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Warship Wednesday: Aug 8, 2013, The Lost Wake

Posted on August 7, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday: Aug 8, 2013

Here we see the river gunboat USS Guam steaming down the Yangtze river in old China. Unlike most of Uncle’s warships, she never once sailed US waters.

Built in China at the Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai specifically for the US Navy, she was one of the first new-built Chinese gunboats for the US. Uncle had for generations maintained a fleet of coastal and river gunboats in Chinese waters. These boats, immortalized in the book and film the Sand Pebbles, were known as the Yangtze Patrol (COMYANGPAT), after the huge river system they commonly haunted. The first modern patrol started in 1901, was with three captured Spanish shallow draft gunboats (USS Elcano, Villalobos, and Callao) that had previously been used in the Philippines. Two more gunboats, USS Palos and Monocacy, were built at Mare Island in California in 1913 and shipped across the Pacific. By 1926 these five boats were all worn out and the navy went shopping for replacements.

With dollars always short in the Navy budget, it just made sense to build these new boats in China, to save construction and shipping costs. These new ships consisted of two large 500-ton, 210-foot gunboats (USS Luzon and Mindanao); two medium-sized 450-ton, 191-foot boats (USS Oahu and Panay) and two small 350-ton, 159-foot boats (USS Guam and Tutuila).

Guam was commissioned 28 December 1927 and carried a designation as a patrol gunboat number 43 (PG-43), then reclassified the next year as patrol-boat, river, number 3 (PR-3) six months later. This change was due to the flat-bottom hulled craft being incapable of at-sea operations. Her 5-foot draft meant she could travel all over the inland river systems and she spent the next 14-years of her US Navy career doing so.

USS TUTUILA (PR-4) or USS GUAM (PR-3) Ship’s officers and crew, photographed at Hankow, China, on 14 July 1930. Note armored covers of bridge windows, awning frames, 3″/23 gun. Description: Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1977 Catalog #: NH 85840

She had a quiet life but it was exotic. Warlords, bandits, White Russian refugees, Communist rebels, and corrupt local governments changed every few miles along the river. By 1931, Japanese interests in the country meant a dangerous future for the Yangtze Patrol.

When Americans in China were in sticky situations from 1901-1941, this is how the brown-water sailors of the US Navy’s YANGPAT came ashore.

In December 1937, 12 Japanese fighter-bombers attacked and sunk the larger USS Panay in Nanking, China as the boat was evacuating Americans from the embattled city.

Ichang, China view taken 18 May 1937, showing USS GUAM (PR-3), moored astern of USS PANAY (PR-5) prior to their inspection by the Commander in Chief Asiatic Fleet. British river gunboat GANNET (1927) is in the background, seen above PANAY. Description: Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Yarnell, 1975 Catalog #: NH 81615

Following this incident tensions grew between the Japanese and US Navy ships in Chinese waters and Guam wandered around, decked in as many US flags as could be found, keeping quiet tabs. Just before Pearl Harbor, the four larger ships were withdrawn to the Philippines but Guam and her sister Tutuila were forced to remain behind, planned to be turned over to the Chinese.

On December 5, 1941, two days before the US entered WWII, COMYANGPAT was disbanded and the USS Guam renamed USS Wake earlier in the year, was the last US Navy ship in Chinese waters. Most of her crew had already left, transferred to the larger boats, and were in the Philippines. Just the captain and 14 crewmen remained aboard, destroyed vital papers, and wired the ship with scuttling charges.

On December 8, 1941, the USS Wake surrendered to the Japanese military as crack marines of the Special Naval Landing Force stormed the ship before news of Pearl Harbor reached the naval vessel. Trapped in a no-win situation at the start of WWII, her captain did what he could to ensure the safety of his sailors who were marched off into five years of Japanese imprisonment.

Capture of USS WAKE (PR-3), 8 December 1941 Japanese special naval landing force personnel celebrate after they captured USS WAKE on the first day of World War II in the Pacific. The Shanghai “Bund” is in the background. Description: Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Catalog #: NH 96568

Japanese naval infantrymen aboard a ship off Shanghai, China, 8 Dec 1941 note captured American flag, 1928 Thompson sub-machine guns, and 12 gauge M1897 Winchester riot guns, all likely from USS Wake

She is the only US Navy ship to surrender in modern times.

It is perhaps this fact that has kept the US Navy from commissioning another USS Wake. As of this date, there has never been another. The captain and two other men escaped confinement in 1944 and walked 700 miles to Allied lines.

The Japanese used her as a gunboat manned by their local Chinese surrogates under the name of Tatara. Surviving multiple US air raids during WWII, she was captured by the US Army in 1945 and given to the Nationalist Chinese who used her as the Tai Yuan.

In a final, and fitting chapter of her life, she was captured by Mao’s Red Chinese in 1949. They kept the old girl poking around until at least the late 1960s.

Her final disposition is unknown.

Specs:
Displacement: 350 long tons (360 t)
Length:    159 ft 5 in (48.59 m)
Beam:    27 ft 1 in (8.26 m)
Draft:    5 ft 3 in (1.60 m)
Installed power:    1,900 ihp (1,400 kW)
Propulsion:    2 × triple expansion steam engines
2 × screws
Speed:    14.5 kn (16.7 mph; 26.9 km/h)
Complement: 59
Armament:    1927: 2 × 3in guns (2×1) 8 × .30-06 Lewis machine guns (8×1), infantry weapons
1942: US-made 3″ guns replaced with Japanese 3″ AA guns.
Jan 1945 several Type 93 13.2mm M.G.s installed
1946 more light machineguns added. Presumably, refit with Soviet weapons in the 1950s.

Specs:
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, July 31 The Lost Pueblo

Posted on July 31, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 31

Here we see the humble technical research ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2 ) chugging across the seas in 1967.

In the 1960s the US Navy commissioned several of what were termed ‘auxiliary environmental research ships’ (AGER). Offically these ships wandered the seas conducting research into atmospheric and communications phenomena for the sake of science. This of course was a cover for soaking up juicy bits if SIGINT and ELINT from Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, and other ships at sea and shore inland.

These ships had a special system named Technical Research Ship Special Communications, or TRSSCOM (pronounced tress-com). This Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communications system used a special gyroscope-stabilized 16-foot parabolic antenna, in which Radio signals were transmitted toward the moon, where they would bounce back toward the Earth and be received by a large 64-foot parabolic antenna at a Naval Communications Station in Cheltenham, Maryland (near Washington, D.C.) or Wahiawa, Hawaii. Communications could occur only when the moon was visible simultaneously at the ship’s location and in Cheltenham or Wahiawa. The gyro stabilization of the antenna kept the antenna pointed at the moon while the ship rolled and pitched on the surface of the ocean.

