Crossing the Line, in which veteran Sons of Neptune, termed Shellbacks, initiate Pollywogs, sailors who have never crossed the Equator, into the Kingdom of Neptune upon their first time reaching that line, has been around since at least the 1800s and has been celebrated in a number of navies. It has remained even as warships moved from oak and canvas to iron and steam and now non-skid and gas turbines.

Here are a few from the U.S., German and RN fleets from the last century.

Neptune, Amphitrite and the rest of the court on the USS Alabama for ceremonies on January 5th, 1908

Crossing the line 1920s, likely a RN vessel. From the NSW Archives

Barbers of Neptune! Crossing the Line ceremony on USS Nereus

The Doctor, Dentist, and Scribe of Neptunus Rex taken during a Crossing the Line ceremony on USS Nereus

U177

U177

U177

Crossing in the U-177, WWII

Equator crossing ceremony aboard Wasp, Jul 1942

USS George Washington (CVN 73) – WOG DAY!! 2013

As a salute to France. Here we see the battleship Richelieu as viewed from USS Saratoga (CV-3), during operations with the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean, 1944, her tricolor proud in the wind.

(Photo: US National Naval Aviation Museum: 1977.031.085.011)

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

Warship Wednesday Nov. 18, 2015: The Brooklyn Stinger of the Calico King

Here we see the steam gunboat USS Scorpion (PY-3) in her gleaming white scheme in an image taken in 1899. She may not look it, but when the Detroit Photographic Co. snapped this photo, the mighty Scorpion was already a killer.

Mr. MCD Borden (not Franz Ferdinand)

Ordered by Massachusetts textile magnate Matthew Chaloner Durfee Borden, commonly referred to at the time as “the Calico King” due to his huge factories in the Fall River area, Scorpion began life in 1896 as the very well-appointed steam yacht Sovereign built by the private yard of John N. Robins in South Brooklyn, New York to a design by J. Beaver Webb.

The rakish vessel, a 212-footer at the waterline (250-foot oal) with twin masts and twin screws powered by 2500shp of triple expansion engines, she could touch 15 knots with ease and, when running light in just ten feet of seawater, surpass that when needed.

The New York Times wrote she was, “supposed to be the fastest craft of its size on the Atlantic seaboard, and all the Jersey Central Railroad commuters between Seagirt and Atlantic Highlands know all about it.”

Borden entered her into the New York Yacht Club, where he was an esteemed member and she sailed under his care with the Seawanhaka Yacht, South Side Sportsmen’s, and Jekyll Island Clubs as well.

When war with Spain came, Borden did the patriotic thing and placed his yacht at the Navy’s service, who promptly hauled her to the New York Navy Yard, painted her haze gray, added a quartet of 5″/40 guns located on her sides, fore and aft of the superstructure– the heaviest battery fitted to any yacht converted for service during that conflict, and commissioned her four days later as USS Scorpion on 11 April 1898.

While only a yacht, her powerful 5″ guns, typically reserved for cruisers, made her a brawler able to dish out some heavy blows and the Navy Department had just the man to conn her. You see Scorpion’s skipper was German-born LCDR Adolph Marix (USNA Class of 1868) and the former executive officer of the battleship USS Maine whose explosion in Havana four months earlier had sparked the war.

By May she was off the coast of Cuba and spent an eventful ten weeks capturing lighters, assisting with landings, enforcing blockades and patrolling the shallows and high seas alike with the Flying Squadron.

On July 18, she was part of a 7 ship attack force, including two gunboats of shallow draft—Wilmington and Helena; two armed tugs—Osceola and Wampatuck; and two converted yachts—Hist and Hornet that sailed into the heavily fortified Spanish base at Manzanillo and, with using her big 5-inchers to good effect, kept the Spanish coastal batteries tied down while the smaller ships destroyed five Spanish gunboats, three blockade runners and one pontoon in less than four hours with little damage to themselves.

When the war ended, Scorpion was recalled to New York, painted white and refitted with a smaller armament while Marix left on his way to become a Vice Admiral. He wasn’t the only one. Over the course of her 31 years in the Navy, she had a staggering 21 skippers to include a Medal of Honor winner and no less than five who went on to become admirals.

In October 1900. Description: Catalog #: NH 2742 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Another Detroit Publishing Co. shot, this one from 1903, with her laundry hanging. LOC

View of officers and men circa 1904. Note the six-pounder Description: Catalog #: NH 83748

Photograph of ship, with diary entry and roster of officers. Lieutenant Commander Richard G. Davenport was aboard as passenger. Description: Catalog #: NH 43803

As you may have guessed, Borden never got the Scorpion back and the Navy paid good money for her. She spent six years with the North Atlantic Squadron as a dispatch ship and flag waver small enough to venture into backwater ports around the Caribbean and protect U.S. interests.

Speaking of which, by 1908 she was on her way to Europe. Keeping the svelte gunboat with her 60-70 man peacetime crew in semi-permanent anchor in the Bosporus near the Dolma Bagtchi Palace, she became the station ship in Constantinople. There she remained, leaving to take the occasional Black Sea or Med cruise, for a decade.

Several times she took part in international actions, helping to assist earthquake victims in Messina, Italy; landing armed sailors to guard the U.S. Legation in Constantinople during riots in the city; and venturing into the disputed Balkan ports during the tumultuous events that led up to the Great War.

Speaking of which, when the U.S. entered WWI on the side of the Allies, the humble Scorpion faced the might of the German-cum-Ottoman battlecruiser Goeben and, a suddenly a stranger in a strange land, was peacefully interned on 11 April 1917 without a fight, her breechblocks removed and a guard posted.

View taken at Constantinople, Turkey, in 1919 of ship’s officers. Front row (L-R): Lieutenant Samuel R. Deets, USN; Commander Richard P. McCullough, USS; Lieutenant Leonard Doughty, USN. Back row: Lieutenant George P. Shields (MC), USN; Paymaster Clarence Jackson, USN; Lieutenant William O. Baldwin, USN; Lieutenant Gale A. Poindexter, USN. Description: Courtesy of LCDR Leonard Doughty, 1929 Catalog #: NH 50276

When the war ended, she rearmed and remained as the flag of the U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey, keeping her place in now-Istanbul until 1920 when the influx of White Russian exiles and tensions with Greece forced her relocation to Phaleron Bay, Greece, where she remained on station until recalled back to the states 16 June 1927.

Anchored off the Dolma Bagtche Palace, Constantinople, probably during the early 1920s. Description: Original negative, given by Mr. Franklin Moran in 1967.Catalog #: NH 65006 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command.

1925

Decommissioned, Scorpion sat on red lead row for a couple years, a Spanish-American War vet in a fleet of 1920s modern marvels.

On 25 June 1929, she was sold for her value in scrap. Very few artifacts remain from her other than some postal covers.

Her name has gone on to become something of an albatross for the submarine force. USS Scorpion (SS-278), a Gato-class submarine, was lost in 1944 to a mine in the Yellow Sea while USS Scorpion (SSN-589), a Skipjack-class submarine, was lost in an accident in 1968. In each case there were no known survivors and her name has been absent from the Naval List for 47 years.

As for Borden, he passed away in 1912 at age 69 while his beloved Sovereign/Scorpion was in Europe. His leviathan American Printing Company outlived them all, but by 1934 was shuttered because of the Great Depression.

Specs:

Displacement: 775 long tons (787 t)
Length: 212 ft. 10 in (64.87 m)
Beam: 28 ft. 1 in (8.56 m)
Draft: 11 ft. (3.4 m)
Installed power: 2 × WA Fletcher Co, Hoboken NJ triple expansion steam engines; 2500 IHP total; powered by twin Babcock and Wilcox 225# boilers. (as built) later Four Yarrow boilers, two 1,400ihp vertical inverted triple expansion steam engines, two shafts.
Propulsion: Twin screw
Speed: 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Complement: 35 (civilian service) 90 (1898) 60 (1911)
Armament:
(1898) – Four 5″/40 guns
(1905) – Six 6-pounder (57mm) guns and four 6mm Colt machine guns
(1911) – Four 6 pounders in rapid fire mounts

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

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

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

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

Warship Wednesday Nov. 25, 2015: The enduring monitor of the Amazon

Note the sat dish and Jet Ranger

Here we see, stationed deep in the Mato Grosso region of the Amazon Rainforest around Morro da Marinha, near Fort Coimbra, is the unique inland river monitor Parnaíba (U17).

Laid down in 1936 on the Isle of Snakes at the Brazilian Naval Yard (Arsenal de Marinha do Rio de Janeiro) as part of the Brazilian Navy’s modernization program on the eve of WWII, Parnaíba is a traditional name for that fleet with no less than four predecessors carrying it back well into the 19th Century.

Parnaíba was an important vessel, with President Getulio Vargas himself attending the keel laying.

Pre-1960, note the 6″ forward mount. That’s a big gun for a 180-foot riverboat. She also has a very British tripod mast and fire-control tower.

She was built with English assistance, her power plant included 2 Thornycroft triple expansion boilers while her armament consisted of a single 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL, a pair of Royal Ordnance QF 25-pounder (3.45″/13cal) howitzers and, for defense against small boats, a pair of 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss singles. Some 180-feet long, Parnaíba could float in 5-feet of freshwater. To protect her topside she was given 38mm of armor on deck and around her bridge while a 3 inch belt protected the engine room, waterline and machinery spaces.

Commissioned 4 March 1938, Parnaíba proceeded inland to join the Flotilha de Mato Grosso as the fleet flag.

Peaceful riverine service ended in late 1942 when she was rushed to the coast upon Brazil’s entry into World War II.

Her armament updated with four single 20/70 Mk 4 Oerlikons and some depth charge racks, Parnaíba was used extensively for coastal patrol, then as the guard ship at Salvador-Bahia, and escorted at least five coastal convoys on the lookout for German U-boats and surface raiders which, gratefully, she never encountered. Her hull was thought too shallow to catch a torpedo, she was considered strong enough to fight it out in a surface action if push came to shove.

On 29 Nov 1943, Parnaíba greeted the fresh new battleship USS Iowa on a brief visit to Bahia just days after that leviathan dropped President Roosevelt off at Oran, Algeria. The next day she escorted Iowa back out after a night of festivities.

The rest of her wartime experience were even more quiet though she did sortie out ready for action and to search for survivors when the Brazilian cruiser Bahia was lost in July 1945. Thought sunk at first by a rogue German U-Boat but later confirmed Bahia was destroyed in a freak accident by her own depth charges.

Landing her depth charges and sailing back up river in October of that year, Parnaíba has maintained her place in the Amazon area ever since.

In 1960, she was overhauled and a U.S. 3” /50 Mk 22 and two 40 mm/60 cal Mk 3 Bofors replaced her dated 25-Pounders and 6-incher though her Oerlikons were saved as they were still useful and her Hotchkiss popguns kept for saluting.

A subsequent series of overhauls between 1996-99 saw her six decades-old engineering suite removed (and put on museum display), replaced by a more modern set of GM twin diesels. Racal Decca and Furuno 3600 radars were fitted as were more modern 40/70 Bofors in the old positions. A helicopter platform was also added for a light Jet Ranger or A350-sized whirlybird.

She also carries multiple 7.62 and 12.7mm machine gun mounts as well as 81mm mortars to drop it like its hot in a region that sees a good bit of smuggling and the occasional excitement.

Note the 20mm over the fantail, right out of the Battle of Midway. Also note that Brazilian LSOs wear the same color float coats and everything as in the USN

Her current fodder of 76mm, 40mm and 20mm rounds. Her crew still drills with her WWII-era Mk 22, and other than on some ships of the Thai and Philippine navies, is the last in functional use on a warship

Ahh, don’t these belong as hood ornaments for WWII submarines? How many thousands of man hours have been put into polishing that bright work over the past half century?

A 40mm will still make mincemeat of a low-flying plane or helicopter as well as ruin a small boat (or ashore guerrilla hangout). Note the old school Hotchkiss in the far left of the picture.

If past history is any indicator of future events, odds are Parnaíba will be in service another several decades and she is regarded as the oldest commissioned naval ship still in active fleet use and not in museum status.

Celebrating her 75th year in service in 2013

Below is a 2015 VERTREP operation where you get a pretty good view of the old girl

Most of these images in the post are courtesy the excellent Brazilian warship site, Naval Brazil and Defesa Aérea & Naval which have more information about this interesting vessel.

Specs:

Image via Shipbucket

Displacement:
620 tons – Standard
720 tons – full load
Length: 55 m (180.4 ft.) oa
Beam: 10.1 m (33.1 ft.)
Draught: 1.6 m (5.2 ft.)
Propulsion:
Two VTE engines, two 3-drum Thornycroft boilers, 70 tons fuel oil (As built)
Two 650shp GM 8V92 diesel engines, 90 tons diesel
Two propellers
Speed: 12 knots (22 km/h)
Range: 1,350 mi (1,170 nmi; 2,170 km) (2500 km) 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement: 60-90
Armament:
(As built)
1x 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL,
2x 1 QF 25-pounder (3.45″/13cal) howitzers
2x 1 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss
(1945)
1x 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL,
2x 1 QF 25-pounder (3.45″/13cal) howitzers
2x 1 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss
4x 1 20mm/70 Oerlikons
Depth charges
(1960)
1x 3″/50 Mk.22
2x 1 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss
2x 1 40/60 Mk 3
6x 1 20mm/70 Oerlikon
(1999)
1x 3″/50 Mk.22
2x 1 47mm (3pdr) Hotchkiss
2x 1 40/70 M48
2x 1 20mm/70 Oerlikon
2 × 81mm mortar
Various machine guns

Aviation facilities: Helipad for IH-6B Bell Jet Ranger III or H-12 Squirrel (after 1996)

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

To patrol Haiti’s 1,535 kilometers of coastline, the job falls to 150 Commissariat des Gardes-Côtes d’Haïti (G-Cd’H) Coast Guard sailors and 10 boats. And that’s an improvement. Four years ago, the G-Cd’H only had 99 sailors.

It does look like the USCG is giving them some surplus equipment and a fair bit of training and assistance though.

The sad thing is the country once had an official (if somewhat minor) navy.

The Haitian Navy was founded in 1809 with the surplus 32-gun French frigate Félicité, which had been captured by the Royal Navy frigates HMS Latona and HMS Cherub then sold to Henri Christophe’s State of Haiti who promptly renamed her Améthyste. The British of course took most of the 24-year old Félicité‘s guns but by 1812 the ship had been captured by a French privateer named Gaspard who up-armed her with 44 cannon– and was soon captured again by the British who gave her back to the Haitians.

Haitian gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot

The Haitians continued to arm small local vessels throughout the 19th and 20th century, only ordering their first purpose-built vessel, the 950-ton Crête-à-Pierrot from England in 1895. Armed with six decent-sized (all over 100mm) guns, she was considered a well-armed gunboat for her time but was scuttled after a bruising by the larger German SMS Panther in 1902. (For more on the weirdness of this, click here and go to 1902.)

Anyway, disbanding their Navy in 1930 after a coup, Haiti reclassified the service as the G-Cd’H for the next 40 years. This was not the first time this would occur…

During and just after WWII, the USCG transferred a half-dozen 83-foot splinter boats to the service while the U.S. Navy sent three subchasers (including an experimental one-off model), all of which were out of service in a decade or so.

The Haitian Coast Guard vessel 16 Aout 1946 (GC 2), ex USCGC Air Avocet (WAVR 411), ex-USS SC-453, ex-PC-453

In 1960, the G-Cd’H received the 775-ton/168-foot USS Tonawanda (YN-115/AN-89), a Cohoes-class net laying ship with a single 3″/50 gun as the Jean-Jacques Dessalines (MH-101).

