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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All

Posted on October 11, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-35726

Above we see the Gato-class fleet boat USS Wahoo (SS-238) at Pearl Harbor, soon after the end of her Third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Her skipper, LCDR Dudley W. Morton, who would count four Navy Crosses in the war, is on the open bridge, in right-center while the officer to the left could be XO, LT Richard H. O’Kane, who would go on to earn the MoH.

If you will observe, there is a broom lashed to the periscope head, indicating a “clean sweep” of enemy targets encountered as well as an aloft pennant bearing the slogan “Shoot the Sunza Bitches” and eight small flags, representing claimed sinkings of two Japanese warships and six merchant vessels. What is not in the picture is the forward radar mast, which has been brushed out by wartime censors.

Just six months after this image was snapped, Wahoo would be broken on the bottom of the La Pérouse Strait, lost exactly 80 years ago today.

The Gatos

The 77 Gatos were cranked out by four shipyards from 1940 to 1944 for the U.S. Navy, they were impressive 311-foot-long fleet boats, diesel-electric submarines capable of extended operations in the far reaches of the Pacific. Able to swim an impressive 11,000 nautical miles on their economical power plant while still having room for 24 (often cranky) torpedoes. A 3-inch deck gun served for surface action in poking holes in vessels deemed not worth a torpedo while a few .50 and .30-cal machine guns provided the illusion of an anti-aircraft armament.

Developed from the Tambor-class submarines, they were the first fleet boats able to plumb to 300 feet test depth, then the deepest that U.S. Navy submersibles were rated.

Meet Wahoo

Our subject is the first U.S. Navy warship– and probably the first in any fleet– named for the wahoo, a beautiful (and delicious) sport fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, known for putting up a fight.

Laid down a half-year prior to Pearl Harbor on 28 June 1941 by the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California, Wahoo was launched on Valentine’s Day 1942– a sweetheart gift to the Japanese Navy.

She was commissioned on 15 May 1942, LCDR Marvin Granville Kennedy (USNA 1930) in command.

Kennedy, who had served in a mix of both surface warfare and submarine billets, was XO of the huge “V-boat” USS Narwhal (SS-167) at the beginning of the war, aboard her when her gunners opened up at incoming Japanese planes over Pearl Harbor. Wahoo was his first command, and he would be at her attack periscope for her first two patrols.

The new boat and green crew spent the next three months fitting out and conducting initial training along the California coast then, after a post-shakedown repair at Mare Island, left headed for Hawaii on 12 August.

Wahoo off Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Note the barrage balloons over the yard and the City of Vallejo. 19-N-33836

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Circles and associated text mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YF-239 is alongside the submarines in the right background. Note the antenna for an SJ radar mounted on the light mast in front of Wahoo’s periscope shears. 19-N-33839

USS Wahoo (SS-238) View from astern, taken off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. 19-N-33837

War!

First War Patrol (23 Aug 1942, Pearl Harbor-17 Oct 1942, Pearl Harbor)

Her patrolling career began in August 1942 in the Carolines. On this patrol, Wahoo claimed the sinking of a freighter not confirmed by post-war review. Other attacks were spoiled by faulty torpedoes, a common refrain in the U.S. Submarine Force in the Pacific at this time.

Second War Patrol (8 Nov 1942, Pearl Harbor- 26 Dec 1942, Brisbane)

Her second patrol was in the Solomons, where she sank a freighter, the Japanese collier Kamoi Maru (5355 GRT) off Buin, on 10 December. Following this patrol, Kennedy, who earned a Silver Star for sinking the enemy collier, left the boat and joined the staff of Commander Service Force, Southwest Pacific.

Replacing the 37-year-old Kennedy was an old classmate of his from Annapolis, Florida-born LCDR Dudley Walker Morton, better known by his Academy nickname of “Mushmouth” or, just the simpler “Mush.” Morton had previously commanded the smaller boats USS R-5 (SS-82) and USS Dolphin (SS-169), then sailed as XO under Kennedy on Wahoo’s Second War Patrol. The new XO would be LT Richard Hetherington “Dick” O’Kane (USNA 1934)

It seemed like, in Wahoo’s case, that the third time was the charm when it came to patrols.

Third War Patrol (16 Jan 1943, Brisbane-7 Feb 1943, Pearl Harbor)

Wahoo conducted her third patrol from Australia through New Guinea to the Palau area of the Japanese-annexed Caroline Islands. She steamed 6,454 miles and expanded all her torpedoes.

Prior to leaving Australia, Morton reportedly told the crew:

“Wahoo is expendable. We will take every reasonable precaution, but our mission is to sink enemy shipping. . . . Now, if anyone doesn’t want to go along under these conditions, just see the yeoman. I am giving him verbal authority now to transfer anyone who is not a volunteer. . . . Nothing will ever be said about you remaining in Brisbane.”

Periscope photograph, taken by USS Wahoo (SS-238) on 27 January 1943. The view shows a refinery and large warehouse adjacent to a phosphate works on Fais Island (near Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands). Wahoo had intended to shell the latter, but had to break off when an enemy ship came on the scene. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39745.

She sank the destroyer Harusame on 24 January off Wewak, New Guinea.

Harusame’s back is clearly broken. Wartime intelligence evaluated this photo as showing one of the Asashio-class (see Photographic Intelligence Report # 82, 17 March 1943). However, the ship’s bridge structure identifies her as a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, with the # 2 (single) 5 gun mount removed. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-35738 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

Two days later chased down a four-ship convoy included sinking the large Japanese army cargo ships Buyo Maru (5447 GRT) and Fukuei Maru No.2 (1901 GRT) along with damaging the tanker Pacific Maru (5872 GRT).

Periscope photograph, showing Japanese transport Buyo Maru sinking after she was torpedoed by USS Wahoo (SS-238) north of western New Guinea on 26 January 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39746.

The scene in the control room during Wahoo’s 27 January 1943 action with a Japanese destroyer. When the photo was taken the submarine was at 300 feet, rigged for depth charges. Six charges had just gone off and the crew was awaiting more. Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, Wahoo’s Commanding Officer, reported this action as “Another running gun fight … destroyer gunning … Wahoo running. Shaved head on crewman at right is a product of an Equator crossing ceremony three days previously.” 80-G-38602

Two views of the same action. LT Richard H. O’Kane, XO, at the periscope, and LCDR Dudley W. Morton, skipper, with another officer, in Wahoo’s conning tower during the boat’s attack on a Japanese convoy north of New Guinea, 26 January 1943. Several ships, among them the transport Buyo Maru, were sunk in this action. 80-G-37034 &80-G-37033

USS Wahoo (SS-238) Provides food and water to the crew of a becalmed fishing boat, circa January 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Act of Mercy While on the war patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and a convoy of four ships, the submarine Wahoo, commanded by LCdr. Dudley W. Morton, USN, of Miami, Fla., came across a small fishing boat, becalmed. Three of the crew of nine aboard the fishing vessel had died when the submarine found her. Three remaining crew members were without food and water. This picture shows members of the submarine’s crew handing water and food to the men in the fishing vessel. A few days later the Wahoo destroyed the Japanese destroyer and convoy. View looks forward from Wahoo’s machinegun platform.” NH 42275

USS Wahoo (SS-238) arrives at Pearl Harbor at the end of her third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Hero’s Welcome A Navy band is on hand to greet the submarine Wahoo on her return to Pearl Harbor following a patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and an entire enemy convoy of four ships. The battle with the convoy lasted for a period of 14 hours. Note that Wahoo’s radar antennas have been crudely censored out of the image.” NH 42274

Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, commanding officer of USS Wahoo (SS-238), at right, with his executive officer, Lieutenant Richard H. O’Kane, on the submarines open bridge, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after her very successful third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-35725.

Fourth War Patrol (23 Feb 1943, Pearl Harbor- 6 Apr 1943, Midway)

For her fourth patrol, Wahoo went to the Yellow Sea west of Korea and just ran amok, only returning after she expended all 24 of her torpedoes.

She sank the cargo ship Zogen Maru (1428 GRT) and damaged the freighter Kowa Maru (3217 GRT) east of Dairen on 19 March, sank the cargo ships Hozan Maru (2260 GRT) and Nittsu Maru (2183 GRT) on 21 March, on 23 March sent the cargo ships Teisho Maru (9849 GRT) and Takaosan Maru (2076 GRT) via torpedoes then finished up with the smaller Satsuki Maru (830 GRT) via gunfire.

Nittsu Maru (Japanese cargo ship) sinking in the Yellow Sea, off China on 23 March 1943. Periscope photograph taken from USS Wahoo (SS-238), which had torpedoed the ship. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-60948.

She finished her run with the cable ship Yamabato Maru (2256 GRT) south of Kyushu, Japan, and two sampans.

Her claimed kills were a bit higher.

Fifth War Patrol (25 Apr 1943, Midway-21 May 1943, Pearl Harbor)

Going to the Kurile chain for her fifth patrol, Wahoo sank two confirmed freighters– Takao Maru (3204 GRT) and Jimmu Maru (1912 GRT) — off Kone Zaki, north-eastern Honshu on 9 May. She ended, again, with no torpedoes left, having steamed 6,828 nm.

Her 5th war patrol claims:

Following the end of the patrol, she was sent back to Mare Island for a much-needed overhaul, carrying almost 30,000 miles on her diesels and the effects of multiple depth charging runs from the Empire.

A series of photographs from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives remains to document her condition at this stage of her hard life.

USS Wahoo (SS-238) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 14 July 1943. 19-N-48937

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. Circles mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. YF-239 and YF-200 are in the left-center distance. 19-N-48941

USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. White outlines mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. 19-N-48942

Sixth War Patrol (2 Aug 1943, Pearl Harbor-29 Aug 1943, Pearl Harbor)

The sixth patrol of Wahoo, conducted in the target-rich Japan Sea, suffered from defective Mark 14 steam torpedoes. None of the 10 fish fired in nine attacks on enemy merchantmen resulted in a torpedo hit but she was able to sink a trio of sampans with surface gunfire.

The patrol reports of the failed attacks are crushing:

She made good in surface actions against fishing boats– at least her guns worked!

Across her first six patrols, she claimed 27 ships sunk, totaling 119,100 tons, and damaged two more, making 24,900 tons. Of these, most were on Mush Morton’s three patrols, in which Wahoo had sunk a claimed total of 93,281 tons of shipping in only 25 patrol days.

Leaving the boat was her talented XO, Dick O’Kane, who was called up to the big leagues and rewarded with a command of his own, the Balao-class boat USS Tang (SS-306).

Seventh (Last) War Patrol (9 Sep 1943, Pearl Harbor-lost on/about 11 October 1943, in La Perouse Strait)

Sent back to the Sea of Japan– armed with the new Mark 18 electric torpedo, instead of the hated Mark 14s– Wahoo was the only Allied warship active there when the fishing vessel Hokusei Maru (1394 GRT) was lost west of the Kuril Islands on 21 September, the gunboat Taiko Maru (2958 GRT) west of the Tsugaru Strait on 25 September, the freighter Masaki Maru No.2 (1238 GRT) in the Sea of Japan east of Hungnam on 29 September, the transport Konron Maru (7908 GRT) in Tsushima Straits on 5 October, the cargo ship Kanko Maru (1283 GRT) off Korea on 6 October, and the cargo ship Hankow Maru (2995 GRT) off the Oga Peninsula on 9 October. Good hunting!

However, the hunter became the hunted, and Wahoo never made it back to Pearl, with her war flags flying and crew beaming. Postwar, it was determined that Japanese E13A1 “Jake” floatplanes out of Wakkanai, supporting the submarine chasers Ch-15 and Ch-43, and minesweeper Wa-18, following up on the sighting of a strange submarine by the coast artillery battery on Soya Misaki, responded and chased Wahoo to the bottom of the in La Perouse Strait on the morning of 11 October 1943.

The wreck, found in 2004 resting 12 miles off the northeast coast of Hokkaido in the middle of the strait, confirms the place and cause of her destruction.

She was lost with all 80 hands. Declared officially dead in 1946, all are memorialized at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) on the Court of the Missing.

“Going Home,” watercolor on paper by Georges Schreiber, 1943; accession # 88-159-JN as a gift of Abbott Laboratories.

Wahoo earned six battle stars for World War II service.

Wahoo is one of 64 American subs (52 from WWII alone) still listed as being on “Eternal Patrol,” remembered in markers across the country. Of note, Gato-class sisters USS Corvina (SS-226) and USS Dorado (SS-248) were both lost within days of Wahoo, with all hands. (Photo: Chris Eger)

For a deeper dive into USS Wahoo, please see Warfish.com.

In all, “Mush” Morton would be awarded four Navy Crosses, the final one posthumously.

Commander Dudley Walker Morton USN (USNA 1930) is remembered with a memorial stone at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Virginia, Memorial Section MH, Plot 669.

Epilogue

The fighting spirit of Mush Morton and the Mighty Wahoo would endure long after they were gone.

A billboard at Mare Island in late 1943, highlighting the exploits of the Yard’s famed sub, albeit in a PG-rated format. 80-G-K-15091

Wahoo’s plans, deck logs, and patrol reports (1-6) are digitized in the National Archives.

Wahoo’s ship’s bell and commissioning pennant, which had been stored at Pearl Harbor while she was on her wartime service, are preserved at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park along with a marker honoring her.

In 1995, the Wahoo Peace Memorial cenotaph was dedicated in Japan at Cape Soya near Wakkanai overlooking the La Perouse Strait where the submarine was lost.

The Forrest Sherman-class destroyer USS Morton (DD-948) was named in honor of Wahoo’s most famous skipper. Built at Ingalls and nicknamed “The Saltiest Ship in the Fleet!” due to the obvious Morton’s Salt reference, she served until 1982, chalking up several stints off Vietnam including close-in NGF support and Sea Dragon operations off North Vietnam.

Dick O’Kane, who according to the NHHC took part in more successful submarine attacks than any other American officer across five patrols with Wahoo and five more in command of Tang, earned the Medal of Honor, three Navy Crosses, three Silver Stars, and the Legion of Merit with Combat “V.” After Tang suffered a sinking via a runaway torpedo in the Formosa Sea, O’Kane and four of his surviving crewmen were “rescued” by the Japanese. After surviving the war at just 88 pounds and testifying as a witness at the Japanese War Crime trials, he returned to duty, retiring in 1957 as a rear admiral after having punched tickets as COMSUBDIV 32 and as the Officer in Charge of the Sub School at New London.

RADM Dick O’Kane passed in 1994 and both he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery and is on the list of Top Ten U.S. Navy Submarine Captains in World War II by the total number and tonnage of confirmed ships sunk during the conflict, just ahead of Morton.

O’Kane’s legacy lives on. The USS O’Kane (DDG-77), a Navy destroyer, was commissioned in Pearl Harbor in 1999 and continues to serve based out of San Diego.

USS O’Kane (DDG 77) ‘s “Battle Cat” war flag is a Rising Sun flag trampled by the “kills” O’Kane chalked up in his career. Meanwhile, her ship’s crest includes dolphins, the MoH, and four Navy crosses

The former rear admiral’s Medal of Honor is kept at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Honolulu.

Further, his cribbage board, which he presented to the second Tang (SS 563) in 1957, is handed down to each oldest fast-attack submarine in the Pacific Fleet. Since that boat retired, it has been handed down to USS Kamehameha (SSBN 642), USS Parche (SSN 683), USS Los Angeles (SSN 688), USS Bremerton (SSN 698), USS Olympia (SSN 717) and now USS Chicago (SSN 721).

191022-N-KB401-0021 JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM Oct. 22, 2019 — Cmdr. Benjamin J. Selph, commanding officer, USS Olympia (SSN 717), plays a game of cribbage on the O’Kane board against Cmdr. Chance Litton, commanding officer, USS Chicago (SSN 721).

Wahoo’s legacy lived on as well. Two different Tench class submarines (SS-516 and then SS-518) were to have carried the name but never made it into service. A Tang-class boat, SS-565, did, however, in 1952. She served until 1980, one of the final diesel boats on active duty with the U.S. Navy.

USS Wahoo (SS-565) underway in the Pacific, 24 July 1978. USN 1174147

The famed original Wahoo’s battle flag and fairweather featured a Native American with a war bonnet with feathers for each Japanese ship the boat had sunk. The second Wahoo continued the tradition via the Al Capp character “Lonesome Polecat,” armed with a torpedo-tipped arrow.

A planned Block 5 Virginia-class submarine, SSN-806, will be the third USS Wahoo commissioned. Likewise, her sister SSN-805 will be the third USS Tang.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023: Shipping Green

Posted on October 4, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023: Shipping Green

Photo by Gilbert Milne, Government of Nova Scotia Virtual Archives H.F. Pullen NSARM accession no. 1984-573 Box 2 F/34

Above we see one of the 67 hardy River class frigates used by the Royal Canadian Navy, HMCS Swansea (K328), shipping green in January 1944 while off Bermuda. As acknowledged by Jane’s in 1946 about the class, following hard wartime service: “These ships have shown very good endurance and sea-keeping qualities.”

While the crew of Swansea— commissioned 80 years ago today– may have had something to say about that, the tough environment of the North Atlantic wasn’t enough to slow their business of slaying U-boats– and business was good.

The Rivers

While today the Royal Canadian Navy is often seen as a supporting actor in the North Atlantic and an occasional cameo performer elsewhere, by the end of World War II the RCN had grown from having about a dozen small tin cans to being the third-largest fleet in the world— and was comprised almost totally of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and sloops! The force traded 24 of its warships in combat for a butcher’s bill that was balanced by 69 Axis vessels but had proved decisive in the Battle of the Atlantic.

One of the most important of the above Canadian ships was the River-class frigates. Originally some 1,800 tons and 301 feet in length, they could make 20-knots and carry a twin QF 4-inch gun in a single forward mount as well as a modicum of 20mm AAA guns and a wide array of sub-busting weaponry to include as many as 150 depth charges.

In addition to her twin 4″/45 forward, Rivers also carried six 20mm Oerlikons in two twin mounts — one seen here in a LAC Kodachrome of HMCS Thetford Mines– and two singles. Note the wavy lines on the Canadian lieutenant’s sleeve, denoting his status as a reserve officer. The running joke in Commonwealth Navies that used the practice was so that, when asked by an active officer why the braid was wavy, the reservist would answer, “Oh good heavens, so no one would mistake that this is my real job.”

Produced in five mildly different sub-classes, some 50 of the 150ish Rivers planned were to be made in Canada with others produced for the RCN in the UK. This resulted in a shipbuilding boom in the Land of the Great White North, with these frigates produced at four yards: Canadian Vickers in Montreal, Morton in Quebec City, Yarrow at Esquimalt, and Davie at Lauzon.

River-class frigates fitting out at Vickers Canada, 1944

Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Waskesiu (K330) with a bone in her mouth, 1944. Kodachrome via LAC

Meet Swansea

Ordered in October 1941 from Yarrows Ltd., Esquimalt, our little frigate remains the only vessel ever named for the Lake Ontario-facing Swansea neighborhood of Toronto, which until 1953 was an independent village. Yard No. 83 was laid down on 15 July 1942, launched almost exactly five months later, and commissioned on 4 October 1943.

Her skipper had already accounted for German U-boats a few times before.

Fifty-seven-year-old A/CDR Clarence Aubrey King, RCNR, DSC, DSO, had served in the British merchant service then switched to the Royal Naval Reserve in the Great War where he served in “Q-ships” and commanded one of those dreaded U-boat killers for the last 15 months of hostilities. During this time, he was credited with “one sure kill and two probables,” earning the Distinguished Service Cross in June 1917. Rejoining the colors with the RCN when WWII started, he commanded the corvette HMCS Oakville (K 178) in her battle with U-94 in August 1942 which ended with the latter’s destruction. This earned him the DSO.

Shipping out from Victoria, B.C., where Swansea was brought into service, her crew did their shakedown cruise to Halifax via the Panama Canal, arriving six weeks later on 16 November.

War!

Swansea clocked in for the Battle of the Atlantic right away. Her first convoy was SC 154 from Halifax to Liverpool in February-March 1944 and, briefly, the West-bound HX 281.

From there, she was detached to join Escort Group 9 at Londonderry, Northern Ireland. EG9 was all-Canadian, including the frigates HMCS Matane, Meon, Port Colborne, St. John, and Stormont in addition to Swansea.

Her first “kill” was a Type IXC/40 German submarine, U-845 (KrvKpt. Werner Weber) on 10 March 1944. In this action, south-west of Ireland, Swansea’s depth charges– joined with those from the British destroyer HMS Forester, the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Laurent, and the Canadian corvette HMCS Owen Sound– sent U-845 to the bottom, with the group picking up 45 waterlogged survivors, KrvKpt. Weber not among them.

Then came U-448, a Type VIIC, sunk on 14 April 1944 north-east of the Azores by depth charges and naval gunfire from Swansea and the British sloop HMS Pelican, who afterward picked up 42 survivors.

HMCS Swansea # 2 gun in action SWN0228

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24331) U-boat survivors clinging to a yellow inflated life raft, wait to be picked up after the U-boat had made its death dive. In the lower left-hand corner SWANSEA’s sea-boat is coming alongside with survivors, and (top left) is the sloop HMS PELICAN which also picked up survivors. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156236

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24329) SWANSEA’s seaboat alongside U-boat survivors helped out of the sea and onboard the frigate. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156234

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24330) One of the U-boat survivors, still dazed, rests on the deck as his sea-soaked clothes are stripped off by men of the SWANSEA. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156235

CANADIAN FRIGATE HMCS SWANSEA GETS ANOTHER U-BOAT. 1944, HMCS SWANSEA ACCOUNTED FOR HER SECOND U-BOAT. A NUMBER OF SURVIVORS WERE RESCUED. (A 24332) Petty Officer G Ardy, of London, Ontario, standing by the gunshield on which are painted symbols indicating SWANSEA’s U-boat kills. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205156237

U-448’s skipper, the Iron Cross-daubed Oblt. Helmut Dauter, was famously photographed walking off Pelican’s deck into captivity at Greenock, his war over.

