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Warship Wednesday, August 23, 2017: Wilhelmina’s Tromp card

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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, August 23, 2017: Wilhelmina’s Tromp card

Here we see the Tromp-class light cruiser Hr. Ms. Tromp (D-28) of the Koninklijke Marine as she appeared in late 1941/early 1942 in the Dutch East Indies complete with her distinctive splinter camo. The leader of a class of four fast but small cruisers intended as “flotilla leaders” for a group of destroyers, she was a survivor and the largest Dutch warship to survive the hell of that lowland country’s combat in the Pacific.

At just 3,400-tons and 432-feet in length, the Tromp-class ships were about the size of big destroyers of their day (or frigates today), but they made up for it with an armament of a half-dozen 5.9-inch Mk 11 Bofors/Wilton-Fijenoord guns which were firmly in the neighborhood that light cruisers lived.

A suite of six torpedo tubes ensured they could perforate larger targets while geared steam turbines capable of pushing the ship at up to 35-knots gave it the option of a clean getaway from battleships. A Fokker C 11W floatplane gave long eyes while some 450-tons of armor plate (13 percent of her displacement) coupled with a dusting of AAA guns offered peace of mind against attack from low/slow aircraft and small vessels.

Floating Reconnaissance Focker C. 11 W from Tromp Cruiser, 1938

Laid down in 1936 at N.V. Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, Amsterdam, the hero of our tale was named after noted Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp, a 17th-century naval hero whose name was carried by several of Holland’s warships going back to 1809.

Billed by the Dutch as “flotilla leaders” they were meant to replace the elderly coast defense ships Hertog Hendrik and Jacob van Heemskerck and only reclassified as light cruisers in 1938 after funding was secured.

HNLMS Tromp lead ship of the Tromp-class light cruisers at high speed on trials, where she generated over 35 knots over the course. Via Postales Navales, colorized by Diego Mar

HNLMS Tromp during her first day of trials on the North Sea, 28 March 1938. Collection J. Klootwijk via NetherlandNavy.NL

Tromp would be the only one of her class completed to her intended design, commissioning 18 August 1938. Her sister Jacob van Heemskerck was still on the ways when the Germans invaded in 1940 and was later completed to a much different design while two other planned vessels were never funded.

TROMP Starboard side, from off the starboard bow circa 1938. Catalog #: NH 80909

TROMP view taken circa 1939. Catalog #: NH 80910

Following several naval reviews and waving the flag in Europe on the edge of meltdown, she sailed for the important colony of the Dutch East Indies to help beef up the KM’s strength in a region where Japan was eager to obtain Java and Sumatra’s natural resources by force if needed.

TROMP Anchored at Port Moresby, New Guinea, 4 March 1941. #: NH 80908

Netherlands east indies. 1941-03-13. Aerial starboard bow view of Dutch flotilla cruiser Tromp, at anchor in calm water with one of her boats and native craft alongside. she is painted in her pre-war scheme of light grey. note the searchlight position on the foremast. She carries a Fokker c.14w floatplane amidships which is handled by the derricks on the two Sampson posts. Her prominent rangefinder is trained to port and a turret is trained over the starboard bow. on the deckhouse, aft are twin Bofors 40 mm aa guns on triaxially stabilized hazemeyer mountings which were very advanced for the period. (AWM Naval historical collection).

When Holland fell in May 1940, the Dutch government in exile under Queen Wilhelmina maintained control of the East Indies from London and Tromp spent the first two years of WWII with her eyes peeled for German raiders and U-boats in the Pacific and put on her war paint.

Then the Japanese went hot in December 1941, striking at the Dutch, British, and Americans simultaneously. Soon Tromp, arguably one of the most capable ships at Dutch Rear Adm. Karel Doorman’s disposal, was engaged in the thick of it.

Netherlands east indies. C.1941-02. Starboard side view of the Dutch flotilla cruiser Tromp before the Badung Strait action in which she was seriously damaged. She wears a splinter-type camouflage scheme, apparently of two shades of grey, common to Dutch ships involved in the defense of the Netherlands East Indies. Note the searchlight position on the foremast. Her floatplane has been landed as has her port Sampson post. Note the prominent rangefinder above the bridge. On the deckhouse, aft are twin Bofors 40 mm aa guns on triaxially stabilized hazemeyer mountings which were very advanced for the period. (AWM naval historical collection).

During the three-day running action that was the Battle of Badung Strait, Tromp and the destroyers USS John D. Edwards, Parrott, Pillsbury, and Stewart clashed with the Japanese destroyers Asashio and Oshio in a sharp night action in the pre-dawn hours of 18 February 1942.

Dutch cruiser HNLMS Tromp The Battle of Badung Strait Painting by Keinichi Nakamura, 1943.

Tromp landed hits on both enemy ships but was also plastered by 5-inch shells from the Japanese tin cans and forced to retire.

The flotilla leader “Tromp” of the Royal Netherlands Navy, in dry dock at Cockatoo Island, for repairs after being damaged in action in the Java Sea. By Dennis Adams via AWM

Emergency repairs in Australia saved Tromp from the crushing Battle of the Java Sea at the end of February that saw the Dutch lose the cruisers Java and De Ruyter sunk and Doorman killed, effectively ending the defense of the East Indies.

After surviving the crucible, Tromp became known to her crew as “the lucky ship” which, when you realize what the Dutch went through in the Pacific, was apt.

The Dutch Navy lost 57 ships during WWII, and amazingly half of those were in the East Indies in the scant four-month period between 15 December 1941- 15 March 1942. These included the two aforementioned cruisers, eight submarines, six destroyers, and 15 smaller escorts (minelayers, gunboats, minesweepers). Even the old coast defense ship, De Zeven Provinciën was sunk at her moorings in Surabaya harbor. In contrast, the country only lost 16 ships in May 1940 when metropolitan Holland fell to the Germans.

Based out of Newcastle and later Fremantle, Australia, Tromp was augmented by several Bofors 40mm and Oerlikon 20mm mounts, given a series of surface and air warning radars, and served as a convoy escort and patrol vessel in and around Australian waters, picking up the U.S. Measure 22 camo in her work with the 7th Fleet.

Sydney, NSW. C.1943. Starboard side view of the Dutch flotilla cruiser Tromp. The splinter-type camouflage scheme worn earlier in the war has been replaced by the American measure 22 scheme, the colors probably consisting of navy blue below haze grey. Note the searchlight position on the foremast above which an American SC radar has replaced that carried earlier. Type 271 surface search radar is mounted before the mast. Amidships, above her torpedo tubes, twin AA machine guns, and a small rangefinder have been mounted in the space once occupied by her floatplane. The Sampson posts once fitted at the break of the forecastle have been replaced by 4-inch aa guns. Note the prominent rangefinder above the bridge. On the deckhouse, aft are twin Bofors 40 mm aa guns on triaxially stabilized hazemeyer mountings which were very advanced for the period. Single 20 mm Oerlikon aa guns are sited on the crowns of b and y turrets and abaft the bridge. (naval historical collection).

She was transferred to the control of the British Eastern Fleet in January 1944. Around this time, she swapped out her aging Dutch V53 torpedoes for British Mark 9s along with new mounts.

Tromp conducting anti-aircraft defense exercises with the assistance of a RAAF Consolidated Catalina flying boat off the West Australian coast via AWM.

When the Allies began pushing back into the East Indies, Tromp was there, plastering Surabaya and supporting the amphibious landing at Balikpapan in Borneo. In September 1945, as part of the end game in the Pacific, she landed Dutch Marines in Batavia to disarm the Japanese garrison and reoccupy the former colonial capital.

Tromp participated in magic carpet duty after the end of hostilities and returned to Holland for the first time since 1939, arriving at Amsterdam in May 1946, carrying 150 Dutch POWs liberated from Japanese camps.

HNLMS Tromp docked in 1946

Tromp was one of just two cruisers left in the Dutch Navy at the end of the war (the other being her sister), but she had seen hard service and carried an amalgam of Swedish, American, and British weapons and electronics, many of which were no longer supported.

Exercise using shell casings on board the Dutch light cruiser TROMP.

Following a two-year overhaul that saw much of her armament removed, she served as an accommodation and training ship with a NATO pennant number.

VARIOUS SHIPS AT ANCHOR IN MOUNT’S BAY, ENGLAND. 1 JULY 1949. (A 31535) The Dutch cruiser TROMP at anchor in Mount’s Bay. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205016274

The highlight of her post-war service was a few midshipmen cruises and attending the Spithead fleet review in 1953.

Tromp was decommissioned on 1 December 1955 and, after more than a decade in reserve status, was sold to be scrapped in Spain in 1969. Her half-sister, Jacob van Heemskerk, shared a similar fate and was scrapped in 1970.

Since then, her name has been reissued to the class leader of a group of guided-missile frigates (HNLMS Tromp F801) and in a De Zeven Provinciën-class frigate commissioned in 2003.

For more on Tromp‘s history, please visit NetherlandsNavy.NL, which has it covered in depth.

Specs:

Hr Tromp (Cruiser) – Netherlands (1938) via blueprints.com

Displacement: 3,350 long tons (3,404 t) standard
Length: 432 ft. 11 in
Beam: 40 ft. 9 in
Draught: 14 ft. 2 in
Propulsion:
2 Parsons/N.V. Werkspoor geared steam turbines
4 Yarrow boilers
2 shafts
56,000 shp (41,759 kW)
860 tons of fuel oil
Speed: 32.5 knots designed, 35 on trials
Complement:
290 as commissioned, 380 in WWII
Armor: 15mm belt, up to 30mm on bulkheads
Armament:
(1938)
6 × 150 mm Bofors Mk 11 (5.9 in) guns (3×2)
4 × 40 mm Bofors (2×2)
4 × .50 cal in two twin mounts
6 × 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes (2×3), 12xV53 torpedoes
(1944)
6 × 150 mm Bofors (5.9 in) guns (3×2)
4 × 75 mm U.S. AAA
8 × 40 mm Bofors (4×2)
8 × 20 mm singles
6 × 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes (2×3), 12xMk9 torpedoes
Aircraft carried: 1 × Fokker C.XIW floatplane

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, August 16, 2017: Possibly the most Devil Dog carrier, ever

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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, August 16, 2017: Possibly the most Devil Dog carrier, ever

Here we see the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier, USS Sicily (CVE-118), as she enters San Diego Bay on her return from her first deployment to the Korean War zone, 5 February 1951. Note the Marine Corps F4U Corsairs, OY-2 Sentinel spotter planes and the early Sikorsky HO3S-1 helicopter on deck. The aircraft to the rear are Grumman AF-2W Guardians, an early ASW plane. The baby flattop had already marked her place in Marine Corps history when this image was taken.

Of the 130 U.S./RN escort carriers– merchant ships hulls given a hangar, magazine, and flight deck– built during WWII, the late-war Commencement Bay-class was by far the Cadillac of the design slope. Using lessons learned from the earlier Long Island, Avenger, Sangamon, Bogue and Casablanca-class ships. Like the Sangamon-class, they were based on Maritime Commission T3 class tanker hulls (which they shared with the roomy replenishment oilers of the Chiwawa, Cimarron, and Ashtabula-classes), from the keel-up, these were made into flattops.

Pushing some 25,000-tons at full load, they could make 19-knots which was faster than a lot of submarines looking to plug them. A decent suite of about 60 AAA guns spread across 5-inch, 40mm and 20mm fittings could put as much flying lead in the air as a light cruiser of the day when enemy aircraft came calling. Finally, they could carry a 30-40 aircraft airwing of single-engine fighter bombers and torpedo planes ready for a fight or about twice that many planes if being used as a delivery ship.

Sound good, right? Of course, and had the war ran into 1946-47, the 33 planned vessels of the Commencement Bay-class would have no doubt fought kamikazes, midget subs and suicide boats tooth and nail just off the coast of the Japanese Home Islands.

However, the war ended in Sept. 1945 with only nine of the class barely in commission– most of those still on shake down cruises. Just two, Block Island and Gilbert Islands, saw significant combat, at Okinawa and Balikpapan, winning two and three battle stars, respectively. Kula Gulf and Cape Gloucester picked up a single battle star.

With the war over, some of the class, such as USS Rabaul and USS Tinian, though complete were never commissioned and simply laid up in mothballs, never being brought to life. Four other ships were cancelled before launching just after the bomb on Nagasaki was dropped. In all, just 19 of the planned 33 were commissioned.

The hero of our tale, the only ship in the U.S. Navy ever named after the island of Sicily, or more correctly the 1943 military campaign for that island, was laid down at Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Tacoma, Washington, 23 October 1944 and commissioned 27 February 1946. Ironically, seven earlier sisters were decommissioned the same year.

Arriving on the East Coast in July 1946 after shakedown and outfitting Sicily served in the Atlantic Fleet in a number of support and ASW roles, experimenting new types and tactics for the next three years while stationed at Norfolk. By 1950, she was one of the few escort carriers still in active service and embarked big AF-2W (TB3F-1S) Guardians (at 22,000-lbs takeoff weight, the largest single-engine piston-powered carrier aircraft, and likely the largest aircraft period, operated from escort carriers), aboard.

USS SICILY (CVE-118) at New York City, September 1947. Courtesy of The Marine Museum, Newport News, Va. Ted Stone Collection. Catalog #: NH 66791

Navy blimp K-125 operations aboard USS Sicily (CVE 118) during the recent maneuvers in the Caribbean. As the blimp descends, the flight deck crewmen take hold of the handling lines and bring her to rest on the deck of the ship, released April 6, 1949. U.S. Navy Photograph, 80-G-707078, now in the collections of the National Archives.

On 3 April 1950, Sicily was reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, arriving at San Diego later that month. While preparing for summer exercises, the North Koreans crossed over into South Korea and the balloon went up.

Gregory “Pappy” Boyington’s famous Black Sheep Squadron, VMF-214, then under Major Robert P. Keller, were given orders to embark for Korea on Sicily as soon as possible. While the Corsairs weren’t front-line fighters in the burgeoning jet age, they could still perform CAS, interdiction, and armed reconnaissance missions and look good doing it.

The ship was commanded by noted WWII aviator, Capt. John S. Thach (USNA 1927), inventor of the “Thach Weave”, a tactic that enabled the generally mediocre U.S. fighters of 1942 to hold their own against the Japanese Zero.

Captain John S. Thach and Lieutenant J.V. Hames, USMC, on board USS Sicily (CVE 118) during Inchon Invasion. Lieutenant Hanes is a member of VMF-214) and is from Santa Monica, California. 80-G-420280

With a line up like Thach and the Black Sheep, you know what happened next.

On 3 August 1950, a group of 8 F4U-4B Corsairs from VMF-214 became the first Marine squadron to see action in Korea, launching from Sicily and executing a raid against DPRK positions near Inchon. At the time, the little jeep carrier was flagship of Carrier Division (CarDiv) 15.

U.S. Marine Corps F4U-4B Corsair fighter-bomber Receives final checks to its armament of bombs and 5-inch rockets, just prior to being catapulted from USS Sicily (CVE-118) for a strike on enemy forces in Korea. The original photograph is dated 16 November 1950, but was probably taken in August-October 1950. Note battered paint on this aircraft. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-419929

The withdrawal of the marines from the Chosin Reservoir to Hungnam was covered by Corsairs from Sicily. HVAR rockets and napalm make good party favors.

Speaking of that napalm smell…

One of the Black Sheep pilots at the time was 1Lt. Donald “The Great Santini” Conroy, a storied figure who entered the Marines as an enlisted man in WWII and later retired as a full colonel in 1974 after pushing A-4s in Vietnam. More on Conroy later.

