vintage warships | laststandonzombieisland

Tag Archives: vintage warships

Warship Wednesday July 30th, 150th Anniversary of the Great Tennessee

Posted on July 30, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

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

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday July 30th, 150th Anniversary of the Great Tennessee

Battle of Mobile Bay by Louis Prang. CSS Tennessee at left

Here we see the great steam-powered casemate ironclad warship, CSS Tennessee, pride of the Confederate Navy sailing out to meet the Union fleet. Never fully operational, she met her fate and proved her metal 150 years ago this week at the Battle of Mobile Bay. Designed by John L. Dixon, she was the largest Confederate ironclad completed during the war.

Her 209-foot long hull constructed at the heart of the Confederate steel industry in Selma, Alabama, in 1862, she was shipped incomplete down the Mobile River system to Mobile herself for completion. One of the last southern ports, Mobile was vital to the South’s continued resistance in the last stages of the war. There, in the shallow mud flats, she was neared to completion under the direction of Joseph Pierce, Acting Naval Constructor in the area. She was fitted with some 5-6 inches of heavy steel armor plate, three sheets thick, made in Shelby, Alabama. She was equipped with a pair of hard-hitting 7-inch double banded Brooke guns and another four, slightly smaller, 6.4-inch guns, making her perhaps one of the most formidable vessels afloat in the hemisphere if not the world at the time.

The problem was she had a slow and inefficient steam plant salvaged from the old steamer Alonzo Child. With this plant operating at maximum capacity, it could push the 1200-ton battleship to just 5-knots if lucky. This made her ram bow almost a joke of a weapon as most ships could evade the slowly moving but heavily armored ironclad.

Watercolor by F. Muller, circa 1900. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.

Made the flagship of Confederate Admiral Buchanan, who had helmed the earlier CSS Manassass to her fitful clash with the USS Monitor just two years before, the nearly finished met the might of the Union Navy at the mouth of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. There, U.S. Rear Admiral David G. Farragut was leading an armada of eighteen ships, including four new monitors, past the two forts barring the entrance to the last sovereign Confederate watershed.

All Buchanan had at his disposal was the Tennessee and three sad little wooden gunboats armed with popguns. This placed the ironclad at the heart of the southern fleet’s answer to the invaders. Steaming into the fray, the ship closed with Farragut’s classic naval frigates Hartford and Brooklyn and exchanged cannon fire with these wooden ships at point-blank distance. This continued until the new USS Chickasaw, a Milwaukee-class river monitor, closed with the larger beast and raked her with fire, keeping her at bay. Over the course of the next several moments the fleet pounded Tennessee, taking away her steering chains and holing her in several places.

Tennessee broadside-to-broadside with the Oneida; monitor Chickasaw coming in on the Confederate from point-blank range at left, Winnebago in background; bowsprit-less gunboat USS Pequot at right rear. Painting by Tom Freeman

With no other alternative, and fighting a losing battle with a predetermined outcome, Tennessee surrendered.

Capture of Ram Tennessee Mobile Bay by Alfred R. Waud

Within days the Yankees had repaired the ship and placed it under the star-spangled banner as the USS Tennessee, using her, in the ultimate irony, against the Confederates at Fort Morgan. Following victory there she was sent to New Orleans for more extensive repairs and kept in service with the U.S. Navy’s Mississippi Squadron. In 1867 the ship was scrapped.

Port quarter view, probably taken off New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1865. She was formerly CSS Tennessee (1864-1864).U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Her guns are on display around the country including several of her Brookes at the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C, another at Norfolk, and one at Selma, where it was cast.

If you are free and around Mobile this weekend, there is the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay. Centered around Fort Morgan, they will have a mock-up of the Tennessee. You should check it out if in the area.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,273 long tons (1,293 t)
Length:    209 ft (63.7 m)
Beam:    48 ft (14.6 m)
Draft:    14 ft (4.3 m)
Installed power:    4 boilers
Propulsion:    2 Shafts, 2 Steam engines
Speed:    5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph)
Complement: 133 officers and enlisted men
Armament:    2 × 7 in (178 mm) Double-banded Brooke rifles
4 × 6.4 in (163 mm) Double-banded Brooke rifles
ram
Armor:
Casemate: 5–6 in (127–152 mm)
Deck: 2 in (51 mm)

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday July 23, Jules Verne, Meet the U.S. Navy

Posted on July 23, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 5 comments

Warship Wednesday, July 23, Jules Verne, Meet the U.S. Navy

Here we see the magnificent V-type submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) in oil on board by the artist I.L. Lloyd depicting the submarine engaging a Japanese merchant ship at close quarters.

Between the two world wars, the U.S. Navy built a collection of nine more or less experimental “V-boat” submarines. These boats took lessons from British and German submarines learned after WWI and incorporated these into a more Yankee design. Each of these subs was very different as the design bureau experimented as they went. One of the ships, V-6, a very close pattern of V-5, which came before her, was built to a submarine-cruiser design.

This concept was a huge sub, meant to have very long legs, and capable of taking the war to the enemy wherever they may be. For this, they were fitted with large, cruiser-caliber guns, and an impressive torpedo battery. Laid down at Mare Island Naval Yard on 2 August 1927, this V-boat (designated V-6/SC-2) was commissioned in June 1930. Following sea trials, V-6 was renamed USS Nautilus (SS-168) on Feb 19, 1931.

Steaming into New York City, 1931. Photo credit: Navsource

The sub was fitted with a pair of massive 6-inch/53 guns in special Mark 17 wet mountings. This gun was designed as a secondary battery of the Lexington-class battle cruisers and South Dakota-class battleships but was only installed in Omaha-class cruisers. Capable of firing a 105-lb shell to a maximum range was 23,300 yd (21,310 m), at the maximum elevation of 25 degrees, they were a hoss of a battery for a boat meant to operate underwater. Except for near-sisters (and fellow V-boats) USS Argonaut (SM-1) and USS Narwhal (SS-167, ex-V-5), the guns carried by the Nautilus were the largest fitted to an American submarine.

To get a feel for how big these guns were, here we see the Nautilus (SS-168) photographed from her sister ship, the Narwhal (SS-167). Photo credit; Navsource.

Capable of traveling an amazing 25,000 nm as long as she kept it slow and filled her ballast tanks with fuel, Nautilus could cross the Atlantic six times without refueling if needed. However, she was meant to operate in the Pacific against a growing Japanese naval threat, and she soon found herself there as the flagship of SubDiv12 at Pearl Harbor. Although her near-sister Narwhal was present there on Dec. 7, 1941 (shooting down two torpedo bombers of the Japanese Combined Fleet), Nautilus was laid up undergoing maintenance back in California.

However, she soon got underway and conducted an amazing 14 war patrols. Nautilus found herself in the middle of the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway, firing 5 torpedoes at the battleship Kirishima and the carrier Kaga (with little success due to faulty torpedoes) while surviving 42 enemy depth charges. However, just a few weeks after the battle, she ran across the Japanese Shiratsuyu-class destroyer Yamakaze and sent that ship to Davy Jones approximately 60 nautical miles (110 km) southeast of Yokosuka on 30 June 1945. The photo taken of the Yamakaze sinking after being torpedoed became an instant hit and was used for war bond art.

Yamakaze sinking by Nautilus used in 1943 Electric Boat ad

In August 1942, along with the fellow V-Boat USS Argonaut, the two subs carried elements of the Marine Second Raider Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson to raid the isolated Japanese garrison at Makin Atoll.

Carrying 90 men of Bravo Company, the raid annihilated the small force on the atoll and was a huge propaganda victory for the nation at the time.

U.S. Marine Raiders exercise on the deck of USS Nautilus while en route to the raid on Makin Island on August 11, 1942. And yes, that’s what a 6″/53 Mk17 looks like up close.

Nautilus went back to her life as a fleet submarine but was also pressed back into duty carrying raiders behind enemy lines.

In 1943 she carried 109 Eskimo Scouts to land on the Japanese-occupied Aleutian island of Attu just before the main assault. Then at Tarawa, she put ashore a 77-man group of the 5th Amphibious Reconnaissance Company. Towards the end of the war, she helped carry supplies and recon teams around the Philippines, helping to resupply and tie in local guerrilla groups led since 1942 in many cases by stay-behind (left-behind?) U.S. military members to the effort to liberate the islands.

However, with the war winding down, so did the Navy’s interest in the old and reliable Nautilus. Decommed before the war even ended on 30 June 1945, she was stricken and sold for scrap that Fall after a very hard 15-year life. Her war patrol reports are public record.

