Category Archives: World War Two

Warship Wednesday, March 2, 2022: Burnt Java

Posted on by 13 comments

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

Warship Wednesday, March 2, 2022: Burnt Java

NIMH photo

Here we see the Koninklijke Marine naval docks at Soerabaja (Surabaya), on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. The photo was taken 80 years ago today, 2 March 1942, from the coal jetty towards the West. With the Japanese fast approaching, the Dutch started the destruction of the yard at 11:30 am and you can make out the 1,500-ton dry dock sunk along with the patrol boats P19 and P20. The new 2,500-ton drydock is listing to the right with a cloud of smoke from the Perak oil tanks in the background.

While the scuttling of the Vichy French fleet at Toulon in 1942, and the self-destruction of the Royal Danish Navy at its docks in Copenhagen in 1943 to keep them out of German hands are well-remembered and often spoken about in maritime lore, the Dutch wrecking crew on Java at Soerabaja and Tjilatjap gets little more than a footnote.

Dominated by the Dutch for some 125 years before the Japanese effort to uproot them, Java was one of the centerpieces of the Indonesian archipelago in 1942 and a principal base for the colonial forces. While Borneo, Sumatra, and other islands may have had more resources– including natural rubber and pumping 20 million barrels a year of oil– Java was the strategic lynchpin. Defended by the (nominally) 85,000-man Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) along with their own air force, the ML-KNIL, it was the Dutch Navy and its shore-based long-range patrol craft of the MLD naval air service that was the colony’s first line of defense.

Japanese invasion map of the Netherlands East Indies cropped to show the landings and attack on Java. Note the location of the Dutch naval bases and how far the island is from Darwin. (OSS Collection Stanford University)

However, with the ML-KNIL/MLD’s aircraft swatted from the sky, and the Dutch navy’s largest units– the cruisers Hr.Ms. De Ruyter and Java— sunk at the Battle of the Java Sea on the night of 28 February along with following on Battle of Sunda Strait on 1 March that saw two Allied cruisers sent to the bottom, Java was wide open, and future war criminal Gen. Hitoshi Imamura’s 16th Army started landing on the island at three points directly after.

While Dutch Lt. Gen. Hein Ter Poorten’s force of three KNIL divisions and a mixed brigade worth of British/Australian/American reinforcements would seem on paper to be an even match for Imamura’s troops, the Japanese had the momentum from the start and by 8 March, the Dutch radio station at Ciumbuluit signed off with “Wij sluiten nu. Vaarwel tot betere tijden. Leve de Koningin!” (We are closing now. Farewell till better times. Long live the Queen!)

This effectively ended the short-lived ABDACOM command, severed the Malay-Timor barrier protecting Australia, and was the near-height of the Japanese success in the South Pacific. In March 1942, the Japanese would mount no less than 17 air raids on Western and Northern Australia.

Unescapable

The noose around Java was tight and several vessels that tried to break out failed.

The Japanese cruisers Takao and Atago found the old destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227) near nightfall on 2 March and sent her to the bottom with all hands.

At roughly the same time, the Japanese heavy cruiser Maya, accompanied by destroyers Arashi and Nowaki, found the British destroyer HMS Stronghold (H50) trying to escape from Tjilatjap to Australia and sank her, recovering 50 survivors.

The Australian Grimsby-class sloop HMAS Yarra (U77) was escorting a convoy of three British ships (the depot ship HMS Anking, the British tanker Francol, and the motor minesweeper HMS MMS 51) and survivors from the Dutch ship Parigi, from the fighting in Java to Fremantle when they were attacked on 4 March by three Japanese heavy cruisers– Atago, Takao and Maya, each armed with ten 8-inch guns– and two destroyers. The 1,080-ton sloop gave her last full measure but was unable to stop the massacre of the convoy and the Japanese were especially brutal, with reports of close-range shelling by the two Japanese destroyers, witnessed by 34 survivors on two rafts. The blockade-running Dutch freighter Tawali, rescued 57 officers and men from Anking that night, while the escaping Dutch steamer Tjimanjoek found 14 further survivors of the convoy on 7 March, and two days later 13 of the sloop’s ratings were picked up by the Dutch submarine K XI (a vessel that would go on to serve with the British in the Indian Ocean through 1945).

Persian Gulf, August 1941. Aerial port side view of the sloop HMAS Yarra II. She would be sunk along with her three-ship convoy while trying to escape Java on 4 March 1942. (AWM C236282)

Survivors

To be sure, the last large Dutch surface ship in the Pacific, the cruiser Hr.Ms. Tromp had escaped destruction and would serve alongside the Allies for the rest of the war, while her sister Jacob van Heemskerck, arriving too late to be sunk in the Java Sea, would duplicate her efforts.

Likewise, several Dutch submarines had managed to evade the Japanese dragnet and make for Australia, where they would continue their war.

Others, under an order of the Dutch navy commander on Java, RADM (acting) Pieter Koenraad, were ordered to attempt to escape after receiving the code KPX. (Koenraad and his staff embarked on the submarine Hr.Ms. K-XII, which made it to Australia safely, and from there he left for England, returning to Java in 1945 with the Free Dutch forces)

The 500-ton net-tender/minesweeper Hr.Ms. Abraham Crijnssen, capable of just 15 knots and laughably armed, famously decided to try for Australia camouflaged as a small island, leaving Java on 6 March with a volunteer crew and making it to safety on 20 March.

Personnel covered the ship in foliage and painted the hull to resemble rocks. The ship remained close to shore during the day and only sailed after sunset, sometimes traveling less than 50 miles a night. “Mijnenveger Hr.Ms. Abraham Crijnssen (1937-1961) gecamoufleerd in een baai (Soembawa) in Indische wateren in 1942.” (NIMH 2158_000014 and 2158_028298)

The scuttling itself

This left all the vessels too broken, under-armed, or small to break through the Japanese blockade and make it 1,200 miles across dangerous waters to Australia. Not wanting them to fall into the hands of the Japanese, the Dutch, and their Allies took the wrecking ball to over 120 vessels on Java at Soerabaja, Tanjon Priok, at Tjilatjap on 2 March.

The largest of these under Dutch naval control, Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden was a 70-year-old 5,300-ton ramtorenschip ironclad that had been disarmed and turned into a barracks ship in 1920. She hadn’t left the harbor in generations under her own steam, so this was a no-brainer.

The Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden originally mounted a pair of Armstrong 11-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns in each of her two turrets and was protected by 8 inches of iron plate. Used as an accommodation ship for the flotilla of Dutch submarines in the islands, she was set on fire and sunk at Soerabaja on March 2. (Photo NIMH)

Other large ships sent to the bottom were a group of Allied merchantmen trapped in the harbors including three 7,000-9,000-ton Dutch Java-China-Japan Lijn line cargo ships– Tjikandi, Tjikarang, and Toendjoek— scuttled as blockships. In all, 39 merchantmen were torched, mostly small Dutch coasters and empty tankers, but including three British Malay vessels (SS Giang Seng, Sisunthon Nawa, and Taiyuan) that had escaped Singapore, the 1,600-ton Canadian freighter Shinyu, and the small Norwegian tramps, Proteus and Tunni.

The two most potent Dutch combat vessels left in Java, the Admiralen-class destroyers (torpedobootjagers) Hr.Ms. Banckert and Witte de With did not survive the day. These 1,650-ton Yarrow-designed boats were built in the late 1920s and, capable of 36 knots, carried four 4.7-inch guns and a half-dozen torpedo tubes. Both had been severely mauled in surface actions with the Japanese and were unable to evacuate to Australia. The Dutch built eight of these destroyers and lost all eight in combat with the Germans and Japanese within 22 months of Holland entering the war.

Hr.Ms. Banckert seen in better days (Photo NIMH)

Hr.Ms. Witte de With (Photo NIMH)

Marine docks in Soerabaja. The photo was taken from the warehouse towards the East. Start of the destruction 11:30 am. The 3,000-ton dry dock with the destroyer Hr.Ms. Banckert is seen sinking. The dock had been torpedoed by Hr.Ms. K XVII before the submarine was able to submerge and make for Freemantle with the port’s commanding admiral aboard. On the right is the 227-ton tug/coastal minelayer Hr.Ms. Soemenep.

Speaking of destroyers, the old four-piper Clemson-class destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224) had been severely damaged at Badung Strait, only making it to Soerabaja with her engine room still operating while submerged. Written off, her crew was evacuated to Australia on 22 February and the ship, stricken from the Navy List, was left to the Dutch to scuttle.

