This week marks the 80th Anniversary of the landing at Balikpapan, Borneo. The “Ploesti of the Pacific” was finally being liberated after weeks of systematic attack by the “Jungle Air Force” of the “Fighting” 13th AAF’s bombers and fighters operating out of New Guinea and the Solomons.
Official period caption: “On July 1, 1945, Americans and Australians island-hopped right into the center of the rich, Japanese-held oil fields of Balikpapan, Borneo. Units of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet paved the way for the Australian landing. In the bombardment that preceded the landings at Balikpapan, Seventh Fleet units fired over 10,000 rockets. LCI(B) 338 opens up in the first of two rocket runs made by these craft on the beach. Rockets have proven to be very effective “persuaders” in the Navy’s amphibious landings. National Archives Identifier 153724649
Underwater demolition swimmer, SF1c John Regan gets a drink and smoke after setting charges off Balikpapan, circa early July 1945. Note his sheath knife 80-G-274698
Barring Gallipoli, this was the largest amphibious landing in Australia’s history.
USCG-manned USS LST 66 headed for a hot beach at Balikpapan. Note the oil tanks ashore. Commissioned on 12 April 1943, LST-66 was on her 12th series of landings after hitting the beach with Marines and soldiers at Cape Gloucester, Saidor, Hollandia, Toem-Wakde-Sarmi, Biak, Noemfoor, Cape Sansapor, Morotai, Leyte, Lingayen, and Mindanao, earning eight battle stars. NARA 26-G-4741
Australian landing craft reach the beach at Balikpapan to launch the invasion of Borneo’s greatest oil refining district. Beach installations and anti-aircraft positions inland still smoke from a pre-invasion pounding by bombers and fighters of the (U.S. Air Force Number 58861AC)
Original caption: This is the Balikpapan Invasion scene snapped by Coast Guard Combat Photographer James L. Lonergan as his own picture was taken by a fellow Coast Guard Photographer, Gerald C. Anker, from an adjoining LCVP. Note the identical posters in each photo of the Aussie wading ashore, the group behind the tractor, and the Coast Guardsmen bending over the bow of the vessel. A few moments later both photographers narrowly escaped death from Jap snipers when they sought a vantage point from which to “shoot” the entire invasion beach. NARA 26-G-4721
Patrols of 29 Bn, 18th Brigade (Australian) move cautiously into the village area of Penadjam, Balikpapan, Borneo, under sniper fire. 5 July, 1945. SC 374826 Photographer: Lt. Novak. U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive.
The 25-ton Matilda II carried a 40 mm QF 2-pounder main gun, a hull-mounted GPMG, and, while slow at 15 mph on its twin Leylan engines, may have been dead meat on a European battlefield in 1945 but was aces in the Pacific.
Balikpapan, Borneo, 30 July 1945. Matilda tanks of A squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment AIF (RNSWL), being overhauled in the unit’s open-air workshop. AWM 112525
Australian 1st Armoured Regt AIF (RNSW Lancers) Matilda II in action at Balikpapan, July 1945, shown clearing a former Japanese-held Royal Dutch Shell oil refinery complex.
Oil Refinery Balikpapan OBOE 2 Australian Matilda tank ‘B Sqn 1st Armoured Regiment AWM 110916
The Museum will be holding a display on Sunday, 6th July, in Lancer Barracks to commemorate the Balikpapan anniversary. All are welcome. If you are in the area…
Warship Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023: The Duel of the Deputado and the Knight
Above we see the humble ocean patrol boat (patrulhas de alto mar) Augusto de Castilho of the Portuguese Navy around 1918. If she looks a lot like a cod trawler with a couple of pop guns bolted on as an afterthought, you are correct.
However, her crew was filled with lions, and led by a lawmaker, she foiled one of the Kaiser’s best, some 105 years ago this week.
The Marina do Portugal in the Great War
When the lights went out across Europe in August 1914, Portugal had a decent modern fleetโฆplanned. This included a naval program with a pair of British-built 20,000-ton dreadnoughts, three new cruisers to scout for them, a dozen new 820-ton destroyers to screen for them, and a half dozen new submarines to do underwater stuff.
What they had on hand was a bit different.
The force consisted of the circa 1875 coastal defense โbattleshipโ (cruzador-couraรงado) Vasco da Gama and five smallish cruisers (none newer than 1898). Exemplified by prior Warship Wednesday alum Adamastor (1757 tons, 2×6″, 4×4.7″, 2 tt, 18 kts), these cruisers were slow and slight, meant primarily to show the flag in the fading empire’s overseas African and Asian colonies. Augmenting these aging cruisers were a handful of destroyers, torpedo boats, colonial gunboats, and a single Italian Fiat-made submarine.
โNavios da Marinha de Guerra Portugueza no alto โMar 1903 by Alfredo Roque Gamerio, showing the revamped fleet with the โcruzadorsโ Vasco da Gama, Don Carlos I, Sรฃo Rafael, Amelia, and Adamastor to the far right. Note the black hulls and buff stacks/masts. The fact that these ships were all ordered from British, French, and Italian yards at the same time had to have made for some awkward fleet operations, not to mention logistics and training issues.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese merchant fleet, consisting of 66 steamers (totaling 70,000 tons) and 259 sailing ships (totaling another 44,000 tons), needed protecting in the event of a modern anti-commerce U-boat war while offering few vessels ideal to convert to auxiliary cruisers and escorts.
While German and Portuguese colonial troops in Africa were soon fighting each other, and Portugal interned over 30 German and Austrian merchant ships trapped in its ports in 1914– saving them from British and French capture– the three countries did not officially exchange declarations of war until March 1916. That does not mean that little Portugal’s steamers and sailing ships were safe by any means.
The first Portuguese-flagged merchant lost to the conflict was the 248-ton 3-masted schooner Douro sunk off the Wolf Lighthouse in the Scilly Islands on 3 April 1915 (although some sources report the 1,633-ton steamer Mira was sunk on 24 November 1914). In all, no less than 89 Portuguese merchant vessels were lost during the war.
This sets the stage for our story.
Meet Augusto de Castilho
The Bensaรบde-owned four-masted fishing schooner Argus, which ranged from the Azores to the Grand Banks searching for cod along with near sisters Creoula and Hortense. Working these vessels the old way was hard, using small dories that would run lines as long as 20 hours a day and return home to Sapal do Rio Coina in Portugal with cod loaded to the gunnels. The Bensaรบde family harvested fish this way going back to the 1820s and by 1909 were looking to change.
Our subject was ordered by the firm of Parceria Geral de Pescarias, Lda. (PGP. trans: General Fisheries Partnership), Lisbon, a commercial fishing enterprise founded in 1891 and run largely by the Bensaรบde family. Chiefly operating in the Azores, PGP in the early 1900s embarked on a move to modernize its operations by ordering steel-hulled ships for its fleet and beginning the use of artificial drying for cod harvesting.
The company’s first steel-hull steam trawler designed for cod, named the Elite, was ordered from Cochrane & Sons, Selby in Yorkshire as Yard No 453. Launched on 22 April 1909, she was delivered to PGP that same July.
Lloyds lists her as a steel-hulled steam trawler of some 487 tons with an overall length of 160 feet, a beam of 27 and a draft of just over 14. She had an Amos & Smith triple expansion steam engine that could generate 117 nhp on a single shaft, good for 12 knots. Deeply framed, she had electric lighting and a steam-powered hoist.
I cannot find an image of Elite in her PGP days. This is probably because they were brief as she was requisitioned by the Portuguese navy on 13 June 1916, three months after Lisbon, Berlin and Vienna exchanged official declarations of war.
War!
The Portuguese navy requisitioned eleven large trawlers and used eight of these as minesweepers (caรงa-minas) while three (Repรบblica, Almirante Paรงo DโArcos, and Augusto de Castilho) were equipped for both patrol and sweeping.
Elite entered service soon after as Augusto de Castilho, after Admiral Augusto Vidal de Castilho Barreto e Noronha, who capped a 49-year career in 1908 by becoming minister of the navy and overseas possessions (Ministรฉrio da Marinha e Ultramar) before passing in 1912 at age 71. He was also the brother of noted journalist and writer Julio de Castilho, and son of scholar Antรณnio Feliciano de Castilho, known for developing the Castilho Method of teaching.
