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. 9, 2015: The (bad) luck of the Irish

Oil Painting by Kenneth King, National Maritime Museum of Ireland

Here we see the Irish Mercantile Marine-flagged schooner Cymric as she appeared during WWII. The hardy windjammer had a very hard luck life indeed.

Cymric, named after the extinct dark beaked, grey-eyed eagle sometimes termed Woodward’s Eagle, was built on the orders of William Thomas of Wales in 1893 as a 123-foot barquentine for South American and Australian trade.

By 1906, she was acquired by Irish interests in Arklow and re-rigged as a three master schooner.

Fast forward to 1915 and the Royal Navy was on the lookout to acquire some disposable ships to serve as well-armed bait for U-boats. The concept, the Q-ship (their code name 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.

Something like this:

“The Q-ship Prize in action against U-93 on 30 April 1917”, painting by Arthur J Lloyd, from Scars of the Heart exhibition, Auckland War Memorial Museum

That’s when Cymric, along with her sistership William Thomas’s former Gaelic and a third Irish schooner, Mary B Mitchell, were acquired by the RN and put to work. They were given an auxiliary engine, armed with a 12-pounder and two 6-pounder guns (all hidden) as well as two Vickers machine guns and some small arms for their enlarged 50-man crew.

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.

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 0.

However, Cymric bagged a submarine of her own, literally.

First let’s talk about HM Submarine J6.

The seven 274-foot J-class boats built during the war were faster than most subs of the era (capable of 19-knots) but still not fast enough to keep up with the main battle fleet on extended operations, which relegated them to the 11th Flotilla at Blyth from their commissioning through the end of the war, stationed around the Hungarian freighter turned depot ship HMS Titania, rarely seeing action.

J6 (not U-6)

One of these was J6, commissioned 25 January 1916 for service in an uneventful war in her assigned neck of the woods. That was until her skipper Lt.Cdr. Geoffrey Warburton, while on the surface with her deck gun unmanned off Northumberland coast on 15 Oct. 1918 (just weeks before the end of the conflict) stumbled upon a non-descript schooner hanging out.

That’s when the HMS Cymric thought herself very lucky indeed.

From Lieutenant F Peterson RNR, skipper of the Q-ship:

“At about 15.30 on the 15th October a submarine was spotted on the surface steaming towards CYMRIC. Visibility at this time was about 6000-yards and when first spotted the submarine was from two and a half to three miles off. She continued on an opposite course to CYMRIC and I decided she was a friendly submarine…I recognized the bow of the ship as typical of the ‘J’ Class. When first sighted ‘action stations’ were sounded, but when I decided this submarine was friendly I told the gun crews, but ordered them to ‘stand by’.”

There was no obvious evidence that the submarine was hostile, because her gun was unmanned and men could be clearly seen on the bridge. Yet, Lt. Peterson was disturbed by the position of the gun, as it did not correspond to any of the friendly submarine silhouettes he had been issued with for training purposes. As the lettering on the submarine’s conning tower became clearer, suspicion grew that the submarine was an enemy. Some eyewitnesses from CYMRIC claimed that an object was partly obscuring the lettering on the conning tower.

Shortly after this, when the submarine’s letter and number could be seen clearly, it appeared to me to be ‘U 6’; the submarine at that time was still on the bow: I waited until the submarine was on the beam and still being convinced she was ‘U 6’, I gave the order for action. The White Ensign was hoisted on the mizzen truck of CYMRIC. There was a pause, but no recognition was shown by the submarine at that time.”

With that, the Q-ship dropped her bulkwarks and opened fire on “U6” at 1800 yards with her starboard 12-pounder, hitting the sub’s conning tower with the third shot, and thereafter firing for effect.

Although Lt.Cdr. Warburton of J6 fired no less than six flares off to signal the surface ship to stop the shelling. Tragically, the sub closed her hatches, sealing off eight sailors below decks to their ultimate fate while she continued ahead in course and speed– her control room shot to shit and unable to signal the engines to halt. The bombardment ended when J6 entered the sea fog again and disappeared.

The slower Cymric caught up to her dead in the water and, seeing RN sailors swimming for their lives, realized with horror what had happened.

A Cymric crewmember:

“The first thing I noticed was the marking ‘HM Submarines’ on the bands of the men’s hats. We had sunk a British submarine by mistaking the ‘J’ for a ‘U’. I can remember a big red headed chap who was badly wounded shouting at us from the boat ‘Come on you stupid ##### these are your own ###### side! Give them a hand’.

We pulled over to the sinking men. One man was holding up his commanding officer. He yelled come and help me save Mr Warburton. Others were drowning. We dived in and rescued all that we could. One we took out of the water was too far gone and died on board…We sent a signal to Blyth that we were making for the port with the survivors of J6 aboard. I will never forget entering the port. As we rounded the pier and worked our way into the basin where the depot ship TITANIA and the other submarines were moored, we could see the wives and children of the submarine gazing with anxious eyes to see if those dear to them were among the survivors.”

In all, some fifteen men were lost with HM S/M J6, the only member of her class of submarines to suffer a casualty in the war:

Armstrong, Ernest William M/12905 E.R. Artificer.3rd
Brierley, James Roger Ingham, Sub-Lieutenant
Bright, C.T. Artificer Engineer
Burwell, Herbert Edward Philip M/3779 E.R.Artificer.4th
Hill, Arthur Herbert J/5428 Able Seaman
Lamont, Athol Davaar M/14927 E.R. Artificer.3rd
Rayner, Edward George J/5764 Leading Seaman
Russell, William Thomas J/28769 Able Seaman
Savidge, Albert Edward K/19992 Stoker.1st
Stevenson, Percival James P/K 1628 L/Stoker
Tachon, Philip K/20794 Stoker 1st Class
Thompson, William Piper K/23871Stoker.1st
Tyler, Frank Andrew J/2116 Able Seaman
White, Henry Thomas J/13130 Able Seaman
Wickstead, George Herbert J/31563 Leading Telegraphist

A court of inquiry cleared Peterson and his crew, though some had reservations.

In the end, the court records were sealed until 1997 under the Official Secrets Act.

With the end of the war arriving, Cymric was disarmed and disposed of by sale in 1919 and later reacquired for the now-free Irish Merchant trade, spending most of her interwar career as a mail ship.

However her bad luck continued.

On November 28 1921, while waiting to move through the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin near Ringsend bridge, a stiff seaward wind came and pushed her forward suddenly, impaling her bowsprit in the side of a street tram, in one of the few instances in which a ship, technically still afloat at sea, was in a traffic accident with a city streetcar.

Nevertheless, Cymric‘s most unlucky day was still nearly 15 years off.

In 1939, neutral Ireland entered World War II and tried to walk a fine line to keep that neutrality in place, going so far as to intern both Axis and Allied servicemen found on her territory for the duration.

Isolated by a large degree, her 53 Irish flagged merchantmen continued their vital trade to other neutrals such as Portugal and Spain, trying to keep out of the war as best they could while saving 534 seamen from other countries lost upon the water in the period known in the service as “The Long Watch.”

Their only defense was their flag and national markings on their side, and that wasn’t much.

Oil painting by Kenneth King in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland depicting the moments after the SS Irish Oak, a 8500-ton steamer and one of the largest in Irish service, was torpedoed mid-Atlantic by U-607 in 1943– whose commander later told his bosses he targeted the vessel because he just knew it was a decoy Q-ship. Irony, thy name is the Irish Merchant service.

By the end of the war nearly a quarter of the Irish ships and men upon them were sunk by ships, planes and mines of both sides, but they kept the island country fed, warm and out of the dark.

As for Cymric, she sailed on the Lisbon Run for the last time in early 1944 and promptly vanished, never to be seen again.

