolfpack Ziethen. Our minesweeper, part of Convoy QP 9 on a return run from Murmansk to Reykjavik, spotted Dumrese’s surfaced U-boat at very close range on the morning of 24 March 1942 south-east of Bear Island– and promptly rammed it.
U-655 turned over and sank without survivors while the minesweeper suffered no losses.
This required Sharpshooter to return to the dockyard for 10 weeks of repairs to her bow and post refit trials. Meanwhile, her skipper, LCDR David Lampen received the DSO on 25 August “awarded for skill and coolness in successful actions against enemy submarines while serving in HMS Sharpshooter.”
By April 1943, Sharpshooter was dispatched to the Mediterranean for minesweeping off the North African coast then, as summer went on, for the Operation Husky Sicily landings. She remained in the Med through most of 1944, where she reportedly suffered a partial (?) torpedo hit in April.
Arriving back in the UK in September 1944, she conducted sweeping off the coast of France and Belgium before switching to North Sea operations into early 1945.
A second career
With no shortage of minesweepers and proper sloops, and the war in Europe over, the Admiralty in April 1945 made the call to disarm Sharpshooter (along with her sister ships HMS Seagull, Franklin, and Scott) then convert them to survey ships.
The 1946 Jane’s listing for the Halcyon class survey ship conversions, including HMS Sharpshooter
Sharpshooter emerged with a white scheme in May 1946 and was soon dispatched for hydrographic duties in the shipwreck-plagued South Pacific, based in Singapore, later picking up the auxiliary pennant A310.
Returning to the UK in December 1948, she spent the next several years on surveys of the Home Islands’ West coast and, just in time for the 1953 Coronation Review, was renamed HMS Shackleton after the famed British explorer. She and her two sisters located and logged many war-time wrecks while re-surveying coastal Great Britain.
A familiar sight from Portsmouth to the Irish Sea, Sharpshooter/Shackleton was reduced to reserve status in 1961 and laid up at Devonport.
On the disposal list in 1965, she was sold to BISCO on 3 November for breaking up at Troon by the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Co. Ltd.
Epilogue
The Halcyons suffered terribly during WWII. Sphinx, Skipjack, Gossamer, Niger, Leda, Bramble, Hebe, Hussar, and Britomart were all sunk in enemy (or blue-on-blue) action off Iceland, Dunkirk, Normandy, the Barents Sea, and in Russia’s Kola Bay– all the same waters where Sharpshooter narrowly avoided destruction herself.
As peace settled into a frigid Cold War, these slow and well-worn sweeper sloops were not needed, and most were immediately laid up.
Just four Halcyons were listed as active in the 1946 edition of Jane’s, the rest lost during the war or converted to survey ships.
The Royal Navy sold almost all of Sharpshooter/Shackleton’s remaining sisters by the mid-1950s. The only outlier to this was HMS Scott, which had likewise been tasked with survey work, and was sold for scrap in 1965 along with Sharpshooter.
Sharpshooter, her name not since reused by the Admiralty, is at least remembered by a Displate.
While Shackleton, his name recently very much in the news, gets much more attention and maritime art exists of Sharpshooter in this post-war survey guise.
Displacement: 815 long tons std; 1,394 tons, full load Length 245 ft 3 in Beam 33 ft 6 in Draught 9 ft Propulsion: Two Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers, two Parsons steam turbines, 1770 shp, two shafts Speed 17 knots Range 7,200 nmi at 10 knots on 264 tons oil Sensors (1944): Type 123 ASDIC, Type 271 RDF Complement: 80 Armament:
(1938) 2 x QF 4 in Mk. V guns, single mounts HA Mk.III One quad QF 0.5 in Mk.III Vickers machine gun, HA Mk. I Assorted .303 Lewis guns
(1944) 1 x QF 4 in Mk.V guns, single mounts HA Mk.III 2 x 2 and 2 x 1 20mm/80 Oerlikon AAA cannons Depth charges– two double depth charge chutes with two depth charges each, two single chutes with one depth charge each, and two throwers with 40 depth charges.