Specs:

Displacement, Surfaced: 2,730 t., Submerged: 3,960 t.;
Length 371′ ;
Beam 33′ 3″;
Draft 15′ 9″;
Propulsion, diesel-electric, Maschinfabrik – Augusburg- Nurnburg, New York Navy Yard diesel engines, hp 3175,
Fuel Capacity, 182,778 gal., Westinghouse Electric Co., electric motors, hp 2500, Battery Cells 240, twin propellers.
Speed, Surfaced 17 kts, Submerged 8 kts;
Depth Limit 300′;
Complement 8 officers 80 enlisted;
Armament, four 21″ torpedo tubes forward, two 21″ torpedo tubes aft, four 21″ torpedo tubes topside, 24 torpedoes; two single 6″/53 deck gun, two 30 cal. mgs.;

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 July 16, Coast Guard Saladbar holder, The Mighty Spencer

Posted on July 16, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 6 comments

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 16, Coast Guard Salad-bar holder, The Mighty Spencer

(Courtesy USCGC Spencer Association)

Here we see the United States Coast Guard Treasury-class cutter USCGC Spencer (W36/WPG-36/WAGC-36/WHEC-36) as depicted in a painting by CWO3 William ‘Bill’ RaVell, USCG Ret. . CWO3 RaVell is an artist and member of the International Society of Marine Painters in addition to being a crew member on the USS Spencer between 1959 and 1961.

Officially known as the “Treasury” class due to the fact the 7 ships in the group were all named after former early secretaries of the U.S Treasury (the department that the Coast Guard reported to until 1972), they were better known simply as ‘327’ ships due to their overall length. Based on the Erie-class (PG-50) gunboats of the U.S Navy, a group of just two ships designed to patrol the far-flung Panama Canal Zone before WWII, these coast guard cutters were the largest and most heavily armed ships in the Treasury fleet up until that time.

"Gunnery exercise."; circa 1940; Photo No. 2414; photo was provided through the courtesy of Merle Harbourt, USCG (Ret.), a Spencer crewman, who served on board her during the 1939-1940 period. USCG Photo

“Gunnery exercise.”; circa 1940; Photo No. 2414; the photo was provided through the courtesy of Merle Harbourt, USCG (Ret.), a Spencer crewman, who served on board her during the 1939-1940 period. USCG Photo

Capable of over 20-knots and with the capability to carry a seaplane (a JF-2 amphibian), these 327-foot long, 2400-ton cutters could roam across the ocean and back again with an impressive 12,300-nm range. A threesome of 5-inch/51-caliber guns augmented a few 6-pounder guns was impressive enough for a shallow water (can float in 13-feet of sea) gunboat and seen as more than adequate to stop smugglers and sink derelict vessels on the high seas. In a pinch, the armament could be increased in time of war, which the Navy was keenly aware of.

Grumman JF-2 Duck being deployed from a cutter. Two were carried experimentally on board the 327s Spencer and Taney during pre-war tests. The Coast Guard obtained 14 JF-2s prior to WWII designed specifically for the service and a number of J2Fs during WWII. Of the first batch, they were acquired in October of 1934 and carried Coast Guard numbers V-135 through V148.

Laid down in 1935 at the New York Navy Yard, Spencer was commissioned into the USCG on 1 March 1937 with a total building cost of $2,468,460. She was named after former Secretary of the Treasury John Canfield Spencer, who served in President Tyler’s administration. An earlier Civil War-era Revenue Cutter was also named after Spencer.

Sent to patrol the Alaskan fishing grounds, Spencer embarked meteorologists from the Weather Bureau (this is pre-NOAA) and performed weather station observations in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Then in November 1941, with the threat of war looming, she reported for duty with the U.S. Navy Quickly, she was armed with an three 3-inch AAA DP guns, depth charge racks, and a “Y” gun depth charge projector as well as an increasingly advanced array of senors for finding enemy ships and submarines.

She was going to need them.

Spencer with her teeth in and her warpaint on.

By February 1942 she was escorting the first of no less than 18 huge trans-ocean convoys as part of Mid-Ocean Escort Force (MOEF)-A3. This force often tasked with protecting dozens of merchantmen carrying troops and vital supplies consisted of the destroyer Gleaves, Spencer, and Flower-class corvettes Bittersweet, Chilliwack, Shediac and Algoma.

Each MOEF escort Group worked in a 33-day cycle allowing nine and one-half days with a westbound ON convoy, six days in St. John’s, Newfoundland, nine and one-half days with an eastbound HX or SC convoy, and 8 days refit in Derry.

These runs were often terrifying. Convoy ON 67 in February 1942 lost 7 ships to wolf packs of multiple U-boats. During Convoy SC.100, a slow-ship run from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool with 26 merchant ships, the escorts fought off attacks from two complete wolf-packs totaling 17 U-boats. SC-121 fought off attacks from 27 submarines. It was only the fact that the Spencer and her associates constantly rushed to every HF/DF, sonor, radar and lookout contact, dropping depth charges and curses that these convoys made it at all. During this time her armament was increased with the addition of a Hedgehog system, 6 “K” gun projectors, and a number of 20mm AAA guns.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter SPENCER

On 17 April, while a part of convoy HX-233, no less than seven U-boats converged on the group of ships in the mid-Atlantic gap, the area of the ocean too far from land to be covered by either U.S. or European-based anti-submarine aircraft. Stopping to pick up survivors of the torpedoed freighter Fort Rampart, Spencer found the German Type VII-type submarine U-175 sitting at periscope depth just 5000-yards from the convoy, lining up her tubes on the Allied vessels.

USCGC Spencer hits the German submarine U-175, 4.17.43

11 depth charges later, U-175 was mortally wounded and Spencer‘s U-boat killers soon switched into rescue mode (it’s the Coast Guard!), pulling 19 survivors from the stricken vessel.

Official Caption: “NAZI SUBMARINE SUNK BY THE FAMED CUTTER SPENCER: Effect of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter SPENCER’S fire are visible in this closeup shot of the U-Boat, taken as the battle raged. The Nazi standing by the stanchion amidships disappeared a moment after this picture was taken by a Coast Guard photographer. The U-Boat had been trying to sneak into the center of the convoy.” Date: 17 April 1943 Photo No.: 1512 Photographer: Jack January? Description: The “Nazi” mentioned in the above caption was probably, in fact, a member of the Coast Guard boarding team–one of the first Americans to board an enemy man-of-war underway at sea since the War of 1812.

Official Caption: “OFF TO RESCUE THEIR BEATEN FOES: A pulling boat leaves the side of a Coast Guard combat cutter to rescue Nazi seamen struggling in the mid-Atlantic after their U-Boat had been blasted to the bottom by the cutter’s depth charges. Two Coast Guard cutters brought 41 German survivors to a Scottish port.” Date: 17 April 1943 Photo No.: 1516 Photographer: Jack January Description: The men in this pulling boat were, in fact, a trained boarding team led by LCDR John B. Oren (standing in the stern and wearing the OD helmet) and LT Ross Bullard (directly to Oren’s left). With the assistance of the Royal Navy they had practiced boarding a submarine at sea in order to capture an Enigma coding machine and related intelligence material.

In addition to this confirmed kill, Spencer has been credited by some sources as being credited off and on in the sinking of U-529 and U-225 as well as damaging several others.

Spencer was not the only 327 to make a kill. With a kill rate of .57 per ship, the Treasury-class were the most successful antisubmarine warships of World War Two. (US Navy Destroyer Escorts had a kill rate of .1 in comparison).

By early 1944 the submarine war in the Atlantic was all but decided and the 327s were reclassified as Communications Command Ships for Amphibious group leaders and Spencer was transferred as such to the Pacific with the 36th Signal Detachment Headquarters Company, U. S. Army stationed aboard.

Norfolk Sept 1944, a hard war already behind her, she is now headed to the Pacific.

There, re designated as WAGC-36, she arrived in the Philippines and participated in the landings at Palawan, Moro Gulf, Mindanao, Parang and Luzon where she had often had LTGEN R. L. Eichelberger, Commanding General, 8th Army, and MAJGEN Swing, commanding general, 11th Airborne Division on board during the landings. She then sortied south to assist in landings in Borneo. She ended the war shooting at floating naval mines off China and was ordered to sail back to the states 5 December 1945.

Her armament reduced, excess wartime equipment removed, and paint scheme returned to white, she was back in service off the Eastern seaboard with the Coast Guard by 1946, alternating home ports for the next thirty years between New York City (Governor’s Island) and Boston.

