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

Warship Wednesday Feb. 18, 2015 Marshal Massena of Gallipoli

Click to bigup

Here we see the Charles Martel-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Navy of the French Republic, Marshal André Masséna. Just about one of the coolest late-19th century warwagons, she is a classic of Edwardian naval tumblehome hull architecture.

This 11,000-ton, 369-foot warship today would be classified as a cruiser or even a Zumwalt-class destroyer, but in 1892, she was an ass kicker. An incredibly complicated system of two dozen Lagrafel d’Allest water-tube boilers fed manually by coal pushed three triple expansion engines that could propel her and her near sisters at about 17-ish knots, which was pretty good for the day.

in port

If she had to fight, a pair of 12”/40 caliber (305mm) Modèle 1893 guns, mounted in single turrets fore and aft, could hole an enemy ship with a 770-pound AP shell out to 13,00 yards. These were backed up by another pair of 10-inch guns, 16 smaller mounts and, like most battleships of the era, had submerged torpedo tubes. She was made to be able to slug it out, being fitted with up to 18-inches of steel plate armor.

A great overhead shot. Note the armament plan, with the two 12-inchers fore and aft and two single 10-inchesr port and starboard.

Laid down at Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire in 1892, she was named after André Masséna, Duc de Rivoli, Prince d’Essling, one of Napoleon’s original 18 Marshals. Of course Massena turned his back in little N when the Bourbons came back to power and kept it turned during the 100 Days, but hey nobody is perfect.

The namesake battleship was commissioned in June 1898, after five years on the builder’s ways. Coming out during the Spanish-American War, in which most of the ships in combat were armored cruisers smaller and less heavily armed than Masséna, her design was felt validated.

French pre-dreadnought battleship Masséna, alongside one of her sisters

She spent the next decade in happy peacetime maneuvers, gunnery trials, and practice. However, by 1908 a funny thing happened. You see after the Russo Japanese War of 1904-05, dreadnoughts of her type were hamburger. In fact, four Russian Borodino-class battleships, themselves actually more modern versions of the Masséna and her sisters, lasted just minutes in combat. With the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought being commissioned in 1906, she was further made obsolete.

Masséna was sitting in French mothballs when World War One erupted and she was eventually dusted off. Even old battleships are useful in a Great War after all. She was to be used to help force the straits to the Bosporus during the Gallipoli Campaign in late 1914 along with her recently recalled sisters.

Note the hull shape

There, Bouvet, one of these sisterships struck a mine and sunk in just two minutes during operations off the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. That was indicative of campaign. When that whole thing unraveled, Massena, the 17-year-old bruiser was scuttled in shallow water and used as a breakwater to help evac the ANZAC/French forces in 1916. In 1923, the postwar French Naval Bureau sold the hulk, which they still technically owned, to breakers for scrap.

Her three surviving near sisters in French service, Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, and Carnot, were out of front line service after Gallipoli and scrapped before the next war, the class forgotten.

As for Masséna himself, his sabre is on display at the musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâte

Specs

Charles Martel class line drawing as commissioned. Image from Shipbucket

Displacement: 11,735 tons (11,550 long tons)
Length: 112.65 m (369 ft. 7 in)
Beam: 20.27 m (66 ft. 6 in)
Draft: 8.84 m (29 ft. 0 in)
Propulsion: Three triple expansion engines
Speed: 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Complement: 667
Armament:
2 × 305 mm/40 (12 in) Modèle 1893 guns
2 × 274 mm/45 (10.8 in) Modèle 1893 guns
8 × 138 mm/45 (5.5 in) Modèle 1888 guns
8 × 100 mm (3.9 in) guns
4 × 450 mm torpedo tubes (submerged)
Armor:
Belt: 450 mm (18 in)
Turrets: 400 mm (16 in)
Conning tower: 350 mm (14 in)

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

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

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!

Three Grumman-designed fighters of the Confederate Air Force in flight (front to back): A General Motors FM-2 Wildcat (although painted as an F4F-3 of the USS Ranger’s airwing, VF-4 “Fighting Four” squadron), a Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, and a Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat.  The lineage is unmistakable. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7383.025

The horribly abbreviated Moro Islamic Liberation Front, who has been fighting the government of the Philippines for autonomy since the 1960s off and on, has had something of a truce for the past three years. The thing is, with 11,000 heavily armed rebels in the field armed with everything from slingshots to Chinese-made RPGs and Dshk guns, their surplus stockpiles of arms figured in at least one very messy overseas sales scheme that wound up taking down a California state senator, old Leland “Tough on Guns” Yee.

Well the MILFs stumbled across a force of Philippine National Police Special Action Force commandos poking around in their area in January and, in an incident termed a “misencounter” by both sides, some 44 cops were left dead and much of their U.S. supplied (via the War on Terror) hardware, to include M249s, M4s, M60s, M240s, and other goodies, were captured.

