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 Aug. 31, 2016: The Nebraska stiletto

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97970

Here we see the four-piper Omaha-class light (scout) cruiser, USS Omaha (CL-4) besieged by pelicans in harbor, 8 December 1923. She was fast, could hit hard, chase down enemy steamers, and do it all with an air of efficiency.

With the United States no doubt headed into the Great War at some point, Asst. Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt helped push a plan by the brass to add a 10 fast “scout cruisers” to help screen the battle line from the enemy while acting as the over-the-horizon greyhound of the squadron, looking for said enemy to vector the fleet to destroy.

As such, speed was a premium for these dagger-like ships (they had a length to beam ratio of 10:1) and as such these cruisers were given a full dozen Yarrow boilers pushing geared turbines to 90,000 shp across four screws. Tipping the scales at 7,050 tons, they had more power on tap than a 8,000-ton 1970s Spruance-class destroyer (with four GE LM2500s giving 80,000 shp). This allowed the new cruiser class to jet about at 35 knots, which is fast today, and was on fire in 1915 when they were designed. As such, they were a full 11-knots faster than the smaller Chester-class scout cruisers they were to augment.

Artist’s conception of the final class design, made circa the early 1920s by Frank Muller. Ships of this class were: OMAHA (CL-4), MILWAUKEE (CL-5), CINCINNATI (CL-6), RALEIGH (CL-7), DETROIT (CL-8), RICHMOND (CL-9), CONCORD (CL-10), TRENTON (CL-11), MARBLEHEAD (CL-12), and MEMPHIS (CL-13).Catalog #: NH 43051

For armament, they had a 12 6″/53 Mk12 guns arranged in a twin turret forward, another twin turret aft, and eight guns in Great White Fleet throwback above-deck stacked twin casemates four forward/four aft. These guns were to equip the never-built South Dakota (BB-49) class battleships and Lexington (CC-1) class battle cruisers, but in the end were just used in the Omahas as well as the Navy’s two large submarine cruisers USS Argonaut (SS-166), Narwhal (SS-167), and Nautilus (SS-168).

Besides the curious 6-inchers, they also carried two 3″/50s in open mounts, six 21-inch torpedo tubes on deck, four torpedo tubes near the water line (though they proved very wet and were deleted before 1933), and the capability to carry several hundred mines.

Mines on an Omaha class (CL 4-13) light cruiser Description: Taken while the ship was underway at sea, looking aft, showing the very wet conditions that were typical on these cruisers’ after decks when they were operating in a seaway. Photographed circa 1923-1925, prior to the addition of a deckhouse just forward of the ships’ after twin six-inch gun mount. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99637

Triple 21-inch torpedo tubes on the upper deck of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. The after end of the ship’s starboard catapult is visible at left. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99639

Omaha had been ordered during the war but she was not laid down at Todd Dry Dock & Construction Co., Tacoma, Washington until 6 December 1918. Built for a cost of $1,541,396, she was commissioned 24 February 1923 and her nine sisters all joined the fleet within two years after, replacing several prewar designs including the Chesters.

Photographed circa 1923, immediately after completion. Note her peculiar stacked casemates. These ships proved top-heavy in operation. Go figure, huh? Catalog #: NH 43052

Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, she spent the early 1920s in calm peacetime service, showing the flag, making training and gunnery cruises, crossing over into the Pacific a few times to visit Canada and Hawaii, and other typical fleet operations. Later she was used to escort the body of the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, J. Butler Wright– who died at his post after an operation at age 62– from Havana to the Washington Navy Yard.

Passing through the Panama Canal, circa 1925-1926. Note the tropical awning over her stern. Her aft casemates are clear. Catalog #: NH 43054

Boxing match held between the aircraft catapults of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. View looks forward, with the ship’s after smokestack in the left center background. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99640

Great overhead shot. Anchored in the Hudson River, near New York City, 2 May 1927. Catalog #: NH 43059

Putting the “screen” in screening! Omaha Class Light Cruisers lay a smoke screen during maneuvers in about 1930. Courtesy of Chief Photographer’s Mate John Lee Highfill (retired) Catalog #: NH 94898

In 1932, Omaha set a record for a naval crossing between San Francisco and Honolulu– just 75 hours and change to cover 2,400 miles, humming along at an average speed of 32~ knots for three days and nights. Not bad for 1920s technology.

In 1933, she was given an overhaul that included removing her mine handling capability and lower torpedo tubes, but adding more AAA guns and aircraft handling capabilities.

Underway, circa the early 1930s. The original photograph is dated 20 October 1936, but it was actually taken prior to Omaha’s 1933 overhaul, during which her topmasts were reduced and a bathtub machinegun platform was fitted atop her foremast. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
Catalog #: NH 97971

6″/53 casemate gun on USS Omaha CL-4 Picture taken in August 1933 after overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. Note newly installed machine gun bathtub atop Omaha foremast, rangefinders, and other fire control facilities on and about the mast, voice tubes running down from the masthead, and Battle Efficiency E painted on the pilothouse. Courtesy of Don S. Montgomery, USN (Retired). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 93507

However, not all was joyous:

Aground in the Bahamas, 18 July 1937. Note lighthouse at right and vessels alongside Omaha. Meh, these things happen. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 43061

USS OMAHA (CL-4) Post 1933. Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68319

When World War II loomed, the aging cruiser and her sisters were far outclassed by the newer Brooklyn and St.Louis-classes, but they were uparmed by adding 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns and radar while landing some of their older casemates and 1.1-inchers fitted in the 1930s.

On 6 November 1941, while on neutrality patrol in the mid-Atlantic near the equator with her escort, the USS Somers (DD-381), Omaha spied an American flagged ship, the freighter Willmoto out of Philadelphia, and closed to inspect her. When a boarding team came close, the freighter’s crew started abandoning ship, signaling it was sinking.

Taking quick action, the Omaha‘s team went to salvage work and saved the ship, which turned out to be the 5098-tonner Odenwald owned by the Hamburg-American Line. Enroute to Germany from then-neutral Japan when she was seized, she was packed with 3,800-tons desperately needed rubber and tires that never made it to the Third Reich.

Odenwald, NH 123752

USS OMAHA/ODENWALD Incident during World War II. Autographed Portrait of Salvage Detail. American Flag and emblem of the Nazi party/ Swastika flag on ship with Salvage Detail portrait signed by each member of Salvage Detail.NH 123757

Odenwald was escorted to Puerto Rico and made a big splash when she arrived.

According to the U-boat Archive, Odenwald contained the first German military POW taken by the U.S. though they didn’t know it:

Helmut Ruge was a Kriegsmarine radioman aboard the Graf Spee when that ship was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate. He escaped from internment crossing the Andes on foot to Chile and then on to Japan where he joined the crew of the Odenwald for the return to Germany.

During his initial interrogation both U.S. Army and Navy interrogators failed to discover that Helmut Ruge was not a civilian merchant marine officer but in fact was a German Navy sailor or that he was an escaped internee from the crew of the Graf Spee. Throughout his captivity he was interned with the civilian crews of German merchant ships and not with other German Navy personnel.

When the war kicked off for real, Omaha remained in the Atlantic doing patrol and escort work.

USS Omaha (CL-4) In New York Harbor, 10 February 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Note the added AAA suite. Catalog #: 19-N-40594

In the lead up to the Dragoon landings in Southern France, Omaha sailed to the med and gave naval gunfire support to the troops going ashore in August 1944, for which she was awarded one battle star, the only one she would receive.

When the war ended, the writing was on the wall for Omaha and she was decommissioned 1 November 1945, stricken four weeks later, and sold for scrap the following February.

Of her sisters, they proved remarkably lucky, and, though all nine saw combat during the war (including Detroit and Raleigh at Pearl Harbor), none were sunk. The last of the class afloat, USS Milwaukee (CL-5) was sold for scrap, 10 December 1949 mainly because after 1944 she had been loaned to the Soviets as the Murmansk.

In one last laugh, a federal court in 1947 awarded the members of the boarding party and the salvage crew $3,000 apiece while all the other crewmen in Omaha and the Sommers at the time picked up two months’ pay and allowances.

Although it has been reported this was prize money “the last paid by the Navy,” the fact is that the ruling classified it as salvage inasmuch as the U.S. on November 6, 1941, was not at war with Germany.

In all, the court found that the value of the Odenwald was the sum of $500,000 and the value of her cargo $1,860,000, which was sold in 1941 and, “As a matter of law, the United States is entitled as owner of the two men of war involved in this case to collect salvage and the officers and members of the crews of the U.S.S. Omaha and U.S.S. Somers are also entitled to collect salvage. This is not a case of bounty or prize. The libelants are entitled to collect salvage in the aggregate sum of $397,424.06 with costs and expenses.”

So there is that.

One enduring curiosity of the Omaha‘s crew was the issue of V-42 combat knives to some of her boarding crew.

From RIA who has one of these rare Omaha-marked pig stickers up for auction Sept. 7:

A descendant of the Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, the V-42 Stiletto was designed with input from members of the First Special Service Force, the joint American/Canadian arctic and mountain warfare unit that is considered one of the forefathers of modern American Special Forces. While the majority went to the 1st SSF, around 70 were diverted to the Navy, and were among the armament issued to the U.S.S. Omaha.

Now that’s something you don’t see every day.

Specs:

Displacement: 7,050 long tons (7,163 t) (standard)
Length:
555 ft. 6 in (169.32 m) oa
550 ft. (170 m) pp
Beam: 55 ft. (17 m)
Draft: 14 ft. 3 in (4.34 m) (mean)
Installed power:
12 × Yarrow boilers
90,000 ihp (67,000 kW) (Estimated power produced on trials)
Propulsion:
4 × Westinghouse reduction geared steam turbines
4 × screws
Speed:
35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
33.7 knots (62.4 km/h; 38.8 mph) (Estimated speed on trials)
Crew: 29 officers 429 enlisted (peacetime)
Armor:
Belt: 3 in (7.6 cm)
Deck: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Conning Tower: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Bulkheads: 1 1⁄2–3 in (38–76 mm)
Aircraft carried: 2 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities:
2 × Amidship catapults
crane
Armament:
(1923)
2 × twin 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
8 × single 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 caliber guns anti-aircraft
6 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
4 × twin 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
224 × mines (removed soon after completion)
(1945)
2 × twin 6 in/53 caliber
6 × single 6 in/53 caliber
8 × 3 in/50 caliber anti-aircraft guns
6 × triple 21 in torpedo tubes
3 × twin 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns
14 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons

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.

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 Sept. 7, 2016: The river plover and the black flags

Taken by Doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard

Here we see the paddlewheel dispatch boat (aviso à roues) Pluvier of the French Marine Nationale in Haiphong harbor in the 1880s. Designed for use in Senegal, she instead was sent to French Cochinchina, where her interesting design proved most useful.

She was the fifth vessel in the French Navy named in honor of the wading plover bird, preceded by three Napoleonic-era gunboats all lost in those conflicts and a 4-gun fisheries patrol cutter who sailed for 32 years.

Built in Cherbourg in 1880, she was a humble ship of some 500-tons, 165-feet oal length. Her steam propulsion plant was an obsolete paddlewheel, chosen for its use in shallow riverine waters in the growing French African colony. Her armament: a pair of smoothbore naval guns one fore, one aft, and two Hotchkiss revolving cannons in her canvas foretop–just the thing for controlling a riverbank.

Her Hotchkiss could be used on ship’s boats to get in closer as needed.

Termed a dispatch boat, most other navies would classify the shallow draft gunboat as a sloop, corvette or large gunboat. At the time of her construction, the French navy ordered four paddle wheeler dispatch boats all named after animals: Albatross, Peacock, Plover (Pluvier) and Squirrel (Ecureuil), all to different designs, for overseas colonial service.

Pluvier‘s skipper, Lieutenant de vaisseau commandant M. Vedel, was a gentleman and he sailed for Cochinchina in 1881, as trouble was afoot there.

First, let us talk about Indochina, and how the French acquired it.

In September 1858, France occupied Đà Nẵng (Tourane) and within six months conquered Saigon and three southern Vietnamese provinces: Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường. The southernmost part of Vietnam became a colony known as Cochinchina, and within two decades, the French were ready for rapid expansion.

On 25 April 1882, French naval captain Henri Rivière stormed the ancient citadel of Hanoi in a few hours without warning, leading Governor Hoàng Diệu to kill himself after sending a note of apology to the Emperor. This act of pretty blatant colonialism alarmed the Vietnamese and Chinese governments but didn’t stop them from allowing Rivière to capture Nam Dinh the following March (where Pluvier‘s Hotchkiss guns came into play, see illustration below).

With the French openly moving to annex Tonkin by force, the Chinese and Vietnamese approached exiled warlord Liu Yongfu and his pipehitting Black Flag Army to join a three-party coalition in which the Chinese and Viets were willing to fight to the last Black Flag foot soldier.

Though the Black Flag was able to nearly annihilate Riviere’s force (and kill him in the process) at the Battle of Paper Bridge, a renewed French effort (the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps under Gen. Alexandre-Eugène Bouët) was able to smack around Yongfu at Phu Hoai in August 1883 and Palan that September, putting him on the run but not breaking him.

While the Black Flag Army along with reinforcements from the Chinese and Vietnamese armies proper holed up in the walled fortress of Son Tay, Gen. Bouët resigned his position as head of the Tonkin Corps and was replaced by one Admiral Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet who decided he needed a lot of expeditionary firepower in the form of French naval might.

This new force, the Flottille de Tonkin, consisted of nine small coastal gunboats (chaloupes-canonnières); the mighty ironclads Bayard and Atalante as well as the cruiser Châteaurenault from the Mediterranean; and the Pluvier, upon which Courbet hoisted his flag. Even though just 165-feet long, she was the most impressive ship that could traverse the Sông Hồng River (Red River/Fleuve Rouge ou Song koi) to Son Tay– the ironclads and cruiser left behind in the coast.

And upriver they went, the gunboats, Pluvier, and a force of requisitioned local steam launches, junks and tugs on 11 December.

Son Tay

Courbet’s 9,000-man force was made up of a cornucopia of Cambodian riflemen, a battalion of the Foreign Legion, two North African battalions, some Tonkinese riflemen, and two battalions of French Marines and armed sailors from the flotilla who toted some mixed artillery behind them. It was a motley, polyglot force to be sure.

French marine infantryman in Tonkin, 1883

French marine infantrymen in Tonkin. Taken by Doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard

Uniforms of the Tonkin expeditionary corps, 1885 (fusilier-marin, marine infantryman, Turco and marine artilleryman

The battle joined on 14 December and it seesawed back and forth, with the better French units (Legionaries and Marines) doing to bulk of the heavy lifting and receiving most of the casualties on Courbet’s side and the Black Flags doing the same on the side of the locals. Liu Yongfu ordered three large black flags to be flown above the main gate of the citadel of Sơn Tây, bearing Chinese characters in white, and promised a heavy fight, to which his Chinese and Viet regulars cheered and then proceeded to wish his troops the best of luck.

The crew of the Pluvier gave hard service ashore, fighting on foot with the Marines while her gunners poured steel rain down on the 1000-year old masonry fortifications and villages from their fighting tower.

The French gunboat Pluvier engages the Vietnamese defenses of Nam Dinh with her masthead-mounted canons-revolvers, 27 March 1883. Published in Le Monde. She did much the same at Son Tay

Pluvier’s men in the attack across the canal

Finally, on the morning of 17 December, after forcing the gates the day before, the French stitched together a huge tricolor crafted from strips of cloth torn from the captured Black Flag banners and hoisted it over the citadel as Courbet made a triumphal entry on horseback, a modern Caesar.

The battle cost France 83 dead and 320 wounded, but it cost Yongfu much more as it broke the back of the Black Flag Army, who slunk away into the jungle. Within months, the warlord’s force disbanded. As for Courbet, he returned to his bluewater flagship, the ironclad Bayard, and died of cholera in the Pescadores in Makung harbor on the night of 11 June 1885.

While the admiral’s body was returned to France and received a hero’s burial (and several naval vessels named in his honor: an ironclad in service from to 1909, a battleship in service from 1913 to 1944, and a modern stealth frigate, F 712, presently in active service) the humble Pluvier remained in Indochina, performing constabulary service for another decade that included fighting pirates in the Gulf of Tonkin, some of whom were out of work Black Flag veterans.

Meanwhile, in 1887, Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin became French Indochina, which it would remain until 1954.

Ancient Son Tay reverted to a provincial backwater, though it was used as a military staging point by the North Vietnamese to keep high value material out of nearby Hanoi– and served as the location of a POW camp for captured Americans that was the subject of an epic rescue attempt in 1970 that led to the formation of SFG-Delta.

About Pluvier‘s most notable use after Son Tay was that she carried Prince Henri d’Orleans to Siam on a state visit.

She was sold in 1898, a paddle wheeler in naval service whose time had passed. From what I can ascertain, she remained in commercial service as a coaster for at least another decade.

Since then, the French Navy added a sixth Pluvier (a tug built in Nantes in 1917 then lost at sea between Toulon and Cattaro in 1919), and renamed a seventh Pluvier (the former WWII-era U.S. Navy harbor tug YTL-160) who served until 1967.

In a more appropriate honor, the eight Pluvier, patrouilleur de service public (PSP) gunboat P678, of the OPV58 (Flamant-class) design, was commissioned in 1997. Like her Son Tay ancestor who she is roughly the same size as, she is designed for coastal surveillance work, and was coincidentally built in Cherbourg.

The ship carries a Médaille commémorative de l’expédition du Tonkin and other relics in honor of the Son Tay gunboat.

Lightly armed, her sailors, supported by the ship’s heavy machine guns (Brownings instead of Hotchkiss this time) are ready to go ashore when needed.

The more things change.

Specs:
Displacement: 500-tons
Length: 165 feet (50m)
Beam: 24.6 ft.
Draft:  6 feet
Installed power: 2 boilers, twin compound 2-cylinder engines (420hp) twin paddlewheels.
Crew: 40 + could carry 200 infantry if needed.
Armament:
2 naval guns, smoothbore
2 Hotchkiss revolver cannon
Small arms

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.

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 Sept. 14, 2016: An everlasting Citrus with very long roots

US Coast Guard Historians Office

Here we see the Cactus-class medium endurance cutter USCGC Citrus (WMEC-300) lean and mean in her white livery and racing stripe in 1984 off Coos Bay, Oregon. A product of WWII, she would spend a full half-century in U.S. maritime service and is still ticking in Santo Domingo as the flagship of a Caribbean navy.

In 1916 the Revenue Cutter Service and Lifesaving Service were merged to form the Coast Guard, to which the Bureau of Lighthouses was added on 1 July 1939 and as such all U.S. lighthouses, tenders and lightships became USCG installations and ships. The thing is, the lighthouse and buoy tender fleet was a hodgepodge of antiquated single-use vessels to which the Bureau had been looking to replace with a new series of 177-foot lighthouse tenders modeled after the USLHT Juniper, the last vessel designed by the Bureau.

Taking these plans, the Coast Guard made some changes and produced a 180-foot/950-ton single-screw steel-hulled ship that incorporated some new features that the USLHS never needed (an ice-strengthened bow, search and rescue equipment and mission, allowance for armament, et.al). The first of these, USCGC Cactus (WAGL-270) was appropriated for $782,381 on 20 Jan 1941 and laid down at Marine Iron & Shipbuilding Corporation, Duluth, MN on 31 March

In all, some 39 of these hardy ships were built either at Marine or at Zenith Dredge Company very rapidly in three subclasses: the “A” or “Cactus” class, “B” or “Mesquite” class, and “C” or “Iris” class.  All ships of the three subclasses have the same general characteristics, but with slight differences, (e.g. the “A/Cactus” class tenders may be differentiated from the other two classes of 180-foot tenders by their unique “A” frame main boom support forward and their large 30,000 gal fuel tanks that allowed an economical 17,000nm cruising range on their gentle diesels.) The last to come off the ways was USCGC Woodbrush (WAGL-407) which commissioned 22 Sept. 1944.

