Artillery of the old Napoleanic days consisted of hot shot (to set things on fire), solid shots (to punch holes in things) and grape or canister when served an anti-personnel role at close distance.

This remained through the mid-19th Century conflicts such as the American Civil War, Austro-Prussian War, Crimean War and Franco-Prussian War.

However by the 1900s, advances in artillery fuses, propellants, smokeless bursting charges, and steel metallurgy increased the range and effectiveness of modern field artillery to that of being truly the God of War.

An Artillery shell before and after it’s been blasted into 7,000 pieces of shrapnel, circa 1908.

Ouch.

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 January 21, 2015: A Teutonic Heavy in two World Wars

Here we see the a pre-WWI image of the Deutschland-class Linienschiff SMS Schleswig-Holstein, the last predreadnought battleship of the Kaisherliche Marine of Imperial Germany as she sails with a serious bone in her teeth and heavy coal smoke from all three of her stacks.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, that oh so malfeasant warlord of almost comic proportions, was enamored with the concept of producing a naval force second to none as a matter of national prestige. Taking the small coastal defense navy of the late-19th century, whose primary focus was to prevent British landings on the German North Sea coast and send the occasional gunboat to African, American and Asian ports to wave the flag, ole Willy set a course to build a first class High Seas Fleet to challenge Britannia (and anyone else) for worldwide mastery of the waves.

One of the initial rungs on this ladder was to order construction of the five Deutschland-class battleships in the early 1900s.

The Five Deutschland-class battle-wagons leading the fleet, 1908

These hardy ships, when designed, were mammoth 418-foot vessels of some 14,200-tons. Heavy and beamy, they needed some 26 feet of water to float while mountains of coal required teams of stokers working round the clock to shovel into her 12 steam watertube boilers to feed her trio of 5600 ihp expansion engines, one for each shaft. At top speed, they could be expected to push 18-knots, which was not terribly fast but they weren’t designed to run– they were designed to fight.

If you think 11-inch guns are puny, take a closer look

Four 11-inch (280mm) L/40 guns in two twin turrets capable of hurling a 500-lb. shell some 20,000-yards. This was backed up by 14 6.7-inch secondary and respectable 22 88mm tertiary battery pieces gave her a punch far in excess of any 1900-era cruiser that could catch up to her while up to 11-inches of cemented Krupp armor helped protect her from large caliber hits from English battlewagons of the day (and by day we mean 1901).

Note her three funnels

Ordered from Germaniawerft, Kiel, 11 June 1904, just after the outbreak of hostilities between the Tsar of Russia and the Empire of Japan, the last of five ships of the class was given the name Schleswig-Holstein, after the land captured from Denmark in 1864, during her christening on 17 Dec. 1906. In departure from the typical Prussian fashion, she was commissioned by a woman, the German Empress Augusta Victoria, but still in front of an all-male audience that included her hubby, the Poseidon of the Baltic Adm. Tirpitz with his great beard, and the good Herr Krupp himself.

However, even before she was to be completed on 6 July 1908, the brand-new Schleswig-Holstein was woefully obsolete.

The Russo-Japanese War had shown the folly of 1900s era battleship design limits and around the world, modern navies were taking these lessons and using them to produce improved, all-main gun fast battleships such as the HMS Dreadnought which could outrun, outfight, and outmaneuver legacy ships such as the German Deutschland-class. Worse, ships that made the Dreadnought herself look like small fry were already on the drawing boards from Tokyo to Washington, London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

As such, the group was largely put out to pasture by the very navy that championed them only scant months before, ridiculed as being able to only last “five minutes” in combat against the modern British ships.

Schleswig-Holstein‘s peacetime pre-WWI service was uneventful and when the guns of August came in 1914, the six year old warship was, along with her four sisters Deutschland, Hannover, Pommern, and Schlesien, along with the even slower Braunschweig-class predreadnought SMS Hessen, part of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, which despite its grand name was largely relegated to coastal defense.

In December 1914, they sailed as part of the raiding force that bombarded the English coast and made a few pushes into the North Sea in 1915. Then, at Jutland, the slow Deutschland-class ships hampered Scheer’s tactics and they often had to fall out of line, risking being left behind several times during that epic naval clash. In the battle, Schleswig-Holstein, a midget wrestler in the middle of an MMA competition, fired only a dozen or so shells and luckily suffered only one minor hit (from a 12-inch gun on HMS New Zealand) on her topside in return.

German Navy’s battle ship SMS Schleswig-Holstein fires a salvo during the Battle of Jutland

Royal Navy destroyer HMS Obedient, ending the battle, dispatched her sister, SMS Pommern, in a hail of torpedoes at 0315. She was the only battleship lost in the engagement for either fleet and took her entire crew to the bottom.

Following Jutland, Schleswig-Holstein, along with her remaining sisters, were unceremoniously withdrawn from fleet service. Her sailors, needed to operate U-boats, were largely reassigned, and the ship was tasked with berthing, guard ship, and submarine tender duties for the rest of the war.

As the German Imperial fleet went apeshit in the last weeks of WWI and raised a red flag from the masts of its ships, the old battleships were left behind when the bulk of the fleet was interned by the Allies at Scapa Flow. As part of the draconian Versailles Peace Treaty, the magnanimous Allies let the new Wiemar government keep eight old ships, four of the Deutschland-class and four of the even more obsolete Braunschweigers. These ships served in one form or another the new German Reichsmarine.

Post refit, note the two funnels, one for oil fired boilers, the second for coal. The fact that she could move around on domestic coal during WWII kept her in service when other oil-fired ships were laid up.

In the Kiel Canal post-refit

Overhead shot 1930s

Class leader SMS Deutschland was retired 1920 and scrapped, in favor of keeping a fifth Braunschweiger while Hannover was kept as fleet flag for a couple years before her lay up in 1927 along with the Braunschweigers, leaving the fleet very short of capital ships.

Schleswig-Holstein was then reboilered with a hybrid coal/oil suite, and modernized, as much as the cash-strapped Germans could afford, to become fleet flag following her this refit 31 January 1926.

Das deutsche Linienschiff SMS Schlesien im Panama-Kanal 1938 sister to Schleswig-Holstein. These ships got around a good bit in the 1920s and 30s

For the next decade, the old ship and her similarly refitted sister Schlesien were the pride of the tiny but efficient German fleet, and traveled the world on goodwill missions including visits in many former enemy ports. They had to, being the last two operational Teutonic battleships on Earth at the time.

Looking from the German battleship Schleswig Holstein on Arkansas (BB-33) arriving in Kiel, Germany. Note German sailors standing at attention, 5 July 1930

On 22 September 1935, at age 27 and with a World War, a revolution, and a peaceful generation of summer cruises behind her, Schleswig-Holstein was relieved of her flag duties and turned into a training ship for naval cadets in the new Kreigsmarine, some 175 of which would make up her crew.

Linienschiff “Schleswig-Holstein” 1939 boarding Marines…

In 1939, with tensions escalating between Poland and Hitler’s Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was dispatched to protect German interests in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk) after commemorating the 25th anniversary of the WWI loss of the old Imperial cruiser SMS Magdeburg to the Russians. Upon docking, she was pushed to within 150-meters of the Free City’s border with Poland (cue ominous music).

It was there, at 04:47 on 1 Sept 1939, she fired the first rounds of World War II when she opened up on the Polish customs house and ammo depot at the Westerplatte to cover the assault of a force of 225 marines of the Marine-Stoßtrupp-Kompanie under Lieutenant Wilhelm Henningsen on the ersatz defenses.

This action as described by her deck logs :

0447: Open fire!
0448-0455: Eight 280mm heavy artillery shells and fifty-nine 150mm light artillery shells hit the southwestern section of the Westerplatte wall – not to mention 600 rounds from C30 machine-guns. The battleship approaches the target with her bow directed slightly against the slope of the docks, the tug Danzig at her stern. Numerous harbor buildings are hit and set ablaze.
0455: Suddenly two or three breaches in the wall can be seen. Hold fire! Red rockets!
0456: The assault company commences its attack. Soon explosions can be heard from the right wing, where the railway gate has been destroyed. Machine-gun fire is heard from Westerplatte, some rounds passing over the battleship’s bridge.

The conflict begins” portrait of Schleswig-Holstein firing the opening shots of the Second World War on the Westerplatte, Gdansk, Poland on September 1, 1939. (Photo courtesy of Sejar Bekirow via Maritime Quest)

German battleship Schleswig-Holstein is bombing a Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig

0447 hours Schleswig-Holstein opened fire at the Polish positions on the Westerplatte starting WWII

Following her week-long support of the attack on the Westerplatte, and joining her sister Schlesien in bombarding other Polish army positions for a few weeks, Schleswig-Holstein was withdrawn and used next in the invasion of Denmark, where she lay off Copenhagen on April 8/9, 1940, ready to deliver rounds from her battery onto the city if needed. She wound up not firing a shot and the German flag flew over the capital by lunch of the next day.

Linienschiff “Schleswig-Holstein” off Denmark April 9, 1940. Embarrassingly, she ran aground

The rest of the war, as in the first, passed uneventfully for Schleswig-Holstein. She was relegated to the Eastern Baltic where she received extra AAA batteries to help defend herself against air attack, and served once more as a training ship. Speaking of air attack…

The old girl camo’d up late in WWII to better help against air attack.

Of the 37 battleships (to include WWI-era predreadnought and coastal defense panzerschiffs) sunk in combat during World War II, most were sent to the bottom by air attack. These included a club of 11 that were scratched while in harbor of which the old Schleswig-Holstein, was a member. Her war ended when she was holed by a flight of RAF bombers in Gdynia Harbor on December 19 1944, settling to the bottom in 40-feet of water after suffering 28 killed and 53 were wounded. As such, she was one of the last German capital ships afloat.

Settled on the bottom of Gdyna harbor, Oct. 1945

Only the German pocket battleship Admiral Hipper, sunk by RAF bombers in Kiel, April 9 1945 with loss of 32 crew, and Schleswig-Holstein‘s Imperial sister Schlesien, sunk by mine and Soviet bomber attack and then scuttled near Swinemunde in the Baltic, May 5 1945, outlived her on the Kreigsmarine’s Naval list. The only German battlewagon to arguably survive the maelstrom was the pocket battleship Lutzow that was sunk by the Russkies as a target after the conflict.

