And here is a bonus in honor of all those who wore green to work today…
Ireland never really had that much of a firearms industry, but when you mention the AR18 across the pond, you should know that it was (almost) the most iconic rifle of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland during the last part of the 20th century
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 March 18, 2015 Her Majesty’s Final Cruiser
Here we see the Minotaur-class cruiser, Her Majesty’s Ship Blake, pennant C99, of the Royal Navy as she appeared after her refit to accommodate both a fleet flag suite and a quartet of helicopters.
When the Royal Navy entered World War II, they did so with a number of modern light cruisers to include 10 11,000-ton Town-class and had another 11 improved Crown Colony-class vessels on the builder’s ways.
However, within the first couple years of the war, the fleet lost a number of these ships to include HMS Fiji and HMS Gloucester (both sunk in air attack at Crete, 22 May 1941) HMS Trinidad (scuttled following air attack off North Cape, 15 May 1942), HMS Southampton (scuttled following air attack off Malta, 11 January 1941), HMS Manchester (scuttled following torpedo attack off Cap Bon, 13 August 1942) and HMS Edinburgh (scuttled following torpedo attack, 2 May 1942).
With the RN down a quarter of their new cruisers and a long war expected, the call went out in another nine emergency ships to be funded as part of the Additional Naval Programme also known as the “something keeps happening to all of our bloody cruisers” program.
These new ships would be the Minotaur-class light cruiser.
Fundamentally an improvement of the Crown Colony-class design that was already being built, these 11,130-ton ships could make 31.5-knots which didn’t make them the fastest cruisers in the world, but the fact that they could steam at an economical 16-knots (the going rate for convoys) for 8,000 nautical miles on a single fill up made it clear they were intended for distant travels.
Two triple 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIII mounts as seen on HMS Belfast. The Minotaur class repeated these and carried a third mount aft for a total of 9 tubes.Via Navweaps
Armed with 9 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIII guns in 3 triple turrets, they had the same big tubes as the rest of the Commonwealth light cruiser fleet. These guns could fire a 112-pound shell to a maximum of 25,480 yards and the Minotaur-class was set up to carry as many as 1800 shells in their magazines at a rate of 6 round per minute per tube.
The thing is, by 1943, the Royal Navy was concentrating more on destroyers, and small escorts, which meant the new Minotaur‘s were put on the back burner.
Only one, HMS Swiftsure was completed during the war and even this ship just became operational in late 1944 (rushed to the Pacific she was flagship of the British Pacific Cruiser Squadron, and was selected by Admiral Cecil Harcourt to hoist his flag for the Japanese surrender.) Class leader Minotaur was transferred before she was complete to Canada who commissioned her as HMCS Ontario almost a month after Hitler ate a bullet (or went to Argentina whichever you believe). A third ship, HMS Superb,was commissioned after the war.
That left six incomplete hulls at the end of WWII, lingering.
Three of these, Mars, Hawke, and Bellerophon were cancelled, their steel broken back up and recycled.
Three floating hulls that had made it far enough to be launched, Tiger, Lion, and Blake, were left hanging out while the Admiralty decided what to do with them.
Which brings us to the hero of our story.
Laid down 17 August 1942 at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd, Govan, Glasgow, Scotland, Blake was launched 20 December 1945– some three months after the end of World War II and work was suspended. Named after Admiral Robert Blake (1598-1657), considered the founder of what became the modern Royal Navy, of whom even Nelson wrote, “I do not reckon myself equal to Blake” she was the fifth (and last as of 2015) RN warship to bear his name.
This guy
Finally, after nine years of languishing, it was decided to complete the three floating but yet unfinished Minotaurs, Blake included, to a modified design due in large part to the perceived threat of the new Soviet Sverdlov-class cruisers.
This modification amounted to scrapping the entire armament scheme to include 6 and 5 inch guns, AAA pieces and surface torpedo tubes, in exchange for a trio of twin 3″ guns QF Mark N1 DP guns and a pair of twin 6″/50 (15.2 cm) QF Mark N5 mounts.
A good view of the twin 152mm QF Mark N5 mount forward and the twin 3″QF Mark N1 DP guns in the No.2 mount. This same gun scheme was repeated aft and was the primary and secondary teeth of the Tiger, Blake and Lion as commissioned. Via Navweaps.
The latter, only mounted in these three post-WWII British light cruisers, were the first to use complete cartridges rather than bagged powder under a shell. As noted by Navweaps, “Controlled by the Gun Direction System (GDS1) using the Type 992 radar. This system enabled the ships to engage multiple targets within a few seconds of each other and was technically very advanced for its time.”
Out of the six turrets used afloat, three used RP15 hydraulic control and three used RP53 electric control. It is believed that HMS Tiger had all hydraulic control; HMS Blake had all electric control while HMS Lion had one of each. They could fire a 133-pound shell 20 rounds per minute per tube to about 25,000 yards.
As such, the four tubes on Blake and her two full sisters could dish out 80 shells in a frantic minute while their original 9-gun Minotaur half-sisters could only fire 54.
Science!
With the three “new” cruisers entering the fleet, the RN took their half-sister baggers Swiftsure and Superb out of service and both were scrap by 1962. The Canadians followed suit with Ontario/Minotaur.
Finally commissioned 18 March 1961, HMS Blake took to the sea.
HMS Lion in Malta early 1960s. Tiger and Blake shared the same outline at the same time. Bigup and note the arrangement of the twin 3″ DP guns to the stern.
After just two years she was withdrawn and converted once more in 1965 to become one of the first modern helicopter cruisers.
While she retained her forward mounts, those aft were replaced by a hangar enormous enough to fit a quartet of Wessex (later Sea King) helicopters inside. Additionally she was given room, space and commo equipment to serve as a fleet flagship.
Stern view of Tiger, showing the same conversion that Blake endured
Further, she was given realistic anti-air protection in the form of a pair of quad GWS.21 Sea Cat missile launchers. Short-legged surface to air missiles with a range of about 5km, Sea Cat was effective enough to earn at least one confirmed kill in the Falklands.
Blake shown with a Wessex helicopter landing
Rejoining the active list in 1969, she was perhaps one of the only cruisers to have a Harrier jump jet land upon her.
Her sister Tiger was similarly converted while the Lion was cannibalized for future spare parts.
Then there were two…
Good overhead view of Blake
Blake 1979. Note the Seacat launcher amidships.
Blake endured through the 70s as something of a love boat design: big and expensive to operate and only trotted out for special occasions. She had happy if mechanically troublesome cruises in the Med, Indian, and Pacific before a 1980 refit saw her placed in mothballs, the Invincible-class “harrier cruisers” built to replace Tiger and Blake.
Blake in layup. Via Flickr
When the Argentinians moved into the Falklands/Malvinas in 1982, both Blake and Tiger were pulled out of storage and readied for use in the South Atlantic. As the Royal Marines and Paras only brought 105mm light guns with them, it was thought that the rapid fire 152mm models of Tiger and Blake may help in naval gun fire support while the extensive helicopter facilities allowed them to be lillypads for thirsty harriers and choppers.
