normandy | laststandonzombieisland

Tag Archives: normandy

The Guns of the National Infantry Museum

Posted on June 13, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

The Army is celebrating its 250th Anniversary this week, and we hit the road to visit the museum dedicated to the American infantry, the grunts, and found some amazing guns.

The National Infantry Museum, located in Columbus, Georgia, just outside Fort Benning, is a non-profit organization that opened its 190,000 sq. ft. facility in 2009. It holds over 100,000 historical artifacts dating from the 1600s to the present, covering uniforms, equipment, bayonets (they have a whole wall of bayonets), small arms, relics, and trophies.

With so much to see, any visitor could spend days there and not be able to take it all in. We’ll do what we’re good at and stick to the guns, but encourage you to visit the museum yourself (it’s free) as we’re only covering a small portion of the exhibits.

Benning is the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence and supports over 120,000 active and reserve service members, their families, military retirees, and civilian employees daily. It spans some 182,000 acres across Georgia and Alabama. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The “Follow Me” sculpture at the entrance to the National Infantry Museum depicts a 1950s Korean War-era Soldier, complete with bayonet-affixed M1 Garand. The model for the statue was Eugene Wyles, a 20-year Army veteran, and was created by two soldiers.

*The museum “emphasizes the values that define the Infantryman, as well as the nation he protects: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage.”*

One of the most striking parts of the museum is “The Last 100 Yards,” a chronological walk through the American infantry experience over the years, where the weapons and uniforms change, but the courage endures. It is as life-like as possible and gives the visitor a very immersive feel.

For instance, check out this display of the storming of Redoubt #10 at Yorktown in 1781, with the Colonials fighting the British at eyeball-to-eyeball range. The night assault on the key position helped seal Cornwallis’s fate, leading to the end of the Revolutionary War.

The brother-against-brother hell of Antietam. Of note, the figures in the Last 100 Yards are not mannequins; they are cast sculptures of Active-Duty Soldiers “who auditioned for the opportunity to represent their predecessors.”

*Fighting inch-by-inch with the Doughboys “Over There” at Soissons, France in 1918. Note the M1903 and M1911.*

*Storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and landing atop the “Rock” at Corregidor on opposite sides of the world in WWII. Note the M1 Carbines, M1918 BAR, and M1 Thompson.*

*The bayonet charge of Capt. Lewis Millett up Hill 180 at Soam-Ni, Korea in 1951, leading his company of the 27th Infantry Regiment to rout the enemy.*

Setting down from a Huey at Landing Zone X-Ray during the Battle of Ia Drang, where the 7th Cavalry Regiment was the first American unit to fight a set-piece battle against NVA regulars in Vietnam in 1965. Note the 40mm M79 “bloop gun,” the early M16, and the M60 GPMG.

*The much more recent desert wars, with a dismount team and their Bradley. The era of M4s, M203s, and ACOGs.*

The museum also has a sweeping series of galleries, highlighting the development of the U.S. Army over the years. For instance, the Revolutionary War, complete with British Brown Bess, French Charleville, and Colonial Committee of Safety flintlock muskets and assorted pistols.

The New Army, immediately after Independence, with the first Springfield Armory and Harper’s Ferry Model 1795 .69-caliber flintlock muskets. Of note, the musket on the Army’s Combat Infantry Badge is the Model 1795.

How about this impressive evolution, spanning from the left with the Model 1803, Model 1814, and Model 1817 flintlocks, to the M1841 percussion rifle made famous in the War with Mexico, the Model 1855 rifle with its interesting Maynard priming system? To the right are the Civil War-era Sharps and Spencer rifles, breechloaders with a rate of fire of 10 and 20 rounds per minute, respectively.

*The innovative breech-loading Model 1819 Hall rifle.*

This rare gem is a Lefever & Ellis .45 caliber percussion rifle used by a private of the 1st Battalion New York Sharpshooters during the Civil War. Made in Canandaigua, New York, it had a 30-inch octagonal barrel and an adjustable trigger. Never produced in great quantity, Lefever only supplied something like 75 of these guns with the sort of telescopic sight shown, complete with a crosshair reticle. You just don’t see these floating around.

Securing the Frontier with the Model 1866 Springfield Allin “Trapdoor” conversion rifles, which took .58 caliber percussion muzzleloaders and converted them to .50-70-450 caliber cartridge breechloaders. This led to the Model 1870, 1873, and 1884 Trapdoors in the now-famous .45-70 Government. The museum has all these incremental models on public display.

A 10-barrel Colt Model 1877 Gatling gun in .45-70. The Army used Gatling guns, which had a rate of fire as high as 200 rounds per minute, until 1911, when they were replaced by more modern machine guns.

The cavalry isn’t missed, for instance, showing the troopers from the Civil War (left) complete with their M1860 Colt revolver and M1859 Sharps carbine, next to the Indian Wars trooper with his M1873 Trapdoor and Colt Peacemaker. The circa 1916 cavalryman, of the era that chased Pancho Villa into Mexico, sports his M1911.

The Spanish-American War was a time of the side-loading bolt-action Krag-Jorgensen .30 caliber rifle, along with the Army’s staple revolvers of the time: the Colt 1873 in .45 and the S&W .44 top break. To the left is a captured German-made Spanish Mauser, brought back from Cuba in 1898.

*The Great War, with the legendary M1903 Springfield, a French Mle 1907/15, and the dreaded Mle 1915 Chauchat LMG. With an open magazine like that in a muddy trench, what could go wrong?*

*Lots of other hardware abounds, including a British .303 caliber Mark III Lee-Enfield and Mark I Lewis gun, along with companion German Mauser Gew 98 and MG08/15 in 8mm.*

*Bringbacks from France in 1918, including a 35-pound German Tankgewehr 13.2mm anti-tank rifle and a Spandau MG08 machine gun, both captured by American troops.*

*The original “Belly Flopper,” an experimental two-man weapons carrier developed at Fort Benning in the 1930s, complete with an M1917 water-cooled Browning machine gun and not much else.*

The iconic M2 .50 cal “Ma Deuce” has been around for over a century and is still “making friends and influencing people” worldwide. It is seen next to its smaller cousin, the .30-06 M1919 light machine gun. Both have the same father, John Browning.

*The M3 Carbine, a select-fire version of the WWII-era M1 Carbine, was outfitted with an early infrared scope during the Korean War. With the battery pack, it “only” weighed 31 pounds.*

*A Viet Cong-made pistol captured in Vietnam. The museum also has a carbine that looks even crazier.*

*Cold War experiments on display include the circa 1964 SPIW, chambered in XM144 5.6x44mm with its box-magazine fed 40mm underbarrel grenade launcher.*

The museum has an amazing display on the evolution of the modern “black rifle” from the Winchester .224 caliber LWMR, Eugene Stoner’s early 5-pound AR-10s complete with carbon fiber furniture, and the slab-sided Colt-Armalite Model 01

…to the XM16E1 in gray phosphate to the rare M1 HAR, and the Colt “Shorty” whose 10-inch barrel led to the XM177 and today’s M4. The green guy in the corner is a drum-magged SPIW variant, of course.

*The museum even has the Next Generation Squad Weapon winner, SIG Sauer’s M7 and M250…*

*…along with the other competitors in the NGSW program.*

*Who doesn’t love a good steel-on-steel Mossberg M590 12-gauge? The Army has used shotguns going back to World War I.*

Speaking of shotguns, how about the M26 MASS? Fed via a 3 or 5-round detachable box magazine, this 3-pound 12-gauge can either be mounted Masterkey-style under the handguard of an M16/M4 or used in a stand-alone configuration.

*A gold electroplated Romanian AKMS clone captured by the 3rd Infantry in Iraq in 2003. Even the internal parts are plated. Note the “Vader” style helmet of Saddam’s Fedayeen.*

*Hallowed relics: M4 and M249 remains after an IED strike in Iraq.*

Again, we only scraped the surface of the holdings of the National Infantry Museum, and if you are ever within striking distance of it, you should stop by– and block off your day. It is ever more important to visit such places and remember why they are there.

Keep in mind that the Army plans to close more than 20 base museums in the next few years, and places like this carry the torch for future generations… lest they forget.

Warship Wednesday, March 5, 2025: Poster Child for the Donald Duck Navy

Posted on March 5, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland 7 comments

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, March 5, 2025: Poster Child for the Donald Duck Navy

USN 479855

Above we see the PC-461-class 173-foot subchaser USS Chardon (PC-564) underway during fleet exercises on 9 May 1951. The humble gunboat survived an excruciating convoy across the Atlantic during WWII to serve on the beaches at Normandy only to take part in what was the last surface naval action in Europe during the conflict– some 80 years ago this week.

