It happened 85 years ago, in London, on 14 July 1940.
Men of the “Free French” 14e demi-brigade de marche de la Légion étrangère (DBMLE), who had participated in the Norwegian campaign and then rallied to General de Gaulle’s cause after the Fall of France, parade through the streets of London on Bastille Day. Note their Adrian helmets, iconic Legionnaire “Cheche” desert scarves, Alpine breeches and boots, and MAS 36 7.5x54mm bolt-action rifles carried with trigger guard out in French fashion.
Réf. : FFL 16-5345 Auteur inconnu/ECPAD/Défense
On July 14, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who delivered a very Francophile speech in tribute to the French men and women who had not given up fighting, allowed De Gaulle and his forces to celebrate Bastille Day in the English capital, which simultaneously became for a time the capital of Free France. The general laid a wreath at the foot of the statue of Marshal Foch (a ceremony he would repeat on Bastille Day 1942) and watched the (short) parade of the Free French Forces who marched from the Cenotaph in Whitehall to the statue of the marshal in Grosvenor Gardens.
The unit was originally formed as the two-battalion 13e DBMLE under the bespectacled Lt. Col. Raoul Charles Magrin-Vernerey in February 1940 in preparation for a planned Franco-British expeditionary force to initially intervene in Finland. Importantly, they were given a crash course in mountain operations, equipped with skis, and given the uniforms of the famed “Blue Devils,” the Chasseurs Alpins.
However, Finland’s peace with Moscow on 12 March put its operations on ice.
Literally.
Re-tasked to the Franco-British expeditionary force to Norway in April, the legionnaires helped liberate first Bjervik and then Narvik from the Germans before being withdrawn in early June.
April 23, 1940 – Brest. Troops stand by during the departure ceremony of the 13th Foreign Legion Marching Brigade (DBMLE) towards Norway. Ref. : NAVY 224-3148 Jammaron/ECPAD/Defense
The brigade lost eight officers and 93 legionnaires in combat in Norway, including its 2nd battalion c/o, Maj. Albéric Joseph Calixte Guéninchault. Their dead remain in a military cemetery in Narvik, a plot of land that will forever be French.
Returning to France, they landed at Brittany on 4 June but, with the country rapidly collapsing to the Germans, elected to be taken off by British ships to Scotland on the 8th, to continue the fight. After all, most of the Legion was back in French North Africa, which was not under German occupation.
Following De Gaulle’s appeal on 18 June to join his forces, the choice was put to the men of the 1,619 remaining officers and men of the 13th DBMLE and, by sundown on the 30th, 25 officers, 102 NCOs, and 702 other ranks, led by Lt.Col. Magrin-Vernerey had elected to remain in exile and cast their lot with the Allies. The rest were repatriated to Vichy French-held Morocco, taking their flags with them.
As the “old” 13th DBMLE had returned home, the men left in Britain became the brand-new 14th DBMLE on 1 July 1940. Fighting under that designation, they served on Operation Menace, the botched landing in Senegal in October, and then in the more successful Gabon campaign in November.
Hearing that the “old” 13th DBMLE had been disbanded under pressure from the Germans to draw down Vichy French forces in November 1940, the 14th adopted the name of the 13th, becoming the “new” 13th DBMLE.
As such, they continued to serve as renowned fire eaters, earning honors at Keren-Massaouah (1941), Bir-Hakeim and El-Alamein (1942), Rome (1944), Colmar and Authion (1945), covering 20,000 miles in the process, spanning from Norway to Egypt and Syria, and back to Europe, fighting up the “Boot” in Italy to landing on the shores of the Riveria and driving to the Alps.
They later added Indochina (1945-54) and Algeria (1955-62) to the list.
They endure today, stationed at Larzac as part of the 6th Armored Brigade.
The Corps of Exploration aboard the E/V Nautilushas been continuing Bob Ballard’s work by revisiting Guadalcanal, where Ballard and company discovered numerous wrecks from the 1942-43 naval clashes there—this time with much better cameras and gear than in 1992.
Nautilus has been using the USV DriX, a 25-foot vessel carrying an EM712 multibeam sonar to map the seafloor,
While the dives have been conducted by the ROV Hercules, which features a new model Kraft Predator manipulator with seven-function control, over 79 inches of reach, and a lift capacity of 500 pounds. They usually have smaller “buddy” ROVs too, Argus and Atalanta.
In recent days, they have posted amazing videos of the bow that was shot off the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32), the wreck of the USS Northampton (CA-26) which was lost in November 1942 during the Battle of Tassafaronga off Savo Island, the shattered hull of the USS Vincennes (CA-44) and USS Astoria (CA-34) lost at Savo island in August 1942, and one of the “long lancers” themselves, the Japanese Akizuki class destroyer Teruzuki (“Shining Moon”), sent to the bottom on 12 December 1942 in a clash with PT boats.
USS New Orleans (CA 32) comes into the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, for a new bow after battling with Japanese warships in the Southwest Pacific. In this view, she is almost ready for joining to join a new bow. The photograph was released on 11 January 1944. 80-G-44448
Vincennes
Vincennes
Astoria
Astoria
Turrets no. 1 and 2 of IJN Teruzuki
They will continue their Maritime Archaeology of Guadalcanal (NA173) expedition through July 23, so stay tuned for more discoveries.
A neighbor of mine has his mint 1974 Austrian Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer 710M 4×4 for sale, and I just couldn’t resist passing it on. I’ve told Guns.com they ought to buy it to use in photoshoots and take to events like SHOT Show, but only got laughter as feedback.
It wasn’t just the “combat con artists” of the Ghost Army that put excellent work into tactical deception. Check out this bad boy, some 80 years ago this week, a great mock-up of an Aichi E13A (Allied reporting name: “Jake”), or possibly a later E16 Paul.
Official period caption: Balikpapan “Operation July 1-31, 1945-A Japanese decoy seaplane on a seaplane ramp in Balikpapan Harbor. There were two of these planes made out of wood and palm mats. 5 July 1945.”
(U.S. Air Force Number 63174AC)
You know, you just know, that some unit disassembled this thing and took it back to their camp until they went back home. Then, perhaps, it made it back to the States or Australia as unit cargo, only to go on to a second life in someone’s man cave.
80 years ago. Official wartime caption: “After a strafing mission, North American P-51 Mustangs snuggle under the wing of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress for the trip back to Iwo Jima, Bonin islands. July 1945.”
U.S. Air Force Number B67967AC. National Archives Identifier. 204834881 (B&W). Similar images in the series include 59049AC/204834866, 67967AC/204834875, and A67967AC/204834878, all of the same four-plane stack through what looks to be the same window, that of the B-29’s portside remote gunner.
The tail number of the closest fighter, 44-72864, indicates that it is a North American P-51D-25-NA and is almost surely from the 7th Fighter Command’s “Sunsetters.”
The Very Long Range escort missions flown by Iwo Jima’s P-51s– note the twin drop tanks under each of the fighters– were grueling 1,500-mile round trips escorting B-29s over Japan. They were extremely dangerous, and under arguably worse flying conditions than the 8th AF had over Germany, all things considered.
