Charles Pears working on an oil painting of ‘R.M.S. Orcades’

Born in the quiet market town of Pontefract, Yorkshire was an Englishman by the name of Charles Pears on 9 Sept. 1873. A professional illustrator from the time he was 17, Charles did his duty in the Royal Marines as an officer in World War I, although in his 40s at the time. He also served as an official war artist through the Second World War, by then in his later 60s, but still on the list of the Royal Naval Reserve. A thorough Englishman, he made his living by drawing and painting amazing and captivating travel images for the Empire Marketing Board, and British Railway as well as in periodicals like Punch and Yellow Book. Between 1902-1933, with a break for his wartime service, he illustrated more than 50 books ranging from A Christmas Carol to The Great War.

Whenever possible, it seems he tried to work warships into his commercial illustrations.

“Gibraltar” by Charles Pears, for the Empire Marketing Board, 1930. Note that its a travel poster– but he still was able to work in a plethora of Royal Navy ships on the horizon.

Again, its a travel poster– but you see the naval aspect clearly.

Charles Pears paid the bills through illustrating.

“New Fast Turbine Steamers” GWR poster, 1923-1947. Poster produced for the Great Western Railway (GWR) to promote the new turbine steamers St Julien and St Helier which operated on services between Weymouth and the Channel Islands. Artwork by Charles Pears, a marine painter in oil who was an Official Naval Artist during the World Wars. He worked as a poster artist for rail companies and other clients and was also a book illustrator. Dimensions: 1050 mm x 1300 mm.

Poster produced for the Great Western Railway (GWR) promoting rail travel to Paignton, South Devon. The poster shows a bathing belle waving a towel on the beach, with the promenade stretching out behind her and sunbathers enjoying themselves on the beach. Artwork by Charles Pears,

However it is is maritime art in oils that Pear excelled in. He lived in the age of the mighty dreadnought and as such, captured some of the best battleship painting ever to grace a canvas.

“HMS Queen Elizabeth” by Charles Pears. he Royal Society of Marine Artists; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

“Transport by Sea: Supplying the Navy 1917″ by Charles Pears 1873-1958 Presented by the Ministry of Information 1918

Charles Pears “HMS Courageous in drydock”

“Battleship HMS Howe in Suez Canal”by Charles Pears. Click to very much biggup

“Jervis Bay action” by Charles Pears

“The Bombing of The British Chancellor in Falmouth Docks, 1940″ by Charles Pears

“British sub K22 in drydock at Rosyth, Winter” by Charles Pears. The Royal Society of Marine Artists; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

“Streaming the para-vanes” by Charles Pears. The Royal Society of Marine Artists; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

“HMS Ullswater torpedoed. ” by Charles Pears. The Royal Society of Marine Artists; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

A motor launch recovering a torpedo. The Royal Society of Marine Artists; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Pears – Hard Lying

“A Boarding Party of Royal Naval Reserve Men Going Aboard a Prize under Searchlight” by Charles Pears

During WWII he painted “MV San Demetrio gets home” which was turned into a Post Office Savings Bank stamp.

“San Demetrio gets home” By Charles Pears. Collection of the IWM

His original artwork presently part of the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Imperial War Museum, and others. In all an amazing 83 of his works are held on public display in the UK.

Charles Pears, member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolor, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the first elected President of the Society of Marine Artists, died in 1958 at age 84 in Cornwall, but his art is timeless. Many of the ships he captured are immortalized no where else and it is through his scholarship that generations who will never know the experience of a true leviathan ship of war, may gaze upon his art and remember.

Thank you for your work, sir.

When French Army dragoons officer Hubert Rochereau rode off to the Great War, his family kept his room just as he left it. When Hubert did not come home, his parents preserved it as a shrine. Even though they too have left these earthly constraints to reunite with their lost son, the room endures.

“A lace bedspread is still on the bed, adorned with photographs and Rochereau’s feathered helmet. His moth-eaten military jacket hangs limply on a hanger. His chair, tucked under his desk, faces the window in the room where he was born on 10 October 1896.”

You see the parents left a clause that it remain for 500 years and so far, although not strictly legally binding, no one has broken it yet.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out 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.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday October 22, 2014 the Overachieving Gresham

USRC Gresham 1902; photo by A. Loeffler, Tompkinsville, N.Y.

Here we see the gunboat (err. Revenue Cutter) Walter Q. Gresham of the United States Revenue Cutter Service (USRCS) in 1902. This hearty little Great Lakes cutter had a life far removed from the one she was originally designed for.

The USRCS was a branch of the Treasury Department established by an act of Congress on 4 August 1790, (which predates the actual U.S. Navy’s official establishment date however that service uses the older date of the establishment of the Colonial Navy as its basis) and was tasked with counter-smuggling operations in peacetime and serving as a backup to the Navy in war. The USRCS merged with the Lighthouse Service and Lifesaving Service to become the USCG in 1915. But back to the ship.

The USRCS decided in the 1890s to build five near-sisterships that would be classified in peacetime as cutters, but would be capable modern naval auxiliary gunboats. These vessels, to the same overall but concept but each slightly different in design, were built to carry a bow mounted torpedo tube for 18-inch Bliss-Whitehead type torpedoes and as many as four modern quick-firing 3-inch guns (though they used just two 6-pounder 57mm popguns in peacetime). They would be the first modern cutters equipped with electric generators, triple-expansion steam engines (with auxiliary sail rigs), steel (well, mostly steel) hulls with a navy-style plow bow, and able to cut the very fast (for the time) speed of 18-ish knots. All were built 1896-98 at three different yards.

USRC McCulloch in full rig. Note that McCulloch is indicative of the five ship class she came from with the exception of having a three-masted barquentine rig where as the other ships, being about 15-feet shorter, had a two mast brigantine auxiliary rig. Painting, Coast Guard Academy Museum Art Collection.

These ships included:

-McCulloch, a barquentine-rigged, composite-hulled, 219-foot, 1,280-ton steamer built by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia for $196,000.
-Manning, a brigantine-rigged 205-foot, 1,150-ton steamer, was built by the Atlantic Works Company of East Boston, MA, for a cost of $159,951.
-Algonquin, brigantine-rigged 205.5-foot, 1,180-ton steel-hulled steamer built by the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,000.
-Onondaga, brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,190-ton steel-hulled steamer built by the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,800.

The fifth ship was the Gresham.

Launched on 12 September 1896, was a brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,090-ton steel-hulled steamer built by the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $147,800. She carried the name of Walter Quinton Gresham, an epic overachiever.

Maj. Gen of Volunteers, the great and Honorable W.Q. Gresham (1832-1895)

Born in 1832 in Indiana, Gresham was a bar-certified attorney and elected state Representative by the time the Civil War broke out. He soon became the 29-year old colonel of the 53rd Indiana and fought at Corinth, Vicksburg, and Atlanta where he was invalided out with a shattered knee and the rank of (brevet) Maj.Gen. of Volunteers. This helped supercharge his political career and he soon became a federal judge appointed by Grant, then Chester Arthur’s Postmaster General and later his Secretary of the Treasury (for a month) before picking up a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals while twice running for the Republican presidential nomination. At the time the gunboat, which carried his name, was ordered, he was serving as Secretary of State in President Grover Cleveland’s Cabinet and died in that office May 28, 1895, hence his name was used to christen the newest cutter. Again, back to the ship…

USRC Walter Q. Gresham commissioned on 30 May 1897 after being accepted by the government three months earlier. While two of these ships were intended for blue-water work on the East Coast (Manning) and West Coast (McCullough), Gresham and near-sisters Algonquin and Onondaga were ordered for Great Lakes service, hence their construction in Cleveland and their homeporting in Milwaukee and Chicago. Since the 200+ foot long cutters were too long to fit through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, they would be landlocked into the lakes their whole life (more on that in a minute).

When commissioned she caused a diplomatic crisis. You see, since these three cutters had a new-fangled torpedo tube and modern guns, the Canadians and their British big brothers objected that the ships were in violation of the 1817 Rush-Bagot Convention and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. These two acts limited U.S./British-Canadian arms build-ups along the border region between the two countries and to this day regulate how heavily armed ships can be along the Great Lakes.

Crew of the Gresham around 1900. Note the old school Donald Duck caps.

Well, just 11-months after Gresham‘s commissioning, war broke out with Spain and, as her two blue water sisters were rushed to serve with the Navy, the USRCS decided to withdraw the three lake-bound ships and put them to good use elsewhere. To get them past the locks in the St. Lawrence, they sailed to Ogdensburg, NY, where they were cut in half, shipped through the canal, and rejoined on the Atlantic side. Gresham officially belonged to the Navy 24 March-17 Aug 1898, but she saw no service in that war.

Gresham cut cleanly in two and barged through the St. Lawrence locks. Her other two sisters were subjected to the same fate.

However, the war ended in August 1898, before Gresham could be reassembled. Not wanting to get the Canadians riled up again, the USRCS left Gresham, Onondaga, and Algonquin on the East Coast where they served as any respectable white-hulled cutter of the time did. Algonquin set off for the West Indies and Onondaga moved to Philly while Gresham lived the life of a New England cutter, based in Boston.

She used her popguns to sink derelict vessels found at sea. She patrolled fisheries looking for interloping foreign trawlers and poachers. Nantucket Island was only able to get supplies and mail during especially harsh winters by the use of Gresham as an ersatz icebreaker.

U.S.R.C. Gresham, flagship of the patrol fleet, America’s Cup races. Library of Congress photo.

She served as the official government presence at a number of the fashionable sea races of the time. This led to a collision during a regatta with Sir Thomas Lipton’s beautiful steam yacht, the Erin, in which the Gresham‘s torpedo tube scraped alongside the hull of that fine ship. The fault was all on Lipton’s ship by the way.

