Warship Wednesday, August 11, 2021: The Guacolda-class submarines, via Quincy, Mass
Original caption: July 4, 1917, Boston (Charlestown) Navy Yard, “Six British subs bottled up in Navy Yard because of U.S. Neutrality are given to the Chilean government in exchange for a Man of War which could not be built by England.”
The Chilean flag was hoisted in that day over six Holland-type submarines, marking the creation of the Chilean Navy’s submarine branch, which has the motto, “Semper Fidelis.” Photo by Leslie Jones, via Boston Public Library, Print Department. Note the famed “original six” frigate USS Constitution in the background.
Ordered in 1914 from the Fore River Yard at Quincy, Massachusetts, once the Great War kicked off, then-neutral Uncle Sam interned HMS H11 through HMS H20 for the duration of hostilities (or at least, it turned out, American neutrality), despite the fact they did not have their torpedo tubes installed.
Holland 602 type submarines designed to meet Royal Navy specifications, nine other 150-foot/360-ton H-class boats were built by Vickers Canada in Monreal for the Admiralty while another 23 were ordered from Vickers, Cammell Laird, Armstrong Whitworth, and William Beardmore in Britain.
HM Submarine H.4, one of the Canadian Vickers-made boats, at Brindisi, August 1916. Notably, H4 sank U-boat UB-52 in the Adriatic on 23 May 1918, one of the biggest wins for the class. Photograph SP 578 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Of the 10 Yankee “H” boats, the British eventually transferred two, later christened HMCS CH-14 and CH-15, to Canadian service, while HMS H11 and H12 were cleared to sail after the U.S. entered the war in April 1917 only to be scrapped shortly after the conflict.
CH14 and CH15, Canadian submarines 1920-22
Likewise, the Canucks laid up their H-boats by 1922 and disposed of them soon after.
The remainder, H13 along with H16 through H20, were transferred to the Chilean government to partially compensate for Chilean vessels under construction in Britain that were seized in 1914 (such as the dreadnoughts Almirante Latorre/HMS Canada and Almirante Cochrane/HMS Eagle) for the fight against the Kaiser.
Commissioned into the Chilean Navy as Guacolda (H1), Tegualda (H2), Rucumilla (H3), Guale (H4), Quidora (H5), and Fresia (H6), on 28 March 1918, the flotilla set sail for Valparaíso on its maiden voyage under the command of RADM Luis Gomez Carreño.
These obsolete craft remained in service in Latin American waters through WWII, with the last only scrapping in 1949. Rucumillahad a particularly interesting rescue/salvage after she was lost at sea.
As far as I can tell, they were the last pre-WWI Holland design sent to the breakers, and probably the last to submarines to carry 18-inch tubes on active duty. Of note, the Brits completed H21 and above with 21-inch tubes, some of whom continued to serve in WWII.
Chilian Guacolda (Holland 602/H-class) submarines, via Jane’s 1946
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Warship Wednesday, August 4, 2021: The Grand Old Lady of the North
USCG Photo, National Archives & Record # 26-G-5608
As today is the 231st birthday of the founding of what today is known as the U.S. Coast Guard, you knew this was coming! Here we see the floating football that is the Wind-class Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind (WAG/WAGB-282) mustering up all available power from her six engines to penetrate a pressure ridge in the Bearing Sea during the winter season, July 1953. Note her twin 5″/38 mount forward and her Hedgehog ASW system at the platform under the bridge. Pretty stout armament for an iceboat, but we’ll get into that.
How the “Winds” came to blow
When World War II started, the U.S. Navy was up to the proverbial frozen creek as far as icebreaking went. While some foreign powers (the Soviets) really liked the specialized ships, Uncle Sam did not share the same opinion. However, this soon changed in 1941 when the U.S., even before Pearl Harbor, accepted Greenland and Iceland to their list of protected areas. Now, tasked with having to keep the Nazis out of the frozen extreme North Atlantic/Arctic and the Japanese out of the equally chilly North Pac/Arctic region (anyone heard of the Aleutians?), the Navy needed ice-capable ships yesterday.
The old (read= broken down) 6,000-ton British-built Soviet icebreaker Krassin was studied in Bremerton Washington by the Navy and Coast Guard. Although dating back to the Tsar, she was still at the time the most powerful icebreaker in the world. After looking at this ship and the Swedish icebreaker Ymer, the U.S. began work on the Wind-class, the first U.S. ships designed and built specifically as icebreakers.
Set up with an extremely thick (over an inch and a half) steel hull, these ships could endure repeated ramming against hard pack ice. Just in case the hull did break, there were 15-inches of cork behind it, followed by a second inner hull. Now that is serious business. These ships were so hardy that one, USCGC Westwind (WAGB 281), almost 30 years after she joined the fleet, was heavily damaged by ice in the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea. About 120 feet of the port-side hull was gashed when brash ice forced the ship against a 100-foot sheer ice shelf. The gash was two to three feet wide and was six feet above the waterline. The crew patched the side, there were no injuries, and the breaker returned home under her own power.
At over 6,000-tons, these ships were bulky for their short, 269-foot hulls. They were also bathtub-shaped, with a 63-foot beam. For those following along at home, that’s a 1:4 length to beam ratio. Power came from a half-dozen mammoth Fairbanks-Morse 10-cylinder diesel engines that both gave the ship a lot of power on demand, but also an almost unmatched 32,000-mile range (not a misprint, that is 32-thousand). For an idea of how much that is, a Wind-class icebreaker could sail at an economical 11-knots from New York to Antarctica, and back, on the same load of diesel…twice.
A photo of USCGC Eastwind, circa 1944. Note how beamy these ships were. The twin 5-inch mounts on such a short hull make her seem extremely well-armed. USCG Photo
To help them break the ice, the ship had a complicated system of water ballasting, capable of moving hundreds of tons of water from one side of the ship to the other in seconds, which could rock the vessel from side to side in addition to her thick hull and powerful engines. A bow-mounted propeller helped chew up loose ice and pull the ship along if needed.
With a war being on, they just weren’t about murdering ice, but being able to take the fight to polar-bound Axis ships and weather detachments as well. For this, they were given a pair of twin 5″/38 turrets, a dozen 40mm Bofors AAA guns, a half dozen 20mm Oerlikons, as well as depth charge racks and various projectors, plus the newfangled Hedgehog device to slay U-boats and His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s I-boats. Weight and space were also reserved for a catapult-launched and crane-recovered seaplane. Space for an extensive small arms locker, to equip landing parties engaged in searching remote frozen islands and fjords for radio stations and observation posts, rounded out the design.
Two of the class, Eastwind and Southwind, operated against teams of German scientists and military personnel who attempted to establish weather stations in remote areas of Greenland late in the war.
As noted by the USCG Historian’s Office on this chapter of “The Weather War,”:
On 4 October 1944 Eastwind captured a German weather station on Little Koldewey Island and 12 German personnel. On 15 October 1944 Eastwind captured the German trawler Externsteine and took 17 prisoners. The trawler was renamed East Breeze and a prize crew sailed her to Boston.
Our Wind
Northwind was ordered from Western Pipe & Steel Co., Los Angeles, (Builder’s Number CG-184) for $9,880,037 and her keel was laid 10 July 1944, the same week the Allies were fighting for Saint-Lo in France and Saipan in the Pacific. Impressively, she was finished in 54 weeks, commissioning 28 July 1945, just a fortnight before the Japanese threw in the towel. As such, her war service was negligible.
Original caption: Preparing for Arctic Cruise, 1946. Especially rigged and outfitted for its arctic cruise, the Coast Guard Icebreaker Northwind, is shown in New York Harbor before she sailed last spring. The helicopter, which is proving valuable in the work in hand, needs only a small “platform” on which to take off or land and both operations can be carried on while the vessel is steaming at full speed. NARA 26-G-4936
Shown here just before leaving to participate in the Navy expedition to the North Pole, the Coast Guard Cutter Northwind lies at anchor in New York’s harbor, June 26, 1946. Note the NYC skyline to include the Empire State Building. NARA 26-G-4937
Then came a deployment in the form of Operation Nanook, under the command of Captain Richard Cruzen. The destination: Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, where Northwind would field the first helicopter seen in that part of the world.
The task force was made up of two Navy AK transports modified for sub-zero operations, fully equipped to construct the stations. In addition, the Seaplane tender USS Norton Sound, with two PBM seaplanes, was part of the Taskforce as was the submarine Atule which conducted tests and carried out operations under the ice in Baffin Bay and to the north. The wooden-hulled net tender Whitewood was used as a survey ship. The Coast Guard ice breaker Northwind joined the group north of the arctic circle providing escort and navigation through the ice fields. The Northwind had on board an HNS helicopter piloted by Coast Guard Aviation Pilot 1/c John Olsen. This was a precursor of things to come in polar operations.
Sikorsky HNS-1 helicopter, CGNR 39047, lifts off from the deck of USCGC Northwind on 1 September 1946, during Operation Nanook. Note insignia of what appears to be an Eskimo girl seated astride a polar bear, with the words “Arctic Annie.” Photograph by Photographer’s Mate Second Class P.R. Zimmerman, USN. 80-G-636441
Inset of the Sikorsky’s insignia.
In November 1946, Capt. Charles Ward Thomas, the famed skipper of her sistership USCGC Eastwind during the Weather War with the Germans, assumed command of Northwind. During the Thomas years, Northwind would participate in Operation High Jump, the fourth Byrd expedition to the Antarctic, and subject of the Academy Award-winning motion picture, “The Secret Land.”
Highjump and the follow-on Windmill operation in 1947-48 to this day were the largest naval task forces to operate in Antarctica, consisting of 13 ships including an aircraft carrier and 33 aircraft. Many crackpot legends hold it was to scout out possible secret Nazi bases in the region where Hitler, who was still thought missing at the time, may have escaped to via U-boat.
Northwind spearhead of the expedition, clearing the way through the Ross Sea ice pack for Navy cargo ships. For the mission, she carried both a Grumman J2F Duck floatplane and a whirlybird.
Original caption: Coast Guard ‘Copter Scouts for Leads. From the deck of the Coast Guard Icebreaker Northwind, the ship’s helicopter takes off, to look for the “leads” in the ice packs, into which the super ice crusher can smash her way, opening a passage for the thin-hulled vessels of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition. Here the Northwind is followed by the Merrick, Yancey, and the Mt. Olympus. The ‘copter proved of special value, being able to hover and study ice conditions for the benefit of the Northwind’s skipper.” 1/1/1947 NARA 26-G-5024
Sikorsky HNS-1 helicopter, CGNR 39043, landing on the deck of USS Northwind (WAG-282) on 2 January 1947. 80-G-612006
It was during Highjump that Northwind successfully completed the first major rescue mission involving a submarine, freeing USS Sennet (SS-408) along with the supply ships Yance and Merrick, who were stuck in a thick ice flow in the Antarctic Circle.
USS Sennet (SS-408), needing a hand during Operation High Jump
7 January 1947- Operation Highjump, Coast Guard icebreaker NORTHWIND completed the first rescue mission involving a submarine. USS Sennet (SS-408) supply ships Yance and Merrick
Original caption: “The Northwind Hits It! The Antarctic. The World of Ice. With her diesel-electric motors, with power ranging up to 10,000, going full blast, the Coast Guard’s icebreaker Northwind charges the ice pack at top speed. Following the terrific crash, the Northwind rides half a ship’s length up onto the ice before she is stopped. She backs away and charges again and again until the area is broken up and ready for the thin-hulled vessels which follow her. This arduous duty of the Northwind was a day after day routine, as her part of the work of the Byrd Expedition to the Antarctic. This photo was taken from the Northwind’s helicopter, which proved so valuable in scouting out loads in the ice, far in advance of the ships.” 1/5/1947. Note the J2F Duck on her deck. NARA 26-G-03-18-47(7)
On 15 January 1947, Northwind’s chopper made the first helicopter flight to the base “Little America” in Antarctica. The pilot was LT James A. Cornish, USCG and he carried Chief Photographer’s Mate Everett Mashburn as his observer.
Icebreaker USS Northwind (AGB-5) cuts across the bow of USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8) to clear a path for her, through pack ice off the Ross Sea, Antarctica 1947-02-28 L45-209.06.01.
Original caption: Cargo being transferred from the USS Philippine Sea to the Coast Guard Ice-Breaking Cutter Northwind, on Operation Highjump, the Navy’s venture of exploration to the Antarctic. The Coast Guard Ice-Breaker has the task of opening lanes through heavy ice when other vessels with thinner plating could not force their way through. NARA 26-G-5062
Stationed in Seattle from 1947 to 1973, she fell into a cycle of polar ice operations, alternating trips from the Arctic to the Antarctic. In 1948, with the Northwind, Captain Thomas re-established the annual Bering Sea Patrol, which had been discontinued during the war, conducting the first such patrol in eight years, and compiled an oceanographic report of the waters navigated in the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
Northwind’s crew, by nature of the cutter’s work, saw some amazing things.
Original caption: “The Antarctic. The World of Ice. Desert of Death. Seldom indeed has the eye of man looked at this bleak desert of ice. This is a tiny portion of the limitless icepack that stands guard around the Antarctic continent. The Coast Guard’s icebreaker Northwind smashes its way into the virgin ice, making a passage for the thin-hulled vessels which made up the central group of the Byrd Expedition to the Antarctic.” 1/11/1947. NARA 26-G-03-18-47(11)
Original caption: “Bering Sea Patrol, its scenery on the grand scale for the Northwind as she roses into an Alaskan fjord. Views rivaling the ethereal beauty of the Alps, are typical of the stale and abound fringed coasts of Alaska.” 11/14/1948 NARA 26-G-5300
Original caption: The Artist is Mother Nature – On a refueling mission in Alaskan waters, the U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Northwind (WAGB-282) passes snow-capped Mt. Shishaldin in this picturesque scene, taken on the Bering Sea side of the Aleutian Islands. Mt. Shishaldin is one of 80 active volcanoes in the Aleutians. 11/26/1950 NARA 26-G-5477
Her Cold War career (see what I did there) consisted largely of a series of Operation Deep Freeze resupply missions to the Antarctic, alternating with Bering Sea patrols with the latter including missions to install and support the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line.