Back in white, with a new 5″/38 mount and almost everything else war-related stripped away.

In 1965 she was overhauled and redesigned WHEC-36 (High Endurance Cutter). Then in 1969, the 32-year old war veteran was sent to South Vietnam as part of CG Squadron Three as part of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club interdicting NV/Viet Cong junks along the coast. For nine months she tracked and boarded contacts, captured 52 enemy suspects, and answered 13 naval gunfire close support fire missions, bombarding NVA targets ashore.

Then, as after WWII, she returned home to other rounds of peacetime service. Finally, her hull aging and equipment worn out, she was docked in 1974 in semi-retirement, used as a floating Engineer Training School until 1980, when she was finally retired after 43 years of service.

Spencer’s salad bar of decorations.

During her wars, she accumulated a vast array of awards and has been described as the most decorated of all Coast Guard cutters. These include a Presidential Unit Citation, 10 campaign medals for ETO and Pacific Theater operations in WWII, 3 Vietnam Service Medals, 3 Philippine Liberation Ribbons and the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation with Gallantry Cross with Palm.

In 1981 she was sold for $27,000, her value as scrap, to a company in Delaware. However, two of her sister ships, Taney (currently a museum ship at the Baltimore Maritime Museum) Ingham (Key West Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida) are preserved for you to visit– so please do.

Spencer‘s memory is preserved in a Bear-class 270-foot WMEC as well as a very well-organized veterans association.

Specs:
(As per USCG History official website)

Displacement: 2,350 (1936)
Length: 327′ 0″
Beam: 41′ 0″
Draft: 12′ 6″ (max.)
Propulsion: 2 x Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbines; 2 x Babcock & Wilcox sectional express, air-encased, 400 psi, 200° superheat; 2 x 9′ three-bladed propellers.
SHP: 6,200 (1966)
Maximum Speed: 20.5 knots
Economical Cruising: 11.0 knots (8,000 nautical miles)
Fuel Oil Capacity: 135,180 gallons (547 tons)
Complement: 1937: 12 officers, 4 warrants, 107 enlisted;
1941: 16 officers, 5 warrants, 202 enlisted;
1966: 10 officers, 3 warrants, 134 enlisted.

Electronics:
HF/DF: (1942) DAR (converted British FH3)
Radar: (1945) SC-4, SGa; (1966) AN/SPS-29D, AN/SPA-52.
Fire Control Radar: (1945) Mk-26; (1966) Mk-26 MOD 4
Sonar: (1945) QC series; (by early 1950s?) AN/SQS-11
Armament:

1936: 3 x 5″/51 (single mount); 2 x 6-pounders.; 1 x 1-pounder.

1941: 3 x 5″/51 (single mount); 3 x 3″/50 (single mount); 4 x .50 caliber Browning MG; 2 x depth charge racks; 1 x “Y” gun depth charge projector.

1943: 2 x 5″/51 (single mount); 4 x 3″/50 (single mount); 2 x 20mm/80 (single mount); 1 x Hedgehog; 6 x “K” gun depth charge projectors; 2 x depth charge racks.

1945: 2 x 5″/38 (single mount); 3 x 40mm/60 (twin mount); 4 x 20mm/80 (single mount).

1946: 1 x 5″/38 (single mount); 1 x 40mm;/60 (twin mount); 2 x 20mm/80 (single mount); 1 x Hedgehog.

1966: 1 x 5″/38 MK30 Mod75 (single); MK 52 MOD 3 director; 1 x MK 10-1 Hedgehog; 2 (P&S) x Mk 32 MOD 5 TT, 4 x MK 44 MOD 1 torpedoes; 2 x .50 cal. MK-2 Browning MG, 2 x MK-13 high altitude parachute flare mortars.

Aircraft: Curtiss SOC-4, USCG No. V159 (1937)
Grumman JF-2, USCG No. V144 (1938)

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 July 9, Italian spaghetti and midget meatballs.

Posted on July 9, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, July 9, Italian spaghetti and midget meatballs.

Here we see one of the plucky little Italian-made coastal submarines of the CB-class at Sevastopol, Russia, circa 1942. Ordered from the Società Caproni e Comitti in Milan, the company specialized in the production of military aircraft, not ships, but they did a great job on these tiny u-boats.

Capable of spending a couple of days at sea and carrying a pair of 17.7-inch torpedoes (externally), these boats were capable of sending a decent sized ship to the bottom and, if there had been enough of them, would have made any amphibious assault of the Italian coastline very dangerous as these ships could submerge in waters as shallow as twenty feet of sea.

The Regina Marina ordered 72 of these plucky 50-foot long boats in 1941, but only 20 or so were completed due to Allied invasions and blockades. Of those ships, about half served the Axis forces, with the others being completed after Italy switched sides in 1943.

The first six ships completed, CB-1 through CB-6, were shipped to the Black Sea along with a group of some 40 Italian submariners where they quickly set up camp in captured Soviet digs and went looking for Russkies.

About the only victory chalked up by these Italian midget subs was sending Soviet Black Sea Fleet Shchuka-class submarine SHCH-208 to the bottom by torpedo attack on June 18, 1942, just weeks after they arrived at Yalta. As a Shchuka was some 187-feet long and 700-tons load, that was a true David and Goliath victory for the Italians. This was something of a bit of payback for the Italians as one of the boats, (CB-5) was bombed and sunk by Red bombers near Yalta, 13 June 1942.

Italian minisommergibile CB Mar Nero Yalta 1942

Once Italy switched sides, these five remaining Black Sea boats were transferred to Romania in 1943.

Former Italian CB midget submarine at Costanza Romania late 1943

With the advance of the Red Army, the Romanians and Germans scuttled these in Constancia harbor in August 1944. The Russians, never one to let a piece of kit go bad, promptly raised them and put them in local service until the end of the war.

Other craft were captured by the British or Germans in the Adriatic and were in turn sunk or scrapped around the end of the conflict. One was found in Bordeaux by the Americans in 1944, where it had been sent along with a crew under Lt. Eugenio Massano in 1942 for trials in an aborted program that would have seen a false-flagged mothership such as the DaVinci take a few CBs to the Hudson River in hopes of running amok in New York harbor.

Minisommergibile CA 2 -1944, captured in Bordeaux

One boat, CB-20, fell into the hands of Tito’s Partisans and was soon pressed into service with the new Yugoslav navy (as pennant P-901). The Yugos loved the little craft so much that they kept it in service for nearly two decades and even then kept it as a museum and trials ship.

It should therefore surprise no one that the Yugoslav navy built its own class of homemade midgets, the Una-class, in the 1970s. These half-dozen craft were very similar in size (61-foot long, 70-tons) as the old Italian CB craft they still had in storage. The Italians, likewise, spent several decades making their own improved midgets from COSMOS and others which have a direct lineage to these humble WWII-era boats.

CB-20/P-901 still exists by the way.

April 7, 2010: The unveiling ceremony of the newly rebuilt CB-20 at the Teknicki Muzej (Technical Museum), Zagreb, Croatia. The boat has been completely restored inside and out to the original specifications and paint scheme she had when launched. (Photo courtesy of Vladimir Tarnovski)

An excellent reference is at Maritime Quest on the CB20, including more than 9 pages of in-depth images on CB-20.

There is also this:

Trieste, 22 – 24 giugno 1996. Il sommergibile tascabile CB 22 esposto a Piazza dell’Unità dopo il trasferimento da San Vito ed in attesa di essere conservato nel Museo Henriquez.

Specs:

Displacement: 35.4 tons surfaced, 44.3 tons submerged
Length:    14.99 m (49.2 ft)
Beam:    3.00 m (9.84 ft)
Draught:    2.05 m (6 ft 9 in)
Propulsion:    1 shaft diesel-electric,
1 – 80 hp Isotta Fraschini diesel, 1 – 50 hp Brown Boveri electric motor
Speed:    7.5 knots (13.9 km/h) surfaced, 7 knots (13 km/h) submerged
Complement: 4
Armament:    2 externally mounted 450mm torpedoes or two mines

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 July 2 Helen’s daughter

Posted on July 2, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday July 2 Helen’s daughter

Here we see the British Dido-class light cruiser HMS Hermione (Pennant 74) of the Royal Navy slicing through the Italian coastal submarine Tembien like butter on 2 August 1941, west of Malta. The (gouache on board) artwork is entitled, “A British cruiser ramming an Italian submarine” by Marc Stone. It is in the collection of the UK National Archives.

