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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024: Oft Overlooked Essex

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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

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024: Oft Overlooked Essex

U.S. Navy photo 80-G-282724 in the National Archives, Identifier: 276538368

Above we see the brand new Essex-class fleet carrier USS Bennington (CV-20), decked out in Measure 32, Design 17A camouflage, photographed in the busy shipping lanes off New York on 25 September 1944 by Navy Blimp ZP-12 with the troopship SS Nievw Amsterdam in the foreground. She would go on to become one of the last of her class in Navy custody but first had to earn battle stars off Japan and Vietnam as well as pluck a space capsule from the sea.

Meet Bennington

One of eighteen Essex-class carriers completed during World War II, CV-20 was the second U.S. Navy warship named after the little-known 1777 New York battle during the Saratoga campaign that occurred near the Vermont city of Bennington.

The first USS Bennington (Gunboat No. 4) was a hardy little vessel probably best known to history for taking formal possession of Wake Island for the United States in 1899.

(Gunboat # 4) Dressed with flags in a harbor, probably while serving with the Squadron of Evolution, circa 1891-1892. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 67551

Ordered a week after Pearl Harbor on 15 December 1941, our second USS Bennington was the first of her class built in the Empire State (which makes her name choice logical) and was laid down on 15 December 1942 at the New York (Brooklyn) Navy Yard.

Bennington was also the first American fleet carrier constructed wholly in a dry dock, rather than on a builder’s ways, and at her launching on 26 February 1944, the dock gates were opened to allow the Hudson to flow in. She was sponsored by the wife of eight-time U.S. Rep. Melvin Maas (R-Minn) who, a Great War Marine aviator, was back in uniform as a colonel on MacArthur’s staff.

Bennington being prepared for launching in a building dock at the New York Navy Yard, 23 February 1944. She was christened three days later. Courtesy of Mr. James Russell, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1972. NH 75631

USS Bennington (CV-20) being floated out of drydock at the New York Navy Yard, on 26 February 1944, following her christening. NH 75632

The same yard was soon turning the lessons learned in constructing CV-20 to good use and would build three sisters (Bon Homme Richard, Kearsarge, and Oriskany) while a fourth, USS Reprisal (CV 35) was canceled just after launch.

Bennington was one of the last of the “short bow” designed Essex class carriers completed, with later vessels having a longer clipper bow. Remember this in a minute.

Starting in May 1944, her crew gathered at Naval Training Station Newport and Brooklyn Navy Yard for pre-commissioning training while her inaugural carrier group, the brand new CVG 82, was likewise coming together at the fields around Norfolk.

She was commissioned on 6 August 1944– 80 years ago this week– and her plankowners and baby Airedales boarded her for the first time in front of a crowd of 8,000 people. Her first skipper, T/Capt. James Bennett Sykes (USNA 1919), came from the captain’s cabin of the very successful U-boat-busing USS Card (CVE-11) whose embarked VC-9 squadron bagged an incredible eight boats between August and October 1943.

Her wardroom also included 32-year-old LT John Aloysius “Buddy” Hassett, formerly a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Bees/Braves, and New York Yankees. He naturally pulled down the collateral duty of Bennington’s athletic and recreation director and coach of the carrier’s baseball team and would remain with the vessel until the end of the war.

Hassett would leave the Navy in November 1945 as an LCDR.

CVG-82 was made up of the “Fighting Fools” of VF-82 (36 F6F-5 Hellcats), VB-82 (15 SB2C-4E Helldivers) and VT-82 (15 TBM-3 Avengers). This would be beefed up by two Marine Corsair squadrons, VMF-112 and VMF-223, with a total of 36 F4U-1Ds and 54 flying leatherneck pilots. Likewise, a night fighter det of six radar-equipped F6F-5N, six pilots, two ground officers, and seven enlisted ground crew joined VF-82 at the same time, landing six of the more standard Hellcats to make room.

Thus equipped, CVG-82 sailed for the Pacific in January 1945 with a very fighter-heavy 73 F models, 15 dive bombers, and 15 torpedo bombers, as opposed to the more traditional “Sunday Punch” of 36-36-36 of each type. This was to counter the onset of the kamikaze waves, which started in October 1944, and the general decline of floating and ashore targets on which to expend torpedoes and bombs.

By this point in the Pacific campaign, close-in air support had largely been passed from fast carriers to the Navy’s growing force of CVEs and CVLs, with the CVs tasked instead with providing a robust fighter umbrella over the fleet.

USS Bennington (CV-20) photographed from a plane that has just taken off from her flight deck, during the ship’s shakedown period, 20 October 1944. 80-G-289645

USS Bennington (CV-20) at anchor in Gravesend Bay, New York, 13 Dec 1944

USS Bennington (CV-20) ferries aircraft to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii while on her maiden voyage to fight in World War II in January 1945

War!

Steaming through the Panama Canal and calling at San Diego and Pearl Harbor on her way to Ulithi Atoll Fleet Anchorage by 7 February 1945, CVG-82 managed to chalk up 3,000 landings along the way, although crack ups were to be expected.

Firefighters battle flames engulfing a Marine F4U Corsair after a crash on the flight deck of the carrier Bennington (CV 20) on 14 February 1945. According to Bennington’s War Diary, the plane was of Marine 38, which crashed into the island and “created a stubborn gasoline fire” until it was jettisoned over the side. Its pilot, 2LT W.M. Browning, USMCR, escaped with “minor lacerations.” NNAM photo.

Underway as part of TG 58.1, Bennington/CVG-82’s baptism of fire came on 16 February when she took part in the first large-scale Navy air raids of the Japanese home islands, sending 130 combat sorties in “two deck load strikes” into the area around Tokyo Bay, flying missions against installations at Mitsune and Mikatagahara Airfields on Hachijo Jima, Nanpo Shoto. During the raid, she was the Westernmost carrier– the one closest to Japan.

At the end of the day, 10 aircrew were listed missing. They would not be the last.

From her War Diary for 16 Feb 1945:

She then pivoted south to support the Iwo Jima landings, plastering Chichi Jima on 18 February (D-1). Then came a four-month cycle that saw Bennington pivoting back and forth between supporting landings and operations on/over Iwo and Okinawa and Home Island raids.

This would include joining in, with air groups from 14 other carriers, on the 7 April hammering of the world’s largest battleship, Yamato (with Admiral Seiichi Itō on board), the light cruiser Yahagi, and four of the Emperor’s destroyers into the East China Sea.

Note Bennington’s hits

U.S. Navy deck crewmen aboard USS Bennington (CV-20) maneuver a Curtiss SB2C-4 Helldiver of bombing squadron VB-82 into position on the carrier’s flight deck. VB-82 operated from Bennington during the period February to June 1945. Note Bennington’s arrowhead geometric air group identification symbol on the SB2C’s wings and tail. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.357

Bennington launching TBM Avengers from VT-1 during operations in early 1945. USS Harrison (DD-573), a Fletcher-class destroyer that received 11 battle stars for World War II service, steams past in the background. She would later serve in the Mexican Navy as Cuauhtemoc (E-01) until 1982. 80-G-K-5103

Japanese plane being shot down by gunfire on 14 May 1945 while approaching USS Bennington (CV 20). Image taken from USS Hornet (CV 12). The ships were serving as part of Task Force 38 off the Kyushu, Japan area. Sky is decorated with anti-aircraft fire. 80-G-331622

USS Bennington (CV-20) Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighters of VF-82 prepare for takeoff, circa May 1945. 80-G-K-4946

This high tempo continued until 5 June 1945 when Connie, a “small and tight typhoon overtook TG 38.1, which passed through the eye of the storm at 0700 that morning,” hitting the group with winds clocked at over 100 knots and seas of up to 50 feet. The storm damaged almost every ship in the TG and wrecked or washed away 76 aircraft from the group’s three assembled carriers.

Bennington got some of the worst of it, having her forecastle deck flooded, leaving living spaces a “shambles,” buckling a 25-foot section of her flight deck, and putting both catapults out of commission. Hornet, operating in TG.38.1 along with Bennington, suffered almost the exact same damage.

Nonetheless, she was still capable of putting up strikes– sending 26 Hellcats and 11 Corsairs to bomb and strafe Japanese airfields on Southern Kyushu on 8 June– and mount a CAP over her task group.

Bennington was forced to retire to Leyte Gulf off Tacloban Field where she underwent 20 days of emergency repairs courtesy of the forward-deployed repair ship USS Ajax (AR-6), which cut away her collapsed flight deck.

Workers from the floating workshop USS Ajax, (AR-6) repaired the bow of the carrier USS Bennington, (CV-20) off Leyte Island in June 1945. Virgil Cowart Collection. UA 539.11

CVG-82 made their 10,744th and final landing on Bennington on 10 June. In their four months in combat on CV-20, they had an impressive tally that included helping to break the back of the Imperial Air Force– claiming 386 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air or on the ground– as well as contributing to ending the last surface threat of the Imperial Navy.

In return, CVG-82 lost an incredible 127 aircraft (remember that they sailed from California in January 1945 with 103!) along with 53 aviators and aircrew, a quarter of their complement, across 7,304 combat sorties.

Bled white in terms of both men and material, CVG-82 was pulled off Bennington on 17 June and sent back to the states on the homeward-bound jeep carrier USS White Plains (CVE-66). They would not be ready to deploy again until October 1946, when they shipped out on a Med cruise aboard Bennington’s sister, USS Randolph (CV-15).

CVG-82s scorecard from their 1945 cruise with Bennington:

Likewise leaving Bennington at this time was Capt. Sykes who was sent to take command of the Naval Ordnance Test Station (later NAWS China Lake) at Inyokern, California. His place was taken by Capt. Boynton Lewis Braun (USNA 1921B), a career naval aviator who earned his wings on the old USS Lexington and had formerly commanded the escort carrier USS Manila Bay (CVE-61).

With CVG-82 gone, Bennington soon picked up the recently reorganized Carrier Air Group One (CVG-1) which, formed in 1938 as the “Ranger Air Group” had a lineage that dated back to the Navy’s first purpose-built flattop. Consisting of VF-1 (Hellcats including photo and night fighter variants), VBF-1 (Corsairs) VB-1 (Helldivers), and VT-1 (Avengers), they arrived in the Philippines in mid-June 1945 on White Plains, the same jeep carrier which would tote CVG-82 home.

CVG-1 stood some 163 pilots and 98 aircraft strong.

Starting flight operations on 1 July, they would soon get a bite at the decaying Japanese apple, striking Tokyo just 10 days later. CVG-1 would spend the next five weeks hammering industrial, military, and naval targets across Honshu in what could really be looked at as mopping up operations.

Nonetheless, this allowed the group, and by extension Bennington, to put the final nails in the Imperial Navy’s coffin, logging hits on the 22,000-ton Unryū-class fleet carriers Amagi and Katsuragi; the hybrid carrier-battleships Hyuga and Ise, and the cherished battlewagon Nagato, among others taking refuge in the mine-blocked Inland Sea.

Salvaging parts of a damaged VBF-1 Corsair Aboard the USS Bennington (CV-20), 4 July 1945. 80-GK-6176

Raids on Japan, 1945. Japanese carrier Amagi under attack at Kure, on 24 July 1945. Photo by USS Bennington (CV-20). 80-G-490165

Raids on Japanese Home Islands, July 30, 1945. Japanese carriers of the Amagi-Katsuragi class hit by bombers at Kure Bay, Japan. Radio photograph. 80-G-490169

One of CVG-1’s most hard-felt losses was that of VB-1’s squadron commander, LCDR Andrew B Hamm (USNA ’39) when his SB2C-4E Helldiver was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Kure on 28 July. Hamm’s folks in Alabama were given his posthumous Navy Cross, earned on a previous raid when he landed a 1,000-pound armor-piercing bomb on the carrier Amagi. He was one of 26 pilots and aircrewmen listed killed or missing from the group in their short time on Bennington— almost one per day.

A CVG-1 Corsair launches from the deck of the carrier USS Bennington CV-20 on 14 August 1945. Note the battleship on the horizon

When the Emperor threw in the towel on 14 August, Bennington and her air group spent the next two weeks jogging up and down the coast from Northern Honshu to Southern Hokkaido and back, cataloging 11 Allied POW camps around the region, many of which were not previously known.

Captured by one of CVG-1’s F6F-5P recon birds

They dropped 5.5 tons of supplies from TBMs using canopies repurposed from parachute flares with “more than one pilot expressing his deep satisfaction in making a perfect drop to starving prisoners who by their enthusiastic gestures indicated how welcome their packages were to them.”

CVG-1 was able to clean up its planes and put 83 aviators in the air in everything that could get off the deck to spearhead the “show of force” overflight of USS Missouri during the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on 2 September although the carrier was still 100 miles offshore.

Bennington carried on with her role of patrol and mounting photo recon missions along the Japanese Home Islands until 10 September, when she finally steamed into Tokyo Bay and berthed for a weeklong rest.

There, on 13 September 1945, her crew celebrated the ship’s first birthday complete with entertainment and a “grand dinner.” As noted in her War History, “The birthday actually occurred a little more than a month previous of course (6 August but the celebration was necessarily delayed due to combat operations.”

Big Benn remained in the Far East until mid-October and then went back stateside for the first time since January, dropping off her low-mileage air group at Saipan. CVG-1 would later return to be disestablished at Alameda NAS via the east-bound jeep carrier USS Kwajalein (CVE-98). They had been on Bennington for 30,381 steaming miles in just over three months and made 3,323 landings on her decks.

CVG-1s scorecard for July-August 1945:

Entering San Francisco Bay on 7 November sans aircraft, Bennington remained there over the holidays until January 1946 when she set out for Pearl Harbor with a load of planes and a draft of men headed West for occupation duty.

USS Bennington (CV 20) – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – January 1946

Remaining in the Hawaiian Islands for training for a few months, the carrier was given orders for Norfolk, via the Panama Canal, and arrived there on 22 April.

On 8 November 1946, she was decommissioned and berthed with the Atlantic Reserve Fleet along the James River.

Bennington earned three battle stars for World War II service: 1) Iwo Jima operation, 15 Feb – 4 Mar 1945, 2) Okinawa Gunto Operation, 17 Mar – 11 Jun 1945, 3) Third Fleet operations against Japan 10 Jul – 15 Aug 1945.

Another, Colder, War

Bennington’s mothball slumber lasts just under four years.

Reawakened in October 1950 due to the war in Korea, she was towed to her birthplace at New York Naval Shipyard for an extensive SCB-27A conversion to allow her to handle jets including a pair of new hydraulic Type H Mark 8 (H8) catapults. This upgrade took two grueling years and, once it was finished, she recommissioned on 13 November 1952.

In this, she had been reclassified as an “Attack Aircraft Carrier” to differentiate her from her unconverted sisters and redesignated CVA-20.

Her first jet-and helicopter-equipped air group, CVG-7, composed of VF-71 (F2H Banshee) and VF-72 (F9F Panthers), VF-74 (Corsairs), and VA-75 (AD-4 Skyraiders), along with a det of HUP-2 whirlybirds, arrived on board in February 1953 for Bennington’s Caribbean shakedown cruise and subsequent September 1953- February 1954 Med deployment for NATO exercises.

A F9F-4 Panther from NATC at NAS Patuxent on USS Bennington (CVA 20) 19 April 1954.

It was during this period that she suffered an explosion in her No. 1 fireroom on 27 April 1953 that claimed the lives of 11 men and put her in the yard for two weeks of repair.

She would soon suffer far worse.

Just after returning from the Med, while conducting flight operations off Narragansett Bay with Air Group 181 on 26 May 1954, a series of explosions rocked the carrier after her port catapult accumulator burst and filled the air with vaporized lubricating oil which detonated, immolating the wardroom and crew’s mess which were in the compartments directly above. The fire killed 91 men outright while another 12 succumbed to wounds. Over 200 were injured. twelve would die later from their injuries.

Had it not been for the fact that helicopters and small boats were able to rapidly medevac 82 critically injured sailors ashore to the nearby Naval Hospital in Newport, surely more would have perished.

Sailors injured in the below-deck explosions and fires on board the USS Bennington are carried by elevator to the flight deck for transport to Newport Naval Hospital, 26 May 1954.

The Bennington explosion, almost totally forgotten by the public today, was the second worst U.S. Navy accident during peacetime in terms of lives lost, only surpassed by the 1952 collision between USS Hobson (DD 464) and USS Wasp (CV 18) that left the destroyer cut in half and with 176 men killed or missing.

Her deck bulged in numerous places and with most of the front third of the ship with twisted I beams and blackened compartments, Bennington returned once more to New York Naval Shipyard under her own power on 12 June 1954, where she completed a longer SCB-125 conversion that added an enclosed hurricane bow– to lessen the potential for damage in heavy weather– and of an angled flight deck to improve the efficiency of air operations.

She looked very different upon completion of this, her second major overhaul and conversion in five years. 

USS Bennington (CV-20) off Point Loma near the entrance to San Diego Bay in the late 1950s

Bennington emerged from NYNSY on 19 March 1955 and would embark a new air wing, Air Task Group (ATG) 201, that September for an eight-month “around the Horn” West Pac cruise.

Bennington with ATG-201 embarked, in 1956, seen simultaneously landing an AD Skyraider and catapulting an FH Phantom. Note that she has an enclosed bow now but no bridle catchers handing over. 

Bennington, as modernized. NH 67558

Then, in rapid succession, came another new group ATG-181 for a 1956-57 West Pac cruise.

F9F-8 Cougar of Fighter Squadron (VF) 174 launches from Bennington (CVA 20) as another squadron aircraft prepares to maneuver onto the catapult during flight operations in 1956. NNAM collection.

A U.S. Navy North American AJ-2 Savage of heavy attack squadron VAH-6 Det. N Fleurs landing on the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVA-20). VAH-6 Det. N was assigned to Air Task Group 181 (ATG-181) for a deployment to the Western Pacific from 15 October 1956 to 22 May 1957. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.3301

F2H-3 Banshee of Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 214 pictured while making touch-and-go approaches on board the carrier Bennington (CVA 20) on 2 November 1956. NNAM collection.

Talk about the recruiting poster! Stern of USS Bennington (CVA-20) at Hong Kong, showing her 3″/50 Mk 33 AAA twin mounts. Bennington, with assigned Air Task Group 181 (ATG-181), was deployed to the Western Pacific from 15 October 1956 to 22 May 1957.

San Francisco Naval Shipyard with USS Hancock (CVA-19), the USS Oriskany (CVA-34), and the USS Bennington (CVA-20), 3 October 1957. K-23227

A U.S. Navy North American FJ-4B Fury (BuNo 143574) from Attack Squadron VA-146 Blacktails after landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVA-20) during carrier qualifications off Southern California (USA) in April 1958. VA-146 was assigned a the time to Carrier Air Group 14 (CVG-14) aboard the much larger supercarrier USS Ranger (CVA-61). NNAM No. 1996.253.7230.017

Fly Navy! FJ3 Fury of VF-173 on board of USS Bennington during the middle of the 50s. (US Navy)

Official U.S. Navy Photograph. Catalog #: USN 1036055

The angled deck USS Bennington (CVA-20) passes the wreck of USS Arizona (BB-39) in Pearl Harbor on Memorial Day, 31 May 1958. Bennington’s crew is in formation on the flight deck, spelling out a tribute to Arizona’s crewmen who were lost in the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. USN 1036055

Her final West Pac cruise as a CVA (August 1958 through January 1959) came with ATG-4 embarked.

