Tag Archives: De Ruyter

Vale, Almirante

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BAP Almirante Grau of the Peruvian Navy was decommissioned on 26 September 2017. She had been laid down in Holland on 5 September 1939, the same week Hitler marched into Poland, giving her an amazing 78-year career. 

The beautiful De Zeven Provinciën-class light cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter (C 801), who went on to serve the Peruvian Navy as BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) until she was retired in 2017, was to be saved as a floating museum, perhaps at the Naval Museum in Callao, but lack of funding and interest derailed that.

The Peruvians put the last all-gun cruiser on active service up for sale for around $1 million back in March, but concerns about asbestos, chemicals dating back to the 1930s, and lead paint made that a non-starter as it would likely cost more to safely dispose of all the bad stuff than her value in recycled materials.

A last-ditch effort by a group of Navy vets in Holland likewise fell through.

This led to a quiet ceremony, attended by a naval band, of the old girl being towed from Lima to undisclosed shipbreakers, likely in India,  for scrapping in Guayaquil, Ecuador, for a final price undisclosed.

The ship last departed from Callao Naval Port in Lima on 8 July. (Photo: Juan Carlos Iglesias Caminati)

She deserved better.

Update: Oryx reported Saturday that Almirante Grau/De Ruyter docked over the weekend in India, completing her final voyage. 

Warship Wednesday, June 1, 2022: Old Amsterdam in New Amsterdam

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

Warship Wednesday, June 1, 2022: Old Amsterdam in New Amsterdam

Via DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University which has an extensive collection of the Columbian Naval Parade

Above we see the Dutch Atjeh/Aceh-class schroefstoomschip (screw steamer) 1e klasse Hr.Ms. Van Speyk (also seen as Van Speijk) during the Naval Rendezvous parade portion of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing, on 27 April 1893. Van Speyk was the only Dutch vessel among the assembled 38 warships from ten countries, the greatest international accumulation of warships since Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee of 1887. A rare period of enlightened peace among civilized nations.

The eight intended vessels Atjeh class (Atjeh, Tromp, Koningin Emma der Nederlanden, De Ruyter, Van Speyk, Doggersbank, Kortenaer, and Johan Willem Friso), all built at the Rijkswerf in Amsterdam, were considered for their time to be unprotected cruisers by everyone but the Dutch, who had ordered them to replace seven smaller 2,000-ton, 16-gun Djambi/ Zilveren Kruis-class flush-deck steam corvettes whose muzzleloaders and circa 1860s steam suites capable of 8 knots weren’t going to cut it in 1875. Larger vessels than they were replacing, the Atjehs were 3,425 tons and went 301 feet overall (262 at the waterline) with iron hulls sheathed in wood and zinc/copper and a sexy length-to-beam ratio of 7:1. As often seen with ships of the era, there were enough minor dimensional and constructive differences between the ships of the class to make them more half-sisters than full-sisters, but they all shared the same rough profile and layout.

The first three ships completed used two reciprocating engines generating 2700 ihp and with a raisable prop while the last three (Van Speyk included) completed had compound steam engines generating 3300 ihp on a fixed prop, and all carried four boilers. This allowed for speeds between 13.5 and 14.8 knots under steam, carrying between 440-580 tons of coal, and with a three-masted auxiliary ship rig that allowed a speed of up to 8 knots on canvas alone.

Armament, as completed in the 1880s, was a half dozen 6.7″/25cal and eight 4.7″/17cal Krupp breechloaders– but still on gun decks with port and starboard gun ports they were a circa 1870s design– to which eight 1-pounders and six 1-pounder revolvers were added for defense against torpedo boats and launches. Speaking of the latter, they carried four such steam launches equipped with spar torpedoes, a lesson learned from the successful use by the Russians of such craft against the Turks in their 1877 war.

Our ship was named for Dutch naval Lt. Jan Carel Josephus van Speijk, a hero during the blockade of Antwerp in 1831 who elected to blow up his gunboat via firing his pistol into the powder magazine rather than surrender his command as Belgian rebels swarmed his ship, taking 28 of 31 crewmembers with it into the sky.