Some 11 ships altogether were converted as spyships. Most were cargo ships, old Liberty and Victory, and C1-M-AV1 types which had high free board and lots of room for cargo which led to lots of space for spy gear (err…atmospheric instruments). Three of the 11 were small Army Freight Supply ships which were much lower to the surface of the ocean. The Army had used these boats (yes the Army has a fleet too) during WWII to resupply garrisons and bases strung all across Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. These ‘wackiest ships in the army’ were simple boats that could motor around little harbors and discharge drums of diesel, cases of C-rats, tents, toilet paper and ammo then head to the next port.

This is how the Pueblo looked when she served in the US Army during WWII

One of these three 177-foot Army ships transferred to the Navy for use as a spy (sorry, research) boat was Army Freight and Supply ship 344 (FS-344). Commissioned at New Orleans on 7 April 1945, she had a crew of USCGR officers who used the ship as a training boat for new sea-going Army sailors. Laid up she was brought back into service to shuttle cargo around during Korea. The Army, with a huge number of these boats in their possession, placed FS-344 in their version of mothballs in 1954. The Navy picked her up quietly in 1966, made a few simple improvements, added a lot of commo gear, and named her USS Pueblo.

commissioned into the USN on 13 May 1967, she carried a crew of navy and marine communications technicians on a mission in support of the National Security Agency. It should be remembered that the NSA didn’t officially exist as far as the public was concerned at the time and was commonly called ‘No Such Agency’ by those who did know. The ship was commissioned just three weeks before another intelligence gathering auxiliary, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5), was attacked in the Med on 8 June 1967 by the Israeli Defence Forces during the Six Day War. The Liberty was hit while in international waters off the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula and her armament of four M2 machineguns was outclassed against modern attack aircraft and three torpedo boats– an ominous harbinger for what the smaller Pueblo had in her future.

On January 23, 1968, as the Pueblo sat 15.4-miles off the North Korean coastline, she was approached at some 4000-yards by an unidentified Project 201M (“SO-1”) class Soviet made subchaser. This 1950s designed 138-foot patrol boat wasn’t very capable against submarines, but she did have a Reya (“Pot Head”) surface search radar with a 25nm range, a 57mm popgun, and some 23mm anti-aircraft guns. Worse, the Pueblo could only make 12-knots downhill with a tailwind while the commie subchaser could bust out 27.

Then four torpedo boats showed up and that’s when the wheels fell off. These boats were Chinese made P4 boats, an improvement of the old Soviet G5-class motor torpedo boat made during WWII from a hybrid British-Italian design. Only 63-feet long they could make over 55-knots on a pair of 1200hp engines and packed a twin 14.5mm heavy machineguns mount forward and a pair of 450mm torpedoes each. The PT boats had almost three times the horsepower as the 25-year old freighter and showed it.

The Pueblo could not outrun the subchaser and the four torpedo boats in anyone’s imagination. If she stood and fought it out, she only four M2 machineguns mounted on deck. While the old Ma Duece is a 12.7mm (50 cal) heavy, Pueblo’s were in no condition to fight. To appear as inoffensive as possible, they were slimed with CLP and covered by tarps (it was January in Korea guys, which means they were frozen) and their ammo was stored below deck. Only one bluejacket had a working knowledge of these guns and their were no Gunners Mate ratings aboard. Sure the nearly 1000-ton converted freighter could have tried to ram her way out of trouble against the smaller craft, but it would be like a turtle fighting four rabbits– armed with torpedoes.

Nevertheless the Pueblo maneuvered wildly and dodged Korean attempts to board her for over two hours, catching shellfire and 12.7mm rounds during the chase in her hull and superstructure. Repeated calls for assistance from the US fleet got no help and soon a pair of MIGs were circling the boat. Taking fire and with the torpedo boats taking the covers off of their tubes, it was a no-win situation. With no other option, the ship turned and followed the subchaser into North Korean waters where the crew was captured (one of which, Fireman Duane Hodges, was killed by a Korean shell) and held for 11 months. The ship’s captain, LCDR. Lloyd M. Bucher was wounded and later received the purple heart.

Anybody recognize the one-finger salute?

After much political passion play, the crew was finally released and walked over the DMZ in single file, leaving the Pueblo in North Korean hands. They endured 335 days of harsh imprisonment.

Hodges earned the silver star posthumously as did the ships Operations Officer, LTJG Schumacher. Six men earned Bronze stars for their actions. All crewmembers earned the Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal and the POW medal. One marine won the Navy Cross for his heroism during the internment as follows, “The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Sergeant Robert J. Hammond, United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism as a crew member of the U.S.S. PUEBLO (AGER-2) during their period of captivity in North Korea from 24 January to 23 December 1968.

Following his capture, Sergeant Hammond, through his unyielding resistance and fierce loyalty to his shipmates and his country, became a symbol of resistance, courage, and dedication to the United States. This infuriated the North Koreans, who singled him out for more frequent and far more severe brutalities than were administered to the other prisoners. When the North Koreans learned that the U.S.S. PUEBLO crew had duped them in their international propaganda efforts, they intensified their efforts to break the will and spirit of the crew through the administration of indiscriminate beatings. Realizing that many of his shipmates were in danger of being permanently injured or killed, Sergeant Hammond willingly attempted to sacrifice his own life in order that his shipmates might be spared further torture. The following day the North Koreans ceased their beatings and tortures. Sergeant Hammond’s devotion to duty and heroic actions against seemingly impossible odds reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.”

The writing was on the wall for the AGER/AGTR project and by 1970 the entire fleet had been taken offline.

The Pueblo herself has been kept in decent condition by her current possessors (the US Navy still ‘owns’ her and as such is still carried on the US Navy List as ‘In commission’). Her keel laid in 1944 she is the oldest commissioned warship in the US fleet at age 77 with only Old Ironsides having more history on her hull. From time to time the ship gets a new coat of paint and has been towed from one harbor to another, posing a very curious tourist attraction wherever it goes in the freedom loving Peoples Republic.

The Pueblo Veterans Assoc is keeping the lights on for her in the States . Perhaps she will return to the US one day.

Stranger things have happened.

