80 years ago today. New Georgia Operation, 1943. (Codename: Operation Toenails).
“Marines unloading LCIs on a Rendova Island beach, July 4, 1943. They are unloading in a hurry after a bomb struck between the two craft in the center. Ships are (l-r): USS LCI-23, LCI-24, LCI-65, and LCI-63.”
Photographed by Sarno. USMC 63408
Enjoy your holiday today, gents.
The naval Battle of Santiago/Combate en Santiago de Cuba, on 3 July 1898, pitting the five battleships, two armored cruisers, and two armed yachts of Commodore Winfield Scott Schley and RADM William T. Sampson against the bottled-up Spanish fleet of Almirante Pascual Cervera y Topete– the latter with a much smaller force of just four armored cruisers and two destroyers– would normally just be remembered in maritime art such as this:
Battle of Santiago, Cuba, July 3, 1898. Painting by Dr. Alfonso Saenz, a Spanish Naval Surgeon and Naval Artist. Signed and dated by the artist, 1899. Courtesy of Army-Navy Club of Washington. Via the National Archives.
And this.
Battle of Santiago, 3 July 1898. Caption: “The last Spanish Torpedo Boat leaving Santiago Harbor,” during the battle. Colored Lithograph published in “Deeds of Valor,” Vol. II, p34, by the Perrien-Keydel Co., Detroit, 1907. NH 79912-KN
Battle of Santiago July 1898 Texas Maria Teresa Cristobal Colon Oqundo Oregon SpanAm War by Henry Reuterdahl
However, the widespread availability of inexpensive personal cameras meant there were a number of snapshots captured during the battle itself– one of the first sea clashes so documented.
This was especially true among the tech-savvy young Annapolis cadets rushed to service aboard the battleships USS Oregon and USS Iowa.
Naval Cadet and future Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (center) and Captain Charles Edgar Clark (right) on board USS Oregon (Battleship # 3) during the action. Photograph by Hart. Copied from the Journal of Naval Cadet R.R. Miller, USN, 1898. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 1757
Naval Cadets Luther M. Overstreet and Henry Norman Jenson aboard the USS Oregon (BB-3). Caption: At Santiago, July 3, 1898, during the Spanish-American War. From Journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN, 1898. NH 2191
Captain Charles Edgar Clark, Cadet Luther Martin Overstreet, Haight (Sailor otherwise unidentified), and Cadet Mark St. Clair Ellis. Caption: Aboard the USS Oregon (BB-3) after the Battle of Santiago, Cuba, July 1898. Spanish-American War. From Journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN, 1898. NH 2195
Spanish-American War, 1898. Lieutenant Commander J.K. Cogswell wig-wagging to Battleship “Your Shots Are Falling Short” during the Battle of Santiago, Cuba, July 3, 1898, aboard the USS Oregon (BB-3). From Journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN. 1898. NH 2197
Spanish-American War, 1898. Captain Francis William Dickins and Lieutenant Austin Rockwell Davis (later KIA in the Boxer Rebellion), United States Marine Corps, on deck during the Battle of Santiago, in July 1898. From Journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN, 1898. NH 2198
Battle of Santiago, 3 July 1898. Lieutenant (later Admiral) Edward W. Eberle on board USS Oregon (BB-3), during a lull in the battle. Photograph from the journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN. NH 2186
Crew of the USS Oregon (BB-3) Caption: Cheering the hauling down of the colors of the “Cristobol Colon” (a Spanish auxiliary armored cruise) during the Battle of Santiago, 3 July 1898. NH 1110
Battle of Santiago, 3 July 1898.Watching the battle from the deck of USS Iowa (Battleship # 4). Note the volume of dense gun smoke around the ship in the left center. Copied from the Journal of Naval Cadet Cyrus R. Miller. NH 1132
Of course, the American joviality was largely due to the fact they only suffered one death and one wounded as casualties in the sea battle and more than carried the day. A naval layup, so to speak.
On the other side, where some 1,800 Spaniards died, the response was probably less enthusiastic.
With the 160th Anniversary of the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg today, comes the news from the West Point Museum, which, in conjunction with the Gettysburg National Military Park and the American Battlefield Trust, made a return to Little Round Top with a pair of relics, at least for the day.