The final crew of schooner Cymric (missing since 24 February 1944), were posthumously awarded the Irish Mercantile Marine Service Medal for the contribution to the war:

Bergin, P., Wexford
Brennan, J., Wexford
Cassidy, C., Athboy, Co. Meath
Crosbie,J., Wexford
Furlong, K., Wexford
Kiernan, B., Dundalk
McConnell, C., Dublin
O’Rourke, W., Wexford
Ryan, M., Dungarvan
Seaver, P ., Skerries
Tierney, M., Wexford

Their names are a part of both Wexford’s Maritime Memorial, where many of the men came from and their loss still lingers, as well as the larger Dublin City Quay Memorial to the 149 seamen lost on neutral Irish ships sunk or damaged by torpedoes, mines, bombs and aircraft strafing (by Luftwaffe & RAF) during WWII. In Dublin, a street is also named after this vanished ship.

J-6’s battered conning tower. Image via Divenet.

As for J6, her war grave was located in 2010 by divers from the UK by accident but has since been mapped and verified.

Specs:

Class and type: Iron barquentine
Tonnage: 228 grt
Length: 123 ft (37 m)
Beam: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Draught: 10 ft 8 in (3.25 m)
Propulsion: Sail, Auxiliary motor fitted in World War I
Sail plan: Three masted bark, then schooner
Armament: 1 12pdr, 2 6pdr, small arms (1915-1919)

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

One of the more quiet entries into harbor and coastal mine clearing that the Navy has been working on besides the more high profile RMS as used by the LCS, is devices like Ocean Server’s Iver 3 unmanned underwater vehicle.

Specs:
Standard Length: 60-85 inches depending on instrumentation package
• Base weight (standard vehicle) <85 lbs man-portable.
• Extended Range DVL options for 80 plus meter bottom lock and ADCP
• 100m depth rating (deeper options available)
• 8-14 hours endurance at speed of 2.5 knots (configuration dependent)
• 1-4 knots speed range using Smart Motor: 48 V DC servo controlled motor with speed feedback
• GPS/Wifi (802.11n Ethernet standard) Fixed Antenna mast with LED for visual location and integrated satellite based augmentation system reception capability (Iridium and Acomms optional)
• Swappable Battery Section (Eight 98 Whr Battery Packs for 760 Watt-hour capacity)
• Single Dual Core 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Low Power CPU with Windows Embedded
• 256 GB Solid State Drive for Operation & Data Storage
• Removable flash drive for immediate access to sonar records (USB2) and data transfer for mission planning while on deck
• Integrated WiFi Hub for rapid data movement
• World Class Sonar Options (L3 Klein, EdgeTech, StarFish..etc) including OceanServer’s rapid assessment tools to create GeoTiff images of side scan records and KMZ files for Google Earth
• Built for continuous operation, virtually maintenance free, intuitive operation and mission planning in minutes

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician 2nd Class Ryan Bejar, assigned to Commander, Task Group (CTG) 56.1, talks about his experience with the Iver 3 unmanned underwater vehicle and its importance to the Navy EOD community at CTG 56.1 in Manama, Bahrain, July 6, 2015. Also available in high definition. (U.S. Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Arthurgwain L. Marquez/Released)

30th June 1970 USN F-4B Phantom Bu. No. 153913 Tailcode NL 1 of VF-151 aboard USS Coral Sea (CV-43)

Crashed into the Pacific off California during launch when nose gear collapsed.

Sadly both the pilot and RIO were killed.

Apparently the Kingdom of Saud is for real on their intentions to pick up one of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship designs– that of Lockheed’s mono-hull Freedom-class

150428-N-TC437-320 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 28, 2015) The littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1) transits alongside the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) in preparation for a replenishment-at-sea training exercise. U.S. Navy ships are underway conducting an independent deployer certification exercise off the coast of Southern California. The exercise provides a multi-ship environment to train and certify independent deployers in surface warfare, air defense, maritime-interception operations, command and control/information warfare, command, control, computers and combat systems intelligence and mine warfare. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ignacio D. Perez/Released)

“The Saudi ships are expected to be armed with a 76mm OTO Melara gun, replacing the 57mm found on US LCSs.

The Saudi ships will still feature an aft mission bay with a stern ramp, as in Freedom-class ships, but will do away with the forward two mission bays fitted in those LCSs.

The propulsion plant is likely to be the same as in Freedom-class ships, although the Saudis may choose different waterjets. Top speed is expected to be in the 37-knot range.

Earlier LoRs specified six corvettes of about 2,500 tons, able to operate an MH-60R helicopter. It’s not clear what designs are considered front-runners, but the Saudis are said to be in discussions with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia, which builds several designs that could be considered.”

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 Sept. 23, 2015: Big Chris from Norway

Christian Radich (center), Statsraad Lehmkuhl (left) and Gorch Fock (right) possibly in Plymouth Sound in the 1950’s.

Here we see the fully rigged training ship Sk/S Christian Radich of Norway, doing what she has consistently done best in the past 75 years.  Built in the twilight of tall ships, she was lost in World War II but has since been reborn and has been going strong ever since.

The dream of one Simeon Christian Radich, a wealthy sawmill owner in the Oslo area who left 90,000 Norwegian Kroner to build a training ship that later bore his name, she was built in 1937 at the Framnæs Mekaniske Verksted yard in Norway.

Crafted during the Depression, Christian Radich was impressive at 240-feet overall when measured from stern to the tip of the bowsprit. Carrying 26 massive sails (over 13,000 sq. feet of canvas) when fully rigged, she was constructed with a 220hp diesel “steel topsail” that could chug her along at 8 knots when becalmed. Her main mast, 192-feet long, stood a towering 128 feet above the deck.

Instead of cargo, her holds were designed as dormitories and class rooms for up to 100 youth to be trained in the ways of the sea, carpentry, engineering, and leadership in the Norwegian merchant navy.

Officially owned by the Kristiania Schoolship Association and operated by the Ostlanders Skoleskib, Christian Radich was crewed by a captain, 3 officers, six instructors (typically reserve naval officers), a doctor, ship’s engineer, cook, steward, and 10 merchant sailors. She replaced the 79-year old brig three-master Statsraad Erichsen in service upon her completion and was designed by Commander Christian Blom of the Norwegian Navy.

Taking to sea, she made the 1939 New York World’s Fair with Crown Prince Olav (later King Olav V) aboard and returned home just in time to be taken into the Norwegian Navy as an accommodation ship in September of that year upon the outbreak of war. As she could float in 15 feet of water, could pack 200 hammocks in her berthing areas, and had classroom compartments that could be converted to HQ areas, she made a perfect fit for the task.

In April 1940, the Germans captured Christian Radich at her slip in the Horten Naval Base, her brief and uneventful tenure in the Norwegian armed forces during World War II at an end.

The Nazis seized her, impressed the fine ship into the Kriegsmarine in 1941, and used her as an S-boat mothership first in north Norway (at Skojomen) then in the Baltic.

July 1942: In the rear are two S-boats of the 6. SFltl in Skjomen (Ofotfjord near Narvik) alongside a camouflaged “Christian Radich”, in the foreground MT-“Kärnten” with U 408 and U 457 – Picture: Archives E. Skjold

When 1945 came, the Germans stripped her of anything useful and scuttled her in shallow water near Flensburg. Her masts broken at the deck, her fittings gone or loose, she was literally a wreck although only eight years old.

The KSA recovered the stricken vessel in December 1945, paid for a 900,000 Kroner refit at Sanderfjord Naval Yard under the guarantee of Norwegian businessman Alf Bjercke, and once again took to the water training young seamen in 1947, aged 15-25.

Between 1956 and the present day she has participated in scores of tall ship races, placing in an impressive 39 of them, showing she has what it takes to fill the canvas and leave other windjammers to taste her spray.

USS Strong DD-758 and The Christian Radich under sail in “Windjammer”

She starred in a Danish film, “Windjammer, the Voyage of the Christian Radich” racing against the Dane’s school ship Danmark, in which a 19-man film crew lived aboard her for six months at sea.