This led to the rebels turning over a collection of 16 of these pieces this week in an effort to keep the peace.

Of course, some in the government pointed out that most of what the commandos lost is still unaccounted for, but hey, its the Southern Philippines, mano.

Anyway, for more in-depth, I did a piece at Guns.com yesterday on it.

Back in the 1980s, the West German Bundeswehr was a massive roadblock to the Warsaw Pact hordes coming through the Fulda Gap. Established on the 200th birthday of Scharnhorst on 12 November 1955, the force used largely Allied equipment and Nazi-era officers, but within a generation, both were replaced by some of the newest and most forward thinking leaders and gear in the World. German Leopard tanks were (and Model 2A7s today still are) seen as perhaps the most deadly armored vehicle in Europe.

Gerhard von Scharnhorst, 1755–1813, Chief of the Prussian General Staff and later one of Napoleon’s greatest thorns.

At the height of the Cold War, when fully mobilized, the Bundeswehr could count on nearly a million men under arms and some 4,000 Leopards to hold the gap.

Then came the great melting of the Berlin Wall, reunification with the East, and a general downsizing of the ‘Heer over the past 25 years.

Now, the 60,000-strong German Army has but two active Panzerbrigades and 225 Leopards of all types backed up by an equal number of Puma and Boxer armored vehicles.

And even this corps is struggling.

The very Stryker-ish German GTK Boxer. The Heer is buying 250~ of these to replace the vintage Fuchs APCs. Hopefully, they will come standard with machine guns.

As reported by both German and English sources on the “tip of the spear” of German rapid response forces:

“Late last year, as the German Bundeswehr was considering rebooting its expensive, failed Euro Hawk drone program, the army of the country with the fourth largest economy in the world fielded its newest armored vehicles in a major military exercise in Norway with broomsticks painted black and lashed in place of missing machine gun barrels. That detail was part of a German Defense Ministry report leaked to Germany’s public television network ARD that exposed widespread shortages of basic combat equipment.

According to the report, the Bundeswehr units deployed as part of a test of NATO’s Rapid Response Force in September were far from combat-ready: they deployed with less than a quarter of the night vision gear required. The units were also missing 41 percent of the P8 pistols and 31 percent of the MG3 man-portable machine guns they were supposed to deploy with. And none of the GTK Boxer armored vehicles that deployed were equipped with their primary armament—the 12.7 mm M3M heavy machine gun.”

Scharnhorst is truly rolling in his grave

Here are a set of posters for those watching the skies for the Kaiser’s war-machines in 1915.

And here are a set provided by the BBC for those watching for Tsar Putin’s increasingly active air armada of 2015.

Ahh, 100 years of progress.

The Rescued Film Project stumbled across 31 rolls of film shot by a U.S. Army soldier apparently in Western Europe during the latter part of WWII. While a lot of the pictures didn’t come out, and others are in poor shape, they have a really great collection of images including this German Army marked French Renault FT.17 Tank (we called them the M1917).

The same soldier shows up in many of the images, and its speculated that he may have been the shutterbug

Anybody’s grandpa?

More after the jump

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

Warship Wednesday Feb. 25, 2015 A Narcissus in Tampa

Painting by Rob Gelhardt

Here we see the wooden hulled steam-powered gunboat USS Narcissus as she appeared during the Civil War. She was a needed addition to a fleet that was very much overtaxed.

When the U.S. Navy plunged headlong into the Civil War in 1861, the Navy List held the names of 90 vessels, only 42 of which, less than half, were in commissioned service. Even these ships were spread all over the world (9 were in the African Squadron, 3 in the Med, 3 in Brazil, 5 were in Japan or the East Indies, et.al) . Those ships in U.S. waters were hardly ready for modern naval combat on any scale. Compared to the giant Royal Navy who had a staggering 53 steam-powered ships of the line (that mounted between 60 to 131 guns and weighed between 2400 to 4200 tons), the largest ships in the U.S. service were five 1800-ton sail frigates which mounted but 50 guns each. Indeed, the French and Russians outmatched the U.S. Navy as well.

However, with a need to blockade some thousands of miles of coastline from Maryland to Mexico while chasing down Confederate raiders on the high seas, the force soon formed four powerful blockade squadrons as well as the Mississippi River Squadron to help strangle the South in Gen. Scott’s “Anaconda plan.”

By the end of the war in 1865, the Union Navy ballooned to 671 ships on its list and its rolls contained 84,000 sailors and another 13,000 Marines. They did this by a massive shipbuilding program in every yard north of the Mason-Dixon Line as well as taking up ships from trade.

The Narcissus was one of the latter.

