Today the AR-15 series rifles are perhaps the most popular semi-auto firearms in the country. In the early 1960s, when the AR was still unknown, the go-to rifle for medium game hunting and home defense was the M1 Carbine. With this understood, Marlin went about creating a M1-ish carbine for small game hunters and plinkers. This gun we know today as the Model 989M2.

Most American GIs of the 1945-73 time frame (remember there was a peacetime draft then, so that is a pool of literally tens of millions of young men) at one time or another shot a M1 carbine. It was an easy gun to shoot and was widely issued for a variety of purposes.

Starting in 1964, Marlin produced a modified variant of their popular Model 99 rimfire rifle, stylized to look and feel like the WWII- M1 Carbine which they dubbed the 99M-1. They took the standard 22-inch barrel of the design and cut it down to 18, the same length as the M1. This also produced an overall length of 37-inches, within a bullet’s length of the original.

Since the Marlin was a .22LR and not a .30 carbine, the action and barrel were lighter, at 4.75-pounds. Forgoing the detachable box magazine of the M1, Marlin kept the under barrel tube mag but shortened it to hold just 10-rounds to keep the profile of the gun similar. A stock redesign and military style ramp sights completed the transformation.

However, the M1, as everyone knew, was fed by a detachable box magazine, not by a brass tube that you had to pull all the way out to refill, which made the 99M-1 a little…off.

Which led to the 989.

Read the rest in my column at Marlin Forum

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 January 14, 2015: The Old Crow- Hunter Killer and Rocket Slinger

USS Croatan (CVE-25), July 1945. Click to big up

Here we see the converted United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) Type C3-S-A1 cargo ship USS Croatan (CVE-25) riding high in her WWII livery as a Bogue-class escort carrier. This humble little vessel was the centerpiece of a small task force of second-rate ships that kept the sea-lanes open from the U.S. to Europe during WWII– and she accounted for no less than six of Hitler’s U-boats. As the man once said, “she may not look like much, but she sure can cook.”

The MARCOM needed cargo ships literally as fast as they could be built in World War II as the Germans were sinking hundreds of them every month. To help stop the bleeding they came up with a standardized design that could be cranked out in a minimum of time by any semi-competent ship builder. This was the Liberty and later Victory type ship. However, before the war, MARCOM had designed the C-type freighters to replace elderly Hog Islander-type cargo ships left over from the 1900s.

The C3 type were well-built and effective 492-foot long, 12,000-ton cargo ships powered by two boilers feeding a steam turbine that produced a total of 8500hp and could make a relatively fast 16.65-knots. Some 465 of these freighters were built between 1940 and 1944 and used by US shipping lines as late as the 1970s– far longer than most of their Liberty and Victory class follow-ons.

Forty-Five of these freighters were converted while still in the yard starting in 1942 to become escort carriers. You see the concept was simple: complete the hull below decks, then take the topside and slap a 439×70 foot wooden flight deck over it fed by two elevators from a hangar deck below that had once been cargo holds, erect a small tower island for flight operations on the edge of the starboard amidships, add a few AAA guns for defense against air attack (4 twin Bofors 40mm, 10 20mm Oerlikons) give them a couple popguns (low-angle 4″/50 caliber Mark 9 guns taken from WWI destroyers) for defense against surface ships, and add bunks for crews, bunkerage for avgas, and space for ordnance then call it a day.

Underway in 1943, with some Avengers and Wildcats of her VC-19 composite squadron on deck. She is camouflaged in Measure 22

The result was a 16,620-ton mini carrier that could carry a couple dozen single-engined aircraft and launch them with the aid of two hydraulic catapults. Typical airgroup was to be 12 F4F/FM-2 Grumman Wildcats (surplus to the war in the Pacific where they had been replaced by Hellcats and Corsairs) and 9 TBF Avenger torpedo bombers. Although several escort carriers saw combat in the Pacific, the Croatan was intended for the war against the Germans.

Croatan off Washington, 1943. You can really see her freighter lines in this image of her hull

Named for Croatan Sound in North Carolina, the USS Croatan (CVE-25) was laid down 15 April 1942 (tax day!) at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation of Seattle, Washington. Completed in 54 weeks, she was commissioned after brief builder’s trials on 28 April 1943 and rushed to the North Atlantic through the Panama Canal where the battle for that ocean was raging. She was an updated version of the original design, with a much better surface armament that traded in the old 4-inchers for more modern 5-inch/51 caliber guns and gave her 27 Oerlikons rather than the original 10.

Joining convoys to Europe in by summer, she exchanged blows with U-boats but did not sink any. That fall saw her shuttling Army Air Corps planes (P-40s etc.) to North Africa before returning to anti-submarine duties as the head of her own task force.

She was hell on wheels in a high sea. “Undated (probably March–May 1944) photo of an FM-2 Wildcat and TBM-1C Avengers from Composite Squadron (VC) 42 spotted on the flight deck of USS Croatan (CVE‑25) in rough Atlantic Ocean seas. National Naval Aviation Museum, photo # 1996.253.1435″

In the year from April 1944-April 1945, the Croatan hunter-killer group, made up of the carrier, her air wing and 2-3 destroyer escorts that drawn from the 1590-ton Edsall-class sisters USS Frost (DE-144), USS Huse (DE-145), USS Stanton (DE-247) and USS Inch (DE-146), was very successful.

Her aircraft would spot surfaced German submarines, mark them for attack and do what they could until the shark would submerge, then the escorts would respond as the hunters to the bird dogs, dropping depth charges until the sub, stricken and bleeding, would bob to the surface where the planes and ships would either coordinate to pick up survivors willing to surrender, or send the shark to the bottom.

The group’s victories include:

• April 7, 1944: U-856 (Type IXC/40 U-boat, 28 survivors picked up)
• April 26, 1944: U-488 (a Type XIV supply and replenishment U-boat “Milchkuh” sunk with all hands)
• June 11, 1944: U-490 (Another Milchkuh on her first patrol, all 60 hands picked up)
• July 3, 1944: U-154 (Type IXC who had taken 10 Allied steamers. no survivors)
• April 16, 1945: U-880 and U-1235 (both Type IXC/40 boats, no survivors from either)
• April 22, 1945: U-518 (Type IXC, all hands lost)

Survivors of U-490 coming up the forward elevator after being transferred from USS Inch (DE-146) on 14 June 1944. The aircraft of USS Croatan (CVE 25), and destroyer escorts USS Frost (DE-144), USS Huse (DE-145), and Inch, sank the U-boat. Source: National Archives II, College Park, MD. Photo # 80-G-270278. This elevator would be the launching pad for dozens of meteorological rockets in the 1960s when the ship was under NASA control.

“The Old Crow” also played a role in the surrender of U-1228 just after the war ended.

Message from CinC U.S. Atlantic Fleet to Commander Task Group 22.5 (USS Croatan) ordering him to dispatch two DEs to intercept U-1228 (This is the message (CinCLant 091907) referred to in USS Sutton’s War Diary) from U-Boat archives

While Croatan‘s record sounds amazing, she actually was outdone by her class leader, USS Bogue (CVE-9), who sank an incredible 12 German U-boats and 2 Japanese submarines in her wartime service, which was, arguably, longer than Croatan‘s and did feature a larger escort group often featuring as many as 8 destroyers. Class sister Card (CVE-11) also scratched 11 U-boats from Hitler’s Christmas Card list.

Don’t let this fool you; the war against the U-boats could be very dangerous for these little carriers. Croatan‘s sistership, USS Block Island (CVE-21), was sunk by the German U-549 northeast of the Canary Islands on 29 May 1944.

Croatan finished the war as a training carrier and in Magic Carpet service, bringing boys back from France. Thought still a young craft, she was decommissioned 20 May 1946 and mothballed, her days as a warship at an end.

There she sat in the James River for a decade until the Maritime Administration dusted her off, removed her armament, manned her with a civilian crew, and reclassified her USNS Croatan (T-AKV-43), an aviation transport, on 16 June 1958. As such, she could carry 20-30 modern jets or 50-60 helicopters from port to port where they would be lifted on and off via crane. She then spent the next dozen years shuttling hundreds of USAF jets and Army helicopters to Europe, Africa and Vietnam.

In 1964-65 she was even loaned out to NASA for an interesting series of tests.

The Old Crow fitted out as a rocket launch platform. You can really see how thin her island was from this angle.

The NASA mission included firing at least 77  Nike-Cajuns, Nike-Apaches, and small Arcas meteorological rockets from her deck to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere during solar sunspot minimum, particularly the so-called “equatorial electrojet.” These shipboard firings were part of NASA’s contribution to the International Year of the Quiet Sun (IQSY).

Night launch of a NASA sounding rocket from her deck.

According to research from Dwayne Day of the Space Review, “During the voyage, the ship’s crew consisted of about seventy-five civil service personnel with a launch team made up of about thirty engineers and technicians from Wallops Station. The number of scientists varied from eighteen to thirty-two.”

USNS Croatan (T-AKV-43). The U.S. Naval Ship Croatan being used by NASA as a sea-going launch platform for sounding rockets. Launchers for Nike-Cajun and Nike-Apache rockets are positioned on each side of the wide deck elevator. Special telemetry and tracking antennas are installed on both sides of the flight deck along with instrumented trailers, forward, near superstructure. Forty or more sounding rockets with scientific payloads were scheduled for launch during a three-month expedition. Project management was assigned to NASA’s Wallops Station, Wallops Island, Virginia. The photograph is from 1964. NASA via Dwayne A. Day via Navsource

Finally, a flat-topped cargo ship in a world of nuclear powered super-carriers, she was stricken for good and sold for scrap in 1971.

