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Warship Wednesday April 5, 2017: Of black cats, bad luck and tempests

Posted on April 5, 2017 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, April 5, 2017: Of black cats, bad luck, and tempests

LC-DIG-det-4a15636 Click to big up.

Here we see Peter Arrell Brown Widener’s custom-built schooner-rigged steam yacht Josephine visiting New York’s Larchmont Yacht Club in the summer of 1896 by the Detroit Publishing Co, John S. Johnston, photographer. This beautiful ship would go on to spend most of her life in military service and die a sad death at the hands of the ocean.

First off, who was Widener?

As noted by the Philly History Blog:

There were few people in Philadelphia who could rival the wealth of Peter A.B. Widener. Born on November 13, 1834, to a bricklayer, Widener worked as a butcher and saved enough money to start one of the first meat store chains in the country. He also began buying stocks in street railways. Together with his friend William L. Elkins, Widener eventually controlled the streetcar system in Philadelphia. His wealth grew even more as he became involved in public transportation systems in Chicago and other cities. He later expanded his power by purchasing large blocks of stock in the United States Steel Corporation, Standard Oil, and Pennsylvania Railroad.

In late 1895, Mr. PAB, a director at the time of the White Star Line (future builders of the RMS Titanic) ordered from Lewis Nixon Shipbuilders, Elizabethport, NJ, a grand steam yacht for personal use. As described by the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers of that year, for $400,000 the yard crafted a 257-foot (oal) vessel in just 10 months. Powered by a 1250 IHP quadruple expansion engine fed by two boilers, she could make 17 knots. She was exceptionally appointed:

The bridge extends across the boat, with wheel, compasses and chart table. Under the bridge will be the chart room and aft the captain’s room extending the width of the house, 12 feet. Next aft on the upper deck will be the library, 26 by 12 feet. Over this apartment will be an elliptical skylight for ventilation and a dome. The engine room skylight will be aft the library, and the remainder of the upper deck will be given up to a promenade, 145 feet in length.

At the forward end of the space under the bridge will be the owner’s rooms, each 19 by 15 feet. Aft, will be the bathroom, Between the bathrooms a stairway will extend to four lower guest rooms. From the stairs, a passageway will lead to the dining room, whose dimensions will be 30 feet 6 inches by 16 feet. Aft, the starboard side will be the reception room, 29 by 9 feet, extending half the yacht’s width and over the engine room. It will be finished in antique oak, paneled.

At the after end of the ladies’ room will be a mahogany staircase…

You get the idea. Besides the above, of course, was extensive pantry space, trunk storage, bunkerage for 240 tons of coal, a full kitchen, maids’ quarters with four berths, and separate messing/bunking and pantry space for the crew, quartermaster and ship’s captain.

Named after Mr. Widener’s beloved wife, Hannah Josephine Dunton Widener, the yacht Josephine was palatal.

On her first voyage, a planned summer cruise from Philadelphia along the Maine coast saw Josephine, with the Widener family aboard, call on Bar Harbor– then a popular getaway summer resort for the rich and famous– Friday, 31 July 1896. The next morning, Mrs. Widener was found expired in her bed, age 60. An attending physician ruled her death due to heart disease and the brand-new yacht, her gay bunting stowed, sailed sadly to New York where the late Mrs. Widener was taken back to Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery to be placed in the family vault.

The proud vessel was tied to pier side and sat swaying at her ropes.

When war with Spain came, Mr. Widener sold his unwanted steamship to the U.S. Navy for reportedly 1/10th of her value on 9 April 1898. Her life as a grand yacht had lasted less than two years.

As for Mr. Widener, his son and grandson perished on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and he died in 1915, aged 80. His daughter-in-law built Harvard University’s Widener Memorial Library to honor those lost on Titanic.

At the time the Navy needed to rapidly expand and among the ships acquired for Spanish-American War service were no less than 28 yachts. A baker’s dozen of these former pleasure craft were large ships, exceeding 400 tons. With relatively good gun-carrying capacity and sea-keeping capabilities, most saw service off Cuba where they were used as scouting vessels and dispatch ships.

Speaking of guns, the Navy needed some in a hurry to arm all these yachts with. After contacting Vickers, the company in March 1898 sold the Americans 16 Maxim-Nordenfeldt “1pdr Automatic Guns” from a Russian contract that had been reworked. These 37mm “pom-pom” heavy machine cannon had a cyclic rate of 250-300 rounds per minute and could perforate a 1-inch iron plate at 100 yards.

The Navy issued these guns to several armed yachts and up-armed Revenue Marine Cutters.

Our converted yacht was given two of these 1-pdrs

Click to big up. Note the great bushy lip lizards and the BM to the right smoking a square. Also, there is a three-piper warship in the distance. LC-DIG-det-4a13890

Plus, she was given two manually loaded 1-pdrs

Note the flat cap and the canvas bags marked ‘Tourniquet” LC-DIG-det-4a14809

And four 6-pdrs (57mmm) Hotchkiss breechloaders.

LC-DIG-det-4a13998

The Navy renamed most of these yachts and Josephine was no exception. She was the 6th Navy ship since 1803 to be christened USS Vixen (Patrol Yacht No. 4).

Vixen was commissioned on 11 April 1898– just two days after her sale– with Lt. (J.G) Alexander Sharp (USNA 1873) in command. Sharp had before the war had served as an aide to Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. Among the 5 officers and a 74-man crew were Midshipman Thomas C. Hart (later of WWII Asiatic Fleet fame) and Midshipman Arthur MacArthur III, (Douglas “I shall return” MacArthur’s brother). On 6 May 1898, MacArthur was promoted to ensign.

U.S.S. Vixen, Capt. and officers, 1898. Can you spot the very MacArthur-looking figure in the back row? LC-DIG-det-4a14811

There was also a mascot, a black cat appropriately enough given the ship’s history. U.S.S. Vixen, Miss Vixen, the mascot. LC-DIG-det-4a13999

Given a gray coat of paint, she was now a warship. LC-DIG-det-4a14831

Vixen 1898. Note the three-master schooner in the distance and a distinctive 1-pdr both forward and aft. This is the only photo I can find of her with canvas aloft. USNHC photo.

As noted by DANFS:

Assigned to the North Atlantic Station, Vixen sailed for Cuban waters on 7 May and arrived off the coast of Cuba nine days later. For the duration of the “splendid little war,” the graceful armed yacht performed a variety of duties, blockading and patrolling, carrying mail and flags of truce, ferrying prisoners, establishing communications with Cuban insurgents ashore, and landing reconnaissance parties. Among her passengers embarked during that time was Colonel (later President) Theodore Roosevelt, of the famous “Rough Riders.”

Vixen was present with at least two other armed yachts, USS Gloucester, and Hist during the Battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898.

Per DANFS:

Vixen was patrolling off Santiago between 0935 and 0945 and was at a point some four miles to the westward of the distinctive landmark, the Morro Castle. At about 0940, a messenger reported to the captain, Lt. Sharp, that there had been an explosion at the entrance to the harbor. Rushing on deck, Sharp almost immediately sighted the first Spanish vessel to sortie– the cruiser Vizcaya.

Sharp ordered full speed ahead and hard-a-port, a move was taken in the nick of time because of shells from his own ships, alerted to the sortie of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, splashed in the water astern in the yacht’s frothing wake. Vizcaya acknowledged the presence of the yacht in the vicinity when she sent a salvo toward her with her starboard bow guns. Fortunately for Vixen, the shells passed overhead, “all being aimed too high.”

As Vixen gathered speed, she steered south by east, clearing the armored cruiser Brooklyn’s field of fire, about two points on Vixen’s port bow. The yacht then steered west by south, as Sharp wanted to steer a course parallel to that of the Spanish fleet that was then under fire from the other American ships. Unfortunately, the helmsman erred and steered southwest by south-a mistake not discovered until Vixen had steered farther from the action.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn had engaged the leading ships of the Spanish fleet and was trading shell for shell in a spirited exchange of fire. Shells from Cristobal Colon passed over Brooklyn. One splashed “close ahead” and another splashed astern on the yacht’s starboard beam. Several others passed directly overhead, a piece of bursting shell going through Vixen’s battle flag at her mainmast!

Vixen witnessed the battle as it unfolded, but, as her commanding officer observed, “. . . seeing that the Spanish vessels were out of range of our guns while we were well within range of theirs, we reserved our fire.” In fact, Vixen did not fire upon the enemy ships until 1105, when she opened fire on the badly battered Vizcaya, which had gone aground, listing heavily to port. Vixen’s fire was short-lived for Vizcaya’s flag came down at 1107, and Lt. Sharp ordered cease fire. The yacht remained underway to participate in the chase of the last remaining heavy unit of the Spanish fleet, Cristobal Colon until that Spanish warship struck early in the afternoon.

Battle of Santiago, 1898 Caption: USS VIXEN cheering on USS OREGON (BB-3) after the fight. USS VIXEN answering NEW YORK’s (CA-2) signal number, 3 July 1898. Description: From the Collection of Rear Admiral C.H. Taylor Catalog #: USN 903386

Santiago Morro, USS Vixen passing the wreck of the REINA MERCEDES. Note the rakish bow. Source: From a book of letters, etc. kept by Assistant Surgeon William S. Thomas, MRC, USN, Spanish-American War, 1898. #: NH 111953

One gunner, a man by the name of Smith, on the forward 1-pdr, was said to have gotten off 400 rounds on his piece during the battle.

Sure, you are salty, but are you “I shot up the Spanish Navy with 400 shells from a 37mm machine gun while on the bow of a yacht,” salty? U.S.S. Vixen, Maxim machine gun and gunner Smith, LC-DIG-det-4a14810

After the war, the Navy found the 13 large yachts they picked up were a worthwhile investment for a fleet with a new colonial empire. With small crews, they could conduct coastal surveys, carry mail, stores, and passengers for the fleet, perform yeoman service in various sundry duties, wave the flag at small far-off ports too shallow for larger cruisers and battleships, and serve as station ships at the disposal of U.S. counsels.

From 1899 through 1906, Vixen served off Puerto Rico and Cuba, shuttling between there and Key West as needed, painted a gleaming white.

Almost like her yacht days…USS VIXEN (1898-1923, later PY-4) Caption: At Santiago, Cuba, on 20 May 1903. USS OLYMPIA (C-6) is in the right background. Description: Collection of Commander R. Roller Richardson, USN (MC). Donated by B. Bradford Richardson, 1988. Catalog #: NH 96571

Decommissioned 30 March 1906, she was loaned to the New Jersey Naval Militia to serve alongside the monitor USS Tonopah (who in turn was swapped out in 1914 for the old screw gunboat USS Adams) as a training ship. The militia, some 400~ strong, was organized in two battalions with the first battalion on Tonopah/Adams based in Hoboken and the second battalion, based in Camden, headquartered on Vixen.