USS Stewart (DD-224) steaming at high speed, circa the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 61898

The Dutch, who had a huge submarine fleet in the region, had three small “K” (for Koloniën or Colonial) subs scuttled at Soerabaja, the 583-ton circa 1923 KVII-class Hr.Ms. K X, the 828-ton circa 1926 K XI-class Hr.Ms. K XIII, and the 1,045-ton circa 1934 K XIV-class Hr.Ms. K VIII.

Colonial Submarine Hr.Ms. K X seen here upon arrival at Surabaya. In the background both the Java class light cruisers (Java and Sumatra) and on the far right a Wolf-class destroyer. 25 December 1924. Fast forward over 17 years later and the little sub was in repair at the same port and unable to get underway for Australia

Onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K X

Onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K VIII in drydock

De onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K XIII op zee

The Hr.Ms. Rigel, a 1,600-ton unarmed local government-owned (gouvernementsvaartuig) yacht used by the Dutch governor-general that had been converted to a minelayer, was too fine to let the Japanese have but too slow to make run the blockade. She ended her career on 2 March as a blockship at Tanjong Priok.

Hr.Ms. Rigel in her prewar livery (Photo NIMH)

When referencing mine craft, the ten Djember (DEFG)-class auxiliary mijnenvegers (minesweepers), small 100-foot vessels of just 175 tons constructed specifically for work in the islands, were all either scuttled or left wrecked on the builders’ ways in Java. Similarly, the five even smaller 74-ton Ardjoeno-class auxiliary minesweepers, the twin 150-ton Alor and Aroe, and the twin 145-ton Ceram and Cheribon, were in the same lot, with the Dutch sinking these as well.

Minesweepers of the 3rd Division, auxiliary minesweepers of the Alor-class in action in the Dutch East Indies in 1941. These were all sunk by their crews on 2 March 1942. Small vessels like these had no hope of storing enough fuel to make it 1,200 miles to Allied lines. (Photo NIMH)

The Alors were built as regional police vessels (politiekruisers) for use in coast guard roles and were outfitted as sweepers in 1939 under naval command. (Photo NIMH)

One great unrealized hope that could have spoiled the Japanese landings was the 17 TM-4 class of motor torpedo boats. Begun at Navy Yard Soerabaja in 1940, they were small and quick vessels, just 63 feet long with a 5-foot draft, they could make 36 knots.

TM-4 klasse motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 8 portside. Note her two stern torpedo tubes and two forward light machine guns.

Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 Hr.Ms. TM 8 en Hr.Ms. TM 6. Note the exhaust pipes for their three gasoline aviation engines, salvaged from old seaplanes

Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 op hoge vaart met op achtergrond Hr.Ms. TM 8

TM8 getting on the plane

As the islands were cut off from Europe due to the German occupation of their homeland, much use of surplus parts was made. This included Lorraine Dietrich gasoline engines from condemned 1920s Dornier Wal and Fokker T-4 aircraft as well as Great War-vintage 17.7-inch torpedo tubes from scrapped Roofdier-class destroyers and Z-class torpedo boats.

Their only other armament was twin Lewis guns. “Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 (1940-1942), Hr.Ms. TM 8 (1940-1942) en Hr.Ms. TM 6 (1940-1942) afgemeerd.”

Just 12 TM-4s were completed by March 1942, and they were all scuttled, while the other half-dozen were left unfinished onshore.

In the same vein as the TM-4s, the Dutch had planned to build at least 16 130-ton B-1-class subchasers at three different yards around the colony. These 150-foot motor launches, armed with a 3-inch popgun, some AAA pieces, and 20-depth charges, would have gone a long way towards providing the Dutch some decent coastal ASW. However, none were completed in March 1942 and the work done by the time of the fall of Java was disrupted as much as possible.

As a stopgap before the B-1s were complete, the Dutch had ordered eight small wooden-hulled mosquito boats from Higgins in New Orleans.

The Dutch Higgins boats substituted 16 depth charges for the more familiar torpedo tubes used on these vessels’ follow-on brothers as the Navy’s PT boats. They also had a 20mm gun and four .50 cals, in twin mounts with plexiglass hoods. Classed as OJR (Onderzeebootjager= Submarine hunter), the first six arrived as deck cargo in December 1941 and February 1942 but saw little service.

Onderzeebootjager Hr.Ms. OJR 4 (1941-1942) wordt te New Orleans a/b van het ms Poelau Tello gehesen voor verscheping naar Ned. Indië

Two had been lost in gasoline explosions and the Dutch scuttled the remaining four in Java (OJR-1, OJR-4, OJR-5, and OJR-6) on 2 March.

Incidentally, the two undelivered Higgins boats (H-7 and H-8) were delivered after the fall of the Dutch East Indies to the Dutch West Indies where they patrolled around Curacao.

Onderzeebootjager Hr.Ms. H 8 (1942-1946) op weg van New Orleans naar Curaçao

The local Dutch government had several small patrouillevaartuigen gunboats at their disposal outside of naval control, dubbed literally the Gouvernementsmarine or Government’s Navy. Dubbed opium jager (opium hunters), they engaged in counter-smuggling and interdiction efforts around the archipelago as well as tending aids to navigation, coastal survey, and search and rescue work. Once the war began, they were up-armed and taken under navy control and switched from being gouvernementsvaartuig vessels.

Small patrol boats scuttled in Java on 2 March 1942 included Hr.Ms. Albatros (807 tons), Aldebaran (892 tons), Biaro (700 tons), Eridanus (996 tons), Farmalhout (1,000 tons), Fomalhaut (1,000 tons), Gemma (845 tons), Pollux (1,012 tons), and Valk (850 tons).

Flotilla vessel (opium hunter of the Gouvernements-navy) Valk

The arrival of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XIII in the Emmahaven. In the background is the survey ship Eridanus of the Gouvernementsmarine (GM). Taken over by the Navy in September 1939, Eridanus was converted to a gunboat and later scuttled at Soerabaja on 2 March 1942, along with the submarine shown.

Epilogue 

In all, of the more than 120 ships destroyed by the Dutch on Java, almost 90 were small vessels under 1,000 tons such as the Djembers, the TM torpedo boats, and the assorted coastal patrol, subchasers, and minelayers. Many of their crews were marched into Japanese POW camps to spend the next four years in hell, while a small trickle was able to escape on their own either into the interior– keep in mind that about half of the rank and file in the Dutch Far East fleet were local Indonesians– or manage somehow to make for Allied-controlled areas.

The Japanese were able, as the war dragged on, to raise and salvage many of the scuttled vessels and return them to service in the IJN. Likewise, several of the TMs and B-1s that were left unfinished were eventually launched under the Rising Sun flag.

Imperial Japanese Navy Type-101 MTB, ex-Dutch TM4 ,1943, under attack by USAAF aircraft

Of the larger ships, the destroyer Hr.Ms. Banckert was raised by the escort-poor Japanese in 1944, partially repaired, and put in service as the patrol craft PB-106. On 23 October 1945, VADM Shibata Yaichiro, CINC, Second Southern Expeditionary Fleet, surrendered Java to Free Dutch Forces, and Banckert/PB-106 was returned to the Dutch, who promptly sank her in gunnery exercises.

The stricken Asiatic Fleet destroyer, ex-USS Stewart, whose hull had been broken and her crew had left her scuttling to the Dutch, was also salvaged by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and entered service as Patrol Boat No. 102 in 1943, rearmed with a variety of Dutch and Japanese weapons and her funnels retrunked into a more Japanese fashion. Found at Kure after the war, she was taken over by a U.S. Navy prize crew in October 1945 and steamed under her own power (making 20 knots no less!) across the Pacific to Oakland.

Her old hull number was repainted and a Japanese meatball was placed on her superstructure, she was sunk by the Navy in deep water in May 1946.

Ex-USS Stewart (DD-224) under attack while being sunk as a target on 24 May 1946. Airplanes seen include an F4U Corsair in the lead, followed by two F6F Hellcats. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-702830.

When the Dutch returned to Java in 1945, besides resuming control of the few vessels still around that had been refloated by the Japanese– craft which was soon discarded– they embarked on a campaign to salvage many of the rest, with hulks shipped off to Australia where they were broken into the 1950s. 

Remains of former Dutch submarine K VIII, Jervoise Bay, Cockburn Sound, Western Australia in 1956 after being blowup for scrapping.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

The German Flying Boats Busting Japanese Tin Cans

Posted on by 2 comments

Dornier Flugzeugwerke’s all-metal three-engined Do 24 flying boat was designed in the mid-1930s to replace the Dutch Navy’s Dornier Do J Wal (whale) aircraft flown in the Dutch East Indies.