Schleswig-Holstein-Tallinn-1947 under a Soviet flag.Note her topside damage

However, don’t count an old German battlewagon out. Schleswig-Holstein was raised by the Soviets, towed to Tallin where she sat for two years as a floating warehouse, and was then towed to the shallows near the island of Osmussar off the Estonian coast. There, she was regularly pounded by Soviet air and naval forces as a target ship for another twenty years and her superstructure remained above water into the 1970s.

Today she sits in shallow water and is a dive attraction, although she is littered with live German 280mm shells.

Yes, those are un-fused 280mm German shells in the racks aboard the old battleship. Image from dive in 2008

Specs

As commissioned 1908

As she appeared 1943

Displacement: 13,200 t (13,000 long tons) normal
14,218 t (13,993 long tons) full load
Length: 127.6 m (418 ft. 8 in)
Beam: 22.2 m (72 ft. 10 in)
Draft: 8.21 m (26 ft. 11 in)
Installed power: 17,000 ihp (13,000 kW)
Propulsion: three shafts, three triple expansion steam engines, 12 boilers
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h)
Range: 4,800 nautical miles (9,000 km); 10 knots (20 km/h)

Complement:
35 officers
708 enlisted men

Armament: At construction:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
14 × 17 cm (6.7 in) SK L/40 guns (casemated)
22 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 naval guns (shielded/casemated)
6 × 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes (submerged)

Armament in 1926:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
12 x 15 cm SK L/45 guns (casemated: removed 1940)
8 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 naval guns (shielded)
4 × 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes (casemated)

Armament in 1939:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
10 x 15 cm SK L/45 guns (casemated: removed 1940)
4 × 8.8 cm SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns
4 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns (2×2)
Augmented 1943 with extensive flak batteries

Armor:
Belt: 100 to 240 mm (3.9 to 9.4 in)
Turrets: 280 mm (11 in)
Deck: 40 mm (1.6 in)

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 have ever picked up a modern Springfield Armory pistol, you will notice the classic and historic Springfield cannon wheel and artillery piece ordnance crest located on the slide of every one you pick up. While today’s SA is only based on the name of the original institution, which is now a monument to American ingenuity and a storage place for the national relic firearms history, the original Springfield Armory is undergoing an archeological excavation to help preserve this history.

The year after the Declaration of Independence, General Washington and his chief of artillery Henry Knox scouted out a militarily defensible position that was still centrally located to his army. The purpose of this site would be a secure storage and manufacturing facility in which workers could make limbers for the Continental Army’s artillery as well as package paper/power/bullets into cartridges for the Army’s muskets. By 1794 (remember this date), the Springfield Armory was, besides a storage place for arms and producer of ammunition, making the first all-US made firearms for the Army.

Over the next seventy years a long line of muskets, the M1795, M1816, M1822, and M1861, more than three million overall, were produced at the Springfield Armory. The muzzleloaders carried by the US Army in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, were in most cases made at SA. After the musket era, Springfield made the Model 1873 Trapdoor rifles then the Springfield Model 1892-99 Krag-Jrgensen rifle, which the US carried during the Indian Wars and Spanish-American Wars respectively.

In 1900, the Armory began work on a prototype bolt-action rifle based on a Mauser design. This new rifle became the famous Springfield M1903 rifle, which was carried during World War I by the Doughboys who went ‘over there.’ In the 1930s, the Armory was home to one Mr. John Garand who was working on a revolutionary new semi-automatic battlerifle. This gun, adopted in 1937 as the M1 Rifle, was the rifle that won the Second World War as well as helped push the Chinese back in Korea and an amazing 3-million, the bulk of the M1s ever made, came from Building 104 right there at the Armory, built in 1939 on the eve of WWII specifically for its construction.

Some 3-million M1 rifles and nearly as many M14s were made in the 70,000-sq ft Building 104 from 1939-65

In 1956 the Armory’s next rifle, the M14 replaced the old warhorse that was the Garand. Soon this select-fire rifle was equipping US soldiers and Marines in a place called Vietnam. However, it was soon replaced by the M16, which is not made in any government arsenal but under contract.

This led to the Armory’s closure in 1968 and its preservation as a protected National Historic Place and National Historic Site, managed and operated by the National Park Service. As such, it contains possibly the largest collection of firearms anywhere in the country. Their huge collection is all photographed and searchable online if you can’t make it by there.

With all that history, when they decided to tear down Building 104 this year to make room for improvements, a few interesting things turned up…

(You don’t want to know where that key has been.)

Read the rest in my column at X  D Forum

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Frank William Brangwyn

Sir Frank William Brangwyn, RA, RWS, RBA, may have been born in Bruges, Belgium in 1867, but he was 100% British. His father was a skilled mechanical artist, being an architect, and likely helped young Frank with his early work. By age 17 the largely self-taught Brangwyn was painting up a storm and for the next several decades plunged head first into just about every type of art imaginable, making murals (including for the 1st class dining room of the RMS Empress of Britain and others commissioned by the House of Lords), paintings, posters, stained glass, pottery, and everything in between. In fact, he is thought to have produced over 12,000 pieces in his professional career (to include 230 designs for functional hardwood furniture!)

About his myriad of styles and mediums, Brangwyn was candid, saying, “An artist’s function is everything: he must be able to turn his hand to everything, for his mission is to decorate life… he should be able to make pots and pans, doors and walls, monuments or cathedrals, carve, paint, and do everything asked of him.”

The artist himself

Frank William Brangwyn, “The freedom of the seas,” 1917. From the NZ National Art Collection

Still life; Fish, by FW Brangwyn, From the Royal Academy Collection

Seascape by Frank William Brangwyn, From the Northhampton Museum collection

When the Great War came, Brangwyn, then 47, did his full part. He produced images for war relief organizations, bonds drives, and he likewise became an Official War Artist, traveling to the Continent to capture what he saw first hand.

War to Arms Citizens of the Empire

National Fund for Welsh Troops

‘Help your country stop this” Frank William Brangwyn

Road near Cataples by Frank Brangwyn, from the William Morris Collection

“Soldiers under airburst fire”

Making Sailors: The Lookout circa 1917 Sir Frank Brangwyn 1867-1956 Presented by the Ministry of Information 1918. From the Tate Museum

Frank William Brangwyn, Going aboard, 1917

Frank William Brangwyn, “The gun,” 1917. From the NZ National Art Collection

Frank William Brangwyn, “Duff,” 1917. From the NZ National Art Collection

Frank William Brangwyn, Boat drill, 1917. From the NZ National Art Collection

Frank William Brangwyn, Youthful ambition, 1917, From the NZ War Collection

Knighted in 1941, he lived through his second world war and died in Sussex at age 89 in 1956.

Works of Frank William Brangwyn’s are everywhere, especially in the UK and Commonwealth countries. The BBC as part of their ‘Your Paintings” series has an amazing 197 of his works online while the William Morris contains the second largest collection. The Arentshuis Museum in Bruges holds the largest collection of his work (some 400 that the artist presented to the city in 1936), but visit http://www.frankbrangwyn.org/ for a full list of galleries and museums in the UK and beyond.

Thank you for your work, sir.

From the BBC

“The trunk, which includes a uniform bearing the ribbons for the Military Cross, was found at Highfield School in Letchworth.

It is not clear how the chest, the property of Lt Howard Hands, MC,found its way into the school.

Herts at War historian, Dan Hill, said opening the trunk was a “wow moment”.

As well as containing Lt Hands’ immaculate uniform including his cap, belts and cigarette case, maps showing a network of secret tunnels that ran under enemy positions on the Western Front, photographs, newspapers and his bedpan were also in the trunk.”

The rest here, including some really interesting images.

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 January 28, 2015 the Tsar’s Panther

Russian submarine Pantera, note four drop collars and two deck guns

Here we see the His Imperial Russian Highness’s Ship Pantera (Panther), a Bars-class submersible that ended up being the most successful Soviet ship of the World War I-era and to this day holds the all-Russian record for warship ‘kills.’

The Russians were quick to develop submarines, with their own early Nikonov ‘Barrel Sub’ predating the American Colonial ‘Turtle‘ by a nearly a century.

Russian sub design from 1834…

When Mr. Holland’s working submersibles came out, the Tsar’s navy ordered several and by 1903 Naval architect Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov, then 32, had designed the first all-Russian combat capable submarine, the 64-foot Delfin (Dolphin) which was rushed to the Pacific just in time for an uneventful role in the Russo-Japanese War.

Delfin– all 64-feet of Russian U-boat. She only proved dangerous to her own crews.

Well the Delfin, being a gasoline powered boat, suffered from explosive fumes and sank at least twice in her career. This sub also took up to a dozen minutes to submerge, which was less than ideal.

Naval architect Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov. The sub in the background was his one-off Akula (Shark). She was the world’s submarine capable of firing a multi-torpedo volley with five torpedoes. During the war she attacked the old Küstenpanzerschiffe SMS Beowulf and in turn was sunk by a German mine.

Well between 1904-1914, Bubnov was given free rein to develop submarines, which he did; producing 11 steel sharks for the Tsar spread across four different classes, each an improvement on the last. The Russians also bought 23 German, Italian and American-built subs outright, which the design bureau crawled through and took notes from.

By early 1914, the seminal Tsarist naval design for submarines was developed, that of the 233-foot long Bars (Snow Leopard) class.

Pantera sistership Submarine Lioness note extensive drop collars and deck guns

These 24-ships carried an impressive dozen 18-inch torpedoes including four launched from internal torpedo tubes and 8 carried in external Drzewiecki drop collars. The use of drop collars, which carried a torpedo in a cradle outside of the hull and was launched from that position, was unique to Tsarist and some French subs. It was the brainchild of Stefan Drzewiecki who, before Bubnov came along, had designed a group of human-powered (think CSS Hunley) submarines.

Emperor Nicholas II is listening to the report of the Russian captain at the Baltic shipbuilding and mechanical factory

For action on the surface, a small 3-inch deck gun was mounted, as were a few smaller mounts. Unlike many subs of the day, the Bars-class was relatively fast, able to break 18-knots on the surface. Better yet, they could submerge within about 90 seconds if the 33-man crew was trained enough (more on this later.)

