click to bigup

Balboa Harbor, Panama Canal Zone – Aerial photograph taken 23 April 1934, with the U.S. Fleet’s scouting force on hand for spring maneuvers. The image is remarkable as it is showing four cruisers (including the ill-fated brand-new Portland-class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis), two fleet support ships, and a whopping 44 destroyers moored together. The combined force as shown would have required some 8,000 bluejackets and marines to man them.

It should be noted that all of the destroyers are classic WWI-era four-stacked, flush-decked ships constructed between 1917-20. Pushing obsolescence even in 1934, these 1200-tonish boats had a hard time in World War II (often under British flag) but gave a good account of themselves nonetheless.

The cruisers in the picture, two heavies (Indy and Chicago) and two light (Raleigh and Detroit), also had a hard war ahead of them. Chicago was Sunk during the Battle of Rennell Island, 30 January 1943. Indy was torpedoed and sunk on 30 July 1945 by Japanese submarine I-58, resulting in the loss of nearly 900 of her crew, mainly to shark attack. Raleigh took a torpedo at Pearl Harbor and almost sunk only to survive hard service to be scrapped in 1946. Detroit, also a Pearl survivor who was moored next to the doomed Utah, spirited out 9 short tons of gold and 13 short tons of silver from the Philippines in 1942 and helped with the recapture of the Aleutians before heading the breakers at the end of the conflict.

By and large all of the 50 impressive vessels in this image would be stricken, sunk, or scrapped by 1950.

Ships present include (left to right in lower left):
USS Elliot (DD 146);
USS Roper (DD 147);
USS Hale (DD 133);
USS Dorsey (DD 117);
USS Lea (DD 118);
USS Rathburne (DD 113); An old Wickes-class four-piper destroyer commissioned in 1918, likely the oldest tin can in the picture
USS Talbot (DD 114);
USS Waters (DD 115);
USS Dent (DD 116);
USS Aaron Ward (DD 132);
USS Buchanan (DD 131);
USS Crowninshield (DD 134);
USS Preble (DD 345); and
USS William B. Preston (DD 344).

(left to right in center):
USS Yarnall (DD 143);
USS Sands (DD 243);
USS Lawrence (DD 250);
(unidentified destroyer);
USS Detroit (CL 8), Flagship, Destroyers Battle Force; 7000-ton Omaha-class light cruiser
USS Fox (DD 234);
USS Greer (DD 145);
USS Barney (DD 149);
USS Tarbell (DD 142); and

USS Chicago (CA 29), Flagship, Cruisers Scouting Force; a 9200-ton Northampton-class heavy cruiser.

(left to right across the top):
USS Southard (DD 207);
USS Chandler (DD 206);
USS Farenholt (DD 332);
USS Perry (DD 340);
USS Wasmuth (DD 338);
USS Trever (DD 339);
USS Melville (AD 2); 7200-ton Destroyer Tender, commissioned in 1915 she is the oldest ship in the image but would outlive most.
USS Truxtun (DD 229);
USS McCormick (DD 223);
USS MacLeish (DD 220);
USS Simpson (DD 221);
USS Hovey (DD 208);
USS Long (DD 209);
USS Litchfield (DD 336);

USS Tracy (DD 214);
USS Dahlgren (DD 187);
USS Medusa (AR 1); 10,200-ton Repair Ship
USS Raleigh (CL 7), Flagship, Destroyers Scouting Force; another Omaha-class light cruiser
USS Pruitt (DD 347); a Clemson-class four piper destroyer commissioned in 1920, likely the newest tin can in the image

and
USS J. Fred Talbott (DD 156);
USS Dallas (DD 199);

(four unidentified destroyers);
and last but not least at top right, USS Indianapolis (CA 35), Flagship, Cruisers Scouting Force.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Saw this in a news image from down in Old Mexico.

Captioned as “Masked and armed men guard a roadblock near the town of Ayutla, Mexico, on Jan. 18. Hundreds of men in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs.” With no attribution

The gun, for those of you who are hardware savvy, appears to me to be a M50 Reising submachine gun.

I did a piece on these little forgotten WWII gems for Guns.com last year that will give you more information but bottom line is H&R (yes, the shotgun fellas from Massachusetts) made about 123,500 of these .45ACP subguns to the design of one Eugene G. Reising from 1940-46 in several variants. The USMC used them in Guadalcanal before replacing them with more reliable gear, with the balance being issued stateside to state guards and the USCG for beach patrol (see below).

After the war many were handed out by the Office of Civil Defense (now FEMA) to police agencies for use if WWIII ever cracked open. This had led to a bunch of small departments still having these old guns around.

How this one showed up in Mexico is anyone’s guess. The forward grip and shortened/repaired stock is a nice, locally added touch.

If a gun could talk…

USS Missouri (BB-63) (at left) transferring personnel to USS Iowa (BB-61), while operating off Japan on 20 August 1945. As a young boy in 1984, I  stood by with goosebumps in Pascagoula as the crew manned the rails of Iowa again for the first time since 1958. Both of these classic battle wagons are preserved as museum ships today.

During WWII, a small and little-known unit of Free Polish Army commandos, under the code name Cichociemni  (Polish for “Silent, Unseen”) wrecked havoc in occupied Poland. Formed from a group of over 2,000 volunteers that numbered mostly exiled Army officers and senior NCO of the regular Polish Army, fewer than 600 completed training and selection in England. They dropped across Nazi-held Poland starting in 1941, delivering over 600 tons of munitions and supplies to the Polish Home Army (the underground resistance).

Cichociemny Jan Piwnik (Ponury) and his colleagues from the Kedyw unit of the Home Army Radom-Kielce Home Army area, 1944, Photo wiki

Some 344 volunteers made the trip into Poland as well (in 82 jumps!), while others parachuted into France, Greece and elsewhere to fight the Germans and Italians wherever they could. Of those who made it back home under a British parachute, over a third lost their lives. No less than 91 made it to Warsaw to take part in the epic Warsaw Uprising, where they helped lead Home Army forces in a hopeless final stand against the Nazis.

Today the Polish special forces unit, GROM, has adopted the lineage of the old  Cichociemni force.

One of the last survivors of that unit, 2nd Lt. Aleksander Tarnawski, is now 94 years old and jumped with GROM last week.

It was his first parachute jump since 1944.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.
– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Sept 17, the slow gunboats of the Canal

USS ERIE moored to her sister ship USS CHARLESTON at Balboa, CZ. (Colorized photo courtesy of Clive Fennessy, http://www.usserie.org/ ) Click to bigup.

Here we see the two Erie-class gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone in a photo courtesy of the Erie Memorial association.

