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Warship Wednesday, October 1, 2025: Small Ship, Big Heroes

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, October 1, 2025: Small Ship, Big Heroes

Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization, via the Naval Historical and Heritage Command. NH 87370

Above we see the gleaming S. M. Schiffes Zenta, the class leader of a trio of third-class protected cruisers in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Kuk Kriegsmarine, early in her career.

Some 125 years ago, she helped carve out a piece of China for Kaiser Franz Josef, then went on to make a heroic footnote in the history of naval warfare.

The Zentas

Our subject was the lead ship of the Zenta-class cruisers, which included the follow-on half sisters SMS Aspern and SMS Szigetvar. I say “half sisters” as all three ships in the class, while they were built successively by the Austrian Marinearsenal in Pola, were evolutionarily different. For instance, whereas Zenta’s displacement was 2,500 tons (full), Aspern ran 2,625 tons, and Szigetvar 2,562. Zenta was 10 feet shorter than her sisters and had a different rigging and mast arrangement, carrying a topmast on her fore as she was rigged for auxiliary sails.

Brassey’s plans for “Kreuzer A” or “Ersatz Grief,” which became Zenta. Note the sail rig and ram bow.

A more fleshed-out version.

Zenta was also the slowest of her class, capable of 19.5 knots on 7,200 shp, while her sisters could hit 20.8 knots, with the latter pair running 8,160 shp. They used eight coal-fed Yarrow boilers to feed two 4-cylinder VTE engines made by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, the Austrian navy’s chief machinery firm and maker of a dozen battleships for the dual monarchy.

Armament consisted of an eight-gun main battery of Skoda-made 4.7″ L/40 SC.96 guns (six in casemates, two open mounts on the main deck) backed up by a secondary anti-boat battery of 10  Hotchkiss/Skoda 47mm 33/44 3-pounders and a couple of Skoda M1893 8mm machine guns. As an anti-ship armament, they carried two above-water 17.7-inch torpedo tubes on the beam, using domestically produced Whitehead torpedoes.

SMS Zenta, Schiessübungen, 1903, with one of her 4.7″ L/40 Skodas in action. Note the “SMS Zenta” stencil on the life ring attached to the bridge wing.

47 mm S.F.K. L/44 gun. Image from Škoda Catalog ca. 1900 courtesy of András Hatala, via Navweaps.

Two of Zenta’s sailors pose by one of her Salvator-Dormus (Skoda) M1893 8mm machine guns. Designed by no less than Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria, they used a delayed blowback action and could fire about 180 rounds per minute from a top-mounted 20 or 30-round fixed magazine. These guns could be dismounted and, heavy at 65 pounds, could be married up to a stored landing carriage and shield for use ashore.

Armor was very thin, even for a light cruiser, ranging from 35mm at the casemates to 50mm over the conning tower.

It was estimated that the cost of these ships was £150,000 each.

Jane’s 1914 listing for the class.

Meet Zenta

All three ships of the class were named after famous battles in Austro-Hungary’s past. Our subject remembered the 1697 Battle of Zenta (Senta) with the Habsburg forces under Prince Eugene of Savoy, crushing an Ottoman force twice its size. The official state seal of Grand Sultan Mustafa II, humiliatingly captured along with over 9,000 Ottoman baggage carts full of supplies and bounty after the battle, can be viewed today in the Museum of Military History (Heeresgeschichtliches) in Vienna.

Depiction of the Battle of Senta 1697 by Jan van Huchtenburgh c. 1725.

Our ship was laid down at Pola on 8 August 1896 and launched into the Adriatic the following summer on 18 August 1897.

The future protected cruiser SMS Zenta during her launch (Stapellauf) at Pola.

Fitting out took nearly two further years, and she was commissioned on 15 May 1899. Her sisters joined her in 1900 and 1901, respectively.

Zenta. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87372

Zenta. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87371

Far Eastern Service

The Austrian fleet had dispatched units overseas to protect its interests during the Spanish-American War in 1898. For instance, the 6,000-ton armored cruiser SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia was dispatched to Cuba and came close enough to American battle lines that she was almost engaged twice.

Kuk armored cruiser SMS KAISERIN und KÖNIGIN MARIA THERESIA sails past Morro Castle, Havana, 1898, by August Ramberg

With growing tensions in the Far East after the Japanese humiliation of the Manchu Chinese Dynasty in 1895 and the U.S. fighting for control of the former Spanish colony of the Philippines, the newly completed Zenta, under Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Eduard Thomann von Montalmar, was almost immediately dispatched to the Pacific after shakedowns.

Zenta in Hong Kong, taken by Friedrich Carl Peetz, Duke University Repository

By March 1900, Zenta had arrived at China station in the Yellow Sea. Pier side at Sasebo, Japan, on 30 May, von Montalmar received orders via the Austrian legation in Tokyo to return to China and provide a detachment of armed sailors to protect the threatened legation in Peking, which was being increasingly threatened by Boxers. After confirming the orders with the admiralty, she left on 31 May at close to maximum speed, arriving at the Taku Forts on the morning of 2 June.

SMS Zenta at the Taku Anchorage (Taku-Rhede) by Alex Kircher

As the Austrian charge d’ affaires in Peking, Arthur von Rosthorn, wanted to speak directly to the ship’s skipper personally, von Montalmar, four junior officers (two dressed in mufti so as not to surpass the number of “military” personnel allowed to travel into the interior by Chinese officials) and 25 armed sailors landed and went by train in company with a force of 51 German marines and sailors to Peking, arriving on 3 June. In addition to protecting the Austrian legation, a midshipman and eight sailors were loaned to protect the Belgian envoy, who had no guards of his own.

Austrian Marines (armed sailors), likely from Zenta, marching in Tientsin (Tianjin), after their arrival, 1900. National Archives, Kew NA03-08.

Well prepared, each of Zenta’s armed sailors carried a Steyr-Mannlicher bolt-action rifle and 500 rounds, along with eight days of “iron” rations. On 5 June, the rail line from Teinstein to Peking was cut, and soon the assembled 400~ members of the eight international forces would defend the legations from Boxers and Chinese soldiers during a 55-day siege (20 June 20 through 14 August) with von Montalmar killed by an enemy grenade on 8 July. Three of Zenta’s crew were also killed in action in the Quarter: Josef Dettan (on 25 June), Marcus Badurina-Peric (26 June), and Afred Tavagna (29 June).

One happy coincidence was that it was found that some of the Chinese troops used Mannlicher rifles of the same caliber, and their captured cartridges could easily be put to use. This also allowed the Austrian sailors to loan rifles to the ammunition-strapped Russian contingent, who had only marched to Peking with 60 cartridges in their pouches.

Supporting the so-called Seymour Expedition led by by British VADM Sir Edward Hobart Seymour, a lieutenant and two midshipmen from Zenta, along with 73 additional sailors (keep in mind Zenta only had a 300-man crew!) joined Seymour’s 2,127-strong force drawn from the assorted ships crowding under the Taku forts, with the idea to force the way to Peking via Tientsin and relieve the Legation Quarter.

Seymour’s expedition, 1900 Boxer rebellion

In the resulting land combat along the road and railways, one of Zenta’s sailors, Josef Deste, was killed in action on 22 June while storming the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal eight miles northwest of Tientsin.

While Zenta had detachments fighting for their lives in Peking and on the roads outside of Tientsin, she coughed up even more men for service ashore in storming the Taku Forts, where 40 modern guns threatened the growing Western flotilla should the Chinese navy enter the fray.

A detachment of 21 Austrian sailors, under Midshipman Stenner and joined by a young 20-year-old Midshipman 2cl Georg von Trapp, joined a larger German force under Capt. Pohl to seize the Northwest Taku fort on the morning of 17 June. The force also wound up capturing the South Fort, where the Austrian flag was raised.

Erstürmung von taku by Fritz Neumann, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection

Erstürmung der Takuforts durch österr kuk Austrian SMS Zenta

While the two other landing parties from Zenta had suffered deaths, the Taku Fort group survived its battle without a loss.

The Zenta men of the failed Seymour Expedition and the Taku group then assembled a 55-man platoon to join the 14,000-strong Russian/Japanese-led relief force that ultimately lifted the Peking Siege in August. They carried with them the ship’s two Skoda machine guns.

Skoda M1893 machine guns on carriage and limber. Zenta’s crew used two of these in their work ashore during the taking of the Taku forts. This image, from a circa 1902 U.S. Army report, may actually be of our cruiser’s guns seen in China.

A week after the siege was broken, a 160-strong force from the Austrian cruisers SMS Aspern and Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, arrived in Peking on 20 August, relieving the Zenta men, who returned to the coast to rejoin their ship. In late July 1901, she departed Chefu (Zhifu) to the sounds of the Radetzky march being played.

She finally arrived back in Pola on 1 October 1901 and was awarded a silk flag of honor for her Chinese actions.

Von Trapp, promoted to a Midshipman 1c, received the Silberne Tapferkeitsmedaille II. Klasse and the War Medal before he was commissioned as a Fregattenleutnant (frigate lieutenant, equivalent to sub-lieutenant) in May 1903. He soon transferred into the budding Austrian submarine corps.

The late von Montalmar was regarded as a hero back home.

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Photographed at Pola on 1 October 1901 upon her return from East Asia. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87366

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Photographed at Pola on 1 October 1901 upon her return from East Asia. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87367

Zenta in her dark grey livery. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87368

Salad Days

After a refit, Zenta spent the next 12 years in a series of fleet maneuvers, yard periods, and flag-waiving cruises, including a 12-month trip along the coasts of Africa and South America in 1902-03.