Gresham saved mariners in distress, including famously the “palatial” steamship RMS Republic of the White Star Line (yes, the Titanic‘s company) when she collided with the Italian liner Florida near Nantucket and foundered in 1909. That incident was the first time a CQD distress call was issued on the new Marconi radio device. Standing alongside the stricken ship, Gresham along with other ships and the cutters Mohawk and Seneca helped save more than 1200 passengers and crew.

In 1915 she, along with the rest of the cutter service became part of the new U.S. Coast Guard and she was given pennant number CG-1, her name by that time just shortened to Gresham, without the Walter Q. part.

When war erupted, she was transferred to the Navy for the second time in 6 April 1917 and remained in the fleet until Aug. 1919. Her sail rig was removed as were her 57mm and 37mm popguns, her wartime armament was greatly increased and was depth charges were fitted, which added several hundred tons to her weight and several feet to her draught. During the war, she escorted coastal convoys, watched for U-boats and naval raiders, and helped train naval crews. Interestingly enough, her old collision-mate Erin, while serving as the armed yacht Aegusa in the Royal Navy, was lost to a German mine during the war.

Returning to her normal peacetime cutter activities in the Coast Guard, to which was added policing and chasing after rumrunners in the 1920s (for which some water-cooled Brownings were installed) Gresham entered a quiet chapter in her life. Her armament was greatly reduced and by 1922, her torpedo tube was deactivated as all of the Navy’s stocks of the aging Whitehead Mk3 torpedoes were withdrawn from service.

In 1933, Gresham was again assigned to the Navy and was sent to Cuban waters to monitor the situation there. As part of the Navy Special Service Squadron she was used to patrol the Florida Straits during a series of revolts that eventually put Fulgencio Batista in power in Cuba. In this she served with a number of other Coast Guard vessels sheep-dipped to the Navy to include the Unalga for two years, alternating between Key West, Gitmo, and San Juan.

She was decommissioned 19 January 1935 just before her 40th birthday, which is about right for a Coasty hull. She was then sold for her value in scrap metal on 22 April 1935, the last of her five-ship class to remain in the Coast Guard’s service. Cleveland-built sisters Algonquin and Onondaga had been sold in 1930 and 1924 respectively and disposed of. Cramp-built McCulloch, who served with Dewey at Manila Bay, was sunk in a collision 13 June 1917. Boston-built Manning likewise was sold for scrap in 1931. The Coast Guard just did not have use for a bunch of slow old tubs.

Until World War II came along, anyway.

In 1943, the Coast Guard found Gresham still afloat in some backwater somewhere in the Chesapeake and reacquired her, the sole remaining ship of her class. She was old, with 47 years on her hull. She was in exceptionally poor condition– still with her original cranky vertical, inverted cylinder, direct-acting triple expansion steam engine fired by four single-ended boilers fed by coal.

Nevertheless, she could hold a few guns and maybe scare off a U-boat or two so she was bought (sum unknown) on 21 January 1943 and renovated in Baltimore.

Gresham during WWII. Notice her sail rig is long gone and, for the first time, she has a visible hull number. Photo from Navsource.

Two months later she was relatively seaworthy and, armed with a sonar, radar, depth charge racks and guns, placed into commission as the USS Gresham (WPG-85) on 25 March 1943. Assigned to coastal convoy escort, moving from port to port up and down the East Coast, she was not liked very well. Since her best possible speed was just 8-knots, she slowed the convoys down and they often decided to leave Gresham in port rather instead. In these terms, she served as a guard ship in New York for most of her 13-month WWII service.

Decommissioned 7 April 1944 before the war even ended, she was sold for scrap for a second time.

However, she just wouldn’t die.

In 1946, she was being used by one Nicholas D. Allen of Teaneck, NJ, converted to a tug and renamed T. V. McAllister. He apparently wasn’t very successful with Gresham as in turn he sold her to the Weston Trading Co. of Honduras who renamed the elderly vessel, Trade Winds.

She became a coaster and banana boat along the Caribbean, flying a Panamanian flag. Then in February 1947 she quietly became one of the 12 vessels purchased in America by Ha’Mossad Le Aliya Bet to carry Jewish refugees from Europe, many only months out of concentration camps, to Palestine past the British blockade. Appropriately, Gresham was in good company, as at least three of the other vessels, Unalga (who she had served with in the old Navy Special Service Squadron), Northland, and Mayflower, had served in the Coast Guard at one time or another as well.

Her scant 27-man crew consisted mostly of young American Jewish volunteers with former naval and military service under their belt. She was prepared for its voyage to Palestine at Lisbon, Portugal and PortoVenere, Italy. Yehoshua Baharav Rabinowitz was in charge of the work in Portugal and Avraham akai was in charge in Italy. The vessel, under the Hebrew name “Hatikva” (The Hope) sailed from Bocca di Magra, Italy on May 8th 1947 carrying ,1,414 Ma’apilim refugees. Israel Rotem was its commander and those accompanying him were Alex Shour and Meir Falik; the radio operator was Nachum Manor. Soon five Royal Navy destroyers, enforcing the blockade on Palestine, were tailing the old tub.

c. May 1947 Hatikva loaded with Jewish refugees Algerine Associates photo from Paul Silverstone’s Aliyah Bet Project Aliyah Bet Project. Note that her mast has been stepped. 

One of these ships pulled alongside and called to the captain, “Your voyage is illegal, and your vessel is unseaworthy. In the name of humanity surrender.”

On May 17, 1947, the Hatikva was forcibly intercepted, rammed, and captured by the destroyers HMS Venus and HMS Brissenden. Upon boarding, RN sailors and Royal Marines used tear gas, rifle butts, and batons to enforce their directives and ordered the ship to Haifa to unload where it sat while the American crew was interned on a British prison ship. (For an excellent in-depth story of this action and the American’s fate, read Greenfield’s, The Jews’ Secret Fleet: Untold Story of North American Volunteers Who Smashed the British Blockade)

With Royal Marines coming aboard. Note her old pilot house, a relic from the 19th century.

Later the Israeli Navy was able to reclaim Hatikva in 1948 after independence, but after sea trials, the desperate organization realized they were not that desperate, and sold her for scrap in 1951.

ex-Gresham, then Hatikva of the Israeli Navy (אוניית_מעפילים_התקוה) around 1948. This is the last known picture in circulation of her.

However, Hatikva/Gresham beat the scrappers once more it seemed. She popped up in Greek ownership in the 1950s and found herself back on the other side of the Atlantic again as an unpowered barge, her superstructure, funnel, and mast removed. She was last semi-reliably seen in the Chesapeake Bay area as late as 1980.

Her ultimate fate is unknown, but she may in all actuality be afloat somewhere in Blue Crab country, hiding out as a houseboat in some back eddy or grounded on a mudflat somewhere. If only boats could talk, Gresham would have had much to say. The Spanish American War, both World Wars, a revenue cutter that was deconstructed then reassembled, gunboat, coast guard cutter, freighter, refugee ship…talk about an epic tale. After all, how many ships have been sold to the breakers and lived to tell the tale not once, or twice, but three times!

The Gresham/Hatikva is well remembered in Israel and in the European Jewish community as a whole. This summer a group of 800 French Jewish students announced plans to recreate the voyage of the historic ship.

As a final note on the ship, Israel’s national anthem is named Hatikva, of course it is about the movement overall, but still; there is a small hatttip to the tiny Gresham in there every time it is played.

And Walter Quintin Gresham himself? He was buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery a little to the right of the grave of Union cavalry master Phil Sheridan.

The former seaplane tender made cutter USCGC Gresham

In 1947, the Coast Guard took possession of a 311-foot long gently used seaplane tender, USS Willoughby (AGP-9; AVP-57) and renamed her USCGC Gresham (WAVP/WHEC/WAGW-387) in honor of this long serving vessel and remained in service until 1973. However, if the reports of the original Gresham making it to 1980 are true, her namesake outlived her by almost a decade.

Specs

USRC Gresham as built. USCG Historians Office

Displacement 1,090 t.
Length 205′ 6″
Beam 32′
Draft 12′ 6″
Speed 18 designed, 14.5 kts.by 1930, 8 by 1943
Complement:
1897: 9 officers, 63 men
1917: 103
1919: 71
1943: 125

Armament:
1896: Two 6-pounder 57mm, one 1-pounder 37mm, three .50 cal. machine guns, and one bow torpedo tube
1918: 3 x 4-inch guns; (1500 rounds of ammunition stored in two magazinesfore and aft); 16 x 300-lb depth charges; 4 x Colt machine guns; 2 x Lewis machine guns; 18 x .45 Colt pistols; 15 x Springfield rifles.)
1930: 2 x 6-pdrs RF, 3 x .50-cal watercooled for rumrunners, tube deactivated.
1943: 2x 3″/50 (singles) 4x20mm/80 (singles), 2 depth charge racks, 2 K-gun depth charge projectors, 2 mousetrap depth bomb projectors, QCL-8 sonar, SF-type surface search radar.

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

If you are a fan of modern aviation art, you know the work of Monsieur Romain Hugault. While a relative youngster (born in 1979) his work has gained international acclaim. The son of a military pilot, he earned his own pilot’s license at age 17.

Romain Hugault himself

With his first work, Le Dernier Envol, was published in 2005. Since then he hasn’t turned back and in the past decade has become a favorite aircraft illustrator of airshow posters, calendars, military prints and the like. Known for his illustrated novels  Le Pilote à l’Edelweiss, and  Le Grand Duc, his blog is http://romain-hugault.blogspot.com/ and his website http://www.romainhugault.com/#!/home

Russian Polikarpov I-153 Chaika (seagull) by Romain Hugault

Romain Hugault poster

Romain Hugault’s P-47 “Busty Angel”

Rafael calendar illustration

by Romain Hugault

By Romain Hugault

AVG pilots inspecting a L-2 Grasshopper in SE Asia by Romain Hugault

January 9, 1915 French vision of Russia’s General Winter

With the weather turning colder, I am reminded of this portrayal in a French magazine of the Russian winter blowing in off the steppes to envelope the German and Austrian Armies in World War I.