In all some two dozen were built, 18 by the Baltic Shipyard, St. Petersburg or Noblessner Yard, Reval (Estonia) for use by the Baltic Fleet, and another half dozen by the Nikolayev Navy Yard for use on the Black Sea.

The thing is, Russia’s submarine crews, being new to the game, were very inexperienced.

After all, when these 24 new subs came out, they more than doubled the Russian underwater fleet, which had only existed for a scant decade. In fact, many of the older boats were laid up to help provide crews while sailors were often cross-decked to help fill out rosters just before a patrol. There just was not the wealth of operational experience for these new craft. They did, however, have one of the world’s first submarine tender/rescue ships, the catamaran Volkov (which is still in service a 100-years later).

When WWI broke out, these ships sortied against the German fleet (in the Baltic) and the Turks (in the Black) but didn’t chalk up many victories. The Russians only pulled of 14 combat patrols in 1914, which resulted in no kills.

When a number of British E-class subs snuck into the Baltic and set up operations, and the Russian officers started emulating the Brits, even going out on (successful) RN patrols sinking German steamers off Sweden, things grew more aggressive. This led to no less than 50 (unsuccessful) torpedo attacks on German cruisers SMS Lubeck, Pillau, and Konigsberg without a hit. However, the Bars-class was modified to carry eight M-08 sea mines on deck and as such helped expand the mine belt in the Baltic.

1916 was a better year for the Bars-class, with the Volk (Wolf) sinking at least four small steamers on the Sweden-to-Germany ore run while the Vepr (Boar) took a fifth. It was in this “Golden Age of Tsarist Submarine ops” that Pantera was commissioned. She conducted only three short combat patrols that year before being iced in at Revel.

Pantera, note large vent for running diesel on surface and only one deck gun (the 75mm) a smaller 37mm gun was fitted later.

The year 1917, which led to revolution in Holy Russia, found the Bars-class subs flying red flags from their towers, but still kinda operational. In June of that year, Pantera became the only Russian submarine to be attacked by an airship, when a German naval Zeppelin saw her on the surface and dropped a couple smallish bombs that slightly damaged her.

These boats had to be careful, as they had not a single watertight bulkhead, which meant that any hole in the casing was fatal.

“Volk” (“Wolf”) and “Bars” (“Leopard”) iced in at Reval, 1916. Note lack of torpedoes in drop collars. An enduring problem with the Russian Baltic fleet is that they are locked into their harbors from December-March.

While these subs were getting better, the class paid a heavy butcher’s bill in turn.

While on combat patrols, the Bars herself was lost 25 May 1917, as was sistership Lvitsa (Lioness) just three weeks later; the first to German surface ships, the second by mines. Edinorog (Unicorn) was lost to a mine while trying to avoid oncoming German Army troops in the general collapse on the Eastern Front in Feb. 1918.

Speaking of advances, all six Black-sea Bars boats were captured by the Germans at the time at their slips in Odessa. Turned over to the British at the end of WWII and then given to the White Russian forces, four were scuttled when the White evacuated Odessa to the oncoming Red Army in 1919 and shipped out two last survivors, Utka (Duck) and Burvestnik (Petrel) to French controlled North Africa where they remained a fleet in being until 1924 when their benefactors ordered them scrapped.

Pantera with her decks awash. Very good view of her two guns, 75mm forward, 37mm high-angle aft. A third smaller deck gun is located on her sail area.

Back in the Baltic, when 1918 came, Pantera, like the rest of the survivors of her class in the Baltic, was sitting frozen in the ice at Kronstadt. There, they remained largely inoperable while their crews were plundered for volunteers to fight in the ongoing Russian Civil War on the side of the Reds. Of the dozen or so now-Soviet subs at Kronstadt when the spring thaw of 1919 came, just two, Pantera and the steamer-killer Volk, were capable of putting to sea.

And they did just that when the Royal Navy came steaming into the Gulf of Finland as part of the Allied Intervention in the civil war.

Sortieing in late July, the red banner submarine of the people’s navy came across His Majesty’s Submarine, E-40, and in traditional fashion, was unsuccessful. However, on 31 August 1919, Pantera stalked two British warships, including the brand-new 1300-ton Admiralty V-class destroyer HMS Vittoria (F-96) off the island of Seiskari in the Gulf of Finland.

Vittoria

Hunting the British ship, she spent 28 hours underwater before getting close enough to Vittoria to spit two torpedoes from her bow tubes. One hit her mark and Vittoria blew up then went down in 75 feet of water– extremely shallow for submarine operations.

The sinking of the HMS Vittoria

This was the first warship sunk by a Russian submarine and no less than 18 members of the crew, over half, were decorated. This included 24-year old commander Alexander Bakhtin, who cut his teeth on the Volk sinking steamers during the Great War, and 25-year old engineer Aksel Ivanovich Berg, who served with the British E-class subs. Bakhtin, who fell out of favor in the 1920s, died an early death after five years in the gulag while Berg died as a retired Admiral in 1979, a noted scientist who made advances in radio communications, microelectronics and cybernetics.

The boat herself, renamed Kommisar (hull #5), was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and kept as a training vessel in the Baltic Fleet. She was rebuilt in 1924, losing her drop collars and picking up a more modern above deck structure as did seven of her sisters.

Pantera after refit.

She remained as a training ship in the Baltic Fleet into the late 1930s, treasured for her role in the Civil War, while her remaining sisters were scrapped. As such, she was the first Soviet submarine equipped with a then-experimental passive sonar array.

Pantera-crew 1935. At the time she was the last operational Tsarist-era submarine and the ‘grand old lady’ of the fleet

Largely hulked during WWII where she served as a battery charging barge for newer subs, she remained afloat until at least 1955 when she was scrapped after nearly 40-years of service to Tsar Nicholas, Lenin, and Stalin– all of which she outlived!

Her and her class, however, were recognized by the Soviets as being the basis for their enormous submarine fleet.

Evolution of Soviet subs from 1914-1955 with Bars-class at top

In 2007, Bakhtin, now famous decades after his death in obscurity, had a plaque installed in St. Petersburg that celebrates both him and the Pantera. The latter’s name was reissued to a modern submarine, an Akula-class SSN, hull number K-317. That very dangerous vessel is still part of the Russian Northern Fleet.

Bakhtin marker, which also serves as a monument to Pantera

And the Vittoria? She was given as a gift to Finland, whose territorial waters she rests in, by the British government in the 1920s, but the Finns passed on salvaging her. In 2013, a Russian diving club found her broken hull and left a marker.

Specs:

Bars class model by Vladimir Yakubov

Displacement: 650 tons surfaced, 780 tons submerged
Length: 68 m (223 ft. 1 in)
Beam: 4.5 m (14 ft. 9 in)
Draft: 3.9 m (12 ft. 10 in)
Propulsion: Diesel-electric
2,640 hp diesel
900 hp electric
2 shafts
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h) surfaced
9 knots (17 km/h) submerged
Range: 400 nmi (740 km)
Complement: 33
Armament: 1 × 75mm (3.0 in) gun
1 × 37 mm (1.5 in) AA gun
4 × 457 mm (18.0 in) torpedo tubes
8 × torpedoes in drop collars (later removed)

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Moses Ezekiel

Born into a family of that included 14 brothers and sisters on the rough side of Richmond, Virginia October 28, 1844 was one Moses Jacob Ezekiel. The son of penniless Spanish-Jewish parents who themselves were first generation Americans, he sought out a position at the nearby Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington as it was a public school and, most importantly, affordable.

Accepted into the Class of 1866, on September 17, 1862 he became the first Jewish cadet of that storied academy. No sooner did he arrive then he had to fight off prejudice and scorn, which he overcame to become a well liked, by all accounts, adjusted cadet. During his time at VMI, he was selected as part of the special guard for the casket of fallen Confederate Lt-Gen Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson who had been before the war an instructor at the school. It was not to be his only brush with history during the war.

When Union Major General Franz Sigel marched his 6200-man army to the head of the Shenandoah Valley in May 1864, there just weren’t any Confederate troops there to stop him. Confederate Major General (and former U.S. Vice President) John C. Breckinridge grabbed everyone who could carry a rifle– including the 295 VMI cadets, to stop them. This led to the famous Battle of New Market, which stopped Sigel, ensured the local farmers could harvest their crops which went on to feed the Army of Northern Virginia through the winter of 1864-65, and by default, extended the war according to some arguments.

Battle of New Market., by Keith Rocco. Ezekiel was a teenage cadet on that field.

Ezekiel was there, as part of Company C of the VMI Battalion, and, with the cadets, made a charge without orders across a muddy field in the rain in May 15, 1864. Most of the cadets had their boots sucked off by the thick mud but they broke the Union position and captured a cannon, helping in the overall defeat while suffering some 24 percent casualties. To this day, the battleground is remembered as the “Field of Lost Shoes.”

Ezekiel helped recover the wounded after the battle, including his friend, Thomas Jefferson Garfield, the grandson of the seventh President. He sat with Garfield and read from the New Testament to sooth the boy as he died in hospital. Following New Market, Ezekiel rejoined the cadets and fought through the rest of the war. Then, returning to the academy at its new location (it was burned during the war) he graduated 10th in his class in 1866. He refused in later years to state that he fought for the institution of slavery, but rather to repel invaders to his home state .

On advice from Robert E Lee, then president of nearby Washington College, Ezekiel resumed his work in the arts and soon left for Europe where he spent much of the rest of his life. From there he became one of the most famous American sculptors of his era, producing more than 200 finished works. These include a set of eleven larger-than-life sized statues of famous artists (Phidias, Raphael, Durer, Michelangelo, Titian, Murillo, Da Vinci, et al) that are now at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Norfolk, Virginia. The Bust of Thomas Jefferson at the U.S. Capitol and others.

“Religious Liberty” by Moses Jacob Ezekiel. Commissioned by B’nai B’rith for the United States Centennial, dedicated in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park on Thanksgiving Day in 1876. Currently in front of the National Museum of American Jewish History. Photo from Philart.net

Then there is his martial work.

Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, perhaps Ezekiel’s most famous work, although controversial today for its inclusion of several depictions of African American confederate soldiers

Statue of Stonewall Jackson (1910) by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, West Virginia State Capitol, Charleston, West Virginia.

