Warship Wednesday, May 31, 2017: The Swordfish of the Baltic
Image via Saab Defense, who own Kockums.
Here we see the ubåt HSvMS Svärdfisken (Sf) of the Royal Swedish Navy (svenska flottan) as she appeared in 1914 on builder’s trials from Kockums before delivery to the fleet.
The cool kid stuck sitting in the Baltic between the knuckle-cracking bruisers that were the Kaiser’s Germany and the Tsar’s Russia, Sweden faced the problem of being able to keep her sea lines of communication open while appearing to be too tough a nut to crack should either one of the class bullies decide to come sniffing around. This meant innovative coastal battleships and submarines.
While Sweden counted among her illustrious sons no less a person than early U-boat pioneer Thorsten Nordenfelt who sold cranky early submarines to Turkey and Greece, the country went shopping elsewhere for some more mature designs.
The first Swede ubåt, the stubby single-hulled HSvMS Hajen (Shark) was built at Bergsunds Mek. Verstad in Stockholm in 1904 under the eye of former USN engineering officer and MIT graduate Carl Eric Richson (himself a Swede) and, at 111-tons and 77-feet oal, would be considered a midget sub today. She carried a single 450mm bow tube and could make 9.5-knots wide open.
Next were a series of three locally built “bathtub” boats of the same size as Hajen built in 1909, followed by a narrow and sexy Italian sub, HSvMS Hvalen (Whale) of some 140-feet, built at Fiat-Laurenti of San Giorno in 1912.
Italian Foca Class Submarine built by Fiat-San Giorgio at La Spezia for the Swedish Navy in 1909,HSwMS Hvalen pictured in Portsmouth Harbour c.1910, in the background is an unidentified Eclipse Class Second Class Protected Cruiser.
While Hvalen was nice, had a double-hull, and could touch 14-knots, the spaghetti boat also had leaky gasoline engines that were prone to catch fire at the most inopportune times.
This brings us to the decision in 1913 by the Swedes to contract with Kockums Mek. Verkstads AB of Malmo to build the first modern all-Swedish combat submarines, the Svärdfisken (“Swordfish,” Kockums hull No. 115, Swedish Navy pennant “Sf”) and Tumlaren (No. 116, pennant “Tu”) while the near-sister Delfinen (“Dolphin,” pennant “Df”) was laid down at Bergsunds Mek. Verkstad.
Svärdfisken at her builder’s dock, early 1914. She was delivered 25 August, just three weeks after the outbreak of the Great War. (Photo: Saab)
A modification of the Fiat-Laurenti design of Hvalen, these 300-ton boats had a long, narrow pressure hull and went 148-feet overall. Gone were the gasoline engines, replaced by a pair of Swede Jonas Hesselman’s forward-thinking 500 hp diesels which charged batteries for two Luth & Rosén electric motors on twin shafts. On the surface, they could make 14.2-knots, submerged 9.5. The difference between Delfinen and the two Kockums-built craft was that she carried a different set of diesels that generated 450 hp each (good for 13.2kts) and a slightly modified single hull design.
The vessels’ 21-man crew operated a pair of 450mm torpedo bow tubes with four “fish” carried as well as a low-angle M98 37mm deck gun kept very greasy to help abate salt-water corrosion.
The class was designed from the ground up to use wireless sets, which at the time were so new as to almost be considered a novelty.
Note the double periscopes
All ships of the class could dive to 110-feet, which was sufficient for use in the shallow waters of the Baltic– and they could float in 11 feet of seawater and operate at a periscope depth of 25 feet. The crews trained to spend upwards of 24 hours at a time submerged, most of it stationary.
Note her deployed high mast which incorporated a wireless antenna. As with the image above, her deck gun has not been fitted yet.
When the Great War kicked off and Germany and Russia began to duke it out on the regular whenever the Baltic ice allowed it, all three of the new Swede swordfish were operational and spent much of their time at sea enforcing Swedish neutrality at the force of a torpedo tube and deck gun– stepping up the latter to a 57mm Bofors piece after Armistice Day. This early cold war often turned hot, with Hvalen on at least one occasion taking deadly fire from an armed German trawler.
The two Kockums-built boats were reportedly popular with their crews and had an enviable safety record, a feat that was often elusive with pre-WWI designs.
The three sisters alongside tender in 1917, the elderly 1870s 175-foot iron-hulled steam gunboat HSvMS Skäggald (Bearded Eagle)
Then came the salad days of the Swedish Navy’s submarine force.
By 1929, the King’s ubat fleet counted the 3 Svardfisken, 2 Laxen-class, 2 Abborren-class, 3 Hajen-class, 3 Bavern-class, HSvMS Valen, and 3 Draken-class vessels giving the force a total of 17 modern hulls. When you take into account the Germans were forbidden by the Versailles Treaty to operate/maintain U-boats, and the Soviets’ Red Banner fleet was still crippled by the Great War/Revolution/Civil War and remained that way until the early 1930s, Sweden had more operational submarines in the Baltic than anyone else.
And it would only get stronger, as in 1933 a program to build a dozen new 200~ foot subs, each with a six-pack of 21-inch tubes, were ordered. This, of course, led to the withdrawal of some older designs.
While the cranky Delfinen was scrapped in 1930, Svärdfisken and Tumlaren had their names struck (and recycled for new submarines) and were placed in reserve in 1936 to continue to serve as pierside trainers.
Still in reserve when the next war came but working with hulls considered too unsafe to submerge and take into combat, both Kockums-built boats were used as floating AAA batteries along the Swedish coast during World War II. For this, they landed their old low-angle 57mm deck gun and fitted a few 40mm Bofors and light weapons.
All the Svärdfisken-class were scrapped by 1946, with the set-aside Bofors 57mm deck gun (Ubåtskanon) of Svärdfisken retained and placed on public display at the Swedish Marinmuseum.
Via Swedish Marinmuseum
As mentioned above, the Svärdfisken and Tumlaren had their names given to new Sjölejonet-class ubats commissioned in 1940. These vessels remained in the fleet through WWII and the Cold War until 1959 and 1964 respectively.
Since the production of Svärdfisken, Kockums has produced no less than 73 submarines, with the latest being the Gotland-class and pending A26s, which, while sharing many traits of the old Swordfish (small, shallow divers) are still some of the most innovative and deadly in the world.
Via Saab
A26 via Saab
Specs:
Via Swedish Marinmuseum
Displacement: 247 tons surfaced, 300 smgd
Length:148 ft.
Beam: 13.78 ft.
Draft: 10 ft.
Engineering: Diesel engines, 2 x 500 hp, electric motor 2 pcs
Speed: 14.2 knots, surfaced. 9.5 submerged.
Endurance: 1,000nm at 10kts surfaced, 40nm at 5kts submerged.
Diving depth 35 m
Crew 21 men
Armament 2 x 45 cm torpedo tubes, 1x37mm M98 (replaced by M1919 57mm by 1920).
(1939)
2x 40mm Bofors singles, machine 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.
Warship Wednesday, May 24, 2017: The leopard of rum row turned magic-eyed U-boat buster
Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1972. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 76377
Here we see the Clemson-class “four-piper” flush-decker destroyer USS Hunt (DD-194) at anchor in New York Harbor when new, circa 1920. One of a tremendous class of vessels some 156-strong, she had a long and varied career.
An expansion of the Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were needed to combat the pressing German submarine threat of the Great War. At 1,200-tons and with a top speed of 35 knots, they were brisk. Another thing they were was built too late for the war.
The hero of our story, USS Hunt, was laid down at Newport News 10 weeks before Armistice Day, named in honor of William Henry Hunt, Secretary of the Navy under President Garfield. Peace delayed her completion until 30 September 1920 when the above image was taken.
After shakedown, Hunt participated in training and readiness exercises with the Atlantic Fleet and conducted torpedo trials on the range out of Newport, R.I. before moving to Charleston.
With the looming idea of naval limitations treaties, the USN rapidly scrapped 40 of their new Clemsons (those built with British style Yarrow boilers) and put whole squadrons of these low mileage vessels in ordinary. One, USS Moody (DD-277) was even sold to MGM for making the film “Hell Below” where she was used as a German destroyer and blown up during filming!
Our Hunt decommissioned at Philadelphia Navy Yard 11 August 1922, with only 23 months of gentle Naval service under her belt.
While the Hunt was sitting in Philly, a funny thing happened. The country got sober. Well, kind of.
As deftly retold in a paper by the USCG Historians Office, the service, then part of the Treasury Department, was hard-pressed to chase down fast bootlegging boats shagging out to “Rum Row” where British and Canadian merchants rested in safe water on the 3-mile limit loaded with cases of good whiskey and rum for sale.
Rum Runners in Canada and in the Bahamas had the cry, “For some, there’s a fortune but others will die, come on load up the ship boys, the Yankees are dry.”
This led the agency to borrow 31 relatively new destroyers from the Navy, an act that would have been akin to the USN transferring most of the FFG7 frigates to the Coast Guard during the “cocaine cowboy” days of the 1980s.
USCGD Ammen (CG-8) in pursuit of a rumrunner
US Coast Guard Paulding-class destroyer McCall (CG-14/DD-28) arriving at Charlestown Navy Yard Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Jan. 15, 1928. Commissioned 23 January 1911, she served as a convoy escort in WWI and was transferred to the United States Coast Guard on 7 June 1924, then returned in 1930 and scrapped to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty
U.S. Coast Guard destroyers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1926, note the “CG” hull numbers
In the end, the rehabilitation of the vessels became a saga in itself because of the exceedingly poor condition of many of these war-weary ships. In many instances, it took nearly a year to bring the vessels up to seaworthiness. Additionally, these were by far the largest and most sophisticated vessels ever operated by the service and trained personnel were nearly nonexistent. As a result, Congress authorized hundreds of new enlistees. It was these inexperienced men that made up the destroyer crews and contributed to the service’s greatest growth prior to World War II.
A total of 31 destroyers served with the Coast Guard’s Destroyer Force. These included three different classes, the 742-ton “flivver-class,” “1,000-ton class”, and the 1,190-ton “Clemson-class” flush-deckers. Capable of over 25 knots, the destroyers had an advantage in chasing large rumrunners. They were, however, easily outmaneuvered by smaller vessels. The destroyers’ mission, therefore, was to picket the larger supply ships (“mother ships”) and prevent them from off-loading their cargo onto smaller, speedier contact boats that ran the liquor into shore.
Hunt was one of the last tin cans loaned to the service.
She only served three years with the Coasties, transferring 5 Feb 1931 and placed in commission at Philadelphia Navy Yard, then deploying to Stapleton, NY where she became the flag for the Special Patrol Force there.
Coast Guard Historian’s office
While chasing down rum boats along the New York coastline, she apparently had a very serious mascot:
1931 Jane’s showing a few “Coast Guard destroyers” to include Hunt
On 6 Jan 1933, she was transferred to Division II, Coast Guard Destroyer Force, and, along with other Treasury Department-loaned tin cans, supported the Navy on the Cuban Expedition based out of Key West for several months as the country watched how the troubles down there were going on.
Hunt arrived back at Stapleton 9 November 1933 and, with the Volstead Act repealed, was decommissioned from USCG service 28 May 1934 and returned to the Navy, who promptly sent her back to red lead row.
There she sat once more until the country needed her.
On 26 January 1940, she once again was taken out of mothballs and brought to life by a fresh crew as the Navy needed ships for the new neutrality patrol in the initial stages of WWII. Shipping for the Caribbean, she escorted the USS Searaven (SS-196), a Sargo-class submarine, from the Canal Zone to Florida then performed training tasks in the Chesapeake.
Once again, her service with the Navy was brief.
Hunt got underway from Newport 3 October 1940 and reached Halifax, Nova Scotia two days later, where she took on 103 British sailors and, three days after that, she decommissioned from the U.S. Navy, was struck from the Naval List, and taken up by the Royal Navy as the Town-class destroyer HMS Broadway (H80) as part of the infamous “Destroyers for Bases Agreement” between the two countries.
As noted by Lt Cdr Geoffrey B Mason’s service histories, “Broadway” had not previously been used for any RN ship but did represent both a city in the UK and one in the U.S.
Changes to her by the Brits included removal of mainmast and shortening of the foremast, trimming the after funnels, and replacing the 3in and 4in guns mounted aft with a 12pdr British HA gun in X position. The aft torpedo tubes were also jettisoned and the U.S style depth charges were replaced with British ones.
Joining 11th Escort Group, she had an eventful career in the Atlantic, joining in no less than 29 convoys between and 10 December 1940 and 21 June 1943– just 18 months!
During this time, she directly helped shorten the war on 9 May 1941 when assisting the destroyer HMS Bulldog and corvette HMS Aubretia, she captured German submarine U-110 between Iceland and Greenland. The Type IXB U-boat provided several secret cipher documents to the British as part of Operation Primrose and was one of the biggest intel coups of the war, helping to break the German Enigma codes.
She also helped chalk up a second German torpedo slinger when on 12 May 1943 she joined frigate HMS Lagan and aircraft from escort carrier HMS Biter in destroying U-89 off the Azores.
Hunt/Broadway, showing her age, was relegated to training duties by 1944 in Scotland, where she was a target ship for non-destructive bombing and practice strafing runs by new pilots. For this much of her armament to include her radar, anti-submarine mortar, torpedo tubes, and HF D/F outfit was removed.