We had the honor of returning the West Point Battery’s, aka “Hazlett’s Battery,” [Battery D of the 5th United States Artillery] guidon and Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren’s field glasses to their locations on Little Round Top for the first time since the battle.”
For a deeper dive into the significance of the act, check out the below from the American Battlefield Trust.
As it is getting to be summer festival time– and the annual hate the lobsterbacks remembrance– this seemed apt.
The King’s Shilling, 1770 (c) “A recruiting party of an officer, sergeant, drummer, and fifer of an infantry regiment in a village street with a fair in the background.”
Oil on canvas, artist unknown, 1770 (c)., on display at the National Army Museum, Soldier Gallery. Accession Number NAM. 1983-10-15-1
As noted by the National Army Museum:
When a man had ‘taken the King’s shilling’ it meant that he had enlisted in the Army. In the eighteenth century, recruiting parties were a common sight in villages and at country fairs. Recruiting officers would persuade men to enlist with misleading tales of the glamour of army life, and the offer of a ‘bounty’. This was a large sum of money, supposedly paid to the new recruit when he enlisted. In fact, most of it disappeared in various ‘deductions’ and the recruit was lucky to see any of it.
Here, the new recruit takes the money or shakes hands to seal the bargain, with the officer. His wife or sweetheart, obviously less naive, is clearly distressed at the prospect of his ‘going for a soldier’.
A deeper dive into the painting:
And with that, Becca Stevens and Chris Thile covering Planxty’s arrangement of “As I Roved Out” seemed likewise appropriate.
With the mention of HMS Duke of York yesterday in the post about USS Ranger, these images of the Royal Marine detachment in June 1943 came to mind.
A most excellent photo essay in the IWM Collection by Lt J.A. Hampton, shows the RMs kitted up for landing party operations “in Northern waters” with small arms including Lanchester Mk. I 9mm burp guns, newly-issued Lee–Enfield No. 4 Mk I rifles in .303, Bren LMGs, No. 36 Mills Bombs, and at least one beautiful .55 bore Boys anti-tank rifle in all its 35-pound/5-foot joy.
Enjoy.
Now this looks fun.
Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces
The above shows an experiment by the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (3 RCR), using Polaris MRZR ATVs as weapon carriers mounting TOW anti-tank missiles, Heckler & Koch GMG 40mm grenade machine guns (Designated as the C16 Close Area Suppression Weapon, or CASW), and assorted GPMGs, at Petawawa last month.
Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces
Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces
Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces
Such vehicles could prove useful in a fast-moving RDF scenario, especially in Third World countries ala Kolwezi, a sort of modern version of the old 106mm recoilless rifle-armed M151 Mutt.
A simple concept is still well-loved in out-of-the-way parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America:
Now that is a good ambush position that American anti-armor teams of the 1950s and 60s will easily recognize.
And, don’t forget, the Marines swapped out their 106s for TOWs on their M151s back in the mid-1980s, so this is nothing new.
Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, fire a jeep-mounted tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) heavy anti-tank weapon during Combined Arms exercises Five and Six. Wires used to guide the TOW missile can be seen extending from the barrel of the weapon, 5/1/1983 NARA 330-CFD-DM-ST-83-09020
Those chocolate chips! U.S. Marines drive an M-151 Light Utility Vehicle from a Utility Landing Craft (LCU) to shore during the multinational joint service Exercise BRIGHT STAR’85. The vehicle is armed with a BGM71 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missile launcher, 8/1/1985 NARA 330-CFD-DF-ST-86-07566
Of course, with such light-skinned vehicles, they are risky as hell, both in terms of offering no protection against any sort of incoming fire or shrapnel and in the basic fact that these will usually be driven by a 19-year-old gassed up on Rip Its and Sabaton. Plus, with all that extra top weight on vehicles already prone to rollover…yikes.
A two-thirds-sized replica landlocked Dealey-class destroyer escort built by the Navy and given commissioned status, USS Recruit (TDE-1/TFFG-1) was constructed aboard Naval Training Center San Diego for more realistic recruit training in 1949.
Sailors gather in front of the newly built USS Recruit in July 1949. (National Archives)
She looked so good that the opening and closing scenes of the Don Rickles comedy CPO Sharkey were shot there.
NTC Orlando had a similar concept– USS Bluejacket— as did NTC Bainbridge, Maryland (USS Commodore) while NTC Great Lakes currently has the concrete-bound USS Trayer (BST-21).