The 16 ships of the Dido-class, built to a prewar design, were some of the most modern fleet escorts in the Royal Navy and found themselves at the sharp end of the spear throughout World War Two. Originally designed to be a svelte 5700 tons, with a 1:10 length to beam ration (512-feet oal, 50-foot abeam), they were fast (33-knots) but lightly armored ships capable of swatting away aircraft, light combatants, and submarines from the fleet proper. Armed with ten rapid-fire 5.25-inch (133mm) guns in five dual-mounted turrets, as well as two sets of triple torpedo tubes, they were basically just really big destroyers– with a little bit of armor.

Where they had an advantage was in a 4000-nm cruising range of 16-knots, which enabled them to cross the Atlantic at a fair clip. This made them perfect for escorting convoys to places like Malta, Cyprus, or across the big pond.

The Dido‘s were all named after classical history and legend (e.g Black Prince, Bonaventure, Charybdis, Naiad, Spartan, et al) which made cruiser number 74’s name after Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen in Greek mythology, logical. As such, she was the Royal Navy’s third ship to carry that moniker, the first a Napoleonic war 32-gun frigate, and the second being a WWI-era Astraea-class protected cruiser, both with somewhat unlucky histories. The frigate’s crew had mutinied and surrendered to the Spanish while the old cruiser had grounded herself at least twice and was too obsolete to take an active part in the Great War.

The third would be the unluckiest of all.

Laid down at Alexander Stephen and Sons in Glasgow, Scotland in 1937, the war started before Hermione was commissioned on 25 March 1941. With just a few weeks in service, she was part of the Bismarck hunt, and served on the Northern Patrol in the Atlantic for two months. Rushed to the Med where the Royal Navy was fighting for its very life alone against the Italian, Vichy French and German forces there, she joined 1st Cruiser Squadron Force H, protecting the lifeline convoys running from Gibraltar to Malta and back, then convoys from Malta to Alexandria.

Dido-class sisters, The cruisers HMS Edinburgh, HMS Hermione (center), and HMS Euryalus, steaming in line abreast whilst they escort a convoy as part of Operation Halberd, at the time the largest resupply effort to Malta, to which the entire Italian navy sortied to attempt to stop.

The (Town class) cruisers HMS Edinburgh, along with the Dido-class sisters HMS Hermione (center), and HMS Euryalus, steaming in line abreast whilst they escort a convoy as part of Operation Halberd, at the time the largest resupply effort to Malta, to which the entire Italian navy sortied to attempt to stop.

These runs carried fighters to Malta, oil and supplies to Montgomery’s troops fighting Rommel in North Africa, and other valuable commodities. As such, Hermione shot down attacking dive bombers, endured endless hours on alert for U-boats and fast attack craft, and had her ‘turn in the barrel’ everyday for over a year running this gauntlet.

The ship’s good luck charm “Convoy“, Hermione‘s ship’s cat, sleeps in his own hammock whilst members of the crew look on

On the night of Aug 2, 1941 Hermione encountered the Italian Adua-class submarine Tembien on the surface preparing to send a brace of torpedoes into the precious carrier HMS Ark Royal. Had the Ark been sunk, British naval power in the Med would have changed for the worse. It was on that evening the daughter of Menelaus sliced the Roman shark in two, sending her to the bottom.

*Sidebar on the unlucky Adua-class boats of the Regia Marina: These plucky 800-ton, 200-foot long vessels were well-designed but their crews were unprepared for war against the Royal Navy, which had a long tradition of killing submarines operating close to their ships. Of the 17 Adula’s operational during World War II, 16 were lost, almost all to the RN. The class did not chalk up many kills for all of their reckless bravado.*

For her role in sinking the Italian submarine, the cruiser Hermione was immortalized in wartime martial art, which was soon turned into war propaganda posters. Tragically, the cruiser had already met her own fate before the ink was dry on these posters.

Assigned to the 15th Cruiser squadron in the eastern Med, she came face to face with a boat who had already tried to sink her once the previous winter. On 16 June 1942, she was sunk after being torpedoed just off Alexandria by the German U-boat U-205 with a loss of some 85 of her crew.

Commanded by Kptlt. Franz-Georg Reschke, U-205 herself the subject of a blood vendetta by the Royal Navy, who sent her to the bottom near the coast of Libya 17 Feb, 1943, with the destroyer HMS Paladin finishing her off.

The Hermione‘s name was issued to a Leander-class frigate (F58) in 1967, a ship that by all accounts had a lucky and safe thirty-year life and whose crew share a reunion and remembrance association with that of the lost WWII cruiser.
Specs:

Displacement: 5,600 tons standard
6,850 tons full load, wartime overload, 7700-tons.
Length: 485 ft (148 m) pp
512 ft (156 m) oa
Beam: 50.5 ft (15.4 m)
Draught: 14 ft (4.3 m)
Propulsion: Parsons geared turbines
Four shafts
Four Admiralty 3-drum boilers
62,000 shp (46 MW)
Speed: 32.25 knots (60 km/h)
Range: 1,500 nautical miles (2,780 km) at 30 knots
4,240 nautical miles (7,850 km) at 16 knots
1,100 tons fuel oil
Complement: 480 (more added in 1941 to man additional AAA guns)
Armament:
Original configuration:

10 x 5.25 in (133 mm) guns,
2 x 0.5 in MG quadruple guns,
3 x 2 pdr (37 mm/40 mm) pom-pom quad guns,
6 x 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2×3).

1941 – 1943 configuration:

10 x 5.25 in (133 mm) dual-purpose guns (5×2),
5 x 20 mm (0.8 in) single guns,
8 x 2 pdr (37 mm/40 mm) pom-pom guns (2×4),
6 x 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2×3).

Armour:
Belt: 3 inch,
Deck: 1 inch,
Magazines: 2 inch,
Bulkheads: 1 inch.

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 25, The Fighting Swenson

Posted on June 25, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday June 25, The Fighting Swenson

1945 in the Pacific, photographed from DD-745. Courtesy Robert Baumbrucker, NHC NH 89376. Ed Zajkowski

Here we see USS Lyman K. Swenson (DD-729), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, in all of her World War Two glory pounding it out on the high seas. She is the only ship named for naval hero Lyman Knute Swenson (USNA 1916).

One of those rare early 20th century officers who did everything, from battleships to submarines to destroyers, he was the wartime commander of the hard-luck light cruiser USS Juneau (CL-52). Twice torpedoed during the Battle of Guadalcanal, in what historian S. E. Morison called the “wildest most desperate sea fight since Jutland,” Juneau sank rapidly, taking under Swenson and most of her crew, including the five Sullivan brothers. This battle prevented the Japanese from landing reinforcements on Guadalcanal and Swenson was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions.

A warbaby, the destroyer that carried his name was laid down September 11th, 1943 at Bath Iron Works in Maine with his daughter sponsoring the vessel. Commissioned in Boston 2 May 1944, she was rushed off to war.

The 58-ship Sumner-class were large and heavily armed when compared to the old flush-deck destroyers that preceded them. Sandwiched between the svelte Fletcher-class and the follow-on Gearing-class (which were nothing but modified Sumners), these boats cost some $8 mill a pop (although Bath contracted for $5.1 million for Swenson) and Uncle Sugar got a swell deal from them, with most of the class serving into the 1970s.

At 3500-tons full load and 376-feet long, these bruisers packed a half-dozen 5-inch/38 DP guns (in twin mounts) as well as a dozen 40mm Bofors, another dozen 20mm guns, a brace of 10 torpedo tubes to take on Japanese cruisers, plus depth charges to bust enemy subs with. As such, they had much more kick than the Fletcher-class that preceded them, while still being able to float in as little as 16 feet of water (at a light load) and make 34-knots when needed. Capable of carrying more than 500 tons of fuel oil for her boilers, these ships had long legs, and could run 6000-nm on a full load, more than three times early pre-war built destroyers– which was important in the far-flung pacific.

Swenson arrived in the Philippines as part of the screen of Carrier Task Group 38.4 in October, 1944. There, off Samar on 30 October, she was the first US ship to fire on the first Japanese Kamikaze suicide planes. She went on to sail with Task Group 38.1 on the epic 3800-mile raid around the Pacific rim in January 1945, participated in the daring nighttime anti-shipping run thorough the entrance of Tokyo Bay with DESRON 61 on 22/23 July, helping to sink two freighters with her 5-inch guns, and witnessed the surrender of Japan that September.

