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Warship Wednesday Sept. 14, 2016: An everlasting Citrus with very long roots

Posted on September 14, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

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

Warship Wednesday Sept. 14, 2016: An everlasting Citrus with very long roots

US Coast Guard Historians Office

Here we see the Cactus-class medium endurance cutter USCGC Citrus (WMEC-300) lean and mean in her white livery and racing stripe in 1984 off Coos Bay, Oregon. A product of WWII, she would spend a full half-century in U.S. maritime service and is still ticking in Santo Domingo as the flagship of a Caribbean navy.

In 1916 the Revenue Cutter Service and Lifesaving Service were merged to form the Coast Guard, to which the Bureau of Lighthouses was added on 1 July 1939 and as such all U.S. lighthouses, tenders and lightships became USCG installations and ships. The thing is, the lighthouse and buoy tender fleet was a hodgepodge of antiquated single-use vessels to which the Bureau had been looking to replace with a new series of 177-foot lighthouse tenders modeled after the USLHT Juniper, the last vessel designed by the Bureau.

Taking these plans, the Coast Guard made some changes and produced a 180-foot/950-ton single-screw steel-hulled ship that incorporated some new features that the USLHS never needed (an ice-strengthened bow, search and rescue equipment and mission, allowance for armament, et.al). The first of these, USCGC Cactus (WAGL-270) was appropriated for $782,381 on 20 Jan 1941 and laid down at Marine Iron & Shipbuilding Corporation, Duluth, MN on 31 March

In all, some 39 of these hardy ships were built either at Marine or at Zenith Dredge Company very rapidly in three subclasses: the “A” or “Cactus” class, “B” or “Mesquite” class, and “C” or “Iris” class. All ships of the three subclasses have the same general characteristics, but with slight differences, (e.g. the “A/Cactus” class tenders may be differentiated from the other two classes of 180-foot tenders by their unique “A” frame main boom support forward and their large 30,000 gal fuel tanks that allowed an economical 17,000nm cruising range on their gentle diesels.) The last to come off the ways was USCGC Woodbrush (WAGL-407) which commissioned 22 Sept. 1944.

The hero of our story, USCGC Citrus, was laid down at Marine Iron 29 April 1942 and commissioned 15 weeks later on 15 August 1942 for a total cost of $853,987.

Citrus preparing to leave Duluth Aug 15 1942. Note her haze gray appearance as she was a war baby

After some service on the Great Lakes, she was armed with a single 3″/50 behind her stack, 4 20mm guns, depth charge racks, Mousetrap ASW launchers, and Y-guns and shipped for Alaska Sector, Northwestern Sea Frontier on 15 September 1943, which was only recently liberated from the Japanese. There, she helped support the brand new and revolutionary LORAN system, establishing sites at Sitka, Amchitka, and Attu.

In the heavy seas of the Western Aleutians, she endured storms, primitive Arctic conditions, and the threat of enemy action, coming to the rescue of liberty ships, tugs and landing craft throughout 1944. Citrus spent the remainder of the war conducting ATON, logistics, and vessel escort duties in Southwestern Alaskan waters.

1954. Note her peacetime black hull, buff stack scheme

After the war, she was liberated of much of her AAA and ASW armament, but continued working the Alaska beat, stationed at Ketchikan until 1964 and Kodiak through 1979, in all spending 36 years in Alaskan waters. During this time she escorted Soviet fishing trawlers out of U.S. waters, participated in Naval exercises, towed disabled fishing vessels to port, medevac’d injured mariners, searched for missing planes, fought a fire on the Japanese MV Seifu Maru in Dutch Harbor, and rescued 31 from the grounded ferry Tustumena near Kodiak.

Ketchikan 1959

Seattle 1964, note her 3″/50 aft of her stack in canvas

During this period tenders were designated WLBs (buoy tenders) and saw all fixed armament landed in 1966, leaving them only their small arms lockers. If deployed for law enforcement missions, 180s would be equipped with four Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine guns or a similar number of M60 7.62mm GPMGs. Lacking it’s naval piece, the 3-incher Gun Tub served as a lookout perch and occasional storage area for small items including crew bicycles when traveling between ports. Lockers for life jackets and exposure survival suits were later located on this deck, which is encircled by a tubular steel railing.

With the 3-incher and 20mms gone and no need for GMs, Citrus and her sisters also saw a decrease in crew size. As originally built, the ship was manned for wartime duties by six officers and 74 enlisted men for a crew of 80 (1945). In her final years of operation primarily as a buoy tender, Citrus, and her fellow 180s were manned by five officers, two chief warrant officers, four chief petty officers and 37 enlisted men for a total of 48 souls, or about half their original complement.

In Sept-October 1975 she made history when she “helped provide icebreaking escort for 15 tugs and barges in an heroic attempt to get vital supplies to the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. . .[thereby averting] a delay in the development of the North Slope oil fields which are vital to the national interest of the United States.” Citrus and her crew were awarded the Coast Guard Unit Commendation with the Operational Distinguishing Device.

Then came a change of pace.

Three 180s, all over 35 years of age, were painted white, landed their buoy tending gear , picked up a SPS-64(V) surface search radar and RHIB then were used as law-enforcement/SAR platforms during the 1980s to help take the place of older cutters leaving the fleet. These ships were Citrus, Evergreen (WLB-295), and Clover (WLB-292). As such, these three picked up the designation of medium endurance cutters (WMEC).

Overhead view as WMEC, note her buoy tending gear is largely gone and she has added a RHIB to complement her 26 foot whale boat

Citrus with RIB deployed in calm water image via https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=o.67035902535&ref=mf WLB-300 veterans group.

Citrus with RHIB deployed in calm water image via WLB-300 veterans group.

This led to her transfer to Coos Bay, Oregon for 15 years as a floating lawman.

In perhaps her strangest encounter of her career, the Panamanian-flagged 148-foot MV Pacific Star was stopped by Citrus on 1 January 1985 about 680 mi southwest of San Diego.

From the USCG Historian’s Office:

When the boarding team attempted to board the vessel, the master set the Pacific Star on fire and commenced to scuttle the vessel. In a final act of deterrence, the master turned his vessel and rammed Citrus on the starboard side. The boarding team did get on board and located a large quantity of Thai marijuana in the vessel’s forward hold. As the vessel sank, more than 3,800 pound of marijuana was recovered as it floated to the surface and the seven-man crew was arrested.

Pictures or it didn’t happen:

Note the dent in Citrus’s hull just to the left of the “C” in Coast Guard

The rest of her U.S. service was quiet and she was decommissioned 1 September 1994 after 51 years of service, seeing 28 different skippers on her bridge over the years.

1994: Note her A Frame was removed by then

Placed on hold for transfer to Mexico, that deal fell through and she was instead sent to the Dominican Republic 16 September 1995 as Almirante Juan Alejandro Acosta (C-456/P301) after one of the founders of the Dominican Navy, where she was rearmed and made the flagship of the Armada de Republica Dominicana.

FILE – In this June 25, 2007 file photo, a Dominican Navy soldier stands guard over bales of cocaine during a news conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Authorities in the Dominican Republic seized 9 tons of cocaine in 2012, the third consecutive record, according to the country’s national drug control agency. In January alone, they seized another 3 tons off the country’s southern coast. (AP Photo/Jorge Cruz, File)

She was rearmed with a British 4″/45 caliber DP gun (off a decommissioned WWII Flower-class corvette), two single Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (from a decommissioned WWII era American patrol frigate), and four 7.62 mm M60 machine guns. She is used for coastal patrol, navigational aid maintenance, midshipman cruises, humanitarian assistance, naval training exercises, troop transport, and at sea refueling.

As for her sisterships, many have proven to be very long in the tooth:

*Balsam (WLB-62) was decommissioned 1975 and has been used as an Alaskan crab boat ever since

*Cactus (WLB-270) was seized in Kings County Washington as a derelict vessel in 2013 for dismantling.

*Cowslip (WLB-277), Firebush (WLB-393) and Sassafras (WLB-401) were transferred to Nigerian Navy 2002-2003 as NNS Nwamba, NNS Olepu and Obula respectively. All remain in service. Sedge (WLB-402) was also transferred for parts.

*Woodbine (WLB-289) was donated to be a training ship in Cleveland in 1972 and went on to be a fish processing boat in Alaska before being sold for scrap in 2012.

*Gentian (WLB-290) was transferred to Colombia as ARC San Andrés (PO-45) and is still active.

*Laurel (WLB-291) was sold at GSA auction in 1999, ultimate fate unknown.

*Clover (WLB-292) and Evergreen (WLB-295) were decommissioned 1990 and sunk by the Navy as a targets.

*Sorrel (WLB-296) was decommissioned in 1996 and is used as SS Reliance operated by Sea Scout Ship #13 of Stockton, California, showing up in an episode of Dexter.

*Ironwood (WLB-297) saw quite a lot of WWII service and was transferred to the Dept. of Interior as a training vessel in 2000, later disposed of.

*Conifer (WLB-301) and Papaw (WLB-308) were decommissioned 2000 and 1999 respectively and was used for a number of years as F/V Hope and F/V Mersea, part of the disaster relief fleet of Friend Ships, but have since been removed from that organization.

*Madrona (WLB-302) transferred to El Salvador who used her as General Manuel José Arce and subsequently sunk her as a reef.

*Tupelo (WAGL/WLB-303) was decommissioned in 1975 and has spent the past 30 years as a Bering Sea fishing boat, FV Courageous.

*Mesquite (WLB-305) ran aground December 4, 1989 on a reef off the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior while in Coast Guard service and was scuttled for underwater diving preserve.

*Buttonwood (WLB-306) was decommissioned 2001 and transferred to the Dominican Republic’s Navy as Almirante Didiez Burgos, still active.

*Sweetgum (WLB-309) was transferred in 2002 to Panama as SMN Independencia (P401).

*Basswood (WLB-388), Blackhaw (WLB-390) and Mallow (WLB-396) were scrapped in 2000.

*Bittersweet (WLB-389) was decommissioned and transferred to Estonian Border Guard, 5 September 1997 who used her until 2014– she is retained as a museum ship.

*Blackthorn (WLB-391) sank in 1980 in a collision near the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge, resulting in 23 crewmember fatalities. Raised, she was resunk as a reef.

*Bramble (WLB-392) was decommissioned 2003, and has been retained with a mixed degree of success as a museum ship in the Great Lakes.

*Hornbeam (WLB-394) was decommissioned 1999, and lost near Panama as M/V Rum Cay Grace in 2013.

*Iris (WLB-395) and Planetree (WLB-307) were decommissioned after helping with the Exxon Valdez oil spill and sit in rusting quiet in the SBRF, Suisun Bay, CA mothballs fleet, to be disposed of by 2017.

*Mariposa (WLB-397) was decommissioned in 2000 but has been retained by the Navy as a hulk until 2009 and has been spotted in the Seattle area since then.

*Redbud (WLB-398) was transferred to the Philippines as Kalinga (AG-89) in 1972.

*Sagebrush (WLB-399) was scuttled off St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia on 28 April 1988.

*Salvia (WLB-400) was decommissioned 1991 and used as a salvage operations training vessel for U.S. Navy at Little Creek.

*Spar (WLB-403) was decommed 1997 and sunk as a reef in 2004.

*Sundew (WLB-404) was decommissioned 2004, used as a museum for a while, then sold to private interests in 2010.

*Acacia (WLB-406), the last 180 in Coast Guard service, was decommissioned 2006 after 63 years of service and is now a museum in Manistee, Michigan.

*Woodrush (WLB-407) and Sweetbrier (WLB-405) were transferred to Ghana in 2001 where she still serves as GNS Anzone (P30) and GNS Bonsu (P31) respectively, which means “shark” and “whale” in the native lingo.

A veterans’ group for the Citrus survives on Facebook with a series of great images. For more information about the 180s in general, the USCG Historian’s office has a great 73-page report on them here while the LOC has a great series of images from the Planetree, a Mesquite subclass sister.

Specs:

Length: 180′ oa
Beam: 37′ mb
Draft: 12′ max (1945); 14′ 7″ (1966)
Displacement: 935 fl (1945); 1,026 fl (1966); 700 light (1966)
Propulsion: 1 electric motor connected to 2 Westinghouse generators driven by 2 Cooper-Bessemer-type GND-8, 4-cycle diesels; single screw
Top speed: 13.0 kts sustained (1945); 11.9 kts sustained (1966)
Economic speed: 8.3 kts (1945); 8.5 kts (1966)
Complement: Design-
6 Officers, 74 men (1945);
5 Officers, 2 warrants, 41 men (1966)
Unknown in DR service, likely at least 50
Electronics:
Radar: Bk (1943); SLa-1 (1945), SPS-64(V) 1979
Sonar: WEA-2 (1945-66)
Armament:
(1945)
1-3″/50 (single), 4-20mm/80 (single), 2 depth charge tracks, 2 Mousetraps, 4 Y-guns
(1966)
Smallarms
(1996, Domincan Republic)
1x 4 inch BL Mk.IX single gun
2x 20mm/80 singles
4x M60 7.62x51mm GPMG

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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, 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 it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Sept. 7, 2016: The river plover and the black flags

Posted on September 7, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday Sept. 7, 2016: The river plover and the black flags

Taken by Doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard

Here we see the paddlewheel dispatch boat (aviso à roues) Pluvier of the French Marine Nationale in Haiphong harbor in the 1880s. Designed for use in Senegal, she instead was sent to French Cochinchina, where her interesting design proved most useful.

She was the fifth vessel in the French Navy named in honor of the wading plover bird, preceded by three Napoleonic-era gunboats all lost in those conflicts and a 4-gun fisheries patrol cutter who sailed for 32 years.

Built in Cherbourg in 1880, she was a humble ship of some 500-tons, 165-feet oal length. Her steam propulsion plant was an obsolete paddlewheel, chosen for its use in shallow riverine waters in the growing French African colony. Her armament: a pair of smoothbore naval guns one fore, one aft, and two Hotchkiss revolving cannons in her canvas foretop–just the thing for controlling a riverbank.

