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Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024: One Hard Working Little Boat

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024: One Hard Working Little Boat

Photograph FL 22144 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

Above we see HM Submarine Untiring (P59), a small Group III U (Undine)-class boat underway, likely on trials in the Tyne in early 1943 as she doesn’t have her deck gun fitted. Launched some 81 years ago this month, her war was short, just under two years, but she made her presence known in the Med and would continue to serve in Greek waters well into the 1950s at which point she was the last of her class.

The U-class

Originally designed in the late 1930s as an unarmed submarine to be used as an OPFOR boat for ASW training of destroyers and escorts, these were nimble little craft that soon became much more.

Coastwise submarines rushed into service as part of the War Emergency 1940 and 1941 programs, the U-class boats were dubbed “short hull” for a reason: their overall length was but 191 feet while submerged displacement was only 700 tons. Compare this to the Royal Navy’s T class (or Triton class) boats that preceded them, which ran 276 feet and displaced over 1,500 tons. Likewise, where the T-class carried 16 fish in 10 tubes as well as a 4-inch QF deck gun, the Undines had to make do with a much smaller “throw” of just 8 torpedoes in four bow tubes (no stern tubes) and a Q.F. 12-pdr. 3-inch/40 AAA gun augmented by a trio of .303 Vickers guns.

U class submarine

But make no mistake, while small and slow (10 knots max submerged, 11 on the surface) the Undines were deadly. Plus, with a periscope depth of just 12 feet under the surface and a draft while surfaced of just over 14 feet, they were shallow water submarines and proved quite useful in littoral taskings such as landing agents and commandos as well as doing beach and harbor reconnaissance.

Meet Untiring

Simple vessels able to be produced rapidly and in large numbers, most Undines were completed in about a year from keel laying to commissioning. The only Royal Navy warship to bear the name “Untiring,” she was laid down at Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 23 December 1941, launched on 20 January 1943, and commissioned on 9 June 1943.

Her first skipper was LT Robert Boyd, DSC, RN, who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross after serving almost two years under CDR E.D Cayley (DSO and three bars) on Untiring’s sistership, HMS/m Utmost (N 19) earlier in the war and had gone on to command the older submarines HMS/m L-23 and HMS/m H-43 between November 1942 and February 1943.

After completing trials in the Tyne estuary and exercises off Blyth, Untiring set off for Holy Loch in July 1943 to join the 6th Flotilla for torpedo and noise trials along with A/S and attack exercises.

War!

By 23 August, Untiring left Lerwick on her 1st War Patrol, ordered to look for German U-boats in the Norwegian Sea. Four days later she sank the Norwegian halibut trawler M-96-G /Havbris I with gunfire about 50 miles off the Norwegian coast, putting the boat’s 7-man crew ashore in the Shetlands when she returned to Lerwick on 5 September.

Her 2nd War Patrol was to sweep through the Bay of Biscay then head to Gibraltar, where she arrived on 3 October, bound for service in the Med.

Leaving “The Rock” a week later for her 3rd Patrol off the coast of German-occupied southern France where she unsuccessfully attacked the German U-boat U-616 with four torpedoes off Toulon on 15 October, followed by an attack on two barges on 19 October and an unidentified escorted merchant vessel two days later– without any confirmed kills.

Headed out from Algiers (assigned to 8th Flotilla, HMS Maidstone) for her 4th War Patrol on 4 November, Untiring headed for the Italian Riviera. She put in at Malta (where she shifted to 10th Flotilla, HMS Talbot) on the 23rd having had no luck.

Her 5th War Patrol in December 1943 included sinking the German net layer Netztender 44/Prudente (396 GRT) inside Monaco harbor and surviving a six-hour duel off Cape da Noli with German UJ boats (auxiliary submarine chasers) and destroyers.

She sank the German barge F296 off the Sestri Levanto Lighthouse in early January 1944 during her 6th Patrol and added the barges FP 352/Jean Suzon and FP 358/St. Antoine later that month to her tally while on her 7th, surviving 14 depth charges dropped by escorts in the latter attack.

HMS Untiring, 1944, likely at Malta

While her 8th Patrol (14-26 February 1944 off southern France) yielded no joy, her 9th Patrol in April in the same waters saw her sink the German auxiliary minesweeper M 6022/Enseigne south of Cannes followed by the German merchant Diana (1454 GRT, ex-Greek Mairi Deftereou) south of Oneglia the next afternoon.

On her 10th Patrol, also conducted off Southern France, she zapped the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 6075 (ex-Clairvoyant) off Toulon on 27 April then was battered by no less than 82 depth charges dropped by her sister, with LT Boyd noting, “The first pattern had been unpleasantly close causing some minor damage.” Nonetheless, Untiring lived up to her name and proceeded three days later to torpedo and sink the German merchant Astrée (2147 GRT) off the Cape Bear Lighthouse.

Her 11th Patrol proved uneventful and, while she attacked a German UJ boat off Toulon on her 12th Patrol in early June, it was likewise fruitless. Not to be deterred, Boyd found UJ 6078/La Havraise (398 GRT) about 12 nautical miles southwest of La Ciotat on 10 June and sent the subchaser to the bottom.