Of note:
One of the greatest limiting factors of fighter escorts from Iwo was the human factor. The B-29 was heated and pressurized. Compared to the unheated, unpressurized P-51, the bomber crews sat in secure comfort. The punishment on the fighter pilots’ bodies was compounded by the extremely high altitudes they flew to escort the bombers, usually more than 30,000 feet. This was several thousand feet higher than fighter pilots flew in Europe, escorting B-17 and B-24 bombers. The round trip from Iwo to Japan and back was nine hours, spent in a physically battered state.
While 44-72864’s service history is unknown, it probably didn’t end well.
Take a gander at the 18 closest known P-51 serials to that frame, via Baugher:
72848 (530th FS, 311th FG, 14th AF) crashed after takeoff in China while on an administration mission from Sian to Peishiyi on Sep 12, 1945. MACR 14929. Pilot killed.
72851 (457th FS, 506th FG) in a landing accident at North Field, Iwo Jima Aug 2, 1945. The pilot survived, but the aircraft was destroyed.
72860 (457th FS, 506th FG) crashed from unknown cause at North Field, Iwo Jima Aug 5, 1945. The pilot was killed and the aircraft was destroyed.
72863 (72nd FS, 21st FG) shot down by AAA N of Koriyama, Japan Aug 1, 1945. MACR 14842. The pilot bailed out but was killed.
72865 (46th FS, 21st FG) crashed on takeoff at Central Field, Iwo Jima Jul 2, 1945. The pilot survived, but the aircraft was destroyed.
72866 (78th FS, 15th FG, 7th AF) in a landing accident at South Field, Iwo Jima Jun 7, 1944. The pilot survived, the aircraft was badly damaged, and it is unknown if repaired.
72867 w/o? 16 Sep 1947. Landing accident at Johnson AB, Japan 5FG-4FS
72869 (46th FS, 21st FG) in a landing accident at Central Field, Iwo Jima Jun 26, 1945. The pilot survived, the aircraft was badly damaged, and it is unknown if repaired.
72870 w/o? 16 Sep 1946 Landing accident at Johnson AB, Japan 314CW-8PRS
72871 (46th FS, 21st FG) crashed from unknown cause 19 mi N of Iwo Jima on Jun 7, 1945. The pilot bailed out and was rescued.
72872 (45th FS, 15th FG, 7th AF) crashed 150 mi from S of Osaka, Japan due to turbulent weather on Jun 1, 1945. MACR 14641. Pilot killed.
72873 (46th FS, 21st FG) hit by AAA over Hanshin Airfield, Osaka, Japan, and crashed in Osaka Bay, Japan Aug 8, 1945. MACR 14837. Believe that he was captured and killed.
72879 (21st FG, 72nd FS) crashed into the sea during a strafing run over Arita-cho, Oki-gun, Wakayama Prefecture, Yuasa, Japan Aug 8, 1945. MACR 14841
72883 (458th FS, 506th FG) was shot down by AAA and crashed N of Mount Fujiyama, Japan Jul 8, 1945. MACR 14733. The pilot bailed out and was MIA, believed killed.
72885 (457th FS, 506th FG) crashed 360 mi from Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean due to turbulent weather on Jun 1, 1945. MACR 14634. Pilot killed.
72886 (72nd FS) 21st FG) collided in midair with P-51D 44-63969 and crashed 14 mi S of Kita Iwo Jima Jul 13, 1945. The pilot bailed out and survived, but the aircraft was destroyed.
72892 506th FG 462nd FS. Lost in a midair collision in the traffic pattern over North Field on Aug 28, 1945, with P-51D 44-72550
72893 w/o 5 Aug 1947 takeoff accident at Johnson AB, Japan 35FG-39FS
No, not the Q Lazzarus song made infamous by Ted Levine, we are talking about the Army’s latest initiative to divest itself of equines, something it has been doing in slow motion since 1917 despite a few half-hearted returns.
It could be argued that 1916 was the height of the U.S. Army’s post-Civil War (when the Union Army fielded 6 regular army and 266 volunteer cavalry regiments as well as 170 unattached squadrons) horse cavalry. At the time, during Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Northern Mexico to chase Villa, the Army had 17 regiments of regulars– with the 16th and 17th Cavalry Regiments only organized in Texas in July 1916.
U.S. 5th Cav in Mexico, 1916
Add to this “practically all the serviceable cavalry” from the mobilized National Guard that included three cavalry regiments, 13 separate squadrons, and 22 separate cavalry troops, a force that required the immediate purchase on the open market of 1,861 cavalry horses by quartermasters to take to the field as most units were called up with less than half their stables full.
One Guard cavalry unit had no horses on call-up day except one privately owned mount, and in another that had 92 state-owned horses, only 23 passed inspection by a U.S. Cavalry remount officer.
“Making cavalry horses out of outlaws!”
While nearly 2 million Doughboys went “Over There” in the Great War, few were horse soldiers (just the 6th and 15th Cavalry Regiments arrived in France in March 1918, and were later sent to the trenches dismounted).
Instead, cavalry units were either repurposed into supply trains and artillery units or left to watch the border; the latter regiments organized into the short-lived 15th Cavalry Division.
At the same time, the Army went all-in on mechanization and established its first dedicated tank units.
The great cavalry farce of the 1920s-1930s
By the 1920s, the walk away from horses continued, and three regiments of regulars (15th, 16th, and 17th) were disbanded, as the regular cavalry increasingly became motorized (the 1st and 13th U.S. Cavalry were the first to hand in their horses, starting in 1932). In the Philippines, the 26th Cavalry regiment (Philippine Scouts), made up generally of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, with a few seconded Regular Army officers and NCOs, was established in 1922 using horses and equipment left behind when the segreated 9th Cavalry shipped back home.
The interwar role of horse cavalry was increasingly transferred to the National Guard and Army Reserve.
However, it was a force largely just on paper, allowing much smaller “regiments” than those typically seen in an infantry format to exist (1,090 officers and men vs 3,500 by 1918 TOE, numbers even smaller by later standards).
Florida National Guard summer camp officer with 1902 pattern sword fooling on horseback, Jacksonville, 1930 time frame.
This saw the creation out of whole cloth of 20 NG horse cav regiments between 1921 and 1927: the 101st and 121st Cavalry Regiments in New York, 102nd Cavalry in New Jersey, the 103rd and 104th Cavalry in Pennsylvania, 105th Cavalry (Wisconsin), 106th Cavalry (Illinois), 107th Cavalry (Ohio), 108th Cavary (Georgia), 109th Cavalry (Tennessee), the 110th Cavalry in Massachusetts, the 112th and 124th Cavalry Regiments in Texas, 113th Cavalry (Iowa), 114th Cavalry (Kansas), 115th Cavalry (Wyoming), 116th Cavalry (Idaho), 117th (Colorado/New Mexico, never fully formed), 122nd (Connecticut and Rhode Island), and 123rd (Kentucky).