Original caption: Postman Artic Style. Swooping down over the ice, a Coast Guard PBY from the Air Detachment at Kodiak, Alaska, makes an aerial pick-up of the Northwind’s mail. Note the plane’s tailhook, poised to snatch the line. The postman had to ring only once. On the first attempt, he hooked the line from which the mailbag was suspended. Members of the Northwind’s crew crouch on the ice as they steady the vertical poles which hold the line. 7/12/1953. NARA 26-G-5613
Northwind and USS Glacier (AGB-4), the Navy’s last icebreaker, working ice during the winter 1953 Bearing Sea Expedition. Original caption: “In this solid field of ice in the Bering Sea, the two icebreakers try a tandem method of breaking ice. Ramming, backing, and ramming again, the vessels try forcing their wayside by side in a parallel line.” NARA 26-G-5609
McClure Strait and CGC Northwind. 13 August 1954 – The USCGC Northwind breaks the west-to-east entrance to previously impassable McClure Strait, the ice-locked western entrance to the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. Pushing along the southern edge of the Strait, the icebreaker heads toward Mercy Bay, about halfway to Banks Island. The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind, commanded by Captain William L. Maloney, USCG, made the first passage through McClure Strait from west to east between August 13 – 21, 1954. The Navy icebreaker USS Burton Island, commanded by Comdr. Everett Trickey, USN, executed the first passage through the Strait from east to west between August 11 – 16. Both ships accomplished the historical fete while conducting oceanographic and hydrographic surveys in the Beaufort Sea and McClure Strait areas on a Joint U.S. – Canadian Expedition participated in by scientists from both countries. The U.S. ships were the first to push through McClure Strait, connecting the Arctic Ocean and Viscount Melville Sound. McClure Strait was the only link left unconquered by explorers who for more than 450 years sought the famed Northwest Passage route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The ships left San Diego on July 12 and returned to Seattle on September 29, 1954. NARA 26-G-5676
The 269-foot cutter also performed standard Alaska patrol tasks, such as holding “floating courts” that roamed from port to port and providing a modicum of military presence in far-away towns as needed.
Original caption: “This is the main street of the far northern little frontier-like town of Nome, Alaska, on the 4th of July 1955. Natives and Servicemen watch a parade that shows a group of sailors from the Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind marching. The icebreaker was at Nome from July 1 to 6, en route to the Arctic with a Navy Pacific Task Force on last summer’s Military Sea Transportation Service’s sealift operations for the “Dew Line” (Distance Early Warning) radar stations. Leaving Seattle July 16 this year for the summer “Dew Line” operations, the Northwind’s crew will not be at Nome to participate in holiday celebrations.” NARA 26-G-5732
USCGC Northwind in Antarctic waters, 16 December 1956. K-21429.
USCGC Northwind and USS Glacier (AGB-4) in Antarctic waters, 26 December 1956. K-21428.
Crew members from U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Northwind (WAGB-282) hold the first pistol tournament ever held in the Antarctic (January 10, 1957). Chilled thumbs pulled the triggers at targets lined up at McMurdo Sound. During the tournament, a light breeze blew down some of the targets. USNS Private John R. Towle (T-AK-240), a U.S. Navy cargo ship, lies to the back. Operation Deep Freeze was from December 1956 to April 1957. Official U.S. Coast Guard Photograph.
Original caption: “A closeup view from the stern of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind shows all four sections and the weatherproof door of her new telescopic helicopter hanger. The aluminum hanger is 67 ft. long, 23 ft. wide, and 21 ft. high. These measurements are gauged with the size of the Coast Guard’s largest helicopter in use – the gas turbine HH-52A “flying boat” helicopter. The icebreaker Northwind which is based in Seattle and works in the frigid Arctic region most of her time is the first American ship to carry this type of hangar. It was previously developed and used by the Canadian Ministry of Transport, however, here, the Northwind is carrying the hangar on an extended mission into the Bering Sea and the Arctic where it will undergo initial cold weather experiments.” 6/17/1963. NARA 26-G-6034
Original caption: “A starboard broadside view of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind shows her newly installed telescopic helicopter hanger in the closed extended position. The icebreaker is seen here en-route to the Bering Sea and the Arctic on an extended mission which will keep her away from her homeport in Seattle for a few months. During that time the hanger will receive initial experience in colder weather operations.” 6/17/1963 NARA 26-G-6033
In 1965, Northwind pulled another “first.” That July, she conducted an oceanographic survey between Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland and was the first Western vessel to operate in the Kara Sea off the Soviet Union.
Between 1966 and 1989, Northwind hosted a series of Icebreaker Support Section (IBSEC) deployments, each consisting of a pair of Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguards, which picked up a red (officially orange) paint scheme.
USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282) in the ice, circa 1967. Note her retracted hangar with an HH-52 tail poking out. The second Sea Guardian is likey the aircraft taking the photo. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1977. NH 85275.
USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282) nighttime photo, in the ice, circa 1967. Note her extended hangar. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson. NH 85274.
Between 9 June and 22 September 1969, Northwind transited 14,000 miles from the Bering Sea through the Northwest Passage then made it back to Seattle via the same route, the first vessel to conduct both a West-to-East and East-to-West transit of the Northwest Passage in a single season.
From 1973 to 1975 Northwind underwent extensive machinery modernization and electronic modification at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland, which included landing the rest of her WWII-era heavy armament (she still had a small arms locker and four stowed .50 cal M2s) and picking up the familiar red-hull seen on today’s American icebreakers.
USCGC Northwind breaking ice at Winter Quarters Bay January 1977 via Antarctica New Zealand.
From 1978 to 1989, Northwind was stationed at Wilmington, North Carolina, and used for general ice-breaking, including in the Great Lakes, which her lack of fixed gun mounts kept her under Canadian treaty restrictions. Rather than Bering Sea cruises, she alternated Deep Freeze trips with Arctic East cruises, sailing in Baffin Bay and supporting Thule AFB in Greenland with side trips to Iceland and Norway.
Operation Deep Freeze 80. Antarctica. From left to right, the icebreakers USCGC Glacier (WAGB 4), Northwind (WAGB 282), and Polar Sea (WAGB 11) moored in the ice below Mount Erebus. Photographed by PH2 Jeff Hilton. January 5, 1980. 428-GX-K-129186.
Northwind, 1982, Inglefield Bredning, Greenland Tracy Glacier in the background
Clocking in on the war on drugs at a time when the service was hull poor, on 4 November 1984 Northwind seized the P/C Alexi I off Jamaica for carrying 20 tons of marijuana, becoming the first icebreaker to make a large narcotics seizure.
USCGC Northwind in Baffin Bay on 10 July 1986. USCG Photo.
It was during her 1986 cruise that Northwind assisted in a joint Denmark-U.S. relocation operation, shuttling arctic musk ox around Greenland via her Sea Guards, likely another first.
Seamen move a crated musk ox into position aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind (WAGB 282) during a joint Denmark-US relocation operation, 7/10/1986. Note her WWII-era wooden decks and the sex orientation markings on the crates. TSgt Jose Hernandez. DFST8708199
An HH-52A Sea Guard helicopter from the US Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind (WAGB 282) airlifts a crated musk ox to its new habitat during a joint Denmark-US relocation operation, 7/10/1986. TSgt Jose Hernandez. DFST8708196
Northwind outlived her seven sisters. Weather War vets Eastwind and Southwind/Atka, along with the former Navy-owned Staten Island, Burton Island, and Edisto were all scrapped in the 1970s. In the Frozen North, the Canadian Coast Guard’s CCGS Labrador lingered until 1987. Only USCGC Westwind (WAGB-281), who had served the Soviets for six years under Lend-Lease as Severni Polius (North pole), endured, surviving another decade on the salvaged parts of her sisters.
Northwind, “The Grand Old Lady of the North,” was decommissioned on 20 January 1989, just shy of 44 years with the service and 11 months after Westwind was taken out of service. She had no less than 27 skippers and never saw a period of mothballs until she was shipped off in 1990.
After a decade floating in the James River, ex-Northwind was scrapped at International Shipbreakers, Port of Brownsville, Texas in 1999.
Epilogue
Like Northwind, the other members of her class pulled down several “firsts.” For instance, USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279) was the first Coast Guard cutter of any type to circumnavigate the globe after departing Boston on 25 October 1960 bound for Antarctica and arriving back in Boston 5 May 1961. This was followed up by a similar Antarctic summer cruise by her sistership, USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280) [ex-USS Atka (AGB-3)] in 1968-1969.
A bell from Cutter Northwind, perhaps from our icebreaker, is on display behind the Highland County Historical Society building in Hillsboro, Ohio, a town that made such bells for the Navy and Coast Guard.
She is remembered in maritime art in the USCG’s collection.
“Northwind” by David Rosenthal. The icebreaker Northwind breaks a pressure ridge in the permanent polar ice pack on its last mission before decommissioning. The mission was to break a path through the ice for the research vessel “PolarBjorn” as far north as possible.
“Arctic Cutter” by Ellen Leelike. The Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind is shown at work doing its specialty.
With the Coast Guard building a new class of Polar Security Cutters, basically modernized and better-armed icebreakers, it would be nice if they brought the old “Wind” names back.
Specs:
Winds, 1946 Jane’s entry
Winds, 1973 Jane’s entry
Displacement: 6,515 tons (1945) Length: 269 ft oa Beam: 63 ft 6 in Draft: 25 ft 9 in max Installed power (1945): 6 × Fairbanks-Morse model 8-1/8OP, 10-cylinder opposed-piston engines at 2,000 shp (1,500 kW), each driving a Westinghouse DC electric generator. Propulsion: (1945) 2 × Westinghouse Electric DC electric motors driving the 2 aft propellers, 1 × 3,000 shp (2,200 kW) Westinghouse DC electric motor driving the detachable and seldom-used bow propeller. Propulsion (1973): Four 3,000 horsepower DeLaval diesel engines, two GE electric motors Speed: Top speed: 13.4 knots (1967) Economic speed: 11.6 knots Range: 32,485 nautical miles Complement: 21 officers, 295 men (1944) 13 officers, 2 warrants, 160 men (Post-1967 USCG service) 14 officers, 137 crew + room for 12 scientists and 14 AvDet personnel (Post 1975) Sensors and processing systems: Radar: SA-2, SL-1 (1944, removed 1949) SPS-10B; SPS-53A; SPS-6C (1967) Sonar: QCJ-8 (1944-45) Armament:
(1946) 4 × 5″/38 (twin mounts) 12 × 40mm/60 (3 quad mounts) 6 × 20mm/80 (single mounts) 2 × depth charge tracks 6 × “K” guns 1 Hedgehog M2 Browning machine guns and small arms (1944) Aircraft carried: 1 Grumman J2F Seaplane, later two helicopters in telescoping hangar
(1967) 1 x5″/38 single mount 20mm Mk 16 cannons (singles)
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Italy got into the seaplane tender biz in February 1915 when they bought the aging 392-ft./7,100-ton Spanish-built freighter Quarto and, as Europa, converted the vessel to operate a half-dozen or so FBA flying boats. Taking part in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto against the bottled-up Austro-Hungarian fleet in 1917, she was discarded after the war.
In 1925, Rome bought the incomplete passenger/mail steamer Citta di Messina and, sending her to the La Spezia for completion, produced Giuseppe Miraglia.
Italian seaplane carrier Giuseppe Miraglia entering Taranto. Look at all those Macchis…
She wasn’t a giant ship, just under 400-feet long with a light draft of 4,500-tons. But Miraglia was fast enough for naval use (21 knots) and with enough room for as many as 20 seaplanes of assorted sizes. Her war was lackluster, ending it under British guns at Malta.
Meanwhile, Italy’s first planned aircraft carrier– a respectable 772-foot leviathan by the name of L’Aquila (Eagle) converted from an unfinished ocean liner– was left under construction at Genoa in 1943.
Italian aircraft carrier Aquila in drydock at Genoa in 1942. She would never be completed
Although it was envisioned she would carry up to 56 aircraft, the Italian eagle was never completed and finally scrapped at La Spezia in 1952. A sistership, Sparviero, never even got that far, making Miraglia the sole Italian aviation ship fielded in WWII.
After flirting with Vittorio Veneto in the 1970s and 80s, a so-called “helicopter cruiser” capable of carrying six SH-3D Sea Kings or larger numbers of smaller whirlybirds; the Italian government placed an order for several AV-8B Harriers in 1990 for use on the newly completed 13,000-ton ASW carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, returning the country’s fleet to a fixed-wing capability that it hadn’t seen since Miraglia steamed for exile in Malta in 1943.
Today, it is thought that the carrier 27,000-ton Harrier carrier Cavour will retire her aging AV-8Bs for a squadron of operational Italian F-35Bs by 2024, right at 99 years after Miraglia was conceived. Except the vessel won’t be beholden to seaplanes or Harriers, a first.
Speaking of which, on 30 July, the first Italian F-35B landed on Cavour while the now-Lightning carrier was operating in the Gulf of Taranto.
On the journey to get there:
In related news, the current operational British Lightning carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08), entered the tense waters of the South China Sea last week, with F-35Bs of RAF 617 Squadron and the USMC’s VMFA-211 taking to the air during the evolution.
Warship Wednesday, July 28, 2021: What a Loony Idea
National Archives Photo 80-G-416714
Here we see, some 73 years ago this month, an LTV-N-2 guided missile going dramatically to pieces over the Balao-class guided-missile submarine USS Cusk (SSG-348), while off Point Mugu, California.
Let’s get another view of that, from the same day.
Horrified onlookers saw the boat disappear beneath a towering fireball and smoke cloud. “Everyone thought the Cusk had sunk,” remembers Captain Pat Murphy, USN (ret.) another Loon-era veteran. “But the Cusk’s captain [Fred Berry] saw what happened through the periscope and saw that there was no hull rupture. Well, he submerged. They had all the water they needed to put out the fire.” The Cusk survived with minor damage.
We’ll get on to the rest of the story of Cusk, but first, we should probably talk about the German rocket-carrying submarines of WWII.
Gruppe Seewolf and Operation Teardrop
The concept of strapping a primitive vengeance weapon rockets to a U-boat, then allowing it to creep across the Atlantic to get within range of American ports at, say New York or Boston, was attractive to the cropped mustachioed Austrian corporal and was even trialed. In 1942, U-511*, an advanced IXC type, test-fired a variety of rockets in the Baltic.
