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 July 22, 2015: The (Giant) Messenger God

Here we see the Centaur-class aircraft carrier HMS Hermes (R12) bouncing around the North Atlantic with her bow mostly out of the water in 1977. She currently is the oldest flattop in active service (though armed with just 7 elderly and increasingly cranky Sea Harriers) and has had one hell of a ride.

British carrier problems

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

Further, while two 32,000-ton Implacable-class and four 23,000-ton Illustrious-class carriers, laid down before the war were able to join the fleet, they just made up for the losses of the prewar vessels.

The Brits designed an innovative armed merchantman (CAM ships, for catapult aided merchantman, some 35 freighters armed with a single rocket-assisted Hurricane or Spitfire ready for a one-way trip) and picked up a legion of escort carriers loaned from the Americans to help fight off German Condor patrol bombers and U-boats. However, fleet operations in far-off areas away from the support of land based RAF fighters needed fast and well-armed flattops.

That’s where the 16 planned Colossus-class light carriers, 4 Audacious-class, 4 Malta-class super carriers (57,000-tons), and 8 Centaur-class fleet carriers came in. Ordered and designed between 1942-45, these 32 British ships would have been the envy of any navy in the world.

While the Malta‘s never made it off the drawing board, just 2 Audacious’s were finished (in the 50s), and most of the Colossus-class were likewise completed much after the war (some as late as the 1960s then rapidly sold or junked), the Centaurs were likewise abbreviated to just 4 much-delayed ships. One of these is the hero of our story.

Enter Hermes

HMS Hermes was laid down at Vickers-Armstrong on 21 June 1944, two weeks after the Allies stormed ashore at D-Day. She was the last of the quartet of Centaurs whose construction was started. Originally to be named HMS Elephant, she picked up the messenger of the gods moniker of the old carrier (Pennant #95) sunk by the Japanese in 1942.

Envisioned to be the middle ground between the Colossus light carriers and the Malta super carriers, these 737-foot long, 29,000-ton ships were fast enough (28 knots) to serve with the fleet, could cross the Atlantic or steam as far away as the Falklands (remember this) or Cape of Good Hope on a single bunker load of fuel oil and could carry some 60~ piston engine fighters and bombers (smaller than an American carrier of similar size due to their armored flight deck and hangar).

NBC Washdown

However, WWII ended before any of the Centaurs could be completed and the four ships under construction, Hermes included, were sidelined.

She languished after the war and was only finished on 18 November 1959 (after 15 years at the builders) with a much-altered plan that included an angled flight deck to allow the operation of jet-powered aircraft at sea.

One of the last ships completed with 40mm Bofors DP AAA guns, she could carry as many as 40 aircraft in a mixed flight wing that included downright chunky Supermarine Scimitars, de Havilland Sea Vixen fighters, and turboprop-powered Fairey Gannet ASW aircraft together with Westland Whirlwind (British-built Sikorsky S-55/H-19 Chickasaw) helicopters.

Spending most of the 1960s in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf area (the Brits were the preeminent naval force in the Gulf at the time), by 1968 Hermes‘ wing had been updated to include a dozen Sea Vixens, 7 Buccaneer strike planes, Wessex choppers (British-built turbine-powered development of the Sikorsky SH-34 Seabat) and 5 Gannets in AEW roles.

The 63 foot long, 30-ton Blackburn Buccaneer was the same size as the later F-14 Tomcat and could carry up to 6-tons of ordnance including the British Red Beard or WE.177 tactical nuclear bombs to a range of some 2,300 nautical miles. The Brits still had these in service as late as 1994, but couldn’t use them in the Falklands as Hermes had her CATOBAR system removed. They likely would have come in very handy if she hadn’t and there were still some in the fleet.

A Sea Vixen launching from HMS Hermes.

The F-4 Phantom was successfully tested from her decks, but it was deemed that she wouldn’t be able to carry enough (just 12, landing the rest of wing ashore) to matter.

Rare color image of two Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers on the catapults of HMS Hermes, 1968. XT282 (325) XV152 (324) of 809 Squadron.

In 1970, her catapults and arrester wires were removed (as were her old Bofors and radars) and she was converted to a “commando carrier” capable of carrying a Royal Marine battalion. Her air wing was some 20 Marine helicopters. She was also given storage and handling areas for 4 LCVP landing craft.

She was modified to carry as many as 800 Royal Marines. Dig those L1A1 SLRs (semi-auto Enfield made FN FALs)

When the Harrier came out, Hermes was given a ski jump to help those VSTOL beauties take off (they would land vertically so no arrester wires were needed) and her wing was fleshed out by ASW helicopters to allow her to carry out the NATO sea control mission concept if needed.

Harrier jump jets on the Deck of HMS Hermes

By 1982, with the Malta’s never built, the Colossus and Audacious-class carriers all retired, and Hermes‘s own sister ships HMS Centaur (R06), HMS Albion (R07), and HMS Bulwark (R08) decommissioned in 1965, 1972 and 1981 respectively, she was at the same time the largest, oldest and most effective carrier left in the Royal Navy with only the smaller and barely broke-in 19,000-ton “Harrier carrier” HMS Invincible to back her up.

Ironically both carriers were up for sale at the time, as Parliament was determined to get the UK out of the carrier business.

Then came the Falklands.

With the nearest RAF base some 4,000 miles away at Wideawake Airfield, Ascension Island, the aircraft that the RN could carry to the Malvinas were the only ones that would be available to defend the British attempt to retake the colony.

Royal Marines line up for a weapons check in the hanger of HMS Hermes in the South Atlantic on their way to the Falklands in 1982. Note the hangar crammed full of Harriers and the big Sea Kings on deck above.

Hermes carried an impressive (for her size) complement of 26 RN Sea Harriers and RAF Harriers (more than half of the British combat aircraft deployed to the conflict) as well as up to 22 big Sea Kings at one time or another (though most were cross decked to other platforms) and was flagship of Rear Adm. Sandy Woodward’s Task Force 317.8 for the war.

Hermes gunner in anti-flash gear with a WWII era 20mm in the Falklands

The 100~ ship (though only 27 warships) combined fleet, the largest British flotilla formed since 1956 in the Suez crisis, departed the UK on 5 April and after an epic 25-day trip arrived in the 200-mile exclusion zone surrounding Falklands, with the Argentinians beginning their attacks on the force the very next day.

Arriving in the Falklands, her Harriers conducted both air support for the troops ashore and held up a pretty good CAP against attacking Argentine Mirages and Skyhawks. In all the RN and RAF Harriers (just 38 aircraft, mostly operating from Hermes) flew over 1,500 sorties in the 45 days while on station before the British Jack was hoisted over Port Stanley once more, and were credited with 20 air-to-air kills.

Petty officer aboard HMS Hermes crossing equator on way back to the UK from the Falklands

Steel beach party on HMS Hermes note sea harrier and sea king

When Hermes sailed back into Portsmouth, she and the Task Force was greeted by everything that floated.

HMS Hermes being welcomed back after the Falklands War

Her Royal Navy career ended 12 April 1984 and she was paid off while on her 15th skipper.

However, although she was the last of her class afloat and her keel had forty years on it, she was still valuable.

Refitted, she was sold to India in 1987 and took the name INS Viraat (R22) and, home ported in Mumbai, she has served the Indian Navy for 28 continuous years, undergoing a further five refits while in Indian service.

As Viraat, 1990. The other smaller carrier is the former British Colossus-class light carrier HMS Hercules then in service as the INS Vikrant

INS Viraat, 2002

Her current name means, “Giant” and she was the largest ship ever operated by the Indian Navy until they bought the 65,000-ton Admiral Gorshkov from the Russians and brought her in service as INS Vikramadita in 2013.

Viramaditya’ (foreground) and ‘Viraat.’ Indian Navy photo

Of note, Admiral Sir John Forster “Sandy” Woodward GBE, KCB passed the bar 4 August 2013. In his last public act, he decried the decommissioning of Britain’s carrier force before the new Queen Elizabeth class could be brought on line, leaving the country that invented the type without a flattop for the first time in a century.

Hermes/Viraat is currently the last British-built ship serving with the Indian Navy, and the oldest aircraft carrier in service in the world, and with over 70 years under her keel and two new carriers on the builder’s ways, its time for the old girl to retire.

She is to decommission by 2016 and be retained as a museum ship.

From the Hindu Times:

The retirement call was forced, in part, by the dwindling fleet of Sea Harrier fighters operating from the deck of Viraat. While the limited upgrade Sea Harrier (LUSH) programme bestowed the fighters with modern avionics and beyond visual range (BVR) strike capability, the ageing airframe has been a concern. Not more than seven Sea Harriers are available at the moment — some of them cannibalized (used as ‘Christmas Tree’ for spares) to keep the relatively agile ones airworthy.

“Thanks to the Navy’s stringent maintenance regimen, we have been able to operate Viraat without major glitches until now. But the Harrier fleet has dwindled so much that within the Navy, Viraat is often referred to as a ‘One Harrier carrier’. No point flogging it any further,” an official said.

A very active veterans group preserves her memory (as well as that of the other 9 HMS Hermes dating back to 1796) in the UK.

HMS Broadsword with HMS Hermes, Falklands. Official painting by John Alan Hamilton for the MoD. (c) Mrs B.G.S. Hamilton (widow); Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Sadly, the Royal Navy has not carried the name on its roles since 1985.

