Fact File: Tupi SS
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Fact File: Swiftsure Class SSN
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Neger at Anzio
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Japanese Submarines to Germany
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Evergreen
Artist: John Meeks
Original painting is oil on canvas measuring approx 36″ x 20″
Subject: U-Boat ‘U-530′ pulls away from Japanese I-Boat ‘I-52′
The story behind the painting…
With a belch of exhaust from her diesels, Type IXC-40 U-Boat U530 edges away from Japanese C3 Class submarine I-52, as two Japanese sailors in a rubber dinghy make their way back to their boat. It is June 23rd 1944 and we are in mid-Atlantic. Undoubtedly – there must be skulduggery afoot !
And, as we all now know…..there was !
I-52 was what has now (to some) become known as “Japan’s Golden Submarine”. Her mission identity was codenamed “Momi” (“Evergreen” or “Fir Tree”, in Japanese); her destination was Lorient, in German-occupied France.
A brand-new “C3″ class boat, this was her maiden voyage. She was carrying a strategically important cargo of essential rubber and other raw materials, several civilian engineers and technicians on loan to Germany, a crew of nearly one hundred, ….and two tons of gold.
In the late evening of June 23 she made rendezvous with the German boat U-530 which transferred to her a “Naxos” radar installation, two technicians to install it, and a pilot to get her safely in to Lorient. The two boats parted, and slipped away into the night…
U-530, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Kurt Lange, wisely submerged to continue her patrol to the Caribbean. With a false sense of security, perhaps brought about by the moonless night, Commander Uno Kameo of the I-52 did not.
In truth, both submarines had been tracked by the allies, and within hours the Japanese boat had been found by aircraft from (…the remarkably successful…) USS Bogue. She was depth charged, and then torpedoed, to sink with a total loss of 109 Japanese and three German lives.
In 1995, American Paul Tidwell finally located and filmed her wreck – starting a whole new story (with which many of us are now familiar) – which goes on to this day. As a consequence the wreck is now an official Japanese War Grave site.
….And the two tons of gold ?
Still there…”up for grabs”…if you want it…! But, you had better check with Tidwell, the Japanese Government, and a few others, first…. !
Oh yes…and the U-530…?
Didn’t get a scratch on her. Carried on working for another year…and didn’t even surrender at the end of the war !
She put into Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1945, and handed herself over to neutral authorities…….
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A very interesting subject and one of the best places to find information on this is in Boyd and Yoshida’s book ‘The Japanese Submarine Force and World War Two’.
The I-30 was the first Japanese boat to Europe, arriving at Lorient in August 1942, and leaving later that month with a cargo which included German technical equipment for the Japanese Armed Forces. She reached Penang, Malaya, safely, but en-route to Singapore was lost to a mine with much of the cargo.
The I-8 made a successful round trip leaving Penang on July 1943 and arriving at Brest in September. She sailed from France on 5th October with military machinery, German officers, technicians and civilian advisers, arriving at Singapore on 21st December.
The I-34 was lost to a British submarine in the Straits of Malacca on 13th November two days after leaving Singapore.
The I-29 left Singapore on 16th December 1943 carrying Japanese scientists, engineers and raw materials, arriving at Lorient on 10th March 1944. She left France on 16th April arriving at Singapore on 14th July. Ultra decrypts had alerted the Americans to the cargo the I-29 was carrying onwards to Japan – which consisted of radar and rocket-launching apparatus – and on the journey home the I-29 was sunk by the USS ‘Sawfish’.
The final submarine to make for Europe was the I-52 which left Singapore on 23rd April 1944 and was sunk off the Azores in June by aircraft from the carrier USS ‘Bogue‘.
In his book ‘U-Boats’, David Miller writes that surface blockade running between the two allies was stopped on Hitler’s orders in January 1944.
Page 133 of Boyd and Yoshida’s book states that ”submarines were the sole means of transporting goods and personnel between Japan and Germany in the closing days of this war of grand attrition.”