A rack for six 30 cm rockets was installed and extensive tests carried out. These concluded with the successful launch of rockets from a depth of 12m (40ft). These amazing tests failed to convince Donitz’s staff of the merit of this innovatory weapon system, and it was not put into service. The rocket in question, the 30cm Wurfkörper 42 Spreng, was not advanced enough to target ships, but it might have been used to bombard shore installations such as oil refineries in the Caribbean. This idea was developed in late 1944 with a proposal for Type XXI electro boats to tow V-2 launchers which would attack shore bases. Neither the launchers nor the type XXI boats became available before the war ended.
*Interesting, but beyond the scope of today’s post, U-511 was handed over to Japan on 16 September 1943 at Kure as a goodwill donation from Germany to the Emperor and became Japanese submarine RO-500, ultimately handed over to the USN and scuttled in 1946.
Fast forward to September 1944 and, although there was no functional German rocket submarine afloat, Abwehr agent Leutnant Oskar Mantel, who was to be landed on the East Coast near NYC to act as a paymaster for German spy rings, instead fell into the hands of the FBI after his U-boat was sunk off the coast of Maine. Spilling his guts, Mantel told tall tales of Vergeltungswaffen-equipped U-boats headed to Amerika. This was later backed up by Abwehr agents William Curtis Colepaugh and Eric Gimpel, the last agents Germany attempted to land in the United States, who were captured in late 1944.
The rumors, mixed with intel that seven advanced U-boats, assigned to Gruppe Seewolf, the last Atlantic Wolfpack, were headed across the Atlantic, sparked Operation Teardrop, an extensive barrier program of ASW assets that ranged the East Coast in early 1945. In the end, Gruppe Seewolf was a dismal failure and the German rocket submarine program never got off the drawing board.
Mark Felton on the German program if you want a deeper dive:
Enter Cusk
The U.S. Navy had, simultaneously with the Germans, attempted to use rockets from submarines in WWII, having mounted and semi-successfully fired a ripple of Mk 10 5-inch unguided rockets from the surfaced Gato-class submarine USS Barb (SS-220)on 22 June 1944, against the Japanese coastal town of Shari from a range of 5,250 yards.
As detailed by DANFS:
She fired 12 rockets that exploded in the town center causing damage but no fires. The Japanese believed that an air raid was in progress and activated air search radar and turned searchlights to the sky while Barb retired safely seaward.
Cusk, meanwhile, was too late for the war. Launched 76 years ago today– 28 July 1945– by Electric Boat Co., Groton, Connecticut, she only commissioned 5 February 1946. Following a Caribbean shakedown, she reported for duty at her planned homeport at San Diego on 6 June to join Submarine Division Fifty-One.
First Publicity Photo USS Cusk 1946. Note her late war “gunboat submarine” layout of two 5″/25cal deck guns and two 40mm singles on her sail. She could also mount two .50 cal BMGs which were kept below deck.
Crew of USS CUSK (SS-348) Group portrait, photographed by O.W. Waterman at San Diego, about 1946. Courtesy of Ted Stone, New York. NH 64048
As VE-Day faded to the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, the U.S. was eager to update its technology in the new Atomic era, borrowing where it could from captured German trade secrets to help stay a few steps away from the Russkis. This included snorkel and sonar tricks borrowed from Donitz’s boys, and modified V-1 rockets, cloned by Republic-Ford as the JB-2 (Jet Bomb no 2), popularly just called the Loon. While the Army Air Force soon launched hundreds of these American buzz bombs from ramps near Destin and Santa Rosa Island in West Florida, the Navy was eager to try out a few of their own.
Outfitted with an AN/ANP-33 radar transponder (instead of the V-1’s simple gyrocompass autopilot control) the Navy’s version of the JB-2, of which 399 were ultimately produced, could receive course corrections while in flight via a ship-or trailer-borne microwave radar. The Navy’s model of the Loon was the LTV-N-2 (Launch Test Vehicle, Navy 2) and the idea was that it could be fired from ramps located either on surface ships or ashore. However, instead of either of those, the first test platform was to be our humble little fleet boat.
With Cusk retrofitted at Mare Island with an airtight missile hangar and launch ramp behind her sail, it was thought she could carry and launch a Loon while at sea. As the ramjet engine had no possible underwater launch capability, the idea was that the submarine would battle surface, unpack the missile from the hangar, make it ready to fire by attaching wings and four JATO rockets, and fire it from the surface with support from the sub’s SV-1 type radar for the first 50 miles or so– no speedy task. Early tests found that it took an hour to accomplish. As Loon could carry a 2,200-pound warhead of conventional explosives (the V-1 only carried 1,870-pounds) to a target approximately 160 miles away, though, it was deemed worth the risk.
USS CUSK (SSG-348) With an LTV “Loon” on launcher and deck hangar during operations off Point Mugu, California, 20 January 1948. 80-G-410665
The arrangement of Cusk’s hangar and launch rail, from a Point Magu report on the Loon.
On 12 February 1947, Cusk made the Navy’s first missile launch from a submarine, ushering in the era of today’s Harpoon, Tomahawk, and Trident-equipped attack boats and boomers. It was not a success.
USS CUSK (SS-348) First launching of a Loon missile, off Point Mugu, California. Wed, Feb 12, 1947. The missile reportedly traveled 6,000 yards and then crashed. NH 72680
Of course, there were dramatic incidents such as the one shown at the top of this post– Loon had a failure rate of about 45 percent as a whole and it would not be until Cusk’sfifth launch that the missile was considered fully successful– other launches would be more productive. To note her new mission, Cusk was designated Submarine, Guided Missile (SSG) 348, on 20 January 1948.
Launch of a Loon missile from USS CUSK (SSG-348), off Point Mugu, California. Sun, Sep 12, 1948. NH 72688
Same as above, NH 72689
Same as above, NH 72690
Loon Derby launch #586 (SL-160) from USS Cusk (SSG-348), Naval Air Facility, Point Mugu, California, June 29, 1949. 80-G-405931
One other fleet boat, the Balao-class USS Carbonero (SS-337), would join Cusk as a Loon launcher in a series of tests conducted between 1947 and 1952, demonstrating that the Germans, if they had pushed just a little harder or had an extra year or two worth of time, could have produced an Unterseeboot-carried vengeance weapon. The sisters would participate in a fleet operation that would herald today’s missile boats.
A November 1949 Navy exercise, off Hawaii, provided convincing evidence. Loon missiles fired from the submarines USS Cusk and USS Carbonero managed to escape unharmed through a gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire from thirty-five surface vessels and elude the machine guns of fighter aircraft from carriers USS Valley Forge and USS Boxer.
And Cusk would set a few records that today sound like footnotes but for the time were incredible. Quigg:
In the most successful transfer of radio guidance control of a missile from ship to shore on March 22, 1950, the USS Cusk launched a Loon just off Point Mugu. The Cusk guided the missile for twenty-five miles before surrendering radio control to a station on San Nicolas Island. Navy technicians on the island guided the missile another twenty-five miles to a splashdown in the Pacific just over a thousand feet from the center of the target. On May 3, the Cusk set a new distance record for the Loon. Diving to periscope depth immediately after the launch, the submarine controlled the missile and tracked its position for 105 nautical miles.
In all, the Navy would launch 46 Loon missiles from shore launchers at Point Mugu, 38 from our two submarines, and three from the seaplane tender USS Norton Sound. Coupled with launches made elsewhere in the Pacific, Cusk would fire at least 77 Loons in her short career, with the last taking to the air on 6 November 1952.
However, the twin Loon boats would be left behind by technology, the program canceled in 1953– although 25 missiles had been married up to warheads and made available just in case they were needed for use in Korean War. Carbonero was redesignated an Auxiliary Submarine (AGSS-337) in 1949 and both subs would soon chop to help develop the follow-on SSM-N-8A Regulus missile program, which would successfully launch a 400-mile range missile in 1953. Meanwhile, Cusk would continue to be a testbed platform for missile guidance equipment but would lose her “SSG” designation in 1954 as she carried no missiles of her own.
Just nine years to the day after Pearl Harbor: USS Cusk (SSG-348) off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, 7 December 1950. She has her missile hangar but no Loon present. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1980. NH 90848
USS CUSK (SS-348), same location and date as above, NH 90846
In 1954, Cusk would receive a basic “Fleet Snorkel” GUPPY conversion at Mare Island and leave her “hangar” and ramp behind, and pick up a new, more streamlined fairweather while still maintaining her advanced missile avionics gear. Her AN/BPQ-1 (XN-1) Regulus missile guidance equipment was only finally removed in 1960.
USS CUSK (SS-348) Off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Mare Island, California, circa 1954, following SCB 47B conversion to a “Fleet-Snorkel” submarine. NH 90849
This unusual view shows 11 vessels of Submarine Squadron Five (nine submarines in a variety of GUPPY configurations, a submarine rescue vessel, and a submarine tender) moored side by side for a recent change of command ceremony at San Diego, California. CPT Eugene B. “Lucky” Fluckey, USN, MOH, relieved CPT Francis B. Scanland, USN, as Commander, SUBRON5 on August 1, 1955. Nested alongside the submarine tender USS Nereus (AS 17) are the Regulus missile boat USS Tunny (SSG 282), USS Cusk (SS 348), USS Carbonero (SS 337), USS Tilefish (SS 307), USS Spinax (SS 489), USS Rock (SS 274), USS Remora (SS 487), USS Catfish (SS 339), and USS Volador (SS 490), and the submarine rescue vessel, USS Florikan (ASR 9). USN photo 681920
Cusk (SSG-348) and Remora (SS-487) in 1963. What might be an SSK, Bashaw (SSK-241), Bluegill (SSK-242), or Bream (SSK-243)) is bringing up the rear. Photo i.d. courtesy of John Hummel, USN (Retired). USN photo courtesy of flickr.com via Stephen Gower, through Navsource.
Her homeport shifted to Pearl Harbor, Cusk completed five lengthy Westpac cruises (1958, during which she would participate in Special operations near Soviet ICBM range in Vladivostok; 1960; 1962, where she would serve as the Subplot 7 Mining platform, 1963, where she would spend two months in North Korean water before her and sister ship USS Carbonero were rewarded with a show-the-flag visit to French Polynesia; and 1964-65) as a standard diesel-electric fleet boat in a “smooth” condition. During her 1962 cruise, Cusk made a month-long patrol in the tense South China Sea and spent another month in Yokosuka and Sasebo, serving as a sonar training target for Japanese destroyers and aircraft. Her 64-65 Westpac would include significant time on Yankee Station as an ASW asset, and three close-in patrols of the North Vietnamese coast via the Gulf of Tonkin.
Again, moving homeports, this time to San Diego, in 1966, Cusk would go on to complete two further Westpac cruises in 1967 and 1969, with both spending time in the Vietnam area of operations. On her last tour, she would be submerged on patrol for 43 days in the South China Sea, conducting special operations in Communist Chinese waters, of which her Veteran’s group recalls, “It was an adventurous time that included on one occasion, accidentally straying into an abandoned minefield. Later during the reconnaissance patrol, the Cusk was detected and attacked by unfriendly forces.”
Her time with the Navy coming to an end, Cusk sailed to Hunter’s Point Shipyard, was Auxiliary Research Submarine (AGSS-348) on 30 June 1969, and “she was gutted of virtually all of her equipment by her final crew. Everything that would fit through a hatch was lifted out, stacked on pallets on the pier, and hauled away for scrap.”
Following that, she was decommissioned on September 24, 1969, and the hulk was sold 26 June 1972, to Zidell Exploration, Inc. of Portland, Oregon, for $112,013.
Besides her 77 Loons and title as the world’s first guided-missile submarine, Cusk stood by to deliver said missiles during Korea, was awarded the Armed Forces Expeditionary Award (1964) and four Vietnam Service Awards (1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969) in addition to holding down numerous Battle Efficiency “E” awards.
Epilogue
A former Navy-owned Loon was donated to the Smithsonian in 1965, 12 years after the program shuttered, and is on display in the Boeing Aviation Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
One-half right side view of Loon Missile as displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia
Loon launches from the Cusk were featured in an episode of Time for Defense (a radio program broadcast nationally on the ABC network), and in the May 1950 issue of Popular Sciencealong with the January 1953 issue of Parade, where she graced the cover.
On Christmas weekend 1950, Columbia Pictures released the Glenn Ford submarine vehicle The Flying Missile, which features the actor as the skipper of the fictionalized SSG USS Bluefin, including footage of our very own USS Cusk, although the Loon program was on its last legs before the film hit cinemas.
Cusk’s rapidly shifting profile from 1946 to 1947, to 1954, as told by Submarine Sighting Guide Spec VA52.A92 ONI 31SS Rev.1.
(1946) Displacement: 1,570 tons (std); 1,980 (normal); 2,415 tons submerged Length: 311 ft. 8 inches Beam: 27 ft. 3 inches Operating depth: 400 feet Propulsion: diesel-electric reduction gear with four Fairbanks Morse main generator engines, 5,400HP, two Elliot Motor Co. main motors with 2,740HP, two 126-cell main storage batteries, two propellers. Speed: 20 surfaced, 10 submerged Fuel Capacity: 113,510 gal. Range: 11,000nm @ 10 knots surfaced, 48 hours at 2 knots submerged, 75-day patrol endurance Complement 7 officers 69 enlisted (planned), actual manning 10 officers, 76 men Radar: SV. APR and SPR-2 receivers, TN tuning units, AS-125 antenna, SPA Pulse Analyzer, F-19 and F-20 Wave Traps, VD-2 PPI Repeater (1946 fit) Sonar: WFA projector, JP-1 hydrophone (1946 fit) Armament: (1946) 10 x 21-inch torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 28 torpedoes max (typically MK V), or up to 40 mines 2 x 5″/25 deck guns (wet mounts) 2 x 40mm guns (wet mounts) 2 x .50 cal. machine guns (detachable) (1947, as SSG) 10 x 21-inch torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 28 torpedoes max or up to 40 mines 1 Loon surface-to-surface missile 2 x .50 cal. machine guns (detachable) (1954, as Fleet Snorkel SS) 6 x 21-inch torpedo tubes, forward, 18 torpedoes (typically MK 14), or up to 30 mines. 2 x .50 cal. machine guns (detachable)
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Warship Wednesday, July 21, 2021: Luckiest of the Italian Heavies
Here we see the Zara-class incrociatore (heavy cruiser) Gorizia of the Regia Marina, with her sister Fiume, anchored in Venice circa September 1937. The Palazzo Ducale is in the distance to the left, where the visiting British County-class cruiser HMS London (69) rests in a place of honor pierside. Note the whaleboat in the foreground with the duster of the Royal Navy, which called on the City of Canals that summer under the flag of VADM Sir Charles Kennedy-Purvis. Of course, the British would revisit Italian harbors several times just a few years later, but under much less cordial terms, and often at night.