A beautiful ship, she is a favorite of maritime artists

The Chase by Derek Dubose

Christian Radich in the Port Of Duluth Painting by Werner Pipkorn

She is currently run by a non-profit, The Christian Radich Sail Training Foundation, who endeavors to keep her at sea as much as possible, training and representing the country. They have a very informative webpage and social media account (from where most of these images originate).

Since 2005, she was used as a school ship for the Navy to train the country’s naval officers as part of the Befalsskolen for Sjøforsvaret program.

This changed earlier this year, as noted by the Foundation:

“We were informed that the Norwegian Navy’s officer school are unable to renew the contract with Christian Radich after April 2015, despite the fact that they are very satisfied with our services. There has been an intensive process to find alternative employment during the winter months. The Foundation offers now training for maritime students at Norwegian Colleges. They will have an apprenticeship on board during the schoolyear 2015/16.”

Still, she has celebrated her 75th year in almost constant service, which means something these days.

Specs:

Displacement: 1,050 tones
Length: 62.5 m (205 ft.) 73 m (240 ft.) including bowsprit
Beam: 9.7 m (32 ft.)
Height: 37.7 m (124 ft.)
Draught: 4.7 m (15 ft.)
Propulsion:
(As built) 26 Sails, 13.580 sq. ft., four-cylinder, four-stroke single acting diesel engine at 220 bhp built by Deutsche Werke AG, Kiel.
(Post WWII) 27 Sails, (14,600 sq. ft.) Engine, Caterpillar 900 HK
Speed: Sails, 14 knots (26 km/h) Engine, 8 knots (1937) 10 knots current
Complement 15 permanent crew 88 passengers/trainees (current)

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

During DSEI 2015 which took place in London from 15-18 September, UK based engineering company SubSea Craft unveiled a revolutionary new submersible called the Diver Delivery Unit (DDU). The DDU is modular and offers mission-specific capability on and under the surface. It is scalable and reconfigurable for a variety of roles. The DDU features a unique catamaran design and can deploy up to 8 special forces operators including the crew of two.

Of course, it seems about 2-3 times too wide for U.S. Navy submarine dry deck shelters, but could have some use from surface ships with well decks such as LSDs, LPDs, LHDs etc. Or maybe Independence-class tri-hulled LCS platforms(?)

France was long a warship provider to old Imperial Russia– producing a number of the Tsar’s pre-dreadnoughts. They even gave back the old White Russian fleet to the Soviets, exiled in Tunisia after the Russian Civil War in 1924. Even with these historical ties, it came as a mild shock when NATO-ish France agreed to sell new Imperial Russia a pair of Russified Mistral LPDs a couple years ago.

At 21,000-tons, the Mistrals are among the most capable amphibious warfare ships in the world, and the Russians bought two

Then came the whole Ukrainian thing and, under pressure from the rest of Europe, France pulled the plug and refunded Moscow’s money (about a billion dollars worth), leaving the Russians pissed and the French with two brand new ships on their hands with everything written in Russian (and loaded with some Warsaw Pact commo, radar, close in weapons systems and other and misc systems).

The Russians pushed to have the French either complete the deal or scuttle the ships, saying they couldn’t be sold with Putin’s toys installed. This eschewed plans to sell them to India and Singapore, both of which are looking to expand their navies on the cheap.

Except that Egypt now wants them and, with the Russians longing for a return to the Sadat-era where they sold billions of rubles of military gear to North Africa’s most together military force, Moscow is cool with that.

As noted by Defense News, Egypt will take the Russian ships as-is in a $1 billion deal (with Saudi financing).

“It was my preferred buyer because we already have military cooperation with Egypt,” French President Francois Hollande said of the deal he struck with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Egypt plays an important role in the Middle East and wants to move towards a democratic transition, which is not easy, and we should support their efforts.”

Of course, the prospect of leaving the door open for more weapons deals between Egypt and both France and Russia is likely part of the goulash as well.

More over at USNI

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. 30, 2015: The Deseret Battlewagon

Utah as she appeared in World War One (click image to big up). At the time she was the flag of the 6th Battleship Division and carried a unique camo pattern that included the white triangular veins shown here Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

Here we see the Florida-class dreadnought USS Utah (BB-31/AG-16) as she appeared during World War I. While she went “Over There” and was ready to fight the Germans yet never fired a shot, her follow-on experience in the next world war would be much different.

The period of U.S. battleship development from the USS Indiana (Battleship No. 1) in 1890, until Florida was ordered in 1908 saw a staggering 29 huge capital ships built in under two decades. While the majority of those vessels were pre-dreadnought Monopoly battleships (for instance, Indiana was 10,500-tons and carried 2 × twin 13″/35 guns), the U.S. had gotten in the dreadnought business with the two smallish 16,000-ton, 8×12 inch/45 caliber gunned South Carolina-class ships ordered in 1905, followed by a pair of larger 22,400-ton, 10×12 inch/45 gunned Delaware-class battleships in 1907.

The pair of Florida-class ships were better than the U.S. battleships before them but rapidly eclipsed by the 33 that came after and developmentally were sandwiched between the old and new era. Dimensionally, they were more than twice as heavy as the country’s first battleships and only half as heavy as the last commissioned in 1944.

At 25,000 tons, they carried roughly the same battery of 12 inchers (10x12″/45 caliber Mark 5 guns) in six twin turrets as the Delawares, which were equivalent to the period Royal Navy’s BL 12 inch Mk X naval gun and the Japanese Type 41 12-inch (305 mm) /45 caliber naval gun. Utah was the last battleship mounted with this particular model gun.

Crew of Turret I on USS Utah B-31 in 1913 U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 103835 via Navweaps

Their belt, an almost homogenous 11-inches everywhere, was thick for the time and they could make 21-knots on a quartet of Parsons steam turbines powered by a full dozen Babcock & Wilcox coal-fired boilers.

Laid down 9 March 1909 at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Utah was first (and, until this week, only) ship named after the former State of Deseret.

Commissioned 31 August 1911, her early career was a series of training and goodwill cruises. Then the gloves came off.

In April, 1914, Utah was heavily involved in Mr. Wilson’s intervention in the affairs of Mexico, ordered to seize the German-flagged steamer SS Ypiranga, and loaded with good Krupp and Mauser guns for old man Huerta.

This led to the battle for and subsequent occupation of Veracruz where Utah and her sistership Florida landed two provisional battalions consisting of 502 Marines and 669 bluejackets (many of whose white uniforms were dyed brown with coffee grounds) to fight their way to the Veracruz Naval Academy. Utah‘s 384 sailors gave hard service, pushing street by street and tackling the Mexican barricades. In the fighting, the fleet suffered ~100 casualties while the Mexicans took nearly five times that number.

Formal raising of first flag of U.S. Veracruz 2 P.M. April 27, 1914 by sailors and Marines of the Utah and Florida

As the crisis abated, Utah sailed away two months later for the first of her many refits.

When the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, Utah spent most of the conflict as an engineering school training ship in Chesapeake Bay. then in August 1918 sailed for Ireland where she was stationed in Bantry Bay to keep an eye peeled for German surface raiders.

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

After her fairly pedestrian war service, she and Florida had their dozen coal eaters replaced with a quartet of more efficient White-Forster oil-fired boilers, which allowed one funnel to be removed. Their AAA suite was likewise increased.

Utah was a happy ship in the 1920s, completing a number of goodwill cruises to South America and Europe including a trip in 1928 with President-Elect Herbert Hoover aboard.

While the ships survived the cuts of the Washington Naval Treaty, the ax of the follow-on London Naval Treaty fell and, when compared to the newer hulls in the battleship fleet, Utah and Florida were found lacking although they were only 15~ years old and recently modernized.

As such, class leader Florida was decommissioned in February 1931 and towed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where she was broken up for scrap.

As for Utah, she was decommissioned, pulled from the battle fleet, disarmed and converted to a radio-controlled target ship, designated AG-16 on 1 July 1931. She was capable of being operated completely by remote control with a skeleton crew.