King William I in 1833 decreed that if there was a Dutch Navy, it would always have a warship named for Van Speijk. This included two small corvettes (kuilkorvet) prior to our schroefstoomschip and for generations, the rallying cry of Dutch naval cadets has been “Het voorbeeld door Van Speijk gegeven, volgen wij met hart en hand” (“We follow the example set by Van Speijk with heart and hand”) and the country’s naval officers have shown a willingness to ride their ships into near-certain death in years since.

After seven full years under construction, Hr.Ms. Van Speyk commissioned 1 March 1887, the next to the last of her class completed, followed only by Hr.Ms. Johan Willem Friso the next year. Two sisters, Kortenaer and Doggersbank, were destroyed by a yard fire in 1883 before they could be launched.

Hr. Ms. Van Speyk on her way to sea for trails NIMH 2173-214-117

Van Speyk and her completed sisters had a happy, if short (15-20 year) active career, spent patrolling far-flung colonies in the Caribbean, South America, and the Southwest Pacific, and showing the flag throughout the world to prove the Dutch could project enough power to protect the same.

Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, in 1889 with Hr.Ms. Van Speyk in the foreground, her sister Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, center, and the guard ship Hr.Ms. Gedeh is in the background. NIMH 2158_090048

Schroefstoomschip Van Speyk in de haven van Den Helder, RP-F-00-1130

Hr.Ms Van Speyk. Note the dozen gun ports in her NIMH 2158_014242

Hr.Ms. Van Speyk on the Nieuwe Diep 2158_090465

Van Speyk’s moment in the sun was her involvement in the 1893 Columbian review.

Van Speyk at the International Columbian Naval Review at New York in April 1893. At the left is the Spanish Cruiser Infanta Isabel, Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1981. NH 92034

Columbian Naval Review, 1893 New York, via the LOC’s Detroit Publishing collection

Columbian Naval Review, 1893 New York, via the LOC’s Detroit Publishing collection

Her officers and men, especially when the naval review fleet reached New York, were the toast of the town and attended a cycle of events hosted by such organizations as the Holland Society of New York, the Orange Club, and the St. Nicholas Society, with the latter presenting the ship with a silver cup “as a token of the gratitude and goodwill of the new Netherlands to the Old Netherlands.”

I’d bet this cup may still be in a Dutch museum, if not on the current Van Speyk these days. Via the NYPL Collection

“The great International Naval Review. New York, April 27th, 1893,” period lithograph published by “Kurz & Allison, 76-78 Wabash Ave., Chicago” showing the combined review, with Van Speyk shown as the fourth ship in the foremost of the three passing columns. Via the Huntington Library’s Jay T. Last Collection of Graphic Arts and Social History. Click to big up

However, the sun always sets

The class– complete with a trio of masts, an auxiliary sail rig, and gun ports– was downright quaint as a naval force by the late 1890s at a time when warships were all-steel and swathed in armor, with turret guns. This saw the six completed Atjeh-class cruisers taken offline and either disposed of or converted to accommodation ships.

Atjeh, Van Speyk, and Koningin Emma der Nederlanden were so hulked, losing their guns, engines, and masts and gaining a topside house structure by the early 1900s.

Atjeh as an accommodations ship

Wachtschip Hr.Ms. Koningin Emma der Nederlanden, 1940 NIMH 2158_000925

Schroefstoomschip Hr.Ms Van Speyk as accommodation ship NIMH 2158_014250

On 14 May 1940, Van Speyk was captured by the Germans and the occupying forces had the ship transferred to Kattenburg, Amsterdam in 1943 to continue to function as an accommodation ship there for Kriegsmarine personnel– subject to RAF raids.

Liberated by Allied forces in 1944, the Dutch sold the hulk to be broken up at Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht in March 1946, the final member of her class afloat.

Epilogue

Of Van Speyk’s sisters, Tromp, De Ruyter, and Johan Willem Friso had escaped the barracks ship life and had all been scrapped by 1904. Class leader Atjeh was out of service by 1922. Meanwhile, Koningin Emma der Nederlanden went out with a bang. Like Van Speyk, she had been captured by the Germans in 1940 and repurposed to then suddenly sank at her moorings in 1942, sabotaged by the Dutch Resistance.