Photographed circa the early 1900s. USS TERROR (Monitor No. 4) is on the opposite side of the pier. Terror was laid up at Philadelphia from 1906, a port shared by Vixen, so this is likely around that time. Description: Courtesy of Rear Admiral Joseph M. Worthington, USN (retired) Catalog #: NH 90937

In 1910, her 1-pdrs were considered obsolete and were removed, her armament streamlined to a set of 8 6-pdr singles.

As noted by Annual Report of the Operations of the Naval Militia filed with the Navy Dept., Vixen was housed across the Delaware River in Philadelphia as dock space in Camden was inadequate and, besides occasional pier side drills, the ship regularly got underway only for about a week in July every summer. It should come as no shock that reports note, “The men were very poor in handling boats and lubberly” though gun battery drill was exercised as “a box was thrown overboard having a red flag on it and the men took turns firing at the mark with the Colt’s automatic guns,” likely Model 1895 Colt “potato diggers” in 30.06 caliber.

When the U.S. entered the Great War, Vixen was taken back into regular U.S. Navy service in April 1917, her armament again updated with the 6pdrs coming off and four QF 47mm 3-pdrs going on in replacement.

She patrolled off the eastern seaboard and, following the establishment of the Navy activity in the recently acquired Virgin Islands (purchased from Denmark), served as station ship at St. Thomas., USVI for the rest of the conflict, keeping an eye out for the Germans.

About half of her 60-man crew ashore as an armed naval party complete with leggings, cartridge belts, and M1903s. She would remain as station ship in the Virgin Islands for almost six years.

The harbor from the east, showing the USS RAINBOW and USS VIXEN -station ship, also Marine barracks and radio towers. Navy Yard Virgin Islands. Description: Catalog #: NH 122615

Vixen remained in the USVI for several years after the conflict, being called back to New York where she was decommissioned on 15 November 1922.

She was sold 22 June 1923 to the Fair Oaks Steamship Corp. of New York. Besides some federal lawsuits from the same era, little is known about Fair Oaks with the Bureau of Shipping only listing them for a few years in the 1920s, with an office at 17 Battery Place in NYC, and only owning the 413-ton steam tug H.C. Cadmus and (briefly) Vixen. Cadmus later turned up in U.S. Army service as LT332 during WWII and Vixen would quickly be resold to one Barron Gift Collier of South Florida in late 1923.

Named first Tamiami Queen, then Collier County, then Princess Montagu, she was operated on a regular coaster service by Collier’s Florida Inter-Island Steamship Company, Ltd.

She made the 80-mile run from Miami to the Bahamas several times a week carrying mail, freight and 75 (!) overnight berths for first class passengers. Typically, she left Nassau every Monday and Thursday at 8 am and sailed from the P&O dock in Miami on Tuesday and Friday at the same time. She also did weekend excursions from Miami to Cat Island in the Bahamas. As Florida was dry because of Prohibition, and the Bahamas was not, this was a very lucrative junket.

Passenger steamship, Princess Montagu, owned by Barron Collier. She was operated by his Florida Inter-Island Steamship Company, Ltd, and made regular trips between Miami and Nassau. The photograph was probably taken in Miami, c1925. Via Collier County Museums

Then came the Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929 which left Princess Montagu (nee Josephine) high on Tony Rock outside of Nassau. Thankfully free of passengers, her crew was rescued via lifeline.

She was salvaged in place the next summer.

Besides her plans which are in the Library of Congress, few remnants of Josephine/Vixen remain, though a set of ivory poker chips from her heyday are in circulation.

Note the early white star line logo. Widener was a board member. The first photo in this post also shows this flag flying from both her masts in 1896.

Also, remember those 16 37mm 1-pdrs sold by Vickers to the Navy to arm their new ships in 1898? One of that very lot is still around. Placed on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning and used during the Span-Am War, it was recently sold at auction.

These style guns, though considered obsolete before the Great War, were used in that conflict as early AAA, specifically in the role of balloon busters.

German M-Flak (3.7 cm Maschinenkanone Flak). From late 1915 M-Flak batteries defended balloons and important positions and installations. German flak units were part of the Air Service, whilst the majority of the Allied anti-aircraft units were part of the artillery. Sources: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drakegoodma

The world, on the other hand, has not heard the last of Peter A.B. Widener. His immense and architecturally significant Philadelphia mansion was destroyed by fire in 1980. However, it had served as a library for almost four decades and its sale (prior to the inferno that destroyed it) allowed the Widener Branch of the Free Library to remain in service– its current location is at 2808 West Lehigh Avenue.

Further, in 1972 Pennsylvania Military College rebranded itself after the prominent Widener family, first as Widener College then as Widener University and currently has 6,400 students in attendance. The family over the years has also been scions of thoroughbred horseracing, and Philadelphia professional sports franchises, including the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers, the Wings and the 76ers.

Notably, none have a black cat as a mascot.

Specs:

Displacement: 806 long tons (819 t)
Length: 257 ft. (oa) 182 ft. 3 in (wl)
Beam: 28 ft. 0 in
Draft: 12 ft. 8 in (mean), 16 full load
Propulsion: 1 VTE steam engine, 1250 IHP, twin boilers, auxiliary schooner rig
Speed: 17 kts as built. 15 kts by 1918.
Complement: 5 officers and 74 enlisted (1898), 5 officers, 62 men (1917)
Armament:
(1898)
four 6-pounder breechloaders guns
four 1-pounders (2 pom poms, 2 manually loaded)
(1910)
eight 6-pounders
(1917)
four 3-pounders

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Warship Wednesday Mar. 8, 2017: The old Spanish maiden of Annapolis (and Santiago)

Posted on March 8, 2017 by laststandonzombieisland 5 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Mar. 8, 2017: The old Spanish maiden of Annapolis (and Santiago)

Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Academy, 1941. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 61231 (click to big up)

In honor of International Women’s Day, of course, we had to have a warship named in honor of a member of the more civilized half of our species. As such here we see the Alfonso XII-class unprotected cruiser Reina Mercedes of the Armada Española. Named after Mercedes of Orléans, the first wife of Spain’s King Alfonso XII who died just two days after her 18th birthday, our cruiser would go on to live a longer but no less tragic existence.

The three 3,042-ton Alfonso XII-class cruisers were designed in the 1880s for colonial service in the Caribbean and Pacific, where Spain still had remnants of Empire. Steel-hulled with 12 watertight bulkheads, they were to be modern steam warships capable of 17 knots, which was fast for the day. However, their bank of 10 cranky cylindrical boilers handicapped these ships their whole life and they rarely achieved such speed. Like many ships of the day, they were given an auxiliary sail rig of three masts, two fully rigged, one schooner rigged.

Armed with a half-dozen 6.3-inch/35cal (160mm) M1883 bag-loaded breech-loading guns made by the Spanish Hontoria Company, theoretically capable of 10,000m shots at maximum elevation, they could deal sufficient punishment to all but a determined capital ship. However, this model gun was adapted from a French black powder design(M1881) that did not translate to smokeless powder too well and, at least in Spanish service, proved much slower to load and fire safely than comparable German Krupp or British Elswick designs of the period.

Augmenting these big guns were smaller batteries of Hotchkiss 57mm/40 cal and 47mm/22 guns for torpedo boat defense and a set of five 356mm tubes for Whitehead guncotton torpedoes (more on these later).

ALFONSO XII (Spanish cruiser, 1887-1900) Caption: This ship is distinguished from her sisters, REINA MERCEDES and REINA CRISTINA, by her figurehead which featured a lion on each side of the bow. Description: Catalog #: NH 46867

The Alfonso‘s also took a while to build, being the first steel ships constructed in their respective yards. Both Alfonso XII and sistership Reina Cristina were laid down at Arsenal del Ferrol the same day in 1881 but took a decade before they entered service.

Spanish cruiser crucero español Alfonso XII – 1891 via Postales Navales

The hero of our tale, the only example of the class laid down at Arsenal de Cartagena, was commissioned in 1892, fully 11 years after steel was first cut. Never really cutting edge, Reina Mercedes was pushing obsolescence as she began her career.

Made the flagship of the modest Spanish naval forces operating in Cuba, she left for that Caribbean colony in 1893, joining Alfonso XII which had been there since the previous year–and was urgently needed to help fight the growing local insurgency.

Artist’s rendering of the ALFONSO XII attacking Cuban Insurgents, because a sledgehammer always works against ants, as evidenced in every COIN campaign in history, right?

Sister Reina Cristina made for the Philippines where she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron.

On 26 May 1897, the U.S.-flagged Red D Line chartered coastal passenger liner SS Valencia (1,598-tons) was plying her way off the Cuban port of Guantanamo when she encountered Reina Mercedes at sea on a dark night. The Spanish cruiser lit up Valencia with her spotlights but allowed her to proceed.

SS Valencia in 1901. Ironically, she would be used to carry U.S. troops to Cuba during the war in 1898

Three days later, after discharging cargo and passengers, the Valencia and Reina Mercedes again met at sea, this time in daylight. Although no state of war existed between the U.S. and Spain (though tensions were high) Reina Mercedes fired first a blank round then a warshot from a mile behind the American steamer, the latter falling just 80 yards behind the stern of Valencia. It was an international incident for sure and helped ratchet up the pregame for the Spanish-American War.

Speaking of which, when the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor in Feb. 1898, Alfonso XII was just 200m off her bow and was partially damaged. Her crew was involved in rescuing the battleship’s survivors, treating them in the cruiser’s sickbay, and guarding the battleship’s wreck. They later marched in the funeral cortege during services ashore in Havana for those who had perished.

When war broke out in April 1898, Regina Mercedes was immobilized as a station ship at Santiago de Cuba with a hull full of busted boilers. Soon, she would become blockaded in the harbor by the U.S. North Atlantic Squadron under Rear Admiral William T. Sampson.

With Gen. William Rufus Shafter’s troops laying siege to the city on land, on the night of 2–3 June 1898, eight volunteers aboard the 3,300-ton converted Norwegian steamship, SS Solveig, then in service as the collier USS Merrimac, sailed into Santiago harbor with the intention of sinking the vessel as a blockship, trapping the Spanish fleet for good.

That’s where the crippled Regina Mercedes and her iffy 6.3-inch guns came in.

Bracketing the Merrimac with shells, torpedoes from the cruiser were credited in helping to sink the American ship just off Socapa Point, short of blocking the harbor entrance. To be sure, the muzzles of the destroyer Pluton, cruiser Vizcaya, and shore-based howitzers contributed, but Mercedes counted the most. Merrimac was the only U.S. ship sunk in the Span-Am War, and all eight U.S. heroes were picked up by Mercedes alive.

The endgame for our cruiser, at least in Spanish service, came just 72 hours later when on 6 June 1898 the U.S. warships on blockade came close enough to bombard the harbor, hitting the moored Reina Mercedes at least three dozen times with large caliber shells. Commander Emilio de Acosta and five sailors were killed, 12 more wounded. Very lucky for the amount of punishment. After this date, the Spanish moved as much of the working armament off the ship as they could (more on this below).