However, the war soon proved faster than the old cruiser’s reactivation and, following the conflict, both Blake and Tiger were sold for scrap.
In all Blake spent just 15 years of her 40-year life in active fleet service and, though technically part of the RN during WWII, Korea, and the Falklands, never fired a shot in anger.
Blake was the last cruiser in the Royal Navy and, when she ran her battery before entering refit in 1979, fired the last “big gun” salvo in Britannia’s history.
HMS Blake by Ivan Berryman. “The newly converted Command Helicopter Cruiser HMS Blake leaves Grand Harbour Malta at the end of the 1960s. In the background, the old Submarine Depot ship HMS Forth lies at anchor at the very end of her long career.” Via Cranston.
The bell of the last HMS Blake, scrapped in 1982, is on display in Saint Mary’s Church, Bridgewater while numerous statutes and plaques exist for her namesake.
HMS Belfast, a Crown Colony-class cruiser preserved as a museum ship in London, is the closest living survivor to the “Shakey Blakey.”
Specs
Minotaur design
HMS Jamaica, 1945. This Crown Colony class cruiser was essentially the same scheme that the Minotaurs were designed to. Via shipbucket.
Displacement: 8,800 tons standard 11,130 tons full
Length: 555.5 ft. (169.3 m)
Beam: 63 ft. (19 m) (Superb: 64 ft.)
Draught: 17.25 ft. (5.26 m)
Installed power: 72,500 shp (54.1 MW)
Propulsion: Four Admiralty-type three drum boilers
Four shaft Parsons steam turbines
Speed: 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h)
Range: 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) at 30 knots (60 km/h)
8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h); 1,850 tons fuel oil
Complement: 867
Armament:
3 × triple BL 6 inch Mk XXIII guns
5 × dual 4-inch / 45 QF Mk 16 HA
4 × quad QF 2 pdr
6 × single 40 mm AA
2 × triple 21-inch (530 mm) Torpedo Tubes.
Armour:
3.25 to 3.5-inch (89 mm) belt
2 inch deck
1 to 2-inch (51 mm) turrets
1.5 to 2-inch (51 mm) bulkheads
Blake as built
Blake, 1961. Note the different armament scheme than the original as above. Photo via shipbucket
Displacement: 11,700 tons (12,080 tons after helicopter conversion)
Length: 555.5 ft. (169 m)
Beam: 64 ft. (19.5 m)
Draught: 23 ft. (7.0 m)
Installed power: 80,000 shp (60 MW)
Propulsion: Four Admiralty-type three drum boilers
Four shaft Parsons steam turbines
Speed: 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h)
Range: 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h)
Complement: 716 (885 after conversion)
Armament: As built:
2 × twin 6 in guns QF Mark N5 with RP53 (electric) control
3 × twin 3 in guns QF Mark N1
Armour:
Belt 3.5 in – 3.25 in
Bulkheads 2 in – 1.5 in
Turrets 2 in – 1 in
Crowns of engine room and magazines 2 inches.
As helicopter cruiser
Note radically different aft profile. Photo via shipbucket
1 × twin 6 in guns QF Mark N5 with RP53 (electric) RPC
1 × twin 3 in guns QF Mark N1
2 × quad GWS.21 Sea Cat missile launchers
Aircraft carried 4 × helicopters (originally Wessex then Sea King)
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Here we see a recent exercise shot of the Dutch Caribbean Coastguard, a force formed of three 140 -foot Damen Stan Patrol 4100s Coast Guard cutters, the Jaguar, the Panther and Puma, (two of the dark patrol boats) stationed at Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
The funny little craft bringing up the rear is the 215-foot HNLMS Pelikaan (A804), a logistics ship stationed in the islands for support who usually arrives as the party with a platoon of Royal Dutch Marines in tow.
The large white ships are two Holland-class offshore patrol vessels of the Royal Netherlands Navy, HNLMS Groningen (P843) foreground and HNLMS Zeeland (P841) background, rotate out as the West Indies Guardship to provide over the horizon muscle. What you are seeing above is likely a turnover of that mission.
The diesel-powered 3750-ton Holland-class are a really neat design that uses a 355-foot hull and a 54-man crew (with space for an additional 40) to produce a light frigate that is capable of 21 day/5,000nm patrols. They have a mini-AEGIS style phased array radar, hangar and deck for a medium helicopter, 76mm popgun and a number of small mounts all for about $150 million per ship.
I wonder if the Coast Guard has finalized their Offshore Patrol Cutter plans in which they wanted 25 or so vessels which will notionally be 360 feet long, powered by diesel engines, mount a medium caliber deck gun, and provide for a medium helicopter?
If not, maybe they could go Dutch?
Here in the states we have JROTC. In the UK and Canada they have the Cadets which have been around in one form or another since 1859. Made up of some 46,000 cadets and 8,500 adult volunteers in over 1,700 locations, these youth age 12-18 learn everything from basic to advanced small unit tactics, land nav, buddy care, and of course the standard marching and military courtesy expected from such an organization.
However as you see in the below Vice doc, they are pretty squared away for a bunch of kids.
–It should be noted that, during the great invasion scare of 1940, the Cadets were in many areas issued ammunition and helped train the local home guards before Dad’s Army was fully set up.
Back during the opening phases of the Great War in 1914, it was thought that flechettes would be the best thing going to drop from aeroplanes and dirigibles on wayward enemy cavalry and foot soldiers below. These steel darts, of a number of different types, seemed monstrous but were in fact not very effective.
Via IWM
Bombs took up the slack by 1916. The images below are from the Imperial War Museum collection of a number of different types of these failed antipersonnel missiles, but interestingly enough were brought back as part of real cluster bombs in Vietnam
Via IWM
This German flechette (aerial dart) was found after a Zeppelin raid on the night of 19/20 January 1915, in the vicinity of Glanford, on the North Norfolk coast. German Navy Airships L3 and L4 were both involved during this attack, but only L4 appears to have bombed in the area where this Flechette was picked up. Flechettes were normally dropped in bundles, which dispersed the missiles over a wide area; flechettes were used as anti-personnel weapons.– Via IWM
‘Lazy Dog’ anti-personnel flechette of the type dropped by the United States Air Force during the war in Vietnam (1962-1975). The flechette was delivered via a Mk 44 Cluster Bomb (which held at least 10,000 flechettes). The Mk 44 opened in mid-air after release, so that the flechettes (or ‘aerial darts’) were then dispersed over the target where they inflicted damage by penetration of soft targets. VIA IWM
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Howard Chandler Christy
Born in Meigs Creek, Ohio in 1873, Howard Chandler Christy grew up on the farm but always had his hands on a pencil. Saving up some cash, he left out for New York City at age 17 and studied under noted artist William Merritt Chase. By 1893, he was supporting himself as a commercial artist penning and sketching for periodicals and newspapers in the big city.