She did get one last hurrah in at the end of the war, sailing for Norwegian waters where she performed occupation duties that included taking charge of several surrendered German U-boats in Narvik and Tromso as part of Operation Deadlight.
Hunt/Broadway, who served more in the Royal Navy than she ever did in the naval service of her homeland, was paid off 9 August 1945 and placed in an unmaintained reserve status. She was eventually sold to BISCO on 18th February 1947 for demolition by Metal Industries and towed to the breaker’s yard in Charlestown near Rosyth in 1948.
As for her sisters, seven Clemson‘s were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, 18 (including six used by the British) were lost in WWII including one, USS Stewart (DD-224), which was famously raised by the Japanese and used in their Navy.
From what I can tell the last one in U.S. Navy service was USS Semmes (DD-189/AG-24), like Hunt a former Coast Guard destroyer, stricken in November 1946 after spending the war testing experimental equipment at the Sonar School in New London.
The last of the 156 Clemsons still afloat, USS Welborn C. Wood (DD-195), also a former Coast Guard destroyer, became HMS Chesterfield on 9 September 1940. She was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948. None of the class were retained and few relics of them exist today.
However, the codebooks and Enigma machine that Hunt/Broadway helped capture from U-110 are on display at Bletchley Park.
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, May 17, 2017: De Gaulle’s lightning bolt
Office of Naval Intelligence. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 86560
Here we see the very speedy Le Fantasque/Malin class contre-torpilleur (torpedo boat destroyer) Le Triomphant (X83) of the French Navy underway during exercises in the Atlantic, June 1939, as photographed from an observation plane likely from the carrier Bearn. The outsized craft would manage to escape the Germans, snatch hundreds of civilians from the New Hebrides just before a Japanese occupation, battle a Pacific cyclone and secure the surrender of a corps-sized force in Indochina– all before her 10th birthday. That’s living in the fast lane!
Built to keep up with new classes of fast French cruisers and battleships capable of chasing down the Italians, the 3,500-ton/434-foot Le Fantasque-class were supersized when it came to destroyers of the time– for the purpose of fitting four oil-fired boilers and two huge 37,000shp geared turbines (giving them 74,000 shp– roughly comparable to a Spruance-class destroyer of the 1970s which weighed about twice as much) in their hulls. This allowed the class to hit 45.03-knots on trials, a still very respectable speed for any warship today, especially one that is non-nuclear. If they lit half their boilers and poked around at 14 knots, they could still cover 3,000 nm, which was deemed sufficient for ops in the Mediterranean, their most likely theater of employment.
Armament was decent, with five 138.6 mm/50 (5.46″) Model 1929 singles mounted two forward and three aft, capable of a theoretical rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute per tube. Their side salvo weighed about 200kg, twice that of British destroyers of the time.
As completed the outfit for the Le Fantasque class was 500 rounds of HE and SAP plus 75 starshell. 525 charges were carried of which 25% were flashless. There were also 80 charges for the starshells. When the war started, the magazines were altered to hold 200 rounds per gun and ready racks were installed at each gun which held 24 rounds.
Model 1929 Single Mountings on Le Triomphant in 1940, note Brodie helmets on some of the crew, likely British RN signalers. Note the twin 13.2 mm Hotchkiss MG on the bridge. via Navweaps
The ships also mounted a smattering of 37mm and 13mm AAA guns and 9 21.7″ torpedo tubes in three triple braces, as well as the ability to sow mines.
Laid down at Ateliers et Chantiers de France, Dunkerque in 1931, Le Triomphant was the 7th French naval vessel since 1667 to carry the name.
When war came in 1939, the six fast destroyers of the class were joined by France’s only carrier Bearnthe three newest French cruisers Montcalm, Georges Leygues, and Gloire, and the fast battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg, to form the “Force de Raid” to go and hunt down German surface raiders, a job which turned out to be uneventful.
In April 1940, while detached with the other destroyers, Le Triomphant wound up in a surface action with a group of armed German trawlers and patrol boats in the Skagerrak that left her slightly damaged and, as the fall of France loomed, she was in Lorient for repairs. As the Germans advanced, she skipped out and headed across the Channel to Plymouth in June, where the British took her over on 3 July to keep her out of Vichy hands.
She promptly became one of the more important vessels of the fledging Forces Navales Françaises Libres (FNFL), or Free French Navy. Within days, Vice Admiral Muselier, who had only arrived in London by flying boat from Gibraltar on 30 June 30, along with some French tank general by the name of de Gaulle, were walking her decks in a much-needed PR coup for the Free French forces.
She was subsequently modified for operations alongside the RN and her No. 4 gun was removed during a 1940 refit in Britain and a 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mark V fitted in its place. British light AA guns were also fitted. Her speed dropped to 37 knots as she had added weight of guns, sonar, radar, and fuel stowage was increased from 580t to 730t, which after this time the French classified her as a light cruiser.
Under the command of Commandant Pierre Gilly, she was made the flagship of the Free French Pacific squadron and set off across the Atlantic to both visit the U.S. and, after transit through the Panama Canal, undertake numerous escort and convoy assignments.
Le Triomphant underway in San Diego harbor, California, circa 26 April 1941. Photographed from on board USS Saratoga (CV-3). Note the British type 4-inch anti-aircraft gun (at the rear of the after-deck house) and light anti-aircraft machine guns added while she was in British hands during 1940. Among the latter is a French Hotchkiss 13.2mm quad atop the after superstructure, just forward of the 4-inch gun. False bow wave camouflage is painted on Le Triomphant’s hull side, forward, to confuse estimates of the ship’s speed. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. #: NH 55853
Moored off San Diego, California, circa 26 April 1941. Photographed from a USS Saratoga (CV-3) airplane from an altitude of 700 feet, using an F-48 camera with a 6 3/8-inch focal length. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 55854
At San Diego, California on 26 April 1941. She is wearing false bow wave camouflage and carries a British type 4-inch anti-aircraft gun in place of the 5.5-inch low angle gun originally mounted in X position. There is a French Hotchkiss 13.2mm quad anti-aircraft machine gun mount atop the after superstructure, just forward of that 4-inch gun. Note the small civilian sailboat passing down Le Triomphant’ starboard side. The original print came from the Office of Naval Intelligence. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. #: NH 86557
Part of her Pacific war saw her evacuate a group of civilians from and the tiny British garrison Nauru and Christmas Island to safety during the Japanese advance soon after Pearl Harbor. The islands were leased by the British Phosphate Commission and, on 23 February 1942, Triomphant, unescorted, managed to pick up 61 Westerners, 391 Chinese, and the 49 members of the British garrison at Nauru, sadly leaving 191 Chinese and 7 westerners behind to be captured by the Japanese. At Christmas Island on 28 February, she picked up an amazing 823 Chinese and 232 other BPC employees.
On patrol, 7 March 1943, with a bone in her mouth
Sydney 1942 swinging her compasses
Then, while on an escort run, she ran right into a cyclone that left her sinking, and was only narrowly kept afloat by her crew, which included a five man RAN commo det, and had to be towed to safety some 1,200 miles by the British destroyer HMS Frobisher, a feat C in C Eastern Fleet Admiral Sir James Somerville, KCB, KBE, DSO, told the ship’s company of the British tin can would be “good for a pint of beer for many years to come.”
A massive wave washes over the deck of the Free French Force destroyer, Le Triomphant, during a cyclone. 2 December 1943. Australian War Memorial
The crew of the Free French Force destroyer, Le Triomphant, race to apply a collision mat to the damaged ship’s hull during a cyclone on 2 December 1943. The collision mat, a large piece of canvas, is passed under the ship and is held in place by the pressure of the water trying to enter the breach
As noted by the Australians:
Le Triomphant left Fremantle, Australia, with five Royal Australian Navy crew, a Liaison Officer, Lieutenant Derek Percival Scales; Signalman Myall; 25903 Signalman William Cutt Rendall; PA1104 Telegraphist Ashmead Bartlett Croft and Coder Underwood, on 26 November 1943. She was on convoy duty with the American oil tanker Cedar Mills and the Dutch cargo ship Java when the cyclone hit and received considerable damage. Without fuel, water and provisions and listing 45 degrees, she was towed by the Cedar Mills to Diego Suarez, Madagascar, for repairs arriving on 19 December 1943. Repairs were completed on 8 February 1944 and she performed light duties in the area until 12 March 1944, when she departed for Port Said stopping briefly at Algiers, where she and her crew, including the five Australians, were reviewed by the leader of the French Free Force, General Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle and the Minister for the Navy, Louis Jacquinot.
The five Royal Australian Navy crew on the Free French Force ship Le Triomphant, a large destroyer of Le Fantasque class, are presented to de Gaulle.
The crew of the Free French Force ship Le Triomphant, a large destroyer of Le Fantasque class, are presented to the leader of the Free French Force, General Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (saluting on right) while in port at Algiers. Saluting General de Gaulle is Lieutenant de Vaisseau Léon Méquin (later Commanding Officer of the Free French Force corvette Lobelia). General de Gaulle is attended by the Minister for the Navy, Louis Jacquinot and Commandant Pierre Gilly. The bugler is Poupon.
Inclination tests in Boston, via Navweaps
On 10 April 1944, Le Triomphant arrived in Boston, for an extensive refit where she remained until the end of the Second World War.
While in U.S. waters, the Navy put her through some paces though officially was neutral at that stage in the war, noting Le Triomphant “has since run some interesting trials on the Rockland course,” the measured mile-long speed trials course off Rockland, Maine– though do not disclose what speeds the fast Frenchman was able to achieve.
In October 1945, along with the semi-complete battleship Richelieu, Le Triomphant escorted troopships bound for French Indochina loaded with 20,000 fresh troops of the African 9ème D.I.C of the First French Army of General de Lattre de Tassigny, Leclerc’s own famous Groupement mobile de la 2ème DB (2nd Armored Div), and the Brigade Légère Marine d’Extrême-Orient marine commando unit, the latter which had trained alongside British commando and landed at Normandy.
General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc on board the French light cruiser (ex-destroyer) Le Triomphant in October 1945. General Leclerc commanded the French forces that re-occupied French Indo-China and Le Triomphant was one of the warships that escorted his troops. Photograph from the New York Times Paris Bureau collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 306-NT-3277-V
On 6 March 1946, under Captain Jubelin, as Le Triomphant was approaching near Haiphong, she sustained 20mm fire from KMT Chinese occupation troops, killing 8 sailors and wounding 20 as part of a “misunderstanding.” Le Triomphant retaliated by firing her 138 mm guns, which ignited ammunition stores and resulted in the surrender of the 28,000-strong Chinese forces from the 53rd Army under Gen. Ma Ying. This was, ironically, the same day Jean Sainteny, French Commissioner for Northern Indochina met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and signed the Ho–Sainteny agreement which would transfer Vietnam to Minh in five years and the departure of the nationalist Chinese forces.
After the battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 and eventual withdrawal from Indochina resulting in a French Naval drawdown, Le Triomphant was decommissioned on 19 December 1954 and scrapped in Bizerte in 1960.
She is remembered by the Association Aux Marins and in scale models, while her name has since been reused for the lead ship of a quartet of strategic nuclear missile submarine, Triomphant (S616), commissioned in 1997.
Oh, and the island nation of Nauru remembers her as well.
Of her sisters, L’Audacieux was lost on 7 May 1943 at Bizerte due to Allied bombing, L’Indomptable was lost on 27 Nov 1942 when she was scuttled Toulon by her crew to avoid capture by the Germans, Le Malin joined the Allies when captured from the Vichy in 1943 and supported the Dragoon Landings before being scrapped in 1964, Le Terrible likewise joined the FNFL in 1943 and served until 1962, and class leader Le Fantasque had similar service lasting until 1957.
Specs:
Displacement: 2570 tons
Length: 132.40 m (434.4 ft.)
Beam: 11.98 m (39.3 ft.)
Draught: 4.30 m (14.1 ft.)
Propulsion:
4 Penhoët boilers
2 Parsons geared steam turbines
74,000 HP
2 propellers
Speed:
45 knots (83 km/h; 52 mph) (40 nominal)
37 knots after WWII refit due to weight increase
Range:
1,200 km (650 nmi; 750 mi) at 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph)
3,000 nm at 14kts.
Complement: 10 officers, 210 sailors
Armament:
(1931)
5 × 138 mm (5.4-inch) guns (2 forward, 3 aft)
4 × 37 mm AA guns
4 × 13 mm Hotchkiss machine guns
9 × 550 mm torpedo tubes in three triple mounts
40 mines
(1940)
4 × 138 mm (5.4-inch) guns (2 forward, 2 aft)
1 x 102/45 QF Mk V aft
2 x 1 – 40/39 QF Mk VIII 2-pounder pom-pom
4 × 37 mm AA guns
4 × 13 mm Hotchkiss machine guns
8 x Vickers .50 cal guns
9 × 550 mm torpedo tubes in three triple mounts
(1944)
4 × 138 mm (5.4-inch) guns (2 forward, 2 aft)
8 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns
10 × 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns
6 × 550 mm torpedo tubes in two triple mounts
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 it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
She earned four battle stars for her service during World War II while dodging kamikazes, suicide boats and Japanese subs– picking up wounded cruisers left and right.
In Coast Guard service, the seagoing cop made more than a dozen large drug busts before she was immortalized in the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (turned into a film of the same name) for rescuing three people from the sailboat Satori 75 miles off Nantucket Island in seas that built to 40 feet under 80-knot winds in 1991.
