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Warship Wednesday July 8, 2015: Colombia’s Grande Dame, with a bit of British influence

Posted on July 8, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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

Warship Wednesday, July 8, 2015, Colombia’s Grande Dame, with a bit of British influence

Here we see the Colombian river gunboat (cañonero fluvial) ARC Cartagena (C-31, later C-134), the lead ship of her class of shallow draft warships somewhere in the chocolate milk waters of the Amazon.

Colombia in 1928 had no navy to speak of and was in trouble.

While it had a naval tradition and had built officer training schools twice before, by 1909 the schools had been shuttered and the only vessels flying the Colombian flag were merchant ships. However, the country had a vast interior, controlled by rivers (the massive Magdalena, Amazon and Putumayo systems), and was threatened along its borders by a much stronger regional power, Peru.

With that in mind, the Colombian government negotiated for a trio of newly built gunboats in the UK for use both along the coastline for defense, and on the river system against interlopers pushing the limits of their borders. Ordered in 1929 for a combined cost of £ 200,000 at Yarrow in Glasgow were the threesome named Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Santa Marta.

These 138-foot gunboats, displacing just 150 tons, were beamy at nearly 24 feet, giving them a length-to-beam ratio of nearly 1:5. This translated to a draft of just four feet (48 inches) when fully loaded. If only carrying a light load of diesel oil in her bunkers, they could navigate in just two feet of calm water.

Armed with an Armstrong 12-pdr [3″/40 (7.62 cm)] 12cwt quick-firing gun forward and a quartet of Vickers water-cooled machine guns, their 34-member crew could man all of the mounts and still be able to send a small (squad-sized) landing party ashore or to board suspect ships.

To help train the first generation of modern Colombian naval personnel, the Latin American government picked up several hardy British and French mariners (it was the Great Depression after all, and experienced sailors were available by the boatload) led by one Captain Ralph Douglas Binney CBE, RN.

Binney

Binney was a remarkably English chap. Born in 1888 in Cookham, Berkshire, by 1907 he had earned his commission as a lieutenant in the King’s Navy and served during the Great War on the pre-dreadnought HMS Britannia then spent the 20s on more modern battlewagons including HMS Collingwood and HMS Royal Sovereign before ending his time at sea with the RN as skipper of the monitor HMS Marshal Soult in 1931. Moving to the reserve list, the Colombians picked up Binney as an adviser soon after.

With his help and the cadre of European instructors, the Colombians opened the Escuela de Grumetes (Navy Sailors School) and the Escuela de Cadetes (Navy Officers School), which still exist today.

By the end of 1931, all three gunboats were complete, and British contract crews crossed the Atlantic in an epic 24-day voyage (their Gardner diesel could only make 15 knots wide open and, as they ran at half that to sip fuel, it took little time).

In 1933, primed with their new boats, the infant Colombian Navy (with the ships fleshed out by British and French sailors and dubbed La Flotilla Fluvial, The River Flotilla) made a sortie into the river systems to wave the flag and let the Peruvians know what’s up.

ARC Cartagena river gunboat (Canonero fluvial)

Note the basic rangefinder atop the superstructure for her 12-pounder.

Finding out that the Peruvian Army had sent about 1,000 men to the disputed river ports of Leticia and Tarapacá in the Amazon, the Colombians picked the latter to make their point. There, Barranquilla, leading four transports, landed a 700-man Colombian battalion and bombarded the Peruvian positions on Valentine’s Day, scattering the invaders without casualty– despite being strafed by Peruvian Air Force Vought O2U Corsairs operating from sandbar landing strips.

Win one for the gunboats!

Then, in the March 26-28 action (remembered as the Battle of Güepí) Cartagena, serving as flag, and Santa Marta took on a battalion-sized group of Peruvians on the Putumayo River at Guepi and Port Arthur. Landing Colombian infantry within a stone’s throw of the enemy positions and covering their advance Boom Beach-style, the twin cañoneros lit up the night and fired until they had largely exhausted their ammunition, again shrugging off a raid from the Peruvian air force– this time from Curtiss F-11 Goshawk floatplanes.

Peruvian F-11s. These planes were armed with a pair of .30 light machine guns and could carry two small bombs. In a twist of fate, the Colombians utilized the talents of private German pilots to airlift troops and supplies to the isolated region, landing Fokker trimotors in remote jungle strips.

At the end of the day, the crews of the gunboats nailed the Colombian tricolor on top of Peruvian fortifications.

Win two for the gunboats.

On April 16 the Peruvians struck back, mounting a Krupp 1894 75mm field piece on a river steamer San Miguel and, packing it full of soldiers, ran down the Putumayo and took a Colombian position under fierce attack.

Cartagena raced to the scene and, in an exchange of naval gunfire along the riverbanks at night, forced the San Miguel to beat feet– although Cartagena took a 75mm shell through part of her stack without casualties.

A larger sortie supported by aircraft was repulsed two weeks later with the help of Santa Marta.

Win three (and four) for los canoneros!

Following these actions, the Peruvians went to the bargaining table, and the so-called Colombia–Peru War was ended by May through the kind services of the League of Nations. All told both sides suffered less than 200 casualties in the entire conflict, but the three gunboats were without a doubt the MVPs.

Peace led to the Colombians adding destroyers to their naval list and further increasing their fleet. In addition, after tasting the near misses from airplane-dropped bombs (some of the 117-pounders dropped from the Goshawks were lobbed from 5,000 feet), the gunboats each picked up a single high-angle 20 mm Oerlikon Mk 4 AAA piece.

With the drums of a Second World War beating in the distance, an American naval mission arrived in Colombia in January 1939 to incorporate the Colombian forces in the defense of the nearby Panama Canal. Although the country did not declare war on Germany until November 26, 1943, the gunboats nonetheless stood watch along the coast for U-boats long before that date.

As for Binney, when the balloon went up in Europe in 1939, he resigned from his desk in the Colombian Naval Ministry and picked up where he left off in British service, holding down staff positions in Alexandria and London. Sadly, on Friday, 8 December 1944, on a crowded Birchin Lane in the City of London, Binney saw a couple of rough chaps pull off a smash-and-grab raid on a jewelry shop. He alone stepped forward in an attempt to stop the pair as they escaped in a car and were callously run down by the fleeing criminals. His friends and colleagues established a fund to ensure that his selfless heroism would not be forgotten – and that other such acts would be appropriately recognized. Today this fund still exists as the Police Public Bravery Award– commonly referred to as The Binney.

Now back to Latin America.

The river gunboats remained in service for another generation, with Santa Marta retiring in 1962, her parts used to keep her two sisters running.

A series of images of her late in her career remain to give a look at her circa 1950s appearance:

Speaking of running, in the mid-1960s both Cartagena and Barranquilla were re-engined and their 12-pdr, Oerlikon and Vickers swapped out for a (slightly) more modern Bofors 40mm/60 cal Mk I and a half-dozen air-cooled M1919’s.

Cartagena and Barranquilla put in time for their country in a third war, the epic low-intensity guerrilla war between the government, paramilitary groups, narco-traffickers, and insurgents such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), M-19 and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, The two gunboats often towed barges set up as floating barracks behind them packed with Marines and, just as they did in 1933, provided gunfire support for her landing force going ashore.

Barranquilla, pushing 40, was laid up in the 1970s and cannibalized to keep the more famous, and class leader Cartagena, in operation.

Her day came on 26 July 1986, with 51 years of service behind her; she was decommissioned and landed ashore, her feet dry. She was disarmed except for her Bofors (minus breech), her machinery removed, and all fluids drained.

ARC Cartagena river gunboat (Canonero fluvial), commisoned in 1929 and participant in the war against Peru in 1932 decommissioned in 1986c

Note her Bofors forward and yes, that is as deep as her hull goes, hence the large above-deck superstructure.

She is retained as a museum, open to the public, at Naval Base ARC Leguizamo, although plans are afoot to dismantle her and transfer the vessel to another base where she would be restored.

Specs:

Displacement: 142 tons full
Length: 137.5 feet
Beam: 23.49 feet
Draft: 2-4 feet
Machinery: 2 300hp Gardner semi-diesels (replaced by Detroit Diesels in the 1960s)
Diesel oil bunkering: 24 tons full load
Range: 2100 nm at 15 knots, nearly twice that at 8.
Speed: 15.5 knots on trials, 10 knots cruising
Crew: 2 officers, 32 enlisted (as built) later 39 after 1960s modernization. Up to 100~ infantry
Armament:
12-pdr [3″/40 (7.62 cm)] 12cwt QF (1931-60)
40mm Bofors (After 1960, Cartagena and Barranquilla only)
20mm AAA (Fitted 1939)
4 Vickers, later swapped out for M1919 Brownings, later swapped for M60 GPMGs and M2s in Cartagena by 1980s.

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday June 24, 2015: The hard times of a peacetime tin can

Posted on July 1, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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

Warship Wednesday June 24, 2015: The hard times of a peacetime tin can

USS Ruchamkin.org http://ussruchamkin.org/index.html

Via USS Ruchamkin.org

Here we see the Crosley-class high speed transport USS Ruchamkin (DE-228/APD-89/LPR-89), at sea sometime after 1963. The type of taskings for the Ruchamkin from 1945-69 were the same laundry list of fleet services that are forced on today’s LCS type vessels.

Originally laid down as one of the 252 planned Rudderow-class destroyer escorts, her original mission was to bust subs, kill torpedo and patrol boats, capture random enemy merchant ships threaten enemy destroyers and cruisers with her own steel fish and show the flag as required. Just under 1,800-tons and 306-feet long, these hardy ships would be classified as sloops or corvettes in other navies, but the term destroyer escort seemed a better fit for the USN and their pair of 5 inch /38 dual purpose mounts, 4 x 40 mm Bofors, 10 x 20 mm single mount Oerlikons, torpedo tubes and depth charges allowed them to punch out of thier weight class.

However the war outstripped these ships, with the first, USS Riley (DE-579) only commissioning in March 1944, just 22 of these tin cans were completed as DEs.

Another 50 were completed to a modified design and purpose– that of the high speed transport (APD). You see with the Pacific island hopping campaign in high speed in 1944, the Navy realized these DEs could float in just 11 feet of seawater, which meant they could get pretty close into old Hirohito’s backyard. To maximize their usefulness, these ships were redesigned from the stack back with the aft 5-incher and torpedo tubes never fitted and davits for a quartet of LCPRs (landing craft, personnel, ramped).

She carried four of these craft, which could land her embarked company all in one wave

These 35-foot long V-Bottomed plywood craft could tote 39 troops ashore from as far as 50 miles out to sea; however they usually were launched as close as possible as these craft wallowed along at about 10-knots when wide open.

This allowed the 306-foot ship to carry (briefly) a company-sized (160~) unit of Army infantry or Marines and land them right on top of the beach.

The Rudderow type DE compared to the eventual Crosby type APD, note the differences aft of the stack

The subject of our study, USS Ruchamkin, named after 24-year-old LT (JG) Seymour D. Ruchamkin, late of the destroyer USS Cushing (DD-376) and gave his last full measure on that ship off Savo Island, was laid down at Philadelphia Naval Yard 14 February 1944 as a DE. She was completed to the APD type and commissioned 16 September 1945, two weeks too late to serve in WWII.

USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) at anchor off Cannes, France, in 1952 during the Cannes Film Festival. Don Karr USS Ruchamkin

Instead, she spent the next 24 years in and out of commission (joining red lead row three different times) spending about 15 winters with the active fleet.

Pierside in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. 1960s

In that time she trained midshipmen and naval reservists, was used as an amphibious warfare ship for the first generation of SEALs, roamed the Med, Pacific, and the Caribbean, waved the flag, and generally saw peaceful service.

View underway at sea off her stern,

USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) coming along side USS Rigel (AF-58) to receive stores, during Operation Steel Pike I, October 1964. Photo by Jim McCoy navsource

One of her LCPRs Pierside in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

However even peace can be hazardous.

On 14 November 1952, while on an exercise with troops embarked, the 10,000 ton tanker Washington smacked her portside amidships, nearly slicing the boat in two. As a testament to the design of these warbabies, she held up and remained afloat (thought losing seven men) and was back in service just four months later after repairs.

USS RUCHAMKIN APD 8915 November 1952, one day after USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) had been rammed by SS Washington, a 10,000 ton tanker. Note her damage amidships

Her closest brush with war, besides tracking the occasional Soviet submarine, was when she earned the Navy Unit Commendation for evacuating civilians from the Dominican Republic in 1965, a task that her 160 spartan troop bunks and ability to operate from shallow water ports made her ideal.

