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 May 25, 2016: The Kaiser’s Pirate of Nauset Beach

Here we see one of the few images remaining of the Deutschland-class handels type unterseeboot SM U-156 of the Kaiserliche Marine. Built to schlep cargo, she was converted to a U-Kreuzer and went on to wreak havoc off the coast of New England.

In 1915, with the Great War dragging into its second horrific year, Imperial Germany was cut off from overseas trade by the might of the combined British, French, Italian, Russian, and Japanese fleets, who certainly had a warship in every harbor from Seattle to Montevideo. That’s when an idea was hatched to cough up a fleet of large commercial submarines for shipping vital cargo to and from locations otherwise verboten to German freighters.

These handels-U-boots (merchant submarines) were helmed by 28-man civilian crews employed by the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei company, unarmed except for five pistols or revolvers and a flare gun, sailed under a merchant flag, and could carry as much as 700-tons in their holds.

A staggering 213-feet overall and some 2,300-tons, while small by today’s standards, these were the largest operational submarines of World War I.

You get the idea…

The first of the class, Deutschland, was launched 28 March 1916 and in June voyaged across the Atlantic as a blockade runner carrying highly sought-after chemical dyes, carried medical drugs, gemstones, and mail to Baltimore where her crew were welcomed as celebrities before returning to Bremerhaven with 341 tons of nickel, 93 tons of tin, and 348 tons of crude rubber– worth seven times her 2.75 million Reichsmark cost. Her second trip to New London with gems and securities, returning to Germany in November was her last as a commercial venture.

You see Deutschland was taken up into the service of the German Navy in early 1917 and rechristened SM U-155, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Between 1916-17, a further six freighter u-boats were built to the same design as Deutschland in four yards, numbered in military service U-151 through U-157. These ships, however, were built to fight rather than make money (one other boat, Bremen, was completed for commercial work and she vanished in Sept. 1916 on her maiden voyage to New York–she was never part of the German Navy).

The subject of our particular tale is U-156, the only one of her class built at Atlas Werke, Bremen as Werke #382.

In war service these ships were completed with torpedo tubes and a torpedo and mine magazine rather than cargo holds and given a pair of large 150mm deck guns with a healthy supply of 1688 shells to feed them. Gone was the civilian crew, replaced by a 7 officer/69-man military crew that could spare up to 20 for prize crews.

Prize crews?

Yes, these huge subs would act as submersible cruisers (U-Kreuzer), hence the large battery and stock of shells.

Those are some serious popguns

U-156 was commissioned 22 Aug 1917 under the command of Kptlt. Konrad Gansser. Under Gansser’s command and that later of Kptlt. Richard Feldt, over the next 13 months the huge submarine successfully attacked 47 ships of which she sunk 45 (for a total of 64,151 tons) and damaged two.

A list of her kills over at U-boat.net shows that most of her “victories” were small craft, with only one merchant ship over 5,000 tons, the Italian flagged steamer Atlantide (5,431t) sunk off Madeira on 1 Feb 1918.

In fact, some 32 of her kills were against trawlers and small coasters under 950-tons, making her the scourge of the American and Canadian coasts.

Speaking of which, U-156‘s most important victory at sea came not from her guns or torpedoes, but from a mine.

The 13,680-ton USS San Diego (Armored Cruiser No. 6), formerly the USS California, hit a mine sown by U-156 southeast of Fire Island on 19 July and sank in just 28 minutes, taking six bluejackets with her to the bottom. She would be the only major warship lost by the U.S. in the Great War. Her skipper at the time, Capt. Harley H. Christy, was a Spanish–American War vet who went on to command the battlewagon Wyoming with the British Grand Fleet in 1918 and become a Vice Admiral on the retired list.

USS San Diego (Armored Cruiser No. 6) Painting by Francis Muller, 1920. It depicts the ship sinking off Fire Island, New York, after mined by the German submarine U-156, 19 July 1918. Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 55012-KN

It was after this strike on the San Diego that the good Kptlt. Feldt sailed to the coast of Cape Cod and got into a little gunplay in shallow water and spread “schrecklichkeit” (fear) along the coast.

At about 10:30 a.m. on the morning of 21 July 1918, the Lehigh Valley RR. Company’s hearty little 120-foot/435-ton steel-hulled tugboat Perth Amboy was hauling a series of wooden barges some three miles off Orleans, Mass when she came under artillery fire from U-156‘s big guns. While the barges were sunk and the tug damaged, no casualties were suffered.

Via Attack on Orleans

This led to a frantic call to the newly-built Chatam Naval Air Station who dispatched two Curtiss HS-1L seaplanes (Bu.No 1695 and 1693, the latter of which suffered engine problems and couldn’t sortie) and two R-9s (Bu.No. 991 and another) that arrived on scene about a half hour later. The freshly minted naval pilots dropped a few small bombs, which did not damage the submarine, who dutifully submerged and motored off.

Curtiss HS-1L seaplane (Bu. no. 1735) of the type flown against U-156, here shown at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida Caption: On the ramp at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, circa 1918. Note insignia (patriotic, “Uncle Sam” hat), presumably of Training Squadron Five. Description: Catalog #: NH 44224

In all, the attack lasted about 90 minutes from the first shot to the last bomb, and caused little practical damage.

The submarine ticked off some 147 shells, some of which landed on shore and the subsequent impact zone became a tourist attraction into the 1930s.

However, it was the first attack on the U.S. mainland by a uniformed European enemy since 1815 and the first time enemy shells landed on her soil since the failed siege of Fort Texas near Brownsville by General Pedro de Ampudia’s light artillery in 1846.

Damage suffered by Perth Amboy– she would later go on to be sunk by a mine in WWII while in British service

U-156 then headed north to the Nova Scotia coast and captured the 265-ton trawler Triumph, which she used for three days in August as the first (and only) German surface raider to operate in Canadian waters. Using at times Canadian and at others a Danish flag, Triumph and U-156 worked in tandem, with the trawler creeping up on small craft, Germans taking said small boat over, rigging demo charges and allowing the Canuk mariners to row away in their dingy while the craft sank.

From an excellent article at WWI Canada:

One of Triumph’s first victim was the Gloucester schooner A. Piatt Andrew, which was fishing in Canadian waters. The schooner’s skipper told the U.S. Navy that when Triumph hailed him to heave to, he thought it was joke until “… four shots were fired across our bow from rifles. We brought our vessel up in the wind and the beam trawler came up alongside of us and I then saw that she was manned [by] German crew.’’

The Lunenburg schooner Uda A. Saunders was another score for Feldt. The vessel’s captain gave the U.S. Navy this description of the encounter: “The Huns hailed us and ordered a dory alongside. I sent two men out to her in a dory and three of the raider’s crew came aboard. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the one who appeared to be in command. ‘We are going to sink your vessel. I will give you 10 minutes to gather up food and water enough to last you until you get ashore.’”

However, U-156‘s days as a pirate were numbered.

On her way back to Germany, the U-Boat failed to report in that she had cleared the North Sea passage and it is surmised that around 25 Sep 1918 she struck an Allied mine and disappeared with all hands, leaving 77 dead.