USS_Bennington_(CVA-20)_underway_c 1958 with ATG 4

Air Task Group 1 (ATG-1) embarked on USS Bennington (CVA 20) in 1958 off Hawaii. Note how big those Savages look!

On 30 June 1959, Bennington was reclassified as an “Antisubmarine Warfare Support Aircraft Carrier” (CVS), a designation that eight of her sisters (Essex, Yorktown, Hornet, Randolph, Wasp, Intrepid, Kearsarge, and Lake Champlain) would share.

The big change that this meant, besides switching to an air group made up of S-2 Trackers and SH-3 Sea Kings with a few AD-5W (EA-1E) Skyraiders for airborne early warning, was having a bow-mounted SQS-23 sonar installed in a SCB-144 conversion.

Five Essex-class flattops at Long Beach Navy Yard. USS Bennington, Yorktown, and Hornet (angled flight decks; no bridle catchers) are configured as ASW carriers; USS Bon Homme Richard (angled deck; with bridle catchers) is an attack carrier; USS Valley Forge (straight axial flight deck with heli zones marked) is serving as LPH-8

Her go-to anti-submarine air group (CVSG) during the 1960s, with which she made six West Coast deployment cruises, was CVSG-59. It was made up, in general, of the “World Famous and Internationally Traveled Screwbirds” of VS-33 and the “Red Griffins” of VS-38 (Trackers), the “Eightballers” of HS-8 (H-34/HSS-1 Seabat/SH-34G then later Sea Kings), and a det from the “Early Elevens” of VAW-11 (Skyraiders, later replaced with E-1B Tracers after 1965).

Note her red and blue H-34/HSS-1 Seabat/SH-34Gs of HS-8, which deployed on Bennington between October 1960 and August 1963 when the squadron switched to Sea Kings

USS Bennington (CVS-20) and USS Braine (DD-630) during an underway replenishment in the Pacific Ocean, circa in 1960. Note her wing of helos and Trackers

Bennington (CV-20), Benner (DD-807), USS Eversole (DD-789), Alfred A. Cunningham (DD-752), and O’Brien (DD-725), on 25 November 1963 honoring the passing of JFK.

Sent to Vietnam on four of her CVS West Pac cruises (Feb-Sept 1964, March-Oct 1965, Nov. 1966-May 1967, and May-December 1968) Bennington also carried a few A-4 Skyhawks for muscle.

Flight deck personnel stand by to prepare for the next launch as an A-4C Skyhawk of Antisubmarine Fighter (VSF) 1 roars down the catapult during carrier qualification aboard the antisubmarine warfare Bennington (CVS 20) 18 November 1967. NNAM photo.

USS Bennington (CVS-20) underway off the coast of California, 25 November 1967. Photographed by Dolenga. NH 97582

Bennington (CVS-20) in Pearl Harbor 17 May 1968

USS Bennington (CVS-20) at Pearl Harbor, in May 1968 while outbound on her last Vietnam cruise. She has CVSG-59 aboard. USN KN-1702

USS Mauna Kea (AE-22) high lines ammunition to the USS Bennington (CVS-20) in the Gulf of Tonkin, the 10 September 1968. Our carrier has nine S-2E Trackers, two E-1B Tracer “Stoof with a Roof” models, and at least four SH-3A Sea Kings on deck. This would be Bennington’s final deployment and would end on 9 November. USN 1137061

A visiting USAF HH-3 Jolly Green Giant tagged on Bennington’s decks, likely off SE Asia

In between West Pac cruises, Bennington also clocked in in the 1960s for runs along the California coast in which she served as a training carrier for qualifications and handled experimental aircraft.

She served as the floating testbed for the big Ling-Temco-Vought XC-124A, a wild tri-service tilt-wing cargo aircraft that predated the CV-22 by decades.

Able to carry 32 equipped troops or 4 tons of cargo with a 470nm combat range, it had a max T/O weight of 45,000 pounds (about twice that of the C-1 Trader carrier delivery aircraft) and a 67-foot wingspan. While this sounds crazy, the C-2 Greyhound went to 50K pounds and had an 80-foot span, but then again nobody wanted to land a C-2 on an Essex-class carrier anyway.

It was thought that as many as 25 folding-wing navalized XC-124s could be carried on the deck of an 18,000-ton Iwo Jima-class LPH (or on an old Essex class CVA/CVS in a pinch), capable of lifting an 800-man Marine battalion landing team ashore in one go– again, predating the LHD/MV-22 concept by a good bit.

Bennington would host the No. 5 XC-124A airframe for 44 STOL take-offs and landings and 6 full VTOL cycles in wind conditions ranging to 30 knots.

An XC-124A after landing aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVS-20) off San Diego, California (USA), on 18 May 1966. Note the Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King in the background.

She also pitched in with the Apollo program, picking up the first module launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

USS Bennington (CVS 20) Apollo 4 spacecraft November 9th, 1967

The Apollo Four Command Module is hoisted onboard USS Bennington (CVS-20) following splashdown at 3:37 pm., 934 nautical miles northwest of Honolulu. Damage to the heat shield from the extreme heat of reentry is evident. Photograph released November 9, 1967. 428-GX-K-45494

With the Navy looking to pare down its WWII-era carriers, then rapidly pushing through their 20s, in favor of a new (Nimitz) class of CVNs, Bennington was decommissioned on 15 January 1970 and placed in mothballs at Bremerton in Puget Sound.

She had spent 18 years with the fleet and earned three battle stars in WWII and five during Vietnam. 

Kept on the bench

The Navy retained four Essex class carriers in reserve on the Naval List through the 1980s: Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Hornet, and Oriskany.

It was thought, semi-realistically for a while, that they could be a mobilization asset to run S-3 Vikings (if the catapults worked), SH-3/SH-60s, and Marine AV-8 Harriers from them as a “sea control ship” on convoy support in the event of a WWIII Red Storm Rising type of event– given enough lead time.

Plans were even floated in 1981 by SECNAV Lehman to bring back Oriskany to active duty as a “strike carrier” in peacetime, equipped with a wing made up totally of Marine A-4M Skyhawks (2 squadrons= 48 aircraft) and 4-6 SH-3 helicopters, as well as possibly Harriers, ideally to support Marine operations ashore.

The GAO kind of filled that concept full of holes: 

With it thought that Oriskany had 10-15 years left in her, the fact that Skyhawks were on their way out (only 118 were on hand in 1981 and the last active Marine A-4 squadron shuttered in 1990), and the 24-month/1.1 million man-hour reactivation overhaul was estimated to cost $500 million in 1981 dollars, the Navy pulled the plug on that concept.

Still, Big Benn and her four sisters languished in the ordinary for two decades. 

As Bennington and Hornet were SCB.27A ships, with hydraulic instead of steam catapults, they likely would have been reactivated without their cats, leaving them restricted to Harriers and SH-3/SH-60s, but that still could satisfy as an ASW carrier.

Hornet and Bennington in the 1973 Janes.

She even looked good, despite the fact she was on red lead row.

Four decommissioned aircraft carriers, Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, Wash. ex-USS Hornet (CVS-12), ex-USS Oriskany (CV-34), ex-USS Bennington (CVS-20), and ex-USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31)

Pacific Reserve Fleet, Bremerton, Washington, July 1974. The major units here are USS Missouri (BB-63), New Jersey (BB-62), Hornet (CVS-12 and Bennington (CVS-20).

Bremerton Washington Mothball Fleet, 1989: USS Hornet, USS Chicago, USS Oriskany, USS Bennington, USS Bon Homme Richard and USS Nimitz in the distance, 

USS Bennington (CVS 20) laid up at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility Jan 25 1990 DN-SC-90-03981

1992: USS Hornet, USS New Jersey, USS Oriskany, USS Bennington, USS Midway. Mothball Fleet, PSNS Bremerton, plus minesweepers and destroyers

However, nothing lasts forever and, with the end of the Cold War, the Navy moved to divest itself of the last of its lingering steam-powered warships from battleships through frigates.

Bennington was stricken on 20 September 1989, just days before the Berlin Wall came down, and sold for scrap in January 1994 to a breaker in India.

Her island and masts were shorn, and armament and sensors removed, then towed to Alang in March 1995 for scrapping by hand.

Bennington became only the second fleet carrier to be sold for scrap outside the United States, following sister USS Shangri-La (CV-38) which had been sent to a yard in Taiwan in 1988. Subsequent flattops disposed of by dismantling including the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk-class supercarriers recycled in the past 20 years have all gone to Texas for breaking.

When Bennington was gone, the Navy only had two other Essex class carriers still in mothballs and one of those, USS Hornet (CV-12) went on to become a museum shortly after while Oriskany (CV-34) was sunk as a reef off Pensacola in 2006. Other sisters preserved include Lexington, Intrepid, and Yorktown— all of which had the same 1950s SCB-125 conversion and subsequent 1960s CVS service as Bennington, so they are all great representations of what the old girl looked like.

Epilogue

Bennington’s WWII War Diaries are in the National Archives as is her War History and those of CVG-82 and CVG-1.

There has not been another naval vessel named Bennington.

Big Ben is remembered fondly by the Bennington Reunion Group, which has a superb online presence that dates back to 1999. Sadly, they do not seem to have held a reunion since 2017, as their members are no doubt dwindling. Keep in mind an 18-year-old bluejacket on her crew list when she was decommissioned for the last time is now pushing age 75.

On 26 May 2004, a bronze plaque was installed at Fort Adams State Park in Rhode Island, near the spot where Bennington had her terrible catapult explosion and fire, to memorialize the event and the crewmembers lost.

Likewise, the city of Bennington has had custody of her bell for the past several decades and includes it in a ceremonial parade and ringing on the town green every Independence Day. 

Of Bennington’s historic WWII air groups, CVG-82 was redesignated to CVAG-17 and later CVG-17 before being disestablished in 1968. CVG-1, which earned two Presidential Unit Citations during the war, has served aboard nine different carriers since then and today, as Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1), is based at NAS Oceana and is assigned to USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75).

Her primary CVS air group, CVSG-59, after Bennington was mothballed, went on ship out with sisters Yorktown, Hornet, and Ticonderoga— and took part in the recovery of Apollos 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 17– before it was disestablished in June 1973.

Finally, her plankowner skipper, RADM James Bennett Skyes, who earned a Navy Cross while in command of the carrier in 1945, retired from the Navy in 1953. He passed at his Texas home in 1981, aged 86, and was survived by two daughters, four grandsons, and three great-grandsons.

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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Task Force Spaghetti, RIMPAC Adjacent

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While Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) ’24 off Hawaii — the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise– just wrapped up its 29th outing since it was established in 1971, one that included 29 nations, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, more than 150 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel– there was also another large exercise going on at the same time in the Pacific that gets very little attention.

And it included an Italian carrier task force, something never before seen in those waters.

Going back to 1981, the Royal Australian Air Force-led Exercise Pitch Black 24 has grown increasingly over the past four decades.

This year’s event was the biggest ever, including 20 participating nations and over 140 aircraft from around the globe. While typically shore-based, with aircraft from the U.S. (F-22s), Singapore, Indonesia, India, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Spain, Brunei, New Zealand, and Canada flying in, the Italians showed up with a carrier task force, 31st Grupponavale, centered around the 27,000-ton aircraft carrier Cavour (C550).

Cavour’s embarked air group blended six F-35B STOVL Lightnings and another six legacy AV-8B/TAV-8B Harrier II Plus aircraft of GRUPAER (Gruppo Supporto Aerei Imbarcati della Marina Militare) Lupi, as well as EH101 and SH90 helicopters. She has hangar and deck space for 20~ aircraft, so this is about right.

It is nice to see AV-8Bs still making it happen

Cavour was escorted by the 7,000-ton Bergamini-class ASW FREMM frigate Alpino (F-594).

Cavour and Alpino called at Darwin, a historic first.

Cavour at Darwin during Pitch Black 2024. RAAF LACW Annika Smith

The Italian Navy frigate Alpino F-594 arrived at the Kuru Wharf at HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin, Northern Territory, ahead of Exercise Pitch Black 24. RAAF LAC Kurt Lewis

In all, Cavour’s group chalked up 70 flight hours and 20 missions during Pitch Black, including refueling and air-to-air interaction with aircraft belonging to nine of the 20 participating nations.

This led to some great formation shots with Cavour and Alpino underway in the Coral Sea and an RAAF E-7A Wedgetail, F-18F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler; Italian Harrier and F-35B; Indian Su-30MKI, Philippine FA-50PH, Luftwaffe Typhoon, and JASDF F-2As overhead. If you told a circa 1942 USN vet this would happen one day they would surely scratch their head.

A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail leads a formation of aircraft past the Italian Navy aircraft carrier ITS Cavour during Exercise Pitch Black 2024. RAAF photo Corporal Sam Miller

RAAF photo Corporal Sam Miller

A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail leads a formation of aircraft during Exercise Pitch Black 2024. RAAF photo Corporal Sam Miller

RAAF photo Corporal Sam Miller

RAAF photo Corporal Sam Miller

The Most Beautiful Ship in the World

Meanwhile, another of Cavour’s escorts on her 2024 Pacific cruise, the 5,800-ton Thaon di Revel-class offshore patrol vessel ITS Montecuccoli (P432), was detached to participate in RIMPAC and met up at sea with the “most beautiful ship in the world,” the Italian navy’s historic nave scuola (training ship) Amerigo Vespucci (A5312) which was inbound for Honolulu from Los Angeles on her own independent cruise.

This led to some amazing shots of the two in a series PASSEX maneuvers.

Built at the Royal Shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia and running some 329 feet in length over the bowsprit, Vespucci’s main mast towers 177 feet into the air and, when fully rigged, she carries up to 26 canvas sails.

Vespucci recently celebrated her 90th birthday and set sail last July on a 20-month, 40,000-mile world cruise that will see the Italian ship dock at 31 ports in 28 nations, visiting five continents.

Her crew and cadets made sure to pay respect and honors to USS Arizona during their visit to Pearl. 

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Aug. 1, 2024: Going Dutch on a (Baby) Flat-top

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to 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

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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) Aug. 1, 2024: Going Dutch on a Baby Flat-top

Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie 2158_005349

Above we see a big Vliegtuigsquadron 860 (VSQ 860) Fairey Firefly Mk. I of the Dutch Marine Luchtvaartdienst, her quad 20mm Hispano Mk.V cannons clearly visible on her folded wings, as the strike aircraft is being made ready to launch from the deck of Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (QH 1), Holland’s first vliegkampschip (aircraft carrier), to join operations against rebel forces on Java on 13 October 1946.

It was the jeep carrier’s second war.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Nairana

The Tasmanian word for a huge (and endangered) wedge-tailed eagle local to those seas, the first HMS Nairana got her name honest– she was born with it as the Huddart Parker Lines passenger ferry TSS Nairana, ordered from the Scottish firm of William Denny & Brothers in January 1914. While still on the ways, the 352-foot/3,000-ton passenger steamer was converted to handle seaplanes and commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1917.

Outfitted with a 95-foot flying platform, she could carry as many as eight single-engine floatplanes and finished the war with the Battle Cruiser Force before heading to North Russia to support the Allied intervention there during the Russian Civil War. Returned to her original owners in 1921, she worked in the commercial trade in Australia until 1948, including troopship service in WWII.

The first HMS Nairana, a seaplane tender, in her 1917-1918 dazzle pattern camouflage. Note her forward flying deck, stern recovery boom, hangar, and several small Sopwith floatplanes. IWM SP 1292, photo by Surgeon Oscar Parkes

Our subject had much the same backstory, just a 1940s version.

Laid down in November 1941 as a fast refrigerated cargo/passenger carrier by the Scottish shipbuilding firm of John Brown & Company on the Clydebank for Port Lines, she instead was diverted to Admiralty use once the new war got going. Acquired by the Royal Navy in 1942, she was soon finished as an escort carrier, HMS Nairana (D 05). Her only sister was the similarly converted HMS Vindex (D 15) while a third ship, HMS Campania (D 48), is more of a half-sister.

Nairana line drawing by Dr. Dan Saranga

Commissioned on 26 November 1943, Nairana went 17,000 tons (fully loaded) with an overall length across the flight deck of 528 feet while her beam ran 68 feet wide. Armament was two twin QF 4″/45 cal DP Mk XVI guns, four quad 40mm Mk VII QF pom-poms (possibly the most British of AAA guns), and eight twin 20 mm/70 Oerlikon Mark Vs.

Belowdecks was a 231-foot hangar serviced by a single centerline elevator. She had a single C-II catapult installed, which was capable of launching a 6.4-ton aircraft from a standstill to 70 knots. Her avgas capacity was 62,000 gallons, enough to fuel an empty Swordfish 370 times or a Martlet (Wildcat) 452 times. It was thought this sufficed to support a wing of as many as 20 single-engine aircraft.

Speed was 17 knots on her economical marine diesels, with a cruising range of 13,000nm at 15 knots– a convoy escort dream!

They would ultimately carry Type 277, Type 281В, and Type 293 radars.

Nairana and her sister(s) were a little larger and a couple knots faster than the most numerous RN escort carriers– the 34 American-built Bogue-class CVEs sent over via Lend-Lease and known as the Ameer, Attacker, Ruler, or Smiter class in British service depending on their arrangement. However, the Bogues had a second elevator and were thought capable of operating as many as 28 aircraft despite their smaller hangars and flight decks.

War!

The Royal Navy Research Archive has a great entry on Nairana’s WWII service but we’ll do more of a sum up for brevity.

HMS Nairana, escort carrier, 17 February 1944, Greenock, Scotland. Note the abundance of Carley floats and an embarked airwing. Photo by LT SJ Beadell, IWM A21848

Embarking her first air group of 12 Mk. II Swordfish and the personnel of the Fleet Air Arm’s 838 Squadron on 17 December 1943 (soon changed out to a mix of nine Swords and a half dozen Sea Hurricane Mk. IIcs of 835 NAS), our little carrier was nominated for service in the Western Approaches with the Liverpool-based 2nd British Escort Group. The role: Atlantic convoy defense.

Between 29 January 1944 when she tapped in on OS 066KM and 27 February 1945 when she left RA 064, Nairana helped escort no less than 21 convoys. These ran the gamut from the Freetown, Sierra Leone to Liverpool runs (SL & OS convoys) to Mediterranean runs (KMF, KMS, and MKS convoys) to the very dangerous Kola Pen/Murmansk runs (JW and RA convoys).