Austro-Hungarian light cruiser SMS Zenta in November 1902 off Zanzibar

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

SMS Zenta Aquatortaufe, 1903 crossing equator shellback ceremony

By 1905, she was relegated increasingly to a role as a torpedo boat flotilla leader, receiving a wireless set for that purpose. She also joined a series of international naval demonstrations in the Mediterranean as the region descended into a swirling series of wars in North Africa and the Balkans.

Zenta, with her laundry aloft. Courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization. NH 87369

A (Short) Great War service

Under the command of Fregattenkapitän Paul Pachner, when August 1914 came, Zenta was the leader of six Austrian torpedo boats tasked with blockading the rocky Montenegrin coast, in particular the Montenegrin port of Antivari (now Bar). In support were Zenta’s sister Szigetvar, the old 5,000-ton coast-defense ship SMS Monarch, the equally old 1,500-ton torpedo cruiser SMS Panther, and three destroyers.

On the morning of 16 August, just over two weeks into the war, a combined Anglo-French squadron of two 25,000-ton Courbet class dreadnoughts, each packing a dozen 12-inch guns, joined by 10 smaller pre-dreadnoughts, seven cruisers, and more than 20 destroyers, swooped down on Zenta, cruising alongside the humble Austrian destroyer Ulan.

While Pachner, whose trapped ship was outgunned by almost any of the British or French ships in the squadron save for the destroyer, cleared his decks for action and turned into the fray– ordering her companion Ulan to flee northward and alert the rest of the Austrian fleet.

It was over in less than 20 minutes, with Courbet smothering the attacking Austrian cruiser with 12-inch shells, sending her to the bottom some four miles off the coast of Castellastua, reportedly with her flags still flying. At least 173 of her crew perished, while none of Zenta’s shells were observed to land within 400 yards of the closest French ship. However, the French did have three of their guns burst during the exchange, leaving a sour taste in the mouths of the French Admiralty.

As noted by French VADM Amedee Bienaime

The destruction of this small cruiser of 2,500 tons, which stood unprotected for twenty minutes under the scattered fire of our entire fleet, cost 500 large-caliber shells and the loss of two 24-centimeter and one 19-centimeter guns. The same result could have been achieved by a single armored cruiser in five minutes, with a few well-aimed shots. I must say that, compared with the efforts made to achieve it, this result is not at all satisfactory.

After about six hours of swimming, 139 battered and waterlogged survivors reached the Sveta Neđelja reef just off the Montenegro coast and were rounded up that afternoon by local troops sent in by boat. Austrian propaganda at the time claimed that they were initially pushed back into the water with bayonet charges by the Montenegrins and drowned.

Celebrity status

The battle was celebrated in Austria during the war, with a number of heroic portrayals circulated widely in periodicals and postcards.

Arthur Thiele, Zenta

Der Heldenkampf der Zenta J Huemesser 10CB2B93

Der Heldenkampf der Zenta Ulan J Huemesser Sammlung 39240_2 1-2

Painting showing SMS Zenta and SMS Ulan in action on 16 August 1914, by Harry Heusser via Illustrirte Zeitung 1915, wiki

Wien Museum Online Sammlung 39742_3

“Im Heizraum der Zenta vor dem Untergang.” (in the boiler room of the ‘Zenta’ before the sinking). By Harry Heusser, Kriegspostkarte, 1915. Wien Museum

Zenta postcard Arthur Thiele

Zenta and Ulan by Ákos Bánfalvy

Wien Museum Online Sammlung 39755_8 1-2

There was even a popular song, “The Bold Heroes of the Zenta” (Die kuhnen helden der Zenta), by Greiffenstein and Bunnieitner, Vienna, that was circulated.

The phrase “Pflichtgetreu bis in den Tod” means “Faithful to duty until death,”

The rough translation:
The waves in the blue sea, roaring and cheering…
The wondrous brave heroes of the “Zenta”!
A small cross marks the “Zenta” now, but look in the future…
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
The French fleet came into sight, but no one’s face turned pale,
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
They landed the anchors so fresh and bold,
That it seemed and hailed hostile…
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.”
The Frenchman then stood up in horror:
“Such brave heroes we have never seen!”
Those were the men of the “Zenta.”
But one thing was certain: That is the end;
The cruiser thundered in defiance,
But never the men of the “Zenta.”
They sank down deep from the flood,
Their banner still shines in the sun’s glow;
The men of the “Zenta” cheer.
We sing and cheer in God’s name:
To the Emperor, to the Reich a thunderous
The brave heroes of the “Zenta.” Hurrah!”

Lock up

At the same time, our lost cruiser and her crew were celebrated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; her surviving 139 marooned officers and men were cooling their heels in a Montenegrin prison camp in Podgorica.

When that Balkan country was overrun by the Central Powers in January 1916, knocking it out of the war, the Zenta men were liberated.

Officers of the small cruiser SMS Zenta with two KuK flight officers after their release from the Montenegrin prisoner of war. (HM Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum)

“Der Kommandant S. M. Schiffes Zenta nach Befreiung aus montenegrinischer Gefangenschaft” (The Commander of S. M. Ship “Zenta” after liberation from Montenegrin captivity) 1922 Pola postcard. Wien Museum

“Stab S. M. S. Zenta nach Befreiung aus montenegrinischer Gefangenschaft.” (Staff of S. M. S. Zenta after liberation from Montenegrin captivity) 1922 Pola postcard. Wien Museum

The 139 survivors returned to their old homeport of Pola aboard the 250-ton T-class torpedo boat, SMS 81T, one of Zenta’s old flotilla mates.

Austrian Torpedo Boat SMS 81T photographed returning to Pola with the freed crew of the sunken cruiser Zenta. In the background is a Battleship of the Habsburg class. NH 87683

Epilogue

Zenta’s survivors went back out to the Austrian fleet.

Pachner was never trusted by the Austrian Kriegsmarine with another seagoing command despite his “hero” status. He finished the war as a rear admiral manning a desk. After the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, he went into merchant service and sailed on Yugoslav, Spanish, and Egyptian vessels, among others.

He moved back to his native Maribor (then in Yugoslavia) in poverty and died there in 1937, aged 66. His grave is simply marked “Fremder Seemann” (foreign sailor).

After the war, a group of her 1914 survivors returned to Montenegro in 1923 and paid for a chapel to be built on top of a cliff near the shore in the Bay of Kotor, to commemorate their escape.

Von Trapp, of course, became the most celebrated Austrian U-boat “ace” in history and is immortalized in The Sound of Music.

Zenta was discovered off the coast of Montenegro in 1996. The largest artificial reef in that country’s waters, she rests on a mud bottom at 240 feet, making her a destination for deep divers in touch with their decompression tables. 

A pair of ornately decorated Chinese-made bronze cannon, with bores of 13.7 cm and 12.5 cm, respectively, dating to the Qing Dynasty, were captured during the Boxer Rebellion by the Austrian naval detachment (including von Trapp and the men of the Zenta) during the taking of the Taku Forts.

Looted from the Pei tang fortress, they were transported back to Europe as trophies and are currently on display at the HM Hadtörteneti Intezet es Muzeum in Budapest.

They were recently refurbished and given new mounts.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Swashbuckling Baltic Baron of Boxer Fame

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Some 125 years ago this month, this guy was the biggest hero in Russia, having recently picked up not only the St. George Cross but also five foreign orders “in recognition of exemplary bravery and selflessness.’

I give you 37-year-old Lieutenant Baron Ferdinand (Vladimirovich) Arthur Lionel Gotthard von Rahden, of the Tsar’s Navy, who commanded the Russian naval infantry unit drawn from the crews of the battleships Navarin and Sisoy the Great during the defense of the Peking Legation Quarter during its 55-day siege in the Boxer Rebellion.

Hailing from a family of hereditary Baltic barons (he inherited the title from his late father, Vladimir, the former vice-governor of Estonia, in 1881), Ferdinand graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1886 and from 1889 onward held down spots on Russian warships drifting further and further East. From the Black Sea Fleet to the Caspian Flotilla and the cruiser Admiral Kornilov in the Indian Ocean. By 1891, he was a navigator on the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh in Vladivostok. By the time of the Boxer Rebellion, he was head of the 01 Division on Navarin and was selected to lead the 71-member company to Peking.

Of the 445 foreign soldiers, sailors, and Marines holding the Legation wall, the Russians had the third-largest force, just behind the only slightly larger British (79 Marines) and the French (75 sailors) contingents.

Russian sailors on a barricade before the Peking Legation Boxer Uprising, Niva magazine, No. 43, 1900

During the siege of Pekin, Baron von Rahden received several wounds, including a contusion of the cranial bone, but, importantly, his force captured four guns from the besieging Boxers, which were of great use to the defenders.

“Peking, China. 1900. A Russian officer, Baron Randen [sic], and four armed soldiers behind a barricade, probably at the Russian Legation, during the Boxer Rebellion.” Note he appears armed with a Steyr M.95, which may have been borrowed from Austrian Marines in the Legation, while his men have Mosin M.91s (AWM A05909)

Baron von Rahden, as portrayed in 55 Days at Peking, albeit in a much nicer costume, complete with sword belt sash, than the uniform he actually wore

After the Boxer Rebellion, Von Rahden, promoted to Captain (2nd rank), rode a wave of good assignments, including XO of the gunboat Koreets and command of the destroyer Ryany, which operated out of Vladivostok during the Russo-Japanese War. A scouting mission with his greyhound along the Korean peninsula during the conflict earned him an Order of St. Stanislav and a promotion to Captain (1st rank).

Then came a position as port captain of Vladivostok, followed by what would be the pinnacle of his naval career, that of skipper of the cruiser Askold in 1910.

Russian cruiser Askold in Vladivostok

At that point, Von Rahden’s star burned out.