ADM Augusto de Castilho (1841-1912)
The fishing vessel’s transformation to a warship simply saw her land her fishing gear, add a paravane that could be used for mechanical minesweeping through the assistance of her existing blocks and hoist, and then mounted a 47mm/40 M1885 QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss over her stern. Later a French-made 65mm/50 M1891 Schneider 9-pounder was installed forward.
So converted and manned by a 41-member crew (nominally two officers, 3 NCOs, 36 enlisted), she reported a top speed of just 9 knots.
Her first skipper, LT Augusto de Almeida Teixeira, while escorting the steamer Loanda between Lisbon and Funchal on 23 March 1918, reportedly opened fire on a German U-boat which immediately dived.
Her next skipper also had a brush with an enemy submarine, with 1LT (Primeiro-tenente) Fernando de Oliveira Pinto, on 21 August 1918, opening fire on a U-boat on the surface off Cape Raso.
Augusto de Castilho’s third skipper, 1LT Josรฉ Botelho de Carvalho Araรบjo, assumed command of our little minesweeper in late September 1918. The 37-year-old career naval officer joined the naval academy as a midshipman in 1899 and had served in most of its surface ships including the old ironclad Vasco da Gama, the cruisers Adamastor and Sรฃo Rafael, the gunboats Zambeze, Liberal, Diu, and Lรบrio; the tug Bรฉrrio, and on the transport Salvador Correia.
He was also a political creature, having taken part in the Navy-led revolutions in 1908 and 1910, was elected as a deputado to the Assembleia Constituinte to form the Portuguese Republic in 1911, and again to represent the city of Penafiel in the Portuguese Congress of 1915.
Carvalho Araรบjo was also appointed a district governor in Mozambique for 18 months, the latter a common task for promising naval officers as at the time the colonies were under the administration of the navy. For campaigning against the Germans in Africa in 1914-15, he earned the Medalha Militar de Prata.
Araujo’s last command before joining the crew of Augusto de Castilho was the minesweeper Manuel de Azevedo Gomes, who detected and destroyed four German mines near the Lisbon bar in early September 1916.
Araujo onboard Augusto de Castilho. The only other officers assigned to the vessel in October were three midshipmen– Manuel Armando Ferraz, Samuel da Conceiรงรฃo Vieira, and Carlos Elรณi da Mota Freitas. The crew was fleshed out by six NCOs, a telegraphist, a cook, a corpsman, four teenage cabin boys, and 38 assorted enlisted ratings and sailors, many of whom were recent enlistments.
Although the war was winding down in October 1918, with the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet in near-mutiny, his Army in France on the verge of catastrophe, the Bulgars quitting the conflict, and the Austrians and Ottomans planning on doing so themselves, the U-boat arm was still very much in the game and Germany’s greatest submarine ace was on the prowl.
The new cruiser submarine, SM U-139, unofficially named Kapitรคnleutnant Schwieger by her skipper, the aristocratic Kptlt. Lothar von Arnauld de la Periรจre, was on its first war patrol. Make no mistake that it was a green crew or skipper, however, as Arnauld de la Periรจre had made 14 patrols in the smaller SM U-35, sinking a staggering 189 merchant vessels and two gunboats for a total of 446,708 GRT before he took the helm of U-139, earning the EK1, EK2, and the coveted “Blue Max” Pour le Mรฉrite in the process.
U-139 claimed her first kills with the sinking of the 3,309-ton British steamer Bylands, and the 2,691-ton Italian freighter Manin, then damaging the RN boarding steamer HMS Perth, on the first day of October off Cape Vilano while haunting convoy HG109. The next day, she sank the 300-ton Portuguese three-master Rio Cavado via naval gunfire some 290 miles off Cape Prior. Arnauld de la Periรจre was very much a fan of using his deck guns rather than spending a torpedo and took most of his targets in such a manner.
Then, on 14 October, U-139, some 100 miles SW of the Azores, came across a juicy target, the Dixon-built 3,200-ton mixed cargo/passenger paquete liner San Miguel of Portugal’s Empresa Insulana de Navegaรงรฃo (EIN) line.
San Miguel in her peacetime livery. In 1918 she was clad in a mottled zigzag camouflage.
With accommodations for 135 passengers, San Miguel was overloaded with 206 souls in addition to her crew and, with a top speed not exceeding 12 knots, had little chance of outrunning a U-boat.
Sailing from Funchal to Ponta Delgada, San Miguel had the benefit of an escort– our Augusto de Castilho, capable of a blistering 9 knots. Placing his craft between U-139 and the liner, Carvalho Araรบjo and Arnauld de la Periรจre fought a two-hour surface gunnery duel as San Miguel lit her boilers red and made for the horizon, escaping undamaged.
With the much larger and better-armed U-boat– carrying a pair of 5.9-inch SK L/45 deck guns– versus the converted fishing boat’s lighter guns, the contest was never in any doubt. In the end, the battered Augusto de Castilho, ammunition exhausted, her telegraph and engine out of action, her wheelhouse peppered, her skipper and five men killed, along with another 20 men injured, struck her flag on the order of the wounded Midshipman Armando Ferraz.
Ever the old-school gentleman raider, Arnauld de la Periรจre allowed the crew of the surrendered vessel who had jumped ship to return to their vessel and stock two whaleboats with rations, a sextant, a compass, and charts.
The crew of U-139 captured images of the aftermath of the battle.
He then sent over a scuttling crew who found Carvalho Araรบjo on deck, the ship’s ensign covering his broken body, and sent the Portuguese man-o-war to the bottom with demolition charges.
Both whaleboats eventually made shore, with the larger, carrying 37 survivors, arriving at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores two days later with all but one still alive while the second craft with 12 survivors washed up on the more distant island of Sรฃo Miguel the next week, having traveled 200 miles via paddle.
Arnauld de la Periรจre and his U-139 closed their final tally sheet with the sinking of Carvalho Araujo. Returning to Germany, U-139 surrendered to France on 24 November and post-Versailles became the French submarine Halbronn.
Lothar von Arnauld de la Periรจre survived the war, was retained in the Weimar-era Reichsmarine, taught at the Turkish Naval Academy for several years in the early 1930s, and went on to become a vizeadmiral in the WWII Kriegsmarine before perishing in a plane crash in 1941, aged 54. His record [195 ships sunk (455,871 tons) and 8 ships damaged (34,312 tons)] is unsurpassed, but his chance to add San Miguel to that list was spoiled.
1LT Carvalho Araujo was posthumously promoted to Capitรฃo-Tenente and awarded the Cruz de Guerra de 1.ยช Classe and the Ordem Militar da Torre e Espada, do Valor, Lealdade e Mรฉrito.
Epilogue
Notably, the only other Portuguese warship sunk in the Great War besides Augusto de Castilho was NRP Roberto Iven, which was the PGB-owned fishing trawler Lordelo, lost in July 1917 between Cabo da Roca and Cabo Espichel to a mine laid by the German submarine UC-54.
As for PGB and the Bensaรบde Group, the original owner of our tough little fishing vessel, they remained in the cod business until 1999 then transferred their archives to the รlhavo Maritime Museum after they closed up shop. The yard that constructed Augusto de Castilho, Cochrane & Sons, faded into history in 1993 and was Selby’s last shipbuilder. The yard’s plans and files are preserved in the North Yorkshire County Record Office.
Augusto Castilho‘s fight with U-139 is remembered across Portugal in a series of maritime artworks.
Mural in the Museu de Marinha
SM U-cruiser U 139 in a battle with a Portuguese gunboat in October 1918. After a 2 hour battle, NRP Augusto Castilho
Combate do Augusto de Castilho com o U-139. Quadro de F. Namura. Museu de Marinha Portugal RM2572-506
Combate do Augusto Castilho by Elisa Felismino in the Museu de Marinha, showing the death of her skipper
Mural in the Museu de Marinha
In 1970, a corvette, NRP Augusto Castilho (F484) entered service to continue the name. She remained on active duty until 2003 and was disposed of in 2010.
