Warship Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015: Big Chris from Norway
Christian Radich (center), Statsraad Lehmkuhl (left), and Gorch Fock (right) possibly in Plymouth Sound in the 1950s.
Here we see the fully rigged training ship Sk/S Christian Radich of Norway, doing what she has consistently done best in the past 75 years. Built in the twilight of tall ships, she was lost in World War II but has since been reborn and has been going strong ever since.
The dream of one Simeon Christian Radich, a wealthy sawmill owner in the Oslo area who left 90,000 Norwegian Kroner to build a training ship that later bore his name, she was built in 1937 at the Framnæs Mekaniske Verksted yard in Norway.
Crafted during the Depression, Christian Radich was impressive at 240-feet overall when measured from stern to the tip of the bowsprit. Carrying 26 massive sails (over 13,000 sq. feet of canvas) when fully rigged, she was constructed with a 220hp diesel “steel topsail” that could chug her along at 8 knots when becalmed. Her mainmast, 192-feet long, stood a towering 128 feet above the deck.
Instead of cargo, her holds were designed as dormitories and classrooms for up to 100 youth to be trained in the ways of the sea, carpentry, engineering, and leadership in the Norwegian merchant navy.
Officially owned by the Kristiania Schoolship Association and operated by the Ostlanders Skoleskib, Christian Radich was crewed by a captain, 3 officers, six instructors (typically reserve naval officers), a doctor, ship’s engineer, cook, steward, and 10 merchant sailors. She replaced the 79-year-old brig three-master Statsraad Erichsen in service upon her completion and was designed by Commander Christian Blom of the Norwegian Navy.
Taking to sea, she made the 1939 New York World’s Fair with Crown Prince Olav (later King Olav V) aboard and returned home just in time to be taken into the Norwegian Navy as an accommodation ship in September of that year upon the outbreak of war. As she could float in 15 feet of water, could pack 200 hammocks in her berthing areas, and had classroom compartments that could be converted to HQ areas, she made a perfect fit for the task.
In April 1940, the Germans captured Christian Radich at her slip in the Horten Naval Base, her brief and uneventful tenure in the Norwegian armed forces during World War II at an end.
The Nazis seized her, impressed the fine ship into the Kriegsmarine in 1941, and used her as an S-boat mothership first in north Norway (at Skojomen) then in the Baltic.
July 1942: In the rear are two S-boats of the 6. SFltl in Skjomen (Ofotfjord near Narvik) alongside a camouflaged “Christian Radich”, in the foreground MT-“Kärnten” with U 408 and U 457 – Picture: Archives E. Skjold
When 1945 came, the Germans stripped her of anything useful and scuttled her in shallow water near Flensburg. Her masts were broken at the deck, her fittings gone or loose, she was literally a wreck although only eight years old.
The KSA recovered the stricken vessel in December 1945, paid for a 900,000 Kroner refit at Sanderfjord Naval Yard under the guarantee of Norwegian businessman Alf Bjercke, and once again took to the water training young seamen in 1947, aged 15-25.
Between 1956 and the present day she has participated in scores of tall ship races, placing in an impressive 39 of them, showing she has what it takes to fill the canvas and leave other windjammers to taste her spray.
USS Strong DD-758 and The Christian Radich under sail in “Windjammer”
Portuguese frigate NRP Pero Escobar was photographed in England with the Norwegian training ship Christian Radich on a mission to support the Oostende – Lisbon sailing race carried out in 1960
She starred in a Danish film, “Windjammer, the Voyage of the Christian Radich” racing against the Dane school ship Danmark, in which a 19-man film crew lived aboard her for six months at sea.
A beautiful ship, she is a favorite of maritime artists
Christian Radich in the Port Of Duluth Painting by Werner Pipkorn
She is currently run by a non-profit, The Christian Radich Sail Training Foundation, which endeavors to keep her at sea as much as possible, training and representing the country. They have a very informative webpage and social media account (from where most of these images originate).
Since 2005, she was used as a school ship for the Navy to train the country’s naval officers as part of the Befalsskolen for Sjøforsvaret program.
“We were informed that the Norwegian Navy’s officer school are unable to renew the contract with Christian Radich after April 2015, despite the fact that they are very satisfied with our services. There has been an intensive process to find alternative employment during the winter months. The Foundation offers now training for maritime students at Norwegian Colleges. They will have an apprenticeship on board during the schoolyear 2015/16.”
Still, she has celebrated her 75th year in almost constant service, which means something these days.
Specs:
Displacement: 1,050 tones
Length: 62.5 m (205 ft.) 73 m (240 ft.) including bowsprit
Beam: 9.7 m (32 ft.)
Height: 37.7 m (124 ft.)
Draught: 4.7 m (15 ft.)
Propulsion:
(As built) 26 Sails, 13.580 sq. ft., four-cylinder, four-stroke single acting diesel engine at 220 bhp built by Deutsche Werke AG, Kiel.
(Post WWII) 27 Sails, (14,600 sq. ft.) Engine, Caterpillar 900 HK
Speed: Sails, 14 knots (26 km/h) Engine, 8 knots (1937) 10 knots current
Complement 15 permanent crew 88 passengers/trainees (current)
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Warship Wednesday Sept. 16, 2015: The little tug that could (and did)
This image of the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa was shot one year before it would sail into the vicious Halloween storm to save lives. USCG Photo courtesy Coast Guard Historian.
Here we see the see the Navajo-class fleet tug turned medium endurance cutter USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC/WATF/WAT-166) nee USS Zuni (AT/ATF-95) at sea in 1990. At the time the picture was taken, she was 47 years young and had a hard life already– but was yet to give her finest service. Further, she was probably the last ship afloat under a U.S. flag to carry a 3”/50!
With the immense U.S. Naval build-up planned just before WWII broke out, the Navy knew they needed some legitimate ocean-going rescue tugs to be able to accompany the fleet into rough waters and overseas warzones. This led to the radically different Cherokee/Navajo-class of 205-foot diesel-electric (a first for the Navy) fleet tugs.
These hardy 1250-ton ships could pull a broken down battleship if needed and had the sea legs (10,000 miles) due to their economical engines to be able to roam the world. Armed with a 3″/50 caliber popgun as a hood ornament a matching pair of twin 40mm Bofors and some 20mm Oerlikons they could down an enemy aircraft or poke holes in a gunboat if needed. In all, the Navy commissioned 28 of these tough cookies from 1938 onward, making a splash in Popular Mechanics at the time due to their power plant.
Their war was hard and dangerous with 3 of the ships (Nauset, Navajo and Seminole) meeting their end in combat.
The hero of our story, USS Zuni (AT-85) was laid down at Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon 8 March 1943 and commissioned just seven months and one day later. After a brief time in Alaskan waters, she sailed to warmer parts of the Pacific and by the fall of 1944 was in active combat during the capture and occupation of Saipan and Guam then the Peleliu invasion. There she took the crippled USS Houston (CL-81), a Cleveland-class light cruiser with two torpedoes in her, under tow to Ulithi.
Guess who is on the other side of the rope just off camera to the right? Sigh, ships like the Mighty Z are unsung.
No sooner had this been accomplished then she rushed to the aid of another cruiser.
On the night of 3 November 1944, Atlanta-class light cruiser USS Reno, a part of Admiral Sherman’s TG 38.3 (which in turn was a part of the greater TF 38, the Fast Carrier Task Force), was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-41 east of the San Bernardino Strait while escorting USS Lexington. She was hit by two torpedoes; one of which hit her outer hull, didn’t explode, and was later defused. The other one exploded, which led to the death of 2 of her crew. 4 other crewmen were injured.
Looking aft on the starboard side of light cruiser USS Reno, showing her main deck awash. She was torpedoed by submarine I-41
After spending a night dead in the water, the cruiser was attacked by yet another Japanese submarine. Fortunately, for Reno the three torpedoes the submarine fired all missed. USS Zuni came to the rescue and towed Reno (with 1250 tons of seawater inside her and her decks nearly awash) some 1,000 miles to the safety of Ulithi.
Torpedoed light cruiser USS Reno under salvage, fleet tugboat USS Zuni alongside, 5 November 1944
Moving along with the fleet, Zuni was there for the Luzon operations, Formosa and Iwo Jima where she accidentally beached herself 23 March 1945 while attempting to pull USS LST-944 off the sand. In all she earned four battle stars for her service during World War II while dodging kamikazes, suicide boats and Japanese subs.
However, with the inevitable postwar drawdown, the Navy didn’t need over 70 newly built oceangoing tugs on the Navy List and chopped Zuni over to the USCG in a warm transfer on 29 June 1946 in New York harbor.
12 November 1946 , now-Tamorara under refit at USCG Yard, Baltimore Maryland; U.S. Coast Guard Photo.
The Coasties uncharacteristically renamed the ship, giving her the moniker USCGC Tamaroa (WAT-166), a historic Coast Guard name carried by a steam tug in the 1920s and 30s.
Tamaroa went through a number of changes, first of all landing her 20mm and 40mm guns, then swapping out her haze gray for a black and buff, then later all white (with a buff stack) scheme.
Bow view of the USCGC TAMAROA while on her trial run. 1947
Stationed at New York, New York, she served as a rescue and salvage ship for twenty years while conducting weather and oceanography missions, notably going to the rescue of USS Searcher (YAGR-4) in 1955 after that ship suffered a fire at sea, the Andrea Doria/Stockholm collision in 1956 and the yacht Nereid in 1960.
In 1963 she was embarrassingly sunk while in dry-dock in New York harbor when a drunk and disorderly crewmember opened the port side valves of Tamaroa‘s dock. Tamaroa had every seacock cut out of her; the stern tube packing was out at the time so she sank fast.
