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Warship Wednesday, Oct 23, 2019: No Greater Honor

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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 1833-1946 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 23, 2019: No Greater Honor

Courtesy of the USS Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association, 1986. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 96011

Here we see the hard-charging John C. Butler-class destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), photographed from sistership USS Walter C. Wann (DE-412), only a week or two before she was lost in off Samar on 25 October 1944, during the greater Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is 75 years ago this week.

At just 306 feet long overall, the 1,750-ton Butlers were not built to slug it out in surface actions, as they only mounted a pair of 5″/38 DP guns and a trio of 21-inch torpedo tubes, which was about half the anti-ship armament of contemporary U.S. Navy destroyer. Alternatively, they did come to war with an impressive anti-submarine armament for their size in the form of a Hedgehog device, two depth charge racks, and eight K-gun projectors, making them popular in convoy escort in the Atlantic. Likewise, they had a serious AAA suite to include a mix of 15 to 20 40mm and 20mm cannons, which would come in handy in smoking attacking Japanese planes at low level.

Using a pair of “D” Express boilers and a matching set of two Westinghouse geared turbines, they had 12,000 shp installed, allowing the Butlers to run up to a theoretical maximum of 24 knots (more on this later). While not fast enough for fleet operations, this was enough for convoy and patrol work. It also allowed them to have a nice, long range of some 6,000 nm when poking along at 12 knots.

Capable of being produced rapidly, some 300 Butlers were on the drawing board at one time or another from no less than four shipyards, with many constructed in fewer than six months apiece. However, “just” 83 were completed, ranging from USS John C. Butler (DE-339), which was laid down on 5 October 1943 to USS Vandivier (DER-540) which, although laid down only a month later, languished on the builder’s ways until she was finally commissioned in 1955.

Our spotlight vessel, DE-413, was named in honor of then-recently deceased Samuel Booker Roberts Jr. The double son of a sailor– his mother was a Great War Yeoman (F) and his father was a Machinist’s Mate in the same conflict– he joined the peacetime Navy Reserve in 1939 at age 18 and soon served on the battleship USS California (BB 44) and destroyer tender USS Heywood (AP 12) before being assigned to the combat transport USS Bellatrix (AK 20). In charge of one of the amphibious ship’s Higgins LCVPs, Coxswain Roberts was soon running Marines and precious cargo ashore on Guadalcanal, where he was killed on 27 September 1942, at age 21, after volunteering to use his boat as a decoy to draw Japanese fire during a combat evacuation of a trapped group of Marines (companies A and B of 1/7). His parents were later presented with his Navy Cross. 

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was laid down on 6 December 1943, at Houston, Texas, by Brown Shipbuilding Co. and was launched just six weeks later with the sponsor being his mother, Anna.

Samuel B. Roberts leaves the ways at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas, 20 January 1944. NH 82850

The Navy’s newest destroyer escort then commissioned on 28 April 1944, LCDR Robert W. Copeland, USNR, in command. Commissioned as a Naval Reserve officer in 1935, Copeland was a lawyer from Tacoma, Washington who had been called back to the fleet in 1940. Since then, he had commanded the tug Pawtucket (YT-7), patrol craft Black Douglas (PYc-45), and Evarts-class destroyer escort Wyman (DE-38) — seeing action in the Pacific on the latter.

Soon, Roberts was headed to the Far East after workups on the East Coast, via a convoy through the Panama Canal.

Photographed in 1944, probably circa June, while off Boston, Massachusetts. Note she is not camouflaged as of yet. Courtesy of Robert F. Sumrall, 1980. NH 90603

On 21 August 1944, she got underway from Pearl Harbor for Eniwetok and points West. By October, she was part of the armada prepping for the 7th Fleet’s upcoming invasion of the Philippines.

During that campaign, the last huzzah of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Halsey’s 3rd fleet was drawn north by a Japanese carrier task force while Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet was tied up to the south, leaving three escort carrier task forces, Taffy 1, 2, and 3, to cover the Leyte amphibious landings themselves. 

This group of jeep carriers was confronted with a Japanese surface action group under VADM Takeo Kurita including four battleships — including Yamato–, six cruisers, and a dozen destroyers. To this RADM Clifton A. F. Sprague’s Taffy 3 could muster five escort carriers, the destroyers Heermann (DD-532), Hoel (DD-533), and Johnston (DD-557) and the four escorts Dennis (DE-405), John C. Butler (DE-339), Raymond (DE-341) and Roberts.

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) or USS Dennis (DE-405) on October 25, 1944, at the Battle of Samar. 80-G-288145.

Spotting the massively outgunned ships of Taffy 3 just after dawn on 25 October, Kurita immediately ordered his battleships to open fire, in what could have quickly turned into an absolute slaughter. The jeep carriers, based on merchant freighter hulls, could only make 16 or 17 knots, meaning they had no hope of outrunning the Japanese without a head start.

That’s when the greyhounds of Taffy 3 leaped to the task force’s defense, largely replicating the effort made by Coxswain Roberts on Guadalcanal.

USS HERMAN (DD-532) and a destroyer-escort lay a smokescreen to protect their escort carrier group from attacking Japanese surface ships. During the Battle Off Samar, 25 October 1944. Photographed from WHITE PLAINS (CVE-66). 80-G-288885

As ably told by DANFS: 

At 0655, Samuel B. Roberts went to general quarters. Three minutes later, lookouts reported “splashes from heavy caliber [sic] shells” with both green and purple dye markings falling close aboard, between Samuel B. Roberts and Johnston. At 0700, Samuel B. Roberts and her sister ships laid down heavy black funnel smoke to cover the run-and-gun-style fighting typical of a fierce surface battle.

Over the 1MC, Cmdr. Copeland calmly told his men they would be entering “a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected, during which time we would do what damage we could.” Most of the crew prepared for the worst. RM3c Dick Rohde claimed, “He was telling us we were going to die, but he was telling the others guys that, not me. I kept thinking that somehow I’m going to make it.”

The smokescreen caused a slackening of enemy fire, and at 0716, Samuel B. Roberts entered a rain squall, further hiding her from the Japanese, for the next 11 minutes. After splitting his force into three separate groups to give chase, Adm. Kurita planned to surround Taffy 3 and destroy them. The rain squall provided the concealment Adm. Sprague needed, and intuitively he reversed course, causing the Japanese plan to fail. At 0735, Adm. Sprague hoped to scatter the enemy ships by ordering a torpedo attack, providing the escort carriers time to turn and flee. Ordered to make the first torpedo run against the enemy, the crews of destroyers Johnston, Hoel, and Heermann, prepared for battle. Dennis, Raymond, John C. Butler, and Samuel B. Roberts readied for the second torpedo attack.

Cmdr. Copeland acknowledged the order and later admitted being frightened, claiming, “My hands were ice cold from fear.” Waiting to fall in after the other destroyer escorts, whose skippers were all senior to him, Copeland realized none moved towards the enemy. Deciding to lead the charge himself, the skipper had just finished calculations needed to make a torpedo attack on the nearest enemy ship, a cruiser, when a near collision with destroyer Heermann temporarily threw Samuel B. Roberts off her attack run. Copeland fell in on a course 3,000 yards astern of Heermann and resumed the offensive, the first of the destroyer escorts to begin a torpedo run. Hoel valiantly led the charge, followed by Heermann and Samuel B. Roberts.

After a failed torpedo attack run on heavy cruiser Chōkai, Cmdr. Copeland dodged incoming fire from the enemy cruiser’s 8-inch forward guns. Salvos from several Japanese vessels splashed near the lead American warships, including Samuel B. Roberts. Cmdr. Copeland turned his attention on the enemy cruiser Chikuma, ordering his gunners to open fire on her at 0805. The two 5-inch guns on board Samuel B. Roberts, Mt. 51 and Mt. 52, “beat a regular tattoo on the Jap cruiser’s upper works,” Cmdr. Copeland wrote. The gun captains fired 608 of 650 shells, the entire capacity of the destroyer escorts’ magazine. Firing star shells and anti-aircraft rounds, the Japanese believed the attack came from a much larger force.

The battleship Kongō redirected her guns at Samuel B. Roberts and using high-explosive shells fired three from her 14-inch guns at the hapless destroyer escort. Kongo’s salvo found their mark, with one Samuel B. Roberts crewmember comparing “the impact to that of two trains colliding head-on.” The first shell struck near Samuel B. Roberts’s waterline, in the communications and gyro room. Destroying the radar, the shell extinguished all lights on board (except for the battle lanterns), knocking out communications between the skipper and crew. The second shell tore through the lower handling room of Gun 51, knocking many of the gun crew down or up against the bulkhead. Flooding began almost immediately, and the repair party quickly started moving ammunition topside. The third and final shell entered the main deck, crushing two sailors on its trajectory, before tearing a 4-foot-wide hole just aft of the hatch leading to Fireroom No. 1. The third projectile, failing to detonate until it cut through Samuel B. Roberts, also ruptured the main steam valve in several places. “All but two men…were instantly scalded to death in temperatures that soared to more than 800° or, half baked, begged for death as steam rose from their bodies.” Engine Room Number 2 was demolished while fuel and oil burned on the fantail and several smaller fires broke out below decks. Several other sailors on the 20-millimeter gun died, struck by flying shrapnel. Suddenly dead in the water, Samuel B. Roberts could not outrun her pursuers or mount a proper defense. The Japanese continued firing at her, and several destroyers rushed in for the kill.

The third shell also caused the escort vessel to dip in speed from 28.5 knots down to 17.5. Losing her two greatest assets, speed and maneuverability caused Cmdr. Copeland to realize, “we were then what you might call a ‘sitting duck in a shooting gallery.’” The aft 40-millimeter gun crew to no avail fired upon three torpedoes streaming towards Samuel B. Roberts. As several sailors braced for impact, they were relieved to discover the Type 93 torpedoes had passed harmlessly underneath. The Japanese, assuming the fighting would involve larger American warships, set the torpedoes to run too shallow. Just after breathing a sigh of relief, Cmdr. Copeland suddenly felt the bow of his ship lurch into the air.

The captain later noted Samuel B. Roberts “was simply shot to pieces the last 15 minutes she was in action.” Just after 0900, the second salvo of three 8-inch shells struck, one entering the engine room and exploding (several Japanese vessels switched from armor-piercing rounds to high-explosive shells). The second shell struck one of her 40-millimeter gun mounts, killing the entire gun crew. Shrapnel sprayed across the signal bridge, striking down more men. Only the 5-inch gun captained by GM3c Paul H. Carr remained in action, despite the likelihood of it overheating and exploding from the rapid rate of fire Carr’s crew put out.

While attempting to load the last of her 325 remaining shells, an overheated powder charge sparked a breech explosion destroying Samuel B. Roberts’s only remaining 5-inch gun, killing or mortally wounding every member of the aft gun crew. The only eventual survivor, S1c Sam Blue, was blown overboard and knocked unconscious. He later regained consciousness in the water, saved only by his automatically inflatable life belt. MM2c Chalmer Goheen found Petty Officer Carr grievously wounded, defiantly clutching the last shell. Torn open from the neck down to his groin, the dying gunner begged his shipmate to help him load and fire the final shot. Petty Officer Goheen took the shell from Carr and helped him to the deck before checking on other wounded and dead men lying about them.