The hero of our story, USCGC Citrus, was laid down at Marine Iron 29 April 1942 and commissioned 15 weeks later on 15 August 1942 for a total cost of $853,987.

Citrus preparing to leave Duluth Aug 15 1942. Note her haze gray appearance as she was a war baby

After some service on the Great Lakes, she was armed with a single 3″/50 behind her stack, 4 20mm guns, depth charge racks, Mousetrap ASW launchers, and Y-guns and shipped for Alaska Sector, Northwestern Sea Frontier on 15 September 1943, which was only recently liberated from the Japanese. There, she helped support the brand new and revolutionary LORAN system, establishing sites at Sitka, Amchitka, and Attu.

In the heavy seas of the Western Aleutians, she endured storms, primitive Arctic conditions, and the threat of enemy action, coming to the rescue of liberty ships, tugs and landing craft throughout 1944. Citrus spent the remainder of the war conducting ATON, logistics, and vessel escort duties in Southwestern Alaskan waters.

1954. Note her peacetime black hull, buff stack scheme

After the war, she was liberated of much of her AAA and ASW armament, but continued working the Alaska beat, stationed at Ketchikan until 1964 and Kodiak through 1979, in all spending 36 years in Alaskan waters. During this time she escorted Soviet fishing trawlers out of U.S. waters, participated in Naval exercises, towed disabled fishing vessels to port, medevac’d injured mariners, searched for missing planes, fought a fire on the Japanese MV Seifu Maru in Dutch Harbor, and rescued 31 from the grounded ferry Tustumena near Kodiak.

Ketchikan 1959

Seattle 1964, note her 3″/50 aft of her stack in canvas

During this period tenders were designated WLBs (buoy tenders) and saw all fixed armament landed in 1966, leaving them only their small arms lockers.

In Sept-October 1975 she made history when she “helped provide icebreaking escort for 15 tugs and barges in an heroic attempt to get vital supplies to the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. . .[thereby averting] a delay in the development of the North Slope oil fields which are vital to the national interest of the United States.”  Citrus and her crew were awarded the Coast Guard Unit Commendation with the Operational Distinguishing Device.

Then came a change of pace.

Three 180s, all over 35 years of age, were painted white, landed their buoy tending gear, and used as law-enforcement/SAR platforms during the 1980s to help take the place of older cutters leaving the fleet: Citrus, Evergreen (WLB-295), and Clover (WLB-292). As such, these three picked up the designation of medium endurance cutters (WMEC).

Overhead view as WMEC, note her buoy tending gear is largely gone

Citrus with RIB deployed in calm water image via WLB-300 veterans group.

This led to her transfer to Coos Bay, Oregon for 15 years as a floating lawman.

In perhaps her strangest encounter of her career, the Panamanian-flagged 148-foot MV Pacific Star was stopped by Citrus on 1 January 1985 about 680 mi southwest of San Diego.

From the USCG Historian’s Office:

When the boarding team attempted to board the vessel, the master set the Pacific Star on fire and commenced to scuttle the vessel.  In a final act of deterrence, the master turned his vessel and rammed Citrus on the starboard side. The boarding team did get on board and located a large quantity of Thai marijuana in the vessel’s forward hold.  As the vessel sank, more than 3,800 pound of marijuana was recovered as it floated to the surface and the seven-man crew was arrested.

Pictures or it didn’t happen:

Note the dent in Citrus’s hull just to the left of the “C” in Coast Guard

The rest of her U.S. service was quiet and she was decommissioned 1 September 1994 after 51 years of service, seeing 28 different skippers on her bridge over the years.

1994: Note her A Frame was removed by then

Placed on hold for transfer to Mexico, that deal fell through and she was instead sent to the Dominican Republic 16 September 1995 as Almirante Juan Alejandro Acosta (C-456/P301) after one of the founders of the Dominican Navy, where she was rearmed and made the flagship of the Armada de Republica Dominicana.

FILE – In this June 25, 2007 file photo, a Dominican Navy soldier stands guard over bales of cocaine during a news conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Authorities in the Dominican Republic seized 9 tons of cocaine in 2012, the third consecutive record, according to the country’s national drug control agency. In January alone, they seized another 3 tons off the country’s southern coast. (AP Photo/Jorge Cruz, File)

She was rearmed with a British 4″/45 caliber DP gun (off a decommissioned WWII Flower-class corvette), two single Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (from a decommissioned WWII era American patrol frigate), and four 7.62 mm M60 machine guns. She is used for coastal patrol, navigational aid maintenance, midshipman cruises, humanitarian assistance, naval training exercises, troop transport, and at sea refueling.

As for her sisterships, many have proven to be very long in the tooth:

*Balsam (WLB-62) was decommissioned 1975 and has been used as an Alaskan crab boat ever since

*Cactus (WLB-270) was seized in Kings County Washington as a derelict vessel in 2013 for dismantling.

*Cowslip (WLB-277), Firebush (WLB-393) and Sassafras (WLB-401) were transferred to Nigerian Navy 2002-2003 as NNS Nwamba, NNS Olepu and Obula respectively. All remain in service. Sedge (WLB-402) was also transferred for parts.

*Woodbine (WLB-289) was donated to be a training ship in Cleveland in 1972 and went on to be a fish processing boat in Alaska before being sold for scrap in 2012.

*Gentian (WLB-290) was transferred to Colombia as ARC San Andrés (PO-45) and is still active.

*Laurel (WLB-291) was sold at GSA auction in 1999, ultimate fate unknown.

*Clover (WLB-292) and Evergreen (WLB-295) were decommissioned 1990 and sunk by the Navy as a targets.

*Sorrel (WLB-296) was decommissioned in 1996 and is used as SS Reliance operated by Sea Scout Ship #13 of Stockton, California, showing up in an episode of Dexter.

*Ironwood (WLB-297) saw quite a lot of WWII service and was transferred to the Dept. of Interior as a training vessel in 2000, later disposed of.

*Conifer (WLB-301) and Papaw (WLB-308) were decommissioned 2000 and 1999 respectively and was used for a number of years as F/V Hope and F/V Mersea, part of the disaster relief fleet of Friend Ships, but have since been removed from that organization.

*Madrona (WLB-302) transferred to El Salvador who used her as General Manuel José Arce and subsequently sunk her as a reef.

*Tupelo (WAGL/WLB-303) was decommissioned in 1975 and has spent the past 30 years as a Bering Sea fishing boat, FV Courageous.

*Mesquite (WLB-305) ran aground December 4, 1989 on a reef off the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior while in Coast Guard service and was scuttled for underwater diving preserve.

*Buttonwood (WLB-306) was decommissioned 2001 and transferred to the Dominican Republic’s Navy as Almirante Didiez Burgos, still active.

*Sweetgum (WLB-309) was transferred in 2002 to Panama as SMN Independencia (P401).

*Basswood (WLB-388), Blackhaw (WLB-390) and Mallow (WLB-396) were scrapped in 2000.

*Bittersweet (WLB-389) was decommissioned and transferred to Estonian Border Guard, 5 September 1997 who used her until 2014– she is retained as a museum ship.

*Blackthorn (WLB-391) sank in 1980 in a collision near the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge, resulting in 23 crewmember fatalities. Raised, she was resunk as a reef.

*Bramble (WLB-392) was decommissioned 2003, and has been retained with a mixed degree of success as a museum ship in the Great Lakes.

*Hornbeam (WLB-394) was decommissioned 1999, and lost near Panama as M/V Rum Cay Grace in 2013.

*Iris (WLB-395) and Planetree (WLB-307) were decommissioned after helping with the Exxon Valdez oil spill and sit in rusting quiet in the SBRF, Suisun Bay, CA mothballs fleet, to be disposed of by 2017.

*Mariposa (WLB-397) was decommissioned in 2000 but has been retained by the Navy as a hulk until 2009 and has been spotted in the Seattle area since then.

*Redbud (WLB-398) was transferred to the Philippines as Kalinga (AG-89) in 1972.

*Sagebrush (WLB-399) was scuttled off St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia on 28 April 1988.

*Salvia (WLB-400) was decommissioned 1991 and used as a salvage operations training vessel for U.S. Navy at Little Creek.

*Spar (WLB-403) was decommed 1997 and sunk as a reef in 2004.

*Sundew (WLB-404) was decommissioned 2004, used as a museum for a while, then sold to private interests in 2010.

*Acacia (WLB-406), the last 180 in Coast Guard service, was decommissioned 2006 after 63 years of service and is now a museum in Manistee, Michigan.

*Woodrush (WLB-407) and Sweetbrier (WLB-405) were transferred to Ghana in 2001 where she still serves as GNS Anzone (P30) and GNS Bonsu (P31) respectively, which means “shark” and “whale” in the native lingo.

A veterans’ group for the Citrus survives on Facebook with a series of great images. For more information about the 180s in general, the USCG Historian’s office has a great 73-page report on them here while the LOC has a great series of images from the Planetree, a Mesquite subclass sister.

Specs:

Length:  180′ oa
Beam: 37′ mb
Draft:  12′ max (1945); 14′ 7″ (1966)
Displacement: 935 fl (1945); 1,026 fl (1966); 700 light (1966)
Propulsion:  1 electric motor connected to 2 Westinghouse generators driven by 2 Cooper-Bessemer-type GND-8, 4-cycle diesels; single screw
Top speed: 13.0 kts sustained (1945); 11.9 kts sustained (1966)
Economic speed: 8.3 kts (1945); 8.5 kts (1966)
Complement: Design-
6 Officers, 74 men (1945);
4 officers, 2 warrants, 47 men (1966)
Unknown in DR service
Electronics:
Radar: Bk (1943); SLa-1 (1945), SPS-64(V) 1985
Sonar: WEA-2 (1945)
Armament:
(1945)
1-3″/50 (single), 4-20mm/80 (single), 2 depth charge tracks, 2 Mousetraps, 4 Y-guns
(1966)
Smallarms
(1996, Domincan Republic)
1x 4 inch BL Mk.IX single gun
2x 20mm/80 singles
4x M60 7.62x51mm GPMG

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Here is a great series of postal cards from the Detroit Publishing Co in the 1870s-1890s showing various scenes around the fleet. Several of these were taken on the grand old ship of the line USS Vermont which spent her entire life as a receiving ship. Others are on steel ships such as the protected cruiser USS Atlanta, and armored cruisers USS New York (ACR-2) and USS Brooklyn (ACR-3).

USS Brooklyn, “Apprentice boys at school.” Note the casemate gun

USS Atlanta, “Sword exercise” 1880s.  It should be noted the Navy still had cutlasses on some ships through WWII. Note the Marine officer in kepi and the bluejackets in flatcaps.

USS Vermont, 1890, “Recruits waiting to be transferred.” note the hammock bedrolls on the bulkhead and dixie cups.

USS New York, “Scrubbing down”

USS Brooklyn, “Preparing Christmas dinner”

USS Brooklyn, “A quiet little game” showing bluejackets at play as a Marine looks on. Dig the landing gun to the left of the image under canvas.

Most of these are in the LOC under in their original B&W higher resolution condition (e.g. New York) should you be interested.

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 Sept. 21, 2016: HMs Devastating muzzle-loading turret ship

All photos: IWM unless noted.

Here we see the early ironclad battleship HMS Devastation pier-side and high in the water sometime after 1890. She was the leader of her two-ship class and an important, if quickly surpassed, step in capital ship development.

Dating back to HMS Warrior in 1860, an armored frigate that mounted 40-guns, the Royal Navy was an early advocate of iron-sheathed warships that could take as much punishment as they could give. Over the next ten years the RN built some 35 armored vessels ranging from broadside ironclads such as the 6,000-to HMS Defense to the central-battery ironclad HMS Royal Alfred (with an impressive 10 9-inch guns) and the massive 8,500-ton turret ship HMS Monarch who carried four 12 inch guns in two rotating armored mounts.

However, reflecting the engineering of their day, they all carried hybrid sail/steam propulsion rigs.

HMS Devastation broke this mold and was the first Royal Navy ironclad that was mastless– relying on a pair of coal fired Penn trunk engines alone to generate over 6600 ihp, capable of propelling the 9,500-ton beast to nearly 14-knots.

When you consider that this was a 1869-era design, just four years past the U.S. Civil War, and was a large 307-foot oal (theoretically) ocean-going fighting warship and not some river or coastal monitor, Devastation was indeed worthy of her name. It could be argued that she was the HMS Dreadnought of 1869.

By comparison, the U.S. Navy’s nominally ocean going wooden-hulled Miantonomoh-class monitors (the most advanced completed during the Civil War) were 3,400-tons, 258-feet oal, and had an armament of four smoothbored muzzle-loading 15-inch Dahlgren guns, were slower at 9 knots, had less armor and just 31-inches of freeboard.

Laid down at the Portsmouth Dockyard 12 November 1869, Devastation commissioned 19 April 1873.

Her armament was a new version 11.6-inch muzzle-loading gun of some 25-tons in weight mounted in two twin steam powered above deck turrets fore and aft– which were protected by a stout 14 inches of armor.

These guns were later bored out to 12-inches while Devastation was still on the builder’s ways and was capable of firing a 600-pound shell propelled by a 100-pound charge of black powder. As such, the four guns mounted on Devastation were unique as her follow-on sistership HMS Thunderer was given modified 12.5-inch 38-ton guns (which Devastation was subsequently upgraded with).

A 12 inch 38 ton Rifled Muzzle Loader (RML) as used by British Coastal Artillery, image via Scientific American, Nov 1875. Several of these shore pieces are still in existence though they were withdrawn from service in the 1890s.

These were also mounted in coastal artillery batteries at Hurst Castle on the Solent, Fort Nelson protecting Portsmouth, Fort Albert on the Isle of Wright and Fort Delimara in Malta as well as the follow-on but unrelated turret ships HMS Dreadnought (1879) HMS Agamemnon (1883) and HMS Ajax (1885) and as such were the last large caliber muzzle loading pieces built for the Royal Navy.

Though she had 14 inches of wrought iron on her turrets, Devastation’s conning tower was only sheathed by six inches of wrought iron. Drawing from The Illustrated London News, 16 November 1878

No matter how impressive, Devastation only had a freeboard of about five feet and spent most of her career in coastal service in the Home Islands and the Med just in case, though she did reportedly ship fairly well on two brief forays into the Atlantic.

After 1890, she carried an all-white scheme such as seen in the first image of this post

In 1890, her muzzleloaders thoroughly obsolete, they were replaced with Elswick 10″/32 (25.4 cm) Mark I guns which could fire a 500-pound AP shell to 11,552 yards and penetrate 20 inches of armor of the time at point-blank range as her machinery was replaced by inverted triple-expansion steam engines and cylindrical boilers, upping her speed a tad.

This kept the aging battlewagon in service for another decade, paying off in 1902.

Late in her career with battleship gray. Note her stubby 12-inch RMLs have been replaced with 10-inch 35 cals

Retained as a tender for a bit, she was disposed of in 1908.

Her sister Thunderer, who had hydraulic powered turrets, was marred by accidents including a boiler explosion that killed 45 of her crew in 1876, followed by a turret explosion during gunnery practice in the Sea of Marmora in 1879, killing 11 and injuring a further 35. She was taken out of service in 1907 and sold for scrap in 1909.

Few if any remnants of Devastation remain, and the Royal Navy has not reused her name.

The two ships, however, endure in maritime art.

“The turret armour-clad ship Devastation at Spithead on the occasion of the Naval Review in honour of the Shah of Persia’s visit 23rd June 1873”

A print of the above painting.

Bumford, Frederick W.; HMS ‘Thunderer’ Devastation Class, 1979; Note this shows Thunderer post 1890 with 10-inch guns Britannia Royal Naval College;

HMS Devastation by William Fredrick Mitchell, note early 12 inch guns

Specs:

Displacement: 9,330 long tons (9,480 t)
Length:
285 ft. (87 m) pp
307 ft. (94 m) oa
Beam:     62 ft 3 in (18.97 m)
Draught:     26 ft. 8 in (8.13 m)
Propulsion:
Two coal fired Penn trunk engines, 2 screws,
6,640 ihp (4,950 kW) (Devastation)
1,750 long tons of coal
Speed:     13.84 kn (25.63 km/h; 15.93 mph)
Complement: 358
Armament:
As built: 4 × 12-inch (305 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns mounted in two turrets
From 1890: 4 × BL 10-inch (254.0 mm) guns
6 × 6-pounder QF guns
8 × 3-pounder QF guns
Armour:
Belt: 8.5–12 in (220–300 mm) with 16–18 inches (410–460 mm) wood backing
Breastwork: 10–12 in (250–300 mm)
Turrets: 10–14 in (250–360 mm)
Conning tower: 6–9 in (150–230 mm)
Decks: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Bulkheads: 5–6 in (130–150 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 it 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 Sept. 28, 2016: From the Lingayen to the FloraBama

NHHC Collection photo # UA 22.02.01

Here we see the Catskill-class vehicle landing ship (or Terror-class fleet minelayer depending on how you look at it) USS Ozark (CM-7/AP-107/LSV–2/MCS-2) showing off her stern and high helicopter deck with hanger clearance in 1966.

The Navy in its entire history has only had 12 vessels that carried a Cruiser-Minelayer (CM) designation. These started with the old retyped cruisers USS Baltimore and San Francisco (reclassified in 1919), the converted passenger freighters USS Aroostook (CM-3) and USS Oglala (CM-4) who helped sow the North Sea Barrage; the purpose-built fleet minelayer USS Terror (CM-5) commissioned in 1942; and five other WWII-era freighters and passenger ferries converted to the designation around the same time (USS Keokuk, USS Monadnock, USS Miantonomah, USS Salem, and USS Weehawken).

The two I missed? Well that’s USS Catskill and her sister USS Ozark, which were very simple updates to the Terror design.

Terror, Catskill, and Ozark had all been names of Civil War monitors that were recycled.

USS Ozark on the Red River in 1864. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.

The class of 454-foot long/6,000-ton minelayers were fast enough to keep ahead of submarines (20 knots), sufficiently armed enough (4x 5-inchers and a healthy AAA suite) to not need an escort, and room enough for several hundred of the latest sea mines.

Terror was completed 15 July 1942 and rushed into fleet service in her intended role. However, it turned out that purpose-built minelayers were a waste of resources when other ships could be converted and both Catskill and Ozark were modified while still at the builders from their original roles.

Ozark was authorized by Congress on 19 July 1940 as a Fleet Minelayer, CM-7, and laid down at Willamette Iron and Steel Corporation, Portland, Oregon. Her designation was subsequently changed to a Troop Transport (AP-107) in June 1943 and finally to a Landing Ship, Vehicle (LSV-2, with Catskill being LSV-1) before her commissioning 23 September 1944.

Now swelled to some 9,000-tons full load, she was designed to transport a reinforced battalion-sized unit of 80 officers and 788 troops and land them using 31 Army DUKWs from her large vehicle (former mine stowage) deck and  a number of LCVPs and 26-foot motor launches.

You know the 31-foot DUK, right? Now that’s amphibious!

By November 1944, Ozark was part of Transport Squadron Thirteen warming up in the Solomons for the big push on Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippine Islands.

When the landing started, she was baptized.