It took nine months and $3.2 million to rebuild Tamaroa and in 1966 the ship was reclassed (after the addition of an SPN-25 radar, new small arms locker, and new away boats) as a medium endurance cutter tasked primarily with LE missions– but still ready for SAR and support duties as well.
1987. Note the extensive awning over her stern for Haitian and Cuban migrants found at sea.
Over the next 28 years, this seagoing cop made more than a dozen large drug busts with her biggest being on patrol 400 miles east of New York City, on 25 September 1980, she seized the freighter M/V Roondiep carrying 20 tons of marijuana after first firing warning shots across the Panamanian’s bow.
She rounded this off with at least as many large seizures of illegal foreign fishing vessels encroaching on U.S. EEZ waters and U.S.-flagged ships such as the F/VFirst Light and its cargo of 3,000 pounds of illegal swordfish, impounded for a Hague Line violation. She did all this while still performing Ice Patrols, rescuing lost souls on the sea (she picked up more than 300 Haitian migrants on one 40-day patrol in the Florida Straits alone in the 1980s) and other sundry tasks.
In short, by 1990 when the first image of this post was taken, she was tired.
Nevertheless, when the call went up during the ‘No Name Storm‘ of Halloween weekend 1991, she did as she had for Houston, Reno, Stockholm, Searcher and others.
Immortalized in the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (turned into a film of the same name), Tamaroa rescued three people from the sailboat Satori 75 miles off Nantucket Island in seas that built to 40 feet under 80-knot winds.
“The Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa’s rigid hull inflatable rescue boat is sent to help the sailing vessel Satori. Satori, with three people on board, needed help about 75 miles south of Nantucket Island after being caught in a northeaster-like storm that raked New England on Halloween week.” Date: 30 October 1991 USCG Photo #: 911030-I-0000A-002
The Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa’s battles heavy seas during Satori rescue.
Coast Guard rescue swimmer Petty Officer David Moore prepares three Coast Guardsmen from Tamaroa to be hoisted into a helicopter following the Satori rescue. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The Tamaroa in the Storm USCG painting by Terrence Maley
The ordeal over, taps sounded–with reveille only 10 minutes later.
The Tamaroa was again fighting heavy seas (with 52 degree rolls registered on the old tug) to rescue the crew of a downed New York Air National Guard HH-60 helicopter from the 106th Air Rescue Group that had run out of fuel on a similar rescue mission. Tamaroa rescued four of the five Air National Guard crewmen, a rescue that earned the cutter and crew the Coast Guard Unit Commendation and the prestigious Coast Guard Foundation Award.
Tamaroa rescues helicopter crew USCG painting by William Kusche
Then she went right back to work until just past her 50th birthday, she was put to pasture.
According to the history written by a former crewman, on 3 December 1993, “Coast Guard Headquarters decided that Tamaroa‘s spectacular record of rescues at sea was coming to an end. Facing a $1 million yard overhaul, the Mighty Z, The Tam, the invincible vessel, faced the end of a distinguished career. Heavy cuts in other Coast Guard mission funding forced the end.”
Via Shipspotting
The 205-foot Medium Endurance Cutter TAMAROA, stationed at Governors Island, NY, stands ready for patrol duties. USCG painting by William Sturm.
Decommissioned by Coast Guard, 1 February 1994, she was the last Iwo Jima veteran to leave active duty.
She was given to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum (after all, she had called New York her hometown for most of her career). However with limited dock space, the museum soon transferred her to the Zuni Maritime Foundation, who docked her at Portsmouth, VA for restoration to her historic WWII condition. Tragically, she suffered a catastrophic engine room leak in 2012 that ended those dreams.
The foundation donated historical items from her to a number of museums then sold the hulk to one Timothy Mullane who got in hot water with the Virginia Marine Police and City of Norfolk officials over his “floating junkyard” of ships sitting on the Elizabeth River bottom. Mullane planned in 2013 to sink the ship as a reef, but I cannot find if and when that actually occurred and she was still seen in Mullane’s collection as late as June 2015.
Regina Gomez calls all the ships floating in the Elizabeth River close to her family’s property a floating junkyard. Notice the grey hull in the background– that’s Zuni! (David B. Hollingsworth | The Virginian-Pilot)
In the end, the Zuni/Tamaroa, with a long and distinguished history, may still be among us for some time to come.
Several of Zuni/Tamaroa‘s Navy sisters joined her at one time or another in Coast Guard service including USS/USCGC Chilula (AT-153/WMEC-153), USS/USCGC Cherokee (AT-66/WMEC-66), and USS/USCGC Ute (AT-76/WMEC-76), however Tamaroa outlasted them all.
As for the rest of her sisters, many continued in U.S. Navy service until as late as the 1970s when they were either sunk as targets or scrapped.
A number went as military aid to overseas allies in Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia and elsewhere. One sister, USS Apache (ATF-67) who served as the support tender for the bathysphere Trieste, was transferred in 1974 to Taiwan and continues to serve as ROCS Ta Wan (ATF-551), as well as USS Pinto (AT-90) who has been in Peru as BAP Guardian Rios (ARB-123), and USS Sioux (AT-75) who lingers as the Turkish Navy’s Gazal (A-587).
Length: 205′ 6″
Beam: 39′ 3-1/4″
Draft: 15 as designed, 18 navigational draft 1994
Displacement: 1,641 tons (full load, 1966); 1,731 tons (full load, 1994)
Propulsion: Diesel-electric: 4 General Motors model 12-278 diesels driving 4 Allis Chalmers generators driving 4 electric motors; 3,010 SHP; single 4-bladed propeller
Performance:
Max: 16.1 knots; 4,055-mile range
Economic: 10.1 knots; 13,097-mile range (1966)
Fuel Oil: 66,363 (1994)
Complement: 5 officers/80 men (1943); 64 (1961); 84 (1994)
Armament: (1943)
1 x 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mount
2 twin 40mm AA gun mounts
2 single 20mm AA gun mounts
(1946)
1 x 3″/50, small arms
Electronics:
Radar: SPN-25 (1966)
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/
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.
Warship Wednesday Sept. 9, 2015: The (bad) luck of the Irish
Oil Painting by Kenneth King, National Maritime Museum of Ireland
Here we see the Irish Mercantile Marine-flagged schooner Cymric as she appeared during WWII. The hardy windjammer had a very hard luck life indeed.
Cymric, named after the extinct dark beaked, grey-eyed eagle sometimes termed Woodward’s Eagle, was built on the orders of William Thomas of Wales in 1893 as a 123-foot barquentine for South American and Australian trade.
By 1906, she was acquired by Irish interests in Arklow and re-rigged as a three master schooner.
Fast forward to 1915 and the Royal Navy was on the lookout to acquire some disposable ships to serve as well-armed bait for U-boats. The concept, the Q-ship (their code name referred to the vessels’ homeport, Queenstown, in Ireland) was to have a lone merchantman plod along until a German U-boat approached, and, due to the small size of the prize, sent over a demo team to blow her bottom out or assembled her deck gun crew to poke holes in her waterline.
At that point, the “merchantman” which was actually a warship equipped with a few deck guns hidden behind fake bulkheads and filled with “unsinkable” cargo such as pine boards to help keep her afloat if holed, would smoke said U-boat.
Something like this:
“The Q-ship Prize in action against U-93 on 30 April 1917”, painting by Arthur J Lloyd, from Scars of the Heart exhibition, Auckland War Memorial Museum
That’s when Cymric, along with her sistership William Thomas’s former Gaelic and a third Irish schooner, Mary B Mitchell, were acquired by the RN and put to work. They were given an auxiliary engine, armed with a 12-pounder and two 6-pounder guns (all hidden) as well as two Vickers machine guns and some small arms for their enlarged 50-man crew.
In all the Brits used 366 Q-ships, of which 61 were lost in action while they only took down 14 U-boats, a rather unsuccessful showing.
Mary B Mitchell claimed 2-3 U-boats sunk and her crew was even granted the DSO, but post-war analysis quashed her record back down to 0.
However, Cymric bagged a submarine of her own, literally.
First let’s talk about HM Submarine J6.
The seven 274-foot J-class boats built during the war were faster than most subs of the era (capable of 19-knots) but still not fast enough to keep up with the main battle fleet on extended operations, which relegated them to the 11th Flotilla at Blyth from their commissioning through the end of the war, stationed around the Hungarian freighter turned depot ship HMS Titania, rarely seeing action.
J6 (not U-6)
One of these was J6, commissioned 25 January 1916 for service in an uneventful war in her assigned neck of the woods. That was until her skipper Lt.Cdr. Geoffrey Warburton, while on the surface with her deck gun unmanned off Northumberland coast on 15 Oct. 1918 (just weeks before the end of the conflict) stumbled upon a non-descript schooner hanging out.
That’s when the HMS Cymric thought herself very lucky indeed.
“At about 15.30 on the 15th October a submarine was spotted on the surface steaming towards CYMRIC. Visibility at this time was about 6000-yards and when first spotted the submarine was from two and a half to three miles off. She continued on an opposite course to CYMRIC and I decided she was a friendly submarine…I recognized the bow of the ship as typical of the ‘J’ Class. When first sighted ‘action stations’ were sounded, but when I decided this submarine was friendly I told the gun crews, but ordered them to ‘stand by’.”
There was no obvious evidence that the submarine was hostile, because her gun was unmanned and men could be clearly seen on the bridge. Yet, Lt. Peterson was disturbed by the position of the gun, as it did not correspond to any of the friendly submarine silhouettes he had been issued with for training purposes. As the lettering on the submarine’s conning tower became clearer, suspicion grew that the submarine was an enemy. Some eyewitnesses from CYMRIC claimed that an object was partly obscuring the lettering on the conning tower.