Along the way, she saved hundreds of Joes from perishing on the sea in a bit of a Christmas miracle.

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-564

Laid down on 25 January 1942 by the Consolidated Shipbuilding Co. in the Bronx (Morris Heights) PC-564 launched on 12 April and was commissioned on 2 July. In all, her construction spanned just 158 days, including the commissioning ceremony.

The Donald Duck Navy

Assigned to the Atlantic, our little subchaser spent the bulk of the next two years on unsung routine coastal patrol and escort duty, typically out of New York.

That is, after she passed out of shakedown and skills training at the U.S. Navy Subchaser School in Miami. It was there that her crew left a lasting impact on the school, with one of her crew, Signalman Jim Dickie, doodled a sort of fighting version of Donald Duck, complete with a depth charge Y-gun strapped to his back, a flag on his stern, listening gear, a “PC” brassard, and binos.

The combat duck insignia made it to PC-564′s crow’s-nest and the school personnel liked it so much it became the unofficial emblem of the SCTC.

The Donald Duck Navy insignia Mary Mclssac Collection. HistoryMiami. 2001-421-33N

In addition to dodging U-boats along the eastern sea frontier, the sea proved dangerous to our little patrol craft, with three men swept from her decks in the mountainous seas of Tropical Storm Seven off Cape Hatteras on 29/30 September 1943 while escorting a coastal convoy. SA Richard Tull (06508483) was never seen again while CBM John Black was amazingly tossed back on deck by a subsequent wave. The third man, RM Daniel Riley, was pulled from the cold embrace of the Atlantic by EM3 Norman Scaffe who wrapped a line around his waist and went after him, earning a well-deserved Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

PC-564′s first skipper was Lt. Roland H. Cramer, USNR, who left the ship eight months later to commission a new sister, USS PC-1079, then left that ship six months later to command the destroyer escort USS Riddle (DE 185).

Her second skipper, Harvard-educated lawyer Lt. Alban “Stormy” Weber, USNR, likewise rotated out by June 1943 to command a tin can in the Pacific, leaving her to a third commander, NYC-born Lt. Seabury Marsh, USNR.

The Goofiest convoy

It was Marsh that pulled the short straw to join TF-67 in Convoy NY‑78, perhaps the most unusual Atlantic convoy of the war. As detailed in a past Warship Wednesday (Slow Going), NY-78 included 34 large (250 feet on average) NYC railway car barges specially modified into “Pickabacks” to make the voyage, which would be desperately needed to move ammo to the beaches on D-Day. Also, part of the convoy was two dozen tugs that would remain in Europe for Overlord and 11 other subchasers which were needed to work as control and support boats just off the surf line during the landings.

The pickaback convoy, Aug 1945 Popular Science

TF-67 wallowed 25 days from late March to mid-April on the 3,400nm trek from New York to Plymouth that averaged just under six knots! PC-564’s war diary for the period has her primarily chasing down loose barges, running ASW sonar lookouts, and acting as the convoy’s mail ship.

D-Day

The dozen 173-foot subchasers brought over in the convoy formed PC Squadron One and served as shepherds to the waves of LCIs headed to the beaches on D-Day, where PC-1261 was sunk off Utah Beach by a German coastal battery 58 minutes before H-Hour. Often while sidestepping German E-boats, midget subs, fire from shore batteries, mines, and aircraft, their war was one of up-close and sudden death.

Marsh would command PC-564 during the operation, leaving Portland Harbor, England at 0300 on 5 June, D-1, to function as the guide for Convoy Group 2 (O-2A), “riding herd” over the LCT flotillas in the convoy in the rough weather to the assembly area. On D-Day the next morning, she was assigned to function as a control vessel at Easy Red Sector, Omaha Beach, for Assault Group O-3, riding in with the 20th wave to the line of departure.

‘Easy Red Sector’, Omaha Beach – approx. 0700 on the 6th of June 1944. Men of Easy Company, the 2nd battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, US Army 1st Division hide under Czech Hedgehogs while under fire during fighting during the Landing at Normandy.

The afternoon of 6 June saw PC-564 standing as part of the ASW/anti-E-boat screen off Omaha Beach, a role she maintained until 1800 on the 7th. Over that night, 12 enemy planes were reportedly shot down near her line.

Normandy Invasion, June 1944, USS Ancon (AGC-4), command ship for the Omaha Beach landings, stands offshore on 7 June 1944. USS PC-564 is in the foreground. 80-G-257287

On the evening of 7 June, she was ordered by USS Ancon (AGC-4), the command ship for Omaha Beach, to proceed to Easy White Beach to serve as a control vessel there, closing to the two-fathom curve where she experienced several enemy shells landing close-by. She would maintain her position off Easy White, directing incoming and outgoing vessel traffic, until dark on 12 June when she was dispatched to ASW/E-boat screen duties to T.G. 122.4 just offshore through the 17th.

Leopoldville

Marsh left PC-564 in late 1944, his place taken by Lt. James E Spencer, USNR.

When the troop transport HMTS Leopoldville, packed with men of the U.S. 66th (“Panther”) Infantry Division, was torpedoed just five miles short of her destination on Christmas Eve 1944, PC-564 was one of the ships that went to her immediate assistance. Spencer ordered her to close with the much larger ship in the darkness, and, throwing lines over, tied up as Leopoldville settled slowly into the water, taking men aboard until the dying troopship threatened to drag the subchaser to the bottom with her.

As detailed by the NHHC:

HMS Brilliant came alongside and rescued about 500 soldiers, while the other escorts pursued the submarine. The U.S. tug ATR-3 reached SS Leopoldville from Cherbourg in time to rescue 69 soldiers, and PC-564 and PT-461 also contributed to the rescue of a further 1,400 U.S. soldiers.

As recalled by Thomas Kay, a British DEMS gun layer on one of Leopoldville’s 3-inch HA gun that found himself in the frigid water unexpectedly:

When I hit the water the red light on my life jacket lit up and I kept on swimming as hard as I could go. I stopped once to look back, there was a crowd of men near and behind me. I saw the bows of the Leopoldville sticking up in the air and men dropping off her like flies. I turned away and kept on swimming hard for a while, then as I looked around me, I seemed to be quite alone.

I must have been in the water about 15 minutes or so, I really couldn’t tell, when a PT boat came alongside me. I later learnt it was the PC 564. It had a scrambling net hanging over the side and I grabbed hold of part of the net, but I could neither climb up or let go of the net I was so exhausted. I was rising and falling with the swell on the sea and the rise and fall of the ship. Two American sailors came down the net and somehow dragged me up it. I was so exhausted I collapsed in a heap on a canvas on the deck and one of the sailors said to me “don’t’ lie there buddy” and lifted the corner of the sheet up and I could see two or three dead bodies underneath in army gear.

They half carried me to a short steel ladder, took me down and put me in a bunk. I thought it was a sick bay at the time but later learned it was an officer’s cabin and I had been put in the bunk of Lt. Wesley Johnson, an officer on the ship.

The Granville Raid

With the war in Europe in its last act, just eight weeks before VE-Day, VADM Fredrich Huffmeier, late of the battleship Scharnhorst, was in charge of the isolated German garrison in the occupied Channel Islands, a command that would not capitulate until after the war. Looking to keep Allied forces tied down, he ordered Kpltn. Carl-Friedrich Mohr to sea with a motley force of 600 troops crammed into six minesweepers, three AAA barges (Artilleriefährprahms), three motor launches, and a tugboat with an aim to raid the French coast for sorely needed coal. With escapees from the POW camp at Granville providing intel, that harbor was chosen as the easy target.

Lt. Percy Sandel Jr, USNR, the 30-year-old son of Judge Percy Sandel of Monroe, Louisiana, was in command of PC-564 at the time. Our subchaser was the only American warship in Granville harbor crowded with Allied merchant ships other than the Royal Navy anti-submarine trawler HMT Pearl (T 22), which was armed with just a single old 4-inch gun and was set to escort British colliers back to Plymouth in the morning.

Asdic trawler HMT Pearl (ex-Dervish). She did not make contact with the German forces other than to fire star shells. IWM FL 17276

Things got squirrely just before midnight on 8/9 March 1945.

Per PC Patrol Craft of WWII, based on Sandel’s nine-page after-action report:

At 2315 hours, the radioman on PC-564, which was on patrol off Granville, picked up an alert for his ship. The radio station blurted out the positions of three radar contacts between the islands of Chausey and Jersey. After they tracked and identified them as German, they sent orders to the PC to intercept them. Percy Sandel, USNR, the Skipper of PC 564, rang General Quarters. The PC charged toward the contacts. After a series of radar and navigational plots to intercept the largest, the captain commanded, “All ahead two-thirds.”