BCM-Arquivo Histรณrico, corvette Augusto Castilho in Lisbon, April 25, 1999 BCM-AH_APEGM_12_41
As for the heroic lost naval hero Carvalho Araรบjo, streets in no less than 34 Portuguese municipalities bear his name while a bronze statue sculpted by Artur Anjos Teixeira was installed in Vila Real in 1931 and is frequently rendered military honors.
The statue of Carvalho Araรบjo has its hands clenched defiantly.
The EIN line, whose SS San Miguel survived the war and continued to operate until 1930, replaced her with a new 4,568 GRT Italian-built packet liner named SS Carvalho Araรบjo.
She continued to sail into the 1970s, and, fittingly for her namesake, often carried Portuguese troops back and forth to Africa.
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.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.
Photograph from the William H. Topley Collection. Courtesy of Mr. Charles M. Loring, Napa, California, 1969. Catalog #: NH 68678
Next, we see the unique USS Ranger (CV-4), the first American aircraft carrier built from the keel-up Entering Hunter’s Point drydock, San Francisco, California, on 2 March 1937.
Note .50 caliber AA machine guns (uncovered) along the flight deck, forward. Note also” 5″ guns and saluting guns at the bow (port and starboard). At the time, she was the first carrier to be docked with planes aboard. NH 51826
Finally, we have the Forrestal-class supercarrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) passing under the San Francisco Bay Bridge on her return to the States on 17 June 1971.
This is from the 1970โ71 Cruise Book. Via Navsource/ John Slaughter, Webmaster USS Ranger History & Memorial site
Called a skalomniscope by American sub wonk Simon Lake, the periscope of sorts was first invented in 1854 by a French guy by the name of Marie Davey, submersibles have had various “sight tubes” ever since. While early boats had a single short scope attached directly to the (single) top hatch (!) by the 1930s it was common for large fleet submarines to have multiple search and attack periscopes in the sail.
Over the years, these devices in U.S. parlance led to the term “periscope liberty” which denoted side use in observing peacetime beaches and pleasure craft with bikini-clad femmes at play and, of course, the old-school “Rig for red” use of red lighting for those who would use the scopes while the boat was at periscope depth at night or was preparing to go topside should the boat to surface in the o-dark-o’clock hours.
Here are some of the cooler periscope shots in the NHHC’s collection, among others.
The eye of the submarine periscope, Gallagher card.
Aircraft carrier Taiho, seen through the periscope of submarine USS Albacore
Japanese destroyer ‘Harusame’, photographed through the periscope of USS Wahoo (SS-238) after she had been torpedoed by the submarine near Wewak, New Guinea, on 24 January 1943
Japanese armed trawler seen through the periscope of USS Albacore (SS-218) during her tenth war patrol. Photo received 17 November 1944 NHHC 80-286279
80-G-13550 Guardfish periscope
Submarine officer sights through a periscope in the submarine’s control room, during training exercises at the Submarine Base, New London, Groton, Connecticut, in August 1943 80-G-K-16013
Periscope death of the destroyer Tade, (1922) Montage of eight photos showing her sinking after being torpedoed by USS Seawolf (SS-197) on 23 April 1943 NH 58329
Shoreline of Makin Island, photographed through a periscope of USS Nautilus (SS-168) on 16 August 1942, the day before U.S. Marine raiders were landed 80-G-11720
Periscope photograph taken from USS Seawolf (SS-197), while she was on patrol in the Philippines-East Indies area in the fall of 1942. 80-G-33184
Periscope photograph made PUFFER SS-268 freighter Teiko Maru (ex-Vichy French steamship D’Artagnan 1943. Torpedo is shown hitting NH 68784
USS Barb 1944 “fiendish antisubmarine weapon bird” blocking Lucky Fluckey’s view on approach. He reportedly sank the Japanese ship with his observation periscope
In January of 1951, the recently GUPPYโd USS Catfish slipped into San Francisco Bay underwater and remained in the harbor for three days taking photos of the Bay Area through their periscope in daylight as part of an authorized mission to see if they could do it with a minimum of civilian reaction. The mission was successful to a degree, as no one called SFPD or the military, as reported by the San Fran Chronicle.
Sighting the target submarine periscope by Georges Schreiber, Navy Art Collection 88-159-ji
USS JOHN HOOD (DD-655) and USS SNOWDEN (DE-246) photographed through a submarine periscope, while underway 1950s USN 1042008
View from the HALIBUTโs periscope of the March 1960 launch of the Regulus missile.
USS Seadragon (SSN 584) crewmembers explore ice pack in the Arctic Ocean through the periscope
President John F. Kennedy through the periscope aboard USS THOMAS EDISON (SSBN-610) 14 April 1962 USN 1112056-F
USS New Jersey (BB-62) seen through the periscope of USS La Jolla SSN-701
Bohol Strait USS Triton spies a local fisherman on April 1 1960
Key West submarines USS Sea Poacher, USS Grenadier, and USS Threadfin wind their way up the Mississippi River toward New Orleans, as seen through the periscope of USS Tirante, Mardi Gras 1963
Periscope view as Captain G.P. Steele searches for an opening in the ice through which to surface, September 1960 USS Sea Dragon SSN-584 USN 1050054
USS Cowpens through the periscope of the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Salt Lake City (SSN 716), Western Pacific, September 1994.
Many modern submarines, including the U.S. Virginia and RN’s Astute class, no longer use traditional periscopes, having long since ditched them in favor of modern telescoping digital optronics masts housing numerous camera and sensor systems with the Navy’s current standard being the AN/BVS-1 photonics mast.
Astute class CM10 Optronic Masts from Thales. periscope
GROTON, Conn. (Dec. 20, 2019) Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) stand topside as they pull into their homeport at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn., Dec 20, 2019, following a deployment. Minnesota deployed to execute the chief of naval operationโs maritime strategy in supporting national security interests and maritime security operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Steven Hoskins/Released)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Warship Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020: The Empire Strikes Back
National Archives 80-G-703401
Here we see Balao-class fleet submarine USS Atule (SS-403), left, torpedoing ex-U-977 during weapon tests off Cape Cod, 14 November 1946. The (in)famous German boat was far from Atule’s only kill, although it was likely her easiest. However, in the end, she would meet a somewhat ironic fate that had, some contend, an aspect of divine intervention.
A member of the 180+-ship Balaoย class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlierย Gato-class. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balaoย class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than theย Gatoย class (300 foot) due to the use of high yield strength steel in the pressure hull.
Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
Some 311-feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for todayโs inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.
An amazing 121ย Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:
Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)
We have covered a number of this class before, such as the sub-killing USS Greenfish, rocket mail slinger USS Barbero, the carrier-slaying USS Archerfish,ย the long-servingย USS Catfish,ย and the frogman Cadillacย USS Perchย โbut donโt complain, they have lots of great stories.
The first (and only) U.S. warship named for the bluish-olive colored fish, Atule (SS-403) was laid down 25 November 1943 at Portsmouth; launched on 6 March 1944; and commissioned on 21 June 1944, LCDR (later RADM) John Howard Maurer (USNA 1935) in command. Maurer would be Atule’s only wartime skipper, coming to the new boat from a stint as Engineer Officer and later XO of USS Harder (SS-257) across three successful patrols that saw him receive the Silver Star.
Launch of USS Atule at the Portsmouth Navy Yard 3.6.44. NARA
Following a rushed wartime shakedown cruise and fortnight at the sonar school at Key West, Atule was soon off to the Pacific, leaving Pearl Harbor on her first patrol in company with sisterships USS Pintado (SS-387) and USS Jallao (SS-368) as a Yankee wolfpack on 9 October under the latter subโs skipperโs nominal tactical control.
Aerial photo USS Atule (SS-403) 15 August 1944. Note she is just wearing her 5″/25 aft and two M2s on her sail, an armament that would soon be augmented with a 40mm and a 20mm. NARA 80-G-313787
Heading for patrol areas in the Luzon Strait and the South China Sea, partner Jallao bagged the Japanese Kuma-class light cruiser Tama (5,200 tons) on 25 October northeast of Luzon.
On Halloween night, it was Atule’s turn and she bagged a big one, stalking a large Japanese surface contact in a night surface radar attack and into All Saints Day.