Built as the civilian steam tug Mary Cook in East Albany New York to move ships out of port, she was completed in the summer of 1863. That year she was purchased by Navy buyers and, after adding a 20-pounder Parrott rifle to stern deck and a 12-pounder to her bow, the little 81-foot vessel was named, for reasons unknown, the USS Narcissus. This moniker was only used this one time in the Navy (*however a USCG buoy tender, WAGL-238, did repeat it in the 20th Century).

A rather interesting single-cylinder inverted steam engine fed by a coal boiler drove her at 14-knots, which was PT-boat fast for her day.

Commissioned 2 February 1864 at Brooklyn Naval Yard, she left for the Gulf of Mexico where she was to join Rear Admiral David Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron. The admiral’s father, George Farragut, had died at Pascagoula Mississippi in 1817 and as a young boy; David hung around New Orleans and the Mississippi Sound, which made it something of a bittersweet homecoming for him to be in charge of the squadron tasked to blockade those waters.

Farragut

Speaking of which, the Narcissus, due to her shallow 6-foot draft, was perfect for patrolling inside the waters of the Sound. Shallow draft schooners from Pascagoula and Biloxi ran the blockade with great regularity even while the Union fleet controlled Ship Island, which closed in half of the Sound. One of the most notorious, the 180-foot blockade-runner Fox, had only just been burned by her crew while hard aground off Pascagoula’s front beach (the wreckage of which can still be seen off 11th Street at low winter tide). However, there were others to pick up the Fox‘s slack.

Within weeks, the little Narcissus was victorious. On Aug. 24, 1864 she captured the confederate schooner Oregon in Biloxi Bay while under the command of 56-year old recessed U.S. District Judge and then-Acting Ensign William G. Jones. The Oregon had scrapped before with the steamer USS New London and Farragut had long ached to either catch or sink her. So, mission accomplished.

It was just after this prize that the little gunboat was ordered to Mobile Bay, the location of some very hot action when Farragut “dammed the torpedoes.” And by torpedoes, we mean floating naval mines. It would be Narcissus’s job to become one of the first mine-sweepers in history and, as the joke goes, any ship can be a minesweeper once.

As you may have guessed she caught a mine, (we mean torpedo) right in the teeth while off the Dog River Bar in Mobile Bay in 7 December and sank in the shallow mud there. Jones reported: ”. . . the vessel struck a torpedo, which exploded, lifting her nearly out of water and breaking out a large hole in the starboard side, amidships . . . causing the vessel to sink in about fifteen minutes.”

While Jones and the crew, which suffered no losses, were reassigned around the squadron, the Narcissus was raised for salvage. She was at Pensacola Naval Station when the war ended, undergoing repairs. Made seaworthy, she received her last crew.

She wasnt the last Union steam tug/minesweeper to hit bottom in Mobile Bay. On 12 April, the day Mobile finally surrendered, USS Althea struck a torpedo in the Blake River and sank while dragging primitive sweep gear in an effort to clear the channels of explosive devices. Like Narcissus, she was raised and repaired.

The two battered tugs were ordered to the East Coast for decommissioning and disposal. The two unlucky ships became separated off Tampa, Florida in a storm on the night of Jan. 3/4, 1866.  It was then that Althea grounded on a sandbar and the two ships exchanged signals in the howling wind and rain but when the dawn came, the Althea, after working herself free, only found bodies and floating wreckage of her companion.

It is believed that Narcissus, under Acting Ensign Isaac S. Bradbury and with a 28-man crew, hit a shifting bar 1.5 miles northwest of Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay and her boiler exploded, destroying the vessel. No living crew members were ever recovered.

Although her war was short, the hardy tug survived a rebel torpedo, supported the capture of Fort Morgan, helped close off the Mississippi Sound, and in the end gave her charges over to the sea in what could be taken as some of the last casualties of the Civil War.

Her wreck has always been known to some extent, lying in pieces along the sandy bottom off Tampa in just 15 feet of water. Texas A&M extensively mapped the site in 1999, however, most relics of the vessel are long since gone, ether carried away by divers over the years or by Union troops who salvaged her cannon and anything else useable back in the 1860s.

An easy and popular dive due to the shallow water, she became the state’s 12th underwater archaeological preserve last month in partnership with the U.S. Navy who still owns the wreck and the Florida Aquarium.

Florida’s Underwater Archeological Preserves and the Florida Aquarium maintain excellent relics to include sheathing, lanterns, and other items that were recovered. Her rare steam engine, anchor, and screw rest remarkably intact along the ocean floor.

On Jan. 15, 2015, the inshore construction tender USCGC Vise (WLIC-75305), dropped a reef ball monument on the site of USS Narcissus

As for former U.S. District Judge and former U.S. Navy Acting Ensign William Giles Jones? He liked Mobile Bay so much that he remained there after the war and took up private practice as a lawyer, dying at age 80. Althea, the Narcissus‘s traveling companion, was sold in December 1866 in New York and remained in service as a commercial tug until the turn of the century.