U-BOAT PRISONERS ARRIVE AT A BRITISH PORT. 20 APRIL 1944, GREENOCK, THE ARRIVAL OF U-BOAT PRISONERS PICKED UP AFTER BEING SUNK BY HMS PELICAN. (A 22935) The Captain of the U-Boat (U448) Helmut Dauter, wearing an Iron Cross, leaving HMS PELICAN. Behind him is Liuet J Bathurst, the Captain of HMS PELICAN. Dauter, who earned the German Cross in Gold, would survive the war, and pass in 1987. The fact that the skipper and 41 of his crew lived through a four-hour-long creeping attack and 56 depth charges, with their boat’s batteries damaged and depth gauge broken, as well as a 6-inch hole in the after part of U-448’s pressure hull, then surfaced into heavy fire from both of the greyhounds that chased her down and were able to abandon ship to be recovered alive, was a small miracle. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205155072

Swansea’s third sub, U-311 (Kptlt. Joachim Zander), another Type VIIC, was sent to her eternal patrol on 22 April 1944 south of Iceland by depth charges from Swansea and her sister, HMCS Matane, with all hands lost.

22 April 1944, HMCS Swansea, commanded by A/Cdr Clarence A. King, DSO, DSC, RCNR, with HMCS Matane commanded by A/Cdr A. Frank C. Layard, DSO, RN, using depth charges, together sink U 311 south of Iceland. This was Commander King’s third submarine “kill” in 7 weeks. LAC photos

Then came another escort, that of Convoy OS 077KM, in May.

After that, she was detailed as part of EG9 to Operation Neptune, the naval component of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion.

HMCS Swansea was present on D-Day, assigned to Plymouth Command to cover the lift across the Channel, and for the next four months patrolled the Channel in support of the ships supplying the invasion forces, coming to the aid of downed Allied aircraft when she could.

It was in this mission that, on 1 September 1944 in the English Channel near Lands’ End, Swansea, and her sister HMCS Saint John, sent U-247 (Oblt. Gerhard Matschulat) to the bottom with all hands.

Depth charge exploding astern of HMCS Swansea, 1944

She rode shotgun on the tail end of HX 307 the next week, making sure it made Liverpool.

Swansea was also a lifesaver, and notably rescued seven men from an adrift Mulberry artificial harbor segment on 24 September.

November 1944 saw Swansea on outbound Convoy ON 264, sailing for Nova Scotia where she would be given a six-month refit and overhaul, where she was on VE Day.

The ship’s company of HMCS SWANSEA, pictured on 30 November 1944

Her crew marched in Halifax’s victory parade.

HMCS Swansea crew VE celebration parade in Halifax NS in 1945. Note the Great War era Ross rifles

Ordered to work up for a Pacific deployment where she would lend her guns to the march on Tokyo, instead VJ Day found her in the Caribbean on post-refit shakedown.

Swansea was paid off on 2 November 1945 to reserve in Bedford Basin. She earned three Battle Honors (Atlantic 1943–44, Normandy 1944, English Channel 1944).

Jane’s 1946 entry on the 18 Canadian Rivers still in RCN service, noting all but one was in mothballs.

As for the legendary Capt. King, who had been on the bridge of Swansea for three of her U-boat kills and Operation Neptune, he would add a bar to his DSC and commanded the frigates HMCS Prince Rupert and Runnymede before moving to the Retired List in 1946. He crossed the bar in 1964 at Osoyoos, British Columbia, aged 77.

What of her sisters?

Of the 90 assorted Canadian River-class frigates ordered, a good number were canceled around the end of WWII. Four (HMCS Chebogue, HMCS Magog, HMCS Teme, and HMCS Valleyfield) were effectively lost to German U-boats during the conflict. Once VJ-Day came and went, those still under St George’s White Ensign soon went into reserve.

Graveyard, Sorel, P.Q Canadian corvettes and frigates laid up, 1945 by Tony Law CWM

Several were subsequently sold for peanuts to overseas Allies looking to upgrade or otherwise build their fleets including Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Israel, Peru, and India.

Others were de-militarized and sold on the commercial market including one, HMCS Stormont, that became Aristotle Onassis’s famous yacht, Christina O. HMCS St. Lambert became a merchant ship under Panamanian and Greek flags before being lost off Rhodes in 1964. Still others became breakwaters, their hulls used to shelter others.

One, HMCS Stone Town, was disarmed and tasked as a weather ship in the North Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s.

But, Swansea still had some life left in her.

A different war

Swansea, by benefit of freshly refitting right before she was placed in reserve, was twice re-commissioned (12 April 1948-September 1949 and May 1951- 10 November 1953) for the purpose of training officer cadets and new recruits.

These periods saw her range as far north as Baffin Island and Godthab, Greenland, a three-week Caribbean training cruise, a Med cruise to the French Riveria, and Queen Elizabeth II’s Spithead review (34th in Line E).

She was paid off on 10 November 1953 and returned to storage once again.

Swansea was then selected to be rebuilt from 1956 to 1957, as a Prestonian class ocean escort with “FFE” pennant numbers, with our vessel becoming FFE-306. This conversion included a flush-decked configuration, an enlarged bridge, and a taller funnel. Deleted were the 20mm Oerlikons in favor of some 40mm Bofors. Further, they had their quarterdeck enclosed to accommodate two hulking Squid anti-submarine mortars in place of the myriad of depth charges/Hedgehog formerly carried. The sensor package was updated as well, to include ECM gear. One, HMCS Buckingham, was even given a helicopter deck.

Swansea recommissioned on 14 November 1957, ready to mix it up with Soviet subs if needed.

Seen in 1959, the Second World War frigate HMCS Swansea has been considerably modified to improve its anti-submarine capabilities. Although frigates like Swansea had been effective anti-submarine vessels during the Second World War, by the mid-1950s their weapons and equipment were of limited effectiveness against newer Soviet submarines. This photograph shows a number of the modifications made to Swansea between 1953 and 1957, including new guns and a bigger bridge for commanding and operating the ship (center). Other changes included the installation of two Squid anti-submarine mortars that replaced many of the ship’s depth charges. George Metcalf Archival Collection CWM 19780155-001

Swansea’s subsequent Cold War service was quiet, typically just involving assorted NATO exercises that ranged from Europe to the Caribbean.

Canadian aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure and HMCS Swansea, pictured on 18 May 1959

HMCS Swansea, Autumn 1962, 9th Squadron’s visit to Churchill, Manitoba. Photo by Angus Gillingham

HMCS Swansea color postwar DND photo

HMCS Swansea postwar note Maple Leaf on funnel CTB025222

Swansea, steaming postwar, note her 306 pennant numbers

HMCS Swansea (306) in Halifax circa 1950s. The stern of the Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Iroquois (G89/DDE 217) is in the foreground. The big Duracell battery-looking things are three-barrel 12-inch (305 mm) Squid ASW mortars that could lob 440-pound shells out to 275 yards. Photo Courtesy of Claus Mathes, via For Posterity Sake. SWN0284

She was paid off for a final time on 14 October 1966 and broken up in 1967 at Savona, Italy.

Epilogue

Little of Swansea remains.

A scale model of her is on display at the Canadian War Museum while a very detailed For Posterity’s Sake site exists chronicling the ship and her crew.

Most of the remaining Canadian Prestonian/Rivers were discarded alongside Swansea as the new St. Laurent– and Restigouche-class destroyers joined the fleet.

Two endured in auxiliary roles for a few more years: HMCS St. Catharines as a Canadian Coast Guard ship until 1968 and HMCS Victoriaville/Granby as a diving tender until 1973.

None of the Canadian-built ships were retained as museum ships, which is a shame.

In the end, two Canadian Rivers still exist, HMCS Stormont/yacht Christina O, and HMCS Hallowell/SLNS Gajabahu, with the latter a training ship in the Sri Lankan Navy until about 2016 and possibly still afloat.

Starting life in WWII as a Canadian Vickers-built River-class frigate HMCS Stormont, Christina O was purchased in 1954 by Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who transformed her into the most luxurious private yacht of her time. She went on to host a wealth of illustrious guests, ranging from Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra to JFK and Winston Churchill.

Canadian River-class frigate, ex-HMCS Strathadam, built in 1944 by Yarrow, Esquimalt. Sold 1947 to the Israeli Navy and renamed Misgav. Subsequently sold to the Royal Ceylon Navy as HMCyS Gajabahu. Photo via Shipspotting, 2007.

For more information on the RCN in WWII, please check out Marc Milner’s North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Convoys.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023: Of Shorts & Hard Charging Jeep Carriers

Posted on September 27, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023: Of Shorts & Hard Charging Jeep Carriers

Admiralty Official Collection, IWM A 25686

Above we see, resplendent in their tropical shorts and whites, a three-man Fleet Air Arm Avenger Mk. I (TBF-1) crew of 851 Squadron— LT (A) S S Laurie, RNVR, observer; squadron leader LCDR (A) Anthony Montague “Steady” Tuke, DSC, RN, pilot; and CPO F R Brown, Telegraphist air gunner– by the aft flight deck elevator of the Ruler-class escort carrier HMS Shah (D 21) in August 1944, with four of the big torpedo bombers arrayed behind them. The place is likely Kilindini Harbor, in Mombasa, Kenya, where Shah was preparing to escort a convoy to Aden.

Commissioned 80 years ago today, she accounted for at least one U-boat, took the fight to the Pacific where she helped track down and kill the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro, and served as a great snapshot for the end of the war—then went on to get really busy.

The Bouge/AmeerAttacker/Ruler/Smiter class

With both Great Britain and the U.S. running desperately short of flattops in the first half of World War II, and large, fast fleet carriers taking a while to crank out, a subspecies of light and “escort” carriers, the first created from the hulls of cruisers, the second from the hulls of merchant freighters, were produced in large numbers to put a few aircraft over every convoy and beach in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Of the more than 122 escort carriers produced in the U.S. for use by her and her Allies, some 45 were of the Bogue class. Based on the Maritime Commission’s Type C3-S-A1 cargo ship hull, these were built in short order at Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, and by the Western Pipe and Steel Company of San Francisco.

Some 496 feet overall with a 439-foot flight deck, these 16,200-ton ships could only steam at a pokey 16 ish knots sustained speed, which negated their use in fleet operations but allowed them to more than keep up with convoys of troop ships and war supplies. Capable of limited self-defense with four twin Bofors and up to 35 20mm Oerlikons for AAA as well as a pair of 5-inch guns for defense against small boats, they could carry as many as 28 operational aircraft in composite air wings. They were equipped with two elevators, Mk 4 arresting gear, and a hydraulic catapult.

The U.S. Navy kept 11 of the class for themselves (USS Block Island, Bogue, Card, Copahee, Core, Nassau, Altamaha, Barnes, Breton, Croatan, and Prince William), all entering service between September 1942 and June 1943.

This left most of the Bogues (34 of 45) to go immediately to the Royal Navy via Lend-Lease, where they were known as the Ameer, Attacker, Ruler, or Smiter class in turn, depending on their arrangement.

Meet Shah

Laid down on 13 November 1942 as the planned USS Jamaica (ACV-43/CVE-43) — after the bay on Long Island– under Maritime Commission contract by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., she was launched 21 April 1943 and then handed over to the Royal Navy on 27 September 1943.

Our subject, once delivered to the British, was christened as the second ship in the RN to carry the name HMS Shah, with the first being a 19th-century 26-gun iron-hulled frigate that was significant for being the first naval vessel to fire a locomotive torpedo in action, the latter during an 1877 scrap with the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar, and lives on today in HMS Victory, who has carried her iron masts as her own since 1895.

The engagement between the Huascar and HMS Shah off Ilo, May 29, 1877, Griffin & Co, 1880, via National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The “Shah” name also dovetailed well into the naming convention for the Ruler class (HMS Emperor, HMS Empress, HMS Queen, HMS Khedive, et al) which made sense.

After entering RN service, the King’s newest carrier shipped gently north to HM Canadian Dockyard at Esquimalt B.C. to receive her British equipment and sensors, which kept her pier side for the rest of the year.

She would also embark 851 Squadron, 14 Avengers that had been formed at Squantum NAS the previous October.

When 1944 arrived, ordered to head across the Pacific to join the RN’s Eastern Fleet’s 1st Aircraft Squadron, Shah first diverted to San Francisco to pick up a load of aircraft bound for points East.

Overhead view of HMS Shah (D21), formerly Jamaica (CVE-43), moored at San Francisco in January 1944. The ship is ready to ferry a deck load of 29 Wildcats, 12 Avengers (which may be hers of 851 Sqn), and 22 Curtiss Warhawks (P-40) to Melbourne, Australia; Cochin, India; and Colombo, Ceylon. The carrier painted in camouflage Measure 21, moored on the opposite side of the pier, is sometimes identified as USS Rudyard Bay (CVE-81), but this is highly questionable given the date of the photo. A more likely candidate is the USS Prince William (CVE-31). (Photo: Navsource)

And while underway.

This cross-Pacific voyage included crossing the equator, and the required ceremony involved which was conducted after the aircraft were unloaded.

“The Ancient Mariners” performing during a fancy-dress parade on the flight deck of HMS Shah. IWM A 27858

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27857) A fancy dress parade on the flight deck with ‘Potentate and his harem’ and ‘the Ancient Mariners’. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159282

Getting into the war, for real

Wrapping up her assorted aircraft ferry missions by May 1944, Shah traveled to Colombo to reembark 851 Squadron (which had been at RNAS Colombo Racecourse since February) as part of Force 66. To her Avengers were added a half-dozen Martlets (Wildcats) for some extra muscle.

She would spend the next six months in serious trade protection duties across the Indian Ocean, tasked with searching for Axis blockade runners, raiders, and subs. This would include chasing the long-range Type IXD2 U-boat U-198 (Oblt. Burkhard Heusinger von Waldegg) to ground near the Seychelles over three days in August 1943 with her aircraft attacking the boat and her escorting frigates HMS Findhorn, Hedgehog, and the sloop HMIS Godavari sinking the sub with all hands (66 men).

“Steady” Tuke, 851’s shorts-clad commander in the first image of this post and the man who dropped a torpedo into the side of the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto during the Battle of Matapan in 1941 while flying an Albacore off HMS Formidable, would add a bar to his DSC for U-198.

A Mk XI aerial depth charge is being loaded onto a Grumman Avenger aircraft on board the escort carrier HMS Shah in Eastern waters. IWM A 27853

By early 1945, Shah was clustered with the fellow escort carriers HMS Begum, Empress, Emperor, Stalker, and Attacker, to form Commodore Geoffrey Oliver’s 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron of the East Indies Fleet at Colombo then, along with Empress, Shah was switched to Force 63 in April for Operation Bishop— a carrier raid and surface bombardment of Car Nicobar and Port Blair to provide cover for Operation Dracula (the amphibious landings off Rangoon).

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27855) The escort carrier HMS BEGUM is in company. Avengers with folded wings are on the flight deck. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159280

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27850) Deck crews fuelling Avengers. One is standing by on the catapult. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159276

WITH A CARRIER OF BRITAIN’S EASTERN FLEET. FEBRUARY 1945, ON BOARD THE ESCORT CARRIER HMS SHAH IN EASTERN WATERS. (A 27851) The guns of a Wildcat being serviced. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205159277

For Operation Bishop, the two “jeep carriers” would provide air cover for the Free French battlewagon Richelieu, the old dreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth (flying the flag of VADM H.C.T. Walker), four cruisers (including the Free Dutch HrMs Tromp) and five destroyers.

This raid, from 27 April to 7 May, soon morphed into Operation Dukedom, to interdict Japanese surface ships trying to evac troops from the Andaman Islands in mid-May.

That led to Shah’s aircraft spotting the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro and the destroyer Kamikaze north-east of Sabang and three of her Avengers from 851 NAS, operating from sister HMS Emperor due to catapult issues with Shah, making the longest Fleet Air Arm round-trip carrier-borne attack (530 miles) of the war on 15 May.

Early the next morning, a force of five greyhounds from Captain (later Admiral Sir) Manley L. Power’s 26th Destroyer Flotilla caught up to Haguro and sent her to the bottom in a brilliant night torpedo attack that rivaled anything the Japanese pulled off in the bad old days of 1942 off Guadalcanal.

July brought the planned landings in Malaya (Operation Zipper) which was postponed.

Shah was at sea with Force 61 for Operation Carson, a planned attack on enemy shipping and airfields in Penang and Medan on Japanese-occupied Dutch Sumatra, when news of the Japanese surrender hit on 14 August.

She was reportedly the first RN ship to enter Trincomalee after the news broke and was there for the celebrations that came. Fleet photographer Sub. Lt G. Hale captured a great series of images that covered the event.

(A 30202) Looking aft over the twin Bofors guns of HMS SHAH. Two other escort carriers, HMS KHEDIVE (leading) are coming up off the starboard quarter. All three carriers were out at sea when the end of WWII came. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161379

(A 30204) Part of the ship’s company of HMS SHAH fallen in for entering harbour on the flight deck. The cruiser HMS CEYLON is in the background. It was the first time HMS SHAH made a peace-time entry into Trincomalee Harbour. It was taken at about mid-day on 15 August 1945, about 7 hours after the Prime Minister had broadcast the news that Japan had capitulated. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161381

(A 30197) Sub Lieut (A) Murray Gordon White, RNVR, a Fairey Swordfish pilot of the Royal Navy, now assistant batman in HMS SHAH, batting on Avenger bombers on 12 August 1945, off the Andaman Islands. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161374

(A 30203) Leading Seaman Alfred Charles Dennis of Plymouth enjoys a Victory cigar. He is indicating his approval not only with the quality of the cigar but with the occasion the photograph was taken, on board HMS SHAH on the day the Japanese capitulated (15 August 1945) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161380

(A 30201) A peep at a game of hockey under an Avenger bomber on the flight deck of HMS SHAH, at sea in the Indian Ocean. One of the destroyer escorts can be seen on the port beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161378

(A 30198) VJ Day celebration in Trincomalee Harbour. Taken from the flight deck of HMS SHAH shows how the British East Indies Fleet reacted to the end of the Japanese war. The flagship HMS NELSON was the centre of attraction, she is seen with her Spithead Fairy lights twinkling, being subjected to a friendly barrage of Pyrotechnics from the other ships in harbour. An Avenger bomber can be seen in the left h… Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161375

A particularly poignant image captures the men who were on duty when the war started in 1939. Of her total of over 700 embarked souls, this counted just 66 men.

(A 30200) The Royal Navy had been at war, non-stop for six years, illustrated here unmistakably. Taken on board HMS SHAH on 15 August 1945, the day the Prime Minister broadcast the news that the Japanese had surrendered. A “pipe’ was made for all officers and men who were at sea on operations on 3 September 1939 to muster for a photograph on the flight deck. This is the result; 14 Officers and 52 ratings, 66 in all. The group includes the Captain and the Commander (centre) and the Chief Engineer. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161377

Her war over, Shah embarked the men of the soon-to-be-disbanded 851 NAS and 845 NAS– sans their well-worn aircraft which were left in Ceylon– and set sail for “home” for the first time, arriving at Gourock on the Clyde on 7 October 1945.

De-stored, stripped of her British gear, and manned by a skeleton crew, she crossed the Atlantic for the first time and was turned back over to the U.S. Navy at Norfolk on 6 December.

Laid up at Hampton Roads, ex-Jamaica/ex-Shah was disarmed and sold on 20 June 1947 for use as a merchant provided her flight deck and hangar deck were stripped at the nearby Newport News shipyard.

She earned two RN Battle Honours: East Indies (1945) and Burma (1945).

By 1946, with the Royal Navy able to count a massive 23 purpose-designed flattops either under construction or afloat, it had no need to petition the Americans to keep any of the loaned jeep carriers. Jane’s that year only listed the RN with just two– British built– CVEs.

HMS Campania and HMS Vindex, 1946

Civil heroics

Purchased for $8 million along with two other war surplus C-3-S-A1 Class hulls by the Compañía Argentina de Navegación Fluvial— the Dodero Line– ex-Jamaica/ex-Shah along with her former jeep carrier sister ex-SS Mormacmail/ex-HMS Tracker (D 24) were converted to economical passenger steamers, capable of hauling 1,328 passengers (all Third Class) and 175 crew members each on immigration runs from war-torn Europe to Latin America.

Shah became Salta while Tracker became Corrientes, operating on the Buenos Aires to Amsterdam and Hamburg runs and back.

Shah post-conversion to Salta via Karsten-Kunibert Krueger-Kopiske.

Postcard showing Argentine mercantile Corrientes, ex-Mormacmail, ex-BACV 6, ex-HMS Tracker (D24), from the Ministerio de Transportes de la Nación, Flota Argentina de Navegación de Ultramar, Compañía Argentina de Navegación.

This continued until 1955 when the Dodero Line became part of the government-owned FANU (Flota Argentina de Navegación de Ultramar) line, which became ELMA in 1962.

It was during this service that Salta (with 1,014 of her own passengers aboard) came to the rescue of the old Dutch liner MS Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (then sailing as the Greek-flagged TSMS Lakonia) in December 1963 when the latter caught fire 180 miles off Madeira.

Lakonia burning

Receiving the SOS call through the then-new AMVER system while some 50 miles away, Salta’s skipper pushed her engines to the maximum and arrived alongside the smoking Lakonia three hours later. The American-built freighter/carrier/liner was the first vessel on the scene and rescued no less than 490 of the 1,022 souls aboard, most of whom were British. Five other ships, coming later, managed to save 404 between them.

The rescue was the highlight of the aging ship’s career and, suffering from mechanical issues, she was sold to the breakers at Río Santiago in 1966 for $640,000.

A plaque, presented by the survivors to Salta’s crew, along with a 40,000-peso accolade, is preserved in Argentina.

Epilogue

USS Jamacia/HMS Shah’s builder’s plans are in the National Archives.

The Royal Navy has not commissioned a third HMS Shah, and, likely never will for obvious reasons.

As for 851 Squadron, Shah’s hammer, its lineage passed on to the Royal Australian Navy. Recommissioned at Naval Air Station (NAS) Nowra on 3 August 1954, it flew a variety of types including sub-busting S-2 Trackers from the carrier HMAS Melbourne— appropriate for its past history– and remained in service for another 30 years until decommissioned in 1984.

851 Squadron S-2 Trackers in flight over Uluru S-2.

Anthony Montague “Steady” Tuke, 851 Sqn’s WWII commander, retired from the FAA in 1947 and went on to live a long life.

His 2010 obituary noted, “In retirement Tuke, who regularly supported squadron reunions and Fleet Air Arm dinners, was group secretary for West Essex of the National Farmers Union; a lay tax commissioner; and a governor of his old school. At an old boys’ dinner in 2003, to a standing ovation, Tuke accepted a bill (in euros) for the damage he had done to Vittorio Veneto in 1941.”