Keeping with William I’s decree, the Dutch named a K-class sloop (Kanonneerboot K3, later F805) after Lt. Van Speyk which was captured on the builder’s ways in 1940 and then used by the Germans. Surviving WWII, she continued to serve the Dutch, classified as a fregat, until 1960.

Fregat Hr.Ms. Van Speyk 1946-1960 NIMH 2158_014286

The fifth Van Speyk was the renamed Flores while the sixth Van Speyk, F802, was the lead ship of her class of new frigates and served from 1967 to 1986, then in the Indonesian Navy for another 35 years.

The sixth was an experimental fuel ship converted from a minesweeper while the seventh and current, F828, is a Karel Doorman-class multipurpose frigate that has been active since 1995.

Hr.Ms. Van Speijk gaat olieladen over de boeg vanuit Hr.Ms. Zuiderkruis 1997 2009_199707-00095

Specs:

Dutch Atjeh class listing from Conways’ 1860-1906

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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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.

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Last All-Gun Cruiser Could Get Hail Mary Save

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The beautiful De Zeven Provinciën-class light cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter (C 801), who went on to serve the Peruvian Navy as BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) until she was retired in 2017, was to be saved as a floating museum, perhaps at the Naval Museum in Callao but lack of funding and interest has derailed that.

The Peruvians now have the vessel up for sale with the asking price starting at about $1.07 million. 

Of course, that figure is to scrap the ship but concerns about asbestos, chemicals dating back to the 1930s, and lead paint probably make that a non-starter as it would likely cost more to safely dispose of all the bad stuff than her value in recycled materials. This leaves the prospect that she may just be scuttled at sea or, possibly, sent to Alang where such things don’t matter as much.

However, there is a slight possibility the ship could go back “home” with some Dutch groups reportedly making a move to acquire and preserve the old girl. 

Of course, see “concerns about asbestos, chemicals dating back to the 1930s, and lead paint ” as well as “lack of funding and interest” to see how that will likely turn out.

Either way, it is a shame.

BAP Almirante Grau of the Peruvian Navy, was decommissioned on Sep 26, 2017

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017 Farewell, Admiral

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, Farewell, Admiral

Note the WWII-style Carley rafts on the turrets

Here we see the De Zeven Provinciën-class light cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter (C801) of the Dutch Koninklijke Marine as she appeared in 1953 while in her prime. Decommissioned last week an amazing 78 years after her first steel was cut, she was the last of the big-gun armed cruisers afloat on active duty.

The class of ship between destroyers and battleships, fast gun-armed cruisers have long been a staple of naval modern warfare since all-steel navies took to the sea. However, their large batteries of powerful guns were antiquated by the second half of the 20th century.

Fast armored cruisers, a product of the late 19th century, were designed to serve as the eyes of the main battle fleet. Large enough to act independently, they sailed the world and showed their country’s flag in far-off ports in peace. During war, they were detailed to raid commerce and serve as fleet units. Over 60 years, more than 200 cruisers were placed in service and sailed in almost every fleet in the world. Fast enough to outrun battleships but not outfight them, they soon were obsolete after World War II and their days were numbered.

But the hero of our tale has a pass, as she was planned before WWII started.

HNLMS De Ruyter was laid down on 5 September 1939 at Wilton-Fijenoord, Schiedam, just 96-hours after Hitler invaded Poland. Part of the planned Eendracht-class of light cruisers which were to defend the far-flung Dutch East Indies from the Japanese, her original name was to be De Zeven Provinciën while her sister, laid down at the same time in a different yard, would be Eendracht.

The ships were to mount 10 5.9-inch Bofors but these guns were still in Sweden when the Germans rolled in in 1940 which led to their being confiscated by the Swedes and promptly recycled into their new Tre Kronor-class cruisers, stretched to accommodate the Swedish standard 6-inch shell.

Though the Germans tried to complete the two cruisers for use in their own Kriegsmarine, Dutch resistance hindered that effort and by the end of the war, they were still nowhere near complete.

After languishing in the builder’s yard for 14 years, De Zeven Provinciën was finished as De Ruyter and joined the Dutch Navy on 18 November 1953.