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In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the Gearing-class destroyerUSS Orleck (DD-886)has been hanging out since 2010. Awarded four battlestars in Korea, Orleck was transferred to Turkey in 1982, from whence she was saved in 2000 and became a floating exhibit in Orange, Texas for a decade before moving to Lake Chuck.
I visited her a few years back and thought, sadly, throughout the tour that her days were numbered. She was in bad shape and, with few visitors, money to turn that around was slim. Then came Hurricane Laura in 2020 which tore the tin can from her moorings and sent her tossed up the Calcasieu River.
With that, I figured it was the beginning of the end. After a 20-year run as a museum ship, her last chapter was being written.
However, in a surprise to many, she was saved and now, after a much-needed drydocking and repair session at the Gulf Copper Central Yard in Port Arthur, she is being towed around the Florida Keys to Jacksonville and is expected to arrive there around the first of April, then open as a museum downtown this summer.
Orleck, fresh out of the dry dock, being towed to her new home in Jacksonville
She is not out of harm’s way just yet.
Her refit and move cost $2.5 million, which included $1 million from the state of Florida and the rest in the form of donations and loans, the latter of which can be bad if Orleck doesn’t pull in the crowds.
You lose some…
As with Orleck, we’ve talked several times in the past few years about the submarine USS Clamagore (SS-343), a Balao-class 311-foot “fleet boat” of the type that crushed the Japanese merchant fleet during WWII. Commissioned on 28 June 1945– just narrowly too late for the war– her Naval service was nonetheless rich, being converted to a GUPPY II snorkel boat in 1947 and later GUPPY III in 1962– one of only a handful to get the latter upgrade.
Decommissioned in 1973, the boat was still in pretty good shape when she was donated at age 36 to become a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, South Carolina where she has been since 1981, near the WWII carrier USS Yorktown and the Sumner-class tin can USS Laffey (DD-724).
However, it is not 1981 anymore and the old girl, which has been rusting away in brackish water at the mouth of the Cooper River with what I think everyone will admit is poor maintenance, is reportedly past the point of no return. Needing to use their limited funds to help preserve Yorktown and Laffey for a little longer
Patriots Point Executive Director, Dr. Rorie Cartier, explained that while the situation is not ideal, limited funds would likely be better spent elsewhere:
“Unfortunately, we cannot financially sustain the maintenance of three historic vessels. The USS Yorktown and USS Laffey also need repair, and we are fighting a never-ending battle against the corrosion that comes from being submerged in saltwater.”
In addition to the damage salt water does to the historic vessels, Cartier said that pollution from the eroding vessel poses a threat to the water in which it sits.
“There are increased environmental risks the longer the submarine remains at Patriots Point,” Cartier said. “Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are present throughout much of the vessel and exceed levels allowed by the EPA. There are also more than 500 lead batteries, weighing nearly one-and-a-half tons each, that need to be removed.”
As far back as 2017— a half-decade ago at this point– the Palm Beach County Commissioners voted to use $1 million in funds to jump-start a project to sink Clamagore about a mile off the coast of Florida’s Juno Beach. At the time, Patriot’s Point said $6 million would be needed to refurb the old girl to keep her.
Now, even the thoughts of reefing the sub have come and gone.
Clagamore is set to be scrapped at a cost of $2 million while Patriots Point staff will remove artifacts — such as sonar equipment, torpedo hatches, and the periscope — for display on Yorktown and at other institutions.
Tinian Invasion, 1944: A Marine takes a field nap after coming off the line on Tinian, August 2, 1944. Note M-1 carbine, “duck hunter” camo helmet cover, and spare .30 cal ammo cans.
March 1992: Here we see the Dutch anti-air frigate Hr.Ms. Tromp (F 801), left, steaming next to the Jacob van Heemskerck-class ASW frigate Hr.Ms. Witte de With (F 813) with an SH-14AB Sea Lynx helicopter aloft between them. Trailing is the Kortenaer-class ASW frigate Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen (F 809) and a replenishment ship that looks to be Hr.Ms. Poolster (A835). Importantly, the photo-ex was taken right around the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea.
Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Marine photo Via NIMH (ON 2158_018605)
Further, if you have keen eyes, you will notice the Marineluchtvaartdienst Lynx has an ode to The Pink Panther on its nose, the cartoons a tradition for the service’s Lynx
Of note, Tromp carries the name of a Dutch cruiser/destroyer leader that only missed being sunk at the Feb. 28, 1942, Battle of the Java Sea while Witte de With carries the monicker of a Dutch destroyer that survived that clash only to be damaged by Japanese planes on 1 March 1942 at Surabaya and scuttled as the Dutch left Java. Meanwhile, Van Kinsbergen, named for a Dutch naval hero, was a name also carried by a sloop during WWII that, like Tromp and Witte de With, sailed with the Free Dutch forces– capturing 12 German steamers in the West Indies in the early part of the conflict.
Three of the four of the above-shown vessels were evidently so well-maintained in service to the Royal Netherlands Navy that after full careers with the Dutch they sailed for Greece (Van Kinsbergen as Navarinon), Chile (Witte de With as Capitán Prat), and Pakistan (Poolster as Moawin).
Here we see the white-hulled seagull that was the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey’s vessel Pathfinderbeing converted to a naval vessel, at the Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington, on 9 March 1942, 80 years ago today. Note the barge alongside, full of wood paneling torn from the vessel to make it more battle-ready. While this is not a traditional “warship,” it was said that, “The road to Tokyo was paved with Pathfinder’s charts,” which I think deserves some recognition.
Carrying on the name of the Lewis Nixon-designed clipper-bowed yacht that was taken into Naval service for the Spanish-American War then went on to serve the USC&GS for forty years, mapping most of the Philippines for the first time, the above Pathfinder was purpose-built for her survey work.
Laid down at Lake Washington in peacetime– February 1941– she was 229-feet overall, with a DeLaval steam turbine fed by twin Babcock and Wilcox header-type boilers. Just 2,175-tons, this 2,000shp engineering suite allowed the vessel to touch a paint-peeling 14.7 knots on her builder’s trials.
Pathfinder being converted to a naval vessel, at the Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington, on 9 March 1942, showing white being replaced with grey. 19-N-34393
Same day as the above. Note her relatively fine stern lines and empty survey boat davits. 19-N-34391
Acquired by the Navy after Pearl Harbor, she was converted and commissioned 31 August 1942, as the haze-grey USS Pathfinder (AGS-1). She picked up a pair of 3-inch guns forward, another pair of 20mm cannons aft, depth charge racks, and two old Colt M1895 “potato digger” machine guns.
With her warpaint on and teeth put in! USS Pathfinder (AGS-1) off the Puget Sound Navy Yard, 31 August 1942. 19-N-34396
Same day as the above, showing her stern depth charge racks and 20mm Oerlikons. 19-N-34395
Following a short shakedown, she arrived at Funa Futi in the Ellice Islands (today’s Tuvalu) on the day after Christmas 1942.
As noted by DANFS:
For nearly two years Pathfinder operated along the dangerous New Guinea-New Britain-Solomon Islands are as allied land-air-sea forces fought to break the Japanese grip on the area. An isolated reef, an uncharted harbor, a lonely stretch of enemy hold coastline-each presented a different problem. At Bougainville, Treasury Island, Green Island, Emirau, and Guam, advance Pathfinder parties were sent ashore under the noses of the Japanese to work in close cooperation with Allied amphibious elements in laying out harbor charts or surveying inland channels.
She survived no less than 50 bombing raids while in the Solomons in 1943, including at least one in which her gunners bagged enemy aircraft.
On 7 April, while off Guadalcanal, she was attacked by 18 Japanese fighters and dive bombers coming in high and fast. Responding with 11 rounds from her two 3″/50s, 597 rounds from her 20mm Oerlikon, and 202 from her ancient Colt .30-06s, she downed two planes in two minutes. Her only damage was some 7.7-caliber holes in her survey launch.
From her April 1943 War Diary, in the National Archives.
Following charting efforts around New Guinea, Pathfinder was sent back home to California at the end of September 1944 for a three-month refit in which she would pick up even more guns.