Her electric motors, operated by signals from the controlling ship, opened and closed throttle valves, moved her steering gear, and regulated the supply of oil to her boilers. In addition, a Sperry gyro pilot kept the ship on course.

Able to operate with her much-reduced crew buttoned up inside her protective armor with every hatch dogged, her decks were reinforced with a double layer of 6″x12″ plank timbers to keep inert practice bombs from damaging the ship. Her funnel likewise was given a steel cap. Sandbags and cement patches covered hard-to-plank areas.

Photographed by George Winstead, probably immediately after her recommissioning on 1 April 1932, when Utah (AG-16) departed Norfolk on to train her engineers in using the new installations and for trials of her radio gear by which the ship could be controlled at varying rates of speed and changes of course maneuvers that a ship would conduct in battle. USN photo courtesy of Robert M. Cieri. Text courtesy of DANFS. Via Navsource

No longer considered a capital ship befitting flag officers, her 102-piece silver service, purchased by donation from 30,000 schoolchildren of Utah (and each piece with an image of Brigham Young on it), was sent back to the state for safekeeping.

While her main and secondary armament was landed, she was equipped with a battery of 1.1-inch quads and later some 5″/38 cal DP, 5″/25, 20mm and .50 cal mounts to help train anti-aircraft gunners. To keep said small guns from being whacked away by falling practice bombs, they had to be dismantled and stored belowdecks when not in use or covered with timber “doghouses.”

This armarment constantly shifted with the needs of the Navy. In August 1941 she was considerably re-armed for her work as a AAA training vessel.

She carried two 5in/25 mounts forward atop No.1 and No.2 turrets respectively. Two 5in/38 mounts to port atop the port aircastle with two 5in/25s in the same position on the starboard aircastle. (The `aircastles’ are the projecting casemates abreast the bridge area for the former secondary battery). On the 01 level abeam the bridge, a quad 1.1 inch gun was carried on both sides of the ship. Aft, came two more 5in/38s atop No.4 and No.5 turrets, this time enclosed with gun shields. Finally, four Oerlikon 20mm (later scheduled to be replaced by 40mm Bofors) and eight 0.50-calibre guns completed the ensemble. An advanced gun director and stereoscopic range-finder was mounted on the top of No.3 turret and anti-aircraft and 5-inch directors fitted on the foremast area

Note her missing guns, funnel cap and extensive extra decking

She was in roughly this configuration on the Day that will live in Infamy. Note the 5/38s rear and 5/25s forward. These were covered with heavy wooden ‘dog houses’ on Dec. 7th

Used in fleet maneuvers in the Pacific for a decade, she was resting near Battleship Row on Dec. 7, 1941.

Ironically, she was scheduled to leave Hawaii for the West Coast on Dec. 8th.

The attacking Japanese pilots in the Pearl Harbor attack had been ordered not to waste their bombs and torpedoes on the old target ship, but it has been theorized some excited aviators mistook the gleaming wooden planks on her decking to be that of an American flattop. Further, she was berthed on the Northwest side of Ford Island where visiting aircraft carriers were usually tied up on the weekends.

As such, Utah received two (perhaps three) Japanese torpedoes in the first wave of the attack.

Painting by the artist Wayne Scarpaci showing the Utah (AG-16) being torpedoed

Not retrofitted with torpedo bilges as other WWI-era U.S. battleships were, the Emperor’s fish penetrated her hull and she soon capsized, taking 64 of her sailors with her– 54 of which were trapped inside her hull and to this day never recovered.

It went quick for the old battleship. The attack began at 7:55 a.m. and by 8:11 Utah was reported to have turned turtle, her masts embedded in the harbor bottom.

One of those 64 was Chief Watertender Peter Tomich, a Bosnian immigrant who served in the U.S. Army in WWI before enlisting for a career in the Navy. Tomich saved lives that day.

CPO Peter Tomich, MOH

From his MOH citation:

Although realizing that the ship was capsizing, as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, Chief Watertender Tomich remained at his post in the engineering plant of the U.S.S. UTAH (AG-16), until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his own life.

Navy hardhat salvage divers made 437 dives on the stricken ship during her attempted re-righting in 1944, involving 2,227 man-hours under pressure. However, she was never fully salvaged. She was stricken from the Naval List 13 November, 1944 and is currently preserved as a war grave. A further move to salvage her in the 1950s was stillborn.

Utah‘s ships bell is located on the campus of the University of Utah and is maintained by the campus NROTC unit.

Her silver service is maintained along with other artifacts in Salt Lake City at the Governor’s Mansion.

Utah persists to this day at her berth along Ford Island leaking oil into Pearl Harbor.

She is preserved as the USS Utah Memorial and the National Park Service, U.S. Navy and other stakeholders take her remains very seriously, mounting a color guard daily.

Underwater Photographer Captures Images of USS Utah Memorial. Shaan Hurley, a technologist from Autodesk, takes photographs of the USS Utah Memorial during a data-collecting evolution in Pearl Harbor, October 23, 2014. In a process called “photogrametry” the underwater photos will be inputted into computer software that will create 3D data models of the photographed areas. The National Park Service is working with several companies and agencies to gather data points to create an accurate 3D model of the ship. U.S. Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brett Cote / RELEASED

Today she is remembered by a veteran’s group and survivors association of which there are only seven known remaining survivors. A number of those who have passed have been cremated and had their ashes interred in the wreck.

Members of the Navy Region Hawaii Ceremonial Guard march in formation at the conclusion of a ceremony in honor Pearl Harbor survivor Lt. Wayne Maxwell at the USS Utah Memorial on historic Ford Island. Maxwell was a 30-year Navy veteran and former crew member of the Farragut-class destroyer USS Aylwin during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 93.

As for Chief Tomich, he was something of an orphan and his award is the only Medal of Honor since the Indian Campaigns in the late 1800s that has never been awarded either to a living recipient, or surviving family member. The state of Utah, who pronounced him a resident posthumously, long had custody of his award.

USS Tomich (DE-242), an Edsall-class destroyer escort, was named in his honor in 1942 and remained on the Naval List until 1972.

In 1989, the U.S. Navy built the Senior Enlisted Academy in Newport, R.I., and named the building Tomich Hall. Chief Tomich’s Medal of Honor is on display on the quarterdeck there.

Finally, this week, SECNAV Ray Mabus announced in Salt Lake City that SSN-801, a Virginia-class submarine under construction, will be the second vessel to carry the name Utah.

Specs:

1911 Via ship bucket

Plan, 1932 Via Navsource, notice one stack, no main guns

Displacement: Standard: 21,825 long tons (22,175 t), full load 25,000
Length: 521 ft. 8 in (159.00 m)
Beam: 88 ft. 3 in (26.90 m)
Draft: 28.3 ft. (8.6 m)
Installed power: 28,000 shp (21,000 kW)
Propulsion: Steam turbines, 4 screws. 12 Coal boilers later replaced by 4 oil boilers in 1926.
Speed: 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range: 5,776 nmi (6,650 mi; 10,700 km) at 10 kn (12 mph, 19 km/h) and 2,760 nmi (3,180 mi; 5,110 km) at 20 kn (23 mph, 37 km/h)
Coal: 2,500 tons (2,268 tonnes)
Complement: 1,001 officers and men as designed, 575 after 1932
Armament:
(1931)

10 × 12 in (30 cm)/45 cal guns
16 × 5 in (127 mm)/51 cal guns
2 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes

(1941)

4×5″/38 DP in single mounts
4×5″/25 in single mounts
8×1.1″ AAA in two quad mounts
4x20mm/80 in singles
15x.50-cal singles, water-cooled

Armor:
Belt: 9–11 in (229–279 mm)
Lower casemate: 8–10 in (203–254 mm)
Upper casemate: 5 in (127 mm)
Barbettes: 4–10 in (102–254 mm)
Turret face: 12 in (305 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 1.5 in (38 mm), later reinforced with wooden planks, sandbags and concrete.