Seen late in her service in the Panama Canal.

As for the rest of her class, most of the Bouge-class carriers were sent to the Royal Navy (who termed them the Ameer/Attacker/Ruler class vessels with such bad-ass names as the HMS Striker and HMS Stalker and flying a mixture of Grumman Martlet, Hawker Sea Hurricane, Vought F4U Corsair fighter aircraft and Fairey Swordfish anti-submarine aircraft) who rapidly scrapped them in the 1950s.

Just ten Bogues served in the U.S. Fleet and most were retired from service rapidly after the war. One, USS Barnes (CVE-20), was briefly retained as a ‘helicopter escort carrier’ (CVHE-20) testing the LPH concept until she was scrapped in 1959. Like Croatan, three of her sisters USS Card (CVE-11/AKV-40), USS Core (CVE-13/T-AKV-41) and USS Breton (CVE-23/T-AKV-42), served in the 1960s as non-commissioned aviation transports and were scrapped by 1972. Card had the misfortune of being the only “aircraft carrier” both to have been sunk by frogmen and to have been sunk since the end of WWII.

There is no preserved escort carrier in the world today. Their memory, however, is maintained by the Escort Carrier Sailors & Airmen Association.

Specs:

Displacement: 16,620 long tons (16,890 t)
Length: 496 ft. (151 m);
flight deck: 439 ft. (134 m)
Beam: 69 ft. 6 in (21.18 m);
flight deck: 70 ft (21 m)
Draught: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Installed power: 8,500 shp (6,300 kW)
Propulsion: 2 × geared steam turbines
2 × boilers
1 × shaft
Speed: 18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Complement: 646, excluding Air Group of 234, 890 total
Radar: SG, SC-3
Armament: 2 × 5-inch/51 caliber guns (1 × 2)
8 × 40 mm anti-aircraft guns (4 × 2)
27 × 20 mm anti-aircraft cannons (singles)
Aircraft carried: 19-24;
(Typical complement: 12 × fighters (Grumman F4F Wildcats)
9 × torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF Avengers))
Aviation facilities: 2 × elevators

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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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 Joseph Hirsch

Philadelphia-born Joseph Hirsch began serious art study in 1927 while just a teenager at the Philadelphia Museum. Traveling extensively in the late 1920s and 30s, he emerged as a serious painter in the Social Realism School, studying both in France and under both Henry Hensche in Provincetown and George Luks. When the Depression hit everyone, Hirsch, then a young man in his SC, signed up with the Public Works of Art Project and then the WPA during the New Deal and worked both easel painting and murals. During this period he traveled the country making murals at union halls on both coasts, as well as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Building and several Philadelphia public buildings including the Municipal Court, which today remains as the home of the Family Court:

Joseph Hirsch mural, Philly City Courtroom C, Family Court Photo: Plan Philly.com

He was well received. In 1934, when Joseph Hirsch was only 23, he won the coveted Walter Lippincott Award then went on to grab the First Prize at the New York World’s Fair (1939), and two back to back Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships. Interestingly across his 50-year career, he worked in inks, pencils, watercolors, oils, etchings and other forms, mastering all he touched.

“Man With Sprite” by Joseph Hirsch

“Lunch Hour” 1942. Joseph Hirsch, 1910-1981. Lithograph. Printed by George Miller. Distributed by Associated American Artists. LC-USZC4-6718 © Mrs. Genevieve Hirsch. (25) Joseph Hirsch’s father, a noted Philadelphia surgeon, posed for the sleeping figure in Lunch Hour, which the artist then transformed into a sensitive portrait of an African American youth. In 1944, the Library of Congress awarded this print the Second Purchase Prize, formerly known as the Pennell Prize.

“Till We Meet Again.” Early war bonds poster done by Hirsch before his war correspondent hitch.

When WWII came, he signed up to be a pictorial war correspondent for the U.S. Navy. He worked with noted military artist and LSOZI Combat Gallery Alumni Georges Schreiber at Pensacola Naval Air Station in 1943, documenting the cradle of Naval Aviation.

“Pilot in Blackface.” Joseph Hirsch. The Navy pilot, if unprotected from icy blasts while on cold-weather patrol, might suffer serious frostbite. To prevent facial freezing and maintain efficiency of aircrews, wind masks are provided. Aerial observation and scouting requires sharp observation, and sometimes it is necessary for the airman to open ports or push aside the cockpit enclosure for unimpeded vision. Joseph Hirsch. US Navy Art Collection.

“Making the Buoy” Joseph Hirsch oil on canvas, circa, 1943. Gift of Abbott Laboratories. 88-159-EX. Back from hours in the air on patrol, a flight of four-engine patrol bombers settle to the water and maneuver up to the beaching buoys preparatory to beaching. To weary, hungry pilots and crew, the signals of the beaching crew are a welcome sight. After making their planes fast to the buoys, handling wheels and lines will be attached to the plane’s hull and it will be towed up to the ramp. The beaching crew, clad in swimming trunks, waits until time to wade down the ramp to attach beaching gear.US Navy Art Collection

“Back From Patrol” Joseph Hirsch. Watercolor, circa, 1943. Gift of Abbott Laboratories 88-159-FH. A Navy PBM, the Martin Mariner, rides with idle engines off its ramp waiting to be hauled out. Already the beaching crew, clad in summer suits, is wading out to attach lines and beaching gear. An officer of the bomber crew has climbed through a hatch and stands on the starboard wing roof to observe operations. US Navy Art Collection.

Following this stateside work, he went overseas and saw the elephant. During this period, Hirsch made about 75 paintings and drawings between 1943 and 1944 in the South Pacific at the direction of Adm. Ross McIntyre, Surgeon General of the Navy, to document the efforts of Navy medicine, then was loaned to the Army to cover firsthand the GI’s medical efforts in Africa, and Italy.

Of his war experience, he later said :

It was hard and unforgettable and lonely and sometimes frustrating running into the real McCoy. You know, talking with — I saw soldiers in more hospitals — I had been in many hospitals in Philadelphia as my father was a doctor. The three trips I went on had to do with naval air training at Pensacola, Florida; then naval medicine in the Pacific; and army medicine in Italy and North Africa. I was of course moved most by the two medical assignments because I saw wounded kids. It was a very good experience. And the drawings that I did — I did about twenty-five pictures on each assignment, most of them done from sketches made on the spot. I didn’t have any camera with me. Not having a camera simplified everything because there was no censorship.

The majority of the work was done immediately upon my return. I’d go out for a couple of months and come back and spend another three or four months doing perhaps a dozen paintings and as many drawings both for the aviation series and the naval medicine and the Army medical. The Navy had never had any shore-based installations before World War II and they were very proud of whatever they had. I also visited a hospital ship. I suppose the most vivid experiences were down in Guadalcanal with the Marine Corps. I watched a hospital set up from landing until it was in operative condition in less than three hours from landing on the beach and set up in eight tents the entire thing with portable X-ray — everything within the space of three hours. It was a rehearsal landing with L.S.T.’s and dispersed units so that any aerial attack would not destroy the hospital. They were dispersed under the palm trees. This was on one of the beaches at Guadalcanal. To see the kind of organized spirit of cooperation was — I don’t know what the Navy’s Medical Corps is like now but at that time during the war to see a lot of wonderful improvisation made for material for good sketching and painting and drawing.

“Mercy Ship” Joseph Hirsch. Caption: Navy Hospital Ship USS Solace. The Navy’s hospital ships operate under the laws laid down by the Geneva Convention, being unarmed, fully illuminated at night, and painted white. US Navy Art Collection

“Latest Mode” Joseph Hirsch. Watercolor and tempera drawing, circa 1943 Gift of Abbott Laboratories 88-159-EZ Caption: These ambulatory wounded, all Marine raiders, wait on the lowered platform of an LST as it approaches Lunga Beach at Guadalcanal. The green tags indicate the specific injuries and the front line treatment administered. This particular group is returning from Rendova. US Navy Art Collection

“Night Shift” Italy 1944. Of this painting Hirsch said, “A lot of the things which look medically wonderful on paper, so far as supplies can, didn’t cover all the exigencies of actual combat. For example, there is no way in which our Medical Department Supply Service can see to it that a wounded boy on a stretcher is carried down a horribly precipitous rock-not even dirt-at night time.” US Army Collection.

“High Visibility Wrap,” Joseph Hirsch. A wounded soldier in Italy 1944. US Army Collection.

“Company in the Parlor” Joseph Hirsch, depicting a battalion aide station in a ruined home, Italy 1944

‘So What” Joseph Hirsch. A medic drinks from his M1 helmet, Italy 1944. Baltimore Museum of Art

“Safe” Joseph Hirsch. Showing A Medical Corpsman comforting two orphans. Cassino, Italy, 1944

What he saw in war reinforced his feelings on the horror of conflict. In 1979, he protested to a magazine that had used one of his wartime hospital paintings to illustrate an article justifying the use of the atomic bomb.

After the war, he returned to Europe to study on a Fulbright Fellowship, and then returned to Government service by producing art for the Bureau of Reclamation in the 1960s and 70s.