Dismissed from his post on embezzlement charges, the Vladivostok Naval Court handed down a sentence of 3.5 years in the brig and the removal of all ranks, orders, and privileges. After serving 22 months, the Tsar commuted his sentence in light of his past record, and he was dismissed from the Navy, ending his 26 years in the fleet with a squish.

When Russia marched to war again in 1914, Von Rahden repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, applied to return to service.

It was only after the twin seismic military disasters of 1914 and 1915 that, on Valentine’s Day 1916, Von Rahden was appointed from ignoble retirement to become a colonel and second in command of the 205th (Shemakha) Infantry Regiment, then part of the 52nd Division on the mud of the Austrian front. In January 1917, he was made commander of the 82nd Infantry (Dagestan) Regiment, on the Romanian front. In April 1917, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree with swords, one of the last issuances of that decoration.

Von Rahden, somewhat redeemed, was the 85th’s final colonel, and on 23 November 1917, he was promoted to major general, setting him up for command of a division. It was a position he held only briefly, being cashiered at the end of the year, following directives from the new Bolshevik military commissars who were eager to separate from the service any nobles still in uniform.

Returning home to Estonia in 1918, Von Raden soon fell in with the German-allied Baltic Landeswehr, a proto-Freikorps-style force led by his fellow Couronian and Livonian nobility. Leading a company in that force, he fought with the Landeswehr against the Reds at Windau, Tukkum, and Mitau.

Once Riga was captured, with the Landeswehr being strongly disfavored by the recently arrived British and French military missions to the Baltic, he and his company moved over to General Yudenich’s White Russian Northwestern Army during what had become the full-blown Russian Civil War.

Leading the battalion-sized 17th Libau Regiment of the 5th Division during Yudenich’s failed push on Petrograd, Baron Von Rahden, formerly of the Tsar’s Navy, was killed in action in the village of Russkoye Koporye on 25 October 1919, aged 56 hard years.

Warship Wednesday, June 11, 2025: Germans to the front!

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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says, “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday, June 11, 2025: Germans to the front!

Naval History and Heritage Command photograph NH 48215

Above we see S.M. kleiner kreuzer Gefion, part of the German Imperial Navy’s East Asia Squadron in 1899, anchored off Hankou (now Wuhan) after her nearly 600-mile voyage up the Yangtze River to protect the Kaiser’s interests in China– with Willy’s brother aboard.

The unique little cruiser would play a gunboat role in Chinese diplomacy some 125 yeas ago this month before shipping back home for the rest of her career.

Meet Gefion

Our subject was the second warship to carry the name of a Nordic sea goddess (the fourth goddess of Æsir following Frigg, the wife of Odin) to serve in the German Navy. The first was a 48-gun sail frigate (segelfregatte) built for the Royal Danish Navy in 1843 and captured during the war with her southern neighbors in 1849.

The former Danish frigate Gefion under German service. The Germans used the trophy ship as a training ship under her original name until 1880 and then as a coal hulk until 1891. Her bell, figurehead, anchors, and many other relics dot Eckernförde and Kiel.

The second Gefion was originally deemed a Kreuzerkorvette (cruiser corvette) J when designed in the early 1890s, an early attempt by the Kaiserliche Marine to create a cruiser suitable for both reconnaissance and fleet duties, as well as an overseas colonial service ship on independent duty.

Some 362 feet overall with a 43-foot beam, she sported a dagger-like 8.4:1 length-to-beam ratio. Lightly built, she had 0.98 inches of nickel-steel armor over her deck and equivalent armor on her conning tower. A second 0.6-inch steel plate cap was over her engine cylinder heads, backed by 5.9 inches of wood. She had a 4-inch cellulose belt at the waterline.

Steel hulled and using both transverse and longitudinal steel frames, she was sheathed below the water line with wood and copper, held with brass fittings, to help with fouling, especially when in colonial service.

Originally to carry six new 15 cm/35 (5.9″) SK L/35 guns in single mounts, with 810 shells in her magazine, this was later changed to 10 equally new but lighter 10.5 cm/40 (4.1″) SK L/40 mounts with as many as 1,500 shells at the ready. They were arranged two forward, two aft, and eight amidships in broadside, all protected by a thin armored shield. Her secondary battery was a half dozen 5 cm/40 (1.97″) SK L/40 rapid-fire (10 rounds per minute) torpedo boat guns with another 1,500 rounds in the magazine.

She also had a pair of 17-inch above-deck torpedo tubes (down from a planned six). Eight Maxim guns were arranged in her two spotting/fighting tops, they could be dismounted for use ashore. Likewise, almost a third of a 300-man crew could be issued small arms carried aboard and sent ashore. A small 6cm boat gun could back them up.

Gefion, Janes 1914

With six cylindrical two-sided boilers exhausting through a trio of stacks, driving two VTE engines, her plant was good for 9,800 shp. Extensively fitted for electric lights and hoists, she carried three 67-volt, 40-kW dynamos. Designed for 19 knots, on trials she made 20.53 knots at full power on forced draft. Loaded with 900 tons of good coal, she could theoretically steam 6,850nm at 11 knots, or 2,730nm at 18 knots on natural draft, the first German cruiser capable of such a range. This could be extended by rigging a cruising canvas from her two masts and rigging. It turned out that her decks vibrated extensively at full power, she struggled in tough seas, and she had insufficient ventilation below decks.

How she stacked up against contemporary cruisers, from the circa 1900 Professional Notes in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings:

Built for a cost of 5.171 million marks, she was ordered from Ferdinand Schichau’s new Danzig yard, as hull No. 486, and laid down on 28 March 1892. Launched 31 May 1893, she commissioned 27 June 1894.

This made her the forerunner of the 41 later kleiner kreuzers of the Gazelle, Bremen, Konigsberg, Dresden, Kolberg, Magdeburg, Karlsruhe, Graudenz, Pillau, Wiesbaden, Brummer, and Coln classes constructed between 1897 and 1918, all of which carried 4.1 inch guns on similar hulls along with torpedo tubes. The first four classes even carried the same model 4.1-inch SK L/40s as Gefion.

Geifon with her glad rags flying about 1895 IWM (Q 22323)

SMS Gefion was photographed sometime early in her career, between her commissioning date, 27 June 1894, and the receipt of this photo by the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, 28 June 1895. NH 88636

Her first skipper was Korvettenkapitän Hans Oelrichs, an 1860s veteran of the old Norddeutsche Marine. Gefion’s first assignments were to escort the Royal yacht Hohenzollern to Norway in the autumn of 1894 and attend the inauguration ceremony of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal) the following year when the double locks at Brunsbüttel and Holtenau were opened.

A white-liveried SMS Gefion photographed early in her career, possibly during her 1894-1897 service in home waters. The Levensau Bridge over the Kiel Canal appears in the background; the Canal opened in 1895. NH 88634

Gefion spent the next couple of years as a guardship at Wilhelmshaven while the larger second-class cruiser Kaiserin Augusta did the same at Kiel. During the winter and spring, they served as training grounds for the fleet’s new stokers and artificers. During the summer and fall, they clocked in on fleet maneuvers, performing scouting services for the main battle line, taking breaks to escort Hohenzollern.

In April 1897, Gefion escorted the Swedish passenger ship Rex on the inaugural voyage of the mail steamer line from Sassnitz to Trelleborg. She counted among her wardroom Prince Henry (Heinrich) of Prussia, the Kaiser’s younger brother and a career naval officer, who on at least one occasion hosted Willy and his sons aboard.

Sent abroad

With Gefion’s newness wearing off and new light cruisers joining the German fleet, she was put in overhaul in the summer of 1897, made ready for overseas service, upgrading her smaller generators with a trio of 110-volt, 58-kW sets.

Her new skipper was FKpt Max Heinrich Ludwig Rollmann, a career sailor who joined the German Navy in 1873 as a cadet. A skilled officer and torpedo expert, he was part of the so-called “Torpedobande” (torpedo gang) which influenced Tirpitz and others to warm to the weapons.

Originally to be sent to intervene in the ongoing dispute between Haiti and Germany, Gefion was instead selected to strengthen the Ostasiatischen Kreuzerdivision in the Far East.

Gefion, NH 48216

In December 1897, just ahead of the first winter ice, she left in company with the old 7,000-ton armored cruiser Deutschland and Kaiserin Augusta in a squadron commanded by Prince Henry. When Deutschland broke down in Hong Kong in April 1898 while heading to China, Henry switched his flag to Gefion and proceeded to the German fleet’s Pacific treaty homeport at Tsingtao.

It was with the German East Asian Squadron that Gefion kept tabs on Dewey’s squadron as it smashed the Spanish in Manila later that summer, steamed to Samoa to serve as a station ship in early 1899, and then steam nearly 600 miles up the Yangtze to Hankou (now Wuhan) where she landed 130 armed crew on 28 April to guard the new 103-acre German Concession (Deutsche Konzession) in that river city and escort Prince Henry, then head of the squadron.

Henry was received by the Governor-General of Huguang, Zhang Zhidong, along with the assorted foreign expatriates, and even the British and French Concessions in the city flew the German flag.

Zhang Zhidong entertains Prince Heinrich. The VanDyke-clad FKpt Max Rollman, Gefion’s skipper, is to the far left. After the reception, the Germans toured the local military academy and watched the drills of the Hubei New Army, which included several German officers as instructors, notably Lieutenants Carl Fuchs and Albrecht Welzel, a Sergeant A. Seydel, and a Rittmaster (cavalry master) named Behrensdorf.

Henry laid the cornerstone for the new German bund in Hankou on 30 April, flanked by Gefion’s officers and crew.

War!

After a second tour in Samoa in early 1900, Gefion, now reclassified as a Kreuzer III. Klasse, and the rest of the German Far East Squadron, now under VADM Felix von Bendemann, massed at Tsingtao as trouble rumbled with the anti-Western Boxers in China, who were mounting attacks on churches.