Shortly after this, when the submarine’s letter and number could be seen clearly, it appeared to me to be ‘U 6’; the submarine at that time was still on the bow: I waited until the submarine was on the beam and still being convinced she was ‘U 6’, I gave the order for action. The White Ensign was hoisted on the mizzen truck of CYMRIC. There was a pause, but no recognition was shown by the submarine at that time.”
With that, the Q-ship dropped her bulkwarks and opened fire on “U6” at 1800 yards with her starboard 12-pounder, hitting the sub’s conning tower with the third shot, and thereafter firing for effect.
Although Lt.Cdr. Warburton of J6 fired no less than six flares off to signal the surface ship to stop the shelling. Tragically, the sub closed her hatches, sealing off eight sailors below decks to their ultimate fate while she continued ahead in course and speed– her control room shot to shit and unable to signal the engines to halt. The bombardment ended when J6 entered the sea fog again and disappeared.
The slower Cymric caught up to her dead in the water and, seeing RN sailors swimming for their lives, realized with horror what had happened.
A Cymric crewmember:
“The first thing I noticed was the marking ‘HM Submarines’ on the bands of the men’s hats. We had sunk a British submarine by mistaking the ‘J’ for a ‘U’. I can remember a big red headed chap who was badly wounded shouting at us from the boat ‘Come on you stupid ##### these are your own ###### side! Give them a hand’.
We pulled over to the sinking men. One man was holding up his commanding officer. He yelled come and help me save Mr Warburton. Others were drowning. We dived in and rescued all that we could. One we took out of the water was too far gone and died on board…We sent a signal to Blyth that we were making for the port with the survivors of J6 aboard. I will never forget entering the port. As we rounded the pier and worked our way into the basin where the depot ship TITANIA and the other submarines were moored, we could see the wives and children of the submarine gazing with anxious eyes to see if those dear to them were among the survivors.”
In all, some fifteen men were lost with HM S/M J6, the only member of her class of submarines to suffer a casualty in the war:
Armstrong, Ernest William M/12905 E.R. Artificer.3rd
Brierley, James Roger Ingham, Sub-Lieutenant
Bright, C.T. Artificer Engineer
Burwell, Herbert Edward Philip M/3779 E.R.Artificer.4th
Hill, Arthur Herbert J/5428 Able Seaman
Lamont, Athol Davaar M/14927 E.R. Artificer.3rd
Rayner, Edward George J/5764 Leading Seaman
Russell, William Thomas J/28769 Able Seaman
Savidge, Albert Edward K/19992 Stoker.1st
Stevenson, Percival James P/K 1628 L/Stoker
Tachon, Philip K/20794 Stoker 1st Class
Thompson, William Piper K/23871Stoker.1st
Tyler, Frank Andrew J/2116 Able Seaman
White, Henry Thomas J/13130 Able Seaman
Wickstead, George Herbert J/31563 Leading Telegraphist
A court of inquiry cleared Peterson and his crew, though some had reservations.
In the end, the court records were sealed until 1997 under the Official Secrets Act.
With the end of the war arriving, Cymric was disarmed and disposed of by sale in 1919 and later reacquired for the now-free Irish Merchant trade, spending most of her interwar career as a mail ship.
However her bad luck continued.
On November 28 1921, while waiting to move through the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin near Ringsend bridge, a stiff seaward wind came and pushed her forward suddenly, impaling her bowsprit in the side of a street tram, in one of the few instances in which a ship, technically still afloat at sea, was in a traffic accident with a city streetcar.
Nevertheless, Cymric‘s most unlucky day was still nearly 15 years off.
In 1939, neutral Ireland entered World War II and tried to walk a fine line to keep that neutrality in place, going so far as to intern both Axis and Allied servicemen found on her territory for the duration.
Isolated by a large degree, her 53 Irish flagged merchantmen continued their vital trade to other neutrals such as Portugal and Spain, trying to keep out of the war as best they could while saving 534 seamen from other countries lost upon the water in the period known in the service as “The Long Watch.”
Their only defense was their flag and national markings on their side, and that wasn’t much.
Oil painting by Kenneth King in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland depicting the moments after the SS Irish Oak, a 8500-ton steamer and one of the largest in Irish service, was torpedoed mid-Atlantic by U-607 in 1943– whose commander later told his bosses he targeted the vessel because he just knew it was a decoy Q-ship. Irony, thy name is the Irish Merchant service.
By the end of the war nearly a quarter of the Irish ships and men upon them were sunk by ships, planes and mines of both sides, but they kept the island country fed, warm and out of the dark.
As for Cymric, she sailed on the Lisbon Run for the last time in early 1944 and promptly vanished, never to be seen again.
The final crew of schooner Cymric (missing since 24 February 1944), were posthumously awarded the Irish Mercantile Marine Service Medal for the contribution to the war:
Bergin, P., Wexford
Brennan, J., Wexford
Cassidy, C., Athboy, Co. Meath
Crosbie,J., Wexford
Furlong, K., Wexford
Kiernan, B., Dundalk
McConnell, C., Dublin
O’Rourke, W., Wexford
Ryan, M., Dungarvan
Seaver, P ., Skerries
Tierney, M., Wexford
Their names are a part of both Wexford’s Maritime Memorial, where many of the men came from and their loss still lingers, as well as the larger Dublin City Quay Memorial to the 149 seamen lost on neutral Irish ships sunk or damaged by torpedoes, mines, bombs and aircraft strafing (by Luftwaffe & RAF) during WWII. In Dublin, a street is also named after this vanished ship.
Class and type: Iron barquentine
Tonnage: 228 grt
Length: 123 ft (37 m)
Beam: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Draught: 10 ft 8 in (3.25 m)
Propulsion: Sail, Auxiliary motor fitted in World War I
Sail plan: Three masted bark, then schooner
Armament: 1 12pdr, 2 6pdr, small arms (1915-1919)
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/
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.
Here we see the 257.8-foot steel-hulled steam yacht, SS Delphine, poking along the Riviera. Almost a century old, the Delphine has a rich history and played a key role in WWII.
She was the second of two yachts owned by Horace E. Dodge, who along with his brother John Dodge, were the owners of Dodge Brother Automobiles in Detroit. The car dynasty these two brothers created remains as part of Chrysler today.
In the Great Gatsby-era, Dodge commissioned this beautiful personal luxury liner from Great Lakes Engineering on the Detroit River, in Ecorse as Hull #239 (Order # 221218). Renowned maritime architects Henry J Gielow and Antoine Wille devised her design plans.
Her interior was done by Tiffany’s of New York and, when launched on April 2, 1921, was the largest yacht built to date in the U.S. and cost $2 million, which in today’s cash is about $25 million, which is still a bargain.
Ironically, Horace never saw her complete, having died from the Spanish flu in 1920.
The toast of the Great Lakes, she also made it out to the East Coast to visit Martha’s Vineyard and Manhattan for “the season,” where her guests, which enjoyed a 2:1 crew-to-guest ratio in style, attended regattas and speedboat races.
Sunk in an accident in 1926, Delphine was raised after four months on the bottom of the Hudson, once refitted, and remodeled for $750,000, put back into regular service.
By 1935, the luxurious yacht, with the Dodge family out of the car business and the Great Depression on, was docked for an extended period and owned by Anna Dodge Dillman of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where she was a popular site for years docked at her private pier on Lake St. Clair.
With war on the horizon, the U.S. Navy came looking for gently-used but still usable hulls, Delphine was acquired by Uncle on 21 January 1942 and commissioned five months later after refit at Great Lakes Engineering’s River Rouge, Michigan yard as a gunboat with a wartime paint scheme, a pair of 3-inch guns and some .50 cals, a Marine detachment, and a new name: USS Dauntless (PG-61).
With her warpaint on
The Marine Detachment, USS Dauntless (PG-61) – mid-1942
Why the Marine detachment on a slow gunboat? Well, she was tasked as the flagship for Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, that’s why.
She was gutted after the Navy acquired her in January 1942. Large, panoramic windows in her hull were replaced with portholes. Much of the boat deck was ripped out to accommodate six self-launching life rafts, and the aft promenade deck was cut away for an anti-aircraft gun. The superstructure was extended forward some 10 feet to accommodate more crew bunks, and .50-caliber machine guns were added, six in total. New masts were installed, one with new radar. A larger searchlight was placed on top of the pilothouse.
Inside the hull, the dining room became a radio room, pantry and officers’ wardroom. The guest staterooms on the lower deck were subdivided into 10 smaller officers’ staterooms. The ship was wired for electricity, and air conditioning was installed.
To complete the conversion, Delphine was dipped in the colors of war—gray/green/blue camouflage paint—and designated Naval Gunboat PG 61 (patrol gunboat), the USS Dauntless. Dauntless arrived at the [Washington] Navy Yard on June 16, 1942, and was moored to Pier 1. On June 17, King’s flag was broken and he moved aboard.
The ship saw the epic course of the naval war planned and coordinated from her secure and spy-proof wardroom and, in November 1943, secretly shuttled 19 members of FDR’s War Department down the Potomac to the USS Iowa in the Chesapeake Bay, which then crossed the Atlantic to the Tehran Conference war talks.
A different kind of beautiful
The Navy liked her so much they kept the old girl around for a year after the war ended, and finally struck her on 5 June 1946, returning her to Ms. Dodge’s custody who quickly sent her to a refit at Great Lakes Engineering (one of the last jobs performed by the yard before it was shut down) to restore Delphine to her pre-war condition, keeping only the navy siren and 9 hash marks on her stack from her wartime service.