Decommissioned by the Coast Guard, 1 February 1994 after more than 50 years of service, she was the last Iwo Jima veteran to leave active duty and was probably the last ship afloat under a U.S. flag to carry a 3”/50!
Since then she has been a museum ship, resident of a floating junkyard, and a rats’ den, but yesterday was turned into a reef off the Delaware/New Jersey coast.
Where she will still serve, just for another purpose.
Warship Wednesday, May 10, 2017: All Vessels: Make Smoke!
Painting, Oil on Canvas; by Albert K. Murray; 1944; Framed Dimensions 20H X 24W
“The signal from the Admiral’s flagship. The sharp blasts of his ship’s whistle have indicated the approach of enemy aircraft in force. Almost immediately plumes of whitish smoke arise from all ships of any size in the anchorage. Speedy small craft race among them with smoke pots pouring out a thick screen. Beach battalion men get their pots going and presently all the waterfront operations will be swathed in a dense opaque fog to confuse and disrupt impending bombing.”
One of the most popular tactics for early steam navy forces was the newfound ability to make instant smokescreens, either by ordering the stokers to burn cheap coal in designated boilers; constricting the airflow to the boilers and thus creating billows due to the choking flame; or by adding oil to the coal or funnel. This common tactic was a hit by the turn of the century, with Edwardian/Great White Fleet era ships– destroyers in particular– practicing it regularly.
USS CUSHING (DD-55) Laying a smokescreen, before World War I. Print in the collection of the late Admiral C. T. Hutchins, USN, owned by Mrs. H. C. Allan. Courtesy of Lieutenant H. C. Allan, USN, 17 Dec. 1940. Catalog #: NH 55539
Destroyer laying a smokescreen, circa 1914 Description: She is probably part of the Second Division, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla. This photo is one of a series from the collection of a USS Walke (Destroyer # 34) crewmember, a three-stack destroyer which was a member of the Second Division. Courtesy of Jim Kazalis, 1981. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99863
USS Woolsey (Destroyer # 77) Participates in laying a smokescreen, during Pacific Fleet battle practice in Hawaiian waters, circa mid-1919. Photographed by Tai Sing Loo, Honolulu. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1971. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 73608
By the end of the Great War, aircraft delivered smoke screens had been added to the lexicon as had purpose-made smoke generating devices.
This opaque white chemical smoke (titanium tetrachloride) was generally more effective than the sooty black boiler smoke of the Great War age, which tended to dissipate rather quickly. By the 1930s, the U.S. Navy used three different recipes for smoke: HC or hexachloroethane type smoke mixture, FS, or sulfur trioxide in chlorosulfonic acid, FM, or titanium tetrachloride, and WP or white phosphorus.
A Curtis H-16 flying boat lays a smoke screen near units of the U.S. Fleet at anchor near Panama, circa 1924. Ships include; a Tennessee-class battleship, under smoke, a Nevada-class BB, center, a New York-class BB, far left, a New Mexico-class BB, far right, and an Omaha-class cruiser, background center. Photo from the Library of Congress collection.
American destroyers lay down a smokescreen during maneuvers on the West Coast, 1926
Aircraft lay a smokescreen over USS Langley (CV-1) during fleet maneuvers in 1930
USS Lexington (CV-2) Steams through an aircraft-deployed smoke screen, 26 February 1929, shortly after that year’s Fleet Problem exercises. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C. Collection of Admiral William V. Pratt. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 75714
Smoke Screen is laid by three T4M-type torpedo bombers, circa the early 1930s. Description: Courtesy of Chief Photographer’s Mate John Lee Highfill (retired) Catalog #: NH 94852
September 14, 1936 photograph staged for Movietone News off San Diego, California. Destroyer Squadron 20 (DesRon 20) steams through a smokescreen laid by Patrol Squadrons Seven, Nine, and Eleven. USS Aylwin (DD-355), USS Monaghan (DD-354), USS Dale (DD-353), and USS Worden (DD-352) are visible, while USS Macdonough (DD-351), USS Hull (DD-350), USS Dewey (DD-349), and USS Farragut (DD-348) are out of the photo, their presence indicated by their wakes. Overhead, two PH Flying Boats observe the formation. US Navy and Marine Corps Museum/Naval Aviation Museum, Photo No. 1996.229.032.
Destroyer Squadron Twenty (DESRON-20) emerging from an aircraft smoke screen laid down by planes of VP-7, VP-9, and VP-11, during an exhibition for Movietone News, off San Diego on 14 September 1936.Courtesy of Commander Robert L. Ghormley Jr., Washington DC, 1969 Catalog #: NH 67294
USS MONAGHAN (DD-354) foreground, USS DALE (DD-353), and USS WORDEN (DD-352) in the background to the right emerging from a smoke screen laid down by planes of VP-7, VP-9, and VP-11 during an exhibition for Movietone News, off San Diego on 14 September 1936. Description: Courtesy of Commander Robert L. Ghormley Jr., Washington DC, 1969 Catalog #: NH 67272
80-G-463112: U.S. Navy destroyers lay fuel smoke screens the fleet to shield USS Lexington (CV 2), January 5, 1934
EMANUELE FILIBERTO DUCA D’AOSTA (Italian light cruiser, 1934-circa 1957) Caption: Photographed before World War II. Naval intelligence analysts marked the smoke screen projector and stern anchor, common to Italian cruisers and destroyers at this time, on the original photograph. Description: Catalog #: NH 85918
KIROV (Soviet heavy cruiser, 1936- circa 1975) Caption: The original caption of this illustration from a Soviet publication reads-roughly-“creation of a smokescreen curtain,” and is attributed to the photographer N. Verinuchka. The ship’s port battery of 3.9-in./56-caliber antiaircraft guns can be seen in the center and the three elevated barrels of the 7.1-inch main battery beyond. Description: Catalog #: NH 95483
Aircraft used for smoke screens would be fitted with the Mark 6 Smoke Screen tank (50 gals.), weighing 593 lbs. when filled with 442 lbs. of FS, which was capable of ejecting smoke for 15 to 50 seconds. Chemical smoke from aircraft, the 1920s:
WWII saw perhaps the most extensive use of smoke screens by naval forces, especially on daylight littoral operations such as amphibious assaults.
During WWII, besides funnel smoke and smoke generators, the Navy used both the Mark 1 and Mark II Smoke Float, devices which were 165 lbs. when filled with 90 lbs. of HC. They were 30.7″ high by 22.5″ in diameter and produced smoke for 18 – 21 minutes for the protection of convoys against submarines. There was also the Floating Smoke Pots M-4 and M4A1 (13″ high by 12″ in diameter and weigh 35 lbs. when filled with 26 lbs. of HC. They generate smoke for 10 – 15 minutes and are designed for amphibious operations) as well as smaller M-8 Smoke Grenades and 5″ smoke projectiles (using WP).
PT boats were standardized with the standard Mark 6 generator which used a commercial ICC-3A480 full spun steel Mk 2 ammonia cylinder tank with a capacity of about 33 gallons, filled with FM or titanium tetrachloride. German S-boats ran a similar setup.
Mark 6 Smoke Screen Generator used by PT boats
Salerno Invasion, September 1943 U.S. Navy PT boat laying a smokescreen around USS ANCON (AGC-4) off Salerno, 12 September 1943. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-87326
Night air raid, Naples, Italy. German flares lighting Naples Harbor, seen from USS BROOKLYN (CL-40). A smokescreen covers the water in the distance, laid by allied ships and shore units. Note tracers from anti-aircraft gunfire. BROOKLYN’s turret #2 is silhouetted at left. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-220333 National Archives Original Sat, Mar 11, 1944
German battlecruiser Gneisenau laying funnel smoke around 1940. NH 82411
“USS O’Bannon (DD-450) laying a smokescreen, as seen from her own bridge in the Solomons,1943.”(NHHC: 80-G-K-3974)
Crew of battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) watch as destroyer USS Cony (DD-508) lays down smokescreen Leyte landing operations Oct 20, 1944
Dido Class Light Cruisers in action: Convoy From Alexandria to Malta meets and engages Italian Warships in the Mediterranean, HMS Cleopatra throws out smoke to shield the convoy as HMS Euryalus elevates her forward 5.25-inch guns to shell the Italian Fleet, March 22nd, 1942.
Although radar basically ended the usefulness of smoke screens in fleet vs. fleet operations, or in shielding a landing craft from a non-optically guided missile, fleets still practiced the maneuver well into the 1950s.
USS Caperton (DD-650) Lays a smoke screen during Atlantic Fleet maneuvers, 1956. The original print, dated 11 September 1956, carries the following caption: Most effective in World War II the smoke screen obscured the views of opponents gun and torpedo directors. Since radar is now widely used, the smokescreen has less use except in very close in engagements or in air attacks by small planes without radar. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 104045
And, of course, it still has usefulness today when it comes to kicking in a door by a maritime landing or raiding force and you are trying to shield incoming waves from the Mk 1/Mod 0 eyes of a machine gun nest or RPG operator.
Some things never go out of style as witnessed by these ROK Marine Amtracs firing smoke grenades on an amphibious landing exercise. As the Norks use a lot of optically-sighted weapons, this is likely a great idea to keep standard.
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, May 3, 2017: The battleship slaying avenger of the Pacific
Here we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Sealion (SS/SSP/APSS/LPSS-315) later in the WWII flying her victory pennants, she was to earn them the hard way.
A member of the 128-ship Balao 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 earlier 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. 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 5000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their 4-inch/50 caliber and 40mm/20mm AAA’s. The also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
We have covered a number of this class before, such as carrier-sinking USS Archerfish, the long-serving USS Catfish, the rocket mail firing USS Barbero, and the frogman Cadillac USS Perch, but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories.
Laid down on 25 February 1943 by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn, Sealion was the second submarine to carry that name.
The first, SS-195, was also built by Electric Boat in 1939 and was part of SubDiv 202 at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines when the war started. She took two direct hits in the Japanese air raid which demolished the navy yard and sank on 10 December. Four of her crew– Chief Electrician’s Mate Sterling Foster, Chief Electrician’s Mate Melvin O’Connell, Machinist’s Mate First Class Ernest Ogilvie, and Electrician’s Mate Third Class Vallentyne Paul—were killed in the attack. Her surviving crew scuttled what was left on Christmas day.
(SS-195) Ship’s wrecked hulk at the old Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines, in November 1945. Her conning tower, with periscopes, is at left, with her stern at right. Sealion had been scuttled at Cavite on 25 December 1941, after suffering fatal damage during a Japanese air attack there on 10 December. Photographed by B. Eneberg, who was then navigator of a Royal Australian Air Force PBY-5 aircraft. Courtesy of B. Eneberg, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85725
Our new Sealion was launched by none other than Mrs. Emory S. Land, then commissioned on 8 March 1944, Lt. Comdr. Eli T. Reich in command (former executive officer and engineer of SS-195), and sailed for the Pacific to join SubDiv 222, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 17 May.
Then she got cracking.
On 23 June, on her first war patrol, she sank the Japanese naval transport, Snasei Maru, in the Tsushima Island area. Two weeks later, Sealion intercepted a convoy south of the Four Sisters Islands and commenced firing torpedoes at two cargomen in the formation. Within minutes, the 1,922-ton Setsuzan Maru sank, and the convoy scattered. On July 11, she conducted several attacks, sinking two freighters, Tsukushi Maru No. 2 and Taian Maru No. 2.
Her second patrol saw her scratch the Shirataka, a minelayer, and conduct a wolf pack attack along with the submarines Pampanito and Growler, which accounted for the tanker Zuiho Maru and transports Kachidoki Maru and Rakuyo Maru, the latter afterward found to be carrying British and Australian POWs. She swung to and picked up 54 of the oil-coated allies, landing 50 who survived at Saipan five days later. Tragically, of the 1300 Allied POW’s on board, only some 160 were rescued by the U.S. submarines.
British and Australian prisoners of war rescued by SEALION on 15 September 1944. The prisoners had been aboard transports en route from Singapore to Japan when their ships were sunk in an attack by U.S. submarines SEALION, GROWLER (SS-215), and PAMPANITO (SS-383). The position of the sinking was 18-42 N; 114-30 E. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-281718
On her third patrol, Sealion stumbled across three surface contacts that turned out to be the 37,500-ton battleship Kongo, 2035-ton destroyer Urakaze, and another escort.
Built at Barrow-in-Furness in Britain by Vickers Shipbuilding Company, the Kongō was the last Japanese capital ship constructed outside Japan– she was also the only Japanese battleship sunk by submarine in the WWII and the last battleship sunk by submarine in history. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
LCDR Reich’s original patrol report:
21 NOVEMBER 1944
0020: Radar contact at 44,000 yards, on our starboard quarter, (Ship contact #3) three pips, very clear and distinct. Came to normal approach, went ahead flank on four engines, and commenced tracking. Overcast sky, no soon, visibility about 1500 yards, calm sea.
0043: Two large pips and two smaller pips now outlined on radar screen at a range of 35,000 yards. These are the greatest ranges we have ever obtained on our radar. Pips so large, at so great a range, we first suspected land. It was possible to lobe switch on the larger targets at 32,000 yards – we now realized we probably had two targets of battleship proportions and two of larger cruiser size as our targets. They were in a column with a cruiser ahead followed by two battleships, and a cruiser astern, course 060 T, speed 16 knots. not zigging.