In 1927, each cavalry regiment at the time, when fully staffed and ready for service, included four lettered 123-man troops led by captains, organized into two numbered 248-man squadrons led by a major, plus a regimental headquarters, machinegun, medical, and service troops for 39 officers and 710 men including ferriers and veteranirians. Add to this 810 horses, 64 mules, three cars, three 1 1/2 ton trucks, a motorcycle (with side car), 38 assorted wagons, 10 M1917 water cooled MGs, 24 M1918 machine rifles (BARs), 501 M1903 Springfield rifles (with bayonets), 724 M1911 pistols, 16 M1903 medical bolos, and, of course, 425 Patton-style M1913 cavalry sabers.
These optimistically formed four NG Cavalry divisions, the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.
At the division level, there was a 103-man light tank company with 18 M1917 (Renault FT) tanks and 7 truck-pulled 37mm guns as well as an 89-man armored car company with 12 M1/M2 armored Scout cars, and a 520-man battalion of 12 horse-drawn 75mm field guns (in three batteries) and seven AAA MGs. While authorized, few divisions actually had these exotic bits of kit other than the Regular Army’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, which each housed four active Cavalry regiments.
The 3rd Cavalry Division was openly just a “paper” division with its support units in the Reserve and never in its 19-year interwar history drilled as a unit.
`Troop A, 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, Georgia National Guard at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. in 1930
It should be noted, however, that the TOE for each NG cavalry troop in peacetime would be just 65 officers and men (against the fully-manned wartime authorization of 123) but had only 32 horses, enough for training, yet still requiring a massive influx of trained horse flesh in wartime, followed by a good 6 months to a year of unit training before they could be deployed.
Further, these regiments were slowly reformatted as hybrid horse-mechanized units, with elements of both, with horse (and trooper) numbers dropping while traditional items like the saber were abandoned after 1934.
Wyoming National Guard’s 115th Cavalry Regiment in its final format, circa 1940, with jeeps, motorcycles, and trucks augmenting the regimental band and horse soldiers.
At the same time, the Army Reserve amazingly had 24 horse cavalry regiments, numbered 301st through 324th, in six divisions (!) numbered the 61st through 66th. With somehow even fewer horses on hand than the NG units, these regiments typically had to borrow NG horses, those from CMMG or ROTC units, or trek to the U.S. 3rd Cavalry’s stables at Fort Myers in the summer to train.
Meanwhile, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment pitched in to train Great Plains Army Reservists at Fort Riley, Kansas. The 14th Cav maintained a Cavalry riding school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, specifically to train Midwestern Army Reservists, where, in 1936, their 2nd Squadron taught future president Ronald Reagan how to ride horses, by the numbers.
Reagan’s military service began with the U.S. Army Reserve via at-home Army Extension courses in 1935. He was a private in the Iowa-based 322nd Cavalry Regiment before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps. He was later assigned to the 323rd Cavalry Regiment in California and in 1942 requested a transfer to the USAAF, where he helped produce 400 training films in the 1st Motion Picture Unit.
While it was estimated that the Army would need over 200,000 horses immediately in wartime if all 44 Guard and Reserve horse cav regiments and their 10 divisional organizations were fully-fleshed out, the service typically only procured between 1,500 and 2,500 new horses every year in the 1930s, including use for both active and reserve cavalry and artillery, and at the end of the 1941 fiscal year the remount depots only had 28,000 horses on hand.
By the fall of 1940, with the Guard federalized, of the existing 19 NG cavalry regiments, 7 were reorganized into mechanized regiments, 6 were converted to field artillery, and 4 to coastal artillery.
Only two, the Texas 112th and 124th, were given a reprieve as horse cavalry and would be brigaded together as the 56th Cavalry Brigade, which survived until March 1944 when they put their horses to pasture and became the 56th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized, bound for the CBI theatre.
Likewise, the massive Army Reserve “cavalry” force saw its 24 regiments melt away by 1942 when they were hollowed out by having their assigned personnel called to active duty and reassigned to Regular Army and federalized National Guard units. The empty unit shells were typically reclassified into Signal Aircraft Warning (radar) battalions and Tank Destroyer battalions (notably the 62nd, 63rd, 65th, 66th, 70th, 71st, and 75th), then rebuilt with new personnel.
Most of the “U.S” branded horses were “loaned” to the USCG, who took 3,900 for WWII beach patrol work, while over 7,000 went overseas as military aid to allies.
The Constabulary
While there was a short resurgence of small horse-mounted recon detachments formed in divisions in 1944-45, notably with the 10th Mountain, who experienced possibly the final U.S. Army mounted cavalry charge, the 35,000-strong U.S. Constabulary force in occupied Germany from 1946-52 included much use of horses.
Organized into 10 regiments, the circa 1946 TOE of each allowed for a horse platoon with 30 horses to patrol difficult terrain.
Even afterward, the Army’s Berlin Garrison was authorized 56 horses for the use of the force there as late as 1958.
“One of the famous Constabulary regiment horse patrols”
Short-lived resurgence
The Army’s last dedicated pack horse unit, the 35th QM Pack Co., was deactivated at Fort Carson, Colorado, in the spring of 1957.
Man don’t those white horses glow at night! Green Berets from 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) ride horses to travel through rough terrain during a site reconnaissance training exercise on March 1, 2016 in Nevada. (U.S. Army photo by 3rd SFG (A) Combat Camera)
Plus, there was a steady resurgence post-Vietnam of ceremonial horse detachments on posts with a history going back to the Old West days.
The 11th ACR’s “Black Horse” Detachment at Fort Irwin
About that.
The Army last week announced that it was “streamlining its Military Working Equid program to align more resources with warfighting capability and readiness. MWEs include horses, mules, and donkeys owned by the Department of Defense and housed on Army installations.”
This means that, of its current seven horse detachments– often staffed by volunteers on collateral duty– just two will remain.
Starting in July 2025, the Army will sunset ownership, operation, and materiel support of MWE programs at Fort Irwin, California; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and Fort Hood, Texas.
However, MWE programs will continue with The Old Guard Caisson units at the Military District of Washington and at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.
“This initiative will save the Army $2 million annually and will allow the funds and Soldiers dedicated to MWE programs to be redirected to readiness and warfighting priorities.
An estimated 141 current Army horses will be moved out to new homes.
“Installation commanders will have one year to transfer, facilitate adoption, or donate the MWEs to vetted owners according to federal law. The Army Surgeon General’s MWE Task Force, comprised of equine veterinarian experts, will provide oversight to ensure the MWEs go to appropriate owners.”
Of note, the Caisson Platoon just resumed limited operations at Arlington last month.
The future Block IV Virginia-class submarine USS Arkansas (SSN 800) was recently launched into the James River at Newport News. She was ordered on 28 April 2014 and not laid down until November 2022, highlighting how far behind 774 production is running.