Specs
Displacement: 550 tons light, 895 tons full, 345 tons dead
Length:    177 ft (53.9 m)
Beam:    32 ft (9.7 m)
Draft:    9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion:    twin 500hp GM Cleveland Division 6-278A 6-cyl V6 diesel engines
Speed:    12.7 knots (23.5 km/h)
Complement:    42 mariners as a cargo ship (had a 82 man crew in 1968 as a AGER)
Armament:    None as freighter, 4 × Browning .50-caliber machine guns as AGER

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, July 24 15000 tons of Japanese Firepower

Posted on July 24, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.
– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 24

This is the last thing you wanted to see steaming towards you if you were on a US destroyer in WWII

Here we see the Imperial Japanese Navy’s heavy cruiser HIJMS Takao with a bone in her teeth at high-speed. The Japanese had named her after the old 1880s era Takao, a 1700-ton cruiser that had served at the Battle of Weihaiwei against the Chinese and at Tsushima against the Russians. The new ship was one of the premier heavy cruiser designs of all time, the Takao was the lead ship of a 4-vessel class of very large all-gun warships. Designed in 1927 just after Japan nodded and winked at the London Naval Treaties and before the Washington Naval Treaty that limited cruiser size to 10,000 tons, the Takao class were a beast at almost 15,500-tons when fully combat loaded. Her and her sisters were fast (35-knots) and as such could outrun any battleship or battlecruiser in the world.

They were also heavily armed with ten 8-inch 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns, with a 70-degree elevation that was influenced by the British Royal Navy County class cruisers. The ten gun layout, in five twin turrets, was very distinctive. These guns could fire a 280-pound Type 91 armor-piercing (AP) shell to 18-miles, making short work of any smaller ship.

Takao had long legs and could cross the Pacific and back or sail to Europe on only the fuel in her bunkers. A staggering 80+ antiaircraft guns and 16 torpedo tubes made her a threat to both planes and ships. Those tubes carried Type 93 (Long Lance)
torpedoes, 2.8-ton 610mm wide steel fish almost 30-feet long that could travel 52-knots and deliver a 1,100 lb warhead to an enemy ship at ranges over ten miles away.

In short, she was 15,000 tons of bad dreams to the US, Australian, British, and Dutch navies when she was commissioned May 31, 1932. They had nothing like her.

When WWII started, she was everywhere:

IJN Takao in Action

In December 1941 she gave gunfire support for the Japanese landings at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon in the Philippines.
In early 1942 she fought in the Battle of the Java Sea, sinking the severely outclassed 1200-ton destroyer USS Pillsbury, four merchant ships, and the valiant 1500-ton Royal Australian Navy sloop HMAS Yarra.
During the Battle of Midway she was part of the Japanese diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands that ended with the capture (unopposed) of Attu and Kiska.
In August 1942, after bombarding Henderson Field, she survived the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in which she delivered rounds on target against the new US battleship South Dakota and fired torpedoes at the USS Washington while unsuccessfully supporting the old Japanese battlewagon Kirishima, and escaped without a scratch.

Then things started going bad for the Emperor’s ‘lucky’ cruiser. Dauntless dive bombers from the USS Saratoga, herself a converted battlecruiser, found Takao during the retreat from Guadalcanal and gave her a good licking in 1943. Then, in October 1944 while on her way to probably be sunk in the Philippines, she sucked up two torpedoes from the USS Darter, a a Gato-class submarine, which won Darter‘s commander, David Hayward McClintock, the Navy Cross and the sub a Navy Unit Commendation.

These hits made the Takao limp back to Singapore where she sat as a brooding hot mess for nine months as something of a fleet in being. Her guns still working, but her propulsion plant wrecked, she could still protect the occupied British colony city from Allied attack. There, in an attack codenamed Operation Struggle, a British XE-class submarine ended the Takao‘s war.

The XE-class was the same 53-foot long midget boats that sank the Tirpitz in Norway earlier in the war. In August 1945, HMS XE1 and XE3 executed a joint attack on Japanese warships within Singapore harbor. XE3 was tasked with mining the heavy cruiser Takao while XE1 was to attack the heavy cruiser Myōkō.

The approach of XE3 along the Straits of Johor and through the various harbour defences took 11 hours plus a further 2 hours to locate the camouflaged target. Despite several opportunities for Japanese defenders to spot the vessel, XE3 successfully reached the Takao, fixed six limpet mines and dropped its two, 2-ton side charges. The withdrawal was successfully made and XE3 safely contacted HMS Stygian, the escort submarine. Meanwhile the crew of XE1 had failed to find their target. Instead, and knowing that the explosives already laid could explode, XE1’s own charges were also laid under the Takao. XE1 escaped successfully just before the combined charges blew the Japanese cruiser’s bottom out. In all more than 8,000-pounds of charges were used against the cruiser, leaving her incapable of performing any task, the shock-wave having destroyed almost all of her internal machinery from gun hoists to rangefinders to navigation compasses.

The Japanese surrendered the completely wrecked hulk in September when the British returned to Singapore at the end of the war and her

remains were sunk at sea off the coast by the Colony-class light cruiser HMS Newfoundland in 1946. Her wreck lay in deep water today.

Specs:
Displacement:    9,850 tons (standard), 15,490 tons (full load)
Length:    waterline: 631.7 feet (192.54 m)
overall: 668.5 feet (203.76 m)
Beam:    59 ft (18 m) – 68 ft (21 m)
Draught:    20 ft (6.1 m) – 20.7 ft (6.3 m)
Propulsion:    4-shaft geared turbine, 12 Kampon boilers, 132,000 shp
Speed:    35½ knots – 34.2 knots (63.3 km/h)
Range:    8,500 nautical miles (15,740 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)
Complement:    773

Armament: original layout 1932:
ten 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (5×2)
four 4.7-inch high-angle guns (4×1)
eight 24-inch torpedo tubes (4×2)
two 40 mm AA guns (2×1)

(later, 1944)
ten 8-inch (203 mm) guns
eight 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns
66 × 25 mm AA guns
16 torpedo tubes

Armour: main belt: 1½” to 5″
main deck: 1⅜” (max)
upper deck: ½” to 1″
bulkheads: 3″ to 4″
turrets: 1″
Aircraft carried: 3 (1 Aichi E13A1 “Jake” & 2 F1M2 “Pete” seaplanes), 2 catapults.

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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Warship Wednesday, July 17 Frigate tuned Superyacht

Posted on July 17, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 17

Here we see the HMCS Stormont (Pennant number K327) of the Royal Canadian Navy having fun in the North Atlantic during WWII. She was one of 151-River class frigates built during the war for the Royal Navy and her Commonwealth allies. These hearty little escort ships held the line across the Atlantic, dropping depth charges and hedgehogs on every periscope sighting they could find.

She escorted convoys on the Murmansk run to the Kola Inlet and to Gibraltar. She also served as one of 57 RCN vessels to support Operation Neptune, the amphibious invasion of Normandy, France that were part of D-Day

After the war, the Stormont was not needed and she was stricken from the fleet on 9 November 1945 and placed in reserve for ten years.

: What a difference a coat of paint makes!

Sold for just $34,000 she became a personal yacht to a Greek shipping magnate Ari Onassis who converted her into the mega luxury yacht Christina, named after his daughter. The ship was luxuriously equipped as such and included a mosaic swimming pool which drained and rose to deck level to create a dance floor.