After the destruction of Admiral Cervera’s squadron on 3 July 1898 and with Mercedes the only real warship left afloat at Santigo, it was decided to do something with the battered girl.

Incapable of any service, the Spanish salvaged what they could, emplacing at least four of her 6.3inch Hontorias in a battery on shore at Socapa, and decided to use her to block the harbor themselves– to keep the Americans out!

On 5 July, Mercedes sailed forth, unarmed, under steam from just two boilers, and with a skeleton crew, to plug the channel. However, she was caught by a searchlight from the early Indiana-class battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-2) of some 11,500-tons and armed with 4 × 13”/35 guns, who quickly landed at least three direct hits from her 13-inch shells on the little cruiser.

Her crew scuttled the cruiser in shallow water, her decks barely awash, but fell just short of blocking the channel.

Vain attempt of the Spanish to block Santiago harbor alter the battle by running the Cruiser REINA MERCEDES ashore in the narrow channel. LESLIE´S WEEKLY, VOL. LXXXVI

Wreck of the Spanish Reina Mercedes, Santiago, Cuba. Ca. 1898 Accession #: 2014.56

Wreck of REINA MERCEDES. Estrella Battery, Santiago, Cuba, 1898. From the collection of Rear Admiral C.H. Taylor. Catalog #: NH 111950

Wreck of the Reina Mercedes at Santiago harbor, 1898, Detroit Publishing Co. LC-D4-21534

The 3,000-ton largely disarmed Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes, sunk in Santiago, Cuba 1898 after scuttling following engagement with the USS Massachusetts

The Spanish emplaced four batteries made in large part of Reina Mercedes‘ guns and crew:

1. The Upper Socapa Battery used three relic-quality iron 8-inch guns as well as two of the stricken cruiser’s 6.3-inchers. It is believed that one of the Hontorias here achieved a hit on the USS Texas on 23 June, killing the Sailor Blakely and wounding eight bluejackets. It was the first time a U.S. ship was hit during the war in Cuban waters.

2. Her men also helped crew the Estrella Battery near Morro Castle which mounted another two ancient 8-inchers, a 4.7-inch bronze cannon, and some 3-inch breechloaders.

3. Across the harbor mouth, they manned four Hotchkiss and two Nordenfelt small guns taken from Mercedes in an earthwork at the water’s edge dubbed the Lower Socapa Battery.

4. The Punta Gorda Battery, a mile up the bay from Morro Castle, held two more of Mercedes 6.3-inch Hontorias, two modern 6-inch Meta howitzers and a pair of 3.5-inch breechloaders. Lines of water-based Bustamante sea mines were electrically controlled from firing stations ashore.

A pair of 6-in Rapid Firing Guns in the Socapa Batteries, on the west side of the entrance to Santiago Harbor. Photographed soon after U.S. forces occupied Santiago in mid-July 1898. USS Brooklyn (CA-3) is offshore, at the extreme left. These guns are probably 16cm (6.3) Hontoria guns, removed from the cruiser Reina Mercedes. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 2265

Her sister ship, Reina Cristina, was the Spanish flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay, 1 May 1898, and was lost in that one-sided action.

Spanish sailors aboard the cruiser Reina Cristina in prayer before battle, on April 24, 1898. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command)

Battle of Manila Bay 1898 Olympia Boston Baltimore Reina Christina Castilla SpanAm by JG Tyler

Her location on “Dewey Boulevard” as noted by an American cartoon of the era, now home to mermaids:

Class leader Alfonso XII— trapped in Havana during the War– returned to Spain after the conflict, where she was decommissioned in 1900 and sold for breaking in 1907.

Images of Reina Mercedes on the bottom proved popular for a generation as postcards.

Note the empty 6″ gun sponsons and lack of boats.

Then, of course, there is the rest of the story.

You see, Regina Mercedes was a survivor. Between 2 January and 1 March 1899, the U.S. Navy raised her and cleaned her up. A prize of war.

Spanish Cruiser REINA MERCEDES Caption: The day after her raising, in Santiago Harbor, Cuba 1898. If you note her bow scrollwork, this would be restored and maintained for another 50 years. She later was commissioned in the U.S. Navy. Description: Catalog #: NH 61270

Leaking considerably from scuttling charges and dozens of shell holes, Reina Mercedes was towed to Norfolk Navy Yard, arriving 27 May 1899, for temporary repairs.

The Spanish Cruiser “Reina Mercedes” in Simpson Dry Dock at Norfolk: This vessel arrived at the yard May 27, 1899. As she was leaking considerably, she was placed in a dock for the purpose of repairing damage to her bottom. This work was still in progress on June 30, 1899. No other work was done on her.

Departing Norfolk 25 August 1900, again in tow, Reina Mercedes arrived Portsmouth Navy Yard, N.H., on 29 August for refitting.

USS REINA MERCEDES, still looking kinda like a cruiser Caption: Photographed January 1901. Description: Catalog #: NH 61230

It was first planned to convert the old cruiser to a seagoing training ship; but, after much delay, the Navy Yard received orders on 10 December 1902 to complete her as a non-self-propelled receiving ship.

In 1905, she was recommissioned as USS Reina Mercedes. Departing Portsmouth in tow 21 May 1905, Reina Mercedes was taken to Newport, R.I., to be attached to the receiving ship Constellation; and, save for a visit to Boston and to New York in 1908, served there until 1912.

1907 postcard, likely taken at Newport. Note the extensive changes to her profile from the 1901 image above. She has lost one of her stacks and two new masts have replaced her three-mast scheme. Also, her gun deck had been extensively built-up and covered as is common on a receiving ship of the era. BAH in 1907 was a lot different from what it is now! Description: Catalog #: NH 108307 .

Towed to Annapolis in 1912 to serve as a barracks ship (and brig for wayward mids) she was issued hull number IX-25 as a miscellaneous unclassified vessel in 1920. There, she was jokingly called the “fastest ship in the Navy” because she was always tied fast to her pier. In her own way, she served through both World Wars as a commissioned naval vessel.

USS Reina Mercedes (IX-25) at US Naval Academy, Annapolis, when used as detention ship for midshipmen undergoing punishment for serious infractions, 1926. Accession #: S 348-C(1)

Captured Spanish American War ship Reina Mercedes (IX-25), left, used as enlisted barracks quarters at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, 1944 or 1945. By this time she was certainly one of the very few ships in the Navy that still had Victorian-era bow scrolls. The former sail training ship USS Cumberland (II) (IX-8) is in the foreground and would be towed away for scrapping in 1946. Accession #: UA 559.04

In 1920, when the Spanish battleship Alfonso XIII called at Annapolis, the old cruiser flew the flag of Spain as a gesture of goodwill.

As noted by the USNI, life on her was different:

For a number of years, the Reina Mercedes acted as a sort of brig — though not in the truest sense — for Naval Academy midshipmen. Those punished for serious infractions of the Academy Regulations were confined to the ship for periods of a week to a month or more, attending drills but sleeping in hammocks and taking their meals aboard. This punishment was abolished in 1940, substituted instead for restricting midshipmen to their rooms in Bancroft Hall.

After 1940 the ship was used as living quarters for unmarried enlisted personnel assigned to the Naval Academy, as well as the captain of the ship — who was also the commanding officer of the Naval Station, Severn River Naval Command — and his family. The most famous of these commanders was William F. “Bull” Halsey. Because of this latter arrangement, the Reina Mercedes held the unique distinction of being the only ship in the Navy to have ever permit the commanding officer and his dependents living aboard permanently.

Towed to Norfolk every decade or so (1916, 1927, 1932, 1939, and 1951) to have her hull cleaned and repainted, she was kept in good condition for her role and you can expect any brightwork was kept in gleaming condition by her visiting Midshipmen. However, after a while, the metal was too thin to do anything with and she was struck from the Naval Register, 6 September 1957 and disposed of in a sale to Boston Metals Co., Baltimore, MD., for scrapping. Certainly, she was among the last warships to see action in 1898 that was still in naval service in any fleet.

Her crest is on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington D. C.

Crest of Spanish ship Reina Mercedes Manila Exhibited in the Spanish-American War section of Bldg. 76

There is also her time in better days as recalled in maritime art.

And at least some of her guns landed at Santiago in 1898 are still in Cuba to this day and remain a tourist attraction at San Juan Hill.

Specs:

Displacement: 3,042 tons
Length: 278 ft. (85 m)
Beam:    43 ft. (13 m)
Draft:    20 ft. 0 in (6.10 m) maximum
Engines: 10 boilers, 4400 h.p. 1 shaft
Sailing rig: Three masts, two fully rigged, one schooner rigged
Speed:    17 kn max, 9 knots typical
Endurance:
500 tons of coal (normal),
720 tons of coal (maximum)
Complement: 370
Armament: (All removed 1898-99)
6 × 6.3-inch (160 mm) M1883 Hontoria guns mounted in sponsons
8 × 6-pounder (57mm) Hotchkiss quick-firing guns
6 × 3-pounder (47mm) Hotchkiss revolvers
5 × 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes (2 bow, 2 beam, 1 aft), Whitehead torpedoes
Armor: Hope and dreams

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Warship Wednesday Nov. 30, 2016: The Almirante and her Yankee (and Chilean) sisters

Posted on November 30, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016: The Almirante and her Yankee (and Chilean) sisters

Colorized from Detroit Publishing Co. no. 022451 in LOC

Here we see the fine Armstrong-built protected cruiser (cruzador) Almirante Barroso of the Brazilian Navy (Marinha do Brasil) during the 1907 International Naval Review in the Hudson River, a gleaming white ship already obsolete though just a decade old.

As part of a general Latin American naval build-up, Brazil ordered four cruisers in 1894 from Armstrong, Whitworth & Co in Elswick from a design by naval architect Philip Watts. These ships, with a 3,800-ton displacement on a 354-foot hull, were smaller than a frigate by today’s standards but in the late 19th century, with a battery of a half-dozen 6-inch (152mm) guns and Harvey armor that ranged between 0.75 inches on their hull to 4.5-inches on their towers, were deemed protected cruisers.

For batting away smaller vessels, they had four 4.7-inch (120mm) Armstrongs, 14 assorted 57 mm and 37mm quick-firing pieces, and three early Nordenfelt 7mm machine guns. To prove their worth in a battle line, they had three torpedo tubes and a brace of Whitehead 18-inch fish with guncotton warheads. They would be the first ships in the Brazilian fleet to have radiotelegraphs and were thoroughly modern for their time.

However, their four Vosper Thornycroft boilers and turbines, augmented by an auxiliary sailing rig, could only just make 20 knots with everything lit on a clean hull.

The lead ship of the proud new class would bear the name of Admiral Francisco Manuel Barroso da Silva, the famed Baron of the Amazon, who led the Brazilian Navy to victory in the Battle of Riachuelo during the Triple Alliance War in 1865, besting a fleet of Paraguayans on the River Plate, and would be the fourth such ship to do so.