Specs:

Hermes, 1966, via Shipbucket

Hermes, 1982, via Shipbucket

As Viraat, 1990, via Shipbucket

Displacement: 22,000 tons 28,700 tons full load
Length: 737 ft. (224.6 m)
Beam: 130 ft. (39.6 m)
Draught: 28.5 ft. (8.7 m)
Installed power: 78,000 hp (58,000 kW)
Propulsion: 2 shaft geared steam turbines, 4 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
Speed: 28 knots (52 km/h)
Range: 7,000 nmi (13,000 km) at 18 kn (33 km/h)
Sensors: Radar Type 982, Type 983, Type 275, Type 974
Complement: 2,100 including carrier air wing. 1970-75 as Commando Carrier: 1500 plus up to 800 Marines.
Armament: 32 40mm Bofors guns (2 × 6), (8 × 2), (4 × 1) removed in 1970, replaced with 2 Sea Cat missile system launchers. During Falklands, her armament was increased with the addition of numerous small gun mounts.
Armor: 1.2-inch flight deck, Hangar deck
Aircraft carried: 7-60 depending on year and role

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!

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 Walter Baumhofer

Walter Martin Baumhofer “The King of Pulp” was born in Brooklyn in 1904 to working class German immigrants. At the age of 14, while playing with a supposedly dud artillery shell brought back from the Great War, he blew off three fingers of his left hand, effectively ending the world of manual labor open to First Generation American lads in New York City in the early 1900s. Graduating high school he garnered a scholarship to the Pratt Institute for Art and by 1921 was selling his first art, for an American Legion publication.

By 1926 he was good enough that he was selling pulp fiction covers for Westerns and adventure novels and mens’s magazines that were being churned out in New York by the truckload.

Adventure March 1935

Seen this guy somewhere else….

Liberty, Hell in the Holy Land (1936) Baumhofer

While he did covers for Spider, American magazine, Gangland Stories, Dime Mystery, Danger Trail, Western Story and Adventure, it was his work on Doc Savage “80 Page Novels!” that made him famous, to include his iconic Red Skull character illustrations.

Dr. Clark Savage Jr, the forerunner of Indiana Jones, appeared in 1933 with Baumhofer pulling all of the artwork load.

First issue of Doc Savage, March 1933. Hitler just took power, so you needed the good Doctor.

Savage was “The Man of Bronze”

Hail Hydra….

The Doc will fight you with mittens on if he has too.

Does it get any more Indiana Jones?

Its not pulp unless you have underwater action

By the late 1930s he was cranking out regular work for Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, McCalls, Redbook and Woman’s Day and after the war moved to Argosy, Outdoor Life and True and switched to selective oil on canvas gallery work late in his career.

“Police are your friends”Walter Baumhofer

While he produced over 600 covers in his five decades of active work, few were true martial works. However, it should be remembered that thousands of Joes and Marines headed off to Europe and the Pacific with a beaten Doc Savage stuffed in their duffel, which in a way helped win the war.

He died in New York September 23, 1987 peacefully at age 83.

There are numerous galleries that highlight the portfolio of Mr. Baumhofer as well as more extensive biographies.

Thank you for your work, sir.

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 July 29, 2015 The saddest story of World War II

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Here we see the Portland-class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) as she appeared before the war in New York. Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of her tragic passing, often cited as the worst disaster in U.S. Naval history. As she was torpedoed on the other side of the International Date Line, at the site of her wreck it is already that time.

We have covered this tragic vessel a number of times including the Svedi photo collection and a set of papers that we submitted to Navsource and the NHC on her 1936 Friendship cruise, so we’ll keep it short.

The two-ship class of “10,000-ton” heavy cruisers was sandwiched between the half-dozen 9,000-ton Northamptons built in the late 1920s and the seven more advanced New Orleans-class cruisers built in the late 1930s. As such, the twin Portlands were advanced for their time, carrying nearly a thousand tons more armor and 9x 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 12 guns. They had weight and space available to accommodate a fleet admiral and staff if needed.

Indianapolis was laid down by New York Shipbuilding Corporation on 31 March 1930 and was the first warship to carry the name, commissioning 15 November 1932.

2814×2244

Her prewar career was peaceful and she carried FDR on a trip to South America in 1936 and others.

Narrowly escaping Pearl Harbor by being at sea far to the southeast of Hawaii, she soon was earning battle stars the hard way in New Guinea, the Aleutians (where she pummeled the Japanese troopship Akagane Maru, sending her and her soldiers to the bottom of the cold North Pacific), Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein, the Marianas, Palau, the Philippine Sea and onto the Home Islands.

View from off her starboard bow, at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, following overhaul, 1 May 1943. White outlines mark recent alterations to the ship. Note new forward superstructure, 8″/55 triple gun turrets, starboard anchor, anchor gear on forecastle, and paravane downrigging chains at the extreme bow. USS Minneapolis (CA-36) is in the background, stripped for overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

For a good bit of that time, she served as the 5th Fleet flagship of Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance.

Admirals Spruance, Mitscher, Nimitz, and Lee aboard USS Indianapolis, Feb 1945

At Okinawa, she spent a week solid smacking around Japanese shore positions with her big 8 inchers while dodging kamikazes. On 31 March 1945, she was unlucky enough to be severely damaged by one of these flying meatballs and, losing 9 men, set course for Mare Island Naval Yard in California for repairs.

Once patched back together, it turned out the War Department had a mission for her.

In San Francisco, she took aboard parts and 141-pounds of enriched uranium (about half of the world’s supply at the time) for the inefficient Little Boy atomic bomb, which would later be dropped on Hiroshima, producing about 15 kilotons of sunlight when she vaporized in August.

Racing the 6,000 miles from San Fran to Tinian island in just ten days (with a short stop in Hawaii), she arrived unescorted and delivered her payload on 26 July, which would go on to a history of its own only 11 days later.

However, Indy would no longer be afloat by the time Hiroshima’s mushroom cloud peaked.

This photo was taken 27 July 1945, the day before she sailed from Guam to her doom, as documented by the ship’s photographer of USS Pandemus (ARL 18), on the back of the photo. This is probably the last photo taken of her. Caption on back of photo: “USS Indianapolis (CA 35) taken: 1530 27, July 1945, Apra Harbor, Guam, from USS Pandemus RL 18 as it passed heading for sea. Picture taken by Gus Buono”. U.S. Navy photo from the Collection of David Buell.

At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by I-58, a Japanese B3 type cruiser submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes after sending off a distress call. The sub’s commander took her to be an Idaho-class battlewagon and unloaded six torpedoes in her direction, of which 2-3 hit.

Indianapolis was not equipped with sonar or hydrophones, or provided with a destroyer escort despite her captain’s request– the only case in which a capital ship was left unescorted so late in the war.

Of 1,196 men on board the stricken cruiser, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters sans lifeboats and supplies for the most part. By the time the dwindling survivors were spotted (by accident) four days later only 317 men were still alive.

Survivors of the sinking of the Indianapolis are taken to a hospital on Guam after their rescue in August, 1945.

After the war her skipper, Captain Charles B. McVay III, was sent to mast in a travesty of justice– the only U.S. captain of more than 350 to face trial for having his ship sunk by the enemy in the war. At the trial the skipper of I-58, which had been captured and scuttled by the Navy in 1946, even testified that McVay was not at fault.

Although cleared by history, McVay later committed suicide. The Navy later adjusted his record, posthumously.

Indianapolis‘s sistership, USS Portland (CA–33), was decommissioned in 1946 and languished on red lead row until she was scrapped in 1962 although she earned 16 battle stars, making her one of the most decorated ships in the U.S. fleet.

There are a number of monuments to the Indianapolis and her wreck was located in 2001.

Her bell, removed from the ship at Mare Island in 1945 to save weight, is preserved at the Heslar Naval Armory in Indianapolis.

There is also a good bit of maritime art to commemorate her.

Indianapolis by Michel Guyot

She is remembered by a vibrant USS Indianapolis organization, a number of books, a completed made for TV movie (which was horrible) and a new film with Nick Cage that is currently shooting.

Thirty-two men are still alive from the crew of the USS Indianapolis, including Richard Stephens, 89, who eagerly awaits the Cage film.

“I think it’s going to be a good movie,” said Stephens, who was 18 when he and the others received the command to abandon ship.

He visited the set in Mobile, Ala., earlier this month where the film is being shot on location using Mobile Bay and the USS Alabama museum as a backdrop. “I told (Cage) I didn’t like movies that were fictional, and they should be trying to show more respect, they should be using the facts. He said it’s going to be pretty true to facts.”

Specs:

3150×1869 Click to very much bigup

Displacement: 9,800 long tons (10,000 t)
Length: 610 ft. (190 m)
Beam: 66 ft. (20 m)
Draft: 17 ft. 4 in (5.28 m)
Propulsion: 8 × White-Foster boilers, single reduction geared turbines, 107,000 shp (80,000 kW)
Speed: 32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Complement: 629 officers and enlisted (peace), 1,269 officers and men (wartime as flag)
Armament: 9 × 8 in (200 mm)/55 cal guns (3×3)
8 × 5 in (130 mm)/25 cal AA guns
8 × .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns
Aircraft carried: 2-5 OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes

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

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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 Richard Jack

Richard Jack, though born in Sunderland, England, in 1866, was Canada’s first official war artist.

In the late 19th Century he studied at a number of esteemed art schools including the York School of Art, the South Kensington Art School, the ARA, the Royal College of Art and the Académie Julian— almost all on academic scholarships for his submitted work.

Returning to London from the Julian, he became first a black and white illustrator for Cassells and other periodicals then switched to painting, winning silver medals for his work before the Great War.

The Passing of the Chieftain by Richard Jack, York Museums Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Pushing 50 when Word War I began and not having a military background, he still did his part and took to sketching soldiers passing through.

The Return to the Front Victoria Railway Station, by Richard Jack, 1916, via the York Museums, on display in Lincolnshire. Trust Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

These were subsequently published and brought him the attention of the Canadian governor general’s office, who extended an offer in 1916 to commission Jack as the official war artist to cover Canadian exploits in the war to end all wars.