0305 hours – In position 19ยฐ59’N, 117ยฐ25’E obtained radar contact bearing 225ยฐ, range 26000 yards. Started tracking.
0325 hours – Obtained radar contact on escort vessel.
0331 hours – Obtained radar contact on a second escort vessel.
0359 hours – Started attack, during the approach a third escort was sighted.
0432 hours – In position 20ยฐ09’N, 117ยฐ38’E commenced firing six torpedoes from 1850 yards. The target was a large passenger liner. Two torpedoes were seen to broach and then disappear.
0434 hours – A terrific explosion threw material three times the height of the targetโs masts. Range to one of the escorts was only 1200 yards. Decided to dive. When clearing the bridge, a second torpedo hit the target. Atule dived to 450 feet.
0440 hours – 9 depth charges were dropped but they were not close.
0445 hours – Heard very loud and crackling breaking up noises on the bearing of the target.
Asama Maru was a beautiful ship that in her peacetime service had such personalities as Baron Nishi Takeichi, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Hellen Keller grace her decks. In wartime, she repatriated U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Grew and hundreds of American diplomats and their families back to the West before serving as a shuttle carrying up to 5,000 of the Emperor’s troops at a time to the front lines while hauling Allied POWs back on “hell ship” missions back to the Home Islands. While a troopship, she was armed with depth charges, listening gear, 8cm deck guns, and an assortment of AAA mounts.
Asama Maru and her sisters were literally page no. 1 in ONI 208J “Japanese Merchant Vessels,” hinting at how big a prize she was for American sub skippers.
When Atule found her, Asama Maru was carrying a mix of 1,383 military personnel, civilian employees for the military, and survivors from sunken Japanese merchant ships as well as 170 tons of iron scrap, 80 tons of hemp, 80 tons of raw rubber, and other items. As noted by Combined Fleets, “98 of 201 crew, 21 of 266 gunners and armed guards and 355 of 1,383 military personnel and passengers are KIA. Survivors are rescued by the three escort vessels.”
On 20 November, Atule drew blood once again, sinking the Japanese minesweeper W-38 (648 tons).
Just five days later, Atule haunted Japanese convoy MATA-34 just after midnight on 25 November, with six overlapping torpedoes from her bow tubes reaping the freighter-turned-sub tender Manju Maru/Santos Maru (7,266 GRT)ย and the escort patrol boat No.38 (935 tons)in the same salvo. Santos Maru was carrying 2,400 troops and sailors including 430 survivors of the battleship Musashi. In the end, she took almost a third of those men to the bottom with her. As for No.38, it “disintegrated.”
Finally, Atule bagged a 4,000-ton freighter on 27 November, anchored between Dequey and Ibuhos Islands, Philippines. โFired four bow torpedoes,โ said her patrol report. The rest of the report was eloquent if terrifying:
Via NARA
Postwar, Atule was not given credit for the almost certain kill, although Nanko Maru No. 6, which went missing at about the same time, seems a good fit.
Wrapping up her first patrol at Majuro on 11 December, which ran 63 days/16,570 nm with a green crew (53 of 77 men were on their first patrol) and expended 22 Mk 18 torpedoes for 11 hits, Atule claimed five ships for a total of 26,600 tons. Postwar, this would be confirmed at four ships and 25,804, which is fairly close to the estimate tonnage-wise.
Atule shipped from Majuro on her second war patrol on 6 January 1945, bound for the Yellow Sea. There, she sent the brand-new freighter Daiman Maru No.1 (6888 GRT) to the bottom on 24 January, having to break ice off her deck gun in the process. Not as exciting as her inaugural cruise, she ended her 2nd war patrol at Midway on 7 March.
Her third patrol left out of Midway on 2 April, tasked with lifeguard duties off the Japanese Home Islands which were under constant attack by Navy and USAAF planes (U.S. submarines rescued 504 downed airmen– to include future President George Bush–ย during WWII lifeguard duty), with her crew often taking the time to sink floating mines and wreckage found in her operational area and (unsuccessfully) stalk an elusive Japanese submarine near the Ashizuri lighthouse.
In a twist of irony– she would have many in her career– the only aviator she would rescue was a Japanese naval observer on 5 May. The observer was retrieved from the water from a downed Jake, which had been smoked by a passing B-29 gunner with spotting provided by the sub.
“A thick wad of currency, a vial of perfume and several condoms showed he was ready for any eventuality.” (NARA)
Putting into Pearl Harbor on 30 May, she had some downtime to train and resupply, then left on her fourth patrol on 3 July– no Independence Day leave in Honolulu for them– bound once again for Japan’s front yard. On that cruise, in a night action across 12/13 August, she spotted two Japanese frigates, Kaibokan 6 and Kaibokan 16(both 740 tons), sinking the former and damaging the latter with a brace of six torpedoes.
And that was it, the ceasefire was called on the 15th when Emperor Hirohito announced that his country would accept unconditional surrender. With that, she was ordered to terminate her patrol on the 45th day by COMSUBPAC and return to Pearl via Midway, arriving in Hawaii on the 25th.
By the end of August, even before the official surrender, she was headed to New London.
Reaching the East Coast, Atule was assigned to Submarine Squadron 2 and was used as a training and trial boat. In this role, she traveled to the Arctic in July 1946 as part of Operation Nanook in company with the icebreaker USS Northwind (WAG-282), two auxiliaries, and the seaplane tender USS Norton Sound, the latter embarking PBM flying boats.
Atule off the northwest coast of Greenland, on 20 July 1946, during Operation Nanook. Note that she has her full AAA armament on her sail. 80-G-636420
It was on this frozen trip along the coast of Greenland that she “reached latitude 79 degrees 11 minutes north in the Kane Basin, setting a record for the United States Navy,” and rescued a PBM that had to put down with engine trouble.
U-977 lies in in Mar del Plata, Argentina; rusty and weather beaten after 108 days at sea – Photograph courtesy of Carlos J. Mey – Administrator of the Historia y Arqueologia Marรญtima website http://www.histarmar.com.ar/ via U-boat Archive
In the end, turned over to the U.S. Navy and towed to Boston for a photoex, Atule sent her to the bottom in the test of a prototype steam-powered torpedo off Massachusetts.
View showing torpedoing of U-977 by ATULE (SS403) on 13 November 1946. As noted by the Navy: The pressure hull of U-977 has apparently been completely severed by the detonation and that the forward and after portions of the hull have jack-knifed. U-977 was a standard German Type VII-C design: length 220′-2″; maximum beam 20′-4″; diameter of pressure hull 15′-5″; pressure hull plating thickness .73″; and submerged displacement 880 tons. The torpedo used by ATULE was a Mark 14 body fitted with a Mark 16, Mod. 4 magnetic proximity-fuzed warhead containing 660 lbs. of Torpex and is believed to have detonated almost directly underneath the keel of U-977. This photograph demonstrates the great destructive power of torpedoes when used against unprotected ships such as submarines.
Her wartime service complete, on 8 September 1947, she was placed out of commission, in reserve, with the New London Group of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Atule earned four battle stars for World War II service.
Her confirmed WWII tonnage tally stood at 33,379
Atule’s WWII battle flag eventually found its way to the USS Bowfin Museum in Pearl Harbor, where it remains on display today. Note the 51 mines zapped, the rescued Japanese flier chit, and four Rising Suns (Kyokujitsu-ki) and four Hinomaru flags for the eight ships she claimed sunk or damaged
As for Maurer, who earned the Navy Cross on Atule, he went on to hold two surface commands, including the cruiser USS Saint Paul, and be both COMSUBPAC and COMSUBLANT. His final assignment was as Commander of Naval Forces in Key West, retiring from the Navy in 1974.
When it comes to Atule’s sisters, of the schools of Balaos which were commissioned, 10 were lost in the war during operations while another 62 were canceled on the builders’ ways as the conflict ended. In 1946, the Navy was left with 120 units.
Jane’s entry on the Balao class, 1946
Rebirth
After three years on red lead row, Atule was towed to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard– her birthplace– for reactivation and conversion to a Guppy 1-A type submarine.
Of the 48 GUPPY’d WWII diesel boats that were given a second life in the Cold War, Atule was one of the first 10 IA series boats which recieved the most basic reboot when compared to the other Balaos and Tenches modified later.