Untiring’s 13th War Patrol in early July, also off Southern France, saw an unsuccessful attack on a German auxiliary patrol vessel. On this trip, she carried the COPP 2 (Combined Operations Pilotage Party 2) commando team– including an attached U.S. Marine colonel– set to conduct a reconnaissance of le de Port Cros to the east of Toulon on the eve of the upcoming Dragoon landings. As noted by COPP Survey, “They were who was originally to be taken close to shore by canoe. However, the mission got downgraded to a periscope-only reconnaissance.”

Her 14th Patrol, conducted in late July, involved, as U-boat.net says, a “special operation off north Corsica,” although Brooks Richards’s otherwise minutely detailed Secret Flotillas does not mention anything about Untiring during this period although sisters HMS Unbroken, Urge, and Utmost were well-documented as clandestine agent and spy runners in the Med by Richards.

Shifting to operations off Greece in October for her 15th War Patrol, Untiring fired fish at the German torpedo boat TA 18 (former Italian Solferino) off the Kassandra peninsula unsuccessfully on the 4th then settled for sinking an 80-ton Greek caique the next day via gunfire then duked it out with a pair of German UJ boats that responded.

Ordered back to Rothesay in late October for refit, she arrived there (joining the 7th Flotilla, HMS Cyclops) by way of Gibraltar in early December. There, LT Boyd left his boat for command of the HMS Otway (N 51). Untiring’s new skipper, LT George Edward Lynton Foster Edsell, RN, who had commanded the submarine HMS Proteus (N 29), would be her last British captain.

Post-War

Following the boat’s refit, which would last until 28 May 1945– some three weeks past VE-Day– Untiring was dispatched back to the Med and arrived at Piraeus, Greece in July after stops at Gibraltar and Malta.

There, at 1030 on 25 July 1945, Untiring was decommissioned by the Royal Navy and turned over to the Royal Hellenic Navy, being renamed first Amfitríti (Amphitrite) and then Xifias (Swordfish), joining five other U and V-boats loaned to the Greeks.

The six British boats would make up the post-war Greek submarine program, as shown by this 1946 Jane’s entry, including Untiring/Xifias.

Untiring was returned to the Brits in December 1953 (initially recommissioned under one Lt. C.A.J. French) and tasked for a few years as a floating schoolship for National Service midshipmen before she was sent to the bottom off the Devon Coast off Start Point in July 1957 for continued use as a sonar target. Ironically, in this last act, she fulfilled the class’s original intent, to serve as a training boat for ASW work.

As for the rest of the class, the Undines had an impressive record with many racking up high tonnage counts. For instance, HMS/m Upholder (P37), had 93,031 GRT on her scoreboard from 14 vessels, mostly Italian transports but also including two submarines and a destroyer.

The RN loaned several of the class to allies with three boats (Ursula/V1, Unbroken/V2, Unison/V3) going to the Soviets late in the war, two (P41/Uredd, and Varne/Ula) operated by the Free Norwegians, one (P47/Dolfijn) to the Dutch, and two to the Poles (P52/Dzik and Urchin/Sokol).

Of the 49 Undines completed during the war (at least five ordered boas were canceled), no less than 19 were lost through a variety of enemy actions, blue-on-blue incidents, and accidents– a ratio of more than one out of three.

The balance left post-war was not of a type the Admiralty wanted but their small size and simple nature– they were designed as training boats after all– made them ideal to supply to overseas allies who had lost their subs during the conflict. Meanwhile, the Brits quickly disposed of everything else.

Royal Navy U class submarines in Jane’s 1946 edition, noting that “most are expected to be discarded in the near future.”

The last of the class in active RN service, HMS/m Uther (P62), was sold for scrap in 1950, making Untiring the final Undine in British service when she returned in 1953.

The last holdout of the nearly 50 mighty British U-class boats, HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMS/m Varne, continued in Norwegian service until 1965, when she was broken up, ironically, in Hamburg, having served just 23 years, most of them for King Haakon VII.

HNoMS Ula (P66), ex HMSm Varne in Norwegian service

Epilogue

Untiring’s first (and remarkably successful) skipper, Robert Boyd, added a DSO in 1944 to his circa 1942 DSC for his wartime exploits underway. Following the command of Otway as mentioned above, he would go on to become the “old man” on the cruiser HMS Frobisher and the submarine tender HMS Forth (A187) after the war. He retired on 10 June 1959 at the rank of captain, capping 22 years of service in the Royal Navy. Robert passed away in 1985 in Portugal.

Her last wartime British skipper, George Edward Lynton Foster, would go on to command the submarine HMS Vivid and leave the RN in 1950 as an LCDR after 12 years of service for a career in real estate in California.

The Royal Navy has not had a second Untiring on its navy list and I can find no monuments to her. As for her patrol reports and deck logs, they are in the National Archives at Kew.

As for her hulk, she is located at 177 feet in Bigbury Bay and is a popular, somewhat complicated due to her depth, recreational dive.

 

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.


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Gotta be quicker than that…

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“Escort Carrier HMS Nairana Stalked Unsuccessfully by U-Boat 502, 1 February 1944,” by Charles David Cobb via National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.

Cobb, Charles David; Escort Carrier HMS ‘Nairana’ Stalked Unsuccessfully by U-Boat 502, 1 February 1944; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/escort-carrier-hms-nairana-stalked-unsuccessfully-by-u-boat-502-1-february-1944-25980

While a stirring image, the caption, however, is not correct.