Ari, and later wife Jackie Kennedy-Onassis spent their best years onboard the vessel. For a time, after Ari died in 1975, the yacht was used by the Greek government as the President Yacht with a naval crew under the name Argo. By the 1990s she was back in civilian livery renamed the Christina O with Panamanian registry. She is currently for sale for $32.4 mill if you are interested . “The yacht can accommodate 34 guests and has a library, sports lounge, spa room and beauty salon. Yacht broker Nicholas Edmiston to the Associated Press that he thinks there are about 10 people who might want to buy the Christina O — are you one of them?”

Jackie and Ari on the Christina

Of the 151 Rivers, just the Stormont/Christina remains at sea. No less than 17 of the class were destroyed in combat between WWII and the Suez while the survivors served in no less than 22 navies as late as the 1980s. Only one, HMAS Diamantina, formerly of the Royal Australian Navy, is preserved as a museum ship at the Queensland Maritime Museum in Brisbane, Australia.

Specs (until 1946)
Displacement:    1,445 long tons (1,468 t; 1,618 short tons)
2,110 long tons (2,140 t; 2,360 short tons) (deep load)
Length:    283 ft (86.26 m) p/p
301.25 ft (91.82 m)o/a
Beam:    36.5 ft (11.13 m)
Draught:    9 ft (2.74 m); 13 ft (3.96 m) (deep load)
Propulsion:    2 x Admiralty 3-drum boilers, 2 shafts, reciprocating vertical triple expansion, 5,500 ihp (4,100 kW)
Speed:    20 knots (37.0 km/h)
20.5 knots (38.0 km/h) (turbine ships)
Range:    646 long tons (656 t; 724 short tons) oil fuel; 7,500 nautical miles (13,890 km) at 15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement:    157
Armament:

2 x QF 4 in (102 mm) /45 Mk. XVI on twin mount HA/LA Mk.XIX
1 x QF 12 pdr (3 in / 76 mm) 12 cwt /50 Mk. V on mounting HA/LA Mk.IX (not all ships)
8 x 20 mm QF Oerlikon A/A on twin mounts Mk.V
1 x Hedgehog 24 spigot A/S projector
up to 150 depth charges

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, July 10 Finding the Path

Posted on July 10, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 10.

Here we see USC&GSS Pathfinder, a classic ship from another age. Built on the lines of a clipper she lived through three naval wars and served the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for forty years, mapping most of the Philippines and ending her life as a wreck in her waters. She was built 1897-98 by the Crescent Shipyard at Morris Heights, New Jersey. Her architect was Lewis Nixon, a household name among fast yacht builders at the turn of the century. She was a three deck steel ship of extra strength built for work in the Aleutian Archipelago where strong currents, distances from supply bases required a vessel of considerable power and coal capacity.

She had 15 water tight compartments with dimensions of 196′ 3″ over all, 33′ 6″ beam, 19′ 8″ “depth of hold” and equipped for sea draws 13′. She is brigantine-rigged with some 4,500 square feet of canvas and a single, 10′ diameter 13′ pitch, screw. Her vertical triple expansion steam engines with twenty-eight inch stroke developed 846 horsepower or 1,173 horsepower under forced draft with a speed of 10.5 to 13 knots. Her range was estimated at about 5,000 miles with a bunker capacity of 240 tons of coal. She was entirely steel with three decks.

Although built for the USC&GS, the Spanish-American War intervened in her birth. In June 1898 the Navy took near-possesion of her and sailed her with a crew of 65 bluejackets lead by USC&GS officers (what today would be NOAA Ocean Service officers) and sailed her to Hampton Roads. There it was envisioned she could be converted to an armed auxiliary cruiser. Before this was done, the war ended and she continued to the Pacific as the USC&GSS Pathfinder and not the USS Pathfinder in 1899. She spent a year doing coastal survey work along the California, Alaskan and Hawaiian coasts before being sent to the new US possession of the Philippines.

Survey work involved several ship's launches moving in a line along with ashore teams equiped with surveyors tools for making precise measurements. Some of the charts made from surveys done by Pathfinder are still in use today.

Survey work involved several ship’s launches moving in a line along with ashore teams equipped with surveyors tools for making precise measurements. Without the work put in by this ship on a 40-year mission, the retaking of the Philippines by the US Navy in WWII would have been much harder. Some of the charts made from surveys done by Pathfinder (above) are still in use today.

With no reliable charts of the huge archipelago, the Pathfinder, meant for use in Alaska, spent four decades in the PI, combing every inch of shoreline. By 1910 she had a ‘submarine sentry’– a device which warned the crew when she was shoaling by a series of kites, as well as a refrigeration system and wireless; making her one of the most modern ships afloat.As her original crew retired, they were at first augmented then replaced by local Filipinos. By 1920 the entire ship, save for a handful of USC&GS officers, were natives.

The PATHFINDER in drydock at Kowloon, 1906. NOAA Photo

Over the years she was sometimes pressed into transporting Philippine Constabulary troops and US soldiers to fight against the lengthy insurgency along the islands.

The crew at least twice had a run in with pirates, was beached in wild typhoons, dodged the German raider Emden in WWI, and watched nervously as Japanese planes flew dangerously close to her in the 1930s. When World War Two erupted in the Pacific, the 42-year-old converted yacht chopped over to the Navy’s control and she found herself the target of Japanese bombs at Corregidor. Damaged beyond wartime repair, she was beached in a sinking condition and burned so that the Japanese could not salvage her.

Within a year, the USS Pathfinder AGS-1, the first US Navy oceanographic survey ship, replaced her and assumed her proud name. She served until 1972.

Currently the US Navy still maintains a survey ship named Pathfinder, the USNS Pathfinder (TAGS-60), a 4,762-ton ship that has been in commission since 1994.

Specs
Length:    196.25 ft (59.82 m)
Beam:    33.5 ft (10.2 m)
Draft:    13 ft (4.0 m)
Depth of hold:    19.66 ft (5.99 m)
Decks:    Three
Installed power:    Triple expansion steam engines developing 846 horsepower or 1,173 horsepower under forced draft
Sail plan:    Brigantine-rigged, 4,500 square feet of canvas
Speed:    10.5 to 13 knots
Range:    5,000 miles
Notes:    Specifically built for Alaska service

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization

(INRO)

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, July 3 The Kobenhavn Mystery

Posted on July 3, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 21 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, July 3

Here we see one of the Danish school ship København, one of the largest sailing ships ever built. She is also one of the most enduring mysteries of the sea. While not a naval vessel per-sae, she was a training vessel (Skoleskibet) for the EAC, the Danish East Asiatic Company, and as such many of her crew were on the Royal Danish Navy’s reserve list, her students often went into naval service, and the ship itself was liable to be taken up from trade for war service.

