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Warship Wednesday, October 15, 2025: One Tough Cat

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

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Warship Wednesday, October 15, 2025: One Tough Cat

Royal Navy official photographer Lt. SJ Beadell, IWM FL 7995

Above we see the armed merchant cruiser HMS Cheshire (F 18) in war paint at anchor at Greenock, 5 December 1942. Note her mixed battery of six 6-inch and two 3-inch guns arranged in tubs around her decks.

At the time, this grey lady had already caught and survived torpedoes from no less than two different U-boats and still had a lot of war left in her.

The Bibby 10,000 tonners

The Liverpool-based Bibby Line was founded in 1807 by the first John Bibby and continues to exist as one of the UK’s oldest family-owned shipping businesses. It’s Bibby Steam Ship Co., operating from 1891 with its flagship, the 3,870-ton Harland and Wolff-built SS Lancashire, recording the fastest time on the Burma run at 23 days and 20 hours.

Looking to grow and maintain its England to Burma service, Bibby ordered a new SS Lancashire, this one a stately 9,445-ton steamship, in 1914 from Harland & Wolff. Not completed until 1918 due to the Great War, her first cruises were in repatriating French prisoners of war and later Belgian refugees, as well as shuttling troops around the Empire before being released to her owners in 1920.

A sister, Yorkshire, was also constructed to a similar plan.

With peacetime accommodation for 295 1st class passengers in addition to mail and cargo, Lancashire proved popular, especially on lease to the Crown for delivering troops overseas, and a follow-on class of six near-sisters were soon ordered.

With four masts, a single large funnel, and elegant decks, the 482-foot, 9,445-ton SS Lancashire and her sister Yorkshire were elegant, especially for the Rangoon “Burma Boat” run, and would remain in Bibby’s service until 1946. Note the “HMT” designation on this period postcard, notable as she spent 1918-20 and 1939-45 in service to the Crown, along with numerous lease terms on a £400 per day rate.

Ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow starting in 1925, MV Shropshire (Yard No. 619), followed by our MV Cheshire (620), MV Staffordshire (630), MV Worcestershire (640), MV Derbyshire (653), and MV Devonshire (670) were delivered by 1939.

While Lancashire/Yorkshire had been designed to run a coal plant (replaced by oil-fired boilers in a 1921 conversion), the new “Shires” would be run on two Sulzer 8-cyl (28, 39in) diesel engines from the start, with a speed pushing 14.5 knots, sustained. As such, these were the first Bibby liners to be motorships rather than steamships. Since the diesels were more compact and required no stokers, they freed up extra cargo and passenger space over the old design.

The design remained close enough to keep the same general dimensions (482 feet registered length vs 483) as Lancashire/Yorkshire, albeit a couple of feet wider (60 vs 57), which grew the displacement to 10,500 tons. To be certain, this continued to grow as the class was built out, with Staffordshire expanding to 62 feet across the beam, Worcestershire to 64, Derbyshire to 66, with the resulting heft in tonnage as well. Devonshire, the last of the class, would balloon to 12,796 tons.

They kept a similar 275 1st class passenger capacity as Lancashire/Yorkshire. This was arranged in two overall decks, a third deck below outside the engine room, and a forecastle, long bridge, and poop deck above. There were eight main bulkheads dividing the ship into two peaks, the engine room and six holds, four of them forward, and No. 4 abaft the bridge, worked by derricks on posts just forward of the single funnel, along with a 1,340 cu ft in a refrigerated hold. Boats included 10 26-foot lifeboats, two 22-foot accident boats, and two motor launches.

Crews were small for liners, hovering around 200, with British stewards quartered in the forecastle and Lascar seamen in the poop.

The passenger areas and cabins, to the “Bibby tandem” design, were much better appointed than on Lancashire, as shown by this circa 1930s pamphlet of Worcestershire:

They also had all the cutting-edge navigational gear of the era, including wireless direction finding and submarine signaling.

These half-dozen new 10,000-ton Shires, along with Lancashire and Yorkshire, graced Bibby’s posters and cards during the 1920s and 30s, with the line expanding regular service from Liverpool and Plymouth beyond Rangoon to Colombo and Cochin with assorted stops along the way.

Meet Cheshire

Our subject was Official Number 149625, Fairfield Yard No. 620, and built at Govan like her sisters, following class leader Shropshire by just 10 months when she was launched on the Clyde on 20 April 1927.

Cheshire finished fitting out and was delivered that July, with Bibby soon putting her into Far East service shortly after. In doing so, she replaced the smaller Bibby steamship SS Warwickshire, which had been in service for 25 years.

Her pre-war service was quiet, as one would expect. Her typical run was Liverpool to Rangoon via Gibraltar, Port Said, Port Sudan, and Colombo, a regular sea-going Agatha Christie novel. Between 1928 and 1934, she logged an impressive 447,361 miles.

Torpedo Bait

On 29 August 1939, just three short days before the Germans marched into Poland, Cheshire became one of ultimately 41 Royal Navy Armed Merchant Cruisers to see service in WWII (along with three each in the RAN and RCN).

This amounted to removing most of their superfluous peacetime appointments, reducing their masts and rigging, landing excess lifeboats, slapping on a coat of thick grey paint (later camouflaged), and adding a mixed battery of 6″/45 Mark VII/VIIIs left removed from Great War era battleships and cruisers (an amazing 629 of these were in storage in 1939), along with a couple of more modern 3″/50s and machine guns to dissuade low-flying aircraft.

Cheshire profiles, pre-war and WWII, by JH Isherwood, Sea Breezes magazine, circa 1962.

Likewise, three of her sisters (Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Derbyshire) were similarly converted as AMCs, while the balance became troop carriers.

Sister HMS Worcestershire at Greenock in 1943. Shropshire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire all had similar 1939-43 appearances. IWM (A 17213)

HMS Worcestershire is shown as AMC. IWM FL21782

Cheshire was commissioned on 30 October, with the pennant number F18, and was tasked initially with patrolling the North Sea for German blockade runners.

Cheshire’s first convoy run was from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Plymouth with Convoy SLF.16 for two weeks in January 1940, being the largest escort in the force of two destroyers and HM Severn, which were returning to duty in Home Waters.

February 1940 saw her as part of SL.20, shipping from Freetown to Plymouth in line with the AMC HMS Esperance Bay and four V-class destroyers.

In March, she rode shotgun with SL.24 from Freetown to Liverpool.

May 1940 saw her patrolling from Gibraltar off Vigo, Spain, with the destroyer HMS Keppel (D84), searching for German blockade runners, raiders, and U-boats.

It was during this duty that she rescued survivors from the torpedoed French cargo liner Brazza, sunk on 28 May by U-37. Working alongside the French gunboat Enseigne Henry, the two ships accounted for 52 crew members, 98 military passengers (56 French Navy, 17 French Army, and 25 Colonial Troops,) and 47 civilian passengers (20 men, 19 women, and eight children) from Brazza who survived the sinking. Another 379 were never recovered.

While deployed with the Western Approaches Defence Force on 16 August 1940, Cheshire spotted a prowling U-boat and birddogged the destroyer HMS Arrow (H 42).

Starting 7 October 1940, she and her fellow AMC, HMS Salopian (ex sister Shropshire, renamed as there was already a cruiser named Shropshire), was part of the first leg of an early “Winston’s Special” Convoy, WS 3 (Fast), leaving Liverpool with seven large 20,000-ton transports carrying troops to North Africa the long way round via Freetown and Cape Town.

On 8 October, the Orient Liner turned troopship Oronsay (20043 GRT) was damaged by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors of I./KG 40 off Ireland’s Bloody Foreland and forced to leave the convoy, escorted by Cheshire and the destroyers Arrow and Ottawa, which took her safely into Lough Foyle.

Returning to sea, at 21.28 on 14 October, Cheshire was promptly struck in her No.2 hold by one torpedo from U-137 (Kptlt. Herbert Wohlfarth), northwest of Ireland. The A-class destroyer HMCS Skeena (D 59) and Flower-class corvette HMS Periwinkle (K 55) embarked all 230 survivors from Cheshire and put parties on board to maintain steam until a tug arrived to take the damaged ship in tow for repair.

Cheshire was successfully towed to Belfast Lough, where she was beached. She was taken to Liverpool for repairs requiring six months.

The 10,000-ton Bibby liners were tough for sure. Sister HMS Worcestershire (F 29) likewise survived a torpedo from U-74 in March 1941, suffering but one casualty. She limped into port on her own power, was repaired, and back on the job in four months.

Sadly, sister Salopian/Shropshire succumbed to three fish from U-98 while off Greenland in April, but remarkably, only sent two of her crew to the bottom with their vessel, while the 278 survivors were landed in Iceland. Even more tragic, her half-sister, the Yorkshire, was also sunk off Cape Finisterre, via two torpedoes from U-37, just 10 weeks into the war, carrying passengers and cargo to Rangoon while still in merchant service. Yorktown carried 58 passengers and crew to the cold embrace of the Atlantic.

Following repairs, Cheshire joined Convoy SL 020F in February 1941 and SL 024 in March. A short run to Iceland, Convoy DS 3, escorting two troopships to the Allied-occupied island from Clyde, was tense but successful.

She continued her convoy escort work with Halifax to Liverpool HX 131 in June 1941, an 11-day crossing. The follow-up Liverpool to Halifax Convoy OB 335 finished up the month.

Convoy BHX.137 and HX 137 came in July 1941.