Used in one form or another until 1997– after she was refurbished to look more like an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, hence the later TFFG-1 designation.
July 1982 Original Caption: Staff members of the Recruit Training Command line the rails of the newly retrofitted USS Recruit. Constructed in 1949 and affectionately known as the “USS Neversail”, Recruit is a mock frigate used for training purposes. (National Archives 29011234)
When San Diego was closed, USS Recruit became the property of the local redevelopment effort and was threatened with destruction more than once.
Now, after a decade of effort, she has been refurbished once more and, as part of the Liberty Station development, just opened to the public.
Some 80 years ago. Maybe.
“Crewmembers aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) clean snow off of the aircraft during operations in the North Atlantic on 29 June 1943.”
Note the snow-dusted TBF Avengers, SBD Dauntless dive bombers, and F4F Wildcats, a very late 1942- late 1943 carrier air group. Via Hampton Roads Naval Museum.
The date given is kind of specious, however.
While DANFS notes Ranger was in the Atlantic during this period, saying that between February when she made her fourth trip carrying Army P-40s to North Africa, and August when she chopped to support the British fleet’s operations in Norway she “trained pilots along the New England coast steaming as far north as Halifax, Nova Scotia,” her deck logs in the National Archives lists her as tied up at Buoy P-5 in Argentia, Newfoundland with part of her airwing (Air Group Four) ashore, rather than underway or even in a latitude high enough to have heavy snow at that time of year.
Further, the weather for nearby Gander for that day, while mentioning that temperatures dropped as low as 39 F degrees, it never dropped below freezing and no snow was reported, just light to moderate rain.
Air Group Four’s excellent website notes, “On April 2, she proceeded with Task Force 22 to Argentia, Newfoundland, arriving on April 4. Ranger operated with Air Group 4 in the Argentia area until early July 1943.”
This leads to the possibility that the picture was taken earlier in the year, as snow in Newfoundland is likely in April and even into early May, and the picture was just released (not taken) on 29 June.
Another possibility is that the photo is more likely from Operation Leader, the efforts against German forces in occupied Norway, and the Bodo raid a few months later. In that op, Air Goup 4 notes, “All hands became ‘Blue Noses’ having crossed the Arctic Circle on several occasions.”
Royal Navy battleship, HMS Duke of York, underway astern of USS Ranger (CV 4), September 1943 #80-G-88048 (2048×1641)
Either way, springing forward 80 years, we now have this very related video released by the Navy earlier this month of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78), launching and recovering aircraft in the Norwegian Sea while on NATO operations.
Building on experience and feedback from both the company’s super sweet Tango series tactical scopes and previous Whiskey series hunting optics, SIG Sauer has a new generation of rifle scope on the market.
The company’s Whiskey 3 line is simple and rugged, proving popular with users in the field, especially for its affordable ($200-$300) price point. The new Whiskey 4 series grows on that lineage while bringing some more top-shelf features to play.
As a rule, the Whiskey 4s use 30mm tubes, upsized from the typical 1-inch tubes seen on the Whiskey 3 line. Then you toss in quick external turret adjustments, options for an illuminated reticle, and a removable magnification throw lever, and the Whiskey 4 line is getting seriously good for a modest bump in price to the $300-$500 range depending on which variant you choose. SIG is offering the Whiskey 4 in three different formats: a 5-20x50mm first focal plane, a 4-16x44mm FFP, and a shorty 3-12x44mm second focal plane, all with exposed zero stops.
I was able to get a sneak peek at the 5-20x50mm FFP and 3-12x44mm SFP Whiskey 4 last week in Oregon. Both felt genuinely nice and have sharp, clear lenses with little distortion at magnification while the Hellfire illuminated reticle was sweet.
The Whiskey 4 line uses a locking zero-stop elevation turret while all offer tactile 0.25 MOA adjustments.
The magnification throw levers are a nice upgrade from the Whiskey 3 line and are removable for those who worry about snags while hunting in the brush or while traveling in the backcountry via side-by-side or ATV.
I hit up SIG for one of these to wring out over this upcoming deer season and will get back to you with what I find out.
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
Archivio Centrale dello Stato
Above we see the Italian light cruiser Bari moored at Patras in Axis-occupied Greece in May 1941. Note her laundry out to dry, her 5.9-inch guns trained to starboard, and her crew assembled on the bow with the band playing. A ship with a strange history, a wandering tale, she was lost some 80 years ago today.
