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Cold Ranger, squishy date
Some 80 years ago. Maybe. “Crewmembers aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) clean snow off of the aircraft during operations in the North Atlantic on 29 June 1943.” Note the snow-dusted TBF...
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Going heavy, Landing Party style
With the mention of HMS Duke of York yesterday in the post about USS Ranger, these images of the Royal Marine detachment in June 1943 came to mind. A most excellent photo essay in the IWM Collection...
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July 4th, 1943: Just a Day on the Beach
80 years ago today. New Georgia Operation, 1943. (Codename: Operation Toenails). “Marines unloading LCIs on a Rendova Island beach, July 4, 1943. They are unloading in a hurry after a bomb struck...
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Warship Wednesday, June 28, 2023: A 22,000-Yard Fish and a One-Man Army
Here at LSOZI, we take off every for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which...
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Incident #3658
80 Years ago today: Attack on the Type VIIC German submarine, U-134 (Kptlt. Hans-Günther Brosin), by a PBM Mariner of the “Flying Tigers” of VP-201, lat 27-04W, Long 59-48W, the pilot was LT John T....
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Gavin’s D-Day jacket
Below is the M1942 Paratrooper jacket that Brig. Gen. James Maurice “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin (USMA 1925) wore on the drop by the 82nd Airborne into Normandy, courtesy of the West Point Museum. Of note, 80...
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Happy 80th, 10th Mountain
Constituted on 10 July 1943, the 10th Mountain Division (Alpine) (often just called “the 10th”) was conceived as a light infantry division able to maneuver against Axis forces in Europe’s frigid...
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Army Officially out of the Chemical Weapons Biz After 106 years
The U.S. Army’s final Sarin (GB) nerve agent-filled M55 chemical rocket was destroyed on July 7 at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky. It was the last crumb of the more than 30,000 tons of chemical...
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Husky at 80
“Invasion Craft—Sicily,” by U.S. Navy war artist Mitchell Jamieson. Painting, Oil on Canvas; 1943; Framed Dimensions 44H X 35W. NHHC Accession #: 88-193-GA “Grim, stark reality and the enemy lie ahead...
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Third Times’ the Charm in Torpedo Fishing
The 137-foot Danish trawler St. Anthony (L 510), while operating from her home in the small fishing village of Thyboron in Jutland– it is home to the Sea War Museum Jutland– last week pulled up...
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Ommaney Bay found
The Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract as M.C. Hull 1116 on 6 October 1943 at Kaiser’s Vancouver yard, launched on 29 December...
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Old School and the New Class
80 Years Ago Today, 14 July 1943, while steaming from San Diego to Norfolk: The mighty dreadnought USS Nevada (Battleship No. 36), seen after her extensive repairs due to the pummeling she took at...
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Somewhere under a camo net in the Bay area…
80 years ago, July 1943: Riveter at work on an aircraft, possibly a PB2Y-3 Coronado patrol bomber hull, at Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) Aircraft Plant, San Diego, California. Original color photo by...
View ArticleMoving a battleship turret for the first time since 1992
The Iowa class battleships’ three dozen installed 16-inch 50 caliber Mk 7 guns, the largest, most destructive naval gun ever mounted on an American warship, have been quiet sentinels in pierside...
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Warship Wednesday, July 19, 2023: Red Sub Circumnavigator
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Poppy Field Dambuster Actual
80 years ago today: Original period Kodachrome of Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson, VC, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, commander of No. 617 Squadron (now known as the “Dambusters”) at Scampton,...
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Off to play among the stars…
Always been a fan of the great Mr. Tony Bennett. I saw him years ago in New Orleans and it was a thorough treat. With his passing, it should be pointed out that Anthony Dominick Benedetto, son of...
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Warship Wednesday, July 26, 2023: The Iron Woman
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Hold your horses
In 1919, the peacetime British Army was authorized to retain three regiments of household guards cavalry and 28 regiments of line Dragoons, Hussars, and Lancers– all horse-mounted, including three...
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Beware Japanese destroyer bows if you are in a plywood boat…
I’m on the road this week and don’t have time to do a proper Warship Wednesday but I would be remiss if I missed the 80th anniversary of the loss of an Elco-built 80-foot motor torpedo boat, lost when...
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