All in all she had a very successful and lucky war, putting some 200,000 miles on her hull in just over a year.

USS Swenson in heavy swells alongside USS Wasp, January 1945. Photo 80G 301572 by John Chiquoine

She spent the next five years in quiet peacetime operations around the Pacific, finding herself stationed in Japan when the balloon went up in Korea in 1950. Pressed into service as a transport, she transported the US Army’s 560th MP company to Pusan then sent the next several months in plane guard and shore bombardment missions.

She fired no less than 1700 rounds of 5″ shells into the forces attacking the Pusan perimeter, exploded floating mines with her 40mm guns at Inchon, and traded shots with North Korean shore batteries on the island of Wolmi-Do. In covering the landings at Inchon she fired another 1400 rounds of 5″ and three thousand rounds of 40-mm. For this action Swenson and the five other destroyers with her were awarded the Navy Unit Commendation and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation.

A Chaplain reads the Last Rites service as Lieutenant (JG) David H. Swensen is buried at sea from USS Toledo, off Inchon, where he had been transferred for his wounds. The Lieutenant had been struck by shrapnel from North Korean shore-based artillery while his ship, USS Lyman K. Swenson was bombarding enemy positions on Wolmi-do island, Inchon, on 13 September 1950. The USS Swenson is seen observing the service in the distance.

After stateside refit in 1951 where she received up to date radars and electronics, as well as new barrels for her shot-out five inchers, she returned to Korean waters where she landed troops behind enemy lines, rescued downed fliers, and pummeled North Korean railway yards and trains, being one of the few members of the club of naval ships that have sent locomotives cartwheeling through the air.

Following the cessation of hostilities there, came more peacetime service.

She was FRAMM’d in 1960. This removed most of her WWII era AAA armament, added facilities for the nifty Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH) UAV (yes, they had them back then!) replaced her 21-inch torpedo tubes with two triple Mark 32 tubes for the Mark 44 ASW torpedo, and added Variable Depth Sonar (VDS). She also got her first ECM gear and modern sonars and radar, effectively making her as effective as a contemporary new destroyer at a fraction of the cost.

DASH drone on USS Swenson. Photo by Curt Helmer, DD729 website

As soon as Vietnam got hot she was there, participating in naval gunnery support missions along the I Corps area during 15 days in October 1964, she fired no less than 2966 rounds of 5″ ammunition.

Follow-on tours in 1967, 68, 69, well you get the idea, saw more gunfire support with her miniature drone deck being just large enough to accommodate the occasional Huey. She also played plane guard on Yankee station during this time between participating in the Mekong Yacht Club.

USS Swenson in 1969 Vietnam coastal waters. Image courtesy of Earl Faubion, DD729 website

With the looming wrap up of the Vietnam conflict (at least for the Americans) her days were numbered. The Navy was pushing for a new fleet of huge 7000-ton Spruance class destroyers, twice as large as the Sumners, and room had to be made.

The old fighting Swenson was decommissioned and struck from the Naval List 1 February 1974, just shy of her 30th birthday.

In addition to the Navy Unit Commendation, the ship earned the following awards: American Campaign, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign (with 5 battle stars), World War II Victory, Navy Occupation Service, China Service, National Defense Service, Korean Service (with 6 battle stars), Armed Forces Expeditionary, Vietnam Service (with 10 stars), United Nations Service, Philippine Liberation (with one star), Korean Presidential Unit Citation, and Republic of Vietnam Campaign.

A dozen of the Sumner-class destroyers were sold to the Republic of China (Taiwan) between 1969-1974, with Swenson being one of the last to go. She was never recommissioned into the ROC navy, being used as a floating source of spare parts.

Finally by the 1990s she was scrapped. However there are undoubtedly parts from her that still remain afloat on the USS Taussig, which since 1970 served Taiwan as the as Lo Yang (DD-14). Since 2000, that hardy old tin can, the last of her class still in military service, has been semi-preserved as a floating museum at Cijin Port, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

The only Sumner class destroyer in the U.S is the USS Laffey DD-724. Known as the “Ship that would not die” Laffey survived a swarm of 22 kamikazes during WWII and served alongside Swenson at Inchon in 1950. She is preserved as memorial and berthed at Patriot’s Point, Charleston, South Carolina.

Please visit her when you get a chance.

The former crew-members of the might Swenson have their own reunion site and at http://www.dd729.com/ which supplied many of the images here.

Specs:

(Off Mare Island 1945)

(As built)
Displacement: 2,200 tons (3500-fl)
Length: 376 ft 6 in (114.8 m)
Beam: 40 ft (12.2 m)
Draft: 15 ft 8 in (4.8 m)
Propulsion: 60,000 shp (45 MW);
2 propellers
Speed: 34 knots (63 km/h)
Range: 6500 nmi. (12,000 km) @ 15 kt
Complement: 336
Armament: 6 × 5 in./38 guns (12 cm),
12 × 40mm AA guns,
11 × 20mm AA guns,
10 × 21 in. torpedo tubes,
6 × depth charge projectors,
2 × depth charge tracks

After FRAM II: (1960)
6 × 5 in/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 3 × 2 Mk 38 DP mounts)
2 × triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes
1 × Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH)
Variable Depth Sonar (VDS), ALR-1 EW suite
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 18, The Opening shot of the old subkiller

Posted on June 18, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 12 comments

Warship Wednesday June 18, The Opening shot of the old subkiller

click to bigup

Here we see the old Wickes-class destroyer, USS Ward (DD-139/APD-16), with her No.3 4-inch MK9 gun dropping it like its hot on an unidentified submarine contact trailing the 11450-ton auxiliary USS Antares (AG-10/AKS-3) into Pearl Harbor on the early morning of December 7, 1941.

Ward had an eventful life to say the least.

Built as one of the 111-ship Wickes-class, she was one of the iconic ‘Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) WS Sims. Beamy ships with a flush-deck, a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide a blistering 35.3-knots designed speed, which is still considered fast today, nearly 100 years later. The teeth of these 314-foot, 1250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK9 naval rifles and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.

They had short legs and were very wet, which made long-range operations a problem, but they gave a good account of themselves. Originally a class of 50 was authorized in 1916, but once the U.S entered WWI in April 1917, this was soon increased and increased again to some 111 ships built by 1920.

Ward was a warbaby. Laid down at Mare Island Navy Yard in San Fransisco on 15 May 1918, she was commissioned just 109 days later on 24 July.

USS WARD NH-50261 Mare Island 1918

Her service in World War One was brief, the war basically ending just weeks after she was transferred to the Atlantic. She did, however, help escort the four NC flying boats that crossed the Atlantic the following year.

Like most of the Wickes-class boats, she was soon laid up due to the shortage of real live shooting wars in the 1920s. By July 1921 Ward was on read-lead row.

During this time, the 111-ship class was reduced with several ships being lost in accidents, scrapped, or sunk as targets. In 1940, 27 of the class were transferred to Britain and Canada as part of the famous “Bases for Destroyers” deal. Then in 1941, with the new war coming, Uncle Sam started knocking the rust off his old four-pipers and bringing them back into service.

With that, Ward was recommissioned 15 January 1941. Since the Navy was short on man-power, the ship was crewed in large part by citizen sailors of the St Paul Division of the Minnesota Naval Militia.

As part of the increasing naval presence in Hawaii, the 23-year old, low mileage destroyer with her now active-reserve crew was sent to Pearl Harbor to patrol the coastline for unauthorized intruders. Her skipper was Lt.Cmdr. William Woodward Outerbridge (USNA 1927), on his first command.

It was then at 03:57 on Sunday Morning, 7 December 1941, that the Ward, on patrol outside of the peaceful harbor at Pearl, was alerted to a periscope sighting from the 85-foot long Coast Guard manned converted wooden-hulled purse seiner USS Condor. After going to battle stations and alerting Pearl, Ward spotted a periscope of unknown origin trying to sneak in past the harbor nets at about 0630. Her No.3 gun crew opened fire on the intruder, which later turned out to be Type A Ko-hyoteki-class submarine No.20 of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Several of the 4-inch shells from the gun penetrated the conning tower of the midget sub, while depth charges lifted the tiny craft out of the water before she plummeted to a depth of 1200-feet where she lay on the seafloor and was found 3-miles from Pearl Harbor by a University of Hawaii research submersible on 28 August 2002.

For more than 50-years, it was claimed by many naysayers that Ward sank nothing on Dec 7th, then when the University of Hawaii found Midget Submarine No.20 with Ward‘s shell holes through her in 2002, they could naysay-nolonger.