U-502, a Type IXC boat under Kptlt. Jürgen von Rosenstiel, was lost on 6 July 1942 in the Bay of Biscay west of La Rochelle due to a rain of depth charges from a 172 Sqn RAF/H Wellington aircraft, with all hands lost.

The escort carrier HMS Nairana (D05), meanwhile, only entered service on 12 December 1943. While on shakedown,  as part of F. J. “Johnny'” Walker’s famous Support Group 2, using Enigma intelligence, chased down the damaged U-592, a Type VIIC under Oblt. Heinz Jaschke, on 31 January 1944 off Ireland, and sent her to the bottom with all hands.

Nairana, whose air group notably splashed a trio of lumbering Junkers Ju 290 while on convoy duty in May 1944, was transferred post-war to the Royal Netherlands Navy as the HMNLS Karel Doorman (QH1), the first Dutch aircraft carrier, then was later sold for commercial use, only being scrapped in 1971.

315,144 Miles Under Red & Gold

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The Spanish Navy over the weekend decommissioned the Agosta-class SSK Tramontana, capping a career that began in 1985.

One of four DCNI S-70 Agostas built under license in Spain at the Cartagena dockyard, in her career, Tramontana sailed 315,144 nautical miles, 218,384 of those while submerged.

Besides her Cold War career and her role in the very curious 2002 Perejil Island crisis, she clocked in on a myriad of NATO missions over the years including the 2011 Libyan blockade (Operation Unified Protector) as well as the more recent NATO Active Endeavor and Sea Guardian/European Union’s Operation Sophia counter migrant smuggling efforts.

Consoussiours of bad 1980s/90s action films will perhaps recognize Tramontana from the Charlie Sheen vehicle, Navy SEALS, where she subbed for an American boat.

She was decommissioned on 16 February 2024 at Cartagena Arsenal submarine base with VADM Pedro Luis de la Puente García-Gang in attendance.

Slated to be disarmed and stripped of anything usable or still classified, Tramontana will be expended as a target at some future date.

Only class member Galerna (S-71), commissioned in 1983, remains in Spanish service, with sisters Siroco (S 72) and Mistral (S 73) already discarded. The class will be replaced by the four new Isaac Peral/DCNI S80 Plus Scorpène AIP variants under construction.

Submarine News

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A starboard bow view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Boise (SSN-764) underway at high speed off the Virginia Capes during builders sea trials, 7/12/1992. Chris Oxley (OPA-NARA II-2016/02/06).

Newport News just got the go-ahead for a five-year overhaul and modernization of the long-sidelined improved Los Angeles-class (688i) class submarine USS Boise (SSN-764), which has been redlined since 2017 and has sat idle at Norfolk for the past seven years.

It had been thought by many that the boat, which had been in the fleet since 1992 (she was ordered by the Reagan Administration) and at this point would be 37 years old when she completes her overhaul, would possibly just be scrapped as the 688s are getting very long in the tooth indeed. However, as we can see, the Navy apparently got the lead out when it comes to hunter-killers last week.

The DOD Announcement:

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $1,173,178,011 cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-18-C-4314 for completion of USS Boise (SSN 764) engineered overhaul. This contract modification includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract modification to $1,238,312,189. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by September 2029. Fiscal 2023 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $29,559,482 (81%); and fiscal 2024 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $6,948,094 (19%), will be obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

And finally, EB got the green light to purchase long lead time material for the as-yet-to-be-named Block V Virginia class submarines SSN 814, SSN 815, SSN 816, and SSN 817.

The Announcement:

General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp., Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a not-to-exceed $150,984,000 undefinitized contract action modification to previously awarded contract N00024-24-C-2110 for long lead time material associated with the Virginia Class submarines SSN 814, SSN 815, SSN 816, and SSN 817. Work will be performed in Sunnyvale, California (36%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (17%); Spring Grove, Illinois (13%); York, Pennsylvania (4%); Annapolis, Maryland (4%); Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (3%); Windsor Locks, Connecticut (3%); Cleveland, Ohio (1%); and other locations less than 1% (19%), and is expected to be completed by September 2035. Fiscal 2024 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $150,984,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The statutory authority for this sole source award is in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii) – Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

Since you came this far and are into submarines, Netflix (yes, I know) has a doc on the lost Argentine Navy’s German-built TR-1700-class boat, ARA San Juan (S-42), which went missing in 2017 and was found at a depth of 2,976 ft a year later.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024: A Tough Tambor

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-32217

Above we see the Tambor-class fleet boat USS Trout (SS-202) as she returns to Pearl Harbor on 14 June 1942, just after the Battle of Midway. She is carrying two Japanese prisoners of war from the sunken cruiser Mikuma. Among those waiting on the pier are RADM Robert H. English and “the boss,” Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Note the pair of .30-06 Lewis guns on Trout’s sail, flanking her periscope shears.

Trout is believed lost with all hands, 80 years ago this month, around 29 February 1944, off the Philippines while on her 11th war patrol.

The Tambors

The dozen Tambors, completed in a compressed 30-month peacetime period between when USS Tambor (SS-198) was laid down on 16 January 1939 and USS Grayback (SS-208) commissioned on 30 June 1941, are often considered the first fully successful U.S. Navy fleet submarines. This speedy construction period was in large part due to the fact they were completed in three different yards simultaneously.