On 10 January 1942, Cheshire was tasked to escort Convoy WS.15 from Liverpool to embattled Singapore via Cape Town. With 24 steamers packed with troops and munitions, the escort amounted to our subject, the AMC Ascania, the old battleship HMS Resolution (09), the small Dutch cruiser Heemskerk, and a half dozen destroyers and sloops. The convoy suffered one loss, a freighter damaged by U-402 on 16 January, and was later forced to disperse once Singapore fell on 15 February, with the ships proceeding to Suez, Colombo, and Bombay as ordered.

It was during this trip, on 14 March 1942, while on patrol off Cape Town, that Cheshire stopped the German auxiliary minelayer and blockade runner Doggerbank (Schiff 53), which was the British freighter Speybank, which had been captured and converted by the Hilfskreuzer Atlantis in the Indian Ocean a year prior. Doggerbank, flying the ship’s old red duster, successfully identified herself as her sister ship, the Bank Line steamer Levenbank, and was allowed to proceed.

Cheshire can’t be blamed for the mistake; the Royal Navy’s D (Danae)-class light cruiser HMS Durban (D 99) had intercepted the wily Doggerbank two days before with the same result.

Ironically, her British lines would seal her fate, and Doggerbank/Speybank would later be sunk by one of the Kriegsmarine’s own U-boats, which was sure they were sinking an Allied merchant.

Getting back to escort duty, Cheshire rode with WS 19 during passage from Cape Town to Durban in June 1942.

Her final blue water convoy run as an AMC came with Freetown to Liverpool-bound SL 118, her fourth SL/MKS convoy, in August 1942. Amounting to 37 merchants escorted by 12 warships and Cheshire, the convoy had the misfortune of being haunted for a fortnight by the eight U-boats of Wolfpack Blücher, who claimed five of the merchants. Also damaged during this slow-running fight was Cheshire herself, who caught a single fish from a four-torpedo spread from U-214 (Kptlt. Günther Reeder) at 18.52 hours on 18 August.

Undeterred, Cheshire was able to make port on her own power, after all, she had been torpedoed before.

Repaired, she rode with the short coastwise Convoy FS.19 from Methil to Southend in May 1943, where she was paid off on 9 June 1943.

Her escort service as an AMC is remembered in maritime art by Jim Rae.

“AMC HMS Cheshire escorting Admiralty Floating Dock 53, towed in two halves by Tugs HMS Roode Zee and Thames with seven escorts from Montevideo to Bahia. Escort then passed to AMC Alcantara for onward passage to Africa.” By Jim Rae

Troop service (and continued torpedo bait)

Post-Torch and Husky, and with the British fleet much reinforced with new escorts, Cheshire and her surviving sisters were returned to their owner, who operated them, still armed, with merchant crews as troopships under charter to the Ministry of War Transport.

Derbyshire at Clyde, as a troop landing ship with LCVPs on her sides.

HMT Cheshire, Malta

Lancashire as HMT, Malta

On the eve of D-Day, HMT Cheshire joined Convoy ETP1 (sometimes also seen as EWP 1) in the Thames Estuary, where she met the fellow Bibby liners Lancashire (convoy commodore), Devonshire, and sister Worcestershire. Loaded with 10,000 troops of the train of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and elements of the Second British Army, they arrived off Juno Beach on 7 June 1944.

Cheshire also had another brush with death on the sea when she sailed on Christmas Eve 1944, alongside the Belgian troopship Leopoldville, escorted by four destroyers, from Southampton across the English Channel to Cherbourg. The two troopships carried the bulk of the U.S. 66th “Black Panther” Infantry Division, and while Cheshire made it to Cherbourg unharmed with her charges, Leopoldville was sunk by U-486, taking 816 Belgian sailors, RN armed guards, and American soldiers with her to the bottom.

Shipping to the Far East in 1945, Cheshire both shuttled Commonwealth troops around the Pacific for occupation duty once Japan quit the war and carried former Allied POWs home. On 23 November, she brought the last Australian former POWs home from Singapore.

Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. The steamship Cheshire which carried the last group of ex-prisoners of war to return home from Singapore. (Photographer LCpl E. Mcquillan) AWM 123738

Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. A Group Of The Last Prisoners Of War To Arrive From Singapore Wave To Friends As The Steamship Cheshire Pulls Into Its Berth At Woolloomooloo. Left To Right: Sapper Sullivan, Driver (Dvr) Pasfield, Dvr Mcbean, Private (Pte) Johnston, Pte Mainwaring, And Pte Kermode. (Photographer L. Cpl E. McQuillan)/ Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. A Group Of The Last Prisoners Of War To Arrive From Singapore Sitting On The Edge Of The Top Deck Of The Steamship Cheshire. Left To Right: Nx65713 Private (Pte) D. Johnson; Nx44139 Pte A. S. Kermode; Nx56312 Driver (Dvr) M. Pasfield; Nx66021 Sapper D. Sullivan; Nx10767 Pte A. Mainwaring; And Qx19008 Dvr R. Mcbean. (Photographer L. Cpl E. McQuillan) AWM 123727/28

She also carried Dutch POWs to Java and Borneo. It was estimated that upwards of 80,000 troops rode Cheshire during the war.

Cheshire was further used for civilian repatriation services, for instance, carrying Gibraltar residents back home in September 1946 who had been evacuated to Northern Ireland in late 1940 when it looked like Spain might invade the colony.

Liner, again

On 5 October 1948, Cheshire was finally released to the owner and allowed to return to commercial service. She was overhauled and rebuilt as a rather spartan emigrant ship, with accommodation for 650 passengers, and three of her masts removed.

Thus minimally refurbished, she sailed on her first Liverpool to Sydney voyage on 9 August 1949, carrying Europeans fleeing war-shattered and Iron Curtain-divisioned Europe for the hope of a better life Down Under.

She would eventually return to trooping duties for the Korean War, able to carry a battalion at a time back and forth from the Peninsula to Europe.

Paid off for good at Liverpool in February 1957, she arrived at Newport on 11 July of that year for breaking by BISCO’s John Cashmore Ltd., having completed a very busy 30 years of service.

Epilogue

Of Cheshire’s sisters who survived the war, Staffordshire likewise returned to service with Bibby and was broken up in Japan in 1959.

Worcestershire lived long enough to be renamed Kannon Maru for her 1961 voyage to the breakers in Osaka.

Derbyshire was scrapped at Hong Kong in 1963.

Devonshire, used for trooping during WWII and Korea, was present at Operation Grapple, the joint U.S./British atomic bomb tests conducted at Christmas Island (Kiritimati/Kiribati) in 1957, having carried Royal Engineers and landing craft crews there to prepare the sites. Later converted to the school ship Devonia for the British India Steam Navigation Co., she was the last of her class disposed of, broken in La Spezia in 1967.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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QOR on the Line

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80 years ago today, on D+ 14 (20 June 1944) while in the recently liberated French town of Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada had a war correspondent stop by and take a series of photos that capture the moment in time.

STEN-armed Rifleman R.G. Bodie, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, on guard in the front line, Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944. 

Lieutenant E.M. Peto (left), 16th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers (R.C.E.), with Company Sergeant-Major Charlie Martin and Rifleman N.E. Lindenas, both of “A” Company, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, planning where to lay a minefield, Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944.

Rifleman R.A. Marshall, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, pointing out a hole in his helmet made by a German sniper’s bullet on D-Day. Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944.

Rfn B. Brueyere, Rfn D.J Briere, Rfn W.J. Simpson, and Rfn H.G.Payne interrogating a local

Cpl W. Lennox watching his arcs in Bretteville-Orgueilleuse with the courtesy of a recently acquired second-hand German MG42.

As noted by The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive, the war diary for 20 June included:

0530 Two bombs are dropped in D coy MR91957180 area and a good bit of concussion is felt however luckily there are no casualties.

0800 3 Cdn Inf Div Sitrep Rep

Patrol report for night of 19/20 Jun 44
Proposed Patrols for night 20/21 Jun 44
Daily Int Summary QOR of C
Int Summ #10 18 Jun 44
Trace of enemy dispositions as soon from C coy

1000 It appears at first sight as though we are being invaded by the Free French Army but it soon develops that they are the French Cmdrs of the district and are putting the regular Gendarmes back into local power. There will be five of them in the town and they will control the local population but will report to us each day for any instructions. We are also giving them transportation to enable them to bring flour into the district as they only have a supply enough to last 24 hours.

1115 Several high officers of the 15 Scottish Div arrive to recce the ground for their attack through us. Put all them together with the French Officials still around it looks like an Army HQ.

Formed on 26 April 1860– predating the Confederation of Canada by seven years– as the Second Battalion Volunteer Militia Rifles, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada (a title it earned in 1882) is the country’s oldest continuously serving infantry regiment, a lineage acquired after 1953 when it was amalgamated with the 1st and Canadian Rifle Battalions to form the current unit. After serving in the Fienan Wars, the North-West Rebellion, fighting the Boer, and earning two dozen battle honors on the Western Front against the Kaiser, the Queen’s Own Rifles got into WWII combat at Normandy.

The QOR, part of the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, hit Juno Beach at Bernieres-sur-mer at 0812 on D-Day, with A Company on the right and B Company on the left in the first wave while C and D companies along with the Battalion Headquarters coming in just eight minutes later, losing 61 men that morning.

In all, they would remain in combat all through France and across Northeast Europe until VE Day, earning 10 more battle honors and paying for them with the last full measure of 463 of the Queen’s Own killed in action and buried in Europe. Meanwhile “almost 900 were wounded, many two or three times. Sixty more QOR personnel were killed serving with other units in Hong Kong, Italy, and Northwest Europe.”

