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 May 13, 2015: the 18,000-ton Boogieman of the Barents Sea

Not what you want to see chasing you if you are a British destroyer…click to big up

Here we see the pride of the German Kriegsmarine, class leader schwerer-kreuzer Admiral Hipper underway at sea. Between April 1940 and Feb. 1943, she would haunt the Atlantic Ocean and North and Barents Seas, sending a number of His Majesty’s warships and merchantmen to the cold embrace of the deep.

With the Kaiser’s High Seas fleet lining the bottom of Scapa Flow, the language of the Versailles Treaty allowed the remnant of post-Imperial Wiemar Germany just six obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships and six old light cruisers of the Bremen and Gazelle class in their Reichsmarine— which could not be replaced until they were at least 20-years old. Once these elderly cruisers started to wear out, the Republic replaced them with the larger Emden, Leipzig, and Konigsberg-class vessels from the late 1920s onward.

Then in 1933, when Hitler kicked the Versailles agreements to the curb, the Reichsmarine started construction on the super-sized Deutschland-class cruisers (pocket battleships) which needed escorts who could travel the world on their own if needed– and thus were born the first modern German heavy cruisers.

Allowed 50,000 tons of this last type under a pact with their Brits in 1935, the Germans went about building five, (wink wink) 10,000-ton ships for their newly renamed Kriegsmarine. The first of these, ominously, was named for the head of the Kaiser’s Great War fleet, Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper.

(The man), he died in 1932, before the cruiser bearing his name was even fully designed on paper

Known politely in Great Britain and the “baby killer,” Hipper commanded the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group on the raids on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby; the Battle of Dogger Bank; and, of course, Jutland– where his unit drew the most blood of any, before taking the helm of the overall fleet from Scheer in 1918.

Although on paper they were supposed to weigh in at 10,000-tons, these 665-foot long cruisers were no welterweights, stepping on the scales with a full load displacement of over 18,000 when in wartime service.

Drawing of G.J. Frans Naerebout, earlier published in Op de lange deining

U.S. Office of Naval intelligence sheet on Hipper

Sheathed in a belt that averaged about 3-inches, they weren’t made to fight battleships, but their battery of eight 20.3 cm/60 (8″) SK C/34 guns , capable of firing a 269-pound AP shell out to a very respectable 36,636 yards, they could penetrate more than 9.4-inches of face-hardened armor at up to 10,000. As such, they could slug it out with any warship but a battlewagon with high hopes of winning the day.

Special Pictures of Admiral Hipper contributed by Peter Lienau via Navweaps

In all some five ships were to be completed of the class: Hipper, Blücher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz and Lutzow, but the war had other plans.

The anti-hero of our story, Hipper, was laid down 6 July 1935 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and commissioned in the spring before the Second World War began on April 39, 1939.

Schwerer Kreuzer “Admiral Hipper” 1939, Budesarchiv click to big up

At commissioning

1940 in Norwegian waters, click to big up

Just finished with her shakedown cruises, she sortied with virtually the entire Kriegsmarine to Norway where she was a group flag for Operation Weserübung, the invasion of that country in April 1940. (It was during that operation that her sister, the brand-new Blücher, was sucker punched and sunk by a Norwegian torpedo battery)

It was there, off the frozen coast just before the operation began, that she encountered the 1,900-ton G-class destroyer HMS Glowworm. The epic tale of what happened is as follows:

On the 8th April 1940, H.M.S. Glowworm was proceeding alone in heavy weather towards a rendezvous in West Fjord, when she met and engaged two enemy destroyers, scoring at least one hit on them. The enemy broke off the action and headed North, to lead the Glowworm on to his supporting forces. The Commanding Officer, whilst correctly appreciating the intentions of the enemy, at once gave chase. The German heavy cruiser, Admiral Hipper, was sighted closing the Glowworm at high speed and an enemy report was sent which was received by H.M.S. Renown. Because of the heavy sea, the Glowworm could not shadow the enemy and the Commanding Officer therefore decided to attack with torpedoes and then to close in order to inflict as much damage as possible.

Five torpedoes were fired and later the remaining five, but without success. The Glowworm was badly hit; one gun was out of action and her speed was much reduced, but with the other three guns still firing she closed and rammed the Admiral Hipper. As the Glowworm drew away, she opened fire again and scored one hit at a range of 400 yards. The Glowworm, badly stove in forward and riddled with enemy fire, heeled over to starboard, and the Commanding Officer gave the order to abandon her. Shortly afterwards she capsized and sank. The Admiral Hipper hove to for at least an hour picking up survivors but the loss of life was heavy, only 31 out of the Glowworm’s complement of 149 being saved.

Full information concerning this action has only recently been received and the VICTORIA CROSS is bestowed in recognition of the great valor of the Commanding Officer who, after fighting off a superior force of destroyers, sought out and reported a powerful enemy unit, and then fought his ship to the end against overwhelming odds, finally ramming the enemy with supreme coolness and skill.
–London Gazette, 6th July 1945

HMS Glowworm off bow of Admiral Hipper. The Swastika is almost over the top in this image…

Closer to the destroyer, note seamen

through the Hipper’s fire control directors, Glowworm capsized

artists Impression of Glowworm ramming the Hipper

Hipper picked up 40 Royal Navy survivors and continued on to Trondheim, the strategic key to Norway, where she bluffed her way past local coastal defense batteries by saying she was a British ship, and landed her troops.

bundesarchiv_bild_101i-757-0038n Schwerer Kreuzer Hipper landing German Gebirgsjägers in Trondheim

Repaired, she broke out into the North Atlantic several times in 1940 and 41, stalking Allied convoys and sending several cargo ships to the bottom while staying just over the horizon from British battleships.

December 1940: Working alone, on Christmas Day about 700 miles to the west of Spain, Hipper encountered troop convoy WS5A, one of ‘Winston’s Specials.’ They were accompanied by carrier HMS Furious ferrying aircraft to Takoradi in West Africa. In the resulting long range naval gunfire duel, she damaged the the 13,000-ton County-class heavy cruiser HMS Berwick and two merchantmen but was forced to find easier prey.

February 1941: Again alone, Hipper sailed from occupied Brest in France seeking easy meat. Bumping into convoy SLS64, she found it. This convoy, bound for Britain from Sierra Leone, had the two worst things going for it: not only was it slow (14-knots) but it was also completely unescorted by Allied warships. Hipper had a field day, breaking the shillelagh out and– in what was termed the “slaughter of convoy SLS64“– in the course of just under two hours she sank 7 merchantmen and severely damaged three others (more than half the convoy) with punishing naval gunfire.  In all this two-week sortie chalked up some 32,000 tons of Allied shipping to the boogieman.

Admiral Hipper’s bow with battleship Tirpitz to the right, Norwegian waters 1942

In 1942, operating from Norway with the bulk of the remaining capital ships of Hitler’s navy, the very presence of the Hipper along with the other big guns of the Kriegsmarine, was often enough to scatter Allied convoys to the winds where U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers and could pick them up with leisure.

One such instance was the heavily escorted PQ-17, headed to Murmansk from Iceland in June, 1942. Allied intel got wind of a sortie by Hipper and Tirpitz, (which was shit intel) and ordered the convoy to break apart in response. The resulting slaughter was epic as some 200 German aircraft and a dozen U-boats sank 24 out of 35 ships while the 43 escorting Allied warships largely were unmolested.

Mort Kunstler, “Execution of Convoy PQ17,” For Men Only cover, May 1960. Note the fictional USS Atlantis sinking center. Via Heritage Auctions

Later that year, Hipper and the pocket battleship Deutschland attacked the British ships escorting convoy JW 51B to Murmansk on New Year’s Eve. In that engagement, she reinforced her reputation as a destroyer killer by sinking the 1,300-ton A-class destroyer HMS Achates and the similarly sized Halcyon-class minesweeper HMS Bramble.

In this contest, while dealing Achates her death blow, the 11,000-ton Crown Colony-class light cruiser HMS Jamaica and the similarly sized Town-class light cruiser HMS Sheffield raced to the scene from over the horizon and just really plastered Hipper at close range. While these ships were smaller, together they carried more than two dozen rapid-fire 6-inch guns and closed in to use them to good effect, forcing the lumbering German to break contact and vamoose– which Hitler flew into a rage over later.

Hipper off Norway, 1942

In fact, Hitler was so displeased with the overall cost vs return of the surface fleet that he in short order paid off the capital ships, sacked old High Seas Fleet sailor Adm. Erich Raeder in favor of U-boat vet Adm. Karl Dönitz, and ordered the damaged Hipper recalled to Germany where she was sidelined for the rest of the war.

Decommissioned in February 1943, she was a fleet in being of sorts as the Allies knew she had not been sunk and, indeed had even been used in early 1945 as an emergency sealift platform to evacuate trapped German troops in the Baltics. Although the Germans made a good attempt to hide her out, the Allies finally found the boogieman and she was crippled by RAF bombers on 3 May 1945– less than a week before the end of the war.

Remember the Glowworm, Bramble and Achates, indeed!

German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in dry dock at Kiel, May 19th 1945. Click to big up

Her remaining crew scuttled the once-mighty warship and she was later raised and scrapped in 1952.

Of her sisters, as already noted Blucher was sunk in Norway; Seydlitz was never completed; Lutzow, in a twist of fate, was sold to the Soviets while Hitler and Stalin were still buddies as the Petropavlovsk in 1940 but never completed; and Prinz Eugen— the largest German naval ship to survive the war still afloat, was turned over to the U.S. Navy in 1945 then sunk the next year following nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll.

However, these last two sisters, Hipper and Prinz Eugen, are reunited in a unified Germany with the bell of the former and a screw of the latter preserved at the Laboe Naval Memorial near Kiel within walking distance of each other.