HMS Nairana, escort carrier, June 1944, view from one of her planes looking back. Note her camouflaged flight deck. IWM A 24131

HMS Nairana, an escort carrier, underway. Note what appears to be five 835 Squadron Sea Hurricanes forward, which should put this image in January-June 1944. IWM FL 12664

Her air group- which by October 1944 had grown to 14 Mk. III Swords and 6 Mk.VI Martlets of 835 NAS– in particular was very successful, downing at least two Bv138 long-range reconnaissance flying boats and numerous JU88s on the Russia run, along with three giant Junkers Ju 290s of FAGr 5 over the Bay of Biscay. They also reportedly attacked at least two surfaced U-boats (though without any confirmed sinkings).

In between convoy runs, Nairana served as a temporary home to the Barracuda of 768 DLT squadron and the Fireflies of 816 squadron for workups and was tasked with three different anti-shipping raids off the coast of occupied Norway (Operations Sampler, Winded, and Prefix/Muscular) in early 1945.

Of the Norway raids, Winded proved the most successful with Nairana’s Swords, operating alongside those of her sister Campania’s embarked 813 Sqn, managing to blitz four coasters on 28 January off Larsnes/Vaagsö, sinking the J.M. (164 GRT) and Varp (114 GRT) with rockets and bombs. Nobody said ani-shipping operations were glamorous.

By late March 1945, with the Soviets knocking on the door of Berlin and the Western Allies crossing the Rhine, the Atlantic convoy game was starting to wind down. 835 Naval Air Squadron, Nairana’s go-to air group, was disbanded on 1 April 1945 at RNAS Hatston, her Swords put to pasture in favor of Avengers and Barracuda, while her Martlets were handed over to 821 Sqn.

Meanwhile, eyes turned to the Pacific.

From King to Queen

With the British Pacific Fleet getting very muscular in 1945– the RN had six large armored fleet carriers, four light carriers, two maintenance carriers, and nine escort carriers (with over 750 embarked aircraft) along with five battlewagons and 100 escorts arrayed against the Japanese– realization came that the campaign to liberate the Dutch East Indies would soon be underway.

Keep in mind it wasn’t until July 1945 that the first Oboe-series landings in the Japanese-occupied DEI occurred at Balikpapan and it was felt that the campaign to root the Emperor’s forces out would likely take upwards of a year, based on what the U.S. Sixth Army was facing in the Philippines. This coalesced with the thinking that the planned final Allied landings in the Japanese home islands, Operations Downfall, Olympic, and Cornet, would see fighting lasting through most of 1946. Remember, there were still squad-sized units of Japanese surrendering on Hollandia and Morotai as late as 1956– with the latter island where the last holdout wouldn’t be caught until December 1974! 

Therefore, to give the Dutch some carrier power, starting in June 1945, Nairana began a series of operations off Scotland with an embarked squadron (VSQ 860) of the Free Dutch Navy along with officers and senior NCOs to be used as a cadre to operate their own carrier.

The squadron, formed in June 1943, had previously flown Swordfish from two Royal Dutch Shell-owned and manned tankers, MV Gadila and MV Macoma, which had been given flying decks to perform as Merchant Aircraft Carriers. They rode shotgun on 45 convoys.

Gadila (left) and Macoma (right), were converted to MAC carriers in June 1944. They still carried their oil cargo but also embarked 4-to-6 of NAS/VSQ 860’s Swordfish on convoy overwatch through April 1945. Macoma served as a MAC on 24 convoys and Gadila on 21.

Using Fairey Barracuda transferred hot from the RN FAA’s 822 Squadron, the Dutch of VSQ 860 got in their first carrier cats and traps as a squadron from Nairana.

A Fairey Barracuda MK II of NAS/VSQ 860 on the elevator of HMS Nairana, circa November-December 1945. NIMH 2158_102013

A Dutch deck party moving around a NAS/VSQ 860 Barracuda on HMS Nairana, circa November-December 1945. NIMH 2158_102018

A RATO-equipped Fairey Barracuda of Vliegtuigsquadron 860 lifts off from HMS Nairana, rolling over the stowed aircraft barrier. NIMH 2158_102038

A flaps-down NAS/VSQ 860 Barracuda comes in to trap on HMS Nairana under the control of a paddle-equipped LSO, circa November-December 1945. NIMH 2158_022771

A better look at that Dutch LSO, with Nairana’s eight arrestor wires and barricade in the background. Not a lot of room for error on a straight-deck 500-foot CVE! NIMH 2158_102040

A NAS/VSQ 860 Barracuda traps on HMS Nairana, circa November-December 1945. Notably, she had eight arrestor wires while her near-sisters Vindex and Campania only had six. NIMH 2158_102012

HMS Nairana with her hangar deck filled with Barracuda of Vliegtuigsquadron 860, circa November-December 1945. NIMH 2158_102014

Nairana was formally transferred to Dutch control in a quiet ceremony at Gareloch, Scotland on 20 March 1946. The British flag (Union Jack) was lowered and the Dutch Prinsengeus hoisted, with appropriate salutes and honors rendered from both sides.

The changeover NIMH 2158_101372

Her new name, Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (QH 1), came as a salute to RADM Karel Willem Frederik Marie Doorman, killed in the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942 when his flagship was torpedoed during the battle and he elected to ride it to the bottom rather than abandon ship.

Dutch WWII poster, depicting Admiral Karel Doorman and his flagship light cruiser De Ruyter

Her first Dutch skipper was Capt. Alfred de Booy, a Java-born career naval officer with 28 years of service who had formerly commanded the frigate Hr.Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau (which was sunk in May 1940) and served as naval attaché in London. 

Karel Doorman on the day she was transferred, 20 March 1946. Note her D 05 hull number she wore as Nairana has been painted out. NIMH 2158_025456

Karel Doorman, 20 March 1946, in rough shape but with her Prinsengeus flying, and her old British D 05 hull number. NIMH 2158_000829

Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (QH 1) at the Royal Naval Dockyard Rosyth, where she was dry docked for the first three weeks of May 1946 just after the transfer. NIMH 101450

Fresh out of dry dock. Note she still retains her wartime camouflage and Carley floats and has her new QH 1 hull number applied to her bow. NIMH 2158_000845

Note her pennant number has been more haphazardly applied to her starboard side. NIMH 2158_000846

Kaarel Doorman Janes 1946

I found this short (silent) video of her in the NIMH archives from this period. 

Another War!

Following four months of refit and puttering around the North Sea, it was decided to send the country’s first aircraft carrier to its ongoing liberation and pacification efforts in the Dutch East Indies, where Japanese die-hards and Indonesian insurgents were embroiled in a war of independence. Seen off by Prince Bernhard, she would leave Holland in August 1946.

Honor guard, equipped with British Pattern 37 kit and .303 caliber SMLEs, present arms for the visit of Prince Bernhard to the carrier at Rotterdam’s Merwehaven, 6 August 1946. NIMH 2158_101511

Getting right with her gunnery, just in case. Note the peculiar arrangement of the twin Oerlikons on Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman, complete with early aiming computer. NIMH 2158_101519

She proceeded to Glasgow to pick up 15 new (to the Dutch) Firefly Mk Is, transferred from Royal Naval Air Station Fearn, which would be assigned to VSQ 860. Besides the aircraft, Karel Doorman would also pick up some 2,000 tons of parts, tools, and ordnance, as well as 130 aircrew and enlisted.

Another 15 Firefly Mk Is, sold to the Dutch from FAA stocks just after Karel Doorman left Glasgow would go on to equip VSQ 861, then eventually be reassigned to 1 Sqn in the Dutch Antilles. In 1947, the Dutch purchased another 40 upgraded Firely FR.4s, which would be used by 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 Sqns. This would be augmented by 14 Mark NF.V radar-equipped night fighters delivered in 1949. The final Fireflies acquired by the Dutch were a quartet of ex-Canadian Navy aircraft purchased in 1952. 

Karel Doorman at the George V Docks in Glasgow, 26-to-29 August 1946 giving a good shot of her aft 4″/45 twin mount. NIMH 2158_025464

A VSQ 860 Firefly Mk I, one of 15, being stowed in Karel Doorman’s hangar on 26 August 1946. Note it still carries RN FAA roundels. NIMH 101445.

Observe the small Dutch orange and black triangle national marking applied near the cockpit. This style had already been replaced by the current four-color (blue, white, red, and orange) roundel. NIMH 101375

Leaving Glasgow on 1 September, her crew crossed the equator and called at Simonstown on the way to Java.

Crossing the Line ceremony on board Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman with Captain A. de Booy receiving the “Grand Cross in the Order of the Floating Bar” from Neptune, 11 September 1946. NIMH 101459

While near the Cocos Islands, her Fireflies launched on 13 October and flew some 500 km to the Kemajoran airfield near Batavia, with almost all arriving safely (one cracked up on landing without casualties).

MLD Firefly coming up the elevator on Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman, 13 October 1946. It still has its mix of British and obsolete Dutch markings. NIMH 2158_005348

Fairey Fireflies Mk.I taking off from Karel Doorman. NIMH 2158_000834

A group of four Fairey Fireflies Mk.1 airborne over Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman on their way to Kemajoran airfield. On the left is the frigate Hr.Ms. Van Galen. NIMH 2158_101547

Een formatie van drie Fairey Firefly I carrier-jager-verkenners, behorend tot de vloot van 860 Vliegtuigsquadron. NIMH 2158_012904

Soon afterward, VSQ 860 flew on to Morokrembangan, near Soerabaja in the east of the island, and the Dutch assumed responsibility for air support in the East Indies from the RAF, which had been hard at work doing it since before VJ Day.

Our carrier then commenced in a series of port calls in the region, stopping at Surabaya, Makassar, Moena, Ambon, and Banda.

While at Tandjong Priok near Jakarta, she picked up two captured Japanese floatplanes to be taken back to Holland for tests and display: a Kawanishi N1K (Rex) and an Aichi E13A (Jake).

Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman with a Japanese Aichi E13A floatplane on her deck on 7 November 1946. NIMH 2158_000839

A view showing both the N1K and E13A. NIMH 2158_005346

It was important for the Dutch to police up these former Japanese military planes as the local Indonesian forces (the TKRO) were gathering as many as they could for the coming struggle against the colonial forces. Of note, the Fireflies of VSQ 860 spoiled this in a big way on 27 July 1947 when they destroyed 36 Indonesian aircraft including seven very dangerous Ki-43-II Oscars on the ground at Maguwo airfield, leaving the TKRO in the area just four working aircraft to their name: two Yokosuka K5Y1 Willow (Cureng) biplane trainers, one Mitsubishi Ki-51 Sonia bomber, and one remaining Hayabusha. Interestingly, some of these still survive in the Indonesian Air Force Museum.

On the way back to Europe, by way of Dakar and Casablanca, Karel Doorman visited South Africa from 8 to 18 January 1947, where she was swamped by a local outpouring from the ethnic Dutch Boers.

Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman, sans visible aircraft, at Cape Town with Tafelberg in the background, January 1947. Note her hull numbers have been down-sized from the big white numbers seen earlier. NIMH 2158_000843

Back in Holland, the carrier had a brief refit at NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord in Schiedam.

In het dok bij de NV Dok en Werf Maatschappij Wilton-Fijenoord, Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman. 18 February 1947. NIMH 2158_005336

NIMH 2158_005341

She then ventured out to make a series of port calls in Western Europe, in particular visiting London for a week in April. There, she received a silver salver from Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough, KG, CH, PC, then the 1st Lord of the Admiralty.

Right 1st Viscount G.H. Hall, First Lord of the Admiralty, talking to Capt. A. de Booy, commander of Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman 18 April 1947. De Booy would go on to become the Dutch Navy’s CNO in 1950 and retire as a vice admiral in 1956. He passed in 1990, aged 89. NIMH 101443

This was followed up with a series of tactical exercises and a trip to Norway and Iceland with the River-class frigate Hr.Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau (ex-HMS Ribble) and D-Day veteran gunboat-turned-training ship Hr.Ms. Soemba as escorts.

Karel Doorman at Eidfjord, Norway, where she called 18-20 July 1947. NIMH 0018_101559

Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman on the piles at Maashaven, Rotterdam, 7 October 1947. Note she doesn’t have a camo flight deck any longer but still has her side camo. NIMH 2158_005338

In October 1947, she took members of Parliament and government ministers to sea for a series of trials with the country’s first naval helicopter, a Sikorsky S.51/H-5 (“Jezebel”), and Auster liaison aircraft.

The MLD’s Sikorsky S-51 Air Sea Rescue (ASR)/training helicopter H 1 “Jezebel.” In U.S. Navy service, the type was classified as the HO3S and saw much service in Korea on C-SAR missions for downed aircrew. NIMH 2158_026176

A second trip to the Dutch East Indies in the winter of 1947 saw her bring some replacement Fireflies to the country– three (F-22, F-24, and F-27) had been lost to ground fire and one to an accident– along with several Austers.

Taylorcraft Auster Mk.IIIs coming up from Karel Doorman’s hangar to fly ashore at Java. Note the new style roundels. NIMH 2158_005337

Taylorcraft Auster Mk.III taking off from Karel Doorman. NIMH 101381

A group photo of OVW members in front of the OO accommodation of the Marine Air Base Morokrembangan after the arrival of the aircraft carrier Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman in the Dutch East Indies, late 1947. NIMH 2158_025462

Three Fairey Firefly fighter-reconnaissance aircraft of VSQ 860 at Maospati airfield during the so-called Second Police Action (Operation Megatan). Also visible in the photo is an Auster AOP Mk.3 reconnaissance aircraft and a MLD-Catalina maritime patrol flying boat. NIMH 2158_023056

Review of Karel Doorman on 20 December 1947 by Vice-Admiraal Albertus Samuel Pinke, the commander of the naval forces in the Dutch East Indies from 1946 to 1949. Note the height-finding radar on a short tower by the deckhouse. NIMH 2158_101504

Repatriation

On 9 March 1948, Karel Doorman left Holland for the last time, returning to Plymouth where she was returned to the Royal Navy’s custody. Disarmed and with her sensors removed, she was sold for pennies on the pound to Port Line, the shipping company that had originally ordered her in 1941.

Following a conversion back to her more or less planned configuration at Harland and Wolff in Ireland, ex-Nairana/ex-Karel Doorman embarked on her third life as MV Port Victor in September 1949.

She continued her commercial service until 1971 when the well-traveled ship and twice-former aircraft carrier was sold to a breaker in Taiwan.

Her two near-sisters, Vindex and Campania, were the final two escort carriers in RN service.

Vindex and Campania in the 1946 ed of Jane’s.

Like Nairana/Doorman, Vindex was sold back to the Port Lines as the unimaginatively named MV Port Vindex in October 1947 and scrapped at Kaohsiung in August 1971.

Campania, decommissioned in December 1952 after supporting British atomic testing in the Pacific, was scrapped in 1955.

Epilogue

Karel Doorman is remembered fondly by the Dutch Navy as she was essentially the cradle of their sea-going naval aviation.

Maritime art of Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman in the Dutch Naval collection. NIMH 2158_005340

The second Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (R81), the 19,000-ton former Colossus-class light carrier HMS Venerable, was commissioned into the Dutch Navy on 28 May 1948 and operated until 1970 when she was third-handed to the Argentines as the Veinticinco de Mayo.

Vliegkampschip Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (R 81) ligt gepavoiseerd op de boeien. 2158_009425

The third Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (F827), commissioned in 1991, was the lead ship of a new class of ASW frigates for the Dutch. She retired in 2006 and continues to serve the neighboring Belgians as Louise-Marie (F931).

Fregat Karel Doorman (F 827) 2158_009637

The fourth Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman (A833), a 27,000-ton is a replenishment and logistic ship, commissioned in 2015 and is the largest ship to ever serve in the Dutch fleet.

Zr.Ms. Karel Doorman (A833)

As for VSQ 860, they continued flying air support missions over the Dutch East Indies until Indonesian independence in December 1949. After chalking up more than 2,000 sorties over the islands, the 11 remaining Karel Doorman-delivered Fireflies were shipped out.

The Dutch continued to use the type on Biak and Curacao in the West Indies. The last time the Firefly was deployed in anger by a European nation was in 1962 when the MLD flew its remaining aircraft in Biak against Indonesian forces encroaching on Dutch New Guinea before its transfer to Jakarta the next year.

A period Kodachrome of a full-color radar-equipped Firefly FR.Mk.IV night fighter of the Marine Luchtvaartdienst at Biak, Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea, ready to roll, circa 1961. In all, the Dutch operated some 80 Fireflies of all types during the Cold War, losing 25 to accidents and three (all of VSQ 860) to combat, withdrawing the last one in 1963. NIMH 2158_012906

Today– after flying Hawker Sea Fury FB.50s (5 July 1950 – 25 June 1956) and Sea Hawk FGA.50s (18 Sept 1957 – 30 Oct 1964) from the second Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman–860 is in the rotor wing business and has flown Wasps, Lynx (from the third Hr.Ms. Karel Doorman), and now NH90s, which it occasionally flies from the fourth Karel Doorman.

Some things never change.

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, July 24, 2024: To the Sea, to the World

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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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, July 24, 2024: To the Sea, to the World

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Naval History and Heritage Command collections. Catalog #: NH 97002

Above we see khaki-clad officers of the newly-formed Republic of Korean Navy standing by as their country’s first large warship, the PC-461-class subchaser Baekdusan (also seen as Bak Dusan, Bak Du San, Pak Tu San, and Paktusan) (PC-701) has her teeth installed– a 3″/50 DP gun– at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, March 1950.

Bought via subscription and a tax on the service’s sailors (!) she would soon sail into harm’s way and the history books.

The PC-461 Class

Designed to provide a beefy little sub-buster– similar to Britain’s corvettes and sloops– that could float in shallow enough water (10-foot draft) to perform coastal operations but still have enough sea-keeping abilities and range (4,800 nm at 12 knots) to escort cross-ocean convoys without needing the same anti-ship capabilities as found on patrol frigates and destroyer escorts, the Navy ordered some 400 small submarine chasers based on a modified design of one of the pre-war Experimental Small Craft program’s “X-boats” the diesel-powered USS PC-451.

USS PC-451 was designed in 1938 and commissioned on 12 August 1940. Some 173 feet long, the 270-ton steel hulled diesel-powered subchaser could carry two 3″/50 DP guns, six 20mm guns, two Mk 20 Mousetrap projectors, two depth charge racks, and two K-gun depth charge throwers, all while making nearly 19 knots and just requiring a 65-man crew.

The follow-on PC-461 went a bit heavier and, carrying twin 1,440 bhp diesel engines, could break 22 knots (when clean) and tote essentially the same armament, and ship out with QHA sonar (as well as small set SF or SO or SCR-517A radars after 1942).

PC-461 was laid down in July 1941– just five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor– and eventually, some 343 of her class would be constructed by March 1945 across 13 small shipyards, all non-traditional to the Navy.

Camouflage Measure 32, Design 12P drawing prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for application to 173-foot submarine chasers (labeled on the drawing as PC-578 class). This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 19 July 1944. It shows the ship’s starboard side, exposed decks, and the superstructure ends. 19-N-73643

USS PC-483 is underway in a Navy Kodachrome. Note the ship’s camouflage pattern. 80-GK-00428_001

USS PC-546 underway off the U.S. East Coast, circa 1942. Interestingly, these ships carried a false stack, as the diesel exhaust was routed through the hull sides. 80-G-K-13278

USS PC-546 from the stern.