She then served as a support ship for Polaris missile tests and the exploration of the wreck of the USS Scorpion before her third and final decommissioning at Little Creek on 24 November 1969.

She was sold to the Navy of the Republic of Colombia for $156,820 who used her as the ARC Córdoba (DT-15) until 1980, primarily as an escort vessel.

She sits in about three feet of still water sandwiched between a recreation of the Taj Mahal and a mountainside

The Colombians disarmed her and donated her to Jaime Duque Grisales, an icon of Colombian air travel. Her new owners dismantled her, transported the old girl to “Colombia’s Disneyland” Parque Jaime Duque and reassembled her on site by 1983. There she sits today in a shallow pond some 620 miles inland and at an elevation of 8000 feet just outside of Bogata, a feat not often accomplished by naval vessels.

But her stern till holds her secret

A very active veterans association, USS Ruchamkin.org exists to continue her memory here in the states.

via USS Ruchamkin.org

Painting by Don Renz via USS Ruchamkin.org

Specs

From Destroyer Escorts In Action (Osprey)

Displacement: 1,740 tons (1,770 metric tons) (fully loaded)
Length: 306 ft. (93.3 m) (overall)
Beam: 36 ft. 6 in (11.1 m)
Draft: 11 ft. (3.4 m) (fully loaded)
Propulsion: General Electric steam turbo-electric drive engine
Two 3-bladed propellers solid manganese-bronze 8 ft. 5 in (2.6 m) diameter
Speed: 24 knots (most ships could attain 26/27 knots)
Range: 5,500 nautical miles at 15 knots (10,200 km at 28 km/h)
Radar: Type SL surface search fixed to mast above yardarm and type SA air search only fitted to certain ships.
Sonar: Type 128D or Type 144 both in retractable dome.
Direction Finding: MF direction finding antenna fitted in front of the bridge and HF/DF Type FH 4 antenna fitted on top of mast.

Armament: (As designed DE)
Main guns: 2 x 5 inch /38 dual purpose mount
Anti-aircraft guns: 4 x 40 mm Bofors were fitted in the twin mounts in the ‘B’ and ‘X’ position. 10 x 20 mm single mount Oerlikons cannon positioned four next to the bridge behind ‘B’ gun mount, two on each side of the ship in sponsons just abaft the funnel, and two on the fantail just forward of the depth charge racks.
Torpedo tubes: three 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes in a triple mount were mounted just aft of the stack.
Hedgehog: British-designed ahead-throwing anti-submarine mortar which fired 24 bombs ahead of the ship, this was situated on the main deck just aft of ‘A’ gun mount.
Depth charges: Approximately 200 were carried. Two sets of double rails each side of the ship at the stern, each set held 24 charges; eight K gun depth charge throwers each holding 5 charges, were situated each side of the ship just forward of the stern rails.

As completed (APD)
Complement: 12 Officers, 192 Enlisted.
Armament: 1 × 5″/38 caliber gun
6 × 40mm Bofors AA (3 × 2), removed 1963 in FRAM update
6 × 20mm Oerlikon AA (6 × 1), removed 1963 in FRAM update. Replaced by M2s.

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/

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday June 24, 2015: The Cursed Lion from Brazil

Posted on June 24, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 9 comments

Warship Wednesday, June 24, 2015: The Cursed Lion from Brazil

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/ Note the huge Brazilian ensign

Here we see the ironclad warship Aquidabã (also spelled Aquidaban) of the Marinha do Brasil as she looked in 1893 while on a visit to the U.S. The largest country in Latin America, Brazil had by the 1870s perhaps the strongest Navy south of the Equator and our subject was its pride and joy for some two decades.

Built by Samuda Brothers at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, the firm had much experience with crafting ships for foreign navies. They had built the Mahroussa for Egypt, Prussia’s SMS Kornpirnz, Japan’s Fuso, Argentina’s ARA Almirante Brown, and the Independcia for Peru. It was no surprise that buoyed by wins in the Platine & Paraguayan wars (1849–70) and looking to expand the Empire, the Brazilian Navy went to Samuda for the 5,550-ton ironclad Riachuelo ( 4 × 9.2″ guns) in 1881 and her slightly smaller one-off half-sister Aquidabã in 1883.

Some 280 feet long, this early battleship tipped the scales at 4,950 tons on a full load and could make nearly 16-knots when all of her eight cylindrical boilers lit. Armed with the same main battery as Riachuelo, she carried a pair of Whitworth 9.2-inch guns in two turrets set off the center line, en echelon, with the forward turret offset to port and the aft turret to starboard. A battery of smaller 5.5-inch breech-loaders, Nordenfelt 1-pounders, and impressive five 18-inch Whitehead torpedo tubes rounded her out.

She was sheathed in up to 11-inches of good English compound armor.

Aquidabã at Hampton Roads 1893 Click to big up

Named after the Aquidabã River system in the country (and the scene of the last battle of the War of Paraguay), she was called the aço Lion (Steel Lion) as she replaced older wooden ships in the line.

Arriving in Brazil on 29 January 1886 to much fanfare, she was placed into commission. By 1890, the Navy had become comfortable enough with their showboat to take the Lion to the high seas, embarking on an 11,000-mile cruise around the Americans, stopping at the U.S. and elsewhere.

Then came a rebellion.

In November 1891, Aquidabã played a decisive role in response to the attempted coup against Deodoro da Fonseca. She fired a 9.2-inch shell at the Police Station of São Bento, damaging the steeple of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Lapa Merchant in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the process– shooting off the cross.

The fuze didn’t go off and the shell is still on display there, but many of the more religious members of her crew felt her cursed after that. For good reason, it turned out…

Click to big up

She returned to the states in April 1893, taking part in the Colombian Exhibition in Hampton Roads along with the international fleet– where several of the larger images were taken in this post.

LOC picture 4615x2625 of Aquidaba that is colorized above. Click to very much big up

LOC picture 4615×2625 of Aquidaba that is colorized above. Click to very much big up

Then, upon return to Brazil, she was promptly caught up in another rebellion, this time on the side of the rebels. This naval rebellion, the Revolta da Armada, occurred when the former Minister of Marine took the ship as his flag and led a yearlong campaign that involved the mutinous ships exchanging gunfire on a near-daily basis with coastal defense batteries ashore.

By the end of it, Aquidabã‘s machinery was in such a poor state of repair due to lack of access to port facilities and spares that she could only limp along at 4-knots, had almost no shells left, and was burning the crummiest grade of coal that could be imagined. Her armament was beefed up by a number of 3-pounder Garnder and Hotchkiss field pieces shipped aboard, but they were more pop-guns than anything.

If our Lion was Goliath, then the torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio was her David

If our Lion was Goliath, then the torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio, above, was her David

Then, on 16 April 1894, the government-controlled torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio managed to pump a fish into the bow of the once-proud Aquidabã and, her front compartments open to the sea, she settled in the mud as her crew fled after thoroughly wrecking her.

Aquidabã in drydock at Cobras Island note torpedo hole

The result of the torpedo hit on the Brazilian battleship Aquidabã on April 16th, 1894. Battleship sank in shallow water and was later refloated. Note the 2 thickness of teakwood sandwiched over the iron hull in a composite. Via http://brasilianafotografica.bn.br/brasiliana/discover?query=Aquidab%C3%A3+&submit=Ir

Bow damage on the Brazilian Rebel Turret Ironclad Battleship Aquidaban, 1894

She was refloated, renamed Vinte e Quatro de Maio (you can’t have the name of a mutinous ship on the naval list to inspire others), and sent to the Vulcan yard at Stettin Germany for repair then Elswik in New Castle, on the River Tyne in England, for modernization.

There she picked up 15 Nordenfelt machineguns (as a defense against torpedo boats!) two large fighting towers to replace her auxiliary sail rig, new engines, and a new topside structure.

Now that’s a different look. Click to big up

All was forgiven by 1896 and she was back to her original name and representing Brazil at the Chicago International Expedition in the U.S. where President Grover Cleveland reviewed her. Then followed uneventful peacetime service that ended for the mighty Lion a decade later.

At 22: 45hs on 21 January 1906, while at anchor four miles southeast of Angra do Reis at Jacuacanga Cove, Aquidabã suffered a magazine explosion similar to that of many of the predreadnought steel ships of the era.

She was utter wrecked in an explosion that was described as a disintegration by many who witnessed it and sank quickly in 60 feet of water with only 96 survivors from a crew of over 400 that was fleshed out by some 81 visiting midshipmen– the flower of the Brazilian officer corps which included at least one son of the sitting Naval Minister. Those lost included Rear Admiral Rodrigo José da Rocha and Rear Admiral John Candido Brazil.

News of the loss was carried far and wide, even if it was only a footnote among the other news of the day.

A memorial was erected to her in 1913.

Specs:

Displacement: 4950 tons
Length: 280.2 ft. (85.4 m)
Beam: 52.03 ft. (15.86 m)
Draft: 18.04 ft.
Propulsion: Mixed; sailing with three bark-rigged masts, 8 cylindrical coal boilers linked to three steam engines generating 4,500 hp on two props.
Speed: 15.6 knots
Range; 6000 miles at 10 knots.
Crew: 303
Armament:
Four × 9.2 in (230 mm) guns (2 × 2)
Four × 5.5 in (140 mm) 70-pounder guns (4 × 1)
13 × 1 pounder guns (13 × 1) (removed 1895)
15 Nordenfelt machineguns fitted 1895
Five × 18-inch torpedo tubes (through “portholes”)
Armor: 178 to 280 mm on the sides of the hull; 254 mm in the main turret and 254 mm in the superstructure.

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/

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday June 17, 2015: Big Paul

Posted on June 17, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, June 17, 2015: Big Paul

USS Saint Paul off Yokosuka, Japan, 21 May 1966. Click to big up

Here we see the Baltimore-class cruiser, USS Saint Paul (CA-73) coming at you bow-on. She was a hard charger who never stopped in 26 years at sea.

When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department.

When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000-tons, 3.9-inches of armor), the writing was on the wall.

That’s where the Baltimore-class came in.

These 24 envisioned ships of the class looked like an Iowa-class battleship in miniature with three triple turrets, twin stacks, a high central bridge, and two masts– and they were (almost) as powerful. Sheathed in a hefty 6 inches of armor belt (and 3-inches of deck armor), they could take a beating if they had to. They were fast, capable of over 30-knots, which meant they could keep pace with the fast new battlewagons they looked so much like as well as the new fleet carriers that were on the drawing board as well.

While they were more heavily armored than Hipper and Mogami, they also had an extra 8-inch tube, mounting 9 8 inch/55 caliber guns whereas the German and Japanese only had 155mm guns (though later picked up 10×8-inchers, thanks for keeping me straight Tom!). A larger suite of AAA guns that included a dozen 5 inch /38 caliber guns in twin mounts and 70+ 40mm and 20mm guns rounded this out.

In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there was at least 27-feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, and take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight.

Class leader Baltimore was laid down 26 May 1941, just six months before Pearl Harbor, and was commissioned 15 April 1943.

Saint Paul, the 6th ship of the class, was laid down at Bethlehem Steel Company at Quincy, Mass on 3 February 1943.

USS Saint Paul (CA-73), a Baltimore-class cruiser note vertrep markings. She swapped her seaplanes for choppers in 1949

As such, Paul, just the 2nd U.S. Naval ship named for the Minnesota city, was completed late in the war, only being commissioned 17 February 1945.

Whereas the original ships of the class mounted Mk 12 8-inch guns, Saint Paul was completed with the more advanced Mk 15 guns in three 300-ton triple turrets. These long-barreled 203mm guns could fire a new, “super-heavy” 335-pound shell out to 30,000 yards and penetrate 10-inches of armor at close ranges. It should be noted that the older cruisers used a 260-pound AP shell.

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions off Vietnam, Oct 1966

After shakedown, she was off the coast of Japan in July, getting in the last salvos fired by a major warship on a land target in the war when she plastered the steelworks in Kamaishi from just offshore, putting those big new 8-inchers to good use.

Watercolor “U.S.S. ST. PAUL – Let Go Port Anchor” by Arthur Beaumont, 1946

Then at the end of the war, a funny thing happened: the five almost new Baltimores that came before Saint Paul was decommissioned and laid up in reserve, whereas CA-73 remained on post. Further, many of the follow-on ships that were to come after her were never ordered, and some of these never completed. In all, just 14 Baltimore-class cruisers were built, with Saint Paul arguably seeing the most continuous service.