USS Samoset (ATA-190), pride and joy of the Haitian Navy from 1978-95.

After a coup led to most of the Haitian Coast Guard defecting in 1970, strongman Papa Doc Duvalier disbanded the service and renamed it the new and improved Haitian Navy. Besides ordering some small coastal patrol craft (think 65-foot PCFs), in 1978 the 835-ton/143-foot Sotomomo-class tug USS Samoset (ATA-190) with a single 3″/50, was transferred as Henri Christophe (MM20).

Christophe and some armed trawlers and speedboats lingered through the 1980s and 90s and, when Haiti disbanded its military in 1995, the G-Cd’H was reformed from the Navy’s ashes, again.

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

Warship Wednesday Dec.2, 2015: The Brass Tiger Fish of the Lifeguard Service

Photo via Navsource. Courtesy of John Hummel.

Here we see the Tench-class diesel-electric submarine USS Tigrone (SS-419/SSR-419/AGSS-419), at the Philadelphia Navy Yard sometime circa 1964 as she is preparing for her next role in the fleet after her first two had proved remarkably different.

With the brilliant success of the Gato-class fleet boats in the first part of the war in the Pacific, the Navy soon ordered 84 follow-on Tench-class boats to an improved design starting in 1944. The same 311-feet long overall as the Gatos, the Tenches were slightly heavier and had longer legs, being able to cover 16,000 nautical miles over their predecessor’s paltry 11,000. This meant they could roam further and stay away longer if needed.

While the Gatos were finished in time to bloody the Japanese fleet, few craft worthy of a torpedo were still around when the Tench class began to reach the Pacific. In fact, just 10 of the class were completed during the war and a further 55 canceled just after.

Of the 10 that made it to the fight, one is the hero of our little tale.

Named after a species of tiger shark, USS Tigrone (SS-419) was laid down at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine just a month before D-Day. Her crew nicknamed her the Tiger Fish and she is the only ship on the Naval List to have carried the moniker.

Commissioned 25 October 1944, she got her first combat patrol underway from Guam on March 21, 1945 with three other U.S. fleet boats in a Yankee wolf pack. Although they spent the better part of two months in Japanese waters, they found few targets and her only brush with combat was to bombard a reef with her rear 5″/25 deck gun (she had a 40mm Bofors single forward).

Her second patrol was more exciting.

On May 25, she took up lifeguard station off coast of Honshu, Japan and by end of the week had a full house, picking up the crews of two B-29s that had ditched as well as three fighter pilots.

“TIGRONE has saved the Air Force and is now returning to Iwo Jima with 28 rescued zoomies,” radioed her skipper, CDR. Hiram Cassedy, USN.

Back on station by June 26 and then soon had to set course for Guam, arriving on 3 July to disembark another 23 waterlogged aircrew plucked from the water. These 52 airmen Tigrone returned to land over the course of the patrol constituted a new submarine-force record.

The Commander Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet extended his congratulations to, “the commanding officer, officers, and crew for this outstanding patrol” and commended them for “the excellent judgment, splendid navigation, and determination displayed by the TIGRONE in effecting these rescues….”

The Tigrone‘s lifeguard service patrol was so inspiring that she received her own episode of the 1950’s documentary series The Silent Service (season 1, episode 8) “Tigrone Sets a Record” which aired 06 May 1957 and is below in its entirety.

On her third patrol, she came within sight of the Japanese home islands on lifeguard duty and saved an aviator as well as breaking out her big gun again on Aug. 13 when she bombarded Mikomoto Island (Pearl Island), scoring 11 hits on a radio station and lighthouse tower in one of the last exchanges of hate in the war as the Empire sued for peace on the 15th.

When peace came, she was part of the massive armada in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945 and received two battle stars for her service.

There she is, all the way at the end…

Soon after, she found herself in red lead row in Philadelphia.

Dusted off in 1948, Tigrone was designated SSR-419 (radar picket submarine) and given the MIGRAINE I conversion that included an AN/BPS-2 search radar sprouting from the after portion of the sail, and the height finder mounted on a freestanding tower just abaft it.

Tigrone, left, after refit as SSR. Her sistership USS Thornback has been GUPPY’d. Thornback would later serve 28 years in the Turkish Navy and is preserved there as a museum ship today.

This put the 15-foot search antenna some 40 feet above the water, with the height finder only a little below. Also came a below deck CIC for the radar, an extra generator to help push the volts needed to run it all, and guidance equipment for mid-course control of Regulus cruise missiles. In exchange, the boat sacrificed her stern tubes and surface armament.

Tigrone (SSR-419), underway in Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta, c1952.

Between 1948-56 no less than 13 SSRs– including several Tench-class boats– were put into service, roughly split between Atlantic and Pacific with Tigrone spending her time as a picket boat with the Second Fleet in the Caribbean and North Atlantic, with regular participation in NATO exercises and periodic deployments to the Mediterranean as part of the Sixth Fleet.

By 1 November 1957, decade as a radar boat had ended, replaced by more modern vessels, and Tigrone again found herself a member of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Philadelphia.

However, the Navy wasn’t through with her by a long shot.

The Tigrone (AGSS-419) underway in a channel, between conversions

Recommissioned 10 March 1962 and reclassified Auxiliary Research Submarine (AGSS-419), for the next decade Tigrone operated in conjunction with the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory (part of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Newport), conducting underwater systems tests, and evaluating new equipment. The information provided by these tests, utilizing experimental transducers, would prove invaluable in sonar development.

In late 1963, the Bottom Reflected Active Sonar System (BRASS) II Transducer and system were installed on Tigrone and, after 1965, the much-upgraded BRASS III system was installed.

Note the unique side-facing rear sonar rack near the sail that came with the BRASS III conversion

While conducting her tests, she was often trailed by Soviet intelligence collection ships, which on at least one occasion felt the full force of the BRASS rig.

From a bubblehead who served on her during these tests

I cannot tell you how many watts the BRASS was capable of transmitting into the water, but suffice it to say it far exceeded anything else in anybody’s Navy at that time and maybe even today’s Navies for all I know. To give you an idea of the sound level it produced, all hands forward of the engine rooms were required to wear enginemen’s hearing protection when it was operating!

The overhead of that boat was festooned with enginemen’s earmuffs, hanging from every possible location to be readily available when the word was passed: “Now rig for BRASS Ops!” There were no torpedo tubes on the Tigrone at that time.

The after room had been turned into a bunkroom and held tier after tier of racks for the crew. The forward room was dedicated to the sonar system including its very own MG set to power that monster. The sonar men stood their watches on standard AN/BQR-2B passive sonar set which was in a little corner up forward where the tubes used to be. The Port half of the forward room was all the equipment the civilian USN/USL personnel used to operate the BRASS. It was a very sophisticated system, capable of varying both the amplitude and duration of the pulses it generated and if I can attach the picture, you will note a huge “shit can” mounted where the bow should be. Inside that huge and cumbersome protrusion was a transducer which looked like a huge log lying on it’s side atop a round table. The round table could be rotated, thereby presenting the horizontal length of the “log” in whatever direction was desired. In addition to the horizontal training, this transducer “log” was constructed in staves (like a barrel) and the operators could select which staves were to be used, giving them the ability to direct the transmitted beam in whatever direction they would like it to go.

We would go to test depth off the Azores and transmit a pulse in a South Westerly direction so that it could be received by the USS Baya [SS/AGSS-318, a Balao-class submarine modified in 1958 to accomidate LORAD, an experimental long-range sonar and 12 scientists] who would be operating off the Tongue of the Ocean in the Bahamas!!!!

Like I said, BRASS put a LOT of power into the water. Needless to say our activities drew the attention of the Russians and one of those ‘fishing boats’ brisling with antenna, would follow us around, undoubtedly listening to and recording every transmission we made. Well one day we were pounding away with the BRASS when one of the civilians asked me where the Russian fishing boat was. I was standing a regular passive sonar watch and I need to explain that whenever the BRASS transmitted a relay in my sonar set would cut out my audio for the duration of the pulse and then cut back in. When the audio returned, I could hear the reverberations from the transmission bouncing off the bottom, off waves, off thermoclines and maybe off the Azores themselves for several minutes, it was deafening!

I reported that the ‘fishing boat’ was dead astern making 80 RPM’s, just enough to keep up with our three knot submerged speed. “Keep us posted if anything changes.” I was told and I sat up to pay closer attention. Pretty soon I noticed a decrease in the amplitude (power) of the transmitted pulses from the BRASS. The same was true of the pulses following that and so on, until the BRASS was barely making a ‘b-e-e-p’ for each transmission. “He’s picking up speed and closing,” I announced to the civilians who were twisting the dials on the BRASS equipment and watching me to see if their efforts were producing the desired results. “Tell us when he’s directly overhead,” was the request as the pulses became weaker still. Evidently, the Russian figured that we had sped up and were leaving him behind; as the very loud transmissions we had been making were now so weak, he could hardly hear them. “He’s making 220 turns and coming right up our stern,” I reported. The USN/USL boys made some more adjustments to their equipment, “Is he overhead yet?” they asked, “Almost”, I said, wondering what in hell they were going to do. Just then, he came out of our baffles and I could hear his diesel engine roaring above the sound of his cavitating propeller blades, as he picked up speed.

“HE’S OVERHEAD NOW NOW NOW!!” I shouted and just then, the relay in my audio circuit cut my sound. It didn’t matter, I could hear the prolonged blast of a BRASS transmission coming right through our hull, it seemed that it would never end. I didn’t realize they could extend the pulse length so long! The operators had turned the transducer table until the ‘log’ was crosswise to the length of our hull, then they had selected just the top staves so that all that transmitted energy went straight up to the Russian Trawler who listening equipment was undoubtedly turned up has far as it would go in an effort to hear our previously weaken signals over their own ships noise. You guys know what test depth was in those old boats, so you know just how far away his receiver was from probably a million or more watts being aimed directly at him. We fried his sonar system . . . cooked it . .. blew every transistor . . . toasted every tube . . . Probably rendered the operator deaf for life. You’ve heard the old saying, “That noise was ten dB above the threshold of pain” well can you imagine what sound level BRASS could produce at that short a distance? It was a wonder we didn’t blow a hole in his hull and sink him.

For the next week, the only time that ‘Fishing Trawler’ caught up with us was when we surfaced after a day’s work. He could still pick us up when we were on the surface with his radar, but he couldn’t find us when we were submerged and BRASS was transmitting. After about six or seven days, a second trawler showed up and relieved him. They would follow us, but never got real close to us. Once burned, twice shy….

USS Tigrone (AGSS-419) with experimental bow sonar, off Ponta Delgada, Azores, 1967

April, 1970 USS Tigrone (419) leaving Halifax after Exercise Steel Ring

Tigrone continued her quiet Cold War service until 27 June 1975 when she was decommissioned after more than 30 years with the fleet– all but about six of those in active service.

She was the last active submarine in the Navy that had served in WWII, which is something of a record in and of its own right.

USS Tigrone by William H. RaVell III

While she was expended as a torpedo test target on 25 October 1976 in deep water off the North Carolina coast at 36deg. 05.2′ N x 71deg. 15.3′ w, she is remembered at Submarine Force Museum and the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum as well as by an active veterans group.

Of her sisters, 14 were transferred to 9 foreign navies and one, ex-USS Cutlass (SS-478) remains semi-active in Taiwan’s Republic of China Navy as Hai Shih (meaning “sea lion”) at age 70.

Three are maintained as museum ships:

USS Requin as a museum ship is about as close as you can get to Tigrone. Image via Wiki.

-USS Requin (SS-481) at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA. This ship was also converted to an SSR in the late 1940s and served with Tigrone in the Second and Sixth fleets during the 1950s.

-USS Torsk (SS-423), moored at Pier Three, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, (alongside the National Aquarium in Baltimore) in Maryland.

-TCG Uluçalireis (S 338) (ex-USS Thornback (SS-418)), on display at Rahmi M. Koç Museum, Golden Horn in Istanbul. She is shown above in the comparison shot next to sister Tigrone.

Specs:

Tench class, WWII configuration, via shipbucket

Displacement:
1,570 tons (1,595 t) surfaced
2,414 tons (2,453 t) submerged
Length: 311 ft. 8 in (95.00 m)
Beam: 27 ft. 4 in (8.33 m)
Draft: 17 ft. (5.2 m) maximum
Propulsion:
4 × Fairbanks-Morse Model 38D8-⅛ 10-cylinder opposed piston diesel engines driving electrical generators
2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries
2 × low-speed direct-drive Elliott electric motors
two propellers
5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced
2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged
Speed:
20.25 knots (38 km/h) surfaced
8.75 knots (16 km/h) submerged
Range: 16,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Endurance:
48 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged
75 days on patrol
Test depth: 400 ft. (120 m)
Complement: 6 officers, 60 enlisted as designed. Up to 90 when used for SSR/AGSS duties
Armament:
(1945)
10 x21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, 6 forward, 4 aft, 24 torpedoes
1 x 5-inch (127 mm) / 25 caliber deck gun
1 x Bofors 40 mm
1 x Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
2 x .50 cal M2 (detachable)
(1948)
6 x 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, forward, 12 torpedoes
2 x .50 cal M2 (detachable)
(1963)
Soundwaves, baby, yeah

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday Dec.9, 2015: HMs Enterprise

Here we see the Illustrious-class fleet carrier HMS Formidable (R67) of the Royal Navy. This warbaby flattop, completed in the darkest days of World War II when Britain stood alone, was used hard during the war, rushed from fight to fight, and at times was the only carrier in the region. In many ways, she was HMs equivalent to the USS Enterprise (CV-6).

During WWII, the Royal Navy saw the writing on the wall in the respect that, to remain a first-rate naval power with a global reach, it needed a fleet of modern aircraft carriers. Entering the war in 1939 with three 27,000-ton Courageous-class carriers converted from battlecruiser hulls, the 22,000 ton battleship-hulled HMS Eagle, the unique 27,000-ton Ark Royal, and the tiny 13,000-ton HMS Hermes (pennant 95, the world’s first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier)– a total of six flattops, within the first couple years of the war 5/6th of these were sent to the bottom by Axis warships and aircraft.

Luckily two 32,000-ton Implacable-class and four 23,000-ton Illustrious-class carriers, laid down before the war, were able to join the fleet to help make good those losses until the follow-on Colossus-class light fleet carriers, and Audacious-class, Malta-class super carriers (57,000-tons), and 8 planned Centaur-class carriers could be built (although most weren’t).

The Illustrious-class, designed before the war, was limited by the restrictions of the Second London Naval Treaty in displacement (much like the pre-war U.S. carriers). With concerns about the vulnerability of flattops in the 1930s to air attack– the Brits were forward thinking in this– the “Lusties” were laid out with their hangar in an armored box, with 3-inches of steel plate on the roof and 4.5 on the side to protect against either 5-inch naval shells or 1,000-pound iron bombs. This and the fact the Brits refused to keep aircraft stored on deck limited their air wing to just 36 aircraft.

The 740-foot/23,000-ton Lusties were comparable to the 824-foot/25,000-ton U.S. Yorktown-class aircraft carriers though the Brits had twice the AAA battery with 16 QF 4.5-inchers while the Yanks had 8×5-inchers and other small pieces. Likewise, the two classes had comparable speed (30~ knots) and range (over 10,000 nm) for overseas operations. However, the Yorktown trio (Yorktown, Hornet, Enterprise), while they did have an armored tower and belt, lacked the deck/hangar armor of the Lusties but, due to their huge hangar and doctrine to store planes on “the roof” could accommodate as many as 90 in their air wing.