Specs

Displacement: 101 long tons (103 t)
Length:            81 ft. 6 in (24.84 m)
Beam: 18 ft. 9 in (5.72 m)
Draft: 6 ft. (1.8 m)
Depth of hold: 8 ft. (2.4 m)
Propulsion:      Steam engine
Speed:             14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Complement: 19 officers and enlisted
Armament:      1 × 20-pounder Parrott rifle, 1 × heavy 12-pounder

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!

Remember that weird 1:1.25 scale mock-up of the USS Nimitz that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards put together last year?

Well, it seems they finished the target barge up, towed her out towards the Straits of Hormuz, and went at it with missiles, rockets and small fast attack craft (which the footage looks kinda creepy of that mind you).

Anyway, the Iranians were super psyched, saying, “The message of these wargames is that others should pay good heed to the point that they should not take any action near the Islamic Republic’s security circle,” Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Guard’s chief commander said.

“We believe (Iran) to be the defenders of the Strait of Hormuz’ security and showed this in our wargames today.”

To which Big Blue replied after watching the tape of the JV’s scrimmage :

Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, the spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, downplayed the attack on the mock ship, saying the U.S. military was “not concerned about this exercise.”

“We’re quite confident of our naval forces’ ability to defend themselves,” he said, according to AP. “It seems they’ve attempted to destroy the equivalent of a Hollywood movie set.”

Anyways, take a look at the B-roll.

The Imperial German Army in 1914 was actually an army of confederated German speaking countries that had formed after 1871. The Prussians, augmented by a number of minor states such as Hamburg and Anhalt, made up the bulk and provided some 19 Corps including the Guards, the I-IX, XIV-XVIII, XX, and XXI. Bavaria had three independent corps (I, II and III Bavarian Army Corps) as well as their own air force.

The Royal Saxon Army supplied two Corps, the XII and XIX. Würtemburg marshaled its forces into the XIII Army Corps. The Grand Duchy of Baden provided the lansers for the XIV Army Corps. Each corps had two divisions and each division had four infantry regiments organized in two, two regiment brigades.

As each of the states had their own regiments that were part of the larger national army, they carried two names. For instance, the 4th Regiment of the Royal Saxon Army was also the 103rd Regiment of the Imperial German Army.

Which explains the below:

“A portrait of a Saxon infantryman with the 4th Regiment Royal Saxon Army, 103 Infantry Regiment of the German Reich (Kgl. Sächs. 4. Infanterie-Regiment Nr.103), possibly taken in his garrison at Bautzen, Eastern Saxony, circa 1916. He wears the model 1907/10 Feldrock tunic with the belt buckle with the Saxon motto, ‘Providentiae Memor’ (Providence Remember), and is armed with a Gew. 98 mauser rifle fitted with a S98/05 bayonet. (Image courtesy of the Drake Goodman Collection, colorized by Benjamin Thomas.)”

In 2014 NATO members met in Wales to discuss Europe’s defense posture with a resurgent Russia, threats from ISIS and Iran, and other matters at hand. They came up with the Wales Pledge, which consisted of the following:

“Allies currently meeting the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense will aim to continue to do so.Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will:

• Halt any decline in defense expenditure;
• Aim to increase defense expenditure in real terms as GDP grows;
• Aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO’s capability shortfalls”

So now the NATO member military budgets for 2015 came out and it seems everyone was all “Wales, we already saved the Wales!”

Preliminary reports from fourteen countries examined for fiscal year 2015 suggest that only one (mighty Estonia) will spend 2% of GDP on defense. Most others are cutting their budgets even further to include Germany and the UK, who along with France are considered the Western European “Big Three.”

Of course five of the 14 did have minor increases– the ones that share a border with Russia

BTW, The U.S., whose DOD-only defense spending (not counting money spent on the VA, Homeland Security which includes the Coast Guard, FBI Counter-terrorism, the Intelligence community and DOE Nuclear weapons programs) amounted to about three times more than all of NATO combined.

Between 1956 and 1986, the U.S. military ordered some 23,000~ rimfire semi-auto Mark I and Mark II pistols direct from the company for the use of service marksmanship teams.

Bill Ruger produced his Ruger Standard pistol in 1949, taking lessons from the Japanese Nambu and the Hi Standard .22. His neat little $37 pistol with its 9-shot magazine and 4.75-inch barrel turned out to be his first product and a great seller. So much so that by 1956, the U.S. military sought out a 6 7/8 inch heavy tapered barrel version for use by military shooting teams for practice and competition. The first order, for 4,600 of these guns in serial number range 75845 to 79945 was produced in that year. All were marked “U.S.” on the top right hand side of the receiver.

Now that doesn’t mean that all the guns in that range are GI pistols, as the factory made commercial guns right alongside those for the military. Over the next 15 years, at least another 1,500 guns were bought in a half dozen or more smaller contracts spread out from serial number 150036 to 331744 (about 1 percent of the production volume for that period).