Some 307 feet long with a 2,375-ton submerged displacement, they carried 10 21-inch torpedo tubes (six forward, four aft) with a provision for 24 torpedoes (or 48 mines), as well as a small 3″/50 deck gun augmented by a couple of Lewis guns and the occasional .50 cal. They enjoyed a central combat suite with a new Torpedo Data Computer and attack periscope.

With an engineering suite of four diesel engines driving electrical generators and four GE electric motors drawing from a pair of 126-cell Sargo batteries, they could sail for an amazing 10,000nm at 10 knots on the surface and sprint for as much as 20 knots while on an attack. Further, they had strong hulls, designed for 250-foot depths with a possible 500-foot redline crush. They also had updated habitability for 70-day patrols including freshwater distillation units and air conditioning. A luxury!

Meet Trout

Our boat was one of four Tambors constructed by the historic Portsmouth Navy Yard, built side-by-side with sister USS Triton (SS-201). Trout was the first boat to carry the name in the U.S. Navy and, laid down on 28 August 1939, was launched on 21 May 1940 after a nine-month gestation period.

Trout (SS-202) bow view at fitting out the pier, 10 July 1940 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, via ussubvetsofworldwarii.org through Navsource.

Commissioned on 15 November 1940, LCDR Frank Wesley “Mike” Fenno, Jr., (USNA 1925), formerly of the “Sugar Boats” S-31 and S-37, was in command.

Following shakedowns on the East Coast, Trout sailed through “The Ditch” and joined five sister boats in Submarine Division 62, based at Pearl Harbor, where she arrived in August 1941 as part of the big build-up in the tense Pacific.

USS Trout, 1941

War!

On 7 December 1941, one of Trout’s sisters, USS Tautog (SS-199), was tied up at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and her .50 cals and Lewis guns were credited with downing at least one Japanese plane during the attack that morning.

As for the other five Tambors operating at Pearl?

They were all out on patrol, our Trout included, which was off the then-unknown atoll of Midway. That night, she spotted the Japanese destroyers Sazanami and Ushio as they shelled the American base there but was unable to successfully attack them.

Ending what turned out to be her 1st War Patrol on 20 December in the still-smoking battle-scarred base at Pearl, Trout, after landing most of her torpedoes and ballast, was ordered to take aboard 3,517 rounds of badly needed 3-inch AA ammunition and sortie out on her 2nd War Patrol on 12 January 1942, bound run the Japanese blockade to the besieged American forces on the “Rock” Corregidor in the Philippines. Over 45 days, nine American subs, Trout included, made the dangerous run to the last U.S. stronghold in Luzon.

Arriving at Corregidor on 6 February after a brief brush with a Japanese subchaser, Trout unloaded her shells and then took on a ballast of 20 tons of gold bars and silver pesos (all the paper money in the islands had already been burned), securities, mail, and United States Department of State dispatches, which she dutifully brought back to Pearl on 3 March. However, on the way she took the time to chalk up her first confirmed “kill” of the war: the Japanese auxiliary gunboat Chuwa Maru (2719 GRT), sent to the bottom about 55 nautical miles from Keelung, Formosa on 9 February.

She arrived back in Pearl Harbor to unload her precious cargo.

USS Trout (SS-202) approaches USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, to unload a cargo of gold that she had evacuated from the Philippines. The gold had been loaded aboard Trout at Corregidor on 4 February 1942. NH 50389

USS Trout (SS-202) coming alongside USS Detroit (CL-8) at Pearl. Note details of the submarine’s fairwater, and .30 caliber Lewis gun mounted aft of the periscope housing. NH 50388

USS Trout (SS-202) At Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, unloading gold bars which she had evacuated from Corregidor. 80-G-45971

USS Trout (SS-202): gold bars that Trout carried from Corregidor to Pearl Harbor. Photographed as the gold was being unloaded from the submarine at Pearl Harbor in early March 1942. 80-G-45970

Sailing for her 3rd War Patrol on 24 March, she was ordered to take the war to Tokyo and haunt the Japanese home waters. Trout fulfilled that mandate and logged damaging attacks on the tanker Nisshin Maru (16801 GRT) and Tachibana Maru (6521 GRT), as well as sending the Uzan Maru (5019 GRT) and gunboat Kongosan Maru (2119 GRT) to the bottom before returning to Pearl in early May.

At the time Trout had logged the most successful U.S. Navy submarine war patrol to date and she was given credit for 31,000 tons sunk and another 15,000 tons damaged.

Midway

Her 4th War Patrol was to participate in the fleet action that is known today as the Battle of Midway– Trout’s old December 7th stomping grounds. She left Pearl on 21 May in company with her sisters, USS Tambor, and USS Grayling, to join the 12-submarine Task Group 7.1, the Midway Patrol Group.

From her war diary of the battle, which included chasing down a crippled Japanese battleship which turned out to be the lost 14,000-ton Mogami class heavy cruiser Mikuma. She rescued two Japanese survivors from said warship, Chief Radioman Hatsuichi Yoshida and Fireman 3rd Class Kenichi Ishikawa, on 9 June. Some of the very few IJN POWs in American custody at the time, Trout was ordered to return to Pearl with her waterlogged guests of the Emperor’s Navy, arriving there five days later to an eager reception committee.