All of the Illustrious-class carriers were ordered and laid down in 1937 prior to the start of the War, with three of the four at Vickers with the oddball being Formidable, who was laid down at Harland and Wolff in Belfast– builders of RMS Titanic among others.

HMS Formidable was the 5th (or 6th depending on if you count a French Téméraire class 74-gun third rate ship of the line captured during the Napoleonic Wars with the same name) vessel in the RN to carry the name and between 1759-1953 there was only about 40 years of which the name did not appear on HMs Naval List, with the last before our WWII flattop being the unlucky battleship torpedoed twice by German submarine U-24 and sunk, 1 January 1915.

Our particular HMS Formidable was commissioned 24 November 1940 and rushed into service.

Armed with two squadrons of Fairey Albacore biplane torpedo bombers and one of Fairey Fulmar fighters, she engaged in covering convoys searching for German surface raiders for her first few months of the war.

HMS Formidable of the Illustrious-class underway, date and location unknown.

Chopping to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1941, she started with a bang by sinking the Italian merchantman SS Moncalieri and, during the Battle of Cape Matapan, torpedoing the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto and cruiser Pola.

During the evacuation of Greece and Crete she covered the fleet and kept the German and Italians land-based bombers under thumb with repeated air attacks, accounting for a number of aerial kills and destruction of aircraft on the ground– though her own air wing dwindled to as low as a dozen operational aircraft at some times.

On 26 May she shrugged off two hits by Stuka dropped 1,100-pound bombs which caused little damage but sent her to Norfolk in the States for repair.

Back in the fight in early 1942, she swapped out her Fulmars for Grumman Martlets (F4F Wildcats) and spent most of the year playing cat and mouse games with the Japanese as part of Admiral Sir James Somerville’s Force A in the Indian Ocean.

HMS Formidable, as part of Force A of the Eastern Fleet returning to Kilindini from Colombo, 2nd July 1942.

HMS Formidable underway in the Indian Ocean off Mombasa, Kenya, 1942

Then in October, she transferred back to her familiar waters of the Med as part of Force H, covering the Torch Landings in North Africa where her planes (with Supermarine Seafires augmenting and later replacing her Martlets) provided air cover, downed some random German aircraft and scratched the German submarine U-331 on 17 November.

Martlet fighters aboard HMS Formidable in the Mediterranean Sea, 1942

Force H warships HMS Duke of York, Nelson, Renown, Formidable, and Argonaut underway off North Africa, November 1942.

She was the sole Allied carrier in the Med for nearly six months and the first one to enter Malta in over 30 after helping cover the Allied invasion of Sicily. In this respect, she emulated the Enterprise‘s lonely experience as the sole operational Allied carrier in the Pacific between the sinking of the USS Wasp (CV-7) in Sept. 1942 and the commissioning of the USS Independence (CVL-22) in January 1943 while Saratoga was in dry-dock undergoing repair from a Japanese torpedo.

Revenge-class battleship HMS Resolution and Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Formidable

Vought Corsair fighters and Fairey Barracuda bombers on the deck of aircraft carrier HMS Formidable during an operation off Norway, July 1944

In late 1943, Formidable found herself in the frigid North Atlantic with a new air wing of 18 Vought Corsairs and 24 Fairey Barracuda torpedo bombers. She spent the rest of the year as well as most of 1944 escorting convoys and throwing good pilots and brave aircrews at the SMS Tirpitz in a series of air attacks (Operations Mascot and Goodwood) in her lair in a Norwegian fjord which produced few results.

After refit to expand her hangar deck to accommodate 54 aircraft (including a few topside), upgrading her torpedo planes to 18 Grumman TBF Avengers with three dozen Corsairs providing cover, and upping her AAA suite, she sailed for the newly formed British Pacific Fleet of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser in early 1945 as the need for carriers in the European Theater at that time was waning.

RN carriers Victorious, Formidable, Unicorn, Indefatigable, Indomitable, TF57, Leyte Gulf, Apr 1945. Never again has the Royal Navy been this powerful.

This force would be the largest modern fleet the RN ever assembled post-1918, consisting of four battleships and six fleet aircraft carriers, 15 smaller aircraft carriers, 11 cruisers and a host of escorts, subs and auxiliaries. It announced Britain’s re-entry into the huge ocean from which it was chased in early 1942. The force sailed with Spruance’s Fifth Fleet as Task Force 57 (TF-57) and then with Halsey’s Third Fleet as TF-37.

Formidable arrived in the Philippines in April 1945, as the war in Europe was in its last days, and was soon in hot action in the Kamikaze-rich waters off Okinawa.

Famous image of Formidable on fire after the kamikaze hit on 4 May, photograph A 29717 from the collections of the Imperial War Museum

On 4 May, she was struck by a Mitsubishi A6M Zero “Zeke” carrying one 550-pound bomb, which created a two-foot square hole and a 24 x 20 foot depression in the armored flight deck. While splinters penetrated into her engineering spaces and her speed was reduced to 18 knots, she only lost eight men to the attack– though 11 of her aircraft were destroyed in the resulting blast. After a patch job, she was able to operate aircraft by the next morning.

Imperial War Museum picture A29312.

Damage to HMS Formidable deck after the impact of a 550lb-bomb-carrying Kamikaze amidships

Just five days later she was struck by a kamikaze into the after deck park which killed one and wounded eight. The armored deck was depressed 4.5 inches but seven aircraft were destroyed and 11 damaged. Her crew brushed off the deck and was able to launch and land aircraft 50 minutes later but only had a paltry four Avengers and 11 Corsairs left serviceable.

A Pacific Fleet report of May 1945 stated, “Without armored decks, TF 57 would have been out of action (with 4 carriers) for at least 2 months,” a recommendation that was key to adding armored flight decks to all U.S. carriers built after the war.

After some repairs in Australia, she was back in action of the Japanese Home Islands in July.

HMS FORMIDABLE passing through the Sydney Harbor anti-submarine boom net in 1945

On 18 July, Lt. Wally Stradwick, a Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot from Clapham, south London, took off from Formidable in his corsair on a mission to strafe an airfield east of Tokyo.

Lt. Wally Stradwick

He was the first British aviator killed over Japan in the war.

From the Daily Mail:

The last entry had been made on July 14, 1945, four days earlier, when Stradwick knew he was about to attack mainland Japan for the first time.

‘We have been at sea for some time now, and for the last week have known where we are next striking – the absolute full, apart from getting out and saying “Hallo” to the yellow baskets,’ he had written.

‘I don’t know if it is a particular fault of this Air Arm or not, but we have been on the ship so long, with long periods between ops, that I feel the full twitch over this coming “do”.

‘The whole thing hinges on strafing. God knows I’m just as scared as anybody flying on any op, but that disappears once the fun starts.

‘However, I like the idea of fighting with brains and skill. Air to air fighting is the ideal. You have to use both whether the odds are for or against you.

Over the next few weeks Formidable’s aircraft crippled or sank a number of small Japanese naval and merchant vessels and coasters including the Etorofu-class frigate Amakusa on Aug 9 (with a single 500-pounder dropped from Lt. Robert “Hammy” Hampton Gray’s Corsair, an act that earned the 27-year-old Canadian a posthumous VC, one of only earned by the Fleet Air Arm in the war).

Finale by Don Connolly in 1987, Beaverbrook Collection of War Art, CWM 19880046-001. “On 9 August 1945, flying off the British carrier HMS Formidable, Gray led a flight of Corsair fighter-bombers into Onagawa Bay, Japan. With his aircraft riddled by anti-aircraft fire from the shore and from warships in the bay, Gray pressed home an attack on the Japanese ship Amakusa. Flying to within 50 meters of the ship, Gray sank it with a 500-pound bomb, but his badly damaged and burning aircraft crashed moments later, killing him.”

During this time, her aircraft also left the escort carrier Kaiyō a smoking ruin though later attacks by U.S. Army Air Force bombers and the carrier Ticonderoga ended her career for good.

When the end of the war came, Formidable’s days as a carrier were numbered. She spent the next 18 months shuttling Indian, British, and Dutch troops and personnel around the Pacific and back and forth to Europe, carrying up to 1,500 at a time. Her wartime service earned her seven awards.

Aircraft carrier HMS Formidable at Leyte, Philippines late in the war. Note the high elevation of her forward twin 4.5-inch QFs.

It was planned to refit and keep the battered old girl who had sunk Italian, Japanese, and German ships and received punishment from Axis aircraft in return, but was found that she was in poor material shape on inspection in 1947. Paid off, she was sold for scrap in January 1953 and towed to Inverkeithing from breaking. Her American counterpart, Enterprise, was laid up at the same time and sold for scrap in 1958.

In all, she carried aircraft from over 20 Air Arm squadrons in her brief seven years of service as a carrier. Of these, 17 have been disbanded while three, No. 820, 829 and 848 remain in service today– all chopper units flying Agusta-Westland Merlin HM.2s. During the war, all three flew torpedo planes (Albacores or Avengers) from Formidible‘s deck.

Formidable was the first of her sisters to meet the torch. Class leader Illustrious and sister Indomitable, also showing severe trauma from wartime service, followed within three years while Victorious, who also survived kamikazes off Okinawa, was extensively reconstructed to operate jets in the 1950s and later carried Gannets, Scimitars, Sea Fury’s, Sea Hawks, Sea Vixen, and Buccaneers until she was put out to pasture in 1969.

Victorious in Grand Harbour, Malta en route back to the UK following her 1966–67 Far East cruise, image via Wiki

Since 1953, the name Formidable has not graced the Royal Navy.

Her legacy is kept alive by sites including Armoredcarriers.com and the veteran’s group hmsformidable.com as well as in maritime art.

HMS Formidable off Sakishima Gunto, 1945 via armoredcarriers.com

HMS Formidable, 1942 – Seafires returning by Gordon Frickers

Specs:

Formidable, WWII configuration, via shipbucket

Displacement: 23,000 long tons (23,369 t) (standard)
Length:
740 ft. (225.6 m) (o/a)
710 ft. (216.4 m) (waterline)
Beam: 95 ft. 9 in (29.2 m)
Draught: 28 ft. 10 in (8.8 m) (deep load)
Installed power:
111,000 shp (83,000 kW)
6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
Propulsion:
3 shafts
3 geared steam turbines
Speed: 30.5 knots (56.5 km/h; 35.1 mph)
Range: 10,700 nmi (19,800 km; 12,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 1,299
Sensors and
processing systems: 1 × Type 79 early-warning radar
Armament:
8 × twin QF 4.5-inch dual-purpose guns
6 × octuple QF 2-pdr anti-aircraft guns
Armour:
Waterline belt: 4.5 in (114 mm)
Flight deck: 3 in (76 mm)
Hangar sides and ends: 4.5 in (114 mm)
Bulkheads: 2.5 in (64 mm)
Aircraft carried: 36–54
Aviation facilities: 1 catapult

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday Dec. 16, 2015: The Long Legged Bird of the Java Sea

Naval History and Heritage Command#: NH 85178

Here we see the humble Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2), while fitting out at her builders in late 1918, being rushed to completion to help serve in the Great War. While her service “over there” was rather quiet in the end, her trip to the other side of the world and experiences in another world war would prove more exciting.

When a young upstart by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the Navy Department in 1913 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he helped engineer one of the largest naval build-ups in world history. By the time the U.S. entered World War I officially in 1917, it may have been Mr. Wilson’s name in the role of Commander in Chief, but it was Mr. Roosevelt’s fleet.

One of his passions was the concept of the Great North Sea Mine Barrage, a string of as many as 400,000 (planned) sea mines that would shut down the Kaiser’s access once and for all to the Atlantic and saving Western Europe (and its overseas Allies) from the scourge of German U-boats. A British idea dating from late 1916, the U.S. Navy’s Admiral Sims thought it was a bullshit waste of time but it was FDR’s insistence to President Wilson in the scheme that ultimately won the day.

While a fleet of converted steamships (and two old cruisers- USS San Francisco and USS Baltimore) started dropping mines in June 1918, they only managed to sow 70,177 by Armistice Day and accounted for a paltry two U-boats gesunken (although some estimates range as high as 8 counting unaccounted for boats).

And the thing is, you don’t throw that many mines in international shipping lanes without having a plan to clean the up after the war (while having the bonus of using those mine countermeasures ships to sweep enemy-laid fields as well).

That’s where the 54 vessels of the Lapwing-class came in.

Review of the Atlantic Fleet Minesweeping Squadron, November 1919. USS Lapwing (AM-1) and other ships of the squadron anchored in the Hudson River, off New York City, while being reviewed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on 24 November 1919, following their return to the United States after taking part in clearing the North Sea mine barrage. The other ships visible are: USS Lark (Minesweeper No. 21), with USS SC-208 alongside (at left); and USS Swan (Minesweeper No. 34) with USS SC-356 alongside (at right). Heron was there, but is not seen on the photo. U.S. Navy photo NH 44903. Note the crow’s nest for sighting floating mines.

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, these 187-foot long ships were large enough, at 965-tons full, to carry a pair of economical reciprocating diesel engines (or two boilers and one VTE engine) with a decent enough range to make it across the Atlantic on their own (though with a blisteringly slow speed of just 14 knots when wide open on trials.)

Not intended to do much more than clear mines, they were given a couple 3-inch pop guns to discourage small enemy surface combatants intent to keep minesweepers from clearing said mines. The class leader, Lapwing, designated Auxiliary Minesweeper #1 (AM-1), was laid down at Todd in New York in October 1917 and another 53 soon followed. While five were canceled in November 1918, the other 48 were eventually finished– even if they came to the war a little late.

Which leads us to the hero of our tale, USS Heron.

Laid down at the Standard Shipbuilding Co. in Boston, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to carry that name, that of a long-legged seabird of the Gulf Coast. Like all her sisters, they carried bird names.

Commissioned 30 October 1918, the war ended 12 days later but she was still very much needed to help take down that whole barrage thing. Therefore, she arrived in the Orkney Islands in the spring of 1919 where, along with 28 of her sisters and a host of converted British trawlers, she scooped up Mk.6 naval mines from the deep for the rest of the year.

When she returned home, she was transferred to the far off Asiatic Fleet, sailing for Cavite PI in October 1920.

There, she was laid up in 1922, with not much need of an active minesweeper.

Then, with the Navy figuring out these economical little boats with their shallow draft (they could float in ten feet of seawater) could be used for any number of side jobs, started re-purposing them.

Six of the “Old Birds” were reclassified as salvage ships (ARSs) while another half-dozen became submarine rescue ships (ASRs). The Coast Guard picked up USS Redwing for use as a cutter during Prohibition while the U.S. Coast & Geographic Survey acquired USS Osprey and USS Flamingo and the Shipping Board accepted USS Peacock as a tug.

A few were retained as minesweepers in the reserve fleet, some used as depot ships/netlayers, one converted to a gunboat, another to an ocean-going tug, three were sunk during peacetime service (USS Cardinal struck a reef off Dutch Harbor in 1923 while USS Curlew did the same off Panama in 1926 and USS Sanderling went down in 1937 by accident in Hawaii) while nine– Heron included– became seaplane tenders.

While these ships could only carry 1-2 seaplanes on deck, they typically milled around with a converted barge alongside that could park a half dozen or more single-engine float planes for service and support.

U.S. Navy Small Seaplane Tender USS Heron (AVP-2); no date. Note the floatplane service barge alongside. Image via USNI collection.

Recommissioned in 1924 (later picking up the hull number AVP-2, as a Small Seaplane Tender), Heron was photographed with a variety of floatplanes including Grumman JF amphibians and Vought O2U-2 scout planes in the 20s and 30s.