VMI cadets marching past Ezekiel’s “Virginia Mourning Her Dead” (1903), Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia. He attended the dedication of this statute, which includes the graves of eight cadets killed at New Market to include his friend, Thomas Jefferson Garfield. He said at the time that, “something arose like a stone in my throat, and fell to my heart, slashing tears to my eyes” upon seeing the cadets on the field again.

The Lookout (1910) by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, Confederate Cemetery, Johnson’s Island, Ohio. The site was a POW camp for Confederate soldiers including several VMI graduates.

His last work completed was the Statue of Edgar Allan Poe (1917), currently at the University of Baltimore. It should be remembered that Poe grew up as a poor kid in Richmond, a soldier, and, briefly, a cadet at the USMA.

Ezekiel was celebrated in his lifetime, winning the Michel-Beer Prix de Rome, Crosses for Merit and Art bestowed by the Emperor of Germany and the Grand Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Palermo and the Raphael Medal from the Art Society of Urbino. King Victor Emmanuel of Italy gave him the titles of Chevalier and Officer of the Crown of Italy, as well as a knighthood.

When World War One came to Italy, Ezekiel threw himself into helping organize the Red Cross before dying in March 1917 at age 72. He was moved to Arlington National Cemetery in 1921, where he was buried at the foot of his gothic Confederate Memorial. His honor guard of eight handpicked VMI cadets included Randolph McCall Pate, later the 21st Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Ezekiel’s inscription is simple, “Moses J. Ezekiel, Sergeant of Company C, Battalion of Cadets of the, Virginia Military Institute.”

In addition to his art and legacy, his papers are maintained by the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Thank you for your work, sir.

“Eduard Ritter von Schleich standing by his Albatros D.Va, Serial No. unknown, while serving with Jagdgruppe Nr. 8 in the Spring of 1918. Its fuselage, tail, struts and wheel covers were painted black, and the aircraft displayed unusually proportioned Balkenkreuze on the wings. The wings were finished in standard 5-color lozenge pattern. A white edelweiss had previously been worn on the fuselage just aft of the cockpit, and was still barely visible under the black over-painting. The presence of the edelweiss may indicate that this plane previously belonged to Otto Kissenberth, who flew a similarly-marked Albatros with a white edelweiss in this position while serving with Jasta 23b. Known as the “Black Knight”, von Schleich survived the war with 35 victories and died in 1947.”

(Colourised by Olga Shirnina from Russia via WWI Colorized Photos)

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 Feb 11, 2015: Of Cyclops and Covered Wagons

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Here we see the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier in 1924 with a dozen early biplanes on her deck, the one that started the whole shebang of sea going Naval Aviation in the Western Hemisphere: the converted Proteus-class collier USS Langley (CV-1) nee USS Jupiter (AC-3).

One cold harsh realization that the original Global Force for Good,–Teddy Roosevelt’s 1908 Great White Fleet– came to know during its round-the-world sortie, was that a large force of battleships and cruisers needed huge, dedicated coal-carriers to keep the fleet moving. You see those water tube boilers of the day had to have a steady stream of the black stuff to make steam or the whole thing was dead in the water.

That’s when the Navy decided to ask for a quartet of new, purpose-built, colliers. Operated by the Naval Auxiliary Service, the forerunner of the MSC of today, these would be unarmed, civilian-crewed ships, owned by the government and under Navy orders.

Like class leader USS Proteus, laid down in 1911 at Newport News, the four colliers would have names drawn from Greek mythology. Sisterships, Cyclops, Nereus, and Jupiter were likewise named and ordered at the same time. Nereus would be constructed at Newport News alongside Proteus while Cyclops was built at Cramp in Pennsylvania. Jupiter, our subject was laid down 18 October 1911 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California.

USS Jupiter in the Mare Island Channel, 7 April 1913 (Commissioning Day). The collier USS Saturn is aft of Jupiter Navy Yard Mare Island photo # AC 3 001-4-13 via Navsource

These 522-foot long ships, built at a bargain price of $1 million a pop, could 11,800 tons of coal and 1,125 ton of oil in six holds. They were made distinctive by their seven tall A-frame towers, standing five stories above deck (remember this later) that allowed coal or oil to be moved via a complicated series of 24 winches and 12 cable-ways to vessels along either side. In tests with the battleship Wyoming, it was found that one of these colliers could transfer 217 tons per hour if needed, which was pretty efficient.

They could also carry 8,000 tons of dry cargo in lieu of coal and small amounts of men from place to place. As such, they proved handy as sort of a low-budget federal shipping service for the government.

Post card of USS Jupiter moored pier side, probably at Mare Island Navy Yard, sometime about the time of her completion in 1913. Robert M. Cieri via Navsource

Jupiter was commissioned on 7 April 1913 and, like her three sisters, proved yeoman service to the fleet both in the days leading up to WWI and in the war itself. By 1916, the Navy had directed that these ships be crewed by actual naval personnel, and they picked up a quartet of 4-inch popguns for self-defense. Jupiter did her duty when the Great War came and coaled the U.S. Atlantic Fleet on both sides of the pond, seeing service in dangerous U-boat infested waters without a hitch.

Speaking of dangerous, her sistership, USS Cyclops, carrying the United States Consul-General to Rio, Alfred Louis Moreau Gottschalk among her passengers, as well as 231 crew and an overloaded cargo of manganese, went missing somewhere between Barbados and Virginia in March 1918. This disappearance was blamed at the time on U-boats, or possibly a fierce storm that swept through the Virginia Capes. Other theories included the possibility that her German-born Captain may have done something with her, and, later Bermuda Triangle advocates have advanced all sorts of crap claims ranging from UFOs to magnetic shifts. Other more plausible reasons include the ship’s very high messianic height (have you seen those derrick towers!?), the numerous huge hatches on deck, and low freeboard (just 8-feet when fully loaded) leading to unsafe conditions in rough seas.

Cyclops has never been found although at least one Navy diver, Dean Hawes in 1968, descended on a large hulk lying in 180 feet of water about 40 nautical miles northeast of Cape Charles, that is thought to have been the Cyclops. The ship has been an ongoing topic for Clive Cussler and his NUMA crew, even making it into a rather entertaining Dirk Pitt novel that I read back in 7th grade…and again in 10th…

Anyways, back to the Jupiter.

With the war over and the Navy moving to oilers rather than colliers, Jupiter was surplus. In fact, her surviving sisters Nereus and Proteus were laid up on red lead row for good. That fate was almost shared by Jupiter, who was decommissioned on 24 March 1920, except that she was converted to use as the U.S. Navy’s first, albeit experimental, aircraft carrier.

In 1922, she reemerged from the Norfolk Navy Yard dubbed USS Langley after aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley. Gone were her huge towers, her topside now covered with a wooden flight deck for aircraft. As such, she took on the nickname of “The Covered Wagon.”

USS Langley (CV-1) early in her career (note single stack to port). Photo is stamped on back: “Chief of Information. Navy Department. Washington, 25 D.C.” Photo by Jim Bulebush via Navsource

With her huge derricks removed and topside weight reduced, she shed some 5,000 tons and could float in water some five feet more shallow. She also picked up a couple knots in speed without all that bulk. In addition to her flightdeck, she was fitted with an elevator and catapult as well as a carrier pigeon house on the stern. Her old 4″/50s were replaced by newer 5″/51s and her holds were converted to berthing for up to 500 bluejackets and air wing members as well as bunkerage for avgas and lubricants.

An image taken from a departing biplane, Aug 03, 1923 of the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier. NARA Photo 520639

For the next 15 years, Langley served as the cradle of U.S. Naval aviation, with most of the service’s pre-WWII aviators learning their trade on her humble decks. In fact, she was the only carrier in the fleet, not to mention the hemisphere, until late 1927. She conducted a number of important firsts including launching and recovering the first Navy’s first rotary wing aircraft, a Pitcairn XOP-1 autogyro, on Sept. 23, 1931.

Had there been no Langley, there likely would have been no Lexington, Yorktown or Enterprise airwings in 1942. Further, five of her skippers went on to become admirals.

“Fleet Plane Carrier on Night Maneuvers,” circa 1925. Robert M. Cieri/ Thomas M. McDermott via Navsource.

Still, at the end of the day, Langley was just a collier by any other name and slow one at that. In 1936, she was stripped of her fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes, reclassified as a seaplane tender (AV-3) and her deck cut back to less than half its former length.

USS Langley (AV-3) at anchor in 1937, near NAS Coco Solo Panama. The aircraft over flying Langley are Consolidated PBY-2s from Patrol Squadron Two (VP-2). US Navy photo via Navsource. Note the half length deck.

When WWII started, she was forward deployed to the Philippines and dodged incoming Japanese planes on the very first day of the War in the Pacific. Escaping the PI by the skin of her teeth, she worked her way south to the Dutch East Indies where she was used by the Army to deliver a load of 32 Curtiss P-40 Warhawks of the 13th USAAF Pursuit Squadron to Java.

However, the Japanese caught up to the old girl and on 27 February, 1942, left her dead in the water her off Java with five bomb hits turning her into an inferno and taking 16 of her crew to the deep. Nine 4-inch shells and two torpedoes from the destroyer USS Whipple (DD-217) finished her off after her crew was offloaded to prevent her from falling into enemy hands.

Most of her crew was rescued by the fleet oiler USS Pecos (AO–6), but tragically were lost when that ship was sunk by Japanese air attack from the carriers Kaga and Soryu, 1 March.

Her sisters Nereus and Proteus? As it turned out, Langley/Jupiter outlived them both.

They were struck from the Naval List in 1940 after spending nearly two decades in mothballs. The Navy just didn’t need any colliers or, for that matter, cargo ships with corrosion and engine issues. The two were sold to Saguenay Terminals Ltd. of Montreal, Quebec on March 8 and 10th, 1941 respectively and operated in the Canadian Merchant Navy during World War II. In the ultimate in Theremin music sound tracked creepiness on the high seas, both of these ships, like the Cyclops before them, disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area within three weeks of each other. M/V Proteus left St. Thomas, USVI with a load of bauxite to be turned into aluminum bound for Maine on Nov. 23, 1941. M/V Nereus left the same port, with the same cargo, for the same destination, on Dec. 10th.

Neither was seen again.