“Construction at Soldier Creek” by Joseph Hirsch. Watercolor, 10 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ For the USBR.Showing Construction activities at Soldier Creek Dam, Bonneville Unit, Central Utah Project, Utah. http://www.usbr.gov

Hirsch passed away of cancer at his home in Manhattan in 1981 at age 71.

According to the US Navy’s Historical Command, there are no less than 32 works of Joseph Hirsch in the Navy Art Collection and all of them are online.

Works of Joseph Hirsch are also in the permanent collections of these institutions:

Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA
Butler Institute of Fine Art, Youngstown OH
Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas TX
Library of Congress, Washington DC
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA
Truman Library, Independence MO
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The Army Center of Military History, Washington DC

An oral history interview with the artist recorded in 1970 is online at the Archives of American Art

Thank you for your work, sir.

Saw this and found it interesting.

“A British-made radio antenna used in the World War II plot to kill Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich has surfaced in a Czech village.

In April 1942, Jiri Potucek, a resistance fighter parachuted into Czech territory by the Royal Air Force, hooked his radio up to the antenna to plan details of the attack, said Adolf Vondrka, who discovered the wires in the attic of a building on his fish farm in Lazne Bohdanec, 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Prague.

Potucek was among members of the Czechoslovak army-in-exile dropped into the country near the end of 1941. His broadcasts helped organize Operation Anthropoid, the attack on Heydrich. On May 27, 1942, paratroopers Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis attacked Heydrich’s car with a hand grenade. The Nazi official died from his wounds a week later. ”

The rest here.

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 January 21, 2015: A Teutonic Heavy in two World Wars

Here we see the a pre-WWI image of the Deutschland-class Linienschiff SMS Schleswig-Holstein, the last predreadnought battleship of the Kaisherliche Marine of Imperial Germany as she sails with a serious bone in her teeth and heavy coal smoke from all three of her stacks.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, that oh so malfeasant warlord of almost comic proportions, was enamored with the concept of producing a naval force second to none as a matter of national prestige. Taking the small coastal defense navy of the late-19th century, whose primary focus was to prevent British landings on the German North Sea coast and send the occasional gunboat to African, American and Asian ports to wave the flag, ole Willy set a course to build a first class High Seas Fleet to challenge Britannia (and anyone else) for worldwide mastery of the waves.

One of the initial rungs on this ladder was to order construction of the five Deutschland-class battleships in the early 1900s.

The Five Deutschland-class battle-wagons leading the fleet, 1908

These hardy ships, when designed, were mammoth 418-foot vessels of some 14,200-tons. Heavy and beamy, they needed some 26 feet of water to float while mountains of coal required teams of stokers working round the clock to shovel into her 12 steam watertube boilers to feed her trio of 5600 ihp expansion engines, one for each shaft. At top speed, they could be expected to push 18-knots, which was not terribly fast but they weren’t designed to run– they were designed to fight.

If you think 11-inch guns are puny, take a closer look

Four 11-inch (280mm) L/40 guns in two twin turrets capable of hurling a 500-lb. shell some 20,000-yards. This was backed up by 14 6.7-inch secondary and respectable 22 88mm tertiary battery pieces gave her a punch far in excess of any 1900-era cruiser that could catch up to her while up to 11-inches of cemented Krupp armor helped protect her from large caliber hits from English battlewagons of the day (and by day we mean 1901).

Note her three funnels

Ordered from Germaniawerft, Kiel, 11 June 1904, just after the outbreak of hostilities between the Tsar of Russia and the Empire of Japan, the last of five ships of the class was given the name Schleswig-Holstein, after the land captured from Denmark in 1864, during her christening on 17 Dec. 1906. In departure from the typical Prussian fashion, she was commissioned by a woman, the German Empress Augusta Victoria, but still in front of an all-male audience that included her hubby, the Poseidon of the Baltic Adm. Tirpitz with his great beard, and the good Herr Krupp himself.

However, even before she was to be completed on 6 July 1908, the brand-new Schleswig-Holstein was woefully obsolete.

The Russo-Japanese War had shown the folly of 1900s era battleship design limits and around the world, modern navies were taking these lessons and using them to produce improved, all-main gun fast battleships such as the HMS Dreadnought which could outrun, outfight, and outmaneuver legacy ships such as the German Deutschland-class. Worse, ships that made the Dreadnought herself look like small fry were already on the drawing boards from Tokyo to Washington, London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

As such, the group was largely put out to pasture by the very navy that championed them only scant months before, ridiculed as being able to only last “five minutes” in combat against the modern British ships.

Schleswig-Holstein‘s peacetime pre-WWI service was uneventful and when the guns of August came in 1914, the six year old warship was, along with her four sisters Deutschland, Hannover, Pommern, and Schlesien, along with the even slower Braunschweig-class predreadnought SMS Hessen, part of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, which despite its grand name was largely relegated to coastal defense.

In December 1914, they sailed as part of the raiding force that bombarded the English coast and made a few pushes into the North Sea in 1915. Then, at Jutland, the slow Deutschland-class ships hampered Scheer’s tactics and they often had to fall out of line, risking being left behind several times during that epic naval clash. In the battle, Schleswig-Holstein, a midget wrestler in the middle of an MMA competition, fired only a dozen or so shells and luckily suffered only one minor hit (from a 12-inch gun on HMS New Zealand) on her topside in return.

German Navy’s battle ship SMS Schleswig-Holstein fires a salvo during the Battle of Jutland

Royal Navy destroyer HMS Obedient, ending the battle, dispatched her sister, SMS Pommern, in a hail of torpedoes at 0315. She was the only battleship lost in the engagement for either fleet and took her entire crew to the bottom.

Following Jutland, Schleswig-Holstein, along with her remaining sisters, were unceremoniously withdrawn from fleet service. Her sailors, needed to operate U-boats, were largely reassigned, and the ship was tasked with berthing, guard ship, and submarine tender duties for the rest of the war.

As the German Imperial fleet went apeshit in the last weeks of WWI and raised a red flag from the masts of its ships, the old battleships were left behind when the bulk of the fleet was interned by the Allies at Scapa Flow. As part of the draconian Versailles Peace Treaty, the magnanimous Allies let the new Wiemar government keep eight old ships, four of the Deutschland-class and four of the even more obsolete Braunschweigers. These ships served in one form or another the new German Reichsmarine.

Post refit, note the two funnels, one for oil fired boilers, the second for coal. The fact that she could move around on domestic coal during WWII kept her in service when other oil-fired ships were laid up.

In the Kiel Canal post-refit

Overhead shot 1930s

Class leader SMS Deutschland was retired 1920 and scrapped, in favor of keeping a fifth Braunschweiger while Hannover was kept as fleet flag for a couple years before her lay up in 1927 along with the Braunschweigers, leaving the fleet very short of capital ships.

Schleswig-Holstein was then reboilered with a hybrid coal/oil suite, and modernized, as much as the cash-strapped Germans could afford, to become fleet flag following her this refit 31 January 1926.

Das deutsche Linienschiff SMS Schlesien im Panama-Kanal 1938 sister to Schleswig-Holstein. These ships got around a good bit in the 1920s and 30s

For the next decade, the old ship and her similarly refitted sister Schlesien were the pride of the tiny but efficient German fleet, and traveled the world on goodwill missions including visits in many former enemy ports. They had to, being the last two operational Teutonic battleships on Earth at the time.

Looking from the German battleship Schleswig Holstein on Arkansas (BB-33) arriving in Kiel, Germany. Note German sailors standing at attention, 5 July 1930

On 22 September 1935, at age 27 and with a World War, a revolution, and a peaceful generation of summer cruises behind her, Schleswig-Holstein was relieved of her flag duties and turned into a training ship for naval cadets in the new Kreigsmarine, some 175 of which would make up her crew.

Linienschiff “Schleswig-Holstein” 1939 boarding Marines…

In 1939, with tensions escalating between Poland and Hitler’s Germany, Schleswig-Holstein was dispatched to protect German interests in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk) after commemorating the 25th anniversary of the WWI loss of the old Imperial cruiser SMS Magdeburg to the Russians. Upon docking, she was pushed to within 150-meters of the Free City’s border with Poland (cue ominous music).

It was there, at 04:47 on 1 Sept 1939, she fired the first rounds of World War II when she opened up on the Polish customs house and ammo depot at the Westerplatte to cover the assault of a force of 225 marines of the Marine-Stoßtrupp-Kompanie under Lieutenant Wilhelm Henningsen on the ersatz defenses.

This action as described by her deck logs :

0447: Open fire!
0448-0455: Eight 280mm heavy artillery shells and fifty-nine 150mm light artillery shells hit the southwestern section of the Westerplatte wall – not to mention 600 rounds from C30 machine-guns. The battleship approaches the target with her bow directed slightly against the slope of the docks, the tug Danzig at her stern. Numerous harbor buildings are hit and set ablaze.
0455: Suddenly two or three breaches in the wall can be seen. Hold fire! Red rockets!
0456: The assault company commences its attack. Soon explosions can be heard from the right wing, where the railway gate has been destroyed. Machine-gun fire is heard from Westerplatte, some rounds passing over the battleship’s bridge.