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.

I’m a member, so should you be!

General Atomics has unveiled a new capability for its MQ-9B Guardian maritime UAV (a navalized 9B Reaper), presenting a sonobuoy capability along with other modifications to the Royal Navy in a bid to market the Guardian as an unmanned maritime patrol aircraft to supplement the likely procurement of a manned maritime patrol aircraft.

From Flight Global

“What we’re really looking at is a Predator B carrying sonobuoys, controlling them, and sending sonobuoy information back to the ground station over a SATCOM link,” King says.

“The work has seen us put the system together in a lab and carry out ground testing and prove it end to end. We were ready to go flying in 2015, but the aircraft were diverted to more urgent work. So we will be flying this early in the new year to prove the system.”

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 Oct. 7, 2015: Los Submarinos!

Submarino S-01 leaving harbor, 1962. She looks remarkably like a Type VIIC U-boat. Hey, wait a minute…

Here we see what could have very well been the last of old Adolph’s U-boat fleet in fleet operations, Submarino S-01 of the Armada Española.

Starting life as U-573, a Type VIIC U-boat built for Germany’s Kriegsmarine, she was laid down 24 October 1939, roughly 76 years ago this month, at Blohm and Voss in Hamburg. As such, she was a war baby, with the German invasion of Poland beginning some two months before. She cost the Germans 4 million marks.

The Type VIIC design was the backbone and icon of the U-boat force, with 568 commissioned from 1940 to 1945. For instance, the submarine in Das Boot, U-96, was a VIIC.

These 800-ton, 220-foot long vessels had great range (8,500 nm), could make 17.7 knots on the surface which was faster than most merchantmen of the day, and carried 14 advanced torpedoes and an 88mm SK C/35 gun with some 200~ rounds for those ships not worthy of a torp.

Commissioned 5 June 1941, on the cusp of the invasion of the Soviet Union, U-573 completed four combat patrols in an eight-month period between 15 September 1941 and 2 May 1942. Spending 119 days at sea, her inaugural skipper, Kptlt. Heinrich Heinsohn, helmed the vessel the whole time.

U-573 in German service

The city of Landeck in Tyrol adopted the submarine within the then-popular sponsorship program (Patenschaftsprogramm), organizing gifts and holidays for the crew, earning her the honorary name “U-573 Landeck,” and she carried that town’s coat of arms briefly.

U-573s four patrols produced lackluster results, only chalking up one kill, the 5,289-ton Norwegian flagged steamer Hellen, sunk by two of three torpedoes fired by the submarine about 4 miles off Cape Negro. The bow broke away and the Norwegian sank shortly after midnight without loss of life. All 41 crew members were picked up by the armed trawler HMT Arctic Ranger and landed in Gibraltar the next day.

SS Hellen

Speaking of Gibraltar, on April 29, 1942, U-573 was encountered on the surface by a Lockheed Hudson bomber (U.S. A-28) of RAF Sqdn. 233/M who promptly dropped 325-pound depth charges on her until she submerged.

Damaged, the submarine was again attacked by Hudsons from No. 233 the next day.

Lockheed Hudson of No. 233 Squadron RAF preparing for take-off in August 1942, with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background. Taken by Lt. G.W. Dallison, War Office official photographer – This is photograph GM 1405 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums; captioned A Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson III of No. 233 Squadron RAF leaves its dispersal at Gibraltar for a reconnaissance sortie.

With one man killed, his batteries leaking, a crack in his hull that prevented submergence to more than 45 feet, and numerous other issues, Heinsohn made for the closest friendly harbor– that of neutral but pro-German Spain– arriving at Cartagena on 2 May.

There, under the howls of British diplomatic protests, the Spaniards allowed the sub 90 days to patch up and get back into the Med. However, the battered U-573 was too far gone for pierside ersatz repairs against a waiting British blockade and on 2 August 1942, Germany sold her to Franco for 180 million pesetas (1.5 million marks) in a warm handover, minus torpedoes and shells, which were destroyed to help keep the British happy. Her flag, books, code machine and crests were given to the German ambassador.

Handover. Note the caps!

Her 43-man crew, officially to be interned for the duration, snuck back to the Reich in small groups,  and was replaced by a few civilian German naval technicians who remained with Spain’s new sub as advisers until well after the war.

(Note- One other German Type VIIC sub, U-760, was interned under the guns of the Spanish cruiser Navarra at Vigo harbor in 1943 and, her engines dismantled, was towed away by the British in 1945.)

While the war ended and Hitler was swept away with all of his legions of VIICs (Heinsohn himself, as well as most of Crew 33, were killed on other U-boats after they returned home), U-573, rechristened G-7 by the Spanish, endured.

Why G-7? You see Franco had planned to build six of their own VIICs that were to be numbered G1 to G6, but that never happened.

G7 during her reconstruction

The thing is, the sole Type VIIC the Spanish did have was still a wreck. A floating wreck to be sure, but far from operational by any stretch of the imagination.

It wasn’t until 17 November 1947, after extensive refit in dry-dock to include much German contract labor, salvaged gear from Hamburg and new (American) batteries, she was in active service.

Barcelona, 1950

Painted gray, she still carried her 88mm Rheinmetall Borsig forward although her 20mm AA gun was landed. The Armada had acquired 12 working 533mm torpedoes and mounted a 7.62mm MG3 on her tower when needed. Still, she was far in advance of the few smallish pre-WWII subs the Armada had been using.

Tested to 120 meters depth (half or original design), her Spanish crew consisted of a Commander, Deputy Commander, Chief Engineer, Deputy Engineer, three CPOs, 13 Cabos (NCOs) and 24 ratings.

Her 88mm was kept standard in working condition until 1970.

Across her tower was installed “Todo por la Patria” (All for the Fatherland) in place of the old Landeck crest.

The most modern Spanish submarine until the 1950s, she was the pride of the fleet and made frequent appearance in period movies and film footage portraying German U-boats for obvious reasons.

“U 47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien,” a 1958 German film starring one U-573/Submarino G-7

In 1961, refitted with the help of the U.S., she was repainted black and renamed S-01.

Her skippers:
CC. D. GUILERMO CARRERO GARRE of –.–. 1947 to 26.9.1949
CC. D. Ayuso SERRANO JACINTO of 26/09/1949 to 27/11/1952
CC. Joaquín Florez of 27/11/1952 to 19/11/1954
CC. D. TOMAS NAVARRO CLAVIJO of 11/19/1954 to 17/04/1956
CC. Juan A. MORENO AZNAR from 04/17/1956 to 04/05/1960
CC.D. ENRIQUE ROMERO GONZALEZ of 05/05/1960 to 09/29/1961
TN. D. Luis Rodriguez Mendez-Nunez 09.29.1961 to 15.02.1965
CC. D. LUIS FERNANDO MARTI NARBONA of 15/02/1965 to 20/09/1966
CC. ENRIQUE SEGURA Agacino of 20/09/1966 to 04/16/1968
CC. JAVIER GARCIA CAVESTANY of 16/04/1968 to 05/10/1969
CC.D. AREVALO EMILIO Pelluz of 05/10/1969 to 02/05/1970

Docked for the last time in February 1970, she was stricken from the Armada on 2 May that year. Plans to preserve her as a museum fell through and she was sold for about $25,000, her value in scrap metal.

She was replaced in service 11 months later by USS Ronquil (SS-396), a Guppy’d Balao-class smoke boat who became SPS Isaac Peral (S-32)— with much of S-01‘s former crew aboard. Ironically,  Ronquil was also a movie star, having appeared as the fictional USS Tigershark in the film Ice Station Zebra.

While numerous submarines are preserved as museums, including 9 in Germany, there is only one Type VIIC on public display– U-995 at Laboe, Germany. Like U-573/S01 she was a Blohm and Voss boat and is a near sister.

(Note, U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry, in Chicago, Illinois is a type IXC).