The name is an ode to the famous 17th-century Dutch Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, for which no less than five prior Dutch warships had been named since 1799. The most recent of which was used by Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman in his ride to Valhalla during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942.

A Dutch propaganda poster, depicting Admiral Karel Doorman and his 1942 flagship light cruiser De Ruyter

Though considered light cruisers because of their armament of eight redesigned 15.2 cm/53 (6″) Model 1942 guns, these craft went well over 12,000-tons when full. The turrets, conning tower, and main engineering spaces were armored with up to five inches of steel plate, among the last non-carriers completed in the world to carry such protection. Designed originally for Parsons geared steam turbines and a half-dozen Yarrow boilers, they were instead completed with De Schelde-Parsons turbines and four Werkspoor-Yarrow boilers giving them a 32-knot speed and 7,000nm range.

Already cramped due to extensive AC-cycle electronics suites they were never planned to have (the 1939 design was DC), and built with the resulting need for a 900-man crew rather than the planned 700 souls in 1939, they never received their large AAA battery, seaplane catapults, and torpedo tubes, relying instead on a secondary armament of eight radar-controlled 57mm/60cal Bofors in four twin mounts.

De Ruyter‘s sistership Eendracht was instead completed as De Zeven Provinciën and they commissioned within weeks of each other just after the Korean War came to a shaky ceasefire.

The two ships served extensively with NATO forces and provided some insurance to Dutch interests during the tense standoff with Indonesia during the decade-long West New Guinea dispute — which could have seen the Indonesian Navy’s only cruiser, the Soviet-built KRI Irian, formerly Ordzhonikidze, face off with the Dutch in what would have been the world’s last cruiser-on-cruiser naval action.

De Ruyter with the Holland-class destroyer HNLMS Zeeland (D809) and Friesland-class destroyer HNLMS Drenthe (D816) sometime in the early 1970s. While Zeeland would be scrapped in 1979, Drenthe would go on to serve in the Peruvian Navy as BAP Guise in the 1980s. Speaking of which…

However, the age of navies running big gun warships was in the twilight.

The Soviets maintained as many as 13 of the huge 16,000-ton Sverdlov class cruisers, armed with a dozen 6-inch guns as late as 1994 when the last one (the famously wrecked Murmansk) was finally removed from their navy list.

The Russians beat the U.S. by more than a decade as the last all-gun armed cruiser on the Navy List was USS Newport News (CA–148), struck 31 July 1978. The last big gun cruiser in U.S. service was USS Albany (CA-123) which had been reworked to a hybrid missile boat (CG-10) to be decommissioned in 1980 and struck five years later. An 8-inch armed destroyer, USS Hull, removed her experimental Mk.71 mount in 1979. Since then, it’s been a world of 5-inchers for U.S. cruisers and destroyers.

As for the Royal Navy, losing their heavies in the 1950s and their few remaining WWII-era light cruisers soon after, they decommissioned their two Tiger-class cruisers in the 1970s, disposing of them in the 1980s.

The navies of South America were the last to operate big gun-armed cruisers. Which brings us to the story of De Zeven Provinciën and De Ruyter‘s second life.

Dutch cruiser De Ruyter (C-801) lit up at night, June 1968

Dutch cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën leading a Dutch squadron of frigates and submarines

Crossing the Equator

With the ABC powers (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) all packing large former U.S. cruisers in their fleets, Peru went shopping in the early 1970s for some parity and bought the two Dutch cruisers for a song between 1972-75. De Ruyter was bought first and became fleet flagship BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) after the national naval hero, replacing the old Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Newfoundland which carried the same name. DZP was picked up later and became BAP Aguirre.

BAP Almirante Grau on arrival in May 1973 at her new home. Peru’s newest cruiser was the Ex Dutch De Ruyter. Photo via Archivo Historico Biblioteca Central de Marina b

BAP Almirante Grau on arrival in May 1973 at her new home. Peru’s newest cruiser was the Ex Dutch De Ruyter. Photo via Archivo Historico Biblioteca Central de Marina b

Cruiser Almirante Admiral Grau, the flagship of the war navy of Peru, during its incorporation in 1973.