Besides this, Hipper has been the subject of much naval art:

Click to big up

Trumpeter model company cover art

John Asmussen has a great source of information on Hipper should you want to learn more about this interesting ship.

As for the Glowworm, she is remembered as well.

Specs:

Image via Shipbucket, click to big up click to very much big up

Displacement: 16,170 t (15,910 long tons; 17,820 short tons)
Full load: 18,200 long tons (18,500 t)
Length: 202.8 m (665 ft. 4 in) overall
Beam: 21.3 m (69 ft. 11 in)
Draft: Full load: 7.2 m (24 ft.)
Propulsion:
3 × Blohm & Voss steam turbines
3 × three-blade propellers
132,000 shp (98 MW)
Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement:
42 officers
1,340 enlisted
Armament:
8 × 20.3 cm (8.0 in) guns with up to 1400 rounds in magazines
12 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns
12 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns
8 × 2 cm (0.79 in) guns (20 × 1)
12× 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes
96 naval mines
Armor:
Belt: 70 to 80 mm (2.8 to 3.1 in)
Armor deck: 20 to 50 mm (0.79 to 1.97 in)
Turret faces: 105 mm (4.1 in)
Aircraft carried: 3 Arado AR 196 floatplanes
Aviation facilities: 1 catapult
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Today each Army and Marine fire team contains at least one hard charger who is designated the squad automatic weapon man. This position, first conceived back in 1918, was until the disco era composed of a Joe or Leatherneck armed with a BAR. What’s a BAR you ask?

Officially designated “Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918,” this 16-pound light machine gun was revolutionary when it was introduced in the tail end of the First World War. At the time, the US Army grew from 200,000 to over 4-million in the span of about 18-months. Far outstripping all of the arsenals of weapons, the new Doughboys needed a machine gun capable of being mass-produced, then carried into the field in huge numbers.

Looks comfy, no? This was the rig to help carry the BAR for the WWI-concept of “walking fire.”

It was to be used along with such wonder weapons as the Thompson submachine gun, Pedersen-device equipped Springfield rifles, armed airplanes, and modern field artillery to scour “No Man’s Land” of the Kaiser’s Imperial storm troopers.

Capable of full-auto fire, the gun, usually just referred to as the BAR, could fire 30.06 rounds as fast as 550 rounds per minute, which meant it could drain its 20-round detachable box magazine in as few as two seconds if set to rock and roll (or we should say, the Charleston).

However, with the magazine change in there, typical effective rate of fire was between 40-60 rounds per minute. Although a beast, it was designed to be carried and operated by a single solider, which gave squad-sized units an incredible boost in firepower.

In September 1917, the Army ordered some 25,000 of these weapons from Winchester. With the prospect of having to put one in every squad in what was projected to be the world’s largest military, Uncle called up Connecticut manufacturers Colt and Marlin-Rockwell to help army the boys “over there.”

A 1918-made Marlin-Rockwell BAR that was reworked for WWII service as a M1918A2. Image via RIA

Read the rest in my column at Marlin Forum

When World War II came to the Philippines on Dec. 8, 1941, the U.S./Philippine forces under Gen. MacArthur (land and air) and the Navy’s Asiatic Fleet under Adm. Thomas C. Hart seemed mighty enough for regional defense. Hart’s fleet, however, was a paper tiger, consisting of a couple dozen seaplanes, two cruisers, 13 destroyers, and a number of gunboats and auxiliaries.

What Hart did have was 29 submarines–, which would have been deadly effective had their torpedoes actually ran straight at the correct depths, and detonated on impact.

As McArthur’s land and air forces were overwhelmed and pushed back, Hart was directed to fall back with the fleet to the comparatively safer waters of Australia and the Dutch East Indies. With the Japanese largely controlling the sea-lanes around Luzon and the skies above it, it was suicide to maintain surface ships in those waters.

Yet, with MacArthur’s troops cut off, Hart endeavored to attempt a force of blockade-runners to bring in vital food, ammunition, and medicine to the PI. While huge cash bounties offered to civilian sailors brought a few desperate souls to attempt the voyage in small freighters and coasters, these attempts inevitably either ended with mutinous mariners turning around short of the islands, or with burnt out hulks adrift and riddled with Japanese shrapnel.

But what about those 29 submarines?

Well a lot of these were small, cramped old boats including a half-dozen aging S-boats, slow 800-ton submersibles that dated to the First World War and were arguably even obsolete then. However, there were also a number of large and comparatively modern fleet boats of the Sargo, Salmon, and Porpoise-class vessels that went some 2,000-tons and could range up to 10,000 nautical miles on their economical diesels.

USS_Seawolf;  Port side view of the Seawolf (SS-197) underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 7 March 1943. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. US Navy photo # NH 99549.

It was with this in mind that the Asiatic Fleet’s subs started to run the Japanese gauntlet from Australia and Java into the Philippine archipelago. Over a 45-day period, at least nine made it all the way to Manila and the last U.S. stronghold in Luzon at the “Rock” of Corregidor.

Carrying antimalarial drugs, small arms and anti-aircraft ammunition, diesel for the island fortresses generators and tons all-important food, they left with the Philippines national treasury, 185 key personnel, codes and vital records that could not fall into Japanese hands. On both the entry and exit they had to evade destroyer and aerial patrols, weave through minefields, and navigate using primitive tools and often inaccurate charts, typically just surfacing at night.

Here is a brief rundown of those missions:

USS Seawolf (SS-197) a Sargo-class submarine, left Australia with 40 tons of ammo that consisted of 700 boxes of 50-caliber machine-gun bullets and 72 3-inch anti-aircraft shells. Arriving at Corregidor on January 17, she left with a cargo of submarine spare parts that had been left behind and 25 Navy and Army evacuees.

USS Trout (SS-202) a Tambor-class submarine barely in service a year before the war started, left Pearl for Manila with 3500 rounds of 3″ AAA ammunition for the Army gunners and unloaded them in Manila in early February. She then took on 20 tons of gold bars and silver pesos (all the paper money had been burned), securities, mail, and United States Department of State dispatches, which she brought back to Pearl.

USS Trout (SS-202) unloads gold to USS Detroit (CL-8), March 1942 Photo #: 80-G-45971 USS Trout (SS-202) At Pearl Harbor in early March 1942, unloading gold bars which she had evacuated from Corregidor. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

USS Sargo (SS-188), head of her class, she offloaded her torpedoes (keeping only the war shots in her tubes) and took on 1-million rounds of .30 caliber ammunition which she landed in Polloc Harbor on Valentine’s Day 1942. On her return trip, she evacuated 24 B-17 specialists from Clark Field.

Swordfish (SS-193), entering Pearl Harbor prior to WW II. USN photo by Tai Sing Loo, courtesy of Scott Koen & ussnewyork.com.

USS Swordfish (SS-193), this Sargo-class sub took the Submarine Asiatic Command Staff at Manila and headed for Soerabaja, Java, at the end of December, the last submarine to evacuate the Philippines with the fleet. She then returned to the islands with supplies and evacuated the President of the Philippines, his family and select high-ranking officers as well as some Navy codebreakers in late February. She was on her way back with 40-tons of food crammed into every space when Manila fell and was ordered to abort.

USS Permit (SS-178), a Porpoise-class submarine, in December embarked members of Hart’s staff at Mariveles Harbor, brought them to Java. On a blockade run return trip, she rendezvoused off Corregidor on the night of 15–16 March, took on board 40 officers and enlisted men (including 36 precious cryptanalysts from the vital cryptanalysts and traffic analysts intelligence station, CAST), and landed her cargo of ammunition. She endured a 22-hour depth-charge attack from three Japanese destroyers on her way back.

USS Seadragon (SS-194), a Sargo-class submarine, on the night of 4/5 Feb in Manila Bay offloaded her cargo of vital radio gear and spare parts, as well as a portion of 34 tons of rations and almost 12,000 gallons of petroleum, then settled on the harbor floor during the day, then surfaced the next night and took aboard 25 high-value passengers including 17 CAST members, 3000-pounds of crypto gear to include a vital “Purple” machine capable of deciphering the Japanese diplomatic code, and made her getaway.

USS Sailfish (formerly the lost submarine USS Squalis) (SS-192), a Sargo-class boat, landed 1,856 rounds of 3-inch anti-aircraft ammunition while taking a moment out to pump four torpedoes into the 6,440-ton Japanese aircraft ferry Kamogawa Maru, who she mistake for the carrier Kaga.

USS Snapper (SS-185), a Salmon-class submarine, brought 46 tons of food and 29,000 gallons of diesel oil into Corregidor on April 4, evacuated 27 personnel and weaved her way back through the blockade.

USS Spearfish (SS-190) another Sargo-class boat, unable to reach Corregidor proper to offload anything, surfaced in Mariveles Bay on May 3, just two days before the Rock fell. She took on the last Americans evacuated from that doomed fortress: 25 personnel, including 12 Army nurses. She was the last ship out of the Bay.

As an honorable mention, USS Searaven (SS-196), a Sargo-class boat, left Fremantle in Australia on 2 April with 1,500 rounds of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition, but was also diverted and failed to deliver any of the shells to Corregidor.

For more detail on this chapter in U.S. military history, try the U.S. Naval Historical Center and the U.S. Army Center for Military History

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 May 20, 2015 The destroyer with the heart of a battleship

The Destroyer That Took on a Battleship by Peter DeForest. Click to bigup.

Here we see the U.S. Navy Benson-class destroyer USS Laffey (DD-459) going mano-a-mano with IJN Hiei, a Kongo-class battleship that has a slight weight advantage over her.