In Korea, Saint Paul saw hard use and made her 8-inchers a regular hitter, completing her first naval gunfire support on Nov. 19, 1950. It would be far from her last.

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 20 Apr 1951

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, Korea, 26 Jul 1953

HO3S-1 helicopter landing on USS Saint Paul off Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 17 Apr 1951. Her guns look sad…but are probably just depressed for cleaning as they had lots of chances to get dirty at the time.

Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) lights up the night while firing her 8-inch guns off the coast of Hungnam, North Korea 1950

Hungnam, Songjin, Inchon, Wonsan, Chongjin, Kosong, et. al. She racked up a steady total of hits onshore targets and picked up some Chinese lead in exchange from shore batteries. In all, Saint Paul earned eight Battle stars for her Korean War service, the hard way.

Much like she fired the last shots into Japan, she also completed the last naval gun mission into Korea, at a Chinese emplacement at on 27 July 1953 at 2159– one minute before the truce took effect.

USS SAINT PAUL (CA-73) near Wonsan, Korea just before signing of truce at Panmunjon. A 5

USS SAINT PAUL (CA-73) near Wonsan, Korea just before the signing of truce at Panmunjon. A 5″ shell is fired from the ship against the Communist shore batteries. This round is believed to have been the last fired on enemy positions by UN Naval units before the armistice.
NARA FILE #: 80-G-625878

Still, as after WWII, while most of her sisters took up space on red lead row, she remained in service. Tragically, in 1962, 30 of her crewmen were killed in a turret explosion in peacetime drills.

Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) “Manning the Rails” off Pearl Harbor, July 1959. [2607 × 1481]

After about 1963, when the Iowas were laid up, her guns and those of the few cruisers still left on active duty were the largest ones available to the fleet. This led to her spending most of her service as either a squadron or fleet flag.

This gave her a chance in 1964 to fill in as the battered cruiser “Old Swayback” in the iconic Otto Preminger/John Wayne film In Harm’s Way

The Duke on St.Paul aka Old Swayback

By 1966, she earned a regular spot on the gun line off Vietnam, where she spent most of the next four years, earning another 9 Battlestars for an impressive total of 18 (1 WWII, 8 Korea, 9 RVN).

Tony D’Angelo, <em>USS St. Paul,</em> details the satisfaction of rounds on target and the danger of swapping fuses on the ship’s guns.

Tony D’Angelo, USS St. Paul, remembers conducting harassment and interdiction fire, along with supporting the Marines near the DMZ, during his deployment to Vietnam.

USS Saint Paul bombarding the Cong Phy railroad yard 25 miles south of Thanu Hoa, Vietnam, 4 Aug 1967; note splashes from coastal gun batteries

Big up. More Vietnam work

St. Paul in Da Nang

USS Saint Paul (CA-73) approaching USS Boston (CAG-1) off the coast of Vietnam, September 1968. Courtesy of John Jazdzewski.

In the late 60s, as part of Project Gunfighter at Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station, Saint Paul picked up an experimental shell to use in her 8-inchers, a saboted 104mm Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) round that had an estimated range of 72,000 yards.

In 1970, Big Paul, using LRBA, made some of the longest gunfire missions in history when she fired on Viet Cong targets some 35 miles away, destroying six structures. At the time, she was the last big-gun heavy cruiser in the United States Navy.

Video of her firing after the intro…

Then, on 30 April 1971, for the first time since 1945, Saint Paul was taken out of commission after three Pacific wars. Only sisterships Chicago and Columbus, who had long before traded in their 8-inchers for Tartar and Talos missiles, lasted longer.

In the end, Saint Paul was stricken from the Naval List on 31 July 1978 and scrapped in 1980.

She was remembered in the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (SSN-708), the twenty-first Los Angeles-class submarine, in commission from 1984 to 2008.

The USS Saint Paul Association keeps her memory alive.

Her 1,000-pound brass bell is located in St. Paul’s city hall, where the city seems to take good care of it.

Specs:

Displacement: 14,500 long tons (14,733 t) standard
17,000 long tons (17,273 t) full load
Length: 673 ft. 5 in (205.26 m)
Beam: 70 ft. 10 in (21.59 m)
Height: 112 ft. 10 in (34.39 m) (mast)
Draft: 26 ft. 10 in (8.18 m)
Propulsion: Geared steam turbines with four screws
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement: 61 officers and 1,085 sailors
Armament: 9 × 8 inch/55 caliber guns (3 × 3)
12 × 5 inch/38 caliber guns (6 × 2)
48 × 40 mm Bofors guns
24 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
Armor: Belt Armor: 6 in (150 mm)
Deck: 3 in (76 mm)
Turrets: 3–6 inches (76–152 mm)
Conning Tower: 8 in (200 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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Warship Wednesday June 10, 2015: The first Red Castle

Posted on June 10, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday June 10, 2015: The first Red Castle

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/ Click image go big up

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/ Click image goes big up

Here we see the Maya-class gunboat Akagi of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1902 at Kure. She was the first domestically built steel-hulled warship in Japan, but she would not be the last.

Opened to the West in the 1850s, the ships of the Shogunal and Domain naval forces rapidly evolved from wooden-hulled domestic sailing ships to screw-driven steamships (Kanrin Maru, 1857) to ironclads (French-built Kōtetsu ex-CSS Stonewall in 1869) to iron-hulled ships ordered overseas and built domestically. By 1875, the Japanese were sending iron steamships to intervene in the hidden kingdom of Korea and roam as far away as the French Atlantic ports.

In 1883, the Navy ordered a class of four iron-ribbed, iron-sheathed, two-master gunboats with a horizontal double expansion reciprocating steam engine with two cylindrical boilers driving two screws. The first of these, Maya, was laid down at the Onohama Shipyards (now Hitachi) at Kobe in 1885 while a sister, Chōkai, was laid down at the Ishikawajima-Hirano Shipyards in Tokyo the next year. Then followed an experiment, the bi-metal iron and steel composite hulled sistership Atago laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal.

Sistership Atago gives a good port-side profile. Note the extensive awning use to keep the crew from dying of heatstroke

The class was rounded out with a fourth ship developed from lessons learned in the first three– the all-steel hulled Akagi— laid down at Onohama in 1886.

All four ships were named after well-known mountains in the Empire, with Akagi carrying the moniker of the famous Mount Akagi in Gunma Prefecture. The name translates to Red Castle and the 6,000-foot high summit has long been an object of worship in the area, with the cold north winds coming down the mountain termed Akagi-oroshi or Karakkaze.

While these were not impressive ships, just 600-650 tons and but 155-feet in length, you have to remember that Shogunal Japan was just opened to the West a scant quarter century before and here they are building their own steel warships to European standards locally.

Akagi, who always seems to be photographed from the starboard. Note the beefy ass Teutonic 8-incher on deck…now THATs a gunboat

Of course, they had some experts to help out though. These classy schooner-rigged gunboats were designed by the French, carried British locomotion suites, and mounted a good German Krupp-made 8-inch (210mm) gun, a 120mm Krupp rapid-fire and a pair of English Nordenfelt-made anti-torpedo boat batteries (the Russians had just sank a Turkish ship in 1877 using just such infernal small boats).

Commissioned 20 August 1890, Akagi soon saw service in Japan’s first modern war, sailing as the escort to flagship Saikyo Maru during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Captain Hachiro Sakamoto commanded her, from a long dynasty of samurai.

Checking out Akagi’s 210mm Krupp hood ornament. Click to big up

During the pivotal Battle of the Yalu River, Sakamoto swung Akagi between the lightly protected transport carrying Admiral Kabeyama Sukenori, and the Chinese fleet (led ironically enough by American adventurers).

She soon became locked in mortal combat with the larger German-built Chinese cruiser (2,900-tons, 270 feet, 9.4-inches of armor) Laiyeun. Although more than four times the size of the Japanese gunboat, and despite the fact that the Chinese guns killed both Sakamoto and severely injured his executive officer Lt. (later Admiral and head of the Naval War College which crafted Japanese Naval theory in the 1920s) Satō Tetsutarō, the Akagi kept fighting despite being holed 8 times with 210mm German shells (small world, right?).

Great Japanese Naval Victory off Haiyang Island” by Nakamura Shûkô. Akagi in gleaming white, Chinese sailors tumbling into the dark sea

Akagi gave as good as she got, hammering the Laiyeun extensively, leaving her to limp off and be sunk later in the war unrepaired. Her sisters Atago and Chōkai likewise shellacked the Chinese Admiral Ding Ruchang’s flagship, the 8,000-ton German-built battleship Dingyuan (3x305mm guns, whose shells were filled with sawdust rather than powder due to corruption).

Lieutenant Commander Sakamoto of the Imperial Warship Akagi Fights Bravely by Mizuno

This defense of the flag by the Akagi helped carry the day and a woodblock print of the action became famous in Japan, receiving widespread duplication.

Further, a martial song was created, “Sakamoto Major, bravely of Akagi” which endured throughout the Imperial Navy through World War II and was the battle song of the Pearl Harbor carrier of the same name.

The naval review that emperor sees booty ship of the Sino-Japanese War 1895. Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Akagi came home from her first war covered with glory and was repaired.

She was soon again in Chinese waters in 1899 as part of the Boxer Rebellion expeditionary force. In 1904, she was back in combat against the Russians, helping to bottle up the Tsar’s Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur and later invade Sakhalin island (which is still at least half-Japanese today).

It was during the Port Arthur blockade that her sister Atago came too close to an uncharted bar and grounded and sank 6 November 1904. Soon after the war, Akagi and her two remaining sisters were disarmed and laid up, obsolete.

1908

In 1911, Akagi was sold to Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, repainted, and dubbed Akagi Maru, continued in service as a coastal steamer until 1921 when she was sold to Amagasaki, another steamship company that kept her in steady tramp work until World War II.

Able to float in just 9 feet of water, Akagi Maru was used extensively during that conflict to run close to the coast and away from American submarines, becoming one of the few ships still afloat in 1945– although she did settle on the bottom during the great Halsey Typhoon that year. Raised, she remained in commercial service until 1953 when she was laid up for a final time.

She was scrapped in 1963, her good steel being recycled.

Specs:

Displacement: 614 long tons (624 t)
Length: 47.0 m (154.2 ft.)
Beam: 8.2 m (26 ft. 11 in)
Draught: 2.95 m (9 ft. 8 in)
Installed power: 950 ihp (710 kW)
Propulsion: 2 × horizontally mounted reciprocating steam engine
2 boilers, 2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner-rigged
Speed: 10.25 kn (18.98 km/h; 11.80 mph)
Capacity: 60 t (66 short tons) coal
Complement: 104
Armament: 1x 210 mm (8 in) Krupp L/22 breech-loading gun
1x Krupp 120 mm (4.7 in) L/22 breech-loading gun
2x quadruple 1-inch Nordenfelt guns

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

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

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday June 3, 2015 Roll Tide, Roll

Posted on June 3, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 9 comments

Warship Wednesday, June 3, 2015 Roll Tide

Here we see “You Can Run” by naval artist Tom Freeman depicting the screw sloop-of-war Confederate States Ship Alabama chasing down the Yankee clipper Contest in November 1863. The Alabama, who captured an amazing 64 ships, of which she burned and sank 45 and paroled another ten, was the most successful surface raider in naval history.

In addition, perhaps no ship saw a greater number of ironies in her brief life (see how many you can spot).

Although the Confederate Navy picked up a few captured U.S. Naval ships (included the burned out frigate Merrimack) and Revenue Service Cutters, as well as a good number of naval officers of Southern heritage, they were short of legitimate combat ships. Further, most of the naval yards worth anything were in New England, which meant that they simply could not be built. With this, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Russell Mallory sent agents abroad looking for warships. In the end, the best bet turned out to be in Great Britain where Commander James Dunwoody Bulloch, CSN, arranged for at least three commerce raiders and a pair of ironclads to be completed.

Arguably, the most famous and successful of this handful of ships was the CSS Alabama.

Bulloch, whose primary job was turning raw Southern cotton smuggled past the Union blockade into cash for guns, munitions and other supplies for the Confederate government, which in turn would be ran back through the U.S. fleet, managed to contract with John Laird Sons & Company (today’s Cammell Laird) to construct a steamship with a sloop auxiliary rig (and weight and space reserved for naval guns) on August 1, 1861, just months after Bull Run. Constructed in Liverpool as hull number 290, and christened in 1862 with the bogus name Enrica, she ran her trials at sea in June 1862.