From DANFS:

The 7 January 1945 marked the first day in the lives of many aboard the Ozark for experiencing visual contact with the enemy. About 1706 that day an enemy aircraft flew at masthead height across the formation pursued by four U.S. Navy fighters, and was shot down seconds later. Much tension was relieved by witnessing that sight. The next day, the 8th of January 1945, proved to be more exciting. About mid-morning a twin-engine Japanese bomber flew out of the sun over the formation and narrowly missed hitting the ship next ahead with its bombs. About dusk the same day Japanese bombers and suicide planes attacked the formation from all points. Several dive bombers were shot down by the Combat Air Patrol. One suicide plane singled out Transport Squadron Thirteen in particular. He circled out of range of the automatic weapons to the port quarter of the formation. Then he started his death plunge. All guns on the port side of the Ozark opened fire. The Kamikaze was headed for the ship on our port beam. Tension mounted. The amount of flak being put up was uncanny, but still the plane headed for its target apparently unaffected. The Ozark’s 40MM and 5″/38 cal. Were nippin at the tail of the plane all the way in its downward plunge. The climax came when a burst at the tail rocked the plane in its path of flight and sent it to a firey end a few feet from the stern of the vessel it had intended to crash.

The next day, 9 January 1945, the formation approached Lingayen Gulf for the assault. The area was frequented by enemy aircraft, suiciding combatant and transport vessels, in a vain attempt to halt the operation. The Ozark landed her personnel and equipment according to plan. Casualties and survivors from damaged and sunken ships were taken aboard and the Ozark left Lingayen Gulf that night with Transport Squadron Thirteen for Leyte Gulf, Philippine Islands.

Then came the invasion of Iwo Jima (Ozark landed three waves of troops there 19 February 1945 and continued logistic support to the beach until 27 February), the Okinawa operation (landing her men on April 1), and more of the same. In mid-August, she took aboard 911 Marines and Sailors from some two dozen ships via breeches buoy in the mid-ocean (!) to be used in upcoming garrison operations in Japan.

She finished the war present in Tokyo Bay during the Surrender Ceremony, 2 September 1945, having landed her troops and received some 970 recovered prisoners-of-war.

Ozark left for Guam and Pearl Harbor directly to take her recovered heroes, many suffering horribly and in need of desperate medical attention, home.

60 buses and ambulances await the arrival of the first 970 POWs returning to the U.S. from Japan aboard USS Ozark, Agana, Guam 13 Sept. 1945

Ozark earned three WWII battle stars in less than 10 months deployed to the war zone.

After the war the remaining minelayers (Miantonomah was sunk by a mine off the coast of France in 1944), were decommissioned and disposed of with only purpose-built Terror, Catskill and Ozark retained– and then only in mothballs.

Ozark was on red lead row in Texas from 29 June 1946 and was struck from the Naval Vessel Register 1 September 1961. However, in a rarity, she was reacquired from the Maritime Administration in 1963 for conversion to a mine countermeasures support ship (MCS) — or mother ship to small minesweeping craft and RH-3A helicopters.

Recommissioned 24 June 1966 with the old monitor USS Ozark ship’s bell, the revamped ship was different. Gone were the DUKWs and the WWII batteries of 20mm and 40mm guns. In their place were added the capability to carry up to 20 36-foot Mine Sweep Launches MSL’s, two minesweeping equipment-carrying LCM’s, and two big Sea King minesweeping helicopters.

The 36 ft MSL, Ozark/Catskill’s primary weapon against mines in the 1960s. Each ship could carry 20 of these little wooden vessels

Each MSL could carry their own paravanes and sweep gear as shown in this 1953 National Geographic shot of a Korean War-era MSB

USS OZARK (MCS-2) Underway off Norfolk, Virginia, on 31 August 1966. Along minesweeping launches embarked are: MSL-33, 31, 40, 48, 47, and 42. Catalog #: USN 1117513, Copyright Owner: National Archives

Sister USS Catskill as similarly converted MCS-1 with MSL’s and one HC-7 RH-3 Helicopter aboard

An RH-3A mine busting Sea King at play. Note the sweep gear. Catskill and Ozark could carry two of these aircraft while the other former LSDs converted to MCS configuration could carry as many as four

As noted by Ed Sinclair, the ships were a sight:

In Long Beach, sailors nicknamed the Catskill “The Mail Ship”. She evidently had so many steadying lines for the MSL’s housed in their davits, which were rolled up and stored in white canvas bags while underway, sailors thought she looked like she was carrying the US Mail.

After recommissioning and shakedown, Catskill became MineFlot1 Flagship and Mine Countermeasures Support vessel for COMinRon 3 vessels homeported in Sasebo, Japan. She deployed to Vietnam 1969-70.

Five other WWII landing ships, the USS Osage (LSV-3), USS Saugus (LSV-4), USS Monitor (LSV-5), USS Orleans Parish (LST-1069), and USS Epping Forest (LSD-4), were given similar conversions to mine countermeasures support ships and designated MCS-3 through MCS-7 respectively.

The thing is, with Vietnam drawing down and mines being seen at the time as a dated weapon not to be used again, the Navy seemingly moved to do away with all things mine related. The grand old USS Terror, decommissioned since 1956 and still comparatively low-milegae, was sold for scrap in November 1971 to the Union Minerals and Alloys Corp. of New York, NY.

Catskill was decommissioned December 1970 and, though she received three battle stars for World War II service and five campaign stars for Vietnam, was quickly disposed of.

Ozark was based in Charleston and spent a quiet seven years on a series of cruises to the Med and South Atlantic.

In 1969, she was part of Task Force 140 that plucked Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins from the drink in the Atlantic after their moon landing. She had previously been used to help recover Apollo 10.

The U.S. Navy mine countermeasures support ship USS Ozark (MCS-2) with an Sikorsky RH-3A Sea King helicopter aft, and her crew manning the rails in summer whites, circa 1968-1970. Source: U.S. Navy Naval Aviation News March 1982

Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register, 1 April 1974, Ozark was towed to Destin, Florida the next year and anchored there to be used as a target by the Air Force from nearby Eglin and Tyndal.

The other converted landing ship MCS’s 3-7 would all be stricken and disposed of by 1974.

The plucky little MSL’s were sold from the boat lot mole pier in Long Beach, CA in April 1975.

The MCS designation would lie dormant in the Navy until the old helicopter assault ship USS Inchon (LPH-12) would be converted to MCS-12 in 1995 and would be retired in 2004. Today the former landing ship ex-USS Ponce serves much the same role as a laser-equipped floating MCS in all but name in the Persian Gulf.

As for Ozark, she had a few more tricks up her sleeve.

When Hurricane Frederic came barreling into the Gulf of Mexico in September 1979, the old minelayer/LSV, last of either type still in the Navy’s possession, drug her mooring and took to the sea once more, washing up some 30 miles to the East near the Florida-Alabama state line at Perdido Key close to where the current FloraBama bar is located.

She was salvaged by Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 (MDSU-2) in October.

ex-USS Ozark aground on Perdido Key, Florida. Note the Army Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe flying crane lifting gear

Taken back to Destin against her will, she was lost in 1981 during a live fire event.

Per Mike Green at Navsource:

The ship was unintentionally sunk with a Maverick missile launched from an F-4 “Phantom” from Eglin AFB in 1981. The missile’s warhead entered on her starboard side approximately 13 feet above the waterline, went through 2 decks and exploded above the hull leaving a hole approximately 3 feet in diameter in her hull. The hole in the bottom of the ship wasn’t noticed until the next day when Air Force personnel and Hughes Missile Systems Co. engineers entered the ship for damage assessment. By this time, she was listing at 16 degrees and all personnel were ordered off the ship.

This photo shows Ozark listing at 16 degrees to starboard 12 hours before she sank. Wikemedia Commons, Gordon Starr, photographer

Today the wreck currently lies upright and intact in approximately 330 feet of water,  about 30 miles due south of Destin. She is a popular wreck for experienced technical divers.

The Navy has not reused the names Terror, Catskill, or Ozark since the class of minelayers.

Ozark‘s name, as well as all those involved in mine warfare, is kept alive by the Naval Minewarfare Association and Association of Minemen.

For a good in-depth look at these LSVs and small minesweeping craft, check out Ed Sinclair’s archived “Iron Men In Wooden Boats” over at Navsource here (pdf) and for more information about the Terror there is a 62-page album online with snapshots and stories as well as a dedicated website of her own including this great piece of maritime art:

“High level bombing attack on USS Terror in Oceania: a true incident related by ship’s personnel,” by LR Lloyd

Specs:
Displacement: 5,875 long tons (5,969 t), 9,000 tons FL
Length:     454 ft. 10 in (138.63 m)
Beam:     60 ft. 2 in (18.34 m)
Draft:     19 ft. 7 in (5.97 m)
Propulsion:     2 × General Electric double-reduction geared steam turbines, 2 shafts, 22,000 shp (16,405 kW)
four turbo-drive 500Kw 450V A.C. Ship’s Service Generators
four Combustion Engineering D-type boilers, 400psi 700°
Speed:     20.3 knots (37.6 km/h; 23.4 mph)
Complement: 481 as commissioned along with space for 850+ embarked troops
Boats:
LSV Configuration – 31 DUKWS plus LCVPs
MCS Configuration – 20 36′ MSLs plus 2 LCMs
Aircraft two helicopters (MCS Configuration)
Armament:     (designed as CM)
4 × 5″/38 caliber guns
4 × quad 1.1 in (28 mm) guns
14 × 20 mm guns singles
(LSV Configuration)
4 single 5″/38 cal DP gun mounts
4 twin 40mm AA gun mounts
20 single 20mm AA gun mounts
(MCS)
two single 5″/38 cal DP gun 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.

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Back in the 1970s Adm. Elmo Zumwalt came up with the idea that flotillas of small, fast attack craft could help control the coastal littoral in time of war. Used in places like the Baltic and Scandinavian, they could blunt potential Soviet Red Banner fleet amphibious operations if the balloon went up.

The only outcome of this was the six pack of Pegasus-class hydrofoils. Termed “PHM” (Patrol, Hydrofoil, Missile) these stubby 133-foot craft could zip at 51-knots when wide open and, using a Mk 92 fire control system, fire off eight Harpoons and a Mk 75 76mm OTO Melara main gun with a crew of just 21 men (skippered by a LCDR!).

USS Aries (PHM-5) back in her fighting trim

The PHMs were home-ported in Key West, Fla. as Patrol Combatant Missile Hydrofoil Squadron TWO, but were decommissioned as a class on 30 July 1993 after just a decade of service that included a lot of USCG missions and regular UNITAS exercises among others.

The Boeing-built craft were all named after Greek mythological figures: USS Pegasus (PHM 1), USS Hercules (PHM 2), USS Taurus (PHM 3), USS Aquila (PHM 4), USS Aries (PHM-5) and USS Gemini (PHM-6).

Bought back in 1996 for $20,000, sans armament and most of her neat-o gear but still with her propulsion and hydrofoils still largely intact, ex-Aries is the only one of her class saved from the scrapper as a museum ship in Missouri.

Aries as she appears today at Gasconade Shipyard, looking very neutered (via Waterways Journal)

Now, after a 20-year saga, the last U.S. Navy PHM will soon be used as both a museum ship and training vessel for The Maritime Academy of Toledo as well as the Ohio Naval Militia.

From Waterways Journal:

After spending 18 years docked on the Grand River at Brunswick, Mo., the former Navy hydrofoil USS Aries is slowly coming back to life.

A group of volunteers from the Ohio Navy and the barge industry have been working on the Cold War naval ship since last November at the Gasconade (Mo.) Shipyard, restoring it for future use as a 21st century maritime training vessel.

The Aries remains tied off at the shipyard at the mouth of the Gasconade River, just up from the wine-laden town of Hermann, Mo., until May 2017, when it is hoped that the ship can be moved under its own power to Cairo, Ill., for drydocking. The Aries would then travel north on the Ohio River to Hebron, Ky., in June for final renovations.

The Rev. Kempton D. Baldridge, chaplain for the Ohio River Region with the Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI), Paducah, Ky., said a week-long cadet orientation will likely take place onboard in late July, with a recommissioning ceremony tentatively scheduled for July 30 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Baldridge, who briefly served on the Aries and its five sister ships in the ‘80s as a Navy Reserve chaplain, has helped the Ohio Navy—an organized, all-volunteer unit that has been serving the State of Ohio and the nation since 1896—rehab the vessel by making connections in the marine industry, raising funds and lending a physical hand during the process.

“The day after Aries observes its recommissioning, the vessel will help commemorate the 120th anniversary of the first Ohio Navy training cruise, with a two-week, 902-mile river circuit from Cincinnati to East Liverpool, Ohio, and return,” said Baldridge. “Aries’ crew, which will include a dozen or so maritime cadets, would transit all nine of Ohio’s locks and dams twice, once northbound and once southbound. At least that’s the plan as it stands now.”

More here

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 October 5, 2016: The quiet behemoth of Toulhars

Here we see the French ironclad cuirasse Dévastation, leader of her two-ship class of early battleship. She had a quiet life, and has spent most of it on the beach.

In 1872, the huge central battery ship Redoutable was laid down at the Lorient Dockyard and was one of the most advanced composite-hulled (iron and steel) battleships in the world– sparking a naval building spree by possible foes Italy and Britain. With a wonky exaggerated tumblehome hull shape and full square rig, Redoubtable was a one-off vessel of some 9,500-tons with seven 270mm guns and 14 inches of plate armor with another 15 inches of plank composite timber backing.

With lessons learned from that vessel, a near sister, our Dévastation above, was laid down at Arsenal Lorient 20 December 1875 while a follow-on carbon copy of our hero, full-sister Courbet was laid down at Toulon.

Some 10,000-tons with a full 15 inches of armor in her belt, Dévastation mounted a quartet of 340mm (13.4-inch guns) which far outclassed Redoubtable, as well as a secondary battery of four 270mm pieces and 24 anti-boat guns. Four 14-inch torpedo tubes, two on each side of the ship, completed the outfit.

270mm gun on Devastation letting it rip

Commissioned 15 July 1882, her full dozen boilers exhausted through a very odd arrangement of twin side-by-side stacks under a two-masted square auxiliary rig. She could make 10 knots at best and was a beast.

Assigned to the ‘Escadre de la Méditerranée at Toulon, she carried the squadron flag of Vice-Adm. Thomasset, and gave quiet service in the Med for a decade before transfer to Brest.

She was a beautiful ship at the height of 19th Century indulgence as these series of shots from 1892 show. In particular, dig her Nordenfelt and Hotchkiss guns, her 270mm and the shot of the Marine.

Just look at the commanding field of fire from that clustered fighting top….

Talk about a wheelhouse

Note the bridge works and the Nordenfelt on the bridge wing

In 1896, her dated armament was changed to four 320mm/25 and another four 274.4mm guns.

She was placed in second-line service in 1898 and then in ordinary in 1901.

Afloat as a machinists school ship in Toulon after 1901, she was re-engined with two 3-cyl. compound engines and Belleville boilers, which enabled her to make 15-knots with a smaller number of stokers.

She was retained in nominal service until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, when she was repurposed.

Note her extensive fighting tops, filled with Hotchkiss guns

Her last cruise under her own power to Lorient in October 1914 saw Dévastation largely disarmed and transformed into a floating brig for incorrigible German prisoners of war, housing up to 500 troublemakers at a time under high security on the mole.

By 1919, with the Boche repatriated and little use for a 1870s ironclad, the French hulked Dévastation and in March 1922 sold her to one MM. Jacquard for her value in scrap iron– 180,000 francs.

Jacquard resold the rusty heap to a German breaker and two tugs, Achilles and Larissa, arrived from Hamburg on 7 May to pull the ironclad away but instead wound up running her aground on the sandy bottom of the Ecrevisse bench some 220 yards off the mouth of the channel marker.

Stuck embarrassingly all summer, the Germans sent the large tug Hercules to help the two smaller ones pull her off– unsuccessfully.

This wound up in a third sale to Albaret and Kerloc of Brest who attempted to break Dévastation in place in an operation run by former Tsarist Navy engineers in exile, removing hundreds of tons of topside armor plate in a risky effort to get her light enough to refloat that ended in the death of at least two workers though did get her to more pedestrian Larmor-Plage.

This operation continued for decades with ownership of the grounded scrap switching hands several more times until, by 1954, salvage operations halted.

While the ship is gone above water at high tide, her bones are still visible off Toulhars beach (47°42’417 – 003°22’643) at low tide and divers still poke around her submerged hull for souvenirs.

Her name has not been reused.

As for her sistership, Courbet was struck 5 February 1909 and sold for scrap the following year, in a more successful recycling effort than Dévastation.

Specs:

Displacement:
9,659 tonnes standard
10,090 tonnes full load
Length:
100.25 m (328 ft. 11 in) o/a
95 m (311 ft. 8 in) p/p
98.70 m (323 ft. 10 in) w/l
Beam: 21.25 m (69 ft. 9 in)
Draught:
7.51 m (24 ft. 8 in) loaded draught forward
7.80 m (25 ft. 7 in) 7.80 m loaded draught amidships
8.10 m (26 ft. 7 in) 8.10 m loaded draught aft
Depth of hold: 7.34 m (24 ft. 1 in)
Installed power: 12 boilers, 2 Woolf triple expansion engines totaling 6,000 ihp (6,000 kW), 900 tons of coal as built, 10 knots.
Re-engined 1899-1901 with two 3-cyl. compound engines and Belleville boilers, capable of 8,100 hp, and said to be good for 15 kts afterwards.
Propulsion: Twin screws (5.24 m diameter) + sail
Sail plan:
Ship rig
Sail area 1,833 m2 (19,730 sq ft.)
Speed: 10 knots as built, 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) at full load (steam) after 1901
Range: 3,100 nmi (5,700 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) (steam)
Complement: 689 as completed varied until 1901 when dropped to ~200 plus 300 trainees.
Armament:
As built:
4 × 34cm/18 model 1875
4 × 27cm/18 model 1870M
6 × 14cm model 1870M
18 × 37mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon
4 × 14in torpedo tubes
May 1896:
4 × 320mm/25 model 1870-81
4 × 274.4mm model 1875
6 × 138.6mm
2 × 65mm
6 × 47mm QF
20 × 37mm QF
2 × 14in torpedo tubes
After March 1902 refit:
4 × 274.4mm model 1893
2 × 240mm/40 model 1893/96
10 × 100mm model 1891 and 1892
14 × 47mm QF
2 × 37mm QF
Largely disarmed after 1914

Armor:
Wrought iron
38 cm (15 in) belt amidships
24 cm (9.4 in) redoubt
6 cm (2.4 in) main deck [1]

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.

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 October 12, 2016: The sometimes frosty but always dedicated Forster

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 55886

Here we see the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Forster (DE/DER-334/WDE-434) underway at the narrows in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with her crew at quarters, circa 1958-1962. She would be one of the longest serving destroyer escorts of her time, and filled a myriad of roles over her span under several flags.

A total of 85 Edsall-class destroyer escorts were cranked out in four different yards in the heyday of World War II rapid production with class leader USS Edsall (DE-129) laid down 2 July 1942 and last of class USS Holder (DE-401) commissioned 18 January 1944– in all some four score ships built in 19 months. The Arsenal of Democracy at work–building tin cans faster than the U-boats and Kamikazes could send them to Davy Jones.

These 1,590-ton expendable escorts were based on their predecessors, the very successful Cannon-class boats but used an FMR type (Fairbanks-Morse reduction-geared diesel drive) propulsion suite whereas the only slightly less prolific Cannons used a DET (Diesel Electric Tandem) drive. Apples to oranges.