0146: Three escorts now visible on the radar, at a range of 20,000 yards. One on. either beam on the formation, and one on the starboard far quarter. We are pining bearing slowly but surely. The formation is now on our starboard beam. Seas and wind increasing.
0245: Ahead of task force. Turned in and slowed for attack, keeping our bow pointed at the now destroyer who is now 1800 yards on the port bow of our target. the second ship in column. Able to make out shape of near destroyer from bridge. Kept swinging left with our bow directly on the destroyer, and at
0256: Fired six torpedoes, depth set at 8 feet, at the second ship in column, range 3000 yards, believed to be a battleship. Came right with full rudder to bring the stern tubes to bear.
0259-30: Stopped and fired three torpedoes, depth set at 8 feet, from the stern tubes at the third ship in column (i.e. the second battleship). Range 3100 yards. Range to near destroyer at the time of firing stern tubes about 1800 yards. While firing stern tubes, O.O.D. reported he could make out outline of the near cruiser on our port quarter. During the firing of the bow tubes the bridge quartermaster reported he could make out outline of a very high superstructure on target, he said it looked to him like the pagoda build of the Jap battleships.
0300: Saw and heard three hits on the first battleship – several small mushrooms of explosions noted in the darkness.
0304: Saw and heard at least one hit on the second battleship – this gave a large violent explosion with a sudden rise of flames at the target, but it quickly subsided.
0304-07: Went ahead flank, opening to westward from target group. Noted several small explosions, flames, and probably lights in vicinity of target group.
0308: Heard a long series of heavy depth charge explosions from vicinity of enemy force – we are about 5000 yards from group. P.P.I. shows one escort opening and rapidly to east of target group. Continued tracking.
0330: Chagrined at this point to find subsequent tracking enemy group still making 16 knots, still on course 060T. I feel that in setting depth at 8 feet, in order to hit a destroyer if overlapping our main target. I’ve made a bust – looks like we only dented the armor belt on the battleships.
0406: Tracking indicates the target group now zigzagging. We are holding true bearing, maybe gaining a little. Called for maximum speed from engineers – they gave us 25% overload for about thirty minutes, then commenced growling about sparking commutators, hot motors, et al , forced to slow to flank. Sea and wind increasing all the time – now about force 5 or 6 – taking solid water over bridge, with plenty coming down the conning tower hatch. SEALION making about 16.8 to 17 knots with safety tank dry and using low pressure blower often to keep ballast tanks dry. Engine rooms taking much water through main induction.
0430: Sent SEALION Serial Number TWO. [?]
0450: Noted enemy formation breaking up into two groups – one group dropping astern. Now P.P.I. showed:(a) one group up ahead to consist of three large ships in column – cruiser. battleship, cruiser with a destroyer just being lost to radar view up ahead. Range to this group about 17000 yards. (b) Second group dropping astern of first to consist of a battleship, with two destroyers on far side. Close aboard – range to this group about 15000 yards and closing.
0451: Shifted target designation, decided to attack second group, which contains 1 battleship, hit with three torpedoes on our first attack. Tracking shows target to have slowed to 11 knots. Things beginning to took rosy again.
0512: In position ahead of target, slowed and turned in for attack.
0518: Solutions on T.D.C. and plot is getting sour – target must be changing speed.
0520: Plot and T.D.C. report target must be stopped, radar says target pip seems to be getting a little smaller. Range to target now about 17000 yards.
0524: Tremendous explosion dead ahead – sky brilliantly illuminated, it looked like a sunset at midnight, radar reports battleship pip getting smaller – that it has disappeared -leaving only two smaller pips of the destroyers. Destroyers seem to be milling around vicinity of target. Battleship sunk – the sun set.
0525: Total darkness again.
The crew, left with sound recording equipment by a visiting CBS film crew, archived the audio of the attack, the only occasion in which a live attack on an enemy ship was recorded. They were preserved by the Navy’s Underwater Sound Laboratory and can be heard at the following website.
Four of the torpedoes fired carried the names of the fallen Sealion (SS-195) crew, lost in 1941.
Sealion holds the distinction of being the only Allied submarine to sink a battleship during World War II and LCDR Reich received the Navy Cross.
Lt.Cdr. Charles Frederick Putnam took over Sealion for her 4th patrol, which netted the 15,820-ton Japanese supply ship Mamiya about 450 nautical miles north-east of Cam Ranh Bay, French Indo-China after a two-day running chase as well as her 5th patrol that added the Thai oiler Samui (1458 GRT) to her tally in March 1945. Her 6th patrol was uneventful.
The successful submarine was decommissioned 2 February 1946 and laid up in the Pacific Reserve Fleet. In all, Sealion earned the Presidential Unit Citation and received five battle stars for her World War II service.
She was then later converted to a Submarine Transport, at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, San Francisco, California and recommissioned 2 November 1948. Her torpedo tubes and forward engines were removed and her forward engine room and after forward and after torpedo rooms were converted to hold up to 123 troops.
Her insignia changed during this time to reflect her new role.
Sealion continued a schedule of exercises with Marines, Underwater Demolition Teams (and later SEALs) and Beachjumper units; and, on occasion, Army units, landing helicopters on her deck and launching small boats and LVTs from her “hangar”
Sealion (SSP-315) after her conversion to a submarine transport. The “notch” in her deck near the large stowage chamber abaft the conning tower is fitted with rollers to aid in retrieving rubber landing boats.
U.S. Marines land on the deck of the SEA LION by helicopter during a practice reconnaissance mission, 4 May 1956. The helicopters are from HMR-26 and HMR-262, shuttling 55 Marines of 2nd Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance Company in an exercise. Note the M14s and “duck hunter” camo. Description: Catalog #: K-20159
A Marine helicopter aboard the SEA LION during a practice reconnaissance mission off Little Creek, Virginia, 4 May 1956. Note her earlier LVT hangar is removed. Description: Catalog #: K-20154
Submerged Sealion (SS-315) during exercises with Marine scouts of the 2nd Marine Division circa May 1956. Note the HRS/H-19 helicopter resting on the after deck; 5-inch/25 and 40mm guns are still carried. Shortly after this photo was taken the boat was reclassified APSS-315. USN photo and text from The American Submarine by Norman Polmar, courtesy of Robert Hurst, via Navsource.
Her peacetime training schedule included breaks for a Med deployment and support of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.
On 3 December 1962 Sealion (APSS-315) returned to Norfolk and from then into 1967 she maintained her schedule of exercises with Marine Reconnaissance, UDT, and SEAL personnel. She is pictured here in October 1964– note she still has her WWII deck guns, one of the last subs in the fleet to do so. USN photo # NPC 1106522 courtesy of usssubvetsofwwii.org via Navsource.
Between 1949-1969 her designation switched from SSP to Transport Submarine (ASSP-315) to Amphibious Transport Submarine, (LPSS-315) though her role remained the same.
Decommissioned 20 February 1970, she was laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Stricken 15 March 1977, she was sunk as a target off Newport, Rhode Island 8 July 1978.
“The upper left quadrant contains the submarine’s insignia, a black sea lion riding a red torpedo. The upper right and lower left quadrants depict Japanese merchant ships sunk — six tankers and five freighters, respectively. The submarine’s most significant actions are represented in the lower right quadrant: the large battleship above the broken rising sun flag is Kongo, the smaller battleship with the intact rising sun flag is damaged battleship Haruna, and the number 50 atop the red cross refers to the 50 prisoners of war that Sealion rescued from torpedoed Japanese transport Rakuyo Maru. The crew of Sealion created this battle flag and presented it to Sealion skipper Lieutenant Eli Reich.”
Reich, a retired Vice Admiral, died at age 86 in 1999.
Retiring from the Navy in 1973 after 38 years of service, Adm. Reich was named director of the Emergency Energy Allocations Program, which was responsible for the distribution of scarce oil and gasoline during the Arab oil embargo. Described as a “crusty three-star admiral” by syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Adm. Reich was reported by the columnists to have told staff members: “I don’t give a damn for the public image. We’re not here to create an image. We’re to do a job–my way. And that’s the military way.”
There has never been another Sealion on the Navy List other than the two war babies mentioned above. Their memory is maintained by the USS Sealion veterans group.
Although Sealion is no longer afloat, eight Balao-class submarines are preserved as museum ships across the country.
Please visit one of these fine ships and keep the legacy alive:
USS Batfish (SS-310) at War Memorial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma. USS Becuna (SS-319) at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. USS Bowfin (SS-287) at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Honolulu, Hawaii. USS Clamagore (SS-343) at Patriot’s Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (for now). USS Ling (SS-297) at New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack, New Jersey (for now). USS Lionfish (SS-298) at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts. USS Pampanito (SS-383) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California, (which played the part of the fictional USS Stingray in the movie Down Periscope). USS Razorback (SS-394) at Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
As for SS-195, she is considered on eternal patrol.
Specs:
Displacement, Surfaced: 1,526 t., Submerged: 2,424 t.
Length 311′ 10″
Beam 27′ 3″
Draft 15′ 3″
Speed, Surfaced 20.25 kts, Submerged 8.75 kts (halved after 1949)
Cruising Range, 11,000 miles surfaced at 10kts; Submerged Endurance, 48 hours at 2kts
Operating Depth Limit, 400 ft
Complement 6 Officers 60 Enlisted
Armament, (as built) ten 21″ torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 24 torpedoes, one 5″/25 caliber deck gun, one 40mm gun, two .50 cal. machine guns
(troop conversion)
Berthing for 123 Marines/Soldiers
One 5″/25 caliber deck gun, one 40mm gun, two .50 cal. machine guns
Patrol Endurance 75 days
Propulsion: diesel-electric reduction gear with four Fairbanks-Morse main generator engines., 5,400 hp, four Elliot Motor Co., main motors with 2,740 hp, two 126-cell main storage batteries, two propellers. (Halved after 1949)
Fuel Capacity: 94,400 gal.
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 it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Warship Wednesday, April 26, 2017: Always a bridesmaid
Here we see the fourth ship of the Colossus-class of British Royal Navy carriers, HMS Venerable (R63), in her final career as the Argentine carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2). As you can tell from this statement, she would go on to change flags a few times and later serve as a very real threat to her original owners.
Venerable was one of 16 planned 1942 Design Light Fleet Carriers for the RN. This series, broken up into Colossus and Majestic-class sub-variants, were nifty 19,500-ton, 695-foot long carriers that the U.S. Navy would have classified at the time as a CVL or light carrier. They were slower than the fast fleet carriers at just 25-knots with all four 3-drum Admiralty boilers were lit and glowing red, but they had long legs (over 14,000 miles at cruising speed) which allowed them to cross the Atlantic escorting convoys, travel to the Pacific to retake lost colonies or remain on station in the South Atlantic (Falklands anyone?) or the Indian Ocean for weeks.
Capable of carrying up to 52 piston engine aircraft of the time, these carriers had enough punch to make it count.
The thing is, only seven of these carriers were completed before the end of World War II and even those came in during the last months and weeks. They effectively saw no service. Laid down beginning in 1942, most of the ships were launched but when the war ended, construction was canceled.
The hero of our tale, the fourth HMS Venerable in the RN since 1784 and the last hull to bear the name in that fleet, was laid down at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead on 3 December 1942 and launched just over a year later. Commissioned on 17 January 1945, she was made flagship of the RN’s 11th Aircraft Carrier Squadron, Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt, CB, CBE, commanding.
Destined for service in the Far East where the war was expected to linger through 1946 or 1947, she was outfitted with an airwing of F4U Corsair fighters and Fairley Barracuda torpedo bombers of 814 and 1851 Squadrons and set off to join TF 37 of the US 3rd Fleet by way of the Med, which by early 1945 was quiet.
She arrived just in time to join with the carrier HMS Indomitable and the battleship HMS Anson to re-occupy Hong Kong in August 1945, followed by the re-occupation of Kowloon the next month. As far as I can tell, Venerable did not engage either German or Japanese forces in live combat during WWII.
October found her in Haiphong, French Indochina, picking up liberated Indian and Commonwealth prisoners of war to be repatriated home. November and December found her supporting Dutch efforts to reoccupy the Dutch East Indies before spending Christmas of 1945 in Freemantle, Australia. The next year saw her continuing her trooping efforts, shuttling refugees, displaced persons, and soon-to-be-mustered out servicemembers from Singapore to Hong Kong and other parts of the Far East, and bringing in fresh troops for garrison duty.
By February 14, 1947, after fleet exercises with the British Pacific Fleet, she set sail for Plymouth where she was laid up in May, having served just 29 months on active duty, mostly as a taxi service.
Dutch Service
The British, flush with flattops, broke and at peace, began a clearance sale over the next several years. In the end, class leader Colossus was sold to France as Arromanches. The Australians picked up Vengeance, Majestic and Terrible; the Canadians got Warrior (more on her later), Powerful and Magnificent; and India picked up Hercules.
On 1 April 1948, our still relatively new carrier, Venerable, was sold to the Royal Netherlands Navy, who commissioned her 28 May as HNLMS Karel Doorman (R-81), named after the famed Dutch admiral lost with his flagship light cruiser De Ruyter in WWII. She was the second, and last aircraft carrier of the Royal Netherlands Navy (their previous carrier, also after Doorman, was the former British escort carrier HMS Nairana.)