Her late-war look. Bow-on shot of USS Pathfinder (AGS-1) off San Francisco, California, 9 December 1944 after her late-war stint at Mare Island. #: 19-N-79507
The same day, stern shot. Note the depth charge racks. 19-N-79508
The same day, 19-N-79505
Same day. Note her twin 40mm singles over her stern, replacing two 20mm Oerlikon. 19-N-79506
Pathfinder was part of the push to liberate the Philippines, assisting with the landings in Casiguran Bay, Luzon in March 1945, where she withstood other air attacks.
Her luck ran out on 6 May 1945 while in “Suicide Slot” off Okinawa. A Japanese kamikaze plane crash-dived into the survey ship’s after gun platform killing one man, starting fires, and setting off ready ammunition. Emergency parties quickly brought the flames under control.
The action resulted in two Silver Stars.
Licking her wounds, Pathfinder remained off Okinawa and by August 1945 was at General Quarters 170 times in four months. She ended her war in a series of surveys among Japan’s home islands posy VJ-Day to assist the Allied occupation.
USC&GSS Pathfinder leading a line of four coast survey ships, circa 1945-46. The next ship astern is unidentified, but third, in a row is the survey ship Hydrographer. Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1977.NH 82197-A
Her 1942-45 Pacific journey, via her War Diary
Epilogue
Arriving at Seattle on Christmas Eve 1945, Pathfinder decommissioned on 31 January 1946 and was transferred to the Commerce Department, being struck from the Navy List on 13 November 1946.
USC&GSS Pathfinder (OSS-30), her guns hung up and her original white scheme reapplied, continued her survey work, only without as much threat from kamikazes, mines, and enemy submarines– although she still had her gun tubs well into the late 1950s!
Pathfinder at anchor, Photographer: Rear Admiral Harley D. Nygren, May 1958 Skowl Arm, Alaska. Note her empty gun tubs aft. (NOAA photo)
Pathfinder in Seattle ca. 1961. Her old WWII gun tubs have finally been removed. (NOAA photo)
Retired from NOAA service in 1971, the year after the new organization absorbed the USC&GS, Pathfinder was sold for scrapping to General Auto Wrecking Company, Ballard, WA. in 1972.
Currently, the US Navy still maintains a survey ship honoring the old name, the USNS Pathfinder (TAGS-60), a 4,762-ton ship that has been in commission since 1994.
Specs:
Displacement 2,175 t. Length 229′ 4″ Beam 39′ Draft 16′ Speed 14.7 kts (trial) Propulsion: one DeLaval steam turbine, two Babcock and Wilcox header-type boilers, 310psi 625°, double DeLaval Main Reduction Gears 2000shp Complement: (Navy 1942) 13 Officers, 145 Enlisted Armament (1944) 2 x 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mounts 4 x 1 40mm gun mounts two depth charge tracks two depth charge projectors
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Chow Hound was marked Missing in Action 8 August 1944- exactly five months later– over Caen after flak hit in the fuselage and blew the aircraft in half. The debris crashed near the village of Gelnannes, south of Alençon, France.
Her last crew, with all nine killed in action:
Jack Thompson, Pilot Co-pilot: Dave Nelson Navigator: Charles F Bacigalupa (POW) Bombardier: Chas Sherrill Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Henry Kortebein (Korthbein?) Radio Operator: Blake Treece Ball turret gunner: Warren Godsey Waist gunner: Dick Collins Tail gunner: Gerald Gillies.
International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the “social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.”
With that, I give you Canadian Second Officer Helen Marcelle Harrison of the Air Transport Auxiliary in November 1943 with a Spitfire IX.
Helen was a pioneering Canadian female civil aviation instructor and the first Canadian Air Transport Auxiliary ferry pilot during WWII.
After the war, she worked as a demonstration pilot for Percival Aircraft Company, flying a single-engine airplane across Canada in 1946. In 1968, she was awarded the B.C. Aviation Council’s Air Safety Trophy, after logging 14,000 hours as pilot-in-command of numerous aircraft types, without injury to passenger or crew.
Inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974, she passed in 1995, aged 85, when she got her final set of wings.