Heading to the Western Front as a Major, Canadian Forces, Jack took to his work in covering the heroic stand by the Canadians at Second Ypres for posterity. Unlike the British government commissions, which encouraged a modernist approach to war, the Canadians wanted Jack to produce recognizable ‘history’ paintings as realistic as possible– and he did, controversially including bodies of the broken and dying.

Though, naturally, not actually present at the fighting, Major Jack had carefully investigated and sketched the whole ground, and has spent some time with the units which took part in the engagement, collecting from officers and men all the details and facts needed for absolute accuracy. Some of the men who had been through the battle actually posed for the picture, whilst machine-guns and all manner of military accoutrements were temporarily placed at the artist’s disposal, whose studio assumed something of the appearance of a battlefield.

This time spent on the continent yielded two massive works, The 12-foot-by-20-foot canvases of The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915, and The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday, 1917.

The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915

Official war artist Major Richard Jack poses by his painting. ‘The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915′ depicting Canadian soldiers making a stand against a German assault He painted this enormous work of art, with the canvas measuring 371.5 x 589.0cm (12 x 20 foot), in his London studio, c.1917. Commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund (CWMF), an organization established by Lord Beaverbrook to document Canada’s war effort. Sir Edmund Walker, who sat on the advisory board to the CWMF, felt that Jack captured the achievements of the Canadians during the battle, but felt the work would not resonate with Canadians, who, he felt, were “not likely to appreciate such realistic treatment of war.” He was wrong and Jack’s painting remains an iconic work from the First World War. (National Archives of Canada PA 4879)

The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday 1917. The painting is a part of the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art at the Canadian War Art Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.

After the war, Jack, a civilian again, emigrated to Canada (why not, right?) and settled in the Montreal area. Jack became a renowned portrait artist, brushing depictions of royalty, statesmen and senior officers.

Lieutenant Colonel Lancelot Robson, CMG, DSO by Richard Jack, currently part of the collection of the Hartlepool Museums and Heritage Service. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Robinson was commander of the Royal Artillery who responded to the raid on Hartlepool, commanding three BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns mounted ashore against Hipper’s squadron

Muriel Elsie, née Hirst, (1895–1969), Lady Gamage painted 1950 by Richard Jack via St Johns Museum. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Muriel Gamage was a prominent worker for public causes, and had served during WWI with the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), organizing the military hospitals during the war, and was appointed D.J.ST.J.(Dame of Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem), in recognition of her service, whose badge appears on her uniform

Jack was later inducted to Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Painters before his death in 1952, aged 86.

He spent the latter part of his life paining landscapes in his adopted country.

Richard Jack landscape, from the York Trust. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

You can find an in-depth study of his works here and the BBC has a collection of some 45 of his works online

His style of battle scenes has drawn much modern imitation.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Video shows Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735) underway in the vicinity of Hawaii. Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Swink | Commander Submarine Forces Pacific | Date: 06.28.2015

The fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1837 140-gun ship of the line, 1863 screw steamer, 1903 armored cruiser, and the famous BB-38 of the World Wars), SSBN-735 was commissioned in 1989 and is home ported at Bangor.

She just completed her Engineered Refueling Overhaul (ERO) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 2012 and is expected to serve well into the 2030s at which point she will be pushing a half-century with the dolphins.

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

Warship Wednesday Aug 5, 5015: 225 Years of Semper Paratus

In honor of the Coast Guard’s 225th Birthday this week, this one is a no-brainer.

Here we see the oldest vessel in the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the last ships afloat and in active service that dates from World War II (although from the other side), the Gorch Fock-class segelschulschiff training barque USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), America’s only active duty square rigger.

Designed by John Stanley, the Gorch Fock-class school ships, three master barques with 269-foot long steel hulls, 18,000 sq. feet of square-rigged sails fore and main and gaff rigged mizzens, were perhaps the best training ships built in the 20th Century.

Horst Wessel at sea 1938

First ordered to replace the lost Segelschulschiff Niobe, capsized in 1932, SSS Gorch Fock was ordered the same year from Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and completed in just 100 days. Then, with a need to greatly expand the German Kriegsmarine soon followed sisters SSS Horst Wessel in 1936, SSS Albert Leo Schlageter in 1937, Mircea for the Romanian Navy in 1937, and SSS Herbert Norkus in 1939.

The subject of our story, Horst Wessel was a happy ship, commissioning 17 September 1936, and spent summer cruises in 1937-39 roaming the globe with a crew of German officer cadets and craggy old chiefs and officers that dated back to the Kaiser’s time.

An excellent 37-page translation of her 1937 Cruise Book is online and makes for interesting reading as does as a 50-page photo album.

Crewmen on Horst Wessel performing a totenwacht over a dead comrade

Horst Wessel

Her German Eagle figurehead

When war came, the training fleet was laid up with Herbert Norkus, never fully completed, sunk at the end of the conflict, Gorch Fock herself scuttled in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who raised her and used her anyway as the training ship Tovarishch for decades, Schlageter damaged by a mine then confiscated and sold in poor shape to Brazil and Horst Wessel with an interesting story of her own.

Armed with a number 20 mm flak mounts, Horst Wessel had shuttled around the relatively safe waters of the Baltic and came out of the war unscathed.

The Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE laying at a shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany, 1946, being rigged and outfitted for her voyage to the United States. Note bombed out buildings in background

Won by the U.S. in a lottery of captured but still salvageable German ships, she was sailed to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where she took the place of the 188-foot Danish merchant academy training ship Danmark, who, interned during the war, had trained thousands of USCG and Merchant Marine officers.

Horst Wessel arrived (under control of her volunteer German crew) and was commissioned 15 May 1946, as USCGC Eagle while Danmark was returned to her proper owner’s that September after Eagle was ready for deployment.

Since then she has been used extensively with a core USCG cadre crew of six officers and 55 enlisted personnel and as many as 150 cadets on summer and even yearlong cruises. During the past seven decades it can be said that she has sailed with over 10,000 swabs holystoning her decks and rigging her lines.

Eagle under U.S. Flag 1954. Note that she did not receive her distinctive red racing stripe until 1976– the last ship in the Coast Guard to do so

She has been inspected by just about every sitting President since Truman to include JFK, a former Navy man.

August 15, 1962–President john F. Kennedy addressing Cadets while visiting on board the U.S Coast Guard Academy training bark EAGLE,

Eagle gives future officers the opportunity to put into practice the navigation, engineering, damage control and other professional theory they have previously learned in the classroom.

ATLANTIC OCEAN – Photo of events aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle July 6, 2012. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.

Upper class trainees have a chance to learn leadership and service duties normally handled by junior officers, while underclass trainees fill crew positions of a junior enlisted person, such as helm watches at the huge double wooden wheels used to steer the vessel.

The sails are set aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle Wednesday, July 27, 2011. The Eagle is underway on the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 295-foot barque. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi

Everyone who trains on Eagle experiences a character building experience gained from working a tall ship at sea.

U.S. Coast Guard Academy Third Class Cadet Brandon Foy climbs the rigging Tuesday, July 12, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. Foy is one of 137 cadets sailing aboard the 295-foot barque during the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ship. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi

To maneuver Eagle under sail after her rerigging to a larger set of canvas than the Germans used, the crew must handle more than 22,000 square feet of sail and five miles of rigging.

The sails are set Saturday, June 25, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi

Over 200 lines control the sails and yards, and every crewmember, cadet and officer candidate, must become intimately familiar with the name, operation, and function of each line.

The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.

While she has the nickname of “America’s Tall Ship” and is seen round the world waving the flag, her bread and butter is training cadets from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy as well as NOAA Officer Candidates and the occasional Navy, Merchant Marine and foreign allied maritime officers as well.

The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.

And all those sails don’t raise themselves

These ships have proven durable, with Gorch Fock returning to Germany from Russia in 2003 and resuming her old name as a museum ship, Mircea entering her 77th year of service to the Romanian Navy this year, and Albert Leo Schlageter— sailing under the name Sagres III for Portugal since 1961– all still in active service.

Truth be told, only the sad Herbert Norkus, which never sailed anyway, has been lost from the original five ship class.

Further, since the war ended, another five ships have been built to the same, although updated, design. These include yet another Gorch Fock (built for West Germany in 1958), Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).

In short, nine tall ships are running around the earth to the same general specs.

And the best traveled of the pack is Eagle, who is all ours and hopefully will see another 75 years under sail.

CARIBBEAN OCEAN – The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle transits the Caribbean Ocean under full sail Monday, June 7, 2010. Crewmembers assigned to the Eagle “America’s Tall Ship” set sail from New London, Conn., in April for the annual Summer Training Program. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta H. Disco.

ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle take extra safety precautions when sailing through fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.

(June 26, 2005) ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A view from the bowsprit onboard the Eagle during a cadet summer training patrol.The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE, designated ‘America’s Tallship’ is a three masted, square- rigged sailing vessel. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (May 20)–The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails into Guantanamo Bay to spend the night. The Eagle is involved in training exercises in the Carribean. USN photo by FINCH, MICHAEL L LCDR

The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through the ocean as the moon’s reflection beams across the sea. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Shinn)

Seaman Katy Turner (right) of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Ted Hubbard of West Springfield, Mass., work from one of Coast Guard Cutter Eagle’s small boats to inspect and clean the hull prior to entering port Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Conducting small boat operations is one of the most dangerous evolutions for the crew because the small boats are lowered manually by crewmember, rather than by a mechanical hoist.

The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)

ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle take extra safety precautions when sailing through fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.