Armed with enough popguns (3×3″/50s, 2x40mm, 8x20mm) to keep aircraft and small craft at bay, they could plug a torpedo into a passing enemy cruiser from one of their trio of above-deck 21-inch tubes, or maul a submarine with any number of ASW weapons including depth charges and Hedgehogs. Too slow for active fleet operations (21-knots) they were designed for coastal patrol (could float in just 125-inches of seawater), sub chasing and convoy escorts.

The hero of our story, USS Forster, is the only ship named for Machinist Edward W. Forster, a resident of the District of Columbia who was a posthumous recipient of the Purple Heart for his actions on the doomed heavy cruiser USS Vincennes (CA-44) lost at the Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942.

The ship was laid down at Consolidated Steel Corporation, Orange, Texas 31 August 1943 and, a scant 73-days later, the war baby was born and commissioned into the fleet, LCDR I. E. Davis, USNR, in command.

According to DANFS, she went immediately into her designed field of study and proved adept at it:

Beginning her convoy escort duty in the Atlantic Forster sailed from Norfolk 23 March 1944 in a convoy bound for Bizerte. Off the North African coast 11 April, her group came under heavy attack from German bombers, several of which Forster splashed. When a submarine torpedoed sistership USS Holder (DE-401) during the air attack, Forster stood by the stricken ship, firing a protective antiaircraft cover and taking off her wounded.

Coming to the Battle of the Atlantic late in the game, Forster made six more voyages across the Atlantic to escort convoys to Bizerte, England, and France. Between these missions, she served as school ship for pre-commissioning crews and gave escort services along the east coast and to Bermuda.

With the war in Europe over, she sailed for the Pacific in July 1945, arriving just in time for occupation duty in the Western Pacific, primarily escort assignments between the Marianas and Japan in the last part of the year. Leaving for Philadelphia just after Christmas, she was, like most DEs, of little use to the post-war Navy.

Forster, winner of one battlestar, was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Green Cove Springs, 15 June 1946.

The Korean War brought a need for some more hulls and, in an oddball move, 12 Edsall-class destroyer escorts were taken from red lead row and dubbed “WDEs” by the Coast Guard starting in 1950. These boats were not needed for convoy or ASW use but rather as floating weather stations with an embarked 5-man met team armed with weather balloons.

During the Korean War, four new weather stations were set up in the Pacific from 1950-54 to support the high volume of trans-Pacific military traffic during that period.  Two were northeast of Hawaii and two were in the Western Pacific.

Forster’s sister, the Edsall-class USS Durant (DE-389/WDE-489/DER-389) in her Coast Guard livery. Note the WWII AAA suite is still intact. Forster carried the same white and buff scheme

According to the Coast Guard Historians Office, our subject became USCGC Forster (WDE-434) when she was turned over to the service on 20 June 1951. Converted with a balloon inflation shelter and weather office, she served on ocean station duty out of Honolulu and proved a literal lifesaver.

This included duty on stations VICTOR, QUEEN, and SUGAR and voyages to Japan. She also conducted SAR duties, including finding and assisting the following vessels in distress: the M/V Katori Maru on 17 August 1952, assisting the M/V Chuk Maru on 29 August 1953, the M/V Tongshui on 1-3 October 1953, and the M/V Steel Fabricator on 26 October 1953.

Although excellent wartime escorts, the DEs were rough riding and not generally favored as ocean station vessels. All were returned to the Navy in 1954.

Forster was picked to become a radar picket ship, and given a new lease on life, recommissioned into the Navy at Long Beach, Calif., 23 October 1956 as DER-331.

The DER program filled an early gap in the continental air defense system by placing a string of ships as sea-based radar platforms to provide a distant early warning line to possible attack from the Soviets. The Pacific had up to 11 picket stations while the Atlantic as many as nine. A dozen DEs became DERs (including Forster) through the addition of SPS-6 and SPS-8 air search radars to help man these DEW lines as the Atlantic Barrier became operational in 1956 and the Pacific Barrier (which Forster took part of) in 1958.

To make room for the extra topside weight of the big radars, they gave up most of their WWII armament, keeping only their Hedgehog ASW device and two Mark 34 3″ guns with aluminum and fiberglass weather shields.

Gone were the 3″50 cal Mark 22s…(Photo via Forster Veteran’s Group)

Detail of masts. Note the WWII AAA suite, one of the 3″ guns, and centerline 21-inch tubes have been landed

DER conversion of Edsall (FMR) class ships reproduced from Peter Elliot’s American Destroyer Escorts of WWII

However, much like their experience as Korean War weather stations, the DEW service proved rough for these little boats and they were replaced in 1960 by a converted fleet of Liberty ships. While Atlantic Fleet DERs were re-purposed to establish radar picket station to monitor the airspace between Cuba and Southern Florida for sneaky Soviets post-Castro, those in the Pacific went penguin.

As noted by Aspen-Ridge.net, a number of Pacific DERs performed work as “60° South” pickets during the annual Deep Freeze Operations in Antarctica through 1968.

The DE(R)’s mission was multifaceted; including measuring upper atmosphere weather conditions for the planes flying between McMurdo Station and Christchurch, New Zealand, establishing a Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) presence for navigational purposes, and in an emergency to act as a Search and Rescue platform in the event a plane ever had to ditch in the ocean. The chances of survival in the cold Antarctic waters made even the thought of an ocean ditching an absolute last resort. Fortunately, I don’t recall any Deep Freeze aircraft ever having to ditch.

USS Forster DER -334, as photographed from USS Wilhoite on Deep Freeze duty

More pics of Forster bouncing around in the Antarctic here

She was a tip-top ship, and won the Arleigh Burke Fleet Trophy plaque in 1962.

Then, further use was found for her in the brown waters of the Gulf of Tonkin in February 1966, after she escorted the nine Point-class cutters comprising Division 13 of Coast Guard Squadron One from Naval Base Subic Bay to Vung Tau in South Vietnam.

USS Forster at South Elizabeth Street Pier. Maritime Museum of Tasmania P_CR_56557 . Note her large radar array

Forster would linger on in those waters, participating in Operation Market Time, patrolling the Vietnam coast for contraband shipping and providing sea to shore fire when called upon. It was a nifty trick being able to operate in 10 feet of water sometimes. These radar pickets were used extensively to track the North Vietnamese arms-smuggling trawlers.

Men from USS Forster check a sampan for contraband cargo. The chain is to be passed under the sampan’s hull to detect cargo that might be hidden below the waterline. South China Sea, March 1966. Catalog #: USN 1142219

USS FORSTER (DER-334) Lays among Vietnamese trawlers as the destroyer escort conducts visit-and-search operations off Vietnam, 15 April 1966. Catalog #: K-31525 National Archives. Original Creator: Photographer, Chief Journalist Robert D. Moeser

Tommy guns, aviators and khakis! Ensign Caldwell of Houlton, Maine, stands guard in a motor whaleboat with a .45 caliber submachine gun M1928AL (it is actually an M1A1) off the coast of South Vietnam. The Vietnamese men wait as their junk is searched by USS FORSTER (DER-334) crewmembers, 15 April 1966. Catalog #: K-31208. Copyright Owner: National Archives Original Creator: Photographer, Chief Journalist Robert D. Moeser

U.S. Navy Signalman McCachren of Johnstown, Pennsylvania (note the tattoos and Korean war-era flak jacket with no shirt), is attached to USS FORSTER (DER-334) and rides a motor whaleboat toward a Vietnamese junk off the coast of South Vietnam, 15 April 1966. Catalog #: K-31205 Copyright Owner: National Archives. Original Creator: Photographer, Chief Journalist Robert D. Moeser

By the 1970s, the Navy’s use of DERs was ending. With that, and the new Knox-class DEs (later reclassified as FFs) coming online with the capability to operate helicopters and fire ASROC ordnance, the writing was on the wall for the last of these WWII tin cans.

1968 location unknown – The escort ship USS Forster (DE 334) underway. (U.S. Navy photo by PHCM L. P. Bodine)

Forster was decommissioned and stricken from the NVR 25 September 1971, loaned the same day to the Republic of Vietnam who placed her in service as RVNS Tran Khanh Du (HQ-04). This new service included fighting in one of the few naval clashes of the Southeast Asian conflicts, the Battle of the Paracel Islands, on 19 January 1974 between four South Vietnam Navy ships and six of the PLAN. She reportedly sank the Chinese Hainan-class submarine chaser #271 and escorted the heavily damaged frigate RVNS Ly Thuong Kiet HQ16 (ex-USS/USCGC Chincoteague AVP-24/WHEC-375) under fire to Da Nang Naval Base for emergency repairs.

Forster/Tran Khanh Du would serve the South Vietnamese Navy for just under four years until that regime fell to the North.

Written off by the U.S. Navy as “transferred to Vietnam” on 30 April 1975, the day after Saigon fell; the new government liked the old Forster and renamed her VPNS Dai Ky (HQ-03). They kept her around for another two decades equipped with 2 quad SA-N-5 Grail launchers for AAA use, and she reportedly saw some contact during the “War of the Dragons” — the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.

She was taken off the patrol line as a training ship in 1993, was still reportedly seaworthy in 1997, and in 1999 was reduced to a pierside training hulk.  She is still carried by some Western analysts on the rolls of the Vietnamese Peoples’ Navy.

Forster/Dai Ky, if still being used, is the almost the last of her class still clocking in. Her only competition for the title or the hardest working Edsall is ex-USS Hurst (DE-250) which has been in the Mexican Navy since 1973 and is currently the training ship ARM Commodore Manuel Azueta (D111).

As for their 83 sisters, the Navy rapidly disposed of them and only one, USS Stewart (DE-238), is still in U.S. waters. Stricken in 1972, she was donated as a museum ship to Galveston, Texas on 25 June 1974 and has been there ever since, though she was badly beaten by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and is reportedly in extremely poor material condition.

Forster is remembered by a vibrant veterans organization and her plans are in the National Archives.

Specs:

Displacement: 1200 tons (light), 1590 tons (full)
Length: 300′ (wl), 306′ (oa)
Beam: 36′ 10″ (extreme)
Draft: typical 10′ 5″
Propulsion: 4 Fairbanks-Morse Mod. 38d81/8 geared diesel engines, 4 diesel-generators, 6000 shp, 2 screws
Speed: 21 kts
Range: 9,100 nm @ 12 knots
Complement: 8 / 201
Armament:
(As built)
3 x 3″/50 Mk22 (1×3),
1 twin 40mm Mk1 AA,
8 x 20mm Mk 4 AA,
3 x 21″ Mk15 TT (3×1),
1 Hedgehog Projector Mk10 (144 rounds),
8 Mk6 depth charge projectors,
2 Mk9 depth charge tracks
(1956)
Two Mark 34 3″ guns, Hedgehog

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.

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 October 19, 2016: Der Zerstörer von Uncle Sam’s

Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall Catalog #: NH 75375

Here we see the Type1936A (Mod)-class destroyer USS Z-39 (DD-939), formerly KMS Z-39 of the German Kriegsmarine, underway off Boston, Massachusetts, 22 August 1945, just 106 days after the end of the war in Europe.

As part of the general naval buildup of the Third Reich, the Germans needed destroyers (Zerstörers) and needed them bad since the Allies left them with zero (0) after 1919. This led to a rush build of some 22 ships of the Type 1934/1934A and 1936 classes commissioned by 24 September 1939.

The thing is, almost all of these were destroyed in the first few months of the war, with 10 of these new ships slaughtered by the British at Narvik alone.

German Type 1934A-class Zerstörer Bernd von Arnim (Z11) after Narvik. The German tin cans had a very bad day.

Never fear though, as the Germans already had a new and improved 15-ship class of vessels, the Type 1936As, on the drawing board, which would be almost 1,000-tons heavier than the Type 1934s (3,700-tons vs. 2,800-tons) and carry larger 150 mm (5.9 inch) guns rather than the legacy 127mm mounts of the preceding design.

With the earlier destroyers carrying names, the Kriegsmarine reverted to the traditional Teutonic practice of giving them numbers only and class leader Z23 was laid down at DeSchiMAG Bremen, 15 November 1938. Eight were laid down pre-Narvik and then after the battle improvements to the design were worked into new construction with Z31 onward being referred to as the 1936A (Mob) variant.

The hero of our story, the plucky Z39, was just such a 1936A (Mob) ship. Capable of a blistering 37.5-knots on her geared turbines, she could float in 15 feet of water. With lessons learned in Norway, they were the most heavily armed German-built destroyers of the war that made it to fleet service, carrying five rapid-fire 5.9-inch guns and 32 20mm/37mm AAA barrels– all with a very high elevation. For close in work, they had eight torpedo tubes and could leave behind 60 mines or a brace of depth charges in their wake.

Z39 was laid down by Germaniawerft Kiel, 1940 and commissioned 21 August 1943, as Germany was quickly losing the war after Stalingrad, El-Alamein, Kursk and Sicily. And to further complicate things, all of the destroyers of her class had turbines that were cranky and their large guns often too wet to be of use. But hey….

KMS Z 39 (later USS DD-939) fitting out at GermaniaWerft, Kiel in August 1943. Note the bomb damage inflicted to the covered ways in the background. Photo Archiv Groner. Photo from “Destroyers! German Destroyers in World War II”, by M.J. Whitley. via Navsource.

KMS Z-39 as seen from another German destroyer underway probably in the eastern Baltic Sea area circa 1944-45. Photo courtesy David Walker via Robert Hurst via Navsource.

Her skipper, KK Loerke, was the only German one she would know and she spent her war in the Baltic.

As noted by German-Navy.de:

Z39 operated at Jutland for a short time until it was send to the Baltic Sea at the beginning of 1944. On 23.06.1944 it was damaged by Soviet bombers and send to Kiel for repairs where it got another bomb hit. It took until 16.02.1945 until the ship went operational again and it was not used very much after that anymore. Decommissioned on 10.05.1945.

Meh, unexciting.

After the war, she was captured by the British, who made it to Kiel first, with a LtCdr Forsberg (RN) placed in command of her on 6 July 1945.

Just 11 days later, the Brits handed Z39 over to the Americans along with her sisters Z34, and Z29. After evaluating the trio, the USN found Z39 to be the best of the lot and, selecting a few souvenirs from Z34 and Z29, sank them off the Jutland coast.

As for Z39, she sailed for the Boston Navy Yard, arriving there in August under the helm of CDR. R. A. Dawes, Jr. USN. There, she proved a splash just over two months after VE Day and with VJ Day right around the corner.

She was extensively documented, after all, it was the first chance to get that close to a functional German destroyer stateside since 1941 without taking cover.

(Ex-German Z-39) View of the after 150mm guns, one of which is broken. Note these mountings are low-angle only. Taken at Boston Navy Yard, August 11, 1945. Courtesy of Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75408

(Ex-German Z-39) View of after 37mm Bofors-type A.A. gun platform, near the afterstack. Note these 37mm guns are of two different types. Also note torpedo tubes to the left and shirtless bluejackets, it is late summer afterall. Taken at Boston Navy Yard, August 11, 1945. Courtesy of Robert F. Sumrall Catalog #: NH 75405

Ex-German Z-39, close up view of the forward twin 150 mm gun mounting, the other three 150mm mounts on her were singles. Taken at Boston Navy Yard, 11 August 1945. Note life rafts. Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75383

Ex-German Z-39 in dry-dock at Boston Navy Yard on 11 August 1945. Note 150 mm twin gun mounting. Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75382

Ex-German Z-39 at Boston Navy Yard, 20 August 1945. Note high elevation of 150 mm twin guns. Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75376

She got underway several times in the next few weeks for performance inspection trials.

Formerly German destroyer Z-39, underway off Boston, Massachusetts, on 22 August 1945. Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall.Catalog #: NH 75373

With a bone in her mouth! USS Z-39 (DD-939) underway off Boston, Massachusetts, on 22 August 1945. Courtesy of Mr. Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75374

USS Z-39 (DD-939) Off Boston, Massachusetts, 7 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90377

Stern shot, USS Z-39 (DD-939) Off Boston, Massachusetts, 7 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90379

Aerial, aft of USS Z-39 (DD-939), note the mine rails over her stern and the very distinctive bluejackets in dungs and Dixie caps. Off Boston, Massachusetts, 12 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90598

USS Z-39 (DD-939) “North Channel, Mass.” 12 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90594

The thin-waisted USS Z-39 (DD-939) “North Channel, Mass.” 12 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90599

Head on bow. USS Z-39 (DD-939) “North Channel, Mass.” 12 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90597

Good overhead shot, note the patchy paint work (bomb damage repair?) “North Channel, Mass.” 12 September 1945. Catalog #: 19-N-90595

Off Boston, Massachusetts, 12 September 1945. Note: German radars, 20mm quad A.A. gun, 37mm twin anti-aircraft gun, and mine tracks. Catalog #: 19-N-90596

At peace! At Annapolis, Maryland, October 1945, with an unidentified U.S. Navy Destroyer alongside and USS YP-244 in the foreground. Note the casual sailing craft in the distance. Courtesy of The Mariners Museum, Newport News, Va. Ted Stone collection. Catalog #: NH 66352

With the U.S. Navy done with their German tin can (and hundreds of their own domestic models already in mothballs) Washington decided to give Z29 away as continued military support to ally France– who had several of her sisterships and could use the destroyer for spare parts if nothing else.

As such, she was stricken from the Naval List 10 November 1947 after slightly over two years of service and transferred to France as FNS Leopard (Q-128) in 1948. She did not see much time at sea and eventually was utilized as a tender and floating pier. She was ultimately scrapped in L’Orient, February 1964, the last of her class afloat.

The Navy, however, did not forget Z39 (DD-939) when it came to issuing hull numbers in the 1950s. They made sure to skip her between USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938) and USS Manley (DD-940) when they christened the Forrest Sherman-class destroyers after Korea.

What became of the rest of her sisters? As we already mentioned two other war survivors that were given to Uncle Sam were quickly deep sixed. Five others were war losses. Those that were left were split between France, Norway, the Soviet Union, and the Brits and had largely disappeared before 1960.

Among the longest living was ex-Z38, which became HMS Nonsuch (R40) in typically dry British humor. She was scrapped after she broke apart in testing. Did we mention these craft were in poor condition?

1949, British Destroyer HMS Nonsuch, EX German Z 38

Anyway, there is always the extensive collection of images in the U.S. Navy archives to remember Z39– which has helped scale model designers over the years keep the design in steady production (and provided a income for maritime artists for box cover images):

This is from a Revel/Matchbox cover

Specs:

Displacement:
2,600 tonnes (standard)
3,605 (max)
Length: 127 m (416 ft. 8 in)
Beam: 12 m (39 ft. 4 in)
Draught: 4.65 m (15 ft. 3 in)
Propulsion: 2 × Wagner geared turbines, 70,000 shp, 2 shafts, 6 boilers
Speed: 37.5 knots (69 km/h)
Range: 3650 nmi at 18 knots
Endurance:
2,240 nautical miles (4,150 kilometers) at 19 knots (35 km/h)
Complement: 330 officers and men
Armament: (Final)
5 15 cm guns (1×2 & 3×1)
14 37 mm guns
18 20 mm guns
8 533 mm torpedo tubes
60 mines
4 depth charge launchers

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!

Via Battleship Missouri Memorial

The four fire rooms aboard the Iowa-class fast battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) contain eight Babcock & Wilcox M-Type water tube boilers that operated at 600 pounds per square inch with a maximum super-heater outlet temperature of 875 °F. Steam was normally transmitted to four engine rooms numbered 1 to 4.

Each engine room was aft of its associated fire room. At normal cruising speed, steam was transmitted to the four engine rooms using four boilers–sufficient to power the ships at speeds up to 27 knots. For higher speeds, extra snipes poured in and all eight boilers were lit– allowing her to touch 32 knots at full load and broach 35.2 on a light one. Not bad for a ship with a standard displacement of 45,000-tons.

