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USS Callao (IX-205)

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Externsteine after being captured by USCGC Eastwind
History
Nazi Germany
NameExternsteine
NamesakeThe Externsteine rock formation
OwnerKriegsmarine
BuilderP. Smit Jr., Rotterdam, Netherlands
Yard number570
Laid down1943
Launched1944
Commissioned1944
IdentificationWBS 11
Captured16 October 1944
FateCaptured by United States Coast Guard
United States
NameUSCGC East Breeze
OwnerUnited States Coast Guard
Commissioned16 October 1944
DecommissionedDecember 1944
FateTransferred to United States Navy
United States
NameUSS Callao
NamesakeCallao, Peru
OwnerUnited States Navy
Commissioned24 January 1945
Decommissioned10 May 1950
IdentificationIX-205
FateSold for scrapping, broken up in 1951
General characteristics
Displacement1,015 tons
Length183 ft (55.78 m)
Beam30 ft 10 in (9.40 m)
Draught13 ft 11 in (4.24 m)
Installed powerTriple expansion steam engine with exhaust turbine, 750 shp
PropulsionScrew propeller
Speed10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement
  • 30 (Externsteine)
  • 78 (Callao)
Armament2-cm automatic cannon[1]
For other ships going by the same name, see USS Callao.

USS Callao (IX-205), an unclassified miscellaneous vessel, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for Callao, a seaport in Peru. She was built for the Kriegsmarine as the weather ship and icebreaker Externsteine. The ship was captured on 16 October 1944 by USCGC Eastwind of the Greenland Patrol and was temporarily commissioned into the United States Coast Guard as USCGC East Breeze before being turned over to the United States Navy and commissioned as USS Callao in January 1945. The ship was sold out of service in 1950, and broken up the following year.

Discover more about USS Callao (IX-205) related topics

United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft as of June 2019.

Callao

Callao

Callao is a Peruvian seaside city and region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists of the whole Callao Region, which is also coterminous with the Province of Callao. Founded in 1537 by the Spaniards, the city has a long naval history as one of the main ports in Latin America and the Pacific, as it was one of vital Spanish towns during the colonial era. Central Callao is about 15 km (9.3 mi) west of the Historic Centre of Lima.

Peru

Peru

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. Peru has a population of over 32 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. At 1,285,216 km2, Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America.

Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279)

USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279)

USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279) was a Wind-class icebreaker that was built for the United States Coast Guard. Completed in time to see action in World War II, she continued in USCG service under the same name until decommissioned in 1968.

Greenland Patrol

Greenland Patrol

The Greenland Patrol was a United States Coast Guard operation during World War II. The patrol was formed to support the U.S. Army building aerodrome facilities in Greenland for ferrying aircraft to the British Isles, and to defend Greenland with special attention to preventing German operations in the northeast. Coast Guard cutters were assisted by aircraft and dog sled teams patrolling the Greenland coast for Axis military activities. The patrol escorted Allied shipping to and from Greenland, built navigation and communication facilities, and provided rescue and weather ship services in the area from 1941 through 1945.

United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the United States military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its duties. It is the largest and most powerful coast guard in the world, rivaling the capabilities and size of most navies.

Description

The ship was 183 feet (55.78 m) long, with a beam of 30 feet 10 inches (9.40 m) and a draught of 13 feet 11 inches (4.24 m). She had a displacement of 1,015 tons. She was powered by a 750 shp triple expansion steam engine with an exhaust turbine driving a single screw propeller, which could propel her at 10 knots (19 km/h).[2][3]

History

The ship was built in 1943–44 as yard number 570 by P. Smit, Jr. Shipyard, Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands. Originally intended to be the trawler Mannheim for the Nordsee Deutsche Hochseefischerei, Wesermünde,[3][4] she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine as Externsteine. She was launched in 1944,[2] and completed in July of that year.[3] The ship was originally named for the unusual Externsteine rock formation investigated by Heinrich Himmler for evidence of cultural significance to early Teutonic folklore and history.[5] Externsteine had the identification number WBS 11. Her complement was nineteen crew plus eleven meteorologists.[4] She was employed as a weather observation ship off Shannon Island on the northeast coast of Greenland[5] to aid forecasting of storm events tactically significant to North Atlantic and European combat operations, but was captured on the night of 15 October–16 October 1944 by the American icebreaker USCGC Eastwind.[6]

On 2 October, a Grumman J2F Duck aircraft from USCGC Eastwind spotted a trawler camouflaged in a field of unconsolidated pack ice off North Little Koldewey Island, where the Germans had set up a weather station. The camouflaged ship was visible on the aircraft's radar. Personnel from USCGC Eastwind captured the twelve crew of the weather station on 4 October. Documents captured revealed that the ship that they had spotted was the Externsteine, which was apparently escorted by a U-boat. The search for Externsteine was delayed by the weather, but on 14 October she was found trapped in ice 10 nautical miles (19 km) off Cape Borgen. At 21:00 on 15 November, USCGC Eastwind located Externsteine at a range of 7 nautical miles (13 km) of her radar, and "battle stations" was ordered. Captain Thomas decided to attack at a range of 2 nautical miles (3.7 km), USCGC Southwind was also present, and illuminated the target with her searchlight.[7] At a range of 4,000 yards (3,700 m), the icebreaker fired three salvos from its 5"/38 guns (one short, one over and one across the bow).[8] The shots landed around the vessel, and the Germans used their blinker light to transmit the message "We give up" in English. The reply, sent back in German, was "Do not scuttle ship". Both icebreakers approached the ship, and the surrender was formally accepted. It was discovered that scuttling charges had been placed in the ship, but these were disarmed with the assistance of Externsteine's engineering officer. Her three officers were taken back on board the vessel during the disarming as a way of guaranteeing that the ship would not be scuttled.[7]

The captain of Externsteine later told his captors that he thought the attack was being carried out by tanks, and he was amazed that the ships could break through the ice at the speed they did. He opined that the Americans would have to scuttle his ship as it was trapped in the ice.[7] Externsteine was renamed East Breeze by her captors.[2][Note 1] However, by using explosives on the ice, the ship was freed. A prize crew of 36 men from both icebreakers soon had the ship under way.[7] At the time, it was the northernmost combat operation ever undertaken by United States forces.[1] Externsteine was the only enemy surface vessel captured by United States naval forces during World War II.[7]

The prize crew brought her into Boston, Massachusetts,[2] by way of Reykjavík and Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland.[6] On 30 November, she was involved in a collision with USCGC Travis. At Boston, she was commissioned into the United States Navy on 24 January 1945.[2][6]

Between 30 January 1945 and 4 February she was outfitted at Philadelphia Navy Yard for special experimental work for the U.S Navy Bureau of Ships, and for the next five years carried out tests in the area of Cape May, New Jersey, and Cape Henlopen, Delaware. She was decommissioned on 10 May 1950, and sold 30 September 1950.[6] The following year she was scrapped.[3]

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Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the "New Meuse" inland shipping channel, dug to connect to the Meuse first, but now to the Rhine instead.

South Holland

South Holland

South Holland is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.7 million as of October 2021 and a population density of about 1,373/km2 (3,560/sq mi), making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely populated areas. Situated on the North Sea in the west of the Netherlands, South Holland covers an area of 3,307 km2 (1,277 sq mi), of which 607 km2 (234 sq mi) is water. It borders North Holland to the north, Utrecht and Gelderland to the east, and North Brabant and Zeeland to the south. The provincial capital is the Dutch seat of government The Hague, while its largest city is Rotterdam. The Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta drains through South Holland into the North Sea. Europe's busiest seaport, the Port of Rotterdam, is located in South Holland.

Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east, and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium in the North Sea. The country's official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.

Fishing trawler

Fishing trawler

A fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a specified depth. A trawler may also operate two or more trawl nets simultaneously.

Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

Externsteine

Externsteine

The Externsteine is a distinctive sandstone rock formation located in the Teutoburg Forest, near the town of Horn-Bad Meinberg in the Lippe district of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The formation is a tor consisting of several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills.

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust.

Shannon Island

Shannon Island

Shannon Island is a large island in Northeast Greenland National Park in eastern Greenland, to the east of Hochstetter Foreland, with an area of 1,466 km2 (566 sq mi). It was named by Douglas Charles Clavering on his 1823 expedition for the Royal Navy frigate HMS Shannon, a 38 gun frigate on which he served as midshipman under Sir Philip Broke.

Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an island country in North America and part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is the world's largest island. It is one of three countries that form the Kingdom of Denmark, the others being Denmark and the Faroe Islands; the citizens of all these countries are citizens of Denmark and of the European Union. The capital of Greenland is Nuuk.

Grumman J2F Duck

Grumman J2F Duck

The Grumman J2F Duck is an American single-engine amphibious biplane. It was used by each major branch of the U.S. armed forces from the mid-1930s until just after World War II, primarily for utility and air-sea rescue duties. It was also used by the Argentine Navy, who took delivery of their first example in 1937. After the war, J2F Ducks saw service with independent civilian operators, as well as the armed forces of Colombia and Mexico.

Tank

Tank

A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; usually their main armament is mounted in a turret. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat.

Prize crew

Prize crew

A prize crew is the selected members of a ship chosen to take over the operations of a captured ship. Prize crews were required to take their prize to appropriate prize courts, which would determine whether the ship's officers and crew had sufficient cause to have the value of the prize awarded to them.

Source: "USS Callao (IX-205)", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 10th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Callao_(IX-205).

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Further Reading

USCGC Storis (WMEC-38)

USCGC Edisto (WAGB-284)

USS Glacier (AGB-4)

USS Bear

USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282)

Wind-class icebreaker

USCGC Eastwind (WAGB-279)

USCGC Westwind

Greenland in World War II

USCGC Northland (WPG-49)

Krassin (1916 icebreaker)

Coast Guard Museum Northwest

USCGC Comanche (WPG-76)

USCGC Southwind

Arctic naval operations of World War II

USCGC North Star (WPG-59)

Greenland Patrol

SS Greece Victory
Notes
  1. ^ Name given in various sources as East Breeze and Eastbreeze
References
  1. ^ a b Thomas, p 108
  2. ^ a b c d e "East Breeze, 1944 WIX; ex-SNS Externsteine; later-USS Callao". United States Coast Guard. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d "Externsteine (6115081)". Miramar Ship Index. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Kriegsmarine – Wetterbeobachtungsschiff WBS 11 EXTERNSTEINE ex MANNHEIM" (in German). Wiedling. Archived from the original on 5 February 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  5. ^ a b Rohwer & Hummelchen, p 310
  6. ^ a b c d "Callao". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  7. ^ a b c d e Price, Arctic Combat:, U.S coast Guard Historian's Office
  8. ^ Kafka & Pepperburg, p 315
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