The German force at the time, besides Gefion, included two new 6,700-ton Victoria Louise-class protected cruisers (with 477-member crews), SMS Hansa and SMS Hertha, the Kaiserin Augusta, the light cruisers SMS Irene, Geier, Seeadler, Bussard, and Schwalbe, along with the gunboat Itis.

Die Gartenlaube, by Willy Stower, showing the German cruisers in the Far East, circa 1898. These include Arkona. Prinzeß Wilhelm. Kaiserin Augusta, Kaiser, (Flaggschiff der I. Division) along with. Kormoran, Irene, Gefion, and Deutschland, (Flaggschiff der II. Division)

On 30 May, the Chinese government allowed a force of 400 assorted troops from eight Western nations to land at Tientsin and head to Peking to protect the Legation Quarter there. However, the situation continued to deteriorate as the Boxers cut the rail line between the two cities on 5 June, and a week later, a Japanese diplomat was killed by Chinese regulars.

Cruiser SMS Gefion at Tsingtao, circa 1900

Joining an international task force that included British, Russian, French, and Japanese warships, the combined squadron on 17 June moved to seize the five Chinese forts at Taku (Dagukou) at the mouth of the Hai (Pei-Ho) River, which barred the way to Tientsin (Tianjin), some 40 miles downstream, and Peking (Beijing), 110 miles inland.

The combat was sharp but one-sided, with the forts falling after a six-hour bombardment and short action ashore by naval landing parties.

S.M. Kanonenboot ILTIS im Gefecht mit den Takuforts am 17. Juni 1900 Willy Stöwer, DMM 2000-014-001

Ersturmung von taku by Fritz Neumann, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection

The Taku forts would remain garrisoned by the Eight Nations through 1902. Looking down the Peiho River toward North Port and Bay, from Northwest Fort, Taku, China. Underwood & Underwood, Publishers, 1901. LC-DIG-stereo-1s48075

The allied fleet also captured the Chinese government’s Dagu shipyard, complete with a gunboat that went to the Japanese and four new German-built Hai Lung class torpedo boats that were split between the British, Russian, French, and Germans.

Chinese Hai-Lung class torpedo boats captured at Taku, June 1900. Some 193 feet oal, these four German-made boats could make 32 knots and carried six Sk 4.7 cm L/35s while two 17-inch torpedo tubes weren’t fitted. Hai-Lung, yard number 608, became the German SMS Taku and was decommissioned after grounding on 30 December 1913. Hai-Ch’ing, yard number 609, became the French Takou and was written off after being grounded on the coast of Vietnam. Hai-Hoa, hull number 610, became the Russian Таку (Taku), and was sunk on 26 July 1904 off Port Arthur by Japanese forces. Hai-Hsi, yard number 611, became HMS Taku and was sold for scrap on 26 October 1916.

A Chinese second-class cruiser (Hai-Chi?) flying an Admiral’s flag was detained outside Taku by Gefion, who was ordered to release the vessel.

This triggered the start of the outright 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking, with some 900 Western troops and civilians, along with 2,800 Chinese Christians, holding out until relieved. The German minister, Baron von Ketteler, was killed by a Manchu officer escorted by Chinese lancers the same day while on his way to negotiate a solution to the incident, which was rapidly spiraling out of control.

A force that had tried to reinforce Peking before the siege was led by British VADM Sir Edward Hobart Seymour, who took the lead and scratched together a column of some 2,127 men drawn from the assorted ships crowding under the Taku forts, with the idea to force the way to Peking via Tientsin. His chief of staff was the young future admiral, Capt. John Jellicoe.

Seymour was able to muster 915 straw-hatted jack-tars and Royal Marines to spearhead the detachment. The Germans chipped in 511. Smaller contingents from allied fleets included 312 Russians, 158 French, 112 Americans, 54 Japanese, 40 Italians, and 25 Austrians.

Seymour Expedition, 1900, USN 901030

As detailed in Die Kaiserliche Marine während der Wirren in China, 1900-1901. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, 1903. The German force was seriously ad hoc.

The German contingent, which consisted of 22 officers, two surgeons, and 487 enlisted men, was organized into two companies and two large platoons, armed with Gewehr 88 bolt-action rifles, single-action M1879 Reichsrevolvers, and four Maxim machine guns. Commanded overall by Kapitän zur See Guido von Usedom, the skipper of the Hertha, the four ships that coughed up landing forces contributed the following, each in turn led by the respective ship’s executive officer:

  • Hertha: 7 officers, 175 men under KL (CDR) Hecht
  • Hansa: 7 officers, 153 men, under KKpt (LCDR) Paul Schlieser
  • Kaiserin Augusta: 5 officers, 85 men, 1 doctor under KKpt Oltmann Buchholz
  • Gefion: 3 officers, 74 men, 1 doctor under KKpt Otto Weniger

Of course, Seymour thought he was just opposing a rabble of Boxer bandits, not 30,000 Imperial Qing Army regulars (Kansu Braves) who ultimately came out against him. These units consisted of Muslims from the remote Gansu Province, situated between the Qilian Mountains and the Gobi Desert, men renowned for their discipline and loyalty to the empire.

Flying long scarlet and black banners, the Gansu Army wore traditional uniforms but was well-trained and armed with Mauser M.71 repeater rifles and modern breechloading field artillery.

Chinese soldiers in 1899–1901. Left: three infantrymen of the New Imperial Army. Front: drum major of the regular army. Seated on the trunk: field artilleryman. Right: Boxers. Via Leipziger illustrirte Zeitung 1900

With this, the so-called Seymour Expedition was seriously outnumbered and fighting in a foreign land.

They left out for Peking from Tientsin on 10 June– a week before the Taku forts were seized– via five commandeered trains and by 14 June had suffered their first losses, among the Italian contingent. By the 18th, a pitched battle was fought against a key Western position, held by men largely drawn from Gefion.

As detailed in “The Boxer Rebellion: Bluejackets and Marines in China, 1900–1901” by Emily Abdow (NHHC, 2023):

A German garrison was at a coal depot near Langfang, christened “Fort Gefion” for their ship. Chinese Colonel Yao Wang [of Gen. Dong Fuxiang’s Gansu Army] and Boxer leader Ni Zanqing determined Fort Gefion was the weak point and amassed about 3,000 Qing soldiers and 2,000 Boxers for an attack. On 18 June, Boxers charged at Fort Gefion, teenagers and old men alike barreling into heavy allied fire in never-ending waves. When the Boxers fell, Colonel Yao’s soldiers attacked. Armed with modern weapons, they nearly forced the Germans’ right flank to retreat. British and French sailors reinforced the Germans, driving back the Chinese forces. At the end of the battle, the allied casualties were 10 dead and 50 wounded. The Chinese death toll was 400, over half of the casualties Qing soldiers.

With no hope of reaching Peking, Seymour’s force burned their trains and fought a slow, foot-borne retreat back to Tientsin for the next four days.

Coming upon the Chinese government’s Fort Xigu, the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal (also seen in Western sources as Fort Hsiku/Osiku), eight miles northwest of Tientsin in the pre-dawn of 22 June, it made sense to occupy the works and wait for relief from the sea.

The problem was that the local Chinese garrison approached 1,500 troops, and the fort, with 16-foot-high mud walls protected by Krupp field guns, was a tough nut to crack.

With the Royal Marines tasked with an attempt to take the complex from the rear, Seymour passed the order, “Germans to the front.”

Leading the German column into the attack was KKpt Oltmann Buchholz, XO of the Kaiserin Augusta, with the men from the Hansa, Hertha, and Gefion behind him. The assault was quick and sharp, with the Germans battering down the front doors, then sweeping through and clearing the complex, turning the good Krupp guns around on their former owners. Inside were found, besides munitions, enough rations and supplies to revitalize the force along with a well-stocked medical clinic.

Buchholz was killed in the effort.

German artist Carl Röchling celebrated the event with his painting “Die Deutschen an der Front” (“The Germans to the front”).

The attack occurred at 0222. Roechling takes a bit of liberty with the amount of sunlight.

Seymour Expedition, 1900, likely at the Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal. USN 901028

A relief column of 2,000 fresh Western troops under Capt. (later RADM of Battle of Coronel fame) Christopher Cradock, RN, and Major (later MG) Littleton Tazewell “Tony” Waller, USMC, relieved Seymour near Fort Hsiku on 25 June, allowing his column to fully withdraw back to Tientsin. Seymour’s international column suffered at least 62 dead and 232 wounded, a casualty rate of about 1:6, during its fortnight in the Chinese countryside.

The German sailors and marines on the Seymour expedition ashore in June 1900 lost 16 killed and 60 wounded, including two young officers from Gefion (LT z. S. Hane v. Krohn from Wilhelmähoven and Frang Bustig from Hanover, both on 22 June in the assault on Fort Hsiku). The bombardment of the Taku forts on 17 June cost the Germans seven killed and 11 wounded, all on the gunboat SMS Itis (including her skipper, who caught 25 shrapnel wounds yet remained on the bridge, earning the Blue Max). Subsequent fighting in and around Tientsin cost the German force another 12 dead and 41 wounded, including three sailors from Gefion’s naval infantry (Wilhelm Wachsmund from Goblenz, on 27 June, along with Heinrich Hamm from Grünendeich and Emil Bonk from Raschang on 13 July). Of note, Hansa’s company suffered the greatest casualties of the German naval contingents during the Boxer rebellion (13 dead and 24 wounded).

Besieged Peking would ultimately be relieved in mid-August by the 20,000-strong force under British Maj. Gen. Alfred Gaselee (although fully half of the force were Japanese troops under Lt. Gen. Yamaguchi Motomi, a general senior in both grade and experience to Gaselee).