The propulsion plant on Iowa and Missouri consisted of four General Electric cross-compound steam turbine engines, each driving a single shaft and generating a total of 212,000 shp. (Turbines for New Jersey and Wisconsin was provided by Westinghouse).

Although on the Navy List from 29 January 1944 to 12 January 1995, she was in commission for only 16 years– high mileage for her class– though she did earn 16 battle/service stars, dropped steel rain on the heads of Japanese, North Koreans and Iraqis alike, and hosted the surrender ceremony that ended WWII.

Since 1998, she has been moored overlooking USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, the Omega to her Alpha.  On eternal watch over Battleship Row.

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 October 26, 2016: The mighty midget with the most miles on her

Photo by Russel Javier, USS LCS-102 page

Here we see LCS(L)(3)-1-class Landing Craft Support (Large)(Mark3)#102 as she appears today at Mare Island.

Talk about a mouthful.

With the urgent need for shallow draft craft for amphibious operations on the beaches of North Africa, Italy, France, and of course the Pacific in World War II, the U.S. Navy urgently ordered a myriad of Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) vessels to discharge troops and gear right on the surfline.

Over 900 of these hardy little 158-foot boats were built, each capable of plugging away on their Detroit diesels at 16 knots while carrying a full company of infantry.

To give these LCIs some close in support, the unimaginatively named Landing Craft, Support (Large) was designed.

Using the same hull as the LCIs, these craft were loaded with a single 3″/50 dual purpose gun mount on the bow,  two twin 40mm Bofors fore and aft, four single 20mm AA gun mounts, four .50 cals and– most importantly–10 MK7 rocket launchers.

Each launcher contained a dozen or more 30-pound 4.5-inch Beach Barrage Rockets (BBR) which had an 1,100-yard range, meaning the 158-foot flat bottom boat could smother an enemy-held coast with 120+ rockets faster than you can say “sauerkraut sammich.”

Beach Barrage Rockets being loaded USS LCI(G)-456 during the invasion of Peleliu, September 1944. US National Archives photo #’s 257558

This punch in a small package gave them the moniker “mighty midgets.”

They certainly were distinctive, as noted by these detailed shots of class member USS LCS-50

USS LCS(L)(3) 50. Description: Courtesy of James C. Fahey collection, U.S. Naval Institute Catalog #: NH 81533

USS LCS(L)(3) 50 Caption: At Albina Engine and Machine Works Portland, Oregon, September 1944. Courtesy of James C. Fahey collection, U.S. Naval Institute Catalog #: NH 81532

USS LCS(L)(3) 50 Caption: At Albina Engine and Machine Works Portland, Oregon, 19 September 1944. Courtesy of James C. Fahey collection, U.S. Naval Institute Catalog #: NH 81530

USS LCS(L)(3) 50 At Albina Engine and Machine Works Portland, Oregon, 19 September 1944. Courtesy of James C. Fahey collection, U.S. Naval Institute. Catalog #: NH 81527

Most were given a very effective Camouflage Measure 33 scheme in the Pacific

A total of 130 LCS’s were built late in the war–in a period as short as 10 days per hull in some cases– by three yards: George Lawley & Son, Commercial Iron Works and Albina Engine Works, with the former in Massachusetts and the latter two in Oregon.

The subject of our tale, USS LCS(L)(3)-102, was a CIW-built model that was laid down 13 Jan 1945, commissioned a scant month later on 17 February, and by July was supporting landings off Okinawa.

LCS(L)(3)-102 underway off the Island of Kyushu, Japan, September 1945. National Association of USS LCS(L) 1-130

Her war ended just a few weeks later but she did have a chance to earn one battlestar for her WWII service before transitioning to help serve in the occupation forces in Japan along with service off China through 8 April 1946. Not all were as lucky– six LCS(L)(3)s were sunk and 21 were damaged during WWII.

Decommissioned 30 April, LCS-102 was laid up in the Pacific Reserve Fleet, Columbia River Group, Astoria, Oregon where she was reclassified while on red lead row as USS LSSL-102, 28 February 1949.

Most of the LCS’s had been rode hard and put up wet, as evidenced by this little ship:

USS LCS(L)(3)-13 In San Francisco Bay, California, soon after the end of World War II. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the left background. Courtesy of William H. Davis, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85170

Surplus to the Navy’s needs, LCS-102/LSSL-102 was transferred to the burgeoning Japanese Self Defense Forces 30 April 1953 who renamed her JDS Himawari. This was not uncommon as most LCS remaining in U.S. service were given away to overseas allies– some even going right back into combat for instance with the French in Indochina.

As for LCS-102, she served Japan quietly as a coastal patrol vessel, with the JSDF retiring her in 1966.

With the little 158-footer back in their possession and even less need for her than in 1953, the U.S. Navy re-gifted the vessel to the Royal Thai Navy who commissioned her as HTMS Nakha (LSSL-751).

Still largely unmodified from her WWII appearance with the exception of her Mk7s being removed, the ship continued in Thai service for another four decades– though with a new engineering suite.

Photo courtesy The Mighty Midgets website.

Retired sometime around 2007, a veterans group of former LCS sailors found out about her and, being the last of her class anywhere, sought out to bring her home.

HTMS Nakha (LSSL-751). The last of the World War II LCSs is docked at Laem Tien Pier at Sattahip Naval Base ahead of her transfer ceremonies prior to setting off on her final voyage back home to the United States. Pattaya, Thailand, Friday June 1 2007. Via Navsource.

From an SF Gate article at the time:

The vets, who had formed a nonprofit organization called the National Association of USS LCS(L) 1-130, talked the U.S. State Department and the Thais into giving the ship to them.

“I talked to the Thai navy officer who was the first captain of this ship in the Thai navy,” said Bill Mason, 82, “He’s retired himself now but he thought the same way about this ship that we do. They were sorry to see it go.”

Loaded as deck cargo on the freighter Da Fu, she was shipped 7,900 miles to San Francisco Bay where she was installed at the Mare Island National Historic Park in November 2007 and has been since restored and put on display as a museum ship.

From the USS LCS-2 social media page:

Below is a good tour of the ship if you cannot make it (the music ends and the actual tour begins at about the 1:40 mark).

Please check out the official website of the National Association of USS LCS(L) 1-130 “The Mighty Midgets” for more information on these amphibious gunboats of World War II.

Specs:

Camouflage Measure 33, Design 14L. Drawing prepared by the Bureau of Ships for a camouflage scheme intended for landing craft, support (large) of the LCS(L)-3 class. This plan, approved by Captain Torvald A. Solberg, USN, is dated 26 July 1944. It shows the ship’s starboard side, horizontal surfaces, stern and superstructure ends. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
Catalog #: 19-N-73633

Displacement 250 t (lt), 387 t (fl)
Length 158′ o.a.
Beam 23′ 8″
Draft:
5′ 8″ limiting and max draft
loaded, 4′ 9″ fwd, 6′ 6″ aft
Speed:
14.4 trial
16.5k max at 650 shaft rpm
14.5kts at 585 shaft rpm
Armor 10-lb STS splinter shield to gun mounts, pilot house and conning tower
Complement:
8 Officers
70 Enlisted
Endurance 5,500 miles at 12kts at 45″ pitch (350 tons dspl.)
Fuel/Stores
635 Bbls Diesel (76 tons)
10 tons fresh water
6 tons lubrication oil
8 tons provisions and stores at full load
Fresh Water Capacity distill up to 1,000 gals. per day
Propulsion:
As built:
2 quad packs of 4 General Motors 6051 series 71 Diesel engines per shaft, BHP 1,600
single General Motors Main Reduction Gears
2 Diesel-drive 60Kw 450V. A. C. Ships Service Generators
twin variable pitch propellers
*Thai service saw the GMs swapped out for Maybach Mercedes MTU V8s
Armament (as built)
bow gun, one single 3″/50 dual purpose gun mount
two twin 40mm AA gun mounts
four single 20mm AA gun mounts
four .50 cal machine guns
ten MK7 rocket launchers (retired 1953)

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.

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 Nov. 2: From Jutland to Boston and everywhere in between

Click to big up

Here we see the Calliope or Cambrian-class light cruiser HMS Constance (76) as she appeared in August 1920 sailing into Boston harbor as captured by the legendary Boston Herald photographer Leslie Jones. Note her then-distinctive tripod mast and clock.

Ordered under the 1913 Naval Programme, the 28 ships of the C-class of light cruisers were to be the backbone scouting ship of the Royal Navy. The first of HMs cruisers to be fitted with geared turbines, underwater torpedo tubes to reduce topside weight and a mixed armament of 6- and 4-inch guns, they could make 28.5-knots and cross the Atlantic or sail to the Suez on one bunker of coal while giving a good account of themselves against anything smaller than their own 4,950-ton weight.

Class leader Caroline was laid down on 28 January 1914 at Cammell Laird and Company, Birkenhead and quickly followed by her sisters.

The hero of our tale, HMS Constance, was the sixth such vessel in the RN to carry that name, going back to a 22-gun ship of the line captured from Napoleon in 1797 off Egypt and most recently carried by the Comus-class third-rate cruiser of the 1880s which was the first of Her Majesty’s ships to carry torpedo carriages that used compressed air to launch the torpedoes.

The legacy HMS Constance, a copper-sheathed steel-hulled corvette of the Comus-class seen here in Esquimalt Harbor, B.C. (Canada)

The new cruiser HMS Constance, the most powerful ship to carry that name, was laid down five months into the Great War on 25 January 1915 at Cammell Laird. Rushed to completion, she was commissioned just a year later, Capt. Cyril Samuel Townsend in command.

HMS Constance in Scapa Flow. IWM Q 74169. Note her pole mast.

Just barely off her shakedown cruise, she joined three of her sisters in the Grand Fleet just in time for the big one.

Two heavy cruiser squadrons led the battle fleet during the great naval clash at Jutland: Rear-Admiral Arbuthnot’s 1st Cruiser Squadron (HMS Defense, Warrior, Duke of Edinburgh and Black Prince) and Rear-Admiral Heath’s 2nd Cruiser Squadron (HMS Minotaur, Cochrane, Shannon and Hampshire). And leading these squadrons was Cdre Charles Edward Le Mesurier’s 4th Light Cruiser Squadron (HMS Calliope, Constance, Comus, Royalist and Caroline).

During the battle, the 4th LCS screened HMS King George V, observed Queen Mary and Invincible blow up back to back, engaged the German battle cruiser and destroyer divisions, and fought into the night. For her actions, Constance was mentioned in dispatches and given the battle honor JUTLAND.

Photograph (Q 23290) British Cambrian C-class light cruiser HMS CONSTANCE, pre May 1918. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205263753

Constance finished the war in relative inaction, the Germans rarely taking to sea again, though she did witness the surrender of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. In May 1918, she was fitted with a new enclosed fire control director that required her pole mast to be replaced with a tripod mast for greater rigidity– a modification that for a time set her apart from the rest of her class.

In March 1919, she was assigned to the 8th Light Cruiser Squadron and dispatched to the North America and West Indies Station, arriving at Bermuda 22 March, carrying the flag of Vice Admiral Morgan Swinger.

HMS CONSTANCE leaving Devonport for the East Indies, March 1919. IWM SP 579

She soon was needed in British Honduras to help put down a riot of Belizean ex-servicemen, formerly of the British West Indies Regiment, upset about conditions back home upon their discharge from hard service in Palestine and Europe. There, her sailors went ashore, Enfield-clad, and met the rioters.

Other than the occasional saber rattling, over the next seven years she led a quiet life, cruising around the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, U.S. East Coast, hailing in Canadian ports, and popping in on occasion along the South American coastline.

On 19 November 1919, she sailed into New York harbor accompanied by the old protected cruiser USS Columbia (C-12), destroyer Robinson (DD-88) and battleship USS Delaware, to meet the battlecruiser HMS Renown with Edward, the Prince of Wales on board. For the next two weeks Constance escorted Renown and her dignitaries, sailing with them as far as Halifax, then resumed her more pedestrian beat.

In late August 1920, Constance arrived at Boston where she moored at No2 Wharf, Navy P Yard Charlestown, along the battleships USS Florida and Delaware. There, the intrepid Leslie Jones called upon her and caught a series of great images, which are now in the collection of the Boston Public Library.

Note the lattice masts of either USS Delaware or Florida to her port

Men on deck in Boston, note harbor tug and skyline.

A really great pier-side view, note the four-piper USN destroyers to her starboard side.

HMS Constance off Pensacola 1922

Sailing home in 1926, Constance underwent a 16-month refit at the Chatham Dockyard after which she was the flagship of the Portsmouth Reserve. Her last overseas deployment came in 1928 when she chopped to the 5th LCS for service on China Station until November 1930.

Constance returned home, age 15, only to be placed in ordinary until 28 July 1934 when her crew was landed. She was stricken the next year and sold on 8 June 1936.

At the time of her sale, about half of her class had already been scrapped with some 14 ships retained for further use in training roles. One, Cassandra, had struck a mine during the Great War and was lost.

Of her remaining sisters, some were pressed into service in WWII and six were lost: Cairo was sunk in 1942 by the Italian submarine Axum during Operation Pedestal; Calcutta was attacked and sunk by German aircraft during the evacuation of Crete; Calypso was sunk by the Italian submarine Bagnolini in 1940; Coventry was badly damaged by German aircraft while covering a raid on Tobruk in 1942 and subsequently scuttled by HMS Zulu to scuttle her; Curacoa was sunk after colliding with the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in 1942; and Curlew was sunk by German aircraft off Narvik during the Norwegian campaign in 1940.

Just one C-class cruiser, HMS Caroline, the only ship left from Jutland, with whom Constance sailed close by during that fierce battle in 1916, remains as a museum ship. 

As for Constance‘s memory, the old cruiser’s badge and bell are in the collection of the Imperial War Museum. Since 1936 only one other Constance has appeared on the RN’s list, HMS Constance (R71), a C-class destroyer who fought in WWII and Korea and was scrapped in 1956.

Specs:

Photograph (Q 23323) British light cruiser HMS CONSTANCE. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205263786

Draft: 3,750 tons, 4950-full load
Length:     446 ft. (136 m)
Beam:     41.5 ft. (12.6 m)
Draught:     15 ft. (4.6 m)
Propulsion:
Two Parsons turbines
Eight Yarrow boilers
Four propellers
40,000 shp
Speed: 28.5 knots (53 km/h)
Range: carried 420 tons (841 tons maximum) of fuel oil, 4000 nmi at 18 knots.
Complement: 323
Armament:
4 × 6 inch guns
1 × 4 inch gun
2 × 3 inch guns
2 × 2 pounder guns
4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:
3 inch side (amidships)
2¼-1½ inch side (bows)
2½ – 2 inch side (stern)
1 inch upper decks (amidships)
1 inch deck over rudder

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.

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 Nov. 9: The hardworking white hull from Beantown

NH 69177

Here we see the Atlanta-class protected cruiser USS Boston during the early 1890s. She had a long running career that saw the end of the old Navy, the creation of the new one, and then lived long enough to see herself become the forgotten dowager of the fleet she once led.

The Squadron of Evolution, or White Squadron, consisting of the three new protected cruisers (Atlanta, Boston and Chicago), dispatch boat USS Dolphin and gunboats USS Yorktown, Bennington and Concord, were authorized by Congress for the “New Navy” starting in 1883. Breaking from the monitors and sailing ships of the Navy’s first 100 years, they were modern men-of-war of the sort that would prowl the seas moving forward. The squadron, once assembled, 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.

Two of the principal vessels, Atlanta and Boston, were sisters at 3,189-tons and 283-feet in length, roughly the size of a modern corvette or sloop today. Armed with a pair of 8″/30 guns and a half-dozen 6″/30s protected by a couple inches of armor plate, they could make 16.3-knots and sail over 3,300 nms before needing to find a refill of coal. The pair were among the Navy’s first four steel ships, with Atlanta completed at the New York Navy Yard and Boston built by John Roach & Sons, Chester, Pennsylvania.

Commissioning 2 May 1887, Boston was ready to fight.

View on the forecastle, looking aft, with crewmembers at their stations looking out for torpedo attack, 1888. Several weapons and related items are visible on the bridge wings, all of relevance for repelling a torpedo boat attack. They include (from left to right): a 1-pounder gun, a Gatling machine gun, a 37mm revolving cannon, and a searchlight. The ship’s very exposed forward 8/30 gun is in the right foreground, with its crew standing at their posts. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56537

View of the quarterdeck looking forward, circa 1887. Gun is an 8″/30cal of her main battery– again in a very exposed mount. Catalog #: NH 56523

Taken in 1888, the guns are 6″/30cals with the gun deck almost a throwback to the days of the USS Constitution. Catalog #: NH 56536

Enlisted port watch in 1888. Note the one pounder gun on the left and the Navy model Gatling machine gun on the top right. Catalog #: NH 56549

View of the mast and fighting top, circa 1888. Note 37 mm Hotchkiss gun in top. Catalog #: NH 56522

Her crew was also ready to go ashore and fight in a company-sized force with the traditional rifle, bayonet and cutlass, as well as modern automatic weapons by Mr. Gatling and Hotchkiss.

Now THIS is the Navy of Decatur! Caption: Sword practice on USS Boston, “Single stick exercise” in 1888. Description: Catalog #: NH 56552

Two prints showing the cruiser’s landing force drilling in riot tactics, in a square fighting formation, and in column of fours marching formation, 1888. Probably taken at the New York Navy Yard. Note these Sailors rifles, bayonets and military field gear. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56551

Crewmembers in landing force drill, New York Navy Yard, 1888. Guns are 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon, on field carriages. Note the BOSTON in the background of the lower photograph. Catalog #: NH 56529

Boston was a product of the 19th Century and she was finely equipped– as photos of her interior attest– with ornate wood paneling and joinerwork in wardrooms, leather appointments, brightwork and the like that would seem more at home in a 17th Century ship of the line than a steel warship with electric lighting and steam heating.

Wardroom, 1888. Now this is style. Catalog #: NH 56532

Two of the ship’s warrant officers in their stateroom, 1888. Note personal photographs and other decorations in the room, fancy wooden desk, and uniform collar insignia worn by these officers, also the sword. How much mustache pomade do you think these guys ran through per cruise? U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 52424

Junior officers reading by electric light, in the ship’s steerage quarters, 1888. Note objects on the table in the foreground, among them a T-Square and other drafting instruments, pipes and cigarettes, and dice. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 47025

Officer’s stateroom in 1888. Note the desk lamp. Catalog #: NH 56533

Captain’s cabin, 1888. Note the silver service. Catalog #: NH 56531

View in ship’s dispensary, 1888, showing bottles in sheet metal wall racks; instruments on tables and bulkheads; wooden joinerwork; electric light with hanging hook on top; and use of overhead pipes as a storage rack. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56543

View in the forward compartment of the berth deck, looking toward the bow, 1888. Note the storage lockers at right, tin cups hanging from the overhead, swinging mess table, cable reel, anchor chain and capstain mechanism, ladders and hatches. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56539

In drydock at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, 1888. Note fancy scrollwork on her bow bulwark, and reinforcing strip on the side of her ram bow. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56526

View in ship’s chart house, 1888, showing steering wheel, binnacle, engine order telegraph, steam radiators, and other features. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56540

In a throwback to the days of John Paul Jones, the ships of the White Squadron still commissioned with auxiliary sailing rigs.

The protected cruiser USS Boston at anchor with her dirty canvas out. Note ships’ boats alongside. Photo courtesy of Marius Bar via Navsource.