With war on the horizon in the mid-1930s as tensions with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were on the rise, the U.S. Navy realized that the old WWI-era four-stack destroyers, while still serviceable, just weren’t modern enough for what was likely to come in the far-flung South Pacific and windswept North Atlantic. This resulted in a series of no less than 10 classes of modern fast destroyers designed and built from 1932-43, which would form the backbone of the fleet in the first half of WWII, amounting to an impressive 169 surface combatants.

Each successive class, like today’s multi-flight Burke-class Aegis destroyers, were really just improvements on the prior, with better engines, sensors, and armament suites experimented with, which resulted in increasingly larger but better tin cans.

These ships included:

• 8 1350-ton, 341-foot Farragut-class
• 8 180-ton, 381-foot Porter-class
• 18 1725-ton, 341-foot Mahan-class
• 4 2219-ton, 341-foot Gridley-class
• 8 2325-ton, 341-foot Bagley-class
• 5 2130-ton, 381-foot Somers-class
• 10 2350-ton, 340 foot Benham-class
• 12 2465-ton, 348-foot Sims-class,

And– the last fully prewar design– the 30 vessel 2515-ton 348 foot oal Benson-class (followed by the 66 near-sisters of the only slightly different but mechanically identical Gleaves-class).

Class leader USS Benson DD-421. Note the five 5-innch mounts and masterfully mounted fire control system above the bridge

The Benson/Gleaves class destroyers, capable of an impressive 37.5-knots on their quadruple superheated boilers driving twin turbines, were the top of the line in Allied destroyer design when the U.S. entered the war. Ten 21-inch torpedo tubes, in twin 5-tube deck mountings, were capable of sinking a capital ship if they got close enough. A pair of depth charge racks over the stern could drop it like its hot on enemy subs. But it was their guns that told the story.

Mark 30 single mounts on Gleaves-class USS Arron Ward DD-483 in May 1942 Note 5″ (12.7 cm) propellant canisters on the left and Mark 37 FCS with “FD” Radar U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # 19-N-30722

Their five (later reduced to four) Mark 12 5″/38 caliber deck guns, in enclosed Mk 30 mounts were the finest Dual Purpose gun of World War II. Coupled with the Mk 37 FCS, they could hit a high-flying enemy aircraft at altitudes of up to 37,000 feet while their 53-pound shell was effective on surface targets and in naval gunfire support to some 17,000 yards and capable of penetrating up to 5-inches of armor plate at close range (more on this later). Further, they could be fired fast– at up to 22-rounds per minute per tube, which means that a Benson-class destroyer carrying the standard 320 rounds per mount could empty her magazines in just over 15 minutes of maximum sustained fire.

The hero of our story USS Laffey, was named after one Irish-born (County Galway) Bartlett Laffey who, as a 23-year-old seaman attached to the sternwheel gunboat USS Marmoa in 1864 along the Yazoo River, went ashore with a 12-pound howitzer to support a group of trapped force of the 11th Illinois Infantry, and 8th Louisiana Colored Infantry (yes, that’s the real regimental name). At great personal risk, Laffey remained at his gun and helped save the day, earning the MOH for his service. DD-459 would be the first ship named for this naval hero, but not the last.

The man…

USS Laffey was laid down at Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, San Francisco 31 Jan 1941 and her hull never touched any water other than the Pacific. Commissioned 31 March 1942, just fifteen weeks after Pearl Harbor, she rushed through her shakedown and soon was off to war.

USS Laffey (DD-459) steams alongside another U.S. Navy ship, while at sea in the south Pacific on 4 September 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. One of the few images of Laffey, as she was too busy killing Japanese admirals to have her picture taken.

Just days after the image above was taken, she was rescuing the stricken crew from the USS Wasp (CV-8), her first brutal introduction to the war.

Less than a month later, at the Battle of Cape Esperance, she came face to face with the heavy cruiser IJN Aoba (9,000 tons), flagship of Japanese Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv6) and part of the high speed nocturnal “Tokyo Express” reinforcing Guadalcanal. In that harrying night action Laffey got close enough to rake that much-larger ship successfully with her 5-inch guns, hammering her numerous times, and killing Admiral Aritomo Gotō. While Aoba did not sink, she suffered enough battle damage that she was sent back to Japan for five months of repairs.

The heavily damaged Japanese cruiser Aoba off Buin, Bougainville on October 13, 1942 after the Battle of Cape Esperance. Photographed from the Japanese cruiser Chokai.

On Nov. 11 Laffey helped cover the U.S. Army’s 182nd Infantry regiment’s landings on Guadalcanal and her guns helped splash a force of 32 Japanese planes sent to plaster the soldiers on the beach.

No rest for the weary, Laffey, just seven-months old, next found herself as part of Rear Adm. Daniel “Uncle Dan” Judson Callaghan’s Task Group 67.4 for what became known as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on Friday the 13th November 1942.

This force of five cruisers and eight destroyers moved to stop Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe’s much stronger force of 2 battleships, 1 cruiser, and 11 destroyers from running in between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in “the Slot” through what is (now) known as Iron Bottom Sound. Abe was a skilled surface warfare expert, having spent 26 years afloat in cruisers and battleships, and he had size on his side. Further, the IJN was adept at night fighting, having severely licked the Navy in several sharp surface warfare engagements in the area during the graveyard shift.

With no moon and a dark sky, the U.S. fleet used radar to close to within point-blank range until the Japanese fired off starshells and lit up their spotlights and the 1 a.m. battle was on– with the two fleets intermingling their battle line like a barroom brawl.

Laffey and her fellow destroyers and cruisers hammered the Fubuki-class destroyer Akatsuki (who soon sank with a loss of 197 crew) and then found themselves face to face with the 37,000-ton Kongō-class battleship Hiei (Abe’s flagship) while fellow tin cans Sterett (DD-407) and O’Bannon (DD-450) joined the fray.

While it would seem an uneven match, the Laffey got so close to the battlewagon (10 feet according to some reports) that the Japanese behemoth could not depress her guns low enough to get a hit on the plucky destroyer less than a 10th her size. However, this did not stop Laffey from pounding the Jap leviathan with 5-inch shells while her .50 caliber gunners, in close enough to make a difference, peppered everything that moved.

Laffey‘s crew paid close attention to the bridge of the flagship and almost claimed another admiral– severely wounding Abe and killing his chief of staff, Captain Suzuki Masakane.

Friday Nov. 13th, 1942, “Hiei vs. Honey Badgers” Click to big up

However, the destroyer soon found herself surrounded by Hiei, the battleship Kirishima, and two Japanese destroyers. With over 80,000 tons of the Emperor’s warships pounding away with ordnance that included 14-inch shells and Long Lance torpedoes, it was over fast. Her magazines exploded as she was being abandoned and she suffered 59 officers and men killed and 116 wounded, over half her crew.

As reported in the video and book “The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal,” Laffey is today upright at a depth of nearly a half-mile off Guadalcanal and largely intact from the bow to amidships, but her after third has disappeared. Both forward 5-inch guns are trained out to port, and her amidships superstructure is holed by a 14-inch projectile from a Japanese battleship.

In a battle that lasted just 40-minutes, both sides had taken a brutal beating and although the U.S. fleet was ravaged, only two American ships were still capable of fighting, and Adm. Callaghan had been killed on the bridge of his flagship, Abe broke contact and fled. Besides Laffey, her Benson/Gleaves sisters USS Barton (DD-599) and USS Monssen (DD-436) also rested on Iron Bottom Sound when dawn came while badly damaged sister USS Aaron Ward (DD-483), who had stood toe to toe with Kirishima, was limping but still firing at the Japanese as they withdrew.

As for the damaged Hiei, she sank while under tow on the evening on 14 November after taking her final hits from Army B-17s and Navy Avengers. Partly due to an attempt to help screen Hiei, Kirishima was caught the next day by the modern fast battleships USS South Dakota (BB-57) and USS Washington (BB-56) who beat the ever-loving shit out of her until by 15 November she was parked on Iron Bottom Sound as well.

Japanese battleship Kirishima takes hit after hit from Washington (BB-56). Click to big up

The events of 13-15 November sealed the turning point in the waters off Guadalcanal and ended the Tokoyo Express. Further, it bought time for the new Essex-class carriers and legions of follow-on surface warfare ships to join the fleet as the Japanese licked their wounds and regrouped.

Admiral Abe, returning to Japan injured from Laffey‘s shells and whipped in a humiliating defeat by what Yamamoto considered a smaller force, was cashiered and died a broken man after the War– so we can count that as a combat effective kill for the destroyer as well.

(Via USS Laffey Assoc)

Laffey in the end earned the Presidential Unit Citation

“For outstanding performance during action against enemy Japanese forces in the Southwest Pacific area, 15 September to 13 November 1942. Braving hostile file to rescue survivors in submarine-infested waters, the LAFFEY, after fighting effectively in the Battle of Cape Esperance, successfully repelled an aerial torpedo attack, and although badly crippled and set afire, inflicted severe damage on Japanese naval units off Savo Island. Eventually succumbing to her wounds after the enemy had fled in defeat, she left behind her an illustrious example of heroic fighting spirit.” For the President, James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy.

She was soon to have her name recycled by an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, DD-724, who went on to make something of a name for herself as well in Naval history and is preserved at Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

USS Laffey, DD-724 as a museum ship today

The Benson and Gleaves classes gave extensively in WWII, with 16 lost during the war– five in the Guadalcanal campaign alone. After the war, they were mothballed with some reactivated for Korea. In the 50s a number were given to overseas allies to serve for another decade or so, but by the late 1970s, all of these hardy veterans were razorblades.