She was handy, at 220-feet overall and light with a 17-foot depth of hold and 1,050-ton displacement. On her twin steam engines pushing a single iron screw, she could make 13-ish knots, or hoist her extensive barkentine-rig and make close that amount in the right conditions.

Bulloch was originally to be the commander of the ship and assisted in her fitting out, acquiring stores and arms for the new cruiser but not mounting them as he was under watch by Union agents. As U.S. Ambassador Charles Adams (son and grandson respectively of 2 presidents of the same name) pressured the Brits to seize her, Bulloch weighed anchor just ahead of customs officials, claiming to just be taking her out on a brief sunset turn around. Slipping the brand new 9-gun sloop USS Tuscarora, he put to sea.

Instead of sailing under Bulloch, 52-year-old CDR Raphael Semmes (soon to be promoted to Capt.), late of the abandoned and broken-down commerce raider CSS Sumter, was dispatched from Bermuda to Porto Praya, Azores with the former officers of the Sumter, where they met Bulloch on the Enrica, which was crewed by mildly amused British merchantmen. After arming the ship and relieving the Brits, which Bulloch returned to England with, Semmes and his crew commissioned the CSS Alabama on 24 Aug, 1862.

Deck plan of Alabama, note guns

Her armament, fitted above deck, was British. It consisted of a pair of “Royal Navy-style” smoothbore 6 inch 32-pounders, 4 6-inch 32-pound Blakely patent cannon cast specifically for the CSS Alabama by Fawcett, Preston & Company in Liverpool, one 7-inch 110-pounder Blakely rifle forward on a pivoting mount and a single 68-pounder (solid shot) 8-inch smoothbore pivot aft. In all, eight guns. Added to this was a stock of British and French musket rifles, revolvers, pistols, boarding hatchets, and cutlasses. However, as she only had a single gray-coated Marine, Lt Beckett K. Howell, one of only 58 appointed officers in the Confederate States Marine Corps, (and Brother in Law to President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis), these were to be used by the ship’s bluejackets.

Or should we say Jack Tars? You see, Semmes only arrived with a handful of officers and had to shop around among the Brits and other foreign sailors at hand to sign up, of which about 80 did. As her guns alone required that many men to crew them, she was shorthanded.

Although Alabama never saw a southern port, the British-built (and largely crewed) ship with her skipper from Maryland carved a name for herself in the hides of the U.S. Navy and merchant fleets for the next 22 months.

“The Pirate ‘Alabama,’ Alias ‘290,’ Certified to be correct by Captain Hagar of the ‘Brilliant'” Line engraving published in “Harper’s Weekly”, 1862, depicting CSS Alabama burning a prize in Harper’s Weekly.US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 58738

Art from Harper’s Weekly image

First, she sailed around the North Atlantic, sinking 20 Yankee ships, mainly whalers, and captured and released three others. Then, proceeding to Fort Royal, Martinique, she refueled, recruited more crew members in that colonial port, and gave the 12-gun screw frigate USS San Jacinto the slip and broke into the Gulf of Mexico. It was of note that her crew was often fleshed out by volunteers from ships she captured and sank and included men from Germany, Russia, and France.

Alabama’s cruise from SCV Adm Semmes Camp

Off Texas, on 11 January 1863, she engaged the 1,126-ton paddlewheel steamer USS Hatteras off Galveston. As the Hatteras got close enough to Alabama to be sucker punched before Semmes struck her British ensign (masquerading as HMS Petrel) and raised the Confederate Stars and Bars, and the fact that the Union gunboat had less than half the armament, Alabama sent her to the bottom within 20 minutes. Ever the gentleman pirate, Semmes picked up her crew and transported them to Jamaica.

The Fatal Chase by Tom Freeman. The USS Hatteras engages the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. Hatteras was sunk in the ensuing battle

From Semmes’s postwar account:

As Captain Blake of the Hatteras (whom I had known in the old service) came on deck, he remarked upon the speed we were making, and gracefully saluted me with, “Fortune favors the brave, sir!” I wished him a pleasant voyage with us; and I am sure he, with his officers and men, received every attention while on board the Alabama.

With the Gulf too hot, she slipped into the South Atlantic and slaughtered 29 Yankee merchies in those waters, primarily off the coast of Brazil.

CSS Alabama enters Table Bay at 10:00 AM August 5, 1863. She is increasing speed in order to capture the Sea Bride before she can escape to within one league of S.African territorial waters. This painting commissioned by Ken Sheppard of South Africa. Via the CSS Alabama Assoc

Next, she put in at Cape Town, South Africa, where most of the images of her decks were taken. It was there that she added more members to her crew to include naval adventurer and soldier of fortune Baron Maximilian von Meulnier, late of the Imperial Prussian Navy.

Captain Raphael Semmes CSN, CSS Alabama's commanding officer, standing by his ship's 110-pounder rifled gun during her visit to Capetown in August 1863. His executive officer, First Lieutenant John M. Kell CSN, is in the background, standing by the ship's wheel.US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 57256 from the collection of Rear Admiral Ammen C. Farenholt, USN(MC), 1931.

Captain Raphael Semmes CSN, CSS Alabama’s commanding officer, standing by his ship’s 68-pounder smoothbore during her visit to Capetown in August 1863. His executive officer, First Lieutenant John M. Kell CSN, is in the background, standing by the ship’s wheel. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 57256 from the collection of Rear Admiral Ammen C. Farenholt, USN(MC), 1931. Via Navsource

Two of the CSS Alabama’s officers on deck, during her visit to Capetown in August 1863. They are Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair IV, (left) and Lieutenant Richard F. Armstrong (USNA 1861). The gun beside them is a 32-pounder of Lt. Sinclair’s Division. Halftone image, copied from Sinclair’s book, “Two Years on the Alabama”. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 57255. via Navsource

Georga native Midshipman Edwin Moffat Anderson. He later went on to serve on the CSS Owl and was the next to last of Alabama’s officers to die when he passed away in 1923 in Savannah, only beaten by Sinclair who passed in 1925.

Georga native Midshipman Edwin Moffat Anderson next to an RN pattern 32 pounder which may be the one on display currently in Mobile. Note the naval cutlass and gray Army type uniform. He later went on to serve on the CSS Owl and was the next to last of Alabama’s officers to die when he passed away in 1923 in Savannah, only beaten by Sinclair who passed in 1925. The unimpressed British Jack behind him is classic.

Kell and a 32. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 57257

Kell and the 68-pounder. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 57257

Crewmen on the deck of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, 1863.

Crossing into the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific, she found her hunting grounds much reduced in those far-flung waters. In Singapore, she had her picture taken (one of just two of her profile known to be in existence) and Englishman Hugh Rowland Beaver of Cumming, Beaver, and Co. who helped whistle up enough supplies to keep Alabama in the war. After coaling and dispatching a letter to Malloy back in Virginia, Semmes was off again.

Alabama in Singapore. Note instead of the Stars and Bars she is flying the Stainless Banner

Heading back to European waters where Semmes thought the pickings would be better (and Alabama could get a much-needed refit) she arrived in Cherbourg on 11 June 1864. There Semmes noted, “Our little ship was now showing signs of the active work she had been doing. Her boilers were burned out, and her machinery was sadly in want of repairs.”

She deserved a rest; after all, she had captured no less than 64 vessels in over 500 days at sea and won a naval engagement against a (weaker) adversary while slipping dozens of stronger ones. In a sign of how dignified warfare was on the high seas in this age, Alabama paroled over 2,000 merchant sailors she captured– landing them in nearby ports rather than leaving them adrift on the waves– and not a single civilian was ever killed by the raider.

But everything has to come to an end…

Just three days after she made France, the Mohican-class screw sloop of war USS Kearsarge, steamed into the harbor, alerted to the wiley raider’s presence there by telegraph while in a Spanish port. Although shorter (201-feet) the Kearsarge was built from the keel-up with combat in mind, weighing half again as much as Alabama and mounting nine guns– including a pair of very dangerous 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbore pivot cannons that fired 130-pounder shells.

Further, where Semmes had a scratch 140 man multinational crew and a ship that was falling apart, Kearsarge’s North Carolina-born Capt. John Ancrum Winslow had a pair of aces up his sleeve. These included the fact that his 160+ man crew was highly trained, and that he had secretly wrapped his ship’s critical engineering spaces in over 700-feet of anchor chain secured to the hull and bolted into place, in effect, giving him crude armor plating. His powder was fresh, his decks were clear, and he wanted to clean Semmes’s clock.

Capt. John A. Winslow (3d from left) and officers on board the U.S.S. Kearsarge after sinking the C.S.S. Alabama, 1864. Note the badass 11-inch Dahlgren

(Note: The two skippers had served together earlier in their career on the old three-master USS Raritan, Semmes as the ship’s flag lieutenant and Winslow as a division officer, even sharing a cabin).

Semmes slapped Winslow across the face with an open challenge, sending the message:

“My intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope they will not detain me more than until tomorrow evening or after the morrow morning at furthest. I beg she will not depart before I am ready to go out.”

While the locals stirred about the coming scrap between the two ships, the French forced Kearsarge out to sea, where she waited for Alabama. One of the most powerful ships in the world, the 6,500-ton 30-gun French ironclad Couronne (“Crown”) stood by as her crew anxiously waited for the bloodletting. On the afternoon of June 19, the fight was on in front of a delighted host of European spectators who were thrilled to watch a pair of American vessels locked in a knife fight–and it was a barroom brawl of naval action.

Semmes fired first, trying to get the same type of fast kill as he had achieved on USS Hatteras the year before, but his shots were ineffective, likely due to poor quality powder and stale fuses as much to Kearsarge’s chainmail.

Winslow waited until the British-built cruiser was within 1,000 yards and clobbered her.

Engineers Department USS Kearsarge 1864: The crew that wrecked the CSS Alabama

The ships locked horns in a series of seven circles, slowing trying to out-maneuver each other without success. After all, their skippers had read the same naval textbooks so why not? In all, reports estimate that while Alabama got off more than 300 shots, Kearsarge was barely damaged; suffering four casualties after just three rounds hit his vessel. Alabama, on the other hand, was a wreck after less than an hour of combat and was shipping water from the big Yankee’s 11-inchers.

7-circle The Chart of the battle off Cherbourg as recorded by American landscape painter and Union Army map-maker Robert Knox Sneden in the Library of Congress. Sneden was in Andersonville at the time of the battle after being captured by Confederate troops under John S. Mosby in 1863, but produced it from logs and charts from Kearsarge after the war. This chart was lost to history for more than a century until it popped up in 1994 in a bank vault in Connecticut and donated to the Virginia Historical Society. Click to big up

7-circle chart of the battle off Cherbourg as recorded by American landscape painter and Union Army map-maker Robert Knox Sneden in the Library of Congress. Sneden was in Andersonville at the time of the battle after being captured by Confederate troops under John S. Mosby in 1863 but produced it from logs and charts from Kearsarge after the war. This chart was lost to history for more than a century until it popped up in 1994 in a bank vault in Connecticut and donated to the Virginia Historical Society. Click to big up

The battle has been a favorite of painters and perhaps the most famous work, “Kearsarge and the Alabama” was created by one of no less skill than Édouard Manet.

The Battle of the USS Kearsarge and the CSS Alabama By Claude Monet hanging today at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Click to big up

painting by Xanthus Smith, 1922, depicts Alabama sinking, at left, after her fight with Kearsarge (seen at right). NHHC Photo K-29827.

Painting by Xanthus Smith, 1922, depicts Alabama sinking by the stern, at left, after her fight with Kearsarge (seen at right). NHHC Photo K-29827.

CSS Alabama Sunday Showdown Archival Print.

Antonio Jacobsen's " ALABAMA vs KERSARGE" Click to big up

Antonio Jacobsen’s ” ALABAMA vs KEARSARGE” Click to big up

Nine Alabama crewmembers were killed during the battle, 12 drowned when the ship sank and 70 picked up by Kearsarge from the sea, while Semmes and a handful of officers and men managed to make it to the British yacht Deerhound who sped them away to England. There, they were celebrated.

Semmes, who recovered the Stainless Banner of Alabama, ran back into Hugh Beaver (the Singapore connection) and presented the flag to the Englishman with the deep pockets in appreciation.

Her Cherbourg flag.

The 69×34 inch wool bunting ensign still exists and was sold at auction in 2011. As the rest of her flags were lost at sea, this one was unique. Semmes had been given a beautiful and much larger silk battle-flag by English society women after the battle which he took back to the C.S. with him.