The 51 German marines (the fourth largest contingent in the Quarter) of III. Seebataillon under Oberleutnant Graf von Soden, holding out at Peking in the Legation, suffered 12 killed and 14 wounded during the siege, holding their line along the Quarter’s old Tartar Wall shoulder-to-shoulder with the 53 U.S. Marines and bluejackets landed from the USS Oregon and Newark.

German marines Peking 1900, AWM A05904

Peace

Following the arrival of more ships and troops rushed to China from Germany, Gefion was recalled home in September 1901.

Arriving back in German waters in time for Christmas, she was placed in ordinary and sent to Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven for a drawn-out three-year overhaul. This saw her armament retained but relocated for both stability and protection purposes.

Emerging from overhaul in 1905, she was placed in reserve, the German fleet having much better cruisers to choose from at that point.

It was from these mothballs that she was recalled in 1914, but, with no crews available to man her, she was moved to Danzig for use as a barracks ship, her usable equipment and weapons cannibalized for other uses.

At the end of the war, the victorious allies elected not to claim the hulked Gefion as a war trophy, and she was stricken from the German naval list on 5 November 1919.

Ex-Gefion was purchased by the salvage concern of Norddeutsche Tiefbaugesellschaft along with her old Far East buddy Kaiserin Augusta, the cruiser Victoria Louise, several incomplete submarines, and the obsolete (circa 1890) battlewagon Brandenburg. While most of the company’s new assets were soon scrapped in Danzig, Gefion and Victoria Louise were sold to the shipping firm of Danziger Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH (Behnke & Sieg), along with the four still-crated 1,200 hp MAN four-stroke diesel engines for the unfinished SM U-115 and U-116.

Most of the superstructure and the machinery from Gefion and Victoria Louise were removed, and two cranes and their associated stowage space were installed. Their old coal-fired boilers and VTE engines removed, each picked up a pair of former U-boat diesels. They entered service with DHT in 1920 as the cargo vessels (frachtdampfer) SS Adolf Sommerfeld and Flora Sommerfeld, respectively.

Seen in the 1922 Lloyds Steamers list as SS Adolf Summerfeld (sic). The ex-SMS Victoria Louise is listed in the same volume correctly as Flora Sommerfeld.

However, the Baltic timber route they served had shallow draft harbors, and the thin-waisted former cruisers drew too much water to make the venture successful. By 1923, both were scrapped in Danzig, and their still-young diesels were sold to an electric company.

Epilogue

The German Navy never used the name Gefion again, however, her bell has been spotted a few times since WWII and may be in circulation in private collections.

Several pieces of period maritime art, primarily German postcards, endure.

1902 lithograph of Gefion by Hugo Graf

An exquisite 1:100 scale model of the cruiser in her white overseas livery is on display under glass at the Internationales Maritimes Museum in Hamburg.

Speaking of models, Combrig has a 1:700 scale kit available. 

As for Gefion’s China-era (1898-1901) skipper, FKpt Max Rollmann returned to Germany, became the captain of the battleship SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and commanded the 1st Squadron of the High Seas Fleet as a commodore, then the III Squadron as a vice admiral in 1910. Retiring in 1913 after 40 years with the colors, he was made a full admiral on the retired list, decorated with both the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle and the Order of the Crown. Eschewing his pension and returning to work in the admiralty as a civilian during the Great War, he passed in 1942 in Berlin, aged 85. His son, KKpt Max Rollmann, had passed the previous year while serving as the duty officer (Rollenoffizier) aboard the Bismarck.

Charakterisierter Admiral Max Rollmann. As part of his service in China, he carried top-level decorations and honors, including the Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus, the Grand Officer’s Cross of the Order of the Crown of Thailand, and the Commander’s Cross of the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Kapitan zur See Guido von Usedom, the skipper of the cruiser Hertha that led the overall German naval infantry battalion under Seymour, was given a Blue Max and made an ADC to the Kaiser following the campaign. Quick with exotic anecdotes from the Orient to entertain Willy’s guests, he was given command of the imperial yacht Hohenzollern for a couple of years, followed by comfortable desk jobs until he retired in 1910 as a vice admiral after 39 years in the service, promoted to full Admiral on the retirement rolls.

Like Rollman, Von Usedom volunteered his services to the Kaiser once again in 1914 and soon found himself wearing a fez as an admiral in the Ottoman Navy in command of Sonderkommando Türkei. He strengthened the Dardanelles Straits until they became virtually impregnable from the sea in 1915, forcing the disastrous land Gallipoli campaign and earning a set of oak leaves for his 1900 Blue Max. He remained in Turkish service until 1918, when he retired a second time on the outbreak of peace.

Charakterisierter Admiral Guido von Usedom passed in 1925, aged 70. And yes, the center image is him showing a Mameluke-carrying Willy around the Dardanelles in 1915.

Albert Wilhelm Heinrich, Prinz von Preußen, was very much seen as the “Sailor Prince” of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Entering the German Navy at the age of 16 in 1878, he was a professional officer and earned his Großadmiral shoulder boards for sure, having spent decades on sea-going duty. During the Great War, he ably commanded the Imperial German Baltic Sea Fleet (Oberbefehlshaber der Ostseestreitkräfte) in operations against the Russians. He passed in 1929, aged 66.

The German treaty port at Tsingtao fell to an Anglo-Japanese force in 1914, and the Hankou Concession was retrograded by the Chinese in 1917, with the remaining German merchants closing up shop altogether in 1945. The old baroque German consulate in the Hankou Bund, where Prince Henry laid the cornerstone after a trip on Gefion in 1899, survives today on Yanjing Avenue as a Wuhan municipal office building, a red banner flying from its mast.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

***

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023: Of Mustaches, Stars, and Condemned Cannons

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

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023: Of Mustaches, Stars, and Condemned Cannons

Photograph by J.S. Johnston, New York. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 63251

Above we see a beautiful large format photograph of the early protected cruiser, USS Newark (Cruiser No. 1, later C-1) — the first modern steel-hulled cruiser in the U.S. Fleet, in the Hudson in 1891. You can clearly see her broadside of a half dozen 6″/30 guns, the ornately adorned ram bow, the extensive array of whaleboats and gigs to include a steam launch in the water, as well as her three-masted auxiliary sailing rig. A true warship caught between the end of the canvas and iron Navy and the beginning of the one made of steel.

She would have a unique place in American naval history.

The Squadron of Evolution

The Navy’s first run of steel-hulled ships, all mounting modern rifled breech-loading naval guns, protected by at least a modicum of armor, relying on steam engineering plants as their main means of propulsion, and even lit by electric lights, started with the famed “ABCD” ships– the protected cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago, joined by the smaller dispatch boat USS Dolphin (later PG-24)-– all ordered from the same shipyard, John Roach & Sons of Chester, Pennsylvania.

While the ABC part of this quartet was built to fight, running 3,200 tons in the case of Atlanta and Boston and 4,500 tons for Chicago, with as much as 4 inches of armor plate and a total of eight 8-inch, 20 6-inch, and two 5-inch guns between them, Dolphin was a lot less of a bruiser. That was OK, because their demonstration unit, the so-called Squadron of Evolution, or “White Squadron” was soon augmented by three smaller 1,900-ton Palmer and Cramp-built Yorktown class gunboats including USS Bennington and USS Concord.

Although the ABCD boats and the Yorktowns were all ordered and built between 1883 and 1890, it is Newark, ordered 3 March 1885 and not delivered until 1891, that is classified by the Navy as Cruiser No. 1 as Atlanta and Boston never received “C” series hull/pennant numbers while Chicago, by a twist of fate, earned a somewhat retroactive “CA-14” only in 1920 when she was hopelessly obsolete. The follow-on protected cruisers USS Charleston, USS Baltimore, USS Philadelphia, and USS San Francisco, therefore, became C-2, C-3, C-4, and C-5 although their orders and construction roughly overlapped Newark.

The Squadron of Evolution, including Newark on the top center and right across from Atlanta. So pretty she made the poster twice! LOC 79-HPS-9-1339

The “White Squadron” or “Squadron of Evolution” was underway off the U.S. East Coast, circa 1891. Ships are, (I-R): YORKTOWN (PG-1), BOSTON (1887) CONCORD (PG-3), ATLANTA (1887), NEWARK (C-1) CHICAGO (1889) NH 47026

Anywhoo…

Meet Newark

Our subject was the first warship commissioned to honor the largest city in New Jersey (as well as towns in Delaware, New York, and Ohio).

Some 328 feet long overall (311 at the waterline) she was considered a considerable improvement on Chicago. With a displacement of just over 4,000 tons, she carried a complete protective deck that ran two inches thick amidships with three inches at the slopes as well as splinter shields for her main guns and a conning tower with three-inch armor on the sides.

USS Newark (C-1) unofficial plans, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. Published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, NH 70105.

As a sailing ship, she was rigged as a barque without royals or headgear while her main propulsion was via a set of HTE engines propelled by four coal-fired boilers, sufficient to gin up 8,500 hp and able to drive the fighting ship at a healthy 18 knots.

The immaculate USS Newark (C-1) in harbor with other warships, during the early 1890s, showing off her wide and very functional yardarms. Glass lantern slide original from the A.S. Murray Collection. NH 45473

Her ornate rounded bow, Newark shown at the New York Navy Yard, 23 March 1899. Courtesy of the Skerritt Collection, Bethlehem Steel Co. archives. NH 45475

Dynamo Room Library of Congress Photograph ID det.4a14464

USS Newark (C-1) engine room. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-10

Her primary armament was a full dozen 6″/30 Mark 3 Mod 0 breechloading guns, an upgrade from the 6″/30 Mark 1s carried by the ABCD squadron and the Yorktowns. Black powder “bag” guns, they were capable of firing 105-pound AP shells out to 18,000 yards at maximum elevation/charge, with a rate of fire of about one shell every other minute or so. 