National Archives footage of VMF-214 on board Sicily, United States Naval Photographic Center film #246. (no sound)

The jeep carrier also supported SAR ops via helicopters and recon/spotting missions with OY-2s.

USS Sicily (CVE-118) launches a U.S. Marine Corps OY-2 Sentinel spotter plane during operations in the Yellow Sea, off the west coast of Korea, 22 September 1950. Sicily was then supporting the campaign to recapture Seoul. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-420239

The Black Sheep eventually left and Sicily picked up the Death Rattlers of VMF-323 for her second tour with the 7th Fleet, from 13 May to 12 October 1951.

F4U-4 Corsair aircraft of VMF-323 lined up on the flight deck of USS Sicily (CVE-118) in waters off MCAS Sesebo, Japan. 1951. Note the rattlesnakes painted on some aircraft, due to the squadron’s nickname “Death Rattlers”.

F4U-4 Corsair aircraft of VMF-323 armed with bombs, napalm tanks and HVAR rockets are launched for a mission from the flight deck of the escort carrier USS Sicily (CVE-118) off Korea, in 1951.

On her third tour in Korea, 8 May to 4 December 1952, she had a few new tricks up her sleeve.

In late August 1952, Sicily took aboard the Sikorsky HRS-1 helicopters of Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron 161 (HMR-161) and tested the first vertical envelopment (moving combat-ready Marines from ship to shore via whirlybird) combined with an amphibious assault in what was termed Operation “Marlex-5” off the coast of Inchon. While the tactic had been trialed in California earlier that year with HMR-162, the op with Sicily was the first time it was used overseas, much less in a combat zone.

USS Sicily (CVE-118) launches U.S. Marine Corps HRS-1 helicopters during Operation Marlex-5 off the west coast of Korea in the Inchon area. Photo is dated 1 September 1952. Nearest HRS-1 is Bureau # 127798. It wears the markings of squadron HMR-161. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-477573

U.S. Marine Sikorsky HRS-2 helicopters lined-up ready on the flight deck of the escort carrier USS Sicily (CVE-118). Note U.S. Marines on the Sicily’s elevator. U.S. Navy photo. Navsource NS0311818

On 4 September 1952, the Checkerboards of Marine Fighter Squadron 312 (VMF-312) moved from airfields ashore to Sicily’s decks and over the next several days their Corsairs had a number of run-ins with North Korean MiGs. The hardy Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, which could do Mach 0.87 at sea level and had a pair of 23mm cannon supplemented by a big 37mm mount, was a brawler.

Well about that…

On 10 September, Marine Capt. Jesse Folmar in his F4U-B (BuNo 62927) destroyed a North Korean MiG-15 in aerial combat over the west coast of Korea while flying with his wingman. Outnumbered 4:1 the two Marine Corsairs were outnumbered by eight MiGs.

From VMF-312’s unit history:

Folmar and Walter E. Daniels were attacked by eight MIG-1 5s which made repeated firing runs on the slower F4Us as they tried to get out of the area. After one of the MIGs completed a run on the Corsairs, instead of breaking off to the side, the jet pulled up directly in front of Captain Folmar’s guns. A quick burst of the 20mm cannon soon had the MIG ablaze and heading for the ground. The kill marked the first time an American had downed a jet fighter with a propeller-driven aircraft. Another MIG retaliated with a burst of 37mm fire which forced Captain Folmar to bail out, but he was rescued and returned to the ship. Captain Daniels’ plane was not hit and safely landed on board the carrier.

It was quite a feat.

While USAAF, Soviet and British piston-engine fighters chalked up something like 150~ German Komets and Me262 kills in the latter stages of WWII, the MiG was a much more formidable adversary. There were few comparable events.

The Brits, in their only air-to-air victory in Korea, chalked up a similar action to Folmar’s when on 9 August 1952, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Lt. “Hoagy” Carmichael of 802 Squadron downed a Nork MiG 15 while flying a Sea Fury of the carrier HMS Ocean, while in Vietnam Navy A-1 Skyraiders accounted for several MiG-17s.

Sicily’s Guardians, of Navy Reserve Anti-Submarine Squadron VS-931, also gave unsung service, conducting maritime patrol and keeping an eye out for submarines. Two of the big sub hunters, with their four-man crews, were lost while on Sicily‘s third war cruise– BuNo 124843 and 126830– though their crews were saved.

The U.S. Navy escort carrier USS Sicily (CVE-118) underway, with Grumman AF-2S and AF-2W Guardians of SV-931, circa in October 1952, en route to Hawaii. Photo by LtJG Philip Nelson, USN via Wiki

Sicily finished the war in the United Nations Escort and Blockading Force, deploying to the Far East from 14 July 1953 to 25 February 1954.

USS Sicily (CVE-118) photographed at the Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, circa February 1954, with USS Yorktown (CVA-10) at right and eleven LCM landing craft in the foreground. Grumman AF Guardian anti-submarine aircraft are parked on Sicily’s flight deck. Douglas AD Skyraider attack planes are parked aft on Yorktown’s flight deck. Catalog #: NH 97318

USS Sicily (CVE-118) underway with F4U aircraft parked aft, April 1954. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97317

And just like that, with a tad over eight years of service, five Korean War battle stars, and legends under her belt, Sicily was decommissioned 4 Oct 1954. Though retained in mothballs until 1960, the days of the short-deck carrier were over for the jet powered Navy and newer purpose-built Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships, with about half the crew of the Sicily and her sisters, were being commissioned to carry Marine helicopters into battle. Like the Commencement Bay-class, the Iwo’s were named after battles.

On 31 October 1960, Sicily was sold to the Nicolai Joffe Corporation for scrap.

Of the rest of the Commencement Bay-class, most saw a mixed bag of post-WWII service as Helicopter Carriers (CVHE) or Cargo Ship and Aircraft Ferries (AKV). Most were sold for scrap by the early 1970s with the last of the class, Gilbert Islands, converted to a communication relay ship, AGMR-1, enduring on active service until 1969 and going to the breakers in 1979. Their more than 30 “sisters below the waist” the other T3 tankers were used by the Navy through the Cold War with the last of the breed, USS Mispillion (AO-105), headed to the breakers in 2011.

As for Sicily‘s heroes, their tales endure.

MiG-killer Folmar’s deeds from Sicily in 1952 were commemorated in a painting by Lou Drendel, which now hangs at the Naval Air and Space Museum in Pensacola.

The Aviator himself was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame and is buried in Foley, Alabama, passing away in 2004.

Remember the (literal) Black Sheep pilot, The Great Santini? Conroy’s son, Southern storyteller Pat Conroy, later based Lt. Col. Bull Meechum, USMC (played by Robert Duvall in the movie) as the wild man Marine Corps pilot with a host of family issues on his father in a book and film of the same name.

Conroy, who called MCAS Beaufort home and graduated from the Citadel, filled his works with many references to Marines and, obliquely, to his father. Col. Conroy is buried at Beaufort and in later life he attended book signings alongside Pat, inking “The Great Santini” with his signature.

Of Sicily‘s Marine squadrons, all are still around. VMFA-312 flies F/A-18Cs based out of MCAS Beaufort (Santini’s base) while the Black Sheep of VMA-214 are pushing AV-8Bs out of Yuma until they get their shiny new F-35Cs. The Death Rattlers of VMFA-323? They are assigned to Miramar and still deploy on carriers regularly, as their Hornets are a part of Carrier Wing 11.

Meanwhile, the Korean People’s Army Air Force remain the last military operator of the MiG-15, as some things never change.

Specs:


Displacement:
10,900 long tons (11,100 t) standard
24,100 long tons (24,500 t) full load
Length: 557 ft. (170 m)
Beam:
75 ft. (23 m)
105 ft. 2 in (32.05 m) flight deck
Draft: 30 ft. 8 in (9.35 m)
Propulsion: 2-shaft geared turbines, 16,000 shp
Speed: 19 knots (22 mph; 35 km/h)
Complement: 1,066 officers and men
Armament:
2 × 5″/38 caliber guns (1 × 2)
36 × 40 mm Bofors gun (3 × 4, 12 × 2)
20 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
Aircraft carried: 34

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Aug 9, 2017: The King’s most curious battlecruiser

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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, Aug 9, 2017: The King’s most curious battlecruiser

Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Here we see the modified Courageous-class battlecruiser HMS Furious (47) of the Royal Navy as she appeared extensively camouflaged in 1942, during her Second World War. By the time this image was taken, she had come a long way and still had many miles to travel.

One of the last developments of Adm. Jackie Fisher’s love affair with the battlecruiser, the shallow draft Courageous-class vessels (25 feet at a deep load, which isn’t that bad for a ship with an overall length of 786-feet) were fast and were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to use Parsons geared steam turbines with Yarrow small-tube oil-fired boilers to generate a speed of 32+ knots. They were designed to carry a quartet of BL 15-inch Mark I guns in two twin turrets recycled from Revenge-class battleships, along with 18 BL 4-inch Mark IX guns in six mounts.

While this was significantly less than some other battlecruisers and battleships, these boats were meant to be more of a super cruiser that could eat German armored cruisers for breakfast. As such, they only had a smattering of armor– a coupled inches of high-tensile steel in the belt and as much as 10-inches Krupp cemented armor in turrets, barbettes, and tower.

How the class was designed to look via Conway’s

Three were laid down in 1915, with class leader Courageous and Furious at Armstrong’s storied works at Elswick, and Glorious at Titanic builder Harland and Wolff in Belfast.

Our subject was the fifth and last HMS Furious on the Royal Navy’s list since 1797 to include two different 12-gun brigs that served in Nelson’s era, an 1850s paddle frigate, and an Arrogant-class second class protected cruiser that had just been hulked in 1915– while our battlecruiser was on the way.

The thing is, while they were under construction a few realizations came about battlecruisers– look up Jutland and the “Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” moment.

Glorious and Courageous were finished just after Jutland and were both modified with a dozen torpedo tubes, the latter ship also equipped to sow mines in quantity, and both assigned to the 1st Cruiser Squadron with Courageous as the flag.

Furious received a more extensive modification.

Her forward 15″ turret was ditched and a hangar for 10 single-engine biplanes was fitted on her foredeck with a 160-foot long wooden flight deck affixed to the top of the structure. On the rear, her remaining twin 15″ turret was swapped out for a single 18″/40 (45.7 cm) Mark I gun for which she would carry 60 massive 3,320-pound shells. Instead of the 18 4-inchers in 6 turrets as designed, she received 11 5.5-inch singles.

In such condition, she was commissioned on 26 June 1917

BRITISH SHIPS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR (SP 89) HMS FURIOUS as originally completed, with 18′ gun aft and flight deck forward, 1917 Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205027917

Another view of the sweet 18. Note that these mountings used sighting ports in the glacis plate rather than sighting hoods. National Maritime Museum Photograph E13/276. Via Navweaps

THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 74101) HMS Furious. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205318889

HMS Furious photographed when first completed in 1917, with a single 18-inch gun aft and flying-off deck forward. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 60606

Then came the flight experiments.

The most important of the time was when Squadron Commander Edwin Harris Dunning, a 25-year-old aviator who had already earned the DSC, became the first pilot to land an aircraft on a moving ship when he placed his Sopwith Pup aboard Furious while she was sailing just off Scapa.

Squadron Commander Dunning making the first successful landing on a ship at sea in 1917. After “crabbing” in sideways above the deck built over the fore part of the cruiser FURIOUS, his brother pilots had to haul him down. IWM A 22497. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

While he made a second landing five days later (100 years ago this week), on his third an updraft caught his port wing, throwing his plane overboard. Sadly, the daring young man was knocked out on impact and drowned.

Commander Dunning goes over the side and is killed when attempting the third landing on HMS FURIOUS (7 August 1917).© IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154698

This led to a further change in how Furious did business and she was reconstructed for the second time after the accident, removing the rear 18-inch single and fitting another 300 feet of deck to allow launches forward and landings aft in November. When she emerged in March 1918, she was significantly different.

How they were catapulted:

A Sopwith Pup being readied for take-off from the flying-off deck of HMS FURIOUS. Note the gear. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205092010

On how they were trapped:

An early experiment made in FURIOUS designed to stop aircraft from slithering over the side. Parallel rows of wires acted as guides to the undercarriage, while collapsible barricades helped to slow the aircraft. The aircraft is a Parnell “Panther”, two-seater reconnaissance biplane. It had a folding fuselage instead of the usual folding wings. The hinge can be seen just below the back edge of the rear of the cockpit, the rear half of the fuselage folding to a position parallel with the starboard wings. The Hydrovanes ahead of the wheels assisted “landings in the drink”. The fore-and-aft elongated sausages on landing gear struts could be inflated with CO2 gas to support the aircraft right way up in the water. The dog-lead catches on the axle picked up the fore-and-aft deck wires.

The Panther with the above-mentioned trap means. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154695

HMS FURIOUS at anchor, in dazzle camouflage at Scapa 1918. Note her 18incher has been landed and she has a new 300-foot deck aft. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121875

HMS Furious, a converted cruiser serving as an aircraft carrier, viewed at “Dress Ship” when King George V inspected the Grand Fleet in September 1918. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205318369

Aerial view of the aircraft carrier HMS Furious at Scapa Flow, 1918. Note the large floatplane off her bow. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205213857

HMS Furious photographed in 1918, with palisade windbreaks raised on her flying-off deck, forward, and an airplane just behind her crash barrier, aft of the funnel. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 61098

HMS Furious shortly following its initial conversion and in dazzle paint scheme in 1918. An SSZ class blimp is on the after deck with her gondola inside the elevator. Note the walkways between the two flight decks

In July 1918, Furious sailed towards Denmark as part of Operation F.7, attached to a force of Revenge-class battleships and fast cruisers, with seven Sopwith Camel 2F.1a’s aboard.

HMS FURIOUS with Sopwith Camels on her flight deck, en route for the attack on the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern in Schleswig-Holstein, 19 July 1918. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205039749

The mission: strike Tonder airfield, home to three German Naval Airship Division zeppelin sheds. The daring pre-dawn raid on 19 July by the small force of Camels destroyed the airships L.54 and L.60 on the ground and damaged the base and sheds. Of the Camels, four ditched at sea after either running out of gas or experiencing engine trouble and three were interned in Denmark.

One pilot, Lieut. W.A. Yeulett, drowned and his body was recovered on the beach nine days later. He received the DFC.

After the war, Furious was laid up and, in 1924, her two battlecruiser sisters were converted to aircraft carriers. To keep up with the class, Furious herself underwent a serious reconstruction which involved scraping off her superstructure, masts, funnel, and existing landing decks and replacing them with an upswept 576×92 foot deck with an island. A double-decker hangar deck was installed under the roof. Her armament was updated with some QF 2-pounder “pom-poms” and eventually, her older 5.5-inchers were replaced by new QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns.

HMS Furious sketch, possibly prepared by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, showing her anticipated appearance after reconstruction, as understood in May 1923. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 60974

HMS Furious photographed after completion of her reconstruction, circa 1925. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 77035

Putting back to sea, she made several other important carrier milestones including the first carrier night-landing while testing and operating more than a dozen different model carrier planes that came and went over a decade-long expansion of the Fleet Air Arm. During this interwar period, as more flattops joined the RN, she was increasingly used for training purposes.

HMS Furious circa 1935-36 with 4 Blackburn Baffins flying over.

Blackburn Shark (in the foreground) and a Fairey IIIf flying over HMS FURIOUS. The Shark went into service in 1934 and was a torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance aircraft that was soon replaced by the Fairey Swordfish in 1937. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205085238

Ski jump! The forward end of the flight deck of HMS FURIOUS sloped upwards before she was finally reconstructed in 1939. The idea was to help pull up the aircraft, which in the early days were not fitted with brakes. The aircraft is a “Blackburn” 3-seat spotter-reconnaissance biplane. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154697

The aircraft carrier HMS FURIOUS, photographed from an aircraft that has probably just taken off from the ship, note the unusual feature of a lower flying off the deck, this was disused before the start of the Second World War. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205021217

Then came her next war.