I do appreciate the fact that it is a Guard Cossack in the uniform of the Tsar’s special Konvoy.

Termed “General Winter” the French remembered the tragic expedition to Russia that swallowed up Napoleon’s united Grande Armee in 1812. Tragically, the Russian winter, while severe, did not stop the Germans to the degree that the French were counting on.

Now WWII, however, would be a different story.

I guess some winters (and the armies that fight on their side) are stronger than others.

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 12, 2014: The Centennial State’s Dreadnought

Here we see the beautiful art deco battleship USS Colorado (BB-45), the pinnacle of pre-WWII U.S. Naval warship design as represented by maritime artist Jim Tomlinson.

Arguably the most powerful class of battleship afloat in the world at the time, Colorado was head of her class of three ships that included USS Maryland, and Warship Wednesday alumni USS West Virginia.

Colorado (BB-45) leading, Maryland (BB-46) following. The 3 sisters can be distinguished from one another (during the 20′s and early 30′s) by the forward range dial. Colorado carries hers half below the bottom of the fire control tower, the Maryland carries hers fully on the face of the fire control tower while the West Virginia (BB-48) carries hers like the Colorado but her dials are black with white numbers. Text & photo i.d. courtesy of Chris Hoehn. Photo possibly by Frank Lynch, chief photographer of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, circa 1929, from the collection of Carrie Schmidt. Navsource . Click to bigup

Displacing nearly 35,000-tons at a full load, their rakish clipper bow set them apart from earlier US battlewagons and made them far drier, especially in rough weather. Turbo-electric transmission pushed four screws and could make 21-knots. Keeping enough oil in her bunkers for an 8000-mile round trip at half that, she was capable of crossing the Atlantic without an oiler to keep close to her.

Colorado just after commissioning. Note the rakish bow.

Up to 13.5-inches of armor (18 on turret faces) shielded her while eight powerful 16-inch guns gave her tremendous ‘throw’. In fact, these guns were among the heaviest afloat until marginally outclassed by the North Carolina-class in 1941.

The closest rival in any fleet around the world to her in 1923 was the British HMS Hood. Hood was bigger and faster (47,000-tons, 31-knots) but had thin armor and 8-15-inch guns. The Japanese Nagato-class were also slightly larger (38,000-tons), slightly faster (25-knots), and 8x 16-inch guns, but like the Hood had less armor.

As a hold back of pre-WWI thinking, she was the last class of US battleships commissioned with torpedo tubes and a four-turret main battery.

Ordered just eight months before the U.S. entered WWI, she was laid down at New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden New Jersey after the end of that conflict. Slow going post-war construction meant that she did not join the fleet until 30 Aug 1923.

A happy ship in the days between the two great wars of the 20th century, she made a maiden voyage to Europe to show off the big guns in every large port from England to Italy and then headed to the Pacific, where she joined the blue water navy based in California and Hawaii. During this next two decades, she performed typical peacetime missions such as NROTC cruises, gunnery exercises, fleet problems, and testing new equipment.

USS Colorado, overhead view 1932. Note the two Vought O3U Corsair float planes on her stern, which Colorado carried since just after she was commissioned. These would be replaced by Curtiss Seagulls in 1936 and in turn by Curtiss Kingfishers.

USS Colorado at 1934 New York naval review with three early float biplanes. While stationed for most of her career in the Pacific, she did reach the East Coast from time to time via the…

…Panama Canal. Click to bigup.

Early 1920s photo with Colorado without her catapult mounted on C turret and seaplanes. These were fitted in ~1928.

When the drums of war in the Pacific started beating in 1941, she was sent to Puget Sound Naval Yard for a one-year refit and upgrade. This saved her from the fate suffered by her sistership USS West Virginia, who absorbed at least 7 Japanese torpedoes on Dec. 7, 1941 while resting on Battleship Row.

With Maryland, who, suffering only two bomb hits at Pearl and likewise escaped destruction on that day of infamy, she formed the tiny reserve of battleships in the Pacific while the Navy was on the defensive. Then in 1943, she went to hard work and proved those mother big twenty-year-old guns of hers weren’t just pretty hood ornaments.

Bow view, port side of the Colorado (BB-45) 2 October 1944. She wore this camouflage scheme through most of the war.

She participated in no less than ten protracted amphibious operations with the Japanese forces between Nov 1943 and the end of the war including Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, the Marianas, Leyte, Mindoro, Luzon and Okinawa. In all she fired over 60,000 shells in anger including 5,495 rounds of 16-inch at shore targets, totally nearly 7,000-tons of ordinance.

Colorado off Tarawa 1943

Colorado, American battleship at Tarawa by Mark Littlejon

During WWII, she spent a total of 204 days in active combat, steaming an impressive 161,879 miles. In addition to this, she downed 11 Japanese aircraft while suffering over 400 casualties during the war from kamikazes and enemy fire.

Many of these losses occurred in duals with Japanese shore batteries. In the worst instance, Colorado was hit by 22 confirmed shells off Tinian July 24, 1944. However, that island was cleared out successfully in part to the ship’s sacrifice and just over a year later, a B-29 carrying the first Atomic bomb to be dropped in warfare took off from that little piece of rock to strike Hiroshima.

USS Colorado off Tinian 24-July-1944 with hull damage, the result of 22 hits from shore batteries

Okinawa Landing, U.S.S. Colorado,1945 Painting By Anthony Saunders.

Colorado holds the all-time record of 37 consecutive days of firing at an enemy and the record of 24 direct enemy air attacks in 62 days both while at Okinawa.

Colorado 1945 Okinawa.Note her seaplanes are not present, likely airborne to help correct shot.

Finishing the war in Japanese home waters, being awarded ten battlestars. She was decommissioned 7 January 1947, just shy of 23 years of hard service. Sadly, after a dozen years on Bremerton’s red lead row of mothball ships, she was stricken and sold to Todd Shipyard for disposal. The Maritime Administration recovered $611,777.77 in her value as scrap metal.

Today her memory is kept alive by the USS Colorado Association who maintain an excellent website.

Although scrapped, parts of her remain in a number of memorials across the country. A half dozen of her 5/51′s are on the decks of the USS Olympia, Dewey’s old flagship, in Philadelphia. These include the ships wheel and bell in Boulder and one of her 5-inch guns in Seattle at the Museum of History and Industry.

Also in Seattle, where she was scrapped at Todd, her beautiful teak-wood decking was re-purposed in 1959 and used to line the cafeteria at the Boeing Developmental Center, where it is still in use today helping to shelter those who build the country’s warplanes.

As a side, if you ever get to Tinian, the 6-inch shore gun that fired at the Colorado (BB-45) and the Norman Scott (DD-640) in 1944 is still there, in much rusted condition.

Specs:

Displacement: 32,600 long tons
Length: 624 ft. 3 in (190.27 m)
Beam: 97 ft. 4 in (29.67 m)
Draft: 38 ft. (12 m)
Propulsion:
Four screws
Turbo-electric transmission
28,900 shp (22 MW) forward
Speed: 21 knots (39 km/h)
Range: 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) (design)
Complement: 1,080
Armament:

(1923)
8 × 16 inch 45 caliber Mark 5 gun (4 × 2)
14 × 5 inch/51 caliber guns
2 × 21 inch torpedo tubes

(1928) 8 × 5 inch/25 caliber guns added

(1942)
8 – 16″45 main battery; 8 – 5″51 secondary battery; 8 – 5″25 AA;
8 – Quad 40mm AA; 1 quad 20mm AA; 8 twin 20mm AA; 39 single 20mm AA.

Armor:
Belt: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
Barbettes: 13 in (330 mm)
Turret face: 18 in (457 mm)
Turret sides: 9–10 in (229–254 mm)
Turret top: 5 in (127 mm)
Turret rear 9 in (229 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 3.5 in (89 mm)
Aviation: one catapult, 2 float planes

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

As a country, the United States has a long history of inventing and perfecting some of the best military systems in the world. However, there was a decade or so that included one of our first foreign wars in which Uncle Sam’s GIs carried a rifle designed by a team of guys named Ole and Erik who hailed from Oslo. Officially designated as the Springfield Model 1892, it’s commonly just called the Krag.

Why was it invented?

In the early 1890s, the standard rifle of the U.S. Army was the Model 1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield, which was basically a single shot rifled musket only slightly evolved from the Civil War through the addition of a breechloading door conversion that allowed it to take a .45-70 blackpowder cartridge. Custer’s men carried these rifles at their last stand. Thoroughly obsolete when compared to the new Mauser, Lee-Metford, and Lebel bolt-action rifles used in Europe, Uncle was fast looking for a new gun that did the same.

This led them to Norway.

Major Ole H. J. Krag of the Royal Norwegian Army, along with gunsmith Erik Jorgensen of the Kongsberg munitions factory had in 1886 produced a very decent rifle chambered in 8x58mmR to replace the Danish Army’s Remington Rolling Block rifles single shot rifles in the same caliber. This Krag-Jorgensen design was bolt-action with a side-opening speed-loading magazine that could be rapidly charged with five rounds in just a second or two.

A magazine cut-off, which allowed the rifle to be shot, reloaded, and shot again without touching the 5-rounds in the mag, gave the Krag a “reserve” of ammunition that at the time seemed impressive. The Krag-Jorgensen has one of the smoothest bolt travels ever due to its single forward-locking lug because of this design.

Strong and accurate, the Danes had adopted it in 1889 to be ready to use it if the Mauser-armed Germans came and the Norwegians were looking at it for much the same reasons.