Then of course there were the Mk II models in at least two different barrel lengths and secret ‘hush-puppies” that Mitch WerBell had a hand in…

For the rest of that story, check out my column at Ruger Talk 

Devil Dogs just before the Tarawa landings doing what Marines normally do…

Tragically, Tarawa was a hard nut to crack for the 2nd Marine Division and these leathernecks deserved every bit of happiness they got prior to hitting the beach. In just three days the Marines suffered 1,009 killed and 2,101 wounded, a casualty rate of some 10 percent.

In the Roman times such a rate was called decimation.

…We’ll turn their den into a sea of flames (with the smoking wrecks of our squadron)

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

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Watanabe Nobukazu

Japanese woodblock printing (moku hanga) goes back to the 1700s and had evolved into high art by the 19th century. One of the more noted artists who operated in this media was Watanabe Nobukazu. Born in Tokyo in 1872 as Shimada Jiro, he studied duteously under master Yōshū Chikanobu in the Utagawa school before taking his new name.

His art ranged from traditional pre-Edo period Imperial Japanese Ukiyo-e imagery, to that of the more modern era the country was rapidly moving into. The process for this art form is among the most complex and demanding.

Woman with an Umbrella

The Battle of Go-San-Nen

Nasu no Yoichi, Samurai of Genji side, tries to shoot down the fan placed atop the mast of his enemy Taira’s ship at the battle of Yashima in 1185 via SCRC Virtual Museum at Southern Illinois University’s Morris Library

Picture of Noble’s Imperial Ceremony, 1900

He later evolved his form to encompass a series of exquisite triptychs prints centering on the Sino-Japanese war of 1894. His use of vivid colors, glazes, and multiple transparencies gave his work a very characteristic depth of field.

The Second Army Bombarding and Occupying Port Arthur” by Watanabe Nobukazu, November 1894

Sino-Japanese Pitched Battles Two Generals Fighting at Fenghuangcheng

Sergeant Miyake’s Courage at the Yalu River” by Watanabe Nobukazu, 1895

Our Forces Crossing the Yalu River In Honor of Lieutenant General Nozu

Illustration of the Attack on the Hōōjyo

Battle of Yellow Sea

And the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05:

Torpedo boat attack on Port Arthur

torpedo boat attack on Port Arthur 1904

Russian soldiers

Picture of Our Valorous Military Repulsing the Russian Cossack Cavalry on the Bank of the Yalu River by Watanabe Nobukazu, March 1904

The Russian battleship Petropavlask sinks as Adm. Makarov stands bravely on deck

Illustration of Russian and Japanese Army and Navy Officers Watanabe Nobukazu, February 1904

As with many woodblock artists of his day, his art fell out of favor in the 1920s, a victim of increasing modernization in Japan. He died in 1944, largely forgotten in his own country. However, his body of work is seen as among the best of its genre.

MIT has an amazing gallery of woodblock prints by the artist and others in the same period from the Sharf Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston available here while another inspiring gallery is maintained by the Lavenberg and at Ukiyo-e.org .

Thank you for your work, sir.

When the Germans took to realizing in 1940 that their ports and strategic manufacturing centers were very much capable of being targeted by Allied bombers, they began to move all sorts of things underground and hidden in the trees. In the Hartz Mountains there was a hidden airfield on a mountain top where new Messerschmidts would take off from just hours after being built. Other sites hid rocket construction. At Hamburg, Bremen, and Heligoland, giant covered bunkers for U boats were constructed, followed quickly by even more massive sites on the French Atlantic coast.

The Hamburg U-boat pen complex, Elbe II on the southern bank of the Elbe river at the Vulkanhafen, included covered locks, construction bunkers where new boats were made in dry dock, fitting out areas for after they were launched, and magazine and fueling piers.

In 1945 when the Brits took the port, they blew up the 20+ foot thick concrete roofs that had withstood multiple bomber attacks. In 1985 a group of researchers penetrated the bunker area, which was still filled with water at low tide, and found a trio of Uncle Donitz’s bad asses, the ultra-modern Type XXI U-boat, still at the docks.

treasure hunter with a torch hard at work…

These ships, U-3506, U-2505 and U-3004, had never seen service and had been in use mainly as training ships. That wasn’t unusual for the class as of the 118 that were built/building, just four actually saw a combat patrol. When the Allies got close to the bunker, their crews scuttled them on 2 May 1945 and they were largely unusable when the roof came down anyway.

If you don’t know about the Type XXI, it was among the most advanced of its day, with a 2000-ton submersible that could submerge to over 700-feet, travel 15,500 nautical miles, remain underwater for weeks due to their novel new snorkel systems, and hear 360-degrees due to their large sonar array. In fact they were so well made that the U.S. Navy took all the good parts of these boats and added them in GUPPY upgrades to Gato and Balao class subs while the Soviets and Chinese later just copied the whole design as the Whiskey, Zulu and Romeo/Ming series smoker boats of the Cold War era.