Once commissioned, Boston was shown off far and wide, being something of a love boat for the Navy. In the first five years in the fleet, she participated in naval parades with Civil War veterans on her deck, delivered gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and Latin America, sailed the Med, rounded Cape Horn to visit California, and made for Hawaii– then mired in conspiratorial colonial actions.

There, she provided a shore party in January 1893 that, sadly for history, bolstered the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Dressed with flags and manning her yards during the Centennial Naval Parade in New York Harbor, 29 April 1889. The four-star flag of Admiral David Dixon Porter is flying from her mainmast peak– since the death of Farragut the only four star until Dewey. Photographed by Loeffler, Tomkinsville, Staten Island, New York. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN(MC), 1933. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 416

USS Boston left and near-sister USS Atlanta tied up together, probably at the New York Navy Yard, circa the late 1880s or early 1890s. Note that their yards have been cocked to avoid striking each other and they have different schemes with Atlanta lacking bow scrolls. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 69173

Steaming off San Francisco, California, circa 1892-1893. Photographed by Marceau, 826 Market St., San Francisco. Collection of Rear Admiral Wells L. Field, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph Catalog #: NH 73387

Fine screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship’s landing force on duty at the Arlington Hotel, Honolulu, at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, January 1893. Lieutenant Lucien Young, USN, commanded the detachment, and is presumably the officer at right. Note the very Civil War-like formation. I believe the rifles to be M1885 Remington-Lees. The original photograph is in the Archives of Hawaii. This halftone was published prior to about 1920. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 56555

Laid up at Mare Island for overhaul, Boston joined the Asiatic Squadron at Yokohama, Japan on 25 February 1896 and sailed into history two years later as one of the stronger ships under the command of Commodore George Dewey when he kicked in the door of Manila Bay and destroyed the Spanish fleet off Cavite in a brief but historic engagement.

Battle of Manila Bay, 1 May 1898. Description: Colored print after a painting by J.G. Tyler, copyright 1898 by P.F. Collier. Ships depicted in left side of print are (l-r): Spanish Warships Don Antonio de Ulloa, Castilla, and Reina Cristina. Those in right side are (l-r): USS Boston, USS Baltimore and USS Olympia. Collections of the Navy Department, purchased from Lawrence Lane, 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 71839-KN

The protected cruiser USS BOSTON in action, 1 May 1898. Description: Presented by Lieutenant C.J. Dutreaux, USNR (retired) Catalog #: USN 902933

Boston remained in the PI and Chinese waters through most of 1899 on pacification duties before returning once again to Mare Island, where she was modernized, losing her dated sailing rig.

Underway, circa the early 1900s, after her sailing rig had been removed and other modifications made. Note the new-type gun shield fitted to her forward eight-inch gun (finally!) and the huge contrast to her profile from the lead image above. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN(MC), 1935. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 61699

Recommissioned 11 Aug 1902, Boston resumed her cruise life off South America, Hawaii, and the US West Coast, sent her crew ashore in San Francisco to help in disaster response to the famous earthquake and fire there in 1906 and by June 1907 was back in ordinary.

She went on to serve as a training vessel for the Oregon Naval Militia through 1916.

When the next war came in April 1917, she was far too old to fight. Landing her guns, she was converted to a freighter and then towed to Yerba Buena Island, California, where she served as a receiving ship until 1940.

View in the crew’s space, on the lower deck looking aft, with the mainmast at left. Taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 23 December 1918, following Boston’s conversion for service as the receiving ship at Yerba Buena Island, California. Note the electric lights in the overhead. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 74472

USS Boston tied up at Yerba Buena Island, while serving as receiving ship there, shortly before World War II. This ship was renamed Despatch on 9 August 1940 and designated IX-2 on 17 February 1941. Note the old destroyers at left, lightship at right and San Francisco Bay ferryboats in the distance. Courtesy of Ted Stone, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89404

Remaining at Yerba Buena Island, Boston, then under the designation IX-2, was the site of a floating radio school there in World War II.

When her second World War ended, she was towed out to sea and sank in deep water off San Francisco on 8 April 1946, after 59 years of service.

No gold watch for her.

She far outlived her sister Atlanta, who was stricken and sold to the breakers in 1912.

Boston‘s 8″/30s, which fired at Manila Bay, were saved and installed at the Seattle Naval Hospital in 1942, then moved to Hamlin Park, in Shoreline, Washington sometime in the 1950s, where they remain today in very good shape.

Boston’s two 8″/30 guns. These guns are on display in Shoreline, Washington just north of Seattle at Hamlin Park. These pictures were taken 14 OCT 2007. Via Navsource

She has also been remembered in maritime art.

USS Boston (1887-1946) Painting by Rod Claudius, Rome, Italy, 1962. This artwork was made for display on board USS Boston (CAG-1). Photographed by PHCS G.R. Phelps, Boston Naval Shipyard, 10 April 1963. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. Catalog #: KN-4782

Specs:

USS Boston underway, probably off Boston, Massachusetts, 1891. Photographed by H.C. Peabody, Boston. Collection of Warren Beltramini, donated by Beryl Beltramini, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 105556

Displacement: 3,189 long tons (3,240 t)
Length:     283 ft. (86.3 m)
Beam:     42 ft. (12.8 m)
Draft:     17 ft. (5.2 m)
Installed power:
8 × boilers
1 × horizontal compound engine
3,500 ihp (2,600 kW)
Propulsion:
Sails (as built)
1 × shaft
Speed:     16.3 kn (18.8 mph; 30.2 km/h) on trials, 13 kn (15 mph; 24 km/h) designed
Range:     3,390 nmi (6,280 km; 3,900 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:     284 officers and men
Armament: (Removed in 1916)
2 × 8-inch (203 mm)/30 caliber Mark 1 guns (shields added in 1902)
6 × 6-inch (152 mm)/30 caliber Mark 2 guns
2 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.24 in)) guns
2 × 3-pounder (47 mm (1.85 in)) Hotchkiss revolving cannon
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.46 in)) Hotchkiss revolving cannon
2 × .45 caliber (11.4 mm) Gatling guns
Armor:
Barbettes: 2 in (51 mm)
Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm)
Conning tower: 2 in (51 mm)

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

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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. 16: Estonia’s national hero, AKA the Soviet’s immortal submarine

Here we see the Kalev-class allveelaev (coastal submarine minelayer) EML Lembit (1) of the Estonian Navy as she appears today on dry land in Tallinn. Curiously enough, the British-built sub was one of the most successful of the Soviet Navy.

Lembit (also Lambite, Lembito or Lembitus) is the elder of Sakala County and national hero who led the struggle of the Estonians against the German feudal lords in the 12th century and the name was seen as a no-brainer for a new Estonian Navy. Their first operational gunboat in 1918 when the country broke from the newly Bolshevik Russia was given the moniker. The country’s first naval combat, on 20 January 1919, was when they sent the gunboat Lembit (which had been the Russian Beiber, c. 1906, 990-tons) to suppress a pro-Bolshevik revolt on Saaremaa island. Lembit was scrapped in 1927, but her name would live on.

The mighty Estonian gunboat Lembit (1918-1927)

Two other Estonian surface ships, the Russian 1,260-ton Novik-class destroyers Spartak and Avtroil, had been captured by British cruisers Caradoc and Calypso and destroyers Vendetta, Vortigern and Wakeful 26 December 1918 and handed over to the Estonians in 1919 who later put them into service as Lennuk and Vambola (Wambola), respectively.

In 1933, the Estonians sold these two ships to *Peru as BAP Almirante Villar and Almirante Guise who were gearing up for  a conflict with Colombia that never emerged. (*Note: the Peruvians kept them in service, despite their Brown-Boveri steam turbines, Vulkan boilers, and Pulitov armament, until as late as 1952 and their hulks are now in scuttled condition off San Lorenzo)

With the money from the sale of the two pre-owned Russian destroyers (for $820,000), and national subscription of scrap metals and donations, the Estonian government contracted with Vickers and Armstrong Ltd. at Barrow-in-Furness for two small coastal submarines (Vickers hulls 705 and 706).

As the Estonian Navy only had a single surface warfare ship, the Sulev— which was the once scuttled former German torpedo boat A32— they were largely putting their naval faith in the two subs augmented by a half dozen small coastal mine warfare ships, a Meredessantpataljon marine battalion and some scattered Tsarist-era coastal defense installations.

Class leader Kalev and Lembit were ordered in May 1935, then commissioned in March and April 1937 respectively.

Small ships at just 195-feet overall, they were optimized for the shallow conditions of the Baltic– capable of floating on the surface in just 12 feet of water and submerging in 40. Their maximum submergence depth was 240 feet, though their topside and surfacing area was reinforced with 12mm of steel for operations in ice.

Their periscopes were made by Carl Zeiss, and their 40mm gun by contract to the Czech firm of Skoda.

While they did carry a quartet of 21-inch tubes and, if fully loaded and four reloads carried forward, would have eight steel fish to drop on a foe, her main armament was considered to be the 20 mines she could carry.

The Estonians purchased a total of 312 SSM (EMA) Vickers T Mk III anchored sea mines, each with a 330 pound charge and the ship’s 39-inch wide mine tubes were configured for them. These mines used electric fuzes and one, marked I / J-04, was lost in training in 1939, then later found by fishermen from Cape Letipea in 1989. Defused, it is on display at Tallin alongside Lembit. Besides one in a Russian museum, it is the only preserved Vickers T-III.

The mines were carried two each in 10 vertical tubes (5 per side).

Oddly enough, the torpedo tubes fitted with brass sleeves to change their diameter to accept smaller WWI-era 450mm torpedoes the Estonians had inherited from the Russians.

Lembit’s four tubes were sleeved to accept older 450mm torpedoes, though the Soviets removed the inserts to fire regular 533mm ones during the war. The torpedo room kept four reloads (note the cradle for one to the lower left) and 16 sailors– half the crew– bunked among the fish.

Their 40mm gun was specially sealed inside a pneumatic tube and could be ready to fire within 90 seconds of surfacing.

Close up of her neat-o 40mm Skoda-mdae Bofors which could withdraw inside the pressure hull. Word on the street is that the Soviet’s first generation SLBM tubes owed a lot to this hatch design.

The Estonians were rightfully proud of the two vessels when they arrived home in 1937.

Lembit on Baltic trials in 1937. Some 100 Estonian officers and men trained in Great Britain alongside Royal Navy sailors on HMs submarines in 1935-37 to jump start their undersea warfare program.

Lembit and her sister in Tallin, the pride of the Estonian Navy

Another profile while in brief Estonian service, 1937-40

Lembit was the only Estonian submarine to ever fire her torpedoes, launching two at a training hulk in 1938.

In early 1940, the Germans expressed interest in acquiring the submarines from neutral Estonia, which was rebuffed.

With no allies possible due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of the year before and the Estonian internment of the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł, which escaped from Tallinn to the UK while the Soviets and Germans were battling Poland (with two guards from Lembit, Roland Kirikmaa and Boris Milstein aboard), Moscow demanded military bases on Estonian soil, threatening war if Estonia did not comply.

The Estonians signed a mutual defense agreement with the Soviets on 28 September 1939, which soon turned into an outright occupation and consumption by the Soviets on 6 August 1940. Her bosun, Herbert Kadajase, removed the ship’s emblem from her conning tower the night before and spirited it away, hiding it at his home.

Thus, the Estonian Navy was amalgamated into the Red Banner Fleet with the torpedo boat Sulev being handed to the Soviet Border Guard and the two British-made submarines cleared for combat.

This view of Lembit and her sister illustrate their “saddle” mine tubes amidships. The bulge on each side housed five mine tubes, each capable of holding two large ship-killing Vickers sea mines. “Allveelaev” is Estonian for submarine

Folded into the 1st Submarine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, forward based in Liepaja, the ships were given almost fully Soviet Russian crews with a few Estonian veterans (torpedomen Aart Edward and Sikemyae Alfred, electricians Sumera and Toivo Berngardovich, sailor Kirkimaa Roland Martnovich, and boatswain Leopold Pere Denisovich) who volunteered to remain in service, primarily to translate tech manuals, gauges and markings which were written in Estonian.

When the balloon went up on the Eastern Front, Kalev completed two brief combat patrols and set a string of 10 mines then went missing while carrying out a special operation in late 1941. According to some sources, her mines blew up two ships. She is presumed sunk by a German mine near the island of Prangli sometime around 1 November 1941.

The Soviets kept Lembit‘s name, though of course in Russian (Лембит), and she proved very active indeed.

Surviving Luftwaffe air attacks at Liepaja, she made for Kronstadt where he brass torpedo tube sleeves were removed and she was armed with Soviet model 21-inch torpedoes.

1942 entry in Conways Fighting Ship for the USSR, showing Kalev and Lembit.

Lembit was sent out on her first mission in August 1941 with 1LT Alexis Matiyasevich in command (himself the son of Red Army hero Gen. Mikhail S. Matiyasevich who commanded the 7th Army during the Russian Civil War, holding Petrograd against Yudenich’s White Guards in 1919 and later, as head of the 5th Army, smashed Kolchack in Siberia and ran Ungern-Sternberg to the ground in Mongolia).

During the war, Lembit completed seven patrols and remained at sea some 109 days (pretty good for a sea that freezes over about four months a year).

Each patrol led to 20 mines being laid, totaling some 140 throughout the war. These mines claimed 24 vessels (though most did not sink and many that did were very small). She also undertook eight torpedo attacks, releasing 13 torpedoes.

Her largest victim, the German-flagged merchant Finnland (5281 GRT), sank near 59°36’N, 21°12’E on 14 September 1944 by two torpedoes. It was during the fight to sink the Finnland, which was part of a German convoy, that Lembit was hit in return by more than 50 depth charges from escorting sub-chasers, causing a 13-minute long fire and her to bottom, with six casualties.

Some of Lembit‘s log entries are at the ever-reliable Uboat.net.

On 12 December 1944, Lembit– according to Soviet records– rammed and sank the German submarine U-479, though this is disputed. Heavily damaged in the collision, she spent most of the rest of the war in Helsinki.

In Helsinki, Winter 1944-45

Keeping her in service was problematic and her worn out batteries were reportedly replaced by banks of several new ones taken from American Lend-Lease M3 Lee tanks that the Soviets were not impressed with when compared to their T-34s.

The Soviets, with their stock of prewar Estonian/English sea mines largely left behind in Tallin, tried to use local varieties of their Type EF/EF-G (ЭП ЭП-Г) anchor contact mine but they wouldn’t work properly with the Lembit‘s tubes. This was corrected by a small shipment of British Vickers T Mk IV mines that arrived via Murmansk through Lend Lease in 1943 just for use with Lembit. The T-IV, though slightly larger than the mines Vickers sold the Estonians pre-war, fit Lembit like a charm.

Her crew was highly decorated, with 10 members awarded the Order of Lenin, 14 the Order of the Red Banner, and another 14 the Order of the Red Star.

Awarding of the crew Lembit medals For the Defense of Leningrad June 6, 1943

Finally, by decree of the Supreme Soviet, on 6 March 1945 Lembit herself was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and named an “Immortal Submarine.”

Lembit after the war.

When the war ended, Lembit was decommissioned in 1946, used as a training ship until 1955 then loaned to a shipyard for a time for study–with her specialized gun hatch extensively researched for use with Soviet ballistic missile hatches. During this time period, much of her brasswork, her Zeiss periscope, and other miscellaneous items walked off.

While in postwar Soviet service, Lembit lost her name and in turn was designated U-1, S-85, 24-STZ, and UTS-29 on the ever-shifting list of Russki pennant numbers through the 1970s.

She was sent back to Tallin in the late 1970s, her name restored, and turned into a museum to the submariners of the Soviet Navy in 1985.

Her service was immortalized by the Soviets, who rewrote history to make her Estonian origin more palatable. In Moscow’s version, the hard working people of Estonia saw the error of their independent bourgeois ways and eagerly joined the Red Banner to strike at the fascists.

When Estonia decided not to be part of the new post-Cold War Russia, a group of patriots boarded Lembit (still officially “owned” by the Red Navy) on 22 April 1992 and raised the Estonian flag on her for the first time since 1940. Reportedly the Russians were getting ready to tow her back to St. Petersberg, which was not going to be allowed a second time.

In 1996, the newly independent Estonian postal service issued a commemorative stamp in connection with the 60th anniversary of Lembit‘s launch.

Lembit has since been fully renovated and, as Estonian Ship #1, is the nominal flag of the fleet, though she is onshore since 2011 as part of the Estonian State Maritime Museum. Located in Tallin, the site is a seaplane hangar built for the Tsar’s Navy and used in secession by the German (1918 occupation) Estonian, Soviet and German (1941-44 occupation) navies.

The crest swiped by Bosun Kadajase in 1940? His family kept it as a cherished heirloom of old independent Estonia and presented it to the museum

Click to very much big up

In 2011, some 200 technical drawings from Vickers were found in the UK of the class and have been split between archives there and in Estonia.

Her Russian skipper, Matiyasevich, retired from the Navy in 1955 as a full Captain and served as an instructor for several years at various academies, becoming known as an expert in polar operations. He died in St. Petersburg in 1995, just after Lembit was reclaimed by the Estonians, and was buried at St. Seraphim cemetery, named a Hero of the Russian Federation at the time.

His memoir, “In the depths of the Baltic Sea: 21 underwater victories” was published in 2007.

Specs:

Displacement standard/normal: 665 / 853 tons
Length: 59.5m/195-feet
Beam: 7.24m/24.7-feet
Draft: 3.50m/12-feet
Diving depth operational, m 75
No of shafts 2
Machinery: 2 Vickers diesels / 2 electric motors
Power, h. p.: 1200 / 790
Max speed, kts, surfaced/submerged: 13.5 / 8.5
Fuel, tons: diesel oil 31
Endurance, nm(kts) 4000(8) / 80(4), 20 days.
Complement: 38 in Estonian service, 32 in Soviet
Armament:
(As completed)
1 x 1 – 40/43 Skoda built folding and retracting Bofors.
4 – 533mm TT, sleeved to 450mm (bow, 8 torpedo load),
20 British Vickers T-III sea mines
1x .303 Lewis gun
(Soviet service)
4 – 533 TT (bow, 8 torpedo),
20 British Vickers T-IV sea mines

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

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

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 Nov. 23, 2016: A long overdue Salute

Courtesy of D. M. McPherson, 1974. Catalog #: NH 81370

Here we see the Admirable-class minesweeper USS Salute (AM-294) photographed sometime in 1944. Although she gave her last measure too soon after, her memory and relics endure.

The U.S. Navy has a long history of minesweeping, having lost the first modem ships to those infernal torpedoes in the Civil War. As a byproduct of Mr. Roosevelt’s Great North Sea Mine Barrage of the Great War, the Navy commissioned their first class of minesweepers, the Lapwing or “Old Bird” type vessels which lingered into WWII, followed by 1930s-era 147-foot three-ship Hawk-class and the much larger 220-foot Raven and Auk-classes early in the first days of that second great international hate.

In early 1941, the Navy set its sights on a hybrid class of new steel-hulled oceangoing sweepers built with lessons learned from their previous designs, that of a 180-foot, 750-ton vessel that could both clear mines and, by nature of their forward and aft 3″/50 guns, provide a modicum of escort support. Since they could float in 9’9″ of water, they were deemed coastal minesweepers at first.

Preliminary design plan, probably prepared during consideration of what became the Admirable (AM-136) class. This drawing, dated 2 May 1941, is for a 750-ton (full load displacement) vessel with a length of 180 feet. Scale of the original drawing is 1/8″ = 1′. The original plan is in the 1939-1944 “Spring Styles Book” held by the Naval Historical Center U.S. Navy photo S-511-34

First of the class of what would eventually turn into orders for 147 ships (of which 123 were completed) was USS Admirable laid down as AMc-113, 8 April 1942 in Tampa, Florida.