Post-WWII, they saw service in Korea, NATO duty in Germany, UN duty in Cyprus, and more limited deployments to Cambodia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Sudan.

Today, the Queens Own Rifles are garrisoned in Moss Park Armoury, Toronto, as part of the 32 Bde Group.

The regiment’s motto is In Pace Paratus (In peace prepared).

Warship Wednesday, June 5, 2024: Three Princes

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

Warship Wednesday, June 5, 2024: Three Princes

 

Library & Archives Canada Photo CT214, MIKAN No. 4950871

Above we see a great original Kodachrome showing a naval rating, bosun pipe and boat whistle in the belt, checking the wicked edge of a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife held by a soldier from the Canadian 1e Régiment de la Chaudière aboard the landing ship infantry (medium) HMCS Prince David (F59), June 1944, with one of the ship’s landing craft from No. 529 Flotilla, LCA No. 1059, providing background. The CRs would go in on Juno Beach on D-Day as part of the 8th Canadian Brigade and continued to fight in North West Europe until the end of the war. Meanwhile, seven out of No. 529’s eight landing craft would be sunk that day.

As for Prince David, she had already seen lots of campaigning in WWII from the Aleutians to Martinique and had lots more to come.

The Three Princes

In 1930, Canadian National Steamships company, which had started a decade prior as an offshoot of the Canadian National Railway Co, ordered a trio of new three-funneled from Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England, for use on Canada’s West Coast. These ships, augmenting the cramped older CNSS Prince George (3,372 GRT, circa 1910) and CNSS Prince Rupert (3,380 GRT, circa 1909), would be fine coastwise liners, at some 6,893 GRT and some 385 feet overall.

Powered by 6 Yarrow water-tube five-drum boilers powering twin Parsons geared turbines, these new liners could make an impressive 22.5 knots (23 on trials at 19,000 shp) and carry a mix of 400 passengers (334 first class in above deck cabins and 70 in belowdecks steerage) as well as light cargo and mail. They would be named Prince David, Prince Henry, and Prince Robert.

A watercolor retouched photo of CNSS Prince Robert in her original CN livery. CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum accession No. VR1991.320.1.

North Star, ex-Prince Henry

The three new vessels, completed for $2 million each, were delivered in the “Dirty ’30s” while the Great Depression was at its peak and soon suffered from a doldrums of low bookings and hazardous operations, sending them into a series of longer cruises to the West Indies and Alaska, with Prince Henry suffering from a six-month grounding off Bermuda that saw her sold to the rival Clarke Steamship Company of Montreal in 1937 and renamed under that house line as SS North Star.

Meet Prince David

Our subject was named, not for royalty, but after Mr. David E. Galloway, a vice president of Canadian National Steamships.

With the downturn in cruise ship bookings in the late 1930s, Prince David was laid up in Halifax in 1937 in fairly bad shape– then allowed to get worse. The below notes after an inspection by RCN surveyors on the liner as well as her two sisters in 1939 as the beat of war came to the world.

War!

Finally purchased for a song (the repaired North Star/Prince Henry for $638,223; Prince Robert for $738,310; and Prince David for $739,663) in late 1939, they were sent to be overhauled and refitted for service as armed merchant cruisers. Additions included stiffened deck sections for six deck guns (four Vickers 6″/45 BL Mark VIIs and two 12-pdr 3″/50 18cwt QF Mark Is) as well as magazines, searchlights, and a battery of assorted light machine guns left over from the Great War.

The main guns allowed a 2,000-pound broadside per minute gauged at five salvos.

A quartet of 6-inch/45 cal Mk VII guns awaiting Installation on HMCS Prince David, 19 August 1940. The ship on the right is a Canadian Navy Basset-class Trawler and the ship in the center background is “M.V. M.F. Therese. Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3394502

Chief Petty Officer placing a shell in the magazine rack on HMCS Prince David. Courtesy of Kyle Daun via For Posterity’s Sake

6-inch gun HMCS Prince David 1941 via Wikicommons

Prince David 50 cal Colt M1917 twins via Wikicommons

Petty Officer Williams instructing ratings in the operation of a Lewis machine gun aboard HMCS Prince David, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, January 1941. LAC 3567142

A few depth charges (but not listening gear) were installed for counter-submarine work.

Prince David and her two sisters were the largest ships in the RCN for most of World War II, a distinction only eclipsed when Canada acquired the brand-new light cruiser HMS Minotaur (53), transferred to Royal Canadian Navy in July 1944, which dutifully became HMCS Ontario (C53), soon joined by Uganda, who kept her name when she was recommissioned 21 October 1944– Trafalgar Day– but replaced HMS with HMCS.

The specs as AMCs: 

Prince David would be commissioned on 28 December 1940, three weeks after Prince Henry which broke out her duster on 4 December, while Prince Robert, who was in better material shape than her sisters, joined the RCN on 31 July 1940.

Prince David, assigned to the Royal Navy’s America and West Indies Station would conduct workups and escort a few Halifax-to-Bermuda convoys (BHX 109, BHX 113, and BHX 135) in 1941 between searching for Axis blockade runners as far away as Trinidad and Martinique. This included a brush with the Vichy-French tanker Scheherazade (13467 GRT, built 1935) and chasing a possible German warship– thought to be a Hipper-class cruiser but later believed to be either the auxiliary cruiser Thor (HSK 4) or a U-boat supply ship. Her sisters Prince Robert-– who bagged the zinc-laden 9,200-ton German steamer Weser off the coast of Mexico– and Prince Henry who haunted Callao for German ghost ships, were on similar missions at the time.

Prince David also helped convoy the fast troopship HMT Durban Castle, carrying among other passengers the exiled Greek royal family, including King George II, who was being spirited from Alexandria to England via Durban and the Cape of Good Hope– earning Prince David’s skipper a Greek War Cross in a gesture of Hellenic gratitude.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Prince David was transferred with her sisters to British Columbia in early 1942 where the “Esquimalt Force” was to provide some defense of the Canadian Pacific Coastline from the marauding Japanese that were making moves into the Aleutians and taking pot-shots via submarines of the California and Oregon coast. I-26 shelled the lighthouse at Estevan Point on Vancouver Island and I-25 torpedoed and shelled the 7,000-ton British-chartered freighter SS Fort Camosun off Cape Flattery, with 31 survivors rescued by the Flower-class corvette HMCS Edmundston. Hence, Japanese subs were definitely in the area.

The trio of Princes would spend the next 18 months patrolling a line covering Vancouver-Victoria-Prince Rupert and making a show of it for the local populace. To give them some more teeth, they picked up ASDIC sets and additional depth charges.

In August 1942, with the Americans, assisted by the Canadians, moving to kick the Japanese out of the Aleutians, badly needed convoy escorts to free tin cans for front-line service. To answer the call, Force D was formed at Esquimalt from the three Princes along with the two Flower-class corvettes HMCS Dawson and HMCS Vancouver.

Sailing for Kodiak on 19 August and beginning their first convoy escort to Dutch Harbor two days later, over the next two months the Princes, augmented by a couple old American four-piper destroyers as the smaller Flowers were relegated to ASW patrol off Adak, would shepherd over two dozen small (under 12 ships) unnamed convoys back and forth between the two ports as close to the coast as possible for the 350-mile run, hugging the fog-covered narrow passengers and channels of the Alaskan peninsula and the Fox and Iliasik islands. The convoys were typically made up of a Prince paired with a four-piper.

By the time the force was released on Halloween 1942, Prince Henry made 11 convoy runs, Prince Robert 13, and Prince David 10. A few submarine contacts resulted in depth charge runs, but no losses were incurred.

Sent back to Esquimalt, the Princes were soon back on patrol off Vancouver, continuing into March 1943.

LSI Days

With their role as blockade runner/surface raider hunters aged out by the first part of 1943, and more effective new destroyers coming on line for use as escorts, by this stage of the war, the Admiralty had decided to equip each Prince for more worthwhile service with five twin Mark XVI 4-inch high angle guns, two quad 2 pounder pom-poms, six 20mm Oerlikons, and extra pair of twin .50 cals, and four depth charge throwers. It was even put forth that the Mark XVI’s could instead be new 4.7-inch DP guns as a 4.7-inch suite would allow a broadside of 3,600 pounds per minute judged at five salvos per gun, plus her high-angle enough that they could be used in an AAA role.

However, as the retrofit would have cost some $7 million for the class, and funds were scarce, it was decided to rearm Prince Robert alone for $2 million for a fit that included the above guns (with twice the number of 20mm mounts as well as Type 291 radar and Type 242 IFF).

HMCS Prince Robert (F56), 4-inch Mk. XVI anti-aircraft guns and crew, during convoy escort in March 1944. She would spend the rest of the war on convoy duties, riding shotgun 19 times on runs to and from England and North Africa between October 1943 and September 1944. She was then sent to the Pacific. MIKAN No. 4950890

Prince Robert at Vancouver, B.C., 1943. CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum accession No. VR1993.57a.2

Prince Robert, mid-WW2. CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum accession No. VR1992.28.7.

Then, the Admiralty would simply convert Prince David and Prince Henry to landing ships for a more paltry $450,000 each.

The LSI conversion meant keeping the ASW weaponry, landing their 6 and 3-inch guns in favor of two twin 4-inch high-angle mounts, 10 single-barreled 20mm Oerlikons, and two 40mm Bofors. Radars, Types 272, 253, 285, and 291, were also added. Signals, cipher, and surgical suites were greatly expanded.