Steady Tuke

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday), Sept. 21, 2023: The Ajaccio Express

Posted on September 21, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday), Sept. 20, 2023: The Ajaccio Express

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 88998

Above we see the French Redoubtable (Pascal)-class submarine of the M6 series (Agosta type), Casabianca (Q183), on the surface in the late 1930s. She is responsible for landing the first Allied troops on Axis-occupied Metropolitan France, some 80 years ago this week, and has a fascinating story that sort of dispels a lot of smack talk about the Marine nationale in WWII.

The Redoubtables

In the 1930s, the French Navy put a lot of faith in submarines, with upwards of 80 boats on the rolls during the decade. While a lot of those were old “2nd class” submarines or former German boats, there was also a formidable force of 31 modern “Classe 1,500 tonnes” boats that formed the backbone of the fleet. Large ocean-going “sous-marins de grande croisière” (high cruise submarines, i.e., 1st class subs), these boats were decent by any measure of their day.

Hitting the scales at just over 2,000 tons (submerged), they ran 302 feet long and were capable of (at least) 17 knots while surfaced and had long enough legs for 30-day cruises. Armed with a single 4-inch (100/45 M1925) deck gun, a twin 13.2mm Hotchkiss AA mount, and 11 torpedo tubes (9 fat bow and stern 21.65-inch tubes and a pair of smaller trainable 15.75-inch tubes), they could easily be compared to the prewar 307-foot Tambor-class “fleet boats” of the U.S. Navy and thoroughly outclassed the Kriegsmarine’s smaller and slower Type VII U-boats. When stacked against the most numerous pre-war Royal Navy boats, the T class (or Triton class) subs, these French Redoutables also ran a good bit larger and faster.

1931 Jane’s covering the Redoutables, at which point some 25 were in service. 31 would be built by 1939.

The first two boats of the class, Redoubtable (Q136) and Vengeur (Q137) were considered the initial M5 series, powered by a 4,000 hp suite– capable of 17 knots on the surface. The second flight, or M6 series, starting with Pascal (Q138), had more powerful 7,200 hp engines– pushing them to 19 knots– while the last six of the class, starting with Agosta (Q178), count on 8,000 hp and a speed of over 20 knots. This latter variant is often sometimes referred to as the Agosta-class.

They were fast diving, capable of getting submerged in 30-40 seconds, and had superb periscopes, although their listening gear and habitability were reportedly problematic– the latter no doubt due to their large 71-man (5 officers, 14 petty officers, 52 enlisted) crew. Their operating depth was listed as 250 feet– which would have meant easy death in the Pacific but was acceptable in the Med.

Double-hulled and able to partially use ballast tanks for diesel storage, they could make 14,000 nm at 7 knots on the surface before needing to refuel. This allowed the class to roam extensively overseas, including to French colonies in the Pacific, where one member, Phénix (Q157), was lost in an accident off Indochina in 1939. Another, Prométhée (Q153), was lost in 1932 while on sea trials in home waters.

Meet Casabianca

Our subject, a fast third-flight M6 Redoubtable, was ordered as part of the 1930 Programme/Naval Program No. 153 and as such was laid down at Saint Nazaire on 7 March 1937. She was commissioned on New Year’s Day 1937, the last of the class by pennant number (Q183) although five other boats would join the fleet after her, with the final Redoutables, Ouessant (Q180) and Sidi-Ferruch (Q181) not entering service until early 1939.

French submarine Casabianca 2 February 1935 at launch at the Nantes Shipyard of Ateliers Et Chantiers De La Loire NH 88999

Casabianca was originally named for the 1907 landings at the Moroccan city of Casablanca but instead was renamed in 1934 before launch for the Corsican-born French naval hero Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca, the skipper of the 118-gunned ship of the line L’ Orient which took Napoleon on his expedition to Egypt in 1798. He would go down with his ship at the Battle of the Nile at the hands of Nelson but died with all the appropriate honor and elan.

Bust of Capt. Casabianca and the painting, “The destruction of the Orient during the Battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798, by George Arnald, National Maritime Museum, London.

War!

When the French Republic went to war with Germany on 1 September 1939 as part of its pact with Poland, which was then under attack, Casabianca was at Brest as part of the 2ème DSM. She was soon ordered to Spanish waters along with sisters Agosta (Q178), Ouessant (Q180), and Achille (Q147) to watch for German blockade runners, U-boats, and raiders, a mission that would be maintained into November, with the squadron beefed up by the addition of Redoubtable sisters Sfax (Q182) and Pasteur (Q139).

With the war heating up, the boats of 2ème DSM, Casabianca included, were attached to the Royal Navy for a series of operations including convoy escort (!) from Halifax to Ireland in the winter of 1939/40, and a May 1940 patrol off Norway that saw the boats poking their periscopes up off occupied Bergen, Stavanger and Egersund but not coming away with any “kills” largely because of the handicap of following very strict “cruiser rules” for taking enemy ships. The only success the class saw in 1939 was when squadron member Poncelet (Q141) captured the German freighter Chemnitz (5522 GRT) off the Azores on 29 September and a prize crew sailed her home.

French submarine Casabianca oversee the departure from Brest to Harwich, on April 17th, 1940. IWM

June 1940 brought the Fall of France and 2ème DSM was ordered to leave their home port at Brest for the perceived safety of Casablanca, escaping capture by the oncoming Germans. The force, including our Casabianca, Sfax, Poncelet, Bévéziers, and Sidi-Ferruch, would arrive there just escaping the armistice, redubbing 2ème DSM (Maroc).

Sisters Pasteur, Agosta, Ouessant, and Achille, left behind at Brest, were duly scuttled by their crews.

Vichy sideshow

Casabianca and her squadron would remain at Casablanca, making short day trips and coastal sorties into November, when Casabianca and Sfax were ordered south to Dakar in French Senegal to increase the Vichy force there against an Allied effort to flip the colony for DeGaulle’s Free French movement. She would remain there, with the occasional trip back to Morrocco, until August 1941 when she was ordered to Toulon to be disarmed and de-fueled in compliance with German demands.

By this point in the war, of the 31 Redoubtables completed, 13 had already been lost (two in pre-war accidents, four scuttled at Brest in June 1940, Persée and Ajax sunk off Dakar by the British in September 1940, Poncelet sunk off Gabon by HMS Milford in November 1940, Sfax lost by mistake to U-37 in December 1940, while Bévéziers, Le Héros, and Monge were sunk off Madagascar in May 1942 by the British).

In late October 1942, with the war in North Africa going bad for the Axis, the French admiralty, with the blessing of the German Armistice Commission, ordered eight subs to rearm, including Casabianca, with the plan to deploy them as reinforcement against a possible Allied push into French North Africa.

Escape from Toulon

With the Germans effectively canceling the Vichy regime following the Allied Torch landings in North Africa– in which the Redoubtable-class boats Le Conquérant (Q171), Le Tonnant (Q172), Actéon (Q149), and Sidi-Ferruch were sunk in combat with the Allies and sisters Archimède, Argo, Protée and Le Centaure captured– the great Sabordé occurred at Toulon in which the bulk of the French navy fell on its sword on orders to prevent their ships from falling into German hands.

Among the 77 vessels sent to the bottom by their crews were another 20 French submarines including the Redoubtable herself and her sisters Vengeur, Pascal, Henri Poincaré, Fresnel, Achéron, and L’Espoir.

27 Novembre 1942 ,Toulon. the crew of a Panzer IV of the 2nd SS Division, Das Reich, watch a burning French warship, cruiser Colbert via Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-027-1451-10 Vennemann, Wolfgang CC-BY-SA Libre de droits

However, five French subs got underway from the Mourillon docks at Toulon on the early pe-dawn of 27 November: our Casabianca, her sister Le Glorieux (Q168), the small (600 ton) Minerve-class boats Iris (Q188) and Vénus (Q187), and the aging 1,100-ton Requin-class submarine Marsouin (Q119).

With only seven of her 40-man crew aboard and damaged by harbor defenses, Vénus was scuttled in deep water once clearing the channel but blazed the way for the other four. The small Iris, with her fuel tanks nearly empty, was forced to stopover in Spain where she was seized and interned until the end of the war.

This left Casabianca, Le Glorieux, and Marsouin who, dodging German bombers and minefields, arrived unannounced off Allied-occupied Algiers on the early morning of the 30 November, with Casabianca’s skipper, 40-year-old Capitaine de Corvette Jean L’Herminier, to report to the American port captain that his boat was “fit for any mission.”

Brave considering the Allies had been sinking French subs off that very port just a few weeks prior.

Indeed, L’Herminier had made it away from Toulon with all but two of his crew who missed the boat, even managing to bring along the ship’s mascot, a small gray dog named “Moussy.”

French Submarine Casabianca arrives Algiers after fleeing Toulon December 11 1942 IWM A 13154

Casabianca at Algiers after escape from Toulon. Note her trainable external sub-deck torpedo tube is out to port

French submarine Casabianca officers in Algiers after escaping Toulon with their boat. L’Herminier in center with cigarette

presentation of the Croix de Guerre to Frigate Captain L’Herminier December 1942 at Algiers by Admiral Darlan

Casabianca soon was detailed to the operational control of Capt. (future RADM) George Barney Hamley Fawkes’s 8th Submarine Flotilla of the Royal Navy, which had just moved its headquarters from Gibraltar to Algiers.

Cloak and Dagger work for the Allies.

While the bulk of behind-the-lines supply and liaison drops in occupied Europe came via airdropped parachute-delivered loads and small STOL planes such as the Lysander, Corsica proved almost immune to such deliveries due to its geography. The island’s built-up areas were so heavily garrisoned by the recently arrived Italian forces (80,000 troops overwatching a local population of 200,000) and the rural areas mountainous that airdrops were considered far-fetched.

This defaulted the effort to seaborne infiltration via small boats and submarines, the latter referred to as the so-called “Algerian Group” heavily involved in running “Le Tube” north to the Riveria and Corsica with the occasional side trip to land agents in ostensibly neutral Spain.

Sir Brooks Richards’s seminal two-volume work on clandestine Allied Sea transport operations in the Med during WWII, Secret Flotillas, spends about 50 pages detailing the 10-month groundwork for the ultimate liberation of Corsica (Operation Vesuvius) in 1943 and the role that the British and Free French submarine forces spent in making that happen. The name “Casabianca” appears in that section on almost every page.

While Casabianca wasn’t the only Free French boat running covert missions in the Med for Vesuvius– past Warship Wednesday alum the Saphir-class minelaying submarine La Perle (Q-184) was there as was Marsouin, Protée, Orphee, Sultane, Archimède, and Arethuse-– none matched CC L’Herminier’s workhorse who accomplished both the first mission and the chalked up the most trips to the island.

As detailed by Sir Brooks:

Casabianca’s displacement was more than twice that of the British S-class and larger than that of the T-class British submarines of the 8th Flotilla, so she offered great advantages in terms of carrying capacity for landing agents and supplies. This and the inspiring personality of her commanding officer [L’Herminier]…made her an obvious choice when a vessel was needed to carry a five-man mission, code-named Pearl Harbor, to Corsica in early December.

Elaborating on L’Herminier, Sir Brooks said:

He was in his early forties while British submarine captains were in their mid-twenties. The fact that Casabianca was not equipped with ASDIC and her torpedoes proved erratic meant that her offensive potential was not rated highly by the Royal Navy and Captain (S)8 was more than ready for her to be used for “cloak and dagger” missions.

Thus, Casabianca’s tasking came from the OSS/SOE’s “conspicuously successful” Massingham Mission and the Free French’s own Deuxième Bureau military intelligence organization under Colonel Paul Paillole.

To assist with the landings and beach recons needed for such operations, the French boat sent eight volunteers from the crew through an abbreviated Commando course conducted by Massingham at the Club des Pins while the boat herself would be fitted with American-supplied rubber rafts, quickly inflated on deck via a lead from the sub’s compressed air system. Later, a pair of lightweight plywood dories made at Helford specifically for such use as they were equipped with large removable kingstons to allow the dories to flood and drain as the submarine dived or surfaced when stowed topside. The Helfords would fit neatly when carried upside down atop Casabianca’s pressure hull, under the forward deck casing.

Finally, L’Herminier was all-in on risking his boat to get close to shore, typically grounding inshore close to the beach when conducting often all-night unloadings, then pulling off just before dawn to submerge on the bottom just offshore to surface again the following evening to do it all again. This was vital as the “delivery boats” were human powered and the crew was burdened by moving 70-pound packages chain gang style from every nook and cranny of the submarine where they were stowed, up to the deck via small hatches, and into the boats then over the beach and into the cache– all in the dark by feel with no lamps allowed.

CASABIANCA ESCAPED THE FRENCH SUBMARINE NOW HUNTS AXIS SHIPPING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 20 MARCH 1943, ALGIERS, CASABIANCA, ONE OF THE FRENCH SUBMARINES THAT ESCAPED FROM TOULON, HAS SINCE BEEN HUNTING DOWN AXIS SHIPPING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. (A 15700) Sailors of the French submarine CASABIANCA mustered on deck for inspection. With them is the ship’s mascot, Moussy, which escaped with the ship and goes on all patrols. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205148727

CASABIANCA ESCAPED FRENCH SUBMARINE NOW HUNTS AXIS SHIPPING IN MEDITERRANEAN. 20 MARCH 1943, ALGIERS, CASABIANCA, ONE OF THE FRENCH SUBMARINES WHICH ESCAPED FROM TOULON, HAS SINCE BEEN HUNTING DOWN AXIS SHIPPING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. (A 15698) Officers and crew of the French submarine line the deck as she comes in after another successful patrol. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205148725

A brief rundown on her Corsica operations, via Brooks, in which, in addition to her agent shuttling service, Casabianca landed no less than 61 tons of supplies across the beach in such a manner to the local resistance groups throughout seven sorties to the island:

Casabianca I/Pearl Harbor: Landing Commandant Roger de Saule (French intelligence officer), three Corsicans: wireless operator Pierre Griffi, Sgt. Maj Toussaint Griffi, and trade unionist resistance member Laurent Preziosi. Tagging along was mysterious Eastern European OSS agent “Frederick Brown.” Casabianca had been in Algiers less than two weeks when she left on Pearl Harbor on 11 December. After a two-night close recon to find the ideal beach at Anse-de Topiti on Corsica’s west coast, the group was landed with the submarine departing for Algiers again on 16 December– sans three of her crew that had been left behind to join the Pearl Harbor team when their dingy swamped.

Casabianca II/Auburn: February 1943. Landed three Deuxième Bureau, one OSS, and two SIS agents (Capt. Caillot, Lt. Guillaume, Fred Brown, Adj. Bozzi, and SGT Chopitel) on two different beaches (Bon Porte Bay and Baie d’Arone). Then landed 450 STEN guns and 60,000 rounds of 9mm ammo for local Resistance members while two more Casabianca sailors were left ashore.

Casabianca III/Pearl Harbor II: March 1943.A complicated multipart mission to pick up Casabianca’s five castaways who had been working with the local maquis, land three Deuxième Bureau agents, and pick up two French agents that had been landed in other operations. L’Herminier capped off the mission with an unsuccessful four-torpedo attack against the Italian steamers Francesco Crispi and Tagliamento off Bastia.

Casabianca IV: May 1943: Landed four unidentified Deuxième Bureau agents, and conducted a war patrol in the area.

Casabianca V/Scalp. July 1943. With an embarked four-man SOE conducting party (including the future Sir Brooks), landed 13 tons of stores and two agents across two nights at Curza Point– mostly Axis small arms salvaged from the huge stocks of the Afrika Korps recently surrendered in Tunisia. As noted by Brooks: “In one short summer’s night, L’Herminier and his crew had succeeded in landing and hiding eight tons of arms and explosives in hostile territory without any outside help. No British submarine captain would have been allowed to take his submarine inshore to the point to where she grounded, as a preliminary to sending the boats away.” On her way back, she fired three torpedoes at the freighter Champagne near Giraglia, which missed.

Casabianca VI/Scalp II: July-August 1943. Another 20 tons of stores landed at Curza Point for the maquis, with an embarked SOE conducting party assisting.

Casabianca VII/Scalp III: Early September 1943. Landed two agents and another 5 tons of arms and ammunition at Golfe de Lava. Extracted a Corsican resistance leader, Arthur Giovoni, bound for Algiers to consult with Allied leadership about the upcoming landings. Giovoni, alias “Luc,” had a detailed copy of the Italian defense plan for the island, which had been recently acquired.

Her seven Corsican missions. She circled the island.

In all, the Massingham SOE mission was able to filter 250 tons of arms and stores into Corsicaoverf almost eight months, of which Casabianca alone delivered nearly a quarter.

Vesuvius D-Day

By the time Operation Vesuvius kicked off, the Corsican resistance could count 20,000 armed members in the field– a force double the size of the 10,000-man light corps (1er Corps d’Armée) under Free French Lt. Gen. Henry Martin that would begin landing on 13 September to liberate the island.

Speaking of which, the very first landings of combat troops would be at Ajaccio, with Casabianca making her 8th trip to the island, delivering 109 members of 1er Bataillon de Choc, Gen. Martin’s door kickers, while two crack Moroccan goumier divisions (4e DMM and 2e GTM) were inbound on an array of French surface ships. The operation was allocated to be an (almost) entirely Free French affair.

Free French soldiers from the Bataillon de Choc, a commando unit created in Algeria in early 1943. The Bataillon was decisive in the liberation of Corsica and Elba. This picture, with a recently repurposed camouflaged German 7.5cm Pak 40, was taken after they landed in Provence during Operation Dragoon, during the fight to free Toulon, in August 1944. Note the mix of gear including British watch caps, American M1903 rifles, boots and gaiters, and Italian Beretta MAB 38sub guns. Also, note the open 75mm shell crate with two rounds ready.

French Troops training for the invasion of Southern France in North Africa, likely of the Bataillon de Choc. One holding an M1 Thompson sub gun and the others wielding M1903A3 rifles with bayonets attached, the three slash into barbed wire barricades set up on a beach. Photograph received on 27 September 1944. 80-G-59465

Bataillon de Choc in late WWII with the Marlin UDM42 SMG during the liberation of Grenoble 22 August 1944

In addition to the commandos, Casabianca’s 8th sortie landed a joint SOE-Deuxième Bureau team of senior officers to liaise directly with the local resistance forces and help tie the whole operation together, with the twine of previously landed wireless teams helping to sew the strange quilt together.

The sub was mobbed when she arrived.

The fight was short, as the Italian garrison had (mostly) laid down their arms with the Armistice of Cassibile on 3 September, but there were still 10,000 Germans on the island as well as 32,000 Germans on nearby Sardinia that were evacuating through Corsica back to the Italian mainland.

French destroyers Tempête and L’Alcyon landing troops Ajaccio, Operation Vésuve Sept 17 1943 Corsica

The fighting didn’t conclude until the first week of October which ultimately saw some Italian troops cross over to the Allies and lend a hand to help speed up the operation.

The STEN gun, both in the hands of Free French troops and Resistance forces, was key in the fighting for Corsica, and thousands of them were landed by Casabianca

Goumiers marocains, Libération de la Corse. Note the French cadre in more traditional dress.

September 21, 1943 first goumiers landed at Ajaccio, Corsica. Note these are still carrying French weapons and don’t have Brodie helmets yet.

Back to work

Casabianca would go on to conduct at least two further Deuxième Bureau covert missions– one, in November 1943, to embark agents from remote Cap-Camarat near Ramatuelle on the Riveria, and the second, in May 1944, to drop off and pick up agents in Spain.

Casabianca returns to port from a mission in the Mediterranean, on 23 June 1944. NARA 80-G-253640

RADM Andre Lemonnier, French Navy salutes from shore as the French submarine Casabianca returns to port from a mission in the Mediterranean, 23 June 1944. NARA 80-G-253638

She would also conduct several short combat patrols and managed to sink two German submarine chasers (UJ-6076, ex-Volontaire, on 22 December 1943 off Toulon and UJ-6079 off Provence on 8/9 June 1944). In addition, she pumped a torpedo into the freighter Chisone (6168 GRT, built 1922) off Cap-Camarat on 28 December, seriously damaging but not sinking the Italian merchant vessel.

By August 1944, with the Dragoon Landings moving inshore from the Rivera towards the French interior, Casabianca along with surviving sisters Archimède, Le Glorieux, and Le Centaure, were tapped for modernization in the U.S., leaving for Philadelphia NSY soon after. The refit saw HF/DF gear, radar (SD/SJ), and sonar (WDA, JP) sets installed while the twin 13.2mm Hotchkiss machine gun mount was replaced by a twin 20/70 Oerlikon.

Casabianca was not returned to service until the end of March 1945, when her war was officially over.

For the next six years, she participated in a series of Med cruises and experiments– to include launching a captured German Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze (Wagtail) rotor kite.

The 1946 Jane’s entry for what was left of the Redoubtable class, now dubbed the Archimède-class after the seniormost member.

Casabianca was decommissioned in February 1952 and sold for scrap in 1956.

Casabianca’s crew was cited seven times (l’ordre de l’armée de mer) and the submarine was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the red fourragère of the Legion of Honor, for her wartime service.

Her British-style Jolly Roger marked her seven covert missions to Corsica, along with her surface and subsurface actions.

Note the Corsican flag, with the red dot for Ajaccio. The boat’s final Jolly Roger is proudly held in the French Navy Museum.

Epilogue

Casabianca’s fairwater was salvaged from her during disassembly and paraded through Paris.

It was eventually installed at Bastia in Corsica, where it remains today.

Similarly, a marker was emplaced at Ajaccio, celebrating the September 1943 landing there of Casabianca and the 109 commandos of the Bataillon de Choc.

She is well remembered in maritime art

A 42-minute documentary was filmed about her and is available online.

Sadly, L’Herminier, suffering from thrombosis, left for the U.S. for medical treatment in August 1944, which led to the amputation of both of his legs. Nonetheless, the fearless submariner remained on the rolls in administrative functions until his death, writing two books and serving as an adviser to the film, “Casabianca, Pirate Ship,” about his sub’s Corsican exploits.

L’Herminier was portrayed by French actor Jean Vilar and was filmed aboard Casabianca’s sister, Le Glorieux.

Decorated with the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur, Capitaine de vaisseau Jean L’Herminier passed in 1953 in Paris, at age 51, and several streets across the country were subsequently renamed in his honor.

The D’Estienne d’Orves-class aviso Commandant L’Herminier (F791) was commissioned in 1986 and was the only ship in the French Navy authorized to fly “le pavillon de pirate,” a replica of Casabianca’s Jolly Roger.

The flag was proudly a part of her crew’s patch. She was decommissioned on 7 March 2018.