No fleet in military history was in desperate need of a refresh as the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1910s. Having lost 17 battleships (depending on how you classify them), 13 cruisers, 30 Destroyers, and a host of auxiliaries to the Japanese in 1904-1905, the Russians were left with virtually no modern combat ships except those bottled up in the Black Sea by the Ottomans. Also, with lessons learned from the naval clashes, it was clear the way of the future was dreadnoughts, bigger destroyers, and fast cruisers.
To fix this, the Russian Admiralty soon embarked on a plan to build eight very modern 25,000-ton Gangut, Imperatritsa Mariya, and Imperator Nikolai I-class battleships augmented by a quartet of massive 32,000-ton Borodino-class battlecruisers. With the age of the lumbering armored cruiser over, the Russians went with a planned eight-pack of fast new protected cruisers of the Svetlana and Admiral Nakhimov classes (7,000 tons, 30 knots, 15 5.1-inch guns, 2 x torpedo tubes, up to 3 inches of armor) as companions for the new battle wagons.
And, with Russia all but writing off its larger Pacific endeavors, eschewing rebuilding its former battle fleet there in favor of a much more modest “Siberian Military Flotilla” based out of often ice-bound Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk, the Tsar’s admirals deemed that just two light scouting cruisers were needed for overseas use in the Far East, typically to wave the flag, so to speak.
That’s where the Muravyov-Amurskiy class came in.
The two cruisers, at 4,500 tons displacement and 426 feet overall length, were generally just reduced versions of the Svetlana/Admiral Nakhimov classes being built in Russian yards already.
Planned to be armed with eight 5.1-inch guns and four torpedo tubes, they were turbine powered and expected to be fast– able to touch 35 knots at standard weight for short periods although published speeds were listed as 27.5 knots.
Mine rails over the stern allowed for up to 120 such devices to be quickly sown– a Russian specialty.
Their armor was thin, never topping three inches, and spotty with just a protective deck above machinery spaces, a protected conning tower, and 50mm gun shields.
Muravyov-Amursky class in 1914 Janes.
SMS Gefion, commissioned in 1895, would serve briefly in East Asia before she was laid up in 1901. After service as an accommodation hulk through the Great War, she was converted to use as a freighter, Adolf Sommerfeld, in 1920, only to be broken up a few years later.
The two new vessels were to be named after historic 19th Century Russian figures who had expanded the country’s reach towards the Pacific: General Count Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravyov-Amursky, a statesman who proposed abolishing serfdom; and Admiral Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy, a noted polar explorer.
General Muravyov-Amursky and Adm. Nevelskoy.
They were ordered in the summer of 1913 from F. Schichau’s Schiffswerft in Danzig, as yard numbers 893 and 894.
The choice to have a German firm build the new cruiser class wasn’t too unusual for the Tsarist fleet as the Russian cruiser Novik and four Kit-class destroyers was built at Schichau in the 1900s while Krupp delivered the early midget submarine Forel at about the same time. The Russian protected cruiser Askold, one of the most successful of her type, was built at Kiel by Germaniawerft while the cruiser Bogatyr was ordered from AG Vulcan’s Stettin shipyards, also in Germany.
Besides German orders and construction at domestic yards along both the Baltic and the Black Sea, the Russians also ordered warships and submarines from France, Britain, Denmark, and the U.S.– they needed the tonnage.
The planned future Muravyov-Amursky at Schichau-Werke, Danzig, on the occasion of her launch, 29 March 1914 (Old Style), 11 April (N.S.).
Ironically, this was at the same period that Russia’s primary military ally was France, whose principal threat was from Germany. However, most Russian Stavka strategists and statesmen of the era assumed that they would be far more likely to fight the Ottomans or Austrians– perhaps even the Swedes– long before the Germans.
Then came August 1914 and relations between Germany and Russia kind of took a turn.
When Germany declared war on Imperial Russia, Muravyov-Amursky had been launched just four months prior and was fitting out with an expected delivery in the summer of 1915. Sistership Admiral Nevelskoy was still on the ways with her hull nearly complete. With the Kaiserliche Marine hungry for tonnage, they seized the two unfinished Russian cruisers and rushed them to completion.