A Dutch propaganda poster, depicting Admiral Karel Doorman and his flagship, the doomed light cruiser De Ruyter
With the country fighting separatists in the Dutch East Indies and facing the always-curious Venezuelans in the Dutch West Indies, she was quickly given a topicalization that included boiler modifications and partial air conditioning and deployed along with the cruiser Jacob van Heemskerck and frigate Johan Maurits van Nassau to the Caribbean.
HNLMS Karel Doorman with former USN TBM-3E Avengers on deck
Dutch aircraft carrier KAREL DOORMAN, ex British VENERABLE, circa 1950. Note the Carley floats and extensive small boat arrangement
She carried a mix of 24 Fireflies and Sea Furies as her initial air wing. For rescue duties, a yellow Sea Otter was included, later replaced by an S-51 helicopter, called Jezebel. On the cruise was Prince Bernhard, who had a long history of military service and had racked up several thousand hours in combat aircraft.
(Bernard flying off the carrier later in life, in an S-2 Stoof in 1967)
From 1955-58, Venerable saw extensive modernization at Wilton-Feijenoord Shipyard in Holland. During this time, she was fitted with a new steam catapult, an 8-degree angled deck, mirror landing sight, new island, massive mast, and funnel, as well as ultra-modern radar equipment, air search, height search, target acquisition, navigation, and carrier controlled approach radar systems. The latter was produced by the electronic company Holland Signaal.
Her dated AAA guns were replaced by 10 Bofors 40mm/L70s. Her new air wing consisted of 14 anti-submarine Avengers, 10 Hawker Sea Hawks, and 2 S-55 helicopters and she acted as the flagship of Smaldeel V (Task Force 5) operating in the North Sea as part of NATO.
Hawker Sea Hawks and Avengers on Karl Doorman
With Indonesia rattling the sabers over West Papua New Guinea, the Dutch carrier embarked a dozen Hawker Hunters besides her airwing and went to the Far East again in 1960 until that crisis was settled through negotiations. The Indonesians had planned to sink her with a six-aircraft sortie of Tu-16KS-1 Badger bombers using a dozen AS-1 Kennel anti-ship missiles, which her Bofors likely would have been unable to counter. Again, the carrier avoided combat by the luck of the draw.
Colossus-class aircraft carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman (R81)
Marine Luchtvaart Dienst, ‘Kon Marine’, VSQ-4 ‘D’ CS2F-1’s S-2A’s aboard HNMLS Karel Doorman R81. Note her distinctive green deck
The crisis abated, she returned to the Atlantic and made another trip to the New World in 1962, her air wing modified for ASW-only missions with 8 Grumman S2F Trackers and 6 S-58 (H-34) helicopters along with a company of Dutch Marines.
Dutch Aircraft carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman in 1962; All Hands and remembrance ceremony in the Dardanelles; Royal Marine Corps Band marching towards the bow
This is the English version of a film about the Dutch aircraft carrier Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (R81). It shows everyday life onboard the aircraft carrier during the journey it made in 1962 to Suriname and the Dutch Antilles. The destroyers Hr.Ms. Groningen (D813) and Hr.Ms. Limburg (D814) joined her during this voyage:
In early 1968, the 23-year old carrier suffered a boiler room fire that extensively gutted her engineering spaces. The Dutch, defense budgets always slim, moved to replace her with land-based ASW aircraft and helicopters borne by surface combatants. She was stricken on 29 April 1968, deemed not worth the repair.
Third-hand aircraft carrier? Anyone?
Remember HMCS Warrior mentioned above? The Colossus-class carrier loaned to the Canadians? Well, the Canucks didn’t need so many carriers so they gave her back to the Brits who decommissioned the unmodified flattop in February 1958. Argentina, feeling outclassed by the purchase in 1956 by neighboring Brazil of the Colossus-class carrier Vengeance after the Australians were done with her– the first Latin American country to have a carrier– moved to pick up the Warrior from the UK which the commissioned as ARA Independencia (V-1) in July 1959.
ARA Independencia (V-1). She flew F4U-5s in 2′ Escuadrilla de Ataque. Colorized by Postales Navales
Independencia flew a wing of former USN F4U Corsairs, SNJ-5Cs Texans, and Grumman S2F-1Trackers but, with the Argentines looking to swap their aging Corsairs and Texans for jet-powered F9F Panthers, they needed an angled flight deck. This led them to purchase Venerable/Karel Doorman in crippled condition on 15 October 1968 and refurbish her as a cheaper option than giving Independencia the needed topside improvements to run jets.
Following a six-month repair at Rotterdam that saw her disabled boilers replaced by new ones transplanted from her incomplete sister ship HMS Leviathan, Venerable/Karel Doorman was commissioned into the Argentine Navy as ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (25 May– Argentina’s national day) (V-2) on 12 March 1969. For two years, on paper at least, Argentina had two carriers, though Independencia was soon withdrawn and by 1971 scrapped.
For the next 21-years, the Brazilian carrier Minas Gerais and the Argentine Veinticinco de Mayo— built as sister ships– were the yin and yang of Latina American carrier operations.
In 1971, Argentina bought 16 USN A-4B Skyhawks plus two for spare parts, then modified them with five weapon pylons and the ability to carry AIM-9B Sidewinders, creating A-4Q fighter bombers. These replaced the 1950s era F9F Panthers. Sea King ASW/SAR helicopters were added to the wing. Though it should be noted that in 1969 the Brits tested an early Harrier GR.1 on board her, which the Argentines declined to buy.
Argentina carrier 25 de Mayo along with the Gearing class destroyers Miguel Angel Gutierrez Barquin Al frente la 2da división de destructores (Espora, Brown y Rosales).
Note the Skyhawks. Colorized by Postales Navales.
With the Argentina military junta in charge in the late 1970s, the U.S. cut support to the country because of the fratricidal Dirty War, which made Veinticinco de Mayo‘s air wing increasingly hard to fly. The Argentines looked elsewhere and in 1978 negotiated a contract to buy 14 Dassault-Breguet Super Étendards and a quantity of air-launched Exocet anti-ship missiles from France. This came in conjunction with the surface-to-surface Exocet sales and France throwing in two corvettes, originally built for the apartheid Regime in South Africa. The corvettes, Good Hope and Transvaal, could not be delivered because of anti-apartheid embargoes. In Argentina, they were renamed ARA Drummond and ARA Guerrico.
The Argentine Navy, with their carrier in the forefront, moved to invade the Chilean islands of Picton, Nueva, and Lennox in the Beagle Channel in a territorial dispute in 1978, however, the junta reversed themselves before the conflict turned hot. Once more, our flattop did not fire a shot in anger.
Then came the Malvinas.
With just four Super Étendards (with five Exocets) and 10 A-4Qs operational in the Argentine Navy, the carrier made ready to sortie for that country’s push to retake the Falkland Islands from Great Britain in yet another dangerous territorial dispute. In April 1982, 35 years ago this month, she put to sea as the flagship of Carrier Task Force (CTF 79.1) tasked by the Naval High Command to support the invasion, codenamed Operation Azul.
Carrier ARA 25 de mayo (V-2) S2-Trackers, A4-Q Skyhawks, Aerospatiale Alouette. Note the camouflaged S-2. It should be noted the Etendards were not carrier certified until after the Falklands war.
Once the Brits mustered a task force to take the islands back, 25 de Mayo was ordered to sea to attack the arriving English carrier battle group, made up of the HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. With the two British carriers bristling with over 25 radar-equipped Sea Harriers armed with later model AIM-9L Sidewinders and surrounded by dozens of Sea Dart and Sea Wolf equipped escorts, the likelihood that the Argentine A-4s could have prosecuted a successful attack on the fleet was slim. Nonetheless, a strike was prepared and, with her S-2’s picking up the British fleet over the horizon, was only scrubbed at the last minute due to poor weather conditions. It would have been the first time since 1944 that a carrier v. carrier fleet action occurred.
ARA Veinticinco de Mayo makes A-4 Skyhawk jets ready during the 1982 Falklands War note Invincible marked bomb
The image summarizes the deployment of Ar+Br naval forces around the Falklands Islands before the sinking of the ARA Belgrano during the Falklands War according to Ruben O. Moro with a hint that Middlebrook set the Argentine forces no more than 60-90 nautical miles from TEZ in opposite to Moro who set it further. Via Wiki
Further, once a British submarine sank the WWII light cruiser ARA General Belgrano (former USS Phoenix) with heavy loss of life on May 3, the Argentine Navy lacked the appetite to further risk their carrier. While her Skyhawks and Étendards made gallant and even successful strikes on British escorts and auxiliaries while flying from land at the Rio Grande over the next six weeks, Veinticinco de Mayo returned to port and remained there for the rest of the war, again not bathed in the blood of her enemies.
With the junta swept away after the Falklands War and military funding withering, the Argentines could put all their working French strike planes online but their carrier was increasingly restricted to port with bad engineering casualties. With her Skyhawks lost in 1982, her last air wing in her twilight years was 12 Etendards, six Grumman Tracker ASW aircraft, four SH-3D Sea King ASW, and one utility helicopter.
Argentine carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo 25, A-4 forward, Etendards aft
Inoperable by 1990, the Brazilians were allowed to plunder her for parts to keep their own carrier at sea in exchange for granting Argentine carrier pilots a chance to tail hook on their neighbor’s ship to keep their qualifications up to date.
By 1997, Veinticinco de Mayo was officially decommissioned and towed to India in 2000 for scrapping. As for the Brazilians, they replaced her sister with the larger and slightly more modern French aircraft carrier Foch the same year.
All the Colossus/Majestic class carriers are now gone, with the Indian INS Vikrant/HMS Hercules, saved briefly as a museum ship, scrapped in 2014 ending the era of these well-traveled light carriers.
Oddly enough, the British Imperial War Museum has some Argentine relics of the Veinticinco de Mayo, a UZI submachine gun and FN FAL rifle captured in the Falklands that are Dutch-marked and believed to have transferred with the carrier to the “Argies” then subsequently used with that country’s Marines ashore in the Falklands.
Specs:
CV R81 Karel Doorman via shipbucket. Click to big up
Displacement
15,890 tons standard
17,500 tons normal
19,890 tons full load
Length:
630 ft. (190 m) between perpendiculars
695 ft. (212 m) overall
Beam: 80 ft. (24 m)
Draught: 24.5 ft. (7.5 m)
Speed: 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) at 120 revolutions
Range:
12,000 nautical miles (22,000 km; 14,000 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
6,200 nautical miles (11,500 km; 7,100 mi) at 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Complement: 1,000 + 300 air group
Sensors and processing systems: (1982)
Air search: Lockheed SPS-40B; E/F band
Surface search: Plessey AWS 4; E/F band
Navigation: Signaal ZW06; I band
Fire control: 2 × SPG-34; I/J band
CCA: Scanter Mil-Par; I band
Aircraft 52 piston (as-built)
20~ jets by 1958
Armament: (As designed, 1942)
6 × 4-barrelled 2 pounder anti-aircraft guns
16 × twin 20 mm Oerlikon mountings (1958)
10 × Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns (2 quads, 1 twin)
2 × 47 mm saluting 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.
Warship Wednesday, April 19, 2017: The busy year of the Raiders’ taxi service
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-16865
Here we see the Yorktown-class carrier, USS Hornet (CV-8), as she arrives at Pearl Harbor after the Doolittle Raid on Japan, 30 April 1942. Note PT-28 and PT-29 speeding by in the foreground. If this image doesn’t scream “war in the Pacific” nothing else does. It should be noted that this photo was taken 75 years ago this month.
Starting with the “covered wagon” that was the converted collier USS Langley, and moving through a pair of huge converted battlecruisers USS Lexington and Saratoga, and the Navy’s first flattop designed from the keel up, USS Ranger, gave the Navy four lessons learned over a 15-year period in carrier design and development which led to the Yorktown class.
Designed in the early 1930s, these 19,800-ton vessels (26,000 fl) were nice floating landing strips some 824-feet long. Equipped with two catapults on the flight deck and a (useless) hangar deck level cat, these straight deck carriers featured three elevators and could accommodate a 90-plane air wing. Fast, at 32.5-knots, they could outstrip submarines and most battleships of the era, and a smattering of 5″/38, 1.1″/75 quads, and water-cooled Browning .50 cals provided defense against 1930s-era small surface combatants and planes. With long legs (12,500nm at 16 knots) they could travel the Pacific or Atlantic with ease and minimal tanker support.
Class leader, Yorktown (CV-5), was laid down in 1934 and made it to the fleet three years later, followed by the famous Enterprise (CV-6). The subject of our tale was the 7th USS Hornet on the Navy List and, like her two sisters was laid down at Newport News.
USS HORNET (CV-8) View taken while in drydock at Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Virginia, from directly ahead, while in process of completion. View taken on 17 September 1941. Paint scheme appears to be peacetime “haze gray.” Catalog #: 19-N-26389
Hornet was commissioned 20 October 1941, two years after the rest of the world entered WWII and two months before the United States did the same. Her first commander was a scrappy fellow by the name of Captain Marc A. Mitscher.
USS Hornet (CV-8) Photographed circa late 1941, soon after completion, probably at a U.S. east coast port. A ferry boat and Eagle Boat (PE) are in the background. Catalog #: NH 81313
When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, Hornet was in Norfolk but was made ready for war in the Pacific, losing her .50cals in exchange for Oerlikon 20mm guns and picking up a camo scheme.