Arkansas SSN 800 Rollout from MOF to FDD
Arkansas SSN 800 with dock flooded before Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas SSN 800 Launch
Arkansas is the 27th Virginia-class submarine and will be the 13th delivered by HII’s NNS.
She is the fifth vessel to be named for the “Toothpick State,” following CGN-41, a Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser that left the fleet unexpectedly in 1998, and BB-33, the iconic Wyoming-class dreadnought that gave 34 years of service across both World Wars.
“Opening the Attack” Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944 D-Day, USS Arkansas opening up off Normandy. NHHC 88-199-ew
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Warship Wednesday, July 9, 2025: Gravity Boat
Koninklijke Marine image via the Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) file no. 2173-223-109
Above we see the Dutch Navy’s fully-dressed K XIV-class colonial submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII arriving in Surabaya, Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, some 90 years ago this week, on 11 July 1935, to a welcome from several Dutch warships, including the destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Galen in the background. Our subject submarine had left Den Helder some eight months and 22,710 miles prior. For reference, the circumference of the Earth around the Equator is approximately 24,901 miles.
At the time, it was the longest unescorted journey by a submarine, just besting a 1926 cruise by another Dutch sub. Shipping aboard the boat was one Prof. Felix Andries Vening Meinesz– a Dutch geophysicist and geodesist known for his work in the field of gravimetry– packing his “Golden Calf,” which was beloved by the crew for reasons we will cover.
Don’t let her bookish origins fool you, K XVIII proved to have teeth when the war started in the Pacific just seven short years later.
The K XIV-class
Paid for by the oil-rich government of the Dutch East Indies in 1930 to serve as “colonial” submarines with the “K” for “Koloniën,” the five K XIV-class boats were designed by Dutch Navy engineer J. J. van der Struyff, who already had the smaller 0 9 and K XI-classes under his belt. A bit larger and more modern than previous Dutch classes, they leveraged input from across Europe. Using a pair of 1,600 hp German-made MAN diesel engines and two 430 kW domestically built Smit Slikkerveer electric motors lined up on two shafts, these 1,045-ton vessels could push their 241-foot welded steel hulls at speeds approaching 17 knots on the surface (they made 19 on trials) and nine while submerged. The plant enabled them to cruise at an impressive 10,000nm at 12 knots, ideal for West Pacific patrols.
Using double hulls with a test depth of 250 feet, they carried both search and attack periscopes provided by Stroud and a periscopic radio antenna that could be used while submerged. Ideally, for their intended use around the 18,000-island East Indies archipelago, they could float in just 13 feet of water and submerge in anything over 50.
When it came to armament, they were outfitted with help from the British, including tubes for a batch of 200 Weymouth-built dialed-down Mark VIII torpedoes (dubbed II53 in Dutch service) that could hit 42 knots and carry a 660-pound warhead– not bad performance for the era.
A British-made II53 torpedo on board the destroyer Hr.Ms. Evertsen in 1929. The Dutch used these on both surface ships and subs. NIMH 2173-224-077
The torpedo tube layout in the class was interesting and not repeated in another Dutch class. They mounted eight 21-inch torpedo tubes–four bows (two on each side of the hull), two in the stern, and a twin external trainable mount forward of the conning tower– with room for 14 fish.
Hr.Ms. K XIV, seen in a Colombo drydock in December 1942, shows a good view of her bow tubes and the inset cavity forward of the fairwater for her trainable twin tubes.
A good view of the twin tubes mounted outside of the hull under the deck, prior to installation in 1931.
Besides their torpedoes, they were armed with a Swedish 88mm/42cal Bofors No.2 deck gun and two British Vickers 2-pdr QF Mark II (40mm/39cal) large-bore AAA machine guns, the latter contained in neat disappearing installations, a novel idea for guns that weighed over 500-pounds including a water-cooled jacket.
The crew of the Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. K XV with her 40mm Vickers “ack-ack” machine gun in position and 88mm Bofors gun pointing over the bow. Note the mixed crew, common for boats in the colonies. Circa late 1930s. NIMH 2158_005757
The first three boats– K XIV,K XV, and K XVI— were ordered from Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij on the same day in 1930 as Yard Nos. 167-169. The final two– K XVII and K XVIII— were ordered in 1931 as Yard Nos. 322 and 322 from neighboring Wilton-Fijenoord, Schiedam. All five were complete and ready to deploy by early 1934.
Dutch submarine Hr.Ms. K XV central control 1935 NIMH 2158_005759
Dutch submarine K XV at Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij Jan 1931 NIMH 2158_008934
Dutch submarine K XV at Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij Feb 22 1934 NIMH 2158_008935
With the class complete, they typically self-deployed some 9,000 miles to the East Indies, stopping along the way at Lisbon, Cadiz, Palermo, Port Said, Suez, Aden, and Colombo. In theory, they could have done this on one tank of diesel oil without having to refuel.
The departure of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XIV and sister Hr.Ms. K XV from Den Helder, Holland, for the Dutch East Indies, 7 February 1934. In the background can be seen sisters K XVI and K XVII, waiting offshore. NIMH 2158_008920
Dutch submarine K XV on the Tagus River, Lisbon, likely on her way to East Asia. Photo via the Direcção-Geral de Arquivos of Portugal.
The arrival of Hr.Ms. K XV in Surabaya, April 1934. In the background is the destroyer Hr.Ms. Van Nes, which would be lost in February 1942, was sunk by Japanese aircraft. The white ship in the distance is Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden, a 70-year-old 5,300-ton ramtorenschip ironclad that had been disarmed and turned into a barracks ship in 1920. NIMH 2173-223-089.
DOZ 3 (Divisie Onderzeeboten), consisting at this time of the colonial submarines Hr.Ms. K-XIV, Hr.Ms. K-XV and Hr.Ms. K-XVI, seen here in anti-aircraft exercises ca 1938. Note, you can see both Vickers 40mm being extended from the sail. You have a good view of the trainable twin external torpedo mounts via the opening just under the deck forward of the 88mm gun and the large escape hatches (drägervests) near the bow and aft of the sail. NIMH 2158_019998
Dutch submarines, including sisters K XVI, K XIV, K XII, and K XV (1933-1946,) along with the older (circa 1925) and smaller (216-feet/688 tons) Hr.Ms. K XI, alongside the supply ship Hr.Ms. Zuiderkruis, circa 1936. Of note, the obsolete little K XI, armed with more primitive Italian-made I53 torpedoes, would complete seven war patrols in WWII. Meanwhile, the 2,600-ton Zuiderkruis would escape from Java in February 1942 and spend the rest of WWII in Ceylon, operating as a depot ship and transport for the British Eastern Fleet. She would return home in 1945 and go on in 1950 after Indonesia’s independence to become the flagship of the Indonesian Navy (as Bimasakti) and President Soekarno’s yacht. NIMH 2158_019986
Circa 1931 scale model of Hr.Ms. K XVIII, a K XIV-class submarine. Note her main deck gun before the fairwater with her AAA gun atop, hull mounted diving planes, net cutters on the bow, extensive running lines, forward trunk, upside down ship’s dingy aft near its crane, and twin screws on either side of a centerline rudder. 2158_054141
A similar model endures today in the collection of the Dutch Marine Elektronisch en Optisch Bedrijf. Note the arrangement of the four periscopes and aerials, but no AAA mount and a torpedo on deck over her external tubes. 0075_15_N0007294-01
A cutaway model gives a better look at her twin stowed AAA guns on either side of the conning tower, and her external tubes are shown forward between two trunks, placed between the deck and pressure hull. NIMH_2024-033_0003
K XVIII’s forward four-pack of torpedo tubes before installation in 1932. 2158_009163
Meet K XVIII
Ordered at the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyard in Rotterdam, the future K XVIII was laid down on 10 June 1931.
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dock and Yard Company Wilton-Fijenoord. 2158_009140
Launched 27 September 1932, by the next July, she had completed fitting out and was conducting her first of two months of trials.
K XVIII’s Langroom. Note the ornate brass fan on the bulkhead and wooden cabinetry. 2158_009184
The officers’ quarters. Note the rugs. 2158_009181
The non-commissioned officers’ quarters are seen forward, complete with padlocked lockers, with the firing installation of the deck tubes and one of the four periscopes, probably the antenna array, in the middle. 2158_009186
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord, July-August 1933. The K XVIII is undergoing a sea trial on the Nieuwe Maas. Note her telescoping radio mast and DF gear. 2158_012445
23 March 1933. Her plankowners assembled on deck in winter dress uniforms. Note the main deck gun is not fitted yet, but the forward submergible AAA is stowed with its hatch closed and the wheel on the flying bridge. 2158_009187
Construction of the K XVIII at the NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord, July-August 1933. The K XVIII is undergoing a sea trial on the Nieuwe Maas. Note that her main gun has not been fitted. 2158_012442
Having been accepted and delivered, she was commissioned into service on 23 March 1934.
Hr.Ms. Submarine K XVIII, cruising in the North Sea shortly after completion. 2158_005746
Beginning on 20 June 1934, she underwent a six-week summer voyage with a squadron from Nieuwediep through the Baltic and back. The squadron included her sistership, Hr.Ms. K XVII, the old coastal battleship (pantserschip) Hertog Hendrik, and the destroyers Evertsen and Z 5. They called at several ports including Danzig, Konigsberg in East Prussia, Riga, and Copenhagen.
Crew of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII at Königsberg during the squadron voyage to the Baltic Sea in 1934. The old (circa 1917) destroyer Hr.Ms. Z 5 is moored behind the K XVIII. 2158_012382
Arrival of submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII in Danzig during the voyage to the Baltic Sea in the summer of 1934. Behind K XVIII, the destroyer Hr.Ms. Z 5. 2158_012405
20.000 Mijlen over Zee!
Returning home in the tail end of August 1934, our brand spanking new submarine was ordered to her intended duty station, with the fleet in the Dutch East Indies.
However, it was determined that this outbound sortie would be a bit more of a slow boat to (Indo)china so to speak, as she was tasked with a series of international port calls and put at the disposal of Prof. Vening Meinesz, who taught geodesy, cartography and geophysics part time at Utrecht University.
Why part-time?
Well, that’s because the good professor, under the auspices of the KNMI (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute), had been tagging along on Dutch submarines for over a decade on a mission to measure the gravity field of the Earth. You see, it was in the subsurface dives that he could get the best readings, and almost every existing gravity reading up to that time had been done on dry land.
Before arriving on K XVIII, the professor had already shipped out several times on at least five other Dutch subs. The longest of these had been a six-month (27 May-13 December 1926) outward-bound cruise on the older K XI class boat Hr. Ms K XIII, when she deployed from Den Helder for the Dutch East Indies, via the Panama Canal and Hawaii.
Vening Meinesz’s primary instrument was one of his designs, a bronze-cased, wool-packed pendulum apparatus termed a gravimeter for obvious reasons. While the workings of his machine are beyond the scope of this post, the story goes that, to isolate its readings from the activities of working submariners, the best solution was to halt the work of said bluejackets, sending them to their racks, and halting the motors.
Rig for silence indeed.
As compensation for having to put up with the yo-yo work cycle when the professor was doing his thing, the Dutch admiralty authorized an extra guilder per man per dive when the gravimeter required them to secure stations. Thus, the machine became known to the submarine crews as Het Gouden Kalf (the Golden Calf).
The pendulum apparatus of Vening Meinesz, “Slingerapparaat van Vening Meinesz,” also known as “the Golden Calf. Positioned on the left side is the protective casing with the recording instrument on top. On the right side is the pendulum apparatus with the three pendulums at the back. Built in 1923, the instrument has been in the collection of the Delft University of Technology since 1966 and, in its time, had made over 500 submarine dives
The route from Holland to Java would be accomplished in 12 legs, the shortest just 1,200 miles, and the longest running 3,520 miles.
The end of each leg would be rewarded with a liberal port call (sometimes as long as three weeks) to show the flag, refresh supplies, and interact with the locals– with the side benefit of allowing the professor ashore to confer with regional scientific types and take gravimeter measurements in strange new places.
The port calls would include Funchal (Madeira), Saint Vincent (Cape Verde), Dakar, Pernambuco (Suriname), Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo/Buenos Aires/Mar del Plata, Tristan da Cunha, Cape Town (Kaapstad) and Durban in South Africa, Port Louis (Mauritius), and Fremantle in Western Australia before heading north to Surabaya.
NIMH_2024-033_0002
Under 43-year-old Luitenant ter zee 1e klasse (LCDR) Dirk Christiaan Marie Hetterschij, a career officer who joined the Dutch navy as a midshipman in 1910 and held his first seagoing command in 1922, K XVIII made ready for her epic voyage to East Asia. He knew the vessel well, having previously supervised the construction of the submarine.
With a wardroom of five junior officers led by 30-year-old Penang-born LTZ2 Max Samuel Wytema and Officer Marinestoomvaartdienst C. van der Linden (both of whom had sailed with Vening Meinesz previously on K XIII in 1926), a goat locker of eight petty officers, and 20 enlisted, the boat had an all-up complement of 34, skipper included.
The ship’s officers on the eve of leaving Den Helder, with Professor Vening Meinesz dutifully attired in white tropical mufti to match.
And with the whole crew. 2158_012351
13 November 1934. Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII before departure for the world voyage of 1934-35. Prof. Vening Meinesz foreground. 2158_012349
Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII leaves the port of Den Helder for her world voyage, 14 November 1934, before an assembled crowd of well-wishers. 2158_012347
The submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII stands out, moored in the harbor of Funchal, Madeira, on 24 November 1934, some 1,680nm down on the initial leg of her 1934-35 cruise. 2158_012354
However, before leaving the Atlantic, she had a side quest.
The Snip
Dutch airline KLM in 1934 was the only operator of a precious group of five triple-engine Fokker F.XVIIIs. With an 80-foot wingspan and 9-ton maximum takeoff weight, they could carry a crew of three and a dozen passengers on convertible sleeping berths on long-range flights, able to span 950 miles in six hours before needing to refuel. They were put into service on epic 7,000-mile Amsterdam-to-Batavia (now Jakarta) runs, once making it in just 73 flying hours.
One of the five KLM Fokker XVIIIs, PH-AIS “Snip” 2161_026829
Named after birds, in December 1934, one of the five F.XVIIIs, PH-AIS “Snip” (Snipe), set out on a history-making flight, KLM’s first transatlantic service to colonial Suriname and the Antilles from Holland.
Unable to make the flight non-stop, it accomplished legs from Amsterdam to Marseille, Marseille to Alicante, Spain; Alicante to Casablanca, and Casablanca to Porto Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. Waiting for the weather to clear to hop the Atlantic and packed with extra fuel, Snip and her four-man crew set out for Paramaribo in Suriname from Praia on 19 December, making the South American strip 17 hours and 35 minutes later, by far the longest leg.
Refueling once again, it went on to Curacao, where it landed on 22 December before a crowd of thousands at Hato airport, covering the 6,516nm from Amsterdam in just under 56 flying hours. While the extra fuel tanks had taken up the normal passenger space, she had carried a cargo of 233 pounds of Christmas mail containing 26,521 airmail letters and at least one bottle of beer.
It was midway on its 2,236nm Atlantic crossing from Praia that K XVIII was waiting, surfaced, lit up, and broadcasting weather conditions and forecasts as a beacon to point Snip in the right direction and be the first on the search should she not make it. While the Dutch KNSM merchant steamships Stuyvesant and Van Rensselaer were nearby, K XVIII was the only naval vessel tasked with support, and her crew heard the plane cross over on the night of the 21st in thick cloud cover.
Snip’s 1934 flight
On December 12, 1934, the Fokker F.XVIII “Snip” departed for KLM’s first transatlantic flight to Suriname and the Antilles. The plane arrived in Curacao 10 days and 6,500 air miles later without an issue, spotted along the way by K XVIII. 2161_026836
K XVIII underway on the surface in rough seas of the Atlantic. Note the barrel of her deck gun. 2158_012391
Anyway, back to our trip
On the way to Dakar in West Africa, the crew and the professor celebrated a somber Christmas on board before a paper tree while three musically inclined crew members formed an ersatz jazz band with a couple of horns and an accordion. They would cross the Equator just after New Year’s 1935 and hold the traditional crossing the line ceremony, dubbed Neptunusfeest in Dutch parlance.
Groot Feest means “big party.” 2158_012387
At each port, K XVIII picked up staged mail and supplies, dropped off beforehand by Dutch merchant vessels. Note the “Por K XVIII, Dakar” stencil on these boxes.
The shortest stop would be an overnight anchor on 22 March 1935 at the lonely island of Tristan da Cunha, a romantic harbor for Dutch mariners as it was where Pieter Groen from Katwijk had famously lived as an uncrowned king for years, becoming the paterfamilias of the largest family on the remote South Atlantic colony. Rarely visited, the crew passed on food and medical supplies to the colony.
Arriving in Cape Town (Kaapstad) on 2 April 1935. Note the deck awning and table forward, as well as the well-mixed uniforms of the crew, all veteran subjects of Neptune Rex (and almost blue noses), some 13,190 nm into her world cruise. 2158_012377
Twin stops in South Africa at Cape Town and Durban brought extensive interaction with the colony’s Dutch expatriates, and the ship’s officers made a pilgrimage to the statue of Jan van Riebeek to adorn it with a wreath. During her call, she was the first submarine to enter False Bay and the first to use the RN dry dock at Simon’s Town, where she was hurriedly scraped and repainted in five days, with her crew pitching in to meet the scheduled ship’s movement.
Then came the longest, 27-day stint across the Indian Ocean from Mauritius to Fremantle. Three dozen men in a 261-foot tin can for 3,520 nautical miles. Importantly, they would skirt a gravitational feature known today as the Indian Ocean Geoid Low (IOGL), a gravity “hole” that formed around 20 million years ago and is the deepest one known to man. Professor Vening Meinesz would only identify the IOGL in 1948 when looking at past data.
The home stretch arrival off Java coincided with the 339th anniversary celebration of the July 1596 arrival of Dutch merchant mariner Cornelis de Houtman in his VOC ship Mauritius after a 15-month voyage from Amsterdam, an expedition that began Dutch influence in the region.
Over the course of the voyage, Vening Meinesz had made 240 measurements while submerged.
Hr.Ms. Submarine K XVIII arriving in Surabaya after her “world voyage,” July 1935. She is being escorted in by a flight of three big Dornier Do J Wal seaplanes while her crew is assembled on deck. Do you have any idea how hard it would have been to keep those whites, white after eight months on a “pig boat?” 2158_005745
The Dutch Marineluchtvaartdienst, or Naval Aviation Service, bought five distinctive twin-engine push/pull Do J Wals from Dornier’s Italian factory in Marina di Pisa in 1926, then purchased a license to assemble a further 41 domestically at Aviolanda’s facility. Able to carry two machine guns and 2,200 pounds of bombs to 500nm, the “Whales” served in the Far East in rescue, reconnaissance, transport, and patrol roles for over a decade. They were replaced in MLD service by 1941 by 34 Dornier Do 24K flying boats and 25 Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats.
Submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII in the Dutch East Indies, decorated and on parade duty, 11 July 1935. 2158_012424
K XVIII settles into the sheltered submarine docks in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, after arriving. The Dutch would operate over a dozen subs from the port in the 1930s and early 1940s. Sadly, these were not hardened pens. 2158_012434
Crew members of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XVIII gathered for a welcome speech during Alle Hens, after arriving in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, 11 July 1935. The suited Professor Vening Meinesz stands out, literally, between grinning skipper LTZ1 Hetterschij and his XO, LTZ2 Wytema. Note the white gloves and (usually German-made) Model of 1882 swords of the Dutch officers. For those curious, Dutch ships carried a very functional Model of 1911 Klewang profile naval cutlass through the 1950s, for enlisted use. 2158_012429
All the crew were presented with a special silver medal (the Draagpenning van de Rijkscommissie voor graadmeting en waterpassing) for the occasion, with Wytema and engineering officer Van der Linden earning a second award as they had earned one previously in 1926 on K XIII.
Skipper Dirk Hetterschij also picked up the Gold De Ruyter medal and was knighted, made an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. He would similarly be made an Officer in the Belgian Ordre de Léopold II in 1936.
The chapels at the submarine barracks in both Surabaya and Den Helder received a stained-glass window with a tribute to the cruise of K XVIII. Painted by Willem Mengelberg in Zeist, it was paid for by the Stichting Algemeen Nederlandsch Comité “Onze Marine” association and includes a panel with Houtman’s circa 1596 VOC ship Mauritius. I believe they were both lost during WWII. 2158_012437
K XVIII’s XO during her 1934-35 cruise, LTZ2 Max Wytema, would go on to write two different submarine works, Klaar voor onderwater (“Clear for diving”) and, with Van der Linden, Met Hr. Ms. K XIII naar Nederlandsch-Indie (“With Hr. Ms. K XIII to the Dutch East Indies”) about their 1926 cruise. Wytema also shot several hours of amateur film footage during the cruise, which would later be edited by Brand D. Ochse, founder of Filmfabriek Polygoon, into an exotic 96-minute travel documentary, 20.000 mijlen over zee De wereldreis van onderzeeboot K XVIII (“20,000 Leagues of the Sea, The World Voyage of the Submarine K XVIII”).
Carrying a music arrangement by Max Tak, it showed many the first known moving images from such far-off locations as Tristan da Cunha, in addition to stirring sea shots of diving operations of a submarine underway, accompanied by dolphins.
Released in Dutch cinemas with the admiralty’s blessing and approval, the film was well-received and shown in several European countries, reportedly doing well for months in England and Spain.
I managed to find the first reel, which covers up to March 1935, leaving Argentina, in the NIMH, and have uploaded it, below.
Her film and book-worthy cruise behind her, K XVIII got to work as a normal Dutch fleet boat. She spent the next four years in a series of peacetime exercises and maneuvers, the highlight of which was the 23-ship September 1938 fleet review off Surabaya for (but not attended by) Queen Wilhelmina to celebrate her 40th anniversary.
War!
September 1939 brought an uneasy time to the Dutch East Indies. With Japan openly pressuring the colony, the local governor and his forces stepped up preparations to repel what was felt to be a looming invasion. Once metropolitan Holland was occupied in May 1940 by Germany, the DEI, still loyal to Queen Wilhelmina’s government in exile, sent its naval forces on patrol for Axis vessels in the region.
When the Pacific War with Japan kicked off in December 1941, K XVIII was in refit at Surabaya. One of 15 Dutch boats in the Pacific at the time (along with O-16, O-19, O-20, K-VII, K-VIII, K-IX, K-X, K-XI, K-XII, K-XIII, K-XIV, K-XV, K-XVI, and K-XVII), K-XVIII was soon back in the water, making war patrols and pumping torpedoes in the Emperor’s ships, one of the brighter moments in a campaign that was otherwise dark for the doomed ABDA Allies.
Her wartime skipper, LTZ1 Carel Adrianus Johannes van Well Groeneveld, had taken her sister, Hr. Ms K XIV, whose c/o was sick, on two short patrols while K XVIII was in refit in December. During which he torpedoed four Japanese steamers, sinking three for some 23,000 tons, a great start to the war!
With K XVIII back in the water in early January 1942, Van Well Groeneveld rejoined his command and departed Surabaya on his boat’s 1st war patrol on the 14th. After scuttling the evacuated Balikpapan light vessel Orion with gunfire so that it could not function as a beacon to the expected Japanese landing force, K XVIII spent the night of 22/23 January on a series of attacks on said force.
Narrowly missing the Japanese Sendai-class light cruiser Naka with four torpedoes, he sent the transport Tsuruga Maru(7289 GRT), carrying elements of the Sakaguchi Detachment (56th Regimental Group), to the bottom with a second load of four fish.
Tsuruga Maru was built down at Mitsubishi Shipyard as Yard No. 250, a 7,289-ton cargo ship for Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), K.K. (Japan Mail Steamship Co.) in 1916. K XVIII sent her to the bottom in January 1942.
It was while avoiding depth charges from the responding Japanese submarine chaser Ch-12 that K XVIII bottomed and was extremely damaged, cutting her war patrol short. Returning to Surabaya by the 27th, she was still in repair when the Japanese neared the strategic port in March and was ordered scuttled along with 120 assorted Allied vessels in the area.
Before she was set ablaze, her deck gun was used to scuttle the unseaworthy Dutch Admiralen-class destroyer Hr. Ms Banckert.
K XVIII’s wartime boss, the budding sub ace Van Well Groeneveld, while in charge of the Torpedo Works at Surabaya in March 1942, went missing and was believed killed while inspecting faulty demolition charges with two other men during the destruction of the port, just shy of his 36th birthday. Besides a Dutch MWO.4, he earned the British DSO, although he was never able to receive it.
Ignoble service under the Setting Sun
With Surabaya under new management for the next five years, the Japanese had a chance to raise and repair several of the ships that were hastily scuttled there. One of these was K XVIII. Patched up to a degree, she was put into service as an unnamed and lightly armed air warning picket hulk in the shallows of the Madoera Strait in 1944. She was sent to the bottom a final time by HM Submarine Taciturn (P334) on 16 June 1945 alongside the Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser Cha 105 (130 tons). Taciturn described the action with the former pride of the Dutch submarine service as
“A K-16 class Dutch submarine covered with yellow lead and rust, she was very high in the water…Several hits were obtained and the hulk was seen listing shortly afterwards..” Before turning to sink Cha 160. Then, “target was now shifted to the rusty submarine hulk whose machine gun fire became annoying as the range closed. A considerable number of 4″ rounds were fired against her before she was seen to be sinking in position 06°52’S, 112°48’E. One of the hits was a direct hit on her gun.”
Of her four sisters, all gave hard service in East Asia in WWII, opposing the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies. Two were lost during the conflict.
Hr.Ms. K XVI sank the Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer Sagiri on Christmas Eve 1941, then was, in turn, sunk by the Japanese submarine I-66 on Christmas Day, lost with all hands.
Hr.Ms. K XVII was believed lost in a newly laid Japanese minefield on or about 21 December 1941 in the Gulf of Siam and is still on patrol with 38 crewmembers. There are wild rumors she was lost in the “cover-up” in the Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory, but they are, most assuredly, groundless.
Class leader Hr.Ms. K XIV (N 22), as we touched on above, was the most successful when it came to chalking up “kills,” is credited with three Japanese troopships — SS Katori Maru (9,848 tons), SS Ninchinan Maru (6,503 tons), and SS Hiyoshi Maru (4,943 tons)– sunk along with a fourth — MS Hokkai Maru (8,416 tons)– damaged in late December 1941 alone. Updated in America, she spent the rest of the war in Fremantle and would damage the 4,410-ton Japanese minelayer Tsugaru and bag numerous small vessels. She was retired in 1946, having completed nine war patrols. Also, like K XV, she languished in Soerabaja during the Dutch war against Soekarno, then was towed out and sunk in deep water following independence.
Hr.Ms. onderzeeboot K XIV (1933-1946) z.g.n. getrimd dieselen. NIMH 2158_005756
The K XIV class Bloedvlaggen, with K XVIII on the far right.
In all, wily “Free Dutch” submarines with nothing to lose accounted for at least 168,183 tons of enemy shipping and warships between May 1940 and August 1945, sinking no less than 69 ships– a figure that doesn’t count the myriad of small craft they also sent to the bottom. They also lost 16 boats, with seven still on eternal patrol.