Prince David as LSI, not her davits and interesting false bow camo scheme. LAC 4821078

Prince David as LSI. Courtesy of Kyle Daun via For Posterity’s Sake

HMCS Prince David (F89) as LSI. Note maple leaf on the stack and “PD” identifier on her hull

Side davits for eight landing craft– manned by a dedicated 5 officer/50 rating detachment– were installed. The craft would be a mix of typically six Canadian-made unarmed 58-foot LCAs and two British-made machine-gun fitted 41-foot LCS(M)s. Each of these embarked forces as a semi-independent RN Flotilla, No. 528 (Lt R.G. Buckingham, RCNVR) in Prince Henry and No. 529 (Lt J.C. Davie, RCNVR) on Prince David, a mix of forces that would sometimes prove…rowdy.

Prince Henry and Prince David, after receiving their conversions in Vancouver, would go through the Panama Canal and, after a stop in New York, cross the Atlantic as convoy escorts for UT7 in January 1944– with David full of 437 American soldiers. They would then spend the next five months prepping for Overlord.

HMS Prince David, LSI(M). 6 February 1944, Greenock by LT SJ Beadell. Note her new camouflage, twin 4-inch mount, and davits. IWM A 21735

Invasion craft rehearsal. 24 to 28 April 1944, off The Isle Of Wight. Various crafts during an Invasion rehearsal. HMCS Prince David is shown (note her PD identifier on her hull) with davits loaded with LCAs. By LT EE Allen IWM A 23743

HMCS Prince David (F89). At anchor, 9 May 1944. Note the “PD” identifier on her amidships. LAC 3520344

Prince David’s LCA 1375 landing troops. Photo believed to be taken at Bracklesham Bay during Exercise Fabius (Normandy rehearsal) Landings in May 1944.

Prince David’s No. 529 Flotilla’s LCA 1375 and 1059 landing troops in May 1944 during Fabius. Royal Canadian Naval Photograph, negative No. A679

Royal Navy Beach Commandos aboard a Prince David embarked on a Landing Craft Assault boat of the 529th Flotilla, Royal Navy, during a training exercise off the coast of England, 9 May 1944. Note the “hawk, hook, and rifle” Combined Operations insignia on their sleeves. Prince David would send two boats of these men ashore on Juno Beach on D-Day. Photo by Lt Richard G. Arless. LAC PA-13628

Able Seaman Murray Kennedy splicing cable aboard HMCS Prince David, Cowes, England, 10 May 1944. Note the ship’s bell. LAC 3512521

On 2 June at Southampton, Prince Henry loaded 326 troops (including 227 of the Canadian Scottish Regiment) while Prince David embarked 418 (a mix of Régiment de la Chaudière and 5th Bn Royal Berkshire Regiment along with some RM/RN beach control party/clearance members) and set out for their staging areas that night, played out to sea by the Canadian Scott’s pipe band.

By 0500 on D-Day, as part of Group J-1, a bugle call stood the troops going ashore on deck and the first landing craft were lowered by 0620, with David’s boats making for their beach at Bernieres-sur-Mer (Nan White) and Henry’s headed for Courseulles sur Mer (Mike Red) for H-Hour which on the Juno area was 0755.

Lookout on the flagdeck of HMCS Prince David watching assault craft heading ashore to the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944. LAC 3202146

An unidentified infantryman of Le Régiment de la Chaudière, 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, preparing to disembark from HMCS Prince David off the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944. Note that his Enfield is in a protective plastic bag. Starting with D-Day, the would earn 19 battle honors for WWII, fighting its way across Northwest Europe for the next 10 months. PD-360. LAC 3202207

Private Jack Roy of Le Régiment de la Chaudière preparing to disembark from HMCS Prince David off Bernières-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944. Note the No. 38 field wireless set across his chest, E-tool slung over his shoulder, helmet skrim, and wrapped Enfield. PD-371 LAC 3396561

Royal Marines who will be removing mines and obstructions from the D-Day landing beaches, preparing to disembark from HMCS Prince David off the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944. PD-361 LAC 3202145

Men of the 5th Bn Royal Berkshire Regiment (British Army) including three sergeants, disembarking from HMCS Prince David on D-Day, France, 6 June 1944. Credited with a big part in liberating Bernieres-sur-Mer by the locals, the main drag in that French village today carries the name “Rue Royal Berkshire Regiment.” LAC 3525863

Landing craft depart from their LSI mother ship, HMCS Prince Henry (note the “PH” identifier on her amidships), headed for Juno Beach on June 6, 1944.

Landing craft with infantrymen preparing to go ashore from HMCS Prince David off Bernières-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944 aboard alongside LCIs after her LCAs took their loads to the beach and never returned. Library and Archives Canada Photo, PA-131501 MIKAN 3396559

Of No. 529 Flotilla’s eight landing craft, LCA 985, 1059, 1137, 1138, 1150, 1151, and 1375; and LCS (M) 101, all except 1375 would be sunk off Normandy.

With their troops landed by mid-morning, Prince Henry and David were dispatched back to England to embark on a second wave, each laden with casualties recovered from the fighting ashore. Prince David, the first LSI from Overlord to make Southampton on D-Day, carried 40 wounded and three dead, and arrived at the dock at 2230, received by waiting ambulances. The ships, however, had arrived back with their davits empty and at least three boat crews missing.

Prince David and Prince Henry would make another eight cross-channel sorties in support of Overlord, in all, landing 5,566 men between them.

Prince David carried 1,862 men to Normandy in four trips between D-Day and 10 July 1944, including members of the U.S., Canadian, and British forces.

Able Seaman Freddy Derkach (right) with personnel of the 65th Chemical Company, U.S. Army, including a mascot, aboard HMCS Prince David off Omaha Beach, France, 5 July 1944. LAC 3525871

Prince David with American officers on bridge LAC 3963986

Outfitted with the recovered LCA 1375, her only original landing craft, and her davits filled with other recovered LCAs and LCS(M)s, Prince David, along with her sister Prince Henry, would be transferred to the sunny climes of the Mediterranean where they would get ready to repeat Overlord along the French Rivera in the form of Operation Dragoon.

Gun crew sunbathing on “Y” gun of the infantry landing ship HMCS Prince David, Italy, July 1944. LAC 3202227

Loading Senegalese troops in Ajaccio Corsica for South France invasion late July 44

Prince Henry and Prince David in Adjacco prior to Dragoon. LAC PA211359

Prince David and Henry would become part of the Sitka Force, which would put ashore assorted special operations troops during Dragoon.

French 1e Groupe de Commandos aboard HMCS Prince David en route to take part in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, 10 August 1944. Note the mix of American and British kit and the prevalence of M1928 Thompsons. LAC 3525866

Prince David would carry over 1,400 Free French troops home during Dragoon in three waves, similar numbers repeated by Prince Henry.

Then came operations in Greek waters. Between September 1944 and January 1945, she made no less than 11 runs back and forth to Aegean ports, landing no less than 1,400 British Army, and 1,000 Free Greek troops (along with the Greek prime minister) while repatriating 400 Italian POWs.

Able Seaman Joe Nantais manning an Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft gun aboard HMCS Prince David off Kithera, Greece, 16 September 1944. PD-656, LAC 3394410

Georgios Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece, speaking to the Ship’s Company of HMCS Prince David before disembarking from the ship which had returned him and his ministers to Greece. LAC 3191571

HMCS Prince David LCA-1375 liberation of Greece, Oct. 1944

British-kitted Free Greek troops disembarking from the landing craft of HMCS Prince David, Syros, Greece, 13 November 1944. Note the mix of BREN guns and M1 Carbines. LAC 3378808

Damaged by a mine on 10 December 1944, off Aegina Island, Greece, she continued her mission and landed her troops despite a 17-foot hole in her hull.

12 December 1944. Paratroopers of 2 Independent Para Bde Group receive last-minute orders before disembarking from Prince David in Greece. During the sea voyage, the ship struck a mine, which exploded below the forward magazine. The magazine was flooded and sealed off, and the ship sailed ahead on an even keel. Lieut. Powell-Davies, No. 2 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit. IWM NA 20769

HMCS PRINCE DAVID in dry dock at Ferryville, North Africa for repairs after striking a mine – LAC PA142894

In all, between Overlord, Dragoon, and Greece, Prince David carried no less than 7,043 officers and men in 19 journeys.

Repaired at Bizerte, North Africa, she left in March 1945 to refit at Esquimalt, from where she would join the British Pacific Fleet for the final push on Tokyo. However, the war ended while she was still pier-side in British Columbia.

Taking off the warpaint

Prince David would be paid off on 11 June 1945 and laid up at Vancouver. Sold to Charlton, she would be refitted for the migrant-run trade as Charlton Monarch, she soon suffered an engineering casualty off Brazil in 1948 and was subsequently scrapped.

As for her sisters, both survived the war, with Prince Robert assisting in the liberation of Hong Kong in 1945 after service with the British Pacific Fleet, and was paid off in December 1945. Sold to Charlton two years later, she began cut-rate migrant voyages as SS Charlton Sovereign, packed with as many as 800 European refugees headed to Australia and South America, later being sold to an Italian shipper and operated as SS Lucania. She was broken up in Italy in 1962.

Prince Henry, loaned to the Royal Navy in April 1945, would continue to serve under Admiralty orders until July 1946. Henry was bought by HMs Ministry of War Transport for $500,000 and, renamed Empire Parkeston, would carry British troops between Harwich and the Continent for another decade, taking a break for use in the Suez in 1956, carrying elements of 16 Parachute Brigade. Withdrawn in September 1961 after an airbridge was put in place for replacements to the British Army of the Rhine, she was broken up at La Spezia the next year.