Thats over 40-sails…

The East Asiatic Company (EAC) (Danish: Det Østasiatiske Kompagni or ØK) was in Copenhagen in 1897, and the København was the crown jewel of their fleet when she was built. The company’s bread and butter was both passenger and freight lines between the Danish capital, Bangkok and the far east.

The København was a five masted barque-rigged sailing ship. At 430-feet long and 4,000-tons, the size of an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate of today, she was the world’s largest sailing ship at the time. She was laid down at Ramage & Fergusson, Leith, Scotland in 1913 as hull 242, but due to World War One, she was not finished until 1921. Between her five masts she carried 56,000 sq feet of canvas and had the figurehead of Danish Archbishop Absalon (Axel) gracing her bow.

She was an exemplary vessel, with her modern diesel 640 horsepower auxiliary engine conferring a distinct advantage over other barques that were purely sail-powered vessels. In the København’s eight-year history, it sailed nine voyages without incident, covering five continents. These voyages could last anything from 150 to 400 days each. She had sailed as much as 305 nautical miles under canvas in a single day– a speed under sail of over 12-knots. Her auxiliary diesel could plug the giant ship along at six knots.

sailors from Skoleskibet KØBENHAVN

While she could, and did carry cargo, her primary mission was to train merchant and naval cadets in a seagoing academy. As such youths from all walks of life walked her decks in nine successful long-term training cruises between 1921 and 1928, twice circling the globe.

Her final voyage carried 17 officers and 62 naval cadets. Its course was to be Denmark to Argentina to Australia and back. The first leg was successful, the ship leaving Buenos Ares on December 14, 1928. Eight days later, a final wireless message from her was received, stating that all was well.

On January 21, 1929 a British missionary school teacher, Philip Lindsay, assigned to the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha saw a wrecked sailing ship. He described it as a ghostly ship, five-masted, a white band around painted around the black hull, and apparently unmanned. She was under single jib. foresail and lower topsails, her foremast broken.The vessel was three miles out past the breakers and adrift, heading for the reefs of Cave Point with her stern awash. He saw her grow within 400-yards offshore, then lost sight of her as she drifted to the east. A few days later the locals observed wreckage scattered on the reef including miscellaneous boxes and a 30-foot flat-bottomed boat that they were unable to salvage before it was carried back out to sea. No bodies were found. The island is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying 2,816 kilometers (1,750 mi) from the nearest land, South Africa, and 3,360 kilometers (2,088 mi) from South America.

For two years, at least two expeditions funded by the government and the EAC searched for the Kobenhavn across both the Southern Pacific and Southern Atlantic oceans, finding nothing. A smaller expedition, privately chartered by the families of the lost cadets aboard the Norwegian yacht Ho Ho continued the search until at least 1932– with the same results. It was theorized that the Tristan da Cunha sighting was incorrect, attributing it to a similar ship (the Fench four master Ponape) that passed the area that day. Popular speculation was that the big Dane had been victim of a fire at sea, rouge wave, or iceberg.

Sightings of darkened five-masted sailing ships were reported off Chile, Polynesia, and other Pacific islands for years.

In 1934 a Finnish ship captain stated firmly that he found wreckage of the Kobenhavn along the Blight of Australia, a story that, if proved, would have put the ship towards the end of her 9700 mile trip from Buenos Aires to Australia. The wreckage included a piece of stern bearing the name “København“.

The same year, a passing Norwegian fishing vessel stopped at Bouvet Island, an uninhabited glacier covered no-mans-land populated by penguins and found a diary, allegedly written by a trainee aboard the Kobenhavn, stating that the ship had been destroyed by icebergs.

In September 1935, a smashed lifeboat with seven bleached skeletons was found on a desolate beach about 400 miles north of Swakopmund South Africa. While it wasn’t definitive that the survivors were from the Kobenhaven, the skulls were ‘nordic’ and uniforms and boat wreckage were described as being of Scandinavian origin. As the marooned sailors who reached shore landed in an area with no source of clean water, they are presumed to have died of dehydration.

This, taken with the diary found on Bouvet, and the stern found in Australia, gave the Danish school ship the dubious distinction of having her wreckage ‘found’ on three different continents over 10,000 miles.

In 2012, the wreck of a large sailing ship was found by divers off Cave Point in of Tristan da Cunha, near where the Kobenhaven was reportedly seen in January 1929. While it hasn’t been proven to be the mysterious Danish school ship, there is hope her fate will be found, closing the book on one of the most captivating tales of the sea.

(Note we have updated this post with more pictures at this link)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, June 26th Hems Subchaser

Posted on June 26, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, June 26th

Here we see the converted motor yacht Pilar as she appeared just before WWII. This boat had a very colorful history.

Bought by the great bearded man-card holder Ernest Miller Hemingway April 1934 from Wheeler Shipbuilding in Brooklyn, New York, for $7,495, the 38-foot two-engined Wheeler Playmate was delivered to Miami, Florida later that year. Pilar had a 70-hp Chrysler Crown gasoline engine reportedly capable of generating a cruise speed of 8 knots and a top speed of 16 knots. Coupled with six bunks, double rudders, and, with 300 gallons of water, 2,400 pounds of ice, and cruising range of 500 miles, it was a pretty capable boat. To this, Hemingway added a separate, straight-shaft Lycoming four-cylinder gasoline engine for trolling at 5 knots (with an economical fuel burn of 3 gph); flying bridge with steering/control station, bridge ladder, and bottle-stowage rack; and the set of outriggers and a fighting chair. In addition, there was a livewell with valves for filling and emptying; extra fuel-carrying capacity in four, 75-gallon galvanized tanks; two copper-lined fishboxes in the cockpit sole; and a long wooden roller mounted across a cut-down transom to facilitate hauling big fish aboard.
Old Hem used her to win just about every fishing rodeo across the Caribbean from 1935-41, only taking time off to go to the Spanish-Civil War. Named after his second wife, it was on the Pilar that Hemingway did the research into big game fishing that later came out in The Old Man and the Sea and other works.

It one incident in 1935, Hem took a Thompson submachine gun out and riddled a school of sharks who were eating on a 1000-pound marlin that he and painter Mike Strater were struggling to pull aboard. This only created an epic feeding frenzy that left the marlin ‘apple-cored’ with its entire back half eaten down to the spine.

Well when WWII rolled around, Hem, living in Finca Vigía in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, at the time, sprang into action. He organised friends and acquaintances, some of the notorious nature, into an intelligence gathering organization in Cuba he dubbed the ‘Crook Factory’– with the US ambassador’s blessing. Not content with his ad hoc intel work, Hem cooked up another plot.