Petty Officer Goheen carried a wounded man missing a leg to safety and returned to find Petty Officer Carr again attempting to load the gun with the last round. Once more taking the shell from the determined gunner, Goheen helped bring him from the gun mount, where the 21-year-old gun captain died five minutes later. For his heroic actions during the battle, GM3c Paul Carr received the Silver Star posthumously.

After sending his officers around the dying vessel to conduct damage assessments, Cmdr. Copeland realized Samuel B. Roberts was no longer in any condition to fight. Looking around his battered vessel, the skipper “could see dead and wounded men everywhere. From where I stood it was obvious that she was mortally wounded,” he later wrote. At 0910, Copeland gave the order to abandon ship. After crewmembers destroyed all important equipment and secret documents, they began abandoning the only home they had known for the past six months.

Leaving the sinking destroyer escort proved difficult for many sailors, even those not suffering wounds or burns. The majority of the crew abandoned ship on the less damaged starboard side. The dog Sammy, Samuel B. Roberts’s small mascot, had run terrified around the decks throughout the battle. After the order to abandon ship, she was last spotted leaping into the water, never to be seen again. One of the escort vessels’ human survivors, jumping into the sea without a life vest, later found Sammy’s floating nearby. Unfortunately, it proved too small for him to put on.

At 1007, Samuel B. Roberts sank stern first. Her survivors watched sadly, as she slipped beneath the waves. Several clung to three life rafts (including the one launched out the portside shell hole), and two net tenders for over 50 hours before being rescued.

25 October 1944 American survivors of the battle are rescued by a U.S. Navy ship on 26 October 1944. Some 1200 survivors of USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73), USS Hoel (DD-533), USS Johnston (DD-557) and USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) were rescued during the days following the action. Photographed by U.S. Army Private William Roof. U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: SC 278010

During her torpedo run at the Japanese Center Force with the destroyers, Roberts made an estimated 28.7 knots by raising pressure on her boilers past the safe limit and diverting steam to the turbines. She earned the reputation that day as a brawler ready to take on battleships.

Copeland, who would receive the Navy Cross, later wrote that there was “no higher honor” than the privilege to lead such a gallant crew. After the war, he resumed his law career in Tacoma while switching back a reservist, eventually making Rear Admiral. He died in 1973 while an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, USS Copeland (FFG-25) was named for him.

The fighting lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, USNR, receives the Navy Cross from Rear Admiral David M. LeBreton, at Norfolk, Virginia, 16 July 1945. LCdr. Copeland received the Navy Cross for heroism while in command of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) during the Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944. Courtesy of Mrs. Harriet N. Copeland, 1980. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.

As for Robert’s memory, she was quickly remembered by the Navy in the Gearing-class destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts (DD-823), which would remain with the fleet until 1970

(DD-823) Underway at sea, 10 October 1962. Photographer: PH3 Selke, of USS Essex (CVS-9) NH 107127

In 1986, an OHP, FFG-58, was given the name of the storied destroyer escort, which had earned a single battle star as well as a Presidential Unit Citation.

4 February 1986 Bath, Me: A port bow view of the guided-missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts FFG-58 as it departs Bath, Me. on sea trials. DN-SC-89-00167

On her was placed a commemorative plaque of her namesake, the USS Samuel B Roberts (DE-413)

Commemorative plaque of the USS Samuel B Roberts (DE-413). Below in raised lettering is “In Memory of Those Who Have Sailed Before Us/USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)/LCDR R. W. Copeland, Commanding Officer” The remainder of the plaque includes the names of the original crew of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Accession #: NHHC 2015.034.001

While escorting reflagged tankers during the Iran-Iraq War Operation Earnest Will, FFG-58 was struck by a mine on 14 April 1988 in the Persian Gulf, an incident that led to Operation Preying Mantis. The mine blew a 21-foot hole in the vessel and broke the keel of the ship, which post-incident analysis argued should have sent her to the bottom.

USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) underway after the ship struck a mine on April 14, 1988. A USMC CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter is on the helicopter pad. DN-SC-88-08601

Nonetheless, the battered frigate’s crew leaped to her defense, going far and beyond standard damage control procedures in an epic five-hour battle to save her. Reportedly, men rushing forward into flooding and damaged spaces touched the original Roberts‘ plaque and drew inspiration from it.

From DANFS:

Rear Adm. Anthony A. Less, Commander Joint Task Force Middle East/Middle East Force radioed Rinn several times from his flagship, Coronado (AGF-11), and at one point asked him to evaluate the possibility of losing Samuel B. Roberts. “No higher honor,” the captain replied, a reference to when the Japanese sank the first Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 25 October 1944. That ship’s survivors had pulled Cmdr. Robert W. Copeland, their commanding officer, from the water and Copeland said he could think of “no higher honor than to have served with these men.”

Roberts was saved and eventually returned to the fleet after extensive reconstruction. Sadly, she was decommissioned in 2015 and is slated to be sold for scrap in the coming months.

As for the original 1944 destroyer escort, that vessel, along with fellow torpedo run destroyers USS Hoel and USS Johnston, are remembered at a large granite memorial dedicated in 1995 at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Point Loma, California.

Another memorial to Roberts is located in the Memorial Courtyard at the National Museum of the Pacific War, formerly the Nimitz Museum, in Fredericksburg, Texas. Further, the USS Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association is very active, although dwindling. A number of books have been written about Taffy 3 and that terrible day off Samar.

The charge of the tin cans that fateful day was remembered in maritime art.

Watercolor by Commander Dwight C. Shepler, USNR, depicting an episode during the torpedo attacks by the TG 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”) destroyer screen. Ships present are (left to right): Japanese battleships Nagato, Haruna, and Yamato, with salvo (Japanese shells contained dye for spotting purposes) from Yamato landing in left-center, USS Heerman (DD-532), USS Hoel (DD-533) sinking; Japanese cruisers Tone and Chikuma (NH 79033 KN).

In 2013, Roberts‘ 48-star national ensign, hauled down from the sinking ship by Chief Torpedoman Rudy Skau in 1944, was presented back to the Navy by a newly minted ensign who had been given the flag by Copeland before his death. It is housed at the University of Washington’s (UW) Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program in Clark Hall, Copeland’s alma matter.

Ensign, National, USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), Battle of Leyte Gulf Accession #: NHHC 2013.052.001

This month, as the Navy celebrates its 244th birthday and the Fleet remembers the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the modern era, Roberts was mentioned directly in the Presidential Message.

Aboard USS Leyte Gulf (CG-55), the battle and Roberts were also remembered, her action now ethos.

Specs:

Camouflage Measure 32, Design 14D prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for escort ships of the DE-339 (John C. Butler) class. This plan, showing the ship’s starboard side, stern, superstructure ends, and exposed decks, is dated 17 May 1944 and was approved by Commander William C. Latrobe, USN. 80-G-109627

Displacement:1,350 long tons
Length: 306 ft
Beam: 36 ft 8 in
Draft: 9 ft 5 in
Installed power: 12,000 shp
Propulsion:
2 × WGT geared steam turbines
2 × boilers
2 × shafts
Speed: 24 knots, designed
Range: 6,000 nm @ 12 knots
Complement:14 officers, 201 enlisted
Sensors: SF multi-purpose radar
Armament:
2 × single 5″/38 DP (127 mm) guns
2 × twin 40 mm Bofors (1.6 in) AA guns
10 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) AA guns
1 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
8 × Mk 6 depth charge throwers
1 × Mk 10Hedgehog ASW mortar
2 × Mk 9 depth charge racks

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.

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.

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Warship Wednesday, Oct 16, 2019: The Everlasting VDG

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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 1833-1946 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 16, 2019: The Everlasting VDG

“Photo by Simmonds, Portsmouth,” USN NH 94220

Here we see the coastal defense “battleship” (cruzador-couraçado) Vasco da Gama of the Royal Portuguese Navy, June 1895, at the opening of the Kiel Canal, with a German Sachsen-class pre-dreadnought to the right. Da Gama is the only unit of the Portuguese Navy to be described as a capital ship and she outlasted most of her contemporaries, remaining the most powerful vessel in Lisbon’s fleet for six decades.

While Portugal’s naval needs were primarily colonial in the late 19th Century, which was satisfied by a series of lightly armed frigates and sloops, something more regal was needed for sitting around the capital and spending time showing the flag in European ports. Enter VDG, the third such Portuguese naval ship named for the famous explorer, with the two previous vessels being 18th and 19th-century ships-of-war of 70- and 80-guns, respectively.

Built originally as a central battery casemate ironclad with a barquentine rig by Thames Iron Works, Blackwall, this English-designed warship first hit the waves in 1876– just over a decade removed from the Monitor and Merrimack. Originally mounting a pair of Krupp-made 10.35-inch (26cm RKL/20 C/74) black powder breechloader guns in a central raised battery, the 200-foot steamer carried a whopping 9 to 10 inches of iron plate in her side belt and shields. Her steam plant allowed a 10-knot speed, which was adequate for the era.

1888 Brassey’s layout via Wiki commons

Her 10.35-inch Krupp breechloaders, which could be oriented inside her gun house to fire through four different gun ports forward/aft and port/sbd via turntables and tracks. Image is an 1880 print published in the magazine, “O Occidente”

She was a nice-looking ship for her time and often appeared on goodwill voyages around the Med and even into the Baltic.

Portuguese hermaphrodite ironclad Vasco da Gama, with her canvas aloft, Illustrated London News, July 15, 1876

Couraçado Vasco da Gama, in a print published in the magazine “O Occidente” in 1880

This included being one of the 165 vessels present among the 30 miles of wood, iron, and steel for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Spithead fleet review in 1897. VDG was in good company as the Royal Navy had on hand “53 iron-clads and armoured cruisers, 21 more than the nearest rival, France.”

Vasco da Gama, 1897 Spithead review, from a handout of the event published by The Graphic, which said “”Portugal sent the Vasco da Gama (Captain Bareto de Vascomellos), a small battleship of 2,479 tons, built at Blackwall in 1875. she is armed with two 10.2-inch guns and seven smaller guns.”

The Naval Review at Spithead, 26 June 1897, by Eduardo de Martino via the Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405260

In the mid-1890s, five modern warships– largely paid for by public subscription– were ordered to give VDG some backup. These ships, all smallish cruisers with long legs for colonial service, included the Rainha Dona Amélia (1683-tons, 4×6-inch guns, built domestically), Dom Carlos I (4250-tons, 4×6-inch, ordered from Armstrong Elswick), São Gabriel and São Rafael (1771-tons, 2×6-inch guns, ordered from Normand Le Havre), and Warship Wednesday alum, Adamastor.