As noted by Gordon Smith, Furious was “extensively deployed during WW2 until withdrawn from operational use when modern Fleet Carriers became available supplemented by several Light Fleet and Escort Carriers. She took part in operations off Norway throughout the war, carried out deliveries of aircraft to Malta and to the Middle East via West Africa as well as providing air cover for Atlantic and Malta convoys and supporting the allied landings in North Africa.”

Sadly, both of Furious‘ sisters were lost before the war was a year old. HMS Courageous (50) was sunk by U-29, on 17 September 1939, taking over 500 of her crew with her. HMS Glorious was destroyed in a surface action with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea on 8 June 1940 while evacuating Norway, with the loss of over 1,200.

Furious had more luck.

Notably, she was involved in escorting precious cargo to and from Canada to the UK including £18,000,000 in gold bullion going to Halifax and the bulk of the 1st Canadian Division heading the other way. Armed with such dated aircraft as Swordfish and Sea Gladiators, she ran the North Atlantic on five different convoys.

She carried nearly 300 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires into the Med where flying from shore, they helped keep Rommel at bay and the thin thread of lifeline to Montgomery intact.

Sea Hurricane on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Furious. Her battlecruiser hull is evident.

And more visits from the sovereign, here King George VI is inspecting the Furious, August 1941. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205138981

Bow-on shot Nov 2, 1942 Underway during Torch. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120436

Then came the Torch Landings in November 1942 where Furious‘s Seafires strafed Vichy French airfields and covered the landings at Oran. She later served as a diversion to the landings in Sicily by appearing off the coast of Norway to menace the Germans there beforehand.

And Norway would be the focus of the rest of her war. Between April-August 1944, she was involved in no less than three different operations (Tungsten, Mascot, and Goodwind) in which her composite air wings of Barracudas, Seafires, Hellcats, and Swordfish made attempts with other carriers to sink the battleship, KMS Tirpitz.

The men and machines of HMS FURIOUS took part in the Fleet Air Arm attack on SMS TIRPITZ in Alten Fjord, Norway. Here Bob Cotcher, of Chelsea, chalks his message on a 1600-pound bomb just before the attack on 3 April 1944. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205186984

Commander S T C Harrison of the ship’s air staff briefing Fleet Air Arm crews in their flying gear onboard HMS FURIOUS with the aid of a relief map of the target area before the attack on the German Battleship TIRPITZ in Alten Fjord, Norway. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205186985

3 April 1944 Operation TUNGSTEN: 801, 830, 831 & 880 NAS (HMS Furious), 827, 829, 1834 and 1836 NAS (HMS Victorious), 881 and 896 NAS (HMS Pursuer), HMS Searcher (882 NAS) and 804 NAS (HMS Emporer) attacked the German Battleship Tirpitz in Kaa Fjord arm of Altenfjord, Norway, 50 miles inland from the open sea. (Ralph Gillies-Cole via FAA Museum)

While they did not bag Tirpitz (though several of Furious‘ bombs did hit her), the carrier’s airwing sank the ore hauler Almora and the tanker Saarburg in Kristiansund North on 6 May.

6 May 1944 Members of the crew of the FURIOUS have an early breakfast of ham sandwiches and cocoa during the operation. Note the pom poms. Aircraft from the carrier sank two enemy merchantmen that day. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205155280

Her last operation was in laying minefields off Vorso Island in September 1944, Tirpitz turned over to the RAF to kill.

Furious finished the war in Home Waters, performing training and testing services. She was laid up after VE-Day, not needed for the war in the Pacific, and was sold for scrap in 1948.

She lives on in maritime art as well as wherever ski jumps, catapults, and arresting wires are enjoyed.

A view of the aircraft carrier HMS Furious at sea, shown port side on. Furious is painted in a dazzle camouflage scheme. The sea is choppy and there is a cloudy sky above. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/21413 By the great Charles Pears.

Also, earlier this month, Commander Dunning and his Sopwith Pup were honored at a ceremony at Scapa, on the 100th anniversary of their famous flight.

In attendance was R. ADM. Fleet Air Arm Keith Blount, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Aviation, Amphibious Capability, and Carriers), who said “Those of us in the Fleet Air Arm that are still proud to serve are standing on the shoulders of giants, and Dunning was one of the greats, there is no questions about that.”

Specs:

Displacement:
22,500 long tons (22,900 t)
26,500 long tons (26,900 t) (deep load)
Length:
735 ft. 2.25 in (224.1 m) (p/p)
786 ft. 9 in (239.8 m) (o/a)
Beam: 88 ft. (26.8 m)
Draught: 27 ft. 3 in (8.3 m)
Installed power: 90,000 shp (67,000 kW)
Propulsion:
4 shafts, 4 Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines
18 Yarrow boilers
Speed: 32 knots as designed, 28 by 1939
Range: 7,480 nmi (13,850 km; 8,610 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 795 plus up to 400 airwing
Armor:
Belt: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Decks: .75–1 in (19–25 mm)
Bulkhead: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Torpedo bulkheads: 1–1.5 in (25–38 mm)
Armament:
(as completed)
1 × single 18-inch (457 mm) gun
11 × single 5.5-inch (140 mm) guns
2 × single QF 3-inch (76 mm) 20 cwt AA guns
2 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
(1925)
10 × single 5.5-inch guns
6 × single QF 4-inch Mark Vs
(1944)
12x QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns
6x QF 2-pounder
22x 20mm Oerlikon
Aircraft carried: 10 as completed, 36 by 1925, as many as 50 during WWII

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Warship Wednesday, Aug 2, 2017: Uncle’s only submersible aircraft carrier

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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 their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Aug 2, 2017: Uncle’s submersible aircraft carrier

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 99774

Here we see the S-class “pigboat” the early direct-drive diesel-electric submarine USS S-1 (SS-105) with her after deck awash, preparing to take a tiny Martin MS-1 seaplane on board during tests in October 1923. Note the tube-shaped sealed hangar behind the tower. The image was probably taken at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

As you can tell, S-1 was the U.S. entry into the oddball inter-war submarine aircraft carrier race.

The Germans first used the concept of a submarine that could support aircraft when SM U-12 helped support a pair of Friedrichshafen FF.29 reconnaissance seaplanes at Zeebrugge in 1915. Though the FF.29s were not housed on the primitive 188-foot U-boat, they did experiment with carrying on the deck of the surfaced submarine in a takeoff position, then launching an aircraft by partially submerging, allowing the seaplane to float off and fly away to strike its target– thus extending their range.

SM U-12 with a seaplane aboard in trials 1915. Note the lollygag under the deck gun. 

In the only German sub-air attack of the war, an FF.29 took off on 6 January 1916, motored around the Kent coast, and returned to Zeebrugge without accomplishing much.

The Brits later experimented with E-class submarines in the Great War and by the 1920s, the RN was joined by Italy (Ettore Fieramosca), France (the Surcouf as detailed in an earlier Warship Wednesday), and later Germany (the Type IX D 2-“Monsun”) and Japan (the I-15 Series and later the huge I-400 series, another WW past favorite) in crafting undersea aircraft carriers.

So why not the U.S., right?

The S-class submarines, derided as “pig boats” or “sugar boats” were designed in World War I, but none were finished in time for the conflict.

Some 51 examples of these 1,200-ton diesel-electrics were built in several sub-variants by 1925 and they made up the backbone of the U.S. submarine fleet before the larger “fleet” type boats of the 1930s came online. At 219-feet oal, these boats could dive to 200 feet and travel at a blistering 14kts on the surface on their twin NELSECO 8-cylinder 4-stroke direct-drive diesel engines. Armament was a quartet of 21-inch bow tubes with a dozen fish and a retractable 3″/23cal popgun on deck for those special moments. Crew? Just 38 officers and men.

The hero of our tale, SS-1, has an inauspicious name and was a “Holland” type boat laid down at Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts on a subcontract by the Electric Boat Co. Launched on 26 October 1918, she was sponsored by none other than Mrs. Emory S. Land, just two weeks before the Great War ended.

The USS S-1 slides down the ways at the Fore River Ship Builders on October 26, 1918. Via Pigboats.com

USS S-1 (Submarine # 105) Off Provincetown, Massachusetts, on 17 April 1920, while running trials. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41988

She was commissioned on 5 June 1920 and was attached to Submarine Division (SubDiv) 2 out of sometimes-chilly New London.

(SS-105) Covered with ice while underway in Long Island Sound, January 1922. Note the retractable 3/23 deck gun at right. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Lieutenant O.E. Wightman. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 80576

On 2 January 1923, she shifted to SubDiv Zero, for “experimental work” involving a dozen all metal Cox-Klemin XS-1 (BuNo A6508-A6520) and six wood-and-fabric Martin MS-1 (BuNo A6521-A6526) seaplanes.

These small (1,000lb, 18 feet long, 18 foot wingspan) experimental biplanes were envisioned to fly off S-class submarines for over-the-horizon scouting and observation missions.

Martin MS-1 scouting seaplane (Bureau # A-6525) being assembled on the after deck of USS S-1 (SS-105), at Hampton Roads, Virginia, 24 October 1923. Note the entrance to the submarine’s small hangar, at left, booms used to erect the plane’s structure, and the seaplane’s metal floats and three-cylinder engine. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 71028

(SS-105) Hangar installed at the after end of the submarine’s fairwater, circa October 1923. This hangar was used during tests with the very small Martin MS-1 scouting floatplane. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1972. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 76124

XS-1, a seaplane housed in a hangar and operating when the submarine surfaced (NNAM photo)

The seaplanes were to be knocked down, sealed in a hangar attached to the deck behind the conning tower, then after surfacing in a calm area, the little doodlebug could be rolled out and assembled. Like SM-12, they would be launched by ballasting the sub until the deck was awash and allowed to float off and take air.

(SS-105) With a Martin MS-1 seaplane on her deck, circa the mid-1920s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41986

(SS-105) Underway, while fitted with an aircraft hangar aft of her fairwater, circa the mid-1920s. Note the 4″/50 that has replaced her original gun. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41987

Curtiss HS-2L seaplane operating with and S-1 type submarine, 1924. These big flying boats were bought in quantity in WWI and were the backbone of the USN and Coast Guard until the late 1920s, but it was thought that submarines could refuel them– another experiment by SS-1. Catalog #: NH 60769

(SS-105) Martin MS-1 scouting seaplane (Bureau # A-6525) on her after deck, during the mid-1920s. Among the submarines docked in the background is USS K-7 (SS-38), at left. USS L-8 (SS-48) is at right, with USS L-9 (SS-49) just to her left. Original photo caption gives location as New London, Connecticut. However, the view may have been taken at Norfolk or Hampton Roads, Virginia. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 70979

(SS-105) With a Martin MS-1 scouting floatplane (Bureau # A-6525) on her after deck, probably at Norfolk, Virginia, on 24 October 1923. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 72793

Control Force submarines and their tenders at Christobal, Panama Canal Zone, circa 1923. Description: The tenders are (from left to right): Savannah (AS-8), Bushnell (AS-2), Beaver (AS-5) and Camden (AS-6). Submarines are mostly R type boats, among them R-23 (SS-100) and R-25 (SS-102), both in the nest alongside Savannah’s port quarter. The larger submarine alongside Savannah’s bow may be S-1 (SS-105), with her large seaplane hangar. Photographed by A.E. Wells. Courtesy of Commander Christopher Noble, USN (Retired), 1967. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 42573

Over the next three years, SS-1 was busy with the project until finally, the “first full cycle of surfacing, assembly, launching, retrieving, disassembly, and submergence took place on 28 July 1926 on the Thames River in New London.”

Deemed unproductive for the outlay in slim peacetime funds, the aircraft experiments were canceled and the tiny seaplanes scrapped.

By July 1927, SS-1, with her hangar removed, was back in regular squadron work. First transferred to SubDiv 4, then SubDiv2, she made regular training cruises in the Caribbean, East Coast, and Canal Zone until 1931 when she was transferred to the Pacific Fleet, operating from Pearl Harbor.

At the same time, many of her classmates were retired and scrapped, replaced by newer and much larger fleet boats. Accordingly, SS-1 was given orders to proceed to Philadelphia where she was decommissioned on 20 October 1937 and mothballed.

With tensions rising at the start of WWII in Europe, the old SS-1 was taken out of storage and brought back to life, though she was in poor shape. Carrying new and would-be bubbleheads, she made two cruises to Bermuda, training submariners, and returned to Philadelphia from the second cruise on the same day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Ironically, as noted by Capt. Julius Grigore in his work on Surcouf, the two submarine carriers may have crossed paths at this time.

Though several S-boats served the Navy well in both the Atlantic and Pacific, six were transferred to the Royal Navy as Lend-Lease. USS S-1 was in this lot and swapped to the Brits at New London on 20 April 1942, to be struck from the Navy List on 24 June 1942.

In her new career, with Lt. Anthony Robert Danielle, DSC, RN, in command, she was known as HMS P-552.

Just out of New London on 1 May she encountered three survivors from the Norwegian steam ship Taborfjell (1,339GT), which had been claimed by the German submarine U-576 under Hans-Dieter Heineken. Saving Radio Operator Olaf Alfsen, Second Officer Erling Arnesen, and Third Engineer Officer Ole Karlsen Svartangen after a two-hour search about 95 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, P-552 diverted to St. Johns and landed the men ashore 7 May.

The sub arrived in Durban South Africa, via Gibraltar and Freetown, in December 1942 where she was used for training for several months.

She was paid off by the RN 11 August 1944 and given back to the USN while still in Durban two months later. She never left the harbor again and was scrapped in September 1946.

None of her sisters endure though Pigboats.com keeps their memory alive.

The Navy revisited the possibility of submarine aircraft carriers again during World War II and the early 1950s but nothing came of it. They did experiment with refueling large seaplanes via submarine as well as using them in helicopter landings for special operations into the 1950s, using the abbreviations AOSS — submarine oiler, and SSP–submarine transport.


USS Guavina (AGSS-362), refueling a P5M-1 Marlin flying boat off Norfolk, Virginia (USA), in 1955. Prior to World War II several submarines were fitted to refuel seaplanes. During the war, Germany and Japan used this technique with some success. After the war this technique was experimented with within the US Navy. It was planned to use submarines to refuel the new jet powered P6M Seamaster flying boats. As part of this program Guavina was converted to carry 160,000 gallons of aviation fuel. To do this blisters were added to her sides and two stern torpedo tubes were removed. When the P6M project was canceled, there was no further need for submarine tankers. This concept was never used operationally in the US Navy.

USS Corporal’s emergency helicopter op

And today, there are several programs to put UAVs on subs, for scouting and observation missions–proving that everything old is new again.

Still, SS-1 was the only U.S. Navy submarine to have the capability to submerge with a manned aircraft aboard and then successfully launch it. For that, she will be immortal.