At a range of 4,500 yards, Sandel ordered the crew on the three-inch gun to illuminate the targets. The night sky flashed to brilliance as PC 564 fired three star shells over the enemy ships. Fear raced through the men on the bridge as they stared at the sight of three German gunboats knowing that even one gunboat had them outgunned.

Seconds later, a star shell from the German ships burst over the PC.

The PC opened fire and after one round from the main gun it jammed. The German ships opened up with their larger guns, and their shells pounded the PC. A few minutes later a German 8.8 cm shell bored through the bridge of the PC and exploded. The blast, heat, and flying metal struck down all hands on the bridge, killing all but one person. As sailors raced to fight the fire another shell tore through the chart house. A third round splintered the ship’s boat. Then, German shells riddled the 40mm gun tub and crew. Motor Machinist’s Mate 2/C Elmer “Scrappie” Hoover tumbled from his post as pointer. Shrapnel had riddled his body and splintered many of his bones. His buddies lashed him to a bomb rack as the ship rolled in the heavy sea. Bodies sprawled about the deck and the bridge.

Because of the severe damage to the engine room, the steady roar of the PC’s diesel engines faded to silence. The Skipper ordered the men to standby to abandon ship. Sailors scurried about the deck twisting tourniquets, wrapping bandages, and shooting morphine into shivering men with legs and arms bloodied and dangling or blown away. Below decks, the engineers lit off the engines again. Under the direction of Lt Sandel and Lt. Russell Klinger, the ship plowed ahead for the shore. It ground onto the rocks of La Baie du Verger near Cancale. Larry Jordan, Seaman Ist Class, wrote, “‘I never knew that land could look so good in all my life, but boy! That was the most beautiful land that ever looked at!”

The shells of the German gunboats killed fourteen men. wounded eleven and left fourteen missing. Dazed survivors who heard only the last words of the captain, “abandon ship,” jumped into the frigid water. From there they watched as Sandel, steering by hand, beached the heavily damaged ship. German sailors on the E-boat scooped up some of the men, who had gone overboard, before the ship ran aground. Those PC sailors ended the war in a German prison camp. A small group of men swam or went hand over hand along a line from the beached PC to shore. Though unable to speak French, they raised help from a French doctor and fishermen who went to rescue and care for the men still on the grounded ship.

Sandel’s damage report:

Shell through the Pilothouse exploded inside causing extensive fire damage.
Mast Damaged by shrapnel
Hull and deck have extensive damage due to shell holes and shrapnel.
Shell through deck at base of Pilothouse
Minor damage to 40mm gun, tub full of holes
Depth Charge release gear inoperative
Steam lines broken, electric cables cut.
Shell exploded in small boat, boat cut in half
Starboard rudder missing
Port rudder badly damaged
Both props badly damaged
Starboard strut shaft missing

Casualties: 2 Officers and 12 men dead, 11 men wounded, 12 men missing out of a crew of 5 officers and 60 men. At least five of those lost are buried at the Brittany American Cemetery, Montjoie Saint Martin, France.

The Germans lost one ship during the raid, the 224-foot M1940-class large minesweeper M-412, which had run aground in shallow waters and evacuated, was scuttled in place.

Commander, U. S. Naval Forces, France, endorsed the fight of PC-564 against hopeless odds at Granville as “The PC 564 closed the enemy rapidly, engaged vigorously, and did her best to break up the attack. The resultant loss of life and injuries to personnel is to be regretted, but the courage of the Captain and his crew was of a high order.”

VADM Laurence DuBose, chief of staff and aide to the commander, Naval Forces Europe under ADM Harold Stark, in May 1945 further endorsed Sandel’s report from Granville by saying, “The Commanding Officer displayed courage in fortitude in bringing superior enemy force to action. This action delayed and shortened the enemy’s subsequent activities in Granville.”

Beached on the French coast at the Pierre de Herpin Lighthouse, PC-564 was later salvaged and towed to Amphibious Base Plymouth, England, where she was repaired by late April and returned under her own power to the states. After more extensive overhaul on the East Coast, in June 1945 she was assigned to the Commander, Submarine Force in New London, Connecticut to serve as an ASW asset for new boats.

Cold War

Postwar, PC-564 was dispatched to Pearl Harbor where she was placed in service as a Naval Reserve Training vessel and general district craft assigned to the 14th Naval District. While stationed there, she was named Chadron on 15 February 1956, one of 102 sisters who lasted long enough to earn a name.

She is likely named for the small maple syrup-rich Ohio town established in 1812, with a slim runner-up being Anthony Chardon, a French exile and American patriot in Philadelphia who hobnobbed with Thomas Jefferson– he provided the wallpaper for Monticello– and whose image is in the Navy’s collection.

Her time at Pearl was spent in a series of training evolutions for reservists and as a guard and exercise asset for COMSUBPAC’s boats, as detailed in this log entry from January 1957:

She was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 November 1962 at Honolulu, as directed by the CNO in 1561P43 and placed in the reserve fleet.

Picking up a Taegeukgi

Ex-Chadron was transferred to the Republic of Korea on 22 January 1964 at Guam as Seoraksan (PC 709), seen in Janes at the time as Sol Ak.

The ROKN had a long record with the 173s, with the country’s first naval purchase being ex-PC-823, commissioned as Baekdusan in 1950.

Ultimately, the U.S. Navy transferred another five PC-461s to the ROKN during the Korean War– no cash required!

Three were lost to assorted causes and the three remaining of these PCs were retired in the 1960s and replaced by Chadron and two sisters– ex-USS Winnemucca (PC 1145), and ex-USS Grosse Pointe (PC 1546)– again giving the South Koreans a three-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.

Notably while in ROKN service, Chadron/Seoraksan on 10 November 1964, she rescued the South Korean trawler Changseong-ho, which had been captured by a North Korean patrol boat. Then, on 12 April 1965, while patrolling the East Sea, rescued and towed the fishing boat Songjin-ho, which was drifting due to engine failure, a feat she repeated on 22 July 1968 with the drifting trawler Choi Chang-ho.

ROK 173-foot class via Jane’s 1974.

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

Of her skippers, Alban “Stormy” Weber retired as a rear admiral and passed in 2007. He joined with other PC-564 crewmembers including Lt. Wesley Johnson, whose bunk the rescued British gunner from Leopoldville used, to form the Patrol Craft Sailors Association in 1987. Once some 3,000 strong in 1998, it is increasingly sunsetting with the end of the Greatest Generation.

Weber was preceded by Seabury Marsh, PC-564‘s skipper on the slow-going NY-78 Convoy, and during Overlord, who passed in New York in 1973, aged 63. Likewise, Percy Sandel Jr., who commanded her during the one-sided battle at Granville, passed in Louisiana in 1994, aged 80. James Spencer, who commanded her for the Leopoldville rescue, faded into history. I cannot find where he was even decorated for his role in the debacle, one that was classified for decades.

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 out-of-print 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

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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

They are 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!

Bombarding Force ‘C’

Posted on June 6, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Allied warships of Bombarding Force C, which supported the landings in the Omaha Beach area on June 6, 1944. The column is led by USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) (left), still with her 1930s mast houses, with the British Town-class light cruiser HMS Glasgow (C21), USS Arkansas (Battleship No. 33), Free French cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm following. The picture was taken from the Captain-class frigate/Buckley-class destroyer escort HMS Holmes (K581).

IWM – McNeill, M H A (Lt) Photographer

The Texas group would provide gunfire to open Dog one exit in Vierville-sur-Mer and support the Rangers attempting to destroy enemy guns at Pointe du Hoc, and remain offshore for the next ten days until the battle moved inland.

D-Day Map showing Firing Plan from USS Texas (BB-35) NHHC_1969-232-A_full

By the 15th, Texas had to flood compartments to create a list, upping the elevation of her guns enough to make the German lines near Isigny and Carentan.

Texas (and Arkansas) would come off the gun line at Normandy without a scratch only to grapple with the much more accurate 11-inch guns of Marine-Küsten-Batterie Hamburg off German-occupied Cherbourg three weeks later, costing the life of Texas helmsman Chris Christiansen and wounded 11 others. HMS Glasgow would be so badly damaged off Cherbourg that she would spend the next year in refit and repair, only steaming to join the British Pacific Fleet in August 1945.