In 1902, with the newer ships on hand, VDG was taken offline and sent to Italy to Orlando where she was completely rebuilt in a move that saw her cut in half and lengthened by 32-feet, fitted with new engines, guns, and machinery. The effect was that, in a decade, Portugal had gone from one elderly ironclad to six relatively effective, if light, cruisers of which VDG was still the largest and remained the flagship of the Navy.

She emerged looking very different, having landed her sail rig, picked up a second stack, and been rearmed with a pair of 8″/39.9cal Pattern P EOC-made naval guns in sponsons. She even had her iron armor replaced by new Terni steel plate. Basically a new ship, her speed had increased and she was capable of 6,000 nm sorties, which enabled her to voyage to Africa in service of the crown, if needed.

Nave da battaglia Vasco Da Gama 1903 (AS Livorno, Archivio storico del Cantiere navale Luigi Orlando)

Navios da Marinha de Guerra Portugueza no alto mar 1903 by Alfredo Roque Gamerio, showing ‘cruzadors” Vasco da Gama, Don Carlos I, S Rafael, Amelia and Adamastor to the far right. Note the black hulls and buff stacks

It was envisioned that VGD would be replaced by two planned 20,000-ton modern battleships (!) on the eve of the Great War, however, that balloon never got enough air to get off the ground due to Portugal’s bankrupt state treasury. Therefore, she soldiered on.

Her 1914 Jane’s Listing.

It was after her refit that she saw a period of action, being involved in assorted revolutions and coup attempts in 1910, 1913 and, along with other Portuguese Navy vessels, in 1915 that included bombarding Lisbon and sending revolting sailors ashore.

Portuguese Bluejackets escorting a Royalist prisoner in Lisbon, Portugal, October 6, 1910. George C. Bain Collection

Vasco da Gama’s crew in the “Revolta de 14 de Maio de 1915” in Portugal

Nonetheless, during World War I, although Portugal was not involved in the fighting in Europe in the early days of the conflict, VDG escorted troop reinforcements to Portugal’s African colonies in Mozambique and Angola, where the country was allied with British and French efforts to rid the continent of German influence.

In February 1916, her crews helped seize 36 German and Austro-Hungarian ships holed up in Lisbon on the eve of Berlin’s declaration of war on the Iberian country. Once that occurred, she served in coastal defense roles, dodging some very active German U-boats in the process.

VASCO DA GAMA Portuguese Battleship 1915-20, probably at Lisbon, note the Douro class destroyer, NH 93621

Via Ilustracao Portuguesa: Commander Leote do Rego and the French naval attaché on Vasco da Gama 1916, posing with a deck gun which looks to be her 6″/45cal EOC

Once her only shooting war had ended without her actually firing a shot in anger, VGD still served as a ship of state and carried the commanding admiral’s flag.

Via Ilustracao Portuguesa Vasco da Gama tour by Spanish King Alfonso XIII 1922

Finally, in 1935, she was retired and scrapped along with the other five 19th century cruisers than remained. These vessels were all replaced en mass by a shipbuilding program that saw 5 Vouga-class destroyers ordered from Vickers along with a trio of small submarines and six sloops. This replacement fleet would serve the country’s seagoing needs well into the 1960s.

While her hull was broken, VDG’s 1902-era British-made guns were removed and reinstalled in 1936 in a series of coastal defense batteries at Monte da Guia, Espalamaca, Horta Bay and Faial Island in the strategically-located Azores, which remained active through WWII, and then kept ready as a wartime reserve until at least 1970. Some of those emplacements are still relatively preserved.

Further, Vasco da Gama is remembered by maritime art.

Cruzador Couraçado Vasco da Gama. Aguarela de Fernando Lemos Gomes. Museu de Marinha RM2572-492

An excellent scale model of her, as originally built, exists in the Maritime Museum, in Lisbon.

Portuguese ironclad Vasco da Gama (1876), Maritime Museum, Lisbon.

Her name was reissued to a British Bay-class frigate, ex-HMS Mounts Bay, in 1961 which went on to serve as F478 into the 1970s and then to a MEKO 200 type frigate (F330) commissioned in 1991.

Specs:
(As built)
Displacement:2,384 t (2,346 long tons; 2,628 short tons)
Length: 200 ft pp
Beam: 40 ft
Draft: 19 ft
Installed power: 3,000 ihp
Sail plan: Barquentine rig
Speed: 10.3 knots
Complement: 232 men
Armor:
Belt: 9 in (230 mm), iron plate
Battery: 10 in (250 mm)
Armament:
2 × Krupp 10.35″/18cal 26cm RKL/20 C/74
1 × Krupp 15cm RKL/25 C/75
4 × 9-pounder guns
(1914)
Displacement: 3200 tons, full load
Length: 234 ft.
Beam: 40 ft
Draft: 18 ft
Installed power: 2 VTE, Yarrow water tube boilers, 6,000 ihp
Speed: 15 knots
Range: 6,000nm on 468 tons coal
Complement: 260 men
Armor: Terni steel; belt: 250 – 100mm, deck: 75mm, shields: 200mm
Armament:
2 x EOC 8″/39.9 Pattern P guns
1 x EOC 6″/45
1 x QF 12-pounder 12-cwt gun (76mm)
8 x QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss 57mm guns

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

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!

Warship Wednesday, Oct 9, 2019: Queen City Admiral Maker

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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 1833-1946 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 9, 2019: Queen City Admiral Maker

Photographed by K. Loeffler. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Here we see schooner-rigged U.S. Navy Cruiser No. 7, the second USS Cincinnati, around 1896. Note her extensive awning, gleaming white scheme, and red-white-and-blue bow shield. She was a classic 19th-century coal-burning ship crafted of steel and would serve as a floating proving ground for some of the most venerated American admirals of the 20th.

The leader of a two-ship class, along with sister USS Raleigh (C-8), of what were termed “protected cruisers,” they were part of a then-huge 1888 Naval Act which sandwiched the Cincinnatis between the 9,000-ton armored cruiser USS New York, the 7,000-ton protected cruiser USS Olympia and the three 2,000-ton unprotected cruisers of the Montgomery class.

Designed with a single 6″/40 caliber Mk IV gun forward and 10 5″/40s Mk IIs arrayed rear and in casemated broadsides, the 305-foot-long Cincinnatis used a 6-pack of Babcock & Wilcox boilers to gin up 19 knots. They were electrically-lit, constructed with 12 longitudinal watertight compartments, and had all the most modern amenities.

Intended for commerce raiding in the event of war, they had very long legs– with a range of 10,000 nm @ 10 knots when carrying a maximum coal load– and carried enough armor to protect them from small shore batteries and gunboats.

USS CINCINNATI (C-7) unofficial plans, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. NH 70107

Built for $1.1 million a pop, Cincinnati was laid down at New York Naval Yard while Raleigh was built simultaneously at Norfolk, both commissioning in the Spring of 1894 within 60 days of each other.

“Our Navy, Its Growth and Achievements” 1897 chromolithograph print by Frederick S. Cozzens showing the protected cruiser USS Raleigh (C-8) in her full schooner sail rig, the gunboat USS Castine (PG-6) and the ill-fated armored cruiser USS Maine.”

Cruiser No. 7 carried the legacy of not only the Ohio city but also the first USS Cincinnati, a City-class ironclad stern-wheel casemate gunboat. One of the “Pook Turtles,” the plucky riverboat was sunk and raised twice along the Mississippi in just 12 months. During the second such incident, under the Confederate guns at Vicksburg, her crew earned four Medals of Honor in the act of saving bluejackets that couldn’t swim. She went down that day with her colors defiantly nailed to the mast.

Artwork by Bacon, published in Deeds of Valor, Volume II, page 47, by the Perrien-Keydel Company, Detroit, 1907. It depicts Landsman Thomas E. Corcoran assisting fellow crewmen of USS Cincinnati as their ship sinks under fire of Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 27 May 1863. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at this time. NH 79917

Commissioned 16 June 1894, our brand new Cincinnati would go on to see some hot service of her own, albeit with much more luck.

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Cincinnati (C-7), starboard view. Note, the crew on deck and her early twin mast schooner auxiliary rig. Detroit Publishing Company, 1896-1899.

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Cincinnati (C-7), bow view. Note, the crew on deck, full-color bow shield, 6″/40 main gun on deck, and bow-mounted torpedo tube hatch. Detroit Publishing Company, 1896-1899. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

After enforcing neutrality laws at Tampa and Key West during the Cuban Revolution and a stint in the Med, she soon found herself on the blockade line off Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish American War. In April 1898, she bombarded Matanzas.

“Bombardment of Matanzas” by the armored cruiser USS New York, the protected cruiser USS Cincinnati and monitor USS Puritan, April 27, 1898, by Henry Reuterdahl NH 71838-KN

“Bombardment of Matanzas” with Cincinnati on right by Walter Russell, 1899 via NYPL Collection,

The next month, Cincinnati scouted throughout the West Indies searching for Almirante Cervera’s squadron known to be approaching Cuba from metropolitan Spain. She then finished the war by convoying troops from Guantanamo Bay to Puerto Rico, patrolling off San Juan, and escorting the captured Spanish flagship Infanta Maria Teresa until that crippled cruiser sank.

Naval Landing Force at Guantanamo, by RF Zogbaum 1898

As for Raleigh, she sailed with Dewey in the Pacific during the conflict and is often credited with firing the first shot of the Battle of Manila Bay.

The USS Raleigh in action in 1898, Manila Bay. NHHC

Post-war brought a two-year refit that saw Cincinnati much changed.

USS Cincinnati (Cruiser No. 7) at the pier in Key West, Circa 1901. Boston Public Library Collection

Painted-over bow shield, USS CINCINNATI, photographed March 1900. This is the cruiser’s original figurehead, which was replaced during her 1899-1901 refit with one commemorating her Span Am War service. O.N.I. photo, NH 115208

Figurehead: USS CINCINNATI, post-1901. Received from Boston Globe, 1937. NH 115225

Dewey’s Olympia was given a very similar bronze and wood Victory figurehead at about the same time during her respective refit.

Protected Cruiser USS Olympia shows off her exquisitely forged figurehead, Boston Navy Yard circa 1902. This large figurehead was in place from 1902-1917 and was finally removed during the extensive 1918 refit, replaced with a simple painted shield, which she still has today as a museum ship in Philadelphia. The above figurehead is currently at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Besides her new figurehead, Cincinnati landed her big 6-inch gun, to be replaced by a 5″/40, which brought her battery up to 11 such guns of that caliber. Likewise, her mainmast, auxiliary sail rig, and torpedo tubes were deleted as were her smaller 37mm guns.

Between May 1902 and January 1903, Cincinnati exercised some classic gunboat diplomacy and “protected American citizens and property in the Caribbean during political disturbances at Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Panama, and brought relief supplies to Martinique after the devastating eruption of Mount Pelee,” as noted by DANFS.