The two Norwegians however had heard of the U.S. Army’s notice for rifles to trial in 1892 and sent a few to Governor’s Island New York to compete for the much bigger prize there.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

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Charge of Flowerdew’s Squadron, Painted by Sir Alfred James Munnings. Currently in the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art. Canvas was formerly at the Imperial War Museum in London; but it is now in the collection of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

Nearly three-quarters of the Canadian cavalry involved in this attack against German machine-gun positions at Moreuil Wood on 30 March 1918 were killed or wounded. This included Lieutenant G.M. Flowerdew, Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), who was awarded the Victoria Cross for leading the charge that, while devastating to the Canadian horsemen, did break the German line. Unable to break the trench deadlock and of little use at the front, cavalry remained behind the lines for much of the war. During the German offensives of March and April 1918, however, the cavalry played an essential role in the open warfare that temporarily confronted the retreating British forces.

Flowerdew’s VC citation:
For most conspicuous bravery and dash when in command of a squadron detailed for special services of a very important nature. On reaching his first objective, Lieutenant Flowerdew saw two lines of enemy, each about sixty strong, with machine guns in the centre and flanks; one line being about two hundred yards behind the other. Realizing the critical nature of the operation and how much depended on it, Lieut. Flowerdew ordered a troop under Lieut. Harvey, VC, to dismount and carry out a special movement, while he led the remaining three troops to the charge. The squadron (less one troop) passed over both lines, killing many of the enemy with the sword; and wheeling about galloping on them again. Although the squadron had then lost about 70 per cent of its members, killed and wounded from rifle and machine gun fire directed on it from the front and both flanks, the enemy broke and retired. The survivors of the squadron then established themselves in a position where they were joined, after much hand-to-hand fighting, by Lieut. Harvey’s part. Lieut. Flowerdew was dangerously wounded through both thighs during the operation, but continued to cheer his men. There can be no doubt that this officer’s great valour was the prime factor in the capture of the position.

The Royal Canadians, now in their 113th year, are part of the Royal Canadian Armored Corps today as a recon unit stationed in Edmonton, AB. They are a reinforced battalion-sized unit equipped  with 40 Leopard 2′s (21 Leopard 2A4M’s,19 Leopard 2A6M’s) and 24 Coyote Reconnaissance Vehicles. Organized during the Boer War, they have seen combat in WWI (France 1915-18 on horse), WWII (Italy 1944-45 and Holland with M4 Shermans) Korea (1950-53 with M4A3E8 Shermans), and Afghanistan (2002-2011 mainly with Task Force Kandahar) as well as peacekeeping in Bosnia.

As for Flowerdew, he is buried at Namps-au-Val Cemetery in France located 11 miles south-east of Amiens (plot I, row H. grave 1)

A modern-day British Army soldier discusses his equipment with an interpreter kitted out as a British soldier from 1914.Part of ‘First World War in Focus’, an online learning resource from the National Army Museum, London.

William A. Lewis served his country in the United States Navy in World War Two as a young man in his twenties. Born in Mo Town, he had attended the University of Michigan just before the war and returned to it afterwards, attending the College of Engineering and College of Architecture and Design from which he graduated in 1948. By 1957, he was back at the school as an assistant teacher of technical drawing, but he also had a flair for art with painterly abstraction.

A trio of controversial paintings by Michigan University Professor William A. Lewis (the younger man in the photo at the time) entitled “Notices on the Gates of Hell.” at First Unitarian Church, April 1963. Photo by Ann Arbor News

“Painting was my primary interest form the start. I did drawings and watercolors in the Navy and went on from there. Traveled in the U.S. and Europe to look at the galleries and collections, studied J.M.W. Turner in England with the aid of Faculty Rackham Grants. I have worked in ceramics and photography, painted in oils, acrylics, and watercolor and have made collages and combines for years,” says Lewis of his work.

” E.A. Poe” Watercolor by William A. Lewis, 1959 at the Poe Museum in Baltimore

He retired from Michigan in 1986 as Professor Emeritus of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design and Professor of Art Associate Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, capping a nearly 30-year career as an educator.

While at the school he developed a suite of paintings covering the U.S. Civil War, many of which remain in the schools collection. More accessible are his 40 paintings and sketches on the Great War– WWI. Produced from 1955-2010, these works are some of the most haunting images put to canvas of that horrible conflict and are on special exhibit at the River Gallery.

“This presentation is a display of drawings and paintings based on images of the Great War of 1914-1918 — the First World War. I only know about it through the eyes of others and their words. I have, however, known about the basic imagery all my life,” says Lewis in the preamble to the collection.

The Retreat from Antwerp – British Marines and Belgian soldiers, October, 1914 by William A. Lewis | acrylic | 22″ x 15″ | 2009

(HMS) Revenge in the Lead – British pre-dreadnaughts patrolling in the English Channel, July 1914 by William A. Lewis | watercolor | 15″ x 11″ | 1989

British A-class submarine and armored cruiser HMS Aboukir, spring 1914 by William A. Lewis | watercolor | 22″ x 15″ | 1990-2010

Patriot’s Dream | ink | 18″ x 12″ | by William A. Lewis 1955

Thank you for your service Professor Lewis, and thank you for your art.

High up in the hills of the Georgian Caucasus mountains, is a mysterious tribe of highlanders who go by the name of the Khevsurs (also spelled Keveshur). These scattered 3200~ traditionalist Khevsureti inhabit a land dubbed Khevsuria (what else) that consists of a smattering of about two dozen small villages around Mount Borbalo that, by all accounts, have never owed allegiance to anyone.

Scholars visiting these highlanders in the 19th century found these christian-faith armored warriors clad in chain-mail and brandishing both broadswords and shields much as the old European crusaders did. This led to the conclusion that these were holdovers from lost crusades, forever stuck in time.

The hillsides of the region are dotted with impossible to attack keeps in the old way of medieval fortifications that remain to this day. Some of these date back to the 8th Century.

Shatili village, Khevsureti, Georgia photo wiki. The fortified village fortress consists superimposed flat-roofed dwellings and some 60 towers which cluster together to create a single chain of fortifications, impregnable from the ground in medieval times, and impassible from above.

The Turks never conquered them, nor did the Georgians, or anyone else for that matter until the 1950s.

When the Tsar’s Army swept through the region in the 1830s and 40s, the Khevsurs made a deal to remain independent, and agreed only to provide occasional volunteer warriors in time of conflict. Instead of having to pay taxes, the highlanders were given obsolete Russian army rifles from surplus stocks as a token from the far off “Tsar of the Mountain Princes”

In 1877, the Khevsurs rode against the Turks. In 1914, when war broke out again, a platoon-sized unit assembled in Tblisi to pledge their allegiance to the Tsar for the length of the conflict– still armed with broadswords and shields in addition to their dusty breech-loaders.

In 1917 the Tsar was swept away but the Khevsurs promptly renewed their deal with the young new Georgian government. When the Red Army came knocking in 1921, the Khevsureti assembled:

Georgian Khevsureti arriving to fight against Soviet Army,1921.

Uncle Joe Stalin, himself a Georgian, and well known to genocide troublemaker ethnic groups in the new Soviet workers paradise, however, granted the Khevsureti a bit of space, and only moved to wipe them out in the 1950s with wholesale deportations to other parts of the country. However after the reforms of the 1960s, some 22 families returned.

So they still endure till this day in isolated hillsides accessible only five months out of the year. Currently nestled between Chechnya and Georgia, they have become something of an extreme attraction for enterprising tourists.

A lost piece of the Crusades? Maybe. A throwback to an older age of steel and iron? For sure.

George Edmund Butler’s drawing, currently in the New Zealand Military Museum Collection, entitled “Full marching kit, Corporal J W Cahill, 16 October 1918″.

The artist’s annotation on this painting indicates that Corporal Cahill belonged to 14th Co, 2nd O.I.B., (14th Company, 2nd Otago Infantry Battalion), and gives his service number as 41132.

Note the campaign hat that was fairly unique to the New Zealanders at the time as well as the fine detail of the SMLE rifle.

14/2OIB was formed as part of the 2nd New Zealand Brigade, 1 New Zealand Division in Egypt in 1916 then sent to France, fighting almost non-stop from Flers-Coucelette to the hell of Passchendaele and Arras to Cambrai and then finally the Sambre.

The unit later served in WWII at El Alamein and Cassino and is currently 2/4 Battalion Otago and Southland Regiment as a Territorial Force unit of the New Zealand Army.

Corporal Cahill’s military personal file is also held by Archives New Zealand (Archives Reference: AABK 18805 W5530 Box 30, 0021448 – CAHILL, John Walter – WW1 41132 – Army).

Lets just call a spade a spade. The Navy has a critical shortage of Subchaser/Destroyer Escort/Frigate type ships…again.

Going back to the old steam and steel navy of the 1900s, the torpedo boat was put out to pasture by the destroyer (who could both kill torpedo boats and launch torps while keeping up with the fleet). This gave the navy four distinct category of vessels:

1. Battleships– the default capital ship from 1890-1942
2. Large, armored or heavy cruisers– who could fight and kill anything up to a battleship
3. Smaller ‘light’ or protected cruisers– who could screened the fleet and scouted ahead
4. Destroyers– who provided escort for all of the above and could be assigned to expendable missions

Then came World War One and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or battleship open to a torpedo from the ship that effectively replaced the torpedo boat– the submarine.

WWI-era 110-foot Subchaser #57 of the “Splinter Fleet” these boats were small but had a lot of heart. Don’t knock them for their size– submarines of the day weren’t much larger

The answer was the “subchaser,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Hundreds of SCs were built and used by the Navy in WWI and even remained in service into the 20s to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a SC could do a Destroyer could do better so why waste the money.

Then came World War II and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or battleship or carrier open to a torpedo.  (Sound familiar?)

USS Buckley (DE-51), your typical WWII DE. 1740-tons, 306-feet, built for the fight at hand.

The answer was the “destroyer escort,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Hundreds of DEs were built and used by the Navy in WWII and even remained in service into the 50s to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a DE could do a Destroyer, of which they had hundreds of left over from the Big One, could do better so why waste the money.