However, that didn’t put the old American Great War-era dreadnought on the sidelines, as both Texas and Arkansas would steam to the Med where they bombarded the French Riviera during the Dragoon landings (Texas sent another 172 rounds of 14-inch and 171 of 3-inch into the Old Republic that August) and then to Iwo Jima (where Texas fired 923 rounds of 14-inch and 967 of 5-inch between 16 and 21 February 1945) and spend seven weeks in March and April off Okinawa (Texas: 2,019 14-inch, 2,640 5-inch, 490 3-inch, 3,100 40mm and 2,275 20mm rounds against air and shore targets).

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022: Getting it Coming & Going

Posted on December 14, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022: Getting it Coming & Going

Imperial War Museum Photo A 13759

Above we see the Royal Navy’s Dido-class light cruiser HMS Argonaut (61), pictured 80 years ago this week at Algiers after losing both her bow and stern to two very well-placed Italian torpedoes with roughly a 400-foot spread between them. A new wartime-production ship only four months in the fleet, she would soon be patched up and back in the thick of it, lending her guns to fight the Axis on both sides of the globe.

The Didos

The Didos were very light cruisers indeed, designed in 1936 to weigh just 5,600 tons standard displacement, although this would later swell during wartime service to nearly 8,000. Some 512 feet long, they were smaller than a modern destroyer but, on a powerplant of four Admiralty 3-drum boilers and four Parsons steam turbines, each with their own dedicated shaft, they could break 32.5 knots on 62,000 shp.

They were intended to be armed with 10 5.25″/50 (13.4 cm) QF Mark II DP guns in five twin mounts, three forward and two over the stern, although most of the class failed to carry this layout due to a variety of reasons.

Gunnery booklet laying out the general plan of a Dido-class cruiser

The Dido class had provision for up to 360 rounds for “A”, “B” and “Q” turrets, 320 rounds for the “X” turret and 300 rounds for the “Y” turret and a properly trained crew could rattle them off at 7-8 shots per minute per gun out to a range of 23,400 yards or a ceiling of 46,500 feet when used in the AAA role.

Argonaut showing off her forward 5.25-inch mounts at maximum elevation

The fact that one of these cruisers could burp 70-80 shells within a 60-second mad minute gave them a lot of potential if used properly. However, this didn’t play out in reality, at least when it came to swatting incoming aircraft.

As noted by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II, “Often referred to as AA cruisers, the 16 Dido-type ships shot down a grand total of 15 enemy planes. The entirety of British cruiser-dom accounted for only 97 planes, while enemy planes accounted for 11 British cruisers.”

Meet Argonaut

While all the Didos followed the very British practice of using names borrowed from classical history and legend (Charybdis, Scylla, Naiad, et.al) our cruiser was the third HMS Argonaut, following in the footsteps of a Napoleonic War-era 64-gun third-rate and an Edwardian-era Diadem-class armored cruiser.

Diadem-class armored cruiser HMS Argonaut. Obsolete by the time of the Great War, she spent most of it in auxiliary roles

One of three Didos constructed at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, the new Argonaut was ordered under the 1939 War Emergency Program for £1,480,000 and laid down on 21 November 1939, during the “Phony War” in which Britain and France stood on a cautious Western front against Germany. Launched in September 1941– by which time Italy had joined the war, the Lowlands, Balkans, and most of Scandinavia had fallen to the Axis, and the Soviets were hanging by a thread– Argonaut commissioned 8 August 1942, by which time the Americans and Japan had joined a greatly expanded global conflict.

Argonaut was later “paid for” via a subscription drive from the City of Coventry to replace the old C-class light cruiser HMS Coventry (D43) which had been so heavily damaged in the Med by German Junkers Ju 88s during Operation Agreement that she was scuttled.

“HMS Argonaut Fights Back for the City of Coventry. To Replace HMS Coventry, sunk in 1942, the City of Coventry Has Paid for the Dido Class 5450 Ton Cruiser HMS Argonaut, She Has a Speed of 33 Knots, Carries Ten 5.25 Inch Guns and Six Torpedo Tubes.” IWM A 14299.

Her first skipper, who arrived aboard on 21 April 1942, was Capt. Eric Longley-Cook, 41, who saw action in the Great War on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, was a gunnery officer on HMS Hood in the 1930s and began the war as commanding officer of the cruiser HMS Caradoc.

The brand new HMS Argonaut, steaming at high speed during her shakedowns, 1 Aug 1942, her guns at or near maximum elevation

Off to war with you, lad

Just off her shakedown, Argonaut sailed with the destroyers HMS Intrepid and Obdurate for points north on 13 October, dropping off Free Norwegian troops and several 3.7-inch in the frozen wastes of Spitzbergen then delivering an RAF medical unit in Murmansk.

On her return trip, she carried the men from the Operation Orator force of Hampden TB.1 torpedo bombers from No. 144 Squadron RAF and No. 455 Squadron RAAF back to the UK following the end of their mission to Russia.

Argonaut then joined Force H for Operation Torch, the Allied landings in Vichy French-controlled North Africa.

Operation Torch: British light cruiser HMS Argonaut approaching Gibraltar; “The Rock”, during the transport of men to the North African coast, November 1942. IWM A 12795.

Battleships HMS Duke of York, HMS Nelson, HMS Renown, aircraft carrier HMS Formidable, and cruiser HMS Argonaut in line ahead, ships of Force H during the occupation of French North Africa. Priest, L C (Lt), Royal Navy official photographer. IWM A 12958

Following the Torch landings, Argonaut was carved off to join four of her sisters at Bone– HMS Aurora, Charybdis, Scylla, and Sirius— and several destroyers as Force Q, which was tasked with ambushing Axis convoys in the Gulf of Tunis.

Argonaut at Bone, late November-early December 1942. Now Annaba Algeria

The first of Force Q’s efforts led to what is known in the West as the Battle of Skerki Bank when, during the pre-dawn hours of 2 December, the much stronger British cruiser-destroyer force duked it out with an Italian convoy of four troopships screened by three destroyers and two torpedo boats.

When the smoke cleared, all four of the troopships (totaling 7,800 tons and loaded with vital supplies and 1,700 troops for Rommel) were on the bottom of the Med. Also deep-sixed was the Italian destroyer Folgore, holed by nine shells from Argonaut.

The Italian cacciatorpediniere RCT Folgore (Eng= Thunderbolt). She was lost in a lop-sided battle off Skerki Bank, with 126 casualties.

The next time Force Q ventured out would end much differently.

Make up your mind

On 14 December 1942, the Italian Marcello-class ocean-going submarine Mocenigo (T.V. Alberto Longhi) encountered one of Force Q’s sweeps and got in a very successful attack.

As detailed by Uboat.net:

At 0556 hours, Mocenigo was on the surface when she sighted four enemy warships in two columns, proceeding on an SSW course at 18 knots at a distance of 2,000 meters. At 0558 hours, four torpedoes (G7e) were fired from the bow tubes at 2-second intervals from a distance of 800 meters, at what appeared to be a TRIBAL class destroyer. The submarine dived upon firing and heard two hits after 59 and 62 seconds.

According to Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Francis Henely, the following exchange took place.

The forward lookout reported: “Ship torpedoed forward. Sir.”

At the same time, the aft lookout reported: “Ship torpedoed aft. Sir.”

To these reports Capt. Longley-Cook replied: “When you two chaps have made up your minds which end has been torpedoed, let me know.”

The torpedoes hit the cruiser’s bow and stern sections nearly simultaneously, killing an officer and two ratings, leaving the ship dead in the water and her after two turrets unusable. HMS Quality remained beside her throughout and HMS Eskimo— who had chased away Mocenigo— rejoined them just before daylight.

After shoring up the open compartments, Argonaut was amazingly able to get underway at 8 knots, heading slowly for Algiers which the force reached at 1700 hours on the 15th.

IWM captions for the below series: “British cruiser which lived to fight again. 14 to 19 December 1942, at sea and at Algiers, the British cruiser HMS Argonaut after she had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean. Despite heavy damage, she got home.”

IWM A 13756

A 13758

IWM A 13754

As for Mocenigo, seen here in the Azores in June 1941, she was lost to a USAAF air raid while tied up at Cagliari, Sardinia, on 13 May 1943.

Patch it up, and go again

After two weeks at Algiers conducting emergency repairs, Argonaut shipped out for HM Dockyard at Gibraltar for more extensive work than what could be offered by the French.

Ultimately, with nearly one-third of the ship needing replacement, it was decided to have the work done in the U.S. where more capacity existed and on 5 April 1943, the cruiser left for Philadelphia by way of Bermuda, escorted by the destroyer HMS Hero— which had to halt at the Azores with engine problems, leaving the shattered Argonaut to limp across the Atlantic for four days unescorted during the height of the U-boat offensive. Met off Bermuda by the destroyer USS Butler and the minesweepers USS Tumult and USS Pioneer, she ultimately reached the City of Brotherly Love on 27 April.