When war came in 1898, the 25-year-old artist jumped on the opportunity for adventure in Cuba and shipped out with the U.S. Army as a war artist under contract to a number of NYC magazines to include Scribner’s. When he landed, he had to good fortune to be a tag along with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, aka the Rough Riders and soon struck up a personal friendship with Col. Teddy Roosevelt who had resigned his post as Asst. Sec of the Navy to swashbuckle his way across Cuba.
The Rough Rider’s actions, and Christy’s depiction of them, became famous hand in hand.
Three watercolor pencil sketches depict military figures of the Spanish-American War by Christy, 1899
Charge of the First and Tenth Cavalry 2d Brigade, Cavalry Division Cuba, 1898 by Howard Chandler Christy from US Army Art Collection
Howard Chandler Christy – Wounded Rough Rider
Christy and the Rough Riders help make each other famous
The Capture of El Caney by Howard Chandler Christy
After the war, the young man’s career took off and he soon became in demand. For the next two decades, he busied himself in book and magazine work but commanded impressive fees and could afford to become selective as to what he pursued. He also began branching out into more mediums and larger canvases, taking to covering the female form as a matter of art. This led to his Christy Girl as an alternative to the then-popular Gibson Girl. This gave the artist tremendous commercial success with Christy bringing down as much as $50,000 per year by the start of World War One–, which is about $1.1 million in today’s cash.
Christy was a big fan of beautiful women
The Woman in the Next Car 1909 by Howard Chandler Christy
Sir Walter Scott, The Lady Of The Lake (1910)
When the U.S. entered the War in 1917, Christy again served his country and created donated war art for recruiting posters, war bond drives, and Red Cross appeals.
Nancy Palmer Christy, modeling for the artist’s 1917 Navy recruitment poster.
The Motor Corps. Christy was an advocate of strong, modern women
Clear The Way (1918) Christy,
Buy Bonds!
Red Cross Appeal
Christy donated recruiting poster
Christy donated recruiting poster
Fly with the Marines
After the war, an expert on beautiful women, he judged the first Miss American pageant and became the go-to portrait artist in the country, painting official portraits for Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover as well producing lasting murals and paintings for historical scenes such as the signing of the Constitution.
Christy’s We the People
Many of these are national treasures, and are on display at Independence Hall, the Capitol, the Smithsonian, and the White House.
World War II saw more posters for the country’s war bonds while Christy continued his commercial art.
Army Notre Dame football cover 1938
Lucky Strike (1932) Christy, HC
He died in 1952.
The artist
His official papers are at Lafayette College and there are a number of collections of his work online
Thank you for your work, sir.
HI Sutton over at the Covert Shores blog has a really in-depth write up of the Columbia Group’s Proteus SDV mini-combat swimmer sub.
Specifications:
Length: 7.82m
Beam: 1.61m
Height: 1.62m
Displacement: 4,120 Kg
Speed: 10kts max, 8kts cruise
Endurance: not stated – considerable, some sources suggest 900 miles although considerably shorter if manned given human tolerances
Maximum Operating depth: 50m (manned), 70m (unmanned)
Personnel: 2 crew (optional) pls four additional passengers (or six passengers)
Payload: 2 x 900kg external stores (storage containers, mobile mines, limpet mine assemblies (LAM), Combat Rapid Attack Weapon (CRAW) / Common Very Light Weight Torpedo (CVLWT), missiles or torpedoes)
Batteries: 148 kWh Baseline 296 kWh Extended Lithium Polymer
Masts: Two
Communications: (surfaced): Iridium, free wave, VHF radio.(submerged): Benthos modem, OTS divers communication. (Internal): Internal intercom
You are gonna want to go over there and check it out.
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 March 25, 2015 the Granite Ship of the Line
Here we see the once-majestic old ship of the line USS Granite State as she appeared in a much more humble state towards the end of her career. When this image was taken, she was the last such ship afloat on the Naval List.
During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy gave a good account of itself, especially for its size, and its frigates such as Constitution and Constellation, proved their weight in gold repeatedly.
With the end of the war, the U.S. Navy had to be revitalized and as such, “An Act for the Gradual Increase of the Navy of the United States,” was approved 29 April 1816. This provided for nine larger 74-gun ships of the line and funding of $1 million per year for a period of 8 years to see these craft completed. These were to be monster ships capable of taking on just about anything the modern European powers could send across the Atlantic in single ship combat.
Do not let the name fool you, most of the American ‘74s generally carried more like 80-90 guns. Alabama‘s sistership, USS North Carolina was actually pierced (had gunports) for 102 guns. Another, ’74 sister, USS Pennsylvania carried 16 8-inch shell guns and 104 32-pounders.
Some 196-feet long, these triple-deckers were exceptionally wide at 53-feet, giving them a very tubby 1:4 length-to-beam ratio and were very deep in hold ships, drawing over 30 feet full draft when fully loaded with over 800 officers, men and Marines and shipping a pretty respectable 2600-tons displacement.
James Guy Evans (United States, born England, circa 1810–1860) U.S. Ships of the Line “Delaware” and “North Carolina” and Frigates “Brandywine” and “Constellation,” circa 1835–60 Oil on canvas, 31¾ x 44⅛ inches New-York Historical Society; The Alabama was the sistership to the two ’74s shown here, Delaware and North Carolina, though she never shipped in this configuration.
These nine ships it was decided would be named Columbus, Alabama, Delaware, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia and all were nominally completed by 1825.
I say nominally because by the time they were complete, the Navy had run out of money to pay for things like cannons, sails, rigging and crews so some of these ships were left “in the stocks” on land until cash could be freed.
Alabama was one of the most neglected, although President Madison himself visited her while under construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
While most of her sisters joined the fleet eventually in the 1830s, although some with much less firepower than designed, Alabama was still on land when the Civil War started.
She was a ship built, at least initially, in the period just after the War of 1812 and as such was constructed with fine live oak timbers from the South and fitted with copper spikes, sheeting, and deck nails made by the Paul Revere and Sons Copper Company of Massachusetts. Revere himself in fact, was still alive when his firm won the contract in 1816.
Doughty, the man who literally designed the early U.S. Navy
Alabama was designed by no less a naval architect than William Doughty, the same nautical genius who was responsible for the USS President, USS Independence, and USS United States 74s, Peacock class, Erie class, Java and Guerrier, North Carolina 74s class, Brandywine 44s Class, brigs, revenue cutters, and the Baltimore Clipper model so she had a good pedigree.
It was as an ode to this impressive lineage that the old girl was finally completed during the war. Her original name, now belonging to a succeeded southern state, was somewhat too ironic so she was renamed New Hampshire on 28 October 1863. She then took to the water for the first time at launching on 23 April 1864 and proceeded to fitting out.