Semmes made his way back to Virginia where he was made an admiral and given commanded first the James River Squadron then a unit of infantry (as a Brig. Gen) late in the war. He later moved to Mobile, Alabama where he died of eating bad shrimp in 1877. Nevertheless, he had outlived Winslow who retired in 1872 and died the next year in Boston, buried draped in the Kearsarge ‘s own Cherbourg battle flag.

The National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington D.C. has one of her wheels as well as other artifacts to include a very nice toilet bowl.

Ships wheel CSS Alabama Exhibited in the Civil War section of Bldg. 76

English toilet from CSS Alabama Exhibited in the Civil War section of Bldg. 76

The City of Mobile has many Semmes artifacts in their museum, including the admiral’s sword presented to him after the war (he threw his own into the sea rather than let Winslow have it), his wartime 36 cal. Houllier & Blanchard Navy revolver, the silk flag given to him in England after the loss of his ship and Alabama‘s commissioning pennant.

Semme's presentation Admiral's saber in the City of Mobile collection. Chris Eger photo

Semme’s presentation Admiral’s sword, a copy of his book and a scrimshawed whale’s tooth captured from a Yankee whaler in the City of Mobile collection. Chris Eger photo. Click to bigup the scrimshaw work on the tooth.

This U.S. Navy 27-star commissioning pennant was used above CSS Alabama to bring her into service. Her 4th Lt. John Low had it in his possession from his father's term in the old Republic's fleet and offered it up. Low would later leave Alabama with it when he took command of the CSS Tuscaloosa (formerly the bark Conrad captured by the raider in 21 June 1863). The pennant along with Low’s dolphin-handled British pattern naval officer’s sword is in the City of Mobile collection. Chris Eger photo

This U.S. Navy 27-star commissioning pennant was used above CSS Alabama to bring her into service next to a model of the ship. Her 4th Lt., John Low had it in his possession from his father’s term in the old Republic’s fleet and offered it up. Low would later leave Alabama with it when he took command of the CSS Tuscaloosa (formerly the bark Conrad captured by the raider on 21 June 1863). The pennant along with Low’s dolphin-handled British pattern naval officer’s sword is in the City of Mobile collection. Chris Eger photo

Semmes LeMat grapeshot revolver at the City of Mobile Museum. Chris Eger photo. Click to big up.

Semmes rare 1862-issued 36 cal. Houllier & Blanchard Navy revolver at the City of Mobile Museum. Chris Eger photo. Click to big up. And YES, I will be covering this amazing weapon in more detail in a later article

Alabama’s wreck was discovered by the 152-foot French Navy mine hunter (chasseur de mines) Circé in November 1984 in 190-feet of water some 6 miles off the coast of Cherbourg. Between 1988 and 2008, with agreements of the U.S. government (who own the wreck as a war grave) and the French Republic (as its inside territorial waters) she has been extensively salvaged.

One of her RN-style 32 pounders, scrimshaw from ship’s Engineer William Param Brooks and other artifacts recovered from her wreck are in Mobile at the City Museum. The U.S. Navy has over 500 Alabama artifacts in its collection and many are spread over the world on loan, including her 7-inch gun, which is in France. In all, her wheel, seven out of eight guns, her bell, china, shells, small arms, and other items have been brought to the surface.

One of her RN pattern 32s. click to big up. Eger image

A better view. Note the recovered mast collar.

A statue to the Admiral, erected in 1900, stands in downtown Mobile on Government Street, within a block or so of the Federal Building, gazing towards the Bay that holds the battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), who was a much luckier lady than Semmes’s own warship.

In the artifacts recovered from Alabama were at least one set of human remains to include a jawbone. An exam of the teeth at the Smithsonian Institution revealed the jaw’s owner was likely between 25-40 and in good health, other than an apparent habit of chomping on a pipe stem. A ceremonial burial was held for the crewmember’s remains in Mobile, where the lost sailor was interred at Magnolia Cemetery accompanied by members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans of the Admiral Semmes Camp, who maintain a reference to the lost ship and the Admiral.

Internment at Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile. Via AL.com

Interment at Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile. Via AL.com

There is also a CSS Alabama Association and both the University of Alabama and Marshall University maintain special collections referencing the ship.

As for her adversary, 17 of Kearsarge ‘s crew received the Medal of Honor and the ship remained in hard service until wrecked on a reef off Roncador Cay on 2 February 1894 while her officers and crew made it safely ashore. A damaged section of her stern post, still with an intact 110-pound Blakely shell in it from Alabama, is also on display at the Navy Museum in Washington.

CSS Alabama fired this shell from its 110-pound rifle early in the action against USS Kearsarge, landing a critical blow into Kearsarge’ s sternpost. However, it didn’t explode due to a faulty fuse, allowing Kearsarge to continue the battle, eventually defeating Alabama. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tim Comerford/Released

The only USN battleship not named for a state, USS Kearsarge (BB-5), was christened 24 March 1898 in her honor and went on to serve the Navy in one form or another for 57 years.

Currently, the Navy maintains both an Alabama (SSBN-731) and a Kearsarge (LHD-3) on the Naval List. In a twist of fate, the ‘Bama was built in the North (Electric Boat, Groton) and the Mighty Kay in the South (Ingalls, Pascagoula), but it’s not likely that they will ever get in a scrap moving forward.

We’re better than that these days.

Specs:

Displacement 1,050 t.
Length 220′
Beam 31′ 8″
Depth of Hold 17′ 8″
Draft 14′
Installed power: 2 × 300 HP horizontal steam engines, auxiliary sails, bark rig
Propulsion: Single screw propeller, retractable
Speed 13 knots
Complement 145
Armament:
6 32-pdrs
1 110-pdr rifle
1 68-pdr

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

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Warship Wednesday May 27, 2015 The coldest boat in the Russian Navy

Posted on May 27, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 8 comments

Warship Wednesday, May 27, 2015, The coldest boat in the Russian Navy

Click to big up

Here we see the unique vessel of the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Navy, the icebreaker Yermak (also spelled Ермак, Ermak, and Yermack due to transliteration) doing what she did best—breaking sea ice. She was the first true modern sea-going icebreaker in any navy and lasted an impressive 80~ years and through five world wars in which she got bloodier than could be expected for a ship of her type.

In the late 1890s, polar exploration was all the rage and Holy Russia, pushing ever further to control the Western Pacific, sought to join Europe and Asia via the Northeast Passage across the top of the country. The thing is the ships that had tried this arduous journey had all failed. One renowned Russian polar explorer and naval officer, Stepan Makarov, fresh off his expeditions to the mouth of the north-flowing Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei, proposed a radical new steel-hulled steamship with powerful engines and screws on both the stern and bow, ready to chop up polar ice as she went.

Note the close arrangement of her three stern screws

The ship, some 319 feet long and 70 abeam, was very tubby in design. Six boilers fed either three shafts aft or one forward, allowing her to back and ram if needed– now standard procedure for icebreakers but novel at the time. Speaking of the bow, she had a strengthened hull of 29 mm plate steel sandwiched with oak and cork to allow her to break sea ice at over 7 feet thick.

Under construction. Note the strengthened steel ‘nose’ over which in essence a second double hull would be constructed.

Her twin 55-foot high stacks and round sloping bow with a small stem and flare angles made her readily distinguishable and came to typify early icebreaker design. Even today, her hull form is imitated in even the most advanced polar icebreaker design.

The resulting design was authorized by Count Witte in 1897 at the cost of 3 million gold rubles and ordered abroad to ensure fast and reliable delivery. Laid down in December at Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne, she was completed 29 January 1899– and delivered at half the price.

Launching

On trails. How many times have you seen an icebreaker with a bone in her mouth?

She carried the name of cossack ataman (head man) Vasiliy `Yermak` Timofeyevich Alenin, the Don Cossack who conquered Siberia under the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 1580s, her purpose was clear.

Surikov’s “The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak” The cossack swashbuckler took 800 men east and won an empire from the khans of the tartars and tribal people of the region that the Russians hold until today.

Arriving at the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet in March after a ten-day voyage from the UK, Yermak made her smashing debut ( I love a pun) by breaking her way into the ice-bound harbor Kronstadt and then up the Neva River to St. Petersburg– where thousands thronged to see her across the frozen river.

Yermak in St Petersburg on the Neva

By that November, she came in handy. The massive 12,500-ton armored cruiser Gromoboi had been forced by early ice from her moorings to the shore, and future ice movement threatened to sink the ship. Three days later, Yermak pulled her free.

Then, just weeks later, she had to help pull the 4,200-ton Admiral Ushakov-class coastal defense ship General-Admiral Graf Apraksin from the rocks and tow her back to Kronstadt.

Yermack was the first polar icebreaker in the world, colorized photo of it assisting the Graf Apraksin in 1899.

Yermack was the first polar icebreaker in the world, a colorized photo of it assisting the Graf Apraksin in 1899. Whoever colorized the photo neglected to add the correct cap bands to the breaker, which should be blue.

She was one of the first ships to use a wireless for rescue at sea when she rescued 27 lost Finnish fishermen from the rocks near Hango and transmitted the fact to a land station there with the help of Professor Alexander Stepanovich Popov (the Russian Marconi) who had set up a station near Apraksin and relayed messages back and forth.

“Icebreaker ” Yermak “, who worked for the removal of stones from the battleship “Adm. Apraksin “, saved the 10th February 1900 27 fishermen, the news of the death of the first of which was received on a radio installation”

In 1901 Yermak helped Makarov complete his Third (and last) Siberian exploration expedition, reaching as far as Nova Zemyla. It was the last time the admiral was aboard the ship that was his magnum opus.

Picture M. G. Platunova First swimming polar icebreaker Ermak, depicting her first encounter with sea ice in 1899

Painting by M. G. Platunova “First swimming polar icebreaker Ermak,” depicting her first encounter with polar sea ice. Note her buff superstructure and blue cap bands.

Makarov, sadly the best Russian naval mind of his era, was blown sky high on his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk, on a sortie out of Port Arthur in 1904.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Yermak helped rush reinforcements to the front, freeing first the cruisers of Capt. Yegoryev’s unit in February 1904 from Libau and then the 12 ships of Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s division the next January.

In port, click to big up

She was ordered to follow the fleet as a coal supply ship and, once in the Pacific, assist in helping to Vladivostok free of ice. Five days after leaving Russian waters, however, Yermak suffered a shaft failure, which Adm. Rozhdestvensky, enraged at the time, did not believe, and took as an act of mutiny until he personally came aboard and verified it himself.

In the end, she was allowed to limp back to Kronstadt after cross-decking a number of her officers and crew to other vessels that were short. This act saved Yermak from what would certainly have been death at the hands of the Japanese at Tsushima (though not the men she transferred).

In the summer of 1905, with the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway all-important to a Russian victory in the Far East and her shaft repaired, she escorted supplies and rails for the project to along the Russian Arctic coast to the mouth of the Yenisey River, about half the distance.

Yermak in heavy sea ice

A great stern shot in warm waters. Click to big up

She conducted some of the first through-ice dives in frozen waters

With the war over, she went back to merchant and research service, breaking the ice around the Baltic. In 1908, she rescued her third warship when she pulled the cruiser Oleg from the ice off Finland.

By the time of the next war in 1914, Yermak was armed with some small deck guns to help ward off German submarines but again stuck to breaking out Russian warships when needed. This included freeing the cruiser Rurik for a sortie in March 1915 and the battleships Slava and Tsarevitch. Stationed in Revel for most of the war and with little for an icebreaker to do in summer months, she served as a depot ship for submarines.

Note the mascot and Tsarist uniforms with British influence

When the rest of the Baltic Fleet raised the red flag in March 1917, she was one of the last ships to do so and even then her crew re-elected her longtime skipper, Estonian-born Capt. Rudolf Karlovich Felman, who had commanded the ship since 1903– one of the few fleet vessels to do so.

However, Felman, in the end, was kicked out in November with the coming of the Bolsheviks and promptly left Russia only to find easy work in Estonian service. He was the longest-serving of her more than 21 captains spanning seven decades.