These two ships were built in accordance with the specifications of the Washington and London Naval treaties on ‘slow gunboats.’ While carriers, battleships, cruisers and submarines all had a number of very strict limits as to the maximum number of vessels of each type that could be produced by signatory powers, there was no limit how many small patrol-type combatants (such as gunboats, coast guard cutters, sloops, armed yachts etc.) each navy contained on their list so long as the ships were generally built for what we would term littoral, convoy escort, and sovereignty type operations, not general fleet use.

To limit these ships to that spectrum of the naval diet, as described by Article 8 of the 1930 London Treaty:

Subject to any special agreements, which may submit them to limitation, the following vessels are exempt from limitation: Naval surface combatant vessels exceeding 600 tons (610 metric tons), but not exceeding 2,000 tons (2,032 metric tons) standard displacement, provided they have none of the following characteristics:
(1) Mount a gun above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre;
(2) Mount more than four guns above 3 inch (76 mm) calibre;
(3) Are designed or fitted to launch torpedoes;
(4) Are designed for a speed greater than twenty knots.

So there you had it, a ship, at 2000-tons or smaller, with no more than four large guns no bigger than 155mm, no torpedo tubes, and go no faster than 20-knots. This rough specification gave the U.S. Navy an outline for a pair of ships that they could use to patrol the Panama Canal Zone, freeing more flexible destroyers and cruisers for other missions. Naval architects Howard C. Fletcher and Mandell Rosenblatt crafted the design of these ships, which were budgeted at about $4-million apiece (in 1933 dollars, which is about $71 million today—a bargain when you consider an LCS, which is about the same size, is over $300 million).

Click to bigup. Newspaper write up from the day. These were handsome ships

Erie, patrol gunboat #50, was laid down 17 DEC 1934 at New York Naval Yard while Charleston, #51 was laid down about the same time, appropriately at the Charleston Navy Yard. It should be remembered that most other PGs of the day were China patrol boats that were much smaller, and much less heavily armed.

These new  patrol gunboats, with their economical Parsons geared turbines coupled to a pair of Babcock and Wilcox boilers were rather beamy, with a 327-foot long hull and 41 foot beam giving them a length to beam ratio of 1:8. With everything lit they could just touch 20-knots, but running on one boiler they could churn up the seas at 12 knots for a pretty impressive 12,000nm, meaning they could go a long time between port calls if needed.

A quartet of 6-inch/47 cal low-elevation guns in single mounts (150mm bores– just under the limit!) gave the boats enough punch to capture random enemy merchantmen and run off smuggler, pirates, and small warships. These MK 17 guns were a single-mount improvement over the guns carried in triple mounted turrets on U.S. light cruisers of the Brooklyn, Cleveland, classes et al. Only mounted on the two Erie-class ships, they were neat in the respect that they used 3.5hp motors for both powered elevation and training, which wasn’t very common for the time. They could fire the same 105-pound ‘Common Shell’ used by the rest of the 6-inch guns of the fleet out to 19,000-yards, at a rate of up to 8 rounds per gun. However, firing these big guns on a short boat led to some issues. According to reader Ed Foster, whose father served on Erie, they had to fill ballast tanks before firing a broadside.

I believe him.

Four quad 1.1-inch AAA mounts, largely felt to be the worst AAA mount ever fielded by the U.S. Navy, gave the ships a modicum of protection against random air attack. Novel for the time, these 327-foot ships had accommodations for up to 44 Marines to put ashore (back then Marine detachments were just for cruisers, battleships, and come carriers). They could also carry an OS2U Kingfisher floatplane. Overall this ship type was designed as something of a force projection platform in low-threat areas. A mini, if somewhat slow, cruiser if you will.

Aerial starboard bow view of Erie underway in May 1940. National Archives photo 80-G-466205. Click to bigup

Their plant was an experiment of sorts, and helped advance naval engineering designs that followed them. According to the Naval History Command:

Although their propulsion powering requirements were far lower than those of a destroyer, Charleston, and Erie’s machinery plants incorporated numerous advancements in marine engineering that had been first introduced aboard the Farragut Class destroyers, which were designed in 1932 and entered service in 1934 and 1935. These advancements included the use of superheated steam at higher pressures, air encased boilers, semi enclosed feed water systems, an AC electrical distribution system, an emergency diesel generator, and a number of other improvements. The ship had a single rudder operated by an electro-hydraulic steering engine. Prior to 1930, steam steering gears had been standard aboard naval vessels. Although Charleston was not a destroyer, a number of these design features carried over to the design of surface combatant ships that were built up through and during World War II

If these boats look familiar, you should realize that the U.S. Coast Guard’s ‘Secretary‘ class of high endurance cutters (originally classified as gunboats), were based on the design of these two Navy ships. We profiled one of these, Spencer, here earlier this year. Instead of the 6”/47 MK17s, the Coast Guard went with 5”/51’s and saved money in other areas, building their cutters out at about 30 percent less cost than the Eries.

USCGC Duane (WHEC33, formerly WPG-33) returning from Vietnam 1968. She is a half-sister to the Erie and Charleston.

This produced the simultaneous phenomena of the Navy ships of the class being among the slowest and most poorly armed in the fleet, while the Coast Guard ships, which were even more lightly armed, were the fastest and best equipped in that service’s armada! Different strokes for different folks.

Erie rolled down the ways and was commissioned 1 July 1936 while sister Charleston followed just a week later. These ships proved popular with the U.S. Navy of the Great Depression era due to their small crew size, just 180 officers, men and marines (fewer on a peacetime cruise), and a long, economical cruise speed. This allowed the ships, even though they were designed originally as the Panama Canal’s guard force, to deploy far and wide for several years, waving the flag on the cheap. Remember, we have “Hope and Change,”  the sailors of the 1930s had the “New Deal”,  but for both, money had to be saved.

Erie in Atlantic Ocean off New York Navy Yard. October 19, 1936

Erie went to Spanish waters in 1936 to be an armed observer of American interests in the Spanish Civil War, and then served as a midshipman trainer at Annapolis the next year. Charleston, meanwhile, did a Med cruise with stops that included Yugoslavia and Algiers and then spent a period poking around the coast of Canada’s Pacific shoreline and the Alaskan Territory.

Of course, they did still spend time in the Canal, as witnessed in the image at the top of this post. Ideally, one would be based at Balboa, on the Pacific end, while the other would be at Cristóbal, on the Atlantic. However, this did not go down as planned.

When World War II came to the Americas, Charleston was still in Alaskan waters and proceeded to spent most of her wartime service there. She avoided Japanese torpedoes and bombs, and bombarded shore positions in the Aleutians during the recapture of those islands from the Imperial Army– making her one of the only U.S. Navy ships in history to fire weapons into U.S. territory in wartime since the Civil War. Even when the Japanese were kicked out in 1943, Charleston spent the next two years on quiet anti-submarine patrol in Alaskan waters, after the addition of depth charge roll-off racks, while the rest of the fleet moved on. While assigned to the Aleutians the ship completed 130 escort missions involving a total of 253 convoyed ships. She performed a needed, if unsung war, being decorated with but a single battle star.

Erie, however, had a much different wartime experience.

When the balloon went up on Dec. 7, 1941, Erie was in the Canal Zone where she was designed to be. Based at the Pacific end, she shuttled around in a mad dash for several weeks picking up interned Japanese citizens and directing questionable ships to authorities. Then, with Nazi U-boats haunting the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, Erie was called up to the majors and sent through the Canal and into the Caribbean.

German U-boats haunted the Dutch West Indies in 1942. The image above shows a torpedo that ran up on Eagle Beach in Aruba 16 Feb 1942. Fired from U-156, it missed the Texaco tanker Arkansas, berthed at Eagle Pier (although a second hit the ship). Shown being inspected by an unidentified Dutch Marine (Korps Mariniers) officer and U.S. Army Capt. Robert Bruskin, the steel fish was very much still a live war-shot round. It later killed four Dutch Marines who tried to disassemble it for study. Photo from LIFE March 2, 1942

One of the small regional convoy routes established at the time was the Trinidad to Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) run. These “TAG” convoys shuttled across the Caribbean at low speed due to the nature of the small coasters and tankers that often made them up, which made them the perfect target for U-boats. On 12 Nov 1942, not even a year into her war, Erie was escorting TAG Convoy #20 when U-163 came across the little gunboat just out of Curacao. Being the most valuable ship in the convoy, KrvKpt. Kurt-Eduard Engelmann fired three torpedoes at her. In a testament to her sturdy design, she suffered just 18 casualties and was able to beach rather than sink.

Erie, stricken, port side three-quarter view. Fort Nassau is at top right of photo. Note dramatic list of port quarter. Photo http://www.usserie.org/

However, a resulting fire left Erie at a near total loss. Towed to Willemstad harbor in the Dutch West Indies (now Curacao), she capsized three weeks later and settled to the harbor. Struck from the Naval List 28 July 1943, she was salvaged in 1952 and her hulk sunk in deeper water. Today her memory is kept alive for posterity online by a most excellent association from which we used much information for this piece.

(Note: Erie‘s death was avenged. U-163 was sunk 13 March 1943 just four months after Erie‘s attack. The boat was sent to Davy Jones in the North Atlantic north-west of Cape Finisterre by depth charges from the Canadian corvette HMCS Prescott with all hands, to include Engelmann, lost).

Erie‘s sister Charleston, after World War II, was largely unneeded. The Navy had hundreds of new ships and no naval limitations treaty requirements to adhere to anymore, which made the lone survivor of a two-ship class that carried a unique main gun and propulsion plant very much surplus.

The ships carried a very distinctive camouflage scheme during the war.

Even the Coast Guard, who still operated six half-sisters (one, Hamilton, was torpedoed and sunk 10 miles off Iceland 29 January 1942), didn’t need the aging and in need of refit Charleston for their fleet since they had picked up 13 brand new Owasco-class cutters as a result of wartime spending that they were having a hard time finding crews for. The Owascos, and Secretary class cutters, augmented by a few WWII-built fleet tugs and seaplane tenders transferred from the Navy, carried the Coast Guard through the 1960s and 70s when two new-built classes took their place.

USTS Charleston in the late 1940′s at Buzzard’s Bay while a school ship for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. NHHC image NH 77120.

This led Charleston to be disarmed (except for a single aft 6-incher), her wartime camo removed, and transferred to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy 25 March 1948, where she served as a training ship for a decade. Accordingly, this led to other modifications:

A number of changes had to be made in order to make the ship suitable for duty as a school ship. All of the ship’s wartime armament had been removed with the exception of one of the after 6” mounts. The removal of all of this topside weight resulted in an increased metacentric height, which, if anything, made the ship too stable. Naval architects refer to this as being “stiff.” During the first few days of the annual training cruises, the ship often encountered a seaway off Cape Hatteras and it would start violently rolling. The majority of the cadets and some of the instructors would become seasick. This condition would last until calmer waters were reached in the Caribbean. When it was originally commissioned, Charleston was fitted with portholes along the side. These had been sealed up in its wartime configuration but they had been reinstalled to provide at least some degree of ventilation as the ship had no air conditioning system. Invariably some would be found to be leaking under the conditions described above resulting in water with a very unpleasant odor sloshing around in the berthing compartments.

According to CAPT. George W. Stewart, USN Ret., a 1956 MMA alumni who sailed on USTS Charleston as a start to his thirty-year (SW) Navy career, she was a good ship to learn on.

“Despite its limitations, Charleston was an excellent ship to learn the basics of marine engineering aboard during the 1950s. The lack of automation was actually an advantage because there were plenty of underway watch stations with things for the midshipmen to do. The experience gained aboard Charleston would prove to be extremely valuable to me aboard both naval and commercial steam powered ships during a seagoing career,” wrote Stewart.

By 1958, however, she had become too expensive to operate and was turned back over to Uncle. Disposed of by MARAD in 1959 just past her twentieth birthday. Rumor is that she was sold to an Italian developer for use as a floating casino, but I cannot find anything on her past 1960 (so if you know what happened to PG-51, share please!).

Although Erie and Charleston are no longer with us, and five of their Coast Guard sisters have likewise vanished, two of that class are preserved as floating museums.

Erie‘s Kingfisher, knocked off the ship by U-163‘s torpedoes in 1942, is a popular dive site off Curacao today as is her final resting place offshore for deepwater ‘bounce’ dives.

The USCGC Taney is currently a museum ship at the Baltimore Maritime Museum, in Baltimore, Maryland and the USCGC Ingham is part of the Key West Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida. Please visit them if you have a chance and when you go, give a moment’s respect to the noble Erie and Charleston as well.

Specs:

Length overall: 328 feet, 6 inches
Length on water line: 308 feet (at standard displacement)
Extreme beam at/below water line: 41 feet, 3 inches (at standard displacement)
Mean draft: 11 feet, 4 inches (at standard displacement)
Maximum draft in service: 14 feet, 6 inches
Design displacement: 2,000 tons
Displacement in service: 2,830 tons
Maximum speed: 20 knots
Range: 8,000 nautical miles at 12 knots
Engines: 2, Parsons geared turbine
Boilers: 2, Babcock and Wilcox
Generator sets: 3 (2 turbo, 1 diesel), all A.C.
Armament:
6-in., 47 caliber, Mark 17 guns: 4, with Mark 35 battery director
1.1 in., quadruple anti-aircraft guns: 4
20 mm, single anti-aircraft guns: 4
Depth charge roll-off racks: 2, Mark 6 (each holding 15 depth charges)
Smoke pipes: 1
Masts: 2
Armor: 3½ inch side belts (over vital spaces)
Armor: 1 inch on six-inch gun shields
Armor: 1¼ inch on main deck
Armor: 4 inches on conning tower
Radar: 1, Mark 3 (mounted atop battery director)
Sonar: 1, ASDIC
Scout plane: 1, OS2U “Kingfisher”
Captain’s cabin: 1
Admiral’s cabin: 1
Guest cabin with 2 staterooms: 1
Officers’ wardrooms: 15
Chief Petty Officers’ quarters: 18
Enlisted men’s berths (inc. 44 Marines): 213
Boats:
36-ft motor launch (70 men): 1
35-ft motor boat (27 men): 1
30-ft motor launches (40 men each): 2
26-ft motor whale boats (24 men each): 2
Balsa life floats (25 men each): 2
10-ft punt: 1
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/

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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Look at this beautiful Polish Radom VIS35

How about this pristine Karabin sampowtarzalny wz. 38M

What? You say there were never more than a handful of wz.38s ever made and they are near priceless museum pieces today that will cause international scandals if someone has one?

Well you are in luck, a Polish gunsmith Ryszard Tobys is making these guns new. And while I don’t believe they have a current U.S. importer, the fact that these beauties exist at all is cause for celebration.

And I’ll let you know if they do get an importer.

(Hat Tip Ian at Forgottenweapons.com)

With the lead up to the invasion of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in World War II, the U.S. Army needed some serious air support on tap. While there were a number of capable aircraft on hand, such as the P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang, each with a half dozen .50 caliber M2 heavy machine guns, the Army wanted something…bigger. What they got was an aircraft named the Grizzly and this flying bear was, quite literally, a cannon with wings.

Since the airplane took to the sky in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the U.S. Army had a leg up in flying war machines. It was an Army Captain, Charles de Forest Chandler, who took the first machine gun up on an experimental craft and used it effectively to hit targets on the ground. By WWI, the first .30 caliber belt and drum fed light machine guns went airborne. By 1939, the Germans were flying with 13mm and 20mm cannon, while some U.S. planes (the P-39) carried cannons as large as 39mm.

In 1943, the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific took a few B-25 Mitchell bombers and installed a single-shot T9E1 75mm cannon, the same gun used on the Sherman tank, in the front of the bomber, firing through the nose.

The large tube at the front of this B-25 that looks like a sewer drainpipe? Yeah, that’s a cannon.

These huge flying artillery pieces could vaporize enemy planes (it happened at least once) as well as sink Japanese ships with just a few well-placed shots. Of course, the plane lost 40mph airspeed every time it fired, but hey, it was spitting out a 3-inch wide artillery shell.

The B-25G/H models had to have an airman upfront hand-loading the 75mm cannon, which was not very efficient.

These ‘cannon-nosed’ B-25s proved so popular and successful that a special model of the 75mm gun, the T13E1 / M5 , made lighter and especially for use in an aircraft, was produced for the B-25H series bombers. Nevertheless, they still suffered from the fact that they were single-shot weapons, which had to be reloaded, by hand, by an airman heaving shells back and forth through the nose of the cramped bomber. Which was a bear of a problem that led to the Grizzly, and its mother-beautiful semi-automatic M10 75mm gun

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Click to big up

In late 1943, the 58th NMCB (Seebees) started scratching out a 3600×150-ish foot runway out of the coral of Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands archipelago. This barren strip, Barakoma Airfield, was the front line of the naval war in the South Pacific for ten months. From its harsh environment operated a Navy F6F Hellcat squadron (VF-40) as well no less than five USMC Corsair squadrons to include the famous VF-214 “The Black Sheep.” The first landing at the newly built strip was September 24, 1943 by VMF-214 pilots Greg “Pappy” Boyington and Mo Fisher.

These forces were hard pressed during the Bougainville Campaign and the reduction of Rabaul.

However, once the Japanese had been pushed back towards their home islands,  Barakoma was not needed and by June 1944, had been abandoned.

It is abandoned still. Rumor is you can walk the old perimeter and find enough parts to build your own F4U from the ground up and half a Zero. Of course you have to fight the jungle for it, but still.

Physicist Norris Bradbury sits next to “The Gadget”, the nuclear device created by scientists to test the world’s first atomic bomb, codenamed the Manhattan Project, at the Trinity Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico 16 July 1945. Just three weeks later an operational device was dropped on August 6, 1945,  over Hiroshima, in the Empire of Japan. Four weeks after that, World War Two ended.

Back before World War II broke off for the U.S. Navy, carrier airgroups were very logically laid out and, very colorful. Before 1941, the Navy had just eight carriers.

*The original Langley (CV-1), converted from a collier and relegated to seaplane tender duties in 1937.
*The Lexington and Saratoga (CV-2 and CV-3), converted from canceled battle cruiser hulls after WWI.
*Ranger (CV-4), the country’s first purpose-built carrier
*The three new 25,000-ton fleet carriers, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet (CV-5, CV-6, CV-8) respectively
*And the budget 19,000-ton USS Wasp (CV-7).

To keep the squadrons of aircraft assigned to these carriers organized, they were established into carrier air groups whose squadrons were typically named after the flattop’s hull number. For instance, the Enterprise Air Group, (later Carrier Air Wing 6, only decommissioned on 1 April 1993) included “Fighter Six” VF-6 (a fighter squadron made up of F3F-2 & 3 aircraft), “Bomber Six” VB-6 (a squadron made up of BT-1 dive bombers), “Scouting Six” VS-6 (a scout plane group equipped with SBC-3 Helldivers), “Torpedo Six” VT-6 (armed with TBD-1 Devastator torpedo bombers), as well as an Air Group Commander (flying a SBC-4), and some utility aircraft.

These air-groups had distinctive markings for their craft, which not only made it easy to tell which group and squadron it was in, but also the formation, and individual USN Bureau number (serial number) for the plane.

(Image from Starfighter Decals )

For example:

click to bigup

The image above is from LIFE magazine (Hattip D Shelly), 1938. It is of a SBC-3 Helldiver scout bomber getting ready for takeoff from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) during maneuvers off the coast of Hawaii in September 1940. It is from Scouting Squadron Six (VS-6).

This plane, bureau number 0542, was soon pulled from front line service (as were the rest of the cumbersome Helldivers). This airframe was kept around until 1944 as a trainer.

The blue tail indicates this aircraft is from the USS Enterprise. The red chevron on the top of the wing and the bottom of the cowling are the colors of the first section, made up of three aircraft, out of six sections in a squadron. The cowling being painted only on the bottom indicates this is aircraft number three, which would fly on the left-wing of the section leader when in a “V’ formation. It’s number, which you cannot see, would be “6-S-3″ for Sixth Carrier Group, Scouting Squadron, aircraft #3

Also, the rear observer looks exceptionally non-plussed.

Incidentally, the Curtiss SBC-3 Helldiver, built in 1935, was obsolete as soon as it left the factory. While it would have been useful over the skies of France in WWI, any fighter of its day could have cleaned its clock. In fact, it was the last bi-plane built for the US Navy and Marine Corps. Slow (230 kts) and not very maneuverable, the plane had a short 150-200 nm radius of action as a scout plane and was pitifully armed with just two 30.06 caliber M1919 light machine guns (one forward and one rearward). It could, however, carry a half ton of dumb bombs.

Click to bigup

Here we see a Northrop BT-1 dive bomber of Enterprise’s ‘Bombing Six’ squadron, BuNo 0681. This one, according to the plane, from the “6-B-10″ you can see its the Sixth Carrier Group, Bomber, 10th aircraft.

These BT-1’s were even worse than the Helldivers. Although colorful and at least a mono-plane, they had exceptionally bad low-speed maneuverability, which made them about the worst choice for a carrier aircraft in the world. The Navy accepted just 56 of these troubled planes. They were soon replaced by the much more effective Dauntless SBD in 1940.

These planes, however did appear in the 1941 film Dive Bomber, with Errol Flynn. Apparently the footage was already ‘in the can.’

Big up

Here we see a beautiful formation of Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of “Torpedo Six” from USS Enterprise off Hawaii for battle fleet exercises. The TBD-1 was a new plane, entering service in 1937. While just 130 were built, they made up the backbone of the U.S. Navy’s torpedo bomber program in the first part of WWII. The thing is, as one aviation writer termed it, they were Not-so-Devastating. Barely able to keep above 130 kts when armed with a usually non-functioning Mark 13 torpedo, these planes had an effective radius of action of just 200 miles. Some 41 Devastators are famous for their suicidal attack on the Japanese fleet during the Battle of Midway in 1942, which caused no damage to the Emperor’s forces. Not a single TBD-1 survives to this day although the location of five wrecked ones are known.

Here we have a (more than 50% replicated) Grumman F3F Flying Barrel, N20FG (1938 built Grumman F3F-2 Model BuNo 1033) that is owned by Chino Warbirds of Carlsbad, California, in a photo by Richard Seaman taken at the 2008 Planes of Fame Airshow. The plane is marked in the same paint scheme as the Enterprise group’s “Fighting Six” VF-6 squadron. Just 137 of these chubby fighters were produced, and soon were replaced by the F4F Wildcat. These chunks had a single .30 caliber machine gun and a single .50 caliber gun, and, while maneuverable, could only make 260 kts at best possible speed.

It would have been suicidal going up against a Zero in one of these. Gratefully, they spent WWII in training and utility duties.

As an homage to the Enterprise Group, here we see a US Navy T-39 Saberliner painted in the same scheme as the Enterprise‘s 1938 Strike Group as a retro throwback during the 2011 Centennial of Naval Aviation. The Saberliner, used by the Navy since 1962 in a number of variants for expedited cargo delivery, RIO, undergraduate flight officer and bombardier/navigator training, has been retired this year. This plane, BuNo. 165523 formerly of VT-86 aboard NAS Pensacola, was delivered to the AMRAC boneyard 22 May of this year– still in its distinctive scheme. As such, it is the only plane painted in the colors of the USS Enterprise’s pre-WWII Carrier Six group currently in the military’s inventory.

To all, salute.

Back before the days of helicopters, the naval seaplane was king for over-the-horizon spotting.  This included missions such as scouting for enemy ships, keeping up with the fleet, picking up those lost at sea, light transport of personnel and packages from ship to ship and ship to shore, as well as the all-important task of correcting distant naval gunfire missions.

The Navy used Curtiss CS-1 biplanes, Grumman Ducks and the Curtiss SOC Seagull through the 1920s and 30s (and in the Duck’s case even into WWII) for this task. In 1938 the new Vought OS2U Kingfisher, a mid-wing monoplane with a large central float and two outriggers had been introduced to take their place. These slow (160kts) and unwieldy scout planes were not built for combat. Rather, they served as the eyes and ears of the fleet.

OS2U-3 Kingfisher at the edge of the seaplane ramp at NAS Pensacola, Florida, United States, 1942. Note Consolidated P2Y flying boat laying off shore. Note the ladder/gangway. These planes were tall! (Click to big-up)

Launched by catapult from ships as small as light cruisers, they gave a tiny air wing to even the most modest of ships. Some cruisers were set up to carry as many as four of these planes.

A Kingfisher being launched from the Cat of the USS Pringle (DD-477). One of the few 2000-ton Fletcher class destroyers equipped for these aircraft.

They had long legs, capable of a range of some 800 miles. If needed they could carry 650-pounds of bombs which made them useful against lightly defended targets (such as Japanese freighters).

Perhaps more than any other aircraft save the long-legged PBYs and PBMs, Kingfishers saved more down aircrew during the war from being lost forever at sea “somewhere in the Pacific”

Over 1500 were produced and served the U.S. and her allies as late as the 1960s. They were so successful in fact, that the follow-on and much more heavily armed and fighter-like Curtiss SC Seahawk that replaced it in Navy service was itself phased out in 1949. Killed by the advent of the helicopter and long-range surface radar.

The Vought OS2U Kingfisher that appears here on the Missouri (BB-63) shakedown cruise was taken after an abandon ship drill in August 1944. (Click to embiggen)

The pilot of a Vought OS2U floatplane unstraps his flight log from his leg, after returning from a flight. The airplane is on the catapult behind him. Photographed during the ship’s shakedown cruise, circa August 1944. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, USNHC # 80-G-K-4597, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives.

Sadly, few Kingfishers remain as museum pieces– most notably at the North Carolina and Alabama battleship museums.

(Click to embiggen)

Chinese mechanics assemble Curtiss P-40N Warhawks in Rangoon, Burma, 1944. These aircraft belong to the 80th Fighter Group (FG) otherwise known as the  “Burma Banshees.” Their distinctive ghost skull was nice contrast to the more traditional shark jaws often seen on Warhawks in U.S. and British service.

The 80th FG consisted of the 88th, 89th and 90th fighter squadrons (to which was added the 459th later, the only American fighter squadron formed and later dissolved in India, never seeing the states). These planes and pilots fought a forgotten campaign over the ‘Hump’ of the Himalayas and into Burma from late 1943 through the end of the war, engaging Japanese Army aircraft over isolated jungles and unmapped green hell in support of General Stilwell’s Chinese Troops and General Merrill’s Marauders.

Their specialty, however was ground attack missions against Japanese trains, depots and troops–and they did them well, dropping more than 3200 bombs over the course of 1948 combat sorties. Although transitioning to the P-47 very late in the war, they made the most of their P-40s and P-38s.

More on the Burma Banshees.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Oct 1, Of Wind, weather wars, and space junk

U.S.S. Atka stands in McMurdo Sound to keep the channel open for Operation Deep Freeze supply ships and the evacuation of the last summer residents.

With things starting to get colder, I figured we should go with an icebreaker. Here we see an amazing image of the Wind-class polar icebreaker USS Atka (AGB-3) holding the line at McMurdo Naval Station in Antarctica.

When World War II started, the Navy was up the proverbial frozen creek as far as icebreaking went. While some foreign powers (the Soviets) really liked the specialized ships, Uncle Sam did not share the same opinion. However, this soon changed in 1941 when the U.S., even before Pearl Harbor, accepted Greenland and Iceland to their list of protected areas. Now, tasked with having to keep the Nazis out of the frozen extreme North Atlantic/Arctic and the Japanese out of the equally chilly North Pac/Arctic region (anyone heard of the Aleutians?), the Navy needed ice-capable ships yesterday.

The old (read= broken down) 6000-ton British-built Soviet icebreaker Krassin was studied in Bremerton Washington by the Navy and Coast Guard. Although dating back to the Tsar, she was still at the time the most powerful icebreaker in the world. After looking at this ship, the U.S. began work on the Wind-class, the first U.S. ships designed and built specifically as icebreakers.

Set up with an extremely thick (over an inch and a half) steel hull, these ships could endure repeated ramming against hard pack ice. Just in case the hull did break, there were 15-inches of cork behind it, followed by a second inner hull. Now that is serious business. At over 6000-tons, these ships were bulky for their short, 269-foot hulls. They were also bathtub shaped, with a 63-foot beam. For those following along at home, that’s a 1:4 length to beam ratio. Power came from a half-dozen mammoth Fairbanks-Morse 10-cylinder diesel engines that both gave the ship a lot of power on demand, but also an almost unmatched 32,000-mile range (not a misprint, that is 32-thousand). For an idea of how much that is, a Wind-class icebreaker could sail at an economical 11-knots from New York to Antarctica, and back, on the same load of diesel…twice.

USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280) at anchor probably in the vicinity of San Pedro, CA., in July 1944 sometime before or after her commissioning on 15 July 1944. Note how beamy these ships were. The twin 5″ guns make her seem extremely well-armed. Also note the J2F Duck seaplane perched amidships. Photo by Navsource

To help them break ice, the ship had a complicated system of water ballasting, capable of moving hundreds of tons of water from one side of the ship to the other in seconds, which could rock the vessel from side to side in addition to her thick hull and powerful engines. A bow-mounted propeller helped chew up loose ice and pull the ship along if needed.

With a war being on, they just weren’t about murdering ice, but being able to take the fight to polar-bound Axis ships and weather detachments as well. For this, they were given a pair of twin 5″/38 turrets, a dozen 40mm Bofors AAA guns, a half dozen 20mm Oerlikons, as well as depth charge racks and various projectors, plus the newfangled Hedgehog device to slay U-boats and His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s I-boats. Weight and space was also reserved for a catapult-launched and crane-recovered seaplane. Space for an extensive small arms locker, to equip landing parties engaged in searching remote frozen islands and fjords for radio stations and observation posts, rounded out the design.

In all, an impressive eight Wind-class ships were built. USS Atka, named appropriately enough for the largest island in the Andreanof Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, was the third of these. Laid down at the Western Pipe and Steel Company shipyards in San Pedro, California, seven months after Pearl Harbor, she was actually commissioned as USCGC Southwind (WAG-280) in the service of the US Coast Guard on 15 July 1944. Her wartime service with the Coast Guard, though short, was memorable.

Assigned to the Greenland Patrol, she helped fight a little-known battle remembered as the Weather War. This campaign, though not very bloody, was an enduring cat and mouse game between U.S. maritime assets and those of the Germans, who set up weather stations along the remote coasts of Greenland, Canada, and Spitsbergen to get vital met data on pending fronts headed to Europe from the Arctic. Remember this was before the days of weather satellites. As such, one of the most knowledgeable oceanographers in the service, Commander Richard M. Hoyle, commanded Southwind.

USCG landing parties with captured Nassy battleflag

While on the Greenland Patrol, Southwind, in conjunction with the USCGC Eastwind, one of her sisterships, trailed the German Naval Auxiliary ship Externsteine, an armed and converted trawler. After a short skirmish in the ice, in which Southwind illuminated the German ship with her searchlights, the trawler surrendered and was boarded by USCG landing parties. Christened the USS Eastbreeze, a salty prize crew made up of Eastbreeze and Southbreeze coasties took the captured ship in to Boston.

The “Eastbreeze”

The Germans chased from the Arctic, and the war winding down, Southwind was decommissioned 23 March 1945, largely disarmed, and loaned to the Soviets two days later as the country was, ironically, short on modern icebreakers. She served them well under the name Kaptian Bouleve then later Admiral Makarov for almost five years, only being returned to U.S. service to be commissioned as the USS Atka (AGB-3) just in time for Korea.

From left to right, USS Burton Island (AGB-1), USS Atka (AGB-3) and USS Glacier (AGB-4) pushing an iceberg out of the channel near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, 29 December 1965. US Navy photo from DANFS.

As Atka, she sailed from Boston for 16 years as part of the Atlantic Fleet. During this time, she made at least three polar trips and was a frequent visitor to Thule Air Force Base, Greenland, breaking ice on the regular resupply runs there.

Then in the 1960s, the Navy decided it was getting out of the icebreaker business and transferred the Atka back to its original owners, the Coast Guard. Not one to rest on a Navy-issued name, the USCG returned to their original moniker for the ship, Southwind, when she was brought back into the fold on Halloween Day 1966. “Trick or Treat” indeed (and another reason for this to be an October Warship Wednesday!).

USCGC Southwind from the Southwind 280 Association

The “Polar Prowler,” now in her 20s with her last major refit back in 1951, continued to serve hard time in the frozen Polar Regions, as is the nature of her breed.

Now-USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280) transits the Panama Canal, 28 November 1967. Note the single 5″ forward and the USN Sea Sprite ASW helicopter aft with the telescoping hangar. US Coast Guard Historian’s Office photo, copy sheet # 112867-13-16. (Click to bigup)

In the course of the next decade, she made at least three Antarctic trips, and six Arctic ones, including a rare 1970 port-call in Murmansk, her old home while in Soviet service. While there, she picked up an  NASA Apollo program unmanned training capsule (Boilerplate #-1227), that was lost at sea, found by a Hungarian trawler, then transferred to the Russians, and later collected by the Southwind.

While in Murmansk, from 4 to 7 September 1970, over 700 local citizens visited the ship. CAPT. Cassidy paid homage to Soviet and American dead at a local cemetery where American and other Allied sailors killed near Murmansk were buried. Also, the Soviets returned an Apollo training capsule (BP-1227) that they had recovered at sea. Apparently the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Rescue and Recovery personnel who were using the 9,500 pound capsule for training but lost it at sea near the Azores in February, 1969. It was recovered by a Soviet fishing trawler. Southwind, after first sustaining a “bump” by a Soviet icebreaker while departing Murmansk for home, carried the capsule back to the U.S. and deposited it at Norfolk before ending her cruise at Baltimore on 17 November 1970.

USCGC Southwind (WAGB-280) crew members chip away at ice while in Baffin Bay, November 1970. Note the Apollo capsule on the deck. USCG Photo scanned from Southwind’s Arctic East 70 scrapbook.

Finally, showing her age and being replaced by the new 399-foot Polar class cutters, she was decommissioned in 1974 and sold for scrap two years later. Today all that remains of her is the light that is kept burning by her veteran’s association.

In 2007, she was memorialized in an official USCG painting, “WAGB Southwind” by Thomas Carr, where she is depicted in the red-hull that she had only briefly towards the end of her career.

“A Coast Guard Icebreaker on patrol in the Antarctic, moves through the ice floe.” WAGB Southwind by Thomas Carr (ID# 87112) USCG Image. (Click to bigup, very nice image)

Her seven sister-ships have likewise all been retired and scrapped. However, her half-sister, the USCGC Mackinaw, which broke ice on the Great Lakes for six decades, is a floating museum in Michigan and her grandfather, the old now 98-year old Krassin, is preserved at Saint Petersburg.

Icebreaker Krassin survived all of the Wind-class breakers she helped inspire

In addition, Apollo BP-1227 is on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, where it has been since 1976, courtesy of a cruise on the Southwind, although the capsule continues to be a subject of much discussion and conjecture in the NASA fan boy community.

BP1227 has been on public display and sealed since 1976 as a time capsule to be opened in 2076. Photo by Mark Wade

Specs:

Displacement: 6,515 tons (1945)
Length:     269 ft (82 m) oa
Beam:     63 ft 6 in (19.35 m) mb
Draft:     25 ft 9 in (7.85 m) max
Installed power:
6 × Fairbanks-Morse model 8-1/8OP, 10-cylinder opposed piston engines at 2,000 shp (1,500 kW), each driving a Westinghouse DC electric generator.
Propulsion:     2 × Westinghouse Electric DC electric motors driving the 2 aft propellers, 1 × 3,000 shp (2,200 kW) Westinghouse DC electric motor driving the detachable and seldom used bow propeller.
Speed: Top speed: 13.4 knots (24.8 km/h) (1967)
Economic speed: 11.6 knots (21.5 km/h)
Range: 32,485 nautical miles (60,162 km)
Complement:
21 officers, 295 men (1944)
12 officers, 2 warrants, 205 men (1965 USN service)
13 officers, 2 warrants, 160 men (Post-1967 USCG service)
Sensors and processing systems:
Radar:
SA-2, SL-1 (1944, removed 1949)
SPS-10B; SPS-53A; SPS-6C (1967)
Sonar: QCJ-8 (1944-45)
Armament:     4 × 5″/38 (twin mounts)
12 × 40mm/60 (3 quad mounts)
6 × 20mm/80 (single mounts)
2 × depth charge tracks
6 × “K” guns
1 Hedgehog
M2 Browning machine guns and small arms (1944)
Aircraft carried: 1 Grumman J2F Seaplane, later helicopters in telescoping hangar

(1945-49, Russian Service)
4x 3″/30 single mounts (U.S. Army surplus),
8x 40mm/60 (2 quad mounts)
6 × 20mm/80 (single mounts)
2 × depth charge tracks

(1967)
1 x5″/38 single mount
20mm Mk 16 cannons (singles)

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/

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.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

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Here we see a Vought  F4U-1A Corsair being serviced in the Pacific after a forced landing on Nissan Island in March, 1944. Nissan is in the Green Islands of Papua New Guinea, exactly midway between Rabaul and Bougainville. The place had just been secured a month before by Kiwi’s of the 3rd New Zealand Infantry and at the time a young Richard Millhouse Nixon was a Navy supply officer at the base.

The plane belongs to one Lt (JG) Tom ‘TK’ Killefer of U.S. Navy fighter squadron VF-17 (the original Jolly Rogers). The unit flew Corsairs from island strips in the Solomons until late 1944 when they transitioned to Hellcats and moved to the USS Hornet. Although the squadron was near-legendary, counting among their number no less than 12 aces and 161 Japanese victories, they were redesignated after the war and then disestablished. Today, VFA-103 flies an almost identical Jolly Roger unit emblem on their F-18s, although the two squadrons are not related.

Lt (JG) Killefer himself earned 4.5 victories, just escaping being an ace by the skin of his teeth. He passed at a ripe old age of 79, while dressing for a Father’s Day dinner and after having played 18 holes of golf.

Found this on one of the gun classifieds sites this week:

A twin 40mm Bofors mount from the ex-USS Downes, DD-375. In case you don’t remember Downes, a Mahan-class tin can commissioned in 1937, she was present at Pearl Harbor on a day that will live in infamy. And she got quite a licking.

Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941, USS Downes (DD-375), at left, and USS Cassin (DD-372), capsized at right, burned out and sunk in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard drydock on 7 December 1941, after the Japanese attack. The relatively undamaged USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) is in the background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Well she was salvaged in the most real way possible. Her equipment that could be saved was removed and installed in a new hull (with the same hull number!). She was recommissioned in late 1943 and finished the war, being broken up in 1947 for scrap.

The only thing is, Downes didnt carry Bofors at Pearl as far as I know. The gun had only just been approved for IOC a few months before. Most of the AAA guns in action on Dec. 7th were water-cooled Browning M2 .50 cals and the downright horrible 1.1-inch quad. However after her rebirth, she did in fact carry a pair of twin 40mm guns aft (in place of one of her 5-inch guns) for her return payback cruise to Japanese-held waters in 1944-45.

The bad thing is the guy wants $25K for them…and they are dewatted. Still, kinda cool piece of history, and it doesn’t show up in the lost cannon wall of shame.

My homie and fellow Guns.com associate Ben Philippi, is traveling around the country working on his We the People project, which takes pictures of gun owners with their favorite piece of hardware. Well Ben visited Dom Spano and got to check out the ins and outs of a M1 (M116) 75mm Pack Howitzer — in working condition.

Enjoy!

19-year old actress Martha O’Driscoll kisses a soldier goodbye in Los Angeles, 1941. Note that these are likely California National Guard. I say that due to the relatively older age of the men (see the 40-year old E5 to the left?), the spotlessness of the equipment (see how crisp the U.S. is on the canteen cover and First Sergent’s1911 holster flap?), and the fact that the GI holding Ms. O Driscoll so expertly up has the sunburst shoulder sleeve insignia of the 40th Infantry Division of the California Guard on his arm. The 40th was activated for World War II on 3 March 1941 and soon left for Hawaii. It later fought at Guadalcanal and in the Philippines, seeing hard service and suffering over 3000 casualties.
Oklahoma-born O’Driscoll was a Universal Studios scream queen and popular pin up of the WWII era, perhaps best known for her role in the classic Lon Chaney movie, House of Dracula.

Apparently she really had a soft spot for men in uniform. She toured with Errol Flynn and the USO in the early 1940s, performing for the troops all over the world including in the Aleutians just after the U.S. liberation there. She then married Lieutenant Commander Richard D. Adams (USNR) on September 18, 1943. Her second and final husband, electronics magnate and thoroughbred horse breeder Arthur I. Appleton, whom she married in 1947, was also a naval officer during the war.

Born 1919 in Waverly, Missouri, Kenneth ‘Ken’ Riley is known primary as a ‘cowboy artist.’ This is because some of his best known works were Crow Fair, Split Horn Bonnet, and Legends of the Mandan. As such he is regarded as something of the modern Frederick Remington but in canvas. This led him to become a founding member of NAWA (the National Academy of Western Art) in 1973 and inducted as an Emeritus member of the Cowboy Artists of America .

Grasslands By Ken Riley. Image from From “First People“

Well, Riley did a lot of other stuff too. Before the war he was he was a student of Thomas Hart Benton. He also signed up for the military in WWII and cut his teeth as a combat artist in the U.S. Coast Guard (which included a mural at the Coast Guard Academy.)

“Offloading Supplies” By Ken Riley. Drawn and painted from what the USCG combat artist observed. Note the distinctive gold circles on the naval stevedore’s M1 helmets. Current in the collection of the USCG Museum. You can really feel the influence of Benton Hart in this painting.

“Marines Disembark at Tarawa.” Sketch by USCG combat artist Ken Riley in the collection of the Mariners Museum

Sketch by Ken Riley of WWII boat-crew from the collection at the Mariners Museum

“Coastguardsman Under Fire at Tarawa” By USCG Combat artist Ken Riley. From the USCG Museum

After the war he made a hard living by cranking out pulp illustrations for $15 a pop and unsigned comics to further earn his stripes.

Ken Riley pulp for The Saturday Evening Post, 1948

He was a frequent illustrator for National Geographic, painted Yellowstone for the Society of Illustrators and painted a series of iconic images in the history of the U.S. Army National Guard’s Heritage Command.

The Surrender of the Army of Northern Virgina April 12, 1865 by Ken Riley. Currently in the U.S. Military Academy Museum, West Point, New York

Ken Riley, “The visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the U.S”, New York, July 14, 1825. 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment of Artillery, New York State Militia welcomes the visiting hero of the American Revolution Marquis de Lafayette. To honor him on his day of departure home to France, the unit adopted the name “National Guard” in remembrance of the Garde National de Paris, once commanded by Lafayette during the early days of the French Revolution. Taking note of the unit and its new name, Lafayette left his carriage and went down the line of troops clasping hands. It was this instance the the modern term of “National Guard” came from in the U.S. From the collection of the U.S. Army National Guard. Click to very much big up

Ken Riley, Buena Vista, Mexico, February 23, 1847 Showing the charge of the 1st Mississippi Rifles under then-Col. Jefferson Davis. Wearing their characteristic red shirts and straw hats, these men were equipped with 1841 pattern musket rifles and bowie knives. They saved Zach Taylor’s bacon that day and are still remembered in the lineage of the Mississippi Army National Guard . From the collection of the U.S. Army National Guard. Click to very much big up.

“Remember the River Raisin!” by Ken Riley, depicts a scene from the October 1813 Battle of the Thames, a decisive victory for the Americans in which Chief Tecumseh gave his life and Americans re-established control over the Northwest frontier. Kentucky troops were encouraged to fight this battle as revenge for an earlier massacre of Kentucky militia at the River Raisin. From the collection of the U.S. Army National Guard.

29th Infantry Division. D-Day, Omaha Beach Painting by Ken Riley. The 29th “Blue and the Grey” was made up of National Guard units drawn from both the North and South.  Painting by Ken Riley From the collection of the U.S. Army National Guard. Click to big up.

“The Whites of Their Eyes” Colonial militia at Bunker Hill 1775. Ken Riley. Located at the JFK Presidential Library.

Riley’s paintings hang in the permanent collections of the White House, the U.S Military Academy, the Air Force Academy, and the Mariners Museum and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and he is alive today at 95. Thank you for your work, sir.

Taking a look at some extreme-low level passes throughout the past century or so. The tactic has been used throughout modern military aviation. While it is extremely dangerous, it can minimize the time a plane is over hostile enemy troops while terrain masks its approach from both surface-based radar and lookouts. The Argentine pilots who attacked the British Task Force in the Falklands in 1982 often flew incoming missions with their A-4’s and Mirages as low as 4-feet off the deck.

Douglas A-20 Havocs in a super-tight formation making a low flyby for the cameras, 1939

A WWII era P-40 Warhawk with blades 4 feet off ground

USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt at extreme low level

Low pass by P-47s. Click to big up

A-4 Skyhawk of unknown origin coming in just a tad hot.

Russian pilot Valentin Privalov flying under the central span the bridge over river Ob. June 14, 1965 in his shiny new MIG-19

Argentine IA58 Pucara coming in close enough to part hair

Low flying Turkish Army AH-1 Cobra coming in a little low, 2014