Carrying two Vought O2U-2 scout planes of Scouting Eight (VS-8) while serving in the Asiatic Fleet on 15 December 1930. Photo No. 80-G-1017155 Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-80-G

Serving as an aircraft tender before 1936. Note the aviation roundel on her bow.

She continued her quiet existence in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Chinese and Philippine waters, filling in as a target tower, survey ship, and gunboat when needed.

U.S. warships inside and outside the breakwater, circa the later 1930s. Color-tinted photograph by the Ah-Fung O.K. Photo Service. Among the ships present are USS Black Hawk (AD-9), in left center, with a nest of four destroyers alongside. USS Whipple (DD-217) is the outboard unit of these four. USS Heron (AM-10) is alongside the breakwater, at right, with a Grumman JF amphibian airplane on her fantail. Another JF is floating inside the breakwater, toward the left. Two Chinese sampans are under sail in the center foreground. The four destroyers outside the breakwater are (from left to right): USS Stewart (DD-224), unidentified, USS Bulmer (DD-222) and USS Pillsbury (DD-227). Collection of James E. Thompson, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 90544-KN

Stationed at Port Ciego, Philippines when the balloon went up, Heron was luckier than several of her sisters in the same waters, with six sunk in six months.

• USS Tanager (AM-5), Sunk by Japanese shore battery fire off Bataan, 4 May 1942.
• USS Finch (AM-9), Damaged by Japanese bomb (near miss), 9 Apr 1942 while moored at the eastern point of Corregidor. Abandoned, 10 Apr 1942. Salvaged by Imperial Japanese Navy; renamed W-103. Sunk for good by US carrier aircraft in early 1945.
• USS Quail (AM-15) Damaged by Japanese bombs and guns at Corregidor, she was scuttled 5 May 1942 to prevent capture.
• USS Penguin (AM-33) Damaged by Japanese aircraft in Agana Harbor, Guam, 8 Dec 1941; scuttled in 200 fathoms to prevent capture.
• USS Bittern (AM-36) Heavily damaged by Japanese aircraft at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines; scuttled in Manila Bay to prevent capture.
• USS Pigeon (AM-47) Sunk by Japanese aircraft at Corregidor, 4 May 1942.

Heron was ordered to leave the PI for Ambon Island, part of the Maluku Islands of then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), a strategic key to the area held by some 3,000 Dutch and Australian troops. There, along with USS William B. Preston (AVD 7), she supported PBYs of Patrol Wing TEN until the going got tough and the island was overrun in February 1942.

It was during this time at Ambon that Heron became a legend. Upon hearing that the four-piper USS Peary (DD-226) was damaged, she sortied out to help assist or tow if needed but was caught by Japanese flying boats and proceeded to fight them off over several hours.

As noted dryly in the combat narrative of the Java Sea Campaign:

The Heron, which was sent north to assist the Peary, was herself bombed in a protracted action in Molucca Strait on the 31st. Shrapnel from near hits penetrated the ship’s side and started fires in the paint locker and forward hold. About the middle of the afternoon, a 100-pound shrapnel bomb struck the foremast near the top and sprayed the ship with splinters, which did considerable damage. The Heron acquitted herself well, however, in spite of her 12-knot speed, and succeeded in shooting down a large enemy seaplane.

“Evasion of Destruction” by Richard DeRosset portrays a strafing run by three Japanese “Mavis” flying boats following their unsuccessful torpedo attack on the USS Heron (AVP-2) on 31 December 1941. Heron shot down one of the aircraft with her starboard 3-inch gun; her port gun had been disabled by earlier combat action. This final attack followed a series of earlier ones by twelve other enemy aircraft against the seaplane tender as she sailed alone in the Java Sea. Due to heroic actions by her captain and crew, Heron survived seemingly overwhelming odds during the long ordeal. Heron had approximately 26 casualties, or about 50 percent of the crew, because of the attack.

For her valiant action during this period, Heron received the Navy Unit Commendation.

The rest of her war service was less eventful, serving in Australian waters as a patrol boat and seaplane tender until 1944 when she began moving back to the PI with the massive Allied armada to retake the archipelago. She conducted search and rescue operations and assisted in landings where needed, still providing tender service until she was decommissioned at Subic Bay, Philippines 12 February 1946, earning four battle stars for the War.

Sold for scrap to a Chinese concern in Shanghai in 1947, Heron‘s ultimate fate is unknown but she may have lingered on as a trawler or coaster for some time or in some form.

As for the rest of her class, others also served heroically in the war with one, USS Vireo, picking up seven battle stars for her service as a fleet tug from Pearl Harbor to Midway to Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The Germans sank USS Partridge at Normandy and both Gannet and Redwing via torpedoes in the Atlantic. Most of the old birds remaining in U.S. service were scrapped in 1946-48 with the last on Uncle Sam’s list, Flamingo, sold for scrap in July 1953.

Some lived on as trawlers and one, USS Auk (AM-38) was sold to Venezuela in 1948, where she lasted until 1962 as the gunboat Felipe Larrazabal. After her decommissioning she was not immediately scrapped, and was reported afloat in a backwater channel as late as 1968. Her fate after that is not recorded but she was likely the last of the Lapwings.

For Heron‘s memory, the Navy passed on her name to two different mine countermeasures ships since WWII.

The first, the 136-foot USS Heron (MSC(O)-18/AMS-18/YMS-369), was renamed in 1947 and went on to win 8 battlestars in Korea before serving in the Japanese Self Defense Forces as JDS Nuwajima (MSC-657) until 1967.

The second and, as of now final, U.S. Navy ship with the historic name, USS Heron (MHC-52) was an Osprey-class coastal minehunter commissioned in 1994 and transferred while still in her prime to Greece in 2007 as Kalipso.

But that’s another story.

Specs:

Displacement: 950 tons FL (1918) 1,350 tons (1936)
Length: 187 feet 10 inches
Beam: 35 feet 6 inches
Draft: 9 feet 9 in
Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox header boilers, one 1,400shp Harlan and Hollingsworth, vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph); 12~ by 1936.
Complement: 78 Officers and Enlisted as completed; Upto 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1930)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
4 Lewis guns
(1944)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
Several 20mm Oerlikons and M2 12.7mm mounts

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

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

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

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I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday Dec.30, 2015: Subkiller of the Florida Keys

Image by Chris Eger. All others this post are either by me, or the USCG Historian’s office

Here we see the Treasury-class United States Coast Guard Cutter Samuel D. Ingham (WPG/AGC/WHEC-35) dockside of the old Navy submarine base at Key West near Fort Zachary Taylor, part of the Truman Annex to Naval Air Station Key West, where she has been as a museum ship since 2009.

In the mid-1930s, the Coast Guard had some 40~ oceangoing cutters consisting of a few pre-WWI era slowboats and a host of 165 and 240/250 foot vessels designed for bluewater rum-runner busting during Prohibition. With the Volstead Act repealed and the boozecraft disappearing, the new push in the Treasury department once Mr. Roosevelt took office was for long-legged boats to help patrol the nation’s burgeoning international air traffic routes to affect rescues and provide weather support.

Although the Coasties came up with their own design for a stretched version of their 250-foot Lake-class cutters, the Navy had just coughed up a new gunboat design– the two Erie-class gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) —  which the service could save some bread on by gently modifying. Instead of the Erie‘s  6”/47 Mk17s, the Coast Guard went with 5”/51’s and saved money in other areas, building their cutters out at about 30 percent less cost than the Eries.

These seven new cutters, classified gunboats (WPG) in Treasury service, were all named after former Secretaries of that cabinet branch with USCGC George M. Bibb (WPG-31) laid down 15 August 1935 followed quickly by Campbell,  Spencer, Duane, Taney, Hamilton and the hero of our story, Ingham— named after Andrew Jackson’s Treasury boss. However, shortly after commissioning all of the names were trimmed to the last name only.

U.S.S. ‘Samuel D. Ingham’ Entering At Havana Harbor-Nov. 12 1936

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

These cutters were designed from the outset to accommodate a floatplane

Built at Philadelphia Naval Yard (Ingham himself was born at Great Spring near New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1779), the cutter carrying his name was commissioned 12 September 1936 and was the fourth cutter to bear that name. She was assigned to Port Angeles, Washington, where she participated in arduous Bering Sea patrols until the start of WWII in Europe.

Ingham’s crew undergoing prewar battle practice, in this case firing both of her main 5-inch 50-caliber main batteries.

Given a tasking for “Grand Banks Patrols,” Ingham was homeported in Boston with orders to identify foreign men-of-war, be on the lookout for any “un-neutral” activities, and report anything of an unusual nature. Each cruise lasted approximately two weeks. The cutters ran with their ensign illuminated by searchlight at all times, and prefaced all signals with Coast Guard identification. This transitioned to three-week long weather station duty in the North Atlantic with embarked meteorologists.

In December 1940, she was up-armed with things growing increasingly tense in the North Atlantic and transferred for duty with the Navy on 1 July 1941 and her Coast Guard crew intact, spending part of the year as a floating embassy in spy-rich Lisbon for the U. S. ambassador to Portugal.

Assigned to CINCLANT at the U.S. entrance to the war, she soon began a series of convoy operations, escorting no less than 28 convoys back and forth from the East Coast to Iceland between Dec. 1941 and March 1943. Some were pure milk runs. Others were not.

On SC-107, 16 ships were torpedoed.

On ONSJ-160, Ingham reduced speed and ceased zigzagging as a force 12 hurricane developed and then had to spend three days searching for stragglers.

It was in this duty she rescued survivors from the torpedoed SS Henry R. Mallory, Robert E. Hopkins, West Portal, Jeremiah Van Rensseler and all hands of the Matthew Luckenback.

Then there was the time she gesunken a U-boat.

Ingham fitted out for escort of convoy and anti-submarine warfare. Note her camouflage

Ingham, along with USS Babbitt and USS Leary were near Iceland, where they stumbled on the brand new German Type VIIC submarine U-626 who was on her maiden patrol on 15 December 1942. The cutter made sonar contact with an object and dropped depth charges on the sub, sinking her and killing her entire crew of 47 though some argue the point.

From the journal of Ensign Joseph Matte III, USCGR

During the 8 to 12 watch tonight, while on patrol 3 miles ahead of the convoy, we picked up screw-beats of a submarine while listening, ran in and dropped three 600-pounders. Then, getting contact on the U-boat again by echo-ranging we made another run and gave it a 10-charge barrage. Search was continued for some time, but contact was not regained. There is a strong possibility that we sunk him without forcing him to the surface.

Another surface action in June 1942:

On the 16th, the Ingham broke away from the convoy to investigate a light brown smoke on the horizon and on approaching closer definitely sighted a submarine with conning tower and diesel oil smoke from the exhaust plainly visible. The Ingham increased speed to 19 knots and gave chase, firing one round from the forward 5″ gun at a range of 13,000 yards.

Then in 1944, she found herself in the Med, chasing sonar contacts off Morocco and Spain before assuming flagship of the Senior Mediterranean Escort Group.

U.S.C.G.C. W 35. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK. 28 May 1944 Photo No. F644C6169

Then in May, Ingham proceeded back to the states for conversion to an AGC (Combined operations communications headquarters ship) which took most of the rest of the year and led to her shipping for the Pacific, arriving Dec 26th at Humboldt Bay, reporting to Commander, Seventh Fleet.

USS Ingham, CG (WAGC-35)U.S. Navy Yard, S.C. . .U.S.S. INGHAM, (W 35), Starboard BowPhoto No. 2878-44 11 October 1944

By February 1945, as flag of Commander, Task Group 76.3, Ingham was the HQ and guide ship for the Mariveles-Corregidor Attack Group in the PI and later oversaw the beach landings at Tigbauan, Pulupandan, Macajalar Bay, Sarangani Bay and the seizure of Balut Island. In these attacks she frequently let her 5-inchers release hate on Japanese shore positions while dodging underwater obstacles and swimming sappers.

Ingham as a AGC 1944

Commander Dean W. Colbert wrote in his memoir of life on board Ingham of her crowding at the time with four men assigned to a single rack:

“. . .during major landings, we accommodated up to 360 persons onboard and there was literally standing room only. . .Mealtime was a carefully orchestrated operation. Up to 1000 meals per day were prepared and served out of a galley roughly the size of a kitchen in a 4-bedroom house. . .It was a challenge by any standard, but Ingham’s crew rose to the occasion. Many of the ‘black gang’ . . .and other crew members had been on board during the worst of the U-boat campaigns in the North Atlantic. As a whole, the crew was superb, especially the chief and first class petty officers. They were a tremendously capable and reliable group.”

The end of the war found her off Okinawa as the flag of Adm. Buckmaster who sailed into Shanghai and Haiphong to help coordinate occupation efforts with Chinese army officials.

On 6 January 1946, she arrived back on the East Coast at New York, landed her armament, got her white paint scheme back, and picked up where she left off as a cutter.

Homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, she spent the next 22 years on quiet weather station duty, assisting those in peril at sea and conducting law enforcement operations.

Then came another war.

1965. She would pick up the racing stripe two years later, and ship for Southeast Asia a year after that.

Becoming part of Coast Guard Squadron Three in 1968, Ingham soon became part of the Navy’s Operation Market Time interdiction and coastal surveillance effort in Vietnam. She spent a year in CGS3, conducting numerous naval gunfire support missions, serving as a mothership to Navy Swift boats and Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats, sending medical teams ashore to win hearts and minds in local seaside hamlets, and stopping anything that moved inside her area of operation.

As noted by her official USCG history, “She participated in Operation Sea Lords and Operation Swift Raiders, earning an unprecedented two Presidential Unit Citations, the only cutter to be so honored.”

18 July 1978 Photo No. G-BPA-07-18-78

Still homeported in Virginia, Ingham picked up where she left off in 1969 and continued ocean station duty until the stations themselves were disbanded in 1976. After that, she was a favorite vessel of the USCGA in New London, taking cadets on summer cruises that lasted up to 10 weeks at a time and continuing to do so until 1985.

She took breaks from cadet training to seize drug runners (the Honduran fishing trawler Mary Ann, where the boarding team discovered 15-tons of marijuana in 1979 and the vessel Misfit carrying 35 tons of marijuana in 1982) as well as saving hundreds of lives during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980– often landing refugees and towing Cuban vessels to Key West for processing.

She outlasted all of her sisters in service, with Hamilton being torpedoed during the war off Iceland 29 January 1942, Spencer sold for scrap in 1981, Campbell decommissioned in 1982 and sunk as a target, Bibb and Duane decommissioned in 1985, and Pearl Harbor survivor Taney decommissioned 7 December 1986.

On 1 August 1985, Ingham‘s hull numbers were painted gold, signifying she was the oldest commissioned Coast Guard vessel in service, period. On 24 May 1988, she was decommissioned with a salute from President Reagan. It was the first time in 52 years that she did not have an official tasking.

Ingham in her pre-1967 livery by William H Ravell

Saved as a memorial, she was at first a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, S.C. and then, after dry-dock and repairs, at Key West. A maritime museum keeps her in excellent condition and in 1995 was made the official site of the USCGs WWII memorial per order of the commandant.

I had a chance to tour Ingham last month and here is a sampling of her current disposition:

The ship is a time capsule from her last use in May 1988. I was told the only thing the Coast Guard did when they turned her over was dewat the guns, remove the classified documents from the safe, and pull some sensitive internal panels from the commo, sonar and radar suites.

Officers mess

Remember the comment about a galley for a typical 4 BR house?

Holy 2600, batman

The enlisted mess

Japanese samurai sword picked up in 1945

GMs locker.Dig the M2 giant size training tool and the 20mm OK

Barber

Captain’s cabin

Captain’s cabin. This would be the berth of the Admiral when she was an AGC in WWII

Commo anyone?

