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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More pics of Forster bouncing around in the Antarctic here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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

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

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

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I’m a member, so should you be!

ARABIAN SEA (Sept. 11, 2016) A Mk 38 M242 25mm Bushmaster chain gun fires during nighttime live fire gunnery exercises aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87). Mason, deployed as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, is supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 3rd Class Janweb B. Lagazo)

In the latest escalation in the saga of ongoing asymmetric warfare by proxy in the Middle East region that has been on a low simmer since 1979 between the U.S. and Iran with brief periods of boiling, the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG-87) let slip the dogs of war in the form of two Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) and a single Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM)– aimed at a pair of suspected cruise missiles fired from the Yemini shore.

Mason, deployed as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, along with another destroyer and the hybrid afloat base USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) have been in international waters near the strait of Bab el-Mandeb this week following the sucker punch of the unarmed and civilian-manned HSV Swift last weekend.

As reported by USNI News, it would be the first time that SM-2 was used against an enemy missile and the first time ESSM has been used in warfare at all.

Then came a second report of a failed launch against Mason Tuesday in which the destroyer used soft-kill defensive countermeasures to defeat the incoming vampire(s).

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said the U.S. “will take action accordingly,” in response to the findings of the ongoing investigation.

Praying Mantis Part Deux with a Yemeni focus?

In the meantime…

The following is a statement released today by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on U.S. military strikes against radar sites in Yemen:

“Early this morning local time, the U.S. military struck three radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed. The strikes — authorized by President Obama at the recommendation of Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford — targeted radar sites involved in the recent missile launches threatening USS Mason and other vessels operating in international waters in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb. These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway. The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate, and will continue to maintain our freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb, and elsewhere around the world.”

The guided missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG 94) launches a strike against three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Due to hostile acts, continuing and imminent threat of force, and multiple threats to vessels in the Bab-al Mandeb Strait, including U.S. naval vessels, Nitze struck the sites, which were used to attack U.S. ships operating in international waters, threatening freedom of navigation. Nitze is deployed to the 5th Fleet area of operations to support maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts:

The Pentagon Press Brief on the strike is majestic craw-fishing to avoid saying “Iran”

The Scottish war poet Capt. Charles Hamilton Sorley of the Suffolk Regiment was killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos. He was the youngest of the major war poets, having been born in 1895.

He left this poem, probably his most famous, untitled at his death:

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Say only this, ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
‘Yet many a better one has died before.’
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Sorley was killed 13 October 1915 (aged 20) Hulluch, Lens, France. The poem above was in his kit.

As for the Suffolk Regiment, whose device he wears in the image above, just short of their 300th birthday they were amalgamated with a number of other units to form the Royal Anglian Regiment, which continues to take the Queen’s schilling today.

One of three Type 021 missile boats purchased by Yemen from China in 1995. Photo via Chinese internet

War Is Boring is reporting that the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which comprise some 20,000-strong mostly derp militiamen, has been taking pop-shots at passing shipping going as far back as last October with Chinese-made C.801 missiles salvaged from a trio of likewise Chinese-made Type 021 fast attack craft (based on the 1960s Soviet Osa-class) that defected to the Houth back in 2014.

As each Type 21 had up to four C.801s (NATO: CSS-N-4 Sardines), which in theory gave the Houthi a cool dozen anti-ship missiles. This means, barring resupply from countries that rhyme with “ShIran” they may be running low on things to sling at ships in their littoral larger than RPGs. In recent weeks, one has been fired (successfully) at HSV Swift, and as many as six in three attacks with much less luck at USS Mason.

The first attacks was reported on Oct. 8, 2015 — around a week after a combined force of Emirati, Bahraini and Qatari troops forced the Yemenis to withdraw to the port of Mocha, 40 kilometers north of the strategically important Bab Al Mandab Strait, which connects the Red Sea, and thus the Suez Canal, with the Indian Ocean.