There, she would spend five months in the Naval Yard– the Australian War Memorial has several additional images of this-– and a further two months in post-refit trials.

HMS Argonaut, Philadelphia Navy Yard

One of the turrets with 5.25-inch guns of Dido-class light cruiser HMS ARGONAUT damaged by an Italian submarine 1942 Philadelphia Navy Yard – USA

Post rebuild HMS Argonaut, 5.25-inch guns pointing towards the camera, 11 February 1943

HMS Argonaut in her War Colors, circa 1943 just after repairs at Philadelphia.

HMS Argonaut at Philadelphia, 4 November 1943 BuShips photo 195343

Arriving back in the Tyne in December 1942, she would undergo a further three-month conversion and modification to fulfill an Escort Flagship role. This refit eliminated her “Q” 5.25-inch mount (her tallest) to cut down topside weight, added aircraft control equipment/IFF, and Types 293 (surface warning) and 277 (height finding) radar sets in addition to fire control radars for her increased AAA suite.

Fresh from her post-refit trails and essentially a new cruiser (again), Argonaut joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet in preparation for “the big show.”

Back in the Fight

Part of RADM Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton’s Bombarding Force K for Operation Neptune, Argonaut would fall in with the fellow British cruisers HMS Orion, Ajax, and Emerald, who, along with the eight Allied destroyers and gunboats (to include the Dutch Hr.Ms. Flores and Polish ORP Krakowiak), was tasked with opening the beaches for the Normandy Assault Force “G” (Gold Beach) on D-Day, the latter consisting of three dozen assorted landing craft of all sorts carrying troops of the British XXX Corps.

Capt. Longley-Cook, rejoining his command after a stint as Captain of the Fleet for the Mediterranean Fleet, instructed his crew that he fully intended to drive Argonaut ashore if she was seriously hit, beach the then nearly 7,000-ton cruiser, and keep fighting her until she ran out of shells.

Light cruiser HMS Argonaut in late 1944. Note her “Q” turret is gone and she is sporting multiple new radars

In all, Argonaut fired 394 5.25-inch shells on D-Day itself, tasked with reducing the German gun batteries at Vaux-sur-Aure, and by the end of July, would run through 4,395 shells in total, earning praise from Gen. Miles Dempsey for her accurate naval gunfire in support of operations around Caen.

It was during this period that she received a hit from a German 150mm battery, which landed on her quarterdeck off Caen on 26 June but failed to explode.

She fired so many shells in June and July that she had to pause midway through and run to Devonport to get her gun barrels– which had just been refurbed in Philadelphia– relined again.

Then came the Dragoon Landings in the South of France, sending Argonaut back to the Med, this time to the French Rivera.

Dido class cruiser HMS Argonaut in Malta, 1944. She has had her ‘Q’ turret removed to reduce top weight

Across 22 fire missions conducted in the three days (8/15-17/44) Argonaut was under U.S. Navy control for Dragoon, she let fly 831 rounds of 80-pound HE and SAP shells at ranges between 3,200 and 21,500 yards. Targets included three emplaced German 155s, armored casemates on the Île Saint-Honorat off Canne, along with infantry and vehicles in the field, with spotting done by aircraft.

She also scattered a flotilla of enemy motor torpedo boats hiding near the coast. All this while dodging repeated potshots from German coastal batteries, which, Longley-Cook dryly noted, “At 1100 I proceeded to the entrance of the Golfe de la Napoule to discover if the enemy guns were still active. They were.”

Argonaut’s skipper, Longley-Cook, observed in his 15-page report to the U.S. Navy, signed off by noting, “The operation was brilliantly successful, but it was a great disappointment that HMS Argonaut was released so soon. My short period of service with the United States Navy was a pleasant, satisfactory, and inspiring experience.”

CruDiv7 commander, RADM Morton Lyndholm Deyo, USN, stated in an addendum to the report that “HMS Argonaut was smartly handled and her fire was effective. She is an excellent ship.”

September saw Argonaut transferred to the British Aegean Force to support Allied forces liberating Greece. There, on 16 October, she caught, engaged, and sank two German-manned caiques who were trying to evacuate Axis troops.

HMS Argonaut leaving Poros in October 1944, participating in the landing of British troops for the liberation of Greece.

Headed to the East

Swapping out the unsinkable Longley-Cook for Capt. William Patrick McCarthy, RN, Argonaut sailed from Alexandria for Trincomalee in late November 1944 to join the massive new British Pacific Fleet.

Assigned to Force 67, a fast-moving carrier strike group built around HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious, by mid-December she was providing screening and cover for air attacks against Sumatra in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies (Operation Roberson) followed by a sequel attack on oil refineries at Pangkalan after the New Year (Operation Lentil) and, with TF 63, hitting other oil facilities in the Palembang area of Southeast Sumatra at the end of January 1945 in Operation Meridian.

Argonaut in Sydney, 1945

Making way to Ulithi in March, Argonaut was part of the top-notch British Task Force 57, likely the strongest Royal Navy assemblage of the war, and, integrated with the U.S. 5th Fleet, would take part in the invasion of Okinawa (Operation Iceberg). There, she would serve as a picket ship and screen, enduring the Divine Wind of the kamikaze.

When news of the emperor’s capitulation came in August, Argonaut was in Japanese home waters, still covering her carriers. She then transitioned to British Task Unit 111.3, a force designated to collect Allied POWs from camps on Formosa and the Chinese mainland.

HMS Argonaut in Kiirun (now Keelung) harbor in northern Taiwan, preparing to take on former American prisoners of war, 6 Sep 1945

War artist James Morris— who began the conflict as a Royal Navy signaler and then by 1945 was a full-time member of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee attached to the British Pacific Fleet– sailed aboard Argonaut during this end-of-war mop-up period, entering Formosa and Shanghai on the vessel, the latter on the occasion of the first British warship to sail into the Chinese harbor since 1941.

“HMS Argonaut: Ratings cleaning torpedo tubes.” Ink and paper drawing by James Morris. IWM Art collection LD 5533 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/19678

“Formosa, 6th September 1945, HMS Argonaut preceded by HMS Belfast entering the mined approach to Kiirung.” A view from the bridge of HMS Argonaut showing sailors on the deck below and HMS Belfast sailing up ahead near the coastline. A Japanese pilot launch is rocking in the swell at the side of the ship. In the distance, there are several American aircraft carriers at anchor. Watercolor by James Morris. IWM Art collection LD 5535 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/19680

“HMS Argonaut, the first British ship to enter Shanghai after the Japanese surrender, September 1945.” A scene from the deck of HMS Argonaut as she sails into Shanghai harbor. A ship’s company stands to attention along the rail and behind them, the ship’s band plays. The towering buildings along the dockside of Shanghai stand to the right of the composition. Below the ship, Chinese civilians wave flags from a convoy of sampans. Ink and paper drawing by James Morris. IWM Art collection LD 5531 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/19676

Based in Hong Kong for the rest of 1945, Argonaut returned to Portsmouth in 1946 and was promptly reduced to Reserve status.

HMS Argonaut homeward bound with her paying off pennant in 1946

She was laid up in reserve for nearly ten years, before being sent to the breakers in 1955.

She earned six battle honors: Arctic 1942, North Africa 1942, Mediterranean 1942, Normandy 1944, Aegean 1944, and Okinawa 1945.

Jane’s 1946 entry for the Dido class. Note, the publication separated the ships of the Bellona sub-class into a separate listing as they carried eight 4.5-inch guns rather than the 8-to-10 5.5s of the class standard.

Epilogue

Few relics of Argonaut remain, most notable of which is her 1943-44 builder’s model, preserved at Greenwich.

As for Argonaut’s inaugural skipper and the man who brought her through sinking the Folgore, almost being sunk by an Italian submarine in return, D-Day, Dragoon, and the Aegean, VADM Eric William Longley-Cook, CB, CBE, DSO, would retire as Director of Naval Intelligence in 1951, capping a 37-year career.

Longley-Cook passed in 1983, just short of his 84th birthday.

Of note, Tenente di Vascello Alberto Longhi, skipper of the Italian boat that torpedoed Argonaut, survived the war– spending the last two years of it in a German stalag after refusing to join the Navy of the RSI, the fascist Italian puppet state set up after Italy dropped out of the Axis. He would outlive Longley-Cook and pass in 1988, aged 74.