As for the name Casabianca, it was reissued to a destroyer (D 631) of all things in 1954, then, more fittingly, to a Rubis-class nuclear attack submarine, Casabianca (S603), launched in 1984.

Casabianca (S603), which was just paid off in August, carried Casabianca’s Jolly Roger on her fairwater and her crew maintained a replica as well.

The sixth new Suffern-class SSN will become the next Casabianca (S640) when she commissions in 2029.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023: Mud Hen Regulus Pitcher

Posted on September 13, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023: Mud Hen Regulus Pitcher

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-433460

Above we see, through the swirling smoke, the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Toledo (CA 133) as she lets rip an 8-inch gun salvo into enemy installations at Wonsan in September 1951 during the Korean War. Note her Star-Spangled Banner and hull number identifiers on her turret tops, needed in the age of onboard helicopter detachments and fast-moving jets operating in a combined United Nations fleet.

Laid down 80 years ago today, our cruiser was too late to get in licks in World War II but as you can see, earned her keep in later conflicts.

The Baltimores

When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department. When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000 tons, 3.9 inches of armor), the writing was on the wall.

That’s where the Baltimore class came in.

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

Baltimore class ONI2 listing

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

In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there were at least 27 feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, then take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight. They were tough nuts to crack, and of the 14 hulls that took to the sea, none were lost in combat.

Meet Toledo

Our subject was the first U.S. Navy ship named for “The Glass City” in Ohio, home off and on since 1896 to the famous Toledo Mud Hens.

Laid down on 13 September 1943 by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. at Camden, New Jersey, she was launched two days shy of VE-Day on 6 May 1945.

Bow view of the USS Toledo leaving drydock 6 May 1945. Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center

Her “hometown” was so impressed by the warship that the Navy League of Toledo was able to raise $12,500 for a beautiful 204-piece silver service worthy of a battleship and commissioned through the Gorham Silver Company of Rhode Island and engraved with local landmarks that were presented to the ship.

With WWII over and no rush to get Toledo into the fight anymore, she wasn’t commissioned at the nearby Philadelphia Naval Shipyard across the river until 27 October 1946. Her first of 17 skippers– all Annapolis grads– was Capt. August Jackson Detzer, Jr. (USNA ’21), who started his career as a midshipman during the Great War on the old battleship USS Maine (BB-10).

1946 Jane’s for the Baltimore class heavy cruisers, including the new Toledo

While many members of her class had to fight for their lives shortly after being commissioned, Toledo was much luckier, and she spent 1947 enjoying the life of a peacetime heavy cruiser in the world’s largest Navy. She ranged across the West Indies on a shakedown cruise, then was sent to the Far East to assist in Japan/Korea Occupation duties via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal, remaining in the West Pac until November of that year when she made sunny California, calling at her homeport of Long Beach for the first time, just in time for Thanksgiving. A nice first year afloat!

Toledo made two more peacetime deployments to the West Pac in 1948-49, notably calling on newly independent India and Pakistan on a goodwill cruise and standing by during the evacuation of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist KMT forces from mainland China to Taiwan.

It was during this period that Toledo saw her first of several major overhauls, done at Puget Sound NSY from 5 October 1948 to 18 February 1949, which included landing her 20mm Oerlikons and seaplane catapults/handling gear.

Moving forward, she would carry helicopters as needed.

USS Helena (CA-75) and sister USS Toledo (CA-133) at Pier 15, Balboa, Canal Zone, July 1, 1949. National Archives Identifier 202801697

USS Toledo (CA-133) at anchor, circa 1949. Note her glad rags flying and the small WWII-style hull numbers.

War!

At rest in Long Beach on 25 June 1950, having just returned home from her third West Pac cruise only 13 days prior, news came that the North Korean military rushed across the 38th parallel, sparking an international response.

Recalling her crew and fixing what deficiencies they could, Toledo arrived off the Korean coast on 25 July, running her first of many, many naval gunfire bombardment missions just two days later, hitting Nork positions near Yongdok on 27 July.

USS Toledo’s forward 8-inch guns. They would get a lot of work off Korea. Kodachrome by Charles L Patterson, who served on her Marine Det in the 1950s

Perhaps one of the most beautiful images of a cruiser ever taken. USS Toledo (CA-133) Off the east coast of Korea while operating with Task Force 77. Photographed from a USS Essex (CV-9) aircraft. The original photo is dated 6 September 1951. NH 96901

USS Toledo (CA 133) blasts shore installations as her main battery sends a salvo into Communist transportation facilities in Korea. Operating with United Nations Forces, this was the first target upon reporting for duty, as a detached element of Task Force 77. Note the twin 5″/38 DP mounts in action at near max elevation, a depressed 8″/55 mount seen belching fire to the top right, and lifejacket/helmeted gun crews in the 40mm quad Bofors tub. 330-PS-2115 (USN 432090)

With Marine ANGLICO teams in short supply in this early stage of the war– busy operating in support of ROK and U.S. Army forces– the ship landed shore parties to provide direct naval gunfire support and correction of shot the old-fashioned way.

USS Toledo (CA-133) Shore fire control party from Toledo in an observation post overlooking the Han River, Korea, circa late April, or May 1951. They are ready to spot and correct the cruiser’s gunfire should the enemy appear. 80-G-432346

A shore fire control party from Toledo moves up past Korean tombs to man an observation post overlooking the Han River, circa late April, or May 1951. 80-G-432355

The smoke ring is formed by the escape gases and smoke as USS Toledo (CA 133) fires a 5” salvo at enemy installations in Wonsan, Korea. Photograph received September 23, 1951. 80-G-433428

USS Toledo (CA-133) Underway in Korean waters, with a battleship and a destroyer in the right distance. The original photo is dated 2 November 1952. NH 96902

USS Toledo (CA-133) The cruiser’s shells hit enemy installations in the Wonsan Harbor area, Korea, during a bombardment in early 1953. 80-G-478496

USS Toledo (CA-133) firing her forward 203 mm guns

She completed three wartime cruises off Korea during the conflict, in all conditions.

USS Toledo (CA-133). Official caption: “In Seas that Smoke with the wind and cold, the USS Toledo (CA-133) fights the elements as well as the enemy off the coast of North Korea. The heavy cruiser, now on her third tour of duty in the war zone, is due to return to the States for overhaul this coming spring.” Photograph and caption were released circa Winter 1952-53. The view was taken from Toledo’s icy forecastle, looking out over the cold Sea of Japan toward an aircraft carrier. The carrier is either the Essex-class Valley Forge (CVA-45) or the Philippine Sea (CVA-47). From the All-Hands collection at the Naval History and Heritage Command. NH 97171

In all, Toledo was authorized six (of a possible 10) Korean Service Medals, with the breaks in dates often due to leaving the gun line to get more shells:

K1 – North Korean Aggression: 26 Jul-12 Sep 50 and 18 Sep-23 Oct 50
K3 – Inchon Landing: 13-17 Sep 50
K5 – Communist China Spring Offensive: 26 Apr-30 May 51 and 12 Jun-8 Jul 51
K6 – UN Summer-Fall Offensive: 9-Jul-51, 25 Jul-7 Aug 51, 10-22 Aug 51, 5-9 Sep 51, 11-14 Sep 51, 17 Sep-4 Oct 51, 18-30 Oct 51, and 1-12 Nov 51
K8 – Korean Defense Summer-Fall 1952: 13-29 Sep 52, 9-18 Oct 52, and 30 Oct- 30 Nov 52
K9 – Third Korean Winter: 1-Dec-52, 17 Dec 52-16 Jan 53, and 28 Jan-24 Feb 53

Besides her Korean battle stars (five listed in DANFS, six authorized according to NHHC) Toledo earned a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation for her service.

Needless to say, her gunners and deck division guys humped a lot of shells and charges during the war.

USS Toledo (CA-133) Crewmen bring eight-inch powder charges aboard from a barge alongside, at Sasebo, Japan, circa July-October 1950, while Toledo was engaged in Korean War combat operations. Note the ship’s after eight-inch triple gun turret trained on the starboard beam, and aircraft crane and hangar hatch cover at the stern. NH 96903

USS Toledo (CA-133) Eight-inch shells and powder charges on a barge alongside the starboard quarter, as Toledo replenished her ammunition supply in Sasebo Harbor, Japan, after combat operations off Korea, circa July-October 1950. Crewmen are carrying the powder cans into position to be hoisted aboard the cruiser. NH 96905

USS Toledo (CA-133) Crewmen loading ammunition from a barge in Inchon Harbor, Korea, before Toledo’s moving into position to support United Nations ground forces, as they attempt to stop the enemy’s spring offensive, circa late April 1951. The original photo is dated 14 April 1951, which is nearly two weeks before Toledo arrived in the combat zone to begin her second Korean War tour. Men in the center are carrying eight-inch powder cans, while those at right have hand trucks to move the heavy main battery projectiles. NH 96904

In return, on several occasions, she sorrowed through Chinese/Nork counterfire from the shore including some close calls where shells straddled our cruiser, but in the end, suffered no hits.

Toledo was also a lifesaver, with her helicopters and boats plucking several downed pilots from the water, including one, from the carrier USS Boxer (CV-21), twice.

Peace again

Arriving back in California from her third combat deployment on St. Patrick’s Day 1953, she was sidelined at Hunter’s Point NSY for a five-month overhaul when the truce was worked out on 27 July. So far, it has held.

Our recently refitted cruiser had a series of snapshots captured during this refit. Importantly, she shipped her 40mm guns ashore for 10 twin 3″/50 (7.62 cm) Mark 33 Mounts and new Mk 56 FC radar fits.

USS Toledo (CA 133), sometime after her 1953 refit. Note the forward port 5″/38 DP mount at maximum elevation, 3″/50 mounts, and the Commencement Bay-class escort carrier in the background. NH 67806

Following her refit and the outbreak of an uneasy peace on the Korean peninsula, Toledo completed her seventh and eighth West Pac deployments (November 1953- May 1954 and September 1954- March 1955), spending lots of time ranging from Japan to Korea and Taiwan where she once again supported a KMT evacuation, this time from the Tachen Islands in January 1955 where her guns rang out once again against the Red Chinese.

USS Toledo (CA-133) (left) and sister USS Helena (CA-75) (right) moored at Yokosuka, Japan, 1955

Missile days

Four Baltimores were refitted for the nuclear deterrent role, USS Helena, Los Angeles, Macon, and our own Toledo. This saw them pick up the ability to carry as many as three nuclear-capable SSM-N-8A Regulus I cruise missiles on the stern and a distinctive 8-foot diameter AN/SPQ-2 S-Band mesh symmetrical parabolic antenna’d missile guidance radar to control them. Of course, Regulus had an over-the-horizon operational range of some 500 nm while the SPQ-2 was limited to just 50 under ideal conditions, but hey.

The Regulus was a big boy, 32 feet long with a 21-foot wingspan and a launch weight of 13,685 pounds. Essentially the same size as an F-86 Sabre. Capable of using first the W5 (120 kT) then the W27 (1,900 kT) thermonuclear warheads.

Sailors aboard the USS Helena (CA 75) inspect a Regulus missile mounted on the stern of the ship. The Helena is moored at an unknown Far East port in early 1956. Note the old seaplane service hatch open. LIFE Magazine Archives, Hank Walker photographer.

To accommodate the installation, the aircraft catapults were removed as were any remaining 40mm guns and the stern 3″/50 mount.

October 1959, heavy cruiser Helena gets her Regulus I missiles maintenance done before she departs for Japan

It was a hell of a thing to see one launch from one of these cruisers.

Official caption: “Nuclear Assault A Regulus I boils white smoke from booster charges as it roars away from its launcher aboard the heavy cruiser USS Los Angeles off San Diego. The launch, a routine evaluation ‘shoot’, was conducted during the time that 600 members of the Institute of Aeronautical Science were embarked aboard the attack carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), right. The demonstration, which included a ‘Terrier’ guided missile interception of the Regulus, power exhibition, carrier operations, and a HUK exercise, was highlighted by the Regulus launching. The Terrier was fired at the Regulus from the USS Norton Sound (AVM-1), background, on August 7, 1957.” NH 97391

A U.S. Navy Regulus missile is launched from the USS Helena in February 1957. K-21731

Toledo received her missile fit during a four-month overhaul at the Puget Sound NSY in the summer of 1955.

C.1955. Starboard-bow view of the cruiser USS Toledo (CA-133) firing a Regulus I surface-to-surface guided missile. The missile is controlled by the SPQ-2 radar trained to starboard at the head of the mainmast. Other radars visible include the SPS-4 Zenith surface search at the head of the foremast and the SPS-6 air search below it. A Mark 25 fire control radar is fitted on the Mark 37 secondary armament director, which is trained to port and partially obscured by the Mark 13 fire control radar on the main armament director. Note the twin 3-inch/50 AA guns on the main deck forward and the raised platforms amidships abaft the twin 5-inch/38 gun turret. They are controlled by the Mark 56 directors mounted on either side of the forward superstructure and amidships.

Original Kodachrome of an SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile on USS Toledo (CA-133) in 1958. Note she still has her seaplane crane, a common feature. U.S. Navy photo from her 1958 cruise book available at Navysite.de

Between early 1956 and November 1959, Toledo remained very active when it came to keeping up appearances in the West Pac, making no less than four more deployments to the region in that period.

USS Toledo (CA 133) at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 4 August 1956. City of Vancouver archives.

USS Toledo (CA-133). Port bow view while underway in 1957. Note her extensive twin 3″/50 DP fits, including one forward and aft as well as three on each broadside, and multiple AN/SPG-35 (Mk56) GFCS AAA fire controls. A big-gun cruiser to the max!

USS Toledo (CA-133) seen turning away from USS Columbus (CA-74) after a highline transfer. Photo taken from USS Columbus during her 1956 WESTPAC cruise. Note the helicopter on deck. From the collection of Domenic S. Terranova, USS Columbus Fire Control Officer. Via Navsource.

USS Toledo underway Kodachrome by Charles L Patterson

On board the heavy cruiser Toledo during her visit to Sydney in May 1958 for the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Bluejackets hanging out with some local ladies during Toledo’s visit to Sydney in May 1958 for the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea. Note the Regulus

USS Toledo (CA-133) anchoring in Tokyo Bay, in 1959.

End game

With the Navy converting five Baltimore and Oregon City-class heavy cruisers into guided missile cruisers, scraping off most of their guns in favor of batteries of Talos and Tartar missile launchers while the nuclear-powered USS Long Beach (CLGN-16) was slated to commission in 1961, keeping a bunch of (almost) all-gun cruisers in commission in the age of the atom seemed increasingly antiquated.

This led the Navy to mothball just about every unconverted heavy and light cruiser in the inventory, including the mighty 20,000-ton USS Des Moines (CA-134) and sister Salem (CA-139), only keeping the newest of that class, USS Newport News (CA-148) around to fill in as the last active all-gun heavy cruiser in the fleet, lingering until 1975.

Dovetailing into this retirement program, Toledo was placed out of commission at Long Beach on 21 May 1960, then moved to the reserve basin at San Diego and remained there for the next 14 years.

In 1973, the 7 remaining unconverted Baltimores, Toledo included, made their final appearance in Jane’s.

Long laid up, these were listed as “fire support ships.”

On 1 January 1974, Toledo’s name was struck from the Navy list, and then she was sold to the National Metal & Scrap Corp. on 30 October 1974. Her sisters had either already been disposed of or were soon to follow except for USS Chicago (CA-136/CG-11), which somehow was not decommissioned until 1980 and scrapped until 1991.

And of Regulus?

Besides the four Regulus-equipped cruisers, the Navy fielded the early cruise missile on two converted WWII diesel submarines and three purpose-built boats. Meanwhile, 10 Essex and Midway-class carriers were equipped to fire the missile as well.

By 1961, Regulus and its SPQ-2 control radar were replaced by the Polaris A1 SLBM carried by a new generation of Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines, largely ending the strategic nuke role by the U.S. Navy surface fleet. Tactical nukes, however, endured in the form of the 40-mile ranged RIM-2D Terrier BT-3A(N) with its W30/W45 1kT nuclear warhead, the TLAM-N (capable of carrying a W80 200 kT nuclear warhead 1,200nm), nuclear depth charges, and the Mk 23 “Katie” 16-inch nuclear shell used on the Iowas.

While the Army developed assorted nuclear shells (Mark 33/T317/M422/M454) designed for use in various 8-inch howitzers in land combat, first fielding them in 1957 and keeping them in the arsenal until 1992, I can’t find anything where the Navy did the same for its 8-inch gunned cruisers, which remained in service until

Epilogue

The National Museum of the Pacific War has a plaque, installed by her veterans’ association in 2000, in Toledo’s honor.

Speaking of her veteran’s association, I cannot find a listing for them any longer with what appears to be their website going offline in 2018. The archive is great.

Most of the cruiser’s ornate circa 1945 silver service is on display aboard the museum ship USS Midway (CV-41), having been returned to the city of Toledo briefly after USS Toledo was decommissioned, then, in 1961, being loaned to the USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32) — named after an Ohio town near the city. From there, the service was then transferred (missing a martini pitcher) to the new supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) in 1963 with the blessing of the Toledo City Council, due to the Ohio connection with the Wright Brothers. After the “Battle Cat” was decommissioned in 2009, the service was sent by the NHHC to live aboard Midway.

Toledo/Kitty Hawk silver service aboard USS Midway

As for the name, “Toledo” was recycled by the Navy for the 58th Los Angeles-class hunter-killer (SSN-769) a late VLS-equipped 688(i) variant commissioned in 1995. Among other claims to fame, she was observing the ill-fated Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk when the boat suffered its catastrophic incident then took part in the 2003 Iraq War where she launched TLAMs from a station in the eastern Mediterranean.

She is still on active duty, assigned to Portsmouth, Virginia and, since commissioning, has carried two of the old cruiser’s silver platters aboard for special occasions.

USS Toledo (SSN-769) aerial view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Toledo (SSN-769) underway on the surface. Catalog #: L45-284.05.01

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023: Of Mustaches, Stars, and Condemned Cannons

Posted on September 6, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023: Of Mustaches, Stars, and Condemned Cannons

Photograph by J.S. Johnston, New York. Naval History and Heritage Command NH 63251

Above we see a beautiful large format photograph of the early protected cruiser, USS Newark (Cruiser No. 1, later C-1) — the first modern steel-hulled cruiser in the U.S. Fleet, in the Hudson in 1891. You can clearly see her broadside of a half dozen 6″/30 guns, the ornately adorned ram bow, the extensive array of whaleboats and gigs to include a steam launch in the water, as well as her three-masted auxiliary sailing rig. A true warship caught between the end of the canvas and iron Navy and the beginning of the one made of steel.

She would have a unique place in American naval history.

The Squadron of Evolution

The Navy’s first run of steel-hulled ships, all mounting modern rifled breech-loading naval guns, protected by at least a modicum of armor, relying on steam engineering plants as their main means of propulsion, and even lit by electric lights, started with the famed “ABCD” ships– the protected cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago, joined by the smaller dispatch boat USS Dolphin (later PG-24)-– all ordered from the same shipyard, John Roach & Sons of Chester, Pennsylvania.

While the ABC part of this quartet was built to fight, running 3,200 tons in the case of Atlanta and Boston and 4,500 tons for Chicago, with as much as 4 inches of armor plate and a total of eight 8-inch, 20 6-inch, and two 5-inch guns between them, Dolphin was a lot less of a bruiser. That was OK, because their demonstration unit, the so-called Squadron of Evolution, or “White Squadron” was soon augmented by three smaller 1,900-ton Palmer and Cramp-built Yorktown class gunboats including USS Bennington and USS Concord.

Although the ABCD boats and the Yorktowns were all ordered and built between 1883 and 1890, it is Newark, ordered 3 March 1885 and not delivered until 1891, that is classified by the Navy as Cruiser No. 1 as Atlanta and Boston never received “C” series hull/pennant numbers while Chicago, by a twist of fate, earned a somewhat retroactive “CA-14” only in 1920 when she was hopelessly obsolete. The follow-on protected cruisers USS Charleston, USS Baltimore, USS Philadelphia, and USS San Francisco, therefore, became C-2, C-3, C-4, and C-5 although their orders and construction roughly overlapped Newark.

The Squadron of Evolution, including Newark on the top center and right across from Atlanta. So pretty she made the poster twice! LOC 79-HPS-9-1339

The “White Squadron” or “Squadron of Evolution” was underway off the U.S. East Coast, circa 1891. Ships are, (I-R): YORKTOWN (PG-1), BOSTON (1887) CONCORD (PG-3), ATLANTA (1887), NEWARK (C-1) CHICAGO (1889) NH 47026

Anywhoo…

Meet Newark

Our subject was the first warship commissioned to honor the largest city in New Jersey (as well as towns in Delaware, New York, and Ohio).

Some 328 feet long overall (311 at the waterline) she was considered a considerable improvement on Chicago. With a displacement of just over 4,000 tons, she carried a complete protective deck that ran two inches thick amidships with three inches at the slopes as well as splinter shields for her main guns and a conning tower with three-inch armor on the sides.

USS Newark (C-1) unofficial plans, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. Published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, NH 70105.

As a sailing ship, she was rigged as a barque without royals or headgear while her main propulsion was via a set of HTE engines propelled by four coal-fired boilers, sufficient to gin up 8,500 hp and able to drive the fighting ship at a healthy 18 knots.

The immaculate USS Newark (C-1) in harbor with other warships, during the early 1890s, showing off her wide and very functional yardarms. Glass lantern slide original from the A.S. Murray Collection. NH 45473

Her ornate rounded bow, Newark shown at the New York Navy Yard, 23 March 1899. Courtesy of the Skerritt Collection, Bethlehem Steel Co. archives. NH 45475

Dynamo Room Library of Congress Photograph ID det.4a14464

USS Newark (C-1) engine room. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-10

Her primary armament was a full dozen 6″/30 Mark 3 Mod 0 breechloading guns, an upgrade from the 6″/30 Mark 1s carried by the ABCD squadron and the Yorktowns. Black powder “bag” guns, they were capable of firing 105-pound AP shells out to 18,000 yards at maximum elevation/charge, with a rate of fire of about one shell every other minute or so.

A barefoot member of Newark’s crew poses by the breech of a 6″/30 gun, 1898. Copied from the collection of WM. D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80844

USS Newark (Cruiser #1), gunners loading a 6-inch gun. Photographed by Edward H. Hart, published by Detroit Publishing Company, between 1891-1901. LC-DIG-DET-4a14471

USS Newark C-1, 6 inch gun

To zap small steam torpedo launches and small craft capable of coming in close and under her broadside’s minimum depression arc, Newark carried an array of small pieces.