Note the hash marks on her funnel
In 1968, she was donated by the Dodge family to the Seafarers Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship (SHLSS) in Piney Point, Maryland where she served as a training ship for merchant seamen under her WWII-era Dauntless name until 1986.
Then over a ten-year period, she changed hands a few times and, aging and in poor condition, was towed to Bruges, Belgium for a six-year restoration in 1998.
Since 2003, after being rechristened to her original name by no less a personality than Princess Stephanie of Monaco, she has been in regular service along the Riviera as a yacht for charter under Portuguese flag– while being up for persistent sale.
Although pushing 95 years of age, she has SOLAS, MCA, MARPOL, and RINA (Registro Italiano Navale) certifications.
Below is the $40 million asking price 2010 sale video of the Delphine, in which the craft was listed as having the following amenities:
SS Delphine is able to accommodate up to 12 guests, at anchor and in port up to 180 guests. Life aboard is luxurious. Each guest suite has its own en-suite bathroom; TV (flat screen in the two VIP rooms), valuable safe, mini bar, stand-alone music system and telephone enabling both intercom and satellite use. The public areas of the yacht have independent music systems that can be interconnected for parties. In the smoking room WIFI is available. Besides DVD’s there is also Playstation 2 available in the Delphine Lounge; and this on a flat screen TV. There is also a ¾ concert Steinway piano and a Disklavier Yamaha piano; and on request, a lounge bar pianist can be arranged as part of the crew.
Delphine appeared notably for her five minutes of on-screen fame in the movie The Brothers Bloomstarring Rachel Weisz and Adrian Brody in 2008, with most of the first act taking place on her decks.
She rents for some 50,000 euros per day and is listed in the top 100 superyachts of the world. Her official registry port is Madeira and her home port is Monaco, France.
(1942)
Displacement 1,950 t.
Length 257′ 7″
Beam 35′ 2″
Draft 16′ 3″
Speed 16 kts.
Complement 135
Armament: Two 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mounts
Propulsion: Three 250psi Babcock and Wilcox boilers, two 3,000ihp vertical quadruple expansion Great Lakes Engine Works engines, two shafts
(Current)
LOA: 257.8ft / 78.5 m.
Beam: 35.5ft / 10.8 m.
Draft: 14.6ft / 4.5 m.
Gross ton: 1342
Power: 2x quadruple steam expansion engines, each 1500HP
Maximum speed: 12 knots
Cruising speed: 8 to 9 knots
Cruising radius: 3600 miles
Fuel consumption: 600 liters per hour at cruising speed, 1000 liter a day for the generators.
Guests: 12. This is in 11 double beds of which two are king-size VIP rooms and 4 in one cabin with bunk beds. All cabins have the same comfort and have a fully equipped bathroom.
Crew: 21 in standard conditions maximum 28 on extra request.
Flag: Madeira, Portugal
Classification society: RINAVE, Portugal classed as a commercial yacht.
The ship has ISM and ISPS code implemented.
Navigation system equipped for A1+A2+A3 zone
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
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.
Warship Wednesday, Aug 26, 2015: The Finnish Lighthouse Battleships
Here we see the Väinämöinen-class panssarilaiva (“armored-ship”) FNS Ilmarinen of the Merivoimat (Finnish Navy) dropping it like its hot on some pesky Red Army positions in 1941. This big Baltic bruiser and her slightly older sister were a matter of Finnish pride from the 1920s through World War II– and gave the Russkies a far bit of heartburn at the same time.
In 1809 when the Russians carved the Duchy of Finland away from the Swedish Empire, Finland was largely left to their own bit, even being allowed to keep their local rule (the Diet), form their own army units, military academy, and a small navy (the Suomen Meriekipaasi)– the latter of which served well when the Brits came a calling in the Baltic during the Crimean War.
Well by 1878, Tsar Alexander II decided to Russify the Finns and implemented conscription into the segregated units of the Russian army, disbanded the navy, and a host of other measures that only ensured that by 1918, with the Tsars swept away, Finland broke free of St. Petersburg’s yoke.
They formed a new, independent Finnish Army (Maavoimat) and Navy (Merivoimat), fought a brief but brutal civil war against Bolshevik-backed Red Guards, and kept an eye peeled for the day when the Soviets decided to renegotiate the status of Finn sovereignty.
While the Merivoimat inherited a dozen or so small ex-Imperial Russian Navy gunboats, torpedo slingers and minesweepers left behind post-1918; as well as a corps of professional former mariners and officers to sail them, they needed some legit vessels if they expected to keep the Red Banner Fleet out.
They were in luck with the respect that in Turku there was a shipyard, Crichton-Vulcan, which had repaired Russian naval ships as well as constructed small boats. (The company later became Finnish mega yard Wärtsilä in 1936). In the mid-1920s the Germans were restricted from building certain military ships (um, U-boats, battleships, cruisers, you know, all the good stuff), but they struck a deal to build three small Vetehinen/Vesikko-classU-boats submarines at Crichton-Vulcan to improved WWI designs, which, though the ships never sailed for Germany, helped keep the flower of their submarine industry nurtured until 1933 when the gloves came off.
Therefore, in 1927 Parliament approved a plan to build two rather unique armored ships (panssarilaiva) as well as order some off-the-shelf motor torpedo boats from the UK to help round out their burgeoning fleet.
These two ships were laid down at Crichton-Vulcan within a month of each other in 1929.
Väinämöinen
Layout of the Väinämöinen class
Weighing in at 3,900 tons and with a 305-foot long hull, today these ships would be considered a frigate. At the time, the size made them either large destroyers or small cruisers.
However, unlike either of those types, these ships were glacially slow, with a top speed of just 14 knots on their good German-supplied Krupp engines. Further, they could only keep this speed up for a few days as they carried only enough fuel oil to make it 300~ miles away from port before they had to turn back for more.
Different guns of Väinämöinen nicely visible: the huge 254 mm main guns, 105 mm multi-purpose guns, and 40 mm Vickers AA guns.
But that’s OK because they weren’t designed to run or to chase down ships on the high seas, these ships were designed to lurk in 15 feet of shallow water close to Finland’s craggy coastline, and plaster approaching Red Navy amphibious assaults or Red Army troops ashore.
They were given four 254mm/45cal Bofors guns (if you do the math, those are 10-inch guns there, homie!). These big guys could hurl a 496-pound AP shell at a rate of 2-3 per minute per tube out to 33,140 yards.
Via Navweaps
Via Navweaps
In effect, allowing one of these destroyer-sized ships to blast off a dozen sumo-wrestler-sized shells in the first 60 seconds of an engagement.
The two twin 10-inch turrets were augmented by eight 105mm/50cal. Bofors DP guns in four turrets that could coat either shore or airborne targets with 15 rounds per minute per tube, allowing 120 55.6-pound shells to rip out from the ship in 60 seconds.
These had a range of land targets to 19,900 yards and could reach as high as 40,000 feet to pluck random enemy aircraft down.
A very tall centerline fire direction center/tower directed the fall of shot, giving these two ships an instantly recognizable silhouette.
Class leader Väinämöinen was commissioned on 28 December 1932 while follow-on sister Ilmarinen was commissioned in 1934.
Prior to WWII, the two ships sailed the summer months around the idyllic waters of the Eastern Baltic and wintered near the shipyard at Turku when the ice came, then hit repeat.
With Mannerheim aboard
A great view over the front of the bow from above the rangefinder
They took part in the fleet parade at Spithead, where they participated in the festivities for the coronation of King George VI– but had to be towed due most of the way due to their short legs
When the Soviets picked a fight that led to the Winter War of 1939-40, the two ships sailed to secure the Ahland Islands between Finland and Sweden but were soon forced back to port with the coming winter.
While in Turku, the ships, whitewashed as camouflage and powered by shorelines to prevent exhaust from giving them away, fought off a number of Soviet bomber attacks, receiving slight damage.
Finnish coastal defense ship Ilmarinen anchored at Turku harbor, Finland, 10 Mar 1940
When Finland came into World War II proper against the Soviets in 1941, both ships proved very active in supporting advancing troops ashore.
However, Ilmarinen soon ran into trouble when, accompanying a German fleet to seize Soviet-held islands off Estonia, struck a sea mine on 13 September 1941 and sank with heavy loss of life, some two-thirds of her crew in all.
Soviet propaganda poster of the sinking of the Finnish battleship Ilmarinen but is labeled Väinämöinen
Väinämöinen had a more charmed existence, patrolling the Gulf of Finland with a force of patrol boats and minelayers and waiting for an eventual Soviet naval thrust that never came.
The Reds did not forget the big V, however, and demanded she be turned over as reparations after the war, to which the Finnish Navy reluctantly agreed, handing the proud ship to her new communist masters on 29 May 1947.
Renamed Viborg after the Russian name for the Finnish city of Viipuri seized by the Soviets in 1944 and still part of Russia, the ship served the Baltic Fleet for two decades until she was scrapped in Leningrad.
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/
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.
Warship Wednesday, Aug 12, His Majesty’s Frozen U-boat Busting Bulldog
Here we see the modified V-class destroyer HMS Vansittart (D64) of the Royal Navy tied to a buoy in 1943. The hardy ship was a member of a huge group of WWI-era British tin cans that pulled yeoman service in the twilight of their lives.
In 1916, the Admiralty was in dire need of as many destroyers as they could find to fight the ever-growing U-boat menace that threatened to cut the British Isles off and hand victory to the Kaiser. This led to a crash emergency order of up to 107 Admiralty V-class flotilla leaders.