The four Zaras were impressive in scale, at some 599-feet in length overall, and had an “official” Naval Treaty standard weight of 10,000-tons, although their actual full load weight was closer to 14,500 tons. Using eight British pattern Thornycroft boilers and a pair of Parsons steam turbines, they could make 32 knots even with a very strong armor scheme (up to 5.9-inches) for interbellum cruisers.
The primary armament for these Italian heavies was eight 8″/53 Model 1927 Ansaldos, mounted in four twin turrets. These guns had a range of about 34,500 yards firing 270-pound AP shells and, due to the electrically-powered training and elevation and hydraulically powered rammers used in their mountings could fire as fast as 3.8 rounds per minute per gun– very respectable for the era.
Heavy cruiser Gorizia, 1941, with members of her crew clustered in front of her forward 8 inch mounts. Although excellent guns, the very tight mountings limited the spread of shell fire.
Secondary armament consisted of 16 3.9″/47 O.T.O. Model 1928 DP guns in eight twin shielded mounts. Basically, an unlicensed version of the old Austro-Hungarian Navy’s Skoda K10/K11 that the Italians fell in love with when they saw it on war prizes in 1918, O.T.O. had revamped the design into a decent AAA piece with a ceiling of 33,000 feet.
Incrociatore Zara pezzi da 100 47 mm O.T.O. mod.1928
Unlike most cruisers built in the first half of the 20th Century, the Zara class did not carry any torpedoes, but they did, awkwardly, have a bow-mounted catapult for two single-engine floatplanes.
Italian heavy cruiser Zara incrociatori pesanti classe Zara in navigazione. Photographer Miniati, Bruno 1939, Alinari archives. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
Richard Worth, in his Fleets of World War II, notes that the Zaras had a lot of attributes that set them up for success.
They were handsome ships, dry and stable, with the most endurance among Italian cruisers (5,000+ miles at 16 knots). With 13 percent of their tonnage devoted to protection, they showed an excellent concentration of metal; only American cruisers had thicker belt armor. The guns were paired too closely but they otherwise performed well. If the Italians had persisted in designs like this one, they could have deployed a powerful fleet indeed.
Laid down at O.T.O. Livorno on 17 March 1930, Gorizia was completed just 21 months later on 23 December 1931.
The class, among the most advanced and formidable in the world during the “Treaty” era, was a favorite of the U.S. ONI, and several period photos are in the collection of the Navy Heritage Command, likely gleaned from open sources by Naval attaches in Europe before the war.
Italian ship: GORIZIA. Italy – CA (Zara class). Italian fleet in the harbor of Naples. Catalog #: NH 111423
The four Zara class heavy cruisers, seen during the late 1930s, possibly at the now-infamous May 1938 “H Review” along the Gulf of Naples in which Il Duce tried very hard to impress his little Austrian buddy with the funny mustache. The four ships are (unidentified as to order in the photograph): ZARA (1930-1941); FIUME (1930-1941); GORIZIA (1930-1944); and POLA (1931-1941). NH 86333
The Four Italian ZARA Class Heavy Cruisers at Naples. The late 1930s, all four sister cruisers at anchor from front to back: FIUME (1930-41), ZARA (1930-41), POLA (1931-41), and GORIZIA (1930-44.) NH 86432
The “four sisters” of Italian heavy cruisers. From left to right: GORIZIA (1930-1944), POLA (1931-1941), ZARA (1930-1941), and FIUME (1930-1941) at Naples, circa 1938. One of the Italian Navy’s training ships, AMERIGO VESPUCCI (1930) or CRISTOFORO COLOMBO (1928), appears in the distance to the right. NH 86577
Italian ship: Heavy cruiser GORIZIA. Italy – CA (Zara class). Photographed during 1935 in the Suez Canal. NH 111424
GORIZIA (Italian Heavy Cruiser, 1930-44) Photographed at a fleet review before World War II, possibly at Naples in 1938. Three other heavy cruisers and three destroyers appear in the background. NH 86107
GORIZIA (Italian heavy cruiser, 1930-1944) Detail view of the ship forward superstructure, seen from the starboard side in a pre-World War II photograph. Note sailors waving. NH 86304
In the decade prior to WWII, the Zaras in general and Gorizia, in particular, was very busy, spending much time lending Franco a quiet hand in the Spanish Civil War, to include intercepting the fleeing Republican fleet out of Cartegena–consisting of the cruisers Miguel de Cervantes, Libertad, and Mendez Nuñez, along with eight destroyers and two submarines– in March 1939, which was desperately trying to make a friendly exile in Soviet Russia via the Black Sea. Instead, the Spanish had to settle for internment in French Tunisia where its commander, ADM Miguel Buiza, later volunteered for the French Foreign Legion, a force swelled at the time with former Republicans.
It was during the Spanish Civil War that Gorizia let the cat out of the bag on the fact of how outside of the naval treaty limits they were. While holding station off Spain in August 1936, she suffered an avgas explosion that blew out parts of her bow, forcing her to put into British Gibraltar for emergency repairs.
There, dockyard workers and RN personnel were easily able to ascertain that she was grossly overweight and up-armored from her “public” specs and quietly reported it up the chain, although the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, never took up the matter with Rome.
In another prelude to the Big Show, Gorizia accompanied the rest of her class to help support the quickly accomplished Italian invasion of Albania in April 1939 while the British fleet, a force that saw itself as the Lion of the Med, was infamously “lolling about in Italian harbors.”
The Main Event
When Italy entered WWII against France and Britain as one of the Axis Powers in June 1940, the Zara class was in for a wild ride.
Italian battlefleet off Gaeta in 1940 showing four Zara class cruisers, two Trento class cruisers, and Bolzano
The very next month, the four sisters managed to come out of the Battle of Calabria against the British fleet without damage and, that November, were all clustered in Taranto when British Swordfish torpedo bombers famously penetrated the harbor and smacked around the Italian battleships, again surviving without a scratch. In the follow-on Battle of Capo Teulada, Gorizia fired a dozen salvos and bird-dogged the British squadron with her seaplanes, with no real effect on either side.
Gorizia’s luck continued to hold when, missing the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 as she was escorting convoys to Libya, all three of her sisters, Pola, Zara, and Fiume, were sacrificed needlessly to the guns of British battleships, with horrendous loss of life. All that 5.9-inch plate was of no use against point-blank hits from 15-inch guns, it turned out, a lesson the Brits had previously handed out to Von Spee’s squadron in the Falklands in 1914.
Fiume, a Zara-class heavy cruiser sunk during Battle of Cape Matapan, 29 March 1941, painting by Adam Werka
The only survivor of her class, Gorizia fought at both inconclusive surface actions known as the battles of Sirte, again without taking hits in either.
Gorizia opens fire with her 8in guns on British forces at the Second Battle of Sirte, 22 March 1942
Gorizia cruiser class Zara, in Messina, March 23, 1942, after 2nd Sirte
The U.S. Navy’s ONI 202 listing for Italian ships, released in early 1942, carried Gorizia.
Endgame
Her luck ran out on 10 April 1943.
The last two operational Italian heavy cruisers, Gorizia, and the Trento-class Trieste, were subjected to an attack by 84 Algerian-based B-17Fs of the 15th Air Force’s 301st Bombardment Group (Heavy) and 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy), while anchored near Sardinia’s Caprera Island.
As noted at the time by the War Department:
The Italian heavy cruiser Trieste was sunk & the heavy cruiser Gorizia was severely damaged when Flying Fortresses of the U.S. Northwest African Air Forces attacked them as they lay at anchor at the Naval base of La Maddalena on the Northern coast of 4/10. The attack was made by one of the largest formations of Fortresses ever to be put into the air. Both vessels received direct hits. Reconnaissance photographs taken since the attack show Gorizia still afloat but in badly damaged condition with several tugs alongside and a large amount of oil spreading over the water around her. It is apparent that she will be out of action for a long time. The Fortresses, which were unescorted, all returned safely to base.
“The Italian heavy cruiser Gorizia was severely damaged when planes of the 342nd Bomb Squadron, 97th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force attacked as it lay at anchor at the Naval Base of La Maddalena on the northern coast of Sardinia on 10 April 1943.” (U.S. Air Force Number 3A26988, via NARA)
“The 11,000-ton Italian cruiser Gorizia lying off La Maddalena harbor of Northern Sardinia. One of the largest Flying Fortress formations badly damaged the Gorizia with direct hits on April 10. Its sister ship, the 10,000-ton Trieste was sunk on the same raid. Lines around Gorizia are anti-torpedo nets.” (U.S. Air Force Number 24037AC, via NARA)
“Here, the stern and bow of the cruiser Gorizia are dimly seen through the smoke and flames of many bombs burst on her deck and in the water around her.” (U.S. Air Force Number A23879AC, via NARA)
“Here, the bow of the Trieste is seen high out of the water as she receives a direct hit on the stern and many other bombs burst around her.” (U.S. Air Force Number 23879AC, via NARA)
In the attack, the Fortresses landed at least three 500-pound bombs on Gorizia, with one penetrating the rear super firing turret and the other two the armored deck next to the port side superstructure. Meanwhile, near-misses wracked the hull and caused limited flooding. She suffered 63 deaths and 97 wounded.
Two days later, on 12 April, emergency repairs were effected, and Gorizia steamed for La Spezia where she entered dry dock on 4 May.
It was while high and dry in La Spezia that word came in September of the Italian surrender to the Allies. As the Germans moved in to seize the harbor, the ship’s skipper mulled an order to flood the dock and further scuttle the already heavily damaged ship but was not able to carry it out. Either way, the Germans found her in poor condition and simply moved Gorizia, sans crew, from the dry dock to the harbor, where they left her to swing at her anchors near the similarly abandoned Bolzano.
With aerial photography showing the (believed) still mighty cruisers afloat in La Spezia despite several raids from B-25s and could nonetheless be used as block ships by the Germans, a team of volunteer co-belligerent Italian X MAS Flotilla frogmen, working in conjunction with the British, infiltrated the harbor’s “defenses” on the night of 21/22 June 1944 by means of Chariot human torpedoes and SLC speedboats with the aim of sinking same. Codenamed Operation QWZ, just two British/Italian Chariots made it into the harbor and only one found her target. Hint, it was not Gorizia.
While Bolzano went to the harbor bottom, the abandoned Gorizia escaped mining and still had enough compartments intact to remain afloat until the Allies liberated the harbor in April 1945.
“Italian light cruiser Gorizia First Caught It Off Sardinia from 15th Air Force, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, later from North American B-25 Mitchells At La Spezia.” (U.S. Air Force Number 57668AC, via NARA)
Epilogue
Surveyed and considered wrecked, Gorizia, although the last Italian heavy cruiser not underwater in 1945, was passed over both by the Allies’ prize committee and the newly-formed post-war Marina Militare.
Gorizia is not listed in the 1946-47 Jane’s Fighting Ships entry for Italy.
Stricken from the naval register on 27 February 1947, she was subsequently raised and slowly broken up for scrap.
The modern Italian Navy has not recycled the name, that of an often controversial former Austrian border town and Great War battleground which now sits astride the Slovenian line. The Marine Militare does have a short memorial page to the old cruiser, though.
Several period postcards are in circulation with particularly good views of the vessel.
You have to admit, the Zaras had beautiful lines
Gorizia continues to sail in plastic as she has been the subject of several scale model kits including those by Tauro and Trumpeter, which have resulted in some interesting maritime art.
Specs: Displacement: 13,660 t (standard), 14,460 t (full) Length: 599 ft. (overall) Beam: 67 ft. Draft: 23 ft. Propulsion: 8 Thornycroft boilers, 2 Parsons turbines, 2 propellers, 95,000 hp Speed 33 knots Range: 5,434 nm at 16 knots Crew: 31 officers and 810 sailors Armor: vertical belt, turrets: 150 mm; horizontal: 70 mm Aircraft: 2 Piaggio P6bis seaplanes, later replaced by Macchi M.41, CANT 25AR, CMASA MF6, and finally (1938) IMAM Ro.43. Bow catapult Armament: 4 x 2 203/53 Mod. 1927 6 x 2 100/47 OTO Mod. 1928 (Skoda M1910) 4 x 1 40/39 mm QF Vickers-Terni pattern AAA pom-pom guns 14 x 20/65 mm Breda Mod. 35 AAA guns 8 x 13.2 mm Breda Mod. 31 machine guns
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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, July 14, 2021: The Edison Bubblehead Connection
U.S. War Department photo 165-WW-338B-30, via the National Archives.
Here we see the early Narwhal/D-class USS D-3 submersible (Submarine No. 19, ex-Salmon) underway off New York City during the October 1912 Naval Review with the fog-shrouded pre-dreadnought battlewagon USS Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) in the background. Note the Battle Efficiency “E” award displayed proudly on D-3‘s fairwater, her tuna-tower style surface running bridge complete with a life ring, and her submariners wearing no doubt spotless crackerjacks. Although the name “USS D-3” doesn’t inspire, or garner much name recognition to naval history buffs, this humble little boat pulled off a few “firsts” that deserve recognition.