While the three colliers are somewhere in Poseidon’s Bermuda flotilla, Langley‘s wreck is some 75 miles south off Tjilatjap, Indonesia while a very well done model is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida. Her name was later carried by the USS Langley (CVL-27), an 11,000-ton Independence-class aircraft carrier that served the United States Navy from 1943 to 1947. Since that ship was stricken in March 1963, there has not been a Langley on the Naval List.

She is remembered as the Covered Wagon

Specs

As collier:

Image via Shipbucket. Click to big up

Displacement: 19,000 long tons (19,000 t) full
Length: 522 ft. (159 m)
Beam: 63 ft. (19 m)
Draft: 27 ft. 8 in (8.43 m)
Speed: 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement: 13 officers, 91 men, all civilians, bunks for 158
Armament:     4-4″/50 (Fitted 1916/17)

Specs: As Aircraft Carrier

Image via Shipbucket. Cick to big up

Displacement:
13,900 long tons (14,100 t)
Length: 542 ft. (165.2 m)
Beam: 65 ft. 5 in (19.9 m)
Draft: 24 ft. (7.3 m)
Installed power: 7,200 shp (5,400 kW)
Propulsion:     General Electric turbo-electric transmission
3 × boilers
2 × shafts
Speed: 15.5 kn (17.8 mph; 28.7 km/h)
Range: 3,500 nmi (4,000 mi; 6,500 km) at 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h)
Complement: 468 officers and men
Armament:     4 × 5 in (127 mm)/51 cal guns
Aircraft carried:  up to 55 in tests. Typically, 36 embarked. As seaplane tender after 1936, would be responsible for 10-20 flying boats
Aviation facilities: 1 × elevator
1 × catapult

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!

A group of U.S. Marines pose for the camera in 1918 just months before the end of World War One.

Note the campaign hats of the sea soldiers in the front rank doffed to the deck. As the legend has it, German troops facing the Marines at the Battle of Belleau Wood that year termed the leathernecks “Teufel Hunden” or devil dogs. This has stuck for the past 97 years.

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 Feb. 18, 2015 Marshal Massena of Gallipoli

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Here we see the Charles Martel-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Navy of the French Republic, Marshal André Masséna. Just about one of the coolest late-19th century warwagons, she is a classic of Edwardian naval tumblehome hull architecture.

This 11,000-ton, 369-foot warship today would be classified as a cruiser or even a Zumwalt-class destroyer, but in 1892, she was an ass kicker. An incredibly complicated system of two dozen Lagrafel d’Allest water-tube boilers fed manually by coal pushed three triple expansion engines that could propel her and her near sisters at about 17-ish knots, which was pretty good for the day.

in port

If she had to fight, a pair of 12”/40 caliber (305mm) Modèle 1893 guns, mounted in single turrets fore and aft, could hole an enemy ship with a 770-pound AP shell out to 13,00 yards. These were backed up by another pair of 10-inch guns, 16 smaller mounts and, like most battleships of the era, had submerged torpedo tubes. She was made to be able to slug it out, being fitted with up to 18-inches of steel plate armor.

A great overhead shot. Note the armament plan, with the two 12-inchers fore and aft and two single 10-inchesr port and starboard.

Laid down at Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire in 1892, she was named after André Masséna, Duc de Rivoli, Prince d’Essling, one of Napoleon’s original 18 Marshals. Of course Massena turned his back in little N when the Bourbons came back to power and kept it turned during the 100 Days, but hey nobody is perfect.

The namesake battleship was commissioned in June 1898, after five years on the builder’s ways. Coming out during the Spanish-American War, in which most of the ships in combat were armored cruisers smaller and less heavily armed than Masséna, her design was felt validated.

French pre-dreadnought battleship Masséna, alongside one of her sisters

She spent the next decade in happy peacetime maneuvers, gunnery trials, and practice. However, by 1908 a funny thing happened. You see after the Russo Japanese War of 1904-05, dreadnoughts of her type were hamburger. In fact, four Russian Borodino-class battleships, themselves actually more modern versions of the Masséna and her sisters, lasted just minutes in combat. With the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought being commissioned in 1906, she was further made obsolete.

Masséna was sitting in French mothballs when World War One erupted and she was eventually dusted off. Even old battleships are useful in a Great War after all. She was to be used to help force the straits to the Bosporus during the Gallipoli Campaign in late 1914 along with her recently recalled sisters.

Note the hull shape

There, Bouvet, one of these sisterships struck a mine and sunk in just two minutes during operations off the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. That was indicative of campaign. When that whole thing unraveled, Massena, the 17-year-old bruiser was scuttled in shallow water and used as a breakwater to help evac the ANZAC/French forces in 1916. In 1923, the postwar French Naval Bureau sold the hulk, which they still technically owned, to breakers for scrap.

Her three surviving near sisters in French service, Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, and Carnot, were out of front line service after Gallipoli and scrapped before the next war, the class forgotten.

As for Masséna himself, his sabre is on display at the musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâte

Specs

Charles Martel class line drawing as commissioned. Image from Shipbucket

Displacement: 11,735 tons (11,550 long tons)
Length: 112.65 m (369 ft. 7 in)
Beam: 20.27 m (66 ft. 6 in)
Draft: 8.84 m (29 ft. 0 in)
Propulsion: Three triple expansion engines
Speed: 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Complement: 667
Armament:
2 × 305 mm/40 (12 in) Modèle 1893 guns
2 × 274 mm/45 (10.8 in) Modèle 1893 guns
8 × 138 mm/45 (5.5 in) Modèle 1888 guns
8 × 100 mm (3.9 in) guns
4 × 450 mm torpedo tubes (submerged)
Armor:
Belt: 450 mm (18 in)
Turrets: 400 mm (16 in)
Conning tower: 350 mm (14 in)

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!

Here are a set of posters for those watching the skies for the Kaiser’s war-machines in 1915.

And here are a set provided by the BBC for those watching for Tsar Putin’s increasingly active air armada of 2015.

Ahh, 100 years of progress.

The Imperial German Army in 1914 was actually an army of confederated German speaking countries that had formed after 1871. The Prussians, augmented by a number of minor states such as Hamburg and Anhalt, made up the bulk and provided some 19 Corps including the Guards, the I-IX, XIV-XVIII, XX, and XXI. Bavaria had three independent corps (I, II and III Bavarian Army Corps) as well as their own air force.

The Royal Saxon Army supplied two Corps, the XII and XIX. Würtemburg marshaled its forces into the XIII Army Corps. The Grand Duchy of Baden provided the lansers for the XIV Army Corps. Each corps had two divisions and each division had four infantry regiments organized in two, two regiment brigades.

As each of the states had their own regiments that were part of the larger national army, they carried two names. For instance, the 4th Regiment of the Royal Saxon Army was also the 103rd Regiment of the Imperial German Army.

Which explains the below:

“A portrait of a Saxon infantryman with the 4th Regiment Royal Saxon Army, 103 Infantry Regiment of the German Reich (Kgl. Sächs. 4. Infanterie-Regiment Nr.103), possibly taken in his garrison at Bautzen, Eastern Saxony, circa 1916. He wears the model 1907/10 Feldrock tunic with the belt buckle with the Saxon motto, ‘Providentiae Memor’ (Providence Remember), and is armed with a Gew. 98 mauser rifle fitted with a S98/05 bayonet. (Image courtesy of the Drake Goodman Collection, colorized by Benjamin Thomas.)”

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 March 11, 2015: The Teller of Tales

Here we see the white hulled training ship Tusitala under sail in the 1930s in a painting by maritime artist Joseph Arnold. At which point she was the last commercial square-rigger in American service.

Built in 1882 by the Robert Steel & Co., Greenock, Scotland, as Yard No 130, she was an iron hulled, full-rigged ship. As such, she was in that last generation of elegant windjammers that carried cargo economically around the world. She was no steamship, and relied on the wind for her forward movement.

According to a 1952 article by Roger Dudley, “In rig she was a ship in the strictest sense of the word—a three-masted vessel, square-rigged on all three masts. Her total sail area was more than 20,000 square feet; the mainsail alone being 3,200 feet and the foresail 2,600. She carried single topgallant sails below fore, main and mizzen royals.”

Named originally Inveruglas, she flew a British merchant ensign and was British Reg. No. 87394 and signal PGVL in 1883.

As Inveruglas 1884– note the figurehead she would lose in 1917

Just three years later she was sold to the Sierra Shipping Co., Liverpool, and was renamed Sierra Lucena where she made regular runs from the home islands to Australia for wool and India on the jute trade.

As Sierra Lucena around 1900

Her British service came to an end in 1907 when, renamed Sophia, she was sold to the Norwegian shipping firm of Nielsen & Co., Larvik, Norway. The company was concerned in tramping work, but also had a steady grain trade from the River Plate to Europe.

World War I found her dodging both Allied and German warships as Norway was a strict neutral, however she did not come out of the conflict unscathed. While in the River Plate in 1917, she was ran over by a steamship that shattered her bowsprit and destroyed her figurehead. By 1921, she was laid up in Hampton Roads, with her backers unable to find suitable freights for her.

In May 1923, she was bought for a token price by the New York-based “Three Hours for Lunch Club” artists and writers association lead by Christopher Morley, and renamed Tusitala in honor of novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. The meaning is “Teller of Tales.” Stevenson was known to go by the moniker himself.

The one and only Joseph Conrad wrote a congratulatory letter to the new owners:

Joseph Conrad letter

“On leaving this hospitable country where the cream is excellent and the milk of human kindness apparently never ceases to flow, I assume an ancient mariner’s privilege of sending to the owners and ship’s company of the Tusitala my brotherly good wishes for fair winds and clear skies on all their voyages. And may they be many!

“And I would recommend to them to watch the weather,” it goes on; “to keep the halliards clear for running, to remember that any fool can carry on, but only the wise man knows how to shorten sail in time … “

The writers club wanted to use the ship to cruise among the islands so loved by Stevenson, but when that proved unlikely, James A. Farrell, a former president of U.S. Steel, acquired the ship from the writers and used her on a series of commercial voyages for his Argonaut Line from New York to Honolulu via the Panama Canal, completing one of the trips in just 76 days– all under sail.

When you consider the voyage was on the order of 5,452 miles, that’s pretty respectable for a 40+ year old vessel.