The conflict begins” portrait of Schleswig-Holstein firing the opening shots of the Second World War on the Westerplatte, Gdansk, Poland on September 1, 1939. (Photo courtesy of Sejar Bekirow via Maritime Quest)

German battleship Schleswig-Holstein is bombing a Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig

0447 hours Schleswig-Holstein opened fire at the Polish positions on the Westerplatte starting WWII

Following her week-long support of the attack on the Westerplatte, and joining her sister Schlesien in bombarding other Polish army positions for a few weeks, Schleswig-Holstein was withdrawn and used next in the invasion of Denmark, where she lay off Copenhagen on April 8/9, 1940, ready to deliver rounds from her battery onto the city if needed. She wound up not firing a shot and the German flag flew over the capital by lunch of the next day.

Linienschiff “Schleswig-Holstein” off Denmark April 9, 1940. Embarrassingly, she ran aground

The rest of the war, as in the first, passed uneventfully for Schleswig-Holstein. She was relegated to the Eastern Baltic where she received extra AAA batteries to help defend herself against air attack, and served once more as a training ship. Speaking of air attack…

The old girl camo’d up late in WWII to better help against air attack.

Of the 37 battleships (to include WWI-era predreadnought and coastal defense panzerschiffs) sunk in combat during World War II, most were sent to the bottom by air attack. These included a club of 11 that were scratched while in harbor of which the old Schleswig-Holstein, was a member. Her war ended when she was holed by a flight of RAF bombers in Gdynia Harbor on December 19 1944, settling to the bottom in 40-feet of water after suffering 28 killed and 53 were wounded. As such, she was one of the last German capital ships afloat.

Settled on the bottom of Gdyna harbor, Oct. 1945

Only the German pocket battleship Admiral Hipper, sunk by RAF bombers in Kiel, April 9 1945 with loss of 32 crew, and Schleswig-Holstein‘s Imperial sister Schlesien, sunk by mine and Soviet bomber attack and then scuttled near Swinemunde in the Baltic, May 5 1945, outlived her on the Kreigsmarine’s Naval list. The only German battlewagon to arguably survive the maelstrom was the pocket battleship Lutzow that was sunk by the Russkies as a target after the conflict.

Schleswig-Holstein-Tallinn-1947 under a Soviet flag.Note her topside damage

However, don’t count an old German battlewagon out. Schleswig-Holstein was raised by the Soviets, towed to Tallin where she sat for two years as a floating warehouse, and was then towed to the shallows near the island of Osmussar off the Estonian coast. There, she was regularly pounded by Soviet air and naval forces as a target ship for another twenty years and her superstructure remained above water into the 1970s.

Today she sits in shallow water and is a dive attraction, although she is littered with live German 280mm shells.

Yes, those are un-fused 280mm German shells in the racks aboard the old battleship. Image from dive in 2008

Specs

As commissioned 1908

As she appeared 1943

Displacement: 13,200 t (13,000 long tons) normal
14,218 t (13,993 long tons) full load
Length: 127.6 m (418 ft. 8 in)
Beam: 22.2 m (72 ft. 10 in)
Draft: 8.21 m (26 ft. 11 in)
Installed power: 17,000 ihp (13,000 kW)
Propulsion: three shafts, three triple expansion steam engines, 12 boilers
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h)
Range: 4,800 nautical miles (9,000 km); 10 knots (20 km/h)

Complement:
35 officers
708 enlisted men

Armament: At construction:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
14 × 17 cm (6.7 in) SK L/40 guns (casemated)
22 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 naval guns (shielded/casemated)
6 × 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes (submerged)

Armament in 1926:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
12 x 15 cm SK L/45 guns (casemated: removed 1940)
8 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 naval guns (shielded)
4 × 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes (casemated)

Armament in 1939:
2 × 2 – 28 cm SK L/40 guns
10 x 15 cm SK L/45 guns (casemated: removed 1940)
4 × 8.8 cm SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns
4 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns (2×2)
Augmented 1943 with extensive flak batteries

Armor:
Belt: 100 to 240 mm (3.9 to 9.4 in)
Turrets: 280 mm (11 in)
Deck: 40 mm (1.6 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!

If you have ever picked up a modern Springfield Armory pistol, you will notice the classic and historic Springfield cannon wheel and artillery piece ordnance crest located on the slide of every one you pick up. While today’s SA is only based on the name of the original institution, which is now a monument to American ingenuity and a storage place for the national relic firearms history, the original Springfield Armory is undergoing an archeological excavation to help preserve this history.

The year after the Declaration of Independence, General Washington and his chief of artillery Henry Knox scouted out a militarily defensible position that was still centrally located to his army. The purpose of this site would be a secure storage and manufacturing facility in which workers could make limbers for the Continental Army’s artillery as well as package paper/power/bullets into cartridges for the Army’s muskets. By 1794 (remember this date), the Springfield Armory was, besides a storage place for arms and producer of ammunition, making the first all-US made firearms for the Army.

Over the next seventy years a long line of muskets, the M1795, M1816, M1822, and M1861, more than three million overall, were produced at the Springfield Armory. The muzzleloaders carried by the US Army in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, were in most cases made at SA. After the musket era, Springfield made the Model 1873 Trapdoor rifles then the Springfield Model 1892-99 Krag-Jrgensen rifle, which the US carried during the Indian Wars and Spanish-American Wars respectively.

In 1900, the Armory began work on a prototype bolt-action rifle based on a Mauser design. This new rifle became the famous Springfield M1903 rifle, which was carried during World War I by the Doughboys who went ‘over there.’ In the 1930s, the Armory was home to one Mr. John Garand who was working on a revolutionary new semi-automatic battlerifle. This gun, adopted in 1937 as the M1 Rifle, was the rifle that won the Second World War as well as helped push the Chinese back in Korea and an amazing 3-million, the bulk of the M1s ever made, came from Building 104 right there at the Armory, built in 1939 on the eve of WWII specifically for its construction.

Some 3-million M1 rifles and nearly as many M14s were made in the 70,000-sq ft Building 104 from 1939-65

In 1956 the Armory’s next rifle, the M14 replaced the old warhorse that was the Garand. Soon this select-fire rifle was equipping US soldiers and Marines in a place called Vietnam. However, it was soon replaced by the M16, which is not made in any government arsenal but under contract.

This led to the Armory’s closure in 1968 and its preservation as a protected National Historic Place and National Historic Site, managed and operated by the National Park Service. As such, it contains possibly the largest collection of firearms anywhere in the country. Their huge collection is all photographed and searchable online if you can’t make it by there.

With all that history, when they decided to tear down Building 104 this year to make room for improvements, a few interesting things turned up…

(You don’t want to know where that key has been.)

Read the rest in my column at X  D Forum

One of the longest standing bits of USCG lore was that the sea service chalked up the only U-boat victory ever in the Gulf of Mexico when on 1 Aug, 1942, Coast Guard Grumman J4F-1 Widgeon, No.V-212, piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry Clark White, Coast Guard Aviator No. 115, along with crewman RM1c George Henderson Boggs, Jr., were patrolling about 100 miles south of the air base at Houma, Louisiana, at an altitude of 1,500 feet. They spotted a U-boat on the surface and immediately dove on the target. The U-boat crash dived but at just 250 feet, White released all of his ordnance, a single depth charge into the dark Gulf water below. Afterward the crew saw a slick on the surface and reported the attack on RTB.

Well after the war, the Navy awarded the kill, that of U-166 commanded by one Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Gunther Kuhlmann, which went missing about that time with her entire 52 man crew according to German records. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Boggs was awarded the Air Medal.

Grumman J4F-1, No.V212 of the United States Coast Guard preserved at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola, Florida

Well, it turned out that in 2001, U-166 was found– right next to her last victim, the SS Robert E Lee which she sank on 30 July, 1941– the day *before* White and co bombed their credited submarine.

You see, in the end, the Navy realized that a little 173-foot subchaser, PC-566, which was escorting the Lee and attacked a periscope it saw directly after her charge was sent to the bottom, were in fact responsible for scratching the unterseeboot in question.

The craft, one of the 343 (not a misprint) PC-461-class submarine chasers built between 1941-44, was a light 450-ton ship who, powered by a pair of diesels, could barely break 20-knots, but they were built to escort much slower merchantmen such as the Lee. Armed with a single 3″/50 a 40mm gun mount, 3 20mm guns, and depth charges, they were built to bring the pain to German and Japanese subs. Manned by a 65-man crew PC-566 was commanded by LCDR Herbert Gordon Claudius, USNR, on that fateful day.

That’s 173-feet of sub-killer right there. Photo from The Ted Stone Collection, Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA via Navsource

Now, long after Commander Claudius has left us and PC-566 was scrapped (in 1978, after being transferred to Venezuela in 1961), SECNAV Ray Mabus, with CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert in tow, posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit with combat “V” to the patrol coastal skipper and set the record straight last month.

Oh and White’s attack? According to records by the Germans, another boat, U-171, was attacked but survived by a flying boat in the Gulf around that time and location. So yes, the Coasties did attack a German sub, but it was the Navy, in the end, that brought down U-166.

And Herbert Gordon Claudius, Jr. has the medal to prove it.

The description in the  archives for this photo reads: A be-skirted seaman 2nd class stands guard. He is wearing an M.P. arm band, belt with bayonet, holding a rifle and standing next to a sign “OFFICE OF THE MILITARY GOVERNOR PROVOST MARSHAL OF AMERICAN SAMOA”.