But don’t get your hopes up about going to Hamburg and getting to see this lost trio of Nassy subs. They were raided over the years by scrappers unknown who largely walked off with anything they could manhandle up a ladder, and in the 1990s the entire bunker, which today rests under a parking-lot, was filled solid with gravel and concrete, turning it into a sarcophagus.

Meh…

More on the Elbe bunker here,  here and here

The former massive pens at Brest in France are off-limits as they are still on an active naval base but here is a video of them:

The Valentin submarine pens in Bremen, are still around too but don’t have any subs in them.

However the North Koreans and Chinese still operate a bunch of WWII-era technology Romeo/Mings, and they really do look fun…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stands on the conning tower of a Romeo-class submarine during his inspection of the Korean People’s Army Naval Unit 167 in this undated photo released June 16, 2014.

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 March 11, 2015: The Teller of Tales

Here we see the white hulled training ship Tusitala under sail in the 1930s in a painting by maritime artist Joseph Arnold. At which point she was the last commercial square-rigger in American service.

Built in 1882 by the Robert Steel & Co., Greenock, Scotland, as Yard No 130, she was an iron hulled, full-rigged ship. As such, she was in that last generation of elegant windjammers that carried cargo economically around the world. She was no steamship, and relied on the wind for her forward movement.

According to a 1952 article by Roger Dudley, “In rig she was a ship in the strictest sense of the word—a three-masted vessel, square-rigged on all three masts. Her total sail area was more than 20,000 square feet; the mainsail alone being 3,200 feet and the foresail 2,600. She carried single topgallant sails below fore, main and mizzen royals.”

Named originally Inveruglas, she flew a British merchant ensign and was British Reg. No. 87394 and signal PGVL in 1883.

As Inveruglas 1884– note the figurehead she would lose in 1917

Just three years later she was sold to the Sierra Shipping Co., Liverpool, and was renamed Sierra Lucena where she made regular runs from the home islands to Australia for wool and India on the jute trade.

As Sierra Lucena around 1900

Her British service came to an end in 1907 when, renamed Sophia, she was sold to the Norwegian shipping firm of Nielsen & Co., Larvik, Norway. The company was concerned in tramping work, but also had a steady grain trade from the River Plate to Europe.

World War I found her dodging both Allied and German warships as Norway was a strict neutral, however she did not come out of the conflict unscathed. While in the River Plate in 1917, she was ran over by a steamship that shattered her bowsprit and destroyed her figurehead. By 1921, she was laid up in Hampton Roads, with her backers unable to find suitable freights for her.

In May 1923, she was bought for a token price by the New York-based “Three Hours for Lunch Club” artists and writers association lead by Christopher Morley, and renamed Tusitala in honor of novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. The meaning is “Teller of Tales.” Stevenson was known to go by the moniker himself.

The one and only Joseph Conrad wrote a congratulatory letter to the new owners:

Joseph Conrad letter

“On leaving this hospitable country where the cream is excellent and the milk of human kindness apparently never ceases to flow, I assume an ancient mariner’s privilege of sending to the owners and ship’s company of the Tusitala my brotherly good wishes for fair winds and clear skies on all their voyages. And may they be many!

“And I would recommend to them to watch the weather,” it goes on; “to keep the halliards clear for running, to remember that any fool can carry on, but only the wise man knows how to shorten sail in time … “

The writers club wanted to use the ship to cruise among the islands so loved by Stevenson, but when that proved unlikely, James A. Farrell, a former president of U.S. Steel, acquired the ship from the writers and used her on a series of commercial voyages for his Argonaut Line from New York to Honolulu via the Panama Canal, completing one of the trips in just 76 days– all under sail.

When you consider the voyage was on the order of 5,452 miles, that’s pretty respectable for a 40+ year old vessel.

Furling the royal– four hands out on the yard passing the gaskets, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

With main and mizzen royals furled and cross-jack unbent, the “Tusitala” makes the best of a fair wind (left) by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Outward boynd, the Tusitala’s sails are set and sheeted home one by one as the tug takes her to sea, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

On these trips, she would carry 2600 tons of nitrates to the islands and bring back sugar on the return trips. In 1925, she made a sprint from Honolulu to Seattle, WA, in 16 days and 9 hours.

Shot from port bow, 1920-30s

abeam shot under U.S. flag 1930s

Full rig

The full-rigged ship Tusitala returning to New York with cargo from across the South Atlantic has run out of wind. The steam tug Federal No. 1 is towing, while a second tug lies along the starboard side of the ship in order to assist in the docking. Via NYT

In 1932 she was laid up, her commercial career over. Farrell sold her to the breakers six years later when maintaining her pier side at New York’s Riverside Drive wharf proved too costly.