Furling the royal– four hands out on the yard passing the gaskets, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

With main and mizzen royals furled and cross-jack unbent, the “Tusitala” makes the best of a fair wind (left) by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Outward boynd, the Tusitala’s sails are set and sheeted home one by one as the tug takes her to sea, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage

On these trips, she would carry 2600 tons of nitrates to the islands and bring back sugar on the return trips. In 1925, she made a sprint from Honolulu to Seattle, WA, in 16 days and 9 hours.

Shot from port bow, 1920-30s

abeam shot under U.S. flag 1930s

Full rig

The full-rigged ship Tusitala returning to New York with cargo from across the South Atlantic has run out of wind. The steam tug Federal No. 1 is towing, while a second tug lies along the starboard side of the ship in order to assist in the docking. Via NYT

In 1932 she was laid up, her commercial career over. Farrell sold her to the breakers six years later when maintaining her pier side at New York’s Riverside Drive wharf proved too costly.

1938 laid up

However, naval purchasing agents on the East Coast came across the leaky old girl and acquired her in 1939 for $10,000 as a training ship.

Refitted at Staten Island for another $30,000 of MARAD funds, for the first time she carried an electrical system as well as a modern cafeteria and accommodations for up to 150 cadets.

Tusitala was turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard, who ran the government’s merchie training vessels at the time. Placed in commission but not given a pennant number, she was given an “unclassified” hull designation (WIX) which is the same as the current U.S. Coast Guard Training Barque Eagle (WIX-327) carries.

In May 1940 USCGC Mohawk (WPG-75) towed the sailing ship to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she was used during the conflict to instruct thousands of new merchant sailors and officers at the U.S. Merchant Service Training Station (USMSTS) there.

Oddly enough, one of her fellow training ships at St. Pete was the world’s last sailing frigate, the Danish-built Joseph Conrad.

According to the American Merchant Marine at War (www.usmm.org) :

Her masts were cropped, decks cleared of sailing gear, and she was towed into St. Petersburg to be tied up and used as a stationary training ship to augment class facilities. First classes held aboard this ship utilized the galley and mess room as class rooms for courses which included theory and practical instruction in cooking, baking, butchering, care and use of tools and equipment, sanitation, cooks and messmen duties at sea, and ship routine. In addition, there was instruction in boat drill, gunnery, physical education, regulations, customs, and traditions.

View of Training Station from the sea. Vessel on left TV Tusitala, right is the TV Vigil

Cadets seen in a postcard from the USMSTC– the stern of the white hulled Tusitala very visible to the left

Tusitala spent the war as part of the 7-ship USMM fleet at St. Pete under the overall command of CDR. G.F. Harrington, USMS, a World War I vet with some 40-years of swaying decks under his feet. During WWII, more than 25,000 mariners passed through St. Pete’s halls and tread the decks of the Tusitala.

When the Maritime Service took over all training functions from the Coast Guard after 31 August 1942 Tusitala was administratively decommissioned and transferred to Maritime Service control and operation– even though the latter had run her for two years already.

Trainee at the United States Maritime Service training station handling a life boat in an abandon ship drill– note the dark hulled Joseph Conrad in the background. LOC image

With the war over and the facility drawing down their fleet to just a handful of ships, she was offered free of charge to the Marine Historical Association of Mystic for their museum, who instead took the Joseph Conrad as that vessel was smaller and in more seaworthy condition.

With her last chance at salvation evaporated, the old Tusitala was towed one final time across the Gulf to Mobile, Alabama in 1948, where she was scrapped. In all she saw six decades at sea under the flags of three countries while inspiring legions of artists, writers, and mariners both young and old.

Prints of “Stormy Passage” by Paul McGehee show the square-rigged ship “Tusitala” in rough seas.

Today, the former Unites States Maritime Services Training Center facility, decommissioned in March 1950, is incorporated into the University of South Florida.

While the Tusitala is no more, the Conrad remains at Mystic Seaport and is still used for training young mariners.

Specs:

Displacement: 1200 tons nominal. 1746 GRT, 1684 NRT and 1622 tons under deck
Length: 261′ long between perpendiculars (310′ overall)
Beam: 39’5″
Draft: 23’5″ depth
Engine: Nope
Rig (1883-1938) Three masts, rigged with royal sails over double topgallant and top sails, spike bowsprit after 1917. Armament: private small arms as a commercial ship, 1940-47 various gunnery tools including 3-inch and 5-inch gun mockups.

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

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Arthur Szyk

Born June 16, 1894 during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II in the Central Polish city of Łódź, then part of the Holy Russian Empire, Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick“) showed artistic promise as youth. His father, a textile factory manager, sent young Arthur abroad to the Académie Julian in Paris in 1909 for four years then traveled Europe and Asia, finding himself in Palestine when World War I erupted.

Drafted into the Tsar’s Army as a reserve ensign, he fought in many of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front including the one for his vey own hometown. Artistically trained, he took to sketching what he saw.

Wounded Russian soldiers. Lodz itself lost some 40 percent of its population in the war while the Russian Army threw away one million soldiers in an effort to keep Poland in the Empire in 1915. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.

When Poland became independent once again at the end of WWI, he served as an officer in the newly formed Polish Army and fought against the Reds in the Russo-Polish War while also helping produce propaganda art for the cause.

1919 propaganda poster. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.

Once the war was over, he picked up his family and spent the next two decades in France, the UK and the states where he illustrated volumes of books, created postcards, created 38 watercolors in the Washington and his Times series, and produced the Haggadah.

Szyk’s inside cover illustration for Andersen’s fairy tales, 1944

Declaration of Independence. Note the Washington artwork– Library of Congress

When the Second World War of his generation came forth, he jumped into the effort with both feet. His old homeland overrun, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he began a war of the pencils against Hitler and his like.

“Liberty what the Nazis leave behind” Aug 1941. Szyk had no love for the Soviets and it should be remembered that Stalin agreed to split his homeland with Hitler, invading Poland from the East just 17 days after the Germans did.

1939 “For a total living space, comrades in arms”

Satan leads the Ball

1939, Two comrades were serving

1944, Warriors-of-the-Polish-1st-Division-Tadeusz-Kosciuszko-by-Arthur-Szyk

Wayside shrine

Tears of Rage, 1942

Two polish officers. Szyk knew firsthand the Polish army as he was one of its first officers in 1919.

The New Order

Poland Fights Nazi Dragon – Polish War Relief, 1943– Library of Congress

1939, German ‘Authority’ in Poland,

Colliers cover

His art of the time, propaganda pieces for the main part, likely did as much damage to the Axis as a battalion of Sherman tanks or a squadron of Lancaster bombers.

With the Soviets in Poland after the end of the War, Szyk made his stay in the West permanent and in 1948 became a U.S. citizen while championing Israeli independence.

He died in 1951

Arthur Szyk self portrait

“Art is not my aim, it is my means.” – Arthur Szyk

The U.S. Library of Congress as well as the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial maintain extensive collections of his work as do at least two private associations to include the Arthur Szyk Society and Szyk.com.

Thank you for your work, sir.

One of the lesser-known small arms makers of 20th Century Western Europe was the Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat A.S., Copenhagen. This Danish firm produced a number of variants of the guns of one Lt. Jens Theodor Suhr Schouboe (pronounced ‘Shoobow’) of the Royal Danish Army (who was also one of the brains behind the classic Madsen light machine gun).

(The Madsen light machine gun)

These pistols included the Model 1902, 1906, 1907, 1912 and 1916. Never really popular only a few thousand total guns were made and at least some were purchased in a contract for the Danish border police during WWI in the interest of “keeping it local” since the neutral country was caught between the British blockade and the Germans.

DANISH M1907 SCHOUBOE, with shoulder stock. Via Julia

And yes, the stock was the holster as well. Via Julia

The designs were very interesting using a blow-back action and (in the 1902, 1906 and 1907 pattern) a .45 caliber cartridge that fired an aluminum-jacketed wooden cored bullet (not making this up) that would zip out to 1600 fps while not having a lot of recoil.

One was even tested by the U.S. Army but rejected.

Anyways, two of the rare M1906 guns are in the upcoming Julia auction.

DANISH M1906 SCHOUBOE, FIRST VARIATION, METAL GRIPS.

DANISH M1906 SCHOUBOE, FIRST VARIATION, GOLD INLAID, PRESENTATION TO PRESIDENT OF URUGUAY.

My homie Ian over at Forgotten Weapons has more background on these interesting pistols.

Back during the opening phases of the Great War in 1914, it was thought that flechettes would be the best thing going to drop from aeroplanes and dirigibles on wayward enemy cavalry and foot soldiers below. These steel darts, of a number of different types, seemed monstrous but were in fact not very effective.

Via IWM

Bombs took up the slack by 1916. The images below are from the Imperial War Museum collection of a number of different types of these failed antipersonnel missiles, but interestingly enough were brought back as part of real cluster bombs in Vietnam

Via IWM

This German flechette (aerial dart) was found after a Zeppelin raid on the night of 19/20 January 1915, in the vicinity of Glanford, on the North Norfolk coast. German Navy Airships L3 and L4 were both involved during this attack, but only L4 appears to have bombed in the area where this Flechette was picked up. Flechettes were normally dropped in bundles, which dispersed the missiles over a wide area; flechettes were used as anti-personnel weapons.– Via IWM

‘Lazy Dog’ anti-personnel flechette of the type dropped by the United States Air Force during the war in Vietnam (1962-1975). The flechette was delivered via a Mk 44 Cluster Bomb (which held at least 10,000 flechettes). The Mk 44 opened in mid-air after release, so that the flechettes (or ‘aerial darts’) were then dispersed over the target where they inflicted damage by penetration of soft targets. VIA IWM

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

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Howard Chandler Christy

Born in Meigs Creek, Ohio in 1873, Howard Chandler Christy grew up on the farm but always had his hands on a pencil. Saving up some cash, he left out for New York City at age 17 and studied under noted artist William Merritt Chase. By 1893, he was supporting himself as a commercial artist penning and sketching for periodicals and newspapers in the big city.

When war came in 1898, the 25-year-old artist jumped on the opportunity for adventure in Cuba and shipped out with the U.S. Army as a war artist under contract to a number of NYC magazines to include Scribner’s. When he landed, he had to good fortune to be a tag along with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, aka the Rough Riders and soon struck up a personal friendship with Col. Teddy Roosevelt who had resigned his post as Asst. Sec of the Navy to swashbuckle his way across Cuba.

The Rough Rider’s actions, and Christy’s depiction of them, became famous hand in hand.

Three watercolor pencil sketches depict military figures of the Spanish-American War by Christy, 1899

Charge of the First and Tenth Cavalry 2d Brigade, Cavalry Division Cuba, 1898 by Howard Chandler Christy from US Army Art Collection

Howard Chandler Christy – Wounded Rough Rider

Christy and the Rough Riders help make each other famous

The Capture of El Caney by Howard Chandler Christy

After the war, the young man’s career took off and he soon became in demand. For the next two decades, he busied himself in book and magazine work but commanded impressive fees and could afford to become selective as to what he pursued. He also began branching out into more mediums and larger canvases, taking to covering the female form as a matter of art. This led to his Christy Girl as an alternative to the then-popular Gibson Girl. This gave the artist tremendous commercial success with Christy bringing down as much as $50,000 per year by the start of World War One–, which is about $1.1 million in today’s cash.

Christy was a big fan of beautiful women

The Woman in the Next Car 1909 by Howard Chandler Christy

Sir Walter Scott, The Lady Of The Lake (1910)

When the U.S. entered the War in 1917, Christy again served his country and created donated war art for recruiting posters, war bond drives, and Red Cross appeals.

Nancy Palmer Christy, modeling for the artist’s 1917 Navy recruitment poster.

The Motor Corps. Christy was an advocate of strong, modern women

Clear The Way (1918) Christy,

Buy Bonds!

Red Cross Appeal

Christy donated recruiting poster

Christy donated recruiting poster

Fly with the Marines

After the war, an expert on beautiful women, he judged the first Miss American pageant and became the go-to portrait artist in the country, painting official portraits for Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover as well producing lasting murals and paintings for historical scenes such as the signing of the Constitution.

Christy’s We the People

Many of these are national treasures, and are on display at Independence Hall, the Capitol, the Smithsonian, and the White House.

World War II saw more posters for the country’s war bonds while Christy continued his commercial art.

Army Notre Dame football cover 1938

Lucky Strike (1932) Christy, HC

He died in 1952.

The artist

His official papers are at Lafayette College and there are a number of collections of his work online

Thank you for your work, sir.

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

Warship Wednesday March 25, 2015 the Granite Ship of the Line

Here we see the once-majestic old ship of the line USS Granite State as she appeared in a much more humble state towards the end of her career. When this image was taken, she was the last such ship afloat on the Naval List.

During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy gave a good account of itself, especially for its size, and its frigates such as Constitution and Constellation, proved their weight in gold repeatedly.

With the end of the war, the U.S. Navy had to be revitalized and as such, “An Act for the Gradual Increase of the Navy of the United States,” was approved 29 April 1816. This provided for nine larger 74-gun ships of the line and funding of $1 million per year for a period of 8 years to see these craft completed. These were to be monster ships capable of taking on just about anything the modern European powers could send across the Atlantic in single ship combat.

Do not let the name fool you, most of the American ‘74s generally carried more like 80-90 guns. Alabama‘s sistership, USS North Carolina was actually pierced (had gunports) for 102 guns. Another, ’74 sister, USS Pennsylvania carried 16 8-inch shell guns and 104 32-pounders.

Some 196-feet long, these triple-deckers were exceptionally wide at 53-feet, giving them a very tubby 1:4 length-to-beam ratio and were very deep in hold ships, drawing over 30 feet full draft when fully loaded with over 800 officers, men and Marines and shipping a pretty respectable 2600-tons displacement.

James Guy Evans (United States, born England, circa 1810–1860) U.S. Ships of the Line “Delaware” and “North Carolina” and Frigates “Brandywine” and “Constellation,” circa 1835–60 Oil on canvas, 31¾ x 44⅛ inches New-York Historical Society; The Alabama was the sistership to the two ’74s shown here, Delaware and North Carolina, though she never shipped in this configuration.

These nine ships it was decided would be named Columbus, Alabama, Delaware, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia and all were nominally completed by 1825.

I say nominally because by the time they were complete, the Navy had run out of money to pay for things like cannons, sails, rigging and crews so some of these ships were left “in the stocks” on land until cash could be freed.

Alabama was one of the most neglected, although President Madison himself visited her while under construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

While most of her sisters joined the fleet eventually in the 1830s, although some with much less firepower than designed, Alabama was still on land when the Civil War started.

She was a ship built, at least initially, in the period just after the War of 1812 and as such was constructed with fine live oak timbers from the South and fitted with copper spikes, sheeting, and deck nails made by the Paul Revere and Sons Copper Company of Massachusetts. Revere himself in fact, was still alive when his firm won the contract in 1816.

Doughty, the man who literally designed the early U.S. Navy

Alabama was designed by no less a naval architect than William Doughty, the same nautical genius who was responsible for the USS President, USS Independence, and USS United States 74s, Peacock class, Erie class, Java and Guerrier, North Carolina 74s class, Brandywine 44s Class, brigs, revenue cutters, and the Baltimore Clipper model so she had a good pedigree.

It was as an ode to this impressive lineage that the old girl was finally completed during the war. Her original name, now belonging to a succeeded southern state, was somewhat too ironic so she was renamed New Hampshire on 28 October 1863. She then took to the water for the first time at launching on 23 April 1864 and proceeded to fitting out.

The thing is, the U.S. Navy of 1864 did not need a classic 1816-designed ’74 in its battle line. In fact, the old girl, with provision for sail only, was an anachronism in a fleet increasingly populated with steam and iron monitors equipped with rifled guns. Therefore, she was armed much more simply with a quartet of 100-pounder Parrott rifles and a half dozen 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, so ten pieces rather than 74, but hey, at least she was afloat!

Commissioned 13 May 1864 at Portsmouth, just 48 years after she was authorized, she proceeded to Port Royal South Carolina where she spent the last nine months of the Civil War as a depot and store ship, her huge below deck berthing areas designed for up to and empty cannon ports proving just the thing to make her a floating warehouse.

It was while at Port Royal, a photographer who took a number of iconic images of her crew visited her.

Believed to be taken on the USS New Hampshire in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864 note the boarding cutlasses on wall.

USS New Hampshire in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864 powder monkey, same cutlasses same cannon

After the war ended, she was put out to pasture and sailed to Norfolk, once more the headquarters of the U.S. Navy, where she served as a receiving ship (again, lots of unused hammock space on a ’74 with less than a dozen guns) for more than a decade.

It was then that the Navy figured out a better use for the grand old girl.

New Hampshire as apprentice ship at Newport

According to the Naval War College Museum Blog,

In 1881 the USS New Hampshire became the flagship for Commodore Stephen B. Luce’s Apprentice Training Program in Newport. Luce and others established an apprentice system to formally educate young boys and improve the overall quality of naval recruits. The boys needed parental permission and criminals were not allowed to apply. New Hampshire, docked at ‘South Point’ on Coasters Harbor Island, was the home of these boys for a six-month period before each was assigned to a training ship. In nearby buildings the teenagers were instructed in seamanship and gunnery as well as reading, writing, arithmetic, and history.

New Hampshire was not alone in this ultimate fate. By the late 19th century, many of the famous old sailing ships of the Navy to include the USS Constitution, Farragut’s USS Hartford, and the fellow Doughty-designed ’74 USS Independence were still in daily use as roofed-over receiving ships. Their gun ports were replaced by windows, their sails and riggings largely trashed, and their armament replaced by training sets with powder enough for harbor salutes.

The Newport experiment continued for over a decade until, decommissioned 5 June 1892 but still on the Naval List, she was loaned to the New York Naval Militia as a stationary training ship based in New York City.

For the next 28 years, the mighty ship of the line endured at her post in the Hudson River where she participated in the 1892 Columbia Ship parade as well as the 1909 Hudson Fulton parade and trained thousands of naval reservists that went on to serve in both the Spanish American War and WWI. During the flare up with Spain, she was armed and made ready to repel an assault by wayward Spanish cruisers on the Big Apple that never came.

In that time, she lost her New Hampshire name (let’s be honest, it was never really hers anyway, she was a Dixie girl) to the new battleship BB-25 and was renamed Granite State, 30 November 1904.

She was the floating armory for the 1st Battalion, New York Naval Militia, who had a pretty good football team.

According to NYNM records, she “moored at first at East 27th Street & the East River (In 1898 during Spanish-American War it was used as the Naval Militia Receiving Ship); then at Whitestone, finally from 1912 at West 97th Street (to W. 94th) on the Hudson River. The barracks were on the dock side”

Bayonet drill 1898. Note the very Civil War style dress of the pre-Span Am War New York Naval Militia. At the time it was cheap surplus and Bannerman’s downtown sold it by the pound.

In April 1913 she suffered a topside fire that caused more than $3800 in damages, which is about $95K in today’s cash.

In 1918, she again chopped from NYNM service to active duty, performing duties as a U.S. Navy Hospital Ship in New York for the duration of the War. Enlisting on her deck at the time was a local boy, S1C Humphrey Bogart, who went on to star in a few movies later in life.

One of the Granite State’s toughguys

On July 21, 1918, she suffered her only known death during warfare when John James Malone, Seaman, 2nd class, USNRF, drowned during a training evolution.

Moving back to the militia after the war, with 105 years on her hull she suffered yet another fire, this time with a near catastrophic loss.

Oil, pooling around the ship from a leaking 6-inch Standard Oil Company pipe, was ignited from the backfire of a passing Captains gig. The resulting fire destroyed the gig, a three story naval office, storehouse, and the Granite State. Low water pressure on shore contributed to the loss. However, before the crew abandoned ship the vessels powder magazine was flooded, preventing an explosion that would have devastated the surrounding area. Fireboats pumped tons of water into the flaming hulk until it settled into the mud. Listing sharply to port only the mooring chains kept the vessel from capsizing.

Here we see the “Granite State,” sunk and listing, after burning at her pier in the Hudson River on May 23, 1921. The Granite State was formerly the USS New Hampshire, built in 1825, launched in 1864, and served as part of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in the Civil War. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)

A total loss, she was stricken from the Naval List, and her hulk was sold for $5000 for salvage 19 August 1921 to the Mulhollund Machinery Corp. Fastened and sheathed with over 100 tons of copper, it was estimated in a New York Times article then that $70,000 of salvageable material could be removed from the hulk. Two, five ton anchors along with 100 tons of chain were still aboard and it was rumored there were three gold spikes in the ship’s keel from her original 1816 construction.