Submarino S 01 Ex U573 y G-7 1941-1970 By Martin Garcia Garcia

Specs:

Displacement: 769 tonnes (757 long tons) surfaced
871 t (857 long tons) submerged
Length: 67.10 m (220 ft 2 in) o/a
50.50 m (165 ft. 8 in) pressure hull
Beam: 6.20 m (20 ft. 4 in) (o/a)
4.70 m (15 ft. 5 in) (pressure hull)
Height: 9.60 m (31 ft. 6 in)
Draft: 4.74 m (15 ft. 7 in)
Propulsion: 2 × supercharged 6-cylinder 4-stroke Germaniawerft diesel engines totaling 2,800–3,200 PS (2,100–2,400 kW; 2,800–3,200 shp). Max rpm: 470–490. Two Brown, Boveri & Cie GG UB 720/8 double-acting electric motors
Speed: 17.7 knots (32.8 km/h; 20.4 mph) surfaced
7.6 knots (14.1 km/h; 8.7 mph) submerged
Range: 8,500 nmi (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) surfaced
80 nmi (150 km; 92 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) submerged
Test depth: 230 m (750 ft)
Calculated crush depth: 250–295 m (820–968 ft.)
Complement: 44-52 officers & ratings
Armament: 5 × 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes (4 bow, 1 stern)
14 × torpedoes or 26 TMA or 39 TMB mines
1 × 8.8 cm SK C/35 Rheinmettal Borsig naval gun with 220 rounds
1x Rheinmettal 20mm antiaircraft

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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 Oct. 14, 2015: The great return of the hurricane Apache

Here we see the U.S. Revenue Marine Cutter Apache decked out with signal flags sometime after 1906 and before 1910.

In her 59 years of service to the nation she saw three wars, served in three (five if you really want to argue the point) different branches of the military and helped deliver one of the most remembered victory speeches in U.S. history.

Ordered from Reeder and Sons, Baltimore, Maryland in 1890, the new 190-foot iron-hulled revenue cutter was commissioned into the U.S. Revenue Marine on 22 August 1891. She was built for coastal operations, capable in floating in 10 feet of seawater, but with a 6:1 length to beam ratio and hardy steam plant with twin screws was able to operate in blue waters far out to sea if required.

She cost $95,650.

The new cutter had provision for an auxiliary sailing rig, although not equipped as such. Armed with a trio of small (57 mm, 6-pounder) deck guns and demolition charges, she could sink floating derelicts at sea which were a hazard to navigation, as well as hole smugglers who declined the offer to heave to and be inspected.

Named the Galveston in service, she shipped to that port for her home base in October 1891.

As Galveston, completed. Note the twin stacks and rakish bow. Click to embiggen and you will notice the wheel and compass station on her stern as well as an uncovered 57mm popgun way forward (the other two are under tarps amidships)

There, for the next 15 years she was the Revenue Marine’s (and after 1894 the renamed Revenue Cutter Service’s) presence along most of the Texas coast. She participated in Mardi Gras celebrations, transported local students “for educational purposes to study Galveston Harbor,” patrolled regattas, enforced oyster seasons and performed other USRM/USRCS functions as needed.

When the Spanish American War broke out in 1898, instead of chopping to the Navy like most of the large cutters, Galveston was ordered to New Orleans where she took on field pieces from the local militia and stood to in the Mississippi River delta to assist in repelling a potential Spanish naval thrust to the Crescent City.

After the war, she went back to Galveston where she encountered the super-hurricane of 1900 that left some 8,000 dead.

Root, USCG Photo

Aboard the USRC Galveston during the storm was assistant engineer Charles S. Root, later founder of the USCG’s Intelligence Service, who volunteered to lead a rescue party in the destroyed coastal town. A call for volunteers went out to the ship’s crew and eight enlisted men stepped forward to accompany Root, but first had to round up the swamped and damaged cutter’s whaleboat.

From the USCG:

Within half-an-hour of volunteering, Root and his men deployed, performing a mission more common to Lifesaving Service surf men than to cuttermen. The small group overhauled their whaleboat, dragged it over nearby railroad tracks and launched it into the overflowing streets. The winds blew oars into the air, so the men warped the boat through the city using a rope system. One of the rescuers would swim up the streets with a line, tie it to a fixed object and the boat crew would haul-in the line. Using this primitive process, Galveston’s boat crew rescued numerous victims out of the roiling waters of Galveston’s streets.

At around 6:15 p.m., the Galveston Weather Bureau anemometer registered over 100 mph, before a gust tore the wind gauge off the building. Later, Weather Bureau officials estimated that at around 7:00 p.m., the sustained wind speed had increased to 120 mph. By this time, assistant engineer Root and his rescue party returned to the Galveston having filled their whaleboat with over a dozen storm survivors. By this time, even the cutter’s survival seemed doubtful, with demolishing winds stripping away rigging and prying loose the ship’s launch. Meanwhile, wind-driven projectiles shattered the cutter’s windows and skylights in the pilothouse, deckhouse, and engine room covers.

Not long after Root returned to the cutter, Weather Bureau officials recorded an instantaneous flood surge of 4 feet. Experts estimate that the sustained wind speed peaked at 150 mph and gusts up to 200. The howling wind sent grown men sailing through the air and pushed horses to the ground. The barometric pressure dropped lower than 28.50 inches, a record low up to that date. By then, the storm surge topped 15 feet above sea level. The high water elevated the Galveston so high that she floated over her own dock pilings. Fortunately, the piling tops only bent the cutter’s hull plates but failed to puncture them.

Within an hour of returning to the cutter, at the height of the storm, Root chose to lead a second rescue party into the flooded streets. Darkness had engulfed the city and he called again for volunteers. The same men from the first crew volunteered the second time. The wind still made the use of oars impossible, so the crew warped the boat from pillar to post. As the men waded and swam through the city streets, buildings toppled around them and howling winds filled the air with sharp slate roof tiles. But the boat crew managed to rescue another 21 people. Root’s men housed these victims in a structurally sound two-story building and found food for them in an abandoned store. The cuttermen then moored the boat in the lee of a building and took shelter from flying debris and deadly missiles propelled by the wind.

The hurricane remains the worst weather-related disaster in U.S. history in terms of loss of life. Root and his volunteer crew were (posthumously and only in recent years) awarded Gold and Silver Lifesaving Medals respectively for their actions in September, 1900.

After the storm, Galveston was repaired and made ship-shape again before receiving a major refit in 1904, which included replacement of her entire engineering suite. Later her bowsprit was modified as after that time it was considered the 1891-designed provision for sail power was obsolete.

In 1906 she was renamed USRC Apache and reassigned to the Chesapeake region, based in Baltimore, the city of her birth.

After refit as Apache, note single stack and much-modified bowsprit and streamlined rigging.

Apache gave yeoman service enforcing customs and quarantine laws and saving lives. During the great blizzard of January 1914, she was credited with helping save 15 threatened fishing vessels trapped in ice and snow on the Chesapeake.

She participated in fleet drills with the Navy, transported D.C. politicians and dignitaries up and down the Bay, and generally made herself useful.

During World War I, she kept regular neutrality patrols with a weather eye peeled for U-boats and German surface raiders, becoming part of the new USCG in 1915.

When the U.S. entered the war in April 1917, she was transferred to the Navy along with the rest of the service. Painted haze gray, her armament and crew were greatly expanded in her service to the 5th Naval District.

In 28 months of Navy service, USS Apache continued her coastal patrol and search and rescue activities all along Hampton Roads, the approaches to the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay in general.

Returned to the USCG in August 1919, she regained her standard white and buff scheme, landed most of her armament– keeping just a sole 3″/23 caliber deck gun– and went back to working regular shifts for another two decades.

Coast Guard cutter “Apache” firing salute of the unveiling of the statue of Alexander Hamilton, May 1923. LOC Photo

Finally, at the end of 1937, with 46 years of hard service to include two wars and a superstorm under her belt, USCGC Apache was decommissioned, replaced by a much newer and better-equipped 327-foot Treasury-class cutter.