Felman. This intrepid polar explorer and ship driver lived until 1928

With the Germans fast approaching and the war at its end (for the Russians anyway), Yermak sailed from Revel to Helsinki and broke out the fleet to include 7 battleships, 9 cruisers and 200~ misc vessels so that they could assemble in Kronstadt and not fall into the Kaiser’s hands. This event was later referred to as the Great Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet and is seen as saving the Soviet Navy. (It should be noted that the Whites sailed away in 1920 and 22 with the majority of serviceable vessels of the Black Sea and Pacific fleets respectively, leaving only those in the Baltic under the Red Flag)

At the end of March, Yermak tried to return to Helsinki with a contingent of Red Navy sailors to seize the town but after trading some naval artillery with the local Finnish ship Tarmo (2400-tons, 1 47mm gun), she turned back around when a German plane dropped a few small bombs danger close to the hapless Russian icebreaker.

Nonetheless, her service in the Revolution and later Civil War, where her crew was sent to fight on land, earned her the Revolutionary Red Banner of the Central Executive Committee for outstanding service in her third war.

By 1921, she was disarmed and back in service around the Baltic since she was one of the few operational vessels left. She was even loaned to the Germans in 1929 (at a price of 1 million DM, which was music to the ears of the cash-strapped Kremlin) to open the Kiel Canal early.

In 1935, she made an Arctic expedition equipped with a seaplane and helped pick up floating North Pole Station 1 under the famous explorer Ivan Papanin, cementing her place in polar history.

Note the Red Banner flag

Yermak’s fourth conflict, the Russo-Finnish Winter War; saw her again armed, this time much more heavily. In December of that year, the Finns came close to sinking the old girl when the submarine Vetehinen (Merman) stalked her without success over an 8-day period off Libau. By early 1940, Yermak helped escort Soviet Naval troops to occupy disputed islands in the Gulf of Finland—and again was scrapping with her old Civil War enemy, the Finnish Tarmo, without effect.

Click to big up

In 1941, her fifth war was upon her and she was soon going toe to toe with German and Finnish bombers and attack planes. According to Soviet historians, Yermak‘s gunners splashed 36 aircraft during the war while, again, she served as a depot and berthing ship for submarines as needed. In 1942, with the Axis powers closing in on Leningrad, most of her armament was shipped to the front, with all but 15 of her crew going with it to fight on shore as they had in the Civil War.

By 1944, disarmed, and her crew of dirt sailors advancing on Berlin, Yermak was transferred back to merchant service with the ship earning the Order of Lenin for her WWII service.

1950, at this point she had seen a solid half-century of service.

By 1950, after an inspection found her half-century-old hull still sound, she was sent to Antwerp for refit and then assigned to the White Sea based at Murmansk. Her floatplane long since gone, she was given a helicopter and pad in 1954 and spent the next decade assisting in breaking submarines in and out of Polyarni as well as escorting seal fishing expeditions out into the Arctic.

With new atomic icebreakers coming into Soviet service, the days of the old steam Yermak were numbered. On 23 May 1963, she was withdrawn from service and, when a bid to preserve her as a museum failed, she was ordered stripped. Her good British steel was stolen from her and everything of value slowly disappeared over a ten-year period.

What was left was burned 17 December 1975 in the bleak ship cemetery at nearby Gadzhiyevo. It is believed that part of her keel is still visible at the radioactive summer low tide in that rusty ship graveyard today.

Her monument in Murmansk

A monument stands to her in Murmansk that includes one of her anchors, while a number of stamps have been issued by the Soviets and Russians to honor her memory. She has also been commemorated in Soviet maritime art.

Icebreaker Yermak by noted Soviet maritime artist Eugene Voishvillo

Yermak at revel by Yuri Sorokin

A 20,000-ton icebreaker (made ironically in Finland) was commissioned in 1974 with her old name and continues service today.

In a twist of Baltic fate, Yermak’s longtime nemesis, the Finnish icebreaker Tarmo, retired in 1970, has been preserved in the Maritime Museum of Finland in Kotka since 1992. Her hull, also built by Armstrong, is still sound.

Tarmo via Wiki Via wiki

Specs:

Displacement 7875 tons as designed, 10,000 by 1941
Length 319 feet
Width 70.8 feet
Draft 24 feet
Engines steam engines, 10,000 hp as designed
Three shafts, VTE steam engines, 6 boilers. Bow shaft as designed (removed in 1935)
Speed: 15 knots when new. 10 by 1939
Cruising range 5000 miles on 2200 tons of coal (bunkerage for 3,000 if needed). Coal consumption was 100 tons per day while underway.
Crew 89 as designed with berths for 102, 166 in naval service, 250 in 1939
Armament: 1914-1921: 2-4 small mounts of unknown caliber
1939-42ish:
2x 102 mm/45 (4″) B-2 Pattern 1930 mounts
4x 76.2 mm/30 (3″) Pattern 1914/15 mounts
4×45 mm/46 (1.77″) 21-K anti-tank guns in navalized AAA mounts
4x quad Maxim machineguns on GAZ-4M-AA mounts

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

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Warship Wednesday May 20, 2015: The destroyer with the heart of a battleship

Posted on May 20, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday May 20, 2015 The destroyer with the heart of a battleship

The Destroyer That Took on a Battleship by Peter DeForest. Click to bigup.

Here we see the U.S. Navy Benson-class destroyer USS Laffey (DD-459) going mano-a-mano with IJN Hiei, a Kongo-class battleship that has a slight weight advantage over her.

With war on the horizon in the mid-1930s as tensions with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were on the rise, the U.S. Navy realized that the old WWI-era four-stack destroyers, while still serviceable, just weren’t modern enough for what was likely to come in the far-flung South Pacific and windswept North Atlantic. This resulted in a series of no less than 10 classes of modern fast destroyers designed and built from 1932-43, which would form the backbone of the fleet in the first half of WWII, amounting to an impressive 169 surface combatants.

Each successive class, like today’s multi-flight Burke-class Aegis destroyers, were really just improvements on the prior, with better engines, sensors, and armament suites experimented with, which resulted in increasingly larger but better tin cans.

These ships included:

8 1350-ton, 341-foot Farragut-class
8 180-ton, 381-foot Porter-class
18 1725-ton, 341-foot Mahan-class
4 2219-ton, 341-foot Gridley-class
8 2325-ton, 341-foot Bagley-class
5 2130-ton, 381-foot Somers-class
10 2350-ton, 340 foot Benham-class
12 2465-ton, 348-foot Sims-class,

And– the last fully prewar design– the 30 vessel 2515-ton 348 foot oal Benson-class (followed by the 66 near-sisters of the only slightly different but mechanically identical Gleaves-class).

Class leader USS Benson DD-421. Note the five 5-innch mounts and masterfully mounted fire control system above the bridge

The Benson/Gleaves class destroyers, capable of an impressive 37.5-knots on their quadruple superheated boilers driving twin turbines, were the top of the line in Allied destroyer design when the U.S. entered the war. Ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, in twin 5-tube deck mountings, were capable of sinking a capital ship if they got close enough. A pair of depth charge racks over the stern could drop it like its hot on enemy subs. But it was their guns that told the story.

Mark 30 single mounts on Gleaves-class USS Arron Ward DD-483 in May 1942 Note 5″ (12.7 cm) propellant canisters on the left and Mark 37 FCS with “FD” Radar U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # 19-N-30722

Their five (later reduced to four) Mark 12 5″/38 caliber deck guns, in enclosed Mk 30 mounts were the finest Dual Purpose gun of World War II. Coupled with the Mk 37 FCS, they could hit a high-flying enemy aircraft at altitudes of up to 37,000 feet while their 53-pound shell was effective on surface targets and in naval gunfire support to some 17,000 yards and capable of penetrating up to 5-inches of armor plate at close range (more on this later). Further, they could be fired fast– at up to 22-rounds per minute per tube, which means that a Benson-class destroyer carrying the standard 320 rounds per mount could empty her magazines in just over 15 minutes of maximum sustained fire.

The hero of our story USS Laffey, was named after one Irish-born (County Galway) Bartlett Laffey who, as a 23-year-old seaman attached to the sternwheel gunboat USS Marmoa in 1864 along the Yazoo River, went ashore with a 12-pound howitzer to support a group of trapped force of the 11th Illinois Infantry, and 8th Louisiana Colored Infantry (yes, that’s the real regimental name). At great personal risk, Laffey remained at his gun and helped save the day, earning the MOH for his service. DD-459 would be the first ship named for this naval hero, but not the last.

The man…

USS Laffey was laid down at Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, San Francisco 31 Jan 1941 and her hull never touched any water other than the Pacific. Commissioned 31 March 1942, just fifteen weeks after Pearl Harbor, she rushed through her shakedown and soon was off to war.

USS Laffey (DD-459) steams alongside another U.S. Navy ship, while at sea in the south Pacific on 4 September 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. One of the few images of Laffey, as she was too busy killing Japanese admirals to have her picture taken.

Just days after the image above was taken, she was rescuing the stricken crew from the USS Wasp (CV-8), her first brutal introduction to the war.

Less than a month later, at the Battle of Cape Esperance, she came face to face with the heavy cruiser IJN Aoba (9,000 tons), flagship of Japanese Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv6) and part of the high speed nocturnal “Tokyo Express” reinforcing Guadalcanal. In that harrying night action Laffey got close enough to rake that much-larger ship successfully with her 5-inch guns, hammering her numerous times, and killing Admiral Aritomo Gotō. While Aoba did not sink, she suffered enough battle damage that she was sent back to Japan for five months of repairs.

The heavily damaged Japanese cruiser Aoba off Buin, Bougainville on October 13, 1942 after the Battle of Cape Esperance. Photographed from the Japanese cruiser Chokai.

On Nov. 11 Laffey helped cover the U.S. Army’s 182nd Infantry regiment’s landings on Guadalcanal and her guns helped splash a force of 32 Japanese planes sent to plaster the soldiers on the beach.

No rest for the weary, Laffey, just seven-months old, next found herself as part of Rear Adm. Daniel “Uncle Dan” Judson Callaghan’s Task Group 67.4 for what became known as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on Friday the 13th November 1942.

This force of five cruisers and eight destroyers moved to stop Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe’s much stronger force of 2 battleships, 1 cruiser, and 11 destroyers from running in between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in “the Slot” through what is (now) known as Iron Bottom Sound. Abe was a skilled surface warfare expert, having spent 26 years afloat in cruisers and battleships, and he had size on his side. Further, the IJN was adept at night fighting, having severely licked the Navy in several sharp surface warfare engagements in the area during the graveyard shift.

With no moon and a dark sky, the U.S. fleet used radar to close to within point-blank range until the Japanese fired off starshells and lit up their spotlights and the 1 a.m. battle was on– with the two fleets intermingling their battle line like a barroom brawl.

Laffey and her fellow destroyers and cruisers hammered the Fubuki-class destroyer Akatsuki (who soon sank with a loss of 197 crew) and then found themselves face to face with the 37,000-ton Kongō-class battleship Hiei (Abe’s flagship) while fellow tin cans Sterett (DD-407) and O’Bannon (DD-450) joined the fray.

While it would seem an uneven match, the Laffey got so close to the battlewagon (10 feet according to some reports) that the Japanese behemoth could not depress her guns low enough to get a hit on the plucky destroyer less than a 10th her size. However, this did not stop Laffey from pounding the Jap leviathan with 5-inch shells while her .50 caliber gunners, in close enough to make a difference, peppered everything that moved.

Laffey‘s crew paid close attention to the bridge of the flagship and almost claimed another admiral– severely wounding Abe and killing his chief of staff, Captain Suzuki Masakane.

Friday Nov. 13th, 1942, “Hiei vs. Honey Badgers” Click to big up

However, the destroyer soon found herself surrounded by Hiei, the battleship Kirishima, and two Japanese destroyers. With over 80,000 tons of the Emperor’s warships pounding away with ordnance that included 14-inch shells and Long Lance torpedoes, it was over fast. Her magazines exploded as she was being abandoned and she suffered 59 officers and men killed and 116 wounded, over half her crew.

As reported in the video and book “The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal,” Laffey is today upright at a depth of nearly a half-mile off Guadalcanal and largely intact from the bow to amidships, but her after third has disappeared. Both forward 5-inch guns are trained out to port, and her amidships superstructure is holed by a 14-inch projectile from a Japanese battleship.

In a battle that lasted just 40-minutes, both sides had taken a brutal beating and although the U.S. fleet was ravaged, only two American ships were still capable of fighting, and Adm. Callaghan had been killed on the bridge of his flagship, Abe broke contact and fled. Besides Laffey, her Benson/Gleaves sisters USS Barton (DD-599) and USS Monssen (DD-436) also rested on Iron Bottom Sound when dawn came while badly damaged sister USS Aaron Ward (DD-483), who had stood toe to toe with Kirishima, was limping but still firing at the Japanese as they withdrew.