Of Argonaut’s sisters, six of the 16 Didos never made it to see peacetime service: HMS Bonaventure (31) was sunk by the Italian submarine Ambra off Crete in 1941. HMS Naiad (93) was likewise sent to the bottom by the German submarine U-565 off the Egyptian coast while another U-boat, U-205, sank HMS Hermione (74) in the summer of 1942. HMS Charybdis (88), meanwhile, was sunk by German torpedo boats Т23 and Т27 during a confused night action in the English Channel in October 1943. HMS Spartan (95) was sunk by a German Hs 293 gliding bomb launched from a Do 217 bomber off Anzio in January 1944. HMS Scylla (98) was badly damaged by a mine in June 1944 and was never repaired.

Others, like Argonaut, were laid up almost immediately after VJ-Day and never sailed again. Just four Didos continued with the Royal Navy past 1948, going on to pick up “C” pennant numbers: HMS Phoebe (C43), HMS Cleopatra (C33), HMS Sirius (C82), and Euryalus (C42). By 1954, all had been stricken from the Admiralty’s list.

Many went overseas. Smallish cruisers that could still give a lot of prestige to growing Commonwealth navies, several saw a second career well into the Cold War. Improved-Didos HMS Bellona (63) and HMS Black Prince (81) were put at the disposal of the Royal New Zealand Navy for a decade with simplified armament until they were returned and scrapped. HMS Royalist (89) likewise served with the Kiwis until 1966 then promptly sank on her way to the scrappers. HMS Diadem (84) went to Pakistan in 1956 as PNS Babur, after an extensive modernization, and remained in service there into the 1980s, somehow dodging Soviet Styx missiles from Indian Osa-class attack boats in the 1971 war between those two countries.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, to perpetuate her name, the fourth Argonaut was a hard-serving Leander-class ASW frigate, commissioned in 1967.

Frigate HMS Argonaut, of the Leander class, and her Lynx helicopter, in 1979.

That ship, almost 40 years after her WWII namesake was crippled, had her own brush with naval combat that left scars.

THE FALKLANDS CONFLICT, APRIL – JUNE 1982 (FKD 193) The Leander class frigate HMS ARGONAUT on fire in San Carlos Water after being attacked and badly damaged in Argentine air attacks on 21 May 1982. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205189253

The H.M.S. Argonaut Association keeps the memory of all the past vessels with that name alive.

Speaking of which, in Feb. 2019, four surviving Royal Navy veterans of the Normandy landings– all in the 90s– assembled aboard HMS Belfast in the Thames to receive the Legion d’Honneur from French Ambassador Jean-Pierre Jouyet in recognition of their efforts in liberating the country 75 years prior.

One saw the beaches from Argonaut.

Mr. John Nicholls (right), who received the Légion d’honneur medal

93-year-old John Nicholls from Greenwich served aboard HMS Argonaut which bombarded German positions; he also drove landing craft.

The tumult of battle severely damaged his hearing – he’s been 65 percent deaf ever since, but he remains haunted by the sight of men who lost so much more.

“I looked at some of those troops as they were going in and thought: I wonder how many of them are going to come back,’” he recalled. “I came out of it with just half of my hearing gone, but those poor devils – they lost their lives. I think of them all the time. Not just on Remembrance Day. They’re going through my mind all times of the year.”

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

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!

Overlord Hearts and Minds

Posted on June 6, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Listen, Pierre…

Original Caption, June 6,1944: “French civilians give directions to American paratroopers who made successful landings, on Utah Beach, at St. Marcouf, France.”

Note the ready M1911A1 in the paratrooper’s shoulder holster along with a Mk. 2 pineapple grenade. Original Field Number: ETO-HQ-44-4810. Photographer: Werner. Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-189927-S, National Archives Identifier: 176887768

I’m not sure which unit the above Camel-smoking junior officer is from, but the same photo is identified in other records as “Capt. Kenneth L. Johnson and paratroopers of HHC S-2 Intelligence Section, 508th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division ‘All Americans,’ talking with two Francs-tireurs partisans in the village of Saint Marcouf, Normandy, France. D-Day, 6 June 1944.” The Frenchman certainly looks to have a slung rifle or shotgun over his shoulder, something the Captain would surely be interested in.

The interaction was captured on film as well.

Saint-Marcouf saw scattered sticks of both the 101st Airborne’s 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) as well as the 508th PIR landed in the area.

They were one of the first to make contact with the Germans as, at 0220, Naval Commander Normandy (Konteradmiral Walther Hennecke) reported paratroopers near Batterie Marcouf.

The fight for the city and its nearby battery was an all-paratrooper affair until the afternoon of 7 June when the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment (4th Infantry Division) arrived inland from Utah Beach.

Via 508thPIR.com: These men are from Hq & Hq Co. S- 2 Intelligence Section, 508th PIR of the 82nd US Airborne in Ravenoville. The group consists of: Capt. Kenneth L. Johnson, Capt. Robert Abraham (Company CO), SSgt Worster M. Morgan, Pfc Luther M. Tillery, Pfc Joel R. Lander, Pvt John G. McCall, Pfc James R. Kumler, and T / 5 Donald J. MacLeod. The photo was taken by T/4 Reuben Wiener, a combat photographer attached to the 508th

It certainly looks like later pictures of Johnson.

His jacket:

Brigadier General (later Major General) K. L. Johnson enlisted in the Minnesota National Guard in 1940 and was called to active duty with the 135th Infantry, 34th Division in February 1941. After serving at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana; Fort Barrancas, Florida; and Fort Dix, New Jersey, he entered OCS and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Infantry on 3 July 1942.

General Johnson joined the 363rd Infantry, 91st Infantry Division at Camp White, Oregon, in November of 1942, volunteered for parachute training and was reassigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia. Subsequently, the organization was moved to Camp McCall, North Carolina, for advanced training.

In October of 1943, General Johnson proceeded to North Ireland as a member of the Advance Detachment of the 2nd Parachute Brigade. After a brief period of training, his regiment joined the 82nd Airborne Division and was moved to Nottingham, England, where it prepared for the invasion of France. General Johnson made combat parachute jumps in Normandy and Holland, and fought with the 82nd Airborne Division throughout the European Campaign, including the Battle of the Bulge.

Following World War II, he returned to the U.S. briefly and was reassigned to Europe to join the U.S. Constabulary in July of 1946. After serving in the 68th Constabulary Squadron and the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment, he returned to the U.S. in 1949 to attend the Advanced Course at The Infantry School. Subsequently, he served as an instructor and group chief in the Airborne Department of The Infantry School.

Following graduation from the Regular Course at the Command and General Staff College in 1953, he joined the 40th Infantry Division in Korea where he served as G-3. Later, he was assigned as Plans Officer, I Corps (Group) until he returned to the U.S. in November 1954 for assignment to the Officers Assignment Division, Department of the Army.

After four years on the Department of the Army Staff, General Johnson was selected to attend the Army War College, graduating with the class of 1959. His next assignment was to the Staff of the Commander in Chief Pacific where he served as a Joint Plans Officer and Executive Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Foreign Affairs and Logistics. In 1961, he joined the 25th Infantry Division where he commanded the 2nd Battle Group, 21st Infantry and 1st Battle Group, 5th Infantry, successively until the fall of 1963.

Returning to The Pentagon, he served briefly as Chief of Plans and Policy, Enlisted Personnel Directorate, Office of Personnel Operations and then for the next two years on the General Staff as Chief of the Special Review Division, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. He was selected for promotion to Brigadier General in November 1965 and assigned to the 2d Infantry Division. He joined the Division as Assistant Division Commander (Maneuver) in April 1966.

General Johnson has been awarded the Senior Parachutist Badge with two combat-stars; the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star w/ V for Valor and Oak Leaf Cluster, the Army Commendation Medal w/3 Oak Leaf Clusters and the Purple Heart.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Johnson died on August 21, 1990 at the age of 71 and is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, USA.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022: Lucky Herndon

Posted on February 2, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022: Lucky Herndon

Historic Norfolk Navy Yard Film Collection, Serial #11-19, courtesy of Marcus W. Robbins, via Hampton Roads Naval Museum.

Here we see the brand spanking Gleaves-class destroyer USS Herndon (DD-638) entering the Elizabeth River at Norfolk Naval Shipyard some 80 years ago this week on the occasion of her launching.

Herndon’s launching program, via “Lucky Herndon.com.” Why was she so lucky? We’ll get to that.