U.S.Navy Benson class Destroyers U.S.S Laffey and U.S.S Woodworth. Dragon model box art. Click to big up

Still, Laffey has been remembered in maritime art and in at least two scale models from Dragon as well as through a veteran’s association that honors both ships of the same name as well as the Irish-American bluejacket who earned his MOH by blood and deed.
Specs:

(Note, this is a late WWII Benson class with 4, 5-inch guns, click to big up

Displacement: 1620 tons (2515 tons full load)
Length: 341 ft. (103.9 m) waterline, 348 ft. 2 in (106.12 m) overall
Beam: 36 ft. 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft: 11 ft. 9 in (3.58 m) (normal),17 ft. 9 in (5.41 m) (full load)
Propulsion: Four Babcock & Wilcox boilers, General Electric SR geared turbines; two shafts;
50000 shp (37 MW)
Speed: 37.5 knots (69.5 km/h)
33 knots (61.1 km/h) full load
Range: 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km) at 15 kt, (11,000 km at 28 km/h)
Complement: 208 (276 war)
Armament:

4× 5 in (127 mm) DP guns, Mk 30 single mounts
6 × 0.50 in. (12.7 mm) guns, single mounts
10 × 21 in (53 cm) torpedo tubes,
2 × depth charge tracks
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!

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. As always, remember to click to embiggen.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Tom Lea

With this edition coming on Memorial Day weekend, I felt it best to highlight one of the most somber artists to ever cover a military subject. Further, this incredibly skilled painter did so not from photographs or through dry research, but from his own first-hand experience garnered at sea both frozen and aflame and on the bloody sand.

Thomas Calloway “Tom” Lea, III was born in El Paso, Texas on 11 July 1907. Growing up in that rough and tumble border town during the era of Poncho Villa, he had to have an armed escort to school over remarks his father, the mayor, made during that time. Leaving home in the 1920s, Lea studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and under noted muralists (remember this later).

In the 1930s, he got his first steady work as a WPA artist, painting murals in federal buildings across the state as well as in such far off places as Washington D.C., New Mexico, Illinois, and Missouri.

Mural on North Wall, West Texas Room, 1936. Oil on canvas, 7 X 13 feet. Hall of State, Dallas

In 1941, LIFE Magazine asked him to sketch troopers of the El Paso-based 8th Cavalry Regiment (1CAV DIV), which he did and in turn evolved into other requests to supply images of aviators and cannoncockers at nearby bases.

Corporal Butler, 8th Cavalry and his mount, 1941, by Tom Lea. It shows the striker of Maj. Gen. Innis P. Swift‘s aide, who was a friend of Lea’s family. Swift later went on to command I Corps in the Pacific. A colorful character who rode with Pershing chasing Villa in 1916, Swift ordered the depicted horse soldier to ride from Fort Bliss direct to Lea’s house so that he could be sketched while standing dismounted in his studio. Image via the Lea Institute.

By the fall, he was afloat on a U.S. Navy destroyer bobbing along the Atlantic Ocean on the very active Neutrality Patrol in which the man from West Texas saw the world from the heaving decks of Uncle’s tincans.

A Time and a Place, Argentina Bay, Newfoundland, 1941. This ship, the tender USS Prairie (AD-15) with three destroyers moored with her, was his first view of the fleet. Published in LIFE in May 1942, he captioned it “Like a fierce mother with three children sits the big supply ship, blinking a message to the newcomers with her high starboard light …” Oil on canvas, 25 x 40 Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Tossing the cans, by Tom Lea, depicting the firing of a Y gun depth charge thrower

Next, he shipped out on one of the “original 8″ carriers of the U.S. Navy, USS Hornet (CV-8) for a 66-day run across the Pacific. There, in fierce service off Guadalcanal in late summer 1942, he spent more than two months on a front line carrier in the thick of the war and sketched as he found.

USS Hornet by Tom Lea

He observed the sinking of the Wasp on Sept. 15, 1942.

Carrier ace Silver Somers, by Tom Lea

On 21 October, he left the Hornet, pulling away on a fleet oiler that would land him back at Pearl Harbor. The cleared sketches would appear in LIFE in March and April 1943, sadly, after the carrier had been sunk. You see, the ship in which Lea had spent those hectic two months was sent to the bottom, sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, 26 October 1942– just five days after he left.

As told by Lex

Back at Pearl Harbor, Lea showed Admiral Nimitz some of his drawings. One of them was the one above. Underneath the drawing, he inscribed a quotation from Deuteronomy: “Moreover the Lord thy God shall send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.”

Admiral Nimitz looked at the drawing for a long time, then turned his head to Lea, and said: “Something has happened to the Hornet.”

That was how Lea found out that the aircraft carrier he had been on, together with his friends, perished.

This he immortalized in a painting ran by LIFE of how he pictured the ship going out– fighting.

“An aircraft carrier is by her very nature a very peculiar warship, for she belongs not wholly to the sea nor sufficiently to the sky.” “Without heavy deck guns or stout armor, she is physically the most vulnerable of warships, carrying within her the seeds of her own destruction. Whenever she goes to sea she is loaded with bombs, shells and high-octane gasoline, all concealed behind her thin steel plates. ”
“Such a ship was the Hornet. She feared bombs, but also know that probably only torpedoes would sink her.”
“There is no way to describe how terrible a torpedo seems as it heads for a carrier. It leaves a strange wake, a rather thin, white, bubbly line like fluid ice, cold as the death is presages. Against the ship’s side, it explodes with an appalling concussion and a wild flash of pink flame. Within the ship, there is a terrible wrenching. Decks and bulkheads are twisted like tissue paper, and all things not secured by iron bolts are smashed.”
“The Hornet died under a moonlit sky on a shining tropical sea. She had been hit by two waves of Jap planes, the first in the morning, the second in the afternoon… Then came the last order: ‘Abandon ship.’ The men went over the side on knotted lines, down to life rafts, to floating debris, or simply to the water.”
“Behind them their ship died a smoking death.”
“The great carrier was not alone. She had destroyers and cruisers with her, and they aided in the work of hauling the Hornet’s crew from the sea. In a few hours, it was all over. Those whose fate it was to live were alive, and those who had to die were dead.”
“A tropical sunset colored the hulk of the carrier and the stars came out faintly. After dark she went down.”
-LIFE Magazine, “HORNET’S LAST DAY: Tom Lea paints death of a great carrier”

Next, fate found him landing with the 7th Marines at the green hell that was Peleliu. The 11 paintings he produced from that front line horror are some of the most haunting military art of all time and should be viewed by any politician who claims there is no alternative to starting a war.

“GOING IN – FIRST WAVE” “For an hour we plowed toward the beach, the sun above us coming down through the overcast like a silver burning ball….Over the gunwale of the craft abreast of us I saw a Marine, his face painted for the jungle, his eyes set for the beach, his mouth set for murder, his big hands quiet now in the last moments before the tough tendons drew up to kill.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“2000 YARD STARE” “Down from Bloody Ridge Too Late. He’s Finished – Washed Up – Gone”
“As we passed sick bay, still in the shell hole, it was crowded with wounded, and somehow hushed in the evening light. I noticed a tattered Marine standing quietly by a corpsman, staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle, his jaw hung, and his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head. Down by the beach again, we walked silently as we passed the long line of dead Marines under the tarpaulins. He left the States 31 months ago. He was wounded in his first campaign. He has had tropical diseases. He half-sleeps at night and gouges Japs out of holes all day. Two-thirds of his company has been killed or wounded. He will return to attack this morning. How much can a human being endure?” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“THE BLOCKHOUSE” “There were dead Japs on the ground were they had been hit. We walked carefully up the side of this trail littered with Jap pushcarts, smashed ammunition boxes, rusty wire, old clothes, and tattered gear. Booby traps kept us from handling any of it. Looking up at the head of the trail, I could see the big Jap blockhouse that commanded the height. The thing was now a great, jagged lump of concrete, smoking.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

The Peleliu Invasion by Tom Lea

“THIS IS SAD SACK CALLING CHARLIE BLUE” “We found the battalion commander [Lt Col Edward H. Hurst, CO, 3/7]. By him sat his radioman, trying to make contact with company commands. There was an infinitely tired and plaintive patience in the radioman’s voice as he called code names, repeating time and time again, ‘This is Sad Sack calling Charlie Blue. This is Sad Sack calling Charlie Blue.’ “Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“SUNDOWN AT PELELIU” “Sick Bay in a Shellhole. The Padre Read, ‘I am the resurrection and the Light’ “The padre stood by with two canteens and a Bible, helping. He was deeply moved by the patient suffering and death. He looked very lonely, very close to God, as he bent over the shattered men so far from home. Corpsmen put a poncho, a shirt, a rag, anything handy, over the grey faces of the dead and carried them to a line on the beach to await the digging of graves.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“COUNTER-ATTACK” “I do not know what time it was when the counterattack came. I heard, in pauses between bursts of fire, the high-pitched; screaming yells of the Japs as they charged, somewhere out ahead. The firing would grow to crescendo, drowning out the yells, then the sound would fall dying like the recession of a wave. Looking up, I saw the earth, the splintered trees, the men on their bellies all edged against the sky by the light of the star shells like moonlight from a moon dying of jaundice. The phone rang. A battalion CO reported the Jap’s infiltration and the beginning of the counter attack. He asked what reserves were available and was told there were none. Small arms fire ahead of us became a continuous rattle. Abruptly three star shells burst in the sky. As soon as they died floating down, others flared to take their place. Then the howitzers just behind us opened up, hurling their charges over our heads, shaking the ground with their blasts.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“THE PRICE” “Lying in terror looking longingly up the slope to better cover, I saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs. His face was half-bloody pulp and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a stick, as he bent over in the stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patiences I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“We saw a Jap running along an inner ring of the reef, from the stony eastern point of the peninsula below us. Our patrol cut down on him and shot very badly, for he did not fall until he had run 100 yards along the coral. Another Jap popped out running and the marines had sharpened their sites. The Jap ran less than 20 steps when a volley cut him in two and his disjointed body splattered into the surf.” Life Collection of Art WWII, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Base sketch for the above, from the UTSA Libraries Special Collections.