Her Hotchkiss could be used on ship’s boats to get in closer as needed.

Termed a dispatch boat, most other navies would classify the shallow draft gunboat as a sloop, corvette or large gunboat. At the time of her construction, the French navy ordered four paddle wheeler dispatch boats all named after animals: Albatross, Peacock, Plover (Pluvier) and Squirrel (Ecureuil), all to different designs, for overseas colonial service.

Pluvier‘s skipper, Lieutenant de vaisseau commandant M. Vedel, was a gentleman and he sailed for Cochinchina in 1881, as trouble was afoot there.

First, let us talk about Indochina, and how the French acquired it.

In September 1858, France occupied Đà Nẵng (Tourane) and within six months conquered Saigon and three southern Vietnamese provinces: Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường. The southernmost part of Vietnam became a colony known as Cochinchina, and within two decades, the French were ready for rapid expansion.

On 25 April 1882, French naval captain Henri Rivière stormed the ancient citadel of Hanoi in a few hours without warning, leading Governor Hoàng Diệu to kill himself after sending a note of apology to the Emperor. This act of pretty blatant colonialism alarmed the Vietnamese and Chinese governments but didn’t stop them from allowing Rivière to capture Nam Dinh the following March (where Pluvier‘s Hotchkiss guns came into play, see illustration below).

With the French openly moving to annex Tonkin by force, the Chinese and Vietnamese approached exiled warlord Liu Yongfu and his pipehitting Black Flag Army to join a three-party coalition in which the Chinese and Viets were willing to fight to the last Black Flag foot soldier.

Though the Black Flag was able to nearly annihilate Riviere’s force (and kill him in the process) at the Battle of Paper Bridge, a renewed French effort (the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps under Gen. Alexandre-Eugène Bouët) was able to smack around Yongfu at Phu Hoai in August 1883 and Palan that September, putting him on the run but not breaking him.

While the Black Flag Army along with reinforcements from the Chinese and Vietnamese armies proper holed up in the walled fortress of Son Tay, Gen. Bouët resigned his position as head of the Tonkin Corps and was replaced by one Admiral Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet who decided he needed a lot of expeditionary firepower in the form of French naval might.

This new force, the Flottille de Tonkin, consisted of nine small coastal gunboats (chaloupes-canonnières); the mighty ironclads Bayard and Atalante as well as the cruiser Châteaurenault from the Mediterranean; and the Pluvier, upon which Courbet hoisted his flag. Even though just 165-feet long, she was the most impressive ship that could traverse the Sông Hồng River (Red River/Fleuve Rouge ou Song koi) to Son Tay– the ironclads and cruiser left behind in the coast.

And upriver they went, the gunboats, Pluvier, and a force of requisitioned local steam launches, junks and tugs on 11 December.

Son Tay

Courbet’s 9,000-man force was made up of a cornucopia of Cambodian riflemen, a battalion of the Foreign Legion, two North African battalions, some Tonkinese riflemen, and two battalions of French Marines and armed sailors from the flotilla who toted some mixed artillery behind them. It was a motley, polyglot force to be sure.

French marine infantryman in Tonkin, 1883

French marine infantrymen in Tonkin. Taken by Doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard

Uniforms of the Tonkin expeditionary corps, 1885 (fusilier-marin, marine infantryman, Turco and marine artilleryman

The battle joined on 14 December and it seesawed back and forth, with the better French units (Legionaries and Marines) doing to bulk of the heavy lifting and receiving most of the casualties on Courbet’s side and the Black Flags doing the same on the side of the locals. Liu Yongfu ordered three large black flags to be flown above the main gate of the citadel of Sơn Tây, bearing Chinese characters in white, and promised a heavy fight, to which his Chinese and Viet regulars cheered and then proceeded to wish his troops the best of luck.

The crew of the Pluvier gave hard service ashore, fighting on foot with the Marines while her gunners poured steel rain down on the 1000-year old masonry fortifications and villages from their fighting tower.

The French gunboat Pluvier engages the Vietnamese defences of Nam Dinh with her masthead-mounted canons-revolvers, 27 March 1883. Published in Le Monde. She did much the same at Son Tay

The French gunboat Pluvier engages the Vietnamese defenses of Nam Dinh with her masthead-mounted canons-revolvers, 27 March 1883. Published in Le Monde. She did much the same at Son Tay

Pluvier’s men in the attack across the canal

Finally, on the morning of 17 December, after forcing the gates the day before, the French stitched together a huge tricolor crafted from strips of cloth torn from the captured Black Flag banners and hoisted it over the citadel as Courbet made a triumphal entry on horseback, a modern Caesar.

The battle cost France 83 dead and 320 wounded, but it cost Yongfu much more as it broke the back of the Black Flag Army, who slunk away into the jungle. Within months, the warlord’s force disbanded. As for Courbet, he returned to his bluewater flagship, the ironclad Bayard, and died of cholera in the Pescadores in Makung harbor on the night of 11 June 1885.

While the admiral’s body was returned to France and received a hero’s burial (and several naval vessels named in his honor: an ironclad in service from to 1909, a battleship in service from 1913 to 1944, and a modern stealth frigate, F 712, presently in active service) the humble Pluvier remained in Indochina, performing constabulary service for another decade that included fighting pirates in the Gulf of Tonkin, some of whom were out of work Black Flag veterans.

Meanwhile, in 1887, Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin became French Indochina, which it would remain until 1954.

Ancient Son Tay reverted to a provincial backwater, though it was used as a military staging point by the North Vietnamese to keep high value material out of nearby Hanoi– and served as the location of a POW camp for captured Americans that was the subject of an epic rescue attempt in 1970 that led to the formation of SFG-Delta.

About Pluvier‘s most notable use after Son Tay was that she carried Prince Henri d’Orleans to Siam on a state visit.

She was sold in 1898, a paddle wheeler in naval service whose time had passed. From what I can ascertain, she remained in commercial service as a coaster for at least another decade.

Since then, the French Navy added a sixth Pluvier (a tug built in Nantes in 1917 then lost at sea between Toulon and Cattaro in 1919), and renamed a seventh Pluvier (the former WWII-era U.S. Navy harbor tug YTL-160) who served until 1967.

In a more appropriate honor, the eight Pluvier, patrouilleur de service public (PSP) gunboat P678, of the OPV58 (Flamant-class) design, was commissioned in 1997. Like her Son Tay ancestor who she is roughly the same size as, she is designed for coastal surveillance work, and was coincidentally built in Cherbourg.

The ship carries a Médaille commémorative de l’expédition du Tonkin and other relics in honor of the Son Tay gunboat.

Lightly armed, her sailors, supported by the ship’s heavy machine guns (Brownings instead of Hotchkiss this time) are ready to go ashore when needed.

The more things change.

Specs:
Displacement: 500-tons
Length: 165 feet (50m)
Beam: 24.6 ft.
Draft: 6 feet
Installed power: 2 boilers, twin compound 2-cylinder engines (420hp) twin paddlewheels.
Crew: 40 + could carry 200 infantry if needed.
Armament:
2 naval guns, smoothbore
2 Hotchkiss revolver cannon
Small arms

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

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, 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 it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Aug. 31, 2016: The Nebraska stiletto

Posted on August 31, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday Aug. 31, 2016: The Nebraska stiletto

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97970

Here we see the four-piper Omaha-class light (scout) cruiser, USS Omaha (CL-4) besieged by pelicans in harbor, 8 December 1923. She was fast, could hit hard, chase down enemy steamers, and do it all with an air of efficiency.

With the United States no doubt headed into the Great War at some point, Asst. Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt helped push a plan by the brass to add a 10 fast “scout cruisers” to help screen the battle line from the enemy while acting as the over-the-horizon greyhound of the squadron, looking for said enemy to vector the fleet to destroy.

As such, speed was a premium for these dagger-like ships (they had a length to beam ratio of 10:1) and as such these cruisers were given a full dozen Yarrow boilers pushing geared turbines to 90,000 shp across four screws. Tipping the scales at 7,050 tons, they had more power on tap than a 8,000-ton 1970s Spruance-class destroyer (with four GE LM2500s giving 80,000 shp). This allowed the new cruiser class to jet about at 35 knots, which is fast today, and was on fire in 1915 when they were designed. As such, they were a full 11-knots faster than the smaller Chester-class scout cruisers they were to augment.

Artist’s conception of the final class design, made circa the early 1920s by Frank Muller. Ships of this class were: OMAHA (CL-4), MILWAUKEE (CL-5), CINCINNATI (CL-6), RALEIGH (CL-7), DETROIT (CL-8), RICHMOND (CL-9), CONCORD (CL-10), TRENTON (CL-11), MARBLEHEAD (CL-12), and MEMPHIS (CL-13).Catalog #: NH 43051

For armament, they had a 12 6″/53 Mk12 guns arranged in a twin turret forward, another twin turret aft, and eight guns in Great White Fleet throwback above-deck stacked twin casemates four forward/four aft. These guns were to equip the never-built South Dakota (BB-49) class battleships and Lexington (CC-1) class battle cruisers, but in the end were just used in the Omahas as well as the Navy’s two large submarine cruisers USS Argonaut (SS-166), Narwhal (SS-167), and Nautilus (SS-168).

Besides the curious 6-inchers, they also carried two 3″/50s in open mounts, six 21-inch torpedo tubes on deck, four torpedo tubes near the water line (though they proved very wet and were deleted before 1933), and the capability to carry several hundred mines.

Mines on an Omaha class (CL 4-13) light cruiser Description: Taken while the ship was underway at sea, looking aft, showing the very wet conditions that were typical on these cruisers’ after decks when they were operating in a seaway. Photographed circa 1923-1925, prior to the addition of a deckhouse just forward of the ships’ after twin six-inch gun mount. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99637

Triple 21-inch torpedo tubes on the upper deck of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. The after end of the ship’s starboard catapult is visible at left. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99639

Omaha had been ordered during the war but she was not laid down at Todd Dry Dock & Construction Co., Tacoma, Washington until 6 December 1918. Built for a cost of $1,541,396, she was commissioned 24 February 1923 and her nine sisters all joined the fleet within two years after, replacing several prewar designs including the Chesters.

Photographed circa 1923, immediately after completion. Note her peculiar stacked casemates. These ships proved top-heavy in operation. Go figure, huh? Catalog #: NH 43052

Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, she spent the early 1920s in calm peacetime service, showing the flag, making training and gunnery cruises, crossing over into the Pacific a few times to visit Canada and Hawaii, and other typical fleet operations. Later she was used to escort the body of the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, J. Butler Wright– who died at his post after an operation at age 62– from Havana to the Washington Navy Yard.

Passing through the Panama Canal, circa 1925-1926. Note the tropical awning over her stern. Catalog #: NH 43054

Passing through the Panama Canal, circa 1925-1926. Note the tropical awning over her stern. Her aft casemates are clear. Catalog #: NH 43054

Boxing match held between the aircraft catapults of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. View looks forward, with the ship’s after smokestack in the left center background. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99640

Great overhead shot. Anchored in the Hudson River, near New York City, 2 May 1927. Catalog #: NH 43059

Putting the “screen” in screening! Omaha Class Light Cruisers lay a smoke screen during maneuvers in about 1930. Courtesy of Chief Photographer’s Mate John Lee Highfill (retired) Catalog #: NH 94898

In 1932, Omaha set a record for a naval crossing between San Francisco and Honolulu– just 75 hours and change to cover 2,400 miles, humming along at an average speed of 32~ knots for three days and nights. Not bad for 1920s technology.

In 1933, she was given an overhaul that included removing her mine handling capability and lower torpedo tubes, but adding more AAA guns and aircraft handling capabilities.

Underway, circa the early 1930s. The original photograph is dated 20 October 1936, but it was actually taken prior to Omaha’s 1933 overhaul, during which her topmasts were reduced and a bathtub machinegun platform was fitted atop her foremast. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
Catalog #: NH 97971

Two of the 6"/53 casemate guns on USS Omaha CL-4 Picture taken in August 1933 after overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. Note newly installed machine gun bathtub atop Omaha foremast, rangefinders, and other fire control facilities on and about the mast, voice tubes running down from the masthead, and Battle Efficiency E painted on the pilothouse. Courtesy of Don S. Montgomery, USN (Retired). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 93507

6″/53 casemate gun on USS Omaha CL-4 Picture taken in August 1933 after overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. Note newly installed machine gun bathtub atop Omaha foremast, rangefinders, and other fire control facilities on and about the mast, voice tubes running down from the masthead, and Battle Efficiency E painted on the pilothouse. Courtesy of Don S. Montgomery, USN (Retired). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 93507

However, not all was joyous:

Aground in the Bahamas, 18 July 1937. Note lighthouse at right and vessels alongside Omaha. Meh, these things happen. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 43061

USS OMAHA (CL-4). Description: Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, 169 Birch Avenue, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68319

USS OMAHA (CL-4) Post 1933. Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68319

When World War II loomed, the aging cruiser and her sisters were far outclassed by the newer Brooklyn and St.Louis-classes, but they were uparmed by adding 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns and radar while landing some of their older casemates and 1.1-inchers fitted in the 1930s.

On 6 November 1941, while on neutrality patrol in the mid-Atlantic near the equator with her escort, the USS Somers (DD-381), Omaha spied an American flagged ship, the freighter Willmoto out of Philadelphia, and closed to inspect her. When a boarding team came close, the freighter’s crew started abandoning ship, signaling it was sinking.

Taking quick action, the Omaha‘s team went to salvage work and saved the ship, which turned out to be the 5098-tonner Odenwald owned by the Hamburg-American Line. Enroute to Germany from then-neutral Japan when she was seized, she was packed with 3,800-tons desperately needed rubber and tires that never made it to the Third Reich.

Odenwald, NH 123752

USS OMAHA/ODENWALD Incident during World War II. Autographed Portrait of Salvage Detail. American Flag and emblem of the Nazi party/ Swastika flag on ship with Salvage Detail portrait signed by each member of Salvage Detail.NH 123757

Odenwald was escorted to Puerto Rico and made a big splash when she arrived.

According to the U-boat Archive, Odenwald contained the first German military POW taken by the U.S. though they didn’t know it:

Helmut Ruge was a Kriegsmarine radioman aboard the Graf Spee when that ship was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate. He escaped from internment crossing the Andes on foot to Chile and then on to Japan where he joined the crew of the Odenwald for the return to Germany.

During his initial interrogation both U.S. Army and Navy interrogators failed to discover that Helmut Ruge was not a civilian merchant marine officer but in fact was a German Navy sailor or that he was an escaped internee from the crew of the Graf Spee. Throughout his captivity he was interned with the civilian crews of German merchant ships and not with other German Navy personnel.

When the war kicked off for real, Omaha remained in the Atlantic doing patrol and escort work.

USS Omaha (CL-4) In New York Harbor, 10 February 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Note the added AAA suite. Catalog #: 19-N-40594

In the lead up to the Dragoon landings in Southern France, Omaha sailed to the med and gave naval gunfire support to the troops going ashore in August 1944, for which she was awarded one battle star, the only one she would receive.

When the war ended, the writing was on the wall for Omaha and she was decommissioned 1 November 1945, stricken four weeks later, and sold for scrap the following February.

Of her sisters, they proved remarkably lucky, and, though all nine saw combat during the war (including Detroit and Raleigh at Pearl Harbor), none were sunk. The last of the class afloat, USS Milwaukee (CL-5) was sold for scrap, 10 December 1949 mainly because after 1944 she had been loaned to the Soviets as the Murmansk.

In one last laugh, a federal court in 1947 awarded the members of the boarding party and the salvage crew $3,000 apiece while all the other crewmen in Omaha and the Sommers at the time picked up two months’ pay and allowances.

Although it has been reported this was prize money “the last paid by the Navy,” the fact is that the ruling classified it as salvage inasmuch as the U.S. on November 6, 1941, was not at war with Germany.

In all, the court found that the value of the Odenwald was the sum of $500,000 and the value of her cargo $1,860,000, which was sold in 1941 and, “As a matter of law, the United States is entitled as owner of the two men of war involved in this case to collect salvage and the officers and members of the crews of the U.S.S. Omaha and U.S.S. Somers are also entitled to collect salvage. This is not a case of bounty or prize. The libelants are entitled to collect salvage in the aggregate sum of $397,424.06 with costs and expenses.”

So there is that.

One enduring curiosity of the Omaha‘s crew was the issue of V-42 combat knives to some of her boarding crew.

From RIA who has one of these rare Omaha-marked pig stickers up for auction Sept. 7:

A descendant of the Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, the V-42 Stiletto was designed with input from members of the First Special Service Force, the joint American/Canadian arctic and mountain warfare unit that is considered one of the forefathers of modern American Special Forces. While the majority went to the 1st SSF, around 70 were diverted to the Navy, and were among the armament issued to the U.S.S. Omaha.

Now that’s something you don’t see every day.

Specs:

Displacement: 7,050 long tons (7,163 t) (standard)
Length:
555 ft. 6 in (169.32 m) oa
550 ft. (170 m) pp
Beam: 55 ft. (17 m)
Draft: 14 ft. 3 in (4.34 m) (mean)
Installed power:
12 × Yarrow boilers
90,000 ihp (67,000 kW) (Estimated power produced on trials)
Propulsion:
4 × Westinghouse reduction geared steam turbines
4 × screws
Speed:
35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
33.7 knots (62.4 km/h; 38.8 mph) (Estimated speed on trials)
Crew: 29 officers 429 enlisted (peacetime)
Armor:
Belt: 3 in (7.6 cm)
Deck: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Conning Tower: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Bulkheads: 1 1⁄2–3 in (38–76 mm)
Aircraft carried: 2 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities:
2 × Amidship catapults
crane
Armament:
(1923)
2 × twin 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
8 × single 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 caliber guns anti-aircraft
6 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
4 × twin 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
224 × mines (removed soon after completion)
(1945)
2 × twin 6 in/53 caliber
6 × single 6 in/53 caliber
8 × 3 in/50 caliber anti-aircraft guns
6 × triple 21 in torpedo tubes
3 × twin 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns
14 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons

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Warship Wednesday Aug 24, 2016: 100 feet of Turkish Surprise

Posted on August 24, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

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

Warship Wednesday, Aug 24, 2016: 100 feet of Turkish Surprise

Here we see the steam-powered Nordenfelt-type submarine Abdülhamid of the Ottoman sultan’s fleet (Osmanlı Donanması) as she was completed in 1886.

The Ottoman Navy dates back to the 14th Century and was hardened in centuries of warfare with the Greeks, Russians, Venetians, Spaniards, Mamelukes, and Portuguese and ventured as far as the English Colonies in North America and the Indian Ocean by the 17th Century. However, the fleet peaked around 1708 and fell into steady decline, being annihilated first by the Tsar’s navy at Chesma in 1770 and then again by the Brits at Navarino in 1827. This led to a building and modernization spree under the reign of first Sultan Mahmud II, then Abdülaziz.

While the Ottoman Navy was largely inactive during the Crimean War, by 1876 the fleet was again the focus of attention as the country loomed to yet another war with Imperial Russia.

And, after getting another licking at the hands of the neighbors to the North, new Sultan Abdülhamid II had on his hands 13 ironclads including the British-made Mesudiye (formerly HMS Superb) as well as several dated wooden vessels and river gunboats. Further, the Ottomans had been introduced to the bad end of a new weapon when Russian torpedo boats carrying surfaced launched torpedoes in 1878 and sank the Turkish ship Intibah.

Unable to afford to go bigger, the Sultan needed to stretch his funds and innovate.

Enter Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt.

With the help of British inventor George Garrett, who had crafted two small steam-powered submersibles in England, in 1885 the Swede living in the British Isles paid to build a 64-foot steam-powered submarine of some 56-tons, which he dubbed the Nordenfelt I unimaginatively.

The Greeks, fearing the Sultan’s ironclads and taking a cue from the Russian use of torpedoes in the late great regional hate, promptly purchased the tiny submarine– though they never used her. Further, and most ominous for the Turks, the Russians were looking at Nordenfelt’s designs as well.

Nordenfelt I in trials in Landskrona, Sweden just before she was handed over to the Greeks. (September 1885)

Nordenfelt I was in trials in Landskrona, Sweden just before she was handed over to the Greeks. (September 1885)

Swedish Nordenfelt I on the construction yard at the Ekenberg shipyard. Tekniska Museet

Swedish Nordenfelt I normal buoyancy at the Ekenberg shipyard. Tekniska Museet

Swedish Nordenfelt I submerged at the Ekenberg shipyard. Tekniska Museet

With the writing on the wall and already falling behind in the submarine arms race, the Ottomans doubled down and bought two improved Swedish steamboat subs.

Ordered on 23 January 1886, the Turkish vessels were longer, some 100 feet overall, and as such topped 100 tons on the surface (160 submerged). Powered by a Lamm locomotive type engine and boiler fed by up to 8 tons of coal, they could make 6 knots on the surface by steam, then did the unusual and shut down the engine to dive and carry on underwater until the pressure on the boiler dropped– usually just a few minutes or so.

Sections and plan view of the Turkish Nordenfelt submarines. Via The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828-1928

The armament was a pair of 14-inch torpedo tubes forward and outside of the pressure hull. An initial stockpile of Schwarzkopf torpedoes (Whiteheads made in Germany) were acquired, each capable of carrying a guncotton warhead some 600 yards. These fish were popular with navies of the time, being purchased by the Chinese and Japanese as well as both the Spanish and Americans on the eve of their dust-up in 1898.

Mr. Nordenfelt offered a pair of double-barreled 35mm heavy machine guns of his own design for surface action. Good guy Thorsten.

Nordenfelt two-barreled 25mm gun on naval mounting. The guns sold to the Turks were the same, except in a larger caliber. (Courtesy: Royal Armouries)

Barrow Shipyard in England built the two submarines under contract by Nordenfeld in 1886. The first sub, Nordenfeld-2 was dubbed Abdülhamid and was launched on 9 June 1886 after the sections were assembled at the Tersane-i Amire shipyards in Constantinople.

The second vessel, built as Nordenfeld-3 in sections, was commissioned at Tersane-i Amire as Abdülmecid on 4 August 1887 (though she never had her torpedo tubes fitted).

Library of Congress’s Abdul Hamid II Collection

The Sultan paid some £22,000 for the two ships and their gear all told, which was quite an inflation from the £1,200 that the Greeks paid for their Nordenfeld boat.

The Ottomans were also forced to establish an entire infrastructure to support their fledgling submarine arm.

Turkish torpedo factory. Library of Congress’s Abdul Hamid II Collection

Turkish made torps. Library of Congress's Abdul Hamid II Collection

Turkish assembled torps. Library of Congress’s Abdul Hamid II Collection

Divers at the Imperial Naval Arsenal, 1893. Library of Congress’s Abdul Hamid II Collection

Battalion divers at the Imperial Naval Arsenal. Library of Congress’s Abdul Hamid II Collection

After trials in the Golden Horn and Bosporus in late 1887, the two submarines sailed together with a tender for the Bay of Izmit in 1888 and the wheels fell off. They suffered from stability problems andwere super easy to swamp on the surface in any sort of sea state. The longest leg of the trip completed without assistance from their tender was just 10 miles.

Due to their lack of reliable propulsion, while submerged, they were static when awash and, being very primitive indeed, their raw crews (no such thing as experienced submariners in 1888) were unwilling to submerge very deep, though they were thought capable of 160-feet submergence.

Still, that spring, Abdülhamid made history by firing a Schwarzkopf while submerged in the general direction of a target barge– the first such submarine to do so.

Like the Greeks, the Turks soon had their fill of their tricky Nordenfelds, and the vessels were docked after the Izmit tests and scrapped in 1914 when it was found they were in condemned condition.

As for Nordenfelt, he had similar luck. Getting out of the U-boat biz after his fourth submarine sank while en route to the Russians, he was forced out of his machine gun company by a fellow named Hiram Maxim in 1890, which he fought in the courts for years without success. Bankrupt, he retired in 1903.

Specs:

Image by Michael Crisafulli

Displacement: 100 tons surfaced (160 submerged)
Length: 30.5 m (100 ft.)
Beam: 6 m (20 ft.)
Propulsion: Coal-fired 250 hp Lamm steam engine, 1 boiler, 1 screw
Bunkers: 8 tons of coal
Crew: 2 gunners, 2 firemen, 1 coxswain, 1 engineer, 1 officer (7)
Speed:
6 kn (11 km/h) surfaced (10 on trials)
4 kn (7.4 km/h)
Test depth: 160 ft (49 m)
Armament:
Two 356 mm torpedo tubes, Schwarzkopf torpedoes
Two 35mm Nordenfelt twin machine guns

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

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Warship Wednesday Aug 17, 2016: The quiet but everlasting Alert

Posted on August 17, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday Aug 17, 2016: The quiet but everlasting Alert

Photo by William Henry Jackson/Detroit Publishing Company, Via LOC LC-D4-21686 [P&P]

Here we see the Alert-class Federal warship USS Alert around 1901, an iron gunboat rigged as three-masted barque. She would go on to serve from Arctic tundra to Pacific tropics– and everywhere in between– and between her and her sister would put in over 100 years of service to the nation.

One of the few new naval ships built after the Civil War, Alert was built with funding authorized by the 42nd Congress and listed at the time as a Sloop of War. Powered by both sail and steam, she was the leader of a three-ship class and was 175 feet long, displaced 541 tons and were designed to carry up to a half-dozen Civil War surplus 9-inch guns split between broadsides.

Laid down at John Roach & Sons Shipbuilders in Chester, PA in 1873, Alert was commissioned 27 May 1875.

While under construction, her armament scheme was converted to a single 11-inch smoothbore Dahlgren rifle, two 9″ Dahlgrens, one 60-pounder Parrott, a single 12-pounder “boat” howitzer that weighed only 300-pounds in its carriage, and one Gatling gun– the latter two of which could be sent ashore by a naval landing party to conduct business with the locals as needed. Speaking of which, she could afford to send her small Marine detachment as well as up to 40 rifle-armed bluejackets on such festivities, but more on this later.

Alert had two sisters completed at the same time, one, Huron, was built at Roach and lost tragically on her first overseas deployment off the coast of North Carolina 24 November 1877 near Nag’s Head.

Although the Life Saving Service had been started three years prior to the Huron running aground, due to massive under funding the Service only manned stations in North Carolina for three winter months beginning December 1; one week too late to be of help to the crew of the Huron. The outrage over the Huron tragedy prompted Congress to fund the Service year-round. The Life Saving Service eventually evolved into the modern U.S. Coast Guard.

The second sistership to Alert, Ranger, was constructed at Harlan & Hollingsworth and commissioned 27 Nov 1876.

The trio were the last iron warships to be built for the U.S. Navy, with follow-on designs moving to steel.

Alert at the Boston Navy Yard in 1875. Note details of her iron hull; boat. Note her dark overall scheme, which she would keep for most of the 19th Century. Catalog #: NH 57105

Alert‘s first decade was quiet, being assigned to the Training Squadron where she carried Annapolis mids on summer cruises until being assigned to the exotic Asiatic Station in May 1876. There she would continue operations from China to Australia and Japan for more than a decade, only venturing back to the West Coast for regular overhauls.

In 1882, she was embarrassingly involved in a nighttime crack up with the Japanese ship Jingei, a side-paddle steamer that served as the Imperial yacht for Emperor Meiji. It was the Jingei‘s fault and no members of the court were aboard at the time.

Besides fighting the occasional Chinese pirate gangs on the water and warlords ashore, improving U.S. charts of the region, showing the flag, and just generally protecting American interests from Hawaii to Singapore to Alaska, Alert had to come to the rescue of lost and wrecked vessels from time to time.

This included responding to the disastrous 1889 hurricane in Samoa that left German, British and U.S. naval vessels alike wrecked and battered. Once she arrived, her crew helped perform repairs on the immobilized USS Nipsic and escorted her back to Hawaii.

Photographed after the Samoa hurricane of March 1889. She was configured thus until 1899. Catalog #: NH 586

Photographed after the Samoa hurricane of March 1889. She was configured thus until 1899. Note her white scheme and her extensive awnings in the tropical heat. Catalog #: NH 586

Following this effort, the 15-year-old gunboat with lots of miles on her hull sailed for Mare Island for refit.

In dry-dock at the Mare Island navy yard, about 1890. Catalog #: NH 71061

And from the stern– In dry-dock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, about 1890. Note her huge rudder and prop Photograph from the William H. Topley Collection. Courtesy of Mr. Charles M. Loring, Napa, California, 1969. Catalog #: NH 68684

In 1891, with seals in Alaska facing near-extinction, the U.S. and Britain formed a joint 11-ship Bering Sea Squadron that operated in the area to enforce a prohibition on hunting over the summer. During this period, Alert intercepted and ejected dozens of interloping vessels from the exclusion zone.

Spending the next few years summering in Alaska chasing poachers and wintering in the Pacific Squadron’s stomping grounds in Korea and China, Alert was transferred to operate off the coast of Mexico and Central America in 1895, where she would spend the majority of three rough and tumble years in the politics of the banana Republics.

During this time, in 1898 Nicaragua’s President Zelaya decided to extend his tenure for still another term, the local U.S. consular agent requested Alert to anchor in the harbor of Bluefields, and stand by in case of an attack on the city.

On the morning of 7 February, the American flag rose union downward over the consulate– a sign of distress. In answer to this signal, an expeditionary force of 14 Marines and 19 Sailors was landed by Alert, Gatling gun in tow. On the following day, the government forces agreed to guarantee the safety of all foreigners, and the landing party was withdrawn, though she remained on station there through April.

Returning to Mare Island, she remained on guard against a possible Spanish attack (there was something of a war going on with Spain at the time) but when no such attack likely after Mr. Dewey’s actions in Manila Bay, Alert was decommissioned and partially disarmed on 4 June 1898.

After three years in ordinary, she was used as a training ship after 1901 and loaned off and on to the California Naval Militia until 1910.

USS Alert. View was possibly taken onboard USS Albatross when she traveled in the Pacific Northwest during that year to study Alaska. LOC

USS Alert. View was possibly taken onboard USS Albatross when she traveled in the Pacific Northwest with Albatross to study Alaska.

During this period, her Civil War-era guns had been landed and replaced with what appear to be a half-dozen long barreled 6-pounders (57mm) though I can’t tell if they are Hotchkiss or Driggs-Schroeder models. As Mare Island was home to a number of vessels decommissioned after the SpanAm War at the time which carried both of these models, this should come as no surprise.

Photographed about 1901. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Catalog #: NH 57108

Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, about 1901. Catalog #: NH 57109

Postcard photo, probably taken while she was serving as California State Naval Militia Training Ship, 1906-1910. Note she still has some cannon mounted. Courtesy of Commander D.J. Robinson, USN (Ret), 1978 Catalog #: NH 86255

Postcard photo, probably taken while she was serving as California State Naval Militia Training Ship, 1906-1910. Note what appear to be 57mm 6-pdrs mounted. Courtesy of Commander D.J. Robinson, USN (Ret), 1978 Catalog #: NH 86255

Once again emerging from ordinary, Alert was further converted to allow for transient sailors and became one of the Navy’s first official submarine tenders (AS-4), placed back in full commission 1 July 1912.

Post card image of USS Alert (Submarine Tender #4) moored at San Pedro, CA. The submarines alongside are “F” class boats, circa 1916. Note the wicker deck furniture over her extensive awnings. Via Navsource: Photo – Ron Reeves Caption – Ric Hedman

USS Alert (Submarine Tender #4), serving as tender for the Third Submarine Division of the Pacific Fleet, laying alongside the wharf at Kuahua, U.S. Naval Station, Pearl Harbor, 22 August 1917. K-3 (Submarine #34) and K-4 (Submarine #35) are identifiable alongside; the unidentifiable “boat” is probably either K-7 (Submarine #38) or K-8 (Submarine #39). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 42542

Ship’s baseball team, 1917. Note her deckhouse. Photo via San Diego City Archives.

This mission ended for her when the U.S. entered World War I and, for the first time in decades, she left the Pacific and made her way to the waters of her birth along the Eastern seaboard, briefly serving as a depot ship in Bermuda for outbound convoys to the Great War in Europe.

USS Alert. In port, circa late 1918 or early 1919. Note the old cannon used as a bollard in the left foreground, and the submarine chaser (SC) tied up astern of Alert. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2006. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 104155

USS Alert. In port, circa late 1918 or early 1919 showing her legacy scrollwork on her bow. Note the old cannon to the far left of the image used as a bollard, and the submarine chaser (SC) tied up astern of Alert. Also note what looks to be a Driggs Ordinance Co. Mark II 1-pounder (37mm) on Alert’s port side forward deck. Originally designed to splash small torpedo boats in the 1880s, by 1918 this would be more of a saluting piece than anything though it could still scratch the conning tower paint of one of the Kaiser’s U-boats if needed. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2006. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 104155

With the war winding down, she reverted to the Pacific Squadron, once again serving as a submarine tender until she was decommissioned 9 March 1922 after a very respectable 47 years of service. She was sold three months later for scrap and I can find no trace of her today.

During her time in service, Alert had 23 official captains, including future RADM. William Thomas Sampson, known for his later victory in the Battle of Santiago.

As for her sisters, 60 sailors from the wreck of the Huron are buried together in Section Five of the United States Naval Academy Cemetery in well cared for lots while the ship herself is protected by federal mandate in her watery grave. A highway marker near Nag’s Head mentions her loss.

Alert‘s other classmate, USS Ranger, (later renamed USS Rockport and USS Nantucket PG-23/IX-18), was involved in the Barrundia Affair with Guatemala, patrolled the coast during WWI, and served as the training ship for first the Massachusetts Nautical Training School then the Merchant Marine Academy, only passing to the scrappers in 1958.

Ranger‘s original engine — the only back-acting type known to be still in existence—was saved from destruction and is on display at the American Merchant Marine Museum in Kings Point, New York.

The last of her class.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,202 long tons
Length: 175 ft. (53 m)
Beam: 32 ft. (9.8 m)
Depth of hold: 15 ft. (4.6 m)
Draft: 13 ft. (mean)
Installed power: Five boilers driving 1 × 560 ihp, 64 rpm compound back-acting steam engine
Propulsion: 1 × 12 ft. diameter × 17.5 ft. pitch propeller, auxiliary sails
Speed: 10 knots under steam
Complement: 138 officers and enlisted (typically including a 15 man Marine detachment until 1898). Berthing for 200 after 1901.
Armament:
(1875)
1 × 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren gun
2 × 9 in (230 mm) Dahlgren guns
1 × 60 pdr (27 kg) Parrott rifle
1 × 12 pdr (5.4 kg) howitzer
1 × Gatling gun
spar torpedoes for her steam launch (provision deleted after 1889)
(1901)
6 small pieces in gundeck broadside, possibly 6 pdrs or 3-inchers
(1912)
Largely disarmed other than saluting pieces (1-pdrs) and small arms.

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

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Warship Wednesday Aug 10, 2016: The Dynamite Buffalo of Rio

Posted on August 10, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday Aug 10, 2016: The Dynamite Buffalo of Rio

Cruzador Nitheroy [sic] [i.e. Nictheroy] by Marc Ferrez, Detroit Publishing Co. Image via LOC LC-D4-21236

Here we see the former cargo steamer turned auxiliary cruiser Nictheroy of the Brazilian Navy. She is armed with a very special gun.

A Dynamite Gun, that is.

In March 1892, a group of Brazilian navy commanders and army leaders started to run afoul of President Marshal Floriano Peixoto that led to an open manifesto between the military and the executive branch that basically said, either you listen to us and fix the government, or we will fix it for you. It wasn’t farfetched as the year before the Brazilian Navy had a hand in replacing President Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca.

Well, Peixoto called their bluff and by Sept. 1893 the Navy was in an open revolt known to history as Revolta da Armada, and the best ships, including the ironclad battleship Aquidabã (5,500-tons, 4×9.2-inch guns) went over to the rebels in Rio harbor/Guanabara Bay.

Aquidabã. A formidable foe indeed. Colorised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

This left Peixoto fresh out of a Navy to command and his agents went about assembling what was derided as the “cardboard squadron” to blockade the rogue forces into surrender.

Guns were thrown on fishing vessels coastal steamers acquired locally and manned by whatever mariners could be enticed to put to sea, but everyone knew they and the handful of torpedo boats still loyal to the government would be no match for the big Aquidabã should the leviathan make a determined break for open water.

In New York, agents of the Peixoto government purchased the pleasure yachts Feiseen and Javelin as well as the merchant steamers Britannia (Norwegian-built, 2600-tons) and El Cid for rapid conversion to warships for the new fleet.

The SS El Cid, a 7,080-ton cargo ship with some accommodation for passengers, was built for the Morgan Line at Mr. Collis P. Huntington’s Chesapeake Dry Dock & Construction Company, only the sixth ship constructed by that yard, since known as Newport News Shipbuilding. Delivered for merchant service 24 August 1893, the Brazilians purchased her almost sight unseen on 26 October.

El Cid and her three sisters (El Sud, El Norte, and El Rio) were designed as auxiliary cruisers for wartime service if needed and had three deckhouses, a 17-knot speed (very fast for the merchantmen of the day), coal bunkers arranged to protect her machinery and boilers from naval gunfire, watertight bulkheads, and a main deck with weight and space reserved for a decent naval gun forward.

Speaking of guns, the Brazilians went all out.

Dynamite gun on Brazilian ship, Nitheroy [i.e. Nictheroy] by Marc Ferrez, Detroit Publishing Co. Image via LOC LC-D4-32259

The Dynamite Gun

All guns are projectile weapons. In other words, they use force to propel an object down a barrel out to a target. The only thing that changes is the type of propellant and the projectile. In a Remington 870, a load of shot is scattered out of the muzzle by an explosion of smokeless powder set off by a primer. Well the dynamite gun does the same thing, it’s just that the projectile is made of TNT and it’s pushed out by a charge of compressed air. Kinda like a spud gun, but instead of a potato, you fire a bomb. The father of this device was one Edmund Zalinski.

Born in Kórnik, Prussian Poland on December 13, 1849, Edmund Zalinski immigrated to the US with his parents at age four. Not quite 15 years old, he dropped out of high school and volunteered for the Union Army during the Civil War. Serving in the artillery, he finished the war as an officer and remained in the Army once peace broke out. A pretty smart guy, he taught military science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while inventing several mechanical doo dads. One of these was a dynamite gun. Showing his device to the military, (he was still on the Army rolls as a First Lieutenant); it was love at first sight.

By the next year, Zalinski had teamed up with a company calling itself the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of New York (presumably to tell itself apart from the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of other towns) and was off and running. The gun was huge, and looked like something Jules Verne would use to shoot a missile to the moon. It had a 15-inch (379.5mm) bore. Using compressed air, it could catapult 500-pounds of dynamite more than two miles with better accuracy than the black-powder cannon of the era. The air was produced by a steam-powered (think locomotive) compressor fueled by coal.

Well the Navy liked the idea so much that they built the world’s first “Dynamite Cruiser.” Ordered for $350,000 from cruiser and battleship maker William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, she was laid down in 1887. Named appropriately the USS Vesuvius, its main battery would be these new guns. Mounting three of Zalinski’s 15-inch pneumatic guns, the guns were located with their breech along the keel of the ship three decks down and their 55-foot long barrels poking up through the 01 top deck. To aim the weapons, since the guns could not be turned, the whole ship tacked port or starboard while the pressure of the air was adjusted to correct range. Charges of various sizes ranging up to a quarter-ton could be used to do anything from bombard shore positions to sink ships and, being electrically fused, could fire on a delay or even while submerged.

Vesuvius in 1891…the three tubes on her main deck are 15inch FIXED Dynamite Guns

Other than Vesuvius, the Brazilians were the only other ~~sucker~~ taker for a large caliber Dynamite Gun naval mount. For the gun, they purchased one (1) full caliber 15-inch round and 10 10-inch sub-caliber projectiles meaning the ship had a very big but very brief bark. A further 2 full caliber rounds and 16 10-inch sub-calibers were loaded on the more lightly armed (2×4.7inch QF) steamer Britannia (renamed America by the Brazilians) who would serve as Nictheroy‘s escort of sorts.

As for the two yachts, they were stripped of their above deck structures, given a pivoting Hotchkiss torpedo tube and 1-pounder rapid-fire mount of the same make. They were hoisted aboard Nictheroy‘s deck for the voyage to Brazil.

Unlike on Vesuvius, in which the Dynamite Guns were fixed and the ship had to be tacked one way or the other to bring a target under fire, the gun on Nictheroy was made to slew port to starboard, allowing a much more efficient laying on target. A Rand air compressor below decks provided pneumatics for the gun.

Besides the 15-inch Zalinski forward, Nictheroy was well equipped from the works of Mr. Hotchkiss under the supervision of E. W. Very, late Lieutenant USN and now General Director of the Hotchkiss Ordnance Co, to include a 120mm rapid-fire single mount (with 50 rounds) aft of the after deck house, two rapid-fire 100mm mounts (with 200 rounds) on the bluff of the bow, eight rapid-fire 6-pounders (with 1,419 rounds) distributed broadside firing through the existing freight ports, nine 1-pounders (with 1,340 rounds) distributed on deck, and two 37mm revolving cannon on the bridge wings outside the pilothouse. Ports were cut for four torpedo tubes on deck to launch Howell automobile torpedoes of which the Brazilian agents bought 10, each with a 92-pound gun cotton warhead.

Two magazines were arranged in the former holds, reinforced with wooden planks, equipped with elevators, and flooding capabilities.

(Brazilian auxiliary cruiser, 1893-1898, formerly S.S. El Cid, later USS Buffalo) View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. The gun, which is mounted at the ship’s stern, is almost certainly a 4.7 quick-fire weapon built by the Hotchkiss Ordnance Co. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105944

View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Her single 15-inch dynamite gun on the forecastle (left center) was offset 3 feet to starboard of the centerline and was trainable right ahead and on both bows. The gun on the right may be one of the two 33-pounder (4-inch) Hotchkiss quick-fire guns that were listed as having been mounted forward on the bluff of the bow on each side. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105942

View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Shown looking forward from near the stern, aft of the main mast. The gun is probably one of the ship’s nine one-pounder Hotchkiss quick-fire weapons, eight of which were mounted on top of the deckhouses. She also had two 1-pounder Hotchkiss machine guns on top of the pilothouse. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105943

Probably shown fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Several barges are alongside. Nictheroy’s single 15-inch dynamite gun is on the forecastle. A small quick-fire gun, probably one of her eight 6-pounder Hotchkiss weapons, is barely visible behind a shield on the weather deck aft. Six of the other 6-pounders were carried behind ports in the hull, along with four tubes for Howell torpedoes. Her former name, El Cid, has been painted out on the bow but the ship still wears the rest of her mercantile paint scheme. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105941

In the span of just 24 days from when the Brazilians purchased El Cid, she was armed, equipped, painted, and recommissioned as Nictheroy. With the two yachts turned torpedo boats lashed to her deck and her holds filled with new shells for her never-fired guns, Nictheroy left New York on 20 November 1893. Her escort Britannia/America, carrying most of her Dynamite Gun shells, set out five days later as her armament was held up in shipping, delaying her departure.

As amazing as it sounds, just four months later this little formation took on the mighty Aquidabã and won.

On 16 April 1894, the ironclad warship was anchored off the coast of Santa Catarina, near the Fortress of Anhatomirim. Early in the morning, the loyalist government-controlled former yacht turned torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio, accompanied by three other torpedo boats and Nictheroy in support, attacked Aquidabã. They managed to pump at least one Honeywell torpedo (some sources say two) into the bow of the once-proud battleship and, her front compartments open to the sea, she settled in the mud as her crew fled after thoroughly wrecking her.

During the battle, Nictheroy took Anhatomirim and a smaller rebel battery under naval gunfire and kept them from plastering her mosquito boat squadron.

The next day, when Nictheroy and company returned, Aquidabã and the forts were deserted and, as reported by the New York Times, a boarding crew from the Dynamite cruiser soon struck up song on the ironclad’s organ.

Over the next few years, with the naval revolt ended, Nictheroy was increasingly sidelined, no longer needed. The ship was subsequently used as an accommodation hulk for the school for apprentice seamen at Rio de Janeiro.

Going back home

When the United States entered into war with Spain in 1898, Nictheroy‘s three sisters were bought by the U.S. Navy from commercial service and, after a few guns were added, were used as the auxiliary cruisers USS Yosemite, USS Yankee and USS Dixie.

Remembering the Nictheroy, U.S. agents approached the Brazilians and arranged to purchase the former American steamer for the battle line (they already had the only other Dynamite cruiser in service, USS Vesuvius) on 11 July 1898. However, the Brazilians had the last laugh and disarmed the Nictheroy completely, forcing her back to the East Coast to rearm.

Rearmed with a more traditional battery of 2×5″/40cals and 4×4″/40s and refitted, she was commissioned into U.S. service as USS Buffalo on 22 September 1898 at New York Naval Yard. However, as hostilities halted with the signing in Washington of a Protocol of Peace between the United States and Spain more than a month before, her wartime service was moot and she was decommissioned, 3 July 1899 after a cruise to Manila.

A bugler sounding the call to breakfast in 1898. The gun appears to be a 4″/40cal. At this time the ship carried four of these weapons plus two 5/40 guns. Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (Medical Service Corps), 1975. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 82990

Buffalo was brought back out of ordinary 2 April 1900, to serve as a Training Ship, a role she maintained for the next five years. During this period, she undertook four voyages to the Philippines with replacement crews for the Asiatic Fleet and on one of the return legs accomplished a circumnavigation.

She does look handsome in white! Photographed in 1902, while serving as a training ship. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56644

USS Buffalo Photographed at Algiers in January 1904 while serving as a training ship. Courtesy of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (MC), 1933. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 434

A footlocker inspection on the main deck in 1904. The Sailor on the left, closest to the camera, is Chester Bryon Harper. Courtesy of Mr. Gene B. Reid (Harper’s grandson), 1983. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 94193

After layup at Mare Island Navy Yard in 1905, she was refitted for work as a transport and largely disarmed. She continued her operations carrying replacement crews to the far off Asiatic Fleet on China station, carried Marines to Nicaragua in 1909, and operated off Mexico during the troubles and civil war there.

In 1914, Buffalo undertook a seven-month expedition to Alaska to build radio stations and towers up and down the coast, many of which remained operational as late as the 1960s. Her expedition, which included some 44 civilian technicians, upgraded the facilities at Woody Island near Kodiak, on St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands, on the island of Unalga, and at Dutch Harbor near Unalaska as well as built new ones at Sitka and Cordova.

USS Buffalo at Mare Island, California loading materials for the expedition to Alaska radio stations. 1914 NHC Accession #: UA 557

Dressed with flags at Kodiak, Alaska, on 4 July 1914, during the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105444-A

Dressed with flags at Kodiak, Alaska, on Independence Day 1914, during the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Note her extensive away boats. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105444-A

At the naval coaling station at Sitka, Alaska, in October or late September 1914. During the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105470

Teddy, a ship’s mascot, on the ship’s forecastle circa mid-1914 during the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Teddy, probably an Alaskan bear cub, is also shown posing with one of the ship’s divisions in Photo # NH 105464. Note the ship’s capstain in the background. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105596.

When World War I broke out, Buffalo transported the U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia’s Provisional Government after the fall of the Tsar in 1917 and was then refitted as a destroyer tender (AD-8), serving in Europe until Sept. 1919 when she transitioned to the Pacific, serving in China and Japan until 1922.

On 12 November 1918 in European waters wearing pattern camouflage paint. Photographed by E. J. Kelty. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56642

On 12 November 1918 in European waters wearing pattern camouflage dazzle paint. Note her masts have been enhanced. Photographed by E. J. Kelty. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56642

At Gibraltar circa December 1918, with USS Schley (Destroyer No. 103 ) alongside and the collier USS Jupiter (Fuel Ship No. 3) in the background. Note that Schley is still wearing pattern camouflage, while Buffalo has been repainted from the image above into overall grey. Also, of interest, Jupiter with her distinctive transfer stations, would go on to become USS Langley CV-1. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56643

At Villefranche on the French Mediterranean coast in late 1918 or early 1919. Donation of Captain Stephen S. Roberts, USNR (Retired), 2008. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105907

Now all gray. At Villefranche on the French Mediterranean coast in late 1918 or early 1919. Donation of Captain Stephen S. Roberts, USNR (Retired), 2008. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105907

The ship’s baseball team ashore in the Azores in March 1919. Photographed by St. Jacques. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 94998

No longer useful, the aging steamer was decommissioned on 15 November 1922 at San Diego. She was used as a barracks ship until stricken from the Navy List on 27 May 1927. She was sold four months later for scrap. It is not believed that any artifacts remain from her although I would like to hope that some museum in Brazil has her Dynamite Gun in a dusty back room.

As for her merchant sisters turned SpAmWar auxiliary cruisers: El Sud/USS Yosemite hunted down the Spanish steamer Antionio Lopez during the war and was scuttled after being wrecked in a storm in 1900; El Norte/USS Yankee was very active off Cuba and survived as a Naval Militia training ship until she ran aground on Spindle Rock near Hen and Chickens lightship in 1908; and El Rio/USS Dixie (AD-1) gave her full measure as a warship then training ship and finally the Navy’s first official destroyer tender before she was sold for scrapping in 1922– meaning El Cid/Nictheroy/Buffalo was the last survivor of her class.

Specs:

Displacement: 7,080 tons (6,635 t)
Length: 406 ft. 1 in (123.77 m)
Beam: 48 ft. 3 in (14.71 m)
Draft: 20 ft. 8 in (6.30 m)
Propulsion
Coal fired boilers
Steam turbine
Single propeller
Speed: Designed for 17 knots, made 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph) in Naval service with armament.
Complement: A figure of 350 officers and enlisted given for Brazilian service. In U.S. service this was reduced to as little as 150 by 1898 and to >50 before 1909.
Armament:
(Brazil, 1893)
1×15 inch Dynamite Gun
1x 4.7-inch (120mm) rapid-fire single mount
2 4 inch (100mm) mounts
8 6-pounders
9 1-pounders
2 37mm revolving cannon
4 torpedo tubes
(US, 1898)
2x 5 in (130 mm) guns
4x 4 in (100 mm) guns
(*Disarmed by 1909 though her 5 inchers may have been removed by 1900)

*In 1917 she probably was rearmed, most likely with a few 3″/23 cal mounts and 6-pdrs though I cannot confirm this.

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Warship Wednesday Aug 3, 2016: The Grand Ole Bear

Posted on August 3, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday Aug 3, 2016: The Grand Ole Bear

With tomorrow being the 226th birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard (by proxy of the Revenue Marine Service), I figured we would get a jump on it by celebrating their most famous vessel today.

Here we see the one-of-a-kind Revenue Cutter/U.S. Navy Gunboat/Coast Guard Cutter Bear. She remained afloat some 89-years and spent about half of that in armed maritime service, making 35 patrols to Alaska, three trips to Antarctica, and serving in the Spanish-American War as well as both World Wars.

Built in 1874 by the firm of Alexander Stephen & Son in their Dundee Shipyard (Hull No. 56) on the east coast of Scotland, she was reinforced to operate in dense sea ice as a sealing vessel operating in the Far North. Crafted of live oak, with planks six inches thick and a deck of teak wood, some spots on her hull were over 30-inches thick and braced by timbers 18-inches square. A three-masted barkentine with yards on her foremast and gaffs and booms on her main and mizzen, she could make a stately 14-knots under canvass and was fitted with a steam plant that could push her at 6-knots.

Delivered to W. Grieve, Sons & Company of Dundee (and St. John), she was operated by that firm from Newfoundland until 1880 when ownership changed to one Mr. R. Steele, Jr, who continued her sealing career, completing 10 annual trips to the waters off Greenland in the search of then-valuable seal pelts.

With the fiasco that was the U.S. Army’s Greeley Expedition needing rescue from their brothers in blue, who had no such vessels capable of service in the ice, Bear was purchased for $100,000 by the U.S. Navy, 28 January 1884, at St John’s and duly commissioned after brief refit as USS Bear, 17 March 1884, with one LT. (later RADM) William Hemsley Emory (USNA 1866) in command.

After her brief naval career that involved assisting in the retrieval of Greeley and remaining associates (which can be read in more detail here) the 10-year old scratch-and-dent sealer turned rescue ship was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register in April 1885, transferring to the Treasury Department’s Revenue Cutter Service.

Leaving New York 9 Nov after picking up a trio of 6-pounder popguns and a magazine filled with torpedoes (mines) for destroying derelicts found at sea, USRC Bear arrived in San Francisco after a fairly rapid passage of just 87 days.

Soon after arriving, she picked up her most famous master.

Captain Michael A Healy, USRC Bear. Note parrot

From the Coast Guard Historian’s office:

In 1885 the colorful “Hell Roaring”‘ Mike Healy, a dynamo of a man with an unpredictable temper, assumed command. Healy was a good skipper, and he commanded the Bear for more than nine years, longer than any other. He had another distinction as well: he was the first African-American to command a U.S. Government vessel. In time, Healy and his ship became legend in the lusty, brawling Territory of Alaska.

The Bear’s duties on the Alaskan Patrol were many. She carried mail which had accumulated at Seattle during the winter, as well as Government agents and supplies. On her trip south from Alaska, she transported Federal prisoners and other questionable characters whose presence in Alaska ‘was undesirable. The deck of the Bear often served as a court where justice was dispensed swiftly but fairly. The Bear also conducted investigations, undertook crime prevention and law enforcement. She and other cutters like her were often the only law in that turbulent part of the world. The Bear also conducted soundings to improve charts of Alaskan waters, and her surgeon furnished medical attention and surgery to natives, prospectors, missionaries, and whalers. These duties are still part of today’s Bering Sea Patrol.

“Hoisting Deer aboard the Bear, Siberia, Aug 28th 1891.”; no photo number; photographer unknown. USCG Photo

Photograph shows a Native American child and man sitting on the deck of a ship, the revenue cutter Bear during a relief voyage to rescue whalers off the Alaska coast in 1897. The man is showing the child how to smoke a pipe. By photographer Samuel Call. LOC.

In 1897, Bear was involved in the great Overland Rescue of eight whaling vessels and 250 crewmembers who were trapped in the ice and was able to penetrate to within about 85 miles of Nome, still far too short to do the whalers any good. The ship then dispatched an over-land party of’ 1LT D. H. Jarvis, 2LT B. P. Bertholf, and Surgeon S. J. Call. Equipped with dog teams, sleds, and guides, Jarvis and his companions set out for Point Barrow.

Crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear ferrying stranded whalemen,

Again, the Coast Guard office:

Before them lay a 1,600-mile journey through frozen, trackless wilderness. But the “Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean” as it was ponderously called, became one of the great epics of the north.

During the exhausting journey, Jarvis and Call collected a herd of nearly 450 reindeer. Driving the herd ahead of them in the face of icy winds the party reached Point Barrow about three and one-half months after being put ashore by the Bear. To the despairing whalers, the arrival of the relief party was nothing short of a miracle.

An in-depth Harpers article from 1899 details the mission with maps and illustrations.

The Spanish-American War saw Revenue Cutters mobilized under Naval service but the slow and increasingly creaky Bear simply maintained her annual trip to Alaska and performed patrol on the West Coast on the outside prospect that a Spanish auxiliary cruiser may pop up over the horizon.

This followed a tough couple of years during the Klondike and Yukon gold rushes from 1898-1900 in which she was the only law enforcement asset in the territory, her bluejackets having to enforce order on more than one occasion while in port. She likewise had to rescue many a lost landlubber who had packed aboard condemned craft in Seattle and set off for Alaskan waters or bust.

Off Barrow

USRC Bear Dressed with flags circa 1900. Description: Catalog #: NH 56690

USRC BEAR Caption: At San Diego, California, before World War I. Description: Courtesy of Thomas P. Naughton, 1973. Catalog #: NH 92207 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Alaskan natives dancing on deck of USRC BEAR circa 1913

When World War I came, Bear conducted neutrality patrols along the Alaskan coast while on 28 January 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service were combined to form the United States Coast Guard.

COAST GUARD BUREAU OF TREASURY DEPARTMENT. REVENUE CUTTER ‘BEAR’, RIGHT, WITH S.S. CORWIN, 1916. Harris & Ewing Collection. LOC LC-H261- 6165 [P&P]

She was officially transferred to the Navy 6 April 1917, remaining on her home station but under Naval control through the end of November 1918, picking up some more small arms including a few machine guns and a coat of hastily-applied gray paint.

Then, came another decade of more traditional service on the frozen beat.

USCGC BEAR At Point Barrow, Alaska, 21 August 1922. Catalog #: NH 91762
Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command. Note she still maintained her 1917 “war-paint” which was not painted over with the more standard white scheme until the following year.

The midnight watch on 10 June 1924 showing the crew in the land of the midnight sun, literally. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 56694

USCGC BEAR in the Arctic Ocean. Description: Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1930 Catalog #: NH 56692

USCGC BEAR in the Arctic Ocean. Description: Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, Catalog #: NH 56692

United States Coast Guard cutter BEAR (1884-1948), in ice pads. Description: Received from Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 170.

In 1929, after 35 annual deployments to Alaska and service on the periphery of two wars, Bear was removed from the Treasury Department and offered for sale, with a half-century under her keel. Her place had already been taken in the fleet with the commissioning in late 1927 of the purpose-built steel-hulled icebreaking gunboat USCGC Northland (WPG-49).

Saved from the scrappers by the city of Oakland, California, for a token fee, she was renamed Bear of Oakland and used as a museum ship.

In 1930, she was used as the filming location for the sealer “Ghost,” in the Milton Sills as ‘Wolf’ Larsen version of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf.

Then came the famed Arctic explorer, Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, USN, who was looking for a (cheap but capable) vessel for his Antarctic Expedition and he purchased the Bear of Oakland from the city for just $1,050 in the Spring of 1932.

The thing is, Bear (renamed SS Jacob Ruppert) still had her 1885-mounted 6-pounders aboard (with breech blocks) which caused Byrd, officially a civilian on a civilian ship, some heartburn in Mexican ports when he stopped to recoal her on the way through the Panama Canal to Boston, but he nevertheless appeared in that New England port in August.

For visibility in the whiteout, she was painted coal black

Leaving for the Antarctic in 1934, the ship was vital to Byrd’s successful expedition, which included the explorer spending four months over-winter on the frozen continent that is discussed in his autobiography Alone.

Note her black scheme

Returning to Boston in 1935, Byrd leased Ruppert/Bear to the Navy for $1 per year, and she was stored at the Boston Naval Yard in poor condition.

Then in 1939, Byrd’s United States Antarctic Service Expedition got underway and the old Bear was refitted with a diesel engine, her original figurehead was replaced with a carved polar bear, new canvas and rigging was brought aboard, and new spars and a foreyard of fresh Oregon pine were fitted.

She was given stores for 18-months, kennels for 78 sled dogs were built on deck, and a U.S. Army M2A2 light tank was heaved aboard to test in the ice. A Barkley-Grow T8P-1 two-engine seaplane was hoisted aft.

This resulted in her second official (not counting her unofficial transfers in 1898 and 1917) Navy commission as USS Bear (AG-29), 11 September 1939.

USS Bear (AG-29), formerly the US Revenue Cutter Bear, operates in Antarctic waters during the 1939-40 season as part of the U.S. Antarctic Service. [1976x1532]

USS Bear (AG-29), formerly the US Revenue Cutter Bear, operates in Antarctic waters during the 1939-40 season as part of the U.S. Antarctic Service. The aesthetic of the seaplane on a three-master is pure 1930s.

She left for her second trip to the Frozen South, 22 November, flagship to the force that included USMS North Star, a 1434-ton wooden ice ship built for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at the time the only other U.S. ice-strengthened ship available.

Photographed circa 1939, possibly during Byrd’s 1940 Antarctic Expedition. This ship also served as USS BEAR (AG-29) and as USCGC BEAR. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-1033748

In early 1941, Bear returned to the Antarctic for her third and last trip, this time to evacuate the Americans from the continent with the looming war.

USS BEAR (AG-29) Awaiting to evacuate west base in the Bay of Whales, Antarctica in 1941, she noses against bay ice. Supplies had to be carried from the base camp in the background. Ross Barrier is the thick ice on the left. Description: Catalog #: NH 56697 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Returning to Boston, her newly rejuvenated sail rig was scrapped. Her spars and yard removed, only the stumps of her masts remained. Equipped with a Grumman J2F-1 seaplane and armed with some AAA mounts (seen under tarps below).

She was a warship again.

In May 1941, the Northeast Greenland Patrol was organized with Bear, her ice-strengthened Coast Guard replacement Northland, and her old sailing companion the former Interior Department ship North Star, with Captain Edward H. “Iceberg” Smith, USCG, in overall command of the force.

USS BEAR (AG-29) Off the Boston Navy Yard, 2 July 1941. Catalog #: 19-N-24311 Copyright Owner: National Archives. Note Grumman J2F-1 aircraft carried.

They soon struck pay dirt and Northland seized a three-man German weather station along with the Norwegian sealer D/S Buskø (159 gt) in September (three months before Pearl Harbor) and took her to MacKenzie Bay, on the Greenland coast, where Bear took up tow and “protective custody” of her prisoners for the trip down to Boston.

Buskø carried with a crew of 20 Norwegian quislings, a supposed German agent, and “one other dog,” who was working as a radio supply ship to keep German weather stations operating in the Far North operational. She was the first capture of a belligerent ship by U.S. Naval forces in World War II and arrived on 14 October to a big international news splash.

A few more trips around Greenland and Iceland were left for her, but by 1944, the writing was on the wall for the old warrior.

Decommissioned, 17 May 1944, Bear was transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal, 13 February 1948.

Sold by the Maritime Commission for commercial service in 1948, she was renamed Arctic Sealer and was to be used as a sealer home ported at Halifax, Canada– her original purpose, but this largely fell by the wayside and she did not return to her old stomping grounds after all.

After moldering away in Halifax for almost 15 years, she was resold for conversion to a floating museum and restaurant at Philadelphia, PA, but she foundered under tow 90 miles south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia on 19 March 1963.

SINKING OF THE BEAR photo dated 19 March 1963; Photo No. 1CGD-03-19-63(03); photographer unknown. USCG Historians Office

Note that her rigging and masts have been partially restored

Her wreck site is unknown, despite the best efforts of a 1979 search conducted by cadets from the Coast Guard Academy.

The old ship remains alive in the work of maritime artists.

The famous old Coast Guard cutter BEAR. From the Collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt Catalog #: NH 1918 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Charles Robert Patterson, artist

USCGC BEAR, 1884-1948. Description: Copied from U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1945 Catalog #: NH 56695 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Hunter Wood, USCG, artist

Her bell is at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling and is kept in tip-top shape while her binnacle has been retained at the USCGA.

The polar bear figurehead from Bear is in the collection at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Following his celebrated 1940 expedition, Admiral Byrd presented the figurehead to the facility.

The Coast Guard maintains an extensive 40-page online scrapbook of the old Bear as well as an extensive website.

Since 1980, her name has been perpetuated by the class-leader of the Famous-class 270-foot medium endurance cutters, USCGC Bear (WMEC 901) based at Portsmouth, VA.

Coast Guard Cutter Bear transits past the Statue of Liberty in New York City June 19, 2016. The Bear is a 270-feet medium endurance cutter

As for “Roaring Mike” Healy, the Coast Guard named their newest icebreaker (WAGB-20) for him in 1997, shown below, while reindeer-herding lieutenants Berthoff and Jarvis each had a cutter named after them in modern times.

Specs:

Length: 198′ 4″
Beam: 30′
Draft: 17′ 11″
Displacement: 703 tons
Launched: 1874
Machinery: Compound-expansion steam, 25-5/8″ and 50″ diameter x 30″ stroke, 101 nominal hp (1885)
Diesel engine/sail rig (1935) Diesel only after 1939.
Speed: 14kts max on sail, 6 on steam, 8 on diesel
Complement: 51 (1884) 39 (1939)
Armament: 3 x 6-pound rapid-fire guns (1885) disarmed 1935. Equipped with small arms and light machine guns 1940.

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Warship Wednesday July 27, 2016: The RNs factory for curiosities in gun-mountings

Posted on July 27, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday July 27, 2016: The RNs factory for curiosities in gun-mountings

Via IWM

Here we see the Powerful-type first-class protected cruiser HMS Terrible during her brief career, decked in a tropical white scheme that she used around 1900. Although beautiful in her own respect as a late 19th Century brawler, it was the use of her guns ashore that brought her lasting fame.

Built to rule the waves as independent units capable of raiding enemy merchant ships in time of war– while safeguarding HMs own from the enemy’s similar raiders– the Powerfuls were a two-ship class of very large cruisers with lots of coal bunkerage that enabled them to sail 7,000 nm at 14 knots. Should they stumble on an enemy surface raider, their twin 9.2″/40 (23.4 cm) Mark VIII cocoa-powder breechloaders could fire a 382-pound CPC shell out to 12,846 yards, which was pretty good for the era. A large number of QF 6-inch and QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun (3-inch) guns made up secondary and tertiary armament (though at some point a few 6-inchers were traded for 4.7-inchers, but more on this later).

Class leader HMS Powerful was laid down in 1894 at Vickers Limited, Barrow-in-Furness while her sister and the subject of our tale, HMS Terrible, was laid down at the same time at J.& G. Thomson, Clydebank (Glasgow). As such, she was the seventh such RN vessel with that name dating back to 1694.

HMS Powerful Steaming up the English Channel, 1900, Charles Dixon RI

HMS Powerful Steaming up the English Channel, 1900, by maritime painter Charles Dixon RI. Note the black hull, buff stacks/masts, and white superstructure. Both ships of this class carried this scheme through about 1900.

Completed 8 June 1897 at a cost of £740,584, Terrible beat her design top speed of 22 knots on her trials by hitting 22.4 kn over a four-hour period and made Portsmouth to Gibraltar with an average speed of 18, which was fast for a pre-Dreadnought era cruiser, especially one of some 15,000-tons.

They were stately ships.

The Captain’s cabin was ornate

HMS Terrible portrait via Royal Grenwich Museum

Note how Terrible differed from the first image in this post as she looked in 1897 in these two images.

Her first use in war came when the Boers kicked it off against the British in South Africa.

In November 1899, HMS Terrible disembarked six naval guns (two 4.7″, 4 12 pounders) at Durban and, accompanied by 280 members of the Naval Brigade, saw them off by train to Ladysmith, just before the Boers closed the ring and began the storied Siege of Ladysmith. The naval guns were to play an important role in disabling the fire from the Boer Long Toms long enough till a relieving column rescued the town some months later.

Her sister HMS Powerful likewise dismounted a contingent and more guns at Simonstown, and under Commander AP Ethelston above became part of a Naval Brigade, with four guns, and several hundred men. They were sent by train to join the army of Lord Methuen, which was following the western Cape Colony railway hoping to rout the Boers blocking its advance to relieve the town of Kimberley, and engaging the Boers at Graspan on 25 November, which left half the force dead or wounded.

HMS TERRIBLE He who sups with me require a devil of a long spoon

Note the straw hats common to RN sailors, coupled with Army style field uniforms

4.7 Naval Gun on Carriage Improvised by Capt. Percy Scott of H.M.S. Terrible. Photo by E. Kennard

From “South Africa and the Transvaal War” 1899:

“You may be interested to hear a little about the Navy, who have come to the front as usual and met an emergency. From the first it would seem that what was wanted were long-range guns which could shell the enemy at a distance outside the range of their Mauser rifles, and the captain of the Terrible, therefore, proposed a field-mounting for the Naval long 12-pounder of 12 cwt., which has a much longer range than any artillery gun out here. A pair of waggon wheels were picked up, a balk of timber used as a trail, and in twenty-four hours a 12-pounder was ready for land service. Captain Scott then designed a mounting for a 4.7-inch Naval gun by simply bolting a ship’s mounting down on to four pieces of pile. Experts declared that the 12-pounder would smash up the trail, and that the 4.7-inch would turn a somersault; the designer insisted, however, on a trial. When it took place, nothing of the kind happened, except that at extreme elevation the 12-pounder shell went 9000 yards and the 4.7-inch (lyddite) projectile 12,000 yards. Captain Scott was, therefore, encouraged to go ahead, and four 12-pounders were fitted and sent round to Durban in the Powerful, and also two 4.7-inch guns. People say here that these guns saved the situation at Ladysmith. A Naval friend writing to me from the camp says: ‘The Boers complain that we are not “playing the game”; they only expected to fight rooineks, not sailors who use guns that range seven miles, and they want us to go back to our ships. One of our lyddite shells went over a hill into their camp, killed fourteen men and wounded thirty. Guns of this description are not, according to the Boer idea, at all proper, and[Pg 142] they do not like our way of staggering humanity. Had these guns been landed earlier, how much might have been saved? It is a peculiar sight to see the 4.7-inch fired. Many thought it would turn over, but Captain Percy Scott appears to have well calculated the stresses; there is with a full charge of cordite a slight rise of the fore end, which practically relieves all the fastenings. Hastily put together, and crude as it looks, it really embraces all the points of a scientific mounting, and it wants a great expert to pronounce an opinion on it. The gun is mounted so high that to the uninitiated it looks as if it must turn over on firing, but it does not, and the higher angle of elevation the less strain there is on it. The arrival of our guns practically put the Royal Artillery guns out of use, for they can come into action 2000 yards behind those supplied to the soldiers and then make better practice. Their arrival has, every one admits, quite changed the situation.’

***

“Captain Scott has also rigged up a searchlight on a railway truck with a flasher attachment, the idea being to use it for communication with Kimberley and Ladysmith if these places are surrounded. It has been tested at a distance of forty miles, and proved a great success. I am told, too, that he is now engaged in designing a travelling carriage for a 6-inch gun, and has, indeed, converted the Terrible into a factory for curiosities in gun-mountings.

“Each mounting, by the way, has an inscription upon it, presumably concocted by the ship’s painter. One, a parody upon the Scotch proverb, runs, ‘Those who sup with me will require a devil of a long spoon’; another, ‘For what we are going to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful—Oom Paul’; and a third, ‘Lay me true and load me tight, the Boers will soon be out of sight.’ I saw one of these guns fired with an elevation of 24 degrees and a range of 12,000 yards, and fully expected to see the whole thing capsize, but it hardly moved. After the firing of several rounds I carefully examined the mounting, and noticed that, crude as it might appear, a wonderful amount of practical knowledge was apparent in its construction; the strain was beautifully distributed, every bolt and each balk bearing its proportionate share. It is in every way creditable to the navy that when emergency arises such a thing could be devised and made by the ship’s engineering staff in twenty-four hours.”

Besides her 4.7’s in use, Terrible‘s Marines and Tars manned a series of armored trains that they helped craft.

A British armored train designed and manned by Terrible’s crew during the Second Boer War, covered with 6 inch anchor rope, provided by the Royal Navy, to provide it protection. The improvised additional armor was the source of its name, “Hairy Mary.” (Photo from the McGregor Museum)

Royal Navy bluejackets of HMS Terrible pose by an armored train at Durban during the Boer War. Mounted on the flatbed carriage is an improvised signal lamp consisting of a searchlight and shutter mechanism, powered by a dynamo attached to the train. The officer to the right of the image is possibly Capt. Percy Scott RN. The tower of Durban Post Office can be seen in the background. IWM Q 115145

They also found time to do a spot of fishing:

The next year, Terrible sailed for China station where she repeated her efforts ashore though in a smaller scale, during the Boxer Rebellion. On that trip, she carried 300 Tommies of 2 Btln. Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 40 Royal Engineers.

Arriving in Tientsin 21 June 1900, Terrible landed four of her 12 pounders and, with the help of muscle from Col. Bower’s Wei-hai-Wei (1st Chinese) Regiment, engaged in the relief of that city the next month.

1902 Crewmen of HMS Terrible at Hong Kong. Note the teak decking and that flatcaps have replaced straw hats. The RN was changing…

Returning to the UK, she and her sister were soon obsolete (their 9.2-inch guns were unique) and, after a brief refit, were placed in ordinary in 1904 after less than a decade’s service.

During WWI, she was reactivated and used as a high speed troop transport (sans most of her armament and with reduced crews) in the Med and Northern Africa, bringing as many as 2,000 soldiers at a time to far off ports to support operations in Salonika, Egypt and Palestine.

Great War service had her in a more sedate haze gray with only her small casemate guns still mounted.

In 1920, she was disarmed, renamed the ignoble TS Fisgard III (taken from the old central-battery ironclad ex-HMS Hercules), and used as an accommodations and training ship for another decade. She was sold in July 1932 for scrap.

Likewise, Powerful was renamed TS Impregnable in November 1919, and was sold on 31 August 1929 for breaking up.

The teak decking from both of these vessels was extensively salvaged and crafted into everything from ashtrays to inkwells, chairs and desks and are out there, typically with commemorative brass plates in great numbers.

Even her bell was sold off.

Her most enduring legacy, and that of her sister Powerful, is the long-running Royal Navy Field Gun competition which has in turn evolved into the Royal Military Tournament race, which celebrates the epic Ladysmith (and later Tientsin) gun train that saw the scratch Naval Brigade manhandle six field guns each weighing nearly half a metric tonne over rough terrain to save their Army brethren.

Although a Majestic-class carrier, HMS Terrible (R93), was to carry on the old cruiser’s memory, that vessel was instead sold to Australia who commissioned her as HMAS Sydney (R17/A214/P214/L134) in 1948. Thus, the Royal Navy has not had a “Terrible” on their active list since 1920 when our old girl took the “Fisgard” moniker.

Speaking of which, TS Fisgard itself remains as the National Sea Cadet Engineering Training Centre aboard RNAS Prestwick.

More information about Terrible, especially her use at Ladysmith, can be found at Anglo-Boer War.com, Roll of Honour and the Royal Museums Greenwich.

Specs:

Ship model HMS Terrible by Oldham Hugh, via IWM

Displacement: 14,200 tons deep load
Length:    500 ft. (150 m)
Beam:    71 ft. (22 m)
Draught:    27 ft. (8.2 m)
Propulsion:
Two shafts
4-cylinder VTE steam engines
48 Bellville-type water-tube boilers
25,000 hp
Speed:    22 knots (41 km/h)
Range:    7,000 nautical miles (13,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)
Endurance:    3000 tons coal
Complement: 894 (designed). By 1915, ~300.
Armament:    (Largely disarmed 1915)
2 × BL 9.2-inch (233.7 mm) Mk VIII guns
12 × QF 6 in (15.2 cm) guns
16 × 12 pdr 3 in guns
12 × 3 pdr guns
4 torpedo tubes (deactivated 1904)
Armour:
2–6 inches (51–152 mm) deck
6 inches (150 mm) barbettes
6 inches (150 mm) gun shields

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

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Nearing their 50th Anniversary, 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 20, 2016: The Majestic, if unlucky, Aussie flattop

Posted on July 20, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 8 comments

Warship Wednesday, July 20, 2016: The Majestic, if unlucky, Aussie flattop

Here we see the lead ship of the Majestic class of British Royal Navy carriers, the HMAS Melbourne (R21) with Gannets and Sea Venoms ranged on deck, early during her career in the Royal Australian Navy.

She was one of 16 planned 1942 Design Light Fleet Carriers for the RN. This class, broken up into Colossus and Majestic-class sub-variants, were nifty 19,500-ton, 695-foot-long carriers that the U.S. Navy would have classified at the time as a CVL. They were slower than the fast fleet carriers at just 25 knots with all four 3-drum Admiralty boilers lit and glowing red, but they had long legs (over 14,000 miles at cruising speed) which allowed them to cross the Atlantic escorting convoys, travel to the Pacific to retake lost colonies or remain on station in the South Atlantic (Falklands anyone?) or the Indian Ocean for weeks.

Capable of carrying up to 52 piston-engine aircraft at the time, these carriers had enough punch to make it count.

The thing is, only seven of these carriers were completed before the end of World War II and even those came in during the last months and weeks. They effectively saw no service. Laid down beginning in 1942, most of the ships were launched and afloat in 1945, but construction was canceled when the war ended.

That’s what happened to the hero of our tale, HMS Majestic, which was laid down at Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness in April 1943, around the time of the invasion of Sicily, though work stopped on her floating hull in 1945.

Fast-forward ten years.

With the Post-WWII Royal Navy not needing 16 flash new oceangoing landing strips, they kept a few, then started selling off the rest. Three went to Canada, one to France, one to Holland, one to India, and others were scrapped.

Of the Colossus/Majestic, light carriers, three– Majestic, Vengeance, and Terrible— were transferred to Australia as HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Vengeance, and HMAS Sydney, respectively.

Completed after a dozen years in the builder’s yard, Melbourne was commissioned on 28 October 1955 and had the benefit of an angled reinforced flight deck, steam catapult, beefed-up arrester gear and a mirror landing aid added during her time under construction– in effect, updating her WWII design to operate jet aircraft.

Gannet landing on Melbourne

Once received, the RAN gave HMAS Vengeance back to the Brits who sold her to Brazil as the Minas Gerais and passed Sydney into use as a training vessel and transport, comfortable with operating just Melbourne as a fleet carrier and flagship, carrying the flag of a rear admiral while in commission.

australia-hmas-sydney-a-214-melbourne-r-21-supply-ao-195-and-yarra-de-45-s

HMAS Sydney (A 214), Melbourne (R 21), Supply (AO 195) and Yarra (DE 45). Note how different the unmodified Syndey on the outside is from Melbourne. Hard to believe they are sisters.

Taking her name from one of the first ships of the Australian Navy, in this case, a WWI cruiser, Melbourne sailed from Glasgow for Australia on 11 March 1956 with 808 Squadron (Sea Venom all-weather fighters) and 816 & 817 Squadrons (Gannet anti-submarine aircraft) embarked, a total of some 64 aircraft packed aboard.

Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne greets her Hawaiian hosts. Pearl Harbor 1958 note 9 Gannets on the stern

For the next several years, she participated in regular South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) exercises and operations that took her all over the Pacific. During one cruise in 1958, she clocked more than 25,000 nautical miles alone.

HMAS Melbourne conducting damage control drills off Thistle Island, Spencer Gulf, SA, 3 March 1960. She would need them in the future.

In 1963, due to budget constraints, the Sea Venoms and Gannets began to retire, replaced eventually with A-4G Skyhawks, S-2 trackers (whose wingspan was only three feet less than her flight deck width), and Westland Wessex anti-submarine helicopters.

On 17 March of that year, Melbourne celebrated her 20,000th landing when Lieutenant Ryland Gill, RAN, landed his Gannet on board.

HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Vendetta (D08), HMAS Voyager (D04), and HMAS Quiberon (G81) sailing alongside each other. Voyager and Melbourne would soon meet again under less happy conditions

Tragedy struck on 10 February 1964 when Melbourne was performing trials in Jervis Bay and collided with the Daring-class destroyer HMAS Voyager while zigzagging, which left the smaller warship cut in two and sinking, taking 82 lives with her in just 10 minutes.

The bow of HMAS Melbourne after the collision with HMAS Voyager

A Royal Commission ultimately found that Melbourne‘s skipper was unfit to command for medical reasons while an earlier Commission held that Voyager was primarily at fault for failing to maintain effective situational awareness.

After repairs, Melbourne returned to sea on 11 May 1964.

Soon she became involved in the periphery of the Vietnam conflict, with some of her Skyhawk crews training to fly on combat missions there from bases in Thailand, though they ultimately were not used. She escorted her sister Sydney on several trips to Vietnam carrying Australian troops to the war zone. It should be noted that between 1962-75 almost 60,000 Australians, including ground troops and air force and navy personnel, served in Vietnam; 521 died as a result of the war, and over 3,000 were wounded.

It was during that conflict that Melbourne was involved in a repeat of the Voyager incident when on 3 June 1969, while participating in SEATO exercise Sea Spirit in the South China Sea, she collided with USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754), slicing the vessel in two in the dark and killing 74 of her crew.

Evans, her stern cut away, post-collison

Evans, her stern cutaway, post-collision

A joint RAN–USN board of inquiry found officers on both ships to blame. The Wessex unit onboard, 817 Squadron RAN, was later awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their rescue efforts in the aftermath of the event.

Repaired, Melbourne undertook regular ANZUK, RIMPAC, and SEATO exercises as well as waved the flag extensively around the Pacific. At one point in 1974, she even embarked on a US Coast Guard Sikorsky HH 52 Seaguard helicopter for a time in the spirit of jointness.

National Salutes exchanged as Melbourne enters Manila Bay at 0850, 22 May 1969 prior to anchoring at 0900. she would keep her WWII era bofors, though reduced in number, until her decommisoning

National Salutes were exchanged as Melbourne entered Manila Bay at 0850, 22 May 1969 before anchoring at 0900. she would keep her WWII-era Bofors, though reduced in number, until her decommissioning

A-4G Skyhawks conduct a low flypast 2 September 1971.

A-4G Skyhawks conduct a low flypast on 2 September 1971.

S-2 landing HMAS Melbourne. Via the STOOF Facebook page. Note how big the S-2 is on M’s bow.

RAF Avro Vulcan makes a low pass over HMAS Melbourne (R21) during Exercise Bersatu Padu, South-East Asia 1970.

HMAS Melbourne on RIMPAC ’73– look at those Skyhawks!

Her hangar deck– note the Scooter and Wessex

With Vietnam coming to a close, Melbourne‘s sister and the only other Australian flattop at the time, Sydney, was decommissioned on 12 November 1973 and sold for scrap two years later. That largely disarmed carrier conducted some 25 voyages to Vietnam between 1965 and 1972, earning the ship the nickname “Vung Tau Ferry” after the RVN port she called at so regularly.

When 1977 came, the aging Melbourne took a trip to the land of her birth, passing through the Indian Ocean and the Med to the UK where she participated in Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee– shadowed off and on by Soviet intelligence ships who came dangerously close at times.

1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review, note the Commonwealth flattops, HMS Ark Royal (soon to be retired), HMS Hermes, and HMAS Melbourne

HMAS Melbourne. Note how big those S-2 trackers are

Sept.1977 HMAS MELBOURNE [II] and escorts HMNZS CANTERBURY and HMAS BRISBANE

HMAS MELBOURNE SPITHEAD REVIEW JULY 77

HMAS Melbourne celebrates the silver jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 1977.

By the 1980s, her days were clearly numbered. Almost all of her sisters had gone to the breakers already with only the Argentine Navy’s ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (ex-HMS Venerable), Brazil’s Minas Gerais (ex-HMS/HMAS Vengeance), and the Indian Navy’s Vikrant (ex-HMS Hercules) still afloat.

Tracker 848 about to take the wire aboard HMAS Melbourne, 1980 the USN had retired trackers in 1976

Tracker 848 was about to take the wire aboard HMAS Melbourne, In 1980 the USN had retired trackers in 1976. Look how broad that wingspan is.

HMAS Melbourne (R21) at Honiara, Solomon Islands. 1st of April 1980. note Skyhawks on deck

HMAS Melbourne (R21) note Sea King on deck

The plan at the time was hatched for Australia to buy the new British “Harrier carrier” HMS Invincible, then under construction, as Melbourne’s replacement.

HMAS Melbourne was decommissioned on 30 June 1982, having spent 62,036 hours underway and steamed 868,893 nautical miles in her 27 years with the RAN.

However, with the Brits finding HMS Invincible newly useful during the Falkland Islands War, the deal fell through and Australia has been without a carrier for the past 34 years. The last Australian A-4G flights took place on 30 June 1984 followed the next week by the last S-2G.

The stricken Melbourne was initially sold in June 1984 to an Australian company for A$1.7 million, however, the sale fell through, and the next year she was sold to a Chinese company for A$1.4 million to be broken up for scrap metal in the port of Dalian, China.

Though her rudders were welded in place and all sensitive gear removed, the Chinese still got more than some scrap iron and asbestos out of her. During a painstakingly slow disassembly over the next 15+ years, the Chinese reportedly made extensive notes on her construction and steam catapult and landing systems as first steps towards their own carrier program. Reportedly, the Chinese Navy reverse-engineered a land-based replica of Melbourne‘s cat by 1987 and has used it in a series of trials of their own carrier-based aircraft.

The PLAN further compared the 1940s British design to that of the 1970s Soviet helicopter carriers Kiev and Minsk, purchased in the 1990s as floating amusement parks for tourists, to help with their own best practices in flattop construction moving forward.

As for the Australians, the name Melbourne was recycled for the Oliver Hazard Perry/Adelaide-class frigate HMAS Melbourne (FFG 05) that entered service in 1992.

A vibrant veterans group for all ships of that name exists as does a very in-depth page maintained by the RAN from which a number of these images originate.

In the U.S., Melbourne‘s legacy is remembered by the veterans of Evans and the survivors of those who were lost. The Department of Defense has agreed to review a request from families of 74 U.S. Navy sailors to add their names to the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

The USS Frank E Evans Association keeps that vessel’s story alive.

In 2012, the Australian government issued a formal and official apology to Melbourne Capt. John Stevenson, who was in charge of the vessel during the Evans collision said he was “not treated fairly” by the government of the day and the Australian Navy.

All of the Colossus/Majestic class carriers are now gone, with INS Vikrant, saved briefly as a museum ship, scrapped in 2014, ending the era of these light carriers.

However, Australia’s two Canberra-class landing helicopter docks, 30,000-ton ships larger than Melbourne and Sydney ever were by far, are envisioned to be capable of handling the F-35B with some modifications and Prime Minister Tony Abbott instructed 2015 Defence White Paper planners to consider the option of embarking F-35B squadrons aboard the two ships, though at present it seems unlikely.

Specs:

Displacement:
Standard: 15,740 long tons (17,630 short tons)
Full load: 20,000 long tons (22,000 short tons)
Length:
213.97 m (702 ft.) overall
Increased by 2.43 m (8 ft.) in 1969
Beam: 24.38 m (80 ft.)
Draught: 7.62 m (25 ft.)
Propulsion: Two Parsons single-reduction geared turbine sets; four Admiralty 3-drum boilers; two screws (port: 3 blades, starboard: 4 blades); 40,000 shp (30,000 kW)
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Range:
12,000 nautical miles (22,000 km; 14,000 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
6,200 nautical miles (11,500 km; 7,100 mi) at 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Complement: 1,350, including 350 Air Group personnel
Sensors and processing systems:
Radar:
1955–1968:
3 × Type 277Q height finding set
1 × Type 293Q surface search set
1 × Type 978 navigational set
1969–1982:
1 × Type 293Q surface search set
1 × Type 978 navigational set
1 × LW-02 air search set
1 × SPN-35 landing aid radar
Armament:
1955–1959:
25 × 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns (6 twin mountings, 13 single mountings)
1959–1968:
21 × Bofors (6 twins, 9 single)
1969–1980:
12 × Bofors (4 twins, 4 single)
1980–1982:
4 × Bofors (4 single)
Aircraft carried: Up to 27 aircraft, including helicopters.
Typical air group 1956-1965: 8 Sea Venoms, 16 Gannets, 2 Sycamore helicopters
Typical air group 1965-1972: 4 Skyhawks, 6 Trackers, 8 Wessex
Typical air group 1972-1984: 8 Skyhawks, 6 Trackers, 8 Sea Kings, 3 Wessex
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 encouraging 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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, 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 13, 2016: The tale of the pre-owned polar sub

Posted on July 13, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, July 13, 2016: The tale of the pre-owned polar sub

Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1978 #: NH 86969

Here we see the O-class diesel-electric submarine USS O-12 (SS-73) at the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., Bridgeport, Connecticut, on 7 October 1918, just before her completion. Although her Naval service during the Great War and immediately after was limited, her mark on history was not.

The U.S. Navy, dating back to the Revolutionary War’s Turtle and the Civil War’s Alligator, was a world leader in submarine development.

Starting with the 64-ton gas/electric USS Holland (SS-1) in 1900, the Navy proceeded with the 7-vessel Plunger-class; 3-ship Viper/B-class; 5-ship Octopus/C-class (the first United States submarines with two-shaft propulsion and an overall length longer than 100-feet); 3-ship Narwhal/D-class (designed to survive flooding in one compartment); 2-ship E-class (first US diesel-powered submarines and first with bow-planes); 4-ship F-class; 4-ship G-class; 9-ship H-class; 8-ship K-class; 11 L-class boats (first US submarine class equipped with a deck gun); the unique M-1 (world’s first double-hulled design); 3 large 1,500-ton AA-1-class boats capable of 20-knots; and 7 smaller N-class boats (first US Navy submarine class completed with metal bridge shields) by 1917.

In all, some 67 submersibles were built in less than two decades, with each teaching a lesson.

This led to the most capable class of U.S. Navy subs commissioned in World War I, the O-class.

Originally designed to fight off German U-boats along the East Coast, the boats of this class were not gigantic (500-600 tons, 173 feet oal) but had a decent 5,500 nm range and could carry 8 torpedoes as well as a deck gun. Laid down in five different yards (and two slightly different designs, one by Electric Boat the other by Lake) on both coasts starting in March 1916, all 16 were completed in 1918.

Built for $550,000 each, they were the first U.S. boats with really reliable diesel engines as well as the first in which each officer and man had his own berth and locker (even later designs would require “hot-bunking” well into the 1970s)

Wartime service on the O-class was limited, with two being shelled by an armed British steamer who thought them to be U-boats being the closest they came to combat.

The hero of our tale, USS O-12, was laid down at the Mr. Simon Lake’s Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut and commissioned 18 October 1918.

USS O-12 (SS-73) Photographed as she left her dock at the Lake Torpedo Boat Co., to start her official trials, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 21 August 1918. Note damaged bridge in the background. #: NH 44559

Made part of Submarine Division 1, she was sent with several sisters to secure the Panama Canal, where she spent almost all of her U.S. Naval career.

USS O-12 (Submarine # 73) At Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone in February 1920. Donation of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1971. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 74644

"O" Class Submarines photographed in port by A.E. Wells of Washington, D.C., circa 1919, with S.S. SOTHERLAND in background. Subs are (l-r): O-12 (SS-73), O-15 (SS-76), O-16 (SS-77), O-14 (SS-75), O-13 (SS-74), O-11 (SS-72).#: NH 44558

“O” Class Submarines photographed in Panama by A.E. Wells of Washington, D.C., circa 1919, with S.S. SOTHERLAND in background. Subs are (l-r): O-12 (SS-73), O-15 (SS-76), O-16 (SS-77), O-14 (SS-75), O-13 (SS-74), O-11 (SS-72).#: NH 44558

Submarines O-12, O-14, O-11, and others in dry-dock circa 1919 with floating Derrick No. 5 (YD-5). Description: Courtesy Philadelphia evening ledger. #: NH 42566

On 17 June 1924, after just a few years in commission, she was pulled from service along with all of her Lake Torpedo Boat Company design sisters, replaced by newer R and S-class submarines. Meanwhile, nine of her Electric Boat-designed classmates continued service (one, USS O-5, was lost in a collision on 28 October 1923).

Rusting away in Philadelphia, O-12 was stricken on 29 July 1930 and was soon leased for $1 per year (with a maximum of five years in options) to Lake’s company for use as a private research submarine– as far as I can tell the first time this occurred. As part of the lease, she was disarmed and had to be either returned to the Navy or scuttled in at least 1,200 feet of water after her scientific use.

Australian explorer and man of letters Sir George Hubert Wilkins, MC & Bar, and American polar explorer and philanthropist Lincoln Ellsworth (whose family bankrolled Roald Amundsen’s 1925 attempt to fly from Svalbard to the North Pole) hammered out a deal to use the retired sub on a private trip to the North.

Simon Lake was all-in and made tremendous modifications to the ex-O-12.

Cutaway illustration of the Nautilus for Modern Mechanics magazine, 1931

Cutaway illustration of the O-12/Nautilus for Modern Mechanics magazine, 1931

The prow of the submarine was equipped with a rounded plunger, which served as extra protection while diving under the ice. Her topside structure cleared for operating under ice, she was outfitted with a custom-designed drill that would allow her to bore through the ice pack overhead for ventilation and even transfer crew through the pack.

Elevating conning tower showing crewman exiting through tube on to ice

Elevating conning tower showing crewman exiting through the tube on to the ice

All 18 crewmembers–mostly ex-Navy men– had to sign a contract indemnifying Lake, the submarine’s skipper Sloan Danenhower and the Expedition against damages, including particularly claims for death.

Jean Jules Verne, grandson of Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was present at christening, at the invitation of Lake, and the ship was named Nautilus. She was christened with a bucket of ice cubes.

Ellsworth contributed $90,000 to the project while newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst added $61,000 for exclusive rights to the story. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute pitched in $35,000 and even Wilkins chipped in $25,000 of his own money. There were also several moneymaking tie-ins.

During the expedition, special radio telegrams were sent as were a series of 12,655 postal covers (mailed during the voyage at London, Bergen, Spitsbergen and from an unidentified port at the end of the expedition. The basic fee was 75 cents per cover for the first three legs, $1 for the final leg with additional fees for registry service and autographs.)

However, things started going bad almost immediately.

A June 1931 crossing to Europe almost ended in failure had Nautilus not been towed by the battleship USS Wyoming in the mid-Atlantic and emergency repairs in England. Setting out from Norway in August, they only had 600 miles to go to reach the Pole and make history.

Nautilus in the dry dock in Devonport, England undergoing repairs to the engines and other items things that failed during the first part of the voyage

Ex O Class Submarine USS O-12 pictured loading what looks like powdered milk at Bergen in 1930.

Nautilus reached 82°N, the farthest north any vessel had reached under its own power, and preparations began to dive –the first submarine to operate under the polar ice cap.

Captain Sloan Danenhower opening the conning tower hatch following a dive. A huge cake of ice can be seen jammed on the main ice drill

The Nautilus in the Arctic, 1931.

The thing is, she was missing her diving planes, suffering from mechanical issues, facing thicker ice than anticipated, and fighting severe storms and by September had to turn back for Spitsbergen and then Norway, for repairs, without ever reaching the Pole.

In Bergen

There in Norway, Wilkins threw in the towel on Nautilus and agreed with the Navy to sink her in deep water outside Bergen, which was done 30 November 1931.

Her wreck, in over 1,100 feet of water, was found in 1985 and has been visited several times since then. In good condition, the Bergen Maritime Museum has an extensive exhibit on her though there are no plans to raise this world’s first Arctic submarine.

As for her sisters, the five other Lake designs were scrapped in 1930, USS O-9 (SS-70) and her 33 officers and men were lost on a test dive in 1941, and seven Electric-design classmates served through World War II at New London training thousands of students at the Submarine School, being scrapped in 1946. Few enduring relics remain of the class.

The Ohio State University Libraries have an extensive online exhibit on Nautilus as does PigBoats.com from which many of the images in this post originate. Dr. Stewart B. Nelson has a great post covering the vessel and her discovery here while the Universal Ship Cancellation Society Log details the philately history of the Nautilus covers in a way far outside the scope of this post.

Wilkins’ 1931 book “Under the North Pole: the Wilkins-Ellsworth Submarine Expedition” is available for download free online in multiple formats.

After his death, the Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarine USS Skate on 17 March 1959. The Navy confirmed on 27 March that, “In a solemn memorial ceremony conducted by Skate shortly after surfacing, the ashes of Sir Hubert Wilkins were scattered at the North Pole in accordance with his last wishes.”

Specs:

Simon Lake’s O-12 (SS-73) retained his trademark stern and amidships planes (shown folded down in the outboard view). Note the separate flooding ports in the watertight superstructure. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

O-12 (SS-73) was discarded in 1930 to be rebuilt by Lake & Danenhower Inc., of Bridgeport CT., for the Wilkins Artic expedition. Lake had long thought about submarine operations under ice; in 1903, he built a trestle atop his Protector and deliberately operated her in iced waters. The Nautilus conversion, shown here, was far more sophisticated. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

O-12 (SS-73) was discarded in 1930 to be rebuilt by Lake & Danenhower Inc., of Bridgeport CT., for the Wilkins Arctic expedition. Lake had long thought about submarine operations under ice; in 1903, he built a trestle atop his Protector and deliberately operated her in iced waters. The Nautilus conversion, shown here, was far more sophisticated. Drawing by Jim Christley, text courtesy of U.S. Submarines Through 1945, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Naval Institute Press. Via Navsource

Displacement:
491 long tons (499 t) surfaced
566 long tons (575 t) submerged
Length: 175 ft. (53 m)
Beam: 16 ft. 7 in (5.05 m)
Draft: 13 ft. 11 in (4.24 m)
Propulsion:
Diesel-electric
2 × 500 hp (373 kW) Busch Sulzer diesel engines
2 × 400 hp (298 kW) Diehl electric motors
1 shaft
18,588 US gallons (70,360 l; 15,478 imp gal) fuel
Speed:
14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) surfaced
11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) submerged
Test depth: 200 ft (61 m)
Complement: 2 officers, 27 men (Naval service), 20 scientists, explorers, and crew in civilian
Armament: (Disarmed 1930)
4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes, 8 torpedoes
1 × 3″/50 caliber deck gun

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

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