The Gleaves class is an unsung group of some 62 destroyers who began construction pre-WWII and completed into the first stage of the war. With the huge building of the follow-on Fletcher– and Sumner-class destroyers, the Gleaves are often forgotten. What should never be forgotten is the sacrifice these ships made, with no less than 11 of the class lost during WWII.

Slight ships of just 2,395 tons, and 348-feet of steel hull, they were packed with a turbine-powered 50K shp plant that gave them a theoretical speed of over 37 knots and a 6,500-mile range at an economical 12 knot cruising speed for convoy or patrol work. Armed with as many as five 5″/38 DP mounts, up to 10 torpedo tubes, ASW gear, and AAW batteries, they were ready for almost anything and could float in as little as 13 feet of seawater, able to get inshore when needed.

Herndon was named for 19th-century sea-going hero and explorer, CDR William Lewis Herndon. Born in 1813 and admitted to Annapolis as a 15-year-old Mid, he was both cousin and brother-in-law to Matthew Fontaine Maury, the “Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology,” and as such participated in a lot of the Navy’s charting work as a young officer. Hailed for his performance of the brig Iris during the war with Mexico, Herndon later led a two-year expedition to the Valley of the Amazon, traveling over 4,000 miles in the process and penning a 414-page report of the area, one of the first works detailing its biodiversity. Given leave while still on the navy’s rolls in 1855, he was the skipper of the ill-fated SS Central America, which went down in a heavy gale off Cape Hatteras 7 September 1857. A prominent chapter in maritime lore, Central America was one of the noted instances of “women and children” loaded into lifeboats as the men stood stoically by and went to the bottom. Herndon was last seen standing by his doomed ship’s wheelhouse as it went down.

He was honored posthumously with a monument at Annapolis, was the father-in-law of future President Chester A. Arthur, the towns of Herndon, Virginia, and Herndon, Pennsylvania, were named for him, and the Navy issued his name to two destroyers, No. 198 (which went on to become HMS Churchill after the bases-for-destroyers deal and was sunk by a U-boat in the White Sea in 1945) and the subject of our Warship Wednesday, the latter was sponsored at her 1942 launching by Miss Lucy Herndon Crockett, great-grandniece of the late CDR Herndon.

In this image, she is sitting on the destroyer ways at the yard, preparing for her launch on 5 Feb 1942. Next to her is the battleship Alabama (BB 60) on the main ways, she would be launched two weeks later.

Commissioned 20 December 1942, CDR (later RADM) Granville A. Moore (USNA 1927) in command, Herndon was ready to get in the war.

USS Herndon (DD-638) in March 1943. 80-G-45379

Husky

Post-shakedown, Herndon escorted a convoy from New York to Casablanca, returning to New York on 14 May 1943 escorting a tanker.

Sailing from Norfolk on 8 June, she reached Algiers on 24 June and prepared for a key role in the Sicilian campaign, Operation Husky. There, she covered the landings of Maj, Gen. Troy Middleton’s 45th (Thunderbird) Infantry Division, traded blows with shore batteries and was heavily involved in defending the cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) from a series of air wild raids from German aircraft while off Palermo.

Sketches of air attacks USS Herndon 7.31.43 8.1.43, From her reports, now in the NARA. Note that these were all inside about 36 hours

Remarkably, neither our destroyer nor Philadelphia was seriously damaged in Husky. Luck example #1.

Overlord

Following her stint in the barrel off Sicily, Herndon was pulled back to the British Isles and spent nine months crisscrossing the Atlantic from New York to various British ports, shepherding troopships headed to Europe. The greyhound was no doubt a welcome sight for the GIs aboard those vessels.

Dispatched to “Bald-headed Row” off Omaha Beach, she was part of Fire Support Unit Four (Task Unit 125.8.4), consisting of the destroyers Hobson, Corry, Shubrick, and Fitch. Assigned to NGFS Station No. 4 for the landings, Herndon faced the guns just east of the Carentan Estuary and was with the first assault wave to enter the fray off Omaha on D-Day. Her targets included No. 42 (an infantry position with three pillboxes, one casemate, one anti-tank gun, two shelters, and two 150mm guns in open emplacements), a tough nut for the Dog landing area.

Opening fire at 0550 on June 6, 1944, some 40 minutes before H-hour, Herndon dumped 212 rounds of 5-inch in just 40 minutes. She followed this up with two further fire missions before 0735, firing 42 and 53 rounds respectively, silencing the German batteries.

During the support, she was just 6,000 yards off the beach at Grandcamp le Bains, steaming at 5 knots, with splashes from shore batteries falling as close as 600 yards, although leaving the ship unharmed. Others were not so lucky and sister ship USS Corry (DD-463) was sunk within sight of Herndon, the tin can ripped apart by 8-inch shells in her engineering spaces amidships that left jagged foot-wide holes in the deck.

Her report from that day is stunning:

Tom Wolf, an NEA war correspondent who bunked with Cronkite during their time in Europe, was aboard Herndon for D-Day writing, “They call her ‘Lucky Herndon.’ This is the destroyer which led the Allied naval armada in the assault on Fortress Europe. Such were the risks that her sisterships were betting 10 to 1 against Herndon’s coming out whole.”

Wolf’s Lucky Herndon article, via Lucky Herndon.com.

Headed back to refill her magazines on D+1, Herndon returned to Omaha on 8 June, dodging German glider bombs while bomber-dropped mines were sown around her. The destroyer USS Meredith (DD-726), near her, struck one of these infernal devices and sunk the next day, her seams busted. Nonetheless, Herndon delivered a further 592 rounds of 5-inch at German targets ashore on 8 June alone, heading back to Plymouth the next day for more shells.

Assigned next to screen the battlewagons USS Texas and USS Nevada along the “Dixie Line,” German E-boat and U-boat attacks were a fear and, while part of that screen, sistership USS Nelson (DD-623), had her stern and No. 4 mount blown off by a torpedo on 13 June. Remaining part of the line through the 19th, Herndon had a brief pause until her next landings.

Dragoon & FDR

Herndon was part of the joint task group (TG 88.2) screening carriers on 15 August when the invasion of southern France, Operation Dragoon, was begun. Acting as plane guard for the British baby flattops HMS Hunter and HMS Stalker on D-Day, she did not have as eventful a time off the Riveria as she did off Palermo and Normandy. She remained in the Med as a convoy escort into October. Again, her luck held.

As detailed by DANFS:

Returning to the States 12 November, she conducted battle exercises in Casco Bay and escorted convoys along the Atlantic coast through February 1945. In that month. Herndon escorted President Roosevelt on the first leg of his historic voyage to Yalta.

Then came the End Game

On to the Pacific!

The veteran destroyer and her crew passed through the Panama Canal on 28 April 1945, just over a week away from VE-Day, and arrived at San Diego on 15 May where she once again clocked in as a carrier plane guard, this time in U.S. waters. Herndon sailed to Eniwetok on 12 July and, no doubt gratefully for her crew, spent the next month escorting convoys between relatively quiet Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan.

VJ-Day found her as part of DESRON 16 assigned to Task Group 10.3 anchored at Buckner Bay, Okinawa where she was soon sent, acting as an escort to the cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28) to ride out a typhoon at sea.

By 7 September, with the seas calmed, Louisville and Herndon were dispatched to the port of Dairen (Dalian) in Manchuria’s Liaodong peninsula, to help supervise the evacuation of Allied POWs in the area. Arriving there on the morning of 11 September, then a week later headed across to the old treaty port of Tsingtao to accept the surrender of Japanese naval assets in the area, consisting of about a dozen escorts and merchantmen in various conditions.

At 1445 on 16 September IJN VADM Kaneko and the Japanese surrender party came aboard Herndon, followed a half-hour later by RADM Thomas Greenhow Williams “Tex” Settle (USNA 1918), an aviation pioneer of some renown, who had his flag aboard Louisville. By 1540, the unconditional surrender document was signed, ending the Japanese occupation of Tsingtao that had been a reality since the emperor’s troops captured it from the Germans in 1914.

Rear Admiral T.G.W. Settle, USN, left, looks on while Vice Admiral Kaneko, IJN, signs document of surrender turning over 12 Japanese ships to U.S. control: 6 DD and AM and 6 merchantmen. The ceremony took place on the forecastle of USS HERNDON (DD-638) at Tsingtao, China, on 16 September 1945. Description: Courtesy of Vice-Admiral T.G.W. Settle, USN ret., 1975 Catalog #: NH 82027

Transferring prize crews, Louisville and Herndon got underway on 22 September with the most intact of the surrendered ships, the Momi-class second-rate destroyers Kuri and Hasu, Subchasers No. 23 and 38, Minesweeper No. 21, and the freighter Shonan Maru, then escorted the little Japanese flotilla to Incheon (Jinsen), Korea, where they would be demilitarized.