Although she long ago landed her German eagle for an American one, which carries the Coast Guard seal (while the old one collects dust as a war trophy at the USCGA Museum) and her original wheel carries her Horst Wessel birth name, it also carries her new monicker as well.

Her original German figurehead is on display at the USCGA Museum

The figurehead of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)

(June 23, 2005) – ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet takes the helm during a summer training patrol onboard the Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE. The three masted, square-rigged sailing vessel is normally homeported in New London, Connecticut, and sails each summer for months at a time, visiting ports around the U.S. and abroad.  (Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)

The helm of the Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle. Coast Guard photo by PA1 Donnie Brzuska, PADET Jacksovnille, Fla.

In celebration of the Coast Guard’s 225th, he commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle and the U.S. Postal Service will be unveiling a special edition stamp commemorating the Coast Guard’s birthday this week.

In an oil painting on masonite, renowned aviation artist William S. Phillips depicts two icons of the Coast Guard: the cutter Eagle, and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, the standard rescue aircraft of the Coast Guard.

The ceremony will take place Friday appx. 10:30 a.m. August 7 at the Oliver Hazard Perry Pier at Fort Adams State Park, Newport, R.I.

Eagle will be open to the public for tours at approximately 12 p.m. following the commemorative stamp unveiling ceremony.

In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in the visitor center across from the pier.

In Newport, Eagle will be open for free public tours:

* Friday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Cutter Eagle by John Wisinski (ID# 90138)

If you cannot make Newport, the Eagle has her own social media account that is regularly updated and on a long enough timeline, she will be in a port near you.

Specs:

Length – 295 feet, 231 feet at waterline
Beam, greatest – 39.1 feet
Freeboard – 9.1 feet
Draft, fully loaded – 16 feet
Displacement – 1824 tons
Ballast (lead) – 380 tons
Fuel oil – 23,402 gallons
Anchors – 3,500 lbs. port, 4,400 lbs. starboard
Rigging – 6 miles, standing and running
Height of mainmast – 147.3 feet
Height of foremast – 147.3 feet
Height of mizzenmast – 132.0 feet
Fore and main yard – 78.8 feet
Speed under power – 10 knots
Speed under full sail – 17 knots
Sail area – 22,300 square feet
Engine – 1,000 horsepower diesel Caterpillar D399 engine replaced 700hp original diesel
Generators – two-320 kilowatt Caterpillar 3406 generators
Training complement – 6 officers, 54 crew, 20 temporary active duty crew when at sea, 140 cadets average.
Maximum capacity – 239 people

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!

Yay!

HMS M.33 coastal bombardment vessel from Gallipoli campaign. Credit National Museum of the Royal Navy NMRN. Click to big up

M33 Wheel with Victory and Mary Rose in view

Stern 1848×1230

If you are in England and have a chance, swing by the HMS Victory and check out M33. This humble little monitor of 568 tons with a shallow draft allowing it to get close-in to shore and fire at targets on land, carried two powerful and oversize 6” guns, but was a basic metal box lacking in comforts. The 72 officers and men who sailed for the Gallipoli Campaign were crammed inside and away from home for over 3 years.

She then saw active service in Russia during the Allied Intervention in 1919, narrowly escaping staying there the rest of her life, then was brought back to England where she served the RN up until 1984 as a hulk and floating office space.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and Hampshire County Council (HCC) have worked as partners to develop the £2.4m project to conserve, restore and interpret HMS M.33  With a grant of £1.8m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) the ship will be made physically and intellectually open to all for the first time. The ship sits in No.1 Dock alongside HMS Victory in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, and uniquely visitors will start with a 20-foot descent into the bottom of the dock before stepping aboard.

HMS M33 infographic jpeg

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

Warship Wednesday Aug 12, His Majesty’s Frozen U-boat Busting Bulldog

Here we see the modified V-class destroyer HMS Vansittart (D64) of the Royal Navy tied to a buoy in 1943. The hardy ship was a member of a huge group of WWI-era British tin cans that pulled yeoman service in the twilight of their lives.

In 1916, the Admiralty was in dire need of as many destroyers as they could find to fight the ever-growing U-boat menace that threatened to cut the British Isles off and hand victory to the Kaiser. This led to a crash emergency order of up to 107 Admiralty V-class flotilla leaders.

The Brit’s previous design– the 275-foot/1,075-ton S-class– mounted three 4-inch popguns, a pair of 18-inch torpedo tubes and could make 36 knots on two boilers. Well the new V-boats were much larger at 312-feet/1,360-tons, higher to allow for a large wireless suite, needed three boilers, but upped the armament to a quartet of QF 4 in Mk.V mounts and 3 21 inch torpedo tubes a triple tube arrangement.

The first ship, Valentine, was laid down in August and completed just seven months later. By the end of the war, these hardy boats numbered some 67 hulls afloat and the remaining 40 were canceled.

Now enter the subject of our tale: HMS Vansittart (D64).

Laid down at William Beardmore and Company, Dalmuir, on New Year’s Day 1918 (no holidays off during wartime) she was completed after the war and only commissioned 5 November 1919.

Built to a modified W-class design, she shipped 1,550-tons largely due to her heavier suite of 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns, each capable of firing a 50-pound semi-armor piercing shell to 14,450 meters and a full half-dozen torpedo tubes rather than the original trio.

Vansittart served with the 4th Destroyer Flotilla and the Mediterranean squadrons then was laid up in 1925 due to the overall draw-down of the RN in those lean years. For the next 14 years, she was part of the Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth, staffed by reservists occasionally on summer training, and was reactivated in August 1939 as the drumbeat of a new war called.

By September 12, she was part of the 15th Destroyer Flotilla and serving on convoy duty in the Channel, protecting the BEF crossing into Europe. Next, Vansittart shipped to Norway and took part in the pivotal destroyer clash that was the Battle of Narvik, where she was damaged by German aircraft, then promptly returned to convoy duty and the evacuation of Rotterdam in May.

On 1 Jul 1940, as Britain stood alone in the War, she took out German Type VIIB U-boat U-102 in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 48°33’N, 10°26’E, by 11 depth charges then proceeded to pick up 26 survivors from the British merchant Clearton, U-102′s last victim.

U-102 took all 43 hands including Kptlt. Harro von Klot-Heydenfeldt to the bottom.

Vansittart at the time had a very photogenic mascot.

A bulldog named Venus stands at the helm of the HMS Vansittart, a British Destroyer, c.1941

Venus was one god looking pooch

More gratuitous Venus

1941 saw Vansittart assisting in mine laying operations off the French coast and spending a few days in May searching for SMS Bismarck.

She was adopted by the town of Kidderminster during the Warship Week National Savings drive in December 1941. The RN got their money’s worth out of the Great War-era ship, later allowing Hereford to adopt the old girl as well later in the war.

THE MAYOR OF KIDDERMINISTER, ALDERMAN O W DAVIES, VISITS HMS VANSITTART – THE TOWN’S ADOPTED SHIP. 11 JUNE 1942 IWM photo A 10786

In February 1942, she reported to Gibraltar and took part in the epic resupply convoys to besieged Malta including Operation Pedestal where she helped screen HMS Eagle from both air and submarine attacks.

By 1943, she was undergoing a six-month refit at Middleborough from which she emerged with a more potent AAA defense, and traded in half her torpedo tubes for more ASW weapons, but restricted to just 25 knots.

This put her back to escorting merchant convoys in the Atlantic for the rest of the war, including some very hard service in the ice zones.

Chipping away ice on the deck of H.M.S. Vansittart on convoy escort duty in the Arctic

Soon after VE Day, unneeded for the war in the Pacific, she was placed up for disposal along with the rest of the ships of her class still in the Atlantic.

As a whole, these hardy little ships gave their full measure, with many going down fighting.

One, Vehement, was lost to a mine in the North Sea in 1918. Two others, Verulam and Vittoria were lost to the Bolsheviks in the Baltic in 1919, and 9 would go on to meet their end at the hands of Axis forces in WWII.

At least 35 of the class survived the war only to be unceremoniously paid off and sold to the breakers between 1945 and 1948. The last afloat, the Australian-manned HMAS Vendetta (D69), was scuttled off Sydney 2 July 1948.

The hero of our story is not immune to this fate, being sold to BISCO for scrap on 25 February 1946.

She is remembered on a .26 Euro stamp issued to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Malta run.

Specs:

click to big up. Image via Shipbucket

Displacement: 1,140 tons standard, 1,550 tons full
Length: 300 ft. o/a, 312 ft. p/p
Beam: 30 ft.
Draught: 10 ft. 11 in
Propulsion: 3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers, Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed: 34 kn
Reduced to 25 kn 1943
Range: 320-370 tons oil
3,500 nmi at 15 kn
900 nmi at 32 kn
Complement: 111 as designed, 150 by 1943
Type 271 surface warning Radar fitted 1942
Armament: As built 1920:
• 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns mount P Mk.I
• 2 x QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 6 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes
1943 LRE conversion:
• 3 × BL 4.7 in (120mm) Mk.I L/45 guns
• 1 × QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun
• 2 × QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 2 × 20mm Orkelion cannons
• 3 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes (one triple mount)
• 2 × depth charge racks
• Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar

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!

Photo: Cpl. Owen Kimbrel | Department of Defense | 141029-M-CJ278-111 CLICK TO BIG UP 2000×1124

After six decades of Marines, the final CH-46E Sea Knight in U.S. service made its last flight and she is beautiful.

Bu. No. 153369 was the flag bearer for the Phrog’s retirement. For this task she picked up“retro” markings, applied by HMM-364 “Purple Foxes,” who operated this aircraft extensively during the Vietnam War.