However, Uncle still owned her and, while other lumbering old retired cutters were brought back for coastal patrol duties in World War II, Apache languished unused and unwanted at her moorings.

Then in 1944, the U.S. Army took over the old ex-Apache and utilized her as a radio transmission ship.

Sailing to Australia, she was painted dark green, refitted with generators, receivers, cables, antennas, and two 10kW shortwave transmitters to serve as a MacArthur conceived press ship to follow along on the invasions to Japan. She was manned by a crew of a dozen Army mariners, staffed by some 25 Signal Corps radiomen, and carried a number of civilian war correspondents, thus keeping them away from the Navy’s flagships.

This floating Army broadcasting station sailed north from Sydney in September 1944, arriving at General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters at Hollandia, New Guinea on October 10. Two days later, U.S. Army Vessel Apache joined a flotilla of American war vessels for the return invasion of the Philippines.

For the next 18 months little Apache relayed American Armed Forces Radio Service and the Voice of America via shortwave all over the Philippines, off the coast of Korea, and then further south off the coast of China.

She was the first to broadcast MacArthur’s “I have returned” speech in October 1944 to the island chain.

Following the fleet to Tokyo Bay, she stood near USS Missouri for the surrender and continued her radio programming operations until 20 April 1946 when she was replaced in service by the Army vessel Spindle Eye, a converted freighter with much more powerful transmitters.

Decommissioned, Apache was sold for scrap in 1950.

I cannot find any surviving artifacts from her.

Specs:

Displacement: 416 tons (700 full load, naval service)
Length: 190′
Beam: 29′
Draft: 9.3
Propulsion: Compound-expansion steam engine; twin screw with 1 propeller to each cylinder; 15.75”and 27” diam by 24” stroke, replaced with triple-expansion steam engine, 17”, 27”, 43” diam by 24” stroke with a single propeller in 1904.
Maximum speed: 12.0 knots
Complement: 32 officers and men as commissioned; 58 WWI USN service; 37 U.S. Army in WWII.
Armament: 3×6 pdrs as commissioned for derelict destruction as completed
(1918) Three 3″/23 single mounts and two Colt machine guns, one Y-gun depth charge launcher, stern-mounted depth charge racks
(1920) 3″/23
(1944) As Army vessel carried small arms which may have included light machine guns.

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Billed as an Antarctic Patrol Vessel, Sea Shepherd ordered the new ship earlier this year after winning 8.3 million euros in the postcode lotteries in the Netherlands.

“Over the next 12 months, what is now just a shell of steel works will be transformed into a custom-designed, state of the art-vessel. The new ship will be capable of achieving speeds that far exceed any of the vessels in our current fleet, and will be able to operate in extreme weather conditions.”

It seems the ship is a version of Damen’s Fast Crew Supplier design modified to run on hippy power.

On trips to the Antarctic polar region, she may bump into one of the new Damen-built 51m OPVs delivered to the South African Navy.

Of course, the South Africans have a 20mm up front and two 12.7mm’s on the port and starboard, but still.

The Air Sea Rescue service, whose most famous pilot was Prince William, has saved tens of thousands of lives since it was formed in 1941 by an emergency committee headed by Arthur Harris, later “Bomber” Harris of Bomber Command. But that has changed as the Royal Air Force has ceased providing Search and Rescue (SAR) services for the United Kingdom mainland last week.

Since records began in 1983 the crews have completed 34,025 callouts and rescued 26,853 persons in distress.

A Royal Air Force search and rescue helicopter from 22 Squadron during the rescue of an injured fisherman from the French trawler Alf (left) in the Irish Sea 2013

The Royal Navy scheduled to follow suit next year and by 2016 all SAR assets will be consolidated under the Maritime and Coastguard Agency who will use Bristow Helicopters Ltd, a private contractor, to provide services through a mixed fleet of 22 Sikorsky S.92s (a stretched version of the Blackhawk) and AgustaWestland AW189 helicopters based at 10 locations around the Isles.

Bristow’s S.92s. Image by Sikorsky

Bristow began operations with their new HM Coastguard-marked S.92s this April and is expected to be fully operational with all assets by 2017 while the RN and RAF will retain a small expeditionary C-SAR capability for operations overseas.

Rule Britannia.

ARABIAN GULF (Oct. 26 2015) Riverine Command Boat (RCB) 802, assigned to Commander, Task Group (CTG) 56.7, conducts patrol operations in the Arabian Gulf. RCBs were originally used in shallow-water and tropic environments. In the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility these boats have been repurposed for open-sea patrol. CTG 56.7 conducts maritime security operations to ensure freedom of movement for strategic shipping and naval vessels operating in the inshore and coastal areas of the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Torrey W. Lee/Released)

The RCB is the U.S. variant of the Swedish Combat Boat 90 (CB90) / Stridsbat 90H

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.4th, 2015: HMs long-lasting welterweight sluggers

IWM photo

Here we see the head of her class, the Royal Navy monitor HMS Erebus at a buoy in Plymouth Sound in early 1944, as she was prepping to pummel the jerries overlooking Normandy. Though a cruiser-sized hull with a destroyer’s draft, this ship and her sister, HMS Terror carried a very impressive set of battleship 15-inchers and her crew knew how to use them.

Rushed into service in the darkest days of World War I, these ships were built not to slug it out with the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet (as the whole rest of the RNs battle line was!) but rather to close into old Willy’s stormtroopers along the French and Belgian coasts and plaster them but good.

As such, these 405-foot/8,450-ton ships, with a shallow 11 foot draft, carried an impressive armament but very little armor (just 4-8 inches, enough for splinter protection from German destroyers and field artillery), and were very slow, at a very pedestrian 12 knots.

Huge anti-torpedo bulges were fitted to these squat ships to allow them to suck up German fish and keep punching (These proved so effective that when Erebus was attacked by a German Fernlenkboote remote controlled boat carrying a very serious 1550-pound charge, all it did was cave in 50 feet of her bulge and knock loose a lot of equipment– but failed to sink her. Terror likewise survived German torpedo boat love while in service).

Named after the two ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, of the 1839-43 expedition to Antarctica of Sir James Clark Ross which resulted in mapping most of the Antarctic Coastline (and for whom the Ross Sea is now named) and later of the ill-fated expedition of Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin, their namesakes were tiny 100~ foot long “bomb vessels” with huge 13 and 10 inch mortars– which in the end was surprisingly fitting. (As a footnote, the “bombs bursting in air” part of the Star Spangled banner comes from the 1814 mortaring of Fort McHenry, for which bomb vessel Terror was on scene).

‘Erebus’ and the ‘Terror’ in New Zealand, August 1841, by John Wilson Carmichael, via wiki

As with any monitor, its the guns that steal the show and both 1916 Erebus and Terror carried a pair of huge 15″/42 (38.1 cm) Mark I naval guns, which proved to be among the most popular and hard-service type carried by HMs battleships throughout WWI and WWII, being carried by everything from the Queen Elizabeth to Vanguard classes, as well as being fitted as giant coastal artillery pieces at Dover and Singapore.

These were really big guns: Worker being helped out of a BL 15 heavy gun after she had finished cleaning the rifling, Coventry Ordnance Works, England, United Kingdom .

Terror’s 15s, these ships had their turret set so high to enable her shallow draft. Note the observation tower.

From the same shoot: A female worker cleans the rifling of a 15-inch gun after being lifted inside the barrel in the Coventry Ordnance Works, Warwickshire during the First World War. (Source -IWM Q 30135) Colorized by Doug

These beasts could fire a 1,920 lb. shell (of which the stubby monitors carried 200 in their magazine) out to 29,000 yards. It should be noted that the monitors were able to elevate their guns to an amazing 30 degrees (most of the battleship fittings were limited to 20 degrees, with only HMS Hood able to match the monitors’ arc), giving them about 5,000 yards more range. Later SC super charges boosted this to 40,000~ yards, which is downright impressive for guns designed in 1912!