With the permission of the ambassador and the loan of some HF/DF radio equipment, Hem outfitted the trusty Pilar as a sub chaser. The idea was to float around offshore as an innocent fishing vessel, tracking German U-boat radio communications, until said Nazi sub was spotted.

Hem never did catch that Uboat….(image by Gina Sanders from a 1934 picture of Hem in the JFK collection)

Then, wait til the dastardly submersible came close enough to unleash tommy guns and grenades on her boarding party and deck crew. If he got close enough, a short fuze explosive charge thought capable of scuttling a sub was to be thrown down the hatch of the U-boat.

His crew included his sons Patrick and Gregory as well as other volunteers. While the government supplied some equipment, Hemingway was using his own boat, filled with his own gas, and risking the lives of both himself and his family to bring the war to the Germans.

From the summer of 1942 until the end of 1943, although the Pilar did actually set out on U-boat patrols, and possibly even spotted one of them, Hem never did catch one. He did, however, drop a grenade down the throat of a mako shark caught during one of the patrols. Failing at grabbing a German by the coat at close range, he left Cuba for the European Theater of Operations as a war correspondent, going ashore just after the Normandy Invasions.

The original Pilar has been landlocked in Cuba for the past fifty years

The Pilar remained Hem’s pride and joy until he left Cuba in 1960, leaving it to one of the boat’s local captains, Carlos Gutierrez, who promptly donated it to the Cuban government. Today she sits as a shrine to Hemingway in Cuba and is a popular tourist attraction. Another Wheeler Playmate dressed up to look like the Pilar is on display at the Bass Pro Shop in Key West.

a mock up of the Pilar is at the Bass Pro Shop in Key West, adrift on tshirts

In the end, Hemingway, after losing the love of his life (Pilar) tripped both barrels of his favorite Boss shotgun into his head just a year later. Gutierrez, the inheritor of the beautiful woman, lived to be 104.

Boats have a funny way of doing that.

Specs
Length:    38 ft (12 m)
Beam:    12 ft 0 in (3.7 m)
Height:    17.5 ft (5.3 m)
Draught:    3 ft 6 in (1.1 m)
Installed power:
Main Engine – 70 HP Chrysler
Trolling Engine – 4 Cylinder Lycoming
Speed:    16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)

Armament : At least one M1921 Thompson submachine gun, a Colt 22 Woodsman pistol and a cut-down .30 Krag rifle (all in the Pilar‘s regular small arms locker owned by Hemingway) . An unmounted .50 caliber Browning on loan, ‘a handful of grenades’, scuttling charges, and some sources state, ‘a bazooka’.

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, June 19th Carriers Under the Sea

Posted on June 19, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, June 19th

Here we see the Sen Toku I-400-class (I-yonhyaku-gata Sensuikan) giant submarine aircraft carrier I-401 at sunset. It’s an appropriate picture as the submersible was at the time one of the last remaining units of the WWII Imperial Japanese Navy left afloat in the world. The IJN’s battle flag was the now-infamous Rising Sun, and this beautiful picture was taken of the I-401 at sunset, as a captured prize ship of the US Navy, sitting in Pearl Harbor in 1946.

In 1942, the war in the Pacific was still winnable for Japan, and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto conceived of a class of huge submersible warships, 18 overall, that could carry an armada of 54 submarine-launched attack floatplanes to attack far off strategic US targets such as the Panama Canal, or fuel manufacture/storage facilities on the West Coast, or logistical hubs like American Samoa. Furthermore, the ships would be capable of circumnavigating the earth 1.5 times (37,000 miles!) on one full load of fuel, which would enable even targets on the US East Coast within the reach of the Japanese Navy.

To make such a capable submarine in 1942 under wartime conditions was a challenge. Nevertheless, you have to admire the audacious plan. Each of these I-400 boats had to be some 400-feet long with a very wide beam to be able to carry and launch up to three combat airplanes. This gave them a displacement of some 6700 tons and an immense crew of over 140, including air wing. When you compare this to the subs of the time, they are super-sized. Even looking at today’s HY-80 steel nuclear propelled boats, the I-400s are larger than many of the modern hunter-killer of the sea. For example, the backbone of the US Navy since 1976, the “688 Boats” of the Los Angeles class SSNs have a length of 362 feet and a surfaced displacement of 6.082-tons.

The Germans helped a lot with the design, giving the Japanese the plans for the aircraft catapult as well as supplying them with snorkels and periscopes. Unlike many subs of the day, the I-400s had both air and surface search radars as well as a primitive radar warning receiver and sonar absorbing anechoic tile.

The I-400s had a huge armament punch. Not only could they carry a trio of M6A1 Seiran (Mountain Haze) attack planes, each of which could carry a 1800-pound bomb or torpedo load out to 300-miles from the submarine and return, but the ship itself carried 8 21-inch torpedo tubes, with 24 Type 95 torpedos, a 140mm deck gun and a number of 25mm cannons for small surface ships and aircraft defense. The Type 95 is considered by many to be the best torpedo of WWII, being an advanced design of the famous Long Lance, it had a 51-knot speed and a 1200-pound warhead, a performance envelope that is still formidable today.

The Seirans were to be launched via a 85-foot long compressed-air catapult mounted on the forward deck. A well-trained crew of four men could roll a Seiran out of its hangar on a collapsible catapult carriage, attach the plane’s pontoons and have it readied for flight in approximately 7 minutes. Although to get all three airplanes off the boat took up to 30-minutes.

The Gatun Locks at the Panama canal were supposed to be the I401s first target

Well, all did not go as planned for the I-400s. After Yammoto was killed in 1943, the Japanese Navy saw little use for the program and started slowly canceling the ships. Just three I-400s were finished and only two, I-400 and I-401, ever went to sea. Their primary reason for being, the Seiran float-plane, had only 28 examples made.

Commissioned 8 January 1945, I-401 was a late comer to the war. Already the US Navy had recaptured the Philipines and was breathing hard on the Japanese home islands. By June the two boats and a crew of float plane pilots were practising on wooden mock-ups of the Panama canal locks in preparation for their first attack. At the last-minute, the plan was halted and the two I-400s were sent to attack Ulithu Atoll, the forward base of the US Navy’s fast carriers. At any given time the US Navy had up to a dozen carriers there on “Murders Row”, taking a break from the war. To give the six Seirans a fighting chance against up to 2000 US aircraft and thousands of anti-aircraft guns in the atoll, they were painted in US markings and refitted as kamikaze aircraft.

Murderers Row at Ulithi atoll was the target of two submarines and six floatplanes.

Murderers Row at Ulithi atoll was the target of two submarines and six Seiran floatplanes.

While at sea on the way to the atoll, the war ended and the I-400 and 401 surrendered to US forces. Both ships shot away their torpedoes, threw their artillery shells overboard, and shot their unmanned floatplanes off the deck into the deep ocean. I401 surrendered to the USS Segundo (SS-398), a Balao-class submarine less than half her size.

The floatplanes on the I400 and 401 were given US markings and looked almost like a P-51 with a set of floats.

Both the I400 and I401 were taken to Pearl Harbor by prize crews where they were inspected at length by the US Navy. Odds were they would have been kept for years, and one of them may have even still been around as a trophy ship had the Soviets not wanted to inspect them. To prevent the Russkis from getting to the amazing Japanese-German hybrid tech of the I400s, the Navy sunk them as targets off Hawaii in 1946.

The US navy had these ships for almost nine months, and they would probably be gracing a museum somewhere, had it not been for the Russians.

The US navy had these ships for almost nine months, and they would probably be gracing a museum somewhere today, had it not been for the Russians.

The I-401 was rediscovered in 2005 about a mile off Barber’s Point in 2600-feet of water. A few of her parts were saved prior to sinking, including the 140mm gun sight which is currently displayed at the Yokohama WWII Japanese Military Radio Museum.

The only remaining Seiran floatplane, captured intact at the Aichi Aircraft Factory following the end of the war in August 1945, is at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on current display.

True to Yammaoto’s vision, at least one Seiran made it all the way to Washington DC, just not how he thought it would.

In a twist of fate, the USS Segundo (SS-398), captor of the I-401, was herself sunk as a target by the USS Salmon (SSR/SS/AGSS-573), a Sailfish-class submarine, in 1970, her usefulness past. It should go without saying that the Salmon likewise was sent to the bottom 5 June 1993, as a target by the US Navy. History is funny like that.

Specs

Displacement:    5,223 long tons (5,307 t) surfaced
6,560 long tons (6,665 t) submerged
Length:    122 m (400 ft)
Beam:    12 m (39 ft)
Draft:    7 m (23 ft)
Propulsion:    Diesel-electric
4 diesel engines, 7,700 hp (5,700 kW)
Electric motors, 2,400 hp (1,800 kW)
Speed:    18.75 knots (21.58 mph; 34.73 km/h) surfaced
6.5 kn (7.5 mph; 12.0 km/h) submerged
Range:    37,500 nmi (69,500 km) at 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Test depth:    100 m (330 ft)
Complement:    144
Armament:    • 8 × 533 mm (21 in) forward torpedo tubes
• 20 × Type 95 torpedoes
• 1 × 14 cm/40 11th Year Type naval gun
• 3 × 25 mm (0.98 in) 3-barrel machine gun
• 1 × 25 mm machine gun
Aircraft carried:    3 × Aichi M6A1 Seiran sea-planes

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, June 12 The Tsars Lost Eagle

Posted on June 12, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Here we see the Tsar’s mighty new battleship Orel (Russian for Eagle) in all of her black-painted brooding majesty as she sat at Krondstadt harbor in 1904. She looks like a ship in morning and for good reason, her country is at war with upstart Imperial Japan and she was soon to sail to the far-off Pacific to put things right.

Built at the Galerniy Island Shipyards, Saint Petersburg, she was brand new, only completed finally in October 1904. A Borodino-class battleship, she was the pinnacle of pre-dreadnought design. Weighing in at nearly 15,000 tons full load, she was armed with four 12-inch guns and a dozen six inchers besides a huge battery of smaller 75 and 47mm rifles to ward away torpedo boats. She could make 18-knots which was pretty fast for these types of ships. The thing is, to get this fast, she was comparatively lightly armored. It had long been a rule of thumb to armor battleships against the same size cannon they carried in inches (example, since she had 12-inch guns, her main belt should be 12-inches thick, with turrets and conning tower a little heavier). Instead, the Orel had a belt that ran 5-7 inches and her strongest armor was on her two main turrets of just 10-inches.

Oh well, you can’t have everything. At least it was good German Krupp armor and not that junk Harvey stuff. Trust me, where she was going, she was gonna need it.

The Orel's path was the long blue line. Sucks to be a Baltic battleship wih short legs on an 18,000 mile shakedown cruise

The Orel’s path was the long blue line. Sucks to be a Baltic battleship with short legs on an 18,000-mile shakedown cruise

Still, with her paint wet and her crew largely as new as the ship itself, her shakedown cruise was epic. She joined the 27 other Baltic fleet ships in the force designated as the 2nd Pacific Squadron (the first was trapped at Port Arthur by the Japanese) and set sail 18,000 miles to break the siege of that far off port. During the epic voyage, which predated that of the Great White Fleet by a half-decade, Orel was overloaded with coal at all times which made keeping sea hard and limited the vital underway training her crew needed to simply shovel coal.

Some 2000 tons overloaded with coal piled on deck, stacked in every compartment, and even piled around the shells in the magazines, this is how the Orel looked for most of her first and final voyage for the Tsar. Pretty safe freeboard!

Two months at sea and still more than 10,000 miles away, Port Arthur surrendered to the Japanese. Instead of logically turning back for the Baltic, the fleet under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky pressed on, coaling at French ports around the world. By May 1905 the Russian fleet was trying to run the Straits of Tsushima between Japan and Korea. With a sneak attack preceded by seven months of foreshadowing, Japanese Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō met the 28 Russian ships with 89 of his own, a great tactical position, and all guns and tubes loaded.

The Orel had a pivotal part in the worst naval defeat in history.

The resulting battle, known as the ‘Battle of Tsushima’ in most of the world and ‘Holy Shit We Just Lost a Whole Fleet’ in Imperial Russia, was possibly the most one-sided naval engagement in history. Of the 8 Russian battleships in the line, 7 were sent to the bottom along with over 4300 brave Tsarist sailors. The Japanese lost a couple torpedo boats and 117 sailors.

But what about the 8th battleship?– well, that’s Orel‘s story.

She was itching to get into the fight and fired the first shots of the battle. She got her licks back from the Japanese. During the battle, Orel was hit by no less than five 12-inch, two 10-inch (254 mm), nine 8-inch (203 mm), 39 six-inch shells, and 21 smaller rounds or fragments. Although the ship had many large holes in the unarmored portions of her side, she was only moderately damaged as all of the four (one 12-inch and three 6-inch) shells that hit her side armor failed to penetrate.

The left gun of her forward 12-inch turret had been struck by an eight-inch sell that broke off its muzzle and another eight-inch shell struck the roof of the rear 12-inch turret and forced it down, which limited the maximum elevation of the left gun. Two six-inch gun turrets had been jammed by hits from eight-inch shells and one of them had been burnt out by an ammunition fire. Another turret had been damaged by a 12-inch shell that struck its supporting tube. Splinters from two 6-inch shells entered the conning tower and wounded Captian Nikolay Viktorovich Yung badly enough he was unconscious for the rest of the battle and later died of his wounds. Casualties totaled 43 crewmen killed and approximately 80 wounded.

Seven-month-old battleship…slightly used.

A battered wreck that had taken tremendous punishment, the remaining crew pulled down her flag to stop the fight. Captain Yung’s body was buried at sea with full military honors after the surrender. As far as I can tell, it was the last time in Naval history that a capital ship was captured at sea after a battle.

The Japanese took her into service as the battleship Iwami although she needed nearly two years in a shipyard before she could serve again under her new flag. Her British made Bellville boilers were replaced by Japanese-built Miyabara boilers as well as her whole above-deck superstructure rebuilt. As her secondary armament was French made by Canet, the Japanese replaced it as well.

She continued to be used as a coastal defense ship throughout World War One and then as the flagship of the 90,000 man Japanese Army force that landed in Vladivostok during the Russian Civil War (1917-21)– just to rub the Russians faces in it a little further.

Odds are the Japanese would have kept her around as a trophy till this day but the battered and rebuilt warship’s tonnage counted against her in the Washington Naval Agreement, and she was disarmed used as a target ship for aircraft (see December 1941 for how that worked out) and her remains scrapped in 1925. Ironically, her service with the Japanese Navy was for almost twenty years while her service with the Russians was only seven months, and she spent most of her time in Russian waters flying the banner of the Rising Sun.

Specs
Displacement:    14,151 long tons (14,378 t)
Length:    397 ft (121.0 m)
Beam:    76 ft 1 in (23.2 m)
Draft:    29 ft 2 in (8.9 m)
Installed power:    15,800 ihp (11,782 kW)
20 Belleville boilers
Propulsion:    2 shafts, 2 Triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:    18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Range:    2,590 nmi (4,800 km; 2,980 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:    28 officers, 826 enlisted men
Armament:    2 × 2 – 12 in (305 mm) guns
6 × 2 – 6 inches (152 mm) guns
20 × 1 – 75 mm (3 in) guns
20 × 1 – 47 mm (1.9 in) guns
4 × 1 – 15 in (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:    Krupp armor
Belt: 7.64–5.7 inches (194–145 mm)
Deck: 1–2 inches (25–51 mm)
Turrets: 10 inches (254 mm)

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm .

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, June 5 The Graf

Posted on June 5, 2013 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, June 5

Here we see the Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee as she looked at her finest at the Coronation Review for English King George VI at Spithead in May 1937. Just 17-months old in this picture, she would become one of the most hunted of all German ships in the beginning of World War Two just two years later– by the very fleet she steamed with on this day.

Laid down at Reichsmarinewerft, Wilhelmshaven on 1 October 1932, she was the first new German ‘battleship’ since the 1919 Treaty of Versailles to replace the 30-year old pre-dreadnought battleship SMS Braunschweig. Officially weighing just 10,000-tons (the treaty limit) and classified simply as a ‘Armored ship’ (Panzerschiff), she was portrayed as simply a really big cruiser.

However her full load displacement was nearly 17,000-tons (the same as an early WWI battle cruiser) and she carried a half-dozen 280mm (11-inch) SK C/28 naval guns, whereas most cruisers had nothing larger than 8-inches. Western media called her and her other two Deutschland class sisters ‘pocket battleships’ as they could effectively sink any warship but.

The ship’s hull was constructed with transverse steel frames; over 90 percent of the hull used welding instead of the then standard riveting, which saved 15 percent of her total hull weight. This savings allowed the armament and armor to be increased. The hull contained twelve watertight compartments and were fitted with a double bottom that extended for 92 percent of the length of the keel. Four sets of 9-cylinder, double-acting, two-stroke diesel engines further saved weight over huge oil-fired turbines while also giving the ship an amazing 10,000-mile range. This made her the perfect long range surface raider.

When the clouds of war started to form in 1939, Admiral Raeder sent the Graf Spee out to the Atlantic so that she would not be caught in the Baltic and bottled up by the Royal Navy. For the first four months of the war she ranged the South Atlantic, sinking nine Allied merchant ships as a surface raider. She was encountered by the three British cruisers: HMS Exeter (10,000-tons, 6×8-inch guns), HMNZS Achilles and HMS Ajax (9700-tons, 8×6-inch guns). In the resulting running Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939, the Spee gave better than she got. All three British smaller British cruisers were badly mauled, suffering over 100 casualties.

However one of Exeter‘s 8 inch shells had penetrated two decks before exploding in Graf Spee’s funnel area—destroying her raw fuel processing system and leaving her with just 16 hours fuel, insufficient to allow her to return home. With her legs cut off, her desalination plant wrecked, her kitchen burnt and 70% of her 11-inch shells expended, Spee made for Uruguay where she hoped to either make repairs or be interned. However the Uruguayans ordered her to sea in 72 hours into the waiting arms of the British fleet. British Intelligence deceived the Germans into believing that a much larger force lay just offshore, ready to destroy the battered Graf Spee when she emerged.

Rather than suffer outright defeat to a seemingly superior force, the ship’s captain, Hans Langsdorff ordered her evacuated and scuttled. After all, the ship herself was named after a German admiral who was killed at sea in defeat by a larger British force in the First World War. Landing most of his crew ashore, he sailed her to the edge of Montevideo harbor and blew her magazines.

More than 1000 of her crew were interned in Argentina during the war while Hans Langsdorff himself shot himself while wearing his dress uniform.

She has been slowly salvaged by various countries and teams since 1939 but most of the ship is still in Montevideo. Her 660-pound, nine foot wide eagle figurehead was recovered from the stern of the ship in 2006 by a team of divers who loosened 145 bolts to free the ornament.

Odds are, no one has seen the last of the Graf.

Specs
Displacement: Design:
14,890 t (14,650 long tons; 16,410 short tons)
Full load:
16,020 long tons (16,280 t)

Length:    186 m (610 ft 3 in)
Beam:    21.65 m (71 ft 0 in)
Draft:    7.34 m (24 ft 1 in)
Propulsion:

Eight MAN diesel engines
Two propellers
52,050 shp (38,810 kW)

Speed:    29.5 knots (55 km/h)
Range:    8,900 nautical miles (16,500 km; 10,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement:    As built:

33 officers
586 enlisted

After 1935:

30 officers
921–1,040 enlisted

Sensors and
processing systems: 1940:

FMG 39 G(gO)

1941:

FMG 40 G(gO)
FuMO 26

Armament: As built:

6 × 28 cm (11 in) in triple turrets
8 × 15 cm (5.9 in) in single turrets
8 × 53.3 cm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes

Armor:

main turrets: 140 mm (5.5 in)
belt: 80 mm (3.1 in)
deck: 45 mm (1.8 in)

Aircraft carried: Two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes
Aviation facilities: One catapult
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Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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