The Brit’s previous design– the 275-foot/1,075-ton S-class– mounted three 4-inch popguns, a pair of 18-inch torpedo tubes and could make 36 knots on two boilers. Well, the new V-boats were much larger at 312-feet/1,360-tons, higher to allow for a large wireless suite, needed three boilers, but upped the armament to a quartet of QF 4 in Mk.V mounts and 3 21 inch torpedo tubes a triple tube arrangement.
The first ship, Valentine, was laid down in August and completed just seven months later. By the end of the war, these hardy boats numbered some 67 hulls afloat and the remaining 40 were canceled.
Now enter the subject of our tale: HMS Vansittart (D64).
Laid down at William Beardmore and Company, Dalmuir, on New Year’s Day 1918 (no holidays off during wartime) she was completed after the war and only commissioned 5 November 1919.
Built to a modified W-class design, she shipped 1,550-tons largely due to her heavier suite of 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns, each capable of firing a 50-pound semi-armor piercing shell to 14,450 meters and a full half-dozen torpedo tubes rather than the original trio.
Vansittart served with the 4th Destroyer Flotilla and the Mediterranean squadrons then was laid up in 1925 due to the overall draw-down of the RN in those lean years. For the next 14 years, she was part of the Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth, staffed by reservists occasionally on summer training, and was reactivated in August 1939 as the drumbeat of a new war called.
By September 12, she was part of the 15th Destroyer Flotilla and serving on convoy duty in the Channel, protecting the BEF crossing into Europe. Next, Vansittart shipped to Norway and took part in the pivotal destroyer clash that was the Battle of Narvik, where she was damaged by German aircraft, then promptly returned to convoy duty and the evacuation of Rotterdam in May.
On 1 Jul 1940, as Britain stood alone in the War, she took out German Type VIIB U-boat U-102 in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 48°33’N, 10°26’E, by 11 depth charges then proceeded to pick up 26 survivors from the British merchant Clearton, U-102′s last victim.
U-102 took all 43 hands including Kptlt. Harro von Klot-Heydenfeldt to the bottom.
Vansittart at the time had a very photogenic mascot.
A bulldog named Venus stands at the helm of the HMS Vansittart, a British Destroyer, c.1941
Venus was one god looking pooch
More gratuitous Venus
1941 saw Vansittart assisting in mine laying operations off the French coast and spending a few days in May searching for SMS Bismarck.
She was adopted by the town of Kidderminster during the Warship Week National Savings drive in December 1941. The RN got their money’s worth out of the Great War-era ship, later allowing Hereford to adopt the old girl as well in the war.
THE MAYOR OF KIDDERMINSTER, ALDERMAN O W DAVIES, VISITS HMS VANSITTART – THE TOWN’S ADOPTED SHIP. 11 JUNE 1942 IWM photo A 10786 (The officer shaking hands with the mayor of Kidderminster is Lt Cdr Thomas Johnston DSC, who captained HMS Vansittart from 1942 to 43 including the relief of Malta)
In February 1942, she reported to Gibraltar and took part in the epic resupply convoys to besieged Malta including Operation Pedestal where she helped screen HMS Eagle from both air and submarine attacks.
By 1943, she was undergoing a six-month refit at Middleborough from which she emerged with a more potent AAA defense, and traded in half her torpedo tubes for more ASW weapons, but restricted to just 25 knots.
This put her back to escorting merchant convoys in the Atlantic for the rest of the war, including some very hard service in the ice zones.
Chipping away ice on the deck of H.M.S. Vansittart on convoy escort duty in the Arctic
Soon after VE Day, unneeded for the war in the Pacific, she was placed up for disposal along with the rest of the ships of her class still in the Atlantic.
As a whole, these hardy little ships gave their full measure, with many going down fighting.
At least 35 of the class survived the war only to be unceremoniously paid off and sold to the breakers between 1945 and 1948. The last afloat, the Australian-manned HMAS Vendetta (D69), was scuttled off Sydney on 2 July 1948.
The hero of our story is not immune to this fate, being sold to BISCO for scrap on 25 February 1946.
She is remembered on a .26 Euro stamp issued to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Malta run.
Displacement: 1,140 tons standard, 1,550 tons full
Length: 300 ft. o/a, 312 ft. p/p
Beam: 30 ft.
Draught: 10 ft. 11 in
Propulsion: 3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers, Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed: 34 kn
Reduced to 25 kn 1943
Range: 320-370 tons of oil
3,500 nmi at 15 kn
900 nmi at 32 kn
Complement: 111 as designed, 150 by 1943
Type 271 surface warning Radar fitted 1942
Armament: As-built 1920:
• 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns mount P Mk.I
• 2 x QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 6 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes
1943 LRE conversion:
• 3 × BL 4.7 in (120mm) Mk.I L/45 guns
• 1 × QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun
• 2 × QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 2 × 20mm Orkelion cannons
• 3 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes (one triple mount)
• 2 × depth charge racks
• Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar
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/
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.
Warship Wednesday, Aug 5, 5015: 225 Years of Semper Paratus
In honor of the Coast Guard’s 225th Birthday this week, this one is a no-brainer.
Here we see the oldest vessel in the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the last ships afloat and in active service that dates from World War II (although from the other side), the Gorch Fock-class segelschulschiff training barque USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), America’s only active-duty square-rigger.
The Gorch Focks
Designed by John Stanley, the Gorch Fock-class school ships, three master barques with 269-foot long steel hulls, 18,000 sq. feet of square-rigged sails fore and main and gaff-rigged mizzens were perhaps the best training ships built in the 20th Century.
Horst Wessel at sea 1938
First ordered to replace the lost Segelschulschiff Niobe, which capsized in 1932, SSS Gorch Fock was ordered the same year from Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and completed in just 100 days. Then, with a need to greatly expand the German Kriegsmarine soon followed sisters SSS Horst Wessel in 1936, SSS Albert Leo Schlageter in 1937, Mircea for the Romanian Navy in 1937, and SSS Herbert Norkus in 1939.
The subject of our story, Horst Wessel was a happy ship, commissioning 17 September 1936, and spent summer cruises in 1937-39 roaming the globe with a crew of German officer cadets and craggy old chiefs and officers that dated back to the Kaiser’s time.
Importantly for history, her christening was the scene of an image that is perhaps more famous than she was.
August Landmesser was a worker at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg. He appeared in a photograph refusing to perform the Nazi salute at the launch of the naval training vessel Horst Wessel on 13 June 1936.
“He had been a Nazi Party member from 1931 to 1935, but after fathering children with a Jewish woman, he had been found guilty of “dishonoring the race” under Nazi racial laws and had come to oppose Hitler’s regime. In February 1944 he was drafted into a penal unit, the 999th Infantry Battalion, where he was declared missing in action and presumably killed.”
Horst Wessel (the future USCGC Eagle) at the Mürwik Naval Academy in Flensburg, Germany during 1937, two years prior to the start of WWII. Eight years later the situation would be much different: the academy was the seat of government for Adm. Karl Dönitz, who briefly presided over what remained of the Third Reich from 30 April – 8 May 1945.
Crewmen on Horst Wessel performing a totenwacht over a dead comrade
Horst Wessel
Her German Eagle figurehead
When war came, the training fleet was laid up with Herbert Norkus, never fully completed, sunk at the end of the conflict, Gorch Fock herself scuttled in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who raised her and used her anyway as the training ship Tovarishch for decades, Schlageter damaged by a mine then confiscated and sold in poor shape to Brazil and Horst Wessel with an interesting story of her own.
Armed with several 20mm flak mounts, Horst Wessel had shuttled around the relatively safe waters of the Baltic and came out of the war unscathed.
Coming to America
The Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE laying at a shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1946, being rigged and outfitted for her voyage to the United States. Note bombed outbuildings in the background
Won by the U.S. in a lottery of captured but still salvageable German ships, she was sailed to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where she took the place of the 188-foot Danish merchant academy training ship Danmark, who interned during the war, had trained thousands of USCG and Merchant Marine officers.
Horst Wessel arrived with a mix of new USCG plankowners including 6 officers and 55 men, who shadowed a German volunteer crew consisting of the vessel’s former skipper, Kpt/Lt. Barthold Schnibbe and 48 men, and was commissioned 15 May 1946, as USCGC Eagle while Danmark was returned to her proper owners that September after Eagle was ready for deployment.
A plaque with the names of her mixed first USCG/last German cruise. It could probably be considered the last Atlantic crossing by the Kriegsmarine.
Since then she has been used extensively with a core USCG cadre crew of six officers and 55 enlisted personnel and as many as 150 cadets on summer and even yearlong cruises. During the past seven decades, it can be said that she has sailed with over 10,000 swabs holystoning her decks and rigging her lines.
Eagle under U.S. Flag 1954. Note that she did not receive her distinctive red racing stripe until 1976– the last ship in the Coast Guard to do so
She has been inspected by just about every sitting President since Truman including JFK, a former Navy man.
August 15, 1962–President John F. Kennedy addressing Cadets while visiting on board the U.S Coast Guard Academy training bark EAGLE,
President Kennedy reviewed USCGC Eagle’s crew in 1962. Note the M1 Garands, still a staple of the USCGA.
Eagle allows future officers to put into practice the navigation, engineering, damage control, and other professional theories they have previously learned in the classroom.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – Photo of events aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle July 6, 2012. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
Upper-class trainees have a chance to learn leadership and service duties normally handled by junior officers, while underclass trainees fill crew positions of a junior enlisted person, such as helm watches at the huge double wooden wheels used to steer the vessel.
The sails are set aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. The Eagle is underway on the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 295-foot barque. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Everyone who trains on Eagle experiences a character-building experience gained from working on a tall ship at sea.