Specs:


Displacement: Surfaced: 854 t., Submerged: 1062 t.
Length 219′ 3″
Beam 20′ 8″
Draft 15′ 11″(mean)
Speed: surfaced 14.5 kts, submerged 11 kts
Complement 4 Officers, 34 Enlisted
Propulsion: New London Ship & Engine Co (NELSECO) diesel engines, HP 1200, twin propellers
Fuel capacity: 41,921 gal.
Electric: Electro Dynamic Co., electric motors, HP 1500, Battery cells 120, Endurance: 20 hours @ 5 kn submerged
Armament: 4 21″ torpedo tubes, 12 torpedoes, one 3″/23 retractable deck gun–later fixed 4″/50
Aircraft: 1 tiny seaplane

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

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

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

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

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Warship Wednesday, July 26, 2017: Doctor Jekyll and HM’s gunboat

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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, July 26, 2017: Doctor Jekyll and HM’s gunboat

Photograph (Q 41101) H. M. S. Royalist. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205275598

Here we see the Royal Navy Satellite-class barque-rigged, composite-hulled protected sloop (later deemed a corvette) HMS Royalist as she appeared in the late 1880s.

Designed by the noted Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, KCB, the seven ships of the Satellite-class were an amalgam of old sailing era fighting ships and new iron steam vessel. They had an iron keel and frame with wood planking. A steam plant was primary propulsion (up to 13 knots) and they carried enough coal to travel an impressive 6,000nm, but a sail rig was fitted and often used.

Gone were old muzzle-loading cast iron rifles, replaced by new breech-loading 6-inch/100-pounder (81cwt) guns which could fire an 80-pound shell some 7,590 yards and Gardner machine guns (though each of the class carried a different armament pattern and varying engineering suites, making them more half-sisters than anything.). At 200-feet overall, these impressive vessels carried a smattering of armor plate (about an inch) over their sensitive machinery areas, but remained svelte enough to float in less than three fathoms.

Built at Sheerness and Devonport, these ships were soon dispatched to far-flung colonial posts on the Australian Station, the Pacific Station, West Indies and China.

The subject of our tale, the 7th HMS Royalist, commissioned 14 April 1886 then spent some time on station at the Cape of Good Hope and Australia.

Sydney, NSW, c. 1890. Portside view of screw corvette HMS Royalist. Note 6-inch guns in ports on her waist. (AWM 302264)

Royalist was subsequently sent for a spell to the Gilbert islands, claiming them for the Crown and inspecting the same.

Annexation of the Gilbert Islands, Hoisting the British Flag at Apamama by HMS Royalist, 27 May 1892, from the Sept. 10 1892 Illustrated London News

Later, Royalist was sent to Samoa, then a hot topic in the halls of Europe and America.

The “Samoan Question” burned brightly from about 1886 onward, with Germany, the U.S. and Britain all nosing around the islands, and picking sides. This resulted in an eight-year civil war in the archipelago with guns and munitions supplied to Samoan leaders by the powers, all to ultimately claim the land for their growing colonial empires, a struggle that is beyond this blog.

By early March 1899, this low-level tribal conflict had boiled over, with exiled chief Mata’afa Iosefo backed by the Germans and incoming regent Malietoa Tanumafili I backed by the Anglo-Americans, and combat at the offering.

H.M.S. ROYALIST; USS PHILADELPHIA (C-4); H.M.S. TORCH; H.M.S. TAURANGA; German cruiser FALKE; and H.M.S. PORPOISE, at Apia, Samoa, April 1899. Catalog #: NH 4

With the balloon going up, the Royalist joined the Alert-class sloop HMS Torch, Archer-class torpedo cruiser HMS Porpoise, and the U.S. Pacific Squadron flag, USS Philadelphia (Cruiser No. 4), in supporting Tanumafili.

British sailors and Royal Marines, joined with U.S. leathernecks and bluejackets to form a force consisting of 26 marines and 88 sailors, reinforced by a company of 136 Samoans loyal to Tanumafili, and set out from Apia toward a plantation at Vailele. The group was led by Lt. Angel H. Freeman, RN, with Lt. Philip V. Lansdale, USN as XO, and carried a Colt-Browning M1895 from Philadelphia just in case.

NH 121036 Angel Hope Freeman, RN

Another 146 mixed RN/USN landing force, augmented by a single 7-pounder from Royalist and assorted U.S. Marines manning Gatling guns for fire support, surrounded the Tivoli Hotel which was used as a command post and shelter for non-combatants. From there they held off a determined assault from Iosefo loyalists over three days (March 15-17), losing four British and American sailors and marines.

Seven Pounder commanding the Tivoli Road – Gunner Gunn of H.M.S. Royalist in charge, Auckland Weekly News (07 April 1899), via Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990407-5-1.

An American Gatling gun and crew and part of the defenses of the British Consulate, Apia, Samoa, 1899. Courtesy of Captain T.T. Craven, USN. Catalog #: NH 1448

Meanwhile, as Royalist with her big 6-inchers and shallow draft, closed in and shelled two fortified outposts filled with Iosefo supporters– with fire corrected by a pair of Samoan fans in the hands of a signalman on the reef near Fagalii.

However, once the column moved inland to attack Vailele, they were swarmed by 800 of Iosefo’s troops on 1 April while arrayed along the road. Setting up a perimeter supported by the Colt, Freeman was killed and an injured Lansdale took command of the force, only to succumb to his wounds. Also killed in the action were U.S. Navy Seaman Norman E. Edsall, U.S. Ensign John Robert Monaghan (USNA 1879), U.S. Seaman James Butler, RN Leading Seaman Albert Meirs Prout and RN Leading Seaman John Long. Eventually the naval party was able to break contact, covered by Royalist‘s guns, which were once again directed by the fans.

Two Marines, Sgt. Michael J. McNally, and Pvt. Henry L. Hulbert, received the Medal of Honor for their heroism during the battle. Iosefo is believed to have suffered 100 casualties.

By 25 April, the conflict had settled down with each side agreeing to disagree. The next day, the auxiliary cruiser USS Badger arrived in Apia harbor carrying the Joint High Commission–representatives from Germany, Britain and the U.S. State Department– to begin negotiations on how to carve up the islands more peacefully. By 13 May they had the affair sorted out and a treaty was sent home to be signed by the end of the year.

In the end, Germany acquired the western islands (Savai’i and ‘Upolu, plus seven smaller islands) with Iosefo declared chief by the German Samoa colonial powers; while the U.S. acquired the eastern islands (Tutuila and the Manu’a group) and established a base at Pago Pago. The Brits quit the chain altogether in exchange for territorial concessions from the Germans in Tonga and the Solomans.

New Zealand was allowed by Britain to annex the Cook Islands and Niue as something of a consolation prize, though the Kiwis had mustered local troops for war in Samoa, that in the end, were not needed. Nonetheless, they stormed German Samoa in 1914 during the Great War and remained in administration of the islands as the Western Samoa Trust Territory until 1962.

Preceding joint monuments for the Great War, WWII, and Korea, the USN and RN established a marker in Samoa to commemorate their combined war dead from 1899.

Tablet on Monument in Samoa. Caption: “Erected by Americans and British in memory of the Brave American and British Sailors who fought and fell together at the Samoan Islands in March and April 1899.” Angel Hope Freeman, Philip Vanhorne Lansdale, John R. Monaghan, James Butler, Norman Eckley Edsall, Albert Meirs Prout, John Long, Edmund Halloran, Montague Rogers, Thomas Holloway, Andrew Henry J. Thornberry, John Edward Mudge. All Officers and men of the American Navy were attached to the U.S.F.S. PHILADELPHIA and those of the British Navy to H.M.S. ROYALIST. Description: Collection of Captain T.T. Craven, USN. Catalog #: NH 2177

Beyond the marker, the U.S. Navy preserved relics from the colonial battle including shrapnel and a fuse from the British ship and the famous fans used as signal flags to correct her fire. Below are the images and it is likely the takeaways are still in a box somewhere in a Navy warehouse.

On left, a piece of shrapnel thrown by HMS ROYALIST after the battle of 1 April 1899, Apia, Samoa. On right, fuse of 6″ shell fired from the British ship ROYALIST after striking a coconut tree and exploding on 1 April 1899, Apia, Samoa. Catalog #: NH 1666

Samoan fans taken from a chief’s hut in the village of Mataafa. This chief led the revolution against the British-American authority in the Samoan Islands 6 March to 22 May 1899. The fans were used to signal the British ship ROYALIST to fire over the defeated Anglo-American columns on the reef near Fagalii, Upolu, Samoa, on 1 April 1899. From the ROYALIST held the hostilities back until the survivors of the ambush were rescued Catalog #: USN 901315

A storyteller who lived in Samoa since 1890 who was on hand for the struggle was a Scot, one Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson. While his Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are much more commonly read, he did craft A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, his own nonfiction take on the conflict there, in which he mentions Royalist several times.

Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson (seated) and family, Vailima, on the island of Upolu in Samoa. Via Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

While it may seem we are finished with our story here, Royalist remained afloat for another half-century past her Samoan encounter.

Leaving the islands once they were partitioned, she sailed for Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland to be converted to a depot and receiving station for ship crews in Haulbowline.

Photograph (Q 40999) H. M. S. Royalist. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205275497

In 1913, on the eve of the Great War, she was renamed HMS Colleen. While she was still afloat, one of HMs submarines and two cruisers went on to carry the name HMS Royalist.

When the lights went out in Europe, the old corvette-turned-hulk wore the flag of CiC Coast of Ireland and later CiC Western Approaches, and was a welcome sight at Queenstown for ships crossing the Atlantic during the war. It was during the conflict that she served as the mother ship to a series of shifting flotillas of motor launches and armed trawlers of the Auxiliary Patrol, which deployed around the British Isles performing search and rescue and anti-submarine patrolling.

Incoming ships to Queensland with sick or injured crew members, or shipmates being transferred or processing out, would assign their transients to Royalist/Colleen, which means there are dozens of wartime graves around the British Isles with headstones marked HMS Colleen.

Noted Irish polar explorer Tom Crean, member of three major expeditions to Antarctica including Captain Scott’s ill-fated 1911–13 Terra Nova Expedition, served his last few months in the Royal Navy aboard Colleen until he was retired on medical grounds on 24 March 1920.

With Ireland moving out of the British Empire, the aging Colleen was paid off 15 March 1922, just three months before the Irish Free State was proclaimed.

Still a dominion of the British Empire until 1931, HMS Colleen was transferred to the new Irish government 19 February 1923 to support the recently formed Irish Coastal and Marine Service, joining the commandeered 155-foot armed yacht Helga (rechristened Muirchu, or “Seahound”). However, the CMS was soon disbanded, and Colleen was never used as more than a hulk and oil storage barge, though she was retained until at least 1950, some four years after the founding of the current Irish Naval Service (An tSeirbhís Chabhlaigh) was founded.

Her final fate is unknown, though she is thought to have been broken up. What is known, however, is that she outlived all six of her sister ships.

Paid off or hulked in the early 1900s, Heroine, Hyachinth and Pylades went to the breakers by 1906. Satellite and Caroline managed as training vessels until 1947 and 1929, respectively, though one of the latter’s guns endures on display in Hong Kong. Runner up for the longest life of the class was Rapid, who endured as an accommodation ship and coal bunker until she was disposed of at Gibraltar in 1948.

However, there is always Robert Louis Stevenson, the marker on Samoa, the relics somewhere in the NHHC archives and the heroics of Tom Crean, proving Royalist will remain, as a footnote at least, forever.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,420 tons
Length: 200 ft. (61 m)
Beam: 38 ft. (12 m)
Draught: 15.7 ft. (4.8 m)
Propulsion:
Cylindrical boilers,
Maudslay, Sons and Field horizontal compound expansion steam engine, 1510hp
Single screw
Maximum speed: 13 knots
Endurance: 6,000 nm at 10 kts on 400 tons coal
Sail plan: Barque-rigged
Range: Approximately 6,000 nmi (11,000 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h)
Complement: 170-200
Armament:
(As designed)
Two 6″/26 (15.2 cm) BL Mark II guns
Ten BL 5-inch (127.0 mm) 50-pounder (38cwt) guns
One light gun
Four machine guns
(As completed)
Eight 6″/26 (15.2 cm) BL Mark II guns
1 7-pdr landing gun
4x .45 cal Gardner machine guns
Armor: Internal steel deck, 19-25mmm thick, over machinery and magazines

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

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

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Warship Wednesday, July 19, 2017: The Belgian sword master and his legacy

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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, July 19, 2017: The Belgian sword master and his legacy

Via Steven Mortenson, Corbesier Historian/Navsource

Via Steven Mortenson, Corbesier Historian/Navsource

Here we see the Butler-class destroyer escort USS Corbesier (DE 438) in an undated photo, likely somewhere in the Pacific in late WWII. She was named after an extremely well-known (for his time) expert with a blade.

“Cutlasses, lads!” was a standard call to prepare to repel boarders going back to the Continental Navy with Colonial armorer Richard Gridley and John Bailey reportedly crafting several of these curved short swords for Washington’s fleet.

As described by JO2 Meckel in 1957’s “The Cutlass Carved Its Niche in Our Navy’s Annals,” the fledgling U.S. Navy ordered small lots of cutlasses from sword makers Nathan Starr of Middletown, Connecticut; Lewis Prahl of Philadelphia; and Robert Dingie of New York.

Starr later made three different 2,000-cutlass lots in 1808 (for $2.50 each), 1816 ($3.00), and 1826 ($4.25)– talk about inflation! These were needed in large numbers as frigates such as the USS Constitution were authorized no less than 156 cutlasses.

These early swords were later augmented and then replaced by the Ames Cutlass in two variants (1842 and 1860), the latter remaining in service amazingly through WWII.

The 1860 Ames was 32 inches long with a 26-inch blade, and was in service from 1860 through 1949! This example marked U.S.N. D.R. 1864, is in the National Park Service collection.

Moving from the Barbary Wars and War of 1812 to the Civil War, the Navy’s love affair with the cutlass remained intact, even as armor plate, steam engines, Gatling repeaters, torpedoes (mines), and rifled naval guns moved combat into modern terms.

With the need to remain trained in these traditional edged weapons, you need a swordmaster.

Enter one very dapper Antoine Joseph Corbesier, a man skilled at the noble art of attack and parry with a sword.

As noted by DANFS, Corbesier was born on 22 January 1837 in Belgium and, after service with the French, emigrated to America.

As described by Fencing Classics, “A brief advertisement in the New York Tribune, from October 19, 1863, places him in New York during the time of the Civil War, where he was a teacher at the New York Fencing Club before opening his own school.”

By 1865, the 28-year-old European fencer was Sword-Master of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and, had made such an impression on the very gruff Admiral David Dixon Porter, then Superintendent, that Porter endorsed Corbesier’s 76-page text on sword fighting published in 1868.

“Principles of Squad Instruction for the Broadsword” soon became the standard tome for the use of naval cutlasses in the U.S. Navy and the influence can be seen for decades, along with other works he produced on the bayonet.

USS GALENA, 1880-92. Caption: Left flank cut, during cutlass practice. Description: Catalog #: NH 53998

Left flank cut, from Corbesier’s book

“Left face cut.” Cutlass exercises for apprentices onboard USS MONONGAHELA at Newport, Rhode Island, circa June 1891. Halftone of a photo by Frank H. Child, Newport, Rhode Island. From the book: “U.S.T.S. Monongahela and the U.S. Naval Training System, illustrated,” 1892. Description: Catalog #: NH 45885

Left face cut, from Corbesier’s book

Cane and bayonet exercises at the Naval Academy circa 1887 Description Copied from United States Naval Academy, Annapolis Maryland by E.H. Hart, New York 1887 NH 1661

Meanwhile, new ships coming online, even though they were modern steam vessels lit by electric light, were still given their (reduced) allotment of cutlasses which, in naval tradition, would remain aboard until the ship was removed from the Naval List, ensuring the swords would float around through the Spanish-American War, Great War, and even into WWII.