Fact File: USS Louisiana
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Fact File: USS Texas
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Fighting Crew of a Greek Trireme
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Marines
According to Herodotos (6.15.2), the 100 Chiot triremes at Lade in 494 BC each carried 40 picked hoplites serving as epibatai Herodotos (7.184.2) mentions that Persian triremes carried, in addition to native marines, 30 additional fighting men who were Persians, Medes or Sakai, the last of whom were a nomadic people of central Asia, highly valued for their archery skills. Every Persian ship was supplied by Persian subjects, including Phoenicians, Egyptians, Carians, Cypriots and Greeks, among others. The non-seafaring Persians supplied only admirals and marines. The last were probably on board to ensure the loyalty of the ship’s company and for that reason they were undoubtedly carried in battle.
The ten epibatai on an Athenian trireme had the highest status in the ship after the trierarchos. They are mentioned second in the Decree of Themistokles, and this is the position they occupy in the 4th-century crew lists (IG 22 1951.79-82). Thucydides notes that they joined the trierarchos in pouring libations at the ceremonial departure of the Sicilian expedition (6.32.1).
One reason for the Athenian practice of taking only a few hoplites on deck to serve as marines was that the crew’s pulling efficiency was seriously jeopardized if there were too many people moving about topside. Such movement inevitably caused the ship to roll. Under oar, therefore, the epibatai had to be seated (Thucydides 7.67.2), and the procedure appears to have been to keep them centred on the middle line of the ship. Once the vessel had stopped to board an enemy vessel, the epibatai would leap up to fight once the ships grappled. In his speech before the final sea battle in the Great Harbour at Syracuse, the Athenian commander Nikias revealed another reason: ‘Many archers and javelineers will be on deck and a mass of hoplites, which we would not employ if we were fighting a battle in the open sea, because they would hinder us through the weight of the ships in exercising our skill.’ (Thucydides 7.62.2) Weight, particularly on deck, prevented the triremes doing what they did best, namely, conducting the tactical manoeuvres in which speed and agility were essential.
Archers
The four toxotai were distinct from the ten epibatai, namely they were not carried on deck. An inscription (IG I2 950.137), dated to 412/411 BC, gives them a descriptive adjective, paredroi, meaning ‘sitting beside’. It seems that they were posted in the stern beside the trierarchos and kubernetes and acted as their bodyguard in action. The helmsman would certainly have been vulnerable and would have needed protection, being too busy to defend himself. The Athenian playwright Euripides (Iphigenia among the Taurians 1377) talks of archers stationed in the stern, giving covering fire during an embarkation.
Herluf Trolle, (1516–1565)
19 Monday Jul 2010
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Danish-Norwegian admiral. Born on 14 January 1516 in Lillö, Scania, Herluf Trolle was a nobleman and a scholar. He owned several large estates and had wide political influence as a member of the Danish State Council. In 1559, without any previous naval experience, he was appointed admiral of the fleet and inspector of the navy.
Trolle threw himself into his work, and during 1560 he sailed with the fleet on maneuvers. He also encouraged construction of new ships. From the start of the Seven Years’ War of the North (1563–1570) he was commander in chief of the Danish-Norwegian navy. During 30–31 May 1564, a combined Danish-Lübeck fleet of 39 ships under his command met a Swedish fleet of 36 ships off Öland Island. After two days’ battle, the allies captured the Swedish flagship Makalös, the largest ship of the line at the time in Scandinavia; Swedish Admiral Jacob Bagge was taken prisoner. However, the ship blew up before she could be secured.
On 14 August 1564, Trolle with 39 ships again met a Swedish fleet at Öland. This time it consisted of 28 ships commanded by Admiral Klas Horn. The battle was indecisive. That year Trolle issued one of the first known sets of fighting instructions, in which he stressed fighting by line-ahead tactics. On 1 June 1565, Trolle again met Klas Horn, this time at Fehmam. Horn had 40 ships and Trolle commanded an allied force of 32 Danish-Lübeck ships. The action was hotly contested but again indecisive. Trolle, however, was severely wounded and died on 25 June in Copenhagen.
References
Briand de Crèvecoeur, E. Herluf Trolle: Kongens Admiral og Herlufholms Skoles Stifter. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Forlag, 1959.
Phormio (c. 480–428 b.c.)