This included four 57mm/40cal Hotchkiss Mk I/II 6-pounders, a quartet of 47mm/40cal 3-pounder Hotchkiss Mk Is, and two 37mm/20cal Hotchkiss Mk I revolving Gatling-style guns.

USS Newark. Electrician 1/c Sullivan with one of the ship’s six-pounder guns, in 1898. NH 80783

Newark. The ship’s Marines operating a 3-pounder gun and Gatling gun during a drill in the 1890s. Description: NH 75458

USS Newark (C-1) crew member on the forecastle, with two 37mm Hotchkiss revolving guns in 1898. Description: NH 80779

Like most naval vessels of her day, she could muster about a third of her 384-man crew who, joined with her Marine detachment, could disembark for extended landing force service ashore, equipped with rifles and field gear as a light infantry company. More on this later.

USS Newark (C-1) ship’s Marine Guard, photographed during the 1890s. Note the blue sack coats and kepis not much removed from Civil War days, and what look to be M1884 Springfield Trapdoor rifles, weapons that would remain in service even when supplanted by the Winchester M1895 Lee-Navy bolt-action repeater. For instance, six Springfield M1884 Trapdoor rifles were recovered from the wreck of the USS Maine in 1900. NH 75457

Marching order, seen here by Marines of USS Maine in 1895, would consist of Mills cartridge belts, haversacks, canteens, leg gaiters, and day packs for both the Marines and the ship’s Naval company. From the Wendell C. Neville Collection (COLL/2985) in the Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections.

USS Newark (C-1) ship’s Marines at action stations, on the poop deck, during the 1890s. Note the drummer in the center, with the ship’s wheel below. Also, note the ventilator. NH 75459

Newark, gunners with 6-inch gun and crew gathering boarding/landing gear including rifles, Mills belts, bayonets (right), and cutlasses (left) LOC LC-DIG-DET-4a14473v

Cutlass practice-1890s-aboard the early protected cruiser USS Newark (C-1). LOC photo via Shorpy colorized by Postales Navales

Then of course the ship herself was a weapon, a massive ram capable of smashing into the hull of an opponent and crashing her strengthened bow into the bulkheads of an enemy vessel.

How about that ram bow! USS Newark (C-1) In dry dock, Winter of 1898. NH 80799

And a shot of her bow from the same dry dock period, just for continuity. Note by this time her rigging had been reduced for the SpanAm war and she wears haze gray. NH 80798

Among her boats were plans for a 28-foot steam whaleboat, a 24-foot twin-masted sail cutter, two 28-foot sail cutters, a 30-foot whale gig, and two 29-foot whaleboats.

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), boat drill at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-12

Another J.S. Johnston, New York image from 1891 of Newark, this time from the bow, showing her with boats alongside. NH 69195

USS Newark (C-1) hoisting in the steam launch, preparatory to going to sea, 9 August 1898. Note her dark wartime topside scheme. NH 80793

USS Newark (C-1) view on the deck, looking aft, in 1898, showing the 45-star flag and a cutter. NH 80780

Happy service

Ordered from William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia– the yard that had built Yorktown and would likewise build the cruisers Baltimore (C-3) and Philadelphia (C-4) alongside– Newark was laid down 12 June 1888, launched 19 March 1890, and commissioned on Groundhog’s Day 1891.

Her first skipper was Capt. Silas Casey Jr. (USNA 1860), a future admiral who had learned his trade during the Civil War on the blockade line aboard the famed Unadilla-class gunboats Wissahickon and Winooski. Her next eight skippers, some of whom only held command for a few months to cap a career, were all Civil War veterans– the end of an era.

This 1891 photograph via the Detroit Photographic Company shows Captain Silas Casey (USNA 1860), skipper of the cruiser USS Newark (C-1), sitting in his well-furnished stateroom with his Old English Bulldog sleeping quietly on the floor. Casey doubled down on being a dog lover as shown by his taste in art as the picture behind him is an illustration used for the “No Monkeying” brand of cigars, which depicts two bulldogs playing poker with a monkey. LOC LC-USZ62-71185 https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003656056/

Newark from her starboard bow, showing the size of her fighting tops. Halftone photo, published in “Uncle Sam’s Navy.” NH 45474

The next half-decade, until she entered ordinary for a well-deserved refit in March 1896, saw Newark showing the flag in West Indies ports then ranging to South Africa and Europe, often serving as an admiral’s flagship, and taking part in numerous international naval activities such as the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’ sailing which included port calls in Genoa (the explorer’s birthplace), towing a replica of the humble caravel Nina across the Atlantic from Spain, and attending the myriad of naval reviews in Hampton Roads and New York in 1893.

This left several great images of our cruiser.

USS Newark (C-1) photographed in 1892 at Genoa with a beautiful view of her 6″/30s and boat davits. Courtesy of Arrigo Barilli. NH 45476

USS Newark at Barcelona, 1892

Torpedo Boat USS Cushing TB-1 New York USS Newark C-1 USS Chicago

USS Newark, Detriot Photo 020641

Period photographers likewise captured some great shots of her crew that stand as absolute time capsules for the era, saved in a scrapbook from the vessel collected by William D. Edwards and via the Detroit Postcard company.

USS Newark (Cruiser # 1) Two African American members of the cruiser’s crew, 1898. The man on the left is wearing a steward’s uniform. Copied from the scrapbook of William D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80782

USS Newark (C-1) Officer and crew member pose by the wheelhouse, in 1898. Copied from the scrapbook of William D. Edwards, Courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80845

USS Newark (C-1) crew members by a searchlight, in 1898. Copied from the collection of William D. Edwards, courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974. NH 80843

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), shown: quarter-deck. Note the old Tars. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-9

U.S. Navy protected cruiser, USS Newark (C-1), shown: berthing deck. Detroit Photographic Company, circa 1891-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-F-4

USS Newark bridge LOC LC-D4-20065

USS Newark Petty Officers Mess LC-D4-20070

War!

Following an extensive 14-month overhaul, Newark recommissioned on 23 May 1898, just weeks after the U.S. declaration of war on Spain. When she emerged, she looked much more like a 20th Century warship rather than one of the 19th, having removed her original mainmast as well as her sails and rigging to leave two short military masts topped with searchlights, and donned a heavy coat of gray paint. She was swathed in splinter nets and landed much of her ornate woodwork from below decks.

USS Newark (C-1) view on deck, 9 August 1898, showing splinter netting rigged and a 6″/30 mount. Note that this was just after the Spanish-American war, when the cruiser was made very much ready for combat. NH 80778

USS Newark (C-1) in port, Antonio Harbor, Jamaica, 11 October 1898. Note she is in her gray warpaint with a much-reduced rigging and just two military masts. NH 80792

Her wartime skipper was Capt. Albert Smith Barker (USNA 1861), who had served in the Civil War aboard the old USS Mississippi and held command of the early battleship USS Oregon and, leaving his position on the Army-Navy Board eagerly accepted command of Newark. Her new navigator, late of the armored cruiser USS New York, was LT William F. Halsey Sr.– yes, that Halsey’s old man.

Sailing on 13 June for Key West and then Cuba, she joined the blockade on 30 June and served intermittently as the flagship of Commodore John Crittenden Watson, Commander, Eastern Fleet. Cruising in Cuban waters throughout the summer, Newark bombarded the port of Manzanillo on 12 August and on the following day accepted its surrender.

Carrying part of the First Marine Battalion with its commander, Col. Robert W. Huntington, aboard, Barker noted the sadness displayed by the Marine colonel at the sight of the white flags over Manzanillo on 13 August, saying, “As part of the contemplated plan of operations was the landing of some or all of the marines of Colonel Huntington’s command. This officer’s regret at the loss of an opportunity to win additional distinction for his corps and himself was only equaled by his careful study of the necessities of the case and his zealous entrance into the spirit of the enterprise.”

After the Battle of Santiago, she participated in the final destruction of Admiral Cervera’s fleet, bombarding the burned Spanish hulks.

USS Newark (C-1) coaling from a schooner, 1898. Though deteriorated, this photo shows an activity that was a frequent, and very dirty, reality of Spanish-American War naval operations. Copied from the collection of William D. Edwards, by courtesy of Robert W. Edwards, 1974.NH 80841

A hunting party from USS NEWARK (C-1) in the ruins of a Spanish building on Windward Point, entrance to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 3 September 1898– it looks like they are armed with M1895 Lee Navy rifles. NH 80791

With the war over, Newark was needed on the other side of the globe where the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, was ablaze.

After a short trip back to New York, Newark steamed through the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco then across the Pacific for the Philippines arriving in Cavite on 25 November 1899. By the end of the year, her landing forces were moving ashore, receiving the surrender of insurrectionists in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Bataan.

Philippine Insurrection, 1899. The garrison of Aparri from the USS Newark after the Surrender. McCalla collection, presented to Library by Captain D.W. Knox, USN. (Ret) 1926. NH 123421.

Boxing the Boxers

Having had little rest since she was recommissioned in May 1898 that took her from Santiago to Bataan, the year 1900 found our cruiser and her seasoned crew still in haze gray on Asiatic Station. She pulled up anchor on 20 May while at Yokohama, bound for China to help land reinforcements to relieve the international legations under siege by the anti-foreign/anti-Christian forces of the “Society of the Righteous Harmonious Fists,” at Peking.

Just two days later, she was in the midst of the mess, arriving at the port of Tientsin and then moving against Taku and Chefoo.

Over the next 11 weeks, Newark and her crew and Marine detachment would be involved in a series of actions, battles, and sieges ranging from running dispatches and medical supplies through bandit territory to outright heavy fighting against the Chinese Imperial Army.

A joint naval force was assembled from eight European navies and placed under the command of VADM Edward Hobart Seymour, Royal Navy, with Newark’s Captain Bowman H. McCalla as the second in command. In all, the 2,100-strong force (including 112 Americans, mostly from Newark) went down in history as the Seymour Relief Expedition, which tried but failed to relieve Peking and had to withdraw back to Tientsin by train, with Peking relieved later in the summer by the successful Gaselee Expedition.

Among Newark’s crew at the time was a young midshipman, Joseph Knefler Taussig, who would go on to become a WWII Vice Admiral– one of a very few individuals who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II, famously clashing with FDR. Taussig would be in good company, as, included among the British contingent were young Royal Navy officers Capt. John Jellicoe and LT David Beatty.

The cadet was seriously wounded in the leg during the Expedition. He wasn’t the only one. During the battle for the Hsiku Arsenal, Capt. McCalla, along with 25 of his force, was wounded and five were killed.

Seymour Expedition, May 1900. Officers of USS Newark (C-1) on board a ship, ascending the Pei Ho River en route to Tientsin. Present are (left-right): Midshipman C.E. Courtney, Ensign D.W. Wurtzbaugh, Captain N.H. Hall (USMC), Naval Aviation Cadet J.K. Taussig, Assistant Surgeon T.M. Lippitt, and Machinist Daniel Mullan. The McCalla Collection. Courtesy of Captain D.W. Knox. NH 45347

Those who did make it to the Legation Quarter in Peking on 31 May amounted to roughly a light company under Marine Capt. John “Handsome Jack” Myers, who, along with 20 Marines from the battleship USS Oregon also counted a force from USS Newark made up of Capt. Newt Hall and 23 Marines, five Sailors, and U.S. Navy Assistant Surgeon T.M. Lippett.

They arrived with five days rations, an M1895 Colt “potato-digger” machine gun removed from Newark along with 8,000 rounds of ammo for it, and 20,000 rounds for their Navy-Lee rifles. Leaving their kit on their ships, they only had the clothes on their back and the contents of their pockets.

Then began the famed “55 Days in Peking” that lasted from 20 June to 14 August before the Gaselee Expedition arrived and the Boxers were defeated.

One of the bluejackets from Newark during the Peking Siege was Gunner’s Mate First Class Joseph Andrew Mitchell. Born in Philadelphia in 1876, Mitchell grew up tinkering with the flotsam of the Revolutionary and Civil War and was something of a cannon fan, hence his occupation. It was to come in handy when the outnumbered Legation garrison was facing off with upwards of 20,000 besieging Boxers.

As told in an article via the Sextant:

Mitchell and the U.S. legation’s secretary Herbert Squiers had an idea: build a piece of artillery using the cylinder of a pump as the cannon barrel. They began to experiment, but then, on 7 July, a stroke of luck changed their plans. Chinese Christian refugees sheltering in the Legation Quarter discovered a cannon barrel reportedly lying in a junk shop, likely a relic from the Anglo-French expedition during the Second Opium War. Firsthand accounts record that the barrel was rifled and forged from either bronze or steel, but what Mitchell received was a “mass of rust and dirt.” He scraped and cleaned the barrel to give it “a creditable appearance,” one worthy of serving as the centerpiece for his improvised gun.

At first, the barrel was mounted to a heavy pole. When this proved unsatisfactory, the gun carriage was taken from the Italian’s 1-pounder, and the barrel was secured to the carriage with rope. Now, ammunition was needed. The Russian allies had arrived in Beijing with a chest of 3-inch shells but forgotten their gun in the city of Tianjin. When the siege began, they had thrown their shells down a well to prevent them from falling into Chinese hands. The disposed shells were hauled up, but found to be too large for the narrow barrel. Mitchell solved this problem by first removing the shells from their casings, then ramming them into the barrel. Thus, the “International Gun” was born, made of material from Russia and Italy and primarily manned by an American gunner, Joseph Mitchell. Members of the international guard also knew the weapon as “Betsey” or “the Empress Dowager.”

The “International Gun” and its crew. Gunner’s Mate Joseph Mitchell stands second from the right holding a modified Russian shell. (Photograph by Reverend Charles A. Killie. Billie Love Historical Collection and Special Collections, University of Bristol Library, http://www.hpcbristol.net/visual/bl-n033.)

GM1 Joseph Mitchell Boxer depicted during the Rebellion firing “Old International”

‘The International Gun’, an improvised cannon used during the siege of the Legation Quarter, Peking (Photograph by Reverend Charles A. Killie. Billie Love Historical Collection and Special Collections, University of Bristol Library, https://hpcbristol.net/visual/NA05-04)

Mitchell and his crew somehow kept the International Gun and its improvised shells working, moving the artillery piece from location to location within the Legation to make it seem like the garrison had more than just a single pop gun at their disposal.

Of the 56 Sailors and Marines from Oregon and Newark, seven were killed and 10 seriously wounded during the siege, including Mitchell who was shot in the arm on the last day of the action.

Of the 22 Marine and 33 Navy recipients of the Medal of Honor for the Boxer Rebellion, a whopping 35 (12 USMC and 22 USN) came from men assigned to USS Newark, including Mitchell. Keep in mind that 11 Navy ships (Brooklyn, Monocacy, Nashville, New Orleans, Newark, Solace, and Wheeling) served in Chinese waters during the Rebellion long enough for their personnel to be authorized the China Relief Expedition Medal.

It was a melting pot amalgamation of bluejackets to be sure.

Among Newark’s crew who earned the MoH were German-born Coxswain Karl Thomas, Seaman Hans Anton Hansen and Chief Machinist Carl Emil Petersen; Norwegian Gunner’s Mate Third Class Martin Torinus Torgerson, Finnish-born Seaman Axel Westermark, London-born Seaman William Seach, Sons of Eire to include Belfast-born Seaman Samuel McAllister and Landsman Joseph Killackey of County Cork, and one Boatswain’s Mate First Class Edward G. Allen who, despite his Anglicized name, had a birthplace was listed as Amsterdam, Holland in 1859, making him 41 at the time of the expedition, its “old man.”

Other Newark crewmembers with Boxer Rebellion MoHs:

Chief Boatswain’s Mate Joseph Clancy (age 37)
Chief Carpenter’s Mate William Francis Hamberger (later LCDR)
Oiler Frank Elmer Smith
Coxswain Francis Thomas Ryan
Coxswain John McCloy
Coxswain Jay P. Williams
Boatswain’s Mate First Class William Edward Holyoke
Machinist First Class Burke Hanford
Gunner’s Mate Second Class John Purness Chatham
Hospital Apprentice Robert Henry Stanley
Landsman James a Smith
Seaman George Harry Rose (later LCDR)

Then of course were Newark’s Marines who earned the MoH:

Gunnery Sergeant Peter Stewart
CPL Reuben Jasper Phillips
CPL Edwin Nelson Appleton (later Captain)
PVT William F. Zion
PVT France Silva
PVT Harry Westley Orndoff
PVT Henry William Heisch (formerly of Latendorf, Germany)
PVT Louis Rene Gaiennie
PVT Daniel Joseph Daly (the only enlisted Marine to have won the Medal of Honor twice, for two separate acts of gallantry)
PVT William Louis Carr
PVT James Burnes
Drummer John Alphonsus Murphy (aged 18)

A collection of images of some of Newark’s Marines and Sailors who earned the MoH in the Boxer Rebellion, along with “Handsome Jack” Myers (bottom right), who was played in the 1963 “55 Days at Peking” film by Charlton Heston. On the bottom left is Daly, who picked up his second MoH in Haiti in 1915

The controversial Capt. Newt Hamill Hall, head of Newark’s Marine detachment at Peking. One of only 20 men in history to earn the Marine Corps Brevet Medal, he went on to retire as a colonel and passed in 1939, aged 66. Source: Military Order of the Dragon, 1900-1911 (1912).

Back from the East

Newark sailed for home in mid-April 1901, via Hong Kong, Ceylon, and the Suez, arriving at Boston in July 1901. There, she would be modernized, landing her SpanAm War-era “bag” 6″/30 Mark 3 guns for a dozen new 6″/40 Mark 4s that used fixed shells and had easily twice the rate of fire.

She would put her gleaming white paint scheme back on for at least a half-decade and once again show the flag around the West Indies and off the coast of South America, then clock in as a training ship for the Naval Academy.

USS Newark (C-1) at the review of the North Atlantic Fleet, 1905. Note her newly installed longer 6″/40 caliber Mark 4s, which don’t have shields. Photo by The Burr McIntosh Studio. Courtesy of The Naval Historical Foundation, Rodgers Collection. NH 91219

Venezuela circa 1904. American fleet at La Guaira. The Gunboat/Cruiser at the far left is of the Denver Class (C-14/19) The other two ships, nearest center and farthest out, are two of the three Montgomery Class Gunboats/Cruisers (C-9/11). All three ships have different scroll work on their bows and based on that the nearest is the Montgomery (C-9). The other is the Detroit (C-10). The two 2-stackers on the left are Raleigh (C-8) and Cincinnati (C-7); the 2-stacker farthest away from the camera is the Newark (C-7), and the single-stacker is the Texas. In front of the Texas is the armored cruiser New York (ACR-2) (3 stacks). At right is the armored cruiser Brooklyn (ACR-3) (also with three stacks).

She spent a year on loan (May 1907-May 1908) to the New York Naval Militia and would be the floating home to the organization’s 1st Battalion.

Another good view of her 6″/40 caliber Mark 4s. “New Home Naval Reserve 1st Battalion~USS Newark Cruiser”~Enrique Muller postcard 1904

Then, returning to active service, she was used as a station ship at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay until 1912.

By that time, although she was just 21 years old, the concept of an 18-knot cruiser on the cusp of the Great War was ludicrous and she was marked for decommissioning.

Stricken from the Navy List in June 1913 she served as a Public Health Service quarantine hulk at Providence, Rhode Island, and temporarily as a naval hospital annex there until 1926 when she was disposed of, sold for her value as scrap on 7 September, some 97 years ago this week.

Epilogue

Across her career from February 1891 to June 1912, Newark had 21 skippers, all Annapolis men. No less than seven went on to wear admiral’s stars.

Some of her Mark 4 6″/30s, removed in 1913, were no doubt used to arm merchant ships against U-boats in the Great War.

Newark is well remembered in period artwork from her era, some of it breathtaking.

“Peace” painting by Walter L. Dean, published in “Harper ‘s Weekly”‘ circa 1893. It shows the “White Squadron” in Boston Harbor, during the early 1890s. The ship in the center is the USS Chicago. USS Newark is at left and USS Atlanta is at right. This painting is now in the U.S. Capitol. NH 95137

“U.S.S. Newark, off Santiago Bay, Cuba, 1898, Spanish American War, “1900, Watercolor and gouache on paper. Artist: Worden Wood (American, 1880–1943). Yale University collection. Accession 1941.228

USS Miantonomah and USS Newark at target practice. Watercolor by Fred S. Cozzens, 1892. Lithographed by Armstrong & Co. Copied from “Our Navy- Its Growth and Achievements,” copyright 1897. NH 337

Lithograph of USS Newark with her canvas aloft and electric running lights glowing, 1890.

GM1 Mitchell, who later retired from the Navy as a lieutenant, passed in 1925 and is buried at St. Paul’s Catholic Cemetery in Portsmouth, Virginia.

His work at Peking was commemorated in the DC war comic, “Our Fighting Forces” # 135, Feb. 1972, by Norman Maurer.

As for Mitchell’s International Gun (also known as ‘Old Betsy’, ‘Boxer Bill’, ‘Old Crock’ and the ‘Empress Dowager’), used during the siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking, the cannon was carefully escorted back to the States after the rebellion and has been in storage at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum for decades.

The International Gun barrel is in storage at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. 230614-N-NH164-005

An icon of “Devil Dog” history right up there with Chesty Puller, Sergent Major Dan Daly’s Medals of Honor, including the one earned at Peking while a part of Newark’s Marine det, are in the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico.

Daly is also attributed with saying, “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” during the Battle of Belleau Wood in WWI.

For more about the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Boxer Rebellion, please check out Emily Abdow’s new work, “The Boxer Rebellion: Bluejackets and Marines in China, 1900–1901,” at the NHHC in PDF format.

As for the name “Newark” despite the Navy’s best efforts, it just hasn’t been done justice ever since.

During the Great War, a commercial tug by the name was taken into service for the duration for work as a minesweeper patrol craft (S. P. 266) and retained her peacetime moniker. A planned Cleveland-class light cruiser (CL-88) was canceled in 1940 while a second of the same class that was to carry the name (CL-100) was converted during construction to the Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto (CVL-30). Finally, another planned USS Newark (CL-108), a Fargo-class light cruiser was canceled on 12 August 1945 when 67.8 percent completed.