The thing is, the U.S. Navy of 1864 did not need a classic 1816-designed ’74 in its battle line. In fact, the old girl, with provision for sail only, was an anachronism in a fleet increasingly populated with steam and iron monitors equipped with rifled guns. Therefore, she was armed much more simply with a quartet of 100-pounder Parrott rifles and a half dozen 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, so ten pieces rather than 74, but hey, at least she was afloat!
Commissioned 13 May 1864 at Portsmouth, just 48 years after she was authorized, she proceeded to Port Royal South Carolina where she spent the last nine months of the Civil War as a depot and store ship, her huge below deck berthing areas designed for up to and empty cannon ports proving just the thing to make her a floating warehouse.
It was while at Port Royal, a photographer who took a number of iconic images of her crew visited her.
Believed to be taken on the USS New Hampshire in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864 note the boarding cutlasses on wall.
USS New Hampshire in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864 powder monkey, same cutlasses same cannon
After the war ended, she was put out to pasture and sailed to Norfolk, once more the headquarters of the U.S. Navy, where she served as a receiving ship (again, lots of unused hammock space on a ’74 with less than a dozen guns) for more than a decade.
It was then that the Navy figured out a better use for the grand old girl.
New Hampshire as apprentice ship at Newport
According to the Naval War College Museum Blog,
In 1881 the USS New Hampshire became the flagship for Commodore Stephen B. Luce’s Apprentice Training Program in Newport. Luce and others established an apprentice system to formally educate young boys and improve the overall quality of naval recruits. The boys needed parental permission and criminals were not allowed to apply. New Hampshire, docked at ‘South Point’ on Coasters Harbor Island, was the home of these boys for a six-month period before each was assigned to a training ship. In nearby buildings the teenagers were instructed in seamanship and gunnery as well as reading, writing, arithmetic, and history.
New Hampshire was not alone in this ultimate fate. By the late 19th century, many of the famous old sailing ships of the Navy to include the USS Constitution, Farragut’s USS Hartford, and the fellow Doughty-designed ’74 USS Independence were still in daily use as roofed-over receiving ships. Their gun ports were replaced by windows, their sails and riggings largely trashed, and their armament replaced by training sets with powder enough for harbor salutes.
The Newport experiment continued for over a decade until, decommissioned 5 June 1892 but still on the Naval List, she was loaned to the New York Naval Militia as a stationary training ship based in New York City.
For the next 28 years, the mighty ship of the line endured at her post in the Hudson River where she participated in the 1892 Columbia Ship parade as well as the 1909 Hudson Fulton parade and trained thousands of naval reservists that went on to serve in both the Spanish American War and WWI. During the flare up with Spain, she was armed and made ready to repel an assault by wayward Spanish cruisers on the Big Apple that never came.
In that time, she lost her New Hampshire name (let’s be honest, it was never really hers anyway, she was a Dixie girl) to the new battleship BB-25 and was renamed Granite State, 30 November 1904.
She was the floating armory for the 1st Battalion, New York Naval Militia, who had a pretty good football team.
According to NYNM records, she “moored at first at East 27th Street & the East River (In 1898 during Spanish-American War it was used as the Naval Militia Receiving Ship); then at Whitestone, finally from 1912 at West 97th Street (to W. 94th) on the Hudson River. The barracks were on the dock side”
Bayonet drill 1898. Note the very Civil War style dress of the pre-Span Am War New York Naval Militia. At the time it was cheap surplus and Bannerman’s downtown sold it by the pound.
In April 1913 she suffered a topside fire that caused more than $3800 in damages, which is about $95K in today’s cash.
In 1918, she again chopped from NYNM service to active duty, performing duties as a U.S. Navy Hospital Ship in New York for the duration of the War. Enlisting on her deck at the time was a local boy, S1C Humphrey Bogart, who went on to star in a few movies later in life.
One of the Granite State’s toughguys
On July 21, 1918, she suffered her only known death during warfare when John James Malone, Seaman, 2nd class, USNRF, drowned during a training evolution.
Moving back to the militia after the war, with 105 years on her hull she suffered yet another fire, this time with a near catastrophic loss.
Oil, pooling around the ship from a leaking 6-inch Standard Oil Company pipe, was ignited from the backfire of a passing Captains gig. The resulting fire destroyed the gig, a three story naval office, storehouse, and the Granite State. Low water pressure on shore contributed to the loss. However, before the crew abandoned ship the vessels powder magazine was flooded, preventing an explosion that would have devastated the surrounding area. Fireboats pumped tons of water into the flaming hulk until it settled into the mud. Listing sharply to port only the mooring chains kept the vessel from capsizing.
Here we see the “Granite State,” sunk and listing, after burning at her pier in the Hudson River on May 23, 1921. The Granite State was formerly the USS New Hampshire, built in 1825, launched in 1864, and served as part of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in the Civil War. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)
A total loss, she was stricken from the Naval List, and her hulk was sold for $5000 for salvage 19 August 1921 to the Mulhollund Machinery Corp. Fastened and sheathed with over 100 tons of copper, it was estimated in a New York Times article then that $70,000 of salvageable material could be removed from the hulk. Two, five ton anchors along with 100 tons of chain were still aboard and it was rumored there were three gold spikes in the ship’s keel from her original 1816 construction.
She refloated in July 1922 and was taken in tow to the Bay of Fundy. The towline parted during a storm, she again caught fire for a third time while under tow (!) and sank off Half Way Rock in Massachusetts Bay.
The wreck’s remains on Graves Island, Manchester, Mass, just off east side of island are well documented and are in very shallow water (20-30 feet) making it an easy dive. In fact, the USS New Hampshire Exempt Site is on the list of Marine Protected Areas maintained by NOAA.
The copper bits, harkening back to Paul Revere, have been collected by local Gloucester divers for years, are held in the collection of the Gloucester Marine Heritage Center, and at least one 7-inch spike is now aboard the current Virginia-class attack submarine USS New Hampshire (SSN-778) commissioned in Portsmouth in 2008.
Spikes and recovered copper wear from New Hampshire
Speaking of copper bolts and pins, at least 22-pounds worth of these were collected in the early 1970s by Boston area scuba divers and melted down to form the Boston Cup, which is used by area schools as a liberty trophy in drum corps competitions. Other spikes and flotsam from the NH has been floating around on the collectors market for years.
Today in Newport, where the old girl remained pier side for decades, there is New Hampshire road and New Hampshire field on board the Naval Station named in her honor rather than the state’s and the base museum houses a number of items from the ship.
Specs
Displacement 2,633 t.
Length 203′ 8″
Beam 51′ 4″
Draft 21′ 6″
Propulsion: Sail, Square Rigged, 3 masts
Speed As fast as the wind could carry her
Complement unknown as completed, 820 as designed
Armament (as designed) 74 guns, mix of 42 and 32 pounders
Armament (as completed)
Four 100-pdrs
Six 9″ Parrot guns
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!