Then came the depths of the Cold War in the 1960s in which the Russkies were cranking out enough submarines to walk from Martha’s Vineyard to Hamburg without getting your feet wet and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or carrier or amphibious assault ship open to a torpedo. (Could have sworn I heard this song before)

Aerial view of Knox-class frigate USS McCandless (FF-1084) 4260-tons 438-feet long, these were excellent ASW/ASuW boats and held the line in the Atlantic for 25 years.

The answer was the “frigate,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Over a hundred frigates (46 Knox-class FF, 51 Perry-class FFG, 10 Bronstein-class FF, 6 Brooke-class FFG) were built and used by the Navy in the Cold War and even remained in service into the 21st century to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a frigate could do a Destroyer could do better so why waste the money.  In turn, a group of expendable Littoral Combat Ships that are frigate-sized but not frigate-like will pick up the slack and serve as minesweepers if needed (hey any ship can be a minesweeper once, right?)

Now we have a resurgent and chest-pounding China, who is bullying its neighbors as it reaches out for Lebensraum and to return ethnic-Chinese to the fold while it rebuilds its military (augmented by a New Russia led by Tsar Vladimir I who is doing much the same thing but on a smaller asymmetric scale, and the always fun Persian Gulf follies in a world of unstable oil prices). Both of their navies rely on submarines to do the heavy lifting and (insert shock) the Navy realizes that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they are tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pull away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or carrier or amphibious assault ship open to a torpedo.

What they need is a (wait for it) class of little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers.

What they have are 32 ( mostly still building) lightly armed LCSs that currently cannot fool with a submarine, fight a surface contact larger than a speedboat or pirate launch, and, while they can escort a merchant or auxiliary ship in areas with such lightweight threats, if faced with any sort of actual foreign naval presence, is hard-pressed to even escort itself. About the only thing they do have in common with the 100 years of sub-chasers/destroyer escorts/frigates that preceded them is the ability to creep into shallow littoral waters and wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel.

Now that is going to change.

As reported by the USNI and others the last 20 LCS built will instead be much-augmented Small Surface Combatants (SSC)– presumably 10 on each hull.

The ships will pick up some sub-buster creds with multifunction towed array, provisions for ASW torps (helicopter carried), and torpedo countermeasures (Nixie or TRAPR DCL?).

For increased ASuW punch they will get an over-the-horizon anti-ship missile (likely an advanced Harpoon or possibly the excellent new Norwegian Naval Strike missile which has been tested on LCS-4 already), and confusingly, more light guns to include Mk.38 25mm remote mounts forward. While twin Mk44/46/50 gun mount (using a 30mm Bushmaster and the rounds from the GAU-8 Avenger cannon on the A-10) is already slated as a module for the series and is much superior to the 25mm is still listed as a possibility which would make it the first USN combatant to have three 25-57mm caliber batteries on board in modern history if fielded like this.

There will also be some survivability improvements to include more armor, signature management, an active EW system, upgraded decoys and an over the horizon search radar.

Sadly, no on-board Mk32 tubes or even a 8-cell Mk41 VLS for a few ASROC or ESSM bulk packs, but hey, at least this version of the LCS is closer to what the original one should have been and can control some ocean if needed. Perhaps this is an option later however….

Maybe the first 32 LCS can be modernized to SSC standard during their mid-life refit.  An SSC will cost $60-$75 million more than a Flight 0 LCS, and procurement of the type is to begin by 2019.

And then just go ahead and call them frigates.

Just saying.

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Paul Rizhenko

Born in 1970 in the Northwestern Russian city of Kaluga, Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko grew up as a normal kid in the Soviet Union. He served in the Soviet then later Russian military 1988-1990, as part of an elite guards airborne unit then at age 20 entered the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for a six year course of study that left him a professor of art. Starting in 1997 he taught at the academy focusing on architecture, restoration and composition.

However, he soon took to painting historical military scenes, typically Russian in origin.

“Wounded,” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko, depicting the last Tsar on an inspection of a military hospital near the front in World War I. Note the starstruck expression of the patient to the left and the Nicholas”s sorrowful expression. This is one of the last paintings completed by the artist.

“Alexander Nevsky” 2008, by Pavel Ryzhenko.

“Athos” by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicts a Russian Orthodox pilgrim staring up at the monastery of Mt.Athos in Greece, one of the most holy spots in that religion.

Moscow 1941

“Palace grenadiers” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko. This unit was the most elite of the Imperial Guard, made up of 100 retired Senior NCOs drawn from the whole army. The were the Winter Palace Guard and wore bearskin caps picked up during the retreat of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard in 1812.

While he painted hundreds of these over the next two decades, the most striking were from the 1914-20 time period encompassing the World War I-Russian Revolution-Civil War era.

“Stokhid. The Last Battle of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment 1916.” By Ryzhenko, Pavel Viktorovich. The Guard held the line along the Stokhid River during the Battle of Kovel. It was considered the battle that broke the back of the Tsarist Army.

“Farewell to the shoulder straps”, 2008, by Ryzhenko depicting a deeply monarchist officer of the White Guards Army (note the Kornilov Death’s Head patch on his sleeve) burying his Imperial Epaulettes. You see the White Army, while being anti-Bolshevik, was anything but pro-monarchist, and those who were kept the fact largely to themselves. The significance of the blue flowering sapling is that the color blue is, in Russia, a powerful symbol of good luck and change in the future. The bluebird was a traditional omen of hope in Russian fairy tales and legend. Anton Denikin, Kornilov’s second-in-command, later recalled of the forced Ice March during the winter 1917/18 campaign, “We went from the dark night of spiritual slavery to unknown wandering-in search of the bluebird.”

“Umbrella” showing a psychologically fractured daughter of an Imperial Guards colonel and wife who was just executed by Red Sailors from the battleship Gangut against the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petrograd 1919. This was regarded by many to be one of Ryzhenko’s most controversial pieces.

“Abdication” by Pavel Ryzhenko, portraying Colonel Alexander Pavlovich Kutepov, the last commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment of Foot Guards and the man who held the Winter Palace during the March Revolution removing his shoulder straps after hearing of the 304-year Romanov reign coming to an end. Kutepov would later become an important leader of the Whites during the Civil War. Note the decorations on the Sgt Majors chest to include 3 awards of the St. George’s Cross for bravery.

“Repentance” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko. The imagery of the Red Guard, complete with Trotsky cap and fallen banner, when awed by the church bells is powerful. Note the Maxim machine gun crew ready to stitch up the street below.

This included his haunting “Triptych: The Russian Century” series of images of the last Imperial Family.

“Picture as a souvenir,” by the artist, 2007. Depicting a posed photo of the Tsar, his family and suite in the summer of 1914 in Poland just weeks before the War and Revolution would sweep them all away. The Life Guards Cossack NCO with the eyepatch is about as scary looking as you can get.

“Confinement in Tsarskoe Selo. Alexander Palace,, 1917″ 2004, by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicting the Tsar, Tsarina and Heir while under house arrest at their former palace.Note the Mosin-Nagant rifle. The heir in 1909 had one presented to him by the Tula factory that was a scaled down working 100% correct replica of the standard M91

‘The Last Inspection” depicting Tsar Nicholas II inspecting the cossacks of the convoy at Pskov March 15, 1917 after he abdicated. The men of the unit in many cases had been with the sovereign for decades and at that moment, was the last loyal force in the country.

“Ipatiev house after the regicide,” 2004 by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicts the last residence of the Tsar and his family. Note the Colonel’s shoulder straps cut off on the floor. They were given to Nicholas II by his father Tsar Alexander (hence the “A”). The Tsar and his entire family were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house on the night of July 17/18, 1918 and their bodies buried in shallow graves.

“The Heir,” speculating as to the ultimate fate of Tsarvietch Alexei, whose body was not found until 2007, and, according to some sources, escaped execution by chance and lived on in Siberia well into the 1940s

His medium was oil on canvas, and his style one of striking realism, using direct and haunting stares from the subjects to encapsulate the moment. In many ways, he emulated the famous Russian war artist Vasili Verestchagin, who he even depicted in his last moments.

“Faith, Tsar and Fatherland 1905 Forgotten War” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko showing Russian military artist Vasili Verestchagin aboard battleship Petropavlovsk with Admiral Makarov just before it sank. I love the sailors in the background.

In poor health at just age 44, he donated all of his paintings to the Russian government before he died of a stroke in the summer of 2014. He is criticized by some as being a revisionist of the Monarchist era history of the Old Russian Empire, and some of the depictions he put on canvas may never have happened, but you have to admit, he knew his way around a brush.

Ryzhenko in his studio in 2013 with “Wounded” behind him. Note that the Tsar’s face is different in the finished piece.

Ryzhenko at work on a mural. He completed several huge ones including the painting at the Minsk military park.

Currently his paintings hang in the Russia Museum of the Armed Forces, the Russian Duma, the Sate Historical Museum and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. For more information, his gallery is still online although functionality may not be what it once was following his untimely death.

“A Christmas Truce – British and Germans Fraternise, December 1914 Soldiers of the rival armies exchanged sweets, cigars and cigarettes, and sang carols and sung in unison”

An ink drawing from the front page of ‘The Sphere‘ illustrated newspaper dated the 9th of January 1915. (Colourised by Royston Leonard from the UK)

The Tsar’s military and police typically bought locally made rifles and carbines during their long history. Handguns, however, prior to about 1926, were not really a Russian thing. In the 1860s the Russians bought a series of Colt and Remington revolvers in small numbers until Smith and Wesson won big with a contract of more than 100,000 “Russian” model .44 break tops in the 1870s.These gave hard service until smokeless powder became the rage and a the Nagant brothers (a pair of Belgains) convinced the Russian army to adopt one of their gas-sealed revolver designs as the Model 1895 Nagant, made under license in the Motherland for the next fifty years after early production switched from Liege, Belgium.

The Nagant took care of the Russian military, but the gendarme wanted a bit more firepower over the downright anemic 7.62X38mmR (roughly about a .32HR) and, with no Russian pistols to choose from, went shopping in Europe for other hoglegs.