1938 laid up

However, naval purchasing agents on the East Coast came across the leaky old girl and acquired her in 1939 for $10,000 as a training ship.

Refitted at Staten Island for another $30,000 of MARAD funds, for the first time she carried an electrical system as well as a modern cafeteria and accommodations for up to 150 cadets.

Tusitala was turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard, who ran the government’s merchie training vessels at the time. Placed in commission but not given a pennant number, she was given an “unclassified” hull designation (WIX) which is the same as the current U.S. Coast Guard Training Barque Eagle (WIX-327) carries.

In May 1940 USCGC Mohawk (WPG-75) towed the sailing ship to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she was used during the conflict to instruct thousands of new merchant sailors and officers at the U.S. Merchant Service Training Station (USMSTS) there.

Oddly enough, one of her fellow training ships at St. Pete was the world’s last sailing frigate, the Danish-built Joseph Conrad.

According to the American Merchant Marine at War (www.usmm.org) :

Her masts were cropped, decks cleared of sailing gear, and she was towed into St. Petersburg to be tied up and used as a stationary training ship to augment class facilities. First classes held aboard this ship utilized the galley and mess room as class rooms for courses which included theory and practical instruction in cooking, baking, butchering, care and use of tools and equipment, sanitation, cooks and messmen duties at sea, and ship routine. In addition, there was instruction in boat drill, gunnery, physical education, regulations, customs, and traditions.

View of Training Station from the sea. Vessel on left TV Tusitala, right is the TV Vigil

Cadets seen in a postcard from the USMSTC– the stern of the white hulled Tusitala very visible to the left

Tusitala spent the war as part of the 7-ship USMM fleet at St. Pete under the overall command of CDR. G.F. Harrington, USMS, a World War I vet with some 40-years of swaying decks under his feet. During WWII, more than 25,000 mariners passed through St. Pete’s halls and tread the decks of the Tusitala.

When the Maritime Service took over all training functions from the Coast Guard after 31 August 1942 Tusitala was administratively decommissioned and transferred to Maritime Service control and operation– even though the latter had run her for two years already.

Trainee at the United States Maritime Service training station handling a life boat in an abandon ship drill– note the dark hulled Joseph Conrad in the background. LOC image

With the war over and the facility drawing down their fleet to just a handful of ships, she was offered free of charge to the Marine Historical Association of Mystic for their museum, who instead took the Joseph Conrad as that vessel was smaller and in more seaworthy condition.

With her last chance at salvation evaporated, the old Tusitala was towed one final time across the Gulf to Mobile, Alabama in 1948, where she was scrapped. In all she saw six decades at sea under the flags of three countries while inspiring legions of artists, writers, and mariners both young and old.

Prints of “Stormy Passage” by Paul McGehee show the square-rigged ship “Tusitala” in rough seas.

Today, the former Unites States Maritime Services Training Center facility, decommissioned in March 1950, is incorporated into the University of South Florida.

While the Tusitala is no more, the Conrad remains at Mystic Seaport and is still used for training young mariners.

Specs:

Displacement: 1200 tons nominal. 1746 GRT, 1684 NRT and 1622 tons under deck
Length: 261′ long between perpendiculars (310′ overall)
Beam: 39’5″
Draft: 23’5″ depth
Engine: Nope
Rig (1883-1938) Three masts, rigged with royal sails over double topgallant and top sails, spike bowsprit after 1917. Armament: private small arms as a commercial ship, 1940-47 various gunnery tools including 3-inch and 5-inch gun mockups.

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!

Royal Marine Commandoes from 42 Commando hit MAMYOKO BEACH from Sea King helicopters of 846 Naval Air Squadron, in a demonstration of amphibious power during Operation Silkman in Freetown, Sierra Leone 13 Nov 2000. MOD image by Royal Navy PO Jim Gibson (Click to big up)

The ‘Kings above are British Westland-made HC.4 Commandos that can carry 28 fully equipped troops– not bad for (at the time) 40-year old technology.  When you look at the size of these huge birds, think of the 3000-sq.ft of disk area the 62-feet of rotors need to turn inside– that’s bigger than most single family houses! These leviathan 6-ton (empty) birds could land on water due to their hulls, carry their body weight in cargo and fuel, and travel an impressive 600+ nautical miles.

(Yes, we said, land on water) SW2007-0306-14 21 August 2007
Morris Lake, Nova Scotia .A CH-124 Sea King sits on Morris Lake in Dartmouth, N.S. as part of the annual “waterbird” training. The training is designed to prepare pilots to effectively manage in-flight emergencies over water. CF Photo by Corporal Sandra Garland

The Sikorsky S-61 (U.S. designation SH-3) Sea King first touched down on a carrier in 1961 while performing trials on the USS Lake Champlain (CV-39) and was the go-to ASW and seaborne support chopper of the NATO navies for more than thirty years.