As for Canadian National Steamships, they got out of the boat business altogether in 1975.

For more detail into the “Three Princes” during RCN service, a circa 1986 236-page volume is online at a Canadian Forces website.

Epilogue

The best memorial to HMCS Prince David is her For Posterity’s Sake webpage.

While in Esquimalt in July 1942, Prince David was used to film several extensive scenes for the 1942 Paul Muni and Anna Lee war romance “Commandos Strike At Dawn” which appears in the third act. These included not only troops loading on deck and the vessel shoving off but also underway.

HMCS Prince David with a bone in her teeth from “Commandos Strike At Dawn.” Note the splinter mats around her bridge and troops on deck.

Two of Canada’s three official war artists embarked on Prince David during the war to observe ops, and their works survive.

“Embarking Casualties on D-Day, HMCS Prince David” was painted by Harold Beament in 1944. As part of the invasion fleet, Canadian ships carried troops and equipment to Normandy and brought casualties back to England. HMCS Prince David, seen here, carried more than 400 troops to Normandy, including members of the Quebec-based Le Régiment de la Chaudière. One of three Canadian National Steamships liners converted for wartime use, Prince David later supported several assault landings in the Mediterranean and carried Greece’s government-in-exile back to Athens in late 1944. Beaverbrook Collection of War Art CWM 19710261-1012

Famed Canadian painter and war artist, Alex Coleville, was aboard Prince David for Dragoon and produced at least two from this period which are now in the Canadian War Museum.

HMCS Prince David in Corsica as LSI Alex Coleville CWM Photo, 19710261-1685

“On the Bridge” Alex Colville painted this view of the bridge of HMCS Prince David, a Canadian infantry landing ship serving in the Mediterranean. An officer (right) keeps watch with binoculars, while another member of the crew, wearing a Prince David sweatshirt, sunglasses, and headphones, operates equipment, possibly a radar set (bottom left). Following their involvement in the successful landings in the south of France early on 15 August 1944, Prince David and HMCS Prince Henry, another Canadian infantry landing ship, continued to transport reinforcements to the invasion area until the 24th. CWM 19820303-252.

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

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Warship Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023: Old Lovely

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

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023: Old Lovely

Courtesy of William H. Davis, 1976. Naval History and Heritage Command Catalog #: NH 84879

Above we see the 542-class tank landing ship USS Meeker County (LST-980) arriving at San Diego, California, on 6 September 1970, capping a four-year stint in Vietnam where she, just a few months before, had survived an attempted mining by a VC dive team. Note that her guns– including WWII-era Bofors– are covered and she is carrying much topside cargo to include vehicles and cranes.

The Normandy veteran was laid down 80 years ago this month, saw lots of service in a few different wars, and was among the very last of her class in U.S. Naval service.

The 542s

A revolutionary concept that, by and large, went a long way to win WWII (and later turn the tables in Korea) was the LST. Designed to beach their bows at the surf line and pull themselves back off via a combination of rear anchor winching and reverse prop work, they were big and slow, earning them the invariable nicknames of “Large Slow Target” or “Last Ship (to) Tokyo.”

While a few early designs were built by the British (the Maracaibo and Boxer classes) it wasn’t until the Royal Navy placed a wish list with the U.S. for 200 LST (2) type vessels that the Americans got into the landing tank ship design in a big way.

This general 1,800-ton, 327-foot vessel, powered (eventually) by two easily maintained GM EMD locomotive diesels, was ultimately built in a whopping 1,052 examples between 1942 and 1945. They could carry around 120 troops, which could be landed by as many as a half-dozen davit-carried Higgins boats, but their main claim to fame was in being able to tote almost 1,500 tons of cargo and vehicles on their tank deck for landing ashore.

Built across three different subclasses (390 LST-1 type, 51 LST-491 type, and 611 LST-542) in nine different yards spread across the country– including five “cornfield shipyards” in the Midwest, then shipped via river to the coast– our humble “gator” was of the latter type.

The 542s, while using the same general hull and engineering plant, were equipped with an enclosed navigation bridge, a large 4,000 gal per day saltwater distilling plant, and a heavier armament (1 3″/50 DP open mount, 2 twin 40mm Bofors w/Mk.51 directors, 4 single Bofors, and 12 20mm Oerlikon) than previous members of the class. This, however, dropped their maximum cargo load from 2,100 tons as carried by previous sisters, down to “only” 1,900.

LST-542 type, cutaway model. Note the extensive 40mm and 20mm gun tubs, six LCVPs in davits, and tank deck. The 542s and some late 491s used a simple ramp rather than an elevator to move vehicles from the topside to the tank deck and vice versa. NMUSN-4950

The first to enter service, LST-542, was commissioned on 29 February 1944, while the last completed was LST-1152, commissioned on 30 June 1945. Now that is production, baby!

Meet LST-980

Laid down on 9 December 1943, at Boston Navy Yard, LST-980 was constructed in just 79 days to be commissioned on 26 February 1944. T

hen came two months of shakedown and post-delivery refits before she left, packed with equipment, bound for England where “the big show” was soon to start.

Touring Beachside France

After leaving Southend on the afternoon of 5 June, on D-Day, LST-980, along with sisters LST-543, 981, 982, and 983, made up Flotilla 17, Group 52, Division 103, under CDR William J. Whiteside as commodore.

The group brought their loads, elements of the British Army, successfully to Juno Beach in the afternoon of the 6th.

Part of L Force, they carried the British 7 Armoured Division and 51 Division along with parts of both I Corps and XXX Corps.

Mitchell Jamieson, “Morning of D-Day from LST” NHHC 88-193-hi

LST in Channel Convoy June 1944 Drawing, Ink and Wash on Paper; by Mitchell Jamieson; 1944; Framed Dimensions 30H X 25W Accession #88-193-HK

After reloading, on 7 June, while carrying elements of the 1st British Army Corps to the No. 102 Beach area on Sword Beach, LST-980 was the subject of several low-level German air attacks, one of which hit the gator with two small (125 pound) (SC50?) bombs, neither of which seemed to have had enough time/distance to arm. The second passed through the main deck and continued into the water. The first, however, likewise passed through the main deck but came to rest in a truck parked on the tank deck.

This problem was carefully addressed by four engineers (LT JHB Monday, SGT H. Charnley, CPL J. McAninly, LCPL F. Crick) of 1 Electrical & Mechanical Section, 282 General Transport Company, who gingerly picked it up, placed it on a field stretcher, carried it to the opened bow doors, and deep-sixed it. While DANFS reports one killed in this incident, other sources note there were no personnel casualties and only minor damage.

Several of her sisters would not be as lucky.

LST-376 was sunk by German E-boats off Normandy on 9 June 1944, LST-499, LST-496, and LST-523 were lost to German mines between 8 June and 19 June; and LST-921 was torpedoed by U-764 on 14 August.

Speaking of August, look at this report from LST-980 filed in September, covering her continued operations on the England to France cross-channel run. Among the more interesting spots are narrowly avoiding German coastal batteries on occupied Gurnsey Island while loaded with artillery shells, shipping 167 U.S. Army vehicles (including 25 tanks and two batteries of field artillery) and 521 soldiers to the Continent while returning to England with 1,106 captured German personnel (guarded at a ratio of 200 EPOWs to 9 MPs) including 30 female nurses.

By February 1945, with the prospect of further amphibious landings in the European Theatre unlikely, LST-980 was sent back to the East Coast to serve as a training ship at Little Creek for troops headed to the Pacific for the ongoing push on Tokyo and the Navy/Coast Guardsmen that would carry them. Our gator was there on VE-Day and VJ-Day.

Naval Gun Factory, Navy Day, October 27 October 1945. Visitors are shown to the U.S. Navy ships at the waterfront. Shown right to left: USS Meeker County (LST 980); USS Dyson (DD 572); USS Claxton (DD 571); USS Converse (DD 509); and USS Charles Ausburne (DD 570). Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph, Navy Subject Files, WNY Box 7, Folder 1.

In April 1949, just three weeks after NATO was formed, LST-980 sailed for a six-month stint with the 6th Fleet in the Med at a time when Europe was still very much in a post-war recovery, with the Cold War dawning.

Records indicate her crew was eligible for a battle star for the Invasion of Normandy from 6 June to 25 June 1944 and later a Navy Occupation Medal for service in Europe from 19 May to 19 September 1949.

When it came to her sisters, no less than 41 were lost during the conflict including six in the so-called West Loch Disaster, two at Slapton Sands to German E-boats during Exercise Tiger, seven to Japanese aircraft and kamikaze, six to Japanese and German submarines, and one (LST-282) to a German glider bomb

Post-war service

In the period immediately following VJ-Day, the Navy rapidly shed their huge LST fleet, giving ships away to allies, selling others on the commercial market (they proved a hit for ferry conversions, as coasters in remote areas, and use in the logging industry), and laying up most of the remainder. More than 100 vessels that were still under contract but not completed were canceled. 

By August 1946, only 480 of the 1,011 survivors were still in some sort of active U.S. Navy service with many of those slated for conversion, mothballs, or disposal.

Many had been reclassified to auxiliary roles as diverse as PT-boat tenders (AGP), repair ships (ARL), battle damage repair ships (ARB), self-propelled barracks ships (APB), cargo ships (AKS), electronic parts supply ships (AG), and salvage craft tenders (ARST). Others, like LST-822, were transferred to the civilian mariner-run Military Sea Transportation Service and traded their USS for USNS. Heck, some had even served during the war as mini-aircraft carriers, toting Army Grasshoppers.