With the exception of U-154, torpedoed in the Atlantic 11 May 1918 by HM Sub E35, U-156s sisters largely survived the war, but not by much.

SM U-151 was surrendered to France at Cherbourg and sunk as target ship at Cherbourg, 7 June 1921.

U-152 and U-153 went to Harwich, England, where they were surrendered to the British and sunk by the Royal Navy in July 1921 (image below).

Note how large the U-153 is compared to other common German submarines (IWM photo)

U-157 was interned at Trondheim, Norway at the end of the war but later taken over by the French and broken up at Brest.

Deutschland/U-155, was surrendered on 24 November 1918 with other submarines as part of the terms of the Armistice and exhibited in London and elsewhere before being sold for scrap in 1921.

A British Jack secures the the Control Room of U155 (The Deutschland) Moored in St Katherine’s Docks, London, December 1918 (iwm)

German U-Boat U-155 surrendered to the British, lying alongside the British Q-boat mystery ship HMS SUFFOLK COAST at St. Katherine’s Docks in London, 4 December 1918 (iwm)

German submarine U-155 on display in St. Katherine docks, London, England, December 1918

With that being said, U-156 is better remembered than most of her class, at least in New England.

Today a historical sign on a private Nauset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts marks the occasion in which the Kaiser reached out and touched the sand there.

For more information on the Attack on Orleans, here is an hour-long lecture by Jake Klim done in 2015 for the Tales of Cape Cod historical society.

Klim runs the most excellent “Attack on Orleans” website and social media page from which I borrowed the map above and recommend his book of the same title.

For more on these blockade breaking U-boats overall, check out this site in German.

Specs:

Displacement:
1,512 tonnes (1,488 long tons) (surfaced)
1,875 tonnes (1,845 long tons) (submerged)
2,272 tonnes (2,236 long tons) (total)
Length:
65.00 m (213 ft 3 in) (o/a)
57.00 m (187 ft) (pressure hull)
Beam:
8.90 m (29 ft 2 in) (o/a)
5.80 m (19 ft) (pressure hull)
Height: 9.25 m (30 ft 4 in)
Draught: 5.30 m (17 ft 5 in)
Installed power:
800 PS (590 kW; 790 bhp) (surfaced)
800 PS (590 kW; 790 bhp) (submerged)
Propulsion:
2 × shafts
2 × 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in) propellers
Fuel oil supply merchant submarine: 200 t
Fuel oil supply cruiser submarine: 285 t
Surfaced speed as merchant submarine: about 12 kn
Underwater speed as merchant submarine: about 6.7 kn
Surfaced speed as U-Kreuzer: about 11 kn
Underwater speed as U-Kreuzer: ca 5,3 kn
Dive time: 50-80 seconds depending on crew training
Compression depth: 50m
Range:
25,000 nmi (46,000 km; 29,000 mi) at 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph) surfaced
65 nmi (120 km; 75 mi) at 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) submerged
Test depth: 50 metres (160 ft)
Complement, commercial service: 28
Complement, military service: 6 / 50 Mannschaft
1 / 19 Prisenkommando
Armament:
2 50 cm (20 in) bow torpedo tubes
18 torpedoes
2 × 15 cm (5.9 in) deck guns with 1688 rounds

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday July 6, 2016: Of British frogmen and Japanese holy mountains

Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

Here we see His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Ship Takao, the leader of her class, who would go on to fight giants only to be crippled by midgets.

Beginning in the 1920s, the Imperial Japanese Navy had progressed from their traditional enemies– the Chinese, Russians, and Imperial Germans– to the prospect of taking on the British and Americans in the Pacific. This led to new battleships and carriers.

To screen these ships, heavy cruisers were needed. This led to the eight ships that included the 9,500-ton Furutaka-class, 8,900-ton Aoba-class, and 14,500-ton Myōkō-class heavy cruisers built between 1925-29. Building on the lessons learned from these, the Navy ordered four impressive 15,490-ton Takao-class ships, each mounting 10 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (the heaviest armament of any heavy cruiser in the world at the time) and buttressed by up to five inches of armor plate.

Bow turrets of Takao about 1932. Via Navweaps

Capable of making 35+ knots, these were bruisers and if their main guns did not catch you then their eight tubes of Type 90 (and later Type 93) torpedoes would.

Laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 28 April 1927, class leader Takao was named after the holy mountain in Kyoto which is home to the Jingo-ji temple that dates back to the 9th Century.

She was commissioned 20 May 1932 and soon three sisters followed her into service.

IJN heavy cruiser Takao as published in The Air and Sea Co. – The Air and Sea, vol.2, no.6 1933

Japanese heavy cruiser ship: H.I.J.M.S. TAKAO Catalog #: NH 111672

May.11,1937 Takao class Heavy-cruiser Takao at Sukumo Bay. Note her extensive bridge and mast location. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

Proving top-heavy, Takao and to a lesser degree her sisters were modified by having their bridge reduced, main mast was relocated aft, and hull budges added to improve stability.

World War II era recognition drawings, showing the configuration of Takao (1932-1945) and Atago (1932-1944), as modernized in 1938-39. The original print came from Office of Naval Intelligence files. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 97770

July 14, 1939 Takao-class Heavy cruiser “Takao” on sea trials at Tateyama after reconstruction. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter

1939 Yokosuka

Takao cut her teeth patrolling off the coast of China during military operations there and on Dec. 8, 1941 fired her first shots in anger against Americans when she plastered the shoreline of the Lingayen Gulf on Luzon in the Philippines.

Moving into the Dutch East Indies operating with Cruiser Division 4, she quickly sank five Dutch merchantmen, the British minesweepers HMS Scott Harley and M-51, the Clemson-class destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227) with all hands, and the Royal Australian Navy sloop HMAS Yarra in the first part of 1942.

During the Battle of Midway, Takao and her sister Maya took part in the diversionary task force to capture Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians.

November 1942 found her off Guadalcanal with Adm.Nobutake Kondō’s task force built around the battleship Kirishima, Takao and her sister Atago, light cruisers Nagara and Sendai, and nine destroyers. There they collided with TF-64 under Admiral Willis A. Lee made up of the new battleships USS Washington (BB-56) and South Dakota (BB-57), together with four destroyers.

By Lukasz Kasperczyk

In the ensuing melee, Takao hit SoDak multiple times with shells, knocking out her radar and fire controls and fired Long Lance torpedoes at Washington but missed. Kirishima sank and the battle was a strategic victory for Halsey and the U.S. fleet.

For the next year, she spent her life on the run, hiding from the ever-increasing U.S. submarine force while she helped evac Guadalcanal and hid out at Truk. During the war her armament and sensor package changed a number of times (as evidenced by the plans under the specs section below).

In Nov. 1943 Takao was shellacked by SBDs Dauntless from USS Saratoga, dodged torps from USS Dace the next April, then sucked up two torpedoes from USS Darter that October which left her unable to do much more than limp around the ocean at 10-knots.

By Halloween 1944, Takao was the last of her class. Sisterships Atago, Maya and Chokai were all sunk (two by submarines) within the same week during the Battle of Leyte Gulf/Samar by U.S. forces.

A wreck, by Nov. 1944 she was largely immobile at Singapore, afloat with nothing but a skeleton crew on board and no ammunition for her large guns. Her value strictly as a floating and heavily camouflaged anti-air battery.

Crucero Takao en 1945 – Lukasz Kasperczyk

She was joined there by Myōkō, who like Takao and the rest of the available Combined Fleet, had participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf which left her with an air-dropped torpedo in her hull and another, picked up from the submarine USS Bergall as the heavy cruiser staggered off to Southeast Asia, left her irreparable at Singapore without more materials, and impossible to tow to Japan.

Operation Struggle

During the war, the British built a more than two dozen 54-foot long X/XE/XT-class midget submarines. Capable of just a short 24-36 hour sortie, they had to be launched close to their target (think SMS Tirpitz) by a tender ship and, after penetrating an enemy harbor, frogmen would attach demo charges to ships belonging to the Emperor or Der Fuhrer.

They carried a crew of four: typically a Lieutenant in command, with a Sub-Lieutenant as deputy, an Engine Room Artificer in charge of the mechanical side and a Seaman or Leading-Seaman. At least one of them was qualified as a diver.

In January 1945, the converted freighter HMS Bonaventure (F139) set sail for the Pacific with six XE-type submarines on her deck, arriving at Brisbane, Australia on 27 April– as the European war ended. The first action these Lilliputian subs saw was in an attempt to cut the Japanese underwater telegraph lines off Borneo.

In Hervey Bay, Queensland, XE3 prepares for trials July 1945

Warming up for more daring missions, the Brits launched Operation Struggle in August in which Bonaventure sailed for the coast near Singapore and launched HMS XE1 and XE3 into the waves with a mission to sink the (already busted) Japanese cruisers Myōkō and Takao respectively. Escorted closer by the S-class submarine HMS Stygian, the tiny XE boats took all afternoon and night to penetrate the harbor defenses.

Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser RNR, commanded the three-man crew inside XE-3 when they found Takao, then lying in the Johore Straits to guard the entrance to occupied Singapore, and what he saw was surreal.

The plates of the hull and the rivets of the big cruiser could be seen very clearly through the porthole of XE-3 in the 18-feet of seawater between the bottom of the ship and the mud. One side tank held 2-tons of amatol high explosive, the second one held six 200-pound limpet mines, and Fraser held two “spare” limpets in the casing of the midget sub.

After setting all of their charges, Fraser surfaced the tiny sub not too far off from the cruiser so the crew could see the vessel for what they thought was the last time, “I thought they might like to see it,” he said in a post-war interview.

Six hours later the charges tore a gaping hole in the cruiser’s hull, putting her turrets out of action, damaging her range finders, flooding numerous compartments and immobilizing the cruiser for the remainder of the war. She settled six feet six feet deeper into the harbor though her 01 deck was still above water even at high tide and was still technically afloat.

Both Magennis and Fraser gained the Victoria Cross for this hazardous mission, with the other two crew members also decorated ( Sub-Lieutenant William James Lanyon Smith, RNZNVR, who was at the controls of XE3 during the attack, received the DSO; Engine Room Artificer Third Class Charles Alfred Reed, who was at the wheel, received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal).

James Magennis VC and Ian Fraser VC WWII IWM 26940A

A week later, after aerial recon showed the Takao was still in the harbor– though nearly on the bottom of it– Fraser and his crew were readying a second go round on the ship and the Myōkō that was postponed by the dropping of the A-bomb and then later canceled once the surrender was announced.

This, Fraser said, made him a big fan of the Bomb and left him with a rough attitude towards Japanese.

Both Myōkō and Takao surrendered to the British when they arrived in Singapore in force on Sept. 21 as part of Operation Tiderace, and when the RN got a closer look at the two found out the truth about their condition.

Fraser even returned to inspect the Takao in Singapore himself just after the end of the war. The beaten cruiser, however, would never see Japan again. She was patched up and scuttled 27 October 1946 by British Forces, with the Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Newfoundland (59) sending her into very deep water by the judicious use of naval gunfire and torpedoes– likely one of the last time a cruiser used a torpedo on another.

Her crew was repatriated to Japan in 1947.

As for XE-3, she was scrapped along with most of the other British midgets with only XE8 “Expunger” saved and put on public display at the Chatham Historic Dockyard.

For Takao, little remains.

A 1930 1:100 scale builder’s model of the Takao, captured in Japan in 1945, is in the collection of the Naval History and Heritage Command and has been displayed off an on for generations.

Catalog #: NH 84079. Note her original mast and bridge.

Takao has, however, inspired a number of pieces of naval art, mainly for model covers over the past several decades.

In the UK, the Imperial War Museum has the frogman swim suit worn on by Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis RN, VC when as the diver of the midget submarine XE3 (commanded by Lieutenant Ian Edward Fraser RNR) he attached limpet explosive charges to the hull of  ‘Takao‘, as well as a white IJN captain’s field cap recovered from the vessel.

The IWM also has a 1980 interview with XE 3 skipper Lt. Comm. Ian Fraser, V.C., D S.C. that includes his own account of the Takao strike (reel 2 and 3).

He wrote a book about his WWII exploits, which is long out of print but is still very much in circulation.

Specs:

Takao’s ever-changing plans via shipbucket

Displacement:
9,850 t (9,690 long tons) (standard)
15,490 t (15,250 long tons) (full load)
Length:
192.5 m (632 ft.)
203.76 m (668.5 ft.) overall
Beam:
19 m (62 ft.)
20.4 m (67 ft.)
Draft:
6.11 m (20.0 ft)
6.32 m (20.7 ft.)
Propulsion:
4 shaft geared turbine
12 Kampon boilers
132,000 shp (98,000 kW)
Speed: 35.5–34.2 knots (65.7–63.3 km/h; 40.9–39.4 mph)
Range: 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Complement: 773
Armament:
Original layout:
10 × 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (5×2)
4 × Type 10 12 cm high angle guns (4×1)
8 × 61 cm torpedo tubes (4×2)
2 × 40 mm AA guns (2×1)
2 x 7.7 mm Type 92 MG (2×1)
Final Layout (Takao):
10 × 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns (5×2)
4 × Type 89 12.7 cm (5 in) dual-purpose guns, (4×1)
66 × Type 96 25 mm (1.0 in) AA guns (26×1, 12×2, 24×3)
4 × Type 93 13.2 mm (0.5 in) AA machine guns
Type 93 torpedoes (4×4 + 8 reloads)
depth charges
Armor:
main belt: 38 to 127 mm
main deck: 37 mm (max)
upper deck: 12.7 to 25 mm
bulkheads: 76 to 100 mm
turrets: 25 mm
Aircraft carried:
One Aichi E13A1 “Jake”
Two F1M2 “Pete” seaplanes
Aviation facilities: 2 catapults

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Warship Wednesday Sept. 28, 2016: From the Lingayen to the FloraBama

NHHC Collection photo # UA 22.02.01

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the landing started, she was baptized.

From DANFS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Per Mike Green at Navsource:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More here

We’ve talked about DARPA’s 132-foot USV robot subchaser, the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), dubbed Sea Hunter, a few times already this year.

The ship’s projected $20 million all-up price tag and its $15,000 to $20,000 daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive to operate. For comparison, a single Littoral Combat Ship runs $432 million (at least LCS-6 did) to build and run about $220K a day to operate– but of course that is a moving target.

We’ve also talked about their Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS) U-boat kite program which is a low-cost, fully automated parafoil system designed to extend maritime vessels’ long-distance communications and improve their domain awareness.

Towed behind boats or ships, TALONS could carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and communications payloads of up to 150 pounds between 500 and 1,500 feet in altitude—many times higher than current ships’ masts—and greatly extend the equipment’s range and effectiveness.

So it makes sense that now video has emerged from DARPA of Sea Hunter taking its para-sail for a drag.

Now if they Navy can just cough up 50-100 of these, with ASW weapons and an automated C-RAM to avoid being splashed by enemy aircraft wholesale, and keep it from running $30 billion– then you have a real sea control ship when it comes to denying an area to the bad guy’s subs.

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

As reported by DiverNet:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The end of her tale came just three months later:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vale, Simoom and her 48 officers and men.

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

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

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

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

The mighty Estonian gunboat Lembit (1918-1927)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another profile while in brief Estonian service, 1937-40

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Helsinki, Winter 1944-45

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

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

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

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

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

Lembit after the war.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to very much big up

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

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

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

Specs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

Divers and members of the coast guard from Mukalla, along with southern demining experts from the Second Military Division in Hadramout South Yemen successfully removed and detonated explosives planted at the old Mukalla Seaport…

As noted by HI Sutton, “The mines appear to be constructed from two pressurized gas canisters cut in half and welded end-end. The explosive contents and reason why they were not detonated by AQAP have not been revealed.”

More here

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

Warship Wednesday Nov. 23, 2016: A long overdue Salute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salute on trials from Winslow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From a NHHC Underwater Archaeology Branch release:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please visit her.

According to the NPS:

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

Specs:

Image by shipbucket

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

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

Then came the 123-ship Admirable (AM-136)-class of 180-foot/950-ton vessels built during WWII– many of which remained in hard service through Korea before being passed on to allied nations.

With the lessons learned from that conflict, in which the Koreans used literally thousands of Soviet, Chinese and leftover Japanese mines up and down the coastline, a class of MSO (Mine Sweeper Ocean), sweepers was placed on order during that police action, with class leader USS Agressive (MSO-422) laid down at Luders Marine in Stamford, Connecticut 25 May 1951 and commissioned just weeks after the cease fire in 1953

At some 867-tons (fl) and 172-foot overall, they were roughly the same size as the steel-hulled minesweepers Admirable-class ships they were replacing, but they had a bunch of new tricks up their sleeve including using laminated wood construction with bronze and stainless steel fittings and to minimize their magnetic signature.

The main propulsion plant consisted of four Packard 1D1700 non magnetic diesel engines driving twin controllable pitch propellers (CRP). This was one of the earliest CRP installations in the navy.

They were also fitted with a UQS-1 mine-locating sonar, an important next step in minehunting.

UQS-1 mine-locating sonar panel currently at the Museum of Man in the Sea in Panama City. Photo by Chris Eger

Thus equipped, they could sweep moored mines with Oropesa (“O” Type) gear, magnetic mines with a Magnetic “Tail” supplied by three 2500 ampere mine sweeping generators, and acoustic mines by using Mk4(V) and A Mk6 (B) acoustic hammers.

Their armament, when compared to the Admirable-class steel hulls they replaced, was much lighter, consisting of a single Bofors 40mm/60 gun forward and two .50 cals. It should be pointed out the WWII sweepers carried a 3″/50, 4x Bofors, 6x20mm Oerlikons, Hedgehog ASW mortars plus depth charge racks and projectors on a hull roughly the same size.

USS Lucid as commissioned, she is the only MSO still afloat in the Western hemisphere. Note her 40mm gun.

Some 53 hulls were completed by 1958 by a host of small domestic yards for the U.S. Navy (Luders, Bellingham, Higgins, etc) that specialized in wooden vessels, and often had created PT-boats and sub-chasers during WWII. In addition to this, 15 were built for France, four for Portugal, six for Belgium, two for Norway, one of Uruguay, four for Italy, and six for Holland. The design was truly an international best-seller and in some cases the last hurrah for several of these small yards.

In U.S. service, they were quickly put to work everywhere from the Med to the South China Sea, performing general yeoman tasks for the fleet itself, participating in mine exercises and running sweeping ops in areas that still had the occasional WWII-era contact mine bobbing around. In addition, they helped with missile and torpedo tests, harbor defense exercises, acoustic ranging experiments, noise reduction experiments, located downed aircraft, performed special operations in 1962 during the nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean, were instrumental in the Palomares hydrogen bombs incident, performed midshipman training cruises to the Caribbean, made repairs to cables and helped in the recovering of boilerplate and capsules for the Mercury and Gemini NASA programs.

Their shallow draft (10-feet in seawater) made them ideal for getting around littorals as well as going to some out of the way locales that rarely see Naval vessels. USS Leader (MSO-490) and USS Excel (MSO 439) became the first U.S. warships ever to visit the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh when they completed the 180-mile transit up the Mekong River on 27 August 1961, a feat not repeated until 2007. USS Vital (MSO-474) ascended the Mississippi River in May 1967 to participate in the Cotton Carnival at Memphis, Tennessee.

USS Gallant (MSO-489) was used in 1966 for the filming of the Elvis Presley film, Easy Come, Easy Go.

Vietnam is where the class really shined, arriving early to the conflict, taking part in the party, and then sticking around for the clean up afterward.

As early as 1962, USS Fortify (MSO-446) was deployed off the coast of South Vietnam with her minesweeping gear removed and an electronic countermeasures “box” was installed on the fantail. The ship was involved in monitoring and intercepting Viet Cong radio transmissions, vectoring RVN gunboats to interdict large junks coming down the coast from the North that were suspected of furnishing arms and ammunition to cadres in the south. This led to some near-misses with NVA torpedo boats even before the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Many of the class participated in Operation Market Time (11 March 1965 to December 1972) in an effort to stop the flow of supplies from North Vietnam into the south by sea. According to Navy reports, “The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club” was very successful, but received little credit. Eventually all the supply routes at sea became non-existent, which forced the North Vietnamese to use the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

USS LEADER (MSO-490) Caption: Is seen from a Saigon based SP-2H Neptune aircraft while on a Market Time patrol during the later 1960s. The plane and ship are exchanging information on coastal traffic in the area. Description: Catalog #: NH 92011

As part of this effort, the shallow water craft boarded and searched South Vietnamese fishing junks for smuggled weapons and other contraband (during USS Loyalty‘s first patrol alone, her crew boarded 348 junks, detained two and arrested 14 enemy smugglers), served as mother ships for replenishing the needs of “Swift” boats, provided gunfire support to U.S. forces ashore, (on 22 and 23 March 1966 the USS Implict alone fired nearly 700 rounds of 40mm ammunition supporting small South Vietnamese naval craft under fire from enemy shore batteries), gave special operations support to the American Advisory units and performed hydrographic surveys on shoreline depths.

After the war, it was the Aggressive-class MSOs who were tasked with Operation End Sweep–removing mines and airdropped Mark 36 Destructors laid by the U.S. in Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam and other waterways.

End Sweep’s line in action

In all some 10 MSO’s were part of Seventh Fleet’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78), led by Rear Adm. Brian McCauley, during this six-month operation in the first half of 1973.

At the height of their involvement in Vietnam, the Navy started a mid-life extension and modernization process for roughly half of their MSOs. Running at $1.5 million per ship, the old Packard engines were removed and replaced with new aluminum block Waukesha diesels. The first generation mine sonar was swapped out for the new SQQ-14. As additional space on the foc’sle was needed for installation of the SQQ-14 cabling, the WWII-era 40mm Bofors bow gun was replaced with a mount for a twin 20 mm Mk 68. New sweep gear to include a pair of PAP-104 cable-guided undersea tools were added as was accommodation for clearance divers and two zodiacs powered by 40hp outboards.

Just 19 were updated to the new standard, and the MSO fleet began to severely contract.

Several took some hard knocks, especially when it came to fires.

USS Avenge (MSO-423) was gutted by a fire while drydocked at Bethlehem’s Fort McHenry Shipyard in Baltimore in 1969 and stricken the next year after a survey found her too far gone. An earlier flash fire on USS Exultant (MSO-441) while underway in 1960 claimed five lives though the ship herself was saved. USS Force (MSO-445) was not so lucky when on 24 April 1973 she lost off Guam after when a fuel leak was ignited by the No.1 Engine turbocharger and spread rapidly throughout the ship. USS Stalwart (MSO-493) capsized and sank as a result of fire at San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 25, 1966. USS Enhance (MSO-437), USS Direct (MSO-430) and USS Director (MSO-429) likewise suffered serious fires but were saved.

USS Prestige (MSO-465) ran aground and was stranded in the Naruto Straits, Inland Sea, Japan on 23 Aug 1958 and was abandoned as a total loss. Similarly, USS Sagacity (MSO-469) in March 1970, grounded at the entrance to Charleston harbor, causing extensive damage to her rudders, shafts, screws, keel, and hull, leading her to be stricken that October.

The Royal Navy diesel submarine HMS Rorqual bumped into the USS Endurance (MSO-435) while docking at River Point pier in Subic Bay, Philippines in 1969 while USS Forrestal (CVA-59) collided with the USS Pinnacle (MSO-462) at Norfolk in 1959. In all cases, the damage was slight.

USS Valor (MSO-472), just 15 years old, was found to be “beyond economical repair” in a survey in 1970 and scrapped.

By the end of Vietnam, the MSOs retained were converted to U.S. Naval Reserve Training (NRT) tasking classified as Naval Reserve Force (NRF) ships, used for training their complements of reserve crews one weekend a month two-weeks during the summer. This changed the crews from 7 officers, 70 enlisted (77 total) when on active duty, to 5 officers, 52 enlisted plus 25 reserve while a NRF vessel.

USS Energy (MSO-436) and Firm (MSO-444) were transferred to the Philippines, while USS Pivot (MSO-463), Dynamic, Persistent and Vigor went to Spain. Others, unmodernized, were sold for scrap.

By the 1980s, the European war scenario relied on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to participate substantially in mine warfare operations, and U.S. mine hunters continued to decline until just the 19 modernized 1950s MSOs, built for Korea and validated in Vietnam, remained in the NRF.

A bow view of the ocean minesweeper USS FORTIFY (MSO 446) underway, 6/8/1982. National Archives Photo.

A starboard view of the ocean minesweeper USS ILLUSIVE (MSO 448) underway, 8/13/1984. National Archives Photo.

During this period they often spent much time at the Mine Countermeasures Station at Panama City, Florida where they tested the first versions of the AN/WLD-1 (V) unmanned Minehunting systems, developed to scour the water for bottom and moored mines.

A few NRF MSOs were activated to assist in the Persian Gulf in 1987-88 during the tanker escort period (Operation Earnest Will) that involved Iranian sea mines, typically old Russian M08 contact types, swept.

Three sweepers: USS Fearless (MSO-442), USS Illusive (MSO-448), and USS Inflict (MSO-456), were towed 9,000 miles by the salvage ship USS Grapple (ARS-53) from Little Creek, Virginia, to the Persian Gulf.

While conducting minesweeping operations in the northern Persian Gulf, Inflict discovered and destroyed the first of 10 underwater contact mines deployed in a field across the main shipping channel.

Crewmen handle a minesweeping float on the stern of the ocean minesweeper USS INFLICIT (MSO 456), 4/27/1988. National Archives Photo

Then came the affair with Saddam in 1990.

Four minesweepers, USS Leader (MSO-490), USS Impervious (MSO-449), USS Adroit (MSO-509) and the brand new USS Avenger (MCM-1), were loaded aboard the Dutch heavy lift ship Super Servant 3 on 19 August 1990 at Norfolk and offloaded 5 October 1990 in the middle east.

Impervious, foreground, and Adroit (MSO 509) sit aboard the Dutch heavy lift ship Super Servant 4 as its deck is submerged to permit minesweepers to be unloaded. Photo by PHAN Christopher L. Ryan

You may not remember now, but Desert Storm at sea was a mine war, with USS Tripoli and USS Princeton (CG 59) rocked by exploding mines. Saddam sewed more than a 1,000 of his deadly easter eggs across the northern Gulf and it was the job of the sweepers, along with allied boats and helicopters and some 20 different EOD clearance teams, to clear the way for a possible D-Day style amphibious invasion by the Marines as well as hacking a path through the danger zone for battleships to approach for NGFS.

And with the victory in the desert, the MSOs were paid off, replaced nominally by a new class of (since disposed of) Osprey-class MHCs and the rest of the Avengers.

Between 1989-1994 the last of the MSOs were decommissioned and stricken with the healthiest four units transferred to the Republic of China Navy (Taiwan) in 1994-95: USS Conquest (MSO-488), USS Gallant (MSO-489), USS Pledge (MSO-492), and USS Implicit (MSO-455) as ROCS Yung Tzu (MSO-1307), ROCS Yung Ku (MSO-1308), ROCS Yung Teh (MSO-1309), ROCS Yung Yang (MSO-1306), respectively, are still in service.

Six were held on red lead row until as late as 2002, when they were scrapped despite the pleas from veterans’ groups to preserve one, with the MARAD claiming it was policy not to donate wooden ships due to the cost and magnitude of the maintenance required for upkeep.

In all, some 50,000 sailors served at one time or another on these wooden ships and are very well organized in The Navy MSO Association.

Finally, the MSO sailors were came across the old USS Lucid (MSO-458) which had been sold as scrap for $40,250 back in 1976 and had been used as a houseboat ever since.

Donated, the ship has become part of the Stockton Historical Maritime Museum since 2011 and is open to the public.

She is the only MSO preserved in the West.

In Holland, HNLMS Mercuur (A856), after her decommissioning in 1987, was preserved as a museum ship, first in Amsterdam, later in Scheveningen. She will be towed to the city of Vlissingen at some point this winter, and re-open as a museum ship in Vlissingen’s Perry dock around March 2017.

In all, the class served 40 years in a myriad of tasks and a few are still around and kicking.

Not bad for some forgotten old wooden boats.

The ocean minesweeper USS INFLICIT (MSO 456) heads towards the Persian Gulf to support US Navy escort operations, 9/1/1987

Navy Seaman Raymond Chavez is now 104 years old but he remembers one of the first sightings of a Japanese midget submarine hours before the attack and racing back to his ship once the fight was on.

Chavez was one of just 13 men on the crew of the 85-foot long converted wooden-hulled purse seiner USS Condor, pressed into service as a Coast Guard-manned coastal minesweeper (AMc-14).

USS Condor (AMc-14) Photographed in 1941, probably off San Diego, California. Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives – http://www.history.navy.mil Photo #: 19-N-24615

While conducting routine sweeps outside the harbor, the crew spotted what is is thought to have been the first enemy contact at 0350– more than four hours before the air attack began– when they saw what they felt to be an enemy submarine.

“He said, Mr.McCoy, we got company,” recalled Chavez, who was at the minesweeper’s helm, remembering the lookout saying to the officer of the deck.

The contact was handed over to the crew of the destroyer USS Ward, who would later fire the first American shot of the Pacific War on the submarine around 0630, while Chavez’s ship was ordered to return to Pearl.

He had only just returned home and gotten asleep when his wife awoke him to the news of the air attack.

“You could see the black smoke from one end to the other,” said Chavez. “The ships were on fire, and burning their oil.”

Rushing back to his ship, he spent the next 10 days underway, first fighting the Japanese, then helping with the recovery.

“I started crying,” said Chavez. “I’m not ashamed to admit it…all the Sailors who were trying to save themselves, and all the dead bodies, and the oil.

As reported by the San Diego Tribune, Chavez is working out regularly and has flown back to Pearl Harbor for the 75th anniversary of the attack on Wednesday.

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

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

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

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

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, the Lapwings were 187-foot long ships that were large enough, at 965-tons full, to carry a pair of economical reciprocating diesel engines (or two boilers and one VTE engine) with a decent enough range to make it across the Atlantic on their own (though with a blisteringly slow speed of just 14 knots when wide open on trials.)

Not intended to do much more than clear mines, they were given a couple 3″/23 pop guns to discourage small enemy surface combatants intent to keep minesweepers from clearing said mines. The class leader, Lapwing, designated Auxiliary Minesweeper #1 (AM-1), was laid down at Todd in New York in October 1917 and another 53 soon followed. While five were canceled in November 1918, the other 48 were eventually finished– even if they came to the war a little late.

Which leads us to the hero of our tale, USS Avocet, named after a long-legged, web-footed shore bird found in western and southern states– the first such naval vessel to carry the moniker. Laid down as Minesweeper No. 19 on 13 September 1917 at Baltimore, Maryland by the Baltimore Drydock & Shipbuilding Co, she was commissioned just over a year later on 17 September 1918– some seven weeks before the end of the Great War.

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

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

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

It would not be her last rescue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to DANFS, the event went down like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From DANFS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, her war was not over.

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

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

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

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

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

As for the rest of her class, others also served heroically in the war with one, USS Vireo, picking up seven battle stars for her service as a fleet tug from Pearl Harbor to Midway to Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The Germans sank USS Partridge at Normandy and both Gannet and Redwing via torpedoes in the Atlantic. Most of the old birds remaining in U.S. service were scrapped in 1946-48 with the last on Uncle Sam’s list, Flamingo, sold for scrap in July 1953.

Some lived on as trawlers and one, USS Auk (AM-38)/USC&GS Discoverer was sold to Venezuela in 1948, where she lasted until 1962 as the gunboat Felipe Larrazabal. After her decommissioning she was not immediately scrapped, and was reported afloat in a backwater channel as late as 1968. Her fate after that is not recorded but she was likely the last of the Lapwings.  (Update, she is still apparently in the channel, in pretty bad shape)

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

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

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

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

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

Specs:

Displacement: 950 tons FL (1918) 1,350 tons (1936)
Length: 187 feet 10 inches
Beam: 35 feet 6 inches
Draft: 9 feet 9 in
Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox header boilers, one 1,400shp Harlan and Hollingsworth, vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph); 12~ by 1936.
Complement: 78 Officers and Enlisted as completed; Upton 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1928)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
4 Lewis guns
(1944)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
Several 20mm Oerlikons and M2 12.7mm mounts

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An interesting take on the possibility of asymmetric warfare at sea in the future from Adm. James Stavridis in this month’s Proceedings:

South China Sea, 2019

On a summer’s evening in the sweltering South China Sea, a coastal steamer of nearly 2,000 tons approaches a Vietnamese fishing fleet in the exclusive economic zone of Vietnam, some 150 miles off that nation’s coast. The steamer loiters in the area for an hour or two as night falls. Suddenly from the side of the ship three fast speedboats are deployed, each armed with .50 caliber guns and hand-held rocket launchers. For the next hour, the speedboats attack dozens of fishing craft, spraying them with .50 caliber fire, hitting them with grenades, and shooting at survivors in the water. The surviving fishing boats flee toward the coast, frantically radioing distress calls, which are jammed by small drones operating overhead.

By the time the Vietnamese Coast Guard arrives on scene the next morning, alerted by one of the boats that finally managed to limp into port, there is only blood in the water, mixed with oil and gasoline, and several smoldering hulls. One of the Coast Guard ships strikes a small, crude mine and sustains damage to its hull. On one of the still floating fishing craft, an improvised explosive device goes off when Vietnamese sailors board it searching for clues to the origin of the incident. Vietnamese social networks are flooded with warnings to fishermen that the waters of their traditional fishing grounds are full of terrorists. A series of cyber attacks cripples the Vietnamese offshore radar surveillance system.

China insists its armed forces were not involved and says it suspects gangsters running a protection racket, pirates, or domestic Vietnamese terrorists. Using both social networks and official channels, the Chinese immediately offer to provide protection against further attacks, pointing out that Vietnam appears unable to control its claimed waters and asserting the need to do so itself to safeguard Chinese vessels operating nearby. Similar social network campaigns occur throughout the nations around the western rim of the South China Sea. China uses the opportunity to reassert its claims of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. Over the next several months, similar attacks occur on a variety of offshore vessels, oil platforms, and natural gas terminals.

Despite protests from a variety of nations around the littoral of the South China Sea, a threat of investigation by the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization, and stern words from the United States, a sense of chaos and instability develops across the most congested shipping channels in the world.

The rest over at USNI’s Proceeding page

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 their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Feb.15, 2017: Keyser’s sweeper

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 47192

Here we see the Auk-class minesweeper USS Tanager (AM-385) as photographed when new, circa 1945. This humble ship remained afloat in U.S. maritime service across three decades, and, though she vanished about 10 years ago, will live forever.

One of the expansive class of some 95 steel-hulled minesweepers built in the closing months of World War II, these hardy 1,100-ton, 225-foot long vessels could touch 18-knots and, mounting a single 3″/50 DP unprotected gun forward, a few 40mm and 20mm guns, and some depth charges, could make a good patrol/escort in a pinch. A third of the class was built right off the bat for the Royal Navy but the U.S. thought they were good enough to keep the bulk of them around well into the Cold War.

The hero of our tale, Tanager, was named after both a World War I minesweeper of the same name and the red-breasted passerine bird.

Laid down at Lorain, Ohio, on 29 March 1944 by the American Shipbuilding Co., she was commissioned on 28 July 1945, Lt. Comdr. Oscar B. Lundgren, USNR, in command.

Though several Auks saw rough service in WWII (11 were lost to enemy action) Tanager came into the conflict with just weeks left and spent the rest of 1945 in shakedown.

(AM-385) Underway, circa 1946-1947. Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute Photo Collection. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 107427

Over the next half-decade, she alternated service to the Naval Mine Countermeasures Station, at Panama City, Fla and the Mine Warfare School at Yorktown, Va. By 1951, she was off to the Med where she served in the 6th Fleet for a six-month deployment which she repeated in 1953.

After a dry-docking period, she was towed to Orange, Tex and on 10 December 1954, was decommissioned and berthed there with the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, redesignated MSF-385 the next year. In her nine years of active service with the Navy, she had a revolving Captain’s Cabin of no less than 13 skippers (ranging from O-2 through O-4).

With the Coast Guard in need of training hulls and the Navy rapidly transferring the remaining Auks to overseas Allies, Tanager was transferred to the Treasury Department 4 October 1963 and stricken from the Navy list three weeks later.

Carrying CG hull number WTR-385, formerly USS Tanager (AM/MSF-385) Photographed in early or mid-1964, just prior to her commissioning as a Coast Guard cutter. Note her white and buff scheme. Courtesy of Stephen S. Roberts, 1978. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 88071

Towed to the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland, she was stripped of the rest of her mine clearing gear as well as most of her armament and converted to a white-hulled training cutter. Built for a complement of 117 officers and men, her berthing areas were set up for a Coasty crew of five officers and 34 enlisted men and made capable of carrying up to 90 reservists for training exercises.

Designated USCGC Tanager (WTR-885) on 11 July 1964, she was commissioned into the Coast Guard under the command of LCDR Robert G. Elm. Over the next five years, she operated out of the USCG Reserve Training Center at Yorktown, undertaking regular training cruises up and down the Eastern Seaboard while pulling the occasional sortie for urgent SAR missions– coming to the rescue of the distressed ketch Arcturus in 1969.

USCG Historians office

In 1969, she was transferred to the West Coast, arriving at the Training and Supply Center at Government Island, Alameda, Calif in November after passing through the Panama Canal. Performing the same role she did at Yorktown, by 1972 she was considered surplus. As such, she decommissioned 1 February 1972.

Meanwhile, the Navy had divested themselves of the Auk-class. Though they had nearly 20 still on the Naval List when Tanager was taken out of Coast Guard service, they were all on red lead row and had been since the mid-1950s. Almost all were soon struck and sold or donated. I say almost because one, USS Tercel (AM-386), was somehow missed and disposed of in a SINKEX in 1988 after 33 years in mothballs.

Back to the Tanager…

With no one really wanting her, she was disposed of by sale to one Mr. William A. Hardesty of Seattle, Wash in November 1972. She was reportedly converted to the private yacht Eagle (at least they kept a bird name) and changed hands several times over the next 20 years.

By 1994, still with her white hull, she was back in California and tapped to be a set for a film that started with the survivors of a massacre and fire on a freighter docked at the Port of Los Angeles– The Usual Suspects.

You can even see the ship’s original name on the bow at the 2:04 mark in the below video, drawn from the opening scene.

Though she was used for a few more film and TV roles, it’s likely only the neo-noir crime caper will stand the test of time.

By 2007, she was reportedly in the south end of Baja’s Ensenada Bay, abandoned. It made a certain sense for her to be in Mexican waters, as the navy of that republic received no less than 11 Auks from the U.S. in the 1970s, and kept a few of them in service as late as 2004.

Via San Diego Reader, note the black hull but her Tanager name still intact.

“We have here a former U.S. Navy ship called the Tanager,” Ríos Hernández, the capitán del puerto, or harbormaster, of the port of Ensenada, told the San Diego Reader. “It was a minesweeper during World War II. It showed up in Ensenada harbor two or three years ago. From what we’ve been able to find out, it was purchased at a U.S. government auction for $10. The owner brought it down here and disappeared. Now it’s our problem.”

Per Bob’s Minesweeper Page, the old girl was still afloat for awhile in poor condition and was being surveyed for scrap, which more than likely happened.

Pictures taken by Lic. Armando Arceo Hernandez in 2007 Baja, Ca., next to Calexico, Ca. via Bobs Minesweeper Page.

And like that…(s)he’s gone…

Specs:

Photo via ShipBucket

Length: 220′ 7″
Beam: 32′ 3″
Draft: 10′ 2″
Displacement: 1,112 tons
Propulsion: 4 generators driven by 4 electric motors driven by 4 Cleveland diesels; 3,600 HP; twin propellers
Performance:
Max: 16.0 knots
Economic: 12.0 knots; 7,200-mile range
Electronics: SPS-23 radar; SQS-1 sonar
Complement: 117 as commissioned, USCG: 5 officers/ 34 enlisted plus accommodations for 90 reservists
Armament: (as built) 3″/50 dual purpose gun mount, two 40mm gun mounts, six 20mm gun mounts, one depth charge thrower (hedgehogs), four depth charge projectors (K-guns) and two depth charge tracks.
(1955): 3″/50 dual purpose gun mount, two 40mm gun mounts
(1963) 3″/50, small arms

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

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

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

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Dig those MK18s…

Official caption: 170214-N-N0901-003. RAMSUND, Norway (Feb. 14, 2017) Sailors assigned to Platoon 802, the mine countermeasure platoon of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 8, conduct dismounted counter-improvised explosive device operations. EODMU-8 is participating in Exercise Arctic Specialist 2017, a multinational explosive ordnance disposal exercise conducted in the austere environments of northern Norway. U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Seth Wartak/Released)

You can follow the travels of Rota, Spain-based EODMU 8 here.

And more on Arctic Specialist 2017 here.

And here is a 1950s vintage film about the Navy EOD school at Indianhead, MD, to see how things have changed a bit.

After WWII, minesweeping took to the air, at least in the U.S. Navy, and by the 1960s helicopter-borne sleds were the name in the game (see RH-3A’s on USS Ozark in a past Warship Wednesday for more on that).

Current tech involves the MH-53E Sea Dragon towing the Mk-107 sled. The thing is, the Navy just has two dozen ‘Dragons left and they are scheduled to be retired by 2025.

So what is the replacement plan for the ship-based Airborne Mine Counter Measure (AMCM) mission?

Last month the folks at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division, dunked a UUV into the drink via chopper.

They used a “Dragon Master” MH-60S helicopter of HX-21 to drop a MK18 Mod 2 Kingfish underwater unmanned vehicle into the drink. Kingfish has been around since 2011 and deployed in 2013 with the 5th Fleet for tests. The 600-pound, 12-foot long UUV is outfitted with several different

The torpedo-shaped 600-pound, 12-foot long UUV is outfitted with several different pencil and side-scan sonars attuned to mine hunting but can also be used for route recon, debris field inspection, salvage work and just about any other underwater tasking. Based on the Kongsberg Maritime Hydroid REMUS 600, it can remain on task for 24-hours before needing a recharge and dive to 2,000-feet.

The test seemed to go well, by all accounts.

“Once in a hover, the crewman streamed the mass model and adapter into the water and initiated release of the MK18 MOD2 mass model. Once the MK18 MOD2 mass model was released from the UUV adapter the crewman retrieved the adapter back to storage position on the side of the aircraft,” said NSWC PCD MH-60S Integration Lead Tim Currie. “The total operation, from liftoff to touchdown, took 18 minutes. The release of the mass model and recovery of the UUV adapter took approximately three minutes.”

More here

Now they just have to test how to get it back out.

This is the current minehunting system:

U.S. 7TH FLEET AREA OF OPERATIONS (March 23, 2017) Mineman 1st Class Sean McDermott prepares to launch a mine neutralization vehicle aboard the mine countermeasures ship USS Warrior (MCM 10) during Exercise Foal Eagle 2017. The exercise is a series of joint and combined field training exercises conducted by Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea ground, air, naval and special operations component commands. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jermaine M. Ralliford/Released)

This is Northrop Grumman’s AQS-24B combined with the Atlas ARCIMS unmanned minehunting system

Then we have the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) in NAVSEA tests recently off South Florida for its mine countermeasures mission

Laid down, 10 April 1957, at Stephens Bros, Inc., Stockton, CA, YP-655 was a YP- 654-class Training Craft used at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, and apparently the Surface Warfare Officer’s School Command (SWOS) activity on the West Coast until 1994 to “provide the midshipmen professional training course with practical training afloat on a robust platform to conduct professional development in a safe shipboard environment equipped with systems essential to modern seamanship and navigation. Such training is designed to develop within midshipmen the abilities of an officer-of-the-deck, a proficiency in navigation, and a working knowledge of afloat operations.”

A number of the same class were used (briefly) in the Navy’s Craft of Opportunity Program which turned YPs and commercial fishing boats into experimental small coastal mine hunters.

The 81-foot wooden hull uses four 6V-71N Detroit Diesel engines, and, as noted by Navsource, was purchased from DRMS by one Anthony Dibnah and converted to the motor yacht St. Elias, then sold to a Jim Hornung in October 2006, and at first maintained at Alameda, CA then Galveston, TX., under her naval livery, once more as YP-655.

Now, apparently, she is up for sale once again in  Sea Brook, TX for a very reasonable $385K in what looks like excellent condition.

Anchors away!

Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock is using what they term a Mine Warfare Rapid Assessment Capability (mRAC) demonstrator which “is a man-portable threat detection and localization system that utilizes an ultra-sensitive magnetometer sensor package to afford operators the ability to conduct an exploratory wide area search more efficiently.”

Or, put in a more basic description: a quadcopter with a magnetometer array linked to an iPad, which is pretty cool. They bill it as working the 0-40 foot surf/littoral area.

Above video shows it in use at the Ship-to-Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation (S2ME2) Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) 2017 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.

The name “Pelican” in honor of the large and rather dopey seabird, has always been carried by a mine warfare vessel in the U.S. Navy.

USS PELICAN (AM-27) Caption: With PN-9 #1 on her fantail, after the unsuccessful San Francisco to Hawaii flight in early September 1925. The ship is going to Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Description: Catalog #: NH 44902

The first, AM-27/AVP-6, was a Lapwing-class minesweeper laid down 10 November 1917 at Gas Engine and Power Co., Morris Heights, New York. Commissioned a month prior to Armistice Day, she helped with the sweeping of the North Sea Mine Barrage and was almost blown sky high when a chain of six British mines exploded all around her on 9 July 1919. Heroically saved by her crew and responding ships, the beaten Pelican limped to Scapa and was repaired. Later converted to a seaplane tender, she served in both the Atlantic and Pacific in WWII (including work as a “Tuna boat” Q-ship) before being sold for scrap in November 1946 after 29 years service.

USS Pelican via Navsource

The second Pelican, (MSC(O)-32/AMS-32/YMS-441) was a YMS-1-class minesweeper built at Robert Jacob Inc. City Island, New York. Commisoned with a hull number only in 1945, she assumed Pelican‘s vacant moniker 18 February 1947. She supported the Eniwetok atomic bomb tests and then saw extensive service in the Korean War, including helping to clear the heavily mined port of Chinnampo. Taken out of service in 1955, she was loaned to Japan as the JDS Ogishima (MSC-659) for 13 years before striking in 1968.

The third Pelican, MHC-53, is an Osprey-class coastal minehunter built at the now-defunct Avondale Shipyard, Gulfport, Mississippi, launched 24 October 1992 and commisoned 18 November 1995. Based on the 164-foot Italian Lerici-class minehunters designed by Intermarine SpA in the early 1980s, and built in variants for Algeria, Finland, Malaysia, Nigeria, Australian and Thailand, the Osprey‘s were a good bit larger, at 188-feet overall but could float in just seven feet of water, enabling them to perform littoral sweeping and clear mines from inland waterways.

Below is a slice of her hull sandwich that I have, a two-inch-thick piece of green soap-colored carbon fiber-reinforced polymer resin that has the consistancy of a brick– and is non-magnetic.

The Osprey-class were the largest vessels built at the time, save for the eight-foot longer HMS Hunt-class minehunters, to have fiberglass hulls. This may have been surpassed since then by a mega yacht or two, but I doubt it as most of those are steel hulled.

While most countries still use their Lerci-class vessels (31 are afloat worldwide and Taiwan is building six more by 2023) the 12 Ospreys, after spending their time in the Reserves, were decommissoned 2006-2007 while still relatively young. Eight low-mileage Ospreys had either been transferred to or marked for transfer to other navies: two each to the Hellenic (Greek) Navy, Lithuanian Navy, Egyptian Navy, and Republic of China (Taiwan) Navy, anf four scrapped (!)

Pelican, struck from the Naval Register 16 March 2007, was commisoned by the Greeks as HS Evniki (M61) the same day, and she continues in active service.

Evinki, in the Corinth Canal that connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. The rock walls, which rise 300 ft. above sea level, are at a near-vertical 80° angle.