USS HORNET (CV-8) At Pier 7, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia, in February 1942. Planes visible in foreground at the forward end of the flight deck are Grumman F4F-4s (VF-8) and a Curtiss SBC-4 from either VS-8 or VB-8. Note rat guards on lines in the foreground. Catalog #: 19-N-28429
USS HORNET (CV-8) View taken while alongside Pier 7, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia, in February 1942, prior to her departure for the war zones. Her air group consists of Grumman F4F-4s (VF-8), Curtiss SBC-4s (VS-&VB-8) and Douglas TBD-1s (VT-8). Camouflage on ship is measure 12 (MOD.) Catalog #: 19-N-28431
USS HORNET (CV-8) Broadside view of amidships, at Naval Operating Base Norfolk, Virginia, in February 1942. Plane types visible on deck: Douglas TBD-1 (VT-8), Grumman J2F-5 (utility unit), Curtiss SBC-4 (VS-or VB-8) and Grumman F4F-4 (VF-8). Note Meas .12 (Mod.) camouflage; and cars on the pier. Catalog #: 19-N-28432
It was at Norfolk that she tested flight deck operations with a trio of Army B-25 medium bombers, and found they could be launched successfully with a degree of pucker– and even landed with a greater one.
“Take-off and landing tests conducted with three B-25B’s at and off Norfolk, Virginia, indicated that take off from the carrier would be relatively easy but landing back on again extremely difficult.” said Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle in his report to the commanding general of Army Air Forces. “It was then decided that a carrier take-off would be made some place East of Tokyo, and the flight would proceed in a generally westerly direction from there. Fields near the East Coast of China and at Vladivostok were considered as termini.”
Then came a transfer to the West Coast, and a special mission for the carrier still technically on shakedown.
Arriving in San Francisco, Hornet had part of her Naval airwing offloaded and 16 Army B-25s, 64 modified 500-pound bombs, and 201 USAAF aviators and ground crew transferred aboard.
Putting to sea on April 2, the task force commanded by Vice Adm. Halsey consisted of Hornet with her escort Nashville, the carrier Enterprise with her three companion heavy cruisers Salt Lake City, Northampton, and Vincennes, as well as a group of destroyers and tankers headed West for points unknown and under great secrecy.
After refueling from the tankers on April 17, the four cruisers and two carriers raced towards Japan. The plan was to launch the first raid on the Home Islands to score a propaganda victory following a string of defeats across the Pacific in the first four months of the war.
Army Air Forces B-25B bombers parked on the flight deck of USS Hornet (CV-8), while en route to the mission’s launching point. The plane in the upper right is tail # 40-2242, mission plane # 8, piloted by Captain Edward J. York. Note the use of the flight deck tie-down strips to secure the aircraft. The location is near the forward edge of the midships aircraft elevator. Catalog #: NH 53296
USAAF B-25B bombers and Navy F4F-3 fighters on the flight deck of USS Hornet (CV-8), while she was en route to the mission’s launching point. Note wooden dummy machine guns in the tail cone of the B-25 at left. Catalog #: NH 53422
Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942 View looking aft and to port from the island of USS Hornet (CV-8), while en route to the mission’s launching point. USS Vincennes (CA-44) is in the distance. Several of the mission’s sixteen B-25B bombers are visible. That in the foreground is tail # 40-2261, which was mission plane # 7, piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson. The next plane is tail # 40-2242, mission plane # 8, piloted by Captain Edward J. York. Both aircraft attacked targets in the Tokyo area. Lt. Lawson later wrote the book Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. Note searchlight at left. Catalog #: NH 53293
Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle (left front), leader of the attacking force, and Captain Marc A. Mitscher, Commanding Officer of USS Hornet (CV-8), pose with a 500-pound bomb and USAAF aircrew members during ceremonies on Hornet’s flight deck, while the raid task force was en route to the launching point. Catalog #: NH 64472
However, the group was sighted while still far out to sea. The quick-shooting Nashville rapidly engaged the Japanese ship, Gunboat No. 23 Nittō Maru, and sank her with 6-inch shells, but the little 70-ton boat got off a warning via radio on her way down.
The 16 bombers quickly launched into history and the six ships of the task force turned back for safer waters.
An Army Air Force B-25B bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) at the start of the raid, 18 April 1942. Note men watching from the signal lamp platform at right. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-41196
As noted by DANFS:
As Hornet swung about and prepared to launch the bombers which had been readied for take-off the previous day, a gale of more than 40 knots churned the sea with 30-foot crests; heavy swells, which caused the ship to pitch violently, shipped sea and spray over the bow, wet the flight deck and drenched the deck crews. The lead plane, commanded by Colonel Doolittle, had but 467 feet of flight deck while the last B-25 hung far out over the fantail. The first of the heavily-laden bombers lumbered down the flight deck, circled Hornet after take-off, and set course for Japan. By 0920 all 16 of the bombers were airborne, heading for the first American air strike against the heart of Japan.
Hornet brought her own planes on deck and steamed at full speed for Pearl Harbor. Intercepted broadcasts, both in Japanese and English, confirmed at 1445 the success of the raids. Exactly one week to the hour after launching the B-25s, Hornet sailed into Pearl Harbor. Hornet’s mission was kept an official secret for a year; until then President Roosevelt referred to the origin of the Tokyo raid only as “Shangri-La.”
Three Raiders died trying to reach safety in China. Japanese soldiers executed three. One died in captivity.
However, Hornet was not allowed to rest on her laurels and soon set off to meet the Japanese in the Coral Sea, but arrived just after the pitched battle that saw the loss of the giant USS Lexington.
USS HORNET (CV-8) Steaming in the coral sea area, 13 May 1942. Photographed from USS ENTERPRISE (CV-6). Catalog #: 80-G-16430
USS Hornet (CV-8) Enters Pearl Harbor, 26 May 1942. She left two days later to take part in the Battle of Midway. Photographed from Ford Island Naval Air Station, with two aircraft towing tractors parked in the center foreground. Catalog #: 80-G-66132
Then came Midway, where the now seven-month-old Hornet joined her sisters Yorktown and Enterprise to blunt Yamamomo’s greatest effort.
On 4 June, the combined torpedo plane fleet of the three carriers made a charge of the light brigade style attack on the Japanese task force. Of the 41 TBD Devastators that took off that day, 15 were from Hornet‘s Torpedo Squadron Eight (VT-8). However, they were jumped by Japanese fighters eight miles from their targets and all 15 were shot down. Only one pilot, Ens. George H. Gay, USNR, reached the surface as his plane sank and hid under a rubber seat cushion while he watched the dive bombers come in and get revenge in the sinking of four Japanese carriers, turning the tide of the war
Torpedo Squadron Eight (VT-8) Pilots Photographed on board USS Hornet (CV-8), circa mid-May 1942, shortly before the Battle of Midway. They are Ensign Harold J. Ellison; Ensign Henry R. Kenyon; Ensign John P. Gray; Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. (circled); Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Jeff D. Woodson; Ensign William W. Creamer; Aviation Pilot First Class Robert B. Miles. Lieutenant James C. Owens, Jr.; Ensign E.L. Fayle; Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron, Squadron Commanding Officer; Lieutenant Raymond A. Moore; Ensign Ulvert M. Moore; Ensign William R. Evans; Ensign Grant W. Teats; Lieutenant (Junior Grade) George M. Campbell. Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 93595
Two days later, to add the ending period to the battle, Hornet‘s planes attacked the fleeing Japanese fleet to assist in sinking cruiser Mikuma, damaged a destroyer, and left cruiser Mogami aflame and heavily damaged.
Battle of Midway, June 1942. SBD Dauntless dive bombers from USS Hornet (CV-8) approaching the burning Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma to make the third set of attacks on her, during the early afternoon of 6 June 1942. Mikuma had been hit earlier by strikes from Hornet and USS Enterprise (CV-6), leaving her dead in the water and fatally damaged. The photo was enlarged from a 16mm color motion picture film. Note bombs hung beneath these planes. Catalog #: 80-G-17054
War artist Tom Lea shipped out on Hornet for her next run across the Pacific after Midway. There, in fierce service off Guadalcanal in late summer 1942, he spent more than two months on a front-line carrier in the thick of the war and sketched as he found, including the loss of the carrier Wasp.
USS Hornet by Tom Lea
He observed the sinking of the Wasp on Sept. 15, 1942.
Carrier ace Silver Somers, by Tom Lea
From a six-week period from mid-September until 24 October, Hornet was the only operable U.S. carrier in the Pacific, all the others being either in repair or at the bottom.
On 26 October, joined by the newly patched up Enterprise, Hornet was involved in the Battle of Santa Cruz Island. During that sharp engagement often forgotten to military history, Hornet‘s airwing severely damaged the Japanese carrier Shokaku, delivering at least three (and possibly as many as six) 1,000-lb. bomb hits from the 15 Douglas SBD-3 dive bombers launched from our carrier, putting her out of service for months. Hornet‘s planes also made hay of the cruiser Chikuma.
However, just 371 days after she was commissioned, Hornet took extreme damage in return from Japanese torpedo and bomber aircraft.
A Japanese Type 99 shipboard bomber (Allied codename Val) trails smoke as it dives toward USS Hornet (CV-8), during the morning of 26 October 1942. This plane struck the ship’s stack and then her flight deck. A Type 97 shipboard attack plane (Kate) is flying over Hornet after dropping its torpedo, and another Val is off her bow. Note anti-aircraft shell burst between Hornet and the camera, with its fragments striking the water nearby. Catalog #: 80-G-33947
Crew members of USS Hornet (CV-8) prepare to abandon ship on 26 October 1942, after she was disabled by Japanese air attacks. Photographed from USS Russell (DD-414). Note radar antennas on the carrier’s masts and gun directors, and other details of the ship’s island and port side. Radar antennas include those for FD types mounted atop the two Mark 37 gun directors at the island ends, a CXAM atop the foremast and a smaller radar (presumably an SC) partially visible atop the after mast. Catalog #: 80-G-34110
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 1942 Description: USS Northampton (CA-26), at right, attempting to tow USS Hornet (CV-8) after she had been disabled by Japanese air attacks on 26 October 1942. Catalog #: 80-G-33897
USS HORNET (CV-8) dead in the water with a destroyer alongside, 26 October 1942. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-304514
As noted by DANFS
The abandoned Hornet, ablaze from stern to stern, refused to accept her intended fate from friends. She still floated after receiving nine torpedoes and more than 400 rounds of 5-inch shellfire from destroyers Mustin and Anderson. Japanese destroyers hastened the inevitable by firing four 24-inch torpedoes at her blazing hull. At 0135, 27 October 1942, she finally sank off the Santa Cruz Islands. Her proud name was struck from the Navy List 13 January 1943.
Boston Herald sinking of USS Hornet (CV-8), fourth US carrier sunk in WWII, the first three were Lexington (CV-2), Yorktown (CV-5), and Wasp (CV-7).
Tom Lea remembered the ship fondly.
On 21 October, just six days before she was to sink, he left the Hornet, pulling away on a fleet oiler that would land him back at Pearl Harbor. The cleared sketches he produced above would appear in LIFE in March and April 1943, sadly, after the carrier had long been sunk.
Back at Pearl Harbor, Lea showed Admiral Nimitz some of his drawings. One of them was the one above. Underneath the drawing, he inscribed a quotation from Deuteronomy: “Moreover the Lord thy God shall send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.”
Admiral Nimitz looked at the drawing for a long time, then turned his head to Lea, and said: “Something has happened to the Hornet.”
That was how Lea found out that the aircraft carrier he had been on, together with his friends, perished.
This he immortalized in a painting ran by LIFE of how he pictured the ship going out– fighting.
“An aircraft carrier is by her very nature a very peculiar warship, for she belongs not wholly to the sea nor sufficiently to the sky.”“Without heavy deck guns or stout armor, she is physically the most vulnerable of warships, carrying within her the seeds of her own destruction. Whenever she goes to sea she is loaded with bombs, shells and high-octane gasoline, all concealed behind her thin steel plates. ” “Such a ship was the Hornet. She feared bombs, but also know that probably only torpedoes would sink her.” “There is no way to describe how terrible a torpedo seems as it heads for a carrier. It leaves a strange wake, a rather thin, white, bubbly line like fluid ice, cold as the death is presages. Against the ship’s side, it explodes with an appalling concussion and a wild flash of pink flame. Within the ship, there is a terrible wrenching. Decks and bulkheads are twisted like tissue paper, and all things not secured by iron bolts are smashed.” “The Hornet died under a moonlit sky on a shining tropical sea. She had been hit by two waves of Jap planes, the first in the morning, the second in the afternoon… Then came the last order: ‘Abandon ship.’ The men went over the side on knotted lines, down to life rafts, to floating debris, or simply to the water.” “Behind them, their ship died a smoking death.” “The great carrier was not alone. She had destroyers and cruisers with her, and they aided in the work of hauling the Hornet’s crew from the sea. In a few hours, it was all over. Those whose fate it was to live were alive, and those who had to die were dead.” “A tropical sunset colored the hulk of the carrier and the stars came out faintly. After dark, she went down.” -LIFE Magazine, “HORNET’S LAST DAY: Tom Lea paints death of a great carrier”
Hornet remains a favorite subject of maritime art, not just from Lea, but other painters. Take for instance this great piece by Gordon Grant.