A barefoot member of Newark’s crew poses by the breech of a 6″/30 gun, 1898. Copied from the collection of WM. D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80844

USS Newark (Cruiser #1), gunners loading a 6-inch gun. Photographed by Edward H. Hart, published by Detroit Publishing Company, between 1891-1901. LC-DIG-DET-4a14471

USS Newark C-1, 6 inch gun

To zap small steam torpedo launches and small craft capable of coming in close and under her broadside’s minimum depression arc, Newark carried an array of small pieces.

This included four 57mm/40cal Hotchkiss Mk I/II 6-pounders, a quartet of 47mm/40cal 3-pounder Hotchkiss Mk Is, and two 37mm/20cal Hotchkiss Mk I revolving Gatling-style guns.

USS Newark. Electrician 1/c Sullivan with one of the ship’s six-pounder guns, in 1898. NH 80783

Newark. The ship’s Marines operating a 3-pounder gun and Gatling gun during a drill in the 1890s. Description: NH 75458

USS Newark (C-1) crew member on the forecastle, with two 37mm Hotchkiss revolving guns in 1898. Description: NH 80779

Like most naval vessels of her day, she could muster about a third of her 384-man crew who, joined with her Marine detachment, could disembark for extended landing force service ashore, equipped with rifles and field gear as a light infantry company. More on this later.

USS Newark (C-1) ship’s Marine Guard, photographed during the 1890s. Note the blue sack coats and kepis not much removed from Civil War days, and what look to be M1884 Springfield Trapdoor rifles, weapons that would remain in service even when supplanted by the Winchester M1895 Lee-Navy bolt-action repeater. For instance, six Springfield M1884 Trapdoor rifles were recovered from the wreck of the USS Maine in 1900. NH 75457

Marching order, seen here by Marines of USS Maine in 1895, would consist of Mills cartridge belts, haversacks, canteens, leg gaiters, and day packs for both the Marines and the ship’s Naval company. From the Wendell C. Neville Collection (COLL/2985) in the Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections.

USS Newark (C-1) ship’s Marines at action stations, on the poop deck, during the 1890s. Note the drummer in the center, with the ship’s wheel below. Also, note the ventilator. NH 75459

Newark, gunners with 6-inch gun and crew gathering boarding/landing gear including rifles, Mills belts, bayonets (right), and cutlasses (left) LOC LC-DIG-DET-4a14473v

Cutlass practice-1890s-aboard the early protected cruiser USS Newark (C-1). LOC photo via Shorpy colorized by Postales Navales

Then of course the ship herself was a weapon, a massive ram capable of smashing into the hull of an opponent and crashing her strengthened bow into the bulkheads of an enemy vessel.

How about that ram bow! USS Newark (C-1) In dry dock, Winter of 1898. NH 80799

And a shot of her bow from the same dry dock period, just for continuity. Note by this time her rigging had been reduced for the SpanAm war and she wears haze gray. NH 80798

Among her boats were plans for a 28-foot steam whaleboat, a 24-foot twin-masted sail cutter, two 28-foot sail cutters, a 30-foot whale gig, and two 29-foot whaleboats.

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), boat drill at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-12

Another J.S. Johnston, New York image from 1891 of Newark, this time from the bow, showing her with boats alongside. NH 69195

USS Newark (C-1) hoisting in the steam launch, preparatory to going to sea, 9 August 1898. Note her dark wartime topside scheme. NH 80793

USS Newark (C-1) view on the deck, looking aft, in 1898, showing the 45-star flag and a cutter. NH 80780

Happy service

Ordered from William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia– the yard that had built Yorktown and would likewise build the cruisers Baltimore (C-3) and Philadelphia (C-4) alongside– Newark was laid down 12 June 1888, launched 19 March 1890, and commissioned on Groundhog’s Day 1891.

Her first skipper was Capt. Silas Casey Jr. (USNA 1860), a future admiral who had learned his trade during the Civil War on the blockade line aboard the famed Unadilla-class gunboats Wissahickon and Winooski. Her next eight skippers, some of whom only held command for a few months to cap a career, were all Civil War veterans– the end of an era.

This 1891 photograph via the Detroit Photographic Company shows Captain Silas Casey (USNA 1860), skipper of the cruiser USS Newark (C-1), sitting in his well-furnished stateroom with his Old English Bulldog sleeping quietly on the floor. Casey doubled down on being a dog lover as shown by his taste in art as the picture behind him is an illustration used for the “No Monkeying” brand of cigars, which depicts two bulldogs playing poker with a monkey. LOC LC-USZ62-71185 https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003656056/

Newark from her starboard bow, showing the size of her fighting tops. Halftone photo, published in “Uncle Sam’s Navy.” NH 45474

The next half-decade, until she entered ordinary for a well-deserved refit in March 1896, saw Newark showing the flag in West Indies ports then ranging to South Africa and Europe, often serving as an admiral’s flagship, and taking part in numerous international naval activities such as the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’ sailing which included port calls in Genoa (the explorer’s birthplace), towing a replica of the humble caravel Nina across the Atlantic from Spain, and attending the myriad of naval reviews in Hampton Roads and New York in 1893.

This left several great images of our cruiser.

USS Newark (C-1) photographed in 1892 at Genoa with a beautiful view of her 6″/30s and boat davits. Courtesy of Arrigo Barilli. NH 45476

USS Newark at Barcelona, 1892

Torpedo Boat USS Cushing TB-1 New York USS Newark C-1 USS Chicago

USS Newark, Detriot Photo 020641

Period photographers likewise captured some great shots of her crew that stand as absolute time capsules for the era, saved in a scrapbook from the vessel collected by William D. Edwards and via the Detroit Postcard company.

USS Newark (Cruiser # 1) Two African American members of the cruiser’s crew, 1898. The man on the left is wearing a steward’s uniform. Copied from the scrapbook of William D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80782

USS Newark (C-1) Officer and crew member pose by the wheelhouse, in 1898. Copied from the scrapbook of William D. Edwards, Courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80845

USS Newark (C-1) crew members by a searchlight, in 1898. Copied from the collection of William D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80843

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), shown: quarter-deck. Note the old Tars. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-9

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), shown: berthing deck. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-4

USS Newark bridge LOC LC-D4-20065

USS Newark Petty Officers Mess LC-D4-20070

War!

Following an extensive 14-month overhaul, Newark recommissioned on 23 May 1898, just weeks after the U.S. declaration of war on Spain. When she emerged, she looked much more like a 20th Century warship rather than one of the 19th, having removed her original mainmast as well as her sails and rigging to leave two short military masts topped with searchlights, and donned a heavy coat of gray paint. She was swathed in splinter nets and landed much of her ornate woodwork from below decks. 

USS Newark (C-1) view on deck, 9 August 1898, showing splinter netting rigged and a 6″/30 mount. Note that this was just after the Spanish-American war, when the cruiser was made very much ready for combat. NH 80778

USS Newark (C-1) in port, Antonio Harbor, Jamaica, 11 October 1898. Note she is in her gray warpaint with a much-reduced rigging and just two military masts. NH 80792

Her wartime skipper was Capt. Albert Smith Barker (USNA 1861), who had served in the Civil War aboard the old USS Mississippi and held command of the early battleship USS Oregon and, leaving his position on the Army-Navy Board eagerly accepted command of Newark. Her new navigator, late of the armored cruiser USS New York, was LT William F. Halsey Sr.– yes, that Halsey’s old man.

Sailing on 13 June for Key West and then Cuba, she joined the blockade on 30 June and served intermittently as the flagship of Commodore John Crittenden Watson, Commander, Eastern Fleet. Cruising in Cuban waters throughout the summer, Newark bombarded the port of Manzanillo on 12 August and on the following day accepted its surrender.

Carrying part of the First Marine Battalion with its commander, Col. Robert W. Huntington, aboard, Barker noted the sadness displayed by the Marine colonel at the sight of the white flags over Manzanillo on 13 August, saying, “As part of the contemplated plan of operations was the landing of some or all of the marines of Colonel Huntington’s command. This officer’s regret at the loss of an opportunity to win additional distinction for his corps and himself was only equaled by his careful study of the necessities of the case and his zealous entrance into the spirit of the enterprise.”

After the Battle of Santiago, she participated in the final destruction of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, bombarding the burned Spanish hulks.

USS Newark (C-1) coaling from a schooner, 1898. Though deteriorated, this photo shows an activity that was a frequent, and very dirty, reality of Spanish-American War naval operations. Copied from the collection of William D. Edwards, by courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974.NH 80841

A hunting party from USS NEWARK (C-1) in the ruins of a Spanish building on Windward Point, entrance to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 3 September 1898– it looks like they are armed with M1895 Lee Navy rifles. NH 80791

With the war over, Newark was needed on the other side of the globe where the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, was ablaze.

After a short trip back to New York, Newark steamed through the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco then across the Pacific for the Philippines arriving in Cavite on 25 November 1899. By the end of the year, her landing forces were moving ashore, receiving the surrender of insurrectionists in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Bataan.

Philippine Insurrection, 1899. The garrison of Aparri from the USS Newark after the Surrender. McCalla collection, presented to Library by Captain D.W. Knox, USN. (Ret) 1926. NH 123421.

Boxing the Boxers

Having had little rest since she was recommissioned in May 1898 that took her from Santiago to Bataan, the year 1900 found our cruiser and her seasoned crew still in haze gray on Asiatic Station. She pulled up anchor on 20 May while at Yokohama, bound for China to help land reinforcements to relieve the international legations under siege by the anti-foreign/anti-Christian forces of the “Society of the Righteous Harmonious Fists,” at Peking.