Another stern shot of the 546 boat, note her thin 23-foot beam, welded hull, and already thinning hull black applied in a rush, sloppy fashion.

USS PC-472 underway near Hampton Roads, Virginia, 31 August 1942. Note her armament layout including a 3″/50 forward, another aft, two 20mm Oerlikons on the bridge wings, two stern DC racks, and two K guns. NH 96481

The PC-461s were some of the smallest U.S. Navy ships to carry a legit sonar listening set.

Undergoing a course of instruction with Naval sonar equipment aboard the USS PC 592 are two Naval Reservists, Seaman First Class F.C. Semkin and Apprentice Seaman G.S. Jackson, Naval Base, SC. Accession #: L55-03

Depth Charges (probably Mk. 6 type) mounted on a “K-gun” projector, and on ready service holders, on the stern of a 173-foot submarine chaser (pc). Taken at the sub-chaser training center, Miami, Florida, 11 May 1942. Note depth charge racks in the background. 80-G-16048

Depth Charge explodes in the wake of a U.S. Navy submarine chaser (PC) during World War II. The photo was taken before April 1944. The 173s could carry as many as 30 depth charges, with a cumulative “throw” of some 5 tons of high explosives. 80-G-K-13753

Submarine chasers and crew. (PC-483, 461, 466), Key West. As the number of AAA guns expanded, crews would grow to as many as 80 officers and enlisted, against a planned complement of 65. 80-GK-00427_001

A motor whaleboat was carried amidships along with a small crane to launch and recover it.

USS PC-620 is seen in Key West in this LIFE Kodachrome. Note her whaleboat, crane, after 3″/50, and depth charges galore.

“Easy Does It!” Crewmen of A 173-foot submarine Chaser (PC) stowing their craft’s dory, after hoisting it from the water, circa 1942. Note Camouflage paint on the boat. The photo was received from the Third Naval District on 17 May 1943. 80-G-K-16426

The PC-461s ranged far and wide, seeing service in every theatre. Four (PC 566, PC 565, PC 624, and PC 619) claimed kills on German U-boats, two (PC 487 and PC 1135) with sinking Japanese fleet boats, three (PC 558, PC 626, and PC 477) with scratching German and Japanese midget subs, two (PC 545 and PC 627) with killing Italian torpedo boats, and two (PC 1129 and PC 1123) with stopping Japanese suicide boats.

“USS PC 565 shown a short time after sinking German U-boat, U-521, with a depth charge, only the Commanding Officer escaped. The vessel fell away from his feet as he climbed out of the conning tower, June 2, 1943.” 80-G-78408

When it comes to the butcher’s bill, six PC-461 class sisters were lost to a combination of enemy action and accidents during WWII while another 24 were seriously damaged.

Meet PC-823

Laid down by the Leathern D. Smith Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, on 8 November 1943, USS PC-823 was launched the following January and commissioned on 24 July 1944. The yard was very busy, cranking out Type N3 and Type C1 Liberty ships, Tacoma-class patrol frigates, and net layers besides 42 PC-461s.

Smith Shipbuilding in 1944, with at least eight PCs under varying stages of construction. Today the yard is run by the Fincantieri Marine Group and builds LCSs and the Navy’s new Constellation-class frigates. (Photo: Andy Laurent, Greenbay Route)

PC-843, early after her commissioning, likely still on the Great Lakes in the summer of 1944. via the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes.

War!

Assigned to the western Atlantic during the tale-end of World War II, apparently assigned to air-sea rescue duties, PC-823 doesn’t have a page in DANFS nor any war diaries/history on file with the NARA, but it is known that she was in Bermuda on VJ Day.

She did not earn any battle stars and was decommissioned on 11 February 1946, custody transferred to the Maritime Commission for further use, while retained on the Navy List.

King’s Point

With the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point on Long Island losing the series of loaned tall ships it had used for training during the war, the low-mileage PC-823 was disarmed, painted a gleaming white and transferred on 18 May 1948 for use as a training ship.

Rather than pick up the now-traditional name of TS Kings Pointer, she was instead re-named Ensign Whitehead, in honor of one of the alumni of the USMMA who had been lost during the war while serving with the Navy.

Via the King’s Point Alumni Association:

The Wall of Honor includes the name of Fredrick Cowper Whitehead, Jr., a Kings Pointer who graduated on December 24, 1943. Soon after graduation, he was sworn in as an Ensign, USNR. On January 27, 1944, he was assigned to the USS Lansdale (DD 426), currently operating in the Mediterranean. Whitehead reported aboard the Lansdale on March 26 in Oran. The ship was serving as a convoy escort with radio jamming equipment intended to thwart German radio-guided bombs.

On April 20, about two dozen German bombers attacked the convoy. The bombs and torpedoes hit the SS Paul Hamilton. Silhouetted by the explosion of the SS Paul Hamilton, the Lansdale became the target of the second and third wave of bombers. The torpedoes struck the Lansdale in the starboard engine room, where Whitehead was on watch. The ship ultimately foundered and the Captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. A count of the survivors showed 47 men, including Fredrick Whitehead Jr., as missing and presumed dead.

Ensign Whitehead, USNR was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the European-African-Middle East Area Campaign Medal. Based on his service as a Cadet/Midshipman, he was also awarded the Atlantic War Zone Bar, the Mediterranean-Middle East War Zone Bar, the Victory Medal, and a Presidential Testimonial Letter.

However, the USMMA soon found better ships available for use and by the end of 1949, she was laid up at the Academy, pending disposal.

Meanwhile, in Korea…

The South Korean Navy (Daehan-minguk Haegun) was formed on 11 November 1945 as the “Maritime Affairs Association” (Haebangbyeongdan) in the American-occupied zone of the formerly Japanese-occupied Korea. As such, it is the senior service of the Republic, with the ROK Army not formed until 1948 and the ROKAF in 1949. Numbering just 70 members led by former merchant mariner Sohn Won Yil, it inherited a series of small coastal craft at the former IJN yard at Jinhae and served in a brown water coast guard role with a modicum of American support until South Korea became independent in August 1948. It was then that it morphed into the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN), with now-Admiral Sohn becoming its first CNO.

By early 1950, the force had grown to 7,500– including 1,200 ROK Marines. Its naval list counted 11 former Japanese Cha-1 class 85-foot wooden-hulled auxiliary submarine chasers (the Daejeon class in Korean service), two slow 13-knot 140-foot Japanese-designed gunboats (Chungmugong I & II) left incomplete on the ways at Jinhae that were finished in 1947, as well as 17 YMS-type small minesweepers (dubbed the Kang jim or Geumgangsan class in Korean service, with MSC pennant numbers) from the U.S. Navy. The largest weapons were single-barreled 40mm Bofors fitted on the YMSs in place of their original 3″/50s.

Between 1947 and 1950, the backbone of the nascent ROKN was 17 136-foot wooden-hulled coastal minesweepers transferred from the U.S. Navy. The first two are seen here, Geumgangsan (MSC 501) ex-YMS354; and Gyeongju (MSC-502) ex-YMS358. Of the 17 transferred, two defected to the DPRK in the late 1940s, two were lost at sea, and two were lost to mines in 1950. Those left would remain in service into the 1970s.

In short, it was still firmly a near-shore operation. Their primary concern was to clear the thousands of sea mines left over in their local waters dating as far back as 1904, police against Chinese pirates, and keep roaming Japanese fishing boats away.

By late 1949 the five-year-old ROKN felt it was ready for some blue water, or at least some green water, ships.

Headed Home

The solution for the cash-strapped force was to hit everyone’s paycheck for seed money which would be augmented by selling scrap metal left over from the war, officer’s wives tending laundry, and donations from lawmakers including President Syngman Rhee himself.

As detailed in a February 1950 edition of Time magazine:

A year ago a group of Korean enlisted men at Navy headquarters in Seoul got the idea of chipping in each month to buy a man-o’-war. They sounded out Commander in Chief Admiral Sohn Won Yil, who promptly queried his base commanders to see what their enlisted men thought of the idea. They liked it.

Soon afterward 5% of each enlisted man’s $10 a month and 10% of each officer’s pay was deducted to fill the purchase kitty. Meanwhile, Korea’s ambassador to Washington was told to start looking for a ship. Last September Korea’s government plunked down $18,000 of hard-won cash to buy a sturdy little 175-ft. patrol craft, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s training ship Ensign Whitehead.

Some 16 hand-picked officers, led by Captain (future CNO) Park Ok-gyu, were flown to New York and then spent two weeks at King’s Point getting the gist of how to run their new sub-chaser. With their ship moored at Harbor Boat Building Company’s yard, the officers invested sweat equity into a new coat of haze gray and a new hull number, PC-701. Shifted to the USCG’s Pier 8 (Rector Street) in New York on Christmas Eve, custody was transferred on 26 December 1949 in a small ceremony that included the South Korean Ambassador (and future prime minister) Chang Myon.

The ROKS Baekdusan, named for the highly revered Baekdu (Paektusan) or “white-head mountain,” was Korean.

Fantail of the Baekdusan the day the ship transferred from the USN to the RoK Navy in 1949, with ROKN officer raising the Taegeukgi. (RDML Lauren McReady, USMS – Lauren McReady Collection, American Merchant Marine Museum, Kings Point, NY.)

Spending New Year in Miami and transiting the Panama Canal, the little ship put into Hawaii on 24 January where one 3 anti-aircraft gun and six .50 caliber machine guns, authorized for transfer by the Secretary of Defense, were installed at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

Leaving Pearl for Korea on 20 March 1950, she stopped briefly at Guam to purchase a whopping 100 3-inch shells and fuel from the U.S. Navy base there before heading to South Korea. When she arrived at Jinhae Bay on 10 April, she was the first significant warship under Korean control since the country’s Joseon-era navy was disbanded in 1905.

Note the Taegeukgi stenciled on her wheelhouse

Photo of the 60-strong crew of the Baekdusan ship taken at Jinhae Pier 2 on 20 May 1950. Note the mix of American-style officer’s khakis and blues balanced by Japanese-style jumpers and flat caps for the ratings. 

And just in time, too, because then came…

Another War!

When the North Koreans unleashed their military against their neighbors to the South, Baekdusan earned the distinction of sinking a 1,000-ton Soviet-supplied transport ship that was trying to destroy the Pusan Port wharf facilities in the Korean Strait.

Vectored to the mystery ship in the late hours of 25 June, she chased it down between the Oryukdo Lighthouse and the Tsushima Lighthouse and began hailing it repeatedly to stop. Closing to within 90 meters of the interloper, the two ships soon began exchanging fire, swapping 3-inch shells for incoming 85mm shells and heavy machine gun fire from the Nork vessel. After a four-hour running fight, in which Baekdusan fired 50 shells before her main gun seized up, the black smoke-belching mystery ship sank at 0:30 a.m. on 26 June, reportedly carrying some 600 highly-trained North Korean commandos of the 766th Independent Infantry Regiment with it to the bottom.

Baekdusan, riddled with shrapnel and machine gun hits, suffered four wounded and two– Private First Class Kim Chang-hak and Private First Class Jeon Byeong-ik– killed.

Battle of the Korea Strait (Photo source: War Memorial of Korea, Korean Cultural Information Service)

Has Pusan been wrecked by a battalion-sized assault on the first day of the war, the 400,000 shells and 2.5 million rounds of ammo landed there by USAT Sgt. George D. Keathley and USNS Cardinal O’Connell on 28 June, followed by the 24th Infantry Division starting on 3 July, probably wouldn’t have happened. Had that not occurred, the war may have been lost in the first month.

As detailed by Samuel J. Cox, Director NHHC:

The “Battle of the Korea Strait,” as the ROKN would call it, had major strategic importance. At the time, the port of Pusan was very poorly defended. Had the North Korean surprise operation succeeded, the outcome of the war might have been very different, because by the beginning of August, Pusan was the last remaining port in South Korea that had not fallen to the North Koreans. It would be the only initial entry point for the U.S. forces that prevented the North Koreans from overrunning the entire Korean Peninsula.

She would go on to perform yeoman work for the rest of the war, including at the pivotal Inchon Landings (Operation Chromite) in September.

Inchon Invasion, September 1950. The first wave of U.S. Marines headed for the landing beach in LCVPs, on 15 September 1950. This landing is probably on Red Beach, on the northern side of the Inchon invasion area. PC at the far right is a unit of the Republic of Korea Navy. NH 96877

Ultimately, the U.S. Navy transferred another five PC-461s to the ROKN during the war– no cash required! These included ex-PC 799 (Geumgangsan), ex-PC 802 (Samgaksan), ex-PC 810 (Jirisan), ex-PC 485 (Hanlasan), and ex-PC 600 (Myohyangsan), added to the South Korean naval list as PC-702 through 705. Of these, Jirisan was sunk by a mine off Wonsan in 1951 while Hanlasan was later lost in a typhoon.

Kum Kang San/Geumgangsan (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-799) At the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, on 16 June 1950, following transfer to the South Korean Navy. She is flanked by her sister ships Chiri San/Jirisan (Korean PC-704) to the left and Sam Kak San/Samgaksan (Korean PC-703) to the right. USS Polaris (AF-11) is in the right background. Note men working on a 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mounted on Kum Kang San’s foredeck as well as American ensigns from the mainmast and small Taegeukgi on the bridge wings. NH 85494

Kum Kang San/Geumgangsan P-702 (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-799) with her Taegeukgi flying off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 17 June 1950, following transfer to the South Korean Navy. NH 85482

Chiri San/Jirisan P-704 (South Korean submarine chaser, formerly USS PC-810) underway off the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, 17 June 1950, with her Taegeukgi in the wind following transfer to the South Korean Navy. NH 85490

Sam Kak San/Samgaksan (Korean Submarine Chaser, # 703, formerly USS PC-802). The crew fires the ship’s 3″/50 gun “at the Communist-led North Koreans along the west coast of Korea” (quoted from the original caption). The photograph is dated 18 December 1951. Note the American kapok life jackets, Army OD fatigues, and M1 helmets. NH 97332

Baekdusan along with sisters Geumgangsan and Samgaksan, were decommissioned on 1 July 1959, due to corrosion and the general aging of the ships. Myohyangsan, found to be in better condition, was retained. 

The ROK Navy’s 173s via the 1960 edition of Janes

The three stricken subchasers were soon stripped of usable equipment and scrapped, their place on the ROKN naval list taken by three newly transferred sisterships: ex-USS Winnemucca (PC 1145), ex-USS Grosse Pointe (PC 1546), and ex-USS Chadron (PC 564) giving the South Koreans a four-pack of PC-461s on patrol into 1975, by which time they were replaced by a six-pack of larger (1500-ton, 306-foot) Rudderow-class destroyer escorts.

Epilogue

The “disposable” PC-461 class, besides the U.S. and ROK navies, served under the flags of more than 20 other countries. They remained in service around the globe until the late 1980s when the last two in active, ex-USS Susanville (PC 1149) and ex-USS Hanford (PC 1142), were retired by Taiwan.

Some 40,000 bluejackets sailed on the PCs during the “Big Show” and immediately after. The chronicle of their war is the 400-page PC Patrol Craft of World War II: A History of the Ships and Their Crews by William J. Veigele, a former PC sailor, first published in 1998.

It’s a good read if you can find it

The class is remembered by the Patrol Craft Sailor Association.

Several relics endure of Baekdusan.

Her main mast was installed at the Republic of Korea Naval Academy in 1965 and is preserved there, as is her 3″/50.

Her plans are in the U.S. National Archives.

The two ROKN bluejackets killed on Baekdusan that night in June 1950 had their names given to new Yoon Youngha class missile boats, ROKS Kim Changhak (PKG-727) and ROKS Jeon Byeongik (PKG-732).

ROKS Kim Changhak (PKG-727)

The ROKN very much remembers their story and that of their ship.

Today, the ROKN has grown to over 70,000 personnel and operates 160 vessels, putting it squarely as one of the largest and most modern naval forces on the planet.

The country’s first flat-top, the 45,000-ton Kyunghyang CVX-class lightning carrier, is planned to be named after the humble Baekdusan and her fearless crew.

The motto of the ROK Navy is 바다로, 세계로 (badalo, segyelo= To the sea, to the world).

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, July 10, 2024: Priceless Cargo

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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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, July 10, 2024: Priceless Cargo

U.S. Navy photograph, 80-G-276964, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Above we see the Bouge-class escort carrier USS Copahee (CVE-12) underway outbound from Garapan anchorage off Saipan on 8 July 1944, some 80 years ago this month, bound for San Diego where she would arrive on the 28th. Her deck cargo is interesting, and on closer look:

Show a load of captured Japanese planes– some never before seen in the West– to be used for intelligence and training purposes. This invaluable cache would prove a boon to Allied intelligence and some of these aircraft remain as a legacy of the war in the Pacific today.

It was all in a day’s work for Copahee, who reliably shipped aircraft around the theater by the thousands during her un-sung career.

About the Bogues

With both Great Britain and the U.S. running desperately short of flattops in the first half of World War II, and large, fast fleet carriers taking a while to crank out, a subspecies of light and “escort” carriers, the first created from the hulls of cruisers, the second from the hulls of merchant freighters, were produced in large numbers to put a few aircraft over every convoy and beach in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Of the more than 122 escort carriers produced in the U.S. for use by her and her Allies, some 45 were of the Bogue class. Based on the Maritime Commission’s Type C3-S-A1 cargo ship hull, these were built in short order at Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, and by the Western Pipe and Steel Company of San Francisco.

Some 496 feet overall with a 439-foot flight deck, these 16,200-ton ships could only steam at a pokey 16 ish knots sustained speed, which negated their use in fleet operations but allowed them to more than keep up with convoys of troop ships and war supplies. Capable of limited self-defense with four twin Bofors and up to 35 20mm Oerlikons for AAA as well as a pair of 5-inch guns for defense against small boats, they could carry as many as 28 operational aircraft in composite air wings. They were equipped with two elevators, Mk 4 arresting gear, and a hydraulic catapult.

Most of the Bogue class (34 of 45) went right over to the Royal Navy via Lend-Lease, where they were known as the Ameer, Attacker, Ruler, or Smiter class in turn, depending on their arrangement. However, the U.S. Navy did keep 11 of the class for themselves (USS Bogue, Card, Copahee, Core, Nassau, Altamaha, Barnes, Breton, Croatan, Prince William, and our very own Block Island), all entering service between September 1942 and June 1943.

Meet Copahee

Our subject was the only warship named for the small sound of the South Carolina coast, by the naming convention for the rest of her class. Launched 21 October 1941 by Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Tacoma, as a C3-S-A1 cargo ship SS Steel Architect under a Maritime Commission contract, she was acquired by the Navy almost two months to the day after Pearl Harbor– 8 February 1942– and commissioned as an Aircraft Escort Vessel, AVG-12 just two weeks after the Battle of Midway on 15 June 1942.