USS HORNET (CV-8). Description: Courtesy of John H. Chafee, 1974 Catalog #: NH 82718-KN
Remember VT-8’s Ensign Gay? The lone survivor of his squadron survived the war, ending his service as a Lt. CDR and Navy Cross holder. In 1994 he died of a heart attack at a hospital in Marietta, Georgia, age 77, was cremated and his ashes spread at the place that his squadron had launched its ill-fated attack
As for the Raiders, the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo was commemorated by the ceremonial arrival of 11 B-25 bombers at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, on 17 April 2017, who flew in formation on the anniversary on Tuesday.
As noted by the AP, the last Raider living is 101-year-old retired Lt. Col. Richard “Dick” Cole. He attended Tuesday’s service at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton. Lead plane co-pilot Cole came from his Comfort, Texas, home.
The Navy still considers the Doolittle Raid to have relevent principals today.
“The Doolittle Raid, some 75 years ago, pushed Air Force Bombers outside of their normal operating envelope,” said Capt. Kevin Lenox, commanding officer of USS Nimitz (CVN 68), a World War II-namesake ship. “They were designed to fly from an airfield, but USS Hornet provided the perfect mobile launch point to send them into combat from the sea. The Navy didn’t have planes that could reach Tokyo, and the Air Force didn’t have any runways close enough. Together, their integrated capabilities were able to win the day, and that lesson has carried forward to today’s highly capable joint force.”
Specs:
Displacement:
20,000 long tons (20,000 t) (standard)
25,500 long tons (25,900 t) (full load)
29,114 long tons (29,581 t) (maximum)
Length:
770 ft. (230 m) (waterline at design draft)
824 ft. 9 in (251.38 m) (overall)
Beam:
83 ft. 3 in (25.37 m) (waterline)
114 ft. (35 m) (overall)
Draft:
24 ft. 4 in (7.42 m) design
28 ft. (8.5 m) full load
Installed power: 120,000 shp (89,000 kW)
Propulsion:
4 × Parsons geared steam turbines
9 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers
Speed:
32.5 kn (37.4 mph; 60.2 km/h) (design)
33.84 kn (38.94 mph; 62.67 km/h) (builder’s trials)
Range: 12,500 nmi (14,400 mi; 23,200 km) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement: 2,919 officers and enlisted (wartime)
Armament: (as built)
8 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal dual purpose guns
16(4×4) × 1.1 in (28 mm)/75 cal anti-aircraft guns
24 × M2 Browning .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns
Armament (by July 1942)
8 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal dual purpose guns
20 (5×4) × 1.1 in (28 mm)/75 cal anti-aircraft guns
32 × 20-mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannon
Armor:
Belt: 2.5–4 in (63.5–102 mm)
Deck: 4 in (102 mm) 60 lb. STS steel
Bulkheads: 4 in (102 mm)
Conning Tower: 4 in (100 mm) sides, 2 in (51 mm) top
Steering Gear: 4 in (102 mm)
Aircraft carried: 72-90 × aircraft
Aviation facilities:
3 × elevators
3 × hydraulic catapults (2 flight deck, 1 hangar deck– latter removed 1942)
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, April 12, 2017: The Tsar’s German tin-can four-pack
Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983. Catalog #: NH 94425
Here we see a group of five German and Russian destroyers in the bay at Kaiochau (Jiaozhou), China, then part of the German colonial concession in late 1904. If the ships look similar– the German vessels are in gleaming white tropical scheme while the Russians are in a gray war coat– that is because all the above were recently produced by the firm of Schichau, Elbing, Germany, for the respective emperor-cousins. Why are the Russian ships in a German harbor? Well, that’s because they just made it there by the skin of their teeth after Battle of the Yellow, 10 Aug. 1904, running from the Japanese.
Why are the Russian ships in a German harbor? Well, that’s because they just made it there by the skin of their teeth after Battle of the Yellow, 10 Aug. 1904, running from the Japanese.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The Tsarist Imperial Navy of the 1900s was an amalgam force that included not only capital, second-line and support ships made in Russia, but also craft purchased from France, the U.S., Germany, Great Britain and Italy. Girding for war with everyone from the Ottoman Empire to Sweden to Japan, the Russian Admiralty liked to hedge their bets.
The nation’s first class of modern “tin cans” were a large group of 27 300-ton Sokol-class vessels built at Yarrow and at Russian yards with British assistance between 1895-1903. Capable of making better than 30-knots, they were armed with two 15-inch (381mm) torpedoes and one 75mm gun, as well as several smaller 3 pounders.
Then came an exploratory order for five Forel-class ships from France, the single Som-class ship from Laird in England, and four Kit-class destroyers from Germany in 1899, all of nominally the same size– 350-tons. Armed with a trio of 15-inch tubes with six (three plus three reloads) Whitehead torpedoes capable of a 900-yard range, they carried a single 75mm gun with 160 rounds and five rapid-fire Hotchkiss 3 pdrs with 1350 rounds.
Fueled by four coal-fired steam boilers, they could make 27-knots or better. The destroyers were given one 24-foot whaleboat, as well as one 17-foot, one 19-foot, and one 12.5-foot canvas boats. In all, the boats were probably not enough to cram the 67-man crew into all of them if need be, but at least a good size portion could land ashore at once. The hulls were 35mm wood plank frames covered with 3mm of steel.
Our four German-built ships: Kit (Whale), Skat (Skate), Kastatka (Killer Whale), and Delfin (Dolphin), were laid down in 1899 at Schichau and completed by the summer of 1900. The cost of construction of each destroyer averaged 472,000 rubles or 1,020,000 German marks.
Russian officers in Elbing. 1900
Once complete, the four German-built units formed the First Detachment of the destroyers of the First Pacific Squadron under the overall command of Cdr. Kita Kevnarsky and sailed from Kronstadt in the Baltic on 12 October 1900 to Port Arthur– Russia’s new Pacific concession wrested away from China in 1895– arriving at the latter on 23 April 1901.
Delfin/Besstrashnyy as completed, click to big up 1200×918
In 1902, they were renamed and their “fish” names later used for early Russian submarines. The Kit was called Bditelnyy (Vigilant), Delfin became Besstrashnyy (Fearless), Kastaka– Besshumnyy (Silent) and Skat – Besposhchadnyy (Merciless).
Kit/Bditelnyi with her white scheme at Port Arthur, prewar
Kit/Bditelnyi with a more warlike gray coat. Note the 75mm canet gun forward
Then, after just a couple years of quiet peacetime service, came the Russian Pearl Harbor, when Japanese torpedo boats skirted into Port Arthur at night and made hay with the resting Tsarist battle line before an official declaration of war.
A Japanese woodblock print of the torpedo boat attack on Port Arthur
Our class leader, Kit/Bditelnyy, made patrols to sea and, due to ruptured boiler pipes after hitting a mine in October later was relegated to the role of a floating artillery battery, hitting out at Japanese land positions as they grew closer.
She was destroyed by her crew 20 December 1904 as the Japanese closed in and was later salvaged.
The other three ships of our class, as you probably figured out from the first image of this post, made it out of Port Arthur.
When the Japanese attacked the Port in February 1904, Delfin/Besstrashnyy reportedly landed a hit on the Japanese Yarrow-built destroyer Akatsuki but did not do her any great damage. Akatsuki later hit a Russian mine and was written off. After helping evacuate Russian troops along the coastline before the Japanese blockade was airtight, she slipped out with her two sisters and the rest of the capable fleet for the Battle of the Yellow Sea which saw Russian Admiral Wilhelm Vitgeft’s plan to break out for Vladivostok before that port was iced in foiled by Japanese Adm. Togo’s fleet.
Though inconclusive, both sides suffered a mauling (the Japanese battleship Mikasa was hit 20 times by large caliber shells while the Russian pre-dreadnought Peresvet had 39 hits) while the three German-made destroyers of Vitgeft’s were low on coal and forced to withdraw towards China rather than make for either Port Arthur or Vladivostok.
Making it to Kaiochau, they were disarmed and interned by the Chinese government on 15 August for the remainder of the conflict.
After the war, the three surviving destroyers were modernized in 1909 with larger 17.7-inch torpedo tubes and a second 75mm gun. To balance the increase in topside weight, the Hotchkiss 47mm battery was replaced by six lighter 7.62x54R Colt M1895 machine guns.
Serving together in the Siberian Flotilla based in Vladivostok, the interwar period between fighting the Japanese and scrapping with the Germans was quiet.
Life in the Siberian Flotilla. Note the straw boater hat and Mosin M.91 rifle. Sailors of the flotilla were often dispatched for land service ashore to protect Russian interests in the area.
When the Great War erupted, the tin cans put to sea to fruitlessly scout for German ships until Vladivostok iced over and they continued their operations from the Chinese coast into the summer of 1915.
Once the threat of enemy raiders in the Pacific abated, two of the three destroyers– Delfin/Besstrashnyy and Kastaka/Besshumnyy— were ordered to sail for the Arctic Sea Flotilla at Murmansk in the Barents Sea in early 1917, arriving there that September.
Beshumnyi, note her post-1909 arrangement with two radio masts
There, they were in turn captured by the British when they seized the port after the Russian Revolution and remained part of the White forces in that region until early 1920 when the Reds recaptured the pair in poor condition. With parts for their Schichau-built plant hard to come by in 1920s Europe, the old girls were broken up in 1924-25.
Skat/Besposhchadnyy, in her 1904 arrangement, showing her with a single mast
Skat/Besposhchadnyy, unable to make the trip back to Europe, was captured by the Japanese Navy when they landed in Vladivostok in June 1918. Turned over to the Whites there, she was scuttled in 1922 so the Reds couldn’t use her further.
Between the four ships, they saw a lot of weird action in their 20~ year lifespan and some changed flags 3-4 times serving Tsar, White and Red governments with some allied intervention in between. But hey, that’s Russia for you.
Specs:
The destroyer of the “Kit” type: (Longitudinal section, bilge plan, and top view)
Displacement: 354 tons (full)
Length: 200-feet (61 m) (between perpendiculars)
Beam: 23-feet (7 m) (the largest for frames)
Draft: 5.9 ft. (1.8 m)
Engines 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 6,000 shp, 4 Shichau water-tube boilers
Speed: 27.4 knots full
Coal: 90t, 1500-mile range 10 kts.
Crew 62-67
Armament:
(1900)
1x75mm Canet gun
5x47mm (3 Pdr) Hotchkiss
3x trainable 381mm TT with six torpedoes
(1909)
2x75mm Canet guns
6x MG
3x trainable 450mm TT with no reloads
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 it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
Warship Wednesday, April 5, 2017: Of black cats, bad luck, and tempests
LC-DIG-det-4a15636 Click to big up.
Here we see Peter Arrell Brown Widener’s custom-built schooner-rigged steam yacht Josephine visiting New York’s Larchmont Yacht Club in the summer of 1896 by the Detroit Publishing Co, John S. Johnston, photographer. This beautiful ship would go on to spend most of her life in military service and die a sad death at the hands of the ocean.
There were few people in Philadelphia who could rival the wealth of Peter A.B. Widener. Born on November 13, 1834, to a bricklayer, Widener worked as a butcher and saved enough money to start one of the first meat store chains in the country. He also began buying stocks in street railways. Together with his friend William L. Elkins, Widener eventually controlled the streetcar system in Philadelphia. His wealth grew even more as he became involved in public transportation systems in Chicago and other cities. He later expanded his power by purchasing large blocks of stock in the United States Steel Corporation, Standard Oil, and Pennsylvania Railroad.
In late 1895, Mr. PAB, a director at the time of the White Star Line (future builders of the RMS Titanic) ordered from Lewis Nixon Shipbuilders, Elizabethport, NJ, a grand steam yacht for personal use. As described by the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers of that year, for $400,000 the yard crafted a 257-foot (oal) vessel in just 10 months. Powered by a 1250 IHP quadruple expansion engine fed by two boilers, she could make 17 knots. She was exceptionally appointed:
The bridge extends across the boat, with wheel, compasses and chart table. Under the bridge will be the chart room and aft the captain’s room extending the width of the house, 12 feet. Next aft on the upper deck will be the library, 26 by 12 feet. Over this apartment will be an elliptical skylight for ventilation and a dome. The engine room skylight will be aft the library, and the remainder of the upper deck will be given up to a promenade, 145 feet in length.
At the forward end of the space under the bridge will be the owner’s rooms, each 19 by 15 feet. Aft, will be the bathroom, Between the bathrooms a stairway will extend to four lower guest rooms. From the stairs, a passageway will lead to the dining room, whose dimensions will be 30 feet 6 inches by 16 feet. Aft, the starboard side will be the reception room, 29 by 9 feet, extending half the yacht’s width and over the engine room. It will be finished in antique oak, paneled.
At the after end of the ladies’ room will be a mahogany staircase…
You get the idea. Besides the above, of course, was extensive pantry space, trunk storage, bunkerage for 240 tons of coal, a full kitchen, maids’ quarters with four berths, and separate messing/bunking and pantry space for the crew, quartermaster and ship’s captain.
Named after Mr. Widener’s beloved wife, Hannah Josephine Dunton Widener, the yacht Josephine was palatal.