The landing of a company-sized force of U.S.N. sailors from the protected cruiser USS Cincinnati (Cruiser #7) at Colon, Panama, September 19, 1902. Note the M1895 Colt “potato digger” machine gun on the carriage, Navy M1895 Lee-pattern rifles, and MIll’s belts. NHHC RG-185-R-2

Cincinnati was something of a kingmaker, with no less than six of her 14 commanders going on to earn stars. Her captain during the 1898 conflict was Capt. (later RADM) Colby Mitchell Chester (USNA 1863), the only naval officer to have actively served in the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War I throughout a 50-year career. Chester’s wartime XO, LCDR Edward Buttevant Barry, likewise rose to rear admiral and command of the Pacific Fleet in 1910. Former skippers Hugo Wilson Osterhaus and Frank Hardeman Brumby ended their careers as fleet commanders. Among her junior officers during the 20th Century was a young Ens. Ernest King and Lt. Ray Spruance.

Group portrait taken aboard USS CINCINNATI (C-7) taken circa 1905 at Chefoo, China. Ensign Ernest J. King, USN, is at left. NH 50032

“USS CINCINNATI (1911-1913)” autographed by Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance who served as her as Senior Engineer Officer during that period. The picture is of the cruiser after her 1901 refit, showing her new figurehead and single foremast. NARA 80-G-1034844

A more unsung member of her crew, Loui the monkey, onboard USS CINCINNATI in 1912. Courtesy of Lieutenant Commander R. Wainwright, USN, 1928 NH 52462

After more overseas service in the Mediterranean and with the Asiatic Squadron in the Philippines, Korea, and China, Cincinnati returned home in 1907 to ordinary. Her stint on red lead row abated in 1911 when she was recommissioned and detailed to the Asiatic Station once again, a role she held until the U.S. entered World War I in 1917.

USS CINCINNATI (C-7) dressed in flags, for Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1915, at Olongapo Naval Station, Philippine Islands. Collection of C.A. Shively. NH 88562

Shipping for the West Coast, she arrived in San Diego 16 December 1917 then convoyed to the East Coast where she served as flagship, American Patrol Detachment, Atlantic Fleet. In that role, she ran shotgun over the Gulf of Mexico, looking out for possible German raiders.

USS CINCINNATI (C-7) at New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1919. Note her dazzle camo and rafts. She is likely off Algiers in the Mississippi River. #: NH 27

Interestingly, the 6″/40s removed from Cincinnati and Raleigh were pooled with other guns removed from old battleships and, once the war was unavoidable, were issued and mounted on U.S.-flagged merchant steamers. Three such guns were on the steamer SS Mongolia when she was attacked by German submarine U.B.40 on 19 April 1917 at 0520— the first armed naval clash between the two countries.

U.S. Navy Armed Guard 6″ (15.2 cm) gun crew on S.S. Mongolia in 1917. Officers are identified as Lieutenant Ware and Captain Emory Rice of the U.S. Naval Reserve Force. Note that the shells are painted “TEXAS” and “TEDDY”. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 781

After the war ended, Cincinnati was found to be too outdated for further service in a Navy that was increasingly faster, oil-burning, and more heavily armed/armored. She was decommissioned at New Orleans on 20 April 1919. Raleigh, who had spent WWI patrolling in Brazilian waters and other points south, was decommissioned the next day. Both ships were sold for scrap in 1921.

Cincinnati’s name was swiftly recycled for the Omaha-class light “peace” cruiser (CL-6) which commissioned 1 January 1924 and served through WWII. The fourth Cincinnati was a Los Angeles-class attack submarine (SSN-693) which served from 1978 to 1996.

The fifth warship named for the Queen City commissioned over the weekend, LCS-20. Ironically, she is almost the same size as the circa-1896 protected cruiser and carries a single main gun forward, although it is a 57mm rather than a big honking 6-inch gun.

Photo: Chris Eger

Specs:

Displacement:
3,183 long tons (3,234 t) (standard)
3,339 long tons (3,393 t) (full load)
Length: 305 ft 10 in
Beam: 42 ft
Draft: 18 ft (mean) 20 ft 2 in (max)
Installed power:
6 × Babcock & Wilcox steam boilers (replaced by 8 boilers in 1901)
2 × vertical triple expansion reciprocating engines 8,000 hp
2 × screws
Auxiliary schooner rig until 1901.
Speed:
19 knots designed (Cincinnati pulled 19.91 on trials, Raleigh did 21.12)
Range: 10,700nm at 10kts with a maximum of 575 tons of coal. Normal coal load 396
Complement: 32 officers 270 enlisted as designed. 313 (1914)
Armor:
Deck: 2.5 in (64 mm) (slope)
1 in (25 mm) (flat)
Conning Tower: 2 in (51 mm)
Gun Sponsons: 4 in (100 mm)
Armament: (as designed)
1 x 6 in (152 mm)/40 caliber MK VI gun
10 x 5 in (127 mm)/40 caliber Mk II guns
8 x 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) Driggs-Schroeder Mk I/II guns
2 x 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) Driggs-Schroeder heavy Mk I guns
4 x 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes (1 bow, 2 beam, 1 stern)
1 x carriage-mounted Gatling gun
Armament: (1901)
11 x 5 in (127 mm)/40 caliber Mk II guns
6 x 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) Driggs-Schroeder Mk I/II guns
1 x M1895 carriage-mounted Colt machine gun

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.

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One of the last WWII vets on active duty, stands down

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Here we see the beautiful Miguel Malvar-class offshore patrol “corvette” BRP Cebu (PS28) of the Philippine Navy on 3 October 2019, as she gave her last day of military service in a career that began in 1944– giving her a rock-solid 75 years of hard duty under two flags. Not bad for a ship considered at the time of her construction to be disposable.

If she looks familiar, she was originally built as USS PCE-881, a former PCE-842-class Patrol Craft Escort, by the Albina Engine and Machine Works, Portland, Oregon during WWII. She commissioned 31 July 1944 and transferred to the PI in 1948 on loan, only striking from the U.S. Navy Register in 1975.

The “oldest fighting ship of the Philippine Navy,” she gave 71 unbroken years of service to Manila to include a famous SAR operation to save the crew of MV Princess of the Stars of Sulpicio Lines, which capsized off the coast of San Fernando, Romblon at the height of typhoon Frank in 2008.

Derived from the 180-foot Admirable-class minesweeper as a substitute for the much more numerous 173-foot PC-461-class of submarine chasers that were used for coastal ASW, the PCE-842-class was just eight feet longer but a lot heavier (650-tons vs 450-tons), which gave them much longer endurance, although roughly the same armament. They carried a single 3″/50 dual purpose mount, three 40mm Bofors mounts, five Oerlikon 20 mm mounts, two depth charge tracks, four depth charge projectors, and two depth charge projectors (hedgehogs)– making them pretty deadly to subs while giving them enough punch to take on small gunboats/trawlers and low numbers of incoming aircraft.

While the U.S. got rid of their 842s wholesale by the 1970s– scrapping some and sinking others as targets– several continued to serve in overseas Allied navies for decades.

The Philippines has used no less than 11 of these retired PCEs between craft transferred outright from the U.S. and ships taken up from former Vietnamese service, eventually replacing their Glen Miller-era GM 12-567A diesel with more modern GM 12-278As, as well as a host of improvements to their sensors (they now carry the SPS-64 surface search and commercial nav radars, for instance.) Gone are the ASW weapons and sonar, but they do still pack the old 3-incher, long since retired by just about everyone else, as well as a smattering of Bofors and Oerlikon.

The class is being retired in conjunction with the arrival of more capable Pohang-class vessels donated by South Korea.

The country still has three of the class on their Naval List, expected to retire by 2022.

  • BRP Miguel Malvar (PS-19), former USS Brattleboro (PCE(R)-852), ex RVN Ngọc Hồi, in PI Navy since 1975.
  • BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20), former USS Gayety (AM-239), ex RVN MSF-239, since 1975.
  • BRP Pangasinan (PS-31), former USS PCE-891, transferred from the U.S. in 1948.

Warship Wednesday, Sep 25, 2019: The Unsung Hero of Dutch Harbor at 100

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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 1833-1946 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, Sep 25, 2019: The Unsung Hero of Dutch Harbor at 100

3 US Navy PT-boats Aleutians in June 1943 eaplane tender GILLIS AVD12 PBY Catalina Higgins boats Mk 19 torpedo tubes.

Official USN Photographs (National Archives) 80-G-K-9454 (Color).

Here we see three, in a beautiful original color photograph, a trio of Higgins-type PT-boats belonging to Motor Torpedo Squadron 13, moored alongside the old seaplane tender destroyer, USS Gillis (AVD12, ex-DD260) in Casco Cove, Massacre Bay, Attu Island, Aleutians, 21  June 1943. Note the PBY-5 Catalina flying-boat astern of our aging tin can.

One of the massive fleets of Clemson-class flush decker destroyers, like most of her sisters, Gillis came too late for the Great War. An expansion of the almost identical Wickes-class destroyers with a third more fuel capacity to enable them to escort a convoy across the Atlantic without refueling, the Clemsons were sorely 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 vessels ready for the task.

USS Gillis is the only ship named for Commodore John P. Gillis and RADM James Henry Gillis.

Commodore John P. Gillis was a native of Wilmington, Delaware. He fought in the Mexican-American War where he was captured at Tuxpan. Subsequently, between 1853 and 1854, he sailed with Perry to open Japan to the West. Gilles later served in the Civil War by providing support to the Union blockade effort, commanding the warships Seminole, Monticello, and Ossipee, in turn.

RADM James Henry Gillis (USMA 1854), a Pennsylvania native, during the Civil War, commanded Michigan, Franklin, the flagship of the European Squadron, Lackawanna, Minnesota, and Hartford, the flagship of the Pacific Squadron before retiring from the Navy in 1893 “having never lost a man at sea.”

USS Gillis was built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Quincy, Mass. and commissioned 3 September 1919, LCDR Webb Trammell in command– some 100 years ago this month.

Destroyer USS Gillis (DD-260), 29 May 1919, Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts.

Her peacetime service was brief. Gillis sailed from Newport, R.I., 17 December 1919 and moored at San Diego 20 January 1920. She joined the Pacific Fleet Destroyer Force in tactics and maneuvers along the West Coast until decommissioned at San Diego 26 May 1922.

NH 53731

In all, Gillis spent just under two years with the fleet in her first stint on active duty.

Gillis (DD-260) Laid up at San Diego, California, circa 1929 in rusty and crusty condition. Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Don P. Moon, USN. Note the ship’s rusty condition. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1973. NH 78286

When the drums of war started beating in Europe and Asia in the late 1930s, Gillis was recommissioned in ordinary 28 June 1940, then soon reclassified as seaplane tender destroyer AVD-12, a mission that importantly saw her fitted with an early radar set. Following conversion, which included swapping out her torpedo tubes for aviation store space and some extra AAA guns and depth charges, she was placed in full commission at San Francisco, 25 March 1941.