In the early 1900s they bought no less than 12,000 FN Model 1903’s in 9mm Browning Long (I did a pretty in-depth write up of that gun in 2013 for Guns.com), and a smaller number of C96 Mauser pistols. They also picked up about 1,000 Lugers.

The DWM Model 1906 “Russian” contract Lugers are among the rarest of Lugers out there. Chambered in 9mm Parabellum, they have Cyrillic script on the frame and a pair of cross Mosin-Nagant M91 rifles over the breech.

Rarely seen outside the occasional Army museum in Old Russia, Rock Island just auctioned one off earlier this month (serial number 567) at just over $46,000 even though it was valued at almost twice that amount.

The Luger did not end the Russian love affair with foreign handguns. During WWI, the Tsar’s contracting agents bought every gun they could get their hands on– to include a number of commercial Colt 1911s while the Soviet Cheka/NKVD/KGB continued to buy Walther pistols throughout the 1920s and 30s. Soviet Russian Major-General Vasili Blokhin, a brute of a man that holds the ignoble distinction of being the most prolific executioner in history, carried a suitcase full of Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistols with him to carry out his ghastly deeds that included the personal execution of about 7,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940

The Great War on the Western Front started in August 1914 as a vast war of maneuver in which 7 German Armies swept across Belgium, Northern France and Luxembourg and met a combined Anglo-French force. Stopped at the Marne some six weeks into the war, everything got rather…static.

Each side dug in and kept digging until a line of trenches within rifle range of each other ran from the English Channel to the Swiss border.

Royal Seaforths holding a trench while under fire from a German sniper along the Western Front, 1914. You can see where sitting like this all day would get old and at night, some of the more adventuresome lads went looking for a little payback. (And yes, the bulldog is awesome!)

Men, with time on their hands and enterprising young leaders soon took to the popular new tactic of trench raiding, in which small forces would venture out over the top and creep through No Man’s Land, wiping out the enemy’s forward observation posts (typically sheltered out in a stinking water-filled shell hole between the lines). Occasionally these groups would slip into communications trenches and wreck havoc with the sentries on duty while the bulk of the troops slept in bunkers and further down the line, then run back across before a concentrated effort to repel the invaders was joined.

A raiding party of scoundrels from the 1/8th irish King’s Liverpool Regiment, April 1916. Note the liberal sprinkling of handguns, bats and clubs– as well as headgear to include at least one captured Prussian pickelhauben. IWM image

This led to a good deal of medieval armor, improvised weapons, and things that generally looked more at place during the Siege of Acre than on a modern battlefield.

British Armor experiments with plated vests and eye pro, 1915. Tell me this doesn’t scream steampunk!

More of the Experimental British Trench Raiding Ensemble 1915 to include steel cover and gauntlet with dagger

And another version of plate. While the Brits looked at this stuff, the principal result was the tin-hat helmet issued to the Tommies rather than much other gear.

The Germans very much got into the act as well, and even issued some vests and reinforced steel helmets–mainly reserving their armor for snipers

Thus….

The Allies captured huge caches of the stuff in 1918 once the Kaiser went kaput.

…Which led to ballistics experiments by both the French and British showing that, against rifle bullets of the time, the armor was virtually useless, but still provided a modicum of protection from edged weapons, shrapnel and low-powered handgun rounds.

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. 31, 2014 the Mystery of the St Anne, Flying Dutchman of the Arctic

Saint Anne by Eugene Voishvillo

Here we see the Russian 145-foot arctic survey ship Svyataya Anna (formerly HMS Newport) as she pokes through the far north, the last of her class of Royal Navy Philomel-class gunvessel. Have you seen her?

She has been on a milk carton for the past 100-years.

In the 1860s, the Royal Navy needed a class of fairly fast but economical naval vessels that could run around coastal waters waving the flag in far-off colonial ports. The answer to this problem was the Philomel-class of ‘steam schooners’.

The steam yacht Jeannette, formerly HMS Pandora, HMS Newport’s sistership at Le Havre, France, in 1878, prior to her departure for San Francisco, CA. She is flying the US Yacht Ensign and would become the USS Jeanette.

These shallow-draught (13-foot at full load) schooner-rigged ships with an auxiliary 2-cyl. horizontal single-expansion steam engine to push a screw when in doldrums were capable of crossing the globe while their 145-ft. oal allowed them to enter even the smallest of colonial backwater harbors. Even though they had wooden hulls, they were triple oak planking sheathed with copper, which made them exceptionally strong.

Armed with a 68-pdr muzzle-loading smooth-bore gun (later upgraded to an impressive 110-pounder 7-inch breechloader) as well as a pair each of 20 and 24-pounders, their 60-man crew could make an impression on wayward natives, chase down maritime outlaws, and in times of war capture enemy merchant ships when found.

Best yet, since they were just armed and well-built merchantmen themselves, they could be constructed at private yards rather than tying up the navy’s larger dockyards. Class leaders Ranger and Espoir were ordered on April Fools Day 1857 and within the next four years some 26 of these hardy little craft were in the works at no less than 9 yards (8 private and one military) around the UK.

One of these, ordered 17 September 1860 from H. M. Dockyard Pembroke in Wales, was HMS Newport. Put on hold for an extensive period as the Royal Navy redirected its efforts to large men-of-war during a period of tension between both the Tsar and the United States and the UK during the Civil War, she wasn’t completed until April 1868.

Like the rest of her class, of which just 20 ultimately saw service, Newport spent her time under the red ensign in colonial service. While her sisterships saw Hong Kong, Australia and the West Indies, Newport was destined for African and Mediterranean service where she was under the helm of Cdr. George Nares (later Vice Admiral Sir George, a famed arctic explorer and surveyor who would later be a part of the Challenger expedition).

While under Nares’s watch, Newport became the first ship to cross through the French-built Suez Canal in November 1869, much to the chagrin of the French who had that coveted honor supposedly in the bag. It would not be the Newport‘s last brush with an arctic explorer by far.

Yacht Blencathra (formerly HMS Newport)

Technology passed the Philomel-class in the 1870s as steel-hulled ships proved faster and less high-maintenance. This led to their rapid replacement in Her Majesty’s Navy and by 1882 all but HMS Nimble, which was herself to be relegated to RNR training duties at Hull until being paid off in 1906, were pulled from the line and sold. Newport was disarmed, pulled from the Naval List in May 1881 at age 13, and sold to British arctic explorer Sir Allen Young who had used Newport‘s sistership HMS Pandora in the 1870s to search for the lost Franklin expedition.

He had sold that ship to another would-be explorer, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. who would enter her into U.S. Naval service as the USS Jeannette, who would famously be lost at sea above Siberia in June 1881, crushed by drifting ice floes. Even triple oak sheathed in copper cannot stand up to millions of tons of ice.

Fresh out of boats and enamored with the Philomel-class design, Sir Allen picked up the now-surplus Newport and renamed her Pandora II (that sounds lucky). He lobbied hard for a British Antarctic Expedition, of which he would be the leader and Newport/Pandora II would be the flagship of, but that proved not to pan out and by 1890 Sir Allen sold his would-be polar survey ship to one F W Leyborne-Popham who (wait for it) wanted to take her to explore the far Arctic north of Siberia. It seems that in the last part of the 19th century, polar exploration was the ‘in’ thing to do.

Renamed the Blencathra, Leyborne-Popham took his third-hand ship as far as the mouth of the wild Yenisey River in Northern Siberia where he became involved in commerce to help support the new Trans-Siberian railway project before selling the ship to another Englishman, Major Andrew Coats, who in turn (this is going to shock you) used it for polar exploration, meteorological research and a good bit of commercial seal hunting in the Arctic ranging from Spitsbergen to Novaya Zemlya, the frozen Siberian island chain. Somewhere around this time her elderly Civil War-era engine had been replaced by a 41hp low-power plant.

HMS Newport as Svyataya Anna in the Neva River,St Petersburg, 1912

It was then, at age of 43, that the old gunboat Newport/Pandora II/Blencathra found herself bought by an enterprising Imperial Russian Naval Officer, Senior Lt. Georgy Lvovich Brusilov in 1912. If the name sounds familiar, our story’s newest polar explorer was the nephew of the same General Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov (1853-1926) who later led the offensive in 1916 that very nearly knocked Austria out of World War One.

Endeavoring to make his own name in the history books, the younger Brusilov was competing for fame with no less than two other Russian polar expeditions outfitting at the same time,that of Vladimir Rusanov in his ship “Hercules,” and Lt. Georgy Sedov in his ship the “St Foka,” — both of which would end in abject failure in the frozen hell of the Arctic and their leader’s death. Rusanov tried to reach the far North and survey for coal deposits along the way, while Sedov was meaning to dog sled to the North Pole and Brusilov wanted to sail the Northwest Passage from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.

With so many expeditions vying for fame (and funding), Brusilov had to make do with his elderly schooner and find a crew outside the normal naval channels for the great First Russian Northern Sea Route Expedition.

Brusilov, 28, had been to the Arctic before aboard the Navy’s icebreakers Taymyr and Vaygach so he at least had some knowledge of what he was up against. Wisely, he chose an experienced polar navigator, 31-year old Valerian Albanov for his crew. A classmate of Brusilov’s, Albanov had paid his own way through the Naval Academy by tutoring and selling model ships and the two were of vastly different backgrounds.

Georgy Brusilov and Valerian Albanov (left to right) Dont let the mustaches fool you, these men were two different sides of the same coin

The bulk of the two-dozen members of the expedition were mainly seal hunters as Brusilov counted on selling a hold full of seal pelts and walrus tusks in Vladivostok to cover the cost of the expedition, which had been fronted by friends and relatives. The crew was rounded out by  a few random St. Petersburg adventurers, a couple of professional mariners to do the heavy lifting, and, when no doctor could be conned, one 22-year-old female nurse, Yerminia Zhdanko. She was a society lady, the daughter of Port Arthur hero and then-head of the Imperial Hydrographic Bureau Gen. Ermin Zhdanko.