From the El Paso Times:

After taking his paintings to Life headquarters in New York, Tom heard what happened: The paintings were lined up so the managing editor Daniel Longwell could review them. Longwell entered, looked, and said: “Print every damn one of them in color, and I never want to see them again.”

It was also his last wartime assignment.

After the war he remained active and produced art for books and novels, while trying his hand as an author and historian.

Marrakech Tom Lea 1947

Muster at Bore 60 1973 tom lea

And There He Was by Tom Lea

Tom Lea following his last wartime tour as a LIFE artist correspondent – landing on the island of Peleliu with the 1st battalion 7th Marines. On the easel is The Price, 1944.

Much as he was born in El Paso and lived most of his life there, he also passed away there in 2001 at age 93. He is buried in the city next to his wife, whose portrait reportedly took him the longest of all paintings to complete.

Today, his trail of murals are celebrated across the Lone Star State while the Tom Lea Institute is located in El Paso  which produces the annual Tom Lea Month celebration in the city.

His work is on public display a numerous U.S. Army museums and bases, the Smithsonian, the White House, as well as galleries and museums across the Southwest.

Thank you for your work, sir.

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 May 27, 2015 The coldest boat in the Russian Navy

Click to big up

Here we see the unique vessel of the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Navy, the icebreaker Yermak (also spelled Ермак, Ermak, and Yermack due to transliteration) doing what she did best—breaking sea ice. She was the first true modern sea-going icebreaker in any navy and lasted an impressive 80~ years and through five world wars in which she got bloodier than could be expected for a ship of her type.

In the late 1890s, polar exploration was all the rage and Holy Russia, pushing ever further to control the Western Pacific, sought to join Europe and Asia via the Northeast Passage across the top of the country. The thing is, the ships that had tried this arduous journey had all failed. One renowned Russian polar explorer and naval officer, Stepan Makarov, fresh off his expeditions to the mouth of the north-flowing Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei, proposed a radical new steel-hulled steamship with powerful engines and screws on both the stern and bow, ready to chop up polar ice as she went.

Note the close arrangement of her three stern screws

The ship, some 319 feet long and 70 abeam, was very tubby in design. Six boilers fed either three shafts aft or one forward, allowing her to back and ram if needed– now standard procedure for icebreakers but novel at the time. Speaking of bow, she had a strengthened hull of 29 mm plate steel sandwiched with oak and cork to allow her to break sea ice at over 7 feet thick.

Under construction. Note the strengthened steel ‘nose’ over which in essence a second double hull would be constructed.

Her twin 55-foot high stacks and round sloping bow with small stem and flare angles made her readily distinguishable and came to typify early icebreaker design. Even today, her hull form is imitated in even the most advanced polar icebreaker design.

The resulting design was authorized by Count Witte in 1897 at the cost of 3 million gold rubles and ordered abroad to ensure fast and reliable delivery. Laid down in December at Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne, she was completed 29 January 1899– and delivered at half the price.

Launching

On trails. How many times have you seen an icebreaker with a bone in her mouth?

She carried the name of cossack ataman (head man) Vasiliy `Yermak` Timofeyevich Alenin, the Don Cossack who conquered Siberia under the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 1580s, her purpose was clear.

Surikov’s “The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak” The cossack swashbuckler took 800 men east and won an empire from the khans of the tartars and tribal people of the region that the Russians hold until today.

Arriving at the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet in March after a ten day voyage from the UK, Yermak made her smashing debut ( I love a pun) by breaking her way into the ice-bound harbor Kronstadt and then up the Neva River to St. Petersburg– where thousands thronged to see her across the frozen river.

Yermak in St Petersburg on the Neva

By that November, she came in handy. The massive 12,500-ton armored cruiser Gromoboi had been forced by early ice from her moorings to the shore, and future ice movement threatened to sink the ship. Three days later, Yermak pulled her free.

Then, just weeks later, she had to help pull the 4,200-ton Admiral Ushakov-class coastal defense ship General Admiral Graf Apraksin from the rocks and tow her back to Kronstadt.

Yermack was the first polar icebreaker in the world, colorized photo of it assisting the Graf Apraksin in 1899. Whoever colorized the photo neglected to add the correct cap bands to the breaker, which should be blue.

She was one of the first ships to use a wireless for rescue at sea when she rescued 27 lost Finnish fishermen from the rocks near Hango and transmitted the fact to a land station there with the help of Professor Alexander Stepanovich Popov (the Russian Marconi) who had set up a station near Apraksin and relayed messages back and forth.

“Icebreaker ” Yermak “, who worked for the removal of stones from the battleship “Adm. Apraksin “, saved the 10th February 1900 27 fishermen, the news of the death of the first of which was received on a radio installation”

In 1901 Yermak helped Makarov complete his Third (and last) Siberian exploration expedition, reaching as far as Nova Zemyla. It was the last time the admiral was aboard the ship that was his magnum opus.

Painting by M. G. Platunova “First swimming polar icebreaker Ermak,” depicting her first encounter with polar sea ice. Note her buff superstructure and blue cap bands.

Makarov, sadly the best Russian naval mind of his era, was blown sky high on his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk, on a sortie out of Port Arthur in 1904.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Yermak helped rush reinforcements to the front, freeing first the cruisers of Capt. Yegoryev’s unit in February 1904 from Libau and then the 12 ships of Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s division the next January.

In port, click to big up

She was ordered to follow the fleet as a coal supply ship and, once in the Pacific, assist in helping to Vladivostok free of ice. Five days after leaving Russian waters however, Yermak suffered a shaft failure, which Adm. Rozhdestvensky, enraged at the time, did not believe, and took as an act of mutiny until he personally came aboard and verified it himself.

In the end, she was allowed to limp back to Kronstadt after cross-decking a number of her officers and crew to other vessels that were short. This act saved Yermak from what would certainly have been death at the hands of the Japanese at Tsushima (though not the men she transferred).

In the summer of 1905, with the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway all-important to a Russian victory in the Far East and her shaft repaired, she escorted supplies and rails for the project to along the Russian Arctic coast to the mouth of the Yenisey River, about half way the distance.

Yermak in heavy sea ice

A great stern shot in warm waters. Click to big up

She conducted some of the first through-ice dives in frozen waters

With the war over, she went back to merchant and research service, breaking ice around the Baltic. In 1908, she rescued her third warship when she pulled the cruiser Oleg from the ice off Finland.

By the time of the next war in 1914, Yermak was armed with some small deck guns to help ward off German submarines but again stuck to breaking out Russian warships when needed. This included freeing the cruiser Rurik for a sortie in March 1915 and the battleships Slava and Tsarveitch. Stationed in Revel for most of the war and with little for an icebreaker to do in summer months, she served as a depot ship for submarines.

Note the mascot and Tsarist uniforms with British influence

When the rest of the Baltic Fleet raised the red flag in March 1917, she was one of the last ships to do so and even then her crew re-elected her longtime skipper, Estonian-born Capt. Rudolf Karlovich Felman, who had commanded the ship since 1903– one of the few fleet vessels to do so.

However, Felman in the end was kicked out in November with the coming of the Bolsheviks and promptly left Russia only to find easy work in Estonian service. He was the longest serving of her more than 21 captains spanning seven decades.

Felman. This intrepid polar explorer and ship driver lived until 1928

With the Germans fast approaching and the war at its end (for the Russians anyway) Yermak sailed from Revel to Helsinki and broke out the fleet to include 7 battleships, 9 cruisers and 200~ misc vessels so that they could assemble in Kronstadt and not fall into the Kaiser’s hands. This event was later referred to as the Great Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet, and is seen as saving the Soviet Navy. (It should be noted that the Whites sailed away in 1920 and 22 with the majority of serviceable vessels of the Black Sea and Pacific fleets respectively, leaving only those in the Baltic under the Red Flag)

At the end of March, Yermak tried to return to Helsinki with a contingent of Red Navy sailors to seize the town but after trading some naval artillery with the local Finnish ship Tarmo (2400-tons, 1 47mm gun), she turned back around when a German plane dropped a few small bombs danger close to the hapless Russian icebreaker.

Nonetheless, her service in the Revolution and later Civil War, where her crew were sent to fight on land, earned her the Revolutionary Red Banner of the Central Executive Committee for outstanding service in her third war.

By 1921, she was disarmed and back in service around the Baltic since she was one of the few operational vessels left. She was even loaned to the Germans in 1929 (at a price of 1 million DM, which was music to the ears of the cash-strapped Kremlin) to open the Kiel Canal early.

In 1935, she made an Arctic expedition equipped with a seaplane and helped pick up floating North Pole Station 1 under the famous explorer Ivan Papanin, cementing her place in polar history.

Note the Red Banner flag

Yermak’s fourth conflict, the Russo-Finnish Winter War; saw her again armed, this time much more heavily. In December of that year, the Finns came close to sinking the old girl when the German-built submarine Vetehinen (Merman) stalked her without success over an 8-day period off Libau. By early 1940, Yermak helped escort Soviet Naval troops to occupy disputed islands in the Gulf of Finland—and again was scrapping with her old Civil War enemy, the Finnish Tarmo, without effect.

Click to big up

In 1941, her fifth war was upon her and she was soon going toe to toe with German and Finnish bombers and attack planes. According to Soviet historians, Yermak‘s gunners splashed 36 aircraft during the war while, again, she served as a depot and berthing ship for submarines as needed. In 1942, with the Axis powers closing in on Leningrad, most of her armament was shipped to the front, with all but 15 of her crew going with it to fight on shore as they had in the Civil War.

By 1944, disarmed, and her crew of dirt sailors advancing on Berlin, Yermak was transferred back to merchant service with the ship earning the Order of Lenin for her WWII service.

1950, at this point she had seen a solid half-century of service.