As for the damaged Hiei, she sank while under tow on the evening on 14 November after taking her final hits from Army B-17s and Navy Avengers. Partly due to an attempt to help screen Hiei, Kirishima was caught the next day by the modern fast battleships USS South Dakota (BB-57) and USS Washington (BB-56) who beat the ever-loving shit out of her until by 15 November she was parked on Iron Bottom Sound as well.

Japanese battleship Kirishima takes hit after hit from Washington (BB-56). Click to big up

The events of 13-15 November sealed the turning point in the waters off Guadalcanal and ended the Tokoyo Express. Further, it bought time for the new Essex-class carriers and legions of follow-on surface warfare ships to join the fleet as the Japanese licked their wounds and regrouped.

Admiral Abe, returning to Japan injured from Laffey‘s shells and whipped in a humiliating defeat by what Yamamoto considered a smaller force, was cashiered and died a broken man after the War– so we can count that as a combat effective kill for the destroyer as well.

(Via USS Laffey Assoc)

Laffey in the end earned the Presidential Unit Citation

“For outstanding performance during action against enemy Japanese forces in the Southwest Pacific area, 15 September to 13 November 1942. Braving hostile file to rescue survivors in submarine-infested waters, the LAFFEY, after fighting effectively in the Battle of Cape Esperance, successfully repelled an aerial torpedo attack, and although badly crippled and set afire, inflicted severe damage on Japanese naval units off Savo Island. Eventually succumbing to her wounds after the enemy had fled in defeat, she left behind her an illustrious example of heroic fighting spirit.” For the President, James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy.

She was soon to have her name recycled by an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, DD-724, who went on to make something of a name for herself as well in Naval history and is preserved at Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

USS Laffey, DD-724 as a museum ship today

The Benson and Gleaves classes gave extensively in WWII, with 16 lost during the war– five in the Guadalcanal campaign alone. After the war, they were mothballed with some reactivated for Korea. In the 50s a number were given to overseas allies to serve for another decade or so, but by the late 1970s, all of these hardy veterans were razorblades.

U.S.Navy Benson class Destroyers U.S.S Laffey and U.S.S Woodworth. Dragon model box art. Click to big up

Still, Laffey has been remembered in maritime art and in at least two scale models from Dragon as well as through a veteran’s association that honors both ships of the same name as well as the Irish-American bluejacket who earned his MOH by blood and deed.
Specs:

(Note, this is a late WWII Benson class with 4, 5-inch guns, Lafffey was completed with 5) click to big up

(Note, this is a late WWII Benson class with 4, 5-inch guns, click to big up

Displacement: 1620 tons (2515 tons full load)
Length: 341 ft. (103.9 m) waterline, 348 ft. 2 in (106.12 m) overall
Beam: 36 ft. 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft: 11 ft. 9 in (3.58 m) (normal),17 ft. 9 in (5.41 m) (full load)
Propulsion: Four Babcock & Wilcox boilers, General Electric SR geared turbines; two shafts;
50000 shp (37 MW)
Speed: 37.5 knots (69.5 km/h)
33 knots (61.1 km/h) full load
Range: 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km) at 15 kt, (11,000 km at 28 km/h)
Complement: 208 (276 war)
Armament:

4× 5 in (127 mm) DP guns, Mk 30 single mounts
6 × 0.50 in. (12.7 mm) guns, single mounts
10 × 21 in (53 cm) torpedo tubes,
2 × depth charge tracks
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/

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I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday May 13, 2015: The 18,000-ton Boogieman of the Barents Sea

Posted on May 13, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 9 comments

Warship Wednesday, May 13, 2015: the 18,000-ton Boogieman of the Barents Sea

Not what you want to see chasing you if you are a British destroyer…click to big up

Here we see the pride of the German Kriegsmarine, class leader schwerer-kreuzer Admiral Hipper underway at sea. Between April 1940 and Feb. 1943, she would haunt the Atlantic Ocean and North and Barents Seas, sending a number of His Majesty’s warships and merchantmen to the cold embrace of the deep.

With the Kaiser’s High Seas fleet lining the bottom of Scapa Flow, the language of the Versailles Treaty allowed the remnant of post-Imperial Weimar Germany just six obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships and six old light cruisers of the Bremen and Gazelle class in their Reichsmarine— which could not be replaced until they were at least 20-years old. Once these elderly cruisers started to wear out, the Republic replaced them with the larger Emden, Leipzig, and Konigsberg-class vessels from the late 1920s onward.

Then in 1933, when Hitler kicked the Versailles agreements to the curb, the Reichsmarine started construction on the super-sized Deutschland-class cruisers (pocket battleships) which needed escorts who could travel the world on their own if needed– and thus were born the first modern German heavy cruisers.

Allowed 50,000 tons of this last type under a pact with their Brits in 1935, the Germans went about building five, (wink wink) 10,000-ton ships for their newly renamed Kriegsmarine. The first of these, ominously, was named for the head of the Kaiser’s Great War fleet, Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper.

(The man), he died in 1932, before the cruiser bearing his name was even fully designed on paper

Known politely in Great Britain and the “baby killer,” Hipper commanded the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group on the raids on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby; the Battle of Dogger Bank; and, of course, Jutland– where his unit drew the most blood of any, before taking the helm of the overall fleet from Scheer in 1918.

Although on paper they were supposed to weigh in at 10,000-tons, these 665-foot long cruisers were no welterweights, stepping on the scales with a full load displacement of over 18,000 when in wartime service.

Drawing of G.J. Frans Naerebout, earlier published in Op de lange deining

U.S. Office of Naval intelligence sheet on Hipper

Sheathed in a belt that averaged about 3-inches, they weren’t made to fight battleships, but their battery of eight 20.3 cm/60 (8″) SK C/34 guns, capable of firing a 269-pound AP shell out to a very respectable 36,636 yards, they could penetrate more than 9.4-inches of face-hardened armor at up to 10,000. As such, they could slug it out with any warship but a battlewagon with high hopes of winning the day.

Special Pictures of Admiral Hipper contributed by Peter Lienau via Navweaps

In all some five ships were to be completed of the class: Hipper, Blücher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz, and Lutzow, but the war had other plans.

The anti-hero of our story, Hipper, was laid down 6 July 1935 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and commissioned in the spring before the Second World War began on April 39, 1939.

Schwerer Kreuzer “Admiral Hipper” 1939, Budesarchiv click to big up

At commissioning

1940 in Norwegian waters, click to big up

Just finished with her shakedown cruises, she sortied with virtually the entire Kriegsmarine to Norway where she was a group flag for Operation Weserübung, the invasion of that country in April 1940. (It was during that operation that her sister, the brand-new Blücher, was sucker punched and sunk by a Norwegian torpedo battery)

It was there, off the frozen coast just before the operation began, that she encountered the 1,900-ton G-class destroyer HMS Glowworm. The epic tale of what happened is as follows:

On the 8th April 1940, H.M.S. Glowworm was proceeding alone in heavy weather towards a rendezvous in West Fjord, when she met and engaged two enemy destroyers, scoring at least one hit on them. The enemy broke off the action and headed North, to lead the Glowworm on to his supporting forces. The Commanding Officer, whilst correctly appreciating the intentions of the enemy, at once gave chase. The German heavy cruiser, Admiral Hipper, was sighted closing the Glowworm at high speed and an enemy report was sent which was received by H.M.S. Renown. Because of the heavy sea, the Glowworm could not shadow the enemy and the Commanding Officer therefore decided to attack with torpedoes and then to close in order to inflict as much damage as possible.

Five torpedoes were fired and later the remaining five, but without success. The Glowworm was badly hit; one gun was out of action and her speed was much reduced, but with the other three guns still firing she closed and rammed the Admiral Hipper. As the Glowworm drew away, she opened fire again and scored one hit at a range of 400 yards. The Glowworm, badly stove in forward and riddled with enemy fire, heeled over to starboard, and the Commanding Officer gave the order to abandon her. Shortly afterwards she capsized and sank. The Admiral Hipper hove to for at least an hour picking up survivors but the loss of life was heavy, only 31 out of the Glowworm’s complement of 149 being saved.

Full information concerning this action has only recently been received and the VICTORIA CROSS is bestowed in recognition of the great valor of the Commanding Officer who, after fighting off a superior force of destroyers, sought out and reported a powerful enemy unit, and then fought his ship to the end against overwhelming odds, finally ramming the enemy with supreme coolness and skill.
–London Gazette, 6th July 1945

HMS Glowworm is about to be rammed by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper

HMS Glowworm off the bow of Admiral Hipper. The Swastika is almost over the top in this image…

Closer to the destroyer, note seamen

through the Hipper’s fire control directors, Glowworm capsized

artists Impression of Glowworm ramming the Hipper

Hipper picked up 40 Royal Navy survivors and continued on to Trondheim, the strategic key to Norway, where she bluffed her way past local coastal defense batteries by saying she was a British ship and landed her troops.

bundesarchiv_bild_101i-757-0038n Schwerer Kreuzer Hipper landing German Gebirgsjägers in Trondheim

Gneisenau (foreground), Admiral Hipper (center) and Scharnhorst (background) at Trondheim, Norway June 11, 1940

Repaired, she broke out into the North Atlantic several times in 1940 and 41, stalking Allied convoys and sending several cargo ships to the bottom while staying just over the horizon from British battleships.

December 1940: Working alone, on Christmas Day about 700 miles to the west of Spain, Hipper encountered troop convoy WS5A, one of ‘Winston’s Specials.’ They were accompanied by carrier HMS Furious ferrying aircraft to Takoradi in West Africa. In the resulting long-range naval gunfire duel, she damaged the 13,000-ton County-class heavy cruiser HMS Berwick and two merchantmen but was forced to find easier prey.

February 1941: Again alone, Hipper sailed from occupied Brest in France seeking easy meat. Bumping into convoy SLS64, she found it. This convoy, bound for Britain from Sierra Leone, had the two worst things going for it: not only was it slow (14-knots) but it was also completely unescorted by Allied warships. Hipper had a field day, breaking the shillelagh out and– in what was termed the “slaughter of convoy SLS64“– in the course of just under two hours, she sank 7 merchantmen and severely damaged three others (more than half the convoy) with punishing naval gunfire. In all this two-week sortie chalked up some 32,000 tons of Allied shipping to the boogieman.

Admiral Hipper’s bow with battleship Tirpitz to the right, Norwegian waters 1942

In 1942, operating from Norway with the bulk of the remaining capital ships of Hitler’s navy, the very presence of the Hipper along with the other big guns of the Kriegsmarine, was often enough to scatter Allied convoys to the winds where U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers and could pick them up with leisure.

One of Admiral Hipper’s three Arado Ar 196 seaplanes readied for launch. 1942.

One such instance was the heavily escorted PQ-17, headed to Murmansk from Iceland in June 1942. Allied intel got wind of a sortie by Hipper and Tirpitz, (which was shit intel) and ordered the convoy to break apart in response. The resulting slaughter was epic as some 200 German aircraft and a dozen U-boats sank 24 out of 35 ships while the 43 escorting Allied warships largely were unmolested.

Mort Kunstler, "Execution of Convoy PQ17," For Men Only cover, May 1960.Note the USS Atlantis sinking center. Via Heritage Auctions

Mort Kunstler, “Execution of Convoy PQ17,” For Men Only cover, May 1960. Note the fictional USS Atlantis sinking center. Via Heritage Auctions

Later that year, Hipper and the pocket battleship Deutschland attacked the British ships escorting convoy JW 51B to Murmansk on New Year’s Eve. In that engagement, she reinforced her reputation as a destroyer killer by sinking the 1,300-ton A-class destroyer HMS Achates and the similarly sized Halcyon-class minesweeper HMS Bramble.

In this contest, while dealing Achates her death blow, the 11,000-ton Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Jamaica and the similarly sized Town-class light cruiser HMS Sheffield raced to the scene from over the horizon and just really plastered Hipper at close range. While these ships were smaller, together they carried more than two dozen rapid-fire 6-inch guns and closed in to use them to good effect, forcing the lumbering German to break contact and vamoose– which Hitler flew into a rage over later.

Heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper off the coast of Norway. July 1942. via Monochrome Spectre http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/archives/2601482.html

In fact, Hitler was so displeased with the overall cost vs return of the surface fleet that he in short order paid off the capital ships, sacked old High Seas Fleet sailor Adm. Erich Raeder in favor of U-boat vet Adm. Karl Dönitz, and ordered the damaged Hipper recalled to Germany where she was sidelined for the rest of the war.