Below we see a Dornier Wal, taking off next to the Dutch cruiser Java, somewhere in the Dutch East Indies. As pointed out by Georgios Nikolaides-Krassas, an avid LSOZI reader, the Wal was “Do-24s ‘grandfather,’ so to speak, and predecessor in the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service (Marineluchtvaartdienst-MLD). Judging by the presence of the 75 mm/55 cal. Bofors/Wilton-Fijenoord Mark 4 AA guns and the awnings, the photograph must have been taken in the Dutch East Indies at some point between 1926, when the Do-J was introduced in MLD service, and the refit in the early 1930s that saw the removal of said AA guns, a few years before the first flight of the prototype of Do-24 (which, it must be pointed out, was developed to meet a requirement by the MLD).”

The Do 24 was a big, beautiful aircraft, with an 88-foot wingspan– nearly as wide as the famed PBY Catalina. With a 150kt cruising speed, the ability to carry over 2,600-pounds of ordnance under its wings, and a 1,600nm range, they could pose a serious threat to approaching sneaky enemy fleets.

Dornier Do-24K-1 maritieme patrouillevliegboot X-13 (1938-1942).

Bomb suspension of the first Dornier Do 24K-1 maritime patrol flying boat (German: Hochsee-Aufklärungsflugboot) of the Naval Aviation Service (MLD), built by Dornier in Friedrichshafen (South Germany). They could carry six 200 kg (440-pound) bombs, three under each wing. Also, note the searchlight on the engine cowling.

The Dutch wanted 90 of the aircraft, with the first third built by Dornier in Germany and the rest under license by Aviolanda in Holland.

A formation of nine Dornier Do-24K maritime patrol flying boats and six smaller Fokker T.IV naval bombers over ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy, circa 1939.

However, by 1940, this plan was dead in the water.

When the Germans swept through the Lowlands in May 1940, they captured 26 incomplete aircraft in Holland and went on to build another 159 for the Luftwaffe on the Dutch line, substituting BMW-made Braamo engines– the same type used in the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, some 37 Do.24s were in service in the Dutch East Indies, concentrated mostly at Naval Air Station Morokrembangan near Soerabaja in eastern Java, and proved vital in the short three-month campaign for those islands.

De Dornier Do-24K-1 maritieme patrouillevliegboten X-2 (1938-1941) en X-3 (1938-1942)

It was a Do.24 that alerted the Dutch garrison at Tarakan that the Japanese invasion fleet was over the horizon, allowing the important oil fields there to be put to the torch.

Dornier 24 flying boat of the Royal Netherlands Navy sights the Japanese invasion fleet off Kuching, British Borneo, 23 December, 1941

The Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer Shinonome met her end on the morning of 17 December 1941 while part of the Borneo invasion force at the hand of a Do 24.

As detailed by Combined Fleet: 

  • 0650 [Tokyo time; Dutch time local 0550] While in distant company of HIYOSHI MARU and W-7 the SHINONOME was attacked shortly after dawn by Dutch flying boat X-32 of GVT-7 (GVT = Groep Vliegtuigen = Aircraft Group) off Miri, Borneo (04-24 N, 114 E). Five bombs were dropped, with two direct hits and one near-miss observed. One of them detonated an aft magazine: SHINONOME came to a stop, heeled over, and went down by the stern within five minutes.
  • 0700 HIYOSHI MARU and W-7 attacked by Dutch Flying Boat X.33. Attack ended.
  • 1020 MURAKUMO sees a huge column of white water erupting from the sea in the area of Baram Lighthouse and a huge underwater shock is felt at the same time. It seemed like a deep super depth charge in its concussion.
  • 1246 To investigate, MURAKUMO cast off from No.3 TONAN MARU after having first refueled. The destroyer thereafter discovered a ten-meter long patch of oil about fifteen kilometers off Baram Lighthouse containing relatively little debris. Most poignantly, the only recognizable item was a barrel of radishes, known to have been embarked by SHINONOME from the supply ship SURUGA MARU at Camranh Bay.
  • 1930 MURAKUMO gave up searching for survivors, having found not a single one. Returned to Miri and assigned patrol duties. Thus Lt.Cdr. Sasagawa and all hands – some 221 officers and men – perished.

After it became apparent that the Dutch East Indies could not be held in the face of the overwhelming Japanese effort, 11 surviving Dorniers were able to evacuate to Australia in late February 1942– some 80 years ago today.

Three days later, an air raid on Roebuck Bay left five of the remaining Do.24s sunk, along with four Dutch PBYs.

“A Japanese air raid on Tuesday morning 3 March 1942 resulted in the loss of nine MLD flying boats, which were moored in Roebuck Bay near Broome (Western Australia). These were the Dornier Do-24K-1 flying boats X-1, X-3, X-20, X-23, X-28, and the Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina flying boats Y-59, Y-60, Y-67, and Y -70. The photo shows the smoke development, which presented a sinister spectacle over the bay just after the attack.”

The final six Do 24s served with the Australians, absorbed in No. 41 Squadron RAAF as A49 1-6, serving as amphibian transports between Australia and New Guinea until late in the war.

Lake Macquarie, Australia’s largest coastal saltwater lake, C. 1943. A Dornier Do 24 Of the Dutch Royal Marine Airforce flies low over the lake. AWM 044610.

The exiled Do.24s mirrored the work of the Free Dutch No. 320 (Netherlands) Squadron RAF, which was formed from Marineluchtvaartdienst personnel that escaped from Holland to the UK with eight Fokker T.VIIIW twin-engined patrol seaplanes. The latter squadron finished the war flying Hudsons. 

All photos via the NIMH, which has a very nice photo collection of these aircraft in action, both in German and Dutch livery. 

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022: The Troublesome Chicago Piano

Posted on by 5 comments

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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022: The Troublesome Chicago Piano

Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-21955

Here we see the crew on a four-barreled 1.1-inch/75cal anti-aircraft gun located on the flight deck of the famed Yorktown-class aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV 6), ready for the moment when the word “Commence Firing” is passed. The photograph was released 3 April 1942, just a few months after the much-disliked “Chicago Piano” had its baptism of fire.

The Navy in the 1910s, rushing into the Great War, one in which floatplanes and Zeppelins were a real (even if not perceived great) threat to warships at sea and nearshore, began adding a handful of “balloon guns” and anti-aeroplane pieces to their vessels which extra deck space. This boiled down to stubby 3″/23 mounts placed on higher-angle AA mountings as well as, after 1916, Maxim/Hotchkiss Mark 10 37mm “1-pounder” Pom-Pom automatics of the type which was already in use in the Royal Navy at the time.

The Mark 10 1-pounder Pom Pom (Model E Hotchkiss), seen at Watertown Arsenal in 1916 with its deck penetrating naval mount. Note its water jacket and ability to go almost max vertical. The gun itself, in earlier formats with a more limited mounting, had been used by the Navy as far back as the Spanish-American War.

The Hotchkiss pom pom, seen in a period postcard, left, and fitted on the flush deck destroyer USS Israel in 1918, NH 102923. While these guns served in the U.S. Navy only briefly and were withdrawn soon after the war, other European powers continued to use them well into WWII.

Although the 37mm pom pom gun could be manned by a single bluejacket in a pinch, and it was capable of firing 25 shells in a minute before it needed reloading, its short-cased ammunition was limited to a range of just 3,500 yards.

Something better…

By the late 1920s, directly after Billy Mitchell’s antics, while the Navy shrugged off the possibility that land-based bombers could destroy capital ships underway, they quietly began upping their AAA capabilities with a trio of weapons.

This trifecta included the M1921 and later M2 water-cooled .50-caliber Browning heavy machine gun on pedestal mounts with “tombstone” magazine boxes. Capable of running through a 110-round belt in about a minute, it had a higher rate of fire but an even smaller round than the old 1-pounder pom pom with an engagement range of under 2,000 yards.

It was the water-cooled .50 cal that Dorie Miller became famous on at Pearl Harbor.