Cutlass exercise Caption: Aboard a U.S. Navy warship during the later 1800s. Postcard photo. Description: Catalog #: NH 80750

USS Enterprise (1877-1909) Ship’s Apprentices pose by the port side quarterdeck ladder, while Enterprise was at the New York Navy Yard, circa spring 1890. Photographed by E.H. Hart, New York City. Note the figure-eight Apprentice mark visible on the uniforms of several of these men, and cutlass fan on the cabin bulkhead at left. The Stern of the receiving ship Vermont is partially visible in the left background. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 54215

USS CHICAGO (1889-1935) Caption: View on the gun deck, about 1890. Note cutlass and rifle racks, with 6″/30 broadside guns beyond. Description: Catalog #: NH 55124

Cutlass practice between Marines and sailors in an image right out of Corbesier’s book-1890s-aboard the early protected cruiser USS Newark (C-1). LOC photo via Shorpy colorized by Postales Navales

Cutlass rack: Lot 3000-A-20: U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Atlanta, quarterdeck, 1890-1912. Note, that Atlanta was one of the first steel warships of the New Navy. Detroit Publishing Company. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

LC-J698-61286_Lot 8688: USS Olympia (Cruiser #6), arms locker, circa 1899. Note the U.S. flag on the bulkhead. Photograph by Francis B. Johnston.

Steam Sloop USS Richmond, Sailors polishing brass, circa 1899, note the cutlass rack to the right and the bluejacket to the left with a blade. Also, note the African-American crewmember. LOC LC-D4-20927 (cropped)

USS Kearsarge (BB-5) and USS Kentucky (BB-6), Cutlass Rack plans. 7.23.1900 NARA 167817454

To say that Corbesier was a staple at Annapolis is an understatement.

Antoine Corbesier and George Heintz, Sr., 1887 USNA Archives

Antoine Corbesier and midshipmen 1899 USNA Archives

Antoine Corbesier and Midshipmen 1911 USNA Archives

By a special act of Congress, after more than 40 years of instruction at the Academy, Corbesier was given the rank of first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps on 4 March 1913.

Lieutenant Antoine J. Corbesier, USMC, taken sometime between 1913-15. Catalog #: NH 51707

He died in the Naval Hospital at Annapolis on 26 March 1915, where he lived at the time.

His obituary ran in several nautical journals of the day, the below from Seven Seas Magazine.

Even with the great swordsman gone, the Navy kept the cutlass on tap, and they continued to see service in far-flung ports when needed, even apparently being broken out once or twice in China as late as the 1930s.

A peek inside an unidentified ship’s small arms locker, circa 1930s. Note the ship’s M1911 board for use on the quarterdeck in port, Lewis gun to the right, and M1894 flare guns under several M1917 cutlasses

On the eve of the Great War, the Navy attempted to replace the Civil War-era Ames Cutlass with the new M1917 Naval Cutlass, based on the Dutch Klewang boarding sword, though its adoption seems more miss than hit.

Then came this:

JJ55-3/1510, 15 October 1942
ACTION: ALL SHIPS AND STATIONS

1.Officers of the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps, shall no longer be required to possess swords as part of their uniform equipment.

2.The various uniform regulations will be modified accordingly.

3.It is expected that a form of dirk will, in due course, be adopted as uniform equipment in lieu of the sword.

4.Due to the urgent need for metals, it is suggested that officers, who may so desire, turn in their swords for scrap.-SecNav. Frank Knox.

This order, as noted by NHHC Curator Mark Wertheimer in 2003, did not affect cutlasses still in unit and vessel armories, and they “remained an ordnance allowance item until 1949” indeed, being done away with in by NavOrd Inst. 4500-1 in November 1949.

WAVE Lt(jg) Lilian Cryan examines a cutlass aboard the USS Constitution during WWII. Boston Herald image

Reportedly, some Marines even carried them ashore in the Pacific for use as machetes during the jungle fighting of WWII.

However, the swordsman may have been gone, and his weapons headed for the literal scrap heap, but he was not forgotten.

On 11 November 1943, at Dravo shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware, a Cannon-class destroyer escort was named USS Corbesier (DE-106) in his honor. She went on to be commissioned as the Free French Naval ship Sénégalais (T-22) on 2 January 1944, which is fitting to a degree based on Corbesier’s French military service in the days of Napoleon III.

Sénégalais went on to seriously damage German submarine U-371 just five months after she was taken over by the French, taking a German homing torpedo in the exchange.

Sénégalais (French Escort Ship, formerly USS Corbesier, DE-106) French sailor paints a submarine kill symbol on the ship's smokestack, following the sinking of German submarine U-371 off the Algerian coast on 4 May 1944. During the action, Sénégalais delivered the final attack on U-371, but was herself torpedoed and damaged. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-K-1606

Sénégalais (French Escort Ship, formerly USS Corbesier, DE-106) French sailor paints a submarine kill symbol on the ship’s smokestack, following the sinking of German submarine U-371 off the Algerian coast on 4 May 1944. During the action, Sénégalais delivered the final attack on U-371 but was herself torpedoed and damaged. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-K-1606

The French ship went on to serve in that Navy until 1965, being scrapped in Germany.

Meanwhile, a second USS Corbesier (DE-438), a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort, was launched in 1944 by Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Kearny, N.J. Commissioned 31 March 1944, she sailed for the Pacific and performed ASW missions and general escort duties.

Via Steven Mortenson, Corbesier Historian/Navsource

On 23 January 1945, with sisters Conklin (DE-439) and Raby (DE-698), Corbesier sank the Japanese submarine I-48 off Yap Island.

From Combined Fleets:

23 January 1945:
15 miles NE of Yap Island. At 0310, USS CORBESIER (DE-438) makes a radar contact at about 9,800 yds. The target is heading 210 degrees at 18 kts. After CORBESIER closes to investigate, I-48 dives. At 0336, CORBESIER obtains a sound contact and fires a salvo of Mk.10 “Hedgehog” projector charges but misses. CONKLIN and RABY (DE-698) join the chase. CORBESIER makes five more Hedgehog attacks, all with negative results, finally, losing the contact.

At 0902, CORBESIER regains contact and executes another “Hedgehog” attack, again with negative results. At 0912, CORBESIER reestablishes sound contact with the sub, but loses it before an attack can be made. CONKLIN makes a new “Hedgehog” attack at 0934, from a distance of 550 yds. Seventeen seconds later, four or five explosions are heard from an estimated depth of 175 ft. At 0936, a violent explosion occurs, temporarily disabling CONKLIN’s engines and steering gear. Huge air bubbles come up alongside; soon thereafter oil and debris surface. Large quantities of human remains are likewise sighted.

17 miles N of Yap. A motor whaleboat from CONKLIN picks up pieces of planking, splintered wood, cork, interior woodwork with varnished surfaces, a sleeve of a knitted blue sweater containing flesh, chopsticks and a seaman’s manual. I-48 is sunk with her 118-strong crew and four kaiten pilots at 09-55N, 138-17.30E

It wasn’t gentlemanly swordplay, but it was no less deadly.

Corbesier went on to serve off Okinawa, parrying attacks from Japanese kamikaze off Okinawa. She completed the war with two battle stars and berthed at San Diego, was decommissioned in 1946. She was scrapped in 1972.

Epilogue

The Navy has not named another vessel after Adm. Porter’s swordmaster.

They did bring back the officer’s dress sword in 1952, in 2011, CPOs were granted the authority to carry a mil-spec cutlass on certain occasions, and today, the (ceremonial) use of the sword is instilled in the Marine Corporal’s Course, so there is that.

U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Joseph Bednarik, with Company E, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, instructs Marines on proper sword manual during Corporals Course on Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb 22, 2016. Sword manual is an honored tradition in which Marines command troop formations during formal ceremonies. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Brian Bekkala, MCIWEST-MCB CamPen Combat Camera/Released)

And yes, there are still a few old-school Ames-style cutlasses around in use, which would warm Corbesier’s heart.

Reenactor Cutlass Drill USS Constellation 2018 via Historic Ships Baltimore

Petty Officer 3rd Class Tenika Fugate, assigned to USS Constitution, raises a cutlass during a color guard detail in Old Town during Albuquerque Navy Week. Navy Weeks are designed to show Americans the investment they have made in their Navy and increase awareness in cities that do not have a significant Navy presence. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Eric Brown)

Even when the uniforms change, the cutlass endures…

171114-N-IK959-765 GREAT LAKES, Ill. (Nov. 14, 2017) Recruits march down the street at Recruit Training Command (RTC) while wearing the Navy Working Uniform (NWU) Type III uniforms. The new camouflage uniforms started being issued to incoming recruits at RTC in October. Approximately 30,000-40,000 recruits graduate RTC annually. (U.S. Navy photo by Scott A. Thornbloom/Released)

His “Principles of Squad Instruction for the Broadsword” is in the public domain, has been digitized, and is widely available, ensuring that it will endure.

And of course, if you are passing through the Naval Academy, stop by the Cemetery and Columbarium, and visit Lot 394 to pay your respects.

Yet, “If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven’s scenes; They will find the streets are guarded By United States Marines,” holds true, the swordsman may still be holding class.

Specs:

(DE 438)
Displacement: 1,350/1,745 tons
Length: 306 ft. (93 m) overall
Beam: 36 ft. 10 in (11.23 m)
Draught: 13 ft. 4 in (4.06 m) maximum
Propulsion: 2 boilers, 2 geared turbine engines, 12,000 shp, 2 screws
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h)
Range: 6,000 nmi at 12 knots (22 km/h)
Complement: 14 officers, 201 enlisted
Armament:
2 × 5 in (130 mm)
4 × 40 mm AA (2 × 2)
10 × 20 mm guns AA
3 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
1 × Hedgehog
8 × K-gun depth charge projectors
2 × depth charge tracks
(though likely no cutlasses)

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, July 12, 2017: Woodrow’s biggest German

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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, July 12, 2017: Woodrow’s biggest German

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 71

Here we see the armed troop transport USS Leviathan (Shore Patrol vessel #1326) in harbor, with tugs in attendance at her starboard bow, 1918. Note her distinctive dazzle camouflage scheme which she would wear throughout the Great War, in U.S. service anyway. At the time, she was billed as the biggest ship in the World.

Built by Blohm & Voss at Hamburg as SS Vaterland for Germany’s Hamburg America Line (HAPAG), she was the largest passenger ship in the world upon her completion, superseding her near-sister SS Imperator (who was 44 feet shorter), but later being superseded in turn by the last ship of her class, SS Bismarck (who was six feet longer).

How big was she? Some 950-feet overall and 54,000-tons displacement. Capable of carrying 4,234 passengers (908 first class, 592 second, 962 third, and 1,772 steerage), she could make 24+ knots on her eight massive Parsons steam turbines powered by 46 (!) boilers. As such, she required almost 1,200 stokers, stewards, attendants and other crew to keep her running.

Her maiden voyage was on 14 May 1914, just six weeks before the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed and the lights began to go out across Europe.

Caught at sea in the North Atlantic too far away from Hamburg to make it home if the balloon went up, the brand-new ocean liner put into New York, then a neutral safe haven.

S.S. Vaterland, German Passenger Liner, arriving at New York City on 29 July 1914, three days before Germany’s declaration of war on Russia began World War I. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C. Collection of Captain Cyrus R. Miller, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 103156

There she sat at Hoboken, N.J until 1 August when, though Vaterland had booked 720 first class, 420 second class, and 2,500 third class and steerage passengers leaving for Germany that day (including many German reservists on the way back home), they were canceled and the ship ordered by HAPAG to stay in port, taking a $500,000 loss in bookings.

Her crew, left largely without funds as the war began, took to moving ashore and taking other jobs in between organizing moonlight excursion trips up the Hudson (turn arounds) and a bazaar in Madison Square Garden where her crew sold handicrafts. Vaterland was reportedly a hotbed of German spy activity as well, and some took leave back to Europe via ships bound for other neutrals such as Spain.

Vaterland was seized by the United States Shipping Board at 4 a.m. on April 6 on the eve of the United States entering World War I, along with 90 other German ships in various ports across the country. Only 300 of her crew were aboard and they gave up the ship without bloodshed, being marched first ashore and then taken to Fort Oglethorpe, Ga for internment. Some 20 freight cars of expensive furnishings and paintings, including $150,000 worth of silver, were removed and stored ashore.

The big liner was placed under guard by 60 officers of the NYPD’s 37th Precinct, who were later relieved by a New Jersey Naval Militia force in July. Reports state that “Several attempts to smuggle small bombs and explosives into the coal chutes from the coal barges alongside were frustrated by the guards.”

Her plans and documents had been burned by the ship’s officers, but a spare set of drawings was later found in the safe at HAPAG’s New York office.

However, most of the brand-new ship was filled with years of trash and junk, and some machinery was left inoperable. The Germans had sabotaged numerous water lines installed behind the interior paneling of the ship and when the water was first turned on numerous floods were caused throughout the vessel, with the entire forward section of the ship’s officers’ rooms on the starboard side was flooded with about 14 inches of water, for example.

On 25 July 1917, Vaterland was turned over to the Navy Department and regularly commissioned as a Naval vessel and assigned to transport duty under the command of Vice- Admiral Albert Cleaves, U. S. Navy, Commander of the Cruiser and Transport Force, United States Atlantic Fleet. On September 6th the name of the German ship Vaterland was changed by order of the Secretary of the Navy, without ceremony, to USS Leviathan. President Woodrow Wilson reportedly chose the name.

Leviathan was made ready to transport up to 14,000 men on each crossing to Europe, with life rafts for 17,000 added. She was painted in dazzle camouflage, and her appointments drastically changed.

All the staterooms on the lower decks of the ship were ripped out to make room for open iron frame-work beds with canvas bunk bottoms, good enough for troops. The main theater and ball room were converted into a hospital for troops and crew during transatlantic voyages with an isolation ward established in the gymnasium on “A” Deck for contagious cases. The ship’s doctor’s office was used as a sick call station and dispensary for troops and crew. The portholes were painted black and dogged shut.

She was also given a formidable armament including a battery of eight 6″ guns for protection against surface raiders , as well as two “Y” guns which hurled depth bombs loaded with TNT to scare off U-boats, making her an auxiliary cruiser in all but name. A pair of 1-pounders for saluting and another couple of Colt machine guns for pier side protection were added as well. According to reports, she was attacked several times “by the undersea pirates and according to officers of the vessel one attacking sub was sunk by a shell from one of the six-inch guns” though this is perhaps not supported by post-war analysis.

Gun crew preparing to load one of the ship’s six-inch guns, circa 1918. Photographed by Zimmer. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41707

Her crew more than doubled from the German’s 1,200 to some 2,400 in U.S. service, including a young 18-year-old Quartermaster by the name of Humphrey DeForest Bogart.

Humphrey D. Bogart_s enlistment form from his Official Military Personnel File, 1918. (National Archives Identifier 40910835)

She was still impressive, despite the warpaint.

Halftone reproduction of a photograph showing the ship moored to a buoy in 1918. She is painted in dazzle camouflage. The original photograph was taken by Enrique Muller, New York. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 51396

Halftone reproduction of a photograph of the interior of the ship’s bridge, taken circa 1919. Note engine order telegraphs, chart table and steering wheel. This image was published in 1919 as one of ten photographs in a Souvenir Folder of views concerning USS Leviathan, many of which are detailed below. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 104693

Halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship’s main dining room, taken circa 1919. Catalog #: NH 104689

Halftone reproduction of a photograph of the troops’ mess hall on board the ship, taken circa 1919. Note the fancy decor of this space, left over from her time as the German passenger liner Vaterland. Catalog #: NH 104690

Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in the ship’s sick bay, circa 1919. Note the elegant doorway and windows, left over from her time as the German passenger liner Vaterland. Catalog #: NH 104695

Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1919, showing one of the ship’s troop berthing compartments. Catalog #: NH 103201

Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1919, showing cooks making chow by the barrel in a galley. Catalog #: NH 103203

Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1919, showing the ship’s huge and richly decorated officers’ dining room. Catalog #: NH 103202

Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1919, showing the operating board for the ship’s main propulsion steam turbines. Catalog #: NH 103204

At 7.34 A. M., 15 December 1917, Leviathan left her pier in Hoboken for her first trip across the Atlantic, with 7,254 troops and 2,000 sailors on board. Making over 21-knots and outpacing her escorts, her crew spent liberty in Liverpool by Christmas. Operating between Hoboken and Brest/Liverpool, she completed 10 round trips, carrying 119,215 fighting men Eastward before the armistice on 11 November 1918. Of the men of the AEF who made it to Europe, one in 20 went on Leviathan.