Jane’s 1946 listing, covering a thumbnail of the U.S. Navy’s LST classes.

However, LST-980 remained on active service through the Korean conflict, where she was semi-exiled to support the Army and Air Force’s polar basing efforts in Greenland, carrying supplies through the barely thawed Baffin Bay in the summers of 1951, 1952, and 1953, earning a trifecta of Blue Noses for her crew.

USS LST-980 working her way through the Baffin Bay icepack en route to U.S. Air Force Base Thule, Greenland in the summer of 1953. USS LST-980 sailed in August from NAB Little Creek, VA. to Thule Air Force Base, Greenland. LST-980’s load was construction equipment. The ship moved through the icepack behind the Icebreaker USS Northwind (AGB-5). Despite careful sounding of the landing route to the beach at Thule, LST-980 settled on a huge underwater boulder puncturing two of the ship’s fuel tanks and disabling two of the three ship’s generators. After unloading, divers from the seagoing tug in our company patched the punctures and LST-980 proceeded back to Portsmouth, VA. at reduced speed, in the company of the tug. At Portsmouth, the ship was hauled out onto a marine railway for repairs. LST-980 was not able to pump out the damaged fuel tanks, consequently, thousands of gallons of diesel fuel drained into the James River. Repairs were made and LST-980 was back in the fleet in a couple of months. Photo from Alvin Taub, Engineering Officer USS LST-980, via Navsource.

As something of a reward, LST-980 would spend the winters during the same period schlepping Marines around the sunny Caribbean on exercises, typically out of Gtmo and Vieques/Rosy Roads.

LST-980 photographed circa 1950s. Courtesy of William H. Davis, 1976 NH 84878

In July 1955, the 158 LSTs remaining on the Naval List (including the two post-WWII era LST-1153 class and the 54 Korean War-era LST 1156 class vessels) were given county names to go with the hull numbers. Thus, our LST-980 became USS Meeker County, the only ship named in honor of the rural south-central Minnesota county with Litchfield as its seat.

By this time, with over a decade of good service on her hull and most of her class either under a different flag or rusting away in mothballs, the ax came for our girl.

On 16 December 1955, the newly named Meeker County was decommissioned and placed in reserve status, first in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and then in Philly.

Reactivation, and headed to China Beach

With the problems in Southeast Asia suddenly coming to a head in 1965, and the Marines of Battalion Landing Team 3/9 wading ashore at Red Beach Two, north of Da Nang, on 8 March, the Navy suddenly found itself needing more gators.

“Coming Ashore: Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines [BLT 3/9] wade ashore from landing craft at Red Beach 2, just north of Da Nang on March 8, 1965.” From the Jonathan F. Abel Collection (COLL/3611) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division

Several mothballed LSTs were inspected and those found to be in better condition were modernized and reactivated for West Pac service.

The retrofit saw modern (ish) radars and commo gear installed on a new mast to the rear of the wheelhouse, the four forward Higgins boat davits removed while two aft were retained for 36-foot LCVPs, the armament reduced, and a helicopter deck installed on the top deck between Frames 16 and 26.

Observed the changes as shown on sister USS Hamilton County (LST-802) click to big up:

Meeker County was towed to Baltimore, modernized, and recommissioned on 23 September 1966.

A much cleaner Meeker County. Note the helicopter pad and large rear mast but retained 40mm and 20mm guns

Four months later she shipped out for Guam, her official “home port” although she would be bound for semi-permanent service with Landing Ship Squadron Three in Danang. LSRON3 was composed of a dozen modernized WWII LSTs (LST-344, 509, 525, 603, 819, 839, 901, 980, 1077, 1082, 1123, and 1150).

Meeker County, nicknamed at this point “Old Lovely” by her crew, would spend most of the next four years deployed to the South Vietnam littoral, with the gaps between the below periods generally seeing the LST in Subic Bay, Guam, Hong Kong, or Pearl Harbor undergoing maintenance, rotating crewmembers, or getting some much-needed R&R. 

In country: 

  • April-June; September-December 1967
  • February-May; June-October, and December 1968 (including the Tet Offensive)
  • January; March-April 1969
  • January-March, June-July 1970

Beautiful color footage exists from this period. 

Check out this great two-pager, “Shuttle Run,” covering Meeker County‘s role in moving the Army’s 5th Cavalry Division from Danang to Cua Viet in the I Corps area of Vietnam, just a hair south of the DMZ, by JOC Dick Benjamin in the July 1968 issue of All Hands.

Two snippets:

These are not milk runs. Meeker County and her sister LSTs are often shelled by enemy mortar and artillery fire.

And, as the LST was almost done unloading:

Just a few trailers were left to unload when mortar rounds started coming in, hitting 200 yards from the ship. Before the enemy could correct their range, the unloading was completed and LT [Frank Elwood] Clark backed the ship away. As Meeker County started toward the narrow inlet, heavier artillery rounds began hitting the ramp. More rounds followed the ship as she made her way to the open sea; each succeeding round hit where the ship had been only a few seconds before.

Besides shells and mortar bombs, American ships were subject to repeated attacks by swimmers carrying improvised limpet mines.

These crack Binh chủng Đặc công sappers mounted at least 88 successful attacks against shipping in Vietnamese waters between January 1962 and June 1969 which killed more than 210 personnel and wounded 325. The worst of these was on a gator, USS Westchester County (LST-1167), which resulted in the U.S. Navy’s greatest single-incident combat loss of life during the entire Vietnam War: 25 killed and 27 wounded.

At a camp in the jungle, Viet Cong (VC) swimmer sappers raise their right arms in salute at the completion of a briefing for a demolition attack on a bridge in the province. The original photograph was captured from the VC. AWM P01003.010

To counter such attacks, ships inshore would mount extensive topside sentries with grenades and rifles and occasionally spin up their props to scare away sneaky swimmers.

Note this passage from Meeker’s deck log:

Meeker, in a repeat of her Normandy bombing, was once again lucky when the sappers came paddling through.

At 0220 on 28 June 1970, while berthed at the De Long Pier in Vung Tau with 14 feet of muddy water under her keel, a sentry on Meeker County spotted a nylon line secured to the pier, and soon after a swimmer was spotted in the area.

Coming to her assistance were EOD divers of the Royal Australian Navy’s Clearance Diving Team 3. LT Ross Blue, Petty Officer John Kershler, and Able Seaman Gerald Kingston.

As described by the Australian War Memorial:

Kershler dove into the water to discover explosives wrapped in black plastic, and four fishing floats secured to the nylon line.

The bundle was drawn clear of the ship and Blue towed it away using a small craft, so it didn’t touch the bottom of the harbour. It was secured to an empty barge a kilometer from the Meeker County and away from the main shipping channel. The plan was to move it to a nearby mud bank at high tide to inspect it more closely.

A few hours before that could occur, the package exploded, shooting water ten metres into the air. Fortunately, no one was near the package at the time, and there were no injuries or damage from the blast.

Meeker County’s deck log for the day:

CDT 3 7th Team 1970: Rear: ABCD Jock Kingston, LSCD John Aldenhoven, (Inset ABCD Bob Wojcik, Killed 21 June 1970). Front: CPOCD Dollar, LT Ross Blue, and POCD John Kershler. Photo via the Military Operations Analysis Team (MOAT) at the University of New South Wales (Canberra)/AWM P01620.003

All told, Meeker County would earn 10 battle stars, the Meritorious Unit Commendation, and the Navy Unit Commendation for Vietnam service, adding to her WWII battle star from Normandy and her Occupation Medal.

Meeker County was decommissioned, in December 1970, at Bremerton and laid up there. She joined 15 remaining WWII LSTs in U.S. service in mothballs while the last of the type on active duty, USS Pitkin County (LST-1082), was decommissioned the following September.

The 1973 Jane’s listing for what was left of the class, all of which were laid up.

By 1975, with Saigon fallen, the Navy moved to dispose of the last of its WWII LSTs, and they were stricken from the Naval Register. The hulls would be transferred overseas, some scrapped, and others sold on the commercial market. The last to go was USS Duval County (LST-758), sold by MARAD in 1981.

Our Meeker County struck on April Fool’s Day 1975, was sold that December to Max Rouse & Sons, Beverly Hills, and soon was resold to fly a Singapore flag as MV LST 3. By 1978, she was operated by a Panama-owned Greek-flagged firm as MV Petrola 143 (IMO 7629893). Out of service by 1996, she was sold to a breaker in Turkey.

Epilogue

When it comes to enduring relics of our humble LST, little remains.

Some of her deck logs have been digitized in the National Archives.

The Admiral Benson Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2818 in Litchfield, Minnesota is a dedicated Navy Club that remembers USS Meeker County.

Further, the LST Memorial has several photos of LST-980 and her crew digitized and preserved. 

One curious relic, the simple handmade snorkel that was left behind by Viet Cong saboteurs who tried to blow up Meeker County in 1970 was recovered by the Australian divers of CDT3 and is cataloged as part of the AWM’s collection.

“Improvised snorkel with plastic tube connected to a rubber mouthpiece, made from a tyre. Tied around the tube is a piece of khaki green lanyard, to be worn around the neck. A piece of roughly woven string is also attached to the snorkel. It divides at the other end into two piece of string, to which are attached two small balls for insertion in the nose while in use.” AWM RELAWM40821

As for the Ozzies of CDT 3, in the four years (February 1967 – May 1971) they were in Vietnam, they performed over 7,000 ship inspections and safely removed no less than 78 devices from allied hulls.