By 1950, after inspection found her half-century old hull still sound, she was sent to Antwerp for refit and then assigned to the White Sea based at Murmansk. Her floatplane long since gone, she was given a helicopter and pad in 1954 and spent the next decade assisting in breaking submarines in and out of Poliarni as well as escorting seal fishing expeditions out into the Arctic.

With new atomic icebreakers coming into Soviet service, the days of the old steam Yermak were numbered. On 23 May 1963, she was withdrawn from service and, when a bid to preserve her as a museum failed, she was ordered stripped. Her good British steel was stolen from her and everything of value slowly disappeared over a ten-year period.

What was left was burned 17 December 1975 in the bleak ship cemetery at nearby Gadzhiyevo. It is believed that part of her keel is still visible at the radioactive summer low tide in that rusty ship graveyard today.

Her monument in Murmansk

A monument stands to her in Murmansk that includes one of her anchors, while a number of stamps have been issued by the Soviets and Russians to honor her memory. She has also been commemorated in Soviet maritime art.

Icebreaker Yermak by noted Soviet maritime artist Eugene Voishvillo

Yermak at revel by Yuri Sorokin

A 20,000-ton icebreaker (made ironically in Finland) was commissioned in 1974 with her old name and continues service today.

In a twist of Baltic fate, Yermak’s lontime nemesis, the Finnish icebreaker Tarmo, retired in 1970, has been preserved in the Maritime Museum of Finland in Kotka since 1992. Her hull, also built by Armstrong, is still sound.

Tarmo via Wiki Via wiki

Specs:

Displacement 7875 tons as designed, 10,000 by 1941
Length 319 feet
Width 70.8 feet
Draft 24 feet
Engines steam engines, 10,000 hp as designed
Three shafts, VTE steam engines, 6 boilers. Bow shaft as designed (removed in 1935)
Speed: 15 knots when new. 10 by 1939
Cruising range 5000 miles on 2200 tons of coal (bunkerage for 3,000 if needed). Coal consumption was 100 tons per day while underway.
Crew 89 as designed with berths for 102, 166 in naval service, 250 in 1939
Armament: 1914-1921: 2-4 small mounts of unknown caliber
1939-42ish:
2x 102 mm/45 (4″) B-2 Pattern 1930 mounts
4x 76.2 mm/30 (3″) Pattern 1914/15 mounts
4×45 mm/46 (1.77″) 21-K anti-tank guns in navalized AAA mounts
4x quad Maxim machineguns on GAZ-4M-AA mounts

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!

Squadron Leader J.A.F. MacLachlan, the one-armed Commanding Officer of No 1 Squadron RAF, standing beside his all-black Hawker Hurricane Mark IIC night fighter, ‘JX-Q’, at Tangmere in West Sussex, England, November 1941. He had lost his arm just seven months before to a Bf 109 over Malta. (Source – Royal Air Force official photographer Woodbine G (Mr) © IWM CH 4015. Colorized by Paul Reynolds. Historic Military Photo Colourisations)

James Archibald Findlay MacLachlan DSO, DFC & Two Bars, “One-Armed Mac,” was credited with 13 victories over Axis planes. On 18 July 1943 the P-51 Mustang in which he was flying was hit by flak and crashed over France, cutting his life short at age 24.

No 1 Squadron RAF, founded in 1911, endures, currently flying Typhoons out of  RAF Lossiemouth.

Click to bigum

In 1939 France, a British machine-gun team. The gun, which appears to be a Vickers, is mounted on the front of a motorcycle side car. (Image via National Library of Scotland) Note the extremely over-engineered folding bipod installed around the water jacket for use dismounted. Further, dig the rider’s Webley revolver in an open-topped cross-draw holster

(Hattip Daily Mail) Flying over the green fields of England in World War Two camouflage, two fighter aircraft evoke the brave men who fought and died in the Battle of Britain. One of them, the Hurricane, was the mainstay of the RAF as it defended Britain from the might of the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940. The other is the ultra-modern Typhoon. The jet was painted with the 249 Squadron number of the only Fighter Command pilot awarded a Victoria Cross during the battle – Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson.

No. 249, founded in 1918 as a seaplane squadron that was shuttered the next year. It was reformed 16 May 1940 with Spitfires, then quickly switched out to Hurricanes with which they became legend in the Battle of Britain. Finishing the war in Mustangs, they later transitioned to Mosquitoes then Tempests and Vampires before flying Venoms out of Kenya before their final disbanding in 1969.

We covered the Canadian CF-18 Battle of Britain tribute plane here.

The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails into Norfolk, Va., as part of Norfolk Harborfest 2015. The Eagle is a 295-foot barque sailing vessel and the only operational commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. military.

She came into this world as a Gorch Fock-class barque, the Segelschulschiff (SSS) Horst Wessel commissioned 17 September 1936 at Blohm and Voss.

She has been in continuous service as Eagle under a much prettier flag since 15 May 1946.

4256 × 2832

2832 × 4256

4256 × 2832

(All are U.S. Coast Guard photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert)

One of the last remaining fighter aces from the “Greatest Generation” received the Congressional Gold Medal at age 91 Friday for his actions over Okinawa in World War II.

As a 21-year-old Marine lieutenant stationed on the recently captured Japanese island of Okinawa, Jeremiah “Jerry” Joseph O’Keefe started Easter Sunday, April 22, 1945, by volunteering to assist the Chaplin with the morning’s service. By the time the sun set that fateful day, the young aviator from Mississippi would come face to face with the enemy for the first time and shoot down five Japanese dive-bombers in a row to earn the title of ace.

There were only 118 Marine WWII fighter pilots. Further, of the 1,447 total U.S. aces since 1918, just 77 are still with us.

1st Lt. Jerry O’Keefe, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, late of VMF-323 (the Death Rattlers) received Congressional recognition Friday for his service in helping disrupt Japanese kamikazes. His military awards to include the Navy Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal are visible in the background. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

I was on hand Friday covering the ceremony for Guns.com and 1LT O’Keefe was very gracious.

You may not known this about me, but I’m named after a film icon.

Yup, I am Christopher Lee Eger, after the Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ. You know? Count Dooku, Saruman, The Man with the Golden Gun. My mother was a huge fan of 1970s Hammer films.

He was also a real-life legend.

Well before all that he volunteered for the Finns in the 1939 Winter War, then served in the RAF in World War II doing intelligence work.

Years later he said of this, “I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let’s just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that.”

Sadly, the world’s most renowned man card holder is no longer with us. He died yesterday at 93 and I truly don’t think anyone could ever fill his shoes.

I will leave you with this sobering interview of him recalling his WWII service in an interview in Italy in 2009

The world is somehow not as bright today.

click to big up

A crewman finds the only shade there is on the airstrip on Green Island (now Nissan Island), Northern Solomons, beneath an F4U-1D Corsair fighter, No.974 of Marine Squadron 222, 1943-44. Source United States National Archives via the Bobby Rocker Collection via Library of Congress.

VMF-222, “The Flying Deuces,” was stood up at Midway in March 1942 and stormed ashore at Nissan in 1944.

Nissan is in the Green Islands of Papua New Guinea, exactly midway between Rabaul and Bougainville. The place had just been secured a month before by Kiwi’s of the 3rd New Zealand Infantry and at the time a young Richard Millhouse Nixon was a Navy supply officer at the base.

It was a home to no less than 9 RNZAF Corsair squadrons, several Navy Black Cat units, a PT-boat flotilla (Higgins and Elco boats with nicknames like Bed Bug, Dracula, and Knight Rider), and others. However as the war wound down it was swiftly abandoned to the jungle– although some Japanese soldiers remained in the mountains around the base into the 1970s.

As for VMF-222, they only flew Corsairs and were deactivated at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina on December 31, 1949.

We’ve covered the Nelson-class battleship HMS Rodney (pennant number 29) in past Warship Wednesdays, and she is a remarkable design. Well armed and armored but slow (just 23 knots) as a result of compromises put into effect after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaties.

Well, as an update, here are a series of images from the Imperial War Museum taken by Lt. R.G.G. Coote, Royal Navy while in Scotland in the fall of 1940. Enjoy, and as always, click to big up

Her impressive 16 inchers

Sailors aboard HMS Rodney receiving a 16-inch shell from an ammunition ship, 1940

Sailor at his hammock aboard HMS Rodney, 1940. Looks comfy, yes?

Sailors conducting bayonet drill aboard HMS Rodney, circa 1940. Dig the SMLEs

Sailors conducting bayonet drill aboard HMS Rodney, circa 1940

View of the forward section of HMS Rodney, 1940

QF 2-pdr Mk VIII anti-aircraft gun mount and crew aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940

Sailors cleaning one of the 16-inch guns aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940

View of the torpedo room aboard HMS Rodney, Sep 1940

View of the sick bay aboard HMS Rodney, Oct 1940

HMS Rodney on the Firth of Forth at sunset,

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 June 17, 2015: Big Paul

USS Saint Paul off Yokosuka, Japan, 21 May 1966. Click to big up

Here we see the Baltimore-class cruiser, USS Saint Paul (CA-73) coming at you bow-on. She was a hard charger who never stopped in 26 years at sea.

When the early shitstorm of 1939 World War II broke out, the U.S. Navy, realized that in the likely coming involvement with Germany in said war– and that country’s huge new 18,000-ton, 8x8inch gunned, 4.1-inches of armor Hipper-class super cruisers– it was outclassed in the big assed heavy cruiser department.

When you add to the fire the fact that the Japanese had left all of the Washington and London Naval treaties behind and were building giant Mogami-class vessels (15,000-tons, 8x8inch guns, 3.9-inches of armor), the writing was on the wall.

That’s where the Baltimore-class came in.

These 24 envisioned ships of the class looked like an Iowa-class battleship in miniature with three triple turrets, twin stacks, a high central bridge, and two masts– and they were (almost) as powerful. Sheathed in a hefty 6 inches of armor belt (and 3-inches of deck armor), they could take a beating if they had to. They were fast, capable of over 30-knots, which meant they could keep pace with the fast new battlewagons they looked so much like as well as the new fleet carriers that were on the drawing board as well.

While they were more heavily armored than Hipper and Mogami, they also had an extra 8-inch tube, mounting 9 8 inch/55 caliber guns whereas the German and Japanese only had eight. A larger suite of AAA guns that included a dozen 5 inch /38 caliber guns in twin mounts and 70+ 40mm and 20mm guns rounded this out.

In short, these ships were deadly to incoming aircraft, could close to the shore as long as there was at least 27-feet of seawater for them to float in and hammer coastal beaches and emplacements for amphibious landings, and take out any enemy surface combatant short of a modern battleship in a one-on-one fight.

Class leader Baltimore was laid down 26 May 1941, just six months before Pearl Harbor and was commissioned 15 April 1943.

Saint Paul, the 6th ship of the class, was laid down at Bethlehem Steel Company at Quincy, Mass on 3 February 1943.

USS Saint Paul (CA-73), a Baltimore-class cruiser note vertrep markings. She swapped her seaplanes for choppers in 1949

As such, Paul, just the 2nd U.S. Naval ship named for the Minnesota city, was completed late in the war, only being commissioned 17 February 1945.

Whereas the original ships of the class mounted Mk 12 8-inch guns, Saint Paul was completed with the more advanced Mk 15 guns in three 300-ton triple turrets. These long barreled 203mm guns could fire a new, “super-heavy” 335-pound shell out to 30,000 yards and penetrate 10-inches of armor at close ranges. It should be noted that the older cruisers used a 260-pound AP shell.

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions off Vietnam, Oct 1966

After shakedown, she was off the coast of Japan in July, getting in the last salvos fired by a major warship on a land target in the war when she plastered the steel works in Kamaishi from just offshore, putting those big new 8-inchers to good use.

Watercolor “U.S.S. ST. PAUL – Let Go Port Anchor” by Arthur Beaumont, 1946

Then at the end of the war, a funny thing happened: the five almost new Baltimores that came before Saint Paul were decommissioned and laid up in reserve, whereas CA-73 remained on post. Further, many of the follow-on ships that were to come after her were never ordered, and some of these never completed. In all just 14 Baltimore-class cruisers were built, with Saint Paul arguably seeing the most continuous service.

In Korea, Saint Paul saw hard use and made her 8-inchers a regular hitter, completing her first naval gun fire support on Nov. 19, 1950. It would be far from her last.

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 20 Apr 1951

USS Saint Paul bombarding communist positions near Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, Korea, 26 Jul 1953

HO3S-1 helicopter landing on USS Saint Paul off Wonsan, Kangwon Province, Korea, 17 Apr 1951. Her guns look sad…but are probably just depressed for cleaning as they had lots of chances to get dirty at the time.

Heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA-73) lights up the night while firing her 8 inch guns off the coast of Hungnam, North Korea 1950

Hungnam, Songjin, Inchon, Wonsan, Chongjin, Kosong, et. al. She racked up a steady total of hits on shore targets and picked up some Chinese lead in exchange from shore batteries. In all, Saint Paul earned eight Battle stars for her Korean War service, the hard way.

Much like she fired the last shots into Japan, she also completed the last naval gun mission into Korea, at a Chinese emplacement at on 27 July 1953 at 2159– one minute before the truce took effect.

USS SAINT PAUL (CA-73) near Wonsan, Korea just before signing of truce at Panmunjon. A 5″ shell is fired from ship against the Communist shore batteries. This round is believed to have been the last fired on enemy positions by UN Naval units before the armistice.
NARA FILE #: 80-G-625878

Still, as after WWII, while most of her sisters took up space on red lead row, she remained in service. Tragically, in 1962, 30 of her crewmen were killed in a turret explosion in peacetime drills.

After about 1963, when the Iowas were laid up, her guns and those of the few cruisers still left on active duty were the largest ones available to the fleet. This led to her spending most of her service as either a squadron or fleet flag.

This gave her a chance in 1964 to fill in as the battered cruiser “Old Swayback” in the iconic Otto Preminger/John Wayne film In Harm’s Way

The Duke on St.Paul aka Old Swayback

By 1966, she earned a regular spot on the gun line off Vietnam, where she spent most of the next four years, earning another 9 Battlestars for an impressive total of 18 (1 WWII, 8 Korea, 9 RVN).

USS Saint Paul bombarding the Cong Phy railroad yard 25 miles south of Thanu Hoa, Vietnam, 4 Aug 1967; note splashes from coastal gun batteries

Big up. More Vietnam work

St. Paul in Da Nang

USS Saint Paul (CA-73) approaching USS Boston (CAG-1) off the coast of Vietnam, September 1968. Courtesy of John Jazdzewski.

In the late 60s, as part of Project Gunfighter at Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station, Saint Paul picked up an experimental shell to use in her 8-inchers, a saboted 104mm Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) round that had an estimated range of 72,000 yards.

In 1970, Big Paul, using LRBA, made some of the longest gunfire missions in history when she fired on Viet Cong targets some 35 miles away, destroying six structures. At the time, she was the last big-gun heavy cruiser in the United States Navy.

Video of her firing after the intro…

Then, on 30 April 1971, for the first time since 1945, Saint Paul was taken out of commission after three Pacific wars. Only sisterships Chicago and Columbus, who had long before traded in their 8-inchers for Tartar and Talos missiles, lasted longer.

In the end, Saint Paul was stricken from the Naval List on 31 July 1978, and scrapped in 1980.

She was remembered in the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (SSN-708), the twenty-first Los Angeles-class submarine, in commission from 1984 to 2008.

The USS Saint Paul Association keeps her memory alive.

Her 1,000-pound brass bell is located in St. Paul’s city hall, where the city seems to take good care of it.

Specs:

Displacement: 14,500 long tons (14,733 t) standard
17,000 long tons (17,273 t) full load
Length: 673 ft. 5 in (205.26 m)
Beam: 70 ft. 10 in (21.59 m)
Height: 112 ft. 10 in (34.39 m) (mast)
Draft: 26 ft. 10 in (8.18 m)
Propulsion: Geared steam turbines with four screws
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement: 61 officers and 1,085 sailors
Armament: 9 × 8 inch/55 caliber guns (3 × 3)
12 × 5 inch/38 caliber guns (6 × 2)
48 × 40 mm Bofors guns
24 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
Armor: Belt Armor: 6 in (150 mm)
Deck: 3 in (76 mm)
Turrets: 3–6 inches (76–152 mm)
Conning Tower: 8 in (200 mm)
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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US Marine Corps Vought O2U-2 Corsair aircraft preparing to land on Saratoga, circa 1930
Source United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Identification Code NH 94899

The USS Saratoga (CV-3) was a beautiful ship converted from a battlecruiser that was never allowed to be built. She and her sistership, Lexington, were largely responsible for training the pre-WWII U.S. Navy in how to use a fleet carrier. As a result, she had a few interesting people cycle through her decks.

Here are a couple

Charles Lindbergh in the cockpit of a F3B-1 carrier aircraft aboard USS Saratoga, 8 Feb 1929

Ever heard of the Thatch Weave? Lt. John Thach’s Wildcat taking off from Saratoga, Oct 1941 Source United States National Archives Identification Code 80-PR-1154

And here’s a bonus shot of her all dolled up for the war.

Saratoga underway at sea, circa 1942, with 5 Grumman F4F fighters, 6 Douglas SBD scout bombers, and 1 Grumman TBF torpedo bomber

SOC Seagull aircraft just launched from USS Augusta’s catapult, Casco Bay, Maine, United States, Jun 1942. Note the two bombs carried underwing.

In 1933, with aircraft carriers few and far between, helicopters nonexistent and radar in its infancy, if a surface ship wanted to see over the horizon this meant a seaplane. And the go-to for the U.S. Navy at the time was the Curtiss SOC (scout/observation SO aircraft produced by Curtis-Wright C) Seagull.

This overgrown bumblebee could putter around at about 130 mph and stay aloft for about four hours or so. If needed, the big Pratt & Whitney R-1340 single-row 600 hp engine could be leaned down to give a one-way range of almost 900 miles to deliver mail and dispatches ashore or to other ships far over the horizon.

Armament? Yeah, about that– just one Browning M2 AN machine gun forward and another aft, each with 500 rounds ready. Don’t confuse these guns with the M2 .50 cal, as they were a .30.06-cal air-cooled gun which had a much higher rate of fire (1100 rpm) but much smaller bullet that had about half the range. Besides this, the little scout could carry about 500 pounds of bombs or depth charges.

Some 315 Gulls were made in four marks by 1938 for the sea services and were used both from seaplane tenders, shore stations and cruisers/battleships.

SOC-3A Seagull floatplane of US Navy Scouting Squadron 201 (VS-201) parked on the deck of escort carrier USS Long Island, 16 Dec 1941. Note the float has been replaced by landing gear and a 325 pound aircraft Mk 17 depth charge is fitted center line.

Long Island #2

It was the latter that the Gull excelled, as since they could be “knocked down” to as small as 12-feet wide, a large cruiser or battlewagon could carry 8 of these seaplanes if needed (4 on the deck/catapults, 4 in the stowage).

SOC-3 Seagull aircraft stripped for maintenance in the hangar of light cruiser USS Savannah, 1938; note the close up of the Pratt and Whitney R-1340 9-cylinder radial engine and caster tracks to roll the planes out of the hangar on its truck and on deck for launch NH 85630

Liberty party from battleship California prepared to go ashore, 1940; note at least three SOC-3 floatplanes on cats

USS Nevada at anchor at Lahaina Roads, Territory of Hawaii, pre-war. Note 3 SOC Seagulls

While the battleships soon had their Gulls replaced by monoplane Kingfishers, the simple Curtiss biplanes remained in service on cruisers as late as 1944 where they were used to scout, rescue downed pilots and lost seamen and adjust naval gunfire.