The trio of boats that made up the Navy’s D-class submarine family– Narwhal (D-1, SS-17), Grayling (D-2, SS-18), and Salmon (D-3, SS-19) — were all laid down on the same day, 16 April 1908 by Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, Mass., under subcontract from the newly-formed Electric Boat Company of, Groton, Connecticut. At the time of ordering, they were reportedly the largest submersibles designed, being 134 feet in length overall and displacing 337 tons. Using port and starboard gasoline (!) engines, theoretically capable of developing 300 horsepower each, they were designed to reach 16 knots surfaced (although this proved to be closer to 13 knots in operation. For submerged operations, they had two 97 kW electric motors fed by two 60-cell batteries enabling a brief (three-hour burst) speed of about 8 knots while underwater. They were short boats. From the tip of the tallest periscope to the outermost layer of paint at the bottom of the keel on a D-class submarine was about 50 feet, meaning they could completely submerge at anything past the 10-fathom line.
Compared to today’s submarines, they had lots of issues. For instance, it took the class a full three minutes to submerge. Further, their torpedo battery, two tubes each on her starboard and port bows, took a solid minute to flood and used small (18-inch) fish without the room to carry reloads– although they were the first U.S. boats to be able to fire a potentially devastating four-torpedo brace all at once.
USS Narwhal (D-1) Torpedo Room. Photo via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum
The torpedo tube doors used muzzle caps that rolled into place, rather than the later door-style system incorporated after the D-class. USS Narwhal (D-1) Under construction. The date of the photo is Feb 7, 1909. Photo via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum via PigBoats.com
Bliss-Leavitt Torpedo Mark 3, 1911. A turbine-driven torpedo, designed by M.F.M. Leavitt, an engineer at E.W. Bliss Co., with tweaks from LCDR Gregory Caldwell Davison, USN, (more on him, below.) Alcohol was mixed with super-heated compressed air to provide motive power for the turbine. The Navy adopted this torpedo circa 1904 and used various models of it for the next 22 years. The D-class submarines, for almost all their career, used the larger Bliss-Leavitt Mark 4, a 1,500-pound, 16.4-foot long, 17.7-inch model with a range of about 1,000 yards. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph, NH 82836
However, they did mount some innovative signal gear, amounting to an Allied Signal Bell on the deck (with an air-operated clapper) and a “stethoscope apparatus, permitting transmission of signals with sister ships when submerged at a distance of about one mile.” They also carried a series of both observation and attack periscopes, the latter with range finders, which were cutting edge for 1908.
Remember, Mr. Holland’s first primitive submarine was only placed in service by the U.S. Navy in 1900.
Salmon was commissioned on 8 September 1910. However, the previous July, before she joined the Navy, Electric Boat took her on one hell of a builder’s trials.
Record-setting trip
With her navigator the esteemed LCDR Gregory Caldwell Davison, USN, Ret, and Electric Boat’s VP at the time, PCU Salmon set out from the Fore River bound for Hamilton, Bermuda in a historic “overseas” cruise with a 1,700-mile round trip.
She embarked a mixed 21-man crew made up of four naval enlisted men along with LT D.A Weaver as skipper, and Asst Naval Constructor D.R. Battles as ship’s engineer; 13 builder’s tradesmen under Davison’s control; and one Captain A. Cuevas of the Chilean Navy who was very keen on acquiring submarines. As these 21 souls were shipping out in a boat built to accommodate 14 (and could be run by five!) they landed most of the installed bunks as well as the torpedoes (the tubes cleaned and filled with potable water as there was no desalination equipment) and the ship was crammed with crated spare parts and supplies, with air mattresses directly over the battery deck.
PCU Salmon’s hybrid Navy/Electric Boat crew on deck while on her trip to Bermuda in 1910 via The US Navy Submarine Force Museum & Pigboats.org
It was the first international deployment for a Navy submarine (although she wasn’t commissioned just yet and had shattered the fleet’s previous submarine record (483nm) achieved by the USS Viper (Submarine # 10, later USS B-1) while also besting British (512nm) and French (1,200nm) records as well.
“The new submarine Salmon (SS-19), which will soon be turned over to the government, has broken all records by making, unattended an ocean trip of several hundred miles. She left Provincetown MA, and arrived in Bermuda, making an average speed of eight and one-half miles an hour.” Image and text provided by Washington State Library, Olympia, WA. & Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN. Photo from The Tacoma Times. (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 03 August 1910, Image 6, & PDF from The Appeal. (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1889-19??, 22 October 1910, Image 1, courtesy of chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. via Navsource.
Once she was turned over to the Navy and commissioned, she promptly joined the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet at Newport, Rhode Island.
There, this stupendous record-setting submarine chalked up another first: she appeared in a movie.
The Edison Home Kinetoscope small gauge (22mm) process was very durable, and estimates are that upward of 70 percent of his studio’s films are still around in one form or another– as opposed to just 5 percent of other silent period films recorded in other formats.
Of the 2,100 Edison Studios motion pictures made between 1894 and 1919, just one featured a commissioned submarine in action, 1910’s United States Submarine Salmon.
The film shows the “Salmon” at close range, running on surface, submerging by water ballast, making “porpoise” dives, and running submerged so far that only the top of the periscopes are visible. All the pictures were taken from an accompanying boat and in a fairly rough sea, and it is not going too far to say that the effect is thrilling. To the many thousands of people who are keenly interested in the modern submarine boat, yet who never have had, and never may have, an opportunity to see one, the picture will be a rare treat from a spectacular standpoint, aside from its educational value. Through the courtesy and cooperation of the Holland Electric Boat Company, we are enabled to present it to the motion picture public.
The remainder of her service was busy but not quite as heady. Salmon/D-2 was part of the forces operating in Mexican waters following the occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914, appeared in a series of naval reviews, and spent two years in Key West as the flagship of Submarine Division 2.
The USS Salmon (D-3) on the surface with her bridge canvas rigged probably on Long Island Sound for exercises. Via Pigboats
USS Salmon (Submarine #19, SS-19, later D-3); USS Grayling (Submarine #18, SS-18, later D-2); USS Tarpon (Submarine #14, later C-3); USS Octopus (Submarine #9, later C-1); USS Bonita (Submarine #15, later C-4); and the battleship, USS Nebraska (Battleship #14). George Grantham Bain Collection, October 31, 1911. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-B2-2335-12
USS Salmon (Submarine # 19) Crew posed on deck, while cruising out of Newport, Rhode Island, in October 1911. William D. Crowell, an architect from St. Louis, Missouri, was on board at the time. He gave this photograph to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in 1944, in reminiscence of the old days. Collection of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN. NH 58514
In November 1911, the Narwhal class lost their fish names, as did the earlier classes of U.S. submarines, and traded them in for alpha-numeric, in this case, D names.
Around 1914-15 she became a favorite subject of a New York City-based commercial photographer, Robert Enrique Muller, Jr., who was an official shutterbug for the Navy Department. He visited D-3 on what looks to be at least two different periods while she was in the Cape Cod area, snapping several photos that appeared in naval publications and as postcards.
USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Coming to the Surface, prior to World War I. Photographed by N. Moser, New York, and Enrique Muller, Jr. Note the submarine fish flag atop her after periscope and winch for handling torpedoes. She has a “D-3” on her bow, partially submerged, and a “2” for Submarine Squadron Two, on her sail. 165-WW-338B-58 via NARA
USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Underway submerged, with periscope trained on the camera, prior to World War I. Photographed by N. Moser, New York, and Enrique Muller, Jr. Collection of Christopher H.W. Lloyd. NH 102650
USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Halftone reproduction of a photograph by N. Moser and Enrique Muller, Jr., showing the submarine underway submerged, circa 1916, with her periscope trained on the camera. Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1973. NH 77469
USS D-3 (Submarine # 19) Underway, prior to World War I. Photograph by Enrique Muller, printed in the book Our Navy in the War, by Lawrence Perry, 1922. NH 82569
“Handling torpedoes USS D-3” (Submarine # 19), photo listed by Enrique Muller of the “Committee for Public Information” in New York, NY, taken July 1915. Note the varied uniforms of her crew, the stowed boathook to the left, and the boat’s overall low freeboard. War Department photo 165-WW-321C-049 via NARA.
Wartime Service
USS D-2, D-1 & D-3 shown on May 10, 1915 (the bow of the E-2 can be seen to the left) on the upper west side of New York city moored at the 135th Street piers as part of the Presidential Review for President Wilson with the Atlantic Fleet. Via Pigboats
On 18 October 1915, the submarines D-1 (SS-17), D-2 (SS-18), D-3 (SS-19), E-1 (SS-24), G-1 (SS-19 1/2), G-2 (SS-27), and G-4 (SS-26) arrived at the New London Navy Yard in Groton, Connecticut, where they became the first such craft stationed at what is now Naval Submarine Base New London. There, they would spend the next few years alternating training duties for new submarine service volunteers with neutrality patrol and, after April 1917, active combat patrols. During this time, D-3 would have as her commander Lieutenant (j.g.) Robert Henry English (USNA 1911) who would go on to be COMSUBPAC in WWII.
“U.S. Submarines awaiting Orders” Halftone reproduction, printed on a postal card, of a photograph of five submarines nested together prior to World War I. The three boats at right are (from center to right): USS D-2 (Submarine # 18); USS D-1 (Submarine # 17); and USS D-3 (Submarine # 19). The two at left are probably (in no order) USS E-1 (Submarine # 24) and USS E-2 (Submarine # 25). Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (Medical Service Corps), 1973. NH 78926
USS D-3 (Submarine # 19, ex-Salmon) Alongside a dock with other submarines on an icy day, circa 1918. The location is probably the Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut. D-3 appears to be wearing pattern camouflage. Other submarines present are (moving outward from D-3: USS D-1 (Submarine # 17); USS G-4 (Submarine # 26); and USS G-3 (Submarine # 31). NH 99157
Postwar, her career was limited as the Navy had several new classes of submarines that were much more advanced. Placed in reserve on 5 September 1919, then in ordinary on 15 July 1921, she was towed to Philadelphia Navy Yard and decommissioned 20 March 1922. Three months later, she was sold for scrap.
More Edison-Navy Connections
Edison had several additional ties to the Navy besides the Salmon film. His early nickel-iron (NiFe) battery was trialed for submarine operations as were other inventions of his.
During the Great War, he lent his status and energy (see what I did there) to help expand the Navy’s brain pool.
Thomas Edison, when asked by a New York Times correspondent to comment on the conflict, argued that the Nation should look to science. The Government, he proposed in a published interview, should maintain a great research laboratory…. In this could be developed … all the technique of military and naval progression without any vast expense.
Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels seized the opportunity created by Edison’s public comments to enlist Edison’s support. He agreed to serve as the head of a new body of civilian experts — the Naval Consulting Board — to advise the Navy on science and technology. The Board’s most ambitious plan was the creation of a modern research facility for the Navy. Congress allocated $1.5 million for the institution in 1916, but wartime delays and disagreements within the Naval Consulting Board postponed construction until 1920. And so it was that NRL began operations at 11:00 a.m. on July 2, 1923.
In 1920, the Navy Department awarded him the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. Then, in 1940, the Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor. A second vessel named after the inventor, USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine, was commissioned in 1962.
USS Thomas A Edison (SSBN-610) an Ethan Allen-class ballistic-missile submarine, was ultimately decommissioned in 1983 after 21 years of dedicated service as a Polaris boat. She was also the only U.S. submarine conducting nuclear deterrent patrols to have a full-sized Steinway piano installed. Her motto was Potentia Tenebras Repellendi (Power to Repel the Darkness). NH 82295
There is a commemorative sign to the “Original Salmon” at The US Navy Submarine Force Museum
Muller’s images were often reproduced as color photomechanical print postcards, and many survive today that feature USS D-3.
Of her sisters, USS Grayling (D-2) SS-18, would be the first U.S. submarine to test bow planes, the first to be commanded by a “mustang” officer, LT Owen Hill— one of the original crewmen of the USS Holland (SS-1) — and discovered the Imperial German Navy submarine SM U-53 off Rhode Island in 1916 while on neutrality patrol. Meanwhile, class leader USS Narwhal (D-1) SS-17, in 1911 sensationally documented an encounter with whales as attributed to a young LT Chester Nimtz.
The whale of a tale, attributed to Nimitz by the old New York World, is thought to be fake news today. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Like Salmon/D-2, both her sisters were decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1922.
The Navy, while they never saw the appeal of recycling the name “D-3,” did commission a few later Salmons. The second Salmon, SS-182, was a curious composite diesel-hydraulic and diesel-electric submarine commissioned in 1938. At sea off Luzon on 8 December 1941, she started her first war patrol (of 12!) immediately upon receiving word of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. By 1945, she earned nine battlestars and a Presidential Unit Citation, racking up a tally sheet of Japanese shipping during the conflict.
USS Salmon (SS-182), running speed trials on 29 December 1937. She was scrapped in 1946, less than a decade after she joined the fleet, worn out after extensive wartime service. USN 410380
The third and so far, (as of 2021) final USS Salmon (SSR/SS/AGSS-573) was a Sailfish-class radar picket submarine commissioned in 1956. Later GUPPY-fied, she would become a normal hunter-killer and then an auxiliary research submarine, completing nine West Pac deployments including two with the Seventh Fleet off Vietnam where she conducted special operations. After decommissioning in 1977, she lingered on for another 15 years as a shallow water sonar target hulk, was sunk off Long Island where she continues to clock in as a bottom target.
USS Salmon (SS-573) underway in San Francisco Bay, the early 1970s. Naval Subjects Collection. Catalog #: L45-251.01.01
If you are curious about the D-boats, or any old pre-1940 U.S. Submarine, please visit Pig Boats.com
Specs:
Salmon, SS-19, Drawing by Jim Christley. Photo & text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press, via Navsource.