When it comes to Meeker County’s vast collection of over 1,000 sisters and near-sisters, 11 remain in some sort of service including Mexico, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines– where one, BRP Sierra Madre (LT-57), ex USS Harnett County (LST-821/AGP-281)/RVNS My Tho (HQ-800,) is famously grounded as an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

Meanwhile, two WWII LSTs, none 542 types, are preserved as museum ships in the States. They are USS LST-325 in Evansville, Indiana, and LST-393 in Muskegon, Michigan. Please visit them if you have a chance.

And please visit and join the United States LST Association, a group that remembers them all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022: Ozzie Bird Boat

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

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022: Ozzie Bird Boat

RAN Photo

Here we see something of an ugly duckling, the Royal Australian Navy’s seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross in Hobart around 1930 with five of her six early Supermarine Seagull amphibians aloft. She is considered by many to be the first aircraft carrier of the RAN, sparking a tradition that endures almost a century later.

Purpose-built for her role at the Cockatoo Docks, she was the size of a small cruiser, weighing some 7,000-tons (full load) on a 444-foot long steel hull. She was the largest ship built in dominion at the time. Powered by a quartet of Yarrow boilers driving a pair of Parsons steam turbines, she could make 22.5 knots which was reasonably fast for the age. She carried four QF 4.7-inch Mk VIII naval guns with two forward and two over her stern as well as a variety of Vickers 40mm pom-poms and .303-caliber machine guns, equivalent to a decently armed destroyer.

However, her primary purpose and armament was her airwing of up to nine (six active, three stowed in reserve) floatplanes or amphibians. These would augment and support the RAN’s two planned new Kent (County) class heavy cruisers, HMAS Australia (I84/D84/C01) and HMAS Canberra (I33/D33), who would also carry the same type of catapult-launched/crane recovered seaplanes as Albatross. In fact, it was felt that Albatross could operate in conjunction with those two cruisers in the Pacific, with the seaplane carrier forward deploying to anticipated areas in advance of the more capable surface ships to screen their operations with her aircraft. Besides, her cruise speed was the same rate as the warships. 

Her aviation facilities included safe stowage of 9,967 gallons of avgas– enough for at least 80 sorties for the planned floatplanes she would carry– a large forward hangar space, a centerline black powder catapult that launched over the bow, and two (later three) large cranes capable of lifting aircraft aboard.

The 1931 Jane’s entry for Albatross.

She was a much-updated revised design of the first seaplane/aircraft carrier, the Great War-era HMS Ark Royal.

Albatross, the only Australian warship ever named for the large and iconic seabird, was laid down in 1926 and commissioned on 23 January 1929.

The launch of the Royal Australian Navy’s first seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross on 23 February 1928 at Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney. Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Object no. 00035168

It was originally thought Albatross would carry and operate RAN’s fleet of six Fairey 111D seaplanes, which they had received starting in 1921. One was awarded the Britannia Trophy in 1924 by the Royal Aero Club for circumnavigating Australia in 44 days.

The Fairey III could carry up to 500 pounds of bombs as well as two .303 guns. When used in a pure recon role, sans bombs, they had a 1,500-mile range on 123 gals of gas, which was long legged for the 1920s. Here are IIIFs floatplanes of No. 47 Squadron on the Blue Nile at Khartoum before departing for a series of exploratory flights over Southern Sudan on 8 July 1930. The aircraft pictured are J9796, J9809, and J9802. RAF MOD Image 45163722

However, the Supermarine Seagull III, an amphibian design by Reginald Joseph Mitchell— father of the Spitfire– superseded the Fairy floatplane before Albatross entered the fleet, with nine of the flying boats delivered by 1927. Able to remain aloft for five-hour patrols, the Seagull III was the direct antecedent of the Walrus (Seagull V), one of the best amphibians of WWII. 

As explained by the Fleet Air Arm Association of Australia in reference to the Seagull III:

A total of nine of these aircraft were delivered to the RAAF 101 Fleet Cooperation Flight, who worked closely with the RAN. Of the nine, two were wrecked in (separate) storms whilst at mooring, one crashed after entering a spin during a gunnery spotting exercise (fatal) and six survived for eventual retirement.

Six Seagulls were attached to HMAS Albatross in 1929, but their low freeboard and relatively low powered engine gave poor performance at sea, including the ability to only operate in relatively low sea states.

Wings folded, a Seagull Mk III is lowered onto the foredeck of “Australia’s first aircraft carrier,” the seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross, RAN 1929-1938. Notes on photo: HMAS CERBERUS Museum. It has been kindly made available to the Unofficial RAN Centenary 1911-2011 photo stream courtesy of the Curator, Warrant Officer Martin Grogan RANR. The photo also appears in Topmill Pty Ltd book ‘Aircraft Carriers and Squadrons of the Royal Australian Navy [Topmill, Sydney] edited by Johnathan Nally, p8; also, in Ross Guillett’s book ‘Wings Across the Sea [Aerospace Publications, Canberra 1988] p33.

A great image showing much detail of Albatross’s amidships as she lifts a Seagull Mk III aboard. Note the Naval Number 0 five-cross flag flying, and her two deck guns sandwiched among her cranes. Image via State Library of NSW

A Seagull III amphibian moored in calm water via FAAA

Note the 4.7-inch guns, which surely proved a hassle to plane operations. Nonetheless, she would use them for NGFS at Normandy. 

Although she never operated with more than nine aircraft, measurements of her hangar deck allowed for as many as 14 folded Seagulls.

Albatross’s RAN career was not lengthy, with LCDR Geoffrey B Mason RN (Rtd)’s Naval History Homepage detailing that she completed trials and workups in 1929 to include embarking the Governor-General and wife for a visit to the Australian Mandated Territories in the Pacific then completed a series of local deployments. The next couple of years were spent in a cycle of winter cruises to the New Guinea area, spring cruises in coastal Australian waters, and various fleet exercises.

HMAS Albatross seen at the fleet exercise area in Hervey Bay, Queensland, “we think this image may have been taken around 1931.” Photo: Collection of the late CPO Bill Westwood, courtesy John Westwood, RANR 1965-1967. 

HMAS Albatross craning an amphibian aboard.

HMAS Albatross maneuvering away from Garden Island dockyard (RAN image)

HMAS Albatross. State Library of Victoria – Allan C. Green collection

She was a very beamy ship

Two Supermarine Seagull III amphibians taxi near HMAS Albatross at Hervey Bay, QLD. (RAN image)

In April 1933, her Seagulls were disembarked, and the vessel was reduced to reserve status, used occasionally to tend visiting seaplanes. While in reserve in 1936 she was briefly reactivated for the installation and testing of a new catapult then returned to storage.

In 1937, the Australian government brokered a deal to swap the still very young and low-mileage Albatross to the British Admiralty in partial payment for the recently completed Leander-class light cruiser HMS Apollo, soon to be the HMAS Hobart (D63). The cruiser arrived in Australia at the end of 1938– and went on to earn eight battle honors for her WWII service: “Mediterranean 1941”, “Indian Ocean 1941”, “Coral Sea 1942”, “Savo Island 1942”, “Guadalcanal 1942”, “Pacific 1942–45”, “East Indies 1940”, and “Borneo 1945,” while Albatross, recommissioned 19 April 1938, waved goodbye to Sydney for the last time that July.

HMAS Albatross about 1938, likely on her way to England. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Meet HMS Albatross

Arriving at Portsmouth in September 1938, Albatross was paid off by the Australians and officially transferred to the Royal Navy, a force that promptly put her in reserve with a wartime mission being to provide air surveillance with a force of Walrus amphibians. Her reserve time would be short, as she was fully manned and commissioned as HMS Albatross in June 1939 on the lead-up to Hitler marching into Poland.

Outfitted with six (later nine) Walruses of 710 Naval Air Squadron, she was dispatched in September 1939 to West Africa with a homeport at Freetown– along with visits to Bathurst in the Gambia and French naval base at Dakar– tasked with searching for German blockade runners, U-boats, and commerce raiders plying the South Atlantic.

Artwork, Supermarine Walrus MKI RN FAA 710NAS 9F HMS Albatross W2771. Note the Walrus was a pusher type rather than the Seagull III’s tractor type, and had an enclosed cabin.

HMS ALBATROSS (FL 3052) Underway, coastal waters. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120269

When France fell in June 1940, Albatross carried Jutland veteran RADM George Hamilton D’Oyly Lyon (CiC Africa Station) to Dakar to try and negotiate the neutralization of the French Fleet there, and her aircraft shadowed the incomplete but still dangerous battleship, Richelieu.

Except for a brief refit in Mobile, Alabama, Albatross would maintain her quiet Freetown outpost station for 31 months until, fresh from her Dixie overhaul, she was assigned to the East Indies Station in May 1942 for trade defense against the Japanese and long-ranging German and Italian raiders/submarines.

Notably, she detached one of her planes at Trinidad (Supermarine Walrus W2738 9A ‘Audrey III’), designated 710 NAS ‘Y’ Flight, which proceeded to the Falklands to provide that island chain its sole air defense/patrol asset for the first part of 1942 against the (remote) possibility of a Japanese naval assault on the windswept South Atlantic colony. 

After sailing around the Cape of Good Hope with convoy WS18– and dodging Axis minefields– she was soon part of South African-born RADM Edward Syfret’s Force H for Operation(s) Ironclad/Stream Line Jane, the seizure of the Vichy French colony of Mayotte, the port of Diego-Suarez, and the island of Madagascar, where the Japanese hoped to base long-ranging Kaidai-type submarines.

