Name this Naval Vessel

The ship is probably best known for what transpired during her sinking, rather than any achievements she made during the war.

 

Cetainly in very sheltered waters. I don't think I've ever seen even Puget Sound that flat. It also doesn't look like it's all that far to shore so hilly rather than mountanous. The hills could have been clear cut which would point to the Northwest or Canada or as you suggest Greenland (Iceland?) or Canada. Might even work for Scotland.

 

USAT Dorchester. Requisitioned by the government from the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company (what a mouthful), handed over to the army, and subsequently sunk by U-223.

I actually wasn't familiar with her story, as it happens, but it seems that four army chaplains gave up their life vests to other passengers. (Reads almost like a joke, as it was two ministers, a priest, and a rabbi. Save for the fact that jokes are supposed to be funny and not tragic.)

Interesting story. Finally found her by just searching for all US passenger ships sunk in the North Atlantic. (And there were actually six with quite similar silhouettes, at least one of which, SS Chatham, was indeed a sister of Dorchester. Would not have guessed there would be that many passenger vessels operating that late with superstructure decks all the way to the stern like that.)

Well, let me think on a next candidate then . . .

 

AFAIK, this ship was never on the west coast, nor did she ever make it to the British Isles. Her usual route was NYC - Canada - Greenland and back again. She completed a handful of trips before being sunk just short of her destination.

 

SymphonicPoet for the WIN!

Yes, she is the USAT Dorchester. Most are unfamiliar with the ship, but have heard of the "Four Chaplains".

 

Sorry I'm a little slow here. I've been out of town for a few days and should really have told someone else to take the slot. But since I failed, here's a nice softball pitch for everybody. Not too difficult, but an interesting ship, and another of the "I just built a model of this" school.

View attachment 13489

 

The raked funnels make her a Dido class ..... with only four turrets. AFAIK HMS Dido lacked the Q mount as built and Poebe, Cleopatra, Scylla and Argonaut lost the Q mount in favour of additional light AA by 1945. Naiad and Bonaventure also lacked a turret as built but it was the X mount. So we have 5 cadidates for now. My first guess is HMS Dido, the turret replacement doesn't look like a 40mm quad.

 

You are indeed on the right track. I understand that Phoebe had a two gun 4.5" in the "Q" slot as built, but it was indeed landed pretty quickly. Scylla and Charybdis also differed significantly in that the four turrets they did have as built (ABXY) mounted 4.5" rifles. I love this class because the outfits were so darned colorful. And they also seem to have been quite fine AA cruisers. (Particularly the "toothless terrors" with the 4.5s.)

While we're on the subject . . . why is that a Q mount and not a C mount? I'd rather thought that anything with a full forward arc was ABC etc, beam only mounts QRS, and full after arcs were XYZ. (Or Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. if you happen to be a Brazilian/Turkish conscript into the Royal Navy.) Am I missing something here? I liked the logic behind the way Ithought British turret nomenclature worked, and now it looks like I'm all wrong. (Other sources beside yourself indeed call that a Q mount, which initially confused the dickens out of me.)

 

I'm as confused as you are, my source is H.T. Lenton's book on british cruisers and as he calls it "Q" not "C" as I would have expected. AFAIK Dido as built had a 4" starshell there while Naiad had a twin 4" AA in place of the "missing" turret, the 4.5 twin mounts on Scylla and Charybdis were protected by open shieds not turrets, as there were only four mounts it's difficult to say if the superimposed forward gun mount guns was called "B" or "Q" but it's position is the one called "Q" on the five turret ships.

Back to the 4 turret ships, Phoebe and Cleopatra received 3 quad Bofors mounts when they lost "Q", Scylla was similarly rearmed when she received her four 5.25 turrets, but probably due to shortages Cleopatra had twin 20mm mounts with just one gun !.

HMS Argonaut didn't receive quad Bofors but a a quad 2lb pom pom for the "Q" position so she's my next guess.

 

Sorry, you're right about Scylla and Charybdis. I simply failed to make the distinction correctly. (And their second mount doesn't quite correspond with the ordinary location of either the B or Q on a straight up Dido, since the superstructure was quite modified.)

Neither Conway nor Wikipedia state that Scylla ever received 5.25" guns. Jane's is silent on the matter. I've not seen photographic evidence of it. What's your source? I'd been under the impression she was deemed quite satisfactory with the 4.5s.

As to Argonaut, no indeed she is not. (Assuming the caption data I have is correct, which isn't always a safe assumption, but I have found several other sources giving the same name to our victim.) You're on the right track, but haven't quite gotten there yet.

Gotta love this class. Never quite sure what ship even had what guns at what time.

 

My source is H.T. Lenton's book on british cruisers, an old McDonald pubblication, it gives her armament in 1945 as 8x5.25 an 12x40 and 8x20. She still had the original armament in 1943, there are some pics of her taken from Casa Rosata, the Italian spy base facing Gibraltar, dated from then, but she did have a big refit after the Salerno landings. AFAIK it was not planned to repair her after the 1944 mine damage so the 1945 data is a bit suspect.
EDIT: This should be Scylla at the time of D-Day no 5.25


I've been looking at pics of Argonaut and there isn't one with that camo scheme .... Your ship should be HMS Phoebe, BTW I found a picture of her leaving New York after the 1943 repairs with a brand new quad 40mm Bofors in "Q" and no "A" turret at all !!

 

Indeed, Phoebe it is. I'll try to post a picture of the model later. (And maybe attach it as an edit to this post.) It seems Phoebe got the A turret back at some point, as there seem to be a few pictures of her from the early 50s that show it.

I think I'd like to model several of these for the simple reason that I like the variations between ships and Scylla will be a real challenge.

Your go, TOS. I look forward to seeing what you give us.

 

Next one, I want the one in the foreground

View attachment 13503

 

From that angle, the sisters are hard to tell apart, but I am thinking it is the German light cruiser Koln.

 

I got hung up on the ensign thinking it was perhaps Yugoslav, which made no sense as they had nothing remotely that big at the right time . . .

Even bungled through Spain.

But I'll have to agree, that's a K class cruiser. And I'll avoid muscling in with Karlsruhe or Königsberg since Takao really got it and I'd rather he have the next one anyway.

 

I never noticed the ensign. The offset 2 rear turrets told me 5 German light cruisers were the were the likely ones.

 

I failed to parse that the turrets were offset, though it's darned obvious now. (That really should have been a dead giveaway. *blushes.*) Obviously my eye needs work. I was trying to figure out why the ship had such a substantial rangefinder and such dinky turrets. I was looking for a quirky cruiser belonging to a minor power. But then, I thought that was the bow, so I was looking for something with a boxy destroyer grade bridge, modest but fully enclosed turrets, and an oversize rangefinder. And I was looking at altogether the wrong end of the canoe.

 

Very nice work Takao! the class was easy once you spotted the offset turrets but the individual ship with so few details was not. She's Koln, the picture was taken during a visit to Messina, in the same set there's one with Hobarth in the caption (but I don't read German) so she seems to be getting around a lot.

 

Ok, this should be a fairly easy one.

 

Looks like a battleship but the two thin and apparently very widely spaced funnels baffle me, I was initially thinking of Rivadavia or Moreno but the main mast should be behind the funnel and they had very disinctinve cranes and lattice masts.
The other possibility is one of Bretagne, Lorraine, Provence, most likely Lorraine as I don't see the central turret.