SOC-3 scout-observation floatplanes off cruiser USS Honolulu flying in formation, circa 1938-1939, note the prewar scheme. United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 82466

USS Memphis’ Curtiss SOC Seagull scout-observation aircraft hooked onto the recovery mat, in preparation for being hoisted on board, circa early 1942

SOC-3 Seagull aircraft from cruiser USS Portland flying in a formation of four, circa 1944, note the wartime scheme United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 81995

US Navy Aviation Machinist’s Mate polishing the 9-foot propeller of a SOC Seagull floatplane at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, United States, circa 1940-41. Photographer Dayton A. Seiler, United States National Archives 80-G-K-13541

Retired in 1946, the Seagull was perhaps the last biplane in front line regular U.S. military service.

During WWII, the Coast Guard bloomed from under 20,000 to more than a quarter million at its height in June 1944. At that time, the service contained 9,874 commissioned officers, 3,291 warrant officers and 164,560 enlisted personnel, augmented by another 125,000 Temporary Members of the Coast Guard Reserve who were conducting beach and harbor patrols back in the U.S. which in turn were augmented further by nearly 70,000 volunteers of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Coast Guard crew dressed to keep warm while on patrol aboard aboard a USCG schooner in 1943 while on coastal patrol in the U.S.

Dog Beach Patrol’, (possibly on Parramore Beach, Virginia, US. October 1943). (Source – United States Coast Guard – Photo No.726. Colorized by Royston Leonard from the UK)

With so many men and (over 13,000 women) under arms and in uniform, what was the service doing in 1944?

Well, a little known fact is that a tremendous number of small naval surface combatants on the Naval List were manned entirely by USCG/USCGR crews to include a number of patrol craft and submarine chasers (PC/SC) and at least 75 303-foot/1,300-ton Tacoma-class patrol frigates (PF) while a legion of the Coast Guard’s own cutters also served the same duty in ASW and amphibious warfare support.

Coast Guard cutter USS Spencer on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, March 1943

Speaking of the ‘phibs, when FDR gave away 10 250-foot Lake-class cutters to the Brits as Lend Lease in 1940, this left over 3,000 Coasties without a ship– and the Navy promptly took them to man 53 cargo ships and attack transports (APs & APAs)– armed freighters stuffed with bunks for troops.

As the war expanded, the Navy, acknowledging the Coasties’ knowledge of working in the shallows and surfline, soon tasked them with other assignments closer to enemy beaches. As such many of the landing craft taking troops ashore from Guadalcanal to Normandy and Iwo Jima, were manned by Coastguardsmen.

Marines crouched in a Coast Guard-manned LCVP on the way in on the first wave to hit the beach at Iwo Jima, 19 Feb 1945

US Coast Guard LCVP landing craft carried invasion troops toward Luzon in Lingayen Gulf, 9 Jan 1945

United States Coast Guard-manned LST beaching at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Bismarck Islands, Dec 1943

Famous picture of an LCVP from the USCG-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarking troops of the 29th Infantry Division at Omaha Beach June 6, 1944. Clic to big up

USCG-six US Coast Guard patrol boat near the coasts of Normandy, D-day 1944. Dig the M1 steel pots…

US Coast Guardsmen assisting a wounded Marine into an LCVP after the Marine’s LVT sustained a direct hit while heading to the landing beaches on Iwo Jima, Feb 18, 1945.

LCI landing craft in the wake of a USCG-manned LST en route to Cape Sansapor, New Guinea, mid-1944

U.S. Navy/USCG invasion fleet off Iwo Jima, with LVTs and LCIs maneuvering near the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43). 1945

By the end of the war, the service manned at least 77 LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), 28 LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry, Large) and an amazing 288 vessels for the Army Transportation Corps that consisted of AMRS (Army Marine Repair Ship), TY (tankers), LT (large tugs), FS (freight and supply vessels), and F (Freight vessels) that shuttled around and carried the logistics of war that are so often overlooked.

83 foot patrol boat CG-624, later renamed CG-14 as part of Rescue Flotilla One, Normandy

On Normandy Beach during D-Day, a fleet of 60 USCG 83-foot patrol boats, dubbed Rescue Flotilla One, pulled over 400 soldiers from the water on June 6th alone. This “Matchbox Fleet” lost four of their own vessels that day to submerged German mines and coastal artillery. Four LCI(L)’s manned by the USCG were also lost at Normandy.

USCGC Alexander Hamilton (WPG-34) remains 28 miles off the coast of Iceland where she was sunk by German Type VIIC submarine U-132, just seven weeks into the war.

In all some 37 USCG vessels or USCG-manned Naval vessels were lost during the war including the Treasury-class cutter Alexander Hamilton who was torpedoed 29 January 1942 by a U-boat in the North Atlantic.

The highest cost in terms of lives came when the 14,000-ton USS Serpens (AK-97) a USCG-manned Crater-class cargo ship was destroyed by explosion, 29 January 1945 off Laguna Beach in the Solomons.

She was packed full of depth charges and artillery shells.

An eyewitness to the disaster stated:

As we headed our personnel boat shoreward the sound and concussion of the explosion suddenly reached us, and, as we turned, we witnessed the awe-inspiring death drams unfold before us.  As the report of screeching shells filled the air and the flash of tracers continued, the water splashed throughout the harbor as the shells hit.  We headed our boat in the direction of the smoke and as we came into closer view of what had once been a ship, the water was filled only with floating debris, dead fish, torn life jackets, lumber and other unidentifiable objects.  The smell of death, and fire, and gasoline, and oil was evident and nauseating.  This was sudden death, and horror, unwanted and unasked for, but complete.”

In all, Serpens lost 198 members of her crew and 57 members of an Army stevedore unit that were on board the ship in an explosion whose cause has never been determined but remains the largest single disaster ever suffered by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard lost a total of 1,917 persons during the war with 574 losing their life in action, died of wounds received in action, or perishing as a Prisoner of War. Almost 2,000 Coast Guardsmen were decorated, one receiving the Medal of Honor (the only one issued to the Coast Guard), six the Navy Cross, and one the Distinguished Service Cross.

The MOH went to SM1c Douglas A. Munro, USCG, who, appropriately enough, was killed trying to rescue men off the beach as officer-in-charge of a group of landing craft at Point Cruz on September 27, 1942, during the Matanikau action in the Guadalcanal campaign.

Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal by Bernard D’Andrea. Click to big up. Note the Lewis guns

Munro’s Citation:

“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.”

A display containing Petty Officer First Class Douglas Munro’s Medal of Honor and accompanying citation hangs in Munro Hall at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, N.J., (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Warrant Officer John Edwards)

For more on the USCG in WWII, click and download here and here.

The industrious hard-working people of Switzerland are known for cuckoo clocks, great chocolates, bank accounts on the low low, and high-end watches. What they are also known for are precisely engineered firearms constructed with close tolerances, old world practices, and elegant lines. One of the best of these was the K.31 rifle, which is available in quantities here in the U.S.

Why the K31?

Even though they are a small country, with a population the size of the state of New Jersey, the Swiss put a well-trained 500,000-man army in the field to stay free and independent during WWII. While some older reservists showed up for duty with the guns they served with…

(For instance– this hardy vet is seen in 1940 using a Infanteriegewehr 89/96 rifle, which was easily a few decades old when this image was taken)

…By and large most of the men in uniform and under 30 during that conflict carried the Karabiner Model 1931 (K31). These guns, designed in the early 1930s to replace the dated Karabiner 11 (K.11) that served the Swiss Army in their strict armed neutrality during World War I, were the bee’s knees when designed.

The K.31 in detail

This breech-loading military rifle used an interesting straight-pull bolt action over a 6-shot detachable magazine. The same general action was used on the earlier K.11 and, as some 185,000 of those guns were still in service in 1931, it was decided that the improved K.31 use the same 7.5×55 (GP11) cartridge. It was, however, an overall upgrade as the action was simpler, the rifle easier to mass produce, and in the end was more of a brush -gun when compared to its WWI-era predecessor.

Author’s 1940-made K.31 purchased in 2006 as surplus for $99 +S&H. Note the Swiss Army crest and abbreviated straight-pull bolt handle.

Equipped with a heavy wood stock and a milled action, the rifle tipped the scales at a hefty 8.9-pounds unloaded, which put it on par with the German Mauser, British Enfield, and Russian Mosin and about a pound lighter than the older K.11. Nevertheless, barrel length, at just under 24-inches, made the K.31 a tad more compact when compared to many of its rivals with its overall length of just 43.5-inches. For reference, the Enfield is an inch longer, the Karabiner 98 Kurz a half-inch, and the K.31 almost a half-foot shorter than the Soviet M91/30.

The K.31 in marching order circa 1939. Note these rigs are still used in waffenlauf races today.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Hiram Maxim’s machine gun was the standard that all others were stacked up to in the late 19th and early 20th Century. They were adopted in Germany (Spandau and DWM Maschinengewehr), Russia (Pulemyot-Maxima PM1910), Britain (Vickers) the U.S. (Model of 1904) and others, remaining in use through WWII.

One gun that saw even more use is the Chinese Type 24, which in itself is a direct copy of Maxim’s Commercial 1909 model.

The Type 24 was perhaps the favorite Chinese heavy machine gun (not in caliber, its just heavy!) throughout WWII and the Korean conflict. It was then given away as military aid extensively and appeared throughout Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s and Africa in the 80s, 90s and even today.

Here’s one up close from the guys at AZ Guns and its really neat-o