Erebus‘s guns came from the 355-foot monitor HMS Marshal Ney (and were originally built for the Revenge-class battleship Ramillies) while the smaller Ney was given a more appropriate single 9.2-inch mount. Terror‘s guns came from a spare turret left over from the Courageous-class battlecruiser HMS Furious that was finished as an aircraft carrier and didn’t need them.

Both ships were laid down at Harland and Wolff yards, Erebus at the concern’s Govan, Scotland site, Terror at H&W’s Belfast site (the same yard that had just three years before completed RMS Titanic) in October 1915.

By the fall of 1916, they were both in commission with their abbreviated 204-man crews and headed to the Continent.

They proved their worth at bombarding German naval forces based at Ostend and Zeebrugge as part of the Long Range Bombardment force for the Zeebrugge raid and in plastering the Kaiser’s forces on shore during the Fourth Battle of Ypres.

Erebus kept slugging into 1919-20 when she participated in the British Intervention in Northern Russia, sailing around the White Sea as needed and popping off shots at the Bolsheviks around Murmansk and Archangel.

Terror at Malta, 1930s

After the war, while other monitors were laid up or went to the breakers, T&E remained somewhat active, flexing their guns in a series of tests against captured German armor and serving as gunnery training ships, guard ships and depot vessels as needed.

Oh the fate of peacetime service! Note the school house/barracks on Erebus in this 1930s photo.

Terror at Singapore, early 1939, with camo added

When the next war came, the aging monitors were stripped of their peacetime housing, given an updated AAA suite, and called back to service, first in the Mediterranean Fleet, where Erebus‘s shallow draft enabled her to become a blockade-runner into besieged Tobruk and Terror stood to in Malta to provide a floating anti-air battery against incessant Axis air attacks.

Speaking of which, Terror was severely damaged in attacks by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers on 22 February 1941 off the coast of Libya and sank while under tow the next day, gratefully with very few casualties.

Erebus finished her Second World War, returning to French waters where she helped bombard British beaches at Normandy. Suffering a detonation that crippled one of her guns, she nevertheless continued the war into late 1944, advancing with the land forces along the coast into Belgium and Holland.

Decommissioned at the end of hostilities, she was scrapped in 1946 although her single good 15-incher left was kept as a spare for the RN’s last battleship, HMS Vanguard.

Hard serving, indeed.

Specs:

Displacement: 7,200 long tons (7,300 t)
Length: 380 ft. (120 m) (p/p); 405 ft. (123 m) (o/a)
Beam: 88 ft. (27 m)
Draught: 11 ft. 8 in (3.56 m)
Installed power: 6,235 ihp (4,649 kW) (trials); 6,000 ihp (4,500 kW) (service)
Propulsion:
2 × triple expansion reciprocating engines,
Babcock boilers
2 × screws
Speed: 13.1 kn (24.3 km/h; 15.1 mph) (trials); 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph) (service)
Capacity: Fuel Oil: 650 long tons (660 t) (normal); 750 long tons (762.0 t) (maximum)
Complement: 204 WWI, 315 WWII
Armament:
(1916)
2 × 15-inch /42 Mk 1 guns in a single turret
2 × single 6-inch (150 mm) guns
4 × single 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft (AA) guns
(1939)
2 × 15-inch /42 Mk 1 guns in a single turret
8 × single mount 4-inch (102 mm) BL Mk IX guns
2 × single mount 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft guns
2 × quadruple .50-inch (12.7 mm) Vickers machine gun AA mounts
6 × .303 Vickers

Armor:
Deck: 1 in (25 mm) (forecastle); 1 in (25 mm) (upper); 4 in (100 mm) (main, slopes); 2 in (51 mm) (main, flat); .75 to 1.5 in (19 to 38 mm) (lower)
Bulkheads: 4 in (100 mm) (fore and aft, box citadel over magazines)
Barbettes: 8 in (200 mm)
Gun Houses: 4.5 to 13 in (110 to 330 mm)
Conning Tower: 6 in (150 mm)
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Beachcombers in the Highland Beach area came across a 20-foot long submersible like object stuck just offshore.  A Texas man saw it on Oct. 26 and, thinking it was a buoy, swam out 150 yards and photographed it, seeing a 6cyl engine and battery inside and a prop at the tail. Two hatches were open but no one was inside. Then he alerted police and the USCG who investigated it but left it in place.

Putting a light on the object to mark it, a few days later it washed ashore, where others photographed it before it was moved by a tractor off the beach where DHS is picking up the investigation.

Narco boat? Part of a migrant vessel? North Korean supersub? Who knows.

From the Sun Sentinel

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commander Eric Pare said the vessel could have been used to smuggle drugs into the country, though Pare said that is very unlikely.

“We have had these cases in the past,” Pare said, referring to drug submarines. “But they’re usually in the deep Caribbean, off the coast of South America or the eastern Pacific on the Mexican side; [or] the Pacific coast. It’s extremely rare to see something like this this far north.”

No, not smurfs or the Blue Man Group, we are talking about Chinese naval auxiliaries akin to the old Soviet “Fishing Trawlers” of the Cold War days.

Defense News has an interesting article on these curious fellows of the China Sea:

“China is trying to use these government-controlled fisherman below the radar to get the bonus without the onus to support its South China Sea claims,” Andrew Erickson, an associate professor at the US Naval War College and well-known authority on Chinese naval and maritime affairs said. “It’s a phenomenon little-known or understood in the US.

“While Russia’s little green men in Crimea are widely known, insufficient attention has been paid to China’s little blue men in the South China Sea,” he said. “It’s so different from what the US does. People aren’t familiar with it, it’s hard to wrap their heads around it.”

More here

One funny looking crab pot

A Kongsberg Remus model UUV operated by Boeing conducting ‘sonar tests’ for the Big Blue popped up by a waterman’s boat in the Chesapeake so guess what he did…

From the Baltimore Sun:

“It was super foggy the day they discovered this thing,” Laurie Haas said. “They almost hit it with the boat.

“They didn’t know what it was because it was such a bright color yellow.”

Figuring the object was valuable, the crew pulled it onto their boat to see if they could reunite it with its owner. Davis Haas stashed the drone in his shed back home.

“I couldn’t wait to see it when I got home,” Laurie Haas said. “This was the catch of a lifetime.”

Of course Boeing chopped chopped over to them when they found out.

Here’s pictures of a Slocum Glider and a Sea Lion that I came in contact with a couple years back. They are marked up pretty good with ‘If found’ labels.

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

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

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

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

Haitian gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MoD photo. Note the comparison in size to the 25,000-ton San Antonio-class LPD in the distance. Also big up and drink in the Apaches.

So the Royal Navy is moving to scrap the helicopter carrier and assault ship HMS Ocean (L12), their current fleet flagship. Britain’s largest warship is currently deployed in the Mediterranean on Cougar 15, an annual NATO exercise, and underwent a £65m upgrade just last year.

“HMS Ocean will not decommission early and will continue in service as planned well into this Parliament. As part of the SDSR process, the decision was taken not to extend her and to decommission her in 2018, in line with her 20-year life span,” the MoD said in a statement as reported by the BBC.

The 23,000-ton/667-foot long LPH was commissioned 30 September 1998 and is based at HMNB Devonport, Plymouth. and can carry a full 830-man reinforced RM Commando unit and a mix of 20~ helicopters.

In the past 17 years she has saved the Crown’s bacon repeatedly, deploying as part of Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone in 2000; Operation Telic, the UK contribution to the 2003 Iraq War; supported EU/NATO ops off Libya in 2011 where her Apaches made mincemeat of lots of random shit; and served as a staging spot for the security efforts during the London 2012 Olympic Games in addition to waving the White Ensign from Brazil to Nicaragua to the Malay Peninsula and all spots in between.

Worse, the new carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth will not take to the sea untl 2020.

Seems a shame.