Battle of Midway, June 1942. The burning Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma, photographed from a U.S. Navy aircraft during the afternoon of 6 June 1942, after she had been bombed by planes from USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Hornet (CV-8). Note her third eight-inch gun turret, with the roof blown off and barrels at different elevations, Japanese Sun insignia painted atop the forward turret, and wrecked midship superstructure. 80-G-457861

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Three officers standing together are: Commander Jack Haines; Commander Norman Ives, and Commander O’Leary. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32213

Japanese prisoners being removed from USS Trout (SS 202) at Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Territory of Hawaii Shown: Japanese Prisoner. Photographed 1942. 80-G-32212

With four patrols under his belt, including the successful 3rd patrol, the Corregidor ammo run/gold return, and the Midway POWs, FDR directed that LCDR Fenno be awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross, while the rest of the crew received the Army Silver Star Medal. Fenno also racked up two Navy Crosses and, ordered to take command of the building Gato-class fleet boat USS Runner (SS-275), Trout’s plank owner skipper left for New London.

He was replaced by LCDR Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage (USNA 1931) who had earned a Silver Star earlier in the year as the diving officer on Trout’s sister, USS Grenadier (SS-210), during the sinking of the 14,000-ton troopship Taiyō Maru.

Back in the War

Red Ramage and Trout left Pearl on the boat’s 5th War Patrol on 27 August, bound for the Japanese stronghold of Truk, where she was able to sink the net layer Koei Maru (863 GRT) and damage the 20,000-ton light carrier Taiyo, knocking the latter out of the war for over two months and forced her back to Kure for repairs.

Escort carrier IJN Taiyo in Kure drydock after Trout torpedo

Damaged by a Japanese airstrike that knocked out her periscopes, Trout cut her patrol short and made for Freemantle.

Repaired, Trout’s 6th War Patrol, in the Solomons in October-November, proved uneventful.

Red Ramage then took Trout on her 7th Patrol, leaving Fremantle four days after Christmas 1942, headed for the waters off Borneo. This long (11,000-mile, 58-day) patrol saw the boat damage two large (16-17,000 ton) tankers as well as two small gunboats and sink a pair of coastal schoolers. Combat included a running gunfight with the tanker Nisshin Maru on Valentine’s Day 1943 which left 10 members of Trout’s crew injured.

Trout vs Nisshin Maru Feb 14 1943

Trout’s 8th War Patrol, a minelaying run off Japanese-occupied Sarawak, Borneo in March-April, ended Red Ramage’s tour with our boat, and he left Freemantle bound for Portsmouth where he would oversee the building, outfitting, and first two (very successful) war patrols of the new Balao-class submarine USS Parche (SS-384).

Trout’s final skipper would be LCDR Albert “Hobo” Hobbs Clark (USNA 1933) who had been Trout’s Engineering officer on several of her early war patrols before serving on the staff of SubRon 6. He rejoined his former boat as “the old man” on 4 May 1943, just shy of his 33rd birthday. He would not see his 34th.

Trout was ordered back to the occupied Philippines as part of LCDR Charles “Chick” Parsons’s “Spy Squadron” of 19 submarines– including several Tambors— which delivered 1,325 tons of supplies in at least 41 missions to local guerrillas between December 1942 and New Years Day 1945, with an emphasis on medicine, weapons, ammunition, and radio gear.

Trout’s 9th War Patrol, from 26 May to 30 July 1943, saw two successful “special missions” landing agents and supplies in Mindanao well as conducting four attacks on Japanese surface ships, claiming some 17,247 tons sunk. Post-war the only confirmed sinking from this patrol was the freighter Isuzu Maru (2866 GRT), sunk 2 July.

Trout’s four attacks on the 9th War Patrol

As for the Spyron missions accomplished by Trout on this patrol, these included recovering Chick Parsons himself along with survivors of the Bataan Death March, who had escaped the hellish Davao POW camp, and delivering them to Australia where they were able to tell the world of what they had endured.

Details of Trout’s two Spyron missions, via the 7th Fleet Intelligence Section report:

Special mission accomplished. 12 June 1943.
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To deliver a party of six or seven men, funds ($10,000), and 2 tons of equipment and supplies to a designated spot on Basilon Island to establish a secret intelligence unit in the Sulu Archipelago and Zamboanga area; to establish coast watcher net in the area and for surveying purposes, and to arrange for delivery of extra supplies to guerrilla units.

Special Mission accomplished 9 July 1943
Submarine: USS Trout (SS-202)
Commanding Officer: A. H. Clark
Mission: To land a party of two officers and three men, together with supplies and ammunition off Labangan, Pagadian Bay, on the South Mindanao Coast. In addition to the above, Trout picked up Lt. Comdr. Parsons and four U.S. Naval officers and reconnoitered the area southeast of Olutanga Island (South Coast of Mindanao, P.I.).

Leaving Freemantle again just three weeks later on her 10th War Patrol, Trout again returned to the Philippines where she patrolled the Surigao and San Bernardino straits. She would fight an epic surface engagement, pirate style, with a Japanese trawler during this patrol.