Yerminia Zhdanko, Saint Anna in background. The ultimate fate of both ladies shown has been subject of much speculation in the past 100-years.

With time spent refitting his new ship, named Svyataya Anna (after the 14th Century Russian Saint Anna of Kashin) and assembling his supplies, Brusilov wasn’t ready to leave St. Petersburg until August– just weeks before the advent of winter.

Pro-tip: this is not the best time of year to try the Northwest Passage!

Soon, the Newport/Pandora II/Blencathra/Svyahtaya Anna was starting to bump into hard Arctic ice floes in the Kara Sea and by October 28, 1912 was locked in off the west coast of the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Brusilov had expected as much and laid in a huge stock of canned canned fish and meats enough to last through 1915 if needed. It was.

Arctic expedition George Brusilov on the schooner Saint Anna

All of 1913 came and went with the St. Anne locked in the ice but unfortunately, the ship was never released. Instead of remaining close to the Siberian coast, it drifted north-northwest, back towards the Atlantic rather than the Pacific. As it did so, the boat past north of 83 degrees latitude and left shore far behind.

By 1914, shit got really out of hand on board.

While the crew still had a ton of canned food, supplemented by seals and bears, they had long ago ran out of fruits and vegetables, which left them scurvy-ridden and in a generally poor attitude about life. Soon Brusilov and many of the crew were so weakened they were bedridden. Fuel grew sparse and the schooner became an icy tomb in which her crew lived off frozen butter and hardtack biscuits in spaces kept warm by burning seal blubber. Long kept busy by taking met data and soundings through holes cut in the ice compared to celestial readings, monotony turned to rebellion.

This led to a largely peaceful mutiny in which the captain relieved Albanov of his post (which, according to Albanov’s later account, was mutual). Following this the unemployed navigator, taking the ships log book, 500 pounds of biscuits, a shotgun and a few rifles for bear protection, gathered 13 mariners who felt the same way, and left the St. Anne on April 10, 1914 walking on foot for Siberia which he reckoned was some 247 or so to the south.

Pushing a boat over the ice and alternating snowshoeing and skiing, the group dropped like flies in the inhospitable climate. Whittled down to just Albanov and a single sailor, 24-year old Alexander Konrad, they reached land at an old abandoned camp established by explorer Frederick George Jackson at Cape Flora, Franz Josef Land on July 9. There, the two remained alive on supplies left, coincidentally by the Sedov expedition who had passed there earlier. By stroke of luck, it was the St Foka, sans Sedov himself who was long since dead, who found the two survivors of the St. Anne on July 20.

Valerian Albanov and Alexander Conrad float to the schooner St. Fock in their kayak.

Returning to Russia just as World War One was starting, Albanov turned over the logbooks from the St. Anne, which held valuable information on underwater topography, sea currents, ice drift, and meteorological data from the ship’s 18 months trapped in the ice and became something of a minor celebrity.

He wrote of his story of survival as did Konrad, the classic tale of which has been translated into several languages.

Original Russian version of Albanov’s book as it appeared in 1917. The sketch was done by him

Its English language version is “In the Land of White Death.”  Truly a bedtime story.

English version of Albanov’s book

Speaking of books, the story of Brusilov, and also incidentally of Sedov, was turned into a novel by Soviet author Veniamin Kaverin entitled The Two Captains which was one of the bestselling works of the 20th Century behind the Iron Curtain.

What happened to the St. Anne?

As for the St. Anne, rescue expeditions, including the first airplane flights over the Arctic region (by Polish-Russian naval aviator Jan Nagórski), were mounted to find the ship but they came to naught. After Albanov’s party left, Brusilov and some dozen sick men tended to by their female nurse remained aboard, with enough rations remaining to last for another 18 months, which bought them some time.

In 1915, a lemonade bottle washed up near Cape Kuysky, not far from Arkhangelsk with a note from the ship signed by Brusilov in 1913 saying that he was feeling fine, which leads to the possibility that he just wanted the troublesome Albanov and his allies off the ship.

The former navigator was haunted by the fact that the St. Anne never appeared. Albanov journeyed to the Yensei area in 1919 and asked former arctic explorer Admiral Kolchack, then the White Army governor of the region, for help mounting a search for the St. Anne. However the Russian Civil War overtook both of these officers and neither lived to see 1920.

Konrad, the sailor who got away with Albanov, likewise remained in the Soviet merchant service and returned often to the Arctic several times before his death during World War II, likely with a weather eye out for the old schooner he walked away from.

In 1928 a story of a woman in Tallinn, Estonia of her long missing cousin, Yerminia Zhdanko coming for a visit from France with her ten-year old son in tow, after a marriage to Brusilov, made it to a local newspaper.

Likewise, a French novel, “In the Polar Ice,” edited by Rene Gouzee and attributed to being the diary of one Yvonne Sherpante , a woman who lived through a love-triangle on the schooner “Elvira” appeared on the market the same year. This of course draws some similarities to the tale of Zhdanko. Was  Yvonne Sherpante actually the still quite-alive Yerminia Zhdanko? Likely not but the story was surely modeled after hers.

All of which leads to the screwball theory that at least the Captain and the nurse escaped destruction and for whatever reason, shame maybe, kept a low profile and their story even lower as they aged. As the elder Brusilov was ill-liked among White Russian émigré circles in France due to his support of the Reds in the Civil War, this is almost believable.

But wait, there’s more!

In 1937 Soviet explorer VI Akkuratov, who knew Konrad, landed on Rudolf Island and found a ladies patent leather shoe marked “Supplier of the Imperial Household: St. Petersburg” on it. Since the St. Anne’s nurse was the only known lady of Tsarist society to have ever passed near that icebox, it has been speculated that maybe Yerminia Zhdanko left the ship later with another group or Brusilov was convinced to eventually follow in Albanov’s footsteps. This could have left the unmanned ship to wander at sea alone in the Arctic.

Conceivably, it could have been there for years or even decades before being spit out into the Atlantic as a ghost ship.

This is not so farfetched.

On June 18, 1884, verified wreckage from St. Anne‘s sister USS Jeannette (including clothing with crewmember’s names) was found on an ice floe near Julianehåb (now Qaqortoq) near the southern tip of Greenland although she broke up near the Bearing Strait three years before.

In 1938 the Soviet icebreaker Sedov (yes, named after that Sedov– small world) became locked in the sea ice near the New Siberian Islands and remained there, adrift in the floe for 812 days, until she was broken out by a rescue party between Spitsbergen and Greenland. Had she not been extricated from the ice then, she may have remained there much longer.

Nansen’s Fram followed a similar course when it was icebound 1893-96.

Nansen’s planned drift, via Wiki.

This suggests that the ice of the Arctic Ocean was in constant westward motion from the Siberian coast to the North American coast and as such would have eventually pushed St Anne into the Atlantic at some point, likely near Iceland or Spitsbergen, probably sometime around 1918.

In the 1988 Soviet seascape artist and writer Nikolai Cherkashin while visiting the Hanseatic bar in the port city of Stralsund, East Germany, came across a battered old ship’s wheel and a worn Russian icon of the little known Saint Anna of Kashin. Asking about it, he was told an amazing tale.

“The owner of the cellar told that the steering wheel and the icon was found by his father, who immediately after the Second World War, was fishing in the North Sea,” wrote Cherkashin. “In the autumn of 1946, his trawler in dense fog almost ran into an abandoned schooner. Examining this schooner, fishermen found her, a lot of canned meat, and other foodstuffs, which he handled himself and his father took the helm from the schooner and icon.”

On the wheel was a badly worn inscription that could be read in English script “..andor..” which, of course, could be part of,  “Pandora II.”

Its (wildly) conceivable that St Anne, abandoned by her crew, could have washed up along some forgotten glacial ice near Greenland around 1918– which in turn broke free decades later. She could then have drifted as far as the North Sea to be salvaged by a German fisherman before she sank. Stranger things have happened.

Most recently, in 2010, an expedition to Franz Josef Land by the Russian Wildlife Discovery Club found a male skeleton and some 20 artifacts that includes a set of sunglasses made from rum bottle bottoms, early pre-WWI era 208-grain 7.62x54R cartridges and shell casings, a canvas belt, sailor’s knife, dairy, whistle and brass pocket watch along the route that Albanov took.

It is believed that the body is either sailor Vladimir Gubanov, helmsman Peter Maximov, sailor Paul Humbles, or ship’s steward Jan Regald, the four of the mariners who perished in that area. However, it could very well be from a follow-on group that tried to do the same. DNA tests are pending and should prove interesting while further expeditions are planned.

“Today we got our last brick of tobacco; the matches ran out long ago,” reads the diary dated May 1913, adding that crew members hunted polar bear to supplement canned supplies.

Its unknown if there is a monument to St Anna in Russia.

The logs from the St Anna, as well as the original diaries of both Konrad and Albanov, are in the collection of the Arctic and Antarctic Museum of St. Petersburg.

A monument to the original HMS Pandora, Newport/St.Anne’s sistership lost as the USS Jeanette is, however, on the grounds of the US Naval Academy.

A number of geographic and landmarks and seabed features in the Arctic region have been named in honor of the St. Anne, Brusilov, Albanov, and Zhdanko.

Their final story, and the ship’s resting place, may never be known.

Specs:

Displacement: 570 tons
Length: 145 ft. (44.2 m) oa, 127 ft. 10.25 in (39.0 m) pp
Beam: 25 ft. 4 in (7.7 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft. (3.96 m)
Installed power: 325 ihp (242 kW)
Propulsion:
Laird Brothers single 2-cyl. Horizontal single-expansion steam engine
Single screw
Auxiliary Schooner sailing rig, later Brigantine rig
Speed: 9.25 knots (17 km/h)
Complement: 60 as a naval vessel
Armament (As built)
1 × 68-pdr muzzle-loading smoothbore gun (replaced with 7-inch gun 1871)
2 × 24-pdr howitzers
2 × 20-pdr breech-loading guns
After 1881:
Smallarms

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of William Barnes Wollen

 The martial art of William Barnes Wollen

Born in Leipzig in 1857, William Barnes Wollen soon became a well-known artist who worked in oils on canvas during the height of the British Empire. As such, he covered military art of his era, specializing on the British Army as it was locked in combat in the New World, Africa, and, later, in Europe. Educated at University College School, London and the Slade, by the time he was 22 he had paintings on exhibit at he Royal Academy.

The Scouts – William Barnes Wollen depicting the use of light cavalry (Hussars) during the Napoleonic Wars

“The Last Stand of the 44th at Gundamuck,” by William Barnes Wollen. In 1841 the 44th was in Kabul where uprising endangered the garrison. Constantly attacked, without shelter or food, the force waded in deep snow through narrow passes for four days trying to reach Jellalabad. As rear guard, a stand was made by 20 men at Gundamuck . Lieutenant Thomas Souter tore the Regimental Colour from its pike and wrapped it round his body. The Afghans saw the silk and thought it the waistcoat of a person of high rank suitable for ransom. Souter and Colour survived, but the Queen’s Colour was lost. The painting, done by Wollen in 1882, is currently at the Essex Regiment Museum.

“The Flag: Albuhera 16 May, 1811″ by William Barnes Wollen

The 21 Lancers at Omdurman, Sudan – William Barnes Wollen

The Black Watch at Bay, at Quatre Bras in 1815 – William Barnes Wollen

“Britain’s Watchdogs” by William Barnes Wollen depicting Napolean on the island of Elba watching the Royal Navy keeping tabs on him. (c) Museums Sheffield; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Battle of Lexington, 19 April 1775, by William Barns Wollen. Painted in 1910, it depicts the famous first battle of the Revolutionary War. It is currently on display at the National Army Museum in London

Battle of Abu Klea during the Sudan Campaign by William Barnes Wollen, in the collection of the National Army Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

In 1900 he was sent as a combat artist to cover the Boer War and learned first hand the whiff of cordite, the zip of incoming rounds, and the horrible aftermath of armed conflict on the modern battlefield. Likewise he traveled to the Continent to see first hand the brutality that influenced his work of the Great War.

“The Coldstream Guards 1914″

The Second Battle of Ypres (Frezenberg) by artist William Barnes Wollen, 1915 in collection of Canadian Military Museum and on display at the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regimental Museum, Calgary

The Last Stand of the 2nd Devons at Bois-des-Buttes, 27 May 1918 – William Barnes Wollen

2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry fight the Prussian Guard at the Battle of Nonne Bosschen, 11 November 1914, by William Barnes Wollen

William Barnes Wollen, “Observation Post, winter,” One of Wollen’s final paintings. It is currently in the New Zealand Army war art collection.

A lifelong Londoner, he died in 1936 just shy of his 79th birthday. His works are on extensive display in the UK, the Commonwealth, and the U.S. and are among the best-known military pieces of their time.

Thank you for your work, sir.

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Anton Otto Fischer

Remembered by many in the art community as being just a “Saturday Evening Post illustrator” there were few maritime artists in modern memory that captured the sea and what it was like to sail upon it in ships of wood and steel than Anton Otto Fischer.

Born February, 1882 in Regensburg, then in the Imperial German Empire, Anton was orphaned at an early age and ran away, like many enterprising young men could at the cusp of the 20th Century and fled to sea. Signing on to a German merchantman as a cabin boy/apprentice sailor at the tender age of 15, he saved his money and bought out his contract once the ship was in a U.S. port, but then promptly signed on to an American ship and remained at sea through his earlt adult life. Those years under sail and steam, shoveling coal and patching canvas, were to serve as inspiration for coming decades.

By 25, the young man was in Paris, reinventing himself by studying at the Academie Julian, an art school that specialized in educating young students established by Rodolphe Julian. The Julian school taught many Americans and often competed for the the Prix de Rome. Fischer worked in oils on canvas and hit his stride.

In 1909 Fischer was back in the U.S., where he started selling illustrations for a number of popular variety magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, the Country Gentleman, Life, Popular Magazine, and others.

Saturday Evening Post cover by Fischer. In all he did over 400 illustrations for the magazine

Saloon Shootout by Anton Otto Fischer, 1919. Note the surprised expression on the Tomato’s face…priceless

The Grand Army of the Republic vs the American Expeditionary Force by Anton Otto Fischer. The GAR was the veterans organization of the Union Civil War vets, and is apparently isn’t too happy with the WWI dough boy from the 42nd Rainbow Division of Maj.Gen MacArthur.

Viewing an Illustration, 1919. Such detail…

SEP cover

Besides becoming a regular at the Post, he worked art for ad copy for steel firms, locomotive manufacturers, and illustrated a number of popular classics of the time to include Moby Dick, 20,000 Leauges Under the Sea and Treasure Island. From 1910-39 he had produced literally thousands of illustrations.

John Paul Jone’s Bonhomme Richard vs HMS Serapis, 23 September 1779. Artwork of Anton Otto. Fischer. From the US Navy Art Collection

Anton Otto Fischer – The Perils of Pauay-Phillipine Islands-

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Seaplane down at sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

But it was always the sea that called Fischer. His naval and maritime art, which he produced in great volumes during World War I to assist in the general patriotic propaganda push, was well received and by the time a Second World War had come, the men in charge of the warships had as boys already grown up with a love of the fleet through Fischer’s paintings.

According to an expose in the Post written in 2009, by the time WWII started, the sea services considered Fischer a national treasure.

U.S. Navy Commander Lincoln Lothrop had once written to the artist: “My two lads, one of whom is now a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant in the Navy … used to cut out your pictures and pin them on the walls of their rooms. … You are responsible for recruiting many a seagoing lad.” They must have been brave lads, for Fischer’s paintings not only depicted the majestic beauty of the oceans, but the terrors they held as well.

Fischer was invited to lunch one day by none other than Vice Admiral Russell Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard for the purpose of recruiting. The January 9, 1943, Post describes it thus: “Did the admiral know that he was an anti-New Dealer? The admiral didn’t know—or care. But did the admiral know that he was born in Germany? Oh, yes, the admiral knew that, all right; his record had been checked.

“That record included, among other things, the fact that young Fischer had come to America as a deck hand on a German vessel, that he sacrificed two months’ pay to obtain his freedom, and then sailed on American ships for three years.”

By late that same afternoon, Fischer was sworn in as a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard. “His duties? Putting on canvas some of the heroic deeds of our Merchant Mariners and Coast Guardsmen—the least-publicized men, perhaps, in all of our armed forces.”

Thus commissioned into the Coast Guard at age 60, Fischer shipped out on the 327-foot Treasury-class cutter USCGC Campbell (WPG-32) and covered the war at sea for Uncle classified as a JO (Journalist.)

Fischer, a LCDR in his 60s, and at war.

While on a convoy escort in the North Atlantic, the ships wardroom was giving “Papa Anton” a party on the occasion of his 61st birthday when a U-boat surfaced, and all hell broke lose.

On that night, 21 February 1943, Campbell was escorting the 48-ship Convoy ON-166 when the convoy was surrounded by a U-Boat “wolf pack”. U-92 and U-753 torpedoed and sank the NT Nielsen Alonso. Dispatched to assist, Campbell rescued fifty survivors and then turned to attack U-753, damaging it so badly that it had to withdraw.

Throughout the 21st and 22nd, Campbell attacked several U-Boats inflicting damage and driving off the subs. Later on the 22nd, U-606, having sustained heavy damage, surfaced in the midst of the convoy attempting a surface attack. Campbell struck the sub a glancing blow that gashed Campbell‘s hull in the engine room below the waterline, but continued to attack, dropping two depth charges which exploded and lifted the sub out of the water. The crew brought all guns to bear on the subs, fighting on until water in the engine room shorted out all electricity. As the ship lost power and the searchlights illuminating the sub went out, the U-Boat commander ordered the sub abandoned. Campbell ceased fire and lowered boats to rescue the sub’s survivors. Campbell, disabled in the attack, was towed to port nine days later, repaired and returned to escort duty.

The story appeared, with extensive illustrations by Fischer, in the July 1943 issue of LIFE

Burning Tanker of the North Atlantic, Feb 1943. Fischer saw this first hand from the Campbell. Note the signature (as with all these, big them up to see better)

Captain At Sea, Anton Otto Fischer. Click to big up to appreciate the skipper’s joy and misery.

Coast Guard Cutter Campbell by Fischer.

Formosa Patrol by Anton Otto Fischer. British sloop getting some post-WWII action

“Fight to the Last oil”on canvas by Anton Otto Fisher, Coast Guard Artist, USCG collection

He was the artist laureate for the Coast Guard during the war and dutifully, each painting done while on the list of commissioned officers bears the carefully signed script “LCDR Anton Otto Fischer, USCGR” to denote his wartime service.

Chase of the CONSTITUTION, July 1812 Painting by Anton Otto Fischer, depicting the boats of U.S. Frigate CONSTITUTION towing her in a calm, while she was being pursued by a squadron of British warships, 18 July 1812. NHHC Photo NH 85542-KN

Clipper Ship at Sea. Oil on canvas, circa 1950. One of FIscher’s last works, done in his late 60s. By then he was just painting what he wanted and you can see an old man’s thoughts of a young man’s sailing years at the turn of the Century.

“Crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear ferrying stranded whalemen,” By Anton Otto Fischer. From the USCG Collection

Mustered out in 1945, he returned to civilian life but continued working until 1956. He passed away quietly in 1962 at age 80. His works are modern classics and many of them hang in prominent galleries and in private collection.

However, they are also in the possession of the U.S.Navy Museum, the U.S. Army collection, and that of the U.S. Coast Guard. In fact, no less than four are hanging at the USCG Academy, where new Coast Guard officers are minted.

He likely would have liked idea that the most.