USS Enterprise (CV-6), view of part of the .50 caliber anti-aircraft guns gallery in action against attacking Japanese planes during the raid on the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, 1 February 1942. The wing in the background is from one of the Douglass SBD-3 Dauntless aircraft in the carrier’s air group. NH 50935

While the .50-cal was the low end of the USN’s interbellum AAA, the high end was the newly developed 5″/38 DP Mark 12 gun on Mark 21 mounts, which began reaching the fleet’s destroyers in 1934 with USS Farragut (DD-348), could fire AAC shells out to 17,270 yards with a ceiling of 37,200 feet. Early Mk 33 directors could concentrate this fire with great accuracy– for the early 1930s– and better, faster versions of the 5″/38, augmented by late 1942 with radio proximity fuses (VT fuses) would make the guns much more effective against aircraft.

This left the mid-range between the big 5-inchers and the puny .50 cals. This is the space the 1.1-inch gun filled.

Development

As detailed in “The Chicago Piano” by Konrad F. Schreier, Jr. in Naval History, July/August 1994, the gun took six years to hammer out from the prototype to a (semi) working example:

The 1.1 gun was designed as a weapon to be used against dive and horizontal bombers and as such supplement the defensive characteristics of the caliber .50 machine gun. The first definite action in this direction took place on October 11, 1928, when the Chief of the Bureau announced a meeting of a Special Board on Naval Ordnance for October 17 to consider and submit a plan for the development and test of a machine gun of 1″ or greater. As a result of this and successive meetings, the decision was made to develop a 1.1″ machine gun.

On December 13, 1928, Mr. C.F. Jeansen, a Bureau Engineer, began an investigation of the weight of ammunition for the gun and in March 1929 Mr. Burk and Mr. Chadwick, likewise Bureau Engineers, were designated to design the gun mechanism. The round as finally adopted weighed 2 pounds and employed a .92 pound percussion-fuzed projectile. The design of the gun mechanism was completed in 1930 and tests on the initial models were carried out in March, April and May 1931. The tests, which demonstrated a cyclic rate of 90 r.p.m., were characterized by primer blow backs, misfires, and stuck cases—as well as magazine and cradle difficulties. During the next two years, designers corrected these faults and the cyclic rate increased to 140. The design was turned over to the Naval Gun Factory for production in 1934.

The shell used, spec’d out as 28x199mmSR, was a handful, no doubt.

1.1 shell OP4 plate 16

For reference, the closest thing in the Navy’s arsenal today is the 25x137mm Bushmaster as used by the Mk38 chain gun system or its follow-on 30×173 mm Bushmaster II as used in the Mk 46 gun system.

From my own collection: a .30-06 M2 ball round as used in the M1917/M1903/M1, the .50 cal BMG as used in the M2 machine gun, and a 25x137mm Bushmaster dummy. Keep in mind that the 28×199 as used by the 1.1-inch gun is about 2.45-inches longer. (Photo: Chris Eger)

Ordnance Pamphlet No. 4 (May 1943) mentions the following about the fuzing of the 1.1-inch shell, “For AA projectiles in the 1.1-inch caliber, supersensitive nose fuzes are provided to ensure bursting action immediately in the rear of very light plate or fabric, while, for common and high capacity projectiles of 3-inch and up, time fuzes are furnished to burst the projectile at the point desired in the air.”

As noted by Tony DiGiulian at NavWeaps, “A 1934 report to the Navy General Board concluded that a single 1.1″ (28 mm) hit on any part of an aircraft would probably result in a forced landing.”

The following range table from Ordnance Pamphlet 1188 (June 1944), giving a range of 7,000 yards, although its best hope of hitting something was closer to 2,000 yards. The ceiling for the gun was 19,000 feet.

When it came to utilizing the weapon in the fleet, which took until 1938 before it reached what could be termed IOC today, the “one-point-one” was used in a four-gun side-by-side water-cooled mounting that weighed 5-tons, later ballooning to almost 9-tons in its final Mark 2 Mod 6 mount.

Quad 1.1″ (28 mm) mounting. Sketch from OP-1112. Image courtesy of HNSA, via Navweaps.

Clip-fed via four hoppers, one for each gun, the mount had a theoretical rate of fire of about 550 rounds per minute. Between all the loaders, the gun mount captain, slewers, and elevators, it required upwards of 15 men to make one of these work, and that isn’t counting clippers in clipping rooms and humpers in the magazines sending up rounds from down in the bilges.

Each 8-round clip weighed 34 pounds when loaded and empty clips can be seen being manually removed by gun crew members in this great action shot.

1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun USS Philadelphia CL-41 Operation Torch, LIFE Eliot Elisofon

USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) 1.1 Chicago Piano clip hoist inside the kingpost 19-N-28408

USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) kingpost. Note the two 1.1 Chicago Pianos under the tripod pagoda. 19-N-28416

USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) eight-round 1.1 ready service clips, essentially the M1 Garand’s en-bloc clip on steroids

The guns were soon fitted to a range of new-construction destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and fitted to older battleships and carriers. 

USS Maryland BB-46 off Hawaii August 1941 showing one of her 1.1-inch guns, complete with canvas cover. LIFE Peter Stackpole

1.1″ Quadruple Anti-Aircraft Machine Gun Mounting on the new carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), 26 February 1941. 80-G-464857

War!

On the morning of 7 December 1941, the Piano had its first recital and was credited, at least in initial reports, with its first kill, that from the new Porter-class destroyer USS Selfridge (DD-357). Commissioned on 25 November 1936, she had four twin 5″38s, two quad 1.1s, and some .50 cals. Only the latter two got into play against the Japanese that day.

From Selfridge’s report:

This vessel participated in the defense of Pearl Harbor and the ships based therein during the air raid of 7 December 1941.

Berth occupied was X-0 on heading approximately north-east, outboard and starboard side to U.S.S. Case, Reid, Tucker, Cummings and Whitney.

Service .50 caliber and 1.1″ caliber ammunition was clipped and in ready boxes at all machine guns prior to the action. Guns were ready for instant use except for being manned and loaded.

Nine officers and ninety-nine percent of the crew were on board.

Approximately four minutes before morning colors the Officer of the Deck witnessed the launching of a torpedo against the U.S.S. Raleigh by a Japanese plane. Almost simultaneously came a report from the signal bridge that the Naval Air Station was on fire.

The Officer of the Deck sounded the alarm for general quarters, set condition affirm and directed the engineering department to light off boilers and make preparations to get underway.

At about 0758 Selfridge .50 caliber machine guns were firing on Japanese planes, shortly followed by the 1.1″ machine guns. It is believed that these guns were the first to fire in this area.

Two enemy planes fired upon were seen to crash. One was hit by the after 1.1″ while diving on the Curtiss. The wing was sheared off causing the plane to crash near the beach at Beckoning Point. Another plane flying low on a southerly course to westward of the Selfridge released a bomb in the North Channel opposite the U.S.S. Raleigh and crashed in flames in the vicinity of the U.S.S. Curtiss while being fired on by the forward 1.1″ machine gun. A third plane, under fire by the forward 1.1″, was seen to disappear behind a hedge halfway up a hill at a location bearing about 045 True from the Selfridge. A fourth plane, hit in the underpart of the fuselage by the port .50 caliber machine gun, started smoking and when last seen was headed toward a cane field to the northward of the Selfridge. It is now known definitely however that this plane crashed.

850 rounds of 1.1″ and 2,340 rounds of .50 caliber were expended during the action. There were no personnel casualties. The only evidence of material casualty is a small conical shaped dent in the starboard side of the director which appears to have been made by a small caliber machine gun bullet.

The performance of the ship’s equipment was excellent, as was that of the crew. At no time during the raid was there a lull in firing caused by an interruption of ammunition supply. Men not engaged at the guns broke out and clipped ammunition in a most efficient and expeditious manner. The conduct of no one officer or man can be considered outstanding because the conduct, cooperation, coolness, and morale of the crew as a fighting unit was superb.

According to an October 1945 report, an estimated 43 planes (actually just 29 by all sources) were shot down on that Day of Infamy, an amazing 27 of them with .50-caliber machine guns, 8 with 5-inch, six with 3″/50, and just two with 1.1s– the latter by Selfridge.

However, the rest of the war proved the 1.1 was lacking and, unliked by almost everyone involved with it and prone to jams, its days were numbered.

Still, it went forward with the fleet throughout 1942, seeing action in all theatres. In all, the Navy assessed the 1.1 fired 57,131 rounds that year, accounting for 38 enemy aircraft, a rate of 1,503 rounds per kill.

Mail transfer at sea, circa 1942. The mailbag is high-lined between the photographer’s ship and a Benson (DD-421) class destroyer, whose after deckhouse is seen. Note Two-tone paint; 1.1″ quad anti-aircraft gun; life rafts; stub mainmast, ensign, and comm. pennant; searchlight; depth charge throwers. 80-G-K-15338.