As noted by DANFS:

On 25 August, she battled a cargo fisherman with her deck guns and then sent a boarding party on board the Japanese vessel. After they had returned to the submarine with the prize’s crew, papers, charts, and other material for study by intelligence officers, the submarine sank the vessel. Three of the five prisoners were later embarked in a dinghy off Tifore Island.

A happy patrol, she would go on to sink the transports Ryotoku Maru (3438 GRT) and Yamashiro Maru (3427 GRT) back-to-back on 23 September before returning to Pearl Harbor, and from there, a much-needed trip to Mare Island for a four-month shipyard overhaul.

In her first ten patrols, Trout claimed 23 enemy ships, giving her 87,800 tons sunk, and damaged 6 ships, for 75,000 tons.

Leaving Mare Island for Pearl, on 8 February, Trout began her 11th and final war patrol. Topping off with fuel at Midway on the 16th she headed towards the East China Sea but was never heard from again.

Hobo Clark went down fighting and her 81 officers and men are listed on Eternal Patrol, with Clark and two other officers in the USNA’s Memorial Hall. 

As detailed by DANFS:

Japanese records indicate that one of their convoys was attacked by a submarine on 29 February 1944 in the patrol area assigned to Trout. The submarine badly damaged one large passenger-cargo ship and sank the 7,126-ton transport Sakito Maru [which was carrying the Japanese 18th Infantry Regiment, of which 2,500 were lost]. Possibly one of the convoy’s escorts sank the submarine. On 17 April 1944, Trout was declared presumed lost.

It is thought that she was sunk by the destroyer Asashimo in conjunction with fellow tin cans Kishinami and Okinami.

Japanese destroyer Asashimo

Trout received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her second, third, and fifth patrols.

Trout is on the list of 52 American submarines lost in the conflict, along with twin sister Triton and classmates Grampus, Grayling, Grayback, Grenadier, and Gudgeon.

(Photo: Chris Eger)

Just five of 12 Tambors were still afloat on VJ Day, and the Navy quietly retried them for use as Reserve training ships and then disposed of even these remnants by the late 1950s.

Epilogue

The plans and war diaries for Trout are in the National Archives. 

Her 2nd Patrol– the Corregidor sneak that brought in AAA shells and left with gold and silver– was turned into an episode of The Silent Service in the 1950s.

Of her two surviving skippers, Mike Fenno would go on to take USS Runner on her first two war patrols in 1943 and take USS Pampanito (SS-383) on her 4th in 1944, chalking up at least two additional Japanese Marus, before going on to command SubRon 24 (“Fenno’s Ferrets”) for the rest of the war. He went on to command Guantanamo Bay during the tense early Castro period and retired as a rear admiral in 1962.

RADM Mike Fenno passed away in 1973, aged 70, and is buried in Arlington.

Red Ramage likewise took other boats out after he left Trout and is famous for a July 1944 convoy attack on USS Parche in conjunction with USS Steelhead that went down in the history books as “Ramage’s Rampage,” after it sent five Japanese ships to the bottom. This earned Ramage the MoH. He retired as a vice admiral in 1969 and passed in 1990. Like Mike Fenno, he is buried at Arlington. In 1995, the Flight I Burke, USS Ramage (DDG-61)— which I worked on at Ingalls and sailed on her trials– was named in honor of “Red.”

Red Ramage

The Navy recycled Trout’s name for a late-model diesel boat of the Tang class (SS-566). This second USS Trout was laid down on 1 Dec. 1949 at EB and at her launch she was sponsored by the widow of LCDR Albert H. Clark, the last commanding officer of the first USS Trout (SS-202), who was lost on the boat’s 11th war patrol in 1944 along with 80 other souls.

Here we see a P-2H Neptune of Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 as it flies over the Tang-class submarine USS Trout (SS-566), near Charleston, S.C., May 7, 1961. NHHC KN-2708

After serving during the Cold War and being transferred to Turkey, in 1992, the near-pristine although 40-year-old Trout was returned to U.S. Navy custody and then used as an experimental hull and acoustic target sub at NAWCAD Key West. She somehow survived in USN custody until 2008 when she was finally reduced to razor blades at Brownsville.


Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.


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

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

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

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

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I’m a member, so should you be!

60 Years of Getting it Done

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The 71-member crew of 210-foot U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Reliance (WMEC 615) returned to their homeport at Pensacola– where the aging class is being collected– on Saturday following a 57-day counterdrug patrol that ranged into the Eastern Pacific Ocean under 4th Fleet/JIATF-South control.

And the 59-year-old (not a misprint) cutter bagged a narco sub, which continues to be a thing in those waters.

The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Reliance (WMEC 615) interdicts a low-profile vessel carrying more than $5 million in illicit narcotics in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, on Feb. 15, 2024. Patrolling in support of Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the Reliance crew stopped two drug trafficking ventures, detaining six suspected traffickers and preventing nearly 4,000 pounds of cocaine and 5,400 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $57 million, from entering the United States. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Reliance)

Commissioned in Galveston in 1964 Reliance is the leader of her 16-ship class, of which four have been retired in recent years– only to see those old hulls transferred to overseas allies.