According to official reports from the Yemeni capital Sana’a, which is now under Houthi control, this attack “destroyed” the Saudi navy tanker Yunbou. Two nights later, the pro-Houthi Yemenis struck again, this time reportedly targeting either the Saudi navy tanker Boraida or an Egyptian navy warship the Houthis identified as Al Mahrousa.

In truth, neither Boraida nor Yunbou was even damaged, while Al Mahrousa is a 150-year-old presidential yacht that has certainly never ventured anywhere near Yemen in years.

More here.

Helio-Courier C/STOL aircraft on the ground in Laos. The aircraft was better suited to mountain flying than helicopters, but it was demanding to fly. CIA file photo

The CIA just released an unclassified interactive PDF that contains 41 articles & links to more CIA & IC resources. Titled, CIA & the Wars in Southeast Asia, 1947-75, the volume discusses CIA activities in SE Asia as part of the Department of Defense’s 50-year commemoration of Vietnam War. Among the 53,000+ Americans who gave their lives during the conflict, 18 were known CIA officers– their sacrifices are marked by stars carved into the agency’s Memorial Wall

Links and more info here (and yes, they even talk openly about the Phoenix Program).

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

Warship Wednesday October 19, 2016: Der Zerstörer von Uncle Sam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Z39 was laid down by Germaniawerft Kiel, 1940 and commissioned 21 August 1943, as Germany was quickly losing the war after Stalingrad, El-Alamein, Kursk and Sicily. And to further complicate things, all of the destroyers of her class had turbines that were cranky and their large guns often too wet to be of use (in the end several, including Z39, only had four guns left, losing their forward most single mount.)

But hey….

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

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

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

As noted by German-Navy.de:

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

Meh, unexciting, but she did survive the war and was still afloat at the end of it and able to make steam– a feat very few German warships pulled off.

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

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

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

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

(Ex-German Z-39) View of the after 150mm guns, one of which is broken. Note these mountings are low-angle only when compared to the forward twin turret. The extensive life rafts at the ready was likely a good idea. Taken at Boston Navy Yard, August 11, 1945. Courtesy of Robert F. Sumrall. Catalog #: NH 75408

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As such, she was stricken from the Naval List 10 November 1947 after slightly over two years of service and transferred to France as FNS Leopard (Q-128) in 1948.

She did not see much time at sea and eventually was utilized as a tender and floating pier. She was ultimately scrapped in L’Orient, February 1964, the last of her class afloat.

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

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

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

1949, British Destroyer HMS Nonsuch, EX German Z 38

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

This is from a Revel/Matchbox cover

Specs:

Displacement:
2,600 tonnes (standard)
3,605 (max)
Length: 127 m (416 ft. 8 in)
Beam: 12 m (39 ft. 4 in)
Draught: 4.65 m (15 ft. 3 in)
Propulsion: 2 × Wagner geared turbines, 70,000 shp, 2 shafts, 6 boilers
Speed: 37.5 knots (69 km/h)
Endurance:
2,240 nautical miles (4,150 kilometers) at 19 knots (35 km/h)
Complement: 330 officers and men, less than 200 in USN
Armament: (Final)
4 15 cm guns (1×2 & 2×1)
14 37 mm guns
18 20 mm guns
8 533 mm torpedo tubes
60 mines
4 depth charge launchers

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Here we see a Short-Magazine Lee-Enfield in .303 British that had a very curious history.

It was issued to a member of the Reserve/1st Garrison Battalion, Essex Regiment (formed in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 44th East Essex Regiment of Foot and the 56th West Essex Regiment of Foot) which fought at Le Cateau and Ypres before being sent on Winston Churchill’s attempt to knock the Ottomans out of World War I at Gallipoli. The unit came away relatively unscathed from the fiasco and went on to fight at Loos, the Somme, Cambrai, and Gaza.

However, our SMLE was left behind somehow in the evacuation of Gallipoli and was captured in very good condition by the Turks. Sent to Constantinople as a trophy, the Turkish Government had it engraved near the lock in gold in Turkish “Booty captured in the fighting at Chanak Kale.”