The Ward had fired the first U.S. shots of World War Two and tragically, although they were an hour and a half before waves of Japanese carrier planes came in low over Battleship Row, the fleet was not properly alerted.

“A Shot for Posterity — The USS Ward’s number three gun and its crew-cited for firing the first shot the day of Japan’s raid on Hawaii. Operating as part of the inshore patrol early in the morning of December 7, 1941, this destroyer group spotted a submarine outside Pearl Harbor, opened fire and sank her. Crew members are R.H. Knapp – BM2c – Gun Captain, C.W. Fenton – Sea1c – Pointer, R.B. Nolde – Sea1c – Trainer, A.A. De Demagall – Sea1c – No. 1 Loader, D.W. Gruening – Sea1c – No. 2 Loader, J.A. Paick – Sea1c – No. 3 Loader, H.P. Flanagan – Sea1c – No. 4 Loader, E.J. Bakret – GM3c – Gunners Mate, K.C.J. Lasch – Cox – Sightsetter.”

Shell hole in conning tower of Japanese Type A Ko-Hyoteki two-man submarine, raised after the sub had been shelled and sunk during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor.

With the changing pace of the new naval war, the Ward, as was most of her class, was converted to other uses, being too small for fleet work. She lost her 4-inch guns, which went on to equip armed merchant ships, as well as her torpedo tubes. Also leaving were half of her boilers, which dropped her speed down to 25-knots. She was given a trio of newer high-angle 3-inch/50 guns, one 40 mm AA gun, and five 20 mm AA guns, and the capability to carry up to 300 marines or soldiers for a brief period of time. In this new role, she was re-designated as a high-speed amphibious transport (APD-16). Where her torpedo tubes once were, she now carried four 36foot LCP landing craft on davits.

Note just two funnels now, and with huge LCP’s amidships. The 3-inch gun forward looks tiny compared to the old 4-inch MK9s.

These conversions had a hard war. They transported troops to beachheads, served as escorts for transports and supply vessels, conducted anti-submarine patrols and survey duties, operated with Underwater Demolition Teams and commando units, performed messenger and transport duties, conveyed passengers and mail to and from forward units, and were involved in mine sweeping operations. Ward landed troops at Saidor, Nissan Island, Emirau, Aitape, Biak, Cape Sansapor, Morotai, Dinagat Island, Ormac Bay, and others.

“Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea, falls to the Allied Forces, July 30, 1944. One might almost say – Sansapor falls to the boys from St. Paul, Minn. – as all but two of these men come from that city and the entire group has shipped together since Pearl Harbor, with the actions and results shown on their banner. As a matter of fact, they are believed to have fired the first offensive shot of the war in the Pacific, while on patrol against Japanese subs.” Note the more than a dozen landings credited on the scoreboard on the left side as well as two subs and several planes. They are L/R: (bottom row) J.L. Spratt, MM2/c; A.J. Fink, CM2/c; O.S. Ethier, MM1/c; C.W. Fenton, BM1/c; D.R. Pepin, SM1/c; J.G. LeClair; SOM2/c; F.V. Huges, SOM2/c. (Top Row) R.B. Nolde, SF1c; W.G. Grip, BM2c; H.F. Germarin, S1c; H.J. Harris, MM1c; H.K. Paynter, CMoMM; J.K. Lovsted, CMMM; W.H. Duval, CCS, (of San Diego); I.E. Holley, CSK (of Los Angeles); W.S. Lehner, SC1c; F.J. Bukrey, CM1c; and F.L. Fratta, MM1c.”

It was off of Ormac in the Philippines that the Ward, with only her naval crew aboard, was attacked by a kamikaze.

Ward (APD-16, ex-DD-139) on fire after she was hit by a “Kamikaze” in Ormoc Bay, Leyte, 7 December 1944

On December 7th, 1944. Three years exactly from Pearl Harbor day.

A 314-foot ship is not designed to withstand a direct impact from a loaded fighter-bomber, and soon she was fully involved. Her crew abandoned ship and the newly built Allen Sumner-class destroyer USS O’Brien (DD-725), recently transferred to the Pacific after dropping it while it was hot on the Germans on Normandy on D-Day, administered the coup de grace.

Another amazing coincidence, O’Brien‘s skipper on that day was now-Commander William Woodward Outerbridge, who helmed Ward three years before.

In another turn, O’Brien herself would later be sunk as a target by U.S ships off California on 13 July 1972 at the end of her service life. Outerbrigde retired from the Navy in 1957 as a Rear Admiral after thirty years of service, taking his last breath on September 20, 1986.

Today no Wickes-class tin can survives. The last one afloat, USS Maddox (DD–168), was scrapped in 1952 after serving in the US, then RN, then Canadian, then Soviet navies.

One of the class, the USS Walker (DD-163), has been given new life in the excellent alternate history series Destroyermen written by Taylor Anderson.

However, it should be noted that Ward‘s famous gun No.3 still exists, saved from going down with the ship by virtue of it being replaced during the war with more modern ordnance.

Preserved in the Twin Cities area, it was presented to the state in 1958 by the Navy in honor of her Minnesota reservist guncrew on Dec.7, 1941. It is located on the grounds of the Veterans Service Building in St. Paul.

Specs:

(As built)
Displacement: 1,247 long tons (1,267 t)
Length:    314 ft 4 in (95.81 m)
Beam:    30 ft 11 in (9.42 m)
Draft:    9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
Propulsion:    2 × geared steam turbines, 2 × shafts
Speed:    35 kn (65 km/h; 40 mph)
Complement:    231 officers and enlisted
Armament:    4 × 4 in (100 mm)/50 cal guns
2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal anti-aircraft guns
12 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes (4×3)

(1942)
Displacement: 1,247 long tons (1,267 t)
Length:    314 ft 4 in (95.81 m)
Beam:    30 ft 11 in (9.42 m)
Draft:    9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
Propulsion:    2 × geared steam turbines, 2 × shafts
Speed:    25kn
Complement: 180 officers and enlisted, upto 300 troops for short periods
Armament:    3x3inch/50
One 40mm bofors
Five 20mm OK

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 11, The other battleship New Jersey

Posted on June 11, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday June 11, The other battleship New Jersey

Here we see the early Virginia-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS New Jersey (BB-16) in 1907, on the eve of that ship’s voyage as part of Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet. Most often when people think of a battleship named for the Garden State, the classic Iowa-class BB-62 ship comes to mind immediately. However, there was also BB-16, and her story, which saw a lot less action than the ship that would later carry on the name, is no less intriguing.

The Virginia class was one of the first ocean-going battleships of the newly emergent sea-power that was the United States Navy, built on earlier experience with the Kearsarge, Illinois, and Maine classes. Like the Kearsarge, they were given superimposed main and secondary armament turrets, which cut down on weight but hampered both batteries when in action and limited their range. Some 441-feet long and with a 15,000-ton displacement, they were of average size for pre-dreadnought battleships and are comparable to a large destroyer today (paging the Zumwalt…). She was fast for her time, able to touch 20-knots with her 12-boiler steam plant pushing twin engines/shafts/screws. At the time of the class design, they were the first U.S-made ships to carry Krupp armor, and they had up to 12-inches of it in the turrets.

She was a New England-made ship through and through, being built at Fore River Shipbuilding Company, Quincy, Massachusetts. She was commissioned 11 May 1906 and soon joined the fleet. After a brief tour of the Caribbean, including laying at anchor in Havana as a reminder of who controlled the purse strings of that country at the time, New Jersey became part of the 15-month epic voyage that was the Great White Fleet.

She, and three of her Virginia-class sister-ships, made up the Second Division of that fleet which was commanded by Rear Admiral William H. Emory (yes, the same guy that the destroyer tender was named after). The combined force of 16 battleships, supported by nearly forty coalers and a host of auxiliary craft, left Hampton Roads 16 Dec 1907, then, 43,000 nautical miles and twenty port calls on six continents later, arrived back there on 22 February 1909, just in time to be join the International fleet review as part of the 1909 Hudson-Fulton exhibition.

USS New Jersey (BB-16) In a China Sea typhoon, during the “Great White Fleet’s” cruise around the World, 1908. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1967.

Of course, this placed most of the U.S. fleet out of service and away from the continent for over a year, but it taught the growing steam navy how to operate on a global basis.