USS Copahee (ACV-12) underway off Port Angeles, Washington, on 30 August 1942. 80-G-11503.

Her war diary notes that she was the first American escort carrier commissioned on the West Coast. It also notes that her original cargo ship nameplate, Steel Architect, was still on her bow at the time.

Her hull number designation was changed to ACV-12 as an Auxiliary Aircraft Carrier on 20 August 1942 and to CVE-12, an escort carrier, on 15 July 1943, but this was all academic as she was already deployed for both of these changes.

War!

Once she joined the fleet, Copahee was placed under the direct command of ComAirPac, which she would serve until May 1944 when she transferred to ComCarTransRonPac.

USS Copahee (ACV-12) off Puget Sound Navy Yard on 17 August 1942. Note the barrage balloons aloft in the background. NH 55384

USS Copahee (ACV-12) Mess Attendants manning a 20mm machine gun, in a gun tub beside the flight deck, 9 September 1942. The carrier was then en route from Alameda, California, to the southwest Pacific. 80-G-71586

Sailing with TG 2.16, her first cruise was to Noumea in September 1942 with a load of 59 carrier aircraft. She then, escorted by TG 63.8 including three destroyers and the cruiser USS Helena, carried 20 desperately-needed F4F Wildcats of MAG 14 (VMF-121) to within launching distance of Guadalcanal on 9 October, where they flew off to Henderson Field.

This group was led by Major Joseph “Joe” J. Foss, who, flying his Wildcat from Henderson, shot down his first Japanese A6M Zero just four days later. Within a month, he had accounted for 23 “kills” over Guadalcanal with the “Cactus Air Force.”

Commander of VMF-121, Maj. Joe Foss (fourth from left resting his chin on his fist) stands with some of his pilots next to their F4F Wildcat fighters on Henderson Field.

Sent back to the rear without any aircraft, Copahee would be on hand for carrier aviator quals off the Coast of California and Hawaii for the rest of 1942, then in January 1943 would get back into the business of shuttling aircraft (as many as 80 at a time between deck cargo and hangar), aircrews, ordnance, engines, and equipment from the West Coast to the front lines, alternating with carrier landing qualifications/refreshers whenever she came back home.

A U.S. Marine Corps Vought F4U-1 Corsair of Marine Fighting Squadron 213 (VMF-213) Hell Hawks is warming up for a fight from the flight deck of the escort carrier USS Copahee (ACV-12), on 29 March 1943. Date 29 March 1943. National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7154.022

USS Copahee (ACV-12) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 9 May 1943. Note the deck load of SBD and PV-1 planes. She would also carry the PV-1s of VB-144 to NAS Kaneohe, Hawaii. Upon arrival, the squadron began an intensive period of combat training and operational patrols over the ocean near the Hawaiian Islands before shifting to Tarawa. Copahee would also later carry PV-1-equipped VPB-148 from NAS Moffett Field, California to Hawaii in May 1945. 19-N-46207

USS Copahee (ACV-12) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 9 May 1943. Stern view. 19-N-46208

Same as the above, 19-N-46204

Starboard, same location and date as the above. 19-N-46205

USS Copahee passing under the Golden Gate Bridge on her way out to sea on 15 July 1943. Mare Island photo # 5188-43.

Unloading SBDs to barge from USS Copahee (CVE 12) at Midway Island, May 21, 1943. 80-G-88086

Changing colors on USS Copahee (CVE 12) upon arriving at Townsville, Australia, September 25, 1943. 80-G-88137

An Army P-40 after being unloaded from USS Copahee (CVE 12) at Townsville, Australia, before being taken to the Air Depot, September 27, 1943. 80-G-88121

Brisbane, Australia, 11 March 1944. Army P-38 (Lightning) on the flight deck of USS Copahee (CVE-12). The carrier departed San Francisco, California, on 22 February and remained in Brisbane until 13 March.

She also brought back things from her travels.

Copahee in the summer of 1943 shipped a captured A6M3 Model 32 Zero-Sen (Hamp/Hap) (MSN 3030, Q-102), late of the 582nd Kokutai, which had been inherited by U.S. Army troops at Buna in December 1942, back to the states.

An abandoned Mitsubishi A6M3 Model 32 Zero fighter. It was flown by Lieutenant Junior Grade Kazuo Tsunoda stationed at Buna base, New Guinea. The plane made a crash landing after being damaged by a USAAF Bell P-39 Airacobra on 26 August 1942. This aircraft, with V-187 and V-190, were captured and Buna and used by Allied forces. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.159.030

9 April 1944, Copahee in her new camo scheme at San Diego, from her War History

Across the first half of June 1944, she would serve as a replacement carrier for Task Force 58, conducting operations off Saipan until the 16th– directly supporting the mission up close and in real-time. In this, she shuttled 124 carrier aircraft to fleet carriers.

It was at Saipan’s Aslito airfield that American troops captured a motherlode of aircraft and assets left behind by the Japanese Imperial Navy. These would include over a dozen late-model A6M Zekes of the 261st Kokutai and a scratch-and-dent Kate.

Aslito Airfield, June-July 1944. Japanese Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” on Saipan at Aslito airfield. 80-G-307726

Recognizing the importance of this cache, the Navy’s Technical Air Intelligence Unit – Pacific Ocean Areas (TAIU-POA) wanted it all and soon the Navy’s go-to transport carrier was inbound from Eniwetok, arriving off Charan Kanoa, Saipan on the morning of 7 July then leaving the next day bound for San Diego.

This mix included at least 13 Zeke variants including several that would later be made flyable: A6M2 (MSN 5352), A6M5 (MSN 5356), A6M5 (MSN 5350), A6M5 Model 52 (MSN 4340), A6M5 Model 52 (MSN 1303), A6M5 (MSN 2193, 61-608), A6M5 (MSN 4361,61-131) and A6M5 Model 52 Zero (MSN 5357, 61-120). The cargo also included the first Nakajima B5N2 (Kate) Type 97 Carrier Attack Bomber (MSN 2194, tail-code KEB-306), a specimen of the 931st Kaigun, along with an assortment of spare parts that included 37 engines and “2,000 cubic feet of Japanese general aviation gear.”

4320 on USS Copahee belowdecks

The aircraft soon made their way into ONI publications and were widely exhibited across the country.

“ONI Know Your Enemy” Zeke 61-131 from Copahee

“ONI Know Your Enemy” Kate from Copahee

Zeke 4340 TAIC 7 1946 Victory parade, Wright Field

After unloading her cargo and receiving a short yard period to address repairs, Copahee was back at it, leaving Alameda on 4 September 1944 with a load of new aircraft headed to Hawaii.

In late October 1944, she carried several carrier aircraft late of the CVG-81 from USS Hancock, including the entirety of VA-174– equipped with SB2C-3 Helldivers — from Hawaii to Guam where USS Wasp would embark them for the Philippine campaign. In March 1945, Copahee would again carry VA-174 and CVG-81 elements, this time for transit back to the States.

Besides her ferry work, she conducted over 3,000 carrier qualification launches during her six periods tasked as a West Coast training carrier during the war, sadly resulting in two pilot fatalities. At least 710 aviators logged landings on Copahee.

From commissioning through VJ Day, Copahee steamed 249,638 miles (keep in mind this was usually at 12-14 knots), transporting an amazing 2,232 aircraft and 13,719 passengers. She was underway some 67 percent of her career.

Take a look at the variety in the 657 aircraft that she carried just in the first six months of 1945:

She also carried an immense amount of avgas and ordnance to forward areas. For instance, 769,000 gallons were delivered to Hawaii in 1944 alone.

Early model Mark XIII torpedo after bodies on USS Copahee CVE-12 Oct 29, 1943. She delivered no less than 147 torpedoes to forward areas from the West Coast

Ordnance delivered is staggering from one little 16,000-ton jeep carrier:

Another interesting facet of her War History is the evolution of her armament:

At the end of the war found Copahee at Hunters Point undergoing yard repairs. She then spent the rest of the war on “Magic Carpet” duty, returning homeward-bound servicemen from Saipan, Guam, Eniwetok, and the Philippines to the west coast.

She began deactivation at Alameda on 21 December 1945 and was decommissioned and placed in reserve with Tacoma’s mothball fleet on 5 July 1946.

Copahee received one battle star for World War II service, for the capture and occupation of Saipan in June 1944.

On 1 March 1959, while laid up, she was redesignated an Escort Helicopter Aircraft Carrier, and her hull number changed on paper to CVHE 12. Stricken sometime after, she was sold for scrap in 1961.

Of the rest of the Bogue class, USS Block Island (CVE-21) along with British-operated sister HMS Nabob (D 77) were lost to German U-boats during the war. Likewise, the same could be said for sistership HMS Thane (D 48) would be so crippled by U-1172 in 1945 that she was not returned to service.

As for the class’s post-war service, they were too small and slow to be utilized as much more than aircraft transports, and most of the British-operated vessels were returned to the U.S. Navy, retrograded back to merchantmen, and sold off as freighters.

Of the ten U.S.-operated Bogues, most were sold for scrap or for further mercantile use sans flattop and guns, with Card, converted to an aviation transport (AKV-40, later T-AKV-40) in the 1950s, remaining in service into Vietnam where she was embarrassingly holed by Viet Cong sappers in Saigon. The last of the class in American service, she was scrapped in 1971.

The final Bogue hull, the former Smiter-class escort carrier HMS Khedive (D62), continued operating as the tramp freighter SS Daphne as late as 1976 before she met her end in the hands of Spanish breakers.

Epilogue

Few relics remain of Copahee. Her War History and diaries are in the National Archives.

Her bell is supposedly on loan by the NHHC to a school in California, although some say it may have since gotten out into private hands and has been spotted as a yard ornament.

Photo via Navsource

The U.S. Navy has yet to reissue her name.

Her 16 war dead, lost to accidents in high-tempo operations, are remembered on a plaque installed at the National Museum of the Pacific War.

Meanwhile, at least one of the A6M5 Model 52s (MSN 4340, 61-131) she brought back to the West Coast in July 1944 is preserved in the Smithsonian’s collection.

Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen (Zero Fighter) Model 52 ZEKE (A19600335000) at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. Photo taken by Eric Long. Photo taken on December 29. 2016. (A19600335000.3T8A4453) (A19600335000-NASM2018-10400)

A second A6M5, (MSN 5357, 61-120) remained in flyable condition as N46770 until very recently and appeared in several scenes of 2001’s Pearl Harbor. She is in the collection of the Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino.

The others have been lost to history.

Joe Foss made it off of Guadalcanal, received the Medal of Honor from FDR personally, and later became a brigadier general in the Air National Guard after the war. Turning to politics, he became the 20th Governor of South Dakota in 1955 and passed in 2003, aged 87.

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, July 3, 2024: Brace for Ramming

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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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, July 3, 2024: Brace for Ramming

U.S. Navy photograph, 80-G-700007, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Above we see, just south-east of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the mine-filled shattered bow of the German Type XB U-boat, U-233, pointing to the sky just before plunging to the bottom after the submarine was rammed by the Cannon-class destroyer escort USS Thomas (DE 102) some 80 years ago this week– 5 July 1944. The unlucky U-233 was on her first combat patrol, tasked with sowing mines off key Canadian and American harbors.

She never made it that far and was one of Thomas’s three U-boat kills during the war.

And that was just in the destroyer escort’s first career.

What were the Cannons?

USS Cannon (DE-99) Dravo builder’s photo. USN CP-DE-99-19-N-51457

The Cannon class, ordered in 1942 to help stem the tide of the terrible U-boat menace in the Atlantic, was also known as the DET type from their Diesel Electric Tandem drive. The DET’s substitution for a turbo-electric propulsion plant was the primary difference from the predecessor Buckley (“TE”) class. The DET was in turn replaced with a direct drive diesel plant to yield the design of the successor Edsall (“FMR”) class.

Besides a heavy ASW armament, these humble ships carried a trio of Mk.22 3″/50s, some deck-mounted torpedo tubes to be effective against larger surface combatants in a pinch, and a smattering of Bofors/Oerlikon AAA mounts.

In all, although 116 Cannon-class destroyer escorts were planned, only 72 were completed. Some of her more well-known sisters included the USS Eldridge, the ship claimed to be a part of the infamous Philadelphia Experiment. The vessels were all cranked out in blocks by four yards with Thomas— along with class leaders Cannon and Bostwick— among the nine produced by Dravo.

Meet Thomas

Our subject was the second warship named for LT Clarence Crase Thomas (USNA 1908). A son of Grass Valley, California, Thomas served pre-war in the USS Maryland (ACR-8), USS Yorktown (PG-1), USS Denver (C-14), USS Cleveland (C-19), USS West Virginia (ACR-5), and battleship USS Florida. Once the U.S. entered the Great War, he was detailed to command the naval armed guard det on the merchant steamship SS Vacuum in April 1917.

Lost to a German U-boat just two weeks later, Thomas was the first U.S. naval officer to lose his life in the war with Germany and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

His name was almost immediately issued to a Wickes-class destroyer (DD-182) then under construction, and sponsored by LT Thomas’s widow, Evelyn. That four-piper flush deck greyhound was decommissioned in 1922 and laid up until 1940, then transferred to the Royal Navy as part of the “bases for destroyers” deal, becoming first the Town-class destroyer, HMS St Albans (I15), then the Free Norwegian Navy’s HNoMS St Albans, and finally the Soviet destroyer Dostoyny/Dostojnyj before being scrapped in 1949.

Meanwhile, our subject, the second Thomas, DE-102, was laid down on 16 January 1943 by Dravo and commissioned on 21 November 1943 at Portsmouth, her build time spanning just 310 days.

War!

Assigned to Escort Division 48 as flagship, she was surrounded by five sisters– USS Bostwick, Breeman, Bronstein, Baker, and Coffman. Her shakedown took place off the East Coast and she spent the Christmas 1943/New Year’s 1944 holiday in Bermuda.

07 December 1943: Portsmouth, Va. – A starboard quarter view of Thomas taken near the Norfolk Navy Yard. U.S. Navy photo #CP-DE-102-19-N-60229

Her first bite at Dönitz’s grey sharks came as part of the hunter-killer group attached to the jeep carrier USS Block Island (CVE-21) for six weeks in February-March 1944. This included the 1 March 1944 kill north of the Azores of a submarine credited by the Navy as the Type VIIC U-boat U-709 (Oblt. (R) Rudolf Ites), sunk with all hands. Alternatively, some reports hold this was actually U-441, which was severely damaged but escaped.

Then came a stint riding shotgun on Convoy UGS 39 and its return (GUS 39) from the U.S. to the Med.

Then came more hunter-killer taskings.

USS Thomas was taken on 5 July 1944 from the escort carrier USS Card (CVE-11). 80-G-366262

On 5 July 1944, sisters Thomas (DE-102) and USS Baker (DE-190), from the jeep carrier USS Card’s hunter-killer force (Task Group 22.5), ran U-233 (Kptlt. Hans Steen) to ground off Halifax, Nova Scotia. The action began at 1910 when Baker picked up a sound contact at 1,500 yards.

Just 17 minutes and two depth charge patterns later, a submarine’s bow broke the surface and Baker took the enemy boat under surface fire, with Thomas closing in and opening up with her deck guns shortly after. The end came when Thomas rammed the shell-riddled U-boat on its starboard side just aft of the fairweather. By 1947 it was all over and the tin cans were plucking survivors from the water.

From the 12-page report filed by LCDR David M. Kellog, Thomas’s skipper:

A great series of shots captured from Thomas show the last dive of U-233.

German U-Boat, U-233, sinks as it is rammed. 80-G-700006

80-G-700005

Thomas picked up 20 of U-233’s 69-man crew, including Kptlt. Steen, who later died of wounds. The survivors, along with two Enigma coding wheels recovered from the pockets of one of the men, were transferred to Card.

Interrogations later revealed U-233’s mission and her cargo of 66 new type Drückunterschiedsmine (pressure differential mines) along with four T-5 and three G7e torpedoes, none of which the boat had a chance to use.

As far as Thomas was concerned, she suffered only minor damage from her ramming kill, chiefly in two flooded peak tanks and a leaking chain locker. Proceeding to Boston Navy Yard for repairs, she was back on duty by 18 July and spent the next six weeks shepherding new submarines out of Portsmouth and Groton undergoing shakedown in Long Island Sound.

USS Thomas (DE-102) underway while supporting submarine operations off the U.S. East Coast, 21 August 1944. Note the track of a torpedo that is passing under the ship. The ship is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 3D. Her hull number is painted atop the front of her bridge to assist identification by aircraft. NH 107610

September 1944 found her back with the Card hunter-killer group, surviving hurricane-force winds at least twice at sea before the end of the year as the task group roamed the stormy North Atlantic.

She would continue to serve with the Card group into 1945, alternating going to the rescue of sinking ships and chasing down sonar contacts. On 30 April 1945, Thomas, along with the frigate Natchez (PF-2), and sisterships Coffman and Bostwick, came across what is cited by the Navy as the advanced Type IXC/40 U-boat U-548 just east of Cape Hatteras but is now generally believed to be sister U-879 (Kptlt. Erwin Manchen), sending her to the bottom with all 52 hands.

Post VE-Day, Thomas would spend the next four months in a series of exercises before she was detailed to New York to take part in the massive Navy Day celebrations there and in November was tasked to escort the infamous Type IXC/40 U-boat U-530 (Oblt. Otto Wermuth), which had surrendered in Argentina two months after the end of the war in Europe.

Following a series of war bond tours with Thomas and U-530, the latter was utilized for a series of tests and deep-sixed in torpedo drills off Cape Cod.

USS Toro (SS-422) torpedoed the surrendered German submarine U-530, during tests 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod. Photo released 28 November 1947. Note the effects of torpedo explosion. 80-G-704668

However, by that time, Thomas had been decommissioned at Green Cove Springs, Florida, in March 1946 and added to the 500-strong mothball fleet that swayed at a series of 13 piers built there just for the purpose.

USS Thomas (DE-102) likely in Green Cove Springs, Florida. Photo by Ensign Carl Gene Coin, USN, via Wikimedia commons.

She was not even listed in that year’s Jane’s Fighting Ships entry for her class.

Jane’s 1946 listing for the 57-strong semi-active Bostwick class, noting numerous transfers to overseas allies.

Thomas received four battle stars for World War II service.

Plank owner LCDR Kellogg, who earned the Legion of Merit for the U-233 ramming and commanded the vessel throughout the war, faded into history and I cannot find any further information on him.

A long second life

While Thomas’s initial service would last just three years, others could desperately put the low-mileage destroyer escort to good use.

Ultimately 14 of the Cannon/Bostwick class went to France and Brazil during the war, followed by another eight to the French– who apparently really liked the type– four to Greece (including USS Slater which returned home in the 1990s to become the only destroyer escort afloat in the United States), three to Italy, two to Japan, six to the Dutch, three to Peru, five to the Philippines, two to South Korea, one to Thailand, and two to Uruguay.