USS Gillis (AVD-12) Photograph dated 14 February 1941. The ship appears to be painted in Camouflage Measure One. Catalog #: 80-G-13141

As noted by DANFS:

Gillis was assigned as tender to Patrol Wing 4, Aircraft Scouting Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. In the following months she performed plane guard patrol between San Diego and Seattle with time out for aircraft tending duties at Sitka, Alaska (14-17 June); Dutch Harbor and Kodiak (15-31 July). After overhaul in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard she returned to Kodiak 16 October 1941 to resume tending of amphibious patrol planes in Alaskan waters. She was serving at Kodiak when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Just six months later, she was at rest in Dutch Harbor on the morning of 3 June 1942. Almost simultaneously with their attack on Midway, a strong task force under Japanese RADM Kakuji Kakuta, comprising the carriers Ryujo (10,000 tons) and Jun’yo (25,000 tons) as well as their escorts and a naval landing force, attacked the Aleutians in Alaska.

But Gillis had the upper hand.

In the harbor that morning with the two old flush-deck destroyers King and Talbot, the submarine S-27, Coast Guard cutter Onondaga, and the U.S. Army transports President Fillmore and Morlen, Gillis had the advantage of radar and her operator picked up the incoming Japanese airstrike at 0540. With that, she and the other ships weighed anchor and stood out with all hands at battle stations. Likewise, the Army detachment at nearby Fort Mears was alerted.

Had they been sunk at their moorings and Dutch Harbor more badly damaged, the effort to keep/hold/retake the Aleutians would have surely been a tougher task, diverting key U.S. assets from other theaters– such as Guadalcanal.

Further, the Japanese, in turn, got a bloody nose that morning from the old school 3-inch M1918 AAA guns and .50 cal water-cooled Browning of Arkansas National Guard’s 206th Coast Artillery (Anti-Aircraft), which splashed a few Japanese planes. Meanwhile, a PBY that Gillis was tending stitched up 19-year-old PO Tadayoshi Koga’s Zero (which crashed and was recovered in remarkable condition– an intelligence coup) and a group of Army Col. John Chennault’s P-40s out of Unamak accounted for a few more. The Gillis claimed two planes shot down. No ship was damaged.

Koga’s Zero

Not a bad day’s work for an isolated outpost.

Three days later, while on air-sea rescue patrol, Gillis made three depth charge runs on an underwater sound contact.

DANFS= “A Japanese submarine violently broached the surface revealing its conning tower and propeller, then disappeared. Gillis was unable to regain contact. She was credited with damaging this underseas raider in the combat area off Umak Island.”

Starting on June 9, PBYs of VP-41, operating from Dutch Harbor, initiated what became known as the “Kiska Blitz,” a series of extreme long-range shuttle attack bombing missions by the flying boats of PatWing Four to plaster the Japanese ships at that occupied Aleutian island, using Gillis, which had forward-deployed closer to the action, at Nazan Bay off Atka island. This took amazing 48-hour sorties with the old tender providing fuel, hot meals and extra 250-pound bombs to the Catalinas until she was out of bombs to give. This lasted for several days, with Catalinas of VPB-42 and 43, until a Japanese scout plane discovered the seaplane tender and her position was compromised.

At least one PBY of VB-135 on occasion dropped 92 empty beer bottles on the Japanese at Kiska. The aircrew had discovered the bottles made a disconcerting whistling noise as they fell through the air.

This drawing was made by the intelligence units of the U.S. 11th Air Force, showing a dual Imperial Japanese Navy Type 11 Early Warning Radar site on the captured Alaskan island of Kiska in Oct 1942. It was built by the Japanese in response to the PBY blitz.

On June 13, before retiring from Atka, Gillis was ordered to carry out a “scorched earth” policy, setting fire to all buildings and a local Aleut village to leave nothing of use to the Japanese. She later fought off a sortie from three four-engine Mavis bombers from Kiska while in Kuluk Bay, Adak. To her brood, she added the plywood PT-boats of MTBRon 13.

Higgins 78-foot torpedo boats of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 13 (MTBRon 13) moored in Attu, Alaska, Jul 1943. Note PT-75 and PT-78 nested outboard of their squadron-mate and a PBY Catalina patrol plane taking off. 80-G-475727

After that, joined by four other tenders, Gillis formed the mothership backbone of Patrol Squadrons 41, 43, 51, 62; consisting of 11 PBY flying boats and 20 PBY-5As. By October 1943, however, the other tenders were withdrawn, and she was the only one in operative condition forward deployed to the Aleutians.

USS Gillis (AVD-12) leaving ARD-6 Dutch Harbor, Alaska 80-G-386650

With the theatre dying down, by April 1944 Gillis departed Dutch Harbor for the West Coast where she was given an overhaul and served as a plane guard off San Diego. She was then ordered forward into the Pacific to rejoin the shooting war.

She then sailed with RADM M. L. Deyo’s Gunfire and Covering Force, en route via the Marshalls, Marianas, and Ulithi for the Invasion of Okinawa, arriving off Kerama Retto 25 March 1945. There, Gillis guarded minesweepers and stood by UDT teams clearing approaches to the western beaches of Okinawa. After invasion forces stormed ashore 1 April, she tended observation and patrol planes at Kerama Retto and performed air-sea rescue patrol.

USS Relief -AH-1 In a Western Pacific Harbor, probably at the time of the Okinawa Campaign, circa April 1945. USS Gillis -AVD-12- is in the left background Catalog #: 80-G-K-3707

On 28 April, Gillis departed Okinawa in the screen of USS Makassar Strait, bound via Guam to San Pedro Bay, Philippine Islands. She returned by the same route in the escort screen of Wake Island (CVE-65). That carrier-launched planes 29 June to land bases on Okinawa and Gillis helped escort her back to Guam 3 July 1945.

Gillis won two battle stars, for escort and antisubmarine operations in the American area (1941-44) and Okinawa.

Gillis departed Guam for home 8 July 1945. She arrived at San Pedro, Calif., 28 July and decommissioned there 15 October 1945. Her name was struck from the Navy List 1 November 1945. She was sold to NASSCO, Treasure Island, CA, for scrapping 29 January 1946.

As for her sisters, seven Clemsons were lost at the disaster at Honda Point in 1923, and 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 only to be recaptured by the USN and given a watery grave after the war. Those four-pipers not sold off in the 1930s or otherwise sent to Davy Jones were scrapped wholesale in the months immediately after WWII. Sister USS Hatfield (DD-231) decommissioned 13 December 1946 and was sold for scrap 9 May 1947 to NASSCO, the last of her kind in the Navy.

The final Clemson afloat, USS Aulick (DD-258), joined the Royal Navy as HMS Burnham (H82) in 1940 as part of the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. Laid up in 1944, she was allocated for scrapping on 3 December 1948.

None are preserved and only the scattered wrecks in the Western Pacific, Honda Point, the Med and Atlantic endure.

Specs:

USS Gillis (DD-260/AVD-12): Outboard profile from Booklet of General Plans (NARA) 117877196

Displacement:
1,215 tons (normal)
1,308 tons (full load)
Length: 314 ft. 4.5 in
Beam: 30 ft. 11.5 in
Draft: 9 ft. 4 in
Propulsion:
4 × boilers, 300 psi (2,100 kPa) saturated steam
2 geared steam turbines
27,600 hp (20,600 kW)
2 shafts
Speed: 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h)
Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km) @ 15 kn (28 km/h)
Crew: (USN as commissioned)
8 officers
8 chief petty officers
106 enlisted
Armament:
(1920)
4 x 4?/50cal guns
1 x 3″/23AA
12 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (4 × 3) (533 mm)

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!

Warship Wednesday, Sep 18, 2019: The Red-Shirted Scourge of the Ottomans

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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 1833-1946 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, Sep 18, 2019: The Red-Shirted Scourge of the Ottomans

Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Here we see the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) armored cruiser (incrociatore corazzato), Giuseppe Garibaldi around 1904. She had a curious, if brief career, and could be taken as a bridge between 19th and 20th Century naval warfare, as she tangled with both Civil War-era ironclads and deadly U-boats.

Garibaldi came from a large and interesting class of cruiser designed by Edoardo Masdea, with good speed for the 1900s (19 knots), decent armor (up to 6-inches in sections), and a hybrid armament of one 10-inch gun forward and two 8-inch guns aft, along with a varied mix of casemate guns of all types, a quartet of torpedo tubes, and a ram bow.

They were handsome ships, with orders quickly made within a decade from Argentina, Italy, Spain, and Japan (who picked up two from Argentina’s contract). As a twist of fate, the first delivered was to Argentina, who named their new cruiser, ARA Garibaldi, after the famous Italian red-shirt-wearing patriot. This has the twist that, at the same time in the 1900s, Rome and Buenos Aries both operated sisterships with the same name.

The class-leading Argentine ARA Garibaldi, Photographed by A. Noack of Genoa, probably at Naples or Genoa before her departure for Argentina. Note that the ship does not appear to be flying any flags at all. Description: Catalog #: NH 88672 Colourised by Diego Mar

Further, the first Italian-service Garibaldi was sold before entering the fleet to the Spanish, who were eager for new warships to unsuccessfully defend their overseas Empire from Uncle Sam in 1897, thus making our subject Garibaldi the third such ship of the same class to carry the name.

To help visualize the mess, here is the fortune-cookie-sized-overview of name, country, and chronological order year, with our feature ship *asterisked to keep her straight:

-ARA Garibaldi ordered from Argentina 1895
-ARA General Belgrano from Argentina 1895
-ARA Pueyrredón from Argentina 1895
-ARA San Martín from Argentina 1895
-Giuseppe Garibaldi for Regia Marina 1895, sold to Spain as Cristóbal Colón 1897 (sunk 1898)
-Pedro de Aragon, ordered for Spain 1897, canceled 1898
-*Giuseppe Garibaldi for Regia Marina 1898
-Varese for Regia Marina 1898
-Francesco Ferruccio for Regia Marina 1899
-ARA Bernardino Rivadavia from Argentina 1901, sold to Japan as Kasuga 1903
-ARA Mariano Moreno from Argentina 1901, sold to Japan as Nisshin 1903

Our vessel was constructed at Gio. Ansaldo & C., Genoa, and commissioned 1 January 1901 and, soon joined by her two twin sisters in Italian service, Varese and Ferruccio, were a common sight in the deep-water ports of the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Gibraltar and back, often serving as division flagships.

Garibaldi in her original scheme, by late 1901 she carried a more muted grey scheme

It was while carrying the flag of RADM (later Grand Admiral/Naval Minister) Thaon di Revel, that Garibaldi joined in the naval bombardment of Ottoman-held Tripoli just four days into the Italo-Turkish War in October 1911. She sent a company-sized landing force ashore, one of the first modern Italian marine ops, to disable the Turkish big guns at Fort Hamidiye. It was part of a much larger assault, one of the most unsung in amphibious warfare history, and would leave the Italians in control of Libya until 1943.