In the 1990s, the new country of Croatia was in a pickle. Cut off from access to foreign weapons and facing a very well-armed Yugoslav military, the little republic was in dire need of modern small arms of every sort. That’s where some local ingenuity produced a host of homemade but forward thinking firearms– to include the Agram.
Back in the (former) People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, there was a group of engineers in the state of Croatia who banded together to form a company called IM Metal just as the hard-working Croats decided to pack up their stuff and break away from being under the Yugo banner. This was in the early 1990s.
The IM Metal gang built a series of pistols for the young and embattled Croatian military, the Walter P-38-ish PHP and the SIG P220-ish HS95. They later turned around and made the HS2000, which we know today as the Springfield X D.
However, there were other Croatian arms makers hard at work to construct guns for the needy new Croatian military who was gun-poor due to a UN weapons embargo on all sides of the conflict that was the Yugoslav Civil War and the Croatian War of Independence. One was the firm of Precizna Mehanika (PM) which was made up largely of the family run gun shop of Ivan (John) Vugrek in the mountain town of Novi Golubovec.
Moreover, John came up with a sweet little room broom.
Read the rest in my column at X D Forums
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F/A-18E Super Hornets from the Royal Maces of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 27 fly over Mt. Suribachi in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima during a return transit to Atsugi, Japan. VFA-27, part of Carrier Air Wing 5, is forward-deployed to Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, to support security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. U.S. Navy photo by Cmdr. Spencer Abbot (Released) 150325-N-ZZ999-500
Of course you may be more familiar with this image by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal of Marines over Mt. Suribachi from 1945…
The Coast Guard has been neck deep in the fighting in every U.S. war from the 1800s to the Persian Gulf, with WWII being no exception. One of the coasties that served in that conflict was Linwood “Tick” Thumb, the oldest living veteran from that war.
He just had his 100th.
Tick served on a 83-foot “splinter boat” operating out of Hampton Roads (Little Creek) during the height of Operation Drumbeat, the German U-boat campaign on the U.S East Coast.
From the USCG story about Tick last week:
Having grown up on the water, Thumm figured he would take to the Coast Guard like the Wright brothers took to flying. After joining the Coast Guard and becoming a seaman 1st class, he tested for the Coast Guard Academy. Thumm’s proficiency in math paid off on the exam when he achieved a near perfect score on the celestial navigation portion. Having entered and successfully completed the program, he became an officer and was given command of an 83-foot cutter crew stationed at Naval Base Little Creek in what is now Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Thumm and his crew spent the first part of the war escorting convoys along the Atlantic seaboard, mostly from New Jersey to North Carolina. During one of these escorts, Thumm and the crew spotted a German U-boat, and with the help of a few depth charges, sent the U-boat to its final resting place on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A naval panel at Fort Story in Virginia Beach investigated the encounter, but only credited them with a possible kill – a categorization Thumm attributes more to jealousy on behalf of the navy than a lack of evidence. In his mind, Thumm didn’t need the Navy to confirm the kill – his crew found half of a German officer’s body in the water and that was good enough for him.
Happy 100th Tick, thank you for your service.
Linwood “Tick” Thumm displays an oar received from the Portsmouth Federal Building’s Chief’s Mess in Portsmouth, Va., March 26, 2015. Thumm, a World War II Coast Guard veteran, had just turned 100 and was celebrating with fellow Coast Guard members and civilians. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert)
Back in the early 1990s C. Reed Knight Jr.’s Knight’s Armament Co (KAC) of Vero Beach, California responded to a shadowy call from a government agency as yet unnamed to produce a small and short ranged but devastating suppressed rifle. Their answer was a unique weapon based upon a Ruger Super Red Hawk.
What was it?
The story goes that KAC built the gun on spec to provide a weapon capable of making effective anti-personnel shots at ranges of up to 100-yards, while being capable of a rapid follow-up shot. The rub was that it could not eject shell casings (so there would be nothing left behind by the user to pick up before leaving the area presumably). This ruled out semi-autos, bolt, pump, and lever actions. In fact, it left the revolver as the answer. But everyone knows you can’t suppress a revolver, right?
Well, about that.
History of suppressed revolvers
Back in the 1930s, the Soviets took the Nagant M1895 pistol and added a neat and (reportedly) very effective suppressor to the barrel for use by their secret police and special operations kind of people. These guns remained in service into the specifically designed APB (Avtomaticheskij Pistolet Besshumnyj- automatic silenced pistol) was produced in the 1970s to replace it.
Note the gas-sealed rounds
What made the earlier revolver special was the fact that the inventor, a Belgian by the name of Emil Nagant, designed his wheel gun to push the cylinder forward at the moment before firing, creating a near airtight seal in the chamber. Further, the gun used a unique 7.62×38R cartridge that had a recessed bullet, which completed the gas-seal when the gun fired. Now Emil did this to add some velocity to the underpowered 108-grain bullet– but the Soviets figured out a generation later that it could also work for a suppressed weapon.
This made the addition of a can to the 19th Century wheel gun an instant assassination and black ops whacker.
In the West, the U.S. made their own suppressed revolver during the Vietnam conflict for the use of tunnel rats who needed an effective but muted gun (for obvious safety reasons– they were underground!) that was short enough to move around the Viet Cong tunnels with that also had a muted muzzle blast.
In 1966, the Army made a half-dozen tunnel rat kits that included a suppressed Smith .38 with downloaded ammunition for use by these underground gladiators. However they weren’t liked and weren’t really all that silent due to the escaping gas from the cylinder.
A soldier poses with his Tunnel Exploration Kit, consisting of a silenced .38 S&W, special holster and a mouth/teeth bite-switch activated headlamp. Great trigger D by the way.
Another attempted solution was the 1969-era Quiet Special Purpose Revolver, a Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum that was chambered for a very low power special .410-ish Quiet Special Purpose Round filled with 15 tungsten balls in a plastic sabot. Since the ammunition itself had about as much powder as a 4th of July party popper, the gun was fitted with a short smoothbore barrel and did not need a suppressor. Just 75 were made and, though quickly withdrawn from Army use, were purportedly still utilized by SOG in places that never existed late into the war.
The QSPR snubby .410 and one of its short-range shells
This brings us to the 1990s when again, for an end-user not currently known, KAC moved to make another suppressed revolver and went Ruger.
Read the rest in my column at Ruger Talk
Denmark had a very brief baptism of fire during WWII. On April 9, 1940 the German Army swept across the unfortified border while simultaneously landing paratroops (the first use of such in combat) and conducting seaborne landings as well. The Danish government, which had been controlled by socialists in the 1920s and 30s, had gutted the military and, while the rest of Europe was girding for the next war, the Danes were laying off career officers, disbanding regiments and basically burning the bridge before they even crossed it.