This black and white photo shows newly the commissioned Reliance (WMEC-615) in the mid-1960s with an HH-52 Sea Guard helicopter landing on its pad and davits down with one of its small boats deployed. Notice the lack of smokestack and paint scheme pre-dating the Racing Stripe or “U.S. Coast Guard” paint schemes. She has a 3″/50 forward as well as 20mm cannons for AAA work and weight and space for ASW Mousetraps, a towed sonar, and Mk.32 ASW tubes, although they were never fitted. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

As noted by the USCG:

In addition, the cutter made port calls in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama for the first time in the ship’s 59-year history. The cutter also crossed into the Southern Hemisphere, prompting a time-honored equatorial crossing tradition for the Reliance crew. Before returning to Pensacola, the crew conducted aviation training with aircraft from Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile and steamed in formation with Coast Guard Cutter Diligence (WMEC 616) to commemorate the cutters’ upcoming 60th anniversaries this summer.

What a Dazzling Balao

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How about this great series of photos of the brand new Balao-class diesel-electric fleet submarine USS Tilefish (SS-307) off Mare Island Navy Yard on 2 March 1944, USN photos # 1434-44 through 1436-44. Commissioned just nine weeks prior, she is pictured here just after her post-shakedown maintenance before departing for points West to get in the war.

Broadside view of the Tilefish (SS-307) off Mare Island on 2 March 1944. USN photos # 1434-44 through1436-44, courtesy of Darryl L. Baker. Via Navsource

A past Warship Wednesday alum, Tilefish gave hard service under the U.S. flag, earning five battle stars across six war patrols during WWII and another star for her Korean service. Given a Fleet Snorkel upgrade post-war, she was decommissioned and transferred to then-U.S. ally Venuzela in 1960 with 16 years on her hull. Her second career, as ARV Carite (S-11), would ironically stretch out another 16 years.

Of interest, Tilefish was a bit of a movie star, appearing in Glen Ford’s Torpedo Run as well as James Gardner’s Up Periscope while in the USN and, in Venuzlan service, as a curiously dazzle-camo’d German U-boat in 1971’s Murphy’s War, which starred Peter O’Toole as the eponymous Murphy.

Warship Wednesday, March 13, 2024: SEAL Time Capsule

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday to look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, March 13, 2024: SEAL Time Capsule

Sorry about the short WW this week. I’m currently in the midst of a 17-day work trip to Europe visiting iconic old-world gunmakers for factory tours. We’ll be back to our regular format next week!

330-PSA-61-63 (USN 1066434)

Official caption for the above photograph, released 61 years ago today, 13 March 1963

U.S. Navy frogmen have the capability of being air-dropped into coastal waters, fully equipped to perform any of their various missions. After landing in the water, they abandon their parachutes, take to the underwater environment, and upon completion of their tasks are picked up by anyone of a variety of methods including aerial, high-speed surface, or submarine retrieval.

The first two U.S. Navy Sea, Air, and Land Teams, commonly known as SEALs, were stood up under orders from JFK– himself a WWII Navy man– in January 1962, with one based on the West Coast at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California, and another on the East Coast at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia. Drawn from the Navy’s preexisting underwater demolition teams dating back to WWII, the plankowners of SEAL Team ONE and TWO only numbered 60 frogmen each.

While they would soon face their first test in Vietnam, they got to show off for the cameras in the Virgin Islands in March 1963 for this set of interesting photos showing off a lot of classic gear including what look to be Sportsways Hydro Twin regulators long before Draeger units were a thing, round facemasks, and slab-sided early XM16s complete with waffle mags.

The sub used in the exercise was the old USS Sealion (APSS-315), which earned five battle stars during World War II and then spent almost the entire period from 1954 to 1967 in a series of such exercises with Marines, Underwater Demolition Teams, SEALs, Beachjumper units; and, on occasion, Army units ranging from the Virginia coasts to the Caribbean.

U.S. Navy Frogmen on training exercises at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, leave the submerged submarine USS Sealion through the forward escape trunk carrying their demolition equipment, proceed to the beach as the spearhead forces of an amphibious assault, and after their mission is accomplished, rendezvous with the submarine and reenter through the escape trunk. 330-PSA-61-63 (USN 1066438)

U.S. Navy Frogmen on training exercises at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, leave the submerged submarine USS Sealion through the forward escape trunk carrying their demolition equipment, proceed to the beach as the spearhead forces of an amphibious assault, and after their mission is accomplished, rendezvous with the submarine and reenter through the escape trunk. 330-PSA-61-63 (USN 1066431)

“US Navy SEAL holding a rifle near a shack, during a military demonstration at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands,” by Marion S Trikosko. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). LC-U9-9190- 21

“US Navy SEALs wearing and holding aquatic equipment during a demonstration at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands” by Marion S Trikosko. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). LC-U9-9194- 29

“US Navy SEALs training on a boat and rubber raft at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands,” by Marion S Trikosko. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). LC-U9-9194- 29

Catch you guys next week!


Ships are more than steel
and wood
And the heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
they know
That some ships have a
soul.


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. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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

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

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

I’m a member, so should you be!


And in Submarine News…

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Lots of stuff for those interested in periscopes lately.

New Dutch Boats

The Dutch, eschewing a domestic(ish) submarine-making initiative between Sweden’s Saab Kockums and Damen, and opting not to go German, have instead turned south and tapped France’s Naval Group to build four new SSKs to replace their aging Walrus-class boats which have been in service since the late 1980s.