Outfitted with a German-style snorkel not too different from the one the Navy inspected on U-977, and a streamlined superstructure sans deck guns, Atule rejoined the fleet a stronger, more versatile warship, recommissioned 8 March 1951.
For the next 19 years, she led a quiet life, participating in operations with Latin American allies in a series of UNITAS exercises, working with NATO allies on Mediterranean deployments as part of the 6th Fleet, visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras, training naval reservists, and, as part of SUBRON12, alternated duty at Key West with service at Guantanamo Bay supporting ASW training for the destroyer force while keeping an eye on Castro.
Reclassified AGSS-403 on 1 October 1969, Atule was decommissioned on 6 April 1970, and her name was struck from the Navy list on 15 August 1973.
In all, she had spent 29 years on the Naval List, with nearly 24 of those on active duty. Not a bad return to Uncle Sam for the $7,000,000 original cost to build her.
The GUPPY-1A entry from the 1973 Jane’s, listing Atule and the last four of her type in U.S. Navy service, USS Sea Poacher, USS Becuna, USS Blenny, and USS Tench, then in reserve.
Points South
Ex-Atule was sold to Peru in July 1974, and renamed BAP Pacocha (S 48), duplicating the name of an earlier boat used by the Marina de Guerra del Perรบ. She was sent south in tandem with BAP Pabellรณn de Pica/La Pedrera (SS-49), ex-USS Sea Poacher (SS/AGSS-406) after a refit. Atule/Pacocha was commissioned on 28 May 1974 into the MGP, where she continued her quiet life of training and exercises over the course of the next 14 years. Then came disaster.
On the evening of 26 August 1988, with a reduced crew of 49 men aboard, the 44-year-old submarine was operating on the surface with her hatches open when, just off the port of Callao, a 412-ton Japanese fishing trawler with a reinforced ice-breaking prow collided into her aft port quarter, opening her like a tin can with a 2 meter by 10 centimeters split in the pressure hull. Pacocha didn’t even have time to sound her collision alarm.
Via U.S. Navy Submarine Medical Research Labratory Special Report SP89-1
It was almost as if the ghosts of the Asama Maru, Santos Maru, and others, had returned as wraiths and exacted retribution for the Atule’s past actions.
Nonetheless, the Peruvians had a spirit of their own, it seems.
With the boat taking on water and three men dead, including the skipper, 23 submariners were able to scramble off the submarine before she raced for the bottom of the Pacific some 140 feet down. As the boat was drowning, Teniente Roger Cotrina Alvarado was somehow able to dog a partially flooded hatch to compartmentalize the sub’s forward torpedo room with 21 other survivors, a feat he chalked up to the help of Marija of Jesus Crucified Petkoviฤ, a Croatian nun who had traveled extensively through Latin America helping the poor and sick.
A 61-page U.S. Navy report on the resulting rescue, compiled in 1989 through first-hand interviews, is fascinating but somewhat outside the scope of this. Suffice it to say, rescue divers were able to use the escape trunk in the forward torpedo room to retrieve the remainder of the crew 23 hours later in six groups, utilising Mark V dive lines.
Naturally, after spending almost a full day 140 feet down in a compromised atmosphere and making a swim to the surface with only the assistance of a rescue hood, most suffered from the bends, but in the end, only one perished.
As for Alvarado, a documentary was made of his efforts and his personal beliefs on the source of his “humanly impossible” strength that day.
Some 11 months after Atule/Pacocha hit the bottom, she surfaced again following 800 hours of work by Peruvian Navy salvage crews, raised on 23 July 1989.
Towed ashore and drydocked, she was studied for the effects of the ramming and sinking, then her hulk was cannibalized for spare parts for other Peruvian submarines.
Eight Balao-class submarines are preserved (for now) as museum ships across the country.
Please visit one of these fine ships and keep the legacy alive:
-USS Batfish (SS-310)ย at War Memorial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
โUSS Becuna (SS-319)ย at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
โUSS Bowfin (SS-287)ย at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Honolulu, Hawaii.
โUSS Clamagore (SS-343)ย at Patriotโs Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. (Which may not be there much longer)
โUSS Ling (SS-297) at New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack, New Jersey. (Which is hopefully in the process of being saved and moved to Kentucky)
โUSS Lionfish (SS-298)ย at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. -USS Pampanito (SS-383)ย at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California, (which played the part of the fictionalย USS Stingrayย in the movieย Down Periscope).
โUSS Razorback (SS-394)ย at Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Specs: (1944)
Displacement: 1,526 tons (surfaced), 2,391 (submerged)
Length: 311.7 ft.
Beam: 27 ft.
Draft: 13.75 ft.
Machinery: Fairbanks Morse diesel engines, 5,400 HP, fuel capacity, 116,000 gals.; four Elliot Motor Co. electric main motors 2,740 shp, two 126-cell main storage batteries, 2 shafts
Speed: 20.25 kts. (surfaced) 8.75 kts. (submerged)
Endurance: 11,000 miles surfaced at 10 knots; submerged endurance: 48 hours at 2 knots; 75 days
Test Depth: 412 ft.
Complement: 6 officers, 60 enlisted
Radar: SJ
Armament:
1 5″/25cal deckgun, 25 rounds
1 40mm/60 Bofors AAA
1 20mm/80 Oerlikon AAA
2 M2 .50-cal machine guns
10 21-inch torpedo tubes (6 forward, 4 aft), 24 torpedoes (Post GUPPY 1A)
Displacement: 1,870 tons standard (surfaced), 2,440 (submerged)
Length: 308.
Beam: 27 ft.
Draft: 17
Machinery: 3 Diesels; 4,800 bhp. 2 Electric motors; 5,400 shp, 2 shafts
Speed: 17 kts (Surfaced) 15 kts. (Submerged)
Endurance: 90 days
Complement: 8 officers, 73 men
Armament:
10 21-inch torpedo tubes (6 forward, 4 aft) 24 torpedoes
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Earlier this month, the Chief of Staff of the French Navy, Admiral Christophe Prazuck announced the that the names of the nine French Marine units, the Fusiliers Marins et Commandos Marins, will moving forward be tied to historic officers of the names of key heroes from the Free French 1er BFM/BFMC (aka Commando Kieffer) and 1er RFM (Rรฉgiment de Fusiliers Marins).
Raised from volunteers abroad and members of the French Navy who ended their 1940 war in British ports– many from the old battleships Paris and Courbet— the brand-new Forces Navales Franรงaises Libres (Free French Naval Forces) forces under Admiral Emile Muselier, allied with then-renegade Maj Gen. Charles de Gaulle formed these commandos along British lines.
Taking part in the Dieppe Raid in August 1942, they landed in force at D-Day and continued on to the Alps, earning more than 200 Croix de Guerre and 32 Lรฉgion d’Honneur.
While elite frogmen units such as Commando Hubert have the names of famous (posthumously) officers who have led them, up until this month, the modern French marines had unit names such as the uninspired but descriptive details such as the Groupe des Marines de l’Atlantique (Atlantic Marines Group). Now, the Groupe des Marines de l’Atlantique, for example, is the Amyot d’Inville Marines Battalion, named after French navy CDR Amyot D’Inville who commanded the Free French Marines at Bir Hakeim and was killed on the Continent in 1944.
Warship Wednesday, Oct 16, 2019: The Everlasting VDG
“Photo by Simmonds, Portsmouth,” USN NH 94220
Here we see the coastal defense “battleship” (cruzador-couraรงado) Vasco da Gama of the Royal Portuguese Navy, June 1895, at the opening of the Kiel Canal, with a German Sachsen-class pre-dreadnought to the right. Da Gama is the only unit of the Portuguese Navy to be described as a capital ship and she outlasted most of her contemporaries, remaining the most powerful vessel in Lisbon’s fleet for six decades.
While Portugal’s naval needs were primarily colonial in the late 19th Century, which was satisfied by a series of lightly armed frigates and sloops, something more regal was needed for sitting around the capital and spending time showing the flag in European ports. Enter VDG, the third such Portuguese naval ship named for the famous explorer, with the two previous vessels being 18th and 19th-century ships-of-war of 70- and 80-guns, respectively.
Built originally as a central battery casemate ironclad with a barquentine rig by Thames Iron Works, Blackwall, this English-designed warship first hit the waves in 1876– just over a decade removed from the Monitor and Merrimack. Originally mounting a pair of Krupp-made 10.35-inch (26cm RKL/20 C/74) black powder breechloader guns in a central raised battery, the 200-foot steamer carried a whopping 9 to 10 inches of iron plate in her side belt and shields. Her steam plant allowed a 10-knot speed, which was adequate for the era.
1888 Brassey’s layout via Wiki commons
Her 10.35-inch Krupp breechloaders, which could be oriented inside her gun house to fire through four different gun ports forward/aft and port/sbd via turntables and tracks. Image is an 1880 print published in the magazine, “O Occidente”
She was a nice-looking ship for her time and often appeared on goodwill voyages around the Med and even into the Baltic.
Portuguese hermaphrodite ironclad Vasco da Gama, with her canvas aloft, Illustrated London News, July 15, 1876
Couraรงado Vasco da Gama, in a print published in the magazine “O Occidente” in 1880
This included being one of the 165 vessels present among the 30 miles of wood, iron, and steel for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Spithead fleet review in 1897. VDG was in good company as the Royal Navy had on hand “53 iron-clads and armoured cruisers, 21 more than the nearest rival, France.”
Vasco da Gama, 1897 Spithead review, from a handout of the event published by The Graphic, which said “”Portugal sent the Vasco da Gama (Captain Bareto de Vascomellos), a small battleship of 2,479 tons, built at Blackwall in 1875. she is armed with two 10.2-inch guns and seven smaller guns.”
The Naval Review at Spithead, 26 June 1897, by Eduardo de Martino via the Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405260
In the mid-1890s, five modern warshipsโ largely paid for by public subscriptionโ were ordered to give VDG some backup. These ships, all smallish cruisers with long legs for colonial service, included the Rainha Dona Amรฉliaย (1683-tons, 4ร6-inch guns, built domestically),ย Dom Carlos Iย (4250-tons, 4ร6-inch, ordered from Armstrong Elswick),ย Sรฃo Gabrielย andย Sรฃo Rafael (1771-tons, 2ร6-inch guns, ordered from Normand Le Havre), and Warship Wednesday alum, Adamastor.
In 1902, with the newer ships on hand, VDG was taken offline and sent to Italy to Orlando where she was completely rebuilt in a move that saw her cut in half and lengthened by 32-feet, fitted with new engines, guns, and machinery. The effect was that, in a decade, Portugal had gone from one elderly ironclad to six relatively effective, if light, cruisers of which VDG was still the largest and remained the flagship of the Navy.
She emerged looking very different, having landed her sail rig, picked up a second stack, and been rearmed with a pair of 8″/39.9cal Pattern P EOC-made naval guns in sponsons. She even had her iron armor replaced by new Terni steel plate. Basically a new ship, her speed had increased and she was capable of 6,000 nm sorties, which enabled her to voyage to Africa in service of the crown, if needed.
Nave da battaglia Vasco Da Gama 1903 (AS Livorno, Archivio storico del Cantiere navale Luigi Orlando)
Navios da Marinha de Guerra Portugueza no alto mar 1903 by Alfredo Roque Gamerio, showing ‘cruzadors” Vasco da Gama, Don Carlos I, S Rafael, Amelia and Adamastor to the far right. Note the black hulls and buff stacks
It was envisioned that VGD would be replaced by two planned 20,000-ton modern battleships (!) on the eve of the Great War, however, that balloon never got enough air to get off the ground due to Portugal’s bankrupt state treasury. Therefore, she soldiered on.
Her 1914 Jane’s Listing.
It was after her refit that she saw a period of action, being involved in assorted revolutions and coup attempts in 1910, 1913 and, along with other Portuguese Navy vessels, in 1915 that included bombarding Lisbon and sending revolting sailors ashore.
Portuguese Bluejackets escorting a Royalist prisoner in Lisbon, Portugal, October 6, 1910. George C. Bain Collection
Vasco da Gama’s crew in the “Revolta de 14 de Maio de 1915” in Portugal
Nonetheless, during World War I, although Portugal was not involved in the fighting in Europe in the early days of the conflict, VDG escorted troop reinforcements to Portugal’s African colonies in Mozambique and Angola, where the country was allied with British and French efforts to rid the continent of German influence.
In February 1916, her crews helped seize 36 German and Austro-Hungarian ships holed up in Lisbon on the eve of Berlin’s declaration of war on the Iberian country. Once that occurred, she served in coastal defense roles, dodging some very active German U-boats in the process.
VASCO DA GAMA Portuguese Battleship 1915-20, probably at Lisbon, note the Douro class destroyer, NH 93621
Via Ilustracao Portuguesa: Commander Leote do Rego and the French naval attachรฉ on Vasco da Gama 1916, posing with a deck gun which looks to be her 6″/45cal EOC
Once her only shooting war had ended without her actually firing a shot in anger, VGD still served as a ship of state and carried the commanding admiral’s flag.
Via Ilustracao Portuguesa Vasco da Gama tour by Spanish King Alfonso XIII 1922
Finally, in 1935, she was retired and scrapped along with the other five 19th century cruisers than remained. These vessels were all replaced en mass by a shipbuilding program that saw 5 Vouga-class destroyers ordered from Vickers along with a trio of small submarines and six sloops. This replacement fleet would serve the country’s seagoing needs well into the 1960s.
While her hull was broken, VDG’s 1902-era British-made guns were removed and reinstalled in 1936 in a series of coastal defense batteries at Monte da Guia, Espalamaca, Horta Bay and Faial Island in the strategically-located Azores, which remained active through WWII, and then kept ready as a wartime reserve until at least 1970. Some of those emplacements are still relatively preserved.
Further, Vasco da Gama is remembered by maritime art.
Cruzador Couraรงado Vasco da Gama. Aguarela de Fernando Lemos Gomes. Museu de Marinha RM2572-492
Portuguese ironclad Vasco da Gama (1876), Maritime Museum, Lisbon.
Her name was reissued to a British Bay-class frigate, ex-HMS Mounts Bay, in 1961 which went on to serve as F478 into the 1970s and then to a MEKO 200 type frigate (F330) commissioned in 1991.
Specs: (As built)
Displacement:2,384 t (2,346 long tons; 2,628 short tons)
Length: 200 ft pp
Beam: 40 ft
Draft: 19 ft
Installed power: 3,000 ihp
Sail plan: Barquentine rig
Speed: 10.3 knots
Complement: 232 men
Armor:
Belt: 9 in (230 mm), iron plate
Battery: 10 in (250 mm)
Armament:
2 ร Krupp 10.35″/18cal 26cm RKL/20 C/74
1 ร Krupp 15cm RKL/25 C/75
4 ร 9-pounder guns (1914)
Displacement: 3200 tons, full load
Length: 234 ft.
Beam: 40 ft
Draft: 18 ft
Installed power: 2 VTE, Yarrow water tube boilers, 6,000 ihp
Speed: 15 knots
Range: 6,000nm on 468 tons coal
Complement: 260 men
Armor: Terni steel; belt: 250 – 100mm, deck: 75mm, shields: 200mm
Armament:
2 x EOC 8″/39.9 Pattern P guns
1 x EOC 6″/45
1 x QF 12-pounder 12-cwt gun (76mm)
8 x QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss 57mm guns
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, we highlighted the lost Operation Neptune minesweeper USS Osprey, which went down in the early morning of 6 June 1944, clearing a way for the invasion fleet.
In that Warship Wednesday, we covered that her bell had apparently been recovered sometime around 2007 and gave a lead to the dive op that may know more about it.
The US authorities contacted the UK coastguard when pictures of the ship’s bell appeared on the internet.
An investigation was launched by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency when it was established the bell had not been reported to the receiver of wreck.
Acting receiver Heloise Warner said the agency “put the word about” that it was searching for the bell and it was subsequently left anonymously at an undisclosed location last month.
“It’s absolutely fantastic that such a poignant part of our history is back in our possession,” she added.
Osprey’s bell via MCA
It is expected the NHHC will soon take possession of the recovered bell.
Bravo Zulu, guys, and, as always, thanks for sharing! Let’s continue to save history together.
A hearty toast to those lost on Osprey, who will never be forgotten so long as their names are still written:
Lieutenant Van Hamilton
Seaman 2nd Class John Medvic
Fireman 1st class Walter OโBryan
Quartermaster 2nd Class Emery Parichy
Motor Machinistโs Mate 2nd Class Joseph Vanasky, Jr
Motor Machinistโs Mate 3rd Class Cleo Whitschell
The largest Australian-led amphibious landing and offensive assault in history were the OBOE 2 landings at Balikpapan, Borneo (then the Japanese-held Dutch East Indies) in which some 33,000 troops hit the beach in July 1945. We’ve talked about that operation a couple weeks ago on a Warship Wednesday.ย
With the path cleared by UDT-18, 7th Division Australian troops come ashore from landing craft during landing near Balikpapan oil fields in Borneo in July 1945. Some 33,000-strong combined Australian and Royal Netherlands Indies amphibious forces, the largest ever amphibious assault by Australian forces, hit the beach.ย
Therefore, it is fitting that this month’s Talisman Saber ’19 exercise saw the largest Australian-led amphibious landing since OBOE with an extended multi-day combined force assault on Langham Beach, near Stanage Bay, Queensland, involving not only the Australians but also U.S. Marines, New Zealand troops, and elements of the British MoD, Japanese Self-Defense Force (ironically) and Canadian Forces.
As part of the exercise scenario, the fictional Pacific nation Kamaria invaded nearby “Legais” island, sparking global outcry and a response from the Blue Forces to liberate the occupied territory. Recon elements were inserted on D-3 with a full-on landing on D-Day with amphibious assault vehicles, landing craft, and helicopters bringing troops to shore.
Here we see the three-masted bark-rigged “kleiner geschutzter kreuzer” (small protected cruiser) SMS Geier of the Imperial German Kaiserliche Marine photographed at the beginning of her career around 1895. A well-traveled Teutonic warship named after the German word for “vulture,” she would repeatedly find herself only narrowly avoiding some of the largest naval clashes of her era.
The final installment of the six-ship Bussard-class of colonial cruisers, all of which were named after birds, Geier and her sisters (Falke, Seeadler, Condor, and Comoran) would today be classified either as corvettes or well-armed offshore patrol vessels. With an 1800~ ton displacement (which varied from ship to ship as they had at least three varying generations of subclasses), these pint-sized “cruisers” were about 275-feet long overall and could float in less than three fathoms. While most cruisers are built for speed, the Bussards could only make 15-ish knots when everything was lit. When it came to an armament, they packed eight 10.5 cm (4.1″) SK L/35 low-angle guns and a pair of cute 350mm torpedo tubes, which wasn’t that bad for policing the colonies but was hopeless in a surface action against a real cruiser.
Geier’s sister, SMS Seeadler, in a postcard-worthy setting. The six ships of the class ranged from the West Indies to Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. Much more exotic duty than the typical Baltic/North Sea gigs for the High Seas Fleet
Constructed between 1888 and 1895 at four different Northern German yards, the half-dozen Bussards were a very late 19th Century design, complete with a three-masted auxiliary barquentine rig, ram bows, and a wooden-backed copper-sheathed hull. They carried a pair of early electric generators and their composite hull was separated into 10 watertight compartments. Despite the “geschutzter” designation given by the Germans, they carried no armor other than splinter shields.
The only member of the class built at Kaiserliche Werft, Wilhelmshaven, Geier was laid down in 1893 and commissioned 24 October 1895, with Kaiser Wilhelm himself visiting the ship on that day.
SMS “Geier” der kaiserlichen deutschen Marine
SMS “Geier”, Kaiser Wilhelm II. spricht zur Besatzung
SMS “Geier”, Kleiner Kreuzer; Besichtigung des Schiffes durch Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Notably, Geier was the largest and most developed of her sisters, using a slightly different gun arrangement, better engines and 18-inch torpedo tubes rather than the 14s carried by the preceding five ships of the class.
All six Bussards were subsequently deployed overseas in Willy’s far-flung colonies in Africa and the Pacific, a tasking Geier soon adopted. Setting off for the West Indies, she joined the German squadron of old ironclads and school ships that were deployed there in 1897 to protect Berlin’s interests in Venezuela and Haiti.
The next year, under the command of Korvettenkapitรคn (later Vizeadmiral) Hermann Jacobsen, Geier was permitted by the U.S. fleet during the Spanish-American War to pass in and out of the blockaded Spanish ports in Cuba and Puerto Rico on several occasions, ostensibly on humanitarian grounds to evacuate neutral European civilians.
The unprotected cruiser SMS Geier entering Havana Harbor, Cuba, in 1898, during the SpanAm War
However, Jacobson dutifully kept a log of ships that ran the American blockade and their cargo as well as conducted a detailed analysis of the damage done to the Spanish ships at the Battle of Santiago. These observations were later released then ultimately translated into English and published in the USNI’s Proceedings in 1899.
By 1900, Geier was operating in the Pacific and, operating with the German East Asia Squadron, was in Chinese waters in time to join the international task force bringing the Manchu Dynasty to its knees during the Boxer Rebellion. She remained in the region and observed the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, notably poking around at Chemulpo (Inchon) where the Russian protected cruiser Varyag and gunboat Korietz were scuttled after a sharp engagement with a superior IJN force under Baron Sotokichi.
GEIER Photographed early in her career, before her 1908-1909 refit that reduced her Barkentine Rig to Brigantine Standard. NH 88631
Returning to Germany in 1909 for repair and refit, her rigging was changed from that of a three-mast barquentine to a two-mast topsail schooner while her bridge was enlarged, and her boilers replaced.
Geier with her late-career schooner rig
Recommissioned in 1911, she was assigned to the Mediterranean where she spent the next couple years exercising gunboat diplomacy in the wake of the Moroccan Crisis while eating popcorn on the sidelines of the Italian-Turkish War and Balkan Wars, all of which involved a smattering of curious naval actions to report back to Berlin. By 1914, although she had never fired a shot in anger, our Vulture had already haunted five significant wars from Tripoli to Korea and Cuba, very much living up to her name.
To catch us up on the rest of the class, by the eve of the Great War, the Bussards was showing their age. Sisterships Seeadler and Condor in 1914 were converted to mine storage hulks in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, respectively. Bussard and Falke had already been stricken from the Naval List in 1912 and sold to the breakers. Meanwhile, in the German Chinese treaty port of Tsingtao (Qingdao), Cormoranwas laid up with bad engines.
Speaking of which, when the lamps went out across Europe in August 1914, Geier was already en route from Dar es Salaam in German East Africa (where she had been relieved by the doomed cruiser Konigsberg) to Tsingtao to join Vizeadmiral Count Maximilian von Spee’s East Asia Squadron in the Pacific.
Once the balloon went up, she was in a precarious situation as just about any British, French, Russian or Japanese warship she encountered could have sent her quickly to the bottom. Eluding the massive Allied dragnet, which was deployed not only to capture our old cruiser but also Von Spee’s much more serious task force and the downright dangerous SMS Emden (which Geier briefly met with at sea), Geier attempted to become a commerce raider and, taking on coal from two German merchant ships, managed to capture a British freighter, SS Southport, at Kusaie in the Eastern Carolines on 4 September. After disabling Southport’s engines and leaving the British merchantman to eventually recover and report Geier’s last position, our decrepit light cruiser missed her rendezvous with Von Spee’s squadron at Pagan Island in the Northern Marianas and the good Count left her behind.
Alone, short on coal and only a day or so ahead of the Japanese battleship Hizen (former Russian Retvizan) and the armored cruiser Asama, Geier steamed into Honolulu on 17 October, having somehow survived 11 weeks on the run.
German surface raiders– both actual cruisers and hilfkreuzers– captured or sunk an amazing 623,406 tons of Allied shipping in the Great War.
After failing to leave port within the limits set by neutral U.S. authorities, she was interned on 8 November and nominally disarmed.
Bussard Class Unprotected Cruiser SMS Geier pictured interned in Hawaii, she arrived in Honolulu on October 17th, 1914 for coaling, repairs and freshwater– and never left
Meanwhile, the Graf Spee’s East Asia Squadron had defeated the British 4th Cruiser Squadron under RADM Christopher Cradock in the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sinking the old cruisers HMS Good Hope and Monmouth and sending Cradock and 1,600 of his men to the bottom of the South Atlantic Pacific off the coast of Chile. A month later, Spee himself along with his two sons and all but one ship of his squadron was smashed by VADM Doveton Sturdee’s battlecruiser squadron at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
Schlacht bei den Falkland-Inseln (8.12.1914) Battle Falklands Islands, German chart
Our Vulture had evaded another meeting with Poseidon.
As for Geier, her war was far from over, reportedly being used as a base for disinformation (alleging a Japanese invasion of Mexico!) and espionage (tracking Allied ship movements) for the next two years.
German cruiser Geier shown interned in Honolulu. Photo by Herbert B Turner. NARA 165-WW-272C-006
Finally, in February 1917, the events came to a head.
According to the U.S. NHHC:
German reservists and agents surreptitiously utilized the ship for their operations, and the Americans grew increasingly suspicious of their activities. Emotions ran hot during the war and the Germans violated โneutrality,โ Lt. (j.g.) Albert J. Porter of the ship’s company, who penned the commemorative War Log of the USS. St. Louis (Cruiser No. 20), observed, โwith characteristic Hun disregard for international law and accepted honor codes.โ Geier, Korvettenkapitรคn Curt Graรhoff in command, lay at Pier 3, moored to interned German steamer Pomeran when a column of smoke began to rise from her stack early on the morning of 4 February 1917. The shipโs internment prohibited her from getting steam up, and the Americans suspected the Germansโ intentions.
Lt. Cmdr. Victor S. Houston, St. Louisโ commanding officer, held an urgent conference on board the cruiser at which Cmdr. Thomas C. Hart, Commander SubDiv 3, represented the Commandant. Houston ordered St. Louis to clear for action and sent a boarding party, led by Lt. Roy Le C. Stover, Lt. (j.g.) Robert A. Hall, and Chief Gunner Frank C. Wisker. The sailors disembarked at the head of the Alakea wharf and took up a position in the second story of the pier warehouse. Soldiers from nearby Schofield Barracks meanwhile arrived and deployed a battery of 3-inch field pieces, screened by a coal pile across the street from the pier, from where they could command the decks of the German ship. Smoke poured in great plumes from Geier and her crewmenโs actions persuaded the Americans that the Germans likely intended to escape from the harbor, while some of the boarding party feared that failing to sortie, the Germans might scuttle the ship with charges, and the ensuing blaze could destroy part of the waterfront.
The boarding party, therefore, split into three sections and boarded and seized Pomeran, and Hart and Stover then boarded Geier and informed Graรhoff that they intended to take possession of the cruiser and extinguish her blaze, to protect the harbor. Graรhoff vigorously protested but his โwilyโ efforts to delay the boarders failed and the rest of the St. Louis sailors swarmed on board. The bluejackets swiftly took stations forward, amidships, and aft, and posted sentries at all the hatches and watertight doors, blocking any of the Germans from passing. Graรhoff surrendered and the Americans rounded-up his unresisting men. 1st Lt. Randolph T. Zane, USMC, arrived with a detachment of marines, and they led the prisoners under guard to Schofield Barracks for internment.
Her crew headed off to Schofield Barracks for the rest of the war, some of the first German POWs in the U.S. (Hawaii State Archives)
Wisker took some men below to the magazines, where they found shrapnel fuzes scattered about, ammunition hoists dismantled, and floodcocks battered into uselessness. The Germans also cunningly hid their wrenches and spans in the hope of forestalling the Americansโ repairs. Stover in the meantime hastened with a third section and they discovered a fire of wood and oil-soaked waste under a dry boiler. The blaze had spread to the deck above and the woodwork of the fire room also caught by the heat thrown off by the โincandescentโ boiler, and the woodwork of the magazine bulkheads had begun to catch. The boarders could not douse the flames with water because of the likelihood of exploding the dry boiler, but they led out lines from the bow and stern of the burning ship and skillfully warped her across the slip to the east side of Pier 4. The Honolulu Fire Department rushed chemical engines to the scene, and the firemen and sailors worked furiously cutting holes thru the decks to facilitate dousing the flames with their chemicals. The Americans extinguished the blaze by 5:00 p.m., and then a detachment from SubDiv 3, led by Lt. (j.g.) Norman L. Kirk, who commanded K-3 (Submarine No. 34), relieved the exhausted men.
German cruiser Geier with boilers on fire being sabotauged by her crew Honolulu Feb 4 1917 Photo by Herbert NARA 165-WW-272C-007
The Germans all but wrecked Geier and their โwanton workโ further damaged the engines, steam lines, oil lines, auxiliaries, navigation instruments, and even the wardroom, which Porter described as a โshambles.โ
As such, she was the only German Imperial Navy warship captured by the U.S. Navy during World War I.
Coupled with the more than 590,000 tons of German merchant ships seized in U.S. ports April 1917,Geier was reconditioned for American service and eventually commissioned as USS Schurz, a name used in honor of German radical Carl Schurz who fled Prussia in 1849 after the failed revolution there. Schurz had, in turn, joined the Union Army during the Civil War and commanded a division of largely German-speaking immigrants in the XI Corps at Second Manassas, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga, rising to the rank of major general.
[Of XI Corps’s 27 infantry regiments, at least 13 were “Dutch” (German) regiments with many German-born/speaking commanders prevalent. Besides Schurz, brigades and divisions of the XI Corps were led by men such as Col. Ludwig Blenker and Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, formerly officers of the Royal Armies Bavaria and the Duchy of Brunswick, respectively.]
Postwar, Schurz was a senator from Missouri, where a large German population had settled, and later served as Interior Secretary in the Hayes Administration.
Don’t let his bookish looks fool you, although Schurz was a journalist who served as editor of the New York Evening Post, he also fought in the German revolution and saw the elephant several times in the Civil War.
Under the command of LCDR Arthur Crenshaw, the new USS Schurz joined the fleet in September 1917 and served as an escort on the East Coast. Her German armament landed; she was equipped with four 5-inch mounts in U.S. service.
USS Schurz off the foot of Market Street, San Diego, California, in November-December 1917. Note the U.S. colors. Courtesy of the San Diego Maritime Museum, 1983 Catalog #: NH 94909
While on a convoy from New York for Key West, Fla., on 0444 on 21 June 1918, she collided with the merchant ship SS Florida southwest of Cape Lookout lightship, North Carolina, about 130 miles east of Wilmington.
As noted by the NHHC, “The collision crumpled the starboard bridge wing, slicing into the well and berth deck nearly 12 feet, and cutting through bunker no. 3 to the forward fire room.” One of Schurz’s crewmen was killed instantly, and 12 others injured. The 216 survivors abandoned ship and Schurz sank about three hours later in 110-feet of water.
A later naval board laid the blame for the collision on Florida, as the steamer was running at full steam in the predawn darkness in the thick fog without any lights or horns and had failed to keep a proper distance.
USS Schurz was stricken from the Navy list on 26 August 1918, and her name has not been reissued. The Kaiserliche Marine confusingly recycled the name “Geier” for an auxiliary cruiser (the former British merchant vessel Saint Theodore, captured by the commerce raider SMS Mรถwe) as well as an armed trawler during the war even while the original ship was interned in Hawaii with a German crew pulling shenanigans.
Of SMS Geier‘s remaining sisters in German service, Seeadler was destroyed by an accidental explosion on the Jade in April 1917 and never raised, Cormoran had been scuttled in Tsingtao and captured by the Japanese who scrapped her, and Condor was broken up in 1921.
NOAA divers swim over the stern of the USS Schurz shipwreck. Photo: Tane Casserley, NOAA
Photo: Tane Casserley, NOAA
Photo: Tane Casserley, NOAA
East Carolina University conducted an extensive survey of her wreckage in 2000 and found her remarkably intact, with her boilers in place as well as brass fasteners and copper hull sheathing with nails still attached.
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.