For a decade, this gave the Peruvians a good bit of prestige, and as the ABC navies shed their older vessels (all WWII-era), the much newer Dutch ships continued to give good service.

Chile decommissioned the 12,242-ton O’Higgins (formerly the USS Brooklyn CL-40) finally in 1992.

Crucero O’Higgins de la Armada Chilena, formerly USS Brooklyn CL-40

Sistership to the O’Higgins was the ARA General Belgrano (ex-USS Phoenix CL-46) flagship of the Argentine navy for thirty years until she was deep-sixed by a British submarine in the 1982 Falkland Islands War. Brazil also had a pair of ex-Brooklyn class cruisers, which they operated until the 1970s.

To keep her sister alive, DZP/Aguirre was paid off in 2000, her parts used to keep De Ruyter/Grau in operation.

Ever since the battleship USS Missouri was struck on 12 January 1995, the eight Bofors 152/53 naval guns mounted on Almirante Grau were the most powerful afloat on any warship operated by any navy in the world. A record she went out with after holding for 22 years– a proud legacy of another generation and the end of an era.

Given an extensive refit in 1985 and other upgrades since then, she carried new Dutch electronics, updated armament including Otomat anti-ship missiles, and 40L70 Dardo rapid-fire guns, and in effect was the cruiser equivalent of the Reagan-era Iowa-class battleships.

Salinas, Peru (July 3, 2004) – The Peruvian cruiser Almirante Grau (CLM-81) fires one of its 15.2 cm caliber cannons as naval surface fire support during a Latin American amphibious assault exercise supporting UNITAS 45-04. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Journalist Dave Fliesen

A detailed look at her modernized scheme via Naval Analyses:

The Dutch still revere the name De Ruyter with a Tromp-class guided-missile frigate commissioned as the 7th ship with the handle in 1975 and a new De Zeven Provinciën-class frigate, the 8th De Ruyter, placed in service in 2004.

Showing her age, and still requiring at least a crew of 600 even after modernization, the Peruvian cruiser with former Dutch and one-time German ownership papers was placed in reserve status in 2010, maintained from sinking but not much else. However, she still served a purpose as a pierside training and flagship.

In 2012, Royal Netherlands Army Brigadier Jost van Duurling and Peru’s Minister of Defense, Dr. Luis Alberto Otárola Peñaranda, signed a military cooperation agreement between the two countries on De Ruyter/Grau‘s deck.

She is also remembered in Dutch maritime art.

1959. J. Goedhart. De kruiser Hr. Ms. de Ruyter op zee via Scheepvaartmuseum

Hr.Ms. De Ruyter C801 – by Maarten Platje – 1984

Now, the end has come. She was decommissioned last week, though she is reportedly in poor condition and hasn’t been to sea in nearly a decade.

Word on the street is that she will be kept as a floating museum, perhaps at the Naval Museum in Callao, but concerns about asbestos, chemicals dating back to the 1930s, and lead paint may derail that.

Still, she has gone the distance.

Specs:

Hr.Ms. De Ruyter C801 via blueprints.com

Displacement: 12,165 tons fl (1995)
Length: 614.6 ft.
Beam: 56.6 ft.
Draught: 22.0 ft.
Propulsion:
4 Werkspoor-Yarrow three-drum boilers
2 De Schelde Parsons geared steam turbines
2 shafts
85,000 shp
Speed: 32 kn
Range: 7,000 nmi at 12 kn
Complement: 973 (1953) 650 (2003)
Electronics (1953)
LW-01
2x M45
Electronics (2003)
AN/SPS-6
Signaal SEWACO Foresee PE CMS
Signaal DA-08 surface search
Signaal STIR-240 fire control
Signaal WM-25 fire control
Signaal LIROD-8 optronic
Decca 1226 navigation
Armament: (1953)
4 × 2 Bofors 152/53 guns
8 × 57 mm AA guns
Armament (1995)
4 × 2 Bofors 152/53 guns
8 Otomat Mk 2 SSM
2 × 2 OTO Melara 40L70 DARDO guns
Armor:
50–76 mm (2.0–3.0 in) belt
50–125 mm (2.0–4.9 in) turrets
50–125 mm (2.0–4.9 in) conning tower

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!