She is on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

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 Purrfict Martial Art of Alexander Zavaliy

Born in 27 January 1955 in Vorkuta, a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic (its north of the Arctic Circle and its name means “place teems with bears”), Alexander Zavaliy went to officer school and served in the Red Army, being forward deployed to East Germany and seeing what Afghanistan looks like on the two ruble a day plan.

Leaving the military, he studied art at Kuban State University in Krasnodar then settled in the warm Black Sea town of Gelendzhik near Novorossiysk and took up painting and drawing. In the past twenty years he has cranked out some 500 works as a professional illustrator and recently came up with the idea of portraying Russo-Soviet military history, with a slight twist.

He uses cats as models, but going beyond the feline factor, uses a lot of military authenticity.

Hussar of the Patriotic War of 1812

Tsarist Cossack of the Imperial Konvoy cat with his cavalry shaska on watermelon practice. Note the Austin-Putilov armored car in the background with its distinctive twin Maxim turrets. Of the 250~ Austins built during WWI, just 33 were Russian made Pulitov models but both kinds were used in against both the Germans and in the famed Armored Car unit in Petrograd during the Revolution, mentioned several times in John Reed’s 10 Days That Shook the World.

White Russian army officer cat complete with Tsarist cap insignia and shoulder boards. Note all four orders of the Cross of the Knights of St. George across his blouse and the British Mark V series tank behind him– 60 of these beasts were used by the Whites in the Ukraine with British assistance and went on to become the first Soviet tanks.

Black Sea Soviet Naval Infantry, WWII. Note the Maxim machinegun belt, and captured Mauser bayonet

Minesweeper. Dig the M91 Mosin on his back and the E-tool sticking up over the bedrool

Hero sniper inspecting his Mosin rifle, note the Note German Shepherd looking out through the ruins of the Theater Building in Stalingrad

Which leads to the inevitable surrender of cat versions of Friedrich Paulus, General-Feldmarshal (left) and his aides Col. Wilhelm Adam (right) and Lt.-Gen. Arthur Schmidt (middle)

For reference: ADN-ZB/TASS II. Weltkrieg 1939-45 Schlacht um Stalingrad vom Juli 1942 bis Februar 1943 Der kriegsgefangene Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus (l.), bisher Oberbefehlshaber der faschistischen 6. Armee in Stalingrad, trifft am 31.1.1943 mit seinem Stabschef, Generalleutnant Arthur Schmidt (m.), und seinen Adjutanten, Oberst Wilhelm Adam, beim Stab der sowjetischen 64. Armee in Beketowka ein.
Aufnahme Lipskerow

Russian cats in the German army– note the Schmisser and the dog collar gorget on the German Feldgendarmerie

A very happy frontovik with his accordion

Scout with his PPSH– complete with tally marks on the buttstock. Very similar to the Portrait of Soviet Guards Sgt. Alexey G. Frolchenko

Surrender of a Tiger tank. The SS Doberman doesnt look like he is going to make it, but the Wehrmacht German Shepherd just may. Note the late war PPS-43 and quilted winter uniform

A very Marshal Zhukov-like comrade cat at his desk. Note the 100 dog kills medal and the coffee glass filled with cream

And of course, a glorious Red Army VDV airborne forces paratrooper with his AK-74 and Guards telnyashka striped shirt

Of course Zavaliy also has a body of more serious work as well.

Thank you for your work, sir.

Based on a quote by Lieutenant Ken Giles about commanding a M3 Grant in North Africa from Douglas’ ‘Alamein to Zem Zem’ artwork by Eric Toner

A historic Navy destroyer ­last week left Britain for the last time to be sold for scrap in Turkey after a campaign to turn it into tourist attraction in ­Edinburgh ended in failure.

It had been hoped that HMS Edinburgh (D97), the last of the Royal Navy’s Type 42 destroyers, would find a new home in Leith. But after proposed costs for the venture were deemed too high, the ship was sold to a Turkish scrap merchant, a fate which befell her sister ships, HMS ­Manchester and HMS Liverpool.

The Type 42s, of which the most famous were Falklands veterans Sheffield and Coventry, were small ships, designed to be just 3500-tons standard displacement with a length of 392 feet at the waterline making them more frigate than destroyer. Equipped with the Sea Dart twin surface-to-air missile system, Edinburgh fired the last ever operational Sea Dart missiles in 2012.

HMS Edinburgh conducted the last ever Sea Dart missile firing at the North Western Scottish range of Benbecula. The Ship fired five missiles, three single missiles and a two missile salvo at an Unmanned Drone target. HMS Edinburgh conducted the final Sea Dart Missile firing at the North Western Scottish range of Benbecula. The Ship fired five missiles, three single missiles and a two missile salvo at an Unmanned Drone target. This is the last time the 30 year old missile system will be fired as it is due to be replaced by the Sea Viper system fitted to the latest Type 45 destroyers. (MoD Crown Copyright)

16 were completed of which 2, ironically, were sold to Argentina and one of these, the 38 year old ARA Hércules (B-52) which has been converted to an APD style vessel capable of transporting 250 Argentine marines, will soon be the last Type 42 afloat.

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

Warship Wednesday Aug 19, 2015: The first of the bucking ‘165s

Image via ShipSpotting

Here we see a great color photo the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tallapoosa (WPG-52) at rear just before World War II while still in her gleaming white and buff scheme. She may not look like much, but she was the forerunner of a class of ships that did much of the heavy lifting for the Coasties through Prohibition and two world wars.

In 1914 the Revenue Cutter Service was looking to replace the 25~ year old 148-foot steel-hulled cutter Winona.

The aging Winnie was the galloping ghost of the Gulf Coast and roamed from Galveston to Key West pulling duty busting smugglers, responding to hurricanes, operating with the Fleet when needed and, of course, saving lives at sea. Armed with a single 6-pounder to give warning shots across the bow, Winona patrolled the East Coast during the Spanish American War but by the opening of the Great War was a bit long in the tooth.

This led the service to design a new vessel to replace her.

In November 1914, the government ordered at a cost of $225,000 ($5.3 million in today’s figures) from Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia hull number CG27. This ship was based on lessons learned from Winona and was a bit longer at 165-feet, 10-inches and gave 912 tons displacement. A pair of oil-fired (most of the fleet was coal at the time, so this was advanced stuff here) Babcock & Wilcox boilers fed through a single center stack powered a triple-expansion steam engine that gave the little gunboat a 12 knot maximum speed. A 51,000-gallon load of fuel oil gave her a range of 6,000 miles, which is impressive for such a small vessel.

Tallapoosa, note the similarity to Winona, only longer. Also note the DF gear and crows-nest, both of which were used often. USCG photo.

She was one of the first ice-strengthened ships in any maritime force and was heavily armed for a cutter of the time, given literally four times the deck guns that Winona had before her.

One fat screw and a 1:5 length to beam ratio led these early 165s to hog in high seas

Able to float in just 11.9 feet of seawater, the new ship, named Tallapoosa, was launched on May Day 1915. She was commissioned on 12 August with Winona placed out of commission at Mobile, Alabama on 12 July and sold for $12,697 to a Mr. W. M. Evans of Mobile. Much of Winona‘s 39-man crew went to Virginia by train to operate the replacement vessel.

Sister USCGC Ossipee at launch, note the hull shape

A sistership to Tallapoosa, USCGC Ossipee, was laid down just afterward and built side by side with the new cutter and was commissioned 28 July 1915 at the Coast Guard Depot, Arundel, MD. Curiously, she was classified as a river gunboat though I can’t find where she operated on any.

As for Tallapoosa, she arrived at Mobile on 18 August, taking Winona‘s old dock at the L&N Railroad landing near Government Street and was assigned to patrol from Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana to Tampa, Florida.

Tallapoosa soon rode out the epic July 4, 1916 Hurricane in Mobile Bay, narrowly avoiding three different collisions with ships that had broken their moorings in 104 mph winds then responded to check on Forts Morgan and Gains at the mouth of the Bay where U.S. Army Coastal Artillery units were stationed and cut off from commo.

Over the next few days, she ranged the Gulf looking for hurricane survivors and ships in need of assistance. As noted from a very interesting 17 page after action report filed at the time she assisted the schooner Henry W. Cramp, unnamed Russian and Norwegian barks, an unnamed British steamer, the three-master Laguna, the demasted schooner City of Baltimore, and the three-master Albert D. Mills, many of which were thrown high and dry on the barrier islands.

She then found the schooner Carrie Strong some 65 miles south of Mobile Bay, turned turtle but still afloat. After trying to sink the vessel with mines (!) which was unsuccessful due to the ship’s wooden construction and cargo of pine boards, Tallapoosa towed her to shore where the derelict was beached. While no survivors of Strong were found, the Tallapoosa‘s skipper did note that:

In light of recent news reports it may be of interest that when found, at least a dozen large sharks were found around this wreck and they were so bold that when the first boat was lowered they came alongside and struck the oars. A number were caught and killed while work was in progress.

When the U.S. entered WWI, Tallapoosa, now part of the Coast Guard, was assigned to the Naval Department on 6 April 1917. She landed her battery of 6-pounders, picked up a new one of a quartet of 3″/23 cal guns and for the next 28 months served as a haze gray colored gunboat for the Navy assigned to Halifax, N.S. (remember, she and her sister had their plating doubled around the bow and a steel waterline belt to enable them for light icebreaking, which surely came in handy in the Gulf of Mexico) as a coastal escort and search and rescue platform until 28 August 1919.

Tallapoosa‘s war record was quiet, as few U-boats popped up around Halifax, but sister Ossippee deployed to Gibraltar on 15 August 1917 and before the end of the war escorted 32 convoys consisting of 596 Allied vessels and made contacts with enemy submarines on at least 8 occasions, on one of these reportedly side-stepping a torpedo by about 15 feet.

While in open seas, they tended to roll and be generally uncomfortable, but nonetheless made great coastal boats and were generally used as such.

In 1919, both Tallapoosa and Ossipee traded their gray scheme and 3-inchers for more familiar white/buff and 6-pounders.

Tallapoosa 1924 via Janes via Navsource. Note the hot weather awnings for Gulf service and the lookout post has been deleted from the foremast

During Prohibition, Tallapoosa was back in the Gulf trying to stop rum-runners from Cuba while her sister was assigned to Portland, Maine and did the same for ships running good Canadian whiskey to thirsty mouths in New England and New York.

In 1930, they landed half their 6-pounders for a pair of new 3″/50s.

USCGC_Tallapoosa 1935 In Alaskan waters. USCG photo

These two ships, with the lifesaving, war, and bootlegger busting service proved so useful that a follow on class of 24 ships based on their design with some improvements were ordered in the 1930s to modernize the Coast Guard.

The follow-on 165s, note two stacks and twin screws for better seakeeping

The first of these new “165s,” USCGC Algonquin (WPG-75) was laid down 14 Oct. 1933 and the last was commissioned by the end of 1934– certainly some kind of peacetime shipbuilding record. Funded by PWA dollars, these ships carried slightly less oil but due to a better engine could make 12.5 knots instead of the slow 12 knots of their older sisters.

Note the 165 at bottom, with a slightly different layout from Tallapoosa/Osippee, showing two stacks and shot masts

In the next world war, these 24 cutters proved their worth, splashing a number of German U-boats while escorting convoys, and performing yeoman service in polar areas. We’ve covered a couple of these later 165s before to include USCGC Mohawk and cannot talk these hardy boats up enough.

Tragically, one of these, USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77), was sunk by a U-boat or mine in 1943 with only two survivors.

Tallapoosa during WWII, note her extra armament and haze gray. USCG photo. Dig the early radar

Speaking of WWII, both Tallapoosa and Ossipee, along with their new kid sisters, chopped over to Navy service in November 1941– even before Pearl Harbor. Equipped with depth charges Tallapoosa was used as a convoy escort along the East Coast while Ossipee served her time on the Great Lakes as a plane guard for U.S. Navy carrier training operations while busting ice when able.

By 1943 the little Tallapoosa carried a SF-1 Radar, WEA-2A sonar, 2 Mousetrap ASW devices, 4 K-guns and 2 20mm Oerlikons besides her 3-inchers, with her crew doubling to over 100. She made at least two contacts on suspected U-boats but did not get credit for any kills despite dropping a number of depth charges that resulted in oil slicks.

However, with the war winding down, these older and smaller cutters became surplus with Tallapoosa decommissioning 8 November 1945 then was sold for her value as scrap the next July. She was bought by a banana boat company that specialized in shipping fruit from Central America to New Orleans and her ultimate fate is unknown, which means she very well maybe in some port in Honduras somewhere.

As far as Ossipee, she was scrapped in 1946 while the 23 remaining newer 165s were whittled down until the last in U.S. service, USCGC Ariadne (WPC-101), was decommissioned 23 Dec. 1968 and sold for scrap the next year.

Some went on to overseas service, including USCGC Thetis and Icarus, both of whom accounted for a German sub during the war and remained afloat into the late 1980s with the Dominican Republic’s Navy.

Two were briefly museum ships to include Comanche (WPG-76) who was at Patriot’s Point, South Carolina before being sunk as an artificial reef and Mohawk (WPG-78) in Key West, Florida before meeting her end as a reef in July 2012.

Mohawk in poor condition before being reefed. If you see a banana boat in Central America that looks like this, check to see if its the now-100 year old Tallapoosa.

Of the 26 various 165s that served in the Coast Guard and Navy from 1915-1968, a span of over a half century, just one remains in some sort of service.

Commissioned as USCGC Electra (WPC-187) in 1934, she was transferred to the US Navy prior to WWII and renamed USS Potomac (AG-25), serving as FDR’s Presidential Yacht. She was saved in 1980 and is currently open to the public in Oakland.

Ex-USS Potomac (AG-25) moored at her berth, the FDR pier, at Jack London Square, Oakland, CA. in 2008. Photos by Al Riel USS John Rogers.Via Navsource

Tallapoosa‘s bell is maintained in a place of honor in downtown Tallapoosa, Georgia while her christening board is on display at her longtime home port of Mobile at the City Museum.

Specs:

Profile of the 165 A class Cutter Escanaba, who was based on Tallapoosa and Ossipee. Image by Shipbucket

Displacement (tons): 912
Length: 165′ 10″ overall
Beam: 32′
Draft: 11′ 9″
Machinery: Triple-expansion steam, 17″, 27″, and 44″ diameter x 30″ stroke, 2 x Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 1,000 shp; 12 knots maximum degraded to 10 by WWII.
Complement 5 officers, 56 as commissioned
9 officers, 63 enlisted, 1930
100~ by 1945
Armament: 4 x 6-pounders (1915);
2 x 6-pdrs; 2 x 3″ 50-cal (single-mounts) (as of 1930);
2 x 3″/50 (single-mounts); 1 x 3″/23; 2 x depth charge tracks (as of 1941);
2 x 3″/50 (single-mounts); 2 x 20mm/80 (single-mounts); 2 x Mousetraps; 4 x K-guns; 2 x depth charge tracks (as of 1945).
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!

1500×998

HMS Richmond‘s Lynx helicopter, from 815 Squadron at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, lights up the night sky with her decoy flares as part of an exercise while on patrol in the Indian Ocean last month. The helicopter is on a nine-month deployment to the Gulf with HMS Richmond – a Portsmouth-based Type 23 frigate which is silhouetted in the background.

The baker’s dozen Type 23 or Duke-class frigates, at 4,900-tons and 436-feet oal were built to replace the 1960s and 70s vintage Leander and Type 21/22 class frigates.

They are armed with 32 VLS launched Sea Wolf missiles for anti-air defense, 8 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, ASW torps, and a 4.5 inch gun as well as point defense mounts and, oh yeah, a Lynx or Wildcat multipurpose helicopter…

Print shows a French zouave in 1853, wearing uniform and holding rifle, on cigarette card issued by Kinney Tobacco Company as an insert with the Sweet Caporal brand cigarettes.

When the French went into Algeria in the 1830s, they encountered the Zouaoua people, a Berber tribe along the Djurdjura mountains. Allying with these tough mountain people when possible, metropolitan French officers fell in amour with their costume of flowing colorful breeches, short jackets, turbans or fez, and capes– soon borrowing these for locally raised troops and even for European units.

By the Crimean War, French Zouave units were engaged in combat and, being the first modern European conflict since 1815, caught the imagination of those who were military minded on the other side of the Atlantic.

A French cantinière attached to a Zouave regiment during the Crimean War, 1855 – photo by Roger Fenton

Zouave of the 2nd French Zouave Regiment poses with battle standard after the Battle of Solferino, 1859

By the 1850s many fashionable “marching units” of militia in the U.S. were patterned on zouave gear which led to an explosion of units on both sides of the Civil War.

Zouaves of Company G, 114th Pennsylvania Infantry. Petersburg, Virginia.

Louisiana Tiger by Pierre Albert Leroux

Zouave de la Louisiane – Pierre Albert Leroux

Sergeant Henry G. Lillibridge of Co. H, 10th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment, in zouave uniform with saber bayoneted rifle

Manhattan Rifles recruiting poster, 1862

Colls Zouaves

Collis’s Zouaves

An unknown private, supposedly with the 114th Pennsylvania (Collis Zouaves)

It wasn’t just in the U.S, North Africa and France that the zouaves caught on. During the 1863 Polish Uprising against the Tsar, there was a unit of black-robed Death Zouaves in the free Pole forces.

How cool is a name like the Zouaves of Death?

The French, for their part, maintained zouave units, especially among North African troops, into the 1960s. While forces in other countries were very popular until as late as the early 1900s.

1888 French Zouave

French colonial Zouaves on maneuvers with M1886 Lebel rifles, in 1909

Posed shot of french zouaves firing hotchkiss machinegun note the assistant gunnner catching brass in canvas feedbucket

Autochrome of a French Zouave eating a meal, Valbonne, 1913. He is wearing medals for service in Tunisia and Morocco

Evolution of Zouave dress from 1830 to 1955

Today North African countries, to include Morocco and Algeria, still maintain zouave influence in certian dress uniforms while the Italian Bersaglieri, with a lineage of service that included Libya and Tunisia as well as Spanish paramilitary Regulares assigned to the country’s legacy enclaves of Céuta and Melilla, retain red fezes.

Italian soldiers stand guard at Chiaiano cave a quarter of Naples on 10 July 2008.  AFP PHOTO / FRANCESCO PISCHETOLA

North African-deployed Spanish Regulares

The Library of Congress has more than 270 vintage zouave images online covering not only U.S./Confederate units, but also French, Brazilian and Ottoman troops.

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 Robert McCall

Born Robert Theodore McCall on the day before Christmas Eve, 1919 in Columbus, he earned a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School but during WWII did his part in the Army Air Corps, seeing the bombers and fighters of the era up close and personal.

After the war he worked as an advertising illustrator in Chicago and then New York getting by, doing pieces for everything from pulp stories to concrete adverts.

LET IT RAIN! YOU ALWAYS FEEL SO SAFE AND STEADY DRIVING ON NEW-TYPE CONCRETE! Portland Cement Association, 1960

But McCall had a passion and real eye for aviation work, over time donating some 45 paintings to his old service branch, by then the modern U.S. Air Force.

B-24s over Ploesti, Romania, August 1943, ca.1955

By the 1960s he was working for LIFE and others chronicling the space race, then Stanley Kubrick used his work in what is perhaps the best known near-future sci-fi film of all time.

This painting by artist Robert McCall, “Orion Leaving Space Station,” shows a space vehicle darting from the lit bay of a wheel-shaped space station. It was used in a promotional poster for Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 sci-fi classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Credit: Robert McCall/MGM via NASA

This led to direct work for the National Air and Space Museum and NASA, who contracted him for a series of inspring murals located not only in Washington but at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston; the Dryden Flight Research Center in Lancaster, California, and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson.

Robert McCall’s 2003 “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight” mural graces the entrance of NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center’s main building. In it, the famed aerospace artist painted a timeline beginning with the dawn of powered flight, and topped it off with flight’s progress into space. 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Robert McCall’s 1997 mural “Accepting the Challenge of Flight” at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, is focused on portraits of actual Dryden employees. Flight research aircraft of that era fly above, and his ever-optimistic view of the final frontier is in view at the top. 1997 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Title: “Celebrating One Hundred Years of Powered Flight 1903-2003” Artist: Dr. Robert T. McCall 2003 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 6 feet by 18 feet Commissioned by: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA June 5, 2003 NASA Photo / Tony Landis

Handshake in Space 1974. Image via NASA

Shuttles, Stations, and Spacewalkers, 1979. Image via NASA

Aeronautics Icons. This McCall mural at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., showcases a host of experimental aircraft. The large silver craft in the foreground is the HL-10 lifting body, which was used for research which paved the way for the shuttle program. The black X-15 rocket plane streaking to the left at the top center of the mural flew 199 missions from 1959 to 1968, setting speed and altitude records for winged aircraft. Image via NASA

McCall’s work, “The Space Mural — A Cosmic View,” can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is SIX Stories high and is seen by an estimated ten million annually

Many visitors stop to have their photo taken in front of McCall’s The Space Mural — A Cosmic View when visiting the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. Image Number: WEB11351-2010 Credit: Image by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

McCall produced a number of concept paintings for the 1970 20th Century Fox motion picture Tora! Tora! Tora!, which now hang in the National Air and Space Museum’s World War II Aviation gallery entrance.

On his death in 2010 at age 90, Motherboard called him the Picasso of the Space Age which I feel is something of an insult to McCall. Perhaps the Raphael or Michelangelo of the Space Age would be a better comparison.

The Artist at work. Image via NASA

“I think when we finally are living in space, as people will be doing soon, we’ll recognize a whole new freedom and ease of life,” McCall was quoted as saying. “These space habitats will be more beautiful because we will plan and condition that beauty to suit our needs. I see a future that is very bright.”

NASA has an extensive gallery of McCall’s aerospace work and there is always McCall Studios.com for prints and more information.

Thank you for your work, sir.

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

Warship Wednesday Aug 26, 2015: The Finnish Lighthouse Battleships

Here we see the Väinämöinen-class panssarilaiva (“armored-ship”) FNS Ilmarinen of the Merivoimat (Finnish Navy) dropping it like its hot on some pesky Red Army positions in 1941. This big Baltic bruiser and her slightly older sister were a matter of Finnish pride from the 1920s through World War II– and gave the Russkies a far bit of heartburn at the same time.

In 1809 when the Russians carved the Ducy of Finland away from the Swedish Empire, Finland was largely left to their own bit, even being allowed to keep their local rule (the Diet) form their own army units, military academy and a small navy (the Suomen Meriekipaasi)– the latter of which served well when the Brits came a calling in the Baltic during the Crimean War.

Well by 1878, Tsar Alexander II decided to Russify the Finns and implemented conscription into the segregated units of the Russian army, disbanded the navy and a host of other measures that only ensured that by 1918, with the Tsars swept away, Finland broke free of St. Petersburg’s yoke.

They formed a new, independent Finnish Army (Maavoimat) and Navy (Merivoimat), fought a brief but brutal civil war against Bolshevik-backed Red Guards, and kept an eye peeled for the day when the Soviets decided to renegotiate the status of Finn sovereignty.

While the Merivoimat inherited a dozen or so small ex-Imperial Russian Navy gunboats, torpedo slingers and minesweepers left behind post-1918; as well as a corps of professional former mariners and officers to sail them, they needed some legit vessels if they expected to keep the Red Banner Fleet out.

They were in luck with the respect that in Turku there was a shipyard, Crichton-Vulcan, which had repaired Russian naval ships as well as constructed small boats. (The company later became Finnish mega yard Wärtsilä in 1936). In the mid-1920s the Germans were restricted from building certain military ships (um, U-boats, battleships, cruisers, you know, all the good stuff), but they struck a deal to build three small Vetehinen/Vesikko-class U-boats submarines at Crichton-Vulcan to improved WWI designs, which, though the ships never sailed for Germany, helped keep the flower of their sub industry nurtured until 1933 when the gloves came off.

Therefore, in 1927 Parliament approved a plan to build two rather unique armored ships (panssarilaiva) as well as order some off the shelf motor torpedo boats from the UK to help round out their burgeoning fleet.

These two ships were laid down at Crichton-Vulcan within a month of each other in 1929.

Väinämöinen

Layout of the Väinämöinen class

Weighing in at 3,900-tons and with a 305-foot long hull, today these ships would be considered a frigate. At the time, the size made them either large destroyers or small cruisers.

However, unlike either of those types, these ships were glacially slow, with a top speed of just 14 knots on their good German-supplied Krupp engines. Further, they could only keep this speed up for a few days as they carried only enough fuel oil to make it 300~ miles away from port before they had to turn back for more.

Different guns of Väinämöinen nicely visible: the huge 254 mm main guns, 105 mm multi-purpose guns and 40 mm Vickers AA guns.

But that’s OK, because they weren’t designed to run, or to chase down ships on the high seas, these ships were designed to lurk in 15 feet of shallow water close to Finland’s craggy coastline, and plaster approaching Red Navy amphibious assaults or Red Army troops ashore.

They were given four 254mm/45cal Bofors guns (if you do the math, those are 10-inch guns there, homie!). These big guys could hurl a 496-pound AP shell at a rate of 2-3 per minute per tube out to 33,140 yards.

Via Navweaps

Via Navweaps

In effect, allowing one of these destroyer-sized ships to blast off a dozen sumo-wrestler-sized shells off in the first 60 seconds of an engagement.

The two twin 10-inch turrets were augmented by eight 105mm/50cal. Bofors DP guns in four turrets that could coat either shore or airborne targets with 15 rounds per minute per tube, allowing 120 55.6-pound shells to rip out from the ship in 60 seconds.

These had a range on land targets to 19,900 yards and could reach as high as 40,000 feet to pluck random enemy aircraft down.

A very tall centerline fire direction center/tower directed the fall of shot, giving these two ships an instantly recognizable silhouette.

Väinämöinen Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

Class leader Väinämöinen was commissioned 28 December 1932 while follow-on sister Ilmarinen was commissioned in 1934.

Prior to WWII, the two ships sailed the summer months around the idyllic waters of the Eastern Baltic, and wintered near the shipyard at Turku when the ice came, then hit repeat.

With Mannerheim aboard

A great view over the front of the bow from above the rangefinder

They took part in the fleet parade at Spithead, where they participated in the festivities for the coronation of King George VI– but had to be towed due most of the way due to their short legs

When the Soviets picked a fight that led to the Winter War of 1939-40, the two ships sailed to secure the Ahland Islands between Finland and Sweden but were soon forced back to port with the coming winter.

While in Turku, the ships, whitewashed as camouflage and powered by shorelines to prevent exhaust from giving them away, fought off a number of Soviet bomber attacks, receiving slight damage.

Finnish coastal defense ship Ilmarinen anchored at Turku harbor, Finland, 10 Mar 1940

When Finland came into World War II proper against the Soviets in 1941, both ships proved very active in supporting advancing troops ashore.

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

However, Ilmarinen soon ran into trouble when, accompanying a German fleet to seize Soviet-held islands off Estonia, struck a sea mine on 13 September 1941 and sank with heavy loss of life, some two-thirds of her crew in all.

Väinämöinen had a more charmed existence, patrolling the Gulf of Finland with a force of patrol boats and minelayers and waiting for an eventual Soviet naval thrust that never came.

These ships camo’d well. Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

The Reds did not forget the big V, however and demanded she be turned over as reparations after the war, to which the Finnish Navy reluctantly agreed to, handing the proud ship to her new communist masters on 29 May 1947.

Renamed Viborg after the Russian name for the Finnish city of Viipuri seized by the Soviets in 1944 and still part of Russia, the ship served the Baltic Fleet for two decades until she was scrapped in Leningrad.

As for Ilmarinen, she was discovered off Estonia in 230 feet of water, turned turtle but otherwise intact. If you speak Finnish, there is a very interesting documentary of her discovery, here.

Specs

Displacement: 3,900 t
Length: 305 feet
Beam: 55.5 feet
Draught: 14.5 feet
Propulsion: Diesel-Electric “Leonard System” powertrain, four Krupp engines 875 kW, two shafts, 3,500 kW (4,800 hp)
Speed: 14.5 kt (15.5 on trials)
Range: 700 nm on 93 tons of fuel oil
Complement: 403 (September 11, 1941)
Armament design:
4×254mm/45cal. Bofors (2×2)
8×105mm/50cal. Bofors DP (4×2)
4×40mm/40cal. Vickers AA (4×1)
2×20mm/60cal. Madsen AA (2×1)
1941:
4×254mm/45cal. Bofors (2×2)
8×105mm/50cal. Bofors DP (4×2)
4×40mm/56cal. Bofors AA M/36S (1×2, 2×1)
4×20mm/60cal. Madsen AA (4×1)
1944
4 × 254 mm/45cal. Bofors
8 × 105 mm/50cal. Bofors
4 × 40 mm/56cal. Bofors M/36
8 × 20 mm/60cal. Madsen

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!