North African Invasion, 1942. Crewmembers of one of the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31)’s 1.1″ anti-aircraft guns eat sandwiches at their battle station, during operations off North Africa in November 1942. Note breech of their gun at left, with ready-service ammunition stowed along with the splinter shield. 80-G-30439.

North African Invasion, 1942. A 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun on alert aboard the carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) during the Torch landings, November 1942. Note the loading hoppers and crew waiting with fresh clips. 80-G-30334.

The Lassen-class ammunition ship USS Rainer (AE-5), view of the ship’s bridge, taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 15 April 1942. Note 1.1″ anti-aircraft guns on each bridge wing. 19-N-29183.

Omaha-class light cruiser USS Milwaukee (CL-5) at New York Navy Yard, 7 January 1942. Note the 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun and its Mk44 director. 19-N-27090.

1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun, USS Philadelphia CL-41, Operation Torch, LIFE Eliot Elisofon

Seydisfjord Seyðisfjörður fjord Iceland June 1942, PQ-17 convoy, USS Wichita CA-45 with 5in/51 and 1.1-inch Chicago piano next to USS Wainwright DD-419. HMS Somali (F33) is in the background. LIFE Scherschel 

Another image of the above, showing the 1.1 to the top left

A Vought OS2U Kingfisher hoisted on the battleship USS New York BB-34 while on North Atlantic Convoy Escort Duty in 1942. Note 3”/50 and (cased) 1.1” Quad AA Gun Mounts, signal flags at ready, and what seems to be a gas mask drill going on below. Also note the troopship (liner) on the horizon. LIFE Magazine Archives – Frank Scherschel Photographer

One was also used ashore in the Philippines that year, manned by the Army against the Japanese invasion.

Via the Moore Report: 

Also, late in January 1941 a 1.1-in quadruple mounted automatic weapon intended for shipboard service, together with several thousand rounds of ammunition, was turned over to the Defense by the local Naval authorities. Under supervision of the Machine Gun Defense Commander that weapon was emplaced on an especially constructed concrete base atop Malinta Hill. A small Crossley automobile motor, a tank and a small boat pump, all salvaged, were used in the water cooling system.

Manned by a detachment of men selected from the 3d Battalion, 60th Coast Artillery (AA) and trained by a Naval gunner, it was assigned to Mobile for tactical control and first got into action on or about 11 February. Although its effectiveness was reduced because there was no director available, the “one-point-one” rendered good service-mainly through its apparent effect on enemy morale, and particularly in the zone lying between the minimum and maximum effective ranges respectively of 3-in guns and .50-caliber machine guns-until it was destroyed by enemy artillery fire a few days prior to the capitulation.

Fading away, 1943-45

The Piano soon gave way to the much more effective 20mm/80 Oerlikon, 40mm/60 Bofors, and various marks of updated DP 5-inch high-angle guns, the new trifecta.

Kodachrome showing 5″/38 guns firing in gunnery practice, on board an Essex class aircraft carrier in the Pacific, circa 1944-1945. Note 40mm gun barrels in the foreground, also firing, and manned 20mm flight deck gallery beyond. 80-G-K-15382

Nonetheless, the 1.1 was still seeing combat into 1943 and later as many of the old mounts were still afloat and on ships forward-deployed in combat zones.

A 1.1-inch quad anti-aircraft machinegun mounting located on the starboard side amidships of the Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Nashville (CL-43). Photographed 11-13 May 1943, before or just after the 13 May bombardment of Japanese positions on Kolombangara and New Georgia islands. Note the metal shroud installed around the barrels of this gun mount. NH 97963 cropped

80-G-54554: Battle of the Kula Gulf, July 5-6, 1943. Aboard USS Honolulu (CL 48). Shown is the night gunnery by the 1.1 gun crew on superstructure lit by gunfire.

Check out this rare color footage, from the light cruisers USS Helena (CL-50) and the USS St. Louis (CL-49) in June 1943, showing a 1.1 gun crew in action against Japanese aircraft.

For 1943, the Navy assessed 10,727 1.1-inch shells that had been fired in anger, accounting for four enemy aircraft. Although a further 18,138 shells were fired in 1944 and 45, the system would claim just two additional kills in the last 20 months of the war. In all, the 1.1 fired 85,996 rounds during the conflict for 44.5 kills, just two percent of all enemy aircraft downed, at a rate of 1,932 rounds per hashmark.

By comparison, during World War II, the Navy experience was that it required an average of 11,143 rounds for a .50 caliber machine gun to bring down an aircraft. The .50 caliber weapons on ships were credited with 65.5 aircraft kills for 729,836 rounds expended. This, at least, shows that round-per-round, at least the 1.1 was more effective than the .50 cal.

It was also more effective than the 20mm Oerlikon, which although it downed 617.5 aircraft (28 percent of those on the balance sheet) during WWII, it needed a mean of 5,287 rounds for each of those kills. Ironic.

Only the larger caliber 40mm, 3-inch, and 5-inch mounts were able to best the rounds-to-kill ratio of the 1.1.

Thus:

Epilogue

At least one was recycled for use by the Japanese during WWII, perhaps the one mentioned in the Moore report.

Dismounted and wrecked U.S. Navy 1.1″ anti-aircraft gun mount, photographed on Corregidor after its capture by the Japanese in May 1942. Copied from the Japanese book: “Philippine Expeditionary Force,” published in 1943. Courtesy of Dr. Diosdado M. Yap, Editor-Publisher, Bataan Magazine, Washington, D.C., 1971. NH 73589

Others still stand guard on the doomed American wrecks on the bottom of the Pacific, especially those from 1942.

These are the two quad guns just aft of the exhaust. USS Lexington, via RV Petrel

USS Astoria CA-34’s 1.1-inch guns. , RV Petrel

USS Hornet CV-8’s 1.1 inch 75 cal Mark 1 anti-aircraft guns. Note how good the waterlines look, even after 80 years underwater. RV Petrel

USS Wasp (CV-7)’s quad 1.1 Chicago Piano. RV Petrel

Few remain in museums, with the 1.1 retained in a few battleship parks, the last fans of the sad Chicago Piano.

1.1 Chicago Piano AA gun on museum ship USS North Carolina

Lastly, the guns showed up in CGI format in the recent film, Midway. 

 

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Gipper’s SECDEF Getting his Springfield on

Posted on by Leave a comment

Via the Camp Roberts Historical Museum:

Arlin Weinberger, a supporter of our museum and member of our Chancellery, visited us recently and donated these photos of her father, taken during his training at Camp Roberts as our nation was entering World War 2. Her father, Caspar Willard Weinberger, went on to become Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, serving from Jan. 1981 to Nov. 1987.

Weinberger at the time of the below images was a 2nd LT, fresh from Fort Benning, with the 186th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit that went on to become one of the famed “Jungleers” of the 41st Infantry Division in the grueling push from New Guinea to the Philippines.

As noted in Weinberger’s DOD bio:

He entered the U.S. Army as a private in 1941, was commissioned, and served in the Pacific theater. At the end of the war he was a captain on General Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence staff. Early in life he developed an interest in politics and history and, during the war years, a special admiration for Winston Churchill, whom he would later cite as an important influence.

Why the Lange Face, Luger edition

Posted on by Leave a comment

I’ve seen hundreds of Lugers come through the Guns.com Vault in the past few years, ranging from Swiss-made Berns to American Eagles, Naval Lugers, Black Widows, and 1980s commemoratives, but the “Artillery Luger” is more of a unicorn.

Officially dubbed the Lange Pistole 1908, or LP.08, while the rest of the Imperial German Army was using the regular 9mm P08, it was decided the cannon cockers of the field and fortress artillery, in 1913, were to be issued a lengthened (lange= long) version with a 7.87-inch barrel and a graduated tangent leaf rear sight marked to a wildly optimistic 800m.

The LP.08 would take the place of both the short carbine and the revolver for the artillery, making it something of a Ragtime-era PDW.

And it is just so friggen cool looking…

More in my column at Guns.com. 

80 years Ago: Hanging up the saddle

Posted on by One comment

21 February 1942. The “Brave Rifles,” 3d Cavalry Regiment troopers at Ft. Myer lead their trusty mounts to the railroad for the trip to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, one of the last evolutions involving a regiment of horse-mounted cavalry in U.S. service.

Once there, the mounts were turned in and the troops began training for World War II.