Enver Pasha then presented it to Emir Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi (then a Turkish subject representing the city of Jeddah for the Ottoman parliament and the guest of Jemal Pasha in Damascus) in 1916. It was then inscribed near the bayonet mount “Presented by Enver Pasha to Sherif Feisal” in Turkish.

Without any captured .303 British ammo to feed it, Feisal sent the rifle to Mecca for storage with the rest of his family’s trophies.

T E LAWRENCE 1888-1935 (Q 73535) Lawrence in Arab dress seated on the ground. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source

Then came Captain T. E. Lawrence, a junior British intelligence officer from Cairo to instigate rebellion in Arabia against the Ottomans. Meeting Feisal 23 October 1916 at Hamra in Wadi Safra, Lawrence supplied the leader with some nice, fresh .303 rounds (the Brit was fond of carrying a a M1911 Colt .45 ACP on his person and a Lewis gun in .303 in his baggage).

As the Lawrence/Feisal partnership blossomed to full rebellion against Constantinople, the Arab leader passed his Turkish trophy Enfield to the wild, blonde-haired rabble rouser on 4 December 1916 in a meeting near Medina.

Lawrence carved his initials and the date in the stock and carried the rifle till October 1918 when Damascus was captured .

Notice the knocks by the magazine well?

The gun has five notches carved into the stock near the magazine, with one in particular marking the death of one Turkish officer taken with the gun. After the war, the rifle was presented by then-Colonel Lawrence to King George V, passing to the Imperial War Museum upon the regent’s death.

HISTORY OF BRITISH RIFLE CAPTURED BY THE TURKS, GIVEN TO KING GEORGE V BY COLONEL LAWRENCE (Q 61331) History of British Rifle captured by the Turks, given to King George V by Colonel Lawrence. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source

The former princely owner, of course, became King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria of Iraq and was played in David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia by Alec Guinness.

A similar rifle (without the ‘Enver’ inscription) was given by the Turkish Government to Abdulla, Feisal’s brother, and is now in the possession of Ronald Storrs.

The IWM has a second Feisal trophy rifle in their collection as well.

This particular rife was presented by the Emir Feisal to Captain WHD Boyle, Officer Commanding the Royal Navy Red Sea Squadron, in recognition of a… Copyright: © IWM. Original Source

The Turkish Model 1887 rifle was the first of a series of rifles produced for the Turkish Army by Mauser of Germany. Its design echoed that of the German Gewehr 71/84 service rifle, being a bolt-action weapon with a tubular magazine beneath the barrel.

This particular rife, made in 1892, was presented by the Emir Feisal to Captain WHD Boyle, Officer Commanding the Royal Navy Red Sea Squadron, in recognition of assistance rendered during the Arab Revolt against Turkey. Boyle later inherited the title of Earl of Cork and Orrery and rose to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. He commanded the Royal Naval forces engaged in the Norwegian campaign in 1940.

Marked as follows: 1. Sultan’s Tugra stamped on top of chamber 2. Turkish proofs stamped on right of chamber 3. Arabic inscription commencing with 1308 (date) stamped on left of body 4. stamped on bolt 5. gold inlay on top of barrel 6. Arabic inscription commencing with 1326-1330 engraved on silver scroll-shaped plaque let into left of butt (detached).

Why were these Mausers and Enfields so treasured? Well, they were modern magazine fed bolt-action rifles and the standard gear in the desert just wasn’t.

The Ottomans armed the local Arab tribes with surplussed U.S. Providence Tool Company-made Peabody-Martini Model 1874s chambered in 11.3x59mmR blackpowder. (Though in 1912 Austria’s Steyr converted a lot of these into 7.65mm Mauser with the resulting kaboom risk, making the M74/12 which served through WWI with various guards and rear line units, freeing standard rifles for the front.)