Italian Navy landing companies landing on the beach of Tripoli, in October 1911 under the guns of Garibaldi and the rest of the fleet. The naval battalions would be followed by a Bersaglieri regiment, and ultimately the Italians would put a corps-sized force of 30,000 ashore that month. Source Garyounis University, ” The Martyr Omar al-Mukhtar Festival: Catalogue of Exhibition”, Arabic-English version, Benghazi, 1979, P.23. via Wiki Commons

Still, under Revel, Garibaldi and her two sisters would go on to give the Turks grief off Tobruk, in Syria, and the Dardanelles, as well as in the Aegean and the Levant. The biggest tangle of these would be in Ottoman-held Beirut. On 24 February 1912, Garibaldi and Ferruccio sailed into the Lebanese harbor and engaged a Turkish torpedo boat Ankara and the old ironclad Avnillah.

Italian cruisers Ferruccio and Garibaldi, bombarding Gunboat Avnillah & Torpedo boat Angora/Ankara in Beirut Harbour, Feb. 24, 1912

Built in England in 1869, the 2,300-ton central battery gunboat had fought in the Russo-Turkish War some 35 years previously and, while her original black powder muzzleloaders had been replaced with modern German Krupp 5.9-inchers, she still retained her legacy engineering suite which meant that she had been virtually stationary in the harbor for more than a decade.

Avnillah, in better days.

In the end, it was no contest and Garibaldi started the engagement with her 10- and 8-inch guns at 6,000 yards then moved in to finish off the old ironclad with a brace of Whitehead torpedoes at close range. Avnillah, settled on the harbor floor, ablaze, losing half her crew.

Turkish ironclad Avnillah, sunk in Beirut in 1912

French destroyer Hache in Beirut with a sunken Turkish ironclad Avnullah (Avnillah) in the background

Ferruccio, meanwhile, accounted for Ankara. During the fracas, several civilian craft were also damaged while hundreds of the city’s residents were killed or injured. The Italians suffered no injuries and sailed away to leave the locals to pick up the pieces.

Avnillah’s hulk was still visible inside the harbor mole four years later when the Royal Navy raided Beirut during the Great War.

Beirut, Lebanon. A seaplane of the R.N.A.S. Port Said Squadron obtaining hits with two 60-pound bombs during World War I. The wreck in the harbor is the Turkish Ironclad AVN-I ILAH, sunk on February 24, 1912, by the Italian Cruisers GARIBALDI and VARESE. NH 42779

NH 42780

Speaking of WWI, Italy was officially an Austro-German ally on paper as part of the so-called Triple Alliance but entered the conflict tardy and on the other side, which gave both Vienna and Berlin a bit of heartburn. On 23 May 1915, nine months into the war, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary followed by declarations of war on the Turks that August, Bulgaria in October, and Germany in 1916.

Just three weeks into Italy’s war against the Austrians, on 17 July 1915 a group of warships under the command of RADM Trifari, whose flag flew from Garibaldi, sailed from Brindisi on a mission to interdict the railway line between Sarajevo and Herceg Novi by shelling the railroads at Dubrovnik.

While offshore of the Croatian coast near Molunat, the task force was discovered in the early morning of 18 July by the Germaniawerft-made U-3-class submarine SM U-4, commanded by Linienschiffleutnant Rudolf von Singule of the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine. Singule, who had previously managed to put a fish into the British RN cruiser HMS Dublin without sinking her, was luckier when he pumped a torpedo into Garibaldi and she sank reportedly in minutes, taking 53 of her crew with her.

Her sinking became memorialized in the maritime art of the era.

The Sinking of the Italian Cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi, Painting, Gouache on Paper; By Charles Malfroy; 1915; Unframed NHHC Accession #: 70-671-D

Austrian propaganda painting of her loss, via Wiki Commons

Garibaldi’s flag was saved, as were 90 percent of her crew, and has for generations been a treasured relic of the Italian navy. Today it is held on public display at the Sacrario delle Bandiere del Vittoriano in Rome.

Via Wiki Commons

Of Singule, the Austrian who slew the mighty Italian flagship, he chalked up 22,000 tons of shipping while in the K.u.K and was recalled to serve in the German Kriegsmarine in WWII in a training role. He was reportedly “killed attempting to protect a woman from drunken Soviet soldiers on a street in Brünn (Brno, Czech Republic) five days before the German surrender,” in 1945.

Today, Garibaldi is at 122m just off the coast of Croatia, making her an advanced but reachable dive.

As for her 10 sisters, the Spanish Pedro de Aragon was never built while Cristóbal Colón was sunk by the Americans in the Spanish-American War. The Americans likewise sunk the Japanese Kasuga in 1945, which had long been turned into a training hulk, while the IJN Nisshin was expended in the 1930s as a test target. Of the Italian sisters, both survived WWI and served as training ships for naval cadets until they were replaced by the purpose-built sail training ships Amerigo Vespucci and Cristoforo Colombo. The original four Argentine sisters endured in one form or another through the 1930s with ARA Pueyrredón even remaining in the fleet till 1954, at which point she was pushing 60.

ARA Pueyrredon in Dublin in 1951. At this point, this pre-SpanAm War era vet was pushing her into her sixth decade at sea.

The name “Garibaldi,” naturally, was reissued to the downright lucky WWII-era Duca degli Abruzzi-class light cruiser Garibaldi (551), and, since 1985, to the 14,000-ton harrier carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi (C-551), both of which also served as fleet flagships.

Italian Navy ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi (C-551) with nine AV-8B Harrier II and one Sea King in the flight deck carrier

Specs:


Displacement: 7,350 tons, full load 8,100 tons
Length: 366 ft
Beam: 59 ft
Draft: 24 ft.
Engine 2 triple vertical expansion steam engines, 24 Niclausse cylindrical boilers, 14,713 ihp (trials), 2 propellers
Speed: 19.7 knots
Range 5,500 miles at 10 knots on 1,200 tons of coal
Crew: 555
Armament:
1×1 254 mm/40 caliber
1×2 203 mm/45 caliber
14 152 mm/40 caliber
10 76 mm/40 caliber
6 Hotchkiss Mk I 47mm/50 caliber 3-pdrs
2 Maxim MG
4 17.7-inch torpedo tubes
Armor, hardened steel, Harvey system:
bridge from 38 to 50 mm.
belt from 50 to 150 mm.
50 mm batteries.
turrets from 100 to 150 mm.
tower from 50 to 150 mm

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.

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A bell lost, a bell found, a bell talked about, a bell returned

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On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, we highlighted the lost Operation Neptune minesweeper USS Osprey, which went down in the early morning of 6 June 1944, clearing a way for the invasion fleet.

In that Warship Wednesday, we covered that her bell had apparently been recovered sometime around 2007 and gave a lead to the dive op that may know more about it.

Well, one thing led to another and, after the post was shared, the NHHC got involved and, as noted by the BBC:

The US authorities contacted the UK coastguard when pictures of the ship’s bell appeared on the internet.

An investigation was launched by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency when it was established the bell had not been reported to the receiver of wreck.

Acting receiver Heloise Warner said the agency “put the word about” that it was searching for the bell and it was subsequently left anonymously at an undisclosed location last month.

“It’s absolutely fantastic that such a poignant part of our history is back in our possession,” she added.

Osprey’s bell via MCA

It is expected the NHHC will soon take possession of the recovered bell.

Bravo Zulu, guys, and, as always, thanks for sharing! Let’s continue to save history together.

A hearty toast to those lost on Osprey, who will never be forgotten so long as their names are still written:

  • Lieutenant Van Hamilton
  • Seaman 2nd Class John Medvic
  • Fireman 1st class Walter O’Bryan
  • Quartermaster 2nd Class Emery Parichy
  • Motor Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Joseph Vanasky, Jr
  • Motor Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Cleo Whitschell

Warship Wednesday, Sep 11, 2019: The Leader of the Pack

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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 1833-1946 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, Sep 11, 2019: The Leader of the Pack

Photographed by LaTour, Philadelphia. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41956

Here we see the small crew of an early H (Holland) class diesel-electric “submarine torpedo boat” USS H-1 (SS-28), originally known as the first USS Seawolf, at the Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Connecticut, circa 1919. Crew complement of these vessels was just two officers and two dozen men.

Built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, California as an improvement to the Holland 602 type, Seawolf had a staggering 70~ sisters that were ordered not only by the U.S. Navy (H-1 through H-9) but also by the navies of Imperial Russia and the British Commonwealth. With a submerged displacement of about 450-tons, these were small boats, going just 150.25-feet long overall.

USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) and USS H-2 (Submarine # 29) Fitting out at the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California, 7 October 1913. NH 66740

With a hybrid powerplant of New London Ship & Engine Co (NELSECO) diesels and Electro Dynamic electric motors, they were fast for their time, able to make 14 knots when surfaced. Likewise, they had a 2,300nm range on their meager 11,800-gal fuel bunker, a 200-foot test depth, and could remain underwater on their two 60-cell Gould batteries traveling 100 nm at 5 knots.

H Boat Cell (H-1 to H-3) at the Gould Storage Battery Company, Buffalo, New York. Each of these early boats carried 120 such cells in two batteries. NH 115013

As for armament, they carried no deck guns due to their limited size but had space reserved to tote eight torpedoes (four in their forward 18-inch tubes and four reloads).

The torpedo room of USS H-5 in 1919. The breeches of the four 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes are at the center. The tubes themselves had rotating exterior bow caps rather than doors. Scanned from Page 304 of Friedman, Norman, U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1995 via Wiki Commons.

The first three vessels were ordered before the Great War and were originally to have kick-ass predator/fish names (as was common for the U.S. Navy at the time, with early boats bestowed such enviable monikers as USS Tarantula and USS Viper) but this changed gears while they were still underway. Therefore, instead of the planned USS Seawolf, Nautilus and Garfish, we simply got USS H-1, H-2 and H-3, a naming convention that would continue through the follow-on K, L, M, N, O, R, and S-class boats until the nine V-class subs under construction in 1931 were renamed for fish, a practice that carried on through the 1970s..

Nonetheless, the three Hs were a relative unknown in the 1914 Jane’s:

USS H-1 (Submarine No. 28) commissioned 1 December 1913, and she and her two sisters were attached to the 2nd Torpedo Flotilla, Pacific Fleet, operating along the West Coast out of San Pedro, ranging from Los Angeles to lower British Columbia.

Old photo found in estate collection of SS-28 and SS-29 (H-1 and H-2 respectively) moored in Coos Bay, Oregon sometime between 1914-17, via Wiki Commons. Note their early canvas topside protection. 

USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 30 January 1914. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. Catalog #: NH 69853

USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off Long Beach, California, circa 1914. USS Stewart (Destroyer # 13) is underway in the background. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1972. NH 76006

Considered poor open ocean boats, the H-class were not very successful in U.S. service, with the later flight (H-4 through H-9) only acquired as they had already been built for the Tsar who, after 1917, was no longer signing the checks for Mother Russia. Nonetheless, with Uncle Sam entering the war, they were all pressed into use as training boats.

DANFS:

“H-1 set out from San Pedro on 17 October 1917, and reached New London, Conn., 22 days later via Acapulco, Mexico, Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, Key West, Fla., Charleston, S.C., and Philadelphia, Pa. For the remainder of the war, she operated from there and patrolled Long Island Sound, frequently with officer students from the submarine school on board.”