The hulk of what was to be the USS Newark (CL-108) was launched on 14 December 1945, without a name but with her hull number stenciled in, for use in underwater explosion tests, then sold on 2 April 1949 for scrapping.

Today, with the final Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers in active service slated to decommission sometime in 2027, and no more “C” hull numbers inbound, the line started with Newark in 1888 is set to close after a glorious 139 years.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023: Weaving the Falls

Posted on August 30, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023: Weaving the Falls

Admiralty Official Collections of the Imperial War Museum, Catalog no. A 3295 by Harold William John Tomlin, a Royal Navy official photographer.

Above we see a circa 1941 image of a Royal Canadian Navy officer aboard the 4th group Town class destroyer HMCS Niagara (I57) making his bunk with a very interestingly camouflaged Mk I “battle bowler” style helmet at the ready. As for the U.S. Navy crest on a bunk cover?

There is a good reason for that, one that goes back 105 years ago this week.

The Wickes

Our ship was one of the iconic first flights of “Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) W.S. Sims. Beamy ships with a flush deck and a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide 35.3 knots designed speed– which is still considered fast today, more than a century later.

The teeth of these 314-foot, 1,250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK 9 guns and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.

They reportedly 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.

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard Profile / Outboard Profile, June 10, 1918, NARA NAID: 158704871

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Main Deck / 1st Platform Deck / S’ch L’t P’f’m, S’ch L’t Control P’f’m, Fire Control P’f’m Bridge, Galley Top, After Dk. House and 2nd Platform Deck. / June 10, 1918, Hold NARA NAID: 158704873

Wickes class. A close-up of her stern top-down view of plans shows the Wickes class’s primary armament– a dozen torpedo tubes in four turnstiles and stern depth charges.

Of the 111 Wickes completed, there were three subclasses besides the 38 standard-design vessels built at Bath Iron Works, Cramp, Mare Island, and Charleston. Then came the 52 Bethlehem-designed ships built at the company’s Fore River (26 ships) and Union Iron Works (26 ships) led by USS Little, the Newport News-built variants (11 ships) starting with USS Lamberton, and New York Shipbuilding-built variants (10 ships) led by USS Tattnall.

The subclasses were constructed to a slightly different set of plans modified by their respective builders, which made for some downright confusing modifications later. In addition, the Bethlehem-designed Little variants tended to have shorter legs and proved unable to cross the Atlantic in a single hop without stopping in the Azores for refueling or completing an underway replenishment.

Anyway…

Meet Thatcher

Our subject was the first warship commissioned to honor RADM Henry Knox Thatcher, USN. Born in 1806, this grandson of Maj. Gen. Henry Knox (George Washington’s artillery master) was first appointed to West Point in 1822 then, after being out sick and resigning, subsequently received an appointment as a midshipman with the Navy the following March at age 16, spending the next four years at sea aboard the frigate USS United States in the Pacific. Then came a string of seagoing assignments as a junior officer in the antebellum period (schooner Porpoise, sloops Erie and Jamestown, frigates Delaware and Brandywine, storeship Relief) before earning his first command, that of the sloop Decatur in 1857.

The Civil War saw him promoted to captain and later commodore, commanding the sloop Constellation in European waters, the screw frigate Colorado with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and a division of Porter’s squadron against Fort Fisher. The war ended with him in command of the Western Gulf Squadron tasked with the reduction of Spanish Fort and Blakeley– the last two holdouts in Mobile Bay– then accepting the surrender of Sabine Pass and Galveston, the last rebel ports.

Promoted to rear admiral in 1866, he held command of the North Pacific Squadron and was placed on the retired list in 1868 after a 45-year career, Thatcher passed in 1880, aged 73.

Appropriately, USS Thatcher (Destroyer No. 162) was laid down on 8 June 1918 by Fore River at Quincy, Massachusetts; launched 105 years ago this week on 31 August 1918 sponsored by Miss Doris Bentley, the grandniece of RADM Thatcher; and, too late for the Great War, was commissioned on 14 January 1919, with LCDR Francis Warren Rockwell (USNA 1908)– a Navy Cross holder for his time on the destroyer USS Winslow (DD-53) during WWI and future VADM who later commanded the 16th Naval District in the Philippines at the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific— as her first seagoing skipper.

USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162) At the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, 14 January 1919. Panoramic photograph by J. Crosby, Naval Photographer, # 11 Portland Street, Boston. NH 99264

In all, USS Thatcher’s construction only lasted just 220 days, a wonder of wartime shipbuilding.

Her active-duty U.S. Naval career was correspondingly short, spanning just 40 months but she was part of the support group for the pioneering NC-4 flying boat crossing of the Atlantic in May 1919.

USS Thatcher (DD-162). Leading other destroyers into a harbor, circa 1919-1921. The next ship astern is USS Crosby (DD-164). This was likely during the NC flying boat crossing as Thatcher operated on picket station number 9, one of 21 stations strung out from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Azores, between her sister ships Walker (Destroyer No. 163) and Crosby. Underway at sea, she provided visual and radio bearings for the flying boats as they passed overhead on their way toward Lisbon, Portugal. NH 41952

USS Cuyama (Oiler # 3) at Acapulco, Mexico, circa 1919, with several destroyers alongside. Destroyers off Cuyama’s starboard side are (from left to center: USS Walker (Destroyer # 163); USS Crosby (Destroyer # 164); and USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162). USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123) is moored along Cuyama’s port side. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1976. NH 85033

USS Thatcher (DD-162) underway, circa 1920. NH 41953

Transferred to the Pacific in the autumn of 1921, Thatcher operated out of San Diego, conducting exercises and training cruises off the West Coast with reduced manning (her last three skippers were ensigns and LTJGs) until decommissioned there on 7 June 1922.

Pacific Fleet Through Panama Canal US Destroyer “162”, Balboa Inner Harbor July 25, 1919. National Archives Identifier 100996438

Destroyers at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1919 (from left to right): USS Tarbell (Destroyer # 142); USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162); USS Rizal (Destroyer # 174); USS Hart (Destroyer # 110); USS Hogan (Destroyer # 178); USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123); USS Ramsay (Destroyer # 124); and USS Williams (Destroyer # 108). Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, NH 42537

Destroyers at the Mare Island Navy Yard, 1919, L to R: USS Tarbell (Destroyer # 142); USS Thatcher (Destroyer # 162); USS Rizal (Destroyer # 174); USS Hart (Destroyer # 110); USS Hogan (Destroyer # 178); USS Gamble (Destroyer # 123); USS Ramsay (Destroyer # 124); and USS Williams (Destroyer # 108). Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt. NH 42538

She would sway quietly along with others of her kind in the California mothball fleet for another 17 years.

Brought back to life

With war coming again to Europe, Thatcher was recommissioned at San Diego on 18 December 1939, then transferred to the Atlantic the following spring after shakedowns and workups.

Transiting the Panama Canal on 1 April 1940, just before the German blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries, Thatcher conducted Neutrality Patrols and training cruises off the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 1940.

USS Thatcher (DD 162) off Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York. Lot 5124-2

Headed to serve the King

With Europe again at war, on 2 September 1940, FDR signed the so-called Destroyers for Bases Agreement that saw a mix of 50 (mostly mothballed) Caldwell (3), Wickes (27), and Clemson (20)-class destroyers transferred to the Royal Navy in exchange for limited basing rights on nine British overseas possessions. Canada would receive seven of these ships including five Wickes, doubling the number of destroyers in the Canadian Navy in days.

In respect of Canada’s naming tradition for destroyers, all seven RCN flush deckers were named for Canadian rivers, ideally, those that ran in conjunction with the U.S. border, a nice touch. Thatcher, therefore, became HCMS Niagra, so named after the river that becomes the Falls in New York.

Sailed by scratch USN crews from Philadelphia, Thatcher and five of her sisters arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 20 September 1940, the third group of the “flush deckers” transferred.

Transfer of U.S. destroyers to the Royal Navy in Halifax, Sept 1940. Wickes-class destroyers USS Buchanan (DD-131), USS Crowninshield (DD-134), and USS Abel P. Upshur (DD-193) are in the background. The sailors are examining a 4-inch /50 cal deck gun. Twenty-three Wickes-class destroyers were transferred to the RN, along with four to the RCN, in 1940 under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3199286)

Decommissioned from the U.S. Navy on 24 September 1940, Thatcher was renamed HMCS Niagara (I57) and, headed for a refit for RN service by HM Dockyard Devonport, departed Halifax on 30 November; proceeded eastward via St. John’s, Newfoundland where she joined Convoy HX 080 as an escort on 10 December.

She wasn’t struck from the U.S. Navy List until 8 January 1941.

Besides HX 080, she would ride shotgun with no less than 13 Atlantic convoys in 1941 as part of the Newfoundland Escort Force (NEF), 17 in 1942, 16 in 1943, and one in 1944 for a total of 48 wartime convoy runs.

During this service, she was often a lifesaver, for instance escorting the battered Danish merchantman Triton into Belfast in January 1942, rescuing the survivors of the American merchantman SS Independence Hall two months later, then picking up 12 shaken survivors from the sunken steamer SS Rio Blanco, which had been torpedoed by U-160 in April; followed by 8 survivors from the Norwegian tanker Kollskegg that sent to the bottom by U-754.

Harold William John Tomlin, a Royal Navy official photographer, took a series of detailed shots of the (reserve) officers and crew of HMCS Niagara in action, likely in 1941, and they are preserved in the collections of the Imperial War Museum.

HMCS NIAGARA, TOWN CLASS DESTROYER, ONE OF THE FIFTY DESTROYERS HANDED OVER BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN EXCHANGE FOR THE USE OF THE BASES. 1941, ON BOARD THE DESTROYER, SHE HAS AN ENTIRELY CANADIAN CREW, SOME OF WHOM ARE EXPERIENCING THEIR FIRST TASTE OF NAVAL LIFE. AMONGST THEM ARE LUMBERJACKS, FARMERS, WAREHOUSEMEN, ETC., WHO UNTIL THEY BROUGHT THE NIAGARA ACROSS THE ATLANTIC HAD NEVER BEEN TO SEA. TYPES OF CANADIANS FORMING THE CREW OF HMCS NIAGARA SOME WEARING THEIR UNUSUAL HEADGEAR, ETC. (A 3289) HMCS NIAGARA. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137695

THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3277) Jack Farrell, a sailor in the Royal Canadian Navy, walks across the deck carrying a sack over his left shoulder aboard HMCS NIAGARA an ex-American Town class destroyer, 1941. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119367

THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3273) Gerald Moore, a sailor in the Royal Canadian Navy, smokes a cigarette whilst sitting on the deck of HMCS NIAGARA an ex-American Town class destroyer, 1941. He is wearing a peaked hat with tied-up ear covers commonly worn by Canadian servicemen. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119365

THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3275) Ski Doyle, a sailor in the Royal Canadian Navy, leans against the railings of HMCS NIAGARA an ex-American Town class destroyer, 1941. Rather than the standard bib, Doyle is dressed in a woolen roll-necked jumper. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205119366

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3293) Two Canadian sailors from HMCS NIAGARA hand washing from improvised lines strung across the deck of their ship. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185254

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3284) The Navigating Officer of HMCS NIAGARA uses a sextant to get a bearing at sea. He is wearing a heavy coat to protect him from the cold of the open bridge. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185253

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3297) The Blue watch has a sing-song on board HMCS NIAGARA, a Town class destroyer. An accordion, guitar, and mandolin are being played by some of the sailors. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185255

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 3299) The Engineer Officer of HMCS NIAGARA carries out an inspection of the boiler room to make sure that all is ready for sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185256

HMCS NIAGARA, The First Lieutenant, a veteran of the last war makes the rounds of the ship. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137709

HMCS NIAGARA, Up on the signal deck, Signalmen receive a signal instructing the Commanding Officer to take his ship to sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137704

HMCS NIAGARA, Down on the mess deck members of the Red Watch play cards. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137701

HMCS NIAGARA, In the Wardroom, officers enjoy a quiet spell while awaiting orders to put to sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137698

HMCS NIAGARA The gun sight setter with his voice tube awaits orders. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137692

HMCS NIAGARA The Mate, (a rank not used in the British Navy) Sub Lieutenant G H Doty, who until he joined the Canadian Navy was a newsreel cameraman, works out the course on the chart. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137705

HMCS NIAGARA Petty Officer Ben Pearse was a lumberjack on Vancouver Island. The eye cover is the result of a slight accident. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137685

HMCS NIAGARA Gordon Charlebois, French Canadian, of Alexandria, Ontario, who before joining the NIAGARA had never been on board a ship. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137687

HMCS NIAGARA, Down in the engine room, the Telegraph rings ‘half speed ahead’. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137707

HMCS NIAGARA In his cabin the Engineer Officer, Lieut E Surtees, enters up details of the work done by his staff. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137702

HMCS NIAGARA Members of the crew fix the fuse caps to projectiles for the ‘Twelve Pounder’ gun. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137690

HMCS NIAGARA On the Bridge, the Captain prepares to take the ship to sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137706

HMCS NIAGARA The boiler room receives instructions on the boiler room telegraph. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137708

HMCS NIAGARA In the Galley the cook prepares for the next meal, going to sea makes no difference to his routine. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137697

HMCS NIAGARA A member of the ship’s company having a haircut on deck by the ship’s barber. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137699

HMCS NIAGARA Jack Lawrence, age 21, of Newfoundland, had served in yachts and merchant ships. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137684

HMCS NIAGARA Lou Kiggins was a drugstore assistant on Prince Edward Island. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137688

HMCS NIAGARA Leading Seaman Les Porter, who was the Mate of a Lake Steamer. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137686

HMCS NIAGARA Replacing the oil fuel jets after ensuring the efficiency of these important sections of the motive power. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137703

HMCS NIAGARA Action Stations, loading the ‘Twelve Pounder’. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137691

HMCS NIAGARA When at sea the Captain can only leave the bridge for brief snatches of sleep. Here is the Commanding Officer of HMCS NIAGARA having a well-earned nap, but fully clothed ready for instant summons from the bridge. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137693

HMCS NIAGARA Tom Williamson was a cable maker at Niagara Falls. Now he is the ship’s rigger in HMCS NIAGARA. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205137689

U-570

Niagara’s most famous exploit was in the capture of U-570, a low-mileage German Type VIIC boat operating out of Trondheim, in August 1941.

After being damaged by depth charges from a British Hudson aircraft (269 Sqn RAF/S) in the North Atlantic south of Iceland and surfacing showing a white bed sheet on her tower, Niagara and the destroyer HMS Burwell (H 94)— another destroyer for bases vessel, formerly the Clemson-class four-piper USS Laub (DD-263)— together with a quartet of armed trawlers– HMT Kingston Agate, Northern Chief, Westwater and Windermere— were dispatched to the scene, arriving the next morning.

U-570, its German crew on the conning tower; evident to the left of the conning tower is the white sheet used to surrender to the RAF Lockheed Hudson of No. 269 Squadron.

A camouflaged Niagara stands by as a Royal Navy boarding party of four armed men from the HMS Kingston Agate has taken the U-570 under control, their Carley Float (rubber raft) can be seen tied alongside; photo taken from an Iceland-based PBY Catalina during a low pass — Morning, August 28, 1941.

Taking off 43 Germans under the bizarre Kptlt. Hans-Joachim Rahmlow, just seven days into his first war patrol, then installing a prize crew aboard, the trawlers took turns towing the damaged U-boat to Thorlakshafn, Iceland where she was beached, and very thoroughly inspected, detailed plans of her forwarded across all Allied channels.

The U-570 beached on the coast of Iceland at Þorlákshöfn, photo taken probably August 30, 1941.

General Plan of the U-570, U.S. Navy ONI Report Enclosure of the redrawn and translated plan of the submarine captured on board — prepared by the David W. Taylor, Model Basin, U.S. Navy (1941).

While Rahmlow had managed to jettison the boat’s the boat’s Enigma machine and codebooks, an officer from HMS Burwell retrieved documents with plain language and enciphered messages which helped the British to read Enigma messages.

Further, the boat was in fine shape with British inspectors noting, “Internally the damage was negligible and consisted mostly of a few broken gauges, gauge glasses, and light fittings probably caused by the depth charges and also by ignorantly conceived attempts to destroy various fittings.” Her motors, engines and pumps, compressors, auxiliaries, etc., appeared to be undamaged and battery compartments dry and sound.

The swashbuckling pistol-wearing skipper of Niagara, LT Thomas P (“Two-Gun”) Ryan, OBE, RCN, a Great War minesweeper veteran, one-time mercenary in South America, and a former police inspector in Ireland, conducted the initial interrogations of the captured German POWs, who were relieved to be (in their understanding) headed to a much quieter life in Canada.

“Two Gun” Ryan aged 51 at the time of U-570’s capture. A recipient of the Bronze Medal in WWI, he later went on to command HMCS Ingonish (J 69), HMCS Dawson (K 104), and HMCS Shediac (K 110) post-Niagara, then shipped out in 1946 to Manilla to distribute Red Cross supplies and write a memoir.

Formal RN interrogators cited U-570’s crews’ shocking lack of experienced hands, noting, “The chief petty officers, and to a lesser extent, some of the petty officers, expressed great concern at the inadequacy of the training and the lack of U-Boat experience, not only of the men but also of the officers and petty officers; no attempt was made to disguise the incompetence of the crew and the officers were severely criticized by all the men.”

U-570 became the British submarine HMS Graph on 5 October 1941 and, as the first operational German U-boat under Allied control– the more famous Type IXC U-505 wasn’t captured by the U.S. Navy until June 1944 — was key to understanding the tactics that would go on to win the Battle of the Atlantic.

German U-Boat U-570 entering the dock at Barrow-in-Furness after her capture by the Royal Navy. IWM Photo, FL 951

Importantly, the U-570/Graph was the only U-boat to see active service with both sides during the war, sent back out for her first Royal Navy war patrol on 8 October 1942.

Back to the war…

Niagara served and served hard, the unforgiving life of a tiny and aging greyhound in the North Atlantic. Suffering from structural weakness and with her boilers worn out, coupled with the fact that other, more modern escort ships were joining the fleet and needed crews, by March 1944 she was pulled from frontline service.

She continued to serve as Torpedo Branch training ship at Halifax throughout 1944 and, shifting to St. John, New Brunswick the following year, would endure in this important service.

Loading practice torpedoes on HMCS NIAGARA – Sep 1944

Niagara with the British Royal Navy Submarine HMS P553 (former USS S-21) alongside. This image was taken at Halifax circa 1943-44 as P553, transferred to the Royal Navy at New London on 14 September 1942, was then based at Halifax as an anti-submarine warfare training boat until returned to the USN at Philadelphia on 11 July 1944 and sunk as a target.

Paid off and placed on the Disposal List on 15 September 1945, Niagara was sold to International Iron and Steel for demolition on 27 May 1946 then taken in tow to Hamilton where she arrived at the Breaker’s Yard on 12 December 1947.

Epilogue

The old HMCS Niagara is well remembered by the Royal Canadian Navy Historical Project, For Posterity’s Sake.

Her wartime replacement bell (the original USS Thatcher bell was retained by the U.S. Navy, disposition unknown) has for some time been in the Niagara Falls Museum.

As for the U.S. Navy, a second USS Thatcher, a Fletcher-class destroyer (DD-514), was built at Bath in Maine– just miles from where RADM Thatcher was born– and commissioned on 10 February 1943. She was rushed to the Pacific– helping to sink the Japanese destroyer Hatsukaze during the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in November 1943– and earned 12 battle stars for World War II service.

The newly commissioned USS Thatcher (DD 514) in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, on 28 February 1943. Note 20mm guns amidships and forward using the photographing aircraft as an opportunity for tracking practice. Worn out from her WWII service which included surviving two kamikaze hits off Okinawa, a post-war survey board decided that the ship should be scrapped, and she was decommissioned on 23 November 1945 and then sold for scrap. National Archives photograph, 80-G-36537

There has not been a third USS Thatcher.

As for the name HMCS Niagara, the Royal Canadian Navy’s liaison base as part of the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. was known as the shore establishment HMCS Niagara from 1951 to 1965.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023: The Last Violet

Posted on August 23, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023: The Last Violet

USCG Historian’s Photo 220211-G-G0000-010

Above we see the Department of Commerce’s United States Lighthouse Service’s Violet-class coast-wise tender Lilac standing by the wreck of a derelict sailing ship in New York harbor, circa 1930s, with Lady Liberty in the background, likely during one of the vessel’s regular trips to the Service’s St. George Depot on Staten Island. If you look closely, you’ll note the USLHS’s brass lighthouse emblem bolted to her bow.

Lilac would later go on to serve, including a spell in haze gray, for another 40 years, and continues to clock in today.

The last tenders of the USLHS

The U.S Lighthouse Establishment was founded in 1789 and morphed across several iterations until, as the U.S Lighthouse Board in the 1890s, developed a basic design for its largest steam tenders that would remain little changed for a century. Between 1892 and 1939, no less than 33 such large coast-wise tenders were built, typically ranging in length from 164 to 174 feet and outfitted to carry about two dozen crew to work a series of large steam-powered booms to service a growing array of federally maintained aids to navigation– 11,713 in 1910 when the USLHS was formed swelling to 30,420 by 1939. These included lighted aids (lighthouses, lightships, and buoys), fog signals, radio beacons, unlighted buoys, and daymarks.

The trio of Violet class tenders (joined by the near-sister Arbutus) was led by the Manitowoc-built USLHT Violet, contracted in September 1929, followed by our Pusey & Jones Co. built Lilac and Mistletoe. Modern vessels, they were built almost entirely of riveted steel, including hulls, decks, deckhouses, and masts, edged with wood as a protective against heavy buoys, chains, and cement anchors. They had electric lights throughout and refrigerated storerooms.

Some 173 feet in length (163 feet six inches on the waterline) the class had a molded breadth of 32 feet, and the minimum depth of hull at the side, from the top of the main deck to the top of the keel, of 14 feet 6 inches. At a displacement of approximately 770 tons (799 is full load), the draft is 10 feet seven inches in salt water, essential to being able to tread in hazardous shoals.

Early plans of near-sister Arbutus, which was of the same overall type although slightly deeper of hold and with Foster-Wheeler boilers rather than Babcock & Wilcox as used by the Violets.

Arbutus out of the water before launch at Pusey & Jones. Note the wooden strakes to protect her hull while working buoys and the USLHS lighthouse insignia on her bow. (USCG photo)

The fuel capacity of the class was 29,000 gallons of fuel oil for their pair of Babcock & Wilcox boilers, each driving a triple expansion engine. The designed top speed of the class was approximately 13.7 knots at 1,000 hp– although later maximum speed was in the typically 11.5 knot range. They were not built as racehorses. The range, at 10 knots, was 1,734 nm which allowed them to range along the coast and keep station for weeks if needed.