Looking forward, note her 5″/38, and saluting gun. Malloy Square and Duval Street are a few blocks up.

CIC

Her bridge is off limits, but note all the brightwork and 1930s style porthole row

Her sistership Taney has been preserved in Baltimore harbor since her decommissioning while sisters, Duane and Bibb, are only about a half hour away from Ingham‘s current location, both sunk as an artificial reef off Key Largo, 27 November 1987.

As a nod to her many years of service to the USCGA, Ingham is often graced with visits from cadets who spend vacation time sleeping in the onboard berths, scraping paint and repairing heads.

When in Key West, she is well worth a stop.

Specs:

Via shipbucket

Via shipbucket

Via shipbucket

Displacement 2,350 t. (lt)
Length 327′ 0″
Beam 41′ 0″
Draft 12′ 6″ (max.)
Propulsion
two Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbines
two Babcock & Wilcox sectional express, air-encased, 400 psi, 200° superheat
two 9′ three-bladed propellers, 6,200shp (1966)
Fuel Capacity NSFO 135,180 gallons (547 tons)
Speed 20.5 kts (max)
Electronics:
HF/DF: (1942) DAR (converted British FH3) ?
Radar: (1945) SC-2, SGa; (1966) AN/SPS-29D, AN/SPA-52.
Fire Control Radar: (1945) Mk-26; (1966) Mk-26 MOD 4
Sonar: (1945) QC series; (1966) AN/SQS-11
Complement
1937
12 officers
4 warrant officers
107 enlisted
1941
16 officers
4 warrant officers
202 enlisted
1966
10 officers
3 warrant officers
134 enlisted
Armament:
1936
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
2 6-pdrs
1 1-pdr
1941
3 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
3 single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
4 .50 caliber Browning Machine Guns
2 depth charge racks
“Y” gun depth charge projector
1943
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
4 single 3″/50 cal dual gun mounts
2 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
Hedgehog device
6 “K” gun depth charge projectors
2 depth charge racks
1945
2 single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
3 twin 40mm/60 AA gun mounts
4 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1946
2 single 5″/38 cal dual gun mount
1 twin 40mm;/60 AA gun mount
8 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1 Hedgehog
1966
1 single 5″/38 MK30 Mod75 cal dual-purpose gun mount w/ MK 52 MOD 3 director
1 MK 10-1 Hedgehog (removed)
2 (P&S) x Mk 32 MOD 5 TT
4 MK 44 MOD 1 torpedoes
2 .50 cal. MK-2 Browning Machine Guns
2 MK-13 high altitude parachute flare mortars
Aircraft (discontinued after WWII)
1936, Grumman JF-2, V148
1938, Curtiss SOC-4
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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday January 6, 2016: The wandering Italian of Montevideo

Here we see the Hellenic Navy’s one-of-a-kind protected cruiser Salamis, err, make that the Regina Marina’s cruiser (ariete torpediniere) Admiral Angelo Emo, or is it Dogali, or is it the Uruguayan Navy’s ROU 25 de Agosto?

Well, about that…

Designed by British naval architect Sir William Henry White, who served as Chief Constructor at the Admiralty, the ship was in good company. Sir William came up with the plans for the Royal Sovereign-class and King Edward VII-class battleships, the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III, and the liner RMS Mauretania among his designs for 43 battleships, 26 armored cruisers, 102 protected cruisers, and 74 unarmored warships. Suffice to say, Sir William knew a thing or three about cracking out a decent ship.

Salamis (“ΣΑΛΑΜΙΣ”), a 2260-ton warship of 250 feet in length, carried an impressive half-dozen good Armstrong 15 cm (5.9 in) L/40 guns single mounts with two side by side forward, two astern, and one amidships on each broadside– and was the only such ship to carry these particular guns. Further, making a very sporty 19.66 knots on trials, she was among the fastest major warship in any fleet in that day.

Ordered for the Hellenic Navy 12 February 1884 at Armstrong Whitworth in Elswick (BuNo.482), she was laid down the next year. She was contracted under the government of Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis who, with tensions brewing with the Ottomans that were lead to war in 1897, was keen on beefing up the Greek Navy. However, when Trikoupis was ushered out of office in May of that year, the new government of Theodoros Deligiannis, not so keen on buying new warships, canceled the contract for Salamis while still on the builder’s ways and Armstrong promptly offered her to Turkey!

(*Trikoupis would return to power and in 1889 buy the new battleships Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara from France, but that’s another story.)

Luckily for the Greeks, the Turkish sale fell through and the Kingdom of Italy, who intended to name her Angelo Emo after the 18th century Grand Admiral of the Republic of Venice and launched her as such, purchased the clearance sale cruiser on 12 February 1887.

The Italian Regina Marina nonetheless commissioned their new cruiser on 28 April 1887 with– instead of Emo’s name– the monicker Dogali to commemorate the slaughter of Colonel Tommaso De Cristoforis’ 500-man battalion by Ras Alula Engida’s 7,000 Ethiopian troops near Massawa in what is now Eritrea in January of that year, oddly naming her after a stunning Italian defeat chalked up there with such colonial shellacking as the Battle of Isandlwana (see, Zulu Dawn) and Adwa (like Dogali but way, way worse for the Italians).

Michele Cammarano’s painting depicts the Battle of Dogali on January 26, 1887 with Colonel Tommaso De Cristoforis, with his distinctive black mustache, shown in the fray. It didn’t go well for the Italians.

Serving first with the First Squadron, then after 1897 with the Cruiser Squadron, Dogali was a happy ship  despite her namesake and, with her relatively long sea legs (capable of over 4,000 nm range at 10 knots), ventured to the U.S. for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition where she was reviewed along with the other Italian cruisers Etna and Giovanni Bausan in the Hudson, then down to Rio where she stood by in an international armada to protect Italian citizens during a revolt there.

As a training ship for the Italian Navy, Dogali spent most of her career on cruises for naval cadets.

Continuing her overseas work, she waved the flag in the Pacific, spending a few wild nights in Vancouver and later the Gulf of Mexico where her crew enjoyed New Orleans and Pensacola. Again, she visited New York in 1897 for the occasion of the unveiling of Grant’s Tomb.

In 1902, during the Venezuela Crisis, Dogali sailed up the Amazon to Santa Fe in Peru accompanied by the German cruiser SMS Falke (at the time Italy, Germany and Austria were allies).

In 1908, with her unique power plant and armament something of a logistical sore thumb to the Italians, and with a looming refit on her 20-year old high-mileage machinery, Rome approached Peru for a possible sale which fell through then in the end sold her off to the Armada Nacional del Uruguay, who commissioned her first as República Oriental del Uruguay’s 25 de Agosto after the date of the country’s independence from Spain and then later as ROU Montevideo after the capital– though she never did get that refit.

In later life, she sported a white scheme

At over 2,000-tons and mounting 6×5.9-inchers, she far eclipsed anything the Uruguayan navy had ever owned and was part of the tiny service’s early 20th Century naval build up that included the transport Barón de Río Branco, armed steamer Vanguardia, the brand-new 1,400-ton German-built gunboat Uruguay (2×4.7-inch guns), and the dispatch boat Oriental.

The problem was, there just weren’t enough seasoned jacks and officers (the Uruguayan naval academy was only just founded in 1907) to man all these ships. With that in mind, after 1910, when the new and less labor-intensive ROU Uruguay arrived from Germany, our aging cruiser Montevideo rarely left port.

She remained as a “fleet in being” for another two decades at her dock, still flying the flag and giving and receiving salutes, though incapable of getting underway and largely unmanned.

In 1912, while on a short sea cruise Montevideo nearly foundered near the Brazilian coast and had to be towed back, an ignoble fate for a once-proud vessel.

In 1914, she was disarmed and served as a stationary training and receiving ship (crucero escuela) for the Armada.

During World War I, Uruguay sided against Germany and broke off diplomatic relations, though never entered the war, thus ensuring our elderly cruiser had very limited use during the Great War that ensnared all of her former official and potential owners and builders up to that time.

Finally, in 1932 she was sold for scrap at age 45, to make room at the wayside for three new 180-ton gunboats and a three-masted sail-training/survey ship which better suited the nation’s needs.

Her service to Uruguay is commemorated in several postage stamps in that country, after all, she was the fleet flag for over 20 years, though usually flew it in port only.

Montevideo would arguably be the most powerful warship to ever sail under the flag of Uruguay and was the only cruiser ever operated by that country. And after all, in a fleet with no battleships or carriers, the cruiser is king!

Montevideo was also the largest Uruguayan naval ship until the Armada picked up a pre-owned trio of 1960s-era Commandant Rivière-class sloops (frigates) from France (2,230-tons/321-feet oal/ 3×4-inch guns) at the end of the Cold War, which in turn replaced a pair of smaller WWII-era Cannon-class destroyer escorts. While the old cruiser has a few tons on these craft, they are some 60+ feet longer.

As a note, just two of the trio of French frigates remain in nominal service, and one of these, the former Admiral Charner (F727) has carried the name ROU Montevideo (F3) since 1991, keeping our subject’s memory alive.

040616-N-8148A-047 South Pacific Ocean (June 16, 2004) Ð An SH-60F Seahawk assigned to the “Indians” of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Six (HS-6) flies past the Uruguayan Naval Frigate, Montevideo. HS-6 is embarked on USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), which is currently circumnavigating South America to her new homeport of San Diego, Calif. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Kitt Amaritnant (RELEASED)

Specs:

Displacement: 2,050 t (2,020 long tons; 2,260 short tons)
Length: 76.2 m (250 ft.) waterline, 266.75 oal.
Beam: 11.28 m (37.0 ft.)
Draft: 4.42 m (14.5 ft.)
Propulsion: 2-shaft triple expansion engines 7197 shp.
Speed: 17.68 knots (32.74 km/h; 20.35 mph)
Range: 4,000 nmi (7,400 km; 4,600 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) with 430 tons of coal
Complement: 12 officers 232 crew, though in Italian service was more and in Uruguayan much less.
Armament: (most removed 1914)
6 × 152mm (5.9 in) L/40 guns
9 × 57 mm (2.2 in) guns
6 × Gatling guns
4 × 356 mm (14.0 in) torpedo tubes
1 75mm gun added 1898.
Armor:
Deck: 50 mm (2.0 in)
Conning tower: 50 mm
Gun shields: 110 mm (4.3 in)

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

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

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

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

I am a member, so should you be!

aaa

Image via National Firearms Museum

In May 1942, the “Old Bird” Lapwing-class minesweeper minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15) was the last surviving American vessel as the Japanese invaded Philippines. [We covered her luckier sister USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2) in a Warship Weds last month]

When Quail was disabled at Corregidor, an island near the entrance to Manila Bay, Lt. Commander J.H. Morrill had the ship scuttled and gave his crew the choice of surrendering to the Japanese or striking out across open ocean. Seventeen sailors chose to join him on the desperate voyage. With this pistol recovered from a dead serviceman as their only armament, and virtually no charts or navigational aids, they transversed 2,060 miles of ocean in a 36 foot open motor launch, reaching Australia after 29 days.

LCDR Morrill received the Navy Cross and eventually retired at the rank of Rear Admiral.

As noted by Navsource: “Although the Quail was lost, some of its crew decided that surrendering to the Japanese on Corregidor was not an option. Even though the odds against them were enormous, these incredibly brave men in their small boat managed to avoid Japanese aircraft and warships while, at the same time, battling the sea as well as the weather. But like so many of the men in the old U.S. Asiatic Fleet, they simply refused to give up. It was a remarkable achievement by a group of sailors who were determined to get back home so that they could live to fight another day.”

The gun is currently on display at the NRA Museum in Fairfax, VA.

Quail, U.S. Navy photo from the January 1986 edition of All Hands magazine, via Navsource

Sorry about the late posting this week, in the effort to get to SHOT Show in Vegas this weekend and with the winter weather making horse care more pressing, its been busy this week!

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

Warship Wednesday (on a Friday): The Tennessee peace cruiser

Image by Robert M. Cieri via Navsource

Here we see the Denver-class protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16/PG-30/CL-18), port bow view, while in New York harbor, 1905. You can tell by her fine lines and ornamental brightworks, she was meant more to impress colonial locals and less to sink enemy ships.

Though she never fired a shot in anger, the hardy little Chattanooga was around for a quarter century and saw immense changes to the fleet she was a part of, changes that eventually left her out of step, though her relics are now a part of the more asymmetric war on terror.

In 1899, Pax Americana found herself suddenly a colonial power after picking up the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a host of other scattered territories as part of spoils in the Spanish-American War. Further, President McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii in 1898 while the Tripartite Convention of 1899 split up the Samoan islands between the U.S., Germany and Britain– though neither the native Hawaiians nor the Samoans were really happy about either.

With all of these far-flung possessions added to the 45-state Union, the Navy needed some warships to go wave the flag there without depleting the main battle fleet as outlined by the good Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan. These ships need not slug it out in naval combat with a determined foe, they only needed long legs; a few guns to impress the locals while being capable of sending potential pirates, rabble-rousers and armed merchant cruisers to the bottom; and a high mast to show a flag.

This led to the six-pack of Denver-class vessels, peace cruisers if you will.

USS Des Moines (C-15, CL-17, PG 29), a good postcard reference to the Denver class. Note the schooner rig and fine lines.

The Denvers didn’t have much armor (about the thickness of a good butter knife in most places), nor did they have large guns (10 5″/50 Mark 5 single mounts, able to penetrate just 1.4-inches of armor at 9,000 yards though their 50-pound shells were capable of a 19,000 yard range overall which made them perfect for shelling uprisings on shore or warning off undesirable foreign ships creeping around colonial ports), nor were they particularly fast (they were designed but not fitted with an auxiliary Schooner sail rig).

One of ‘Nooga’s 5″ deck guns, probably port side forward. From the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN provided by Herman B. Froelich, via Navsource

However, they were 308-feet of American soil that could self-deploy and remain on station with little support when needed while still being able to float in 15 feet of seawater.

In short, they were the littoral combat ships of 1899.

The six ships, in what seems to be shipyard welfare from Uncle Sam, were built in six different yards near-simultaneously, all commissioning within about 18 months of each other.

The hero of our story, USS Chattanooga, was laid down at Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey, a new shipyard whose historical claim to fame was in building the USS Holland (SS-1), the nation’s first official modern submarine and a number of the follow-on A-class pigboats. She was named for the city in Tennessee and was the second Chattanooga on the Navy List, the first being a Civil War steam sloop that was holed and sunk at her dock by floating ice in 1871.

Commissioned 11 October 1904 during the tensions of the Russo-Japanese War, Chattanooga headed for Europe where she joined the squadron there and helped escort the body of Scottish-American Capt. John Paul Jones, late of the Continental Navy, from an unmarked grave in a Parisian cemetery to a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.

Starboard side view, anchored, 12 OCT 1906. Photo 0-G-1035139 from The National Archives.

Port side view at anchor in Genoa, Italy in the early 1900’s. Giorgio Parodi via Navsource

For the next seven years she cruised the Pacific (via the Suez), the Med, the Caribbean and helped train Naval Militia before entering into layup in 1912.

An early 63-foot A-class submarine, likely USS Grampus (SS-4) or Pike (SS-6) on the Willapa River, at Raymond, Washington, circa 1912. The stern of the USS Chattanooga can be seen in front of the sub. Photo provided by Steve Hubbard of the Pacific County Historical Society, Washington State via Pigboats

When 1914 came about, a new crew manned the rails and brought her back to life for the tensions in Mexico, sailing off the Pacific coast of that country, protecting American interests, chiefly from the port of La Paz through early 1917.