Displacement: 288 long tons (293 t) surfaced 337 long tons (342 t) submerged Length 134 ft 10 in Beam 13 ft 11 in Draft 12 ft 6 in Installed power 600 bhp (450 kW) (gasoline) 330 hp (250 kW) (electric) Propulsion, Surfaced; 2 x Craig Shipbuilding Co. 6cyl, 4 cycle gasoline engines = 600 total shp, 2 shafts Propulsion, Submerged: 2 x Electro Dynamic Co. 97 kW electric motors, 2 shafts Batteries: 2 x 60-cell Electric Storage Battery Company Model 23-WL, 2,970 amp/hr. capacity each. Speed: 13 knots, surfaced; 9.5 knots, submerged Range: 1,179 nm at 9.3 knots on the surface, 24 nm at 8 knots submerged Test depth: 200 feet Complement: 1 officer, 14 enlisted Armament 4 x 18 inch (450 mm) bow torpedo tubes for 17.7-inch torpedoes with no reloads
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Warship Wednesday, July 7, 2021: Chatham’s Last Cruiser
Photograph A 8166, taken by LT. EA Zimmerman, from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Here we see Dido-class AA cruiser HMS Euryalus (42) elevate her forward 5.25-inch guns to shell the Italian Fleet while bound for Malta from Alexandria on 22 March 1942 during what would become known as the Second Battle of Sirte. Her sister ship, HMS Cleopatra (33), is cutting across her bow making smoke. While the Dido class didn’t do exceptionally well in their intended role, they did see lots of action, and Euryalus outlasted them all in Royal Navy service.
The Didos were very light cruisers indeed, designed in 1936 to weigh just 5,600 tons standard displacement, although this would later swell during wartime service to nearly 8,000. Some 512 feet long, they were smaller than a modern destroyer but, on a powerplant of four Admiralty 3-drum boilers and four Parsons steam turbines, each with their own dedicated shaft, they could break 32.5 knots on 62,000 shp. They were intended to be armed with 10 5.25″/50 (13.4 cm) QF Mark II DP guns in five twin mounts, three forward and two over the stern, although most of the class failed to carry this layout.
Bow 5.25″/50 turrets on HMS Hermoine as she enters Malta Harbor in September 1941. The muzzles of her third forward “Q” turret can just be seen above the crane at the upper left. She, along with Euryalus, Naiad, and Sirius, was the only Didos that completed with the full battery of five twin 5.25-inch mounts, largely due to a shortage of such guns. IWM A 5772.
The Dido class had provision for up to 360 rounds for “A”, “B” and “Q” turrets, 320 rounds for “X” turret and 300 rounds for “Y” turret and a properly trained crew could rattle them off at 7-8 shots per minute per gun out to a range of 23,400 yards or a ceiling of 46,500 feet when used in the AAA role. The fact that one of these cruisers could burp 70-80 shells within a 60-second mad minute gave them a lot of potential if used properly. However, this didn’t play out in reality, at least when it came to swatting incoming aircraft.
As noted by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II, “Often referred to as AA cruisers, the 16 Dido type ships shot down a grand total of 15 enemy planes. The entirety of British cruiser-dom accounted for only 97 planes, while enemy planes accounted for 11 British cruisers.”
Nonetheless, Euryalus carried extensive secondary AAA batteries as well. Originally fitted with two quad .50-caliber Vickers guns, these were augmented with five single 20mm Oerlikons whose numbers were further expanded until the ship carried over a dozen in twin mounts by the end of the war. She was also completed with three quadruple 2 pdr 40mm MK VIII pom-pom guns on Mk.VII mountings.
WRNS visit cruiser Euryalus of the Mediterranean Fleet, 3 May 1942, Alexandria. A Wren with her bearded Supply Petty Officer escort on the pom-pom platform. IWM A 8830 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205142750
The Dido class was largely named after figures in ancient mythology with Euryalus carrying the moniker of the storied Augustan warrior of Jason and the Golden Fleece fame who, with his battle buddy Nisus, forfeited his skin for the sake of war booty. Our cruiser was the fifth such vessel to carry the name “Euryalus” in the Royal Navy since 1803, with past ships serving under Nelson, bombarding Ft. McHenry, serving as the ride for Prince Alfred and becoming immortalized at Gallipoli.
Laid down 21 October 1937 at the famous Royal Navy Dockyard in Chatham, which dated back to the mid-16th Century, Euryalus was the last cruiser completed by that facility. She commissioned 30 June 1941, roughly 80 years ago last week. At the time, just Britain and stood alone against the Germans and Italians, having only recently been joined by the Soviets due to the German invasion of Russia the week before.
British light cruiser HMS Euryalus at a buoy on completion. June 1941. IWM FL 5242
Two hard years in the Med
After a short shakedown, she was dispatched to the Med to join RADM Sir Philip Vian’s 15th Cruiser Squadron which was soon involved in a series of close convoy escorts between Gibraltar and Alexandria to increasingly besieged Malta.
HMS Euryalus (right) and HMS Galatea, with guns raised for firing while on patrol in the Mediterranean. 14 December 1941
Besides convoy work, she went to sea with the fleet on a few occasions for bombardment raids against Derna and Rhodes.
British cruisers and destroyers en route to bombard Rhodes. 14 and 15 March 1942, onboard the cruiser HMS Euryalus in the eastern Mediterranean. Sunday morning service onboard HMS Euryalus under the 5.25″ guns on the quarterdeck. IWM A 8580 Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205142517
In March 1942, Euryalus joined a covering group under Sir Philip to include four other light cruisers and 18 destroyers to protect convoy MW10 out of Alexandria, bound for Malta. The force was fresh out of battleships as HMS Queen Elizabeth and Valiant had just been sidelined after Italian frogmen attacks and HMS Barham was sunk by a U-boat the previous November.
The afternoon following the departure from Alexandria, a heavy Italian force that included the battleship Littorio (45,000t, 9×15″/50 guns) and heavy cruisers Gorizia (14,000t, 8×8″/53) and Trento (13,000t, 8×5″/50), which far outgunned anything the British had, made contact with the British in the Gulf of Sidra. Cutting the cargo ships to the South, Sir Philip ordered smoke and turned to charge the Italians.
Over the next five hours, an artillery and torpedo duel between the two squadrons swirled.
Six forward 5.25-inch guns of HMS Euryalus ready to fire on the enemy on 22 March 1942 at an extreme elevation. Facing the camera is Captain Eric W Bush, DSO, DSC, RN. IWM A 8172 (Zimmerman) Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205142147
As dusk set Second Battle of Sirte, the Italians had fired some 1,511 shells, almost all from Littorio and her companion cruisers, while the British, who were able to get their destroyers close enough to the action to lend their guns, were able to get off some 2,850 shells and at least 38 torpedoes. Damage to each fleet was slight but could have been much worse.
An ammunition supply party bringing up shells for the 5.25-inch guns, during a lull in the action, onboard HMS Euryalus, on convoy duty in the eastern Mediterranean. Both the SAP and HE variants of the shell weighed some 80-pounds. Photo likely March 1942. IWM A 11908
During the fight, Euryalus was straddled by 15-inch shells from Littorio— who roared 181 shells from her main battery towards the smoke-shrouded British warships– on two different occasions and was damaged by splinters. Importantly, the Italian surface fleet never got within range of the convoy itself.
The next convoy to Malta, Operation Vigorous, was less than successful and, running short of ammo after fighting determined waves of Axis air attacks, had to turn around 600 miles short of the battered island.
The guns of HMS Euryalus open on incoming enemy dive bombers during Operation Vigorous in the Mediterranean, 12th -16th June 1942. Note the 20mm Oerlikon at work and the flash gear on the gunner.
Euryalus continued in her tasks, running convoy support in the Eastern Med, shelling Axis positions– for instance plastering Mersa Matruh in July along with sister ship HMS Dido and a quartet of destroyers– and just generally trying to remain afloat.
Two officers of HMS Euryalus, with Commander Celal Orbay the nephew of the Turkish Ambassador in London. 11-12 August 1942. Note the high-angle 5.25-inch mounts and stack of ready life rafts. IWM A 11902 Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145401
8th Army Victory Helps Malta- Convoys, Protected from Libyan Air Bases, Bring Enough Supplies for Months. 4 December 1942, in the Central Mediterranean, Aboard HMS Euryalus. Note the details of the cruiser’s bridge and her forward 5-inch mounts. IWM A 13677 (Zimmerman)
Same official caption as above, taken through the silhouette of a 20mm Oerlikon. A few singles were fitted in late 1941 and by the end of the war, she carried six twin mounts of the same. IWM A 13680 (Zimmerman)
In January 1943, with the tide turning against the Axis in the Med, HMS Euryalus, sister HMS Cleopatra and four destroyers formed Force K, shelling the withdrawal of the German-Italian forces in Libya.
In the same vein, she was there for the Allied offensive, joining the Husky landings in Sicily that July where she supported the 1st British Infantry division’s seizure of the fortress island of Pantelleria (Operation Corkscrew).
Then came the Avalanche landings at Salerno in September where Euryalus, operating with Sir Philip’s Task Force 88, screened the British carrier group. Subjected to the hell of the Luftwaffe’s radio-controlled bombs off that shore, Euryalus stood by the heavily damaged battleship HMS Warspite (03) after she was hit by a Fritz X on 15 September. A week later, she embarked C-in-C Mediterranean, Sir Andrew Cunningham, for passage to Taranto for meeting with Italians to arrange disposal of Italian Fleet.
By the end of the month, with Italy sort of knocked out of the war, Euryalus was withdrawn to Clyde for a much-needed refit, having spent 24 months in the middle of some of the worst combat the Mediterranean Theatre had to offer.
Norwegian vacation
Spending eight months in the yard, she missed out on D-Day but emerged in late June 1944 much modified. She landed her Q mount, reducing her main armament to eight 5.25″/50s, and picked up additional 20mm guns in trade. The cruiser was also outfitted as an escort carrier squadron flagship and given an aircraft direction room, swapping out her radar for more advanced models.
HMS Euryalus post her 1943-44 refit. Note pom-pom in place of Q turret and extensive radar and fire control suite.
After shakedown and repairs due to a galley fire, in October she joined a task force made up of the escort carriers HMS Trumpeter and HMS Fencer along with a half dozen destroyers to mine the Aarmumsund Leads off Norway as part of Operation Lucidas. She would head to Norway again the following month, shepherding the jeep carrier HMS Pursuer to attack enemy shipping off Trondheim.
Then, with the formation of the British Pacific Fleet, her number came up to switch from the Barents Sea to the Far East.
To Tokyo
In mid-December, Euryalus left Liverpool as an escort to MV Rimutaka, a steamer with “The Unknown Soldier,” Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (brother of both Edward VIII and George VI), aboard, who was headed to Australia to take up his appointment as Governor-General. Making the Pacific by way of the Suez in mid-January, our cruiser left Prince Henry’s service and was soon tagging along with British armored carriers to raid Japanese occupied oil fields in Dutch Sumatra.
By March, she joined RN TF 57, which was detached to serve with the U.S. Fifth Fleet and arrived at Ulithi to ship out in the American-British carrier force to plaster the Japanese Sakishima-Gunto islands group in the lead up to the Iwo Jima operation.
April saw the U.S./UK group running amok off Formosa while May saw operations in the Philippines.
Task Force 57 at anchor, HMS Formidable (foreground) and HMS Indomitable with 4th Cruiser Squadron- (L-to-R) Gambia, Uganda, and Euryalus, San Pedro Bay, Leyte, April 1945
June saw the cruiser return to Australia to refit before shipping out again with TF57/37 for operations attacking the Japanese home islands from the Tokyo-Yokohama area to Northern Honshu and Hokkaido.
HMS Formidable and HMS Euryalus (center) being oiled from a tanker of the British Pacific Fleet Train. HMS Euryalus is transferring stores to HM destroyer Undaunted (right). July 1945. IWM A 30072 Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161262
Upon the Japanese signal to surrender on 15 August, Euryalus chopped back to RN control from the Americans and was assigned to British Commonwealth Task Group 111.2 which liberated Hong Kong on 29 August, sailing into the harbor alongside the cruiser HMS Swiftsure and the Canadian armed transport HMCS Prince Robert.
Aerial view of HMS Euryalus in the Pacific in 1945, note the sunray and wingtip
HMCS Prince Robert arrives at the Kowloon docks in Hong Kong, August 1945. Members of the ship’s crew, most in tropical uniforms, crowd the ship’s rails, while an armed Canadian sailor can be seen in the foreground. (RCN Photo)
Shore parties from Prince Robert along with those from Euryalus and Swiftsure helped disarm Japanese military personnel, liberate survivors from Japanese prisoner of war camps, and maintain order ashore. Curiously, the rating in the front seems to be armed with a circa 1890s Lee-Metford .303 rifle (RCN Photo)
Euryalus would remain in Pacific waters for over a year past VJ Day, policing the region for British interests and supervising both the repatriation of Japanese POWs and the thorny reoccupation of British (as well as Dutch and French) overseas possessions. The cruiser only returned to the British Isles in February 1947.
Her Pacific deployment lasted for 792 days, 502 of which were spent underway.
Post War
Jane’s 1946 entry for the Dido class. Note, the publication separated the ships of the Bellona sub-class (“improved Didos”) into a separate listing as they carried eight 4.5-inch guns rather than the 8-to-10 5.5s of the class standard.
Six of the 16 Didos never made it to see peacetime service: HMS Bonaventure (31) was sunk by the Italian submarine Ambra off Crete in 1941. HMS Naiad (93) was likewise sent to the bottom by the German submarine U-565 off the Egyptian coast while another U-boat, U-205, sank HMS Hermione (74) in the summer of 1942. HMS Charybdis (88), meanwhile, was sunk by German torpedo boats Т23 and Т27 while during a confused night action in the English Channel in October 1943. HMS Spartan (95) was sunk by a German Hs 293 gliding bomb launched from a Do 217 bomber off Anzio in January 1944. HMS Scylla (98) was badly damaged by a mine in June 1944 and was never repaired.
Some of the rest were immediately sent to mothballs including HMS Argonaut (61), who had been seriously damaged by two Italian torpedoes and had undergone a seven-month rebuild in America that didn’t seem to be entirely successful. She would eventually be stricken in 1953.
Others went overseas. Smallish cruisers that could still give a lot of prestige to growing Commonwealth navies, several saw a second career well into the Cold War. Improved-Didos HMS Bellona (63) and HMS Black Prince (81) were put at the disposal of the Royal New Zealand Navy for a decade with simplified armament until they were returned and scrapped. HMS Royalist (89) likewise served with the Kiwis until 1966 then promptly sank on her way to the scrappers. HMS Diadem (84) went to Pakistan in 1956 as PNS Babur, after an extensive modernization, and remained in service there into the 1980s, somehow dodging Soviet Styx missiles from Indian Osa-class attack boats in the 1971 war between those two countries.