Just two days later, she was in the midst of the mess, arriving at the port of Tientsin and then moving against Taku and Chefoo.

Over the next 11 weeks, Newark and her crew and Marine detachment would be involved in a series of actions, battles, and sieges ranging from running dispatches and medical supplies through bandit territory to outright heavy fighting against the Chinese Imperial Army.

A joint naval force was assembled from eight European navies and placed under the command of VADM Edward Hobart Seymour, Royal Navy, with Newark’s Captain Bowman H. McCalla as the second in command. In all, the 2,100-strong force (including 112 Americans, mostly from Newark) went down in history as the Seymour Relief Expedition, which tried but failed to relieve Peking and had to withdraw back to Tientsin by train, with Peking relieved later in the summer by the successful Gaselee Expedition.

Among Newark’s crew at the time was a young midshipman, Joseph Knefler Taussig, who would go on to become a WWII Vice Admiral– one of a very few individuals who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II, famously clashing with FDR. Taussig would be in good company, as, included among the British contingent were young Royal Navy officers Capt. John Jellicoe and LT David Beatty.

The cadet was seriously wounded in the leg during the Expedition. He wasn’t the only one. During the battle for the Hsiku Arsenal, Capt. McCalla, along with 25 of his force, was wounded and five were killed.

Seymour Expedition, May 1900. Officers of USS Newark (C-1) on board a ship, ascending the Pei Ho River en route to Tientsin. Present are (left-right): Midshipman C.E. Courtney, Ensign D.W. Wurtzbaugh, Captain N.H. Hall (USMC), Naval Aviation Cadet J.K. Taussig, Assistant Surgeon T.M. Lippitt, and Machinist Daniel Mullan. The McCalla Collection. Courtesy of Captain D.W. Knox. NH 45347

Those who did make it to the Legation Quarter in Peking on 31 May amounted to roughly a light company under Marine Capt. John “Handsome Jack” Myers, who, along with 20 Marines from the battleship USS Oregon also counted a force from USS Newark made up of Capt. Newt Hall and 23 Marines, five Sailors, and U.S. Navy Assistant Surgeon T.M. Lippett.

They arrived with five days rations, an M1895 Colt “potato-digger” machine gun removed from Newark along with 8,000 rounds of ammo for it, and 20,000 rounds for their Navy-Lee rifles. Leaving their kit on their ships, they only had the clothes on their back and the contents of their pockets.

Then began the famed “55 Days in Peking” that lasted from 20 June to 14 August before the Gaselee Expedition arrived and the Boxers were defeated.

One of the bluejackets from Newark during the Peking Siege was Gunner’s Mate First Class Joseph Andrew Mitchell. Born in Philadelphia in 1876, Mitchell grew up tinkering with the flotsam of the Revolutionary and Civil War and was something of a cannon fan, hence his occupation. It was to come in handy when the outnumbered Legation garrison was facing off with upwards of 20,000 besieging Boxers.

As told in an article via the Sextant:

Mitchell and the U.S. legation’s secretary Herbert Squiers had an idea: build a piece of artillery using the cylinder of a pump as the cannon barrel. They began to experiment, but then, on 7 July, a stroke of luck changed their plans. Chinese Christian refugees sheltering in the Legation Quarter discovered a cannon barrel reportedly lying in a junk shop, likely a relic from the Anglo-French expedition during the Second Opium War. Firsthand accounts record that the barrel was rifled and forged from either bronze or steel, but what Mitchell received was a “mass of rust and dirt.” He scraped and cleaned the barrel to give it “a creditable appearance,” one worthy of serving as the centerpiece for his improvised gun.

At first, the barrel was mounted to a heavy pole. When this proved unsatisfactory, the gun carriage was taken from the Italian’s 1-pounder, and the barrel was secured to the carriage with rope. Now, ammunition was needed. The Russian allies had arrived in Beijing with a chest of 3-inch shells but forgotten their gun in the city of Tianjin. When the siege began, they had thrown their shells down a well to prevent them from falling into Chinese hands. The disposed shells were hauled up, but found to be too large for the narrow barrel. Mitchell solved this problem by first removing the shells from their casings, then ramming them into the barrel. Thus, the “International Gun” was born, made of material from Russia and Italy and primarily manned by an American gunner, Joseph Mitchell. Members of the international guard also knew the weapon as “Betsey” or “the Empress Dowager.”

The “International Gun” and its crew. Gunner’s Mate Joseph Mitchell stands second from the right holding a modified Russian shell. (Photograph by Reverend Charles A. Killie. Billie Love Historical Collection and Special Collections, University of Bristol Library, http://www.hpcbristol.net/visual/bl-n033.)

GM1 Joseph Mitchell Boxer depicted during the Rebellion firing “Old International”

‘The International Gun’, an improvised cannon used during the siege of the Legation Quarter, Peking (Photograph by Reverend Charles A. Killie. Billie Love Historical Collection and Special Collections, University of Bristol Library, https://hpcbristol.net/visual/NA05-04)

Mitchell and his crew somehow kept the International Gun and its improvised shells working, moving the artillery piece from location to location within the Legation to make it seem like the garrison had more than just a single pop gun at their disposal.

Of the 56 Sailors and Marines from Oregon and Newark, seven were killed and 10 seriously wounded during the siege, including Mitchell who was shot in the arm on the last day of the action.

Of the 22 Marine and 33 Navy recipients of the Medal of Honor for the Boxer Rebellion, a whopping 35 (12 USMC and 22 USN) came from men assigned to USS Newark, including Mitchell. Keep in mind that 11 Navy ships (Brooklyn, Monocacy, Nashville, New Orleans, Newark, Solace, and Wheeling) served in Chinese waters during the Rebellion long enough for their personnel to be authorized the China Relief Expedition Medal.

It was a melting pot amalgamation of bluejackets to be sure.

Among Newark’s crew who earned the MoH were German-born Coxswain Karl Thomas, Seaman Hans Anton Hansen and Chief Machinist Carl Emil Petersen; Norwegian Gunner’s Mate Third Class Martin Torinus Torgerson, Finnish-born Seaman Axel Westermark, London-born Seaman William Seach, Sons of Eire to include Belfast-born Seaman Samuel McAllister and Landsman Joseph Killackey of County Cork, and one Boatswain’s Mate First Class Edward G. Allen who, despite his Anglicized name, had a birthplace was listed as Amsterdam, Holland in 1859, making him 41 at the time of the expedition, its “old man.”

Other Newark crewmembers with Boxer Rebellion MoHs:

  • Chief Boatswain’s Mate Joseph Clancy (age 37)
  • Chief Carpenter’s Mate William Francis Hamberger (later LCDR)
  • Oiler Frank Elmer Smith
  • Coxswain Francis Thomas Ryan
  • Coxswain John McCloy
  • Coxswain Jay P. Williams
  • Boatswain’s Mate First Class William Edward Holyoke
  • Machinist First Class Burke Hanford
  • Gunner’s Mate Second Class John Purness Chatham
  • Hospital Apprentice Robert Henry Stanley
  • Landsman James a Smith
  • Seaman George Harry Rose (later LCDR)

Then of course were Newark’s Marines who earned the MoH:

  • Gunnery Sergeant Peter Stewart
  • CPL Reuben Jasper Phillips
  • CPL Edwin Nelson Appleton (later Captain)
  • PVT William F. Zion
  • PVT France Silva
  • PVT Harry Westley Orndoff
  • PVT Henry William Heisch (formerly of Latendorf, Germany)
  • PVT Louis Rene Gaiennie
  • PVT Daniel Joseph Daly (the only enlisted Marine to have won the Medal of Honor twice, for two separate acts of gallantry)
  • PVT William Louis Carr
  • PVT James Burnes
  • Drummer John Alphonsus Murphy (aged 18)

A collection of images of some of Newark’s Marines and Sailors who earned the MoH in the Boxer Rebellion, along with “Handsome Jack” Myers (bottom right), who was played in the 1963 “55 Days at Peking” film by Charlton Heston. On the bottom left is Daly, who picked up his second MoH in Haiti in 1915

The controversial Capt. Newt Hamill Hall, head of Newark’s Marine detachment at Peking. One of only 20 men in history to earn the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, he went on to retire as a colonel and passed in 1939, aged 66. Source: Military Order of the Dragon, 1900-1911 (1912).

Back from the East

Newark sailed for home in mid-April 1901, via Hong Kong, Ceylon, and the Suez, arriving at Boston in July 1901. There, she would be modernized, landing her SpanAm War-era “bag” 6″/30 Mark 3 guns for a dozen new 6″/40 Mark 4s that used fixed shells and had easily twice the rate of fire.

She would put her gleaming white paint scheme back on for at least a half-decade and once again show the flag around the West Indies and off the coast of South America, then clock in as a training ship for the Naval Academy.

USS Newark (C-1) at the review of the North Atlantic Fleet, 1905. Note her newly installed longer 6″/40 caliber Mark 4s, which don’t have shields. Photo by The Burr McIntosh Studio. Courtesy of The Naval Historical Foundation, Rodgers Collection. NH 91219

Venezuela circa 1904. American fleet at La Guaira. The Gunboat/Cruiser at the far left is of the Denver Class (C-14/19) The other two ships, nearest center and farthest out, are two of the three Montgomery Class Gunboats/Cruisers (C-9/11). All three ships have different scroll work on their bows and based on that the nearest is the Montgomery (C-9). The other is the Detroit (C-10). The two 2-stackers on the left are Raleigh (C-8) and Cincinnati (C-7); the 2-stacker farthest away from the camera is the Newark (C-7), and the single-stacker is the Texas. In front of the Texas is the armored cruiser New York (ACR-2) (3 stacks). At right is the armored cruiser Brooklyn (ACR-3) (also with three stacks).

