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"Contramaestre Casado" (A-01) Transporte Ligero

The mission of the Transporte Ligero is to carry out logistical transport of both personnel and material. And that has been doing since it was discharged in 1983. However, the special characteristics of the ship and its merchant ship structure make it regularly participate in maneuvers and exercises as a target ship, pretending to be a civilian ship in various scenarios (illegal traffic , merchant with problems, health emergencies, etc.), thus allowing a training of great quality and realism for other units, both in the Navy and other civil and military organizations. The home port is the Arsenal de La Carraca (San Fernando, Cádiz). This arsenal, founded by Patiño in 1755, continues to serve the Navy ships today, within the Bay of Cádiz.

The mission of the ship as Light Transport means that it has a reduced armament, indicated only for its self-defense, and trusting its protection in escort-type ships (frigates and corvettes). In total it had 2 assemblies 20/120 OERLIKON mod. 13ILA / 5TG (20 mm) and 2 MG-42 machine guns (7.62 mm), in addition to various portable weapons such as CETME Mod. C assault rifles (7.62 mm), post shotguns, and pistols (9mm bp).

The current "Contramaestre Casado" (A-01), is the second Navy ship that bears this name, in honor of the Contramaestre D. José Casado Ferreiro, hero of the Cuban War, who had his moment of glory on 3 July 1898, in the hours that followed the naval combat of Santiago de Cuba, after its shipwreck on the cruiser "Infanta María Teresa". The Navy dedicates to his memory for the highly humanitarian and heroic act that he carried out during the combat of Santiago de Cuba, in which the cruiser "Infanta María Teresa" was abandoned, covering the flames up to the height of the chimneys and projectiles exploding everywhere, when it was believed that there was no living soul in the ship, a man appeared in it calling for help, and immediately, without excitement from anyone, the third boatswain José Casado left the land where he was already safe and saying in a loud voice "I will not let that man die" he threw himself into the sea, came swimming to the burning ship, climbed up those reddened sides and despising how much a man can despise life, he caught the one who asked for help,He lowered it on his shoulders in the same place and, taking him to the beach in tow, deposited in it that unfortunate, shapeless mass with fourteen wounds, who surely remained on board, judging him dead, in the midst of the thunderous tribute of admiration from 500 men who there forgot their misadventure to cheer the generosity of another who shook the water on the beach as if he had not done anything in particular.

The current "Casado Contramaestre" has had, like D. José, a long and hazardous service record. Its history began when it was launched in 1951 at the Eriksberg Mek Verkstads A / B shipyard in Gothenburg (Sweden), and it entered service in 1953 as a three-island refrigerated merchant on behalf of the Swedish shipping company Trelleborg Angfartygs, in Trelleborg, under the name of "Leeward Islands". In 1964 it was sold to the Norwegian shipping company Fred Olsen, in Oslo, where under the name "Bajamar" it operated for four years, and was subsequently sold as a result of a serious economic crisis, to the Norwegian company Jensen & CO. , in Narvik, which renamed it "Bonzo" in 1968. It remained there until 1974 when it became the property of Refrigerated Express Service Ltd, in Nassau, Bahamas,

In 1982 it was acquired by Latam Shipping Co, Piraeus, Greece, which renamed it "Thanassis-K" and flagged it first in Greece and then as a convenience in Panama, dedicating it to smuggling trafficking. Exercising this illegal activity, he was captured in front of a Galician estuary, by the Discovered class corvette "Vencedora" in the course of a joint operation with the Tax and Customs Surveillance Service. Captured at the beginning of August 1982, he was taken to Vigo on the 11th of that month. After disembarking the cache, the ship was intervened without its owners showing up. Declared abandoned by its owners after a few months, it was seized by the Ministry of Finance, and put up for public auction on November 22, 1982.

After a total rehabilitation carried out in the Ascón and Vulcano Shipyards in Vigo for 9 months, during which a fire broke out on August 22 that affected the entire stern of the ship, and especially the living quarters of the seamanship, The completely renovated ship would enter active service in the Navy on November 23, 1983 as light transport "Contramaestre Casado" (A-01). The ship received the combat flag on July 22, 1985 in the two times Real Villa de Mugardos (La Coruña), in the place where, on October 9, 1867, Contramaestre José Casado Ferreiro was born.

El Casado has been in service for 30 years, and has carried out hundreds of transports of both personnel and material. From movements of "fifths" of the military to and from the Canary Islands, to transports of troops from the Marine Infantry for their participation in NATO exercises in the North Sea or along the Mediterranean, and without forgetting their traditional participation as a ship " melillero "in the Holy Week of Malaga, coming to disembark there the troops of the Legion that will bring out the Christ of the Good Death in procession, a tradition that dates back to 1930.

In exercises, the ship pretended to be transgressors of all kinds of legality, arms smugglers, a slave ship, a merchant ship with an epidemic on board, or a simple ship in distress. We do such work so often that we have been given the affectionate nickname "Married Smuggler" or "Sandokan of the Bay." On a regular basis it received on board Special Naval Warfare units, Marine Corps, Civil Guard, National Police and Customs to train in procedures for assault, control and registration of ships, and it is not uncommon for units of Foreign Health, Red Cross, and CBRN groups of the Civil Guard practice on board procedures for the containment of contagious diseases in epidemiological drills.