Starboard side view while in San Diego, 1915. Caption on the back of the photo reads: “This photo was taken after were secured from coaling ship and were cleaning her up.” Via Navsource

Nooga’s shipboard naval landing party drills with M1909 Benet Mercie light machine guns. During the Mexican crisis, her landing team and those of the other Pacific fleet ships sent to babysit ports in Mexico drilled non-stop, though did not wind up going expeditionary.  A ship Chattanooga’s size could muster 80-100 men for action ashore, a common tactic in those days. Photo via Navsource from the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN.

In April 1917 with the U.S. entry into the ongoing Great War with Germany, Chattanooga chopped to the Atlantic Fleet and cruised the Caribbean for enemy shipping for a while before joining in convoy duties across the big pond. While vital, her brief wartime service was unexciting.

Following the end of the conflict, she remained a fixture in European ports with a concentration on the Black Sea, where the former Russian Empire was tearing itself apart in a civil war, and around Greece and Turkey, who were warming up a conflict of their own.

USS CHATTANOOGA (C-16) in a European port circa 1919. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. Catalog #: NH 94980, via Naval History and Heritage Command. She was reclassified as a gunboat, PG-30, 17 July 1920. Her place in the fleet was taken by much more powerful modern cruisers. Note her darker and more smudgy haze gray scheme and simplified rigging. Also note the huge ensign on her mast. That’s what she did.

Chattanooga most importantly helped supervise the liquidation of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy (kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine) in the Adriatic.

She provided support to the Naval Reservist prize crew on the 15,000-ton Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi at Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia. On the morning of 7 November 1920, Zrínyi was decommissioned and Chattanooga took her in tow across the sea to Italy where, under the terms of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, Zrínyi was turned over to the Italian government at Venice.

Bluejackets on the American/Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi, View of the ship’s bow, looking forward from the bridge. This photograph was taken at Spalato, Yugoslavia, while the ship was in US Navy custody pending conclusion of peace treaties. The ship was commissioned in the US Navy from 22 November 1919 to 7 November 1920, when it was handed over to Italy. The ship never got underway while in US hands except for the delivery voyage under tow by Chattanooga in November 1920. Photo Catalog #: NH 43536, Naval History and Heritage Command

Ordered back to the U.S., Chattanooga was decommissioned at Boston on 19 July 1921 and, though reclassified as a light cruiser, CL-18, the next month, never saw active duty again.

She was stricken in 1929 and sold for her value in scrap the following year. As for her five sisters, one, USS Tacoma was lost January 16, 1924 after she ran aground, while the other four vessels were all laid up like Chattanooga and subsequently scrapped.

While a frigate and later a cruiser were both laid down during WWII with intention of continuing her name, they were not commissioned as such and the Naval List has not seen another Chattanooga since 1929.

However, relics of her do exist and have found new importance.

Plaques commemorating the World War One service of the protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16, PG-30, CL-18) on display in the Douglas MacArthur Memorial, in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. One of the ship’s commanders was Arthur McArthur III, brother of the famed general. Image via Flckr.  Ironically, Art Mac Arthur also served on the submarine Holland, built in the same shipyard as Chattanooga and the Grampus, shown near the cruiser in the 1912 image above.

Her bell, image by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette. The bell was made in Chattanooga by the Fischer Evans works. The bell will be displayed at the Navy Ball in Chattanooga this year

Her 200-pound bronze magnesium ship’s bell has been first at the Lions Club hall then the recently shuttered American Legion Post 23 in Shelbyville, Tennessee for more than 85-years. Recently, following the terror attack on the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of five naval personnel, a reservist from the base, CS1 Gowan Johnson, was able to track the bell down and reclaim it for the center.

From Stars and Stripes

While the Navy’s reserve center quarters here are being modified, the USS Chattanooga’s bell has found a temporary home inside the National Medal of Honor Museum in Northgate Mall, where it is displayed along with vintage photos of the ship and crew.

“It’s open to the public to view, and touch, if they like,” explains Charles Googe, a museum volunteer.

Meanwhile, Johnson is hard at work preparing the bell for a more permanent home at the Reserve Center. A cast-iron yoke is being fabricated for the bell, he said, and the shrine will be anchored to a black granite base with a plaque honoring the dead. The emblems of the U.S. Navy and Marines also will be part of the exhibit, he said.

“We are thinking that we could toll the bell five times on July 16 when the names are read for the [shootings anniversary] ceremony,” Johnson said.

In the meantime, Petty Officer Johnson has begun to muse about another possibility, now that the Navy is commissioning a new class of ships bearing the names of American cities.

“How about another ship called the USS Chattanooga?” Johnson said.

Perhaps people in high places will get wind of his idea and answer the bell.

Specs:

Displacement:
3,200 long tons (3,251 t) (standard)
3,514 long tons (3,570 t) (full load)
Length:
308 ft. 9 in (94.11 m) oa
292 ft. (89 m)pp
Beam: 44 ft. (13 m)
Draft: 15 ft. 9 in (4.80 m) (mean)
Installed power:
6 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × vertical triple expansion reciprocating engines, 4700 shp
2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner
Speed:
16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
16.75 knots (31.02 km/h; 19.28 mph) (Speed on Trial)
Range: 2200 nmi at 10 kts
Complement: 31 officers 261 enlisted men
Armament:
10 × 5 in (127 mm)/50 caliber Breech-loading rifles
8 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) rapid fire guns
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns
Armor:
Deck: 2 1⁄2 in (64 mm) (slope)
3⁄16 in (4.8 mm) (flat)
Shields: 1 3⁄4 in (44 mm)

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

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

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

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

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I’m a member, so should you be!

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Y. Mizuno

Y. Mizuno is a Japanese watercolor artist who specializes in war art, specifically the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet in World War II. His work is truly epic.

Yugumo class destroyer

Chiyoda

IJN submarine with piggyback midget sub. prior the attack on Pearl harbor 1941

IJN Akitsushima flying boat tender

Heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Heavy cruiser Furutaka during the Battle of Savo Island.

Destroyer Take under attack by a B-25 Mitchell bomber during the Battle of Ormoc Bay

Destroyer Kuwa during the Battle of Cape Engaño, an aircraft carrier in the background

For more, please visit Marine Gallery where the work of Mizuno as well as the art of Takeshi Yuki, an artist and a war veteran himself and Mr. Ueda Kihachiro reside.

Thank you for your work, sirs.

Click to for real big up and drink it in [2329×1829] U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 2003.001.323

The battlewagons shown includes the swan song for the aging USS Utah (BB-31), soon to be converted to a target ship and have her day of infamy, and her sister USS Florida (BB-30) which would be scrapped to meet treaty requirements in 1931.

The peninsula in the right foreground is South Toro Cay, where the drydock is still visible that was begun in 1904, but cancelled two years later.

The four-piper Wickes-class destroyer USS Mahan (DD-102) can be seen in the foreground still carrying her destroyer hull number though at the time she had been converted to a  light minelayer on 17 July 1920 and designated as DM-7.

This photo was around the time of Fleet Problem VII. This fleet problem was held March 1927 and involved defense of the Panama Canal. The highlight of the exercise was Langley’s successful air raid on the Panama Canal, which would lead to greater autonomy for carrier use in U.S. Naval doctrine

As noted in one study,

One of the few instances of the Langley overcoming its handicaps occurred in a joint Army-Navy exercise held immediately before Fleet Problem VII in early March 1927. The carrier, which was under the command of Admiral Reeves, was to support a naval attack upon the Panama Canal’s Pacific defenses.

Rather than merely accepting the standard role of fleet air defense and artillery spotting for the Langley and its aircraft, Reeves used his aircraft to escort and assist a strike by amphibious aircraft against Army airfields. Bad weather and aircraft problems limited the size of the strike, but in the eyes of the umpires evaluating the exercise, it succeeded in eliminating the Army aircraft tasked with defending the Pacific side of the canal.

According to Thomas Wildenberg, Reeves’ superiors attached a great deal of importance to the tempo of the Langley’s air operations since twenty aircraft had been launched in ten minutes. Later that month, during the course of Fleet Problem VII, Reeves launched an air attack upon enemy destroyers, but the aggressive nature of these two strikes were the exception and not the rule to the Langley’s career in the Fleet Problems.

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

Warship Wednesday: Jan. 20, 2016 The Slow boat up the Paraguay River

ARP Paraguay 2005

Here we see the Humaitá-class gunboat (cañonera) ARP Paraguay (C1) of La Armada Paraguya (go figure) as she sits in 2005. Though she may look humble, she and her sister were a force to reckon with in their day.

With tensions mounting with neighbor Bolivia over the Chaco region in the early late 1920s, landlocked Paraguay has access to the Atlantic through the river system and has had an organized armada to patrol that system (and poke its head out into the ocean from time to time) since about 1900.

However, the fleet of small river coasters just was not going to cut it with a looming war. You see the rugged Chaco was thought at the time to be a rich source of petroleum and with Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia; it was only a matter of time before one of the world’s first and worst petro wars, La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for “The War of the Thirst”) kicked off.

With that in mind, Paraguay, allied with Argentina, ordered a pair of 850-ton, 229-foot gunboats from Odero-Terni-Orlando, in Italy in 1928 at a cost of £300,000 total after shopping around in other yards throughout Europe. Designed by Paraguayan dockyard manager Capt. José Bozzano.

Bozzano, a man of many talents, would later use his Armada dockyard crew to make over 30,000 locally produced Paraguayan grenades plus 25,000 mortar grenades (and the mortars to fire them), 7,500 aerial bombs and some 2,000 vehicles during the Chaco War. Talk about buy local.

Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá without her main armament, shortly after being launched

Anyway, the two gunboats, ARP Humaitá (C2) and ARP Paraguay (C1), arrived in Paraguay on May 5, 1931 with mostly Italian crews and they were pretty neat. Though about the size of a frigate or sloop of the time, they could float in just 5.5 feet of freshwater. Further, they were pretty much the most heavily armed river boats of all time.

Main 4.7-inch twin guns of the Paraguayan gunboat Humaitá before being mounted. Pretty damn big for a river gunboat

Protected from small arms fire and shrapnel by a half-inch steel belt (3/4 inch on the conning tower), they carried an impressive battery of no less than seven 76mm (three Ansaldo 76 mm AAA cannons) and 120mm guns (two twin Ansaldo 4.7 in guns) as well as machine guns and a half-dozen large naval mines to cripple Bolivian shipping should it exist (it did not other than a few small ~100 foot long craft).

Cañonera Paraguay shuttling troops up river. Its all assholes to elbows

Each gunboat could cart a full regiment of infantry up river and drop them off to go do the Lord’s work in slaughtering Bolivians looking for oil.

And slaughter they did.

During the 1932-35 Chaco War, Humaitá ferried 62,546 troops upriver for 84 trips. Paraguay carried 51,867 soldiers to the frontlines in 81 trips. That’s pretty much a battalion-sized group on each trip. When you calculate that the Paraguayan Army only had about 120,000 officers and men deployed to the Chaco, you see how important these two ships were to win that lopsided victory.

Cañonera Paraguay en la Guerra del Chaco

Since then, these two gunboats have been involved in a couple of coups, the Paraguayan Civil War (Paraguay and Humaita, were both seized by the rebels in Buenos Aires while they were undergoing repairs), carried Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina into exile, gave surface commands to retired Kriegsmarine officers in the 1960s and, largely due to the fact that they have spent almost their whole lives in freshwater, are still around in some sort of service today.

Ah Peron being shipped away on ARP Paraguay. Don’t cry for me…

Humaitá has been a museum ship since 1992, though she still serves as a stationary training ship from time to time while Paraguay is used as a receiving and depot vessel while officially listed as the Paraguayan Navy’s flagship. Surely this is the only case of an entire class of surface combatants to have remained in some sort of continuous service for 85 years…

The vintage Paraguayan gunboat HUMAITÁ seen here at the Sajonia Naval Station, Asunción, Paraguay. via shipspotting

ARP Humaitá (C2) as museum ship

The 4.7s are still functional though shells for them haven’t been made since 1943

ARP Paraguay (C1), 2005, note the WWII era 76mm gun over the pre-WWII 4.7 twin mount

For more on this ship, visit here, here and here, all excellent Spanish sources.

Specs:

Displacement: 856 tn
Length: 229 feet
Beam: 34 feet
Draught: 5.5 feet
Propulsion:
2 Parsons geared steam turbines
2 shafts
3,800 shp (2,800 kW)
Speed: 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Range: 1,700 nmi (3,100 km) at 16 kn (30 km/h)
Complement: 86
Armament:
4 × 4.7-inch (120/50 mm)
3 × 3-inch (76/40 mm)
2 × 40/39 mm
6 mines
Armor:
Belt: 0.5 in (13 mm)
Deck: 0.3 in (8 mm)
Turrets: 0.3 in (8 mm)
Conning tower: 0.75 in (19 mm)

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Dewey’s Olympia hasn’t been out of the water since 1945 and as such is in dire need of repair. Here is a short vid of how that is being accomplished. As noted by a member of the preservation effort in a warship group I am a member of:

Olympia has been in a fresh water port since 1922. Olympia could not have survived this long if it were in a salt water port such as New York or San Francisco. Over the last fifty years Olympia suffered a lot of corrosion from electrolysis rather than just exposure to water. The other factor that has contributed to Olympia’s hull problems is that since Olympia has been constantly moored in the same spot since 1976, the marina has silted up and so at present Olympia floats for about 70 percent for the day at high tide and is aground for 30 percent of the day at low tide. So, approximately eighteen inches around the ship’s waterline has grown thin from exposure to oxygen and then water,

Sound’s bleak right? Not really. Bottom line is that Olympia’s hull needs work to ensure that last for another 50+ years however it definitely repairable and is not too far deteriorated. Drydocking will happen soon however I’m not at liberty to give any specific details.

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

Warship Wednesday: Jan. 27, 2016 The Tragic Tale of the Wake Island Wanderer

Fine-screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship in harbor, circa 1891-1901. It was published by the SUB-POST Card Co., of Los Angeles, California. Donation of H.E. (Ed) Coffer. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102777

Here we see Gunboat #4, the USS Bennington, a Yorktown-class gunboat labeled as a cruiser (third rate) in the post card above, and she acted like one, roaming the coasts of the world far and wide, adding to the territory of the United States on occasion, and suffering a sad fate in the end.

The three ships of the Yorktown class, all named after Revolutionary War battles, were designed in the 1880s in a joint effort between the Navy and William Cramp and Sons shipyard of Philadelphia (though only class leader Yorktown would be built at the yard, follow-on sisters Concord and Bennington— the hero of our tale– would be built at the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works in Chester, PA).

Humble, steel-hulled ships of just 244 feet in overall length, these 1,900-ton warships were slow at just 16 knots and at half that could voyage for 12,000 nautical miles on 400 tons of coal but, when coupled with their three-masted schooner rig and 6,300 feet of canvas carried as auxiliary propulsion, could roam the world as long as there was wind.

They weren’t built to take a lot of punishment, having just two inches of armor on their conning tower and much, much less (9.5mm) over deck spaces and coal bunkers. However for ships their size, they were able to put out a fair bit of punishment, mounting a half dozen 6″/30 Mark I guns. These guns were the standard armament of the “New Navy” in the 1880s and were used on the “ABCD” squadron (cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and gunboat Dolphin), as well as most of the early cruisers (main guns) and battleships (as secondary armament) of the pre-1898 U.S. Fleet. They could fire a 105-pound shell out to 18,000 yards.

Stern 6″ (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia on 19 May 1917, shown for reference. The Yorktown class had six of these in shielded mounts.  U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710.

Bennington, the first U.S. Navy ship to carry the name, did so to commemorate the decisive American victory of New England militia over a bunch of Hessian mercenaries near Bennington, Vermont on 16 August 1777. She was commissioned 20 June 1891 and was soon off to become a world traveler.

Assigned first to the “White Squadron” or Squadron of Evolution and subsequently to the South Atlantic Squadron of RADM John G. Walker, the squadron toured ports in America, Europe, North Africa, and South America, demonstrating the U.S. Navy’s technological prowess as well as its commitment to protecting the nation’s merchant fleet.

(Gunboat # 4) Photographed circa 1891 by J.S. Johnston, New York City. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63248

(Gunboat # 4) In a European harbor, circa 1892-1893, with USS Newark (Cruiser # 1) alongside. Courtesy of Arrigo Barilli, Bologna, Italy. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56381

(Gunboat # 4) Dressed with flags in a harbor, probably while serving with the Squadron of Evolution, circa 1891-1892. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 67551

(Gunboat # 4) In a harbor, 1893 likely at the Colombian Exihibition. Copied from The New Navy of the United States, by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912). Donation of David Shadell, 1987. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH102742

In 1894, after cruising to Europe twice and all over South America, she received orders to transfer to the Pacific just after participating in the International Naval Review at Hampton Roads, arriving at Mare Island Navy Yard in San Diego on 30 April of that year.

(Gunboat # 4) Off Valparaiso, Chile, 3 April 1894 on her way to California. Note the new pilot house that has been fitted to her bridge. This would be removed in 1902. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102821

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) In drydock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1894-98. This photograph was published on a -tinted postcard by Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco, California. Courtesy of H.E. (Ed) Coffer, 1986. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 100931-KN

After having her hull scraped, she was soon off to Hawaii where she spent most of the next two years where she rode shotgun in port during the upheaval in the combat between Royalist and republican forces there that led eventually to the ouster of Queen Liliʻuokalani, paving the way to Hawaii’s annexation in 1898.

When the Spanish-American War erupted, she left Hawaii and patrolled the California coast on the off chance Spanish raiders would appear then in September set sail, unescorted, to the Philippines. There, her sister Concord on the Asiatic Station had been a part of Admiral George Dewey’s fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay just four months prior, but the islands were far from conquered.

On the way to the PI, Bennington stopped at the unclaimed and uninhabited atoll of Wake Island halfway between Honolulu and Manila and took control of the strategic location under orders from President McKinley.

Commander (later RADM) Edward D. Taussig of the USS Bennington takes formal possession of Wake Island for the United States with the raising of the flag and a 21-gun salute on January 17, 1899. The only witnesses aside from her crew were seabirds. The depiction incorrectly shows Bennington in the distance with two funnels. Tassuig’s son Joe would later rise to Vice Admiral in WWII and tussle with FDR on several occasions while his grandson would lose a leg on the Nevada at Pearl Harbor.

A subsequent stop at the Spanish possession of Guam on 23 January led to the surrender of that island to the U.S. as well. Taussig inspected the ancient Spanish military positions on the island and found them “condemned.”

Arriving in the Philippines in Feb. 1899, Bennington spent two years heavily involved in the pacification efforts there. With a draft of just 14 feet, she was often called upon to come close to shore and support landings and combat on land with her big six inchers.

She also was involved in the occasional surface fight, sinking the over-matched insurgent vessel Parao on Sept 12, 1899. When things slowed down, she served as a station ship at Cebu before otherwise aiding Army operations throughout the chain.

Leaving for Hong Kong in 1901, she was refitted and soon got back to the business of international flag-waving, visiting Shanghai for an extended period before heading back to the West Coast.

(Gunboat # 4) In the Kowloon, dry dock, Hong Kong, China, in 1901. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102766

(Gunboat # 4) At Shanghai, China, on 4 July 1901, dressed with flags in honor of Independence Day. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102765

There, along with familiar faces in the form of USS Concord, she participated in a Latin American cruise and patrolled Alaskan and Hawaiian territorial waters as needed.

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. Note her pilothouse has been removed and she has been reduced to two masts as her auxiliary sail rig was jettisoned at this time. This image is printed on a postcard published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105303-A. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105303

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. This -tinted photograph is printed on a postcard, published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105302-A-KN. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105302-KN

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor while serving with the Pacific Squadron in 1904 on laundry day. Donation of John C. Reilly, Jr., 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102751

Ships of the squadron in the moonlight, during a Latin American cruise, circa 1903-1904. USS New York (Armored Cruiser # 2) is in the left center. The other two ships, listed in no particular order, are USS Concord (Gunboat # 3) and USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4). Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85693

Racing across the Pacific. She would continue to be a regular fixture from Hawaii to Latin America and Alaska NH 102747

USS Bennington Description: (Gunboat # 4) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1903. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, 1975. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 83961

(Gunboat # 4) Ship’s officers and crew posed on deck and in her foremast rigging, at San Diego, California, 3 March 1905. Tragically, within just four months, many of these men in the photo would be dead. Courtesy of the Historical Collection, Union Title Insurance Company, San Diego, California. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56382

On 21 July 1905 Bennington was building steam in her four 17-foot long locomotive boilers to leave port when disaster struck.

At about 10:30, excessive steam pressure in the boiler resulted in a boiler explosion that rocked the ship, sending men and equipment flying into the air. The escaping steam sprayed through the living compartments and decks. The explosion opened Bennington’s hull to the sea, and she began to list to starboard. Quick actions by the tug Santa Fe — taking Bennington under tow and beaching her – almost certainly saved the gunboat from sinking in deeper water.

The explosion occurred directly under the ship’s galley just before lunch after a hard morning of coaling and the area was filled with hungry sailors. In all, 66 men were killed and another 46 seriously wounded– more than half her crew.  It was one of the worst accidents in the history of the Navy and resulted in 11 Medal of Honor awards for “extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion.”

These individuals earned the Navy Medal of Honor during the period specified. Their names are followed by their rank and rate, if known, the date of the action and the vessel or unit on which they served.

BOERS, EDWARD WILLIAM, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
BROCK, GEORGE F., Carpenter’s Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
CLAUSEY, JOHN J., Chief Gunner’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
CRONAN, WILLIE, Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
FREDERICKSEN, EMIL, Watertender, U.S. Navy, USS Benington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
GRBITCH, RADE, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
HILL, FRANK E., Ship’s Cook First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
NELSON, OSCAR FREDERICK, Machinist’s Mate First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SCHMIDT, OTTO DILLER, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SHACKLETTE, WILLIAM SIDNEY, Hospital Steward, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship as her engine room was being pumped out, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion at San Diego, California. Note her National Ensign flying at half-staff. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56383-B

Gunboat # 4) Removing the dead from the ship, following her boiler explosion at San Diego, California, 21 July 1905. Photographed and published on a stereograph card by C.H. Graves, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The inscription published on the reverse of the original card is provided on Photo #: NH 89081 (extended caption). Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1979 U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89081

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship’s starboard side, amidships, as she was beached at San Diego, California, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. A disabled six-inch gun is in the center of the image. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 56383-A

It was a cause for national mourning and the victims were laid to rest at Fort Rosecrans military cemetery just two days later as local mortuary services were overextended.

(Gunboat # 4) Funeral procession at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85697

(Gunboat # 4) Burial ceremonies, at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85698

At the cemetery, a 60-foot obelisk was erected for the crew in 1908, overlooking their resting place.

One survivor of the explosion was John Henry (Dick) Turpin who has been a part of history already.

You see, Turpin enlisted in the Navy in 1896 and was a survivor of the explosion on USS Maine in Havanna harbor in 1898. Remaining in the service despite his experiences, he became a Chief Gunner’s Mate in 1917 and served in WWI. Transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 1919, CGM Turpin retired in 1925. Qualified as a Master Diver, he was also employed as a Master Rigger at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, and, during the World War II era, made inspirational visits to Navy Training Centers and defense plants, likely one of the few bluejackets to have served in the Spanish American War and both World Wars.

All the more of an accomplishment due to military segregation at the time of his service.

Photo #: NH 89471 John Henry (Dick) Turpin, Chief Gunner’s Mate, USN (retired) (1876-1962) One of the first African-American Chief Petty Officers in the U.S. Navy. This photograph appears to have been taken during or after World War II. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89471

Damaged beyond economical repair, Bennington was decommissioned 31 October 1905 and stripped of her armament and machinery. Her guns were likely re-purposed in World War I for use in arming merchant ships.

(Gunboat # 4) Salvage party at work on the partially sunken ship, in San Diego harbor, California, after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Bennington’s National Ensign is flying at half-staff. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85696

After dry-docking to repair her hull, she was converted to an unpowered barge for use in Honolulu until being struck from the Navy list 10 September 1910 and she was sold for her value in scrap that November.

The Matson Navigation Company acquired the hulk for the ignoble use as a molasses tow barge in 1913, finally scuttling her off Oahu in 1924.

The barge Bennington at Honolulu. U.S. Navy photo Honolulu 1912 – 1924 via Navsource.

In 1944, the Navy would commission USS Bennington (CV/CVA/CVS-20), an Essex-class carrier, as the only other ship to bear the name. Decommissioning 15 January 1970, she lived a long an rusty life on red lead row after seeing service in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, being scrapped in 1994.

The old gunboat is commemorated not only in the monument in California but also on Bennington Day in Vermont (Aug 16) which celebrates the battle and the two ships named after it, by the USS Bennington veteran’s group and in a storied painting that hangs in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Room 311

Peace (the White Squadron in Boston Harbor), oil on canvas, 1893. Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives. Peace was painted by well-known American marine painter Walter Lofthouse Dean.

Peace originally hung in the hearing room for the House Committee on Naval Affairs in the Capitol throughout the WWI period and was moved to the Cannon Room in 1919.

As for Bennington‘s sisters, Concord remained afloat the longest, being decommissioned in 1910, but enduring as a training and barracks ship for the Washington Naval Militia until 1914, then as a quarantine ship for the Public Health Service in Astoria, Oregon, until 1929 when she was sent to the breakers. Two of her 6-inch guns were brought to the War Garden of Woodland Park, Seattle, WA at “Battery Dewey” where they remain on the property of the Woodland Park Zoo today, aged 130+ years.

6″/30 (15.2 cm) gun formerly on USS Concord PG-3, Photograph copyrighted by Dana Payne via Navweaps.

Yorktown, decommissioned and recommissioned no less than four times in her 33 years of service, was involved in the 1891 Baltimore Crisis in Chile, participated in the China Relief Expedition carried out in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, tested Fiske’s revolutionary telescopic gun sight, and served as a convoy escort in World War I before being broken up in Oakland in 1921.

The Navy has not carried a Bennington on its List since 1989.

Specs:

Displacement:
1,710 long tons (1,740 t)
1,910 long tons (1,940 t) (fully loaded)
Length:
244 ft 5 in (74.50 m) (oa)
230 ft. (70 m) (wl)
226 feet (69 m) (lpp)
Beam: 36 ft (11 m)
Draft: 14 ft. (4.3 m)
Propulsion:
2 × horizontally mounted triple-expansion steam engines,[1] 3,400 ihp (2,500 kW)
2 × screw propellers
4 × railroad boilers
Sail plan: three-masted schooner rig with a total sail area of 6,300 sq ft. (590 m2), removed 1902
Speed: 16 knots (30 km/h)
Endurance: 4,262 nautical miles @ 10 knots (6,376 km @ 19 km/h), 12,000 at 8
Complement: 191 officers and enlisted
Armament: (1891)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 6 pdr (2.7 kg) guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) guns
2 × .45-70 caliber Gatling guns
Armament: (1902-05)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) Rapid Fire guns
2 × .30 caliber M1895 machine guns
Armor:
deck: 0.375 inches (9.5 mm)
conning tower: 2 inches (51 mm)

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

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

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 3, 2016, HMs Unlucky Killer No. 13

Click to very much bigup

Here we see the Royal Navy’s K-class steam-powered (not a misprint) submarine HMS K22, bottom, compared to a smaller and more typical example of HMs submarine fleet during World War I, the HMS E37. As you can tell, the two boats are very different and, by comparing specs of the 800-ton/2,000shp E27 with the 2630-ton/10,000shp K22, you can see just how different.

A brainchild that sprang from the pipe-dream by Jellicoe and Beatty of creating submarines fast enough to operate with the Grand Fleet, these massive 339-foot submarines were designed on the cusp of World War I and a full 21 were to be built. Whereas other subs around the world were gasoline-electric or diesel-electric, the K-class would be steam-electric with a pair of Yarrow oil-fired boilers (! on a submarine!) for use with turbines on the surface, giving them an impressive 24-knot speed.

HMS K7, showing a good profile of these interesting subs. And yes, those are stacks on her amidships

When you keep in mind that the standard British battleship of the time, the brand new Queen Elizabeth-class “fast” battleships had a max speed of 24-knots, you understand the correlation.

The K-class would use their speed to their advantage and, with a heavy armament of eight torpedo tubes and three 3-4-inch deck guns, press their attacks with ease. For all this surface action, they had a proper bridge (with windows!) and even stacks for the boilers.

HMS K2, note the gun deck with her large 4 inchers interspersed between her stacks. Click to big up

In short, they were really large destroyers that happened to be able to submerge. When using one boiler they could creep along at 10 knots for 12,500 nautical miles– enabling them to cross the Atlantic and back and still have oil left.

When submerged, they could poke around on electric motors. With all this in mind, what could go wrong?

Well, about that…

The K-class soon developed a bad habit of having accidents while underway. This was largely because for such gargantuan ships, they had small and ineffective surface controls, which, when coupled with a very low crush depth and buoyancy issues meant the ships would often hog and be poor to respond under control, along with having issues with dive angles like you can’t believe.

In short, they were all the bad things of a 300 foot long carnival fun house, afloat.

Further, since the boilers had to be halted to dive (who wants burnt oil exhaust inside a sealed steel tube?) if these submersibles could dive in under five minutes it was due to a well-trained crew. Then, due to all the vents and stacks that had to seal, there were inevitable leaks and failures, which on occasion sent seawater cascading into the vessel once she slipped below the waves.

Of the 21 ordered, only 17 were eventually completed and these ships soon earned a reputation as the Kalamity-class due to the fact that ships sank at their moorings, suffered uncontrolled descents to the bottom of the sea, ran aground, and disappeared without a trace. This led to improvements such as a large bulbous bow (note the difference in the bow form from early images of these subs to later), though it didn’t really help things all that much.

K4 ran aground on Walney Island in January 1917 and remained stranded there for some time. There are several images in circulation of this curious sight

With all of this, we should double back around to the K22 mentioned above in the very first image. You see, she was completed as HMS K13 at Fairfield Shipbuilders, Glasgow, Scotland.

Launched 11 November 1916, K13 was sailing through Gareloch on 29 January 1917 during her sea trials when Kalimity raised its head.

On board that day were 80 souls– 53 crew, 14 employees of a Govan ship builder, five Admiralty officials, a pilot and the captain and engineer of sister submarine K14. While attempting to bring the decks awash, icy Scottish seawater poured into the engine room of the submarine, killing those stokers, enginemen and water tenders working the compartment. A subsequent investigation found that four ventilator tubes for the boilers had not closed properly.

Fifty men were left alive on the stricken ship, which by that time was powerless at the bottom of the loch. The two seniormost present, K13‘s skipper Lieutenant Commander Godfrey Herbert and his K14 counterpart, Commander Francis Goodhart, tasked themselves to make a suicidal break for the surface on a bubble of air released from the otherwise sealed off conning tower to get help– though only Herbert made it alive.