Nonetheless, financial pressures soon limited the Brazilian shipbuilding program and, with each of the Barroso-class cruisers running ₤ 265,000 a pop, the fourth ship of the class was sold while still on the builder’s ways to Chile, who commissioned her as Ministro Zenteno.

The U.S., up-arming for a coming war with Spain, purchased two other incomplete Barrosos in 1898 — Amazonas and Almirante Abreu— that were commissioned as the USS New Orleans and USS Albany, respectively.

One of six 6-inch main guns of the US Navy protected cruiser New Orleans originally ordered in England for Brazil as Amazonas. Note the Marine with his Lee Navy rifle at the ready.

The Brazilians also sold the Americans the old dynamite cruiser Nictheroy, though without her guns.

In the end, only Almirante Barroso (Elswick Yard Number 630) was the only one completed for Brazil, commissioned 29 April 1897.

As completed with her typically English scheme of the 1890s

Her naval career was one of peacetime showmanship and diplomatic visits, taking President Campos Sales to Buenos Aires on a state visit in 1900, serving as the flagship of the Naval Division, making a trip to the Pacific in 1907 and the U.S.– shown in the first image of this post above– as well as other state visits.

Subsequent trips took her as far as the Middle East and Africa.

With Brazil escaping involvement in the Great War that engulfed the rest of the war from 1914-17, Barroso enforced her country’s neutrality and kept an eye on interned ships during that conflict until switching to a more active campaign looking for the rarely encountered Germans in the South Atlantic after Brazil entered the war on the Allied side in late 1917.

Barroso with her post-1905 scheme from a postcard of her at porto de Santos.

By the 1920s, obsolete in a world of 30+ knot cruisers with much more advanced armament and guns, Barroso was used as a survey and navigation training vessel.

By 1931, she was disarmed and turned into a floating barracks, ultimately being written off sometime later, date unknown.

Her 4.7-inch Armstrong mounts and 57mm Nordenfelts were installed in Fort Coimbra at Moto Grosso on the left bank of the Paraguay River, where they remained in service into the 1950s.

One of Barroso’s 4.7s in 1947

When the fort was turned over for preservation, they were repurposed and put on display.

Her sisters, ironically, all suffered a similar fate though Barosso outlived them.

Chile’s Ministro Zenteno sailed the world far and wide only to be laid up in the 1920s and scrapped in 1930.

USS New Orleans was bought from Brazil while under construction in England. Catalog #: NH 45114

New Orleans exchanged gunfire with Spanish shore batteries off Santiago in 1898 but missed the big naval battle there while off coaling. She went on to perform yeoman service as flagship of the Cruiser Squadron, U.S. Asiatic Fleet for several years and patrolled the coast of Mexico during the troubles there in 1914. Escorting convoys across the Atlantic in World War I, she ended up at Vladivostok in support of the Allied Interventionists in the Russian Civil War. She was sold for scrapping on 11 February 1930.

USS ALBANY (CL-23) Caption: Running trials, 1900, prior to installation of armament. Catalog #: NH 57778

USS ALBANY (CL-23) Caption: Running trials, 1900, before installation of armament. Catalog #: NH 57778

Albany missed the SpanAm War, being commissioned in the River Tyne, England, on 29 May 1900. Sailing for the Far East from there where she would serve, alternating cruises back to Europe, until 1913 she only went to the U.S. for the first time for her mid-life refit. Recommissioned in 1914, as was her sister New Orleans, Albany served off Mexico, gave convoy duty in WWI and ended up in Russia. With the post-war drawdown, she was placed out of commission on 10 October 1922 at Mare Island and sold for scrap in 1930.

A single 4.7-inch Elswick Armstrong gun from each of these English-made Brazilian cruisers in U.S. service is installed at the Kane County, Illinois Soldier and Sailor Monument at the former courthouse in Geneva, Illinois.

Specs:

Displacement: 3,769 long tons (3,829 t)
Length:    354 ft. 5 in (108.03 m)
Beam:    43 ft. 9 in (13.34 m)
Draft:    18 ft. (5.5 m)
Propulsion: mixed steam and sail; four Vosper Thornycroft boilers and turbines, coupled to two propellers, generating 15,000 hp., 2850 tons of coal
Electricity: 3 generators of 32 Kw, engines by Humphrys Tennant & Co, Deptford
Speed:    20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement: 366 officers and enlisted
Armament:
6 × 6-inch 152/50 Armstrong QF
4 × 4.7-inch 120/50 Armstrong QF
10 × 57/40 Hotchkiss (2 in) 6-pdr Hotchkiss guns
4 × 37/20 1 pdr guns
3     machine guns
3 × 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes (1 x bow & 2 x broadside)
Armor:
Gun shields: 4 in (100 mm)
Main deck: 3.5 in (89 mm)
Conning Tower: 4 in (100 mm)

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Warship Wednesday May 18, 2016: Spanish gunboats a-go-go

Posted on May 18, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, May 18, 2016: Spanish gunboats a-go-go

NHC NH 45328

Here we see the General Concha-class cañonero (gunboat) Elcano shortly after she became the USS Elcano (PG-38) because of the activities of one Commodore Dewey. She would go on to serve 44 hard years in total.

Laid down 3 March 1882 by Carraca Arsenal, Cadiz, Spain, Elcano was a small warship, at just 157’11” between perpendiculars (165-foot overall length), and tipping the scales at just 620-tons with a full load. Slow, she could only make 11-ish knots. However, what she could do was float in just 10 feet of water and carry two 120mm low angle guns, a single 90mm, four Nordenfelt QFs, and two Whitehead torpedo tubes around the shallow coastal littoral of the Philippines where the Spanish were having issues with the locals that often involved gunplay.

120mm 25cal Hontoria M1879 (left) in Spanish service. Elcano mounted two of these guns. Note the opulent wheelhouse.

Sisters, designed for colonial service, included General Concha, Magallanes, and General Lezo, they were officially and maybe over ambitiously listed as “Crucero no protegido de 3ª clase” or 3rd class protected cruisers.

Class leader, Cañonero de la Armada Española General Concha, 1897

Described as “pot-bellied,” Elcano had a quaint Victorian-era ram bow and carried a mixed sailing rig for those times when coal, never plentiful in the PI, was scarce. She was commissioned into the Armada Española in 1884, arriving in Manila late that year. Like most of the 18 or so Spanish ships in the region (to include sister General Lezo), she was commanded by Spanish officers and manned by Filipino crews.

Cañonero español Elcano at commissioning. The Spanish liked dark hulls

Her peacetime service was quiet, spending more than a dozen years puttering around the archipelago, waving her flag and showing off her guns. Then came the Spanish-American War.

Just five days after a state of war between the U.S. and Spain began, on 26 April 1898, El Cano came across the U.S.-flagged barque Saranac—under one Captain Bartaby—carrying 1,640 short tons (1,490 t) of coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Iloilo, in the Philippines for Dewey’s fleet, and captured the same with a shot across the bow.

You see the good Capt. Bartaby, sailing in the days without wireless and being at sea for a week had missed the announcement of hostilities and said into Iloilo harbor to the surprise of El Cano‘s skipper, who dutifully placed the ship under arrest. Bartaby was able to cheat a Spanish prize court by producing convenient papers that Saranac had been sold for a nominal sum to an English subject just days before her capture, though she had sailed into a Spanish harbor with the Red White and Blue flying. We see what you did there, Bartaby, good show.

Dewey lamented this loss of good Australian coal, which was hard to find in the Asiatic Squadron’s limited stomping grounds after the Brits kicked them out of Hong Kong. Incidentally, the Saranac was the only U.S. ship captured during the war compared with 56 Spanish vessels taken by Yankee surface raiders.

Speaking of which…

The rest of Elcano‘s very short war was uneventful save for being captured during the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898 along with the rest of the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo after Dewey battered his way into the harbor.

ELCANO at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippine Island Description: Courtesy of D. M. MC Pherson, Corte Madena, California. 1967 Catalog #: NH 54354

ELCANO at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippine Island. Note the extensive awnings. Description: Courtesy of D. M. MC Pherson, Corte Madena, California. 1967 Catalog #: NH 54354

Her three sisters all had more final run-ins. General Concha fought at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and narrowly escaped capture only to wreck herself on a reef off Morocco in 1913. General Lezo was ruined by a magazine explosion and sank just after Manila Bay. Magallanes, escaping destruction in Cuba, was discarded after sinking at her dock in 1903.

As for Elcano, her Spanish/Filipino crew was quickly paroled ashore at Cavite, and she languished there for six months under guard until being officially taken over by the U.S. Navy on 8 November.

USS ELCANO (PG-38) at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippine Island circa 1900, before being refitted for the U.S. Navy. Note she has been white-washed and her awning shown above in Spanish service deleted. You can also make out her starboard torpedo tube door just above the waterline. Description: Courtesy of LCDR John E. Lewis, 1945. Catalog #: NH 54353

Refitted for use to include swapping out her Spanish armament for American 4″/40cals (and plugging her 14-inch bow tubes), she was commissioned as USS Elcano (Gunboat No. 38) on 20 November 1902– because the Navy had a special task for the shallow water warship.

You see, once the U.S. moved into the PI, they used a series of captured and still-floating near-flat bottomed former Spanish gunboats (USS Elcano, Villalobos, Quiros, Pampanga, and Callao) to protect American interests in Chinese waters. These boats, immortalized in the book and film the Sand Pebbles, were known as the Yangtze Patrol (COMYANGPAT), after the huge river system they commonly haunted. The first modern patrol, started in 1903, was with the five Spaniards while two more gunboats, USS Palos and Monocacy, built at Mare Island in California in 1913, would later be shipped across the Pacific to join them while USS Isabel (PY-10) would join the gang in 1921.

Elcano was based in Shanghai from February 1903, her mission was to protect American citizens and property, and promote friendly relations with the Chinese– sometimes promoting the hell out of them when it was needed. She kept this up until 20 October 1907 when she was sent back to Cavite for a three-year refit.

During this time, she served as a tender to 1st Submarine Division, Asiatic Torpedo Fleet, with the small subs of the day having their crews live aboard the much larger (dry-docked) gunboat.

USS Shark (Submarine # 8) In the Dewey Drydock, Olongapo Naval Station, Philippines, circa 1910. The gunboat Elcano is also in the drydock, in the right background. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1978. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 86963

Recommissioned 5 December 1910, Elcano took up station at Amony in China and resumed the monotony of river cruises in China’s decidedly strife-ridden countryside that included bar fights with British gunboat crews, welcoming visiting warlords with an open hand (and a cocked 1911 under the table), sending naval parties ashore to rescue random Westerners caught in riots and unrest, besting other USN ships’ baseball teams to the amusement of the locals, and just generally enjoying the regional color (though libo groups were ordered to always go ashore in uniform and with canteens).