Herndon would spend the remainder of 1945 patrolling the Korean and China coasts and assisting the repatriation of Japanese soldiers and the movement of Chinese Nationalist troops.

On 5 December 1945 she was tasked to become a “Magic Carpet” vessel, picking up returning Veterans from Shanghai, Eniwetok, Okinawa, and Pearl Harbor, and arriving at San Diego two days after Christmas. Arriving at New York on 15 January 1946, she was decommissioned on 8 May and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, first at Philadelphia, then at Orange, Texas.

She never was hit even though she fought in the Med, Atlantic, and Pacific, including supporting all three large amphibious landings in Europe.

Epilogue

Herndon received three battle stars for World War II service. Stricken from the Navy List in June 1971, she was expended in a naval weapons test off Florida on 24 May 1973. The remainder of her class suffered similar fates, and none are preserved as museums.

Her five-page War History and diaries are digitized in the National Archives. Likewise, there are at least two different veterans and family community groups.

Before her sinking, parts of the ship including her wheel, the rudder indicator, and the ship’s bell, were removed and loaned in the 1980s to the Herndon (Virginia) Historical Society by the U.S. Navy.

They are currently on display in the town’s Depot Museum and additional donated artifacts include flags, photographs, shell casings, muster rolls, and an anchor log. Also, note the display of CDR Herndon.

The Herndon High School Band attended the 75th anniversary of the D-Day events in Normandy, France, in 2019, and each member carried a photograph of one of the veterans who served aboard the Herndon as they march in France. The band carried the ensign that flew aboard the ship off Omaha Beach.

Historical Documentary of the first ship to approach the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and the trip of the Herndon High School Marching Band to honor it on the 75th anniversary, in 2019:

Speaking of D-Day, her skipper during Husky and Overlord, CDR Granville Alexander Moore, earned a silver star for that latter operation, retired from the Navy as a rear admiral in 1957 while Chief of Staff at the Navy War College. Teaching at the Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Pete for 13 years, he died there in 1983.

Meanwhile, the 21-foot tall Herndon Oblisk at Annapolis, dedicated to our destroyer’s namesake, remains the focus of the annual “plebes-no-more” ceremony, where first-year cadets race to climb the top and place a dixie cup on its pinnacle.

“Plebes,” or freshmen, from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2010 celebrate after conquering the annual Herndon Climb. This event symbolizes the successful completion of the midshipmen’s freshman year. The plebes must use teamwork, strategy, and communication to climb to the top of the 21-foot obelisk and replace the traditional “plebe” cover with a midshipman’s cover. Midshipman 4th Class Jamie Schrock, from Detroit, reached the top in 1:32:42. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Christopher Lussier

Specs:

(As-built)
Displacement: 1,630 tons
Length: 348 ft 3 in
Beam: 36 ft 1 in
Draft: 13 ft 2 in
Propulsion: four boilers; two Allis Chalmers Turbines, 50,000 shp, two propellers
Speed: 37.4 knots
Range: 6,500 nautical miles at 12 kt
Complement: 208 designed. Wartime: 16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament:
4 × 5 in/38 cal guns (1 deleted in 1945)
4 x 40mm Bofors in two twin mounts.
7 x 20mm Oerlikon in single mounts.
Torpedo Tubes: 5 x 21-inch in one quintuple mount (deleted in 1945)
ASW: 2 racks for 600-lb. charges; 6 “K”-gun projectors for 300-lb. charges, three Mousetrap devices.

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Posted on January 26, 2022 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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

RAN Photo

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

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

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

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

The 1931 Jane’s entry for Albatross.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Seagull III amphibian moored in calm water via FAAA

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

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

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

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

HMAS Albatross craning an amphibian aboard.

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

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

She was a very beamy ship

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

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

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

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

Meet HMS Albatross

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post War career

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

SS Hellenic Prince

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

He notes this about the vessel:

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

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

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

A Portuguese sister?

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

Portugal this month celebrated the centennial of that feat.

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

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

Sacadura Cabral, based on HMAS Albatross, per Janes.

Epilogue

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

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

HMAS Albatross watercolor by John Alcott. AWM ART28074

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

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

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

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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

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

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!

Cruising the Beach

Posted on June 7, 2021 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Allied warships of Bombarding Force ‘C’, which supported the landings in the Omaha Beach area on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Neptune/Overlord.

The picture was taken from the frigate HMS Holmes (K581). IWM photo A 23923. McNeill, M H A (Lt) Photographer

The column is led by the battlewagon USS Texas (BB-35) (far left, with Flag, RADM Carleton F. Bryant, aboard), with the Town-class light cruiser HMS Glasgow (C21), the battleship USS Arkansas (BB-33), Free French La Galissonnière-class cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm (Flag French RADM Jacques Jaujard aboard) following. The destroyers/escorts Frankford, McCook, Carmick, Doyle, Endicott, Baldwin, Harding, Satterlee, Thomson, Tanaside, Talybont, and Melbreak, also part of Force C, are nearby and some would move dangerously close to the beach that day.

In all, Group C alone would hammer the Germans at Omaha Beach with over 13,000 shells of 3-inch bore or higher inside of 11-hours, even being criticized after the fact:

Fire Support by individual units was generally satisfactory. MONTCALM, GEORGES LEYGUES, and GLASGOW in particular rendered quick and accurate support. TEXAS contributed valuable 14-inch fire, though in some instances cruiser fire might have been used instead. In one case an inexperienced spotter called for but did not receive, battleship main battery fire on a machine gun nest. It is possible that the fire support ships, in general, delivered call fire in too great a volume and too quickly with regard to available ammunition. It is believed that equivalent results would usually have been attained by more deliberate fire. The problem is often a difficult one, as calls for fire are usually urgent and the natural procedure is to deliver the quickest support. The solution appears to lie in the indoctrination of Shore Fire Control Parties in the proper use of the “deliberate fire” and “fire slower” groups (AEF Assault Signal Code), and, possibly, the introduction of code groups, similar to the “duration of fire” code groups, indicating the rate of fire.

Marauders Over the Beach

Posted on June 6, 2021 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

76 Years Ago this morning.

Original caption: One of the many B-26 Martin Marauders of the 9th AF is shown over the coast of France during the early morning giving a cover to the landing craft shown on the beaches below. These hard-hitting medium bombers gave cover for the greatest airborne troop-carrying armada ever assembled, then furnished an air umbrella for the landing craft as the final phase of the Battle for the Liberation of Europe got underway.

Photo 342-FH-51988AC via NARA https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12003988

Just Clarence & Chuck putting on their faces for a night out

Posted on June 5, 2021 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

“Pvt. Clarence C. Ware, 438 W. 15th St., San Pedro, Calif., gives a last-second touch to Pvt. Charles R. Plaudo, 210 N. James, Minneapolis, Minn., make-up patterned after the American Indians. Somewhere in England.”

Note the censor has marked out the unit insignia on Plaudo’s shoulder. Also note the good private’s M1 Thompson SMG, which has medical tape around the stock, likely to help guard a growing split in the wood. Photo 111-SC-193551 via NARA

Both of the paratroopers are members of the now-famous “Filthy Thirteen” of the 1st Demolition Section– the direct inspiration for the fictionalized Dirty Dozen— of the Regimental Headquarters Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st “Screaming Eagles” Airborne Division. The mohawks and “war paint” came like a bolt of youthful inspiration from Sgt. Jake McNiece, a fellow member of the Thirteen who was part Choctaw.

As for the men shown above, Clarence was wounded in action in Normandy and after the war he returned to California, passing away in 2001 at the age of 78. Meanwhile, “Chuck” Plaudo re-enlisted after the war into the Air Force and later served in Japan. He passed away at age 26 in April 1950 from injuries due to an auto accident.

« Older Entries

Tag Archives: normandy

Share this:

Like this:

Warship Wednesday, March 5, 2025: Poster Child for the Donald Duck Navy

The PC-461 Class

Meet PC-564

The Donald Duck Navy

The Goofiest convoy

D-Day

Leopoldville

The Granville Raid

Cold War

Picking up a Taegeukgi

Epilogue

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022: Getting it Coming & Going

The Didos

Meet Argonaut

Off to war with you, lad

Make up your mind

Patch it up, and go again

Back in the Fight

Headed to the East

Epilogue

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022: Lucky Herndon

Husky

Overlord

Dragoon & FDR

On to the Pacific!

Epilogue

Share this:

Like this:

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

Meet HMS Albatross

Post War career

A Portuguese sister?

Epilogue

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: