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100 years ago today: Spandaus-a-go-go

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Can you say, Maschinengewehr?

“Two German Machine Guns at Main Advance Salvage Dump of the 77th Division. These guns, which have been put in order by the French, will be used to fire back captured ammunition against the Boche. The large gun is a heavy Maxim marked, ‘Deutsche Waffen Und Munitons fabriked, Berlin 1917.’  The small gun is a light Maxim marked, ‘9238 MG 08/15 Gwf Spandau, 1917.’ 77th Division near Chery-Chartrevue, September 12, 1918”

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.



The Brits really dug camo for their snipers

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Common among snipers the world over today, the ghillie suit or bush suit, traces its origin to Scottish gamekeepers with a Scotland-raised yeoman regiment, the Lovat Scouts, using them for the first time in modern combat in the Boer War.

These Highlanders, drawn largely from outdoorsmen, were described as “half wolf and half jackrabbit” in their tactics when down in the veldt and the suit draws its name from the Gaelic faerie Gille Dubh, a forest character clad in moss and leaves that hides among the trees. The use of “scrim” often from repurposed potato sacks, helped break up their outline.

What is scrim?

Scrim is nothing but a basic fabric that has a light, almost gauzy weave to it. It’s used in bookbinding (that woven fabric in the back of hardcover books), theatre and photography (to reflect light), and in simple industrial applications like making burlap sacks.

(H 10707) A camouflage suit for a sniper. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205215212

The suits became widespread in sniper use in the Great War. Take this superb example in the IWM under review:

“First World War period British Army sniper’s camouflage robe. Many British Army snipers were trained by former Highland gamekeepers and deer stalkers of the Lovat Scouts, who gave extensive guidance regarding their skills of personal camouflage and concealment. As a result, many items of clothing were adopted on the Western Front, either improvised or officially produced, including mittens, gaiters, and robes” Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30097861

Here is another.

“Robe loose-shaped single-breasted robe, made of linen, complete with a fitted hood that incorporates a face mask with apertures for the mouth and eyes. The smock is dabbed and smeared with various shades of paint to achieve a random (disruptive) camouflage finish.” Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30100483

And a third:

“Smock: loose-shaped single-breasted robe, made of canvas, complete with a fitted hood that incorporates a face mask with openings for the mouth and eyes. The smock is painted in colors of various shades to achieve a random camouflage finish and, additionally, has tufts of dried organic vegetation sewn to break up the outline.” Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30092440

When the Second World War came in 1939, the Brits fell back on what worked.

“Experiments in camouflage, 1940. One figure is trying on the upper portion of a prototype sniper suit. He is being watched by a man wearing Khaki and smoking a pipe, who is holding the suit trousers. On the floor behind them are some pots of paint and another suit hung on a mannequin. There are more sketches of the suit in the upper right corner of the page.” Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/38898

A Camouflaged Sniper watching his Target, Llanberis, North Wales (Art.IWM ART LD 3422)”A head and shoulders depiction of a British infantry sniper in training in Wales. The sniper is shown wearing camouflaged kit and black face paint, aiming his rifle at a distant target.” Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/21861

British Snipers on the Island of Ubbea near Khakio : 10th Infantry Brigade (Art.IWM ART LD 5040) image: In the foreground three carefully camouflaged British snipers wearing camouflaged smocks have positioned themselves
amongst the rocks and vegetation of a hill side. They appear to be overlooking a road that winds through a hilly coastal country. The sea and a neighboring island are visible in the top right of the composition. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/5318

Normandy Campaign (B 8177) A sniper demonstrates his camouflage at a sniper school in a French village, 27 July 1944. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202430

The practice continues across MoD today, using low-IR fabric to keep down detection by modern optics, because if it ain’t broke…

Pictured are Snipers from 34 Squadron, The Royal Air Force Regiment based at RAF Leeming, undertaking Live Firing Tactical Training at the Otterburn Training Area. (MoD Crown Copyright)


Warship Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017: The Potemkin’s little red brother

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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, Sept. 20, 2017: The Potemkin’s little red brother

Here we see the modified Bogatyr-class 1st class protected cruiser Ochakov (Очаков) of the Tsarist Navy as she appeared when first commissoned. She went by several different names and flew a myriad of different ensigns in her time, including that of the first Red admiral and the last White Russian general.

Ordered as part of the Imperial Russian Navy’s 8-year building plan, the German yard of AG Vulcan Stettin won the contract to design and build a class of protected cruisers that, for the time of the Spanish-American War, were modern. The basic design was a 6,000-ton ship with a main battery of 152mm guns, a secondary battery of a dozen 75mm guns, six torpedo tubes (four on deck and two submerged), the capability to carry sea mines and make 23-knots. In short, the Tsar’s admiralty described these ships as “a partially armored cruiser, resembling a high-breasted battleship in appearance, and in fact is a linear, lightly armored ship.”

Bogatyr. Colorised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

The cruisers of this type were rightly considered the best representatives of the class of medium armor deck cruisers of their day.

Only class-leader Bogatyr was built in Germany. Follow-on vessels Oleg and Vityaz were built in two Russian yards in St Petersburg, intended for the Baltic Fleet, while two others, Kagul (we’ll call her Kagul I, for reasons you will see later) and Ochakov were constructed in the Black Sea– the latter at the Lazarev Admiralty Yard in Sevastopol. As the five cruisers were built in five different yards spread across the continent, it should come as no surprise that they were all slightly different.

Laid down within 14 months of each other, they were envisioned to commission about the same time, however Vityaz was destroyed by fire on the builder’s ways in 1901 and scrapped, leaving the other four ships to enter service between August 1902 and October 1905, with the hero of our tale, Ochakov, named after a city in Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, joining the fleet on 2 October 1902 though, suffering from several defects in her electrical system and boilers, she was still in what could best be described as extended builder’s trails as late as November 1905.

OCHAKOV (Russian Protected Cruiser, 1902-1933). View made on deck looking aft toward the ship’s twin 6-inch mount and the bridge. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1986. Description: Catalog #: NH 101049

Trapped in the Black Sea due to Ottoman control of the Straits, Ochakov, and Kagul I did not participate in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905 though sister Oleg fought at the Battle of Tsushima and managed to barely escape to be interned in the Philippines while Bogatyr sortied from Vladivostok for commerce raiding during the conflict.

Speaking of the Black Sea Fleet in 1905, something happened that you may have heard of:

Caught up in the anti-Tsarist backlash that resulted from defeat in the Pacific and loss of two out of three Russian fleets, the country was thrown into the what is described as the Russian Revolution of 1905. Some two months after the war ended, one of the darkest chapters of that unsuccessful episode was The Sevastopol Uprising.

There, one Lt. Pyotr Petrovitch Schmidt, from an Odessa-based naval family of German decent (his father fought at Sevastopol during its great siege in the Crimean War), was something of a rabblerouser.

Schmidt

A graduate of the Naval Officers’ Corps in Saint Petersburg (53rd out of 307, class of 1886) he was soon dismissed to the reserves in 1889 after spending much of his time with the frozen Baltic Fleet on the sick list, but rejoined the warm Black Sea Fleet in 1892 only to transfer into the merchant shipping service in 1900, going on to command several steamers. Recalled to the colors for the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he was given command of the coal transport Irtysh which was sailing for the Pacific to be sunk at Tsushima but before it left Russian waters he was thrown in the brig for insulting a fellow officer but later let out to rejoin his ship. However, by the time the fleet made it to Africa, he was back on the sick list and sent to the Black Sea Fleet to help hold it down for the duration of the war, nominally given command of Torpedo Boat No. 253.

Stripped of most effective officers and NCOs to man the other ill-fated Russian task forces and left with ships full of raw recruits and untalented leaders, the Black Sea Fleet in late 1905 was a powder keg of inefficiency that led to the famous mutiny of the battleship Potemkin in June, which was quickly put down and the ship recaptured, the 42 men considered to be in the thick of it thrown in the brig on the minelayer Prut.

Enter Schmidt, stage left.

He formed the “Union of Officers-Friends of the People in Sevastopol” and in October 1905 led a crowd to the Odessa city prison to protest the arrest of local revolutionaries and began distributing leaflets. This landed him in the jail alongside the other reds, but he was quickly released. He was cashiered at the rank of Captain 2nd Rank.

However, by 11 November, representative crew members from at least seven Black Sea Fleet warships were attending Schmidt’s group’s fiery meetings, with some calling for outright rebellion. The new sailors’ soviet elected him as their leader.

By 13 November, with an estimated 2,000 sailors and longshoremen in mutiny across Odessa, the officers of the Ochakov beat feet and left the mutineers in charge. The leaderless crew signaled that Schmidt should join them and he did, arriving at around 2 p.m. on 14 November with his 16-year-old son in tow and Imperial shoulder boards still on his uniform. Understrength– just 350 crew, with few senior NCOs and no officers remained– the unfinished warship was clearing for an uncertain fight.

Then they went to get the Potemkin‘s locked up leaders:

Having thrown out the Admiral’s flag on Ochakov and gave the signal: “I command the fleet, Schmidt”, with the expectation of immediately attracting the whole squadron to this insurrection, he sent his cutter to the “Prut” in order to release the Potemkin people. There was no resistance. “Ochakov” received the sailors-convicts on board and went around with them the whole squadron. From all the courts, there was a welcome “Hurray.” Several of the ships, including the battleships Potemkin [which had been renamed St. Panteleimon, the patron saint of accidents and loneliness] and Rostislav, raised a red banner; at the latter, however, it only fluttered for a few minutes.

By the morning of the 15th, Schmidt fired off a telegram to Tsar Nicholas II:

“The glorious Black Sea Fleet, sacredly devoted to the people, demands Your Majesty to immediately call a meeting of the Constituent Assembly, and no longer obeys orders of Your ministers. Commander of the Fleet P. Schmidt.”

While he initially had seven other warships answering his signals, and his little red fleet was a sight that no doubt gave every Bolshevik a lump in their throat, they realistically had no chance.

Over the course of the day, one by one the ships took down their red flag, leaving only the cruiser and a destroyer as the only rebels. Gen. Meller-Zakomelsky, the Tsar’s commander ashore, trained every gun in the harbor– including some 12-inch pieces– on the Ochakov and the gunners were loyal. An ultimatum was issued. The battleship Rostislav, with her 254mm guns and Vice Admiral Alexander Krieger aboard, closed to within 900m of the cruiser.

At 1600, the shore batteries and Rostislav opened fire, riddling the cruiser with at least 2 254-mm and 16 152-mm shells. She was able to get six shots off in return, which missed. A fire soon broke out on Ochakov, and Schmidt stopped the fight, lowered the national ensign and red flag, then hoisted a white one. It was all over in 20 minutes. Schmidt and 35 of the sailors thought key to the uprising were carted off in chains.

In March 1906, Schmidt and three men from Ochakov (sailors AI Gladkov, NG Antonenko, Quartermaster S. P. Priknik) were executed by a firing squad on windswept Berezan Island at the entrance of the Dnieper-Bug Estuary by the crew of the gunboat Terets.

Thrown into a shallow grave, it was unmarked until 1924 when the Soviets began erecting monuments to the people’s heroes of 1905. Of the other 300~ survivors of her red crew and the men that were recycled from the Potemkin mutineers, 14 were exiled to Siberia, 103 imprisoned at hard labor at terms several years, and 151 sent to labor battalions to serve the rest of their original enlistment.

As for Ochakov, her magazines flooded to prevent her from going in one quick puff of smoke, she smoldered for two days but did not sink. Towed into the yard for repairs, the blackened ship had 63 shell holes in her hull and superstructure and several compartments with human remains.

To erase her memory from the fleet, the ship was extensively reconstructed and, oddly enough, given the name of her sister– Kagul, which was in turn renamed Pamyat’ Merkuriya in March 1907.

Returning to the fleet, Kagul II as we like to call her (ex-Ochakov), was a much different ship. She proved relatively effective, rebuilt with lessons learned from her plastering by the fleet in 1905 and from against the Japanese.

She also became a test bed for seaplane use for reconnaissance and scouting purposes.

Russian Navy Curtiss Floatplane being hoisted aboard the Cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in February 1915, in the Black Sea. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drapshil of Margate, Florida, 1984. Description: Catalog #: NH 100152

Russian Navy Curtiss Floatplane being hoisted aboard the Cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in February 1915, in the Black Sea. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drapshil of Margate, Florida, 1984. Description: Catalog #: NH 100152

Russian Navy Curtiss F-type flying boat serial number 15 seen in the Black Sea, with the cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in the background. Information accompanying this photograph indicates that it was taken during the 28 March 1915 operation off the Bosporus. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1984.Catalog #: NH 100153

Russian Navy Curtiss F-type flying boat serial number 15 seen in the Black Sea, with the cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in the background. Information accompanying this photograph indicates that it was taken during the 28 March 1915 operation off the Bosporus. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1984.Catalog #: NH 100153

When the Great War came, the two cruisers served as the eyes of the Black Sea Fleet and hunted for the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau, bombarded fired the Turkish coast, covered mine laying expeditions (and themselves laid several of their own mine barriers) and captured or sank a number of Ottoman and later Bulgarian coasters.

Unidentified personnel seen on deck aboard the protected cruiser KAGUL (1902-1934) in The Black Sea on 20 March 1915. A twin 152mm/ 6-inch, 45-caliber gun turret appears in the center. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983 Catalog #: NH 94406

Unidentified personnel seen on deck aboard the protected cruiser KAGUL (1902-1934) in The Black Sea on 20 March 1915. A twin 152mm/ 6-inch, 45-caliber gun turret appears in the center. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983 Catalog #: NH 94406

AMALIA (Turkish Merchant Ship) Photographed in the Black Sea at the time of capture on 4 May 1915 off the Rumelian coast. This 430-register ton merchant ship was carrying a cargo of petrol. This view was taken from aboard the Russian cruiser KAGUL (1902-1932) which made the capture while on a raiding cruise. Description: Courtesy of Boris V. Drashpil Catalog #: NH 94798

AMALIA (Turkish Merchant Ship) Photographed in the Black Sea at the time of capture on 4 May 1915 off the Rumelian coast. This 430-register ton merchant ship was carrying a cargo of petrol. This view was taken from aboard the Russian cruiser KAGUL (1902-1932) which made the capture while on a raiding cruise. Description: Courtesy of Boris V. Drashpil Catalog #: NH 94798

Photographed in Port at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on 27 March 1916 (old style calendar, 13 days behind present western dating). Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1893 Catalog #: NH 94408

Photographed in Port at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on 27 March 1916 (old style calendar, 13 days behind present western dating). Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1893 Catalog #: NH 94408

After her Great War redemption, again came the revolution.

On 15 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated after a week of riots and mutinies by the Imperial Guard in Petrograd. The Baltic Fleet, Northern Fleet and Pacific Squadron followed suit in swearing allegiance to the Provisional Government, as did the Black Sea Fleet. Memories of the 1905 Mutiny in Odessa and Sevastopol were still strong and, at the end of the month with a red flag on her mast once more, Kagul (II) became Ochakov again, her sailor’s committee in charge.

With the decline of the Russian war effort against the Central Powers, and Lenin and Co removing the Provisional Government in November, the country dropped out of the conflict with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. Ceded to German/Austrian control as part of the pact, Ochakov was captured by the Germans in May and remained in nominal service to the Kaiser until the British arrived on 24 November, two weeks after the Armistice.

Turned over to the anti-Bolshevik White Army forces, the largely crewless warship became part of Lt. Gen. Anton Denikin’s Armed Forces of the South of Russia, which led to the cruiser being renamed after that force’s early leader, General Lavr Kornilov (who himself was zapped by Red artillery in April 1918).

In 1919, after Denikin’s attack upon Moscow faltered, he fell back to the Black Sea and evacuated the remnants of his forces from Novorossiysk to the Crimea where Lt. Gen. Piotr Wrangel took over the force, our cruiser included.

The endgame of Wrangel’s effort came in November 1920 when 140,000 soldiers, Cossacks, monarchists and general White Russian diaspora left the Crimea on everything that could float. Wrangel, on his yacht Lucullus, led the working ships of the Black Sea Fleet including two battleships, two cruisers (including our subject), 15 destroyers/escorts, and five submarines first to Constantinople and then to Bizerte in French North Africa where they arrived in December.

There, the fleet in being remained for four years under RADM. Mikhail Berens until its disarmament after the recognition by France of the Soviet Union on 29 October 1924, when her old Cross of St. Andrew was hauled down as ownership had been transferred to the Soviets. After inspection by emissaries from Moscow, Ochakov/Kornilov never left Tunisia and was instead sold as scrap in 1933. Some of her guns were later likely used in French coastal defenses.

GENERAL KORNILOV Possibly photographed at Bizerte, where the ship spent 1920 to 1932 as a unit of the White Russian "Wrangel-Fleet." From the P.A. Warneck Collection, 1981; Courtesy of B. V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida. Catalog #: NH 92158

GENERAL KORNILOV Possibly photographed at Bizerte, where the ship spent 1920 to 1932 as a unit of the White Russian “Wrangel-Fleet.” From the P.A. Warneck Collection, 1981; Courtesy of B. V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida. Catalog #: NH 92158

Of her sisters, Bogatyr was scrapped in Germany in 1922 after the Reds sold her for spare change along with a number of other Baltic Fleet vessels while Oleg was written off by the Bolsheviks as a combat loss 17 June 1919 after she was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy speedboat CMB-4 commanded by Captain Augustus Agar at Kronstadt. As for Kagul I (Pamiat’ Merkuria) she was unable to sortie with Wrangel’s last fleet and, captured at Sevastopol, was renamed Komintern and refitted with material salvaged from Bogatyr and Oleg, later fighting the Germans in WWII until her loss in 1942.

The name Ochakov was celebrated in the Soviet Union, going on to grace a Kara-class cruiser in 1969. Based in the Black Sea (where else?) she was decommissioned in 2011 but later sunk as a blockship to piss off the Ukrainians in 2014.

The more things change.

Specs:

Displacement: 7800 fl
Length: 439 ft. 8 in
Beam: 54 ft. 6 in
Draft: 20 ft. 8 in
Propulsion:
2 shaft vertical triple-expansion steam engines
16 Normand-type boilers
23,000 hp
Speed: 23 knots
Endurance: 5320 (10) on 1194 tons coal
Complement: 30 officers and 550 sailors
Armament:
(As built)
12 × 152mm (6 in/44cal) Obuhovsky/Canet guns (2 twin turrets and 8 single guns), 2160 rounds
12 × 75mm (3in/48cal) 11-pounder guns, singles, 3600 rounds
8 × 47mm Hotchkiss guns, single
2 × 5-barrel 37 mm guns Hotchkiss guns
6 × 17.7 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes
292 M08 Sea mines
(1917)
10x 130mm/53cal singles
12 × 75mm (3in/48cal) 11-pounder guns, single
2x 64mm landing guns
8 × 47mm Hotchkiss guns, single
2 × 5-barrel 37 mm guns Hotchkiss guns
2 x Maxim machine guns
6 × 17.7 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes
292 M08 sea mines
Armor:
Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Turrets: 127 mm (5.0 in)
Casemates: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Conning tower: 140 mm (5.5 in)

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Crank em out

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Here we see a beautiful example of perhaps the best .45-70 chambered Gatling design, the Colt-produced Model 1890.

This wonder, fitted with 10 31-inch octagon barrels, could let those big buffalo-killer sized rounds rip at 525 rounds per minute, which would produce a giant billow of burnt black powder in the process. Weighing in at 200-pounds (sans bipod) this thing was a beast to run but had all the bells and whistles of a modern Gatling design including the Murphy Stop and the Bruce Feed.

This particular specimen sold last week at auction (Rock Island) for $54K.

Individual U.S. Army officers bought a few of Dr. Richard J. Gatling’s guns in the Civil War in .42-caliber and .58-caliber, and later the Army adopted the gun in 1866 and later morphed into the Model 1874, 1876, 1877, 1883 and 1889 guns chambered in .45-70.

On the lead-up to the Spanish-American War, the Army purchased 53 Gatling Guns in .45-70 over a three-year program: 18 M1890s, 17 M1891s, and 18 M1892s, and were the last in that caliber ordered by Uncle Sam.

The M1893 models and later were chambered in .30 Government (.30-40 Krag)– Lt. John “Gatling Gun” Parker famously took a quartet of M1895s to San Juan Hill in 1898 while the Marines had much lighter and more modern M1895 Colt–Brownings in 6mm. Not to be dissuaded, the Army ordered even more Gatlings in 1900 and even converted them to run the 30.06, keeping them in service until the cusp of WWI.


100 Years ago today, Key West NAS

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curtiss-n-9-seaplane-like-the-one-pictured-here-in-key-west-circa-1917-18

On this day in 1917 Lt. Stanley Parker made the first Naval flight recorded at Key West. It was in a Curtiss N-9 seaplane, like the one pictured here in Key West, circa 1917-18 (the planes in the back are Curtiss Model Fs).

The N-9 was the floatplane variant of the classic Curtiss JN-4 Jenny trainer and the Navy ordered very decent 560 of the craft, which remained in service as late as 1927. In all they trained more than 2,500 Navy, Coast Guard and Marine aviators during the World War I period alone and were vital to the development of catapult operations and early torpedo bomber experiments including pilotless drone torpedo concepts.

curtiss-n-9-seaplane

Only one is still in existence, on display in the Pre-1920 Aviation exhibition at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA

Key West NAS, of course, is still around, though very battered these days.


I say, is that a Thornton-Pickard Mk III?

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I thought this was great.

Australia is conducting their first nationwide firearms amnesty since the great melt-down of 1996 in an effort to get an estimated 300,000+ undocumented guns either on the books or in the furnace and they have had a lot of interesting stuff show up. These included this awesomely wicked specimen turned over to blue heelers in QLD.

The thing is, the impressive hand cannon is actually a British-made Thornton-Pickard Mk III H model “camera gun” of the type used by the Royal Air Force, and to a lesser degree the U.S. Army Air Corps, during WWI and the immediate post-war period.

The only thing it shoots if film.

Thornton Pickard Mk III H (Hythe) (PHO 75) British Thornton-Pickard Mk III H camera gun of the type used by the Royal Air Force during the First World War and immediate post-war period. See also PHO 22. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30004956

More in my column at Guns.com


A lost German in Rwanda

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German warships in Africa on the eve of the Great War have always drawn a lot of interest. Everyone knows of the SMS Konigsberg and its last stand on the Rufiji River, the old unprotected cruiser-turned commerce raider SMS Geier as well as the scuttled survey ship SMS Möwe. What you may not have heard of the steam launch named for Schutztruppen officer Oberleutnant Friedrich Paul Greatz’s that was used on the shores of Lake Kivu.

Now on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, back in 1909, the area was German East Africa and Lutheran missionaries of the Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten Bethel organization used the humble 35-foot motorboat to travel the lake in their work.

Very “The African Queen” Note the extensive awning frame which covered most of the craft.

When war came, the boat, renamed Greatz, was armed with a machine gun and used by local troops to motor around and trade shots with the Belgians in the Congo, whose Force Publique was very much at war with the Germans.

By legend, Greatz was scuttled and buried along the shore of the lake in mid-April 1916 and hasn’t been since, but a group is eagerly looking for her bones along the Rwanda coast of Kivu today.

“We learnt from our parents that the Germany fighter buried the ship with so many weapons which he did not want Belgians to capture,” said Onesime Bimenyimana, a resident of the area.

“We tried to dig deep to exhume the cruise and take the advantage of the treasures, but we failed. Germans themselves came back in the 1980s to find their boat but their efforts yielded no results.”


Sure, you’ve heard of a sergeant-major, but have you heard of a corporal-lieutenant?

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NH 100613

An officer and men of the South Carolina-class battleship USS MICHIGAN (BB-27) landing force prepare to disembark off Vera Cruz, Mexico 22 April 1914 for a rough shore call.

The men wear coffee dyed “white” uniforms and carry Springfield M1903 rifles. The officer, center, wears a Marine Corporal’s uniform, with chevrons and an M1912 pistol belt with magazine pouch for an M1911 which is likely on his person. Note the poncho slung across his body, and packs on deck, one with a rack number stenciled on the attached cartridge belt.

Some 22 men of the 1st Marine Brigade and their accompaning 1,200-man Naval Landing Parties were killed at Vera Cruz while Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ordered that 56 Medals of Honor be awarded to participants in this action, the most for any single engagement before or since.



U.S. Mint’s 2018 World War I Centennial Silver Dollar, medals

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The United States Mint last week revealed the obverse (heads) and reverse (tails) designs for five silver medals that will be issued in conjunction with the 2018 World War I Centennial Silver Dollar. Each medal, composed of 90 percent silver, pays homage to branches of the U.S. Armed Forces that were active in World War I.

The reverse features the branch’s seal. The head shows a scene from the Great War specific to the branch.

Army clearing no man’s land, note the M1903, though the M1917 Enfield would likely be more fitting

Navy four-piper destroyer with a bone in her teeth

Marines at Belleau Wood

(Army) Air Force Spad XIII (though I think the JN-4 Jenny would be more appropriate).

Coast Guard Cutter Seneca heading out in heavy seas toward the torpedoed steamship Wellington.

Each silver medal will be paired with a World War I Centennial Silver Dollar and offered as a special set. These medals will not be available individually.

The World War I Centennial Silver Dollar

Additional information about these sets will be available prior to their release in 2018.


95 years ago today: Good trap, Darb!

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An Aeromarine 39B piloted by Chevalier is seen just before it touches down on the flight deck of USS Langley (CV-1) on 26 October 1922 – the first landing aboard an American aircraft carrier. Via National Naval Aviation Museum.

An Aeromarine 39B piloted by Chevalier is seen just before it touches down on the flight deck of USS Langley (CV-1) on 26 October 1922 – the first landing aboard an American aircraft carrier. Via National Naval Aviation Museum.

Born 7 March 1889 in Providence, Rhode Island, the bespectacled Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier graduated from the Annapolis in 1910, and volunteered for flying duty after a heroic stint on the battleship USS New Hampshire (BB 25), taking part in Naval aviation’s first fleet deployment to Guantanamo Bay in 1913 with a Curtiss A type airplane.

Appointed a Naval Air Pilot on 7 November 1915 he piloted the first plane to be launched by catapult, from the armored cruiser USS North Carolina on 12 July 1916.

Commanding the first naval air station in France, at Dunkerque during WWI, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and subsequently became a Naval Aviator (Number 7) on 7 November 1918, just four days before the end of the Great War.

Godfrey "Darb" de Courcelles Chevalier, Naval Aviator No. 7, in the pilot's seat of early aircraft at Perdido Beach, Alabama, circa 1914. Hunter Brown is his passenger (may be seen bareheaded at intersection of engine block and propeller), and Charles W. Virgin (in bathing suit) is at right. NH 70285

Godfrey “Darb” de Courcelles Chevalier, Naval Aviator No. 7, in the pilot’s seat of early aircraft at Perdido Beach, Alabama, circa 1914. Hunter Brown is his passenger (may be seen bareheaded at intersection of engine block and propeller), and Charles W. Virgin (in bathing suit) is at right. NH 70285

As a pioneer in Naval Aviation, he was a part of the trans-Atlantic flight of the NC Aircraft in 1919, helped with the fitting out of the former collier USS Jupiter into the Navy’s first carrier, USS Langley.

It was aboard the inaugural flattop that Darb touched down on this day in 1922 for the first time, shown in the first image above.

Sadly, he would die from injuries received in an aviation accident in Virginia just 19 days later, ending his promising career at age 33.

The Navy named two destroyers after their first carrier-man: DD-451, a Fletcher-class destroyer sunk in 1943 and DD-805, a Gearing-class destroyer struck in 1975; as well as Chevalier Field at NAS Pensacola which remained in use until the 1990s and is now site of the barracks for the Naval Air Technical Training Center.

The wings pictured belonged to Lieutenant Commander Godfrey Chevalier, Naval Aviator Number 7, who was the first to trap on board a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. They are in the collection of the National Naval Aviation Museum

The wings pictured belonged to Lieutenant Commander Godfrey Chevalier, Naval Aviator Number 7, who was the first to trap on board a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. They are in the collection of the National Naval Aviation Museum


Send for the pigeon guy, mon ami

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A very serious French soldier of the 141st Regiment with homing pigeons in 1915. According to reports, they played a vital part in the Great War on all side as they provided an extremely reliable way of sending messages. “Such was the importance of pigeons that over 100,000 were used in the war with an astonishing success rate of 95 percent.”

And today, 102 years later, the French still keep at least one guy on the payroll versed in carrier (pigeon) operations– just in case.


Warship Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017: The Phrygian of the Great North

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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, Nov. 1, 2017: The Phrygian of the Great North

At 11,000-tons and with four pipes, you would expect her to pack more than 6-inch guns.  At least she had 16 of them! Photo via Naval History and Heritage Command NH 58647

Here we see the Diadem-class 1st rank protected cruiser HMS Niobe of the Royal Navy in 1899 just after her commissioning with her gleaming black hull. She was used to both help expand the British Empire and found the Canadian Navy.

In the 1890s, obsessed with the threat of commerce raiders such as the Russian and French armored and auxiliary cruisers of the era, the Royal Navy built an excellent duo of protected cruisers in the Powerful-class (14,000-tons, 2×9.2-inch, 12×6-inch guns, 22 knots), but the bottom line was they needed a larger series of cheaper vessels to help do the same on a budget. This led to the Diadem-class which were still big (11,000-tons), had as much as four-inches of armor in sensitive areas, could still break 20 knots (on 30! boilers) and packed a nice battery of 16 QF 6-inchers spread out among casemates and shielded deck guns.

Best of all, the Diadems, the last protected cruisers built for the RN, cost as little as £541,927 while the Powerful ran £708,619– a bargain that allowed eight of these more affordable cruisers to be ordered.

DIADEM Class British 1st Class Protected Cruiser. This ship is either DIADEM, NIOBE, EUROPA, or ANDROMEDA, near the beginning of her career. Note the torpedo nets deployed. Description: Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983 Catalog #: NH 95005

The subject of our tale, Niobe, carried the name of the Greek woman of Phrygian who, according to legend, attempted to shield her children from Artemis and Apollo. Her crime of hubris was to brag about her 14 children which in turn led to the lot being slain by the gods and Niobe herself turned into stone. Yikes. Sounds like the gods couldn’t take a joke.

Niobe and her youngest daughter, Roman copy of Greek work from 4C or 2C BC. Firenze, Galleria d. Uffizi (Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen via Maicar)

The moniker had been carried by at least three RN warships before our Niobe, making it a traditional name, though it has not been used since.

Laid down at Vickers, Barrow, in 1895, she commissioned 6 December 1898 and was made part of the Channel Squadron.

Photograph (Q 43294) H. M. S. Niobe about 1899. Note all of the intakes to help feed her 30 boilers. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205277688

When the Boer War broke out in 1899, she spent two years on regular runs from the Home Islands to Cape Town escorting troop and supply ships, and during this same period ranged as far as India to do likewise. During this period, a significant number of her crew were composed of Australians.

SOUTH AFRICA, C 1900. JUNIOR OFFICERS OF HMS NIOBE AT CAPE TOWN. Via AWM

SOUTH AFRICA, CAPE TOWN, C 1900. SAILORS ON HMS NIOBE COLLECTING THEIR RUM RATIONS. Via AWM

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, 1900. MARINES ABOARD HMS NIOBE via AWM

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, 1900. CUTLASS DRILL ABOARD HMS NIOBE via AWM

Following the conflict, she escorted the twin-screw ocean liner RMS Ophir, then on Royal Yacht duty, carrying the future King George V and Queen Mary, on a world tour.

HMS Ophir in 1902, with HRH the Duke of York and Duchess of York, (souvenir) Photographers: Winfred J. Erb and Lewis B. Foote.

Further service with the Home Fleet saw the increasingly obsolete Niobe (protected and armored cruisers had started to fall out of favor after a poor showing of the type during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905) paid off in 1910.

However, she was still useful for training and as such was sold to the Canadians who were in the process of building a blue-water navy of their own as something of a prestige ship that September for £215,000 (about half price).

Upon transfer to the Naval Service of Canada, the reclassified HMCS Niobe– along with much smaller 3,600-ton Apollo-class protected cruiser HMCS Rainbow– became the first two in a long and illustrious line of HMC ships and submarines.

The warship entered Halifax Harbor on 21 October 1910, having steamed across the Atlantic from Portsmouth, England. As noted by the Canadian Forces, HMCS Niobe was the first Canadian combat ship to enter Canada’s territorial waters, a landmark event in the beginnings of the nascent Naval Service of Canada.

HMCS Niobe, entering Halifax Harbor, color postcard by Baxter. Nova Scotia Archives accession no. 1979-221 no. 63

With that being said, her service in Canada was not particularly covered in glory.

After running aground off Nova Scotia in 1911, she spent six months in dry dock and emerged with her speed and capabilities limited, then, in turn, was largely left at pierside for the next several years undermanned and under loved. All those boilers and guns took a lot of Tars– which the young country just didn’t have. In fact, some returns from the time show the vessel with fewer than 300 men assigned– less than half her planned crew.

Still, she was a floating classroom and incubator for Canada’s fleet. It could be argued that if it weren’t for Niobe in 1910-14, there would not have been a foundation for the force numbering 9,000 officers and men by 1918 and is still in existence today as one of the most professional (if underfunded) sea services in the world.

HMCS Niobe, at wharf at North End of HMC Dockyard, Halifax, N.S Photograph via Nova Scotia Archives N-2599

When the Great War broke out, some 106 Newfoundland naval reservists were quickly assigned to Niobe, which was soon patched up enough to get back underway.

HMCS Niobe being readied for WW1 in August 1914 at the HMC Dockyard Halifax dry-dock. RC navy photo.

They searched the Strait of Belle Isle for German cruisers and spent 10 months patrolling the waters around New York and Boston as part of the Royal Navy’s 4th Cruiser Squadron.