USS H-1 (Submarine # 28) Off the Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Connecticut, circa 1919. Photographed by LaTour, NH 41954

Another view, same time and place NH 41955

When the war ended, H-1 and H-2 set off for their return trip to the West Coast via the Panama Canal– and they almost made it too.

On 12 March 1920, H-1 grounded in a storm off Santa Margarita Island, Baja California. Four men, including her skipper, LCDR. James R. Webb (USNA 1913), perished in the heavy surf during the effort to reach dry land as H-2 narrowly avoided the same fate.

While the repair ship USS Vestal (AR-4) two weeks later pulled the stricken submarine off the rocks, H-1 rapidly sank in 50 feet of water and her hulk was abandoned. The Navy drew a name through her entry on the Navy List on 12 April 1920, and her remains were sold where-is/as-is to scrappers a few months later. However, it doesn’t seem that said salvors were very successful.

The rest of her class in U.S. service were all much luckier, and, decommissioned in 1922, were laid up and sold for junk a decade later.

Meanwhile, the Italians and Russians had their own 19 boats, with the latter losing five in the Baltic in 1918 to avoid having the Germans capture them and continued to operate these American submersibles for years. The Soviets still had five in their Black Sea Fleet when the Germans came back in 1941, losing two during WWII. As a side note, some of the lost Tsarist subs were raised by the Finns who attempted unsuccessfully to get them working while at least one was used by White Russian Gen. Wrangel’s fleet until 1922 when it was handed over to the French for scrapping.

As for H-1s 40+ British sisters, they were produced at the Canadian Vickers Yards in Montreal, Fore River in Massachusetts, and a host of yards in the UK proper. Three were lost during WWI. A fourth, HMS H-6 (the British coincidentally used the same inspired H-series names as the USN boats) was interned in Holland in 1916 and sold to the Dutch who used her as HNLMS O 8 until WWII when the Germans captured her and later scuttled the well-traveled boat in 1945. Many of the rest of the boats lived on after Versailles as training craft and four were lost in accidents in the 1920s, as is the nature of student drivers. Nine continued to see WWII service with the Royal Navy, where two more were lost in action.

In addition to the British RN H-class units, the Canadians fielded two (CH-14 and CH-15) briefly and six went to Chile as the Guacolda-class, where they continued in service until as late as 1949, the last H-class boats in operation.

From the 1946 Jane’s:

As it stands today, H-1 could be the best remembered and most accessible of this huge class of early submarines. Lost in shallow water off Baja California, and technically not a gravesite as the bluejackets lost in her grounding died on the effort to reach the beach, her bones have often been visited over the past century.

Most recently, in 2016, locals from nearby Puerto Alcatraz rediscovered the wreck, sparking a drive by Mexican authorities of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) to move in and survey the vessel.

Time has not been kind and the stern is reportedly full of sand while most of her pressure hull has collapsed. Still, the offices of INAH, in conjunction with the U.S Navy’s NHHC, are recovering what they can for preservation and documentation.

Since her loss, the Navy has never commissioned another H-1, but there have been three subsequent USS Seawolf (s) since 1939, all hard-serving submarines.

Specs:

H-1 (SS-28) showing Profile Inboard; Profile Outboard, Midship Arrangement & Booklet of General Plans. National Archives Identifier: 55302488

Displacement:
358 long tons (364 t) surfaced
467 long tons (474 t) submerged
Length: 150 ft 4 in
Beam: 15 ft 10 in
Draft: 12 ft 5 in
Installed power:
950 hp (710 kW) (diesel engines)
600 hp (450 kW) (electric motors)
Propulsion:
Diesel/electric
2 × NELSECO diesel engines 950 hp
2 × Electro Dynamic electric motors (450 kW)
2 × 60-cell batteries
2 × shafts
Speed:
14 knots surfaced
10.5 knots submerged
Range:
2,300 nm at 11 knots surfaced
100 nm at 5 knots submerged
Test depth: 200 ft
Complement: 25 officers and men
Armament:
4 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes
8 × torpedoes

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!

Warship Wednesday, Sep 4, 2019: The White Lady

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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 1833-1946 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, Sep 4, 2019: The White Lady

*While not a warship, we have covered iconic sail training ships several times in the past due to their interesting, often winding history, and their role in making the men of steel that go on to conn and crew a seagoing nation’s battle lines. This has included the four-masted barque, Abraham Rydberg; the German/American Gorch Fock/Eagle, the Christian Radich out of Norway, Soviet Tovarish, and the Danish East Asiatic Company schoolship  and mystery of the sea, København*

Via Gdynia Wsieci MMG-HM-II-502-27

With this week being the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland in World War II, it is only fitting that we see here the famed sail training ship Dar Pomorza in about 1930, one of the few flying the Polish flag that escaped destruction during the conflict and went on to serve another four decades.

However, before she was Polish, she flew a different flag.

Built in 1909 by Blohm & Voss (Hull #202) as the full-rigged sail training ship Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, she was originally named for Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg. She and her three sisters–Großherzogin Elisabeth, Großherzog Friedrich August, and Schulschiff Deutschland (the latter built in 1927) — were all owned and operated Deutscher Schulschiffverein (DSV), or the German School Ship Association, for the purpose of educating young mariners in association with Norddeutsche Lloyd. These were among the first purpose-built sail training ships. As both the Kaiser and Grand Duke Friedrich August von Oldenburg were patrons, the names of the ships are no-brainers.

Prinzess Eitel-Friedrich launching April 3, 1909, Foto via Schulschiff Deutschland

Capable of carrying 25 sails with a total sail area of some 1,950 sq. meters, the 305-foot-long vessels looked like flying clouds when they were in the wind.

Schulschiff Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, 1915

Prinzess Eitel Friedrich between 1910 and 1914 State Library of Victoria SLV H99.220-2588

Commissioned in 1910, Prinzzess Eitel Friedrich sailed on her maiden voyage to Christiansand and Antwerp. Nonetheless, the Germans only got three years of active service from her before the Great War, primarily short summer cruises for officer candidates in European waters and longer winter cruises to the Caribbean Sea and Latin America while the Baltic was iced in.

During the war, the three existing sisters all managed to come through unscathed while conducting limited training evolutions in the Baltic, but by 1919, two the marine training ships were allocated to the victorious Allies as war reparations– causing Schulschiff Deutschland to be constructed in the 1920s.

Grossherzog Friedrich August went to the British, while Prinzess Eitel Friedrich was allocated to the French where she was used as the sail training ship Colbert at the St-Nazaire seaman’s school (Société Anonyme de Navigation Les Navires Écoles Français).

By 1926, the French sold her to British gentleman race car driver and yachtsman Baron (Maurice) de Forest who very soon after looked to rid himself of the giant three-master as it did not fit his needs.

Enter Poland

When Poland re-emerged in November 1918 after more than a century of partition by the recently deceased Austrian, German, and Russian Empires, she needed a Navy to defend her thin share of the Baltic. Having to cough up one from scratch, most of her professional officers came from the fleets of the former occupiers– the Polish Navy’s 1939 commander, Counter-Admiral Józef Unrug, was a German U-boat commander during the Great War while the Navy’s chief of staff, Vice-Admiral Jerzy Świrski, was a destroyer commander in the Tsar’s Black Sea Fleet.

Besides a few inherited former German torpedo boats and slow Russian gunboats bought from Finland, the new Navy was able to score the elderly French cruiser D’Entrecasteaux (8,100-tons) for her value in scrap in 1927, renaming her ORP Bałtyk, which became the new force’s flagship. To help train mids for the new navy, the three-masted gaff schooner ORP Iskra was acquired.

With the new Polish state maritime school in Tczew needing a training ship at the same time to replace the circa 1867-built three-master Lwow (former Chinsura), funds were raised through public donations to purchase the laid-up Colbert/ex-Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, which was idle in Western Europe. In July 1929, she was purchased by the purpose formed Pomorski Komitet Floty Narodowej (Pomeranian National Fleet Committee) for £7000 and by the next year was in Polish hands. On her arrival, the Tczew school closed and moved to Gdynia, where it is today known as the Gdynia Maritime University.

Originally to be named Pomorze (Pomerania), she was instead given the name Dar Pomorza (Gift of Pomerania), to honor the society formed to purchase her. She arrived at Gdynia on 19 June 1930 after tow by two Dutch tugs from France to Denmark and a four-month refit at Nakskov, Lolland (the same yard that later built the full-rigged ship Danmark for the Danish Maritime Authority). There, she received a surplus MAN diesel engine that had formerly powered a German U-boat to serve as her “iron topsail.”

The impressive sight of Dar Pomorza, with her white eagle crest and proud Polish ensign, was massive to the country’s spirit.

Via Gdynia Maritime University (UMG)

Via Gdynia Maritime University (UMG)

Via Gdynia Maritime University (UMG)

Via Gdynia Maritime University (UMG)

Known affectionately as the “Białej Damie” (White Lady) or the “Białej Fregata” (White Frigate), Dar Pomorza was the grande dame of the burgeoning new Polish maritime fleets and traveled extensively around the globe until 1939.

Polish Training Ship DAR POMURYA or DAR POMORZA in St. Thomas Harbor, January 6, 1936, NH 111890

This included an epic 352-day circumnavigation of the globe under famed Capt. Konstanty Maciejewicz-Matyjewicz, a former Tsarist submarine commander, in 1934-35 that logged over 21,000 miles, crossed the equator three times and sliced through every meridian. It was the first such event by a Polish-flagged ship.

Dar Pomorza in Tahiti 1935

Then came WWII.

September 1, 1939, German Battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein, ostensibly on a goodwill mission in Danzig, firing on the Polish ammunition depot at Westerplatte. Colorized by Mikołaj Kaczmarek

Dar Pomorza was one of the few Polish ships to escape initial destruction in September 1939.

The butcher’s list in that month included:

-Bałtyk, abandoned and captured by the Germans
-The destroyer-sized minelayer ORP Gryf, lost on the third day of the war as was the French-built destroyer ORP Wicher
-All six Jaskółka-class minesweepers, each sunk or captured
-The old Russian gunboats ORP Generał Haller and ORP Komendant Pilsudski, sunk
-The former German torpedo boat ORP Mazur, sent to the bottom
-The entire Pinsk riverine flotilla of more than a dozen monitors and gunboats, scuttled or likewise captured

Dar Pomorza, along with other key maritime assets, were saved by design.

Adm. Unrug (who spent the rest of the war in German POW camps) crafted his “Peking Plan” that sent the new destroyers ORP Burza, ORP Błyskawica, and ORP Grom to British waters in late August 1939, where they formed a new Free Polish Navy under the escaped Chief of Staff VADM Świrski after Warsaw fell.

Likewise, the wily former Great War U-boat skipper sent his five submarines abroad after their initial war patrol under his Worek Plan with orders to sail to England if possible, and otherwise to be interned in a neutral Swedish port. ORP Wilk made it to England as did ORP Orzeł (after a narrow escape from Estonia) while ORP Sęp, ORP Ryś, and ORP Żbik sailed for Sweden. The training ship ORP Iskra, on a Med cruise, sailed for Casablanca and spent the war as an MTB tender in Gibraltar.