Muravyov-Amursky was renamed after the East Prussian town of Pillau, and Nevelskoy after the West Prussian port city of Elbing. Muravyov-Amursky/Pillau was completed in December 1914 and Nevelskoy/Elbing was delivered the following September.
To keep them more in line with the rest of the German battleline, they were fitted with slightly larger (and better) 15 cm/45 (5.9″) SK L/45 guns, the same type used as secondary armament on German battleships and battlecruisers as well as later on most of their cruisers built during the Great War.
Pillau as seen during her German career. Courtesy of Master Sergeant Donald L.R. Shake, USAF, 1981. NHHC Catalog #: NH 92715
SMS Elbing of the Pillau class, circa 1915-16
SMS Pillau shortly after entering service, 1915
Pillau had her baptism of fire in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915– ironically against the Russians– while Elbing took part in the bombardment of Yarmouth in April 1916. Both were assigned to the High Seas Fleet’s 2nd Scouting Group (II. Aufklärungsgruppe), commanded by Contre-Admiral Bödicker, and took a key role in the Battle of Jutland.
While Jutland is such a huge undertaking that I won’t even attempt to showcase it all in this post as I would never have the scope to do it properly, Elbing scored the first hit in the battle, landing a 5.9-inch shell against HMS Galatea from an impressive distance of about 13.000 m at 14.35 on 31 May. In the subsequent night action, she was accidentally rammed by the German dreadnought SMS Posen and had to be abandoned, with some of her crew saved by the destroyer S 53 and others landed on the Danish coast by a passing Dutch trawler.
As for Pillau, she was hit by a single large-caliber shell– a 12-incher from the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible— that left her damaged but still in the fight while she is credited with landing hits of her own on the cruiser HMS Chester. In all, Pillau had fired no less than 113 5.9-inch shells and launched a torpedo in the epic sea clash while suffering just four men killed and 23 wounded from her hit from Inflexible.
Her chart house blown to memories and half of her boilers out of action but still afloat, Pillau then served as the seeing eye dog for the severely damaged battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz— hit 21 times by heavy-caliber shells, twice by secondary battery shells, and once by a torpedo– on a slow limp back to Wilhelmshaven with the dreadnought’s bow nearly completely submerged.
German battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz, low in the water after Jutland. The image was likely taken from Pillau, who led her back to Wilhelmshaven from the battle
SMS Seydlitz after the Battle of Jutland, 1916. Amazingly, she only suffered 150 casualties during all that damage and would return to service by November– just six months later. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
Then, her work done, Pillau had to lick her wounds.
SMS Pillau in Wilhelmshaven showing heavy damage to her bridge, caused by a 12-in shell hit from the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible.
She only suffered 27 casualties at Jutland while her sister, Elbing, was lost.
The entry wound, so to speak
Repaired, Pillau took part in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917 as well as other more minor operations before the end game in October 1918 in which her crewed mutinied and raised the red flag rather than head out in a last “ride of the Valkyries” suicide attack on the British Home Seas Fleet.
SMS Pillau passing astern of a ship of the line, winter 1917
SMS Pillau on patrol in Helgoland Bay, 1918 note AAA gun forward
Retained at Wilhelmshaven as part of the rump Provisional Realm Navy (Vorläufige Reichsmarine) under the aged VADM Adolf von Trotha while 74 ships of the High Seas Fleet surrendered to the British in November 1918 to comply with the Armistice, Pillau was saved from the later grand scuttling of that interned force seven months later at Scapa Flow.
The victorious allies, robbed of the choicest cuts of the German fleet, in turn, demanded Pillau be turned over for reparations along with a further nine surviving battleships, 15 cruisers, 59 destroyers, and 50 torpedo boats. Pillau was therefore steamed to Cherbourg and decommissioned by the Germans in June 1920.
It was decided that Pillau was to go to the Italians as a war prize, with the Regia Marina renaming her after the Adriatic port city of Bari in Italy’s Puglia region. The Italians also were to receive the surrendered German light cruisers SMS Graudenz and SMS Stassburg, the destroyer flotilla leader V.116, and the destroyers B.97 and S.63. Italy would further inherit a host of former Austrian vessels including the battleships Tegtthof, Zrinyi, and Radetzky; the cruisers Helgoland and Saida; and 15 destroyers.