New Jersey at the 1909 Hudson-Fulton International Fleet review in New York. Note the more warlike haze gray scheme the navy switched to after the return of the Great White Fleet

After spending most of 1910 out of commission, her crew being sent to man new, more modern battleships coming down the ways. Recommissioned 15 July 1911, she was soon landing naval parties in Mexico in 1914 during the Tampico incident and from there to support US Marines in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

When the US entered WWI in 1917, she spent the conflict escorting the occasional coastal convoy, camouflaged in a special pattern. However her main contribution was in training gunnery crews. Once the conflict ended, she made no less than four trips to Europe to carry dough boys back home from ‘over there’, transporting no less than 5000 US Army troops.

At the end of the war, the Navy deemed her surplus, decommissioning the mighty NJ 6 August 1920. Once the various series of Naval Limitations treaties started to be negotiated, she was stricken from the Navy List so that her tonnage could not be counted against precious battleship totals.

Turned over to the War Department for use by the Army, both New Jersey and her sister ship Virginia were towed to Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras NC in Sept. 1923. There, lumbering Army Air Corps MB-2 bombers under Brig. Gen Billy Mitchell subjected New Jersey to a series of bombing runs of 600 lb bombs that left the ship damaged and taking on water. Focus was then shifted to Virginia and, after she was sunk, returned to New Jersey. The ship was subjected to further attacks until she took what is likely a fatal bomb hit just aft her main mast and sank in the afternoon.

Infograph of New Jersey, from the Courier-Post Online

The wreck lies upside down in a section of ocean where currents keep her scoured clean of marine life 355 feet down.

Specs:

Displacement: 14,948 tons (13,561 tonnes)
Length: 441 ft 3 in (134.49 m)
Beam: 76 ft 3 in (23.24 m)
Draft: 23 ft 9 in (7.24 m)
Speed: 19 kn (22 mph; 35 km/h)
Complement: 812 officers and men
Armament:

4 × 12 in (300 mm)/40 cal guns
8 × 8 in (200 mm)/45 cal guns
12 × 6 in (150 mm)/50 cal guns
4 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes

Armor:

Belt: 6–11 in (152–279 mm)
Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
Turrets (main): 6–12 in (152–305 mm)
Turrets (secondary): 4–12 in (102–305 mm)
Conning tower: 9 in (229 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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

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 4, the guardian angel of Omaha Beach

Posted on June 4, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Here at LSOZI, we will take off every Wednesday to look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and 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 4, the guardian angel of Omaha Beach

“The Battle for Fox Green Beach,” watercolor by Dwight Shepler, showing the Gleaves class destroyer USS Emmons(DD 457) foreground and her sister-ship, the USS Doyle, to the right, within a few hundred yards of the landing beach, mixing it up with German shore batteries on D-Day

Here we see the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Doyle (DD-494/DMS-34) along Fox Green landing area on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The Gleaves class is an unsung group of some 62 destroyers who began construction pre-WWII and completed into the first stage of the war. With the huge building of the follow-on Fletcher- and Sumner-class destroyers, the Gleaves are often forgotten. What should never be forgotten is the sacrifice these ships made, with no less than 11 of the class lost during WWII.

Built by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Doyle was laid down six months before Pearl Harbor and commissioned 27 January 1943, at the height of both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in the Pacific. It was decided that the ship, with her 11-foot draft, was desperately needed in the Atlantic for something the brass had brewing, and she arrived, after a stint in anti-submarine patrols, in British waters in early 1944. There, on June 5, 1944, she found herself sailing across the channel as part of the biggest amphibious invasion ever.

On D-Day, 70-years ago this week, the Doyle, was part of DESRON 18, under the overall command of Captain Harry Sanders. Consisting of the destroyers USS Frankfort (with Sanders aboard), USS Carmick, USS McCook, USS Emmons, and USS Thompson along with Doyle, these six hardy ships stood close by as the troops of the 29th Infantry Division and Big Red One, as depicted in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, moved ashore in their landing craft on Omaha Beach.

The idea was that specially equipped tanks would come ashore and roll over the German positions. However, just a handful of these amphibious equipped tanks made it ashore. To make matters worse, some of the coxswains of the landing craft missed got turned around in the smoke and haze, and landed their troops at the wrong points. Some of the scariest moments were on Dog Beach, where the exits from the beachhead, Dog 1, the Vierville draw, were in fierce defilade of the German positions along the bluff overlooking the water.

It was murder.

Doyle‘s day started with this log entry,

0630: “‘H’ hour. Commenced indirect fire on target … to aid in clearing beach exit now completely obscured by smoke and dust.”

Soon the squadron was ordered to ceasefire for fear of hitting US forces moving ashore.

At 0830, violating a cease-fire order, USS Carmick opened up on the German positions with her 5-inch guns and within thirty minutes, the other ships of DESRON 18, under Sanders’ order, closed in as close as they could with the beachhead to plaster the lines. Among the ships that made it closest to shore, almost scraping bottom, was USS Doyle. She made it so close inshore, in fact, that her light AAA guns were able to pepper the German positions as well.

Doyle, as with the other destroyers, moved along Omaha, working her way where she was needed. These are selections from her log entries that day:

1100: “Stopped 800 yards off beach Easy Red. Observed enemy machine gun emplacement on side of steep hill at west end of beach Fox Red, enfilading landing beach. Fired two half [two-gun] salvos. Target destroyed. Shifted fire to casemate at top of hill, fired two half salvos, target destroyed. Army troops begin slow advance uphill from beach. Maneuvering ship to stay in position against current which is running west at 2.8 knots. Flood tide.”

With this, Doyle reported that Exit F-1 from Fox Red beach was open.

Can you imagine a 1,600-ton, 348-foot long ship just 800 yards offshore? Spitting fire from everything that could be manned…

1355: “Observed guns firing from trees on hill-top to eastward of landing area [Fox Red] …. Fired four full salvos. All shots burst in vicinity of target area.”

1957: “Observed enemy soldiers manning abandoned machine gun nest on hill to eastward of landing beaches. Fired three salvos, men and gun emplacement destroyed.”

2109: “Splashes, probably from 75MM shells, seen on both bows close aboard, about 25 to 50 yards. Gun flashes seen from German Patrol boat inside [Port-en-Bessin] breakwater previously fired on. Opened fire with full salvos, covered area around boat. Direct hits impossible because of sea wall. … Enemy troops … in vicinity of boat seen abandoning positions.”

In all that day the little destroyer fired: “558 rounds of 5″ A.A. common, 156 rounds of 5″ common dye loaded ammunition [projectiles carrying a colored dye for use in spotting fall of shot]. No casualties to personnel or to any of ship’s equipment.”

For the next 64 hours, as retold in a period piece in Yank, Doyle pounded shore batteries, targets of opportunity, filled fire support requests from naval shore parties inland, dodged near misses from Messerschmitt Me 110s and torpedoes from unseen enemies while recovering 37 survivors from shot up landing craft.

Not all the destroyers on D-Day were as lucky. Doyle‘s sister ship, USS Corry (DD-463), was sunk off Utah Beach by German shore batteries in dramatic action.

Another unsung hero of D-Day was the USS Emmons, who fired nearly twice the ammunition that Doyle did that day. Emmons would meet her end within a year at the hands of a Japanese kamikaze.

In a postwar essay written by William B. Kirkland Jr., the WWII gunnery officer on Doyle, the following was noted:

“DESRON 18 never failed in its duty at Normandy or Omaha beach might have been lost, and it wasn’t. It is hard to say how many more graves would have been filled, and how the invasion of Fortress Europe would have fared, without the efficient and effective performance of these nine destroyers. There is no doubt that DESRON 18 cracked the German wall at Omaha Beach in actions above and beyond the call of duty. The ships and sailors who manned them deserve to be better remembered.”

Force O’s ammo consumption on D-Day, note that the destroyers at the bottom were producing the same volume of fire as much larger cruisers

Nevertheless, Doyle had more history to make and was on the move again just days after D-Day.

Within short order, she found herself covering the landings in Southern France and finished the war in Europe by escorting convoys.

Converted to a fast minesweeper (any ship can be a minesweeper at least once!) in June 1945, she was transferred to the Pacific to take part in the coming epic invasion of the Japanese home islands. This conversion removed one of her 5-inch mounts, the torpedo tubes, took her depth charge racks, and repositioned forward from the stern and angled outboard, and saw her stern modified to support minesweeping gear including a myriad of davits, winches, paravanes, extra generators, and kites.

However, by the time she made it, the war had ended. For the next several years she quietly performed occupation duty and saw much of the now-quiet Pacific.

Then came 1950.