Samoa was on the front lines of WWII after Pearl Harbor. A Marine Brigade would arrive January 20, 1942 to better defend the islands. These photos from the Springfield Armory National Historic Site archives show a number of the local recruits who joined the 5600-man Samoan Marine Brigade. Wearing the traditional “lavalava” cloth wrap, these men were trained to use Springfield Armory 1903 rifles to defend their homeland. American Samoa would be attacked only once during the war when a Japanese submarine shelled the island causing minimal damage.

According to the NPS, “On January 11, 1942, the Naval Station was shelled by a Japanese submarine. One shell, an odd stroke of irony, struck the home and store of one of the very few Japanese residents of the island. Another struck the Navy Dispensary, doing only minor damage, but most of the shells landed in the bay. At the time, of course, the incident must have seemed to be only the beginning. This was the only enemy attack in American Samoa.”

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 January 28, 2015: The Lucky Okie

Here we see the forward 6″/47 (15.2 cm) Mark 16 mount of the Cleveland-class light cruiser (guided missile) USS Oklahoma City (CL-91/CLG-5/CG-5) dropping it like its hot on the heads of Viet Cong forces, “somewhere off the coast of South Vietnam,” in an August 1965 LIFE Magazine cover. At the time the 21-year old Okie Boat, as she was known, was one of the last WWII-era ‘gun cruisers” still afloat but she had been brought into the Atomic-era as a hybrid missile slinger and for nearly a generation served as the “Fighting Flagship” of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific, often coming in close just like this to rain fire and brimstone when called.

She was part of the large and successful USS Cleveland (CL-55) class of light cruisers during WWII. Originally planned to be some 52-ships strong, 9 were carved off to become USS Independence class light carriers, while about half of the others were canceled as the end of the war was fast approaching. These were mighty “10,000-ton” designed light cruisers capable of making 32-knots while cruising some 14,500 nm at half that to reach those out-of-the-way Pacific battlegrounds without stopping for gas.

USS Oklahoma City (CLG 5) View of the ship’s 6″/47 guns. Photograph was received in August 1972 and was probably taken during naval gunfire support operations off Vietnam earlier in that year as the paint on the gun barrels is charred and blistered from the heat of firing. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center #NH 98680.

Packing a dozen Mk.16 guns in four triple turrets each protected by 6-inches of armor themselves) these rapid-fire guns could bring an incredible amount of pain to enemy warships and land forces in a short time. As noted in prewar tests with these mounts, during gunnery trials in March 1939, USS Savannah (CL-42) fired 138 6-inch rounds in one minute. When you keep in mind that each of these guns fired a 130-lb. shell to 26,118 yards at maximum elevation, that’s pretty strong medicine. To augment this, these ships also carried a dozen 5-inch DP guns as well as an impressive AAA suite.

USS Oklahoma City (CL 91) Underway in the Delaware River, while operating out of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, 9 April 1945. Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. Collection of James C. Fahey. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center #NH 95753.

Oklahoma City (as CL-91) was laid down 8 December 1942 by the Cramp Shipbuilding Co., Philadelphia, Pa. She was finally commissioned 22 Dec. 1944, with just nine months left in the World War. Rushing to the Pacific, she joined Carrier Task Group 38.1 by June 1945 and saw some hot service off Okinawa and in Japan’s home waters just before the end of the war. In the first of a stream of luck, she suffered no wartime casualties and won a battle star for her service.

With a surplus of ships and a shrinking Navy, the gently used cruiser was mothballed 30 June 1947 where she sat for the next decade, often surrounded by her sisterships.

While many of her sisters never saw active service again, the Okie was far luckier. In 1957, she began a three-year conversion to a guided missile cruiser to fire the gigantic Talos long-range surface-to-air missile system. Two of her sisters, Galveston (CL-93/CLG-3) and Little Rock (CL-92/CLG- 4), both ironically also built by Cramp, were similarly converted. This conversion consisted of removing the two aft 6-inch mounts and their magazines to make room for the two-armed bandit Talos system and a below-deck magazine for 46 of the comically large (38-foot long 7800-pound) Bendix RIM-8 missiles. These beasts, to include a RIM-8D W30 nuclear-warhead version, could make Mach 2.2 and reach out to 100 nm– that made them among the best SAMs of the era.

Talos missiles on CG-5 USS Oklahoma City 1979. These things are huge!

Forward of the bridge, the No.2 6-inch mount was replaced by a twin 5-inch DP to help offset the weight of all the added surface search radars, fire control directors and commo gear. Much of her WWII armament, such as the 20mm guns, and gear were ditched. Gone were her seaplanes, which had been retired a decade earlier anyway, and their catapults, replaced by deck space and refueling facilities for naval helicopters. Below decks, she (and Little Rock) was given extra room and facilities to support a fleet flag operation.

All these extras pushed the boat to some 14,000-tons, which included additional ballast to help fight that 113-foot above deck height, all of which resulted in awful hogging in high seas and an increased draft to the near battleship-worthy 26-feet of seawater.

Underway, Showing general details of missile conversion rebuild

Port bow view while underway, date and location unknown photo by Charles Lamm via Navsource. Note the twin 5-inch mount forward and the huge radar masts.

Recommissioned 7 Sept 1960, she became 7th Fleet flagship at Yokosuka, Japan that Christmas Eve. It was a job she would keep for much of her second career.

From the Gulf of Tonkin include in August 1964 to the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975, she spent the majority of those ten+ years somewhere between the coastline of Vietnam, delivering gunfire support, and Yankee Station, providing air defense for the carriers stationed there.

Six inch 47 caliber guns in action, date unknown photo by Craig Chaddock

USS Oklahoma City 6 Inch Guns firing. Photo From Okie Boat.com

While Talos missiles splashed three North Vietnamese MIGs during the conflict, these came from other cruisers and not the Okie boat. She herself survived an attack by two MIG-17s on 19 April 1972.

Her missiles did draw some significant blood however when she conducted the first surface-to-surface war shot in Navy history, destroying a NVA air control radar with a Talos RIM-8H anti-radar homing missile from fifty miles offshore.

Port quarter view, underway in Sydney Harbor, Australia, late 1970s Barry A. Seward via Navsource. Note the Sea King on her pad.

In all she earned 13 battle stars for Vietnam and by 1975, at age thirty, the lucky penny was well-worn but, with all of the other big gun ships of her era turned to scrap or laid up, she was an interesting niche. However, even having the 6-inch hood ornament only went so far.

USS Oklahoma City CG-5 visiting Singapore in 1979. The old girl was the ultimate flag-waver around the Western Pacific from 1960-79. Note how small the huge 55-foot long SH-3H Sea King helicopter looks when compared to the Talos launcher on her stern

Her class had all been decommissioned by 1976 and her Talos missile system, designed in the 50s, was an Edsel in a world of AMC Pacers. Oklahoma City‘s last designation, applied at this time, was to simply drop the “L” from her hull number, making her CG-5.

Moored at Pearl Harbor, HI, 18 October 1979 with friendship lights lit. The “Okie Boat” was on her way to San Diego for decommissioning after serving as Flagship of the Seventh Fleet for eleven years. This picture was taken from the roof of the old Enlisted Barracks, which has since been torn down. Photo by Tom Bateman via Navsource.

She had one more thing to before being decommissioned.

A view of a Talos surface-to-air guided missile, moments after being launched from the starboard side of the guided missile cruiser USS OKLAHOMA CITY (CG 5) at the Pacific Missile Test Range. This is the final firing of the Talos missile by the United States Navy conducted on 1 Nov 1979 National Archive# NN33300514 2005-06-30 by PH1 DAVID C. MACLEAN.

By 15 December 1979, she was decommissioned, the last WWII-era cruiser in the U.S. Navy on active service, and remained in mothballs for twenty years, contributing many of her parts to help recondition WWII era museum ships around the country.

She spent 1979-99 in layup on red lead row. It was speculated by the Lehman-Reagan Navy of the 1980s of reactivating her for a third tour but funds were never allocated. After 1989 ,with the Cold War over, it became open season on the salvage of minor parts for museum donation that went to help outfit her sister Little Rock as well as the USS Missouri.

Finally, she was towed to deep water in February 1999 and subjected to a series of target shoots by U.S. and Allied fleets.

The battered 44-year old was sent to the bottom by a final merciful SUT torpedo coup de grâce from the South Korean Navy Chang Bogo Type 209/1200 Submarine Lee Chun (SS-062) on 26 March 1999. Let us face it; she belonged in the 20th Century and it was better this way than to have her turned to scrap.

Under attack and taking water, her keel is broken

Broken in two and headed to the bottom.

The memory of the “Fighting Flagship” is maintained by the Okieboat website as well as the USS OK City Association.

As for her sisters, most of them had been long scrapped in the 1950s and 60s. Only three survived into the disco era, USS Springfield (CL-66/CLG-7/CG-7) who was decommissioned in 1974 and sold for scrap in 1980, USS Providence (CL–82/CLG-6/CG-6) who shared the same fate and timeline, and USS Little Rock (CL-92/CLG-4/CG-4) who was decommissioned in 1976 and is now a museum ship at Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park.

USS Little Rock, the only ship of her kind that was given the same conversion as the OKC. She is a museum ship in Buffalo New York. Photo by Wiki

Please visit her if you have a chance.

Specs

As commissioned, WWII, Image by Ship Bucket

At end of service post missile modification Image by Ship Bucket

Displacement: 10,000 designed, 14,100 full load final
Length: 610 ft. 1 in
Beam: 66 ft. 2 in
Draft: 24 ft. 10 in, 26+ post conversion
Height above waterline: 113 feet
Propulsion: Four Babcock & Wilcox, 634 psi boilers
Four GE geared steam turbines, 100,000 hp (74,570 kW) total, 4 shafts
Speed: 32.5 as designed, 31.6 knots post conversion, 25 post-1975
Complement: 992 designed, 1255 actual (WWII) 1,426 post conversion
Armament (as completed):

12 Mk.16 6 inch guns (4 × 3)
12 5 in/38 cal gun (6 × 2)
28 40 mm Bofors guns (4 × 4, 6 × 2)
10 20 mm Oerlikons cannons
Aircraft carried: Four seaplanes launched from two catapults

(Post Conversion)
• 3 × 6 in (152 mm) guns in 1 Mark 16 turret
• 2 × 5 in/38 cal guns in 1 Mark 32 mount
• 1 × twin-rail Mark 7 Talos SAM launcher, 46 missiles
Aircraft carried: Kaman SH-2B Seasprite (1964–1972) SH-2H Sea King (1975–79) helicopter (Call Sign: Blackbeard 1)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

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

I’m a member, so should you be!

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 January 28, 2015 the Tsar’s Panther

Russian submarine Pantera, note four drop collars and two deck guns

Here we see the His Imperial Russian Highness’s Ship Pantera (Panther), a Bars-class submersible that ended up being the most successful Soviet ship of the World War I-era and to this day holds the all-Russian record for warship ‘kills.’

The Russians were quick to develop submarines, with their own early Nikonov ‘Barrel Sub’ predating the American Colonial ‘Turtle‘ by a nearly a century.

Russian sub design from 1834…

When Mr. Holland’s working submersibles came out, the Tsar’s navy ordered several and by 1903 Naval architect Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov, then 32, had designed the first all-Russian combat capable submarine, the 64-foot Delfin (Dolphin) which was rushed to the Pacific just in time for an uneventful role in the Russo-Japanese War.

Delfin– all 64-feet of Russian U-boat. She only proved dangerous to her own crews.

Well the Delfin, being a gasoline powered boat, suffered from explosive fumes and sank at least twice in her career. This sub also took up to a dozen minutes to submerge, which was less than ideal.

Naval architect Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov. The sub in the background was his one-off Akula (Shark). She was the world’s submarine capable of firing a multi-torpedo volley with five torpedoes. During the war she attacked the old Küstenpanzerschiffe SMS Beowulf and in turn was sunk by a German mine.

Well between 1904-1914, Bubnov was given free rein to develop submarines, which he did; producing 11 steel sharks for the Tsar spread across four different classes, each an improvement on the last. The Russians also bought 23 German, Italian and American-built subs outright, which the design bureau crawled through and took notes from.

By early 1914, the seminal Tsarist naval design for submarines was developed, that of the 233-foot long Bars (Snow Leopard) class.

Pantera sistership Submarine Lioness note extensive drop collars and deck guns

These 24-ships carried an impressive dozen 18-inch torpedoes including four launched from internal torpedo tubes and 8 carried in external Drzewiecki drop collars. The use of drop collars, which carried a torpedo in a cradle outside of the hull and was launched from that position, was unique to Tsarist and some French subs. It was the brainchild of Stefan Drzewiecki who, before Bubnov came along, had designed a group of human-powered (think CSS Hunley) submarines.

Emperor Nicholas II is listening to the report of the Russian captain at the Baltic shipbuilding and mechanical factory

For action on the surface, a small 3-inch deck gun was mounted, as were a few smaller mounts. Unlike many subs of the day, the Bars-class was relatively fast, able to break 18-knots on the surface. Better yet, they could submerge within about 90 seconds if the 33-man crew was trained enough (more on this later.)

In all some two dozen were built, 18 by the Baltic Shipyard, St. Petersburg or Noblessner Yard, Reval (Estonia) for use by the Baltic Fleet, and another half dozen by the Nikolayev Navy Yard for use on the Black Sea.

The thing is, Russia’s submarine crews, being new to the game, were very inexperienced.

After all, when these 24 new subs came out, they more than doubled the Russian underwater fleet, which had only existed for a scant decade. In fact, many of the older boats were laid up to help provide crews while sailors were often cross-decked to help fill out rosters just before a patrol. There just was not the wealth of operational experience for these new craft. They did, however, have one of the world’s first submarine tender/rescue ships, the catamaran Volkov (which is still in service a 100-years later).

When WWI broke out, these ships sortied against the German fleet (in the Baltic) and the Turks (in the Black) but didn’t chalk up many victories. The Russians only pulled of 14 combat patrols in 1914, which resulted in no kills.

When a number of British E-class subs snuck into the Baltic and set up operations, and the Russian officers started emulating the Brits, even going out on (successful) RN patrols sinking German steamers off Sweden, things grew more aggressive. This led to no less than 50 (unsuccessful) torpedo attacks on German cruisers SMS Lubeck, Pillau, and Konigsberg without a hit. However, the Bars-class was modified to carry eight M-08 sea mines on deck and as such helped expand the mine belt in the Baltic.

1916 was a better year for the Bars-class, with the Volk (Wolf) sinking at least four small steamers on the Sweden-to-Germany ore run while the Vepr (Boar) took a fifth. It was in this “Golden Age of Tsarist Submarine ops” that Pantera was commissioned. She conducted only three short combat patrols that year before being iced in at Revel.

Pantera, note large vent for running diesel on surface and only one deck gun (the 75mm) a smaller 37mm gun was fitted later.

The year 1917, which led to revolution in Holy Russia, found the Bars-class subs flying red flags from their towers, but still kinda operational. In June of that year, Pantera became the only Russian submarine to be attacked by an airship, when a German naval Zeppelin saw her on the surface and dropped a couple smallish bombs that slightly damaged her.

These boats had to be careful, as they had not a single watertight bulkhead, which meant that any hole in the casing was fatal.

“Volk” (“Wolf”) and “Bars” (“Leopard”) iced in at Reval, 1916. Note lack of torpedoes in drop collars. An enduring problem with the Russian Baltic fleet is that they are locked into their harbors from December-March.

While these subs were getting better, the class paid a heavy butcher’s bill in turn.

While on combat patrols, the Bars herself was lost 25 May 1917, as was sistership Lvitsa (Lioness) just three weeks later; the first to German surface ships, the second by mines. Edinorog (Unicorn) was lost to a mine while trying to avoid oncoming German Army troops in the general collapse on the Eastern Front in Feb. 1918.

Speaking of advances, all six Black-sea Bars boats were captured by the Germans at the time at their slips in Odessa. Turned over to the British at the end of WWII and then given to the White Russian forces, four were scuttled when the White evacuated Odessa to the oncoming Red Army in 1919 and shipped out two last survivors, Utka (Duck) and Burvestnik (Petrel) to French controlled North Africa where they remained a fleet in being until 1924 when their benefactors ordered them scrapped.

Pantera with her decks awash. Very good view of her two guns, 75mm forward, 37mm high-angle aft. A third smaller deck gun is located on her sail area.

Back in the Baltic, when 1918 came, Pantera, like the rest of the survivors of her class in the Baltic, was sitting frozen in the ice at Kronstadt. There, they remained largely inoperable while their crews were plundered for volunteers to fight in the ongoing Russian Civil War on the side of the Reds. Of the dozen or so now-Soviet subs at Kronstadt when the spring thaw of 1919 came, just two, Pantera and the steamer-killer Volk, were capable of putting to sea.

And they did just that when the Royal Navy came steaming into the Gulf of Finland as part of the Allied Intervention in the civil war.

Sortieing in late July, the red banner submarine of the people’s navy came across His Majesty’s Submarine, E-40, and in traditional fashion, was unsuccessful. However, on 31 August 1919, Pantera stalked two British warships, including the brand-new 1300-ton Admiralty V-class destroyer HMS Vittoria (F-96) off the island of Seiskari in the Gulf of Finland.

Vittoria

Hunting the British ship, she spent 28 hours underwater before getting close enough to Vittoria to spit two torpedoes from her bow tubes. One hit her mark and Vittoria blew up then went down in 75 feet of water– extremely shallow for submarine operations.

The sinking of the HMS Vittoria

This was the first warship sunk by a Russian submarine and no less than 18 members of the crew, over half, were decorated. This included 24-year old commander Alexander Bakhtin, who cut his teeth on the Volk sinking steamers during the Great War, and 25-year old engineer Aksel Ivanovich Berg, who served with the British E-class subs. Bakhtin, who fell out of favor in the 1920s, died an early death after five years in the gulag while Berg died as a retired Admiral in 1979, a noted scientist who made advances in radio communications, microelectronics and cybernetics.

The boat herself, renamed Kommisar (hull #5), was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and kept as a training vessel in the Baltic Fleet. She was rebuilt in 1924, losing her drop collars and picking up a more modern above deck structure as did seven of her sisters.

Pantera after refit.

She remained as a training ship in the Baltic Fleet into the late 1930s, treasured for her role in the Civil War, while her remaining sisters were scrapped. As such, she was the first Soviet submarine equipped with a then-experimental passive sonar array.

Pantera-crew 1935. At the time she was the last operational Tsarist-era submarine and the ‘grand old lady’ of the fleet

Largely hulked during WWII where she served as a battery charging barge for newer subs, she remained afloat until at least 1955 when she was scrapped after nearly 40-years of service to Tsar Nicholas, Lenin, and Stalin– all of which she outlived!

Her and her class, however, were recognized by the Soviets as being the basis for their enormous submarine fleet.

Evolution of Soviet subs from 1914-1955 with Bars-class at top

In 2007, Bakhtin, now famous decades after his death in obscurity, had a plaque installed in St. Petersburg that celebrates both him and the Pantera. The latter’s name was reissued to a modern submarine, an Akula-class SSN, hull number K-317. That very dangerous vessel is still part of the Russian Northern Fleet.

Bakhtin marker, which also serves as a monument to Pantera

And the Vittoria? She was given as a gift to Finland, whose territorial waters she rests in, by the British government in the 1920s, but the Finns passed on salvaging her. In 2013, a Russian diving club found her broken hull and left a marker.

Specs:

Bars class model by Vladimir Yakubov

Displacement: 650 tons surfaced, 780 tons submerged
Length: 68 m (223 ft. 1 in)
Beam: 4.5 m (14 ft. 9 in)
Draft: 3.9 m (12 ft. 10 in)
Propulsion: Diesel-electric
2,640 hp diesel
900 hp electric
2 shafts
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h) surfaced
9 knots (17 km/h) submerged
Range: 400 nmi (740 km)
Complement: 33
Armament: 1 × 75mm (3.0 in) gun
1 × 37 mm (1.5 in) AA gun
4 × 457 mm (18.0 in) torpedo tubes
8 × torpedoes in drop collars (later removed)

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!

Relic hunters in Italy came across a cartridge case that had been pulled apart and re-purposed as a note-holder. Well the note inside, dating back to 1944-ish, written in Italian is in some sort of code:

When decoded and translated into English its to the affect of :

       THEY – THROW – GRENADES – WE – PULL – PINS – AND – THROW – BACK

       NOTIFY REINFORCEMENTS STAND DOWN – NOT NEEDED

The believed explanation is that it was written by pro-Allied Italian forces who were fighting Germans on the road to the Alps and said grey suits were using Italian grenades on them– without pulling the second pin.

Why do Italian grenades have two pins? The rest here after the jump.

General view of a ‘wall of death’ at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim January 19, 2015. Ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp will take place on January 27, with some 300 former Auschwitz prisoners taking part in the commemoration event. The Germans built the Auschwitz camp in 1940 as a place of incarceration for the Poles. From 1942, it became the largest site of extermination of the Jews from Europe. In Auschwitz, the Nazi Germans killed at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other ethnicities. On January 27, 1945 the camp was liberated by the Red Army soldiers. Picture taken January 19. REUTERS/Pawel Ulatowski (POLAND 0

Oskar Groening is perhaps one of the last real Nazi war criminals still drawing breath. With WWII 3/4 of a century
behind us, the “Greatest Generation” has sadly gone as are the enemies they fought against and threatens to get
smaller with every passing moment.

Groening was a 21-year-old paper pusher. His job: remove luggage from incoming death camp residents and catalog
the contents to include counting the banknotes taken from prisoners and securing them for future use.

Although he did not directly kill anyone, he still freely admits with remorse that, “I was a cog in the killing machine
that eliminated millions of innocent people.”

Now 93, he goes on trial 21 April 

U.S. Naval aviators in the Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII had their hands full. While the RAF earned thier fame in the Battle of Britain and the follow-on V-rocket Blitz, the U.S. Navy had to slug their way across 8,000 miles of water and fight the Japanese for every island.

One of these hardy flyboys was Alexander Vraciu, born in 1918 to Transylvanian immigrants in East Chicago. Graduating from DePauw University in 1941, he joined the USNR and by March 1943 was flying as Butch O’Hare’s wingman from the USS Independence (CVL-22) as part of the old  Fighting Squadron Six (VF-6), flying F6F Hellcats.

Hard as a coffin nail, Vraciu racked up 21 aircraft destroyed on the ground and 19 confirmed aerial victories including a famous half dozen in a single day during the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Lt. Alex Vraciu uses his hands to indicate his downing of six aircraft in a single day, June 19, 1944. All were Yokosuka D4Y “Judies” shot down in a period of just 8 minutes.

Shot down over the Philippines, he led a local guerrilla force for six weeks before linking up with American forces. He retired in 1964 at the rank of full commander. Although twice recommended for the MOH, he was ultimately awarded the Navy Cross. There is a campaign to help see he finally receives his MOH.

Commander Vraciu rejoined VF-6 last week at the age of 96.

His shipmates have been waiting.

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 Feb 11, 2015: Of Cyclops and Covered Wagons

Click to big up

Here we see the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier in 1924 with a dozen early biplanes on her deck, the one that started the whole shebang of sea going Naval Aviation in the Western Hemisphere: the converted Proteus-class collier USS Langley (CV-1) nee USS Jupiter (AC-3).

One cold harsh realization that the original Global Force for Good,–Teddy Roosevelt’s 1908 Great White Fleet– came to know during its round-the-world sortie, was that a large force of battleships and cruisers needed huge, dedicated coal-carriers to keep the fleet moving. You see those water tube boilers of the day had to have a steady stream of the black stuff to make steam or the whole thing was dead in the water.

That’s when the Navy decided to ask for a quartet of new, purpose-built, colliers. Operated by the Naval Auxiliary Service, the forerunner of the MSC of today, these would be unarmed, civilian-crewed ships, owned by the government and under Navy orders.

Like class leader USS Proteus, laid down in 1911 at Newport News, the four colliers would have names drawn from Greek mythology. Sisterships, Cyclops, Nereus, and Jupiter were likewise named and ordered at the same time. Nereus would be constructed at Newport News alongside Proteus while Cyclops was built at Cramp in Pennsylvania. Jupiter, our subject was laid down 18 October 1911 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California.

USS Jupiter in the Mare Island Channel, 7 April 1913 (Commissioning Day). The collier USS Saturn is aft of Jupiter Navy Yard Mare Island photo # AC 3 001-4-13 via Navsource

These 522-foot long ships, built at a bargain price of $1 million a pop, could 11,800 tons of coal and 1,125 ton of oil in six holds. They were made distinctive by their seven tall A-frame towers, standing five stories above deck (remember this later) that allowed coal or oil to be moved via a complicated series of 24 winches and 12 cable-ways to vessels along either side. In tests with the battleship Wyoming, it was found that one of these colliers could transfer 217 tons per hour if needed, which was pretty efficient.

They could also carry 8,000 tons of dry cargo in lieu of coal and small amounts of men from place to place. As such, they proved handy as sort of a low-budget federal shipping service for the government.

Post card of USS Jupiter moored pier side, probably at Mare Island Navy Yard, sometime about the time of her completion in 1913. Robert M. Cieri via Navsource

Jupiter was commissioned on 7 April 1913 and, like her three sisters, proved yeoman service to the fleet both in the days leading up to WWI and in the war itself. By 1916, the Navy had directed that these ships be crewed by actual naval personnel, and they picked up a quartet of 4-inch popguns for self-defense. Jupiter did her duty when the Great War came and coaled the U.S. Atlantic Fleet on both sides of the pond, seeing service in dangerous U-boat infested waters without a hitch.

Speaking of dangerous, her sistership, USS Cyclops, carrying the United States Consul-General to Rio, Alfred Louis Moreau Gottschalk among her passengers, as well as 231 crew and an overloaded cargo of manganese, went missing somewhere between Barbados and Virginia in March 1918. This disappearance was blamed at the time on U-boats, or possibly a fierce storm that swept through the Virginia Capes. Other theories included the possibility that her German-born Captain may have done something with her, and, later Bermuda Triangle advocates have advanced all sorts of crap claims ranging from UFOs to magnetic shifts. Other more plausible reasons include the ship’s very high messianic height (have you seen those derrick towers!?), the numerous huge hatches on deck, and low freeboard (just 8-feet when fully loaded) leading to unsafe conditions in rough seas.

Cyclops has never been found although at least one Navy diver, Dean Hawes in 1968, descended on a large hulk lying in 180 feet of water about 40 nautical miles northeast of Cape Charles, that is thought to have been the Cyclops. The ship has been an ongoing topic for Clive Cussler and his NUMA crew, even making it into a rather entertaining Dirk Pitt novel that I read back in 7th grade…and again in 10th…

Anyways, back to the Jupiter.

With the war over and the Navy moving to oilers rather than colliers, Jupiter was surplus. In fact, her surviving sisters Nereus and Proteus were laid up on red lead row for good. That fate was almost shared by Jupiter, who was decommissioned on 24 March 1920, except that she was converted to use as the U.S. Navy’s first, albeit experimental, aircraft carrier.

In 1922, she reemerged from the Norfolk Navy Yard dubbed USS Langley after aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley. Gone were her huge towers, her topside now covered with a wooden flight deck for aircraft. As such, she took on the nickname of “The Covered Wagon.”

USS Langley (CV-1) early in her career (note single stack to port). Photo is stamped on back: “Chief of Information. Navy Department. Washington, 25 D.C.” Photo by Jim Bulebush via Navsource

With her huge derricks removed and topside weight reduced, she shed some 5,000 tons and could float in water some five feet more shallow. She also picked up a couple knots in speed without all that bulk. In addition to her flightdeck, she was fitted with an elevator and catapult as well as a carrier pigeon house on the stern. Her old 4″/50s were replaced by newer 5″/51s and her holds were converted to berthing for up to 500 bluejackets and air wing members as well as bunkerage for avgas and lubricants.