The extended Madagascar operation was a sideshow, historically significant as it was the first British amphibious assault since the disastrous landings in the Dardanelles in 1915. During the seven-month campaign, Albatross provided care and feeding for her pack of 710 NAS Walruses used in ASW patrols against Japanese RADM Noboru Ishizaki’s 8th Submarine Squadron and five locally-based Vichy subs as Syfret had the large the aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious and HMS Indomitable— equipped with a mix of Martlets, Albacores, and Swordfish– for heavy lifting and to cover the landings themselves.

Embarrassingly, the old battleship HMS Ramillies was heavily damaged while in the “protected” Diego-Suarez harbor at the end of May after Japanese midget submarines, launched from IJN I-16 and I-20, penetrated the layered defenses.

USN ONI image of Albatross 1942 with a CVS (carrier, anti-submarine) designation

Post-Madagascar, Albatross would continue her Indian Ocean service as a headquarters and combined operations training ship at Bombay until July 1943 when, as the Japanese threat to the region had receded, she was sent back to European waters. The Walruses of 710 Squadron were put ashore at Kilindini and ferried to Nairobi before the ship sailed without aircraft, the squadron disbanding at RNAS Lee-on-Solent soon after arrival.

Arriving at Devonport in September, Albatross was paid off for conversion from a seaplane tender to a floating repair ship, a change that included the removal of her catapult and forward main armament while her hangar space was converted to workshops. As she would be sent in harm’s way still, a Type 286 air search radar was fitted as was a half dozen Oerlikons.

Assigned to Force S for the upcoming Operation Neptune, the RN’s support of the D-Day landings at Normandy, she was part of the huge invasion fleet on 6 June 1944 on “The Longest Day.” Her role would be to help install and tend the Gooseberry 5 (Sword Beach) breakwater while plying her repair services there for small craft.

She had a busy month, as noted by Mason, logging an air attack from a German Me109, taking shore fire that killed one rating, providing naval gunfire support and AAA defense of the anchorage, surviving the infamously fierce gale of 19 June, and saving 79 craft from total loss while enabling 132 others to resume service off the beachhead.

By July, Albatross was given a short break to resupply and was then back at it, working repairs off Juno Beach. There, in the pre-dawn darkness of 11 August, she was hit by a new type of German long-range/low-speed circling torpedo– a G7e/TIIID Dackel (dachshund) fired by S-boats (S79, S97, and S177 engaged in the attack, with 10 torpedos fired) of out of Le Harve that killed 66 men and left her with a 15-degree list.

Towed to Portsmouth by a “Free Dutch” salvage tug, Albatross spent most of the remainder of the war under repair with the eye to keep her around as a minesweeper tender. However, as the conflict soon wound down, on 3 August 1945 she was paid off to the reserve and laid up at the Isle of Wright.

Post War career

Placed on the Disposal List in 1946, she was sold to the South Western Steam Navigation Company for continued merchant use. Initially named SS Pride of Torquay in line with a plan to convert her to a floating casino by the Chatham Dockyards, in October 1948 she was bought at auction by the Greek-owned China Hellenic Lines, and she soon became SS Hellenic Prince, ostensibly to recognize the birth of Prince Charles in November, himself the son of Greek nobility, WWII-naval veteran Prince Phillip. Her bread and butter would be to carry World War II refugees to new lives abroad.

SS Hellenic Prince

Reuben Goossens, who details the lives of classic 20th Century liners, has an interesting page covering Hellenic Prince’s short career with the CHL and Pacific Salvage Co. Ltd, which included turning “migrant voyages into a living hell” from Europe to Australia that included allegations of mutiny and a stint as a troopship taking Commonwealth ground forces to Kenya to fight the Mau Mau.

He notes this about the vessel:

The completed 6.558 GRT (Gross Registered Tons) SS Hellenic Prince was certainly no luxury liner, was able to accommodate up 1,200 persons in 200 cabins and dormitories with up to 20 persons, as well some eight and some 4 bunk cabins all having the most basic of facilities, yet all accommodations were fully air-conditioned. The spacious Dining Room seated 560 persons and this venue at certain times also was used as a lounge area, for there were no formal lounges, but there were two Cinemas for entertainment. In the three bays of her hangar deck there were three separate Hospitals – one for men, one for women, and an isolation Ward for sick children who would most likely have come out of one of the concentration camps of post-war Europe.

SS Hellenic Prince (former HMAS Albatross), in rough condition, between 1949 and 1951. State Library of Victoria.

Sold to a British Ship-breaker in 1954, ex-HMAS/HMS Albatross was broken up in Hong Kong where she arrived in tow on 12th August 1954. As far as I can tell, there is little that remains of her in terms of relics.

A Portuguese sister?

Portuguese Navy Capt. Artur de Sacadura Freire Cabral was famed for the first flight across the South Atlantic Ocean in 1922– a 5,200nm trip from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro that took 79 days to log 62 hours of flight time! His aircraft was dubbed Lusitania, a Fairey III-D seaplane specifically outfitted for the journey and, if you remember, the same type of aircraft the Australians intended to operate from HMAS Albatross.

Portugal this month celebrated the centennial of that feat. 

Sadly, Cabral would disappear two years later while flying over the foggy English Channel and never be recovered.

In a salute to him, the Portuguese Navy in 1931 planned the acquisition of a seaplane tender based on Albatross to be constructed at an Italian yard. To be built at Cantieri Riunii dell Adriatico at Trieste as part of an extensive naval shipbuilding program, funding was never realized and all we have is the 1931 Jane’s entry for the vessel.

Sacadura Cabral, based on HMAS Albatross, per Janes.

Epilogue

Albatross is remembered in Australia via a variety of maritime art.

HMAS Albatross operating her Sea Gull III amphibian aircraft. Painting by Phil Belbin. (RAN Naval Heritage Collection)

HMAS Albatross watercolor by John Alcott. AWM ART28074

The Royal Australian Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, including four squadrons of helicopters (723, 725, 808, and 816) along with one of UAVs (822X Squadron), and the Fleet Air Arm Museum, are located at a shore establishment near Nowra, New South Wales. The base, originally formed in 1942 by the Royal Australian Air Force as RAAF Nowra, was transferred to the RAN in 1944 and commissioned in 1948 as HMAS Albatross, recognizing the name of the old seaplane carrier.

RAN MH-60R crew with 725 Squadron at HMAS Albatross

Further, the RAN would revisit aircraft carrier operations with the Colossus-class light aircraft carrier HMS Vengeance (as HMAS Vengeance, from 1952 to 1955) along with the Majestic-class light aircraft carriers HMS Majestic (as HMAS Melbourne, from 1955 to 1982) and HMS Terrible (as HMAS Sydney from 1948 to 1973), spanning a solid 34 years of running fixed-wing flattops.

Today, the RAN’s pair of Canberra-class LHDs, big ships of some 27,500-tons and 757-feet overall length, can carry as many as 18 helicopters and it is thought they could eventually operate F-35B models, continuing the legacy the humble Albatross began a century ago.

September 2021, HMAS Sirius (AO-266) conducts a dual replenishment at sea with HMAS Canberra (LHD-2) and USCGC Munro (WMSL-755), during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2021. (RAN Photo by LSIS Leo Baumgartner)

Specs:

As seaplane tender/carrier
Displacement: 4,800 tons (standard), 7,000 full
Length 443 ft 7 in
Beam: 58 ft molded, 77.75 ft at sponsons
Draft:
1930: 16 ft 11.5 in
1936: 17.25 ft
Propulsion: 4 × Yarrow boilers, 2 x Parsons Turbines, 12,000 shp, 2 shafts
Speed: 22 knots
Range:
4,280 nm at 22 knots; 7,900 nm at 10 knots on 942 tons of oil
Complement: 29 RAN officers, 375 RAN sailors, 8 RAAF officers, 38 RAAF enlisted
Armament:
4 x 120/40 QF Mk VIII guns
2 x single 2-pounder (40-mm) pom-poms (later replaced by quadruple pom-poms in 1943)
4 x 47/40 3pdr Hotchkiss Mk I saluting guns
Aircraft carried: 9 aircraft (six actives, three reserves)

As Hellenic Prince (1949-54, Lloyd’s specs)
Tonnage: 6.558 GRT.
Length: 443.7 ft
Width: 61ft
Draught: 17.25 ft
Propulsion: 4 × Yarrow boilers, Parsons Turbines, 12,000 SHP
Speed: 17 knots service speed, 22 maximum.
Passengers: around 1,000, but up to 1,200 maximum in Steerage.
Crew: 250

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Well-Holstered Hussars

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The below image shows Maj. A. D’Arcy Marks and Capt. A. Brandon Conron of the Canadian 6th Armoured Regiment (1st Hussars) (6 CAR), posed in front of an M4A2 Sherman medium tank near Colomby-sur-Thaon, France, 28 June 1944 in the push out from Normandy.

Note the tracks on the front of the Sherman. Photo by Ken Bell, Library and Archives Canada

Marks has what appears to be a Browning Hi-Power (or M1911?) in a very interesting holster that appears to be a British Pattern 37 flap holster that has been partially cutaway. Conron, meanwhile, is well-outfitted with a revolver rig that includes not only spare rounds but also a cleaning rod in the holster.

As for the 1st Hussars, formed in 1856, they served overseas with distinction in the Great War, earning honors at Vimy Ridge. They returned to France in 1944, landing at Juno Beach where they were “the only unit of the Allied invasion forces known to reach its final objective on D-Day,” which certainly lived up to their motto of Hodie non cars, (Today not tomorrow).

Still part of the Canadian Forces Reserve, they are currently stationed at London, Ontario as part of the 31 Canadian Brigade Group.