The $6 billion project will see the Dutch go with conventional Shortfin Barracuda models similar to the ones proposed to Australia a couple of years ago, capping a 10-year initiative to replace the RDM-built Walruses.

A Naval Group mockup showing a Shortfin Barracuda with the current Walrus class sailing off into the sunset

The class will be known as the Orka class and will carry traditional Dutch submarine names (Orka, Zwaardvis, Barracuda, and Tijgerhaai). The first two will be delivered within a decade after the contract has been signed.

The Dutch have been in the sub business for the past 118 years, commissioning the Damen-built Onderzeeboot Hr. Ms. O-1, a Holland 7P type boat, in 1906. (NIMH 2158_012475)

During WWII, Free Dutch subs gave a good account of themselves, with 10 successful subs credited with sinking 168,813 tons of shipping across 69 Axis vessels.

Welcome USS Idaho

Over the weekend, the Navy christened its newest Virginia-class hunter killer, the future USS Idaho (SSN 799), during a ceremony at EB in Groton.

The submarine, which began construction in 2017, will be the 26th Virginia and the fifth U.S. Navy ship to be christened with the name Idaho. She will be one of ten advanced Block IV boats of her class.

The last Navy warship named Idaho was the historic battleship BB 42, commissioned in 1919. That Idaho received seven battle stars for her World War II service and witnessed the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay before she was sold for scrap in 1947.

Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Vice Admiral Alexander Sharp, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 83900 

USS Idaho (BB-42). Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Vice Admiral Alexander Sharp, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 83900

More SSNs Appearing Down Under

And finally, the “improved” Los Angeles-class boat, USS Annapolis (SSN 760), recently arrived in HMAS Stirling in Perth.

ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia (March 10, 2024) – U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Annapolis (SSN 760) and HMAS Stirling Port Services crewmembers prepare the submarine to moor alongside Diamantina Pier at Fleet Base West in Rockingham, Western Australia, March 10, 2024.

Why is this important?

Via DOD

This marks the second visit by a U.S. fast-attack submarine to HMAS Stirling since the announcement of the AUKUS [Australia, United Kingdom, United States] Optimal Pathway in March 2023. The Optimal Pathway is designed to deliver a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered attack submarine capability to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

“Historically, we’ve had allied SSNs visit Australian ports for many decades totaling more than 1,800 days,” said Rear Adm. Matt Buckley, Head of Nuclear Submarine Capability at the Australian Submarine Agency. “Starting with USS North Carolina (SSN 777) last August, these visits are taking on a more important meaning for the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Submarine Agency as we build the infrastructure, knowledge, and stewardship needed to establish SRF-West in 2027.”

Great SSN Memorial Concept

Speaking of 688s, the planned USS Cincinnati Cold War Memorial & Peace Pavilion was formally unveiled last week by the Cincinnati Navy League. It’s slated to open in spring 2025. USS Cincinnati (SSN-693) was commissioned in 1978 and, decommissioned in 1996, was fully recycled by 2014 with her reactor stored at Hanford.
 
Unlike some SSN memorials that are just sails or diving planes, the innovative Cinncinatti memorial will be full length, 360 feet long, and include about 100 tons of material from the former submarine including much of the fairweather, the 17-foot tall rudder, and a back-up diesel engine, which was painted red and referred to as the “Big Red Machine” in homage to the Reds’ baseball team lineup in the ’70s.
 
Which I think is very cool and would be a great way to better salute the memory of all these SSNs and SSBNs that have sailed since Nautilus. Add a small building for additional relics, photos, and keepsakes, and you are in business
 

Happy Birthday, Dolphins

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One of the toughest badges to earn, the Submarine Warfare Insignia, aka the “dolphins” or “fish,” is also one of the Navy’s oldest warfare devices, having been adopted 100 years ago this week.

As detailed by the NHHC:

In the summer of 1923, while serving as Commander, Submarine Division Three, Captain Ernest J. King [Yes, the future WWII CNO] proposed that the Navy create a warfare insignia device for qualified submariners. The insignia came to be known as “dolphins” or “fish,” and is one of the Navy’s oldest warfare devices. The hard-earned badge distinguishes and identifies the members of the submarine community and has since become a source of pride for the “silent service.”

Not only did King propose the idea for the submarine warfare device, he also submitted the initial design. His drawing, which he submitted to the Bureau of Navigation for consideration, included a shield mounted on the beam ends of a submarine, with dolphins forward and aft of the conning tower. The bureau considered a shark and shield motif as well but ultimately hired a Philadelphia jewelry design firm to create the design.

The final design of the device was approved for wear on 24 March 1924. It displays a bow view of a surfaced O-class submarine with two dolphins resting their heads on the submarine’s bow planes. The dolphins depicted on the insignia are actually dolphinfish, or mahi-mahi, not the marine mammal.

One of the earliest designs of the submarine warfare insignia, circa 1924. Enlisted personnel wore this insignia, embroidered in silk, with white silk for blue clothing and blue silk for white clothing, on their right sleeve, midway between the wrist and elbow, a practice that continued until 1950 when the enlisted device became the current silver-plated metal version of the pin. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Naval Undersea Museum)





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