19 Monday Jul 2010
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The Modern Facsimile trireme Olympias
Athenian admiral recognized for his skillful use of triremes in the early years of the Peloponnesian War. Little is known of the family or early career of Phormio, son of Asopios. By 440 b.c. he appears to have obtained the Athenian military office of strategos, when he shared command of 40 ships sent to reinforce a blockade of the island city-state of Samos, a rebellious member of the Athenian Empire. Some years after the successful siege of Samos, possibly in 437 b.c., Phormio commanded 30 ships on an expedition to the western Greek district of Acarnania and enlisted the Acarnanians as allies of the Athenians. In 432 b.c. he completed the investment of Potidaea, another defiant member of the Athenian alliance. By these actions Phormio helped strengthen the Athenian alliance on the eve of its great war with the Sparta and the Peloponnesian League.
Once the war with Sparta commenced, Phormio played a major role in Athenian naval operations. In 430 b.c. he led 20 Athenian triremes into the Gulf of Corinth and undertook a blockade of the city of Corinth, an important ally of Sparta. In the next year, just outside the gulf, Phormio demonstrated his superior tactical abilities when he decisively defeated a larger Peloponnesian fleet of 47 ships. Shortly after this victory, as he reentered the Gulf to protect his base at Naupactus, Phormio lost 9 of his ships to the Peloponnesian fleet, then reinforced to a total of 77 vessels. With only 11 ships remaining at his disposal, Phormio nevertheless managed to prevent an attack on Naupactus and with a brilliant counterattack dispersed the Peloponnesian fleet. The detailed descriptions of these two engagements by the Athenian historian Thucydides are among the most important sources for modern understanding of ancient Greek naval tactics.
After leading a second expedition into Acarnania from Naupactus during the winter of 429–428 b.c., Phormio returned to Athens. In 428 b.c. Phormio was unavailable for another command. This may be attributed either to his illness or death, possibly from the plague that ravaged Athens, or to his loss of civic rights following a judgment against him in the examination to which Athenian commanders were normally subject at the expiration of their commands.
References
Hornblower, Simon. A Commentary on Thucydides. Vol. 1. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Kagan, Donald. The Archidamian War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
Morrison, John S., John F. Coates, and N. Boris Rankov. The Athenian Trireme. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Various editions.
AFRIKA KORPS – Overview
18 Sunday Jul 2010
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The Afrika Korps was an expeditionary combat force of the German army that fought in North Africa from February 1941 until May 1943. Adolf Hitler ordered the establishment of a German expeditionary force in North Africa in January 1941, following Italian defeats in Tobruk and Benghazi, at the request of the Italians, who had refused an early German offer for military assistance. Originally known as Befehlshaber der deutschen Truppen in Libyen (Commander of the German Troops in Libya), from 21 February 1941 the unit was called the Deutsche Afrika-Korps. Hitler formed the Korps for strategic reasons; he had planned a campaign against Greece and feared the loss of the eastern Mediterranean and a severe weakening of his Axis ally. In addition, the occupation of North Africa was a major precondition for German supremacy in the Near and Middle East as envisaged in Hitler’s long-range plans.
The Afrika Korps was led by General Erwin Rommel (1891–1944), a highly decorated World War I hero who served as military commander guarding Hitler’s headquarters from 1938 and as commander of a tank division in 1940. The Afrika Korps itself in early 1941 consisted of the Wehrmacht’s Fifteenth Tank Division and the Fifth Light Tank Division (later the Twenty-first Tank Division). Its forces were highly motorized and equipped with specific uniforms for desert warfare. The overall German-Italian military organization was gradually extended and renamed Panzergruppe Afrika in September 1941, Panzerarmee Afrika in February 1942, Deutschitalienische Panzerkräfte Afrika in October 1942, and finally Heeresgruppe Afrika in January 1943, always under the command of Rommel. The actual Afrika Korps, which was led from August 1941 by other generals, then constituted only a part of these forces. Nevertheless its name is generally used for all of them, until the German forces became part of the First Italian Army in March 1943.