U.S. Coast Guard Academy Third Class Cadet Brandon Foy climbs the rigging Tuesday, July 12, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. Foy is one of 137 cadets sailing aboard the 295-foot barque during the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ship. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
To maneuver Eagle under sail after her rerigging to a larger set of canvas than the Germans used, the crew must handle more than 22,000 square feet of sail and five miles of rigging.
The sails are set Saturday, June 25, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Over 200 lines control the sails and yards, and every crewmember, cadet, and officer candidate, must become intimately familiar with the name, operation, and function of each line.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
While she has the nickname of “America’s Tall Ship” and is seen around the world waving the flag, her bread and butter are training cadets from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy as well as NOAA Officer Candidates and the occasional Navy, and Merchant Marine, and foreign allied maritime officers as well.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
And all those sails don’t raise themselves
These ships have proven durable, with Gorch Fock returning to Germany from Russia in 2003 and resuming her old name as a museum ship, Mircea entering her 77th year of service to the Romanian Navy this year, and Albert Leo Schlageter— sailing under the name Sagres III for Portugal since 1961– all still in active service.
Truth be told, only the sad Herbert Norkus, which never sailed anyway, has been lost from the original five-ship class.
Further, since the war ended, another five ships have been built to the same, although updated, design. These include yet another Gorch Fock (built for West Germany in 1958), Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).
In short, nine tall ships are running around the earth to the same general specs.
And the best traveled of the pack is Eagle, who is all ours and hopefully will see another 75 years under sail.
CARIBBEAN OCEAN – The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle transits the Caribbean Ocean under full sail on Monday, June 7, 2010. Crewmembers assigned to the Eagle “America’s Tall Ship” set sail from New London, Conn., for the annual Summer Training Program in April. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta H. Disco.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
(June 26, 2005) ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A view from the bowsprit onboard the Eagle during a cadet summer training patrol. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE designated ‘America’s Tallship’ is a three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (May 20)–The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails into Guantanamo Bay to spend the night. The Eagle is involved in training exercises in the Caribbean. USN photo by FINCH, MICHAEL L LCDR
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through the ocean as the moon’s reflection beams across the sea. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Shinn)
Seaman Katy Turner (right) of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Ted Hubbard of West Springfield, Mass., work from one of Coast Guard Cutter Eagle’s small boats to inspect and clean the hull before entering port Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Conducting small boat operations is one of the most dangerous evolutions for the crew because the small boats are lowered manually by crewmembers, rather than by a mechanical hoist.
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
Although she long ago landed her German eagle for an American one, which carries the Coast Guard seal (while the old one collects dust as a war trophy at the USCGA Museum) and her original wheel carries her Horst Wessel birth name, it also carries her new monicker as well.
Her original German figurehead is on display at the USCGA Museum
The figurehead of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
(June 23, 2005) – ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet takes the helm during a summer training patrol onboard the Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE. The three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel is normally homeported in New London, Connecticut, and sails each summer for months at a time, visiting ports around the U.S. and abroad. (Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
The helm of the Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle. Coast Guard photo by PA1 Donnie Brzuska, PADET Jacksonville, Fla.
In an oil painting on masonite, renowned aviation artist William S. Phillips depicts two icons of the Coast Guard: the cutter Eagle, and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, the standard rescue aircraft of the Coast Guard.
The ceremony will take place on Friday appx. 10:30 a.m. August 7 at the Oliver Hazard Perry Pier at Fort Adams State Park, Newport, R.I.
Eagle will be open to the public for tours at approximately 12 p.m. following the commemorative stamp unveiling ceremony.
In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in the visitor center across from the pier.
In Newport, Eagle will be open for free public tours:
* Friday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cutter Eagle by John Wisinski (ID# 90138)
If you cannot make Newport, the Eagle has her own social media account that is regularly updated and on a long enough timeline, she will be in a port near you.
Specs:
Length – 295 feet, 231 feet at waterline
Beam, greatest – 39.1 feet
Freeboard – 9.1 feet
Draft, fully loaded – 16 feet
Displacement – 1824 tons
Ballast (lead) – 380 tons
Fuel oil – 23,402 gallons
Anchors – 3,500 lbs. port, 4,400 lbs. starboard
Rigging – 6 miles, standing and running
Height of mainmast – 147.3 feet
Height of foremast – 147.3 feet
Height of mizzenmast – 132.0 feet
Fore and main yard – 78.8 feet
Speed under power – 10 knots
Speed under full sail – 17 knots
Sail area – 22,300 square feet
Engine – 1,000 horsepower diesel Caterpillar D399 engine replaced 700hp original diesel
Generators – two-320 kilowatt Caterpillar 3406 generators
Training complement – 6 officers, 54 crew, 20 temporary active duty crew when at sea, 140 cadets average.
Maximum capacity – 239 people
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/
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.
Warship Wednesday, July 29, 2015, The saddest story of World War II
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Here we see the Portland-class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) as she appeared before the war in New York. Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of her tragic passing, often cited as the worst disaster in U.S. Naval history. As she was torpedoed on the other side of the International Date Line, at the site of her wreck it is already that time.
We have covered this tragic vessel several times including the Svedi photo collection and a set of papers that we submitted to Navsource and the NHC on her 1936 Friendship cruise, so we’ll keep it short.
The two-ship class of “10,000-ton” heavy cruisers was sandwiched between the half-dozen 9,000-ton Northamptons built in the late 1920s and the seven more advanced New Orleans-class cruisers built in the late 1930s. As such, the twin Portlands were advanced for their time, carrying nearly a thousand tons more armor and 9x 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 12 guns. They had weight and space available to accommodate a fleet admiral and staff if needed.
Indianapolis was laid down by New York Shipbuilding Corporation on 31 March 1930 and was the first warship to carry the name, commissioning 15 November 1932.
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Her prewar career was peaceful and she carried FDR on a trip to South America in 1936 and others.
Narrowly escaping Pearl Harbor by being at sea far to the southeast of Hawaii, she soon was earning battle stars the hard way in New Guinea, the Aleutians (where she pummeled the Japanese troopship Akagane Maru, sending her and her soldiers to the bottom of the cold North Pacific), Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein, the Marianas, Palau, the Philippine Sea and onto the Home Islands.
View from off her starboard bow, at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, following overhaul, 1 May 1943. White outlines mark recent alterations to the ship. Note new forward superstructure, 8″/55 triple gun turrets, starboard anchor, anchor gear on the forecastle, and paravane downrigging chains at the extreme bow. USS Minneapolis (CA-36) is in the background, stripped for overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
For a good bit of that time, she served as the 5th Fleet flagship of Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance.
Admirals Spruance, Mitscher, Nimitz, and Lee aboard USS Indianapolis, Feb 1945
LVTs moving in during the invasion of Saipan, 15 June 1944. Heavy cruiser firing in the background is USS Indianapolis
At Okinawa, she spent a week solid smacking around Japanese shore positions with her big 8 inchers while dodging kamikazes. On 31 March 1945, she was unlucky enough to be severely damaged by one of these flying meatballs and, losing 9 men, set course for Mare Island Naval Yard in California for repairs.
Once patched back together, it turned out the War Department had a mission for her.
In San Francisco, she took aboard parts and 141-pounds of enriched uranium (about half of the world’s supply at the time) for the inefficient Little Boy atomic bomb, which would later be dropped on Hiroshima, producing about 15 kilotons of sunlight when she vaporized in August.
Racing the 6,000 miles from San Fran to Tinian island in just ten days (with a short stop in Hawaii), she arrived unescorted and delivered her payload on 26 July, which would go on to a history of its own only 11 days later.
However, Indy would no longer be afloat by the time Hiroshima’s mushroom cloud peaked.
This photo was taken on 27 July 1945, the day before she sailed from Guam to her doom, as documented by the ship’s photographer of USS Pandemus (ARL 18), on the back of the photo. This is probably the last photo taken of her. Caption on back of photo: “USS Indianapolis (CA 35) taken: 1530 27, July 1945, Apra Harbor, Guam, from USS Pandemus RL 18 as it passed heading for the sea. The picture was taken by Gus Buono”. U.S. Navy photo from the Collection of David Buell.
At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by I-58, a Japanese B3 type cruiser submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes after sending off a distress call. The sub’s commander took her to be an Idaho-class battlewagon and unloaded six torpedoes in her direction, of which 2-3 hit.
Indianapolis was not equipped with sonar or hydrophones, or provided with a destroyer escort despite her captain’s request– the only case in which a capital ship was left unescorted so late in the war.
Of 1,196 men on board the stricken cruiser, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters sans lifeboats and supplies for the most part. By the time the dwindling survivors were spotted (by accident) four days later only 317 men were still alive.
Survivors of the sinking of the Indianapolis are taken to a hospital on Guam after their rescue in August 1945.
After the war her skipper, Captain Charles B. McVay III, was sent to the mast in a travesty of justice– the only U.S. captain of more than 350 to face trial for having his ship sunk by the enemy in the war. At the trial, the skipper of I-58, which had been captured and scuttled by the Navy in 1946, even testified that McVay was not at fault.
Although cleared by history, McVay later committed suicide. The Navy later adjusted his record, posthumously.
Indianapolis‘s sister ship, USS Portland (CA–33), was decommissioned in 1946 and languished on red lead row until she was scrapped in 1962 although she earned 16 battle stars, making her one of the most decorated ships in the U.S. fleet.
There are several monuments to the Indianapolis and her wreck was located in 2001.
Her bell, removed from the ship at Mare Island in 1945 to save weight, is preserved at the Heslar Naval Armory in Indianapolis.
There is also a good bit of maritime art to commemorate her.
Indianapolis by Michel Guyot
She is remembered by a vibrant USS Indianapolis organization, many books, a completed made for TV movie (which was horrible), and a new film with Nick Cage that is currently shooting.
Thirty-two men are still alive from the crew of the USS Indianapolis, including Richard Stephens, 89, who eagerly awaits the Cage film.
“I think it’s going to be a good movie,” said Stephens, who was 18 when he and the others received the command to abandon ship.
He visited the set in Mobile, Ala., earlier this month where the film is being shot on location using Mobile Bay and the USS Alabama museum as a backdrop. “I told (Cage) I didn’t like fictional movies, and they should be trying to show more respect, they should be using the facts. He said it’s going to be pretty true to facts.”
Specs:
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Displacement: 9,800 long tons (10,000 t)
Length: 610 ft. (190 m)
Beam: 66 ft. (20 m)
Draft: 17 ft. 4 in (5.28 m)
Propulsion: 8 × White-Foster boilers, single reduction geared turbines, 107,000 shp (80,000 kW)
Speed: 32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Complement: 629 officers and enlisted (peace), 1,269 officers and men (wartime as flag)
Armament: 9 × 8 in (200 mm)/55 cal guns (3×3)
8 × 5 in (130 mm)/25 cal AA guns
8 × .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns
Aircraft carried: 2-5 OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
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.
Warship Wednesday, July 22, 2015: The (Giant) Messenger God
Here we see the Centaur-class aircraft carrier HMS Hermes (R12) bouncing around the North Atlantic with her bow mostly out of the water in 1977. She currently is the oldest flattop in active service (though armed with just 7 elderly and increasingly cranky Sea Harriers) and has had one hell of a ride.
British carrier problems
During WWII, the Royal Navy saw the writing on the wall in the respect that, to remain a first-rate naval power with a global reach, it needed a fleet of modern aircraft carriers. Entering the war in 1939 with three 27,000 ton Courageous-class carriers converted from battlecruiser hulls, the 22,000 ton battleship-hulled HMS Eagle, the unique 27,000 ton HMS Ark Royal, and the tiny 13,000-ton HMS Hermes (pennant 95, the world’s first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier)– a total of six flattops, within the first couple years of the war 5/6th of these were sent to the bottom by Axis warships and aircraft.
Further, while two 32,000-ton Implacable-class and four 23,000-ton Illustrious-class carriers, laid down before the war were able to join the fleet, they just made up for the losses of the prewar vessels.
The Brits designed an innovative armed merchantman (CAM ships, for catapult aided merchantman, some 35 freighters armed with a single rocket-assisted Hurricane or Spitfire ready for a one-way trip) and picked up a legion of escort carriers loaned from the Americans to help fight off German Condor patrol bombers and U-boats. However, fleet operations in far-off areas away from the support of land-based RAF fighters needed fast and well-armed flattops.
That’s where the 16 planned Colossus-class light carriers, 4 Audacious-class, 4 Malta-class supercarriers (57,000-tons), and 8 Centaur-class fleet carriers came in. Ordered and designed between 1942-45, these 32 British ships would have been the envy of any navy in the world.
While the Maltas never made it off the drawing board, just 2 Audacious’s were finished (in the 50s), and most of the Colossus-class were likewise completed much after the war (some as late as the 1960s then rapidly sold or junked), the Centaurs were likewise abbreviated to just 4 much-delayed ships. One of these is the hero of our story.
Enter Hermes
HMS Hermes was laid down at Vickers-Armstrong on 21 June 1944, two weeks after the Allies stormed ashore at D-Day. She was the last of the quartet of Centaurs whose construction was started. Originally to be named HMS Elephant, she picked up the messenger of the god’s moniker of the old carrier (Pennant #95) sunk by the Japanese in 1942.
Envisioned to be the middle ground between the Colossus light carriers and the Malta supercarriers, these 737-foot long, 29,000-ton ships were fast enough (28 knots) to serve with the fleet, could cross the Atlantic or steam as far away as the Falklands (remember this) or Cape of Good Hope on a single bunker load of fuel oil and could carry some 60~ piston engine fighters and bombers (smaller than an American carrier of similar size due to their armored flight deck and hangar).
NBC Washdown
However, WWII ended before any of the Centaurs could be completed and the four ships under construction, Hermes included, were sidelined.
She languished after the war and was only finished on 18 November 1959 (after 15 years at the builders) with a much-altered plan that included an angled flight deck to allow the operation of jet-powered aircraft at sea.
One of the last ships completed with 40mm Bofors DP AAA guns, she could carry as many as 40 aircraft in a mixed flight wing that included downright chunky Supermarine Scimitars, de Havilland Sea Vixen fighters, and turboprop-powered Fairey Gannet ASW aircraft together with Westland Whirlwind (British-built Sikorsky S-55/H-19 Chickasaw) helicopters.
Spending most of the 1960s in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf area (the Brits were the preeminent naval force in the Gulf at the time), by 1968 Hermes‘ wing had been updated to include a dozen Sea Vixens, 7 Buccaneer strike planes, Wessex choppers (British-built turbine-powered development of the Sikorsky SH-34 Seabat) and 5 Gannets in AEW roles.
The 63 foot long, 30-ton Blackburn Buccaneer was the same size as the later F-14 Tomcat and could carry up to 6-tons of ordnance including the British Red Beard or WE.177 tactical nuclear bombs to a range of some 2,300 nautical miles. The Brits still had these in service as late as 1994, but couldn’t use them in the Falklands as Hermes had her CATOBAR system removed. They likely would have come in very handy if she hadn’t and there were still some in the fleet.
A Sea Vixen launching from HMS Hermes.
The F-4 Phantom was successfully tested from her decks, but it was deemed that she wouldn’t be able to carry enough (just 12, landing the rest of wing ashore) to matter.
Rare color image of two Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers on the catapults of HMS Hermes, 1968. XT282 (325) XV152 (324) of 809 Squadron.
In 1970, her catapults and arrester wires were removed (as were her old Bofors and radars) and she was converted to a “commando carrier” capable of carrying a Royal Marine battalion. Her air wing was some 20 Marine helicopters. She was also given storage and handling areas for 4 LCVP landing craft.
She was modified to carry as many as 800 Royal Marines. Dig those L1A1 SLRs (semi-auto Enfield made FN FALs)
When the Harrier came out, Hermes was given a ski jump to help those VSTOL beauties take off (they would land vertically so no arrester wires were needed) and her wing was fleshed out by ASW helicopters to allow her to carry out the NATO sea control mission concept if needed.
Harrier jump jets on the Deck of HMS Hermes
By 1982, with the Malta’s never built, the Colossus and Audacious-class carriers all retired, and Hermes‘s own sister ships HMS Centaur (R06), HMS Albion (R07), and HMS Bulwark (R08) decommissioned in 1965, 1972 and 1981 respectively, she was at the same time the largest, oldest and most effective carrier left in the Royal Navy with only the smaller and barely broke-in 19,000-ton “Harrier carrier” HMS Invincible to back her up.
Ironically both carriers were up for sale at the time, as Parliament was determined to get the UK out of the carrier business.
Then came the Falklands.
With the nearest RAF base some 4,000 miles away at Wideawake Airfield, Ascension Island, the aircraft that the RN could carry to the Malvinas were the only ones that would be available to defend the British attempt to retake the colony.
Royal Marines line up for a weapons check in the hanger of HMS Hermes in the South Atlantic on their way to the Falklands in 1982. Note the hangar crammed full of Harriers and the big Sea Kings on a deck above.
Hermes carried an impressive (for her size) complement of 26 RN Sea Harriers and RAF Harriers (more than half of the British combat aircraft deployed to the conflict) as well as up to 22 big Sea Kings at one time or another (though most were cross-decked to other platforms) and was flagship of Rear Adm. Sandy Woodward’s Task Force 317.8 for the war.
View looking aft down HMS HERMES’ flight deck as she sails from Portsmouth for the South Atlantic. Five Sea Harriers of No 800 Squadron Fleet Air Arm are visible on the crowded flight deck in front of a mass of Sea Kings. At the time of sailing, the crew had not had time to organize the stowing of aircraft or supplies. IWM (FKD 674)
Hermes gunner in anti-flash gear with a WWII era 20mm in the Falklands
The 100~ ship (though only 27 warships) combined fleet, the largest British flotilla formed since 1956 in the Suez crisis, departed the UK on 5 April and after an epic 25-day trip arrived in the 200-mile exclusion zone surrounding Falklands, with the Argentinians beginning their attacks on the force the very next day.
Harrier of No 1 Squadron RAF is prepared for a sortie on the flight deck of HMS HERMES, 1982.
Arriving in the Falklands, her Harriers conducted both air support for the troops ashore and held up a pretty good CAP against attacking Argentine Mirages and Skyhawks. In all the RN and RAF Harriers (just 38 aircraft, mostly operating from Hermes) flew over 1,500 sorties in the 45 days while on station before the British Jack was hoisted over Port Stanley once more, and were credited with 20 air-to-air kills.
Air group at the height of the Falklands Conflict:
800 NAS – 16 Sea Harrier FRS.1
826 NAS – 5 Sea King HAS.5
846 NAS – 5 Sea King HC.4
No. 1 Squadron RAF – 10 Harrier GR.3
A petty officer aboard HMS Hermes crossing equator on way back to the UK from the Falklands
Steel beach party on HMS Hermes note Sea harrier and the sea king
When Hermes sailed back into Portsmouth, she and the Task Force was greeted by everything that floated.
HMS Hermes being welcomed back after the Falklands War
Her Royal Navy career ended 12 April 1984 and she was paid off while on her 15th skipper.
However, although she was the last of her class afloat and her keel had forty years on it, she was still valuable.
Refitted, she was sold to India in 1987 and took the name INS Viraat (R22) and, homeported in Mumbai, she has served the Indian Navy for 28 continuous years, undergoing a further five refits while in Indian service.
Her current name means, “Giant” and she was the largest ship ever operated by the Indian Navy until they bought the 65,000-ton Admiral Gorshkov from the Russians and brought her in service as INS Vikramaditya in 2013.
Vikramaditya’ (foreground) and ‘Viraat.’ Indian Navy photo
Of note, Admiral Sir John Forster “Sandy” Woodward GBE, KCB passed the bar 4 August 2013. In his last public act, he decried the decommissioning of Britain’s carrier force before the new Queen Elizabeth class could be brought online, leaving the country that invented the type without a flattop for the first time in a century.
Hermes/Viraat is currently the last British-built ship serving with the Indian Navy, and the oldest aircraft carrier in service in the world, and with over 70 years under her keel and two new carriers on the builder’s ways, its time for the old girl to retire.
The retirement call was forced, in part, by the dwindling fleet of Sea Harrier fighters operating from the deck of Viraat. While the limited upgrade Sea Harrier (LUSH) programme bestowed the fighters with modern avionics and beyond visual range (BVR) strike capability, the ageing airframe has been a concern. Not more than seven Sea Harriers are available at the moment — some of them cannibalized (used as ‘Christmas Tree’ for spares) to keep the relatively agile ones airworthy.
“Thanks to the Navy’s stringent maintenance regimen, we have been able to operate Viraat without major glitches until now. But the Harrier fleet has dwindled so much that within the Navy, Viraat is often referred to as a ‘One Harrier carrier’. No point flogging it any further,” an official said.
HMS Broadsword with HMS Hermes, Falklands. Official painting by John Alan Hamilton for the MoD. (c) Mrs. B.G.S. Hamilton (widow); Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Sadly, the Royal Navy has not carried the name on its roles since 1985.
Displacement: 22,000 tons 28,700 tons full load
Length: 737 ft. (224.6 m)
Beam: 130 ft. (39.6 m)
Draught: 28.5 ft. (8.7 m)
Installed power: 78,000 hp (58,000 kW)
Propulsion: 2 shaft geared steam turbines, 4 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
Speed: 28 knots (52 km/h)
Range: 7,000 nmi (13,000 km) at 18 kn (33 km/h)
Sensors: Radar Type 982, Type 983, Type 275, Type 974
Complement: 2,100 including carrier air wing. 1970-75 as Commando Carrier: 1500 plus up to 800 Marines.
Armament: 32 40mm Bofors guns (2 × 6), (8 × 2), (4 × 1) removed in 1970, replaced with 2 Sea Cat missile system launchers. During Falklands, her armament was increased with the addition of numerous small gun mounts.
Armor: 1.2-inch flight deck, Hangar deck
Aircraft carried: 7-60 depending on year and role
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/
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.
Warship Wednesday July 15, 2015: The Great War’s Granite State
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Here we see the Connecticut-class battleship, USS New Hampshire (BB-25) at age 12 in the Gatun Locks of the Panama Canal. At this point of her life the young girl had already been in two real live shooting wars, had sunk a friendly battleship, and had but three years to live.
As part of the international naval race, the Connecticut-class was the top of the line in your U.S. predreadnought ships of the line. A century ago, the Connecticuts were the best and most intensely beautiful warships in the US Navy.
Connecticutherself was such an important ship that a crowd of some 30,000 civilians as well as most of the entire active battle fleet of the Atlantic Squadron was present for her commissioning in 1906. As a 15,000-ton ship with 11-inches of armor belt and carrying four 12-inch guns, she was a hoss.
USS Connecticut with a bone in her mouth on trials, 1906
Of course, the commissioning of the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought the very same year, with her 10×12-inch guns, 21-knot top speed, and up to 12-inches of armor in a 21,000-ton package, the Connecticut was already sadly and badly obsolete.
That didn’t stop the Navy from finishing five sisters, Louisiana, Vermont, Kansas, Minnesota, and our hero, New Hampshire by 1908, spread across four east coast shipyards. Antiquated before they were even finished.
View of the ship’s bow decoration, taken while the battleship was in dry-docks at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, 6 January 1909. Note gilt-work on the eagle figurehead and associated decorations, stockless anchors in hawsepipe, stocked anchor on billboard further aft, Sailors leaning on the bow bulwark, jack at half-mast, bell mounted in front of the ship’s pilothouse, and barred portholes. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives / USNHC # NH 19-N-4-8-21, via Navsource. Click to very much big up
New Hampshire was laid down 1 May 1905 (just days before the pivotal Battle of Tsushima Strait., the apogee of predreadnought battlewagons). She was built alongside sistership USS Kansas at New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, NJ at a cost of $3,748,000 and was commissioned 19 March 1908– then was rushed into front line service.
New Hampshire on trails note no main 12 inch guns have been fitted. Also note her twin military masts.
On her shakedown cruise, New Hampshire schlepped a provisional Marine regiment from Hampton Roads to Panama to protect the Canal there. You see her five sisters, all completed the year before, had set off on an around the world cruise of the Great White Fleet, and she was left holding the line until they returned and, afterwards, was one of the first ships made “combat ready” by replacing her original military masts with lattice cage masts, trading gleaming white and buff for haze gray, and landing her ornate bow crest seen above.
In March 1911, she got to warm up her four 12 inch /45 Mark 5 guns as well as her extensive (20 gun!) mixed set of 7 and 8 inchers on the former battleship USS Texas. Renamed the USS San Marcos, that 1892-era 6,300-ton vessel was one of the nation’s first modern heavy warships. By 1911, she was barely considered a warship anymore by modern standards so it made sense that her 12-inches of armor plate should be tested on the New Hampshire‘s still relatively modern guns.
USS New Hampshire B-25 firing on the target ship San Marcos (ex-Texas) at Tangier Sound in Chesapeake Bay, March 1911. This photograph is of historical interest as it was one of the first gun shoots where a spotter in the cage masts was used to spot fall of shot. Previously, each gun layer or turret captain utilizing their turret gunsights was responsible. This new technique increased the maximum possible engagement range from 12,000 yards (11,000 m) up to about 24,000 yards (22,000 m). Also note the ship’s wake and that firing a broadside did not push the ship sideways. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 73105. Photo colorized by irootoko_jr Oh yeah, and CLICK TO BIG UP
And the 870 lbs. AP shells of New Hampshire did their job very well, destroying her above the waterline and holing her below so many times she sank at her moorings and the current was allowed to flow without hindrance from side to side.
The below images are from Navsource via USNIP, 1938, courtesy of Pieter Bakel, and are attributed to Lt.Cdr. Radford Moses, USNR who was among the inspectors of the old San Marcos after New Hampshire was done with her.
After sinking San Marcos, New Hampshire trained mids from Annapolis and conducted peacetime cycles of training and flag waving missions abroad.
In April 1914, she was among the ships who landed shore parties to occupy Veracruz.
By the time the U.S. entered WWI, New Hampshire was relegated to train gunnery and engineering rates in Chesapeake Bay and by September 1918 was tasked with escorting convoys across the North Atlantic.
In the Hudson River, New York, 27 December 1918. Note wartime modifications, including removal of some of the seven-inch and three-inch broadside guns and fitting of blast deflection shields on the “cage” mast fire control positions. Photo courtesy of Larry Bonn. Text courtesy of USNHC # NH 2891
Then came magic carpet rides bringing Doughboys back from ‘Over There’ through the first part of 1919.
Lloyd Brown, a 104-year-old World War I veteran takes a moment to pause as he remembers being in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard with his ship the day WW I ended, at his home in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, on November 9, 2005. Brown remembered Armistice Day in 1918 as few, ever so few, veterans can. “For the servicemen there were lots of hugs and kisses,” he recalls Brown, a teenage seaman aboard the battleship USS New Hampshire when the fighting stopped. “We were so happy that the war was over.” Brown added, “There’s not too many of us around any more.” An estimated 2 million Americans served in Europe after the U.S. entered the war in 1917. Lloyd Brown passed away in April of 2007, at the age of 105. (AP Photo/Chris Gardner)
Peacetime service after the war for the relatively young ship (she was but a decade old) was more of the same midshipmen cruises and flag-waving.
On Nov. 10, 1923, in one of the saddest days for any naval buff, all six of the Connecticuts were stricken from the Naval List and very soon after scrapped in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
By the end of 1924, the entire class was nothing but so much re-purposed steel, although it’s likely that some of her smaller mounts were retained in storage and used during WWII to arm merchantmen.
Perhaps the only tangible piece of the old battleship New Hampshire is her 72-piece silver service and bell. Expertly made by New Hampshire’s W.B. Durgin Co. and presented to the PCS in 1908, it is currently on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord.
Via Robert Dole, Maritime Quest.
Her bell is preserved at Portsmouth. Image by Jim Cerny
Specs:
Displacement: 16,000 long tons (16,000 t)
Length: 456 ft. 4 in (139.09 m)
Beam: 76 ft. 10 in (23.42 m)
Draft: 24 ft. 6 in (7.47 m)
Propulsion: 12 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
16,500 ihp (12,300 kW)
Speed: 18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Complement: 827 officers and men
Armament:
4 × 12 in (305 mm)/45 cal Mark 5 guns
8 × 8 in (203 mm)/45 cal guns
12 × 7 in (178 mm)/45 cal guns
20 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal guns
12 × 3 pounder guns
4 × 1 pounder guns
4 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 6–11 in (152–279 mm)
Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
Turret Main: 8–12 in (203–305 mm)
Turret secondary: 7 in (178 mm)
Conning tower: 9 in (229 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/
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.