Note the spurs

The troopers seem to be wearing the M1926 pattern Winter Service Uniform with coats and black four-fold service neckties. Note the late-pattern Campaign service hats, which were put to pasture for general use after 1941. Notably, they are also seen with newly-issued M1 Garands, some carried “Russian style” i.e. slung over the body.

The old 1912 Pattern cavalry gear, which still included much leather equipment as well as a distinctive chain saber attachment and bandoleer, is long gone, replaced by the more modern M1923 gear. The enlisted men wear the tall russet leather lace-up cavalry boots which were authorized in 1930.

The M1918 Mounted Cartridge Belt with 1907 Equipment Suspenders; Double Magazine Pocket; the M1912 Mounted Holster, and the M1910 1st Aid Pouch can all be seen if you look hard enough.

The wear of service breeches was halted across the Army in 1937, except for those in mounted units.

Model 1913 Cavalry Saber (also known as the Patton Saber) was the last cavalry saber used by the U.S. Army, was withdrawn in 1935 on orders from MacArthur.

Of the men shown above, almost all of the officers and troopers of the 3d Cavalry– regular Army men– became cadres for National Guard divisions. The 3d was then filled with draftees and cadre from the 4th (horse) Cavalry and was reorganized into what became the 3d Cavalry Group (Mechanized) while its 1st Squadron became the 3rd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, and 2nd Squadron became the 43rd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, all centered around M8 Greyhounds.

After two years of training, they landed in France in June 1944 as a reconnaissance element of the XX Corps, U.S. 3rd Army.

Today, the Brave Rifles still exist, recently celebrating their 175th anniversary. They are based at Fort Hood and maintain an excellent regimental museum, from which these images are supplied.

As for the Cavalry’s horses? Many were turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard and used for Beach Patrol during the conflict, then sold at auction in 1945.

1943. Guardsman on patrol somewhere along the Atlantic coast is shown in the new uniform of the U.S. Coast Guard Mounted Beach Patrol.

Members of the Coast Guard’s mounted beach patrol cross an inlet during their patrol on the West Coast.

Houston, departing

Posted on by 2 comments

Here, 80 years ago today, we see the Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30), as viewed through the sight of an Australian 4-inch gun on the beach at Darwin, Australia, on 18 February 1942. Houston– which had been RADM Thomas C. Hart’s Asiatic Fleet’s flagship until he was scapegoated and relieved of operational responsibilities the week before– was then leaving Darwin for the Dutch East Indies and a rendevous with destiny.

As such, this is one of the last photos taken of the doomed ship, as she would be sent to the bottom at the Sunda Strait just 11 days later.

Photo courtesy of Otto Schwartz, 1983. Naval History and Heritage Command Catalog #: NH 94458.

Houston would earn the Presidential Unit Citation and two battle stars for her World War II service, in the hardest kind of way.

Farewell, Blood & Bones

Posted on by 2 comments

Formed as part of the old Royal Flying Corps in February 1917, today’s No. 100 Squadron RAF has an impressive history that includes four battle honors for the Great War and was the last squadron to land from a combat mission before the Armistice was signed in 1918.

The squadron’s original, and very distinctive, red flag, bearing a skull and crossbones, was apparently liberated from a French bordello in 1918 by one of those daring young flyboys, then embellished with the squadron name and the motto “Blood and Bones.” 

As a night bomber unit over the Western Front just 15 years after the aeroplane first flew, you had to have a certain sense of humor.

This relic was carried with the squadron as late as February 1942, at which point the squadron was deployed to Singapore and flew their hopelessly obsolete Vildebeest Mark III torpedo bombers against the Japanese, part of the 10 battle honors earned by the squadron for WWII.

Vickers Vildebeest Mark IIs, K2918, and K2921, of ‘A’ Flight, No. 100 (TB) Squadron, at RAF Seletar, southeast of Singapore, 1939. IWM HU 59786. Roy Mager photographer.

With its aircraft destroyed in the Japanese advance, and its personnel either killed or turned into POWS, the circa 1918 Bone and Brains flag disintegrated while being looked after by a Flight Lieutenant Trillwood, a victim of the hellish conditions along the Irrawaddy.

For the past 30 years, No. 100 Squadron has been flying Hawker Siddeley Hawks, first at RAF Finningley then RAF Leeming and that chapter is coming to an end. The RAF has decided that all Hawk T1s, other than those flown by the Red Arrow demonstration team, would be retired by 31 March 2022.

Last week, RAF Leeming debuted the farewell tail flash on Hawk XX221, depicting the old No. 100 “Blood and Bones” flag.

End of an era.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022: Long Lance in the Night

Posted on by 7 comments

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

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022: Long Lance in the Night

Australian War Memorial photo 305183

Here we see Hr.Ms. Java was under attack by Japanese Nakajima B5N “Kate” high altitude bombers from the light carrier Ryujo in the Gaspar Straits of what is today Indonesia, some 80 years ago this week, 15 February 1942. Remarkably, the Dutch light cruiser would come through this hail without a scratch, however, her days were numbered, and she would be on the bottom of the Pacific within a fortnight of the above image.

Designed by Germaniawerft in Kiel on the cusp of the Great War, the three planned Java class cruisers were to meet the threat posed by the new Chikuma-class protected cruisers (5,000-tons, 440 ft oal, 8x 6″/45, 26 knots) of the Japanese Navy.

The response, originally an update of the German Navy’s Karlsruhe class, was a 6,670-ton (full load) 509.5-foot cruiser that could make 30+ knots on a trio of Krupp-Germania steam turbines fed by eight oil-fired Schulz-Thornycroft boilers (keep in mind one of the largest oil fields in the world was in the Dutch East Indies). Using 18 watertight bulkheads, they were fairly well protected for a circa 1913 cruiser design carrying a 3-inch belt, 4-inches on the gun shields, and 5-inches of Krupp armor on the conning tower.

Jane’s 1931 entry on the class, noting that “The German design of these ships is evident in their appearance.”

Their main battery consisted of ten Mark 6 5.9-inch/50 cal guns made by Bofors in Sweden, mounted in ten single mounts, two forward, two aft, and three along each center beam, giving the cruisers a seven-gun broadside.

Cruiser Java model by Oliemans

Unless noted, all images are from the Dutch Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Marine collection via the NIMH, which has a ton of photos digitized.

Dutch cruiser Hr. Ms. Java, note her shielded 5.9-inch guns

The 5.9/50 Bofors mounts had a decent 29-degree elevation for their period, used electric hoists, and a well-trained crew could fire five 101-pound shells per minute per mount, giving the Java class a theoretical rate of fire of 50 5.9-inch shells every 60 seconds. Holland would go on to use the same guns on the Flores and Johan Maurits van Nassau-class gunboats.

Java delivering a broadside, 1938

Gunnery exercise aboard the Light Cruiser Hr.Ms. Java somewhere near Tanjungpriok, 1928.

The 5.9/50s used an advanced fire control system with three large 4m rangefinders that made them exactly accurate in bombarding shore targets.

Night firing on Java. These ships carried six 47-inch searchlights and the Dutch trained extensively in fighting at night.

The cruisers’ secondary armament consisted of four 13-pounder 3″/55 Bofors/Wilton-Fijenoord Mark 4 AAA guns, one on either side of each mast, directed by a dedicated 2m AA rangefinder. While– unusually for a cruiser type in the first half of the 20th century– they did not carry torpedo tubes, the Java-class vessels did have weight and space available for 48 sea mines (12 in a belowdecks hold, 36 on deck tracks), defensive weapons that the Dutch were very fond of.

Designed to carry and support two floatplanes, the class originally used British Fairey IIIFs then switched to Fokker C. VIIWs and Fokker C. XIWs by 1939.

Note one of Java’s Fokker floatplanes and the straw hat on the sentry

While the Dutch planned three of these cruisers– named after three Dutch East Indies islands (Java, Sumatra, and Celebes) — the Great War intervened and construction slowed, with the first two laid down in 1916 and Celebes in 1917, they languished and were redesigned with the knowledge gleaned from WWI naval lessons. Celebes would be canceled and only the first two vessels would see completion.

Java— ironically laid down at Koninklijke Maatschappij de Schelde (today Damen) in Flushing on 31 May 1916, the first day of the Battle of Jutland– would not be launched until 1921 and would spend the next four years fitting out.