Torpedo party, HMCS Niobe 1915. She carried 24 450mm torpedoed and three tubes. Nova Scotia Archives

Stokehold, HMCS Niobe, 1915. Did we mention she had 30 boilers? H.F. Pullen Nova Scotia Archives accession no. 1984-573 Box 3 F8

Mess deck, HMCS Niobe 1915 H.F. Pullen Nova Scotia Archives accession no. 1984-573 Box 3 F8

Notably, during this time she ran to ground the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich who had claimed 11 Allied ships over the winter of 1914-15. The low-speed stalk was remarkable for the fact that both Niobe and her nemesis were had engines and boilers that were worn out, but Friedrich narrowly made it to Newport News to be interned by the Americans.

The closest thing to Niobe’s biggest threat– the German passenger liner Prinz Eitel Friedrich. Converted to an auxiliary cruiser in 1914, she was interned first by the Americans at Norfolk and then at Philadelphia, where she is seen in this photo with U.S. battleships in the background, she was seized when the U.S. entered World War I. She was renamed USS DeKalb and placed in commission on 12 May 1917 U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 100562

After the Niobe‘s boilers gave out in July 1915, the vessel was decommissioned that September and the Newfoundlanders were sent to Britain for reassignment while the abused cruiser was left at Halifax to serve as a station ship.

Photograph (Q 39724) H. M. S. Niobe. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205274258

There, at 8:45 a.m. on 6 December 1917 the 3,000-ton French freighter SS Mont-Blanc suffered a collision with the Norwegian ship, SS Imo. A fire aboard the French ship ignited her cargo of picric acid, TNT, and guncotton– all wonderful things to ship together.

At 9:04, the out-of-control fire aboard Mont-Blanc vaporized the ship, releasing the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT and causing what is known today as the Halifax Explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in recorded history. In all, some 2,000 were killed or missing and another 9,000 injured.

And Niobe was in the middle of it– a crew from the cruiser working to move the French ship before it went sky-high. In the blast, the 11,000-ton cruiser, moored with three good Admiralty Pattern bow anchors as well as a concrete embedded anchor holding her in place were all dragged, and some lost outright.

Niobe herself was seriously damaged topside though she was shored up, repaired, and kept in nominal service as a hulk until 1920.

Diadem Class Protected Cruiser HMCS Niobe pictured at Halifax late in her career

She was sold for scrap in 1922.

As such, she outlived many of her seven sisters.

Ariadne, converted to a minelayer, was torpedoed and sunk off Beachy Head by the German submarine UC-65 on 26 July 1917 while on the Dover Patrol. Diadem, Spartiate, and Andromeda all spent the Great War as harbor ships– with the latter existing in such a role into the 1950s. Amphitrite, Argonaut, and Europa all served with the 9th Cruiser Squadron during the war in the Mediterranean and Atlantic but were quickly disposed of after the Armistice.

Niobe is extensively remembered, with her name gracing the RCN’s training establishments in various forms.

Her bell is at the Naval Museum of Halifax and numerous small items are in maritime collections in the UK and Canada.

Two of her 6-inch QF guns are on shore at Saint John, New Brunswick with one at HMCS Brunswicker, and another at 3 Field Regiment.

Other parts keep popping up as well.

In 2014, a one-ton anchor from Niobe damaged in the Halifax Explosion was found during the demolition of building D19, Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax buried beneath the parking lot of all places. The city now celebrates “Niobe Day” on October 21, the anniversary of her arrival in 1910.

During the demolition of building D19, Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax an anchor (left) was found buried beneath the parking lot. It is believed that this anchor could possibility belong to Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Niobe. This image was taken on 20 October 2015. ©DND 2014 Photo by MCpl Holly Swaine, Formation Imaging Services Halifax Halifax

“The discovery of one of HMCS Niobe’s anchors in Halifax Harbor just a week before proclaiming October 21st to be known and celebrated in the Royal Canadian Navy as Niobe Day is astonishing,” said Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. “This fantastic finding gives us a chance to reflect on our collective accomplishments since 1910, on the values in which we anchor our service as members of the profession of arms, and on what is required of us to ensure we continue to deliver excellence, both at sea and ashore, in the years to come. This is a true blessing and a rare opportunity to connect the dots between our forefathers and the next generations of sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy.”

She is also remembered in maritime art.

Specs:

Displacement: 11,000 tons
Length:
435 ft. (132.6 m)
(462 ft. 6 in (140.97 m) o/a)
Beam: 69 ft.
Draught:
25 ft. 6 in
27 ft. 6 in
Propulsion:
2 shaft triple expansion engines:
16,500 hp
30 Belleville boilers
Speed:
20.25 knots
Range:
2,000 nmi at 19 knots, 10000 (10)
(bunker capacity 1900 tons coal)
Complement: 677
Armament:
16 × single QF 152/40 QF Mk I/II 6-inch guns
14 × single 76/40 12pdr 12cwt QF Mk I guns
3 × single QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss Mk I (47 mm) guns
2 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes (1 above water stern, 2 submerged on beam)
8 Maxim machine guns
Armor:
Casemates and gun shields 4.5 in (110 mm)
Hoists 2 in (51 mm)
Deck 4–2.5 in (102–64 mm)
Conning tower 12 in (300 mm) fore
6 in (150 mm) tube to the fore conning tower
2 in (51 mm) aft conning tower
Armor was Harvey Nickel steel, except for armored deck

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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A bit of desert that will always be Scotland

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“The graves of two Scottish soldiers are marked by upturned rifles in the sand, North Africa, 5 November 1942,” some 75 years ago this quiet Sunday.

Photo by No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Smales (Sgt) IWM (E 18952) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205204021

This reminds me of Scottish poet Roderick Watson Kerr‘s piece, From the Line. Kerr himself was invalided out after picking up the MC while a junior officer in the 2nd Royal Tank Corps during the Great War.

From the Line

Have you seen men come from the Line,
Tottering, doddering, as if bad wine
Had drugged their very souls;
Their garments rent with holes
And caked with mud
And streaked with blood
Of others, or their own;
Haggard, weary-limbed and chilled to the bone,
Trudging aimless, hopeless, on
With listless eyes and faces drawn
Taut with woe?

Have you seen them aimless go
Bowed down with muddy pack
And muddy rifle slung on back,
And soaking overcoat,
Staring on with eyes that note
Nothing but the mire
Quenched of every fire?

Have you seen men when they come
From shell-holes filled with scum
Of mud and blood and flesh,
Where there’s nothing fresh
Like grass, or trees, or flowers,
And the numbing year-like hours
Lag on – drag on,
And the hopeless dawn
Brings naught but death, and rain –
The rain a fiend of pain
That scourges without end,
And Death, a smiling friend?

Have you seen men when they come from hell?
If not, – ah, well
Speak not with easy eloquence
That seems like sense
Of ‘War and its Necessity’!
And do not rant, I pray,
On ‘War’s Magnificent Nobility’!

If you’ve seen men come from the Line
You’ll know it’s Peace that is divine !
If you’ve not seen the things I’ve sung –
Let silence bind your tongue,
But, make all wars to cease,
And work, and work for Everlasting Peace !

–from War Daubs (London: John Lane, 1919) via the Scottish Poetry Library


Greetings, 2018

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Yet, I always feel a century or two behind…

 German sentry welcomes in the new year, 1918. Photo colourised artificially

German sentry welcomes in the new year, 1918. Photo colourised artificially

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018: One of the luckier sugars

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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, Jan. 3, 2018: One of the luckier sugars

Photo by famed Boston Herald cameraman Leslie Jones via The Boston Public Library, colorized by my friend and the most excellent Postales Navales https://www.facebook.com/Postales-Navales-100381150365520/

Here we see the somber crew of the early “Government-type” S-class diesel-electric submarine USS S-8 (SS-113) — back when the Navy just gave ’em numbers– as she pulls into Boston’s Charlestown Navy Yard some 90-years ago today: 3 January 1928, in the twilight of her career. They are no doubt still reeling from the loss of her close sister, S-4 (SS-109) just two weeks prior, to which the boat stood by to help rescue surviviors without success.

The S-class, or “Sugar” boats, were actually three different variants designed by Simon Lake Co, Electric Boat, and the Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) in the last days of the Great War in which U.S.-made submarines had a poor record. Looking for a better showing in these new boats, of which 65 were planned, and 51 completed in several subgroups. These small 1,000~ ton diesel-electrics took to the sea in the 1920s and they made up the backbone of the U.S. submarine fleet before the larger “fleet” type boats of the 1930s came online.

The hero of our tale, USS S-8, was 231-feet oal, could dive to 200 feet and travel at a blistering 15-knots on the surface on her twin MAN 8-cylinder 4-stroke direct-drive diesel engines and two Westinghouse electric motors for 11-knots submerged. Armament was a quartet of 21-inch bow tubes with a dozen fish and a 4″/50 cal popgun on deck for those special moments. Crew? Just 38 officers and men.

Her Government-type sister, USS S-4 (SS-109) Interior view, looking aft in the Crew’s Quarters (Battery Room), 25 December 1919. Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. Note folding chairs and tables, coffee pot, Christmas decorations door to the Control Room. NH 41847

USS S-4 Description: (Submarine # 109) Interior view, looking forward in the Crew’s Quarters (Battery Room), 25 December 1919. Taken by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. Note folding chairs, table, benches, and berths; also Christmas decorations. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41848

S-8 was technically a war baby.  A BuC&R design Government-type boat, she was laid down 9 November 1918 at Portsmouth Navy Yard, just 48-hours before the Armistice. Commissioned 1 October 1920, she was attached along with several of her sister ships (including the ill-fated Portsmouth-built USS S-4 whose interior is above) to SubDiv 12 and, together with SubDiv18, sailed slowly and in formation from Maine via the Panama Canal to Cavite Naval Station with stops in California and Hawaii.

USS S-8 (SS-113) Underway during the 1920s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41749

In all, the journey from Portsmouth to the Philippines took a full year, but according to DANFS, “set a record for American submarines, at that time, as the longest cruise ever undertaken. Other submarines, which had operated on the Asiatic station prior to this, were transported overseas on the decks of colliers.”

S-8 and her sisters formed SubFlot 3, operating in the P.I. and the coast of China while forward deployed for three years, the salad days of her career.

USS S-8 (SS-113) At the Cavite Navy Yard, Philippine Islands, circa 1921-1924. Note the awning and the type’s “chisel” bow. Collection of Chief Engineman Virgil Breland, USN. Donated by Mrs. E.H. Breland, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 103259

Submarine tender USS Camden (AS-6) Photographed circa the middle or later 1920s, with ten S type submarines alongside. The submarines are (on Camden’s starboard side, from left to right): USS S-18 (SS-123); unidentified Electric Boat type S-boat; USS S-19 (SS-124); USS S-12 (SS-117); and an unidentified Government type S-boat. (on Camden’s port side, from left to right): unidentified Government type S-boat; USS S-7 (SS-112); USS S-8 (SS-113); USS S-9 (SS-114); and USS S-3 (SS-107). Note the awnings. Collection of Vice Admiral Dixwell Ketcham, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 100459

By Christmas 1924, S-8 was at Mare Island, California and was a West Coast boat for a minute before chopping to the Panama Canal for a while.

Submarine tender USS Holland (AS-3) in the Canal Zone, with several S type submarines alongside, circa 1926. Note the Submarine Division Eleven insignia on the fairwaters of the two inboard subs. Submarines present are (from inboard to outboard): unidentified; USS S-25 (SS-130); USS S-7 (SS-112); USS S-4 (SS-109); USS S-6 (SS-111); and USS S-8 (SS-113). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 53436

May 1927 found S-8 and several her SubFlot 3 alumni sisters stationed on the East Coast at the big submarine base in New London.

It was during this time that tragedy occurred off New England.

On 17 December 1927, sister USS S-4, while surfacing from a submerged run over the measured-mile off Provincetown, Cape Cod, Mass., was accidentally rammed and sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard-manned destroyer USS Paulding (DD-22/CG-17), killing all on board. An inquiry later absolved the Coast Guard of blame.

As noted by Naval History.org, “The two ships had no idea the other would be there.”

Per DANFS on the incident:

The only thing to surface, as Paulding stopped and lowered lifeboats, was a small amount of oil and air bubbles. Rescue and salvage operations were commenced, only to be thwarted by severe weather setting in. Gallant efforts were made to rescue six known survivors trapped in the forward torpedo room, who had exchanged a series of signals with divers, by tapping on the hull. However, despite the efforts, the men were lost. S-4 was finally raised on 17 March 1928 and towed to the Boston Navy Yard for drydocking. She was decommissioned on the 19th.

Diver descending on the wreck of the USS S-4 from USS Falcon (AM-28)

Half submerged S-4 sub after accident. Charlestown Navy Yard – Pier 4 Leslie Jones Boston Public Library 3 12 1928

USS S-4 Description: (SS-109) Interior of the Battery Room, looking aft and to port, 23 March 1928. Taken while she was in dry dock at the Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Massachusetts, after being salvaged off Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she had been sunk in collision with USCGC Paulding on 17 December 1927. The irregular object running the length of the compartment, just above the lockers on the right (port) side, is the collapsed ventilator duct through which water entered the Control Room. Into this duct water forced the curtain and flag, which clogged the valve on the after side of the bulkhead, preventing it from closing. It was this water which forced the abandonment of the Control Room. S-4 flooded through a hole, made by Paulding’s bow, in the forward starboard side of the Battery Room. See Photo # NH 41847 and Photo # NH 41848 for photographs of the Battery Room, taken when S-4 was first completed. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 41833

SS-8 went to the aid of her sister, but it was to no avail.

Sub S-8 at the Navy Yard after standing by S-4 off Provincetown when she was rammed and sent to the bottom by USS Paulding. Leslie Jones, Boston Herald Photographer, via Boston Public Library collection.

U.S. sub S-8, Charlestown Navy Yard Jan 15, 1928. Leslie Jones, Boston Herald Photographer, via Boston Public Library collection.

U.S. sub S-8, Charlestown Navy Yard Jan 15, 1928. Leslie Jones, Boston Herald Photographer, via Boston Public Library collection.

With just a decade of service under their belt, the age of the Sugar boats was rapidly coming to an end as the Depression loomed, and precious Navy Department dollars were spent elsewhere on more modern designs. Three others of the class were lost in peacetime accidents– S-5, S-48, and S-51— while a number were scrapped wholesale in the 1930s.

Departing New London on 22 October 1930, S-8 sailed to Philadelphia where she was decommissioned on 11 April 1931.

Subs S-3/S-6/S-7/S-8/S-9 going out of commission at Philadelphia Navy Yard. Leslie Jones, Boston Herald Photographer, via Boston Public Library collection.

She was struck from the Navy list on 25 January 1937 and scrapped.

Though obsolete, several S-boats remained on the Navy List and served the Navy well in both the Atlantic and Pacific (including several lost to accidents) during WWII. A half-dozen were even transferred to the Royal Navy as Lend-Lease including class leader and former submersible aircraft carrier, USS S-1.

None of these hardy, if somewhat unlucky, craft endure though Pigboats.com keeps their memory alive.

Specs: (Government-type S-class boats which included USS S-4-9 & 14-17)


Displacement: 876 tons surfaced; 1,092 tons submerged
Length: 231 feet (70.4 m)
Beam: 21 feet 9 inches (6.6 m)
Draft: 13 feet 4 inches (4.1 m)
Propulsion: 2 × MAN diesels, 1,000 hp (746 kW) each; 2 × Westinghouse electric motors, 600 hp (447 kW) each; 120-cell Exide battery; two shafts.
Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h) surfaced; 11 knots (20 km/h) submerged
Bunkerage: 148 tons oil fuel
Range: 5,000 nautical miles (9,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) surfaced
Test depth: 200 ft. (61 m)
Armament (as built): 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (bow, 12 torpedoes)
1 × 4 inch (102 mm)/50 caliber Mark 9 “wet mount” deck gun
Crew: 38 (later 42) officers and men

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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Warship Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018: Meiji’s favorite cruiser

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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, Jan. 10, 2018: Meiji’s favorite cruiser

Photo by famed Boston Herald cameraman Leslie Jones via The Boston Public Library, colorized by my friend and the most excellent Postales Navales https://www.facebook.com/Postales-Navales-100381150365520/

Here we see the lead ship of her class of Japanese armored cruisers, IJN Asama, leaving Boston harbor for New York, 26 September 1927, during a happier time in Japanese-U.S. relations. She held her head high in three wars, taking on all comers, and in the end, from her award date to the time she was broken, she gave the Empire a full half-century of service.

Ordered as part of the “Six-Six Fleet” in the days immediately after the Japanese crushed the Manchu Chinese empire on the water in 1894-95, Asama (named after Mount Asama) and her sistership Tokiwa were ordered from Armstrong Whitworth in Britain.

Some 9,700-tons and carrying a mixture of Armstrong 8-inch/45cal main guns and Elswick 6″/40 secondaries, these two 21-knot cruisers were meant to scout for the new battleships also ordered from her London ally to counter the growing Imperial Russian Navy’s Pacific fleet– remember at the time the Tsar had just cheated the Japanese out of Port Arthur and was eyeing both Manchuria proper and Korea as well. They were designed by naval architect Sir Philip Watts as an update to his 8,600-ton Chilean cruiser O’Higgins.

Asama shortly on trials, 1899 NH 58986

ASAMA (Japanese cruiser, 1898-1947) Starboard bow view taken in British waters soon after completion in 1899. Description: Catalog #: NH 86665

Completed within six weeks of each other in the Spring of 1899, the two Japanese first-class cruisers were considered a success from the start– Asama made 22.1 knots on trials– and arrived at Yokosuka by Summer. Emperor Meiji himself, the nation’s 122nd, used Asama for his flagship during the Imperial Naval Review in 1900 and the ship was dispatched back to Britain two years later for the Coronation Review for King Edward VII at Spithead.

photograph (Q 22402) Japanese Cruiser ASAMA, 1902. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205262917

When war came she was in the vanguard.

The very first surface engagement of any significance, besides the opening raid on Port Arthur itself, saw Asama and a host of other cruisers under RADM Uryū Sotokichi confront the Russian cruiser Varyag and the gunboat Korietz in Chemulpo Bay, Korea on 9 February 1904.

Nihon kaigun daishori Banzaii! Battle of Chemulpo Bay 1904 Russian protected cruiser Varyag and the aging gunboat Korietz ablaze and sinking. Japanese cruisers Asama (foreground), Naniwa, Takachiho, Chiyoda, Akashi and Niitaka (by Kobayashi Kiyochika)

The action did not go well for the Russians, with both of the Tsar’s ships on the bottom at the end of the fight and no “official” casualties reported by the Japanese.

Asama later engaged the ships of the 1st Russian Pacific Squadron at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August and the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons (the former Baltic Fleet) in the much more pivotal carnage of Tsushima. In the latter, she traded shots with the Russian battlewagon Oslyabya and came away with three 12-inch holes in her superstructure to show for it. Following the war, Meiji once again used Asama to review his victorious fleet in Tokyo Bay despite more powerful and modern ships being available for the task.

Her next war found Asama searching for German surface raiders and Adm. Von Spee’s Pacific Squadron in August 1914, a task that brought her across the Pacific and in close operation with British and French allies– as well as cautious Americans. In was in Mexican waters on 31 January 1915 that she holed herself and eventually grounded, her boiler room flooded.

Photographed off the Mexican Pacific coast (possibly Mazatlán) from aboard USS RALEIGH (C-8, 1892-1921). The original caption states, “RALEIGH standing by until ASAMA leaves harbor” and also that the ASAMA was aground. ASAMA does appear slightly down by the head here. Description: Catalog #: NH 93394

ASAMA (Japanese cruiser, 1898-1947) Port beam view. Probably taken during salvage operations in mid-1915 after ASAMA had grounded in San Bartolome Bay, California. Catalog #: NH 86657

It wasn’t until May that she was refloated with the help of a crew of shipwrights from Japan and, after more substantial repairs at the British naval base in Esquimalt BC, she limped into the Home Islands that December, her war effectively over until she could be completely refit and given new boilers, a job not completed until March 1917.

After the war, the historic ship was converted to a coast defense vessel to take away her cruiser classification (the Naval Treaties were afoot) with the resulting removal of most of her 8-inch and 6-inch guns. She then was tasked throughout the 1920s and 30s with a series of long-distance training cruises which saw her roam the globe– that is where our Boston picture at the top of the post comes from.

Photo by famed Boston Herald cameraman Leslie Jones via The Boston Public Library, showing Asama in Boston Harbor in front of the Custom House Tower, Sept 1927. This was during Prohibition and several USCG 75-foot cutters are seen in the foreground.

ASAMA (Japanese cruiser, 1898) Photographed during a visit to an American port between the wars. Note Naval ensign, also 8″ guns. National Archives 80-G-188754

ASAMA (Japanese cruiser, 1898-1947) Overhead view taken during coaling operations between 1922 and 1937.NH 86666

ASAMA (Japanese cruiser, 1898-1947) Caption: Starboard beam view took off Diamond Head, prior to 1937. Description: Catalog #: NH 86650

Then came the night of 13 October 1935, when, while operating in the Inland Sea north north-west of the Kurushima Strait, she ran aground again and was severely damaged. Though repaired, her hull was considered too battered to continue her training cruises and she was converted to a more sedate pierside role at Kure as a floating classroom for midshipmen.

When her third war came in 1941, she was used as a barracks ship and largely disarmed, her guns no doubt passed on to equip new and converted escort craft. She avoided destruction by the Allies and was captured at the end of the war, eventually stricken on 30 November 1945.

ASAMA (Japanese training ship, ex-CA) At Kure, circa October 1945. Collection of Captain D.L. Madeira, 1978. Catalog #: NH 86279

The old girl was towed away and scrapped locally in 1947 at the Innoshima shipyard.

Her sister, Tokiwa, was converted to a minelayer and sowed thousands of those deadly seeds across the Pacific. Up armed with batteries of AAA guns and air search radars, she made it through the war until 9 August 1945 when she was plastered by dive bombers from TF38 while in Northern Japan’s Mutsu Bay and beached to prevent losing her entirely. She was scrapped in Hokkaidō at the same time as Asama.

Specs:

ASAMA Port beam view. Probably taken between 1910 and 1918. Ship in background is cruiser TSUKUBA. NH 86654

Displacement: 9,514–9,557 long tons (9,667–9,710 t)
Length: 442 ft. 0 in (134.72 m) (o/a)
Beam: 67 ft. 2 in (20.48 m)
Draft: 24 ft. 3 in–24 ft. 5 in (7.4–7.43 m)
Installed power:
18,000 hip (13,000 kW)
12 Cylindrical boilers (replaced by 16 Miyabara boilers in 1917)
Propulsion:
2 Shafts
2 triple-expansion Humphry’s, Tennant steam engines
1406 tons coal
Speed: 21+ knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), 19 by 1904, 16 by 1933
Range: 10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 676-726
Armament:
2 × twin 20.3 cm/45 Type 41 Armstrong naval guns
14 × single QF 6 inch /40 Elswick naval guns
12 × single QF 76mm (12 pounder) 12 cwt Armstrong naval guns
8 × single QF 3 pounder Hotchkiss guns
5 × single 457 mm (18.0 in) torpedo tubes, (1 bow, 4 beam) (removed 1917)
Armor: Harvey nickel steel
Waterline belt: 89–178 mm (3.5–7.0 in)
Deck: 51 mm (2.0 in)
Gun Turret: 160 mm (6.3 in)
Barbette: 152 mm (6.0 in)
Casemate: 51–152 mm (2.0–6.0 in)
Conning tower: 356 mm (14.0 in)
Bulkhead: 127 mm (5.0 in)

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

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Those thick metal doo-dads on the front of milsurp rifles

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Ian with Forgotten Weapons (aka Gun Jesus) gives the low-down on stacking rods and swivels, for those who don’t know. You’d be surprised how many people do not.

Team Work Wins!

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Here we see “Teamwork Wins!” by Roy Hull Still, from the 1918 U.S. War Department urging production on the Home Front.

Photo via National Association of Manufacturers photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession 1973.418), in Hagley’s Audiovisual collections. NY Hist Soc

The gun shown is the water-cooled belt-fed M1917 Browning machine gun, Uncle Sam’s 47-pound answer to the heavier British Vickers and German Maxim guns of similar layout. John Browing had worked on the design off and on for two decades before it went int production after a test at Springfield Armory the month after Wilson and Congress declared war on “The Hun.” Very reliable, Browning’s sustained fire machine gun chugged through 21,000-rounds of 30.06 M1906 Government ammo in 48 minutes without a stoppage.

A group of American soldiers poses with an M1917 Browning machine gun, c. 1917 notice holstered M1917 .45 revolvers, Brodie helmets and gas masks

While Colt, Remington, and Westinghouse all rushed the gun into production on large contracts, only something like 1,200 made it to the Western Front by Armistice Day, and most of those only in the last part of the war.

While largely replaced by the M1918 BAR and M1919 LMG in various forms (both also a Browning design), the old M1917 remained in a niche heavy machine gun role particularly in defensive operations (while Colt sold commercial models abroad) through WWII and Korea. For an example of just what they could do if used properly, see Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone.

As a result, the M1917, in turn, appeared on Victory Bond posters in WWII as well

In all, over 128,000 were produced for the U.S. alone.