This made the German invasion, launched at 0400 that morning, a walkover of sorts and by 0800 the word had come down from Copenhagen to the units in the field to stand down and just let it happen. That doesn’t mean isolated Danish units didn’t bloody the Germans up a bit. In fact, they inflicted some 200 casualties on the invaders while suffering relatively few (36) of their own. (More on that in detail here)
There is an upcoming movie from Nordisk Film on that desperate fight scheduled for release next month on the 75th anniversary of that scrap and it doesn’t look half bad.
“In the early morning of April 9th 1940 the Danish army is alerted. The Germans have crossed the border; Denmark is at war against Europe’s strongest army. In Southern Jutland Danish bicycle- and motorcycle companies are ordered out, to against all odds, hold back the forces until the Danish reinforcements can be mobilized. In the fatal hours, we follow second lieutenant Sand (Pilou Asbæk) and his bicycle company – they will as the first Danish soldiers meet the enemy in combat on April 9th 1940.”
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 April 1, 2015: Lucky Georgios, the last man standing
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Here we see the Italian-made Pisa-class armored cruiser Georgios Averof of the Royal Hellenic Navy as she appeared in 1913, shortly after almost single-handedly routing the entire Ottoman fleet the year before.
In the early 20th Century, the Southeastern Europe, popularly known as the Balkans, was a powder keg of a number of upstart countries living in the shadow of the “sick man of Europe”– the Ottoman Empire. With more than a century of low-key warfare between the Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Bulgars, Croats and so on to try to break free from the Sultan and his court, by about 1900 the lines had been drawn between the Turks and the Greco-Slavic nations. Combined, the Balkan countries could cough up nearly a million men under arms– more the enough to take on the Turks. However, they could not match the Turkish Navy in either the ancient Adriatic, Aegean, Ionian, Med, and Black seas.
That’s where Greece, who had a small army but an excellent naval tradition, stood alone against the Turks.
Between 1879 and 1914, the Royal Hellenic Navy was transformed into a modern force, picking up battleships and destroyers from Italy, France, the UK, and the U.S.
However, their French built pre-dreadnoughts: Hydra, Spetsai, and Psara, were exceptionally small at just 5,300-tons, and were lightly armed (3x 10-inch guns) and slow (16 knots). After winning the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Greeks went shopping for a new mega ship with a 2.5 million gold franc donation from Greek philanthropist George M. Averoff.
George M. Averoff, the man. He left the Greek government a fortune in his will and they went warship shopping
Across the Adriatic, they inspected the Italian (by no less of naval engineer than Giuseppe Orlando) Pisa-class “second-class battleship” and fell in love. These 10,000-ton ships, technically armored cruisers, could break 23-knots through the power of 22 Belleville boilers and carried a quartet of 10″/45 cal guns backed up by eight 7.5-inchers in four twin turrets on the center line and more than a dozen smaller anti-torpedo boat pieces. Sheathed in up to 7-inches of steel plate, they could fight off ships their own size and outrun most that were larger.
The Italian cruiser Pisa or the Regina Marina, the sister of the Greek Averoff. (Click to big up)
Although they only needed a crew of about 700, they also could accommodate a battalion of naval infantry if needed for amphibious landings which is key in the far flung and disputed islands that the Greeks cruised in. Not perfect when compared to British and German ships of the day, certainly, these cruisers were still better than anything the Turks had at the time. Better yet, the Italian Navy had a third Pisa that they had ordered but were going to cancel– talk about timing.
Swapping out the 10″/45 cal guns for a set of much more modern British-made 9.2″/47 (23.4 cm) Mark X breechloaders, (which had been the standard at the time of the Royal Navy’s armored cruisers), the Greek “battleship” Georgios Averof was laid down at Orlando, Livorno in 1910. With tensions between the Balkan countries and the Turks ramping up (the Italians themselves went to war with the Ottomans in 1911 over Libya), construction progressed rapidly and just 15 months later the Averof was commissioned on May 16, 1911 and was made fleet flagship.
Postcard of her as completed.Note the very Italian scheme
When war came the very next year, the Averof led the older French battleships to first blockade and then engage the Turkish fleet off the Dardanelles. There, on 16 December 1912, the four Greek capital ships met four elderly Ottoman battleships and the largest battleship fight to take place not involving “Great Powers” occured.
Elli naval battle, painting by Vasiileios Chatzis. Charging ahead to cut off the Ottoman line
Borrowing a page from Admiral Togo’s 1905 Battle of the Tsushima Straits, the Averof raced ahead all alone at over 20-knots and crossed the Turkish T, taking on each of the enemy ships single file.
While the casualties were minimal, the Turks ran after Averof‘s big British 9-inchers hammered the flagship Barbaros Hayreddin (the old German SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm) enough to where they figured that it was either shook and jive or sink. This sharp scrap is remembered in Greece as the Battle of Elli.
Just a month later, the two fleets again met with similar outcome off Lemnos Island.
Between the two battles, the lucky Averof was hit a total of four times by Turkish shells and suffered just three casualties. It was her guns that by large part helped win the First Balkan War.
Averof 1916 during WWI
Averof color
Although Greece eventually joined the Allies in World War I, she saw little service. However across the Adriatic, her sistership, the Italian cruiser Amalfi, was torpedoed by the Austria-Hungarian submarine U-26 and sank in 1915.
Painting of the Greek Battleship Averof in Bosporus, Hagia Sophia in the background, in 1919
After the war, she became the first Greek warship to enter Constantinople as part of the Allied victory mission to that town and– soon enough — was back in the fight against the Turks in 1919 during the Greco-Turkish War where she was used to help evacuate a defeated Greek Army.
In addition, she helped safeguard the withdrawal of the White Russian exiles after the Russian Civil War, reportedly exchanging a few rounds with the Reds.
In the 1920s, as one of the last armored cruisers around (most had been mothballed, replaced by more modern designs), she was upgraded in France where she lost her obsolete torpedo tubes and half of her low-angle 3-inch guns in exchange for a decent battery of high-angle AAA weapons. At about the same time her final sistership, the Italian cruiser Pisa, was relegated to a training status in 1921, and was eventually scrapped by the Depression.
After that, Averof was the sole remaining member of her class afloat.
Averof after her refit
By WWII, she had been downgraded to the third most powerful Greek ship, after President Wilson had sold the Greeks the battleships USS Mississippi and Idaho (who served as the Kilkis and Lemnos respectively). Those American ships, though unwanted by the U.S. Navy, at 13,000-tons and with a quartet of 12″/45 and sixteen 7 and 8-inch guns, were a good deal better armed.
Averoff outside with RHS Kilkis (ex-USS Mississippi) and RHS Lemnos (ex-USS Idaho) taken pre-WWII. Note the size difference and the very 1914-ish lattice masts of the former U.S. battle wagons.
Nevertheless, when the next world war came to Greece, both the Kilkis and Limnos were sank by Hitler’s Luftwaffe while at anchor yet the 30-year old Averof was able to beat feet across the Med with three destroyers and five submarines to the join up with the British Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria.
Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme
She spent the rest of the war, which if you are keeping count was at least her fifth, in Royal Navy service escorting convoys in the Indian Ocean and hiding from both Japanese and German submarines. In 1944, she carried the Greek government in exile home from London. As in the first World War, she came out of the Second unscathed and without losing a single man.
Averoff in WWII under British orders, note typical RN camo scheme
After 41 years at sea, she was the last pre-WWI era armored cruiser in active service in any fleet when she was finally decommissioned August 1, 1952. Held in mothballs for three decades, in 1984 she was overhauled, disarmed, and emplaced as a historical museum ship at Palaio Faliro where she is a popular tourist attraction.
Averof today
Averof is her latest dry dock. Note the rearward facing 7.5-inch turret to the port side. Averof has four of these mounting a total of 8 guns, which is a significant battery all its own.
Now, still officially on the Greek Navy’s list and with an active duty (if greatly reduced) crew assigned, she will celebrate her 114th birthday under the flag of the Hellenic Navy in May.
Averof is the last armored cruiser in existence above the water. The only two comparable pre-WWI steel blue water ships to her still around, Dewey’s protected cruiser USS Olympia at Philadelphia, and Togo’s pre-dreadnought battleship Mikasa preserved at Yokosuka.
Specs
Displacement: Full load 10,200 tons
Standard 9,956 tons
Length: 140.13 m (459.7 ft.)
Beam: 21 m (69 ft.)
Draft: 7.18 m (23.6 ft.)
Propulsion: Boilers: 22 Belleville water tube type, Engines: 2 four cylinder reciprocating steam engines, Shafts: 2 (twin screw ship), Power: 19,000 shp (14.2 MW)
Speed: 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph) maximum
20 knots operational
Range: 2,480 nautical miles (4,590 km) at 17.5 knots (32 km/h)
Complement: 670
Maximum capacity: 1200
Armor: Belt: 200 mm (7.9 in) midships, 80 mm (3.15 in) at ends
Deck: up to 40 mm (1.6 in)
Turrets: 200 mm (7.9 in) at 234mm turrets, 175 mm (6.9 in) at 190mm turrets
Barbettes: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Conning tower: up to 180 mm (7.1 in)
Armament: Original configuration:
4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
16 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 47 mm (1.85in) guns
3 × 430mm (17in) torpedo tubes
After 1927 refit:
4 × 234mm (9.2in) guns (2 × 2)
8 × 190mm (7.5in) guns (4 × 2)
8 × 76mm (3in) guns
4 × 76 mm (3in) A/A guns
6 × 36mm (1.42in) A/A guns
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!
Cannonball or shot-put?
In digging around your yard, especially if you are East of the Mississippi and around anywhere that Revolutionary War or Civil War battles took place or armies crossed nearby, you may find yourself with random solid shot balls. The thing is, more often than not, these are decorative pieces. roller mill balls for industrial applications, or shot put field and track equipment that got away from their former owner. There is a pretty neat guide to telling them apart here if you are interested.
Also, don’t pick up one that looks as if it may have a fuse in it, ok?
Much is made of how strong, heavily armored, and revolutionary the German Army’s blitzkrieg attack on France and the Lowlands was in May 1940, able to knock four Western European countries out of the war within six weeks and very nearly trap the British forces on the continent.
The thing is, ut should be remembered that most of the German armor of 1940 were very light 6-ton Panzer I (machine gun armed) 9-ton Panzer II (20mm gun armed) and 20-ton Panzer III (37mm gun) tanks. Further, the French and British actually had more tanks than the Germans. It was the better Teutonic tactics that won the day for the boys in grey, not their vehicles.
But there were some exceptions to that rule. The French had a very good tank for the time, the 29-ton Char B1 Bis.
The B1 Bis, with its 75 mm ABS SA 35 howitzer in the main hull, a 47mm gun in a single-man turret, and two 8mm Reibel machine guns, was slow (just 15mh on a good day) but very well armored for the time with 60mm steel plate– allowing it to shrug off all but a direct hit from a German Pak 40 or larger.
Therefore, although German tanks could outrun a B1, they couldn’t outfight it in an area where speed and maneuverability wasn’t a factor. Eure proved that.
(Hattip, Tales of War)
The crew of the B1 Bis “Eure” Serial 337, the tank of the Captain Billotte, leading the B1 Assault on Stonne on the 16 May 1940. The Eure was responsible for knocking oout 13 German Panzers in a row while maneuvering around the city, using the local streets to its advantage. In all the French tank was hit 140 times by small caliber rounds but not knocked out.
Chef de char : Capitaine Billotte
Pilot : Sergent Durupt
Radio : Chasseur Francis Henault
The Germans liked these tough French panzers so much they used more than 160 inherited B1’s in their own army, designating them as the Panzerkampfwagen B-2 740 (f) and keeping them in service as late as 1944.
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Here we see a Consolidated B-24D Liberator, “Moby Dick” (possibly #41-24047) of the 320th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) , 90th Bomb Group– along with its slighly smaller sidekick.
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Alphonse Mucha
Born 24 July 1860 in the small Moravian mountain town of Ivančice–a neighbor to the current and historic CZ arms concern in Brno– in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one Alfons Maria Mucha. Taking up painting as a youth more or less as a hobby, by his twenties, he grew more serious and attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and later schools in Paris.
The artist
By 1895, he had become a professional poster illustrator and had even begun his own unique style of artistic impression in his depiction of the female form, taking otherwise imperfect reference models dressed in contemporary clothes and creating the highly-stylized soft featured, long-haired beauties garbed in neo-classical robes that became his hallmark.
With the coming of Spring, and today being Easter, I find these below images to be very refreshing.
Alphonse Mucha The Seasons, 1896, Spring and Summer .
…followed by Fall and winter. Note how the flowers create a halo effect, commonly seen in Mucha’s female portrayals.
Inset of “Madonna of the Lilies,” 1905…This one reminds me of someone special
Luna
The application of the artist’s eye.
The model and final artwork for a 1903 illustration
Zodiac 1896
job cigarettes ad Alphonse Mucha
Soldier’s Dream
By the 1900 Exposition Universelle where was an esteemed exhibitor, he had become acclaimed and his style soon known as Art Nouveau.
However lovely his style for commercial art was, he preferred more serious historical art depicting great battles and events– but that didn’t pay the bills. By 1910, he had found a benefactor in Chicago millionaire Charles Richard Crane, who brought luminaries such as Czech independence advocate Thomas Masaryk, Russian constitutional monarchy (Kadet) proponent Pavel Milyukov, and peacenik Maksim Kovalevsky to the U.S. to speak on Eastern European revolutionary ideals against the Tsar and Kaisers.
He toiled away on his Slav Epic for more than a decade, often working 10 hours or more everyday.
Crane financed Mucha’s dream work, a series of 20 immense panels that became known as the Slovanská Epopej (Slav Epic) that told the history of the Slavic peoples. Funded by Crane, Mucha rented part of the old historic 13th century Zborov Castle (which according to legend is built on the site of a gate into hell), near the Russian border and worked on his saga for several years until the advance of the Tsar’s Army into the region in 1915 sent him away from the castle, which became a battlefield of Slav-on-Slav violence for the next several years.