German troops landed in Libya on 8 February 1941. On 31 March 1941 they bombed the Suez Canal and attacked Cyrenaica, which was conquered by mid-April. British forces were weakened by a simultaneous attack by the Wehrmacht in southeastern Europe but regained their strength during the course of 1941. As a consequence of the German attack on the Soviet Union starting in June of 1941, the Afrika Korps was not reinforced during 1941, so it was not able to defend all of the gains it had made in the spring of 1941. In November Rommel had to retreat to the earlier front line.
After German naval successes and the transfer of German Airforce Fleet 2 from the Soviet Union to the Mediterranean, Rommel on 21 January 1942 surprisingly again took the initiative and attacked British troops, and the Afrika Korps occupied Benghazi. But the advance was stopped because the Italian army had not been informed and did not participate in the offensive.
Supplied with information from broken U.S. diplomatic codes, Rommel was able to continue his offensive on 26 May. On 21 June 1942 his troops conquered the Tobruk area, where a decisive line for British logistics was cut. The Wehrmacht was able to capture twenty-eight thousand enemy soldiers and major supply stocks of the British army. Immediately thereafter the Afrika Korps entered northwestern Egypt as far as the village of El Alamein, almost one hundred kilometers west of Alexandria, where it was halted at the end of June by fierce British resistance. Rommel’s next attack in the battle of Alam al-Halfa at the beginning of September failed. Since Hitler did not order the occupation of Malta as the Italians had suggested, the British Eighth Army was able to obtain excellent supplies, including new U.S. tanks, through the Royal Navy.
Rommel’s new British counterpart General Bernard Law Montgomery, who could rely on airpower supremacy and excellent intelligence information, launched a counterattack on 23 October 1942 and overran the German positions on 2 November in a major tank battle at El Alamein. Thirty thousand Axis soldiers were captured. Meanwhile on 7–8 November in Operation Torch, the Allies landed to the rear of German troops in Morocco and Algeria. This took the German and Italian military totally by surprise. The German troops were quickly reinforced by 150,000 men but had to retreat from Libya, which was lost to the Germans at the end of January 1943, and into Tunisia. Rommel on 9 March was replaced by Colonel General Hans-Ju¨rgen von Arnim. Since Hitler forbade any evacuation of troops, the Heeresgruppe Afrika surrendered with 275,000 men, among them the soldiers of the Afrika Korps, on 11 May 1943.
Hitler considered the North African theater of war a sideshow until November 1942, despite its strategic value, especially for Britain and the Royal Navy. Nevertheless considerable German forces were drawn from the European continent, especially after October 1942. German defeats occurred simultaneously in Stalingrad and North Africa.
The Afrika Korps has gained a major place in German and British memories of the war, especially due to the fact that in North Africa modern armies fought in a rather unusual environment. Already during the war Rommel was considered a brilliant operational performer, called the Desert Fox by his soldiers, among whom he was very popular; he was also admired to a certain extent by the British. His successes predominantly relied on his capability to surprise the enemy and on excellent logistical support. In June 1942 he was promoted to field marshal, the highest rank in the German army. The Afrika Korps was less implicated in German war crimes than units in other areas, although it took some responsibility for the internment and forced labor of Tunisian Jews. Rommel’s suicide on 14 October 1944, after the failure of the 20 July 1944 plot against Hitler, further bolstered his image as a military professional with a clean record.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Baxter, Colin F. The War in North Africa: 1940–1943: A Selected Bibliography. Westport, Conn., 1996. Boog, Horst, et al. The Global War: Widening of the Conflict into a World War and the Shift of the Initiative, 1941–1943. Translated by Ewald Osers. Vol. 6 of Germany and the Second World War. Oxford, U.K., 2001. Mitcham, Samuel W. Rommel’s Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps. New York, 1982. Porch, Douglas. The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II. New York, 2004. Schreiber, Gerhard, Bernd Stegemann, and Detlef Vogel. The Mediterranean, South-east Europe, and North Africa, 1939–1941: From Italy’s Declaration of Nonbelligerence to the Entry of the United States into the War. Translated by Dean S. McMurry, Ewald Osers, and Louise Willmot. Vol. 3 of Germany and the Second World War. Oxford, U.K., 1995.