The front side of a Troop Billet card used circa 1917-1919, while the ship was transporting service personnel between the United States and Europe. See Photo # NH 104240-A-KN for the reverse side of this card. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2006. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 104240-KN

Pershing himself crossed back to the states on her 19th trip, westbound, along with his famous composite regiment selected from the entire A. E. F. Assistant SECNAV Franklin Roosevelt and his party returned from France on her.

Lot-8836-9: WWI – American Expeditionary Forces. General John J. Pershing on board USS Leviathan (ID 1326). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Her fastest round trip, from the U.S. to Europe and back, was 14 days and 21 hours, though they typically ran 26 days, accounting for loading and unloading of up to 14,300 men and their accompanying supplies and equipment.

As noted by SECNAV “Cup of Joe” Secretary Daniels in the most interesting tome of her WWI career:

“Although the Leviathan did not participate in any great naval engagement, although the battle flags never flew proudly at her mastheads as she swept into the tempest of a modern naval engagement, her achievement in carrying across the sea more than three divisions of American soldiers entitles the gallant ship’s name to a place forever in the hall of American naval fame.”

Tragically, on one crossing in late 1918, 2,000 of her passengers and crew took ill with Spanish Influenza while underway, and she arrived in Brest carrying 96 dead and dying.

Once the war was over, she completed another nine trips home from Europe, bringing the Americans back from “Over There.”

Decommissioned 29 October 1919, she was turned back over to the Shipping Board and she was retained as a war trophy.

Seeing use for her in future conflicts– after all, she could carry a whole division at a time and outrun any submarine– she was reconditioned with a new oil-fired plant and apportionments and put at the disposal of the United States Lines who used her as an ocean liner from 1923 onward.

S.S. Leviathan in drydock at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1923. She is undergoing preparations for her maiden voyage under the United States Lines flag, which commenced on 4 July of that year. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 43035

S.S. Leviathan Steaming out of New York Harbor, circa the mid-1920s. The Manhattan skyline is in the background. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 43553

S.S. Leviathan photographed from an aircraft, while underway at sea during the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41867

However, the now 60,000-ton vessel was an expensive giant too big to turn a profit and the line reportedly lost money on every voyage, especially during the dry days of Prohibition, with half of the cabins often empty. Although some 250,000 passengers booked on her in 13 years, the line went bankrupt and, with the agreement of the Shipping Board, she was sold for scrap in 1937. Had it not been for that, she certainly would have been used once more as a “trooper” in WWII.

Of her 301 documented voyages, just three were under a German flag.

As for her sisters, SS Imperator managed to spend WWI in Hamburg and was taken over by the U.S. Navy 5 May 1919 at Brest. Not really needing a second Leviathan, the Navy used her only briefly as a troop ship (USS Imperator) then sold her to the British Cunard Line who renamed the liner RMS Berengaria. Retired in 1938 in poor condition, she was scrapped after WWII.

The last of the line, SS Bismarck was incomplete at the time of the Great War and was seized by the British. Sailing in turn as RMS Majestic for the White Star Line and then RMS Caledonia under Cunard service, while being used by the Royal Navy as HMS Caledonia she caught fire and sank on 29 September 1939.

As for Leviathan, she is extensively remembered in maritime art.

“When the Leviathan went out” — “Seagate 1918” When the Leviathan went out Seagate 1918 Etching by Bernhardt Wall, 1918, depicting two children building a sand castle, as USS Leviathan (ID # 1326) steams past in the background. Courtesy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 1924

USS Leviathan (ID # 1326) Water depicting the ship on her maiden Navy voyage from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Liverpool, England, with troops on board, Christmas Eve, 24 December 1917. Courtesy of CWO2 John A. Steel, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 51398-KN

“A Fast Convoy” painting by Burnell Poole, depicting USS Allen (Destroyer # 66) escorting USS Leviathan (ID # 1326) in the War Zone, 1918. The original painting measures 60 x 33. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 42690-KN

And in Hamburg, her place of birth and original home port, the Hamburg International Maritime Museum has a great collection of 1-1250 scale models show her as the SS Vaterland (in the back) USS Leviathan (in the middle, with dazzle camouflage painting) and SS Leviathan (in the front) on display.

Then, of course, this guy will live on forever.

Publicity shot for “High Sierra” (Raoul Walsh, 1941), with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Note the 1911, which would have been standard for the time he was on Leviathan.

Specs:

USS Leviathan Description: (ID # 1326) Plan of Dazzle camouflage intended for the ship, circa 1918. This design, for Leviathan’s starboard side (and port below), is like, but not the same as the camouflage scheme she received. Note the Office of Naval Intelligence Register Number in the upper left. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 51308 and 51389

(As troop ship)
Displacement: 58,000-tons
Length: 950 feet
Beam: 100 feet
Draft: 41 feet, 10 inches “when leaving New York with 10,000 troops”

“Place her on Fifth Avenue and she would spread from 42d Street across 45th Street. Stand her on end alongside the Woolworth Building, and she would overtop the Woolworth Building more than 50 feet.”

Crew: 2,400 including Engineering (12 officers and 950 men) and Commissary (7 officers and 350 men)
Engines: Parsons turbines, 46 boilers, 8,700 tons of coal (burns 900 per day at 26 knots sustained).
Armament: 8×6-inch, 2-1pdr, 2-Y guns, depth charge racks, 2 mg

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Warship Wednesday, July 5, 2017: HMs Cruiser Bruiser

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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, July 5, 2017: HMs Cruiser Bruiser

Here we see the Queen Elizabeth-class battleship HMS Valiant as she fires a 15″ broadside, July 1944, against Japanese port and oil facilities on Sabang Island off the northern tip of Sumatra during Operation Crimson. At this stage of her life, the battlewagon was 30~years young and had survived massive fleet actions against the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet in the Great War and Mussolini’s Regina Marine in WWII. An enforcer at the surrender of both of those fleets, she would be cruelly cheated of attending a third.

A member of the very successful Queen Elizabeth-class of “super-dreadnought,” they were fast for their day (24-knots), well-armored with as much as 13-inches of KC in their belt, tower, and turrets; and packed a punch from eight massive BL 15 inch (381mm) Mk I naval guns in four twin turrets.

HMS Valiant firing her BL 15-inch Mk I guns, c.1939.

The Mk I, described by Navweaps as “quite possibly the best large-caliber naval gun ever developed by Britain and it was certainly one of the longest-lived of any nation, with the first shipboard firing taking place in 1915 and the last in 1954,” was a bruiser capable of firing a 1-ton shell out to 33,550 yards and could well-outrange most German naval guns. Some 184 of these guns were made by Armstrong Whitworth, W Beardmore, Vickers, Royal Gun Factory, and Coventry Ordnance Works, serving on just about every subsequent British battleship design. The guns were rotated between ships, having a life of about 200 rounds before requiring relining, and one that served on Valiant during Jutland later wound up being captured by the Japanese at Singapore where it was serving as shore-mounted coastal artillery.

But we are getting far ahead of ourselves.

The hero of our story was the fifth RN vessel named HMS Valiant in a line that included three different 18th/19th Century third-rate 74-gun ships of the line, and a Hector-class ironclad battleship that remained afloat for 90 years.

The American Ship PORCUPINE and the HMS VALIANT, 17 June 1813. On 17 June 1813, the American letter-of-marque, PORCUPINE, of 20 guns and 72 men at daylight found herself under the lee of the British 74-gun ship HMS VALIANT, Captain Robert Dudley Oliver. After a long chase and using every endeavor to escape, PORCUPINE was overtaken and compelled to surrender to the overwhelming force of her opponent. Description: Catalog #: USN 903313

HMS VALIANT (BRITISH BATTLESHIP, 1863) Description: Catalog #: NH 71209

THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 74057) HMS Valiant Queen Elizabeth-class battleship and R-class destroyers: HMS Ulysses (F80), HMS Undine (G77), and HMS Sable (G91). Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205318845

Ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. (Govan, Scotland), in 1912 for £2,357,037, HMS Valiant (pennant 02) was commissioned 13 January 1916 and joined the Grand Fleet’s 5th Battle Squadron—under the command of Rear Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas– along with three of her sisters, HMS Barham, HMS Malaya, and HMS Warspite. The quartet, with 32 15-inch and 56 6-inch guns between them, was a force to be reckoned with.

5th Battle Squadron, Grand Fleet, HMS Warspite, Valiant & Malaya about to open fire. The photo was taken from HMS Barham. Colorized Photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

At the lowest part of the Battle of Jutland for the British, moments after the battlecruisers HMS Indefatigable and Queen Mary had exploded, the 5th Battle Squadron intervened against the German I Scouting Group under Adm. Franz von Hipper and let the 15-inchers do their talking. In very short order, they damaged the battlecruisers SMS Lützow and Seydlitz, and several other German warships.

In very short order on 31 May, at 18:13, a 15-inch shell from one of the Queen Elizabeths struck Lützow; two more hits came at 18:25 and 18:30. Between 18:09 and 18:19, Seydlitz was hit by a 15-inch from either Barham or Valiant, striking the face of the port wing turret and disabling the guns. A second 15-inch shell penetrated the already disabled aft super firing turret and detonated the cordite charges that had not already burned. The ship also had two of her 150 mm guns disabled from British gunfire, and the rear turret lost its right-hand gun. Not bad for 20~ minutes of work.

Hipper leaving the crippled Lutzow for SMS Moltke at Jutland, by Carl Becker

SMS Seydlitz seeing what hell looks like at Jutland, by Carl Becker

Lutzow eventually sank while Seydlitz limped back to port, her decks nearly awash. While each of the big German battlecruisers took immense damage from other British sluggers besides Valiant and her sisters, Hipper felt their sting.

SMS Seydlitz after the Battle of Jutland, 1916 Colorized Photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

While a number of her sisters took hits at Jutland, Valiant came through unscathed, having fired 288 15-inch shells over more than eight hours of the engagement. Her very enlightening Captain’s dispatch from the battle is here and is worth reading, as he reports several instances of German salvos coming within 10 yards and a torpedo only missing by 100. Not bad for a ship on her shakedown cruise just a few months before with a “green” crew.

THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 74187) Battleship HMS Valiant firing in Scapa Flow. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205318975

THE ROYAL NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Q 75203) Battleship HMS Valiant. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205319990

Suffering a collision with Warspite in August 1916, she spent the rest of the year in drydock under repair

THE ROYAL NAVY ON THE HOME FRONT, 1914-1918 (Q 18779) HMS Valiant in a dry dock. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205253225

THE ROYAL NAVY ON THE HOME FRONT, 1914-1918 (Q 18780) HMS Valiant in a dry dock. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205253226

The Great War spun down when it came to surface naval actions after Jutland, and Valiant only met the Germans again when the High Seas Fleet sortied at the end of the war to be interred at Scapa.

Queen Elizabeth-class super-dreadnought HMS Valiant at Scapa Flow, Scotland, in 1918 – with her German counter SMS Baden in the background.

Assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron, Valiant and her sisters remained in the Atlantic Fleet, then transferred to the Med in 1924.

Valiant June 16, 1924, Scapa From Dan McDonald Collection

Modernized in two extended periods, one from 1929-30 and another from 1937-39, she bulked up due to anti-torpedo bulges, changed her catapults and several minor topside features, lost her torpedo tubes and a couple of her casemated 6-inch mounts in exchange for 20x 4.5-inch high angles and AAA guns, and had her machinery upgraded to help mitigate the extra tonnage, now over 36,500-tons in full load.

Amidships view of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Valiant in 1941, note her huge twin-door seaplane hangar and twin 4.5-inch guns. 

Still, even with her new engines, she could only make 23.5 knots when wide open. She also picked up a Type 79Z search radar, one of the first fitted in the fleet.

HMS Valiant Photographed following her 1929-30 refit. She is carrying a Fairey III-F floatplane on her fantail catapult. This catapult was only carried during 1930-33. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 52518

HMS Valiant photographed in late 1939, following modernization. Note her turreted 4.5-inch guns in place of the old casemated 6-inch low angles. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 97486

World War II found her still under refit at Devonport, and she was only commissioned 30 November 1939, Captain Henry Bernard Rawlings, OBE, RN, in command.

She was immediately used to help escort the vital convoy TC 3, carrying some 8,000 Canadian soldiers, she sailed from Halifax in January 1940, ensuring the Canucks made it past the threat of German surface raiders.

Through March and into April, Valiant, along with HMS Hood, Rodney, and Warspite, escorted the Norwegian convoys ON 17, ON 17A, HN 17, HN 20, and ON 21. On 7 April, Valiant only just missed tangling with SMS Hipper, fresh off ramming the plucky destroyer Glowworm.

Valiant was to spend the next two months in and out of Norwegian waters, providing AAA cover for the fleet, tasking for naval gunfire support at Narvik (suspended at the last minute), and escorting the withdrawing convoys after the defeat there in June.

Then Valiant was attached to Force H and sent to the Med, where Churchill worried the Vichy French fleet, just pulled out of the war, would be a threat to the RN.

On 3 July, Valiant, along with Hood, Resolution, the carrier Ark Royal, and the light cruisers HMS Arethusa and Enterprise, stood just offshore of Mers-el-Kebir harbor and the battleships fired 36 salvos of 15-inch shells at the French fleet from extreme range, destroying the battleship Bretagne and severely damaging several other French ships including the battleship Dunkerque, the flag of Admiral Gensoul. Dubbed Operation Catapult, the controversial one-sided “battle” was to leave 1,300 dead French sailors behind.

Over the next several months, Valiant, as part of Force H and later Force F, helped keep the supply lines open from Portsmouth to Gibraltar to Malta and Alexandria, shuttling convoys and dodging Italian and German planes and warships.

In September 1940, she escorted the carrier HMS Illustrious in her famous raid on the Italian port of Benghazi. The next month, she provided cover for convoy MB-6 to Malta. The saga of the RN’s Mediterranean Fleet in 1940-41.

This came to a head at the three-day Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 near Crete, then a plump target for the Axis. Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham’s force, comprising Valiant and her sisters Barham and Warspite, along with the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable and a gaggle of light cruisers and destroyers, faced the Italian force under Adm. Iachino consisting of the sexy new battleship Vittorio Veneto, three very large heavy cruisers, and a force of light cruisers and destroyers.

How big were those Italian stallions? The Zara, Fiume, and Pola were sister ships, built for the Italian Regina Marina in the 1930s to a design that surpassed Naval Treaty limits (14,500-tons, 8x203mm guns, 5.9-inches of armor, 32 knots) and was impressive.

Fast die gesamte italienische Flotte im Golf von Neapel zusammengezogen.
Im Golf von Neapel werden jetzt die Einheiten der italienischen Kriegsflotte zu der grossen Parade zusammengezogen, die der Führer während seines Besuches in Italien abnehmen wird. Auf unserem Bild sieht man die drei schweren Kreuzer (10.000 Tonnen) “Fiume”, “Zara” und “Pola”. Scherl Bilderdienst, 19.4.38 Zara, Fiume, and Pola in Naples in 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2008-0214-500

So, were a spaghetti battleship and a three-pack of heavy cruisers enough for a trio of Queen Elizabeth-class dreadnoughts of Jutland vintage?

Pshaw.

Pola picked up a mobility kill from a torpedo from a Swordfish torpedo bomber launched by Formidable while Zara and Fiume were detached from the rest of the fleet to protect Pola, and all three and a pair of destroyers were sunk in a close-range night engagement with the battleships Barham, Valiant, and Warspite at a range of just 3,000-yards. Italian casualties were very heavy, with 783 killed aboard Zara, 328 killed aboard Pola, 812 aboard Fiume. The destroyers Vittorio Alfieri and Giosué Carducci also vanished that night. The Brits removed the entire 1a Divisione Incrociatori from the Italian Naval List before breakfast.

Prince Phillip, then a junior officer on Valiant, commanded a searchlight from our subject during the night action. After he had located one target, he said: “At this point, all hell broke loose, as all our eight 15-inch guns, plus those of the flagship and Barham‘s started firing at the stationary cruiser, which disappeared in an explosion and a cloud of smoke.” He was later awarded the Greek War Cross of Valour.

Artist Frank Norton painted this nighttime scene of the Battle of Matapan. HMAS Stuart is in the foreground, HMS Havock at left, and two Italian Zara-class destroyers in the background while Valiant illuminates with a spotlight. Radar gave the British the advantage during the night action.

Valiant made it through the battle but picked up two German 500-pound bombs the next month for her trouble off Crete.

Air attack was a constant threat in the Med during the period.

HMS Valiant (nearest to the camera) and HMS Resolution and is most likely taken during an Italian air attack (by SM 79 bombers) against Force H on 9 July 1940. The photograph is taken from HMS Enterprise.

Classmate HMS Barham, who Valiant fought alongside at Jutland and Cape Matapan, was sunk off the Egyptian coast by the German submarine U-331 with the loss of 862 crewmen, approximately two-thirds of her crew, on 25 November 1941.

The tragic sequence of her turning turtle and exploding is well-known.

The Italians would soon get revenge of their own on Valiant and her sister, Queen Elizabeth.

On the night of 18/19 December 1941, six Italian Navy divers of the Decima Flottiglia MAS, working from three chariot-type human torpedoes (termed maiali–pigs– by their users), worked their way past the British defenses at Alexandria and found the two battleships at anchor. Lt. Luigi Durand de la Penne pressed his SLC (maiale nº 221) to Valiant while his swim buddy, Emilio Bianchi, was otherwise out of action with a bad regulator on his rebreather, and placed the Siluro a Lenta Corsa (slow-running torpedo) just under the old battleship’s hull.

A bit dramatic, but you get the idea

Surfaced, he and Bianchi were captured as they waited by a buoy and taken aboard the targeted ship, placed coincidentally over the ticking mine they had just deposited. Warning the Valiant‘s skipper moments before the human torpedo went off, the frogmen were brought back on deck just in time to see the other mines explode under Queen Elizabeth, Norwegian tanker Sagona and destroyer HMS Jervis.

A fairly decent dramatization, showing the correct use of an SLC with its 600-pound detachable limpet mine warhead, planted under Valiant‘s A turret.

Valiant and her sister took on water and came very near to rest on the bottom of Alexandria, but did not technically sink and were repaired. Even Jervis eventually went back into action. However, putting the two battlewagons off-line for several months did throw British Naval supremacy in the Med at a crucial time before the U.S. made it to the theater.

When Churchill received news of the attack, he said, “Six Italians, dressed in rather unusual diving suits and equipped with materials of laughably little cost, have swung the military balance of power in the Mediterranean in favor of the Axis.”

Valiant was towed to Admiralty Floating Dock 5 two days later for dewatering and was under repair at Alexandria until April 1942 when she sailed to Durban, South Africa, where she operated with Force B off Africa in exercises for the defense of East Africa and operations against Vichy-held Madagascar.

June 1943 found her back in the Med with Force H, supporting the invasion of Sicily where she bombarded Italian 155mm coastal batteries south of Reggio and covered the landings at Salerno Bay. Fending off Italian and German air attacks, on 9 September Valiant, along with sister Warspite and a force of destroyers and light cruisers were detailed to Operation Gibbon, the surrender of the Italian Navy.

Off Cape de Garde, Algeria they met two battleships, three cruisers, and eight destroyers who sailed from La Spezia to be interred and escorted them to Malta. Missing from the Italian battleline was the new battleship Roma, which the Germans had sunk via Fritz-X guided bomb.

Italian Fleet arrives at Malta, 10 September 1943. HMS Valiant leads the line as the Italian fleet steams into Malta, under the terms of the Italian Armistice. The scene is framed by the after 15-inch guns of HMS Warspite. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: SC 188574

Valiant‘s last engagement in Europe was an NGFS mission against the town of Nocera, and a nearby road junction, firing 19 rounds of 15-inch from a range of approximately 28,000 yards on 16 September.

She was then recalled to Scapa to begin working up for the RN’s “pivot to Asia” and she soon shipped for the Indian Ocean where she joined the British Eastern Fleet, built around the carriers HMS Illustrious, USS Saratoga (who along with three U.S. destroyers formed Task Group 58.5), HMS Formidable, the battlecruiser HMS Renown, the French battleship Richelieu and Valiant‘s sister Queen Elizabeth.

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 19832) HMS VALIANT photographed from HMS FORMIDABLE at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119743

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 15152) As seen from the flight deck of HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, the battleship HMS VALIANT has a practice shoot for its 15-inch guns during exercises. The planes in the foreground are Fairey Fulmars of 806 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205186303

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 23483) HMS VALIANT, a battleship of the British Eastern Fleet, with FFS RICHELIEU astern. The photograph was taken from the battleship QUEEN ELIZABETH, the flagship of Admiral Sir James Somerville, KCB, KBE, DSO in the Bay of Bengal during the action against the Japanese at Sabang. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119839

Richelieu, HMS Valiant, and HMS Renown Cruising About the Indian Ocean On 12 May 1944

Getting ready for the continued push East, in August 1944, the venerable battleship was damaged in a drydock accident at Trincomalee, Ceylon, requiring her to return to England for extensive repairs that lasted into 1946, sadly missing out in the last chapter of the conflict.

QE-class battleship HMS Valiant at Trincomalee, Ceylon 1944. The photo details the camouflage she received in 1943. Her type 273 (lantern) RDF is visible right at the top of the photo.

In August 1946, she was relegated to a harbor training ship for stoker ratings at Devonport. In this inactive pier-side role, she was stripped of her name and took the traditional training establishment title of HMS Imperieuse. However, she would only fulfill this role for about 20 months, for she was sold to BISCO on 19 March 1948 for her value in scrap by the ton. The hard-fighting ship arrived at the Breaker’s yard at Caimryan on 12 August and was slowly dismantled over the next year.

Her three remaining sisters, Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, and Malaya, suffered similar fates.

Valiant‘s name was continued in British service by the class-leading nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Valiant (S102), commissioned in 1966 and paid off in 1994 (though still in storage); as well as the 140-foot Border Agency (Customs) cutter HMC Valiant, commissioned in 2004.

Valiant is also remembered in maritime art.

Prince Philip, current Duke of Edinburgh, and long-time consort of Queen Elizabeth II remains as one of Valiant‘s last remaining crew members at age 96, and is currently Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy, though he is set to retire from his official duties sometime this fall. As such, he is likely the last WWII battleship sailor anywhere still on the active list.

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope and his Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, formerly of HMS Valiant. 

Specs:

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 12126) The British battleship HMS VALIANT underway at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119583

Displacement:
32,590 long tons (33,110 t)
33,260 long tons (33,790 t) (Deep load)
Length: 643 ft. 9 in (196.2 m)
Beam: 90 ft. 7 in (27.6 m)
Draught: 33 ft. (10.1 m)
Installed power:
75,000 shp (56,000 kW)
24 Yarrow boilers
Propulsion:
4 Shafts
2 Steam turbine sets
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Range: 5,000 nmi (9,260 km; 5,750 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:
919 (1915)
1,218 (1919)
Radar: Type 273 SR(Surface Radar) on the foremast, a Type SR (Surface Radar) 284 radar on the LA DCT (Low Angle Director Control Tower), and a Type HA (High Angle) 285 on each of the HA DCT’s, a Type 291 AW (Air Warning) on the mastheads and an IFF interrogator.
Aircraft: 2-3 floatplanes
Armament: (as-built)
4 × twin 15-inch (381 mm) guns
14 × single 6-inch (152 mm) guns
2 × single 3-inch (76 mm) 20 cwt AA guns
4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armament (1945)
4 × twin 15-inch (381 mm) guns
10 × twin 4.5 in (114 mm) Dual-purpose guns
4 × octuplet QF 2-pdr (40 mm) AA guns
26 × twin Oerlikon 20 mm (0.8 in) AA guns
4 × quadruple Vickers 0.5 in (12.7 mm) AA machineguns
Armor: Krupp cemented armor (KC)
Waterline belt: 13 in (330 mm)
Deck: 1–3 in (25–76 mm)
Barbettes: 7–10 in (178–254 mm)
Gun turrets: 11–13 in (279–330 mm)
Conning tower: 13 in (330 mm)

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Warship Wednesday, June 28, 2017: The Kansas cruiser, by way of Peru

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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, June 28, 2017: The Kansas cruiser, by way of Peru

Color-tinted postcard of a photograph copyrighted by Enrique Muller, 1905. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 63653-B-KN

Here we see the Lima-class gunboat USS Topeka at anchor in Long Island Sound, New York, circa 1904. Ships present in the background include the destroyer tender USS Prairie (left) and a torpedo-boat destroyer. By this time, Topeka was already almost 25 years old, had switched flags and names a confusing number of times, and had 25 years of service ahead of her.

She and her sister had a rather odd story rooted in Latin American naval lore.

To understand the Topeka, first, we need to understand the ironclad turret ship Huáscar.

Built for a princely £81,000 in England at Laird Brothers to a design by British ironclad wonk Captain Cowper Coles, she was commissioned scarcely a year after the U.S. Civil War for the Peruvian Navy. At 1,900-tons and capable of 12-knots in the open ocean, she carried a pair of 10-inch guns in a Coles-patented revolving gun turret and was protected by as much as seven inches of armor. The Peruvians were very happy with the vessel and she was the fleet flag.

Marina de Guerra del Perú. Es el BAP Huáscar, 1879

However, in a four against one ironclad face-off during the Battle of Angamos on 8 October 1879, in the War of the Pacific, Huáscar was captured by the stronger force of the Chilean Navy. Peruvian Admiral and naval hero Miguel Grau Seminario was killed as was 32 of her crew.

The loss of the big ironclad sent agents from Peru to Europe looking for not one but two modern ships to replace her in the battle line. A string of talks to buy first the armored frigate Roma from Italy, then the armored ship Danmark from the Danes, and finally two old British-made ironclads from the Ottomans, were frustrated by the actions of Chilean diplomats abroad.

Finally, through some hoodwink and the equivalent fee of £200,000 (collected by popular subscription from the public), the Peruvians were able to have two cruisers built at the Howaldtswerke shipyard in Kiel, Germany–disguised under a Greek shipping company and completed as the freighters Socrates and Diogenes. At about 1,800-tons, these 250-foot long vessels were about the same size as the lost Huáscar and could make 16.2 knots, making them a good bit faster, but they were unprotected.

The unarmed ships were completed by Howaldtwerke in 1881, and the two “Greek” freighters shipped for England where they were to be outfitted with a suite of four Armstrong 4-inch guns and various smaller Hotchkiss pieces, then sail as the Peruvian Navy cruisers BAP Lima and BAP Callao respectively.

However, this was not to be.

Once in Britain, the Chileans pressured the Queen’s government to impound the ships there for the duration of the war. After the conflict ended, the Peruvians were only able to afford one of the vessels and, in 1889 after an eight-year saga, finally called Lima home while Callao was left swaying in England, unwanted and signed over to the Thames Iron Works in lieu of nearly a decade of dock rental and upkeep on the pair.

Lima, as completed for the Peruvians

There, the German-built and unused formerly Peruvian cruiser sat for nearly another decade as the Brits offered her to prospective buyers without much luck– though she was nearly purchased by Japan in 1895 for use against China– with Thames even going through the trouble of overhauling her in 1896. She was made ready at the time for an armament of six 4.7-inch Armstrongs (two forecastle, four in broadside sponsons) 10 six-pounders, and six three-pounders.

Then came a rather exciting little conflict known to history as the Spanish-American War, and Thames was able to make a deal with agents working on behalf of Washington– garnering the distinction, as reported by the May 7th, 1898 Western Electrician, of “being the only vessel of the kind ever purchased by telephone.”

The U.S. Navy purchased 102 ships on the open market in early 1898 for a total of $18,243,389.29. The cheapest of these, the 16-year old 100-ton commercial tug Hercules (commissioned as USS Chickasaw) was picked up for just $15,000. The most expensive, the brand new British Armstrong-built 3,800-ton Brazilian Navy cruiser Amazonas (commissioned as USS New Orleans, a former Warship Wednesday alumni), was bought for $1.43 million. This made Diogenes/Callao a comparative deal at $170,327.50 (the odd number attributed to the exchange rate with pounds sterling).

Purchased on 2 April 1898 (more than two weeks before the actual Declaration of War by the U.S. Congress), Diogenes/Callao was renamed USS Topeka, and placed in commission the same day, Lt. John J. Knapp in command. She was the first U.S. ship named for the Kansas capital city.

Two weeks later she cleared Falmouth in an unarmed state, headed to the New York Naval Yard where she was painted gray, picked up 6 4-inch/40 cal guns, six 3-pounders, a pair of one-pounders, and a Colt 1895 machine gun.

USS Topeka Halftone of a photograph taken in 1898, at the time of the Spanish-American War. 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 98239

USS Topeka at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, 30 June 1898. Note the scrollwork on her bow. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63398

USS Topeka off the New York Navy Yard, 1898. Courtesy of Howard I. Chapelle, Smithsonian Institution. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 806

By 11 July, Uncle’s newest warship joined the blockading forces off Havana, ordered to assume station off Bahia de Nipe, located on the northeastern shore of Cuba almost directly opposite Santiago de Cuba on the island’s southeastern coast.

USS Topeka at anchor in 1898. Note the extensvie awnings on deck and the broadside 4″ guns about amidships. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 60333 Colorized by Postales Navales

Her time off Cuba was exciting, though only lasted about a month, as noted by DANFS:

On 17 July, she and Maple captured the Spanish sloop Domingo Aurelio off Bahia de Nipe. Four days later, Topeka joined Annapolis, Wasp, and Leyden in a foray into Bahia de Nipe. The four warships encountered no real resistance from the Spanish and, therefore, easily captured the port and sank the Spanish cruiser [actually a sloop, 920t, 6×6.2″] Jorge Juan, abandoned by her crew.

Following the capture of the Bahia de Nipe littoral, Topeka steamed to Key West with dispatches. She returned to Cuban waters on 28 July and remained until 5 August, when she again steamed to Key West. She made one more voyage to Cuba in mid-August, visiting Port Francis on the 14th before heading north on the 15th.

The action with the Jorge Juan is described more in the Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine of the day, which holds the Spanish vessel had both her masts shot away and was awash when the Americans took her over following a sharp action.

Over the next several years, Topeka assisted as a control ship for new warship trials, participated in wireless telegraphy experiments, exercised gunboat diplomacy in the waters of the Dominican Republic and Panama when U.S. interests were threatened, embarked on a training cruise to the Mediterranean, and performed other tasks as needed.

Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Massachusetts Navy Yard waterfront, circa 1900. Ships present include, from left to right: USS Olympia, USS Topeka, and USS Constitution. Note the boats in the foreground. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 55965

Photographed by J. Geiser, Algiers, Algeria, 1900, during her Med cruise. Note she now has a gleaming peacetime white scheme and gilt bowscrolls. The original photograph is printed on silk. Collection of Rear Admiral William C. Braisted, USN(MC). Courtesy of Dr. William R. Braisted. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 91532

Topeka was placed out of commission on 7 September 1905 and assigned duty as station ship at Portsmouth where she served as an auxiliary to the converted collier USS Southery, then serving as the prison ship for the Portsmouth Naval Prison, which was under construction.

By 1915, the Navy had disposed of most of the 102 SpanAm War ships taken up from trade, selling them for a total of just $1.167 million, about 5 percent of the amount Uncle had paid. Topeka was one of the few still afloat by then.

Starboard view, while serving as a detention ship at Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, 1915. Note her masts have been stepped and her sponson casemates are now blocked in, one seen with windows fitted. Photo via Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels Collection Lot 5369-5 from National Museum of the U.S. Navy

U.S. Navy gunboat USS Topeka (Patrol Gunboat #35) while serving as a detention ship at Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, 1915. Note the sailors performing knotting and splicing. The white sleeve stripes denote them as being under discipline. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels Collection Lot 5369-5 from National Museum of the U.S. Navy Lot 5369-3:

U.S. Navy gunboat USS Topeka (Patrol Gunboat #35) while serving as a detention ship at Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, 1915. U.S. Navy sailors performing a 3” gun drill. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels Collection Lot 5369-5 from National Museum of the U.S. Navy Lot 5369-6

When the U.S. entered World War I, Topeka was converted to a training ship and thousands of new recruits walked her decks before the Armistice. Around this time, she was re-engined with a pair of Ward boilers replacing her four German ones and two 1,000ihp DeLaval geared turbines replacing her old horizontal compound engines.

The 38-year-old gunboat was called in off the bleachers once more and, on 24 March 1919, Topeka was recommissioned at Boston, CDR Earl P. Finney in command. However, it was not to last. After a brief patrol off the Gulf coast of Mexico, she was again placed out of commission on 21 November 1919 at Charleston Navy Yard. Designated PG-35 in 1920, then IX-35 (the designation for unclassified miscellaneous auxiliaries) the next year. In 1922, she was put on the market for sale and after “no satisfactory bids were forthcoming” the Navy decided to keep the old girl a bit longer.

Transferred to Philadelphia, she was used as a pierside trainer until 1930 when she was stricken for good to remove her tonnage from the U.S. Navy’s tally sheet under the London Naval Treaty and free it up for a more valuable use. She was sold for scrap in May.

Topeka‘s bell currently sits on the parade deck of the Marine Corps Security Force Company Guantanamo Bay, Cuba while one of her 4″40 cals (American Ordnance Co. no. 152) used to sink the Spanish sloop-of-war Jorge Juan in 1898 is at the Washington Naval Yard.

NMUSN174 - Pre WWI - American - 4 inch 40 Caliber Rifle - 1898 from 'USS Topeka'

Topeka’s name has gone on to grace a WWII light cruiser (CL-67) and a nuclear attack submarine (SSN-754), the former scrapped in 1975 and the latter in active commission since 1989.

As for her sister, Lima, the Peruvian cruiser was used in the 1890s as a diplomatic vessel and notably visited Valparaiso, Chile, to repatriate the mortal remains of Admiral Grau along with the 32 fallen Peruvian crew members from Huáscar, and other war heroes including Col. Francisco Bolognesi Cervantes, the patron of the Peruvian Army. Lima was disarmed in 1926 and retained as a tender for the Peruvian submarine flotilla until she was stricken in 1950.

LIMA (Peruvian Cruiser, 1881-1940) Caption: Photographed late in her career with a reduced rig and built up bridge area. Description: Courtesy Comandante Cosio and Dr. R. L. Scheina. Catalog #: NH 87837

Lima was later apparently used by the government as a public-school ship at the Amazon city of Iquitos for a time and her final fate has faded into history, though one Spanish source claims she was still stranded in the river as late as 1999.

As for Huáscar, she served the Chilean Navy through 1897 and today is one of the few early ironclad era warships still afloat, serving for the past several decades as a museum.

Jose Vinagre Espamer picture of the ironclad turret ship Huascar

Specs:

Displacement: 1,800 designed, 2,255 long tons (2,291 t) normal
Length: 259 ft. 4 in (79.04 m)
Beam: 35 ft. (11 m) at the waterline
Draft: 16 ft. 5 in (5.00 m) aft
Propulsion: 4 cylindrical boilers, 2 engines, 1800shp, 2 shafts, 300 tons coal (re-engined about 1915)
Speed: 16.2 knots
Complement: 167 officers and enlisted
Armament:
(Designed, never fitted)
4x 4-inch Armstrong
(1898)
6 × 4″/40 cal
6 × 3-pounder guns
2 × 1-pounder guns
1 × Colt machine gun (M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun)
(1915)
4x 3″/23 guns
(1921)
Disarmed

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, June 21, 2017: The Tsar’s everlasting musketeer

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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, June 21, 2017: The Tsar’s everlasting musketeer

Here we see the Uragan/Bronenosets-class monitor Strelets as she appeared in the heyday of her career in the late 19th Century in the Baltic Fleet of the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Navy. A byproduct of a strange time in Russian-U.S. history, she somehow endures today.

The Misinterpreted Russian Navy Mission in the US Civil War that may have accidentally helped the North win the conflict.

In 1863, it looked as if the mighty British Empire may intervene in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. War fever had come to London early in the conflict after the “Trent Affair” while British firms such as Enfield and Whitworth sold tremendous amounts of arms of all kinds to Confederate agents which were in turn often smuggled through the U.S. naval quarantine via British blockade-runners. Confederate raiders including the notorious CSS Alabama and CSS Shenandoah were constructed in English harbors. British war tourist Colonel (later General Sir) Arthur Fremantle in 1863 had just returned from three months in both the U.S. and Confederate commands fighting the war and loudly pronounced that the Confederates would certainly be victorious.

Relations between the United States and Tsarist Russia were warmer than with many other European nations at the time. Cassius Marcellus Clay, a well-known abolitionist, was ambassador to the court of Tsar Alexander II during the conflict. It was Clay’s report on the Tsar’s Emancipation of 23 million serfs in 1861 that helped pave the way for Lincolns own Emancipation Proclamation of the four million slaves the next year. American engineers and railway organizers were helpful in starting the early Russian railway system. Clay openly encouraged a military alliance and  thought of Russia as a hedge between possible British intervention on the Confederate side.

On 24 September 1863, two separate Russian naval squadrons arrived in U.S. waters unannounced on both the East and West Coasts.

The Russian Atlantic fleet had sailed from the Baltic and arrived at New York under command of RADM Lesovskii with three large frigates and a trio of smaller vessels. The fleet included the new and fearsome 5,100-ton U.S.-built screw frigate Alexander Nevsky with her 51 60-pounder naval guns.

Crew of the Russian Frigate Osliaba – Alexandria, VA, 1863

The Russian Pacific fleet that arrived on the West Coast at San Francisco was under command of RADM Popov and consisted of four small gunboats with a pair of armed merchant cruisers.

The ships were saluted and allowed entry as being on a friendly port call. The American media and political machine immediately interpreted the reason for these naval visits as clear Russian support for Lincoln.

The real reason, however, seems to be something quite different.

Poland, largely occupied by Russia, was in open revolt in the summer of 1863. The crisis that followed included the possibility that Britain and or France would intervene on the side of the insurgent Poles. The Tsar, fearing his isolated Pacific and Atlantic naval squadrons would be seized or destroyed by superior British or French units in the event of war, sent them into neutral U.S. ports to seek refuge. This fact was held from the Americans and the fleets’ Russian officers simply stated that they were in American ports for “not unfriendly purposes.”

The respective admirals of the Russian squadrons had sealed orders to place themselves at the disposal of the U.S. government in the event of a joint British or French intervention on both Russia and the United States. In the event of Russia entering war with the Anglo-French forces alone then the Russian ships were to sortie against the commercial fleets of those vessels as best as they could and then seek internment.

Several historians claim that the British government saw this mysterious visit by the Russians in U.S. waters as an open confirmation of a secret military pact between the two future superpowers. This interpretation further helped deter foreign recognition of the Confederate cause and resulted in the extinguishing of the South’s flame of hope. It can also be claimed that it stalled British intervention in the Tsar’s problems in Poland with the thought that it could result in a U.S. invasion of Canada.

When the Polish crisis abated in April 1864, the Russian fleets were recalled quietly to their respective home waters. The dozen Tsarist warships had conducted port calls and training cruises in U.S. and neighboring waters for almost seven months during the war while managing to avoid the conflict altogether. In the late fall of 1863, with rumors of Confederate raiders lurking on the West Coast, Popov reassured to the governor of California that he and his fleet would indeed protect the coast of their de facto ally if the raiders did appear.

The U.S. Navy, on the cutting edge of ironclad steam warship design, passed along plans and expertise to their Russian colleagues who had no such vessels. By 1865, the Tsar had a fleet of 10 ultra-modern 200-foot long ironclad battleships based on the monitor USS Passaic. These ships, known to the Russians as the Uragan/Bronenosetz class were a match for any European navy of the time– at least in their home waters.

In 1867, Russian Ambassador Baron Stoeckel advised US Secretary Seward that the Russian government would entertain bids for the failing colony of Alaska, which was rapidly accepted. Cassius Clay, still in Russia, helped to conduct the negations from inside the Winter Palace. The Russians even rapidly transferred control of the territory, which was seen by many to be worthless nearly a year before Congress ratified the transfer and in effect, couldn’t give it back.

This odd incident of the Russian fleets’ visit may have prevented what would have certainly been one of the planet’s first and possibly oddest of world wars. The real reasons for the Russian interlude were only uncovered and publicized nearly 50 years later in 1915 by military historian Frank Golder.

But let’s get back to the monitors

These modified Passaic-type ships were low in the water, single turret “cheesebox on a raft” style armored ships that could be fearsome in coastal waters. Their wrought-iron armor, stacked in 1-inch plates, varied between a single plate on deck to 10 inches on the turret, which was filled with a pair of 9-inch smoothbore guns with 100 shells each. The steam-powered turret took 35 seconds to make a full rotation.

A pair of boilers vented through a single stack pushed a 460ihp engine to about 8-knots when wide open, though in actuality they rarely broke 6.

As they had a very low freeboard indeed (just 18 inches above the waterline when fully loaded) the ships were intended for the defense of the Gulf of Finland and St. Petersburg, with memories of the Anglo-French fleet ruling the Baltic during the Crimean War still a recent memory.

Ten vessels were built, all with colorful names: Uragan “Hurricane,” Tifon “Typhon,” Strelets “Sagittarius,” Edinorog “Unicorn,” Bronenosets “Armadillo,” Latnik “Cuirassier,” Koldun “Sorcerer,” Perun (the Slavic god of lightning and thunder), Veshchun “Snake Charmer,” and Lava.

The hero of our story, Strelets, while named for a zodiac symbol for Sagittarius, was the Tsarist terminology for the early corps of musketeers established in the 16th century and retained until Peter the Great decided they were getting too big for their collective britches after a series of palace coups by the Moscow-based units.

“Streltsy” . Sergei Ivanov 1909

Laid down at the Galernyi Island Shipyard, Saint Petersburg on 1 December 1863, just weeks after her plans had been obtained in the U.S., she was commissioned 15 June 1865, built at a cost of 1.1 million rubles alongside sister Edinorog. The pair were the last of the 10 completed.

Sistership Edinorog. Note how low the freeboard was.

Their eight remaining sisters were completed in a series of four other yards, with all joining the fleet by the summer of 1865.

Russian monitor Veshchun as completed. She was built from sections at the Cockerill yard in Seraing, Belgium. Courtesy J. Meister Collection, 1976. Catalog #: NH 84753

Russian monitor Lava as completed. She was built at the Nevsky factory. Courtesy J. Meister Collection, 1976. Catalog #: NH 84754

Monitors at Kronstadt. Watercolor by A. A. Tronya

By 1868, the 9-inch smoothbores were replaced by 15-inch Dahlgren-style guns built to U.S. plans at the Aleksandrovsk gun factory, for which just 50 shells could be carried in her magazine.

However, these guns were soon obsolete and were in turn replaced by Krupp-designed, Obukhov-made M1867 229/14 breechloaders. One of these guns was the subject of an explosion near the breech in 1876 that claimed the lives of five.

Diagram showing the location of sailors in the tower of the monitor Sagittarius at the time of the breakthrough of the powder gases on August 10, 1876

This led to another armament replacement in 1878 with 229/19 M1877 rifles augmented by a pair of 45-mm rapid-fire guns on an increasingly cluttered deck to which 5-barreled 37/17 Hotchkiss revolving cannon were also later added.

Rapidly obsolete in the twilight of the 19th Century, on 1 February 1892 Strelets and the rest of her class were deemed “coastal defense ships” and by 1900 all 10 sisters were withdrawn from service and disarmed.

While many were soon scrapped, Strelets was reclassified as a floating workshop at Kronstadt on 22 February 1901 and was retained by the fleet until Christmas Eve 1955.

As such, she witnessed the Baltic Fleet sail away to destruction in the Russo-Japanese War in (1904-05), supported operations against the Germans (1914-1917) in the Great War, witnessed the Red Fleet rise in the Revolution, withstood the British in the Russian Civil War, survived the storming of Kronstadt by the Reds in 1921, lent her shops to the Red Banner Fleet against the Finns (1939-40) then the Germans again (1941-45)– in all spending over 90 years on the rolls in one form or another.

After leaving naval service she was retained in a variety of roles in and around Leningrad/St. Petersburg and in 2015 was found in floating condition, her internals still showing off those classic Civil War lines.

Monitor Sagittarius, now PMR-8 in Kronstadt

She has since been recovered by a group terming itself “The Foundation for Historic Boats” who, together with the Russian Central Military History Museum, are attempting to restore her to a more monitor-like condition. She could very well be the oldest monitor remaining afloat.

At rest near the cruiser Aurora, in poor shape

For more information in that, click here.

Specs:


Displacement: 1,500–1,600 long tons (1,524–1,626 t)
Length: 201 ft. (61.3 m)
Beam: 46 ft. (14.0 m)
Draft: 10.16–10.84 ft. (3.1–3.3 m)
Installed power:
460hp 2-cylinder direct-acting steam engine, 1 shaft, 1 4-lop. screw
2 rectangular Morton boilers, 1 stack
Speed: 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph)
Range: 1,440 nmi (2,670 km; 1,660 mi) at 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph) with 100 tons coal
Complement: 1865: 96 (8); 1877: 110 (10); 1900, assigned support personnel
Armament:
1865: 2 × 9 in (229 mm) smoothbore guns
1868: 2 × 15 in (381 mm) smoothbore Rodman guns
1873: 2 × 9 in (229 mm) rifled guns, 2x45mm guns
1890: 2 × 9 in (229 mm) rifled guns, 2x 47/40, 2x 5-barreled 37/17 Hotchkiss revolving cannon
1900: Disarmed
Armor: wrought Izhora iron
Hull: 5 in (127 mm)
Gun turret: 11 in (279 mm)
Funnel base: 6 in (152 mm)
Conning tower: 8 in (203 mm)

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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