As for the Brits, they gave their new Arab allies old 1870s Mk II Martini-Henry breechloaders taken from Indian troops headed to France and Egypt– who were themselves reissued new Enfields.

Three Bedouin warriors during the Arab Revolt, 1916-1918. They are armed with 1870s-vintage Martini-Henry rifles, typical of the outdated firearms the British supplied to the Arab forces

The kukri is a traditional Nepalese weapon. It is most commonly associated with the Gurkha units serving with the Indian or British armies. However it was used, on a less official basis, by other Indian Army formations.

Kukri (WEA 2145) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source

This particular kukri was the property of Subedar Khudadad Khan – the first native born Indian (and the first known Muslim) soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Khan served with the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis (now 11th Battalion, The Baloch Regiment of Pakistan Army) and received his VC for actions when manning a machine-gun at Hollebeke, Belgium on 31 October 1914 during the Battle of Ypres.

He gave this kukri to an officer on the hospital ship in which he was repatriated to India and it is now in the Imperial War Museum.

For the award of the Victoria Cross: [ London Gazette, 7 December 1914 ],

Hollebeke, Belgium, 31 October 1914, Sepoy Khudadad Khan, 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis, Indian Army.

On 31st October 1914, at Hollebeke, Belgium, the British Officer in charge of the detachment having been wounded, and the other gun put out of action by a shell, Sepoy Khudadad Khan, though himself wounded, remained working his gun until all the other five men of the gun detachment had been killed.

Khan, Note the Punjabi Muslim turban with the “Kullah tip” being evident at the top.

Khan’s VC group is on display in the Imperial War Museum’s Lord Ashcroft Gallery. I say group because he returned to service after his wounds healed, fought in Afghanistan in 1919 and remained with the Baluchis late in life, retiring as a Subidar Major.

Khan lived to a ripe old age (82) and died at the Military Hospital (MH) in Rawalpindi on 8 March 1971. He is buried in Rukhan Tehsil Village, in what is now Pakistan.

A statue of Khudadad Khan, with an Enfield but lacking his kukri or VC, is at the entrance of the Pakistan Army Museum in Rawalpindi and he is remembered as “Baba-i-Baloch Regiment” (The Father of Baloch Regiment), the second-oldest unit in the Pakistani Army after the Punjabs.

Via Battleship Missouri Memorial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Russel Javier, USS LCS-102 page

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

Talk about a mouthful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy The Mighty Midgets website.

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

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

From an SF Gate article at the time:

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

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

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

From the USS LCS-2 social media page:

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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Right waist gunner Staff Sergeant Frank T. Lusic of Eighth Air Force’s “Meat Hound” a Boeing B-17F-55-BO Flying Fortress (s/n 42-29524) assigned first to the 423th Bomb Sqn, 306th Bomb Group in early 1943 then chopped to the 358th Bomb Squadron, 303th Bomb Group at RAF Molesworth in England.

On her 25th mission over Oschersleben Germany on 26 January 1944, Meat Hound was hit hit by enemy aircraft over Durgerdam, and her crew bailed over the huge Ijsselmeer lake, Holland (the largest lake in Western Europe) while the pilot kept her in the air as long as he could.

Four crewmembers drowned. One who did not, co-pilot Clayton David evaded capture while another four fell into German hands and became prisoners of war.

The pilot, Jack Wilson, managed to coax the stricken bird back to England and crash landed near Metfield in Suffolk. Meat Hound was written off.

As for Cook County, Illinois-native Lusic, 23, he was a quest of the Reich and was sent to Stalag 7A near Moosburg, Germany where 8,209 other American POWs were held. In the end he was imprisoned for at least 382 days until he was liberated.

According to public records he died in Wisconsin in 1977.

Picatinny Arsenal engineers created a glass-formed “amorphous explosive” pellet, on right, that mimics the shape of a dime. Mission Impossible stuff here. (Photo: U.S. Army)

Engineers at Picatinny Arsenal are in the midst of crafting a generation of transparent explosives that can be used on everything from invisible mines to self-destructing optics.