In an ode to these old K boats, Indonesian rice (Indische rijsttafel) is a staple meal on Dutch submarines today, especially for service in the wardroom as a Blauwe hap (Blue Snack).
Epilogue
Little tangible remains of K XVIII. Her hulk was later raised (again) and scrapped in the 1950s after the Dutch had left. With so much war wreckage around Surabaya post-war, and with an active civil war going on in the islands until Indonesia’s independence in 1949, there was little appetite to set aside the relics of the once-famous submarine.
She is remembered in maritime art, such as on a recently released stamp from Tristan da Cunha.
Incidentally, when 20.000 mijlen over zee hit the theatres, it sparked a shoe drive in Holland for the island’s moccasin-wearing population, which ultimately received 760 assorted new pairs of wooden clogs for its 200 inhabitants. Unsuited for use in the rocky islands, the locals instead appreciated them as they kept the islanders in firewood for six months. K XVIII’s circa 1934-35 skipper, Dirk Hetterschij, after the legendary voyage to East Asia, became commander of the Dutch submarine service in Surabaya for two years, then returned home just in time for the German invasion. During WWII, he remained in the occupied Netherlands, where he played a key role in the Dutch resistance and was later arrested by the Germans for a time, but was released for health reasons. Placed in command of the Loodswezen, the Dutch Pilotage Service, post-war, he was made a rear admiral in 1947, but died in poor health the following year, just 57 years old.
RADM Dirk Hetterschij completed 38 years of honorable service to the Dutch Navy, most of it in submarines, with a dash of science and espionage behind enemy lines when needed. He is buried in Rhenen, with his wife joining him in 1974. As a side note, she had been the third wife of the swashbuckling late Dutch RADM Kaarel Doorman of Java Sea fame.
K XVIII’s multimedia talented XO during her 1934-35 cruise, LTZ2 Max Wytema, likewise continued to serve. The Dutch Naval Control Officer in San Francisco during WWII, he was recognized with a Legion of Merit by the U.S. Navy in 1942. While in California, he settled down and retired there, with his wife Annette passing in 1979. He joined her at age 78 in 1982.
In 2016, Dutch TV network VPRO released a digital version of 20.000 mijlen over zee in two parts. The website is kind of funky and takes a while to build, but it’s interesting to view once you get it going.
And finally, Professor Vening Meinesz, who became akin in his time to a Dutch Neil deGrasse Tyson after 20.000 mijlen over zee, continued his gravitational quest. He shipped out on four further Dutch subs in the late 1930s, including a three-month trip on Hr. Ms. O 16 in 1937. Teaching part-time both at the University of Utrecht and the Delft University of Technology, like his old pal Dirk Hetterschij, he rolled up his sleeves during the German occupation and helped organize the Resistance movement. Post-war, he took students and his instruments aboard a further six Dutch submarines, sailing as late as 1959.
Professor Vering Meinsez passed in 1966, aged 79. Utrecht University has the Vening Meinesz Research School for Geodynamics in his honor, while a crater on the moon also carries his name. Though he never wore a uniform, he earned his dolphins for sure.
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!
Best known in the West as the Freedom Fighter or Tiger II in later models, the Northrop F-5 in Taiwan, the Republic of China, will always be remembered as the Tiger, a 60-year love affair that ended last week.
The first seven F-5As and two F-5Bs, shipped to Taipei under the U.S. Military Assistance Program in 1965, entered service with the RoCAF in 1965, serving as frontline air defense fighters.
This ultimately led to a force of 83 F-5A/Bs by the early 1970s (of which half were loaned to the South Vietnam Air Force and never returned, backfilled by aircraft from the USAF).
Local assembly of E and F-models began under the “Tiger Peace” Project in 1973, with Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) eventually assembling 308 aircraft domestically, making the country the world’s largest F‑5 operator with over 336 operational aircraft in 1986 when the AIDC assembly line closed.
It was the stuff of recruiting posters.
Relegated to secondary tasks after the mid-1990s as the RoCAF obtained F-16s, Mirage 2000s, and domestic AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo fighters, the F-5 E/F endured as a trainer and reserve fighter while some were converted to RF-5E Tigergazer recon aircraft.
In late 2024, the training aircraft mission was taken over by the AIDC T-BE5A Brave Eagle (an updated Ching-kuo) while Tigergazers were replaced by dedicated AN/VDS-5 (later Phoenix Eye and MS-110) recon-pod carrying “Leo Gazer” RF-16As as the last 46 F-5/RF-5 frames were cued up to withdraw from service. This capped 40 straight years of F-5E/F service with the RoCAF alone.
To commemorate the occasion of the type’s retirement, last week on 4 July, five Tigers (F-5F: 5398 and 5413, RF-5E: 5504, 5505, and 5507) took to the skies from Hualien Air Base for a last flyby over and along Taiwan’s east coast, the end of an era.
As noted eloquently by the RocAF last week:
Some voices fade away with the curtain.
Some spirits live on through the years.
The F-5E/F and RF-5E are not just the names of aircraft models,
but also the epitome of a period of the Air Force.
They have accompanied us through the forefront of combat readiness and have also entered the deepest part of the memories of the Chinese people, and are deeply rooted in the hearts of every comrade who has driven, maintained, and guided them.
Pilots guard the nation. Iron wings defend the skies.
This haunting polyptych, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, depicts the final moments of RAF 7 Squadron Pathfinder Force Avro Lancaster JA853 MG-L, bound for Berlin, but instead was downed over Holland by night fighter pilot Oberleutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer in a Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4 (G9+DZ) of 12./NJG 1. JA853 took all seven of her crew with her.
As described by the AWM:
A memorial dedicated to five Australian and two British airmen was unveiled at Follega, in the Netherlands, last weekend. The seven men were amongst more than 55,000 lives lost in Bomber Command during the Second World War and were tragically shot down in Avro Lancaster JA853 MG-L in December 1943.
The establishment of this memorial, more than six years in the making, was an initiative undertaken by Diana Bentley, the niece of pilot Wallace Watson RAAF, and Melvin Chambers, who works to preserve the memory of Australian Dambuster pilot, Les Knight, DSO.
JA853 is also featured in a short film that depicts the incident in which these young men were killed, which was enabled through communication between Memorial staff and 7 Squadron (PFF) RAF Association in the UK.
These four still images from the short film sequence, which will soon be displayed in the Bomber Command gallery of Anzac Hall, accurately portray the event in which top German night-fighter ace, Heinz Schnaufer, shot down the Australian-British flown Lancaster bomber, using vertically firing ‘jazz music’ cannons.
Six of the seven crew members of Lancaster JA853 MG-L had previously flown the Memorial’s own ‘G for George’ when they were serving with 460 Squadron (RAAF). For their skill, they were chosen to join the elite Pathfinders with 7 Squadron RAF, marking targets for the main Bomber Command force.
While Schnaufer survived the war, with the record of the most successful night fighter pilot in the history of air warfare with 121 victories, the RAAF captured his plane in 1945, and one of its rear stabilizers hangs in the AWM.