When it comes to Thomas, she and three sisters: Bostwick, Breeman, and Carter, in a short ceremony on 14 December 1948, were transferred to Nationalist (Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT) China. Thomas became class leader Taihe (also seen in the West as ROCS Tai He and ROCS Tai Ho) with the hull/pennant number DE-23.

The four destroyer escorts were soon put into emergency use. During the last phase of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the 26 loyal ships of the ROCN engaged in the protection of supply convoys and the withdrawal of the Nationalist government and over 1 million refugees to Taiwan.

These ships were captured in great detail during this period in Nationalist use by LIFE magazine.

In this image, she still has her 3″/50 Mk22s up front

Fuzing 40mm Bofors rounds. Note the traditional crackerjack and flat cap used by the Nationalists

Crackerjacks combined with M1 helmets and US Navy Mk II talker helmets

The No. 3 mount now has an additional 3″/50 rather than the 40mm Bofors. Also, that is A LOT of depth charges for those 8 throwers and two rails! Ash cans a-go-go

Needing bigger guns for the work envisioned of them, the Chinese quickly upgraded their two forward 3-inchers to a pair of 5″/38 singles in open mounts, as well as substituting the stern 40mm mount for one of the same which gave the ships a 2+2 format with twin 5-inchers over the bow and a 5-inch over a 3-inch over the stern. 

The 1950s saw the fleet heavily involved in the pitched and tense engagements around Kinmen (Quemoy), Matsu, and the Yijiangshan and Dachen Islands in the Taiwan Straits as well as the clandestine Guoguang operations in which the KMT tried to retake the mainland by landing would-be guerilla organization teams in Red territory.

Taihe notably took part in the Battle of Pingtan Island in August 1949, covered the retreat from Hainan Island in April 1950, the Battle of the Wanshan Islands in May 1950 (where she is credited with sinking the gunboat Jiefang and the LCI Guishan), the running Battle of the Tohoku Islands where she escaped a trap set by six Red corvettes and frigates, damaging the Changsha (216)– formerly the Japanese Type D coastal defense ship No. 118– in the process; rescuing the torpedoed destroyer Taiping (DE-22, ex USS Decker DE-47) during the Battle of Yijiangshan Island in November 1954, and conducting a series of tense patrols in the Spratly Islands in 1956.

Propaganda shells fired into Red-controlled areas. By John Dominis LIFE

In all, Thomas and her three sisters continued to hold the front lines of the Taiwan Straits for 25 years and, for the first decade of that, were the most powerful assets available to the ROCN, a title they held until two Benson-class destroyers (USS Benson and USS Hilary P. Jones) were transferred in 1954.

They were also later fitted in the 1960s with Mk.32 12.75-inch ASW torpedo tubes for Mk 44s– which were a lot more effective than depth charges.

Taizhao, ex Carter anchored at the Kaohsiung Xinbin Wharf, late 1940s.

Jane’s 1973-4 listing for the Taiwan Bostwicks, including Carter.

As part of the pressure on Communist China at the tail end of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the Nixon administration transferred a huge flotilla of more advanced warships to Taiwan between late 1970 and early 1973 that included two GUPPY’d Tench-class submarines (one of which is still active), five Gearing-class destroyers, six Sumner-class destroyers, four Fletchers, and USS McComb (DD-458)— a late Gleaves-class destroyer that had been converted to a fast minesweeper. With all these “new-to-you” hulls, the long-serving destroyer escorts could be retired and, by the end of 1973, Thomas and her three sisters in Formosan service had been disposed of for scrap. 

Epilogue

Few relics remain of Thomas in the U.S. Her war history and diaries are in the National Archives.

A painting of Thomas ramming U-233 by maritime artist John G. Gromosiak of Cincinnati is in the U.S. Naval Museum at Annapolis but I can only find this small image of it, via Navsource.

The U.S. Navy has yet to recycle LT Thomas’s name for a third vessel, which is a shame.

Besides the museum ship USS Slater (DE-766), now sitting dockside in Albany New York, and the pier side training ship USS Hemminger (DE-746) (now HTMS Pin Klao DE-1) in Thailand, there are no Cannon-class destroyer escorts still afloat.

USS Slater is the only destroyer escort preserved in North America– and is Thomas’s sistership

The Destroyer Escort Sailors Association honors the men of all the DEs, regardless of class. Sadly, their 45th annual convention in 2020 was their last as their numbers are rapidly declining.

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, June 26, 2024: A Tin Can with Teeth

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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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, June 26, 2024: A Tin Can with Teeth

Photograph by LT. L. Pelman, Admiralty Collection, Imperial War Museum catalog number A 20319.

Above we see a group of ratings aboard the Beagle class destroyer HMS Bulldog (H 91) with their mechanical mascot “which does everything but eat,” on 11 November 1943, at Portsmouth. Don’t let the clever lads and their tin pup fool you, Bulldog’s crew had already accomplished more in the war for the Atlantic than any other destroyer men would and, just six months after this image was snapped, add to their war record by bagging their second U-boat of the conflict.

The A/Bs

Moving on from their Great War-era tin cans, the Admiralty ordered a pair of modern destroyer prototypes in 1927– HMS Amazon (1,352 tons) and Ambuscade (1,173 tons), each capable of making 37 knots on oil-fired steam turbine plants and armed with four old-style BL 4.7″/45 Mk I dual purpose guns and six 21-inch torpedo tubes.

HMS Amazon (D39) underway at sea in 1942. She and near sister HMS Ambuscade (D38) formed the basis for British destroyer designs from 1927 until the Tribal class was ordered in 1936. IWM FL 515.

The lessons learned from these two test vessels led to two runs of very similar ships, the 8-hull A class (Acasta, Achates, Active, Antelope, Anthony, Ardent, Arrow, and Acheron) along with a destroyer leader with room for a commodore (HMS Codrington), a second flight 8-hull B class (Basilisk, Beagle, Blanche, Boadicea, Boreas, Brazen, Brilliant and Bulldog) with corresponding destroyer leader (HMS Keith), and two further A’s for the RCN (HMCS Saguenay and Skeena). In all, some 20 ships.

The A/B class destroyers, from the 1931 Janes.

Powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each with their own shaft, using steam provided by three Admiralty water-tube boilers equipped with superheaters, these 1,350-ton (standard) 323-foot greyhounds were extremely fast, able to hit 35 knots. Armed with four more modern QF 4.7″/45cal Mk IX singles and a pair of quadruple 21-inch torpedo tubes, they could hold their own. Able to (kind of) sweep mines, they initially carried little ASW gear as, after all, when they were designed, the Versailles Treaty had barred Germany from making or owning U-boats. Of course, that would change.

Meet Bulldog

Our subject was the sixth HMS Bulldog (or HMS Bull Dog) in RN service in a tradition going back to 1794 that included two ships that fought the French, a steam-powered paddle sloop that saw hot service from Palermo to Haiti, an Ant-class gunboat in the last half of the 19th Century, and a Great War-era Beagle-class destroyer that struck Turkish mine off Gallipoli. This earned our destroyer five battle honors (Toulon 1793, St Lucia 1796, Baltic 1854-55, Dardanelles 1915-16, English Channel 1915-16) before she was even commissioned.

Ordered on 22 March 1929 under the 1928 Programme as Yard No. 1411 from Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd, Wallsend, the future HMS Bulldog (H91) was laid down on 10 August 1929, launched the following December, and completed on 8 April 1931 at £221,408.

Dispatched to join the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with the Mediterranean Fleet, Bulldog showed the flag, participated in fleet exercises, and came to the rescue of those affected by the 1932 Ierissos earthquake in Greece.

Bulldog in Venice, pre-war

Reassignment to the Home Fleet in September 1936 brought an almost non-stop series of tense patrols off the Spanish coast during the Civil War in that country, alternating with yard periods, for the next three years.

War!

When the declaration of war between Germany and Great Britain hit in September 1939, Bulldog was in Alexandria as escort and plane guard for the carrier HMS Glorious.

HMS Glorious November 1939 at Socotra in Yemen destroyer HMS Bulldog alongside

With German raiders and blockade runners at large in the Indian Ocean, a hunting group (Force J) consisting of Glorious, Bulldog, the destroyer HMS Daring, and the old battleship HMS Malaya was sent to those waters for the rest of the year.

April 1940 saw Bulldog join in the screen escorting the carriers Glorious and Ark Royal back to UK Home Waters for the Norwegian campaign, during which our destroyer was tasked with supporting other operations. It was shortly after she broke with the carriers that Bulldog came to the rescue of the torpedoed K-class destroyer leader HMS Kelly (F01)-– commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten– and towed the ship back to Tyne.

Assigned to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla for the evacuation of the BEF from France in June 1940 (Operation Cycle), Bulldog received three bomb hits off Le Harve on 10 June and had to spend the next three months in repair, returning to service in September with a raid with three other destroyers on the port of Cherbourg.

Convoy duties, Enigma, and Sub-busting

Bulldog then spent the rest of 1940 on escort and sheepdog duty. In February 1941, she was nominated for escort service in the Western Approaches and, between 17 March 1941 when she joined HG 055, and 14 March 1945 when she left MKS 087G, would ride shotgun on no less than 50 convoys.

While part of the 3rd Escort Group accompanying convoy OB 318, Bulldog, HMS Broadway, and the corvette HMS Aubretia engaged the German Type IXB submarine U-110 (Kptlt. Fritz-Julius Lemp) east of Cape Farewell, Greenland on 9 May 1940.

After depth charging her to the surface a boarding party from Bulldog under SLt David Balme including stoker Cyril Lee, telegraphist Allen Long, and Able Seamen Sidney Pearce, Cyril Dolley, Richard Roe, Claude Wileman, Arnold Hargreaves and John Trotter, spent six hours aboard the sinking German submarine and managed to bag its intact Enigma machine, in its entirety, to include the prized current Kurzsignale preset codes book.

B Class Destroyer HMS Bulldog with U-110 in the background on May 9th, 1941

As detailed by the Independent in 2016:

They arrived soon after midday to windward of her. Balme clambered up her curved, slippery surface, and, revolver at the ready, mounted the fixed ladder of the 12ft conning tower. Going down inside, he had two hatches and more ladders to negotiate. It meant replacing the weapon in its holster to grip with both hands and descend bottom-first. If any Nazi crewman had stayed on board, he thought, I’m an easy target.

An eerie blue light bathed the U-boat’s nerve center in the chamber below, an array of unfamiliar wheels and dials. A hissing came from somewhere, and he could hear the ocean slosh against the hull. There might be booby traps; there might be scuttling charges set to explode. He went up to the bow: nothing; the stern, too, was empty.

He formed his men into a chain to pass out books and documents. They included a stoker, Cyril Lee, and a telegraphist, Allen Long. The stoker’s job, to restart the engines, proved too risky, but the telegraphist at once told Balme: “This looks like an interesting bit of equipment, Sir.” It resembled a typewriter but lit up strangely when Long pressed the keys. It was a German naval “Enigma” cipher machine. The party found daily settings and procedures for its use. Written in soluble ink, they risked being lost if dropped in the sea, but, Balme recalled: “Nothing even got wet.”

As noted by the National Museum of the Royal Navy, “This discovery was one of the greatest ever intelligence coups and undoubtedly saved thousands, if not millions, of lives.” No less a person than King George VI called the find “perhaps the most important single event in the whole war at sea.”

Balme received the Distinguished Service Cross while the other members of the away team were Mentioned in Despatches, and skipper CDR Addison Joe Baker-Cresswell, RN, received the Distinguished Service Order.

A party from HMS Bulldog prepares to board U-110. IWM HU63114

Bulldog kept U-110 afloat for 17 hours then let the towline slip, ordered to let the submarine go to the bottom to preserve the Enigma capture secret.

HMS Bulldog (H-91) moored to a buoy on the east coast, on 17 April 1945

Bulldog would also chalk up a solo kill against the Type VIIC U-boat U-719 (Oblt. Klaus-Dietrich Steffens) on 26 Jun 1944– 80 years ago today– north-west of Ireland. All hands were lost on the German boat.

Operation Nest Egg

It was aboard the cramped decks of our little destroyer that the nearly five-year German occupation of the Channel Islands ended. She was the headquarters ship for Force 135, Operation Nest Egg, commanded by Brigadier Alfred Ernest Snow, OBE, which was sent to liberate the islands.

A week after Hitler’s suicide, HMS Bulldog, escorted by her sister Beagle, arrived off St Peter Port in Guernsey and a declaration of unconditional surrender was signed t 0714 on 9 May 1945 by Generalmajor Siegfried Heine, deputy commander of the German garrison, after some back and forth between Brigadier Snow, chief of the British “Omelet” delegation, and one young Kapitänleutänant Armin Zimmerman, the aide to the garrison’s overall commander, Vizeadmiral Friedrich Hüffmeier, late of the KMS Scharnhorst.

The surrender party was transported by the German minesweeper M4613 to Bulldog.

A scene on board HMS Bulldog during the first conference with Captain Lieutenant Zimmerman before the signing of the surrender document which liberated the Channel Islands. Left to right around the table are: Admiral Stuart (Royal Navy), Brigadier General A E Snow (Chief British Emissary), Captain H Herzmark (Intelligence Corps), Wing Commander Archie Steward (Royal Air Force), Lieutenant Colonel E A Stoneman, Major John Margeson, Colonel H R Power (all of the British Army) and Kapitänleutänant Armin Zimmerman,(Kriegsmarine). IWM D24595

Generalmajor Siegfried Heine, German deputy commander of the Channel Islands (right), has his identification papers checked as arrives at HMS Bulldog to sign the document of surrender. IWM D 24601

Immediately after the surrender document was signed, the initial Allied force, led by Colonel H.R. Power and Lt.Col Stoneman and consisting of four officers and 21 men, including several from Guernsey, landed at the White Rock at 07:50, the first British forces on the island since June 1940.

Colonel H.R. Power, Chief Civil Affairs Officer, walking across the gangplank from German Harbor Protection Vessel FK04, about to shake the hand of Attorney-General J.E.L. Martel on the White Rock. The St. Peter Port seafront can be seen in the background. Approx. 7:50am, 9th May 1945 Guernsey Museum Object No. GMAG 2006.193.36

In all, the German garrisons in the Channel Islands numbered 26,909 men on 9 May (Jersey: 11,671, Guernsey: 11,755, Alderney: 3,202, and Sark: 281), which had kept a populace of some 40,000 locals under the thumb for a half-decade. Not a bad haul for a couple of worn-out tin cans.

Paid off shortly after, Bulldog earned two somewhat understated battle honors for her WWII service (Atlantic 1941-45 and Arctic 1942-44)

The war was hard on these ships. Of the 20 A/B-class destroyers, 13 were lost or crippled during WWII including Acasta and Ardent, sunk in a surface action with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Narvik while trying to defend HMS Glorious; Achates lost in the Barents in a one-sided fight with the German cruiser Admiral Hipper; Acheron and Blanche lost to mines, Arrow wrecked in an explosion in Algiers, Codrington and Brazen sunk by German bombers off Dover during the Battle of Britain, Skeena wrecked off Iceland, Keith and Basilisk claimed by the Luftwaffe during Dunkirk, and Boadicea sent sky high by Fritz X missiles fired by KG 100 Dornier Do 217s off Portsmouth a week after D-Day. Saguenay, who lost both her bow and stern in two different incidents, finished the war as an unpowered training hulk.

Of the seven remaining class members– Active, Antelope, Anthony, Beagle, Boreas, Brilliant, and our Bulldog— obsolete for postwar work and thoroughly worn out, they were soon paid off and scrapped by 1948.

Epilogue

Few relics remain of Bulldog.

A set of her 1940 bomb damage repair plans are in the National Archives.

The IWM has two works of art in their collection with Bulldog as the subject.

This evacuation from France was remembered in a period watercolor by maritime artist Richard Harding Seddon.

Signaling HMS Bulldog from the Shore, near Veulette: 10th June 1940. a view of some British soldiers signaling from a beach to HMS Bulldog. The soldiers stand on an unusual white rock formation, the sunset casting long shadows across the beach. Art.IWM ART LD 5986

Bulldog and her sisters Beagle and Boadicea were also portrayed off Bear Island while on Arctic duty in 1943 in a painting by Colin McMillan.

Three Royal Navy destroyers sail in choppy Arctic waters near Bear Island (Bjørnøja), with HMS Boadicea in the immediate foreground. All the ships sail from left to right and beams of sunlight emerge from breaks in the cloud in the background. Art.IWM ART 16598

As for Enigma machine burglar David Edward Balme, naval officer, and wool broker, DSC 1941, he finished the war as an LCDR and later served in the cruiser HMS Berwick and the battle-cruiser HMS Renown before leaving the service in 1947. He died in Lymington, Hampshire 3 January 2016.

Bulldog’s skipper during the Enigma/U-110 capture, CDR Addison Joe Baker-Cresswell DSO, RN, left the service in 1951 having gone on to command the cruiser HMS Caradoc (D 60). A gentleman farmer, he passed in 1997, aged 96.

Post-war, the Royal Navy would recycle the name for the seventh HMS Bulldog (A317), the lead ship of her class of four 189-foot steel-hulled armed survey ships. Commissioned in 1968, she was the last of the four still in service– and the last active RN ship with a wooden deck– when she was paid off in 2002.

Built by Brooke Marine, Lowestoft, the Bulldogs sported a bulbous bow and a high flared forecastle, giving them rather yacht-like lines, in addition to their suite of echo sounders and a Marconi Hydrosearch sector scanning sonar.

The Admiralty in 2021 announced the names for the “Inspirational” Type 31 (Babcock Arrowhead 140) frigate class would include the eighth HMS Bulldog, which had her keel laid in 2023.

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, June 12, 2024: Good ol’ Walrus Skull

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to 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 12, 2024: Good ol’ Walrus Skull

This image, as are most in this post, via the Danish National­museet system, call no. THM-3787

Above we see the humble little inspektionsskibet (inspection ship) Ingolf of the Royal Danish Navy at anchor in Umanak (Uummannaq), Greenland in the summer of 1934, some 90 years ago.

She was a brawler for her type and task, and if you look closely at the front of her wheelhouse, you just may see her unofficial ship’s mascot, a walrus skull. 

Meet Ingolf

Ingolf was ordered in 1932 with inspiration drawn from the large inspection ship Hvidbjornen (1,050 t, 196 feet oal, 2x87mm, 1 aircraft, 14 knots, circa 1928).

Hvidbjørnen with Heinkel HM 8 seaplane abord. Ingolf would be about 20 feet longer, a little faster, and with a more powerful battery of 4.7-inch guns. THM-18978

You can see the resemblance in Ingolf. THM-18464

Our subject’s name comes from the Old Norse name Ingólfr, meaning the wolf of the king Yngvi. The Dane had previously used the name several times, most recently for an iron-hulled sail-rigged steam schooner cruiser (skonnert-krydseren) that, commissioned in the 1870s, had spent the last two decades of her life as a training ship and polar exploration/survey vessel before retiring in 1926.