2673 × 1729 1 July 1986, U.S. Defense Imagery photo VIRIN: DN-SC-87-00354 by PH2 Orell, USN

An aerial view of the first U.S. Navy battleship battle group to deploy to the Western Pacific since the Korean War underway with Australian ships during a training exercise. The ships are, clockwise from left: USS Long Beach (CGN-9), USS Merrill (DD-976), HMAS Swan (DE 50), HMAS Stuart (DE 48), HMAS Parramatta (DE 46), USNS Passumpsic (T-AO-107), USS Wabash (AOR-5), HMAS Derwent (DE 49), USS Kirk (FF-1087), USS Thach (FFG-43), HMAS Hobart (D 39) and USS New Jersey (BB-62), center.

You know the GMGs on Thach had to feel a little emasculated with their 76mm OTO Melera maingun when compared to the nine 16 and some two dozen 5 inchers surrounding them.

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

Warship Wednesday Sept. 2, 2015: Dodge’s Dauntless Delphine

Here we see the 257.8-foot steel-hulled steam yacht SS Delphine poking along the Riviera. Almost a century old, the Delphine has a rich history and played a key role in WWII.

She was the second of two yachts owned by Horace E. Dodge, who along with his brother John Dodge, were the owners of Dodge Brother Automobiles in Detroit. The car dynasty these two brothers created remains as part of Chrysler today.

In the Great Gatsby-era, Dodge commissioned this beautiful personal luxury liner from Great Lakes Engineering on the Detroit River, in Ecorse as Hull #239 (Order # 221218). Renowned maritime architects Henry J Gielow and Antoine Wille devised her design plans.

Her interior was done by Tiffany’s of New York and, when launched on April 2, 1921, was the largest yacht built to date in the U.S. and cost $2 million, which in today’s cash is about $25 million, which is still a bargain.

Ironically, Horace never saw her complete, having died from the Spanish flu in 1920.

The toast of the Great Lakes, she also made it out to the East Coast to visit Martha’s Vineyard and Manhattan for “the season,” where her guests, which enjoyed a 2:1 crew-to-guest ratio in style, attended regattas and speedboat races.

Sunk in an accident in 1926, Delphine was raised after four months on the bottom of the Hudson, once refitted, and remodeled at a cost of $750,000, put back into regular service.

By 1935, the luxurious yacht, with the Dodge family out of the car business and the Great Depression on, she was docked for an extended period and owned by Anna Dodge Dillman of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where she was a popular site for years docked at her private pier on Lake St. Clair.

With war on the horizon, the U.S. Navy came looking for gently-used but still usable hulls, Delphine was acquired by Uncle on 21 January 1942 and commissioned five months later after refit at Great Lakes Engineering’s River Rouge, Michigan yard as a gunboat with a wartime paint scheme, a pair of 3-inch guns and some .50 cals, a Marine detachment, and a new name: USS Dauntless (PG-61).

With her warpaint on

The Marine Detachment, USS Dauntless (PG-61) – mid-1942

Why the Marine detachment on a slow gunboat? Well she was tasked as the flagship for Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, that’s why.

From Yachts International:

She was gutted after the Navy acquired her in January 1942. Large, panoramic windows in her hull were replaced with portholes. Much of the boat deck was ripped out to accommodate six self-launching life rafts, and the aft promenade deck was cut away for an anti-aircraft gun. The superstructure was extended forward some 10 feet to accommodate more crew bunks, and .50-caliber machine guns were added, six in total. New masts were installed, one with new radar. A larger searchlight was placed on top of the pilothouse.

Inside the hull, the dining room became a radio room, pantry and officers’ wardroom. The guest staterooms on the lower deck were subdivided into 10 smaller officers’ staterooms. The ship was wired for electricity, and air conditioning was installed.

To complete the conversion, Delphine was dipped in the colors of war—gray/green/blue camouflage paint—and designated Naval Gunboat PG 61 (patrol gunboat), the USS Dauntless. Dauntless arrived at the [Washington] Navy Yard on June 16, 1942, and was moored to Pier 1. On June 17, King’s flag was broken and he moved aboard.

The ship saw the epic course of the naval war planned and coordinated from her secure and spy-proof wardroom and, in November 1943, secretly shuttled 19 members of FDR’s War Department down the Potomac to the USS Iowa in the Chesapeake Bay, which then crossed the Atlantic to the Tehran Conference war talks.

A different kind of beautiful

The Navy liked her so much they kept the old girl around for a year after the war ended, and finally struck her on 5 June 1946, returning her to Ms. Dodge’s custody who quickly sent her to a refit at Great Lakes Engineering (one of the last jobs performed by the yard before it was shutdown) to restore Delphine to her pre-war condition, keeping only the navy siren and 9 hashmarks on her stack from her wartime service.

Note the hashmarks on her funnel

In 1968, she was donated by the Dodge family to the Seafarers Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship (SHLSS) in Piney Point, Maryland where she served as a training ship for merchant seamen under her WWII-era Dauntless name until 1986.

Then over a ten-year period she changed hands a few times and, aging and in poor condition, was towed to Bruges, Belgium for a six-year restoration in 1998.

Since 2003, after being rechristened to her original name by no less a personality than Princess Stephanie of Monaco, she has been in regular service along the Riviera as a yacht for charter under Portuguese flag– while being up for persistent sale.

Although pushing 95 years of age, she has SOLAS, MCA, MARPOL and RINA (Registro Italiano Navale) certifications.

Below is the $40 million asking price 2010 sale video of the Delphine, which the craft was listed as having the following amenities:

SS Delphine is able to accommodate up to 12 guests, at anchor and in port up to 180 guests. Life aboard is luxurious. Each guest suite has its own en-suite bathroom; TV (flat screen in the two VIP rooms), valuable safe, mini bar, stand-alone music system and telephone enabling both intercom and satellite use. The public areas of the yacht have independent music systems that can be interconnected for parties. In the smoking room WIFI is available. Besides DVD’s there is also Playstation 2 available in the Delphine Lounge; and this on a flat screen TV. There is also a ¾ concert Steinway piano and a Disklavier Yamaha piano; and on request, a lounge bar pianist can be arranged as part of the crew.

Delphine appeared notably for her five minutes of on-screen fame in the movie The Brothers Bloom starring Rachel Weisz and Adrian Brody in 2008, with most of the first act taking place on her decks.

She rents for some 50,000 euros per day and is listed in the top 100 super yachts of the world. Her official registry port is Madeira and her home port is Monaco, France.

For more information on where to write your check to, you can visit her website

Specs:

(1942)
Displacement 1,950 t.
Length 257′ 7″
Beam 35′ 2″
Draft 16′ 3″
Speed 16 kts.
Complement 135
Armament: Two 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mounts
Propulsion: Three 250psi Babcock and Wilcox boilers, two 3,000ihp vertical quadruple expansion Great Lakes Engine Works engines, two shafts

(Current)
LOA: 257.8ft / 78.5 m.
Beam: 35.5ft / 10.8 m.
Draft: 14.6ft / 4.5 m.
Gross ton: 1342
Power: 2x quadruple steam expansion engines, each 1500HP
Maximum speed: 12 knots
Cruising speed: 8 to 9 knots
Cruising radius: 3600 miles
Fuel consumption: 600 litre per hour at cruising speed, 1000 liter a day for the generators.
Guests: 12. This is in 11 double bed of which two are king-size VIP rooms and 4 in one cabin with bunk beds. All cabins have the same comfort and have fully equipped bathroom.
Crew: 21 in standard conditions maximum 28 on extra request.
Flag: Madeira, Portugal
Classification society: RINAVE, Portugal classed as commercial yacht.
Ship has ISM and ISPS code implemented.
Navigation system equipped for A1+A2+A3 zone

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!

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 Bruce Minney

West Coast artist Bruce Minney was born October 2, 1928 and in 1946 was accepted to the prestigious California School of Arts and Crafts. However, after graduation work as a firefighter left him unfulfilled artistically so in 1955 he packed up the family and moved to the mecca of advertising, paperback and pulp publishing production– New York City.

Soon he began producing cover and illustration art for a number of men’s magazines ranging from Stag, For Men Only, Male, True Action, Man’s World, New Man and later National Lampoon while also churning out a staggering 400 paperback covers over the next 30 years.

His populist hyperrealist style, while similar to that of Mort Knustler and others, is unique although sadly some of Minney’s work has actually become kinda synonymous with 1960s kitschy kink— but in the end has been embraced and preserved, so put that in your politically correct pipe and smoke it!

Voyage to the Forgotten World, Mens magazine cover

Stag cover, June 1959

Cover for “Voyage to Somewhere” 1970 paperback

Last Man on Luzon

The Boston Medic Who Wrecked Germany’s Slave Colony – For Men Only, May 1961

Homestead steel strike STAG-Dec-1965

MALE – 1960

The Wild Raid Of Gibbon’s Lace Panty Commandos, Mans Book cover

Tonight We Hit The Nazis’ Torture Train 3695, New Man cover

Vile Secrets Of Hitler’s Hideous Torture Rites

The winner of numerous awards and the shaper of men and boys for a generation or better, he died on August 5, 2013.

Extensive collections of his work are online at Mens Pulp Mags and Pulp Covers while (Bruce’s son-in-law) Thomas Ziegler’s Bruce Minney: The Man Who Painted Everything book is about the best source of information there is on the man and his works.

Thank you for your work, sir.