On her first voyage, a planned summer cruise from Philadelphia along the Maine coast saw Josephine, with the Widener family aboard, call on Bar Harbor– then a popular getaway summer resort for the rich and famous– Friday, 31 July 1896. The next morning, Mrs. Widener was found expired in her bed, age 60. An attending physician ruled her death due to heart disease and the brand-new yacht, her gay bunting stowed, sailed sadly to New York where the late Mrs. Widener was taken back to Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery to be placed in the family vault.
The proud vessel was tied to pier side and sat swaying at her ropes.
When war with Spain came, Mr. Widener sold his unwanted steamship to the U.S. Navy for reportedly 1/10th of her value on 9 April 1898. Her life as a grand yacht had lasted less than two years.
As for Mr. Widener, his son and grandson perished on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and he died in 1915, aged 80. His daughter-in-law built Harvard University’s Widener Memorial Library to honor those lost on Titanic.
At the time the Navy needed to rapidly expand and among the ships acquired for Spanish-American War service were no less than 28 yachts. A baker’s dozen of these former pleasure craft were large ships, exceeding 400 tons. With relatively good gun-carrying capacity and sea-keeping capabilities, most saw service off Cuba where they were used as scouting vessels and dispatch ships.
Speaking of guns, the Navy needed some in a hurry to arm all these yachts with. After contacting Vickers, the company in March 1898 sold the Americans 16 Maxim-Nordenfeldt “1pdr Automatic Guns” from a Russian contract that had been reworked. These 37mm “pom-pom” heavy machine cannon had a cyclic rate of 250-300 rounds per minute and could perforate a 1-inch iron plate at 100 yards.
The Navy issued these guns to several armed yachts and up-armed Revenue Marine Cutters.
Our converted yacht was given two of these 1-pdrs
Click to big up. Note the great bushy lip lizards and the BM to the right smoking a square. Also, there is a three-piper warship in the distance. LC-DIG-det-4a13890
Plus, she was given two manually loaded 1-pdrs
Note the flat cap and the canvas bags marked ‘Tourniquet” LC-DIG-det-4a14809
And four 6-pdrs (57mmm) Hotchkiss breechloaders.
LC-DIG-det-4a13998
The Navy renamed most of these yachts and Josephine was no exception. She was the 6th Navy ship since 1803 to be christened USS Vixen (Patrol Yacht No. 4).
Vixen was commissioned on 11 April 1898– just two days after her sale– with Lt. (J.G) Alexander Sharp (USNA 1873) in command. Sharp had before the war had served as an aide to Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. Among the 5 officers and a 74-man crew were Midshipman Thomas C. Hart (later of WWII Asiatic Fleet fame) and Midshipman Arthur MacArthur III, (Douglas “I shall return” MacArthur’s brother). On 6 May 1898, MacArthur was promoted to ensign.
U.S.S. Vixen, Capt. and officers, 1898. Can you spot the very MacArthur-looking figure in the back row? LC-DIG-det-4a14811
There was also a mascot, a black cat appropriately enough given the ship’s history. U.S.S. Vixen, Miss Vixen, the mascot. LC-DIG-det-4a13999
Given a gray coat of paint, she was now a warship. LC-DIG-det-4a14831
Vixen 1898. Note the three-master schooner in the distance and a distinctive 1-pdr both forward and aft. This is the only photo I can find of her with canvas aloft. USNHC photo.
As noted by DANFS:
Assigned to the North Atlantic Station, Vixen sailed for Cuban waters on 7 May and arrived off the coast of Cuba nine days later. For the duration of the “splendid little war,” the graceful armed yacht performed a variety of duties, blockading and patrolling, carrying mail and flags of truce, ferrying prisoners, establishing communications with Cuban insurgents ashore, and landing reconnaissance parties. Among her passengers embarked during that time was Colonel (later President) Theodore Roosevelt, of the famous “Rough Riders.”
Vixen was present with at least two other armed yachts, USS Gloucester, and Hist during the Battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898.
Per DANFS:
Vixen was patrolling off Santiago between 0935 and 0945 and was at a point some four miles to the westward of the distinctive landmark, the Morro Castle. At about 0940, a messenger reported to the captain, Lt. Sharp, that there had been an explosion at the entrance to the harbor. Rushing on deck, Sharp almost immediately sighted the first Spanish vessel to sortie– the cruiser Vizcaya.
Sharp ordered full speed ahead and hard-a-port, a move was taken in the nick of time because of shells from his own ships, alerted to the sortie of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, splashed in the water astern in the yacht’s frothing wake. Vizcaya acknowledged the presence of the yacht in the vicinity when she sent a salvo toward her with her starboard bow guns. Fortunately for Vixen, the shells passed overhead, “all being aimed too high.”
As Vixen gathered speed, she steered south by east, clearing the armored cruiser Brooklyn’s field of fire, about two points on Vixen’s port bow. The yacht then steered west by south, as Sharp wanted to steer a course parallel to that of the Spanish fleet that was then under fire from the other American ships. Unfortunately, the helmsman erred and steered southwest by south-a mistake not discovered until Vixen had steered farther from the action.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn had engaged the leading ships of the Spanish fleet and was trading shell for shell in a spirited exchange of fire. Shells from Cristobal Colon passed over Brooklyn. One splashed “close ahead” and another splashed astern on the yacht’s starboard beam. Several others passed directly overhead, a piece of bursting shell going through Vixen’s battle flag at her mainmast!
Vixen witnessed the battle as it unfolded, but, as her commanding officer observed, “. . . seeing that the Spanish vessels were out of range of our guns while we were well within range of theirs, we reserved our fire.” In fact, Vixen did not fire upon the enemy ships until 1105, when she opened fire on the badly battered Vizcaya, which had gone aground, listing heavily to port. Vixen’s fire was short-lived for Vizcaya’s flag came down at 1107, and Lt. Sharp ordered cease fire. The yacht remained underway to participate in the chase of the last remaining heavy unit of the Spanish fleet, Cristobal Colon until that Spanish warship struck early in the afternoon.
Battle of Santiago, 1898 Caption: USS VIXEN cheering on USS OREGON (BB-3) after the fight. USS VIXEN answering NEW YORK’s (CA-2) signal number, 3 July 1898. Description: From the Collection of Rear Admiral C.H. Taylor Catalog #: USN 903386
Santiago Morro, USS Vixen passing the wreck of the REINA MERCEDES. Note the rakish bow. Source: From a book of letters, etc. kept by Assistant Surgeon William S. Thomas, MRC, USN, Spanish-American War, 1898. #: NH 111953
One gunner, a man by the name of Smith, on the forward 1-pdr, was said to have gotten off 400 rounds on his piece during the battle.
Sure, you are salty, but are you “I shot up the Spanish Navy with 400 shells from a 37mm machine gun while on the bow of a yacht,” salty? U.S.S. Vixen, Maxim machine gun and gunner Smith, LC-DIG-det-4a14810
After the war, the Navy found the 13 large yachts they picked up were a worthwhile investment for a fleet with a new colonial empire. With small crews, they could conduct coastal surveys, carry mail, stores, and passengers for the fleet, perform yeoman service in various sundry duties, wave the flag at small far-off ports too shallow for larger cruisers and battleships, and serve as station ships at the disposal of U.S. counsels.
From 1899 through 1906, Vixen served off Puerto Rico and Cuba, shuttling between there and Key West as needed, painted a gleaming white.
Almost like her yacht days…USS VIXEN (1898-1923, later PY-4) Caption: At Santiago, Cuba, on 20 May 1903. USS OLYMPIA (C-6) is in the right background. Description: Collection of Commander R. Roller Richardson, USN (MC). Donated by B. Bradford Richardson, 1988. Catalog #: NH 96571
Decommissioned 30 March 1906, she was loaned to the New Jersey Naval Militia to serve alongside the monitor USS Tonopah (who in turn was swapped out in 1914 for the old screw gunboat USS Adams) as a training ship. The militia, some 400~ strong, was organized in two battalions with the first battalion on Tonopah/Adams based in Hoboken and the second battalion, based in Camden, headquartered on Vixen.
Photographed circa the early 1900s. USS TERROR (Monitor No. 4) is on the opposite side of the pier. Terror was laid up at Philadelphia from 1906, a port shared by Vixen, so this is likely around that time. Description: Courtesy of Rear Admiral Joseph M. Worthington, USN (retired) Catalog #: NH 90937
In 1910, her 1-pdrs were considered obsolete and were removed, her armament streamlined to a set of 8 6-pdr singles.
As noted by Annual Report of the Operations of the Naval Militia filed with the Navy Dept., Vixen was housed across the Delaware River in Philadelphia as dock space in Camden was inadequate and, besides occasional pier side drills, the ship regularly got underway only for about a week in July every summer. It should come as no shock that reports note, “The men were very poor in handling boats and lubberly” though gun battery drill was exercised as “a box was thrown overboard having a red flag on it and the men took turns firing at the mark with the Colt’s automatic guns,” likely Model 1895 Colt “potato diggers” in 30.06 caliber.
When the U.S. entered the Great War, Vixen was taken back into regular U.S. Navy service in April 1917, her armament again updated with the 6pdrs coming off and four QF 47mm 3-pdrs going on in replacement.
She patrolled off the eastern seaboard and, following the establishment of the Navy activity in the recently acquired Virgin Islands (purchased from Denmark), served as station ship at St. Thomas., USVI for the rest of the conflict, keeping an eye out for the Germans.
About half of her 60-man crew ashore as an armed naval party complete with leggings, cartridge belts, and M1903s. She would remain as station ship in the Virgin Islands for almost six years.
The harbor from the east, showing the USS RAINBOW and USS VIXEN -station ship, also Marine barracks and radio towers. Navy Yard Virgin Islands. Description: Catalog #: NH 122615
Vixen remained in the USVI for several years after the conflict, being called back to New York where she was decommissioned on 15 November 1922.
She was sold 22 June 1923 to the Fair Oaks Steamship Corp. of New York. Besides some federal lawsuits from the same era, little is known about Fair Oaks with the Bureau of Shipping only listing them for a few years in the 1920s, with an office at 17 Battery Place in NYC, and only owning the 413-ton steam tug H.C. Cadmus and (briefly) Vixen. Cadmus later turned up in U.S. Army service as LT332 during WWII and Vixen would quickly be resold to one Barron Gift Collier of South Florida in late 1923.
Named first Tamiami Queen, then Collier County, then Princess Montagu, she was operated on a regular coaster service by Collier’s Florida Inter-Island Steamship Company, Ltd.
She made the 80-mile run from Miami to the Bahamas several times a week carrying mail, freight and 75 (!) overnight berths for first class passengers. Typically, she left Nassau every Monday and Thursday at 8 am and sailed from the P&O dock in Miami on Tuesday and Friday at the same time. She also did weekend excursions from Miami to Cat Island in the Bahamas. As Florida was dry because of Prohibition, and the Bahamas was not, this was a very lucrative junket.
Passenger steamship, Princess Montagu, owned by Barron Collier. She was operated by his Florida Inter-Island Steamship Company, Ltd, and made regular trips between Miami and Nassau. The photograph was probably taken in Miami, c1925. Via Collier County Museums
Then came the Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929 which left Princess Montagu (nee Josephine) high on Tony Rock outside of Nassau. Thankfully free of passengers, her crew was rescued via lifeline.
She was salvaged in place the next summer.
Besides her plans which are in the Library of Congress, few remnants of Josephine/Vixen remain, though a set of ivory poker chips from her heyday are in circulation.
Note the early white star line logo. Widener was a board member. The first photo in this post also shows this flag flying from both her masts in 1896.
Also, remember those 16 37mm 1-pdrs sold by Vickers to the Navy to arm their new ships in 1898? One of that very lot is still around. Placed on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manningand used during the Span-Am War, it was recently sold at auction.
These style guns, though considered obsolete before the Great War, were used in that conflict as early AAA, specifically in the role of balloon busters.
German M-Flak (3.7 cm Maschinenkanone Flak). From late 1915 M-Flak batteries defended balloons and important positions and installations. German flak units were part of the Air Service, whilst the majority of the Allied anti-aircraft units were part of the artillery. Sources: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drakegoodma
The world, on the other hand, has not heard the last of Peter A.B. Widener. His immense and architecturally significant Philadelphia mansion was destroyed by fire in 1980. However, it had served as a library for almost four decades and its sale (prior to the inferno that destroyed it) allowed the Widener Branch of the Free Library to remain in service– its current location is at 2808 West Lehigh Avenue.
Further, in 1972 Pennsylvania Military College rebranded itself after the prominent Widener family, first as Widener College then as Widener University and currently has 6,400 students in attendance. The family over the years has also been scions of thoroughbred horseracing, and Philadelphia professional sports franchises, including the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers, the Wings and the 76ers.
Notably, none have a black cat as a mascot.
Specs:
Displacement: 806 long tons (819 t)
Length: 257 ft. (oa) 182 ft. 3 in (wl)
Beam: 28 ft. 0 in
Draft: 12 ft. 8 in (mean), 16 full load
Propulsion: 1 VTE steam engine, 1250 IHP, twin boilers, auxiliary schooner rig
Speed: 17 kts as built. 15 kts by 1918.
Complement: 5 officers and 74 enlisted (1898), 5 officers, 62 men (1917)
Armament:
(1898)
four 6-pounder breechloaders guns
four 1-pounders (2 pom poms, 2 manually loaded)
(1910)
eight 6-pounders
(1917)
four 3-pounders
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.