Deep inside the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC, at Picatinny Arsenal are engineers Victor Stepanov and Rajen Patel who are busy burning lean muscle tissue into the night to craft what they term “amorphous explosives.”

Accomplished with nanotechnology, the concept is to modify already proven battlefield shaping explosive compounds to create new ones that are clear as glass.

“If you ever seen a glassblower work, they heat the material above its glass transition point (Tg) until the glass softens. Then, the glassblower manipulates the glass, easily molding it before it cools,” said Patel. “Well, with this project, we can basically do the same thing with amorphous energetics: heat them above Tg and manipulate the structure to form complex shapes.”

What would the shapes be used for? Lots of stuff for the next gen warfighter like clear reactive armor for use in detonating anti-tank weapons, optics that can be blown up if they fall into enemy hands– such as on a drone that is lost or shot down– and even invisible mines.

In short, if you want it clear, and to go boom, this tech is key.

Patel says that key to the development is being able to keep it in its amorphous state long-term.

“This is especially true when we talk about its military application, where we could keep something in a bunker for twenty years in a hot desert,” he said.

More here

The Women’s Royal Naval Service was formed in the last couple years of the Great War, and grew to some 5,000 auxiliarists by Armistice Day. Shortly afterward, the group was disbanded until Hitler came a calling.

Standing back up in 1939, the renewed force grew much larger in their Second World War, swelling to some 75,000 at the corps’s peak in late 1944. (Note, this is twice the current strength of the combined active and reserve members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines)

Besides such misogynistic tasks as administrative, clerical, food service and communication support work, a group of women were known as Quick Ordnance (QO) WRENs. These “QO girls” or “Ordnance Wrens” were gunners mates in all but name, specializing in maintaining small arms up to 3-pounder Hotchkiss mounts and were tasked with cleaning, inspecting and repairing QF 2-pounder (40mm) and QF 1-pounder pom-poms, Lewis and Vickers machine guns, as well as rifles and handguns.

As such, they provided invaluable support to the fleet of thousands of Motor Launch (ML), Coastal Motor Boat (CMB), Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB), Motor Anti-submarine Boat (MASB), Motor Gunboat (MGB), Steam Gunboat (SGB), Fast Patrol Boat (FPB) and Fast Training Boat (FTB) craft of the Coastal Forces.

For the lads behind those guns, battling German U-boats and S-boats up and down the coast and in the Channel, they owed their lived to the Wrens.

(A 13209) The Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS): Wren Armourers, whose jobs included the overhaul, maintenance and serving of guns, pictured testing a Lewis gun at Lee-on-Solent Naval Air Station. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205193235

A QO Wren removing a 0.5 Vickers machine gun turret for servicing. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145632

A QO Wren stripping and cleaning a Lewis Gun on board a coastal craft. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145638

(A 12189) A QO Wren stripping and cleaning Lewis Guns on board a coastal craft. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145634

(A 12198) Installing the 0.5 Vickers machine gun into the gun turret after servicing it. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145643

WRENS working a pom-pom, and not the cheer-leading kind

The WRENs were disbanded as a special corps when and integrated into the regular Royal Navy in 1993.

The “Fair B’s” were rushed into production in 1940 using prefab components from shops large and small across the UK to churn out literally hundreds of these 112-foot boats. Armed with a Quick Firing 3-pounder (47mm) Hotchkiss popgun as a hood ornament and some machine guns aft, they carried enough depth charges to scratch the paint on interloping U-boats while patrolling the coastline.

They later proved invaluable during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, poking along the beaches and pulling off the wounded and drowning.

Motor Launch ML 188 dazzle painted and on patrol duty in fleet anchorage. (Photo: Imperial War Museum.)

After the war, most were quickly disposed of though a few (literally three) remain.

One of whom, ML 357, since renamed Jamaica Moon and turned into a houseboat, is moored in Essex at Clacton-on-Sea, in what is termed a very “picturesque area.”

Price? Just $39,000.