Under the command of Capt. Konstanty “Cat” Kowalski, Dar Pomorza sortied from her Polish homeport in late August 1939 and made Stockholm, where the ship was interned. Not to be kept from the war, Cat left the White Lady with seven volunteers commanded by the ship’s radioman and subsequently bugged out for England with the rest of her crew and 149 cadets, destined for Polish-flagged freighters and Free Polish naval ships. Once there, he reformed the Polish merchant school in Southampton where its trained replacement sailors for the Gdynia-America Shipping Lines who sailed with Allied cargoes under the Polish flag during the conflict.

Polish merchant ships carried more than 5 million tons of cargo during the war and were part of every campaign in the ETO from Dunkirk to the liberation of Denmark. Meanwhile, former cadets from Iskra and Dar Pomorza filtered out not only through the Polish vessels but also the Royal Navy proper—four such students went down with HMS Hood in 1941.

Once the war was over, Dar Pomorza sailed for home in October 1945, arriving there with a scratch crew.

As for Cat, eschewing a return to Soviet-occupied Poland, he elected to emigrate to the U.S. and became a merchant mariner there. He was not alone. VADM Świrski, the former Tsarist officer who led the Free Polish Navy, did not return to Poland and remained in London exile until his death. Unrug, the fleet’s 1939 boss, likewise settled in France after his liberation from Oflag VII-A Murnau by the U.S. 12th Armored Division in 1945.

Other flag officers were not so lucky. Polish RADM Xawery Czernicki, another former Tsarist naval captain and engineer who had supervised the construction of the Gdynia naval base, was captured by the Soviets in 1939 and was among the 22,000 slaughtered Polish officers in the so-called Katyn Massacre in early 1940.

Post War

Regardless of the country’s location behind the Iron Curtain, Dar Pomorza remained Poland’s ambassador, taking part in regular merchant training cruises around Europe beginning again in 1946. Notably, Capt. Konstanty Matyjewicz-Maciejewicz, her former skipper during her round-the-world cruise, was head of the merchant marine academy at the time, having survived the war under occupation despite some rough handling from the Gestapo.

In 1972’s Operation Sail, the Cutty Sark Tall Ships’ Races, she was the first Eastern Bloc windjammer to participate in an international sail event and she became a regular at such outings over the next decade.

The Olympische Segelwettbewerbe, coinciding with the 1972 Munich Olympics, showing Dar Pomorza, the USCGC Eagle and the German Bundesmarine’s Gorch Fock August 5, 1972. Via Stadtarchiv Kiel

A night scene from the same event, showing not only Dar Pomorza, Gorch Fock and Eagle but also the Columbian square-rigger Gloria and Danish Danmark Via Stadtarchiv Kiel 53.812

Dar Pomorza, Amsterdam 1975, via Dutch National Archives

This included being one of the top 16 tall ships to sail into the New York City leg of OpSail 1976 to celebrate the Bicentennial.

Square rigger Dar Pomorza during the Parade of Sail on 4 July 1976 (US Bicentennial) via Wiki Commons

Square rigger Dar Pomorza during the Parade of Sail on 4 July 1976 (US Bicentennial) via Wiki Commons

In 1980, she won the Cutty Sark Trophy in OpSail80

While not an active warship per se, she was carried in Poland’s entry in Jane’s for decades.

Finally, on 4 July 1982, Dar Pomorza was retired from active service. In her 52 years of service to Poland, she covered more than 500,000 miles under sail on 102 training cruises and educated 13,384 students.

She has been maintained as a floating exhibit and national treasure by the National Maritime Museum in Gdansk since 1983, typically visited by more than 100,000 every year.

She is extensively remembered in maritime art and postcards.

…And has repeatedly been represented on Polish postage stamps and coins throughout the Republic’s 20th Century history.

A lucky ship, having survived both world wars as well as the Cold War, all three of Dar Pomorza‘s German-built sisters are intact as well. The former Grossherzog Friedrich August was handed over to the Norwegians as a war trophy in 1945 and is currently the privately-owned training vessel Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Schulschiff Deutschland, commissioned in 1927, is a museum ship in Bremen. Finally, the former Großherzogin Elisabeth, handed over to France as a war reparation in 1946, has been the French-flagged tall ship Duchesse Anne ever since.

Dar Pomorza, pushing 110-years young, is permanently moored at the Pomeranian Quay next to Kosciuszko Square in Gdynia.

Specs:
Displacement: 1561 tons gross, 2,500 full
Length with bowsprit: 305 feet
Length, between perpendiculars: 240 feet
Beam: 39ft
Draft: 17ft
Rig: 25 sails, 2,100 sq. m, full-rigged including royals, topgallant, double topsail
Auxiliary engine: 430 HP MAN, 6-cyl diesel, installed 1929
Speed under sail: max 17 kts.
Complement: 190: 8 officers, 32 petty officers/primary crew, 150~ cadets
1934-35 Circumnavigation: 104: Commandant, 10 officers including doctor and chaplain, 4 instructors, 20 crew members, 11 2nd year students, and 58 1st year candidates

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Warship Wednesday, Aug 28, 2019: Last gasp of the Mainz

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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 1833-1946 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, Aug 28, 2019: Last gasp of the Mainz

Halftone print from Det stora världskriget vol. II, p. 339. Printed in Stockholm 1915. Originally published in The Illustrated London News

On this special installment of WW, we see the German Kolberg-class light cruiser (kleiner kreuzer), SMS Mainz, sinking at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on August 28, 1914, 105 years ago today. The ship on the left is the British RN destroyer HMS Lurcher taking off German survivors. The whaleboats are from the destroyer HMS Liverpool. Commissioned in 1909, Mainz had a short career that ended with a last stand against overwhelming odds.

Four 4,200-ton Kolbergs were commissioned on the lead up to the Great War: Kolberg, Mainz, Cöln, and Augsburg. Just 4,300 tons, they would be considered frigate-size these days. Not particularly fast, they could make 25 knots. Not particularly well-armed, they mounted a dozen 4.1-inch SK L/45 single mounts as well as a couple 17.7-inch torpedo tubes, in all, really just large destroyers.

Still, they had fine lines.

SMS Mainz photographed by Arthur Renard of Kiel, in a photograph received by U.S. Naval intelligence on 19 October 1910. NH 4682

SMS Mainz, Imperial Navy, Sognefjord Norway 1914. Norwegian national archives

Resting in the Ems and Jade rivers, respectively, on the morning of 28 August 1914, Mainz and Cöln (the latter with II Scouting Group commander RADM Leberecht Maass aboard), Hipper ordered both ships to raise steam and sail to aide a force of German coastal torpedo boats and minesweepers operating near the North Sea’s Heligoland Bight that had been jumped by a superior RN force at around 0930.

Said raiding force turned out to be two British light cruisers, Arethusa and Fearless, and two flotillas containing 31 destroyers under Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, with cover from the massive new battlecruisers New Zealand and Invincible of Cruiser Force K under RADM Moore. Admiral Beatty’s First Battlecruiser Squadron of Lion, Queen Mary, and Princess Royal was also just over the horizon.

It was a bloody day for the High Seas Fleet among the fog and smoke.

Battlecruiser HMS Lion, Heligoland Bight, 28th August 1914, engaging the German light cruiser Cöln with her 13.5-inch guns. No contest. A painting by Montague Dawson.

Although Maass was able to piece together not only the Mainz and Coln but also the light cruisers Frauenlob, Stettin, Ariadne, and Strassburg, they were vastly outmatched by the British capital ships. Worse, half of these were destroyed piecemeal.

Very shortly after arriving on the scene, the German cruisers got plastered by the British heavy guns and attempted to withdraw. In the process, Frauenlob, Strassburg, and Stettin were heavily damaged but made a getaway.

Ariadne returned fire as best she could, but to no effect and was left dead in the water to capsize by 16:25.

Coln was similarly lost, with Maass aboard, at about 14:25, rolling over and sinking with only one crewmember, a stoker, pulled from the water three days later.

As for Mainz, who had arrived on the scene alone at about 12:30– before the other cruisers– over a 45-minute period she engaged three British cruisers and at least six destroyers. The German scored hits on the RN Laforey (or L-class) destroyers Laurel, Liberty, and Laertes with Laurel hurt so bad she had to withdraw, and Laertes disabled by 4-inch shells to her engine room.

However, the odds were clearly against Mainz and, after taking a torpedo from the destroyer Lydiard and just generally receiving a shellacking from the British guns at point-blank range, her skipper ordered the crippled vessel abandoned just before she rolled over at 14:10.

The images of her sinking were the first sinking German ship published in British papers and circled the globe, complete with Mainz shown aflame and dead in the water with just one of her stacks still standing.

Sinking of Mainz postcard

The engagement soon became iconic in period maritime art published not only in London but also Berlin.

British destroyers engaging SMS Mainz during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28th August 1914 in the First World War painting by Lionel Wyllie

German light cruiser SMS Mainz sinking at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28th August 1914 in the First World War painting by Willie Stower

RMG PW1231: ‘L-class destroyers and the battlecruisers ‘Lion’, ‘Queen Mary’, and ‘Princess Royal’, with the ‘Mainz’, at the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914′ by William Lionel Wyllie circa 1915

RMG PV3448: ‘Rescuing the crew of the German light cruiser ‘Mainz’ at the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, 28August 1914′ by William Lionel Wyllie circa 1914-1915

“A sketch from an officer present at the battle depicting the destroyer flotilla destroying a German cruiser” {Mainz} Illustrated London News 5 September 1914

The British rescued 348 survivors from the stricken ship, including the son of Tirpitz himself. She took 89 members of her crew, including her skipper, down to the cold embrace of the sea.

Other than the cruiser HMS Arethusa, which had been damaged in a 6-inch gun duel between that ship and the German cruisers SMS Frauenlob and Stettin, it was the stricken Mainz that caused the most injury to the Royal Navy on that fateful day.

HMS Lapwing of 1st Flotilla attempting to take HMS Laertes of 3rd Flotilla in tow during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28th August 1914 in the First World War. “Deeds That Thrill the Empire: True Stories of the Most Glorious Acts of Heroism of the Empire’s Soldiers and Sailors during the Great War.” V. Ludgate Hill, London: The Standard Art Book Co Ltd. 1920. p. 737. Wiki Commons

HMS LIBERTY damage received in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914. NH 59814

HMS LAERTES Damage received in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914. Note 4″ gun, burst when a shell exploded prematurely. NH 59813

HMS LAUREL Damage received in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914. Note 4″ gun. NH 59810

Another shot of Laurel NH 59811

However, while the three L-class destroyers would eventually return to service, the German navy has never carried the name “Mainz” on its rolls again.

Sunk in relatively shallow water, her wreck is often visited– and plundered– by skin divers, a crime under the jurisdiction of German police.

Mainz’s telegraph, via Der Spiegel

Specs:

Mainz & Kolberg class via Janes 1914 ed.

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!

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