Assigned to VC-5, this Sikorsky SH-3D – BuNo 148050 is seen conducting a drone recovery off the coast of California, 1981. Photo USN

Replaced in large part by the SH-60 Sea Hawk, they left the U.S. fleet altogether except for 11 VH-3 Sea Kings used by Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) to transport the President and co.

Overseas they were largely put to pasture by the Westland Lynx,  NH Industries NH90 and Agusta–Westland AW101 Merlin, but these big cold war choppers are still flown by Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Pakistan, Peru, the UK (in limited numbers) Venezuela and oh yeah….Iran.

Now thats cute…

A curious piece of Italian engineering, the “Motomitragliatrice blindata d’assalto” (“Motorised Armoured Assault Machine Gun”) was apparently designed in 1935 by the Ansaldo company, a national producer of equipment and guns for the Italian Royal Army.

Note the pioneer tools– and Brixa cannon…

Weighing a total of 470 Kg, its armor could protect the operator against all small arms´ fire, including 7.92mm Mauser (if shot from a distance greater than 50 metres). A tiny Frera 250 cc engine was to provide traction with a top speed of 4.9 Km/H, and a virtual autonomy of 100 Km.

If you saw this coming at you…the terror….the terror

Powered by a 250cc motor of all things…talk about a smoker

The “Mias” could be fitted with either 2 twin-mounted Scotti 6.5mm Machine Guns or a Brixia 45mm Cannon.

Are you kidding me?

The project never got past the prototype stage.

Source http://demdeutschenvolke.tumblr.com

A WREN serving on a harbor launch in Portsmouth during World War II. Photo by Cecil Beaton, via the Imperial War Museum. (click to big up)

The Wrens were more officially the Women’s Royal Naval Service formed in 1917 then abandoned after the First World War– their 5,500 members thanked for their services and shown the door.

Reestablished in 1939, by the end of the Second World War a staggering 75,000 female sailors made up their ranks– or more than twice the current strength of the Royal Navy.

For more information visit the Association of Wrens.

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Arthur Szyk

Born June 16, 1894 during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II in the Central Polish city of Łódź, then part of the Holy Russian Empire, Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick“) showed artistic promise as youth. His father, a textile factory manager, sent young Arthur abroad to the Académie Julian in Paris in 1909 for four years then traveled Europe and Asia, finding himself in Palestine when World War I erupted.

Drafted into the Tsar’s Army as a reserve ensign, he fought in many of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front including the one for his vey own hometown. Artistically trained, he took to sketching what he saw.

Wounded Russian soldiers. Lodz itself lost some 40 percent of its population in the war while the Russian Army threw away one million soldiers in an effort to keep Poland in the Empire in 1915. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.

When Poland became independent once again at the end of WWI, he served as an officer in the newly formed Polish Army and fought against the Reds in the Russo-Polish War while also helping produce propaganda art for the cause.

1919 propaganda poster. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.

Once the war was over, he picked up his family and spent the next two decades in France, the UK and the states where he illustrated volumes of books, created postcards, created 38 watercolors in the Washington and his Times series, and produced the Haggadah.

Szyk’s inside cover illustration for Andersen’s fairy tales, 1944

Declaration of Independence. Note the Washington artwork– Library of Congress

When the Second World War of his generation came forth, he jumped into the effort with both feet. His old homeland overrun, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he began a war of the pencils against Hitler and his like.

“Liberty what the Nazis leave behind” Aug 1941. Szyk had no love for the Soviets and it should be remembered that Stalin agreed to split his homeland with Hitler, invading Poland from the East just 17 days after the Germans did.

1939 “For a total living space, comrades in arms”

Satan leads the Ball

1939, Two comrades were serving

1944, Warriors-of-the-Polish-1st-Division-Tadeusz-Kosciuszko-by-Arthur-Szyk

Wayside shrine

Tears of Rage, 1942

Two polish officers. Szyk knew firsthand the Polish army as he was one of its first officers in 1919.

The New Order

Poland Fights Nazi Dragon – Polish War Relief, 1943– Library of Congress

1939, German ‘Authority’ in Poland,

Colliers cover

His art of the time, propaganda pieces for the main part, likely did as much damage to the Axis as a battalion of Sherman tanks or a squadron of Lancaster bombers.

With the Soviets in Poland after the end of the War, Szyk made his stay in the West permanent and in 1948 became a U.S. citizen while championing Israeli independence.

He died in 1951

Arthur Szyk self portrait

“Art is not my aim, it is my means.” – Arthur Szyk

The U.S. Library of Congress as well as the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial maintain extensive collections of his work as do at least two private associations to include the Arthur Szyk Society and Szyk.com.

Thank you for your work, sir.