The old Krydseren Ingolf

It was (and is) a popular boy’s name, including for use in the Danish royal family.

A young Prince Ingolf of Denmark, shown with Danish Guards. Currently titled as Count Ingolf of Rosenborg, he is a grandson of Danish King Christian X and twice great-grandson (through both his mother and father’s lines) of King Frederik VIII of Denmark.

Constructed in Copenhagen at Orlogsværftet, the Danish naval shipyard, Ingolf was officially a fishery protection vessel intended for service off Greenland, Iceland (a Danish dependency until WWII) and the Faeroes Islands. However, she was a decent little gunboat by any measure.

With some 1,180 tons standard displacement, she ran 213 feet overall with a tubby (roughly 6:1 ratio) 35-foot beam and the capability of floating in just 16 feet of water. Powered by two Thornycroft boilers driving a VTE engine, she could make 16.5 knots on a single screw.

Her main battery consisted of a pair of 4.7-inch P.K. L45 M.32 mounts in shielded turrets fore and aft, a single 57mm L40 M.1885 gun, two 20mm/56 Madsen Rek. K. AAA guns, and two 8mm Madsen light machine guns.

Ingolf in Greenland in the summer of 1936, one of her 4.7-inch mounts being cleaned. Note the light shield of the mount and the fatigue coveralls of her crew, along with the wooden deck. THM-21466

THM-19320

THM-19087

THM-19072

The 57mm gun was typically used for saluting and “shots across the bow,” saving the 4.7-inchers for “war use.” THM-19102

The same model 57mm gun, dating back to the 1880s, was used by the Icelandic Coast Guard on their cutters until the early 2000s. THM-18893

Note the Madsen LMG in an AAA mount. THM-19341

The crew was just 66 men, of which a light platoon-sized landing/survey party could be spared for work ashore in her remote patrol area. The ship carried several whaleboats and survey ships for the task.

Amazing for her size, she was designed from the outset to carry an armed floatplane, which would be craned off and on for operations. More on this later.

Going well beyond Hvidbjornen, when compared to the five other Danish G-I-F fisheries protection/survey flotilla vessels that routinely sailed from Denmark to patrol those waters– Hejmdal (705 t, 175 feet oal, 2x75mm, 13 knot, circa 1935), Beskytteren (389 t, 143 feet oal, 1x57mm, 2x37mm, 11.8 knots, circa 1900), Hejmdal (817 t, 174 feet oal, 2x75mm, 12 kts, circa 1935), Islands Falk (730 t, 183 feet oal, 2x75mm, 2x47mm, 13 knots, circa 1907) and Freja (322 t, 124 feet oal, 2x75mm, 10 knots, circa 1938)– Ingolf was by far the largest, fastest, and strongest of the lot.

It was also intended to use her as a kadetskib, or school ship for naval cadets, a role her old schooner cruiser namesake had often filled.

THM-19057

Commissioned on 23 April 1934, he had an almost idyllic life, at least until 1939. 

Ingolf seen aft across to port lying at the quay at the Royal Yacht Club, Brussels 1934. THM-3731

Ingolf in the North Atlantic, summer 1936. The little round bottom boat, with her low speed and 6:1 length-to-beam ratio, must have been a zesty ride in high seas. THM-21440

The inspection ship Ingolf fires salutes in this very artistic image. THM-3788

The inspection ship Ingolf is docked in Nykøbing.

Note the walrus skull mounted to the front of her wheelhouse. FHM-165451

FHM-165458

It remained a fixture of her career.

inspektionsskibet Ingolf

Inspektionskibet Ingolf and Maagen at Godthaab. Maagen (110 t, 71 feet oal, sail/diesel 8 knots, 1x37mm gun) was one of several small twin-masted light draft vessels classified invariably as an inspection cutter (inspektionskutter) or orlogskutter (naval cutter) that were permanently deployed to Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroes used for inspection, coastal survey, and civil administration, typically with a single officer, a CPO, and 6-8 enlisted, often locals. They would steam with the larger Inspektionskibet whenever in the area and perform such yeoman tasks as towing targets during gunnery exercises.

Aircraft

Throughout her service, Ingolf and her smaller OPV companion, Hvidbjornen, would carry two types of light scout or torpedoflyet (torpedo-carrying) aircraft.

The first of these was the Heinkel H.E.8, of which the Danish Marinens Flyvevæsen bought (8) or built from kits (16) two dozen between 1928 and 1938. Classed by the Versailles-restricted Heinkel as two-seat “mail planes” they were easily modified to carry two Madsen light machine guns (one fixed forward-firing, one flexible) and eight hardpoints for small 28-pound bombs.

Heinkel seaplane HM 87 being taken on board in Ingolf, Godthåb summer of 1936. Capable of 130 knots, they had an 800nm range. THM-21432

Heinkel seaplane HM 87 aboard Ingolf in Gotthåb Harbor, 1936. THM-21439

Heinkel HM 87 being craned. Note the kayak in the background. THM-19052

Heinkel HM 87 is taken on board Ingolf in Godthaab ship harbor, August 1936, after photo flights for the Royal Danish Navy’s Chart Archive. To the stern of the gunboat is the 3,800-ton Danish gunnery training cruiser, Niels Juel, with twin 5.9-inch mounts forward. THM-32196

THM-19014

THM-19217

The second, and by far more formidable, floatplane used by the Danes from our subject was the Hawker Dantorp H.B. III, a type made specifically for the Danish Navy in 1933. Powered by an 850 hp Armstrong Siddeley Leopard IIIA air-cooled 14-cylinder twin-row radial engine– the most powerful radial engine in the world at the time– the three-place scout bomber carried a forward firing Vickers machine gun, a flexible Lewis gun for the gunner/radio operator, and up to 1,500 pounds of bombs or a single torpedo.

Dantorp torpedo plane No. 202 during practice on Isefjorden summer 1936. Note her steelfish centerline. They could reportedly stay aloft for an eight-hour patrol, albeit at 100~ knots. THM-21438

Torpedo plane No. 202 of the Dantorp type on board Ingolf. Talk about a tight squeeze! Note the Dannebrog national flash on the tail of the plane. THM-38091

The boom for launching and retrieving the torpedo plane ran off the mainmast. Just two Dantorps were ordered by the Danish Navy, No. 201 and No. 202. THM-3212

War!

Under the command of CDR Christian Vilhelm Evers (Søofficerskolen 1913) WWII began with Ingolf at the disposal of the Danish naval academy and would remain tasked with training cadets, along with her near sister, Hvidbjørnen.

Ingolf shown during WWII, note the Dannebrog painted on her side, a standard practice that Danish ships used in both world wars, used to try at armed neutrality. THM-9122

Same as above, THM-9123. Note she still has her walrus skull in this shot.

With the socialist government neutering the Danish forces even before the relatively bloodless German invasion in April 1940.

Ingolf, like much of the Danish fleet, was unable to get off a shot before the government capitulated.

Of course, that didn’t stop extensive Free Danish forces from being formed overseas, most of the Danish merchant marine to sail for the Allies– over 5,000 Danish merchant sailors manned over 800,000 tons of shipping for the Allies, many never to be seen again– and the training ship Danmark, in the U.S. in 1940, to train over 5,000 Americans for while operating for the USCG. Two small Danish Navy fisheries patrol boats, Maagen and Ternen, were in Greenland and would serve the Allies.

While sidelined and fundamentally interned in their own country by the occupying German forces, Ingolf and Hvidbjørnen were one of the few vessels allowed to cruise inside Denmark’s territorial waters as they were still allowed to train cadets. Of course, this was done with empty magazines and near-empty bunkers. 

Thus, they were afloat in the Storebælt (Great Belt)– strait between the islands of Zealand and Funen on 29 August 1943 when the Danish Admiralty flashed orders at 0408 to scuttle or make for Sweden. The Germans had begun their Operation Safari to disarm and disband the remnants of the Danish military. However, before they could reach Swedish waters, they were intercepted by the German minesweeper M 413 and torpedo boat T 18. 

CDR Evers and his crew tried to sink Ingolf by opening the sea valves and wreck her equipment but were stopped before the job was complete by the Germans who, according to reports, boarded and took hostages from among the cadets.

Meanwhile, Hvidbjørnen was more successful and was wrecked.

The last call on the inspection ship Hvidbjørnen before it was sunk in Storebælt off Korsør on 29 August 1943. The sinking took place in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August, after a German force had boarded the ship. FHM-167260

Limping to nearby Korsor, the Danish crews were interned and the proud Ingolf seized.

Operation Safari cost the Danish Navy six men were killed and 11 injured, while 258 officers and 2,961 ratings were taken into custody.

Ice distribution in Tårnborglejeren near Korsør, where the crews from the inspection ships Hvidbjørnen and Ingolf were interned after the Germans declared a state of emergency on 29 August 1943. FHM-174949

Danish sailors interned in KB Hallen. The dormitory is arranged on an indoor tennis court. Note the triple-decker bunks. FHM-170704

When the internment sites were closed in October 1943 the enlisted men were paroled although some officers remained in custody or were deported to Germany. Most of those let go subsequently took to a range of resistance activities.

The Germans renamed Ingolf as Sleipnir, then she was used as a flottentender from January 1943 and later bombed in the last months of the war during Allied air raids in Kiel. Leaking, she was towed out to Heikendorf on the east side of the Kieler Fjord, where she sank.

Ingolf as a wreck among wrecks in Kielshavn, May 1945. FHM-165480

She was later scrapped post-war.

Epilogue

CDR Evers, who commanded Ingolf from 1934-36 and 1939-43, retired from the Navy in August 1945, sat on the board of several Danish utility companies into the 1960s, and passed in 1967, aged 80. He was buried with full military honors at Holsteinborg cemetery

Post-war, the Royal Danish Navy would recycle the name for a second Inspektionsskibet Ingolfs (F350) which was in commission from 1962 to 1991. A 1,700-ton Hvidbjørnen class OPV armed with depth charges and a 76mm cannon, the little 239-foot vessel had both a hangar and flight deck for, first, a French Alouette III, and later a British Westland Lynx helicopter.

Inspektionsskibene af Hvidbjørn-Klassen OPV Ingolf (F350) with Sea Lynx S.181 aloft

Notably, members of the old crew from the circa 1934 Inspektionsskibet Ingolfs visited the new ship with the same moniker in April 1984, posing with the vessel’s embarked Lynx militærhelikopter, S.181.

THM-35660

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 May 29, 2024: The Blue Beauty of Sevastopol

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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 May 29, 2024: The Blue Beauty

Via the Archivio di Stato di Livorno

Above we see the sleek and elegant, almost light cruiser lines, of the Italian-built one-of-a-kind Soviet Red Banner Fleet’s Project 20I destroyer leader Tashkent, seen near La Spezia on 11 March 1938 during sea trials in which she would reportedly top 43.53 knots– a blistering speed for any warship of any class. You will note that her armament isn’t installed and she is in a very light condition (3,422 tons vs 4,175 full) however, once her guns and torpedo tubes were mounted and she went for speed trials, she still logged 42.7 knots, raising eyebrows around the globe.

Project 20I

The Russian Navy fell in love with large (for their day), light cruiser-sized, very fast destroyers going back to 1910’s Novik (1,620 t, 335 feet oal, 4x 4″, 8 x tt, 37.3 knots) and the earlier circa 1898 trio of Novik/Izumrud class scout cruisers (3,080 t, 360 feet oal, 6x 4.7″, 5 x tt, 25.8 knots).

Novik was a great destroyer for 1910. At some 1,600-tons full load, he could make 37.3 knots, which is still fast for a destroyer today, and carried four twin 18-inch torpedo tubes (eight tubes total) as well as four 4-inch guns.

With the Russian fleet all but destroyed during the Great War and the follow-on civil war that engulfed the world’s largest country from 1914 through 1922, followed by a half-decade of crippling famine and depression, as part of Stalin’s First Five Year Plan in 1928 a half-dozen Project 1/38 destroyer leaders were ordered to help rebuild. Better known as the Leningrad/Minsk class, they were the largest warships (2,350 tons, 418 feet oal) constructed in the Soviet Union at the time. Speedy ships, capable of some 40 knots, they carried five new pattern 5.1″/50 B-13 guns, eight torpedo tubes, mines, and depth charges, giving them a decent punch. However, they were miserable sea boats with a top-heavy design that made them pitch in almost any sea state outside of a flat calm.

As the Soviets were working with both Germany and Italy throughout the 1920s and 30s on several often murky rearmament initiatives, and Moscow was working with the latter on the Kirov/Maxim Gorky-class (Project 26) “medium” cruisers, went with the spaghetti option for a better-designed destroyer leader.

With high speed, stability, and the same rough armament as the Project 1/38 destroyer leaders as a baseline, the 54.6 million lire Project 20I design submitted by Odero-Terni-Orlando, Livorno, went some 40 feet longer and 500 tons heavier than the Leningrads. A powerplant of British-made Yarrow boilers and Parsons turbines (rather than going with Italian competitor Ansaldo) had an expected capability of 100,000 shp but this reached 125,500 on trials.

Original drawings by Odero-Terni-Orlando Shipyards, Livorno, 1936, via the Archivio di Stato di Livorno

Original drawings by Odero-Terni-Orlando Shipyards, Livorno, 1936, via the Archivio di Stato di Livorno

Original drawings by Odero-Terni-Orlando Shipyards, Livorno, 1936, via the Archivio di Stato di Livorno

While the ship couldn’t keep up her 40+ knots speed for long, she could still eke out a 2,800 nm range at 25 knots or 5,030 nm at a speed of 20 knots, giving them legs enough for overseas work. As such, the Soviets planned a series of 12 Project 20Is (4 for the Pacific Fleet, 3 in the Baltic, 3 in the Black Sea, and 2 for the Northern Fleet ) with the class leader built at Livorno and the other 11 constructed in the Motherland at Yard No. 190 (Zhdanov, Leningrad) and No. 198 (Marti South, Nikolaev).

Armament, as designed, would be six 5.1″/50 guns in three twin B-2LM mounts, a twin 3″/50 ZAU 39-K AAA mount, a half dozen 37mm ZAU 70-K “Boforski” AAA singles, and provision for another half dozen of the country’s soon to be famous new 12.7mm DShK 56-P-542 guns.

A torpedo battery of nine 21-inch tubes in three triple turnstiles, with enough reloads to allow for 18 fish, gave her an offensive punch. She could also carry 110 Model 1931 sea mines on rails along with two stern depth charge racks for 20 small (50-pound charge) BM-1 and four large (300-pound charge) BB-1 style ash cans.

Torpedo tubes, Tashkent

Meet Tashkent

Our subject was named for the ancient Central Asian Silk Road city that is the current capital of Uzbekistan and was a traditional Russian naval warship name going back to an 89-ton armed gunboat on the Tsar’s Aral flotilla in the 1870s and a Bolshevik river gunboat of the Volga military flotilla during the Russian Civil War.

Ordered from OTO Livorno in September 1935 in conjunction with the NKTP, she was laid down in January 1937, launched that December, and accepted (unarmed) by Soviet representatives in March 1939. Her contract price was paid in a mix of French francs and British pounds sterling.

Russian destroyer Tashkent under construction at the OTO shipyard in Livorno, Italy in 1937

While it had been planned to send her to the Baltic Fleet where the Leningrad yard would have ready access to her while they made eight copies for service from Murmansk to Vladivostok, the fact that the toothless destroyer would have to transit Spanish waters– where German Kriegsmarine ships and Italian “pirate” submarines were operating in the tail end of the Spanish Civil War, led Moscow to order Tashkent to Odesa in the Black Sea.

Sailing sans any guns under the guise of a passenger ship– complete with a Sovtorgflot or Soviet Commercial Fleet flag, a partial Italian crew, and tarpaulins with faux portholes painted on them stretched across her superstructure– she passed through the Bosphorus and arrived in Odesa on 6 May 1939, turned over to the Soviet Navy some 85 years ago this month.

Following a series of workups after which her Italian contract yard personnel were released, she went to Nikolaev for a temporary armament fit that included old-style 5.1″/50 B-13 singles as her planned twin turrets weren’t yet available. She nonetheless kept her blueish-gray Italian livery until 1941, earning her the nickname of the “Goluboy kreyser” or Blue Cruiser.

You have to love those Italian cruiser lines

Destroyer Tashkent with initial 130-mm B-13 naval guns armament, 1940

War!

With Stalin and Hitler officially on the same side for the first 22 months of WWII, to the horror of Eastern Poland and the Baltics, Tashkent only got into the fighting past Barbarossa but she quickly made up for lost time.

Under Capt. (3rd rank) Vasily Nikolaevich Eroshenko (Frunze 1930), Tashkent was at Nikolaev, finally receiving her twin 5.1″/50 mounts and dark wartime scheme in June 1941 but soon was able to sortie to Sevastopol where she would lead a scratch destroyer squadron that included three smaller (2402 t) Russki Project 7 type tin cans– Bodriy, Besposhchadny, and Bditelny.

With her twin turrets installed

Dispatched to help defend threatened Odesa on 22 August, she spent a week there, delivering NGFS (540 5.1-inch shells) to Red Army troops fighting advancing German and Romanian divisions until she was damaged by a 12-bomb near miss from German bombers on 30 August that forced her to limp back to Sevastopol at 12 knots to repair split seams and flooding of frames 192-205. She left a detachment of her crew behind in Odessa to join the doomed 1st Naval Infantry (Marine) Regiment ashore.

Cobbled back together with cement and steel patches in drydock under a blacked-out camouflage screen with volunteer yard workers only allowed onboard after dark, and with the Germans advancing on the Crimea and isolating Sevastopol by early October, Tashkent was withdrawn with the rest of the fleet to the Eastern Black Sea.

Tashkent and submarine Shch-212 in Poti, Georgia 1942

Tashkent moored with the submarine D-5 6.26.1942

She soon returned in early December to land 700 tons of vitally-needed ammunition in the besieged city and in January came back to deliver a brigade of Siberian Riflemen from the newly formed 386th Rifle Division, on both runs remaining in the area pulling naval gunfire support until her 5-inch magazines were exhausted.

Ship’s boy Borya Kuleshin, later holder of the Order of the Red Star, aboard Tashkent, his PPShka at the ready.

Tashkent shelling German positions near Sevastopol, while still in the harbor

With Siberian Riflemen

Further resupply runs/NGFS stints to Sevastopol by Tashkent would occur regularly over the next five months, earning her legendary status as the guardian angel of the city. Her ability to make high-speed 30+ knot runs through the 250 sea miles from Novorossiysk to Sevastopol made her invaluable, akin to the Japanese cruisers and destroyers running supplies and troops via “The Slot” down the New Georgia Sound to Guadalcanal in 1942.

To be sure, other Black Sea ships of all stripes made similar runs, but none as many times as the Blue Cruiser, which in the spring and summer of 1942 would carry 19,300 troops to the city along with over 2,500 tons of munitions and supplies.