Lilac, seen here ready for launch at Wilmington Delaware in 1933. She was moved through the water by twin four-bladed propellers 7 feet 5 inches in diameter. Each propeller was driven by a triple expansion, reciprocating steam engine developing 500 indicated horsepower at 160 revolutions per minute. The engines were built by the ship’s builders, Pusey & Jones of Wilmington, Delaware, and had high, intermediate, and low-pressure cylinders 11 1/2, 19, and 32 inches in diameter respectively with a 24-inch stroke. Steam to operate the engines and booms was supplied at 200 pounds per square inch by two Babcock & Wilcox oil-fired watertube boilers. (Hagley Library)

The deck gear included a 20-ton capacity boom with a steam-powered hoist, here seen in action aboard Lilac in 1948. (Philadelphia Inquirer archives)

Besides normal crew berthing of about six officers and 20 crew while on USHLS orders, the class also had spare accommodations to allow ferrying rotating crew members to lightships and keepers to lighthouses as well as providing space for district and national officials on periodic inspection tours.

Meet Lilac

Our subject had been planned to be named Azalea, contracted on 13 April 1931 to Hampton Roads Shipbuilding of Portsmouth, Virginia. However, Pusey & Jones subsequently underbid Hampton Roads, and the former was awarded the contract, after which the USLHS changed the new tender’s name to Lilac.

The name “Lilac” was the second in the USLHS, with the first being a 155-foot tender built in 1892 that served in the Navy during the Great War on patrol off the East Coast and in the Caribbean.

Ordered for $334,900 from Pusey & Jones on 16 August 1932, she was launched on 26 May 1933 and entered service with the service later that same year under the command of Capt. Andrew J. Davidson, a man who began his long career 42 years prior as a ship’s carpenter aboard the lighthouse tender Zizania and would be her skipper for five years.

USLHS Lighthouse Tender Lilac, NARA Identifier 26-LG-69-64

Lilac was assigned to the Fourth Lighthouse District, which covered the Delaware River, from Trenton, New Jersey south to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. She replaced the old (c. 1899) tender Iris and was based in Edgemoor, Delaware, just north of the mouth of the Christina River, where she would spend the next 15 years. Among her more famous charges was the Breakwater Lighthouse, founded in 1885 and now part of the Cape Henlopen State Park.

The Delaware Breakwater Lighthouse. LOC.

Joining the Coast Guard

On 1 July 1939, with the world edging towards war, the USLHS merged with the U.S. Coast Guard, which is still in charge of the maintenance and operation of all U.S. lighthouses, lightships, and aids to navigation. Lilac and her sisters were among 63 existing and building tenders of all sorts transferred to the USCG. With that, the triangular pennant of the Lighthouse Service was lowered for the last time on 7 July and the Coast Guard pennant ran up.

Upon commissioning into the Coast Guard, the vessels were given the WAGL designation meaning “auxiliary vessel, lighthouse tender” with the “W” being the USCG’s service differentiator. Lilac’s pennant number, therefore, became WAGL-227.

Other changes included repainting the all-black stacks to the standard Coast Guard buff with a black cap and removing the brass USHLS lighthouse emblems from the bows. Internally, the complement switched to two officers, two warrant officers, and 34 enlisted. Room for a small arms locker was set aside and plans were made to mount a topside armament drawn up.

When the Coast Guard was transferred to the Navy under Executive Order 8929 of 1 November 1941, out came the guns and thick haze grey paint. The Violets would pick up a single 3″/50 DP mount on the foc’sle, a pair of 20mm/80 Oerlikon single mount amidships behind the wheelhouse, and a pair of depth charge tracks over the stern. They would also, late in the war, pick up an SO-1 (Violet, Lilac, and Arbutus) or SO-8 (Mistletoe) detection radar on the top of their masts and WEA-2 sonars.

Mistletoe seen in 1943 during WWII before she had her SO-8 radar fit.

Lilac seen in late Sept. 1945, with her armament apparently landed but still wearing her “war paint.” 4th Naval District Photographer WC Dendal

Lilac would spend her war in the 5th Naval District on orders in the Delaware River system and would be fitted with a degaussing system for protection against magnetic mines laid off the mouth of the Delaware Bay by German U-boats. She would stand by when they brought in the surrendered U-858 in May 1945 and docked her at Fort Mills.

Mistletoe and Violet, also under 5th District Orders based in Norfolk and Baltimore, respectively, would work in Chesapeake Bay during the war.

Arbutus, assigned to the 1st Naval District, was used as a net tender at Newport RI. Her armament would be much the same with the exception of a smaller 3″/23 rather than a 3″/50 and a BK series radar initially fitted as early as 1943.

The men who tended the lights and buoys were in the war as well, and it should be remembered the USLHS lightship LV-71 was sunk in the Great War by the German submarine U-104 near Diamond Shoals, North Carolina while the unarmed USCG Speedwell-class buoy tender Acacia (which had joined the old USLHS in 1927) was sent to the bottom by gunfire from U-161 in 1942 during WWII. Another tender, the former 173-foot circa 1904 USLHT Magnolia, was lost in USCG/Navy service in 1945 when the American Mail Line freighter SS Marguerite Leland in Mobile Bay ran her down.

Postwar

Postwar, Lilac and her sisters would return to a more typical life, reverting to their peacetime livery. At first this would be a black hull with a white superstructure and bow eyebrow and buff stack with a black cap.

Tender Lilac 5 Sept 1946 near Burlington NJ Photographer McKisky

Tender Lilac 5 Sept 1946 at Harbor of Refuge. Note the radar fit on her mast top. Photographer McKisky

Mistletoe, 1947, note her SO-8 radar on her top mast. USLHS Digital Archive

Then this would change to an all-black hull, losing the eyebrow, and wearing large white hull numbers.

Tender Lilac 5 W227 1950s

Lilac underway circa 1940s (U.S. Coast Guard)

Lilac with unidentified light

In 1948, Lilac was transferred to Gloucester City, New Jersey, where, in addition to her ATON work, would be remarkably busy in a series of SAR cases.

As detailed by the Coast Guard Historian’s Office, here is just a two year-run down:

On 15 to 17 May 1952, she assisted following the collision between the motor vessels Barbara Lykes and F. L. Hayes in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
On 22 May 1952, she assisted the tug Pateo and the Atlantic Dealer in the Delaware River.
On 26 May 1952, she assisted following the collision between the tanker Michael and the motor barge A. C. Dodge near Ready Island.
On 30 January 1953, she assisted the fishing vessel Benjamin Brothers in the Delaware River.
From 6 to 12 June 1953, she assisted following the collision between the tankers Pan Massachusetts and the Phoenix in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
On 24 and 25 June 1953 she fought the fire on board the tanker Pan Georgia and searched for survivors in the Christina River.
On 30 December 1953, she assisted the motor vessels Atlantic Dealer and Atlantic Engineer in the Delaware River.
On 13 July 1955, she assisted the yacht Nip and Tuck in the Delaware River.

LILAC underway circa 1950s (U.S. Coast Guard)

Taking buoy on board Lilac (Philadelphia Enquirer)

Bridge, buoy tender LILAC 220211-G-G0000-011

Wheelhouse of Lilac (Philadelphia Enquirer)

In a 1961 refit for a further decade of service, she would be equipped with an SPN-11 radar and UNQ-1 sonar.

By 1965, the USCG switched the WAGL designation to WLM for “‘medium or coastal buoy tender” and Lilac became WLM-227.

She would pick up the now-classic Coast Guard racing stripe after 1967.

With the service having the much-improved all-welded diesel-powered 180-foot buoy tenders on hand in serious numbers, by 1972 the riveted-hulled steam-powered Lilac was seen as incredibly old-fashioned.

She was decommissioned on 3 February 1972, capping just under 40 years with the USLHS/Navy/USCG.

Tender Lilac decommissioning

Her sisters Arbutus, Mistletoe, and Violet had been taken out of service already, decommissioned and disposed of between 1963 and 1969. None are afloat.

Arbutus met her end in Florida in the 1980s after serving as one of treasure hunter Mel Fisher’s “sentry” vessels over the Atocha wreck site.

The Arbutus wreck was celebrated, and she was later used by Jimmy Buffett for a back cover shot for his 1985 album ‘Songs You Should Know By Heart’.”

Switching careers

Just a few months after she was decommissioned, ex-USCGC Lilac was donated to the Harry Lundeberg Seafarers International Union seamanship school in Maryland, where she was used as a stationary pier side training vessel until 1984. In this role, she provided accommodation and class space to mariners upgrading their ratings across both bridge, deck, and engine room departments.

After 1984, she passed hands a few times and was used as a salvage company’s office for a spell, grounded in a dredged berth along the James River outside of Richmond, before she was listed in 1999 for scrap value, still relatively intact but showing her age.

Preservation

The non-profit NYC-based Tug Pegasus Preservation Project became involved in the prospect of saving Lilac and she was refloated on 25 February 2003, then towed to a shipyard in Norfolk where, after a favorable report on the condition of the ship’s hull– she had spent most of her life in freshwater– she was purchased on 11 March 2003, with the intent to return her to operation as a steam vessel based in New York harbor.

After berthing at the Hudson River Park’s Pier 40 and transfered to the newly created non-profit LILAC Preservation Project, she was eventually moved to the newly built Pier 25 in Tribeca in 2011 and has since opened as a museum ship.

The last unaltered American steam-propelled and steam-hoisting lighthouse tender designed for work on the open sea and connecting bays and sounds, Lilac is special and, other than the diesel-powered tender Fir (which was still under construction when the service was absorbed by the USCG was preserved at the Liberty Maritime Museum in Sacramento for a half-decade and is now apparently looking for a new owner) is the only USLHS tender still around– and the only one on display.

She is the oldest Coast Guard “black hull” afloat.

If you have a chance to visit her, please do.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023: Copenhagen’s Finest

Posted on August 16, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland 7 comments

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023: Copenhagen’s Finest

Photo by Nationalmuseet, Danmark, THM-30863

Above we see the Royal Danish Navy artilleriskib Niels Juel (also seen as Niels Iuel) in Aarhus harbor. In the background at the quay is the 1,300-ton cargo steamer Slesvig (Schleswig), belonging to the Danish-Fransk shipping company. Note the Danish flag recognition flashes on the warship’s forward turrets. She would give her last full measure for her country some 80 years ago this month.

The Danish Navy

While Denmark had a fairly decent series of light cruisers such as the Valkyrien and a couple of “bathtub battleships” or kystforsvarsskib— Iver Hvitfeldt (3,446 tons, 2 x 10″ guns, 8-inches armor) and Skjold (2,195 tons, 1 x 9.4″, 10 inches armor)– at the turn of the century, as a likely battleground for a tense naval build up between Imperial Germany and Great Britain, the country thought it would be a good idea in the early 1900s to whistle up some more modern warships.

This was exemplified by a trio of Herluf Trolle-class (~3,500 tons, 2 x 9.4″, 4 x 6″, 7 inches armor) coastal battleships completed by 1908.

Postcard for Danish coastal battleship Herluf Trolle THM-30778

Then came plans for a larger, more prestigious vessel that would carry 12-inch guns.

The initial design of this Danish “Orlogskibet” called for an enlarged Herluf Trolle with the 9.4-inch guns swapped out for a pair of Krupp-made 30.5 cm/50 (12″) SK L/50 guns— the same type used on the German Helgoland, Kaiser, König, and Derfflinger battleships and battlecruiser classes– ordered in July 1914 with magazines for some 80 shells for each mount. This armament would be augmented by a secondary battery of eight 10.5 cm/40 (4.1″) SK L/40 guns, the typical armament of many German light cruisers. A true “Balic battleship” akin to what was seen in use by Sweden and Norway at the time.

The thing is, these guns were soon embargoed as the Great War began and Germany was no longer interested in exporting any war material, even to a close neighbor whose neutral window to the west was cherished for numerous reasons.

This left the new vessel, which was laid down in September 1914 at Orlogsverftet, Copenhagen, to be launched in July 1918 just to clear the builder’s ways, to languish without guns that would never be delivered.

The future Niels Juel launched at Holmen on 3 July 1918

This left the Danes to come up with another idea.

Meet Niels Juel

The name “Niels Juel” is in honor of the 17th Century Danish admiral and naval hero who, after learning his trade in Dutch service alongside Tromp and De Ruyter, would return home and raise Danish sea power to the point that it was one of the strongest fleets in Europe at the time– and beat the pesky Swedes to boot.

Niels Juel is well remembered in Denmark, and is one of the country’s biggest naval heroes, with a statue at Holmen Canal in Copenhagen.

The first ship named in his honor, the 190-foot 42-gun screw frigate Niels Juel, built in 1856, would be one of three Danish warships under Commodore Edouard Suenson to fight the curious and brutal 13-hour long Battle of Helgoland— the last naval battle fought by squadrons of wooden ships in Europe– against Austrian Commodore Wilhelm von Tegetthoff’s stronger force in 1864 during the Second Schleswig War. She would survive the fight and be disarmed in 1888, kept as a barracks and training hulk into 1910.

Onboard the frigate Niels Juel during the Battle of Heligoland, May 9th, 1864, by Christian Mølsted ca. 1897-98 (left) and Battle of Helgoland by Ludwig Rubelli von Sturmfest, right, showing the Danish battle fleet in action against the Austrians.

This set up our new would-be-battleship for a great name to inherit.

With her original set of German guns never arriving, the Danes hit on an idea to convert the unfinished battleship to a gunnery training ship used for seagoing training of midshipmen, displacing some 4,350 tons, and running 295 feet oal.

Her armament would be an all-up battery of 10 Krupp 15 cm SK L/45 guns— which were still available postwar– directed by two Zeiss rangefinders, augmented by four of 57mm (14 pounders) A.B.K. L/30 AAA guns, and a pair of submerged port and starboard 17.7-inch torpedo tubes with room for four heater style fish. The machinery would be a quartet of British-supplied Yarrow boilers (two coal, two oil-fired) powering triple expansion engines for a total of 5,500 hp on two screws– good for 16 knots. Armor was Krupp-style cemented plate made by Bethlehem in the U.S. and include a 7.75-inch amidships belt, 6 inches on the bulkheads and CT, and 2 inches on the gun shields and deck.

Niels Juel’s plan via 1931 edition of Janes.

She was not completed to this modified plan until 23 May 1923, her construction spanning almost a decade. Still the largest ship in the Danish fleet, she was the local equivalent of the HMS Hood as far as Copenhagen was concerned although the three smaller Herluf Trolle-class vessels carried larger (9.4 inch) guns.

The 1930s fleet was rounded out by some 20-30 assorted torpedo boats, a dozen small submarines, and a host of sloops (including the old HMS Asphodel sold to Denmark in 1920 and renamed Fylla), mine warfare vessels, and fisheries patrol boats.

The Royal Danish Navy’s silhouettes, circa 1931, via Janes.

Happy service

Soon after she entered service, Niels Juel became the command ship for the Artillery School and for the Training Squadron. She immediately embarked on a series of visits to Danish colonies in the Faroe Islands and Iceland, as well as port calls in neighboring friendly ports such as Bergen, Leith, and Gothenburg.

October 1923 saw her complete a six-month cruise to South America.

The battleship Niels Juel with Christmas greetings from Rio de Janeiro, 1923. Note her early tripod mast. THM-16006

Niels Juel (built 1918) at the quay in Køge Havn, seen to port. A Hansa-Brandenburg W. 29 (HM1) reconnaissance aircraft with the number 26 is seen in the air. Taken in the 1920s. THM-26156

THM-39469

She carried Danish King Christian X to the Faeroe Islands and Iceland in June 1926, then again in 1930, as well as a royal trip to Finland in 1928 and a Mediterranean trip in 1929 which included bringing a Danish delegation to the Barcelona Universal Exposition. These trips were commemorated by Danish maritime artist Benjamin Olsen and are in the archives of the Forsvarsgalleriet.

Niels Juel at the Trøllkonufingur in the Faroe Islands on June 6, 1926. The Niels Juel carried the Danish King Christian X to the Faeroe Islands and Iceland in June 1926, accompanied by two other Danish naval vessels. Benjamin Olsen seems to have been part of the entourage. By Benjamin Olsen 1926 via the Forsvarsgalleriet.

The Niels Juel saluting the Finnish State vessel Eläköön. The experts at Bruun Rasmussen assumed that the occasion was the visit of the Danish King Christian X to Finland in May 1928. The Eläköön was built in 1886 while Finland was still a part of the Russian Empire. It served as a pilot ship, and after 1918 it was retained in Finland as a state ship, serving also as a presidential yacht when needed. By Benjamin Olsen 1928 via the Forsvarsgalleriet.

The Niels Juel saluting Spanish dignitaries in the Harbor of Barcelona during the 1929 Barcelona Universal Exposition. The Niels Juel visited Barcelona as part of a Mediterranean training cruise for aspiring officers. To the left are seen two Italian Turbine class destroyers, the Euro (ER) and the Nembo (NB). By Benjamin Olsen 1929 via the Forsvarsgalleriet

Niels Juel and Fylla in Oslo, Norway July 7, 1930. The paintings show the Danish coastal defense ship Niels Juel (left) and the gunboat Fylla saluting the Norwegian King in Olso. The two vessels carried the Danish king Christian X to the Faeroe Islands and Iceland from June 1930, so this visit must have been on their way home to Copenhagen. Benjamin Olsen seems to have been part of the entourage. By Benjamin Olsen 1930 via the Forsvarsgalleriet.

The coastal defense ship Niel Juel gun-saluting at Iceland. Between 1923 and 1939. By Benjamin Olsen. Auctioned at Sotheby’s, London on November 30, 2005. Lot W05705/215.

Coast defense ship Niels Juel Danish Naval Museum gallery artist Benjamin Olsen Denmark

Other trips around the Med in the winter months and the Baltic in the summer were common throughout the 1930s.

A series of incremental upgrades and modernizations between 1929 and 1936 saw a new mainmast fitted, her old 3-meter Zeiss rangefinders replaced by much more effective 6-meter models and her four 57mm AAA guns swapped out in favor of 10 more modern Madsen/DISA 20mm cannons, the latter one of the better AAA guns of the 1930s.

HDMS Niels Juel pictured on sea trials at Copenhagen post her major refit on July 10th, 1936 courtesy of Mr. Brian James

Niels Juel (Danish Coast Defense Ship, 1918-1952) Photographed after July 1, 1936, following a refit to receive a new mainmast. NH 88491 & THM-22287

Photographed circa 1938. NH 88492

Artillery ship Niels Juel, new post-1936 mast and bridge, flanked by 5.9-inch guns. THM-39470

War!

Denmark tried to be as neutral in WWII as it had been in 1914-1918 but Germany wasn’t having it and blitzkrieged the country in a lopsided invasion (Operation Weserübung – Süd) on 9 April 1940. The interwar Danish government, which had been controlled by socialists in the 1920s and 30s, had gutted the military and, while the rest of Europe was girding for the next war, the Danes were laying off career officers, disbanding regiments and basically burning the bridge before they even crossed it.

Five Danish soldiers with a 37mm anti-tank gun outside Hertug Hansgades Hospital in Haderslev on the morning of 9 April 1940 Denmark. They were ordered to lay down their arms before noon.

This made the German invasion, launched at 0400 that morning, a walkover of sorts, and by 0800 the word had come down from Copenhagen to the units in the field to stand down and just let it happen. That doesn’t mean isolated Danish units didn’t bloody the Germans up a bit. In fact, they inflicted some 200 casualties on the invaders while suffering relatively few (36) of their own. (More on that in detail here)

The peace agreement reached with Berlin allowed the country to still be sort of independent, although extensively garrisoned by the Germans, while the Danish military would still be allowed to exist, just deprived of fuel, and largely kept under lock and key by their new friends.

Of course, that didn’t stop extensive Free Danish forces to be formed overseas, most of the Danish merchant marine to sail for the Allies– over 5,000 Danish merchant sailors manned over 800,000 tons of shipping for the Allies, many never to be seen again– and the training ship Danmark, in the U.S. in 1940, to train over 5,000 Americans for while operating for the USCG. Two small Danish Navy fisheries patrol boats, Maagen and Ternen, were in Greenland and would serve the Allies.

God Save the King, God Save Denmark, Destroy the Ship!

Then came August 1943, with Danish workers on strike in Odense and Esbjergwhen and a growing homegrown resistance movement, the Germans decided that, with the invasion of Sicily and the perceived increased threat to an Allied invasion in Northwest Europe, they enacted Unternehmen Safari (Operation Safari), a “state of emergency” and on 29 August 1943 the Danish government and military had its mandate canceled.

There was resistance, with the Danish military suffering about 100 casualties and inflicting about 70 on the Germans. Many armories had a chance to spike their weapons and remove the bolts from their rifles before the Germans swarmed in.

Danish weapons after the disarmament of the Danish soldiers on 29 August 1943 at Næstved Barracks in connection with the state of emergency. The weapons were destroyed before being seized. FHM-170310

As for the Navy, in a pre-arranged signal and in an ode to the epic scuttlings of the Dutch fleet at Java and the Vichy French fleet at Toulon the previous March and November, respectively, Danish RADM Aage Helgesen Vedel flashed a prearranged signal– K N U — instructing all his crews to attempt to sail for neutral Sweden or scuttle their ships.

Across Denmark, the Danes gave their own fleet the hard goodbye and fought off the arriving Germans in the process, with at least nine Danish sailors killed and around a dozen seriously wounded in the process.

Some 32 Danish ships– two-thirds of the fleet– were wrecked within hours. An impressive feat considering most were in and around Copenhagen and the fast-moving German troops were literally pulling up at the docks while the scuttlings were underway. The Germans kicked off Safari at 0400, Vedel flashed his order at 0408, the first scuttling charge was blown at 0413, and the last one went off at 0435.

Following the operation, the senior-most German Kriegsmarine officer in Denmark, VADM Hans-Heinrich Wurmbach, told Vedel, “We have both done our duty.”