More in my column at Guns.com

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

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

Click to big up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HMS Constance off Pensacola 1922

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

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

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

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

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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Turkish wreck-hunter Selcuk Kolay has found what he believes to be the Royal Navy’s long-lost S-class submarine HMS Simoom (P225) about 6 nautical miles north-west of the Turkish Aegean island of Bozcaada (Tenedos) in 67 meters of water.

As reported by DiverNet:

The forward hydroplanes were of a folding type found on British submarines, and the single external torpedo-tube visible at the stern was also typical of S-Class subs.

Kolay reported extensive damage near the starboard hydroplane, probably caused by a surface mine. The fact that the hydroplanes were folded underlined that the sub would have been navigating at the surface when hit.

The conning tower was covered by fishing-net, but the 3in deck gun was still recognizable in front of it.

Only two British submarines were known to have been lost in the area, and the number of torpedo tubes and absence of a gun platform among other factors suggested that the find was Simoom (named after a desert wind) rather than HMS Trooper.

Built at Cammell Laird Shipyard (Birkenhead, U.K.) P.75/Simoom was commissioned 30 Dec 1942.

As noted by Uboat.net, her first war patrol off Northern Norway to provide cover for convoy operations to and from Northern Russia in early 1943 was uneventful as was her second in the Bay of Biscay. Transferring to the still very active Med, her third patrol, off the West coasts of Corsica and Sardinia was a bust.

Her 4th, providing coverage for the invasion of Sicly harassed some coastal shipping and in the end she would sink the destroyer Italian Vincenzo Gioberti in her eight month of service on 9 August 1943. Other rather sedate patrols followed.

The end of her tale came just three months later:

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

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

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

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

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

However in 2016 the wreck of HMS Simoom was found off Tenedos Island (Bozcaada) by a diving team lead by Turkish wreck-hunter Selcuk Kolay. There was extensive damage near the starboard hydroplane. Most likely Simoom had hit a mine while running on the surface. The mine Simoom hit was probably one from a minefield laid by the German minelayer Bulgaria and the Italian torpedo boats Monzambano and Calatafimi in September 1941.

Vale, Simoom and her 48 officers and men.

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

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Alex Schomburg

Born Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa in 1905 in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico– then just seven years removed from the Spanish Empire– the young man who would go on to be called the “Norman Rockwell of Comic books” moved to New York City in the early 1920s. After learning his trade, that of a commercial artist, while working with his three older brothers, he took on standalone work making lantern screen drawings, art, and illustrations for NYCs myriad of comics and pulps including Thrilling Wonder Stories and Flying Aces.

With war in Europe in 1939, sci-fi tech guru Hugo Gernsback, something of the Arthur C. Clarke of his day, enlisted the budding Schomburg for a series of covers of his tech mag Radio Craft and Popular Electronics covering emerging military electronics.

He also worked with Liberty puzzles to make a series of combat tableaus.

Schomburg also illustrated a number of war pulps.

Then, with war firmly gripping U.S., Schomberg took some more “dynamic” work for Timely Comics which largely consisted of American heros slam dunking dirty “japs” and Nazis with a little assistance from their super powers. You see, in that age, there was no need for super villains, and Berlin and Tokyo produced them in real life.

This included Capt.America long before he became a Marvel icon, as well Sub-Mariner, Ka-Zar the Great, The Angel, Black Terror, the Fighting Yank, the Green Hornet and the Human Torch– in just a decade producing something like 600 comic covers alone.

While no doubt cracking reading for its day, they come off rather like propaganda with a skosh of racism when looked at some 70 years later.

While not an official “war artist” you better believe that most teenage Coasties, Bluejackets, Devil Dogs and Joes had a copy of one of his comics in his sea bag or ruck at one time or another during WWII. The things they carried, indeed.