In August 1911, Elcano and the rest of the patrol boats were joined by the cruisers USS New Orleans and Germany’s SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Hankow for the unrest that came along with the anti-monarchist putsch that ended the Manchu dynasty.

There, Elcano participated in an impromptu naval review along with other arriving vessels from Austro-Hungary, Japan, France, Russia, and a six-ship task force dispatched by the British. The ceremony’s true purpose: keep an eye on the nearly one dozen semi-modern Chinese warships in the harbor to make sure a repeat of the Boxer Rebellion didn’t spark. During this period, Elcano‘s men joined others in the International Brigade, sending 30 bluejackets with their Colt machine guns in tow to help guard the Japanese consulate. They were relieved ashore later in the year by a company of the British Yorkshire Light Infantry and a half-regiment of Siberian Cossacks shipped in for the task.

While on the Yangtze River Patrol, circa 1917. Description: Courtesy of Arthur B. Furnas, Corte Madera, California, 1969. Catalog #: NH 69694

During the Christmas season, circa December 1917, while in the Philippines. Note the Christmas tree on the bow and the other decorations aboard the ship. She would keep up this tradition for years. Description: Courtesy of Arthur B. Furnas, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 69697

Elcano would get a short break from Chinese waters when the U.S. entered WWI, being recalled to Manila Bay to serve as a harbor gunboat, patrolling around Corregidor from April 1917-Nov. 1918, just in case a German somehow popped up. Then, it was back to the Yangpat.

Meanwhile in China, as the putsch of 1911 turned into open revolution and then Civil War, Elcano and her compatriots in the Yangpat were ever more involved in fights ashore, landing troops in Nanking in 1916 along with other nations during riots there, in Chungking in 1918 to protect lives during a political crisis, and again in March 1920 at Kiukiang (now Jiujiang on the southern shores of the Yangtze), where Elcano‘s sailors acted alone, and then at Ichang where she landed a company of Marines for the task and remained as station ship and floating headquarters until September 1922.

Some of the ships of the U.S. Navy’s Yangtze River Patrol at Hangchow during the 1920s, with several local junks and sampans also present. U.S. Navy ships are (from left to right): USS Isabel (PY-10); USS Villalobos (PG-42); and USS Elcano (PG-38). Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 67127

Chinese general visiting Elcano. The commanding officer of Elcano is seen waiting to greet him at the top of the gangway, Ichang, China, circa 1920's. Also note how they have to walk right into the muzzle of the 4-incher when coming aboard-- very subtle. Look up: Gunboat diplomacy. Description: Catalog #: NH 68976

Chinese general visiting Elcano. The commanding officer of Elcano is seen waiting to greet him at the top of the gangway, Ichang, China, circa the 1920s. Also, note how they have to walk right into the muzzle of the 4-incher when coming aboard– very subtle. Lookup: Gunboat diplomacy. Catalog #: NH 68976

Ship's baseball team going ashore, in China, during the early 1920s. Description: Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77142

Ship’s baseball team went ashore, in China, during the early 1920s. Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77142

Rare today is a bluejacket who was a member of the Noble and Exclusive Order of the Brotherhood of Mighty River Rats of the Yangtze c.1903-1941. Photo via The Real Sand Pebbles.

These two letters from Elcano sailors from the 1920 volume of Our Navy, the Standard Publication of the U.S. Navy. Note the mention of the ship’s baseball team, hooch at $1.20 a quart, and the retelling of how 60 bluejackets cleared the streets of Kiukiang by bayonet point:

During this service, Elcano proved a foundry for future naval leaders. Stars rained upon her deck, as no less than six of her former skippers went on to become admirals including Mississippian– later Vice Adm– Aaron Stanton “Tip” Merrill, who picked up the Navy Cross at the Battle of Blackett Strait in 1943 by smashing the Japanese destroyers Murasame and Minegumo without a single casualty.

Airing her sails in Chinese waters during the 1920s. She was undoubtedly one of the last warships with canvas in the fleet. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1972. Catalog #: NH 75577

Airing her sails in Chinese waters during the 1920s. She was undoubtedly one of the last warships with canvas in the fleet. Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1972. Catalog #: NH 75577

In dry dock at Shanghai, China, circa early 1920's note the 4"/.40 caliber gun (lower) and the 3-pounder (above) Description: Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68978

In dry dock at Shanghai, China, circa early 1920’s note the 4″/.40 caliber gun (lower) and the 3-pounder (above) Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68978

In dry dock, at Shanghai, China, during the early 1920s. Note 4"/40 gun. Description: Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77143

In dry dock, in Shanghai, China, during the early 1920s. Note stern 4″/40 gun. Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77143

Between 1923-25, armed landing teams from Elcano went ashore and stayed ashore almost a half-dozen times in two extended periods in Shanghai during the unrest and street fights between rival factions.

Armed guard, photographed in Chinese waters, during the early 1920s. Note Lewis machine guns. Description: Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77144

Armed guard from Elcano, photographed in Chinese waters, during the early 1920s. Note Lewis machine guns. Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77144

In March 1927, Elcano along with the destroyers USS William P. Preston, USS Noa, and the RN’s HMS Emerald took a “mob of undisciplined Nationalist soldiers” under intense naval gunfire outside of Nanking when the American Consul General John C. Davis and 166 others were besieged at the Standard Oil compound on Socony Hill.

It would be Elcano‘s last whiff of cordite.

By 1926, the seven veteran river gunboats were all worn out and the navy went shopping for replacements. With dollars always short in the Navy budget, it just made sense to build these new boats in China, to save construction and shipping costs. These new ships consisted of two large 500-ton, 210-foot gunboats (USS Luzon and Mindanao); two medium-sized 450-ton, 191-foot boats (USS Oahu and Panay), and two small 350-ton, 159-foot boats (USS Guam and Tutuila).

Once the new gunboats started construction, the five old Yangtze Patrol ships’ days were numbered. In November 1927, Elcano became a barracks ship in Shanghai for the newly arriving crews of the PCUs and by 30 June 1928, she was decommissioned after some 14 years of service to Spain and another three decades to Uncle Sam.

At Ichang China. Note trees on mastheads Description: Courtesy of Lt. Commander Merrill, USN, 1928. Catalog #: NH 54352

At Ichang China. Note trees on mastheads. Courtesy of Lt. Commander Merrill, USN, 1927. Catalog #: NH 54352

Elcano was stripped of all useful material, some of which went to help equip the new Yangpat boats then towed off the coast and disposed of in a sinkex by gunfire on 4 October 1928. Two of her former companions in arms suffered the same fate. Villalobos (PG-42), model for Richard McKenna’s San Pebbles, was likewise sunk by naval gunfire on 9 October 1928 and joined by the ex-Spanish then-USS Pampanga (PG-39) on 21 November. The days of Dewey’s prizes had come and gone, with the Navy getting a good 30 years out of this final batch.

Of the other Spanish armada vessels pressed into U.S. Navy service, Quiros (PG-40) was previously sunk as a target in 1923, and Callo (YFB-11) was sold at Manila the same year where she remained in use as a civilian ferry for some time.

The website, Sand Pebbles.com, keeps the memory of the Yangpat and her vessels alive while scrapbooks and uniforms are preserved in the hands of private collectors.

However, in Nanjing, on an unidentified monument there, is a series of Navy graffiti left by those Yankee river rats, if you look closely, you can just make out USS Elcano under USS Chattanooga.

They were there.

Group of crewmembers visit a joss house, in China, during the early 1920s. Description: Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77147

Group of Elcano crewmembers visit a joss house, in China, during the early 1920s. Courtesy of Frederick Cornman, Valois, New York, 1971. Catalog #: NH 77147

In one last comment on the vessel, the American ensign from the barque Saranac, captured during Elcano‘s Spanish career, is currently located at the Spanish Naval Museum in Madrid, a cherished war trophy from that one-sided conflict.

Bandera Saranac capturada cañonero Elcano en Filipinas en 1898 Museo Naval Madrid

The Spanish foreign ministry has, politely, declined to return it to the U.S. on several occasions over the past 120 years.

Specs:

Displacement: 620 long tons (630 t)
Length: 165 ft. 6 in (50.44 m)
Beam: 26 ft. (7.9 m)
Draft: 10 ft. (3.0 m)
Installed power: 1,200 ihp (890 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × vertical compound steam engines
2 × single-ended Scotch boilers
2 × screws
Rig: Schooner
Speed: 11 kn (13 mph; 20 km/h)
Complement:
Spanish Navy: 115
U.S. Navy: 99-103
Armament:
As commissioned:
2×1 120mm/25cal Hontoria M1879
1x 90/25 Hontoria M1879
4×1 25/42 Nordenfelt
2x 356mm TT (bow)
1902:
4×1 4″/40
4×1 3pdr (37mm) guns
2x Colt machine guns
1x 3-inch Field gun for landing party along with Lewis guns and rifles, handguns, and cutlasses

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

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Warship Wednesday: Jan. 27, 2016 The Tragic Tale of the Wake Island Wanderer

Posted on January 27, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday: Jan. 27, 2016 The Tragic Tale of the Wake Island Wanderer

Fine-screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship in harbor, circa 1891-1901. It was published by the SUB-POST Card Co., of Los Angeles, California. Donation of H.E. (Ed) Coffer. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102777

Here we see Gunboat #4, the USS Bennington, a Yorktown-class gunboat labeled as a cruiser (third rate) in the post card above, and she acted like one, roaming the coasts of the world far and wide, adding to the territory of the United States on occasion, and suffering a sad fate in the end.

The three ships of the Yorktown class, all named after Revolutionary War battles, were designed in the 1880s in a joint effort between the Navy and William Cramp and Sons shipyard of Philadelphia (though only class leader Yorktown would be built at the yard, follow-on sisters Concord and Bennington— the hero of our tale– would be built at the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works in Chester, PA).

Humble, steel-hulled ships of just 244 feet in overall length, these 1,900-ton warships were slow at just 16 knots and at half that could voyage for 12,000 nautical miles on 400 tons of coal but, when coupled with their three-masted schooner rig and 6,300 feet of canvas carried as auxiliary propulsion, could roam the world as long as there was wind.

They weren’t built to take a lot of punishment, having just two inches of armor on their conning tower and much, much less (9.5mm) over deck spaces and coal bunkers. However for ships their size, they were able to put out a fair bit of punishment, mounting a half dozen 6″/30 Mark I guns. These guns were the standard armament of the “New Navy” in the 1880s and were used on the “ABCD” squadron (cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and gunboat Dolphin), as well as most of the early cruisers (main guns) and battleships (as secondary armament) of the pre-1898 U.S. Fleet. They could fire a 105-pound shell out to 18,000 yards.

Stern 6" (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia on 19 May 1917, shown for reference. The Yorktown class had six of these including some in both open mounts such as this and barbettes. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710.

Stern 6″ (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia on 19 May 1917, shown for reference. The Yorktown class had six of these in shielded mounts. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710.