Another 68 craft, sans mine gear, were completed as PCE-842-class patrol craft.

The hero of our tale– the first to carry her name– USS Salute (AM-294) was laid down 11 November 1942 at Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Co, Seattle, WA. Commissioned 4 December 1943 with LT Raymond Henry Nelson, Jr., USNR, in command, the addition of ASW gear and an AAA suite (though one of the original design’s 3-inchers were deleted) raised her displacement to 945 tons fully loaded but gave her some defense against Japanese subs and planes.

On board Salute on her builder’s trials, note the Winslow Marine flag from her wheelhouse

Salute on trials from Winslow

According to DANFS, she spent most of 1944 working out of Hawaii escorting convoys between Pearl Harbor, Majuro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan. It was in this work that she picked up her distinctive camo scheme in March 1944.

With LT Jesse Robert Hodges, USNR, assuming command in June, Salute reported to the 7th Fleet at Manus on 8 October 1944 for the Leyte invasion.

Working with her sisters in Mine Division 34 off the Leyte beaches, she helped clear the landing areas and provide cover fire from Japanese air attacks then combed the waters for survivors of the great Battle off Samar.

Between November 1944 and April 1945, a period of just over six months, Salute conducted dangerous pre-invasion sweeps at Ormoc Bay, Mindoro Island, Subic, the Lingayen Gulf, Zambales, Mariveles and off Corregidor in Manila Bay, the Sulu Sea off Palawan, and off the beaches of Legaspi– often while under fire from shore batteries and dodging kamikazes.

It’s not hard to see how she earned five battle stars for her World War II service. She reportedly cleared 143 Japanese naval mines during the Philippines Campaign.

On 9 May, Salute arrived at Morotai to prepare for operations in the Netherlands East Indies (today’s Indonesia).

It was in that chain that, while sweeping off Brunei Bay, Borneo, on 7 June 1945, she struck a mine, which broke the tiny ship’s back. Landing craft came alongside in an attempt to prop up the rapidly swamping ship, but her hull had taken fatal damage and within minutes, her crew was ordered off the ship. Once clear, the lines holding Salute to the landing craft were cut and she was cast loose into the bay where she quickly swamped, broke in two, and sank, her bow coming to rest over her stern.

From a report by Lt. James J. Hughes, an officer aboard Salute who survived the explosion:

“The ship was hit mid-ship, right underneath the belly, and it came right up through all the decks,” said Hughes. “Anybody in that area was killed, especially in the engine room; they didn’t have a chance. We hit it about 4:00 in the afternoon and sunk about midnight. We were making the last run of the day.”

Salute suffered nine crewmembers killed or missing and two officers and eight enlisted wounded with the War Department reporting her loss on June 26. She was struck from the Naval Register 11 July 1945.

Located in 90 feet of water at 5° 08’N, 115° 05’E, over the years she became a popular dive site after the Malaysian navy removed her unexploded depth charges, which brings us to recent developments.

Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 1 along with Royal Brunei navy personnel dove on Salute from USNS Salvor (T-ARS-52), located in 90 feet of water, over a three-day period earlier this month.

The diving operations were the first by the U.S. Navy on the wreckage of Salute and were conducted as part of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2016.

“These operations provided U.S. Navy divers a unique opportunity to work alongside our Bruneian counterparts on a very meaningful project,” said Lt. Chris Price, detachment officer-in-charge, MDSU 1. “We are preserving our Navy’s rich history and heritage, and giving a very fitting remembrance to these fallen Sailors.”

USS SALUTE (November 16, 2016) U.S. Navy Divers attached to Mobile Diving & Salvage Company ONE divers serving with the Royal Brunei Armed Forces gather for a group photo at the wreckage site of USS Salute (AM-294), which sank in Brunei waters on June 7, 1945, during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Brunei 2016, Nov. 15. CARAT is a series of annual maritime exercises between the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the armed forces of nine partner nations to include Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Chris Price/RELEASED)

USS SALUTE (November 16, 2016) U.S. Navy Divers attached to Mobile Diving and Salve Unit ONE place a memorial plaque at the wreckage site of USS Salute (AM-294) which sank in Brunei waters on June 7, 1945, during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Brunei 2016, Nov. 16. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Chris Price/RELEASED)

Four artifacts– a gas mask, a glass inkwell, and two pieces of china: a larger plate and a smaller plate– were recovered and are being assessed for preservation.

From a NHHC Underwater Archaeology Branch release:

However, the four pieces are not all in the greatest of condition—the mask especially—and because of the aquatic environment they spent the last 71 years in, they will all require specialized conservation treatment. Conservation is a main component of any underwater archaeology program since artifacts recovered from submerged archaeological sites require special preservation care.

Besides the recent attention, Salute is remembered by a veteran’s website that hosts crew reunion information. In 1995 the group placed a wreath on her wreck during the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Labuan.

Her name was recycled for an Aggressive-class ocean minesweeper USS Salute (MSO-470) commissioned on 4 May 1955. She famously helped look for a lost H-bomb off Spain in 1966 and continued to serve until 1971 when she was broken up prematurely.

The U.S. Navy minesweeper USS Salute (MSO-470) at Luders Marine Construction Co., Stamford, Connecticut (USA), in January 1955.

The latter Salute‘s engineering plans are preserved in the National Archives and she was the last to carry the name on the Navy List.

Speaking of plans, the Admirable-class sweepers have been a very popular model over the years:

As for Salute‘s Admirable-class sisters, 24 were given to the Soviets in 1945 and never returned, others remained in use by the Navy through the Korean War era, and some were later passed on to the Taiwan, South Korea, the Republic of Vietnam, and the Dominican, Mexican, Myanmar, and Philippine navies.

At least five PCE-842/Admirable-class ships remain in nominal service as patrol craft with the Philippines including BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20), formerly USS Gayety (AM-239), shown below.

Since 1993, the only Admirable-class vessel left above water in the U.S. is USS Hazard (AM-240).

Now a National Historic Landmark, she was retired in 1971 and, put up for sale on the cheap:

Hazard was installed on dry land at Freedom Park on the Missouri River waterfront in East Omaha where she is open to the public.

Please visit her.

According to the NPS:

The ship was transferred to Omaha with all of her spare parts and equipment intact. The only equipment missing from USS Hazard is the minesweeping cable. All equipment (radio, engines, ovens, electrical systems, plumbing) is fully operational. USS Hazard still retains its original dishes, kitchen utensils, and stationery. USS Hazard is one of the best preserved and intact warships remaining from World War II. USS Hazard is a virtual time capsule dating from 1945.

Specs:

Image by shipbucket

Displacement: 945 t (fl)
Length:     184 ft. 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam:     33 ft. (10 m)
Draft:     9 ft. 9 in (2.97 m)
Propulsion:
2 × Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines
National Supply Co. single reduction gear
2 shafts
Speed:     14.8 knots
Complement: 104
Armament:
1 × 3″/50 caliber gun
1 × twin Bofors 40 mm guns
6 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
1 × Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar
4 × Depth charge projectors (K-guns)
2 × Depth charge tracks

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

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

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 Nov. 30, 2016: The Almirante and her Yankee (and Chilean) sisters

Colorized from Detroit Publishing Co. no. 022451 in LOC

Here we see the fine Armstrong-built protected cruiser (cruzador) Almirante Barroso of the Brazilian Navy (Marinha do Brasil) during the 1907 International Naval Review in the Hudson River, a gleaming white ship already obsolete though just a decade old.

As part of a general Latin American naval build-up, Brazil ordered four cruisers in 1894 from Armstrong, Whitworth & Co in Elswick from a design by naval architect Philip Watts. These ships, with a 3,800-ton displacement on a 354-foot hull, were smaller than a frigate by today’s standards but in the late 19th century, with a battery of a half-dozen 6-inch (152mm) guns and Harvey armor that ranged between 0.75 inches on their hull to 4.5-inches on their towers, were deemed protected cruisers.

For batting away smaller vessels, they had four 4.7-inch (120mm) Armstrongs, 14 assorted 57 mm and 37mm quick-firing pieces, and three early Nordenfelt 7mm machine guns. To prove their worth in a battle line, they had three torpedo tubes and a brace of Whitehead 18-inch fish with guncotton warheads. They would be the first ships in the Brazilian fleet to have radiotelegraphs and were thoroughly modern for their time.

However, their four Vosper Thornycroft boilers and turbines, augmented by an auxiliary sailing rig, could only just make 20 knots with everything lit on a clean hull.

The lead ship of the proud new class would bear the name of Admiral Francisco Manuel Barroso da Silva, the famed Baron of the Amazon, who led the Brazilian Navy to victory in the Battle of Riachuelo during the Triple Alliance War in 1865, besting a fleet of Paraguayans on the River Plate, and would be the fourth such ship to do so.

Nonetheless, financial pressures soon limited the Brazilian shipbuilding program and, with each of the Barroso-class cruisers running ₤ 265,000 a pop, the fourth ship of the class was sold while still on the builder’s ways to Chile, who commissioned her as Ministro Zenteno.

The U.S., uparming for a coming war with Spain, purchased two other incomplete Barrosos in 1898 — Amazonas and Almirante Abreu— that were commissioned as the USS New Orleans and USS Albany, respectively. (*The Brazilians also sold the Americans the old dynamite cruiser Nictheroy, though without her guns)

In the end, only Almirante Barroso (Elswick Yard Number 630) was the only one completed for Brazil, commissioned 29 April 1897.

As completed with her typically English scheme of the 1890s

Her naval career was one of peacetime showmanship and diplomatic visits, taking President Campos Sales to Buenos Aires on a state visit in 1900, serving as the flagship of the Naval Division, making a trip to the Pacific in 1907 and the U.S.– shown in the first image of this post above– as well as other state visits.

Subsequent trips took her as far as the Middle East and Africa.

With Brazil escaping involvement in the Great War that engulfed the rest of the war from 1914-17, Barroso enforced her country’s neutrality and kept an eye on interned ships during that conflict until switching to a more active campaign looking for the rarely encountered Germans in the South Atlantic after Brazil entered the war on the Allied side in late 1917.

Barroso with her post-1905 scheme from a post card of her at porto de Santos.

By the 1920s, obsolete in a world of 30+ knot cruisers with much more advanced armament and guns, Barroso was used as a survey and navigation training vessel.

By 1931, she was disarmed and turned into a floating barracks, ultimately being written off sometime later, date unknown.

Her 4.7-inch Armstrong mounts and 57mm Nordenfelts were installed in Fort Coimbra at Moto Grosso on the left bank of the Paraguay River, where they remained in service into the 1950s.

One of Barroso’s 4.7s in 1947

When the fort was turned over for preservation, they were repurposed and put on display.

Her sisters, ironically, all suffered a similar fate though Barosso outlived them.

Chile’s Ministro Zenteno sailed the world far and wide only to be laid up in the 1920s and scrapped in 1930.

USS New Orleans was bought from Brazil while under construction in England. Catalog #: NH 45114

New Orleans exchanged gunfire with Spanish shore batteries off Santiago in 1898 but missed the big naval battle there while off coaling. She went on to perform yeoman service as flagship of the Cruiser Squadron, U.S. Asiatic Fleet for several years and patrolled the coast of Mexico during the troubles there in 1914. Escorting convoys across the Atlantic in World War I, she ended up at Vladivostok in support of the Allied Interventionists in the Russian Civil War. She was sold for scrapping on 11 February 1930.

USS ALBANY (CL-23) Caption: Running trials, 1900, prior to installation of armament. Catalog #: NH 57778

Albany missed the SpanAm War, being commissioned in the River Tyne, England, on 29 May 1900. Sailing for the Far East from there where she would serve, alternating cruises back to Europe, until 1913 she only went to the U.S. for the first time for her mid-life refit. Recommissioned in 1914, as her sister New Orleans, she served off Mexico, gave convoy duty in WWI and ended up in Russia. With the post-war drawdown, she was placed out of commission on 10 October 1922 at Mare Island and sold for scrap in 1930.

A single 4.7-inch Elswick Armstrong gun from each of these English-made Brazilian cruisers in U.S. service is installed at the Kane County, Illinois Soldier and Sailor Monument at the former courthouse in Geneva, Illinois.

Specs:

Displacement: 3,769 long tons (3,829 t)
Length:     354 ft. 5 in (108.03 m)
Beam:     43 ft. 9 in (13.34 m)
Draft:     18 ft. (5.5 m)
Propulsion: mixed steam and sail; four Vosper Thornycroft boilers and turbines, coupled to two propellers, generating 15,000 hp., 2850 tons of coal
Electricity: 3 generators of 32 Kw, engines by Humphrys Tennant & Co, Deptford
Speed:     20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement: 366 officers and enlisted
Armament:
6 × 6-inch 152/50 Armstrong QF
4 × 4.7-inch 120/50 Armstrong QF
10 × 57/40 Hotchkiss (2 in) 6-pdr Hotchkiss guns
4 ×  37/20 1 pdr guns
3     machine guns
3 × 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes (1 x bow & 2 x broadside)
Armor:
Gun shields: 4 in (100 mm)
Main deck: 3.5 in (89 mm)
Conning Tower: 4 in (100 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!

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. 7, 2016: The eclipsing old bird of Battleship Row

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32445

Here we see the Lapwing (“old bird”)-class minesweeper-turned-seaplane tender USS Avocet (AVP-4) from atop a building at Naval Air Station Ford Island, looking toward the Navy Yard. USS Nevada (BB-36) is at right, with her bow afire. Beyond her is the burning USS Shaw (DD-373). Smoke at left comes from the destroyers Cassin (DD-372) and Downes (DD-375), ablaze in Drydock Number One. The day, of course, is December 7, 1941 and you can see the gunners aboard Avocet looking for more Japanese planes (they had already smoked one) at about the time the air raid ended.

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, the Lapwings were 187-foot long ships that 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″/23 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 Avocet, named after a long-legged, web-footed shore bird found in western and southern states– the first such naval vessel to carry the moniker. Laid down as Minesweeper No. 19 on 13 September 1917 at Baltimore, Maryland by the Baltimore Drydock & Shipbuilding Co, she was commissioned just over a year later on 17 September 1918– some seven weeks before the end of the Great War.

USS AVOCET (AM-19) at Baltimore, Maryland, 28 September 1918. Catalog #: NH 57468. Note the large searchlight on her fwd mast.

After spending eight months assigned to the Fifth Naval District, where she drug for possible German mines up and down the Eastern seaboard, she landed her 3-inchers and prepared to ship for the North Sea where she would pitch in to clear the great barrage of mines sown there to shut off the Kaiser’s U-boats from the Atlantic. Setting out with sisterships Quail (Minesweeper No. 15) and Lark (Minesweeper No. 21), the three sweeps made it to the Orkney Islands by 14 July 1919 where they joined Whippoorwill (Minesweeper No. 35) and Avocet was made flag of the four-ship division.

Spending the summer sweeping (and almost being blown sky high by a British contact mine that bumped up against her hull) Avocet sailed back home in October, rescuing the crew of the sinking Spanish schooner Marie Geresee on the way.

It would not be her last rescue.

After being welcomed by the SECNAV and inspected at Hampton Roads, Avocet would transfer to the Pacific for the rest of her career. Assigned to the Asiatic Fleet’s Minesweeping Detachment in 1921, she would become a familiar sight at Cavite in the Philippines where she was decommissioned 3 April 1922 and laid up.

Reactivated in 1925, she was converted to an auxiliary aircraft tender taking care of the seaplanes of VT-20 and VT-5A (with men from that squadron living on board a former coal barge, YC-147, moored alongside) as well as visiting British flying boats and Army amphibian aircraft at Bolinao Harbor while putting to sea on occasion to tow battle raft targets for fleet gunnery practice.

In 1928, she got her teeth back when she was rearmed with a pair of more modern 3” /50 guns, and survived being grounded during a typhoon in Force 8 winds.

By 1932, Avocet was transferred to Hawaii to support Pearl Harbor-based flying boats. There, she was the first to support seaplanes at the remote French Frigate Shoals and outlying lagoons at Laysan and Nihoa as well as Midway.

Heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) steaming past the Fleet Air Base at Pearl Harbor, T.H., January 1933. USS AVOCET (AM-19), serving as an aircraft tender, is at the dock. Note cane fields being burned at upper right. Catalog #: 80-CF-21338-4

In 1934, the aging tender served as flagship for Rear Adm. Alfred W. Johnson and was used in expeditionary missions in Nicaragua, crossing into the Caribbean to Haiti, then back to the Pacific for an Alaskan cruise. Talk about diverse!

As Trans-Pacific clippers came into their own, Avocet increasingly found herself in remote uninhabited tropical atolls, exploring their use for seaplane operations. This led her to bringing some 2-tons of high explosive to Johnson Atoll in 1936 to help blast away coral for a land base there.

On 6 May 1937, Avocet embarked the official 16-member National Geographic-U.S. Navy Eclipse Expedition under Capt. Julius F. Hellweg, USN (Ret.), the superintendent of the Naval Observatory to observe the total solar eclipse set to occur on June 8, 1937 with its peak somewhere over Micronesia.

The expedition took aboard 150 cases of instruments, 10,000 ft. of lumber and 60 bags of cement, remaining at sea for 42 days. In the end, they would watch the eclipse from Canton Island in the Phoenix chain, midway between British Fiji and Hawaii.

According to DANFS, the event went down like this:

While returning to Enderbury to land observers on 24 May, the ship remained at Canton for the eclipse expedition through 8 June. Joined by the British sloop HMS Wellington on 26 May, with men from a New Zealand expedition embarked, Avocet observed the total eclipse of the sun at 0836 on 8 June 1937. Sailing for Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of 9 June, the ship arrived at her destination on the 16th, disembarking her distinguished passengers upon arrival.

According to others, when HMS Wellington arrived at Canton Island– whose ownership was disputed at the time between the U.S. and HMs government– she fired a shot over Avocet‘s bow when the latter refused to cede the choicest anchorage spot to the British vessel after which both captains agreed to “cease fire” until instructions could be received from their respective governments.

The Grimsby-class sloop HMS Wellington (U65), some 1,500-tons with a battery of 4.7-inch Mk IX guns was more than a match for the humble Avocet.

While this may or may not have happened, what is for  sure is there was an exchange of official diplomatic cables about the interaction on Canton that in the end led to a British reoccupation of the island in August 1937.

Where was Avocet by then? She was supporting the huge flattop USS Lexington (CV-2) by transferring avgas to her at Lahaina Roads for her aviators to use in searching the Pacific for the lost aviatrix Amelia Earhart, that’s where.

Then came more seaplane operations, supporting in turn the PBYs of VP-4, 6, 8 and 10 at varying times and searching for lost flying boats including the famed Pan American Airways’ Sikorsky S-42B “Samoan Clipper.”

Avocet was in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 moored port side to the NAS dock where she had a view of Battleship Row.

From DANFS:

At about 0745 on Sunday, 7 December 1941, Avocet‘s security watch reported Japanese planes bombing the seaplane hangars at the south end of Ford Island, and sounded general quarters. Her crew promptly brought up ammunition to her guns, and the ship opened fire soon thereafter. The first shot from Avocet‘s starboard 3-inch gun scored a direct hit on a Nakajima B5N2 carrier attack plane that had just scored a torpedo hit on the battleship California (BB-44), moored nearby. The Nakajima, from the aircraft carrier Kaga‘s air group, caught fire, slanted down from the sky, and crashed on the grounds of the naval hospital, one of five such planes lost by Kaga that morning.