Dutch Light Cruiser HNLMS Java pictured at Vlissingen in 1924. Note her triple screws

Dutch Light Cruiser HNLMS Java pictured at Vlissingen in 1924

Dutch Netherlands Light Cruiser HNLMS Java pictured at Vlissingen in 1924

Java Vlissingen, Zeeland, Nederland 1924

The crew of Java in Amsterdam, 1925, complete with European wool uniforms. Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana of the royal family visit the ship. Sitting from left to right are: Commander M.J. Verloop (aide-de-camp of Queen Wilhelmina?), Captain L.J. Quant (commanding officer of Java), Queen Wilhelmina, Princess Juliana, Vice-Admiral C. Fock (Commanding Officer of Den Helder naval base), and Acting Vice-Admiral F. Bauduin (retired, aide-de-camp “in special service” of Queen Wilhelmina). Standing behind Captain Quant and Queen Wilhelmina is (then) Lieutenant-Commander J.Th. Furstner, executive officer and/or gunnery officer. (Collection Robert de Rooij)

A happy peace

Making 31.5-knots on her trials, Java commissioned 1 May 1925 and sailed for Asia by the end of the year. Her sistership Sumatra, built at NSM in Amsterdam, would join her in 1926.

Java at Christiania-fjord, Norway, during shakedown, circa 1925

The two sisters would spend the next decade cruising around the Pacific, calling at Japan and Australia, Hawaii, and China, showing the Dutch flag from San Francisco to Saigon to Singapore. Interestingly, she took place in the International Fleet Review at Yokohama to celebrate the coronation of Japan’s Showa emperor, Hirohito, in 1928.

In a practice shared by the Royal Navy and U.S. fleet in the same waters, the crew of the Dutch cruisers over these years took on a very local flavor, with many lower rates being filled by recruits drawn heavily from the islands’ Christian Manadonese and Ambonese minorities.

The Bataviasche Yacht Club in Tandjong Priok, Batavia. Fishing prahu under sail in the harbor of Tandjong Priok. In the background the cruiser Hr.Ms. Java. Remembrance book of the Bataviasche Yacht Club, Tandjong Priok, presented to its patron, VADM A.F. Gooszen, October 19, 1927.

S1c (Matroos 1e Klasse) J.G. Rozendal and friends of cruiser Hr.Ms. Java during an amphibious landing (Amfibische operaties) exercises with the ship’s landing division (landingsdivisie) at Madoera, 1927. Note the anchor on their cartridge belts, infantry uniforms with puttees and naval straw caps, and 6.5x53mm Geweer M. 95 Dutch Mannlichers. A really great study.

Dutch Navy tropical uniforms via ONI JAN 1 Oct 1943

Java Tandjong Priok, Batavia, Java, Nederlands-Indië 8.27

Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java crew via NIMH

Note the extensive awnings, essential for peacetime cruising in the Pacific

Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java met een Dornier Do-24K maritieme patrouillevliegboot op de voorgrond

The Koninklijke Marine East Indies Squadron including Java and the destroyers De Ruyter and Eversten arrived in Sydney on 3 October 1930 and remained there for a week. The ships berthed at the Oceanic Steamship Company wharf and Burns Philp & Company Wharf in West Circular Quay. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on the “unfamiliar spectacle” of the Dutch squadron’s arrival.

Night scene with HNLMS Java berthed at West Circular Quay wharf, October 1930. Eversten is tied up next to her. Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection. Australian National Maritime Museum Object no. 00034761.

Day scene of the above, without the destroyer

Dutch light cruiser Hr.Ms Java, Sydney, Octo 1930. Note the 5.9-inch gun with the sub-caliber spotting gun on the barrel. The individuals are the Dutch Consul and his wife along with RADM CC Kayser. Australian National Maritime Museum.

Dutch cruiser HNLMS Java, berthing with the unfinished Sydney Harbour Bridge as a background, circa 1930

Java Tandjong Priok, Batavia, Java, Nederlands-Indië 8.31.32. Note she is still in her original scheme with tall masts and more rounded funnel caps.

Hr.Ms. Java Dutch cruiser before reconstruction. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

During the early 1930s, both Java and Sumatra were slowly refitted in Surabaya, a move that upgraded the engineering suite, deleted the deck mine racks and saw the old manually-loaded 3″/55 Bofors quartet landed, the latter replaced by a half-dozen automatic 40mm Vickers Maxim QF 2-pounders on pedestal mounts in a Luchtdoelbatterij. 

Water-cooled and fed via 25-round cloth belts, the guns had been designed in 1915 as balloon-busters and could fire 50-75 rounds per minute.

Note the sunglasses of the operator closest to the camera

Note the range finder

With problems in Europe and the Dutch home fleet being cruiser poor– only able to count on the new 7,700-ton HNLMS De Ruyter still essentially on shakedown while a pair of Tromp-class “flotilla leaders” were still under construction– Java and Sumatra were recalled home to flex the country’s muscles in the waters off Spain during the early and most hectic days of the Spanish Civil War, clocking in there for much of 1936-37.

They also took a sideshow to Spithead for the fleet review there.

Groepsfoto van de bemanning van kruiser Hr.Ms. Java, 1937

By 1938, Java was modernized at the Naval Dockyard in Den Helder. This dropped her Vickers balloon guns for four twin 40/56 Bofors No.3 guns, soon to be famous in U.S. Navy service, as well as six .50 cal water-cooled Browning model machine guns. Also added was a Hazemeyer (Thales) fire control set of the type later adopted by the USN, coupled with stabilized mounts for the Bofors, a deadly combination.

Talk about an epic photo, check out these Bofors 40mm gunners aboard Java, circa 1938. Note the shades.

With Franco in solid control of Spain and tensions with the Japanese heating up, our two Dutch cruisers returned to Indonesian waters, with the new De Ruyter accompanying them, while the Admiralty ordered two immense 12,000-ton De Zeven Provinciën-class cruisers laid down (that would not be completed until 1953.)

Java 7.16.38 Colombo, Ceylon, on her way back to the Dutch East Indies

Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java stern

Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java manning rails coming into Soerabaja, returning from her two-year trip back to Holland

Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java (1925-1942) te Soerabaja 1938

Java. Port side view, moored, circa 1939. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 80902

Java moving at high speed circa 1939 with a bone in her teeth. NH 80903

War!

De kruiser Hr.Ms. Java in Nederlands-Indië. at anchor after her major reconstruction. Note she has shorter masts and additional AAA batteries, among some of the most modern in the world at the time.

Of note, U-Boat.net has a great detailed account of Java’s war service. 

When Hiter marched into Poland in September 1939, most of Europe broke out in war, but Holland, who had remained a staunch neutral during that conflict and still hosted deposed Kaiser Wilhelm in quiet exile, reaffirmed its neutrality in the new clash as well. However, that was not to be in the cards and, once the Germans marched into the Netherlands on 10 May 1940– the same day they crossed into Luxembourg and Belgium in a sweep through the Low Countries and into Northern France, the Dutch were in a major European war for the first time since Napolean was sent to St. Helena, whether they wanted it or not.

At that, Java dispatched boarding parties to capture the German Hapag-freighters Bitterfeld (7659 gt), Wuppertal (6737 gt), and Rhineland (6622 gt), which had been hiding from French and British warships in neutral Dutch East Indies waters at Padang.

Post-modernized Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java with Fokkers overhead. The Dutch Navy had 23 Fokker CXIV-W floatplanes in the Pacific in 1941

Cooperating with the British and Australians, Java was engaged in a series of convoys between the Dutch islands, Fiji, Singapore, and Brisbane, briefly mobilizing to keep an eye peeled in the summer of 1941 for the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, which was incorrectly thought to be in the Indian Ocean headed for the Pacific.

One interesting interaction Java had in this period was to escort the Dutch transport ship Jagersfontein to Burma, which was carrying members of the American Volunteer Group, Claire Chennault’s soon-to-be-famous Flying Tigers.

While working with the Allies, a U.S. Navy spotter plane captured some of the best, last, images of the Dutch man-o-war.

Java (Dutch Light Cruiser, 1921) Aerial view from astern of the starboard side, August 1941. NH 80906

Java. Aerial view starboard side, circa August 1941. NH 80904

Java. Aerial view starboard side, circa August 1941 NH 80905

Once the Japanese started to push into the Dutch colony, simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Java found herself in a whole new shooting war.

Escorting troopship Convoy BM 12 from Bombay to Singapore from 23 January to 4 February 1942, Java then joined an Allied task force under the command of Dutch RADM Karl W.F.M. Doorman consisting of the cruiser De Ruyter (Doorman’s flagship), the new destroyer leader Tromp, the British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Hobart, and ten American and Dutch destroyers. The mission, from 14 February: a hit and run raid to the north of the Gaspar Straits to attack a reported Japanese convoy.