Decommissioned in February 1943, she was a fleet in being of sorts as the Allies knew she had not been sunk and, indeed had even been used in early 1945 as an emergency sealift platform to evacuate trapped German troops in the Baltics. Although the Germans made a good attempt to hide her out, the Allies finally found the boogieman and she was crippled by RAF bombers on 3 May 1945– less than a week before the end of the war.

Remember the Glowworm, Bramble, and Achates, indeed!

German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in dry dock at Kiel, May 19th, 1945. Click to big up

Remains of a heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in the dock in Kiel, destroyed by the bombing of Lancasters. April 1945.

Her remaining crew scuttled the once-mighty warship and she was later raised and scrapped in 1952.

Of her sisters, as already noted Blucher was sunk in Norway; Seydlitz was never completed; Lutzow, in a twist of fate, was sold to the Soviets while Hitler and Stalin were still buddies as the Petropavlovsk in 1940 but never completed; and Prinz Eugen— the largest German naval ship to survive the war still afloat, was turned over to the U.S. Navy in 1945 then sunk the next year following nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll.

However, these last two sisters, Hipper and Prinz Eugen, are reunited in a unified Germany with the bell of the former and a screw of the latter preserved at the Laboe Naval Memorial near Kiel within walking distance of each other.

Besides this, Hipper has been the subject of much naval art:

Click to big up

Trumpeter model company cover art

John Asmussen has a great source of information on Hipper should you want to learn more about this interesting ship.

As for the Glowworm, she is remembered as well.

Specs:

Image via Shipbucket, click to big up http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Real%20Designs/Germany/CA%20Admiral%20Hipper.png click to very much big up

Image via Shipbucket, click to big up click to very much big up

Displacement: 16,170 t (15,910 long tons; 17,820 short tons)
Full load: 18,200 long tons (18,500 t)
Length: 202.8 m (665 ft. 4 in) overall
Beam: 21.3 m (69 ft. 11 in)
Draft: Full load: 7.2 m (24 ft.)
Propulsion:
3 × Blohm & Voss steam turbines
3 × three-blade propellers
132,000 shp (98 MW)
Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement:
42 officers
1,340 enlisted
Armament:
8 × 20.3 cm (8.0 in) guns with up to 1400 rounds in magazines
12 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns
12 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns
8 × 2 cm (0.79 in) guns (20 × 1)
12× 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes
96 naval mines
Armor:
Belt: 70 to 80 mm (2.8 to 3.1 in)
Armor deck: 20 to 50 mm (0.79 to 1.97 in)
Turret faces: 105 mm (4.1 in)
Aircraft carried: 3 Arado AR 196 floatplanes
Aviation facilities: 1 catapult
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Warship Wednesday May 6, 2015: The unsinkable battleship of Manila Bay

Posted on May 6, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday, May 6, 2015: The unsinkable battleship of Manila Bay

Click to big up

Here we see the concrete battleship, Fort Drum, as she appeared before 1941. While yes, this is not a ship but a U.S. Army coastal defense fortification, it has all the aspects of a ship above the waterline!

When Dewey swept into Manila Bay in 1898, the battle that his Asiatic Squadron gave the outgunned Spanish fleet was brief and historic– leaving the U.S. with de facto control of the island chain (or at least the Bay) that was made official after the war ended. After the Japanese defeat of the Russian Pacific Fleets (both of them) in 1905– during which a number of the Tsar’s ships took refuge in Manila Bay under the watchful eye of the USN, it became a priority to beef up the defenses around the harbor to keep the Navy there from turning into another Port Arthur.

The island, before 1909. If you prefer, you can refer to this as the ‘keel’ of Fort Drum

In the mouth of the Bay was El Fraile Island, a small slip of rock that the Army, in charge of Coastal Defense, decided to place a mine-control battery atop. However, this plan soon changed and the Army, with the Navy’s blessing, went about building their own static battleship.

Under the plan of Lt. John Kingman of the Army Corps of Engineers, the military leveled off El Fraile starting in 1909 and encased the entire island in steel-reinforced concrete with an average depth of 36-feet thick along the walls.

Several stories deep, a fort was constructed that included water cisterns, fuel tanks to run electrical generators, barracks for artillerymen, dining facilities, and storage for enough food to last the defenders months if needed.

Topside Plan

Engine tank section. Click to big up

Powder magazines and “navy-type” electrical passing scuttles. Drum could stock 440 shells for its main batteries. Click to big up

Atop the roof of the structure, which itself was 20-feet thick, were mounted a pair of M1909 turrets that each houses a pair of 14-inch (360mm) guns. Although a Navy-style mount, it was all-Army and contained unique wire-wound guns modified from the standard M1907 big guns mounted in coastal defense forts stateside.

While the standard CONUS 14-inchers were “disappearing” mounts, these larger 40-caliber tubes, with their 46-foot length, allowed the 1,209-pound AP shells to fire out to some 22,705-yards. To protect these turrets (named Batteries Marshall and Wilson), they had 16-inches of steel armor on their face, 14 on the sides and rear, and 6 on the roof. Of course, these giant turrets, with their outsized guns, tipped the scales at 1,160-tons or about the weight of a standard destroyer of the era, but hey, it’s not like they were going to sink the island or anything.

For comparison, the huge 16-inch/50 cal Mk.7 mounts on the Iowa-class battleships– commissioned decades after the Army’s concrete fort was built, weighed 1,701-tons but had three larger guns rather than the two the boys in green staffed.

The M1909 mount being tested at Sandy Hook Proving Ground, New Jersey before shipment to the PI. Only two of these mounts were ever constructed and, to the credit of the Army, are both still in existence despite an epic trial by combat.

The M1909 mount was tested at Sandy Hook Proving Ground, New Jersey before shipment to the PI. Only two of these mounts were ever constructed and, to the credit of the Army, are both still in existence despite an epic trial by combat. Click to big up

As befitting a battleship, the fort had a secondary armament of four casemated 6-inch coastal defense guns (dubbed Batteries Roberts and McCrea) as well as an anti-aircraft/small boat defense scheme (Batteries Hoyle and Exeter) of smaller 3-inch guns.

To direct all this a 60-foot high lattice mount (just like those on the latest U.S. battleships) was fitted to the ‘stern’ of the fort that contained fire control spotters (that fed to plotting rooms protected deep inside the facility), as well as 60-inch searchlights, radio and signal facilities to keep in contact with the rest of the harbor defenses.

Finally commissioned in 1913– just in time for World War One, the concrete battleship was named Fort Drum after former Adjutant General of the Army Richard Coulter Drum, who had died in 1909– the year construction began.

The man…

The fort was a happy post until December 8, 1941, when, just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck at the Philippines. Largely relegated to providing some far-off gunfire support and exchanging pot shots with Japanese planes until Manila fell, this soon changed.

In December two water-cooled .50 caliber machine guns manned by a 13-man platoon of 3/4 Marines (withdrawn only days before from China), was sent to the concrete battleship to beef up her dated AAA defenses. They joined the 200~ soldiers, officers, Philippine Scouts, and civilian ordnance-men of the 59th and 60th U.S. Army Coastal Artillery Regiments, commanded by Lt. Col. Lewis S. Kirkpatrick. Later, when Bataan fell, about 20 tank-less soldiers from an armored unit– Company D, 192nd Tank Battalion (formerly Harrodsburg’s 38th Tank Company of the Kentucky National Guard)- managed to escape to Drum and lent their shoulders to the wheel for the last month of the campaign.

As the Japanese had done at Port Arthur in 1904 where they brought in 10-ton Krupp L/10 280mm howitzers from the Home Islands to churn the Russian fortifications to gruel, the Imperial Army shipped new 40-ton Type 45 240 mm howitzers just to batter Fort Drum in March.

Although they peppered the fort’s concrete and knocked out some small guns, Drum kept firing and after April, along with Corregidor and the other harbor forts, became the last piece of real estate owned by the U.S. When the Empire tried to take Corregidor in the end, Drum’s 14-inchers made Swiss cheese of a number of their thin-skinned landing barges, sending many of the Emperor’s best troops to the bottom of the Bay.

On May 6, 1942, some 73 years ago today, when General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor, he included the harbor forts in his order. Although still capable of fighting, the defenders of the fort obeyed orders, smashed their generators, burned their codebooks, spiked their weapons, turned the fire-hoses loose in the interior– paying special attention to the powder rooms, and raised a white flag at noon.

Although the 240~ soldiers and Marines of the garrison did not suffer any deaths in direct combat, their time in Japanese prison camps was by no means easy. A number of their unit, including Kirkpatrick, did not live to see the end of the war. Only one officer, battery commander Capt. Ben E. King, survived. Casualties among the enlisted were likewise horrific.

In the end, they were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and that of the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, which the 59th carries to this day (as the 59th Air Defense Artillery Regiment)

While the Japanese occupied the concrete battleship and used it as a coastal defense position for the rest of the war, they never did get the M1909s operable again.

US Army landing on Drum

Following bombardment by the USS Phoenix (CL-46), on April 13, 1945, the U.S. Army landed on the roof of the once-great fort. They found the Japanese defenders, shut inside its concrete warren under their feet, unwilling to surrender. Therefore, with McArthur’s blessing, a detachment of B Company/13th Engineers, poured 3,000 gallons of diesel/oil slurry down the ventilation shafts and set it off with timed charges as they withdrew.

US engineers and soldiers guarding them, pumping diesel fuel and oil into the innards of Ft. Drum Philippines. Note the 14-inch turret in the background

The fort burned for two weeks and no living Japanese prisoners were taken, only 68 “body remnants” were recovered. These men were sailors and survivors from the ill-fated super battleship Musashi, sent to the bottom just six months prior. So in the end, her final crew were battleship men.

According to an Augus1945 Yank magazine article:

First there was a cloud of smoke rising and seconds later the main explosion came. Blast after blast ripped the concrete battleship. Debris was showered into the water throwing up hundred of small geysers. A large flat object, later identified as the 6-inch concrete slab protecting the powder magazine was blown several hundred feet into the air to fall back on top of the fort, miraculously still unbroken. Now the GIs and sailors could cheer. And they did. As the LSM moved toward Corregidor there were continued explosions. More smoke and debris.

Two days later, on Sunday, a party went back to try to get into the fort through the lower levels. Wisps of smoke were still curling through the ventilators and it was obvious that oil was still burning inside. The visit was called off for that day. On Monday the troops returned again. this time they were able to make their way down as far as the second level, but again smoke forced them to withdraw. Eight Japs-dead of suffocation- were found on the first two levels.

Another two days later another landing party returned and explored the whole island. The bodies of 60 Japs-burned to death-were found in the boiler room on the third level. The inside of the fort was in shambles. The walls were blackened with smoke and what installations there were had been blown to pieces or burned.

In actual time of pumping oil and setting fuses, it had taken just over 15 minutes to settle the fate of the “impregnable” concrete fortress. It had been a successful operation in every way but one: The souvenir hunting wasn’t very good.

Starboard beam view of the battleship USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) passing between CORREGIDOR (background) and FORT DRUM as she enters Manila Bay. Date: 3 Jul 1983 Camera Operator: PH2 PAUL SOUTAR ID: DN-SN-83-09891 Click to big up

Now, abandoned, the unsinkable battleship with its charred interior spaces lies moldering away in Manila Bay.

Over the years, it has become a tourist attraction and target for scrap hunters who have carried off every piece of metal smaller than they are.

For more information on Fort Drum, please visit Concrete Battleship.org

As for Gen. Drum himself, he is buried at Arlington Section 3, Site 1776.

Specs:

Image by Ship Bucket http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Real%20Designs/United%20States%20of%20America/USS%20Fort%20Drum%201.png Click to big up

Image by Ship Bucket. Click to big up

Image by Ship Bucket http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Real%20Designs/United%20States%20of%20America/USS%20Fort%20Drum%202.png Click to big up

Image by Ship Bucket. Click to big up

Displacement: It is an island
Length: 350 feet
Beam: 144 feet
Draught: nil, but the fort stood 40-feet high and the lattice tower over 100
Propulsion: None, although the fort had numerous generators
Speed: In time with the rotation of the earth
Complement: 200 men of Company E, 59th Coastal Artillery Regiment, commanded by Lt. Col. Lewis S. Kirkpatrick (1941-42)
Armament: (as completed)
4xM1909 14-inch guns
4xM1908 6-inch guns
Armor: Up to 36 feet of concrete, with up to 16-inches of plate on turrets

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/

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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laststandonzombieisland

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

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