As an example of the old beast still at work, see the below 1953 Army Big Picture film, “Soldier in Berlin” where at the 22:00~ mark the Berlin Brigade is shown on manoeuvres in the Grunewald forest with, among other things, a beautiful heavy machine gun platoon with a loadout of M1917A1’s on the line. Had the balloon gone up on WWIII, you can be sure they would have chattered until overrun or out of ammo.

The hefty water-cooled Browning remained in the arsenal until finally replaced by the M60.

They always have you throw your shit on the ground in the parking lot before deployment

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I give you the London Scottish Regiment, Kit inspection, Dorking. London, 1916:

The London Scottish were part-time territorials formed as the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers as part of the old Volunteer Force in 1859, sponsored by The Highland Society and The Caledonian Society of London, then later reformed after the Boer War as the London Regiment’s 14th Battalion.

1/14 was called up when the balloon went up in August 1914 which would make the above unit, 2/14, which embarked for France in June 1916. They later served in Salonika and Palestine.

During WWII, the unit raised three full battalions which saw extensive service.

Since 1992, they have formed A (London Scottish) Company of the London Regiment and serve to augment the Foot Guards on public duty, still wearing their kilts for special occasions.

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018: The wandering Dutchman of the Baltic

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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, Jan. 31, 2018: The wandering Dutchman of the Baltic

NHHC Catalog #: 19-N-11-21-10

Here we see the Holland-class Pantser-dekschepen (protected cruiser) HMNLS Gelderland of the Royal Netherlands Navy (who else?) at the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review, Jamestown, Virginia, 12 June 1907– with her laundry out to dry as a schooner passes. Designed before the 20th Century, she would go on to have the longest life of her six pack of sisters and, modernized to fight a very different war than she was intended, suffer a curious fate.

The Hollands were the Dutch answer to the Royal Navy’s Apollo-class second-class protected cruisers (3,600-ton, 19.75 kts, 6×6-inch, 6×4.7-inch) and the class leader was ordered in 1894. The first flight of three cruisers (Holland, Zeeland, Friesland) had a displacement of 3,840-tons while the second batch (of which Gelderland was the lead followed by Noord Brabant and Utrecht) went 4,100-tons as they held 12 Yarrow boilers as opposed to 8 in the original design and went just a couple feet longer. Speed was 20-knots on the latter trio while the ships were armed with a pair of 149mm/37cal singles fore and aft and a half-dozen 120mm/37cal guns in broadside as well as smaller guns, all made by Krupp. The “protected” in their designation came from a thin coating of Harvey nickel armor.

They were handsome craft and could both show the Dutch flag in the Caribbean-protecting the Netherlands Antilles, the Pacific where Holland held the sprawling Netherlands East Indies, and of course in metropolitan waters in Europe.

Class leader HMNLS Holland colorized by Postales Navales

The subject of our tale, Gelderland, was laid down at Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij, Rotterdam in 1897. Commissioned 15 July 1900, our new cruiser, on the orders of Queen Wilhelmina herself, was dispatched to carry the former Transvaal president “Oom Paul” Kruger into exile from Portuguese Mozambique, through British sea lanes, to the French port of Marseille.

She left Africa with Kruger on board in October, arriving in France on 22 November where a crowd of 60,000 awaited.

President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic (left) leaving Delagoa Bay, Mozambique on 20 October 1900 aboard HNLMS Gelderland. Photo Nat. Cult. Hist. Museum”, presumably the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria, South Africa.

From the Med, Gelderland proceeded to her first posting, the Dutch East Indies, where she served until rotating back to Europe in 1905.

She was off again in 1907 to represent the Netherlands at the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review in Hampton Roads.

GELDERLAND (Dutch cruiser, 1898) Caption: At the Jamestown Exposition Naval Review, Jamestown, Virginia, 12 June 1907. Description: Catalog #: 19-N-11-21-9

Then came a sortie to Curacao in 1908-09 along with her sister Friesland in response to a brush war from Venezuelan strongman Cipriano Castro who was pissed that his political rivals were being sheltered by the Dutch in their Caribbean colony offshore.

Castro sent his small naval forces to meet the much more imposing Dutch fleet and Gelderland promptly captured the Venezuelan coast guard ship Alix off Puerto Cabell on 12 December 1908. The Venezuelans offered no resistance and the Gelderland towed the Alix as a prize into Willemstad, making headlines around the world. The Dutch then proceeded to effect a naval blockade of the South American country’s coastline. The crisis only ended when vice president Juan Vicente Gómez, with U.S. help, seized power and Castro fled to Germany.

Returning to Europe, Gelderland was rushed to the Bosporus in 1912 to protect Dutch interests during the Balkan Wars, and a 100-man landing force from her crew along with Korps Mariniers of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps defended the legation area in Constantinople.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands was a well-armed neutral during World War I, though the Germans occupied neighboring Belgium and the country absorbed a million refugees (as well as 30,000 escaped Belgian soldiers and the majority of the British 1st Royal Naval Brigade). Though spies from all sides swarmed across the country and German U-boats and mines sank numerous Dutch merchantmen and fishing craft, the Dutch Navy, though mobilized, escaped conflict.

Dutch protected cruiser Hr. MS. Gelderland at Vlissingen, the Netherlands in 1916, The photo was published in the Dutch magazine De Prins dated 23 September 1916 page 148. The Dutch queen Wilhelmina is visible while walking on the pontoon bridge. Source: http://warshipsresearch.blogspot.com/2011/10/dutch-protected-cruiser-hrms-gelderland_27.html

Gelderland 1917

After the war, the class was considered obsolete and whittled down. To be sure, two units, Friesland and Utrecht were decommissioned in 1913 before the conflict and had been scrapped already. Another pair, Holland, and Zeeland, were decommissioned in 1920 and 1924 respectively. Noord Brabant was disarmed in 1920 and used as a barracks ship and hulk at Vlissingen while only Gelderland was retained in service– as a gunnery training ship.

Pantserdekschip Hr.Ms. Gelderland, 1930, via Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie

She undertook regular training missions and was often seen in warmer waters.

Gelderland well-lit during the night, a display in celebration of the birth of Princess Beatrix in January 1938. The photo was most likely taken at Curacao. (Collection J. Stolk via NetherlandsNavy.nl) http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/index.html

In 1939, the pivotal year that the Netherlands would try to escape a Second World War, Gelderland was armed with some additional .50 cal and 8mm machine guns in preparation for the conflict.

When the Germans swarmed into the country in May 1940, the Dutch managed to scuttle Noord Brabant at her moorings, but Gelderland was captured at Den Helder. Renamed by the Germans as Niobe after the figure in Greek mythology, the nearly half-century-old cruiser was heavily modified to serve as an anti-aircraft cruiser (flakschiff), she was given a FUMO 213 Würzburg radar, searchlights, and outfitted with a mixed battery of eight 105mm, 4 40mm, and 16 20mm guns.

Via NetherlandsNavy.nl

The Germans sailed the old Dutchman (slowly) to the Baltic in 1941 where she served as a floating AAA battery to protect key coastal points from the Red Air Force.

Niobe notably fought off Soviet swarms at the Finnish city of Kotka where the Russians thought she was the Finnish coast defense ship and former Warship Wednesday alum Väinämöinen. At Kotka, she was attacked by waves of more than 150 Red A-20 and Pe-2 bombers on 16 July 1944, sending her to the bottom that night after 9 bomb hits.

She suffered 70 casualties from her crew of 397 men from Marine-Flak-Abteilung 282.

Kesällä 1944 pommituksissa uponnut saksalainen ilmatorjuntaristeilijä “”Niobe””.

Kesällä 1944 pommituksissa uponnut saksalainen ilmatorjuntaristeilijä “”Niobe””.

In 1953, the German firm of Taucher Beckedorf from Hamburg raised her, and she was scrapped shortly after.

Gelderland is well remembered by a dedicated website (Dutch).

Specs:
Displacement standard: 3,970 tons, 4100 full
Length: 94.7 meters
Beam: 14.82 meters
Draft: 5.4 meters
Engineering: 2 x triple expansion steam engines, 12 x Yarrow boilers, 9,867 hp
Maximum speed: 20 knots on trials
Bunker capacity: 930 tons of coal max
Range: 4500 nautical miles at 10 knots
Armor: 50mm deck, 13mm gun shield, and 100mm tower armor
Crew: 325
Armament upon delivery:
2 x 149/37 Krupp
6 x 120/37 Krupp
6 x 75/37 Krupp
8 x 37mm Hotchkiss
2 x 7,5cm mortars,
2 x 450mm torpedo tubes (bow, stern)


As Flakschiffe:
8× 10.5 cm FlaK L/45 C/32
4× 40 mm Bofors L/60
16× 20 mm (4×4) Vierlinge C/38

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.

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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