HMS Diadem (84)/PNS Babur’s listing in the 1973 Janes. At the time she was surely one of the last all-gun cruisers carrying a battery of anti-surface straight running torpedo tubes in the world!
Just four Didos continued with the Royal Navy past 1948, going on to pick up “C” pennant numbers: HMS Phoebe (C43), HMS Cleopatra (C33), HMS Sirius (C82), and Euryalus (C42). Of those, our cruiser was the last ship on the Admiralty’s active list, serving primarily on the South Atlantic station, in the Med, and in the Persian Gulf after a lengthy postwar modernization at Rosyth in 1947–48.
HMS Euryalus leaving Grand Harbour in C 1950.
HMS Euryalus leaving Grand Harbour in C 1952 note pom-pom in place of Q turret and extensive awnings, the latter a sure sign of peacetime duty
HMS EURYALUS Malta 1951
HMS Euryalus band marching in Port Said 1952
HMS Euryalus in the 1950s, apparently identified by it being the sole Dido with Type 279 radar
Mothballs Devonport mid-1950s Fairmile D MTBs HMS Howe HMS Belfast and Dido class light cruiser, possibly HMS Euryalus
Still, the RN was cash strapped and, after the great drawdown following the Korean War from “East of Suez” operations, Euryalus was placed out of commission on 19 September 1954, having just served 13 years. She was subsequently sold to BISCO in 1958 and towed to the breakers.
Epilogue
The historic vessel is remembered in numerous works of maritime art.
Just a few years after our cruiser was sent to the scrappers, the Royal Navy commissioned the sixth and (as of 2021) final HMS Euryalus, a Leander-class frigate that gave over 25 years of hard service during the Cold War and was sold for dismantling in 1990.
Displacement: Standard: 5,600 tons; Full load: 7,600 tons Length 512 ft overall Beam 50 ft 6 in Draught 14 ft Machinery: Four Admiralty 3-drum boilers, Four Parsons steam turbines, Four shafts, 62,000 shp Speed: 32.25 knots Range: 1,100 tons fuel oil; 1,500 mi at 30 kn; 4,240 miles at 16 knots Complement: 480 (designed) to 600 (wartime) Sensors: Type 279 radar (1941), later replaced by Types 272, 281, 282, and 285 in 1943-44, later replaced by Types 279b, 277, and 293 by 1946. Armor: belt: 76mm, bulkheads: 25mm, turrets: up to 13mm, deck: 51 – 25mm
Armament: (As-built) 5 x twin 5.25″/50 (13.4 cm) QF Mark II DP guns in A, B, Q, X, Y turrets 1 x 4-inch gun 2 x quad Vickers .50-caliber MGs 3 x quad 2-pdr 40mm/39cal MK VIII pom pom guns on Mk.VII mounts 2 x triple 21-inch torpedo tubes.
Armament: (1945) 4 x twin 5.25″/50 (13.4 cm) QF Mark II DP guns in A, B, X, Y turrets 15 x 20mm/70 Oerlikon Mk II/IV in six twin and two single mounts 3 x quad 2-pdr 40mm/39cal MK VIII pom pom guns on Mk.VII mounts 2 x triple 21 in torpedo tubes.
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Warship Wednesday, June 30, 2021: Cleaning Up After the Queen
Here, in this grainy still from a 16mm camera, we see one of the last organized surrenders of Japanese forces, some 70 years ago today– 30 June 1951– on the island of Anatahan to a whaleboat sent ashore by the Abnaki class fleet tug USS Cocopa, whose hull number (ATF-101) can be seen on the boat. The group of Japanese had previously refused to believe World War II ended in 1945, but surrendered to LCDR James B. Johnson, after losing their queen.
But we will get to that.
The 27 hulls of the Abnaki-class were intended for far-reaching ocean operations with the follow-on tail of the fleet. Constructed during the war, they were large for tugs, stretching out 205-feet in length and weighing almost 1,600 tons when fully loaded. Capable of 16.5 knots, they could steam a whopping 15,000 miles at half that clip on a quartet of economical GM diesels. Fairly well-armed for tugs, they carried a 3″/50 DP main gun, two twin 40mm/60 Bofors, and two Oerlikons.
USS Abnaki (ATF-96) underway at Pearl Harbor, February 1952, showing the simple and effective layout of the class, which kept their WWII-era armament well into the 1950s. Cocopa surely emulated the above impression at Anatahan.
Named for Native American tribes, Cocopa carried the name of an Arizona tribe and was constructed by Charleston Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Charleston, S.C., commissioned 25 March 1944.
Cocopas by Balduin Mollhausen, circa 1860. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Her war history was largely skipped over by DANFS, with just 88 words dedicated it the period, but it was interesting if not the stuff of military legend, taking the tug from the Palmetto State to Shanghai with stops in the English Channel and brushes with German U-Boats while in two cross-Atlantic convoys.
Amazingly, she did not earn a single battle star for her WWII service.
Following a postwar overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, she was assigned to Alaskan waters, which at the time were still strewn in wartime wreckage and threats of mines. While operating out of Guam in 1951, she was dispatched to a far-off island to respond to the strange story of a group of Japanese holdouts that the war had forgotten.
Anatahan
Located in the Northern Marianas, the natives there were removed by the Spanish in the 17th Century to turn the 8,300-acre volcanic island into a large coconut/copra plantation. This continued under the Germans, who picked up Spain’s remaining Pacific territories in 1899, and by the 1920s or so, the plantations had fallen into disrepair and, with the Japanese in charge, they stayed that way.
Fast forward to June 1944 and U.S. air assets from the 15 carriers of VADM Marc A. Mitscher’s TF 58 found a Japanese convoy in the area, sailing from Tanapag to Japan.
Over the next three days, as a sideshow to the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” they had easy pickings, splashing the torpedo boat Otori, net layer Kokku Maru, transports Batavia Maru, Hinko Maru, Kamishima Maru, Imizu Maru,Nitcho Maru, Reikai Maru, and Tenryugawa Maru: the freighter Bokuyo Maru, Japanese Army cargo ships Fukoku Maru and Moji Maru, and the coaster Tsushima Maru.
Marianas Operation, 1944. Caption: Burning Japanese cargo ship that was attacked by USS LEXINGTON (CV-16) planes off Saipan, 14 June 1944. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-236902
In the aftermath, a group of some 31 Japanese soldiers and mariners including navy seamen, army privates, and four merchant ship captains, the survivors of several of the ships that were sunk, made it to the lush shores of Anatahan where they lived with a handful of locals who were leftovers from the old plantation days alongside Mr. Kikuichiro Higa, the Okinawan plantation manager, and one Japanese woman, Kazuko Higa, his common-law wife. The senior-most Japanese military member was Sgt. Junji Inoue.
War came to the island when a Saipan-based B-29 Superfortress, T Square 42 (42-74248), from the 498th Bomb Group, 875th Squadron, 73rd Wing, crashed on 3 January 1945 on Anatahan, with no survivors. Meanwhile, the Japanese hid.
On 10 May 1945, elements of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Regiment, carried by the USS Marsh (DE-669), LCI(L)-1054 and LCI(L)-1082, landed on Anatahan and scouted around a bit, staying for a week. The Japanese continued to hide.
In July 1945, the 6th Marine MP Battalion landed on the island and again the Japanese hid inland. They removed the 45 native Carolinians who remained in the village. Other Navy ships visited the island and, hailing the emperor’s remaining subjects there, urged them to surrender.
After the war, in February 1946, a U.S. Army AGRS search party visited the island, located the crash site near the top of its 2,500 ft volcano, and recovered the remains of the crew. Still, the Japanese remained in hiding, despite messages to them that the war was over, including Japanese newspapers and magazines chronicling the peace, which were dismissed as a trick.
As noted by the National Park Service, the Japanese eventually found the B-29, and their fortunes changed.
Early in September 1946, Kazuko and Kikuichiro Higa were crossing the steaming 2,500-foot volcanic crater atop the island when they stumbled upon the wreckage of an American B-29. Parachutes found in the aircraft yielded nylon for clothing and cord that was carefully unraveled, then rewoven into fishing lines. Using stone hammers, the men chopped away the duralumin plates and beneath them found aluminum, which was eventually formed into cooking utensils, razors, harpoons, fishhooks, spears, and knives. Wire from the springs in the machine guns was twisted into shark hooks. Oxygen tanks were modified for use as water catchments. Engine bolts were fashioned into chisels and other cutting and drilling tools. Plexiglass and strips of rubber were made into pairs of underwater goggles. Everything that could be carried away from this great prize was taken and zealously guarded. When one man discovered a method for making a new implement, the less inventive of the group made copies. One man designed a model sailing vessel from duralumin and copper wire from the aircraft. Another produced several banjo-like samisens, traditional Japanese three-stringed instruments.
It also provided instruments of death: A pair of 45 caliber automatic pistols. The weapons were seized by two of Kazuko’s suitors. For the remaining months of their lives, the two reigned as kings of the island.
Soon, Kikuichiro was killed, as were no less than three other survivors, in a series of feuds over crab fishing and Kazuko, who became something of the Queen of Anatahan.
In June 1950, LCDR James Johnson, Deputy Civil Administrator on Saipan, began to wage a hearts and minds campaign to get the Japanese on Anatahan to lay down their arms and go home. This included regular delivery of care packages under a white flag, amounting to letters from the soldiers’ relatives and Japanese authorities, Tokyo newspapers, magazines, food supplies, Japanese beer, and cigarettes.”
This brought about the “surrender” of Queen of Anatahan, who was eager to leave her subjects behind.
Johnson kept up his efforts to get the last of the marooned Japanese off the island for eight months. After dropping leaflets promising the 18 men who were left would be returned to their families, a white flag appeared and our tug sailed from Guam, complete with a platoon of armed Marines and a LIFE journalist, Michael Rougier.
By Rougier, via the LIFE Archives:
I found these two videos in the National Archives of the event and uploaded them to YT. They are silent but moving.
Junji Inoue, the day of his surrender at Anatahan, June 1951. (N-1993.05). Inoue reads a document urging his compatriots to surrender. Scene aboard M.V. Cocopa, Anatahan, June 1951. Inoue’s personal implements. Note fiber zoris, coconut husk hat, knives fashioned from B-29 wreckage. (N-1993.07)
Once the men arrived in Guam, they were hospitalized for a week then flown to Japan.
From the Aug. 1951 All Hands
The Lord of the Flies tale of shipwrecked soldiers and sailors fighting over a single queen while surviving on coconut wine and crabs was turned into several books and at least one internationally popular film, Josef von Sternberg’s Anatahan (1953).
Meanwhile, back to our ship!
With the war in Korea increasingly drawing in naval assets after the entrance of Chinese volunteers by the hundreds of thousands, USS Cocopa (ATF-101) was soon off to combat. Deployed to the region in the summer and fall of 1953, she was key in saving the Canadian Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Huron (G24), which had grounded while in range of Nork shore batteries. The mighty tug took the damaged Canuck, stern-first, to Sasebo.
Cocopa did receive a battle star for Korea.
USS Cocopa (ATF-101) moored pier side, date, and location unknown. Note The tug’s engineers have managed to paint their battle efficiency “E” on their ship’s tiny smokestack. NHHC
By 1954, she was supporting Operation Castle, a series of atomic tests at Bikini Atoll.
Then came numerous trips to Vietnam, deploying there five times between 1963 and 1972, earning five stars for her service in Southeast Asia. One of the most interesting taskings during her time there was as a “Yankee Station Special Surveillance Unit” to deceive and jam Soviet Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) and Electrical Intelligence (ELINT) trawlers that were monitoring American operations in the Gulf of Tonkin.
USS Cocopa (ATF-101) underway,1969, still with her 3-inch gun but with her Bofors and Oerlikons removed. L45-54.04.01
Decommissioned, 30 September 1978, she would go on to continue her service in more North American waters.
Viva Armada!
Sold under the Security Assistance Program to Mexico, 30 September 1978, Cocopa was commissioned into the Republic of Mexico Navy as ARM Jose Maria Mata (ARE-03) until 1993, then as ARM Seri with the same hull number.
She is still on active duty, based in Tampico.
ARM Seri ARE03 Tampico Mexico 2016 via ShipSpotter IMO 7342691
Check out this video of her underway in 2017, looking good for her age.
Epilogue
Of Cocopa’s 26 Abenaki-class sisters, they have been very lucky with two exceptions– USS Wateree (ATF-117) was sunk during a typhoon, 9 October 1945 with a loss of eight crew members; and USS Sarsi (ATF-111) met her fate during Typhoon Karen in 1952 at the hands of a drifting naval mine off the coast of Korea. The rest lived to a ripe old age with the U.S. Navy, eventually being retired by Uncle Sam in the 1960s and 70s. While the last of her class in U.S. service, USS Papago (ATF-160), was disposed of in 1997, many were transferred overseas– such as Cocopa, who continues to serve alongside classmates ARM Yaqui (ex-Abnaki) and ARM Otomi (ex-USS Molala ATF-106).
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, June 23, 2021: The St. Thomas Slugger
Danish National Library DH030850
Here we see the krydserkorvetten (cruiser corvette) Valkyrienof the Royal Danish Navy in exotic Hong Kong on 8 April 1900 while notably under the command of H.K.H. Prins Valdemar, son of then-King Christian IX. Note the junks, small vessel traffic, and destroyers near the gleaming white Nordic warship, which is firing a salute to the harbor battery. Ushered in just after Denmark suffered twin military humiliations, the relatively mighty vessel– for the Danes– would have a quiet and long-ranging career, making several footnotes in history.
Laid down at Orlogsværftet København for the Danish admiralty 27 October 1888, she was reportedly a close cousin of the Armstrong-built Chilean protected cruiser Esmeralda (2,992 tons, 18.3 kts, 2 x 10″/30, 6 x 6″/26) but had a different armament (Krupp-made: 2 x 8.2″/35, 6 x 6″/32), more economical domestic Burmeister & Wain machinery of a lower horsepower, and thicker armor (up to 2.5-inches rather than 1-inch), factors that dropped her speed to 17 knots.