She refloated in July 1922 and was taken in tow to the Bay of Fundy. The towline parted during a storm, she again caught fire for a third time while under tow (!) and sank off Half Way Rock in Massachusetts Bay.

The wreck’s remains on Graves Island, Manchester, Mass, just off east side of island are well documented and are in very shallow water (20-30 feet) making it an easy dive. In fact, the USS New Hampshire Exempt Site is on the list of Marine Protected Areas maintained by NOAA.

The copper bits, harkening back to Paul Revere, have been collected by local Gloucester divers for years, are held in the collection of the Gloucester Marine Heritage Center, and at least one 7-inch spike is now aboard the current Virginia-class attack submarine USS New Hampshire (SSN-778) commissioned in Portsmouth in 2008.

Spikes and recovered copper wear from New Hampshire

Speaking of copper bolts and pins, at least 22-pounds worth of these were collected in the early 1970s by Boston area scuba divers and melted down to form the Boston Cup, which is used by area schools as a liberty trophy in drum corps competitions. Other spikes and flotsam from the NH has been floating around on the collectors market for years.

Today in Newport, where the old girl remained pier side for decades, there is New Hampshire road and New Hampshire field on board the Naval Station named in her honor rather than the state’s and the base museum houses a number of items from the ship.

Specs

Displacement 2,633 t.
Length 203′ 8″
Beam 51′ 4″
Draft 21′ 6″
Propulsion: Sail, Square Rigged, 3 masts
Speed As fast as the wind could carry her
Complement unknown as completed, 820 as designed
Armament (as designed) 74 guns, mix of 42 and 32 pounders
Armament (as completed)
Four 100-pdrs
Six 9″ Parrot guns

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!

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 April 1, 2015: Lucky Georgios, the last man standing

Click to big up

Here we see the Italian-made Pisa-class armored cruiser Georgios Averof of the Royal Hellenic Navy as she appeared in 1913, shortly after almost single-handedly routing the entire Ottoman fleet the year before.

In the early 20th Century, the Southeastern Europe, popularly known as the Balkans, was a powder keg of a number of upstart countries living in the shadow of the “sick man of Europe”– the Ottoman Empire. With more than a century of low-key warfare between the Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Bulgars, Croats and so on to try to break free from the Sultan and his court, by about 1900 the lines had been drawn between the Turks and the Greco-Slavic nations. Combined, the Balkan countries could cough up nearly a million men under arms– more the enough to take on the Turks. However, they could not match the Turkish Navy in either the ancient Adriatic, Aegean, Ionian, Med, and Black seas.

That’s where Greece, who had a small army but an excellent naval tradition, stood alone against the Turks.

Between 1879 and 1914, the Royal Hellenic Navy was transformed into a modern force, picking up battleships and destroyers from Italy, France, the UK, and the U.S.

However, their French built pre-dreadnoughts: Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara, were exceptionally small at just 5,300-tons, and were lightly armed (3x 10-inch guns) and slow (16 knots). After winning the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Greeks went shopping for a new mega ship with a 2.5 million gold franc donation from Greek philanthropist George M. Averoff.

George M. Averoff, the man. He left the Greek government a fortune in his will and they went warship shopping

Across the Adriatic, they inspected the Italian (by no less of naval engineer than Giuseppe Orlando) Pisa-class “second-class battleship” and fell in love. These 10,000-ton ships, technically armored cruisers, could break 23-knots through the power of 22 Belleville boilers and carried a quartet of 10″/45 cal guns backed up by eight 7.5-inchers in four twin turrets on the center line and more than a dozen smaller anti-torpedo boat pieces. Sheathed in up to 7-inches of steel plate, they could fight off ships their own size and outrun most that were larger.

The Italian cruiser Pisa or the Regina Marina, the sister of the Greek Averoff. (Click to big up)

Although they only needed a crew of about 700, they also could accommodate a battalion of naval infantry if needed for amphibious landings which is key in the far flung and disputed islands that the Greeks cruised in. Not perfect when compared to British and German ships of the day, certainly, these cruisers were still better than anything the Turks had at the time. Better yet, the Italian Navy had a third Pisa that they had ordered but were going to cancel– talk about timing.

Swapping out the 10″/45 cal guns for a set of much more modern British-made 9.2″/47 (23.4 cm) Mark X breechloaders, (which had been the standard at the time of the Royal Navy’s armored cruisers), the Greek “battleship” Georgios Averof was laid down at Orlando, Livorno in 1910. With tensions between the Balkan countries and the Turks ramping up (the Italians themselves went to war with the Ottomans in 1911 over Libya), construction progressed rapidly and just 15 months later the Averof was commissioned on May 16, 1911 and was made fleet flagship.

Postcard of her as completed.Note the very Italian scheme

When war came the very next year, the Averof led the older French battleships to first blockade and then engage the Turkish fleet off the Dardanelles. There, on 16 December 1912, the four Greek capital ships met four elderly Ottoman battleships and the largest battleship fight to take place not involving “Great Powers” occured.

Elli naval battle, painting by Vasiileios Chatzis. Charging ahead to cut off the Ottoman line

Borrowing a page from Admiral Togo’s 1905 Battle of the Tsushima Straits, the Averof raced ahead all alone at over 20-knots and crossed the Turkish T, taking on each of the enemy ships single file.

While the casualties were minimal, the Turks ran after Averof‘s big British 9-inchers hammered the flagship Barbaros Hayreddin (the old German SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm) enough to where they figured that it was either shook and jive or sink. This sharp scrap is remembered in Greece as the Battle of Elli.

Just a month later, the two fleets again met with similar outcome off Lemnos Island.

Between the two battles, the lucky Averof was hit a total of four times by Turkish shells and suffered just three casualties. It was her guns that by large part helped win the First Balkan War.

Averof 1916 during WWI

Averof color

Although Greece eventually joined the Allies in World War I, she saw little service. However across the Adriatic, her sistership, the Italian cruiser Amalfi, was torpedoed by the Austria-Hungarian submarine U-26 and sank in 1915.

Painting of the Greek Battleship Averof in Bosporus, Hagia Sophia in the background, in 1919

After the war, she became the first Greek warship to enter Constantinople as part of the Allied victory mission to that town and– soon enough — was back in the fight against the Turks in 1919 during the Greco-Turkish War where she was used to help evacuate a defeated Greek Army.

In addition, she helped safeguard the withdrawal of the White Russian exiles after the Russian Civil War, reportedly exchanging a few rounds with the Reds.

In the 1920s, as one of the last armored cruisers around (most had been mothballed, replaced by more modern designs), she was upgraded in France where she lost her obsolete torpedo tubes and half of her low-angle 3-inch guns in exchange for a decent battery of high-angle AAA weapons. At about the same time her final sistership, the Italian cruiser Pisa, was relegated to a training status in 1921, and was eventually scrapped by the Depression.

After that, Averof was the sole remaining member of her class afloat.

Averof after her refit

By WWII, she had been downgraded to the third most powerful Greek ship, after President Wilson had sold the Greeks the battleships USS Mississippi and Idaho (who served as the Kilkis and Lemnos respectively). Those American ships, though unwanted by the U.S. Navy, at 13,000-tons and with a quartet of 12″/45 and sixteen 7 and 8-inch guns, were a good deal better armed.

Averoff outside with RHS Kilkis (ex-USS Mississippi) and RHS Lemnos (ex-USS Idaho) taken pre-WWII. Note the size difference and the very 1914-ish lattice masts of the former U.S. battle wagons.

Nevertheless, when the next world war came to Greece, both the Kilkis and Limnos were sank by Hitler’s Luftwaffe while at anchor yet the 30-year old Averof was able to beat feet across the Med with three destroyers and five submarines to the join up with the British Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria.

Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme

She spent the rest of the war, which if you are keeping count was at least her fifth, in Royal Navy service escorting convoys in the Indian Ocean and hiding from both Japanese and German submarines. In 1944, she carried the Greek government in exile home from London. As in the first World War, she came out of the Second unscathed and without losing a single man.

Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme

After 41 years at sea, she was the last pre-WWI era armored cruiser in active service in any fleet when she was finally decommissioned August 1, 1952. Held in mothballs for three decades, in 1984 she was overhauled, disarmed, and emplaced as a historical museum ship at Palaio Faliro where she is a popular tourist attraction.

Averof today

Averof is her latest dry dock. Note the rearward facing 7.5-inch turret to the port side. Averof has four of these mounting a total of 8 guns, which is a significant battery all its own.

Now, still officially on the Greek Navy’s list and with an active duty (if greatly reduced) crew assigned, she will celebrate her 114th birthday under the flag of the Hellenic Navy in May.

Averof is the last armored cruiser in existence above the water. The only two comparable pre-WWI steel blue water ships to her still around, Dewey’s protected cruiser USS Olympia at Philadelphia, and Togo’s pre-dreadnought battleship Mikasa preserved at Yokosuka.

Specs

Displacement: Full load 10,200 tons
Standard 9,956 tons
Length: 140.13 m (459.7 ft.)
Beam: 21 m (69 ft.)
Draft: 7.18 m (23.6 ft.)
Propulsion: Boilers: 22 Belleville water tube type, Engines: 2 four cylinder reciprocating steam engines, Shafts: 2 (twin screw ship), Power: 19,000 shp (14.2 MW)
Speed: 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph) maximum
20 knots operational
Range: 2,480 nautical miles (4,590 km) at 17.5 knots (32 km/h)
Complement: 670
Maximum capacity: 1200
Armor: Belt: 200 mm (7.9 in) midships, 80 mm (3.15 in) at ends
Deck: up to 40 mm (1.6 in)
Turrets: 200 mm (7.9 in) at 234mm turrets, 175 mm (6.9 in) at 190mm turrets
Barbettes: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Conning tower: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Armament: Original configuration:

4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
16 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 47 mm (1.85in) guns
3 × 430mm (17in) torpedo tubes
After 1927 refit:
4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
8 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 76 mm (3in) A/A guns
6 × 36mm (1.42in) A/A guns

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