Initially firing at torpedo planes, Avocet‘s gunners shifted their fire to dive bombers attacking ships in the drydock area at the start of the forenoon watch. Then, sighting high altitude bombers overhead, they shifted their fire again. Soon thereafter, five bombs splashed in a nearby berth, but none exploded.

USS Avocet (AVP-4) at Berth Fox-1A, at Ford Island, prior to 1045 hrs. on 7 December, when she moved to avoid oil fires drifting southward along the shore of Ford Island. She is wearing Measure 1 camouflage (dark gray/light gray). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32669

From her veritable ringside seat, Avocet then witnessed the inspiring sortie of the battleship Nevada (BB-36), the only ship of her type to get underway during the attack. Seeing the dreadnought underway, after clearing her berth astern of the burning battleship Arizona (BB-39), dive-bomber pilots from Kaga singled her out for destruction, 21 planes attacking her from all points of the compass. Avocet‘s captain, Lt. William C. Jonson, Jr., marveled at the Japanese precision, writing later that he had never seen “a more perfectly executed attack.” Avocet‘s gunners added to the barrage to cover the gallant battleship’s passage down the harbor.

USS Nevada (BB-36) headed down channel past the Navy Yard’s 1010 Dock, under Japanese air attack during her sortie from Battleship Row. A camouflage Measure 5 false bow wave is faintly visible painted on the battleship’s forward hull. Photographed from Ford Island. Small ship in the lower right is USS Avocet (AVP-4). Note fuel tank farm in the left center distance, beyond the Submarine Base. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97397

Although the ship ceased fire at 1000, much work remained to be done in the wake of the devastating surprise attack. She had expended 144 rounds of 3-inch and 1,750 of .30 caliber in the battle against the attacking planes, and had suffered only two casualties: a box of ammunition coming up from the magazines had fallen on the foot of one man, and a piece of flying shrapnel had wounded another. Also during the course of the action, a sailor from the small seaplane tender Swan (AVP-7), unable to return to his own ship, had reported on board for duty, and was immediately assigned a station on a .30-caliber machine gun.

Fires on those ships had set oil from ruptured battleship fuel tanks afire, and the wind, from the northeast, was slowly pushing it toward Avocet‘s berth. Accordingly, the seaplane tender got underway at 1045, and moored temporarily to the magazine island dock at 1110, awaiting further orders, which were not long in coming. At 1115, she was ordered to help quell the fires still blazing on board California. Underway soon thereafter, she spent 20 minutes in company with the submarine rescue ship Widgeon (ASR-1) in fighting fires on board the battleship before Avocet was directed to proceed elsewhere.

Underway from alongside California at 1215, she reached the side of the gallant Nevada 25 minutes later, ordered to assist in beaching the battleship and fighting her fires. Mooring to Nevada‘s port bow at 1240, Avocet went slowly ahead, pushing her aground at channel buoy no. 19, with fire hoses led out to her forward spaces and her signal bridge. For two hours, Avocet fought Nevada‘s fires, and succeeded in quelling them.

USS Nevada (BB-36) aground and burning off Waipio Point, after the end of the Japanese air raid. Ships assisting her, at right, are the harbor tug Hoga (YT-146) and USS Avocet (AVP-4). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-33020

No sooner had she completed that task than more work awaited her. At 1445, she got underway and steamed to the assistance of the light cruiser Raleigh (CL-7), which had been torpedoed alongside Ford Island early in the attack and was fighting doggedly to remain on an even keel. Avocet reached the stricken cruiser’s side at 1547, and remained there throughout the night, providing steam and electricity.

That night, at 2105, Avocet again went to general quarters as jittery gunners throughout the area fired on aircraft overhead. Tragically, these proved to be American, a flight of six fighters from the aircraft carrier Enterprise (CV-6). Four were shot down; three pilots died.

Avocet was awarded one battlestar for her actions at Pearl Harbor.

However, her war was not over.

Augmented with 20mm guns, she was assigned to support the PBY flying boats of Fleet Air Wing 4, she arrived in Alaskan waters in July 1942. Despite the often bad flying weather, the Catalina-equipped squadrons tended by Avocet carried out extensive patrols, as well as bombing and photo missions over Japanese-held Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutians.

She came to the rescue of the torpedoed USS Casco (AVP-12), landed Navy Seebees and Army combat engineers on barren Alaska coastline, and served as a guard and rescue ship station throughout the Aleutians Campaign where she helped feed and care for Patrol Squadrons 41, 43, 51, and 62 totaling some 11 PBY flying boats, 20 PBY-5A amphibious flying boats which provided support for the cruisers and destroyers of Task Force Tare.

Avocet would meet the Japanese in combat at least one more time when on 19 May 1944, she sighted what she identified as a twin-engine Mitsubishi G4M Type 1 “Betty” land attack plane west of Attu. The plane strafed the tiny ship and Avocet opened up with all she had, but both sides managed to retire from the field of battle without casualties.

She only left Alaskan waters in October, a month after the end of hostilities. When inspected on 20 November 1945 she was found beyond repair and soon decommissioned and struck from the Navy List.

Avocet was sold to a shipping company who used her as a hulk until at least 1950, and she is presumed scrapped sometime after.

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)/USC&GS Discoverer 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.  (Update, she is still apparently in the channel, in pretty bad shape)

As for Avocet‘s name, it was given in 1953 to the converted USS LCI(L)-653, which was pressed into service as a minehunter and sonar training ship for the Naval Electronics Laboratory out of San Fran. She was disposed of in 1960 and there has not been an “Avocet” on the Navy List since.

About the only tangible reminder of Avocet is the series of postal cancellations issued aboard her during the 1934 flying boat inaugural in Hawaii and the 1937 solar eclipse at Canton Island.

Her old “foe” at Canton, HMS Wellington, survived WWII and since 1947 has been preserved as the floating headquarters ship on the River Thames in London for the Honourable Company of Master Mariners.

Still, we can remember Avocet when we see the sun, or when the calendar hits December 7 each year, as the little unsung tender likely saved the lives of many grateful bluejackets and Marines in the inferno that was Pearl Harbor, 75 years ago today.

Her dock at Ford Island, as seen today. U.S. Navy photo illustration by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Diana Quinlan

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; Upton 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1928)
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.

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

At the Pentagon on December 7, 2016, the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, an old warrior was wheeled in to the auditorium, and honored for the first time since the 1950s.

The 14,000-ton Naval Auxiliary Service collier Vestal was christened in 1908 and later was redisignated a repair ship in the Navy proper becoming USS Vestal (AR-4).

Vestal deployed “Over There” in 1918, serving in Queenstown, Ireland with the U.S. fleet during World War I then made her way to the Pacific where she was moored at berth F 7, off Ford Island, to provide services to USS Arizona during the battlewagon’s scheduled period of tender upkeep when the Japanese planes came buzzing into the harbor on that infamous Sunday morning.

Hit by two Japanese bombs of her own, Vestal was nearly pulverized by Arizona‘s magazine explosion. Listing, ablaze and heavily damaged, the old repair ship saved herself and her skipper, Commander Cassin Young, later came away with the MOH for his actions.

Her mooring quay is still a place of honor at Pearl to this day.

Remarkably, Vestal survived and went on to conduct forward repairs in the war zones of the South Pacific, keeping the battleships South Dakota and Washington; carriers Saratoga and Enterprise; cruisers Minneapolis, St. Louis, HMNZS Achilles, HMAS Hobart, San Francisco, and Pensacola among others in the fight and afloat at desperate times when their loss would have been a great blow to the war effort.

Decommissioned and stricken, she was sold to breakers and disappeared in 1950.

In May, her bell was rediscovered in the parsonage of a minister who bought it in Baltimore around 1955.

The Navy recently reacquired the bell and gave it a well-needed makeover before it’s big day this week.

“Tenacious accretions had accumulated on the bell’s exterior, along with dust, dirt, and environmental pollution,” said David Krop, conservation branch head at NHHC’s Collection Management Facility in Richmond, Virginia. “Additionally, we detected lead paint on the bell’s clapper assembly and old polish residue clinging to the bell’s lettering.”

Using a variety of mechanical and chemical methods, Krop’s team was able to get the bell to a stable and presentable condition after about two weeks, in time for the ceremony.

“As we cleaned and conserved the bell,” said Karl Knauer, a conservator on Krop’s team, “its past reflected back to us through its marred surface. It was truly an honor to work on such an important touchstone to the Navy’s history.”

Vestal, arriving:

161206-N-ES994-001 WASHINGTON (Dec. 6, 2016) Naval History and heritage Command (NHHC) provided the bell from USS Vestal for display during a commemoration for the 75th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack, hosted by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) and held in the Pentagon’s auditorium. Vestal was among the ship’s damaged during the Pearl Harbor attack. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Elliott Fabrizio/Released)

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 Thursday!): The dazzling President of the Royal Navy

IWM SP 1650

Here we see a “warship-Q” of the World War I Royal Navy, the Flower/Anchusa-class sloop HMS Saxifrage masquerading as a seemingly innocent British merchantman in dazzle camouflage, circa 1918. Should one of the Kaiser’s U-boats come close enough to get a good look, two matching sets of QF 4.7 inch and 12-pounder guns would plaster the poor bugger, sucker punch style.

With Kaiser Willy’s unterseeboot armada strangling the British Isles in the Great War, the RN needed a set of convoy escorts that were cheap to make and could relieve regular warships for duty with the fleet.

This led to a class of some 120 supped-up freighters which, when given a triple hull to allow them to soak up mines and torpedoes and equipped with a battery of 4 or 4.7-inch main guns and 3 or 12 pounder secondaries augmented with depth charges, could bust a submarine when needed. Just 1,200-tons and 267-feet overall, they could blend in with the rest of the “merchies” in which they were charged with protecting. Classified as sloops of war, they could make 17 knots with both boilers glowing, making them fast enough to keep up.

Built to merchant specs, they could be made in a variety of commercial yards very quickly, and were all named after various flowers, which brought them the class nickname of “cabbage boats.” Ordered under the Emergency War Programme for the Royal Navy, class leader HMS Acacia ordered in January 1915 and delivered just five months later.

The hero of our story, HMS Saxifrage, was named after a pretty little perennial plant also known as a rockfoil or London Pride.

Laid down by Lobnitz & Co Limited, Renfrew, Scotland, who specialized in dredges, trawlers and tugs and endures as a marine engineering company, she was completed 29 January 1918 as a Q-ship– a job that the last 40 of her class were designed to perform.

The concept, the Q-ship (their codename referred to the vessels’ homeport, Queenstown, in Ireland) was to have a lone merchantman plod along until a German U-boat approached, and, due to the small size of the prize, sent over a demo team to blow her bottom out or assembled her deck gun crew to poke holes in her waterline. At that point, the “merchantman” which was actually a warship equipped with a few deck guns hidden behind fake bulkheads and filled with “unsinkable” cargo such as pine boards to help keep her afloat if holed, would smoke said U-boat.

In all the Brits used 366 Q-ships, of which 61 were lost in action while they only took down 14 U-boats, a rather unsuccessful showing. One storied slayer, Mary B Mitchell, claimed 2-3 U-boats sunk and her crew was even granted the DSO, but post-war analysis quashed her record back down to zero.

As for Saxifrage, commissioned with just nine months and change left in the war, did not see a lot of hot action, escorting convoys around British waters. While she reported nine U-boat contacts, she was never able to bag one.

Soon after the Great War ended, the Flower-class vessels were liquidated, with 18 being lost during the conflict (as well as Gentian and Myrtle lost in the Baltic to mines in 1919). The Royal Navy underwent a great constriction inside of a year. At the date of the Armistice, the fleet enumerated 415,162 officers and men. By the following November, 162,000, a figure less than when the war began in 1914, though the Empire had grown significantly after picking up a number of German and Ottoman colonies.

Saxifrage was one of the few ships of her class retained.

THE ROYAL NAVY IN BRITAIN, 1919-1939 (Q 20478) Cadets of HMS PRESIDENT cheering the boats as they pass down the Thames in the naval pageant, 4th August 1919. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205261231

Her engines removed, she was tapped to become the training establishment HMS President (replacing the former HMS Buzzard, a Nymphe-class composite screw sloop, shown above) when her sistership Marjoram, originally intended for that task, was wrecked in January 1921 off Flintstone Head while en route to fit out at Hawlbowline.

Moored on the River Thames, Saxifrage by 1922 became used as a drill ship by Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

Alterations to her physical fabric included fitting square windows on the lower decks and adding a top deck for parade, drilling, and small arms gunnery practice. After her change of use to a training vessel, she boasted four decks, with internal spaces including the Captain’s Quarters, Drill Hall and adjacent Gunroom, Quarter Deck and Ward Room.

HMS President moored on the Thames at high tide in 1929. Photograph Planet News Archive.

By the time WWII came, just a handful of Flower-class sloops remained afloat.

HMS Laburnum, like her a RNVR drill ship, was lost to the Japanese at Singapore then later raised and scrapped.

HMS Cornflower, a drill ship at Hong Kong, suffered a similar fate.

HMS Chrysanthemum, used as a target-towing vessel in Home Waters, was transferred to the RNVR 1938 and stationed on the Embankment in London next to President where she would remain until scrapped in 1995.

HMS Foxglove served on China station and returned to Britain, later becoming a guard ship at Londonderry in Northern Ireland before being scrapped in 1946.

Ex-HMS Buttercup, ironically serving in the Italian Navy as Teseo, was sunk at Trapani 11 April 1943.

Two of the class, ex- HMS Jonquil and ex- HMS Gladiolus, remained in service in the Portuguese Navy classified as the cruisers (!) Carvalho Araújo and Republic, respectively, until as late as 1961.

Saxifrage/President continued her role as a stationary training ship. One of President‘s main roles during the war was to train men of the Maritime Royal Artillery, soldiers sent to sea and serve with naval ratings as gunners on board defensively equipped merchant ships (DEMS).

Learning the ropes. Two of the members of the Maritime Royal Artillery study the information board describing how to form bends and hitches. IWM A 16786. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149661

Britain’s sea soldiers in training. Men of the Maritime Royal Artillery are now being given elementary training in seamanship at HMS PRESIDENT, the DEMS base on the Thames. Here a number of men are being initiated into the mysteries of “Bends and Hitches” (knots) by Leading Seaman W J Bateman, Enfield, Middlesex. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149660

“Boat pulling” part of their elementary training. Many of the Maritime Royal Artillery have been torpedoed and have had to take to open boats. Training in the whaler makes them useful members of a boat’s crew. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149662

Moored in the Thames, President was also popular in hosting events and visitors.

THE DUCHESS OF KENT VISITS HMS PRESIDENT. 15 MARCH 1943, WEARING THE UNIFORM OF COMMANDANT OF THE WRNS, THE DUCHESS OF KENT PAID AN INFORMAL VISIT TO HMS PRESIDENT. (A 15047) On extreme left is Captain R D Binney, CBE, RN, The Duchess of Kent, Admiral Sir Martin R Dunbar Nasmith, and Commander H C C Clarke, DSO, RN. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205148173

ADMIRAL’S FAREWELL DINNER TO ADMIRAL STARK AT GREENWICH. 13 AUGUST 1945, ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE, GREENWICH, DURING THE FAREWELL DINNER TO ADMIRAL H R STARK, USN, BY THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. (A 30003) Saluting HMS PRESIDENT en route to Greenwich, left to right: Mr A V Alexander; Admiral Stark; and Rear Admiral C B Barry, DSO, Naval Secretary. Other members of the party including Mr G H Hall can also be seen. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161196

After the war, President was the last of her class in British service and reverted to her role as HQ of the RNVR London Division, which she held until 1987, remaining the whole time at her traditional mooring next to Blackfriars Bridge.

The name HMS President is retained as a “stone frigate” or shore establishment of the Royal Naval Reserve, based on the northern bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

In 1987, the old girl was donated to the HMS President (London) Limited non-profit who has extensively refitted her for use in hosting private parties, weddings, receptions, etc. while somewhat restoring her appearance.

In 2014, as part of the First World War commemorations, her hull was covered once more in a distinctive ‘dazzle’ design, courtesy of artist Tobias Rehberger.

Today President is on the National Register of Historic Vessels, is the last Q-ship, last of her class and last RN ship to have fought as an anti-submarine vessel in the Great War.

She is nothing if not historic.

However, due to the upcoming construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel to tackle sewage discharges into the River Thames, President had to leave Blackfriars Bridge this February.

© Rob Powell. 11/02/2016. HMS President has arrived in Chatham after leaving the Victoria Embankment last week. The historic vessel in a Dazzleship livery left her moorings on the Thames on the 5th February because of work taking place on the Thames Tideway sewage tunnel. Her journey down the river was initially held because of bad conditions as she moored at Erith until setting off again today. The vessel was tasked with finding U Baots in WW1 and has been moored on the Thames since 1922 where she has fulfilled a number of roles including protecting St Paul’s during WWII and more recently as an events space. Credit : Rob Powell

Her funnel and deckhouse was removed for the tow downriver and she is in limbo, with the current management team trying to raise money to secure a new mooring along the Thames but without much luck.

From the group’s website:

The HMS President, one of the UK’s last remaining WWI ships, has been unsuccessful in its bid to secure Libor funding in today’s Autumn Statement from the Chancellor.

The funding bid that had seen support in national newspapers and a parliamentary motion, with more than 20 signatories, has failed to secure vital restoration funding – this could now see the country’s last remaining submarine hunter of the Atlantic campaign scrapped.

Paul Williams, Director of the HMS President Preservation Trust, said; “The lack of recognition for this worthy cause if hugely disappointing. The HMS President Preservation Trust, and our friends in Parliament and elsewhere, has been working extremely hard to secure the future of this wonderful war heritage site.

“Her hull is only a few millimetres thick now in some places. Therefore, if restoration funding is not found soon she will be consigned to the scrap heap – as her sister ship the HMS Chrysanthemum was in 1995. As we mark the centenary commemorations of WWI it seems an absolute travesty that we will potentially be saying goodbye to one of only three remaining warships from that era. What a loss to our heritage that will be.”

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph MPs and Peers, including the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Boyce, and Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, Dr Julian Lewis MP, had called for the ship to be rescued. The parliamentarians had urged the Chancellor to look favourably on the bid, or risk losing her forever, stating “This would be an irreplaceable loss to our war heritage, and a sorry way to mark the country’s First World War centenary commemorations.”

Hopefully she will be saved, as she is literally one of a kind.

Other that, she is preserved in maritime art.

Specs:

Dazzle Painted Ship Model Sloop Saxifrage/Tamarisk 203 & 204 (MOD 2250) Small dazzle ship model. It is hand-painted blue and black on a white background. The number 203 is inscribed on a piece of paper and attached to the mast on the model. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30019301

1,290 long tons (1,311 t)
Length:
250 ft. (76.2 m) p/p
262 ft. 3 in (79.93 m) o/a
Beam:     35 ft. (10.7 m)
Draught:
11 ft. 6 in (3.51 m) mean
12 ft. 6 in (3.81 m) – 13 ft. 8 in (4.17 m) deep
Propulsion:     4-cylinder triple expansion engine, 2 boilers, 2,500 hp (1,864 kW), 1 screw
Speed:     16 knots (29.6 km/h; 18.4 mph)
Range:     Coal: 260 tons
Complement: 93
Armament:
Designed to mount :
2 × 12-pounder gun
1 × 7.5 inch howitzer or 1 × 200 lb. stick-bomb howitzer
4 × Depth charge throwers
As built:
2 × 4 in (102 mm) guns
1 or 2 × 12-pounder guns
Depth charge throwers

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