Using a dramatic ram bow, in vogue after 1866, Valkyrien also had some other tricks up her sleeve, including five above-deck torpedo tubes arrayed at various angles from her beam (two bows, one stern, two amidships) and carried a pair of 68-foot Thornycroft-made torpedo boats (Torpedobaad Nos. 10 and 11), which were capable of independent operations.
Orlogsmuseet – Model of the Danish Cruiser Valkyrien. Note her ram bow
VALKYRIEN (Danish Cruiser, 1888) Photographed circa 1890 with 2nd class torpedo boat numbers 10 and 11 embarked. NH 85380
A celebration of the Viking choosers of the slain, the ship carried war shields, swords, and battle-axes on her bow, and wings on her bow in careful ornamentation.
Note the auxiliary sail rig
Note her stern “stinger” torpedo tube below the winged crest
At the time of her commissioning, Valkyrien far outclassed the other “cruisers” under the Danish ensign, some of which were more appropriately described as armored schooners: Absalon (533 tons, 1 x 60-pounder, 2 x 5.75″), Fylla & Diana (560 tons, 1 x 60-pounder, 3 x 30 pounder), St. Thomas (1,700 tons, 8 x 4.7-inch guns), and Ingoff (1,012 tons, 2 x 6″). Valkyrien held the heavyweight champ title even as the latter Hekla-class of light cruisers– Gejser, Hejmdal, and Fyen (1,282 tons, 2 x 4.7″, 4 x 3.5″, 4 x torpedo tubes, 17 knots) — were delivered in the 1890s. When compared to Denmark’s squadron of “bathtub battleships” or kystforsvarsskib— Iver Hvitfeldt (3,446 tons, 2 x 10″ guns, 8-inches armor), Skjold (2,195 tons, 1 x 9.4″, 10 inches armor), and the three Trolle-class (~3,500 tons, 2 x 9.4″, 4 x 6″, 7 inches armor) vessels– she also compared favorably in size, if not in throw and armor, while being a couple of knots faster.
Danish Navy’s silhouettes of primary vessels, showing how Valkyrien compares in size against the rest of the fleet.
In short, Valkyrien, from the time of her commissioning to her eventual retirement three decades later, was the ideal vessel to show the Danish flag overseas, especially in her territories such as Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Danish West Indies (Dansk Vestindien). Her 3,900nm range certainly helped with that. Once she joined the fleet, she became very busy.
In the summer of 1893, she escorted the royal ship yacht Dannebrog to England for the marriage of the Duke of York (grandson of the Danish king) and Princess Marie of Teck. She followed that royal visit up three years later to represent Denmark at Prince Carl of Denmark’s marriage to Princess Maud.
Danish protected cruiser Valkyrien, in a very dark scheme, on a visit to England
She met Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s returning 1896 polar expedition as his famed ship, Fram, arrived back home.
Fram’s return to Kristiania, 9 September 1896. A large fleet of over a hundred small and large ships met Nansen’s ship. Bottom left five torpedo boats, in the middle the new cruiser Valkyrien with her glad rags out, and closest S. S. Haalogaland, who had towed Fram (here partly covered by white smoke). Via the Fridtjof Nansen bildearkiv, National Library of Norway
Valkyrien, dansk krysser, krigsskip, Oslofjorden Norwegian archives HHB-15663
In October 1899, she left on a trip to the Far East under Prince Valdemar. No paper sailor, the son of King Christian IX spent most of his life on active duty with the Danish navy– a tradition for a country known for “sailor kings.” She returned home 10 months later, after calling at more than 30 overseas ports.
Danish protected cruiser Valkyrien in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, circa 1900, in dark scheme.
Prince Valdemar with King Chulalongkorn of Siam. He also met with the Japanese Emperor on the trip
From 1901 through 1902, she continued her out-of-Europe service with a stint as a station ship in the Danish West Indies.
Crew members of the Danish cruiser Valkyrien pose with the Krupp ship gun in front of St. Thomas, Via the Orlosmuseet (War Museum), Copenhagen
After a period in ordinary as the fleet expanded, she returned to service with a Med cruise in 1913-1914 on the eve of the Great War. Once Europe was ablaze in conflict, she donned a wartime scheme and maintained a defensive posture in home waters, serving through 1915 as a barracks and school ship training Sikringsstyrken, or security forces.
Then came a wartime modernization, landing her old 8.2- and 6-inch guns in favor of more modern weapons, albeit of a smaller caliber. Her 8.2s had a rate of fire of one shot every three minutes, and the original 6-inchers could achieve one shot per. minute. The new 6-inch guns she mounted in place of her main battery could fire 5-6 rounds per minute, as could her new secondary battery, composed of 3-inch guns.
Shoving off for the Danish West Indies in November 1915, she remained in place as a station ship in that far-off territory as the U.S. and others sought to purchase the islands for their own use. Times were tense on the ground, with wartime shortages, labor problems, local unrest, and Great Power spies all on the list of problems. The cruiser’s captain, CDR Henri Konow, became local governor when the vessel arrived.
H. M. S. Valkyrien ved Frederiksteds, 1915. DT133709
Valkyrien i St.Thomas havn 1915 DT130531
Valkyrien Virgin Islands DVS 0062-1236-900-600-80
In October 1916, the islands were slammed by a strong Category 3 hurricane that left the Danish bark Thor wrecked, three steamers grounded, as well as the schooner Irma II and sloop Faith sunk. It was Valkyrien’s officers who sounded the alarm about the oncoming storm, firing her guns and rockets on command of Konow, and her crew that saved dozens of lives in and around St. Thomas while, as telecommunications and electricity were knocked out, her searchlights and signal lamps illuminated the night sky. The ship’s junior surgeon was sent to Saint John to render assistance as there was no medical personnel on that nearby island.
Following along that vein, Valkyrien was the muscle on hand representing the Danish government at the transfer of the colony to Uncle Sam on 31 March 1917, just days before the American entry into WWI. Her band played during the ceremony while an armed 24-man honor guard drawn from her crew marched in tandem with a squad of local gendarmes and Yankee bluejackets from the transport USS Hancock (AP-5), who was very lightly armed with only a few 3-inch guns.
Valkyrien crew on Transfer Day, March 31st, 1917
Konow and a dozen of his officers looked on, surrounded by consular representatives of foreign nations and the American delegation. It was Konow who had read the public proclamation of the event aloud two weeks prior, an act that notified the locals of the change in management.
Once the flags were exchanged at 1600 hours, Valkyrien and Hancock fired 17-gun salutes across St. Thomas harbor. Notably, in the port at the time were the interned German ocean liners Wasgenwald and Calabria of the Hamburg America Line, which watched the events cautiously.
Valkyrien, as the Danish flag comes down, Hancock is behind her. DH009717
Valkyrie salute 1917 DH009665
The territory (save for 500-acre Vand or Water Island, which was retained as property of the Danish East Asiatic Company until 1944) became the U.S. Virgin Islands with Hancock’s skipper, LCDR Edwin Taylor Pollock, becoming Acting Governor. Hancock’s crew would take the German steamers into custody just a week later as the U.S. declared war on the Kaiser.
Deprived of a station to serve overseas, Valkyrien returned home, served as a quarantine vessel during the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, and soon got back to her globetrotting once the war ended.
Used as a training vessel for naval cadets as newer cruisers were available for front-line use, she stopped at Egypt and Malta during her 1919 summer cruise to pick up 160 former German POWs of Danish extraction from the British and returned them to Denmark. That winter, she performed the same task in visits to Holland, Belgium, and France, repatriating 135 further Danes, most of whom lived in German-controlled Southern Jutland, where the Kaiser’s army conscripted over 30,000 Danish-speaking residents into his legions, over the howls of Copenhagen. The Schleswig Plebiscite later returned much of the region, captured by the Prussians in 1864, to Danish control.
Her summer cruise in 1921 carried, besides her cadets, King Christian X, who used the opportunity to pay visits to the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Christian, who had spent four years with the Danish army as a dragoon officer and would later become famous for his daily horseback rides through German-occupied Copenhagen in WWII, proved adept at instructing the boys in close order drill and morning calisthenics.
Christian is the mustachioed officer with carefully parted hair. If your sovereign is behind you doing calisthenics, you are gonna do calisthenics
Laid up in 1923, Valkyrien was sold for scrap the next year.
Epilogue
She is remembered in period maritime art and postcards. Danish maritime artist Christian Benjamin Olsen, who sailed on her several times, painted no less than three handsome portraits of the cruiser.
The Valkyrie Off Tenerife, 1923 Olsen
“The Spanish general visiting the Danish ship of war Valkyrien.” Signed Chr. Benjamin Olsen, Santa Cruz
Cruiser Valkyrien by Christian Benjamin Olsen, 1913 at Royal Danish Naval Museum
She is probably best known for her Virgin Islands service and is noted there annually on Transfer Day, observed each March. Konow, her skipper during the transfer, later retired as a vice admiral and served the Danish government in the 1920s as Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs. A holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog, he died in 1939 (ironically, the same year as Prince Valdemar, another of her famous captains) and is well remembered in Danish history.
Displacement: 3,020 tons Length: 266.75 ft. Beam: 43.25 ft. Draft: 18.25 ft. Machinery: Burmeister & Wain, 2 VTE, 6 cylindrical boilers, 5,300shp Speed: 17.4 knots Range: 3,900nm at 10 knots on 496 tons coal Crew: 282 to 310 Armament: (1890) 2 x 21 cm/32cal Krupp C/86 L/35 bagladekanoner 6 x 15 cm/32cal Krupp C/88 L/35 bagladekanoner 4 x 57 mm/40cal Hotchkiss kanoner 8 x 37 mm/17cal Hotchkiss kanoner 2 x 8mm machine guns 5 x 381 mm above water torpedoapparater (later reduced to three in 1913, deleted in 1919)
Armament (1915): 2 x 14.9 cm/32cal L/50 M.06 bagladekanoner (from Peder Skram) 4 x 75 mm/52 L/55 M.12 patronkanoner (increased to six in 1919) 2 x 57 mm/40cal Hotchkiss kanoner 2 x 37 mm/17cal Hotchkiss kanoner
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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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Called a skalomniscope by American sub wonk Simon Lake, the periscope of sorts was first invented in 1854 by a French guy by the name of Marie Davey, submersibles have had various “sight tubes” ever since. While early boats had a single short scope attached directly to the (single) top hatch (!) by the 1930s it was common for large fleet submarines to have multiple search and attack periscopes in the sail.
Over the years, these devices in U.S. parlance led to the term “periscope liberty” which denoted side use in observing peacetime beaches and pleasure craft with bikini-clad femmes at play and, of course, the old-school “Rig for red” use of red lighting for those who would use the scopes while the boat was at periscope depth at night or was preparing to go topside should the boat to surface in the o-dark-o’clock hours.
Here are some of the cooler periscope shots in the NHHC’s collection, among others.
The eye of the submarine periscope, Gallagher card.
Aircraft carrier Taiho, seen through the periscope of submarine USS Albacore
Japanese destroyer ‘Harusame’, photographed through the periscope of USS Wahoo (SS-238) after she had been torpedoed by the submarine near Wewak, New Guinea, on 24 January 1943
Japanese armed trawler seen through the periscope of USS Albacore (SS-218) during her tenth war patrol. Photo received 17 November 1944 NHHC 80-286279
80-G-13550 Guardfish periscope
Submarine officer sights through a periscope in the submarine’s control room, during training exercises at the Submarine Base, New London, Groton, Connecticut, in August 1943 80-G-K-16013
Periscope death of the destroyer Tade, (1922) Montage of eight photos showing her sinking after being torpedoed by USS Seawolf (SS-197) on 23 April 1943 NH 58329
Shoreline of Makin Island, photographed through a periscope of USS Nautilus (SS-168) on 16 August 1942, the day before U.S. Marine raiders were landed 80-G-11720
Periscope photograph taken from USS Seawolf (SS-197), while she was on patrol in the Philippines-East Indies area in the fall of 1942. 80-G-33184
Periscope photograph made PUFFER SS-268 freighter Teiko Maru (ex-Vichy French steamship D’Artagnan 1943. Torpedo is shown hitting NH 68784
USS Barb 1944 “fiendish antisubmarine weapon bird” blocking Lucky Fluckey’s view on approach. He reportedly sank the Japanese ship with his observation periscope
In January of 1951, the recently GUPPY’d USS Catfish slipped into San Francisco Bay underwater and remained in the harbor for three days taking photos of the Bay Area through their periscope in daylight as part of an authorized mission to see if they could do it with a minimum of civilian reaction. The mission was successful to a degree, as no one called SFPD or the military, as reported by the San Fran Chronicle.
Sighting the target submarine periscope by Georges Schreiber, Navy Art Collection 88-159-ji
USS JOHN HOOD (DD-655) and USS SNOWDEN (DE-246) photographed through a submarine periscope, while underway 1950s USN 1042008
View from the HALIBUT’s periscope of the March 1960 launch of the Regulus missile.
USS Seadragon (SSN 584) crewmembers explore ice pack in the Arctic Ocean through the periscope
President John F. Kennedy through the periscope aboard USS THOMAS EDISON (SSBN-610) 14 April 1962 USN 1112056-F
USS New Jersey (BB-62) seen through the periscope of USS La Jolla SSN-701
Bohol Strait USS Triton spies a local fisherman on April 1 1960
Key West submarines USS Sea Poacher, USS Grenadier, and USS Threadfin wind their way up the Mississippi River toward New Orleans, as seen through the periscope of USS Tirante, Mardi Gras 1963
Periscope view as Captain G.P. Steele searches for an opening in the ice through which to surface, September 1960 USS Sea Dragon SSN-584 USN 1050054
USS Cowpens through the periscope of the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Salt Lake City (SSN 716), Western Pacific, September 1994.
Many modern submarines, including the U.S. Virginia and RN’s Astute class, no longer use traditional periscopes, having long since ditched them in favor of modern telescoping digital optronics masts housing numerous camera and sensor systems with the Navy’s current standard being the AN/BVS-1 photonics mast.
Astute class CM10 Optronic Masts from Thales. periscope
GROTON, Conn. (Dec. 20, 2019) Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) stand topside as they pull into their homeport at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn., Dec 20, 2019, following a deployment. Minnesota deployed to execute the chief of naval operation’s maritime strategy in supporting national security interests and maritime security operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Steven Hoskins/Released)
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