The future light cruiser Bari seen in rough shape, with the provisional denomination “U” painted on her bow, right after being ceded to Italy, Taranto, 5 May 1921.
Embarrassingly, just after she entered service with the Italians, Bari ran aground at Terrasini and was stuck there for a week before being refloated.
Aerial photos of Bari stranded at Terrasini, 28 August 1925.
Still, she went on to have a useful and somewhat happy peacetime service with the Italian fleet.
L’incrociatore leggero Bari late 1920s a
L’incrociatore leggero Bari late 1920s
L’incrociatore leggero Bari late 1920s, seen from the port side.
Bari, fotografiado en Venecia en el año 1931
Italian cruiser Bari, in Venice in the early 1930s. Colorized by Postales Navales
Cruiser Bari (ex SMS Pillau ) in floating dock, 1930s
Italian light cruiser Bari (formerly the German SMS Pillau) moored at the pier in 1933
Italian Light Cruiser RM Bari pictured at Taranto c1929
Bari would be extensively rebuilt in the early 1930s, including a new all-oil-fired engineering suite that almost doubled her range but dropped her top speed to 24 knots. This reconstruction included several topside changes to appearance as well as the addition of a few 13.2mm machine guns for AAA work.
Bari crosses the navigable canal of Taranto after the second round of modification works, circa 1933-40. Compare this to the postcard image shown above taken at the same angle and place that shows her mid-1920s appearance
Bari in the 1931 Janes Fighting Ships
She took part in the Ethiopian war in 1935 and would remain in the Red Sea as part of the Italian East African Naval Command well into May 1938. She then returned home for further modernization at Taranto in which her torpedo tubes were removed and a trio of Breda 20mm/65cal Mod. 1935 twin machine guns were installed and two twin 13.2/76 mm Breda Mod. 31s.
Bari, as covered by the U.S. Navy’s ONI 202, June 1943.
When Italy joined WWII, Bari was soon sent to join the invasion of Greece where she conducted minelaying and coastal bombing missions in the Adriatic and the Aegean. She served as the flagship of ADM Vittorio Tur’s Special Naval Force (Forza Navale Speciale, FNS), an amphibious group that was used to occupy the Ionian Islands including Corfu, Kefalonia, Santa Maura, Ithaca, and Zakynthos. She would also participate in naval gunfire bombardment operations on the coast of Montenegro and Greece against partisans and guerrillas.
Bari in Patras in occupied Greece, as the flagship of the Forza Navale Speciale, May 1941
Another shot from the same above.
Bari moored in Patras, around 18 June 1941, with the ensign of Ammiraglio Comandante Alberto Marenco di Moriondo aboard.
ADM Tur and the FNS, with Bari still as his flag, would go on to occupy the French island of Corsica in November 1942 during the implementation of Case Anton, the German-Italian occupation of Vichy France after the Allied Torch landings in North Africa.
Bari anchored at the breakwater of the harbor of Bastia, Corsica, on 11 November 1942, as the flagship of the Forza Navale Speciale that was then occupying the island after Operation Torch.
The cruiser in Bastia on November 11, 1942, during the Italian landings. Note the steel-helmeted blackshirt troops in the foreground
In January 1943, with the FNS disbanded and ADM Tur assigned to desk jobs, Bari retired to Livorno where she was to be fitted as a sort of floating anti-aircraft battery, her armament updated to include a mix of two dozen assorted 90mm, 37mm, and 20mm AAA guns.
This conversion was never completed.
On 28 June 1943, she was pummeled by B-17s of the 12th Air Force and sank in the industrial canal at Livorno, deemed a total loss.
From 10 June 1940 to the sinking, the Bari had conducted 47 war missions and steamed 6,800 nautical miles.
After the Italian armistice, the Germans attempted to salvage the cruiser for further use but in the end wound up scuttling it once more in 1944. Post-war, she was stricken from the Italian naval list in 1947 and raised for scrapping the following year.
Very few remnants of these cruisers endure.
A painting by German maritime artist Otto Poetzsch was turned into a series of widely circulated Deutsches Reich postcards, used to depict both Pillau and Elbing.
Elbing‘s wreck has been extensively surveyed and studied over the years and is generally considered to be in good shape after spending a century on the bottom of the Baltic. Besides her guns, she has china and glassware scattered around the hull.
The Russian scale model firm Combrig makes a 1/700 scale kit of Pillau.
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
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