Bennington, the first U.S. Navy ship to carry the name, did so to commemorate the decisive American victory of New England militia over a bunch of Hessian mercenaries near Bennington, Vermont on 16 August 1777. She was commissioned 20 June 1891 and was soon off to become a world traveler.

Assigned first to the “White Squadron” or Squadron of Evolution and subsequently to the South Atlantic Squadron of RADM John G. Walker, the squadron toured ports in America, Europe, North Africa, and South America, demonstrating the U.S. Navy’s technological prowess as well as its commitment to protecting the nation’s merchant fleet.

(Gunboat # 4) Photographed circa 1891 by J.S. Johnston, New York City. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63248

(Gunboat # 4) In a European harbor, circa 1892-1893, with USS Newark (Cruiser # 1) alongside. Courtesy of Arrigo Barilli, Bologna, Italy. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56381

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

(Gunboat # 4) In a harbor, 1893. Copied from The New Navy of the United States, by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912). Donation of David Shadell, 1987. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102742

(Gunboat # 4) In a harbor, 1893 likely at the Colombian Exihibition. Copied from The New Navy of the United States, by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912). Donation of David Shadell, 1987. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH102742

In 1894, after cruising to Europe twice and all over South America, she received orders to transfer to the Pacific just after participating in the International Naval Review at Hampton Roads, arriving at Mare Island Navy Yard in San Diego on 30 April of that year.

(Gunboat # 4) Off Valparaiso, Chile, 3 April 1894 on her way to California. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102821

(Gunboat # 4) Off Valparaiso, Chile, 3 April 1894 on her way to California. Note the new pilot house that has been fitted to her bridge. This would be removed in 1902. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102821

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) In drydock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1894-98. This photograph was published on a -tinted postcard by Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco, California. Courtesy of H.E. (Ed) Coffer, 1986. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 100931-KN

After having her hull scraped, she was soon off to Hawaii where she spent most of the next two years where she rode shotgun in port during the upheaval in the combat between Royalist and republican forces there that led eventually to the ouster of Queen Liliʻuokalani, paving the way to Hawaii’s annexation in 1898.

When the Spanish-American War erupted, she left Hawaii and patrolled the California coast on the off chance Spanish raiders would appear then in September set sail, unescorted, to the Philippines. There, her sister Concord on the Asiatic Station had been a part of Admiral George Dewey’s fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay just four months prior, but the islands were far from conquered.

On the way to the PI, Bennington stopped at the unclaimed and uninhabited atoll of Wake Island halfway between Honolulu and Manila and took control of the strategic location under orders from President McKinley.

Commander (later RADM) Edward D. Taussig of the USS Bennington takes formal possession of Wake Island for the United States with the raising of the flag and a 21-gun salute on January 17, 1899. The only witnesses aside from her crew were seabirds. The depiction incorrectly shows Bennington in the distance with two funnels. Tassuig’s son Joe would later rise to Vice Admiral in WWII and tussle with FDR on several occasions while his grandson would lose a leg on the Nevada at Pearl Harbor.

A subsequent stop at the Spanish possession of Guam on 23 January led to the surrender of that island to the U.S. as well. Taussig inspected the ancient Spanish military positions on the island and found them “condemned.”

Arriving in the Philippines in Feb. 1899, Bennington spent two years heavily involved in the pacification efforts there. With a draft of just 14 feet, she was often called upon to come close to shore and support landings and combat on land with her big six inchers.

She also was involved in the occasional surface fight, sinking the over-matched insurgent vessel Parao on Sept 12, 1899. When things slowed down, she served as a station ship at Cebu before otherwise aiding Army operations throughout the chain.

Leaving for Hong Kong in 1901, she was refitted and soon got back to the business of international flag-waving, visiting Shanghai for an extended period before heading back to the West Coast.

(Gunboat # 4) In the Kowloon, dry dock, Hong Kong, China, in 1901. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102766

(Gunboat # 4) At Shanghai, China, on 4 July 1901, dressed with flags in honor of Independence Day. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102765

There, along with familiar faces in the form of USS Concord, she participated in a Latin American cruise and patrolled Alaskan and Hawaiian territorial waters as needed.

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. This image is printed on a postcard published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105303-A. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105303

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. Note her pilothouse has been removed and she has been reduced to two masts as her auxiliary sail rig was jettisoned at this time. This image is printed on a postcard published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105303-A. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105303

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. This -tinted photograph is printed on a postcard, published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105302-A-KN. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105302-KN

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor while serving with the Pacific Squadron in 1904. Donation of John C. Reilly, Jr., 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102751

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor while serving with the Pacific Squadron in 1904 on laundry day. Donation of John C. Reilly, Jr., 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102751

Ships of the squadron in the moonlight, during a Latin American cruise, circa 1903-1904. USS New York (Armored Cruiser # 2) is in the left center. The other two ships, listed in no particular order, are USS Concord (Gunboat # 3) and USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4). Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85693

Racing across the Pacific. She would continue to be a regular fixture from Hawaii to Latin America and Alaska NH 102747

USS Bennington Description: (Gunboat # 4) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1903. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, 1975. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 83961

(Gunboat # 4) Ship’s officers and crew posed on deck and in her foremast rigging, at San Diego, California, 3 March 1905. Tragically, within just four months, many of these men in the photo would be dead. Courtesy of the Historical Collection, Union Title Insurance Company, San Diego, California. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56382

On 21 July 1905 Bennington was building steam in her four 17-foot long locomotive boilers to leave port when disaster struck.

At about 10:30, excessive steam pressure in the boiler resulted in a boiler explosion that rocked the ship, sending men and equipment flying into the air. The escaping steam sprayed through the living compartments and decks. The explosion opened Bennington’s hull to the sea, and she began to list to starboard. Quick actions by the tug Santa Fe — taking Bennington under tow and beaching her – almost certainly saved the gunboat from sinking in deeper water.

The explosion occurred directly under the ship’s galley just before lunch after a hard morning of coaling and the area was filled with hungry sailors. In all, 66 men were killed and another 46 seriously wounded– more than half her crew. It was one of the worst accidents in the history of the Navy and resulted in 11 Medal of Honor awards for “extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion.”

These individuals earned the Navy Medal of Honor during the period specified. Their names are followed by their rank and rate, if known, the date of the action and the vessel or unit on which they served.

BOERS, EDWARD WILLIAM, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
BROCK, GEORGE F., Carpenter’s Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
CLAUSEY, JOHN J., Chief Gunner’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
CRONAN, WILLIE, Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
FREDERICKSEN, EMIL, Watertender, U.S. Navy, USS Benington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
GRBITCH, RADE, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
HILL, FRANK E., Ship’s Cook First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
NELSON, OSCAR FREDERICK, Machinist’s Mate First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SCHMIDT, OTTO DILLER, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SHACKLETTE, WILLIAM SIDNEY, Hospital Steward, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship as her engine room was being pumped out, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion at San Diego, California. Note her National Ensign flying at half-staff. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56383-B

Gunboat # 4) Removing the dead from the ship, following her boiler explosion at San Diego, California, 21 July 1905. Photographed and published on a stereograph card by C.H. Graves, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The inscription published on the reverse of the original card is provided on Photo #: NH 89081 (extended caption). Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1979 U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89081

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship’s starboard side, amidships, as she was beached at San Diego, California, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. A disabled six-inch gun is in the center of the image. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 56383-A

It was a cause for national mourning and the victims were laid to rest at Fort Rosecrans military cemetery just two days later as local mortuary services were overextended.

(Gunboat # 4) Funeral procession at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85697

(Gunboat # 4) Burial ceremonies, at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85698

At the cemetery, a 60-foot obelisk was erected for the crew in 1908, overlooking their resting place.

One survivor of the explosion was John Henry (Dick) Turpin who has been a part of history already.

You see, Turpin enlisted in the Navy in 1896 and was a survivor of the explosion on USS Maine in Havanna harbor in 1898. Remaining in the service despite his experiences, he became a Chief Gunner’s Mate in 1917 and served in WWI. Transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 1919, CGM Turpin retired in 1925. Qualified as a Master Diver, he was also employed as a Master Rigger at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, and, during the World War II era, made inspirational visits to Navy Training Centers and defense plants, likely one of the few bluejackets to have served in the Spanish American War and both World Wars.

All the more of an accomplishment due to military segregation at the time of his service.

Photo #: NH 89471 John Henry (Dick) Turpin, Chief Gunner’s Mate, USN (retired) (1876-1962) One of the first African-American Chief Petty Officers in the U.S. Navy. This photograph appears to have been taken during or after World War II. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89471

Damaged beyond economical repair, Bennington was decommissioned 31 October 1905 and stripped of her armament and machinery. Her guns were likely re-purposed in World War I for use in arming merchant ships.

(Gunboat # 4) Salvage party at work on the partially sunken ship, in San Diego harbor, California, after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Bennington’s National Ensign is flying at half-staff. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85696

After dry-docking to repair her hull, she was converted to an unpowered barge for use in Honolulu until being struck from the Navy list 10 September 1910 and she was sold for her value in scrap that November.

The Matson Navigation Company acquired the hulk for the ignoble use as a molasses tow barge in 1913, finally scuttling her off Oahu in 1924.

The barge Bennington at Honolulu. U.S. Navy photo Honolulu 1912 – 1924 via Navsource.

In 1944, the Navy would commission USS Bennington (CV/CVA/CVS-20), an Essex-class carrier, as the only other ship to bear the name. Decommissioning 15 January 1970, she lived a long an rusty life on red lead row after seeing service in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, being scrapped in 1994.

The old gunboat is commemorated not only in the monument in California but also on Bennington Day in Vermont (Aug 16) which celebrates the battle and the two ships named after it, by the USS Bennington veteran’s group and in a storied painting that hangs in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Room 311

Peace (the White Squadron in Boston Harbor), oil on canvas, 1893. Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives. Peace was painted by well-known American marine painter Walter Lofthouse Dean.

Peace originally hung in the hearing room for the House Committee on Naval Affairs in the Capitol throughout the WWI period and was moved to the Cannon Room in 1919.

As for Bennington‘s sisters, Concord remained afloat the longest, being decommissioned in 1910, but enduring as a training and barracks ship for the Washington Naval Militia until 1914, then as a quarantine ship for the Public Health Service in Astoria, Oregon, until 1929 when she was sent to the breakers. Two of her 6-inch guns were brought to the War Garden of Woodland Park, Seattle, WA at “Battery Dewey” where they remain on the property of the Woodland Park Zoo today, aged 130+ years.

6″/30 (15.2 cm) gun formerly on USS Concord PG-3, Photograph copyrighted by Dana Payne via Navweaps.

Yorktown, decommissioned and recommissioned no less than four times in her 33 years of service, was involved in the 1891 Baltimore Crisis in Chile, participated in the China Relief Expedition carried out in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, tested Fiske’s revolutionary telescopic gun sight, and served as a convoy escort in World War I before being broken up in Oakland in 1921.

The Navy has not carried a Bennington on its List since 1989.