She spent a year on loan (May 1907-May 1908) to the New York Naval Militia and would be the floating home to the organization’s 1st Battalion.

Another good view of her 6″/40 caliber Mark 4s. “New Home Naval Reserve 1st Battalion~USS Newark Cruiser”~Enrique Muller postcard 1904

Then, returning to active service, she was used as a station ship at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay until 1912.

By that time, although she was just 21 years old, the concept of an 18-knot cruiser on the cusp of the Great War was ludicrous and she was marked for decommissioning.

Stricken from the Navy List in June 1913 she served as a Public Health Service quarantine hulk at Providence, Rhode Island, and temporarily as a naval hospital annex there until 1926 when she was disposed of, sold for her value as scrap on 7 September, some 97 years ago this week.

Epilogue

Across her career from February 1891 to June 1912, Newark had 21 skippers, all Annapolis men. No less than seven went on to wear admiral’s stars.

Some of her Mark 4 6″/30s, removed in 1913, were no doubt used to arm merchant ships against U-boats in the Great War.

Newark is well remembered in period artwork from her era, some of it breathtaking.

“Peace” painting by Walter L. Dean, published in “Harper ‘s Weekly”‘ circa 1893. It shows the “White Squadron” in Boston Harbor, during the early 1890s. The ship in the center is the USS Chicago. USS Newark is at left and USS Atlanta is at right. This painting is now in the U.S. Capitol. NH 95137

“U.S.S. Newark, off Santiago Bay, Cuba, 1898, Spanish American War, “1900, Watercolor and gouache on paper. Artist: Worden Wood (American, 1880–1943). Yale University collection. Accession 1941.228

USS Miantonomah and USS Newark at target practice. Watercolor by Fred S. Cozzens, 1892. Lithographed by Armstrong & Co. Copied from “Our Navy- Its Growth and Achievements,” copyright 1897. NH 337

Lithograph of USS Newark with her canvas aloft and electric running lights glowing, 1890.

GM1 Mitchell, who later retired from the Navy as a lieutenant, passed in 1925 and is buried at St. Paul’s Catholic Cemetery in Portsmouth, Virginia.

His work at Peking was commemorated in the DC war comic, “Our Fighting Forces” # 135, Feb. 1972, by Norman Maurer.

As for Mitchell’s International Gun (also known as ‘Old Betsy’, ‘Boxer Bill’, ‘Old Crock’ and the ‘Empress Dowager’), used during the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking, the cannon was carefully escorted back to the States after the rebellion and has been in storage at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum for decades.

The International Gun barrel is in storage at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. 230614-N-NH164-005

An icon of “Devil Dog” history right up there with Chesty Puller, Sergent Major Dan Daly’s Medals of Honor, including the one earned at Peking while a part of Newark’s Marine det, are in the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico.

Daly is also attributed with saying, “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” during the Battle of Belleau Wood in WWI.

For more about the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Boxer Rebellion, please check out Emily Abdow’s new work, “The Boxer Rebellion: Bluejackets and Marines in China, 1900–1901,” at the NHHC in PDF format.

As for the name “Newark” despite the Navy’s best efforts, it just hasn’t been done justice ever since.

During the Great War, a commercial tug by the name was taken into service for the duration for work as a minesweeper patrol craft (S. P. 266) and retained her peacetime moniker. A planned Cleveland-class light cruiser (CL-88) was canceled in 1940 while a second of the same class that was to carry the name (CL-100) was converted during construction to the Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto (CVL-30). Finally, another planned USS Newark (CL-108), a Fargo-class light cruiser was canceled on 12 August 1945 when 67.8 percent completed.

The hulk of what was to be the USS Newark (CL-108) was launched on 14 December 1945, without a name but with her hull number stenciled in, for use in underwater explosion tests, then sold on 2 April 1949 for scrapping.

Today, with the final Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers in active service slated to decommission sometime in 2027, and no more “C” hull numbers inbound, the line started with Newark in 1888 is set to close after a glorious 139 years.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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A moment with the 8 Nation Alliance, 119 years on

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Taken Nov 2, 1899:

Via Australian War Memorial

“Group portrait of allied forces who served in China during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 – 1901 believed to been taken on the steps of the British Legation. Australian naval officers are dressed in borrowed Canadian uniforms as they were unprepared for the severity of winter in Peking.

Identified second from right, under the right gun, is Able Seaman William Bertotto, Victorian Naval Brigade. Directly below him is AB Neil Morrison. Pictured are officers from ‘The Eight Nation Alliance’ of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States of America, Australian naval troops from New South Wales and Victoria served in aid of Great Britain.

Less than fourteen years later the Allies that had fought side by side would be killing each other on the battlefields of Western Europe”

A German Dragon, by way of Solingen, Tientsin and Canberra

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From the collection of The Australian War Memorial comes this great German-made sword used by the Qi Army in the twilight of Imperial China:

Imperial German Model 1889 sword and scabbard. The grip is brown bakelite held to the tang by two steel rivets and has an oval steel pommel. The blade is a single edge, pipe back with a double edge spear point. The ricasso is stamped with E&F. HORSTER SOLINGEN and there is a leather washer where the blade meets the guard. The steel scabbard is plain with two fixed rings on a band at 50 mm and 150 mm from the throat which is held to the body by two screws. Attached to the lower ring is a chain that is connected to a broken brown leather hanger strap with a brass buckle in the center.

Founded in 1850, Hörster E. & F. Co., Solingen, made military edged weapons through WWII.

The hilt has a half basket steel guard with a Chinese dragon as the cartouche badge.

This sword was brought back from China by a member of the Victorian Naval Contingent in 1900.

Group portrait of Australian Naval Brigade who served in the Boxer Rebellion, 1900-1901

Combat Gallery Sunday: The intel of Captain C.F. O’Keefe, shutterbug

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Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers and the like that produced them.

With that, I give you:

Combat Gallery Sunday: The intel of Captain C.F. O’Keefe, shutterbug

You don’t have to be a Jack White fan to know about the Soldiers of the Eight-Nation Alliance, formed to suppress China’s Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Encompassing sea and land forces from Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the U.S., Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, the force was originally named after the 409 soldiers from eight countries that helped defend the Peking legation area when things went sideways in August 1900.

All photos by O’Keefe, via National Archives, U.S. Naval Historical Command, and Library of Congress

Eventually, relief columns landed and marched into Manchuria would account for more than 50,000 Allied troops and set the stage for the Russo-Japanese War that followed in its wake and continuing outside military intervention in China through 1949.

But we are focused on one Capt. Cornelius Francis O’Keefe of the 36th U.S. Volunteer Infantry (formerly a lieutenant in the 1st Colorado Infantry Regiment) who accompanied the U.S. expedition under Maj. Gen Ada Chaffee to China. Attached to Chaffee’s staff, O’Keefe, who before the rebellion was part of the Engineer office in Manila as a photographer, took notes and photographs at the Taku forts and ashore, moving through the Chinese arsenals at Tientsin and points West.

Accompanied by a Sgt. Hurtt and “three privates equipped for sketching,” the hardy volunteer field officer lugged his camera equipment around the front and rear lines of the expedition. As such, he took advantage of close interaction with foreign troops who could be future adversaries to extensively photograph their uniforms and gear from all angles.

You can see his U.S. Army Engineers logo on most and Signal Corps photo numbers as well.

111-SC-74919 French Engineer Packs. (Same equipment was used for Infantry, except for pick and shovel), during the Chinese Relief Expedition, 1900.

111-SC-74974 French Zouaves during the Chinese Relief Expedition (Boxer Rebellion), 1900

111-SC-74920 French Marine Infantry during the Chinese Relief Expedition, 1900

111-SC-75121 French Engineers at Peking, China, during the Chinese Relief Expedition, 1900

11-SC-75033 Boxer Rebellion (Chinese Relief Expedition), 1900. Japanese Engineer Soldiers, 1900

111-SC-74925 Boxer Rebellion (Chinese Relief Expedition), 1900. Japanese Infantryman on duty with the Chinese Relief Expedition, 1900

111-SC-74924 Boxer Rebellion (Chinese Relief Expedition), 1900. Japanese Artillerymen on duty with the Chinese Relief Expedition, 1900. First man on left is an Non-Commissioned Officer.

11-SC-74922 Boxer Rebellion (Chinese Relief Expedition), 1900. Japanese Cavalrymen (dismounted), 1900.

Boxer Rebellion (Chinese Relief Expedition), 1900. Japanese Infantrymen, 1900.

As for O’Keefe in 1901, he returned to the Philippines and presented himself to Maj. Clifton Sears of the Corps of Engineers to resume his role as photographer for the Manila-based outfit for the remainder of his hitch. The 36th Volunteers were mustered out in July 1902 and from what I can tell, O’Keefe hung up his uniform with it.

His photography from the exotic region, including taken in the Forbidden City, graced Harper’s Weekly (especially Harper’s Pictorial History of the War with Spain) and was shown as part of the “Mysterious Asia” exhibition at St. Louis’ Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.

At various times, he maintained private studios in Detriot, Iowa, and Colorado.

He died in 1939, aged 74.

A collection of some 170 O’Keefe images, formerly owned by Capt. Harley B. Ferguson, the Chief Engineer of the China Relief Expedition, appeared at auction in 2015 while hundreds of others, as exhibited above, are in various U.S. institutions to include the National Archives, NHHC and the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Another 85 images from his time in the PI with the 1st Colorado are in the collection of Colorado’s Stephen H. Hart Library & Research Center while the NYPL has its own, smaller, dossier.

Thank you for your work, sir.