Once topside and picked up by another waiting submarine, Herbert helped pull off a what is noted by many as the first true Submarine Rescue which involved dropping air lines to the submarine while the 48 remaining men trapped inside endured a freezing, dark hell for 57 hours until they were able to be brought to the surface as the buoyant end of the submarine, pumped full of air pressure, broached the surface and a hole was cut to remove the survivors while the ship was held by a hawser.

From the Submarine Museum’s dry record of the event:

The crew of E50 witnessing K13’s rapid dive closed in on the area discovering traces of oil and escaping air breaking the surface. The first rescue vessel arrived around midnight. Divers were sent down to inspect the submarine and just after daybreak on the 30th morse signals were exchanged between the divers and the trapped crew. At 1700 an airline was successfully connected, empty air bottles recharged and ballast tanks blown. With the aid of a hawser slung under her bows K13 was brought to within 8 feet of the surface. By midday of the 31st K13’s bow had been raised ten feet above the water. By 2100 the pressure hull had been breached using oxy-acetylene cutting equipment the survivors being transferred to safety

However, K13 slipped below the surface once more, taking her dead back to the bottom with her. Raised two months later, she was repaired, the bodies of 29 lost in her engine room removed as was the fallen skipper of K14 (while one body other was recovered from the loch, the remaining men were never found), and she was recommissioned as K22.

British submarine HMS K22 (ex HMS K13) under way at speed during trial in the Firth of Forth after repair and refit Note the change to her bow.

Seeing some war service with the 13th Submarine Flotilla (again with that number!) K13/22 was involved in a collision at night with sistership K14 in a chain reaction event that left two other sisters, K6 and K17, sunk. In all 105 of HMs submariners were killed in one night in 1918 aboard K-boats without a single German shot fired.

By this time, the “K” had changed from Kalamity to Killer and volunteers assigned to these boats called themselves the “Suicide Club.”

Alongside captured coastal U-boat S.M.S. UB 28 in 1918, note the huge size difference.

Soon after the war, the RN divested themselves of the K-class though they were still relatively new, scrapping most of them in the early 1920s.

K13 as K23 late in her brief second life, 1923

K13/K22 survived until she was sold for scrap in December 1926 in Sunderland.

A memorial to her 32 war dead is at Faslane Cemetery while one to her six civilians killed among her crew is at Glasgow.

A third, erected in 1961, is in Carlingford, New South Wales, Australia, and was paid for by the widow of Charles Freestone, a leading telegraphist on K13 who survived the accident and emigrated down under.

The Submarines Association Australia (SAA) visits and pays their respect to the marker in Oz every January 29 while Sailors from HM Naval Base Clyde and the RN Veteran Submarine Association pay theirs at the markers in Scotland.

“Although technology has revolutionized submarine safety over the past century, the special bravery, ethos and comradeship of Submariners and the Submarine Service endures,” said Command Warrant Officer of the UK Submarine Service Stefano Mannucci on the 99th Anniversary service last week.

K13/22 is also remembered in maritime art.

HMS K13 under construction

As for her skipper on that cold January day a century ago, Capt. Godfrey Herbert, DSO with Bar, having served in the Royal Navy through both World Wars, died on dry land in Rhodesia at the ripe old age of 77.

Specs:

Via shipbucket

Displacement: 1,980 tons surfaced, 2,566 tons dived
Length: 339 ft. (103 m)
Beam: 26 ft. 6 in (8.08 m)
Draught: 20 ft. 11 in (6.38 m)
Propulsion:
Twin 10,500 shp (7,800 kW) oil-fired Yarrow boilers each powering a Brown-Curtis or Parsons geared steam turbines, Twin 3 blade 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) screws
Four 1,440 hp (1,070 kW) electric motors.
One 800 hp (600 kW) Vickers diesel generator for charging batteries on the surface.
Speed:
24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) surfaced
8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) submerged
Range:
Surface: 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi) at maximum speed
12,500 nmi (23,200 km; 14,400 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Submerged: 8 nmi (15 km; 9.2 mi) at 8 kn (15 km/h; 9.2 mph)
Complement: 59 (6 officers and 53 ratings)
Armament:
4 × 18-inch (460 mm) torpedo tubes (beam), four 18-inch (450-mm) bow tubes, plus 8 spare torpedoes
2 × BL 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk XI guns
1 × 3 in (76 mm) gun
Twin 18-inch deck tubes originally fitted but later removed.

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

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

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

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

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

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 10, 2016, The Long Serving Chinco

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) Photographed in mid-1945 following a West Coast overhaul. Her quadruple 40mm mount has been moved forward, but she retains an unshielded 5/38 gun on the fantail. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 19-N-88909

Here we see an overhead shot of the Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Chincoteague (AVP-24). This hardy but unsung vessel would see myriad service in both the Atlantic and Pacific under numerous flags for some 60 years.

Back in the days before helicopters, the fleets of the world used seaplanes and floatplanes for search and rescue, scouting, long distance naval gunfire artillery spotting and general duties such as running mail and high value passengers from ship to shore. Large seaplanes such as PBYs and PBMs could be forward deployed to any shallow water calm bay or atoll where a tender would support them.

Originally seaplane tenders were converted destroyers or large transport type ships, but in 1938 the Navy sought out a purpose-built “small seaplane tender” (AVP) class, the Barnegats, who could support a squadron of flying boats while forward deployed and provide fuel (storage for 80,000 gallons of Avgas), bombs, depth charges, repairs and general depot tasks for both the planes and their crews while being capable of surviving in a mildly hostile environment.

The United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Timbalier (AVP-54) with two Martin PBM-3D Mariner flying boats from the Pelicans of Patrol Squadron 45 in the late 1948. Timbaler´s quadruple 40mm gun mount on the fantail was added in around 1948. National Archives #80-G-483681

The 41 Barnegats were 2500-ton, 310-foot long armed auxiliaries capable of floating in 12 feet of water. They had room for not only seaplane stores but also 150 aviators and aircrew. Their diesel suite wasn’t fast, but they could travel 8,000 miles at 15.6 knots. Originally designed for two 5-inch/38-caliber guns, this could be doubled if needed (and often was) which complemented a decent AAA armament helped out by radar and even depth charges and sonar for busting subs.

All pretty sweet for an auxiliary.

The hero of our study, Chincoteague, was laid down 23 July 1941 at Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington. Commissioned 12 April 1943, she sailed immediately for Saboe Bay in the Santa Cruz Islands where the Navy was slugging it out with the Japanese and the Empire was striking back on its own.

On 16-17 July, she underwent eleven bombing attacks ranging from single airplane strikes to the onslaught of nine bombers at a time. While she beat off many of these, they left their toll.

From the Navy’s extensive report of Sept 1944.

-At 0738, on 17 July, two bombs missed the ship and landed in the water about 50 feet from the starboard side, detonating a short distance below the surface. Numerous fragments pierced the shell, some below the waterline. Several fires were ignited, including a gasoline fire, but these were effectively extinguished. Flooding through the fragment holes below the waterline reduced the GM of the vessel from about 3.2 feet to about 1.6 feet. In spite of this reduction in GM, the stability characteristics were still satisfactory for keeping the vessel upright in case of some additional damage or flooding…

-At 1150, some four hours later, a small general-purpose bomb* with a short delay in the fuze struck and penetrated the superstructure, main and second decks and detonated in the after engine room. The hull was not ruptured, but the engine room was flooded through a broken 8-inch sea suction line supplying cooling water to the main propulsion diesel engine. As the draft increased, water entered the ship through the fragment holes above the second deck, which had not been plugged effectively. Large free surface areas were created on the second deck…

-At 1420, another bomb landed in the water about 15 feet from the port side, detonating underwater. This did not rupture the hull, but the shell was indented in way of the forward engine room. The forward main engines stopped due to shock, leaving the vessel dead in the water…

Bomb damage diagram of USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) suffered on 17 July 1943 at Saboe Bay off the Santa Cruz Islands. Navy Department Library, USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) War Damage Report No. 47. Plate I

Chincoteague was able to get underway, suffered nine dead, and was towed to California for overhaul after just 12 weeks of active service.

The Corsairs of VMF-214 helped a bit with air cover.

Frank Murphy later chronicled this in USS Chincoteague: The Ship That Wouldn’t Sink.

Emerging at Christmas 1943 with her repairs effected, her AAA suite was modified slightly.

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) A port side view of the forward portion of the ship taken on 15 December 1943 at the Mare Island Navy Yard. The ship was completing repair of severe battle damage incurred in July 1943. Circled changes include new antennas on the foremast and just forward of the stack. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97709

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) Photographed on 27 December 1943 off the Mare Island Navy Yard following repairs to severe battle damage incurred in July 1943. One of the four 5/38 guns in her original armament has been replaced by a quadruple 40mm mount. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 19-N-57482

Returning to the fleet in 1944, she saw heavy duty in the Solomon Islands around Bougainville, the occupation of the Marshall Islands, action in the Treasury Islands, then tended seaplanes at Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Kossol Roads in the Palau Islands, Guam, Ulithi Atoll, and Iwo Jima, earning six battlestars the hard way for her wartime service.

This led to occupation duty in Chinese waters post-war.

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) Photographed in mid-1945 following a West Coast overhaul. Her quadruple 40mm mount has been moved forward, but she retains an unshielded 5/38 gun on the fantail. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 19-N-88911

Like most of her 35 completed sisterships (the other six planned were canceled), she was decommissioned shortly after the war on 21 December 1946 and laid up at the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Texas Group, Beaumont.

Also, like a number of her sisters (Absecon, Biscayne, Casco, Mackinac, Humboldt, Matagorda, Absecon, Coos Bay, Half Moon, Rockaway, Unimak, Yakutat, Barataria, Bering Strait, Castle Rock, Cook Inlet, Wachapreague, and Willoughby) she was loaned to the US Coast Guard where the class was known as the Casco-class cutters.

On 7 March 1949, with her armament greatly reduced, her seaplane gear landed, and her paint scheme switched to white and buff, she was commissioned as USCGC Chincoteague (WAVP-375). She was actually the second such cutter to carry the name, following on the heels of an 88-foot armed tug used in the 1920s.

To be used in ocean station duty, Chincoteague and her sisters were given a balloon shelter aft and spaces formerly used to house aviators were devoted to oceanographic equipment while a hydrographic and an oceanographic winch were added. For wartime use against Soviet subs, she was later given an updated sonar and Mk 32 Mod 5 torpedo tubes.

Sisters Absecon and Chincoteague USCG Base Portsmouth VA circa 1964. Note one has racing stripe and other does not.

Homeported in Norfolk, she spent long and boring weeks on station far out to the Atlantic. This was broken up by an epic rescue in high seas when, on 30 October 1956, Chincoteague rescued 33 crewmen from the German freighter Helga Bolten in the middle of the North Atlantic by using two inflatable lifeboats, landing them in the Azores.

November 12, 1956 While on patrol weather station DELTA the cutter CHINCOTEAGUE rescued the crew of the stricken German freighter HELGA BOLTON

By the late 1960s, the Navy was divesting itself of their remaining Barnegat-class vessels as they were getting long in the tooth and seaplanes were being withdrawn. Further, with the new Hamilton-class 378-foot High Endurance Cutters coming online, the Coast Guard didn’t need these ships either.

Nevertheless, someone else did.

A beautiful image of sistership USS Cook Inlet in Coast Guard service as WAVP-384. She would be transferred to the Vietnamese Navy as RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-06) in 1971

Between 1971-1972 Chincoteague and 6 of her sisters in Coast Guard service (Wachapreague, Absecon, Yakutat, Bering Strait, Castle Rock, and Cook Inlet) were transferred to the Navy of the Republic of Vietnam. Chincoteague became RVNS Ly Thuong Kiet (HQ-16) on 21 June 1972.

However, her war service in Vietnamese waters was short lived.

When Saigon fell in April 1975, she sailed along with Yakutat (RVNS Tran Nhat Duat), Bering Strait (RVNS Tran Quang Khai), Castle Rock (RVNS Tran Binh Trong), Cook Inlet (RVNS Tran Quoc Toan) and Wachapreague (RVNS Ngo Quyen) to the Philippines as a navy in exile filled with not only service members but also their families.  Absecon remained behind and served in the People’s Navy for a number of years.

The Philippine government disarmed the seaplane tenders-turned-frigates and interned them, then finally took custody of them after a few weeks to forestall efforts by the new government in Vietnam to get them back. As the U.S. still “owned” the ships, they were sold for a song to the PI in 1976.

In poor condition, some were laid up and stripped of usable parts to keep those in better shape in service. As such, Chincoteague sailed in Philippine Navy as patrol vessel BRP Andres Bonifacto (PF-7), the flagship of the fleet, for another decade along with her faithful sisters BRP Gregorio Del Pilar (Wachapreague), BRP Diego Silang (Bering Strait) and BRP Francisco Dagohoy (Castle Rock) along for the ride.

The Philippines planned to give these ships new radar systems (SPS53s) and Harpoons in the 1980s but the latter never came to fruition. Despite this, the aft deck was replaced by a helipad for one MBB BO-105 light helicopter.

Left in a reserve status after 1985, Chincoteague/Ly Thuong Kiet/Andres Bonifacto was finally withdrawn from service in 1993, her three sisters already sold for scrap by then.

She endured as a pierside hulk used for the occasional training until she was sent to the breakers in 2003, the last of her class afloat. As such, she far outlasted the era of the military seaplane.

The closest thing to a monument for these vessels is the USS/USCGC Unimak (AVP-31/WAVP/WHEC/WTR-379), the last of the class in U.S. service, which was sunk in 1988 as an artificial reef off the Virginia coast in 150 feet of water.

Her name endures in the form of the USCGC Chincoteague (WPB-1320), an Island-class 110-foot cutter commissioned in 1988.

Specs:

Displacement 1,766 t.(lt) 2,800 t.(fl)
Length 311′ 6″
Beam 41′ 1″
Draft 12′ 5″
Speed 18.2 kts (trial)
Complement
USN
Officers 14
Enlisted 201
USN Aviation Squadrons
Officers 59
Enlisted 93
USCG
Officers 13
Enlisted 136
Largest Boom Capacity 10 t.
USCG Electronics
Radar: SPS-23, SPS-29D
Sonar: SQS-1
Philippine Navy electronics
Radar: AN/SPS-53, SPS-29D
Armament
USN
four single 5″/38 cal
one quad 40mm AA gun mount
two twin 40mm AA gun mounts
four twin 20mm AA gun mounts
USCG
one single 5″/38 cal. Mk 12, Mod 1 dual purpose gun mount
one Mk 52 Mod 3 director
one Mk 26 fire control radar
one Mk 11 A/S projector
two Mk 32 Mod 5 torpedo tubes (later deleted in 1972)
Fuel Capacities
Diesel 2,055 Bbls
Gasoline 84,340 Gals
Propulsion
Fairbanks-Morse, 38D8 1/2 Diesel engines
single Fairbanks-Morse Main Reduction Gears
Ship’s Service Generators
two Diesel-drive 100Kw 450V A.C.
two Diesel-drive 200Kw 450V A.C.
two propellers, 6,400shp
20 Kts max, 8,000 miles at 15.6 knots.

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

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

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

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

Click to big up

Here we see past Warship Wednesday alumni and the only survivor of the Borodino-class of predeadnought battleship Slava (Russian: Слава “Glory“) in December 1908, while in the Sicilian city of Messina providing assistance to the locals following a strong earthquake that left as many as 200,000 dead.

We say Slava was the last of class because her four sister ships–Borodino, Imperator Alexander III, Knyaz Suvorov, and Oryol– were all either sunk or captured at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, which was its own sort of strong earthquake for Tsarist Russia.