As shown in the first image of this post, the little surface action group was subjected to repeated Japanese air attacks in five waves, and in the predawn hours of 15 February, the Dutch destroyer HrMs Van Ghent ripped her hull out on a reef, dooming the vessel. Cutting their losses, Doorman split up his group, sending half to Batavia and half to Ratai Bay to refuel.

Four days later, essentially the same force, augmented by a flotilla of Dutch motor torpedo boats and two submarines, were thrown by Doorman into the mouth of the Japanese invasion fleet on the night of 19/20 February 1942 in the Badoeng Strait on the south-east coast of Bali. The outnumbered Japanese force, however, excelled in night combat tactics and were armed with the Long Lance torpedo, a fact that left Doorman’s fleet down another destroyer (HrMs Piet Hein) and the Tromp badly mauled and sent to Sydney for emergency repairs.

Then, on 27 February, Doorman’s Allied ABDACOM force, reinforced with the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth and the heavy cruiser USS Houston, sailed from Surabaya to challenge the Japanese invasion fleet in the Java Sea.

While that immense nightmare is beyond the scope of this piece, Java and De Ruyter‘s portion of it, as related in the 1943 U.S. Navy Combat Narrative of the Java Sea Campaign, is below:

Immediately after the loss of the (destroyer) Jupiter our striking force turned north. At 2217 it again passed the spot where the Kortenaer had gone down that afternoon, and survivors of the Dutch destroyer saw our cruisers foam past at high speed. Encounter was ordered to stop and picked up 113 men of the Kortenaer’s crew of 153. It was at first intended to take them to Batavia, but upon learning of a strong Japanese force to the west the captain returned to Surabaya.

The cruisers of our striking force were now left without any destroyer protection whatever. This dangerous situation was aggravated by the fact that enemy planes continued to light their course with flares. But Admiral Doorman’s orders were, “You must continue attacks until the enemy is destroyed,” and he pressed on north with a grim determination to reach the enemy convoy.

It is doubtful if he ever knew how close he did come to reaching it in this last magnificent attempt. The convoy had in fact remained in the area west or southwest of Bawean. At 1850 a PBY from Patrol Wing TEN had taken off to shadow it in the bright moonlight. At 1955 this plane saw star shells above 3 cruisers and 8 destroyers on a northerly course about 30 miles southwest of Bawean. As these appeared to be our own striking force no contact report was made.69 At 2235 our PBY found the convoy southwest of Bawean. Twenty-eight ships were counted in two groups, escorted by a cruiser and a destroyer. At this moment Admiral Doorman was headed toward this very spot, but it is doubtful if he ever received our plane’s report. It reached the Commander of the Naval Forces at Soerabaja at 2352, after which it was sent on to the commander of our striking force; but by that time both the De Ruyter and Java were already beneath the waters of the Java Sea. At 2315 the De Ruyter signaled, “Target at port four points.” In that direction were seen two cruisers which opened fire from a distance of about 9,000 yards. Perth replied with two or three salvos which landed on one of the enemy cruisers for several hits. The Japanese thereupon fired star shells which exploded between their ships and ours so that we could no longer see them.

Shortly afterward the De Ruyter received a hit aft and turned to starboard away from the enemy, followed by our other cruisers. As the Java, which had not been under enemy fire, turned to follow there was a tremendous explosion aft, evidently caused by a torpedo coming from port. Within a few seconds the whole after part of the ship was enveloped in flames.

The De Ruyter had continued her turn onto a southeasterly course when, very closely after the Java, she too was caught by a torpedo. United States Signalman Sholar, who was on board and was subsequently rescued, reported having seen a torpedo track on relative bearing 135°. There was an extraordinarily heavy explosion followed by fire. Perth, behind the flagship, swung sharply to the left to avoid a collision, while the Houston turned out of column to starboard. The crew of the De Ruyter assembled forward, as the after part of the ship up to the catapult was in flames. In a moment, the 40-mm. ammunition began to explode, causing many casualties, and the ship had to be abandoned. She sank within a few minutes. For some time, her foremast structure remained above the water, until a heavy explosion took the ship completely out of sight.70

The torpedoes which sank the two Dutch cruisers apparently came from the direction of the enemy cruisers and were probably fired by them. Both Sendai and Nati class cruisers are equipped with eight torpedo tubes.

Of our entire striking force, only the Houston and Perth now remained. They had expended most of their ammunition and were still followed by enemy aircraft. There seemed no possibility of reaching the enemy convoy, and about 0100 (February 28th) the two cruisers set course for Tandjong Priok in accordance with the original plan for retirement after the battle. On the way Perth informed Admiral Koenraad at Soerabaja of their destination and reported that the De Ruyter and Java had been disabled by heavy explosions at latitude 06°00′ S., longitude 112°00′ E.71 The hospital ship Op ten Noort was immediately dispatched toward the scene of their loss, but it is doubtful if she ever reached it. Sometime later Admiral Helfrich lost radio contact with the ship, and a plane reported seeing her in the custody of two Japanese destroyers.

Epilogue

The post-war analysis is certain that Java was struck by a Long Lance torpedo fired from the Japanese cruiser Nachi. The torpedo detonated an aft magazine and blew the stern off the ship, sending her to the bottom in 15 minutes with 512 of her crew. The Japanese captured 16 survivors.

Nachi would be destroyed by U.S. Navy carrier aircraft in the Philippines in 1944, avenging Java’s loss.

Japanese cruiser Nachi dead in the water after air attacks in Manila Bay, 5 November 1944. Taken by a USS Lexington plane. National Archives photograph, 80-G-288866. Note, Nachi also took part in the Battle of the Java Sea and played a major role in sinking the Dutch light cruiser Java.

Sistership Sumatra, who had escaped Java Sea as she was under refit in Ceylon, was later sent to the ETO and, in poor shape, was sunk as a blockship off Normandy in June 1944, her guns recycled to other Dutch ships.

In December 2002, a group from the MV Empress, searching for the wreck of HMS Exeter, found that of Java and De Ruyter, with the former at a depth of 69 meters on her starboard side. Shortly afterward, the looted ship’s bell surfaced for sale in Indonesia. It was later obtained by the Dutch government and is now on display in the National Military Museum in Soesterberg.

The names of the 915 Dutch sailors and marines killed at the Battle of the Java Sea at installed at the Kembang Kuning, the Dutch Memorial Cemetery in Surabaya, Indonesia, while in Holland the Dutch Naval Museum has a similar memorial that includes the recovered bell from De Ruyter and other artifacts.

In 2016, the Dutch government reported that the hulks of both Java and De Ruyter had been illegally salvaged to the point that the war graves had virtually ceased to exist.

Now more than ever, the expression “On a sailor’s grave, there are no roses blooming (Auf einem Seemannsgrab, da blühen keine Rosen)” remains valid.

Drawing Afbeelding van kruiser Hr.Ms. Java en onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K IX

Java cruiser Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Marine postcard

Koninklijke Nederlandse Kruiser Hr.Ms. Java, Marinemuseum Den Helder A003a 789.2

Specs.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Update on that RTI Milsurp .45 Ball

Posted on by Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, I had a post about Royal Tiger’s recent– albeit highly-priced– score of arguably collectible Korean War-era M2 .30-cal ball ammo, i.e. Garand, M1919, and BAR food.

Well, the other shoe has dropped and RTI just announced a beautiful larder of circa 1943-44 made .45ACP.

For lack of a better word, it looks amazing.

“Each crate of ammunition contains 1200 rounds of WWII era .45 ACP. Each crate contains 2 sealed metal tins, each tin contains 12 boxes of ammunition with 50 rounds per box. The ammunition is like new, crate condition is generally good to very good. The crate may have dings, dents, scratches, or small cracks in the wood. Metal tins are sealed from the factory.”

Sadly, it is also even higher priced than the .30-06, hitting the shopping cart at well over $2 a round (plus $23 shipping!) for just a 50-round box. Spam can and full crate sizes aren’t much cheaper per cap.

Sure, range-grade ammo right now is going for .45 cents a round, and this USGI stuff is not really for shooting but more for putting in a display case with your vintage M1911A1, but it still seems outrageously priced. 

As my buddy, Vic Fayard says, “Of course, it is up to you guys to judge if the juice is worth the squeeze. We are just reporting it.”

« Older Entries Recent Entries »