Her final blockade run on 26 June to Sevastopol brought 944 replacement soldiers, a half-battery of light field guns, 760 Mosin rifles, 125 PPSh burp guns, 20 tons of ammunition, 26 tons of food, and 4.5 tons of other vital cargo. She left just after midnight the next morning with a cargo of 2,100 evacuees, primarily women and children along with war correspondent and novelist Evgeny Petrovich Petrov.

Among her cargo were the panels of the huge circa 1904 panoramic painting “Defense of Sevastopol” of Crimean War fame by Franz Roubo.

Sevastopol fell within the week.

On her way to Novorossiysk at 33 knots, Tashkent was spotted just after dawn by Luftwaffe aircraft, and formations of Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Ju 88 bombers soon began dropping strings of bombs across her path, with waves coming every 5-10 minutes for four hours.

According to Soviet reports, her crew counted 86 aircraft and 336 bombs which, while miraculously no direct hits were logged (although over 100 passengers were lost or wounded), the unarmored Italian stallion popped so many seams and buckled so many plates that she shipped 1,700 tons of water and buried her bow.

Still, she made it close enough to Novorossiysk by 0900 for ground-based Red Air Force planes to provide top cover against the bombers and, linking up with the Project 7U destroyer Sobrazitelny which offloaded several hundred refugees, made it to port– albeit under tow.

Tashkent is approaching the destroyer Sobrazitelny to reload evacuees from Sevastopol. June 27, 1942

Evacuees from Sevastopol move from the damaged destroyer leader Tashkent to the destroyer Soobrazitelny

There, the barely floating wreck unloaded the rest of her precious cargo and was inspected by the mustachioed commander of the North Caucasian Front, Marshal Semyon Budyonny of the old 1920s Konarmiya.

Semyon Budyonny aboard Tashkent

Five days later, a 64-bomber raid on Novorossiysk left Tashkent riddled with bombs and, suffering an explosion of her torpedo magazine, settled on the bottom with almost half of her crew dead, hospitalized, or missing.

Salvage divers found no less than seven large holes in her hull, ruling out a service return.

Her guns were able to be recovered and went on to partially arm the destroyers Ognevoy and Ozmotelny along with an ersatz armored train, while her crew went to other units, for instance, her skipper, Capt. Eroshenko, reporting to the old Svetlana-class cruiser Krasnyi Kavkaz (Red Caucasus, ex-Admiral Lazarev) as that ship’s skipper in August 1942.

He would survive the war and retire from service in 1960 following command of the cruiser Chkalov, elevated on the retired list to a rear admiral.

Eroshenko’s grave at the Serafimovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg includes the Tashkent in profile. He passed in 1970 at 64 and held just about every decoration the state could bestow a sailor.

Tashkent would later be raised in late 1944, but it was only to salvage her for scrap.

 

Epilogue

Of Tashkent’s planned 11 Russian-made sisters, none took to the water.

No doubt building on lessons learned from the construction of Tashkent for the Russians, the Italians ordered a dozen very similar (5420t, 466 ft oal, 8 x 5.3″/45, 8 x tt, 41 knots) Capitani Romani class scout cruisers were ordered via OTO starting in 1939 but only four were competed.

The destroyer San Marco (D563) (ex Giulio Germanico from the Capitani Romani class) passes through Venice post-war, with American DP 5″/38s installed.

The Soviets recycled Tashkent’s name as a Kara-class (Project 1134B) ASW cruiser built at Nikolaev in the 1970s that remained in service until 1992. She was later sold to a breaker in India.

As seen from the screening destroyer USS John Young (DD 973), foreground, the Soviet large anti-submarine ship Tashkent during operations with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), circa 1985. USN Photo DN-SC-85-12178

Beyond that, our subject has numerous monuments and markers around the Black Sea area, postage stamps, and the like while the Black Sea Museum maintains a large-scale model and relics.

She has been extensively remembered in maritime art and model box art.

1940 destroyer Tashkent with B13 singles – box art Trumpeter

1942 Sevastopol siege era destroyer Tashkent – box art Trumpeter

Italian built Tashkent Soviet Russian navy destroyer leader in Black Sea WWII by Adam Werka

Tashkent’s last run

In 1970, the Leon Saakov-directed Mosfilm technicolor war drama, More v gone (“The Sea is On Fire”), recalled Tashkent’s last trip to Sevastopol and evac run to Novorossiysk and, while there is clearly a lot of up talk to the glorious worker’s paradise, is stirring and was made with lots of help from the Red Banner Fleet.

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. 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 (on a Thursday) May 23, 2024: Taking One’s Place for Overlord

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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 EgerWarship Wednesday (on a Thursday) May 23, 2024: Taking One’s Place for Overlord

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) May 23, 2024: Taking One’s Place for Overlord

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 60867

Above we see Royal Navy’s D (Danae)-class light cruiser HMS Durban (D 99) at Honolulu harbor, 22 May 1928, with a good view– captured by a U.S. Navy photographer– of one of her four sets of triple 21-inch torpedo tube mounts trained out, with a pair of torpedoes visible in lower tubes! She was on her way to Bermuda to take up a position on the West Indies Station after spending six years in Hong Kong, the hard life of a British cruiser in the 1920s, you see.

Designed for the Great War, Durban missed her dance but made it to the next one– although she never saw the end.

“The Ds”

A heavier and more seaworthy (not to mention better armed) follow-up to the Royal Navy’s five sprawling classes of “C” type light cruisers, the Admiralty wanted a full dozen more advanced “D” class units and began ordering them in 1916 under the Emergency War Program, with class leader HMS Danae.

British C-class cruisers HMS Cairo and Calcutta, seen in October 1927 at Boston’s Charleston Navy Yard. The D class cruisers were basically these ships, lengthened some 20 feet, and given better armament. Leslie Jones Collection BPL

Some 4,850 tons (pushing 6,000 later) they were rakish ships, with a 472-foot overall length and a perfect 1:10 ratio beam of 47 feet to match. Powered by a half dozen Yarrow boilers pushing a pair of geared steam turbines– which the British had really figured out by this point in time– they were planned to make 29 knots. However, on trials, some bested this.

They also had limited aircraft facilities. 

Danae class cruiser HMS Diomede and a Fairey IIIF Seaplane, March 1933. While able to support seaplanes, they could not carry them. The aviation platform installed on these cruisers was a simple flying-off pad for light, wheeled STO aircraft, such as the Sopwith Pup. Image AAE 0096

Armament was a main battery of a half dozen 6″/45 BL Mark XIIs in single shielded mounts– good guns that could fire a 112-pound HE shell to 23,770 yards at a rate of as many as seven shells per minute with a well-rehearsed crew. These were arranged in a straight line down the center of the ship with each able to fire broadside but only two able to fire ahead and two astern.

HMS Danae by Dr Dan Saranga via Blueprintscom

A pair of QF 3-inch 20 cwt L/45 Mk. I AA guns– meant more for counter zeppelin use than planes– four 3-pounders, as well as a couple of Lewis guns, rounded out the armament with her brace of 12 torpedo tubes in four triple mounts, enabling six torpedoes in a broadside, closing us out.

The Danae class cruisers HMS Dragon, Danae, and Despatch off Bermuda, 1931.

Meet Durban

Our subject, the second RN warship named for a then-colonial South African city, was laid down at Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock, in January 1918, at a time when the German High Seas Fleet had been bottled up for more than a year. The Kaiser threw in the towel and his fleet was soon littering the floor of Scapa Flow, which slowed down Durban’s construction.

Durban in the stocks via Two centuries of shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock, National Library of Scotland

HMS Durban was only completed by the Devonport Dockyard in November 1921 and joined the fleet, one of only eight cruisers to carry a Mark III* Dreyer Table and one of only 10 to carry the new 12-foot U.B.3 Combined Height and Rangefinder as part of her fire control system.

Durban was one of the lucky ones. Of the dozen classmates ordered, four– Daedalus, Daring, Desperate, and Dryad— were all canceled. Meanwhile, only four– Danae, Dauntless, Dragon, and Delhi— actually saw a few weeks of wartime service.

With the London Naval Treaty limiting the RNs cruiser tonnage, two of the class, Diomede and Dunedin, were loaned promptly to the nascent Royal New Zealand Navy from 1924—25 until 1937 when such treaty limits were cast aside.

In truth, it was surprising that Durban never saw service during the same period with a South African Navy, although she did call on her namesake city at least once. This was likely because the circa 1920s and 30s South African Naval Service was cash-strapped in the extreme and, while they operated the old 4,000-ton Mersey-class cruiser HMS Thames (as SATS General Botha) it was as a dockside training hulk, with her guns and boilers removed and the former engine and boiler rooms converted into a gym!

Happy Interbellum Cruises

Durban’s first detail was to the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron on China Station, where she arrived in early 1922 before transferring six years later to the West Indies Station.

HMS Durban seen in Durban in December 1926 (City of Durban Archives)

Her time in China included sending ashore various naval landing parties in Nanking and Shanghai during periods of unrest.

Via the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net, taken by Chief Yeoman of Signals George Smith, DSM, Royal Navy 1904-28:

Signalmen near one of Durban’s 6 inch guns in 1927 Shaghai. Via the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

HMS Durban, likely China station. Note her extensive awnings. Via the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

HMS Durban in China 1927, the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

Durban Naval landing party on the forecastle (not known if Shanghai or Nanking) 1927. the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

Durban Naval Landing Party Inspection 1927. the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

Durban Naval Landing Party Attack 1927 the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

Durban Resurrection Bay Alaska 1928, the Gordon Smith collection, Naval-History.net,

While on Atlantic service, she made at least one call at Boston and was photographed by Boston Globe photographer Leslie Jones.

HMS Durban in Navy Yard July 14 1930. Leslie Jones via Commonwealth

Visitors on board HMS Durban Navy Yard July 14, 1930.Leslie Jones via BPL

She returned home after service with the South Atlantic Division for an extensive overhaul that added a new style of advanced range finders. Also added were more AAA guns: a total of three 4-inch (in place of the older two 3″L/45s) 2-pounder pom-poms, two Vickers machine guns, and eight Lewis guns.

The entry for the D class in Jane’s circa 1931.

Re-commissioned at Portsmouth on 6 March 1934 for service with the Third Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, Durban was sent to the Med for two years.

Open-source naval journals carried the news of this cyclic movement of HMs cruiser force, with Durban often appearing in the pages of such volumes, with ONI dutifully cataloging each piece of news.

“Cruiser returning home. HMS Durban, which is to be relieved by H.M.S. Exeter on the American and West Indies Station.” note the ONI stamp. NH 60999

Eighth Cruiser Squadron – HMS Durban, which has come home to undergo an extensive refit at Chatham, and is being replaced by the Danae on the American and West Indies Station. Photo: Abrahams & Sons, Devenport. NH 60800

“Fifth Light Cruiser Squadron. HMS Durban which is to be recommissioned for further service on the China Station.” Photo: Abrahams & Sons, Devenport. NH 60998

The U.S. ONI kept extensive files on foreign warships, which included the best photographs that could be taken during port calls or whenever a vessel passed through the Panama Canal. Several of the D-class got close enough to be immortalized in the ONI collection– for instance, sister HMS Delhi when she called at Long Beach in 1932.

Durban had her visit from a Navy shutterbug on 22 May 1928 while in Honolulu, as this series will show:

Returning to the Home Isles in September 1936, she was in ordinary when the Germans marched into Poland three years later. Plans were afoot to refit the class with a battery of newer 4.5-inch guns instead of their old-style 6-inchers, but that was shelved as there simply weren’t enough funds.

War!

Assigned to the 9th Cruiser Squadron, Durban was reactivated and dispatched to perform convoy defense in the South Atlantic between Freetown and the Cape.

Soon transferred to her old 5th Squadron beat on China Station, she arrived in Singapore by Halloween 1939 and sailed for Hong Kong soon after. Deployed for trade defense and patrol, her primary duty going into 1940 was to keep tabs on German shipping plying the Dutch East Indies ports and then, later, join in the chase of the Hilfskreuzer Atlantis (HSK 2), aka “Raider C.”

Had Durban encountered Atlantis (which carried six 6-inch guns and four torpedo tubes) it could have been a fight similar to that of the German merchant raider Kormoran and Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, who clashed in a mutually destructive battle in the Pacific in 1941. Still, there is no doubt that both ships would have given it their best. 

NH 60997

This sort of campaigning in the backwater of the war, at least until December 1941, continued including riding shotgun on the occasional Bombay to Singapore convoy (BM 005, BM 004/2, BM 009, etc).

Meanwhile, the war on the other side of the world was less kind, with sister Dunedin torpedoed and sunk by U-124 off Saint Paul’s Rock in the South Atlantic, on 24 November 1941.

When the Japanese decided to go manic, all the obsolete Durban could do was help pick up the pieces. She escorted the troopships taking the survivors of the lost HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales to Colombo and in January 1942 evacuated Royal Navy staff from Singapore to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.

While escorting troop and evac convoys between Singapore and the Dutch Indies in February 1942, she came under a Japanese air attack north of the Sunda Strait which left her forward 6-inch gun out of service. Eight ratings were killed and several were wounded.

Ordered to put into Freemantle the next week, she was sent on the slow route via the Indian Ocean to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs– dropping off Admiral Thomas C. Hart, former commander of the doomed U.S. Asiatic Fleet, at Colombo.

On her way to the U.S, Durban came across the German minelayer Doggerbank (Schiff 53) (5154 GRT, built 1929, former British Speybank) as she was sowing a minefield off Capetown, a task that Durban came close to, but not close enough, to stopping, on the evening of 13 March 1942.

As detailed here:

Operation Kopenhagen comprised the laying of a minefield near Capetown, where many shipping lanes converged. Ships from Australia and New Zealand arrived here to make the final leg to Britain, while important troop convoys passed through the area en route to the Middle East. Doggerbank, unlike a normal minelayer, wasn’t equipped with mine rails on a lower deck, which meant that all mines had to be hoisted to the main deck. For operation “Kopenhagen”, 75 of them were prepared, disguised as deckcargo. Schneidewind decided to start the operation during the nighttime hours of March 12. Carefully, the Doggerbank approached the target area on the 12th. Things almost went wrong when in the late afternoon, an aircraft was sighted. It hailed the ship, asking for its name and destination. Schneidewind [her skipper] ordered to signal “Levernbank from New York via Recife to Capetown”, waved a few times with his hat and then left the bridge. His resolute performance worked and the aircraft was apparently satisfied with the answer. Later that evening, a small ship was sighted, which was easily evaded. Sixty mines were laid in the early morning of the 13th.

Schneidewind decided to retreat through the normal shipping lanes around Cape Good Hope to avoid suspicion. The idea was to lay more mines near Cape Agulhas for operation “Kairo”. Around 1945 that evening, a warship appeared on the horizon, flashing signals with a red light. Schneidewind himself thought it was a Birmingham-class cruiser, but it was in fact the older HMS Durban, en route to Simonstown for repairs. The signal the cruiser flashed was the standard “NNJ” signal, ordering to hoist the secret letters for identification. Naturally, the Germans didn’t know this signal and simply didn’t send a reply. After coming closer, the Durban asked “What ship”, to which Schneidewind replied, “Levernbank from New York to Durban, good night”. Again, his bold answer worked, as the Durban steamed on and disappeared in the dark.

Durban arrived in New York on 9 April 1942 for a period of repair that would last two months, she would emerge for a week of full power trials and gunnery exercises off Hampton Roads before leaving for Portsmouth Dockyard, where she would arrive at the end of June.

She would also pick up radar– a Type 286 air warning– but, uncommon for her class, retain her torpedo tubes, a feature she would only share with sister Despatch, as the rest of the “D” class cruisers had landed theirs. Likewise, she would have 8 20 mm Oerlikon singles installed in place of the old 2-pounder pom-pom guns. A puny counter-aircraft fit, but better than what she had anyway. To offset this extra topside weight, she lost her aircraft handling capability and landed one of her 6-inchers.

HMS Durban (D99) October 1942, Portsmouth. Note her fresh camo scheme. IWM A 22986

HMS Durban (D 99) Underway in the Solent. Note her wartime camouflage and her five remaining main guns turned to port. IWM FL 8998

Further refits and workups would see her emerge and join a “Winston Special” Convoy (WS 23) in October, sailing from Scotland via the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt and, later, India, ultimately arriving in Bombay in December.

Durban would continue to serve in the Indian Ocean on trade defense, undertaking several additional convoys, until ordered back to Portsmouth in October 1943.

Somewhat hopelessly obsolete by this point in the war– her sisters — she was reduced to a skeleton crew and laid up, with dockyard personnel instructed to remove her armament, sensors, and virtually anything else of value so long as she could still make steam and revolutions.

She had one more run to make.

Normandy

Durban was tapped, along with several older warships, to become part of the Gooseberry breakwater that would shelter the Mulberry Port off the beach at Normandy, allowing the rapid landing of large cargo to move ashore in the days after successful Overlord landings in June 1944.

HMS Durban (D99) stripped off Normandy on 7 June 1944, RCN photo

On D+3, 9 June 1944, Durban was scuttled to form part of Gooseberry 5 off Ouistreham in the Seine Bay, with gunners stationed on the grounded ships helping defend the enterprise.

Arial view of the Mulberry Harbour Port Winston off Arromanches, Normandy

June 1944. A Gooseberry, a line of block ships laid off the beaches at Ouistreham to form a reef before the rest of the Mulberry Port was assembled. The Gooseberry includes the old HMS Durban and the Dutch cruiser Sumatra. Two DUKWs can be seen moving amongst the block ships. Note: Goosberry 5 at Sword beach. Photo by LT Claude Henry Parnall IWM A24055

A Gooseberry, a line of block ships laid off the beaches to form a reef before the rest of the Mulberry was assembled. The Gooseberry includes the old HMS Durban and the Dutch cruiser Sumatra. Photo by LT Claude Henry Parnall A24054

Notably, Durban would soon be joined in the Gooseberry by sister Dragon, which had been operated by the Free Polish Navy since January 1943 but had been damaged off Caen by a German human torpedo on 8 July. Ironically, Durban would herself be hit by another fish launched from a Marder on 3 August while already reefed, after surviving a fierce three-day storm.

Nonetheless, the harbor worked.

By D+5, with the artificial harbor in place, 10,000 tons of cargo a day would be unloaded, a rate that would increase to 20,000 tons per day by D+20, keeping pace through the end of August.

Epilogue

Today, what is left of Durban remains in 36 feet of water off Ouistreham.

Few artifacts remain ashore of the cruiser, notably her ship’s bell, which has long been housed at the chapel in the Old Fort in Durban.

Her 1942 repair records from the Brooklyn Navy Yard are in the National Archives.

As for Durban’s sisters, the five still afloat after VJ-Day were soon paid off, and all were quickly sold for scrap, with the last, Delhi, leaving for the breakers in 1948.

The Royal Navy never reused the name “Durban” but the South African Navy did, ordering the SAS Durban (M 1499), one of several Ton class mine sweepers built in the UK during the 1950s specifically for the SAN.

She was preserved as a museum in her namesake city from 1991 through 2022.

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!

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