Danish warships after the fleet’s sinking at Holmen in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August 1943. From the right is seen the artillery ship Peder Skram, torpedo boat Vb. 2, and the motor torpedo boat Hvalrossen (only the masts are visible). In the background is the frigate Fyn. FHM-166686

Danish warships at Holmen after the sinking of the fleet in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August 1943. Here the minesweepers Laaland (right) and Lougen (left) are seen sunk in the Søminegraven. FHM-166766

Danish warships at Holmen after the sinking of the fleet in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August 1943. In the foreground are the submarines Bellona and Havmanden. Behind these workshop ship, Henrik Gerner. FHM-166843

Sailors with life belts on board the inspection ship Hvidbjørnen before the ship was sunk in Storebælt off Korsør on 29 August 1943. The sinking took place in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August. FHM-167263

The minesweeper Søbjørnen on Holmen after the sinking of the fleet in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August 1943. FHM-166994

The minesweeper Lougen on Holmen after the sinking in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August 1943. FHM-166807

Assorted Danish submarines scuttled including C-3. THM-21265

Only 14 Danish ships were taken intact by the Germans, but they were generally of low value (survey ships, minesweepers, inspection boats, barracks ships, etc.), were decommissioned, or were still under construction and uncrewed.

Four small fast movers– the torpedo boat Havkatten, and the 80-foot minesweepers MS 1, MS 7, and MS 9, reached the safety of Sweden– where they formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile that would sail back with their flags flying proudly in May 1945.

The torpedo boat Havkatten, which escaped to Sweden on 29 August 1943, returns to Copenhagen on 11 May 1945. Her 27-member crew at this point manned two 57mm AAA guns and a 40mm Bofors. FHM22287

But what about our Niels Juel?

The pride of the Danish fleet was the largest warship flying the Dannebrog to attempt to displace to Sweden. Unfortunately, with a speed of just 14 knots and harried by German Heinkels and Stukas, she couldn’t clear the water from Holbaek to Malmo.

Niels Juel leaves Copenhagen, on 26 August 43, on her last trip. Note the Danish recognition flash added after 1940. FHM-165422

The running battle saw the Danish ship, under skipper CDR Carl Westermann, exchange hot fire with German bombers, then, once the outcome was clear, strike her flag and leave her on the bottom, suffering five casualties. It is known today in Denmark as the Battle of the Isefjord.

The artillery ship Niels Juel is bombarded by German planes north of Hundested, when the ship, according to orders, searched for a Swedish port on 29 August 1943. FHM-167241

As told by one of her officers, in a 1945 issue of Proceedings:

August 27th, we had called at Holbaek and were supposed to stay over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I had leave from Sunday, 9:00 P.M. and intended to take a trip home. We understood that something was wrong because nobody got liberty Friday night, and I figured I had to give up the idea of going home. Friday night at 11:00 P.M. orders were given to fire up under all boilers and to prepare to leave port any minute- Rumors went wild all over the ship and Saturday afternoon two of our men went up to the commander, Captain Westermann, and requested an explanation. We were told that we were supposed to defend ourselves with all means if necessary. So, we knew that this was it. We reinforced all watches, and when I had to go on watch at 4:00 A.M. nobody doubted any longer that something would happen. I served as messenger for the Captain and I had just brought him a message when he came out to the commander of the watch and gave the order “Clear ship for action.” Within a moment all guns were manned.

It was pitch dark, but it did not last long until all was in readiness and with the first sign of dawn breaking, we left the pier. I had managed to get a letter on shore which I had written the evening before. In it I had given an account of the situation. Little did I expect to see any of you again. It seemed to me that there was only one way out. To try to escape to Sweden or fight until the ship sank.

It was a gray morning with low-hanging clouds. We were looking out sharply for enemy planes. The tug which had towed us lowered the flag and everybody aboard took off their hats as we passed by.

We sighted a German plane at the horizon but it disappeared soon. We hoisted ammunition up to the big guns on our way out. While sailing through the Isefjord, coffee was brought up to us. Nothing was rationed any longer and we distributed all our cigarettes among the gun crews. Morale was high and everybody was in good spirits in spite of the seriousness of the situation.

After having traveled for half an hour, orders were given for action stations. The enemy had been sighted off Hundested, one heavy cruiser and two destroyers. We were out of range, as yet, but everything was being prepared. Their superiority was definite but we had to engage them and we wanted to.

We were right off the pier of Hundested when one of our mine-sweepers signaled that the enemy had mined the entrance of the firth all night long. From the bridge we were told that we would try to force the barrage some 400 meters from land and hold our course. Only a moment later, we saw bombers circling around us at proper distances but we could not see how many there were as they kept flying in and out of the clouds. Suddenly a Heinkels dived on us, strafing our deck with cannon fire. A few were wounded. The plane disappeared in a jiffy, but by now we were all set. The next one got a hot welcome and was shot down. The next again dropped two heavy bombs which narrowly missed our quarter-deck, while a couple of others strafed our deck with cannon. It was almost unbearable. Shell fragments and projectiles kept on whizzing around us. It was hardly believable that so few of us were killed or wounded. One howled terribly, another was taken down to the sickbay on a stretcher unconscious. A mate came running along and told me that warrant officer Andreasen was killed. He was gun captain of an anti-aircraft gun. The gun had been hit and the crew had taken cover. I ran up there right away and found him lying on the platform. I thought him dead but suddenly he moved and groaned. At that moment, two planes dived and opened fire. That was the only time I got the chills. There was no cover so I flung myself down and grasped Andreasen’s hand. The poor soul yelled when they started shooting. He had been hit in the belly and was scared. A big iron splinter struck off the platform. The whole deck was desolate, only the gun captains had taken cover behind the rail after sending their crews down. Only the anti-aircraft guns remained manned but, of course, they were the only ones which had something to harvest.

When the planes had gone, another warrant officer came and got Andreasen down. In the meantime, however, the captain had received orders to go back: the enemy ships had been reinforced.

Then came the Stukas.

They came howling and screaming from ’way up high and let go their bombs. The detonation seemed to be right under us and we jumped up into the air. All lights in the whole ship went out, and we discovered a leak in the port coal bunkers. The bunker door in the deck was flung up, and people on land told us later that the only thing visible of the whole ship was the stem. It was probably two 250-kilo bombs. Now we set the course toward land for full speed and prepared to abandon ship. The Diesel engines were smashed and we had to pack the most necessary things in complete darkness. When we took the ground, foot valves were removed and thrown overboard and all suction valves were opened. The ship went down and sank deeply into the bottom.

Niels Juel (built 1918) bombed and set aground in the Isefjord on 29 August 1943. THM-21411

“The artillery ship Niels Juel ran aground in Nykøbing Bay after an unsuccessful attempt to sail to Sweden on 29 August 1943. The escape attempt took place in connection with the state of emergency on 29 August. The ship is salvaged by a salvage vessel from Svitzer.” FHM-167255

Sadly, the Germans were able to raise the damaged Dane in October, and, landing her guns for use in coastal fortifications, tow her to Kiel for repairs. They ultimately put her back into service as the training ship Nordland in September 1944, operating in Polish waters.

Niels Juel as a German cadet ship, with the guns removed as training ship “Nordland”. FHM-167262

Ex-Niels Juel/Nordland withdrew to Kiel to escape the oncoming Soviets and, at the end of the line, was scuttled in May 1945 in the Eckernførde inlet in 92 feet of water.

Epilogue

The Germans interned most of the captured Danish sailors and officers such as at the Tårnborglejeren arena and at the KB-Hallen arena in Frederiksberg to include Westermann and Vedel.

Danish sailors interned in KB Hallen. The dormitory is arranged on an indoor tennis court. Note the triple-decker bunks. FHM-170704

Operation Safari cost the Danish Navy six men were killed and 11 injured, while 258 officers and 2,961 ratings were taken into custody.

Ice distribution in Tårnborglejeren near Korsør, where the crews from the inspection ships Hvidbjørnen and Ingolf were interned after the Germans declared a state of emergency on 29 August 1943. FHM-174949

The sites closed in October 1943 and the men were paroled.

Most subsequently took to a range of resistance activities.

Vedel began interfacing with the British and, in May 1945 when the Allies came to liberate Denmark, immediately began working with Royal Navy VADM Reginald Vesey Holt to supervise German disarmament and minesweeping work. He later served as the Danish Flag Officer to NATO, retired from the Navy in 1958, and passed in 1981.

The usable 5.9-inch guns from Niels Juel, which were landed in Denmark before the hulk was towed to Kiel, were installed by the Germans in a new coastal defense fort near Frederiksberg to defend the Jutland peninsula. Surrendered to the Danes in 1945, they remained in service until 1962 and Bangsbo Fort is today a museum.

M270 bunker med 150mm Bofors kanon fra Niels Juel by Carsten Wiehe via Wikimedia

The wreck of the old Niels Juel was sold by the Danish government to the salvage firm of Em. Z. Svitzer in 1952, and most of the superstructure was raised to be scrapped. Her hull, however, is still in the Eckernførde.

The Danes reused her name, with the third Niels Juel being the lead ship (F 354) of a class of handy corvettes that remained in service from 1980 to 2009.

Starboard-bow view of the Danish Navy Frigate HMDS Niels Juel (F 354) underway in the Baltic Sea on the coast of Ventspil, Latvia, while participating in BALTOPS 2005. 330-CFD-DN-SD-07-00068

The fourth Niels Juel (F 363) is an Iver Huitfeldt class frigate that was laid down in 2006 and commissioned in 2011. Her motto is Nec Temere, Nec Timide (Neither reckless nor timid).

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023: The Lost Desert Wind

Posted on August 9, 2023 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023: The Lost Desert Wind

Photo by Stewart Bale Ltd, Liverpool, Imperial War Museums’ Foxhall Collection, no. IWM FL 19059 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121477

Above we see the third flight S-class diesel boat, HM Submarine Simoom (P225), underway, likely in 1943, her only year of service. A rather unlucky boat, Simoom fired 15 war shot torpedoes in her career and, although she never hit a target that she intended to punch a hole into, she did manage to spectacularly claim her only “kill” some 80 years ago today.

The mighty S-class

Built to replace the aging boats in RN service, the first pair, HMS Swordfish, and HMS Sturgeon, were ordered in the 1929 program. Small boats, running just over 200 feet in overall length and displacing around 600 tons (900 submerged), they were relatively fast for the day, capable of breaking almost 14 knots on the surface, making them able to catch up to slow-moving merchantmen, and carried a full dozen Mark VIII torpedoes for their six-pack of forward 21-inch tubes. Meanwhile, a 3-inch deck gun and a Vickers light machine gun gave a topside armament. This could be augmented by a dozen mines. Able to operate in shallow waters, with a draft of only 10.5 feet, and able to submerge in 10 fathoms, they could crash dive in just 25-30 seconds with a good crew if needed.

Not bad for a 1920s design.

The 1929 Chatham Dockyard plan of the flight I S-class boats. Chatham would only produce two boats (HMS Shalimar and Sportsman), whereas most were built by Cammell Laird and smaller numbers by Scotts and Vickers.

As noted by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II:

“Meant as replacements for the old H-class, they required the same virtues of maneuverability and quick diving. But the Admiralty wanted more– improvements in range, armament, and surface speed. The “S” types became a pillar of His Majesty’s Submarine Force; not remarkable in any respect, rather they performed well all tasks at acceptable levels, a class of well-balanced and workmanlike boats that proved safe and easy to operate.”

A great period color shot of the S-class submarine HMS Seadog (P216), in the foreground moving off, Holy Loch, 1942. The Group 1 T-class submarine HMS Thunderbolt (N25) is in the background. Of note, Thunderbolt was originally HMS Thetis which sank with heavy loss of life in the Mediterranean just before the war and was subsequently salvaged. The two objects seen on her after casing are containers for human torpedo chariots. IWM TR 612

In all, the British would order no less than 73 S-class boats in three flights across 12 construction programs, and they would remain in production from 1930 through 1945, spanning both the interbellum and WWII era. In all, 62 were completed.

Meet HMS Simoom

The name “Simoom” after the desert wind, dates to an 1842 paddlewheel frigate and was used in no less than five other ships by the Royal Navy. The subject of our tale is the sixth and (thus far) final HMS Simoom.

Ordered in the largest batch of S-class boats (20 hulls) under the 1940 war program, she was a third flight vessel and as such had several minor improvements including a slightly higher freeboard forward, a less complicated and simplified engineering layout that allowed a maximum speed approaching 15 knots (one of the batch, HMS Seraph, could hit 16.75 knots). She also had a seventh tube installed, an external one, giving her 13 torpedoes in total. Also, in lieu of a Vickers gun, the 3rd flight S-boats carried a 20mm Oerlikon AAA gun and a primitive air warning RDF receiver. They also carried a Type 138 ASDIC system and a Type 291/291W early-warning radar.

Laid down at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead (a yard that built at least 26 of the class) on 14 July 1941, Simoom was launched the following October and commissioned on 30 December 1942, her construction spanning just under 17 months.

A series of great images were captured of her in April 1943, steaming in conjunction with the captured German Type VIIC U-boat U-570 (HMS Graph, P715).

HM SUBMARINE SIMMOM AND GRAPH AT HOLY LOCH. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16049) HMS SIMOOM (right) and HMS GRAPH. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149055

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16041) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149047

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16047) The SIMOOM from dead ahead. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149053

HM SUBMARINES SIMOOM AND GRAPH. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16048) HMS SIMOOM (nearer) and HMS GRAPH together at Holy Loch. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149054

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16043) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149049

HMS SIMOOM, BRITISH S-CLASS SUBMARINE. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16045) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149051

HM SUBMARINE SIMOOM. 20 APRIL 1943, HOLY LOCH. (A 16043) The SIMOOM from the beam. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149049

As detailed by Uboat.net, her wartime service was brief.

Her first war patrol off Northern Norway to provide cover for convoy operations to and from Northern Russia in early 1943 was uneventful as was her second in the Bay of Biscay.

Transferring to the still very active Med, her third patrol, off the West coasts of Corsica and Sardinia was a bust.

Her 4th, providing coverage for the invasion of Sicily harassed some coastal shipping and, in the end, she would sink the Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti on 9 August 1943.

Simoon had fired a brace of six torpedoes at the big boys of RADM Giuseppe Fioravanzo’s 8th Cruiser Division (light cruisers Giuseppe Garibaldi and Emanuele Filiberto Duca d’Aosta) but caught the smaller Vincenzo Gioberti instead, making her the last Italian tin can sunk in the war.

Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, photographed before World War II. NH 47663

She is believed to have taken 95 men to the bottom with her after dramatically breaking in two parts and sinking. Some 171 survivors of Gioberti were recovered by MAS torpedo boats from La Spezia.

The end of Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, torpedoed by HMS Simoom on 9 August 1943. She was the last Regia Marina destroyer to be lost in the war against the Allies. Photo by “Storia Illustrata” magazine

Other rather sedate patrols followed.

The mysterious end of Simoom‘s tale came in November while on her 7th patrol.

Via Uboat.net:

2 Nov 1943
HMS Simoom (Lt. G.D.N. Milner, DSC, RN) departed Port Said for 7th war patrol (5th in the Mediterranean). She was ordered to patrol between Naxos and Mikonos, Greece. At 1142B/2 she reported that she did not hold the letter coordinates for November and would use those of October. This prompted Captain S.1 to communicate them the following evening.

On the 5th she was ordered to patrol off the Dardanelles, five nautical miles west of Tenedos.

On the 13th she was ordered to leave her patrol area PM on the 15th passing between Psara and Khios, through 35°06’N, 26°44’E and then on the surface from 34°25’N, 29°59′ E. She was due in Beirut at 0901B/20 but this was later corrected to the 19th.

Simoom did not show up at Beirut. She was declared overdue on 23 November 1943.

At 1729 hours, on 15 November, the German submarine U-565 (KL Fritz Henning) fired a single stern torpedo from 2000 metres at a target described as “probably a submarine” on course 250°, one hit was heard after 3 minutes and 48 seconds. The position recorded was Quadrat CO 3381 (36°51’N, 27°22’E or off the east coast of Kos) and it is unlikely that HMS Simoom was in the area. Post-war analysis concluded that she was probably mined on 4 November 1943 on a new minefield laid off Donoussa Island (ca. 37°06’N, 25°50’E).

Her roll of lost, marked “missing presumed killed” 19 November 1943:

ADAM, William G, Able Seaman, P/JX 344969, MPK
ANGLESEA, John, Engine Room Artificer 5c, D/MX 102924, MPK
BALSON, Lewis F C, Warrant Engineer, MPK
BEDFORD, Maurice A, Ty/Leading Seaman, D/SSX 27992, MPK
BROADBRIDGE, Thomas G, Stoker 1c, C/KX 83568, MPK
CASPELL, George E, Telegraphist, C/JX 163711, MPK
COLE, Edward, Stoker Petty Officer, P/KX 83973, MPK
CROSS, Charles M, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
DAY, Horace C, Signalman, C/JX 207606, MPK
ELLIN, Sidney, Petty Officer Telegraphist, C/JX 135616, MPK
ELLIOTT, Robert, Able Seaman, P/JX 322974, MPK
FRANCIS, Rolland J, Stoker 1c, D/KX 137871, MPK
GARBETT, Basil M, Lieutenant, MPK
GILL, Geoffrey, Able Seaman, C/JX 235129, MPK
GOWLAND, William R, Able Seaman, D/SSX 15958, MPK
GRIFFITH, Ben, Petty Officer, D/J 113001, MPK
HANNANT, James H, Able Seaman, D/JX 202875, MPK
HARRIS, Walter, Stoker 1c, D/KX 134758, MPK
HATTON, Charles W, Able Seaman, C/JX 169095, MPK
HERD, Charles E, Ordinary Seaman, P/JX 281907, MPK
HERSTELL, Norman, Able Seaman, P/JX 347783, MPK
JOHNSON, Robert J, Able Seaman, C/SSX 26525, MPK
JONES, Louis F, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
KENNEDY, Gordon A, Leading Telegraphist, D/JX 154462, MPK
KERR, David A, Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 55013, MPK
LANDING, John, Leading Stoker, P/KX 84477, MPK
LILLYCROP, Francis W, Stoker 1c, P/KX 145412, MPK
LOVELL, Ernest A, Able Seaman, P/SSX 18599, MPK
MARSDEN, Tom, Engine Room Artificer 4c, P/MX 79301, MPK
MASON, George H, Act/Leading Stoker, P/KX 90779, MPK
MAY, Sidney J, Able Seaman, C/SSX 30974, MPK
MCLENNAN, Harold B W, Ty/Act/Leading Telegraphist, C/JX 259236, MPK
MILNER, Geoffrey D N, Lieutenant, MPK
MORTIMER-LAMB, Robert J, Ty/Petty Officer, C/JX 145875, MPK
OLDING, Walter G, Act/Chief Engine Room Artificer, P/MX 46951, MPK
O’LEARY, Michael T, Electrical Artificer 3c, D/MX49539, MPK
RAWE, James A, Act/Chief Petty Officer, RFR, P/JX 136102, MPK
SALMON, Alfred W, Able Seaman, P/JX 295724, MPK
SAUNDERS, Arthur, Able Seaman, P/JX 155201, MPK
SCHOFIELD, Bernard P, Able Seaman, C/JX 241234, MPK
SEABORNE, William J R, Stoker 1c, D/KX 94051, MPK
SHANKS, Thomas S, Ty/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
SHARP, Norman, Able Seaman, D/JX 223594, MPK
SHEPHERD, John V, Stoker 1c, P/KX 83132, MPK
SMITH, William J, Stoker 1c, D/KX 145306, MPK
SONGHURST, Thomas J, Stoker 1c, C/KX 83463, MPK
TAYLOR, James, Engine Room Artificer 4c, C/MX 77617, MPK
WARDALE, Irvin, Able Seaman, D/JX 303574, MPK
WILSON, William, Act/Petty Officer, P/SSX 18131, MPK

Epilogue

In 2016, Turkish wreck-hunter Selcuk Kolay found HMS Simoom (P225) about 6 nautical miles northwest of the Turkish Aegean Island of Bozcaada (Tenedos) in 67 meters of water. There was extensive damage near the starboard hydroplane with the conclusion that Simoom had hit a mine while running on the surface. The mine Simoom hit was believed one sown by the German minelayer Bulgaria and the Italian torpedo boats Monzambano and Calatafimi in September 1941.

Likewise, Simoom’s only “kill,” the Italian destroyer Vincenzo Gioberti, had been discovered the year prior.

The Royal Navy’s wartime losses totaled 74 submarines. Of those, no less than 19 were S-class boats.

Across over 3,000 patrols, HM submarines sank 158 enemy combatant ships and damaged 54 others, in addition to sinking 1.6 million tons of enemy merchant shipping. A lot of that came from S-class boats.

Nonetheless, they were small and slow by postwar standards. By 1946, Janes listed just 39 S-class boats under the British fleet’s entry and a half-dozen of those warned “may be discarded in the near future.”

Soon, nine would be transferred to France, Portugal, and Israel.

One, HMS Sidon (P259), was wrecked by its own torpedo explosion on 16 June 1955 then refloated and sunk as a target. Another, HMS Sportsman/French submarine Sibylle, was lost off Toulon in 1952 in a diving accident.

Of the dwindling number of S boats still in RN service, most were withdrawn in the late 1940s and 1950s while still relatively young with just a couple lingering on for a few years longer. HMS Sea Devil, completed just after VE-Day, was paid off for disposal at Portsmouth on 4 June 1962, and was the last of the S class in service with the Royal Navy, completing 17 years of service. She was sold to the shipbreaker Metal Recoveries and arrived at Newhaven on 15 December 1965.

The sparsely used trio of boats operated postwar by Portugal (HMS Saga/NRP Nautilo, HMS Spearhead/NRP Nepunto, and HMS Spur/NRP Narval) were disposed of in 1969.

The last of the class afloat, HMS Springer, was used by Israel until 1972 as INS Tanin and had landed commandos in Egypt during the Six-Day War.

Submarine INS Tanin (ex-HMS Springer) arrives at Port of Haifa in 1959. She would be the last S-class boat

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

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Tag Archives: warship wednesday

Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023: Of Shorts & Hard Charging Jeep Carriers

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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday), Sept. 20, 2023: The Ajaccio Express

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023: Mud Hen Regulus Pitcher

The Baltimores

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Warship Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023: Of Mustaches, Stars, and Condemned Cannons

The Squadron of Evolution

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023: Weaving the Falls

The Wickes

Meet Thatcher

Brought back to life

Headed to serve the King

U-570

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023: The Last Violet

The last tenders of the USLHS

Meet Lilac

Joining the Coast Guard

Postwar

Switching careers

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Warship Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023: Copenhagen’s Finest

The Danish Navy

Meet Niels Juel