Specs:

Displacement:
1,710 long tons (1,740 t)
1,910 long tons (1,940 t) (fully loaded)
Length:
244 ft 5 in (74.50 m) (oa)
230 ft. (70 m) (wl)
226 feet (69 m) (lpp)
Beam: 36 ft (11 m)
Draft: 14 ft. (4.3 m)
Propulsion:
2 × horizontally mounted triple-expansion steam engines,[1] 3,400 ihp (2,500 kW)
2 × screw propellers
4 × railroad boilers
Sail plan: three-masted schooner rig with a total sail area of 6,300 sq ft. (590 m2), removed 1902
Speed: 16 knots (30 km/h)
Endurance: 4,262 nautical miles @ 10 knots (6,376 km @ 19 km/h), 12,000 at 8
Complement: 191 officers and enlisted
Armament: (1891)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 6 pdr (2.7 kg) guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) guns
2 × .45-70 caliber Gatling guns
Armament: (1902-05)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) Rapid Fire guns
2 × .30 caliber M1895 machine guns
Armor:
deck: 0.375 inches (9.5 mm)
conning tower: 2 inches (51 mm)

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Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Fletcher C. Ransom

Posted on December 27, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Fletcher C. Ransom

Fletcher Charles Ransom was born October 23, 1870 at Alamo, Michigan, and grew up on his family’s farm near Kalamazoo. He earned a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago and later the Academy of Fine Art in New York City, settling in Gotham and becoming a successful commercial illustrator by the turn of the century.

He did sketches and paintings for Colliers, Woman’s Home Companion, Youth’s Companion, and McClures, as well as a number of calendar companies.

The Sentinel

Cream of Wheat advert

Perhaps his best known work is a series of 14 images of President Lincoln at various times in his life story on commission for the Chicago & Midland & Illinois Railroad Company, who used the imagery for decades and some of which is on display in a number of galleries today including the art collection of Congress.

Lincoln the Postmaster

Lincoln at Gettysburg

In 1898, the 27-year-old Ransom packed his satchel and headed down to Tampa to entrain with the volunteers invading Cuba as part of Colliers’ coverage during the Spanish-American war. This led to a number of pieces on that conflict.

Teddy Roosevelt: The All American

Forgotten Heroes: Captain Taylor leading the charge at San Juan

Forgotten Heroes; Captain Taylor, Troop C, 9th Calvary, Leading a Charge up the San Juan Hill in the Battle of Cuba. Importantly, this is one of the few images of the Buffalo Soldiers in action at San Juan Hill

Widely disseminated sketch of Forgotten Heroes via the Mitchell Collection of African American History.

Further martial work in the 1900s included wartime pieces and others.

1915: American and Canadians at the border- 100 years of peace

1915: American and Canadians Cavalry at the Border- 100 Years of Peace

Homecoming, 1918

Later in life, Ransom left the rat race of the city and came back to Plainwell, Michigan, where he died May 2 1943.

There are a number of online galleries as well as a few short bios of Ransom’s life while his painting of the 9th Cav in action in 1898 has taken on a life of its own.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Warship Wednesday Nov. 18, 2015: The Brooklyn Stinger of the Calico King

Posted on November 18, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday Nov. 18, 2015: The Brooklyn Stinger of the Calico King

Here we see the steam gunboat USS Scorpion (PY-3) in her gleaming white scheme in an image taken in 1899. She may not look it, but when the Detroit Photographic Co. snapped this photo, the mighty Scorpion was already a killer.

Mr. MCD Borden (not Franz Ferdinand)

Ordered by Massachusetts textile magnate Matthew Chaloner Durfee Borden, commonly referred to at the time as “the Calico King” due to his huge factories in the Fall River area, Scorpion began life in 1896 as the very well-appointed steam yacht Sovereign built by the private yard of John N. Robins in South Brooklyn, New York to a design by J. Beaver Webb.

The rakish vessel, a 212-footer at the waterline (250-foot oal) with twin masts and twin screws powered by 2500shp of triple expansion engines, she could touch 15 knots with ease and, when running light in just ten feet of seawater, surpass that when needed.

The New York Times wrote she was, “supposed to be the fastest craft of its size on the Atlantic seaboard, and all the Jersey Central Railroad commuters between Seagirt and Atlantic Highlands know all about it.”

Borden entered her into the New York Yacht Club, where he was an esteemed member and she sailed under his care with the Seawanhaka Yacht, South Side Sportsmen’s, and Jekyll Island Clubs as well.

When war with Spain came, Borden did the patriotic thing and placed his yacht at the Navy’s service, who promptly hauled her to the New York Navy Yard, painted her haze gray, added a quartet of 5″/40 guns located on her sides, fore and aft of the superstructure– the heaviest battery fitted to any yacht converted for service during that conflict, and commissioned her four days later as USS Scorpion on 11 April 1898.

While only a yacht, her powerful 5″ guns, typically reserved for cruisers, made her a brawler able to dish out some heavy blows and the Navy Department had just the man to conn her. You see Scorpion’s skipper was German-born LCDR Adolph Marix (USNA Class of 1868) and the former executive officer of the battleship USS Maine whose explosion in Havana four months earlier had sparked the war.

By May she was off the coast of Cuba and spent an eventful ten weeks capturing lighters, assisting with landings, enforcing blockades and patrolling the shallows and high seas alike with the Flying Squadron.

On July 18, she was part of a 7 ship attack force, including two gunboats of shallow draft—Wilmington and Helena; two armed tugs—Osceola and Wampatuck; and two converted yachts—Hist and Hornet that sailed into the heavily fortified Spanish base at Manzanillo and, with using her big 5-inchers to good effect, kept the Spanish coastal batteries tied down while the smaller ships destroyed five Spanish gunboats, three blockade runners and one pontoon in less than four hours with little damage to themselves.

When the war ended, Scorpion was recalled to New York, painted white and refitted with a smaller armament while Marix left on his way to become a Vice Admiral. He wasn’t the only one. Over the course of her 31 years in the Navy, she had a staggering 21 skippers to include a Medal of Honor winner and no less than five who went on to become admirals.

In October 1900. Description: Catalog #: NH 2742 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Another Detroit Publishing Co. shot, this one from 1903, with her laundry hanging. LOC

View of officers and men circa 1904. Note the six-pounder Description: Catalog #: NH 83748

Photograph of ship, with diary entry and roster of officers. Lieutenant Commander Richard G. Davenport was aboard as passenger. Description: Catalog #: NH 43803

As you may have guessed, Borden never got the Scorpion back and the Navy paid good money for her. She spent six years with the North Atlantic Squadron as a dispatch ship and flag waver small enough to venture into backwater ports around the Caribbean and protect U.S. interests.

Speaking of which, by 1908 she was on her way to Europe. Keeping the svelte gunboat with her 60-70 man peacetime crew in semi-permanent anchor in the Bosporus near the Dolma Bagtchi Palace, she became the station ship in Constantinople. There she remained, leaving to take the occasional Black Sea or Med cruise, for a decade.

Several times she took part in international actions, helping to assist earthquake victims in Messina, Italy; landing armed sailors to guard the U.S. Legation in Constantinople during riots in the city; and venturing into the disputed Balkan ports during the tumultuous events that led up to the Great War.

USS Scorpion (PY-3) in Constantinople, circa 1912 NHHC UA 04.01 Margaret Duggan Collection

Speaking of which, when the U.S. entered WWI on the side of the Allies, the humble Scorpion faced the might of the German-cum-Ottoman battlecruiser Goeben and, a suddenly a stranger in a strange land, was peacefully interned on 11 April 1917 without a fight, her breechblocks removed and a guard posted.

View taken at Constantinople, Turkey, in 1919 of ship’s officers. Front row (L-R): Lieutenant Samuel R. Deets, USN; Commander Richard P. McCullough, USS; Lieutenant Leonard Doughty, USN. Back row: Lieutenant George P. Shields (MC), USN; Paymaster Clarence Jackson, USN; Lieutenant William O. Baldwin, USN; Lieutenant Gale A. Poindexter, USN. Description: Courtesy of LCDR Leonard Doughty, 1929 Catalog #: NH 50276

When the war ended, she rearmed and remained as the flag of the U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey, keeping her place in now-Istanbul until 1920 when the influx of White Russian exiles and tensions with Greece forced her relocation to Phaleron Bay, Greece, where she remained on station until recalled back to the states 16 June 1927.

In the early 1920s, the Black Sea was an American lake, as the Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Ottoman fleets had largely ceased to exist while the British and French fleets, facing near bankruptcy and mutinous crews, respectively, were keen to send only a few vessels to Constantinople and Odesa and withdraw them as soon as possible. At its height, the U.S. fleet in Constantinople included over 26 warships including the battleships Arizona and Utah, a dozen destroyers, heavy and light cruisers, floating repair shops, and transport ships.

Anchored off the Dolma Bagtche Palace, Constantinople, probably during the early 1920s. Description: Original negative, given by Mr. Franklin Moran in 1967.Catalog #: NH 65006 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command.

1925

Decommissioned, Scorpion sat on red lead row for a couple years, a Spanish-American War vet in a fleet of 1920s modern marvels.

On 25 June 1929, she was sold for her value in scrap. Very few artifacts remain from her other than some postal covers.

Her name has gone on to become something of an albatross for the submarine force. USS Scorpion (SS-278), a Gato-class submarine, was lost in 1944 to a mine in the Yellow Sea while USS Scorpion (SSN-589), a Skipjack-class submarine, was lost in an accident in 1968. In each case there were no known survivors and her name has been absent from the Naval List for 47 years.

As for Borden, he passed away in 1912 at age 69 while his beloved Sovereign/Scorpion was in Europe. His leviathan American Printing Company outlived them all, but by 1934 was shuttered because of the Great Depression.

Specs:

Displacement: 775 long tons (787 t)
Length: 212 ft. 10 in (64.87 m)
Beam: 28 ft. 1 in (8.56 m)
Draft: 11 ft. (3.4 m)
Installed power: 2 × WA Fletcher Co, Hoboken NJ triple expansion steam engines; 2500 IHP total; powered by twin Babcock and Wilcox 225# boilers. (as built) later Four Yarrow boilers, two 1,400ihp vertical inverted triple expansion steam engines, two shafts.
Propulsion: Twin screw
Speed: 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Complement: 35 (civilian service) 90 (1898) 60 (1911)
Armament:
(1898) – Four 5″/40 guns
(1905) – Six 6-pounder (57mm) guns and four 6mm Colt machine guns
(1911) – Four 6 pounders in rapid fire mounts

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Lost 110 year old Torpedo found off CA Coast

Posted on May 28, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

A pair of trained military marine mammals (that’s dolphin to you buddy) located a piece of lost naval ordnance off the coast of California near the US Navy Special Warfare base at Corondano. Now the concept of the dolphin thing isn’t that hard to grasp, the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program has been using them to find lost items at sea for going on sixty years. The thing is, it wound up being a Howell Torpedo from the 1890s. Which is pretty dope.

What the heck is a Howell Torpedo ?

Until this week this was the only survivor of Howell’s 50 Mk1 Locomotive torpedoes.

In 1883, when Congress appropriated funding to purchase automobile or self-propelled torpedoes, the Navy issued a public solicitation for concepts and to conduct a competitive evaluation. The specification required each competitor to build an experimental model at his own expense and demonstrate it to the Navy Torpedo Board for evaluation.

The Navy received three proposals. The American Torpedo Company and Asa Weeks both proposed surface-running, rocket-powered torpedoes. LCDR John Howell, USN, proposed an ingeniously designed flywheel-powered brass torpedo. Howell, a career navy man (USNA class of 1858), had encountered torpedoes first hand (actually submerged sea mines) at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 5 August 1864. His ship, the steam sloop USS Ossipee, with USS Itasca alongside, past the forts and entered Mobile Bay with Farragut and participated in the ensuing naval battle, playing a large role in the struggle with Tennessee which finally forced the well fought, heavy southern ironclad ram to surrender. During the battle Farragut gave his famous command of ‘Damned the Torpedoes, full speed ahead’ after the mighty ironclad monitor USS Tecumseh was sunk and Union sailors noticed mines floating all about the harbor.

Howell’s design, a 132-pound flywheel, spun up to 10,000 rpm by a steam turbine, provided the stored energy to move the torpedo through the water. This means of propulsion outperformed all others for the next thirty years. The flywheel also acted as a gyroscope, keeping the torpedo on its lateral course.

The torpedo was 11 feet long, 14 inches in diameter, and weighed about 500 lbs. It could be launched from either above water or submerged torpedo tubes. The Howell attained a speed of 26 knots for 400 yards with great accuracy. It could be set to maintain a desired depth and explode upon contact with its target. Now when you consider that in the 1880s, most ships were still sailing powered, and the steamers that were out there were coal-fired boiler driven vessels that would be doing good to break 16-knots, the Howell was lightning fast.

In 1886 Lieutenant Commander Barber of the Bureau of Ordnance testified before the Senate Committee on Ordnance and Warships:

“The Howell torpedo is the most valuable American locomotive torpedo that has yet been invented for naval use…Our government should take the necessary action to perfect it…Its principal advantages over the Whitehead are directive force, its size and its cost. Its remarkable power for maintaining the direction in which it is pointed, when acted upon by a deflecting force, makes it possible to launch it with accuracy from the broadside of a vessel in rapid motion, which in my opinion is the most practical method of using a torpedo at sea; no other torpedo presents the advantages in this respect that are possessed by the Howell…”

In 1888 the Navy selected the Howell torpedo as the first automobile torpedo for issue to the fleet. CDR Howell sold his design to the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company which in turn manufactured the 50 of the new Mark 1 Howell torpedo for the Navy at its plant in Provedence RI.

The Torpedo Boat USS Cushing carried the first Howell torpedoes…these ships led to Torpedo Boat Destroyers, which today are simply called Destroyers….

By 1892, U.S. Navy battleships mounted deck-mounted torpedo tubes to fire the Mark 1 Howell. When the Navy ordered its first operational torpedo boats (the Cushing Class), the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, had the task of arming these new craft and training their crews to fire the Howell torpedo. By the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. Navy included operational seagoing torpedo boats that were the forerunners of modern fleet destroyers. During this war a division of the North Atlantic Squadron was commanded by then-Rear Admiral John Adams Howell.

With the relocation of the torpedo tubes to below the waterline, the Navy replaced the Howell torpedo with the Whitehead Torpedo Mark 1, 2, and 3 which did not require a flywheel. The Navy used the Howell for about 10 years and withdrew it about 1900.

This places the torpedo found as being expended at least 113 years ago, possibly older.

Not bad looking for spending more than a century in saltwater

You can see the distinctive tail shape of the all-brass bodied torp. Note the green patina.

It is only the second known Howell in existence today, the other one being an exceptionally well-preserved one on display at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

Howell died in 1918 at age 78 as a retired Rear Admiral. At the time of his death, World War One was raging and the most common way to sink a ship was with a self-propelled torpedo, which had to bring the Civil War veteran a moment of ” I told you so.'”

Today the “Howell Basin”, in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Cape Cod, and the “Howell Hook”, a submerged reef off the coast of southern Florida, are named in his honor, as the career officer had been involved in lots of survey work whenever he wasn’t fighting Rebels, Spaniards, or making underwater ordnance. All in all, he was pretty forward-looking.

…But I doubt he would have ever dreamed dolphins would recover one of his ‘damned torpedoes.’

Warship Weds Aug 29

Posted on August 29, 2012 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Aug 30

Here we have the Giuseppe Garibaldi-class armored cruiser of the Spanish Navy, Cristóbal Colón.

The Cristóbal Colón was built in Italy in 1895-97 and acquired by the Spanish Government with a war looming in the New World over Cuba. Designed with a large main 10-inch gun the ship was never armed with such as went to war with a staggered armament of 8, 6, and 3-inch weapons along with early machine guns and torpedo tubes.

She was part of Admiral Cervera’s squadron in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba when an American squadron arrived on 27 May 1898 and began a blockade which would drag on for 37 days. Finally, the squadron charged out to tried to break the blockade.

One by one her squadron mates were sent to the bottom by massed firepower of the US Fleet. Cristóbal Colón steamed on alone, the last survivor of Cervera’s squadron. For a time, it seemed that she might get away. Although her machinery was not able to get her up to her top speed after months of hard steaming, she was rated as the fastest ship of either side in the battle, was better armored and armed than her erstwhile squadron mates, and thus far had taken only two 5-inch (127 mm) or 6-inch (152 mm) hits. She was making 15 knots (28 km/h), and the fastest and closest U.S. ship, Brooklyn, was now six miles (10 km) behind her. Vixen was close behind Brooklyn. Armored cruiser USS New York, making 20 knots (37 km/h), was closing, and, farther behind, battleships Texas and Oregon also were making their best speed in pursuit.

By Manuel García García. Note the empty turret

After another hour, Cristóbal Colón had run through all of her best coal, switched to an inferior grade, and began to lose speed. At 1220, Oregon fired a 13-inch (330-mm) round which landed just astern of Cristóbal Colón, and soon more 13-inch (330 mm) rounds, as well as 8-inch (203-mm) shells from Brooklyn and New York, were landing around the Spanish ship. In contrast, she had only one 6-inch (152-mm) gun that would bear on her pursuers.

All told, the Spanish cruiser was hit six times.When the range dropped to 2,000 yards (1,830 m), the commanding officer of Cristóbal Colón, Captain Jose de Paredes, decided that after a 50 mile run, the chase was over; in order to save the lives of her crew, he beached her at the mouth of the Tarquino River, 75 miles (65 nmi; 121 km) west of Santiago, at 1315 hours. It was the end of the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

Some of her sailors made it ashore, although they had to beware of Cuban insurgents, who began to shoot the survivors of the wrecked Spanish ships. Others were rescued by American sailors who came alongside the wreck in small boats to take off survivors.

That night, a U.S. Navy salvage team from repair ship USS Vulcan decided that Cristóbal Colón was worth salvaging and towed her off the rocks. But she lacked watertight integrity and quickly capsized and sank, a total loss. Today she is a popular dive destination off the Cuban coast, especially with Spanish tourists.

Displacement:    7,972 long tons (8,100 t) full load
Length:    366 ft 8 in (111.76 m)
Beam:    59 ft 10 1⁄2 in (18.250 m)
Draft:    23 ft 3 1⁄2 in (7.099 m) maximum
Installed power:    13,655–14,713 ihp (10.183–10.971 MW)
Propulsion:    Vertical triple expansion, 24 boilers
Speed:    19.3–20.02 knots (35.7–37.08 km/h)
Endurance:    4,400 nmi at 10 knots
(8,100 km at 19 km/h)
Complement:    510 to 559 officers and enlisted
Armament:    1 × 10 inch/45-caliber (254 mm) gun (never installed)
2 × 8 inch/45-caliber (203 mm) guns
14 × 6 inch/40 caliber (152 mm)
10 × 3 inch (76.2 mm)/40-caliber
6 × 47 mm guns
2 Maxim machine guns,br />4 × 17.7 inch (450 mm)torpedo tubes.
Armor:    Belt: 4.8 in (122 mm);
Conning tower 4.8 in (122 mmm)
Deck 1.5 in (38 mm)
Turrets 4.8 in (122 mm)
Deck gunshields 2 in (51 mm)
Notes:    1,050 long tons (1,070 t) coal (normal)

Warship Wednesday March 7th

Posted on March 7, 2012 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1880s-1930s and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, March 7

Here we have the USS Oregon BB-3

USS Oregon (BB-3) was a pre-Dreadnought Indiana-class battleship of the United States Navy. Her construction was authorized on 30 June 1890,

Oregon with her warpaint on in 1898. She steamed 14,000 miles in 66 days, over 212 miles per day, to reach Cuba from the West Coast

In 1898 she steamed 14,000 miles in 66 days, a remarkable feat of seamanship for the iron hulled steam navy. She took part in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, where she and the cruiser Brooklyn were the only ships fast enough to chase down the Spanish cruiser Cristóbal Colón, forcing its surrender. Around this time she received the nickname “Bulldog of the Navy”. She was still afloat in WWI and served as an escort for US troops to Siberia in 1918. The next year she was decommed for the last time and turned into a floating museum operated by the state of Oregon from 1925-41, one of the first of its kind in the country.

When WWII started the city donated her back to the navy and she was used as an ammunition barge during the battle of Guam, finally being broken up in 1956…in Japan.

Displacement:    10,288 long tons (10,453 t; 11,523 ST)
Length:    351 ft 2 in (107.04 m)
Beam:    69 ft 3 in (21.11 m)
Draft:    27 ft (8.2 m)
Propulsion:

Two vertical inverted triple expansion reciprocating steam engines[2]
4 double ended Scotch boilers
9,000 ihp (6.7 MW) (design)[3]
11,111 ihp (8.285 MW) (trial)

Speed:

15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) (design)[3]
16.8 kn (31.1 km/h; 19.3 mph) (trial)

Range: 5,600 nmi (10,400 km; 6,400 mi)[a][4]
Complement: 473 officers and men[5]
Armament:

4 × 13″/35 gun (2×2)
8 × 8″/35 gun (4×2)
4 × 6″/40 gun removed 1908
12 × 3″/50 gun added 1910
20 × 6-pounders
6 × 1 pounder guns
5 × Whitehead torpedo tubes[b]

Armor: Harveyized steel

Belt: 18–8 in (460–200 mm)
13″ turrets: 15 in (380 mm)
Hull: 6.25 in (159 mm)

Conventional nickel-steel

Tower: 10 in (250 mm)
8″ turrets: 6 in (150 mm)
Deck: 4.5 in (110 mm)

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

Tag Archives: Spanish american war

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