When the North Koreans came screaming across the 38th Parallel into South Korea in June 1950, Doyle was immediately dispatched. She was visions of D-Day when she helped cover landings by ROK forces along the peninsula as well as supporting covert operations by commando units. As a minesweeper she helped clear invasion landings near Wonsan and Hungnam, remaining in Korean waters until the
end of open hostilities in 1953. A very busy ship, she earned six battle stars in Korea.

She was decommissioned in the states on 19 May 1955, the Navy having enough of the more modern Fletcher-class destroyers that the slightly smaller and older Gleaves-class were no longer needed. Retained in mothballs for 25 years, she was struck from the Navy List 1 December 1970 and broken up two years later for the value of her scrap.

Specs:

(As built)
Displacement:    1,630 tons
Length:    348 ft 3 in (106.15 m)
Beam:       36 ft 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft:       13 ft 2 in (4.01 m)
Propulsion:    50,000 shp (37,000 kW) (37 MW);
4 boilers;
2 propellers
Speed:    37.4 knots (69 km/h)
Range:    6,500 nautical miles at 12 kt
(12,000 km at 22 km/h)
Complement:    16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament:
4 × 5 in/38 cal guns (1 deleted in 1945)
4 x 40mm Bofors in two twin mounts.
7 x 20mm Oerlikon in single mounts.
Torpedo Tubes: 5 x 21-inch in one quintuple mount. (deleted in 1945)
ASW: 2 tracks for 600-lb. charges; 6 “K”-gun projectors for 300-lb. charges.

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 May 28, The Great Italian Count

Posted on May 29, 2014 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday May 28, The Great Italian Count

Here we see the pride of the 20th Century Royal Italian Navy (the Regia Marina), His Majesty’s battleship Conte di Cavour. Named after the first Prime Minister of a unified modern Italy, Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, of Isolabella and of Leri, who was also the first Italian Minister of the Navy, the ship was to be the Regia Marina’s notice to all that the country was a legitimate naval power.

The good Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour.

Laid down 10 August 1910 at the La Spezia Arsenale, she was the lead ship of a class of new dreadnought-style ships for Italy. With a 25,000-ton displacement, 577-foot length, and 21-knot speed, she was comparable in size to battleships of the day. Equipped with good British Parsons steam turbines, and 20 boilers, she was reliable underway. Her armament of a baker’s dozen 12-inch guns, was designed with the help of Armstrong Whitworth and Vickers.

These were arranged in an odd five turret plan of three triple-gun turrets and two twin-gun turrets, was formidable while her 5-11 inches of locally made Terni cemented armor (crafted from U.S. steel and nickel) was sufficient for all but close combat from the most modern battleships.

At the time she was constructed, Italy’s biggest rival in the Med was France, who had just built a series of Courbet-class battleships of some 25,000 tons with up to 11-inches of armor, a 21-knot speed (also powered by British Parsons steam turbines), and 12x12-inch guns– which could be why the Italians insisted on having 13!

Delayed by the Italo-Turkish war, she took nearly a half decade to complete, being commissioned 1 April 1915, just in time for Italy’s entrance into World War One– as an ally of France. Nevertheless, she spent that war as the flagship of the Navy, calmly waiting for the Austrian fleet to sortie out into the Adriatic, which never happened. Two sisters, Leonardo da Vinci and Giulio Cesare would soon follow her down the ways although da Vinci suffered a catastrophic accidental magazine explosion in 1916 that destroyed her.

When the war ended, Cavour was something of a happy ambassador, embarking King Emmanuel III and his family on occasion and conducting extended sorties to the United States . She did however fire her guns in anger during the 1923 Corfu Incident, in which her tertiary battery bombarded the island during an Italian occupation. You see good old Mussolini was in power by then, and looking for trouble.

Laid up from 1927 until 1937 at Trieste (recently seized from the scraps of the Austrian empire), Cavour was extensively rebuilt under the orders of Generale del Genio navale Francesco Rotundi.

When she emerged from this decade of slumber, she had a thoroughly new look, as well as a new power-plant of eight superheated Yarrow oil-fired boilers (fueled by Libyan oil wells Italy had wrested away from the Ottomans in 1911). This made the old ship new aging, extending her range by a factor of 50 percent while increasing her speed to over 27-knots at a full clip. To accommodate the weight of more armor, the center triple 12-inch turret was removed, bringing her broadside down to 10 guns rather than 13. She was recommissioned 1 June 1937.

Soon, Mussolini had her clocking in to pay for all the recent improvements by covering the Italian invasion of hapless Albania in 1938. That same year, the Cavour served as the reviewing stand for both the chubby Benito and his stubby homie Adolf in a grand review of the Regina Marina at Naples.

Conte di Cavour, with the Duce and Hitler on the stern in Naples watching the torpediniera Cassiopea pass close in review.

When Italy entered WWII on the side of Hitler in 1940, both Cavour and her similarly rebuilt sister Cesare were soon mixing it up with the British Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet with the two trading long-range shots with HMS Malaya and HMS Warsprite at the Battle of Punto Stilo.

This uneventful combat was to be her greatest moment, as the Brits soon decided to make sure the Italian surface fleet was marginalized.

Then late on the night of 11 November 1940, a group of just 21 British Swordfish torpedo bombers penetrated the Italian anchorage at Taranto and sank Cavour along with three other battleships with well-placed torpedoes. Note that this was a full year before Pearl Harbor.

‘Taranto Harbour, Swordfish from Illustrious Cripple the Italian Fleet, 11 November 1940′ by Charles David Cobb. Painting in collection of National Museum

She spent the rest of the war in a state of salvage and repair but was never returned to service. During this time first the Germans then the Americans captured the derelict ship which was finally scrapped in 1946.
Specs:

Note the center turret

(As built)
Displacement: 23,088 long tons (23,458 t) (standard)
25,086 long tons (25,489 t) (deep load)
Length: 176 m (577 ft 5 in) (o/a)
Beam: 28 m (91 ft 10 in)
Draught: 9.3 m (30 ft 6 in)
Installed power: 30,700–32,800 shp (22,900–24,500 kW)
20 × Water-tube boilers
Propulsion: 4 × Shafts
4 × Steam turbines
Speed: 21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph)
Range: 4,800 nmi (8,900 km; 5,500 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 31 officers and 969 enlisted men
Armament:

3 × triple, 2 × twin 305 mm (12 in) guns
18 × single 120 mm (4.7 in) guns
14 × single 76.2 mm (3 in) guns
3 × 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes

Armor:

Waterline belt: 250–130 mm (9.8–5.1 in)
Deck: 24–40 mm (0.9–1.6 in)
Gun turrets: 280–240 mm (11.0–9.4 in)
Barbettes: 230–130 mm (9.1–5.1 in)
Conning towers: 280–180 mm (11.0–7.1 in)

….and no center turret

(after reconstruction)
Displacement: 29,100 long tons (29,600 t) (deep load)
Length: 186.4 m (611 ft 7 in)
Beam: 33.1 m (108 ft 7 in)
Installed power: 75,000 shp (56,000 kW)
8 × Yarrow boilers
Propulsion: 2 × Shafts
2 × Geared steam turbines
Speed: 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph)
Range: 6,400 nmi (11,900 km; 7,400 mi) at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Complement: 1,260
Armament:

2 × triple, 2 × twin 320 mm (12.6 in)
6 × twin 120 mm (4.7 in)
4 × twin 100 mm (3.9 in) AA guns

Armor: Deck: 166–135 mm (6.5–5.3 in)
Barbettes: 280–130 mm (11.0–5.1 in)
Aircraft: 1-2 Macchi M.18 seaplanes

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!

« Older Entries Recent Entries »

laststandonzombieisland

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

Tag Archives: vintage warships

Warship Wednesday July 30th, 150th Anniversary of the Great Tennessee

Like this:

Warship Wednesday July 23, Jules Verne, Meet the U.S. Navy

Like this:

Warship Wednesday July 16, Coast Guard Saladbar holder, The Mighty Spencer

Like this:

Warship Wednesday July 9, Italian spaghetti and midget meatballs.

Like this:

Warship Wednesday July 2 Helen’s daughter

Like this:

Warship Wednesday June 25, The Fighting Swenson

Like this:

Warship Wednesday June 18, The Opening shot of the old subkiller

Like this:

Warship Wednesday June 11, The other battleship New Jersey

Like this:

Warship Wednesday June 4, the guardian angel of Omaha Beach

Like this:

Warship Wednesday May 28, The Great Italian Count

Like this:

Tag Archives: vintage warships

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: