The Danes didn’t really stand much of a chance on April 8/9 1940 when the Germans thundered over their borders and seized the country. Nothing but flatland with few natural defensive barriers and a military that was both obsolete and token in size when compared to Hitler’s forces meant that the King ordered a surrender before lunch on the first day of fighting. However that doesn’t mean the Danes played dead. A huge underground army grew over the next 5 years and by April 1945, with the Germans on the ropes, the Danish Resistance Army emerged from the shadows and gave it a knockout blow. Armed with smuggled weapons and homemade gear, these plucky freedom fighters never surrendered.

One of their greatest achievements, made right under the nose of the occupying forces was the V3 Holger Danske armored car.

The V3 Secret Super Weapon!

There is a Ford truck under here. Frit Danmark!

“A Ford FAA truck was acquired in early 1945 from local sources to serve as the vehicle basis and armored plates were “liberated” from the local Frederiksvaerk steel factory. It took around 3 months to build the vehicle – it was a slow process due to the secrecy. However, the news of upcoming German surrender changed everything and anothe decision was taken to take a risk and speed up the car production as much as possible. In the chaos of the final days of the war, it was possible to move the Ford FAA truck directly to the steel factory from where the armored plates came. The resistance men worked on the truck night and day and it was ready just a day before the war ended. The vehicle was then named “V3″ to resemble the German term “weapon of vengeance” (Vergeltungswaffe), used on the V1 and V2 rockets. On the front, a large “Frit Danmark” (“free Denmark”) was written in red.

The construction was quite simple. The vehicle had basic armored plates welded on it (roughly 5mm thick), that covered the driver’s cabin, crew compartment and a small “turret”, equipped with a loosely mounted Bren machinegun. The crew counted 6 men, one of which used the “turretted” Bren and the rest used their personal weapons – rifles and submachine guns. Naturally, the suspension was overloaded by the added weight, which affected the driving performance, but that was of little consequence to the resistance fighters. The vehicle also had problems with overheating, resulting in the removal of the front armor plate in front of the radiator (or rather a hull was cut in most of it). Generally, as improvised armor often is, the vehicle was of very little combat value, but in the only operation it took part, it served well.”

More here

(Hey don’t laugh, it was crazy advanced for 1945)

My homie Ian over at Forgotten Weapons got his hands on an M3 Carbine up for grabs at the Rock Islands Auctions company.

At 34-pounds, it would take a M1 carbine and turn it into a primitive night-fighter gun that would see service at the tail end of WWII and during Korea.

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 Nov 26, Marilyn’s Tin Can

Here we see the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Benham (DD-796) as she appeared during WWII where she earned an impressive eight battlestars in just over 21-months at sea. She is all made up in her Camouflage Measure 31, Design 2C war paint.

One of the last pre-WWII destroyer designs of the U.S. Navy, the amazing 175 Fletchers proved the backbone of the fleet during the conflict. These expendable ‘tin cans’ saved Allied flyers, sank submarines, duked it out with shore batteries, torpedoed larger ships, screened the fleet, and shot down wave after wave of enemy aircraft, keeping the carriers and transports safe behind their hail of fire. With the ability to float in just 17.5-feet of seawater, these ships crept in close to shore and supported amphibious landings, dropped off commandos as needed, and helped in evacuations when required. Small ships with long legs (5500-nm un-refueled at 15-knots) they could be dispatched to wave the flag in foreign ports, provide gunboat diplomacy in times of tension, and race just over the horizon at 36.5-knots to check out a contact.

This particular ship was named for U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Andrew Ellicot Kennedy Benham (1832-1905), a storied veteran of the old pre-Civil War Navy that included catching a pike to the leg from a crazy fisherman off Macao while still a Midshipman before achieving command of the gunboat Penobscot during the War Between the States and retiring as head of the North Atlantic Station in 1894.

The first USS Benham (Destroyer No. 49/DD-49) was an Aylwin-class tin can built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I and scrapped in 1935. The second USS Benham (DD-397) was the lead ship of the her class of destroyers and served as the escort to the USS Enterprise on the Doolittle Raid and at Midway, saving the lived of over 700 sailors from the stricken Yorktown before being sunk at the Battle of Guadalcanal, 15 November 1942.

With big shoes to fill, the new Benham (DD796) was laid down just five months later on 23 April 1943 at Bethlehem Steel Company, Staten Island, NY. A war baby, she was built in less than eight months, being commissioned 20 Dec of the same year.

By May 1944, she was part of Task Group 52.11, a small force of two escort carriers and three destroyers just in time for the invasion of the Marianas and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. She shot down a number of enemy bombers and used her quartet of 5-inch guns well in gunfire missions against Japanese forces on Tinian and Guam. Joining the big boys of TG 38.2, she was the screen for the large fleet carrier USS Bunker Hill off Okinawa during raids there before striking at Japanese installations in the Philippines and helping support the landings along that massive archipelago. Just before Christmas, she was damaged, along with much of the Third Fleet, in a Typhoon off the Philippines, losing a man over the side.

In April 1945, Japanese kamikaze planes and friendly fire from another destroyer damaged her. One man was killed and two officers and six men wounded. Of the four planes shot down that day by antiaircraft fire, the Benham was credited with two, with assists on the others.

The above photo is from July 1945 while the Benham DD796 was refueling from the Wisconsin in preparation for a night run on the Japanese Shiminosuk Naval Base on the Eastern tip of Honshu. From the Benham Association. These boats were very wet in rough weather…

Later, while a part of Task Force 38, she pursued and depth charged a Japanese submarine and supported the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, helping to take wounded from the extensively damaged USS Franklin. Fighting in Japanese home waters, she was part of the massive Allied fleet in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945 when the war ended.

Decommissioned on 18 October 1946 in San Diego, she spent five years on Long Beach’s red lead row before being recalled to the colors in 1951 to participate in the new war in Korea. Just after new life was brought to the veteran ship, a young starlet named Marilyn Monroe, who had done her part as a war industry worker herself in the previous conflict, visited her stateside.

On June 19, renowned Hollywood photographer John Florea accompanied Marilyn on a trip to the Benham at Long Beach, where she was being made ready to sail for the East Coast.

Ms. Monroe enjoying the company of a few bluejackets

She was visiting the ship for a special screening of the new Richard Widmark film, The Frogmen,  about Navy UDT teams, and was yet to become a household name. In the visit she wore the same studio wardrobe black netted dress seen in ‘As Young as You Feel’ filmed earlier that year in which she had a bit part.

Marilyn manning the 40mm Bofors

Marilyn Monroe visits sailors during the Korean War-

The thing is, Marilyn was known to see other destroyers on the side…

In this image Ms. Monroe wears a t-shirt from a visit to the slightly younger Sumner-class tin can USS Henley (DD762). Say it ain’t so, Joe! Nonetheless, Benham outlived the rival Henley by a good number of years as the more modern vessel was scrapped in 1974 while still a spry 30-year old. That will teach ‘em to mess with a Fletcher sailor’s gal…

Sailing to the East Coast, she underwent a modernization that saw her trading in her 20mm and 40mm guns, Benham picked up some new 3-inch AAA mounts in exchange. At this time, the port aft depth charge rack and all “K” guns were removed but she did pick up some Hedgehog devices forward. The old SC air search radar was replaced by the SPS-6, and other improvements made.

View of Benham, post-1950, in common distribution to the public in the 1960’s. John Chiquoine via Navsource. Note the Hedgehog emplacements and reload lockers under the bridge-wings forward and the big SPS-6 array on top of the mast.

Her service during the Korean conflict was not as exciting as it was during WWII, never seeing the Pacific again until she circumnavigated the globe during a 1954 cruise. She was put out to pasture again after being transferred to the Atlantic, decommissioning at Boston on 30 June 1960.

Benham underway 1959 NH photo

Stricken in January 1974, she was transferred to the Marina de Guerra del Perú (Peruvian Navy) where she was recommisoned there as BAP Almirante Villar (D 76)—a traditional Peruvian Naval name held by a number of that country’s warships to honor the one-eyed sea dog Contralmirante Manuel Villar Olivera.

BAP Admirlante Villar firing a torpedo in the late 1970s. At this time the Mk15 torpedoes were nearing the end of their shelf life.

She gave a good six hard years service to that fleet until she was stricken in turn in 1980 at age 37.

Painted pink, she was disarmed and used in a series of Exocet missile tests before she was scrapped at the end of her life.

ex-Beham, ex-Almirante Villar after taking a MM-38 Exocet amidships. Not bad damage for a 35-year old Fletcher…

Another view

The very active USS Benham Association who intend to have their 23rd annual reunion in Norfolk, VA in 2015 keeps Benham’s memory alive.

Benham crew reunion aboard USS Kidd in Baton Rouge in 2005 in which the Kidd became the Benham for the day

To do your part to remember the old girl (Benham, not Marilyn), you can visit one of the four Fletcher sisterships have been preserved as museum ships, although only USS Kidd was never modernized and retains her WWII configuration:

-USS Cassin Young, in Boston, Massachusetts
-USS The Sullivans, in Buffalo, New York
-USS Kidd, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
-AT (Destroyer of Hellenic Navy) Velos former USS Charrette in Palaio Faliro, Greece

Specs:

A detail of Fletcher sister ship USS Kidd. Benham came later in the war and substituted a more advanced radar and more AAA guns for the Number 3 5″/38 mount.

(As commissioned, 1943)
Displacement: 2,050 tons (standard)
2,500 tons (full load)
Length: 376.5 ft (114.8 m)
Beam: 39.5 ft. (12.0 m)
Draft: 17.5 ft. (5.3 m)
Propulsion: 60,000 shp (45 MW); 4 oil-fired boilers; 2 geared steam turbines; 2 screws
Speed: 36.5 knots (67.6 km/h; 42.0 mph)
Range: 5,500 miles at 15 knots
(8,850 km at 28 km/h)
Complement: 329 officers and men
Armament: 4 × single 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns
6 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns, 10 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
10 × 21 inch (533 mm) antiship torpedo tubes (2 × 5; Mark 15 torpedoes)
6 × K-gun depth charge projectors (later Hedgehog)
2 × depth charge racks

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!

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 December 3, 2014, The Scandinavian Leviathan

(Courtesy of reddit)

Here we don’t see the Tre Kronor-class cruiser Hennes Majestäts Skepp (HSvMS) Göta Lejon (Gothic lion) of the Royal Swedish Navy. Her ship’s motto was Nemo me impune lacessit (“No one provokes me with impunity”) and she meant to back that up as needed.

Can’t see her?

How about now in this enhanced photo?

Ok, this may actually be a destroyer, or a banana, or Tom Sawyer’s raft, but how can you tell for sure?

The Swedish navy has had a long history of camouflaging their ships while hidden next to rocky isolated inlets and islands, even large capital ships– note the bluejackets standing on mine rails

Designed before the start of World War II, the Tre Kronor (Three Crowns)-class of three fast cruisers (Kryssaren) were to each serve as a flotilla flagship of a new squadron of four destroyers and six motor torpedo boats. As such, they were much larger, faster, and modern than the long long line of 18 Pansarskepps (literally “armored ships”) coastal defense ships built for the crown between 1897-1918.

Kryssaren HMS Göta Lejon without her camouflage netting.

The three most modern (but still slow) pansarskepps would form a strategic reserve while the three new cruisers would race their destroyers up and down the coastline, sinking enemy ships and laying minefields as needed. Capable of sinking smaller fast ships and running away from those that could wreck them in turn; they were supposed to be “stronger than the quicker and quicker than the stronger.”

Note the twin rear mine-laying chutes in stern and pair of twin 152mm turrets facing the national ensign.

Built to an Italian design, when the war broke out in 1939 the third ship was cut, with just class leader Tre Kronor and her sister, Göta Lejon remaining. With construction beginning in 1943 as the country suffered from shortages of everything due to her tense neutrality during WWII, they were only completed by Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstads AB, Gothenburg after the war’s end.

Armed with 7 M1942 Bofors 6-inch (152/53 mm) high-elevation guns, each capable of firing an impressive 10-rounds per minute (with a combined broadside of 70 rounds per minute) due to automatic loaders, she was classified as a light cruiser. They could fire a 99-pound AP/HE shell out to 28,400 yards and could be used in AAA role if needed due to their high elevation.

*As a sidenote, these guns were designed as 5.9-inchers by Bofors for the Royal Dutch Navy (Koninklijke Marine) cruiser De Zeven Provinciën. After the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 these artillery pieces were confiscated by the Swedes and promptly recycled into their new cruisers, stretched to accommodate the Swedish standard 6-inch shell. The DZP did eventually get a new set of guns of the same type delivered by Bofors— after the war. The soul survivor of the class, currently in service as the BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) of the Peruvian Navy, is the last WWII-era “gun” cruiser in fleet service.

152mm shells aboard Gota Lejon Photo Wiki

For dooming larger vessels, Göta Lejon carried a half-dozen 533mm surface torpedo tubes. Her armor was adequate, at 2.8-inches, to defend her against destroyer-sized weapons while it was hoped her 33-knot speed could move her away from bigger brawlers. AAA was accomplished with ten twin 40mm Bofors (after all, the company was based in Sweden) and a number of smaller guns.

Iced in. Note early pre-moderization superstructure tower

Built as a large, well-armed minelayer of sorts, Göta Lejon could carry up to 150 heavy (300# warhead) contact mines in a hold below decks and rapidly drop them over the stern after running them down her topside deck on fitted rails.

Hey that’s MINE! (Get it)

Gota Lejon dropping it while its hot. She could sow mines at 20-knots if needed and her crew got the hustle on. Photo Wiki

Mines are a big business in the Baltic. An estimated 200,000 mines were laid by all sides in the East of Sweden and the Straits of Kattegatt and Skagerrak to the West over the course of the two world wars and are still regularly encountered.

Commissioned 15 December 1947, Göta Lejon had a tense span of Cold War service with an increasingly active Soviet Navy poking its nose into Swedish waters. Over the next ten years, the older pansarskepps were retired while just the two cruisers endured.

A good close up of how she looked as commissioned. She had an usual main battery lay-out with a triple singe turret forward and two twin turrets aft. Note the HF/DF gear under the bridge.

Then, in 1958, her only slightly older sister and class leader Tre Kronor was laid up, leaving the Göta Lejon as the principal ship in the Swedish Navy, a legit WWII-style cruiser in a 60’s era fleet of mosquito boats and tin cans.

1954–note, no camo and modified superstructure

As such she was modernized, given advanced surface and air-search radars (Type 277 and Type 293), and her AAA suite augmented by more modern Bofors 57mm guns. Further, she was fitted to carry helicopters as needed.

Gota Lejon at anchor. Note the swabbie greasing and coating the mine rails as a Mauser-armed platoon of sailors drills nearby. The Swedish navy has long used national servicemen and, as with any large group of semi-motivated young men, must be kept busy. Photo Wiki

As she appeared in 1978. The Swedes were very into camo by this time. Note the large surface search radars

Tre Kronor was scrapped in 1964 as Göta Lejon remained, kept alive in part with items cannibalized from the elder whose steel was repurposed as a pontoon bridge.

A 15-minute long Swedish film from 1964 showing the cruiser under steam, in operations in the Baltic, laying mines (at the 3-4 minute mark) getting all camoed up (at the 9-ish minute mark), delivering broadsides (13 mins) and dropping depth charges.

In 1970, it was planned to modernize the ship by removing her aft turrets and replacing them with U.S. Terrier missiles. However, this plan was scrapped, as it would likely have brought political repercussions from the nearby Soviets.

Aft view of HMS KkrV Göta Lejon handed over to her new owners on a sad and rainy afternoon.

With time marching on and no refit in sight, by 1 July 1970, after 24 years of service, she was withdrawn from the King’s naval list and transferred to the Republic of Chile the same year.

At a hard turn. Note the extreme 70-degree elevation on the 152mm mount forward.

Renamed Almirante Latorre (CL-04) after the revered Jutland-veteran battleship of the same name, the ship sailed to Latin America and gave a hard dozen years service to that fleet, serving as a counter to the aging Argentine Brooklyn-class light cruiser ARA Gen. Belgrano and Peruvian BAP Almirante Grau (small world) in times of tension.

Almirante LaTorre live fire 1983. At this point her battery was four decades old.

As Almirante LaTorre on a sunshine filled day in the Pacific.

However, despite a limited refit when transferred, she was in poor condition again in just a few years and by 1980 rarely sailed. On 2 January 1984, she was decommissioned and held in reserve for two years.

Then, in Sept. 1986, she was sold to the Shion Yek Steel Corp of Taiwan, tugged across the Pacific, and scrapped. No doubt her good Swedish steel has been re-blended and recycled into a myriad of household items by now.

Nevertheless, at least one of her screws is retained on display in Chile while her original Göta Lejon bell and shield remain in Sweden.

Admiral Latorre’s port-side screw at Naval Base de Talcahuano, Chile

Specs:

CL Tre Kronor 1964-70. Image by shipbucket

Displacement: 7,400 long tons (7,519 t) standard, 9,200 long tons (9,348 t) full load
Length: 174 m (570 ft. 10 in) (pp)
182 m (597 ft. 1 in) (oa)
Beam: 16.45 m (54 ft. 0 in)
Draft: 5.94 m (19 ft. 6 in)
Propulsion:
Two shaft geared turbines, 4× 4-drum boilers,
100,000 shp (75,000 kW)
Speed:             33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement:   618
Armament:      As built:
7 × Bofors 152 mm guns
20 × 40 mm guns
7 × 25 mm guns
6 × torpedo tubes
Post 1958:
7 × 152 mm (6 in) guns
4 × 57 mm Bofors
11 × 40 mm guns
6 × torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 70 mm (2.8 in)
Deck: 30 mm (1.2 in) upper, 30 mm (1.2 in) main
Turrets: 50–127 mm (2.0–5.0 in)
Conning tower: 20–25 mm (0.79–0.98 in)

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!

Today modern military aircraft are typically started with the aid of a starter hose or cart. In the old days, props had to be hand-chucked which was dangerous as, if the engine caught before the mechanic got his hands off, odds are he could wrench an arm out of the socket.

Well back in the 1930s increasingly larger and more powerful military grade radial engines were impractical to hand start and most of the electric start systems of today weren’t around. This led to the Coffman and later Breeze engine starters which were developed in 1935 and used in the P-36 and later military aircraft. Basically it used a blank shotgun shell to kick start the engine.

4ga shell compared (left) to 12 gauge 3-inch high brass shell of today

Here is a 1945 FM-2 Wildcat (USN BU 86774) being started for the first time in decades with a vintage 4-gauge Coffman shell.

The science behind it: “ The Coffman starter uses a specially made 4 gauge paper shell with an electric primer. It is filled with .25″ and .187″ diameter cordite pellets for slow burning powder. The shell fires into a starter assembly on the accessory case of the engine, same position as an electric starter. It DOES NOT fire directly into a cylinder of the engine. The gasses force a piston inside the starter assembly forward towards the engine collapsing spiral gears on top of each other converting it into a circular motion. This engages the starter dog and rotates the starter gear. After the piston reaches the end of its travel a valve released the residual pressure and a die spring resets the whole process.”

Here we see a Medium Tank M3 in maneuvers at Fort Knox, Kentucky, June 1942. At the time it was the best armored vehicle in the Western Hemisphere.

click to big up

First put into production in August 1941, these 27-ton tanks were heavily armed with a 75mm gun in the hull complete with 46 rounds and a 37mm anti-tank piece in the turret some 10-feet in air with another 178 rounds. As many as four Browning M1919 air cooled machine guns were also carried for her massive 6-7 man crew. Capable of carrying an impressive 175 gallons of fuel to power the Wright 400hp engine, she could almost see 26 MPH at full speed. However she was overly tall which made her easier to target on the battlefield. This, and the fact that her main gun had a very limited traverse, her riveted construction sent bolts flying around the interior if she was hit by anything larger than small  arms fire, and the fact that later German tanks could eat her for lunch meant that the M3 was soon replaced by the more modern M4 Sherman.

Of the 6,258 produced during the war 45 percent went to the Brits and another 23 percent to the Soviets, with most of the balance in U.S. service being used in training as shown above. The Brits liked them well enough when facing weak Italian armor and early German Panzers in North Africa but the Soviets called them the “Grave for 6-men” and preferred their excellent T-34 to the American tank.

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 December 10, 2014: The Japanese Saratoga

Here we see a wonderful colorized overhead shot of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier Kaga as she steams in a deep blue sea in 1930. Note the huge twin 7.9-inch turrets up front just under her superimposed flight deck and the meatballs on the wingtips of the early Mitsubishi B1M torpedo bombers. This massive 812-foot long flattop was part of the backbone of Japanese Naval Aviation.

In 1922, the Empire built its first carrier, which was actually the purposely-built ship for that purpose with prior British and U.S. carriers being converted from other ships. This little 9,600-ton flattop, Hōshō, was the cradle of Japanese Naval Aviation much as the USS Langley was to the USN. Then followed two larger fleet carriers, which were actually able to fight. These were the 42,000-ton Akagi (converted from a battlecruiser hull in 1927), and the 38,000-ton Kaga (converted from a battleship hull in 1928). These two ships were comparable to the converted American battlecruisers-cum-carriers Lexington and Saratoga. Then came the experimental 10.500-ton light carrier Ryūjō (comparable to the too-small-for-fleet operations USS Ranger CV-4) whose poor design led to the development of the much better 20,000-ton purpose built fleet carriers Soryu and Hiryū and follow-on 32,000-ton sisters Shōkaku and Zuikaku (who were roughly comparable in size and operation to the Yorktown-class carriers Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet completed at about the same time). A pair of slow light carriers converted from submarine tenders, Zuihō and Shōhō rounded out the Japanese fleet before the start of World War II in the Pacific, giving the Imperial Japanese Navy some 10 flattop-like ships at the start of the war to the American’s 8.

While the Japanese were able to commission another 10 flattops during the war itself (Ryūhō, Hiyō, Jun’yō, Chitose, Chiyoda, Unryū, Amagi, Katsuragi, Shinano and Taihō), these ships by and large were poorly constructed and in many cases never fully operational– a fact contrasted by the dozens of excellent Essex-class fleet carriers that the USN was able to field by the end of that conflict. No, the true flower of the Japanese Navy’s air arm was developed and at sea by December 7, 1941 and its sunrise would soon set.

Model of Battleship Kaga as she would have appeared.

Originally laid down 19 July 1920 as a leviathan 45,000-ton battleship that would have carried an amazing ten 16.2-inch guns in five twin turrets and been clad in up to 14-inches of sloping Vickers cemented armor (Japan was a British ally), the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 doomed her and sistership Tosa, both of which had already been launched but were more than a year away from completion, to the scrap heap that was world peace. Tosa was towed out to sea and used an a floating target to test the effectiveness of her new armor and arrangement– which led to lessons in how the later Yamato-class super-dreadnoughts were built. Had these ships been completed as battleships, they would have been at least equal to, if not more powerful than the latest U.S. ships of the day: the Colorado-class.

Kaga fitting out, 1928. Note the rear ducked funnel stack which would br reworked in 1935. Also note the two casemated 7.9-inch guns near the waterline and twin 5-inch AAA guns at maximum elevation near the top of the deck

Kaga, the more complete of the two sat at Kawasaki Shipyard, Kobe while the Japanese Navy considered what to do with her. Two of the faster 30-knot Amagi class battlecruisers (Amagi and Akagi), also canceled due to the Washington Naval Treaty, were undergoing conversion to aircraft carriers much as the U.S. was converting their canceled USS Lexington and Saratoga hulls to flattops at the same time. However, an earthquake in Tokyo in Sept. 1923 produced stress cracks throughout the unfinished Amagi and she was hulked. This meant that the Kaga was given a last minute reprieve from the breakers and completed to take the place of the already treaty-allowed battlecruiser-tuned carrier.

Kaga 1933, note the two distinctive 7.9-inch turrets, one trained out. Also the large mum of the IJN on the bow.

After an extensive conversion and completion process, Kaga joined the Combined Fleet 30 November 1929. She was a big girl, at over 38,000-tons full load. Only the slightly longer Akagi along with the U.S. Lexington and Saratoga were bigger and not by much (42,000-tons). A brace of 8 Kampon Type B boilers powered 4-geared turbines giving her over 127,000 horses under the hood, meaning she could race around at 26-knots if needed. Although capable of carrying up to 100 aircraft, she also had a very decent main gun armament of 10 7.9-inch 3rd Year Type naval guns installed in six casemates with a maximum elevation of 25 degrees limiting maximum range to 22 kilometers and two forward twin turrets with a maximum elevation of 70-degrees thus giving them the same 29 km range as those guns carried by heavy cruisers. Another 16 5-inch guns were carried in her secondary battery, thus giving her the same armament of both a heavy and light cruiser. She still carried an impressive 6-inches of armor belt, which in theory at least meant she could fight it out on the surface against a decent sized cruiser and likely win without having to launch an aircraft.

Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Kaga conducts air operations in 1937. On the deck are Mitsubishi B2M Type 89, Nakajima A2N Type 90, and Aichi D1A1 Type 94 aircraft

Speaking of aircraft, she had three flight decks, stacked upon one another. This allowed her the very sweet option of launching and recovering planes at the same time from the multiple decks. The topmost deck was covered in 1.5-inches of armor for added protection.

Kaga conducts air operations training 1930. upper deck are Mitsubishi B1M Type 13 bomber and Nakajima A1N Type 3 fighters are on the lower deck. Photo from Kure maritime museum

Her first missions saw her fitted with upto 60 aircraft, all biplanes, to include Mitsubishi B1M3 torpedo bombers, Nakajima A1N fighters, and Mitsubishi 2MR reconnaissance aircraft. She participated in the first invasions of China, escorting troops of the Imperial Army to Shanghai.

There on Feb. 19, 1932, three planes from the Kaga took off and were met by U.S. Army Air Force reservist 2nd Lieutenant Robert Short who, flying a Boeing 218 P-12 prototype fighter as a volunteer pilot to the Chinese Air Force, smoked a Japanese plane in combat, killing one Lt. Kidokoro, IJN.

Two days later a six-plane stack including three Mitsubishi B1M3 bombers and three Nakajima A1N1 met Short once more and he killed flight leader Lt. Kotani, IJN, disrupting the attack. Regrouping, the two fighters engaged Short and one, piloted by Lt. Nokiji Ikuta, sent the 27-year old American down in flames.

The three successful fighter pilots after the combat on 22 February 1932 Ikuta is on left

It was Japan’s first ever air-to-air victory and would not be the last American life that Kaga would cut short.

While in China, the Japanese realized that Kaga had a crapload of flaws and sent her back to the yard. When she emerged, she only had a single flight deck supplemented by a large hangar deck, had lost her 7.9-inch turrets, had a new funnel arrangement, and picked up an island control tower on her deck. Engineering improvements increased her speed to over 28-knots and her hangar space was improved to where she could carry as many as 103 aircraft although never did.

How she would have looked post-mod

Back in Chinese waters, throughout 1937-38 her air group flew thousands of sorties as the ship covered more than 30,000 miles in constant shuttling up and down to coast to support the Japanese Army ashore. During this time, her pilots mixed it up regularly with Chinese pilots flying American Curtis Hawk III aircraft, bagging 10 of the outnumbered fliers.

Kaga after her modifications. Note how the funnel now shifts steam/smoke amidships just abaft of the island

On 12 December 1937, three Yokosuka B4Y Type-96 bombers and nine Nakajima A4N Type-95 fighters left her deck to attack a group of Standard Oil-chartered Chinese oil tankers off Nanking. While attacking the merchant ships, the planes also took the 191-foot river gunboat USS Panay (PR-5) of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet’s Yangtze River Patrol under fire, sinking her in shallow water without provocation.

Storekeeper First Class Charles L. Ensminger, Standard Oil Tanker Captain Carl H. Carlson, and Italian reporter Sandro Sandri were killed, Coxswain Edgar C. Hulsebus died later that night and 43 sailors, and five civilians were wounded.

It would not be the last American lives she would take.

Kaga steams through heavy north Pacific seas, enroute to attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, circa early December 1941. Carrier Zuikaku is at right. Frame from a motion picture film taken from the carrier Akagi. The original film was found on Kiska Island after U.S. recapture in 1943. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.

Lieutenant Ichiro Kitajima, group leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Kaga’s Nakajima B5N bomber group, briefs his flight crews about the Pearl Harbor raid, which will take place the next day. A diagram of Pearl Harbor and the aircraft’s attack plan is chalked on the deck. Photo Chihaya Collection via Wenger via Wiki

December 7, 1941, some 73-years ago this week, Kaga was part of an impressive six-carrier striking force laying just off of Oahu, Hawaii Territory. Although a declaration of war had not been delivered, 26 Nakajima B5N Kates typically armed with Type 91 torpedoes modified to run in the shallow water of the harbor escorted by 9 Mitsubishi A6M Zeros from the carrier accompanied the first wave of Japanese aircraft into Pearl looking for American battleships. Soon after that wave, a second was launched consisting of 26 Aichi D3A Val dive-bombers armed with 550 lb. general-purpose bombs and 9 more Zeroes that were tasked with attacking aircraft and hangars on Ford Island.

Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island shortly after the beginning of the Pearl Harbor attack. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance. A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California. On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier. Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port. Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right. U.S. Navy planes on the seaplane ramp are on fire. Japanese writing in the lower right states that the photograph was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry. Official U.S. Navy photograph NH 50930.

Of these, 15 did not return, making Kaga‘s airgroup losses of 31 aviators the heaviest of the Japanese attack. Of the 55 that did make it back, over half were damaged. This is not that surprising as, of the 353 Japanese naval aircraft that attacked Hawaii that day; nearly every fourth one came from Kaga while just over half of the Japanese planes scratched came from the carrier.

However, they inflicted a terrible price on the harbor on that infamous day. Her Zeros reported strafing more than 20 planes on the ground and her bomber and torpedo planes reported hits made by them on the battleships Nevada, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, West Virginia, and Maryland. While there is no way to know for sure, it is likely that a large portion of the 2,403 Americans killed and 1,178 others wounded came from Kaga‘s group as two-thirds of the torpedo planes that attacked battleship row in the first wave came from the flattop.

She then followed up this attack with supporting Japanese attacks in the Dutch East Indies and Australia, with her airgroup raiding Darwin.

June 1942 found her off Midway Island as part of Yamamoto’s final push to break the back of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. Along with her old companion Akagi, two other Pearl Harbor veterans, Soryu and Hiryu joined Kaga for the epic naval battle. Of 248 Japanese carrier aircraft deployed, nearly a third flew from the Kaga.

Although her Zeros helped destroy a number of American attack squadrons wholesale, and her Vals and Kates bombed the isolated island, there was a final reckoning in the form of a 25 plane attack of SBD Dauntless dive bombers from the USS Enterprise that caught Kaga and her three companion carriers unaware with her decks full of torpedoes, bombs, aviation gas, and planes out in the open. At 10:22 am on June 4, one 1,000-pound and at least three 500-pound bombs from Enterprise’s VS-6 hit her and within minutes, the chain reaction of secondary explosions had the ship ablaze.

After a nine-hour funeral pyre, the Japanese sank her with a volley of torpedoes in more than 16,000 feet of seawater some 350-miles northwest of Midway. More than half of her complement, including dozens of her unreplaceable veteran aviators, rode her to the bottom of the Pacific.

The destroyers had picked up some 700 of her crew from the debris-clogged waters. These men became a pariah in their own service. Kaga ‘s surviving crewmembers were restricted incommunicado to an airbase in Kyūshū for months after returning to Japan, to help conceal word of the Midway defeat from the Japanese public and were then transferred back to frontline units without being allowed to contact family.

In 1988, a grove of cedars along with a monument was erected to the carrier in the old Higashiyama Navy Cemetery, now part of Higashi Park in Sasebo City. Parts of her wreckage were found in 1999 by a U.S. Navy survey ship although none was recovered.

As for Lieutenant Ikuta, the Japanese ace who shot down Robert Short over China in 1932? Against all odds, he was one of the very miniscule group of Imperial Naval aviators who survived the war and in 1960; he tracked down Shot’s elderly mother in the United States and begged her forgiveness.

She accepted.

Specs:

Kaga as completed, 1930. Photo from Shipbucket

Kaga in her final Pearl Harbor-Midway form

Displacement: 38,200 long tons (38,813 t) (standard)
Length: 247.65 m (812 ft. 6 in)
Beam: 32.5 m (106 ft. 8 in)
Draft: 9.48 m (31 ft. 1 in)
Installed power: 127,400 shp (95,000 kW)
Propulsion: 4-shaft Kampon geared turbines
8 Kampon Type B boilers
Speed: 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Endurance: 10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement: 1,708 (after reconstruction)
Armament: 10 × 200 mm (7.9 in) guns,
8 × 2 – 127 mm (5.0 in) guns,
11 × 2 – 25 mm (0.98 in) AA guns
Armor: Belt: 152 mm (6.0 in)
Deck: 38 mm (1.5 in)
Aircraft carried: 90 (total); 72 (+ 18 in storage) (1936) 18 Mitsubishi A6M Zero, 27 Aichi D3A, 27 Nakajima B5N (+ 9 in storage) (Dec. 1941)

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Lets just call a spade a spade. The Navy has a critical shortage of Subchaser/Destroyer Escort/Frigate type ships…again.

Going back to the old steam and steel navy of the 1900s, the torpedo boat was put out to pasture by the destroyer (who could both kill torpedo boats and launch torps while keeping up with the fleet). This gave the navy four distinct category of vessels:

1. Battleships– the default capital ship from 1890-1942
2. Large, armored or heavy cruisers– who could fight and kill anything up to a battleship
3. Smaller ‘light’ or protected cruisers– who could screened the fleet and scouted ahead
4. Destroyers– who provided escort for all of the above and could be assigned to expendable missions

Then came World War One and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or battleship open to a torpedo from the ship that effectively replaced the torpedo boat– the submarine.

WWI-era 110-foot Subchaser #57 of the “Splinter Fleet” these boats were small but had a lot of heart. Don’t knock them for their size– submarines of the day weren’t much larger

The answer was the “subchaser,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Hundreds of SCs were built and used by the Navy in WWI and even remained in service into the 20s to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a SC could do a Destroyer could do better so why waste the money.

Then came World War II and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or battleship or carrier open to a torpedo.  (Sound familiar?)

USS Buckley (DE-51), your typical WWII DE. 1740-tons, 306-feet, built for the fight at hand.

The answer was the “destroyer escort,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Hundreds of DEs were built and used by the Navy in WWII and even remained in service into the 50s to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a DE could do a Destroyer, of which they had hundreds of left over from the Big One, could do better so why waste the money.

Then came the depths of the Cold War in the 1960s in which the Russkies were cranking out enough submarines to walk from Martha’s Vineyard to Hamburg without getting your feet wet and the Navy realized that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they were tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pulled away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or carrier or amphibious assault ship open to a torpedo. (Could have sworn I heard this song before)

Aerial view of Knox-class frigate USS McCandless (FF-1084) 4260-tons 438-feet long, these were excellent ASW/ASuW boats and held the line in the Atlantic for 25 years.

The answer was the “frigate,” little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers. Over a hundred frigates (46 Knox-class FF, 51 Perry-class FFG, 10 Bronstein-class FF, 6 Brooke-class FFG) were built and used by the Navy in the Cold War and even remained in service into the 21st century to some degree. Then the Navy got rid of them, saying that anything a frigate could do a Destroyer could do better so why waste the money.  In turn, a group of expendable Littoral Combat Ships that are frigate-sized but not frigate-like will pick up the slack and serve as minesweepers if needed (hey any ship can be a minesweeper once, right?)

Now we have a resurgent and chest-pounding China, who is bullying its neighbors as it reaches out for Lebensraum and to return ethnic-Chinese to the fold while it rebuilds its military (augmented by a New Russia led by Tsar Vladimir I who is doing much the same thing but on a smaller asymmetric scale, and the always fun Persian Gulf follies in a world of unstable oil prices). Both of their navies rely on submarines to do the heavy lifting and (insert shock) the Navy realizes that, while they had a bunch of destroyers, they are tied to the fleet rather than being able to break away from it. You see every destroyer you pull away from the battle fleet left a cruiser or carrier or amphibious assault ship open to a torpedo.

What they need is a (wait for it) class of little boats able to bust U-boats, escort merchant ships, creep into shallow littoral waters, wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel, and, when used in fleet service, effectively escort destroyers.

What they have are 32 ( mostly still building) lightly armed LCSs that currently cannot fool with a submarine, fight a surface contact larger than a speedboat or pirate launch, and, while they can escort a merchant or auxiliary ship in areas with such lightweight threats, if faced with any sort of actual foreign naval presence, is hard-pressed to even escort itself. About the only thing they do have in common with the 100 years of sub-chasers/destroyer escorts/frigates that preceded them is the ability to creep into shallow littoral waters and wave the flag in areas not deemed worthy of sending a larger vessel.

Now that is going to change.

As reported by the USNI and others the last 20 LCS built will instead be much-augmented Small Surface Combatants (SSC)– presumably 10 on each hull.

The ships will pick up some sub-buster creds with multifunction towed array, provisions for ASW torps (helicopter carried), and torpedo countermeasures (Nixie or TRAPR DCL?).

For increased ASuW punch they will get an over-the-horizon anti-ship missile (likely an advanced Harpoon or possibly the excellent new Norwegian Naval Strike missile which has been tested on LCS-4 already), and confusingly, more light guns to include Mk.38 25mm remote mounts forward. While twin Mk44/46/50 gun mount (using a 30mm Bushmaster and the rounds from the GAU-8 Avenger cannon on the A-10) is already slated as a module for the series and is much superior to the 25mm is still listed as a possibility which would make it the first USN combatant to have three 25-57mm caliber batteries on board in modern history if fielded like this.

There will also be some survivability improvements to include more armor, signature management, an active EW system, upgraded decoys and an over the horizon search radar.

Sadly, no on-board Mk32 tubes or even a 8-cell Mk41 VLS for a few ASROC or ESSM bulk packs, but hey, at least this version of the LCS is closer to what the original one should have been and can control some ocean if needed. Perhaps this is an option later however….

Maybe the first 32 LCS can be modernized to SSC standard during their mid-life refit.  An SSC will cost $60-$75 million more than a Flight 0 LCS, and procurement of the type is to begin by 2019.

And then just go ahead and call them frigates.

Just saying.

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 December 17, 2014, the Catfish of the Falklands

(Courtesy of CDR Chester C. Culp Jr & submitted by Chris Culp, son of the EB “official” boat photographer of the Catfish (SS-339) from 1945-1953.Photo via Navsource) Click to big up.

Here we see the Balao-class submarine USS Catfish (SS-339) “swim” at Portland, Oregon, 27 October 1946. In this picture she submerged in the Willamette River to permit the flowers placed on her deck in honor of the naval dead to float to sea with the outgoing tide. These 311-feet long fleet boats could float in as little as 15-feet of water, swim as above with her decks awash in just over 25 feet, and completely submerge in 50.

(*Note the USS Blueback SS-581, the last U.S. diesel sub to be decommissioned has since 1994 been a museum ship near where this very picture was taken.)

Back to the Catfish

As part of the huge U.S. submarine build-up in World War II, Catfish was a member of the immense 120-ship Balao-class, the largest class of submarines in the United States Navy. US subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, were ‘fleet’ boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deckguns. The also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.

We have covered ships of this class in the past here at LSOZI (the plucky Perch and Archer the giant killer) but don’t complain, they have lots of great stories.

Laid down 6 Jan 1944 at Electric Boat Company in Groton, Catfish (SS-339) was commissioned 19 March 1945 with less than six months left in the war. By the time she was accepted and transited to the Pacific, she only appeared in Japanese controlled waters in August 1945, just days before the cease-fire. By the end of September, she was back on the West Coast, based out of San Diego with one battle star for her very quiet World War II service.

Catfish (SS-339) off Mare Island on 9 June 1947 usn photo. Note her WWII profile as commissioned.

In 1948-49, she was given a ten-month long extensive modernization to upgrade her to a more Atomic-era GUPPY II profile. This involved streamlining her hull, having a new sail installed, removing her topside armament, and giving her sensors an update. Her auxiliary engines were removed, her batteries doubled, and a snorkel fitted.

Post guppy Catfish (SS-339) starboard view, underway, probably in Pearl Harbor, HI

June 1950 found her on a routine West Pac cruise when the Korean conflict broke out and, along with USS Pickerel, was the first submarines to make war patrols under a UN flag. Like her WWII service, Korea proved a quiet war for the Catfish, making two combat patrols in the area keeping a sharp eye out for encroaching Chinese and Soviet ships.

Over the next two decades, she made regular cruises and by 1968 had conducted her 6,000th dive. She was used both as a fleet boat and as a training platform for Naval Reserve bubbleheads. Notably, she was one of the few submarines that were given the chance to sink a warship in peacetime when on she sent the retired Barnegat-class seaplane tender ex-USS Suisan (AVP-53) to the bottom in an October 1966 Sinkex just after her last refit. At the time, she had augmented her WWII-era MK 14 fish with more modern Mk 37 ASW torpedoes against submarines.

Fresh off her sinking she made an appearance in a third U.S. war, spending time in Vietnam waters from Jan-Oct 1967 and again from March-Sept 1970. She engaged in lifeguard duty for aircrews lost at sea, as well as hung close (within 100 yards, close enough to catch mortar rounds according to VA records,) of shore for reasons likely still classified.

Speaking of classified, Catfish had already been there unofficially in 1962, laying off Dong Hoi, North Vietnam keeping tabs on that country’s navy in Operation Wise Tiger, quietly transmitting intelligence information that would in turn be used by the CIA to run a group of Nasty boats and armed sampans in black ops all along the coast.

By 1971, the aging 27-year old smoke boat had seen better days and the U.S. Navy was increasingly all-nuclear when it came to submarines.

As ARA Santa Fe. Note this is her final sail design, added after 1960.

However she still had some life left in her and on 1 July 1971, the same day she was decommissioned and struck from the Naval List, officers and men of the Argentine Navy took possession of their newest submarine through the Military Assistance Program, which they promptly renamed the ARA Santa Fe (S-21).

Porpoising in Argentine service

The Argentines also took possession of Catfish‘s sistership, USS Chivo SS 341, whom they renamed ARA Santiago Del Estero (S-22). Already extensively worn out, the two ships sailed for Argentine waters for another decade of service without the benefit of a refit. During that time, they extensively prowled the areas around the Islas Malvinas (otherwise known as the Falklands), which Argentina had an increasingly militant claim towards.

By 1981, sistership Chivo/Santiago Del Estero was laid up with bad batteries and was increasingly cannibalized to keep the Catfish/Santa Fe afloat as two new German-designed diesel attack boats were to replace the pair within a year or two. In fact, Santa Fe was scheduled to be decommissioned in August 1982, but history had a funny story to tell before that could happen.

ARA Santa Fe in Argentine service

In the first part of 1982, the Argentine military junta decided that it would be an easy walkover to quickly occupy the Falkland Islands from an ailing British military machine. The colony only had a garrison of 40 Royal Marines and its guardship, a supped up supply boat with a red hull by the name of Endurance, was slated for retirement. The Brits had little power-projection capability, having scrapped their full size aircraft carrier just years before, and was planning to sell even their tiny new Harrier carrier, HMS Invincible, to Australia. Further, the Brits were 8,000 miles away while the Argentines just 400.

With that, a military expedition was launched in which a small Argentine force set up shop on remote (and unoccupied) South Georgia Island, a frozen extension of the Falklands, and, when the Endurance and a small Marine detachment sailed for Hoth, a much larger Argentine task force seized the Falklands.

On the early morning hours of April 2, 1982, Santa Fe, by nature of her shallow draft for a large submarine, helped to land some 120 Buzos Tácticos, an elite force of Argentine naval commandos, just outside Port Stanley. These commandos assaulted the (empty) Royal Marine barracks at Moody Brook and took prisoner after a short series of lop-sided skirmishes, the Royal Marines in Port Stanley.

Santa Fe landed these Argentine commandos (Seen left with Sterling submachine gun) in this infamous photo of Royal Marines surrendering

After this, Santa Fe headed to South Georgia Island to reinforce the Argentine garrison there after HMS Endurance had left the area. Lt.Cmdr Horatico Bicain, commander of the submarine, which had last seen a dry-dock in the 1960s and had been advised his Mk14 torpedoes were so deteriorated that they were more dangerous to his submarine than to a British ship, was ordered to lay low and keep out of the way.

However, the Brits would be back just three weeks later and in force. In the opening moves of recapturing the Falklands, the Royal Navy took South Georgia, where Santa Fe was hold up with a small Argentine garrison, first.

From Lieutenant Chris Parry, Flight Observer of a Westland Wessex helicopter (XP142 #406- “Humphrey”) from the destroyer HMS Antrim off South Georgia on Sunday, April 25, 1982:

It’s a submarine,’ said our pilot, Lieutenant Commander Ian Stanley. ‘You’re joking,’ I said.

I quickly worked out the ballistic calculations for the movement of the submarine. He was heading 310 degrees northwest at eight knots. Talk about making it easy for us: we could just fly along the submarine’s track – and, when we were above, release. I fused both the depth charges.

Ian then spoiled it for everyone: ‘Are you sure that it is not one of ours? It could be Conqueror (one of our nuclear-powered subs).’

I was craning my neck and head trying to see. Frustrated, I asked, ‘Has he got a flat casing and a tapering flat fin?’

‘It’s the Argie, no doubt about it,’ came the reassuring call from Stewart in the left-hand seat. ‘OK,’ said Ian, ‘are you sure that we have the RoE [Rules of Engagement]?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, reflecting the briefing of the previous night. ‘He’s fair game.’

What a moment. It is every Observer’s dream to have a real live submarine caught in the trap with two depth charges ready to go! I thought about the men we might be about to kill, but Ian started calling down the range.

As Ian called: ‘On top, now, now, now,’ I saw the fin of a submarine pass under the aircraft through the gap around the sonar housing and I released both charges.

Ian flipped the cab around violently to starboard to see the results. As we turned, the whole of the aft section of the submarine disappeared and two large explosions detonated either side of it. Plumes of water shot up.

It looked as if she was in the process of diving when we struck her, but the explosions lifted her aft end up and out of the water. She then began careering violently as I reported back to Antrim.

Simultaneously, I asked Plymouth to launch her Wasp helicopter armed with AS-12 missiles, since the submarine still posed a threat.

The low cloud was lifting, as if a curtain was being raised on a stage, to reveal a stunning backdrop of peaks and glaciers. Antrim and the frigates Brilliant and Plymouth were closing at high speed from the northeast.

Plymouth’s Wasp fired an AS-12, which hit the submarine aft on the casing, causing a number of plates to fly off. The submarine was also attacked by Wasps from Endurance. We returned to Antrim, refueled, and relaunched with one depth charge to witness the final stages of the submarine flopping alongside the British Antarctic Survey jetty and the Grytviken whaling settlement on South Georgia. It was obvious that the submarine was no longer a threat and her ship’s company was streaming ashore. So we returned to Antrim and everyone was in a high state of excitement. It was all Boy’s Own Annual stuff!

In all, the hardy little diesel smoke boat was subjected to a combined attack from six (6) Royal Navy helicopters: one Westland Wessex, one Westland Lynx (from HMS Brilliant), and four Westland Wasps. These aircraft attacked the sub with machine guns, two depth charges (that did the most damage), one MK-46 torpedo, and eight AS-12 missiles, several of which peppered the topside of the Sante Fe, including breaching her sail, thus making it impossible to submerge.

“The Hunt” Painted by Daniel Bechennec shows the moment the Westland Wasp HAS.1 XS527 from HMS Endurance launches a AS-12 missile on the submarine ARA Santa Fe This hardy helicopter, crewed by Tony Ellerbeck and David Wells, attacked the Santa Fe three times in quick succession, firing a total of 6 AS-12s at the boat.

Amazingly, with her sailors firing back at the slow British helicopters with small arms from her frozen decks, the crippled boat made it back to Grytviken harbor on South Georgia and landed her 76-man crew without a loss while setting booby traps on board the abandoned sub. They surrendered along with the rest of the Argentine garrison later that night.

“Off Limits” per HMS Endurance

The Brits, afraid the battered hulk would sink at the only dock on the island, the next day allowed some of her crew, under guard, to board her and move the sub to a more isolated shallow area at the old whaling jetty where she could settle on the bottom in peace. Tragically, when Argentine Navy Machinist First Class Felix Oscar Artuso moved too fast for the likes of a Royal Marine commando on board, he caught a bullet and became the Catfish/Santa Fe‘s only wartime fatality in four conflicts over 38 years of service.

Another view of her battered sail

Her crew removed, the old girl technically became a British war prize but was dead in the water, full of moody munitions and old batteries.

Sunk hard

They towed her to a more out of the way location in June 1982 after the Falklands conflict ended and then in Operation Okehampton she was raised by the Brits, and in Feb 1985 towed “about 12 miles out from the mouth of Cumberland Bay, she lurched to starboard and started taking on water. The tow line broke and she sank to a depth of about 1176 feet… and lies there today.”

SANTA FE being towed out on 21 FEB 1985 from King Edward Cove

The grave of Felix Artuso, ARA, is on Grytviken where he was buried with full military honors and is maintained by the British government.

There is a USS Catfish Association that keeps her memory alive in the U.S. while in Argentina a number of Malvinas groups treasure the memory of that country’s lost submersible.

Eight Balao‘s are preserved in the country, making them the most popular submarine museum ship class.

-USS Batfish (SS-310) at War Memorial Park in Muskogee, Oklahoma
-USS Becuna (SS-319) at Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-USS Bowfin (SS-287) at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park in Honolulu, Hawaii
-USS Clamagore (SS-343) at Patriot’s Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
-USS Ling (SS-297) at New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack, New Jersey
-USS Lionfish (SS-298) at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts
-USS Pampanito (SS-383) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
-USS Razorback (SS-394) at Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock,

Further, when in the UK, you can pay Humphrey a visit when at the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Museum where he is preserved and has quite the war record on her fuselage.

Humphrey’s observer, Chris Parry, retired in 2008 as a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and is unlikely to forget the Catfish of the Falklands any time soon.

(Sources: Histarmar.com.ar, elsnorkel.com.ar, DANFS, Navsource, USS Catfish Assoc homepage, and revista Defensa)

Specs:

Displacement, Surfaced: 1,526 t., Submerged 2,242 t.
Length 311′ 9″
Beam 27′ 3″
Draft 15′ 3″
Speed, Surfaced 20.25 kts, Submerged 8.75 kts
Cruising Range, 11,000 miles surfaced at 10kts
Submerged Endurance, 48 hours at 2kts; Patrol Endurance 75 days.
Operating Depth, 400 ft.
Complement 6 Officers, 60 Enlisted (WWII) 75 Post-Guppy
Propulsion, diesel-electric reduction gear with four main generator engines, General Motors diesel engines, HP 5400, Fuel Capacity 118,000, four General Electric motors, HP 2,740, two 126-cell main storage batteries, two propellers. (As commissioned)
Post Guppy: three GM 16-278A diesels, 2 direct drive motors of 2700 HP each, 504-cell battery bank.
Armament (fish) ten 21″ torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 24 torpedoes,
Guns: One 5″/25 deck gun, one 40mm gun, one 20mm gun, two .50 cal. machine guns; (All removed in Guppy conversion)

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.

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Turning 99 today is one Delmer Berg.

Among many accomplishments in life, Mr. Berg was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an all-volunteer group that went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight against the Hitler and Mussolini-backed forces of Gen. Franco. Among its members were Mississippi gadfly and soldier of fortune Bennett Doty, screenwriter Alvah Bessie (Objective Burma), composer Conlon Nancarrow, and novelist William Herrick. Both Hemingway and Orwell bounced into these hard-fighting anti-fascists in Spain during the war.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade suffered over 30% casualties in the three years of war fighting the fascists in Spain. Berg was one of these, suffering wounds during a German air raid.

Berg, who had bought out his U.S. Army contract to go to Spain in 1937, rejoined the Army in 1939 after Franco’s victory, becoming a member of the 389th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AW) Battalion and seeing service in the Pacific Theater of Operations in WWII. That unit saw a good bit of combat, including the invasion of Morotai.

Sadly, Mr. Berg is the last surviving Abraham Lincoln Brigade Volunteer.

Photo credit:  The Volunteer

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors and the like that produce them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Paul Rizhenko

Born in 1970 in the Northwestern Russian city of Kaluga, Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko grew up as a normal kid in the Soviet Union. He served in the Soviet then later Russian military 1988-1990, as part of an elite guards airborne unit then at age 20 entered the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for a six year course of study that left him a professor of art. Starting in 1997 he taught at the academy focusing on architecture, restoration and composition.

However, he soon took to painting historical military scenes, typically Russian in origin.

“Wounded,” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko, depicting the last Tsar on an inspection of a military hospital near the front in World War I. Note the starstruck expression of the patient to the left and the Nicholas”s sorrowful expression. This is one of the last paintings completed by the artist.

“Alexander Nevsky” 2008, by Pavel Ryzhenko.

“Athos” by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicts a Russian Orthodox pilgrim staring up at the monastery of Mt.Athos in Greece, one of the most holy spots in that religion.

Moscow 1941

“Palace grenadiers” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko. This unit was the most elite of the Imperial Guard, made up of 100 retired Senior NCOs drawn from the whole army. The were the Winter Palace Guard and wore bearskin caps picked up during the retreat of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard in 1812.

While he painted hundreds of these over the next two decades, the most striking were from the 1914-20 time period encompassing the World War I-Russian Revolution-Civil War era.

“Stokhid. The Last Battle of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment 1916.” By Ryzhenko, Pavel Viktorovich. The Guard held the line along the Stokhid River during the Battle of Kovel. It was considered the battle that broke the back of the Tsarist Army.

“Farewell to the shoulder straps”, 2008, by Ryzhenko depicting a deeply monarchist officer of the White Guards Army (note the Kornilov Death’s Head patch on his sleeve) burying his Imperial Epaulettes. You see the White Army, while being anti-Bolshevik, was anything but pro-monarchist, and those who were kept the fact largely to themselves. The significance of the blue flowering sapling is that the color blue is, in Russia, a powerful symbol of good luck and change in the future. The bluebird was a traditional omen of hope in Russian fairy tales and legend. Anton Denikin, Kornilov’s second-in-command, later recalled of the forced Ice March during the winter 1917/18 campaign, “We went from the dark night of spiritual slavery to unknown wandering-in search of the bluebird.”

“Umbrella” showing a psychologically fractured daughter of an Imperial Guards colonel and wife who was just executed by Red Sailors from the battleship Gangut against the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petrograd 1919. This was regarded by many to be one of Ryzhenko’s most controversial pieces.

“Abdication” by Pavel Ryzhenko, portraying Colonel Alexander Pavlovich Kutepov, the last commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment of Foot Guards and the man who held the Winter Palace during the March Revolution removing his shoulder straps after hearing of the 304-year Romanov reign coming to an end. Kutepov would later become an important leader of the Whites during the Civil War. Note the decorations on the Sgt Majors chest to include 3 awards of the St. George’s Cross for bravery.

“Repentance” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko. The imagery of the Red Guard, complete with Trotsky cap and fallen banner, when awed by the church bells is powerful. Note the Maxim machine gun crew ready to stitch up the street below.

This included his haunting “Triptych: The Russian Century” series of images of the last Imperial Family.

“Picture as a souvenir,” by the artist, 2007. Depicting a posed photo of the Tsar, his family and suite in the summer of 1914 in Poland just weeks before the War and Revolution would sweep them all away. The Life Guards Cossack NCO with the eyepatch is about as scary looking as you can get.

“Confinement in Tsarskoe Selo. Alexander Palace,, 1917″ 2004, by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicting the Tsar, Tsarina and Heir while under house arrest at their former palace.Note the Mosin-Nagant rifle. The heir in 1909 had one presented to him by the Tula factory that was a scaled down working 100% correct replica of the standard M91

‘The Last Inspection” depicting Tsar Nicholas II inspecting the cossacks of the convoy at Pskov March 15, 1917 after he abdicated. The men of the unit in many cases had been with the sovereign for decades and at that moment, was the last loyal force in the country.

“Ipatiev house after the regicide,” 2004 by Pavel Ryzhenko. Depicts the last residence of the Tsar and his family. Note the Colonel’s shoulder straps cut off on the floor. They were given to Nicholas II by his father Tsar Alexander (hence the “A”). The Tsar and his entire family were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house on the night of July 17/18, 1918 and their bodies buried in shallow graves.

“The Heir,” speculating as to the ultimate fate of Tsarvietch Alexei, whose body was not found until 2007, and, according to some sources, escaped execution by chance and lived on in Siberia well into the 1940s

His medium was oil on canvas, and his style one of striking realism, using direct and haunting stares from the subjects to encapsulate the moment. In many ways, he emulated the famous Russian war artist Vasili Verestchagin, who he even depicted in his last moments.

“Faith, Tsar and Fatherland 1905 Forgotten War” by Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko showing Russian military artist Vasili Verestchagin aboard battleship Petropavlovsk with Admiral Makarov just before it sank. I love the sailors in the background.

In poor health at just age 44, he donated all of his paintings to the Russian government before he died of a stroke in the summer of 2014. He is criticized by some as being a revisionist of the Monarchist era history of the Old Russian Empire, and some of the depictions he put on canvas may never have happened, but you have to admit, he knew his way around a brush.

Ryzhenko in his studio in 2013 with “Wounded” behind him. Note that the Tsar’s face is different in the finished piece.

Ryzhenko at work on a mural. He completed several huge ones including the painting at the Minsk military park.

Currently his paintings hang in the Russia Museum of the Armed Forces, the Russian Duma, the Sate Historical Museum and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. For more information, his gallery is still online although functionality may not be what it once was following his untimely death.

First flown in 1937, the Grumman F4F Wildcat was arguably one of the best carrier-borne fighter aircraft of its day, only marginally outclassed by the faster and more nimble Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero. However the Wildcat was tough, able to take punishment that the Japanese planes just couldn’t.

As Japanese ace Saburo Sakai described the Wildcat’s capacity to absorb damage:

“I had full confidence in my ability to destroy the Grumman and decided to finish off the enemy fighter with only my 7.7 mm machine guns. I turned the 20 mm cannon switch to the “off” position, and closed in. For some strange reason, even after I had poured about five or six hundred rounds of ammunition directly into the Grumman, the airplane did not fall, but kept on flying. I thought this very odd—it had never happened before—and closed the distance between the two airplanes until I could almost reach out and touch the Grumman. To my surprise, the Grumman’s rudder and tail were torn to shreds, looking like an old torn piece of rag. With his plane in such condition, no wonder the pilot was unable to continue fighting! A Zero which had taken that many bullets would have been a ball of fire by now.”

Grumman F4F WildCats in Formation, circa mid-1943

In all the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm (who flew hundreds of Wildcats as the Martlet), the U.S. Navy and the Marines took possession of 7,860 of these planes, which formed the backbone of those forces in the first half of World War II. However they were very soon replaced by later F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs.

By 1945 they were withdrawn, having a service life of just eight years.

Nevertheless, had they not been at the Coral Sea, Midway, and other pivotal battles, the war may have had a much different ending.

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 Dec. 24, 2014, Remembering that Cold Winter in the Valley

U.S. Navy – Official U.S. Navy photo USN 1043094 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command

Here we the “long-hulled” Essex-class anti-submarine aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge (CVS-45) as she appeared in 1959 as the centerpiece and flagship of U.S. Navy Task Group ALFA with Secretary of the Navy William B. Franke embarked. Ships include Valley Forge in center, two submarines, and seven destroyers. Identifiable among the latter are USS Eaton (DDE-510) at left front, USS Beale (DDE-471) following Eaton, USS Waller (DDE-466) in the center foreground, and USS Conway (DDE-507) at right front. Aircraft overhead include two four-plane formations of S2F “Trackers” and three HSS-1 “Seabat” helicopters from the Valley Forge air group, plus one shore-based P2V “Neptune.”

Valley Forge was one of 24 Essex-class fleet carriers started during World War II that were actually completed. Another eight sister-ships never were. We have covered the Essex class before, with the Mighty Oriskany last year, but hey, these were some great ships and the “Happy Valley” is fitting for its namesake and today’s date.

As you remember from the history books and 3rd grade, Valley Forge (now a National Historical Park) is the site of the third winter encampment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, taking place from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778.

Valley Forge by military artist N.C. Wyeth

While no battles were fought there, it was the turning point of the war as the unorganized and defeated Army that Washington led to camp that winter emerged as a hardened force, ready to do combat after being buoyed by news of an alliance with the French and turned into a mature outfit through the strict winter drills of German mercenary Baron von Steuben.

While the Essex-class carried the war from Guadalcanal to Tokyo and in large part help win it, Valley Forge would come too late. Laid down fittingly at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, near the location of her namesake on 14 September 1943.

Also in an ode to old-school patriotism, the Navy did not have to cough up a dime for her as War Bonds collected from the Eastern Pennsylvania area paid for the carrier. Further, Valley Forge received, according to reports, “the finest State Silver Service ever presented to the Navy.” The service was designed and made by Philadelphia silversmiths in 1904 and was originally placed aboard the old armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania by the Commonwealth. Carried by the battleship of the same name until it was transferred ashore for safekeeping in WWII (after all the Pennsylvania BB-38 was almost lost at Pearl Harbor), it was entrusted to Valley Forge.

Work slowed on her after her July 1945 launch and she wasn’t completed until 3 November 1946– some 14 months and one day after the end of World War II. Unlike other Essex boats, she would not be extensively modified in the 1950s to accommodate modern jet fighters, which rather made her a time capsule of WWII carrier technology.

View of the carrier’s island, with members of the American Ordnance Association visiting on board, while the ship was operating near Long Beach, California, 27 April 1949. An F8F-2 “Bearcat” fighter is parked alongside the island.Note large SX radar antenna atop the tripod mast, and many onlookers standing on the island walkways. Photo #: 80-G-K-9904 (Color)

Nevertheless, the Happy Valley didn’t let that get in her way. Afloat in Hong Kong when word the balloon went up at the 38th Parallel came down, she rushed to Korean waters.

On 3 July 1950, planes from her carrier air group conducted the first naval air strike of the war. Her 96-plane Air Group 5 was a hybrid of old and new aircraft that included the Grumman F9F-2 Panther jet fighter, Douglas Skyraiders, and the classic F4U Corsair, which was enjoying its swan song over Korea.

F4U approaching USS Valley Forge CV-45 Painted by Stan Stokes

Valley Forge Fly-By by Ivan Berryman

The first Soviet made Yak-9 ever downed by U.S. planes was splashed that day by Lt (JG) Leo Plog as he flew is F9F-3 Panther of Fighter Squadron (VF) 51 from Valley Forge that day. In another first, Lt (JG) W. Boyd Muncie on 19 July 1950, became the first Naval Aviator to be shot down by North Korean anti-aircraft fire. He spent two and a half hours in the water before being returned to the carrier by helicopter, another first.

Valley Forge departs San Diego 6 Dec 1950, headed back to Korea. Note that most of her WWII AAA guns have been stripped by this point.

During Korea, the brand-new ship earned no less than 8 battle-stars as her aircraft held the line at Pusan, generating more than 5,000 sorties in just five months in 1950 then returning in 1951 to generate another 2500 then returning time and time again to drop it like it was hot through 1953. She went on to be the scourge of the North Korean railway system with her pilots severing the lines in over 5,346 places.

USS Valley Forge (CV-45) Crewmen use flight deck tractors with power brooms to sweep snow from the carrier’s flight deck, during operations off Korea, circa early 1951.Plane parked in the foreground is a F4U-4 “Corsair” fighter. Those on the forward flight deck are an AD “Skyraider” attack plane and a HO3S helicopter. Photo #: 80-G-428267. Note the 5-inch mounts to the right of the image.

She covered the landings at Inchon, and the UN counter offensive all the way to the Yalu and back making daily visits when needed along Hungnam, Chungjin, Kojo, and the Chosin Reservoir. She was so busy in fact that just seven years after her commissioning, Commander C.V. Johnson made the carrier’s 50,000th landing when he touched his Skyraider down on her deck in May 1953.

USS Valley Forge (CVA-45) Approaches the Pedro Miguel Lock while transiting the Panama Canal, circa 18 August 1953. Her deckload includes several TBM, F4U and F2H aircraft and many automobiles Photo #: NH 96943

There she was converted January 1954 into an anti-submarine warfare carrier (CVS-45) and tasked with carrying sub-buster planes as her Corsairs were being put out to pasture. This led to the Task Force picture at the beginning of this post.

Interestingly it was during her operations as an ASW carrier in 1959 that she had a large part of her flight deck destroyed by fierce waves in the Atlantic. This led her to have the affected area cut away and the forward port portion of the flight deck of the old USS Franklin (CVS-13) fitted in her place.

USS Valley Forge (CVS-45) Arrives at Halifax, Nova Scotia, with crewmen in formation spelling out “HELLO HALIFAX” on her flight deck, 10 July 1959.Valley Forge, flying the flag of Rear Admiral John S. Thach (creator of the Thatch Weave) and commanded by Captain William M. McCormick, was accompanied by the rest of Task Force ALFA, including seven destroyers and two submarines. Altogether, about 4000 U.S. Navy sailors were in Halifax for the six-day visit. At this point she has the deck of the Franklin installed. Photo #: NH 96939 She still carries no less than eight 5-inch guns.

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At about the same time Valley Forge participated in the Balloon Wars launching at least one GENETRIX spy balloon that carried a gondola of two 600-pound recon cameras. These were largely released from NATO ally land sites in Norway and Turkey but a few of the 516 giant balloons came from the decks of naval ships such as the VF.

Ten-million cubic foot 400-foot high “Winzen” research balloon on the carrier’s flight deck just prior to launching, during Operation “Skyhook,” Refly “B,” 30 January 1960. The balloon carried scientific devices to measure and record primary cosmic rays at 18-to-22 miles altitude. Photo #: NH 96948

Her life as a sub-buster was short-lived however and soon things started turning real green for Valley Forge. She was reclassified as LPH-8 on 1 July 1961 and made an amphibious landing helicopter carrier. In this capacity, she could carry up to a battalion of Marines as well as a force of some 30 choppers and put them all ashore using a concept known as vertical envelopment, which meant for the first time Uncle’s Devil Dogs could get where they needed to go without getting their feet wet.

Underway in the Pacific Ocean, circa 1962-63, prior to her “FRAM II” overhaul. She has fifteen UH-34 helicopters spotted in mass take-off positions on her flight deck. Photo #: NH 96946. Even with a jump like this, the collection of  early choppers as seen here could just lift a company-sized force about 75 miles away.

1962 saw her landing Marines in Laos and she stuck around for the next great conflict in the area, being involved in Vietnam near continuously from 1965-69 winning another nine battle-stars that included Tet 68 and Tet 69.

The Happy Valley. Image from the USS Valley Forge Foundation

She shuttled Marines back and forth from Okinawa to Vietnam, participated in Operations Blue Marlin, Dagger Thrust, Fortress Ridge, Harvest Moon, Badger Tooth, Badger Catch, Swift Saber, Defiant Measure and Double Eagle as a floating base of operations from which her choppers ran men and material all along the coast as something of a fire brigade– rushing from one hot zone to another, putting out fires. She also served as a “Hero Haven” evacuation point, which allowed choppers from bases ashore that were too hot to bug out to her safer decks.

As part of the draw-down from Vietnam, she left Southeast Asia, with her choppers and Marines disembarked and arrived back in California in Sept. 1969. With the new Iwo Jima-class purpose-built LPHs coming online that could do the same job she did for the Marines, and her flight deck frozen in 1946 keeping her from operating fast moving jets, there really wasn’t a need for the old Valley Forge anymore. She was never operational again and on 15 January 1970, she was decommissioned and struck from the Navy List. Plans to keep her around as a museum on the West Coast fell through but she did have a final shot at living on forever.

While on red lead row in Long Beach, she was leased to a Universal for two weeks in 1971 and her interiors were used for the wide shots of a sci-fi movie, Silent Running, starring a young Bruce Dern and a group of tiny robot drones (manned by little person actors) living out their lives on a lonely starship by the name of the (wait for it) Valley Forge.

The producers of that classic film later went on to challenge the Star Wars franchise copied a number of items from the earlier movie.

Regardless of who copied whom, the Maritime Administration sold the USS Valley Forge on 29 October 1971 to the Nicolai Joffre Corporation, of Beverly Hills, California, for her value in scrap. She was only 25 years old but was born in one World War and fought through two terrible conflicts in her short but hard life. Rather like the Continental Army in the winter of 1777-78.

Her memory is kept alive by a very active reunion club while a number of her sistership to include the USS Lexington, Intrepid, Yorktown, and Hornet are preserved as museum ships.

And that beautiful 1904 silver service? When Valley Forge was decommissioned the Navy handed it back to the Keystone State for safekeeping once more and they still have it, on display at the State Museum of Pennsylvania. The Museum is about 80 miles from Valley Forge, PA but if you go there– be sure to bundle up.

It gets cold there this time of year.

Specs:

Displacement: As built:
27,100 tons standard
Length: As built:
888 feet (271 m) overall
Beam: As built:
93 feet (28 m) waterline
Draft: As built:
28 feet 7 inches (8.71 m) light
Propulsion: As designed:
8 × boilers
4 × Westinghouse geared steam turbines
4 × shafts
150,000 shp (110 MW)
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h)
Complement: 3448 officers and enlisted
Armament: As built:
4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns
4 × single 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns
8 × quadruple Bofors 40 mm guns
46 × single Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
Armor: As built:
4 inch (100 mm) belt
2.5 inch (60 mm) hangar deck
1.5 inch (40 mm) protectice decks
1.5 inch (40 mm) conning tower
Aircraft carried: As built:
90–100 aircraft

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.

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61-65-A MACHINE GUN CAL 30, US, LEWIS
Accession: 61-65-A
Machine Gun, Cal 30, US, Lewis, Relic (note cooling jacket, magazine pan and butt-stock gone)
Machine gun is from the USS Peary DD-226. The Peary was a Clemson-class Destroyer sunk on the 19th of February 1942 after a Japanese air attack. Peary lost 80 men in the attack and the ship is now located in Darwin Bay Australia.

Photo from the Collection of Curator Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command

Ever seen this image?

Winston Churchill with a M1923 Thompson Submachine gun with 50-round drum magazine (Tommy Gun) during an inspection of Commando units near Harlepool, 1940. Winston himself was an old soldier who saw frontline service in the Sudan, Boer Wars, and on the Western Front in WWI after he left the Admiralty over the Gallipoli Campaign.

Classic right?

The Germans even used it in propaganda photos and leaflets during the War.

Well, it seems like this very same iconic Tommy gun has been located. (Maybe)(We’re 80 percent sure)

73-years ago this week…

“These Northwestern University girls brave freezing weather to go through a Home Guard rifle drill on the campus in Evanston, Illinois on January 11, 1942 (a month after Pearl Harbor). From left to right are: Jeanne Paul, age 18, of Oak Park, Illinois,; Virginia Paisley, 18, of Lakewood, Ohio; Marian Walsh, 19, also from Lakewood; Sarah Robinson, 20, of Jonesboro, Arkansas,; Elizabeth Cooper, 17, of Chicago; Harriet Ginsberg, 17.”    (AP Photo) (Hattip Georgy Zhukov)

These well-dressed undergrads are equipped with Springfield 1903 T-Models. These chopped-down target model rifles were shipped out through the U.S. Army’s Department of Civilian Marksmanship (now known as the CMP) in the 1920s and 30s to various school and private shooting teams to be used in DCM competitions and these ladies are likely of the school’s rifle team and deadly sharpshooters if they had to be..luckily no Axis paratroopers had to find out the hardway.

These 30.06’s are exceptionally rare today.

Early Springfield Model 1903 Style “T” Target Rifle with Winchester A5 Scope

The M-1 carbine is one of the most enduring of all American martial arms of the 20th Century. A “war baby” born during the most terrible conflict of all time, the M-1 was rapidly replaced by the U.S. Army in the 1960s but it’s never lost its home in the hearts of shooters from sea to shining sea. Today, it seems that an updated version from a well-known Italian concern is making a splash over here.

In 1937, the U.S. Army adopted the beautiful and efficient M-1 Rifle of Mr. John Garand as the standard combat arm of the country’s solders, replacing the Springfield 1903 bolt-action rifle that had served since before the First World War. The Garand was the best battle rifle of its day.

Semi-automatic, it held 8-rounds of hard-hitting 30.06 in an enbloc clip and could spit them out as fast as the soldier armed with it could pull the trigger. It could be fitted with a bayonet, a rifle grenade launcher, and was accurate out to 800-yards or better. However, it was huge and heavy at well over 9-pounds and over 43-inches long due to its 24-inch barrel. This led the military to search for a compact rifle that could be used by non-combat types such as truck drivers, cooks, and clerks, who didn’t need to lug around a 30.06 rifle that they likely would rarely use, but still needed more firepower than what a pistol allowed.

“Marine awaits signal to go ahead in battle to recapture Guam from Japs.” July 1944. Lt. Paul Dorsey. (US Navy)

In the end this search produced the M1 Carbine, with, as you know, the term ‘carbine’ being a designation for a short-rifle. This handy little semi-auto, since it used an 18-inch barrel and a miniaturized action due to its shorter 7.62x32mm (.30 Cal carbine) round, gave a gun that was just under a yardstick in length. Weight was a comfortable 5-ish pounds. Fed by detachable 15 or 30 shot magazines, these little carbines were very popular and were soon used by tank crews, paratroopers, NCO’s and others who rather a shorter rifle than the M1 Garand, while still able to hit reliable targets out to 100-yards or so.

Between 1941-45, over 6 million carbines were made by companies as diverse as Rock Ola (the jukebox people), Underwood (the typewriter guys), IBM (see Underwood), and Inland who made car parts for GM (more about this in a minute). This latter company churned out nearly 3-million by themselves.

Popular throughout WWII, Korea and the early part of Vietnam, the M1 Carbine was only fully replaced in U.S. service by the M16 in the late 1960s.

After the war a number of makers like Universal and Plainfield jumped on the huge stash of GI surplus parts to produce new (well, new-ish) M1 Carbines for the civilian market. Recently the born-again Auto Ordnance Company (owned by Kahr) started making all-new M1s here in the states and was joined by MKS-marketed Inland late last year.

Now they have some competition in the form of a 9mm carbine that looks and acts like a M-1 but takes the same mags as a Beretta 92F…and did we mention that it comes in synthetic all for around $500?

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Private Bruce Rutherford and Puppies, Okinawa, 1 June 1945.

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The caption on this photograph reads “Housing Problem-On hand to greet their master when he returned from the front lines on Okinawa were these puppies, Nansi, Shoto, Sake, Zero, Banzai, and Okinawa. They present a housing problem to Marine tankman Private Bruce Rutherford, of Bristol, Tenn.” From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections
OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.

Rutherford was likely a member of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion, which saw horrible losses on the assault on Okinawa. Beginning on 1 April 1945, the battalion was actively engaged in wresting control of the island fortress from the Japanese. The ferocity of the fighting is witnessed by the fact that the unit suffered 28 tanks destroyed and 163 damaged. When you consider these were M4A2s and the Japanese had little effective armor, you can see the problem– and why Rutherford wanted to keep that beautiful Thompson M1 submachine gun as clean as possible.

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors and the like that produce them. -Christopher Eger

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Anton Otto Fischer

Remembered by many in the art community as being just a “Saturday Evening Post illustrator” there were few maritime artists in modern memory that captured the sea and what it was like to sail upon it in ships of wood and steel than Anton Otto Fischer.

Born February, 1882 in Regensburg, then in the Imperial German Empire, Anton was orphaned at an early age and ran away, like many enterprising young men could at the cusp of the 20th Century and fled to sea. Signing on to a German merchantman as a cabin boy/apprentice sailor at the tender age of 15, he saved his money and bought out his contract once the ship was in a U.S. port, but then promptly signed on to an American ship and remained at sea through his earlt adult life. Those years under sail and steam, shoveling coal and patching canvas, were to serve as inspiration for coming decades.

By 25, the young man was in Paris, reinventing himself by studying at the Academie Julian, an art school that specialized in educating young students established by Rodolphe Julian. The Julian school taught many Americans and often competed for the the Prix de Rome. Fischer worked in oils on canvas and hit his stride.

In 1909 Fischer was back in the U.S., where he started selling illustrations for a number of popular variety magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, the Country Gentleman, Life, Popular Magazine, and others.

Saturday Evening Post cover by Fischer. In all he did over 400 illustrations for the magazine

Saloon Shootout by Anton Otto Fischer, 1919. Note the surprised expression on the Tomato’s face…priceless

The Grand Army of the Republic vs the American Expeditionary Force by Anton Otto Fischer. The GAR was the veterans organization of the Union Civil War vets, and is apparently isn’t too happy with the WWI dough boy from the 42nd Rainbow Division of Maj.Gen MacArthur.

Viewing an Illustration, 1919. Such detail…

SEP cover

Besides becoming a regular at the Post, he worked art for ad copy for steel firms, locomotive manufacturers, and illustrated a number of popular classics of the time to include Moby Dick, 20,000 Leauges Under the Sea and Treasure Island. From 1910-39 he had produced literally thousands of illustrations.

John Paul Jone’s Bonhomme Richard vs HMS Serapis, 23 September 1779. Artwork of Anton Otto. Fischer. From the US Navy Art Collection

Anton Otto Fischer – The Perils of Pauay-Phillipine Islands-

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Seaplane down at sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – art by Anton Otto Fischer4

But it was always the sea that called Fischer. His naval and maritime art, which he produced in great volumes during World War I to assist in the general patriotic propaganda push, was well received and by the time a Second World War had come, the men in charge of the warships had as boys already grown up with a love of the fleet through Fischer’s paintings.

According to an expose in the Post written in 2009, by the time WWII started, the sea services considered Fischer a national treasure.

U.S. Navy Commander Lincoln Lothrop had once written to the artist: “My two lads, one of whom is now a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant in the Navy … used to cut out your pictures and pin them on the walls of their rooms. … You are responsible for recruiting many a seagoing lad.” They must have been brave lads, for Fischer’s paintings not only depicted the majestic beauty of the oceans, but the terrors they held as well.

Fischer was invited to lunch one day by none other than Vice Admiral Russell Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard for the purpose of recruiting. The January 9, 1943, Post describes it thus: “Did the admiral know that he was an anti-New Dealer? The admiral didn’t know—or care. But did the admiral know that he was born in Germany? Oh, yes, the admiral knew that, all right; his record had been checked.

“That record included, among other things, the fact that young Fischer had come to America as a deck hand on a German vessel, that he sacrificed two months’ pay to obtain his freedom, and then sailed on American ships for three years.”

By late that same afternoon, Fischer was sworn in as a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard. “His duties? Putting on canvas some of the heroic deeds of our Merchant Mariners and Coast Guardsmen—the least-publicized men, perhaps, in all of our armed forces.”

Thus commissioned into the Coast Guard at age 60, Fischer shipped out on the 327-foot Treasury-class cutter USCGC Campbell (WPG-32) and covered the war at sea for Uncle classified as a JO (Journalist.)

Fischer, a LCDR in his 60s, and at war.

While on a convoy escort in the North Atlantic, the ships wardroom was giving “Papa Anton” a party on the occasion of his 61st birthday when a U-boat surfaced, and all hell broke lose.

On that night, 21 February 1943, Campbell was escorting the 48-ship Convoy ON-166 when the convoy was surrounded by a U-Boat “wolf pack”. U-92 and U-753 torpedoed and sank the NT Nielsen Alonso. Dispatched to assist, Campbell rescued fifty survivors and then turned to attack U-753, damaging it so badly that it had to withdraw.

Throughout the 21st and 22nd, Campbell attacked several U-Boats inflicting damage and driving off the subs. Later on the 22nd, U-606, having sustained heavy damage, surfaced in the midst of the convoy attempting a surface attack. Campbell struck the sub a glancing blow that gashed Campbell‘s hull in the engine room below the waterline, but continued to attack, dropping two depth charges which exploded and lifted the sub out of the water. The crew brought all guns to bear on the subs, fighting on until water in the engine room shorted out all electricity. As the ship lost power and the searchlights illuminating the sub went out, the U-Boat commander ordered the sub abandoned. Campbell ceased fire and lowered boats to rescue the sub’s survivors. Campbell, disabled in the attack, was towed to port nine days later, repaired and returned to escort duty.

The story appeared, with extensive illustrations by Fischer, in the July 1943 issue of LIFE

Burning Tanker of the North Atlantic, Feb 1943. Fischer saw this first hand from the Campbell. Note the signature (as with all these, big them up to see better)

Captain At Sea, Anton Otto Fischer. Click to big up to appreciate the skipper’s joy and misery.

Coast Guard Cutter Campbell by Fischer.

Formosa Patrol by Anton Otto Fischer. British sloop getting some post-WWII action

“Fight to the Last oil”on canvas by Anton Otto Fisher, Coast Guard Artist, USCG collection

He was the artist laureate for the Coast Guard during the war and dutifully, each painting done while on the list of commissioned officers bears the carefully signed script “LCDR Anton Otto Fischer, USCGR” to denote his wartime service.

Chase of the CONSTITUTION, July 1812 Painting by Anton Otto Fischer, depicting the boats of U.S. Frigate CONSTITUTION towing her in a calm, while she was being pursued by a squadron of British warships, 18 July 1812. NHHC Photo NH 85542-KN

Clipper Ship at Sea. Oil on canvas, circa 1950. One of FIscher’s last works, done in his late 60s. By then he was just painting what he wanted and you can see an old man’s thoughts of a young man’s sailing years at the turn of the Century.

“Crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear ferrying stranded whalemen,” By Anton Otto Fischer. From the USCG Collection

Mustered out in 1945, he returned to civilian life but continued working until 1956. He passed away quietly in 1962 at age 80. His works are modern classics and many of them hang in prominent galleries and in private collection.

However, they are also in the possession of the U.S.Navy Museum, the U.S. Army collection, and that of the U.S. Coast Guard. In fact, no less than four are hanging at the USCG Academy, where new Coast Guard officers are minted.

He likely would have liked idea that the most.

In Indonesia divers came across an old wreck in relatively shallow waters in November that authorities feel is one of the two German U-boats lost in the area. The candidates are both Type IXC/40 submarines. One, U-183 sank on April 23, 1945, after being hit by a torpedo from the U.S. Balao-class submarine, USS Besugo (SS-321). The second, U-168, sank on Oct. 6, 1944, after being hit by a torpedo fired by the Dutch O-class submarine, HNLMS Zwaardvisch.

U-168 during the War.

Shinatria Adhityatama, an undersea archeologist with the National Archeology Center told the Jakarta Post:

“We suspect that the submarine we’ve found is the U-168, which was built in Germany in 1942,” Shinatria said, adding that 40 percent of the submarine’s hull was damaged.

He said that the team also found skeletons, presumed to be of members of the U-boat’s crew, remains of a torpedo, a telescope, shoes and cups inside the submarine. “The discovery is one of Indonesia’s best finds in maritime archeological research,” Priyatno Hadi of the National Archeology Center said.

Kinda grusome stuff here:

Inside the submarine, Navy divers discovered multiple items, such as cutlery and shoes. “They even found two human skeletons on the hatch,” said Navy Mayor (P) Yudo Ponco Ari, the Commander of the Third Detachment of the Navy’s elite Frogmen Command (Kopaska) of the Eastern Region Fleet (Armatim) in Surabaya on Thursday, December 11, 2014. Ten Kopaska divers participated in the search.

Either way, lets hope it remains intact as a war memorial to those sailors lost beneath the waves.