As Paul Tobin noted:

There’s so much to look at in a Schomburg cover… a compendium of vignettes all worked into one overall scene by The Man Who Made Perspective His Bitch. Seriously… each cover is about the wonkiest perspective possible, often with one character’s upper body in the foreground, and then their lower body in the far distant background, and yet it all works… it all comes together to form a cohesive whole. And that’s why he’s number one. Because he cheated. He was so good he didn’t need to play by the rules.

Eschewing comics, he moved into more sci-fi cover novel cover art which kept him busy the rest of his life and a Hugo award nomination.

He died in Beaverton, Oregon on April 7, 1998 and there are extensive galleries of his work online at Paul Tobin’s page (who lists him as the No. 1 cover artist in the U.S.) Pulp Covers and Alex Schomberg.com.

Thank you for your work, sir.

THE FALKLANDS CONFLICT, APRIL – JUNE 1982 (FKD 2935) Copyright: � IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205018702

“Argentine snapshot showing an Argentine from Batallon de Infanteria Marina 5 (5 BIM) on Mount Tumbledown during the 1982 Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands. The soldier is wearing a British Second World War style helmet (probably looted as a souvenir from the Falkland Islands Defence Force (FIDF) stores in Port Stanley) and is carrying a Ballestos Molina (sic) pistol under his left arm. This photograph was one of many confiscated from Argentine prisoners by 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines Intelligence Section.”

Argentina’s “almost 1911,” the Ballester Molina of Hispano-Argentina Fábrica de Automóviles S.A. (HAFDASA) was adopted in the 1930s by not only the Argentine Army, but the Navy, police forces, and coast guard. They were also exported to Latin American countries without their own arms making plants, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru with some 113,000 made altogether.

Ironically enough, it seems that at least 8,000 and possibly as many as 15,000 Argentine made .45s were sold to the British government for use by commando units hungry for mean looking and reliable hardware to fight the Germans in occupied Europe. These guns were meant for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), known as Churchill’s Secret Army.

And the British versions are sought after today.

British owned “B-prefix” Ballester Molina made in Argentina for the Brits in WWII. Via the National Firearms Museum

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

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

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

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

The mighty Estonian gunboat Lembit (1918-1927)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another profile while in brief Estonian service, 1937-40

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Helsinki, Winter 1944-45

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

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

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

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

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

Lembit after the war.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to very much big up

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

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

CDR Salamader’s blog over at USNI cued me into just how bad the West-Pac missile gap is between the USN and PLAN:

From the Autumn issue of the Naval War College Review, Lieutenant Alan Cummings, USN, has a must-read article, A Thousand Splendid Guns. 

I’ll let you read the full article, but there are two images that provides an overview of our ASCM shortfall in crisp profile.

When looking at the Chinese Navy in WESTPAC, how do our surface units that can or should carry ASCM line up – just in quantity?

In short, we have no problem meeting the Chinese in naval tonnage, but they have a huge advantage in distributed lethality by having way more platforms, each filled with (often longer range) ASCMs, making it possible to smother a U.S. task force or two with hundreds of incoming ship killers.

Sure, we have Aegis and lots of SM-2s, so we can swat a lot, but what of taking out those Chinese frigates and destroyers in turn? Our own Harpoon program has been whittled down so far over the years that we’d have to bank on submarines (who may be up to their necks in schools of PLAN smoke boats already), lucky TLAMs and even SM-2s used in surface mode to help even the odds.

As for our closest naval allies, the Royal Navy is expected to be left without an ASCM capability between 2018-2020. Such a gap is being caused by the planned retirement of the Sea Skua missile in early 2017 and the 2018 retirement of the SWS60 Harpoon. A limited anti-ship capability will only return when the Sea Venom/ANL lightweight anti-ship missile is equipped on the Wildcat HMA.2 helicopter in late 2020 and that is mainly meant to take out small FAC-style vessels. No funded program is in place by the UK for a Harpoon replacement, however.

Good thing the Army is looking into cross-domain fires. As PAC commander Adm. Harry Harris says, “I think the Army should be in the business of sinking ships with land-based ballistic missiles.”