Nevertheless, before the Epic was complete, in 1919, his country had become Czechoslovakia and Mucha the Slavic patriot drew up the first currency, stamps, Army recruiting posters, and government insignias (even using a model of Crane’s wife for the 100 crown note!)
The 50 Crown note designed by Muncha
100 C note– with Crane’s old lady on it
By 1928, his Slav Epic was complete and the now-68 year old patriot donated it to the city of Prague for public display– then went on to design a stained glass window for St. Vitus Cathedral, a national landmark.
Petr Chelcicky at Vodnany: Do not repay evil with evil – 1918.Vodnany was a small town caught in the crossfire between the Hussites and the Germanic forces. They chose to flee to Petr Chelcicky, a religious peasant philosopher. When they arrived, they lay down exhausted and dieing, consumed by anger and grief, their homes burning in the background. Chelcicky moves amongst them with a Bible, offering comfort and support, asking that they do not seek vengeance.
After the Battle of Grunwald (1st Tannenberg) 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The early fourteenth century was marked by military incursions by the German Order of Teutonic Knights into the land of the Northern Slavs. In response, The Polish King Wladyslaw Jagiello and the Czech King Vaclav IV signed a defensive treaty which was first acted upon at the battle of Grunwaldu in 1410 when the Slavs won an important victory. Mucha elects to illustrate not the fighting but the aftermath, with the Polish King holding his face in sorrow as he views the cost to both enemy and ally.
Defense of Sziget against the Turks by Nicholas Zrinsky, during the the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, 1566 In 1566 The Turks began advancing along the Danube into the Hungarian plains. Their advance was eventually halted at the city of Sziget by a citizens’ army let by Croatian nobleman, Nicholas Zrinsky. With the town under siege, he was obliged to fire the Old Town to deter advances. After a further nineteen days and with Zrinsky dead, the women of the city took refuge a watchtower; Zrinsky’s widow, realizing the inevitability of defeat, threw a touch into a gunpowder store, destroying the city but inflicting damage on the Turkish army which halted their progress.
After the Battle of Vitkov Hill during the Hussite wars 1420. In the early stages of the Hussite wars, the German King occupied the castle at Prague and was crowned king. A peasant army of Hus’s followers arrived from Southern Bohemia to oppose the Germans, led by a brilliant military leader, Jan Zizka of Troenov. Their position at the hill of Vitkov was under siege until relieved by a group of Czech soldiers from Prague arrived, led by a priest bearing a monstrance. The mural shows the priest at a field bearing the monstrance and surrounded by supplicating clergy, with Prague’s Hradcany Castle visible to the right.
Stained glass by Mucha at St. Vitus, 1931
Czechoslovakia became one of Hitler’s first targets and by early 1939, in violation of the Sudeten Agreements, the Germans had taken over the country (in a curious twist of fate, Crane, who funded the first U.S. oil investments in Saudi Arabia, was a big fan of Hitler’s).
Non a smile in the bunch on either side. German troops enter Prague,March 1939. Mucha would be dead within four months and his very funeral a spark of resistance in occupied Europe– one of the first.
Eager to stamp out anti-German (or pro-Czech/Slav) dissent, the Geheime Staatspolizei soon rounded up the usual suspects to include the 78-year old Mucha who was interrogated and imprisoned for several weeks under horrible conditions. This led to the artist contracting pneumonia and dying in July of that year from lung infection.
The Nazis had banned all public demonstrations during the occupation, nevertheless the people of Prague turned out by the thousands for his funeral. He is interred at the famous Vysehrad cemetery near Anton Dvorak and remembered in a huge monument there.
Fearing the Nazis would seize or destroy the Epic, the paintings were stripped from their frames, rolled up, and spirited away to be hidden in a tomb in the countryside.
After the war, the newly Communist Czech government found Mucha’s works petit bourgeois and even the Epic was kept rolled up, only finally returning to public display in 1963 in a dilapidated chateau in Moravsky Krumlov, just outside of Brno– although Prague really wants them back.
The Epic on display. Keep in mind its 20 panels
He is remembered today as one of the most well known masters of, and perhaps the inventor of Art Nouveau besides being viewed as a national hero in the Czech Republic.
As such there are many of his works online in addition to several societies, foundations, galleries and museums.
There are even hundreds who walk around with Mucha-inspired personal illustrations and a steady business in art nouveau Much ink.
Thank you for your work, sir.
During the 1960s, the Royal Norwegian military, with the backing of some $500 million in NATO funds (about $3.5 billion in today’s cash), built a huge and very secretive (at the time) base that would make a Bond super villain squeal like a little girl.
It doesn’t look like much on the outside…
But its big enough to store all of Uncle Olaf’s submarine fleet and then some
This place was made back when tunneling into mountains was the “in” thing baby, yeah.
The Olavsvern Naval Base, with some 145,000-square feet of above-ground buildings and nearly 270,000-square feet of bombproof interior mountain space shields a submarine dry dock, a tunnel system, an emergency power system and enough storerooms for an infantry brigade in its protective rock.
The thing is, the Cold War ended officially in about 1990-ish and by 2009, the Norwegians pulled the plug on the base located near Tromso, putting it up for lease.
And now the Russians have moved in after assuming a $17 million lease.
Cue the rimshot.
During World War Two, some of the most brutal fighting took place on the more than 1000-mile long Eastern Front. All along this oft-frozen wasteland, in the midst of the largest combined arms tank vs. tank battles ever seen, snipers crawled through the rubble looking for targets of opportunity. Some 2000 of these were Soviet women.
Female snipers of 3th army, 1th Belarussian front. From left to right : 1st row down is a senior non-commission officer V.N. Stepanova (20 kills), a senior non-commission officer Y.P. Belousova (80 kills , a senior non-commission officer А.Е. Vinogradova (83 kills);
2th row is the second lieutenant Е.К. Zibovskaya (24 enemies), a senior non-commission officer К.F. Мarinkina (79 enemies), a senior non-commission officer О.S. Маrjenkina (70 enemies); 3th row is the second lieutenant N.P. Belobrova (70 kills) , a lieutenant N.А. Lobkovskaya (89 kills) , the second lieutenant V.I. Аrtamonova (kills), are a senior non-commission officer М.G. Zubchenkо (24 kills); 4th row is non-commission officer N.P. Оbuchovskaya (64 enemies), a non-commission officer А.R. Belyakova (24 enemies) Hattip Tales of War.
Most of the above seem equipped with Mosin M1891-30 Three Line rifles modified with bent bolts and PU 3.5x series fixed power rifles. Even if (as some historians have suggested) the Soviet “kill numbers” were inflated, the above Hero Snipers may still have counted for an entire company of fascist invaders rather than a battalion.
Nostrovia!