An image taken from a departing biplane, Aug 03, 1923 of the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier. NARA Photo 520639

For the next 15 years, Langley served as the cradle of U.S. Naval aviation, with most of the service’s pre-WWII aviators learning their trade on her humble decks. In fact, she was the only carrier in the fleet, not to mention the hemisphere, until late 1927. She conducted a number of important firsts including launching and recovering the first Navy’s first rotary wing aircraft, a Pitcairn XOP-1 autogyro, on Sept. 23, 1931.

Had there been no Langley, there likely would have been no Lexington, Yorktown or Enterprise airwings in 1942. Further, five of her skippers went on to become admirals.

“Fleet Plane Carrier on Night Maneuvers,” circa 1925. Robert M. Cieri/ Thomas M. McDermott via Navsource.

Still, at the end of the day, Langley was just a collier by any other name and slow one at that. In 1936, she was stripped of her fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes, reclassified as a seaplane tender (AV-3) and her deck cut back to less than half its former length.

USS Langley (AV-3) at anchor in 1937, near NAS Coco Solo Panama. The aircraft over flying Langley are Consolidated PBY-2s from Patrol Squadron Two (VP-2). US Navy photo via Navsource. Note the half length deck.

When WWII started, she was forward deployed to the Philippines and dodged incoming Japanese planes on the very first day of the War in the Pacific. Escaping the PI by the skin of her teeth, she worked her way south to the Dutch East Indies where she was used by the Army to deliver a load of 32 Curtiss P-40 Warhawks of the 13th USAAF Pursuit Squadron to Java.

However, the Japanese caught up to the old girl and on 27 February, 1942, left her dead in the water her off Java with five bomb hits turning her into an inferno and taking 16 of her crew to the deep. Nine 4-inch shells and two torpedoes from the destroyer USS Whipple (DD-217) finished her off after her crew was offloaded to prevent her from falling into enemy hands.

Most of her crew was rescued by the fleet oiler USS Pecos (AO–6), but tragically were lost when that ship was sunk by Japanese air attack from the carriers Kaga and Soryu, 1 March.

Her sisters Nereus and Proteus? As it turned out, Langley/Jupiter outlived them both.

They were struck from the Naval List in 1940 after spending nearly two decades in mothballs. The Navy just didn’t need any colliers or, for that matter, cargo ships with corrosion and engine issues. The two were sold to Saguenay Terminals Ltd. of Montreal, Quebec on March 8 and 10th, 1941 respectively and operated in the Canadian Merchant Navy during World War II. In the ultimate in Theremin music sound tracked creepiness on the high seas, both of these ships, like the Cyclops before them, disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area within three weeks of each other. M/V Proteus left St. Thomas, USVI with a load of bauxite to be turned into aluminum bound for Maine on Nov. 23, 1941. M/V Nereus left the same port, with the same cargo, for the same destination, on Dec. 10th.

Neither was seen again.

While the three colliers are somewhere in Poseidon’s Bermuda flotilla, Langley‘s wreck is some 75 miles south off Tjilatjap, Indonesia while a very well done model is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida. Her name was later carried by the USS Langley (CVL-27), an 11,000-ton Independence-class aircraft carrier that served the United States Navy from 1943 to 1947. Since that ship was stricken in March 1963, there has not been a Langley on the Naval List.

She is remembered as the Covered Wagon

Specs

As collier:

Image via Shipbucket. Click to big up

Displacement: 19,000 long tons (19,000 t) full
Length: 522 ft. (159 m)
Beam: 63 ft. (19 m)
Draft: 27 ft. 8 in (8.43 m)
Speed: 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h)
Complement: 13 officers, 91 men, all civilians, bunks for 158
Armament:     4-4″/50 (Fitted 1916/17)

Specs: As Aircraft Carrier

Image via Shipbucket. Cick to big up

Displacement:
13,900 long tons (14,100 t)
Length: 542 ft. (165.2 m)
Beam: 65 ft. 5 in (19.9 m)
Draft: 24 ft. (7.3 m)
Installed power: 7,200 shp (5,400 kW)
Propulsion:     General Electric turbo-electric transmission
3 × boilers
2 × shafts
Speed: 15.5 kn (17.8 mph; 28.7 km/h)
Range: 3,500 nmi (4,000 mi; 6,500 km) at 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h)
Complement: 468 officers and men
Armament:     4 × 5 in (127 mm)/51 cal guns
Aircraft carried:  up to 55 in tests. Typically, 36 embarked. As seaplane tender after 1936, would be responsible for 10-20 flying boats
Aviation facilities: 1 × elevator
1 × catapult

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!

If John Ham’s grandfather was a fighter pilot in WWII…

“Lieutenant Colonel David C Schilling, 56th Fighter, 94th Bomb Group with a private modification to his Colt 1911″
Hattip Grease Gun Burgers.

Although I can’t find out much about Schilling’s gun, it looks much like the famous Lebman 1911 Machine Pistol handmade by Texas gunsmith  Hyman Saul Lebman. That San Antonio custom smith and leather artist made a few dozen of these in the 1930s including a number he sold to men in nice suits who later turned out to be Baby Face Nelson and John Herbert Dillinger. Back in 2012 I did a piece on the Lebmans over at Guns.com should you want to read more in-depth.

With that being said, if you know more about Schilling, or his pistol, drop it below.

With Nevada (and much of the rest of the Midwest) suffering from a historic drought, a B-29 lost in the extreme depths of Lake Meade is now closer than ever to the surface.

From War is Boring

“On June 21, 1948, the B-29 took off and headed east toward Las Vegas. Its five-man crew prepared a highly-classified device mounted in a clear dorsal dome atop the bomber’s fuselage.

The device, known as a “sun-tracker,” was a new kind of missile guidance system. There’s little publicly known about it, but a 1954 patent application suggests the sun tracker allowed a missile to get its elevation and orientation from sighting the sun. The device came from the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.

Testing the sun tracker required the B-29’s crew to fly a risky course — repeatedly ascending to 35,000 feet before plunging to 100 feet above Lake Mead’s surface.”

Well the thing hit and sank in over 300-feet of water. This largely put it off limits to most recreational divers, but now with the drought its in less than a third that...the rest here

German mountain troops (Gebirgsjägers) in World War II sawing frozen sauerkraut apart for dinner. Once you get it out of the barrel, you are only getting started. The Gebirgsjäger served on all fronts but this image was likely taken of units attached to the 20th Mountain Army under Colonel-General (Generaloberst) Eduard Dietl, which was stationed in far northern Norway in Finland opposing the Soviets 1942-45. Hattip Lone Sentry.

Three Grumman-designed fighters of the Confederate Air Force in flight (front to back): A General Motors FM-2 Wildcat (although painted as an F4F-3 of the USS Ranger’s airwing, VF-4 “Fighting Four” squadron), a Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, and a Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat.  The lineage is unmistakable. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7383.025

Integral Arms over in Louisiana, a Title II manufacturer specializing in suppressors and full auto stuff,  took a transferable Japanese Type 96 LMG and converted to take AK mags and shoot 7.62x39mm

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 produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Hans Liska

Born 1907 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hans Liska started off life as a folk singer and small businessman. Then, after studying in Vienna and Munich after the First World War, he landed a job at the Berlin Illustrated newspaper in 1933. He illustrated Rudolf Defends’s, Der König von Kakikakai.

When the Second World War came, he was drafted and served in a propaganda company producing artwork for Signal, the periodical of the German armed forces. He observed the drawings first hand while serving in Greece, Crete and along the Eastern Front. Two sketchbooks were released of Liska’s art during the war, through the patronage of German aircraft maker Junkers, including Kriegs-Skizzenbuch (Luftwaffe) and Kriegs-Skizzenbuch. While the subject matter, Nazi-era troops and war implements, have never been seen as politically correct, he did capture them rather well and due to his body of work, much military history was saved.

Junkers Ju87 successfully landed with just one wheel. Lieutenant H. told us that Ju87 reached the airfield safely after a direct flak hit, clipping off 3 meters long piece of the wingtip. This aircraft (lower right corner) returned home despite destroyed tail.

German paratroopers at Crete

Gerbisjagers

Fight in the woods. Partisan actions

“End of the Fight” by Hans Liska

“End of Russian heavy battery at Sevastopol” by Hans Liska

Supply column

Fire of the heavy artillery” by Hans Liska

“Panzer Attack” by Hans Liska

“German engineers in action” By Hans Liska

Salvo of the Nebelwerfer rocket battery. by Hans Liska

“Removing Mines” by Hans Liska

After the war, he put down his military sketches and turned to producing ad art for Benz, and Kaiser porcelain. For the latter he made over 200 city skylines to be applied to ceramics.

“Christkindlesmarkt,Nurnberg” by Hans Liska.From hansliska.com

“Köln” by Hans Liska, from Hansliska.com

He was also noted for his sketches of flamenco dancing and bull fighting.

Flamenco by Hans Liska from hansliska.com

from Hansliska.com

He died  26 December 1983 in Austria.

All Wars has a collection of more than 50 of his WWII works. You can visit his official website here.

Thank you for your work, sir.